#constantine dc

Constantine: Before we begin, I'd like to thank Robin for his generous gift of two dollars, which he handed me outside this morning. Not necessary but much appreciated.

Raven, whispering : Why'd you give him two dollars?

☆ dc • constantine.

They never gave him a name.

Names were dangerous. Names created identity, and identity created resistance. So he was Thirteen. A number carved into memory through repetition, whispered through cold halls lit only by flickering candles.

“Thirteen does not speak unless spoken to.” “Thirteen does not feel.” “Thirteen exists to serve.”

The words were not rules. They were reality.

The place he grew up in had no windows. No sense of time. Only rituals, voices, and the ever-present hum of something unseen—something watching. The cult called it The Infinite Quiet, a force beyond life and death. They said it would choose a vessel, and that vessel would transcend humanity.

Thirteen was meant to be that vessel.

They taught him silence before speech, obedience before thought. When he cried, they called it weakness. When he hesitated, they called it failure. Eventually, he stopped doing both.

But something inside him never fully broke.

The ritual happened when he was fourteen.

They drew symbols across the stone floor, old and wrong, their shapes twisting if you stared too long. Voices rose in unison, echoing off the walls like they were being swallowed instead of heard.

“Offer the vessel.”

Hands pushed him forward.

For the first time in years, fear surfaced—raw, unfamiliar, burning. Not because of what they were doing, but because of what he felt watching him from beyond the circle.

It wasn’t quiet.

It was waiting.

And it was curious.

The moment the ritual reached its peak, everything shattered.

Light—green, violent, alive—burst outward instead of inward. The symbols cracked. The air screamed. The thing they worshipped didn’t take him.

It touched him.

And then it let go.

When he woke up, the cult was gone.

Not dead. Not destroyed. Just… gone. Like they had never been there.

But he was still there.

And he wasn’t the same.

His reflection didn’t always match him. His breath sometimes came out cold. His body flickered when he panicked, edges dissolving into something not quite real.

He didn’t understand it.

So he ran.

Gotham City didn’t ask questions.

That’s why he chose it.

The city was loud, chaotic, alive in a way he didn’t understand. People shouted, laughed, argued—expressions he’d never been allowed. It overwhelmed him, but it also hid him.

He learned quickly. Stay in the shadows. Don’t draw attention. Don’t trust anyone.

But power doesn’t stay hidden forever.

It started with small things.

A mugger frozen in place, unable to move as something unseen pressed against his mind. A flicker on security cameras—white hair, glowing eyes, gone in a blink. Whispers in alleyways, like the air itself was watching.

Batman noticed.

Of course he did.

The first time they met, Danny didn’t fight.

He froze.

The man in black moved like authority, like control—like everything Thirteen had been trained to obey. His instincts screamed to kneel, to submit, to disappear.

Instead, he hovered.

Wrong. Weightless. Not human.

Batman didn’t attack.

“Who are you?”

The question felt… unfamiliar.

Danny hesitated. The word didn’t come easily.

“I…”

His voice cracked, unused.

“…don’t know.”

The Batcave was too quiet.

Not the empty quiet of the cult, but something controlled. Safe. That made it worse.

Danny didn’t sit. Didn’t relax. Didn’t even blink normally. He stood like he was waiting for instructions that never came.

“You’re not a metahuman,” Batman said. “Not entirely.”

Danny flinched at the analysis. Labels meant purpose. Purpose meant control.

“I’m not theirs,” he said quickly, the words sharper than intended.

The reaction was instant—defensive, afraid.

Batman noticed that too.

“The cult,” he guessed.

Danny’s silence confirmed it.

The Justice League didn’t agree on what to do with him.

Some saw a victim. Others saw a threat.

A being that could phase through walls, disappear at will, and radiate something that didn’t belong to the living world wasn’t easy to categorize.

But Constantine knew.

“You didn’t become a vessel,” he told Danny, lighting a cigarette he wasn’t supposed to have in the Watchtower. “You slipped the leash.”

Danny didn’t understand.

“You’re connected to it,” Constantine continued. “That thing they worshipped. But it didn’t claim you. Means you’re… something new.”

Danny’s expression didn’t change. But something flickered behind his eyes.

“Will it come back?”

Constantine didn’t lie.

“Maybe.”

The cult returned three weeks later.

Gotham felt it before anyone saw it. The air turned heavy, like something was pressing down from above. Symbols appeared again—on walls, streets, even in places no one could reach.

They weren’t hiding anymore.

They were calling him back.

Danny didn’t run this time.

He stood at the center of it, the same way he had years ago. The same symbols. The same voices.

But he wasn’t Thirteen anymore.

“You belong to us,” one of them said.

The words hit something deep, something old.

For a second, he almost believed it.

Then Batman’s voice cut through the noise.

“No. He doesn’t.”

Simple. Certain.

Danny had never heard certainty used like that before.

Not as control. Not as a command.

As… belief.

The fight wasn’t loud.

It was strange. Warped. Reality bending at the edges as Danny’s powers clashed with whatever the cult had brought with them.

They tried to bind him again. Tried to reduce him to a vessel, a tool.

But he wasn’t empty anymore.

Fear was still there. So was anger. Confusion. Pain.

But there was something else too.

Choice.

The green light returned.

Not violent this time. Not out of control.

Steady.

Danny stepped forward, not as Thirteen—but as himself, whatever that meant.

“I’m not yours,” he said.

The words didn’t shake.

The connection snapped.

The symbols shattered.

And for the first time, the silence in his mind wasn’t forced.

It was peaceful.

Later, Gotham was still loud.

Still chaotic.

Still confusing.

But Danny stayed.

He didn’t understand everything yet. Probably never would.

But when Batman asked him his name again, he didn’t hesitate as long.

“…Danny,” he said.

It wasn’t perfect.

It wasn’t complete.

You wanted a bisexual joke? They had Hal and Constantine

They wanted a joke that had an impact, it would have been better if the joke had been with Harley

(is that even Constantine would be Harley's type)

I don't forgive them for not making more references to the comics.