#ipasoy

Constantine doesn’t rush.

No sharp turns, no aggressive lane changes, just steady hands on the wheel, the radio left off. The city passes by the windows in fragments, streetlights blurring into one another, buildings shrinking until they’re just shapes against the dark.

Y/N watches it happen without comment.

They don’t look back for long. Gotham has a way of making you feel watched when you do.

The road grows quieter the farther they go. Fewer lights. Fewer signs. The hum of the engine settles into something almost soothing, and for a while, that’s all there is—motion without pressure, silence without expectation.

Then Y/N’s phone buzzes.

They glance down, frowning when they see the name.

“Duke?”

Constantine flicks his eyes over for half a second, then back to the road. He doesn’t say anything. Just nods once.

Y/N answers.

“Hey—”

“Is it true?”

Duke doesn’t bother with hello.

Y/N blinks, momentarily thrown. “What?”

“The note,” Duke says, voice tight. “I came home early and I found the note on your bed. Are you—are you gone?”

The words land heavier than they should.

“Oh,” Y/N murmurs. “Yeah. I… I wanted to tell you. Just— not like this.”

There’s a pause on the line.

“I didn’t want to call,” Y/N continues quietly. “You were having fun. You don’t get a lot of time like that, and I didn’t want to ruin it. And… you weren’t going to be back at the Manor before I left.”

Still silence.

Y/N shifts in their seat, thumb worrying the edge of their phone. “Duke? Hey.”

“I’m here,” Duke says quickly. “I’m still here. Just—” He exhales. “I’m just surprised.”

“Surprised?” Y/N echoes.

“Yeah,” Duke admits. “I guess I… forgot. That you weren’t placed with us permanently. I forgot there was still a chance you could be moved. Or leave.” A beat. “I didn’t think about it until now.”

Y/N doesn’t answer right away.

The road stretches on ahead, dark and open. Gotham is already starting to feel unreal, like something seen through glass.

After a moment, Duke asks, softer, “Can we… can we keep in contact?”

“Yes,” Y/N says immediately. No hesitation. “Of course. Anytime you want.”

Duke lets out a breath that sounds almost like relief. “Okay. Good. I’ll text you. I promise.”

“I know,” Y/N replies, even though they’re not sure that’s true. “I will too.”

They say goodbye the way people do when they don’t know what the next version of things will look like—too many words, not enough meaning. Then the line goes dead.

Y/N lowers the phone to their lap.

The car fills with silence again, but it’s different now. Heavier. Final.

Constantine doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask if Y/N is okay, doesn’t comment on the call. He just keeps driving, steady and unhurried, as Gotham finally disappears from the rear view mirror.

Ahead of them, the road opens up.

The car stopped in front of a small, brick apartment building somewhere on the outskirts of Chicago.

Constantine grabbed the keys from the ignition and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Home sweet hell,” he muttered, almost to himself.

Y/N followed him inside, carrying their suitcase. The hallway smelled faintly of dust and cleaning solution. Nothing dramatic. Nothing magical. Just… a place.

The door closed behind them. Y/N paused, letting their eyes scan the small flat.

“Gonna love it,” they said, mockingly.

Constantine rolled his eyes. “Can’t ya feel it, kid?”

Y/N turned slowly, letting their gaze drift around the room. Something was off. Not bad, just… strange. A glint along the ceiling caught their attention. Subtle. Intricate. A charm spell.

They looked up at Constantine, who was already moving further into the flat.

He snapped his fingers.

The charm vanished.

The apartment was the same flat, but it felt larger. More open. The clutter hadn’t disappeared; it had multiplied in scope. Books with indecipherable symbols lined the shelves. Papers littered the floor, some inked with strange incantations, others illustrated with creatures Y/N had never seen.

Even the furniture seemed to occupy more space than possible. Chairs, desks, and cabinets were normal enough, but each carried a subtle aura, an unnatural hum that Y/N couldn’t place.

Y/N turned back to Constantine. He let out a soft huff of amusement at their expression.

“Follow me,” he said, nodding toward a hallway.

They walked down a narrow corridor and reached a door at the end. Constantine opened it.

“This is yours,” he said. The room was empty, save for a bed and a small dresser. “Not much, but you can decorate however you like.”

He set the suitcase down by the bed, insisting he carry it in. Y/N didn’t protest.

“Thanks,” they said quietly.

Constantine ruffled their hair. This time, Y/N didn’t pull back. They let themselves smile.

He gave a small nod and left, letting them unpack.

For the first time, Y/N was able to unpack everything from the suitcase. Clothes, notebooks, a few personal items—they spread them around the room with no rush, no fear of being moved again.

When it was done, Y/N stood in the center of the room, taking it all in. The flat, the space, the things that weren’t quite normal. They wondered if they could get permission to go gather some things to decorate.

Finally, Y/N lay down on the bed. Eyes closed. Quiet. Safe.

And for the first night in a long time, they slept without the weight of someone else deciding where they belonged.

Morning came slow. Y/N blinked awake, the unfamiliar ceiling above them pulling them fully out of sleep. For a moment, they weren’t sure if the previous day had been real. The move, the paperwork, Constantine’s place, they wondered if it had all been a dream, one of those vivid nights their mind conjured when reality was too heavy. But the light spilling through the blinds, the scattered items from their unpacked suitcase, the faint scent of old books and cleaning solution, it was all real. They were really here.

Y/N sat up on the bed, legs hanging over the side, fingers tracing the edge of the mattress. The flat was quiet except for the distant hum of the refrigerator and the occasional scrape of metal from the kitchen. They let themselves breathe, slow and careful. This was new. Different. Not perfect, but better than anything they had known for a long time.

After a few moments, Y/N stood, gathering their necessities: toothbrush, washcloth, and a small bundle of things they wanted with them while freshening up. The bathroom was tiny but functional. Water ran over their hands and face, cold and grounding.

When they emerged, the kitchen was warm with the smell of something sizzling lightly on the stove. Constantine was there, flipping eggs and humming under his breath. A small coffee cup sat in front of him, dark and steaming. He glanced up and gave a half-smile.

“Morning,” he said. “Coffee?”

Y/N shook their head and let out a soft laugh. “No, thanks.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I promise I haven’t spiked it yet,” he added, the barest hint of a joke in his voice while waving the small flask that he always had on him, no matter when or where. Y/N just huffed, amused, and moved to sit at the small table.

Constantine plated the eggs, sliding one plate toward Y/N. “Help yourself,” he said. Then he sat down across from them, coffee in hand. Silence stretched for a few seconds, not uncomfortable, just natural.

Finally, Y/N broke it. “This is… nice,” they said quietly, looking around. “I mean, your place. It feels normal.”

Constantine raised an eyebrow. “Normal?”

“Yeah,” Y/N said, shrugging slightly. “Not… empty. Not lonely. Not like the last place I stayed.”

He smirked. “Ah, so you approve.”

They both laughed lightly, and it hung in the room, filling the air with something neither had said out loud yet.

They ate slowly. Eggs, toast, coffee, or juice in Y/N’s case, and talked about nothing particularly important at first. The flat was small, but the space felt big. Time stretched differently here. No alarms, no rush, no one else dictating what they could do or where they could go. Y/N found themselves relaxing in a way they hadn’t in months.

“You gonna be okay with breakfast?” Constantine asked after a while, noticing Y/N barely touched their toast.

Y/N shrugged. “Yeah. I’m just… not used to actually eating around someone.”

He nodded. “Figured. Habit, I guess.” He smiled faintly, a small acknowledgment of their shared understanding.

The conversation drifted. Constantine asked about small things from their past lessons. Not heavy questions, not probing into anything personal. Just practical things, spells they had tried, exercises they enjoyed, little discoveries they had made with their magic. Y/N answered, quietly at first, then slowly with more confidence.

“And the one with the fire last week?” he asked. “You felt that spike, yeah?”

Y/N nodded. “I think I got it under control, mostly. It didn’t… do anything.”

He smirked. “Mostly is good for now. You’ll get better.”

There was a pause. A soft one. No need to fill it. Then Constantine leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over the table. “You know, kid, you’re not just doing magic. You’re… noticing things. Seeing the world differently. It’s subtle, but it’s there. That’s important.”

Y/N blinked, unsure how to respond. They weren’t used to compliments, especially not from someone like Constantine.

“I mean it,” he added, half-smiling. “You’ve got instincts, curiosity… and a patience most people lack. That’s why this thing, whatever it’s gonna be, works better with you than almost anyone else I’ve met.”

Y/N just nodded. “Thanks.”

He waved it off, then added quietly, “Anyway, you’re settling in. This place might not be perfect, but you’re making it yours. That matters more than perfection.”

For the first time in weeks, maybe months, Y/N allowed themselves to relax fully. The edges of tension softened. They laughed a little at something small Constantine said, and he ruffled their hair. This time, Y/N didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. They let him do it and actually smiled.

Time passed. Breakfast plates cleared. Silence returned, but now it felt good. Easy. Comfortable. Y/N leaned back in their chair, letting the quiet sink in. Constantine reached across the table and lightly nudged their arm with his hand. Not pressing, not intrusive, just a reminder. A small acknowledgment that he was there. That he wasn’t going anywhere.

Then it happened. A sudden burst of smoke behind them, dense and sharp. Y/N and Constantine both turned, eyes wide, as the room filled with a strong scent of brimstone and candle wax.

When the smoke cleared, a woman was standing there.

She was tall, dark-haired, dressed in a sharp jacket over something that looked far too impractical for a normal morning. Her hair fell in loose waves around her shoulders, and her eyes were bright, intense, almost glowing with irritation. There was something about her presence that felt… heavy. Like the air itself had shifted around her.

She stood with her arms crossed, posture rigid, jaw tight.

“John,” she snapped immediately, turning toward Constantine. “I have been trying to call you for days. Days. Do you have any idea what’s happening right now? You keep not answering your phone, and the situation is getting worse by the hour.”

Constantine opened his mouth. “Zee—”

“And don’t interrupt me,” she continued, pacing a step forward. “This isn’t something we can just ignore. We need to act now. Raven is barely holding things together on her end, and if this keeps escalating—”

“Zatanna,” Constantine tried again.

She kept going. “—Because if this spills over, it’s not just going to be contained to one city, and I swear to—”

“ZATANNA.”

She spun on him. “WHAT?!”

That was when she finally noticed Y/N.

Her words cut off instantly. Her posture froze. The room went completely still as her eyes shifted, narrowing slightly as she took in the third person at the table. Y/N felt that same heavy presence settle on them now, sharp and assessing.

No one spoke for a few seconds.

Constantine cleared his throat. “Right. Uh. This is… my kid now.”

The woman just stared at Y/N, dumbfounded.

Y/N looked at Constantine, smirked, and said softly, “Your kid now, huh?”

He gave a small shrug. “Technically, yeah.”

The room stayed quiet for a moment. Y/N’s smile lingered. Zatanna was still frozen. Constantine looked slightly uncomfortable.

And that’s how the day began.

And now we come to the end of ARC II!! Next ARC we will have a new perspective

Also, it might take a while for next ARC to start since my next semester of university is starting next month and I have somethings stuff to get done before then

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and ARC!!

Word count: 2141

Low light. Chalk marks half-erased from the last exercise. A circle on the floor that was more suggestion than boundary. The air carried the faint smell of smoke and old incense, though Constantine hadn’t lit anything tonight.

Y/N sat across from him, cross-legged on the floor, hands resting in their lap the way they had been taught. Their eyes were open, unfocused, staring somewhere past Constantine’s shoulder.

“Again,” Constantine said. “Same thing. Don’t force it.”

Y/N inhaled and tried.

Nothing happened.

They knew what they were supposed to do. They had done it before. Breathe, steady, decide what was true. The lesson tonight was control through restraint. Simple. Safe. Familiar.

Their chest felt tight instead.

They tried again. Their concentration slipped almost immediately, thoughts pulling away from the exercise no matter how hard they tried to drag them back. Images kept intruding, sharp and unwanted. A phone ringing. A voice they hadn’t heard in months. Words that refused to settle.

Constantine watched them for a few seconds longer than usual.

“Alright,” he said. “Stop.”

Y/N blinked and looked up.

“Lesson’s not going anywhere,” he added. “You are.”

They hesitated, then lowered their hands.

The silence that followed wasn’t instructional. It was the kind that waited.

Constantine leaned back against the wall, folding his arms. “You’ve been staring holes through reality for the past ten minutes, and not in the useful way. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Y/N said quickly.

He raised an eyebrow.

“That was fast,” he replied. “Almost impressive.”

Y/N looked away. “I’m fine.”

Constantine exhaled through his nose, tired rather than annoyed. “No, you’re not. And you’re bad at lying when you’re upset. You get quiet. You stop correcting me.”

They didn’t answer.

He studied them for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet. “We need to talk.”

That got their attention. Y/N looked up again, wary.

Constantine rubbed a hand over his face, then said, “Actually, this ties into why I rang you earlier.”

Y/N straightened without meaning to.

“I told you I had something come up,” he continued. “That wasn’t me being dramatic. There’s a situation. Supernatural. Nasty sort. The kind that doesn’t wrap up neatly.”

“How nasty?” Y/N asked.

He shrugged. “The sort that keeps me out of town.”

“For how long?”

Constantine hesitated. Just long enough.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Could be weeks. Could be months.”

The word sat heavy between them.

He added, lighter, “Thought I’d ask if you reckon you can stay out of trouble until I’m back.”

Y/N let out a quiet, bitter huff before they could stop themselves. “Sure. If you can wrap it up in a few days.”

Constantine turned his head. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“No, you definitely said something.”

Y/N stayed silent.

He sighed, then softened his tone. “Kid. If you’re in trouble, or something’s happening, I need to know. This isn’t the sort of magic where we pretend things don’t exist and hope they behave.” He pauses for a second. "Well, technically, your is. But you still need more practice."

The words landed closer than he probably meant them to.

Y/N stared at the floor. Their fingers curled slightly against their palms.

After a few seconds, they said, very quietly, “I’m being moved.”

Constantine frowned. “Moved?”

They nodded.

“Right,” he said slowly. “You and your parents relocating, or—”

“I don’t have parents,” Y/N interrupted. Not sharply. Just tired. “I’m a foster.”

That made him pause.

“You didn’t mention that.”

“You didn’t ask.”

Fair point.

Constantine shifted his weight. “Alright. Start over. What do you mean you’re being moved?”

Y/N took a breath. Then another. The words came out unevenly at first, like they weren’t used to being spoken.

They explained. Everything.

Not in neat order. Not dramatically. Just facts, tumbling out one after the other. Foster care. Emergency temporary placements that turned somewhat permanent without ever becoming real. Being sent away, brought back, forgotten, remembered only when paperwork demanded it. Years spent in a house where their presence barely registered. Now being sent to a new move, in another city. Another reset, this time when they were so close to ageing out it felt almost cruel.

They didn’t look at him while they talked.

Constantine stayed quiet through all of it. No jokes. No cigarettes. No interruptions. Just listening, arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes fixed on a point somewhere past Y/N’s shoulder.

When the words finally ran out, the room felt heavier than before.

“How old are you?” Constantine asked.

“Seventeen.”

His jaw tightened.

“They’re moving you now?” he said. “This close to eighteen?”

Y/N nodded. “She said it’s mandatory. That my current placement isn’t meant to be long-term.”

“And the family you’re with now?” he asked.

“They don’t care,” Y/N said simply. “They never did.”

Silence filled the room again, heavier this time.

“I think that’s why it started,” Y/N added after a moment. “The magic. Or whatever it is. I’ve felt like this for years. Like I don’t belong anywhere. But the outbursts only started recently.”

They hesitated, then forced the words out. “Seeing them treat someone else like family. Knowing I could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter. I think it built up. I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

When they finally looked up, they were braced for something. Pity. Distance. Fear.

Instead, Constantine stared at the wall, jaw clenched, cigarette forgotten between his fingers.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered.

Y/N blinked. “…That’s it?”

He glanced at them. “Sorry. Poor choice of words.”

They deadpanned. “I’ve had worse reactions.”

“I’m sure you have,” he said, not joking.

He went quiet again, thinking. The room felt smaller, like the air was holding its breath.

Finally, he said, “That explains a lot.”

Y/N looked down, shame creeping in where it didn’t belong. “I didn’t mean for it to—”

“I know,” he cut in gently. “You didn’t cause this on purpose.”

They nodded, but their shoulders stayed tense.

Constantine straightened. “Alright. Here’s what’s going to happen.”

Y/N looked up, uncertain.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

They frowned. “Take care of what?”

“All of it,” he replied. “The move. The timing. The distance. Whatever strings need pulling.”

“You can’t just—”

“I can,” he interrupted. “And I will.”

Y/N searched his face, trying to find the trick. The catch.

He met their gaze steadily. “I don’t say this often,” he added. “Promises aren’t my strong suit. But I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.”

Something in his voice made their chest tighten.

“I promise.”

For a long moment, Y/N didn’t know what to say.

The lesson circle on the floor had long since faded, chalk scuffed away by restless feet. Whatever they’d been practicing earlier felt distant now.

Constantine stubbed out his cigarette and looked at them. “We’ll talk more soon. For now, go home. Try to get some sleep.”

They stood slowly, legs unsteady.

“John?” they asked quietly.

He paused.

“…Thanks.”

He nodded once. “Anytime, Kid Apocalypse.”

And for the first time since the phone had rung, Y/N felt like the ground beneath them hadn’t completely disappeared.

The days after that blurred together.

Every lesson ended the same way. Constantine telling them he would take care of it. Saying it casually, like it was nothing. Like it was already done.

Y/N stopped asking what he meant.

Now, it was moving day.

No one in the house said anything to them. No questions. No awkward goodbyes. For all they knew, no one even realized they were leaving. Maybe they thought Y/N had already been moved. Maybe they never checked.

Duke didn’t know.

He had been staying at a friend’s place for the past few days. He wasn’t home when the call came, and Y/N hadn’t had the heart to tell him over the phone. Duke was the only person in that house who had ever felt like family. Ruining his time away felt selfish.

Instead, Y/N wrote him a note.

They left it in their own room, tucked somewhere Duke would find it later. Going into the family wing wasn’t worth the risk of running into someone they didn’t want to see.

Once that was done, they waited.

Ms. Carter’s message came a few minutes later, right on cue.

Speak of the devil.

She called instead of texting. Said she was waiting out on the street. No need to come inside since they were just leaving.

Y/N grabbed their things. One suitcase. The same one they’d had for years. They’d never really unpacked it anywhere.

Outside, Ms. Carter was already in the car, engine running.

The drive started in silence.

After a few minutes, Y/N asked about the family. Their voice came out flat, like they were asking about the weather. It wasn’t the first time they’d done this.

Ms. Carter cleared her throat.

“Ah. Right. I meant to tell you something.”

Y/N turned slightly in their seat. “Tell me what?”

“There was… an issue with the paperwork,” she said. “The family I mentioned won’t be able to take you after all.”

Y/N frowned. “What do you mean?”

A pause. Then, “I mean it didn’t work out.”

“So I’m staying?” Y/N asked. “Or are we turning around?”

Y/N’s thoughts jumped, uninvited, to Constantine. I’ll take care of it. Was this what he meant?

Before they could say anything else, Ms. Carter kept talking.

“No, no. You’re still being placed.”Ms. Carter shook her head quickly. “Someone else came forward at the last minute. Very unexpected, but willing to take you in until you turn eighteen.”

Y/N froze.

Then they let out a quiet, tired sigh. “That doesn’t make sense. These things take time.”

Ms. Carter waved a hand dismissively. “Sometimes things move faster than expected. Emergency approvals, provisional arrangements. It’s not that unusual.”

It was. Y/N knew it was.

“You should be grateful,” she added. “This could be a good thing. A fresh start. Who knows? This might be the one.”

Y/N didn’t answer.

They turned toward the window and let the city slide past, tuning Ms. Carter out as she kept talking about miracles and lucky breaks and how things always worked out in the end.

They’d heard it all before.

They arrived at the building a little while later.

It was a small municipal office. The kind of place Y/N had been to before. Neutral walls. Cheap chairs. A faint smell of old coffee.

Ms. Carter parked and stepped out first, already talking as she led the way inside. She kept praising the new foster parent, talking about how lucky the situation was, how things had a way of working themselves out.

Y/N barely heard her.

They followed on autopilot, suitcase rolling behind them, their mind somewhere far away. This part was always the same. New place. New person. Same speeches.

Inside the lobby, Ms. Carter suddenly stopped.

“Oh,” she said, brightening. “There he is. That’s your new foster parent.”

Y/N looked up.

Then did a double take.

Wait. No. That couldn’t be—

Constantine was standing near the reception desk.

He looked… different. Clean coat. Buttoned shirt. Hair actually combed. He was holding a folder under one arm like he belonged there. When he noticed them, he lifted a hand in a small, almost awkward wave.

Y/N stopped walking.

Ms. Carter didn’t notice. She was already heading toward him, smiling. Constantine straightened slightly as she approached.

“Mr. Hale,” she said warmly. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Constantine replied, voice smooth, polite, unmistakably him.

Y/N just stared.

Ms. Carter turned back. “Y/N, this is your new foster parent.”

She said his name again. A name Y/N had never heard before.

Y/N looked at her. Then back at Constantine.

He did not correct her.

Ms. Carter kept talking, oblivious, while Constantine played along without missing a beat. When she gestured for Y/N to greet him, they managed a stiff nod, still trying to process what they were seeing.

After a moment, Ms. Carter glanced at her phone. “I need to make a quick call. I’ll give you two a minute to get to know each other.”

And just like that, she stepped away.

The silence hit immediately.

Y/N finally looked up at him properly. “What are you doing here?”

Constantine sighed. “Are you planning on blinking at any point, or should I get comfortable?”

“That’s not an answer,” Y/N said. “What did she mean? Why did she say you’re my foster parent?”

He adjusted the folder under his arm. “Because I am.”

Y/N stared at him harder. “You’re joking.”

“I don’t joke about paperwork.”

They glanced at his clothes. “Why do you look like that?”

“So they don’t throw me out on sight,” he replied. “Even Gotham social workers get twitchy if you look like you crawled out of a pub at noon.”

He paused, then added more quietly, “I told you I’d take care of it.”

Y/N’s expression shifted. “Do you even hear yourself? You’re talking about legal guardianship. You’ve known me for less than a year.”

Constantine waved a hand dismissively. “I know what I’m doing.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“I’m doing it so I can keep an eye on you,” he said. “Make sure you don’t lose control and level half of Gotham.”

To anyone else, it might have sounded detached. Practical. Almost cold.

Y/N just smirked.

“Sure,” they said. “That’s totally the main reason.”

Constantine gave them a look but didn’t argue.

“By the way,” Y/N added, nodding toward where Ms. Carter had gone, “who the hell is Mr. Hale?”

“Fake name,” he said easily. “Keeps certain people from asking inconvenient questions.”

Before Y/N could comment, he reached out and ruffled their hair.

“Hey—” They recoiled instantly, mock offense written all over their face.

“Relax,” he said. “You’ll survive.”

Ms. Carter returned just then, smiling as she took in the scene. “It looks like you two are getting along already.”

Neither of them corrected her.

She glanced at her notes. “There’s still some paperwork to finalize, Mr. Hale, but that can all be handled at the exchange meeting.”

Y/N’s stomach dropped.

The exchange meeting.

They’d almost forgotten about those.

The meeting that involved the social worker, the new foster parent, and the current one. The meeting that was mostly for formality. For closure.

The meeting Bruce stopped attending after the second time.

Y/N said nothing.

Neither did Constantine.

Here we go! New chapter just dropped!!

I seriously don’t know what’s happening to tumblr, it’s becoming a struggle to post this chapters, anytime I try to edit the chapters in my drafts when I press to save it just doesn’t, and I loose the progress I had changed

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!!

Word count: 2455

Not that anyone noticed.

Y/N had been meeting Constantine for weeks—long enough that the strange weight under their skin had begun to feel… manageable. Not gone. Never gone. But quieter. Like a storm that listened when spoken to properly.

They slipped through the manor halls the same way every time: light steps, shallow breaths, head down. No doors slammed. No lights flicked on. No questions asked—because no one was there to ask them.

Almost.

Y/N was halfway through easing a window open when a shadow moved in the corner of their vision.

They froze.

Jason Todd straightened from where he’d been slipping into the manor, the two of them stared at each other like they’d both just been caught committing the same crime.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jason asked, brow furrowing.

Y/N didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Deer in headlights.

“…What are you doing?” they asked back, voice quiet but steady.

Jason paused, then sighed through his nose. “…Trying to avoid Bruce.”

Something in his posture shifted—not relaxed, exactly, but less sharp.

“Same,” Y/N said.

Silence stretched between them. Heavy. Familiar.

Jason glanced past Y/N, then toward the hallway, then back at them. After a beat, he spoke again, voice lower.

“…I didn’t see anything. And neither did you.”

Y/N nodded once. “Deal.”

That was it.

Jason melted back into the shadows, moving toward the stairs with practiced ease. Y/N slipped out into the night just as quietly, careful not to leave a sound behind that might remind the manor they existed at all.

For once, being overlooked worked in their favor.

That same night, Constantine made Y/N practice first.

Not spells—breathing.

They stood in an empty warehouse far enough away from everything, city noise humming low around them. Constantine leaned against a brick wall, cigarette glowing between his fingers, eyes sharp as he watched Y/N focus on the small exercise he’d given them. Nothing flashy. Just awareness. Just control.

When he finally spoke, it was casual. Too casual.

“I’ve been watching you,” Constantine said.

Y/N stiffened. “You make it sound creepy.”

He snorted. “It is. Get over it.”

He took a drag, exhaled slowly. “As I’ve told you before—most magic works because it has to. Rules, structures, little invisible bits of red tape holdin’ the universe together so it doesn’t fall apart.”

He flicked ash to the ground.

“Rituals. Artifacts. Deals with things that really shouldn’t answer the phone.” His eyes cut briefly to Y/N. “Words matter because they call something. Everything has a price. Always.”

Y/N nodded. None of this was new. Constantine didn’t do magic so much as bargain with it—cheat it, corner it, steal it when it wasn’t looking. Magic lived outside him.

In this world, magic was transactional.

“But,” Constantine continued, pushing off the wall, “that’s not what you do.”

Y/N looked up. “I still don’t really… do anything. Except for freaking out and something happens.”

“That’s the problem.”

He crouched in front of them, level with their eyes now. No circles chalked on the ground. No sigils. No wards.

“Your magic doesn’t come from what you say,” he said. “Or what you draw. Or who you piss off enough to help you.”

He tapped two fingers against Y/N’s chest—then stopped, hovering just short, deliberately not touching.

“It comes from in there.”

Y/N swallowed.

“Magic like yours,” Constantine went on, “responds to belief. Intent. Not hope—certainty. Words aren’t invocations for you. They’re statements.”

Y/N frowned. “That sounds… arrogant.”

“Yeah,” Constantine said flatly. “It is.”

He straightened, pacing slowly now. “See, when I cast a spell, I’m sayin’, ‘Oi, universe, if I do this right, you’ll play along.’ And if I mess it up? I get bit.”

He glanced back at them.

“You don’t ask.”

Y/N’s breath caught.

“You say things are, and reality—stupid, obedient thing—goes, ‘Right. My mistake.’”

He stopped pacing.

“That’s the difference.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and buzzing.

“Most of us knock on reality’s door,” Constantine said at last. “You don’t. You rearrange the house so the door was never there.”

Y/N felt cold.

“That’s why wards didn’t hold,” Constantine continued. “Why circles slipped. Why containment spells didn’t even slow it down.”

He gave a humorless huff. “I couldn’t bind you if I tried. And I’m very good at binding things that don’t want to be.”

Y/N stared at the ground. “So I’m… broken.”

Constantine’s voice snapped sharp. “No.”

They looked up, startled.

“You’re an anomaly,” he corrected. “There’s a difference. Dangerous one, mind you—but not broken.”

He crushed the cigarette under his boot.

“Magic like yours doesn’t listen to rules,” he said quietly. “It listens to you. And when you’re emotional—when you believe something hard enough—it listens too well.”

Y/N thought of flickering lights. Shaking ground. Reality stuttering like a skipped record.

“…That’s bad,” they said.

Constantine met their gaze, unflinching.

“Yeah,” he said. “It really is.”

Time passed—unevenly.

After that night, Constantine stopped skirting around things. Lessons weren’t just explanations anymore; they were tests. Small ones. Controlled ones. Every meeting involved Y/N actually doing something now—focusing, asserting, learning how not to let their emotions run the show.

It helped.

It also terrified them.

So when Duke knocked on their door one afternoon, Y/N almost welcomed the normalcy of it.

They were sprawled on opposite ends of the bed, both half-focused on games on their phones. Duke kept losing and complaining loudly about it, which earned him a quiet, amused glance from Y/N.

“Okay, that’s not fair,” Duke muttered. “Your character’s busted.”

Y/N shrugged. “Skill issue.”

Duke snorted—but then he went quiet.

Not the comfortable kind of quiet. The watchful kind.

Y/N noticed it after the third time Duke glanced up from his phone, brow faintly furrowed. “You’re being weird,” Y/N said, not unkindly. “Did I do something?”

Duke blinked, clearly startled. “What? No—no, you’re fine.”

He waved it off too quickly, posture loosening again as he leaned back against the headboard. “Just… spacing out.”

They went back to their games, the room filled with soft tapping and the distant noise of the manor going about its usual chaos. After a few minutes, Duke spoke again, more carefully this time.

“Hey,” he said. “You okay? Like… really okay?”

Y/N’s fingers paused for half a second.

“Yeah,” they said, keeping their voice even. “Everything’s normal.”

Duke nodded, accepting it easily—too easily. He smiled, nudging Y/N's leg with his foot, and launched back into trash-talking their game like nothing had happened.

Y/N didn’t notice the way Duke’s eyes lingered on them after that.

Didn’t notice how his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Because Duke didn’t know what he was seeing every time he looked at them. The way the light seemed to slide off them didn't make sense.

Something about Y/N felt off. Not bad. Not dangerous.

Just… different.

Like standing near a power line you couldn’t see, only feel, humming just under the surface.

And as they kept playing, laughing softly, Duke kept one part of his attention fixed on Y/N—quietly, cautiously—wondering what, exactly, his powers were trying to warn him about.

The lessons didn’t look like lessons.

There were no circles chalked on the ground. No candles arranged with obsessive precision. No Latin muttered under Constantine’s breath while something unpleasant waited to crawl out of the air.

Instead—

I. Stop Asking

“Again,” Constantine said, leaning against a brick wall, cigarette burning low between his fingers.

Y/N stood a few feet away, staring at a dead streetlamp.

“I—” They stopped themselves, jaw tightening. “…The light should turn on.”

Nothing happened.

Constantine sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No. That’s still asking.”

“I didn’t say please.”

“You said should,” he shot back. “That’s hope with a trench coat on.”

He flicked ash to the ground and looked at them sharply. “You don’t hope the fire lights. You don’t convince it. You decide it already did.”

Y/N swallowed, exhaled, and tried again.

“The light is on.”

The bulb flickered—once—then burned to life like it had never been broken at all.

Constantine went very still.

“…Right,” he muttered. “That’s going in the ‘bloody terrifying’ column.”

II. Belief Training

There were no spellbooks.

Instead, Constantine made them sit.

On the floor. Against a wall. Eyes closed.

“Tell me what should be true,” he said.

Y/N frowned. “About what?”

“Anything harmless,” Constantine replied. “And say it like it’s boring.”

They hesitated. Then, quietly, “The air’s warm.”

The chill around them softened.

“No,” Constantine corrected. “Less effort. You sound like you’re begging.”

Y/N tried again. Flat. Certain. “The air’s warm.”

Heat settled in their chest and spread outward, subtle and steady.

Constantine nodded once. “Good. Desperation makes your kind of magic bite back. Confidence tells it there’s nothing to prove.”

He glanced at them sideways. “Arrogance works too, but we’re not there yet.”

III. Control Through Restraint

Over time, Constantine started stopping them more than encouraging them.

“Too much.”

“I barely did anything.”

“Exactly. And you’re already pushing.”

He taught them to breathe. To ground themselves in the feel of the pavement, the weight of their body, the rhythm of their heartbeat.

“Your power doesn’t need help,” he said once, voice uncharacteristically serious. “It needs limits. You think harder, it gets louder. You calm down, it listens.”

Y/N sat cross-legged, eyes closed, hands resting on their knees.

For the first time since the alley, the world around them stayed still.

No flickering. No bending. No whispers crawling at the edges of their hearing.

Constantine watched closely—and said nothing.

IV. Safety First

This part, Constantine drilled into them relentlessly.

“No declarations when you’re upset.”

“Don’t say ‘I wish.’ Ever.”

“If you feel like the world owes you something—walk away.”

Y/N bristled at that one. “What if it’s already happening?”

Constantine’s gaze sharpened. “Then you breathe. You ground. And you wait.”

He stubbed out his cigarette with his heel. “Because this city can survive demons, gods, and bats in capes.”

He looked them dead in the eye.

“It won’t survive you losing control.”

Y/N nodded slowly, the weight of that settling deep in their chest.

And for the first time, magic didn’t feel like something breaking out of them.

It felt like something they were learning to hold.

It had been weeks.

Long enough that the nights no longer felt like something Y/N had to endure, but something they moved through. Long enough that the silence of Wayne Manor stopped sounding like rejection and started sounding like background noise—present, constant, but no longer sharp enough to cut.

The neglect didn’t disappear.

It just… stopped mattering.

They didn’t wait for anyone to notice when they came and went. Didn’t linger in shared spaces hoping someone might ask where they’d been, or how their day was, or if they wanted to eat. Those habits had burned out of them quietly, like a light left on too long.

Instead, there was Constantine.

Lessons that left their head buzzing in a way that felt right. Controlled. Purposeful. There was the way he called them “Brightspark” when they did something particularly alarming, or “Kid Apocalypse” when they scared him just a little too much—and the way Y/N had taken to calling him “Trenchcoat” or “Chain-Smoker” purely to watch him scowl.

There was Duke, too.

Quiet hangouts. Shared space. The feeling of being allowed to exist without explanation.

For the first time in a long while, Y/N didn’t feel like they were waiting for their life to start.

They were halfway down the hallway, jacket already pulled on, bag slung over one shoulder, fingers tapping idly against their phone as they walked.

They lifted it to their ear without looking at the screen.

“Hey, Trenchcoat,” they said, already moving toward the side door. “I’m about to leave, you impatient old fu—”

“Y/N?”

The voice cut through them like ice water.

They stopped walking.

Their breath caught, sharp and awkward, and they pulled the phone away from their ear just long enough to glance at the screen.

“Social Worker”

“Oh—! I’m—sorry,” Y/N said quickly, heat rushing to their face as they turned around, back pressing lightly against the wall. “Hi. Uh—hi, ma’am.”

She laughed politely, filling the silence they hadn’t managed to. “It’s alright. I caught you at a bad time?”

“No,” Y/N said automatically. Too fast. “No, it’s—it’s fine. What’s… what’s up?”

It had been months since they’d spoken.

Maybe longer.

The last time had been after another failed placement. Another house with polite smiles and careful distance. Another goodbye that had sounded suspiciously like relief. The drive back to the Manor quiet except for assurances that this one hadn’t been their fault.

They hadn’t heard from her since.

“Well,” the social worker said, voice brightening in that way it always did when she thought she had good news, “I’m calling because we’ve found you another placement.”

The hallway seemed to tilt.

“…Another,” Y/N repeated faintly.

“Yes,” she continued, not missing the pause. “A family that’s very interested in taking you in. I’ve reviewed their file myself—this one looks really promising.”

Like she hasn’t said that about every other home they were placed in.

Y/N’s fingers tightened around the phone.

“I—” Their throat felt dry. “Is it necessary? I—I mean, I’m turning eighteen soon.”

There was a brief pause on the other end. Not uncertainty—just recalibration.

“Yes, that’s true,” she said. “But until then, it’s still mandatory that we continue searching for a permanent home. The Wayne placement was always listed as temporary.”

Temporary.

The word landed heavier than it should have, settling somewhere deep in their chest.

“I see,” Y/N said quietly.

She didn’t hear it.

The social worker kept talking, her voice blending into a stream of logistics and optimism. The family lived out of Gotham—far enough that weekend visits wouldn’t be practical. A quieter city. Safer. Better for a fresh start. She spoke about spare bedrooms and good schools and how she truly believed this could be the one.

“I’ll come by in a few days to pick you up,” she finished, cheerful as ever. “That should give you time to pack. If you have any questions, you can call me back.”

Then, before Y/N could respond—before they could ask anything—

“Take care, alright?”

The line went dead.

Y/N stood there.

The hallway was exactly the same as it had been minutes ago. The lights didn’t flicker. The walls didn’t bend. Reality didn’t crack or stretch or protest.

Their arm slowly lowered, phone still clutched in their hand.

Another city.

Another house.

Another ending they hadn’t chosen.

They stared at the dark screen, their mind scrambling, heart racing—not with magic this time, but with something colder.

Call back, a part of them pleaded. Tell me it was a mistake. Tell me you dialed the wrong number. Tell me this was a joke.

The phone buzzed in their hand.

Y/N flinched and looked down, hope flaring painfully bright—

“Chain-Smoker”

The name glowed on the screen, steady and real.

And for a moment, Y/N couldn’t move.

The hallway felt too quiet.

The choice—answering, not answering—felt heavier than any spell Constantine had ever warned them about.

The phone kept ringing.

And ringing.

Wow

This chapter tumblr just did not want me to post. For whatever reason any time I tried to save the changes I made in the drafts, it wouldn’t save, and deleted any progress I made, had to do everything in one go

Hope you guys enjoyed it!!

No one had written them down. No one had said them out loud. But the house had taught them anyway, patiently, through repetition and silence.

Don’t interrupt conversations that don’t include you.

Don’t ask questions that don’t have simple answers.

Don’t need help unless it’s already being offered.

Especially that last one.

Y/N learned when to speak and when to disappear. Learned how to move through Wayne Manor without disturbing its rhythm. Learned which doors stayed closed, which rooms were safe only when empty.

They woke early and ate quietly. If breakfast was forgotten, they learned to make something small for themselves. If dinner passed without their presence being noticed, they cleaned up afterward anyway.

It was easier not to be seen.

The calls from their social worker slowed over time. Placements were mentioned less frequently. Families still expressed interest occasionally—short visits, polite questions—but nothing ever stuck.

And somehow, without anyone ever saying it, Wayne Manor became the default again.

Bruce didn’t comment on the change.

No one did. If they even noticed.

By the time Y/N turned seventeen, the word temporary felt like a lie everyone had agreed to believe.

They were seventeen when Duke Thomas arrived.

Y/N didn’t know that at first.

They were walking down one of the quieter hallways, head down, mind half elsewhere, when they nearly collided with someone coming around the corner.

“Oh—sorry!” the boy said quickly, stepping back.

Y/N looked up, startled.

He was around their age, maybe a year younger. Tall, warm smile, unfamiliar face.

“No, it’s okay,” Y/N said automatically. “I wasn’t looking.”

The boy laughed lightly. “Same.”

There was a brief, awkward pause before he stuck out a hand.

“I’m Duke.”

Y/N hesitated, then shook it. “Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you,” Duke said easily. Too easily. Like meeting people was something he did often. “Uh—this place is huge. I keep thinking I’m lost.”

Y/N almost smiled.

“Yeah,” they said. “It takes a while.”

Duke tilted his head, studying them. Not like Cassandra did—this was open, curious.

“So… you live here?” he asked.

“Kinda,” Y/N said. Then, after a second, added, “I’m a foster.”

Duke’s eyes widened slightly. “Really?”

Y/N nodded. “Emergency placement. A while ago.”

Duke’s grin softened. “Wow. Okay. That actually helps.”

“Helps?”

“I just got here,” Duke said. “Mr. Wayne offered to foster me. I thought I was gonna be the only one, and—” He shrugged. “Feels less weird knowing I’m not.”

Something twisted painfully in Y/N’s chest.

“Yeah,” they said quietly. “Less weird.”

Before either of them could say more, footsteps echoed from the other end of the hallway.

“Duke!”

Dick appeared, mid-stride, smiling.

“There you are,” Dick said, recovering quickly. “We need you for something—”

He stopped himself, finally noticing Y/N. The smile faltered. Just for a second.

“…important,” he finished, after a pause that Y/N felt like a bruise.

Duke glanced between them. “Oh. Okay.”

He turned back to Y/N, still smiling. “I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”

“Sure,” Y/N said.

They watched Duke leave with Dick, the sound of their voices fading down the hall.

Y/N stood there longer than necessary.

As they turned to go back the way they’d come, Duke’s voice drifted back to them.

“Hey,” Duke said, curious, not unkind. “Why didn’t anyone tell me there was another foster?”

Y/N slowed.

There was a pause. Then Dick replied, casual and dismissive.

“Oh. Y/N? They’re just a temporary emergency foster. They won’t be here forever.”

The words landed like something breaking.

Y/N didn’t hear the rest.

They turned and walked away, heart pounding, ears ringing.

Temporary.

Won’t be here forever.

They should have known better.

Meeting Duke had felt too easy. Too hopeful.

Hope, Y/N had learned, never lasted here.

By the time they reached their room, their head ached sharply. A sudden, blinding pressure behind their eyes, like something pushing outward.

They pressed a hand to their temple, breathing slowly.

Down the hallway, a framed picture rattled softly on the wall. A nearby lamp flickered once.

Y/N didn’t notice.

They closed the door behind them and leaned against it, chest tight, heart racing.

Meeting Duke had changed nothing.

It couldn’t.

This house had rules.

And Y/N had already learned them all.

We now have a taglist!!

No one said anything. No one moved at first. The air felt thick, like the walls themselves were waiting for something that wasn’t coming. The room was too small to hold all of them, too small to hold everything that had just been said, and yet none of them seemed able to be the first to break the stillness.

Jason was the first to go, he didn’t say a word. He just turned sharply and stalked out, boots heavy against the floor, shoulders tight with something barely contained. No one commented on the way his jaw was clenched, or how his hands curled slightly at his sides. No one noticed— or maybe no one wanted to notice— the faint, unnatural glow that flickered in his eyes before he disappeared down the hall.

Dick followed not long after, he hesitated at the doorway, like he might turn back, like he might say something that could fix even a fraction of what had been broken in that room. He didn’t. He just exhaled slowly, rubbed a hand over his face, and left in Jason’s wake, footsteps quieter but no less heavy.

Tim went next, he didn’t look at anyone as he left. His gaze stayed fixed on nothing in particular, expression distant, already retreating inward. It was the look he got when his mind started running faster than his emotions could keep up, when work and logic became a shield. The door clicked softly behind him.

Cass lingered, she stood still for a long moment, eyes moving slowly over the room, over the bare walls, the empty spaces, the places where something should have been. Her hands flexed at her sides. Then, without a word, she slipped out as quietly as she had come, her absence barely registering until she was already gone.

Damian left without anyone really noticing. One moment he was there, rigid and silent, the next his place in the room was simply empty. No sound. No announcement. Just gone, like he had learned long ago how to remove himself without drawing attention.

Alfred cleared his throat after a while. “I’ll… begin preparing dinner,” he said, voice polite, practiced. Habit. Routine. His eyes didn’t quite focus on anyone as he spoke. He adjusted his sleeves, nodded to no one in particular, and left the room as if on autopilot, as if muscle memory could carry him through what his heart clearly could not.

Bruce stayed. He sat on the edge of the bed far too small for the child who had once slept in it, shoulders hunched, hands resting uselessly on his knees. The mattress dipped under his weight, a silent reminder of how little space there had ever been here— physically, emotionally. His gaze drifted around the room, taking in what wasn’t there, what had never really been there.

Eventually, he stood. Slowly. He looked once more at the empty space, then turned and left, closing the door behind him.

The room was empty again.

Just like it had always felt.

DICK'S POV:

Dick ended up in one of the unused sitting rooms without really meaning to.

He didn’t turn on the lights at first. He just stood there, hands on his hips, then started pacing, back and forth across the rug like movement alone might burn off the weight in his chest. The room was quiet in the way only the manor could be at night, too big, too empty, every footstep echoing just enough to make him more aware of himself.

He told himself, not for the first time, that he hadn’t meant for it to be like this.

They had always seemed fine. Quiet, yeah. Distant, sometimes. But not unhappy. Not in a way that had ever set off alarms in his head. He had looked at them and seen someone who didn’t ask for much, who kept to themselves, who didn’t cause problems. In his mind, that had translated into independence. Strength. Being okay on their own.

They don’t need me.

The thought had been easy. Comfortable, even. It let him believe that his absence wasn’t absence at all. That it was just space.

But space only works when both people choose it.

He stopped pacing and leaned a hand against the back of a chair, memories coming uninvited. Movie nights he’d suggested and then rescheduled. And then rescheduled again. The casual, “Rain check, okay?” texts that had turned into nothing. The way he’d ruffled their hair in passing, called them “kid,” smiled like that counted as showing up.

He had been warm. When he remembered.

Friendly. When it was convenient.

He thought about how easily his attention had shifted to Damian. Training. Arguments. Bonding. All of it loud and obvious and demanding in a way that Y/N had never been. He had filled the gaps with the child who took up space, and somehow convinced himself that the one who didn’t didn’t need him to.

He couldn’t remember the last time Y/N had asked him to do something together.

Not because it hadn’t happened.

Because, at some point, they had stopped asking.

The realization hit harder than any accusation could have. He hadn’t rejected them outright. He had done something quieter. Something crueler in its own way. He had taught them, slowly and consistently, that hoping for him meant getting disappointed.

Hope.

Disappointment.

Resignation.

Dick sank into the chair, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. He could picture it now. The way someone would stop getting excited. Stop reminding. Stop expecting. Not because they didn’t care, but because caring hurt too much.

His chest felt tight.

After a long moment, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

BARBARA'S POV:

Barbara was in the library when her phone buzzed.

She had been mid-research, screens open, notes half-finished, the familiar comfort of information wrapping around her like armor. The clock on the wall said it was later than she’d meant it to be, but that wasn’t unusual. The library was one of the few places where her mind could stay busy enough to keep everything else at bay.

She glanced at her phone without much thought.

At first, the message didn’t fully register. Her eyes skimmed the words, her brain still half in work mode. It took a second pass for meaning to sink in, for the shape of what Dick was telling her to settle into something real.

Y/N is gone.

Not visiting. Not on a temporary placement. Gone.

Her fingers stilled over the keyboard. The hum of the computers and the quiet rustle of pages around her suddenly felt too loud, like the room itself was pressing in. She leaned back slightly in her chair, staring at her phone as if it might change if she looked at it long enough.

She tried to make sense of it. Tried to slot it into something manageable. But the more she thought about it, the more a different kind of discomfort crept in, one that had nothing to do with shock and everything to do with recognition.

She hadn’t really known Y/N.

Not in any way that mattered.

When they had talked, Barbara had kept it light. Safe. School. Projects. Surface-level updates that didn’t ask for anything from her emotionally. If the conversation drifted toward something heavier, something that hinted at feelings or struggles, she had redirected without even thinking about it. A joke. A change of subject. A quick excuse about being busy.

It hadn’t been cruelty. It had been avoidance.

She told herself she didn’t have the energy. That she already carried too much. That she couldn’t be everything for everyone. All of that had been true, in a way. But it had also been a shield. A way to stay distant without having to admit that distance was a choice.

She thought about how she had treated Y/N like a guest in the family. Someone passing through. Someone she could be polite to without letting them take up real space in her life.

Tolerated.

Not wanted.

The word settled in her chest, heavy and sour.

Barbara stared at the shelves across from her, not really seeing the books. The idea that Y/N might have felt that from her, might have picked up on that quiet coldness, made her stomach twist. It wasn’t loud neglect. It wasn’t obvious.

It was the kind that told someone, over and over, that they were on the outside.

Her phone was still in her hand. She hadn’t typed a response. She wasn’t even sure what she could say that wouldn’t feel too small.

For the first time in a long while, Barbara didn’t have a plan.

She just sat there in the library, surrounded by information, and realized how little she had actually known about someone who had been right there all along.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

TIM'S POV:

Tim shut his door and went straight to his desk.

He told himself he needed the distraction. Unfinished cases. Loose ends. Threads that still needed pulling. The kind of work that usually grounded him, that gave his brain something concrete to chew on instead of letting it spiral.

Screens lit up one by one. Files. Notes. Half-built theories. Names and timelines that mattered.

He stared at them, but his focus kept slipping.

Because no matter how hard he tried to redirect, his mind kept circling back to the same uncomfortable truth.

He had noticed everything in that house.

Patterns. Routines. Behavioral shifts. Threat assessments. Emotional tells. He prided himself on seeing what others missed.

Except Y/N.

Not because they were invisible. Not because they weren’t there.

Because he had decided, early on, that they didn’t matter.

Not a threat. Not useful. Not strategically relevant.

Irrelevant.

The word made his jaw tighten.

He thought about how he had never bothered to learn what they liked. Never asked about their projects in any real detail. If they spoke during group conversations, he talked over them without even registering it. When he said “we,” it never meant Y/N. It meant the people he considered part of the core. The people whose presence he factored into his plans.

Y/N had never made that list.

And that, more than open hostility, felt damning.

Tim’s eyes drifted to another tab without him fully realizing it. Then another. And another.

Search results.

Not criminal databases. Not mission logs.

Personal scraps.

Anything.

School information. Basic files. Any digital footprint that might tell him who they were outside of being another name in the manor.

There was almost nothing.

No detailed notes. No personal profiles. No patterns logged. No interests tagged. Just fragments. Passing mentions. The kind of data you’d have on someone you never bothered to really look at.

For the first time, that absence felt loud.

It meant he hadn’t just missed things.

It meant he had never tried to see them in the first place.

The soft sound of his door opening snapped him out of it.

Tim closed the tabs too quickly, muscle memory kicking in, the screens shifting back to unfinished cases and old investigations. He turned in his chair.

Cass stood in the doorway.

She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him, expression quiet, heavy in that way that meant she was carrying more than she had words for.

Tim didn’t ask why she was there.

Cass crossed the room and lay down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, making herself small in a way that felt familiar. Not wanting to be alone, even if she didn’t know how to ask for company.

Tim turned back to his screens.

The cases were still there. The problems he could solve. The patterns he could control.

But now, sitting at the edge of his awareness, was the realization that there had been someone in that house he had never bothered to learn.

Not because he couldn’t.

Because he chose not to.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

CASS' POV:

Cass lay on her back on Tim’s bed, staring up at the ceiling.

The room was dim, lit mostly by the glow of Tim’s monitors and the faint spill of hallway light under the door. The ceiling fan wasn’t on. Nothing moved. The stillness pressed in, leaving too much space for her thoughts.

She let them come anyway.

She thought about Y/N.

Not in fragments. Not in vague impressions.

In details.

The way they moved through rooms carefully, like they were always trying not to be in the way. The way their shoulders tensed when voices got loud. The way they held themselves, guarded but not defensive. More like they were waiting for something to go wrong.

Cass had seen it.

She had always seen it.

That was the part that hurt the most.

She told herself she didn’t know how to help. That words were hard. That people were complicated. That reaching out meant risking doing it wrong. So instead, she watched. She noticed. She stored the information away like data.

She stared.

She never followed up.

She never went back to sit beside them. Never tried to start something small. Never found a way to bridge the quiet.

She would stand in doorways. Watch them work. Observe their expressions. Then leave without saying anything, convinced that presence alone counted for something.

But presence without connection wasn’t comfort.

It was surveillance.

From the outside, maybe it looked like concern. From Y/N’s side, she realized now, it must have felt like being studied instead of being known.

Cass swallowed, her throat tight.

She had recognized the neglect. Not just from herself. From everyone.

She had seen how often Y/N was alone. How often they were left behind in conversations. How easily people forgot to include them.

And she had done nothing.

Not because she didn’t care.

Because she didn’t know how to turn caring into action.

Her gaze shifted to Tim.

He was still at his desk, posture rigid, eyes fixed on his screens. Working. Always working. Hiding in something he could control.

Cass understood that too.

Slowly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

The screen lit up softly in the dim room.

She didn’t know what she was going to say yet.

She just knew she couldn’t keep staying silent.

Not this time.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

STEPHS'S POV:

Stephanie was stretched out on her bed, phone in one hand, one leg hanging off the side, boredom settling in heavy.

Her room was quiet. Too quiet. No noise from the living room. No voices. No distractions. Just the low hum of the city outside her window and the faint buzz of her screen as she scrolled through nothing in particular.

When her phone vibrated, she smiled without thinking.

Cass texting usually meant one thing.

You wanna hang out?

She sat up a little, already half-forming a reply in her head.

Then she read the message.

The smile faded.

Her thumb hovered over the screen as the words sank in properly. Not fast. Not all at once. Slowly. The kind of slow that makes your chest feel tight before your brain fully understands why.

Y/N.

Left.

Not visiting. Not moved for a bit. Not “placed somewhere else for now.”

Gone.

Permanently.

Stephanie leaned back against her pillows, staring at the wall across from her bed. Her room suddenly felt smaller, heavier, like the air had thickened.

Her mind went straight to the small, stupid things first.

The jokes. The comments. The way she’d laughed things off. The way she’d brushed past conversations without meaning to be cruel. The way she’d decided, without ever saying it out loud, that Y/N was just… weird.

Not in a bad way, just not her kind of person. So she avoided them. Not with hostility. Not with open dislike.

Just with distance.

She never invited them anywhere. Never thought to include them. Never asked them to come along. Never made space.

It had been easy to treat them like background noise. Like someone who existed in the house but not in her social world. Someone who didn’t quite fit, so didn’t quite belong.

She swallowed hard.

Because she could see it now, in a way she hadn’t before. How “not meaning anything by it” doesn’t mean it meant nothing.

She wasn’t even really part of the family. Not officially. She’d come in through Tim, stayed after the breakup, lingered because the Waynes kept inviting her back. She had always had a place there.

Always had a seat.

Always had space.

Everyone did.

Everyone except Y/N.

Her phone slipped from her fingers onto the bed beside her.

Stephanie turned onto her side, facing the wall, pulling her knees up slightly.

She didn’t know what she felt.

Guilt. Confusion. Regret.

Something heavier than all of it, sitting in her chest where excuses used to be.

She put her phone down, laid in her bed and let the weight of it settle, realizing how easy it had been to pretend someone wasn’t hurting when it was more convenient not to see it.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

DAMIAN'S POV:

Damian went straight to the barn.

The path across the manor grounds was familiar, one he’d taken a thousand times, boots crunching softly against gravel and dirt as the colder air helped clear his head. The barn smelled like hay, animals, and something grounding, something real. It was easier to breathe here than inside the house, where the walls felt too close and the silence felt too loud.

He told himself, as he always did, that he didn’t care.

Y/N had never been part of his world. Not patrols. Not training. Not missions. They were a civilian presence in a house built for soldiers. An intruder in a place that demanded strength. That was how he had justified it to himself. That was how he had framed it in his mind, again and again, until it felt like fact.

But standing there now, hands busy with familiar routines, that certainty felt thinner.

He had grown since coming to live with his father and his brothers. Richard especially had pushed him, challenged him, forced him to confront the parts of himself that defaulted to cruelty. Damian knew this. He wasn’t the same boy he had been when he first arrived at the manor.

And even if he still did not see Y/N as a sibling, he could no longer pretend he hadn’t crossed lines that never should have been crossed.

He had been harsh.

Deliberately so.

The insults. The threats. The way he had used his presence, his training, his blade, not to protect but to intimidate. He had told himself it was discipline. That it was strength. That it was his right.

Now, in the quiet of the barn, it felt smaller than that. Meaner.

Batcow shifted in her enclosure, her familiar presence drawing his attention. Damian moved automatically, checking her feed, making sure everything was in order. His movements were precise, controlled, but his thoughts kept drifting back to the same place.

The notebook sat on the ground nearby.

He had taken it without thinking. Without asking. Just another thing claimed, another thing he hadn’t considered the weight of until it was already in his hands.

After a moment, he picked it up.

Flipping through the pages again, he saw what others might dismiss as messy or incoherent. Lines that overlapped. Shapes that didn’t always make sense. Figures that blurred at the edges. To someone else, it might have looked like meaningless scribbles.

Damian knew better.

He was an artist. He understood what it meant when a hand pressed too hard into the page. When strokes became jagged. When symmetry broke down. He could see the tension in the lines, the frustration, the anguish woven into each page. The way the drawings shifted over time, becoming darker, heavier, less controlled.

It was pain, translated into motion.

He sat down slowly against the wall of Batcow’s enclosure, the notebook resting open in his lap. Batcow wandered closer, her large form settling beside him with a soft huff. Without really thinking about it, Damian reached out with his free hand and began to pet her, slow and steady, grounding himself in the simple rhythm.

For the first time, he allowed himself to fully acknowledge it.

Y/N had not just been unwelcome.

They had been made to feel unsafe.

In their own home.

That truth sat heavier than any insult he had ever thrown.

Damian stayed there for a long time, one hand on Batcow, the other holding a notebook full of pain he had helped create, unable to look away from what he finally chose to see.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

JASON'S POV:

Jason had been standing outside for a while.

The night air was cold enough to bite, sharp enough to keep him present. He leaned against the stone railing, helmet tucked under one arm, shoulders tense even though there was nothing immediate to fight. Earlier, the green had crept into his vision again, that familiar toxic edge that came with the pit, with anger, with memories that never really stayed buried.

It had faded now.

Mostly.

He had seen Damian storm off toward the barn, small and rigid with emotion he’d never admit to. The kid hadn’t noticed him, too wrapped up in his own head. Jason hadn’t called out. Didn’t think either of them was in a place for conversation.

He stayed where he was, staring out into the dark, letting the quiet stretch.

His whole approach to Y/N had been built on a lie he told himself.

That it was for their safety.

That keeping them at arm’s length, snapping when they came too close, was better than letting them see too much. That if they didn’t know about his side of things, if they stayed out of his orbit, they’d be safer for it. It was easier to believe that than to admit how much of it came from fear. Fear of being seen as he was. Fear of being a danger to someone who didn’t belong in their world.

So he used anger instead.

Short replies. Sharp looks. Warnings that didn’t come with explanations. He treated them like a problem waiting to happen, like a liability, like someone who might get hurt just by standing too close to him.

He could still remember the way they’d flinch sometimes.

Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone else to call it out. Just small changes. A pause before speaking. A step back instead of forward. The way their voice got quieter around him.

Thinking about it now made the green creep back in at the edges of his vision.

Jason shut his eyes and forced himself to breathe. In through his nose. Out through his mouth. Again. Slower this time. He’d learned a long time ago how to keep the pit from taking the wheel, even if it never fully let go.

When he opened his eyes again, the world was steady.

And the guilt hit harder.

He had wanted to protect them. That part was true. He hadn’t wanted them anywhere near the violence, the blood, the things that still lived under his skin. But wanting to protect someone didn’t give him the right to turn himself into something they were afraid of.

That realization sat heavy in his chest, heavier than any weapon, heavier than any patrol ever had. Jason pushed off the railing and stood there in the cold a while longer, jaw tight, knowing that even if his intentions had been tangled up with something almost noble, the impact had been anything but.

For Y/N, he hadn’t been a shield.

He’d been another reason to be careful.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

ALFRED'S POV:

Alfred retreated to the kitchen on instinct.

It was what he did when things became too heavy to sit with. When emotions rose too high in the manor, when voices carried tension, when the weight of the family pressed in from every side, he went where he could be useful. Where there were tasks. Where there was order.

He began dinner without really thinking about it.

Knife in hand. Vegetables washed and chopped with practiced precision. Water brought to a boil. The motions were familiar enough that his hands could perform them while his mind wandered, and tonight, it did. It wandered back over years of routines, over patterns so ingrained he had never questioned them.

He had always taken care of this family.

Not just in the practical sense, but in the quiet, emotional ways too. He noticed when Bruce skipped meals. When Dick masked exhaustion with humor. When Jason’s anger was a shield. When Tim worked himself to the bone. When Damian pretended he did not need comfort. He had learned how to soften the sharp edges, how to be present without being asked.

And yet.

With Y/N, he had kept himself at a distance.

Not unkindly. Not cruelly. But carefully. Formally.

He had told himself it was not his place.

They were not his child. Not legally. Not in the way the others were. He had provided structure. A bed. Meals. Clean clothes. Stability in the ways that could be measured. But he had not offered what could not be written into a schedule.

He addressed them properly. Gave them space. Did not press. Did not intrude. Did not advocate when others overlooked them. Did not insist when they were forgotten.

He told himself he was respecting boundaries, that he was being professional.

What he had really done was step aside.

He had watched Bruce delegate the emotional weight of Y/N’s care without ever fully claiming it, and Alfred had accepted that division. He had seen the way the family treated Y/N as temporary, and he had not challenged it. He had been kind.

But he had not been brave.

The realization settled into his chest as he stirred a pot on the stove, the steam fogging his glasses. Kindness without care. Structure without advocacy. Politeness without protection.

It was not love.

Not in the way a child needed.

Dinner came together as it always did. Plates lined up on the counter. Portions measured by habit and memory. One for Bruce. One for Dick. One for Jason. One for Tim. One for Damian. One for Cass.

Alfred moved down the line, muscle memory guiding him.

Then he stopped.

There was no plate left for Y/N.

Though the lack of plate wasn't what made him stop, it was how easy it was to simply not make it.

The space where their plate should have been stared back at him, empty and accusing in its simplicity. Alfred stood very still, hands resting on the counter, staring at that empty space.

It had been easy.

Too easy.

To forget.

Not just tonight.

But for years.

✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡･:*:･ﾟ✧｡

BRUCE'S POV:

Bruce went to the Batcave because it was easier than staying in the house.

The manor held too many echoes. Too many closed doors. Too many rooms that suddenly felt wrong. In the cave, there were screens. Data. Files. Things that could be sorted, categorized, understood. Problems that could be solved if he just found the right angle.

This was a problem. Therefore, it had a solution.

He told himself that as he activated the console.

Y/N’s file came up with a few keystrokes. The same file where he would just put everything related to them. The same file that had started with the case involving their parents death, that had later been ruled as a break-in gone wrong. Though the file started to contain more after years. Case history. Placement records. Medical notes. Funding approvals. Transfer documentation.

Administrative things.

He scrolled.

He told himself he was looking for proof that this was a misunderstanding. That they had not really been gone for months. That there was some clerical error. Some delay. Some explanation that would let him reframe this as something manageable.

What he found instead was a pattern.

Placement after placement. Short stays. Notes about “adjustment issues.” Comments about difficulty integrating into foster homes. Repeated language that treated Y/N like a problem to be solved rather than a child to be protected.

Bruce felt a familiar, distant frustration at the system. At social services. At Gotham. At how broken everything was.

He did not, at first, include himself in that list.

He skimmed faster, eyes catching on dates and locations. One placement made him stop.

His jaw tightened as he read the address.

He remembered that case.

He remembered the investigation into illegal meta testing. The traffickers posing as foster parents. The missing children. The lab equipment hidden behind suburban walls. He remembered shutting the operation down personally.

What he did not remember was seeing Y/N’s name anywhere near that file.

Because he had never looked closely enough.

The realization made his stomach twist. Y/N had been in that house. They had lived there. They had been tested. Though they had been returned when it was found that they did not posses the meta-gene, they had been exposed to something that should never have been allowed anywhere near a child.

Batman had taken down the traffickers.

Bruce Wayne had never noticed his foster child had almost become one of their victims.

His hands curled slightly on the edge of the console.

He kept scrolling.

That was what he did when things became uncomfortable. He moved forward. He handled the next task. He told himself that action was the same as accountability.

Then he saw the email.

It was buried in the system, flagged as read months ago. A routine communication from Y/N’s social worker. The subject line was unremarkable. The kind of thing Bruce received dozens of times a week.

He opened it.

And froze.

The words were simple. Polite. Professional. It explained the exchange meeting. The potential for a new placement. It mentioned that this might be Y/N’s last chance before aging out of the system. It said, plainly, that Y/N had expressed that it would mean a great deal if Bruce attended.

Bruce read it once.

Then again.

Then a third time, slower.

He searched for something. A justification. A note that he had responded. A calendar entry. Anything that suggested he had done more than let it disappear into the endless flood of administrative noise.

There was nothing.

He had signed forms. Approved funding. Given instructions to Alfred. Told himself it was temporary. That interfering too much would only make it harder for Y/N to adjust. That silence meant things were fine.

He had treated them like a case file.

A situation to be managed.

A foster.

Not a child who had asked, in the smallest way possible, for him to show up.

Bruce leaned back in the chair, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. His eyes stayed on the screen, but he wasn’t really seeing it anymore. He was seeing patterns. Years of them.

Delegating care.

Assuming resilience.

Mistaking quiet for stability.

He had built his entire life around noticing what others missed.

And he had missed this.

The guilt was not sharp. It was heavy. It pressed down on his chest in a way that made it difficult to breathe.

After a moment, he straightened.

Because Bruce Wayne did not know how to sit with guilt.

He knew how to investigate.

He pulled up the file for the new guardian. Mr. Hale. The name meant nothing to him. That alone should have been reassuring. It was not.

He began the background check out of habit. Procedure. Due diligence. The least he could do, he told himself, was make sure Y/N was safe.

Minutes passed.

Then more.

The cave was quiet except for the soft hum of machinery and the faint sound of data processing. Bruce’s eyes moved quickly across the screen.

Then they stopped.

His posture changed.

Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone else would notice. But something in his expression hardened, his jaw setting as a cold, familiar dread settled in.

This was not right.

Bruce did not finish reading everything.

He did not need to.

He reached for his phone instead.

“Family meeting,” he texted, his thoughts steady in a way that did not match the tension in his chest. “Batcave. Now.”

The screens continued to glow behind him.

The name 'Mr. Hale' still open.

And for the first time, Bruce Wayne was no longer in denial.

Wow!! Longest chapter so far! Honestly, this is one of chapters I’ve anticipating to make since I started this fic!!

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!!

Word count: 5420

It meant uncertain. It meant unpacking only half a suitcase. It meant learning not to ask questions with answers that could change overnight.

They had been in foster care before the Waynes—three homes before them, technically four if the group placement counted. Each one had started with reassurance. Each one had ended with the same quiet conversation, the same careful phrasing.

They’re a good kid, but…

We don’t think we’re the right fit.

They’d be better somewhere else.

So Y/N went back to Gotham’s emergency list.

And every time, Bruce Wayne signed the papers again.

It wasn’t affection. It wasn’t insistence.

It was availability.

The social worker explained it once, apologetically, while Y/N sat in the hallway pretending not to listen.

“Mr. Wayne is registered as an emergency foster. Short-term placements. Transitional cases.”

Temporary.

So when weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, Y/N didn’t ask why no one ever said anything about it.

They learned not to.

Bruce Wayne never meant to be cruel.

That was the worst part.

He forgot Y/N’s age regularly—not in the way people joke about forgetting numbers, but in the way that suggested the number had never mattered in the first place.

“How old are they now?” he asked Alfred once, as if Y/N weren’t sitting at the dining table.

“They’ll be sixteen in March, sir,” Alfred replied smoothly.

Bruce frowned. “Already?”

Y/N stared at their plate.

Bruce referred to them as the foster when speaking to staff. Not unkindly. Just… administratively.

“Is the foster settled?”

“Have the foster’s forms been updated?”

“The foster won’t be staying long-term.”

As if saying it enough times would make it true.

Bruce assumed silence meant adjustment. That no complaints meant no problems. That if Y/N needed something, they would ask.

Y/N stopped asking after the third time a request was met with, “Alfred will handle it.”

Dick tried.

That almost made it worse.

He greeted Y/N like a breeze when he was around—warm smiles, easy jokes, a hand on their shoulder as he passed through the room.

“Hey, kid.”

Always kid. Never their name.

He promised movie nights and pizza orders and trips into the city. He meant it when he said it.

He just never remembered.

There was always something else. Someone else. Another sibling already waiting, already known, already woven into his life.

Dick didn’t notice the pattern. He didn’t see the contrast.

He just assumed Y/N was fine, because they smiled when he spoke and never complained when plans fell apart.

Jason didn’t try at all.

Y/N learned quickly to give him space.

He answered questions with clipped responses, eyes sharp, posture tense. Like Y/N was something that might explode if handled wrong.

“Don’t,” he snapped once, when Y/N lingered too close in the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Y/N said automatically, backing away.

Jason watched them for a long second, jaw tight, then turned back to whatever he was doing.

He never explained.

He never apologized.

He never learned their name beyond what he had to.

Y/N learned to stay quiet around him. Learned that some doors were better left closed.

Tim barely registered their existence.

He talked around Y/N, not to them. Conversations flowed as if Y/N weren’t in the room at all.

“We should reschedule,” Tim said once, pacing. “We all agreed on Thursday.”

Y/N had been sitting there the entire time.

We, apparently, did not include them.

When Y/N tried to speak—tried to add something, anything—Tim talked over them without even noticing.

It wasn’t personal.

That was the problem.

Barbara was polite.

Which was worse than being ignored.

She smiled, nodded, asked neutral questions with safe answers. School. Weather. Generalities.

She never asked how Y/N was doing.

When conversations drifted toward feelings or discomfort, Barbara redirected them effortlessly, like steering a conversation away from a closed road.

“That’s just how things are sometimes,” she said once, kindly. Final.

Y/N learned not to push.

Stephanie laughed things off.

She thought Y/N was odd—not in a cruel way, just in a why are you still here? way.

“You’ve been here, what, forever?” she said once, half-joking. “That’s kinda weird, right?”

Y/N smiled weakly.

She never invited them anywhere. Never thought to. Y/N wasn’t part of her mental map of the family.

They were just… there.

Cassandra stared.

Long, quiet looks that lingered too long to be comfortable.

Y/N didn’t know what she was looking for.

Cassandra never approached. Never spoke. Just observed, like Y/N was something unfamiliar she couldn’t categorize.

Then she would leave without a word.

Y/N stopped trying to interpret it.

Damian made sure Y/N understood they didn’t belong.

“You are temporary,” he said flatly, more than once.

He insulted them casually, cruelly, as if stating facts.

“You are weak.”

“You are unnecessary.”

“You are in the way.”

Sometimes he stepped too close on purpose. Sometimes he blocked doorways, forcing Y/N to wait or retreat.

No one stopped him.

Y/N learned to take longer routes through the manor.

And Alfred—

Alfred was kind.

Formally so.

He addressed Y/N with perfect manners. Ensured they were fed, clothed, housed.

But when Y/N hesitantly mentioned feeling left out, forgotten, invisible—

“They’re quite busy, dear,” Alfred said gently. “You mustn’t take it personally."

He never raised the issue. Never advocated. Never pushed.

It was not his place.

So Y/N stopped bringing it up.

There were family dinners Y/N wasn’t told about until they were over.

Birthdays passed quietly—cards unsigned, cakes uncut.

Meetings happened behind closed doors. Laughter echoed from rooms Y/N wasn’t invited into.

They learned the rhythm of the house without ever being part of it.

Learned which footsteps meant conversation, which meant silence.

Learned how to disappear.

By fifteen, Y/N understood something no one had ever said out loud.

They were not family.

They were an obligation that had overstayed its welcome.

Temporary, in everyone’s mind.

Permanent, only in reality.

That night, alone in a room that had never quite been theirs, Y/N stared at the ceiling and made a quiet decision.

They would stop hoping.

It hurt less that way.

Time blurred on prolonged missions like this. The sky above the ruined structure had shifted from night to predawn and back again, clouds cycling unnaturally as if caught in a loop. The air smelled wrong, metallic and old, like something unearthed that should have stayed buried. The source of the crisis sat at the center of the site: a stone construct half-swallowed by the earth, carved with symbols that pulsed faintly whenever anyone drew too close.

Superman hovered several meters above the ground, hands glowing faintly as he reinforced the containment field for what felt like the hundredth time. His expression was calm, but Batman could hear the strain in his voice through the comms when he reported the same thing again.

“It’s stable for now,” Superman said. “But it’s not resolving. Whatever this is, it keeps rebuilding itself.”

Wonder Woman stood near the perimeter, sword lowered but ready, eyes fixed on the structure with a warrior’s patience. She had already tested every myth she knew, every binding oath and divine restraint she could invoke. None of them had taken hold for more than a few minutes.

“This is not a curse from any pantheon I recognize,” she said. “Nor is it demonic in origin. It is older. Or perhaps simply… wrong.”

Flash paced nearby, boots crunching against broken stone. He had tried vibrating through the structure, circling it at impossible speeds, even running interference to disrupt the energy flow Batman had mapped earlier. Nothing stuck. Every attempt reset itself, as if the crisis were learning.

Martian Manhunter floated closer, eyes glowing red as he extended his senses once more. He withdrew a moment later, visibly unsettled.

“It resists telepathy,” J’onn said. “Not through defense, but absence. There is nothing to push against. It is as though the construct does not acknowledge intrusion.”

Batman had already reached the same conclusion an hour ago.

He stood at the edge of the sigil radius, cape still, cowl lenses flickering as he overlaid scan after scan. Energy readings spiraled inward instead of outward. The symbols were not spells in the traditional sense. They were instructions, self-correcting and self-reinforcing. Technology could not rewrite them. Force only fed them.

They had neutralized alien invasions, gods, and living concepts before. This was different. This was not a threat that reacted emotionally or strategically. It simply existed, and existence itself bent to accommodate it.

Batman shut down one of his scanners and exhaled slowly.

“We’ve exhausted our options,” Flash said, breaking the silence. “No offense, B, but this thing is officially outside the usual toolbox.”

Superman lowered himself to the ground, boots cracking the stone. “He’s right. We can hold it. We can’t fix it.”

Wonder Woman turned toward Batman. She did not argue. She never did when she saw the conclusion forming behind his eyes.

Batman did not like variables he could not anticipate. He liked them even less when they wore human faces and spoke in half-truths. But the mission came first.

“There is one option left,” he said.

They all knew who he meant.

Batman keyed his comm, jaw tightening slightly as he opened the secure channel.

“We need magical backup,” he said. Then, after a brief pause, he added the name he had been avoiding since the first hour of the mission.

“Get me Constantine.”

He didn’t smile when the channel confirmed the request.

He simply turned back toward the structure, already calculating how much worse things might get before help arrived.

Constantine shows up hours later, smoke and ozone clinging to him like a second coat, trench rumpled and expression sour. The moment he steps into the perimeter, the air shifts. Not relief. Irritation.

Flash is the first to open his mouth. Batman doesn’t stop him.

“You know,” Barry says, arms crossed, exhaustion barely masked by forced humor, “usually when we call for backup, we’re not looking for a dramatic late entrance.”

Constantine doesn’t even slow his stride. “Usually,” he fires back, “I’m not in the middle of preventing something that would’ve made this mess look quaint.”

Superman steps in before it escalates, voice calm but firm. He explains the situation, the artifact, the failed containment attempts, the way the phenomenon keeps reasserting itself no matter what they try. Diana adds context, the symbols etched into the stone too old to be purely arcane and too deliberate to be natural.

Batman listens. He has already catalogued the changes in Constantine’s posture, the tension in his shoulders, the irritation that isn’t just performative. But that isn’t what pulls his focus.

Constantine didn’t come alone.

The second presence stands slightly behind him, not hiding, not inserting themself either. Their stance is relaxed, weight evenly distributed, hands visible, eyes taking everything in without urgency. No costume meant for intimidation. No attempt to announce importance.

Batman recognizes them immediately.

Wiccan.

He doesn’t ask who they are. He already knows. He has met them, the brief introduction Zatanna insisted on months ago. He’s heard about them from his children, fragments of stories threaded with admiration and unease in equal measure.

What he doesn’t understand is why they’re here.

“Why did you bring them,” Batman says, voice level, gaze fixed on Constantine.

Constantine stops. Slowly turns. His expression sharpens, irritation coiling into something more guarded. “Because they were with me when you called.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“No,” Constantine agrees, unbothered. “But it’s all you need.”

Batman holds his stare. Pushes once more. “This isn’t a training exercise.”

Constantine’s jaw tightens. “And they’re not a child.”

Silence stretches, brittle. Before Batman can respond, Martian Manhunter gently interjects, asking Constantine if he can help, if he recognizes the construct anchoring the phenomenon.

Constantine exhales, long and annoyed, then gestures for someone to continue the briefing. As the League explains what they’ve tried, what failed, what nearly worked, Batman shifts his attention back to Wiccan.

They are listening. Truly listening. Their gaze tracks the speaker, flicks briefly to the structure in question, then back again. No impatience. No visible nerves. When Batman’s stare lingers a second too long, Wiccan notices.

Their eyes meet his.

Instead of bristling, instead of posturing, Wiccan tilts their head slightly, curiosity clear and unguarded, as if Batman is simply another variable worth understanding. It is not the reaction he expects, and that alone makes them dangerous.

Batman continues to analyze them anyway, already adjusting risk parameters.

Constantine clears his throat loudly. “Right. Good news is, I think I know what’s going on.”

That earns him the League’s full attention.

“And better news,” he adds, glancing back at Wiccan, “you’re all going to be very glad I brought them along. Because without their help, this thing doesn’t get fixed.”

Batman’s jaw tightens

The mission does not resolve all at once.

It begins to resolve.

That distinction matters to Batman, because it tells him everything about the kind of magic now operating inside the containment perimeter.

Constantine takes the outer problem first. He moves through the site with the ease of someone who has already accepted the worst outcome and is therefore impossible to intimidate. Sigils are scratched into the ground, counter-wards spoken under his breath, smoke curling as charms burn down to ash. The pressure in the air lessens, not dramatically, but enough for Flash to stop vibrating on the spot and for Martian Manhunter to relax his mental shields by a fraction.

And then there is Wiccan.

They step forward without ceremony, stopping a few meters from the structure anchoring the phenomenon. The artifact, if it can still be called that, is less an object now than a wound in space. Light bends wrong around it. Sound dulls near its surface. Every attempt the League made earlier had either been rejected or absorbed, feeding the instability instead of correcting it.

Wiccan studies it quietly.

No incantation. No visible preparation.

Batman narrows his focus immediately.

Most magic users telegraph their effort in some way. Breath control. Emotional fluctuation. A shift in posture that signals strain or escalation. Wiccan does none of that. They simply raise one hand, palm open, fingers relaxed, as if greeting something skittish rather than hostile.

The air responds.

Not violently. Not with a surge or backlash. The distortion tightens, subtle lines of force drawing inward like fabric being smoothed instead of torn. The shrill hum the structure has been emitting drops half a register, then steadies.

Batman feels the change before he finishes seeing it.

The phenomenon is no longer expanding.

It is listening.

That thought settles into his mind unbidden, and he immediately dissects it, trying to locate the assumption underneath. He watches Wiccan’s face for any sign of exertion. There is none. Their expression is focused but calm, eyes steady, breathing even. No flaring aura. No surge of power that spikes his sensors.

They are not overpowering the anomaly.

They are guiding it.

Batman shifts position slightly, adjusting his angle so he can see both Wiccan and the structure’s reaction. Energy readings fluctuate, then stabilize into a pattern that almost resembles compliance. The edges stop tearing outward and begin folding back toward the center, slow and controlled.

That is when Batman starts asking questions.

“What are you changing,” he says, tone neutral, pitched low enough not to break their concentration.

Wiccan does not look at him. Their gaze stays fixed on the structure as they answer. “I’m not changing it.”

Batman notes that immediately.

“Then what are you doing.”

“Reminding it where it ends.”

The response is technically meaningless. Philosophically loaded. Batman files it away without comment.

Constantine snorts quietly from behind them. “Always with the poetry.”

Wiccan’s mouth twitches, but their focus does not waver.

Batman steps closer, careful not to cross whatever boundary Wiccan has implicitly set. He watches the structure react as they shift their stance, sees how the distortion tightens further, as if reassured by their presence.

“What happens if you stop concentrating,” he asks.

This time, Wiccan does glance at him. Just briefly.

“It drifts,” they say. “Like anything unattended.”

No denial. No claim of permanence. That matters.

“And if you were interrupted.”

Wiccan considers that for a fraction of a second. Batman clocks it. Not hesitation. Calculation.

“Then someone else would need to be certain instead.”

Batman’s attention sharpens.

“Certain of what.”

“That this doesn’t get to exist like this anymore.”

The structure pulses once, then settles again, almost as if responding to the statement.

Batman feels a chill crawl up his spine that has nothing to do with temperature.

He has faced reality-warpers before. Most of them break things because they cannot tolerate uncertainty. Their power flares when their emotions spike, when their control slips, when fear or anger pushes them to force an outcome. That volatility is dangerous, but it is also predictable.

Wiccan is neither volatile nor forceful.

Their power is steady because they are steady.

Batman watches as Wiccan makes a small adjustment, fingers curling slightly, and the anomaly responds by folding another unstable seam inward. No explosion. No backlash. No resistance.

Reality is not being rewritten.

It is being persuaded.

Batman continues, voice even. “What are the limits.”

Wiccan exhales slowly. “Mine, or reality’s.”

“That answer implies they’re different.”

“They are.”

Batman studies them again, this time less as a potential threat and more as a system he does not yet understand. “What keeps you from overreaching.”

Wiccan’s attention flicks back to the structure, and for the first time there is something softer in their expression. Not doubt. Understanding.

“Because belief isn’t the same as desire,” they say. “You can want something very badly and still know it isn’t true.”

Batman latches onto that immediately.

“And certainty.”

“Is alignment,” Wiccan finishes. “When what you want, what you believe, and what you’re doing all point in the same direction.”

The structure stabilizes further, as if punctuating the statement.

Batman does not respond right away. His mind is already moving, connecting this to everything he has observed. No emotional spikes. No strain. No collateral damage. The restraint is not imposed from outside.

It is internal.

Superman lands nearby, eyes never leaving Wiccan’s work. “They’re being careful,” he says quietly, not to Batman specifically but to the group at large. “More careful than most people with far less power.”

Diana nods. “This level of restraint usually comes from discipline. Or from understanding the cost.”

Batman hears both comments. He files them away.

The structure reaches a point of near-complete stabilization. Constantine steps in again, layering his own magic over the now compliant anomaly, sealing it rather than fighting it. The difference is immediate. What had resisted for days accepts the containment without protest.

Flash lets out a low whistle. “Okay, yeah. That’s new.”

Wiccan lowers their hand. The air remains steady.

No recoil. No exhaustion.

Batman watches closely for delayed effects. There are none.

That is the most alarming detail of all.

He turns his attention fully to Wiccan now, questions still forming, sharper ones waiting behind them. He has learned enough to understand the shape of the threat.

They do not force reality.

They convince it.

And conviction, Batman knows better than most, is not something you can easily take away once it is perfectly aligned.

The mission is no longer spiraling. The crisis is contained. The League begins to stand down, tension bleeding out of the space in small, human ways.

Batman remains still.

Watching.

Calculating.

Because he has just seen a kind of power that does not need chaos to be dangerous.

It only needs certainty.

The site feels smaller once the crisis is over.

Not physically, but perceptually. The pressure that had weighed on the air for hours is gone, leaving behind the odd hollow sensation that follows a narrowly avoided disaster. The structure at the center of the operation is inert now, sealed and dormant under layered containment. Constantine finishes the last of his work with a cigarette clenched between his fingers, muttering a final charm that settles like dust into the wards.

The League regroups without ceremony.

Superman checks in with Flash and Martian Manhunter, making sure there are no lingering effects. Diana speaks quietly with Constantine, her tone respectful but firm, already discussing follow-up precautions. Zeta tube coordinates are exchanged, Watchtower protocols reasserted. The rhythm of normalcy begins to reestablish itself.

Wiccan stands slightly apart, hands folded loosely in front of them, posture relaxed in a way that suggests the tension never truly reached their core. Constantine drifts closer to them, already halfway into his usual irreverent commentary about League bureaucracy and mystical red tape.

Batman watches.

He always does, but this time there is a pause in him that does not go unnoticed.

He does not move immediately when the League begins to break formation. His mind is still turning over observations, cataloging behavior, replaying fragments of conversation. He has already learned what he came to learn tactically. What remains is something less tangible, and therefore harder.

Acknowledgment.

It is not something he gives lightly.

Batman steps forward.

The shift is subtle, but it is enough. Conversation ebbs. Constantine glances sideways, a knowing smirk already forming. Superman stills, attention sharpening. Diana’s gaze flicks toward Batman, measuring. Wiccan looks up, surprised but not alarmed.

No one interrupts.

Batman stops a respectful distance away. His posture is rigid, cape settling behind him as if bracing for impact rather than conversation. When he speaks, his voice is even, but there is an unfamiliar stiffness beneath it.

“Your assistance was effective,” he says. Precise. Deliberate. “The outcome would have been significantly worse without it.”

Wiccan blinks once, then smiles. Not wide. Not triumphant. Just warm.

“I’m glad we could help.”

Batman nods once, as if confirming a data point. He continues before the moment can stretch too long.

“Your control is… noteworthy,” he says. The word sounds carefully chosen. “You demonstrated restraint under conditions that would have justified escalation. That is not common.”

That, more than the praise, draws attention. Superman’s expression softens. Diana’s brows lift slightly. Constantine looks openly entertained now.

Wiccan inclines their head. “I appreciate that.”

Batman does not soften. He cannot, not fully. “Power of that magnitude carries inherent risk,” he adds. “Intent does not negate consequence.”

Wiccan does not bristle. They meet his gaze steadily. “I know.”

The simplicity of the response disarms something in him, just a fraction.

After a brief pause, Wiccan speaks again. “It meant a lot to be trusted with this. To work alongside heroes like you.”

There is no flattery in it. No attempt to curry favor. Just sincerity.

Batman holds their gaze for a second longer, then nods again. A dismissal. A conclusion.

“That will be all.”

Constantine snorts. “Warm as ever, Bats.”

Batman ignores him.

Wiccan steps back, already turning with Constantine as the mage gestures toward a shimmering portal forming nearby. They offer one last smile to the group, a small wave, and then they are gone, the air closing behind them without ceremony.

The moment they vanish, the tension breaks.

Flash grins first. “Wow. Did anyone else just witness Batman say thank you, or am I hallucinating again.”

Superman chuckles softly. “It counts. I think.”

Diana’s smile is knowing. “Growth takes many forms.”

Batman turns away, cape swaying as he heads toward the nearest zeta tube. He does not respond. He does not slow.

The teasing follows him anyway, light and relentless, but he lets it wash past without reaction. His focus has already turned inward again.

His children were right.

Wiccan is disciplined. Thoughtful. Careful in a way that cannot be taught quickly, if at all. Their power is not rooted in chaos or impulse, but in certainty that does not waver under pressure. They are a good person.

That does not make them safe.

Reality manipulation never is.

Trust is not a plan. Respect is not a safeguard.

As the zeta tube activates and the world dissolves into light, Batman’s mind is already outlining contingencies, not born of fear or malice, but of responsibility.

Because certainty, once aligned, is one of the most dangerous forces in existence.

And it is always better to be prepared.

Gonna be honest, don’t know if I really like this chapter, got tires half way through, but I wanted to post today since I didn’t post yesterday

Anyway, two more chapter before the ending(s)

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter (more than I did)!!!

Word count: 3028