Archive of Our Own

Tim finally realized something was wrong when heat seized low in his abdomen and he nearly got skewered in the spleen by one of Ra’s ninja.

Instinct saved him. Reflex, training, muscle memory carved into him from his time as Robin.

Not that he was Robin, anymore.

Tim twisted, let gravity take him, let the blade skim air where his abdomen had been a breath before. He hit hard, rolled, came up with his bo staff the next instant. The body of the ninja hit the ground, unmoving.

Tim didn’t savor it.

He landed in a crouch, breath ragged, pulse roaring too loudly in his ears. Heat bloomed again—worse this time—radiating outward, crawling up his spine, tightening behind his eyes. His vision tunneled. For a terrifying half-second, his hands shook.

That was new.

He forced himself still, cataloguing sensations the way Bruce had drilled into him when pain threatened to override reason.

Elevated heart rate

Dizziness

Sweat that wasn’t just exertion

A stabbing, pulsing cramp radiating internally just above his crotch

Feverish. Antsy. Irritable to the point of snapping at shadows. Homesick in a way that made his bonding glands itch.

Tim swallowed hard and tasted copper.

Europe had been bad for him. He’d known that from the start. The farther east he went, the worse it got—sleep fragmenting into useless slivers, appetite vanishing, nerves crawling under his skin. He’d blamed stress and the constant proximity to Ra’s and the League. Hypervigilance stretched too thin.

But stress didn’t do this.

Another wave hit, sharper, stealing his breath. Tim bit down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, grounding himself in the pain. The ache twisted, coiled, demanded in a way that set off every internal alarm he had.

Then, the too-sweet scent of honey permeated the air.

“Oh,” he whispered to the unconscious body at his feet. “You have got to be kidding me.”

He was entering a presentation heat.

Fuck.

He’d been convinced he was a Beta. Everyone had been! What else was he supposed to think? He was nearly seventeen! Far too old to be presenting!

When he hadn’t had a presentation to confirm he was a Beta, he’d just… assumed he missed it while he’d been busy training under Bruce and Lady Shiva in his early teenage years. Beta presentations were known to be subtle. People missed theirs all the time.

Not Tim Drake, apparently.

Double fuck.

“This can’t be happening,” he muttered, backing up slowly, eyes locked on the ninja that could wake up at any moment. A fresh cramp hit, answering his denial with brutal certainty.

They could wake up at any moment… and smell Tim’s newly-leaking Omega scent. And run off to inform Ra’s al Ghul.

Tim swore under his breath and moved.

He didn’t finish the mission.

That alone would have terrified him under any other circumstances.

He ghosted out of the compound with ruthless efficiency. The League would assume retreat, recalibration. Ra’s would be displeased, but would not be suspicious. Not yet.

Tim didn’t slow until he was three rooftops away, then five, then gone into the warren of narrow European streets he’d already mapped as emergency exits. By the time he ducked into an abandoned metro access and sealed the hatch behind him, his hands were trembling again and sweat was sticking his hair to his temples.

“Okay,” he told himself quietly, pressing his forehead to the cool metal door. “Okay. Think.”

He was a Bat.

Even if he no longer wore the mantle of Robin… even if the world had fractured sideways and left him holding too many responsibilities alone—he was still a Bat.

That meant plans. Contingencies.

Tim forced his breathing into a measured rhythm, in through the nose, out through the mouth, counting heartbeats. An instinct in the back of his mind pushed back, dissatisfied, heat rolling through his core in slow, relentless waves. He shivered and bit back a whine. Something in him was begging to find someone to cuddle up with, to cover him with their body like a living blanket. Engulf him entirely—

Sex pollen contingency.

The memory steadied him.

Years ago—after a mission gone sideways in Santa Prisca, after Ivy’s spores had nearly turned a mission into a disaster zone—Tim had drafted a protocol no one else knew about. Not Bruce. Not Dick. Not even Alfred.

An emergency chemical override designed to suppress involuntary arousal and presentation symptoms long enough to escape, isolate, and survive.

It had never been meant for this.

Still shaking, Tim pulled the capsule from a hidden seam in his gauntlet. The glass vial glowed faint blue, the liquid inside thick and opaque. He hesitated for only a second—just long enough to adjust the dosage.

“Emergency presentation heat,” he muttered, fingers flying over the gauntlet interface as he rewrote parameters on the fly. “God, who would have guessed?”

The Omega instincts that were waking up in his hindbrain flared in protest as the injector hissed, cold biting into his thigh. Tim gasped, back arching as the suppressant hit his bloodstream like liquid ice. The heat didn’t vanish—but it dulled, edges blunted, the roaring demand forced into a simmer.

Not gone.

But manageable.

For now.

Tim sagged against the tunnel wall, sweat cooling rapidly on his skin. He stayed there for a full minute, breathing deep, focusing on his nerves, deliberately smothering the Omega’s reactions the way he’d been trained—layering logic over instinct, control over want.

“I’m fine,” he told the dark around him. “I’ve got you handled.”

The lie tasted familiar.

He couldn’t stay in the field like this. That much was obvious. Even dampened, the heat was too close to the surface, too easily triggered. One wrong scent, one alpha too near, and he’d lose control.

Unacceptable.

Decision made, Tim rerouted.

By the time he reached the quarantine bunker—a forgotten Cold War relic Tim had repurposed into a safe house—the suppressant was already beginning to fray. The door sealed behind him with a heavy thunk, cutting off the outside world entirely.

The bunker was sparse by design. Concrete. Steel. One emergency terminal. A sink. A ration locker he didn’t bother opening.

And a single metal-frame bed bolted to the floor. The mattress was bare, relatively clean, and definitely not enough for a heat.

Tim barely made it that far.

He hit his knees, breath tearing out of him as the Omega clawed up from suppression, furious at being caged. His skin burned, every nerve ending screaming. He stripped armor with shaking hands, movements jerky, uncoordinated, pieces clattering to the floor.

“Easy,” he gasped, crawling toward the mattress. “Easy—fuck—”

There was nothing easy about it.

He dragged the mattress out of the frame, muscles trembling as he hauled it into a corner, instinct screaming for enclosure. His cape came last—he fumbled it off, then gathered it around himself, fabric familiar, not the same as his Robin suit but close enough to dream of Gotham and home.

He curled over it, spine bowed, knees drawn tight.

And the heat ate him alive.

Hours blurred. Days maybe. Time fractured into flashes of sensation—burning skin, dry mouth, a desperate, aching need for touch that made him whimper and whine and keen into the cape just to hear a sound that wasn’t his own pulse.

He sweated through everything. Fever dreams tangled with memory. His body demanded and demanded and demanded. Slick was gushing everywhere, desperate for release his body couldn’t get.

On the fourth night—or what he thought was night—he exhausted himself enough to dream.

Snow-white hair.

Cool hands against his overheated skin, gentle and impossibly steady. Fingers brushing his temple, his throat, grounding him with a touch that knew.

I’ve got you, birdie.

The voice echoed through him, vast and kind and distant all at once.

Tim woke sobbing.

He was on his side, cheek pressed into his cape, arms curled around it like it was the only thing keeping him in one piece. A spring from the bare mattress dug into his shoulder. His throat burned. His tongue felt swollen, stuck to the roof of his mouth. For a second he couldn’t remember where he was, and then the bunker’s stale air rushed back into his lungs and reminded him.

Concrete. Steel. Silence.

No windows. No daylight. No Gotham.

No home. No Pack.

No Mate.

“Oh, hell,” he rasped.

His body answered with a weak cramp low in his belly—an exhausted aftershock rather than the raging furnace from before. The heat hadn’t stopped so much as it had burned itself out, leaving him hollowed out and raw, like the inside of him had been scraped clean.

He breathed carefully, shallow at first. His head pounded with every heartbeat.

Dehydrated. Severely.

He blinked until the ceiling stopped wobbling. His gaze snagged on the bunker wall—featureless concrete marked only by the faint line of a seam and a small metal vent. He stared at it for a long moment, anchoring himself to something that didn’t move.

Step one, he told himself. Don’t die. You have things to do, Timothy Drake-Wayne, and you can’t find Bruce if you’re dead.

Tim rolled onto his hands and knees.

The motion made his stomach lurch and his vision spark. He paused, elbows trembling, breath shaking in and out like he’d sprinted up a fire escape.

He’d been sweating for days. Leaking slick and other fluids. He hadn’t eaten. Probably hadn’t drunk at all.

That should’ve killed him.

It hadn’t, and he didn’t have the luxury of being surprised.

Bruce’s training—pain tolerance, compartmentalization, the relentless insistence that the body was a tool and panic was a liar—was a framework Tim could still hold onto even now. Lady Shiva’s lessons were worse and better: control through cruelty, survival through precision. She’d taught him what the edge of collapse felt like and how to stand there without falling.

Tim crawled.

Each movement was deliberate. Palm. Knee. Palm. Knee. The sink was only a few feet away, but his body acted like it was a mile.

He reached the metal basin and fumbled the tap open. Water sputtered, then ran cold and clear. Tim stared at it like it was a miracle, then lowered his mouth and drank.

Too fast at first—desperation overriding reason—until his stomach threatened revolt. He forced himself to stop, panting against the basin, hands white-knuckled on the rim.

“Slow down,” he told himself, voice cracking. “Let’s not… let’s not vomit, thank you very much.”

He forced himself to drink slowly, instead. Measured, controlled sips of metallic tap water.

When he could finally swallow without pain, Tim sat back against the wall with his knees drawn up. The cold concrete pressed into his spine. He let the water settle in his gut like it would make him stable again. A ballast for the rocking ship that was Tim Drake, Fired-Robin.

His Omega stirred faintly, fevered and sore and needy. Nest? Pack? Mate?

His skin prickled with irritation, and he forcibly shook away the instincts. Not now.

Tim breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, long and even, until his heart rate dropped. Then he pressed two fingers to the side of his neck and counted. His pulse was still fast, but steadier.

Okay.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked down at himself.

He was a mess.

Armor scattered across the floor where he’d stripped it off in a fever. Gloves discarded. Utility belt half-open, compartments exposed like he’d tried to rip it apart for something that could help soothe the fire. His cape was twisted on the naked mattress like the world’s most pitiful nest.

Tim stared at it, jaw tight.

Heat.

He’d read about it, of course. As a vigilante of Gotham, it was important to recognize the signs of heat and assist where needed to get affected individuals home or to heat-safe hospitals. But knowing theory was not the same thing as enduring it himself.

Heat was not erotic, not romantic, not a convenient excuse for drama.

Heat was a hostile takeover.

It had pried him open and attempted to take the reins of his control entirely. It had turned his skin into a live wire and then demanded someone else touch it. It had made him weep in his sleep like a child because his brain had conjured comfort in the shape of a stranger.

Tim curled his fingers into a fist until his nails bit into his palm.

That can’t happen again. Not where someone can find me.

That was the first promise. A vow made of spite and fear and the cold certainty that the League would eat this alive if they ever got a whiff of it.

Ra’s al Ghul had offered an alliance with Tim, before. To give Tim access to what he needed in exchange for Tim overlooking and improving the League.

He’d been on the edge of accepting, before. He didn’t have anyone else who believed him enough to offer their resources, and Tim needed those resources to find Bruce.

That was back when Tim was a Beta, though.

Now that he was an Omega… Tim Drake would be a prize to be won. A bargaining chip. Someone to breed.

Tim shivered, already picturing the predatory gleam in Ra’s eyes when he found out.

…If he found out.

Because Tim couldn’t afford for that to happen.

Not until he found Bruce.

He ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching on sweat-dried tangles. His scalp hurt. Everything hurt. It was the kind of pain that came from dehydration and muscle cramping and being wrung out like cloth.

His eyes burned with exhausted grit.

“How long,” he rasped, and then realized the bunker wouldn’t answer him.

There was a clock somewhere in his belt—digital, internal—but he couldn’t bring himself to check it yet. Time felt slippery. It had been one day, maybe two, maybe four. The dream had happened only once—he was sure of that, because it had left a ghost of cool touch behind his eyes that hadn’t faded.

Tim closed his eyes.

Birdie.

His Omega reacted immediately, a soft, yearning pull in his chest that made Tim’s throat tighten with anger.

“No,” he said aloud, sharp. “No. You don’t get to fixate on a hallucination.”

But it hadn’t felt like a hallucination.

It had felt like… inevitability.

That was the scariest part.

Tim opened his eyes and forced himself to stand. He paused when his vision greyed at the edges, leaning heavy against the concrete wall of the bunker letting his blood pressure catch up. When his legs stopped wobbling, he moved to the ration locker.

There were protein bars. Electrolyte packets. A few sealed bottles.

Tim’s hands shook as he tore a bar open and chewed mechanically. It tasted like sawdust and regret in his mouth, but it didn’t matter. He needed calories. He needed to rebuild what his body had spent.

While he ate, his mind started doing what it always did: turning to what he needed to do.

Tim swallowed hard and forced down another bite.

He was back at square one.

Or—mostly.

He still had his research. His notes. His suspicions, the threads that had led him here in the first place. Bruce hadn’t simply vanished. Bruce had been moved. Displaced.

Tim had been chasing that truth across continents, pulling at whispers and artifacts and contradictions, because the official story didn’t add up and Tim Drake didn’t know how to stop digging even when it ruined him.

Now he had a new variable in his way: Tim’s own body.

Omega status meant the way he moved through the world had changed overnight. It meant he couldn’t take meetings the way he used to. He couldn’t afford to be cornered, even briefly, by someone who might smell weakness and decide they were entitled to take what they wanted.

It meant his pursuit of Bruce had to go in another direction. One Tim didn’t have the same amount of control over.

Tim finished the protein bar and rinsed it down with water. His stomach still felt sour, but the dizziness eased a fraction.

He went back to his armor.

Piece by piece, he rebuilt himself.

His limbs were still sluggish and the idea of sealing himself into rigid plating made his skin crawl. But he needed structure. Familiar weight. He needed to feel like Tim Drake again, not a fever-drenched animal curled in a pitiful nest of fabric.

He inspected the armor as he went.

Scuff marks. Micro-tears in the plating from the last fight. One shoulder seam cracked where his body had twisted too hard. His gauntlet interface blinked low battery.

He worked anyway.

Fixing gear was something he could control. It gave his hands purpose. It gave his brain something technical to bite into instead of spiraling.

When he reached the compartment that held the suppressant capsule, he froze.

Empty.

Of course it was empty. He’d used it.

Tim stared at the slot for a long moment, then exhaled through clenched teeth.

He’d designed the contingency to be a stopgap, not a lifestyle. One dose to buy time. One dose to get out.

Now he would need more.

He went to his kit and started inventorying what he had. Not much. This bunker was meant to be a last-resort quarantine, not a workshop. It had enough for injuries, enough for emergency operations, but not enough for complex pharmacology.

Tim could make something crude. He could jury-rig suppressants, alter his body chemistry with stimulants and sedatives and the kind of ugly solutions he’d used when the world and his body refused to cooperate.

But crude solutions meant side effects.

And side effects meant mistakes.

And mistakes meant dying—or worse, falling unconscious in a European warehouse with Ra’s al Ghul’s men dragging his body all the way to Turkey.

Tim wiped sweat from his brow and forced himself to breathe.

He needed information.

Arcane knowledge. Magical knowledge.

The thought tasted bitter.

Tim didn’t like magic. He didn’t trust it. Magic was rules written in a language Tim didn’t know how to audit. No spreadsheets. No predictable parameters. No clean chain of cause and effect.

But he’d reached the end of what pure research could do.

If Bruce was lost in something that looked to be influenced by time itself—if the evidence Tim had found was even remotely accurate—then Tim needed a door that wasn’t on any map.

He needed someone who understood the seams between worlds.

His mind supplied names immediately, like he’d been waiting to admit it.

Zatanna, if she was amendable.

… And Constantine.

Tim’s jaw tightened.

Constantine was a last resort. Only if it was necessary for Tim to sell his soul or something to get Bruce back.

Which—fine. Tim could admit it.

He was desperate.

He’d sell his soul if it meant Batman could be returned home to his Pack.

But he wasn’t stupid. He knew those kinds of deals came with more drawbacks and loopholes than they were worth.

…Though Tim was rapidly approaching the point of having no better options.

He could feel his Omega stirring under his ribs, hungry in the quiet. It was aware of vulnerability, of loneliness, of how far he was from his Pack.

…His Pack.

The phrase stabbed him in a tender spot in his heart.

Tim’s pack wasn’t a soft thing. It was messy and complicated and full of sharp edges. More so, now that Damian was there to try and stab him when he slept at the Manor. Or with Jason attempting to pummel him into the ground with cutting nicknames like Replacement and Pretender. But it was also familiar voices and rooftops and Alfred’s tea and the way Dick’s laughter always sounded like sunlight.

It was Bruce, his dad.

Tim shoved the thought down before it could crack him open. He couldn’t afford grief. He couldn’t afford longing.

He needed to move.

He finished hydrating, slowly, methodically. He forced down another protein bar. He mixed an electrolyte packet into water and drank until the tremors eased.

Then he went to the emergency terminal.

The screen flickered to life with a low hum, casting pale light across the concrete. Tim’s fingers hovered over the keys for a second before he started typing.

He pulled up an encrypted channel. Old, but reliable. One he’d built for situations where he couldn’t risk Gotham surveillance.

He hesitated only once—at the point where he had to decide what truth to tell and what truth to bury.

His Omega stirred again, pressing at the inside of his chest like a warning.

Don’t.

Tim swallowed.

He wrote the message anyway.

Need consultation. Urgent. Non-negotiable.

Looking for information on time displacement, dimensional bleed, or non-linear realms.

Reply with safest contact method.

He stared at the cursor blinking at the end of the last line, then added:

Do not loop in the Bats. Do not loop in the Justice League. Solo only.

-R

He sent it.

The terminal chimed softly—confirmation.

Tim leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

His body was still weak. His heat had only just ended. He really should be resting, recouping. He hadn’t rested for much of the four days he’d endured his presentation heat.

He was isolated, hunted, and now biologically compromised.

And still—underneath it all—his mind was sharp.

A detective’s mind. A Bat’s mind.

If Bruce was lost in time, Tim would tear those seams open with his own hands if he had to.

He breathed in, deep, and forced his nerves to settle. He smothered the Omega’s restless yearning like he’d smothered panic a thousand times before—firm, relentless, refusing to let it steer.

“Okay,” he whispered into the bunker’s stale air. He forces himself straight and heads for the exit. “Let’s keep moving.”

The hatch door seals shut behind him with a hard, final thunk.

Tim chose the meeting place carefully.

An abandoned tram station on the outskirts of Vienna—far enough from the city that no one would stumble into it by accident, protected by Tim’s mobile firewalls just enough to keep out casual surveillance but not so heavily that it screamed look here, something’s happening. 

Neutral ground.

He set the last tech scrambler and stepped back, rolling his shoulders once to loosen the stiffness that still lingered from the heat. His body felt… fragile. Thin-skinned. Naked, as though he weren’t wearing armor at all.

He didn’t like it.

Tim checked his watch. “Showtime.”

The air in front of him folded. Blue-white light spilled across the platform, illuminating graffiti and old warning signs in sharp relief.

Zatanna Zatara appeared like she’d always been standing there.

She took in the station in one sweep of her eyes, heels clicking softly on concrete. Dark coat, gloves, hair tied back. She looked tired.

Her gaze snapped back to Tim.

She stilled.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “You didn’t say anything about that.”

Tim didn’t play dumb. “About what.”

Zatanna gestured at him. “What’s up with the new get-up? Trying something new?”

“Not relevant.”

Zatanna snorted, folding her arms over her chest. “That’s never true.”

She took a step closer, then stopped herself—respecting his space, his Omegan hindbrain noted. Her magic brushed his senses like static, cautious and restrained.

She exhaled. “I don’t sense any prevalent injuries, curses, or hexes on you.” A pause. “But you’re not stable, either. You look exhausted. Drained. When’s the last time you slept?”

Tim crossed his arms. “I didn’t ask you to come here to diagnose me.”

“No,” she agreed. “I’m bringing it up because you’re a friend, Robin.”

The name stabbed into his heart. He bit back a flinch.

He forced himself not to respond to it.

“I’m looking for Bruce,” Tim diverted. “I know he didn’t die. I have reason to believe he didn’t stay in our timeline. And I believe conventional methods won’t reach him.”

Zatanna closed her eyes for a second.

When she opened them, her expression was carefully neutral.

“I can’t confirm or deny any of that, you know that.”

Tim nodded. He did know. Magic was finicky enough as it was. He knew better than to expect Zatanna to work with something dangerous.

That didn’t mean Tim couldn’t learn a thing or two from her.

Zatanna shifted on her feet and sighed. “I’m not going to speculate on it, either,” she continued. “Not because I don’t care—but because guessing in situations like this creates paths. Some of them lead to places you don’t get to walk back from.”

Tim inclined his head slightly. Acknowledgment.

Zatanna met his gaze squarely. “...You’re going to keep looking into this whether I help or not.”

It wasn’t a question. She already knew.

Tim didn’t bother confirming.

“Tim,” she said more softly, eye closing briefly, “working against time—it’s dangerous. More dangerous than losing your life. You’re liable to rip the fabric of space-time itself if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Obviously. Tim raises a brow at her.

Zatanna rolls her eyes and smiles a little, almost like she can’t help herself. “Gods, you’re just like him. Stubborn and bull-headed. Someone should ask for a paternity test.”

She shook her head, still smiling a little. She looked a little sad.

“I won’t argue with you. I know how futile it is to argue with a Bat on a mission. Just. Be careful, alright? At least try and be smart about this. And call for me if you have questions, okay? I might not be able to answer… but I’d rather make sure you’re not about to become a smear in a dimensional slipstream, you hear me?”

Tim tilted his head. “Do you have information for me, or not?” he finally asked.

Zatanna huffed. “I don’t… but I know where you can find it. The House of Mysteries.”

Tim’s fingers twitched. “You mean Constantine.”

She nodded, apologetic. “Yes, I’m sorry about that. But Constantine is the only one I know who won’t have qualms telling you what you’re searching for.”

Dammit. Last resort it was, then. He nodded. “Very well. How do I get to the House of Mysteries?”

Zatanna lifted one hand, magic crackling in her palm. “Seiretsym fo Esuoh eht ot rood a laever.”

The space before them warped and folded inward. A door appeared, connected to seemingly nothing—large, wooden, and ornate. Completely out of place in the abandoned tram station.

“This isn’t a portal, Robin,” Zatanna warned him. “It’s an introduction. The House may not let you in at all. But it’s better to knock on the door and see if it will accept you inside than to face the consequences of barging in.”

Tim adjusted his grip on his cape and stepped forward. He raised a hand.

He nodded once to Zatanna. “Thank you for your help.”

Zatanna smiled tightly. “You better call before you get yourself torn to shreds, you hear me? Don’t die. And don’t make a time anomaly, I’m begging you.”

Tim smiled with all his teeth, fangs gleaming. “You know I can’t promise that, Zatanna.”

Then he knocked.

And the world went white.

Tim had expected resistance.

The House of Mysteries was infamous for it—temperamental, territorial, prone to rearranging itself just to make a point. He’d heard stories of magicians turned around in circles until they starved, of doors that led nowhere, of rooms that decided a visitor was unworthy and swallowed them whole.

He stepped through the threshold, prepared for anything.

Anything, except the door closing gently behind him.

Tim froze.

The air inside the House was heavy, saturated with what had to be old magic and older intent, but it didn’t press down on him. It didn’t probe at him. It didn’t even seem aggressive. If anything, it felt… curious. Attentive. Watching.

“Well,” Tim murmured, adjusting his stance, “that’s unsettling. Hello, House of Mysteries. Pardon the intrusion.”

The hallway ahead of him stretched long and straight, lined with doors that hummed quietly to themselves. Some were wood, some were stone, some were bare, and some a technicolor of magical seals. None of them obviously housing a wayward warlock named John Constantine. 

Where did he even start?

“Um…” he paused, feeling a little stupid to be talking to thin air. But. Sentient houses of ancient magic, and all that. He didn’t know enough about them to strike the possibility. “I’m looking for Constantine? Is he here?”

A door at the end of the hall creaked open obligingly.

Tim blinked.

“…Right,” he said softly. “Guess we’re doing this.”

He approached the door.

The smell hit him first. Cigarette smoke. Cheap alcohol. Old paper and ink. The sulfur-ozone tinge Tim associated with magic.

He stepped into a cluttered sitting room that looked like a hoarder’s dream. Books lay stacked in precarious towers. Bottles rolled lazily across the floor, clinking together when the House subtly adjusted its angle. A crackling fireplace was the only comfort Tim could see in the chaos of the room.

“Oi,” Constantine slurred, squinting at Tim through one half-lidded eye. “Who d’ya think you are, barg— bargin’—bloody hell—bargin’ in here while a bloke’s busy gettin’ properly pissed?”

Tim stood at the threshold of the room, considering the ragged man carefully. Perhaps this wouldn’t be an opportune moment to question him… or perhaps it was the best. “John Constantine.”

“That’sh what the paperwork says,” Constantine grumbled, lifting a half-empty bottle of whiskey and squinting at it like it had personally betrayed him. He tipped it back, swallowed hard, then winced. “Lyin’ piece’a shite.” He shook it once. “An’ you’re…”

Hm. Was it better for Tim to be truthful, or for Tim to lie? It was likely Constantine would forget this conversation happened no matter which route he took.

“I am no one of importance,” Tim settled on. He ignored the prickle at the back of his neck that was the House shifting its attention. Ignored the instincts screaming at him to leave. To flee. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Everyone’s lookin’,” Constantine muttered, waving a vague hand. “Usually for themselves. Or their mum. Or the bottom’a the bottle.” He peered at Tim again. “Which one’s yours, then?”

“This person didn’t disappear naturally,” Tim said. “The body that was found appears to be fake. A close fake, certainly, but not perfect. I have reason to believe the real person has been lost to the time stream.”

Constantine barked out a laugh when Tim explained, sharp and ugly. “Oh, piss off.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Fake body, time stream, tragic mystery—always is, innit? Never just ‘fell down the stairs’ with you lot.” He squinted at Tim. “You want me to fetch ‘im back with a magic wand? ‘Cause I left mine in my other trousers.”

Tim took that as an invitation to step into the room. The door closed softly behind him, and he fought the instincts telling him he was trapped. “I am looking for information. How I can find him, and how I can get him back.”

“Back?” Constantine threw his head back and giggled at the ceiling. “Oh, that’sh rich. That’s a good one.” He laughed again, then groaned. “Christ, if Time worked like that I’d’ve fixed my own messes years ago.”

He sagged forward, elbows on his knees, cigarette dangling dangerously.

“There’re places,” he mumbled, staring into the crackling fireplace, voice dropping into something distant and rough. “Places don’t give a toss ‘bout your clocks. Don’t tick. Don’t tock.” He waved his cigarette vaguely. “Time’s just… a suggestion there. Bit of polite advice.”

Harsh shadows danced across his face, making him look hollow-eyed and haunted.

“You fall into one’a those,” Constantine continued, words blurring together, “you don’t just go somewhere. You go… somewhen. Elsewhen. Before, after, sideways—” He snorted. “Bloody headache, is what it is.”

“And who can reach those places,” Tim asked steadily, “without tearing themselves apart?”

Constantine squinted at the fire for a long, unfocused moment.

“Mm. Not us,” he said at last. “Not mages. Not humans.” He paused, frowned. “Not even most gods. Spoiled gits.”

He leaned back in his chair, head rolling slightly as his eyes began to lose focus.

“Only ones who can,” he slurred, “are th’ones that don’t… don’t really belong anywhere. Never did.”

Tim’s breath caught. “Explain.”

“Nah. Done explainin’. Brain’s clocked out.” He lifted the bottle, found it empty, scowled. “Typical.”

“No,” Tim said quietly, hands curling into fists. “You’re not done.”

The House pulsed at him in warning, and he forcibly took a step away from Constantine and sucked in a steadying breath. The smoke and alcohol did nothing to soothe his mind, but the House did ease up on him.

Constantine tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, eyelids fluttering like moth wings.

“Only things that can step across all of it,” he murmured, voice drifting, “are the ones born outside the rules. Or the ones that died an’ didn’t stick the landing.” A faint, crooked smile tugged at his mouth. “The in-between. The glue holdin’ the whole mess together.”

Tim leaned forward. “The In-Between? Is that its name?”

The mage lifted his cigarette and took a long, uneven drag, the ember glowing bright red.

His eyes slid shut as smoke spilled from his nostrils like a dragon breathing fire.

“The Infinite Realms,” he muttered.

And then Constantine’s head lolled to the side, hand going limp, a wet, rattling snore tearing out of his chest.

Out like a light.

Tim stood there in the smoky quiet, heart pounding. That was it. He likely wouldn’t be able to get anything more out of the man.

Tim exhaled slowly through his nose. “....Figures,” he muttered.

Constantine snored on.

It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t dignified. It was the deep, rattling snore of a man who had crossed the line from drunk to gone, cigarette smoldering low between his limp fingers, his empty whiskey bottle having joined the many others littering the floor at his feet.

Tim hesitated, then moved fully into the room. He crossed it quietly and lowered himself into the armchair opposite Constantine, the worn upholstery sighing faintly under his weight.

He sat there and watched him, hands folded under his chin.

Not because he expected Constantine to wake up—though he’d learned never to rule that out—but because stillness gave him space to think. The House was quiet now, its earlier attentiveness receding into the background hum of old magic and older wood. No doors creaked. No shelves shifted.

It waited.

Tim leaned back in his chair and exhaled slowly through his nose.

The Infinite Realms.

The name rolled around his mind, snagging on everything it touched. Constantine’s words hadn’t been precise—he’d been too drunk for that—but they’d been coherent enough for Tim to believe him. There were beings in this so-called in-between place. A place outside the rules, outside the usual hierarchies of time and space.

Somewhere Tim could go to look for Bruce.

Tim glanced at Constantine again, just to be sure.

Still out.

“Of course,” Tim murmured. “You’d give me the best answer I’ve gotten so far and immediately pass out in a drunken stupor.”

He rubbed at his eyes, the fatigue settling in deeper now that the adrenaline spike had faded. He’d slept, technically, while he’d been in heat—but not enough. Not well. Not while his body had been a blur of need and fever and desperate for touch, any touch.

The cool fingers of his dream flickered unbidden across his thoughts, caressing his skin.

Tim shut that down hard.

Focus.

He needed more information on the Realms. Something concrete—definitions, structures, boundaries. He needed to know what kind of beings could reach everywhere and everywhen, and what rules—if any—governed them. What methods he could feasibly use to contact one and gain access to the time stream.

And Constantine was, apparently, no longer useful for that.

Tim shifted in his chair and looked around the room again.

“Okay,” he said quietly, not addressing Constantine this time. “I know you’re listening.”

The House hummed at him, turning that weight of heavy attention back onto him.

Tim fought back a shiver.

“There wouldn’t happen to be any… information, here, about these Infinite Realms that I could look through? So I don’t go doing something catastrophically stupid. I’m looking for my dad, not looking to start fights with interdimensional beings of unknown power.”

A pause.

Then—a soft, deliberate thump sounded next to him.

Tim’s head snapped toward the side table next to his chair.

There, a book lay that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

It was thin. Almost deceptively so. Its cover was dark leather, worn smooth by use, the edges frayed. No title marked the front—only a faint symbol etched into the surface, visible only when the firelight caught it at the right angle.

Tim did not reach for it right away.

He waited, counting his breaths.

Then there was another sound—heavier this time. A solid thud that made the table creak in protest.

A second book appeared beside the first.

This one was a monster.

Its spine was thick and reinforced, the cover stiff beneath old bindings. The pages radiated a low, constant hum that made the fine hairs on Tim’s arms rise. Dust puffed into the air as it landed, motes hanging in the firelight like frozen sparks.

Two books.

One slim. One massive.

Tim stared at them for a long moment, half-expecting more to appear. When nothing else did, he let out a quiet breath.

“…Thank you,” he said anyway, genuinely. It was much better than nothing.

The House creaked softly. Approvingly.

Tim reached for the larger tome first.

He frowned almost immediately upon seeing the title.

Ghosts?

The book was a comprehensive catalogue of paranormal entities—classifications, behaviors, manifestations. The kind of thing that would have been invaluable to a parapsychologist, or a very unlucky field agent hoping to not die via possession.

Tim flipped through it quickly, skimming for anything that referenced the Infinite Realms.

He found nothing.

“Seriously?” he muttered under his breath, huffing.

As if offended by the dismissal, the House stirred.

A sudden current of air rushed through the pages, riffling them forward in a blur until they stopped abruptly near the middle. Tim froze, then leaned in.

The margins were dense with notes.

Scrawled handwriting layered over the printed text, half-translated from Latin and what looked almost like Spanish—was that Esperanto?—into uneven English.

THE GHOST ZONE, it said, in big blocky letters near the top of the page.

Tim’s pulse ticked up.

The annotations were incomplete—fragments of theory and observation—but they painted a picture of a realm adjacent to reality, a place where ghosts did not merely linger, but actively existed within. Where time behaved strangely. Where boundaries thinned.

Half-finished runes crowded the corners of the pages. Sigils overlapped. There were diagrams that looked disturbingly like summoning circles, sketched and re-sketched as if the author had been refining the idea over time.

Tim pulled out his wrist computer and started documenting everything he found.

Every page. Every margin. Every symbol.

Once that was exhausted, he turned to the slimmer volume.

This one resisted him, as though it had rarely, if ever, been opened. When he finally managed to pry it open, the pages inside were brittle and yellowed, edges threatening to crumble beneath his fingers.

The inside cover bore a title.

The letters looked like English—but also like every written language all at once. He saw Spanish. French. Latin. Arabic. And many, many more. They were layered so densely they made Tim’s head ache to stare at them too long.

The Sealing of Pariah Dark.

The name meant nothing to him.

The contents, however, were terrifying in nature.

The book spoke of the Denizens of the Infinite Realms—beings of immense power, emotion, and longevity—being conquered by a Tyrant. A singular entity who wielded a Crown of Fire and a Ring of Rage, whose rule was so absolute it bent entire realms beneath it. How this Pariah Dark had commanded armies that had rendered entire universes to nothing but the thought of dust.

The language was clinical. Detached. Dense. Academic.

Which somehow made it worse.

It described how the Denizens had been unable to fight against him. How the Crown of Fire worked to enslave them to Pariah’s will. How it had taken beings referred only as Ancients to seal the Tyrant away instead—entombing him within something called the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.

At the very end of the chapter, written smaller than the rest, tucked carefully after the final paragraph as though to act as a continuation, there was a final note in a different hand.

The ink was faded. Reverent. Almost trembling.

It said:

“The seal did not endure.

Pariah Dark was unmade in a later age.

It was the ghost known as Phantom (“The Great One”) who rose against the Mad Tyrant—who returned him to the Sarcophagus of Eternal Sleep, took up the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage as his own, and ended a reign thought eternal.

Let this be remembered: even gods may fall, and something greater will rise from their ashes.”

Tim closed the book slowly, a chill crawling up his spine.

“…Okay,” he murmured to the quiet room. “That’s… noted.”

The House said nothing in response.

And Constantine snored on, blissfully unaware of everything.

Tim relocated to another safehouse.

As much as he’d appreciated the House of Mysteries’ willingness to help him, he thought clearer when he was in his own space without the weight of what seemed like a thousand eyes all looking down at him and judging his every move.

Plus, this safe house had computers with a functional internet connection.

He digressed.

Hours blurred together as he cross-referenced the pictures he’d taken of the two books, pulling threads from disparate sources and knotting them together by force of will alone. Then he took to research in earnest, pulling in anything remotely adjacent to his area of study: dimensional theory, paracausal mechanics, reports of temporal anomalies buried in declassified archives.

It was frustrating. Incomplete. Infuriatingly vague.

And it was the best lead he’d had in months.

Tim felt a grim smile tug at his mouth.

“Of course,” he muttered. “Why would it be easy.”

Over the next several days, he worked near-constantly.

He didn’t sleep.

Not really.

He drank energy drinks and the occasional water. He ate meal bars mechanically. Let his body run on momentum and stubbornness. The Omega in his hindbrain stirred now and then, restless in the background, but exhaustion dulled its edges enough that Tim could keep it contained.

Night bled into morning. Morning into night.

At some point, he realized a summoning circle was coming together in his insomniac scrawling.

If he’d been rested, he might have questioned why everything was coming together so quickly. It was too smooth. Too perfect.

Tim would recognize later—much later—that this was the moment everything stopped being chance. That he was being guided along each step of the way. Something—or someone—was guiding him by the hand to the correct answers.

At present, all Tim could feel was half-mad glee at being right. That he would soon be able to finally, finally find Bruce.

The warehouse sat abandoned on the outskirts of a nameless European city, a ribcage of rusted steel and broken skylights that let moonlight spill in like a wound. It was empty—large, echoing, caked with settled dust on unpolished concrete floors.

It was perfect.

Tim stood at its center, boots planted for maximum stability, and surveyed the circle before him one last time.

Every line was aligned. Every gap resolved itself the moment he understood what should be there. He’d barely had to correct himself. When something hadn’t worked, the solution had come to him unbidden—an adjustment here, a turn of phrase there, a symbol rotated just enough to change its weight.

At the time, he’d chalked it up to exhaustion and hyperfocus.

He didn’t question why it felt like the circle wanted to be finished.

Later, he would recognize the significance of this moment.

All things are as they should be, and all that cryptic nonsense.

Tim flexed his gloved hands, focusing inward for a moment.

The armor he wore wasn’t his.

Ra’s al Ghul’s armory had been extensive, curated with the kind of obsessive care that came from centuries of war. This set had a bird on its chestplate—and red, white, and yellow painting the armor.

Tim had taken it without asking.

It fit like it had been waiting for him, specifically.

He shook himself from those thoughts and stepped into position at the circle’s edge. He drew a slow breath, forcing his pulse to slow. His body still felt brittle—sleep deprivation and heat exhaustion gnawing at his edges—but he couldn’t stop now. Not while he was so close to finishing what he’d started.

“This is a bad idea,” he told himself calmly, eyeing the fucking summoning circle he’d drawn onto the ground.

He stepped forward anyway.

He pulled a small blade from his belt, clean and narrow. Hesitated only a fraction of a second—then pricked the end of his thumb.

Blood welled up immediately, hot and bright.

Tim crouched and let it drip into the final groove of the circle.

The reaction was instantaneous.

The etched lines ignited in a color Tim would never mistake for anything else.

Lazarus Green.

The light flooded the concrete, seeping into cracks, reflecting off steel beams overhead. The air snapped—like pressure equalizing across a vast distance—and the temperature dropped so fast Tim’s breath fogged.

Then the gravity hit.

It was as though the world had decided Tim weighed three times what he should. His knees buckled. He caught himself on his hands and knees, ungloved palms scraping against concrete as the pressure forced him down to the circle’s edge.

“O-O-Ok-ay,” he gasped, teeth chattering as cold bit through the seams of his armor and seemed to completely ignore the thermoregulators built into his suit entirely. “F-Fuck, that’s not good—”

The circle screamed.

Not audibly—not exactly—but reality itself seemed to strain. The space inside the circle warped, bending inward like fabric pulled too tight. Light twisted. Shadow folded in on itself.

Something pressed from the other side.

Tim’s wrist computer flickered, systems screaming warnings as sensors spiked into nonsense. He struggled to shut off half of them manually, breath coming in short, sharp bursts as his eyes stayed pinned to the lightshow before him.

Inside the circle, space convulsed.

What emerged did not step forward.

It spread out.

Arms unfolded—too many of them—limbs extruding and retracting as if the thing couldn’t decide how many it needed. Eyes opened and closed across a surface that was not skin so much as depth, blinking like stars winking in and out of existence.

The shape condensed, pulling itself together with visible effort, collapsing inward until it resembled something vaguely humanoid—upright, towering, contained only by the circle’s precise geometry.

Tim squeezed his eyes shut as the pressure spiked again, pain lancing behind them like his skull might crack open.

The presence was overwhelming.

Cold. Vast. Ancient.

He could feel it looking at him—not just with its eyes, but with attention so focused it felt like being pinned down under a microscope.

The voice came then.

It tore through the air in fractured layers, overlapping echoes glitching in and out of coherence as if the concept of language itself was struggling to keep up.

“̴̡̨̡̭͎̲͉̰̳͖͎̼̼̱̻͚̭͍͎̠̮̲̂͋̎̃̋̔̊̾͝͝ͅW̴̢̛̱̰͌̅̓̈́̓̒̀̾̒̂͋̒̀̒̂̃̈́̉̕H̷̙͎̥̰̬͍̫̋̀̓̔̀̀̇̒̈̐̑̆̆̇̈̈́͘͝ͅO̵̧̰̞̮̫̿̂͆͗͆͐́̋͌͒̏͒͑̆̄̈́̂̍̈́͐̕ ̶̡̙̣̮̖̩̊D̴̺̐̂̃̊Ȧ̴̧̢̢͖̠̮͔̫̝̺̰̪̙̟̖̤͙̣͊̌̀̏͛͋̑͑̄̋͊̅͌̍͒̚͘͜͠͝R̷̰̮͋̒́̄͗̈́̎̔͊̀͛̚̕͝Ę̶̧̧̧̥̩̗̯̰̻͕̩̱̲̫̜̯̮̏̓̓̿̓̈́́̉̓͜͜S̷̨̩̭̬̳̤̣̤̙͖̞͓̬̳͈̮̬̲͕̺̱̀̈́̇̃̊̇̅͆̿͒̏̂̇͗͛̈́̈́̚͜—̷̢̡̨̤͍̲͚̱̻̞͇͈̬̗͎̻̘̞͖͖̑̃̃̈̇̈́̋̏̈́̃̓͐̌̕̚͜͜͜ͅS̵̢̡̧̨̨̢̡̲̠̫̺͕͕̱̻̫͎̳̰̰̜̜̟̈́̂̒̋̔͒͆͗͂͐͗̀͐͌̽͒̽̾̽̓̌̍͋̀͝͝ͅU̵̝̪̬̰̣͎̮͓͍̘̓͗̉̿̃̈́̋̓́̌̃͐̕M̵̫̍̔̈́̿͗͌̀͠M̷̨̖͖̤͖̱͇̗̮̩̞̭̝̫͖̎͒͌͐̋̈́̔͗͘̚͠O̵͕͚͓̘̺̊̿̂̂̓̈́̾̄̓͑͑̀̃͋͐̊͌̔̆̃̕͝ͅN̵̡̢̢̠̗̬͇͚̜͚̬̺̯̒̀̈́̆͗͐̒́̔͘͜͜͜͜—̵̧̡͓͎͍͚̜̥̥̘͖͔̺̳̼͍̙̘̹̝̠̫̰̠̊̈́̽̾̀̍̂̐̀͆͂͗̓͋̎͂͆͌̽̍̚͜͜͝M̷̛̛̤̬̯̬̱̜̟͉̦̺̘̝̮̺̹͖̮̱̝̻̏̑̐͋̓̓̌̇͌̏͑̑͊̈́͂̂̇͊̍͜͠͠͠É̸̢̘̙͖͍̠͂͒.̷̧̛̰͕̱̹͎̼͈̼͙͉̮̐́̀̽̈́̉̂̀͒̿́̈̃̒̿̓̒̍̾̉̀͊͘̚”̶̹̮̣̗̗̞̘̦̭̟̳̺̑̂̎́͜ͅ 

Tim’s teeth rattled. His hands shook violently where they pressed into the concrete. For one terrifying moment, he wasn’t sure he could breathe at all.

This was beyond anything he’d prepared for.

Beyond Constantine’s drunken ramblings. Beyond Zatanna’s refusal. Beyond the books, the circle, everything.

This being was the closest thing to a god that Tim had ever encountered.

Tim forced his lungs to work. Forced air in. Forced his panic down, deep, where it couldn’t interfere. Forced his inner Omega to stifle itself, keep the submissive whining internal only, where it wouldn’t break free.

“I,” he said—and his voice almost failed him, thin and raw against the weight of the presence. He swallowed, gathered himself, and tried again. “I summoned you.”

The pressure shifted.

Not lessened—but focused.

Attention sharpened.

The thing inside the circle stilled, its many limbs retracting further, its form tightening as if interested.

Tim’s hands would not stop shaking.

It wasn’t the cold—though the warehouse had become a tomb of frost, breath fogging thick in front of his face. It wasn’t even the pressure anymore. It was the accumulated debt of exhaustion finally coming due. Days without sleep. Days without safety. Days of running on stubbornness and grief and the fragile scaffolding of contingency plans.

Animal fear pressed down on him like a living thing.

He couldn’t breathe.

His lungs refused to expand fully, each inhale scraping shallow and useless against the weight bearing down on his chest. His heart hammered so violently he thought it might tear itself free. Every instinct he had screamed run, screamed submit, screamed curl up and make yourself small, and hopefully the predator in front of him would lose interest in such a pitiful meal.

The being’s attention felt like something physical. It slid over him like glacial water—cold, inexorable, intimate in a way that made his skin prickle beneath armor. Haunted. Stripped bare. As if every version of himself that had ever existed were being examined at once.

Tim bowed his head.

His forehead hovered inches above the concrete as his whole body trembled, teeth chattering violently. He focused on one thing—one single, stubborn anchor—his breathing. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Again. Again. Again.

Smother it, he ordered himself.

The Omega stirred and keened, distressed by the presence, instinctively seeking shelter or appeasement. Tim clamped down on it with iron discipline, forcing it back beneath layers of control and habit.

Not now. You don’t get to surface now.

Glacially—so slowly he almost didn’t notice at first—the weight eased.

Not gone.

Just… less.

Enough that his lungs could finally draw a full breath without searing pain. Enough that the shaking became something he could endure instead of something that might shatter him.

Tim didn’t know whether the being had let up on him or whether his body was simply adjusting to the pressure.

He suspected the distinction didn’t matter.

The voice came again.

Clearer this time. Still layered. Still wrong. But no longer tearing itself apart trying to exist in human sound.

“̶̟̍Ş̶̣̩̺͌̚p̴̖̑è̵̬̦̳̈̀a̶͓̺̫͒̋ķ̸̘͈̀̕͘̕,̷͓̻̬̓̈̚ ̸̉͜m̵̱͉̲̂̓͆̀͝ơ̶͎̣͊r̴̗̬̭̗̆̾t̷̟͗a̴͈͍̮̍l̵̀̂̎̑͒͜.̴͉͕͌̉̍̇”̶͙͖̗̫͉̅̀̕

The words reverberated through his very marrow.

“̶̛͔̭̃F̵͕̥̄̽o̴̫̍̉r̷̰̮̈͆ ̸̘͙̱̓ẅ̷͖́̀̉h̵̺̣̆͊̃͒͝a̶̝̱̘̘̅̾̆̚t̸̮̖͊̀̈́͝ ̵̙̲͚̔̊r̶̲͎̣̮̂͒̄̀ẹ̷̖͇́̈͐̽͘ͅa̶̫̣̩̹͍͒s̵̮̖̅͂ͅŏ̸̙̼̫ń̷̟̥̻̮̉̌̾̓ ̷̰̹̉̐̀̈h̷͔̼̒́͐a̶̡̩͍̜̖̍͑̀̈́̑ṽ̷̪̻̩ě̷̞͔̌̈́̋͒͜͜ͅ ̷̲͍̓̒͝y̶͎̠̖͗ò̶̫̮̗̅̒̀u̴̢̨͈͉͌̿ ̴̥͔̒̕͜s̴̨͈̠̬͚̅u̶̩͔͖̹͓͛m̵̰͚̈́ṃ̵̬̓̇̑o̶̧͙̱̳͊n̷̹̼̅̈͝ë̴͔́d̶̺̞̠̏͐̓ ̷̲͉̄͘ṯ̶̢̰̜̀̃͜͠h̴͖̎̃́̀͘i̴͇̋͊̃͘̚͜s̸̰̔͒͛̕ ̷̗͒͂̈́H̴̯̥͊͜͠i̵̢̢͔̠̚͜g̷͇̙̮̰̈́͑̔͆͘h̶̦̪͖͒̚͝ ̴̳̻͖̾̀K̵̮̩͓̟͔̑̈́i̵͓̇̂̂ṉ̸̘̬̺̄͐͑͠ͅg̷̦̾̐̆̿ ̶͔͂P̴͍̼̥̅̂̐͗̕h̴͈̤̺́͗́̈́̚a̶͙͐͒̚n̷͎̬̓t̷̼̜̲̤̲͒ö̴̢̯͍̩̱̒̎͛͋m̸̧̖̱̹̻̌͆͌̓̈—̷̺̔̏̄͝T̷̪́̓̀͗̃y̴͔̙͚͆͜r̶̛̘͓̩̠̐͊̿â̵̝̟̥̝͛̚n̴̡̲̠̻̖̎̃͝͠t̷͙̰̠͉̎ ̵̜̿Ś̷͎̆l̴͚̓̎̀a̸̳͑̓y̵̬̆̒e̷̤̲͆̒r̶͉̲̫͌̐—̴̰̌̑͐̍A̵̫̬̖̿̃̎̉͝n̶͖̪̅̈́̀̉̾c̴͙̗̝͊̔i̸̡̺̤̍͊̉͝é̴̗̯̫͙̓ṅ̵͇͓ͅt̸͈͖͚͋́̅͊̊ ̸̧͙͖̩͊̈͗͌͝ǫ̷͕̫̆̃͝f̴̠̊̂͗̇̀ ̶͔̺͇̠̃̅S̶͈̳̰̈́p̸̛͚͚͌̅͊a̶̗͚̲̓c̶̟͂̿̕e̸̡͚̪͂̌̋̍—̷̡̛̫͉͆͂̈͘B̸͊̐̒͜͝ą̵̠̳͖͒͗l̸̢̡̲̣̯̈́̃̉a̷͉̪͋̽͛ǹ̶̫̥͉̣͜ĉ̴̞̺͓̻͈͑e̶̛͚͂̽ ̶̨͖̗̝̻̒ȍ̷̢̝̜͕̺̇̀̈͗f̴̦̖͗ ̸̢͔̻̝̖̽̓̔͘L̴͍̫͔̣̭̃̅̇͝i̵̡̹̲̙͒ͅf̵̝̜̬̉e̶̝̤̼͚͔̾̈́ ̸͚̰͗̓͌̈́̕a̵̘̹̔̅ṅ̸͇̺͈̯ḍ̵̒̄͠ ̸͔̮̜̫̓̎̄̚͝D̸̹͆͆̆̊ę̶̣̻̯̲̔̌̕à̷̛̬͖͓̟̫̈́̓̈ţ̶̥͗̒̇̎h̸̢̢̤̳̠́̍̑̉?̴̻͇̻̮̗͊”̴̧̎͒

Tim swallowed hard.

He forced himself to lift his head.

The thing inside the circle had… simplified.

Convulsing limbs had folded inward. Excess arms had withdrawn into nothingness. The writhing mass of eyes had stilled, resolving into a form that the human brain could almost tolerate.

Almost.

Two arms. A long, powerful tail. Claws tipped in stark white that gleamed like ice against the Lazarus glow of the summoning circle. Hair swam in the air in a sheet of white so bright it hurt to look at directly. Beyond the white was an endless darkness, glittering like the cosmos itself was trapped within the being.

A universe, pressed into a shape.

Its eyes fixed on him—pupil-less, green and luminous. They did not blink.

Tim dragged himself upright with visible effort, muscles screaming as he pushed himself up to kneeling at the circle’s edge. His hands curled into fists against the concrete, grounding himself against the pain.

“I—” His voice cracked. He stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I am in search of a being who can traverse time,” Tim called out, forcing each word into place with careful precision. “I search for my father, who I believe to be lost in the time stream.”

The eyes did not waver.

“...I am willing,” Tim continued hoarsely, after a long stretch of uncomfortable silence, “to bargain my soul in exchange for the ability to find my father and return him home.”

The Phantom tilted its head.

The motion was… almost curious.

“̷A̷n̶d̷ ̸w̷h̷a̷t̴ ̵u̷s̵e̶ ̴d̶o̵ ̶I̴ ̷h̸a̷v̴e̸ ̶f̷o̴r̸ ̴s̷o̸u̵l̵s̷?̸”̷

The question was not mocking. Not cruel.

Simply factual.

“̸I̸ ̷a̷m̷ ̵t̸h̵e̵ ̴K̵i̵n̸g̸ ̵o̵f̶ ̴t̶h̸e̸ ̸D̷e̸a̶d̷,̸”̶ ̴the Phantom continued. “̸I̷ ̴p̴r̵e̴s̷i̸d̴e̶ ̶o̶v̷e̶r̸ ̸a̶l̷l̴ ̵s̶o̸u̶l̷s̶ ̶i̵n̵ ̴m̶y̶ ̷k̶i̵n̶g̷d̸o̴m̷.̸”̷

Tim’s breath stuttered.

That—he hadn’t accounted for that.

“I—” He faltered, exhaustion finally catching up to him in a wave of dizziness. Constantine made selling souls seem… easy. Enticing. But maybe that was for demons, not for ghosts. Fuck, he hadn’t considered that. Why hadn’t he considered that? He tried anyway, to convince this being otherwise, “Are living souls not more powerful, your majesty?”

The Phantom blinked.

Its tail shifted—and then split.

Seamlessly, impossibly, dividing into two powerful legs that landed just on the other side of the border of the summoning circle, bringing them so close Tim could feel the cold radiating from the being.

Phantom.

Defeater of the Tyrant, Pariah Dark.

Tim’s instincts screamed at him, and he very nearly fell back on his hands in hope that bowing would bring mercy to him. He held on by the very tips of his fingers.

Phantom spoke, again.

“In some ways,” it admitted, voice lower now, more… human. “Sure. But I have no need for living souls.”

Tim’s shoulders sagged. Exhaustion dragged down all of his limbs. His next words were drawn out of him without fear, fueled by that same exhaustion. “...I don’t know what else to offer,” he admitted, head sagging low. “I have nothing of value to a being such as yourself.”

The Phantom studied him. Its face was unreadable—cold space, sculpted into something approximating expression. Those burning green eyes bored into Tim, drilling through armor and flesh and bone alike, straight to his very soul.

Then it hummed.

“I may be amenable to granting your desire,” the Phantom said slowly, “should you allow myself to accompany you on your journey.”

Tim’s head snapped up.

Fear stabbed sharp and sudden into his lungs, stealing his breath. He jerked back instinctively, hands scraping against concrete.

“I—” He forced himself to go still and speak despite the panic. “I require a clarification, High King Phantom.”

For a split second, the Phantom’s form… glitched.

A flicker. A distortion. Like a corrupted frame of reality skipping.

Had it—winced?

No. That was impossible. Tim blamed the lack of sleep. The cold. His frayed nerves.

The Phantom’s shape settled again, pristine and terrifying.

“The politics of the Infinite Realms are endless,” it said flatly. “I require a respite from the nonsense.”

Its gaze sharpened.

“Creating a pact with you will ensure you find your father. And I ease my boredom.”

A pause.

“Do these terms sound agreeable?”

Tim stared at it, mind struggling to keep up.

That wasn’t how bargains went, was it? Where was the trick phrasing, the immediate price extracted, the grand demand of servitude or blood?

He should be more suspicious.

But… he was so tired.

Why hadn’t he rested before all of this, again? He knew the answer—because every moment spent sleeping was a moment Bruce remained lost. Because stopping felt like surrender.

He swallowed, regretting his past actions, and tried to power through and think.

“What happens,” Tim asked carefully, “after my father is found and returned home?”

The Phantom blinked.

A single, slow motion.

“You will no longer have need of my power then, won’t you?” it finally said. “So it would be best that I return you home and leave you to your mortal life.”

That—

“That’s it?”

It slipped out of Tim before he could stop it.

Tim clamped down on his nerves immediately, breathing deep, forcing his body to still. He shoved the Omega reactions back into their carefully constructed cage, refusing to let instinct override reason.

The Phantom studied him for a long, quiet moment.

Then it nodded.

Just like that.

Green light burst into existence between them, coalescing into a long scroll of parchment. Phantom seemed to glitch again violently before it snatched the scroll out of the air in a clawed hand. It unfurled it, scanned the contents with a cursory glance, then turned it toward Tim.

“Look over the contract yourself,” the Phantom said. “And sign if you are amenable to it.”

Tim leaned forward, vision swimming, and focused.

The contract was… fairly expected, considering everything.

Paragraphs of dense legal language. Clauses nested inside clauses. Conditions and contingencies and exit terms that made sense if you squinted. It was drowning in loopholes, he was certain.

If Tim had been even a couple of days less sleep-deprived, he would have devoured it whole and known it completely inside and out.

As it was, the words began to blur together.

He really should have slept.

Because, really, what he was reading…it looked less like a summoning pact and more like—

A marriage certificate?

That had to be a mistake. He wasn’t reading it right.

He should have been more concerned about the “for eternity” clause—about the vague, ominous language promising companionship “until purpose is fulfilled.” But really, as long as Bruce was found and brought home, what did it even matter?

As long as the interim Robin did what he had been created to do, then Tim’s purpose would be fulfilled.

His gaze trailed to the end of the contract.

For Eternity,

Daniel Jackson Fenton-Nightingale

____________________________

Phantom

High King of the Infinite Realms

Tyrant Slayer

Ancient of Space

The Balance of Life and Death

The Great One

-and-

Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne

____________________________

Robin

The Sleepless Knight of Gotham

The One Who Watches Behind the Lens

The Detective

Silvertongue

…or until one party wishes to close the bond—

Witnessed by Clockwork, Ancient of Time, Master of the Time Stream

Tim’s fingers traced over the name Robin.

It was the only word in the entire contract written in red ink, not black.

Did it somehow know? That he still thought of himself as Robin? That the mantle no longer technically belonged to him? Was this an error? A correction waiting to happen?

He looked up.

The Phantom stood unmoved, expression carved from ice.

“Do you accept these terms?” it asked again.

…If Phantom wasn’t questioning it, then Tim had no reason to bring it up, now did he?

As long as he got to find Bruce and bring him home, then Tim would do just about anything.

He inhaled a deep, steadying breath, and nodded.

“I do.”