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Constantine double takes when he looks at Batman. “Thought you didn't like magic, Bats.”
Batman looks at him, then growls out, “I don't.”
Huh.
“You've got a helluva lot of it round you for someone who doesn't like it then.”
“What are you talking about.”
Constantine rolls his eyes. Has the man never heard of a question mark?
He mimics the mass of magic that's clustered over Batman's mouth on his own face, “The magic that's tied to you.”
“What magic.”
No way. “Do you not know?”
The deep colour of it-. It's well-established. It's not new, it's been around for a while.
And Mr must-know-everything-at-all-times didn't know. Didn't even notice.
It's strong magic too, not subtle. Batman should have noticed. John's not the one to ask about this kind of stuff though, it's more Zee’s area than his. Demons he can handle. What looks like a- he doesn't even know-. Not his area. It's only because he's just banished a demon, and still has the leftover sensitivity that he saw it at all. But John's not the bloke living with it.
He says, “Ask Zee, she'd know better than I would.”
“Hn.”
And not even a thank you for telling him about it. He shouldn't be surprised.
*****
The trail leads Zatanna and Batman to a rooftop in what Batman informs her is called Crime Alley.
For a moment, the trail leads up.
And then someone dressed head to toe in red- and god- it's glistening- like it's- like it's fresh blood- comes tumbling onto the roof.
Then he chirps happily, “Finally come looking for me, boss?”
It's so-. It's deeply unsettling, hearing that tone of voice come from someone who looks the way he does.
But she tilts her head just so, squints just right, murmurs “Wohs em eht cigam” to renew the spell, and then she can see that the magic that's tied to Batman does lead to this man right here.
Batman says, “Who are you.”
Excellent question. What the heck is going on with this guy. She'd say possession - the pattern of it looks like a ghost possessing someone, but the rest of it-.
There's a thread -thick as a rope- tying him to Batman-. To Batman's mouth. Part of the thread stretches away into the distance - she'd followed that first, into the Batcave, and the lonely Robin suit displayed there. There had been a lot of magic there too.
And some of the thread is pulling in from all over Gotham itself. That part she can understand - there are no magicians in Gotham to use up the ambient magic, so there's a lot of it. And high density ambient magic can end up doing some odd things. In Gotham, it mostly feeds into the various curses.
But for this guy, it isn't. Unless it is a curse.
Though when she'd touched the magic that was attached to Batman, it hadn't felt malicious. However, it might be different on this end. Not a curse on Batman, but a curse from him. Not deliberate, not from Batman: he doesn't like magic. But something said with enough intent, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, with too much ambient magic around-. Yeah, she can see that happening.
And Batman doesn't always say the nicest things. (She's known Nightwing for a long time, and though he doesn't say anything against Batman, his friends certainly do.)
The person hasn't replied.
Batman says, “You're the one they call Red.”
She can see why.
But the person, they don't react quite right. They freeze.
Batman keeps talking, “You kill people in Crime Alley.
"Do you fancy yourself a vigilante?”
“Do I-?”
Batman intones, “You are not. Vigilantes do not kill.”
The stranger says, “B, you said, reckless, arrogant, treats it like a game. Violent, angry, murderer.
"Well, here I am. Exactly like you wanted.
"Don't you tell me I shouldn't kill.”
He's grinning. The tone of his voice though, doesn't match. At all.
God, she's just realised-. Under all that red- that grin, those clothes-. He's not dressed in red, he's covered in it. And underneath, he-. He looks like Robin.
She says it out loud, “You look like Robin.”
“Yeah.” He nods at Batman, “He said, ‘and most of all I loved the thrill of being Robin’, so that's what I am. Because I ‘want it so badly’.”
It doesn't sound like he wants it. And the expression on his face is-. At the surface level, it's a grin. Underneath, though, it's not. It's an expression so so far from anything happy.
Batman says, “Why do you look like that.”
“Like what, B?”
“Like my son just after he died.”
The kid looks at him, and asks, “What else would I look like?”
Bruce flinches.
She says, “Stop it, you're hurting him.”
The way he's talking, he expects them to know something, and they don't. Like there's something obvious that they're missing. It's disconcerting.
He looks at her, then grins again, but it's darker this time, and says “They think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you! The fools!”
What's wrong with him? (There's something so so wrong here.)
Then he looks back at Batman and says plaintively, “I can feel it, every time! Every time you do it, every time you say something, you change me-. It hurts, B.”
If he's-. If he is a ghost. The magic tying him to Batman's mouth- tying him to the Robin suit-.
If it isn't just that he looks like; if it's that he is-.
She says, almost silent, “Robin?”
He looks at her.
Oh god. He actually is.
Nightwing had told her about him. He'd been a kid.
And now he's- this.
(He looks so similar to Dick as a child-)
He smiles this time, and it's awful, it's gut wrenchingly sad, and he says, “Ding ding ding, we've got a winner.”
Bruce mouths, ‘No.’
Robin says, “I look like this because this is how you talk about me. This is what you want me to look like.”
If- if what he says is true-. That every time Batman says something about him, it changes him-. He's-. He's a ghost. A restless ghost. Who's no longer at peace because Batman keeps talking about him-. And whatever Batman is saying about him, he has to become-. (Because it seems he hadn't been those things, not until Batman said he was. That's what it sounds like - if every time Bruce says something about Robin, and it hadn't been true about the living child, it changed the dead child to fit what was said-.) And it hurts him to be changed like that.
If Robin is right, and she thinks he is-. God, it is a curse.
Bruce finally speaks again, “My son knew I loved him. And he-. He felt the same. You aren't him.”
Robin looks back to Batman, and the playfulness comes back, but it's awful to watch, because it's forced playfulness, because that's what he has to be, because Robin is playful-. “Aw, come on, Boss. You're not a girl, or a car, or Neapolitan ice cream. How'm’I supposed to be able to love you?”
Bruce is almost frighteningly pale.
“If you are him, why are you here.”
“You said it. Without you, I'd be part of the criminal element. The inevitable path of crime! Well, ta-da, here I am.”
Bruce begs, “Please, why aren't you taking this seriously.”
“You said, ‘treats it like a game’. So that's what I'm doing.
"C'mon, aren't you having fun?”
Quietly, “But you aren't treating it like a game."
Robin cocks his head like a bird, face blank, watching Batman as he talks, “I might not have known it was you, I might have been unable to find you, but that doesn't mean I wasn't looking.
"You try to help people, don't you. Even if you are misguided in your methods. And yet you say you are unable to care.”
Robin bursts out furiously, “No, stop it!”
Bruce doesn't reply.
Robin turns away, then back again, whines, “Stop it.”
He goes back and forth across the roof once more. “Don’t go changing the narrative now.
"I can't care. That's because of you. Because of what you said about me. But I know what I want to care about, and that's the people here.
"You asshole.” He's crying now, but he keeps talking.
“I know what I want to be.
"Don't you dare think that even you can stop me.”
Batman says, “Jason.”
“No!
"I can't, because of you, but I am trying-!”
He breaks off, scrubs his face.
God, this kid-.
Then he bares his teeth, “One thing at least. You said rebellious, never listens, doesn't follow orders.
"So I don't have to do a single thing you say.”
(Everyone here knows that's not true, not with that curse on him.)
He twists away again. Then he says quietly, “It's not what you meant when you said it, but you still said it: I loved girls and getting into fights. So-. The girls I love are here, the working girls, y'know? An’ I get into fights protecting ‘em.”
Oh, this kid. To be able to bend a curse even that much takes real strength.
If it is him, and she truly thinks it is-. She can see why Dick grieved his death so hard. (She can't speak for Bruce - she wasn't friends with him then.)
Then like watching a car crash, Robin says, slowly, “You- You just said, you might not have known it was me, when you were looking.
"When you came here, with her, looking for magic. You didn't know it was me.
"You were looking for the magic, you weren't looking for me.”
He spins around, hunches in on himself.
“Why don't you ever come looking for me?”
Bruce says helplessly, “I would have come looking if I'd known you were here, Jason.”
Robin turns around once more. He's crying again, but he says “But you never do. It's always if you'd known, and you don't.”
“Jay-lad-.”
“When I was in Ethiopia-. You didn't know I was there. You were on a mission, doing something else.
"And even now, you didn't know I was here, you were just looking for the magic!
"Don't tell me you'd come looking for me because you wouldn't! You don't!”
Bruce looks gutted, like he's been cored open.
She steps in. “Jason?”
Jason steps back. He wipes his face roughly, “Yeah?”
She needs to get him off this topic. If he is a true restless ghost, it will be bad if he gets too upset. “You're right, I am here, looking for the magic. Could you tell me about it?”
“Um. Yeah.”
He sniffs again, then says “The first time I woke up, I was… It was my body that woke up. I think. But I got out, and then I was in a hospital for a bit. And then I was in the Alley.
"And then…I woke up again. And I was like this.
"Does that make sense?”
No, it doesn't. The second part, yes; the first part, no. His body woke up?
She asks, “Can I examine you?”
After a moment, he nods.
Okay. She'll check the first part - she murmurs, “Tahw si eht eman fo siht luos?”
Well, it's definitely Jason. Also Robin. A little worrying that this child considers his masked identity to be so much a part of him that it's part of his soul. Especially if it's part of the curse. Especially since he's a restless ghost to boot.
And now for the second part: this has the potential to be very messy. If it is Jason's body, then what the hell. No one noticed his body just get up and walk away? If it isn't, then he's possessing someone else's body, and she'll need to exorcise him - and that will be devastating for both Jason and Bruce. But there's only one way to find out. She murmurs, “Tahw si eht eman fo siht ydob?”
Also Jason. Well, that's a relief. But-.
She asks, “How long have you been like this, Jason?”
“I don't-. I don't know.”
Okay, that is not great.
“Can I?”
He nods.
“Woh gnol sah siht ydob neeb dessessop?”
Oh no. That's really quite a while.
And no one noticed?
This kid is apparently possessing himself, because that's so normal. And it bears repeating, no one noticed?
His body is clearly not where it should be, because it's here instead. It was apparently open for possession by just any old spirit, they just got lucky that it was his own. And the reason that it is his own spirit is because he's a restless ghost, because whatever Bruce has done disturbed his rest.
And-! “Era ouy desruc?” confirms it -Bruce has been accidentally cursing him. For a long time.
Well, this is one goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.
Bruce says, “You're my son, Jason. You can come home.”
Jason exhales, long and drawn out. It howls, like a Hollywood ghost moaning eerily.
Then he says, “Ohhh, B. You gotta believe it, for it to matter.”
Oh jesus. Oh jesus christ.
Jason's eyes slide away from him, looking into the distance. He muses, “Y'know, you once said that for every action in this universe, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Consequences, Robin. There's no escaping them.”
Bruce is deliberately motionless, “Yes. I did say that.”
“Do you remember why you told me that?”
“I told you that because Felipe Garzonas had died, and José Garzonas tried to kill us for it.”
“Yeah. ...That's right. ...Fathers kill for their sons.
"And you didn't, for me.
"I might not remember everything all the time, but I do know that much.
"So... you might be my father, but I'm not your son. Maybe that's why you've done this to me.”
God. This is horrifying. There's a child who was dead and now isn't, who's been cursed instead of being able to return home-. And instead of being able to choose who he is, and what he wants to do, even what he wants to look like-. He's this. He's a child, covered in blood, forced to be-. Alone.
And what he'd said he'd been forced to become, by Batman's own words - and she cannot deny it, not with the evidence of the curse visible to her-.
The curse that was spoken into reality by Batman, dark knight, hero of Gotham.