Chapter Text
Look, ok, Tim didn’t mean for this to be a situation he’d be stuck in, but well, luck has never been on his side. It all started with Constantine because of course it did. Apparently, somehow, someway, someone had managed to steal the scale for the balancing of the hearts from Constantine’s collection of miscellaneous magical items. Now, normally, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, it’s not the actual scale; that’s still in the afterlife. Constantine should’ve been able to find it easily and return it. But no, somehow, whoever took it managed to create some sort of ritual that actually just straight up connected it to the actual scale and were now using it to rig the balancing in the favor of some very not good people.
So here Tim is, sitting here with Batman and a few other Justice League members listening to Constantine go over all of his information so they could help him track it down. Personally, Tim thinks the League members here aren’t going to be much help at all. Like what exactly is Flash, Green Arrow, and Superman even supposed to do in this situation? Even Batman won’t be much help. Wonderwoman might be able to help retrieve the artifact, but the rest of them? They don’t have very much experience with magic like this. Tim, on the other hand, could probably help quite a bit, but that would reveal one of his biggest secrets and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.
Tim tunes back into the conversation when Constantine stops talking about the artifact and the situation and possible locations. It seems Wonderwoman has a question and well, she always does ask interesting ones.
“With the scales tipped in the way of the dark, how will we return balance? Even when the scale is returned, will the balance not still need to be fixed?” She asks, and oh no, Tim’s tense now. There’s several answers to these questions of course, but one is a bit more relevant to him.
“There’s various groups already working to counterbalance that,” is Constantine’s response as he waves his hand dismissively.
Tim knows this isn’t going to be a good enough answer even before Batman opens his mouth.
“And who exactly are these other groups? And how are they helping?” Now would be a great time for some alarm to go off so there’s a distraction from this. Batman’s not going to like these groups if Constantine’s thinking about who he thinks he is.
“Why don’t we worry about that later?” Tim asks, knowing that it’s unusual for him to not want all of the information but he can’t sit here and listen to B’s response to these groups.
“Red Robin, it’s relevant information, you know better than to think we can wait until later for this,” Batman says, gruff as always. It hurts a bit to be scolded like this in front of the other members of the League.
“Ya won’t like most of them,” Constantine says with a sigh.
Apparently that opens the floor to the others and Arrow asks, “Isn’t that why we’d need to know?”
“I agree with Batman here,” Because of course Clark does, why wouldn’t he? “Shouldn’t we reach out and offer our help to them as well?” Oh no, that won’t end well at all. Tim’s watching his hope in Constantine not revealing this go up in flames.
“Fine,” Constantine sighs out, “There’s a few groups of people out there-nah not people, creatures fits better-they’re out there doin’ what they do best,” Dear lord why can’t he be direct enough to end Tim’s suffering already. He’s so close to just saying fuck it and telling them all himself.
“Yea? You said that? What do they do?” Flash pipes up. Kill people, Barry, they kill people. Tim’s so annoyed and so close to opening his mouth.
“They help keep the balance equal,” Constantine drawls out, “By doin’ things a much different way than we do,” Tim wants to hit his head against the wall. Please just say it already.
“Just tell us what it is already, Constantine,” Bruce growls out. You know what? No, Tim’s gonna go back to praying John doesn’t say it. There’s no way B will understand it at all.
“They go out and kill people, hunt them down, play games with ‘em,”
Batman lets out a deep growl at that and Tim knows exactly how he’s thinking about them. Tim knows B will hate the idea that they’re helping the balance by killing, he knows B will hate them. That’s why Tim’s worked so hard to keep them off B’s radar.
“Why would we trust them to help the balance?!” Superman lets out a shocked reply, “Wouldn’t they get more out of the balance being tipped?!”
Constantine lets out a sigh and takes a swig from his flask, “It’s called a balance for a reason, Supes.”
“We can’t stand by and let anyone just go out and kill,” is Batman’s response.
“Look, Bats, I get that it's your whole schtick to not like killin’. But the balance is a fickle thing, there has to be some good and bad to even it out,”
Tim’s so close to just confessing everything, if only to get Batman to stop glaring at Constantine. Why couldn’t this just be a simple meeting?
“Isn’t the whole point of us to get rid of bad things?” Flash asks, sounding just as confused as everyone else looks. Wonderwoman at least looks like the concept makes sense to her.
“You can’t be considered good without somethin’ bad to compare it to,” Constantine responds, “They aren’t just some crazy humans like the guys ya fight normally, they all came into bein’ for this purpose, some of ‘em have been around for thousands of years,”
“So they are things of myths? Gods?” Now it’s Diana’s turn to ask a question. She seems curious and Tim knows that if anyone will comprehend them she would.
“Suppose ya could say that. Some of ‘em would probably count,”
Batman grunts and opens his mouth again, “So who are they then? Just because they’re gods doesn’t mean we can’t stop them,”
“Their stories are spread on the internet, called Creepypastas or somethin’ like that, I can send ya them to look over if ya really care. Don’t bother goin’ to look for ‘em to fight against, ya won’t find ‘em unless they want to be found and ya won’t win in a fight with any of ‘em,” Constantine’s not completely wrong but Tim knows for a fact he can beat a few of them in combat, it’s not like he hasn’t before.
Batman grunts in affirmation and that seems to be enough to signal the end of the meeting and dismiss everyone. Tim stalls for a moment when Constantine locks eyes with him, it seems like there’s more to be said between the two of them.