Chapter Text
Bruce stared at the message, watching for a following message declaring the first a joke.
Can’t make it, Bats. Constantine had sent. Need to help a kid out with something.
When the hell had Constantine gotten a kid? Constantine was more the type to say ‘Fuck off I don’t feel like it’ than the type to make up excuses. That would suggest that Constantine had a kid, but when? Who was unlucky enough to have Constantine as a father?
The maybe-cursed kryptonite could wait. This warranted an investigation.
Death had shown up today, so Tim had called Constantine since the man had told Tim to call him whenever someone new and magical came. Death clearly wasn’t trying to collect his soul or anything, though.
They were baking cookies when Constantine got there and nearly had a heart attack.
“You’re baking cookies with Death?” he hissed. “What if she were here to kill you?”
Tim rolled his eyes. “First off: Death has never killed anyone. Never has the cause of death been Death. She just gets blamed for it.” Death looked grateful at that, but Constantine didn’t look convinced. “Also if she wanted to hurt me, I wouldn’t have trusted her.”
The magician seemed really worked up, though. Tim didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he would hang out with someone who wanted to hurt him.
…Fine. He wouldn’t hang out with someone who wanted to kill him, but Death wasn’t trying to do either, so it wasn’t relevant what Tim found acceptable intentions.
“You probably wouldn’t know if she wanted to hurt you.” protested Constantine.
Death smiled warmly. “Actually, Tim might. Tim has some pretty powerful magical aura reading abilities. I think he’d be a great magician.”
“Oh, is that what it’s called?” asked Tim. “I was wondering why it only worked with magicians, deities, and other magic stuff. That makes sense” He turned around and put a tray of unbaked cookies into the oven and set a 9 minute timer.
Death almost cooed. What was that about? The deities were weird. Also, they all seemed to be fighting for Tim’s affection? None of them challenged Dream up-front, though.
There was a small pop in the living room and Lama’s voice called, “Tim! Are you making cookies?” She walked into the room, saw Death, and adopted a hostile stance There were a few more pops and several deities appeared looking confused at first and many assumed defensive stances upon seeing Death.
“We will fight you if you even think about taking Tim.” snarled Ares.
“Your plan is to fist fight Death?” Athena asked, rather unimpressed. She was one of the gods not in a defensive stand.
“Fist fight Death and win.” corrected Ares. “And why not?”
Athena rolled her eyes. “Because you’re going to lose.“ She scoffed. “Men.”
“I’m not here for Tim,” said Death.
“Then why are you here?” Constantine asked.
Death smiled. “Dream’s been acting weird for a while. I wanted to see why.”
Wait, Dream’s been acting weird? How so? Is he in trouble? “Is he okay?” he asked.
“Yes, child; Dream is well,” said Death soothingly.
“So we came here for nothing?” Ares asked grumpily.
“Why did you summon us, Lama?” asked Montu.
“I’m a protective goddess.” Lama defended. “I saw Death and thought she was going to take Timmy!”
The nickname made Tim smile. Constantine shot him a worried look which was fair, he guessed, but also he’d never had a nickname before. And anyway, Constantine’s the one who said he should smile more. He had no right to judge when Tim smiled.
“It’s not an unreasonable assumption.” Athena said cautiously, trying to avoid starting a fight in front of Tim.
“Oh, and we’re supposed to side with you because you’re so wise?” Ares scoffed.
“Well, maybe you should!” shouted the goddess of wisdom in an uncharacteristically unwise move.
Lama moved next to Tim and whispered, “This happens everytime they talk. Don’t pay any attention to it.” Tim nodded, leaned against her leg, and looked around to check which deities were now in his kitchen.
He saw Ekeko, Athena, Ares, Death, Kali, Lama, and some wind spirits.
“I don’t think we’re going to have enough cookies.” he whispered. His eyes widened. “The cookies.” he breathed. They were still in the oven! They were probably already burnt. There was also no way Tim was going to be able to push through everyone. “Hey, Jen?” he asked one of the wind spirits. “Could I get a lift to the oven?” He was probably too far away for a normal human to hear him, but Jen wasn’t a human. Sound was just vibrations in the air, and wind spirits could pick up on those vibrations better.
Jen nodded and Tim flew above everyone’s heads, landing gently in front of the oven. “Thank you!” he said. He opened the oven and could smell how burnt they were. Shoot. He put the tray on the stove and walked over to Kali. “Kali?” asked Tim.
“Yes, little one?” she asked.
“Could you fix the cookies?” he asked. “I couldn’t hear the timer go off, so they burned.”
Kali smiled. “How long do you need them to go back?”
“4 minutes should do it.” Tim said.
Kali raised her hands to turn back time on the cookies. She stopped when they were perfectly golden-brown. “Is that good?”
The child grinned. “It’s perfect! Thank you!”
Kali smiled back. “Any time, little one.”
He frowned at the cookies when Kali moved back over to Lama. “We still don’t have enough cookies.” He looked around and saw Ekeko. “Oh! Ekeko?” Tim asked as he made his way toward him. “We don’t have enough cookies for everyone. Could you make more of them?”
“Of course, chico.”