Chapter Text
John glares up from the possessed thrashing on the bed below him, the convulsing, eye-rolling, screeching old woman pinned with his hands and shins. “Is this really the time to fucking discuss this, Zee?”
Zatanna’s flipping through a grimoire with one hand, grinding herbs with the other. Sweat beads at her forehead, slicking her bangs down like seaweed. “You could act a little less like an ass and a little more grateful it’s me and not Chas handling your apothecary. It’s a great opportunity and you should consider it.”
“Bloody hell, I didn’t think I need to–” John leans out of the way of a green jet of projectile vomit, “--say this, but I fucking hate the Justice League!”
Her hands come to pinch over the old lady’s nose, tilt her head back and on her next screech, Zee dumps the herbs down her throat. John clamps her mouth closed, growls the incantations under his breath in accented Latin. His vision bleeds from color to white-gold. Zee comes over with the grimoire in hand, her hand out, reading the incantation backwards as John recites it forward. Their magicks cocoon the old woman, saps the energy out of her. John lets go, steps down from her with relief, but doesn’t let up.
Once he finishes the incantation, he rolls up his sleeve. “This isn’t going to feel great.”
“ Fiet aetherius ,” John exhales a gold wisp that coats his hand and forearm. The skin tingles, but then the wisp falls through him, his digits translucent.
And then he jams his ethereal hand into the old woman’s chest and roots around. John has seconds to get this right before the spell ends. His pulse hammers in his ears, but he finds it: a mass of burning hot demonic energy pulsing at the old woman’s heart. Not a true possession, but if left unchecked, fatal. He curls his fingers around it, ensures a good grip, and with a breath sucked in, yanks it free just in time for his hand to solidify again.
Zee steps forward, mutters a word in reverse. Electricity eats up the energy with the smell of ichor and rot.
John turns away from the both of them, eyes shut tight till the humming stops. It’s always the bloody humming, the call below to return to the clubs of Hell, to push his luck again. Back to Lucifer Morningstar’s bed. He said it would stop. So it must.
“I know you hate the Justice League,” Zee says after a minute, the old woman checked on and the apothecary packed up again. Her soft blue eyes dart to the side, contemplating how much to tell him. “But I think it would be prudent for you to go anyways. Sure, I came because I wanted to see you–” She gestures to the old woman–technically John’s neighbor–currently drooling on John’s meager mattress, “I didn’t mean for us to get sidetracked, but I was sent.”
John narrows his eyes at her.
There was a time, a long while ago, where he’d have sold his soul in a heartbeat for her. Where he would have cleaned out his own rib cage of everything that connects his heart to his body, scooped out everything for her if she asked him to. John remembers now, harshly, that it was indeed a very long time ago. Now her father’s Fate. And on some level, he’s certain she still hates him. She’s just too nice to rub his nose in it every chance she gets.
“Sent?” He repeats, wrinkling his nose. “They sent you to find me, why? If they have you, what does anybody need me for?”
Zatanna squints back, crosses her arms. “I don’t know, John, maybe they want to be sure that since you’ve finally sobered up with the deal-making, you won’t barter the universe away on your next adventure.”
John scoffs and shakes his head. Yeah. He deserves that. He taps out a smoke, puts it between his lips and lights it with his finger. “And if I refuse?”
“It’ll be me that takes you in, John,” Zee whispers, and attempts to touch him, but he leans away from her. “I don’t want to do that. But I will.”
What a twist this is. John stares at her sideways, scanning her aura–a periwinkle color that leans more blue than purple. Calm, but sad. “Funny. Two years ago, it was me suggesting to you that maybe you should quit show business and join the fight. You said no, then. And now it’s you not suggesting, no, you’re ordering me to sell out to the bloody cape-and-tights crew. You’re going to ‘take me in’?” He drags his cigarette and blows smoke out of the side of his mouth. “You could ask me nice.”
Zatanna’s brows knit. “I’m sorry, John. I can’t make exceptions for you anymore. You should’ve seen me trying to defend you to Batman and Superman. It’d make Bosnia look like a hug.”
“Don’t defend me, love,” John waves his hand and cranes his neck back until it clicks. “What do I do to make this fuck off, huh? What does the League want?”
Zatanna sighs, slowly. “They’ll assign you a handler. You won’t leave the handler’s sight for a full two months and they’ll evaluate you, train you, accompany you on missions, and so on. At the end, there’s a performance review. Then it’s thrown up to the League to determine your status in a final hearing.”
John remembers this feeling from primary school, sitting outside the principal’s office after bewitching the toilets to overflow accidentally. He flicks off ash in the little tray on his kitchen table. “I don’t like it. The minute the Justice League tells us where we can and can’t be, then we stop doing our jobs to the best of our ability, using our own judgment. I didn’t start this gig to join another bloody boy band. Things didn’t turn out so great with the last one.” He fights off the twinge. “But fine. If this is what tells the League I’m not in it for world domination, I guess I’ll comply like a good little soldier. Who’s the handler?”
Zee bites her lip and glances toward John’s door. “About that…”
A note appears in the top right corner of the BatComputer screen: a new missive from the Watchtower, with news of a new handling assignment.
Bruce’s out of cowl, in only his undersuit and boots in the chair. He runs a hand through his knotted sweaty hair, his body aching all the way down to his bones, but before he turns in, he may as well see what they want up in orbit. And he only hates himself a little for anticipating, no, hoping, for an apologetic letter sneakily tacked on the transmission, but there isn’t one.
He doesn’t get many assignments to be a troublemaker’s handler. Batman has a reputation among the Justice League for being a part-time member and a full-time hardass, with no patience for coddling anyone into a mission he’s given his blood, bones, sanity, and longevity for. His last assignment was Harley Quinn and despite the skepticism of the entire League, he rehabilitated her into a sometimes violent but unmistakable hero. He shut a lot of people up that day, most notably and satisfyingly Aquaman.
NEW TRAINEE: JOHN LIAM CONSTANTINE
“You have got to be kidding me."