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Chapter Text

John Constantine blew out a plume of smoke as he stared at the Justice League. His eyes, casually scanning around the room, were probably showcasing his annoyance with the situation. Bloody capes and cowls. He’d wash his hands of the lot of them if not for the fact that he got paid ten grand per consultation.

And for Z, if they were on again. It built good will either way with her.

Still, this was the fucking stupidest sort of bollocks he’s heard in a good long while. And he felt the need to say so to the most powerful people in the world.

(Once you sucked the Devil’s cock a couple of times and/or had several ill-advised flings with King Shark, you stop feeling the fear of normal humans. Or even normal superhumans.)

“Summoning a deity from another world is batshit,” he said, eyes sliding over to Batman, who had been in a right bloody state the past couple of months. “And, yes, that is a bloody bat pun because I know that this whole fucking idea was Bats.”

Judging by how The Flash grimaced, he was right on the money. Listen, John wasn’t without bloody empathy. Losing one of his little birds to the unholy eldritch ocean of the multiverse was as good as saying that the kid was dead. But the man had taken his paranoia to a whole new level in the interim. He was pretty sure Bats needed time away from all this nonsense.

However, John was a magic consultant, not a psychological one. Even if he had some level of telepathy, he wouldn’t even try to touch Batman’s mind. That just seemed to spell a bad time for everyone involved.

But, still, summoning a deity was a dicey prospect at best. Summoning an alternate universe’s deity was another level of ill-advised bollocks.

“It is said that we need a god associated with both the Sun and liberation in order to stop this curse,” Wonder Woman said, crossing her arms. She didn’t look happy about this either, John noted. However, he could tell there was no talking her out of it. “This one is the only one that we could find within what few texts from other dimensions we have: Nika.”

Well, Sun gods were usually alright in general, so were gods associated with freedom. Z had him look over the curse as well, and it was a nasty bit of ancient magic, done in a dialect no one knew about anymore, let alone spoke. They had no Rosetta Stone in the wings for that.

Still a dicey game, but perhaps better than anything else they could have come up with.

“Zantana vouched for the summoning ritual,” Batman continued, tapping at a tablet. He sounded exhausted, but whether that’s from another of his kids being eaten by the cold and uncaring universe or just everyday wear and tear, no one could really say. Constantine certainly wasn't touching that emotional mess with a twenty-foot pole, not until Bats decided to do something with demons and/or necromancy. “Though she said that you were best at summonings, something about the art of negotiations.”

“Best done with beings that I, at least, have a fuckin’ understanding of,” the warlock groused, but pulled the papers closer to him. The ritual was straightforward enough, and given what he knew of the ill-defined “curse” that would essentially enslave the whole world to some slumbering, dark nasty, it should be removed. “Thing is, I won’t be able to send him back for a month.”

“A month?” one of the other brightly colored heroes said. John didn’t bother to learn their name. They all became the same sort of garish eyesore after a while, and the roster was always changing. 

He sighed, tapping some ash from his cigarette into a tray, “One of the ingredients needs to be picked fresh at a specific time and used quickly in concert with the ritual. No way around it. Interdimensional summonings are a fucking finicky business, mate.”

“A month isn’t so bad,” someone said, trying for positivity. It was probably Superman.

John rolled his eyes.

“Do the ritual,” Batman commanded. If he wasn’t footing John’s consultancy fee, then he would have told him to piss off, that he wasn’t his Da. But he was paying him.

While gods of freedom and the sun were generally alright enough, usually pretty fun at parties, there was some niggle in the back of his mind that said this could go either spectacularly well or spectacularly poorly.

Either way, John’s going to make sure that he will be booked and busy for the next month until he has to send the poor sod back. He certainly wasn’t going to babysit a god with the title “He Who Plays The Fool”.

“S’your funeral, Batsy.”

John stood to exit so he could gather the ingredients for the ritual. Either way, he was getting paid and he did his due-bloody-diligence, which was his good deed for the year. 

Here’s the thing, because there’s always one with Batman, isn’t there?

Tragedy is carved into his bones, into his story. There really isn’t a way to get around it or through it.

His parents were murdered right in front of him.

A tragedy.

His son was murdered as well, and he couldn’t save him.

A tragedy.

Every relationship he’s ever had, he ruined with his own two hands. Nothing can fix him. The Batman, because he can’t even call himself Bruce in his own head, is too far gone to fix. It’s a sacrifice made to save a city that doesn’t want to be. But he will fight the hopeless fight for The Mission because it's tattooed into his very soul at this point.

But he never expected to wake up from his trip through time.

He never expected to be told that Tim had saved him, but they lost him as well.

That Ra’s al Ghul did something.

There was no body, and there was nowhere on this Earth, in this Universe, that had Tim in it.

Tim lost him and saved him. Bruce lost him again.

Batman Inc. was a convenient excuse to avoid Gotham. He made sure Lucius’ place as CEO was secured. Dick was doing well enough as Batman, and Damian was his Robin. And Bruce wasn’t ready yet for a new Robin.

So he went on international missions and tried to pretend like he wasn’t avoiding home. He didn’t meet Jason’s eyes when Alfred insisted on weekly family dinners, barring the end of the world or extended trips. He lost another son, and he didn’t even have a body to bury. He failed Tim when Tim had never failed him.

And there were…things that happened. Things unsaid that Bruce didn’t know or understand, didn’t want to know.

He made up a lie about a motorcycle accident, a coma, paid off doctors who could be trusted, and spun a story that even had Vicki Vale backing off in the face of such clear grief.

The Batman was never meant to be happy.

At least, this Batman wasn’t.

The ritual required drums and paint, and the plant freshly plucked and ready to use. It was an odd sort of beat, Clark thought.

 Doom-Dut-Da-Da

Doom-Dut-Da-Da

But Constantine kept beating the drums as he chanted the summoning. As they got further into the ritual, splashes of color seemed to erupt from the instrument. Clark could feel the sort of strange staticky electricity feeling that always accompanied powerful magic. It left him breathless, like all the oxygen was being sucked out of the room, even though he could breathe.

And then a portal appeared, and someone was starting to be pulled through. The god? Clark thought it was the god. The chanting and the drumming seemed to have reached frenzied and frenetic pace. Almost like a beat of a racing heart.

Doom! Dut! Da! Da!

Then, on the other side of the portal, Clark heard a, “FUCK! CAPTAIN!” and “LUFFY!” and “What the actual hell?!” There were more voices in various exclamations and curses.

That was…unexpected. He could feel his shoulders tense at that, preparing for a fight. Nearby, he could see Diana, who tensed with him, and Bruce, who had been tense since the ritual started, go for their weapons.

Constantine continued the drumming and the chanting, though he looked a bit perplexed. Or, less perplexed, and more like an I told you wankers bloody so was on his lips.

In the light of the portal, a second person appeared, hauling the other back. But the hurried tempo of the drums quickly started to make everything feel like a summer camp with the weirdest game of tug of war as the centerpiece. The magic of the spell versus whoever was trying to keep the god on the other side.

“This is new,” Wally muttered under his breath, having taken over as The Flash while Barry was on paternity leave. It was only the inner circle members of the Justice League here. Clark could only agree, though, admittedly, he didn’t have a lot of experience with magical summonings of deities from other universes.

He could see from the corner of his eye that Billy, in his adult form, was biting at the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. Clark’s shoulders eased ever so slightly at that. If the presence from the other side was malicious, then Captain Marvel would be the tensest, besides Bruce.

However, the pull of magic was apparently too strong, as with what seemed like a mighty yank: the god and about ten other people who formed the human tug of war chain were pulled through the portal with a decisive bang on Constantine’s drums. The portal disappeared behind the group.

The motley assortment of folks spilled onto the summoning circle in a tangle of limbs and groans. Clark blinked, seeing what looked like some kind of fish person groaning underneath a large cyborg of some sort.

They were an assortment of bright colors, various states of being clothed, and an odd mishmash of styles.

“My dear Robin,” another voice said theatrically. “Your elbow is in my eye. If only I had an eye for you to take out yohoho! Skull joke!”

“Shitty cook fucking move! Your bony ass is digging into my kidney.”

“Fuck you, mosshead! Chopper, get your hoof off my cheek!”  

“YOU GUYS GET OFF OF ME!” bellowed a voice at the bottom of the pile. They barely had time to act before something expanded, which dispersed the bodies that had come through the portal. Everyone was flung every which way from the summoning circle.

A small furry creature in a hat landed in Diana’s arms, who blinked down at it.

It blinked up at her.

“Hello,” Diana said. Clark could tell she was melting. Wonder Woman was weak in the face of something cute and cuddly. The small creature stared up with wide eyes before jumping out of her arms with a yell and scampering to its comrades. It climbed up on the giant fish person, whom Arthur was eyeing curiously.

Clark could only hope that this wouldn’t end in a fight. It was always a pain to repair the Watchtower. And then they would have to redo a training module about property damage.

Again.

In the center of the summoning circle stood a young man, breathing heavily. His red shirt was open, revealing a harsh-looking scar in the shape of an “X” across his chest. He had old cut-off blue jean shorts, a bright yellow sash, and sandals. An old, beat-up straw hat with a red ribbon perched on his head. Sharp, dark eyes with a scar under the left one scanned the room as he took big, heaving breaths.

“That,” he said with all the gravity of a king. “That wasn’t very nice. Whatever you all did. Luckily, we were in port. Otherwise, something bad could have happened to the Sunny.”

Oh boy. This wasn’t going well already.

Damage control, Clark, damage control.

He put on his most comforting smile because, well, it was rude what they did. But there isn’t any sort of summoning check-in from what he was aware of. But something about this young man, the feel of his gaze, the tang of ozone, it had some primal part of Clark riled up.

He knew this was the god.

“Our apologies,” Clark said gently. “We’re in rather desperate straits and needed to summon the Sun God, Nika, to help us. And there is no warning for it.”

Constantine raised an eyebrow at the young man’s questioning look.

“Listen, mate, if I could arrange a time for summonings, then it wouldn’t solve all my problems, but it would stop me having to stay up until three am painting esoterica with chicken blood from the butcher.”

If they got through this okay, Clark was going to get donuts from that hole in the wall in Brooklyn and stress eat them on the globe of the Daily Planet offices.

Nika’s dark eyes blankly considered Constantine, then Clark, then the room at large. He was hard to read. It was different than Bruce’s blank face, which he knew well enough to read the microexpressions. With this guy, however? It was like there were no thoughts behind those eyes to read. There was a sort of terrible pressure in the air, pressing down on his shoulders, and it…

...

Disappeared as Nika’s shoulders relaxed.

He seemed to accept the explanation.

“Oh,” he stuck his little finger in his ear. “Well, why didn’t you say so? That’s me. I guess. Nika or whatever.”

“Luffy,” a voice said. “We talked about this.”

Everyone in the room froze at the sound of the voice.

Because that voice was familiar.

That voice disappeared six months ago when Ra’s al Ghul pushed him from a window with a mysterious device that caused him to vanish before he hit the ground.

Bruce’s voice was like a whip crack in the sudden stillness on the League’s end.

“Watchtower execute lockdown protocol Delta-Epsilon Three.”

Nika (or Luffy? He called him Luffy, was it really him?) and his crew seemed to tense as if expecting battle as the protocols engaged. Two figures, however, didn’t move. One was a woman with a Mona Lisa smile and dark hair and the other…

Bruce stepped forward, pulling down the cowl from his head. It’s such a rare occurrence that even amongst the core members, who knew his identity, seeing his bare face in the Watchtower was always a shock. 

Clark was very good at reading Bruce Wayne’s face. He could see something half like hope and half like heartbreak in the slight crease between his eyes. He felt a stab in his heart.

How cruel the world was that Bruce had to know the world’s worst sort of heartbreak. And the miracles tend to be harsher than the man could take.

“Tim?”

Timothy Drake-Wayne smiled.

He looked a little older. No longer the lean kid of seventeen, half insane from grief and desperate to find Bruce. (And did. He did find Bruce.) His hair was longer, a low-hanging ponytail. He was taller, the barest touch broader in the shoulders. His ears were pierced and his posture was open. In his clothes, he looked more like a cool skater punk than the teen CEO that everyone was expecting big things from.

He looked lighter, Clark thought, happier.

Like he looked before, the world kept on taking from him without stopping.

Tim smiled at Bruce, hands in his pockets, surrounded by this strange group that they had summoned from a portal. Working, apparently, with a god.

“Hey, Bruce. It’s been a while.”

Chapter Text

Five Years Ago

Monkey D. Luffy felt like his heart was going to burst from sheer joy and excitement. He found the best crew ever in the East Blue with Zoro, Nami, Usopp, and Sanji! They were going to conquer the Grand Line and get the One Piece. He’ll see them all fulfill their dreams and become the King of the Pirates.

He beamed, sitting on the Going Merry’s figurehead, eyes trained on the horizon. Behind him, he could hear Zoro’s gentle snores. Nami was turning the pages of a book. Usopp was fiddling with ammo for his slingshot.

Based on the time of day and his stomach starting to rumble, Sanji must be getting lunch ready! He really hoped that there was lots of meat on the menu. Luffy was about to get off to see how far into preparations Sanji had gotten or if Usopp wanted to do something fun when something weird caught his eye.

A bright red speck falling through the endless blue of the sky, like a bird that had suddenly had its wings cut. He stared for a moment before realizing that it’s a person. And they were falling from a high height into the ocean below.

That could hurt.

“NAMI!” he yelled because Nami was the closest thing to a medic they had at the moment. “GET THE KIT!”

“Luffy?!” she said, shocked. “What’s the matter?”

He could hear Zoro pop a sword with shink and Usopp panic in the background. But Luffy was staring at the figure falling, too fast. They weren’t slowing down. He wrapped his legs around the masthead of the Merry a few times to anchor himself. Before he shot out his arms to catch the falling bird-person thing in the distance.

They landed into his arms easily enough, but they were too heavy and too light at the same time. Luffy should have stretched his neck out, too, but Nami said not to do it because it freaked her out so much. And he didn’t want to get yelled at by her today.

He reeled his arms in hard enough that his legs snapped back with arms, sending both him and the rescued person tumbling onto the deck.

“Shit! It’s a guy!” Usopp cried. “What’s he even wearing?!”

“Is there anyone else falling from the sky?” Sanji asked, suddenly. “You have the telescopic lenses, man. Take a look!”

The stranger was dressed in a funny sort of costume, Luffy realized, ignoring Usopp’s negative response to anyone else falling from the sky. He pulled back the guy’s weird mask thing so he could get a better look at his face. There were some shallow cuts on his face, and he looked like he was Luffy’s age.

“He’s really hurt,” Nami’s voice was steady. “Sanji, I need some hot water to help clean these cuts. Zoro, go find some non-drinking alcohol as well. No fighting you two. We need to get him bed and clean these wounds, okay?”

Luffy leaned over the bird guy curiously. His eyes had fluttered open briefly at the sound of his crew’s voices. Hazy blue eyes stared back at him with the sweaty fringe of his black hair messily falling into them. He looked tired. The sort of exhausted that Luffy felt after a big fight like with Arlong, so he could get Nami back.

But it seemed like the sort of tired that not even a nap could cure. It was like the kind of tired he and Ace felt after Sabo…

Oh.

What happened to you?

Who hurt you?

Something in Luffy squirmed as Nami and Sanji took over the stranger’s care. His cook had bundled the stranger up into his arms carefully as his navigator directed them to the medical room that they set up on the Merry.

Luffy stood by with Zoro and Usopp, watching them go.

But there was a voice in his heart that said one thing: He’s mine.

And he trusted that voice with Zoro, Nami, Usopp, and Sanji. It was the voice that made him and Ace and Sabo brothers. It was that voice that made him certain that he would be The King Of The Pirates one day.

This stranger was His now, Luffy had no doubt about that.

His Stranger’s name was Tim. It was the only name that they could coax out of him.

He didn’t know much. One moment he was being pushed out of a window by a creepy old guy, and then there was a flash and he woke up here. Maybe it was a weird Devil Fruit. It sounded like a weird sort of Devil Fruit that did that. He asked weird questions, Luffy thought. Tim didn’t seem dumb, but he didn’t know anything about the Blues or the Grand Line or Gold Rogers or any of it.

Everyone knew stuff like that.

Luffy didn’t know what to make of it, except he was interested now.

Tim fell asleep shortly after answering their questions. Nami said that they had to let him rest, even though Zoro got the squinty suspicious eyes and Sanji was frowning around a cigarette. Usopp, however, looked thoughtful, but didn’t voice anything until the two of them were alone.

(“I don’t know what’s going on,” he told Luffy on the deck. They sat side by side together, trying to catch fish for dinner for Sanji. “But I know liars. Whatever Tim knows or doesn’t know, he’s not lying about what he’s saying.”

Usopp wouldn’t lie about stuff like that. Luffy knew that already.)

Still, even with the suspicions, Luffy knew that this Tim guy was going to be His. He didn’t know what, exactly, he would be, but he knew it. So, when someone needed to bring Tim some of Sanji’s tea and broth, Luffy volunteered. He wanted to talk to this guy one-on-one.

Judging by Zoro’s nod, his first mate knew that too. He’d back up Luffy’s decision about their stranger.

Tim was awake and sitting in bed. He was wearing borrowed clothes from Usopp, Luffy thought. He looked up when the captain came in. He didn’t even eat his food, Sanji would be pleased.

“Luffy, right?”

He grinned, “Shishishi, that’s me! I’m the Captain.”

Tim tilted his head to the side, bright blue eyes watching him. It was almost like that Cat Guy’s eyes back on Syrup Island, except there was warmth in them.

“Do I call you Captain or Luffy?” 

“Luffy’s fine,” he said. He knew titles were important, but they weren’t the most important to him. He just wanted to be free. Everyone knew to listen to him when it mattered, so he was happy. “Here. Sanji made it so it’s the best.”

“Thanks,” Tim said, taking the tray and settling it on his lap. Luffy flopped down into the chair by the bed. He watched as the strange stranger ate a few spoonfuls of brother before turning to look at him. “Can I ask you some stuff that may sound silly to you?”

“Sure,” Luffy said. He said silly things all the time. He didn’t mind it if people said that sort of stuff around him.

“Have you ever heard of a place called Gotham? Or a country called the United States of America?”

They didn’t sound familiar to Luffy.

He shook his head, “No. Sorry. What weird names though!”

Tim frowned down at his broth, “I figured as much.”

He didn’t offer any further explanations, and Luffy didn’t push.

Tim would tell him when he was ready and not a minute sooner.

It would take Tim a couple of weeks to tell Luffy the truth of everything.

(It was so cool: alternate worlds and heroes and all of it! And he used to be one! And it was so sad that Tim didn’t have a way to get home.)

Tim only said anything after sailing up onto the Grand Line and meeting Crocus and Laboon, and the agents of Baroque Works for the first time. He would reveal himself to be even better with a bo staff than Nami, and a tricky, sneaky fighter with strange gadgets that he was trying to conserve. Or so he informed Luffy later.

“I can’t make them anymore,” he said tiredly when the captain asked. Luffy had followed him up when he heard Tim leave the men’s quarters for the top deck. They were sitting on the deck of the Merry, and the stars were shining down on them. “I’m from a different universe. Alternate dimension. Something like that. I don’t really know how to explain it without using a lot of boring math, but think of it like another world existing parallel to this one. There’s a lot more land and a lot fewer pirates and people who have powers but not from Devil Fruits. My mentor’s nemesis and I were fighting. I blew up some of his bases a while back, and he wanted revenge. But I won and I beat him, and he threw me out a window and did something to me. Now I’m here.”

Luffy would never fully wrap his head around the whole “different universe” thing until he actually saw it for himself. But he could tell that it was far, far away from here, even past the end of the Grand Line and the One Piece.

So he knew that Tim was stuck.  

“Is it your dream to get home?”

Dreams were important. You could tell a lot about a person by what they wanted the most in the world. It fueled them. It powered them. It made life worth living to have a dream to chase after with your own two hands.

And Tim looked so…lifeless at that. He was so sad, and Luffy hated it. Tim always seemed so sad and scared, like a skittish animal who didn’t know how to trust people yet.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know if I have one anymore.”

Makino once said that sometimes people got so lost that they forgot their dreams. Some, she told him, get so focused on taking care of others that they don’t take care of themselves. And that’s how some dreams die.

It’s why Luffy would never be a hero, only a pirate. Heroes always seemed ready to sacrifice their dreams for others. Dreams are the most important thing ever. He would never sacrifice his and would never expect his crew to do so for him either.

He stared at Tim, who was looking up at the moon. Tim, who didn’t have a home to go back to. Tim, who was a great fighter and had a sly sense of humor that could catch Sanji and Zoro off guard. Tim, who listened to Nami talk about navigation stuff. Tim, who would egg Usopp’s stories on in his careful way.

Tim, who was Luffy’s even if he didn’t realize it.

Luffy wasn’t a hero.

Luffy’s a pirate. And a pirate always takes what could be precious to them without regret. He could tell, this was important.

“If you’re stuck here,” he said with a grin. “Then join my crew!”

Tim stared at him for a moment, seeming caught off guard by the genuine request.

“Really? I…I don’t know this world. I don’t know what I can bring to the table.”

Honestly, for someone so smart, Tim was really dumb about the important things.

“Tim can do a lot of things and he can learn lots of things,” he said. “But mostly I want Tim around.”

The other boy flushed at that, looking surprised and heartbroken.

He stared at Luffy for a long, long time.

“Really?”

It was quiet and heartbreaking, the sort of brittleness that reminded Luffy of Ace and Sabo in the moments they let their guards down. It was fragility that he knew how to navigate in his own way. It was a heart-constricting sort of thing, but he wasn’t going to let his friend’s heart break any more.

“I don’t say anything I don’t mean,” he declared. “You can be our planning guy!”

Tim laughed at that, still looking fragile, like how Nami did in the moments after saving her from Arlong.

“Tactician,” he corrected. “You want me to be your tactician.”

“Yeah!” Luffy nodded. “That’s what I said. So?”

Tim looked around the Merry like he was really seeing her for the first time.

“Pirates, huh?” he murmured to himself.

But there was something relenting in his tone, Luffy grinned wider and jumped in place excitedly. He knew that he had won him over. This was going to be so cool!

It was going to be so much fun!!

“Pirates,” Luffy agreed with a wide grin, bouncing where he sat slightly. “And I’m going to be King of them one day! And we’ll find your dream along the way too, Tim.”

Tim looked at him before nodding.

“Alright then,” he agreed. “Let’s be pirates.”

Luffy stretched his arms up and up and up as he yelled excitedly.

“YES!”

“SHUT UP,” Sanji demanded from below deck, “NAMI-SWAN WENT TO BED!”

“WAKE HER UP!” Luffy had wrapped his arms around Tim, who was laughing. “TIM’S JOINING THE CREW! LET’S PARTY!”

“I thought Tim was already part of the crew,” Usopp muttered, coming out of the men’s quarters.

“He is now!!! Let’s party!!!”

And the Nami tackled Luffy to get him to shut up.

They had a party anyway.

It’s after Enies Lobby with Robin safely home and war on the World Government declared that Tim would tell Luffy his dream. He had, apparently, been thinking a lot about it after seeing the fight with Usopp and having to sink the Merry and saving Robin.

“It’s a simple dream,” Tim said as they sat together, looking up at the endless sea of stars. “But I think it’s one I had since before I knew what dreams were.”

Luffy hummed in curiosity.

Once they were on the ship, Tim had told Robin that her name meant something else to him, that it was everything: hope and family and home. That he wished nothing else for her, now that she was here permanently, for her to have all of those things, now that she wanted to live.

“Tell me,” he commanded with the childishness and imperiousness of a king in the making.

“I want a family,” Tim said softly. “That just loves me for me. Back home, I had to put everything together, and things got too messy or I got too needy. I was…I was the neighbor kid who convinced himself that he mattered to them. And I…”

He closed his eyes and turned his face to the light of the moon.

“My dream is to belong with people who want me forever.”

Well, Luffy thought, Tim would need a new dream soon.

Because he would have to show him that he already had it.

“It’s a good dream,” Luffy said. “But I want you forever. And you belong here. So Tim’s dream is already fulfilled.”

“Become the King of the Pirates and take me to the end of the Grand Line,” Tim said, eyes gleaming bright and a smirk on his lips. “And then we’ll call it a fulfilled dream.”

Luffy grinned and laughed.

Tim was always so much fun when he got like that!

“Alright,” he agreed, laughing. “We can do that.”

Chapter Text

Tim should have known Luffy was summonable, but magic wasn’t something that was really done on The Blue Planet except in certain and annoying specific circumstances. Or if it was more widespread once, then the practice was long ago banned, or all the practitioners were hunted down and killed.

Same old, same old.

It was probably something horrible and tragic and would make Tim want to go spit on Imu’s fucking corpse. Not that Imu had left a corpse, of course. But the sentiment stood, he felt.

However, that didn’t change the fact that he overlooked magic from his own universe. It was something he was vaguely familiar with, so he knew his options and the players, but not something that he had thought about in years. Again, he was a little bit preoccupied. He never even considered for an instant that people from his world would have a way to learn about Nika and know how to summon him.

He should have, which was why he was internally berating himself.

This was Tim’s whole deal within the Straw Hats: tactician, spymaster, intelligence officer. He should have prepared better.

However, the fact that—to his crew—this strange group of people knew who Tim was, the rest of the Straw Hats relaxed ever so slightly.

“Tim?” Luffy asked, turning his assessing gaze onto him. “Is that…”

Huh, Luffy remembered Bruce’s name: that was a surprise. He would have been more willing to bet that Alfred’s name would be the one that the Pirate King remembered. After all, Alfred was the one with the food, and Tim had been craving Alfred’s prize-winning chocolate chunk cookies for a solid year and a half at one point.  

“His mentor,” Robin said, voice deliberately kept even for those who didn’t know her. But Tim could see her gaze turn to him, assessing and checking in. He loved her for it: his best goddamn friend in the whole crew. He nodded his head ever so slightly, and everyone seemed to relax fully once Luffy did.

“Oh! Well, why didn’t you say so?” his captain grinned at him.

Tim couldn’t help but smile back, even with every eye in the room on him.

“And that stuff he was shouting about?” Zoro asked. “Delta whatever.”

“Blackout protocols,” Tim replied. “A lot of heroes here keep their identities secret. It stops recording devices if someone is taking their cowl or mask off.”

He turned to look at his mentor.

Bruce looked tired. There were bags under his eyes that were more pronounced than he would usually allow. Though Tim guessed, no one except those who knew how to read him realized it. He looked more recovered from his jaunt through time, and weight had been put back on him. But there was a hollowness and twitchiness to him that made him worry.

Even though it wasn’t his job anymore, he would always be concerned about the health of Bruce Wayne. It was Tim’s job as Robin, and it was something that he couldn’t hang up when he pushed out of the nest.

“How long has it been for you?” Tim asked, stepping forward. He could feel his family, nakama as Luffy always called them, around him. They were watching, waiting for his lead here. Or Luffy’s should he decide that Tim’s lead was hurting him and giving him the selfish out. The captain was good about letting his selfishness act as a shield for others to hide behind.  

But Luffy always gave them the space and grace to navigate their own troubles.

“Six months,” Bruce said, staring at Tim, like he was cataloguing every change. Like he was trying to assess if he was still someone to trust or not.

It stung because, of course, it did. It always stung how conditional Bruce’s trust in him was. But what else could he expect from the man at this point?

Tim watched his mentor and adopted father carefully to see his next move. Though if it had been six months for Bruce, then he wasn’t expecting much in deep emotional growth. That wasn’t really what the Bat did, after all.  

It was time to see how Bruce would respond here. The cowl was off, which meant that Tim wasn’t dealing with The Bat. At least, not fully. Parts of Bruce would always be the Bat now. It wasn’t a clear delineation between man and mask anymore. Though Tim wasn’t sure if there was anything so clean-cut.

He knew Bruce, the man had an emotional bandwidth of a teaspoon. But Tim was hoping for a hug or something. Or was he going to protect himself with a veneer of professional distance that had characterized a good part of their relationship? Until Bruce decided to move the line.

“Report,” Bruce commanded, which, yeah. Of course, he did. He needed that wall, the protection and safety of the Bat, especially with his children. They could hurt him the most, after all. They could destroy him and, in turn, the Mission.

Ugh.

Tim rolled his eyes as Sanji tensed near him. He could see the other man wanting to jump in and defend him. He could see Franky frown with his massive arms crossed. Who knew what sort of other faces his friends were making? The majority of them couldn’t really keep their emotions out of their faces.

It’s been five years for him, however.

Tim didn’t answer to Bruce anymore, wasn’t a Robin to dance to his tune.

It warmed his heart that they were willing to defend him so. But Tim was secure in his place in the crew and in the world. He had a lot of time to think about things. Five years allowed for a lot of self-reflection and growth.

“It’s been five years for me,” he said simply. “Ra’s sent me to a dimension known as The Blue Planet, largely ocean-based. This is my crew. You summoned our captain, who is an avatar of the Sun God, Nika. We didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t think that Nika was known in this universe or that he could be summonable. I’ll need to figure out a way to stop that.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t fun,” Luffy said, arms crossed and pouting. “It felt itchy and weird.”

“Not without establishing a going rate anyway,” Nami added, rubbing a bump on her arm from the rough landing. Tim could see the beri signs in her eyes. “And we will be charging for pain and suffering in gold. Gold’s good everywhere.”

Tim could hear Usopp’s slightly nervous voice telling the navigator not to charge Tim’s weird family, but it was more rote than anything that needed to be listened. Idly, he wondered if the Black AmEx he had still worked. If whatever Luffy needed to do was done quickly, then maybe he could take his crew around his world for a bit.

Tim had loyalty to the Bats, once. And he still does, out of familial obligation more than anything else. But his loyalty to his crew superseded it all. They had carried each other through Hell, but they had also made so many good days that the memories of them feel like a tattoo upon Tim’s skin. He’s not going to share the obvious weakness of a few crew members to the Justice League.

“But,” he said. “I wasn’t the primary objective. Maybe we should go into the reason why you summoned my captain here, shall we?”

Bruce stiffened at the use of my. He caught on the underlying message of his words. Tim was very good at these sorts of games, picking his words so carefully. He had to be as Luffy’s intelligence officer after all. It wasn’t a slight to the man, of course. But their partnership was a dysfunctional mess that got more confused as time passed by. He wasn’t sure where he stood with the man, so he had to decide where he stood a long time ago.  

At the end of the day, Tim had been Bruce’s partner, not his child, not really. And he made his peace with a lot of things.

How Robin was taken from him. How the other Bats treated him. How he had treated the other Bats instead. How losing his Dad, Kon, Bart, and Bruce so close together had affected him and how Tim acted in the aftermath of it. His parents own neglectful actions. And the other little mental and emotional scars.

He made his peace with them. Tim could admit he was no saint either. He did things he wasn’t super proud of. He had the benefit of hindsight, of course, and time does dull the ache of old wounds.

He had moved on.

Still, staring at his past, it was throwing Tim off ever so slightly. But then he could see Luffy’s eyes watching him. He could see Nami’s too casual posture. He could see Usopp with his chin held up, even with the slight shake to his arms.

The Straw Hats are here with him, and it made it easier to breathe as a result.

Bruce pulled up his cowl, and Batman was in his place. Tim sighed.

He wondered, sometimes, if the older man ever got tired of hiding behind a mask?

Tim did, so he stopped.

“Blackout protocols disengage,” Batman said, looking around the room to heroes and pirates alike. “Let’s talk.”

There was a quick round of introductions (and a glare at some of his crew to behave, thankfully, the Brook did not ask anyone about their panties) and Sanji fawning over Wonder Woman before bumming a cigarette off of Constantine.

It was a simple enough mission on its face, Tim had to admit. Some sort of spell that would see the world enslaved to some dark force. They needed a Sun God who liberated, and that fit Nika pretty square on the money.

He hated how simple it was because usually that meant there was a chance for some fuck ass shit to be had as well. Missions with magic, in Tim’s experience, rarely went smoothly.

Granted, no one had to deal with Luffy’s own brand of Looney Tunes chaos that Gear 5 generated either.

Luffy sat through the briefing with a blank stare before looking at Tim. No one was thrilled about the month-long stay, but Constantine was clear that they would be back at the same time that they left, maybe a second or two passing. And that while there were scientific methods to send them back, it was safer to say and do the proper spell in a month or so.

Things got a little screwy otherwise if you didn’t do the proper return spell. From what he knew of spellwork, that thought process tracked. Magic was finicky.

Tim hated magic sometimes.

But he knew that Luffy wanted his thoughts here.

“It seems straightforward, Captain,” Tim said, falling into formality. People tended to underestimate Luffy, even though he’s the Pirate King and freed the world of Imu’s clutches. The Justice League didn’t know about the whole they’re pirates business, and Tim would prefer to keep it that way for now. “Magic rarely is, however, so there may be something that will go screwy. You’ll get to punch something either way.”

“I do love punching things,” Luffy agreed, spinning in the seat. “I want meat after, though.”

Nami’s eyes twitched at Luffy preferring meat as payment instead of money, but they’ll let her negotiate until her heart’s content. Tim almost wished he had standing in the Wayne Enterprises boardroom, if only to sick her on the Board. She’ll get them well compensated so they have enough cash to take home. Gold bars could be made into beri easily enough.

“Meat?” One of the Lanterns asked.

“Food,” Tim said. “But mainly any kind of meat. A party would be nice. It tends to be customary.”

“Yeah! We’ll do that. I’ll defeat this magic-thingy and then we’ll have a big party!”

Tim could see the looks the other members of the Justice League were giving each other. He had a guess as to what they were thinking, that his captain was a fool or a moron. Luffy didn’t care about what people thought of him, but Tim would not have them say a bad word about his captain.

He looked up and glared. Tim wasn’t in possession of a Conqueror’s Haki, which was fine with him. Even Luffy shuddered a bit under the force of Tim’s Batman-esque glare, perfected over the years. It had the effect he wanted, as some people flinched as if Tim had read their minds and heard the less-than-kind thoughts they were having about his captain.

“Parties aside,” Nami said. He could see the money signs in her eyes. “Let’s talk monetary tributes. We don’t save the world for free, you know.”

“My associate will handle negotiations for the price,” Tim said pleasantly. “Nami is correct. We have upkeep of our ship to take care of, and treasure hunting only covers so much. You don’t want to see our grocery budget. Sanji truly works miracles.”

“Damn right,” Sanji said. “And Nami-swan is our best negotiator!”

Nami grinned widely as Tim grabbed the tablet and other documents to go over with Luffy and some of the others in more detail. No need to watch Nami charge the Justice League. 

She had it well in hand. 

Bruce didn’t know what to make of anything, and he hated it. Because there were gaps in his knowledge and variables outside of his control that made his teeth set on edge.

He needed to have all the answers. He needed to plan for every eventuality, and everything needed a contingency. And he didn’t have all the answers here with Tim back and these odd people who claimed to love his son. Who Tim loved enough to protect them from Bruce because the lack of information was information in and of itself.

These people had his son’s trust and love, and this person, the avatar of a god, had Tim’s loyalty. And that was a powerful thing, a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. Tim’s loyalty could produce miracles, much like how Dick’s could brighten the darkest corners of Gotham, how Jason’s could make answers appear from unwilling mouths, how Damian’s…

Well, only Dick could truly answer how Damian’s loyalty worked.

Just as Barbara could be the one to answer for how Stephanie’s loyalty was as well.

Three out of five Robins, Bruce, had given you their utmost trust. And how did you squander it?

(The explosive fights with Dick, Jason’s poison green eyes, and demands of death, Tim’s own polite distance now…

Five years.

His son had been gone for five years and had made a whole new family.

Did he even try to come home? Did he even try to look?

Bruce doesn’t know how to ask without it sounding like an accusation. He never knew how to handle Tim’s anger. Dick and Jason were similar in that with their explosive tempers.

But Tim was quiet in his anger, and Bruce never knew how to handle that quiet anger.)

The girl with orange hair (Nami, her name is Nami) is currently setting terms of service because they expect to be paid to save their world. And Tim is just letting it happen. Letting her negotiate a price for such things.

(They had consultants whom they paid handsomely for their services. But something about this was rubbing Bruce the wrong way.)

Because he planned on going back with them after the month. He was home, but he wasn’t planning on staying home.

Tim wasn’t even looking over at him. He didn’t even stay at the table.

His son, who was a grown man now (twenty-two, Tim wasn’t seventeen anymore, he was twenty-two), was bent over the tablet and maps and paper files with some of the motley crew. The cyborg was looking interested in what Tim was saying and every now and then said “SUPER” in a loud voice before quieting down. The god-captain, Luffy, was bouncing on his toes, but listened to his son. The blonde with the distinctive eyebrow and the giant fish-person were nodding along to what Tim was saying. The man with a prominent nose was frowning down at what looked like a slingshot.

The swordsman (why did his name have to be named Zoro of all things) was staying with Nami, as was the reindeer creature, the fucking skeleton, and the woman who screamed danger to Bruce’s senses.

He knew their names, but maybe Bruce was being petty in not using them. Not when they had stolen his son from him, not when they were the reason that Tim was clearly not staying.

(Five years. He lost five years.)

The fish person leaned down to ask a question to Tim, who shook his head, and the man with the Pinocchio long nose gestured at something in response. Luffy laughed a bright shishishi like it was escaping between his teeth, unable to be contained, unable to wait for him to open his mouth to actually laugh.

Bruce tried to focus on the negotiations at hand, but couldn’t. He was distracted by what was going on in the other part of the room. He let Clark and John Stewart handle them instead, used to working with alien races.

He needed to let Gotham know what was going on.

How could he even explain this?

Tim laughed.

(Bruce hated these people, just a little, for what they took from him.)

Chapter Text

Three Years Ago

“So Stealth Black, huh?” Tim asked, sitting next to Sanji, who considered his Raid Suit. He still didn’t know what to make of it, what he wanted to do. “I was Robin and, well, Red Robin. Not exactly original, but I was being petty about it.”

Sanji consciously did not react. They weren’t exactly a deeply sharing crew when it came to the traumas that tattooed themselves on their bones. Luffy didn’t care about who they once were, only who they are now. And there was something freeing in that, that they weren’t defined by their pasts. Until, however, they were defined by their past as the whole fucking mess of Whole Cake Island proved.

Sanji had a lot of apologies to make to his crew.

Still, Tim was even more reticent than the rest of them. Sure, he told outlandish stories or dropped sudden bombshells as a shock tactic. He always supposed it was the whole “alternate world” thing. They had ideas of instances in his childhood and some of the oddities of Gotham, but no true picture of it, except that Thriller Bark reminded him of that place. But there was a difference, he supposed, between living it and hearing about it. You couldn’t taste food based on a description alone; you needed to experience it. Perhaps, this was something similar.

He couldn’t really imagine what it would be like to be a superhero.

Tim was a pirate now, so it didn’t really matter.

“Robin, huh?” he asked. He wondered if Robin-chan knew about that name. Maybe, he’d see her and Tim together at times, heads bent over and sharp smiles across their faces. He’d wonder if he hadn’t seen Franky and Robin-chan kiss a time or two when they thought no one was looking.

(He was glad that they had found something precious. Love was the most precious thing.

Sanji has it in abundance aboard this ship, with these people. He was glad that he was rescued, glad that he had some sense knocked into him.)

“I was the third,” Tim said, scratching one of his messenger birds on its head. He had a veritable army of them now flying across the seas to deliver messages and trained to locate him through some method. He had some sort of debt owed to him by the Queen of All Birds, whatever that fucking meant. The birds visited his network of informants, who either knew Tim or knew one of his aliases.

Sanji had to hand it to him. Tim spent his two years in extreme productivity getting up a network that would make the World Government drool in envy.

(He lost weight, Sanji noticed when they reunited after two years apart. He’ll need to fatten him up again.)

“Huh. Any powers?” he asked, rolling the device in between his palms. 

Were they like my family? He didn’t ask, but the question was still heard anyway.

“No meta heroes were allowed in Gotham,” Tim said as if by routine. “Metas were what we called people with powers, short for metahumans. I guess some got their DNA fucked with in utero, but it’s different for everyone. I never got it myself since most of our villains were largely metas. But Bruce was a control freak like that.”

Sanji wasn’t sure how he felt with someone following his father’s fucked up beliefs in Tim’s world, but nodded. There was a point to this. Their intelligence officer always had a point for his ramblings.

“I stole my two titles, codenames, whatever,” Tim said, flexing his fingers. “I wasn’t really wanted. Not really. I forced myself in because someone had to.”

Sanji snorted as he lit a new cigarette.

“Always a pirate, huh?”

The sharp, startled laugh burst from his companion. His blue eyes glittered under the moonlight.

“Something like that,” Tim said, tying a scribbled note to the bird’s foot. “The first time was because Bruce needed Robin’s light. That’s what it was Robin was the light to Batman’s darkness. But the second Robin died, and…it was bad. I had been following Batman and Robin around for years, taking pictures, but I was doing a lot of first aid on muggers and stuff to make sure he didn’t kill them. I tried everything else first before taking the Robin suit. I never wanted to be a hero.”

Oh.

There was a lot to process there. Sanji would definitely be returning to that Tim’s predecessor died, and that his friend was running around (from what very little context clues he gathered) a fucking dangerous city as a young kid. And that he actively had to stop people from being murdered by his future mentor.

He’s going to put a pin in all of that for later. Definitely something to inform Mosshead at least, fucking hell.

“I thought I needed the suit,” Tim said, letting the bird fly off. “I didn’t. I thought the title Robin meant something, and it did for a time. Now it doesn’t. Your brother may have been trying to do something nice, but you’re amazing without the suit, Sanji. I’m strong without Robin or Red Robin. I’m still me. Do you get it?”

He looked down at the canister. Now he saw what Tim was getting at.

It always made him feel awkward; how well the younger man could see him.

“I really fucked up, though,” he said instead.

“You did, but not as much as you think,” Tim said. “You were trying to protect us and Zeff. Trust me, it was definitely healthier than what I did when I spiraled. When I thought I was trying to protect people, too.”

Sanji didn’t think anything of what happened on Whole Cake Island could be called healthy, so whatever Tim did when he spiraled was probably something he did not want to know about.

“I’m sorry,” the cook said, because he had apologies to make to his crew. Luffy had already forgiven him for everything (too easily, too quickly, too seeing the best in Sanji that he didn’t even know he had, it was like the sun, his Captain, using light to disinfect all the rotten parts of him).

Tim looked at him with eyes that knew far too much and understood even more.

“Apology accepted,” he said easily. “I get it.”

And, yeah, under all of that talk, Sanji did think that Tim got it.

Five Years Ago

“Two of my brothers tried to kill me,” Tim said in lieu of nothing to Zoro. Like it was something that needed to be said out loud, at least once.

Zoro usually took one of the night watches, and Tim’s past, apparently, had fucked with his sleep schedule even now. He had appeared from below deck a couple of minutes ago and joined him in the Crow’s nest. He brought tea, which was nice. It was prepared as Zoro liked it.

Tim noticed stuff like that.

“Any particular reason why you’re bringing that up?” he asked, after allowing a moment for the statement to set in.

“Nightmare,” Tim said, looking up into the sky. He hadn’t drunk his own tea. More like he made it for something warm, for something real to hold onto. The shit cook wouldn’t be pleased if he found a mostly finished mug, but Zoro could slam it back if it got too cold.

Tim had nightmares quietly, Zoro noticed. He tensed as stiff as a board, like he had long since learned no one would come when he cried out in his sleep. He slept better with someone next to him. Given Luffy’s propensity to not stay in his own hammock was more often than not. When Zoro left for his shift, he noticed that Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper had fallen asleep in the middle of a card game and were a mass of limbs on the ground.

Tim would never ask for someone to sleep near him or for the contact. There were pieces that he could read in his crewmate that screamed of a lonely and neglectful childhood. Zoro could relate, after his parents died, the relatives he lived with just didn’t care. They let him run roughshod, and no adult seemed to really give two shits about what happened to him.

No one did until Sensei, not really.

“And it was about a murder attempt?”

“Funny how the ones when you thought you were safe stick with you the most,” Tim said softly. “In that it’s not really funny at all.”

Something flared in Zoro’s chest, hot and protective, at the younger man admitting that. There was really no place in the world that was safe. But the Merry felt that way; this group of people had felt that way.

“So your brothers,” he began, trying to imagine Tim with siblings. He wondered what they looked like.

“Adopted brothers, it’s just easier to say brothers.”

Made sense.

“Tried to kill you.”

“Two out of the three that I had. Jason tried to kill me three times. It’s where I got the scar on my neck. He tried slitting my throat once. Damian tried twice, which I honestly preferred over the whole…”

“His whole?”

“I get that he was raised by assassins, but it was his personality that set my teeth on edge more than the murder,” he paused. “Is that fucked up?”

A lot of things that Tim was saying right now would probably concern someone like Nami or Usopp, but it was making a lot of things make sense for Zoro. Also, Tim didn’t want comfort or someone fussing over him. He just wanted someone to listen and agree that what he went through sucked.

He could do that.

“I mean, I get annoyed when we have to deal with the possibility of someone poisoning us versus a full-on fight,” Zoro said. “I don’t think we have a good barometer of fucked up.”

He felt Tim’s body weight rest against him. The mug of tea was next to him, half drunk. His eyes were half closed. Zoro kept still.

“Damian cut the line of my grappling hook,” Tim said quietly. “That was what I dreamed about tonight. It was my fault. He found a list that I kept of people who could break bad, and he was on it and…stupid. I was stupid. I always had to have a plan.”

Luffy called Tim his tactician. Making plans was what he was supposed to do. Asking him not to make one was dumb. Zoro was probably sure Tim had a plan to take down most of them, if they really and truly betrayed the crew.

It was a comforting thought. But the swordsman could admit that he was also a deeply fucked up individual.

“You do have a plan,” Zoro said, gently. “It’s what makes you good at your job. You even try to plan for Luffy’s everything.”

“I don’t want to die by falling.”

Tim had fallen into their lives: a red speck into Luffy’s waiting arms.

But he also had been pushed out of a window, and his line had been cu,t and there was always a horrible moment before you hit the ground where you realized what was happening, Zoro supposed. Tim was one of the smartest members on the crew, a lot went on in his head, it must have been agony for him to fall with how fast his mind worked.

“Luffy would catch you,” Zoro said because the captain would. “So would the rest of us.”

And Tim looked so young there. With the Captain and Chopper as a comparison, it was hard to forget that he was also seventeen—Luffy’s age—one of the younger members on their admittedly young crew.

“You really would,” Tim mumbled, already drifting off to sleep. His demons excised to the night air and Zoro’s ears.

Well, not just Zoro’s ears. They’ve had someone listening for a while now.

He waited a few minutes to see if Tim stirred, but he was asleep and deeply so.

“You know it’s rude to eavesdrop,” he said softly, knowing that he would be heard. “I don’t care, but the witch would. I guess.”

A hand appeared on the crow’s nest, and Luffy gently rocketed up into the night, landing on the top of the mast. He balanced on that small point with the fearlessness of an acrobat and seriousness of the grave.

“Tim had a nightmare,” he said.

“Mmm.”

Luffy had a blank expression on his face as he looked at their tactician. Zoro, however, was learning to read those blank stares. He could see the anger in there for what he just heard. He could see the concern.

“They’re never getting him back,” his captain declared with the gravity of the king that he will become. “We’re keeping him.”

The swordsman couldn’t have said it better himself.

Pirates were selfish creatures, after all.

But Luffy was the right kind of selfish.

Zoro could only grin.

Three Years Ago

“You should talk to him before you go,” Tim said to Sabo. Robin had to duck her head to hide her smile as she watched Franky repair himself. She had tried, of course, when her friend appeared at the door.

They all knew how much Luffy would love to see Sabo. Even as injured as their Captain was, he would want to see him. Sabo, she thought, may be a little nervous. Like he was worried about the fragile bridge that had been built between them would shatter like glass.

However, Robin knew Luffy. And glass, if tempered right, could be surprisingly strong. The bridge wasn’t as fragile as Sabo feared.

He was a miracle to her beloved captain.

“I don’t want to…”

“It doesn’t matter what you want here,” Tim said, cutting to the core of the matter.

Pirates were selfish, after all. They could be selfish in regard to each other’s own wants. Robin chuckled at that, and Franky laughed, muffling it behind his hand to quiet the noise. She could hear some confused noises from their companions.

And it was so rare that she had seen Sabo look poleaxed like that.

“It doesn’t have to be for long,” Tim said, almost gently for him. He wore it, being the intelligence officer for the future King of the Pirates. A spymaster, some had been calling him. Mainly because he knew when to manipulate and when to be genuine, this was the latter. Sabo would have sniffed out the former, Robin knew.

She could see the Chief of the Staff of the Revolutionary Army weaken slightly. And she knew Tim could as well because his blue eyes sharpened.

(If her mother had more children, Robin would wonder, would she have a brother who looked like Tim? With their black hair and blue eyes, they could pass for siblings. Though Tim was fairer-skinned than her.

Even so, she had him now. They weren’t siblings. Their relationship wasn’t like that.

The whole crew was entwined in a queerplatonic relationship, even if most didn’t realize it. Robin had kept an eye on customs for large group marriages for the day Luffy asked. For as much as sex and romance didn’t interest her captain, and as much as he prized freedom above all, he would have liked the idea of marriage.

A promise to never leave each other alone again.

That would be a wonderful day, she had long ago decided.)

“I have an older brother,” Tim said, appealing to the older brother in front of him. “Who I loved more than anything in the world. Even if it was for a couple of seconds, when I was sick or hurt, it still mattered to me that he woke me up and checked on me. It’d matter to Luffy too.”

“You said loved,” Sabo said.

“He took something from me. Something that was his to take, but I wasn’t ready to give. I still love him. But he…he abandoned me in the end. Or it felt like it anyway,” he looked off, out the window. Robin bloomed an arm and ran a hand through his hair. She could see his mouth quirk upward.  

Tim loved physical contact and hated asking for it. So, they gave it to him freely and without concern; he’d let them know if he didn’t want to be touched. But he always leaned into it so hungrily.

(Touch starved is what Chopper’s books called it.)

“I still love him, just not more than anything in the world. It’s a difficult burden to put that sort of love on someone,” he finished.

Sabo looked at Tim in consideration.

Who raised an eyebrow.

“It still mattered. Those memories are still precious. Make another one with him.”

Robin leaned back into Franky’s comforting mass. She was careful of his injuries, and he shifted to accommodate her. Memories were so precious. She hoarded them like gems: of her mother, of her home, of Saul, of the Straw Hats, of this moment.

Sabo woke Luffy up.

It was like dawn breaking through the clouds, Robin thought. Her captain’s smile at seeing Sabo’s face was like the dawn.

Tim smiled and leaned against her, reaching out to pull Zoro closer to them so they could rest.

Five Years Ago

Luffy’s new crew was something amazing in the making, Ace could tell. They were unrefined, but they would be something special once they learned and grew as time passed. And it clear that he loved them, his dumb little brother loved them all with everything in his too-big heart.

And they loved him back. Even when Luffy was being an idiot, they loved him.

Once he's caught Blackbeard, maybe he’ll try to visit Yamato again. He did have a promise to keep to him and Tama after all. He would love to hear about Luffy’s crew. Ace could practically see the sparkle in his eyes. It made him warm in a way different from the constant fire of his Devil Fruit.

Yeah, soon as he handled Blackbeard, he’d go see Yamato and Tama. See what he could do to help them.

“You’re a good big brother,” the skinny pale kid with too knowing eyes said. Tim, Ace remembered, his name was Tim. His Vivi-approved Alabasta desert clothes were in shades of red and gold, making him look like he was the one with the flame powers. The cook—Sanji—had smirked and said something about the clothes they found him in. Tim flipped him off before changing.

But still, the compliment made Ace’s heart feel too tight and too big all at once. He tried. He tried really hard to be as good as he could to Luffy. After Sabo and even the murder attempts, it felt like it was the least he could do. He loved him so much. He wanted his brother to have the world.

Because he knew it, in his very bones, his little brother was gonna be the Pirate King, even if he teased him by saying Pops would be it. Maybe Pops would be it first, but Luffy would get the title at some point. It was like a certainty of the world to him at this point.

“Well, that’s nice of you to say.”

“It’s a fact. You’re a good big brother, and he loves you a lot.”

Ace could sense a but coming.

“But…”

“But nothing,” he said before tilting his head at him. “Well..”

Ah so there was a but. The kid was staring up at the endless stars in the sky above Alabasta.

“You remind me of someone back when he was gentle. He had a fire in him, too, except this was more metaphorical,” Tim paused and considered his next words. “It got away from him. And it led to his death. I suppose what I’m telling you is to be careful about that sort of fire. The one not associated with your Devil Fruit could burn you a lot worse.”

Ace thought of Thatch’s body and Blackbeard. He breathed out through his nose. The kid wasn’t saying anything that Marco hadn’t said to him either before he left. The only difference was that the first division commander was a lot less polite about it than Luffy’s crew member was.

“I need to see it through.”

Tim looked at him, and there was understanding in his eyes. He nodded toward where Luffy was sleeping.

“For his sake, then, if nothing else. Be careful.”

Like Ace thought, his kid brother put together a good crew.

“I’ll try,” he promised.

(Ace thought of that conversation a lot in Impel Down and on his way to his execution.

He should have listened to the warnings.)