The thing is, Tim didn't mean to put it on. He was just kind of playing with it to keep his hands busy while he was thinking about the recent murder case. GCPD had their hands full with the serial robbers that didn't rank high enough to catch Batman's attention, and Tim never had a problem with helping the police if he had time.
And the ring was a perfect fidget toy, if he is being honest. Small and plain enough not to distract him, but the round stone in the middle was loosely attached, making it able to spin inside the frame. Which is what he did, again and again, like those fidget spinners.
Of course, he was just destined to drop it sooner or later. And then, when he reached under the table to pick it up, his finger caught inside the ring, and, well.
The ring was now firmly on his finger.
The problem was that he couldn't take it off.
It wasn't stuck, at least not in the general sense of it - Tim could easily spin it around, and it wasn't tight. But it wasn't loose either, and as soon as he tried to move it past the knuckle, the ring heavily disagreed, almost like shrinking down and absolutely refusing to be detached.
Barbara suggested soap, which didn't work. Dick tried for a more mechanical approach, first with pliers and then with a laser, which the ring resisted with no effort. Cass, who was actually the one who brought the damned thing into the Cave after one of her adventures in Hong Kong, just smiled and shrugged, which was of no help either. Damian offered to cut the finger off, which probably would have helped, but Tim rather liked all his limbs attached.
Bruce called Constantine. The magician took one look at the ring, barked a humorless laugh, and pat Tim on the shoulder sympathetically.
"Congrats, mate," he said, a wry smile on his lips, "I hope you file for divorce."
Although, while all the rest of the Bats and Birds devolved into fits of hysterical laughter (Steph), indignant sputtering (Damian), and cries of outrage (everyone else sans Alfred, who was pointedly unimpressed), Tim couldn't even bring himself to be surprised. Really, his life had been a shitshow since he was around ten. It's not like he didn't expect himself to be accidentally married to some otherworldly magical creature by this point.
The worst part - worse than the actual engagement, that is - was that Constantine couldn't exactly tell them who the spouse was.
What he did say was that the Ring belonged to the King of Infinite Realms, Keeper of Unseen Worlds, and Eyes of Universe. But those were only titles, and, as John Constantine begrudgingly admitted, there has been a change in the management recently, so no one really knew what the new almighty monarch looked like or what they were, much less their whereabouts.
"You can't blame me for not being keen to find out, though," John said, wincing, "The last one was a bloody tyrant, and the Realms operate under the right of conquest rule."
At least, the mage assured them that since the being had not yet come to collect their shiny new spouse, they might never show up at all. The Ring has been lost for ages after all, so maybe the King didn't even remember having one. Or, the previous King didn't, and the new one didn't know about or didn't care.
The first week after the incident, they spent anxiously researching and worrying. Bruce even went as far as making Tim wear a tracker at all times, which was not great, but he did appreciate the gesture. Kind of.
After the first month with no sign of any changes, the worry started to abate. In half a year, most of the family stopped trying to keep an eye on Tim at all times lest he suddenly disappeared. Two years later, even Tim himself treated the Ring as a natural part of his daily life. The stone inside was still a great fidget toy, engagement or not.
Three years, one month, and five days after Tim first put the Ring on his finger, when the world was falling apart and breaking in front of him and there was not a single thing he could do to stop it anymore, Tim pressed his lips to the cold, dark strip of unknown metal on his finger.
"Whoever you are, I don't even care, please," he whispered in a useless prayer, his voice hoarse and his throat dry, "please, help."
And the world came to a stop with a short, amused chuckle.
He never mentioned the fact to other members of the family, but they are detectives and vigilantes, it's their job to be observant. Which, after so many years, becomes a habit.
Damian doesn't actively avoid the mirrors - he has a mirror in his bathroom, he didn't express any discomfort over going into a mirror labyrinth at some carnival they've attended (he expressed disgust over taking part in something so stupid, in his words, but that's a whole another story), and he actually spent a few minutes in front of the funhouse mirrors when no one was looking, watching his own reflection distort in various ways. He also has no problems with his self-image - he doesn't mind pictures of him taken at any time (unless it's Tim, but that's, again, a whole another story), he's drawn a few self-portraits that were rather accurate and he liked them.
He just doesn't like mirrors. For some reason.
His family, both close and extended, never questioned it. They did some gentle research to see if the dislike was caused by some kind of problem Damian was experiencing without telling anyone, but when they found no proof of that, they've just decided it was some quirk of his. Everyone has quirks. Dick doesn't like eating cereal like a normal person, Tim despises sleep, Steph is at war with any color other than purple.
That is, until one day, Tim witnesses Damian sitting in front of a mirror.
He is not even aware of it - the whole family is having a game night, and through some arguments and rearrangements on the couch, Damian ends up sitting on the left side of it, where his back is turned to one of the three mirrors in the room. Tim, who's lost the last round, is slumping in an armchair nearby, pointedly looking away from the screen where Damian and Jason are enthusiastically competing over the first place in Mario Cart. Of course, Tim can't just not watch it since he needs to know their strategies. But turning back around would also be admitting defeat.
The solution? Easy, watch the screen through the mirror.
Which is when he notices it.
Damian in the mirror doesn't act the same as Damian in the room. Out of the corner of his eye, Tim can see the real Damian moving around, shoving Jason with his elbow, fully concentrated on the game, and yelling something. Damian-in-the-mirror is sitting unnaturally still, the back of his head over the couch unmoving.
Tim forgets all about the game when Damian's reflection starts to turn around. Slowly and carefully, eerie in the way the horror movies are, the boy in the mirror turns his head around like an owl, his neck twisting inhumanely.
His eyes are green. Green like the toxic waste, like Jason's madness, like acid in cartoons, like the Waters of Lazarus.
Damian in the mirror smiles, his unblinking, gliwing eyes fixed on Tim, and his teeth are sharp and pointy, and there are too many of them, humans can't smile this wide.
"-im? Tim!" A hand nudges him in the shoulder, and Tim looks away from the mirror, finding Dick standing over him. The noise of the game room returns all at once, and, wait, when did it become quiet for Tim?.. He must have a strange expression on his face because Dick's easy smile falls slightly, and he frowns, "Is everything okay?"
Tim looks back to the mirror, but the green-eyed boy in the mirror is gone, and the mirror only reflects Damian as he is: sitting on the couch.
"Yeah," Tim shakes his head and forces a smile on his lips, "I just zoned out."
"Okay," Dick pats him on the shoulder and gives him the controller, "It's your turn now."
Tim takes the controller and turns around, facing the screen. Tim throws a quick glance at Damian, who had slid down on the couch so his head would not be in the reflection anymore. Tim sees the cold, warning hint to his eye, a clear do not speak of it message.
Tim doesn't like that the mirror is now behind him.
Okay, sure, I'm always down for a teenager Danny who is on the run/adopted by Batfam/needs therapy and cuddles. The young and tired Danny who just wants comfort so hard. Beautiful.
But.
What about a slightly morally gray adult Danny? The one who is not afraid of turning into Dan anymore, because 1) Clockwork already erased that future, and 2) he knows himself, and he knows what he wants and what he is capable of. It's not like there are only two ways - world destruction and the perfect hero.
Danny, who embraces being the King of Infinite Realms. Danny, who actually doesn't mind doing whatever the fuck he wants, going by his own moral compass. Danny, who knows he is powerful and doesn't bother trying to hide it. Danny with an attitude "I am what I am, don't like me - get lost".
He is still kind, sure, but he is not a people-pleaser. He can be a King, a hero, an anti-hero, a mercenary, a civilian, and even a vilain occasionally if he wants to. All at once.
Anyway, this has been sitting in my drafts for so long that I wrote a fic out of it.
It was weird. Not wrong, alarming or dangerous type of weird. Not good or comforting either.
Just plain weird.
It all started a few days ago, on Wednesday, to be exact. On a rare occasion, Jason was patrolling outside of his territory ("cover for me, I have a date" my ass, Replacement), and he spotted something out of place. A neon green, almost toxic colored sign that read "Afterlife".
Honestly, who names a place like that? But judging by the placement and design, it was a bar, and Jason could almost appreciate the irony. Maybe it had a slogan along the lines of "our drinks will send you beyond the lines of life and death" or something. But at the same time, it could be interpreted as "alcohol can and will be the death of you," which, technically, is not the best PR campaign for a bar.
Jason decided to visit the place anyway. He was curious about the implied death joke, sue him.
Of course, he didn't visit immediately. He was still on patrol, and he just heard the sound of gunshots to the west. Not to say that the place was quiet.
(Oddly quiet for a bar in Gotham, now that he thinks about it)
Anyway, the next day, he went there not as Red Hood but as Jason Todd, an ordinary civilian who decided to grab a beer in the evening. Only to not find the place.
He couldn't have just miss it - he remembered the street, he knew the building, he was absolutely fucking sure where the "Afterlife" should have been. He searched the whole block nonetheless, and then proceeded to check the whole area, but to no avail.
Damn, it seems like he can't get to the afterlife both literally and- the other literally. Yeah, he might be having too much fun with the oddly chosen name for the nonexistent bar.
It didn't exist on the maps and internet either. At this point, Jason was contemplating the idea of it being a hallucination or a dream. He even checked the recording on his helmet from Wednesday night, but the whole time he was in the area, the video was filled with interference and static.
Weird. Slightly suspicious, but Red Robin, who's been patrolling the same area for weeks before him, never reported any interferences, so it probably had something to do with his helmet and not the area in general.
On Thursday night, he purposefully went there right after patrol. And the nonexistent bar suddenly existed again! The same neon green sign, the same quiet street around it.
Seriously, what is this mysterious fuckery?
Now, if he was a Bat, he would have reported this to others and investigated, lurked around in shadows, and approached with caution. If he was a Robin, he would have still reported and then straight up marched in there and saw how it goes.
Alas, he was Red Hood, so he decided to watch for the bar guests and see just who the hell goes in and out of the place.
And there was the next weird thing.
No one was going in or out. Jason sat there for a whole hour, and not even one person entered or left the building. Despite the muffled sounds of music, voices and laughter coming from the place.
The final kicker was the fact that after some careful questioning and dropping hints, Jason found out that no one except him ever saw the "Afterlife"'s sign. No one's even heard of it, both the Batclan and the Gothamites.
The fuck?
So he did the next logical thing. He brought the smartest member of the Bats with him. Tim owed him anyway. Might as well use it now instead of later.
Friday night proved two things: one, Tim was still his favorite to work with out of all the bats and birds, not questioning anything as to why Jason is asking him to check out a bar, and two, Jason just might be going insane.
Tim couldn't see the "Afterlife" even when Jason pointed at the sign from not further than ten feet. The irony of the stipid name was not even amusing anymore.
Tim didn't ask any questions after this experiment, and Jason didn't want to admit that he is losing the grip of reality, so they ended up simply parting their ways after. Can the Pits cause brain damage? More damage than there was in the first place, that is.
Now that he thinks about it, the color of the sign is really similar to the Lazarus waters. He should have noticed it sooner, but in his defense, who would look at the bubbling pool of toxic waters and think, "Oh, that would make a dope neon sign"? Apparently, the owner of the "Afterlife".
The color might be just a coincidence.
...no, in the world he lives in, coincidences like this just don't happen. Besides, Jason doesn't believe in shit like fate or destiny.
So, here he is, on Saturday night, standing in front of the door to the Afterlife. It would have been funny if it wasn't so weird. What's even more weird is that the closer he gets to the door, the less nervous he feels, like the place is radiating some calming aura. Wait, no, scratch that, Jason is so not calling it a calming aura for God's sake. That sounds just like those homemade witches with their crystals, tarot readings, and whatnot.
He's going to call it... tranquilizer vibes. Yeah, that's better.
He takes a deep breath, getting ready to see whatever it is on the other side, pushes the door open, and walks into the bar.
...
Whatever he's been expecting to see, it's not this.
When I was four, I asked my mother if we could get a cat, pretty please. She said no, and we've never spoken of it again.
When I was six, I learned that my mother thinks dachshunds are adorably clumsy. I didn't share the opinion, but I still asked her if we could get a dachshund. I'll take it on walks every morning and evening, and it can live in my room. She said no, and we've never spoken of it again.
When I was eight, my mother brought home a crying red-faced thing and told me it was my baby sister. I asked if I could at least have a brother instead if she didn't like pets so much. She said no, and we've never spoken of it again.
When I was fifteen, my mother excitedly told me we are moving to another country on the last day of the school year. I asked if I could stay here, where all my friends and family are. She said no, and we've never spoken of it again.
When I was twenty, I went to the ocean shore on the night of my birthday and spent hours looking into the waves, trying to find the courage to walk in and never resurface. I came back home the next morning and asked my mother if she wanted to know where I've been. She said no, and we've never spoken of it again.
When I was twenty-three, I asked my mother over the phone if she ever even loved me. She said yes, of course I love you, everything I did was for you no, and we've never spoken of it again.
A month ago, my father called me and asked if I would like to add anything to the speech he is preparing for the funeral or if I want some of the ashes to be sent to me. I said no, and we've never spoken of it again.
