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Jason shifted impatiently as Constantine spoke to Batman. They had been there for hours, trying to stop a kraken some wanna-be necromancer accidentally summoned, from destroying the docks. Just a regular Tuesday in Gotham, but tiring nonetheless.
He looked up and noticed the magician staring into a nearby alleyway and followed his gaze. Wary of trouble, Jason fell into a fighting stance, watching as Batman moved forwards to investigate, stopped only by Constantine.
“Oi, I can feel you from here,” Constantine called out, shoulders stiff, even as he twirled a cigarette, “Don’t make me drag you out, yeah?”
Jason watched in surprise as a young boy, maybe eight or nine, slunk out of the shadows. He doesn’t seem all that threatening, with mussed black hair and owl-like blue eyes, but you could never really know.
Constantine didn’t relax, “Mind telling your friend there to sod off.”
“You mean Mommy?” The boy tilted his head, as if listening to something unseen, “She says she doesn’t want to leave a magician unsupervised. Their magic gets all twisty around her.”
Jason raised an eyebrow, “Then why’d she come?”
The boy pouted, “What’s she supposed to do? Leave?”
“Sure?” Jason shrugged.
The boy sighed, as if his reasoning was the most obvious thing in the world, “She’s a city, it's not like she can just up and move.”
Batman stepped in, “Are you saying your mother is—”
“Gotham?” The boy started nodding enthusiastically, “Uh huh! She says she’s the per-son-i fi-ca-tion of the city,” Jason finds the way he stretched the word, as if unsure of how to pronounce it, kind of cute, “But she’s not really my Mommy, She just watches me when my Mother is away.”
“Bollocks to this, I didn’t sign up for dealing with a city spirit,” Constantine cut in, “This is above my bloody pay grade.” He then dropped his cigarette onto the ground and stepped into the smoke, disappearing from sight.
The boy gasped. “That’s so cool! Mommy? Can I do that?” He paused for a moment before wilting, “Okay...” He mutters. Then he brightened again, “Really? That’s almost as good, do it now!” And right before Jason’s eyes, he disappeared, leaving only the echo of laughter behind.
Red Hood leans back on the couch, “And that’s how I met Gotham’s teleporting problem child.”
Damian scoffs, face still buried in his sketchbook, “This entire story seems doubtful, Todd.”
“Not that I don’t believe you...” Dick trails off, “But a personified city seems a little far fetched, maybe the kid was just messing with you?”
“How about you ‘placement?” Jason nudges the still typing boy, “Get your nose out of your laptop and talk to us.”
“Huh?” Tim puts his laptop under his arm and stands, “Yeah, it’s true.”
“Why so certain, Drake?” Damian asks, raising a questioning eyebrow.
“I mean, I remember it too,” Tim comments off-handedly as he walks out of the room, “But it wasn’t teleportation, it was more like camouflage. Mom was just masking me in the shadows.”
There’s a pause as three people left in the room absorb Tim’s sentence.
“Wait, what?!” Dick cries, “Tim!? Come back!”
“Of course Drake managed to get himself adopted by a city.” Damian mutters.
Jason grins, “I wanna see Gotham and Bruce fight over custody.”