There was a cadence to rebuilding, even if that cadence beat under tension and unspoken longing.
The New Justice League coalesced faster than anticipated. Earth's greatest heroes hadn't lost their conviction just their course. And with cosmic collapse on the horizon, purpose had a way of bringing together broken legends.
But even as we trained, deployed teams, and constructed a war capable infrastructure under the orbital Watchtower, something changed beneath the surface less predictable than dimensional breaches and god-killing threats.
Desire.
It began with Raven.
She never spoke much. She never needed to. Her energy was quieter than the others. Always observing. Always calculating. But recently, she didn't fade after missions. She stayed around.
Following one specific battle in Nanda Parbat in which a rift between Earth-29 and our reality had released a reality eating parasite we stood back to back, looking out over a ruined landscape. The stars shone above us, indifferent to mortal pain.
"You didn't hesitate," she said.
"I couldn't. That thing would've eaten a hundred worlds if we gave it five more seconds."
"No, I mean… with me. You trusted me to close the dimensional gate."
I faced her. "I've read a thousand timelines where you fall. I've seen just as many where you rise into something unreachable. But in this timeline Raven you're here. That's enough for me to trust."
Her eyes held. No smile. No flush. Just fire behind violet eyes.
She kissed me.
No warning. No hesitation. No magic.
Just intent, hard and unapologetic.
And with that, the dynamic shifted.
But there was no time to process it. Not with who arrived next.
The multiversal beacon I'd lit our new recruitment net was pulling results. Dozens of heroes responded. Some curious. Some desperate. Some dangerous.
Two of them didn't belong to this world.
Black Widow was the first to arrive my universe's version dead a long time, but this one. she was alive, very much alive. Fierce. Cunning. Interested in me in a way that caused Batman to shift ever so slightly when we talked.
"Have you heard of me," she said, lips curving up as she examined me like a file she couldn't quite read. "Some people think you're a god. Some think you're a bomb waiting to go off."
"And you?"
"I say you're… interesting."
Later that evening, she asked for a sparring session in the fighting chamber. It ended with her underneath me, her breath burning my throat. Neither of us moved.
Then she grinned. "Perhaps you are worth watching."
As if that wasn't enough madness Jean Grey arrived two days later.
I hadn't called her. She tracked a psychic aura bleeding from my multiverse projection. The Phoenix Force had caressed my energy and dragged her here between realities.
She was a paradox. Flame and compassion. Serenity and tempest.
"You're dangerous," she uttered, voice soothed like a dirge hymn.
"You came anyway."
She nodded, flames dancing behind her eyes. "Perhaps I wanted to test whether or not I could remain by your side."
That was the start of something else another complication I hadn't planned for.
Wonder Woman picked up on it.
Zatanna did too.
Raven didn't say anything, but I could sense her feelings through the connection she'd left behind when she kissed me.
This wasn't cosmic diplomacy or multiversal preparation anymore. This was a clash of powers and hearts each one bearing their own trauma, their own secrets, their own reason for moving closer to me.
And I…?
I wasn't fleeing from it.
Not anymore.
Because power wasn't the only thing expanding within me.
So was gravity.
And everything and everyone was beginning to circle inward.