Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dick never understood why everyone acted like Jason came back... wrong.

Sure, the Pit rage was a thing. That was undeniable. And yeah, the glowing eyes had been freaky the first time they flared green in the middle of a shouting match with Bruce. But that was old news. Jason had stabilized. More or less.

Dick had seen worse.

But the rest of the family? They tiptoed around Jason like he was a bomb counting down in some forgotten corner of the Manor. They spoke in hushed tones when he left the room, dropped phrases like “residual Lazarus effects” and “ambient energy fields” like they were reading from Zatanna’s notebook.

And always— always —they found it weird that Dick wasn’t bothered. That golden-boy Dick just smiled and cracked jokes and ruffled Jason’s hair like none of it registered.

But the thing was, it didn’t register.

Not the way they meant.

The tech malfunctions? The flickering lights when Jason got pissed? The way the comms sometimes picked up his voice even when he wasn’t transmitting? Dick hadn’t noticed any of that. Not out of denial. Not because he was ignoring it. He just... didn’t see it as a problem.

Because to him, it all felt normal.

Eyes glowing? His own did that sometimes when he slipped, when the power buzzed too close to the surface. Cold air? He’d stood at the edge of underworlds that would shatter bones with their chill. Energy fields, death echoes, whatever else they were worried about—he’d lived inside worse. Been worse.

It wasn’t spooky. It wasn’t supernatural. It was Tuesday.

Besides, he knew better than anyone how fast people turned on you the second you became something they couldn’t explain. Say the word “god” too loud in a room full of mortals and you either got laughed at or institutionalized. Even now, in this new world of flying aliens and magic capes, the divine was still one step too far.

He kept it quiet. Always had.

Ironically, the only one who’d recognize his true name if he ever spoke it aloud would be Vandal Savage. And Savage hated that. Hated him . Still, there was a sort of grim respect there, born from the weight of shared eternity.

Savage had seen him before. Across eras, across continents. Worship shifted, names faded, temples crumbled—but Dick had always had at least one follower. One torch in the dark.

It was enough to keep the fire lit.

But this vessel? This one was his favorite. Not the strongest, not the fastest, not the most devout. But real. Human in the messiest, most vibrant way. Pain and love and rage and joy—this vessel had felt everything. Lived through everything.

The memories that belonged to him were only the ones tied to this body. The rest—lifetimes of thrones, temples, sacrifices—they felt distant. Like old movies watched from across the room.

And Dick was fine with that. More than fine.

He hadn’t used his powers for anything but survival in centuries. He hadn’t needed to. Being human was easy. Being Dick Grayson was simple. He liked it.

So when Tim cornered him in the kitchen one evening, leaning awkwardly against the counter with that classic “I don’t want to start something, but I’m gonna start something” face, Dick raised a brow and waited.

“Hey,” Tim started, and Dick could already tell this was gonna be a thing.

“What’s up?” Dick asked, flipping the pancake he was making with the ease of someone who’d fought off demons with one hand and made breakfast with the other.

Tim hesitated. “You seriously don’t notice anything... weird about Jason?”

Dick blinked. “Besides the brooding, the terrible taste in music, and his borderline unhealthy obsession with that one dive bar in Crime Alley?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I mean the actual weird stuff. Tech acting up around him. Static. Lights flickering. Cold air. You ever walk into his room? It’s like a morgue in there.”

“Jason just likes it cold.”

“Dick. Come on.”

There was something too insistent in Tim’s voice. Not panic—Tim didn’t do panic—but quiet, methodical concern. Dick frowned, flipping the last pancake and turning off the stove.

“I’m listening,” he said.

Tim glanced at the doorway, like he half-expected Jason to come walking in. “You don’t see it, but the rest of us do. We feel it. Around him. Something’s off. It’s like... it’s like he never fully came back. Like part of him’s still on the other side.”

Dick leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “And you want me to... what? Spy on him?”

“No. Just...” Tim sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Keep an open mind. Watch us when we’re around him. Watch him. Something’s not right, and it freaks the others out that you’re the only one who acts like everything’s fine.”

Dick gave a slow nod. “Okay. Sure. I’ll pay attention.”

He meant it. Not just to shut Tim up or check a box labeled big brother duties . He meant it the way an archaeologist meant it standing over something ancient and half-buried—something waiting. Something humming just under the surface.

It wasn’t worry that tugged at his mind after Tim walked out. It was curiosity. Old and sharp. The kind that once made kings build temples just to get a glimpse of something they didn’t understand. The kind that had followed Dick through lifetimes.

So he started watching.

He didn’t make a big thing out of it. No questions, no checklists. Just... proximity. He started showing up. At first, it was subtle—stopping by the garage when he heard the clang of tools or the loud swearing that always meant Jason was two steps away from punching a carburetor. Then it turned into late-night raids of the pantry, arms full of snacks, crashing on Jason’s couch without asking.

No mission. No Bat-business.

Just him .

And Jason never turned him away.

Oh, he grumbled, sure. “Don’t you have, like, four different people to impress with your endless optimism?” or “You’re gonna get crumbs in my damn couch again, and I will light you on fire,” but there was no bite to it. If anything, Dick saw the flicker of relief in Jason’s face every time he stayed. Like for once, he didn’t have to justify being alive .

Still, Jason kept trying to steer them somewhere else. His room was always the last option. The one place he didn’t invite people into.

Which is why, on a rainy Thursday night when the Manor was unusually quiet and Jason was holed up upstairs, Dick kicked the door open with all the subtlety of a marching band.

“Knock knock,” he called as he stepped inside, already thumbing through his phone. “Guess what I brought?”

Jason looked up from his desk, where he had a half-disassembled handgun spread out like a crime scene. “If it’s a live grenade, I’ll consider it a peace offering.”

“Nope. Better.” Dick grinned as he dropped onto the bed with practiced ease. “Internet garbage.”

Jason groaned. “You’re like a raccoon with abs.”

“I’m flattered,” Dick said, settling back against the headboard like he’d lived there for years. “Now shut up and prepare to laugh your ass off. This one’s got a dog trying to climb a ladder. He makes it halfway. There’s betrayal. Drama. A tragic fall.”

Jason chuckled under his breath but didn’t move from the chair. He wiped down a component with a stained rag, movements slowing as his gaze drifted to Dick, eyebrows drawn. Like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You know you don’t have to hang out here , right?” he said eventually. “We could go to your room. Or literally anywhere else in this house that doesn’t feel like a morgue.”

Dick glanced up from his phone, unbothered. “You redecorate the place with skulls or something since I was last here?”

Jason huffed a laugh but didn’t smile. “Funny. No. I just—” He paused, raking a hand through his hair. “It’s not me . It’s the room. Or maybe it is me, I don’t know. People don’t like being in here. Bruce stops at the threshold. Cass won’t even sit down. Steph threw up once just walking past.”

Dick winced. “Okay, gross, but also that might’ve been the gas station sushi.”

“Nope,” Jason said, deadpan. “She told me. ‘It’s you.’ Her exact words. ‘It’s you.’”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Rude.”

Jason leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. “I’m serious, man. The air gets thick. People feel cold, or dizzy. Or like something’s watching them. Nobody ever says anything, but I see it. They all get twitchy.”

Dick shrugged, casual. “Weird. I feel fine.”

Jason blinked at him. Then frowned.

“…Really?”

Dick nodded, scrolling lazily. “Little drafty. Smells vaguely like gun oil and ramen. But otherwise? Totally chill.”

Jason didn’t answer right away. Just stared at him like he was trying to figure something out and coming up empty. “Huh,” he said finally. “Guess I was wrong.”

Dick looked up again, slower this time. Jason’s voice wasn’t biting. It wasn’t defensive. Just tired. Like he’d been carrying the weight of that wrongness for too long and didn’t quite know what to do with the idea that maybe someone could exist in the same space without wanting to flee.

“You’re not wrong,” Dick said, softer. “Something’s... off in here. I’m not gonna lie.”

Jason tensed, already bracing for the verdict.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t handle it. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here.”

Jason didn’t respond, but his fingers twitched where they rested on his arm.

“Look,” Dick continued, gesturing with his phone, “I brought stupid videos. I’m planting myself right here, and unless this room sprouts fangs and tries to eat me, I’m not moving.”

Jason was quiet for a beat. Then, slowly, he stood. Walked over. Sat beside Dick on the bed with the kind of caution you used when you didn’t trust something not to shatter under you.

Not close enough to touch. But close enough that it meant something.

Dick showed him the video anyway.

Jason laughed at the dog ladder betrayal, and then the next one. They went through half a dozen—pranks, chaos, bad lip-syncs—and with each one, some of the weight seemed to bleed out of Jason’s shoulders.

But while Jason watched, Dick did more.

He reached out with something deeper than his senses. Not fully. Just enough. A whisper of divinity, just under the surface. His eyes stayed the same, but the world around him... shifted.

The room changed.

It was like wading into a frozen lake. No movement. No malice. Just cold. Ancient and still. The walls held echoes, not sounds—moments that didn’t belong to now. He felt the heavy imprint of death soaked into the floorboards, the kind that didn’t fade with time. It clung to Jason, centered around him like a gravitational pull. It wasn’t pain. Not anymore.

It was presence .

The aftershocks of resurrection. The drag of something unfinished. Something tethered.

Jason’s soul was here. Whole. But beneath it, wrapped around the bones, was something else. A shimmer of the Underworld. Not possession. Not corruption. Just... residue. Echoes of what he’d passed through. Or what had passed through him .

Dick didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just tilted his phone toward Jason with a crooked grin.

“You’re gonna love this next one,” he said. “Two raccoons and a slip-n-slide. It’s art.”

Jason laughed again, louder this time, and elbowed him. “You’re an idiot.”

“Thank you,” Dick replied, still watching him. Still feeling.

Later, when Jason was out, he’d come back. He’d cleanse the space—not to erase what Jason was, but to give the others room to breathe. To stop the house from flinching every time Jason opened a door.

And later still, when he could catch Jason in deep sleep—when his defenses dropped and the echoes quieted—Dick would do a full read. Trace the anchor. Find the root. Untangle it bit by bit until Jason wasn’t haunted anymore.

Not all at once. That would raise questions.

But quietly. Gently.

Jason didn’t need to be fixed. He didn’t need to be changed.

He just needed someone who saw the whole of him and didn’t flinch.

And Dick had always been very good at seeing what others couldn’t.

Because eternity didn’t scare him. Death didn’t scare him. Power didn’t scare him.

What scared him was letting his family suffer when he had the tools to help.

Jason wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t broken. He was just... unfinished.

And Dick had time. Plenty of it.

Night in Gotham was rarely still. It didn’t matter how high you climbed, how many stories you put between yourself and the street. Something always moved. Sirens howled in the distance. Wind slid between the buildings like it had secrets to whisper. Neon signs buzzed, flickering against brick. Even the shadows never stayed in one place for long.

Dick had learned a long time ago how to quiet the city in his mind. How to sift through its constant noise until he could hear only what mattered—the crack of a rooftop vent cover, the whisper of fabric against concrete, the hurried breath of someone running when they shouldn’t be. Everything else he tuned out. It was the only way to survive here and stay sharp.

But tonight, something different tugged at him.

It wasn’t a sound, not really. Not a shape or movement either. Just... a feeling. Subtle. Quiet. Ancient.

He came to a stop on a rooftop just south of the Bowery, crouched low, heart steady. He scanned the skyline, pupils narrowing against the artificial light pollution that passed for a moonlit glow in Gotham. Then he saw it—on a building just across the alley. A small figure, curled into itself, sitting on the edge like it belonged there. A kid. Alone.

His muscles tensed, but he didn’t rush in. It didn’t feel like danger.

It felt like calling.

Dick moved without a sound, vaulting over the gap with the ease of someone born in the sky. His boots touched down on the opposite roof with barely a whisper.

And that’s when the noise of the city seemed to dim. Not silence, but distance—like everything else had stepped back, giving this moment room to breathe.

The girl didn’t even flinch.

She knelt in front of a tiny altar, no bigger than a dinner plate. Just a small square of cloth laid out with care. A marble. A broken necklace. A crumpled drawing that had clearly been folded and unfolded dozens of times. And a muffin. Still warm. He could smell the cinnamon.

Hands clasped. Eyes shut. Lips moving in silent prayer.

Dick’s brow furrowed.

He didn’t usually listen anymore. Hadn’t in ages. Not to the prayers, anyway. Not to the thousands of whispered pleas that used to flood in every time someone lit a candle or carved his name into wood. He had learned, painfully, how to block them out. To preserve himself. It was a necessary kind of apathy.

But this girl... she wasn’t just praying.

She was speaking his name .

Not one of the newer ones, softened by centuries of retelling and adaptation. Not the version schoolkids might remember from a mythology unit, or the ones scholars argued about over dusty scrolls and dead languages.

She said the first name. The one that had power even before the word “god” meant anything to humans.

The one spoken at the beginning of flame.

His heart didn’t race—but it skipped, in a way that had nothing to do with adrenaline.

He wasn’t startled.

He was remembered.

Dick blinked, something stirring in him that he hadn’t felt in... gods, centuries. A pang, deep in the space between mortal thought and divine memory.

He reached up and touched his comm.

“Oracle, my vitals are gonna dip in a second. Don’t panic—it’s just a trick.”

There was the usual pause. Then Barbara’s voice, calm but firm, came through his earpiece. “Copy that. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll hold the cavalry.”

Dick moved away from the edge, further from the girl, careful not to alarm her. He found a quiet rooftop nearby and sat down cross-legged beside a rusted-out HVAC unit. His gloves rested on his knees. The sky above was a smear of gray and orange.

He exhaled. Then let go.

His vessel stilled. Breath left it. The false life signs faded. His eyes closed.

And then—he stepped out.

Essence unspooled from skin, blue-white and clean, like a flame burning cold. It poured through his pores like water becoming mist, and then that mist thickened and coiled until it formed him. A second self. The true one. Divine.

He stood in front of his own body, silent and unmoving. The air hummed around him, subtle and reverent. Wisps of light and smoke drifted lazily off his arms and shoulders, haloing him in a way that no painter had ever quite captured. Not anymore.

He didn’t bother taking a full human form. No need. He kept a shape—a gesture toward familiarity. Vaguely humanoid. Shoulders, limbs, something that might’ve been a torso. But his hair—he always made sure that stayed. He liked it. It helped people recognize him, even if they didn’t remember why.

The smoke around him shifted again. He gave it shape, let it carry the echoes of the old form, the first one. Regal and surreal. He didn’t need a crown or armor. Just a silhouette steeped in meaning. At his ear shimmered the only constant: an earring etched with his sigil, worn by every incarnation he’d ever taken.

He drifted.

The wind didn’t touch him. Gravity didn’t apply. He slid through the air like a current, swirling back toward the child.

He let himself coalesce again, forming from a spiral of glowing smoke just a few feet in front of her. The glow brightened gently—enough to be seen, not enough to blind.

The girl gasped and jumped back, but she didn’t run.

Her hands flew to her chest. Her eyes—wide, brown, shining—locked on the earring.

And then she whispered the name again. His name. His .

He smiled, soft and full of something ancient and unspoken. “Didn’t think anyone still remembered me. Not like that .”

The girl took a step forward, awe in every line of her face. “My mom taught me,” she said, almost a whisper. “She said you were real. That you used to listen.”

“I did,” Dick said, his voice not-quite-a-voice. It carried in the space between them, warm and steady. “For a long time. But it gets loud. And after a few thousand years... you start tuning things out.”

The disappointment that flickered across her face was like a punch.

So he crouched down in front of her, smoke curling off his limbs like a protective cloak. “You can’t be more than eight,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a secret.”

She blinked. “Like a magic word?”

“Exactly,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Say: The crown that wilts at dawn. I’ll know to listen.”

She grinned and nodded, then closed her eyes again.

Her lips moved, and this time, he let the words come through.

My name is Sophie. My mom’s sick. Really sick. The doctors don’t know what to do. Please help her.

She looked up, eyes searching his smoke-made face. “Can you?”

Dick nodded once, the movement fluid, more like a shift of light than a physical gesture. “Take me to her.”

Sophie’s eyes lit up. Without hesitation, she reached out, small fingers aiming for his hand—but they passed through the mist of his form, harmlessly cutting through smoke. Her hand hung in the air for a second before she blinked in surprise.

Then she laughed. “That’s so weird,” she said, unafraid. “Cool, though.”

Dick smiled, letting the sound settle in his chest like a warm ember. It had been a long time since a mortal laughed in his presence without fear or awe weighting it down.

Sophie turned and led the way without looking back, hopping onto the fire escape and descending with the ease of someone who’d done it hundreds of times. Dick followed—not climbing, just drifting downward, each step of hers mirrored by his slow, silent glide beside the rusted metal rails.

The apartment building they entered was old, its bones groaning with age. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a flickering wash of yellow down the hallway. Paint peeled at the corners. Someone’s dinner burned faintly in a unit down the hall. But the air here—just outside the door Sophie stopped in front of—was different. Thicker. Heavy with grief, stale with sickness. The kind of sorrow that made the walls feel smaller, like even the space had started to give up.

Sophie fished a key from her pocket, the chain a cheap plastic star with chipped glitter sealed inside. She turned it in the lock carefully, like it was a ritual.

Inside, the apartment was still. Quiet in a way that wasn’t peaceful—just resigned. A lamp hummed in the corner. A fan spun with no purpose. And on a mattress low to the ground, a woman lay beneath a threadbare blanket, her chest rising in slow, shallow breaths. Her eyes were half-lidded, lips dry, arms skeletal beneath the thin fabric.

When she heard the door, she stirred. Her gaze shifted toward Sophie, and a smile—faint but real—curved across her face.

“Hey, Mama,” she murmured, her voice papery and worn.

Sophie walked in with quiet pride. “I brought someone,” she said. “He’s gonna help.”

The woman’s gaze moved past her daughter—and stopped. It locked onto Dick with a kind of stillness that wasn’t fear. It was recognition.

She didn’t scream. Didn’t question.

She just whispered his name.

Not loudly. Not as an exclamation. But reverently, like someone repeating a word they’d carried since childhood. Like someone meeting a story they’d always believed.

Dick floated closer. He didn’t speak at first. Just knelt, his form drifting downward until he was beside her, his hands glowing softly with energy that seemed older than the walls, the street, the city itself.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. It wasn’t physical—it couldn’t be. But it filled the space with warmth, like sunlight had crept in through the window despite the night outside.

“You’ve done well,” he whispered. “You can rest now.”

Then he opened his hands.

The smoke began to gather—white-blue strands curling through his fingers like threads of silk spun from stars. They moved with purpose, not randomness. They responded to his will, seeking her pain.

The tendrils slipped under her skin without piercing it. They flowed into her bloodstream, into her lungs, into her marrow. He felt it all—the infection, the cellular collapse, the immune system fighting a war it had already lost. The pain that had rooted itself in her bones. The fatigue that had strangled her spirit.

Dick found the rot.

And he unmade it.

Where the sickness had hollowed her, his energy filled her back in. It didn’t mask the illness. It erased it. Carefully. Thoroughly. Gently.

He didn’t rush. Some things deserved time.

Her breath steadied first. Then her complexion shifted, pink replacing gray. Her eyes fluttered, then focused. She blinked like waking from a dream and, for the first time in days—maybe weeks—her chest rose without effort.

Dick stood again, his form still flickering gently, smoke whispering around his edges. He turned to Sophie, who had watched the entire thing in breathless silence, her tiny fists clutched to her chest.

He knelt beside her, touched her forehead with the barest trace of his glowing hand. Then moved to her mother and did the same.

Where his fingers passed, a symbol shimmered briefly—faint, celestial—and then faded, leaving behind two identical earrings resting neatly on the nightstand. Small, silver, etched with the mark only the devout would recognize.

Tokens.

Promises.

Then, without another word, his form began to dissolve. The smoke peeled upward, spiraling like mist caught in moonlight. It drifted through the open window, pulled by an invisible tide.

And Dick was gone.

Back on the rooftop, his vessel remained—a hollow shell, slumped and still, like a discarded puppet whose strings had been clipped. For a moment, it looked almost lifeless.

Then the body twitched.

Dick slipped back in.

It was never gentle. His breath slammed into him like breaking surface after too long underwater. Sight narrowed as the flood of information cut off, collapsing back to the narrow bandwidth of human senses. No more layered voices. No more currents of thought slipping through stone and steel. Just the plain old rooftop. The city hum in the distance. His chest rose and fell, sharp and shaky.

He blinked against the quiet, disoriented by how loud the silence felt.

This was the part he hated most—the return. He was always sensitive afterward. Everything hit harder for a while—power, emotion, pain. Even light felt brighter. Sounds, sharper. He'd flinch at things he wouldn’t have noticed before. It would pass in a few days. Unless he used his power again. Then the reset started all over.

But it was worth it.

He flicked his comm back on with a practiced thumb. “Test’s done.”

Barbara exhaled on the other end, a sharp release of breath. “Good. You were about thirty seconds away from me sending Jason to drag your ass back.”

Dick chuckled, voice rough around the edges. “God forbid.”

He tilted his head up. The stars looked faint tonight, but they were there. Distant. Steady. And for the first time in weeks, he felt tethered to something real. Something small. Something human.

“I’m turning in for the night,” he said.

And for once, he meant it.

Dick didn’t usually sneak around the manor—he didn’t have to. His presence didn’t set off alarms. Security systems treated him like part of the infrastructure, and no one questioned his comings and goings anymore. But tonight, he moved like someone trying not to be seen. Careful. Quiet. Intentional.

The halls stretched long and dim around him, moonlight bleeding in through tall windows and casting pale grids across the floor. His steps were measured, each one placed with precision on the old wood, avoiding the known creaks. The manor breathed around him, ancient and slow. Dust in the corners. A distant tick of the grandfather clock downstairs. Familiar sounds, but tonight they felt sharper. Watched.

Jason wasn’t supposed to be home. His signal hadn’t lit up on any of the internal scans Dick had quietly run earlier. No ping on the entry logs. No security camera anomalies. No stray coffee mug left on the counter, which was a near-daily fixture when Jason was around. So, by all logic, Jason was out. Gone. Probably crashing somewhere else or blowing off steam on his bike.

As far as Dick was concerned, that made the room fair game.

He reached Jason’s bedroom and rested his fingers on the doorknob for a moment, listening. Not with ears—with everything else. No movement inside. No shift in air pressure. Nothing brushing against the edges of his perception. He turned the knob and pushed the door open, slow and deliberate.

It opened with a whisper, barely more than the rustle of cloth.

He stepped inside.

The air hit him like walking into a low-pressure system. Dense. Saturated. Not immediately hostile, but charged in a way that made the hairs on his arms rise. Like a thunderstorm had been bottled and left to steep in here. It wasn’t just Jason’s aura bleeding into the walls—it was something older, deeper. Residual energy layered over time, soaked into the sheets, clinging to the floorboards.

Jason was a walking bruise of underworld energy. Dick had always known that. But this? This was more than expected.

He closed the door softly behind him and stood still for a moment, letting his senses adjust. His eyes began to glow, faint and steady, casting the room in cool, flickering light. His breath came slow, even. Controlled. He lifted a hand, and threads of luminous energy coiled from his fingertips like smoke underwater, twisting and curling as if drawn toward invisible pressure points in the room.

Dick moved carefully, sweeping his hand in wide arcs through the air. The energy followed, streaming from him in quiet spirals. It slipped into the corners, sank into the mattress, traced the outline of Jason’s weapons rack and the grooves in the desk. Each pass pulled something out—residue, influence, fragments of tethered spirit energy that had been gathering like sediment.

He wove through the room like a surgeon, slow and precise. His power swept under the bed, around the nightstand, across the windowsill. One spot near the closet door sizzled faintly when he passed over it, and Dick paused there longer, focusing, until the static quieted. It wasn’t just random discharge. The energy was patterned. Familiar in its danger. A symptom of being dead and not staying that way.

Jason probably couldn’t feel it anymore. He’d lived with it so long that it had become normal. But it wasn’t. Not really.

Dick whispered something under his breath—a short, quiet phrase that wasn’t English or any spoken tongue—and finished the final sweep. The last traces of paranormal weight bled away, dissolving into the glow around his hands before disappearing entirely.

He straightened, breathing a little heavier now.

The room felt lighter. The charge in the air had faded. The oppressive stillness had lifted. For the first time in what was probably years, it felt like a room for the living.

Dick exhaled through his nose, unaware he’d been holding it in. His fingers curled loosely at his sides, faint light still fading from his skin. He gave the space one last glance—checking for anything left behind, any sign of instability—then eased the door shut behind him and stepped back into the hallway.

He padded downstairs, the manor quiet except for the low creaks of wood underfoot and the occasional whisper of wind outside. His plan had been simple: do the cleanse, slip out the back, call it a night. Easy. Clean.

But halfway down the stairs, he saw it.

The warm spill of light from the living room lamp. A soft glow, amber against the dark.

He rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks.

Jason was there.

Asleep on the couch.

His head rested against the armrest, the rest of him sprawled out like someone who’d planned to sit for five minutes and ended up passing out instead.

A paperback sat open on his chest, one hand resting on the page like he’d planned to turn it and just... didn’t. Dick blinked. He hadn’t expected to see him—especially not like this. Peaceful. Soft in the face. Vulnerable in a way Jason rarely let anyone see.

Dick hesitated in the doorway, then closed his eyes and let his awareness stretch. The manor flickered into a map in his mind, shaped in layers of warmth and movement. Tim was below, clacking away at the Batcomputer. Bruce, Steph, and Cass were still out on patrol. Damian and Alfred registered as heat signatures in their rooms upstairs, unmoving. Asleep.

His eyes opened again, slowly this time, glowing faint with that familiar, unnatural blue. Power simmered just beneath the surface—controlled, but alert.

Jason hadn’t moved.

He still lay draped across the couch, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, like sleep had claimed him too quickly for resistance. His arm had shifted slightly since Dick first saw him, the hand that had been resting on the book now curled loosely over the edge of the cushion. His face was turned slightly toward the room, not quite defenseless, but close.

Dick studied him for a moment longer, weighing the risk.

Scanning someone’s supernatural state while they were asleep was rarely simple. The body might be still, but the soul was active, defenses twitchy, especially in someone like Jason—whose connection to the afterlife was less a scar and more a festering root system. If he woke mid-scan, things could get... unpleasant. People had lashed out for less. And Jason wasn’t exactly known for waking up calmly.

Still, the opportunity was rare. Too rare to ignore.

Dick crouched beside the couch, moving in low and slow, like a predator trying not to spook its prey—not because he wanted to harm Jason, but because Jason would almost certainly harm him on reflex. He rested two fingers—index and middle—on Jason’s temples. Barely a touch. Light as air. Then he leaned in, close enough to feel Jason’s exhale brush across his skin, warm and rhythmic.

His glowing eyes flared again, brighter this time.

Energy laced from his fingertips, sliding gently onto Jason’s skin like condensation forming on glass. It was a quiet process, deliberate, careful. No sudden surges. No jolts. Just a soft unwinding of perception, like peeling back gauze.

This scan went deeper.

More than surface-level readings. This was intimate. Uncomfortably so. It felt like opening someone’s journal and finding the pages still damp with ink—too recent, too personal.

And then he saw them.

The threads.

Seven in total, thin but unbreakably taut, trailing out from Jason’s soul like gossamer cords. They shimmered in different frequencies, none of them natural. Dick's breath caught in his throat.

They weren’t just lingering marks from time spent in the pit. They weren’t battle damage. These were active connections—vulnerabilities shaped like bindings. Each thread ran in a different direction, like something had cast lines out of Jason and anchored them into the underworld, waiting. Watching. Waiting.

Fishing lines with hooks at the end.

They pulsed gently. Slow and steady. Not yanking—yet. But Dick had seen this kind of architecture before, and it never stayed dormant. These weren’t just links. They were traps. If Jason got too close to necromantic influence, even by accident—walked through a cemetery during a certain moon phase, touched a cursed object, got caught in a blast of old-world death magic—the threads would react. Tighten. Tug.

And eventually, they wouldn’t just pull.

They’d drag.

Dick’s hands tensed slightly where they hovered. He didn’t need to interpret this further. Jason’s soul wasn’t fully his anymore. It hadn’t been for a long time. And if these connections stayed in place, it wouldn’t just be a matter of bad luck or cursed relics.

Eventually, one of them would reel him back in.

A second death.

Permanent, this time.

Dick swallowed, throat dry. He couldn’t cut them all. Not without serious consequences. Every thread was embedded deep, like nerve endings stitched to the soul. Severing too many at once would cause backlash—soulshock, coma, madness. And Jason would feel it. He wasn’t the type to shrug off unexplained psychic surgery.

But two?

Maybe two.

He narrowed in on the first. It pulsed sharply, reacting to microfluctuations in Jason’s heart rate. Dick recognized it instantly. This was the thread that interfered when Jason’s emotions spiked—when panic or rage overtook him and he forgot to breathe, forgot his own body. That one was dangerously active. Too volatile. And, thankfully, easy to remove.

Dick focused. One breath. Then another.

He twisted his fingers slightly. The thread snapped with a soft flicker, vanishing like a candle flame in wind. No resistance. No pushback.

The second was more complex.

It coiled out in spirals, looping back into Jason’s spine like a feedback wire. Dick had seen the symptoms before—how objects shifted when Jason got angry. The rattling glasses. The doors that slammed without wind. The sense that space itself flinched when he got too close to breaking.

A kinetic anomaly.

Dick steadied his hand. This one took more finesse. He slid the energy in like a blade, not to slice, but to loosen —to unravel the knot. It took time. Too much time. Jason twitched once in his sleep, his leg shifting under the blanket. Dick froze, heart in his throat.

Then stillness again.

He finished the cut, slower this time. The thread dissolved into static, dissipating harmlessly into the ambient air. No backlash. No alarms.

Just silence.

Dick exhaled for real this time, his shoulders sagging. He pulled his fingers back from Jason’s temples and let the glow in his eyes fade. The scan was done. The soul was quieter. Still tethered, still wounded—but safer than before.

He looked down at the book on Jason’s chest. The corner of one page was slightly bent. Dick gently lifted it away, smoothed the crease with his thumb, slid a nearby receipt between the pages as a bookmark, and set it on the coffee table without a sound.

Then, without really thinking about it, he moved to the far end of the couch and sat down. Slowly. The cushions gave a little under his weight, but Jason didn’t stir.

Dick leaned back, letting his spine sink into the worn fabric. His gaze drifted toward Jason again. Still breathing. Still asleep. Still here.

He pulled out his phone and opened it to something forgettable. A game. A newsfeed. Anything with scrolling. He didn’t really look at it. Just moved his thumb across the screen in slow, meaningless gestures.

Just to pass the time.

Just to stay present.

Just to make sure those threads stayed severed.

It started with breathing.

Jason hadn’t noticed at first—he never did. It was just part of the background noise of his life. Like the subtle hum of the manor’s wiring, or the way his ribs sometimes ached in the cold. Forgetting to breathe wasn’t something he consciously did. It just happened —especially when he got focused, or pissed, or too deep in his own head.

Tim was usually the one to point it out. Sometimes it came with a sharp look. Other times, a dramatic sigh or a sarcastic cough. But most often, it was a flat, exasperated, “You forgot to breathe again, dumbass,” delivered like it was a minor annoyance on par with leaving crumbs on the counter.

But it had been days now. Three? Maybe four. And apparently, he hadn’t slipped up once.

Jason didn’t even realize it until Tim brought it up over breakfast.

“Okay, so not to be weird,” Tim said, around a mouthful of toast, “but you haven’t done the thing lately.”

Jason glanced up from his coffee. “Gonna need more context than that.”

Tim waved his butter knife in the air like it could conjure the right words. “The thing. The not-breathing thing. You haven’t done it. Not once. And yesterday, you were really pissed.”

Jason stiffened a little. “That dryer had it coming.”

“No argument there,” Dick chimed in, without looking up from his plate.

“But normally,” Tim continued, “that kind of rage moment would’ve come with at least one breaking glass, flickering lights, or sudden power outage. And this time?” He pointed at Jason with the knife. “Nothing. Just you, swearing at a major appliance.”

Jason’s mug hovered halfway to his lips. He set it down slower than usual. “Huh.”

Cass, perched on the counter beside him like some judgmental, silent cat, nodded once. “Your room’s quiet now.”

“Totally weird,” Steph jumped in, eyes already bright with chaotic energy. “I went in the other night to drag you into a Mario Kart deathmatch, and I didn’t instantly feel like I was gonna puke. That’s new.”

Jason blinked. “Wait, you —how often do you—?”

“Couple times a week,” Steph said casually. “Sometimes I steal your chargers. Sometimes I just like sitting in your chair.”

“I’m going to burn that chair,” Jason muttered.

“Too late,” she grinned. “I already claimed it. Squatter’s rights.”

Jason groaned, rubbing his face. “You’re all monsters.”

“Master Jason,” Alfred said smoothly, gliding in with the coffee pot like he hadn’t just listened to them all bicker for five straight minutes, “I must say I’ve also noticed a marked change. Your room no longer gives me a headache. Nor do I feel the compulsion to mutter the Lord’s Prayer while sorting your laundry.”

Dick choked on his eggs. Damian snorted audibly into his tea. Even Barbara, who was visiting and clearly regretting sitting through breakfast with this crowd, cracked a smile.

“Sounds like a win to me,” Barbara said, leaning back in her chair. “Maybe the side effects are finally wearing off.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Side effects?”

“You know.” She made a vague circle motion. “Post-pit resurrection stuff. You’ve been running hot for years—emotionally, magically, everything. Maybe your body’s finally done recalibrating. Could be we’re getting a normal Jason now.”

“Don’t get my hopes up,” Dick muttered, grinning.

Jason let out a low laugh with them, playing along. “Yeah, maybe. Kind of nice not having to worry about shattering a coffee cup every time I get ticked off.”

The table laughed, the conversation shifting back to something stupid Damian said last night. But Jason’s smile didn’t quite hold.

Because underneath the light jokes and familiar banter, something was gnawing at him.

He hadn’t done anything to fix this.

No rituals. No meditation. No Lazarus checkups or late-night power grounding. And the shift hadn’t been gradual, like healing usually was. It felt sudden. Like someone had flipped a breaker. Or cut something loose .

A frown tugged at his brow as he looked down into his coffee, his reflection warped in the dark surface. His sleep had been off lately—more than usual. Not bad dreams, just... gaps. Moments he couldn’t recall. Nights he remembered lying down but not actually falling asleep. A weird, in-between haze.

He’d chalked it up to stress. Now, it felt like something else.

Something—or someone —had done this.

A cold drop of realization hit center mass. His pulse stuttered once, then evened out.

Whoever had messed with him, they’d done it well . Nothing felt wrong. No lingering pain. No side effects he could clock. But Jason wasn’t stupid. You didn’t come back from the dead and stay back by being naive.

And now came the truly horrifying part.

If the supernatural side of things had gone quiet—if his room no longer felt like a haunted hotspot, if no one was getting sick or dizzy near him, if he wasn’t triggering furniture to vibrate just by getting pissed—then he had officially lost all plausible excuses.

No more “stay out, it’s cursed.”

No more “you’ll catch a migraine just from being near me.”

No more supernatural do-not-disturb signs.

He had nothing.

Jason froze mid-sip, realization hitting like a truck. “...Shit.”

Steph, never one to let a moment go un-investigated, raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, forcing a half-smile as he looked around the table at his very smug, very curious family. “Just realizing I’ve lost my best deterrent.”

Damian didn’t miss a beat. “Excellent. I’ll begin redecorating your bookshelf by nightfall.”

“Touch anything and I’ll shave your eyebrows in your sleep.”

Damian sipped his tea with complete calm. “A small price to pay for aesthetic improvement.”

Jason sighed, leaning back in his chair, already mentally preparing to install a biometric lock on his door.

He had no ghosts left to blame.

No dark aura to ward them off.

Just siblings.

Loud, nosy, ridiculous siblings.

And now… he was stuck with them.

It was slow work.

Dick paced it out intentionally—two threads at a time, never more, and always with at least a week between each set. He made sure of it. Any faster and he risked drawing attention, raising questions. Jason was sharp when it came to people digging into his business, especially where the Pit was concerned. He didn’t need Jason paranoid. He needed him safe.

The threads weren’t visible to anyone else. Not even to Jason. But Dick could see them, feel them—the tug of the underworld that clung to his brother like tar. Seven threads, each anchored somewhere in the dead, tied to Jason’s soul like ballast. They didn’t pull him under all at once. They just made it easier for darkness to find him. Easier for it to stick.

Now there were three left.

Over the last couple weeks, the changes had become undeniable. Everyone had noticed—Barbara had even smacked Jason’s shoulder with a smug “Told you so” when he admitted the weird vibes were basically gone. Cass said his room didn’t hum anymore. Alfred had stopped muttering Latin under his breath when folding laundry. Even Damian admitted—grudgingly—that he no longer got headaches after sparring with Jason.

Bruce, of course, was suspicious. Convinced it was an outside force, a manipulation. His instincts weren’t wrong, just misdirected.

Dick said nothing.

Not when Bruce brought it up at the kitchen table late one night. Not when Jason wondered aloud if he was finally “normal” again. Not when Tim started cross-referencing energy shifts with moon cycles and ley lines.

Dick smiled, laughed when expected, asked the right questions, played dumb in all the usual ways.

He hated it.

Every time someone brought it up, he felt it—the weight of what he wasn’t saying. The quiet guilt curled in his chest like smoke. But what was he supposed to do? Sit them all down and confess?

“Hey guys, fun fact: I’m a god. Long story. Also I remember being alive before recorded history and it’s really messing with my sense of self. Anyway, I’ve been gently unwinding the death magic tangled around Jason’s soul. Pass the eggs?”

No. That wasn’t happening. Ever.

The truth was worse than complicated. It was unexplainable. He had millennia of memory lodged behind his eyes like someone else’s dreams. Whole lifetimes he remembered living but didn’t feel like his. Civilizations he’d watched rise and fall. Names that no longer existed spoken in languages that hadn’t been spoken in ten thousand years.

And still, this life—this moment, this family—was the one that mattered most. The one that felt real.

That was the flaw. The part of him he couldn’t undo, no matter how far back he remembered. No matter how powerful he got.

He cared. About mortals. About them .

Too much.

He’d seen it before—in himself, in other versions of himself. That attachment was always what broke him in the end. It always hurt. Because they died. Because he didn’t. Because every time he got too close, he lost something.

But he couldn’t help it. Not with them. Not with Jason.

So no, he wouldn’t tell them. He wouldn’t burden Jason with the truth or make Bruce second-guess every decision. He wouldn’t let them see the cost of what he was doing.

Unless one of them was dying.

Unless it was the only way to save them.

Then— only then—he’d burn the truth out loud.

Until that day came, he’d keep working in secret. Thread by thread. Soft as breath. Quiet as shadow.

He’d finish what he started. And Jason would never know.

Bruce had been pacing for nearly an hour before Constantine even showed up. The grandfather clock in the hall ticked on, indifferent to the tension in the room. Dick leaned against the doorframe of the study, arms crossed, one shoulder pressed to the wood like he had all the time in the world. He didn’t. No one did—not with this kind of thing in the air. But Bruce hated being hovered over, so Dick stayed put and watched.

Bruce wasn’t talking. Not really. A few clipped words here and there to Alfred, a couple sharp exhales, but mostly he just circled the same path in front of the fireplace like a caged animal. Dick had seen this pattern before—shoulders locked, hands clasped behind his back, that tic in his jaw that only showed up when he was barely holding it together. His eyes weren’t on anything in the room. Not really. He was elsewhere. Probably playing mental chess against some invisible threat.

That was the giveaway. Bruce didn’t shut down like this unless he was scared.

And Bruce Wayne scared wasn’t good for anyone.

It was about Jason. Again.

Jason had been improving. Objectively. His temper wasn’t so razor-thin, and he hadn’t vanished for days without a word. The fist-sized holes in the drywall were a thing of the past. He was sleeping more. Eating. Laughing, even. His skin had color. He looked… less haunted.

Everyone else was relieved. Even Alfred had cautiously let himself hope.

But Bruce didn’t trust it. Not for a second.

In Bruce’s mind, progress without explanation was just misdirection. Something had changed Jason, sure—but what? And more importantly, why? Bruce had started talking about “unseen influences,” “arcane manipulation,” and finally, “potential dark entities.” When Bruce Wayne started using those phrases out loud, it was only a matter of time before he picked up the phone and called in someone who could fight ghosts with a cigarette between his teeth.

That someone was John Constantine.

The doorbell rang, sharp and clear. Alfred answered with his usual calm, and moments later the front door swung open to let in the storm.

Constantine walked into Wayne Manor like he owned it—or like he was casing it for a future con. Rumpled trench coat flapping around his knees, tie loose, hair a mess, and that ever-present cigarette tucked behind his ear like it was part of the uniform. He looked up at the chandelier and gave a little scoff, like the place offended him on principle.

Then he stopped.

His eyes flicked around the room. The smirk faded just slightly.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, voice low and casual, but Dick didn’t miss the tension underneath it. “You’ve definitely got something supernatural going on in here. Thick enough to chew through.”

Dick’s heart stuttered. Just a beat, just a flicker—but it was enough. He swallowed hard, rolled his shoulders back, and tried to look unimpressed. Casual. Calm.

No one noticed the way his fingers dug into his bicep. No one noticed the half-second where his face lost color.

He hoped Constantine wouldn’t notice either.

“Jason’s room,” Bruce said, already in motion, voice clipped and businesslike. “That’s where the energy is strongest.”

Constantine tilted his head, interest sharpening. “Then that’s where we’ll start. I’ll need to scan the space. And him. Nothing invasive—just a read.”

Jason was by the staircase, arms folded, jaw tight. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the whole supernatural inspection. His glare could have cracked glass.

“You’re not going into my head,” he said flatly.

Constantine raised both hands like he was being arrested. “Wouldn’t dream of it. That’s Martian Manhunter territory. This is more like… pulling back the curtains to see if anyone’s home. I don’t want your thoughts, mate. Just your vibes.”

Jason didn’t look convinced. But he glanced at Bruce, then back at Constantine, and after a moment’s pause, gave a reluctant nod.

The group headed upstairs.

Bruce led, with Constantine close behind, murmuring under his breath already. Jason followed, stiff-backed and silent. Dick trailed behind them, ignoring the fact that he didn’t technically have a reason to be there.

Bruce hadn’t said no, but he’d made it clear only he and Jason were needed.

Dick didn’t care.

He had to be there. He had to see how close Constantine got. Had to know if the Brit picked up anything strange, anything… wrong. Anything that pointed in Dick’s direction.

Behind him, Tim and Steph tagged along, clearly curious. Tim had that wide-eyed analytical gleam like he was walking into a new case file. Steph looked half like she was hoping for a ghost and half like she’d punch it if she found one.

Jason glanced back at the extra bodies, eyes rolling.

“This isn’t a school trip,” he muttered.

“Sure feels like one,” Steph chirped. “Except with more necrotic energy.”

Dick smiled faintly, but didn’t say anything. His fingers brushed the stair rail as they climbed, grounding himself with the cool wood grain under his fingertips. It was steady. Solid. Unlike the tension curling in his gut.

When they reached Jason’s room, Constantine stepped through the doorway like he was crossing into another plane. He stopped dead center, rolled his shoulders, and closed his eyes. He muttered something low and rhythmic under his breath—Latin maybe, or something older. The air shifted.

It wasn’t dramatic at first. Just a tingle, like the moment before lightning strikes. But then something snapped—quiet but sharp, like static tearing a thin veil. The atmosphere thickened. The lights flickered. For a split second, the world seemed to pause.

Then it revealed itself.

The entire room glowed with a low, bluish-white luminescence. Not bright, but present—like moonlight had soaked into every surface and never left. Threads of energy weaved across the walls, coiled around the bedposts, clung to the furniture like frost. It spread out in veins across the ceiling, drifted in tendrils through the air. Everything—every damn inch of the place—had been touched by something not of this world.

Jason froze in the doorway, jaw going slack.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, stepping inside as if afraid the floor might melt beneath his boots.

Constantine let out a low whistle and turned in a slow circle. “Bloody hell. Are you sure one of you lot isn’t shagging a supernatural? Because this is intense.”

Jason choked.

Dick watched it happen in real time—the way Jason’s head snapped toward Constantine like he’d been slapped, eyes wide, face going from confused to scandalized in seconds.

“Excuse me?” Jason sputtered, looking personally offended. “What the hell kind of—? No! What the—why would you even say that?”

“I mean, look at this,” Constantine said with a shrug, completely unfazed by Jason’s outrage. He gestured around the room like a sleazy realtor showing off cursed property. “This isn’t casual. This is intimate. It’s not just a drive-by blessing or some banishment spell. This place has been—what’s the word—sanctified. Cared for. Like something wanted to fix you without being seen.”

Jason blinked. “Fix me? You think I’m being haunted by… a helpful ghost?”

“Not a ghost,” Constantine said. “Ghosts don’t leave this kind of signature. This is something old. Something with weight. Power. Maybe even affection. Which, yeah, I admit, is not the vibe I usually get off the supernatural.”

Dick kept his eyes on the far wall, jaw tight. His heartbeat was thudding so loudly he was certain someone could hear it. Steph and Tim exchanged a look behind him—half bewildered, half intrigued.

Constantine stepped further into the room, his fingers twitching like he was plucking invisible strings. He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something no one else could hear.

“This is old magic,” he said after a beat. “Real old. Haven’t seen this flavor before. And I’ve been around.”

He crouched by the bedframe, squinting at the thick web of energy twined beneath it. He didn’t touch it—just hovered his hand nearby.

“Looks like it was trying to purge the room. Clear out something toxic.” He glanced up at Jason. “Like necrotic energy.”

Jason’s expression tightened. “Necrotic. As in… death?”

“Exactly. Yours, probably,” Constantine said bluntly. “You’re still leaking it, mate. Not a flood, but steady. Like a cracked pipe under the floorboards.”

Jason looked at Bruce, but Bruce just nodded slightly, processing it all with that same grim surgeon’s focus he always had during autopsies.

“Normally that kind of energy would dissipate,” Constantine went on, rising to his feet. “But you spend enough time in here, and it settles. Lingers. Builds up like spiritual mildew. That’s what this thing was cleaning out. For your sake. Maybe for everyone else’s too. I’m guessing people felt like crap walking in here?”

Steph made a face. “I threw up in the hallway once.”

“Yeah,” Tim added. “Felt like I’d been punched in the lungs every time I stepped in.”

Jason crossed his arms, suddenly defensive. “You all just thought I was being moody.”

“You were,” Tim muttered.

“Enough,” Bruce said, shutting it down with one word.

Constantine clapped his hands once, sharp and final. “Right. I can’t get a clean reading in here. Whatever spellwork was done, it’s still fresh. I don’t want this residual crap screwing up my diagnostics.”

He turned to head out. “Let’s go downstairs. Somewhere neutral.”

Jason hesitated for a second before following. He gave the glowing walls one last look, like he didn’t know whether to be weirded out, grateful, or creeped the hell out.

Dick didn’t look back at all. He just moved, one step at a time, hoping that whatever magic Constantine was picking up on… stayed in the room.

And stayed quiet.

They relocated to the sitting room—neutral ground, at least by Wayne Manor standards. The heavy curtains were drawn against the early evening light, leaving the room bathed in soft amber glow. Alfred must’ve lit the lamps, preparing the space like it was just any other meeting. Just another strange Tuesday for the Bat-family.

Jason dropped onto the couch with a grunt, legs spread, arms sprawled over the backrest like he was daring anyone to try and sit next to him. His expression was unreadable—half irritation, half exhaustion. Maybe more than half.

Constantine stood behind him, posture loose but fingers sharp with precision. He began muttering under his breath again, old syllables not meant for modern ears. His hand moved through the air like he was drawing on invisible glass, each sigil blooming with brief light before vanishing like steam off a mirror. Gold. Then violet. Then nothing.

A long beat passed.

Constantine frowned.

“Well,” he said, “good news and weird news.”

Jason groaned softly. “Of course there’s weird news.”

“The good news is, he’s stable. More or less. Still got minor tethers to the underworld—though I can’t say which one. They’re faint. Dormant. Not pulling at him. But they’re there, like… like spider silk. You don’t notice it until it clings.”

Jason didn’t move. His jaw tightened, but he kept his eyes forward. “Shocking,” he muttered, deadpan. “So I’m still partially dead. Cool.”

Constantine didn’t laugh. He stepped around the couch, leaning forward slightly like he was trying to see past Jason’s skin. “But here’s the weird bit,” he said, eyes narrowing. “That cleansing energy from the room? I’m seeing traces of it inside him too. Not just lingering nearby—inside. Like it didn’t stop at the walls. It reached in. Touched something. Cleaned something up.”

Jason straightened, expression slipping from bored to wary. “Wait, what do you mean, inside me?”

Constantine made a vague motion toward Jason’s chest. “Not physically. Spiritually. Energetically. Whatever you wanna call it. It didn’t just scrub your room clean, mate. It scrubbed you. Something tried to fix you from the inside out.”

From the other side of the room, Steph perked up, a sly grin forming. “So technically,” she said, eyes gleaming, “Jason has been banging a supernatural. I mean—it’s been inside him.”

Jason’s head whipped around. “What?! No—what the hell, Steph—”

Tim didn’t miss a beat. “Banged by a god. That’s gotta be a new one, even for us.”

Dick froze.

He didn't laugh, didn’t even smile. His stomach twisted like someone had tied his intestines in a sailor’s knot. He looked at the floor, hoping no one noticed the way his ears had gone red. It wasn’t like they could know. They were just joking. Just teasing Jason.

But the words felt too pointed. Too close to the truth.

Jason, meanwhile, looked like he was considering throwing one of the throw pillows at Steph’s face. “Okay, no. There is no supernatural banging happening. I haven’t hooked up with anyone who glows or floats or speaks in riddles. Not unless you count Roy on tequila, and even then—”

“Relax,” Constantine cut in, lifting a hand like he was waving off a fire alarm. “The residual doesn’t read like that. There’s nothing sexual or romantic in it—no lust spells, no blood pacts, no sticky soul-binding. Trust me, if this thing wanted you biblically, I’d be seeing a hell of a lot more red and gold. Real flashy, that kind of magic.”

Jason blinked. “Okay… what the hell am I supposed to take from that?”

Constantine tilted his head, thoughtful now instead of snarky. “It felt intimate,” he said, slower this time. “But not in a carnal way. Like someone reaching into your soul—gently. With purpose. Not to take, but to mend. There’s a mark left behind, sure. But it’s more like… a fingerprint on glass. Just a trace of contact. Could’ve been healing. Could’ve been protective. Could’ve just cared.”

Jason rubbed at the back of his neck, the tips of his ears going red. “Right. Okay. Sure. But again, for the record—no soul-touching happened. I think I’d know.”

Steph snorted from her corner of the room. “Would you, though?”

Before Jason could snap back, Tim leaned into the opening like he’d been waiting for it. “So to recap—Jason’s haunted, blessed, and spiritually spooned.”

Jason groaned, flopping back against the couch like the ceiling might just fall and put him out of his misery. “Fantastic. That’s going in the family archives, isn’t it?”

“Already mentally engraved,” Tim replied, tapping his temple with a smug grin.

Dick sat stiff in his seat, watching the banter unfold like it was happening in a different room. His laugh came late, too forced, and too quiet. No one noticed. Good.

Across the room, Bruce hadn’t moved. He looked like a statue—arms folded, jaw locked, eyes locked in on Constantine with surgical precision.

But when he spoke, his voice cut through the room like a scalpel. “What does that mean? Is it a demon? What would it want?”

Constantine snorted, low and humorless. “Not a demon,” he said firmly. “Demons don’t clean things. They twist. They rot. They make things heavier, darker, messier. This? This left clarity behind. That’s not a demon’s signature. That’s something else entirely.”

He turned from the couch, walking slowly toward the fireplace, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat. He looked thoughtful now, brow furrowed in that way that usually meant something was just starting to worry him.

“This feels older,” he said, almost absently. “Smarter. More patient. Whatever it is, it’s got restraint—and that’s rare. It didn’t latch on. Didn’t try to claim him. Just touched and left. Like it was fixing a leaky pipe before walking away.”

He paused, squinting at the fire like the answer might be hiding in the flames.

“This smells like the work of an old god,” he went on. “Maybe one of the first. Before names mattered. Before sacrifices were expected. One of the real old ones, from back when power just existed because it could.”

Jason looked at him sideways. “That’s not terrifying at all.”

“But here’s the thing,” Constantine said, turning back to face them. “I’ve never run into this one before. Not in any pantheon I know. Not Greek, not Egyptian, not Celtic, not even some of the lost Mesopotamian ones. This flavor? It’s unfamiliar. Which means it could be a forgotten god… or a stray. Something that slipped off the map. Something that doesn’t want to be found.”

Bruce’s mouth pressed into a hard, flat line. The kind of expression that usually meant half the Batcomputer’s server load was about to be devoted to research. Dick had seen it before—the start of an obsession.

“If you want a name,” Constantine said, his voice settling into something more serious than before, “I’d need a fresh sample. Raw. Not stuff that’s already soaked into the walls or passed through Jason’s soul like coffee through a filter. Something untouched. Direct contact.”

His gaze flicked between Jason and Dick—just a brush of attention, nothing focused. But it still made Dick’s skin crawl.

Across the room, Steph leaned over to Tim, murmuring something low and sharp under her breath. Whatever it was, it made Tim’s brows shoot up. He didn’t respond—just pressed his lips together and glanced sideways at Jason like he was trying not to laugh. Jason, for his part, wasn’t even watching them. He was hunched over slightly, elbows on his knees, staring down at his hands like they’d just turned into something he didn’t recognize. There was something brittle in his silence, something that worried Dick more than all the yelling ever had.

It was too quiet now.

Constantine cracked his neck, eyes roaming again. “In the meantime,” he said, tone lighter but still edged with wariness, “might not be a bad idea to keep an eye on things. Anyone weird shows up—physically or metaphysically—you let me know. Could be whatever did this circles back. Might want to see if the job stuck.”

Bruce didn’t even blink. “We have surveillance on the grounds.”

“Yeah, well, I’m talking about the kind of guest who doesn’t trip cameras, mate,” Constantine said, smirking. “The floaty types. The ones that slip in through cracks in reality and leave behind bad dreams and spontaneous nosebleeds. So. Maybe just... keep your heads on a swivel.”

A pause stretched.

Then Alfred—who had been listening from near the doorway with his usual dignified stillness—cleared his throat softly.

“If that is the case, Mr. Constantine,” he said, tone polite but firm, “perhaps you would consider staying at the manor for a few days. At least until we’re confident this... guest is not planning a return.”

The room actually went still for a beat.

Constantine turned slowly to look at Alfred, clearly surprised. He blinked, cigarette behind his ear shifting slightly as he tipped his head. “You inviting me to crash at the manor, Alfie?”

“It would seem prudent,” Alfred said simply. “And given that Master Bruce already tolerates vigilantes in the house, I doubt one additional trench coat will tip the balance.”

Steph let out a low laugh behind her hand.

Jason scoffed. “You’re letting him live here?”

Constantine, to his credit, looked genuinely touched. He gave a crooked little smile and nodded. “Well, can’t say no to five-star hospitality. Sure. I’ll hang around. Keep an eye out. Stir your ghost problem if it stirs me first.”

“Wonderful,” Bruce said, with all the warmth of a man agreeing to elective surgery.

And Dick—Dick didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. Didn’t shift his weight or clear his throat or crack a joke. His pulse, however, plummeted into his gut.

Constantine staying here? For days?

In his house?

Dick kept his posture relaxed, hands loose in his lap, eyes on nothing in particular. But inside, his nerves were buzzing. He’d just barely kept Constantine from noticing him today. He could feel the edge of it, like standing at the border of a forest fire and hoping the wind didn’t shift.

He let his gaze drift across the room one more time. No one was watching him. No furrowed brows, no narrowed eyes.

Good.

He inhaled through his nose—slow and quiet—and tried not to think about what would happen if Constantine caught a better whiff next time.

Dick’s fingers trembled, slick with sweat and burning with strain, as he guided the final thread of energy through Jason’s chest. His entire body was locked in that moment—every muscle coiled, every nerve singing with tension. His breath came in shallow, ragged pulls, like he was breathing through a straw underwater.

The corrupted energy wrapped around Jason’s soul like barbed wire—tight, tangled, malicious. It clung to every inch of him, parasitic and angry. Dick had spent the last hour carefully unraveling it, strand by agonizing strand, with the same care someone might use to defuse a bomb wired to a heartbeat. One wrong move and the damage could have been permanent. Catastrophic.

His vision blurred with exhaustion, but his focus never slipped. He couldn’t afford to let it. The spellwork was ancient, delicate. Alien, even. Something raw and feral that had embedded itself deep in Jason’s essence. But Dick had almost reached the end.

Only one thread left now.

One more knot to untangle, one last line to guide free. He could feel it—the final strand of corruption pulsing faintly beneath his fingertips, the last bit of darkness resisting the pull of light. If he got this right, Jason would be whole again.

Beneath his hands, Jason was still. His brow had smoothed. His jaw, once locked in tension, hung loose. Even his breath, which had been shallow and rapid for days, had evened out. Slow. Peaceful. Like sleep.

Dick exhaled, trying to match that rhythm. Carefully. Deliberately. He steadied his hands, glowing faintly with magic, and reached for that final thread. The energy shimmered, crackling faintly at his touch. He coaxed it, gently, like easing a thorn from deep under skin. His mind was in tune with Jason’s, perfectly synced to the frequency of his soul—

Then the door blew open.

CRACK.

The explosion of sound split the air like thunder.

Dick flinched so hard it ripped the magic right out of him. His concentration shattered into pieces.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bruce’s voice sliced through the air like a whip. Sharp. Loud. Furious.

The thread snapped.

The energy recoiled violently—lashing back up through Dick’s arm like a live wire. It struck him with raw, crackling force. His muscles seized, pain detonating down his spine. He staggered back with a strangled gasp, his fingers twitching uncontrollably.

His shoulder slammed into the wall with a sickening thud. A picture frame tilted and fell, shattering on the floor.

All the air rushed from his lungs.

Jason bolted upright on the couch with a panicked gasp. His eyes were wide, pupils blown, body shuddering with shock. “Wh—what—?”

But Dick couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even think.

There was nothing but the high, shrieking ring in his ears and the raw electricity still racing through his bones. His back pressed against the wall like he could melt into it. His arms came up on instinct—palms open, fingers splayed. A reflex older than thought.

Don’t move.
Don’t speak.
Don’t look like a threat.

His heart pounded wildly in his chest, and still he couldn’t catch a breath. He opened his mouth, desperate to explain—I was helping, I wasn’t hurting him, please don’t look at me like that—but nothing came out.

His throat locked tight. Fear turned his tongue to stone.

Bruce stood in the doorway like a storm in human form. Rigid. Unforgiving. And his eyes—

God, his eyes.

There was no recognition there. No warmth. No trust. Just cold calculation. Like he was staring down a stranger. A threat.

“I asked you a question,” Bruce said again, voice low and dangerous. Icy. Deadly.

“I—I wasn’t—” Dick’s voice cracked, weak and hoarse. He forced himself to look away, to find something real. Jason. The wisps of magic still trailing from his chest, flickering out like dying embers. “I wasn’t hurting him. I was helping. I swear.”

Jason blinked slowly, clearly disoriented. He rubbed a hand over his face and squinted against the glow. “Why is everything… glowing? And why do I taste… batteries?”

Footsteps thundered down the hallway.

“Dick?!” Tim’s voice, sharp with panic, called out as he sprinted closer.

Then the chaos multiplied.

The rest of the family spilled into the room all at once—Tim first, then Steph, Cass, and Damian right behind him. The doorway filled with bodies, too many voices, too many questions, too much heat and movement and noise. The air turned suffocating, thick with panic and confusion.

“Is Jason okay?”

“What happened?”

“Why is it so damn bright in here?”

“Dick, what the hell did you do?!”

“Stop yelling—”

“Don’t crowd him!”

“Everyone SHUT UP!” Bruce roared. The force of it hit like a clap of thunder, but it couldn’t stem the flood. The room had already burst its seams.

And then, as if summoned by the sheer absurdity of it all, Constantine walked in like he'd wandered into the wrong bar.

He sauntered through the chaos unfazed, the hem of his trench coat brushing the scorched remnants of Dick’s spellwork on the floor. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, the smoke curling lazily around him as if the room wasn’t glowing like a goddamn supernova.

He took one look at the scene—Jason dazed on the couch, the Batkids all shouting, Bruce locked on Dick like a predator—and let out a long, tired sigh.

“Bloody hell,” John Constantine muttered, eyes narrowing against the blinding haze of power bleeding into the room.

It was like walking into a live wire. Static clung to his skin, made the hairs on his arms stand up. The air was thick with magic—raw, burning, terrified magic—and every instinct he had screamed something’s gone sideways.

His gaze swept across the chaos: Jason was on the couch, pale and shaking, still half-anchored to whatever soulwork had been done on him. The kid looked like he’d just been dragged backwards through death and hadn’t quite gotten the memo that he was alive again. The rest of the Bat-brats were jammed in the doorway—Tim with his eyes wide, Steph frozen mid-shout, Cass holding Damian back with one hand like she knew what was coming.

And then there was Bruce.

Standing like a statue carved from fury. Eyes sharp. Shoulders squared. A man used to having control, and currently watching it slip through his fingers like sand.

But it wasn’t until Constantine’s eyes landed on him —on Dick —that he actually stopped breathing.

“Shit,” he whispered.

Because Dick Grayson wasn’t just glowing.

He was coming apart.

Threads of light, white-hot and laced with soul-deep blue, spilled off him like steam from boiling skin. Magic flared from his core, bleeding through his pores, untethered and screaming. His aura—normally steady and sun-warm—was flailing outward in jagged bursts, wild with panic. It reacted to every spike in his heartbeat, every breath that came too fast, too shallow. The floor beneath his boots was quivering.

And no one— no one —seemed to understand what was about to happen.

Constantine took a single, careful step forward, voice dropping low and level. “Alright, everybody just take a bloody breath—”

But no one heard him.

Too much noise. Too much shouting. The Bat-kids were still chattering questions. Jason was muttering something about batteries. And Bruce—God help them—Bruce took a step forward.

Just one step.

But it was the wrong one.

Dick’s reaction was instant. He flinched like he’d been struck, shoulders snapping back, hands trembling. His eyes locked onto Bruce’s, wide and lit from within, not with anger—but with fear. Not just the fear of being hurt —but the fear of becoming something that hurt others.

The magic reacted in kind.

It flared brighter, flooding the room with light so intense it cast warped shadows across the walls. Everything in the room stuttered—sound, motion, even the air.

“Don’t,” Dick whispered. His voice was splintered glass. “Don’t come closer.”

Bruce didn’t stop.

His voice was steel, absolute. “Whatever this is, you need to get it under control. Now.”

Constantine swore under his breath, stepping forward sharply. “Bruce.”

No response.

“ Stop. Right there.”

But the Bat was locked on, eyes fixed on Dick like he was a threat, like he was already preparing for containment. He hadn’t heard a damn thing.

Constantine dropped the anger from his voice and replaced it with something quieter. Steadier. Older.

“You’re scaring him.”

Bruce’s reply was a snarl. “He’s dangerous.”

“He’s terrified. ”

“He’s glowing like a bomb.”

“He’s trying not to go off! ”

That got through. It landed. Bruce hesitated—just long enough.

Constantine moved between them, slow, palms raised like he was approaching a wild animal and a gunman all at once. He glanced back at Dick—who was still unraveling by the second—and then at Bruce.

“You’re looking at him like he’s something you need to put down. But whatever he was doing—it was working. I felt it. In the aether. He was healing Jason. Not hurting him.”

Bruce’s jaw flexed. His fists were clenched so tightly they looked like they might crack.

“He lost control,” he snapped.

“No,” Constantine said, sharp as a blade. “ You broke it. ”

That shut the room up. Even the Batkids stilled.

Dick was hyperventilating now, chest heaving, eyes glowing brighter than before. His back hit the window like he didn’t know how he got there. His voice cracked, small and breaking open. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t—”

“I know, mate,” Constantine said, softer now, voice like smoke curling around a match. “I know. You didn’t do anything wrong. But you’ve got to breathe. You’ve got to pull it back before you blow us all into next week.”

But it was like trying to put a lid on a storm.

The light from Dick’s body pulsed— once. Then again, brighter. The walls groaned, ancient wood complaining under pressure it was never meant to bear. A painting fell from the wall. The lights above flickered. The air tasted like electricity and burning copper.

Jason winced, curling in on himself.

Damian swore.

Tim grabbed Steph and yanked her back, shielding her with his body.

And Bruce—brilliant, reckless bastard—took one step too far. Just one. The floor barely creaked beneath his boot, but the sound still cut through the room like a warning. Too late.

Dick’s body tensed. His eyes flicked toward Bruce—fast, knowing, final. A pulse of magic rippled through him, like a storm building under his skin. Then he exhaled, and everything shifted.

There was no flash. No dramatic blast. No cinematic explosion. Just a quiet, impossible unraveling. His outline wavered, shimmered, then began to disintegrate—not in chunks or sparks, but in ribbons. Smoke began to rise off him, light gray at first, then deepening to violet, tinged at the edges with gold. It curled from his fingertips, trailed off his shoulders, unspooled from his hair like mist catching the wind.

It didn’t drift. It moved with intent. Spiraled upward, inward, folding back into itself before vanishing entirely. Like watching Hades slip through dimensions, slipping out of one space and into another, smooth as breath in winter air. No panic. No violence. Just motion.

His feet were the last to go—already halfway gone, translucent, when he glanced back one final time.

And he smiled.

Not wide. Not dramatic. Just a small, worn-out smile that said: I did what I had to. I’m okay.

Then he was gone.

No sound. No collapse. Just empty space where a son had stood.

The silence hit like pressure in the ears—thick, crushing, absolute. The room held its breath. Magic lingered in the air, pulsing like an aftershock. The light felt too clean, too stark, like the world hadn’t caught up to what had just happened. The scent of ozone clung to everything, stinging at the back of the throat, metallic and cold.

Bruce didn’t move. Couldn’t. His eyes locked on the spot Dick had vanished from, as if refusing to accept it. As if sheer force of will might drag him back.

Constantine let out a breath that had been sitting in his chest for too long. Dragged a hand down his face like the weight of it all might sink him.

“Bloody hell,” he said, voice low, tired, and laced with something close to regret. “You went and spooked a god.”

Dick landed hard in his bedroom.

Not physically—his body stayed upright—but everything else hit the ground. His mind, his focus, his sense of time. It was like slamming into a wall he hadn’t seen coming. He staggered forward a step, heart racing so fast it hurt, breath locked somewhere between his chest and throat. His hands shook. His vision tunneled.

Move, his instincts screamed. Go. Get out. Before they follow you. Before they see you like this.

The duffel on his bed was still half-open, right where he left it.

He lunged for it, running on muscle memory, not thought. He shoved in whatever was left to grab—charger, toothbrush, spare mask. His fingers closed around the photo frame, and everything stopped for a heartbeat.

That beach trip. Two summers ago. Jason had smiled in that picture. Bruce had laughed. Cass was sunburnt. Tim had sand in his hair. For one impossible, golden moment, they'd all just been . A real family.

Dick's hand tightened around the frame. The edges dug into his palm. His vision blurred for just a second, but he didn’t blink. Couldn’t.

Then—

“Grayson?”

The voice sliced through the panic like a scalpel—clean, precise, impossible to ignore.

Dick snapped upright, the frame clutched against his chest like a shield. Power flared instinctively at his fingertips, a flicker of energy dancing along his skin before he got a grip on it. He turned fast—ready to run, to defend, to disappear if he had to.

But it was Damian.

Just Damian.

Standing in the doorway, barefoot, wearing one of Dick’s old hoodies like it was armor. No panic in his face. No suspicion. Just calm eyes, steady hands, and the kind of stillness that only ever came from people who knew exactly who they were.

Dick froze. His whole body locked up like prey caught mid-escape. He was already halfway gone. One more push—one more wrong word—and he’d vanish again.

Damian took a step forward. Slow. Measured. Gentle, even.

“You were my Batman,” he said softly.

The words hit like a gut punch. Not sharp—just deep. Unavoidable.

Dick's breath caught. The photo frame slipped from his hands and landed on the bed with a quiet thud.

Damian kept walking. Step by step. Not to trap. Not to confront. Just to be there .

“I don’t care what anyone says,” he added, voice stronger now. “You’re still my Baba.”

Dick let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sob, but wasn’t anything else, either. His knees gave a little. Not from weakness—just from relief . Like something heavy had been pulled off his back.

He dropped the bag.

Then he dropped everything else.

In one broken motion, he knelt down and pulled Damian into his arms, hugging him like he’d forgotten how and was only just remembering now. Tight. Fierce. Full-body.

Damian didn’t flinch. Didn’t tense. He just let it happen.

Then, quietly, he wrapped his arms around Dick’s shoulders and pressed his forehead into his collarbone.

“You weren’t hurting Todd,” he whispered. “I saw it. You were helping him.”

Dick nodded once against Damian’s hair, too overwhelmed to speak. His breath hitched. His hands clenched in the fabric of Damian’s shirt like he was afraid this might vanish too.

“They don’t understand,” Damian said. “But they will. You just have to talk to them.”

Dick shook his head, the movement small and tight. “I don’t know if I can,” he choked out. “I don’t even know what I am right now.”

“You’re mine,” Damian said. “You’re ours . That hasn’t changed.”

He pulled back just enough to meet Dick’s eyes, his expression open and stubborn in that way only a kid like him could pull off.

“If they won’t listen to you, they’ll listen to me. I’ll make them.”

Dick let out a shaky breath. The tears finally came—soft, not showy. Just quiet and warm, dripping down his cheeks without ceremony.

“I don’t want them to be afraid of me,” he whispered.

“Then let me stand with you,” Damian said. “If they see us together, they’ll remember. You’re not a monster. You’re family .”

Dick let out a weak laugh, swiping at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. “You really are terrifying, you know that?”

“I know,” Damian said with a little smirk. “I had good teachers.”

Dick pulled him in again, less desperate this time, more like grounding himself. Like taking root.

He didn’t have a plan yet. Didn’t have the answers. But he had Damian—solid and real and on his side without hesitation.

And that meant something. Maybe everything.

Damian pulled back slightly, still close enough to keep that anchor between them. His eyes were sharp now, focused, already assessing the next steps like he was mapping a mission.

“Constantine will back you,” he said, like it was a fact. “He saw what happened. He knows you didn’t lose control.”

Dick snorted softly, wiping the last of the tears off his cheek. “That’s assuming he feels like getting involved again. Pretty sure he left half a lung in that spell.”

“He’ll back you,” Damian repeated. “He’s annoying, but he’s not an idiot. He knows what happens when people panic around power they don’t understand.”

He paused, watching Dick carefully. Then, quieter, “You’re not a malevolent being doing good deeds… right?”

Dick blinked, then let out a surprised laugh—hoarse, tired, but real. “No, gremlin, I’m not malevolent. I’m neutral. Somewhere in the middle. I’ve got room for both, but I lean good. Most days.”

Damian tilted his head slightly, considering this with a calm, serious expression. Then he nodded, once. Firm. Like that was the most logical answer he’d ever heard.

“Balance is essential,” he said. “You always did make chaos look functional.”

Dick laughed again, this time with a bit more air in it. “Thanks, I think.”

There was a quiet moment where neither of them spoke. The photo still sat on the bed, face-up, catching a sliver of moonlight through the blinds. The beach trip. That impossible moment in time.

Dick followed Damian’s gaze and let himself look at it for a moment. He didn’t feel the sting this time—just a slow ache in his chest.

“You’re really staying?” Damian asked, voice gentler now.

Dick didn’t answer right away. He looked around the room like it was suddenly foreign—like stepping into it had triggered something that couldn’t be undone.

But he looked at Damian again, saw the way he stood there: defiant, loyal, all sharp edges and open heart—and he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think I am.”

Damian crossed his arms, trying to hide the relief in his posture. He didn’t quite pull it off.

“Good,” he muttered. “Because if you tried to run again, I was going to hunt you down myself.”

Dick smirked. “You’d try.”

“You say that like I haven’t done it before.”

“Point.”

Damian moved toward the bed and began zipping the duffel shut like it had offended him. “You don’t need this. Not anymore.”

Dick watched him for a second, then walked over and helped. Slowly. Like it mattered.

When they finished, Damian sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. “So what now?”

Dick exhaled through his nose and ran a hand through his hair. “Now? Now we go talk to Constantine. Try to keep him from using this as an excuse to drink through the weekend.”

Damian raised a brow. “That ship’s likely already sailed.”

Dick grinned. “Yeah, well. Maybe we can at least get him to admit I’m not a ticking time bomb.”

“You’re not,” Damian said simply.

The words landed like bedrock. No fanfare, no drama—just the blunt certainty only a kid like Damian could offer, wrapped in a voice steadier than someone his age had any right to be. Dick felt something ease in his chest, something knotted so tight he’d forgotten it wasn’t supposed to be there.

He looked down at Damian, and for a moment the weight of everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the unbearable power simmering beneath his skin—didn’t feel quite so crushing. Warmth flickered across his face like a dying ember refusing to go out.

Damian, for all his impossible armor and sharp edges, had always known how to cut through the static. Straight to the heart of things.

“Let’s go back downstairs,” Damian said. “Before Constantine breaks something. Or Father does.”

Dick let out a soft laugh. Tired, but real. “Yeah. That tracks.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was easy. Familiar.

Then, without overthinking it, Dick reached out and curled an arm around Damian’s shoulders, tugging him closer. It was instinct—something older than either of them, some piece of comfort carved out through years of shared chaos. Damian flinched—reflexive—but he didn’t pull away. Just went a little still, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the affection but wasn’t about to reject it, either.

He looked up, not tense, just curious.

And Dick smiled.

Something shifted in the air then. Subtle but unmistakable. The temperature didn’t drop, the lights didn’t flicker, but reality bent —just a little. Like it was making space for them to move without consequence.

Blue-white tendrils of mist slid off Dick’s skin like fog slipping from a mountain. They rose gently, curling around the two of them in slow, lazy spirals. The floor seemed to fall away beneath their feet, but they didn’t sink—they drifted, suspended in the stillness of magic that didn’t roar, didn’t burn, didn’t demand.

It just was.

For a split second, light warped like heat off asphalt. Then they vanished, swallowed in a hush of ethereal smoke.

They reappeared in the manor’s sitting room with no flash, no sound. Just presence. Like they’d always been there.

The hardwood was cool under their feet, the scent of old books and burning firewood thick in the air. For a few precious seconds, no one noticed them—because no one was looking. All eyes were on the center of the room, where Bruce and Constantine were locked in a low, heated standoff.

Tim, Steph, Cass, and Jason were off to the side, hovering like a silent jury. Their eyes darted between the two men, but no one dared to cut in.

“He was scared, mate,” Constantine said, his voice low and sharp as broken glass. “You think a being like that runs unless he’s trying not to flatten the building?”

“He’s dangerous,” Bruce countered, flat and unshaking. “He’s an unknown.”

“You made him an unknown!” Constantine snapped. “You pushed when you should’ve listened. He came to you barely holding it together, and instead of helping him—hell, instead of even asking —you treated him like a threat. So yeah, he ran. Because you gave him no reason to stay.”

Bruce’s jaw clenched, a muscle ticking. “He could’ve hurt someone.”

“He didn’t, ” Constantine shot back. “And don’t pretend that was about restraint on your part. If he’s even half what I think he is—ancient, divine, something that predates most gods and demons—then you weren’t facing a scared kid. You were standing in front of something that could’ve ended you with a thought. And he didn’t. Because you’re still his bloody father, and for some insane reason, he still gives a damn.”

Bruce didn’t speak. Didn’t blink.

“ Mercy, Bats,” Constantine continued, voice a little quieter, a little harder. “That’s what you saw. Mercy. He could’ve erased this whole damn house from existence. Instead, he left it intact. And you are standing here trying to figure out whether that makes him more dangerous or less.”

Damian tilted his head up at Dick, lips pressed into a line. His eyes asked the question he didn’t voice: Is it true? Are you that powerful? That old? That capable of destruction?

Dick didn’t answer. Just gave a small shrug, gaze unreadable. He didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny. Like the truth of it was beside the point.

He watched the fallout unfold with the kind of calm that only came from knowing none of it could touch him—not really. Not anymore.

Bruce and Constantine were still going at it, their voices low but sharp, like knives sliding under skin. It wasn’t about reason anymore. Hadn’t been for a while. This was old ground—fear versus faith, control versus trust. Bruce dug his heels in because that’s what Bruce did. Constantine wasn’t backing off either, because when he decided something was worth defending, he’d burn down the sky to make a point.

Dick had stopped keeping score three volleys ago. Now he just watched, half-curious to see who would flinch first.

“You saw what he did,” Bruce said, his voice low but heavy. “The floorboards cracked. The lights—every circuit in the house surged. That wasn’t restraint. That was instability.”

Constantine scoffed. “You call that instability? Mate, that was him holding the universe still with both hands so he didn’t accidentally unmake your fancy cave. You think that kind of power works like a switch? Like he can just flip it on or off depending on your comfort level?”

“He’s not above consequence,” Bruce snapped. “He doesn’t get a pass because he’s… cosmic.”

“No one said he was above consequence,” Constantine shot back. “But maybe you should start asking what kind of consequences you’re creating. You came at him like he was a monster, and when he didn’t bow to your authority, you doubled down. What exactly were you hoping to achieve—fear? Submission?”

“I was trying to protect people,” Bruce growled.

“And he was trying not to kill them!” Constantine barked, eyes blazing. “You keep acting like he lost control. But from where I stood? That boy showed more control in five seconds than most of us could in a lifetime.”

“He’s not a boy anymore,” Bruce said coldly. “Not if what you’re saying is true. Not if he’s—what did you call him? Ancient? Divine?”

Constantine’s expression darkened. “He’s both. And neither. Maybe he’s still figuring that out. But you didn’t give him time. You treated him like a threat because you didn’t understand him. And you feared what you couldn’t understand.”

Bruce didn’t respond. His silence said enough. Said everything .

Dick exhaled softly through his nose, watching it all unfold like someone sitting through a play they’d seen before—one with a tragic ending no one ever managed to change.

What amused him—mildly, quietly—was the sheer intensity with which everyone else was tuned in. Jason’s jaw was locked tight, arms crossed like steel cables, eyes darting between Bruce and Constantine like he was waiting for the first punch to fly. Cass, statuesque and unreadable, stood poised like a blade still in its sheath—ready, but not yet drawn. Tim looked like he was halfway through writing a manifesto in his head, calculating every possible outcome and planning for the worst. Steph stood slightly behind the rest, chewing her thumbnail, her whole body screaming the urge to jump in and mediate but knowing better than to interrupt.

Not one of them noticed Dick and Damian standing a foot away.

That was the part that nearly made Dick laugh. Not loud—just a deep, internal chuckle that settled in his chest like an echo. This squad of elite tacticians, master detectives, and human lie detectors... and not one had clocked them. They were standing right there .

Not cloaked. Not hidden. Just still. Quiet. Present.

It was kind of impressive. Also? A little rude.

He leaned slightly, glancing at Damian, who stood with his arms stiff at his sides, jaw clenched. He didn’t look entertained. He looked… conflicted. Like his mind was running at a pace too fast for his body to keep up. His eyes stayed locked on Bruce, flicking occasionally to Constantine, but mostly— mostly —they hovered on Dick. Like he was trying to figure out what he was even looking at.

Dick bent down, low enough that no one else would catch the words.

“Feeling ignored yet?” he murmured.

Damian didn’t react immediately. But after a second, his mouth twitched. Almost a smirk. Almost.

“They’re all idiots,” he muttered.

Dick grinned. “Now you’re catching on.”

A quiet moment passed.

Then Damian asked, soft but deliberate: “Is it true? What Constantine said?”

Dick didn’t answer right away. His eyes drifted back to the argument—the tension still unbroken, Bruce standing like a wall trying to hold back a flood, Constantine still trying to make him see .

He didn’t want to answer. Not because it was a secret, or because Damian couldn’t handle it. But because the answer didn’t matter. Not the way they all thought it did.

Finally, Dick said, “Does it matter?”

Damian frowned, but didn’t argue.

Jason turned to leave—maybe to cool off, maybe just to escape the tension radiating like heat off a collapsing star—and caught sight of them out of the corner of his eye.

He flinched so hard he nearly tripped over the coffee table. “Shit!” he barked, stumbling back like he’d seen a ghost. “What the—?!”

That did it.

Every head in the room snapped toward them. Like someone had pulled the fire alarm.

Constantine’s cigarette slipped from his lips, hitting the floor with a soft hiss, half-smoked and completely forgotten. His mouth hung open just enough to show he wasn’t even pretending to hide his reaction. Bruce’s head jerked toward them with the sharpness of a strike, his eyes narrowing like he couldn’t decide whether to be shocked, relieved, or preparing for war.

Dick stood there, completely still.

No glowing eyes. No thunder. No cracks in the floor. No ancient pulse humming in the walls. Just Dick Grayson—hair a little messy, sweatshirt a size too big, mismatched socks peeking from under fraying pajama pants. Arm slung lazily around Damian’s shoulders like they were about to go raid the fridge.

Like he’d never left.

He looked, impossibly, normal . Grounded.

But that was the trick, wasn’t it?

Because everyone could feel it now—the shift in air pressure, the low thrum just beneath the skin. Nothing visible. Nothing provable. But it was there , like the second before lightning strikes. A presence. The kind that made the reptile brain twitch and whisper: run .

And still—he smiled. Soft. Familiar. The kind of smile that used to mean I’ve got this , even when he didn’t.

“Miss us?” he said, like it was a joke. Easy, even playful.

But his voice was steady. Steadier than it should’ve been. Steadier than anyone’s had a right to be, standing in the middle of that kind of storm.

And that steadiness? That calm ?

It hit louder than any thunderclap.

Jason stared, blinking like he couldn’t quite trust his eyes. Tim’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again—completely out of words for once in his life. Steph let out a half-laugh, half-gasp, like the sound had been knocked out of her by a punch she didn’t see coming. Cass didn’t move at all, but her eyes locked on Dick with something unreadable—like she was already recalibrating everything.

Bruce didn’t speak. Didn’t move.

But the weight of his silence changed.

He wasn’t seeing Dick anymore.

He was seeing the thing behind Dick. The thing inside him. The one Constantine had warned him about. The one Bruce had pushed too far.

And now… it was smiling.

Constantine let out a slow, quiet exhale.

“Well,” he muttered, half to himself. “Guess that answers that.”

They came at him all at once, like a floodgate had cracked.

“Are you a god now?”

“What can you do?”

“Wait—how long have you been like this?”

“Did you do something to me? Because I swear—"

“Are you even Dick?”

Dick answered most of them with the kind of calm that made everyone more nervous, not less. Short, sweet. Sometimes even with a smile.

Steph asked first—of course she did.

“So what are your powers, exactly?”

Dick looked at her.

Didn’t answer.

Just smiled that same soft, unreadable smile. Steph blinked, frowned, and looked vaguely annoyed that the universe’s biggest secret was playing coy.

Jason jumped in before the moment could stretch.

“Wait. That cleanse thing in my room? That you?”

Dick nodded once. “Yeah.”

Jason made a face like he wanted to say something sarcastic, but instead just muttered, “Okay. Cool. Thanks, I guess.”

Tim, predictably, was already spiraling into the metaphysical.

“How old are you?” he asked, eyes sharp, brain probably running a thousand simulations in the background.

Dick tilted his head and said dryly, “It’s rude to ask a cosmic entity their age.”

Constantine barked a laugh. “Most of ’em brag about it like it’s a bloody trophy.”

“Yeah, well.” Dick shrugged. “I’m not most of them.”

Jason squinted. “Okay, but—what did you do to me, exactly? I’ve been feeling… different. Not bad. Just—quiet. In my head.”

Dick turned toward him. “I untethered you. From the underworld. Removed the threads keeping you connected to it. That’s where the side effects came from—rage, nightmares, bloodlust. Should be gone now.”

Jason blinked. Slowly. “Huh.”

Then, Bruce: “Are you actually Dick Grayson?”

The room went still.

Dick’s expression didn’t change. “Yes.”

Bruce didn’t look convinced. Not even a little.

Constantine stepped in, eyes narrowed. “What was your name before this? Before the vessel?”

That got a reaction.

Dick looked surprised. Not startled—but clearly not expecting the question.

He took a breath, and then said it.

Or… something said it.

The sound that came out of his mouth wasn’t made for human ears. Several voices overlapped—some deep and growling, others high and glassy. There were clicks, trills, something that sounded like thunder layered under wind and something wet and gurgling beneath it all. It wasn’t a word. It was a feeling . Like standing at the edge of something bottomless and eternal.

The silence after it ended was thick.

Then Dick said, almost sheepishly, “Closest translation you’ll manage is... Kael-Tir . That’s what most used to call me. Back then.”

Constantine nodded slowly, eyes heavy. “Old old one,” he muttered. “Figures.”

Tim’s eyebrows pinched. “Wait—if you’re that old… did you know Vandal Savage?”

Dick blinked. Then snorted. “Yeah. We’ve met.”

“What’s he like?”

“We’ve got a mutual respect thing. You kind of have to, with immortals. No sense in making enemies out of people you’ll be stuck with forever.”

Steph leaned forward. “So is this like... your real body? Or just one you’re renting?”

Dick looked at her, then at his own hand like he was remembering how it worked.

“It’s a vessel,” he said finally. “But no one else lived in it. No soul. Just baby autopilot for a couple years. My last vessel was dying, so I switched.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, sharp. “And when you switch, the other lives—your other selves—they don’t interfere?”

Dick hesitated. “Not exactly. They get… suppressed. Pushed to the background. This version stays front and center. The memories are still there, just… muted. Like dreams you wake up from but still remember.”

Steph asked, almost too casually, “Could you, like… use one of us ? If your body broke down?”

Dick gave a small laugh, soft and genuine. “I could hitch a ride, yeah. But I couldn’t control you.”

Constantine raised a brow. “Wouldn’t control, you mean.”

Dick’s smile thinned. “No. Couldn’t.”

“Bullshit,” Constantine said flatly. “You’re probably strong enough to wipe out half of Latin America if you sneezed wrong, but you can’t possess a couple of teenagers? Nah. Don’t buy it.”

That actually offended Dick.

His smile faded. “I’m not going to destroy the earth,” he said, annoyed. “That’s not what I am. I’ve spent millennia under the radar. Hiding. Blending. Choosing not to use my power. What I did for Jason was the first time I’ve tapped into any of it in a long-ass time.”

His tone was calm. But there was weight to it now—like a deep tectonic shift under the surface.

No anger. Just truth .

And that truth was big enough to make the room feel a little smaller.

Constantine held his gaze for a long second.

Then, he nodded. “Fair enough.”

Silence lingered, stretching between them.

Finally, Steph cleared her throat. “So… we’re not gonna explode, right?”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “Not unless one of you starts chanting in forgotten languages. Then all bets are off.”

Steph held up both hands. “Cool. Not summoning any eldritch horrors today, thanks.”

Jason snorted. “Today,” he muttered.

Cass, still silent, stepped a little closer. Her eyes searched Dick’s face like she was watching a reflection ripple in still water. Not threatening. Just observing.

“You’re… still you,” she said, quiet but certain.

Dick met her gaze, and his smile returned—smaller this time. More real.

“Yeah,” he said. “Still me.”

Cass gave a single nod and stepped back. That was all she needed.

Bruce wasn’t satisfied.

“You said this was a vessel. You’re still Dick, but you’re not only him. So who is Dick Grayson? The kid I raised? Or just the shape you decided to wear?”

Dick’s smile didn’t falter, but the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees.

“I didn’t decide to wear anything,” he said calmly. “This isn’t a disguise. It’s not a possession. The moment this body was born, it was me. I am Dick Grayson. Every scraped knee, every fall off a trapeze, every Christmas in the Manor, every mission, every scar—I lived them.”

Bruce's eyes hardened. “But the rest of you—what you were before—it’s still in there.”

Dick didn’t deny it. “Yeah. It is.”

Tim leaned forward, voice more careful now. “So when did you know? When did the memories start coming back?”

Dick exhaled slowly. “I always knew, on some level. Little things, mostly. Instincts. Dreams. Stuff that didn’t make sense. The full awareness hit around the time I was five or six. Took a while to sort through it.”

“And you just… kept pretending?” Jason asked, not accusatory—just tired.

Dick looked at him. “No. I chose to live this life. Chose to be this person. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I’ve had more lives than I care to count. This one? It’s the only one that ever felt like it mattered.”

That quieted the room again.

Constantine broke it with a low whistle. “Bloody romantic for a cosmic deathless force.”

Dick shrugged. “I like breakfast food. And family. Sue me.”

Damian finally spoke, his voice flat. “So if you die in this vessel…?”

Dick tilted his head. “I’ll return to the stream for a while. Eventually, I’ll find another. But I don’t want to. I’m tired of starting over. Tired of losing who I was just to become someone else.”

Bruce’s face twitched. “You didn’t tell me.”

“No,” Dick said. “I didn’t.”

“You should’ve.”

“I couldn’t.”

The two stared at each other, years of silence and stubbornness crackling between them.

Then Steph, once again, couldn’t help herself. “So what happens if someone does start chanting in a forgotten language?”

Dick gave her a long look.

“Let’s not find out,” he said.

And despite everything, that managed to get a laugh out of her. A real one.

Jason ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “So are we supposed to just… carry on like normal now?”

Dick smiled. “I’d prefer it. Besides, when have we ever done normal?”

Tim raised his hand. “Okay, but I am going to ask a hundred follow-up questions later. With notes.”

“Of course you are.”

Constantine picked his cigarette off the ground, scowled at it, then pulled out another.

“Well,” he muttered, lighting it. “At least now I know what side you’re on.”

Dick turned to him. “Do you?”

Constantine paused mid-puff. Then narrowed his eyes.

Dick didn’t elaborate.

Didn’t need to.

Steph tilted her head. “Can we, like… see what you look like outside your vessel?”

Constantine nearly choked on his cigarette. “Bloody hell, no. That’s not something you ask a celestial.”

Steph blinked, a little sheepish. “Sorry, I didn’t think it was that big a deal—”

Dick just chuckled, low and amused. “Relax. I’ve heard worse.”

Tim, of course, couldn’t leave it alone. “Is it one of those Supernatural deals where your real form burns people’s eyes out?”

Dick snorted. “No, nothing that dramatic. I wouldn’t melt your faces off or anything.” He paused, then added, “But if I’m going to show you, we should probably have Barbara around. I ditched my vessel a while back and—well, my vitals flatline when I leave it. To the outside world, it looks like I’m dead.”

Damian, quiet but razor-focused, spoke up. “If we inform Gordon, could we still see it?”

Dick looked over at him, gave a small nod. “Yeah, I don’t mind. But I want Barbara here. And we’ll need a wide open space. No people. Last thing I want is to cause a panic.”

Constantine exhaled smoke and waved his hand lazily. “I can arrange that. Just get Babs here.”

Dick raised an eyebrow, grinning. “You? Letting me ‘show off’? Thought that was against your whole grumpy anti-theatrics thing.”

Constantine rolled his eyes. “Don’t get used to it. But I won’t lie—‘s not every day you get to witness a celestial drop the glamour. You’re one of the few who’s walked among us in full form, yeah?”

Dick nodded once.

“Well then,” Constantine said, flicking ash to the side, “I’ve seen the true forms of a few gods. Always badass. So sue me, I’m curious.”

Dick’s smile turned sly. “You just want something new to brag about in Hellblazer circles.”

Constantine didn’t deny it. Just grinned.

Dick gathered them in, a steady hand on Alfred’s shoulder as he directed the others to form a loose circle. “Everyone touching someone,” he said. “Doesn’t have to be weird, just—connected.”

There was some shifting, some mild grumbling, but eventually they all linked up—shoulders brushing, hands clasping, Cass’s arm loosely looped through Steph’s, Jason muttering something about personal space as he bumped into Tim. Dick stood at the center, calm as ever, and let the smoke slip from his skin.

It began as a whisper—thin, glowing tendrils of blue-white mist coiling out from his chest and shoulders, wrapping around ankles, wrists, throats like silk, light and weightless. Then, all at once, it thickened. The tendrils pulsed, brightened—and swallowed them whole.

Reality flexed. Warped. Sound bent sideways and upturned. Gravity lost interest.

They slammed into the sidewalk in front of Barbara’s apartment a heartbeat later.

Alfred staggered. Jason bent double, swearing softly. Constantine leaned on the nearest lamp post, lighting another cigarette with trembling fingers. Tim turned to the side and vomited into a bush.

Dick winced. “Whoops. Forgot that hits harder with bigger groups.”

Jason slowly straightened, face pale. “You forgot ?”

“It’s been a while,” Dick said, unapologetic. “Usually I’m just porting one or two people. Max.”

Steph and Cass didn’t wait. They sprinted into the building, already halfway to Barbara’s door.

Constantine took a long drag, looking at Dick sidelong. “You go anywhere?”

Dick nodded. “If I’ve seen it or been there before. And it has to still exist—within the past hundred years or so.”

Jason let out a snort, wiping at his mouth. “You ever warp into, like, a mountain or a wall or something?”

Dick shrugged. “Yeah.”

There was a beat.

“It’s not that bad,” he added. “You just gotta get out before you fully solidify.”

Bruce blinked. Jason stared. Tim looked like he might be reconsidering his life choices.

Damian scoffed at all of them. “You act like that isn’t common sense.”

Cass and Steph came jogging back out with Barbara in tow, her brow furrowed, expression sharp.

“What’s going on?” she asked, eyes flicking between the group—most of them pale, slightly green, and trying not to look like they’d just been hit by a truck made of vertigo.

Constantine straightened, brushing ash off his coat. “We’ll explain in a less public spot, yeah? Civvies and all.”

He flicked a ring on his hand, carving a shimmering hole in the air—a ripple of gold-edged violet revealing a wide, empty grass field on the other side.

“No offense to you, mate,” he said, glancing at Dick, “but I’d rather skip the nausea next time.”

Dick lifted his hands in mock surrender. “None taken.”

He stepped through first, boots crunching dry grass. The rest followed—Bruce with his usual grim efficiency, Damian practically gliding, Jason muttering under his breath, and Barbara watching them all with a sharp, calculating eye before rolling through last.

Once the portal snapped shut behind them, Barbara turned to face the group fully. “Okay. Someone start talking.”

Tim, still looking slightly queasy, lifted a hand. “Right. So… remember how Jason’s resurrection stuff—like the weird side effects—were starting to fade out?”

Barbara nodded slowly.

“Yeah, so. Bruce got paranoid, called in Constantine to check it out. He ended up staying at the Manor while we poked around. Then we found out…” Tim hesitated, glancing at Dick.

Dick just gave him a slight nod. Go ahead.

“We found out it was Dick. He was the reason Jason was stabilizing. Bruce confronted him, Dick bailed, Damian tracked him down and brought him back. Oh, and—Dick’s a god. Apparently.”

Barbara’s eyes widened, her face going still.

Tim kept going, rapid-fire now. “Anyway, Steph asked if we could see his true form, like outside his vessel. But Dick insisted you be here. Said last time he ditched his vessel he was in costume and you needed a heads up ‘cause his vitals flatline and it, you know… looks like he’s dead.”

Barbara didn’t say anything.

She didn’t blink.

She just stared at Dick like he’d grown a second head.

Steph leaned over to Tim, hand cupped to her mouth. “You broke her.”

Tim nodded. “Yeah. That tracks.”

Dick watched Barbara for a second longer—just long enough to make sure she wasn’t about to faint, bolt, or demand a full psychological debrief on the spot. Her mouth was slightly open, her eyes still locked on him like maybe if she stared long enough, it would all start making sense. Once he was sure she was still breathing, Dick turned and walked casually toward Jason.

Jason eyed him warily, already sensing trouble. “What?”

Dick just gave him a grin, half cocky, half too-relaxed to be trusted. “Catch, bitch.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “Wait, what—?”

Too late.

Dick’s body collapsed mid-step, like someone cut his strings.

Jason yelped, instincts kicking in as he dove forward, arms catching the full weight of Dick’s vessel before it hit the dirt. He staggered a bit under the sudden shift, almost dropping him, before managing to steady himself. Dick's body hung limp in his grip—completely unresponsive. Heavy in the way only truly unconscious people were.

“What the—Jesus,” Jason muttered, shifting Dick’s weight to one arm so he could check vitals. “It is like you’re dead.”

No pulse at the neck. None at the wrist. Chest? No movement. Not even a shallow breath. The body was warm, but inert. No life. No presence.

Jason’s stomach twisted. Even knowing what this was supposed to be, it didn’t feel right. It triggered something buried deep—some instinct from years ago, kneeling in a coffin he never got to claw his way out of.

Then, something brushed the back of his neck.

It was soft, weightless, like cold silk catching on the wind.

He looked up.

And there it was.

A form floated a few feet off the ground, glowing faintly against the green of the grass and the fading daylight. A shape made of blue-white smoke and something more—light, motion, memory, presence. It wasn’t solid, not really, but it had structure. A vaguely human figure. Roughly Dick’s size, maybe a little taller now. Features existed, but constantly shifted, flickering between clarity and abstraction like a reflection on moving water.

The form radiated warmth and cool all at once. Like moonlight on skin. Like standing next to a bonfire in the snow. Comforting. Disorienting. Impossible.

Then the smoke laughed —or something like it. Not a sound any of them had heard before. It was more like a musical shimmer: wind through glass pipes, chimes strung in a storm, the breathy rush of a wooden flute mixed with birdsong. The sound danced over their skin, made hair rise on arms and the back of necks.

Jason blinked, still holding Dick’s empty vessel in his arms. “Okay. That’s… new.”

Damian stepped forward, not even hesitating. “Is this what you actually look like?” he asked, voice even.

The smoke-Dick floated down toward him, slow and almost playful, then extended a tendril of mist and gently booped Damian on the nose.

The chiming laughter rang out again, a little brighter this time, as if it found Damian’s reaction particularly funny.

Constantine squinted at the scene, lips curled around a cigarette. “Nope. Not the full thing. This is just his essence. He’s puttin’ it into a shape he thinks we won’t freak out over.”

The smoke-form had the nerve to look sheepish. It hunched a little, the shimmer along its shoulders dimming slightly. If a swirl of celestial mist could be embarrassed, it absolutely was.

Jason, still stuck holding the very real dead weight of his brother’s body, growled, “You can’t just drop your own corpse into my arms like it’s a sack of flour and then not show us the real thing! What is this, a teaser trailer?!”

The essence let out a long exhale—not a breath exactly, but a ripple of light and haze that felt unmistakably like a sigh.

Constantine shook his head, blowing smoke off to the side. “Yeah, no sympathy. You invited this chaos.”

Jason opened his mouth to keep yelling, but something tugged at his attention. He glanced around—and realized he was the only one still spiraling.

Tim and Steph were both leaning forward, eyes wide and shimmering, like they were watching something out of a dream. Cass had moved closer too, circling slightly like she was trying to memorize how the smoke flowed. Damian, for all his skepticism, hadn’t moved back an inch and now wore a look somewhere between curiosity and grudging respect.

Bruce had already settled into that unnervingly calm state he only pulled out when things got too weird for logic to help. He wasn’t reacting with shock or awe. He was just observing, hands folded behind his back like he was in a museum.

Alfred stood beside him, arms behind his back, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth—like he’d seen this kind of thing before and didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Jason looked down at the body in his arms, then back up at the ghostly figure floating above the grass, dancing like wind over water.

Jason scowled. “You’re all way too calm about this.”

He was still holding a body. A real, heavy, limp body. One that looked like it could’ve been laid out for a wake five minutes ago, except for the faint warmth and the fact that the soul was currently hovering ten feet away doing loop-de-loops in the air like some cosmic hummingbird.

The others? Barely fazed.

Tim looked like he was watching a light show. Steph had her phone out—of course she did—filming like this was just another “Gotham’s Weirdest Moments” highlight reel. Damian was locked in a silent staring contest with the glowing mist-ghost, which Jason was pretty sure was about to escalate into something unspeakably dumb. And Cass? Cass was smiling. Not just amused—she was genuinely happy. Like this all made sense to her in a way it never would to him.

And that made Jason feel... weird.

The essence of Dick—because what the hell else was he supposed to call it—looped lazily through the air above them, then dipped low again, curling like smoke around Steph’s shoulders. Her hair ruffled as if in a breeze and she giggled, swatting at the shimmer like it was a feather brushing her ear.

“Cut it out,” she laughed. “That tickles, you glowy bastard.”

Jason blinked. Steph giggling wasn’t unusual. But Steph giggling while being lowkey possessed by a sentient fog version of their brother? Little different.

Then the essence zipped over to Tim and very gently tugged on his hoodie strings, tightening them until Tim looked like an annoyed turtle.

“Dude,” Tim muttered, deadpan, trying to bat it away. “Not in front of my cool siblings.”

The smoke laughed again—if it could be called that. The same strange, chiming sound, less eerie this time and more playful. It pulsed like wind catching bells in a distant tower, reverberating down Jason’s spine in a way that wasn’t exactly unpleasant. Just unfamiliar.

Then it happened.

The mist suddenly surged upward, stretching tall into something more humanoid, more precise. Limbs formed. Fingers. A head. Still translucent, still flickering, but with the undeniable silhouette of Dick Grayson. He hovered a few feet off the ground, arms crossed, spectral hips cocked to one side in full sass mode.

And then—

He mimed finger guns.

Jason nearly dropped the corpse.

“Oh, for—what the hell are you doing?”

The essence shrugged—literally shrugged—then floated over to hover just above Jason’s head, peering down at his own vacant body.

Jason glared up at him. “You wanna maybe... get back in this thing? While it still has structural integrity?”

The spirit didn’t answer. Instead, it stretched one arm down in slow motion and booped Jason’s forehead with one glowing finger.

Jason flinched. “I swear to God—”

The air around him shimmered for a second, like the world had taken a breath and held it. Then—nothing. No explosion. No weird flash of memory. No haunting.

Just that same light pressure on his skin. And a sense—fleeting, quiet—that Dick had seen something. Or given something. He wasn’t sure which.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “You’re screwing with us.”

The essence didn’t deny it. It hovered backward, slow and graceful, and gave the impression of an exaggerated stage bow midair.

Constantine snorted from his spot against a tree. “He’s desensitizin’ you lot.”

Jason glanced over. “What?”

John gestured vaguely with his cigarette. “Prepping you. Softening the edges. Playin’ the clown so you don’t freak when he finally shows you whatever the hell he actually is.”

Jason’s stomach tightened.

Because that made too much sense.

And now that Constantine said it, he could see it—beneath the teasing, the floating, the poking and prodding. Dick wasn’t just goofing off. He was testing reactions. Watching. Measuring.

There was a deeper rhythm to the chaos.

Jason looked back up at the shimmering form. “You’re gonna drop something on us,” he muttered, voice lower now. “Aren’t you?”

The smoke twisted, hovered, then nodded—just once.

Jason clenched his jaw. “Great.”

The ghost-Dick drifted toward Damian again, who stood his ground like a stone gargoyle. The misty form didn’t poke him this time—just stopped in front of him, tilting its not-quite-head like it was considering something.

Then it raised one glowing hand and traced a circle in the air.

Light bloomed. A symbol—not one Jason recognized—flickered for half a second, then disappeared.

Damian’s eyes tracked every motion, sharp and unblinking.

Whatever that was, it wasn’t random.

“Okay,” Jason muttered, adjusting his grip on the Dick-shaped meat sack in his arms. “Someone better start explaining this cosmic horseshit before I start chucking bodies.”

Dick’s essence turned slowly back toward him.

And this time, it smiled.

Not with a mouth, but with presence. A kind of radiating affection that hit Jason square in the chest like a familiar hand on his shoulder.

Then the glowing figure floated down again—closer now, eyes level with his.

And with a faint glimmer, it whispered something straight into Jason’s head.

Not words.

A feeling.

“Soon.”

Jason’s breath caught.

Then, just like that, the glow blinked out—and Dick’s body jerked back to life in Jason’s arms with a ragged gasp.

Jason yelped and nearly dropped him again.

“Okay—okay! Nope! Nope!” he barked, stumbling back as Dick groaned and rubbed his face.

Steph whooped. Tim swore. Cass clapped once, quietly delighted.

Dick just blinked slowly, still catching his breath.

“Did it work?” he rasped.

Jason stared at him. “You mean the part where you traumatized me again ? Yeah. Nailed it.”

Constantine took a long drag off his cigarette and said, “Alright, mate. Enough teasing. Just get it over with and show us already.”

Dick groaned loudly from the ground, flopping one arm over his eyes. “Ugh, fine . Pushy, all of you.”

But before he could do anything else, Bruce stepped forward.

“You don’t have to show us,” he said, voice steady but... softer than usual. “Not if you don’t want to.”

That made Dick pause. He sat up slowly, clearly surprised. He blinked at Bruce, almost unsure.

Bruce continued, “I shouldn’t have pushed earlier. Or been so hostile when I found you and Jason in the sitting room. That wasn’t fair. And... I’m sorry for what I said.”

There was a beat of silence. One of those rare moments when the air felt lighter, like something heavy had just been set down.

Constantine gave a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned. Bats can apologize.”

Bruce shot him a look sharp enough to flay a lesser man.

Dick chuckled, a little sheepish, and slowly scooted toward Jason with the grace of someone who was definitely up to something.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “Don’t—”

Too late.

Dick dropped like a brick.

“God dammit ,” Jason yelped, catching him before he faceplanted into the grass for real. “You’ve got one bit, and it’s getting old.”

The spectral version of Dick—now floating beside him again—snorted and raised three fingers in a familiar Boy Scout salute, all innocence and lies.

Jason snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Scout’s honor, my ass.”

Then the essence turned to the others.

He hovered still, eyes flicking from face to face. He looked hesitant—scared, even. The bravado from earlier had dulled.

Constantine exhaled smoke and stepped forward. “They’re not gonna think different of you, mate. Even if they did, tough. You’re still you. And besides—most of the time they’ll only see the pretty human skin suit, yeah?”

The essence hesitated.

Then he shifted.

The glow dulled as the form began to stretch and morph. At first, it was disjointed—unnatural angles, twisting light, fur and smoke rippling across dimensions like someone tearing through a hundred photographs layered on top of each other.

Jason didn’t breathe.

Then it settled.

Where once floated the vague humanoid wisp of Dick Grayson, now stood something entirely different—a creature pulled from the edges of myth and dream, towering above them with quiet power.

The body was feline, built like a snow leopard—sleek, dense with muscle, and moving with that uncanny, liquid grace only cats possessed. Thick fur shimmered in the dusk, pale opalescent white threaded through with shifting streaks of silver and blue. Only the front limbs broke the pattern—long, graceful deer legs ending in dark, polished hooves that looked made for gliding across impossible terrain.

From that powerful body rose a humanoid torso, lean and symmetrical, but uncanny in its stillness. Four arms moved with eerie precision, each motion fluid, calculated. The head was smooth, masked—blank except for two glowing eyes that pulsed faintly with emotion. The neck, longer than it should’ve been, added a strange elegance to the otherwise alien silhouette.

Resting just behind the crown of the head, almost fused with the base of the skull, was the halo—an ornate, ringed structure that shimmered like bent starlight. It didn’t hover above so much as flow with him, connected, maybe even a part of him.

The air buzzed with stillness.

Then Constantine stepped forward, cigarette forgotten in hand.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

The massive creature’s color flushed a soft, glowing blue .

Jason blinked. “Did he just blush ?”

Constantine grinned. “Always works on celestials. Never used to their real forms being complimented.”

Jason, still trying to reconcile that this was Dick, just shook his head. The damn thing was easily the size of the Batplane. Each of its hands could’ve held three of them with room to spare.

Damian, who had been quietly examining the form, tilted his head. “Is this the biggest you can get?”

Constantine laughed. “Hell no. With how old he is? Probably not even close. I’d guess he’s a hundred times that size.”

Dick raised two fingers.

Constantine blinked. “Two hundred ?”

Dick nodded.

“Jesus. You might be one of the originals,” Constantine muttered. “Most gods don’t even know who came before ‘em. But you... You’re older than old. And as far as I’ve seen? You’re the tallest I’ve met.”

Dick’s massive form straightened slightly—pride radiating from him in silent waves.

Barbara stepped forward, arms crossed but smiling. “Can you get smaller?”

The creature nodded once, but didn’t shrink.

She raised an eyebrow. “Would you want to? I mean—spend more time like this? Stretch out a bit?”

All eyes turned toward Bruce.

He didn’t flinch. “I wouldn’t mind you walking around the manor like this. As long as you don’t knock over any support beams.”

That did it.

Dick lit up —literally. His halo-crown glowed brighter, casting soft golden light in all directions, and Jason swore he could feel the joy pouring off him like warmth from a sunbeam.

“Okay, okay!” Jason waved a hand. “You can glow all you want—just not when we’re trying to nap, alright?”

The crown flickered once, then vanished like a trick of the light.

Dick’s essence let out a low, amused chuff.

Jason looked up at the massive creature, still holding the inconveniently limp vessel of his brother. “You’re gonna keep doing the drop thing, aren’t you?”

The creature tilted its masked head ever so slightly.

Jason sighed. “Yeah. Thought so.”

Jason kept staring, lips parted slightly, one arm still instinctively halfway out like he was going to catch something. He watched as the massive form— Dick , still somehow Dick —shifted.

The celestial-cat-deer thing that had once been his brother began lowering itself, folding those feline limbs beneath its body until it settled into something like a loaf. For a second, it looked oddly cozy for a being that could probably cause an eclipse just by standing up straight.

Then, as if thinking it through, Dick tilted his head before the air shimmered around him. Slowly, his size diminished. Fur and limbs compressed, proportions holding steady even as the sheer mass of him shrank. The change was gradual but smooth, almost soothing to watch. When the glow faded, Dick’s full form had settled to something more manageable: still massive, but now roughly the size of a large horse. Big enough to make Jason feel small, but not so big that he expected to be flattened by a sneeze.

Dick blinked his glowing eyes and lowered his humanoid torso forward, angling down toward them until they were just about eye level.

Damian didn’t hesitate. He strode forward like this was no more shocking than seeing Dick in a different pair of boots. “You are much more tolerable in this form,” he said, tilting his head to examine a leg, then the mask, then the way Dick’s feline tail twitched.

Jason swore he saw the corners of that blank mask twitch like it was trying not to smile.

Steph let out an excited noise and grabbed Tim by the wrist, dragging him along before he could finish saying, “Wait, should we even be getting close—?”

“Too late!” Steph called over her shoulder. She was already halfway to poking one of Dick’s glowy limbs. “You’re weird and awesome . And also weird.”

Tim gave a resigned sigh and let himself be hauled forward.

Cass stayed near Barbara, her stance relaxed, thoughtful. She didn’t move forward, but her gaze never left Dick—tracking every subtle shift in his posture, the weight of his presence, the little ways he mirrored his usual expressions without needing a face.

Barbara didn’t speak, but Jason saw the way her shoulders had dropped. Less tension. Less tightness around the eyes. Her brain was probably sprinting laps trying to file this away into some kind of sense, but she wasn’t scared. Just watching.

Alfred, ever composed, stood nearby with his hands neatly folded behind his back and the faintest trace of approval tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Well,” he said, “I admit, this is not how I envisioned Master Richard’s celestial form—but I must say, it’s rather charming. And, mercifully, now sized for the furniture.”

Jason barked a short laugh.

The sheer weirdness of it all began to fade, if only a little. Dick’s form, otherworldly as it was, no longer loomed. Sitting there on the grass—massive but not monstrous, luminous but familiar—he felt more present than he had in years.

Jason crossed his arms and tilted his head. “Alright, I’ll give you this. It’s less terrifying when you’re not the size of a building.”

Dick’s mask turned toward him, eyes glowing softly. Then he dipped his head forward in a slow, exaggerated nod.

Jason smirked. “Still freaky, though.”

Steph was the first to break the spell.

With a dramatic flop, she collapsed sideways into Dick’s thick fur and dragged both Tim and Damian down with her. “ He’s so warm! ” she gasped, already burying her face in the opalescent fluff like it was the best pillow she’d ever encountered.

Tim grunted as he hit the ground. “Warn me next time—”

Damian, from beneath Steph’s elbow, scowled. “Get off me.”

Jason just stood there blinking while Bruce stared like he was still trying to process what the hell was happening.

Dick made a soft, trilling coo, some cosmic approximation of affection aimed right at the three now sprawled against his feline side. Then, with a gentle wave of one long arm, he gestured to the rest of them—Jason, Alfred, Bruce, Cass, and Barbara—beckoning them closer like a parent inviting their kids to sit by the fire.

He paused. Made a face. Then reluctantly curled one of his glowing hands toward Constantine too. A fine, exaggerated ugh-fine-you-too kind of motion.

Jason snorted and gave him a dry look. “Really pulling out the red carpet there.”

Still, he glanced down at the body—Dick’s vessel—still cradled in the grass where he’d left it after catching it mid-drop. He frowned, gesturing at it like uh, is this okay?

Dick nodded. Then gave a thumbs-up. Then, not satisfied, made the universal “grabby hands” motion in Jason’s direction like c’mon already .

Jason rolled his eyes and carefully lowered the vessel to the ground, patting the chest once like stay before walking over and plopping himself down next to Damian. The heat radiating off Dick’s fur was unbelievable—like sitting next to a fireplace built into a cloud.

Soon enough, the whole family had settled in around him.

Cass moved quietly, graceful as always, tucking herself against a feline shoulder. Barbara wheeled forward, slow but steady. Alfred approached with his usual composure, giving the celestial fluff a single pat before sitting near Bruce, who had finally stopped staring long enough to follow everyone else’s lead and crouch down by Dick’s side.

Dick twisted slightly—his human torso angling toward Barbara in particular. His long neck bent until the masked face was level with hers. A low, sad chitter escaped him, something like sorrow and apology wrapped into one soft sound.

Constantine, now lounging at the outer edge of the cuddle pile like a guy who’d been dragged to a family picnic, raised an eyebrow. “Can you fix it?”

Dick didn’t answer right away. His head turned slightly, masked mouth opening and closing without sound—mimicking the motion of trying to speak and not knowing what to say. Then, with something like resignation, he reached forward and touched two fingers to Constantine’s forehead.

Barbara waited, eyebrows arched.

“Well?” she asked softly.

Constantine’s expression turned serious. “He says he can’t. Not that kind of damage. He can chase off sickness, patch up wounds, but nerves and bones—especially ones this far gone—he doesn’t trust himself not to make it worse.”

Barbara let out a breath. It wasn’t disappointment exactly. Just confirmation. She nodded. “Yeah. That tracks.”

The sadness in Dick’s posture deepened. Barbara reached out and touched his fur anyway, just gently, and gave him a small smile. “It’s okay. You’re still ridiculously impressive.”

Jason watched the moment unfold in silence. Barbara's voice was calm, but he could hear the ache tucked beneath the words—years of acceptance stitched over something that had never really stopped hurting. And Dick… Dick looked like someone had carved the guilt right into his bones.

He shifted again, drawing his forelegs closer like he was trying to make himself smaller, despite being a god-sized celestial cat-deer-thing. Jason reached out without thinking and rested a hand against the fur of Dick’s side. The warmth pulsed beneath his palm like a living sun, steady and strong.

“You gotta stop looking like someone just punted your puppy,” Jason muttered. “You didn’t break her. And you’re not a miracle vending machine.”

The glowing eyes on the mask turned toward him. The mask didn’t change, but Jason could feel the faint lift of a smile behind it.

Dick let out a low, rolling hum—comfort, maybe, or gratitude. Then his torso shifted again, settling more comfortably into the center of the group, long limbs folding inward to wrap gently around the others. The kind of slow, careful cuddle that said I want you close, but I’m still trying to figure out how to do this without squishing anyone .

Steph was the first to sprawl out entirely, limbs spread like she was sunbathing. “This is the best day of my life. If anyone tries to move me, I will bite.”

Tim, still half-trapped under her, made a muffled sound of agreement. Damian, surprisingly, didn’t even protest. He was leaned against Dick’s foreleg like it was a heated pillow. If anything, he looked fascinated—eyes moving over every inch of Dick’s fur and limbs, probably cataloguing it all for later questioning.

Cass had curled up close to Dick’s flank, already half-asleep, while Alfred sat quietly, sipping tea from a thermos he had apparently conjured from the ether, as if this was all perfectly ordinary.

Bruce remained still, one hand resting lightly against Dick’s feline shoulder like he didn’t quite know what to do with it but felt the need to stay connected.

Jason leaned back into the celestial warmth, trying not to think too hard about how utterly weird his life had gotten. He glanced over at Constantine, who had lit another cigarette and looked way too smug for someone being cuddled by a cosmic beast.

“You get used to it,” Constantine said without being asked. “Eventually.”

Jason huffed. “You better not be enjoying this.”

“Oh, I’m enjoying this immensely,” Constantine said, grinning. “Bloke like this? Ancient as hell, still soft as a kitten on the inside. Adorable.”

Dick’s mask shifted to a blue glow for a second before fading again. Embarrassed.

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Are you blushing?”

Dick let out a huff of air that ruffled Jason’s hair, then flicked his tail at Constantine, nearly knocking the cigarette out of his mouth.

“Alright, alright!” Constantine laughed, scooting back a little. “Don’t get your holy limbs in a twist.”

Jason shook his head and looked up at the vast shape curled around all of them. This was ridiculous. Surreal. Absolutely something out of a fever dream. But the heat was real. The breathing, steady presence was real. The steady press of that not-quite-human, not-quite-animal body around them all? Real.

And somehow, in a way Jason couldn’t explain, it felt like home.

“Just don’t make this a habit,” he muttered, nudging Dick’s side with an elbow. “Cuddling your celestial god-butt is a one-time thing.”

Dick’s mask turned toward him, the glowing eyes narrowing playfully.

Then he wrapped Jason up with a forearm like liar .

Jason felt the shift before it happened—like the calm before a minor, cosmic earthquake. The fur beneath him rippled, a subtle tension in Dick’s limbs signaling movement. Then, without warning, the celestial giant surged upward, unfolding like a cat deciding nap time was over and stretch o’clock had begun.

Steph let out a startled squawk as she slid sideways, catching Tim in the ribs. Damian braced immediately, adjusting his stance like he'd anticipated the motion before it started. Jason, sprawled nearby, just threw up his hands.

“Oh, come on —you were literally being used as a mattress.”

Dick didn’t answer. Or at least not in words.

His massive body adjusted with feline precision, tail flicking once before settling. The halo above his head pulsed faintly, glowing with excitement as he lowered his human torso down, bending at the waist until he was eye-level with Damian.

It was a ridiculous sight—this towering god-being stooping so carefully just to line up with one small kid. Damian looked up at him, unflinching, brow slightly raised.

Then Dick extended his hand.

Everyone froze.

Steph leaned over toward Tim and whispered, “Is this… is this what I think it is?”

“Looks like,” Tim murmured back.

Jason’s brow furrowed. “What the hell is he—?”

Before anyone could piece it together, Constantine burst out laughing, full-body, head-tossed-back kind of laughter. 

Dick, unfazed, gestured again. Damian hesitated for half a second, then solemnly reached out and placed his small hand into Dick’s massive, furred palm.

With surprising gentleness, Dick lifted him and deposited him carefully onto the broad feline back of his body—right between the shoulders, nestled into the thick, warm fur like a seat carved just for him.

Steph gasped like it was Christmas morning. “Wait, wait —me next!”

Before Dick could even motion, she was grabbing Tim and dragging him toward the offered hand.

“Steph—what—no—” Tim started to protest, but it was already too late. They were scooped up like plush toys and set down behind Damian.

Jason watched the three of them, now awkwardly but gleefully arranged on Dick’s celestial-spiritual-deer-snow-leopard-centaur back, and scrubbed a hand down his face.

“This is real. This is actually happening,” he muttered to no one in particular.

Steph threw her arms up in victory. “I knew he’d be a good ride. Look at this suspension!”

Damian adjusted his position with precise care. “The stability is acceptable. Better than a standard horse.”

Dick’s glowing eyes narrowed with smug satisfaction.

Jason shook his head slowly. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

Dick stuck his tongue out—well, the non-existent equivalent of it—a small glowing flicker curling up from behind the mask like a teasing flame. His tail swished in smug little flicks.

“Gods,” Jason muttered. “Literal. Gods.”

Dick began to move, big feline paws barely making a sound against the earth. The muscles beneath his shimmering fur shifted with fluid grace, each step effortless despite the size of him. His passengers—Tim, Steph, and Damian—held on, wobbling only slightly, though Steph was clearly doing everything she could to bounce and test the "ride quality."

Jason trailed behind, watching it all unfold with an expression that hovered somewhere between disbelief and resigned amusement.

Beside him, Bruce murmured, “His body structure doesn’t make any sense.”

Jason arched a brow. “You’re just noticing that now?”

Bruce didn’t respond directly, eyes still tracking every motion Dick made, clearly trying to make logical sense of something entirely illogical.

Constantine, now composed and lazily smoking again, let out a snort. “Nothing about the supernatural makes sense, mate. That’s kinda the point. If it did, we’d be calling it biology.”

Dick finished his loop and, with no warning, let his feline half drop to the ground in one smooth plop.

“ Oh no— ” Tim started, right before—

Thud.

All three riders slid off with a collective yelp, landing in a pile of tangled limbs and startled huffs. Steph wheezed from underneath both boys, “Ten outta ten. Would ride again.”

Dick made that strange, musical chittering sound—his version of a laugh—somewhere between glass bells and wind across reeds. His massive body wiggled with amusement as he turned away from the pile of groaning teens and scampered over to Cass and Barbara, lowering himself again with exaggerated, puppy-like eagerness.

He held out a hand to Cass first, and she didn’t even hesitate. She stepped into his grasp with perfect trust, and Dick lifted her easily, placing her near the front of his back.

Barbara blinked, caught somewhere between cautious and touched.

Dick tilted his head at her, silently offering.

She glanced at her wheelchair, then at him. “You’ll be careful?” she asked softly.

The mask that made up Dick’s face didn’t change, but something in the tilt of his head and the gentle reach of his hand answered louder than words.

Barbara exhaled and gave a single, steady nod.

Dick picked her up with all the care in the world, cradling her like something precious, and placed her behind Cass. Cass immediately reached back and gripped Barbara’s arm, steadying her.

Then, with the same lightness as before, Dick stood again and began his slow walk. Not quite a parade—more like a soft meander, letting his new passengers feel every warm step, every rhythmic sway of his motion.

Jason couldn’t help but watch, arms folded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Barbara looked more relaxed than he’d seen her in weeks.

Cass had that unreadable half-smile, content and observant, like she already knew how this would go.

Dick gently lowered her and Barbara back to the grass, his movements careful despite the sheer size of his celestial form. Once they were safely back on the ground, he turned, hooves crunching gently into the earth as he padded over to where Alfred, Bruce, and Jason stood.

He gave Bruce and Alfred a silent offer with a tilt of his large, antlered head.

Bruce raised a hand in polite refusal, the corner of his mouth twitching with the ghost of amusement. “I’ll stay grounded for now.”

Alfred simply folded his hands behind his back, nodding. “I believe I’ve ridden enough wild creatures in my day, Master Richard.”

Dick huffed through his nostrils, amused.

Then he turned that mischievous gaze onto Jason—mask crinkling with the suggestion of a smirk. His eyes gleamed with something that looked far too smug.

Jason met the look, squinted, and sighed. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

Rather than scooping Jason up like he had with the others, Dick lowered his upper body slightly, extending one arm to offer a hand as a makeshift step.

Jason blinked, then smirked and muttered, “Alright, fancy,” before gripping Dick’s shoulder and swinging himself up with practiced ease, settling between the ridge of his feline shoulders and the base of his glowing spine.

He leaned forward, hands finding purchase in the wisps of Dick’s fur. “So,” he whispered, just loud enough for Dick to hear, “how fast can you really go?”

Dick didn’t answer with words.

His mask just curled upward—almost definitely smirking—and then he moved .

The wind tore past Jason’s face as Dick exploded into motion, hooves and paws striking the ground like thunder, his form blurring as he rocketed across the field in a massive arc. He took corners like they didn’t exist, surged over a hill that hadn’t been there a second before, and looped them far beyond the space the others had been carried through.

The speed was unreal—like gravity bowed out and time politely stepped aside.

And then, just as quickly, they were back. No more than a blink later. Same time as the others.

Dick skidded to a graceful halt, chest heaving with exertion but glowing brighter than ever, a ripple of delighted chittering spilling from his mask. He sounded like a kid who got to sprint through a candy store.

Jason slid off his back, boots hitting the grass with a soft thump . His hair was windswept, and he looked half-stunned, half-wired.

He glanced up at Dick, expression caught between disbelief and awe.

“That was—” he began, then shook his head. “Yeah. Okay. That was actually badass.”

Jason watched as Dick’s towering, celestial form gave one last happy chitter before turning away. The massive creature—smoke, hooves, and antlers glowing under the fading sky—trotted calmly over to where his vessel still lay in the grass, unmoving.

Jason followed with his eyes, shoulders tense despite himself.

Dick’s form seemed to unravel as it neared, the shape melting into long ribbons of blue-white smoke that coiled in the air like water in reverse. It poured over and into the vessel, soaking into it like mist sinking into dry earth.

Then the vessel twitched.

Dick's eyes snapped open with a sudden, sharp gasp , his back arching slightly as his lungs fought to catch up. He dragged in two more ragged breaths—shuddering, fast, like he'd just surfaced from deep underwater.

Jason’s instincts screamed CPR , but before he could move, Bruce was already stepping forward, jaw tight. “Dick—”

“Chill,” Constantine cut in, flicking ash off his cigarette and not even looking up. “He just needs a sec to recalibrate. Vessels aren’t exactly plug-and-play, mate.”

Bruce didn’t look reassured, but he stopped moving.

Dick was still breathing hard, but now his hands were twitching and his shoulders had dropped from panic to just… discomfort. His face scrunched, like he was trying to get used to wearing skin again.

Dick chuckled—breathy, winded, a little unsteady—but clearly amused. His eyes were still a little glassy, pupils slow to adjust, but the grin tugging at his lips was unmistakable.

“God,” he rasped, half-laughing, “it’s been a while since I’ve been out that long… with the intent to come back. Gonna take some getting used to.”

Jason raised a brow, arms crossing. “ With the intent to come back ?” he repeated, tone sharp. “What the hell does that mean? You’ve just… dipped before?”

Dick gave him a lopsided shrug, still lying flat on his back, one hand flopped over his chest. “It’s easier sometimes. Being out there. Less static. No bones. No gravity.” He gave a wheezy sigh. “No organs trying to reboot all at once.”

Jason made a face. “You’re talking about your body like it’s a used computer.”

Dick smiled, eyes drifting shut. “That’s not a bad analogy, actually.”

Jason knelt down beside him with a grunt, giving him a once-over. “You good? You’re not gonna go lights-out again and start floating or whatever?”

Dick cracked one eye open. “I’m good. Just... give me a sec to stop feeling like I’m wearing a sweater made of meat.”

Jason blinked. “That’s disgusting.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

Behind them, he could hear the others talking—Steph laughing at something Tim said, Cass whispering to Barbara, Damian peppering Constantine with questions in the most polite version of an interrogation possible. Bruce hadn’t moved, but his stance had relaxed a fraction. 

Jason stayed crouched next to Dick, watching him breathe—still shallow, still uneven, but steadier now. His color was better too. Less ghost-pale, more human.

“…You sure you’re okay?” Jason asked, quieter this time. Less challenge, more concern.

Dick didn’t answer immediately. He rolled onto his side with a grunt, then slowly pushed himself up to sit. Jason made a move to help, but Dick waved him off with a tired, but appreciative flick of the fingers. A few more breaths, then he planted a hand in the grass and stood, swaying just slightly before finding his balance.

“I’m okay,” he said, voice rough but steady. His eyes met Jason’s. “Promise. Just… tired. That’s all.”

But then his gaze dipped lower—to Jason’s chest—and something in his expression shifted. His body didn’t move, but his focus sharpened instantly. Like a camera lens snapping into perfect clarity. His pupils widened, his mouth went slack for a second, and then his brows furrowed with quiet intensity. Not fear. Not pain. Just… attention.

Jason felt a weird twist in his gut.

“…What?” he asked, cautious now.

Dick didn’t respond. He took a slow step forward, eyes locked on something Jason couldn’t see. His head tilted slightly, like he was listening to a sound just out of range. A faint shimmer passed through his irises, subtle but unmistakable.

Jason’s shoulders tensed, body going rigid like a drawn bowstring. “Dick.”

“I wasn’t finished,” Dick murmured. It sounded more like a reminder to himself than a response. His voice had the kind of quiet that came with deep focus, the kind that made your instincts go still even if you didn’t know why.

Jason took a half-step back, eyes narrowing. “Finished with wha—ACK!”

There wasn’t time to react.

Dick’s hand—glowing faintly, eerily, not like light but like something out of phase with the world—sank into his chest with all the resistance of mist. No impact. No pressure. Just complete and horrifying penetration, like a ghost walking through a wall.

Jason’s breath caught in a violent jerk. His back arched, fingers spasming at his sides as a shockwave of static shot through him like lightning had struck his spine. Every nerve lit up. His vision white-edged, body locking up mid-motion. It didn’t hurt, not really. But it was wrong —wrong in the most primal sense. Wrong like being turned inside out or dropped into a vacuum. Like something fundamental inside him was being touched, twisted, seen .

It was cold. It was hot. It fizzed like soda in his bloodstream, bubbled like carbonated electricity, surged with pulses of light like someone had plugged his veins into a goddamn generator.

He couldn’t move. Could barely form a thought, let alone words. His mind tripped over itself, awareness spiraling.

“WHAT THE HELL, GRAYSON?!” Constantine’s voice cracked behind them, outraged and shaken. That didn’t happen often.

Jason didn’t respond. Couldn’t. He was too busy trying not to black out as his legs trembled and his body wavered like it couldn’t decide what plane of existence it belonged to.

Constantine’s shout snapped everyone else out of their stunned silence.

There was a flurry of movement behind them—gasps, curses, footsteps crunching hard on the grass. Steph’s voice rang out sharp and panicked: “Jesus Christ!” She was already halfway to them, instincts overriding any fear of glowing spirit hands. Tim moved like he was about to phase through air to get there faster.

Jason barely registered any of it. He stood frozen in place, knees slightly bent, swaying under the force of whatever Dick was doing. Dick’s hand hovered— inside him —right over where his heart beat, like it was a compass needle drawn to a specific point.

Dick’s eyes were lit faintly from within, soft and unnatural, his jaw tight, focus absolute. The point of contact on Jason’s shirt was glowing now—light blooming outward from his chest in slow, rhythmic pulses. Pale blue waves spread like ripples across water, illuminating the fabric with eerie calm.

Jason’s gaze flicked down to it, then up to Dick’s face.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed through gritted teeth, chest rising too fast, heartbeat thudding like it wanted to outrun his ribs.

“Fixing it,” Dick said quietly. “You were still tethered. Still bleeding through. I left it half-done before.”

Jason’s brow furrowed hard. “What does that even mean—”

And then—
Snap.

It wasn’t loud. There was no noise, no visible break. But he felt it, deep inside, like something ancient and wrong had been clipped. Like a cord had snapped.

The effect was instant.

It hit like sudden vertigo, like the floor dropped out beneath him. His stomach lurched, lungs locked, and every cell in his body screamed in reflex. But then—

Stillness.

Absolute, shocking stillness .

No drag at the edge of his mind. No cold fingers brushing the edge of his thoughts. No dark gravity pulling at his soul, like it wanted him back.

The background noise—the one he’d never fully noticed until now—was just… gone.

Not muted. Not dimmed. Gone .

Like a constant static he hadn’t realized he was filtering out had been turned off mid-sentence. A silence so sudden it rang.

He gasped, the air punching out of him as his body swayed forward, unmoored. His knees dipped without warning, his balance failing like a puppet with its strings cut. He hadn’t meant to fall—but he wasn’t in control of his limbs just yet.

Dick caught him instantly, instinctively, like he’d been expecting it. One arm wrapped firmly around Jason’s back, steadying him, while the other slid free from his chest with slow, deliberate care—like disarming a bomb.

The glow faded with it, soft and soundless, like mist burning off under the sun. The ripples of light that had been pulsing from Jason’s sternum slowed… then stopped entirely.

Jason gripped at Dick without thinking, his fists clenching in the fabric of his shirt like it was the only thing anchoring him. His boots were still planted on the ground, but they didn’t feel solid. Nothing did. It was like his center of gravity had vanished, and now he was just trying to remember how to exist in his own skin.

It wasn’t pain. Not even discomfort. But it was wrong in a way his brain couldn’t label yet—a dizzy, full-body recalibration. Like a system reset deep in his bones, like his soul was rebooting after years of lag.

The world felt too bright. Too clear.

Too quiet .

That background pull, that low-frequency hum of the pit—of death, of rot, of something ancient and greedy—had always been there, just under the surface. Whispering. Scraping. Tethering him.

He hadn’t known how loud it was until it wasn’t.

Now, without it, he felt light . Not physically—he was still heavy with adrenaline and the echo of what had just happened—but something had lifted. Something inside him was no longer trying to drag him backward.

His soul—his real, living, patched-together soul —felt still.

Settled.

Peaceful, even.

Like the eye of a storm had opened inside him. Like lakewater finally smoothing after years of churning.

Behind them, Bruce stepped forward like a gunshot. Sharp. Controlled. Protective in a way that made every syllable of his voice feel like a drawn blade.

“What did you do?”

The words were low, but there was steel in them. The kind that only came out when someone had touched one of his kids without asking first.

Constantine lifted both hands, palms out in truce. “Relax, Bats. He helped him. No damage done.” A glance at Dick. “Though I wouldn’t recommend the method.”

Jason was still blinking, still trying to clear the white static from the corners of his vision, when Constantine pivoted toward Dick again—his irritation rising like smoke.

“You warn someone before you go diving into their soul in front of the whole bloody family!” he barked, finger jabbing the air. “That’s the supernatural, platonic equivalent of sticking your hands down someone’s pants!”

Dick jerked back slightly, face twisting. “Ew.”

“Yeah, ew ! Maybe think next time!”

Jason laughed—breathy and shaky, muffled against Dick’s shoulder. Not because it was that funny, but because the pressure had cracked. Something deep inside him had finally unclenched, and the release came out as laughter. Fragile, unsteady, but real.

“He’s not wrong, man,” he mumbled, voice rough.

Dick sighed like the weight of the entire situation had just landed on him all at once. He rubbed a hand down Jason’s back—slow and steady, a silent apology in motion. “Okay. Yeah. Point taken. That was… not elegant.”

“Try alarming ,” Constantine muttered.

But Jason didn’t move.

He didn’t let go. Not yet.

Not because he couldn’t stand—he was fine, or at least he would be—but because his body and mind were still syncing up to this new version of himself.

One without the whisper.

Without the cold breath on his neck.

Without the dragging hand at his heel, reminding him what he’d crawled out of.

For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no weight pulling him toward the dark. No haze clouding the edge of his mind. No echo of something else rattling around in his ribs.

Just stillness.

Just quiet.

Clear.

And God, it felt good .

Dick pulled back enough to meet his eyes, searching his face carefully. “You’re free now,” he said softly.

Jason didn’t speak at first.

He swallowed. His chest rose with a breath that felt new—real.
He nodded once.

“…Yeah,” he said quietly.

Then again, more certain: “Yeah. I can feel it.”

Tim hovered a few steps away now, caught between checking on Jason and trying not to intrude. He looked rattled. Pale. Like he'd just watched someone flatline and come back.

Steph was the first to speak again, her voice a little hoarse. “Is he okay?”

Jason nodded without looking at her. He wasn’t ready to shift yet, to move away from the space he was in. “Yeah,” he said. “I think I’m… actually okay.”

He didn’t say finally . Didn’t need to. Everyone heard it.

There was a beat of silence, the group collectively unsure what came next. The tension was bleeding off slowly, seeping into the grass beneath their feet.

Bruce stepped closer, face unreadable but gaze locked on Jason. His voice softened a notch. “You sure?”

Jason looked up, met his eyes, and nodded again—firmer this time. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

Bruce didn’t say anything else, just gave the smallest possible nod in return. Not approval. Not relief. Just… acknowledgment. The kind that said I see you, and I’m still here.

Constantine muttered something under his breath about needing a drink and wandered a few paces off, probably to smoke or punch a ghost or whatever the hell he did to unwind after something like this.

The others started to drift too, giving space the way family sometimes knew how to—without words. They didn’t go far. Just enough to let him breathe.

Jason finally let go of Dick’s shirt, his fingers leaving wrinkled impressions in the fabric. “So,” he said, voice still scratchy but steadier, “that was horrifying.”

Dick gave a tired half-smile. “Could’ve been worse.”

“You fisted my soul , man.”

Dick winced. “Not how I’d phrase it.”

Jason shook his head, lips twitching with something between exhaustion and reluctant amusement. “You’re lucky that worked, or I’d be punching you with ghost-knuckles right now.”

“Would’ve deserved it.”

They stood there for a second longer, the weight of everything starting to settle into memory instead of the present moment.

Then Jason exhaled slowly, like he was letting the last bit of it go. “Thanks,” he said, quiet but real. “For not leaving it half-done.”

Dick didn’t say anything. Just reached up and briefly gripped the back of Jason’s neck—steady, grounding. A silent anytime .

Jason rolled his shoulders once, testing the way he felt in his own skin now. It was different. Lighter. Cleaner. His .

He turned toward the others—toward his people—and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel like a ghost standing outside the group. He felt real. Present.

Alive.

“Okay,” he muttered, cracking his neck. “So what’s for dinner?”

Steph, already halfway back toward the house, turned with a grin. “You get soul-exorcised and still think with your stomach?”

“Damn right.”

Dick clapped a hand to his shoulder. 

“C’mon. Let’s go home.”