Chapter Text
It started, as most disasters do, with Dick Grayson looking for a quiet place to nap.
The Watchtower's common room couches had been claimed by Flash (sprawled across three cushions, snoring) and Hal Jordan (also snoring, but with his mouth open in a way that Dick found personally offensive). The medical bay was too sterile. The gym was too loud. And the observation deck, with its panoramic view of the slowly turning blue-and-green marble below, was usually empty this time of night.
Dick was already imagining the blissful peace of pressing his face against the cool glass when he rounded the corner and froze.
Because the observation deck was not empty.
Someone was pressed against the glass, all right—but not in the way Dick had planned. Bruce Wayne had both palms flat against the viewscreen, his back arched, his head tipped back against a broad green shoulder. And J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, had one hand spanning Bruce's hip, the other cupping the back of Bruce's neck, and he was devouring Bruce's mouth like a man dying of thirst.
Dick made a sound. It might have been a squeak. He would deny it later.
Bruce's eyes snapped open. For one terrible moment, father and son made eye contact. Bruce's pupils were blown wide, his lips were red and slick, and there was a flush creeping down his neck that Dick had genuinely never seen before in twenty-eight years of knowing the man.
Then Bruce's hand shot out, not to push J'onn away, but to grab the front of J'onn's blue cape and yank him closer, obscuring Dick's view.
"Grayson." Bruce's voice was wrecked. Absolutely destroyed. It cracked in the middle of the word. "Out."
Dick was already backing away, hands raised. "I didn't see anything. I saw nothing. I am blind. I have suddenly and tragically lost my vision. Alfred is going to be so sad about my new disability—"
"Dick."
"Leaving! Leaving now. Bye. Have fun. Don't—you know what, I'm not going to tell you what to do, you're a grown man, this is fine, everything is fine, I'm going to go scream into the void—"
He turned and walked directly into a wall.
It was not a wall. It was Jason, who had apparently come looking for him, and who now had the most confused expression Dick had ever seen on his brother's face.
"What's wrong with you?" Jason asked. "You look like you saw—"
"NOTHING," Dick said, far too loudly, and physically grabbed Jason by the shoulders to steer him away. "We're going. Now. The observation deck is haunted."
"Haunted?"
"Very haunted. By ghosts. Ghosts who are not making out with Martians. Because that would be crazy. Ha!"
Behind them, Dick heard the distinct sound of Bruce Wayne swearing under his breath, followed by the whisper of shifting fabric and the soft, warm sound of J'onn J'onzz laughing.