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The afternoon sunlight filtered through the heavy velvet curtains of the manor's third-floor lounge, casting long, amber stripes across the Persian rug. Dick Grayson sprawled across a mahogany armchair, his Nightwing suit clinging to his lean frame, though he had peeled off the mask. Beside him, Jason Todd leaned against a side table, arms crossed over his red chest plate, the bulk of his gear making the delicate furniture look like a dollhouse. A heavy, rare silence hung between them, the kind that only existed when the city was quiet and the ghosts were behaving.
Dick stared at the ceiling, his blue eyes glazed with a strange, distant longing.
"Little Wing," Dick murmured, his voice airy, "if you die, come back and haunt me again."
Jason froze. He slowly turned his head, squinting at his brother.
"What the fuck is that request?" Jason asked, his voice a gravelly rasp. "You want me dead again?"
"No!" Dick sat up abruptly, his expression earnest, almost desperate. "Not dead. Just... I want you to be with me, Little Wing. Even if you're a spooky phantom. Just don't stay away."
Jason let out a long, slow sigh that whistled through his teeth. He shifted his weight, the leather of his boots creaking.
"I'm right here, Dickhead. I'm literally standing three feet away from you. I'm not going anywhere."
"Just say yes," Dick pressed, leaning forward, his fingers twitching.
"Yeah, whatever. Fine. Yes."
Dick beamed, a small, satisfied smile playing on his lips. He leaned back, looking remarkably relieved.
Jason stared at him for three seconds. Then, the gears shifted. The phrasing clicked. The "again" echoed in his mind.
"Wait," Jason said, his voice dropping an octave. "Fuck you mean 'haunt you again'?"
Dick didn't answer. Instead, he began to slide out of the chair with a slow, methodical precision. He didn't look at Jason. He just started to back away toward the door, his movements fluid and suspicious.
"Come back here," Jason commanded, his posture straightening into a threat. "What the hell happened to you when I was dead? Why the word 'again'?"
Dick hit the doorframe and didn't stop. He pivoted on his heel and bolted into the hallway.
"Nothing important!" Dick shouted over his shoulder.
"Nothing important?" Jason roared, launching himself forward. "You saw my ghost? You were hallucinating me? Come back here and tell me what the hell you saw!"
Jason tore down the hallway, the soles of his boots thudding against the polished hardwood. Dick was a blur of blue and black, his acrobatic grace making him a difficult target. As Jason rounded the corner toward the grand staircase, he nearly collided with Stephanie Brown. She was dressed in her Spoiler gear, chewing on a piece of gum and scrolling through her phone.
"Who's dying?" Steph asked, looking up.
"Dick's a lunatic!" Jason yelled, not slowing down. "He was seeing ghost-me! Help me tackle him!"
Steph's eyes lit up with a chaotic glint. She didn't ask for clarification. She didn't ask why. She simply pivoted and sprinted after them.
"I love a good mental breakdown!" she cheered, her voice echoing through the corridor.
They surged toward the library, where Cassandra Cain stood in the shadows, perfectly still, her Black Bat suit blending into the mahogany shelving. She watched them fly past with a tilt of her head.
"Jason," Cass said, her voice a soft ripple. "Heartbeat... fast. Angry."
"He's gaslighting me from the afterlife, Cass!" Jason screamed as he leaped over a coffee table. "Get him!"
Cassandra didn't need more motivation than the sight of a chase. She vanished into the periphery, her movements a silent, predatory glide. She didn't run; she flowed.
The chase descended from the manor's upper reaches. Dick plummeted down the stairs, sliding along the banister with a manic laugh, while Jason and Steph scrambled behind him. They hit the ground floor and burst through the hidden entrance to the Batcave, the air shifting from old wood and wax to the sharp, metallic tang of ozone and damp limestone.
The cave was humming with activity. Tim Drake sat at the primary console, three empty espresso cups lined up like a tiny skyline next to his keyboard. He was staring at a series of encrypted files, his Red Robin cape draped over the back of the chair.
"What is the meaning of this commotion?" Tim asked, not looking away from the screen.
"Dick's losing his mind!" Jason bellowed, sliding across the cave floor, his boots sparking against the concrete. "He hallucinated me as a kid! I need answers!"
Tim paused. He slowly looked at the screen, then at Jason.
"Wait, he did what?" Tim asked. "That's actually a fascinating psychological response to grief. Did he report auditory hallucinations or just visual?"
"Stop analyzing and start running, Replacement!" Jason grabbed Tim by the shoulder and practically flung him into the pursuit.
"I'm not even fully awake!" Tim complained, though he began to sprint, his analytical mind already calculating the most efficient way to corner Dick.
They tore past the training mats where Damian Wayne was mid-strike against a robotic dummy. The young Robin stopped, his sword humming as he brought it to a halt.
"Why is the manor suddenly echoing with the screams of the incompetent?" Damian demanded, his brow furrowed in a permanent scowl.
"Dick's running from the truth!" Jason yelled, barely glancing back. "Join the hunt, brat!"
Damian sneered, but there was a flicker of genuine curiosity in his eyes. "If Grayson has succumbed to madness, it is only fitting that I am the one to subdue him."
Damian leaped into the fray with a lethal precision, his small frame cutting through the air like a knife.
Finally, they passed Duke Thomas, who was adjusting the sensors on his Signal suit. He looked up just as a blur of blue, red, and yellow zoomed past him.
"Is this a scheduled drill?" Duke asked, blinking.
"No! Just help us catch him!" Jason roared.
Duke sighed, the sound of a man who had accepted that his family was fundamentally broken. "Fine. But I'm reporting this to Bruce."
"Bruce is in Metropolis!" Jason shouted back. "Run!"
The chase exploded out of the cave and into the Gotham night. Dick didn't just run; he flew. He scaled the jagged cliffs surrounding the manor and hit the city skyline with a burst of momentum that left the others struggling to keep pace.
The city was a smog-choked sprawl of gothic gargoyles and neon grime. Dick leaped from a weathered brick ledge to a rusted fire escape, his movements a rhythmic dance of desperation.
"Get back here, Dick!" Jason screamed, his voice echoing off the narrow alley walls. "Who was he? Was he a kid? Did he talk? Did he tell you where the good snacks were hidden in the afterlife?"
Dick leaped across a twenty-foot gap, landing silently on a slate roof. He looked back, his face a mask of playful terror.
"He was very polite!" Dick yelled. "He just wanted to hold my hand!"
"That's it!" Jason yelled, his lungs burning. "I'm going to beat the truth out of you!"
The pursuit became a marathon of absurdity. They crossed the Diamond District, scaled the clock tower, and looped around the Bowery. Dick was treating the city like his own personal jungle gym. He swung from flagpoles, slid down glass awnings, and vaulted over water towers.
"This is actually a great workout," Steph panted, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "I can feel my calves screaming."
"Focus, Brown!" Damian snapped, though he was breathing hard, his small chest heaving. "The target is decelerating! He is looping back toward the Financial District!"
"He's done two and a half laps of the city!" Tim shouted, checking a wrist-mounted tracker. "He's hit thirty-seven rooftops in the last twenty minutes. His cardiovascular endurance is genuinely unfair."
"I'm going to kill him," Jason muttered, his vision blurring at the edges. "I'm going to catch him and then I'm going to kill him again."
Cassandra was the only one not sounding winded, though even she was beginning to sweat. She stayed on the flank, her eyes locked on Dick's center of gravity.
"He's... scared," Cass noted, her voice strained. "Not of us. Of... remembering."
The chase reached a crescendo at the zenith of the Gotham Heights Building, one of the tallest structures in the district. Dick scrambled up the final spire, the wind whipping his hair into a frenzy. He reached the very edge of the roof, a narrow ledge of concrete and steel that overlooked a four-hundred-foot drop into a canyon of neon lights and humming traffic.
Dick stopped.
He looked down at the abyss. For the first time in an hour, he hesitated. He looked at the distance, then back at the pack of siblings closing in on him. He blinked, his expression shifting from panic to a soft, heartbreaking nostalgia. He looked to his left, staring at the empty air as if someone was standing there, whispering something only he could hear.
Jason saw the hesitation. He saw the gap.
Jason launched himself in a final, desperate burst of speed. He didn't go for a tackle; he went for the grip. He soared through the air and collided with Dick's back
, his fingers locking firmly into the scruff of the Nightwing suit.
The force of the impact sent them both sliding across the gravel rooftop. Jason gripped the reinforced fabric of Dick's collar, pinning him face-down against the gritty concrete.
"Got you, you slippery bastard!" Jason gasped, his chest heaving, his forehead pressed against the back of Dick's neck.
The rest of the family arrived in a disorganized heap, collapsing around them. Steph fell flat on her back, staring up at the smoggy sky. Tim leaned against a ventilation duct, clutching his knees. Damian stood over them, trying to look dignified while trembling from exhaustion. Duke simply sat down where he stood, staring blankly at a nearby gargoyle.
"Now," Jason growled, tightening his grip on the collar. "Talk. Right now. What did you see? What was the ghost-kid saying?"
Dick sighed, his body going limp against the gravel. He didn't struggle.
"He was about ten," Dick whispered, his voice losing its playful edge. "Just after you died. I was in the library, trying to read a book on gymnastics to distract myself from the hole in my chest. And there you were. Just... standing by the curtains. You were wearing those oversized pajamas you liked. The ones with the rockets on them."
Jason's grip loosened slightly, but he didn't let go.
"What?"
"You didn't talk at first," Dick continued, his voice sounding small and fragile. "You just followed me. Every room I went into, I'd turn around and you'd be there, tilting your head, looking at me with those big, confused eyes. You looked so small, Jay. So much smaller than you are now."
"I was a kid, Dick. I was fifteen," Jason muttered, though the anger was draining out of him.
"I know. But in my head, you were just a little bird. After a while, you started talking. You'd ask me why I was crying. You'd ask me if Bruce was still angry. You'd tell me that it was okay to be sad, but that I should probably stop eating ice cream for dinner because it was making me sluggish."
A small, involuntary huff of laughter escaped Jason's throat.
"You hallucinated a judgmental ten-year-old version of me," Jason said.
"He was very observant," Dick replied, a hint of a smile returning to his voice. "I spent three months talking to you. I'd tell you about my day. I'd tell you how much I missed you. I'd tell you that I was sorry I couldn't save you. And you'd just nod and tell me that I was doing a good job as the big brother."
The rooftop went silent. The only sound was the distant wail of a siren and the wind whistling through the steel beams. Stephanie sat up, her expression softening. Tim looked away, his gaze fixed on the horizon, his analytical mind finally shutting off to make room for the raw, human weight of the confession.
Damian crossed his arms, his scowl remaining, but his eyes lacked their usual sharpness.
"You are pathetic, Grayson," Damian muttered, though there was no venom in it.
"I was grieving!" Dick defended himself, finally twisting around to look at Jason. "I was a mess! I didn't want to admit it to Bruce because he was already spiraling. So I just... had a little ghost buddy for a while."
Jason stared at him. He looked at the man who had spent the last hour running across the city to avoid admitting he'd been haunted by a projection of his own guilt and love.
"You're a freak," Jason said, but he finally let go of the collar.
Dick sat up, rubbing his neck. He looked at the group—the chaotic, broken, stitched-together family he had helped assemble.
"So," Dick said, leaning back on his elbows. "Does this mean you'll haunt me if you actually die this time? Because the rocket pajamas were a really good look."
Jason stood up and immediately kicked Dick in the shin.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"For being a weirdo!" Jason shouted, though he reached down and hauled Dick to his feet in one swift motion.
"I think we all need therapy," Tim sighed, sliding down to sit on the gravel. "Like, a lot of therapy. Maybe a whole clinic dedicated to the Wayne family."
"I'm fine," Steph said, lying back down. "I just want to know if the ghost-Jason had any secrets. Like, where did he hide the good snacks?"
"He told me they were in the top cabinet behind the flour," Dick replied.
Jason paused, his eyes narrowing.
"Wait. You still have those snacks?"
"Probably," Dick shrugged.
"Right," Jason said, turning around and starting to walk back toward the edge of the roof. "We're going back to the manor. And you're giving me those snacks."
"I didn't say I still had them!" Dick yelled, scrambling to follow.
"Then you're going to help me find them!"
As they descended from the heights of the city, leaping back into the neon haze of Gotham, the tension shifted. The chase was over, the secret was out, and the grief had been aired in the most ridiculous way possible. They moved as a pack, a jagged line of colorful costumes against the grey stone, arguing about snacks and mental stability, their voices carrying over the rooftops of a city that never slept, but for once, felt a little less lonely.