Cassian Vale’s shrug is subtle, barely a lift of one shoulder, but it carries the emotional weight of someone who has died, come back wrong, and still has homework due.
“Look,” he says, voice echoing faintly like it’s not fully committed to existing in this dimension, “if it helps, I didn’t plan to end up here.”
Robin rubs a hand down his face beneath the domino mask. Smoke curls around them, sirens wail in the distance, and Gotham’s skyline looms like it’s personally judging him for tonight’s choices.
“That… actually makes it worse,” he admits.
Cassian hovers a few inches higher, boots never quite touching the ground. Up close, Robin can see it—the way the air bends around him, the faint distortion like heat haze, the wrongness that screams not a meta, not magic, not tech.
Something else.
“So,” Robin says slowly, defaulting to Investigation Mode before his brain can spiral, “you phased through reinforced steel, flew at—what—Mach nope, emitted enough ectoplasmic radiation to light up half my sensors, and you’re telling me you’re just. Dead.”
Cassian thinks about it. “Mostly.”
Robin closes his eyes.
Somewhere in his comm, a channel crackles. He ignores it. This feels like a conversation best postponed until he’s emotionally prepared—or at least sitting down.
“Do you haunt places?” Robin asks instead.
Cassian tilts his head. “Do you punch clowns?”
“…Fair.”
They stand there for a moment, Gotham breathing around them. Firefighters move in coordinated chaos. The kid Cassian saved is loaded into an ambulance, alive. Safe.
Robin clocks that detail immediately. File it away. Whatever this ghost is, he prioritizes civilians.
That helps. A little.
“So,” Robin says, straightening, professionalism snapping back into place like muscle memory, “are you hostile?”
Cassian looks almost offended. “What? No. I’m tired.”
That… somehow checks out.
“Tired how?” Robin presses.
Cassian’s glow flickers. Just a fraction. “I’ve been chasing a fire ghost across three districts. This one likes arson and screaming. Bad combo.”
Robin freezes. “There’s another one.”
Cassian grimaces. “Yeah.”
Robin opens a new mental folder labeled Absolutely Not My Night.
“Does this ‘fire ghost’ exist entirely outside known scientific frameworks?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Can it possess people?”
“Yes.”
“Is it currently still in Gotham?”
Cassian points vaguely east. “Unfortunately.”
Robin exhales, already pulling up maps, comms, contingency plans. Of course there’s a second ghost. There’s always a second thing.
“Okay,” he says, resigned. “You’re coming with me.”
Cassian blinks. “Am I under arrest?”
“No,” Robin says. “You’re under… supervision.”
Cassian considers this, then nods. “Cool. Your city is weird, by the way.”
Robin snorts despite himself. “Buddy. You have no idea.”
As they move—one grappling, one gliding—Robin finally taps his comm.
“Batman,” he says carefully, “I need you to trust me when I say this is not a prank.”
There’s a pause. Then, wary: “Explain.”
Robin watches the glowing ghost keeping pace beside him, eyes bright against the dark Gotham sky.
“…We have a ghost problem.”
The silence on the line is long.
Very long.
“Robin,” Batman finally says, “define ghost.”
Robin winces.
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