this was originally an idea i had for Halloween so it's either gonna be early or late

big cw here for descriptions of gore and stuff

Two weeks ago, a cult had decided to snatch up Dick and Bruce. Not Nightwing and Batman but Dick and Bruce as their civilian identities. One moment they'd been going about their lives and the next, they disappeared. It took all of the family coming together to find where they'd been locked up. A fight that lasted hours and a desperate dash through a labyrinth brought them to the small room their mentor had been kept in.

They should've known when they found Bruce staring gaunt at the ground that something horrific had happened. They expected torture, they expected that he'd been drugged up to the nines on something or been subjected to some brainwashing. This job trained them to become prepared for all manner of disgusting things criminals did. They didn't expect this though.

See, there was nothing physically wrong with Bruce. His clothes were dirty and crumpled presumably from the initial kidnapping. Although his hands had been tied down, it appeared the cultists had been careful in making sure he was left without welts from his restraints. He wasn't starved or severely dehydrated either. The room was clean and he didn't smell either. Honestly, this was the best they'd ever seen someone who had been kidnapped and missing for two weeks. 

Upon finding Bruce, they realised he hadn't been kept in the same place as Dick. They untied him and expected him to leap up and show them where to find the missing acrobat but he just remained in the chair. His eyes were glazed over and unseeing.

"Where's Grayson?" Robin asked. His father just shook his head dejectedly. "Father, where is he?"

"He's gone," he said, his voice cracking. 

The words rippled through the family. They all stood there in shock because the idea of Dick not being there, of him being dead, was an almost impossible thought. He was the type of guy to go missing for years and then pop back up like he'd never been presumed dead in the first place. Even when he had faked his death, it was nearly as unfathomable to see him alive despite what they'd been told. He was the person who could be on the cusp of death but never actually dead.

"Don't you dare lie," Red Hood snarled. Being angry was much easier than being sad and Bruce could be manipulative when he wanted to be. Maybe this was some failed test or undercover work he was completing. Perhaps he was saying Dick was gone so they'd leave him there to finish the job. All of that was unfortunately plausible for the billionaire. "If you fucking have him doing some dirty work of yours then you're going to tell us right now because we are not mourning him again!" 

Bruce finally lifted his eyes from the floor and glared at Jason with such fury they'd never seen before. It was unbridled rage that swirled in those gloomy blue eyes and they were admittedly a little fearful of what would come of it.

"I didn't do anything!"

"You've forced him to fake his death before. You've played the part of a grieving father so convincingly before so why should we take this at face value now?" he argued. 

"Because I watched him die!" Bruce screamed. "They tore him apart. They beat him every day, they experimented on him and then when he'd served whatever purpose they had for him or perhaps because he no longer screamed, they killed him. I didn't sit through all that, be forced to watch all of it, only for you to tell me I'm a fucking liar!"

"Bruce," Batgirl began.

"No, no, I won't sit here and be accused when I watched him be tortured for days. My son is gone and nothing is going to bring him back," he snarled, unlike a cornered dog. "He is dead and you're accusing me of faking it." He shook his head. "I understand I hurt that boy more than I can even understand, more than I can bear, but I will not be accused of faking this."

"Bruce please," Orphan told him, gripping his arm tightly enough so he could feel her fingers digging into his skin in an attempt to ground him but all it did was remind him of his state. 

His skin bears no mark from a blade or bruise. No, his torture was one that was completely mental and made to make him lose himself in grief. One that gave him memories so sickly that he could throw up every time they flashed behind his eyes so he needed to focus on the anger of being accused. He tried to shrug her off but he paused when he felt another set of hands on his other arm.

"Father, you are denying the inevitable. You are not angry at the assumption, not as much as you insist, you are trying to distract yourself." He caught the eye of his son and God just looking at him reminded him so much of Dick. How the man had stepped up to look after his kid when everything fell apart and taught him so much. 

Dick would know what to do right now. He would know exactly how to talk him down and get him to explain everything better so his siblings weren't spiralling into their own grief. He'd tell him to slip into that Batman persona for just long enough to get home, then lead him to bed and let him break down there. Although he'd never mention it to anyone, the acrobat would crawl into bed beside him and keep Bruce's hand on his pulse to ground him. He remembered when Dick first did it as a child. Something to keep him from thinking he was gone. 

But now he was gone. Gone with a death he never deserved, in pain he never should've been in. He should've died old and happy with his family surrounding him. Not tortured and alone. The bastard dared to give him a small almost forgiving smile before the knife finally split the skin of his neck where there was already a scar from a failed attempt years ago. There was no failure this time.

"They tore him apart," he whispered. "Yet never hurt me. Just made me sit there and watch it."

"He never would've wanted you to be hurt anyway," The Signal told him bitterly. "He would've taken everything even if given the choice to pass some of it onto you." They didn't know if that was comforting or harrowing but it was a fact. Dick would've taken the brunt of anything until forced to do otherwise and even then, it was a feat to get him to do otherwise.

"So, that's it," Spoiler asked. She didn't mean to sound so blunt. Shock affected them all in different ways and losing the big brother of the weird little family they'd made was certainly a shock and a half. Especially in the way it happened. Not even a body to bury. "He's really gone."

"I can't believe it," Batgirl muttered. "This isn't- this can't be. We would've found blood, we would've found evidence of torture."

"What're you suggesting?" Bruce asked almost desperate for some other explanation. She looked him up and down, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"Drug test. See if they gave you anything that could've made you hallucinate or misinterpret what they were doing. We owe Dick a thorough investigation. I'm not losing him because we thought he was already gone."

So, for the ride back and for the wait time for the test, they had hope that this was some terrible drug-induced vision and Dick was out there still. Maybe 

It came back clean. A thorough investigation of the building confirmed what they feared. Dick was dead. Tortured in his final moments then disposed of with nothing for them to bury. It didn't feel real. All of them spent the first few days waiting for him to turn up again with a goofy smile and some miracle story about how he escaped. Nothing. He was gone.

When they accepted that fact, their own torture began.

Bruce thought it was a nightmare at first. He was in bed staring at the ceiling and sleep felt like a foreign concept. He knew he needed it but closing his eyes just laid the perfect blank background for the torture of his son to project onto. He must've fallen asleep though. How else could he see what's saw? 

Dick stood at the end of the bed, his eyes blank but directed at Bruce. His body was a mess of cuts and bruises clothed in a white robe the cult had given him at the beginning of their stay that slowly turned crimson in their time. His skin was pale and dead, devoid of any warmth it once held. His cheeks were hollow from starvation and his hair was stuck against his face with wet sticky blood. 

"Dick?"

He didn't respond to the name and continued to stare. Waiting for something that Bruce didn't know. 

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, unable to make his voice any louder around the lump in his throat. He longed to see his son again but not like this. He wanted to see the man he was before. Happy and charming and sarcastic in the most endearing of ways. Strong and certain of himself. 

Dick tilted his head further and further until the bones broke with a loud crack. Then his mouth opened, blood pouring out of it and staining his teeth. His jaw extended further and further in an unnatural way until it too broke with a loud crack. Then he screeched. 

Bruce clamped his hands over his ears but it still sounded like it was right next to him, screaming into his brain and deafening him to the point he heard it accompanied by ringing. He wanted to throw up and let out a scream of his own but his teeth were gritted together tightly as he cringed away from the noise that never left him. 

Around the room, objects levitated before crashing into one another. His dresser slammed into the wall and splintered upon impact. Picture frames smashed into pieces, the pictures within them setting on fire spontaneously and circling around this thing wearing Dick's face. This was a nightmare, Bruce told himself as the smell of burnt paper filled the room. It was just a nightmare he'd wake up from any minute. 

The bedroom door slammed open and his children came pouring through. They too had their hands over their ears. For a second he wondered if this was him in some limbo between waking up and staying asleep stuck in a nightmare and that the scream he couldn't escape from was his own until they too set their eyes upon their fallen brother. Jason and Tim darted over to Bruce, grabbing an arm each and tugging him out of bed and out of the room. Damian slammed the door behind them and on the other side, there was banging and crashing as Dick continued to scream. 

"Let me out! Please Bruce, stop leaving me behind!" Dick shrieked, his voice cracking painfully. 

They gathered together in the hallway and stared at the door in horror. It wasn't possible. This couldn't be happening. Dick was dead, he was definitely dead, so what was that thing terrorising Bruce's bedroom. They panted as though they'd run a thousand miles despite being frozen in place. 

"What the fuck was that?" Steph asked finally breaking the silence between them. 

"C'mon B," Dick said from inside. "Don't leave me again. Please don't make me be alone."

"It's him," Bruce muttered. He couldn't gauge how loud he was as the scream continued to make his ears ring. He knew he was right though. That thing in there wearing Dick's face was still him to some extent. Nothing could mimic him that perfectly. 

"That can't be him," Duke insisted, his body trembling. He'd seen a lot of weird shit in Gotham but this took the cake. "Why would he come back like that if it were him? I know he had anger issues but whatever the hell is banging on the door isn't him."

"The cult," the billionaire continued. "The cult must've turned him into this."

"How do you know?" Tim asked.

"I asked why they were hurting him and they said he'd become a creature of their own. I-I think this is that creature. He just had to be broken down first to let it in," he explained shakily. 

The screaming stopped along with the unknown chaos going on inside the room. The light from the fire died too. They naively thought this meant he was gone. That he'd used all of his energy to strike fear and terror into them. 

A translucent hand morphed through the door, followed by a hand and then a head and then a full body. Dick's neck and jaw had been fixed but now he was grinning at them as though the sides of his mouth had been stitched up into a forced expression. 

"Don't you want to see my show? You always liked my shows. You always said you did so why did you leave? I don't like to be alone," he said excitedly. "No harm done though, I can do it here and with more watchers!" He grabbed the neck of his robe and tore it down so they could see his torso. It had infected cuts and bruises so extensive they only saw it on bodies the mob left after teaching someone a lesson. He took his hand and dug it into his chest before splitting his body down the middle as though his fingers were scalpels. He then dipped his entire hand into his torso pulled out his intestines and let them splat against the floor. The smell of rotting flesh hit them like a tonne of bricks and it took all their training to not gag as it attacked their sense of smell.

They needed to run. Now. Yet all they could do was stare at the mess of decaying organs laid out on their floor. He cackled maniacally and picked up one end of it with a pretend sigh. 

"It's gonna take forever to get these back in but wasn't it good? Didn't you like it? You always like my performances."

"What are you?" Damian asked.

"I'm your big brother of course! Well, I think I am. I look like him don't I?" he answered with a casual shrug. "Aren't you happy I'm here? Did you want me dead? 'Course not! You definitely cried when I screamed for my life. It's fine that you didn't do anything to help." He was like a theatrical portrayal of the man they knew but there was something there that was just too much like Dick to not be him. It was uncanny. "Oh, watch this!" He then grabbed the underside of his jaw and began to peel the skin away as though peeling an orange. The muscle underneath was falling apart and plopped onto the floor to join his intestines. Their resolve finally broke and they gagged on the smell. 

His head jerked back as though he'd been slapped and he began to sob. 

"You've got to go. You have to go. I don't know what's happening."

"What the fuck is going on?" Jason murmured.

"Dick, is that you in there?" Steph asked as she cautiously took a step forward. He cringed away from her and grabbed at his hair, his face morphing and jumping like a blurry video. 

"Get out of the house! Leave me alone!" he shouted, the objects in the hallway rising. 

No need to tell them twice. They sprinted down the stairs, Bruce breaking off from the group to go to Alfred's room where the butler was already getting ready to check on the noise. He grabbed the man's hand and pulled him out of the house and met everyone in the driveway. It seemed their animals already knew something was going on as they were already waiting outside for them.

"So," Steph began. "We're calling Constantine."

"Now," Cass added. Bruce nodded jerkily, unable to tear his eyes away from the house. 

News hadn't broken of Dick's death yet but when Constantine step foot on the grounds, he knew. It hung heavy in the air that something had been disturbed. He muttered a curse under his breath and lit up a cigarette before going over to the group of bats huddled outside their home. 

"You said you had a paranormal issue?" he asked. 

"A cult killed Dick two days ago," Bruce began with unusual resolve. He guessed he'd broken the news that his kid had died one too many times and found someplace in his mind where he couldn't feel the grief. "They said something about turning him into a creature. We've not had time to look into it. Now whatever that creature is and what's left of Dick is inside destroying the place." He wasn't in the mood for a battle with body horror and the uncanny valley but he never got what he wanted. 

"Shit," Constantine replied. "Are you sure it's even him?"

"It's definitely him but he's mixed with something else. He seemed to get confused and told us to leave. He's upset but also wrong," Tim confirmed. He nodded to himself, finishing the last of his cigarette as he came up with a plan. 

"Give me twenty minutes and I'll give you some sort of answer. Can't say you'll like anything I give you," he warned. They nodded in understanding. He didn't doubt they were used to grim results even when it came to one of their own. He wished it wasn't though. 

When Constantine entered the house, he knew the spirit was lurking close by. A stream of chaos that had begun upstairs had now affected the ground floor with paintings being knocked off walls. For any painting that contained Dick, his face had been ripped out, burned or scratched whilst everyone else was left unscathed. Furniture had been turned over but Constantine noticed that the only things that seemed permanently damaged were pictures of Dick or things he once owned. 

Constantine glanced around for the spirit before something dripped onto the floor. It was dark red and copper filled the air. Reluctantly, he looked up and found that Dick was using his intestines as a swing and the chandelier as a hook for his makeshift hammock. He grimaced at the sight whilst Dick grinned at his new visitor.

"Constantine! Funny seeing you here," Dick greeted, waving a bloody hand. "Do they want me gone that soon? I was so sure they loved me more than that." His voice seemed to double with his last sentence with one voice sounding happy whilst the other sounded hurt. Constantine appraised him and found that it definitely looked like Dick. It was very close and whilst some could imitate perfectly, this spirit was some form of Dick. He had too many scars to perfectly replicate and everything looked to be in order. 

"What are you?"

"I'm Dick Grayson," he replied, his smile dropping slightly as though offended that he'd been questioned. "Are you gonna get rid of me like Bruce did? He never wanted me to stick around." He jumped from the chandelier and morphed to look fairly normal, blood disappearing into his clothes and his head tilted to the side at an unnatural angle. "I bet he wanted them to kill me. He never cared." Constantine narrowed his eyes. Maybe this was a reflection of Dick in his last moments rather than Dick himself. Like an echo. He decided to test if the spirit was truly Dick Grayson or just the energy left over when he died that failed to rest with him. 

"When did you first get fired from Robin?"

"When I was twelve," Dick answered easily. He studied Constantine then smirked to himself. "I'm him but not me completely."

"The cult tried to turn you into something. Do you remember what that was?"

"Idol. All they said was idol and I need to be broken over and over," he whispered. His eyes became unfocused and he slowly walked over to the occult detective with a smile that stretched far too wide. "They want me gone. They never liked me. I'll burn everything I've helped with in this house to the ground. If they want me gone I'll make sure everything of me is gone."

"Oh you're mixed up," Constantine muttered to himself, slightly pitying him. Although this was Dick, it wasn't all of him. This was his emotions with no in between. Happy, insecure, angry. There was no pause between them. "You're definitely Dick Grayson but you're not all there, are you?" Perhaps part of him was stuck. It could be assumed that he died traumatically and it wasn't uncommon for those spirits to become split, even without meddling from a cult. Some of him was still stuck in whatever shithole he'd died in whilst the rest had returned somewhere he knew was safe and attached to. 

"You don't belong here. I do. They may not want me but they need me," the acrobat snapped. A fire began to crackle around him. "You can't get rid of me like that!"

"I'm not getting rid of you," he assured him. The spirit didn't seem too convinced and the fire grew dangerously close. "I'd be pissed off too if I thought someone was walking into my house and kicking me out but that's not what I'm here to do."

"Then what are you here for?"

"To help you and preferably not be turned into a BBQ." The fire died down without leaving a trace and Dick shook his head at himself in disappointment. He clenched and unclenched his hands anxiously by his sides.

"I'm not whole am I?"

"No, but I can help with that. Give me a few minutes to run it over with the family and we'll talk it through. From someone who works with the dead a lot, you've gotta cut that gore shit out. You're scaring them."

"I can't help it! It just- none of it feels real. I don't feel real," he explained, his face distorting every now and then. 

"You're having issues with your presentation," Constantine said to himself. Being trapped between two places could do that not to mention the whole idol business. He was probably meant to be a foreboding spirit that rained hell on enemies but now he was just confused and out of place. 

"Can you fix me? Would they even want to fix me?" 

"I can and they will. You just wait in here and try not to destroy the place whilst we talk, okay?" 

"Do you promise?" he asked like a frightened child.

"I-" Constantine couldn't promise, he didn't like to. When things went wrong, lies were better than broken promises. "I'll do everything I can," he settled on saying before leaving. This was going to be one hell of a test of skills and if he failed, he'd not only have a vengeful confused spirit but also a family of pissed-off well-trained vigilantes.