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The Justice League and the Outlaws standing side by side was strange enough. But standing in the claustrophobic wreckage that John Constantine called a flat? That was pushing it.
The ceiling peeled like old paper, the air reeked of stale smoke and spilled whiskey, and the clutter seemed to grow with each breath. John Constantine stood in the center of the room, cigarette in one hand, he looked to be in an argument with the air. But it wasn’t just air.
A ghost shimmered above a circle of protective chalk and ash on the warped wooden floor. Its translucent form floated with eerie calm, flickering now and then as if caught between dimensions. The room had grown colder the moment it appeared—not just temperature, but something bone-deep. The kind of cold that whispered of the grave.
“I told you Mordecai,” Constantine growled. “I cannot deal with you right now.”
But the ghost had already stopped listening. Its hollow eyes passed across the crowd—Superman, stoic and unreadable; Wonder Woman, arms folded with regal patience; Starfire, burning bright even in the gloom; Arsenal, leaning on his bow like a crutch. Then—
It stopped.
Dead. On One. Single. Person.
“...It’s the Kid stuck on Death’s door.”
Red Hood froze in place.
There was a shift in his stature.
His shoulders locked up, spine gone rigid. It was the kind of stillness that screamed louder than any outburst. Like something had slipped loose inside him.
Only one pair of eyes, sharp and trained by years under a cowl, noticed.
“Hood?” Batman’s voice was quiet. Gentle in a way that didn’t quite fit him.
Jason didn’t answer. Couldn’t, maybe.
The ghost’s voice grew quieter, but no less intense. “I remember you,” Mordecai whispered, drifting closer to him. “Not your name, not your face. But your *soul*. You were a scream that no one on either side of the veil could forget.”
Jason stepped back just an inch. Just enough to feel the old instinct to run crawl back up his spine.
“You were stuck there,” the ghost continued. “You’d hover near the river, step close to the edge, then flinch back. Again. And again. Everyday. You just…Couldn’t. You Wouldn’t.”
He spoke like a mourner. Or a witness.
“It was like you were a lost child, contemplating to ask for help.”
Jason looked anywhere but the ghost. Or the others.
“Some would stay to make sure you were okay,” said Mordecai. “Felt pity. Even tried to reach you. But we were always pulled away—to peace or punishment. You? You stayed. Clung like rot to the edge of everything. Isn’t that pathetic?”
“—Shut up,” Jason said, low and sharp.
“You dragged your broken soul from place to place, begging for people that weren’t there. Clutching at names. ‘Bruce.’ ‘Alfred.’ ‘Dick.’ Every time, like a mantra that would never end, hoping someone would come. But no one did, did they?”
Jason’s hands curled into fists at his sides. He started to tremble.
“I remember hearing from a young girl who didn’t know how to pass over.” Said Mordecai. “Couldn’t have been older than ten. She was scared. You told her how to cross, held her hand while she passed into peace—because you couldn’t follow. You taught the dead how to leave, while you scraped by in the shadows like a coward too scared to go.”
“Stop.” Jason’s voice cracked like thunder in a bottle.
“You wished every single second to die and you just couldn’t,” the ghost said, “ But you couldn’t. So you lingered. A thing without purpose, without place. Just a ghost who never stopped bleeding.”
Even Constantine stood still now, cigarette forgotten in his fingers.
“You are a boy,” Mordecai said, eyes narrowing, “who never truly died... and never had the spine to live.”
Jason stepped back. “You act like you know everything about me.”
“Oh and I do.” Mordecai said. “You were kind, You gave pieces of yourself to strangers like they meant nothing, thinking if you bled kindness, someone might sew you back together. But they didn’t. And now? Now you’re hollow. All sharp edges and rage.”
Jason flinched back.
It was subtle—but those who knew him felt the impact like a thunderclap.
He turned, stiff and jerky, like his body might crack in half from the strain. He went for the door.
Starfire moved first, hand lifting. “Jason—”
Roy started toward him. “Wait, man, please—”
“Don’t.” Jason didn’t turn around. His voice was jagged. “Just leave me.”
He shoved the door open and disappeared into the London mist, the slam echoing behind him like a closing coffin lid.
No one moved. No one breathed.
Then Constantine exhaled smoke and muttered, “Well. Ghost therapy. Bloody charming.”
Mordecai still stared at the door Jason had gone through.
“He never belonged to death any more than he belonged to life,” the ghost said, voice flat. “He’s too afraid of both. And too selfish to let go of either.”
No one disagreed. Not out loud.
But the silence bristled.
Wonder Woman’s eyes narrowed—not in disbelief, but judgment. Not for Jason.
For the ghost.
“You could’ve said it kinder,” she said, her voice calm and dangerous.
Mordecai turned his hollow gaze on her. “And what would that have changed?”
“That boy has fought harder than most mortals ever do,” she said. “You speak like he asked for what happened to him.”
“He didn’t ask,” Mordecai replied, unrepentant. “But he never stopped punishing himself for surviving it. You call that courage?”
“I do,” said Roy, his voice quiet but unwavering.
He didn’t look at Mordecai—he looked at the door Jason had disappeared through, jaw set with something that sat too close to heartbreak.
“I’ve watched him drag himself through hell without asking anyone to follow. But we did anyway. Because he’s worth it.”
Starfire’s eyes shimmered with something deeper than her usual fire.
“He is flawed—but he is still fighting. Still protecting. That is not weakness. That is a soul refusing to surrender.”
Roy’s gaze flicked to her, and then to the floor, as if saying it aloud made it heavier.
“Sometimes he doesn’t know how to let us help him,” Roy added. “But he’s never once left us behind.”
“You see a boy broken,” she said. “We see a man still standing.”
Mordecai didn’t reply.
But for the first time, he looked like he’d been reminded what the living were capable of. And it wasn’t fear. It was loyalty.
And love.
Even Constantine said nothing.
For once, silence was the most respectful thing in the room.