voiceless
ch1: where we're at (prologue)
tags: reader x bruce wayne, reader x j'onn j'onzz, past reader x dick grayson
warnings: major character death, major character injury, this is just the intro but rest of the story gets pretty dark. See ao3 for full tags, but please dni if you are under 18.
a/n: reader is female, uses she/her pronouns, meta, and a member of the JLA. this is the prologue, I am still editing the rest of the story. unsure if I will post the whole work here or keep it on ao3. set after the Justice League Dark: Apokolips War dc animated movie. I highly recommend watching it if you haven't, but you can read through the plot here.
Accept the things you cannot change, have the courage to change the things you can, and have the wisdom to know the difference...
When Damian told you, you couldn’t believe the news.
“Lazarus pit?” You had asked, voice shaking and body trembling, freshly broke of Darkseid's brainwashing. “So, he’s alive? He’s okay?”
The hope in your voice wasn’t mirrored by the hardened, harsh voice of your boyfriends little brother, whos not as little as he was since you last saw him.
“His body is functioning. But he isn’t Dick anymore. Don’t get your hopes up.”
He was right. When you finally returned to earth and the saw what had become of your lover in the two years you were serving Darkseid, your heart shattered into a million pieces.
To say he wasn't himself was an understatement. Reduced to a feral animal, incapable of conversation or even speaking real words. He was a man crazed, yelling and growling at anyone who got too close. The Lazarus pit restored his body, but his mind was still lost. Damien looked after him dutifully since bathing his brothers body in the green waters, kept him fed and clean. But there was no relationship between them, at least, nothing beyond that of a pet and its master.
After Barry disappeared into the speed force, you and the surviving members of the league/titans made what’s left of Titan tower your new base. That was three month ago. You’ve worked tirelessly with Clark, Diana, Bruce, and the others to try and mend the broken world left over from Darkseid's destruction. And when you weren’t rescuing refugees or searching the ocean for surviving Atlanteans, you found yourself by Dicks side, in his holding cell, caring for him and singing to him to help him stay calm.
Your voice had been weaponized by Darkseid. Your ability to compel others with a simple vibration of your vocal cords was an ability the new god was very interested in. After you were finally overtaken by his forces, he took you in and installed an amplifying device in your neck to increase the potency of your mesmerizing song, but only after brainwashing you himself, first. To control you was to control the others, and to your horror, he used you like a puppetmaster.
You watched one by one as him and his slaves brought in the body parts of your friends and loved ones, rebuilding them and putting them back together with his alien tech. The paradooms really did a number on them. But each of them were reborn in Darkseid's image. You’re lucky, you only have a chunk of the alien tech in your neck.
Queen Mera, J’onn, Carter, Starfire, and Diana weren’t as lucky.
They were forged back together and reprogrammed, with your help, to be Darkseids soldiers, protecting Apokolips from anyone who dares to threaten the authority of the New God.
You and Bruce were given different roles, serving the your master more closely and given more freedom of choice, in the context of your responsibilities. Not mindless drones, but faithful acolytes, tasked with serving him and ensuring his foothold on the universe.
But the horror and trauma of what you all experienced on Apokolips seems to be pushed from your mind and replaced with a deeper grief whenever you sit next to what's left of your lover, in the basement of Titan tower, watching him thrash and yell, throwing his food and crying out like a madman.
Damian has fed him well enough that his body is still strong. He still looks like Dick, except for his eyes. The pit turned his gorgeous, ocean blue eyes into a depraved yellow.
Oh, how you long to see those blue eyes again.
You never pictured the future to be like this. Dick had talked about the two of you getting married, having a kid. Settling down eventually, being a family. All plans for a future that’s no longer possible, in a world that no longer exists. You grieve the loss of your love. Damian grieves his brother. Clark and the others grieve their friend and leader. Bruce is grieving too, although he doesn’t show it like the rest. He’s visited Dick several times. But he never stays long. You imagine it’s hard for him, to see his eldest son, his first robin, now nothing more than a beast who tries to bite and attack anyone who comes near.
Bruce has been somewhat of a recluse between missions, letting himself disappear in the maze of the towers halls. He’s done a lot of work repairing the tower’s electrical grid and solar panels. You suppose that’s his way of coping, of helping. He spent so much time repairing the reactor on Apokolips for Darkseid, you guess this is his way of trying to make up for the damage he caused.
Everyone grieves differently. And it isn’t just the loss of Nightwing that’s the source of everyone’s grief. You all lost friends, family, people you cared for.
Victor. Lois. Zatanna. Etrigan. King Arthur. Garfield. Wally. Connor. Roy. Donna.
Gone. All of them. Titans and gods. Friends and loved ones.
Taken from you too soon, by Darkseid and his paradooms.
The world is grieving too. Billions of lives have been lost. The human race is facing the eminent threat of extinction, and what’s left of earths protectors now band together to try and put back the pieces of this broken world to save the precious life that’s left.
What else can you do, other than your best? You have to try. And when the weight of this harsh reality gets to be too much, you lean on each other, and pray that Barry is somehow able to help erase the atrocity that's marred this reality.
⌜read more on ao3⌟
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Dialogues from Damirae Fics I May or May Not Write. I .
Damian: It's you.
Raven: Yes, it is.
Damian: But it can't be. I looked for you everywhere. You don't exist.
Raven: You didn't exist to me too. I searched for you for so long. I didn't want to take you from someone that you already belonged to.
Damian: ...
Raven: Then, I found you, the same as me-- someone who longed for me just as much as I longed for you.
Damian: You're real.
Raven: Yes.
Damian: You haunted my dreams for so long...
Raven: As did you--
Damian and Raven: I longed to meet you.
Raven: For so long... you haunted my dreams.
~~~~~
This is the turning point planned in this fic. The conversation is supposed to also show how the fic is written. I actually do have a title for this fic, it's been in my head since 2020.
And yes, I offer crumbs to keep the fandom alive.
I plan to do this more or less, writing dialogues because, let's be honest, this is probably the closest I get to posting new stuff.
Should I write the scene properly, I have it rather vividly in my head. Anyways this is the gist. Ta-ta.
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"You hated using the Lazarus Pit, you promised you wouldn't ever use it"
"He... was a part of our family. I had to take the chance... it just didn't work" Damian closed the view off and Dick's growls were still loud. Yet he didn't move, nor did Damian. "I just thought... if I could bring him back, that he'd be able to help us. With Batman gone... I thought if Grayson was here then we could have some sort of normalcy and hope with everyone to save the world"
"Damian..."
"Was it wrong..? Was it wrong what I did to him Drake? I just... I wanted my big brother back"
"No... I get it, you did your best Damian. You did your best, that's all we can do to get by nowadays"
"...I couldn't find any of you, I wanted to reach out. You were last seen in Gotham and all contact was lost, Todd was completely off grid... everyone has been missing or presumed dead... I didn't want to be alone, I just want my family back"
"...Come here Dami"
No matter how old he is now... he was too young for this. Damian pressed himself into Tim's hold and Tim could feel his uniform where Damian was, now becoming damp.
"I just want my family back..."
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