Chapter Text
Calling their current conflict a ‘battle’ was to woefully understate the scale of what they were facing; they only did so because no one wanted to admit they were at war.
The original warning reached the Justice League through the Lantern Corps. An invading force, an alliance of several groups, each of which would have been cause enough for concern individually. Combined, it was desperately clear they needed to be stopped before they took over another sector.
Earth would quickly fall if their allies were subsumed. Therefore, while it made them uneasy to leave home so unprotected, the majority of heroes had joined the front. A skeleton crew was left behind on-planet, very few of them happy about their assignment.
Even the youngest of the heroes, the Teen Titans (or ‘Teeny Titans’, as certain annoying older siblings were calling Damian’s generation), were on deck. Theoretically, they were strictly there to provide medical aid, rescue services, and to fill various other non-combatant roles. Damian had struggled not to be insulted by the assignment.
“Look, I get that you feel sidelined, but it’s not going to be as boring as B’s hoping,” Tim assures. “Young Justice was ‘strictly’ on search-and-rescue during the Warworld thing, and we ended up meeting Darkseid.”
“You what?” Jason asks.
“Butt out, wasn’t talking to you,” Tim shoves their brother away and turns back to Damian. “I’m just saying, don’t feel like you need to go looking for action, it’s going to come to you whether you want it or not.”
At the time it had felt like a placation. Now, it was clear it was a warning.
The Earthlings had stuck together as a fleet while following direction from the Corps. Together they had been sent to attack one of the enemy bases on a far-off, desolate rock planet that boasted just enough atmosphere to ensure humans wouldn’t immediately die if their suit malfunctioned.
‘Base’ was probably the best word anyone had for the enemy encampment. A strange mix of residential and military, permanent and temporary, enclosed and open-air. Translating the structures into Earth terms to provide direction had been a serious problem for everyone, as demonstrated by Nightwing sending Robin and Superboy for an extraction near ‘that platform with the telescopy silly straw looking thing’.
The two touched down as directed and relished in getting to take out the few remaining enemies surrounding the unconscious heroes who had been trying to overtake the area. Far more alien bodies littered the ground than humans; their allies had fought well, but sheer numbers were sometimes more than enough to overwhelm.
Jon worked quickly sliding harnesses onto the heroes; he had the strength to lift them all, but the rescue ropes helped ensure no one fell away while he dodged around explosions and bullets. While Superboy handled that, Robin could investigate what had made the aliens defend this area so fiercely.
Across the platform, Damian located what seemed to be a control panel of some kind, likely related to the spire ‘thing’ that was currently making a weird hum-rattle sound. Up close, the spire was at least 20 feet tall, bizarre and confusing in its design. Damian glared at the controls - labeled in completely unfamiliar symbols - trying to discern what the device was supposed to do. He was hoping for some kind of visual read out, or indicator, or just literally anything that wasn’t an oblong button with spiky yellow writing in a language no Earthling had likely ever encountered.
At last, he spotted a thin raised line that, when pushed, caused an entire panel to slide away, revealing a screen. For a moment, he felt triumph. Then that quickly turned to horror as he processed what he was looking at.
Almost every Earth ship still floating above the planet was located, locked on, and targeted. Whatever this thing did, whatever the goal was, it was going to perform it on the hundreds of people currently in the air. Injured heroes, medical staff, flight crews, and everyone else not presently on the ground. Somehow, even if he didn’t know the specifics, Damian had a feeling the result was not going to be pleasant.
Forget subtlety. Damian began slamming his hands on the controls, desperately hoping he could shut the whole thing down. It was clearly still warming up, he had time, he could do this. After all, how many video games had his siblings and teammates dragged him into playing? He hadn’t had any idea what he was doing with those at first either. This was basically exactly the same thing.
Maybe not exactly the same thing. If he really had to, he could always just unplug a game console. There was no telling what would happen here if power were somehow cut off from the spire. Or if it were blasted with Kryptonian heat vision.
He didn’t find an easy off switch, but he did manage to work his way into the targeting system. This was excellent. This was a solution. Whatever was going to happen, at least he could keep the ships from being hit. All he had to do was redirect the machine to literally anywhere else in the vast expanse of space.
Except it only was letting him select from a set of known objects. Also, he had no idea how to add to the list.
Also, the only other object the computer knew about was itself.
That was fine. Pointing it at just one very close target immediately lowered the displayed power output and impact radius, so it wasn’t going to blow up the planet or anything like that. Probably just this little platform. All he had to do was set the new target and get out of there.
Except he kept having to confirm the new target every few seconds.
It probably wasn’t even measured in seconds, it was probably some alien unit of time that hit a nice round number instead of the trailing decimal Damian was mentally calculating. Also, maybe there was a way to set the system that actually made it lock on and stay there, except it was still in a language he couldn’t read despite the fact that Damian could read so many languages. Any Earth language, or even a Kryptonian-based writing system, would have been something he could at least muddle through.
The very determined confirmation screen was probably a safety feature. Better to revert to the last valid target set than allow the user to do something this stupid. Something this suicidal.
Absurdly, the first thought Damian had was that Tim would be angry he stole his routine. Stole and improved, actually, because dying in a hail of self-redirected drone bullets to save Gotham was nowhere near as cool as dying from a self-redirected giant space weapon to save the majority of Earth’s hero armada.
Damian grit his teeth to keep from making any other sounds as he punched the confirmation screen again. And again. And again. He felt a presence join him over his shoulder.
“Leave, Superboy. I am working on disarming this weapon,” Damian said. He risked a glance behind him and was met with Jon’s wide eyes flickering over the screen before him. Sure, he wasn’t a Bat, but the boy was far from stupid. There was no doubt that he knew exactly what was happening.
“Damian,” Jon protested. Code names had basically been abandoned weeks ago; the enemy didn’t care about their civilian identities. “I don’t think-”
“Do not argue, Kent!” Damian snarled. “Quit wasting time and extract the wounded!”
Jon wanted to argue, he wanted to disagree; Damian could see it in the twist of his mouth and the weight on his shoulders. It was also clear that there wasn’t anything he could argue about. There weren’t any other options - Damian couldn’t carry their allies out alone, and someone had to stay behind to man the controls. This wasn’t just the best plan, it was the only plan.
As Superboy lifted away with their downed compatriots, Damian could vaguely hear him yelling at someone over the comm line. It didn’t matter. Damian could guess what he was saying, and to whom, even, but this wasn’t something anyone would have the time to solve. No one was going to get here fast enough. Damian was alone.
—
Duke’s powers were a blessing and a curse, same as with most metas. They were extraordinarily useful, and also tended to make other people uncomfortable.
Everyone mostly accepted when he explained his Ghost Vision let him see echoes of where light used to be. He compared it to the way you could tell someone had been in the room by the way the scent of their perfume stayed behind, or how body heat lingered, or even just how people were able to recognize animal prints and track their movements. Those were familiar concepts most people could reconcile with their own perceptions of the world.
Explaining how he could see echoes of where light was going to be was harder. That stopped being relatable, stopped being specialized science. It was harder to control, too, which made it seem even more magical to people. Duke had gotten better at it as he trained. He could call it up easier, could see for a farther distance or over a greater length of time.
Sometimes it came on its own.
The vision slammed into him with such force that he nearly choked on it. There was a weapon, a console, a threat, and-
Damian. Damian Damian Damian.
The platform wasn’t far. He could make it, he could get there and get his little brother out. Push him, shove him, whatever it took to get him away from that thing.
Duke ran.
—
Cass had not been paying attention to the entire battlefield. She was the heavy hitter, the muscle, the protector of her team. Anyone who wasn’t an Outsider or an opponent of an Outsider was not someone she had time to worry about.
However, one of the Outsiders was Duke. Duke, who was both her teammate and her brother, and who had just dashed away from their fight in a dead sprint.
Someone else would have called out to him. Would have demanded an explanation, a reason. Made him stop and wait and tell them what was going on. Cass wasn’t just someone.
She could read people like no other, and the closer she was to them the easier it was. Cass knew Duke. She knew why he was running. Someone they cared about was in trouble.
Cass was on his heels before he even noticed her coming.
—
Young Justice, unlike most teams, had co-leaders. Instead of one hero in charge, Tim and Cassie split the job cleanly between them. If they hadn’t worked together for so long, and if they weren’t such good friends, it never would’ve worked, which was probably why most teams stuck to a more traditional command structure.
For them however, it was perfect. Double the brainpower, double the eyes on the problem, and the ability to split responsibilities when possible. Today, for example, Cassie was handling the details of their team’s fights, while Tim dealt with any big picture cross-team strategy.
This was why he was scanning comm lines when a panicked Jon started begging Nightwing to help Robin.
“Nightwing! Nightwing!” Jon cried, “You gotta- Robin!”
“Whoa, hey, kid, what’s going-”
“Damian’s going to die!”
A jolt of fear swept through Tim. It was a matter of seconds to get Damian’s tracker pulled up on his wrist computer and the location pinned down. He whistled, sharp, and Kon swept them both up into the air above the fighting.
Once they were clear, Kon looked at him expectantly. “What’s up?”
“Emergency. Damian.” Tim didn’t mean to be so short, but thankfully Kon didn’t seem to hold it against him and instead just took off in the direction he was pointed.
With an aerial view and what he was hearing over comms, it didn’t take long for Tim to assess the situation. Big weapon, probably deadly, gotta get Damian out of the way.
Or take the hit instead.
“Throw me down with the brat and then get clear,” Tim ordered. There wasn’t time to explain, and he wasn’t risking Kon getting hit too. He could practically feel the frown boring into the back of his head.
Guilt wrenched through him at the realization that he was about to use his best friend as the tool that would facilitate his own death.
“Sorry, Kon,” Tim thought. “He’s my baby brother.”
—
Jason had often been accused of being difficult, and insubordinate, and not a team player, and several other things that boiled down to ‘able to think with his own head instead of mindlessly following whatever Batman says’. However, even he knew there was a time and a place for questioning the system, and a full-on alien war was not it.
Central ops had been moving them all around like chess pieces. He certainly didn’t like being a literal pawn in a bigger game, but he wasn’t going to be the one to screw things up. He went where he was told, he did what he was supposed to do, and he kept his comms connected. Comms which suddenly clicked to life in his ear.
“Damian.”
One breathless, terrified word from Nightwing, in a tone Jason hated knowing so well.
Screw the bigger picture, knock over the entire chess board. None of this mattered, there was no point to any of it, what were they even fighting for in the first place, if any of them fell today?
He pivoted, hard, and booked it to the location Dick had given him.
—
Shit. Fuck. Motherfucker shit fuck.
Dick hadn’t been thinking, ok? Or, he had been thinking, but as a strategist. He had been working from his position in the sky so long he had fallen into the rhythm of directing subordinates without second-guessing himself. And he really, really should’ve second-guessed himself.
When Jon’s panicked warning about Damian came through, all Dick conceptualized was that he needed someone capable and trustworthy over there fast. It made sense to grab another Bat - they were dealing with some kind of weird tech, so they needed to be smart, and they were dealing with Damian, so they needed to be stubborn.
It made sense, therefore, to unthinkingly command his closest sibling to move to his smallest sibling’s side. To get there quickly, to shut things down, to get the kid out at all costs.
But half a second later Dick realized that all this meant was he had condemned Jason to die.
He ripped out his communicator and spun on his heel, racing out of the bridge and ignoring the calls of the other heroes behind him. There wasn’t time to explain, not if he was going to beat Jason there and stop this from happening again. Not another one of them. Not again.
The transporter was nothing like the ones in any popular media, but it hadn’t stopped the Star Trek jokes from happening anyways. It would’ve saved them all so much time if they had worked the same; they couldn’t, for example, beam someone exactly wherever they wanted. Wouldn’t have been much of a battle if they could just zap themselves on top of the enemy leader from anywhere in the galaxy, now would it?
What it could do, however, was transport someone straight down to the planet beneath them. And, theoretically, with a bit of tweaking, maybe it could transport someone…at an angle. A definitely very safe, controlled angle, which would put Dick right above Damian’s last location at a height which was probably survivable.
He was going to find out one way or another.
Dick caught a glimpse of one of his concerned fellows coming into the room before the device yanked him away. He felt the odd, twisting sensation in his stomach that had become all too familiar lately.
When he rematerialized, it was exactly where he had planned to be. Give or take another ten to twenty feet in the air.
Oh well. He wasn’t a Flying Grayson for nothing.
This suit wasn’t the one with his best glider attachments, but it was designed to give him a bit more drag when needed. For a moment, he dove, letting the freefall speed him towards his target, before pulling out into a controlled descent. If the situation weren’t so awful he would actually be enjoying himself.
As it was, the situation was indeed awful, and becoming even more so by the minute. Because why, in the name of all that was holy in the universe, did he see not just one sibling, but all of them running towards their undeniable doom?
Yes, Jason was in the lead, but he saw how fast Duke and Cass were gaining ground, and Tim was cheating via Kryptonian so he was going to get there at the same time despite being halfway across the base when this whole mess started. There was no telling which of the idiots was going to try to be the first to throw themselves on the wire and sacrifice their lives to save the rest of them.
Dick readjusted his fall to pick up more speed again. His knees could take the landing - who needed joints when you were dead?
It was very rewarding to see the looks on everyone’s faces when Dick dropped out of the sky next to Damian. The best look of all was from Damian, who was both shocked and furious as Dick hauled him away from the console and bodily threw him as hard as he could.
The movement propelled Damian away from Dick and straight into the path of their siblings. For a blessed, blissful moment, Dick was able to see Jason catch the flying teen before he could hit the ground. All of Dick’s siblings, his responsibilities, were there, and they were together, and they were safe.
With an ear-piercing screech, the alien device went off.
—
A few galaxies down, two star systems across, on the third planet to the right, a miracle happened.
Dick Grayson woke up.