Chapter Text
There are many gods to pray to, and the great King Bruce of Gothika is diligent in making sure he dedicates appropriate time to each of them. As king, he has a duty to ensure the goodwill of the entire Pantheon for the sake of his people’s prosperity. To Zeus, he prays for strength as king and leader, for success in standing as father and leader of Gothika. To Athena, he prays for wisdom on how best to direct his people in both wartime and peace. To Poseidon, he prays for the protection of his navy, to Demeter he prays for protection from famine. To each and every god and goddess worthy of their accolades, he gives fitting praise and worship to ensure the prosperity of his great kingdom. But one goddess above all the rest holds a special place in his devotion. His most personal prayers are directed to the Queen and Mother above All, the great goddess Hera.
For seven years, he and his beautiful Queen Talia have journeyed to Hera’s temple on her sacred feast day and made offerings and heartfelt prayers asking for their marriage to be blessed with a child. For seven years, it seemed the goddess’s wisdom dictated that their prayers would remain unfulfilled. But upon their eighth visit to the temple since their wedding, the pair of regents fell into a spelled slumber where the goddess appeared before them and promised them that she would soon reward them for their loyalty, to the gods and to each other, by giving them all they had asked for.
And lo! This spring, the great kingdom of Gothika welcomes the cries of a newborn babe as they echo from the palace down into the streets below, informing the world of the arrival of the long-awaited Prince of Gothika! King Bruce and Queen Talia are overjoyed to share the news of the arrival of Prince Damian, a strong and healthy child who carries the hopes of his parents and the people of Gothika on his young shoulders. Long live Prince Damian of Gothika, and long live the King and Queen!
“So there you have it, Clark,” Bruce said, leaning back in his throne as the scribe finished reciting the admittedly overly-florid birth announcement that had been drawn up several months prior. King Clark of Metropole had certainly received one, as had Princess Diana of Themyscira, at whose behest his old friend and fellow ruler had come to Gothika. But given the sheer audacity of his fellow League members to make this request of him now of all times, he felt a refresher was appropriate. “I simply have far too much holding me in Gothika to go fight someone else’s battle right now.”
Clark crossed his arms and let out a huff. “But it’s not just ‘someone’s’ battle, Bruce, this is Diana’s battle. Her sister was kidnapped ! And more than that, she was kidnapped by Darkseid! Surely you understand as well as I do the threat that Apokolips poses to all of our kingdoms. Does the Pact of the Peace League mean nothing to you?”
“Does the birth of my son mean nothing to you?” Bruce snapped. “Because you’ve known me long enough to understand that it means everything to me! I can’t just leave my family alone in Gothika to go and risk my life trying to rescue a princess that frankly, having fought alongside many Amazonians in my time, likely does not need me there to be doing any of the rescuing! Surely Themyscira can manage this on their own. Why do they need either of our fleets?”
Clark grimaced. “Well you see, about Donna… before her abduction she went to visit an Oracle, and it turns out that there’s a bit of a prophecy…”
Bruce scowled. “There’s always a prophecy. Whatever it is will or won’t come to pass as the gods wish, that’s the way of things. What I highly doubt the gods wish is for me to leave the side of my wife and child to go face potential death and destruction on the unforgiving shores of Apokolips!”
“Do you think I’m at all happy about this?” Clark asked, his voice rising a few levels louder than Bruce usually heard it. “Jon is no older than Damian, and I left him! I left Lois! Kon stowed away the first time I sailed and I was this close to letting him come with me just because I hated to be without him, but instead I turned my goddamn ship around and put him back, then left the three of them all over again! But Diana needs me. She needs both of us. And you and I both owe her far more than our lives at this point. The least we can do is aid her in her time of need!”
“He’s unfortunately correct, Beloved.”
Both men turned to the door to see Queen Talia striding into the room towards the throne with the young prince cradled securely in her arms. Damian was sniffling and letting out distressed little whines, as though he’d recently been sobbing. When he caught sight of his father across the room, he let out a sharp cry and held his arms out demandingly. Bruce stood at their approach while Clark inclined his head in a respectful bow.
“Talia, Damian, hello,” Bruce murmured as she reached his side and carefully tipped their squirming infant into his arms. After bouncing him up and down a few times and quieting the boy, Bruce sank back down into his throne while Talia perched herself on the seat next to his and turned to smile at Clark.
“Greetings, Clark,” she said, nodding back at him. “I apologize for my tardiness. Damian was in a particularly fussy mood and would not be left with the nurse.”
“You wanted your dada, didn’t you?” Bruce cooed, looking down at his little boy’s face and feeling his heart swell with an overpowering mix of joy and grief. Joy, because this baby, this child of his, was all he’d wanted, the thing he’d prayed for for years , the very thing he’d have traded his riches, his power, his kingdom away for in a heartbeat had it been feasible. Finally, after so long spent longing, he’d been given this most perfect and precious gift, and he could not have been made happier than he was every day that he woke up and remembered that he was this boy’s father. Grief, because he knew—had known, on some level, since Diana sent the first Summons, the one he’d cast into the nearest fire in an attempt to ignore it—that he was about to leave behind this precious, beautiful miracle to fight in a grueling and ugly war.
“It’s quite alright. Jon’s much the same with Lois and I,” Clark said, sounding altogether too genial for a man who was in the process of rending Bruce from his family. “And you didn’t miss much, just Bruce being obstinate.”
“Ah, you’re correct, I’ve seen plenty of that every day we’ve been married,” Talia said with a sly grin as she glanced over at Bruce. “I suppose that’s one thing I won’t miss after you drag him away to assist the Amazonians.” When Bruce caught her eyes, he could see a flash of his own grief echoed in her expression, but it was quickly hidden under the determined steel he’d come to rely on her for.
Bruce frowned, looking back down at Damian, who happily reached up to grab onto his father’s chin. Well. At least one person wanted him to stay here. “I don’t understand why you’re agreeing with him,” he said—not poutily, because he was a King and kings didn’t do pouty, but with an appropriate level of dissatisfaction in his tone.
“I’m not on his side, I’m on Diana’s side.” Talia’s voice was even and stern. “As you are supposed to be, ever since you signed us into the treaty. You swore our aid in battle to your friends should any of us fall under threat from the likes of Darkseid and other great foes, and had that tyrant abducted one of yours—say Damian, or myself—then you’d expect all of them to honor their vows.”
“I promised Gothika’s aid,” Bruce said, weakly grasping for the last and quickly closing loophole that might get him out of this even as the threads of the treaty’s logic were ensnaring him. Because Talia was, as always, frustratingly correct and he couldn’t quite stand to admit it. “What if I send half our ships and appoint Lucius as their Captain in my stead? Surely that would fill the terms of the treaty just as well.”
“Lucius is a good and capable man, and no doubt as fine a commander as you on the battlefield, but he is not the King of Gothika,” Talia said with an eye roll. “You can not expect your friend to lead your men into a war that you signed them up for. And you can not force them all to risk their lives for a cause you won’t put your own behind. Your honor will not allow it.”
Sometimes, Bruce hated being an honorable man.
“And it’s not just your men Diana is counting on,” Clark added. “We’ll need your sharp mind to broach the walls of Apokolips. You’re the cleverest in the Peace League, and we’d all feel much better facing Darkseid with you on our side.”
Sometimes, Bruce also hated being a clever man.
“Clever, perhaps, but not wise,” he grumbled as he looked sorrowfully down at his son. “Had I been, I would have thought to put some sort of period for leave of paternity into the treaty.”
The allied forces of the League of Peace’s siege on the great fortress of Apokolips lasted ten long, grueling weeks. To Bruce, the end couldn’t come soon enough. There’d been hiccups, of course. It took longer for some of their allies to show up than expected, and once everyone was there, interpersonal disagreements abounded on all sides as soldiers from several mighty and distinct kingdoms were brought together and made to share close quarters. For a period of two entire months, one of the Signatories of the Peace League, King Oliver of Starria, refused to let his men take up arms and instead sulked in his tent because the Amazonians refused to share their goddess-granted golden arrows with him and his elite archers! But Bruce weathered it all with as much patience as he could muster, and finally, the end drew near.
“His forces are exhausted; our spies tell us that he’s withdrawn his defenses to focus primarily on his palace and left many of the outer parts of the city with little to no protection,” Princess Diana reported as the Captains of each group who’d come to her aid gathered under the light of dawn for what they hoped to be the final War council. “But our own strength and supplies are running short as well, and if we draw this out much longer, I’m afraid the chance of victory will slip from our grasp. So I say the time is now; we take today to prepare, and then we shall commence an all-out strike at midnight, when they’re least expecting us.” The beautiful Princess of Themyscira looked far grimmer and colder than Bruce had ever seen her as she glared down at the model of Apokolips they were using to plan out their attacks. “This all ends tonight.”
“Finally,” Bruce muttered, softly enough so that none but Clark, who was standing beside him, could hear. “I was ready to go home nine weeks ago.”
“J’onn, have you or your people had any luck locating Donna on the inside?” Diana asked, looking towards their friend who ruled over a strange kingdom inhabited by psychics.
“Not as of yet, m'lady, but locating the voice of a single soul even at this distance when there are hundreds of trapped souls within the depths of Apokolips crying out in pain and suffering is a difficult task,” J’onn said. “However, once we enter the city, I was thinking I might break off with a small number of my men and head towards Darkseid’s palace around the back way, where he’s less likely to notice us. That way, we shall hopefully find where they’ve hidden Lady Donna before they realize how close we’ve gotten…”
As Diana and J’onn started to delve into more tedious specifics, Clark scoffed quietly and nudged Bruce in the ribcage with his elbow. “You’ve been trying to find an excuse to hop back onto your ship and sail back to Gothika since we made port, and we all know it,” he whispered.
Bruce huffed. “Well. Can you blame me? I didn’t want to be here in the first place.”
“We need you here, Bruce.”
“There’s somewhere that I’m needed more.”
Clark just sighed. “I know you might think that, but remember, our mission is blessed by the gods! All of us are exactly where those who know infinitely more than us have decided we need to be. Perhaps there’s some reason you’re here that you just haven’t figured out yet.”
Before Bruce could grumble a reply, Diana turned her dangerous frown onto the two of them. “Is there something you boys would like to share with the War Council?”
Clark cleared his throat awkwardly, but Bruce kept his face impassive. “Yes, actually. I’ve been thinking about what you and I talked about last night, and I believe I’ve figured out how we’re getting into the walls.”
Diana tilted her head, and a shrewd hopefulness unlike any Bruce had seen from his old friend since he’d arrived on these cursed shores sparked to life in her eyes. “By all means, King Bruce, don’t keep us in suspense.”
“The denizens of Apokolips worship Darkseid as their ‘god’, correct? Well, what sort of god turns down a properly flattering offering?” Bruce smirked and looked over at Hal, King of Grelantia, whose people were known for their ability to rapidly produce constructs from little material with their magical gifts. “Tell me, Hal, do you suppose you can build a giant, hollow statue of Darkseid by sundown?”
As ridiculous as Bruce’s plan had seemed, it went off without a hitch, and soon enough, Bruce and several of his best men were sneaking out of the giant statue that the parademons had foolishly brought inside the walls after most of the allies had pretended to sail away in defeat. It took little effort for them to sneak back over to the main gates of the city and take control of the gatehouse, and the impenetrable gates of Apokolips were simply opened to allow the forces of the Peace League to walk right through.
Unfortunately it was impossible to hide an invasion of that size for very long, and within an hour, the remains of Darkseid’s parademon army had been roused and were putting up one last fight against the invaders. The chaos that erupted from the battle forced them to throw their careful planning of which group was going where out the window, and eventually Bruce somehow found himself and a small band of his men fighting off a small horde of parademons on the far side of town from where he’d planned to be.
Ah well, he thought as his sword sliced off several more arms belonging to a few of the demonic creatures that Darkseid had summoned from the pits of hell to do his bidding; he hadn’t been one of the commanders meant to be searching the palace for Donna anyway, and a dead parademon over here was surely as good as a dead parademon over there.
The cluster that had converged on their group when they’d entered this street was quickly dealt with, and soon enough, it was just him and his men standing on the cracked and crumbling stones that paved Apokolips.
“I can see that in between kidnapping princesses and terrorizing the countryside with his army of the damned, Darkseid has made the upkeep of his home city a top priority,” Harvey remarked as he kicked a stray parademon helmet into a particularly large hole in the street that opened up into the ominous glowing red abyss below them, where it quickly became a tiny dark speck.
When it vanished, Bruce suppressed a shudder. Many had said that Apokolips sat atop the gaping maw of hell, and standing here in this foreboding and lifeless place, Bruce was ready to believe it. “Stay alert,” he said with a grunt as he scanned up and down the street, looking for any sign that more parademons were approaching. For now, the noises of the ongoing battle remained distant, but one could never be too vigilant…
—And there. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce caught a movement from one of the shoddy and seemingly abandoned structures that lined the street they were on. It looked like…a shutter being pulled closed? No one was supposed to live in Apokolips aside from the various hordes of demons they were currently attempting to fend off, so Bruce was instantly wary of potential spies.
“Harvey, come with me; the rest of you, hold your positions out here. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“What is it, Captain?” Lucius asked, looking up and down the street with suspicion.
“Hopefully just the wind,” Bruce muttered as he made his way towards the suspicious building with Harvey falling into step behind him, his two swords drawn and ready.
“Seriously, Bruce, what did you see?” Harvey whispered.
Bruce pushed open the half-rotted wooden door and winced at the shrill creak it let out. “Hush,” he whispered. “I think someone was watching us.”
“Who? More demons? Why didn’t they jump out and join the fight? With the way the lot of them have been practically falling on our swords for two months on Darkseid’s orders, none of them seem to have much sense of self-preservation,” Harvey said, still too loud for Bruce’s tastes.
“I don’t know.” Bruce pulled a small orb out of one of the many pouches on his belt and shook it once. It slowly filled with a magical light and lit the interior of the building. He didn’t want to call it a house, although it may have once been such a place, because anything that might have at one time been furniture or decor was lying in pieces on the ground and was covered by what was practically a blanket of cobwebs and dust. He glanced down, and— “There…” he breathed. A smattering of footprints was visible on the dusty floor, weaving up and down the hall and in and out of several of the rooms. Someone had been there relatively recently… someone with feet .
“Those are bootprints,” Harvey whispered. “I’ve never seen a parademon wearing boots, not with their claws.”
“Whoever it was spent a significant amount of time walking around in here,” Bruce remarked as he started to carefully pick his way across the floor. The footprint trails grew denser the further into the structure they got. When he turned a corner at the end of the hall, it became clear that more often than not, they had been heading towards a staircase.
“Those are bootprints, Bruce,” Harvey hissed again. “Who the hell in Apokolips is wearing boots? All the humans were driven away decades ago when Darkseid took over!”
“Well,” Bruce said as he started to carefully climb the steps. “Lady Donna would presumably be wearing boots, and J’onn could never seem to locate where in the palace she was being kept.”
Harvey’s breath hitched. “You think the kidnapped Princess might be hiding out in this shack? So what, she escaped from Darkseid and hid from the demons in one of the old inhabitants' houses?”
“Perhaps, but that’s not all of it,” Bruce muttered as they reached the top of the stairs and turned into another hallway, this one with the added charm of having several large holes in the wooden floor revealing a view of the floor below. One of the shoe prints he’d identified had seemed slender enough to belong to a teenage girl, but there’s been a second slightly larger set mixed in with it. “Whoever is hiding here, they’re not hiding alone.”
“Wha—ack!”
Bruce raised his sword and spun around to see Harvey pinned to the ground by a smaller, cloaked figure, who’d appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Bruce lunged towards them, but froze when the figure twisted themselves and Harvey around to reveal a wickedly glinting knife held up against Harvey’s throat while dragging them both back towards the wall, demonstrating a surprising amount of strength for someone their size.
“Move and he dies,” snarled the figure—a young man no older than Donna, if his voice and face were anything to go by.
Bruce eased himself back half a step and made a show of lowering his sword and shifting into a less aggressive stance. “Hey now, it’s ok; we’re not here to hurt anyone.”
The young man let out a sharp laugh without any humor in it. “I saw what you did to those demons,” he said. “Who’s to say we won’t be next?”
Bruce took a moment to look, really look at this man. This… boy, really, although the hard lines in his face and eyes spoke to having been through hardships far beyond his years. His hair was long and dark, kept in an uneven cut that likely had been done with a dagger and without a mirror with the express purpose of keeping it out of his face. His clothing was worn and thin, and given how much of his wrists were exposed, too small—something he’d either scavenged or had so long he grew out of and couldn’t replace. The quality of his clothes was a sharp contrast to that of his dagger—its blade was shining, made of an almost pearlescent silver, and based on what he could see sticking out from his white-knuckled grip, the hilt was of a well-polished gold. The blade was curved in a distinct way that was in fact rather familiar to Bruce—Diana of Themyscira would polish a dagger just like it nearly every night they sat by the fire together during the long siege.
“Peace,” Bruce said, holding up the hand holding his light orb with his palm open to convey a promise to do no harm. “My name is Bruce. We’re here with Diana of Themyscira. We’re looking for Lady Donna. She’s here, isn’t she? Why don’t you call her out?”
The boy stiffened, his eyes growing wide before his jaw clenched and he dug the dagger just a hair deeper into Harvey’s throat. “How do I know you’re not lying?” he sneered. “This could be a trick by Darkseid to find her again!”
“I’m a member of the Peace League—an alliance of kingdoms arranged in part by Donna’s sister,” Bruce continued, keeping his voice as steady and calming as possible. “We’ve been besieging Apokolips for ten weeks now—surely you’ve noticed? Diana wants to bring Donna back home safely as soon as possible.”
“ Prove it,” the boy hissed. Before Bruce could try to think of a way to accomplish something so seemingly impossible in their current situation, however, he caught a bit of a lucky break when a door further down the hall was flung open and a young woman in a dark gray dress dashed out.
“Dick! I recognize their armor, they’re from Gothi— King Bruce!”
“Lady Donna!” Bruce sheathed his sword and took a step towards her as a sharp crack of relief snapped through him, reaching out an arm with the intention of gathering her up into his direct protection, but before he could get close enough Harvey let out a pained squeal and Bruce froze his steps again, freshly reminded of his friend’s current predicament.
“Don’t touch her,” Dick, evidently, snarled out.
“Dick, it’s ok,” Donna said, her voice shaking as she glanced between the three of them. “I—I think they’re here to rescue me!”
“I rescued you,” Dick muttered, although he did finally release his tight grip on Harvey when Donna shot him a pointed look. Harvey rolled away from him and scrambled up before scuttling back towards Bruce and putting his commander’s body between himself and his teenaged assailant. It was all Bruce could do to refrain from rolling his eyes.
“You got Donna away from Darkseid’s palace, then?” Bruce said, opting for gentle questioning in the hopes of bringing him down from his hostility. Whoever this young man was, however he’d happened to come to be here, he was clearly loyal and protective towards Donna, so they really all ought to be on the same side and work together.
“Yes. And once I get word that it’s safe to move her, we’re getting out of the city!” Dick snapped, standing up and stepping in front of Donna while still brandishing the dagger threateningly. “In the meantime, we’re just fine right here!”
Bruce nodded encouragingly. “You’ve clearly done a good job protecting her from the parademons, chum, but there’s no need to stay hidden any longer. If you come with us, we can get you somewhere safe.”
“Dick, I recognize them, really,” Donna said, placing a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “King Bruce is friends with my older sister. I believe that they’ve come for me.”
A long moment passed in increasingly tense silence before something seemed to break in Dick and he lowered the weapon, his shoulders slumping forwards in defeat. “Fine,” he muttered, almost too quietly to hear. “We’re almost out of food here, anyway.”
It didn’t take long for Dick to gather what remained of his and Donna’s belongings into the magic bag he’d been given when they’d fled the palace. It was enchanted to hold a lot more inside it than it logically should, and when they’d started, it had been rather heavy. Grail had filled it with plenty of provisions, as she’d guessed just how long they’d have to hide out in the old, abandoned city devoid of anything useful even to scavenge. Now all that remained of their original supplies was a couple of small and increasingly stale loaves of bread and just one last piece of dried meat that both Dick and Donna had been refusing to eat for days in hopes of the other one finally taking it. Alongside their pathetic rations went Donna’s other dress, a pure white garment woven with glittering gold that had been absolutely impractical for staying hidden in the dark and desolate streets of Apokolips, as well as her collection of golden rings and bracelets and chains that all had some sort of special Amazonian meaning and she refused to leave behind.
The contents of the magic bag that actually belonged to Dick were the good-luck charm his mother had fashioned for him by tying a robin’s feather onto a leather chord, and the small set of windpipes his father used to play at night beside the fire.
(Well. If what Grail suspected about him was true, the mortal man who’d raised him was not his father in a biological sense, but at this point whatever god may or may not have sired him had basically abandoned him and let his family and everyone he loved get tormented and killed by demons, so he really didn’t care to consider anyone else in that role, thank you very much)
Once he’d grabbed everything from their shelter worth keeping, Dick slung the bag over his shoulder and turned to face the two soldiers who were responsible for disturbing the fragile sanctuary he and Donna had been sharing. “Let’s get on with it, then,” Dick said, unable to keep tone from turning waspish and rude despite the annoyed glare it earned him from Donna. And it clearly didn’t work like intended anyway, because the man who was the King of something or other had the audacity to look amused by Dick’s attitude.
“Stay close, the both of you,” the King said as he turned to walk back down the hall. “Harvey, fall back and bring up the rear.” Donna gave Dick a thin smile that was somehow both encouraging and pleading before following after him easily. Dick tried not to feel a sting of betrayal at how eagerly she leapt into somebody else’s protection.
The soldier that Dick had tackled from the rafters earlier gave Dick an uneasy look as he stepped back and gestured for him to go through the door after the King guy and Donna. Dick couldn’t resist the urge to bear his teeth in a silent snarl as he passed, causing the soldier to cringe back. Yeah, that was right, they’d better watch it. The second they did anything to hurt Donna, Dick was going to pull out the dagger he’d borrowed from her again and really stab them this time!
Because Dick didn’t trust that they were here to bring Donna to safety. Not fully. His acquiescence was more motivated by the simple fact that he and Donna were a pair of underfed, unarmored fourteen year olds pinned down in their hideout, while these were two large, heavily armored and well armed men who could just as easily force them to go with them if that was what they wanted. If it turned out they were tricking them and luring them into a trap, Dick figured he’d grab Donna and they could run off, disappearing into the twisting streets of the abandoned city, losing their tail that way just like they had the first time they’d gone into hiding. Because these men might be big, but Dick was fast , and Donna’s Amazonian nature meant she could keep up easily.
He kept telling himself he was confident in his plan even as they exited the familiar comfort offered by the rickety building that had sheltered them for the last several weeks and saw the rest of the King’s men, who converged on their group quickly when they spotted them emerging.
“Captain! You’re safe! And—is that Lady Donna?” One of the men, a tall, dark-skinned man with armor nearly as ornate as the King’s was, sputtered out.
“Commander Lucius, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Donna said easily, giving him a polite nod. Lucius’ eyes flitted to Dick and his brows shot up.
“And who’s this?”
Donna’s hand shot out and latched onto Dick’s, giving it a firm, reassuring squeeze as she pulled him to stand close to her. He allowed it easily. “This is Dick. He helped me escape from Darkseid’s palace so they couldn’t use me as a blood sacrifice to bring about mass chaos and destruction as they had planned. He’s been keeping me hidden ever since.”
“Is that so?” Lucius said, giving Dick a second, more appraising once over. “In that case, well done, young man. The alliance of the Peace League and the entire land owes you a great debt.”
Dick clenched his jaw and lifted his chin as he pressed himself close to Donna’s side. “I don’t need your praise,” he said, voice sharp. “I did it for Donna.” Donna had been the first person who’d bothered to care about him—him, not his skills, or his supposed hint of divinity, but him—since his family had been killed. Sure, Grail had kept him from facing the worst sorts of fates that could befall someone captured by Darkseid, but she’d only ever been interested in what he could do to help further her cause. Donna wasn’t like that. They were friends. Equals. Sure, he was her assigned protector at the moment, but they really had come to rely on each other for both survival and companionship since fleeing the palace.
After all that, he’d follow her for as long as he was allowed. And then…well. He was still trying to figure that out. Grail seemed to expect he’d keep working for her, but he wasn’t too fond of that idea. He kept trying to think of a better one, but so far, he was coming up blank.
Once the King had sent a couple of his men off to inform Donna’s sister that she’d been found (including the guy from before, Harvey, who had shot Dick an annoyed look and grumbled something unflattering under his breath before departing), Dick and Donna were led by a roundabout back way over towards the city gates. The Gothikans hovered close, forming a protective circle around Donna and consequently Dick as they moved. They did run into a couple more bands of parademons, and Dick didn’t hesitate to jump into the fray alongside these strange soldiers, brandishing Donna’s golden dagger with deadly efficiency as he took what might be one of his last few opportunities to enact his fury on the monsters that had murdered his family and everyone he held dear.
“You’re quite skilled,” the King remarked, looking on thoughtfully after Dick took down his second parademon in a row and effectively ended the current skirmish. “Where did you say you were from, again?”
Dick scoffed as he wiped the thick, yellow blood of the parademon off the dagger with the edge of his cloak—after several weeks of living in a dusty hole in the wall the garment was worse for wear anyway, and he was nearly certain that Donna could arrange for some new clothes for him once reunited with her sister. “Does it really matter? It’s gone now.”
The King frowned. “Gone?”
“Everyone’s dead.”
Dick glowered then turned away to make it clear he was done with the subject. The King must have been wiser than he looked, because he chose not to press.
The streets of Apokolips had fallen into severe disarray and several routes they tried to take back to the city gates turned out to be blocked by fallen buildings and debris, so it took them several hours to finally reach the exit. By the time they made it back to what the King declared to be his mens’ camp, the first rays of dawn were poking over the horizon. Donna was bustled into a tent that was larger than the ones that surrounded it, and Dick followed after her before anyone could say a word to stop him.
The tent was large enough inside to fit a small but comfortable looking bed, a table with a map of Apokolips spread out on it, and several chests and crates all piled up against the walls. Some of the chests were propped open to reveal various weapons, armor, clothing, and other supplies. The walls of the tent were dyed a regal-looking deep, dark blue color that did an excellent job of blocking out the slowly-rising sun and making Dick yearn to just collapse and go to sleep already.
“You two can wait in here while everything is finished up,” the King said after he’d stepped in behind Dick. “I’m having someone find you something to eat, since I’m sure after all of that you must be starving. Feel free to clean yourselves up while you wait for breakfast to arrive. There’s some water over there, and we can bring more if you require.” He gestured to a basin set up in the corner. “We’ll be standing guard outside while we wait for the other generals to return. If you need anything else, just ask.”
“Thank you, King Bruce,” Donna said with a tired but sincere smile. The King smiled back and looked both of them over critically one more time before taking a step back and letting the flap fall closed, leaving Dick and Donna alone once more.
“Well,” Dick said after a moment, his voice and throat tight. “This is not what I thought was going to happen when soldiers broke into our hideout.”
Donna let out a wet, shaky laugh before taking a step towards him and all but collapsing onto him. It was all he could do to guide them both to a gentle landing on the tent floor as he sagged under her sudden weight.
“I’m out. We’re out. Dick! We—we’re out.” Her laughter fell away into hysterics that turned into full on sobs, and Dick did his best to reposition their bodies on the floor so that they could both be somewhat comfortable as he held onto her and tried to provide whatever comfort he could.
“Shhh… you made it. We survived. They didn’t find you, you’re safe now. Your sister came to bring you home,” he whispered, rubbing a hand up and down her shaking shoulders while forcefully ignoring the urge to burst into sobs of his own.
Because for Donna, the hell on earth she’d been trapped in was over. She’d survived long enough to escape the villain’s clutches, and would be welcomed back into the loving embrace of her sister, then swept off to her mystical island home. But for Dick… his mission was complete, yes; he’d been ordered to protect Donna at any cost until she could be safely extracted from the city, and he had. But there was no warm family embrace to shelter him, no home to return to. He’d made it through, but to what end? What future was there left for him to look forward to?