ATTENTION

The Amulet

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Damian was nine when his brother died.

Danny had been twelve—older, taller, faster. Wiser, even. At least, that’s how Damian had always seen him. He was the one who ruffled his hair when he was annoyed, the one who taught him the best way to land a hit when sparring. The one who, even in their grandfather’s suffocating world, still managed to make Damian laugh.

And then, one day, he was gone.

Not just gone—erased.

By the time the grief had settled like dust over his shoulders, Ra’s al Ghul had made sure no trace of Danny remained. No files. No photographs. Not even a whisper in the League’s archives. It was as if he never existed.

But Damian remembered.

And he had the amulet.

A small, smooth crystal set into a metal frame, strung on a fine, worn chain. Danny had pressed it into Damian’s palm the night before he disappeared, closing his fingers around it like a secret.

“Keep it close, Dami. No matter what happens—don’t lose this. Promise me.”

Damian kept that promise. Through every sparring match, every mission, every moment he stood as Robin beside his father. He wore it beneath the collar of his suit, hidden but always present. When the world felt heavy, the amulet reminded him he hadn’t imagined it all—hadn’t imagined Danny.

And over time… it started doing more than that.

At first, it was just a feeling—a presence. Every time Damian found himself in danger, the amulet would glow, just barely, almost imperceptibly. He didn’t think much of it. Probably just a trick of the light.

But then the near-misses started.

A blade that should have sliced through his side—dodged at the last second. A bullet meant for his skull—tilted just an inch to the right. A collapsing beam during a mission—falling just shy of crushing him.

Every time, the amulet pulsed, and the next moment, he would move—without thinking, without reason. It wasn’t skill. It wasn’t luck.

It was something else.

And the family noticed.

Bruce had narrowed his eyes every time, watching him with the same calculating look he used when analyzing evidence. Tim had outright asked if he was cheating death. Even Jason—who didn’t believe in magic or miracles—had muttered something about the brat being “too damn lucky.”

Something was wrong.

But then, the real nightmare began.

It started like a whisper—stories of strange phenomena, ripples in reality, beings phasing in and out of existence in small towns and quiet corners of the world. Then the whispers turned into chaos. Entire cities blinked through moments of freezing cold, electronics failed, shadows moved when they shouldn’t.

The Justice League investigated.

What they found wasn’t a rogue metahuman, but an open wound in the fabric of their dimension—and something trying to crawl through it.

Ghosts. Entities. Creatures that bent light and space, beings of ectoplasmic energy that grew restless, aggressive. Some were merely curious. Others were cruel.

And they were looking for someone.

“The King,” one of them rasped through Zatanna’s containment ward. “He is here. We can feel him. His heart beats in this world once more.”

The JL pressed for answers. The ghosts spoke of a kingdom—the Infinite Realms—a place of dimensions layered like veils. Their king had fallen, and now the throne trembled beneath the feet of a usurper. The war had spilled over into this reality in search of the one who might reclaim it.

The king, they said, had been reborn.

But time was running out.

In the weeks that followed, the world became a battlefield. The League, the Titans, the Bat-family—all fought with everything they had. Cities were scarred. Skies turned green under rifts of swirling ectoplasm. And still, the invaders came, stronger, bolder.

Until one night, Damian found himself face-to-face with death again.

He’d leapt in front of a civilian—reckless, impulsive, the way he always was when his blood ran too hot. The specter’s blade moved too fast.

There was no time to dodge.

But the amulet around his neck blazed to life.

Light burst outward in a pulse that made the air shatter. The ghost reeled back, howling in agony, while every other entity across the battlefield froze. A shockwave rippled through them—not of force, but of recognition.

And fear.

Every spectral eye turned toward Damian.

The king is here.

Some screamed in fury. Others dropped their weapons and fled. Those who lingered felt the surge of power that poured from the boy—not his own power, but something ancient, something buried deep in the amulet that now burned white-blue against his chest.

Everything stopped.

The ghosts froze, eyes wide with horror.

"The King," one of them whispered.

Damian barely registered it.

The energy surged through him, crackling under his skin, pulsing with something ancient and vast. He could hear voices—distant, echoing, familiar. The ground trembled beneath him, and for the first time, the invaders fled.

The war was over.

And Damian collapsed.

The League called an emergency summit in the days that followed. Damage had been widespread, but miraculously, there were no major civilian casualties. As cities began to rebuild, questions remained. Chief among them: What exactly had happened?

Robin sat in the meeting chamber, surrounded by the most powerful beings on Earth, saying nothing. His fingers drifted toward his chest—only to find nothing there.

The amulet was gone.

His breath caught, just slightly.

The warmth that had always been there—the anchor to his brother, the quiet hum of protection—it was gone.

Panic swelled in his throat before he even realized he was standing. The conversation around him blurred. Someone called after him, but he was already halfway down the hall, footsteps echoing through marble and steel.

He burst through the balcony doors, heart hammering—and stopped.

The sky was clear. The stars shimmered like tiny mirrors.

And there, leaning against the railing, arms folded, gaze turned upward… was Danny.

Whole. Real. Alive.

He hadn’t aged a day.

The same snow-silver eyes. The same wild black hair that defied gravity. That same presence Damian had only remembered in fragments, in dreams.

Danny turned at the sound of footsteps. His expression softened.

“Hey, Dami.”

Damian felt like the world had shifted beneath his feet.

Danny’s voice was exactly the same. Not older. Not changed. As if he had never left.

"You grew."

The words were soft, fond.

Damian’s breath came sharp and uneven. His body screamed at him to move, to do something—to attack, to demand answers, to hit Danny for making him think he was dead.

But he couldn't move.

Because suddenly, that warm thing in his chest, the one he had ignored for years, the one that had flared to life when he had blown out the candle that morning—

It broke open.

Flooded through him like fire and light, grief and relief, memory and something else—something too big to name.

He had spent years pretending he didn’t feel the ache. Years telling himself it didn’t matter. That his brother had been erased. That he was alone.

And yet, here he was.

Standing in the moonlight. Smiling at him.

Danny existed.

The amulet—the core—had never just been a memory.

It had been Danny.

Waiting.

Returning.

And Damian didn’t know what to do with that.

So he did nothing.

Just stared.

Just breathed.

And Danny just smiled.

Like he had never been gone at all.

subscribing to a fic isn’t enough I need the author to blast a bat signal into the night sky whenever they update

Dc au- meeting your offspring’s chosen situationship partner i guess

Shadow is Rouge's n1 fan (and hater, currently)

+ Sonic is here literally just to be a little prick

This took so long @_@

Reblog daily for health and prosperity

i would like donald trump to die. crude oil in his lungs.

heard someone say archive of our own should install a "dislike" button and I thought I should say this: no, there's absolutely no need for archive of our own to install a "dislike" button.

why? because archive of our own isn't tiktok or youtube or twitter/x where users can monetize their content. archive of our own is a nonprofit site run by fans for fans, which means every content — every fanfic — you see on archive of our own was made out of pure love and passion from the artists/authors.

ao3 authors write because writing about these characters is their happiness and passion. they write for themselves, but they were generous enough to share with you their creations.

they're not "content creators" the way tiktokers or youtubers or instagram models are. they don't "make content" for views and engagements that can be monetized.

so no, you don't get to "grade their works" unless they specifically and directly ask you to.

you don't get to "say what you dislike about their works" unless they specifically and directly ask you to.

you don't get to "dislike" works that are not made specifically to please you in the first place. you're just a guest in someone's house, a house in which they let you in because they were kind, you don't get to roam around their house and say what you dislike about their furniture. you don't get to roam around their house and say you "dislike their house".

of course, you can have your opinion about the house its host invites you in. but if it's a negative one and you find yourself not liking the house, the polite things for you to do is excuse yourself and leave without telling them you dislike their house.

and just because you personally dislike the house doesn't mean the house is "ugly" either. the house you dislike could be a favorite, most luxurious place to many others.

my point is, don't be entitled by wanting the rights to voice your disapproval of things that you get to enjoy for free. don't be entitled by wanting the rights to voice your disapproval of things that were made out of love and passion — things the artists made for themselves for fun.

it makes you look like an entitled jerk with main character syndrome. the universe does not revolve around you.

now repeat after me: don't like don't read. no one forces you to continue reading a fic you don't like. quietly leave instead of being rude to authors who write for free because writing is their source of comfort.

people are so used to contents that were made because it's a trend / contents like tiktok that were made with the main purpose of reaching high engagement and making profits that they forget sometimes things can be made out of love and be made just for fun. sometimes things are supposed to just be for people to enjoy, and if some people don't enjoy them, then they can simply leave without being unnecessary unkind.

hey does anyone wanna do the funniest thing ever