Right so my brain was being a brain for once and decided to come up with a crossover concept for the 'You wanna be one of them' universe and 'I wouldn't have given you to them':
So we've got ('You wanna be one of them')Spider fucking around in the forest with the Sully kids past curfew because despite the RDA being on planet, they're still teens doing stupid shit. At least this time, Lo'ak, Kiri and Neteyam were quiet enough not to wake Tuk on their way out of camp. Of course, Neteyam is anxious the entire time they're out, convinced his radio collar is going to go off with Jake sternly telling all four of them to return home pronto. But that never comes.
They're having a grand old time, splashing each other with bioluminescent water and disturbing the insects. That is until there's a shout from the canopy, freezing all four kids. They're immediately drawing in close to one another, hands on weapons, privately debating if it would be better to be found by an RDA patrol or their furious parents.
They don't have to wait long as overhead, what sounds suspiciously like a slinth hisses, closely followed by a terrified shriek and then the crash of a body tumbling down through the canopy.
The figure lands hard on their stomach, momentarily stunned. They lay there motionless long enough for Spider to notice the rifle strapped to their back, the metal glinting in the glow of the undergrowth. Then they suck in a rattled breath and push themselves to their elbows and then up on their knees.
Spider sucks in a breath at Zaza's split lip and unkempt hair, weirdly shorter and fresh out of its braids. Surely they hadn't had enough time to unbraid it all so quickly after he 'went to bed' only an hour ago. Weirder still, they're dressed in avatar sized RDA military attire, and not the old stuff Norm has stuffed in the compound. These clothes look freshly made, newly torn from the fall, but not worn like the other avatar clothing Spider had seen the other scientists wearing.
Rubbing their temple with a hiss, Zaza finally notices all four kids, and instead of scowling and immediately launching into a rant about them breaking curfew, the avatar instead startles and falls flat on its back. With wide eyes, it snatches for the gun its suddenly sitting on and continues to frantically shuffle away from the kids.
<"What's up with them?"> Lo'ak whispers out of the corner of his mouth without so much as moving a muscle. At his back, Kiri shakes her head. Neteyam looks ready to bolt, his hand half lifted to his radio collar.
As usual, Spider made the first move. <"Hi, um, Za, fancy catching you out here so late,"> he carefully tucks his knife away, unnerved by the avatar continuing to scramble away from him. <"Any chance we won't get grounded for this?"> He asks plainly.
The avatar pauses, knuckles tight around the gun they still haven't managed to pull from under them. <"Do I, do I know you?"> They ask carefully, their Na'vi stilted and poorly pronounced. It was Zaza's voice, Spider recognised, but not how they spoke.
Brows furrowed he glances back to his friends who mirror his confusion. <"What do you mean?"> He presses, eyes raking over the avatar, only to linger on the fresh gash at their temple. <"Shit, did you hit your head on the way down?">
Their eyes flickered from Spider to the Sully kids over his shoulder. <"Y-yes?">
Lo'ak groans loudly, and the tension abruptly snaps. <"Uncle Tsu'tey is going to kill us.">
<"Why? We didn't do anything!"> Kiri immediatly butted in.
<"Lets just,"> Neteyam interjects calmly, his concern outweighing his fear of being caught. <"lets get them back home. Spider, you get their other arm.">
Zaza stares at them in mistrustful confusion, as the pair help them to their feet. Spider fusses over their tattered uniform.
<"Where is your atokirina knife?">
<"My what?"> Zaza asks, brows furrowed. They slap along their thigh until their hand comes into contact with the utility knife strapped to their waist. <"I have my knife right here?">
Now in hindsight, Spider realised that that should have been a dead give away. But in the middle of the forest, late at night, hours past his curfew, having found his possibly concussed parent in the middle of nowhere, he didn't find it odd. Instead of pressing for any further information, he and the rest of the Sully kids carefully guided Zaza back to High Camp.
Only to return to said Camp, to find Jake waiting for them, arms crossed and his foot tapping, flanked by Spider's Zaza, outside of their avatar and very much uninjured.
Human!Reader starred up at the recom, and Recom!Reader starred down at the human.
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strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.
(fics that inspired this at the end)
If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:
The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died
The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.
The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.
(actual idea snippets under the cut)
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Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?
The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.
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Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.
"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."
He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.
There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.
He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.
"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."
He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.
.
Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.
He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).
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Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.
Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.
Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.
Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.
He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.
If if if if if--
.
Inspirations:
Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion
Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm
Verisimilitude by mutemelody
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