Valeria- Damien Wayne

Guy Problems

I had been hoping that Damien and my team would return before Barry had the chance to pull me aside. It wasn't in the plans for me to fight my most painful mental demons as well as the metaphysical ones I had literally just finished dealing with but I'm not sure anything could have stopped it.

“Vale?” he questioned gently behind me as if he was scared. (of me maybe? He had never seen me pull out power like that. Hell, I'm not even sure if he knew I had powers. Did I just horrify one of the only parents whose opinions I actually cared about? I didn't even know I had power like that until I literally died. Oh what the fuck. Is that what this is about because i'm not exactly comfortable talking about the whole dying and meeting my biological parents with the guy who both raised me and whose body killed me.)

“Vale.” this time it was Clarke who spoke. His voice rang in my ears firmly and snapped me out of my endless loop of anxious overthinking. And I turned to them this time.

“Yes Clarke?” I do not fear judgement from this boyscout so what he said next had ought to be very careful especially after body slamming me earlier. I do however fear my father's judgment. I couldn't even bring my eyes to look him over.  

“How long have you been able to do that?” Clarke spoke, peaking Diana's attention, seeming to have just connected the dots that had I been able to do that the first time we met she might not have beaten me. 

To be honest i didn't know how to answer this question without hurting Barry, what was I to say? Oh yeah, my powers were provoked by my dad back there shoving his hand into my heart and forcibly stopping it, but hey there were manifestations before that and i just didn't tell my dad because i still didn't trust him with everything. Or better yet i didn't trust that he wouldn't just hand me back over to the bat and say ‘oh no! Not this one! It was born for evil! It can literally suck the life and power out of the creatures around it!’ I swallowed my fear and finally spoke.

“A couple of days”

I felt a hand fall onto my shoulder with the familiar warmth that came with living with Barry and Iris Allen. Tears welled in my eyes as I looked up at him and my heart broke at the sight. He stood in front of me with tears of his own.

“I’m sorry.” he spoke with the same broken voice i had heard earlier. I couldn't help but to push myself into the warmth of his arms and wrap my own around his waist. My heart finally content to simply feel his presence. It felt like he could run all the nightmares away like the idea of the biological father I had created when I was so young and facing the league. This was him and nothing was going to change that. I had decided.

“I know. I know it wasn’t you Dad.” his arms tightened around me as I spoke. We were so far into our own world that i hadn't even noticed when the team came back until Dad pulled away and wiped his tears after planting a familiar kiss on my forehead. His eyes landed on something behind me.

“I have to go handle some stuff for the JLA, you know check up on civilians and put out fires but we’ll talk when I get home. You should talk to your team. Baby bats seems anxious to talk to you.” 

“Yeah, ok” and with that he walked away to speak to Clarke and Diana. I wiped away my tears and took a deep breath ready to see Damien and the team all in one piece (hopefully) I pivoted toward their direction and saw they looked as ragged and beat up as I did. My eyes drifted over towards raven, her aura now filled with an intimidating amount of dark magic and a red crystal lay embedded into her forehead, that would be a fun conversation. Garfield was complaining of his empty stomach and Cyborg seemed content in helping decide we would be going out for pizza as a celebration of this win. Jaime was trailing behind them chiming on about the toppings and sides. Cory just seemed happy to see everyone getting along. But Damien walked towards me with seemingly angry and determined strides breaking my good mood about the team being ok.