🚨🚨🚨Read my new story Peter Parker: To Think is To Choose.✅✅✅
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"Even monsters can heal, if given a reason to sit still long enough."
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Gotham was calm. No alarms. No explosions. No one trying to resurrect the end of the world.
Just a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
Or at least it was until Damian, Nika and Maya dragged a certain ancient sorcerer into a nail salon.
The Manicure of the Millennium
"...This is undignified." Soren muttered, glaring down at the small woman filing his talon-like nails. The black, jagged things looked like they belonged on a dragon, not a human.
"Undignified is you scratching the couch again." Nika shot back, flipping through a magazine. "You're lucky we didn't make you get a pedicure too."
"I am a son of Darga—"
"You were," Maya interrupted with a grin. "Now you're a citizen of Gotham and in Gotham, people have cuticles, not claws."
The nail technician just shrugged, muttering, "Honey, I've done worse." And kept filing.
Suren looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. His long black hair was tied back with a scrunchie Maya had given him — a pink scrunchie — and the faint smell of lavender lotion hung in the air.
When the technician finished, she proudly held up her work.
His nails were clean, shaped and lightly buffed to a shine but still pitch black.
"There!" She said. "Now you look less like a crypt keeper and more like a runway model."
Soren blinked, studying his hands as if he didn't recognize them.
"…This feels wrong."
Damian smirked. "That's what civilization feels like."
Caffeine and Conversations
They left the salon and walked into a nearby café — The Brewed Vigilante, a quiet little spot tucked between a bookstore and an antique shop. Gotham's skyline glowed through the glass as they sat by the window, the smell of roasted beans and caramel filling the air.
They ordered everything: sandwiches, pastries, three milkshakes and an irresponsible number of muffins.
As they ate, the conversation drifted to Tunguska.
"So… that crater's a canyon now." Nika said between bites of a blueberry scone. "You think the UN's gonna notice?"
"Of course," Damian said flatly. "But they'll probably classify it as a natural disaster. They always do when King's involved."
Maya stirred her coffee. "He flicked a pebble. A pebble. And wiped out a death god."
Soren sighed, sipping tea like a worn-out monk. "He is the death god, in a way."
Nika whistled. "Yeah, well… remind me never to play dodgeball with him."
They laughed — a tired, relieved laughter that only survivors could share.
Then the laughter faded when Nika turned toward Maya.
"So, now that the world's not ending and you're not Nobody anymore…" She began carefully. "What're you gonna do?"
Maya blinked, surprised by the question. Then she smiled softly — the kind of smile that looked new on her face.
"I'm going to travel." She said. "Not as a mercenary. Just… as me. I want to see everything — the pyramids, the Alps, Kyoto in spring. Maybe find out what normal people actually do on weekends."
Nika raised an eyebrow. "And after that?"
"After that," Maya continued, her eyes turning distant, "I'll try to find my mother and when that's done… I'll come back here. Settle down in Gotham. Maybe buy a few WayneTech shares. Live easy."
Damian chuckled. "That's the most capitalist redemption arc I've ever heard."
"Shut up." Maya said but she was smiling.
The bell above the café door chimed.
And then — silence.
Every head turned. Every voice died.
Because King walked in.
Not in armor. Not wreathed in fire or aura. Just… him.
A towering figure in casual clothes, eyes calm and ancient, as if the world itself bowed to make room for him.
He approached their table. The air seemed to hum.
"King?" Nika whispered. "You—uh—want a muffin or something?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he placed a thin manila folder on the table in front of Maya. No markings just a file.
Her fingers for some reason trembled as she opened it.
Inside was a single page.
MIRANDA DUCARD
STATUS: Alive.
LOCATION: Confirmed.
Maya's breath hitched. For a moment, she just stared. Then the tears came — sharp and uncontrollable. She stood up and without hesitation, threw herself forward.
Her arms wrapped around King's waist — barely reaching halfway. She sobbed into his shirt.
King didn't move for a moment. Then, gently — almost awkwardly — he patted her head. Once. Twice.
The entire café froze. Even the barista holding a tray of cappuccinos just stood there, staring like they'd witnessed a deity and a miracle in the same breath.
Finally, King looked down at Maya and said quietly,
"Go see her. The world can wait."
She nodded into his chest, unable to speak.
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As King turned to leave he stopped, brought a baked good of every kind and overpaid. The café's whispers followed him like ripples in a still pond.
"Was that—?"
"—the King?"
"Did she just hug him?"
"I didn't even know he had a physical form—"
He stepped out into the street and the door swung shut behind him.
The four of them sat there in stunned silence — the smell of coffee and rain lingering in the air.
Nika finally exhaled. "...Okay. That was actually wholesome."
Damian nodded slowly. "That's King for you. Ends worlds with a flick… fixes children with a folder."
Maya laughed through her tears — a real, unguarded laugh.
"Guess I finally have somewhere to go." She whispered.
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