Star Born
Pairing: Koriand’r x Dick Grayson x Reader
Content: Space AU, Tamaranean!Kori, Alien!Dick, Human!Reader, Humans are Space Orcs, 3.4k words
Warnings: Serious Injuries, Aliens :3
Author’s Note: Humans are Space Orcs but in a dickori context :D
The stars were rotting again.
Or perhaps that was just because his vision was stinging with blood and tears.
Richard D1(k) Gray-Sun would never see his adoptive father ever again.
The mission was supposed to be in and out. Simple and quick.
So why was D1(k) bleeding out white ichor?
He could feel the prickling of blood loss in the very tips of his limbs, all four slender arms barely able to drag him across the cold, groaning floor toward the escape hatch. His breath rasped in his throat, too thick with fluid, too shallow to keep him conscious much longer.
The thundering of armored steps barely reached him through the ringing in his ears—but D1(k) knew: if he didn’t move, he would die.
A shadow moved just ahead. Fast. Too fast. His first instinct was to bare his teeth.
Human.
They moved like lightning. Clothes torn, blood not theirs, a dented shock-collar sparking faintly around their neck. Their expression was unreadable, even as they paused mid-sprint and turned toward him.
Their gaze locked.
D1(k)’s upper hands clenched, even as the lower pair curled uselessly near his ribs.
Humans weren’t supposed to be this close to civilized space, much less alive. But he remembered the whispers from Bruce’s deep files. About what humanity could do when cornered. About how fast they adapted. About how dangerous they were.
So when the human walked toward him, expression unreadable, D1(k) flinched.
“I don’t have anything,” he rasped in his native tongue, then switched to the stuttering Common Trade Speech. “Let me die.”
The human didn’t answer. Not with words.
They grabbed two of his arms—rough, imprecise, but not cruel—and hauled him upright with strength no baseline creature their size should have had. He hissed, more from shock than pain.
“Let—go—” His limbs flailed. “You don’t understand—I’m—”
“Shut up.” The human’s voice was hoarse but grounded. “You’re bleeding out. So either I drag you into that pod and you owe me, or I leave you here and you die. Pick fast.”
He froze.
The human glared.
Something cold clattered down the hall behind them. They both looked.
Without another word, the human slung one of his arms over their shoulders, half-dragged, half-carried him toward the nearest escape pod. The door slammed shut behind them a moment before the hallway lit up with gunfire.
The pod sealed with a hiss and a lock. For a moment, there was only silence.
Then the klaxons started.
Red lights pulsed overhead. Systems flared to life in a language the human didn’t recognize. D1(k) slumped in the corner, barely conscious, ichor dripping in pale rivulets down his abdomen and arms, staining the steel floor like oil on water.
The human stared at the console.
Alien.
Unintelligible.
Figures.
“I don’t suppose you know how to fly this thing?” they muttered to the bleeding creature in the corner. Their tone was dry, sharp-edged from exertion and the sting of smoke still clinging to their throat.
D1(k)’s eyelids fluttered. His voice came thin but urgent: “Top-left. Panel. Green rune. Press.”
They hesitated only a second before obeying. The display shimmered, shifting through layers of script until an interface appeared. A crude one, maybe for emergencies or training.
“Input coordinates,” a synthetic voice barked in monotone Common.
“I don’t—”
D1(k)’s eyes flared faintly. He dragged himself forward with one trembling upper hand, fingers slick with blood.
“Move.” His voice broke, but there was a command in it—feral and urgent.
The human shifted aside, letting him tap in something incomprehensible. Their eyes caught the second panel he accessed—faint green pulsing beneath his hand, flickering between symbols. One command was longer. His palm lingered there.
“What was that?”
“Signal,” he said hoarsely. “Emergency beacon. To my father.”
“You just led someone straight to us.”
He didn’t argue.
He slumped back, exhaling a sharp hiss through clenched teeth. “Better him than who was coming down that corridor.”
Fair.
The ship lurched as autopilot engaged. A low hum filled the space as they were pulled into a jump vector.
D1(k) coughed, then slumped entirely.
“Hey.” They moved fast, catching his head before it hit the floor. His blood was still flowing—no sign of clotting, no slowing either. Their hands shook, just slightly, but not from fear.
Training. Instinct. Whatever they'd been before the prison, it hadn’t made them soft.
They tore the sleeve from their uniform and pressed it hard against the worst wound—over his side, where something had burned through both armor and muscle.
He jerked.
“Don’t move. You’ll bleed faster.”
“No clotting,” he whispered, eyes fluttering. “Wrong biology.”
“Then bleed slower,” they snapped. “Let me try.”
They wrapped the cloth tighter, then looped it beneath his arm for compression, keeping him half upright. Their hands were stained pale with his blood now—milky, luminous, too strange to be comforting.
D1(k) blinked up at them. “Why?”
They didn’t answer at first.
Then, in a voice low and furious: “You were going to die. Right in front of me. And I—don’t know why—but I didn’t want to watch that happen.”
His breathing hitched. The lights above flickered blue, signaling the jump sequence had stabilized.
They sat in silence after that. Just the hum of engines and the quiet drip of starborn blood.
He should’ve passed out by now.
The logical centers of his mind—trained by T1-M, sharpened by war—were telling him the math didn’t add up. Too much fluid lost. Heart rate shallow. Muscles locking.
And yet.
He was awake.
Half-slumped in the corner of the escape pod, too weak to lift his head, but lucid enough to watch.
The human was pacing now. Or maybe that was the ship spinning. Hard to tell.
Their face was drawn, streaked with soot and dried blood. Not theirs. Probably. Their hands, however, were busy—ripping apart storage crates, pulling emergency medpacks apart like they’d done it before. Familiar. Fluid.
Not trained, but experienced.
They paused now and then to glance at him—tight, sharp glances like they were expecting him to die mid-sentence. Or explode. He wasn’t sure which.
When they knelt beside him again, cloth in hand, D1(k) flinched.
The human froze. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He blinked. “You... already did.”
They grimaced. “Fair.”
The cloth was cool when it pressed to his brow. Not for healing—just to clean away the streaks of ichor from his vision. They worked methodically. Gently. Like they'd done it before, for someone who mattered.
D1(k) watched them through heavy lashes. His heartbeat was off rhythm now. Too fast. Or too slow.
“You treat me,” he murmured, “like I’m one of you.”
They snorted. “You don’t bite, I don’t stab. That’s the deal.”
“That is... not a common deal.”
The human shrugged. “You weren’t trying to kill me. That’s rare. Maybe I’m sentimental.”
He stared at them. “You’re... human.”
“Yeah. Got that part covered.”
“Your species is classified as highly dangerous. Violent. Unstable. Too unpredictable for diplomacy.”
“Sounds about right.”
He blinked slowly. “Why save me?”
The human didn’t answer right away.
Instead, they leaned back on their haunches, wiping their hands on what remained of their tattered sleeve. “I was dying in that place long before you ever got there. Doesn’t matter what I am. Doesn’t matter what you are. You were hurt. So I helped.”
He felt something unfamiliar twist in his gut. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t instinct. It was... something else.
Hope, maybe.
Or delusion from blood loss.
“You could be lying,” he said softly, one corner of his mouth twitching. “Maybe you’re keeping me alive to eat me later.”
That actually made the human laugh. It startled him, how normal it sounded—short, tired, human.
“Trust me,” they said. “You look like you’d taste like motor oil and condescension.”
That startled a huff from his chest. Something almost like a laugh.
They smiled, then pulled a thermal blanket from a storage bin and tucked it around his lower arms without a word.
For now, D1(k) let them.
If he died, he’d die with the strangest creature in the galaxy at his side.
And somehow... that felt better than dying alone.
The silence of space didn’t last.
An alarm blared—sharp and sudden, ripping through the pod like a scream. The human jolted to their feet, eyes scanning wildly.
D1(k) tried to lift his head but failed.
“What… now?” he rasped.
The human grabbed the console. “I think—we’re hitting something. Debris field maybe—?”
“Impossible,” he slurred. “Autopilot would have rerouted…”
A lurch threw them both to the floor.
Another alarm. Red lights this time.
Outside the pod’s window, light flared—chunks of twisted metal and asteroid fragments streaking past them like burning confetti.
The human staggered to the console again. “It's pulling us down—gravitational tether—some moon's got us!”
“No… no—cancel vector—” D1(k) tried to reach for the secondary override, but he couldn’t lift even one arm now.
The human caught him just before his head smacked the floor again. “Don’t move. I’ve got it.”
They turned back to the console, hands flying. Not elegant. Not precise. But determined. They mashed controls, switched dials, cursed under their breath—
And then the pod screamed.
Metal shrieked. Something exploded overhead. The stars outside spun once, twice—
And then they were falling.
The crash was less like impact and more like being ripped in half by gravity itself. The pod slammed into the surface with a bone-jarring crunch, bounced once, twice, then skidded violently across the landscape before finally stopping, half-embedded in what looked like violet sand.
Silence returned.
A long, ringing, painful silence.
The human coughed from somewhere above him, then let out a breath that was half a laugh.
“Well,” they wheezed. “We made it.”
D1(k) cracked one eye open. “Define ‘made.’”
They looked down at him. Their face was bruised, blood on their temple, but their eyes were clear. Alert.
“Ship’s totaled. Comms are dead. No nav. No idea where we are.”
“So… stranded.”
“Yeah.”
They looked around the small, crooked cabin—walls groaning with pressure shifts, sparks spitting from the console, the air already tasting stale.
Then, a soft: “You still bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“You still breathing?”
“Barely.”
They nodded. “Then you’re stuck with me.”
D1(k) closed his eyes. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
They grinned down at him, exasperated and unrepentant.
“You're lucky,” they said. “I don’t make a habit of rescuing aliens. But you? You’re growing on me.”
The pod’s hull still groaned beneath them, settling unevenly into the violet sands of the moon’s surface.
D1(k) lay against the cold wall, fingers twitching as the white ichor seeped slowly from a ragged wound. Every breath was a shallow battle. His four arms twitched with weakness, and the sting of loss lingered like a ghost.
The human, on the other hand, was already upright—steady as stone, eyes sharp and alert.
D1(k) blinked, confused. “You’re… walking?”
They shrugged, eyes scanning the horizon, their voice steady but tinged with something wild. “Adrenaline. Fight or flight. Been running since before I could walk, remember? Ship crash is nothing compared to what I’ve been through.”
He tried to lift an arm, the effort making his vision swim. “This terrain… unfamiliar.”
“Yeah, it’s weird. But manageable.”
The human stepped outside. The door hissed open slowly, revealing a landscape that shimmered under twin suns—a harsh, alien desert of violet sand dunes and jagged obsidian rock formations, framed by a sky streaked with swirling auroras.
“Your species doesn’t make this kind of place, huh?”
D1(k) managed a weak nod.
“Figures.”
They paused, eyes narrowing. “We need shelter. Or we die out here.”
D1(k) struggled to sit up, propping himself against the pod’s threshold. “I can’t go far.”
They glanced back, a flicker of concern softening their fierce expression. “I’ll go. Keep the pod stable. Try not to bleed out.”
He grimaced. “Helpful.”
They gave a curt smile, then strode out into the alien wilderness, boots sinking into the violet sand with practiced ease. Their silhouette cut sharp against the swirling sky—human, ragged, alive.
As they disappeared over the nearest dune, D1(k) called softly, “T1-M Dray’kh… BRU-S Yn’e… If you receive this signal… find me.”
The words slipped from his lips as much a prayer as a command.
The human’s footsteps faded into the distance.
And the strange, fragile bond between them held, suspended in the thin alien air.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
The human reappeared over the crest of the violet dune, slow now—no longer fueled by adrenaline, every step heavy and deliberate.
Their clothes were torn and stained, streaked with dried blood and sand that caught in their tangled hair. The ferocity was still there, but the fire had dimmed, replaced by exhaustion that weighed their limbs like lead.
But they weren’t alone.
Behind them, framed against the swirling auroras, came a figure graceful and radiant—a tall, lithe woman with striking golden eyes and hair the color of sunlit amber. She moved with effortless ease despite the harsh terrain, carrying a compact pack that clinked softly with every step.
D1(k) blinked, struggling to lift his head. His breath rasped; his body screamed with the effort.
“Who…” he croaked, voice cracking. “Who is that?”
The human glanced back, wiping sweat and grit from their brow. “Found her in the debris field.”
D1(k) frowned. “Debris field was a battlefield. Two ships, locked in combat. This—” he gestured weakly around them “—is a deserted moon.”
The human nodded. “That’s what I thought too. But she crashed here too. Another escape pod. Lucky, maybe. Or cursed.”
Kori smiled warmly, kneeling beside him and reaching into her pack with deft fingers. “Hello, Richard D1(k) Gray-Sun,” she said cheerfully, brushing the dried blood from his arm with surprising gentleness.
He blinked. “You know me?”
She chuckled. “I’ve heard of you. News travels fast across the Tameranian sectors.”
D1(k) tried to speak again, but a wave of dizziness washed over him. He clutched at the ground, breathing shallow.
The human crouched nearby, watching, silent.
Kori pulled a sleek med-kit from her pack, quickly applying pressure bandages and administering an alien coagulant that shimmered faintly as it worked.
“Better?” Kori asked, eyes bright.
D1(k) gave a faint nod. “Yes… no longer slipping…”
The human wiped their face with the back of a hand, breathing heavy. “I’m no medic. I just—did what I could.”
Kori looked at them with something like gratitude.
D1(k) glanced between the two—one fierce, raw and bloodied; the other serene, assured, and clearly experienced.
Neither had spoken the human’s name.
And for once, Dick wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
The alien moon’s twin suns had long dipped beneath the jagged horizon, leaving the landscape bathed in eerie violet twilight. The three of them huddled inside a makeshift shelter — a crude tent woven from the remnants of the escape pods’ hulls and salvaged fabric.
D1(k) lay wrapped in Kori’s careful bandages, his breathing steadier but shallow. Kori sat nearby, humming a quiet Tameranian lullaby, her golden eyes scanning the shadows beyond their fragile refuge.
The human lay apart, curled on a thin blanket, the sharp lines of their jaw tense even in sleep.
Then—
A sudden snap.
A low growl from outside.
The human’s eyes snapped open, dark and alert.
Silent as a shadow, they rose, eyes flicking toward the darkness beyond the tent flap.
Before D1(k) or Kori could move, the human had slipped outside.
A flash of movement, low to the ground.
A snarling beast, its coat shimmering with a spectral blue sheen, fur bristling with energy that seemed to ripple like heat on a desert.
The creature—a Moonsheilk—lunged.
The human’s hand flashed, a blade appearing as if conjured from shadow and starlight. A clean strike, swift and brutal.
The beast collapsed, a spray of iridescent red blood staining the violet sand.
The human wiped their blade, then raised a hand in a careless wave as D1(k) and Kori emerged from the tent, faces pale with concern.
“It’s fine,” the human said, voice low and steady, though blood dripped from their fingers. “They come for you if you look weak.”
Kori’s eyes widened, clearly unsettled, but she nodded slowly.
D1(k) said nothing, still trying to catch his breath.
The human returned to their blanket, curling up as if nothing had happened.
Within moments, they were asleep again—leaving the two aliens staring after them, dumbfounded and wary.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
The violet sands outside the tent shimmered faintly beneath the alien stars, casting long shadows that flickered and danced with the whispering night winds.
Inside, the makeshift shelter was silent except for the steady, shallow breaths of two restless souls.
D1(k) shifted carefully, testing the strength in his limbs. The bandages were tight but holding.
Kori sat cross-legged beside him, her golden eyes reflecting the soft glow of the small emergency light.
“Is that… common?” he asked quietly, voice hoarse. “The creature. The Moonsheilk?”
Kori sighed, a soft smile playing at her lips. “Not common. Dangerous, though. Territorial. They hunt in packs, but one alone can take down a traveler unprepared.”
He studied her face, faint admiration in his tired eyes. “And the human—”
She nodded thoughtfully. “They fight like a cornered beast. Fierce. Relentless. I’ve seen warriors like that in battle, but never one so small, so… alone.”
D1(k) exhaled slowly, the weight of his own vulnerability settling over him. “They saved me.”
Kori’s gaze softened. “They did. And yet, they carry their own secrets. I wonder what ghosts chase them here.”
He looked away toward the flickering shadows beyond the tent flap. “I do not even know their name.”
Kori reached out, her hand brushing his arm gently—a quiet reassurance in the vast alien silence.
“Maybe,” she said softly, “names are not always the first thing people share when survival is at stake.”
D1(k) met her eyes, a small, weary smile forming. “Perhaps you are right.”
They sat like that for a long moment—two strangers bound by circumstance, sharing the unspoken hope that the dawn might bring answers… or at least, safety.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·
The first pale light of the twin suns crept over the jagged horizon, painting the violet sands in soft hues of lavender and gold.
Inside the battered shelter, D1(k) stirred, the ache in his limbs a dull throb rather than sharp pain.
Kori was already awake, her golden eyes watching the horizon, alert and serene.
But the human?
They were nowhere to be found.
Curious and cautious, D1(k) and Kori slipped out into the chill morning air.
A thin wisp of smoke curled upward near a cluster of sharp rocks.
There, crouched low with practiced ease, was the human—barefoot, their clothes still streaked with dried blood and sand—methodically roasting strips of moonsheilk meat over a small, carefully contained fire.
They moved with a quiet efficiency, turning the meat slowly, their eyes focused but calm.
D1(k) glanced at Kori, who gave a barely perceptible nod.
Without a word, the human pulled a handful of the roasted meat aside—enough for three—and laid it carefully on a flat stone.
Still silent, they gestured toward the makeshift meal.
Kori approached, accepting a piece with a grateful smile.
D1(k) hesitated, then took one as well, the warmth of the cooked meat a stark contrast to the alien chill in his veins.
The human didn’t meet their eyes, didn’t ask if they wanted help or company.
Yet, somehow, this quiet act of shared survival spoke louder than words.
The last remnants of the moonsheilk meat smoldered softly on the flat stone, filling the crisp morning air with a smoky warmth.
The three sat in a loose triangle, the silence between them heavy but no longer oppressive.
Kori broke it first, her golden eyes meeting the human’s sharp gaze.
“I’m Kori,” she said gently, voice smooth and steady. “From the Tameranian sector.”
The human shifted but didn’t respond immediately.
D1(k) glanced at Kori, then cleared his throat, voice still hoarse. “I am Richard D1(k) Gray-Sun. Adopted son of BRU-S Yn’e.”
The human’s eyes flicked between them—unreadable, wary.
After a long pause, their voice came low and rough. “Call me whatever you want.”
Kori smiled softly, understanding that some names are armor as much as identity.
D1(k) offered a faint smile in return. “Then perhaps a name is the next thing to find.”
The human’s lips twitched—almost a smirk—but they looked away, eyes fixed on the distant horizon where twin suns climbed higher.
For now, names were fragile things. But in this strange, alien world, they were a beginning.









