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Dick wakes up on the hard floor of his bedroom with his dark blue pillow shoved under his head, back screaming in protest at the night spent in a restless sleep against the scratchy carpet. He groans as he moves, climbing to his feet feeling the exhaustion gripping down to his bones as he casts a look at the bed next to him. The covers are still rumpled from the last time he used it, weeks ago, back when everything was still as it should be. Back when his family hadn’t been torn apart and left in tatters. The covers were in a heap at the foot of the bed, one pillow crooked near the headboard just the way he and Kory had left it when they climbed out of bed together, ready to start what was meant to simply be another day.
Now he can’t bring himself to sleep in that bed, can barely look at it without thinking about her. About how empty it would feel to lay in it without Kory beside him, in his arms, in his space. Their bed.
Because Kory isn’t here and the idea of climbing into their bed without her is too much for Dick to handle so he ignores it all together, settles for the hard floor and a night of wondering how he didn’t realise Blackfire’s game soon.
Wondering how he could have let this happen right under his nose and never noticed until it was too late.
Until Kory was…
He shoves a hand through his hair, stretching out the worst of his protesting muscles. He can hear noises in the kitchen, voices that are getting louder by the second. They are waiting for him he knows, waiting for guidance, for a plan, for a leader.
Dick doesn’t think he can give them any of those things because all he can think about is how he failed Kory, let Blackfire rip apart their family, and still doesn’t know how to fight to get it back.
He goes through the motions of his morning slowly, grabbing clean clothes and a towel before heading to the shower. He reaches for his bottle of body wash and tries not to think about the way his heart seizes when he spots Kory’s shampoo right next to it, closes his eyes against the onslaught of memories of having her right here with him under the water. The shower is tiny and it’s a squeeze to fit them both in, Dick always manages to bump his elbow against the frame when Kory washes her hair but he loves it, those shared showers, mornings spent using up too much hot water and Kory’s playful kisses as Dick pretends to reach around her to grab the body wash. He doesn’t need to, they both know it, but Kory never complains and Dick likes the feeling of her in his arms.
Everything reminds him of her, or perhaps more accurately, everything reminds him that she isn’t here.
After his shower he stops at the sight of their toothbrushes standing side by side next to the sink, a small intimate detail of a shared life. His life. Their life. He slams the cupboard door a little too aggressively as he retrieves his shaving equipment from the shelf. He needs to keep it together, doesn’t want to worry Rachel and Gar if they see him slipping.
Even the routine of shaving making him think of Kory.
The time when he’d broken two fingers in a fight, so she had to help him do it. She perched right where he was standing on the countertop wearing one of his shirts, pulling him closer to her so she could lather up his face with shaving cream and gently run the razor down his skin. Dick can remember every little detail of that morning, the way her knees dug into his hips on either side, her legs smooth and bare and he held onto them as she ran the razor down his cheek even though he didn’t need to. Because he could. Because him and Kory, they were doing this. Everything. He remembers the way she bit her lip to concentrate on not nicking him, methodical in her approach as she worked her way from one cheek to the other. Dick couldn’t take his eyes off her, his thumbs rubbing circles into her legs as she worked.
“That’s distracting.” She had told him, smoothing the razor over his jaw.
He had tried not to smile, not wanting her to mess up her handiwork, “So are you.”
And she was. A vision in his shirt and her tumbled curls. Dick can’t believe he managed to resist her for this long.
Kory smiled, bright and playful as she brought a hand up to tilt his head back. Dick can remember the way her knees squeezed him tighter, one hand slipping to the back of his head so her fingers weaved through the hair on the nape of his neck.
“Hold still, I don’t want to cut you.” She warned him.
Before Dick could say a word she had the razor pressed against his throat and was working her way back up to his jaw in precise even strokes. He remembers the fog on the mirror behind her, remembers seeing it swirl in the air below the light as Kory ran another path across his throat with the razor. He remembers the smell of her, coconut from her shampoo and something that smelt like him.
“I’ve never done this before.” He breathed out as she rinsed the excess foam off the blade and returned it to his skin.
“Neither have I.”
That made him smile and Kory gripped his hair tighter in warning, “I’m not talking about shaving.” He told her, “Although having someone else do it for me is also a first. I’m talking about this.”
He remembers gesturing to the space between them vaguely with a hand, the way his heart picked up speed in his chest.
“I’ve never had this before either.” Kory admitted to him, razor brushing over his pulse point.
“I want you to know that it’s everything to me.” He’d never told her that before, not in as many words, “You, the kids. You’re everything.”
She paused before the next stroke of the razor, “I love you, Dick Grayson.”
That’s why he remembers this morning as well. It’s the first time she’d told him she loved him. The first time he heard those words from her mouth. No big grand gesture, no accidental slip of the tongue. A calm conviction while he’s dressed only in a towel and she’s got a blade to his throat.
Dick knew without a doubt if she wasn’t already sitting on the counter, he would have absolutely boosted her onto it in that moment.
He grabbed her hand, the one with the razor, and stopped her from carving out another line in the shaving cream. His eyes boring into her green ones.
She had just told him she loved him.
Dick couldn’t speak but he did manage to grab her cheek with the other hand and bring their lips together, stepping even closer between her legs to erase the distance between them. Kory smiled into the kiss and when Dick pulled back she had shaving cream on her cheeks, smeared from his skin to hers.
“I love you.” He told her, a breathless omission he’d been wanting to say for a while.
He told her once before, in the dead of night when she asleep because he wanted to say it, wanted to see how it sounded aloud but wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it.
He loved her. She loved him.
“Dick!” Kory laughed, swiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.
Dick didn’t care, leaning in for another kiss when Kory planted a firm hand on his chest, still damp from his shower.
“I’m not finished.” She told him, eyes sparkling in that playful way he loves.
“You are now.” Dick replied eagerly, smiling wide, “I have a way better to spend the morning.”
The air was thick and heady, partly because of the fog and partly because of them. Dick found it hard to breath and he remembers wondering if it was the steam from the shower or the side effect of kissing Kory. He didn’t care about the answer, he just wanted to kiss her again.
Wanted to lift her up and take her back to bed, or maybe not take her anywhere. The bed was probably too far, Dick isn’t sure they’d make it.
“I bet you do.”
And he did. He really did.
When Dick snaps back to the present, Kory still isn’t there. It’s just him, alone in a bathroom with a fogged-up mirror and the echo of the woman he loves pressing into him like a needle.
He finishes up quickly, only nicking himself once but he’s eager to be free of that little bathroom that holds too many memories threatening to choke him.
Dick finishes running a towel through his hair and is greeted with the rumpled bed again, making him sigh as he pushes the shirt over his head. He can’t stop himself from thinking about the last morning they spent together before everything collapsed around them. A lazy Sunday, he’d been up early because he doesn’t know how to lie in but had managed to wake Kory up with skilfully placed kisses along the length of her spine, teasing and light. He’d heard her laughter before she even opened her eyes and Dick can remember thinking every morning should start like this one. He told her he loved her before he told her good morning. Kory convinced him they shouldn’t get up yet, pulling the blankets over both their heads until they were back in their own little world and her lips had found his.
Kory is magnetic, electric, an addiction he doesn’t want a cure for. He knows he’s hopelessly, recklessly, dangerously in love with her. Dick understands that somewhere down the line Kory – and those kids – became his soul, his heart, his strength. Maybe that was the problem, maybe the universe decided Dick Grayson doesn’t get happy and set about changing the situation.
The next time he saw her – the last time he saw her – she looked at him like she could barely remember any of it. What they had become to each other.
The voices from the kitchen are full on shouting now so Dick knows he needs to get in there, no more time to wallow in his memories. He throws the towel over the nearest chair, can hear Kory sternly telling him that’s not where it goes, then heads towards the raised voices. Kory isn’t here, the towel stays on the chair.
They’d invited Blackfire into the tower, to stay with them, thought she was on their side and definitely seemed to be sincere about making amends with Kory. She was sceptical but Dick had insisted she try and keep an open mind, family was family, right?
He doesn’t know when it happened, when Blackfire had managed to get into Kory’s mind and take it for a test drive, not long he knows, he’d be able to tell if anything was off between them. But he knew the moment Blackfire won, the moment she left the tower with Kory in tow, ordering Kory to light up anyone who tried to stop them.
Kory had blown out the windows, glass shattering inwards in warning and Dick threw himself over Rachel and Gar, pushing them to the ground to cover them from the impact of the hail of glass raining down on them.
He holds on to the fact that Kory chose to aim at the glass rather than them like a lifeline. It has to mean something, Kory would never hurt those kids, she loves them too damn much. She had to still be in there, still fighting.
There’s a part of him that thinks he might be being delusional because Kory told him about Faddei, about Blackfire’s mind control and the fact she had to kill him because there was nothing left to save. But Dick can’t… he just can’t. He’d rather burn the world down that contemplate the idea that Kory doesn’t come back to them, to him.
Since then, Kory and Blackfire have been in the wind. Dick is starting to worry they’ve gone back to Tamaran but there was a part of him that knew Blackfire wouldn’t go to all this trouble of turning Kory against them just to have her leave Earth now. She has a game plan; Dick just doesn’t know what it is yet.
The kitchen is in chaos in he arrives, Rachel and Gar stand at one end with Donna and Dawn on the other side. Battle lines drawn. The topic of their disagreement is obvious without him even understanding the conversation at first.
“We need to be practical about this, Rachel. They have more fire power than all of us combined.” Dawn insists with her arms crossed.
“She won’t hurt us. This is Blackfire, we can’t abandon Kory. I won’t.” Rachel yells back, red gem in her forehead glowing in warning.
“All Dawn is saying is that we need contingencies in place, if Kory really is…”
“She isn’t.” Gar replies, voice harder than Dick has ever heard it, “She’s not the enemy. She’s family. She needs our help!”
“What’s going on?” Dick’s voice booms across them all, cutting through the chaos and making silence fall over the table as all eyes turn to look at him. No one speaks. “Don’t make me ask again.” He prompts.
Donna slides a photo across the table at him and Dick steps forward to pick it up, “We found Kory.” She tells him by way of an explanation.
Dawn snorts, “We found a set-up. That’s clearly what this is.”
In his hands is CCTV footage from a warehouse, Kory’s suit glows purple and green and gold. It’s unmistakably her. He quickly puts the photo down so they can’t see his hands shake, resting them on the table so his forearms take most of his weight.
“They think we need to discuss strategies for bring her down.” Rachel tells him bitterly.
“Bringing her in.” Dawn amends, “She’s powerful, Dick and if she’s with Blackfire…”
“She isn’t. You know she isn’t. This is what Blackfire does, mind control, she’s done it before.” Dick insists, “This isn’t up for discussion.”
“Thank you.” Rachel remarks.
Donna sighs and reaches a hand out across the table towards him, “Dick, if we can’t save her, we might need to stop her.”
He can’t hear this. Doesn’t want to think about a world where they don’t bring Kory home. Gar and Rachel watch him with wide eyes, as if he’d ever consider it, as if he even could.
“No.” He spits out.
He isn’t going to stand around and listen to this. Not for a single second.
“It’s the smart plan, to have a back-up…”
He slams his hands down on the table making it shake under the force, Donna reels her hand back into her lap.
“I said no. Not going to happen.” He growls, “If anyone so much as thinks about hurting her, I swear to God you’ll regret ever becoming a Titan.”
“We know you love her.” Dawn says softly, “But she could be a real threat to this city, they both could.”
“She?” He bites out, “Kory. The same Kory who gets donuts with you every Friday, the same Kory who always has your back in a fight no matter what.”
“I know that, Dick.” Dawn replies, “But she might not be that Kory anymore.”
He’s about three seconds away from flipping the table. He needs something to hit, to lash out at, to hold responsible for the fact his family is fractured, and he didn’t fucking see it coming. Dick isn’t sure whether it’s his anger or his despair that will win the battle raging inside him but he’s thankful he doesn’t have to find out today because Rachel comes over to him, her fingers curling over his wrist like she’s a kid clutching a balloon to stop it blowing away in the wind.
He should be the one doing this for her he knows, but instead he selfishly loosens his shoulders and lets Rachel’s fingers slip down his wrist until they settle over his. Dick tangles their fingers together, holding tightly to her hand as he pretends he isn’t about to implode, hasn’t been imploding for days like the heart of a dying star.
He breathes deeply, one long breath that makes him light-headed but works enough so that he can turn his head and offer Rachel a smile in gratitude.
When he speaks again it’s calmer, more controlled but Dick can still feel the current ebbing under his skin like a swarm of bees.
“She’s still Kory.” He tells them, “I’m going to check this out. Alone.”
There’s a chorus of voices, of protests, but Donna’s comes through the loudest.
“Are you crazy? How much have you had to drink?” She scoffs, “She’ll kill you, Dick.”
To be fair to Donna, he finished off the good whiskey last night but he isn’t about to tell her that so he straightens up, squeezes Rachel’s hand, “Blackfire is controlling her, I need to get through to her. I’m going.”
“And if she’s actually on Blackfire’s side?” Donna presses, “If she is choosing family over you?”
“We’re her family.” Dick insists, “And if she’s done with us then she can tell me that herself.”
“She wouldn’t just leave us like this.” Rachel tells them, “Kory promised to always be there. This isn’t her.”
Gar nods, comes to stand by Dick’s other side, “Rachel’s right. She wouldn’t turn her back on us.”
“Hell of a risk for something you can’t be sure about.” Donna replies.
Dick shakes his head, “It’s not a risk.” He tells her, “I know Kory. I’m not giving up on her.”
And he isn’t. He’d go to war for this woman if that’s what it takes. If that’s what Blackfire wants. Dick will do just about anything to get Kory back home where she belongs, to have Rachel and Gar stop worrying that they’re never going to see their mom again.
“Dick, be reasonable. Think with your head for a minute, okay, not your heart.” Dawn pleads with him.
“What do you want me to do, Dawn?” He growls out, “You want me to turn my feelings off like a switch because they aren’t convenient for you? For the team? You want me to pretend Kory is just another enemy for us to fight? That she isn’t everything to me, to these kids, to our family. You want me to pretend I don’t love her, that she means nothing to me?” He’s just rambling now, rage fuelling him more than his grief, “I can’t do that. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to bring her home and if you stand in my way then I’m going to go through you.”
They all stop then, a silence falling over the group at Dick’s words. The conviction of them hanging in the air. The thinly veiled threat that sounds more like a promise revealing just how far he’s fallen; just how desperate he is. He doesn’t want to turn on his friends, really he doesn’t, but if they’re making him pick between the team and his family then Dick already knows how this is going to go.
“Fine.” It’s Donna that responds, her tone bitter but also resigned. She knows he’s serious. “Do whatever you’re going to do. I just hope you’re right and there’s something left in Kory you can reach.”
So does he. There has to be. Dick isn’t planning for anything else.
He nods, accepts that’s as good as it’s going to get between them on this matter. Donna and Dawn are trying to protect him he knows, they’re trying to keep the Titans together and the world safe, but Dick thinks that world can go ahead and burn if he can bring Kory home.
“I need an address, building layout, surrounding area information. Whatever you can get me that might tell us why Kory is there. What Blackfire is up to.” Dick orders them, slipping into the role of leader with an ease he’s always had.
“Just do me one favour?” Donna asks, “Wear the suit. Just in case.”
He wants to protest, wants to tell her Kory would never hurt him but he also knows trying to get through Blackfire’s control on her mind isn’t going to be easy and while his heart is in overdrive his head hasn’t completely left the building.
“Okay.” He concedes.
They all disperse after that. Donna and Dawn leave to find the information he asked for, and no doubt to question both his leadership skills and whether he’s officially lost his mind and developed a death wish. Dick doesn’t think about that, doesn’t think they’d understand even if he took the time to explain it to them. He thought Dawn might, she has Hank so Dick thinks on some level she must know what it’s like to want to do anything to save the person you love, but clearly the way Dick loves Kory is different to the way Dawn loves Hank. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just different and that means she’s firmly aligned with Donna on this one.
Rachel and Gar stay with him, two shadows that follow him around as he fixes himself a cup of coffee that tastes too bitter, but he chokes it down anyway. He doesn’t eat, doesn’t think he can stomach it. He doesn’t want to head to the gym for his normal workout because it will feel too much like he’s gearing up for a fight and he absolutely isn’t.
Instead, he wanders back to his room, leaving the door open because he knows they’ll follow soon enough. And they do. Dick busies himself with grabbing his suit from the case and finally shoving that used towel into the hamper when they appear, shoulder to shoulder in the doorway.
Dick waits, knows they’re about to say something, two kids working up the courage to talk to their dad about something difficult, something that’s worrying them.
It’s Gar that speaks first.
“Dick, we were talking and…”
“We want to come with you.” Rachel finishes, “To help bring Kory back.”
He knows that. He’s been expecting it since he announced his plan to go alone but he doesn’t know what he’s going to find, doesn’t know how deep Blackfire’s influence runs and he absolutely doesn’t want them to see Kory like that. Doesn’t want them to see Blackfire turn her into something she’s not.
He shakes his head, abandoning his task to give them his full attention, “No. Absolutely not.”
“She’s our mom.” Gar tells him sternly, “We have a right to go.”
Gar sounds too much like him in that moment, full of confidence and authority and it makes his heart do a weird flutter in his chest.
“I know that, but it might be dangerous. Dawn’s right, this could be a trap to lure us out by Blackfire. I’m not putting you both in danger. Kory wouldn’t want that either.” Dick tells them gently, knowing after days of searching for Kory only to have her pop up on a CCTV feed is sloppy and probably a set-up.
Rachel huffs, “We can handle it.”
“I don’t doubt that.” He smiles, “But I need you here.”
“To watch coffee brew and clock-watch?” Gar replies as he folds his arms over his chest. Another move that Dick knows mirrors his own.
He sighs, “Because if I don’t come back, I need you guys as the back-up. If I fail…” He hates even the sound of the words in his mouth, “If that happens then you guys are probably going to need to help persuade Donna and Dawn to come get me.”
“Do you think they’re right?” Rachel asks as her fingers pick at a loose thread on her jumper, “About Kory not being able to be saved?”
The way she says it breaks his heart, so lost and scared that she’s about to lose her mom. They’ve already lost one family each and now they’re waiting to see if it happens again.
Rachel turns her head swiftly to look at the window and he knows she’s refusing to let herself cry in front of him and Gar.
This, this is why Dick can’t accept a world where Kory doesn’t come home. He’s not the only one who won’t survive it. Their whole family doesn’t work without her.
“Hey, come here.” Dick orders softly, holding out an arm in Rachel’s direction.
She looks at him, eyes red rimmed but chin still raised high in defiance not to let the tears fall. Dick offers her a smile, the one he always uses on her when he’s trying to comfort her after a nightmare and makes another motion with his hand in encouragement.
He sees the moment Rachel breaks down, the slump of her shoulders, the way her chin drops. Then she moves, rushing into his arms with all her fraying edges in the hopes he’ll fuse them back together. Dick doesn’t hesitate. He holds her to him in one arm, feeling Rachel’s cold nose press into his neck as she burrows deeper into his embrace, feels her shudder against him.
His eyes meet Gar’s and Dick extends his other arm towards the boy. Gar needs no encouragement as he falls into Dick’s side, wrapping one arm around Dick’s back and the other around Rachel as they both cling to him together. Gar’s fluffy hair tickles his cheek as the boy rests his chin on Dick’s shoulder. Dick clings to them, desperately, firmly. He brings one hand up to cup the back of Rachel’s head and the other to keep a firm grip on Gar’s shoulder.
He tries not to cry or break apart because this is about them.
This is about being their father.
This, he can do.
“I promise you,” He tells them passionately, “I will find her. I will bring her home. We’ll get her back.”
And he will. He’ll do whatever it takes so these kids wake up to Kory’s laughter, they fall asleep to both of them kissing their foreheads in a good night routine, they will groan about the songs she plays on repeat and complain to him that Kory drives like a race car driver in downtown traffic. They will have their mom back, because there is no one in hell Kory went with Blackfire willingly.
Rachel sniffles into his neck, “How?”
That he’s still working on but he doesn’t tell them that. Doesn’t want them to worry about him. Or sneaking out to follow him to the warehouse district because they think he’ll need help.
He squeezes them both, “I have a plan, okay? Kory loves you both so much. If anything can get through to her then it’s her love for you guys, for this family.”
He really hopes that’s true. Hopes Kory is stronger than Faddei was. Hopes her heart is keeping her fighting to get back to them.
He hopes for a lot of things.
Dick wishes he could be certain about any of them.
/
Donna finds the information he asked for and gives it to him with a glare of disapproval, but Dick knows she’ll forgive him because of the way she grips his hand in hers as she passes over the papers he needs. Dick offers her a weak smile, hopes it comes across as reassuring and heroic. Really, he just hopes the next time she sees him Kory will be by his side.
The kids see him off, both watching him as he gets into the elevator with worried eyes pretending they aren’t scared about what’s going to happen next.
Dick wants to get off the elevator and hug them again but he also knows he needs to get going, they don’t know how long Kory will be around for.
He kisses two of his fingers and holds them in Rachel and Gar’s direction, “I’ll see you both soon, okay?”
He wants it to sound like a promise but it comes out like a question.
Gar nods, holding his back straight, feet apart. If Kory were here she’d tease him about being a mini Grayson. That’s why he needs to bring her home. Rachel reaches up her hand, palm towards him in a frozen wave before curling her fingers into her palm. Dick isn’t sure if she’s offering a goodbye or continuing his gesture.
The elevator doors close, sealing him in and blocking off his view of his kids.
He will see them soon. So will Kory.
The warehouse district of San Francisco is underused and underfunded, there was talk about them levelling it all out and building apartments down there but nothing ever came of it. Now it’s the only part of the city that reminds him of Gotham, derelict buildings, every inch of free wall covered in spray paint and gang tags. The kind of place you don’t want to go at night.
Thankfully, the darkness and the maze of buildings provide him enough cover that the Nightwing suit doesn’t stand out but rather blends into the shadows, escrima sticks at his back.
He memorized Donna’s information before he left, he knows exactly where he’s going and when he finds the right warehouse he sees it’s already been broken into. A charred space where a corrugated iron door used to be.
Kory’s been here.
The first tangible sign of her in front of him in days and Dick can’t help but feel giddy at the thought. She has to be close. She has to be here.
He steps through the newly burned-out doorway and heads into the gloom of darkness. The broken skylights overhead give him some light, patches of moonlight illuminating some corners of the open space while others are a black abyss seeming to stretch on forever.
He keeps walking forward, looking for any sign of her. Any sound that might show him the way. Other than a constant drip from a rusted old water pipe he hears nothing.
The darkness surrounds him and Dick knows if this were a trap something would jump out at him soon, his heart beating fast in his chest as the adrenaline settles into his veins. He also knows Kory’s powers don’t recharge in the dark, Blackfire’s are the same, so that must be a good sign.
Dick wants to call out for her but knows it would be foolish to do so. He doesn’t know if she’s even here, or whatever Blackfire is waiting for him in the shadows ready to kill him as part of her plan to get back at Kory.
He doesn’t know anything and honestly, he’s getting really tired of it.
There’s a clang as something drops to the floor behind him and Dick whirls round, grabs the escrima sticks from his back in each hand as he squints in the darkness.
“You shouldn’t be here, Grayson.” That voice. Her voice. Dick would know it anywhere.
He hears the sound of her heels on the concrete before he sees her, her suit almost reflective in the dim light.
“Kory.” He breathes a sigh of relief, straightens up from his defensive position.
“I was really hoping you wouldn’t come.”
“Then why get caught on CCTV.” He asks because he’s sure it was her now and not Blackfire, “You knew I’d be looking for you.”
Kory looks tired, dark circles under her eyes and a weariness in her bones that he hasn’t seen since the first time he met her. She sounds like his Kory but there is something lurking behind her eyes, cold and distant that isn’t.
“I need you to stop looking for me, Dick.” Kory tells him, “I need you to let me go.”
“That’s not going to happen.” He replies firmly.
She steps closer to him and winces like she’s in physical pain. What has Blackfire done to her?
“You know she’ll kill you if you come after her, right?” Kory tells him, “She wants me, if she gets me then I can convince her to leave all of you alone.”
So, that’s it. She’s playing the martyr. A role Dick is all too familiar with and is suddenly starting to understand why everyone else thinks he’s an idiot for playing that card.
“You can’t go with her, Kory. She’s controlling you.” Dick replies, “This isn’t family. It isn’t love.”
Kory laughs, “You think I don’t know that. I can’t fight her, Dick. Her power is too strong, she’s in my head. You kill me or you leave, those are your only options. I’ll try to get her back to Tamaran, away from you and the kids, but you have to leave. Now.”
Kory. His Kory. So strong and fearless and powerful. He can see a trickle of black oozing from her ear, knows Blackfire’s hold on her is stronger than he thought. But she’s fighting, she’s warning him away from her. That’s not something Blackfire would make her do.
That knowledge gives him the fight he needs to fight for her. A reassurance that she’s still in there. His Kory.
“No. I won’t do that.” He tells her passionately, “We have two kids waiting for us at home and I’m not going back to tell them they just lost their mom, that I gave up. Just take my hand, okay, we’ll go home and we’ll figure it out. Together.” He places the escrima sticks back against his shoulders and offers her his gloved hand to take.
Kory shakes her head, he can see the tears glassy in her eyes, once luminous green now foggy and without her usual spark of life.
“She ordered me to kill you, Dick.”
That makes him freeze, his hand falling useless back to his side. Even the way she says it, the emotion, the weight of the words there but hidden behind a barrier, making them sound strange in the space between them.
“Is that why you’re here?” He asks gently, “To kill me?”
“I can’t hold her back forever; you can’t be here when she pushes through.” Kory tells him, “Please, just go. Tell the kids I love them.”
“Tell them yourself.” He retorts.
“Dick…”
“No.” He’s firm, one hand reaching out between them in warning, “This isn’t who you are. I know who you are. You’re Kory Anders. You’re a badass, a fighter, the person who inspires me to do better. You’re the person who chose to drive back here when Rachel called because she needed you and you stayed. The one who makes smoothies with Gar at 3am if he can’t sleep. That’s who you are. You’re the woman I love and I need you to come back to me, Kory. Please. It’s either that or you’re going to have to kill me because I’m not letting you go like this. I’m not leaving you. You can fight her, for us, just fight.”
His heart is beating loudly in his ears and when he looks into her eyes he understands why she’s so scared. This is her fighting, this is Kory giving it everything she has to hold Blackfire’s mind control at bay long enough to say goodbye to him.
He feels like his chest is fucking caving in at the thought.
He’s about to watch her lose this fight he knows, he’s about to watch Blackfire win and rip everything away from them so soon after finding each other, after building this life they were meant to have years with.
He’s going to watch as he loses her.
“Dick, I…”
“Don’t you dare say goodbye.” He warns her, “Not like this. Not because of her.”
“I don’t want to say goodbye.”
He closes the distance between them then, hands gripping her arms, “Then don’t. Just tell me you want to come home and we’ll fight her together. We won’t stop until you’re free of her. Just… don’t do this, Kory. Don’t ask me to lose you.”
He sees the single tear leave her eye and trail down her cheek and thinks he’s getting through to her, making progress, finding a way past Blackfire’s control.
Then something changes. There’s a shift, subtle but there. Something in her shatters or reforms or disappears. The turmoil in her eyes, the edge to her tone. It all disappears and suddenly Dick feels cold.
He isn’t looking at Kory anymore.
He’s looking at Blackfire’s foot soldier, not his queen.
“If don’t want to do this the easy way,” Kory tells him, all the anguish in her gone in a second, “Then I guess we’ll do it the hard way.”
In a moment, before Dick can even catch his breath, she’s got a hand against his chest and is throwing him back with her strength. He sails through the air, back hitting the concrete pillar with a thud as pain explodes in his body and he falls down to the ground in a heap.
He groans, can taste blood in his mouth as he struggles back to his feet. Kory is standing there, watching him, not a hint of remorse or recognition in her face.
“I’m not going to fight you, Kory.” He tells her, the words coming out more winded than he would have liked.
Honestly, he doesn’t think he’d win in a fight even if he did try but he can’t even think about hurting her. Even when they spar there’s a hint of playfulness to it, a flirtation that makes it more of a game than a fight.
This is anything but that.
This is savage and brutal, and Kory is playing to win. Blackfire has ordered her to. Dick doesn’t stand a chance because while her feelings for him are locked down tight, his are an open wound, bleeding out for her to see and exploit.
He’s the liability here.
“Then I guess you’ll die.” Kory tells him, skin glowing orange with starfire as flames shoot from her hands. Dick throws himself to the floor, ignoring the pain in his back, as he rolls behind the pillar for protection.
Kory’s flames grow hotter and angry by the minute and he knows if he can keep avoiding getting singed then she’ll eventually run out of fire.
He isn’t sure they have that kind of time.
Dick throws himself out the way of another blast, tucking and flipping himself left then right until he feels dizzy, and Kory seems to grow more frustrated with him. He knows when she runs dry because she lets out a yell of anger and he stops feeling like he’s in a furnace. When Dick peers out of his cover – an old half demolished section of wall – he sees Kory looking down at both hands in disgust. Briefly, he wonders what else she’s used her powers on tonight to make her exhaust them that quickly but then he pushes the thought aside. They’re back on even playing grounds and he needs to take advantage of it.
“Kory, I know you’re in there.” He tells her, rounding the corner as he dusts himself off, “You can beat her.”
She frowns, “You talk a lot, you know that?”
Dick lets out a laugh, he can’t help it, “Normally you complain I don’t talk enough. Our first night together, you remember that, you wanted to talk then but I didn’t.”
“You were a distraction, nothing more.” She growls out and even though Dick knows it isn’t really her saying those words they still cut deep.
Which was clearly what they were intended for because she charges at him next, resorting to hand-to-hand combat instead. Dick doesn’t want to fight her, knows if Kory was herself she wouldn’t want to hurt him either. But this is Blackfire pulling the strings so the first hit dazes him a little because he wasn’t expecting it.
After that he springs into action, deflecting only. He never hits her back or counters her attacks. He blocks, he dodges, he avoids but he doesn’t retaliate. He refuses to let Blackfire take this from them as well, refuses to let her rip them apart with their fists and blood and a kind of pain Dick doesn’t think anyone could heal from.
Kory is good. He knows this because they’ve trained together. She’s using moves he taught her against him now and it stings a little, but he can’t focus on that. He raises an arm up, blocks her strike then ducks under her arm to avoid another one. Kory is fast and precise, one hit after another after another until Dick feels his muscles straining with the effort.
“I don’t believe that.” He grounds out as he flips backwards to avoid a kick, Kory closes the distance on him in seconds, “You love me, Kory, as much as you know I love you.”
It’s weird to be talking about love when her fist is about to hit his jaw, only stopped at the last moment by his arm deflecting the blow so it glances off his shoulder instead.
“You’re wrong.” She replies.
He shakes his head, capturing her fist in his open palm and holding it there, “No, I’m not.” He breathes out, “You want to know how I know?” He spins her in his arms, throwing her off balance as she lands with her back against his chest, trapped in an embrace that would be loving if they weren’t currently fighting, “Because when we kiss I can feel your whole world collide with mine, the way your heart picks up speed against my chest. When you touch me, it’s like I can feel everything you’re feeling, everything you don’t need words to say. The safety and comfort you find in my arms. That’s how I know this is real.”
He loosens his grip on her hand, letting his fingers slide into the gaps between hers and folding them into her palm. He leans down, lips ghosting over the shell of her ear, the softness of her hair, the curve of her jaw. Kory is frozen in front of him, a war raging inside herself with him pressed against her back and the feelings he’s reminding her of.
He uses it to his advantage, spinning her back to face him with the tangle of their fingers and brings her palm up to press it against the hard rigids of the Nightwing suit, his palm covering the back of her hand to hold it over the place his heart beats like thunder in his chest.
“I’m yours, okay, I have been from the moment we met so whatever you need to do, do it, but don’t stand there and tell me you don’t love me because Blackfire might have control of your mind, but your heart is different.”
His brown eyes are pleading with her green ones and even in the dim light he can see her conflicting emotions and orders on her face, “You’re wrong.” She tells him but she sounds less convinced of it now, words that are instinct but she doubts the truth of them.
Because he isn’t wrong. Dick might not know a lot about mind control or Tamaran or her powers, but he knows her heart. Better than he knows his own and he knows she loves him.
Finally, one thing he is certain of. Even now.
“Then why is your heart speeding up?” He asks her softly, a caress and a challenge burning in her eyes, “Why are you thinking about every time we’ve ever laughed or kissed. Every time I’ve told you I loved you?”
He thinks he sees a dam break in her, then she launches her head forward and it slams into his chin, making Dick break his hold on her and stumble back. He brings a hand up to his lip and his fingers come away bloody.
“Fuck.” He shouts, wiping the blood from his chin.
Kory’s eyes are fire but she is relentless as she charges for him again, this time with renewed anger. Dick tries to keep pace with her, blocking and dodging his way through her attacks. For the first time since she left the tower, he is starting to fear he can’t bring her back to him. That Blackfire is too deeply rooted inside her mind for him to reach.
It makes him want to scream into the darkness. Makes him want to let her do it, finish it. Let him disappear into an abyss of blackness because being numb has to be better than knowing him loving her isn’t enough to save her.
He blocks another hit and pushes her back to create more space between them, the first reactive move he’s made in this fight. He doesn’t want to do this with her, this fight, if there is nothing left for them at the end of it. He doesn’t want this to be the last memory he has of her.
Dick reaches up, hands clutching his escrima sticks as he raises them in front of him. He doesn’t electrify them, doesn’t want to cross that line of making her the enemy because she isn’t. She’ll never be that to him. Even if she’s Blackfire’s now. Even if she kills him.
He’ll still love her.
That’s the moment he breaks. He’s spent all this time trying to break through to her when in reality she’s the one that breaks him. He becomes shrapnel, glass fragments that were once whole, porcelain rather than ivory or steel. He shatters, breaks apart like ash on a breeze.
That’s the moment Dick Grayson falls to his knees.
It’s a sharp movement, a sudden action that takes Kory by surprise when he drops to the ground, knees absorbing the impact of his fall. He lets his head drop, sees the blood from his lip trailing down the blue of his suit. Dick holds both hands out, weapon in each, and lets the sticks fall at her feet, weapon slipping from his fingers.
“So do it. If Kory, my Kory, really is gone. If Blackfire got to you and this is all that’s left, what’s stopping you? Kill me. Finish it.” His voice comes out stronger than he thought it would, doesn’t waver and he thinks he’s already resigned himself to this fact.
She always had the power to destroy him. It wasn’t Blackfire that gave it to her, it was him. The second he offered her his heart.
He should get up, fight, for Rachel and Gar. For Kory. But he knows it’s not a fight he’s going to win. He understands that now.
So, he waits for the woman he loves to kill him.
But the blow doesn’t come.
He frowns, lifts his head up to look at Kory who is watching him with those green eyes he loves to get lost in. He looks like he’s praying to her, worshipping her, on his knees in front of her like this.
She says one word, just one, and it’s enough.
“Go.”
It comes out like an order, a command but that’s not right. Blackfire ordered her to kill, she told him that. And she hasn’t killed him, she’s going to spare him instead. Which means she’s defying a direct order. It means she can’t kill him.
It means she’s still in there.
And that’s all he needs.
He gets to his feet, not bothering to pick up the weapons he dropped. He doesn’t need them. Because she’s still in there. She heard him, has heard him this whole time. She’s still fighting and now she isn’t doing it alone.
He stands to his full height, not making a move away from her as he stares at her, looking for every fleck of gold in those green eyes, taking in every inch of her skin, skin he knows intimately, skin he’s mapped with his lips, his hands.
“No.” He tells her defiantly.
He isn’t backing down this time. He isn’t making this easy for her. Isn’t letting her do this, be the martyr to save him, the kids.
Dick closes the space between them, hands reaching out to snag her waist and haul her the last few inches into him. Then his lips are on hers and he’s kissing her with everything he has. He channels it all into the kiss. The fear that he’ll lose her, the anger at Blackfire for putting them through this, the devotion that he absolutely would let her kill him if that’s what it takes, the love he has for her. Overwhelming and all consuming. Every fear and hope and thought of desire gets translated into that kiss. One of his hands come up, cupping her jaw, thumb brushing over her skin.
“Come back to me, Kory.” He whispers against her mouth, the words a kiss of their own before he closes his lips back over hers.
He kisses her like his life depends on it, until he can taste her on his tongue and his head swims with nothing but thoughts of her. Kory, Kory, Kory. He kisses her until he feels light-headed, until his heart pounds in his ears and he can’t remember his own damn name but he can remember the way she feels against him, the way her kisses feel like the sun.
Then she’s kissing him back.
God, she kissing him back.
And Dick finally feels like he’s home.
Kory’s hands move from her grip on his shoulders to weave her fingers through his hair, the feel of her nails against his scalp makes him shiver and lose his damn mind. Because she’s kissing him back. His Kory, not the one he just fought against, but the one he just surrendered to.
The one who makes him feel like home. And this kiss, this is a different type of surrender. One forged in something so much more hopeful than when he was on his knees before her.
He feels Kory press against him, feels her melt into his arms and sigh like her whole body is humming in response to his. Like she’s drawing her first breath in days and he’s stealing the air right out of her lungs.
It feels so fucking good to have her in his arms again.
Dick isn’t sure whether it’s Kory or him that guides them backwards without breaking the kiss or even so much as opening his eyes but he feels the rough brick wall scrap against his back when Kory presses him against it.
He spins them around in a flash, crowding her against the wall instead as his hands map her body, take in the feel of her with him. God, she’s real.
“Dick.” She pulls away from his mouth to utter his name and Dick barely manages to shake his head before his lips move down to her jaw, her neck. He can’t stop touching her. The relief of having her in his arms is too much and he thinks if he lets go, he’ll fall.
“No.” He mutters against her skin, breathing her in, kissing her blindly.
No. No talking. No words. Nothing is going to ruin this for him.
Kory hums as he kisses her pulse point, and he feels it jump against his mouth.
“Dick, you’re bleeding.” Her voice is as breathless as his is but the words lose all meaning to him for a moment because he can’t stop kissing her.
“I don’t care.” He growls out, bringing their lips back together as his hands find her thighs and he boosts her up into his arms with ease, using the wall behind her to steady her against him. Kory goes willingly, her legs wrapping around him.
“Dick.” That comes out as a pant and Dick swears internally because if he had any self-control left to lose, it’s definitely gone now.
“What?” He demands as he rips his mouth away from her, eyes burning with desire just like Kory’s are. Green and sparkling and completely her own again.
“Screw it.” She replies, forcing his head back to hers and devouring him in a kiss of her own.
They keep kissing, Dick can’t seem to stop kissing her, doesn’t want to. Then he smells smoke, charcoal hitting the back of his throat and he has to pull away because he’s pretty sure something’s on fire. Beside the two of them.
When he pulls back, Kory bites her lip and he follows the length of her hand down to where her palm is pressing against the brick wall, a black scorch mark that’s still smoking gently surrounding her hand.
Dick shifts her a little in his arms but doesn’t let go as he raises an eyebrow at her, “Did you just burn up a wall?” He asks, making no attempt to hide the smirk on his face.
Kory’s eyes are sparkling with embarrassment, “I was trying to warn you. I didn’t want you to get burnt.” She tells him sheepishly, her fingers stroking the back of his neck and making it impossible for him to form a sentence.
“Too late,” He tells her, “I’m always burning for you, Princess.”
It’s cheesy but the blinding smile Kory gives him is worth it and that smile alone makes him sigh in relief, “Fuck Kory, I thought I lost you. Never do that to me again.” He begs her.
Kory seems to have a million things reflected in her eyes but she holds them back, “Never.” She agrees, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer.
Dick holds her, trapped in a tangle of her legs and arms as they hold onto each other in a fierce hug that resonates down to his bones.
“Wait,” Kory tells him, pulling back to rest her forehead against his own as he squeezes her thighs in his grip, “We can’t do this here. The kids.”
Dick sighs, nods, lets the wave of desire around them dissipate as he slowly lets her down and back to her feet, “The kids.” He agrees, doesn’t know how long he’s been gone but knows Rachel and Gar are going to be waiting for their arrival. Every minute passed is another one they dread.
“But we’re continuing this later.” Kory tells him and he couldn’t fucking agree more.
But first, the kids.
“What about Blackfire?” He asks, mind already working on the threat she brings to them.
“She isn’t here. She never was.” Kory tells him, one hand wiping at the black trail from her ear from Blackfire’s mind control and the other reaching up to brush his split lip. “We’ll stop her. She’s going to be sorry she ever came here.”
“I don’t want to lose you.” He admits.
Kory’s fingers curve over his cheek, “You won’t but we can’t let her win. No after this. She wanted me to kill you, Dick, I didn’t think I was going to be able to stop.”
“You did.” He reminds her, “You did.”
“I love you.” She utters the words in such adoration and reverence that Dick feels his breath hitch in his chest.
“I love you too.” He tells her, hoping she understands everything those words need to convey.
“Can we go home?”
Dick nods, slips his hand into hers, “Yeah, let’s go home. We have two kids waiting for us.”
/
They make it back to the Tower and don’t let go of each other for a single second. Dick doesn’t think he can let go of her, he’s too scared this is a dream and he’s going to wake up back in that warehouse and Kory won’t love him, won’t remember loving him.
He can’t go through that again.
The elevator doors ping open and Rachel and Gar are already there, standing together with their hands clasped to each other’s as they wait to see who made it back.
Dick’s smile is blinding as soon as he sees them, stepping off the elevator and tugging Kory along with him, “Look who I found.” He offers them, pushing Kory in front of him by their joined hands.
She’s nervous he knows, can feel it in the grip of her fingers against his and Dick knows she’s thinking about the glass she shattered, leaving with Blackfire. The look on the Rachel and Gar’s faces when she left them behind.
Rachel and Gar aren’t thinking about anything but having their mom back. He knows this because the second they see Kory they both smile, big and wide, and then they run at her.
Dick has just enough time to let go of her fingers as both kids barrel into her at full speed. Kory isn’t prepared for the force of their hugs and they all go down in a heap as Kory hits the floor and Gar and Rachel cling onto her for dear life.
He watches them with a wide smile, looks up to see Dawn and Donna waiting over by the kitchen with watery smiles. He nods in thanks to them and they nod back, a moment of acceptance, of apology, of them finally understanding what Kory means to their little family.
Kory is crying when he draws his attention back to her, holding the kids tightly in both arms and kissing their foreheads every few seconds like she can’t believe she’s holding them.
“I knew Dick would bring you back to us.” Rachel tells her softly, “He refused to give up on you. I knew he’d do it.”
“He did it.” Kory assures her.
“And you’re okay now?” Gar presses, “Blackfire’s mind control is gone.”
“She isn’t controlling me anymore.” Kory replies gently, “Dick managed to break the connection, but I don’t know…”
There are a lot of things they still don’t know about Blackfire and her powers and her plan.
“I could take a look, see what I can sense?” Rachel offers, pulling back to give Kory a smile.
Kory nods, “That would be good.”
Then both Rachel and Gar throw themselves back into the hug and Kory lets them, “I can’t breathe.” Kory chuckles into Gar’s hair but doesn’t let go.
“Suck it up.” Gar tells her, “It’s been a long few days.”
“The worst.” Rachel agrees, “But we’re missing one.” She pulls back and reaches up to grab Dick’s hand and then uses all her strength to tug him down with them. Dick goes, slightly off balance as he lands on his knees, but he has no time to recover because Rachel is already tugging him into their group hug, leaving him no choice but to plaster himself against her back and throw his arms around all of them.
Kory laughs, “This is nice.”
Gar snickers into her shoulder, “Nice? This is better than nice.”
Dick hums against Rachel’s head, “Tell that to my knees.”
“Put knee pads in the suit next time.” Rachel quips.
Gar’s right, this is better than nice, this is everything. This is his world righting itself again, the axis turning once more, pieces of a puzzle coming back together like they’d never been apart.
So much better than nice.
“Maybe we just take a trip.” He tells them, still cocooned in the bundle of arms on the floor, “Get out of the city.”
“We need to go after Blackfire.” Kory tells him, like she can read his mind and knows he’s trying to put off this fight for as long as he can.
He nods, “After.” He promises, “Right now, I just want to be with you three.”
“A lake house would be cool.” Gar muses, “Somewhere in the middle of nowhere so no one can bother us.”
“And a forest so Gar can practice changing into different animals.” Rachel adds, “We could make s’mores too.”
Dick smiles, “Kory?”
He knows she wants to get Blackfire, knows she wants to make her pay for this. It’s a case of when rather than if the sisters have their final showdown and he knows they have the potential to level a planet after this. Kory isn’t going to stop, isn’t going to back down.
Blackfire when after her family. Dick knows that to Kory, that’s as good as declaring war. And they’ll all fight with her, together but not today. Today he wants to hold them, and tomorrow he wants to forget about the past week of hell, about the fear of losing her and the fight ahead of them. He wants to spend some time enjoying everything he has, everything in his arms that he still gets to keep.
“A few days couldn’t hurt.” She caves in with a smile, “I’ve never tried s’mores before.”
And just like that, his world spins on, safe and protected in his arms.
His family, happy and whole, and back together and if Dick is sure of one thing, it’s that they can figure out anything as long as they do it together.