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Rachel, all starry eyed, was the first to notice Kory when she entered the training room. “Late night?” she smiled, relieving herself of a curious wooden spear in her hand.
Kory took the single step up into the combat floor, breathing in the smell of metal, sweat and earthy wood. “A lot of catching up,” she sighed, looking around, “with all this.”
The buzz surrounding Jason’s rescue from a guy called Deathstroke the other day had taken from the excitement of her arrival at the Titans Tower. At least now with Dick, Donna and their other Titans friends a bit more settled, they could get down to discussing Rachel and the Trigon issue.
“So no post cards from Tamaran,” Gar had a semi-hopeful glint in his eyes that Kory would tell him otherwise, but then Rachel cleared her throat and he winced. “Um, Rachel told me,” he explained.
“No,” Kory confirmed. “No postcards.” Her stomach jolted just remembering the events before Rachel’s phone call: Tamaran, her apparent royal lineage, Blackfire, Feddei and the legion of armed guards that he said would come back to forcefully extract her from the planet she had chosen to call home.
“Well then, let’s look at the bright side,” Gar interjected. His lop-sided smile grew wider, sillier than ever, as his eyes danced on Kory. Just like Rachel, he seemed not to be over the fact that Kory was back with them. “No cauliflower pizzas,” he rejoiced. “More time in the sun…”
“Wait,” Kory stopped him, frowning. “Dick doesn’t let you guys go out when you want?”
When Donna had told Kory that Dick had not wanted any help with the kids, her immediate assumption had been that he at least had his shit together. She briskly directed her raised eyebrow at Rachel. “Is that why you’ve been having more of those episodes?”
Gar put down his wooden spear, turning to Rachel. “More? You mean there was more after yesterday?”
“No, it wasn’t like that,” Rachel hesitated, and from what Kory saw, Rachel had clearly told Gar nothing about her sleepless nights or fighting off Trigon’s powers from fully possessing her all day. “Rachel’s not well,” she informed him. At her words, the poor boy’s shoulders slumped; definitely beating himself up for not having noticed Rachel’s plight sooner. “But with all that’s going on here with Dick and the team,” Kory took good care to tell him, “I understand why you’ve not noticed.”
“Dick didn’t know either,” Rachel came up. Of course, she would always take Dick’s side. How Kory wished she would have at least half of Rachel’s empathy to handle Dick with—because somehow she felt drained already…of three months’ worth of it.
“Maybe once Dick will be done with his friends and that…Deathstroke,” Kory still found that name ridiculous and could not help a snort, “Maybe then we can all have a talk about this. Okay?”
“Sick!” Gar exclaimed in response, but before Kory would ask what in the galaxies that even meant, Dick sauntered in, in black training clothes.
He peeled his gaze from Kory to nod with approval at the kids. “Early start. Good.”
“Snack break?” Gar suggested, innocently raising a hand.
One hard look from Kory made Dick make his mean face disappear. “Just make sure you read through those Aikido notes I sent you,” he relented. And it was then that Kory noticed his jaw clench and the discomfort, a light shade of red, round his neck. She was almost positive, though, that whatever he was being squeamish about had nothing to do with the kids taking him less seriously or her under-dogging him.
“Can I drop by the infirmary?” Rachel asked by the door as Gar disappeared into the hallway beyond.
“And check up on Jason?” As Dick regarded Rachel grimly, crossing his built arms across his chest, Kory was suddenly able to see the man that had embraced radical change and responsibilities since last seeing him three months ago. “Just don’t touch him,” he warned. “We don’t know what more that can do at this point.”
“Give Jason a kiss for me, won’t you?” Kory could not fight her funny bone any longer, especially if that involved poking the holes through Dick Grayson’s perpetual polka face.
And sure enough, his face had turned a light pink color just stifling laughter.
Rachel’s laugh was hearty and her cheeks rosy as she hesitated to leave the door. “It’s good to have you back, Kory,” she said, before finally leaving them alone.
…………………..
For the first time in a long while, Dick felt unsure of himself. Bruce, the training, this Deathstroke stint with the dysfunctional older Titans, even going long nights sleeping alone—he was sure about that, handling it.
But Kory Anders still had a way of rendering him uncertain, weak at the knees, as if four walls were closing in on him and there was no escape. And why should he not feel that way? Dick reasoned. He had known a time like this would come sooner or later. That the silence on his part those last three months would yield itself to Kory being unhappy with him somehow.
Looking at her now his heart plummeted. He sighed. “So.”
“So,” Kory snorted in reply. Her pretty lips, painted a dark cherry, twitched into a smile. “You and Batman are talking. That’s why he’s given you this place?”
It was Dick’s turn to smile. At least he could still get to have Kory look at him that way; with her head tilted to one side and her large, emerald eyes dancing. “No,” he answered. “Not really. This is mostly for Jason.”
“Ah,” Kory nodded.
“But, yeah. Bruce and I talked things over,” Dick admitted, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Have been talking ever since.”
“You figured things out?”
Dick was stunned by the question and, by the look on Kory’s face, had done a poor job at hiding his surprise. Even after that long she could still do that to him, make him throw caution and control to the wind even if his life depended on it.
Dick blushed. He was not Robin but this ‘someone else’ he wanted to become, he had not quite figured out yet. “No, have you?”
The glow on Kory’s face died out, and her glorious eyes snapped away from his so quickly that he felt robbed.
“What?” Dick was desperate to know, his heart low in his chest. There was a lot he wanted to know, like why she had come back or why Donna had mentioned nothing to him about Kory’s failed trip back to Tamaran. It was home after all, right? Yet here she was, forlorn and well played at being cryptic as he could be at times…most times, actually.
Dick drew closer, pulling her attention back to him. “Did something go wrong?” he asked.
“You’d have known if you stayed updated.” Kory tossed her shiny, red locks over her shoulder before finding sudden interest in the weapons table four feet away. Her hand closed around one piece of Dick’s broken Bo staff. “All it took was a call,” she said, picking up the Bo staff. “A text even, yeah?”
Something hot and hard lodged in Dick’s throat at Kory’s accusation and he hated to think that it was his anger resurfacing again. The old Dick Grayson would get like that as a defense mechanism, to hide away from taking responsibility, from having to confront his worst fears and insecurities.
When Kory had asked him earlier whether he had figured himself out the dismissive answer ‘no’ had been easier to give than an actual explanation. Because explaining meant admitting things like, ‘I nearly cracked Jason’s skull open the other day’, or worse: ‘I could lose you, Kory. Just like I did in my dream. Maybe it’s best you stay away from me.’
“Kory,” Dick began.
But Kory cut him dry, waving the half of his Bo staff. “You know what, its fine. We’ve known each other just a couple of days—it’s not like anything matters.”
“No!” Dick exclaimed, then flinched.
The lines on Kory’s forehead only deepened. She put his Bo Staff back down on the table, then came the 'raised eyebrow' look that reduced Dick to a shy schoolboy. “No?”
“You—matter, I mean. To me.” Dick stuttered, raking the mess of hair off from his forehead so that he could cool off. Intimacy of this level—the direct communication type—was not exactly his forte. He doubted it would ever be, but now there was Kory in front of him and, hell, if he could not make her understand him now he did not know what else could possibly work to get her to stay.
“Just so you know,” he added, the blow of embarrassment low in his gut already just by seeing Kory regard him, unmoved.
Unlike the many women he had met in his life—no disrespect to them—Kory seemed least concerned with stroking his ego, or playing the desperate, swooning type. That gave him enough reason to worry: that she would leave just as fast as she had appeared in his life. Gone.
“I like your Bo staff broken. About time your moves changed,” Kory suddenly remarked. Her wide, hearty smile was enough to unhinge all of Dick’s restraint.
“How long will you stay?” He blurted.
“For as long as Rachel wants.”
“She’ll want you here forever,” Dick quipped, but meaning every word. Rachel did need Kory, if her contacting Kory behind his back was anything to go by.
And was he jealous? No, not in the least. If anything, Rachel’s outcry to Kory turned out to be the answer to all his prayers.
“I can’t blame Rachel,” Kory flat out gloated. “She’s missed me.”
“Not just her,” Dick grinned, boldly closing the distance separating him from Kory. He could barely wait for her to connect the dots—just moved right into her space as he should have done that day by Donna’s car, outside Angela’s house.
The skin on her face was silky smooth against his calloused fingers as he tilted her chin up into a soft, warm, chaste kiss; a breathless moment that could have lasted longer had Kory not drew back from it so abruptly.
“Dick,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.
And Dick gulped. Perhaps he had taken things a bit too fast. It had been a long three months after all since they had last seen each other. A lot could happen in three months. Still, he had to be sure. “You okay?” he asked.
Kory licked her lips and her eyes fluttered open. “Do you mean it? Missing me.”
Dick was taken aback by the profound sadness that settled onto Kory’s demeanor at her own question, as if that were all she had thought about those past three months living with Donna.
He could not help the feeling that washed over him seeing Kory that way, so much that he could have wished whoever hurt her, whoever had led her to think so little of herself while there in his sure embrace, some well-deserved harm.
“I’ve fucked up several times before,” Dick found himself saying instead. “But I would never lie to you, Kory.” His hands slid around Kory’s slim arms to pull her into him again. “I need you.”
Without a word, Kory leaned forward and their lips touched, and sweetly so, so that Dick wound up lacing his fingers through her hair, clawing at the leather and lace trimmings over the small of her back and waist, and pushing her up against the weapons table until something metallic dropped to the floor with a clang.
“Um, Dick.”
Kory still had her hand on Dick’s ass when he stopped to notice Dawn standing in the doorway.
“Dawn,” Dick pulled away from Kory with a grunt. How much of what he had said to Kory had she heard, he wondered.
“Hey,” Dawn cocked her head at Kory with a short smile, always the best of the old Titans at maintaining civility. But Dick noticed something nonetheless. How she spoke to Kory with her mouth tight at the corners.
Kory too seemed as aware of the tension as Dick was and her eyes flickering to him said ‘Tell me all about this later’. “It’s good to see you, Dawn,” she greeted back.
“Anything new?” Dick prompted the moment forward.
“Jason’s awake, given us something we can work with concerning Deathstroke’s location.”
Gravity pulled back hard at Dick after hearing Dawn’s words; after experiencing the sudden reminder of the bloody shit show he still had to clean up concerning Deathstroke before any more casualties would occur, especially those among his friends.
His heart twisted in his chest when he found Kory looking at him, a Kory that he had once seen encrusted in ice, eyes wide and unseeing in shock--dead, in his dreams.
“Hank and Gar are helping with holding Jason down,” Dawn cut in. “Poor kid.”
Kory’s hand squeezing his brought Dick out of that pit of fear, and suddenly he was able to breathe easy again. “Go,” she told him. “I’ll be with Rachel.”