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The shores of Themyscira were as bright as they were calm, dotted with plants bursting with color and yet not a shade of life within it, surrounded by water so still, you’d suspect the wind had given up. The island was like the Amazons that inhabited it, strong, beautiful, and resilient to the end. Through the machinations and calamity that was brought forth by armies of Perpetua and her Bat-themed capes, through The One Who Laugh’s own attempts to rebuild the Amazons in his own twisted weapon against Wonder Woman, it persevered.
To that end, even with the walls of that terrible prison looming him, casting its weak shade across the red sands with full knowledge that all the inmates were free; Nightwing knew he was safe here. Safe for now, at least, while the sun was still up. The dawn of a new day would bring forth the end of all days, where they would fight the battle to end all battles. For once more there was a crisis, once more the multiverse had been revealed, once more had it been twisted, once more the heroes who never killed must prepare to draw blood, and once more everything would change.
Dick Grayson had thought he’d be past these changes, that when he’d finally ripped his identity back from the cold shrapnel of K.G Beast’s failed assassination attempt, he could go back to being himself again. That was before the war where evil won, where the Batman Who Laughs lured the Justice league into an impossible battle, and Wonder Woman fell victim to hesitation in the face of the true price her plan asked for. It happened so quickly, Dick could swear it was only yesterday that he was announcing his spectacular return to Joker’s latest replacement for Harley. Back then, the entirety of Gotham city being set ablaze in a brutal street war was the height of danger. Now, it just seemed like a fad to remind the world that there was still worse to come. There were like three separate ‘Wars’ to take Gotham from Batman in a row before this, the closest thing to a joke the Ex-Boy Wonder could conjure as he contemplated.
In that moment of levity, he allowed his senses to note that she was sat down beside him. He hadn’t known when she got there, perhaps because her orange skin blended in perfectly with the tropical atmosphere, or because his dower mood made her temper her energetic personality. He shook his head with a slight grimace. Bruce would scold him for being so sloppy with his guard. Even if it was with Kori of all people. “Taking a break from the reunion? I know Gar’s gotten more insufferable since you and Cy were gone, but that’s no reason to leave everyone else alone with him.” A mere two minute walk away Titans old and new had gathered on the beaches to celebrate their final night together. Even Wally, returning with the baggage of the blood on his hands, was doing a better job and cutting loose and reconnecting than Dick was at the moment.
He could see her purple smile more clearly as her normally blinding eyes dimmed under the glare of the setting sun. She let her bare feet dig into the sand, pulling her knees up to her chest and sighing softly. “Thought I’d give him some space. He didn’t appreciate my fatal hugs as much as I thought he would.” With the weak, forced small talk subsiding, she breathed out a haggard breath. “I missed you all.”
She didn’t need to hear his verbal confirmation to see he felt the same, the boy dropping down beside her, joining her scenery gazing session. “Yeah, it was hard with you and Vic gone.” He took no time at all before he waved a small bottle of unidentifiable alcohol in front of her. “Not that I had much time to feel it.”
The immediate flinch she gave stabbed him right in the heart. “I truly wish I had been there to help you through those years of isolation.” Usually, Dick was a lot more careful with his words, but with the end imminent he was allowing h8imself to become careless.
“You kiddin’?” He tried to inject some humor with a crooked grin and a cheeky eyebrow wiggle. “I’m glad you didn’t get to see me like that. Ric Grayson? The dude was a bit of an asshole. I decided to be a cab driver for crying out loud.” And a Talon of the Court of Owls briefly, but the less said about that, the better.
“I would have liked to see it.” She tilted her head back, a thoughtful look in her eye as she looked over the man as if she were inspecting a fine jewel for damages. “I’ve only ever known you as a hero, Richard. Even under the circumstances, it would have been nice to see what you would have been like as… Well, just Richard.”
He took a swig of his own bottle, which at this point he was pretty sure was grape juice, with a shrug. “Not much was different.” A pause as a recognizable cheer from Garth could be heard overhead. “I still went out to fight crime, I just complained about it a lot more. And had an absolutely dreadful costume.” Another pause, watching the sea drift up the shore to tickle his feet. “Guess I’m destined for this business, Batman or not.”
Briefly, her fingers hover over his exposed hand, tempted for just a moment to make such a gesture. Ultimately, she changed course to grip his arm softly, uncertainty driving out any such thoughts of what could be. “That fits. You always were destined for greatness.” His snort was silent, but clear as he turned his head back to her, giving off the goofiest smile he could muster. “I heard he called you back to camp. Some secret contingency plan, I’m assuming?”
“Naturally.” He took note of her hand and his fears spiked up again. The gesture, her touch, just her being so close to him after so long, it felt so good. It was like taking a deep breath and being trapped in the relief of the air leaving your lungs. And yet, that tantalizing feeling, that is what made it hurt even more to think about it, to think about how little it mattered. “Barb’s taking point on this one. Should have seen the look in her eye, never seen that girl so scary.” He scrunched up his nose. “And I think Jason is selling his body to an old lady for some fancy guns, but that’s just speculation.”
“Jason and his love for weapons are unmatched. Good to know he hasn’t changed too much.” There was that word again, change. It sounded so vile, so tainted in his head. It was a word that only children were supposed to hiss at, something that you came to terms with when you entered the adult world, that things will change, and you have to roll with it. But then again, the change that adults faced were just changing circumstances. Was it truly healthy to accept change when it meant losing your entire identity at the flip of a coin?
“Oh yeah, Tim wanted you to know that he wished he could be at the Titans party, but… Well, he’s worried about Bruce’s situation. We don’t exactly have the best experiences with Black Lanterns.” Were there such things as good memories with raising the dead? “And Damian didn’t say much other than pouting and yelling at me to stop hugging him.” It was a complicated matter alright, then again nothing was ever simple between the children of the Batman.
“You should be with them,” Kori muttered without hesitation, looking away from him. He knew she was doing it intentionally, she always looked away when she wanted to hide her distress. The cost of being the most emotionally free Titan was that it tended to make it hard to cover up those emotions. In a quieter voice, she continued. “These could be our final hours. You should spend it with your family. With… Barbra.”
She didn’t know the motivations behind her words. Everything had been confusing since she returned to Earth and dropped into the middle of this multiversal calamity. Lex Luthor was apparently a good guy now; they were working alongside the Legion of Doom and now Batman from a universe of nightmares had become a cosmic demon. Did she truly wish to push Richard away from the island? Did she just think it was right for him to be with his fellow Gotham Crusaders? Or was she just trying to make her swirling emotions known? Let him hear an edge of jealousy, an implication of his relationship to prompt him to clarify to her. To tell her where they stood.
“My family’s here, there, and everywhere, Kori.” He spoke clearly, drawing out every word as every syllable was given considerable thought. “I’ve been by their side before this all went down, as this all went down and when this all ends I’m gonna be with them. So, I think it’s fair I spend some time with the rest of my family. My friends,” There was so much to say, so much to think about and so much he didn’t know. But she wanted an answer. So, he gave her a firm one, placing his hand atop hers and leaning closer. “and those more dear to me than I’m smart enough to describe.”
She finally faced him, staring dead center into the sea of emotion dripping from his smooth blues, holding her throat tightly as she searched for any hint of deception, for any trace of pity-fuelled denial. When there was nothing, but honest passion choked by fear, she pulled his hand to her chest, letting him feel the cycle of heightened emotional states he put her through with ease. “I told you long ago that I was a one-woman guy, Kori. And I meant it when I said that woman was you.” For a moment she allowed herself to smile, to feel all those buried emotions from their passionate youth rushing back to her heart.
But then his fear overtook that passion and her face fell. “And yet you are unsure.” Complicated. The son of Batman was always bringing in unnecessary complications. No matter how much it hurt him. She didn’t know whether to be angry at him for putting her heart through this or to comfort him for the stress he always pressures himself with. “I’m afraid, Richard, that I no longer have the time to tolerate your indecision. My heart… It can’t take another false promise.”
“Kori, you don’t… You don’t understand.” She squeezed his hand tightly, memorizing every change in the firm surface of his skin since last she held his hand so.
“Then tell me. Explain to me why you must put a wall between us yet again, why you must break my heart again when I know your heart calls for me.” There was the temptation to cry, to let her emotions spill out to the outside, but she held firm and kept her eyes dry. There was no shame in crying, but she wanted the honest answer of his heart, not his guilt. “I love you, Richard Grayson. In the way that means forever, that I never have to find excuses.”
Richard, on the other hand, seemed less inclined to hold back his tears, a few stray drops bubbling at the corner of his eye as he regained a hard look. “And what if you didn’t?” Anger. He could see it clearly across her face when such a foul accusation struck. He knew how it sounded, how painful it was to hear, but he refused to lie to her about his fears. He wouldn’t lie to the woman he loved, not while he was still able to love her. “What if I told you that you could wake up tomorrow and you’ll find an excuse? Or that I’ll lose all the traits you love, that suddenly this will all be a drunken outburst?”
Her hand was on his cheek in an instant, wiping away stray tears with her thumb. “What are you saying, Richard?”
“I’m saying that… That I don’t know what the point is. That what we do, what any of us do, doesn’t matter anymore.” She could hear the air slapping against his gritted teeth with every word, his body trembling underneath her. “No matter how much we think something is a part of us, it becomes optional, an accessory. Things change. Things always fucking change.” From there, the tears started to fall at full force, his voice growing as rough as sandpaper. “Ever since this whole thing started, I’ve started remembering things. Moments, people, emotions.” He looked utterly pale, so sick of what he was saying, and yet Kori could do nothing to comfort her love outside of holding him close and hugging him tightly. “At first, I thought it was just… Just me recovering from my amnesia. Picking up pieces I was missing. But then, I remembered moments I knew just didn’t fit. I saw Crisis’s of the past, or maybe the future, I saw events that never happened. But they did happen, I know they did. I just… They changed.”
“One day I wanted to get out of Batman’s shadow, but then the next I was back under it and imitating him to a fault. I sit there with my heart on my sleeve, knowing that you’re the love of my life and that I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with you.” He can’t keep the disgust out of his voice as he dives his head into her shoulder, unable to look her in the eye. “Then a year later, suddenly I remember that I cheated on you the day before our wedding. Like… Like it didn’t happen until I remembered it happening.” She didn’t know how to react, the information startling to say the least, but she let him continue in silence, rubbing his back and reminding him that she was going to listen to everything he had to say. “And then I get shot, I lose everything, you were all practically dead to me. And yet, I was happy. I was fucking happy. Not one lingering part of my subconscious cared. Damian went missing, and I didn’t care. Alfred was murdered, and I didn’t care. All the Titans, they had to go through so much without me, and I didn’t care.”
“You had amnesia.” She spoke softly into his ear, cradling him in her arms. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“I’m not… No, no, no.” Her heart broke in two hearing him sob like that. “If I could blame myself, then I could work on it, make a diagnosis, and cut out the problem. No, this is the universe, the multiverse, whatever. It’s always changing, and it’s changing all of us too.” For the first time since he broke down, he looked up at her, his eyes now bloodshot from his tears. “And after this battle, it’s gonna change again, I just know it. It’s gonna be a big change. Maybe not a big reboot like other times, but…” Richard had never looked so weak, so vulnerable in her arms. “What if in the new world Jason doesn’t get revived… Damian isn’t born… Donna gets even more shit piled on her.” He’d seen it in flashed, of other Earths, of his own Earth, how the changes are so small and yet so impactful. So complicated, yet so sudden and unplanned, as if the universe’s whims were a shift dependant on how entertained it was. “Or we get separated once more because the universe… The multiverse doesn’t want us together. We don’t get a happy ending. We either go with someone else or… We suddenly hate each other; we never see each other or one of us dies.” The tears had stopped, for now, allowing him to gaze upon her face without interception, feeling his heart and soul immediately calm upon taking in the pure warmth she exuded. “I… I don’t want to give you my heart only for the universe to suddenly decide I’m going to break yours after this.”
Koriand’r looked upon the love of her life, in his state of abject defeat and worry, and she took him in her arms. She stood him up, wordlessly and with that small smile never leaving her lips. She was accustomed to pain, every tear he left was like acid burning through her skin and that pain would never get any better, but she would smile for him. She would fight for him. She would break any code in the world for him. And she knew he would do the same for her. He was her hero when she needed him, and so she was ready to be his when he needed her. “The universe is infinite.”
He had no idea where this was going, but she said it so bluntly, so straightforward and yet with so much conviction that the man could only keep his mouth shut and watch her diligently. “And yet you, Richard Grayson, are it’s constant, I believe is how Superman put it.” She rested one finger on his chest, poking through to his heart. His skin brightened at her touch and that only made her smile further. “There is always a Richard Grayson and he is always the glue between everyone’s hearts, for good and for ill.” There was an edge of teasing to her tone, for as serious as she was, full force grim and serious was never the way to Dick’s heart, not all the way. It was something that had stumped the Batman for most of his life. “I believe that I really do. Because no matter the universe, no matter what changes and no matter how much we’re separated, one thing will never differ. Try as I might, distant myself from you, ignore you, replace you; it doesn’t stop my heart.” It stung to hear it in her own words, to know the lengths she had gone to try and get over the man she was so sure was her soulmate. Trying to forget him was like cutting off a piece of herself because he was apart of her. He was always a part of her. “I know that no matter what I try, I will always fall in love with you, again and again.” She wasn’t an expert on the multiverse nor the ever-expanding literary of Earths with different endings, but she did know her own heart. That heart was shared among every incarnation of her, and that heart only yearned for one man. “So, let the universe push us apart. We’re Superheroes, we’re dreams made manifest to show others that they’re not bound by the roles the universe gives them.”
He stood a little straighter, his eyes a little wider and his cheek nuzzling her hand a little more. There wasn’t a hint of doubt in her words, in the power she gave them. “The Universe said that men were not meant to fly, so Superman dawned a cape. The Universe said Gotham was beyond help, so Batman pulled it from the abyss. The Universe said compassion was a weakness, so Wonder Woman used the strength of her heart to pull two conflicting worlds together.” She didn’t know who’s arms pulled first, she just knew that she loved the way his face beamed as the two’s bodies pressed together in a tight and loving embrace. Her arms wrapped around his head, clinging to him like he could slip from her grasp at any second. “If the Universe wishes to say our love is underserved, then we will fight. We will fight the Batman Who Laughs, we will fight anyone who follows and we will fight until you can hold me in your arms again.”
He was quiet for a few seconds more. Starfire almost wanted to ask if he knew her speech had ended and he could talk again, but looking down his expression was simply one of deep thought. “Kori… I… I don’t know what to say.” She loved everything about this man, even the way he was confused. Even now, he was stumped, putting too much thought into what he wanted to say, afraid the wrong word would ruin everything.
“I love you, Richard Grayson. The universe will be torn asunder before it can change that.” Running her fingers through his hair, she felt so desperate, just happy to be able to feel him again. “And whether these be our final nights or dawn of a new era; I want to spend it by your side.”
He needed another minute to think over his response, and she gave him that. She would give him all the time he needed, even if it meant that his answer would only be the last thing she heard before they left for battle. She wanted to go into battle knowing his decision. Finally, he raised his head, a deep sigh preparing him for what he had to say. “If the universe is infinite, then there are infinite possibilities. And then that means it’s definite… That there’s a reality, at least one, where we work out. Where we’re a family.” Family, the word clung to his tongue, made him mutter it again and again. And with each mutter, the word made him more sure, more grounded, better than he’s ever felt. With pride and confidence, Richard Grayson stood up straight, still only reaching Kori’s chin, yet demanding in a booming voice. “Ask.”
“Richard?”
His hand slid up behind her head, fingers pushing through her hair to make sure she looked directly down at him when he commanded her. “Ask me again.”
It took a moment for her to understand what he was asking. And even then, she had to take a nervous breath of her own before she asked it, fearing the answer even now. “Do you love me? Not as someone you will ‘always’ love or who occupies a special place in your heart. Do you love me? In the way that means forever. In a way that we never have to find excuses.”
She had barely finished before his lips were upon hers, before they shared tears of passionate love, before she had instinctively taken off and carried them both into the sky. “These past few months, years maybe, I’ve been trying to regain who I am. Become Nightwing again. I thought Batman, my mentor, could show me the way back. I thought Superman, my inspiration, could enlighten me to some great secret about myself.” He dove in for another kiss, with that goofy smile stuck to his face as he continued. “But then I realized that there was one thing my new memories did show me, all the way back when I first dawned the suit. That there was a third person who brought me out of the abyss and showed me the best parts of myself, who showed me how to become Nightwing.” In that moment, she could see him in all his glory, the man she knew, the man she grew up with, the man she fell madly in love with. “And looking at you, I know that I’ve found the final piece. I’m whole again.” If they were still on the ground, Kori was sure Dick would be kneeling on the sand right now and offering one of his gadgets as a temporary ring replacement. “I can never be Dick Grayson without you, Kori; and that’s as forever as I think you can get.”
“In this life and the next, whatever may come, I will find you.” She would, she really would. Maybe they wouldn’t even know each other in the next reboot, maybe their stories would be entirely different, but she would find him, she would look into his eyes, and then those eyes would take her back in time to love him all over again. “Even if we fail.”
Dick Grayson, back at full strength, could only end this intimate moment with a grin. “I dunno. I’d say our chances are good. I hear Cobblepot’s got a real sharp rock.”
And in return, she too gave a wicked grin. “Just make sure that the Batman knows that, if you don’t survive his little plan, my species has no radioactive rock to protect him from me.”
It was said once that, in a Crisis either of infinite or finite Earths, that love is powerless. But Nightwing found that at the end of it all, love was the only power worth having and it would be love that allows the Justice League to beat the One Who laughs.