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Dick doesn’t remember how the tall, braided woman—Kory’s sister—got here. All he can see are the purple covers Kory’s clenching as her body tosses and sweats in delirium. All he can remember are Gar and Conner’s faces, sheet white, eyes wide with horror, when Kory had collapsed in the living room for no apparent reason. All he knows is that no one on Earth has been diagnosed with Kory’s condition before and at least one of them, in this room, can help save her.
“You said you can help,” he grits out, pinning his gaze on Blackfire for an answer. “Do what you came here for and then leave.”
He’s not heard Kory talk much about Blackfire, but he had eyes. She wasn’t a good person and maybe one day he’d find out why from Kory herself.
His hand closes tighter round Kory’s slippery, cold ones as Blackfire’s gaze returns his intensity.
“I’ve not come all this way to be mocked by an Earthling,” she scoffs. “But Koriand’r is family. I must save my bloodline and reclaim Tamaran.”
Bloodline. Tamaran.
Sometimes Dick wants to pinch himself to process Kory’s more than just his close friend and confidante. His light. She’s also a Princess from far away and he’s fucking privileged to have even known her…experienced her…the way he’d done. With or without her memories he doesn’t doubt Kory is one of a kind. One of the few people he wanted to keep around and maybe forever.
“Dick,” Kory cries out for him, curling up into his side shivering.
He can’t tell if its rage or surprise that’s setting her green eyes ablaze as she looks up at him.
“It’s OK, Kory,” he swallows. “You’re going to be okay soon.”
“Mmmmmmm,” she groans, slipping into her sedated state again. Her body is still shivering, wrecked by whatever is eating her up inside.
“We don’t have much time,” Blackfire announces, gaining his attention. “Fortunately for Koriand’r she’s stronger. Different than many of us. I’ve seen my kind die in under an hour.”
Blackfire never calls Kory ‘sister’, but at least she agrees Kory is powerful. Stronger.
“You said you have the cure for this. Where is it?” Dick reminds her.
“I don’t have it. Not now anyway. The Tamaranean herb concerned can’t survive under Earth conditions.”
“SO YOU FUCKING CAME HERE FOR NOTHING?” He shoots up the bed, his heart thumbing in his ears. And he must have shook Blackfire up because the façade on her falters and shock jumps out; raw and unguarded.
Blackfire cocks an eyebrow at Dick before glancing at Kory, now fast asleep, on the bed.
“I see my sister’s made quite an impression on you,” she says with masked spite, having made the connection of what Dick had with Kory. “Koriand’r is quite the charmer everywhere she goes, Dick Grayson. Not just here.”
“Are you going to help or not?” Dick grinds out, but maybe it’s the jealousy talking against whatever Blackfire was implying about Kory.
Kory hasn’t told him much about her life on Tamaran. For all he knows, maybe she had a whole other Rachel and Gar there. And perhaps he wasn’t the only one either to have said the things he’d said, or done the things he’d done to Kory and that kills him inside. He can't handle the mystery, ironically being a mysterious person himself.
“None of us here trust you!” He stresses, clenching his jaw so hard it hurt. “We don’t trust deserters. We don’t abandon family when they need us the most.”
He can see that his words are breaking Blackfire. Beneath her tough surface, there was a vulnerable person haunted and ruled by guilt just as he’d been as Robin. Only difference was he had refused to cope with the darkness by being the darkness. Instead he’d opened up and let the light in, and in many ways Kory was that light, as was Rachel and Gar.
“I’m sorry,” he admits, but mostly he’s sorry for Kory. “I would’ve preferred to meet under different circumstances, not this. But here we are. We don’t get to choose.”
Blackfire says nothing. Just watches him, then Kory.
Maybe Gar was right. They shouldn’t trust her. Blackfire had hurt Kory once. Why would this time be any different?
“The sun,” Blackfire suddenly comes up.
“The sun?” Dick echoes, not liking the idea but open nonetheless.
“The parasite Tamaran’s enemy bred surely can’t survive in temperatures hotter than Tamaran or any other planet in the Vega system,” Blackfire explained. Her brow wrinkled as she clued in on something. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Of course, what?” Dick pled.
“Koriand’r’s powers are beyond anything Tamaran has seen. If you take her just close enough to the sun, her starfire will combust the parasite completely.”
“But can she handle the heat?” Dick always worried, even though he could understand Kory’s powers to some extent.
“You can have the Kryptonian take her up,” Blackfire offered, meaning Conner. “The heat they can absorb combined could yield better results as well and save Koriand’r.”
Before he knows it, he’s stumbling forward, so taken aback, before he realizes how uncomfortable it makes Kory’s sister.
“Thank you so much!” He settles on that. It’s less awkward than a handshake or, worse, a hug. Sometimes he forgets that other people aren’t like Kory.
Swiftly he goes to her bedside, this time pulling up her covers to her neck.
“This is gonna be over soon, Kory,” he whispers, just between the two of them. “Hang in there for me. For Rachel, Gar and Conner.”
“You should ask her when she wakes up,” Blackfire interrupts. She’s by the door, well on her way out, something between smugness and sadness on her dark, glowing face. “Ask Koriand’r who deserted who between the two of us. Me or her.”
She doesn’t wait for Dick to call back for an answer before she leaves.
What is with Tamaraneans and secrecy? When Kory returns to him, he hopes to find out.