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“Dick, I know you’re awake.”
Her voice is a soft caress against his ear, her lips brushing against the shell as the words leave her mouth. He smiles, not daring to open his eyes as he burrows further into the pillow. He’s laying on his front, hands bunched up under the pillow and he can feel the heat of Kory against his bare back.
Then he feels the brush of her fingers running along the length of his spine, a gentle movement that makes him shiver pleasantly and screws his eyes shut.
Just another minute, he thinks to himself, just another sixty seconds of this bliss.
Kory is getting impatient though and Dick feels her lips soon replacing her fingers on his skin, a smatter of butterfly kisses planted across the plane of his shoulder blade, “Dick.” She calls to him softly, tenderly, her lips never moving more than an inch away from his skin.
He lets out a hum of protest, of recognition, of surrender. He tries to ignore the dark thing tugging at the back of his mind that tells him this isn’t right because Kory never wakes up before him.
She places another kiss against his shoulder, her hair tumbling down to brush across his skin, soft and cool and too damn good to resist.
Dick opens his eyes, the sunlight filtering in through the window and casting the room in a warm orange glow, too perfect to be real. Too natural to be his.
He rolls quickly, a flash of movement and a tangle of bedsheets until he’s over her, flipping them until Kory’s back is pressed against the mattress and he can finally see her.
She’s beautiful in the mornings, she’s beautiful always but especially in these quiet hours where it’s just the two of them. She’s beaming up at him and Dick suddenly forgets how to breathe, he forgets how to think, he forgets anything and everything that isn’t her body pressing against his.
“Don’t tempt me, Princess.” He warns her when Kory hooks a leg around his waist, pressing the heel of her foot against his ass, “You know I’m not strong enough to resist you.”
And he isn’t. He really isn’t.
Kory smiles in triumph at his confession, a Queen who knows exactly the power she wields. Her hands snake up to his shoulders, nails trailing down his chest and Dick shudders at the feeling.
She’s wearing his shirt, soft and grey. The same shirt her eager hands took off him last night. He shifts his weight so he can snake a hand under the hem, find the smooth skin hiding beneath.
“So, stop resisting.” She challenges him, a sparkle of danger in her eyes that goes straight to his chest.
A simple request. One he is eager to follow but there’s still that dark thing in his mind that won’t let him do it, that forces him to question how they got here, how much of this is real.
Dick shakes his head to try and clear his mind. There is no room for a war in their bed, not when Kory is looking at him like that. Not when he can feel the heat of her skin and watch the hitch of her breath when he ducks his head to kiss her.
Stop resisting.
He leans down further, a brush of his nose against hers as Kory stretches up. The ghost of her lips against his, the flash of her body pressing against his own.
Stop resisting.
Stop resisting.
Stop resisting.
He wakes up before he can even remember what her kiss feels like, opening his eyes to the dark ceiling in his bedroom in San Francisco. A phantom pain in his neck from a bullet that’s no longer there tugs at him and Dick brings a hand up to brush his fingers over the smooth skin.
Kory isn’t here.
Because Kory isn’t his.
But it’s been weeks and these dreams still won’t leave him. They won’t let him go, they won’t let him forget.
Because he only ever as two types of dreams now. When Dick Grayson dreams, he dreams of a little girl.
Or if not a little girl, then he dreams of her.
Honestly, he can’t decide which one is worse torture. The dreams of a future, of fatherhood, of promise and possibility or the dreams of Kory. The dreams that are so close he can almost taste them, like a rich dark chocolate and the sweet undercurrent of strawberries. The dreams where he can smell the scent of her perfume, feel the warmth of her skin under his fingertips and hear the breathy laugh from her lips even after he’s awake.
He feels like he deserves neither of them. Not the dreams of a little girl who calls him ‘daddy’ and looks so happy to see him. Not the dreams where Kory smiles at him like he’s worth something and her smile lights up his whole damn sky. But he hoards them anyway, treasures them and revisits them as often as he can.
These dreams are his anchor, his strength, his guidance. These dreams are so much more than fleeting scraps of his subconscious desire (although Dick is sure now that they are that too), they are as acute as a stab wound, an insistent as a war cry. They are a call to arms to do better, be better, fight harder.
The pit didn’t just give him life or clarity. It gave him everything already standing in front of him. Everything he pushed away or ignored because he didn’t know how to reach for it, for her. He didn’t know how to ever be enough for her.
But the first step is to try. He knows that as well now.
Yet, he still hasn’t told Kory about that little girl in his dreams that looks just like her with eyes that shine the same colour as his own.
He isn’t sure he has the words to describe something so perfect, so precious, and do it justice.
A child. Their daughter. He can’t even fathom it. Dick knows Kory is special to him, that’s why he ran from her. That’s why he kept her at a distance. But a connection like this isn’t something he could predict.
Yet, now he’s seen it, he can’t let it go either.
He finds himself looking at her these days when she is busy with something else and can’t see him doing it. This woman he never deserved, this Goddess who has always been so understanding and patient and forgiving with him.
The mother of his child.
It makes him nervous. She makes him nervous. Because Dick knows he’s already half in love with her, he knows how deeply and utterly he could fall if he let himself. No control, no safety net, no escape plan.
He knows Kory Anders has the power to destroy him.
And that’s fucking terrifying because it means being vulnerable. It means being open. It means being raw and exposed and openly admitting there is something in this world that he can’t stand to lose.
Dick isn’t sure how to do that. He isn’t sure how to be that selfish or that good or that brave.
But there’s a little girl in his mind that looks like her and his heart betrays him every time she walks into the damn room. He might as well wave a white flag around and throw it at her feet. It’s her, it’s always been her and he doesn’t know when it happened. He doesn’t know what decided it. All he knows is he can’t change it.
And now the pit has given him something far more dangerous than his life. It gave him hope. It gave him the image of a little girl that belongs to them, a tease of a future where they… what?
He doesn’t know anything about their future. A child doesn’t mean happily ever after. A child doesn’t mean they’re together. A child doesn’t mean he is worthy of her.
That’s why he hasn’t told Kory. He doesn’t know how to offer her this small precious thing that brought him back to life when he doesn’t have any answers to the questions he knows she’ll ask.
He doesn’t know what might become of them, he just knows their little girl is beautiful and he felt something when he saw her. A rush of warmth, like a warm patch of carpet that’s been in direct sunlight for hours. He knows he loves a little girl he saw for a moment, a little girl that doesn’t actually exist but called him ‘daddy’ and smiled like he was her hero.
Dick scrubs a hand over his face, his thoughts a churning wave threatening to cast him down into the abyss if he lets them. It’s been weeks, he knows how this works now. So, he shoves them down, buries them under thoughts of breakfast and training plans and grocery lists.
In short, he locks them away so he can function.
He drags himself from his bed and ignores the coolness hitting his skin where Kory’s fingers were in his dream. He’ll make breakfast for his family and hand her a coffee when she shuffles into the kitchen. He already knows their fingers will brush when she takes the mug he offers her and he knows he’ll have to pretend he didn’t dream about her body pressed against his or that their daughter’s hair has a teasing hint of purple in it just like hers.
And maybe, one day, that will be enough for him.
Maybe he’ll be able to let the rest go and forget about the daughter he doesn’t know the name of and that there is a way for him and Kory to work things out between them.
But Dick knows that day won’t come anytime soon, not when those dreams don’t just stay in the quiet dark of his bedroom. They filter into his day as well, catching him by surprise and forcing him to try and remember the facts of the life he is living, not the life he so desperately wants.
/
It started on the road, that first night after they left Gotham behind them. He saw that little girl standing in the woods offering him a balloon and a smile. He woke with a start and realised Kory was shaking him awake because it was his turn to take over the driving. Dick practically jumped out of his skin at having her so close and refused to look behind him when he settled himself into the driver’s seat as Kory crawled into the space he just left, curling up under the warmth of the covers to get some sleep before morning.
At first, Dick thought the pit was driving him mad. He assumed this was a side effect, but he never dreamt about his father or Jason or being dressed like The Joker.
He only ever dreamed of that little girl.
The dreams of Kory soon followed.
That’s when he realised it wasn’t the pit driving him mad. He was doing that all on his own. Because he was yearning for a life he didn’t deserve, looking forward to dreams of a daughter that didn’t exist.
Because in his dreams, him and Kory are together.
It’s fucked up and he knows it. He has no right to long for it when he’s made no move towards her. But in his dreams, he doesn’t have to worry about messing it up, not being enough, not being worthy. He doesn’t have to deal with the anxiety and the fear and the baggage that he has when he’s awake and maybe that makes him a coward, but it also protects her.
Or so he thought.
That was until those dreams took over his subconscious and started screaming at him to pay attention.
He sees that little girl everywhere now, lingering in the background of his vision at the worst times like an insistent reminder that he’s living a lie. Pretending this partnership with Kory is enough when in reality he could never look at her without his want burrowing through tissue and bone until it fuses with his DNA.
Dick is sure there isn’t a single world in existence where Kory Anders isn’t lodged into his soul somewhere. A charred mark, still warm to the touch, that screams of possession.
So, maybe he shouldn’t be that surprised during movie night in the tower when he looks over at Kory and sees their little girl in her lap – a vision that isn’t real – or when he’s on the phone to Donna and has to pause because he could have sworn he heard a little voice calling for him.
“Hi Daddy.”
In short, Dick Grayson is losing his damn mind and he doesn’t want it to stop. He doesn’t want it to go away because he doesn’t want to lose the visions of that little girl, the daydreams of Kory where she’s happy with him.
It’s as close to happiness as he can get in reality and if that makes him crazy then find him a cell in Arkham next to Crane because he’d gladly go mad for the peace of hearing their daughter’s laugh.
/
They go to a carnival together, all of them, as a family. It’s Gar’s idea and Dick protests because in his mind all he can think about is Cadmus and what happened the last time they were at a carnival.
It takes him a while to understand his fears are the same reason for Gar’s motive. He wants to rewrite a sad memory with a happy one, replace the feeling of terror and anxiety with safety and home.
So, Dick drives them to the carnival and lets them all split off into groups to go exploring. Rachel and Tim head in one direction while Gar and Conner head in another.
Kory stays with him, wandering through the maze of stalls and rides at his side and Dick has to shove his hands into his pocket so he isn’t tempted to reach for her fingers. There are barely inches between them, her shoulder brushes against his as they weave around the crowds of people, and yet there’s an ocean he can’t seem to cross.
If Kory notices it, she doesn’t say anything.
“We should discover our future.” Kory tells him, her words making his blood freeze in his veins.
Dick looks over at her with wide eyes, “What?”
She can’t know, he hasn’t told her about the pit. He hasn’t told anyone. Dick swallows drily, scrambling around for an answer, an explanation, something.
Kory nods to a stall up head, “Fortune Teller.” She explains with a smile, her eyes sparkling when she locks her gaze onto him, “Could be fun.”
Dick feels like he’s having a heart attack, trying to force his heart to slow down before she notices. Fortune Teller. Of course. Not a dream daughter, not a future they might one day share. A harmless bit of fun to pass the time while the kids explore.
He’s meant to be relieved, he knows, doesn’t want her to have to share this burden with him of a future he isn’t sure will ever exist and yet, his heart feels like it’s breaking because for a moment, just a moment, Dick thought she might have been talking about the same thing as him. Dreams of a little girl with her smile and his ears.
But that would be impossible.
He shoves his hurt aside, ploughs on with an easy smile as if he isn’t walking on the equivalent of broken glass right now, “You want to be told you’ll meet a handsome stranger at the stroke of midnight?”
Kory’s smile grows as they walk past the Fortune Teller’s tent and keep on walking, “Something tells me I won’t get anything more specific.”
“Well, it’s probably hard to read the future of an alien princess with a recent power upgrade.” He retorts, retreating into a banter that hides everything else he’s feeling. Teasing is safe, it’s solid ground he knows how to tread.
She nods, biting her lip, “What about you? Your future?”
And just like that, he’s off solid ground and back to treading water.
You, he wants to tell her, whatever it is includes you.
But he doesn’t say it, he knows that’s not the answer she’s looking for, “Not getting shot again for a while would be nice.” He muses softly, “And some hot water for a shower tomorrow after the kids have finished fighting over it.”
“I blame Gar, he likes to have shower concerts.” Kory replies, “You know I actually caught him singing along to Defying Gravity in there the other day?”
He beams at her then, wide and unexpected because he can believe it and he’s more than a little sorry to have missed that rendition, “Kid turns into a bat and suddenly it’s all about flying.”
Kory’s laughter is like a balm to his soul, igniting a warmth inside him that blooms across his skin. She’s happy, and he did that. There was a time in Gotham when he wondered if they’d ever have this again, a time he was drowning and pushing her away and letting her down.
But not anymore, not here.
He follows in her wake as she drifts over to another stall, lured by the explosion of colour no doubt. Kory loves colour, the vivid pop of purple or pink. The solid black that looks far bolder on her than on anyone else.
Dick stands back and watches her talk to the stall owner, watching the smile on her face and the way she lights up at the conversation. Kory loves Earth, he knows, she loves the ease of things here that aren’t restricted because of a royal status or expectations placed on her. She’s simply free and he basks in it along with her, enjoying her enjoying herself.
When she makes her way back over to him, ripping him from thoughts of a future where they share a bed as well as a home, he blanches. The colour from his face leeches out of his skin and his eyes zero in one the balloon in her hand.
Kory offers it to him with a smile, the thin white string dangling between her fingers.
It’s a red balloon.
A fucking red balloon.
He takes it numbly between his own fingers, too stunned to speak, his mind too wild with a million images of a little girl handing him an almost identical red balloon in the woods.
The balloon is practically weightless in his hand, bobbing up and down in the breeze yet Dick feels like she’s just handed him an anchor and shoved him overboard. She has no idea what a simple balloon means to him now, no idea that it’s the symbol to everything. The start and the end of them, their future, their life.
Dick’s knuckles go white as he clutches that balloon in his fist, as if he might be able to cling onto the memory of his little girl and will her into existence from this one small thing alone.
She handed him a balloon.
“Dick?” Kory asks, noticing the look on his face like he’s trying to work out a complex equation in the span of a few seconds. Maybe he is, maybe that’s what this is with her. A complex equation, delicately balanced, lovingly constructed.
He’s never been much of a mathematician, but he knows how to read a sign pretty well.
Standing up straighter, he offers her a smile, “Come here, grab hold of the balloon.” He tells her softly, holding out his hand so the balloon bobs above them.
Kory frowns in confusion but steps closer to him, into the circle of his arms and Dick moves her so her back is against his chest, lightly caging her in so he can hold the balloon in front of them both.
Her fingers wrap around the string just under his own, “What are we doing?”
A simple question without a simple answer. He isn’t sure but this feels like something, and he doesn’t think he can let it go, doesn’t think he can let this moment slip by when all he can think about is a daughter he wants desperately to know the name of and a life he desperately wants a chance to have.
“We’re making a wish.” He tells her, “For the future. Who needs a Fortune Teller anyway?”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works.” She points out but doesn’t let go of the balloon.
Dick lets his eyes flutter closed, takes stock of his wildly beating heart and sees a flash of warm brown eyes in his mind, “Why not? Maybe it works if we believe it will.”
Kory seems to let him win this one, moving her fingers up until Dick can feel the press of her hand against his own, “Okay, make it a good wish, Grayson.”
He intends to.
“On three, we let go.” He tells her, “1… 2… 3.”
He wishes for her, for a chance of a future, a chance to get to know the daughter they could have. He wishes for a chance to prove he can be good for her, worthy of her, enough for her.
Just a chance, he wishes for that.
They release the balloon together, letting the string trail through their fingers as it floats towards the sky and Dick watches it go, the red growing dimmer and smaller as the wind carries it away.
Kory is still standing with him, he can smell the scent of her shampoo and feel the heat of her near him as she watches that balloon, their future rising through the sky. He desperately wants to ask what she wished for, wants to know if he registered in her wish at all but there’s a part of him too scared to ask.
Eventually she steps out of his arms, seeming to realise the position they’re in and how it might look to the kids if they saw them but the smile she offers him suggests its not a retreat, just not the right time to toe the line. The spark in her luminous green eyes makes him think that maybe, just maybe, she was wishing for something similar to him.
The chance. The possibility.
Maybe now, after Gotham and Jason and Blackfire, they are finally both ready to be open to the possibilities.
Suddenly, the red balloon floating somewhere in the atmosphere above their heads doesn’t just feel like a vain wish in an unforgiving universe. It feels like a first step, the thaw of ice after a long winter. The extinguishing of the last flames blazing through a forest fire.
Possibilities, Dick is realising, are almost as dangerous as hope.
/
“Daddy, I can’t!” The little girl at the kitchen table protests as she shoves her workbook away.
Dick is standing in the doorway, a little confused at the scene before him but the tug in his heart seems to guide him anyway.
He pushes himself off the doorframe and makes his way over to her. This little girl. His little girl.
She still has her space buns on either side of her head but today she’s wearing dungarees and a warm jumper underneath, clutching a pencil in her hand as she scowls at the workbook in front of her with such distain he wants to laugh.
He knows that look; Kory gives him that look.
He remembers when he got shot in Gotham, Kory patching him up with a look of disgust at his antics as she yelled at him for going off on his own. Apparently, their daughter is learning from the best.
“You can’t what, sweetheart?” He asks softly, pulling out the chair next to her as he takes a seat. The nickname rolls off his tongue and not for the first time he remembers that he doesn’t know her name. He doesn’t know what they name her.
She’s still glaring daggers at the book in front of her, “I’m not good at math.”
Dick spares a glance at the workbook, her homework and pulls it towards him trying to work out what grade she is, how old she is in this dream. Six, maybe. Seven? The sums are simple enough and he plucks the pencil out of her hand with a flourish.
“Well, then.” Dick sighs, pushing his chair up against hers, “I guess we’ll just have to figure it out together.”
That seems to be the right answer because his daughter beams at him, flooring him with just how beautiful she is. So much like her mother.
“Okay, where shall we start?” He asks before he can scoop her up in a hug because he wants to know she’s real (she isn’t and he’s more than a little scared to touch her in case she disappears).
The little girl blinks at him, “Question one.”
Oh, she’s sassy, his little girl. Dick bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing and manages a serious nod, “Good strategy.” He notes as he drops his eyes back to the workbook.
He could have this, he thinks to himself. They could have this. Homework and a sassy daughter and a future.
“Did our little Princess rope you into homework already, Grayson?” His heart stops at the sound of her voice and when he looks up Kory is standing there smiling at him looking exactly how he knows her. Soft curls, killer outfit, bright smile.
Dick smiles softly, “It’s math, Kory. No one likes math.”
Kory raises an eyebrow at him before smiling over at their daughter, “Mar’i Grayson, you have your daddy wrapped around your little finger.”
Dick freezes in his seat.
Mar’i Grayson. Mar-ee. As in his mother? As in Tamaran? A combination of them both.
His little girl. Mar’i.
When Dick manages to focus on the scene before him again, it changes. They aren’t in the kitchen at the table. They aren’t the picture of domesticity.
They are in the woods, Kory is gone and Mar’i is standing in front of him in a version of the Robin suit.
Dick Grayson’s world cracks down the middle and splits open. This is no longer a dream but a nightmare.
When he looks down at himself, he sees he’s in his Robin costume as well. Two matching Robins in a nest of horrors.
Not her, he wants to scream, not this.
Mar’i is watching him from beneath her mask, the yellow lining of her cape fluttering in the breeze behind her. She’s his baby and she’s dressed like she’s ready for war.
Dick is moving in an instant, ignoring the way his heart leaps out of his chest, how he knows none of this is real. All he can think about is getting Mar’i away from this life, away from the darkness that encroached into his soul the second he put on this suit.
Not this. He never wanted this for her.
This can’t be where their future leads. He refuses to accept that. He refuses to even entertain that idea.
He is better than this now.
He isn’t the boy who forged Robin from pain.
He kneels down in front of her in the mud, feeling the muted impact in his knees from the pads in his suit but Dick doesn’t care about that. Already his fingers are reaching for the mask on her face, brushing against her cheeks to lift it away.
Mar’i is still, watching him with his own eyes. The colour of cinnamon and coffee, deep pools of innocence that swim with trust. Because she trusts him, loves him. He’s her father and she’s wearing a Robin suit and Dick can’t help but think he failed her before he even got to know her.
He removes the mask from her face and throws it into the dirt to the side, forgetting it as soon as it’s out of his hand. Mar’i smiles at him softly, her face revealed to him is more of a relief than he can comprehend and suddenly he wonders whether Bruce ever had a moment like this, looking at Dick as Robin and feeling like he failed him the second he turned him into a weapon.
“I never want this for you.” Dick tells her gently, his large hands on her shoulders. She seems so small and fragile to him, his hands too large on the bulk of the suit, “I want so much more.”
Things he doesn’t have words for. Things that are good and beautiful and bright. He doesn’t want her to endure any ounce of pain, any shade of darkness. He wants to protect her from it all, everything that wishes to harm her. He hopes he does, in the future, hopes Mar’i is right to place so much trust in him.
Her little fingers reach for his face then, warm against his cheeks as she pulls off his own mask. Dick didn’t even realise he was wearing it until he feels Mar’i slipping it away from his eyes and the bridge of his nose.
Dick lets her do it, leaning back as the mask stays in her hands. She stares down at it for a moment and Dick can’t read what she’s thinking, doesn’t know how much she knows, doesn’t know if any of this matters in a dream.
She drops his mask to the ground, a gentler action then he did with hers and Dick watches it fall. Watches it upturned in the mud by their feet as if lost in a battle, abandoned in the heat of the fight.
Dick thinks his fight is over.
It’s been over for a long time.
He focuses his gaze back on Mar’i, letting his hands slip down from her shoulders until he finds her hands to hold in his own.
“It’s okay, daddy.” She tells him with a bright smile, “We won’t let you fall.”
The dream disappears before he can ask her what she means, the walls of his bedroom the only comfort waiting for him when he wakes up alone.
/
He doesn’t go back to sleep after that. How can he? When every time he closes his eyes he sees Mar’i in a robin suit and imagines it stained with blood.
It’s okay, daddy. We won’t let you fall.
Except he’s already falling, and he doesn’t know how to stop, how to do anything other than brace for the impact when he hits the ground.
So, he gets up and tries to push the thoughts of failing a little girl that isn’t even here yet out of his mind.
He wishes he told Donna about what he saw in the pit, about the little girl who looks just like Kory. He wishes he were brave enough to call her now and tell her everything, trust Donna to guide him home like a lighthouse at sea.
But he doesn’t call Donna, doesn’t even glance at his phone when he leaves the bedroom because he doesn’t know how to put it into words. Everything he wants, everything he doesn’t. It’s all too big and imposing, like shouts at a rally in his head.
He doesn’t think even Donna would be able to help him with that.
But as it turns out, he isn’t alone with his storm of thoughts for long.
He finds Kory in the living room, a glass of scotch in her hands and a haunted look on her face. A nightmare if he had to guess. Apparently, they are both plague by thoughts that won’t leave them alone and that feel too big to confide to each other.
Dick hates it.
He watches Kory take another gulp from her glass, big and desperate like she’s hoping the amber liquid provides some kind of miracle cure that will help her erase everything dark and haunting from her head.
Dick knows alcohol never works that way and he can’t bear to watch her self-destruct in the middle of the living room with nothing but a glass of scotch for company. She doesn’t have to talk to him, but he’s done letting her go through her problems alone.
He makes a beeline for the radio they keep on the shelf and if Kory spots him, she doesn’t react as Dick turns it on, flicking over to a station that’s playing music at this hour and turns up the volume until the silence between them is chased away by the soft sounds crackling over the radio. A guitar, he realises although he doesn’t know the song. It’s slow and sweet though, reminding him of summer and sunshine which also makes him think of Kory.
Her eyes meet his when he turns back to her, making his way across the room so he can take the glass out of her hand. She doesn’t fight him when his fingers brush hers and she gives up the glass to him, watching as he puts it down on the counter instead.
They still haven’t said anything and Dick wonders whether he should be the one to break the silence. Whether he even needs to. Him and Kory don’t always need words, they thrive just as well without them. He thinks about it often, the ease of them to just be able to look at each other and read whatever is lurking in the depths of their eyes. The way they came together after the asylum with actions rather than words, yet he could still read every fear from her in her touch. He could understand every need through the feel of her lips against his.
They’ve never really need words, he realises, but he can’t help but want them anyway. He wants everything with her.
Kory’s green eyes watch him curiously, her fingers playing with the hem of her silky purple sleep shorts and Dick offers her a half-smile, a gentle tug at the corner of his mouth as he stretches out his palm to her instead.
She eyes it carefully although Dick already knows she understands his intentions. She could read them in his eyes as easily as he can read the apprehension in hers.
“Come on, Princess.” He tells her roughly, “Neither one of us should be standing on the edge tonight.”
Her face flashes with something too quick for him to register but Kory places her hand in his and lets him guide her to her feet, moving them away from the couch and into the empty space before it so he can pull her into his arms.
They’ve never danced before. That’s his only thought as he settles his free hand on the small of her back and gently starts swaying with her with each shuffle of his feet. Kory goes along with it, letting him chase away whatever lingered from her nightmare. He wants to ask, he wants to know but he holds his tongue, not sure whether he has any right to.
Gotham changed a lot of things, maybe it even changed them. He’s been too scared to test the theory, too busy trying not to freak out every time he looks at her and sees a little girl they might one day make together.
Kory’s fingers are warm as they curl around his, her hand on his shoulder a steady comfort. They aren’t in time with the music, Dick is barely paying attention to it as her forest green eyes distract him, but he keeps them moving in slow circles, keeps her anchored to him with his palm pressing against her back, the feel of silk against his rough fingers.
“What are we doing?” Kory asks softly, making no move to extract herself from him.
“It’s called dancing.” Dick replies cheekily, “You know what we’re doing.”
“I meant why are we doing it?”
Several different answers appear in his mind at once. Because he can’t stand the haunted look in her eyes. Because every time she looks so distant and withdrawn, she scares the crap out of him. Because one day he worries he won’t be able to reach her, that she’ll slip through his fingers like he’s trying to catch smoke and he’ll lose her.
He doesn’t tell her any of that though, the weight of those words crushing against his chest.
He settles on a safer answer, “Because maybe if we keep moving, the things we’re avoiding won’t be able to catch up to us.”
Kory tilts her head to the side as if she’s trying to see into the hidden parts of his soul, into the depths of things he barely understands in himself, “Is it working?”
He thinks about the way she can make him feel, burning up and freezing cold in the same second. The way his heart seems to be ruled by her rather than himself. The way he dreams of a daughter and a life with her. The way she has a hold over him that he can’t seem to break away from.
“No.” Dick admits, no longer talking about nightmares, “I don’t think it is.”
Because he doesn’t think he knows how to stay away from her, he doesn’t know how to keep a distance when all he wants is more. More of her. More of this. More of everything.
Kory nods like she understands, “That sounds like a problem, Grayson.”
His heart stutters in his chest. It is a problem; he just doesn’t know if there’s a fix or if he even wants one.
“I know why I’m awake.” Kory tells him, steering them back to safer ground, “Why are you?”
He can’t tell her about the dreams, about Mar’i or the fact he thinks he might become a terrible father. He doesn’t want to put that one her, doesn’t want her to feel like this thing between them is pre-destined or some other fucked up grand plan. He wants her to want it, to want him.
“Self-destructing.” He shrugs, hoping she’ll read enough between the lines of his words not to push further.
Kory squeezes his fingers, “We should start a club.”
“We’d need tequila for that.”
A flash of a smile appears on her face and Dick feels a surge of pride in his chest at putting it there even when they are both drowning in darkness, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“More than you know.” He admits, “I just… I don’t know how.”
“Then let’s make a deal.” She offers, “Until we can talk about it, we can just do this. Keep each other away from the edge.”
Dick squeezes her fingers this time, “I’m going to need to brush off my dance moves then.”
Her smile turns into a grin, and he sees the light return to her eyes, a spark of fire that wasn’t there before, “I expect to be impressed.”
It’s weird, that he can feel this calm with her despite them not actually getting to the bottom of either of their problems. He didn’t tell her about his dreams, and he has no idea what Kory’s nightmares are about and yet, he feels like this small token of comfort was like crossing an ocean that Gotham placed between them.
But he can’t bear to let her go just yet either and when they fall into silence again, he keeps dancing, keeps moving. Kory doesn’t protest either and when she gets tired, she simply drops her head onto his shoulder and lets him guide her.
And it’s enough. It’s more than enough.
It’s okay, daddy. We won’t let you fall.
Of course not, he thinks to himself, Kory manages to save him without even trying. Without even knowing she’s doing it. It’s some kind of magic she had over him that he’s never been able to figure out.
The edge gets further away with every step closer to her he gets and without that looming presence of failure, Dick thinks he might be able to do this after all. Be enough for her, be good enough and worthy enough and brave enough to take this leap.
He wants to try.
For her. With her. Because of her.
/
The next time he dreams of their daughter, she isn’t dressed as Robin anymore.
Dick finds himself standing in the doorway of a bedroom he doesn’t recognise. The walls are a light shade of purple, dozens of hand drawn pictures tacked to the walls filled with colourful paint created by a child.
He finds them immediately, his eyes only caring about the two occupants of this room that appear to be waiting for him to join them. Kory has her back against the headboard of the small single bed, packed in tight against the wall to take up as little space as possible. His heart stops at the sight of Mar’i next to her, sitting cross-legged on the mattress with a smile aimed at him.
“Daddy!” She calls out, springing into action to run over to him at full speed.
Dick barely has time to release a breath before the little girl is in his arms and he is hoisting her up onto his hip with a smile that takes over his entire face.
Mar’i loops her arms around his neck with glee and it’s only then Dick takes in her outfit. Not pyjamas as he originally thought but a costume made of gold and red. A costume he would know anywhere.
The Flying Graysons.
He swallows the lump in his throat as he takes her back over to Kory and gently sets her on the bed because he’s worried he’ll drop her if he keeps holding onto her.
Mar’i doesn’t seem to mind, curling back into Kory’s shoulder as she pulls up the covers over their little girl. Dick perches on the edge of the mattress, his eyes catching the certificate pinned to the wall by her bed, a gold medal stuck next to it on display.
Mar’i Grayson
1st Place Gymnastics.
Under 10s.
Their daughter is a gymnast. Dick feels the air whoosh from his lungs. Another Flying Grayson. There’s too much rising inside of him in that moment, the room too small, Mar’i and Kory both looking at him too intensely.
A gymnast. Just like him. Just like his parents.
Dick closes his eyes briefly and he sees nothing but a circus tent and a long fall. He snaps them back open and sees Mar’i watching him expectantly. He isn’t sure what he’s meant to do here, isn’t sure what the routine of her life is even in his dream.
“Are you going to start the story, daddy?” She asks, filling in the blanks in his mind as if she knew he needed the guidance.
Story. Bedtime. He tells her stories every night. Of course he does, he tells stories to Rachel and Gar sometimes if they can’t sleep because of nightmares plaguing them. It’s obvious he’d continue the tradition with Mar’i.
“What story would you like to hear tonight?” He asks, expecting her to give him a book or at least a title.
Apparently, that’s not the kind of story he tells their daughter though, “The one about your parents. It’s my second favourite.”
“What’s your favourite?” Dick asks, trying to stall long enough to wrap his head around the fact he can openly talk about his parents here. He doesn’t bury them deep inside himself and refuse to dwell on them as something he lost. Mar’i know about them, she wants to learn more.
She gives him a smile that looks too much like Kory to be anything but incredible, “The one about you and mommy.”
His heart stalls in his chest and he catches the twinkle in Kory’s eyes, the way she’s trying to hold back her smile.
Dick Grayson, the storyteller. That’s new. He gives everything he can to Mar’i in this life, he realises, always open and honest. He already knows without having to see it that he’ll try and answer any question she has with as much honesty as he can give.
“The Flying Graysons it is.” Dick tells her, settling onto the mattress so Mar’i is sandwiched between him and Kory and he’s half hanging off the edge of the small bed. He starts from the beginning, throwing out anything he can remember from the happy time with his parents and Mar’i places her little hand on his chest, still snuggled into Kory and he feels… whole.
He wants this. This life where he can give all these parts of himself to the people he loves, a life with Kory and Mar’i and a future. One where he can talk about his parents, about his feelings and his past and realise that while those things are part of him they aren’t the weight holding him down like he always thought they were.
He just needs to figure out how to get there, needs to figure out if Kory even wants to get there with him. She could have anyone, and he has kept her waiting for far too long.
Mar’i falls asleep halfway through his story, which in reality is just a rambling mess of memories that bleed into each other, and it warms his heart that Kory makes no attempt to move just yet.
“Keep going.” She tells him softly, as if she understands the importance of him sharing this and wants him to get it all out.
He does. He talks and talks until his mouth goes dry and he can’t recall a memory he hasn’t shared with her. He talks until it’s far too late and his eyes feel too heavy and when the words run out Kory stealthily climbs over him and Mar’i and reaches for his hand to help him stand as well.
They tuck their daughter in together, soft forehead kisses and another few minutes fussing around with the covers so she doesn’t get cold.
Kory doesn’t release his hand for even a second and Dick realises he was never in any danger of falling off the edge with her by his side.
/
“Were you going to stay in Gotham?” Kory asks him suddenly the next day as she fiddles around in the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee, “With Barbara. Would you have stayed if she asked?”
They are the only two awake right now and Dick stares at her like a hole has just opened up in the earth between them.
He dreamt of their daughter last night and she’s asking him about Barbara? He sets his coffee mug down on the breakfast island in front of him and watches as Kory attempts to busy herself with her own cup. He wonders if she’s trying to hide her reaction, wonders if she regrets asking, if she even intended to.
“She did ask.” He admits with a sigh, dropping his head down to stare at the remains of coffee in his mug, “So did I.”
Kory looks at him sharply then, “You wanted her to come here?”
He shakes his head, “No, I asked for the same reason she did. To prove we were never going to make it work. We were never going to have any kind of future, just a past.”
“I don’t understand.”
Dick looks up at her, reading the conflicting emotions in her gaze, “I would never have given up the life I have now, the people I have now to stay with her. She would never have given up her life or her career to stay with me.” He explains, “We were kids when we dated, we didn’t have to deal with the adult decisions that come with a relationship. We were rebelling against our parents; personal growth was the last thing on either on our minds.”
Kory settles herself on the opposite side of the counter to him, fiddling with the mug in her hands as steam rises off the top, “You loved her once.”
“That doesn’t mean it was meant to last.” He admits, “I loved her the way everyone loves their first love. It was innocent and naïve but I’m a different person now. Barbara, I think she wanted me to still be the same guy she knew. I’m done trying to be someone I’m not.”
Kory nods, “So you weren’t going to stay?”
“Not even for a second. My future has never been in Gotham. It’s right here with you… with the Titans.” He replies gently, pushing thoughts of Mar’i out of his head because he doesn’t think now is the time for them.
Even before the pit, before the visions, before the idea of a daughter with her was ingrained in his mind like a tattoo, Dick has always known his future was with Kory. He knew from that first night they spend together, maybe even before then. The moment he met her was different, it struck him like a clock striking midnight to mark a new hour, a new day.
Yes, she’s always been special to him. Not because of Mar’i but because of she’s Kory. Because Kory is light and beautiful and nothing he could have prepared for yet everything he could ever hope to have.
Kory might not be made for him. She’s an alien princess, a Queen, and Dick doesn’t think for even a second that she was meant to be his.
But he was made for her. He’s sure of that now. His heart beats for her, his soul – as tarnished and battered as it may be – rallies when she makes him rise to the occasion with a challenge to do better, to be better.
But he can’t tell her any of that when there is so much between them lately that has been left unsaid.
Kory is still watching him with a gaze so beautiful and intense she could rival the sun. Helen of Troy might have been the face that launched a thousand ships, but she had nothing on Kory Anders. Dick feels himself warming under the heat and weight of that gaze.
He’s talking before he can think it through, yearning to give her something, to make her feel an ounce of the things he does in her presence.
“Do you want to know why I could never stay with her?” Dick asks softly, dropping his eyes to the counter, “Because I’ve never been prepared to kill for Barbara. Not like I have with you.”
He hears her sharp intake of breath and when he finds the courage to lift his eyes to meet her stare again Kory’s face is a mask, a cloud of too many emotions to decipher. She’s fiddling with the gold ring on her finger and suddenly, Dick thinks he might have crossed a line they don’t acknowledge is there. Like he bulldozed a wall that got put up between them in Gotham.
He feels euphoric to have done it, Kory looks like she wants to run.
“Dick, the asylum was a long time ago and we were…”
He cuts her off because he is starting to understand where her mind is going and he can’t let her fall down that rabbit hole, “You think that’s the only time? God, Kory, the thought of you hurting? In danger?” He shakes his head at the mental picture it creates in his mind, “I know that you can handle yourself but there’s still something inside of me that can’t accept the idea of you getting hurt.”
He’s very aware that he’s bearing his soul to her now, unexpectedly, and so intensely raw he’s starting to wonder where he found the courage to do it. This is not what he does. He runs, he hides, he pretends.
Apparently, a vision of a little girl and a possibility is enough to make him bolder with her.
Kory bites her lip gently, pushing back ever so slightly, “Deathstroke.”
“Signed his death warrant the minute he made you bleed. If Rose hadn’t done it then I would have.” His voice is firm, accepting, resigned. He’d kill for her, he knows it and now she does as well.
It hangs in the air between them. An offering, an invitation, a challenge.
Kory meets it, never one to be on the back foot, “When else?”
He could back down now, he could steer them away from this subject and keep his darkness to himself. Or he could push a little further, give her something of himself he hasn’t before. He doesn’t know how to tell her about Mar’i, doesn’t know how to explain his vision when the distance between them is too great but maybe if he can reduce it he stands a chance of getting there with her one day.
“In Trigon’s vision,” Dick replies, making his decision in a second, “His attempt to turn me dark? It worked because Bruce killed you while I watched. That’s what broke me, Kory. You. I killed him for it because it’s always going to be you. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
Her hand twitches like she wants to reach out and touch him but she holds firm, her shoulders slump though and he knows his words have had an effect on her, knows she’s turning them over in her mind trying to understand what they mean now. In the context of everything else that stands between them.
This isn’t how she thought this conversation would go, he knows.
“Dick, I…”
“You don’t have to say anything, Kory.” He replies, “I’m not expecting you to. I just… after everything that’s happened... I wanted you to know.”
She tilts her head to the side to study him and lets out a puff of air between her lips, “What did that pit do to you?” She asks softly, a question more for herself than for him.
Dick answers it anyway, “More than you could possibly know.”
It barely seems like enough of an explanation when he thinks about the peace he found with his father, the torment he found dressed as The Joker with a bleeding Jason at his feet, the hope he found in their little girl.
But it’s the only answer he can give her without making her run in the opposite direction.
Soon, he thinks to himself, when he closes this distance between them, when he fixes the mistakes, he made in Gotham. Then he’ll tell her.
Kory’s fingers brush the back of his hand and he startles, not expecting the move.
“I’d kill for you too.” She whispers softly, as if admitting it aloud makes her feel weak, “When Barbara shot you in Gotham, when you came to me bleeding and in pain to patch you up? I… I realised you were right about the hold Gotham has over people, the darkness that it can invoke in them. If she had killed you, Dick, it wouldn’t have just been Bruce swinging a crowbar around that city.”
He sees no word of a lie in her eyes, no waver in her voice as she tells him she’d practically rip a city apart in vengeance for him.
Suddenly that ocean between them still like nothing more than a small lake, the distance nothing more than a blip on his radar.
He’s already drowning in her, he’d happily risk drowning to cross that space to get to her.
His eyes drop down to her lips, the echo of how they feel against his own branded on his mind, and he wants to kiss her. Needs to kiss her, deeply, desperately, until he isn’t sure where Dick Grayson stops, and Kory Anders begins.
No one has ever said anything like that to him before, no one has ever cared about him like that before. With the fierceness of a forest fire and the intensity of an active volcano.
His shifts his hand to curl his fingers over hers, wondering if he pulls her closer and closes the distance whether she’ll kiss him back or burn him to a crisp.
Dick squeezes her hand, tugging her closer over the table to reach her. Kory goes, folding her body over the counter a little more as if even the breakfast island between them is too much space.
The sound of a cough comes from the doorway, and they bolt apart like someone just threw water over them. Gar is standing there with his messy bed hair and a furrowed brow.
“What is happening?” He asks, eyes darting from Dick to Kory and back again.
He feels himself heat up, his cheeks too warm in the cool room, “Breakfast?” He offers with a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. Dick gets to his feet, busying himself with fixing Gar some coffee and some food so he doesn’t have to meet the boy’s gaze.
When he tries to meet Kory’s gaze again, she looks away quickly and just like that the ocean rushes back between them.
/
He dreams of Mar’i so often now it’s hard to keep track of the days and weeks as they pass. He goes to bed alone and he dreams of the daughter he desperately wants but doesn’t know how to get. He dreams of Kory, of loving her openly, having her love him back.
He dreams up fantasies in his mind because the reality in front of him isn’t enough anymore.
“Daddy, you’re late!” Mar’i calls out to him suddenly, the vision around her swimming into focus. There is a school backpack at her feet and she’s sitting on a swing, the empty one next to her beckoning to him.
Dick isn’t sure what’s happening, he never is with these dreams. He gets dropped in the middle and muddles his way through from there.
He sits on the swing, the seat groaning at his weight as he does and studies his daughter. He drinks her in, tries to commit her to memory like he always does in these dreams. He wants to remember every fibre of her, the exact shade of her eyes, the way her hair frizzes a little at the back from the wind.
“You’re late.” Mar’i tells him again, crossing her arms over her chest in a move that’s so Kory, it works like a lance to his heart, “Where’s mommy?”
Dick doesn’t have any answers or explanation for her but if this girl is anything like her mother, he knows he needs to find some quick, “Late?” He replies, fishing for details.
Mar’i huffs in the exaggerated way only a child can, “Everyone else’s parents came to pick them up already. Don’t you want me daddy?”
His heart spikes, a hot and uncomfortable feeling surging in his chest. This dream isn’t like the others, this dream carries the undercurrent of a warning he can’t seem to ignore.
Dick shakes his head, “Of course I do, sweetheart. I’m just running a little late is all.”
“So, we’re still a family?” Mar’i asks him, peering over at his face with eyes that match his own.
The hot feeling in his veins becomes ice, freezing his blood, making him rigid in his seat. A family. Does Mar’i worry about that? Is she trying to tell him he needs to hurry if him and Kory are ever going to get together to have this, have her?
Dick drops from the swing to crouch in front of his daughter, placing his large hands on her knees and ducking his head to meet her gaze, “Hey, look at me?” He asks softly, waiting for Mar’i to turn her face to him again.
She does, biting her lower lip cautiously as her feet swing in the air near him. He isn’t sure what’s happening or what’s going on but he knows he never wants her to feel this. Never wants her to question how loved and wanted she is. Dick Grayson has done a lot of terrible things in his life, he has a lot of regrets but he knows this little girl will never be one of them.
(Neither will a life with Kory when he finds out how to get it).
“I love you, Mar’i.” He tells her with a smile, “Mommy loves you too. We’re always going to be a family; I’ll make sure of it.”
Mar’i sniffles gently, “You promise?”
She seems too young and vulnerable then. Not a figment of his imagination or a manifestation of his deepest desires. Just a little girl who looks for a hero in her father.
“I promise.” He vows, a promise he intends to keep.
For her, for this life he wants to protect and preserve at all costs.
It’s time to get his family in order.
/
His future is standing in front of him next to the shopping cart as she deliberates between two different brands of cereal for the tower. His whole world is too busy reading the list of ingredients on the boxes to realise he’s on edge, has been on edge since this morning because he’s been trying to find the right time to tell her about said future for the last few days and he still hasn’t managed it.
Kory throws one of the boxes into the cart and puts the other back on the shelf while Dick tries not to imagine how beautiful she’d look pregnant with their daughter.
He’s been unravelling at the seams for days, his dreams fuelling him, their almost kiss – that they haven’t talked about – working like gasoline on an open flame.
His mouth opens to speak but no words come out and Kory is heading to the checkout before he can even find a place to start. He’s a goddamn coward when it comes to her and he knows it but this matters. This could be make or break for them and he can’t screw that up, he can’t handle anything less than perfect. Kory deserves that, he wants to be the one to give it to her.
So, they make it through paying for the groceries and back out to the car with idle chat about the training plan for next week and meal prep for later and absolutely not about his dreams or their almost kiss.
It’s more awkward than he’s ever felt with her, and Dick doesn’t know what to do to change it. Isn’t sure whether Kory prefers it this way or whether she’s looking for the same opportunity that he is.
There’s a part of him that wonders whether he could just turn up at her door with a bottle of tequila and a towel slung around his waist, whether she’d understand he was asking for a do-over without actually verbalising it, whether she’d slam the door in his face.
No, he needs to make sure there is no way for miscommunication to happen between them. Dick needs her to understand if they have a future, if she wants it as well then he’s all in. The scary, forever kind that he thought he didn’t deserve and wasn’t capable of.
Dick starts unloading the bags into the boot of the car as a way to distract himself from staring at her like she’s the best gift he’s ever received, he isn’t playing this cool and he is baffled that Kory hasn’t picked up on it yet. Maybe she has, maybe she’s trying to ignore it because she doesn’t want him anymore.
The sound of a shrill cry pierces through his thoughts and Dick’s head shoots up to locate the noise. Two cars down is a woman holding a crying baby in her arms as she tries to soothe him and navigate her cart load of bags into her vehicle. Dick isn’t sure why he does it, isn’t sure when he decided to move but the next thing he knows, he’s striding over to her with a smile that he hopes is warm and friendly.
“Need a hand?” He asks, gesturing to the shopping bags full to the brim with diapers and formula and groceries.
The woman looks up at him with relief as she bounces the baby on her hip, “Thank you so much, normally I can get the shop done while he naps but clearly, I was too slow today.”
Dick nods sympathetically, as if he understands having a fussy baby and juggling errands. He doesn’t, but he makes a grab for a couple of bags and moves them into the boot of the car before going back for the others.
The baby boy is still crying, although the cries have quietened down and he sees Kory wander over to them curiously, lingering by the cart as she watches the scene unfold.
“Car keys.” The woman hums to herself, patting her pockets as she searches for them, “Car keys.”
Her pockets turn up empty and she eyes the diaper bag on the back seat with a scowl. She looks at the baby in her arms and then back to Dick for a split second before she offers him a smile, “Sorry, would you mind?” She nods to the baby in explanation, “I just need to fish them out of the bag. He’ll start up again if I put him down.”
Dick swallows thickly but finds himself nodding and then the baby is placed in his arms, a solid little weight of warmth pressing against his jacket.
He stares down at the baby. The baby stares back with big blue eyes and a little red nose. He’s holding a baby. The mother is already rummaging around for the keys and Dick starts swaying slightly like she did to make sure the kid doesn’t start screaming again. A small chubby hand reaches out to pat his cheek in fascination and all Dick can think about is Mar’i.
“So, you can charm women and babies, huh?” Kory asks and Dick tears his eyes off the little bundle in his care to see she’s standing next to him now, drawn to the little boy in his arms.
“Have you ever thought about having any?” He blurts out, instantly feeling dread uncurl in his gut.
Kory looks at him sharply, one hand hovering in the air where she was about to touch a little hand gripping Dick’s jacket tightly.
He’s an idiot.
She recovers quicker than he does though and plasters a smile on her face, “Are you offering?”
Dick almost chokes on air, keeping a firm grip on the baby in his arms as he goes numb. Did she just…? Are they…?
What is happening?
“I… I just…” He stumbles over his words and the baby in his arms – the little traitor as Dick affectionately refers to him – starts laughing at his failed attempt at suave.
Kory lets out a giggle at well, “I’m messing with you, Grayson.” She replies, eyes flashing playfully, “You do look good holding a baby though.”
His heart becomes a hummingbird in his chest and he thinks he would kiss her right then and there if not for the baby in his arms and the mother coming back to relieve him of his duties. The little boy eagerly goes back to his mother who thanks Dick again for the help and moves to get herself in her car.
Dick barely registers it, his eyes still on Kory, her words echoing around in his head. Has she thought about having a baby? Has she thought about him?
The thoughts are too big, too important, too insistent in his brain and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from asking her about them in the middle of the parking lot. That’s not how he wants the conversation to go. Not like this, definitely not here.
“You’d be a great mom.” He tells her before quickly walking back to their car, not waiting to see the reaction on Kory’s face.
He can’t live like this any longer. They have to talk. Today.
/
“We need to talk about Gotham.” Dick tells Kory when he finds her not even an hour after they return to the tower. He tracked her down to her bedroom and the words where out of his mouth as soon as she invited him in, “About us.”
“Dick, we don’t need to…”
“Yes, we do.” He insists, running a hand through his hair to keep himself from pacing, “I have things I need to say, things I need you to hear. We’ve spent too long not talking and I know that’s mostly on me. I pushed you away in Gotham, I pushed everyone away, but I need to… I just want…”
She seems to realise this is a big thing for him, something he can’t ignore and moves to grab his hands. Dick lets her guide him to the edge of her bed, pushing him to sit on the mattress as she settles herself next to him, “Okay, what do you want to talk about?”
He loves that about her. How ready she is to hear it even though she could tell him to do one because he had his chance to be open in Gotham and he didn’t take it. Kory has always been the compassionate one, the selfless one.
He loves a lot of things about her.
Dick doesn’t know where to start, too many things left unsaid that they need to address, too many feelings rising up inside him like a tidal wave that demand attention.
“I kissed Barbara.” He tells her, “But that’s all it was. Just a kiss and I didn’t feel anything. Not the butterflies or the passion or the happiness. It just felt like I was revisiting a memory, reliving a past I’d already buried, you know?”
Kory frowns slightly, “You don’t need to tell me that, you don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I owe myself one because Barbara is my past, that kiss proved it. Gotham proved it. I want you to be my future.”
He waits with bated breath for Kory to say something, to kick him out of her room or laugh in his face or reject him with the kind of grace only she can. He waits to see if their friendship can survive the truth of his feelings.
She doesn’t speak for a long time but she does get to her feet, trying to put distance between them and he feels cold at the action. This is where he loses her, he thinks, this is where everything falls apart.
When Kory turns back to face him, she looks torn but her voice is strong, “I felt like I couldn’t turn to you in Gotham. You weren’t the only one pulling away, Dick. I didn’t ask you for help when I could have.”
He frowns, not sure where this conversation is heading but he already knows he’ll follow her through it, “Why didn’t you?”
“The same reason you didn’t ask me for help. I knew I’d get it, knew the second I asked you’d have bent over backwards trying to sort through my issues with me rather than your own. I didn’t want to be selfish, I didn’t want to be another person in your life demanding something from you.” She admits, her hands fidgeting nervously.
Dick sets up then, making his way over to her to still her hands with his own, “Be selfish. Demand anything you want. We could both learn to be a little selfish when it comes to wanting each other.”
Kory’s green eyes capture him in a stare that doesn’t give him a chance of escape, “You want me?” She asks, a little more unsure than he used to hearing from Kory.
Suddenly, he understands what this must look like from the outside. She doesn’t know about what he saw in the pit, she doesn’t know how strongly he believes in their future. All she knows is a mess of a man is asking her to be selfish with him. Dick isn’t sure he’s selling it to her.
“Of course, I do.” He breathes out, untangling one hand from hers to reach up and cup her cheek, bringing her forehead to rest against his own, “I always have but I wasn’t sure I could… I didn’t think I would be enough, that I deserved you.”
“What changed your mind?”
Dick lets out a sigh in the small space between them, letting his eyes close as he clings onto her, “Honestly? I’m done running, I’m done trying to live up to what everyone else wants me to be. In the pit I saw…” He cuts himself off, uncertain and cautious about telling her of their daughter, of sharing Mar’i with her and having Kory push him away.
This last piece of his heart that belonged to him and only him and he wants to trust her with it but he isn’t sure how.
“You saw?” She pressed, moving back a little to be able to look at him.
Dick doesn’t see anything but patience in her eyes, he knows she’ll wait for as long as it takes him to find the courage to give this truth to her. That’s just who Kory is.
“I saw a past, a present and a future.” He tells her gently, “I saw my dad, saw how much he loved me. I saw a world where I was the one to swing that crowbar at Jason, not The Joker, me.”
Kory softens, “That’s just your guilt…”
“I know. I stopped myself, that’s not who I am. I never want to become that person.” He replies, “And I know I don’t have to be. I’m not Bruce, I’m not Robin. I can leave it all behind, I can let it go now.”
“And your future?” She asks, always quick when he comes to reading him.
“We had a daughter.”
The words hang there awkwardly as Kory digests them and Dick starts to regret even having uttered them in the first place. Four words and get they don’t feel like enough to explain what he saw, but that also feel too condemning, too final. We had a daughter. Like it’s a pre-determined thing rather than a manifestation of what he wants his future to look like with her.
“You and me.” Kory replies, no judgement, no shock, just three words in response to the four he gave her.
Dick nods, “She’s beautiful, Kory. She looks just like you, but she has my eyes and her smile? God, I wish you could have seen her.”
In the back of his mind, he knows this is a lot to process. This isn’t them taking in Rachel and Gar and trying to raise them. This is a person they create together. Half his DNA, half hers. This is a baby that will grow into a child that will grow into an adult. This is someone who will bind them together for the rest of their lives, forging an unbroken bond and an unexplainable love.
“A daughter?” Kory utters, still wrestling with this new knowledge, “Dick, you don’t know that’s going to be your future. The pit made you see yourself as Jason’s murderer so…”
“I know.” He replies firmly, “And if you don’t want me then it’s fine, we never have to talk about it again. I don’t want to be with you because I saw a world where we might have a daughter, Kory. I want to be with you because I want to make that world a reality. I want it all with you. I want to try again.”
She shakes her head in disbelief, “Fuck Grayson, you really know how to give a girl an existential crisis.”
Dick offers her a lopsided smile, “Sorry. I never was any good at flirting.”
Kory slips out of his hold and Dick lets her go, senses she needs space to process this, to figure out where they go from here. He doesn’t move though, rigid as a statute where he intends to stay until she orders him to leave.
He’s spent too long without her by his side. That ends now.
“And if I don’t want kids?” Kory asks, biting her lip.
“Do you still want me?” Dick replies, “Because that’s the only answer I need right now. Kids or no kids, apartment or house, your room or mine. All of that can wait, I’m in no hurry to reach the future, Kory. I just want to know whether we have one together.”
Her eyes dart up to the ceiling before dropping back down again and Dick watches her cautiously as she makes her way back to him, as if she’s a deer caught in his headlights, “I do want you.” She admits softly and Dick leans forward, that answer more than enough for him and now he needs her back in his arms but Kory stops him with a firm hand on his chest, “But you have things you need to deal with first, things you need to figure out.”
He frowns, “I told you, I have figured it out. I know who I want to be now…”
“You did tell me that,” Kory replies, her hand sliding down his chest, “Now I need you to show me that.”
“You want proof.” He realises and honestly, he can’t blame her. Not after everything he put her through in Gotham, not after all the old habits he fell back into. If Kory wants proof that he’s ready for this, for them, then he’ll give it to her. He’ll give her everything he has and more. Whatever she wants, whatever it takes.
She takes a step closer, “Kids, future, all of that? I want it too, we could have it but I need to know you’re not going to run or push me away the second you get overwhelmed.”
“So, we take it slow.” Dick nods, “We could start with dinner? Just the two of us?”
Kory smiles then, wide and beautiful and it robs him of thought, “Dinner.” She agrees, closing the distance between them as her hands curve over his shoulders.
Dick gets lost in her eyes, pools of forest green that swallow him whole, “God Kory, I really want to kiss you.”
“Are you asking for permission?”
He drops his gaze down to her lips, “We’re taking it slow, I wasn’t sure if…”
“Kiss me.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. Dick’s lips are on hers in an instance and the heat of her mouth, the pressure of her lips, sends him spiralling. This is what coming home feels like, this is a lighthouse flickering to light in a dark storm. This is the first bloom of spring after a harsh winter.
This is the start of his future.
It starts with a kiss in her bedroom, passionate but soft. It starts with dinner and a date and a vow to himself to get this right.
It starts with him and her, together, open, honest, and ready.
And one day, if Dick is lucky, if they get this right, it will end with a daughter and a home and a family.
That bloom of hope in his chest is a life raft that keeps him steady, he won’t mess this up, he can’t. Their future is just too good to lose. He knows that because he’s seen it, and now he wants to live it.