Archive of Our Own

Koriand'r is frustrated.

She's felt frustrated for weeks. She'll admit this. And it's not a very Tamaranean thing to sit on your feelings without acting on them. But then again, it's not a very Tamaranean world.

She misses Tamaran acutely, perhaps more acutely than she can articulate. On Tamaran, the acceptable response would be crying until you could no longer cry, then spending time with your family, being together, cooking, eating, singing – getting everything out.

And sometimes she has done that. She has tried crying until she can no longer cry. Raven, who normally seems so distant, had made her some tea and sat next to her on the couch. She must have cared so much, for her to be around such strong emotions that Kory knew overwhelmed her.

Kory right now wants to get her frustration out sparring. But she's worried about hurting someone. Even Donna.

So instead, she's in the basement. Victor had made some devices earlier to try to measure the intensity of her starbolts. He's been doing a lot more tinkering, a lot more working on tech, since his father died. His way to be close to his father, Kory assumes.

Kory's father isn't dead, but she can't find out how to be close to him.

Kory blasts the target Victor made for her. She unleashes what feels like her whole power –

the target flies into the wall, where it's stuck.

… She feels a little bad about destroying his device.

“Guess I didn't Tamaranean-proof it enough,” Victor says behind her.

Kory turns to see him. “Victor, I'm sorry – ”

“Don't apologize,” Victor says. He walks up to the wall, and starts trying to pry the target off it. He pulls his hands back quickly. “Still hot.”

Kory allows herself to look confused, because she is confused. His hands are made of metal, not flesh.

“I have temperature sensors in my fingers,” Victor explains. “And most parts of my body. Temperature, pressure... they work the same way as nerves do, I guess, even if they feel different. The purpose is making sure I don't get hurt.”

Kory nods. “Thank you for explaining.”

Victor smiles slightly. “Thanks for not acting awkward about it.”

“People frequently do?”

“You know, like they're afraid to admit that my hands are different – ” Victor laughs “ – I know they're different. It's my damn body.”

English vulgarity. Victor doesn't usually employ it. “It bothers you?” Kory asks.

Victor laughs again. Kory recognizes the purpose of this one – diminishing the severity. “Not that much,” he says. “It's just kind of funny. 'Sides, if I let every time someone was weird about me having cybernetic parts bother me, I'd do nothing except be bothered.”

“It's a pragmatic approach,” Kory says. “And a Tamaranean one.”

Victor raises an eyebrow. It's his turn to look confused.

“Tamaraneans are encouraged to be open enough with our emotions that other people having them isn't a cause for distress,” Kory explains. She's glad to explain Tamaran to someone. It makes her feel like it still matters. “If, for example, a Tamaranean mother can't make it to her child's performance, the child will be sad and sulk. But the mother doesn't take it personally, because she knows the child's emotions are important, even if her reason for missing the performance was valid.”

Victor laughs. “Earth parents could use a lesson,” he says.

Kory doesn't say anything, because she wouldn't want anyone to say that Tamaranean parents should change to match Earth expectations, so she's not going to agree with the inverse.

“How is Gar?” Kory asks, because she knows Victor is closer to Gar than the others.

Victor immediately changes. His shoulders raise slightly, his mouth turns down, he swallows. Concern.

“He's, uh, not doing great,” Victor admits. “I just don't know what I can say to him. I've tried – he thinks the thing with Madame Rouge is his fault.”

'The thing'. Madame Rouge died in the battle with the Titans and Brotherhood of Evil. Gar is torn up about it, Kory assumes because he feels bad about feeling good about her dying. He thinks, or wants to think, that someone dying was an objectively bad thing. Kory –

Kory thinks it wouldn't have mattered even if he'd killed her. Why not?

That woman was party to the death of his family! She was a remorseless killer! Blood demanded blood! How could Gar be expected to sit idly by while she's... what? Arrested?

She hasn't voiced her thoughts to the other Titans about this. But maybe she should voice them to Gar .

“I understand,” she says. “I'll speak with him.”

“I'm not saying you have to – ” Victor starts.

Kory cuts him off, holding her hand up: “I know. But I'm doing it because I want to.”

Vic nods, then says, “Thanks.”

Kory leaves.

She'll confess. She doesn't get the Earth-aversion to killing.

She knows it's their culture, and it shouldn't be criticized. She would dislike it if someone criticized Tamaranean culture. But... sometimes it's the only option. Sometimes it's the only right option.

Kory makes her way to Gar's room. She knocks on the door.

A sound in the background, footsteps, then Gar opens it with a “ Whaaaat – ?” of extreme annoyance that is only cut off when he sees her.

“Oh, hey Kory,” Gar says. He does what Kory assumes is an attempt at waggling his eyebrows, but it just looks like he's surprised for a moment. “Finally admitting you couldn't keep away from me?”

Kory ignores him. Behind him, she can see his room is a mess. It smells bad. His DS is on his bed, which has no sheets on it. The sheets and blankets are on the floor, as well as dirty clothing. He's normally not great at doing chores, but he's not normally this bad.

… though she'll confess this is the first time she's actually seen his room.

“I know the place looks like a mess, but I can have it cleaned up in like, 5 minutes,” Gar starts. “Go to the corner store, get some condoms – ”

“Do you think you're funny?”

Kory didn't mean it to sound mean, but it must have, because he cringes for a moment. He's brushing it off almost immediately: “Okay, cool, I can respect that – ”

“I didn't mean to insult you,” Kory says. “I just thought I had made it exceptionally clear by now that I'm not interested.”

Gar's eyes flick away for a moment. Kory can physically see the cogs turning in his head while he decides whether to be emotionally honest or redirect it with a joke.

“Well, I figured you'd get bored of Dick and fall for me eventually – ”

Kory sighs heavily.

Gar holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, sheesh. What's the deal, you looking for a sparring partner and Donna's out?”

… She hasn't spent much time with him outside of sparring or team exercises, has she? She's been neglecting her friends. Even if she's closer to some than others, she likes to consider all of the Titans her friends.

He doesn't make it easy, of course. She knows it's just his personality – an extremely aggravating part of his personality – and she wouldn't want anyone to ask her to change her personality, so she doesn't ask him to change his. But the constant romantic or sexual overtures are exhausting. One would figure he'd get the hint that none of the female team members actually find him attractive.

“Let's walk around the tower,” Kory suggests. “Your room smells like sweat.”

She didn't know it was possible for him to blush, but he does. It looks just like darker green on his cheeks.

“Yeah, I should probably step out,” Gar says, and steps out of his room and shuts the door. “I got stuck on this dumb escort mission on my GameCube, so I got out the DS, but then the villagers all want stuff I don't have – ”

Kory doesn't know what this means, but she likes hearing him talk about things that he actually likes. She smiles.

“Escort missions are the worst gaming mechanic in the history of gaming, anyway!” Gar continues. “It's like, if I wanted to protect someone completely helpless who just aggros the bad guys, I'd go to work !”

Kory laughs.

Gar grins. “That's the first time you've laughed at one of my jokes.”

Kory is honest: “It's the first time one of your jokes was funny.”

Gar cringes a little, but he's still smiling. “Do they have games on Tamaran?” he asks.

Kory hits the down button for the elevator and the two get in.

This is good. This is what friends do. She is interested in what's important to him, and he's interested in what's important to her, and no one has to continuously ignore any advances. “Play is very important to Tamaraneans,” Kory says. “It's how children learn best. There are all types of games. Many children favor fighting games – it's fun, it's good to get moving, and it prepares you to defend Tamaran.”

“So fighting games are like... just sparring?” Gar asks. “That's not really how Earth games work.”

Kory frowns as they hit ground floor and depart the elevator. It's not 'just' sparring. Though there are some similarities. “It's like when Dick had us play capture the flag,” she explains. “But we could use our powers and fight each other, which was unlike Earthen capture the flag.”

“Yeah, that was pretty rad,” Gar says. “Even though Vic ruined my plan to tunnel to the flag by putting a bunch of dumb motion and sound detectors around it. Then he threw me like I was a freakin' football!”

“He gave you a respectable battle.” Kory pauses at the front door, then walks out. It might be nice to get some fresh air. “And you did turn into a bird quick enough to not receive any damage.”

Gar follows her. He winces a little. She wonders if this is the first time he's seen sunlight in days. But he doesn't say so, he just says, “Respectable battle would've been waiting for me to un-shapeshift from mole form!”

Kory tilts her head up slightly. It serves the function of both letting her get more sun on her face and pantomiming aloofness for comedic value. “It was a case of 'you snooze, you lose'. You snoozed.”

Gar laughs again.

He's amazingly non-aggravating like this. She wasn't aware it was possible to hang out with him and not be slightly aggravated, even if she did love him just like she loved all of her other friends.

“You should try some Earth games,” Gar says. “They're pretty fun.”

“I did! I played monopoly that one time – ”

“ Monopoly isn't fun,” Gar argues. “I mean like, video games.”

Kory prefers to be physically active. She can't imagine sitting down a bunch being fun, unless she's doing it with her friends. Even now, she likes talking while walking better.

“Are there any video games you play with other people?” she asks.

Gar shrugs. “Smash Bros, I guess. Ugh but Vic's so annoying about it, he always plays the same character he's really good at and he never tries anything else!”

“That is... unadventurous,” Kory says. She assumes Gar is asking for sympathy.

“He's also been super busy lately,” Gar says. “And mopey.”

Kory knows why Victor is 'mopey', according to Gar. Even if it's not constant, whenever he thinks of Sarah he clams up. He's really digging his own grave here, but Kory doesn't know how to tell him that. He's distraught that Sarah got kidnapped because of her connection to the Titans. And that's extremely reasonable! But his lack-of-solution is just to be sad about it and not to talk to her at all.

He's not dealing with his feelings.

“It's about Sarah,” Kory says.

Gar nods. “ I'd never let a girl get me hung up like that,” he says, putting a hand on his chest. “The girls get hung up on me.”

Kory doesn't respond to this comment, because she prefers when Gar isn't talking about girls.

Gar shrugs awkwardly, then adds, “That's why I don't have any civilian friends, anyway.”

He's actually being serious now.

Kory's not sure she's seen him be serious much. The closest was earlier, when he was expressing his rage. He wanted Zahl and Rouge to pay for what they did to him, to his family. Seeing him somewhat serious outside that context is... new.

“You're worried a civilian friend would get hurt,” Kory says.

Gar looks away.

He's uncomfortable. His body language screams it. He doesn't want to admit it.

Gar looks back to her and tries to smile. “Yeah, but super powers don't really guarantee you won't get hurt. I mean remember Deathstroke shot me in the chest!” He laughs.

Kory would like to kill Deathstroke for that. If she had killed him when she first thought about it, he never could've kidnapped Sarah or nearly killed Gar.

“You don't have to look so mad about it,” Gar says, “I mean, it was kind of funny. I just went after Deathstroke alone like an idiot – ”

Kory hugs Gar. She doesn't know why. She feels the temptation to hug him, so she must.

“Hey, what are you doing?!”

“It's not funny ,” Kory says. She can feel tears coming to her eyes. He was nearly killed . “You got hurt , it's not funny , you could've died – ”

Gar shrinks into cat form to escape her grasp, then runs a few feet away.

He's sitting by the pond, still as a cat. His ears are pressed down against his head, angrily. When she steps towards him, he hisses, and even though Tamaraneans have been humanoid for millions of years, she still recognizes the meaning from somewhere deep in her genetic memory.

Gar turns back into a human, but is still sitting on the ground like a cat, which just looks silly for a moment. “Sorry,” he says, as he stands up and brushes off the dirt on his butt. “It's just weird.”

Kory doesn't know what to do.

She knows lots of people are uncomfortable when others make a big deal about bad things that happened. Maybe it hurts too much. She wouldn't know. Nobody tries to make a big deal about what happened to her.

“You were so mad at Deathstroke because of the way he took someone hostage,” Kory says, because it's true. He was remembering Doom Patrol.

Gar looks away again.

Lots of humans don't like eye contact when they're discussing serious topics.

“Shouldn't that be like, I dunno, a crime for you too?” Gar asks. “I mean, it was cowardly! He did only do it cuz he couldn't beat us fair and square!”

“You're right,” Kory says.

“And Di – Robin wanted to just let him do it!” Gar continues. He kicks the ground, the dirt, even though it didn't do anything to him. “Every half-wit loser is gonna think they can just put innocent people in danger and then we'll do whatever they want. It's like they get an automatic advantage for being evil pieces of shit!”

Gar hasn't sworn that much, not since Donna started scolding him every time he did. He's really mad.

And really right.

Kory knows, intellectually, why Dick chose to do what he did. She asked him about it afterwards and received his explanation – they had to keep their word after securing Sarah's release, because otherwise, no one who has a hostage would ever believe them and release the hostage. He knew they were going to find a way out of it anyway and that they wouldn't die, but he couldn't assure the team of that since Deathstroke was listening at the moment. But it still felt wrong, and Gar still feels right.

“Deathstroke was dishonorable,” Kory says. “And cowardly, and evil.”

Gar nods. There are tears in his eyes. He wipes them away quickly.

“He did deserve to die,” Kory says.

“I wasn't – I wasn't intending on killing him,” Gar says.

Kory waits.

“But I was intending on killing Madame Rouge,” Gar admits.

Kory didn't know that. But she reaches a hand out to him and says, “That's completely understandable. She killed your family. Anything else would – ”

Gar knocks her hand away and backs up. “You don't get it. I did kill her, Kory!”
Kory –

She doesn't know what to say to that.

He's obviously upset enough that he'll get more upset if she says it doesn't matter or was the right thing to do.

“I wanted her dead and then I killed her!” Gar says.

Kory doesn't say anything.

Gar balls his hands in fists. He starts crying a little.

“It's okay,” Kory says.

Gar shakes his head. “It's not okay!”

“You feel guilty,” Kory says.

“I am guilty!”

He's not. Or he is, but it's not a bad thing to be guilty of.

“It's not a good thing that people died,” Gar says, and starts wiping at his eyes.

He's – in a fair world, he should be right.

If no one felt like they could exploit or kill or hurt other people, he'd be right. Death would always be tragic, always the wrong thing.

But Kory and Gar don't live in that world.

“I was just like the Brain,” Gar says. “He was so excited that Zahl and Rouge died – ”

“You were not ,” Kory says.

Gar rubs at his eyes again.

Kory bends down and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Garfield. Listen to me. You were not just like the Brain or any of those people in the Brotherhood of Evil.”

Gar looks away.

“You wanted someone to die for making other people die,” Kory says. “For hurting your family. Zahl and Rouge wanted to kill people to rule or for the sake of it.”

Gar still won't respond.

Kory figures it's her turn to talk. “The fact that you're tearing yourself up about it proves that you aren't like them,” she says, even though she disagrees with the premise that Gar should tear himself up about it. “You know that people dying is a bad thing. You heard them, right? When I said that the death was poetic justice, even the word justice made Warp sick.”

Gar nods, a little hesitantly. “You didn't feel bad about them dying at all, did you?”

Kory shakes her head. She's not going to lie to him.

“You've killed people before?” Gar asks.

Kory nods.

“You – you don't feel bad about it,” Gar says.

Kory exhales. She's – she refuses to let her friends make her feel guilty for it. Killing them was the right thing to do. “The men I killed were Gordanian slavers,” Kory says. “They were responsible for six years of degradation and torture and misery. Every single one I killed was one who couldn't do it again.”

Gar's silent, almost like his mouth is glued shut.

“I'd kill every single one of them if I could, and when I see the person responsible for me being in slavery, I'll kill her too,” Kory says.

She's surprised at her ferocity, at the hate that flares in her chest when she speaks of it, the hate she knows is in her voice.

A Tamaranean should never be surprised by her own emotions, but Koriand'r is.

Gar nods mutely.

She can't tell if she scared him off.

She's aware that her emotions are... intense. She knows, sometimes, that Dick seems uncomfortable with her ferocity in battle, as if that same ferocity wasn't the thing that allowed her to win, that allowed her to survive.

“I know that – ” Gar's voice cracks. “I know that things were really different for you.”

Really different . That's one way of saying it.

“I don't – I mean – you don't talk about it much,” Gar says.

“What could I say?” Kory asks. “You all seem uncomfortable around the topic. Like you don't want to think about it.”

“I don't think we do,” Gar says. “I mean – no one likes to think about sad stuff! Why do you think I'm telling jokes all the time?”
Kory knows why. He said so, he said his jokes were to disguise the pain, but it couldn't work – it just hurt more.

“I think you have to acknowledge something to deal with it,” Kory says. “Sometimes you have to just let yourself be sad.”

“ But you don't really acknowledge it, either, ” Gar points out.

He's right. Kory knows he's right. She hasn't because she can't – she can't process it. She's too far from home. She's too far away from the source of her hate. So when she hates now, it's just pointless, bitter, and vile. The feeling lingers in her stomach, clings to her like some film she'll never be able to scrub off.

“You're right,” Kory says. “Acknowledging it does hurt.”

Gar is silent a moment.

Kory looks at the pond. It's so still.

“Are you gonna tell the others what I did?” Gar asks, hesitantly.

Kory shakes her head. She would advise that he tell them, but she doesn't know if they'd react reasonably. He's torn up about it, and he was the closest emotionally to being able to understand why it was necessary. What would Donna say? What would Dick? Kory can already hear them –

We have laws for a reason. This separates us from them. We have to be better –

The words that only sound like hypocritical lies in the current context. Dick must know. He must know that she killed the Gordanian slavers, right? She was in his arms when she shot one. How could he not know?

Maybe he, too, prefers not to think about it.

The Earthen tendency of avoidance. She's picked it up.

“Do you think I should?” Gar asks. He's looking up at her, wide-eyed. He wants her to make the decision for him.

Keeping secrets from your friends is always wrong. And Kory was raised to stand by her beliefs. To fight for them.

But locking him in jail for this would also be wrong.

“Are you going to do something similar again?” Kory asks.

Gar shakes his head. “No way. I – I don't think I'll be able to get in a physical fight while wanting to kill someone. Not after I actually did.”

“I would never want to lie to my friends,” Kory admits. “But I'd also never try to punish or restrain my friends for doing what you did. I can't make the decision for you, Garfield. No matter what I say, it would feel wrong.”

Gar looks at his feet.

He wanted her to take the responsibility off his shoulders.

She gets it. It's not a good feeling.

But it's a feeling he needs to deal with.

“Okay,” Gar says finally.

Kory doesn't ask him what he'll do. She assumes he needs to think.

Gar shakes his head a little and tries to smile. She can tell he's trying to get out of it – the bad feeling. And she can't blame him.

“Blah blah blah,” Gar says, “Look at us, sitting around yakking like a bunch of old ladies.”

Kory smiles slightly. She doesn't know where he's going with this, but she can tell he wants to change the topic.

He transforms into a wolf and prances a few feet away. His front legs are on the ground, low, and his back legs are raised. His tail wags.

She's not super familiar with canine body language, but she has heard that wagging tail equals happy.

“Don't worry,” Gar says, talking while in wolf form, “I didn't think I'd get out of sparring with you just by complaining.”

Kory doesn't bother correcting him, telling him that she wanted to see him for reasons other than sparring, because she recognizes that's not the purpose of this. Re-establishing normalcy is the purpose. So she smiles, starts charging a starbolt in her hand, and says, “Good. Only cowards flee from battle.”

They fight. And she doesn't even feel resentful at holding back, she doesn't feel the same frustration she's felt these past few weeks. Because the purpose of this fight isn't stopping her enemies, it's helping her friends.