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He doesn’t fall in love with Kory, what happens isn’t falling. It’s more like being caught mid air, those precious few moments when your heart is still racing in spite of knowing without a doubt that you made it, that you were always going to make it. It’s safety and adrenaline all at the same time.
So he needs this night to be perfect. There isn’t any more time for second guessing, or cloaking himself too tightly in the darkness of his self-doubt to let her light seep in.
It should be such a simple thing, a romantic night out for the girl who has everything but still deserves more. Except nothing has ever been simple for them, they aren’t by the book, if anything they’ve read the whole thing backwards and upside down. All he can do now is pour his entire heart into this, show her that he knows exactly how their story ends and that he couldn’t be more thrilled about it. She deserves nothing less after all of the rage and destruction and tragedy she’s faced right alongside him.
For her, it has to be more than just a fancy restaurant, it has to be the fanciest. Though he can’t simply leave it there, she’s as classy as they come but also fun, the kind of fun that makes her such a great mom already. Surely there will be something spontaneous to do in town; disco dancing, a midnight screening of Rocky Horror, roller skating, anything to make her glow without having to use her powers. Whatever it is, he’ll find it. And he won’t just show up in some basic button down and slacks either, it has to be a suit, his best one at that.
In his mind, the plan comes together just as they had, naturally and chaotically in equal measure.
He finds her on the couch of their gently rumbling home on wheels, watching Amelie without any subtitles because she doesn’t need them. Feeling brave, he reaches over her to take the remote from the arm of the couch, hitting pause and making her shoot him the most affectionate dirty look he’s ever seen.
“Hey, it’s my favorite part!” she says, tossing a finger full of popcorn at him while her scowl morphs into a smile.
“The part with the gnome letters, I know” he says, not having to look at the screen to confirm it. He sits next to her and she smiles a little wider, warmed by the way he knows her so well.
“What do you want, goofy?” she says, shifting closer to him, her voice a big hug. In the dimness of the late evening, the red and white lights from cars passing outside flash through the window and over her pretty face. He’s going to kiss her before he goes to relieve Gar of his driving duties, but right now there are other matters at hand.
“I want to take you out,” he says in that cocksure way of his, ignoring the fact that he’s nervous as hell on the inside. Nervous for what? He doesn’t know, only that she’s always had the power to make him that way. She’s the only one who really can anymore.
“Right now? It’s 11 at night,” she says, checking her man’s gold Breitling, the one that’s always slipping around to the back of her slim wrist when she wears it.
“No, when we stop in Coast City tomorrow. I want to take you on a date.”
It shouldn’t be a big deal, they’ve been together for weeks now. It started when she flew him to safety after he nearly died for the umpteenth time. He told her he loved her with his remaining ounce of consciousness as she held him in the sky. Since then they’ve fucked like freed prisoners every time there’s been a private moment, whether exhausted, injured, or practically half dead. She’s his girl and he’s her guy and there aren't two ways about it. And yet, this is a big deal, the biggest deal.
“Okay,” she says, her smile spreading wider. “I’d love to go out with you.”
“Good,” he says, smiling handsomely, and leans in, placing his big hand on her smooth cheek and bringing her closer. The kissing is easy because it always is, and maybe, if he can calm himself for long enough, the rest can be easy too.
He’d made reservations at Coast City’s finest restaurant over a week ago, in spite of the fact that they’d only been a day's drive away at the time. Nothing on this trip has gone according to plan so far, and he wouldn’t have been able to let it go if his evening with Kory got torched by poor timing of all things. He’s as calculated about this date as the most important mission, and just as he suspects, they arrive just in time for his paranoia to have paid off.
He waits for her outside of the RV, his motorcycle a waiting chariot for his space princess. He thought about a limo, or maybe a horse drawn carriage, but nothing can beat her arms tight around him as he speeds them down the road.
His heart pounds as the seconds pass, the anticipation mounting little by little. What if she hates the food? What if there’s no roller skating or disco dancing or Rocky Horror ? What if everything he says is stupid and she completely changes her mind about deciding to love him?
But then, she steps out of the door of the RV, in a short dress with fringe like tinsel and a newsprint bodice, an ostentatious choice that’s so perfect and so her that everything he was worried about floats away instantly and all that remains is the thought of how fucking beautiful she looks. Her red hair spills down around her face in soft waves, and her long legs are sheathed in thigh high boots. It feels like fate that she’d wear them instead of a pair of strappy stilettos that would never agree with a speeding motorcycle.
“You look beautiful,” he says and invades her space to give her a single red rose and a soft kiss.
“So do you,” she says, sparkles in her eyes. She turns to hand the rose to Rachel, who stands with Tim, Conner and Gar at the entrance of the RV, spying with no qualms whatsoever. “Don’t wait up guys,” Kory says.
“And don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Dick adds.
“Scout’s honor,” says Tim, throwing them a salute. His left eye is still ringed in an intense shiner, reminding Dick again of how painful the last few weeks on the road have been. And yet, they all look so happy for them, and happy in general. Somehow, it’s all okay to move forward and just be, no matter what they might suffer in between it all.
Once the door is shut and it’s them alone outside, she kisses him again, longer and far less chaste this time, her hands gripping his lapels like she wants to climb him. His hands come up to cradle her face, and they stay like that for a while, kissing in the slowly dimming sunlight and hoping against hope that the kids aren't watching through the blinds. It almost physically hurts to break it but if they don’t get going soon they’ll lose their reservation, and then any hopes for a perfect evening will be dashed immediately.
“We should go,” he whispers softly against her ear, and presses a kiss to her hair.
“You’re probably right,” she says, adjusting his tie for him. She goes to his motorcycle, takes a seat in the front and starts putting on his helmet.
“Umm…” He starts.
“Oh don't worry, you know I never get helmet hair.”
“It’s just that you’re kind of in my seat,” he says, quirking a brow.
“Oh come on, you let me drive all the time,” She says, and it’s not true, he doesn’t let her, rather she insists and he always folds, because having his arms around her is every bit as fun as the other way around.
“Not when where we’re going is supposed to be a surprise,” he counters.
She lets out a small relenting sigh and scoots back, letting him take the front, and they zoom off to their destination.
It’s a rooftop, illuminated with paper lanterns, candles on each table and a view of the city alongside the water, and he got them the best seat in the house. It’s the kind of place people go to get engaged or celebrate fifty years together. But if she doesn’t love it, then it’s a failure.
Fortunately, she squeezes his hand and breaks out into a wide grin at the ambience, her eyes flutter closed and she lets out an enthusiastic “mmm” when she has her first taste of the lobster bisque and she gets pleasantly loopy from the champagne, dipping her toe under the hem of his pants and shooting him bedroom eyes all through their dinner. She’s so cute, he can barely get over how cute she is.
“Hey look,” she says after finishing her crème brulèe and properly taking in the view. She’s pointing toward a towering ferris wheel near the shore, it’s all lit up now that it’s fully dark, and he wonders how he could have missed it. But then again, it’s a bit difficult to look at anything else but her right now.
This is it, the spontaneous thing he had to believe would present itself, because planning something spontaneous completely defeats the purpose.
“We should go,” he says, leaning in, offering her the most smoldering gaze he can conjure up. “I want to win you a stuffed animal and feel you up on the ferris wheel.”
“Check please!” she says immediately.
He lets her drive the motorcycle this time, from the restaurant to the seaside carnival, where there’s lights and music all around, and bunches of balloons of all colors strung up everywhere they look, including red ones. Ever since his time in the lazarus pit, something about red balloons makes his heart squeeze tight and his lips curl up against their will.
He debated with himself at first whether to tell her what he saw, but decided in the end it would be nicer to simply make it happen the traditional way, by starting a life with her and making it a beautiful one. This is all part of it, taking her out, seeing her smile, holding her hand as they make their way through the aisles of games, rides and fried treats.
“Step right up!” Bellows a carny, calling their attention to the strong man game, the kind where you bring a mallet down onto a target to try to ring the bell. “Test your strength, win a prize for the pretty lady.”
“Well, I did promise,” he says with a smirk, shrugging off his jacket and giving it to her to hold.
“Whoo, go Dick!” she cheers him on, and he takes the mallet. This will be easy, even if it’s rigged, which it almost certainly is, but for the next guy’s sake he pretends hitting that bell on the first try is a real challenge.
“We got a regular Hercules over here,” says the Carny, offering a choice of any of the big prizes. She chooses a Bugs Bunny stuffie that looks ever so slightly stoned, and thanks Dick with a kiss on the cheek.
“What about you miss? You wanna give it a go?” The carny asks before they start toward their next destination.
“Who, little ol me?” Kory says, touching her chest, fake humble in a way that makes Dick snicker to himself. “Well, I guess it’s worth a shot.”
She takes the mallet and when she hits the target this time, the ringer launches up quick and hard, so hard it crashes through the bell and flies up and away to God knows where. Dick didn’t even know that could really happen.
And clearly neither did the carny, his jaw drops immediately, his cigarette falling out of his mouth and landing in the dirt.
“I guess I don’t know my own strength.” She tells him, shrugging.
“Hey, wait a minute,” the carny says, narrowing his stare at Kory as Dick steps forward to take his pick of the big prizes. “Aren’t you that hero lady? Starfire, right?”
“What?” She says as if she’s shocked he’d even make the connection. “No, I could never be as cool as her.”
“Honest Mistake,” Dick says, taking a Yosemite Sam for himself “She gets it all the time.”
And with that they run toward the Ferris wheel, seeking refuge with their stuffed animals before The Carny can pry further.
“That was ridiculous,” Kory says, basically cackling.
“That it was,” he agrees. The wheel begins to lift them up into the sky, high enough for them to see all of Coast City. But he got enough of the view back at the restaurant. Right now all he wants is to kiss her hard and touch her very inappropriately, he promised that, too.
“Bugs, Sam, look away!” she says breathlessly to the stuffed animals while he kisses her neck and his hand wanders up her inner thigh.
They stay all the way until the end, sharing a fried snickers even though they’re still fed from dinner, making out in the photo booth and somehow managing to get a decent strip of pictures too, riding every ride twice and sometimes a third time. They aren’t tired by the end of it all, after everything they’ve been through, tired doesn’t come easily to them. So instead of heading home, they take a walk down the pier, holding their respective stuffed animals like sleeping children.
He can tell by her face and her closeness that she’s happy, she’s having fun with him and feeling cared for and doted on, just like he wanted, just like she deserves. Still, there has to be one last thing, something small yet profound. A gesture to show her that he’s her person no matter what, whether there are expensive meals and carnival rides, or just the two of them, late at night with nothing but the stars and the shore.
When they land at the end of the pier, deep enough in the evening that there’s no one else around, they set Yosemite Sam and Bugs down next to each other and he takes his phone out of his pocket, queueing up a song for her. It’s the one he’d caught her listening to late at night while she was driving through Indiana, thinking everyone else was asleep. Lip syncing along and tapping her hand against the steering wheel, she was so blissed out he could have sworn she was flying right there in the driver’s seat. Slow love songs weren’t the vibe for a family road trip with a bunch of teens, otherwise she might have played it 100 times. It was the only thing she was willing to compromise on as their self appointed DJ.
A gentle keyboard riff and Ron Isley’s assertive but tender vocals imbue the crisp air around them, and she beams at it just the way he hoped she would.
Drifting on a memory, ain’t no place I’d rather be than with you
Yeah
Loving you
Well well well
He takes her hand to pull her near, landing his palm on the small of her back, holding her steady and close while he sways her. It’s not in that stiff, uncertain high school dance kind of way, he’s light on his feet, studied, keeping their movements in perfect sync as he captures her gaze.
“I love this song.”
“I had a feeling,” he says. And he listens more closely than the time before, recognizing how every lyric reminds him of her and how he loves her.
Lovely as a ray of sun, that touches me when the morning comes
Feels good to me
Yeah
My love and me
He lifts her with one arm and twirls her in a little circle, a playful flourish to accompany the end of the second verse.
“Ooh, look at you Mr. Astaire,” she responds, impressed if also slightly teasing.
“Been to a gala or two,” he reminds her, and proves it with a spontaneous dip, almost low enough for her long hair to reach the ground. Her surprised, delighted giggle as she falls back is even sweeter than the music.
“I wanted tonight to be perfect, is it perfect?” He says, still supporting her leaning body with little effort.
“It’s always perfect with you.”
He sets her upright again, seamlessly resuming their impromptu slow dance across the pier. “It’s sweet of you to lie like that.”
“Well, okay, the lack of magic murder cultists chasing us has been kind of nice,” she admits. He spins her by the hand then, the fringe on her dress picking up in the wind, and he returns her to his arms, somehow closer than before. He loves her this close, how warm and soft she always is even in the most elaborate outfit he’s ever seen in his life.
“And I love you for wanting so much to make it special,” she continues.
“Yeah?”
“Mm hmm. I’ll never forget it.”
He presses his cheek against her soft hair, closing his eyes and inhaling the scent of her gardenia shampoo. By now, they aren’t dancing so much as letting the music carry them.
He’ll never forget it either.
End