The Other Wife 12/12: Family Union
Apr. 25th, 2008 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Family Union
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dick/Babs, Donna/Kory, Dick/Kory
Word Count: 9,561
Series: The Other Wife
Summary: Kory and Dick and Barbara bring a new life into the world.
Month 8
Month 9 – April – Family Union
Wayne Manor wasn’t as comforting as Dick had hoped it would be. Seeing it in its timeless grandeur made his own failings that much more dismal.
Alfred got the door for him. Dick entered with head bowed, not meeting the butler’s eyes. He knew any aspersions the butler might cast on him were in his imagination, but he still couldn’t bear the thought of a word passing between them. No one had been happier at Dick’s wedding than Alfred, and thinking of the infidelity made Dick feel like he’d slapped the old man across the face.
Alfred didn’t even offer to take Dick’s bags; he deferred to Dick’s unspoken request to carry his own bags. Alfred always asked and Dick always tried to spare the elderly butler that discomfort, but this time the traditional battle was won without a shot. Dick’s victory made him feel like shit.
Bruce was waiting for him in the study, and Dick knew as soon as his father looked at him that he’d find no absolution. He’d won Bruce’s approval of the match slowly, and Bruce had come to care about Barbara like a daughter before he trusted Dick to her. A lot of people had something invested in Dick’s marriage, and he’d spat in all their faces.
“Dick.”
“Bruce.”
Bruce gestured to a chair. Dick set his bags down, then sat. Bruce stared into him, hunched forward, hands steepled, face cast in stern lines.
“I can’t understand what you’re going through,” Bruce said. “Part of me doesn’t want to. But I feel compelled to ask if you want to talk about it.”
“No.”
“Good.” Bruce stood. “I trust you’ll make things right. Until then, stay as long as you need to.”
He started to leave and Dick felt the words spill out of him before he could stop: “I never meant for this to happen.”
Bruce stopped, back rigid, and slowly turned. “I trained you to be disciplined. What happened?”
***
Star City was a nice place to visit, but it didn’t have that Gotham spark. No matter where she moved in the world, Barbara felt like she’d always miss Gotham’s drive, the endearing hope hidden under its cynicism. Despite the spectacular sunlit view out the window, it just couldn’t compare to the Gothamites’ attitude that they were all in it together. That they were all standing side by side.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”
Barbara shut her laptop and turned away from the window she was staring out of. She’d long bragged about being able to direct her operations from anywhere in the world… all she needed was a fast internet connection and one of her slave units. The laptop was one of the few things she’d taken from the Clocktower before leaving to move in with Roy and Dinah. Well, Dinah, to be more precise. Barbara didn’t even know her friend had moved in with Roy.
It was Mia, one of the guests that seemed to be constantly dropping in on them.
“Your husband, I mean… are we still doing secret identities? Because I know your first name is Barbara and…”
“Grayson-Gordon,” Barbara said, extending a hand to shake. Mia took it. “No… just Gordon, thanks.”
“Listen, we all love having you here… I think Connor has a bit of a crush on you,” she pouted and rolled her eyes, “but… you know, not trying to be rude here? I don’t think you really belong. You could!” Mia said quickly. “But…”
“Gotham’s my first, best destiny.” Barbara ran a hand over her laptop. “Yeah, I know. I’m not ready to go back.”
Mia leaned against a wall next to the bay window Barbara was parked at. Her flippy ponytail bounded with each little shake of her head. “No one’s saying you should get back together with Dick… except maybe for Roy, and he’s really forgiving. But even I can see you’re not happy here.”
Barbara opened up her laptop and focused on that. “I don’t think I’d be happy anywhere. If anyone ever tells you it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Hit them for me.”
Mia nodded seriously. “Okay. Hey, you wanna shoot some arrows down by range? Roy has one set up in the basement. And he lets you use trick arrows.” A doofy grin lit up Mia’s face. “You should try blowing up a target with an exploding arrow. It’s very effective at relieving stress. Just make sure you don’t accidentally grab a shampoo-arrow. That can get weird.”
“Maybe later.”
“Okay.” Mia vaulted up and bopped her way to the door out of the study, running her finger along the keyboard of a piano on her way out. “Oh, and we’re ordering Chinese for dinner, so if you want something other than Kung Pao chicken, now’s the time.”
Barbara smiled. “Kung Pao chicken sounds just fine.”
With Mia gone, she maxed the window she had been looking at. Feeling like an idiot, and a masochistic idiot at that, she once more browsed through the gallery of photos she and Dick had taken of each other on their honeymoon. As much as it hurt to look at them, she needed to know that it had once been possible to really be that happy… even if it would never happen again.
***
Dick rode the elevator down to the underground parking garage, already tugging on his tie and wishing he were home. Again he’d nearly soaked through his suit with sweat. Word had gotten out that he’d cheated… it pretty much had to. He worked with detectives, he wasn’t living with his wife anymore, and Gordon was giving him the evil eye even more than he had when he’d gotten another woman pregnant.
Half the cops seemed to be siding with him… the half that frequented strip clubs, so he was in great company. But with the knowledge that it was the Commissioner’s daughter he’d cheated on, things were tipping out of his favor. But then, he preferred the hateful silence to the looks of solidarity from bitter divorcees. He’d gotten too many offers to go to too many parties where crime lords bought loyalty with loose women and worse.
The elevator dinged and he got out, his footsteps pattering on the dank concrete. A pipe had burst; it figured.
But then, corrupt cops trying to buy him out made sense. If he was a fuck-up in one area of his life, why not another? Dick was tempted to go to IA and try to infiltrate their circle, turn in some of his fellow boys in blue and get hated by a hundred percent of his co-workers, but he’d tried the whole Dark Side thing. Didn’t work out. No, he’d have to face his problems, sooner or later. He just wish he knew how.
He stopped. In his reverie, he’d forgotten where he’d parked. Dick tapped the remote on his key ring; his restored 1971 Buick Riviera lit up and hooted. He kinda wondered what the reaction would be if someone tried to slash the tires and found that it was a Batmobile-in-a-can. Probably get him into trouble. Speaking of…
Kory was lying on the hood of his car, looking about ready to burst. Her maternity jeans were flared at the bottom and her gauzy half-chemise top was buttoned under her cleavage, draping curtain-like over her stomach and billowing over her breasts. Flip-flops dangled from her toes.
She turned her head to look at him. “Don’t say anything.”
His jaw resolutely set, Dick spun his car keys around his finger. Waiting patiently.
Slowly, Kory worked her way up to a sitting position, her arms holding her up. Even her normally luxurious hair hung dull and limp down her back. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now.”
Dick shook his head. “You rate above the Joker. Just.”
“Can we drive somewhere? Talk?”
Dick checked his watch. “There’s a greenhouse on the Wayne estate. We can talk there.”
***
Lian guided her Robo-Rex through a miniature city, gleefully knocking over building-block buildings and LEGO structures alike. The plastic toy soldiers Barbara had arranged in defense were swatted aside by Robo-Rex’s archaeologically-inaccurate spiked tail.
“Okay, now!” Lian said, which was Barbara’s cue.
Barbara bought Optimus Prime out onto the table, sword in one hand, laser-blaster gun in the other. She pressed the button which fired a red plastic missile into Robo-Rex. Lian pressed the red button which made Robo-Rex roared. As puppeteered by Lian and Barbara, they clashed in mortal combat.
“Auntie Barbara?” Lian said when Robo-Rex was soundly defeated.
“Yeah, honey?”
“Why aren’t you playing with Unca Dick?”
Barbara set her hands on her lap. Even an enjoyable task like babysitting Lian while Roy and Dinah went out for dinner turned sour when Dick was invoked. From Roy trying to patch things up to Dinah tip-toeing around her to Mia trying to patch things up, everything was reminding her of him. Which reminded her of Kory, which hurt.
“It’s complicated.”
“Don’t you love him?” Lian asked as she banged truck-form Optimus Prime over some Hot Wheels.
“Not as much as I used to.”
“Are you ever going to get together again?”
“We’ll see.”
“If Aunt Dinah got mad at Daddy, would she leave?”
Barbara patted her lap and Lian dutifully climbed on, letting Barbara give her a big hug. “Your father loves your Aunt Dinah very much and he loves her right back. No one’s going anywhere.”
Lian sat back on Barbara’s knees. “But if she did, would she forgive him and come back and read me bedtime stories? She reads the best bedtime stories.”
“I thought that was Uncle Dick?”
Lian shook her head enthusiastically, pigtails flailing about. “No. Aunt Dinah tells scaaary stories.”
“Yes, Lian, I’m sure Dinah would come back.”
“So why can’t you go back to Uncle Dick?”
“You’ll understand when you’re older… not too well, I hope.”
“Aunt Barbara?”
“Yes Lian?”
“Do you need me to hug you again?”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
***
Dick kept his jaw persistently clenched as they drove, and Kory resisted the urge to rest her head on his shoulder. She opened her window and hung her head a little way out, letting the cold Gotham air cool her feverish brow. With her delivery date fast approaching, she felt like she was on fire most of the time.
“So how’re you feeling?”
“Everything hurts,” she groaned, loosening the scoop-neck of her chemise. Her tender breasts nearly spilled out. “My nipples are sore pretty much all the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Not all your fault, anyway.”
They drove through the gate of Wayne manor. Dick didn’t take the winding road up to the manor, but instead drove on the road that encircled it. He parked on the side and got out. Kory joined him, barefoot. Dick took off his jacket to trek with her up to the greenhouse, an arm around the back of her waist to support her up the hillside. Finally, they entered the jungle-like environment.
The greenhouse was used more to provide test material for the lab than for botanical pleasures. The plants grew wild under an automated sprinkler system, with Alfred sometimes stepping in to check on them. The sprinklers must’ve gone off recently, because a clinging mist hung in the air, rapidly soaking them. Dick helped Kory sit down in a patio chair. She moaned appreciatively as she reclined into its comfort.
A single, oversized button held her chemise together. Kory unbuttoned it and spread it slightly, so that the cloth left her belly bare and fell along the sides of her cleavage. In a slight concession to modesty she held it closed over her breasts.
“You should get back together with Barbara,” she said, blunt and truthful like the good old days.
“Don’t I know it.” Dick sat down across from her, sagging in his seat. “If I could, I would. She put a lot of trust in me, and I betrayed it.” He rubbed at his face. “I don’t know if she’ll ever trust anyone again. Certainly not me.”
Kory scooted closer to him, until they were face to face. Dick was lying back in his chair like a drunk, crushed by guilt. Kory gently took his hand and rubbed it lovingly, from scarred knuckles up to the face of his watch.
“You have to tell her that you don’t love me. You love her. Only her. And that I don’t want you, I have Donna.” She leaned forward, her chemise falling open. Her words flowed like honey, soothing Dick just as her touch did. She unbuttoned his sleeve and pushed it up to his elbow, then took off his watch. Her nails trailed along his forearm, still relaxing him.
“She won’t believe me,” Dick said blearily. And why should she? his miserable voice seemed to ask of her.
Kory undid his tie and took it off, then pulled up his legs so that his foot was in her lap. She took off his shoes and socks in turn. “You’ll just have to convince her,” Kory softly intoned as she put Dick’s bare feet down in the wet mulch of the greenhouse floor.
“I can’t. She won’t take my calls, she won’t answer my e-mails… I had to stop before I came off like a stalker.”
Kory unbuttoned his dress shirt, slowly spreading it open with each button she undid. Underneath, his chest steadily rose and fell. Her fingers barely lingered on the muscles outlined by his sweaty undershirt.
“You’ll have to confront her face to face. I’ll go first, to make it easy on you.” Kory helped him out of his shirt, letting it flutter down to join his tie. Her hands stroked the bare flesh of his shoulders and upper arms as she leaned in closer, her moist lips slightly parted. “I’ll tell her it was all my fault. I’ll tell your wife that I seduced you, forced myself upon you. You were just trying to comfort me and I took advantage of your good intentions. Then I swore you to secrecy, otherwise you would’ve told Barbara right away what you had done.”
“What about you?” Dick asked as Kory lingered over him, giving him a look down her cleavage that most men would’ve killed for. When he met her eyes, that was even worse. They were full of love and sadness, the eyes of a girl you kissed in the rain. He wanted to comfort her, hold her. Love her. He still loved her, despite everything, and he shouldn’t have.
“Don’t worry about me, Dick… Mr. Grayson. You have to forget about me. You have to forget about how it felt…” She had crawled practically into his lap, her breasts shadowing over his chest, and all that was left was for him to put his arms around her. “Don’t think about it, Mr. Grayson, don’t think about how good it was…”
Quietly crying, Kory rested her chin on his shoulder and whispered into his hair as they held each other, her moisture dampening her panties and twitching his nostrils. “We have to put that behind us now. We have to go back… you to your wife, me to Donna… I love Donna, so much…”
“And I love Barbara… I mean, I married her… she’s my wife…” Dick trailed off, anticipation racing across his skin. He let Kory’s head slip down, kissing the flesh between his chin and the neckline of his A-shirt. “I love her.”
He felt the shell of Kory’s ear as she pressed the side of her face against his chest.
“Will you miss me?” Kory asked.
“Oh yes.”
“Will you… miss us?”
Dick petted her hair. “If there was just one more night…”
“There can’t be. Clean break, we have to have a…”
There was nothing holding them back anymore, no reason they couldn’t do as they wanted. And with Dick’s love for Kory out there, he couldn’t very well take it back.
Dick casually took hold of her chemise and moved it from her shoulders, letting it fall down the shapely contours of her back. Kory sat up, her swollen breasts thick in his face. Slowly, Dick reached out and brought his hand to one of the ripe mounds of flesh. Kory shuddered orgasmically, stiffened against him. He heard her sharp intake of breath. His thumb ran over her nipple, found it hard as stone.
“I love you so much,” she said, letting go of him. “We should’ve gotten married…”
He held her close. “I know, I know…”
“We could’ve had a whole passel of kids running around by now.”
“I would’ve liked that,” Dick said, surprised to find he was crying. “But…”
“Yeah…”
“I love her. I really do.”
“You’ll get her back. And then… if we don’t see each other again.”
Dick brushed a lock of hair from her face, looping it around his finger with slow, gentle affection.
“It won’t hurt as much if we never see each other,” Kory finished. “In time… in time, I’ll stop loving you.”
“We might get lucky. You could get bitter and hate me.”
Kory laughed and ended it by biting down on her lower lip. She shrugged her chemise back on and stood up. Kory tied Dick’s tie for him before he got his dress shirt buttoned, and he left it that way. Finally, they just rested against each other, Kory with her forehead against his.
“Promise you won’t forget me?”
“Promise you’ll tell our daughter about her dad?”
“I’ll tell her about the brave hero who rescued me.” She tugged on his tie with a playfulness she didn’t feel. “How you always rescue me.”
“And will you…” he closed his eyes. “Will you go to Barbara’s with me? I don’t think I could do it on my own.”
“We’ll say goodbye there.” She hugged him again. “X’Hal, it feels like I’m saying goodbye now. I want to spend every minute with you, but it’s so painful, it hurts so much…”
“Right now. Let’s go right now. I’ll get showered and we’ll go see her. Star City’s not that far a drive.”
“I wish it were. I wish we could drive forever.”
Dick set Kory down. “You wait here. I’ll be right back, then… we’ll go.”
***
It was hell when she was in the front seat. Her arms were burnished, bare, with the occasional drop of sweat roaming down to her long, slender fingers. Dick had met his share of women who’d tried to seduce him, but Kory didn’t try. She just sat there, window down so she could feel the wind on her face, being powerful and strong and perfect for him, smiling each time he reached across the gearshift to squeeze her shoulder. She didn’t need to seduce him. She’d done it long ago. But he’d made a promise to Barbara.
They passed the city limits. Despite the destruction, things had improved since the Wall came down. There were people rebuilding, staring at Dick’s car as it glided by. They passed the construction work and entered the city. The buildings were generally untouched by the Amsterdam Avenue Disaster, or long since repaired. One, an eyesore of a fire-gutted façade, was marked condemned. Kory watched it with doleful eyes as they passed.
“Dinah and Roy live on Greenlane Street. Look for it,” Dick said.
Kory did, but mainly so she wouldn’t have to look at Dick. He was strong and beautiful and smiled every time he thought about her.
“We’ve had fun, haven’t we?”
“Yes… we’ll still talk…”
“Barbara won’t like it. So you won’t.”
“No,” Dick agreed, not meeting Kory’s gaze. “But that’s the way it has to be.”
Kory wasn’t consoled. The little happiness she’d mustered during her time with him was dashed and even when he touched her shoulder she didn’t smile. Not even when he moved his hand to cup her chin.
“I’ll still love you.”
Kory bit her lip. “Greenlane Street, next exit.”
Dick made the turn.
Roy and Dinah’s house was easy to find. The cars parked in front were a thousand times more cherry than the penis-compensators and SUVs of their neighbors. The not-so-carefully manicured lawn had an oak tree growing out of it, with a tire swing hanging from a stout branch.
“I’m not sure about this,” Dick confessed.
“We could just… keep driving,” Kory said hopefully. “Pick Donna up and hit the open road. Like Thelma & Louise.”
Dick smiled. “There are just so many ways that metaphor doesn’t work.” And he stopped smiling. “Kory, when I’m not with Barbara, I feel…”
“I know. The same way I feel when I’m not with you.”
Kory unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door. Even as it swung open, Dick arrived to help her out of the car. She tried to touch as little of his body as possible, pretended not to notice the way he responded. It would be so easy. A kiss, a caress, and they would be in the backseat, together as they were meant to be. But he would still think of her.
“Don’t tell lies,” Dick said. He clasped her hand in the Tamaran way and held it a moment too long before she pulled away.
Blades of grass bent under her shoes, making her wish she was barefoot. A strong breeze made her wish she was wearing even less. She rung the doorbell and Lian answered.
“Hello, little one. Is Barbara here?”
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Aunt Babs says you’re a whore.”
“Aunt Babs is part of a patriarchal, prudish culture with a phallocentric emphasis on penetrative sex and a revulsion for female sexuality as well as a profound bias for monogamy.”
Lian stood there silently.
“The baby Unca Dick put in you got a lot bigger.”
“Yes, she shall be big and strong. Like her parents.”
Roy came to the door. He ruffled Lian’s hair and Kory’s heart sang. It wouldn’t be long before she could do the same.
“Kory, hey,” Roy said awkwardly, but careful not to offend. “What’re you doing here?”
“I came to see Barbara.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
Impassioned, Kory said “I came here to resolve things to everyone’s satisfaction. Right now, your friends are miserable. I would like to restore them to happiness.”
Roy sighed, looking down. “She won’t be happy about it.”
“I doubt she’s happy about much either way.”
“That’s true.” Roy opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
Kory stepped inside. Barbara was waiting for her in the study, a laptop on her lap, Barbara never even glancing up from it. The light from the screen reflected off her glasses, hiding her eyes completely.
“Hello, Kory. Come to steal Dinah’s boyfriend too?”
“I’m not here to fight,” Kory said as she painstakingly knelt at Barbara’s feet. “I’m here to beg forgiveness and put right what wrong I did.”
“Well. Better late than never, right?”
Barbara shut her laptop. As soon as Barbara looked at her, Kory knew she was hated. Not just because of what she’d done, but because of the life growing inside her, robust and full, so much more vivid a symbol of love than a thin circle of gold.
“I can never trust my husband again because of you. I’m not even sure if he still is my husband.”
“He would like to be. More than anything.”
“Not as much as he would like a blowjob from you, apparently.”
Kory stood. As much as she had resolved to ignored Barbara’s justified anger, it was getting harder. She was a warrior-born, and yet to let provocations pass by unanswered… “You’re making yourself miserable. You’re making Dick miserable. So if you would like to be angry with me, go right ahead. Get it out of your system. But after that I want you to accept Dick’s apology.”
“Really?” Barbara laughed bitterly. “And why would I do that? So I can go back to worrying whether he’s getting killed or cheating on me every time he leaves my sight?”
“Which would you have more problems with?”
Barbara slapped her. Kory controlled her smile, welcoming the passion and fire. At last, something besides misery.
“How dare you! I love him!”
“You have a funny way of showing it. You’re so vindictive, so petty that you prefer him in pain. You can’t imagine the guilt he felt, nor the self-flagellation he endured. You didn’t even notice.”
Barbara’s carefully neutral expression had given way to a deep scowl. She put a hand to her heart. “So I’m the bad guy because I expect my husband to be faithful to me?”
Kory got in her face. “You’re the bad guy because you put your own insecurities ahead of the one you love. I could take Dick to bed seven days a week and he would still be more in love with you, if you only smiled at him for a moment.”
“Okay, suck his cock all you want, you’ve shown me the error of my ways.”
“Sarcasm is one of the things I hate about Earth.”
“What about fidelity?” Barbara asked viciously. “That another one?”
“If you loved him as much as you claimed, you wouldn’t make him suffer like this. He’s done enough of that. And always under your watch.”
“What’s that—“
“I took care of him. For as long as I could, whenever I could. But it’s like you throw him away whenever you get bored of him.“
Barbara was outraged. Kory was managing to bring up all her old self-doubts about her relationship with Dick, all her rationalizations that she wasn’t good enough for him. It made her feel ill to have her own excuses thrown back in her face like they were truths instead of evil insecurities.
“Just because I have a trifle of self-respect, unlike you and your whore Donna…”
Kory picked Barbara up by the throat. “Don’t talk about her that way. We’d all be content with the cards we’ve been played if it weren’t for you.“
Barbara was so stunned she didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said “Kory, your water broke.”
***
Barbara didn’t know why she stayed in the maternity ward. The rush to the hospital was so quick that she just got roped into it along with Roy and Dinah. Besides, as much as she professed disinterest, she wasn’t about to leave Dick and Kory alone. As much as it hurt her to see them together, it hurt worse not to see them. To picture how happy and carefree they must be without her.
Dick came out of Kory’s room, hospital scrubs baled under his arm and a cell-phone to his ear. He hung up. “That was Donna. She’s on her way, and rounding up the rest.”
He sat down beside Barbara. Barbara almost didn’t look at him, but that would be childish. So she looked him dead in the eye. He met her gaze; of all the cheek…
“We need to talk,” he said sotto voce.
“I think your actions have spoken a lot louder than words.”
“Just listen, alright!?” He looked over at Dinah and Roy, who were respectively frowning with disapproval and trying desperately to pretend to be somewhere else. “You guys mind giving us a little privacy?”
“Barbara?” Dinah said.
“It’s alright, babe.”
“Yeah, let’s go get mommy and daddy some coffee,” Roy said, practically dragging Dinah away.
Dick and Barbara were left alone, both consumed by the very feelings they’d been trying to suppress. For Barbara it was the height of melancholy, the pain of seeing him again and the old ache of his betrayal. For Dick it was the ancient, reinvigorated shame of his affair and the desperate hope of reconciliation. He felt like he would literally die if he didn’t bridge the gap between them, but all his carefully worded excuses and rationalizations had fled him.
“You know I never meant to hurt you, right?”
Barbara stared at her feet. “You never do. That doesn’t change the fact that you did.” She sighed. “I’m trying to be reasonable, so go ahead.”
“Just, tell me something…” Dick got out of his chair and crouched in front of her so they were looking into each others’ eyes. “Are you happy without me?”
Barbara laughed only so much as she didn’t cry. “Are you kidding? Of course I’m not happy. But it hurts a lot less than finding out you don’t love me enough to keep it in your pants.”
Dick gnashed his teeth. “This isn’t about Kory.”
“You still love her.”
“I still have feelings for her. That doesn’t mean--”
“Dick, please…” She took his hands. “Be honest, okay? I’m too tired to be angry.”
Dick looked at the door to Kory’s hospital room. Some of the best times of his life had been spent alongside her. Some of the worst, too. She’d made him a man, not in a sexual way, but by giving him the grace and freedom to become his own person. And he’d fallen in love with her, in a way that was stronger than he could’ve believed. And when fate had conspired to break them apart, he’d lied to himself that his feelings for her were gone as well. But the truth was…
“I don’t think I ever stopped loving her. I convinced myself I did, because that made it easier… I even convinced myself that I’d loved you all along, as Batgirl instead of the wonderful person you’ve become… but I just buried it deep down. And when I started seeing her again, those feelings came to the surface. And I couldn’t handle them. But I can deal with them, if I acknowledge them… because I know I love you more.”
With sheer force of will, Barbara looked away from his earnest expression. “And how do I know you won’t change your mind? I didn’t even do anything wrong, Dick. You just… she just curled her finger and you hopped into bed with her.”
“I was scared,” Dick confessed, his fingers finally daring to touch her, curling around her face in tender caresses. “Ever since we were married, it’s like there’s been this weight pressing down on me. I was so scared of losing you, of not being worthy of you. I felt like I had to be perfect, or you’d…”
“Or I’d kick you out,” Barbara realized. “Again.”
Dick nodded glumly.
It hadn’t been a good time in Dick’s life when she rejected him. It wasn’t something they talked about after. He had offered amnesty with his proposal and she’d taken it and ran. But wasn’t it possible that he’d thought it had been hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles, ready to break apart their relationship once more if she felt that they weren’t a good match?
“And with Kory, I could just be… myself. It felt like I was a Titan again. No pressure, just freedom. But it was never supposed to go beyond friendship. I thought we could be like Roy and I, or me and Wally… siblings. I had no idea she still harbored feelings for me.”
“If you did, would it have changed anything?”
“It would have changed everything.”
Dick’s hands were resting coolly on her heated cheeks now and God, it felt good just to be held by him.
“So where do we go from here?” Barbara asked.
“I talked it over with Kory. We agreed that she should go back to Donna and I… well… I’m here, aren’t I? With you.”
“That won’t stop her from loving you.”
Dick sighed, his teeth gritted. “Can’t you do some female bonding? Eat ice cream, talk about men’s butts, have a pillow fight?”
“This is all a big joke to you. Typical male fantasy. Two beautiful women fighting over you.“
“Yeah, I just love the two most important women in my life being miserable because of me. It’s top of the list.”
They fell into a deep silence after that, Dick grinding his teeth and Barbara crossing her arms, both careful not to look at the other.
***
Roy stood in the hospital’s cafeteria line, piling a plastic plate high with food as Dinah hit up the Starbucks vendor. “You think Dick would prefer a ham sandwich or tuna?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”
“You’re right. Ham sandwich.”
Dinah linked up with him by the cashier, holding a tray of coffee. “I can’t believe you’re taking his side in this.”
Roy was paying for the food and getting a sympathetic look from the cashier. “I’m not taking anyone’s side.”
They sat down at one of the lunch tables, Roy stuffing their friends’ food into a paper bag, Dinah taking her utensils out of their plastic.
“You should! You should take Barbara’s side.”
“I’ll take the side that makes them both happy.”
“Right. Barbara’s side.”
“That sounds more like the side that keeps them both miserable and alone.”
“You’d prefer for them to be miserable and together?”
Roy, frustrated, ran a hand through his hair. “Dick isn’t Ollie.”
“So, you’re going to support Dick no matter what?” Dinah asked, face tightening.
Roy nodded. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Good. I’ll cover Barbara.”
“Can I watch?”
Dinah smiled and stole one of Roy’s fries.
Donna walked in. Dick’s call had woken her from a deep rest she was taking after slaying a small dragon, her wounds only recently having finished healing. A quick shower (her hair was still wet) had washed off the dried blood, but she still smelled of adrenaline, smoke, and violence. Her clothes, hastily thrown on to begin with, were ruffled from her supersonic cross-country flight.
“Roy!”
Roy stood up to receive and return a quick embrace from his old girlfriend. Dinah cleared her throat.
“Oh, hey,” Roy said. “Dinah, Donna; Donna, Dinah.”
“Charmed,” Dinah said, shaking Donna’s hand.
“Same here. Is Kory okay?”
“She’s fine. The doctors have her cordoned off to do some tests, but I haven’t heard anything but good.”
Donna’s relief released the breath she’d been holding across the country. She hugged Roy again, tighter this time, and after a long time, Dinah patted her on the back. That cued Donna to let go. She gave Dinah a chagrinned smile.
“So, where are they?”
***
Donna walked in on Dick and Barbara just as the man was reaching for her hand. When he saw Donna coming, Dick pulled it back, but Donna just sat down beside them and put their hands in each others’, locked within her own.
“We’re having a baby,” she said, before kissing Dick on the forehead. Dick and Barbara both looked away.
“Donna, we’re still… having some problems,” Dick said.
“Oh. That sucks.”
“We brought food,” Roy interjected.
They ate in silence. Barbara, who wasn’t hungry, surrendered her food to Donna. Dinah and Roy, who’d already eaten, just put their arms around each other in the face of the various degrees of unhappiness on display.
Dick was jolted out of his cud-like munching by Barbara’s hand on his shoulder.
“Are you going to finish that?”
With a wide, stupid smile, Dick opened his cup of pudding, dug his spoon in, and offered a mouthful to her. Barbara took it and Dick swiftly offered her another. Quiet tears came to her eyes.
Dick took her in his arms, stroking the pads of his fingers between her shoulder blades. The guilt of his betrayal hit him full-force, squeezing his guts like a giant fist.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, so sorry…”
A doctor emerged from Kory’s hospital room amidst a herd of fellow doctors and nurses. He was a thin man with male pattern baldness, his remaining hair fading gray.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grayson?”
Dick looked up at him, still comforting Barbara. “It’s Grayson-Gordon, actually.”
“Of course.” He turned to Dinah. “Miss Troy?”
Donna stepped forward. “That would be me.”
“Miss Koriand’r would like to see you all, whenever you’re ready.”
Barbara raised her eyebrows. She turned around. “I’m not sure…”
“She was most insistent upon seeing you, in particular.”
“I’ll make an excuse for you, if you don’t want to,” Donna said.
“No, no. I’ll see her.”
The doctor nodded. “She’s having contractions, but the baby’s nowhere near crowning yet. Still, try not to agitate her. So far, the hybridization of the infant doesn’t seem to pose any problem, but inform one of the nurses if you notice anything strange.”
Nods all around.
“Okay then. I’ll leave the four of you alone.”
He got out of the way of the door he’d been blocking, allowing them to pile into Kory’s room. Kory was zoned out on the bed, her fingers circled and her chest filling with a Tamaranian breathing exercise. Donna knelt beside Kory first, kissing her on the cheek.
Kory opened her eyes, their green light waning and flaring. “Oh, hello Donna. What are you doing here?”
“You asked me to be here. You asked all of us to be here, remember?”
“Oh, yes. You must excuse me, my body is producing a large amount of beta-endorphin, causing a euphoric pleasure that borders on the narcotic."
"You're... you're stoned?" Donna said.
"I like your hair," Kory smiled. She craned her head slowly to the door, where Dick and Barbara lingered. “Hello, my loves. Please, come in.”
Dick and Barbara took a step closer, Barbara getting a closer look at her rival. Kory was sweating, her eyes frightened beneath the opiate haze. And despite it all, she had the most winsome smile Barbara had ever seen. Kory reached out her hand to Barbara and Barbara took it.
“The baby is coming,” Kory said. “Her name will be Mariand'r. It’s funny. She is strong, yet I worry for her. But I know all of you will help me care for her.”
Donna mopped at Kory’s brow affectionately. Kory looked back at her, ran the back of her hand along Donna’s cheek with equal affection, then pulled her into a sweet kiss.
“I’ve been unfair to you, Donna. To all of you. Dick, you once chastised me for how I was unable to let go of my warrior nature. I thought I had conquered that, but in matters of the heart I am stubbornly Tamaranian. That has hurt you all. You, Donna, by denying you the fullness of love which you deserve.” She turned back to Dick and Barbara. “You, Dick, by lusting after what was not mine to take. And you, Barbara, you most of all… I will not have my child brought into a world of hurt and deceit. Dick, Barbara, I love you as the sun and the moon, but there isn’t a place for me in your lives.” Again her emerald eyes turned on Donna. “Donna Troy. You above all reason have been devoted to me. I told you that I loved Dick more than you. I hope you will give me the opportunity to prove that a lie.” Kory took Donna’s hand and put it on her belly. “Give us that opportunity.”
Donna leaned down and kissed Kory’s stomach, rubbing her cheeks into the contact.
“I should go,” Barbara said.
***
She spent a sleepless night and a wakeless day at Dinah’s place, watching insipid late-night and daytime TV. Dinah came home sometime in the wee hours of the morning, brought her a bagel.
“How’s the baby?” Barbara asked.
“Fourteen hours of labor so far. It’s like the baby just doesn’t want to come out.”
“Not my problem.” Barbara changed the channel.
“Dick’s still there. Right now, all he’s got to lean on is Roy.”
“Boffo for him.” Barbara changed the channel.
Dinah sat down and put an arm around Barbara.
“I’m one of those people. Those skanky people on the daytime talk shows who other people laugh at and think ‘it’ll never happen to me’.”
Dinah rubbed Barbara’s hair, finding it greasy and ragged. “You could use a bath.”
“I don’t know what to do with myself, Dinah.”
“You could take a bath.”
“Yeah, sure, fine.”
***
Barbara bonelessly let herself be undressed and manipulated into the warm bath Dinah had run, reminded of the days she had needed a nurse to help her through her daily routine. She’d sworn she’d never sink that low again. Dinah was a hedonist when it came to bathing, adding bath salts and even some of Lian’s bubble foam to the mix. It felt heavenly, but the effort was wasted on Barbara. She just drifted off, ignoring even the tingling pleasure as Dinah massaged shampoo into her scalp.
“If you think I’m going to rub soap all over that pale carcass of yours, you’re sorely mistaken,” Dinah said, jamming a bar of soap into Barbara’s hand. “C’mon. Snap out of it. What happened to the Barbara I knew, the fighter, the champ-een?”
“She opened her heart to someone and he stabbed a knife through it.”
“Geez, write goth poetry about it, why don’t you?” Dinah splashed her friend. “Remember what you said to me when I dumped Ollie? Buck up, stiff upper lip, the mission sustains us?”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
Dinah slumped against the outside of the tub. “I give up. You’re hopeless.”
After a long pause, a wet hand slipped out of the tub and landed on Dinah’s shoulder, gripping it with old strength. “You wanna ruin some creep’s night?”
Dinah smiled. “Always.”
***
Bathed, dried, and even wearing something Dinah insisted was halfway fashionable, Barbara powered on the holographics built into her laptop. Green Arrow took care of most of the crime in Star City, but he had an eye for corporate fat-cats and certain things slipped under his radar. Like contraband cigarette shipments. It wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t flashy, but it made money for the Mafia and a shipment was coming in sometime soon.
As Dinah brutalized her way through the local scum dive, Barbara went through shipping schedules, trying to make something fit despite the cover-up. In no time at all she had it narrowed down… to three days from then. Sighing dramatically, she called Dinah off.
“It was self-defense, hand to God,” Dinah said over the comlink. Barbara heard her motorcycle rev in the background.
“I believe you, but did they know anything?”
“Nope.”
“Alright, come home. Plan B.”
“Ice cream and a weepie?”
“Bring Kleenex.”
Okay, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was…
Someone knocked at the door. By the slow rhythm it had to be Dick. He would have a key.
“Come on in.”
The knob turned and Dick entered in inches. He looked haggard, but defiantly joyous, a spark hot and red in his eyes. He walked toward Barbara, stooped and slow. She shut her laptop and put it aside.
“It’s a girl. Marie. She’s beautiful. Has your eyes.”
“Uh-huh,” Barbara half-said, but she couldn’t fake disinterest. Not after nine months seeing the little thing develop from a fetus into a tiny presence that kicked within Kory. “How is she?”
Dick sat down in a nearby chair, the strength that animated him draining from his body. “Okay. Kory’s got a smile that you couldn’t pry off with a crowbar. And the little munchkin’s hungry. Won’t hardly give the breast milk a rest.”
Barbara sighed. “So when’s she coming home? Better question; where is home?”
Dick folded his hands. “Donna’s place is at the Amazonian Embassy. And Kory does want to show off her baby. They have a daycare center there too, some of the best doctors in the world.” He paused. From the look in his eyes he was kicking himself, feeling sorrow and exuberance in equal measure. “You should’ve been there, Babs. I taped it, but we all… we all missed you.”
“I was busy.”
“Cheap hooch and a gallon of ice cream?”
“Not yet.”
“Ah.” Dick got up, dusting imaginary dirt from his knees. “Well, I should get going. Kory’ll be missing me. She wants a lot of pictures of the ‘family’ for her scrapbook. Which she doesn’t even have yet, but she’s keen to start one.”
The word shot out of Barbara like a bird breaking free. “Dick?”
Dick’s entire body seemed to stiffen. “Yeah?”
“Can you give me a ride over there?”
***
The ride was fast and tense, Dick lead-footing it to the hospital, and helping her into her wheelchair as if he didn’t want to tempt himself with touching her too long. She could sympathize. The last of their paltry attempts at dancing around the elephant in the corner dying off, they got into the elevator. Dick cast a longing glance at the stairs as the doors closed.
“You know, you could stay with Kory if you wanted,” Barbara said. “Be a dad. Have a family.”
Dick was stone-silent.
“It’d be a good life.”
Still he said nothing. But there was a little shake of his head, like he was trying to dislodge some water from his ear.
“I know why she did it. I even know why you did it. You always want to make people happy. And Kory wanted it so bad…”
“I wanted it,” Dick said, as if reproaching her. “It’s not because of anything you did wrong, it’s because I’m not good enough. You were right about that.”
“I never said…”
The elevator chimed and the doors opened; they were no longer alone. Like a pall-bearer at a funeral, Dick’s footsteps led her to Kory’s room. Roy was asleep on the bench outside, his coat folded into a pillow. Inside, Donna was holding the baby, bouncing it playfully in her arms. It cooed and laughed animatedly, like it had all the energy in the world. Kory was in bed, looking exhausted and beatific and all the things women who’d given birth were supposed to look like. Except much more glamorous.
Since Barbara had left, the room had filled up with flowers, balloons, greeting cards. It reminded Barbara uncomfortably of her own hospital room after the paralyzing, which had been spartan compared to this. The tragedy of the secret identity. Of course, Bruce and Dick had done their best to make up for the deficiency, before she chewed Bruce out for laughing with the Joker, but Dick had always been there until she’d driven him off. Back to Kory.
History had an irritating tendency to repeat itself.
The baby stopped giggling to crane its tiny head to Barbara with preternatural awareness. Donna glumly shook Kory’s foot, waking her.
“Mmmmm.” Kory looked at Barbara, and her sleepiness dissolved into a small grin. “Barbara. You came.”
Barbara swallowed. Overwhelmingly, the panicky sense that she had no place here came over here. Fractured as it was, this was a family and a half and she didn’t belong. But Dick took Mar’i… or Marie, she guessed… from Donna and sauntered over to Barbara, adoringly rubbing the baby’s already dewy head of hair.
“See? Told you she had your eyes.”
Marie’s eyes were wide and green and inquisitive, gazing at Barbara with a child’s single-mindedness.
“Hold her,” Kory said, sitting up a little.
“I couldn’t possibly…”
“No, go on.” Dick held Marie out to her. “Take her.”
Her arms were sluggish as they defied all reason and took the child from Dick. The baby was swaddled in warm blankets which made her seem bigger than she was. She was so tiny, but her arms and legs pedaled with activity when Barbara held her. Marie reached up and a miniscule hand felt out Barbara’s face, marveling at her glasses.
“She likes you,” Dick said.
“She’s beautiful,” Barbara said, dumbstruck.
“Good genes.”
Kory was petting Donna’s hand. Her smile was tinged with the kind of sadness Barbara could find in a mirror. “We’ll bring her by to visit you every time we’re in Gotham. And Dick too, of course.”
The baby was tugging at Barbara’s lips, revealing the pearly white teeth with open fascination and then touching those. Barbara kissed her little knuckles. With balled fists, Marie prodded at Barbara’s breast.
“She wants to be fed,” Kory said. “Here.”
Reluctantly, Barbara gave up the baby to Dick, who ferried her to Kory. Like an old hand, Kory pulled open her gown and offered a coral-pink nipple for Marie to suckle at. The baby did so, her tiny hands playing with Kory’s fingers as the alien fluttered them nearby.
“She’s amazing,” Barbara said. She was still in awe. The little thing had been so… like her. Not just Dick and Kory, but her. Although the abundant red down on the top of her head pointed to her Tamaranian ancestry, and the way her little limbs let her squirm about had to be from Dick. But she had Barbara’s eyes, curious beyond measure. It was indescribably astonishing. “Can I hold her again?”
“First thing, once she’s done,” Kory said.
Dick, who’d been looking from the baby to Barbara, stopped to rub his stubble-chalked jaw. “I should shave. There’s a locker room downstairs they said I could use; I’ll nip back once I don’t stink.”
“Don’t take too long.”
Dick bent and kissed Kory’s forehead. “I won’t.”
Barbara was deep in thought after he left. She imagined she could hear the shower water start running downstairs, the way he washed off the old man and put on the new when he was done. Same sweat-soaked clothes, but beneath he moved different, was different. He couldn’t be with Kory, but he loved her. He loved Barbara, but he also loved Kory.
“He loves Mar’i,” Barbara said at last.
“Hmm?” Kory said. Marie had fallen into a contented rest against her breast, still lightly sucking, but her teeny fingers only flexed sporadically.
“Your daughter. Dick loves her. She was born, what, two hours ago? How long’s he known her?”
“All her life,” Kory said wisely. “And she’s our daughter.”
It wasn’t clear what ‘our’ she was referring to, but Donna preened when she snuggled against Kory, folding herself into a hospital bed that was just big enough for two. Or three.
Her hands trembling, Barbara guided her wheelchair to the bedside. She laid a single hand against the baby, marveling at how large it was compared to the baby’s, which wrapped around a single knuckle. Marie’s fingers weren’t even long enough to get all the way around that.
“Stay with us,” Barbara said, with no thought whatsoever.
“What?” Donna looked up and Kory just looked surprised.
“All of you. The Clocktower is…”
“Gotham?” Donna asked.
“We’ll move somewhere else. Somewhere where we can all be together. We’ll work something about and we’ll raise the best little girl in the whole wide world.”
“But, I mean, what about…” Donna sputtered, but was silenced when Kory put a serene finger to her lips.
“We’ll work it out.”
Dick came back and Barbara kissed him as deeply, as passionately as a woman had ever kissed a man.
“Look, Dick. Look what we made together,” she said, as Marie fell asleep between Kory’s breasts, wrapped tightly in her arms.
***
The entire Harper household went through a Chinese fire-drill as soon as their two cars descended on the place. Roy frantically cleared a space, Dinah tried to get the guest bedroom in order (it looked like a tornado had blown through it from Lian’s last sleepover), and Dick just wearily arranged the sofa into a bed and grabbed a sleeping bag from the hall closet.
Kory walked down the hallway past the living room, singing softly to her baby, and Lian trailed after her, asking to hold Mar’i. Dick tracked her with his eyes, then shook his head and wearily sat down in an easy chair. Nearby, Barbara had retrieved her laptop and was immersed on it.
“Second thoughts?” he asked.
“No, just prepping the Clocktower. By morning, all the essentials will be on our doorstep.”
“’Our’ doorstep?”
Barbara took off her glasses to look at him.
“You are going to sleep on the couch for a month,” she said.
Dick laughed, like a dam of tension had broken in his throat, as he wound his arms around Barbara, an irresistible grin on his face.
“I’m serious.”
“I don’t care,” Dick laughed, kissing the side of Barbara’s face.
He fell on the couch beside her. Held her hand for a while, kissing it every few seconds. Then he got up.
“I should check on…” he said, idly gesturing to the hallway.
“Go ahead,” Barbara said, her voice carefully neutral.
Dick went.
He walked down the hallway into the guest bedroom and found Kory on her side on the bed, the baby sleeping in her shadow. Donna laid behind Kory, nuzzled into her adoringly. Mar’i tiredly paddled her arms and legs as she slept, miniscule movements like leaves being blown in the wind. With as much grace as he’d ever had, Dick laid down across from Kory so that the baby was between them.
“Hey you.”
“Hey,” Kory said.
She ran a hand over the baby’s thin crown of hair with all the affection she couldn’t bestow upon him. And, in perfect counterpoint, he ran his hand over the baby’s stomach. Their hands never quite touched; until they did. His thumb and forefinger circled her wrist, then merged at the palm, their fingers interweaving, and they were holding hands.
“How do I look?”
“Like a mother. Me?”
“The same way you always look.”
Dick snorted. “That’s a relief.”
Kory squeezed his hand.
“Barbara loves you. She’ll forgive you.”
“She’s already forgiven me.”
“That’s good.” Kory looked down at the baby. “Is she what you were expecting?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Whiter skin. Less hair. And her eyes, the whites are tinted green a little bit, you see?”
“You were expecting them to be human. Like yours and Barbara’s.”
“Yeah. I guess I was.” Dick paused as the implications rained down. “She’s beautiful, though. Not what I was expecting, but still beautiful. You know, I never really thought of her as… herself until I saw her. Her own little life… I don’t think I could get enough of her, now. I wanna find out what music she likes, what food she’ll like, how she’ll comb her hair…” He leaned his head in, dwarfing the tiny infant, and sang gently, “Hey Jude / don't make it bad / Take a sad song and make it better / Remember to let her into your heart / Then you can start to make it better.”
Kory smiled and ruffled his hair, before lowering her head next to the baby and closing her eyes. Dick continued singing as Kory’s breathing slowed into sleep, pausing only to kiss her on the cheek. He rose, meeting Donna’s eyes.
“Take care of her,” he told her.
“Help me,” she said.
He nodded and tried to walk out, only to find Barbara in the doorway. Dick sputtered, old guilt and shame and fear filling his heart, but Barbara clapped him on the hip and rolled past him to the side of the bed.
She patted the bed, “You mind?”
Dick rushed forward, helping her out of her chair and onto the bed. Barbara rolled over, close to the baby, dipping her head to smell Mar’i. Her smile was as wide as Kory’s.
***
Dick plopped down on the couch. He didn’t quite sleep and he didn’t quite smile, except when he did both. Roy passed him on the way to grab a midnight snack.
“Sucks to be you,” Roy said, wiping his mouth after inhaling OJ straight from the carton.
“No, it really doesn’t.”
***
Most of the time, Barbara was sure it would never work. Then Kory would help her into bed or Donna would pat her on the back in passing and she’d wonder about the possibilities.
Donna was worried, nervous. Once burnt, twice shy. But night after night, it was Kory who cradled her, made love to her, kissed her and whispered truths in her ear that would’ve been lies if she’d said them to Dick or Barbara.
Dick didn’t so much as glance at Kory when he didn’t need to. He played with his daughter, and with Barbara, and when he smiled there wasn’t a trace of doubt or regret on his face. Remorse sprung up, sometimes, when he held Barbara late at night and knew there was pain he’d put her through that could’ve been avoided. But that was a mistake made and lesson learned and, most importantly, in the past.
Kory watched and felt the love flourish between them, all of them, in so many variations and complexities that it was impossible to untangle or single out. There was the love that she felt when she was with Donna, deep and warm, and the love she felt with Barbara and with Dick. It was all so much more vast and different than she had expected. And the newest, the most unexpected was Mar’i, who slowly came to crawl and walk and talk and fly.
And Mar’i had three mothers, one father, countless aunts and uncles, a red-headed godfather who brought his daughter over for play dates, two grandfathers (one who never smiled, one who never seemed to stop), and, in time, her own sons and daughters to raise. Although she never did think it was quite right that everyone else only had two parents.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Dick/Babs, Donna/Kory, Dick/Kory
Word Count: 9,561
Series: The Other Wife
Summary: Kory and Dick and Barbara bring a new life into the world.
Month 8
Month 9 – April – Family Union
Wayne Manor wasn’t as comforting as Dick had hoped it would be. Seeing it in its timeless grandeur made his own failings that much more dismal.
Alfred got the door for him. Dick entered with head bowed, not meeting the butler’s eyes. He knew any aspersions the butler might cast on him were in his imagination, but he still couldn’t bear the thought of a word passing between them. No one had been happier at Dick’s wedding than Alfred, and thinking of the infidelity made Dick feel like he’d slapped the old man across the face.
Alfred didn’t even offer to take Dick’s bags; he deferred to Dick’s unspoken request to carry his own bags. Alfred always asked and Dick always tried to spare the elderly butler that discomfort, but this time the traditional battle was won without a shot. Dick’s victory made him feel like shit.
Bruce was waiting for him in the study, and Dick knew as soon as his father looked at him that he’d find no absolution. He’d won Bruce’s approval of the match slowly, and Bruce had come to care about Barbara like a daughter before he trusted Dick to her. A lot of people had something invested in Dick’s marriage, and he’d spat in all their faces.
“Dick.”
“Bruce.”
Bruce gestured to a chair. Dick set his bags down, then sat. Bruce stared into him, hunched forward, hands steepled, face cast in stern lines.
“I can’t understand what you’re going through,” Bruce said. “Part of me doesn’t want to. But I feel compelled to ask if you want to talk about it.”
“No.”
“Good.” Bruce stood. “I trust you’ll make things right. Until then, stay as long as you need to.”
He started to leave and Dick felt the words spill out of him before he could stop: “I never meant for this to happen.”
Bruce stopped, back rigid, and slowly turned. “I trained you to be disciplined. What happened?”
***
Star City was a nice place to visit, but it didn’t have that Gotham spark. No matter where she moved in the world, Barbara felt like she’d always miss Gotham’s drive, the endearing hope hidden under its cynicism. Despite the spectacular sunlit view out the window, it just couldn’t compare to the Gothamites’ attitude that they were all in it together. That they were all standing side by side.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”
Barbara shut her laptop and turned away from the window she was staring out of. She’d long bragged about being able to direct her operations from anywhere in the world… all she needed was a fast internet connection and one of her slave units. The laptop was one of the few things she’d taken from the Clocktower before leaving to move in with Roy and Dinah. Well, Dinah, to be more precise. Barbara didn’t even know her friend had moved in with Roy.
It was Mia, one of the guests that seemed to be constantly dropping in on them.
“Your husband, I mean… are we still doing secret identities? Because I know your first name is Barbara and…”
“Grayson-Gordon,” Barbara said, extending a hand to shake. Mia took it. “No… just Gordon, thanks.”
“Listen, we all love having you here… I think Connor has a bit of a crush on you,” she pouted and rolled her eyes, “but… you know, not trying to be rude here? I don’t think you really belong. You could!” Mia said quickly. “But…”
“Gotham’s my first, best destiny.” Barbara ran a hand over her laptop. “Yeah, I know. I’m not ready to go back.”
Mia leaned against a wall next to the bay window Barbara was parked at. Her flippy ponytail bounded with each little shake of her head. “No one’s saying you should get back together with Dick… except maybe for Roy, and he’s really forgiving. But even I can see you’re not happy here.”
Barbara opened up her laptop and focused on that. “I don’t think I’d be happy anywhere. If anyone ever tells you it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Hit them for me.”
Mia nodded seriously. “Okay. Hey, you wanna shoot some arrows down by range? Roy has one set up in the basement. And he lets you use trick arrows.” A doofy grin lit up Mia’s face. “You should try blowing up a target with an exploding arrow. It’s very effective at relieving stress. Just make sure you don’t accidentally grab a shampoo-arrow. That can get weird.”
“Maybe later.”
“Okay.” Mia vaulted up and bopped her way to the door out of the study, running her finger along the keyboard of a piano on her way out. “Oh, and we’re ordering Chinese for dinner, so if you want something other than Kung Pao chicken, now’s the time.”
Barbara smiled. “Kung Pao chicken sounds just fine.”
With Mia gone, she maxed the window she had been looking at. Feeling like an idiot, and a masochistic idiot at that, she once more browsed through the gallery of photos she and Dick had taken of each other on their honeymoon. As much as it hurt to look at them, she needed to know that it had once been possible to really be that happy… even if it would never happen again.
***
Dick rode the elevator down to the underground parking garage, already tugging on his tie and wishing he were home. Again he’d nearly soaked through his suit with sweat. Word had gotten out that he’d cheated… it pretty much had to. He worked with detectives, he wasn’t living with his wife anymore, and Gordon was giving him the evil eye even more than he had when he’d gotten another woman pregnant.
Half the cops seemed to be siding with him… the half that frequented strip clubs, so he was in great company. But with the knowledge that it was the Commissioner’s daughter he’d cheated on, things were tipping out of his favor. But then, he preferred the hateful silence to the looks of solidarity from bitter divorcees. He’d gotten too many offers to go to too many parties where crime lords bought loyalty with loose women and worse.
The elevator dinged and he got out, his footsteps pattering on the dank concrete. A pipe had burst; it figured.
But then, corrupt cops trying to buy him out made sense. If he was a fuck-up in one area of his life, why not another? Dick was tempted to go to IA and try to infiltrate their circle, turn in some of his fellow boys in blue and get hated by a hundred percent of his co-workers, but he’d tried the whole Dark Side thing. Didn’t work out. No, he’d have to face his problems, sooner or later. He just wish he knew how.
He stopped. In his reverie, he’d forgotten where he’d parked. Dick tapped the remote on his key ring; his restored 1971 Buick Riviera lit up and hooted. He kinda wondered what the reaction would be if someone tried to slash the tires and found that it was a Batmobile-in-a-can. Probably get him into trouble. Speaking of…
Kory was lying on the hood of his car, looking about ready to burst. Her maternity jeans were flared at the bottom and her gauzy half-chemise top was buttoned under her cleavage, draping curtain-like over her stomach and billowing over her breasts. Flip-flops dangled from her toes.
She turned her head to look at him. “Don’t say anything.”
His jaw resolutely set, Dick spun his car keys around his finger. Waiting patiently.
Slowly, Kory worked her way up to a sitting position, her arms holding her up. Even her normally luxurious hair hung dull and limp down her back. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now.”
Dick shook his head. “You rate above the Joker. Just.”
“Can we drive somewhere? Talk?”
Dick checked his watch. “There’s a greenhouse on the Wayne estate. We can talk there.”
***
Lian guided her Robo-Rex through a miniature city, gleefully knocking over building-block buildings and LEGO structures alike. The plastic toy soldiers Barbara had arranged in defense were swatted aside by Robo-Rex’s archaeologically-inaccurate spiked tail.
“Okay, now!” Lian said, which was Barbara’s cue.
Barbara bought Optimus Prime out onto the table, sword in one hand, laser-blaster gun in the other. She pressed the button which fired a red plastic missile into Robo-Rex. Lian pressed the red button which made Robo-Rex roared. As puppeteered by Lian and Barbara, they clashed in mortal combat.
“Auntie Barbara?” Lian said when Robo-Rex was soundly defeated.
“Yeah, honey?”
“Why aren’t you playing with Unca Dick?”
Barbara set her hands on her lap. Even an enjoyable task like babysitting Lian while Roy and Dinah went out for dinner turned sour when Dick was invoked. From Roy trying to patch things up to Dinah tip-toeing around her to Mia trying to patch things up, everything was reminding her of him. Which reminded her of Kory, which hurt.
“It’s complicated.”
“Don’t you love him?” Lian asked as she banged truck-form Optimus Prime over some Hot Wheels.
“Not as much as I used to.”
“Are you ever going to get together again?”
“We’ll see.”
“If Aunt Dinah got mad at Daddy, would she leave?”
Barbara patted her lap and Lian dutifully climbed on, letting Barbara give her a big hug. “Your father loves your Aunt Dinah very much and he loves her right back. No one’s going anywhere.”
Lian sat back on Barbara’s knees. “But if she did, would she forgive him and come back and read me bedtime stories? She reads the best bedtime stories.”
“I thought that was Uncle Dick?”
Lian shook her head enthusiastically, pigtails flailing about. “No. Aunt Dinah tells scaaary stories.”
“Yes, Lian, I’m sure Dinah would come back.”
“So why can’t you go back to Uncle Dick?”
“You’ll understand when you’re older… not too well, I hope.”
“Aunt Barbara?”
“Yes Lian?”
“Do you need me to hug you again?”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
***
Dick kept his jaw persistently clenched as they drove, and Kory resisted the urge to rest her head on his shoulder. She opened her window and hung her head a little way out, letting the cold Gotham air cool her feverish brow. With her delivery date fast approaching, she felt like she was on fire most of the time.
“So how’re you feeling?”
“Everything hurts,” she groaned, loosening the scoop-neck of her chemise. Her tender breasts nearly spilled out. “My nipples are sore pretty much all the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Not all your fault, anyway.”
They drove through the gate of Wayne manor. Dick didn’t take the winding road up to the manor, but instead drove on the road that encircled it. He parked on the side and got out. Kory joined him, barefoot. Dick took off his jacket to trek with her up to the greenhouse, an arm around the back of her waist to support her up the hillside. Finally, they entered the jungle-like environment.
The greenhouse was used more to provide test material for the lab than for botanical pleasures. The plants grew wild under an automated sprinkler system, with Alfred sometimes stepping in to check on them. The sprinklers must’ve gone off recently, because a clinging mist hung in the air, rapidly soaking them. Dick helped Kory sit down in a patio chair. She moaned appreciatively as she reclined into its comfort.
A single, oversized button held her chemise together. Kory unbuttoned it and spread it slightly, so that the cloth left her belly bare and fell along the sides of her cleavage. In a slight concession to modesty she held it closed over her breasts.
“You should get back together with Barbara,” she said, blunt and truthful like the good old days.
“Don’t I know it.” Dick sat down across from her, sagging in his seat. “If I could, I would. She put a lot of trust in me, and I betrayed it.” He rubbed at his face. “I don’t know if she’ll ever trust anyone again. Certainly not me.”
Kory scooted closer to him, until they were face to face. Dick was lying back in his chair like a drunk, crushed by guilt. Kory gently took his hand and rubbed it lovingly, from scarred knuckles up to the face of his watch.
“You have to tell her that you don’t love me. You love her. Only her. And that I don’t want you, I have Donna.” She leaned forward, her chemise falling open. Her words flowed like honey, soothing Dick just as her touch did. She unbuttoned his sleeve and pushed it up to his elbow, then took off his watch. Her nails trailed along his forearm, still relaxing him.
“She won’t believe me,” Dick said blearily. And why should she? his miserable voice seemed to ask of her.
Kory undid his tie and took it off, then pulled up his legs so that his foot was in her lap. She took off his shoes and socks in turn. “You’ll just have to convince her,” Kory softly intoned as she put Dick’s bare feet down in the wet mulch of the greenhouse floor.
“I can’t. She won’t take my calls, she won’t answer my e-mails… I had to stop before I came off like a stalker.”
Kory unbuttoned his dress shirt, slowly spreading it open with each button she undid. Underneath, his chest steadily rose and fell. Her fingers barely lingered on the muscles outlined by his sweaty undershirt.
“You’ll have to confront her face to face. I’ll go first, to make it easy on you.” Kory helped him out of his shirt, letting it flutter down to join his tie. Her hands stroked the bare flesh of his shoulders and upper arms as she leaned in closer, her moist lips slightly parted. “I’ll tell her it was all my fault. I’ll tell your wife that I seduced you, forced myself upon you. You were just trying to comfort me and I took advantage of your good intentions. Then I swore you to secrecy, otherwise you would’ve told Barbara right away what you had done.”
“What about you?” Dick asked as Kory lingered over him, giving him a look down her cleavage that most men would’ve killed for. When he met her eyes, that was even worse. They were full of love and sadness, the eyes of a girl you kissed in the rain. He wanted to comfort her, hold her. Love her. He still loved her, despite everything, and he shouldn’t have.
“Don’t worry about me, Dick… Mr. Grayson. You have to forget about me. You have to forget about how it felt…” She had crawled practically into his lap, her breasts shadowing over his chest, and all that was left was for him to put his arms around her. “Don’t think about it, Mr. Grayson, don’t think about how good it was…”
Quietly crying, Kory rested her chin on his shoulder and whispered into his hair as they held each other, her moisture dampening her panties and twitching his nostrils. “We have to put that behind us now. We have to go back… you to your wife, me to Donna… I love Donna, so much…”
“And I love Barbara… I mean, I married her… she’s my wife…” Dick trailed off, anticipation racing across his skin. He let Kory’s head slip down, kissing the flesh between his chin and the neckline of his A-shirt. “I love her.”
He felt the shell of Kory’s ear as she pressed the side of her face against his chest.
“Will you miss me?” Kory asked.
“Oh yes.”
“Will you… miss us?”
Dick petted her hair. “If there was just one more night…”
“There can’t be. Clean break, we have to have a…”
There was nothing holding them back anymore, no reason they couldn’t do as they wanted. And with Dick’s love for Kory out there, he couldn’t very well take it back.
Dick casually took hold of her chemise and moved it from her shoulders, letting it fall down the shapely contours of her back. Kory sat up, her swollen breasts thick in his face. Slowly, Dick reached out and brought his hand to one of the ripe mounds of flesh. Kory shuddered orgasmically, stiffened against him. He heard her sharp intake of breath. His thumb ran over her nipple, found it hard as stone.
“I love you so much,” she said, letting go of him. “We should’ve gotten married…”
He held her close. “I know, I know…”
“We could’ve had a whole passel of kids running around by now.”
“I would’ve liked that,” Dick said, surprised to find he was crying. “But…”
“Yeah…”
“I love her. I really do.”
“You’ll get her back. And then… if we don’t see each other again.”
Dick brushed a lock of hair from her face, looping it around his finger with slow, gentle affection.
“It won’t hurt as much if we never see each other,” Kory finished. “In time… in time, I’ll stop loving you.”
“We might get lucky. You could get bitter and hate me.”
Kory laughed and ended it by biting down on her lower lip. She shrugged her chemise back on and stood up. Kory tied Dick’s tie for him before he got his dress shirt buttoned, and he left it that way. Finally, they just rested against each other, Kory with her forehead against his.
“Promise you won’t forget me?”
“Promise you’ll tell our daughter about her dad?”
“I’ll tell her about the brave hero who rescued me.” She tugged on his tie with a playfulness she didn’t feel. “How you always rescue me.”
“And will you…” he closed his eyes. “Will you go to Barbara’s with me? I don’t think I could do it on my own.”
“We’ll say goodbye there.” She hugged him again. “X’Hal, it feels like I’m saying goodbye now. I want to spend every minute with you, but it’s so painful, it hurts so much…”
“Right now. Let’s go right now. I’ll get showered and we’ll go see her. Star City’s not that far a drive.”
“I wish it were. I wish we could drive forever.”
Dick set Kory down. “You wait here. I’ll be right back, then… we’ll go.”
***
It was hell when she was in the front seat. Her arms were burnished, bare, with the occasional drop of sweat roaming down to her long, slender fingers. Dick had met his share of women who’d tried to seduce him, but Kory didn’t try. She just sat there, window down so she could feel the wind on her face, being powerful and strong and perfect for him, smiling each time he reached across the gearshift to squeeze her shoulder. She didn’t need to seduce him. She’d done it long ago. But he’d made a promise to Barbara.
They passed the city limits. Despite the destruction, things had improved since the Wall came down. There were people rebuilding, staring at Dick’s car as it glided by. They passed the construction work and entered the city. The buildings were generally untouched by the Amsterdam Avenue Disaster, or long since repaired. One, an eyesore of a fire-gutted façade, was marked condemned. Kory watched it with doleful eyes as they passed.
“Dinah and Roy live on Greenlane Street. Look for it,” Dick said.
Kory did, but mainly so she wouldn’t have to look at Dick. He was strong and beautiful and smiled every time he thought about her.
“We’ve had fun, haven’t we?”
“Yes… we’ll still talk…”
“Barbara won’t like it. So you won’t.”
“No,” Dick agreed, not meeting Kory’s gaze. “But that’s the way it has to be.”
Kory wasn’t consoled. The little happiness she’d mustered during her time with him was dashed and even when he touched her shoulder she didn’t smile. Not even when he moved his hand to cup her chin.
“I’ll still love you.”
Kory bit her lip. “Greenlane Street, next exit.”
Dick made the turn.
Roy and Dinah’s house was easy to find. The cars parked in front were a thousand times more cherry than the penis-compensators and SUVs of their neighbors. The not-so-carefully manicured lawn had an oak tree growing out of it, with a tire swing hanging from a stout branch.
“I’m not sure about this,” Dick confessed.
“We could just… keep driving,” Kory said hopefully. “Pick Donna up and hit the open road. Like Thelma & Louise.”
Dick smiled. “There are just so many ways that metaphor doesn’t work.” And he stopped smiling. “Kory, when I’m not with Barbara, I feel…”
“I know. The same way I feel when I’m not with you.”
Kory unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door. Even as it swung open, Dick arrived to help her out of the car. She tried to touch as little of his body as possible, pretended not to notice the way he responded. It would be so easy. A kiss, a caress, and they would be in the backseat, together as they were meant to be. But he would still think of her.
“Don’t tell lies,” Dick said. He clasped her hand in the Tamaran way and held it a moment too long before she pulled away.
Blades of grass bent under her shoes, making her wish she was barefoot. A strong breeze made her wish she was wearing even less. She rung the doorbell and Lian answered.
“Hello, little one. Is Barbara here?”
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Aunt Babs says you’re a whore.”
“Aunt Babs is part of a patriarchal, prudish culture with a phallocentric emphasis on penetrative sex and a revulsion for female sexuality as well as a profound bias for monogamy.”
Lian stood there silently.
“The baby Unca Dick put in you got a lot bigger.”
“Yes, she shall be big and strong. Like her parents.”
Roy came to the door. He ruffled Lian’s hair and Kory’s heart sang. It wouldn’t be long before she could do the same.
“Kory, hey,” Roy said awkwardly, but careful not to offend. “What’re you doing here?”
“I came to see Barbara.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
Impassioned, Kory said “I came here to resolve things to everyone’s satisfaction. Right now, your friends are miserable. I would like to restore them to happiness.”
Roy sighed, looking down. “She won’t be happy about it.”
“I doubt she’s happy about much either way.”
“That’s true.” Roy opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
Kory stepped inside. Barbara was waiting for her in the study, a laptop on her lap, Barbara never even glancing up from it. The light from the screen reflected off her glasses, hiding her eyes completely.
“Hello, Kory. Come to steal Dinah’s boyfriend too?”
“I’m not here to fight,” Kory said as she painstakingly knelt at Barbara’s feet. “I’m here to beg forgiveness and put right what wrong I did.”
“Well. Better late than never, right?”
Barbara shut her laptop. As soon as Barbara looked at her, Kory knew she was hated. Not just because of what she’d done, but because of the life growing inside her, robust and full, so much more vivid a symbol of love than a thin circle of gold.
“I can never trust my husband again because of you. I’m not even sure if he still is my husband.”
“He would like to be. More than anything.”
“Not as much as he would like a blowjob from you, apparently.”
Kory stood. As much as she had resolved to ignored Barbara’s justified anger, it was getting harder. She was a warrior-born, and yet to let provocations pass by unanswered… “You’re making yourself miserable. You’re making Dick miserable. So if you would like to be angry with me, go right ahead. Get it out of your system. But after that I want you to accept Dick’s apology.”
“Really?” Barbara laughed bitterly. “And why would I do that? So I can go back to worrying whether he’s getting killed or cheating on me every time he leaves my sight?”
“Which would you have more problems with?”
Barbara slapped her. Kory controlled her smile, welcoming the passion and fire. At last, something besides misery.
“How dare you! I love him!”
“You have a funny way of showing it. You’re so vindictive, so petty that you prefer him in pain. You can’t imagine the guilt he felt, nor the self-flagellation he endured. You didn’t even notice.”
Barbara’s carefully neutral expression had given way to a deep scowl. She put a hand to her heart. “So I’m the bad guy because I expect my husband to be faithful to me?”
Kory got in her face. “You’re the bad guy because you put your own insecurities ahead of the one you love. I could take Dick to bed seven days a week and he would still be more in love with you, if you only smiled at him for a moment.”
“Okay, suck his cock all you want, you’ve shown me the error of my ways.”
“Sarcasm is one of the things I hate about Earth.”
“What about fidelity?” Barbara asked viciously. “That another one?”
“If you loved him as much as you claimed, you wouldn’t make him suffer like this. He’s done enough of that. And always under your watch.”
“What’s that—“
“I took care of him. For as long as I could, whenever I could. But it’s like you throw him away whenever you get bored of him.“
Barbara was outraged. Kory was managing to bring up all her old self-doubts about her relationship with Dick, all her rationalizations that she wasn’t good enough for him. It made her feel ill to have her own excuses thrown back in her face like they were truths instead of evil insecurities.
“Just because I have a trifle of self-respect, unlike you and your whore Donna…”
Kory picked Barbara up by the throat. “Don’t talk about her that way. We’d all be content with the cards we’ve been played if it weren’t for you.“
Barbara was so stunned she didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said “Kory, your water broke.”
***
Barbara didn’t know why she stayed in the maternity ward. The rush to the hospital was so quick that she just got roped into it along with Roy and Dinah. Besides, as much as she professed disinterest, she wasn’t about to leave Dick and Kory alone. As much as it hurt her to see them together, it hurt worse not to see them. To picture how happy and carefree they must be without her.
Dick came out of Kory’s room, hospital scrubs baled under his arm and a cell-phone to his ear. He hung up. “That was Donna. She’s on her way, and rounding up the rest.”
He sat down beside Barbara. Barbara almost didn’t look at him, but that would be childish. So she looked him dead in the eye. He met her gaze; of all the cheek…
“We need to talk,” he said sotto voce.
“I think your actions have spoken a lot louder than words.”
“Just listen, alright!?” He looked over at Dinah and Roy, who were respectively frowning with disapproval and trying desperately to pretend to be somewhere else. “You guys mind giving us a little privacy?”
“Barbara?” Dinah said.
“It’s alright, babe.”
“Yeah, let’s go get mommy and daddy some coffee,” Roy said, practically dragging Dinah away.
Dick and Barbara were left alone, both consumed by the very feelings they’d been trying to suppress. For Barbara it was the height of melancholy, the pain of seeing him again and the old ache of his betrayal. For Dick it was the ancient, reinvigorated shame of his affair and the desperate hope of reconciliation. He felt like he would literally die if he didn’t bridge the gap between them, but all his carefully worded excuses and rationalizations had fled him.
“You know I never meant to hurt you, right?”
Barbara stared at her feet. “You never do. That doesn’t change the fact that you did.” She sighed. “I’m trying to be reasonable, so go ahead.”
“Just, tell me something…” Dick got out of his chair and crouched in front of her so they were looking into each others’ eyes. “Are you happy without me?”
Barbara laughed only so much as she didn’t cry. “Are you kidding? Of course I’m not happy. But it hurts a lot less than finding out you don’t love me enough to keep it in your pants.”
Dick gnashed his teeth. “This isn’t about Kory.”
“You still love her.”
“I still have feelings for her. That doesn’t mean--”
“Dick, please…” She took his hands. “Be honest, okay? I’m too tired to be angry.”
Dick looked at the door to Kory’s hospital room. Some of the best times of his life had been spent alongside her. Some of the worst, too. She’d made him a man, not in a sexual way, but by giving him the grace and freedom to become his own person. And he’d fallen in love with her, in a way that was stronger than he could’ve believed. And when fate had conspired to break them apart, he’d lied to himself that his feelings for her were gone as well. But the truth was…
“I don’t think I ever stopped loving her. I convinced myself I did, because that made it easier… I even convinced myself that I’d loved you all along, as Batgirl instead of the wonderful person you’ve become… but I just buried it deep down. And when I started seeing her again, those feelings came to the surface. And I couldn’t handle them. But I can deal with them, if I acknowledge them… because I know I love you more.”
With sheer force of will, Barbara looked away from his earnest expression. “And how do I know you won’t change your mind? I didn’t even do anything wrong, Dick. You just… she just curled her finger and you hopped into bed with her.”
“I was scared,” Dick confessed, his fingers finally daring to touch her, curling around her face in tender caresses. “Ever since we were married, it’s like there’s been this weight pressing down on me. I was so scared of losing you, of not being worthy of you. I felt like I had to be perfect, or you’d…”
“Or I’d kick you out,” Barbara realized. “Again.”
Dick nodded glumly.
It hadn’t been a good time in Dick’s life when she rejected him. It wasn’t something they talked about after. He had offered amnesty with his proposal and she’d taken it and ran. But wasn’t it possible that he’d thought it had been hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles, ready to break apart their relationship once more if she felt that they weren’t a good match?
“And with Kory, I could just be… myself. It felt like I was a Titan again. No pressure, just freedom. But it was never supposed to go beyond friendship. I thought we could be like Roy and I, or me and Wally… siblings. I had no idea she still harbored feelings for me.”
“If you did, would it have changed anything?”
“It would have changed everything.”
Dick’s hands were resting coolly on her heated cheeks now and God, it felt good just to be held by him.
“So where do we go from here?” Barbara asked.
“I talked it over with Kory. We agreed that she should go back to Donna and I… well… I’m here, aren’t I? With you.”
“That won’t stop her from loving you.”
Dick sighed, his teeth gritted. “Can’t you do some female bonding? Eat ice cream, talk about men’s butts, have a pillow fight?”
“This is all a big joke to you. Typical male fantasy. Two beautiful women fighting over you.“
“Yeah, I just love the two most important women in my life being miserable because of me. It’s top of the list.”
They fell into a deep silence after that, Dick grinding his teeth and Barbara crossing her arms, both careful not to look at the other.
***
Roy stood in the hospital’s cafeteria line, piling a plastic plate high with food as Dinah hit up the Starbucks vendor. “You think Dick would prefer a ham sandwich or tuna?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”
“You’re right. Ham sandwich.”
Dinah linked up with him by the cashier, holding a tray of coffee. “I can’t believe you’re taking his side in this.”
Roy was paying for the food and getting a sympathetic look from the cashier. “I’m not taking anyone’s side.”
They sat down at one of the lunch tables, Roy stuffing their friends’ food into a paper bag, Dinah taking her utensils out of their plastic.
“You should! You should take Barbara’s side.”
“I’ll take the side that makes them both happy.”
“Right. Barbara’s side.”
“That sounds more like the side that keeps them both miserable and alone.”
“You’d prefer for them to be miserable and together?”
Roy, frustrated, ran a hand through his hair. “Dick isn’t Ollie.”
“So, you’re going to support Dick no matter what?” Dinah asked, face tightening.
Roy nodded. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Good. I’ll cover Barbara.”
“Can I watch?”
Dinah smiled and stole one of Roy’s fries.
Donna walked in. Dick’s call had woken her from a deep rest she was taking after slaying a small dragon, her wounds only recently having finished healing. A quick shower (her hair was still wet) had washed off the dried blood, but she still smelled of adrenaline, smoke, and violence. Her clothes, hastily thrown on to begin with, were ruffled from her supersonic cross-country flight.
“Roy!”
Roy stood up to receive and return a quick embrace from his old girlfriend. Dinah cleared her throat.
“Oh, hey,” Roy said. “Dinah, Donna; Donna, Dinah.”
“Charmed,” Dinah said, shaking Donna’s hand.
“Same here. Is Kory okay?”
“She’s fine. The doctors have her cordoned off to do some tests, but I haven’t heard anything but good.”
Donna’s relief released the breath she’d been holding across the country. She hugged Roy again, tighter this time, and after a long time, Dinah patted her on the back. That cued Donna to let go. She gave Dinah a chagrinned smile.
“So, where are they?”
***
Donna walked in on Dick and Barbara just as the man was reaching for her hand. When he saw Donna coming, Dick pulled it back, but Donna just sat down beside them and put their hands in each others’, locked within her own.
“We’re having a baby,” she said, before kissing Dick on the forehead. Dick and Barbara both looked away.
“Donna, we’re still… having some problems,” Dick said.
“Oh. That sucks.”
“We brought food,” Roy interjected.
They ate in silence. Barbara, who wasn’t hungry, surrendered her food to Donna. Dinah and Roy, who’d already eaten, just put their arms around each other in the face of the various degrees of unhappiness on display.
Dick was jolted out of his cud-like munching by Barbara’s hand on his shoulder.
“Are you going to finish that?”
With a wide, stupid smile, Dick opened his cup of pudding, dug his spoon in, and offered a mouthful to her. Barbara took it and Dick swiftly offered her another. Quiet tears came to her eyes.
Dick took her in his arms, stroking the pads of his fingers between her shoulder blades. The guilt of his betrayal hit him full-force, squeezing his guts like a giant fist.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, so sorry…”
A doctor emerged from Kory’s hospital room amidst a herd of fellow doctors and nurses. He was a thin man with male pattern baldness, his remaining hair fading gray.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grayson?”
Dick looked up at him, still comforting Barbara. “It’s Grayson-Gordon, actually.”
“Of course.” He turned to Dinah. “Miss Troy?”
Donna stepped forward. “That would be me.”
“Miss Koriand’r would like to see you all, whenever you’re ready.”
Barbara raised her eyebrows. She turned around. “I’m not sure…”
“She was most insistent upon seeing you, in particular.”
“I’ll make an excuse for you, if you don’t want to,” Donna said.
“No, no. I’ll see her.”
The doctor nodded. “She’s having contractions, but the baby’s nowhere near crowning yet. Still, try not to agitate her. So far, the hybridization of the infant doesn’t seem to pose any problem, but inform one of the nurses if you notice anything strange.”
Nods all around.
“Okay then. I’ll leave the four of you alone.”
He got out of the way of the door he’d been blocking, allowing them to pile into Kory’s room. Kory was zoned out on the bed, her fingers circled and her chest filling with a Tamaranian breathing exercise. Donna knelt beside Kory first, kissing her on the cheek.
Kory opened her eyes, their green light waning and flaring. “Oh, hello Donna. What are you doing here?”
“You asked me to be here. You asked all of us to be here, remember?”
“Oh, yes. You must excuse me, my body is producing a large amount of beta-endorphin, causing a euphoric pleasure that borders on the narcotic."
"You're... you're stoned?" Donna said.
"I like your hair," Kory smiled. She craned her head slowly to the door, where Dick and Barbara lingered. “Hello, my loves. Please, come in.”
Dick and Barbara took a step closer, Barbara getting a closer look at her rival. Kory was sweating, her eyes frightened beneath the opiate haze. And despite it all, she had the most winsome smile Barbara had ever seen. Kory reached out her hand to Barbara and Barbara took it.
“The baby is coming,” Kory said. “Her name will be Mariand'r. It’s funny. She is strong, yet I worry for her. But I know all of you will help me care for her.”
Donna mopped at Kory’s brow affectionately. Kory looked back at her, ran the back of her hand along Donna’s cheek with equal affection, then pulled her into a sweet kiss.
“I’ve been unfair to you, Donna. To all of you. Dick, you once chastised me for how I was unable to let go of my warrior nature. I thought I had conquered that, but in matters of the heart I am stubbornly Tamaranian. That has hurt you all. You, Donna, by denying you the fullness of love which you deserve.” She turned back to Dick and Barbara. “You, Dick, by lusting after what was not mine to take. And you, Barbara, you most of all… I will not have my child brought into a world of hurt and deceit. Dick, Barbara, I love you as the sun and the moon, but there isn’t a place for me in your lives.” Again her emerald eyes turned on Donna. “Donna Troy. You above all reason have been devoted to me. I told you that I loved Dick more than you. I hope you will give me the opportunity to prove that a lie.” Kory took Donna’s hand and put it on her belly. “Give us that opportunity.”
Donna leaned down and kissed Kory’s stomach, rubbing her cheeks into the contact.
“I should go,” Barbara said.
***
She spent a sleepless night and a wakeless day at Dinah’s place, watching insipid late-night and daytime TV. Dinah came home sometime in the wee hours of the morning, brought her a bagel.
“How’s the baby?” Barbara asked.
“Fourteen hours of labor so far. It’s like the baby just doesn’t want to come out.”
“Not my problem.” Barbara changed the channel.
“Dick’s still there. Right now, all he’s got to lean on is Roy.”
“Boffo for him.” Barbara changed the channel.
Dinah sat down and put an arm around Barbara.
“I’m one of those people. Those skanky people on the daytime talk shows who other people laugh at and think ‘it’ll never happen to me’.”
Dinah rubbed Barbara’s hair, finding it greasy and ragged. “You could use a bath.”
“I don’t know what to do with myself, Dinah.”
“You could take a bath.”
“Yeah, sure, fine.”
***
Barbara bonelessly let herself be undressed and manipulated into the warm bath Dinah had run, reminded of the days she had needed a nurse to help her through her daily routine. She’d sworn she’d never sink that low again. Dinah was a hedonist when it came to bathing, adding bath salts and even some of Lian’s bubble foam to the mix. It felt heavenly, but the effort was wasted on Barbara. She just drifted off, ignoring even the tingling pleasure as Dinah massaged shampoo into her scalp.
“If you think I’m going to rub soap all over that pale carcass of yours, you’re sorely mistaken,” Dinah said, jamming a bar of soap into Barbara’s hand. “C’mon. Snap out of it. What happened to the Barbara I knew, the fighter, the champ-een?”
“She opened her heart to someone and he stabbed a knife through it.”
“Geez, write goth poetry about it, why don’t you?” Dinah splashed her friend. “Remember what you said to me when I dumped Ollie? Buck up, stiff upper lip, the mission sustains us?”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
Dinah slumped against the outside of the tub. “I give up. You’re hopeless.”
After a long pause, a wet hand slipped out of the tub and landed on Dinah’s shoulder, gripping it with old strength. “You wanna ruin some creep’s night?”
Dinah smiled. “Always.”
***
Bathed, dried, and even wearing something Dinah insisted was halfway fashionable, Barbara powered on the holographics built into her laptop. Green Arrow took care of most of the crime in Star City, but he had an eye for corporate fat-cats and certain things slipped under his radar. Like contraband cigarette shipments. It wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t flashy, but it made money for the Mafia and a shipment was coming in sometime soon.
As Dinah brutalized her way through the local scum dive, Barbara went through shipping schedules, trying to make something fit despite the cover-up. In no time at all she had it narrowed down… to three days from then. Sighing dramatically, she called Dinah off.
“It was self-defense, hand to God,” Dinah said over the comlink. Barbara heard her motorcycle rev in the background.
“I believe you, but did they know anything?”
“Nope.”
“Alright, come home. Plan B.”
“Ice cream and a weepie?”
“Bring Kleenex.”
Okay, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was…
Someone knocked at the door. By the slow rhythm it had to be Dick. He would have a key.
“Come on in.”
The knob turned and Dick entered in inches. He looked haggard, but defiantly joyous, a spark hot and red in his eyes. He walked toward Barbara, stooped and slow. She shut her laptop and put it aside.
“It’s a girl. Marie. She’s beautiful. Has your eyes.”
“Uh-huh,” Barbara half-said, but she couldn’t fake disinterest. Not after nine months seeing the little thing develop from a fetus into a tiny presence that kicked within Kory. “How is she?”
Dick sat down in a nearby chair, the strength that animated him draining from his body. “Okay. Kory’s got a smile that you couldn’t pry off with a crowbar. And the little munchkin’s hungry. Won’t hardly give the breast milk a rest.”
Barbara sighed. “So when’s she coming home? Better question; where is home?”
Dick folded his hands. “Donna’s place is at the Amazonian Embassy. And Kory does want to show off her baby. They have a daycare center there too, some of the best doctors in the world.” He paused. From the look in his eyes he was kicking himself, feeling sorrow and exuberance in equal measure. “You should’ve been there, Babs. I taped it, but we all… we all missed you.”
“I was busy.”
“Cheap hooch and a gallon of ice cream?”
“Not yet.”
“Ah.” Dick got up, dusting imaginary dirt from his knees. “Well, I should get going. Kory’ll be missing me. She wants a lot of pictures of the ‘family’ for her scrapbook. Which she doesn’t even have yet, but she’s keen to start one.”
The word shot out of Barbara like a bird breaking free. “Dick?”
Dick’s entire body seemed to stiffen. “Yeah?”
“Can you give me a ride over there?”
***
The ride was fast and tense, Dick lead-footing it to the hospital, and helping her into her wheelchair as if he didn’t want to tempt himself with touching her too long. She could sympathize. The last of their paltry attempts at dancing around the elephant in the corner dying off, they got into the elevator. Dick cast a longing glance at the stairs as the doors closed.
“You know, you could stay with Kory if you wanted,” Barbara said. “Be a dad. Have a family.”
Dick was stone-silent.
“It’d be a good life.”
Still he said nothing. But there was a little shake of his head, like he was trying to dislodge some water from his ear.
“I know why she did it. I even know why you did it. You always want to make people happy. And Kory wanted it so bad…”
“I wanted it,” Dick said, as if reproaching her. “It’s not because of anything you did wrong, it’s because I’m not good enough. You were right about that.”
“I never said…”
The elevator chimed and the doors opened; they were no longer alone. Like a pall-bearer at a funeral, Dick’s footsteps led her to Kory’s room. Roy was asleep on the bench outside, his coat folded into a pillow. Inside, Donna was holding the baby, bouncing it playfully in her arms. It cooed and laughed animatedly, like it had all the energy in the world. Kory was in bed, looking exhausted and beatific and all the things women who’d given birth were supposed to look like. Except much more glamorous.
Since Barbara had left, the room had filled up with flowers, balloons, greeting cards. It reminded Barbara uncomfortably of her own hospital room after the paralyzing, which had been spartan compared to this. The tragedy of the secret identity. Of course, Bruce and Dick had done their best to make up for the deficiency, before she chewed Bruce out for laughing with the Joker, but Dick had always been there until she’d driven him off. Back to Kory.
History had an irritating tendency to repeat itself.
The baby stopped giggling to crane its tiny head to Barbara with preternatural awareness. Donna glumly shook Kory’s foot, waking her.
“Mmmmm.” Kory looked at Barbara, and her sleepiness dissolved into a small grin. “Barbara. You came.”
Barbara swallowed. Overwhelmingly, the panicky sense that she had no place here came over here. Fractured as it was, this was a family and a half and she didn’t belong. But Dick took Mar’i… or Marie, she guessed… from Donna and sauntered over to Barbara, adoringly rubbing the baby’s already dewy head of hair.
“See? Told you she had your eyes.”
Marie’s eyes were wide and green and inquisitive, gazing at Barbara with a child’s single-mindedness.
“Hold her,” Kory said, sitting up a little.
“I couldn’t possibly…”
“No, go on.” Dick held Marie out to her. “Take her.”
Her arms were sluggish as they defied all reason and took the child from Dick. The baby was swaddled in warm blankets which made her seem bigger than she was. She was so tiny, but her arms and legs pedaled with activity when Barbara held her. Marie reached up and a miniscule hand felt out Barbara’s face, marveling at her glasses.
“She likes you,” Dick said.
“She’s beautiful,” Barbara said, dumbstruck.
“Good genes.”
Kory was petting Donna’s hand. Her smile was tinged with the kind of sadness Barbara could find in a mirror. “We’ll bring her by to visit you every time we’re in Gotham. And Dick too, of course.”
The baby was tugging at Barbara’s lips, revealing the pearly white teeth with open fascination and then touching those. Barbara kissed her little knuckles. With balled fists, Marie prodded at Barbara’s breast.
“She wants to be fed,” Kory said. “Here.”
Reluctantly, Barbara gave up the baby to Dick, who ferried her to Kory. Like an old hand, Kory pulled open her gown and offered a coral-pink nipple for Marie to suckle at. The baby did so, her tiny hands playing with Kory’s fingers as the alien fluttered them nearby.
“She’s amazing,” Barbara said. She was still in awe. The little thing had been so… like her. Not just Dick and Kory, but her. Although the abundant red down on the top of her head pointed to her Tamaranian ancestry, and the way her little limbs let her squirm about had to be from Dick. But she had Barbara’s eyes, curious beyond measure. It was indescribably astonishing. “Can I hold her again?”
“First thing, once she’s done,” Kory said.
Dick, who’d been looking from the baby to Barbara, stopped to rub his stubble-chalked jaw. “I should shave. There’s a locker room downstairs they said I could use; I’ll nip back once I don’t stink.”
“Don’t take too long.”
Dick bent and kissed Kory’s forehead. “I won’t.”
Barbara was deep in thought after he left. She imagined she could hear the shower water start running downstairs, the way he washed off the old man and put on the new when he was done. Same sweat-soaked clothes, but beneath he moved different, was different. He couldn’t be with Kory, but he loved her. He loved Barbara, but he also loved Kory.
“He loves Mar’i,” Barbara said at last.
“Hmm?” Kory said. Marie had fallen into a contented rest against her breast, still lightly sucking, but her teeny fingers only flexed sporadically.
“Your daughter. Dick loves her. She was born, what, two hours ago? How long’s he known her?”
“All her life,” Kory said wisely. “And she’s our daughter.”
It wasn’t clear what ‘our’ she was referring to, but Donna preened when she snuggled against Kory, folding herself into a hospital bed that was just big enough for two. Or three.
Her hands trembling, Barbara guided her wheelchair to the bedside. She laid a single hand against the baby, marveling at how large it was compared to the baby’s, which wrapped around a single knuckle. Marie’s fingers weren’t even long enough to get all the way around that.
“Stay with us,” Barbara said, with no thought whatsoever.
“What?” Donna looked up and Kory just looked surprised.
“All of you. The Clocktower is…”
“Gotham?” Donna asked.
“We’ll move somewhere else. Somewhere where we can all be together. We’ll work something about and we’ll raise the best little girl in the whole wide world.”
“But, I mean, what about…” Donna sputtered, but was silenced when Kory put a serene finger to her lips.
“We’ll work it out.”
Dick came back and Barbara kissed him as deeply, as passionately as a woman had ever kissed a man.
“Look, Dick. Look what we made together,” she said, as Marie fell asleep between Kory’s breasts, wrapped tightly in her arms.
***
The entire Harper household went through a Chinese fire-drill as soon as their two cars descended on the place. Roy frantically cleared a space, Dinah tried to get the guest bedroom in order (it looked like a tornado had blown through it from Lian’s last sleepover), and Dick just wearily arranged the sofa into a bed and grabbed a sleeping bag from the hall closet.
Kory walked down the hallway past the living room, singing softly to her baby, and Lian trailed after her, asking to hold Mar’i. Dick tracked her with his eyes, then shook his head and wearily sat down in an easy chair. Nearby, Barbara had retrieved her laptop and was immersed on it.
“Second thoughts?” he asked.
“No, just prepping the Clocktower. By morning, all the essentials will be on our doorstep.”
“’Our’ doorstep?”
Barbara took off her glasses to look at him.
“You are going to sleep on the couch for a month,” she said.
Dick laughed, like a dam of tension had broken in his throat, as he wound his arms around Barbara, an irresistible grin on his face.
“I’m serious.”
“I don’t care,” Dick laughed, kissing the side of Barbara’s face.
He fell on the couch beside her. Held her hand for a while, kissing it every few seconds. Then he got up.
“I should check on…” he said, idly gesturing to the hallway.
“Go ahead,” Barbara said, her voice carefully neutral.
Dick went.
He walked down the hallway into the guest bedroom and found Kory on her side on the bed, the baby sleeping in her shadow. Donna laid behind Kory, nuzzled into her adoringly. Mar’i tiredly paddled her arms and legs as she slept, miniscule movements like leaves being blown in the wind. With as much grace as he’d ever had, Dick laid down across from Kory so that the baby was between them.
“Hey you.”
“Hey,” Kory said.
She ran a hand over the baby’s thin crown of hair with all the affection she couldn’t bestow upon him. And, in perfect counterpoint, he ran his hand over the baby’s stomach. Their hands never quite touched; until they did. His thumb and forefinger circled her wrist, then merged at the palm, their fingers interweaving, and they were holding hands.
“How do I look?”
“Like a mother. Me?”
“The same way you always look.”
Dick snorted. “That’s a relief.”
Kory squeezed his hand.
“Barbara loves you. She’ll forgive you.”
“She’s already forgiven me.”
“That’s good.” Kory looked down at the baby. “Is she what you were expecting?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Whiter skin. Less hair. And her eyes, the whites are tinted green a little bit, you see?”
“You were expecting them to be human. Like yours and Barbara’s.”
“Yeah. I guess I was.” Dick paused as the implications rained down. “She’s beautiful, though. Not what I was expecting, but still beautiful. You know, I never really thought of her as… herself until I saw her. Her own little life… I don’t think I could get enough of her, now. I wanna find out what music she likes, what food she’ll like, how she’ll comb her hair…” He leaned his head in, dwarfing the tiny infant, and sang gently, “Hey Jude / don't make it bad / Take a sad song and make it better / Remember to let her into your heart / Then you can start to make it better.”
Kory smiled and ruffled his hair, before lowering her head next to the baby and closing her eyes. Dick continued singing as Kory’s breathing slowed into sleep, pausing only to kiss her on the cheek. He rose, meeting Donna’s eyes.
“Take care of her,” he told her.
“Help me,” she said.
He nodded and tried to walk out, only to find Barbara in the doorway. Dick sputtered, old guilt and shame and fear filling his heart, but Barbara clapped him on the hip and rolled past him to the side of the bed.
She patted the bed, “You mind?”
Dick rushed forward, helping her out of her chair and onto the bed. Barbara rolled over, close to the baby, dipping her head to smell Mar’i. Her smile was as wide as Kory’s.
***
Dick plopped down on the couch. He didn’t quite sleep and he didn’t quite smile, except when he did both. Roy passed him on the way to grab a midnight snack.
“Sucks to be you,” Roy said, wiping his mouth after inhaling OJ straight from the carton.
“No, it really doesn’t.”
***
Most of the time, Barbara was sure it would never work. Then Kory would help her into bed or Donna would pat her on the back in passing and she’d wonder about the possibilities.
Donna was worried, nervous. Once burnt, twice shy. But night after night, it was Kory who cradled her, made love to her, kissed her and whispered truths in her ear that would’ve been lies if she’d said them to Dick or Barbara.
Dick didn’t so much as glance at Kory when he didn’t need to. He played with his daughter, and with Barbara, and when he smiled there wasn’t a trace of doubt or regret on his face. Remorse sprung up, sometimes, when he held Barbara late at night and knew there was pain he’d put her through that could’ve been avoided. But that was a mistake made and lesson learned and, most importantly, in the past.
Kory watched and felt the love flourish between them, all of them, in so many variations and complexities that it was impossible to untangle or single out. There was the love that she felt when she was with Donna, deep and warm, and the love she felt with Barbara and with Dick. It was all so much more vast and different than she had expected. And the newest, the most unexpected was Mar’i, who slowly came to crawl and walk and talk and fly.
And Mar’i had three mothers, one father, countless aunts and uncles, a red-headed godfather who brought his daughter over for play dates, two grandfathers (one who never smiled, one who never seemed to stop), and, in time, her own sons and daughters to raise. Although she never did think it was quite right that everyone else only had two parents.
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Date: 2008-04-25 03:58 pm (UTC)Aspersions. Not aspirations.
ETA: I've really enjoyed this story. I suppose I should have mentioned that before. I've never been a big DC comics reader, I mostly made my Marvel as they say, but this has been great fun to read.
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Date: 2008-04-29 11:33 pm (UTC)Come up with fifty thousand words of redheads running around on Dick and it's no sweat, but try to write some stories... eh... Maybe there'll be some good moviefic when Iron Man comes out.
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Date: 2008-04-27 02:03 am (UTC)Thank you soo much for this series, I rarely stick around to read fanfiction that are more than a one shot.
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Date: 2008-04-29 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-06 03:47 am (UTC)I loved this. Loved the entire series. And I'm so glad there was a happy ending because for a while, I wasn't sure how you'd manage to pull it off, but you did.
Truly an enjoyable series.