asideoffluff

[asideoffluff]

Stay With Me: Dickkory

He had asked her to stay a number of times during their relationship. Until one day she couldn’t. 

“Stay with me, then,” Dick offered with a shrug. He slurped the rest of his chocolate milkshake up, and patiently waited for her response.

She stared down at her two finished strawberry milkshakes (the first two of many to come), and smiled shyly. “With you? In your home? Robin, you are very kind to me, but I would not like to do the imposing. You did express that your living in Jump was a sign of freedom and rebellion from your master, is it not?”

He didn’t really like the way she used master. He had merely said that he was free of his father, not that he had to buy his way out of slavery or something. If only it were that easy.

“Erm, yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?” He scratched the back of his neck. “I meant that I just didn’t want to study with my dear, old dad anymore. It’s not some sort of emancipation.”

She looked thoroughly confused now. (It was kind of cute.)

“I mean--gah.” He leaned back on the vinyl chairs of the cafe, trying to find the best way to word his proposal. “Living alone and fighting crime alone can get boring. I need a companion--a friend.” 

She lit up at that. Apparently friend had the some connotations on Tamaran as it did on Earth. “The crime fighting? I can do that! I will work my hardest to ensure that I am useful.”

“Great, great,” he said. He smiled back at her. “Maybe we can invite the others to join us. I know Beast Boy and Cyborg haven’t exactly been living the lavish life here... You know, I think Raven’s new to the planet too. She might be able to help you around a bit.”

“I would like that very much.”

“Stay with me, Star,” he said, pulling her waist towards him, effectively trapping her in his arms.

“Richard!” Kory exclaimed, swatting his hands. She made very little effort to pull them off, though. “We shall be late to Babs’ party if you do not let me go!”

She adequately emphasized her last words by thwacking him with a pillow at every syllable. When his vision finally cleared the black spots, he gave her a puppy dog frown.

“Aw, c’mon, Star,” he pouted. He buried his head into her smooth back. “I just want to cuddle.”

"We may do the cuddling at the party. I am positive there will be several empty rooms at the new house.” 

Dick scoffed. “Empty rooms I’m sure she’s locked.” To keep lust-led fools like him out. “And I very much doubt that Babs won’t notice us sneak off!”

Kory dragged herself (with Dick still attached) to the edge of the bed. “Then she will certainly notice our absence when we arrive late!”

Dick groaned when Kory stood up and pulled him over the edge. He didn’t feel like getting up and the floor of his apartment bedroom seemed rather clean (Alfred had drilled the habit of cleaning into him). 

It started a few months ago. Dick and Kory. Or Starfire and Nightwing. The lines were rather blurred. (He almost always called her Starfire at home, though.)

It was all lust and passion but then it was all love and warmth and now it’s all late mornings and breakfast in bed. He’s known her for the past eight years. He wants more.

“Stay with me, love,” Dick urged. 

His wife of exactly one year and three months was having quite a bit of trouble keeping her eyes open.

“Dick... I do not like this.” She clenched her eyes shut and screamed. It broke his heart.

“Keep it coming, Mrs. Grayson, you’re doing spectacular,” said the midwife. “Push, push, push... Now, pushpushpushpushpush.”

Kory screamed again and almost broke Dick’s hand in the process. He winced. 

He had read multiple pregnancy books late at night while Kory was sleeping, and every single one of them said that giving birth was probably the most painful experience a mother will go through in her lifetime. Seeing as Kory has been a superhero for the better part of her life, Dick really hoped it wasn’t true for her.

The sound of wailing (an enfant’s wailing, not his wife’s) brought his attention back to the matter at hand. Holy shit.

“Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, I am proud to announce the successful birth of a beautiful baby girl...”

“Stay with me, please,” he begged.

His lungs weren’t working properly. Neither were his eyes. And apparently, neither was his heart (how he knew, he wasn’t sure. He had given it away long ago).

His arms wouldn’t move to trap her in them. His lips wouldn’t move to tell the visiting Tamaranians to back the fuck off, please. His legs wouldn’t move to run away from it all.

“Nightwing...” she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Which was fine, it wasn’t as if he could see much behind his tears. “Nightwing... please do not ask me that.”

“I can’t ask the mother of my child to stay? My wife?” he ground out. He was being selfish and he knew it. Begging and bullying wouldn’t work, but they had to. Simply had to.

“Please do not.” She gripped his forearms as tightly as he gripped her waist. “You know I cannot stay. Please, Nightwing, you know as well I do.”

And he did. The last Princess of Tamaran was being called back to her planet to lead them in a war against some neighbouring planet. The Enour’kai. He knew she would also fiercely protect her people just as she would Mar’i. He knew that even if she didn’t want to go, the Tamaranian generals standing at his side would drag her away anyways.

“I will return soon. I do the promising of this, my love,” she whispered. 

She pressed her lips to his in finality and let go of him. She walked to the travel pod; his heart was flying away.

He turned to the generals menacingly. “If she doesn’t come back just as she left, you'll both regret being born,” he said in Tamaranian.

They nodded. “Affirmative, sir.”

“Stay with me, darling,” he said lightly. 

He offered his hand to his flying companion and she grabbed it, using it as an anchor to bring her closer to him. Don’t stray now, please.

It turned out that Tamaran was full of liars.

The Tamaranian generals did not keep their promise. They were dead now, but if they weren’t, Dick would’ve ripped them from top to bottom. Viciously.

Even Tamaran’s princess, the wise and beautiful Koriand’r, was a liar. She promised she would return soon. The war had lasted for four Earthen years, three of which he did not have any communication with his wife.

But she survived it. The peace treaty signed, the dues paid, the bodies burned. He had received a letter that the princess was making a formal visit to his planet, which really just meant she was coming home.

And when she arrived home, she was not just as she had left. 

The Enour’kai did not take well to losing, and had ambushed the warrior princess when she was alone. There was no opportunity to fight back. The whole pod was destroyed, her body still smoldering when she crashed landed.

She survived the whole war to die (what her people would consider) an unhonourable death. They purposely asked Dick if he would keep the body.

Dick told himself he shouldn’t have been surprised. They both knew that war was deadly and bloody and unforgiving. But she was coming home already. She was almost at his fingertips.

“What do you say about getting lunch, hm?” He asked, tucking a piece of her wild hair behind her ear.

She nodded enthusiastically, her eyes growing wider at the sound of food.

He held his 6 year-old daughter in his arms, balanced on his hip, and smiled. “Say goodbye to Mommy, then we can go.”

“Good-bye-bye, Mommy,” Mar’i said, blowing a wet kiss in his gravestone’s direction.

Dick’s smile faltered a little. The girl barely knew her mother for a year. 

“Yes, goodbye now, love,” he whispered.

He walked away with his daughter. Stay with me, he thought. He inwardly laughed at himself.

If only it were that easy.