Dick had just been finishing the last of his paperwork when he feels his phone use a specific vibration in his pocket.

"Hey," he answers when he picks up, a smile already in the works on his face. "I was just about to leave."

"I was hoping you were," Kory responded at the other end of the line. "I think Rachel and Gar caught colds."

Dick sighed, sitting up from putting the file in his desk drawer. "Oh no." He knew he shouldn't have let them play out too much in the cold weather.

"Yeah," she said dejectedly. "And I don't know if you were aware of this, but fun fact:" Dick can hear her rummaging through something as Kory continues her statement, "you have scalpels, you have suture thread, you have an oxygen mask? You have all these things in case of any medical emergency except for a cold. Unless it gets really hard for them to breathe. Then I have this nice breathing tube to put in their neck."

He grimaced at the thought. "Yeah, I don't think that'll be necessary."

"Well, I hope so." It was obviously only meant as a joke, but Dick can tell Kory's voice was laced with genuine concern.

He puts on his jacket and makes his way to the elevators. "So you want me to pick up some cold medicine on the way home?"

"And if there's anything like it, maybe something that can prevent colds?" Kory says, a little eager.

Dick lets out a soft chuckle. "You, with the superhuman immune system, you're afraid of getting sick?" The smile on his face grows at the thought. Fearless, strong Kory Anders, ready to fight in less than a moment's notice, thinking some cold is gonna take her down?

"Excuse you," Kory scoffs, "extraterrestrial, not superhuman." Dick starts to laugh even harder before covering his mouth with his hand. "And I was actually thinking about you. You've spent enough days not being at work, I doubt your boss would be happy if you took off more. And I am not going to be the only one taking care of these kids. I love 'em, but everyone's worse when they're sick, even two teenagers."

It's hard for Dick to settle his smile. "Especially two teenagers." Kory laughs at his jest, a sweet, musical laugh that always manages to make his heart beat faster in the best way, and this time was no exception.

"I'll stop by CVS," he confirms as he presses for the elevator. "And we can all order some food when I get back."

Kory lets out a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Dick. You're the best."

He lingers there, basking in the warm feeling spreading in his chest. He unknowingly shifts his weight from one foot to the other, lost in whatever it is that talking to Kory gives him. Dick doesn't even realize Manny and Jessica standing there too, waiting for the same elevator.

"No problem," Dick turns his head to the ding of the elevator, he can't wait to leave. "I'll see you when I get home." Its doors open wide, Dick can only think about how Kory's gonna be when he enters the apartment. Is he going to see a smile on her face, gratitude radiating off of her at finally having some help with two sick kids with powers, which have undoubtedly caused some chaos? Or is Kory still going to be too stressed to have much of a reaction? If then, could he put her at ease, at least a little bit? Sneak in a kiss on the cheek, bring some sweets from that bakery a few blocks over, maybe? He wants to make her happy. He wants to give her the same feeling she gives him, wants to make her smile because of it.

"I love you," Dick says, without a thought, but still meaning every bit of it.

But then he realizes what he's said almost immediately after. Realizes that he and Kory aren't really "together" in the way that saying "I love you" to each other is natural, realizes that even if they were, they probably hadn't even known each other long enough to say that.

Dick has been in enough situations when his fight-or-flight instincts kick in, and when it does, he almost never hesitates in picking fight. This time, he chooses flight.

"Gotta go!" He hangs up the phone faster than Kory could've even processed his goodbye. Dick brings his hands to cover his face and lets out a heavy breath. A few minutes ago, his heart was beating just fast enough that he only felt something pleasant. Now it's going so quick that Dick's pretty sure it's breaking some sort of record.

"Dick."

He looks up from his hands to see Jessica keeping the elevator doors open, a small grin on her face, in slight contrast to Manny's big one behind her.

"You planning on coming in?"

Dick regains enough composure to walk into the elevator and nod his thanks to Jessica before leaning into a back corner. He's staring holes into the ground, so intently he doesn't notice the other two detectives still watching him.

He doesn't know why he said it. They weren't a couple, not really. Sure, they slept in the same bed every night (and sometimes did more than sleep). And he can talk to her. About things and feelings that a few months ago he wouldn't have even acknowledged to himself. And Kory talks to him too: about Tamaran, about her family, about how she got to Earth. And at the end of fights with criminals, when he sees her safe and alive and unharmed except for maybe a few scratches and bruises, the relief Dick feels looking at her and knowing they've survived everything they've gone through is different than the relief he feels knowing that about Rachel or Gar. Not more or less, just… different.

So even if he did feel that way, if he was falling in love with Kory or already there, how was he going to explain that to her when they weren't together?

"You know, you don't have to be so embarrassed."

Dick turns his head to see Manny and Jessica still looking at him with smirks on their faces.

He clears his throat, trying to hold on to any cool he has left and appear normal. "Excuse me?"

Jessica lets out a little laugh. "You might get shit about it from your buddies, but nobody here's gonna care about you saying 'I love you' to your girlfriend. If anything, people might think it's cute."

Dick's still in a daze and he's having difficulty trying to process his colleague's words.

"Yeah, it's no big deal at all," Manny joins in. "You've probably heard me say 'I love you' to my wife on the phone dozens of times and didn't think anything about it. The only reason we're noticing is 'cause you're freaking out so much about it."

Dick looks at the other two detectives, drinking in their words. Obviously, they've misunderstood the exact situation he's in, but there was something Manny had said that had caught his attention.

"Yeah, yeah, it's no big deal." Dick realizes his attempts at sounding relaxed and poised is still incredibly unconvincing: his voice is uncharacteristically high and his shoulders are still extremely tense, but he's already started and maybe he can fake it better if he keeps going. "People say 'I love you' all the time and no one notices. Especially hanging up on the phone. It's basically a habit for everyone, nobody notices it anymore. Right? Right?" He throws in a laugh at the end of his rushed words, followed by an unsettling attempt at a smile. He still may not appear calm and collected, but there is a slight comfort in the possibility that Kory hadn't noticed he had said anything out of the ordinary.

Jessica quirks one eyebrow up. "Dick," she says slowly like she couldn't believe what she was about to ask, "was that the first time you've ever said 'I love you'?"

At this point, Dick doesn't trust anything that'll come out of his mouth and he isn't even sure if he wants to answer truthfully, so he goes with a noncommittal shrug while a few uncertain hums escape him and let them interpret it however they will.

"Oh, Dick," Manny laughs, "you are so young."

The elevator finally reaches the ground floor, and once the doors open, Dick rushes out like his life depended on it. He needs to get out of here is all he thinks. He makes it halfway to the exit before he hears his name being called behind him. He turns to see Manny leaned against a nearby wall, hands in his pockets.

"Did you mean it?" Manny asks as if it's the most casual question in the world.

Dick hesitates, unsure of just what to say. "We've only known each other a couple of months.

Manny shrugs. "Doesn't mean you didn't mean it."

Dick thinks. Thinks about the feeling he gets the few times he manages to wake up in the morning before Kory and he gets to see her sleeping next to him with the early light of the sun shining on her face. Thinks about how much he looks forward to seeing her at the end of the day. Thinks about the conversations they've had together about everything and anything. Thinks about how he's never felt anything like how he feels for Kory.

"Yeah," Dick concedes, "I meant it."

Manny grins and chuckles, warm and full of sincerity. "Now, I don't know this girl or what's exactly your situation," he pushes himself off the wall, "And I say that because every situation is unique. But you already said it. You can't take that back." He brings his hand to scratch the back of his head. "Well, I guess you can try, but that'll probably piss anybody off more, even if you didn't mean it when you said it. But you did mean it." He looks at Dick pointedly. "Might as well just own it," Manny continues. "Let whatever happen, happen. Trust that whatever's gonna come gonna be for the better"

Dick mills over the other detective's words. He's not the best at letting things happen and expecting things to turn out alright. But he understands what Manny is saying. Maybe he can try, just this once.

"Thanks, Manny," he finally says, still uneasy but significantly more at ease than when the conversation has started. "I appreciate it."

Manny pats Dick's shoulder as he walks off to leave.

Dick stays standing there. He's still doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what needs to happen.

Well, he knew one thing that definitely needed to happen.

He needs to get some cough medicine.

When Dick steps into the apartment, 2 CVS bags filled with required supplies in tow, he doesn't exactly see Rachel and Gar sitting on the couch so much as he sees the gigantic mound of blankets piled on the two of them. He has to move almost completely in front of them when he becomes entirely sure that the two know that he's home.

"Hey there," he greets them, amused at the sight.

A muffle comes out from Gar's blanket mountain. Dick raises his eyebrows. The blankets are shifted downward to reveal his incredibly red nose and chapped lips.

"Sup, man?" Gar repeats, his voice hoarse and nasally, followed by a series of hearty coughs.

Dick sets his bags down on the coffee table. "Got you guys some stuff to help." He proceeds to pull out 8 different brands of cold medicine in the form of liquids, then pills, then cough drops, and chest rubs. Both teenagers stare as Dick continues to pull product after product in disbelief.

"Did you buy the entire aisle?" Rachel asks in a tone that was somewhere in between sarcastic and genuinely curious.

"No," Dick says casually, still taking out medicines, "not the entire aisle." Truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure what would be the best for two not-entirely-human kids, and surprisingly enough, there were no reviews of anything that he could find online that would provide any useful information. He finishes off with one final product: a box of surgical masks.

"Bruh," Gar started with caution, "don't tell me you're planning on doing anything like what the Chief does?"

Dick lets himself smile at that remark. "No. Kory just told me to try to get something that could prevent catching a cold and this was all I could think of."

"Hey, you might be thanking me for that later."

Dick jumps out of his skin at the sound of Kory's voice. He turns his head to see her leaning against the doorframe of the hallway.

"That is if you actually use it," she adds.

He is in full panic mode for an entire two seconds before he can reign himself into something resembling who he was before he noticed she was in the room. Dick doesn't put it past her that she hasn't noticed the split second change of emotion. 'Let whatever happens, happen, Dick,' he reminds himself in his head, 'let whatever happens, happen.'

"I'm gonna be honest," Dick replies, surprising himself with how well he's managing at the moment, "I probably won't. It seems a bit overkill."

Kory narrows her eyes. "Overkill? Like buying two shelves of medicine?"

Dick looks back at the coffee table, over half of it populated of a variety of cold remedies, then looks at Rachel and Gar, who have expressions directed back at him like 'she's got a point'.

He sighs. "Well, you got me there." Dick claps his hands together. "Who wants to eat?"

They all settle on getting takeout from some late night Thai place after an unreasonable amount of time of Dick and Kory trying to reassert that they were not going to order pizza ("We get it like every week, you guys." "But we're siiiiiick!") and reassuring Gar that there were vegan options ("I put it in the special instructions twice already, okay?"). Dick had reluctantly let Rachel turn on Game of Thrones on the TV as they ate, but had almost turned it off at multiple parts which were, to put it lightly, very grisly ("I don't think this is the most appropriate thing to watch." "It's not like we haven't been in situations kinda like this." "Those weren't appropriate for you to be in either!")

For the rest of the night, Dick had been observing Kory. He tries to see anything in her that might indicate anything different, anything that would suggest that his slip-up over the phone had any effect whatsoever. But, nothing. There's nothing that Dick can see in how Kory is acting that's any different than her usual behavior. 'Maybe she really didn't notice what he said,' he tries to reason with himself. The thought comes with a sense of relief, but oddly enough, so does a sense of sadness. Like there was this opportunity for something big to happen that just hadn't been taken. Maybe it will be all for the better like Manny said.

Rachel and Gar choose and take a medicine after dinner and make their way to their separate bedrooms, to which Dick and Kory take as their cue to do so also. As Dick gets ready to turn in for the night, he prepares himself to confront the idea that the "I love you" incident is not going to be addressed any time soon. But Kory being Kory, right when Dick sits down on his side of the bed, she turns everything on its head.

"So about what you said on the phone earlier…"

Dick's head shoots up and turns towards her. Kory's lips are pursed as she looks him straight in the eyes.

"What I said on the phone earlier…?" he repeats, slowly and dumbly. It's not much of a response, but it's all he can think to say at this moment.

Kory breathes out a deep, heavy sigh, averting her gaze somewhere down to where her hands were resting on her lap. "Look, you don't need to be so freaked out, okay?" To him, she seems so far away, even though she's sitting right next to him. "I - I get it, Dick, it was a mistake -"

"'Mistake?'"

It was Kory's turn to feel out of sync. "Well, yeah. It was pretty obvious you didn't mean to say it." She looks at him, with those eyes wide like she's expecting him to confirm her accusation.

"But it wasn't a mistake!" Dick turns his entire body towards her. "I mean, yeah, I didn't plan on saying it," he admits. "But it wasn't a mistake. I -," he takes a deep breath, preparing himself for what he's gonna say next. "I meant it, Kory. I love you."

She doesn't respond. Her mouth opens and closes while her eyes wander around the room as she searches in her mind just exactly what to say. But despite the silence and the problems he's had with rambling today, Dick continues to carry on.

"And I know this is awkward, especially considering we've only known each other like seven months and that we're not really together, but. I just think you should at least know that I didn't say it just to say it." And he goes into the hardest of it all, even if it'll hurt, even if there's too much at stake because even if it all blows up in his face, whatever happens, happens. "And you don't have to say it back. You don't have to love me back."

Kory still hadn't responded back, and it's looking like it's the last thing she wants to do in the universe right now as she continues to look anywhere except Dick's face. His shoulders slump, the weight of everything he's just said crashing down on him. Different sounding voices in his head tell him about everything he's just ruined. He was offered a perfectly good out when Kory thought it was something he didn't mean and he was a fool not to take it.

"Look, Kory, I -"

Dick wasn't sure how he was going to finish that sentence, but thankfully he didn't have to, because instead of letting him form some odd apology, Kory kisses him. Slow and deep and perfect. When they finally break apart, foreheads pressed against each other, she smiles.

"So," she drawls, "you meant it?"

Dick laughs, lighter and airer now. "Yeah," he says, running his thumb along her cheek. "I meant it."

"That's nice," Kory teases.

He could stay like this forever with her. In this space, in this lighting, in this feeling. Her hands rested on his chest and his on the side of her face.

"Dick," Kory separates themselves to look him in the eyes and holds her hands over his in front of her. "I don't think I can say it back to you just yet," she confesses, "but I know I'm really close."

Dick smiles and brings her hand to his lips. "I can live with that."

Kory laughs, and for another time that night, Dick knows he loves her.

They turn off the lights and curl up together on the bed, falling asleep in each others' arms. It's a rare morning that comes. Dick manages to wake up earlier than Kory. The light of early day shines through the window onto Kory's face, and he smiles, knowing he has woken up next to the woman he loves.