Disclaimer: See Prologue

Updated June 2013

.:. Bound To You.:.

Chapter 13

Kory stood motionless for a few minutes, trying to register what had just happened. Did he really drive off, leaving her standing in the middle of a parking lot?

"I'm not going to discuss this here; if you want to talk, meet me back at the tower."

"Oh no, he did not!" Kory growled. "He's not getting out of this that easily." Her current state of anger was enough to fuel her flight - even though she was unable to appreciate at the moment - as she burst into the air, flying at her top speed. "Y'ktor namor vran'elk blarkfan!" she mumbled to herself in Tamaranean as she cut through the sky. "Inconsiderate flark'en chlorbag."

She found herself landing on the tower's roof, a full five minutes before Dick's estimated arrival time - by her calculations. Kory took out the communicator that she stored in her costume and punched in an access code; she would wait for him in the common room; no way he could avoid her there.

Kory plopped down on the couch and tapped her foot impatiently; to say she was upset would have been an understatement, but the longer she sat, the more she realized that the whole situation had been her fault. She cursed inwardly at herself for not telling him about Chad sooner - why did she allow herself to think that not telling him was a better alternative to the truth? Why did she convince herself that Dick couldn't handle that information? She heard the sound of his cycle's motor revving in the distance and took a deep breath. He would be coming in any minute now. She began running though scripts in her head, desperately trying to figure out what she was going say.

Her ears perked up as soon as she heard the familiar swish of the front entrance; he was now in the tower. She stood up, composing herself in such a manner that she looked prepared for whatever he was going to dish out. However, what he dished out - was nothing. She watched him walk right past her, heading toward the bedrooms.

"Dick, wait."

He didn't; instead, when she got close enough to grab his arm, he shrugged it off violently and kept walking toward his (and her) bedroom.

"I am not just going to go away; you cannot get rid of me this easily." She said to him as she trotted beside him, trying to keep up with his fast-paced walking. "We have to talk about this."

He paused in front of their door and punched in the code, still not breaking his silence. Kory followed him inside the bedroom knowing that he wouldn't be able to keep up the silent treatment for that much longer.

"Being angry with me does not give you the right to treat me like a piece of garbage." Kory stomped her foot on the ground. "You will speak to me right now."

She noticed him go to his closet, throw on some civilian clothes, and then pull out a suitcase - not a duffel bag - like he usually took to Gotham - but an actual suitcase. His silence bred more concern as he started pulling clothes out of the closet and shoving them into the giant suitcase laying open on their bed.

"What are you doing?" she asked, gulping as she swallowed the lump in her throat.

"I have to get out of here for a while," he finally answered. "Don't know when I'll be back."

"Wait, you cannot just leave the Titans like this; we are your team. You have a responsibility."

"I will let the others know how to get in touch with me if needed; I just have to get out of here." He succeeded in putting all of his clothes into the giant suitcase and had now moved over to his dresser. "I'm not leaving the team, just the tower."

"No, you are not." Kory closed his suitcase and flopped down on top of it. "You are not in any condition to be going anywhere."

"I'm only going to ask you once," Dick stated calmly, "get off my suitcase."
"No, I will not."

"Don't make me use force."

Kory's eyes widened. "You would not!" Then she 'humphed' while crossing her arms over her chest. "I would like to see you try; I am a great deal stronger than you -" She squealed as she was sent tumbling backwards, the suitcase pulled out from underneath her.

"You may be stronger than me, but you aren't heavy." Dick didn't sound amused, but annoyed. He set his suitcase on the ground and began dumping dresser contents into it. When it was full, he zipped and lifted it up - pulling up on the handle as he did so. He wasn't really worried about forgetting anything, whatever was missing could be easily replace once he reached his destination.

Kory quickly recovered and moved to block the doorway.

"Kory, move."

"Please stay here and speak with me!"

"What do you want to know?"

"Why are you leaving?" she asked, not even attempting to hide the desperation in her voice.

"I can't be here."

"Why not just say what you really mean, Dick - you wish to get away from me!"

"You said it, not me."

"I am so sorry about everything. Will you please put down your suitcase and talk to me? You told me if I wanted to talk then I needed to meet you here. Well, I did, so now it is time for you to hold up your end of the bargain." She saw Dick's face drop and she knew that she had finally reached him. "I realize that you are upset with me and I do not blame you."

"...you lied to me..."

"Yes, but..."

"No 'buts' Kory; you lied to me. You looked me right in the face - multiple times I might add - and lied. I feel like an idiot!"

Kory moved away from her spot at the door and walked over to him.

"Dick, I never meant to -" She was taken aback by his immediate outburst, but tried to mask her shock.

"Were you ever going to tell me? If I hadn't overheard your conversation would you have ever told me the truth?"

"I do not know," her nervous reply was met by a very unpleasant groan. "I was considering it! Maybe tonight, but I did not know if I would be able to go through with it." She watched him bury his face into the palm of his hands. "I knew that I would have to, in order to move on from this, but I did not know how to tell you and now you are making me quite nervous and and I am beginning to do the rambling thing..."

"Fuck!" He yelled into his hands.

"Please do not be mad at me."

Dick finally looked her in the eyes. "I'm not mad at you; I'm furious. No, I take that back. I am beyond furious." Kory dropped her head in shame and stared at her feet as he continued to talk. "I'm heart-broken, furious, and confused all at the same time. I don't even think you can begin to fathom how much pain I'm in. I'm fighting just to breathe!"

"Dick, I was not trying to hurt you with all of this."

"Well, you did." Dick answered sharply.

"I do not know why I did it," Kory answered honestly. "At first I convinced myself that telling you was not a good idea, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how stupid I was. I felt that if I told you, you would go out and try to exact revenge on him in my honor and in turn, do something that you would regret."

"Reigning in my emotions and putting aside my need for revenge? It's the story of my goddamn life, Kory! If I could convince myself not to kill the murderer of my fucking parents, what makes you think that I wouldn't be able to exercise restraint for you? But you know what, maybe you're right. Maybe I hold the capacity to do things that I am not very proud of, but had you told me and asked me to stand back and not take action, I would have listened. I would have listened because I love you that fucking much. You just didn't trust me! You haven't trusted me this whole time." He ran his hands through his hair in sheer frustration. "Did you honestly think that I wouldn't find out? I feel like the biggest fucking failure on the planet right now."

"You know that I do not like it when you use such foul lang-"

"Do you really want to go there right now?" He glared at her, causing her to shrink back. Dick continued talking before she could open up her mouth and speak. "For months, I've tried to be the best boyfriend that I could be to you and I felt so guilty every time I had to leave you here and go to Gotham, or when I had to direct all of my attention to a case, or when I had to lock myself in my office for days at a time and catch up on paperwork. Basically, every time I had to do my job. After all of that effort, I still wasn't able to be the type of boyfriend that you could truly open up to. It's obvious now that I wasn't able to help you at all."

"You are wrong! I could not have gotten through any of it without you," Kory was desperately trying to hold in her tears; crying would not help her case right now and she knew she had to keep herself calm in order to prevent another panic attack. "You are not a failure and I wish you would have told me about your feelings of guilt so that I could have helped you dispel them."

"Bruce always told me not to trust anyone over myself," Dick switched subjects as if he had been ignoring all the things that Kory had just said, "to always trust my instincts. I knew it was Chad; I fucking knew it this whole time. But, you kept telling me 'no' and I kept telling myself that you'd never outwardly lie to me about something this important."

Kory was speechless; she didn't think that it would be possible to feel lower than she already did.

"He always fed me this stupid bullshit about aliens and meta-humans and how I always needed to be on guard. Of all people, Kory, I never thought that you would be the one to prove him right."

She couldn't bite back the anguish any longer; tears began flowing freely down her golden cheek and her lips began to quiver from the sobs that she desperately wanted to scream out, but held back.

"I do not like this person that I've become...I lie...I hide things..."

"What does this mean? How can I even trust you anymore? How do I know that in the future, you wouldn't hide something from me just to keep me from getting angry!" He yelled. "What else are you hiding from me?!"

"Nothing! I promise! There is nothing else." Kory's legs gave out and she dropped to the floor, crying into the palms of her hands.

"What happened was your business; I get that. That's why I never asked too many questions and I pretty much let you have your space about the whole issue. The fact you lied to me so easily, really bothers me," Dick admitted as he forced himself to take deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. "You want to talk about restraint - that's why I'm leaving. I just have to get out of here before I do or say something that I will end up regretting."

"...maybe you would be much better off without me..."

"What are you talking about now?" Dick demanded from her, almost angrily.

"Maybe we should go on a hiatus...a break," she suggested. Kory knew that threatening Dick with a break-up wouldn't help, but she didn't know what else to do or say. Her self-esteem had crashed to an all time low and then only thing she could think about is how much she had managed to destroy not only her life, but his as well. "Let us be honest with ourselves, perhaps this relationship was falling apart way before my misfortune only came in and complicated things a bit more."

"This is a joke, right? Ladies and gentleman, just when you thought that Dick Grayson's life couldn't get more fucked up..." Dick tilted his head and looked up at the ceiling. "What are you going to do to me next? Seriously? You may as well kick me while I'm down!"

"Why are you talking to the ceiling?" Kory asked in concern.

"Why are you trying to break up with me?"

"I cannot bear to bring you any more disappointment." Kory bowed her head.

"Kory," Dick said her name softly, "you don't -" he was immediately cut off.

"It has been on my mind for a while now; I just did not want to do it because I knew that it would be hard. I know now, that it is only the right thing to do. I love you too much to cause you any more pain and with everything that has been going on in my life lately, I can only see things getting much worse."

"You've been thinking about it for a while? You've been planning to dump me? For how long?" Dick's voice came out a little more high pitched than he would've liked.

"I... I...I did not really mean it the way that it sounded..." Kory tried to backtrack; as soon as she realized what she had said, she instantly regretted it.

"What did you mean then?" Dick narrowed his eyes at her, demanding an explanation.

"I have not been thinking about it for a while, I simply said that in order to make you more angry at me so that you would accept the break-up. I just know that things may not get better with me; in fact, there is a strong possibility that things could get significantly worse...I...just.." Kory quickly wiped away a group of tears that had accumulated on her cheek.

"This conversation is done." Dick threw up his hands in frustration before grabbing the handle of his suitcase. "I'm not listening to this any longer; you're just trying to mess with my head."

Kory rushed over and retook her guard in front of the door. "What? No, that is not -"

"Kory, move away from the door. Now!"

"No! I will not!" Kory just glared at him as her eyes began to glow bright green.

"Screw the suitcase, I don't need it; I'll just go shopping tomorrow. The press will have a field day when they see that Dick Grayson is without his girlfriend; hell, I may even use their attention as a chance to announce my renewed bachelor status." Dick sneakily made his way toward his bedroom window as he spoke words that he knew would break her heart. "You brought this on yourself, Kory. Just remember that." He jacked open the window and climbed out.

"Dick," Kory ran over to the window and yelled out to him as he descended down the ladder. "Please! I love you and I wish to work through this. Please, do not leave me." She watched him pause momentarily as if he were actually considering her request, but her hope was quickly extinguished when he didn't change his mind.

Kory took out her aggression on Dick's overstuffed suitcase by giving it a forceful kick and sending it crashing into the wall. "Koriand'r you have really done it now; you have officially ruined everything."

Kory knew her flight wouldn't be too dependable at the moment, so she climbed down Dick's bedroom ladder and started to sprint towards the garage; she hoped that she would be able to catch him before he left. She hadn't heard his motorcycle speed off yet and that meant that he still had to be there; she was betting on it. When she finally reached the garage she saw no site of him, but saw his motorcycle still sitting in its place.

"Dick, are you in here?" Kory looked around the garage and didn't see anyone. "If you are here, please answer me." She walked through the garage to the slightly more hidden car storage area. Victor always modified their vehicles using old ones, so the car section consisted of a Titan's car graveyard - car hulls and parts scattered around everywhere - and sitting in the back lot, Dick's Maserati. Or at least it should have been.

Dick only took the Maserati when he wanted to show off in public; he used to use it when he went on "fake dates" when he and Kory had first started dating, but then they went public with their relationship and he hadn't really driven it much since. "He wants to look single." She said out loud to herself, knowing then that there was no stopping him. Kory's body gave out and crashed to the ground with a 'thud'. Her outbreak in the garage was met by a pair of headlights and a carload of very concerned friends.

"Kory ...in Azar's name... what happened?" Raven asked as she flew out of the car and rushed to the side of her pain stricken friend.

"He...left..." Kory grabbed Raven, took her into a hug and cried into her shoulder.

Raven's eyes widened and she looked to Garfield for assistance signaling to him that she was obviously not good with these types of situations.

"Kory, it'll be okay, you know Dick; he'll come back as soon as he calms down-" he really didn't know what was going on, so Garfield hoped that his generic "he just needs to calm down speech" applied to this situation.

"No, he will not; it is serious this time. He took the sports car - he never takes the sports car. He's going to tell everyone that we broke up and there is nothing I can do to stop it because I do not know where he is or when he will be back because he told me that he was leaving the tower and he did not know when he would be back and that he would be in contact with all of you to tell you what to do." Kory took a ragged breath. "This is all my fault and there is nothing I can do about it or stop it what do I do? What am I supposed to do?"

"Okay stop. You aren't making any sense and you're starting to ramble; you need to calm down." Raven pulled away from her and lightly shook Kory. "Why did Dick leave?"

"He found out." She looked at Raven who was nodding along as if she knew exactly what Kory was talking about. "We had a fight and then I broke up with him."

"You broke up with him?! Why?!" Victor joined the conversation while he reached over and picked Kory up off of the ground.

"I...do...not...know..." Kory sobbed.

"Okay, well Goldie, you need to calm down and we need some answers. Let's get you upstairs." Victor wrapped his arm around her and began to lead her toward the elevator. "I have a feeling this may turn into a team meeting."

"Okay guys, let me go tuck this little rascal into bed and I'll be back," Roy said as he walked passed the other Titans carrying a sleeping Lian on his hip. "Hot stuff, don't you worry. We'll get to the bottom of this." He quickly patted Kory on the shoulder and then took off toward the bedrooms.

"Okay Kory, can you start from the beginning? What happened?" Donna carefully walked around the couch and took a seat next to the sobbing Tamaranean.

"It really is all of my fault; I lied."

"Okay, we get that you lied and he got mad. You have said that about a hundred times!" Garfield groaned in annoyance. "What did you lie about?"

"Gar, do you have any class?" Raven glared before walking over to Kory and sitting on the opposite side of her.

"Just ignore him Kory, you really don't have to disclose anything that you don't feel comfortable with."

"It is okay, friends. I may as well come clean with it now," she said, taking a deep breath, "Chad raped me." She cringed when she spoke; she hated those words.

"CHAD?! WHAT?!" Gar and Victor simultaneously exclaimed in disbelief. Only the cyborg was able to find the words to conclude the statement. "No way."

"Yes," Kory sniffed. "I should have let Dick know from the very beginning, but of course, I did not."

"Kory," Donna placed a sympathetic hand on her friend's shoulder before continuing, "I know Dick pretty well and he really loves you, he'll come back. Do you have any idea where he went?"

"I do not."

"Okay boys and girls, what's the dealio?" Roy burst into the room sans costume. "Sorry it took so long; I decided to change."

"Kory lied to Dick about Chad raping her; tonight he found out and freaked out." Victor got to the point, but Roy cut him off before he could finish.

"Okay..." Roy nodded as he absorbed all of the information. "Makes a lot of sense. In that case, he's probably just riding around a bit to clear his mind. He'll be back soon enough on his own accord; you just have to let him breathe a little bit. All we can hope for is that he doesn't take his anger out on anyone else while he's out there."

"You didn't let me finish - Kory broke up with him."

Roy's smile faded and he looked to the other team members, cursing the confirmation that was written all over their faces.

"At the conclusion of our altercation, he calmly said some very hateful things that really lead me to believe that –"

"Kory, why would you do that?" Roy burst his question through her mousy statement, the evident anger seeping through his voice. "When I saw him last, he was extremely fucked up; surely you wouldn't have broken up with him while he was in such a condition. Don't you know better than to kick a man while he's down?"

"Roy, don't yell at her!"

"Someone around here needs to take his side, Donna!"

"No!" Kory screamed as she stood up, turning her tear-stained face to meet his. "I will not be yelled at by you," she glanced around the room at the other Titans. "I will not be lectured by anyone. This is my business - mine and Dick's - and as much as I love you all, it really does not concern any of you. Dick informed me that he would still be fulfilling his role as team leader, so the situation between he and I have nothing to do with this team." Kory paused for a moment and wiped her eyes. "There are no 'sides' to take. I know I am in the wrong and I fully realize that I have made a monumental error in judgment. I am not feeling so well. I am going to bed now."

The Titans watched Kory struggle to hold her composure as she exited the room somberly.

"Way to go, Roy." Raven stood up from the couch and walked over to Donna. "We should go and talk to her." Donna nodded in agreement.

"If I were Dick, I'd be pissed off too. She's going to fucking dump him after all this bullshit that she put him through? Hell no."

"Could you fit any more curse words into that statement? I don't think you used enough."

"Shut up, Donna, I'm not in the mood to hear any shit from you right now."

Garfield spoke up in attempt to mediate the argument. "Okay, dudes, we need to stay on task here; we need to find Dick. Now I have a feeling that he is still in Jump City. Maybe we should all split up and -"

"That won't be necessary, green man," Roy walked over and grabbed his coat off of the hook it was hanging from. "I know exactly where he is."

"Where?" Raven and Victor asked together.

"That's not important." he shrugged his jacket on and picked his bike helmet up off the ground. "I'll be back later - with the boy wonder."

Roy walked out of the door, immediately fished the cellphone out of his pocket and tried to dial Dick's number. He knew that Dick probably wouldn't answer, but it was worth a try at least. His assumptions were correct: No answer.

Roy sighed and sprinted down the seven flights of stairs that eventually led him to the Tower's front lawn - the exact place that he had parked his motorcycle. The mission to bring him back wasn't going to be easy; he sure wasn't looking forward to the rest of the night - it was going to be emotional and intense. He hated emotional and intense.

"Dick's been like this before," he said out loud. "and if this is going to be anything like last time, I'm going to need some help." Before mounting his bike, he flipped his cell phone open again and began to scroll through his contacts.

"A...B...C...D..."

"J...K...L...M"

"T...U...V...W"

He stopped on a name, pressed dial, and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey man," Roy answered. He cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear while pulling on his gloves. "I hope you aren't busy right now."

"Why, what's up?" the voice on the other end of the line asked curiously. "Before you ask, no, I'm not going to babysit for you again- don't you have a tower full of Titans for that now?"

"No, this doesn't have anything to do with Lian. We have a code Dick."