Disclaimer – Own nothing.
To Guest – Thanks for your feedback! Don't worry, I will make sure this story does end on a happy note, there are more chapters coming than just the happy one and angsty one. Hope you like this chapter!
To vi – Thanks for your review and feedback! I'm so glad you liked the last chapter! I desperately want more Dick/Kory and Dick and Donna in season 3. I'm really hoping we get it! I hope you like this chapter!
AN – So I got one review requesting an angsty chapter and one requesting a happy chapter. I decided to do a happy one (with slight angst cause I couldn't help myself), just to balance it out a little, as well as because the person requesting the angst one wanted it because they wanted the story to end on a happy note. As I am hoping to write more than this chapter and the next though, I will end the story with a happy chapter so there's nothing to worry about there. Hope you guys like this chapter!
AN - I just read the synopsis of what happened in the first three episodes (won't be able to watch until Sunday and couldn't help myself) and am FREAKING OUT! Anyone else?
Enjoy!
Dick had to fight the urge to not scream at everyone. He had been up all night working on this gun-trafficking gang that was taking over the city. He had moved his work to his laptop so could continue searching for leads in the kitchen where the coffee pot was. Now, it was morning and not only did he not make any progress, but the room was now filled with the rest of the Titans, sitting and eating breakfast. While they weren't really morning people, they were still pretty loud. It was giving him a headache. Getting himself another cup of coffee, Dick cursed under his breath in Russian so no one would know.
"You okay?" Rose asked as she walked past Dick towards the kitchen island.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just frustrated." Dick answered, moving over to sit at the table where his laptop was set up.
"Frustrated enough to mumbled gibberish?" Rose responded, having heard him mumble to himself.
"I wasn't speaking gibberish." Dick replied, barely paying any attention to anyone right now. The case needed his full focus right now.
"You weren't?" Gar said with a confused tone of voice, continuing the conversation despite Dick trying to get back to work. The detective was beginning to think he should just take his stuff to his room or the computer room and work there in peace and quiet.
"Nope." Dick confirmed.
"Then what were you speaking?" Rachel joined the conversation as she sat down beside him.
"I think it was Russian." Kory spoke up as she filled her own coffee mug.
Suddenly sensing eyes on him, Dick looked up and saw that everyone besides Donna and Kory were now staring at him. "What?"
"You know Russian?" Jericho spoke and signed with Rose's voice and fingers.
"Yes I do." The detective responded, trying not to sound frustrated that the conversation was continuing when it was obvious he was trying to work.
Either not noticing or not caring, Donna chimed in. "Dick knows at least 10 different languages."
"And you can keep them all straight?" Rachel questioned. How does someone know multiple languages and not get them mixed up?
"Wait, how did you know that he was speaking Russian? You're not from earth." Gar pointed out as he looked at Kory, confusion covering his face.
"Nope, but my kind can learn languages from the act of kissing." Kory informed him, effectively getting everyone to look up at her with surprised expressions. Even Dick raised his eyebrows and glanced at her before turning his attention back to his computer.
"Useful." Hank then commented with a light-hearted tone.
"What about people who speak more than one language? Would kissing them also teach you, or is it one language per person?" Rachel inquired, sounding very interested in the alien's powers.
"If one person knows several, then I would know them too. I learned a lot of them from Dick actually." Kory said without thinking. It only took a second for her to realize what she just revealed and her face turned red as she looked over at Dick.
Dick didn't need to look up to know that everyone was staring at him as he felt his cheeks turn red. Probably. Rachel and Gar already knew that he and Kory had been, together, but they would obviously feel awkward about it being brought up like he now. Donna had figured it out on her own when they went after Kory after she had attacked Rachel, but she didn't care and probably still didn't. If anything, she was wondering why they weren't together now. Dawn, Hank, Rose, Jericho and Conner didn't know about it though and he wasn't at all comfortable talking about it.
"Well, in that case, glad to be of some use to you." Dick broke the silence with a bored tone of voice to help hide his embarrassment.
For another minute or so, the room was again awkward silently until Gar thankfully changed the subject to ask, "Hey Dick? Do you think you can help me with my Spanish homework then?"
"Sure, bring it out." Dick answered with sigh, closing his laptop. It was clear that he wasn't going to get anymore work done now and taking a break might helpful.
"Cool!" Gar exclaimed with excitement before jumping off his seat and running towards his room. While he did that, Dick took a large gulp of his coffee and continued to ignore the others. It was going to be a long day.
2018TITANS2018
Dick felt like there was someone taking a sledgehammer to his head. He had officially been up for at least 36 hours and he had gotten nowhere with his case. He knew he should probably get some sleep but he needed to figure out where the gang was getting the guns and where they were going to ship them to. That meant he needed more coffee. As he walked out of the computer room to the kitchen to get another cup, he heard something.
"AH!"
Dick immediately started running down the hall towards Gar's room where the scream came from. Bursting into the room, he saw the green-haired boy tossing and turning restlessly on the bed, trapped in a nightmare. Dick rushed inside and grabbed Gar's shoulders and started shaking him, trying to wake him up.
"Gar, Gar wake up." Dick ordered. Almost instantly, Gar's eyes shot open, wide and terrified. Instinctively, Dick lifted him and pulled him into his arms and whispered, "It's okay. It's okay, you're safe. You're okay."
"No, no, no. I didn't mean to." Gar spoke so fast that Dick barely understood what he was saying.
"Hey, it's okay. You're okay. Everything's okay." Dick assured him, pulling away so he could look at his face. Seeing the tears streaming down his face, Dick placed his hands on Gar's cheeks, brushing the tears off with his thumbs.
"No, I attacked them. I didn't want to." Gar told him, guilt and horror covering his face as tears continued to run down his cheeks faster than Dick could rub them away.
"I know Gar, I know. It wasn't your fault." Dick said, then pulled the boy into his embrace again and held him tightly. "It's okay. You're safe now."
Guilt filled Dick's stomach. Even though Gar didn't say exactly what he was dreaming about, Dick knew it was about what Cadmus did to him. How they brainwashed him into attacking innocent people, all because Dick wasn't there to protect him and Conner. Pushing thought away for now, focusing on trying to comfort the boy, he did the first thing he could think of. Singing an old, Romani lullaby his Mom used to sing to him before she died along with his Dad. He never thought he had a good singing voice but it seemed to work because Gar soon calmed down and fell silent. Seeing that, Dick stopped.
"What song is that?" Gar wondered, slightly surprising Dick. The teenager was so quiet and still that he had thought that he had fallen asleep.
"It's an old lullaby my Mom used to sing to me." Dick answered, feeling a twinge of pain in his chest as memories of his Mom singing him to sleep washed over him.
"It's pretty." Gar commented before he let out a large yawn.
"You think you can go back to sleep?" Dick inquired, hoping Gar was okay now.
"I don't want to have more nightmares." Gar mumbled, eyes filling with fear again, causing Dick to give him a comforting squeeze.
"Do you want me to stay?" Dick questioned. Almost immediately, Gar nodded even though he looked a little embarrassed about it.
"Okay, I'll stay." Dick told him. Tension seemed to bleed out of Gar's body and he shifted around to get comfortable, but then looked up at Dick with a nervously hopeful expression.
"Could you, sing again?" Gar requested. At Dick's moment of hesitation, he quickly added, "You're really good."
Dick suddenly felt very sheepish and self-conscious but nodded. If it made him feel better and help him sleep, then Dick would do it. So he started quietly singing again, the words rolling off his tongue so easily despite not having sung it for years. The last time he did was when he was a teenager and Donna was staying over and had a terrible nightmare about the fire that killed her Dad. As Gar's body went lax in his arms and breathing evened out, Dick stopped and gently laid him down on the bed so he would be more comfortable, though did keep an arm around his shoulders.
"Is he okay?" Dick looked up in surprise at the sound of Kory's voice. The alien was standing in the doorway staring at them, eyes filled with concern. Dick didn't even notice her come in.
"Yeah, I think so." The brunette replied, glancing down at Gar.
Seeing guilt cover his face, Kory walked over to the side of the bed and quietly asked, "What's wrong?"
"It's my fault that he's having these nightmares in the first place." Dick revealed, voice so quiet that Kory barely heard, but she did.
"No Dick, you couldn't have known what was going to happen. It's Cadmus's fault." Kory insisted, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. Dick didn't look at her or say anything. He knew that she was partly right. It was Cadmus who kidnapped Gar and Conner and brainwashed them both, but if he didn't leave the Tower and get himself thrown in jail, then he would've been there to protect him.
"That was a really pretty song." Kory noted, suddenly changing the subject.
"Thanks." Dick responded, feeling sheepish once again.
"Do you ever, talk in Romani anymore?" Kory hesitatingly questioned, causing Dick's head to snap up to look at her again.
"How did you," Dick started before Kory cut him off.
"Barbara told us, back when we were in Gotham." Dick wasn't sure if he should be surprised by that or not. His Romani heritage wasn't that common knowledge, outside of Gotham that is. It was all over the news when Bruce took him in and became another reason why the rich, high-class society didn't like him, but it had died down a while ago. He couldn't see why Barbara would've told them about it though.
Brushing off the thought, Dick replied, "Not really. When Bruce first took me in and found out it was my mother's tongue, he actually learned it, so that I had someone to talk with. So I could make sure that I remembered it. Donna does know some phrases, but not enough to actually have a conversation."
"That was nice of Bruce to do that." Kory noted with a small smile.
"Yeah, it was." Dick agreed, remembering how he felt when Bruce first started speaking Romani. Smiling, he looked down at Gar, glad to see that he was still sound asleep.
Kory squeezed Dick's shoulder and said, "Lachhi tjiri rat."
Dick froze in shock before looking up at her. It had been years since he last heard those words. Even though Bruce had learned the language, they didn't talk in it that much. At first, there would be certain days where they would only talk in Romani. Then after, Dick would only talk in Romani in the midst of a panic attack or nightmare or something of the like and Bruce would respond in order to help calm him down. However, that didn't happen that often. Now though, there was someone else who knew the language that he could talk to. He didn't think that would ever happen. Warmth filled his chest at the realization.
"Lachhi tjiri rat." Dick replied, feeling bittersweet about speaking in his mother's language again. Kory smiled at him, glanced over at Gar again, making sure he was indeed okay before heading out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
Dick watched her leave, then carefully shifted the teenager so he could lie down beside him on the bed. He was asleep within minutes.
AN – So I had a hard time finding sites with translations for Romani because, from what I understand, it's not really a written language and has many different dialects. That's why I didn't type out the lullaby. I was however, able to find this one site that had Romani phrases and that is where I got 'Lachhi tjiri rat' from. It means 'good night'. If I got anything wrong though, please let me know. Also, I had remembered that in the animated Teen Titans show and the animated movie Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, Kory mentions that Tameranians learn languages from kissing, so that's where I got that from. Hope you guys liked this chapter! See you all next time!