Why Heroes Can't Sip Champagne and Apples Are a Girl's Best Friend
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Chapter 14: All in the Family
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The clock went on ticking in the den of Wayne manor.
Bruce looked up with eyes piercing through any and every inhibition Dick had to hold tightly to.
"Starfire; she's an exiled Princess of Tamaran." Bruce stated slowly, taking in that information as he'd heard Dick gulp across from his seat by the fireplace.
"You have…. have you proposed to her –
"Bruce."
The two were silent as B looked into the leaping pile of wood and burning cinders. So much life in each puff they exhaled, as a part of himself grew weary by the anticipation of a hybrid child, of new life being brought into his home one day.
Should it come to that.
"You're still a legitimate asset to the foundation of all my father build. Damian isn't old enough to carry that weight, and you'll be here long after I'm not. If Starfire is sincere in her action of having, this happen…"
"A kid, Bruce." Dick frowned, tapping his foot anxiously. "One, kid. And it's a girl they said."
"Even so, that could be a danger to –
"Starfire and I both won't know if she has powers. Or if she's going to be hunted by the Court or something vague like that." Dick scratched the back of his nek, nerves twisted up and binding his voice a little from speaking his mind to his own adoptive parent. "Galfore told Kori to follow her heart; well, I'm doing the same. Not for Damian, not for Bruce's legacy, not for the whole universe – even if they should have to know by now…"
"Ollie was made aware because you told Clark that Kori wasn't feeling well."
"He saw, during the war in Blud?"
"His vision saw the fetus already growing, not a lot of her."
"He had no right to spy on us."
"He wasn't the only one."
"Raven??" Dick explained. "Who else?"
"Gar could smell the expected mother's hormone levels very strongly, and came to bring it…into discussion." Bruce knew more due to Dami and Wally's connections.
"Did Wally –
"He and Raven are now aware, yes." Bruce shook his head, head in one palm. Just as concerned for the new father to be.
"I'm sorry Dick. On Tamaran and for this family not to be left open to the press, we have to settle it. Either you marry and Kori keeps the baby, or she's not staying with the Titans."
"Bruce!"
"It's for her own protection; don't you know about her enemies, Dick? Did Jason or Roy tell you that Blackfire is still a threat to her people? They found the rightful heir, Wildfire…but it's not long until he abdicates to her. She's second in line, and having a half – breed child in Tamaran is…"
"She could be put to trial…for breaking the bloodline…oh god…I didn't know –
Right now, Kori and Donna had gone out to detox back from their jobs, while Starfire had help from Raven and her team.
She needed them, but…
Had it really been that unsafe to sleep together?
"Unless she denounces her ties to the throne and stays here, with you, I can't do much. That's why if you were to be locked in a bond to keep the baby on Earth, she might be able to live without the guilt of having left her own people. But she wants both of you to decide."
"Where is she." Dick turned to see the door peeking open a bit.
She'd come here. Why? Why was she not –
"Donna brought me to speak with Mr. Wayne." She told the men in the den, where the fire lapped away and awaited a new way up, through the chimney if it should have that right.
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"I did not wish for you to face him, alone." She told her beloved as he clasped her delicate fingers into his own. "Nightwing took some time off to come to see, this place. His home; but you do not look happy to have returned, it should not be so." She wearily looked to her soon to be betrothed. "I have thought up the loveliest of names to give to our daughter once she is to be brought into the world. X'all!" She smiled to his, choking on her own happy tears. "We are to be so blessed! Then perhaps, the rekmas have no place in this home, that this bumgorfkina will change the woe into something joyous in us both…one day?"
"I think Bruce, says we have to get married for that to happen –
"And if I must, to protect our "Mari'ander!"
She declared, her eyes shone as that name…Mari…it was, pretty. He did like how it sounded so genuinely received or would be, once the papers were together and signed.
"But, you'd have to leave the throne of Tamaran to Wildfire, and he won't give it back…since.."
Her eyes grew slightly wider as he refused to be the one. The one to tell her to leave her heritage and a part of herself behind. To bury it, as Dick had tried to his relations to Bruce Wayne.
As a possible use for Wayne Enterprises, should something befall his younger siblings or father, who were far more active than he was these days…
He was a stand - in, and he didn't know what to think…
"I'm not taking Bruce's chair from him at the company, but he can't let it go. I'm roped in too."
"Why do we not just tell him the truth?" She asked softly. "That I wish to have my home and for Mar'iander to one day meet the man who raised me since I was small, or her uncle…. he would be most sad."
"I don't want Bruce's paranoia to hurt either of you…" He spoke of the child she carried. He could hurt, he didn't mind the challenge of falling and flying fast.
"You must then be careful." Kori warned as Dick nodded, the door reopening with Bruce standing by the window. Back to the couple as he pondered, and waited for their answer. He had a feeling he'd have to get into Dick's life a little too often. Just until there was a way to make him see the importance of his plans for the future.
"B. Bruce; we've come to a decision."
That was it and so to would the couple find that hiding who they were, wasn't just a sense of shame to the cop and summertime model with an incomplete understanding of earthly courtships.
"We won't have Kori be in exile, but we want to be sure that when our child is born, when we are together, that she won't forget who she is. Who here mother and I are and what we swore to do to protect those in need. We….want to be married, but Kori won't leave the planet she was born on to forget about her or her children and grand children." Dick announced. "I'm here, she and I will teach our kid…or kids to defend themselves like you did for me, and like Galfore did for Kori. "
"You are putting all of us out; it's a political matter!" Bruce shouted, when he'd never lost his temper over…
"You…there was a time when you'd been kidnapped during an outing, or even to get to me. Do you know what that's like, Dick? You'd lose more than your pride. You're here to protect, but family is…complicated. Kori has to be able to forgo a ceremony to take away her role as Princess, as any bit of royalty. You would have to leave the Wayne faction and…It would not be ok. Dami isn't ready and right now, Tim is still considering the possibility of becoming my protégé for the job. He's already aced it. I just…If Batman –
"You and I aren't royalty, Bruce."
"We are more important than you know, Dick." Chided the bat. "Koriander?" Bruce looked to the princess as her eyes rested on over his tired features. "You'll either give up citizenship here on earth, or on Tamaran and refuse the rank that Wildfire wants you to have once this first, child comes into both your lives. You can't live separately. I need you here."
Kori looked to her beloved. This certainly was not like the time Deathstroke had used the probes on her friends, or when the Doom Patrol had policed the hero's way of doing business.
"And then yet…do we need you, Mr. Wayne?"
Aghast, she'd only just added fuel to that fire that was fairly bad, parenting from a former playboy himself.
"I need to think. Go outside and wait. I want to make a call first…"
How her determination had trumped him, Dick couldn't ever guess and never would.
She and her beloved made it to the outside hall as she dragged him along, and he reached back, to kiss her tenderly in their moment of possibly the very BEST moment in the couple's lives!
"We will be together…can you not hear it?"
"The baby, she's definitely in there." He chuckled at her as they made their way down the stairwell. Alfred came by to assist and for an hour Bruce was on the line trying to get Kori situated as a Grayson. He'd get her in, she'd be safe and maybe…maybe Dick would still consider a seat at the table of Bruce's business as the Batman.
He had a feeling that was going to be far sooner as the fire danced well off into the backdrop of the quieted study.
"He won't forget all of his family. Dick's too loyal to pull a Jason on me." Bruce shook his head and saw rain –
"Guess we have guests after all, tonight."
He continued to do his best. Call it…an early wedding gift he'd kept on the backburner.
Very, early.
