Why Heroes Can't Sip Champagne and Apples Are a Girl's Best Friend
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Chapter 15: Holy Newlyweds, Batman! I'm Getting Hitched?
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" When, Dickie."
Spit could have flown onto his suit as Nightwing had hoped to avoid Kori's excitement for the couple's upcoming wedding ceremony.
Thing was, both had an inner battle to pull through.
Kori would no longer be allowed on Tamaran, not until Blackfire was put away for life.
Wildfire would be ascending to the throne in the next year, so…
She was a US citizen until then, yet did she feel afraid to be judged?
"Starry – eyes is in good hands, but is that what she told you? Hah!"
Red hood shook his skull disappointedly. "She's too much, especially for your wise – guy ass. Ya' just barged in and made her all –
"Red!" Dick stuck to code names. Jay however, he'd worked with Kori while she'd been a part of his team, the Outlaws with Roy for a bit. Even Deathstroke had stopped by. It had been, odd to see her in such a light before she'd come to help with Titans Academy in Cali.
"What? YOU stuck it in her face, Dick! I didn't even jump in when I had a shot because unlike you, I know her"
Dick pulled his hands away from the outlaw's collar of his bomber jacket.
"Yeah, but you were there on her team. Why would she compromise a –
"We had a thing, but it was short. Never committed. And unlike you?" Jay's immodest action rose with his ego, his hooded gaze staring right at Dick's withered resolve for that same unbranded level of commitment.
"I, used protection."
Dick wailed on his brother, knocking the stuff he'd spill out of his lungs from tortured lips, until his head snapped back. Red's hood shattered into the side as he was left, coughing while still on patrol.
Seething and clenching his fists as if he'd do it again, Nightwing's rage dissipated. God…had he….
His guilt caught on, but he was still ashamed of his own actions towards one of his own.
Kori couldn't know…he had to talk to her.
"Get out. if I catch you talking about either of us like that –
"I…didn't start it…" Sniffed the street tough, younger brother.
Dick's eyes stayed like that, before his face came in close, a threat welling up before his pursed jaw as Jason roughly, sighed.
Relinquishing the name of the one who had.
Roy. But he and she were close, so…listen, she was popular on our team. Great skills, fighting mad men, and she played well with Deathstroke and Rose. I tell ya' if you make her cry, I won't forgive your flightless ass one bit."
As sour as that tasted on his tongue, Kori lit up lives that had been pushed into the background for years.
Batman had discarded Red Hood after he'd chosen to push too many buttons, but Dick?
Was perfect, up to a point.
Kori was going to have a child, and it was all his fault that she'd be forgetting her home on Tamaran…
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He swung back to the manor where they'd be staying just a few more nights. Batman had been off on the other end of Gotham, but he'd heard far too much if Dick didn't think he was alone.
"Hello, prefect."
Dick down into the cave, and by it stood Damian Wayne out in his Robin uniform. Also coming back from a drab night of the unusual events.
Nothing had gone on. No killers or men stealing purses from old women. He was bored, so Dick was going to be the teen's entertainment for this evening.
"You gave us all a start; Starfire is a good woman. I can't say the same about your playboy pick – me – up attitude."
"We are getting married in the summer, Dami."
"Because father said it had to be sooner…you wanted a spring wedding originally, didn't you?"
"Wh- How did…. Were you spying on us??"
"She told me." Dami sniffed and went to check on the bat computer for his father's whereabouts. "She's talkative around others, but you tend to speak to her as if you're an ideal representative of how she thinks –
"Dami. I talked to Bruce about that attitude" Dick crossed his arms. "She and I are in understanding of this, so please drop it. What is it that you're really taking thins out on me for?" He cocked his head to ask. "Come on, that rude – guy routine won't work on me."
"Has before." Sighed the teen as he just shrugged off the response from the eldest Robin.
"Not once we are in agreement that you'll try to be a bit more –
"Support you??" Scoffed the kid with a barking laugh back. "I don't think I would have died happy if even Todd proposed; yet it was foolish to fornicate and have her to be with a child BEFORE your perfect, spring date to be wed?? Do you not think so??"
"Are you really that old fashioned, Damian?" Dick raised an eye to the situation the kid had painted before them. "This is a new era! We don't do something unless both parties are ready. There is no ownership and I told Kori to decide with what's best HER. I just want to know that she truly cares. That's all. I'd die a hundred times to see her happy in her life. I would go to the top to keep her that way, while she does what makes her happy. The child's name WILL be MARI. She will be keeping her roots as a half Tamaranean descendent of royalty, and Galfore will get to meet his family who is still close…. you can't understand truly being in love. And before you go pointing that finger!"
Dick pointed at Dami to have the pouting brat quieted.
"I want to know, are you mad at Starfire, not me?"
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In the Titans, Dami had a low respect for how Starfire taught her allies during combat training. He used to tease and his rudeness was always a bit sharp for Kori at the end of the day. Cy had to step in with BB and Raven to pull the boy away to either apologize or to try harder in making his team less wary of who he was as a person.
Getting chummy with the newer Titans did take time. When he'd finally made his presence known, word had spread that Kori was missing lessons and then…
She'd been on leave.
He decided to investigate, to be sure he wasn't the problem.
Well, lo and behold the times did tick, as did that bun in her oven.
"All this time, she wasn't so noble. She wanted you to give up being a hero to…to…support her! She's not worthy of this family if she has just spread herself open to you on a whim! Don't do it, I beg of you to reconsider your choices…she'll just…just…You can't marry that harlot –
And that was when Dick had stormed out of the cave, with Kori now aware as the two left to find a hotel uptown on the same night – without telling Bruce a proper goodbye.
She was still crying on his shoulder by how those words were very real, and how Damian had to be very, very wrong to give his teacher such a cruel title without her consent.
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"Do you want to go to and stay with Donna?" Dick helped Starfire to her feet. They were in a suite with a single bed for lovers, and for another reason she had told him.
She wanted to prove that their Earth's customs and sexist traditional views were not valid. Where the form of their love was clear, and that the baby would not feel confined to hang tightly to one parent's origins as her mother had for her entire life before coming to Earth.
"I once told you that earth was full of amazing things as well…" She let her cheek be cradled by his hands, so worked over by cuts and a few callouses that he was this noble to stand by her side. Could be…that, and he worked for their love, as she worked to prove just as much that it was not false.
"The wedding will happen, and then Bruce and Dami won't get in our way, again. I promise…You and I can have a spring wedding again, a smaller one if you want…this one is just to get Bruce's faction to back off." Dick reassured his bride to be. "And, to get Dami to respect you a little more. He's all for "formal" affairs." Dick kissed her brow as she hummed happily into his neck. "I wish to not have to be so formal. Love should have no such chains to bind it."
"I know, but this is it or we run away and never look back. I lose my job; we struggle and leave the planet if you –
"No. Dick, that is not "the necessary." She softly laughed as their eyes met.
"Hi."
"Greetings."
It was early, and the buffet table was not sadly, one of their stops for today, but a meeting with the one person who could get a few feet in the door for them both.
Someone who might set the record straight if they didn't have to withhold information from her, as they had Bruce.
For this person and Dick, had once been quite close.
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Teen titans 2003 and Titans animated movie where Dami calls Starfire out for her nature…. ah, so here it goes? Who is going to put the rest of the bat clan into sensitivity training – also! This isn't the finale at all. We have to see why "How long is forever" even happened, and I intend to pull a few stops out on this story.
Wait and see; find out soon in chapter 16 – birds of prey style.
