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There’s a voice she doesn’t recognize on the other hand, that tells her, in almost robotic tone, what this is about. She’s so sure in those first few seconds that it’s a wrong number, annoyed that she has to use what little strength she can muster up dealing with some criminal trying to call home, debating whether it would be kinder to hang up or tell them they’re calling the wrong number, wondering if she has it in her to be kind anymore, and then: Dick Grayson.
It sounds like him and it doesn’t. She can’t think straight, can feel the ground spinning under her. In her defense, she had a bottle of champagne for breakfast (she never said it was a good defense).
There’s static, a few strange, electronic clicks as she’s transferred. She tries to focus her mind on one single thing. A picture of the four of them from the one good night they’d had, crumpled, tucked into the visor of her car. “Hey.” He sounds like hell.
“Oh my god, it’s really you,” Kory says on an exhale. She straightens in her seat, tucking a matted curl behind her ear. “What happened?” she asks, like she’s not afraid of the answer. She should have gone back to them by now— the Titans— but how could she go back like this, how could she be what they needed her to be?
“Attacked a cop,” he admits coolly. “A few of them, actually.”
“Fucking-“ she starts, stops herself. Kory sighs, her shoulders drooping. “I’m on my way,” and she’s already googling the name of the prison, the fastest way to get there.
“No,” Dick rushes to say, and it’s the first emotion she’s caught in his voice. He sounds as exhausted as she feels. “That’s not— don’t come for me. That’s not why I’m calling.”
Her head buzzes again, two fingers against her temple to stop the world spinning. She can feel his hesitance in the silence, pictures him waiting for the words to come. He’s never been good with words, but he’s trying now. He’d tried in San Francisco, too, a little late, maybe, but he’d tried. He probably thinks this is a solution, atonement or redemption or something equally stupid. “I left you alone for five minutes, Grayson.”
A scoff, maybe even a smile. Kory misses his smile. She misses being squeezed into a minivan with him, Rachel, and Gar, misses feeling tethered to something. Her car feels comically huge now, so much space for nothing. “Sorry.”
She leans her head back against her seat, closes her eyes, wonders if he ever gets tired of apologizing for things that aren’t his fault, torturing himself. It’s not like she has any ground to stand on there though, she left a stranger in her bed this morning, downed a (another) bottle of champagne, walked around in circles because she had nowhere to go, threw up all the cheap liquor and got behind the wheel of a car. What does she know about anything?
“I could just come, anyway,” she says. “I’ll even call Bruce.”
“No you won’t,” Dick says, and it’s not even a question.
Kory smiles. “No, I won’t,” a pause, and then, in his silence, even as she’s aware these calls are probably monitored or recorded or something else the robot probably told her about: “I’d break you out.”
She can see his smile clearly then, can hear the flash of it in his words. “I know you would,” he says. She can see it fade, too, that customary Dick Grayson frown on his face instead, a furrow in his brows. “Look, I need you to take care of the kids. Rachel and Gar and Conner. Jason,” he stops himself. He’s good at torturing himself, she knows. She’s seen it all along, some invisible burden hanging over his head, dragging his shoulders down. Lifelong collateral from his parents, maybe, Bruce, this complicated stuff with Deathstroke. She would help him carry it, if he let her. Any of the Titans would. “Rachel’s with Donna, I don’t know where they went. Donna doesn’t understand Rachel like you do. And Gar… I let him down. I let them both down. I let you down, too, I let everyone down.”
It’s all one breath, a run-on of a confession. Kory blinks her eyes open when he’s trailed off, tastes salt on her lips, and realizes she’s crying. “You haven’t let me down,” she says, wiping at the streaks on her cheek. “You made a mistake, Dick. The kids, the Titans— they need some time but they will get over it.”
“Not this one.”
Kory scoffs, hears the irritation in her own voice and keeps going despite it. “Right, so, naturally getting yourself thrown in prison was the next step there,” she bites. She wants to reach her hand through the phone and shake him for even considering this, like giving up has ever solved anything. A breath, her eyes drawn to that picture again. She catches sight of someone in her visor mirror, takes a second to realize it’s herself. She reaches for the photo and slams the visor shut. “This isn’t penance, it’s pity.”
She’s met with his silence, thinks for a second that he’s hung up on her but her train of thought is interrupted by a loud beeping coming over the line, that same monotonous voice telling her she has one minute left.
Dick’s voice is hollow, lonely. She wants to reach out, again, feel the warmth of his skin under her fingertips. A hand on his arm so he knows he’s not alone, not anymore, since the moment he met them. She would take his hand to prove it, hold it tight in hers. She might have kissed him once, she’s not sure she could do it now, not if it meant what it used to mean before— his hands on her skin like a salve, a way to numb everything else, the uncertainty that eroded their lives.
“Will you take care of them?”
Kory shakes her head, knows he can’t see it but relishes the instant feeling of rebellion it gives her. “I won’t. Not if you think it gets you off the hook.”
“I’m sorry, Kory,” he says, holding within it some kind of goodbye. Fuck that.
“I know you are,” she assures him. “But we’re a team, Dick, all of us. We’re a family. You don’t leave. That’s not how we solve this.”
A sigh that sounds like a broken sob. “I can’t do it any other way,” he admits, voice breaking from the force of the revelation.
“You can try,” Kory says stubbornly.
It’s raining now, torrential and freezing. She can feel the cool air even through her closed window. It never rained on Tamaran. The first time it did, after she landed on Earth, she’d been somewhere in Ohio, hiding in her closet because the noise was terrifying. She’d been chasing down a lead on Rachel that ended up being a dead end, remembers thinking how it had been over a year, nearly two, and she had nothing to show for her time, every passing day just a reminder that she was losing a little more of what little hope she had left. Her despair almost felt tangible— she could feel her parents’ hopes leaving her, slipping further and further out of reach. She’d been alone then, scared and alone.
She’s alone now, too, alone except for this goddamn picture in her hands, gripped so tight its edges are crumpled. Rachel and Gar, grinning widely, eyes wild with excitement. Her own smile. She remembers hoping that feeling would last forever. She’s alone except for Dick, still on the other line, seconds from being pulled away. She wonders if they’ll let him call again. Even if they did, she doubts he’d use the opportunity. She can hear him, can still see him in her mind, hope slipping from his hands like water.
“I’ll take care of the kids,” Kory promises, can feel his relief in the exhale he lets out, his love. She slides her window open, a hand out in the cold air, catches a raindrop in her fist. “But I’m coming to get you first.”