Work Text:
It’s routine, normal, and actually a productive way to let off some steam: a pair of muggers, a Blüdhaven alleyway, a person in distress. Familiar and comforting in that morbid way only kicking petty criminal ass can be, because that was how you learnt to deal with your emotions in the Wayne family business. That was where Dick was, vaulting from on high, landing perfectly, then twirling his eskrima sticks in a show that was flashy and completely unnecessary for anything except making him feel better. And that was what tonight was about.
“Come on, guys, do we really want to do this the hard way?” he asks, readying himself. One mugger, definitely the dumber one, lunges, and Dick dodges with a sigh he doesn’t really feel, all theatre. He knocks the knife from the man’s hand with an easy slap of one of his sticks and then darts away, around, kicking the man in the back. It’s honestly always way too easy to get people like this down on the ground, and it’s over almost disappointingly quickly. The other mugger had stayed back, clutching his steel pipe like his life depended on it.
Dick opens his mouth, ready to spout whatever quip he can think up, but he never gets to. There is a flash of green, blinding, casting split-second shadows on the alley walls. Dick knows immediately what had just happened. He knows that hue intimately… how many times has it saved his life before? The second mugger goes down, jacket smoking a little, but only stunned. Dick turns, his heart now thudding in his chest, his eyes wide, in time to see her rise from the alleyway, up to the rooftops – not an escape, but an invitation.
He swallows, taking several deep breaths. He has… he has to… He shakes his head. He has to deal with the mess at ground level.
He checks if the victim is alright – she is – ties the muggers and alerts the cops before grappling to the roof of the building, heart pounding, anticipation itching under his skin.
And there she is, on a Blüdhaven rooftop, glowing in the night, brighter than street lights and neon signs.
“Hello, Dick,” she murmurs. She has her arms wrapped around herself, closing herself off, as if afraid of the greeting she will get.
God, it’s like seeing the sun again, after years in the dark. Dick thinks his heart is going to burst out of his chest. He just wants to stumble forward, take her back in his arms, hold her close again… it’s like she never left, even though he remembers her departure as vividly as if it were the day before.
“Kory,” he breathes. “You’re… you’re back.”
She nods, her smile tentative, cautiously hopeful in a way that makes him hurt. She should never be anything but beautifully, perfectly confident, comfortable in her skin and the space she occupies in the world. “Yes.” She plucks at a lock of hair, teasing the curl nervously between her fingers. “Would… would you be willing to talk?”
Dick nods.
It makes sense, that nothing would fall in place easily, like a puzzle resolving itself. No, things have to be talked about, spoken into existence – it’s not like the movies, where everything can be fixed by a kiss in the rain. For one thing, it’s not raining, and for another… well, it’s been years.
He’d understood why she’d needed to leave. He’d agreed with it. It had seemed obvious, at the time: they’d spent so much time discovering each other, and themselves, together, that they had no idea what they were like alone, and what better way to do that than at opposite ends of the galaxy to each other? It had been logical, it had made sense, but… watching her leave, watching her board that ship and disappear beyond what the naked eye could see, had still left his heart broken.
At first, the pain had been raw, tender, a fresh bruise he couldn’t stop pressing. She was gone from his bed when he woke in the morning, she was gone from his arms when he held them open, gone from his entire life: a gaping, Kory-sized hole he didn’t think he could ever fill. But gradually… it had lessened. The pain became a dull ache – it had never faded, no, fading from your life wasn’t something someone as bright as Koriand’r of Tamaran could do, but missing her became background noise to the rest of, well, everything. He just caught himself looking less at the stars, and more at the ground.
Barbara had helped. A teenage crush became something more, something stronger, and even though they could never quite make it stick all the time, they kept coming back to each other, over and over. It was so good, when it wanted to be good. Sometimes it wasn’t good, but, well… they weathered that. And it was one of those times, those studied periods of time apart, that Kory had stepped back into.
It was like she’d never gone.
“How was space?” he asks, finding it hard to find words for once. She giggles, and God, he’d missed her laugh, the ethereal quality of it, the sound of a summer’s day, the definition of joy in the dictionary. He feels it again, the warmth in his chest, the swell like the crest of a wave washing over him. Her very presence ignites a part of him he’d forgotten he had, a part that belongs to her and her alone.
“Big,” she replies, still grinning, and that makes him laugh in turn. He sees her eyes soften. “I… I did well, I think. I helped people, I defeated those that deserved it. I brought some good out there.”
Dick smiles. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you, Kory.”
She looks away, at the street below as they sit on the edge of the roof. “I… for a while I considered not coming back. Surely I was doing more good out there? But… Earth was calling to me as strongly as Tamaran ever did.” She raises her head, and the glow in her eyes drives itself deep into him with its familiarity. “I met other people, I loved other people… but you were always here.” She presses a hand to her heart, eyes sliding shut for a moment as she sighs. “You were far, but never gone. And I thought it was time I returned, if only to see you one more time.”
One more time. Dick’s eyes widen behind the lenses of his mask. “Are… are you leaving again?” he asks. She looks at him, taking a deep breath.
“It depends,” she replies.
Dick takes a gamble. He reaches out, places his hand on hers where it rests on the concrete between them.
“On… what I say now?”
Kory looks down, at his hand on hers, and then to him. “Yes,” she says.
Dick swallows. “A lot’s changed,” he murmurs. He feels her hand tense, begin to slip from his, but he tightens his grip, holding it there. “But what I feel for you hasn’t.” He looks up, looks in those burning green eyes. The hand he reaches out is hesitant, but it finds her cheek, cups it, and his palm remembers its curve.
“I still love you, Kory,” he says, and it shocks him, how easily those words come back to his lips. “And I… I’d like it if you came home.”
She smiles, bright, beautiful, and closing the distance between them is beyond easy. He sinks his fingers into her thick, glorious hair, and lets his eyes shut as her arms wind around him, pulling him closer, against her. There’s her familiar warmth, welcoming him back, and his mind reels with how much he hadn’t realised he’d missed her. But he had. Oh God, he had, and now she’s here again, kissing him with that passion that feels like home, and all he can do is fall back into it, easy as breathing.
He leads her home, back to his apartment, but hesitates. He cups her face, caressing the curves of her cheeks.
Flying with Kory has always been breath-taking, pure adrenaline and excitement in exactly the way Dick loves it, and he would have loved for her to fly him back, but… they needed the time to talk, to figure things out, leaving each other a sort of unspoken escape route. Vaulting over the rooftops as she floated beside him, however, the conversation never lulled. Talking to Kory had always been liberating, and he’d realised, with a pleasant jolt, that nothing had changed: she’d seen him at his worst, knew him better than anyone else, and it was like they’d never been apart.
He also realised he’d sorely missed what Kory had to say. Everything she said, every word, every pitch and lilt of voice, was like a caress, and it reminded him of what he loved about her: her adventure, her spirit, her generosity… Kory was like her words, beautiful and so easy to love. Captivating. The journey back seemed to take forever and no time at all, and by the time they’re in the dark of his room, facing each other, he knows he’s fallen for her all over again, and that when she’s there he feels like a teen again, coltish and rough around the edges, the kid who fell in love with the star princess.
Things have changed, though. There are years between those times and now, losses and lovers and hardships and a hundred battles. They want this again, the weight of the years falling away with almost frightening ease, and though he knows they both want each other again, he still needs to hear it…
“Do… do you want to stay tonight?” he asks. He’d be lying if he said the thought of her back in his bed, back in his arms, doesn’t make him shiver with longing. She smiles, her eyes half-lidded, sultry, and her soft laugh is full of delicious promise.
“Of course I do,” she replies, and that’s invitation enough for him to surge into another kiss, wrapping his arms around her. His hands wander, all over her, down her back, along her sides, rediscovering old, well-worn paths. She responds with as much hunger as he does, her hands immediately going to his ass and squeezing appreciatively, and it makes him chuckle into the kiss, unable to resist.
His chuckle turns into a yelp when she lifts him up, clear off the floor, as strong as ever, and God that familiar, favourite feeling of weightlessness goes straight to his cock. He lets out a soft groan, shifting in her confident hold as she crosses the room in two short strides, right to the bed. He bounces lightly when she unceremoniously dumps him on the mattress, and he’s laughing again, joy bubbling up in his chest as he watches her follow him onto the bed and over him, knees parted on either side of him.
She stills for a moment, her bright smile softening to something like melancholy, and she gently pulls off his mask, sighing in contentment when it’s gone.
“I missed your eyes,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to his again, soft and more languid than the fire before, and Dick wraps his arms around her, pulls her closer to him.
When she draws back again, it’s to look at him with almost singular focus. She runs her hand through his hair, down his cheeks, traces his mouth with the pad of her thumb. He parts his lips, draws her thumb between them, eyelids fluttering as he sucks ever-so-gently, and he feels a rush of triumph when he hears her breath hitch.
It’s as if it breaks something in her, a river bursting its banks, and the fire is back. She dives at him, her mouth crushing his, tongues meeting, and he arches up into her, rolling against her body, and the way she presses back with a soft whimper makes him gasp.
Dick doesn’t want to take it slow. They’ll have all the time they need for slow later, but right now he wants what he’s missed, what he didn’t know he needed so badly for so long, and he lets her know that. Her answering smile is predatory perfection, and Dick loves the thrill it sends up his spine.
“Suit off,” she demands, and he doesn’t need telling twice. He scrambles off the bed, unzipping as he goes, gloves torn off and boots kicked aside, eyes never leaving hers. She sits on the side of the bed, legs crossed, biting her full bottom lip as she watches him slip off his suit and step out of it, now only in his cup and jock and week-old stitches on the left side of his chest. She raises her hand, runs it down his torso from his collarbone to the waistband of his jock, leaving warmth in her wake. Her touch runs hot, but it makes him shiver. She leans forward, pressing her mouth to his abs, making him gasp because, fuck, he’d missed her mouth on his skin, and drags his jock down, his cock finally free.
“Shouldn’t you be naked too?” he asks softly, eyes half-lidded, his grin lopsided.
“Very well, if I must,” she says with a sigh, and he laughs again, watches her rise from the bed with a furious hunger. He knows her, knows every inch of her body, he committed it to memory years ago with gaze and touch, but he wants to see again, to know again. It’s his turn to sit on the bed and watch, awestruck, as she reveals glowing skin to him, pure fire in his dim bedroom. His cock twitches at the sight of her heavy breasts falling free, the revelation of the planes of her belly and the curls of her pubic hair. There are new scars, though, like there must be on him, tell-tale signs of years apart, but they don’t matter. They can add them to each other’s cartography, fresh details.
He’s the one to reach out now, to pull her closer and press his mouth to her. He reaches his fingers up, between her legs, and runs them along her folds, feeling the wetness, loving how she shudders under his touch. He licks a trail between her breasts, mouthing at her hot skin until he finds her nipple, nipping, circling with his tongue, drawing it between his lips, grinning at how she whimpers, how it hardens under his mouth.
Her long fingers card through his hair, and he looks up, gaze heavy, and he’s sure his pupils are blown. He wants her. God, in any way imaginable – his cock aches, his fingers twitch, his mouth waters. He wants anything she’ll give him, it’s always been like this, and he’s glad to welcome the feeling of drowning in desire again.
“What do you want?” she murmurs. Dick bites his lip. He knows how to make split-second decisions, it’s a leadership thing, it’s a Bat-thing, but right now, he’s never felt more at a loss. It’s like being asked to choose a single dish at a banquet. His hands on her falter, tighten with indecision. He wants everything, all at once, but what he always needs most of all…
“I want to taste you,” he breathes, pressing his mouth to her belly. Kory smiles, straddles him, and lets him roll them over until her back is against the mattress, propped on his few pillows and somehow still managing to look like some decadent fire goddess. She spreads her legs, and he groans, throwing himself between them, like he’s starving.
He dips his tongue in her navel, licking down to her mound, and he allows himself a moment to breath in, to let his head spin with her scent, before he presses his mouth to her. He flattens his tongue against her, laps up, circles her clit, over and over until she’s gasping, fingers tight in the bedsheets he knows are going to rip. He draws her clit between his teeth, a gentle tug, before sucking, hard, hungry, getting her to arch into his mouth. He brings his fingers up, parts her folds, slips one into her slick heat as his mouth continues to tease the hard bud of nerves, her gasps turning to moans.
He knows what she likes, he’s known for years. He knows she likes it hard and fast, hating to be teased, and he alternates between flickers of his tongue and the deep sucking of his lips. He knows how much she likes to be filled, and so he gives her another finger, pumping in and out in time with his mouth. She tastes beyond amazing, the familiarity of the coppery-sweetness making him almost drunk with it, and the noises she makes… The loud moans – she’s never been quiet – and the way she breathlessly whimpers his name… his cock drips on the bedsheets, and he fights to keep his own hips still, focusing on her with single-minded resolve. Her fingers are now on his head, keeping him there even when he had no intention of leaving, and her gorgeous, thick thighs on either side of him tremble, the muscles jumping.
He draws her clit into his mouth and hums, and she arches, head tossed back, crying out as she ripples around his fingers and spills, her juices running down his hand as she comes. He laps at her folds, at his hand, groaning, sucking on his fingers when he pulls them gently from her.
“You still taste amazing,” he mumbles, eyes meeting hers, blue to burning green, and she smirks.
“Can I take what I want, now?” she asks. He surges up the bed, pressing his lips to hers, sharing her taste with her. She winds her arms around him, rolling them over, pulling back.
His hands run up her sides, folding her breasts in his palms, soft and spilling through his fingers, too much to hold. He slides down, ignoring the ache in his jaw as he tugs on one of her nipples with his lips, sucking hard again. She gasps, rubbing against him, and he chases her breast with his mouth as she pulls away, sits up, glowing above him.
She reaches back, between his legs, takes his cock in hand and he groans, deep and desperate. He twitches, jumps, pre-come dripping down his length and over her fingers.
“Please… God, please, Kory…” He’s never been ashamed of begging for it from her, and the anticipation is almost killing him. He wants to be in her, to fill her, to feel her around him again.
She rises, holding him still, and sinks down with a drawn-out moan. He meets her half-way, arching his hips, sinking deep inside her with a matching groan. She settles, flush against him, as breathless as he is, and he takes a moment to fight the urge to move and just… savours it. The heat of her around him, the slick intensity, the familiarity, the moment is drawn-out, long, a blissful forever. It’s like coming home, being inside her again, where he belongs.
Then she rises, to the tip, and plunges back down again, and time starts moving once more.
The pace she sets is almost brutal, but he matches it. They part and meet again, a continuous, steady, rough counterpoint. She tightens on every downward rush, making him groan, his hands tightening on her hips. She plants her hands on his chest and holds herself up, and he rolls his hips, up into her, gasping. Dick’s head spins, running his hands up her body, squeezing her breasts, and finally she meets him again, grinding them together, merging seamlessly back into their perfect rhythm.
He’s almost shocked at himself, for almost forgetting how gorgeous she looked above him, how breath-taking she is when she’s like this, riding him into the mattress, calling out his name like it’s the only word she knows. She glows, star-bright and blinding, and her touch is searing, leaving no wounds but burning his skin, an invisible brand. He’s certain, beyond any doubt, that were he a lesser man he’d be over in a moment, and he’s so glad he’s not, that he can savour this, give her what she needs.
She tightens erratically now, her moans almost slurred, and he knows she’s close. He’s close too, balls tight, movements rough and fast and sloppy, and his hand leaves her breast, moves down her. He finds her clit, flicks it with his thumb, presses, he just wants to see her…
“Come on, Kory, babe… come for me…” he pleads, and he breaks into a triumphant grin when she stills, her body a graceful arc, nails raking welts in his chest. Her cunt clenches around his cock, quakes, so tight it leaves him breathless.
“Dick!” she cries, shuddering as he thrusts, once, twice more, and spills, deep inside her, deep as he can go.
She slumps, head lolling forward, licking her lips. He goes limp, softening inside her, but he can still reach a hand up even as he feels his bones turn to mush. She knows what he wants, and she folds herself over him, the kiss messy, all half-smiles and panted laughter.
“I missed you,” she breathes against his lips, biting softly, lazily, at his bottom lip. He winds his arms around her, buries his fingers in her hair, gently bumps their noses together.
“I missed you too,” he replies. He could live forever in the brightness of her smile at that.
When Dick wakes up, the first thing he does is stretch, like he always does, since he always needs to get some life into his muscles before he does anything else. This morning, though, the second thing he does is look to the side. He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face, the warmth rising in his chest.
Kory’s always slept the sleep of the dead beside him, and now is no different. The covers are, as usual, kicked off, the extra warmth unnecessary since she always gets too hot, uncovering all her copper skin. Her hair is a mess, curls everywhere, rippling gently with its inner flame. Her full lips are slightly parted, and her breathing is deep and content.
Dick feels stupidly lucky. Some part of him, some dark part, had been afraid it would never see her again, believed that to be true. She is gone, it said to him on nights when he was alone and the stars were barely visible over the lights of Blüdhaven, and she isn’t coming back. It had been that part of him that had driven him to other people, let him give in to the need for someone in his arms, someone to love. And now… now she’s back. She’s here, within arm’s reach…
As if to make sure, he reaches out a hand. Her skin is hot under his touch, and he allows his finger to trail along her side, shoulder to ribs, hip to thigh. His hand rests there, the softness of her skin under his palm reminding him that yeah, there’s morning wood saying hello. She stirs, her lips tugging upwards in her sleep, and one eye slides lazily open.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
“Good morning,” she replies, shifting forward so their faces are closer, blurred as their noses brush.
“I missed waking up like this,” he says. Morning breath and all.
“Do you need to be anywhere?” she asks. Her hand finds his chest, she circles a nipple with her finger. He thinks about it. There are adjustments he has to make, things that need to be discussed… but those can wait.
“Only here,” he says, drawing her into a kiss, their bodies fitting together like long-lost puzzle pieces once more. Home again.