for the dickkory valentines day prompts - love confession
Dick doesn’t expect it to happen here.
He’s always thought for a love this strong — a love this true — there needed to be a moment. Something big and grand and seared into their memory forever. If anything, he thought it’d be in the midst of a battle. They’ve had so many near death experiences it’s become a little hard to parse them out. So many times they’ve held each other, bleeding out and fighting to stay alive, but the closest Dick has ever come to confessing something is; I need you to hang on. Which, he knows is not the same, but feels so much easier to say.
If not when the end is near, then maybe right before they step around the corner, right into danger. Just a quick quip of the words, a reminder that there’s always something worth coming home to. That they can play the hero, but not the martyr. It would be said with a small quirk of a smile, crinkled eyes and a raised eyebrow that promises something more after the fight’s been won. But he doesn’t say it there either. Kory, be careful, which is nearly there, but not quite.
They’ve had date nights and they press each other into the sheets of their bed, but still, nothing has ever felt right. Dick keeps the words tucked right behind his teeth and dipped below his tongue. He’s tried to corral those eight letters, mold them into three words, and breathe them into existence, but for all his bravado they stay right where they are.
They’re in the kitchen, the warm beams of sunrise pouring through the wide windows. Dick is the last one awake, which is normally not like him, but they had an exhausting night and he’s already contemplating crawling back into bed.
Kory and Gar are in the kitchen making breakfast while Tim, Connor, and Rachel chatter away in between stolen bites of bacon. Rachel demands Gar add more chocolate chips to the waffles and Tim tries to convince Kory that avocado toast counts as breakfast food. Dick stops for a moment, takes in the sight of his team — his family — happy and here and alive. His quiet moment of observation lasts a few seconds at best before his name is called out by three different people and he’s soon bombarded with questions about what their schedule looks like for today and whether they can go out after training.
“Go set the table,” Kory laughs as she shoos all of them from the island, save for Gar as he finishes off the last of the waffles.
“Morning Dick,” Gar says with a smile patting him on the shoulder as he passes by with the perilously stacked set of waffles on an almost too small plate.
The rest of them groan like teenagers as they file out into the dinning room, muttering something about adults only and they better not be kissing over our food. Dick ignores the faint flush on his cheeks as he shuffles into the kitchen. Kory hands him a fresh, steaming mug of coffee just the way he likes it.
It warms his fingers and the faint hint of hazelnut from the creamer he swears up and down he doesn’t like (Bruce taught me to drink it black. Well, Bruce doesn’t know the meaning of fun) but sneaks into his cup when no one is looking.
Thank you is what he means to say, but instead he blurts out, “I love you.”
Kory just smiles, warm and bright like the morning sun. “You saying that to me or the coffee?” She asks in a teasing voice as she steps between his legs, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“You,” he grins, “definitely you.”
“Love you too,” she hums before she leans forward and kisses him.
She tastes like chocolate and hazelnut and like the rest of Dick’s life. And what else can he do besides tell her that he loves over and over again.
tagging the dickkory besties @escapism-through-imagination @ambeauty @blackloislane @lady-stirling @jonskory sorry if i missed anyone!
