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“Marry me.”
Dixie doesn’t mean to say it. But it comes out the instant she opens the door to Kory’s apartment.
She meant to lead up to it. To ease her girlfriend into it. But she already has the ring out -- diamonds and emeralds against gold. It will look beautiful against Kory’s skin, but Dixie was barely thinking about it when she picked it out. She was too panicked to do anything but make a decision.
It doesn’t even have amethysts -- and Dixie knows those are Kory’s favorites. She loves purple.
She should have gotten a tiara made of raw amethyst. She still will, if Kory says yes.
But Kory hasn’t said anything. Not yet.
Dixie’s stomach drops as she realizes several seconds have passed.
The door blows cold air inside -- Dixie hadn’t even closed it behind her. Her cheeks warm.
“I mean -- what I meant is, will you marry me?”
She starts to kneel, starts to remember what proper form is, for proposals like this. She doesn’t know the protocol for Tamaranean proposals; doesn’t know if they even propose at all. But Kory has to remember this from the romantic comedies they’ve seen together.
Before Dixie’s knees can reach the ground, Kory stops her.
Dixie’s never been able to resist those strong arms. She stands back up, face even hotter than before. “I’m supposed to kneel,” Dixie says. “This is -- it’s what you do, at proposals.”
“Why?”
The first thing to come out of Kory’s mouth.
It isn’t a yes.
Dixie swallows hard. “I -- because I want to marry you. And because I’m hoping you want to marry me, too.”
Kory’s eyes flicker between the ring and Dixie’s face. “You want me to marry you?”
Dixie holds the ring a little closer to her. “Is that -- is this not what you want, too?”
Kory raises both brows. And Dixie knows, just like that, that she must see the fear in Dixie’s eyes. Dixie swallows again, but she can’t quite suppress it. She never could, around Kory.
But Kory isn’t trying to hold her or run her fingers through her hair like usual. She isn’t trying to comfort Dixie, or tell her that things will be alright. For the first time, Dixie is afraid, but Kory doesn’t react at all.
For an instant, Dixie thinks that Kory has been replaced again.
Her stomach twists.
But then she sees a flicker in Kory’s face -- something Mirage would never be able to match.
“Dixie…”
“Please.”
“We can’t,” Kory says. “You were the one who told me we couldn’t. It isn’t what’s done, on this planet. You have told me this before, that women cannot be married to other women. Has that…. changed?”
Dixie’s shoulders droop. She was thinking it, when she bought the ring. But hearing it from Kory’s mouth is different. “...No,” she admits. “No, it hasn’t.”
“Then-?”
“There are unions we could do,” Dixie says. “Domestic partnerships. We’re in San Francisco, it’s basically legal, even if the nation wouldn’t recognize it. And you’re an alien , maybe they’d make an, an exception-”
Alien rights were even more limited than human rights. Kory has been lucky -- even if she can’t hide her true form like Martians can, she’s the epitome of human beauty.
If humans knew she was in a relationship with a woman, would they still look on her favorably?
“Dixie…”
Kory must be following her line of thought, too.
Dixie squeezes her eyes closed, tight. She holds the ring tightly.
Finally, finally, Kory moves again. She closes the door behind Dixie. Then, gently, she takes hold of Dixie’s hand.
“What is this about, my love?” she asks -- soft. A question without heat, without teeth. And with it, Dixie finally feels like she can breathe.
Her breath leaves her like a prayer.
“I need to know that things won’t change between us.”
Kory tilts her head to the side. “...Does marriage not also change relationships?” she asks -- just as soft as before. Dixie looks away, and Kory lets her -- but not before saying, “I don’t know what you’re asking for, Dixie.”
Dixie swallows again. She reluctantly pulls her hand away from Kory’s. Then, she slides the ring back into her pocket, where it should have stayed all along.
She has half a mind to leave and toss the ring in the sewer. Maybe she can find a martian on her way out -- someone to wipe the memory of this botched proposal from both Dixie’s mind and Kory’s. A way to remove this failure from their consciousness.
But as soon as the ring is gone, Kory steps in to fill the space between them.
She puts a hand on both of Dixie’s shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell, in eyes without irises. But Dixie knows, because there is nowhere else Kory could be looking when her forehead is pressed so close.
Dixie hopes she hasn’t interrupted her too much. She knows that Kory needs time to reorient, after being held captive for a day and a half. Mario Delgado was a monster for taking her captive. Not everyone knows what Kory has been through -- but to know that she was taken captive, and to know that Mario had tried to completely replace her, so that no one would ever come for her…
Dixie wishes she could focus all of her anger on that. But it’s hard to, when there’s so much else to be angry about.
And so many things she feels, other than just anger.
Sick, she realizes. She feels sick.
She wants to throw up, and throw up the feeling of Mario’s hands on hers with it.
It had really felt like Kory’s hands on her.
“Dixie...” Kory says softly. She reaches for her face, cupping her cheek, stroking it with her thumb. Her hand is so warm -- Dixie warms from the inside out like she always does. Yet, her stomach still twists. A traitorous part of her mind wants to duck away from the touch -- wants to leave until she can be absolutely sure that Kory isn’t Mirage. “Talk to me. Please. Why do you want to get married?”
The bile in Dixie’s stomach doesn’t come up, but it’s a near thing.
Kory continues tracing her thumb up and down her girlfriend’s cheek. Then, slowly, she leads her further into the apartment.
Dixie walks, dazed. Her knees hit the couch before Kory helps her down onto it. She, bless her, does nothing but sit next to her. Half of Dixie craves touch, craves being held and told that everything is fine. Craves the knowing caresses that only Kory provides.
She’s still glad that Kory doesn’t come any closer than arm’s length.
A few minutes pass. They sit in silence, until Dixie finally feels less sick. She doesn’t realize that her ears had been ringing until she can hear clearly again. She feels color coming back to her skin, and --oh.
That’s how Kory had known, isn’t it. That’s how she had known that this wasn’t right. That Dixie wasn’t fully herself.
(And god, isn’t that a phrase, ‘fully yourself’.
Mario impersonated Kory -- so why does Dixie feel like she’s the one pretending to be herself?)
“Dixie?” Kory finally asks, voice still soft -- and Dixie recognizes it, now. This is the voice she uses when she’s trying to coax victims into feeling safe. This is the voice she uses with small animals. With anything that has been wounded.
Dixie wants to feel offended. But her throat closes before she can voice it.
Instead, she just nods, like her name had been a yes or no question.
“Take a minute to sort out your thoughts and your feelings,” Kory says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But?” Dixie manages. But , because there is always a but when Kory talks in that tone.
“ But ,” Kory says, “I cannot accept a proposal made when you are so out of sorts. I want to know why, before I make any decision.”
Dixie nods. She wishes, for a moment, that she’d been brave and entered Kory’s arms.
Instead, she’s stuck an arm’s length away, and she can’t move. She can barely breathe. But when she looks at Kory, the catch in her chest loosens.
(She wonders how Kory always manages to fix things. To make things better.
But then again, Kory is from a planet that seems to be better than Earth in every way. Women can even marry other women on Tamaran. Dixie doesn’t anticipate that happening on Earth for a very long time.
Maybe after the turn of the new millenia, Dixie thinks. Denmark and Norway have passed domestic partnership laws along with a handful of other California cities, including San Francisco, and Dixie has half a mind to apply --
But Kory isn’t a human, let alone a US citizen.)
It was stupid to propose.
It takes a few minutes, and a host of deep breaths.
But finally, finally, Dixie feels herself again.
Once she does, Kory scoots closer. She pauses a moment, unsure if she’s misread Dixie’s slowly relaxing muscles -- but Dixie gives one sharp nod, and Kory wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close.
Dixie leans into her chest, and for an instant, she feels so safe. Feels like nothing has happened at all, if she can still feel loved here.
Kory runs a hand up and down her back -- the way she always does. And it’s instinctual -- Dixie knows that there is no one in the universe that could duplicate this level of care, this amount of devotion and softness.
There’s no way that this could be Mirage.
And here Dixie is, having half of an anxiety attack because of an almost . She knows that Kory has been through so much worse than a shapeshifter who only almost got away with impersonating her girlfriend.
Dixie closes her eyes, takes a slow, deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” she says -- and curses under her breath when she realizes how hoarse she sounds. She tries again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have proposed like that, out of the blue. It was stupid.”
“A little.” Kory runs a hand through Dixie’s hair, smoothing it back. It’s getting a little too long -- Dixie needs to get it cut again. That’s the problem with pixie cuts, they always need trimmed. So high maintenance for a low maintenance haircut. “But I won’t hold it against you. You weren’t yourself. But I can’t say yes if it was only a proposal out of fear.” The words would be cruel from anyone else. From Kory, they are sharp, but only in the way that surgeons’ tools are. It doesn’t hurt as badly if they are cutting to the point. “...You never do anything without a reason, though.”
Dixie nods against her.
Kory hums. Then she twirls a short lock of hair between her fingers. Dixie is surprised it even manages to make a single curl. “That was an invitation,” she says, fingers still winding through her hair. “Would you tell me what reason that is, my love?”
It would be easy to say nothing.
Dixie considers it.
“The shapeshifter,” she says instead. “...I’m sorry.”
Kory frowns though, and pauses her hand partway through Dixie’s hair. “And what about him?”
Dixie could say a lot of things, here. She could tell Kory what almost happened, like she should. Like she needs to, before the next time they try to have sex. Because Dixie feels fine with Kory touching her now, when there are no expectations beyond love and care.
But she knows that the instant they start stripping on this bed, it will bring her back to that moment.
Dixie can see it in her mind's eye. She can see herself from a distance, lying down, panicked and white as a sheet, and Kory--Mario--doesn’t slow down at all. She can see herself saying no, can see herself realizing that Kory isn’t who she says she is.
Dixie takes a slow breath and counts backwards from ten.
“It’s nothing,” she says, like she isn’t suppressing a panic attack again. Like Kory won’t know it’s a lie. But it’s one she’ll tell for now -- and one Kory will let her get away with, because it’s never for long. Kory always gets the truth sooner or later. “It’s just -- I wanted to see how you were.”
“So you bought a ring and proposed?” Kory asks, tilting her head to the side. “Most people would just ask if I’m alright.”
Dixie’s face warms. “I was worried?”
“Worried enough to forget that same-sex marriage is illegal on Earth?” Kory’s hand runs through Dixie’s hair again. “If you say so.”
Dixie looks down, face pinking even further. “You didn’t answer,” she says. “How you are, I mean. I know your answer was going to be no.”
“I’m fine,” Kory says. “A little shaken. But I escaped, and nothing happened.” Shelooks out the window -- Dixie can only guess at what she’s remembering, what she’s seeing in the back of her mind. “I didn’t even know I had been replaced. If I hadn’t gotten out…”
“I would have discovered Mirage’s deception eventually,” Dixie says, with more determination than she feels. “I will always come for you, Kory. You are never, ever going to be sold again. You have to believe that, don’t you?”
Kory manages a grim smile. “I love you,” she says, instead of an ‘I believe you’. Dixie will take the win for what it’s worth. “And I will be alright, really. There will be a few sleepless nights, I think. And I will need a few more hours of sun to make up for the sunless days, and the drugs he put in my system. But I’m fine.”
Though Dixie had asked half to deflect, she does feel better hearing that. “I’m glad. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
“Mm.”
It isn’t a yes. But Dixie trusts her. Kory is usually frank enough about what she needs, even if she won’t admit the worst of what she’s been through. The nightmares tell a story much worse than the distracted looks and half-truths Kory tells. Kory says she’ll have sleepless nights . But sleepless nights are not the same thing as nightmares -- and Dixie knows that Kory will have both. She always does, when something reminds her of her past. Dixie has been sleeping beside her for long enough to see the pattern.
Dixie has a feeling she’ll have sleepless nights of her own, but she will be there to hold Kory’s hand and run a hand through her hair til she finally falls asleep.
She doesn’t know how Kory ever falls asleep, though -- not when Kory has been through a thousand times worse than Dixie, and Dixie can’t imagine closing her eyes for more than a minute.
The thought sours Dixie’s mood immediately. She tries to push it away, to stop fixating on it. She knows it isn’t a competition, and that Kory would never want her to compare.
But she can’t not.
Not when Kory had been sold into slavery -- and not when that slavery resembled human trafficking all too closely. And Dixie knows what is sold when anyone beautiful is on the market.
Tamaraneans are a hearty race, Kory always said, as though she was only ever used for labor, for building or fighting or toiling in the sun -- but her eyes were always cloudy when she talked about her time as a slave. Dixie knows it was more than that.
Dixie wonders if her own eyes will ever look like that.
Or if her eyes will only ever dart to exits, to signs of impersonation.
“How do you…”
Dixie doesn’t realize she’s started to speak until it’s too late.
Kory looks at her, head tilted just so. Her eyes are bright with worry, with subdued curiosity.
Dixie can’t ‘nevermind’ her way out of this one.
“How do you,” she starts again, “feel safe? After something has happened to you?”
That’s all it takes, it seems, to break Kory’s melancholy.
A spark lights in her eyes. “Did he hurt you?”
Dixie wants to say no. Wants to reflexively pretend that it was nothing. Nothing she hadn’t wanted, nothing she hadn’t expected.
But she’d expected it from Kory. And that man wasn’t Kory.
Dixie averts her eyes, and that seems to answer Kory’s question. The hand on her shoulder is hot, suddenly, and Kory realizes the temperature as soon as Dixie does. She pulls her hand away, then stands to her feet. Afraid of hurting Dixie, or ready to jump into action -- Dixie can’t tell.
“I’m sorry,” Kory says quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m listening -- I’m not angry with you.”
As if that was ever Dixie’s fear. Kory knows hurt -- knows how it feels to have something done to you.
Dixie swallows bile again. The sick feeling is back again, and she doesn’t think she can ask to be held right now. Not with the fire-bright eyes Kory is sporting.
“I don’t want you to hurt him,” Dixie says, even though she wants to hurt Mirage herself. “I’m not looking for justice-”
“We find it for everyone else,” Kory says firmly.
“I don’t want to make it public,” she says. There’s been too much in public with the Titans lately. The pictures, Dixie knows. Kory will find out about them soon, if she doesn’t know already.
Kory’s expression is unreadable.
But finally, she sits, and offers Dixie a hand. “Then talk to me. Please.”
Again, Dixie hesitates.
But she has never refused Kory’s hand before -- so she takes it now, and quietly appreciates how the heat has cooled to Kory’s normal simmer. The fire is still just under Kory’s skin, ready to be released if Dixie should ask.
Dixie won’t. But it’s nice to have a say.
“He posed as you,” Dixie says. “But you knew that part. After I found him out, he… He said that in his timeline, we were married, we had children together. That I wasn’t a dyke there.”
Kory tenses. “...So he tried to trick you.”
Dixie nods.
“Did he… succeed?”
It’s a cleaner way of asking if he managed to force Dixie into submission. If he managed to rape her, rather than try to. Asking if Dixie noticed and refused, or had been tricked.
Dixie swallows. “I -- I don’t know whether or not it counts. When I said yes, it’s because I thought it was you.”
Kory looks like lava, spilling over the edges of a volcano. But, to her credit, she doesn’t burn Dixie.
(Dixie doesn’t want to go into the details. Doesn’t want to have to dive into that mess in her memories. She doesn’t want to remember the way Kory -- Mario -- had come on strong, so unlike her girlfriend. Doesn’t want to remember the way she -- he -- had refused to slow down or wait. The way he’d been so much more concerned with his own pleasure than Kory ever was.
Dixie had never told him to stop, though.
She wonders if he would have, if she had.)
She doesn’t want to remember. So Dixie stays silent, and that silence seems to answer Kory enough.
“...I will kill him if it is what would help you, my love.”
But Dixie shakes her head. “That’s not why I told you. I-” She pauses. Thinks for a long moment. “I can’t just compromise my morals because I got the brunt of it this time. I would be the world’s biggest hypocrite. Especially after everything I told you about, about it being wrong to kill, no matter how someone hurt you, how we have to always be the, the bigger...-”
“Stop. Please.” Kory’s voice is stern. She coaxes Dixie to look up, tilting her jaw up. “Hypocrisy should be the least of your concerns right now. He hurt you, Dixie. You know I don’t take that lightly.”
Dixie closes her eyes; squeezes them shut before any tears can fall. But when she opens them, they fall anyways, collecting between Kory’s hand and her cheek.
It should be embarrassing, falling apart like this. Dixie had tried for years to hold herself together so tightly. To disprove all the stereotypes about female heroes being too emotional to be good at their jobs. She’d been such an excellent Robin, such a put-together Titans team lead, even after Roy Harper had tried to fight her for the title. She’d been so good at staying on top of things, even her emotions.
And now, she just feels like a stereotype.
Feels like she’s letting it get the best of her, when she’s supposed to be above this. Supposed to be above getting hurt. Supposed to be above assault.
But then, is anyone?
Dixie leans her head against Kory’s shoulder and takes a breath.
“This is so stupid. You went through a lot worse-”
Kory’s expression turns pained, and her shoulders go rigid. “Please do not bring that up right now, sweetheart,” she says, and almost sounds choked. “It is not a -- a competition. Please do not make this a competition. Just let me care about you.”
“It’s barely anything. He didn’t even -- I thought he was you… ”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Kory says, firmer this time. “There is no good form of rape , Dixie.”
Dixie flinches at the word. Kory’s shoulders get tense, too -- and then they slump, realizing that she may have overstepped. May have used a word that Dixie isn’t ready for.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry that he used my form for this. I’m sorry that Earth isn’t better than the Citadel. I’m sorry you weren’t spared from this.”
Dixie wipes at her eyes again. “He didn’t touch me like this . He was different. Violent. It’s hard to believe I fell for it, even for a minute, with the way he-”
“Stop,” Kory says. “Dixie. Even if you had realized who he was part way through, that would not change whose fault it was. You did nothing wrong.”
It doesn’t make her feel any better, though. Because that’s the trouble. She did nothing wrong, but she hadn’t felt violated in the moment, not really.
So what was there for her to feel so anxious over?
Why did she feel so out of touch with herself?
Dixie takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Why I feel this way.”
Kory frowns. “What way do you feel? I don’t understand.”
For a moment, Dixie thinks about not saying anything. Or telling her that she’ll be fine, and trying to drop it.
But she doesn’t.
“I feel… guilty,” she finally says. “I feel like I’m overreacting. Like there’s no reason for me to feel this panicked, but I can’t stop.”
“You aren’t overreacting- ”
“I am,” Dixie says. “He didn’t even -- it wasn’t… There are so many others who have been through worse. He couldn’t do -- do that , to me. He was using your form, he couldn’t use his… anatomy.”
“Do you think that changes his intent? Or what happened to you?” Kory says, soft and uncertain. “Dixie...”
Dixie shrinks in on herself.
Kory takes a slow breath. “...We can stop talking about the details, my love. I would never ask you to relive it.”
But Dixie does, every time she’s in her room.
“I should have been able to tell,” she admits. “He didn’t act the way you did. He pushed me down -- you never do that. We’ve talked about why we never do that to each other.” Dixie looks away, distinctly uncomfortable, remembering the conversations they’d had about consent, and the things that make Kory feel powerless.
Kory does frown at that.
Dixie wonders if this is where the other shoe drops. If this is where Kory decides to walk away, when Dixie couldn’t even tell the difference between her and a predatory shapeshifter.
“Dixie… tell me what’s in your head.”
“What do you mean?”
Kory lays one hand atop their joined hands. Dixie can’t help but feel safe. “I need you to be honest, love. There’s something you aren’t saying. I can’t help fix this if I don’t know what all is wrong.”
Dixie will swear to her dying day that Tamaraneans have an extra sense; empath powers, telepathy, something.
“I should have known it wasn’t you,” Dixie says. “Shouldn’t I?”
“No.”
“No?”
Kory squeezes her hand tighter. “No,” she says, firmer. “No, it is not your fault. You are not to blame for his actions. I would never blame you for trusting that I am who I say I am. For trusting me not to hurt you.”
Dixie swallows. “You promise?”
Kory nods -- and there is such a gravity and seriousness to her face that Dixie truly believes her.
Dixie leans in for a kiss before she can stop herself. And, albeit with some reluctance, Kory responds. It’s short and chaste -- and perhaps not what Dixie should be doing when she still feels so paranoid, so lost.
But it feels better, too. To know that Kory still wants her.
When Kory pulls back, she tucks part of Dixie’s overgrown pixie cut behind her ear. “Did someone make you think it was your fault?”
Kory wasn’t there when Mirage had admitted his deception. When he’d bragged about it, in front of their teammates. So how did he know?
“Pantha,” she admits. “And Mirage himself. I…”
Kory’s mouth settles into a grim line. “It isn’t your fault.”
It takes a while, but finally Dixie’s shoulders start to loosen. But no sooner than they have, Dixie sees realization dawn in her girlfriend’s eyes.
Kory’s gaze lands on Dixie’s pocket, where the ring is still stored. Dixie watches her brows pinch, and finally her eyes widen in horror and understanding.
“Is that why you proposed?” she asks.
Dixie says nothing.
“You thought I would be upset when I learned, so you proposed, to...?”
“So you would know it was you I wanted,” Dixie says. “So you’d know I’m -- that I wanted to be faithful. To you and only you.”
Kory’s expression shatters. Her lips part, and she is, for once, at a complete loss for words. She once told Dixie that she knows over a thousand languages, and that she’s been taught public speaking since she was a child. She, truly, always knows what to say. And in the moments she doesn’t say anything, she is always considering the right words.
This time, though -- Kory just looks shocked.
Dixie squeezes her eyes shut.
But finally, she feels a pressure on her hand.
She looks up to find Kory’s hand in hers, gentle and cool -- only a few shades warmer than human hands.
“It isn’t your fault,” Kory finally says. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Dixie swallows, again. And this time, she thinks the bile might stay where it’s at. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
Dixie believes her.