RobStar Week 2026, Day 4 - Gotham/Jump City
(You know you're getting old when your domestic fluff consist of conversations about real estate and home-buying.
Set sometime after the prompt for "Firsts", once again going a couple years into my post-canon fanon timeline.)
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Peering at the real estate listings her husband had printed out from the web, Kory gave a little scrunch of her eyebrows in confusion.
"Dick?" she called, hefting Mar'i a little higher on her hip. "Why are there some listings for properties in Gotham among the papers here?"
From the Tower's kitchen, where he was scrubbing at a very stubborn stain on the counter, her husband gave a very tired sigh, running fingers through his messy, not-yet-geled hair.
"Bruce has been saying he wants us to move closer to him," he explained.
Kory gave a gasp of horror. "Absolutely not!" she objected. "I do not mean offense to knorfka Batman but I do not wish to raise our daughter in a city infamous for corruption and crime!"
Dick looked up from his scrubbing with a faint, grim smile. "Yeah, I already let him know our concerns. He says the eastern quarter has actually really cleaned up a lot, since they fired the old district attorney, impeached the 12th seat judge for dereliction of duty, and cleaned out all the gangs from the Section 8 housing projects." He leaned back, leaving the sponge in place for now. "And we wouldn't be living in the downtown city proper anyway."
Kory frowned and made an uncertain hum, ignoring how Mar'i was trying to show her the little plane toys Uncle Cyborg had given her. "I still am not entirely comfortable with it," she said.
"Neither am I," Dick agreed, coming over to stand next to her in front of the table and survey the papers spread out on it. "But I do have to admit the prices are a lot cheaper in Gotham."
Kory put a hand up by her cheek to stop Mar'i's insistent poking with a plane nose. "Is that a concern of ours?" she asked teasingly, knowing well the background her husband came from being raised by one of the richest men in the world.
Dick gave a short laugh, ducking his face, and Kory reached over and rubbed his back gently. Her husband had never bragged about his family wealth, rarely relied on it, and preferred to make his own way in the world. Having gotten used to life as a normal person (well, as normal as could be when you were an alien on a foreign planet and chose superheroics as a daytime career) she understood his instinct to shy away from his prestige. It was the same reason why she had declined Galfore's generous offer of a room in the Imperial Palace of Tamaran.
That, and she and Dick were both very certain they wanted to raise their daughter on Earth. The wonders and delights of the galaxy would be reserved for fun family trips or important superhero business calls.
Their roots belonged here.
Kory took a moment to put Mar'i down and the toddler waddled off to her play corner, floating easily up over the plastic fencing that sectioned off a bit of the OPS floor, where her toy bins and small bookshelf were stored.
It underscored the very reason they were looking at real estate listings to begin with. The Tower, as massive as it was, as many years as it had been home for them, was becoming too small. With the five original Titans West still living there, and Troia having moved in as a semi-permanent babysitter, and a handful of new recruits temporarily staying there while they were trained, and Beast Boy and Raven having just found out that they were expecting twins (and boy was that a whole ordeal and a half that they were already scrambling to figure out given the empath's horrible visions of what her father had threatened in regards to her unborn children), the Tower was starting to feel awfully cramped. They had done their best with room sharing and remodeling but it never quite seemed enough.
Mar'i deserved more than pockets and corners.
Though the Tower and the Titans would always be their home, they were starting to think it was time to get their own place. This was a preliminary search, just to see what was out there.
Kory studied the properties. She pointed to one.
"This does not seem bad," she commented.
Dick turned to the listing and studied it. "Greenbrook Hills neighborhood, 4 bed 2 bath, $1,700 a month mortgage rate, not bad..." He looked up at her quizzically. "Are we gonna need that much space though?" he asked.
"Well," Kory allowed with a shrug. "Supposing we wish to expand our family—"
At the shockingly white shade Dick immediately turned and the way his face froze for a second she quickly amended herself.
"—Or perhaps it could be an evidence room for you," she suggested.
"Separate from the rest of the house but not isolated," Dick mused, color returning to normal as he took a quick glance at the floorplan. "Maybe."
Kory turned a concerned eye on him. "Did you not wish to have more children?" she asked.
Dick flinched and held up a hand. "I'm... I'm not quite ready to think about that right now, Kory. Let's just try to do our best with the one we have for right now."
Mollified, she stepped back a step. "Very well."
The property she'd suggested wasn't terribly far outside of Jump City jurisdiction, just close enough to the city that it wasn't a long drive to get to downtown (not that they would need to drive, she thought to herself wryly), but not all the way out in the rural outskirts. The school district came highly rated and allowed early headstart Pre-K programs, provided their little one was potty trained. (That... was a process right now. She would get it eventually.) Greenbook Hills was also notably one of the least villain-hit areas of Jump, being an area with mostly residential homes and small commercial amenities, nothing that would entice their usual motley crowd of wackos, who tended to concentrate to the city proper, or to the outlying industrial zones.
And even those attacks were becoming rarer these days, with the budget hike the new city council has passed to build the high security prison that now housed most of the Titans' regular and most dangerous foes, a facility more specifically designed to contain the worst of them and reduce escapes.
She was appreciative of the governing body of Jump City to want to work together with them to keep the city safe. Gotham with its notorious corruption just seemed to send the same set of criminals back out to reoffend day after day despite the Batman's efforts from one end and Bruce Wayne's efforts from the other. He loved the city, though, and she knew he would never give up on it. Dick believed they would make a difference eventually too.
That didn't mean she wanted to raise their sweet, innocent baby girl near that place, however.
"I don't know," he spoke up suddenly, after reviewing each of the properties. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way."
"How so?"
"Well, we're assuming the choices are either between Gotham or Jump City."
Kory leaned back. "You are saying we do not have to limit ourselves to those two options," she concluded, correctly.
He nodded. "Right. I mean, we should stay close by Jump for a little while, until we've dealt with whatever Trigon's wanting to do with the twins."
"Of course," she agreed.
"But then after that, after we've solved that crisis, and the new recruits move out to their new Tower..." He trailed off, voice dropping for a moment.
He was quiet for long enough that it made her prompt him with a quiet, "What is it?"
He took in a deep breath, as if steeling himself. "I was thinking... that I'd step down as the Titans Network leader. Offer Cyborg the job. If he wants it." He ran stressed fingers through his hair, and Kory tried not to interrupt as she processed that bombshell. "I know the League has been scoping him out for membership, and if that's the path he wants to take I won't stop him," Dick went on. "I'll find someone else to appoint to the position. But I thought I'd extend it to him first, in case he decides to stay close to home." He inhaled slowly again and fixed a serious look on her. "And then we can pick wherever we want to raise our family."
"That is..." She mulled over what she wanted to say, biting her lip a moment. "Quite a change," she finally decided, understating the situation with her usual grace.
"We're not quitting the Titans, if that's what you're worried about," he rushed to assure her, reaching over and taking both of her hands in his gently. "I'm just thinking it would be nice to have our own space for a while."
Kory glanced out the wide floor-to-ceiling window, at the shimmering Pacific Ocean view outside. "I... do not know. Jump City has been my home on Earth for so long I... do not know how I feel about leaving it," she confessed.
Dick brought her hands up for a soft kiss. "Well, we've got time to decide," he said. "Don't feel like you have to make a choice now." He reached one arm around her shoulders and rubbed her arm affectionately, tugging her hip against his. "As long as we're together with our daughter, I'll find a way to make it work," he promised.
Kory smiled and leaned into him warmly, humming softly in contentment. Mar'i's happy toddler talk was drifting up from behind them and their potential futures were laid out on the table.
And she knew whatever they chose to do, they would be okay.
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AND THUS THE WAY FOR FLORIDA MAN FLYING GRAYSON FAMILY IS PAVED LOL.
You know I used to think the insane amount of corruption in Gotham had to be obviously exaggerated but apparently big cities are just Like That. Anyway, Spiders Jump City, which has 0% corruption and actually works with its resident heroes to prevent and deter crime and punish it appropriately when it happens, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
