Author's Notes: Written for Young Justice Appreciation Month, Day 5: Angst. Because while I don't mind Roy and Jade together after the time skip, thinking about their relationship brings up dark implications. (This also had more sex than I normally feel comfortable writing, even if it doesn't happen "on-screen.")
He hadn't resisted at all this time. Not really.
The first time...the first time, he'd tried to convince himself that it was all a fluke. He'd tracked her down, looking for answers, and in the fight she'd kissed him, not for the first time, sure, but for some reason when she'd pull him closer something had just snapped inside him, and he found himself kissing her back, found himself...
The second time...well, he wasn't sure what happened there, either, but afterwards he had told himself that it wasn't going to happen again. But by the third time, several months later, he'd been desperate for it. She had tracked down him this time, and he hadn't so much snapped as melted—he'd hated himself as the whole time, and afterwards he had babbled like a lunatic as he wrapped her in his arms. "They don't believe me, I don't think they trust me anymore, everybody else has given up, even Ollie and Kaldur won't—"
She'd made a noise like a chuckle, except that it was quick and joyless. "Jeez, Red—knock it off with the pillow talk." And he'd shut up, like an obedient puppy that had been scolded.
And now, as he lay in bed staring up at the ceiling after the fourth time, all he felt was his failure. Once again she'd sought him out, and this time, she hadn't even claimed to have any information to help him—just a message to come to some sleazy motel room, and he'd obeyed, letting himself go through the motions of this twisted little game.
He didn't even feel better this time. The other times he had at least come away from their encounters feeling...well, confused, dirty, but numb from all the pain that he'd kept bottled up beforehand. Now the numbness was so strong that it hurt. The few inches between their bodies made him feel claustrophobic and ashamed.
He turned to stare at Cheshire (he refused to think of her as "Jade") sleeping beside him, grinning like a cat who had just eaten a deliciously stupid mouse.
The assassin's letting her guard down. I could kill her right now. I should, Roy thought, even though he knew he wouldn't.
Roy threw off the covers, climbed out of bed and began to search for his clothes. Cheshire, perhaps not as negligent as Roy had suspected, stirred, turning to look at him just as he finished dressing.
"Leaving so soon?"
Roy scoffed, glaring down at the floor.
Cheshire seemed to detect the tension in the room. "What's the matter, Red? Come back to bed."
"Is that an order?" he snapped, still refusing to look at her as he snatched up his bow from the floor.
"What are you talking about?"
He finally turned, and she was surprised to see the fury burning in his eyes.
"That's how it works, right? All this—programming that you put in my head? Do I have to do whatever you want? It wasn't enough to make me betray all my friends, you also arranged to have a little sex slave who would come running at your beck and call!"
He hadn't intended to say all of that, or to start yelling, but now he felt the anger surging through him, hot and bitter like vomit in his throat. Cheshire had jumped to her feet, keeping herself covered with the sheet, and was now staring at him with a mixture of fury and disbelief.
"What—what are you even talking about? Is that—do you really believe that?" she stammered, her tone settling on shock.
"What, do you think I'm STUPID?!" he yelled, motioning to the disheveled bed. "You think I'm not going to NOTICE when you make me dance like your little puppet?!"
Her gaze hardened. "You didn't before."
Roy felt like he had been slapped. For a moment he wanted to hit her—and why shouldn't he? She was a supervillain, not his freaking girlfriend. The rules hadn't changed just because she'd taken him over, had forced him into doing things that—
"But that's something you didn't consider, did you, Red?" she continued, her voice contemptuous. "You didn't remember any of those other times you worked with us, right? If I was really doing what you think I am, why do you remember all of the times that you did it before?"
Roy shook his head; he had written off that detail every time that it had occurred to him before. "I don't know—maybe you just get off on the idea that I'll go home and beat myself up over what you're making me do! Or maybe now that I know what you've done—"
"I never did anything to you! Sportsmaster is the only one who could activate—"
"YOU THINK THAT MAKES A FUCKING DIFFERENCE?!" There was a loud bang on the wall from the next room, but Roy only dropped his voice by a decibel or two. "You still stood right there and watched me get used like that, didn't give a fuck that I was betraying my friends, your own sister—"
"Are you mad about that, or are you accusing me of something now, Roy?! Because it still stands that I can say 'Broken Arrow' all night and it won't make you do so much as turn on a freaking light switch! Incidentally, I would assume you had one of your Martian friends try to fix that little problem by now?"
"Well, they obviously missed SOMETHING, if I'm over here letting you treat me like your own private—"
"IF YOU'RE HERE IT'S BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BE, ROY!"
The room was silent for a moment, save for the sound of their neighbor banging on the wall once again. Roy felt his whole body shaking.
"You think I want to be here, with you?" His voice was quiet, but also sneering. "You think I like letting you control me, violate me—"
Cheshire had thrown down the sheet and gathered her clothes, only looking back at him when she was fully dressed. "I'm not doing anything to you, Red," she hissed.
"Then why do I keep coming to you, huh?!"
"I don't know. You seem to enjoy it well enough, don't you? Or maybe that's it," she said, before he could open his mouth to argue again. "Maybe you just like telling yourself that I'm making you do this, because you can't face the fact that it's what you actually want!"
"I haven't seen any of my friends in months!" he snarled, not quite knowing where the words were coming from. "Do you know how much I miss them? Why the hell would I keep coming to you, rather than the people who I actually respect?!"
Cheshire flinched, then reached for the weapons in her belt; Roy immediately took a fighting stance, but then her hand fell to her side, and she turned away, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Fine. If that's the way you feel about it," she mumbled vaguely.
"What is that supposed to mean?!"
"I—forget it."
She made for the door, but Roy, once again not quite knowing what he was doing, feeling like he didn't know anything anymore, grabbed her wrist and spun her around to face him. "What?! Are you actually surprised to find out that you're not high up on my list of favorite people?! Did you—did you actually think—" An odd sound started to escape from his throat. "Did you think that this—these twisted little meetings—that they actually meant—"
He started laughing, letting go of Cheshire's wrist so that he could hold onto his stomach; she drew back but didn't leave, watching him with horrified fascination. Roy's usual laughter was a dry chuckle at most, but the sound that he was making now was loud and unnatural—it felt like a fit of hacking coughs trying to escape from his chest, and he couldn't stop, sitting down on the bed to keep from falling. For a moment he actually wondered if she had slipping him Joker Gas, somehow, before the painful cackles finally subsided.
"That...might be the only thing more messed up than me choosing to be with you," he whispered. "You...actually falling...for your brainwashed little puppet."
Cheshire took another step back, wrapped her arms around herself in an oddly vulnerable pose, and then glared at Roy with all of the fury that she could muster.
"Go back to your Martian friends. Ask then to see if you have any programming left in your brain. Unless you don't want them to know what you've been doing of your own free will."
And with that she turned and stormed out, leaving the motel door open behind her.
Roy watched her go, still feeling his sides ache, and considered going after her. But instead, he only rose to close the door.
She's not letting me follow her, some part of his brain said. I've been programmed to let her get away again. That's why I don't put a stop to her. That's why I keep coming to be with her.
She was making him do this. He wouldn't do it by himself. He wasn't so desperate that he would...
He collapsed on the bed, curled up in a ball and tried as hard as he could to actually believe that.