Title- The Waiting Game

Summary- Arsenal has been behaving strangely, Nightwing has some suspicions as to what's causing his odd behavior.

Notes- AU story..I'm not a medical expert so sorry if I get the medical stuff wrong.

Rating- M for language.

Disclaimer- DC owns all characters.

Part 1

His mind registered the sound, but his body wasn't ready to let him respond...He struggled mentally to gain control of his limbsas the knocking grew louder, but his legs and arms felt like lead weights. Finally after what seemed like an eternity he was able to open his eye's..."Come in." he called out to whoever was insisting on disturbing his exhausted slumber.

Tempest opened the door and stepped inside the darkened room. "Hey Roy...did you forget the early training session this morning?"

Roy moaned and finally managed to sit up...a little too quickly as a wave of dizziness washed over him. He moaned again and rubbed his eye's.

Tempest raised one eyebrow. "Big night?" he asked

"Nuh uh..I went out for a while but I came back early...wanted to catch up on some sleep while Dinah's got Lian for the weekend." he paused and looked at the Atlantian. "So is Dick pissed?" he asked.

"He's a little annoyed."

Roy chuckled. "C'mon Garth..he's spitting isn't he?"

"Well he has had this training session planned all week..."

"I know, I know..hell I didn't mean to miss it...Look I'll shower and change and I'll come down and see if I can crawl my way back into his good books again."

"When were you ever in his good books?" Garth joked.

Roy laughed. "Guess I ain't got nothing to lose then have I?" he joked back, as he threw the blankets off and climbed out of bed.

Garth turned to leave, then paused as something caught his eye. "They look pretty nasty...how'd you get them?"

Roy glanced down at his legs and noticed a couple of angry purple bruises that stood out clearly below the boxer shorts he was wearing. He shrugged. "Dunno...I get them sometimes..You know what it's like." he said dismissivly as he headed towards the bathroom.

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To say Nightwing was annoyed was an understatement, and Roy soon realized that when he finally located his leader, after a lengthy lecture Roy had had enough.

"Look I said I was sorry...What more do you want?" he snapped.

"You can be a bit more reliable Roy...Dammit, this isn't the first time in the last few weeks that you've slacked off." Nightwing replied firmly.

"Yeah well, we can't all be freakin perfect, now can we?" Roy growled back.

"I'm not asking for perfection from you Roy..Just a bit of responsibility."

"Responsibility?...You know I can be respon..."

"Well what the hell is it then Roy? You bored with being a team player? Or do you just have so much ego and confidence that you don't think you need to join in the training sessions? Which is it? Tell me, cause I sure as hell don't understand your behavior lately!" Nightwing snapped, cutting the archer off mid sentence.

Roy stared angrily at his team mate, opening his mouth to reply...before snapping "Fuck you Grayson." as he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Nightwing stared at the doorway through which the angry archer had retreated. After a moment he reached up and ran a hand through his hair, and sighed. He didn't know what had come over his friend ...Whilst Roy often pushed the limits of his leaders patience and tolerance..he rarely crossed the line as completely as he had been doing lately.

Dick had begun to watch the red headed marksman closely ..and he had to admit he was becoming uncomfortable he what he was seeing...he didn't want to believe the possibility his observations had opened up, but he was beginning to feel that he definitely needed to investigate further.

He had noticed the Archer had been sticking to himself a lot lately, going to bed early and getting up late...even leaving Lian with her nanny a lot more than he used to. A week before they had been involved in a battle with HIVE, and Nightwing had noticed Arsenal had not really pulled his weight in the fight, running alongside the others but not really joining in, when normally he would be the first into the foray...Not only that but every day the redhead looked more exhausted than the previous day..dark rings had begun to appear under his eye's, and Donna had commented that she thought he had lost weight.

Something definitely wasn't right with his freind, and given Roy's past history there was one possibility that leaped out at him, a reason for Roy's behavior that he hadn't wanted to consider but knew he had too, he couldn't just sit back and wait to see if his suspicions were right, it could be too late then...No he had to act now, he wasn't going to risk letting his friend down...not again.

end 1