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Outted
"Did you get one of these things, too?"
"Excuse me?"
They were in the JLA headquarters a few minutes after the monthly meeting had broken up, Green Arrow caught Batman by the arm and pulled him aside. "A DVD—did you get one?"
Batman gave him a look, a 'what the hell are you talking about and why are you wasting my time' look.
"A disk, a disk of the kids in the hospital—when you wrecked the car. Any of this sound familiar? Some jackass sent me a tape care of the Star City PD; it's a blackmail attempt—if I don't pay Speedy will be outted as a fag. You didn't get one?"
No, he hadn't but "The threat was just to out Speedy and what, exactly is on this tape?"
"I had a feeling you'd be asking me that." He pulled a DVD out of his quiver. "Join me in my office for a minute." Batman reluctantly followed him into his private quarters and stood while GA put the thing in a player. A couple of seconds and they were watching a grainy, black and white but unmistakable security film of Speedy standing by Dick's bed in the ER two weeks ago. The lens seemed to be slightly fish-eyed, so the whole examining cubicle is visible and the angle places the camera near the ceiling, in a corner. They watched him pull the privacy curtain closed, move over to the bed, look to his left to check if anyone was possibly watching then he leaned forward and kissed Dick on the mouth for several long seconds. They could see Dick raise his own hand to cup and caress Speedy's neck then trail down his chest as Roy straightened up. You could just make out his hand resting on Dick's as they appeared to talk quietly with one another, their attention intently focused on each other. After a few minutes of this Roy turns toward the curtain as it opens and a nurse walks in. The boys drop their hands before she can see anything and the tape ends.
"What does he want—it is a 'he', isn't it?"
"Just what you'd expect; ten million dollars by the end of the week or he sells it to the highest bidder."
"And?"
Ollie stared at him, his face turning red before he broke his momentary freeze. "Whaddya mean, 'and'? And then he's going to out the kids and this piece of crap will be plastered everywhere, for God's sake; this is the scandal of the year—two high profile Teen Titans, the role models for a generation, are having a gay affair, and they're under-aged? They'll be eaten alive. We have to deal with this."
"I suppose so." Batman seemed under whelmed at best, responding with as much interest as if he was referring to whether or not he wanted ketchup on his hamburger.
"And your suggestion?" The sarcasm was heavy-handed, as Batman expected when dealing with Ollie.
Batman was talking into his communicator, listened for a second and hit whatever switch ended the call. "Alfred said there's a disk at the house, too. I suggest,"—his sarcasm matched Ollie's—"that we pay a visit to this gentleman and see if we can work out an agreement."
Ollie nodded with satisfaction. "My thoughts, exactly." Batman almost smiled—his thoughts and Ollie's matching exactly—what were the odds of that ever happening?
An hour later, about ten-thirty in the evening, Jimmy McCain was taking his third break in four hours in the employees lounge in Memorial Hospital. No one else was in the room because of that big pile up over on 78 but he really wasn't in the mood, y'know? Damn; blood, barf and screaming kids everywhere. Who the hell needs this shit and he was seriously thinking about taking that job with his brother in law over at the Hilton. Carry a few bags up to someone's room and get like ten dollars on top of his salary? Sounded like a cakewalk and you didn't have to slide in friggin' blood and deal with the damn junkies all the time. Much better. Of course, if that other little thing paid off it was looking like it might, well, he'd be living on easy street and that was no lie. Then to hell with the damn hospital and his damn brother in law and the hell with everyone; he'd pull up stakes and maybe get him a nice place in, say—oh, maybe Miami would be nice. Or maybe Vegas; that was his kind of town.
Angelo opened the door and called over to him, interrupting his daydreams. "Jimmy—shit, there you are, man. You better get your ass over to admitting—Nurse Ratchet is gunnin' for you, dude and she is pissed."
"Yeah, sure, I'm on my way." Ah, screw this. He pushed himself off the sofa, grabbed his coat from his locker and walked out the side door.
Twenty minutes later he had his ass planted on his own sofa, cold brew in hand and the Yankees vs. the Sox on the tube. He was just settling in for the sixth inning when he caught a glimpse of movement on his right.
Ah, shit.
"I was hoping you might be able to spare a few minutes of your time."
Friggin' Green Arrow. Ah, shit. Standin' in his living room as big as life and twice as mean. Ah, shit. Jimmy bolted for the door, pulled it opened and ran into a black brick wall. Batman didn't say anything, just walked forward and kinda pushed Jimmy back inside as he went.
"Y'see, son, you really don't want to annoy my friend here. I tell you, I've known him a long time and sense of humor is one of the things he just doesn't have. Have a seat, why don't you?" Jimmy planted himself back on the worn couch.
"Now I got this DVD you sent me and I'd like to discuss it with you, if you have the time, that is. Do you mind?"
Jimmy shook his head. He had time—he had all the time in the world.
"Oh good. Okay look, I'd consider it a personal favor if you forgot your idea to sell this thing to me or to anyone. I mean if that's all right with you, of course."
"Um, I…but…"
"Y'see, you're threatening my kid and I really hate it when someone does that and I gotta tell you that the Bat over there hates it even more than I do and—man, you really don't want him mad at you." Green Arrow sat beside Jimmy, maybe two feet away and he was starting to think that maybe GA wasn't so bad. Maybe he could even be reasoned with, but that other guy—Jesus. Just get him outta here. The dude was like a black hole in the middle of the room. Somebody please get him the hell outta here. "So, what do you say? We'll just drop the whole thing, you leave the kids alone for the rest of your life and we make sure that's longer than, say, ten minutes."
"I, I mean…it's kinda, um—I don't know…"
"What don't you know, Jimmy? Something wrong with this, is there? Cause if there is, I'm telling you not to annoy my friend here and 'cause that's a really bad idea."
Batman hadn't moved, just stood there like a damn statue, all scary like a bad dream or Halloween when you were a kid.
"Um, y'see, it's kinda, um, it's sorta kinda a little too late, y'see."
"Excuse me, Jimmy? How so? I mean, why is it too late? You haven't done anything silly, have you?" GA looked like he would be really sad if that was the case.
"Um, it's kinda…" Jeez, this was bad. Really bad. Really, really not good. "I kinda sold the tape."
GA did look sad and disappointed. "Jimmy, Jimmy—who did you sell it to, hmm?"
"People. The Sun. Paris Match. Stern. I think that's all."
"You sold the rights in four countries? That's not good, Jimmy, not good at all. Now when did you do this?" Batman was glaring, flexing his hands into fists. Cripes.
"Um, this afternoon. I signed some contracts and they wanted me to e-mail them the thing, but I ain't got a computer so they all said they'd have messengers here to pick up copies tonight." Batman looked at GA and nodded; that was all he did, glared at Jimmy again and disappeared almost faster than even Superman could have moved.
"Okay, Jimmy. You want to tell me how much they paid you? I'm curious, y'see." GA stood up; it looked like he was getting ready to leave, too. Good.
"Like twenty million for all of them, as soon as they get the disks."
"Okay, well, they may want their money back, so you might want to hold onto it for now. Okay, I've got to be going, but we'll be in touch. In fact, you can count on it." He turned to go out the door. "And me and my friends are real good at finding people, Jimmy, in case you were going to take a trip or anything."
"Okay…"
"And Jimmy? If you decide to talk about this to anyone, tell them what's on that disk? Well, just don't okay? That's free advice."
"You still stiff?"
Dick smirked at Roy. He was taking it easy on one of the lounges by the indoor pool when Roy walked in to check up and hang out. The crash last week hadn't done any permanent damage but every muscle in his body was strained and pulled by the impact and rollovers and while he was definitely healing, he still wasn't ready to go flipping off of buildings. "You wanna find out?"
"Any time, stud, any time." Roy handed him a can of coke and sat on the next chair over. "Contraband; Alfred doesn't know."
Dick gave him a smile. "You're a good man. So, what's going on?" He didn't mean it in a general way.
"Something's going on?"
Dick gave him a look. "I pulled some muscles, I didn't go stupid. What's happening that no one's telling me about?"
"Same old, no big deal."
"Yeah, right. What is it?"
Ah hell, he was going to find out sooner or later anyway. "A blackmail attempt for Bruce and Ollie. It seems there was a security camera in the ER we didn't notice and it caught us swapping spit. Someone wants money to keep it quiet."
"Is it contained?"
"I think they're still working on it."
Working on it? "Roy?"
"Ollie told me they think they have all the copies but they want to be sure. They have the original and it doesn't look like anything's made it to the Internet. There's no buzz about them existing and the guy who was trying to sell the film has agreed to cease and desist or Bruce and Ollie will probably kill him. Okay?" He reached over and laced their fingers, pulling Dick's hand up to kiss his fingers. "Don't worry about it—you know Clark can stop anything that might slip through."
Dick gave him a look, the one he used when he suspected he was being hosed but wasn't going to challenge it quite yet. Roy put his money on Dick questioning Bruce when he got home later.
"So how do you feel, really?"
"Really, I'm better, just not 100 but I have to take the SAT's tomorrow if I have to do it from a hospital bed…I'm fine, drop it, okay?" They sat quietly for a few minutes, Dick thinking and Roy spacing out. "Have you seen this film? How bad is it?"
"It's medium. It's just a crappy security tape. It doesn't leave any questions, but it's not like we're naked and screwing. It's maybe a minute long, maybe less, of when I saw you in the examining room—the curtains were closed, I kissed you and we held hands while we were talking; you remember. It wasn't porn or anything."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
Dick knew this was out now, with or without the film. "You realize that even if they get all the copies and somehow no stills exist to bite us later, people are going to find out."
"I know. Is this a big problem for you?" Roy knew the answer; of course it was a big problem for Dick; a very big problem for all of them. What a pain in the ass.
"It was bound to come out sooner or later."
"And it looks like so are we." Roy tried to make light of it, but Dick wasn't buying.
"We have to handle this." Dick knew this was coming sooner or later, he just wished with all his heart and soul that it could have been later—like maybe ten or twenty years later. "And I think we should start by telling the others." 'The others'—he meant the other Titans.
"I know." Roy sounded annoyed at the idea, as if he'd found a fly in his soup. "But you know what? I bet they don't care one way or the other. No, really—think about it. Donna is an Amazon so everyone she grew up with is a raging lesbo and Garth is Atlantean and you remember that night we were all sitting around talking and he said something about guy on guy sex was considered a bonding rite of passage between warriors or some crap like that. He won't care."
"And Wally?" Dick was enjoying the way Roy's mind could rationalize anything.
Oh yeah, Wally. "Wally may have a problem with it." He smiled at the look twinkle toes would have on his fact if he walked into a Titans meeting, late as always, and planted a big wet one on Robin. Damn—he had to, he just friggin' had to.
Dick saw the thoughts running through his mind and laughed. "Don't even think about it."
Roy leaned over and practiced the wet on his lover, several times. "You are such a friggin prude."
"Evidence to the contrary."
"You two seem to be having a good day." Bruce was there, probably had been there a while, knowing him. "If you two can tear yourselves away from one another for a few minutes, I'd like to talk with you." He stood by the end of the lounges, then seemed to change his mind and actually sat down.
Before anyone could say anything Ollie came in as well, carrying a bottle of Heineken. "You gotta talk to your man, Wayne—he almost broke my arm because I wanted to drink my brew outta a bottle instead of a frosted mug." He took the chair next to Bruce. "So, have we started?"
Bruce gave him a look but refrained himself. "I assume you two have heard about what we've been dealing with the last few days? Good. It seems to be under control, but you'll have to be careful. People watch every move you make when you're in public and the last thing any of us needs is a scandal which takes focus away from our work."
"You may have contained the pictures, but how are you going to keep this guy from talking?" Dick knew as well as any of them that this was the really hard part. The guy had probably already told his wife or girlfriend or showed the tape to his friends or co-workers. It was inevitable.
"…We went to talk to him." 'We' being the Bat and GA.
"You think that will do it?" Dick knew the effect Batman had on people, but money was money and in a few weeks or months the fear would wear off, especially if the Titans were in the news as they almost certainly would be at some point.
"Clark also stopped by as he was leaving work and had a word with him. I think we have it covered." Bruce didn't tell the kids that Clark had lifted the man up by his shirt as he was headed to the bus and had conducted the conversation at an altitude of about ten thousand feet, all the while calmly explaining that he was really very fond of Robin, had known him since he was a young child and felt very protective towards the youngster. The next day Wonder Woman had dropped in while Jimmy was eating dinner, explaining how she felt about blackmailers in general and men in particular, especially dishonest ones. The next night at work the Martian Manhunter showed up disguised as the shift nurse and discussed how unethical he thought it would be to subject two fine young men like Robin and Speedy to such a situation when they weren't hurting anyone. When Jimmy said they'd brought in on themselves by being fags, J'onn shifted into his real shape and scared the shit out of him just by smiling. Later that same night Green Lantern met Jimmy in the break room, his ring glowing slightly, as he politely explained how much he liked and respected all of the Titans and as his assignment was to protect this sector of the universe, he considered the Titans to be part of his charge...if Jimmy took his meaning.
Ollie finished chugging his beer and nodded. "It should be okay." He saw Alfred hovering in the doorway and lifted his empty bottle towards him, asking for another. "It's up to you two, but have you thought about telling your friends?"
"Yeah, we have a Titan's meeting tonight."
6/29/06
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