I don't own Young Justice, which is probably for the best.
January 6, 2011 – 4:26 AM PST – Star City (Barlen Heights)
Roy - or rather, the clone who thought he was Roy until about a week ago - sits on the edge of his bed, staring down at the photo that's stood on his dresser for nearly a year. Framed in rough birch, It's the only nice picture he has of himself and Kaldur, the two of them caught slightly off-guard by the camera as they sit on a clifftop over the Pacific. It was taken by Wally at a group gathering last February, just after Roy and Kaldur first hooked up in the basement of Ollie's townhouse, just before they had a real conversation about what that had meant.
Staring hollowly at the image, Roy examines his own face in it and tries to remember how he felt that day. Relaxed, probably. Confident. Safe. All the things Kaldur has (had) always made him feel. From the moment they first met, Roy had been drawn to him, not just in a physical way, but by some deep pull of affinity, an inescapable sense that they were meant to know each other better. He'd never made a friend so fast, he'd never kept one so long, and he'd never thought to question that.
It makes a sickening amount of sense now that he knows what he really is.
He looks at the photo, knuckles whitening on the wood frame. The vulnerability in Kaldur's eyes, which used to make him smile every morning, now makes him feel sick to his stomach. Why the Light would program him to seek out Kaldur, of all possible targets, Roy can't say, but he's coming to expect the worst of every unknown.
At the end of the day, he has no way of knowing just how many secrets he's spilled, how much blood is on his hands. He only knows that there won't be any more. That, at least, is in his power.
Rising, he sets the photo back on the empty dresser, turns it face down, and hefts his duffel onto his shoulder. It will be easier for them both if he doesn't say goodbye.
March 4th, 2015 – 9:12 PM PST – Star City (Netendriol District)
The break isn't too bad - the doctors say he should be able to rock climb again in a month or two (which, if he can beg or steal some experimental League medicine from Ollie, means a few weeks). But an archer with a broken draw wrist is more likely to get himself killed than not, and Roy can't afford the luxury of dying until he's returned what he inadvertently stole. So he lets the hospital splint the arm, catches a train to Mumbai, and zetas back to Star City to recover and restrategize.
He doesn't bother telling anyone he's back stateside, but that doesn't stop Dinah from knowing. She's waiting when he opens the door to his derelict apartment, standing at his kitchen counter under the harsh, flickering light of a bare light bulb. She looks up from her phone at his entrance, slipping it into the pocket of her jacket.
"If you're here to try to convince me to give up again, you can save your breath," he says, dumping his bag on the ground and shutting the door.
"I'm not," says Dinah. She takes a step around the counter, using the measured, open body language she teaches in de-escalation training. "You already know what I think. My door - our door - is always open, but I won't force you through it."
"Okay," says Roy, folding his arms over his chest. "Then why are you here?"
He doesn't mean to sound angry with her (though he is – for giving up on Speedy, for not giving up on him despite everything he's done to try and make her). But he's out of practice communicating with people he's not trying to threaten or manipulate, so it's just the way it comes out.
"Something's happened," says Dinah. "And I'd rather you hear it from me than from a news report."
Despite himself, Roy feels a pang of worry. A half-dozen possibilities spring to mind and with them, four times again as many questions – is Ollie okay? Did Jade finally cross the line (wherever the line is, these days)? Did the Team lose someone else…?
"Yeah?" he says, instead of asking any of these things.
"Aqualad has resurfaced," says Dinah, watching his face intently.
Roy frowns.
"That's good news, isn't it?"
(Kaldur has been missing for a few weeks, now. Roy heard early on from the League broadcast, and he would be lying if he said he hadn't been concerned. But of all the people he's been avoiding these last four years, he's worked the hardest not to cross paths with Kaldur. The reasons for this are many and complicated, but the most important is that it just hurts too much.)
"He appears to have aligned himself with Black Manta," says Dinah, her voice quiet.
"Bullshit."
He almost laughs. If this is her way of trying to get a rise out of him, it's neither subtle nor believable.
"I wish I could say so," says Dinah. "But no. He learned recently that Manta is his biological father, a fact Orin withheld from him - from all of us - until now. It seems like that, combined with Aquagirl's death and...well, everything else, might have been too much."
"Why are you telling me any of this?" Roy asks hoarsely, feeling a pang of defensiveness. This is all a distraction - none of it is relevant to his purpose, his only reason for being - but the implications of it are creeping into the back of his mind, settling seditiously into his thoughts. And everything else.
"Because I know you still care about him," says Dinah. "And -"
"-I was programmed to care about him," Roy snaps.
"You don't know that," says Dinah. "And even if you did, would it change how you feel now?"
"What would you know about what I feel now?" Roy snarls, his voice just as quiet, but coiled tight with anger.
"Roy, you-"
"-don't call me that," he says, turning away and making a show of unzipping his bag. "You know better. Are we done here?"
Crouching, he begins to withdraw things from his duffel with his good hand, sorting them into careful piles as he waits for her to leave, or at least say something, call him out for being rude or evasive or any other number of things, but it's a surprisingly long time before she speaks. When she does, her voice is so soft, he has to stop unpacking to be able to understand her:
"Don't let the dead make you lose sight of the living," she says.
"Speedy's not dead," Roy responds automatically.
At his back, he hears Dinah release a long breath.
"Okay," she says. "Well...you know where to find me. There's food in the fridge, and a space heater in the corner. If you need a doctor for the wrist, just call."
Roy wants to be angry that she's still trying to be the mother he never asked for, but at the moment - exhausted, in pain, and still processing what she came here to tell him - the only anger he can muster is self-directed.
When he's lying in bed that night, he stares at his phone longer than he should, ghosting his thumb back and forth across the unblock button next to Kaldur's name. It wouldn't make much of a difference at this point. Yet it's still on his mind when sleep finally takes him into a dream world where it could.
March 21st, 2016 – 8:03 AM EST - Gotham City (South Central)
"I'm going to kill him," says Jade.
Roy wishes she sounded angry. If she did, he might not believe her. But her voice is quiet and cold and matter-of-fact as it's ever been, and he knows in his blood that she's making him a promise. And Jade, who so rarely makes promises, breaks them even less.
"Okay," he says, not rising from his seat at the kitchen table.
"Okay?" Jade repeats incredulously.
He lifts his eyes from the tabletop. His gaze, hollow and hopeless, meets hers, grief-stricken and piercing.
"He killed my sister, Roy," she whispers. "Artemis is dead, and all you have to say is 'okay?'"
He searches for something to tell her, but there's nothing. He just feels numb. Five years of searching, one week of victory, and now this. Speedy is safe. Artemis is dead. Kaldur is her killer.
Jade turns away, but not so soon that Roy misses the contempt written across her face.
"You aren't even going to try to stop me, are you?" she asks.
He stares at her back, not really seeing her at all.
"No."
She makes a noise of disgust. Roy closes his eyes and lets his head drop. He's not sure what - if he's feeling.
"What do you want from me, Jade?" he asks wearily.
"I want you to take responsibility for your actions," she says. "I want you to help me avenge my sister."
He wishes he didn't know what she meant. But he's not clueless, and he can see his hand in all this. Would Kaldur have fallen to the Light if Roy hadn't severed the tie between them, all these years ago? Would he have turned his sword on Artemis if he'd had someone to turn to, some refuge from the unrelenting storms he faced? Would Roy have been able to stop this, if he'd tried?
"I can't," says Roy quietly.
Jade is silent for a long moment. Eventually, Roy opens his eyes and looks at her, poised near the door, her slender fingers curling and uncurling into restless fists at her sides. Somehow it always ends like this, with one of them in the doorway, back turned, picking a parting shot.
"Because you still love him?" Jade asks finally, her voice sick with bitterness. "Or because you don't love me enough?"
Before he can answer - or fail to - she's picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and stepped to the threshold.
"Forget it," she says as she pulls open the safehouse door. "I don't want to know, and it doesn't change anything anyway. Goodbye, Roy. Take care of Lian."
The door slams, and she's gone.
In the silence she leaves behind, Roy forces himself one more time to picture Kaldur killing Artemis, and still can't do it. Jade killing Kaldur, though - that almost imagines itself.
August 8th, 2016 - 5:39 PM GMT - The Watchtower
"Sorry I'm late," says Roy as he hurries into the briefing room, drawing the eyes of the other three Leaguers already waiting. "Baby stuff, I'm sure you guessed."
"Welcome, Red Arrow," says Martian Manhunter, who at least doesn't look too put off by his tardiness. Vixen is harder to read, and Aqualad- well, Roy hasn't chanced looking at him just yet.
They go over parameters. A small cult, using its faithful as subjects in some troubling medical experiments, is operating out of an abandoned hospital in rural Colorado. Their mission is to expose the co-leaders as Big Pharma hacks, evacuate the people in need of medical attention, and give the rest the option and the means to leave.
Roles assigned, they suit up, check inventory, and depart.
It's strange to be in the Bioship without M'gann, but not nearly as strange as sitting five feet from Kaldur, whom Roy once slept beside most nights but hasn't spoken to in over three years. Roy tries not to stare from the seat behind him as they cast off from the Watchtower and begin their descent through the atmosphere. The old uniform looks strange on him, he thinks, maybe because both Kaldur's physique and the way he carries himself are so different now. But the grave, thoughtful expression he wears is the same as always, and his reticence isn't exactly new either. Despite everything he told himself when he saw the mission brief, Roy feels a pang of sadness for many things unspoken.
A silent hour later they're touching down, J'onn's voice sounding in their heads to remind them of their goals. It's a seasoned squad, even if they haven't worked together before, and they infiltrate the building without incident. Vixen and Aqualad head off to the patient ward to assess the believers' condition, while Roy and Martian Manhunter seek out the research wing to confirm the League's intel about the cult leaders.
Not a word is spoken outside textbook comms for a good hour and a half. Then there's a point in the mission, when they're waiting on a signal to begin directly confronting the most drug-addled survivors, that Roy and Kaldur find themselves alone in a corridor. As if by magic, their eyes find a common target down the hall to avoid meeting. For a moment, neither speaks. Then:
"I am sorry you were assigned to this operation," says Kaldur quietly, disengaging his outbound communicator.
"I'm not," Roy says, following suit. "I volunteered."
He spots a flicker of surprise in Kaldur's eyes.
"It was an open roster," says Roy, almost defensively.
"I see," says Kaldur.
They both look to the door, waiting on J'onn to give the word, but the only voice in Roy's head is his own.
"Still wish I wasn't here?" Roy asks after a long moment.
"I - " Kaldur begins, then cuts himself off. "No. It is...good to see you."
"I'd understand if it wasn't," says Roy. "Given...you know, everything."
"You did what you thought was right," says Kaldur, but Roy catches something faraway in his voice, something more hesitant. "I cannot fault you for - "
Move in, J'onn's voice instructs. Subdue and restrain with as little force as you are able.
"Talk later?" Roy asks as he re-engages his comm and makes for the doors at the end of the hallway.
"If you wish," says Kaldur, following swiftly on his heels.
"I do," says Roy. He tries the doors, finds them locked, and takes a step back. "Do you?"
They kick down the doors together (Roy tells himself he's not bitter that Kaldur does it with a third the effort) and step into the ward. There are six patient rooms, each fitted with an external deadlock that was clearly not part of the original hospital design.
"Together?" Kaldur asks, glancing from the doors back to Roy.
"Wow, you really know how to put a guy on the spot," Roy quips, more out of nerves than anything else. Unsurprisingly, Kaldur doesn't dignify his remark with a facial expression, much less a reply. "But yeah. Let's see what we're up against before we decide to split up."
With a nod, Kaldur draws his waterbearers, steps forward, and unlatches the first door.
It's a mixed bag. The first woman is lethargic, the whites of her eyes stained a blotchy purple; she stumbles but offers no resistance as Kaldur ushers her outside to the ambulances waiting on the front drive. The second man mistakes them for the ghosts of his long-dead uncles and raises hell. He leaves bite marks in Roy's shoulder, deep enough to draw blood, before they're able to restrain him for the paramedics (they're not risking tranquilizers interacting badly with the drugs already in the vics' systems).
Complications aside, within forty minutes it's all resolved. The people they rescued are heading to real hospitals, while the people who pumped them full of dangerous experimental drugs are heading to real jail. The squad, while not unscathed, is fine, and heading back up to home base, which has by now orbited further away.
In the back of the Bioship, Kaldur smears antibiotic into the teethmarks on the back of Roy's shoulder, and Roy realizes he never did say if he wanted to speak further. But as the Atlantean smooths an adhesive bandage over the wound, Roy recalls that Kaldur always said more with his hands than his voice anyway.
Besides, the relative ease of their silence is more than enough for now.
February 3, 2017 - 9:26 PM PST - Star City (Lower Sunset District)
"Thanks for coming," says Roy as Zatanna zips up her second boot, balancing on one foot in the front hall. "Always a pleasure."
"Likewise," she says, straightening out and smiling. "This was fun."
"Your place next time?" he asks. "Or is it Raquel's?"
"It's ours," says Zatanna. "You'll have to bring Lian - she stole the show tonight. She's becoming a real charmer, you know."
"She gets that from her auntie," says Artemis, appearing beside Roy. She elbows him harder than is strictly necessary as she bends over to grab her own shoes.
"Well, we all know it's not from me," says Roy, rubbing his arm. He casts a glance back to the kitchen, where Dick and Barbara are amusing Lian with Batman impressions while M'gann and Mal help Kaldur finish up the dishes. That, with Karen and Conner still at the table discussing the role of regulation in scientific advancement, is a few too many people to be truly comfortable in his modest apartment, but no one has complained.
"Well, take care," says Zatanna, rising to her tiptoes to kiss Roy on the cheek. "See you in the field, I'm sure."
"Don't let Kaldur come in on his off day," says Artemis as she pulls a green knit cap over her hair. "I'm serious, if I see his face at the Watchtower on Thursday I will break your legs."
"I don't understand how it's my legs on the line, here," says Roy. "But I'll do my best."
A hug from Artemis and they're gone, venturing into the cold, drizzly evening; Roy shuts the door after them and goes to join Lian, Dick and Barbara on the couch.
"How's the shoulder?" he asks Dick as he takes a seat beside him. On their other side, Barbara is chuckling as Lian tries to imitate their Batman impressions in a mix of words and baby babble.
"Getting there, thanks," says Dick. "Doc says one more week til I can start easing back into the grappling hook game."
"The doctor said two weeks," Barbara corrects. "You just want it to be one."
Dick's cheeks pinken and he sulkily reaches over to grab another cookie off the coffee table. Lian perks up immediately.
"Kuhkee," she says, reaching out a chubby little hand.
Dick looks expectantly to Roy, who nods, subtly gesturing in his lap to indicate just a little. Soon Lian is gnawing with her mostly-grown teeth on the piece Dick negotiated down to, and Karen and Mal are getting ready to leave, the former with some choice parting words to Conner:
"And don't even pretend you think I'm saying I wish those maniacs at Cadmus hadn't created you! You know damn well I'm glad you're here and proud to be your teammate, you big knucklehead. I'm just saying that checks and regulations and independent research review make it easier to prevent, and to prosecute when folks with great knowledge and questionable judgment get their hands on a few too many test tubes."
"Okay, okay, beautiful," Mal chuckles, laying his hands on his girlfriend's shoulders. "He gets it. Right, Kon? You get it."
"Uh," says Conner, clearly sensing a right answer somewhere. "Yes?"
"Good," says Mal. "Well, we should take off. We got bags to pack and a train to catch bright and early."
"Enjoy Italy!" says M'gann, smiling from across the kitchen island as she dries a baking sheet.
"Oh, we plan to," says Karen, smiling back at Mal. "First vacation in what, eight months?"
"Ten," says Mal, unamused.
"We'll do our best to keep any global crises from ruining your time off," says Roy. "Don't bring your suits."
"Only suit I'm bringing is the one that matches my tie," says Mal as Roy rises from his couch to shake his hand. "Thanks for hosting, man."
Mal accepts the handshake; Karen gives Roy's outstretched hand a skeptical look and hugs him instead, and the two head for the door, Mal grabbing their now-clean casserole dish from the counter.
"We should get going, too," says Dick, rising. "It's getting pretty late."
"I assume you'll be wanting this back," says Barbara to Roy with a smile, picking up Lian and rocking her back and forth a little before she stands, too. Roy chuckles as he steps over, gently pushing on Lian's button nose with his thumb before he lifts her from Barbara's arms.
"Boop," Lian giggles, familiar with this game.
"You got that right," says Roy, giving her a stern face as he lifts her so her face level with his own. "You booped way past your bedtime tonight, huh?"
"Yeah," she grins, her legs treading the air. "Way pass."
"Well, you'll have to boop a little longer so we can see our guests out," he says, pulling her to his chest and cradling her there with one arm. "Say good night to Uncle Dick and Auntie Barbara, all right?"
"Goo'night," Lian says agreeably, following her father's lead and waving.
"Good night," says Dick, waving back.
"Good night," echoes Barbara.
They head for the door, and M'gann and Kaldur pause their kitchen cleanup to see them off.
"Hey Kal," says Roy when the Atlantean returns to the kitchen. "I'm going to put Li to bed. You good here?"
Kaldur looks to M'gann, who nods.
"Yes."
When Lian stretches out her arms, Kaldur steps around the counter obligingly and lays a gentle hand on the side of her head. "Good night, icthaekia."
He kisses her forehead, earning an agreeable coo. From the kitchen table, Conner tilts his head to one side.
"Little fish?"
Roy nods, shrugging as if to say what are you gonna do?, and bids goodnight to the room.
Upstairs, he helps his daughter through her evening ritual, brushing her teeth and changing her diaper and helping her into her pajamas (green, footed, with a soft hood - a Christmas gift from Ollie). She's unusually quiet, probably because it's nearly an hour past her usual bedtime at this point, but when he tucks her in, she's not too sleepy to tell him (in mostly real words) that she likes Auntie Arty best, that Mal is very big, and that M'gann's cookies are better than his.
"You're not wrong," he admits, resting his forearms on the guardrail of her crib. "And Artemis is a solid top pick. Can't fault you there either. You gonna sleep through the night tonight, babe?"
"Mmm," she responds, already cozying up to her stuffed dolphin and closing her eyes.
"Probably not, since we broke your routine," he mutters.
When she doesn't respond, he waits a moment to see if she's truly on her way, and is rewarded with gradual lengthening of her breaths. For a while he just watches her, lingering in the dim quiet of the room, the distant murmurs of voices from downstairs, the peace in his daughter's expression. Then finally, a few minutes after he hears the front door shut, he straightens out, checks to make sure the baby monitor is on, then slips out into the hallway, sliding the dimmer all the way down and shutting the door behind him.
When he arrives downstairs, only Kaldur is left, reading a book on the loveseat. The kitchen is sparkling - it's as though their a ten-and-a-half-person potluck never happened.
"I told you to leave me something to clean up," Roy remarks, feeling simultaneously relieved and chagrined.
"I did," says Kaldur, without lifting his eyes from his book. "On the counter."
Roy looks; there's a bottle of wine, just over half full. Indignant, he chuckles, grabs the bottle, and crosses the room to folds into the space beside Kaldur, punching him in the arm as he sits. Roy knows better than to interrupt further when Kaldur's mid-chapter, so he settles into the couch and examines the label instead, Shadowcrest Cabernet, wondering which of their guests brought it. Lifting the bottle to his lips, he takes a swig.
"We did wash the wine glasses," Kaldur remarks, still reading. Roy leans back and savors the rich taste, ignoring the rebuke. It's pretty good, not that his taste in wine is particularly sophisticated.
A few minutes later, Kaldur marks his place, sets aside his book, and lifts his legs into Roy's lap with a sigh.
"Hey," says Roy, resting his free hand on Kaldur's knee and passing him the bottle. "Thanks for cleaning up."
Obligingly, Kaldur takes a sip, pauses to consider it, then nods his approval and passes it back.
"Zatanna and M'gann did much of it with magic and telekinesis," he says. "It was mostly a matter of directing their efforts."
"Either way," says Roy. "Didn't mean to stick you with the chores."
Roy takes another sip from the bottle as he watches Kaldur try to find a way to avoid acknowledgement.
"Did you have any trouble putting Lian to bed?" Kaldur asks, changing the topic on cue.
"No," says Roy, shaking his head. He looks over at the baby monitor, blinking a gentle green just beside Kaldur's book. "She went down easy, hopefully stays that way. I think we wore her out."
"Good," says Kaldur. He sighs, sliding a little further down on the couch and stretching out so he's practically lying across Roy's lap. Closing his eyes and sighing again, he leans his head back against the armrest and folds his hands over his stomach.
"Did we wear you out, too?" Roy teases. Kaldur opens one eye to give him half a look. "I mean, it would be understandable. There were a lot of people here, most of whom you've spent your time managing in life-or-death situations. That sounds exhausting to me."
"Maybe," Kaldur murmurs.
Roy studies Kaldur's face a moment, the slope of his nose and the lines around his eyes and the nearly-healed cut on his right cheek from a run-in with Deathstroke last month. He looks peaceful, which is a rare enough expression on him that Roy isn't sure what it means.
"Hey," he says softly, squeezing Kaldur's knee. "You can be honest. Is it bedtime?"
"Not yet," Kaldur mumbles. He moves a hand to the front of Roy's shirt, feeling his way up to the collar, and tugs gently.
"You're uh, going to have to use your words," says Roy, unsure what Kaldur is going for here. Seconds later a sharper tug enlightens him. He finds himself leaned over the Atlantean, their noses nearly brushing, and holds the wine out and away for fear of spilling. "You know you could just a-"
Kaldur shuts him up with a kiss, one callused palm resting against the side of Roy's face. Taking a hint, Roy takes the time to set the wine bottle down on the ground beside the couch before he returns the gesture. Planting one hand on the other side of Kaldur's neck to balance himself, he kisses back with hesitancy that's soon forgotten.
"Hey," he says after a moment, pulling back an inch to catch his breath. "You okay?"
It's not that he has any objections (really - absolutely zero). It's just that Kaldur is usually a little more reserved.
"Yes," says Kaldur, running his thumb over Roy's lower lip. His eyes linger there, silvery green in the low light. "I am fine."
"Are you drunk?" Roy asks, getting the last consonant out just as Kaldur kisses him once more, a soft press of his mouth against Roy's.
"No," says Kaldur. He lets his head settle back against the armrest and smiles coyly. "Though I would not object to more wine."
"You're in a mood," Roy laughs, shaking his head in confusion (though not complaint). He picks up the wine bottle and waits for Kaldur to sit up to drink, but the Atlantean just parts his lips expectantly, that same playful smile on his face.
Pausing one moment to consider the beige upholstery, Roy decides to live dangerously and tilts the bottle to his partner's mouth. He's careful at first, just a few drops, then as Kaldur's lips close around the opening he tips it a little further. When wine rushes through the neck of the bottle and into Kaldur's mouth, Roy waits one measured second and attempts to pull the bottle away.
It's a miscalculation, though; cherry-dark wine streaks down Kaldur's chin and over his neck. Reflexively Roy dips his head to catch the spill with his own mouth, tongue laving swiftly across the Atlantean's gills and up to the hard edge of his jaw. This gets an immediate reaction - Kaldur's back arches sharply, his chest pressing up against Roy's as a choked sound escapes his mouth. Smirking, Roy pulls back, noting the dark flush on Kaldur's cheeks, the way his Adam's apple bobs as he fights to swallow the rest of the wine.
"Now is it bedtime?" Roy asks, lingering in the closeness. Kaldur's body is warm beneath his, even through his sweater.
"Perhaps," Kaldur admits, voice hoarse.
A little after midnight, Roy settles further down into bed, satisfaction of many flavors thrumming through his veins. The wine bottle rests empty on the nightstand, beside another smaller bottle that lives there permanently (though usually in the drawer). The faint, blank rasp of the baby monitor attests that Lian is still asleep, at least for now. Kaldur lies beside him, bare chest rising and falling slowly. It's warm and close and quiet in the darkness. All is well.
As he waits for sleep to take him too, Roy leans forward to press a soft, lingering kiss to the crest of Kaldur's shoulder. In the end, nothing has changed - he still feels that same pull, that sense that their lives were somehow meant to intertwine. But now he knows beyond doubt that this is a fact not of his programming, but of his heart.
Closing his eyes, Roy lets out a deep, contented breath and for once, doesn't think about what's to come.