A Match Made in…
DISCLAIMER: Have you ever read a comic book where Dick Grayson suffers from an eating disorder, the Titans use Speedy as a piñata, and Batman actually acts like a human being? No? Then I don't own them.
Also, MAJOR thanks to my sister Lihau for helping me hammer out the plot for this sucker. Enjoy! Hopefully you'll be able to understand who's talking down there...
"YOU WANT ME TO WHAT!!"
"I know it sounds a little weird, but—"
"A little weird?! Ha! It sounds downright nutty!"
"—but it's the only way we can stop him. Obviously I can't do this alone, and having Mr. Queen do it with me would be… uh…"
"Yuck! Geez, Wonder Boy! That's gross!"
"My point exactly."
"Man, now I'm never gonna get to sleep tonight…"
"Are you going to help me or not?"
"…Well… hey! What about Donna? She's a princess, so she's gotta be loaded."
"She's off-planet with Wonder Woman. I don't know when she's coming back."
"…Uh… well, Wally can do it, can't he?"
"No. He's not poor, but he's not rich, either. We need somebody with a lot of money for this one. Which is why I'm asking you instead of Barbara."
"Alright, alright… can't Gillhead do anything?"
"Aqualad is not an option because there's too much of a risk that he'd be stranded on land for more than an hour. I don't want anybody getting killed on this mission."
"Yeah, well, if Ollie ever finds out about this, we'll see who's gettin' killed…"
"I'll talk to him for you, explain things. I'm sure he'll understand when he hears that—"
"'Understand'? Are we talking about the same Ollie here?"
"Speedy, come on. I… need your help. Please."
"Well if you expect me to do this for free, you're really off your rocker."
"I'll loan you the R-Cycle for a week."
"Darling!!"
"Terrific. Just tone it down a little. Now listen—for the past few weeks, Mr. Freeze has been targeting wealthy, high-profile couples throughout the U.S. He freezes one partner in the couple—male or female, doesn't matter—with some new kinds of Creon he has developed, kinds that can't be melted with heat or any type of chemical that's worked on previous freezing victims. He only delivers the appropriate reagent once the remaining partner has coughed up five hundred thousand dollars. He's done this at least four times already."
"Yeah, you mentioned that, sweetie. And I'm beginning to see where we fit in."
"Yeah. We go around pretending to be an 'item'—and making sure everybody in the country knows about it—so, hopefully, Freeze will target us, and Batman will be able to catch him before he harms anyone else."
"But what happens if he manages to freeze one of us—namely me—before we stop him?"
"Then Batman and whoever's left will ambush him while the money is being delivered."
"Hmmm… I don't know… sounds a little too risky for—"
"R-Cycle for a week?"
"Er, what was it you wanted me to do, babe?"
"That's better. Do me one favor?"
"Anything, Rob. Anything."
"Well, I don't want any of the other Titans seeing us together and thinking we've gone off the deep end. Send a few e-mails to let them know what's going on, will you?"
"If you say so."
For the benefit of the readers, we will mention that Roy spent about half an hour on the computer that night, typing and retyping the perfect e-mail messages. Normally, he would have completed all three e-mails in under a minute, probably with the aide of chat speak and no punctuation, period. But… he really wanted the R-Cycle. So he made sure they came out looking like they'd been written by someone who'd been speaking English for more than three days.
There was just one problem.
He forgot to send them.
Yeah. Betcha didn't see THAT coming. Sorry for the shortness, it just turned out that way. All I really wanted to do here was make sure everybody understood exactly why Dick and Roy are doin' what they're doin'.
