GUESS WHATS HERE! Chapter 2 of RTF! Almost a whole month late, but I'm a jerk. Sorry guys. I won't leave you hanging that long again (probably), but I was on vacation and then it was Easter, and then my cat died (RIP Jasmine) and basically i could sit here all day and list excuses, but you don't want to hear me talk. ON WITH THE CHAPTER! I hope it's worth the wait:)
Dedicated to my cat, Jasmine. Rest in Peace, kitty (1995-2015).
Roy had the mother of all hangovers. Dear god, did his head hurt. He really wanted to pull his lazy ass out of bed and go grab some painkillers, but he was far too exhausted to move. His head hurt too much to even think, and he couldn't seem to muster enough energy to move any of his limbs. He had tried opening his eyes, but after the gross amount of effort that it took to pry his eyelids open, he only slammed them shut again when bright sunlight poured into his vision.
Why had he put his bed next to a window? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Hell, he had curtains, just a lot of the time he couldn't be assed to pull them on. When he used this bed (which wasn't often, between all night missions, staying at the watchtower, patrol, and the occasional "Please stay the night, Roy! I just want to spend time with my favourite ex-partner!" from Ollie) he was generally too exhausted from his other activities to worry about curtains. The only time he ever really used them was when Jade spent the night, because, well, he didn't really want any of his neighbours to see what they were up to, and he can't always count in not having someone spy on him through his windows with the business that they're in. Villain or ally, Roy knew the number of times people spied on his apartment (through window or bat-tech) was well into the double digits. On second thought, he should probably start using those curtains more.
That doesn't really help with his current problem, though.
And so, as he sat wallowing in the pain of his terrible hangover and the exhaustion of previous day weighing down heavily on him, he found himself unable to think straight. He wasn't even sure what happened to make him get this drunk and exhausted, but whatever it was, it could wait until this headache was gone. He was going to have to move, to get up, to do something, because he was pretty sure his muscles were starting to set in place and might not let him move all day if he doesn't get up now.
So, he gathers all the strength he can find within himself, and cracks open one eye again. It's far too bright for its own good. He groggily pulled himself into a sitting position, ignoring the cold draught that hit him when his bed sheets slid down to bunch around his waist. Did he shut that window? There it was, open and letting in the cool summer breeze, when it should have been closed. Not that he was sober enough to remember what happened last night. He attempted to rub the sleep out of his eyes, then pulled himself to his feet and out of bed, planning to get a glass of water and some painkillers to make his damn headache to away.
He was still half asleep as he made his way through the small apartment towards the "kitchen" area, which was really just a sink, stove and fridge separated from the rest of the apartment by a worse-for-wear breakfast bar. He fumbled with the overhead cupboard for a few seconds, his hand feeling around inside for the small box of pills he was looking for.
"Sleep well?"
It took Red Arrow roughly two seconds to pull out the crossbow he kept hidden next to his fridge and point it toward the voice of whoever thought it was a good idea to be in his apartment at this time of the morning.
"Wow, your reaction time is slow first thing in the morning. If I wanted to kill you I could have done in about ten different ways by now."
Red relaxed slightly in seeing the other red head and not some stranger, but he still didn't completely lower his crossbow. The relief was quickly replaced with confusion, and Red scraped his brain to try and remember whats the hell he did last night that led to Arsenal staying over.
The younger boy just sat up sluggishly, rubbing his eyes, the blanket wrapped tightly around him releasing its hold. He was a little too tall to be sleeping on the couch, and he was curled into a ball to try and fit easier, and that probably hadn't done his back any favours. He looked glad to be sat up, in any case, and he rested his back lazily against the arm of the couch.
"What are you doing here?"
"You don't remember?" Red answered him with an eyebrow raise and Arsenal just shrugged. "I'm not surprised. You were pretty hammered last night."
As if to answer him, another blast of pain hit his head and Reds attention was suddenly redirected back to the box of painkillers in his hand. Deciding that the boy probably wasn't here to try and kill him, so wasn't an immediate threat and could therefore be dealt with later (or at least after this damn headache was gone), he went to pour himself a glass of water.
Arsenal got up from his pseudo bed and followed him to the sink, wordlessly. He leant against the protruding breakfast bar while Red reached for a cup and ran the water, the sound of the tap running soothing his aching mind. Arsenal kept to his heels like a lost puppy, never once leaving his side.
"What are you doing here?" Red repeated this time with less confusion and more anger. He put two painkiller tablets on his tongue then washed them both down with a big gulp of water.
"I made a house call last night to come and check on you." He replied flippantly, sloppily covering a yawn with the back of his hand. "Good job too. You wouldn't have been able to patch your hand in the state you were in."
Arsenal paused and looked down at Red's neatly bandaged hand, and Red followed his gaze, lifting his hand up to his eyes. It was well bandaged. Red wasn't sure if he'd have been able to wrap it that neatly even if he wasn't drunk out of his mind.
"You really don't remember? Anything?"
Red was clawing at his brain. He could remember throwing a beer can at the wall, and he could see the dent that proved that bit was true. Why did he throw a can at the wall? Oh, right, because he cut his hand on it. Duh. Before that, he could remember wanting to get very drunk. He could remember Arsenal being here and...
And he could remember Wally's funeral.
Suddenly Roy longed for that time a few minutes ago when he had a raging headache and that was his biggest problem. His legs must have given out at some point because suddenly Arsenal was right there, holding him, he didn't feel his knees let go but that was a much more legitimate explanation than Arsenal hugging him of his own accord.
He pulled away and looked awkwardly at the door, as if contemplating running and getting out of this situation. But as his eyes left they door and caught Red's, something steeled in them, almost like he was trying to silently promise something, though whether it was to Red or himself he didn't know. Red pulled his eyes away, and looked towards his fridge, pretending to contemplate his breakfast, but in reality just needing a moment to not have Arsenal's eye burn into him.
"What are you doing here?" He said after a pause, and it was almost a whisper, because this time he wasn't angry, not surprised or caught of guard, just curious.
"I already told you." Came the reply, quick and sharp just as Red would expect him to be.
"No you didn't." Red said quietly, shaking his head. "You gave me some short bullshit answer. I want truth."
"I did tell your the truth." The younger boy repeated quietly, the fingers on his organic hand subconsciously sliding over the buttons on his bionic arm. Nervous habit, Red thought bitterly. He used to always reach for an arrow when he melt threatened, even when he didn't have a quiver. You have to stop habits like that before they become a problem. "I made a house call. To check up on you."
Red rolled his eyes and made his way past the breakfast bar to his fridge. This was way too much to take in before breakfast. "Yeah, I know. that's what you keep saying."
Arsenal followed him, never leaving his side for a second. He did a surprisingly good impression of a limpit. "I keep saying it because its true."
That earned another roll off the eyes from Red. "Why? It doesn't sound like you to just drop in out of the kindness of your heart."
All Red could make out was a low mumble that he could only translate into an "I don't know", but it was mostly drowned out by the clunky sound of the fridge door opening, and the slightly-louder-than-it-should-be whirring noise his fridge always made when the light turned on. He should probably get that fixed, but it's not like he was here enough to care.
He heard Arsenal sigh from behind him. "It's nothing big, just Ollie seemed pretty worried. I think he would've flipped if he'd have come over here and seen you in a really bad state, so I said I'd come. No big."
Red gave a light laugh as his eyes continued to scan the fridge for... Sandwich ingredients? Yeah, a breakfast sandwich sounded good. "Yeah right." Red muttered, reaching inside the fridge to grab some ham he had spotted towards the back. He turned it over to check whether it was still good or not. It wasn't.
"Dude, you don't even need to check the date on that ham. It's got green stuff growing out of it."
Red cringed when he saw the disgusting fungi and threw the ham in the vague direction of the trash can. "Yeah, well it expired like two years ago anyway." Red went back to searching for his sandwich filling, and Arsenal went back to standing awkwardly close to him.
"So, when you were getting smashed last night..." Arsenal started, only to be faced neither a very angry looking Red who was no longer scanning for refrigerated sandwich ingredients.
"Oh god, I knew it." He started, shaking his head. "What did I do?"
"Oh, nothing!" Arsenal looked slight taken back by the question, but he continued anyway. "Well, you did say that you would help me with this case I'm working on." He stopped and looked at Red closely, as if analysing his reaction.
"Did I?" Red was pretty sure he didn't, because if Ollie had taught him anything it was don't agree to things while your drunk. He had personally seen and laughed up close at the type of situations it could put a person in, so he always remembered to remember it. He was considering having it tattooed, if his drinking habits as of late were any indication of the future, it might be a vital piece of information for him. He just wanted to see where Arsenal was going with this.
"Yeah, you did." He was stood tall and confident, as if he had full faith in that what he was saying was the truth. And Red would have believed him, if he didn't know himself, and if he didn't know the other boy well enough to pick up on the way his fingers nervously slid over the buttons on his arm. Nervous tick. It was small, but it was there.
They had a mini stare off for a few moments, each silently daring the other to speak first, but it was Arsenal who eventually broke the silence. "You said that you could help me chase up this lead I'm working on."
There were a lot of questions rolling around insides Red's mind, but in the end he just ending up with the simplest; "What lead?" Red asked, curiosity penetrating his voice.
That wasn't what he'd wanted to say. He'd wanted to say something much better, like...
What lead could you possibly need help with? What lead could possibly drive you to asking for help? You, the proudest person I know? The loner? What could be so hard to crack that you'd come to me of all people?
"I've been tracking LexCorp every since I... got out of there," he was doing that nervous tick again, "and I know they're up to something. Luthor recently spent just over a million dollars on a mysterious something, and moved another three million into a secure offshore account."
Red let his sandwich be forgotten, if just so he could humour the boy. "So what? Luthor moves money all the time, and how do you know that he didn't just buy something really expensive?"
Arsenal let out a chuckle. "What could a person buy that is worth three million dollars!?"
Red gave a small shrug. "A solid gold car, a diamond chandelier, lifetime membership to Club Penguin. You grew up with Ollie, I would expect you of all people to know the ridiculous things people can spend huge sums of money on."
"Yeah, I know, but this is Luthor we're talking about! He's doing something really evil!" Arsenal cried, clearly getting annoyed at Red's reluctance to believe him.
"Oh yeah?" Red replied, taking a step towards the younger version of him. "How do you know he's doing something 'really evil'?"
Arsenal stood firm, not once breaking eye contact, and Red didn't even need to move his eyes. He could see the nervous tick out in his peripheral vision. "I just know, okay! I can feel it in my gut."
"Feel it in your gut?" Red asked, disbelieving. "Please tell me your kidding. The last time you followed your gut instinct on something, you-"
"Shut up!" Arsenal growled. "If your not going to help me then fine, I'll just leave! I can do this myself!"
Red saw his nervous tick again, and then it all clicked. He didn't need help, he could do this by himself if he wanted to. All he was doing was inviting people to say that he was crazy, and that Luthor wasn't up to anything,when there isn't much of anything he couldn't handle on himself. And it was at that moment, with Arsenal stood in front of him threatening to leave, but standing perfectly still like he had no intention of doing so, that he finally understood.
He didn't need help.
He wanted it.
He wasn't nervous.
He was afraid.
The last time he'd done that... investigated a case on his own, the same company too, it hadn't gone too well for him.
The last time he had followed his gut instinct he had lost eight years of his life.
"Okay. I'll help you." Red gave in with a sigh, turning his head back towards his cupboards. If he was going to help the kid, the least Arsenal could do was let him get some breakfast first. Maybe he had some cereal...
"Really?" Red shot a glance over his shoulder, trying to gauge Arsenal's reaction. The younger archer looked shocked, like he hadn't expected Red to say yes, even though he showed no signs of leaving his apartment. "You'll help me?"
Red had to hold in the chuckle that threatened to escape his lips at the eagerness of the kid. It was a good job he had his head in the cabinets, otherwise the smile on his face would have been unmissable. The kid just didn't want to go alone. "That's what I said, isn't it?" He looked Arsenal in the eyes. "I was being mean before."
"I'm not a baby. I don't need you to sugar coat things for me." Arsenal sighed.
"I won't sugar coat," Red started, "but I'll apologise when I've been mean. Sorry."
"It's okay, just a touchy subject." Arsenal still looked in shock. "I just wasn't expecting you to help me, honestly."
Red raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"
"I don't know," Arsenal answer with a shrug and a tilt of his head, "or I at least didn't expect you to give in so fast."
Red smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Who said I'm giving in? You've made me curious, that's all. And anyway," Red started, "We're going to have to talk, and I'm fresh out of groceries. Want to order a pizza?"
That got a small chuckle out of Arsenal. "Pizza? Really? It's ten AM."
Red just grabbed the phone off of the counter top and started to dial. "There's no wrong time for a pizza. If you don't want any, then I can eat while you talk."
"Well, I won't say no to free pizza." Arsenal retorted with grin.
"Hey, I don't remember saying free." Red shot back easily with smile, just as the call started to go through.
"I thought it was implied." Arsenal answered, watching Red with a smile, before adding, "get pepperoni. And no veggie crap, either." And Red could only smile and shake his head.
They didn't hate each other. Their was no anger between them as Red stood there and waited for the pizza place to pick up, and they could talk to each other. It almost felt like they could be friends, like the spark of possibility was there, if Arsenal wasn't only here for help and Red couldn't think of the word friend without thinking of Wally and thinking of Wally made him want to crawl into a hole in the ground and never come out, so he could settle for them being civil acquaintances.
Thirty minutes later, the pizza had arrived, and Red spent ten of those minutes looking for plates or utensils or any kind of eating thing that he could set out and not look like the kind of guy who ate Chinese food with his hands out of a bag every night. Arsenal didn't really seem to care that much, he was the one who suggested that they just eat it off of the box, but that was probably because he could see how much trouble Red was having trying to find utensils. They paid for it with Red's credit card- and by Red's credit card he really means the card he took from Ollie, but Ollie won't mind because anything to get his estranged son to like him again, and although that can be quite irritating at times, it's good having access to his banking funds.
They sat around Red's small table, pizza slices in hand, and talked.
"So," Red began, swallowing a cheesy mouthful. "This lead. What do you plan on doing about it?"
Arsenal raised his eyes from the pizza to look at Red. "You mean what am I planning to used this information for?" Red nodded. "I have something else too. A shipment."
Red raised an eyebrow. "A shipment of what?"
"No idea." Arsenal replied with a shrug. "But it cost Luthor half a million dollars, so it's probably something big."
"Half a million dollars? In one shipment?" Red asked with a raise of his eyebrows. Arsenal just nodded. "Must be something really big. Where's it being shipped from?"
"I'm not sure." Arsenal answered before taking another bite of his pizza.
"So what exactly do you know about it?"
Arsenal finished chewing the bite that was already in his mouth and swallowed, throwing down his pizza crust and picking up another slice of pepperoni goodness. "Not an awful lot. But it's suspicious, so I figured I'd look into it."
Red nodded slowly. "Yeah, that seems like the best course of action." He watched Arsenal cram another slice of pizza in his mouth and swallow before he asked his next question. "Do you at least know where it's being shipped to?"
Arsenal smiled and nodded. "The ships coming in to Happy Harbour this afternoon. Two o clock."
Red furrowed his brows. "That's weird."
Arsenal raised an eyebrow. "What? Luthor ships to Happy Harbour all the time."
"That's not what I meant. It's not like Luthor to do a huge deal in broad daylight like this. Not his MO." Red said, biting his lip thoughtfully.
"It's not a deal, just a delivery, as far as I know." Arsenal grabbed another slice of pizza.
Red rolled his eyes. "You just said you didn't know what it was or where it came from. Sure, it's a delivery and Luthor already paid, but how do you know there won't be a deal involved with some third party?"
Arsenal bit his lip. "I guess that's possible. Figured I'd stake the place out and gather a bit of intel, lay low, if you want to tag along."
Red swallowed his current mouthful and let out a small laugh. "No offence, but I've seen your corrupt definition of laying low. You don't exactly the same information gathering techniques as normal people do."
"That's the point." Arsenal said, putting down another crust. "They've never seen anything like me before." Red let out a chuckle and raised an eyebrow at him. "You know what I mean. They've never seen anyone that works like I do. They don't know how to work against it. I mean, let's face it, we might look the same but we don't exactly use similar methods, do we?"
Red nodded slowly. "Okay, I see your point. I'll come, see what we can't find. If we can find anything."
Arsenal snorted. "We'll find something. I can just feel it."
Red suddenly had the urge to announce again that last time he "just felt it" he got captured and cloned, but he repressed it in honour of an indignant sigh.
wow I hate the formatting on this websites posting section. I hope this posts okay (last time it formatted all weird). I hope you liked the chapter, and if you did (or didn't) please review, since it tells me what I'm doing right and what I can improve on! I hope you enjoyed this chapter:)
much love3