Volte-Face

This fanfiction was filmed before a live studio audience.

Thank you…
Xment2bursX- Garth wouldn't do anything drastic to himself... yet... (snicker) And thanks for subscribing to my magical C2-thing. I forgot all about it... I'll add more today...
ferretgirl-1124
Nara Rei
Mutou Yasu- Of course Garth doesn't think he's in love with Roy yet! He's too busy being infatuated with someone else! (evil cackle) Yes, far too busy...
APurpleAvacado- I don't believe she did, actually... but thank you for reading! And thank her for recommending it to someone!

Shnar! I want to write hot smut… but no. I can't. Not for a while… (sigh). For those of you who think this is going to end soon, you better go buy popcorn now—I have no intention of letting the boys go at it for quite a long time…

I myself am getting bored of all this talking and whatnot, so next chapter will be… (snicker) amusing. Oh, how I love getting malicious…!

Don't get confused by the first half. This is the right fanfic, really. Promise.

And, of course, SpAqua is nothing without Freud… As Hour Twenty proved… (cough)

"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise."
—Sigmund Freud

The train platform was cold, clouded by a mist typical of an early morning in winter. Roy was shivering where he waited, his scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face and tucked tightly into the pulled-up collar of his wool coat. The coat itself draped down to his knees where his jeans showed through; under them were two layers of socks and the ridiculous long underwear he'd gotten for Christmas.

And he was still cold. His cheeks were flushed, his nose the same, his hair mussed under his hat to complete the wintry look.

But every chill in his body rushed away as the sound of an incoming train echoed down the long station. Children skipping around the benches came to a stop to watch the massive locomotives slide past on their tracks, excitement coursing through them at the thought of seeing a parent or friend.

Roy felt the same thrill, standing upright from where he'd been leaning against the hard, plastic map. Finally, the one train he'd been waiting two hours for; the one he'd waited to see for the past week; the one he'd forgotten his gloves for to ensure a good-enough standing place to welcome home the runaway Titan.

The machine chugged to a stop, shoving forward one last yard before sliding back a few inches on the tracks, the gears and brakes hissing in effort. Roy smiled beyond the scarf and started toward the train car's door when it opened automatically, a flood of people shoving him back toward the map.

Standing on his toes, Roy scanned the heads of the group. He could see person after person exiting, but no one he recognized. A good thirty people had already exited—how many could one car hold? Maybe he'd gotten the car number wrong? Or the train?

No—it was train D14603, car 19, arriving at ten AM at Main Station's F tracks. He knew that—he had it memorized—so where the hell was he?

He was nearly willing to jump up and down to cause a scene, if it meant reuniting with that silly, momentarily-MIA Atlantean. There was a hint of shiny black hair by the door; Roy's eyes snapped to it in recognition, only to see a young oriental woman helping her son out of the car.

The platform was beginning to clear of people in a mass exodus of travelers. Roy swiveled in his boots, craning to see everyone.

Maybe… he was still on the train? Roy nodded—he probably just forgot to get his bags ready, as usual. Such a responsible person when need be, Garth always was a bit forgetful in trivial situations.

But then the doors hissed shut, the wheels groaned and the train started along again. Roy took a few desperate steps, silently crying out for it to come back, but it kept going. He spun around, staring down to both ends of the platform.

The heat in his veins had frozen again and formed a weight in his stomach. He felt nauseated suddenly and leaned over, hand on his mouth, a sweat across his face despite the cold.

What if something had happened to him? Knowing his kindness, he'd get off at a random station just to help someone with their luggage! What if he was stranded somewhere, cold, hungry? What if someone kidnapped him—adult-napped him, really! What if he was forced into—

An abrupt weight on his back made Roy stumble forward, gasping. One arm wrapped around his neck, the other around his waist, and a pair of familiar lips kissed a spot of warmth onto the side of his throat.

"Hello," came the inadvertently-sultry greeting.

Roy turned on Garth, grabbing him closer, sighing into the sleek, black hair with relief. "Don't do that!"

"Do what?" Garth laughed, more than happy to oblige with the crushing hug. He draped his arms over Roy's shoulders and threaded his own fingers together behind the redhead's neck.

"Not show up! Hell, that freaked me ou—"

Roy stopped talking when Garth looked up at him, grinning, rising up only slightly to kiss the archer. "Sorry," the Atlantean mumbled into Roy's mouth. Purple eyes rose to meet green ones and both boys smiled.

"Just don't do it again," Roy chastised lightly, pulling away. Garth kept one arm around Roy's waist—neither cared what looks they attracted.

"Well, smiley, are you gonna get up, or should I have Raven call back?"

Roy jerked from the warmth of his dream into the uncomfortable pillows of his bed, looking around and blinking for a moment before realizing that Karen was standing over him, hands on her hips.

"Who's calling?" he mumbled, rubbing on eye. He hated being yanked from a perfect dream into the harsh reality of normal life.

"It's Raven, on the upper deck's phone," she answered, shaking her head with a laugh. "I told her you were sleeping—you missed dinner by the way; sorry—but she said it was urgent. She told me to say 'Cyborg found out,' and said you'd understand what it—"

Roy's pained moan cut her off, making her tense as he fell back into the pillows.

"Speedy," she barked in her patented worried-leader voice; she leaned over the redhead, reaching toward his face when his eyes flickered open.

"I'm fine," he groaned, rising clumsily from the bed. "That's just really bad news. Doesn't help that I have a headache." He grabbed a mask and put it over his eyes on the way down the hall.

When he got into the higher level of the main room, he found the phone she was talking about—a small, cordless one that actually belonged in the infirmary—sitting on the desk near the railing. From where he stood, he could see Garth swimming a ring in the pools; he'd zoom up the length of one and then slip into the tunnel under the walkway, appearing eight feet away in the other pool, continuing along in his circle without hesitance.

"Well, pick it up already!" Karen snapped. Roy jumped; he didn't know she'd followed him.

But he obeyed, holding the receiver close to his ear, turning from Karen in hopes she wouldn't hear. "Hello?"

Raven's voice was quick, but relaxed. "Speedy, did she tell you?"

"Yeah; care to explain—"

"I don't have time for a detailed account of it," she interrupted, "but in short, Cyborg found out that the security feed had been shut off for no reason, and he went to turn them on just when you had your little argument with Robin. He doesn't have a problem with it—actually, he's not even surprised. Something or another about your obsessive grooming habits, I think… Anyway, you'll need to come over again, and preferably soon."

"Wait—why?"

She sighed, creating static on the line. "Now that Robin has gotten over himself, he wants to have a serious talk with you about dating a teammate. I think he's trying to save face, personally, but I want you over here anyway."

Roy could hear the continuation of that sentence held on her tongue; the statement didn't seem finished. "Why?" he wondered.

"I… I don't want you to take this as something negative," she started, obviously wavering between saying it and staying silent. "But I know you're going to, and that makes it hard to directly get the point across…"

"Just say it," he said, tone even as possible due to a certain team leader's presence. "It won't bother me, really."

"You're… Well… You know I can read emotions." She paused, taking a breath. "And in the two times I've seen you, your emotions aren't… stable."

"Stable," he repeated.

"You're unsure," she defined, "but that uncertainty is making you have a split opinion on everything, and that makes it easier for you to wrongly choose, even when faced with obvious options. It's dangerous for anyone to feel that, much less a teenage superhero who's having problems facing his sexuality."

Roy let out a genuine laugh. "Can you say that again, just to see if you can say it twice without laughing?"

Another pause came from the phone, and then Raven hummed in amusement. "I won't say it again; I don't have time. Starfire's taking me somewhere with an infestation of hair products. Will you come over?"

"Sure," he chuckled, leaning on the railing. Raven started speaking again, but she suddenly sounded far away—Roy was mentally five floors below, watching Garth pull himself from the pools. He could hear the slosh of the water against the tile; the drops falling from the Atlantean's limbs shattered into tiny, dark speckles across the carpet.

"Speedy, did you hear me?" Raven was back in his ear.

"Wha—no, sorry. What was that?" He turned away from the pools, making sure he couldn't see the lanky prince drying his hair.

There was a definite smirk in her voice: "What, is Aqualad getting out of the pool or something?"

"Huh. Actually…"

"Is he really?" she asked, letting out a Ha! before continuing. "Well, I said I'll call you tomorrow to set up a meeting. I'd suggest we go somewhere other than your Tower, but not to our Tower either—Robin would tie you to a chair and make you listen to his hypocritical lectures if he got the chance."

"I'll keep the line open, then," Roy muttered. Raven let out another amused hm; both Titans knew full well that each Tower had at least ten different phone lines.

"It'll be hard to do, I know," she said, and then the click of the line going dead ended the conversation.

Roy pressed the End button, handing the phone to Karen. As soon as he went to step around her, she got in the way, hands returning to her hips.

"Speedy," she said, voice low and commanding. "What was that about?"

Roy sighed and folded his arms across his chest. He knew she would ask—why else had she stood there, listening? "I don't think you need to know," he tried.

Naturally, that excuse didn't work. She heightened her glare, lips pressing together until they turned white. "Spee-dy," she said again.

For a moment, he considered just telling her to get it over with. Eighty percent of Titans West knew what kind of 'crush' he was harboring; was there an actual reason why she couldn't know?

She lives with you, a voice nagged from the back of his head. They live hundreds of miles away.

"Is it about Raven?" she asked in a blatant attempt to narrow possible problems down.

"No; it's—"

"You didn't hurt anyone, did you? No," she continued without waiting for him. "You wouldn't do that; you're too dignified to become felon. There aren't any hair products in jail, after all…"

"Bee, it's nothing—don't worry about it!" Roy tried moving around her again with no success.

"Don't say it's nothing. Getting weird phone calls, visiting Raven twice in two days—that's not normal bow-boy behavior." Bottom lip in her teeth, she stared at him again as if the answer would spring out from him. "You're hiding something. I will find out."

He half-sighed, half-laughed. "Bee…"

"Wait, are you in love with someone?" Her eyes went wide and she stepped forward, trying not to grin. "Not with Raven… with Starfire? No, she's Robin's… I see that blush, Speedy, don't try to tell me I'm wrong!"

Roy shut his mouth, holding his argument on his tongue as the opportunity showed itself. If he had to tell Karen eventually, it would be better to take baby steps to get her used to the idea. "I wouldn't… I wouldn't call it love," he corrected. It wasn't love, after all. It probably wasn't even like—just some phase; he'd get through it with time.

"I knew it!" Karen shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at him. "And it's a Titan, isn't it! Ha-ha!"

"I never said it was a Titan," he mumbled hopelessly, but the girl was resolute in her theory. She wouldn't have listened, anyway; she was currently preoccupied with a victory dance.

"You're calling the Westergirls to get advice on how to date her, right? 'Cause they know her better?"

Roy smirked, nodded. That was sort-of true, though not in the way she intended it. "I guess."

"Well, tell me!" She pushed out her bottom lip, twisting her features into what Roy assumed she meant as a puppy-dog face. "I'll just call the Westers…!"

"An empty threat," he laughed, moving back toward the hallway now that she was cleared from his path. "Starfire knows nothing about it, and Raven wouldn't tell a soul. And the guys would be too embarrassed to discuss it," he added, an afterthought.

She seemed to realize that was true: her expression fell into a pout. But Roy was already out the door again, heading to the kitchen to fill his empty stomach.

So school starts this coming Tuesday and I'm really excited—to such a degree that it's actually rather repulsive. My schedule's a bit daunting, but I'm looking forward to the note-taking, cat-cutting, verb-conjugating, x-finding, flag-waving, NaCl-making hectic-ness of it all. (I'll do my best to continue this story at an equally quick pace, though.)

Question: What SpAqua fanfic did I reference when talking about 'Hour Twenty'? (Hint: …one of you better get that, or else. Seriously. You wrote the thing…!)

Previous answers, in case you were wondering: Sword, 'executioner,' Lucius Malfoy, the letter s, mirror.