Batty Advice

Broken Arrow

Batman typed furiously on the Batcomputer. He was tracing the computer history of everyone who had asked him for advice, and he was finding that they had all made several visits to the same Youtube video. He was about to click it, when a beep came from his comm.

He reluctantly answered, and soon found that Ollie was on the line, incredibly drunk. And he was in Gotham. No one was supposed to enter Gotham without his permission.

He leapt to his feet, and quickly drove out of the Batcave. On the computer screen, the links to a Youtube video magically disappeared.

On top of Wayne Tower, Green Arrow sat drinking beer. Batman appeared beside him.

"What are you doing?" he growled.

"Tryin' to get your attention. I need some help," Green Arrow slurred.

""What's wrong?"

"Well, I went to see Roy today," he started, trying to stand and almost falling off the building. "I really miss the kid, ya know. He's like my son! And I think he needs to come home, but he won't and Dinah says s'all my fault. But it's not, right Bats?"

Ollie was definitely drunk. "Get to the point Queen."

"Oh. Right. So, I went to see Roy, and I found him sticking drugs in his arm! I thought I had raised him better than that. Wait, I didn't raise him. Anyways, I told him that he was an idiot and that doin' drugs is wrong. And then he punched me! And he called me a hippo."

"A hippo?"

"T'was something like that."

Batman thought about this for a moment. Why would Roy call Ollie a hippo… unless he meant hypocrite. "Ollie, were you drunk when you went to visit him?"

Ollie scrunched his face together in concentration. He held his hand out, fingers close together in a pinching motion. "Only a little bit."

"You're an idiot."

"Hey, that's not nice!"

"You're incredibly irresponsible. How can you expect Roy to act like a responsible adult when he sees you getting drunk all the time?"

Instead of responding, Ollie lay down to take a nap. Batman left him there until the next morning. He was still laying there when Batman returned.

Pulling a bucket of water out of his utility belt, he dumped it on the drunkard and startled him awake.

"What was that for!" an enraged Green Arrow yelled.

"I needed you to wake up. Now, come with me. We're going to go have a talk with Roy."

Ollie went with him to the Batmobile, which they took to Roy's apartment. He was lounging on the sofa when the two heroes entered.

"What do you want?" he grumbled.

The apartment was a wreck. Take out boxes lie everywhere, clothes were strewn across the floor. The walls were taken up with bits of paper and string, where Roy had tried to find his 'real' counterpart.

"Roy, you need to get control of yourself, you can't live like this!" Ollie yelled at him.

"You're not the boss of me, not anymore!" he yelled back.

Batman watched as the two squabbled. When Ollie threw his hands up and stormed off, he knew it was time to act.

"Roy, you're going to straighten up. You can't work in this mess. You need to be able to focus, and drugs aren't going to help you do that. Get off them, clean the house, then get back to work."

He left, a shocked Roy behind him. Roy got off the sofa and started cleaning up. Everyone listened to Batman.

"I believe we're done here," Batman said to Green Arrow, speeding off in the Batmobile.

Now, back to the Batcave to work on this advice mystery.

Wow, a bit of plot appears through the veil. I've decided to throw a little bit of substance in here, so it's not really a one-shot story, but it kinda is. I'm confused by this too.

Have a batty day,

Shadow