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One second. Ollie’s fist hits Roy’s face. The shock of it rattles his skull. It shakes something loose — some vestige of childhood, perhaps, a final hope that this time, this time for sure, he had something he could hold onto.
Five seconds. Ollie’s shouting at him. He says something back — he doesn’t know how, or what he even says, stumbling out the door with Ollie’s fury licking his heels.
Ten seconds. He’s somewhere else. His swimming vision refocuses, and he doesn’t feel any different, but Ollie isn't here yelling at him to get out, and there’s a bawling two-year-old reaching out for him. He scoops her into his arms without a second thought, and she clings to his shirt with tiny, chubby hands.
They’re not alone. They’re in some kind of – meeting room or command centre, or something like that, the kind of thing the Teen Titans had — and there’s two young boys who look oddly familiar. Roy squints. One of them is staring off into space with tears rolling down his cheeks, and the other’s cradling an arm that definitely looks broken and breathing much too fast and shallow. And then there’s—
“Garth,” Roy gets out. Disorientation is making his head foggy, or maybe that’s the last of the drug leaving his system. He rubs the girl’s back and she hiccups sobs into his shoulder. “What’s – going on?”
Garth turns at the sound of his voice. At second glance, it’s clear that while this is for sure Garth, it’s not quite the same Garth that Roy knows. He looks a bit, well, older? Or maybe Roy's just imagining that, because there’s something pinched and almost haunted to his expression, something that doesn’t belong on the face of his friend.
“Roy?” Garth asks. His voice cracks. “What’re you — where are we?”
“Dunno,” Roy says. Ollie’s words ring in his ears, and he shakes his head to clear them. “Beats me. So you were suddenly somewhere else too, then?”
“...Yeah. I was... under the ocean,” Garth says. He sounds shaken up, and Roy really wants to grill the gillhead on what it is, but there’s more pressing matters.
His head is killing him. He was already coming down when Ollie— when Ollie found him, and coming down hard enough that he’d been willing to risk getting caught, so of course that’s when whatever villain’s responsible for this decided to strike. Roy bites back a groan. His own stupid fault, like everything else. His face throbs in reminder.
You’re a lousy junkie!
Wallowing in self-pity isn’t gonna help anything.
The most pressing thing right now is the toddler in his arms, and the other kids. They need to— he takes a moment. Find the girl's family, that’s what they need to do. But she's not going to be able to tell him anything until she calms down, and Roy doesn’t have a lot of faith in his child-calming skills. At least where babies are concerned.
Garth’s got a nephew, right? But when Roy turns to him with the girl, about to hold her out to him, he turns a strange colour and takes a step back. “Uh, maybe it’s best you hold on to her,” Garth says.
Roy’s brow creases. Okay, so surface babies are gross now, or something? Well, she’s cute enough to him, even if she is sobbing and slobbering all over his shoulder, so it’s no hardship to hang on to her. Not that his rocking and soothing is calming her down very much.
Well, putting baby failures aside on his mountain of other failures, Roy at least knows how to work with kids. Even traumatised ones — heroing has a tendency to give a guy plenty of practice. So he turns to the two boys and puts on his best calming smile.
Robin would be better at this. Shut up, Roy.
“Hey, kids,” Roy says, and they startle. They both look a similar age — maybe nine or ten years old, and they’re both maddeningly familiar as well in a way Roy can't quite place. “What’s your names?”
"Who wants to know?" the kid with the broken arm demands. His voice is thick and wet, and there's tear tracks down his face and more tears welling in his red-rimmed eyes. But he's putting on a brave front. Roy's heart breaks.
Did someone leave this kid here? Did someone hurt him? Roy's cheek still aches with the echo of Ollie's fist, so maybe he's overthinking. But right now his heart is an open wound and he thinks he might just let these kids climb inside where it’s warm.
The kid's a redhead, and he's dressed in pretty normal clothes, at least in comparison to the other boy. That boy is in some kind of gymnast or dance gear or something, and he still isn't responding. Just keeps staring at nothing.
Something about what he's wearing jogs Roy's memory. It doesn't make sense — he's too young — but nothing about this makes sense, so, "Dick?" he asks. Which – would that make the other kid… "Wally?"
That finally jolts the dark-haired kid out from his stupor. He looks up at Roy with wet eyes. "How do you know my name?"
In his ear, the baby — Donna — starts wailing again. Shit.
"…I don't know what's going on here," Roy says slowly, "But I think we need to call someone."
Roy sends Garth off to look for medical supplies for Wally's arm — he could improvise a sling, but he'd rather get a proper one if it's available. Then he shifts Donna to one hip and coaxes Dick and Wally into following him around as he looks for some kind of communications set up.
It takes a while to find it, and even longer to figure out how it works. At least that gives him time to catch his breath. Donna clings to him and hiccups and cries, which makes Roy's gut clench, and Wally keeps sniffling and trying to hide it, which is almost worse. Dick doesn't say anything else when Roy's stuttered attempts at explaining the situation prove unsatisfactory, and so despite all the crying, it's otherwise eerily quiet.
Wally and Dick are very much the chatterboxes of the team, so for them to be so silent is… odd.
Eventually, Roy manages to get an SOS off to the Justice League, and Garth comes to find them with supplies in tow, and they settle in to wait.
Roy tries not to think about who'll be coming, in whatever strange dimension or twisted timestream they've ended up in. His jaw aches. A different ache is settling into his limbs.
I’m not interested in excuses! I’m not interested in you! Not anymore!
Garth paces, and Dick hugs his knees and stares at the wall, and Donna dozes on Roy's shoulder. Wally scowls at all of them, but he shrinks back in his seat if Roy or Garth glance his way. Roy, for his part, does his best to comfort the kids, for all the good it seems to do. At least it’s keeping himself distracted.
And Dick leans into the arm around his shoulders, so that's better than nothing. But he won't say what's wrong, and Roy's pretty sure it's not just the strangeness of their current situation that's upsetting him.
He's in acrobat’s clothes. So if Roy’s been taken from Ollie, and Garth from under the ocean, Dick’s been taken from… the circus? But why? And why is Donna a baby?
"What happened to your face?" Wally eventually asks.
He sounds surly. Roy's hand comes up to his jaw, unbidden, touching the bruise that Ollie's fist left there. His throat bobs as he swallows, and the blanketing comfort of the heroin sounds really good right about now. He doesn't want to explain that, or any of the whole sorry business, to a kid who can't be more than ten.
Even if the kid is actually his same-age teammate and friend. Maybe especially then.
…Definitely especially then. Wally'd probably hit him too.
"Got in a fight," he says airily. He gives Wally a grin, like it's no big deal. "Gave as good as I got, though."
Yeah. Sure he did. He kind of wishes he had, though.
He's expecting Wally to laugh, or just to scowl at him again. Instead, the kid's eyes narrow. "Sure," he says, kicking his feet in the too-big chair Garth found for him. "So did I."
Roy freezes. Dick's not really listening — or even really all there — and Donna is, well, a toddler. But Garth's sharp inhale tells him he's thinking the same thing as Roy. That sounds… bad. But where Roy used to be a hero and can take it and also kind of deserved it, maybe, Wally’s ten.
"Wally," Roy says slowly, carefully, like he's talking to a victim and not a hero. Because Wally isn't a hero, at the moment; he doesn't even have any powers at this age. "Did someone break your arm?"
"No. S'like you said. Got in a fight."
Except Wally won't meet his eyes anymore. And the way he says it is too small and too tight, like he's forcing the words out past a lump in his throat. And he saw right through Roy's excuse like he's used to making the same ones, like he's used to people believing him when he makes them.
Roy knows what that means. Roy doesn't want to think about what that means.
Garth's eyes jump from Roy to Wally and back again. One of them should say something, needs to say something, but the words are stuck in Roy's throat, and it doesn't look like Garth knows what to say any better than he does. What is there to say? It'll be all right? Roy can't promise that. It probably won't. Wally never spoke much about his home life, but he'd gush about his Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris whenever he got to stay with them. And in hindsight, that should've told him something.
But they were all kids themselves. They still are, really. And — the odds that everyone except him and Garth got turned into younger versions of themselves, and that then all of them got transported here, are pretty low. What's much more likely is that Garth and Roy too are younger, and that maybe all of them were here as adults, before— before whatever happened, happened.
So Roy can't tell Wally it'll be okay, because this Wally might not even exist when whatever spell or effect they're under wears off. Maybe it'll all be like a bad dream. Or maybe it'll be something nastier. What kind of comfort is that? And he can't just lie to the kid; Wally's too sharp, and he'd pick up on it.
"Okay!" Roy declares, when the moment of no one saying anything stretches out uncomfortably long. "Waiting around here isn't doing any good. Let's find a kitchen. We're baking."
"Stress baking?" Garth says, but a little hint of a smile tugs the edge of his mouth. That's the happiest he's looked since they all appeared here, so Roy will take the win, however small. "That was always more Donna's thing."
"Can't be that hard," Roy bluffs. "Come on, kids."
"I think I saw a kitchen when I was looking for a med kit." Garth takes the lead, heading down the corridor.
Roy readjusts Donna on his hip and offers Dick his hand, which Dick solemnly accepts, and they follow with Wally bringing up the rear. Roy keeps glancing over his shoulder to make sure he's still with them, and while Wally won't meet his gaze, he does stick close. Another small win.
The kitchen has a counter with stools along it. Dick lets go of Roy's hand to slip into one, and Garth helps Wally get settled on a another, mindful of his arm. But they're too high for Donna, and there's no highchair. Roy tries setting her down on the counter, but this prompts another flood of tears, and she grips his shirts so tight he fears it might rip.
"Dick, you think you can take your twin?" he tries. Problem solving. Roy is problem solving while his head actively wants to split in two. Look at him go.
Dick lifts his head up from staring through the counter. His miserable expression shifts slightly, a little scrunch of confusion furrowing his brow. "My twin?"
"Yeah," Roy says. "She looks like a little you, don't you think?"
The adorable little scrunch deepens. "Twins are the same age."
"Just trust me on this one." Roy holds Donna out to him, and he takes her onto his lap warily. Donna is just as happy to cling to Dick as to Roy, thank god. Another flood of tears from baby Donna might've crushed Roy's heart beyond repair.
Maybe he's being a little dramatic. But his teammates are all adorably small — save Garth — and utterly unbearably sad.
No one can be sad about cookies, though. Time to get to work.
Roy gets Garth to help, which mostly involves getting him to fetch things, because Garth never really got the hang of surface cooking and baking thoroughly eludes him. He tries to keep Garth as busy as possible, though, because as soon as he’s without a task to do, his face shutters and he's back to staring moodily off into the distance.
It's worrying, because while Garth is often quiet, Roy's never known him to be prone to brooding like this.
An unfair part of him wishes Garth would help him out more with the kids, but actually, he doesn’t really want that. As long as the kids need him, Roy’s – useful. It’s kind of weird, being the one who’s needed, rather than the needy one for a change. And Roy’s making them cookies and they’re all still sad but Wally’s arm has been seen to and Donna isn’t crying anymore, so like, he’s not completely failing at this. Yet.
Roy tries to cheer Dick up a little, but the kid barely responds to any of his chatter. Having Donna with him seems to be helping them both, at least; she isn't crying anymore, and Dick holds her close and rests his chin on her head, and he's not crying anymore, either.
They get the first batch of cookies in the oven, the dough made to Roy's half-remembered directions, and Garth starts on the washing up, and suddenly Roy's run out of things to do.
He's getting shaky. Roy grips the edge of the countertop to steady himself. It's been too long since he's had a dose, but he wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to go about sorting that here, so he's just going to have to suffer through it. The prospect churns his stomach, because it's gonna suck, and he really, really doesn't want the kids to see.
No better than the rest of those snivelling punks!
But the League will be here soon, probably, and they can take care of the kids. Then Roy can figure something out. He just has to hold on until then.
Of course, the League coming could mean Ollie coming. And Ollie will take one look at him and he’ll know and Roy’s gonna feel the weight of his disappointment crashing into his face all over again.
Desperately looking for something, anything as a distraction, he turns to Garth. "Hey, Garth, you wanna talk about what's going on with you?"
Garth scrubs a little more ferociously at the mixing bowl. "Nothing's going on with me."
"Come off it, Gillhead, I'm not blind," Roy replies. "Something's twisted your scales. What's up with you?"
"You're not blind, but you are dense," Garth snaps, slamming the scrubbing brush down by the sink and turning to Roy with a scowl. "I said it's nothing. I don't want to talk about it."
Dick jumps at the noise, and his eyes start to well up again. Oh, hell, the tension is upsetting him. Roy's royally cocking this one up. And it was going so well.
"I said it's nothing," Wally mimics, like the ten-year-old asshole he is. "Sure sounds like nothing."
Garth rounds on him in an uncharacteristic display of anger. "Listen, squirt—"
Roy needs to step in. But a wave of dizziness slams into him and it's all he can do to hang on to the counter so he doesn't slip and crack his skull open on the floor. His head swims. His ears ring.
Garth and Wally are arguing, but Roy can't make out what they're saying. Dick reaches across the counter to grab Roy's hand.
"Something's burning," Dick mouths.
Burning? The acrid smell of smoke reaches Roy's nostrils. The cookies. The damn cookies — he’s screwing it all up — somehow he's burning the cookies—
From Dick's lap, Donna shrieks. The sound cleaves his skull in two. And she keeps shrieking, shrill and absolutely terrified. Roy claps his hands over his ears with a low groan, sagging against the counter. Loud. Too loud, and everything hurts, and she’s upset and he’s not helping and he can’t help her at all—
Roy can't do anything right. No wonder Ollie's done with him.
The door slams open, and from the corner of his vision, Roy sees a group of familiar costumed figures burst in.
"Oh, thank god." Roy lifts his head. He can't even bring himself to be anxious that he can see Ollie among them; right now, he's just overwhelmingly grateful to see an adult. "Please help. The cookies burned."
He's kind of hazy with relief, and the world blurs. It's like as soon as there's someone else to take care of the kids, everything crashes down on him all at once.
Roy sees Wonder Woman scoop Donna up and stride purposefully off into another room, away from the smoke. Batman approaches Dick more cautiously, murmuring something to him that Roy can't make out. The Flash takes off his mask, and the instant Wally clocks his Uncle Barry, he's at his side so quickly it's like he got his powers early.
Aquaman takes one step towards them and Garth flinches violently away, slamming back up against the sink. Which stops Aquaman dead in his tracks, looking stricken. And it leaves a very sour taste in Roy's mouth.
‘Cos no matter how much they tease him about it, Garth isn't a coward. He leaps into impossible battles with the rest of them. So whatever Aquaman's done to make him react like that… it must be pretty bad.
And as for Ollie… well. He starts towards Roy, then stops, his hands hanging awkwardly at his sides like he doesn't know what to do with them. Roy's stomach turns over itself like he's going to barf.
Somehow they all get shuffled off to another room with clearer air. There's an arm around his shoulders — Dinah — and he tries to hold on to his attention but it's like holding water. Things slip away from him.
They're in some kind of sitting room. Zatanna examines each of them in turn, muttering incantations. She looks grim at first, but the expression lessens with each one, which has gotta be good news. The Flash disappears and reappears with a fresh batch of cookies, and Roy chews on one morosely. It doesn't do much for the nausea settling into his stomach, but it gives him something to do, and that helps.
"Well," Zatanna says slowly, after she finishes examining baby Donna, "the good news is it's clear what's happened, and it'll go away on its own."
"It's magic, then?" Batman confirms.
"Yes. A curse the Titans must have triggered on their last mission. I am still unsure who cast it, but this is a curse of memory. It has reverted them all to the moment of greatest emotional upheaval of their childhoods."
So Roy really is at rock bottom.
He’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry. At least– at least it isn't going to get any worse. Until he's an adult, nothing worse than this — being abandoned by his mentor and sort-of father figure, getting hooked on heroin like a dolt to cope with it, and flat out rejected by said father figure to his face on his return — nothing worse is gonna happen to him.
Small comfort. Microscopic, even. He hugs his arms around his middle.
"So Donna…" Garth starts.
"In this life, there was a fire, when she was a small child," Wonder Woman says. Donna's face is buried in the joint of her neck and shoulder, and Diana rubs her back soothingly. "She was in a burning apartment, and would have died there, were she not taken to New Chronus by the Titans of old."
In this life? And taken to where, by who now? Roy's spilled his absolute guts to Donna, everything about his dad and Brave Bow and Ollie and all the tumult in between. And yet Donna's never mentioned any of this to him.
It knots up his stomach, because… because that means their relationship was one-sided in a way he never thought it was. Roy really opened himself up to her, and he actually thought she did the same — but apparently not. Apparently just like every other relationship in his life, Roy wasn't worth getting close to.
Maybe that’s not fair. They’re both teenagers, and she doesn’t owe him anything. God, he really can’t stop feeling sorry for himself, huh? Pathetic.
Anyway, it's no wonder the kid Donna freaked out at the burnt cookies. Great going, Harper.
"Wally's parents… weren't good to him," Flash says tightly. "Iris and I suspected there were times when they went too far. We did what we could but… it never felt like enough."
Batman says nothing, but he tightens his hold on Dick. Dick's most traumatic childhood memory is obviously his parents' death. What else could compare to that?
Garth…
Judging by the way Garth flinched, and won't look his mentor in the eye, it's absolutely Aquaman's fault. Which cuts through some of Roy's little pity party for himself, because what the hell? Who would hurt Garth?
"Orin, perhaps we should speak privately," Wonder Woman says.
Flash nods. His eyes are steely. "Yes, I would agree."
"No need." Aquaman folds his enormous arms across his chest. "I have nothing to hide. It was a dark event, but not of my doing.”
“Explain, then,” Wonder Woman says, matching his stance. If she fixed Roy with a look like that, he thinks he’d shrivel into a husk on the spot. Aquaman doesn’t even flinch.
“That fiend, Black Manta, abducted and trapped my son,” Aquaman says darkly. “He placed him in peril, and would not release him unless Aqualad and I fought to the death. I had no choice — I attacked him. "
"You tried to kill him?" Wonder Woman says sharply, tensing like she's about to get in between them.
"My son's life was at stake!" Aquaman growls back. "And that monster murdered him anyway. You don't think that day has haunted me ever since?"
"You didn't even hesitate."
A hush falls over the room. Garth takes a deep breath, face pale and fists clenched tightly at his sides.
"I know why you did it. I get it — I can't even say you were wrong, but…" Garth grimaces. "But it was an easy decision to make for you. I was… easy, for you to throw away. And you were really trying to kill me, and I can't just… it hurts, Aquaman, and I can't go back to how we were and pretend everything's okay, because it isn't."
Aquaman swallows roughly. "We had much the same discussion the first time around. I can't say it makes sense any more now than I did then. If you understand, then why…"
"I think," Flash says slowly, holding out a hand to intercede, "that it might be best if Garth stays with me until this curse is dealt with."
"I would agree," Batman says, with a voice so frosty Roy shivers, and it's not even directed at him. "Zatanna, what do we need to do to lift it?"
"There's nothing to do but wait it out." Zatanna sighs. "Luckily, it will pass on its own, and it won't be too long. From my examinations, it'll be a matter of days to weeks, not months."
Dinah’s hand tightens on his arm. "Roy," she breathes.
There's a lump forming in his throat that won't go away. Days to weeks means he's going to have to ride out the withdrawal. And he'd be angry at her for as good as pointing it out in front of everyone, except… he sees the way the other adults are looking at him.
Not Aquaman, who only has eyes for Garth, watching him with a look of hurt and confusion that makes Roy want to punch him in the nose — but otherwise, it's obvious. In the way Batman evaluates Roy's shakiness and wan face, the way Diana glances between him and Ollie and her face tightens, in Barry's furrowed brow. Shame curdles in his stomach. The silence just confirms it.
Everyone already knows.
"Guess I'm going cold turkey then, huh?" he says, a stupid quiver in his voice he can't clamp down on.
Ollie's eyes are wide and earnest, and he clears the distance between them to clutch at Roy's hand. "It’ll be okay. There's ways to make it easier now, Roy, and– and I'll be there for you this time, I swear it," he says.
And Roy should have expected it, from the way Ollie reacted when he found out, should have known and in a way he did know and just didn't want to admit it, but still—
"You weren't there the first time?"
—oh, it still hurts.
"I'm sorry." Ollie's voice cracks. "I'm so sorry. I was wrong — so wrong. I've said it to you before and I'll say it as much as you need to hear it again.” Ollie takes a deep breath. Roy’s hands are shaking. “I shouldn't have done any of what I did. You needed help and I should've reacted so much better, and I'm going to do better by you, Roy, I swear it."
Hot, stupid tears are gathering in Roy's eyes, and he yanks his shaking hand away from Ollie's to angrily swipe them away. The words wash over him, ringing in his ears, but they can't be true. Ollie might even believe what he's saying, but Roy can't. Everything is crumpling around him, like rocky foundations have given way completely.
"You left me," Roy accuses, voice wet and pathetic and so, so miserable. "You left me and then when you came back you hit me and you kicked me out and– and everyone always leaves me."
He knows he sounds stupidly self-pitying and jaded and everyone must be staring at him, but like a dam's come unblocked, the words just keep spilling out. The tears keep spilling out, too, which just makes everything worse, 'cos his face is sore and his throat is tight and he's burning up with humiliation.
"And– and I know I fucked up and I always fuck up but what is it that makes me like this? Why am I so– so– so damn untouchable and worthless — why did you take me with you in the first place if you were just going to leave?"
Ollie's expression fractures. He stumbles to his knees in front of Roy, grasping for his hand again. Roy pulls it to his chest before he can touch him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, forgive me, Roy, I'm so sorry," Ollie gasps. He repeats it, over and over, head hanging low and not meeting Roy's eyes. "It's my fault. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
"Roy, I'll tell you what I told you the first time you went through this," Dinah says. Her voice, while grim, has a warmth to it that draws him in like a moth to the flame. "Look at me?"
With monumental effort, Roy does.
"Ollie's mistakes aren't your fault. There's nothing worthless or untouchable about you. And your mistakes don't change that, either."
"Dinah is right," Batman says roughly. "You have accomplished much as a hero. You have become a good leader and a better father, and you have done an admirable job."
It doesn't make sense. A leader? A father? Much less a good one — none of that can be true. And for Batman to be saying it — he must be dreaming. Hallucinating. Where's his kid now, if he's such a good father? Roy's the fuck-up, second-best of the second-bests — he can't square it away. Dinah's platitudes, Ollie's apologies that must be empty, and now of all people Batman is trying to tell him he's someone admirable?
"Here, here," Flash says.
"The others speak truly, Roy Harper," Wonder Woman says. "You will achieve great things, and there are many who love you and support you."
Too much. It's too much, it’s not true, it doesn't make sense. Roy wants to clap his hands over his ears, to yell and scream at them until they stop — to go crawl away into a hole until he dies — he wants to get his hands on a needle and some heroin and make this all just go away.
"You're going to get through this," Dinah insists. "You're still a hero, Speedy, even if it may not feel like it."
"I'm proud of you," Ollie says. "I love you. And it's my dearest hope that one day you'll believe me when I say it."
"You can't," Roy whispers, a denial so reflexive that he can't keep from saying it. "Take it back. You don't— you can't— if you love me why would you leave me?"
"I will not take it back." Ollie's voice is scraped raw. "I love you, Roy Harper, and I know you can't believe it, and that's my own damn fault, but it's true."
The room is emptier, Roy realises; they've been given some privacy. Distantly, he’s grateful —no need for Roy to have his breakdown in front of the kids. He feels numb, all of a sudden, deadened to the thorny tangle of hurt lodged in his chest. If he pokes at it, it'll still be there, but he can't muster another denial. He doesn't have the energy to reject what they're telling him again, but he can't accept it, either.
"…I wanna go home," Roy whispers. "But I don't know where that is."
"Come home with me," Ollie says immediately. "Dinah and me. We'll help you. Please, Roy."
"You need help. Let us help you, Roy," Dinah says.
She holds out her arms. Roy's resistance collapses and he falls into them, sobbing himself apart with noisy cries. Ollie wraps his arms around them both, tentative like he's not sure of his welcome, and it just makes Roy howl harder. He clutches at them desperately, half-convinced if he lets go, they'll disappear forever.
"Stay with me," he begs.
The hold on him tightens. "Always," Dinah says.
"We're staying," Ollie confirms. "We're gonna take care of you, kiddo."
And he thinks he just might believe them.
"Thank you," he whispers. They're gonna stay. They're gonna stay, and the bruise on his jaw will fade, and Roy will get older and stronger and become the person they all say he is. A good leader, a good father. Someone worth sticking around for.
If he can hold on to that, he thinks he might just make it.