Chapter 1: Roy
Chapter Text
And slowly, his walls broke down. Piece by piece, each brick being hit by the one before, falling more easily. And with every breath he craved it, no, he didn’t crave it, but his heart did, his muscles screamed for it, every thought racing through his head was about it. It would just be one little drink, a few sips, a few more maybe, just so that he could get rid of this feeling. Just so that he could function normally, like he was supposed to. Like he needed to. It’d put him back together until he found the strength to.
Just a little help. Just one little trip to the store, it wasn’t far. He could walk. Sure, it was 1am, he had no idea where his coat was, couldn’t manage to think about it, and he could feel the Gotham cold eating at his bones, but it’d be fine. Just a little walk, and he’d be free. Free of the craving that was consuming him and free of the voice of reason screaming, pleading, not to give in. Hadn’t he deserved a little peace and quiet? Just a break, it wouldn’t hurt him, it had been stupid to act like it ever had.
It physically hurt, it felt like he’d throw up if he didn’t stop the vomit from coming out with a good sip of the next cheap booze he could find. He deserved it, deserved to get all messed up, deserved to be alone. Maybe if he relapsed, they’d all leave him alone, it’d be for the best. He didn’t want anyone around, not Jason or Dick or Ollie, he just needed a bottle or two. It got worse and worse, he was curled up on the floor of his apartment, only having gotten home a few minutes ago, and the air around him was thickening, becoming unbreathable. Almost like his body wanted some smoke to fill his lungs instead, his muscles screaming in pain as if they would prefer the ache of a hangover or the sting of a needle to this war of sobriety.
He could manage himself. There should be no one telling him what to do, they had no right, so why on earth was he trying to stay sober this desperately despite clearly not wanting it? There would be no consequences, he would just feel better, feel relieved from this never ending torture of having to keep away from the one thing that could keep his thoughts quiet.
All the reasons he had for wanting to get sober, they seemed like such bullshit, who even cared? It was just a drink. Some cheap vodka sounded like heaven the more he thought about it. Roy tried to call back to the responsible part of himself, maybe to stop himself before it was too late, before he checked for cash in his pocket and stormed out, but it seemed to have been silenced by the song playing through his headphones.
God, was he pathetic. Being sent into a spiral while listening to a song that had motivated him to get sober. Great job, Roy. You are just as bad as they probably think you are.
“Without them, you’re sick and we both know why”
The air was freezing, but he barely felt it. His skin felt wholly untouched, burning even, despite going outside in the cold of January in nothing but a Shirt. Roy would deal with it later. The only thing important right now was to stop, to stop the thoughts and his doubts and everything that was raging in his mind like it was a crime alley street. Hell, he wasn’t too far away from there, he could grab something later-
No, he was going to stay on track now. Just some booze. Just a sip, before he got stopped by some stupid bat. His former mentor wasn’t exactly going to intervene, seeing as he was nowhere near gotham. So only the creatures of the night that Gotham had to offer. Which, unfortunately, included his best friend who he had a crush on. Even more of a reason to hurry and get his fix.
Roy almost stormed into the store, grabbing the first bottle of off-brand vodka the alcohol aisle had to offer. Wait- He’d need another one. Right. The alcohol tolerance he had slowly aquired was always a bit expensive. But it was just two bottles, it’d be fine.
He waited in line at the cash register, anxiety pulling at him as if it was trying to tear him appart. What if for some unknown reason dick needed something from here at 1am? Or even worse, Jason? Or what if he was making the wrong decision, what if they’d all abandon him and-
No. That was what he had wanted. That was the plan. Go back to those times, the ones where he had no worries but how to get money for his next bottle, and he wasn’t required to text anyone back.
It’s not like Jason knew much about his habits. Sure, maybe Dick had let him know that Roy and a bottle of alcohol were a bit similar to a bomb waiting to explode, but nothing more. Even Dick couldn’t know much more. No one did, he had made sure that his secret was sealed tightly and stored away so that no one would know how much of an disgrace he was, going on Patrol drunk and picking up heroine fromt the same dealers he pretended to be fighting.
The moment he stepped outside, he was prying to cap of the bottle open, only now realising how stiff his cold fingers had gotten. But it didn’t matter, he just needed to get it to finally-
The smell of alcohol filled the air, stinging in the winter air. It smelled horrendous, just like every time. But despite hating the taste and the smell, it had become one of the things drawing Roy in, his mind craving the bitterness on his tongue like it was water.
And suddenly, he wanted to stop. Wanted to throw the bottle against the shopwall and run away, before his urges got to him again, before he could make the decision to set himself back by 6 months and take that dammed sip.
But it was too late, way too late, as the glass bottle hit his lips and he started letting the liquid burn down his throat as if he had been a drowning man gasping for air. It felt so inherently wrong, it felt like a punch and like he had been mentally cut open and beaten, but at the same time it felt like coming home after a long day at work. Returning to what he had been destined for after being forced to take a break. Going back to that one person that you learned to hate, but will also love until your dying breath. It was everything and it was nothing, it hurt like a hug from the wrong person. It was everything he needed and all that he hated, but it welcomed him home like a lost son, sip after sip, until he felt himself sit down somewhere. It didn’t matter where, what mattered was that his two bottles were still with him, safe and sound by his side, protecting him.
“Pint after Pint ‘til the well runs dry”
“Hey, Jay…”
“God Roy what are you doing at 4am- We don’t have patrol today remember?”
“Just wanted to her yur voice”
“Why are you speaking like that? Did you get drugged?”
“M fine..”
Why the fuck did he call Jason, that was the worst idea he could’v had. But he was alone, barely awake again in a random corner and he somehow still had half a bottle of the vodka, and he was definetly not sober yet.
“Roy are you sure?”
“Mhm”
He didn’t need his Jaybird. No, just Jaybird, not his. Either way, he didn’t need him to come. To pick him up and take care of him like he was a little kid. Honestly he’d rather die than letting Jay see him like this, a giant mess that didn’t know what to do with himself other than call the one person he definetly shouldn’t be calling. It was pathetic, and he didn’t want Jason to think of him like that. Anyone, but especially Jason, with his glowing green eyes that always expressed just a hint of concern anytime he mentioned the year that they had not talked just a little too much. Because he might not know what exactly happened in that year, but he saw Roy come out of it. Not the worst of it, never the worst of it, but there can only be so much to hide.
And on top of that, Jason and Dick had gotten closer in that year. Dick, the one person he
had still semi-regular contact with, the only one who had any clue of what was going on, even if he still thought that Roy was sleeping in an apartment that he simply didn’t want anyone else to see. The fact that it had never existed, and most of what had truly happened had stayed with Roy alone, ready to be taken to the grave.
So fair to assume, Jason knew some things, whether through Dick or his way too smart to be good for him brain. That didn’t mean he had to know anything more than that. Not because Roy had been so stupid to call him at 4am while drunk out of his mind, for Christs sake.
“We are talking about this in the morning”
Fuck what had he gotten himself into. Now he’d have to explain himself to Jason like he was talking to some counselor like ‘oh please don’t put me into rehab I can handle a little heroin don’t worrry!’ And he’d proably have to lie on top of that to keep his secrets, which he really didn’t like, not when it came to Jason at the very least.
“Nooo”
“Roy you sound drunk, seriously are you sure u don’t need me to come over?”
“Maybe, but s not good like dis”
“Why?”
“Mess”
“Oh Fuck Roy seriously? As if I care, I already got your location, I’ll be there in 5. You good until then?”
“Mhm”
“I wish you was holding me close, can’t be without you I’d rather overdose”
Back at the appartment, Roy woke up again. But this time, he was in his bed, the cold still creeping in the room but not attacking him like it had been the previous night. That probably had something to do with the two blankets he was tucked under.
Wait, how the fuck did he get there. And who in the actuall fuck got him a second blanket, he was pretty sure that he didn’t even own one-
Roy suddenly heard someone talking, it seemed like just outside his almost closed bedroom door, so he tried to listen in a bit.
“Dick can you- I know you’re busy but you are the only one who knows-”
It was Jason.
Why the fuck was he here.
Had he seen anything? Oh dear lord please do not let him have seen Roy like that, anything but that. Surely it wasn’t Jay who had brought him home and tucked him under two whole Blankets was it?
And now he was calling Dick to come deal with Roy. Because he couldn’t. Because he didn’t want to. And he was probably going to leave him alone soon, leave him alone with all the aftermath of this, and he didn’t know if he was relieved by the thought or scared of it.
The Door opened, and in it was standing Jason, seemingly surprised that Roy had woken up. He wanted to just turn around, to be asleep again, or at least to have the rest of the alcohol from the previous night next to him. He couldn’t bear facing Jason after that, at least he couldn’t while being sober.
“Roy…” He had that look in his eyes, that look that Roy knew all too well. That mix of concern and disappointment, and it felt like he had just ripped him open with it. Goddamn it hadn’t been a long time since he had seen it, but never on Jason. Jason, who had trusted him to take care of himself, who had never pressed for what had happened in the year they didn’t speak. Yeah, Dick had thrown it at him a couple of times, every time he stepped a little too close to the wine cellar or the medicine cabinet when he was visiting at the manor. But this felt different. It felt worse.
“I’m fine. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Listen Roy I know you don’t want anyone to get into your business like this, but we are talking about it.” He took a deep breath, looking at Roys’ eyes. What was so special about his eyes all of a sudden? "Now."
“Jay Please-” he tried to plead with his partner. They had only started talking again a few months ago after not being near each other for a whole year. Sure, that was kind of Roys’ fault for pushing him away, but still it had made a significant dent in their relationship.
Roy had been, you know, struggling for a while. Just one shot before Patrol, and maybe two or three after, nothing major he thought at the time. Except one day it all got too much, and he ended up storming to crime alley to find something. Anything, just something that brought him back, that made him feel okay for a while like alcohol used to do before it slowly lost it’s effects on him.
Once he came down from the trip, he realized that he couldn’t do this. Not around Jason who had already seen his mother go through this, not when his best friend probably still hated anyone who gave themselves to something as stupid as drugs. He didn’t want to retraumatize him, he didn’t want to put him through the same thing twice.
So he left. Without a word, he was gone the next day. Off to chase his bad habits where it couldn’t hurt Jason or anyone around him, no matter if it meant living on the streets and spending all of the leftover money on the criminals he used to fight.. Of course, Dick had been so stubborn to keep checking in on him, but Jason had soon given up.
He later told him that he hated him for disappearing. He didn’t trust Roy for months after he showed up again, only starting to get closer to him again recently after a particularly rough Patrol.
And now Roy was probably going to shatter that trust again with the story he’d have to tell his Jaybird. He had always known he was pathetic, for how he couldn’t control himself around drugs or alcohol, but this was another kind of that. It felt so, so much worse. If this was what sent Jason into another spiral he’d never be able to look into a mirror again.
But he figured that either way, their friendship, or whatever it was between them. would probably end here, with Roys’ unnecessary bad life choices. Well deserved, if you asked him.
But Jason was sitting next to his bed, the expression on his face so full of understanding and sympathy that Roy wanted to throw up again. He didn’t deserve Jason being kind to him, he didn’t deserve to be tugged under two blankets, he didn’t deserve to have his best friend sitting at his bed concerned, looking at him with those caring green eyes-
This was really not the way to fawn over how soft Jason looked. Really, Roy.
“You know when I suddenly disappeared? Or like the three months before that, when you said I suddenly behaved weirdly on patrol?”
“Yeah?”
“I was…” He took a deep breath, it felt like that last breath he’d ever take. Honestly, if Jason wanted to kill him for this, he wouldn’t blame him.
“Getting into alcohol. I started relying on it, I needed some before every patrol and after, and in my morning coffee, and it slowly started feeling less effective, so that night before I left when I had a panic attack I…”
He tried to find Jasons’ face, to see what his Jaybird was thinking about this confession, but at the same time he was too ashamed of himself to search for comfort, especially not in the Man sitting in front of him. He ended up just leaving his face buried in his hands.
“went to crime alley. Got some heroin. I realized that I couldn’t go on like this, I couldn’t be a hero like this, and I didn’t want to put you through what happened with your mom again, so I left before I could do any damage.”
Deep breath, and while he was at it he might as well tell the whole Story. The damage was done anyway.
“I lived on the street, I stole money all for another hit. I had nothing anymore, I left it all with you. So when Dick called, telling me that you were becoming more violent, telling me he was concerned, I decided to try and get sober so that I could come back. It took another 3 months, but I felt safe returning. And well, here we are”
Silence laid over them like a thick blanket, suffocating Roy with every breath he took. He didn’t move, couldn’t bear the thought of having to look Jason in the eyes after this confession. Why had he ever returned to Gotham, he knew that he would only hurt Jay-
“So yesterday you… relapsed?”
Not able to bring out any more words, as if the previous ones had burned his throat, he just nodded.
“You don’t really think that I’m just gonna leave you to deal with this alone do you? C’mon you know I love you man. Is there anything you need? Are you hungover or something?”
I love you he said that he loved Roy and oh fuck he seemed to really like that in a way too weird way-
But Jay was right, as always, and the pounding headache was currently killing him even more than his pounding heart did.
A couple glasses of water later, Jason was sitting besides Roy on the couch in the living room, some bad romcom playing in the background.
“Did you really think I’d hate you that much?”
“I think I hated myself more than anything, Jay. I was afraid of you seeing me like I see myself, probably”
“I know that you hate me, and I hate me too”
It had been a few months, and Roy had managed to stay clean, admittedly with lots of help from Jason. They had gotten as close as they had been before Roy disappeared, and although it made Roy happy to be back in his best friends’ life, it also caused his heart to go at maximum speed every time he saw the other. Or worse, taking care of each other after a rough patrol, sleeping in the same bed on missions. It also started happening just because they were both alone and all they really had was each other. Sure, Jason wasn’t on bad terms with his family, but especially with Bruce the relationship was strained and rusty. Nothing he wanted to go back to after a bad day.
And it wasn’t like Roy was complaining, Jasons’ body heat finally making him forget how Gotham always seemed to want to freeze him to death, but it was getting really hard to sleep when his face was buried between his bestfriends mantits.
Jason had been there. Every step of the way back on recovery, Jay had been there to help him, and had not once complained, had not once shown any disgust or had compared him to his mother. Things were going well, and the bad days had gotten less and less.
“Harper, you’re staring” Jason remarked. It was another one of those days where they just sat around in Roys’ apartment, just being around each other while both of them were doing their thing. At the moment, Jays’ head was located in Roys lap, rereading Pride and Prejudice once again, while Roy was supposed to be working on the technology he was holding. Well, instead his brain had decided to stare at the absolutely adorable expression Jason was making while reading. The way his nose scrunched up just a bit while he was concentrating, the way his expression reflected what was going on in the book, he wanted to map it all out and study it until he could recite it while sleeping.
But of course, being raised by the worlds’ greatest detective, Jason noticed the stare that was pointed at him all too soon.
“Oh- uhm, sorry”
“Don’t be, it’s cute” Jay replied, way too casual about it. What did he mean by calling Roy cute? The thoughts started racing in Roys’ head, but he still did not shift his gaze from Jason.
“Roy, whats going on?” Jay said, slightly concerned. Of course, Roys’ zoned out expression would worry him after all that had happened in the last few months. How stupid of him to forget that.
“Yeah just uhm- You-”
Oh fuck he had not meant to say that last part.
“I? Well what about me Harper?” the absolute adorable man under him replied with that smug look on his face, his green eyes seemingly studying his expression, his lips slightly parted. Fuck how he wished he could know how those lips felt, particularly when on his own-
“You’re cute.” he replied, trying to seem calm. He was indeed not calm at all.
“Roy, I've killed people, I'm not cute.”
“Except you totally are”
“Oh shut up”
“Make me” Oh no. Oh nonono he had not thought that through what if Jay would find this weird ohgodnoplease-
“As you wish Harper” Jason replied, placing his hand on Roys' neck and lifting himself up until his face was right in front of the redheads’. He waited for a moment, silently asking for permission and waiting if Roy would show any sign of not wanting this.
In the end it was Roy to close the gap between both of them, however small it was.
And it was- it was- it was so perfect that it made Roy anxious about if his lips were too chapped, god he should’ve put chapstick on, but oh fuck it felt so good, Jay smelled like heaven and his lips felt like they had found their destiny, like they never wanted to do anything but kiss the man in front of him again. He was so scared that the other would pull away at any second, stare at him disgusted and tell him that he tasted like garlic, and at the same time his brain was going hundreds of miles an hour with how much he loved this, loved him, wanted to stay in this moment forever. And for the first time he didn’t want everything to quiet down, he wouldn’t change a thing about the situation, because Jay was perfect and this was perfect, and he wasn’t worrying whether the man he was kissing could taste alcohol on him. No, it was just something silly, something small, because here he was safe and he always would be.
Eventually, he had to pull away to breathe. Of course Jason probably could’ve kept going much longer, considering he was probably bat trained for literally anything, but Roy was very much not. Jays’ expression had softened, a little smile sitting on his face and oh fuck Roy had never seen anything as cute as that before. His green eyes were almost hungry for more, but at the same time had such a softness, the lids closed just a bit, it would’ve made Roy go feral if he looked at it for too long.
“That was- uhm-”
“Amazing?” Jay tried to help Roy out.
“Very much”
“Are we, you know?”
“What do you wanna be Jaybird?”
Jason looked down a bit, almost defeated.
“I don’t know” he whispered, so quiet that Roy almost didn’t hear it.
"That's fine. We don’t have to be anything, we are just us.” Jason nodded against Roys’ chest, the smile returning to his lips.
“So, you want some more of-” he gestured between the two of them, “that?”
Jason only answered by bringing his hand up to Roys’ hair, bringing his face closer to his own and kissing him again. Fuck, Roy would never get tired of this.
He started moving his hands around, trying to figure out where to put them. He ended up with one hand on Jason fucking soft cheek, stroking along the scar left there, and another on Jays’ side, holding him close while maybe also feeling up the others abs just a little.
It turned into a full-on makeout session, both of them coming out of it with their hair a complete mess and their cheeks looking like they had broken into Dicks’ makeup collection (he’d never admit it existed, but his eyes were not that naturally defined, come on).
~~~
Roy woke up. It took him a while to notice that he was laying in a big room, it seemed like an abandoned Warehouse. But suddenly Ollie appeared in front of him, Ollie holding what seemed to be a needle and-
Oh Fuck Ollie was holding Heroin. His Heroin probably. And that expression on his face, that disgust and anger and disappointment-
Had Roy relapsed? Had he run away again, off to where he thought no one would find him, and if yes how had Ollie found him anyway? Ollie, to whom he had had no contact with for years? And why, oh fuck why was he holding that.
“You are a disappointment to every hero Roy.” He let what he was holding fall to the floor, right in front of Roy. “Go. Be an addict if that’s what you want for yourself. But never call yourself my prodige again. You are no Hero, and you are not worth any of this” He took his cap, the bow and arrow that he didn’t even know he had on him, and ripped it all apart before letting it fall to his feet. “I hope the world forgets about you. There will be a new Speedy soon, a new red arrow if needed, but you, Roy, will be forgotten.” He said and left, left him alone in this warehouse, all alone with nothing but the things he held dear broken and a shot of heroin.
All because he relapsed, how did he even get here, why was everything so blurry and where was Jason.
And after being left alone, laying on the floor alone with the needle for enough time to go insane, Jason showed up, a broken glass bottle in his hand. It was the same bottle that he had bought two of all those months ago when he had relapsed, but how did he get that now, why-
He started hitting him, beating him brutally, every hit scratching open his skin with the edges of the bottle, occasionally new pieces broke off and the glass buried itself in Roys’ skin.
And Jason started talking, but his voice was calm and it sounded off, not like Jason at all, but none of this was like Jason-
And that was when it hit him. He had been dosed with Joker venom, that was not Jason, but it was too real to Hallucinate. The things Ollie had let fall earlier were gone though, so that had to have been one. But the Glass hitting him, cutting him open was real, it was so real it had to be-
He started laughing. Maybe he had been the entire time without realizing it, but it burst out of him painfully now, sucking the air out of his lungs and making him vomit it out in bursts of giggles and roars. This wasn’t Jason, it wasn’t Jason, but what if it was what if he had relapsed what if he had laced himself with the venom, and Jason was just giving him what he deserved.
It went on and on, the laughter tearing his intestines apart along with the glass, and when he thought the bottle was too broken to further use, whoever looked like Jason got another one out of some corner.
Until, finally, he distantly heard a motorcycle somewhere nearby. It was Jay, it must be him, he needed to come save him oh please-
Finally, the hitting stopped, but he was still laughing he couldn’t stop it was just so funny even though it was not and he couldn’t breathe, there wasn’t anything left to cling on to, not even the consistent hits now, but he could still feel the pain and he was slipping, slipping away from whatever this was.
“Red Arrow”
“Red Arrow are you there”
He wanted to respond, say no because he hadn’t felt like he was here since he first saw Ollie, but he couldn’t he could only laugh-
Finally, he managed to make out the face of the person in front of him. Jason, Jason who had just beaten him, but that wasn’t really Jason, but what if this was just another hallucination, what if it’d just go on again, he needed to get out, get away from this fake Jason, or he’d be trapped here forever, he’d die because he was stupid enough to relapse.
But this Hallucination wasn’t cruel, he simply carried him outside despite him convulsing because of the laughter shuddering through him, and slowly he realized that this was the real Jason, because Hallucinations can’t carry you out of Warehouses, they aren’t nice to you, they don’t search their pockets for antivenom.
Fuck he really did not want Jason to see him like this. Sure he had seen the alcohol relapse, he had seen him throwing up from the withdrawals all over again, but he hadn’t seen him like this, he probably had heroin in his bloodstream, that must be how the Joker venom got in, and Fuck he never wanted Jason to have to see this, that was why he had disappeared in the first place, why was he here now, he couldn’t do this, couldn’t let Jason see how messed up he actually was, but Jason already did and it was too late, and he would never see Roy the same again now.
“I’m too high, please don’t look me in my face”
Roy woke up, again. Except this time it was different, better, but his sight was still surrounded by some green mud. Oh fuck, he was still not off the venom. But at least he was not having Hallucinations, or rather, he didn’t think that he was having them.
He seemed to be at the Medbay, where exactly he wasn’t sure. Probably not at the batcave, Jason could not be dragged there by a hundred horses at the moment.
Speaking off, his boy- best-, well, something-friend was sitting next to his bed, his hand placed firmly on his.
Seemingly trying not to frighten him, Jason started stroking the back of his hand, and in a calming voice said “Hey Roy”
“Hey. I-” He tried not to cry, not to let the panic overwhelm him, but his efforts were in vain with the next words he spoke “M sorry for relapsing.” Another deep breath, he got this, he had to say it. “Please leave, I can’t keep hurting you like this, I can’t let you see me like this.”
He avoided Jasons’ gaze, too scared of what he’d see, if what they had shared over the last few months would have turned to hate and disgust.
“Roy, you didn’t relapse”
Wait, what.
“But the Joker Venom-I got it through Heroin. It has to be it’s the only way-”
“You were attacked on patrol, you got dosed with something. Babe, that was a Hallucination.” He started shifting Roys’ Blankets around to reveal his left arm, covered in scratches and cuts and old track marks. But-
“Look. It’s just like before. I mean, a lot more nasty scratches for sure, but- No new marks. Sweetheart, you didn’t do this to yourself.” he explained, wiping away the tears that had rolled down Roys’ cheeks.
Jason never really called him Nicknames. Sure, the occasional ‘Harper’ still happened but not this ‘Babe’ and ‘Sweetheart’ stuff. And only now did he notice the tears in Jasons’ eyes, the red contrasting his green Iris.
“What's wrong Jaybird?”
“Do you remember how this happened?” He replied, gesturing to the cuts on his arm, the cuts that covered almost his entire body.
“Yeah you- I mean, someone, beat me up. S how I realized it was the venom, because I was seeing you, but the voice didn’t match-”
Jason was full on crying now, his head buried in his hands and sobs rattling through his body. And Roy couldn’t do anything, because the laughter had come back, and suddenly he was shaking with these sick giggles that were tearing through him, and he was laughing while the person he loved most was crying and everything started slipping-
“Master Jason, I must ask you to remove yourself from the situation.” A man that had just appeared in the doorframe said. Alfred, by the sounds of it. It wasn’t like Roy could look to check, seeing as the laughter had taken over his body once again.
“You seem to be riling up my patient, and as we don’t know what is in this new mutant of the toxin we do not know how dangerous it could be. What is certain is that we do not need him to get worse.”
So Jason left, and Roy was left alone with Alfred. Alfred, who he only now realized, should not be here. Unless they were in the batcave, which-
Jason had brought him here. Despite knowing he’d have to face Bruce, he brought him here. Was he in that bad of a condition? Or was Jason just that worried about him?
“Mr. Harper, I ask you to remain still to the best of your ability.” The butler said as he slowly inserted another needle into Roy, and for a second everything in him screamed, because holy shit a needle that had to be something bad, what if-
But this was safe. It was the batcave, and it was Alfred giving him the medication. Just breathe, Roy.
The laughter stopped after a couple of minutes, and Alfred left. Left him all alone in the sterile white Medbay with the walls seemingly closing in on him with every breath he took. The green was playing with his vision, dancing around it and slowly closing in on him. And it felt like the laughter was running through him again, but he wasn’t laughing, he was frozen into place with no way to breathe or do anything. Jason had cried because of him, he had been sent out and even though he didn’t know what happened or why he felt so guilty, and he was so sure that he had been the one to cause it because who else could’ve, and Jason deserved so much better, he deserved someone who didn’t make him cry like he did.
And what he deserved was something to stop this, to stop this never-ending panic tearing him like he was a piece of paper.
He started looking around, and after a few seconds he found the medicine cabinet, well hidden in the wall across the room. But it only had a simple lock, one that Roy could crack in seconds if he wanted to-
If he took it, he wouldn’t have to face Jason. He never would have to again, because Jason wouldn’t stay with him through that, no way, and then he would be free of him. Roy wouldn’t chain him down any longer, not make him stay in when they were supposed to be on patrol because he didn’t trust himself not to relapse if he was near that damned alley. And he could rot, rot like he deserved to, and no one would have to care anymore, and-
It’d all be okay. He could fix this, he was sure of it.
Carefully, he unplugged the IV he was hooked onto, somehow managing to also suppress the alarm Alfred had set up to alarm him in an emergency, because this wasn’t one, it was just him making things right, returning to who he was supposed to be.
The lock was easy to crack, the green in his vision almost guiding him about which steps to take, what direction he should twist it. Once he was in, he looked around for only a second until he found it. Some morphium tabletes, sitting right at his disposal. And everything in him was telling him, screaming, that this was the right choice, that this was what he needed to be fixed, and that they simply didn’t give it to him because him being fixed would mean that Jason wouldn’t be tied down, and a powerful Jason could threaten them-
But Jason deserved that, he deserved to be powerful.
So he took five and chewed them up, barely registering the gruesome taste they left in his mouth. He sat down, deciding to rest before getting away, waiting for them to kick in.
The door opened with a bang, Jason, that had clearly been crying, and Alfred standing in its frame.
“Roy are you-”
“Master Jason, step aside. We do not know what Mr. Harper has taken and we do not know how it will affect him, I ask you to remain quiet until I am done with my tests.”
Roy started seeing more green dots, gathering in his vision, until it all went…
green.
He woke up to the sound of someone sobbing. No, not someone, it was Jason.
Fuck, he felt awful, but that didn’t matter, not as long as Jay was crying.
“What’s going on Jaybird?” he asked, reaching up to Jasons’ face to cup his cheek in his hand. He felt so peaceful, despite his body protesting with so much pain that he could barely bear it. But that was normal after being beaten up, probably.
“You-” The man shot a glance across the bed, probably at Alfred, and stopped himself in his sentence. “It’s nothing, babe. Do you feel okay?”
“Mhm, just miss you” Roy replied, still holding onto Jason. The skin against his felt so good, the familiar scar putting Roy at ease. Slowly, he wiped away all the leftover tears, trying to comfort Jay so new ones wouldn’t come.
“Wanna cuddle?” He asked, scooting over in the bed a bit so there’d be some space for Jason. It wouldn’t be particularly comfortable, seeing as neither of them were very small, especially not Jason, but it had to do for now.
Jay got into the bed silently, immediately holding onto Roy like he always did when they spent the night together. Maybe his grip was a bit tighter, his body trembling a bit more, but it was nothing Roy cared about. All he knew was that this was perfect, he could die like this and would dance into heaven a happy man, regardless of his wounds. Roy buried his head on Jasons’ chest, smiling like an absolute fool, a fool in love.
After a while of waiting to make sure no one else was in the room anymore, he went up to Jays’ face, placing a light kiss on his lips.
“Don’t cry Jaybird, I got you. We’re in this together.”
They kept cuddling, exchanging kisses, and Roy slowly lost any memory of how they had gotten here, why he was even in the Medbay with Jason, he just knew it was the right thing to do. Maybe Jason had been injured and he was there to comfort him, poor Jaybird.
Eventually, he placed his head on Jays’ chest and fell asleep. It was probably an asshole thing to do, but he couldn’t help it, everything just kept tugging him into this deep, warm, dark embrace, and he didn’t care enough to resist it.
“I can’t be without you, I’d rather die today”
Chapter Text
Jason was running to his motorcycle, speeding through Gotham as fast as he could. Because Roy had called, a drunk Roy had called, and that could mean a lot of things but none that he could think of were positive.
Finally, he arrived at the corner Roy was laying in, trying to figure out how to clean up the mess and get his friend somewhere safe. Well, first had to be the leftover bottles of alcohol, so he gently tried to take them away from Roy. Who, indeed, was very much not receptive to that Idea.
“Roy please-”
“Jay m need them please don” Roy tried to beg, clutching onto the bottles like they held his entire life in them. Oh fuck it hurt to see his friend like this, holding onto alcohol like it was his only saviour while also having fucked himself up with it so badly probably only an hour or two prior. But he couldn’t let Roy see that, he needed to be something he could hold onto right now, so that he wouldn’t have to rely on the alcohol to do that for him.
“Hey Baby look at me,” he took Roys’ face in his hand, trying to distract him from the fact that his grip around the bottles was slowly loosening, “You wanna take a look at my bike? I think one of the lights’ broken.” He tried, knowing that fixing any kind of technology would probably distract Roy long enough for him to slip to the next trashcan without being noticed. His lights weren’t actually broken, but in this state it’d hopefully take Roy a minute to notice that. Worst care, he’d break them himself, and fix them again when he was sober. Big deal.
Somehow, he managed to get Roy onto his bike, and now they were almost there already. Just had to get him into the apartment now. It did end up being, well, a logistical difficulty, seeing as Roy was now clinging onto him like he had been clinging to the bottles earlier. But thankfully, he was strong enough to carry the other around with him.
Once he made it to the bed, he set Roy down on it, attempting to leave to get, well, something. Anything that would help with the hangover of the next morning probably. And although he wouldn’t admit it to himself, he hated seeing his friend like this, he hated all of it so much, he needed to just get away and for this weird feeling to stop. Because he wasn’t the victim of the situation, he needed to get himself back together before Roy would return to a somewhat conscious state so that he wouldn’t hurt his friend when in reality, it was his fault that he felt this repulsed at seeing him drunk.
Well, as the therapist Bruce tried to make him go to would probably say, it wasn’t his fault, it was his mothers. But, same thing.
Too bad that being left alone seemed to not work for Roy. At all. He grabbed Jasons’ shirt, mumbling about not being left alone, please Jay, he couldn’t be alone like this. So eventually, Jason sat down beside the bed, just waiting for Roy to fall asleep. Except, Roy, once again, had other plans. He scooted over on the bed, clearly gesturing for Jason to get in beside him. And so Jason did, admitting defeat. Roy could’ve probably asked him to throw a bomb somewhere and he would’ve done it if it meant that he’d close his eyes.
Those damned, dilated pupils, it had been driving him insane, because that was not his friend, and he wanted so desperately for him to just be back to his normal self again. It hurt to see Roy like this, it hurt to know how much this would affect him once he’d sober up again. Sure, Jason never knew much about Roys’ struggles with these kinds of things, but this was already bad enough, he couldn’t imagine it being any worse.
And this could always potentially lead to it becoming worse again. He could spiral again, he could slip away from Jason, disappear into the night without anyone noticing. What was stopping him? He didn’t even have any secure ties to Gotham anymore, not now that their relationship was so strained, but Jason wanted him to. He wanted Roy to have a hundred-item-long list about why to stay, and he wanted to be at the top of it, because even though he had not yet forgiven Roy for leaving him without a word, he would. He would eventually, maybe this would be his reason to, because he loved Roy. That was his best friend, no one understood him like he did, and he’d never understand anyone like he did Roy.
Jason hated laying next to Roy in that bed. Normally it was fine, it helped him sleep better, but this, it felt so wrong. Like it was his Drugged up mother laying next to him and not Roy, like he was laying next to a corpse again. Roys’ cold, clammy body was sending shivers through him, taunting him with the memories of that night. But he kept pulling himself back to reality, by playing with Roys’ hair, because even in the dark it was a different shade than his moms’, so this couldn’t be her, and he couldn’t be dead. He listened to Roys’ breath, although very shallow, still steady, and clung onto it like Roy was clinging onto him.
Eventually, Roy fell asleep, and Jason left the bed carefully. But Roy was so cold, and he knew how much Gothams’ weather bothered him on a normal day, so he decided to run to his own apartment and get another blanket. Just in case. Just so that Roy would feel a little less like a corpse to him.
He had to make sure that this wouldn’t spiral, that Roy would be safe this time. He couldn’t lose him a second time.
“You’re too blind to see you have a disease”
Roys withdrawals were, well, hard. And although he’d never let him notice that, Jason hated every single second of it. He hated having to sit on the side while Roy was throwing up, he hated seeing his friend beg him, plead with him for just anything that’d ‘make it stop’.
Because that was not his friend, not the Roy he knew, but he looked like him hell even sounded like him, and he was doing everything he could to push Jason away, or at the very least make him let Roy relapse.
“Jaybird please just let me-”
“Roy I can’t let you hurt yourself like that”
“Fine! Just leave! Leave me alone like all of you did! Just get out!” he suddenly screamed, pointing to the door in anger. And even though Jason knew he didn’t mean that, Goddamn it still hurt. Because that wasn’t his friend, no matter how sweet he was acting or how cruel, it was all just to get something out of Jason, to be able to self destruct in peace. And it made Jason sick to see his friend switch from one emotion to the other so quickly, to go from begging on his knees to yelling, how he had to hold him down when he tried to storm out.
Those days were the worst. The days when Roy tried to sneak out, when he resisted to anything Jason had to say, when comforting and patience wasn’t enough to keep him from crime alley.
He’d have to hold his best friend down on the bed, trying to reason with someone who he knew couldn’t be reasoned with, the guilt eating him alive every time Roy tried to get out from under him. But it was what the sober version of his friend asked him to do, and he’d rather be dunked in a lazarus pit again than see Roy relapse again at the chance of it being the beginning of something much worse.
And yet, he stayed because he loved Roy. It was better to be with him than to wonder about what he was up to, and it wasn’t like he was complaining. The time spent with him was great, both of them doing their own thing besides each other, enjoying the peace for once. He was sure he wouldn’t have done this for anyone else, he’d probably have run away long ago, too scared of getting attached to someone who was doomed to leave him, whether by choice or by the force of the drugs controlling him.
But Roy stayed, and if he could, that was enough of a reason for Jason to do the same, because it was Roy goddamn it. He deserved a good support network, someone to help him out, and even if Jason didn’t consider himself enough, it was all Roy would take.
“Jay I hate you”
“Do you now?”
“Yes, I hate you so much, because you make me do this when I could just disappear, why are you even here, you should be off doing something better, doing something good with your life and not help me, you should just leave.”
“And what are you gonna do when I’m gone? Get a drink?”
“Yes, and now Let. Me. Go.”
Roy never punched Jason. He still flinched and ducked away though, the memories from his mothers’ behaviour coming back to haunt him. But this wasn’t his mother, and Roy, even though he seemingly hated nothing more than Jason in those moments, was still an entirely different person. No matter how much he craved a relief, he wasn’t violent, at least not physically.
“Love pills and whiskey more than you love me”
almost 2 years ago
Roy had been behaving, well, out of it for a while. He was wonky on patrol, grabbing arrows that he hadn’t meant to and, on really bad days, missing the easiest targets that even Jason could’ve hit. And of course, he was growing concerned. This was unlike his friend, and it got him hurt more than once.
What if one day, a mistake like that would end up killing someone? What if it killed Roy? He wasn’t exactly fine with the idea of dying himself, seeing as his free trial had not been particularly pleasant, but he still valued Roys life above his own. It probably had something to do with the self esteem everyone always told him he was trying to compensate for, which in his mind, was bullshit. It was simple math, Roy brought much more good to the world than he did, especially considering his whole crime lord thing.
He didn’t regret it, not at all, not when he could still see the change it made in Gotham, especially in the kids of crime alley who knew they were safe now. That they were under protection of someone who scared anyone who wanted to hurt them off. But still, he had killed people, and therefore he didn’t really consider his life to have been all that positive for something like, ‘the greater good’.
It was complicated to say the least.
But either way, he needed to address this. He wouldn’t know from experience what a downward spiral looked like, considering he came out from the bottom of it and just circled around there for a while, but whatever Roy was doing was dangerous, and probably indicating some other issue. And with Ollie recently out of the picture, there really was no one other than Jason to talk to Roy about it. Well, other than Dick, but he wasn’t going to just hand his best friend over to his brother because he was shitty at dealing with feelings. Even if he’d like to do that, it seemed kind of like the Emotionally incompetent thing to do.
Sort of like Bruce making his Butler help with his kids homework. And he really didn’t want to be like Bruce, especially in that regard. Fucking hell he hated when his brain tried to compare him with his adoptive father, especially when it was right.
So, he prepared himself. Not that he stalked Roy, that would’ve defeated the purpose of asking his friend in the first place. But he watched a lot of youtube tutorials on how to confront people, how to comfort them, any possible scenario. Dying had really not helped his emotional health develop like it would’ve for, well, a normal adult by this time. But he was ready to learn. For Roy.
He didn’t pause to think about why he was doing this. He certainly wouldn’t have for probably anyone else, but maybe that was just because Roy was the only one who hadn’t properly known him before his death. Sure, they had talked, but there wasn’t this never gap of grief between them that felt like it could never be bridged.
No matter how much he tried to repair his relationship with Bruce or Dick, there was this underlying hurt that he simply couldn’t fix. Because they had been grieving the boy who died back then for so long, and when he had come back, he couldn’t reverse what they had gone through in order to keep going without him, and neither could he bring the boy they had lost back into their lives.
It was a never ending cycle of them trying to get to know him again, while still hoping for a dead boy to return. Because it had happened once, so why shouldn’t it happen again? Except that it wouldn’t, it couldn’t, and while the difference between him and the boy he used to be drove his family insane, Jason couldn’t help but feel guilty about not being who they needed him to be, knowing their standards after years of idolizing the dead were higher than any human being could meet.
And at the same time, he was so goddamn angry. Angry at them, because after years they hadn’t been able to just get over it, to accept that the boy was dead and try to get to know the one who was standing right in front of him. It couldn’t be that hard to just see, to stop expecting him to be someone completely different. Their grief couldn’t be this bad. Not when they hadn’t even done anything about it, had let crime go on just the same as it was before, when the Joker was still out there roaming the streets as if they belonged to him and everyone walking around were his playthings.
But Roy, he hadn’t known the boy before much, only from brief glances and stories Dick had told him. There were no expectations to be someone who he wasn’t, no hurt over him not reacting like any normal human would have (like, adopting someone to replace him, BRUCE). No, it was just Roy, who he had started getting closer with after finishing up his business as a crime lord and returning to being a hero. Roy, who had stood by him even when he felt the anger take control of him, when he wanted to get out and go on another killing spree just to make it stop.
It was easy to care about someone like that. Easy to learn things that he hadn’t bothered to even think about before, because Roy deserved it. He didn’t ask himself if it was something he’d do for any other friend, because well, he didn’t have much to compare it with.
He waited for parole, thinking that it would probably be best to get it out of the way before putting themselves in another potentially life threatening situation. He waited on the same rooftop where they usually met. He waited, until he slowly got concerned. It had been over half an hour, and Roy was not the type to leave him hanging without a message. So he tried reaching him over the comms, with no success. Roy didn’t pick up the phone either, any text messages got left on delivered. What a great way to start this.
He did go on patrol that night, taking down the occasional goon he ran by, but his main objective was finding Roy. He wouldn’t just leave him hanging like this unless something was going on. He searched all of Gotham, until only the crime alley was left. He wasn’t avoiding it, hell he spent good time there making sure it didn’t fall back to what it had been before he started regulating it somewhat in his crime lord days.
Jason just couldn’t imagine what Roy would be doing there. Sure, he’d been there with him plenty of times, it wasn’t exactly rare for them to be fighting crime in fuckin’ crime alley. But that’d mean that he had just gone on patrol without him, without telling him.
No. He trusted Roy, he wouldn’t just leave Jason in the dark like that. Maybe he had been kidnapped, but he wouldn’t let Jason worry and search the whole of Gotham just because he felt like it.
So he started searching crime alley, occasionally stopping to talk to one of the kids there, giving those who did not already wear a red bat patch. He had started with sewing it onto the kids’ clothes, or teaching them how to do it, back when he started recognizing the responsibilities of being, well, powerful. The fear his name caused in the various criminals of Gotham, it could be used to protect the kids who had once been his only friends, struggling just the same with making ends meet and finding a place to sleep at night. The kids who no one looked after, because their parents wouldn’t be sober enough to file a police report when they went missing.
So he used his sign to make sure they’d be safe. No trafficker would dare touch a kid who was protected by the red hood, not if they valued their and their Bosses’ lives. It hadn’t taken much to build that reputation since he was already established as someone who you would not want to be fighting, but the additional act of taking down a trafficking ring and making sure he had a lasting imprint on any of the members lifes (that was if they had one after) was enough.
The kids who wore his symbol were protected. Some ran to him, seeking affection, telling him all about their lives because they had no other adult they could talk to. Others hid away, afraid of trusting anyone again after the things they had been through. But as long as they wanted it, they’d be protected. No kids should have to suffer crime alley, but he wasn’t financially stable enough to pull a full Bruce and just adopt them all. He did what he could, hoping that it’d help just enough so that they wouldn’t turn out like him.
He started carrying the red hood sign every time he went out, just to be sure that if a kid needed it, he wouldn’t have to wait. Because time is precious, and any minute in crime alley could mean life or death.
And the kids didn’t slow him down in his search for Roy. If anything, they made it faster, seeing as if anything had been going on, one of them would’ve seen it. The kids talked among each other, they had formed a sort of community almost, making it easier to see if anyone was missing. Another thing Jason had encouraged them to do, but it had gotten much bigger than he ever could’ve achieved on his own.
After a while, he heard something. Apparently there was a redhead half passed out in some corner. He’d bought heroin from one of the kids’ fathers, but he wasn’t a regular. More a newbie, seeing as he had paid double the price without questioning it.
But that was the only lead Jason had gotten all night, and it didn’t really seem worth checking out. Roy had never had anything to do with Drugs, he was aware of Jasons’ past with them. He wouldn’t just randomly start taking Heroin, it was nonsense.
Maybe he had just randomly left Jason alone. Maybe they weren’t as close as Jason had thought, and he was just another Partner to him who he could ignore if he didn’t feel like it.
Roy didn’t come the next day, and the day after. Jason was starting to wonder if he should’ve looked at that lead after all, but when he went back to crime alley, no one had seen the man since that night. After a week or so he asked Dick if he had heard anything, but he knew about as much as Jason did. He was worried sick, wondering if his friend had been abducted, searching for him frantically for almost an entire month-
Until he got a call from Dick.
Dick, who explained to him that Roy had texted him back, told him not to search for him, that he was okay but that he wanted to go solo for a while. Which he had told Dick. Not Jason, who had been his partner, his best friend, for months. No, it had been Dick. Because of course it was, Jason had never been a priority in Roys’ life, he had always been just Dicks’ little brother, and why had Jason been so stupid to think that he actually mattered to Roy when clearly, his priorities had been set very differently.
So he stopped texting Roy, stopped calling him every day in hopes of hearing from him. If he didn’t matter enough for Roy to at least talk to him instead of letting Dick, of all people, give him the news, he wouldn’t care for Roy either.
After a few months, he noticed that the messages he had left had been marked as read. Wow, it had really taken Roy months to even open their chat. How best friend of him.
He hadn’t answered to Dick either since he had told him about Roy. But that was different. Their relationship had been getting better, especially now that both of them had lost Roy to lean on. But it was still hard to talk to him, to be constantly reminded of everything Dick had lost because of him, and now, all he could see in Dick was the man who his best friend had chosen over him, Instead of him.
Eventually, he managed to read the text messages Dick had sent him. Something about Roy seemingly not doing well but refusing any help. No details, Jason couldn’t tell if it was because Dick himself didn’t know or because he didn’t want to tell him all of Roys’ secrets without permission. Eventually he figured out that Roy had been drinking. Like, a lot. Which explained why Red Arrow hadn’t made an appearance ever since Roy had left.
Jason couldn’t help but wonder if that lead he had ignored all that time ago had truly been Roy. If he had passed up the chance to help his friend just because it seemed illogical.
Jason got more angry by the day now. Dick got regular updates, even if it wasn’t much, he heard from Roy. They hadn’t even been that close when he left, they talked maybe once a week while they had spent all their time together, but Dick was the one Roy trusted, Dick was the only one he kept contact with. Like Jason was just worthless, a placeholder while Dick was busy. And how he had just left, leaving Jason to deal with the workload they had once shared alone. Willingly.
Jasons’ emotions started showing while he was on patrol. Yeah, maybe he didn’t need to be so brutal, but why did it matter. Why did anything matter anymore, when nothing he had built with Roy over all that time was just worthless, as worthless as he had always been.
And then, after about a year of being gone, Roy came back. Knocked on his front door as if nothing had happened, with a refusal to talk more about what had happened than what Jason had already heard through Dick. But he had come to him. He hadn’t even found an apartment, with nothing more than he had on him to his name. And he had come to Jason.
Of course, that didn’t fix things. Jason tried to piece the puzzle of what had happened together, but it always felt like there was something missing, it all didn’t quite make sense, and Roy wasn’t willing to give him any more clues. And also, he was still so angry at Roy, for all that he put him through, for just disappearing and making him go crazy for a whole month.
But it was easier to not be alone on Patrol, and Roy needed somewhere to sleep, at least for the moment. So as they worked together, they slowly re-established the friendship they had had before, although a lot slower and more carefully. They’d be okay, somehow.
Jason realized what had truly happened when he found Roy, drunk out of his mind in a random corner. Roy hadn’t just been drinking, he must’ve been, well, an alcoholic. It’d make sense, the strange behaviour Roy had displayed before he left, it wasn’t preparations for disappearing, it had been alcohol. And that man in crime alley, the one who had gotten his first dose of heroin-
It had to have been Roy.
He didn’t put all the puzzle pieces together until the morning, too busy being worried sick about what was going on with his friend, if he had taken anything else, but when Roy told him he… understood? Suddenly it all made sense, how Roy had left, how he had no contact with Jason, how he had probably wanted to protect him from himself. And Jason felt himself, although the hurt still sitting deeply, understanding him. Forgiving.
It was okay. Jason would’ve done the same to protect Roy, and although it had been flawed and stupid of him, he was still his best friend.
A best friend who needed his help.
Present
“I need, please-”
Roy looked at him with those eyes, frantic, his pupils shaking, it made Jason want to run away and never look at him again, never be reminded of how much Roy could look like his mother again. But he stayed, against his instincts, and tried to help his friend through it. It’d be okay. Roy wasn’t his mother, he wouldn’t flip out, he wouldn’t die from this. He was trying to get better, he was trying his best.
Roy had warned him of how bad it would get, had told him to go away if he got too bad, if he couldn’t handle it. Jason knew he had meant all of it, but he stuck around anyway.
He didn’t know if he would’ve for anyone else, he didn’t even have a reason behind it really. He just knew that he wanted to be there, right alongside Roy, no matter how he was doing. Just like Roy had done for him. Not in some weird ‘paying him back’ way, rather he was just doing what felt right. And that meant being with Roy.
“Without them, you’re sick and we both know why”
It was just another Patrol. Sure, Jason felt kind of uneasy because the Joker was on the loose again, but it happened way too often for him to just leave anytime the Clown was out there. And it was fine. The others had promised him that they’d take care of it, as they always did. Bruce still tried to bench him every time, but seeing as he wasn’t really working for or with Bruce, that was easily ignored.
Roy and him had split up for a bit to follow up on two different leads they had gotten, but Jason didn’t really remember what it was even about. He hated himself for forgetting.
He noticed that he hadn’t heard from Roy in a while after finally getting done with his part of the job, leading him to try to reach the other over the comms. No answer. Well, that wasn’t too unusual. Not yet at the very least.
After another half an hour of no signal and no answers he called up oracle to track where his partner was.
“I’ll send Batman and Robin to handle the situation” came as a reply. What the actuall-
“This is my partner, not Batmans’. Where is he.”
“Red Hood I don’t think you should-”
He was getting more aggregated. Going off her tone, the situation was serious, so why was she wasting time now?
“Oracle, send me the coordinates now.”
“Jason it’s- It’s the same Warehouse. They rebuilt it a couple of years ago, according to our database it was once again abandoned once the owner learned of what happened there.”
“I’m going there, be ready if I call for backup.”
Like hell he was going to be stopped from saving his boyfriend simply because of some trauma. Sure, it made him feel uneasy, his grip on his bike tightened with every corner he took, but he wasn't just going to leave Roy while he was in Danger. He hadn’t gotten over all of it, still haunted by nightmares and occasional panic attacks, but the worst was over.
Jason wouldn’t let Roy suffer the way he did. He wouldn’t be too late.
Of course he still remembered the way to it. It was practically carved into his brain, every corner and every shadow. He had come back here when he was revived, over and over again, checking to see that it was still blown up. To see if he truly did die there. He never should’ve stopped, if he had seen what they were doing to the place he could’ve stopped it, maybe Roy wouldn’t be trapped in it now, or at least he would be somewhere that didn’t make Jason so unfocused.
Once he finally got there, he started hearing muffled screams. And a voice, that voice, laughing, screaming, making fun of his victim. It was him. The one person he couldn’t face, not when he didn’t have the goddamn time to put a bullet in his skull. Not when Roy was the one at risk.
It was easy to get through the door. What wasn’t easy was everything that came after.
Roy was barely even breathing, beat with an empty alcohol bottle that the man in front of him was still holding. He must have shards of glass stuck in his wounds, and there was a smile on his face, almost like it was carved into it, and Jason lost all control which he had fought so hard to get back. He slammed the Joker aside, the Clown so unprepared for his anger that he almost flew to the other end of the Room. Away from Roy.
He wanted to do more, to beat this Joke until he couldn’t smile ever again, but the sight of Roy brought him back. Whatever he was going to do with the Joker, it would have to wait until he was sure that Roy would survive. It was the only thing that mattered in the moment.
He carried his partner outside, careful not to make any glass dig any deeper than it already had. It was clear that he had been dosed with Joker venom, especially after he started laughing. And oh fuck the laughter, it made Jason sick, not only did it sound so painfull, like it was hurting Roy just by tearing through him, but it was Jokers laugh mixed with Roys, and he could feel it cutting through his psyche, right back to that night, and it almost make him stop, but he had to keep going to make it stop. To make it stop for Roy. To make sure he wasn’t too late too.
The cave was the only place he could go that would have the antivenom to treat Roy, he had thought. So he sat by Roy while they were performing tests, trying to dose him with an antidote, not moving a muscle unless asked to.
Eventually, Alfred came in.
“Master Jason, I’m afraid the toxin the patient has been dosed with is a new variant that we have yet to make an antidote for. We are working on it, and for now, the old version should be enough to calm its effects down. I however cannot predict how Mr. Harpers recovery will look like, or what side effects this new venom will have on him”
He wanted to scream at someone, wanted to hit the walls and throw things around. But it wasn’t Alfreds fault. It was the Jokers. He should’ve killed him long ago when he realized that Batman wasn’t going to do it. The man deserved it, and most of all, the people of Gotham didn’t deserve to be the next potential victims of his madness.
Roy hadn’t deserved this.
The time following felt like it slowly ripped Jason into pieces, tearing off a part of him every time he saw Roy. Roy, who he loved beyond what even he could imagine, was a fragment of himself, set back to that day when he found him in an alley. The conversation that followed when he first woke up almost ripped his heart out, it made him even more angry, to think that the Joker had as it seemed used every single weakness he could find out of the two of them and used them to have his ‘fun’ with Roy. He wanted to throw up and cry, to hug Roy and stay away from him so that he wouldn’t be weaponized for this obsession Joker seemed to have about making Jason suffer.
Eventually he was kicked out of the Room so that he wouldn’t get Roy all riled up again. He needed to focus on recovering.
So he strolled through the Manor, eventually deciding to stay in the library. Jason tried to read, but the letters kept swimming around, his brain kept going in circles around the one person he wanted to be with right now. He kept trying and failing, eventually getting so frustrated that he started hitting his head against one of the books, his tears falling onto the cover. Normally he would’ve hated himself for mistreating a book this way, but he couldn’t be bothered to think about it at the moment. He couldn’t think about anything but the sight of Roy, really. How he had looked when he first found him, or in the bed in the MedBay, how his eyes had started tearing up telling him to leave because he didn’t want to hurt him with his own addiction. Thinking felt like stabbing himself, but he couldn’t turn it off either.
Until the call from Alfred came.
“Master Jason, could I ask you to get to the MedBay? It is rather urgent.”
“I can’t let you go, I try but I always know”
“What’s going on- is Roy alright?”
“I believe it is best if you sit down with me for a second before going in there Master Jason.”
Jason sat down on the chair in front of Alfred. His heart was racing as if it was trying to run a marathon, worries shooting through his head like arrows.
“Mr. Harper has managed to somehow get his hands on some of the morphium we store here. He fell asleep again soon after, but according to the tests I have managed to run since then, the Joker venom is increasing its effects immensely. It is as if he had taken a deadly overdose that we can do nothing against.”
Roy had taken Morphium while Jason was gone. Roy was going to die because of it. He couldn’t handle the information, couldn’t register the fear and anger cutting through him, it was all too much to even feel it anymore.
So he decided to get in there. Sitting by his partner, no matter how much it hurt to look, to see him after hearing that information, it was the only thing he felt like he could do. Alfred followed behind him, listing off any additional Information he might want to know.
“He will probably keep pushing for another few hours, he might even wake up before the end. I recommend to keep this information from him, the panic it would cause might enable the Joker venom to work even faster”
“Why can’t you do more? if you have this much time, why can’t you find a cure.” he asked, trying to appear calm but his anger and frustration slowly rising to the surface. He didn’t mean to be like this towards Alfred, it wasn’t his fault this had happened.
“There is a cure to this new Joker Venom being worked on, it might slow down the effects of this. However, the now increased power of the opioid is taking effect rather methodically, so there is little doubt that whatever antidote we might find, it would be too late for the young man” he took a deep breath, looking at Jason, who couldn’t bring himself to do the same.
“I am sorry. I wish I could’ve done more.”
Jason didn’t reply. He did nothing over the next hour, he just sat beside the bed that Roy was laying in, waiting. Hoping for him to wake up and declare that he had never felt better, that they could go home now, maybe cuddle on the couch while some of his, frankly awful, movies was playing.
He felt so numb, and at the same time more vulnerable than ever. He regretted every moment that they had spent apart, thinking that he’d have salvaged the time more, would’ve tattooed the memory of every kiss they shared onto his brain, if he had only known just how limited they’d be. He considered the thought of Roy being revived, played with it solely on the basis that no hero ever seemed to stay dead. But he knew that it was wrong, that he’d never wish something like that on the man he loved so much. He had deserved an amazing life, but all he could do now was to give him a peaceful death.
He thought about the future, trying to imagine the things they could’ve had. If only he had been there, they could be at home right now. Roy would make more progress, he deserved to recover fully. He deserved to live a life free of his demons, not one where he died before ever being able to leave them behind. Maybe one of them would propose one day, and they would’ve been able to have a wedding. Live together.
The prospect of a stable future like that had always frightened Jason, so much even that Roy had learned not to bring it up. But now he felt himself yearning for it, missing what could’ve been, more for Roys’ sake than his own. Because he didn’t think he deserved all that, it always felt like more of an alternative Universe than a possible future for him, he couldn’t even begin to properly imagine it without thinking about how he was too broken, too broken to settle down, to be loved.
But Roy. Roy had deserved that future. From what they had talked about, he knew Roy wanted to settle down one day. Have a family, maybe even retire from being a superhero. But now Roy was the one who that dream was being taken from, dying in a job that was never supposed to be the end for him.
And Jason would be alive. He would be there to see the years pass, knowing that if he had stayed at Roys bedside that day, he would see him grow older. Maybe they would fight, maybe they would break up. Jason didn’t really care what the future would’ve had planned for them, as long as Roys’ face would slowly form wrinkles, his back hurting from all the times he had sat like a shrimp when he was young.
As long as it would’ve meant that Roy got the chance to be anything but young.
Slowly, tears crawled down Jasons’ face, burning his face. He hadn’t cried in a while, he considered himself more of a ‘punching walls’ Guy. But he felt so hollowed out, like the tears represented his insides being ripped from him with every minute that passed. With every breath Roy took, knowing that it was one of his last ones.
He wanted to be angry, to punch the walls until his knuckles were bleeding, to yell out at the universe and accuse it of being unfair. To beg for Roy to get a second chance at life, less painful than his. If he could only suck the venom out of him, he’d do it any second. If anyone deserved a future, it was Roy. He hadn’t been supposed to be here anyways.
And all this as a mockery of him. It had been him the Joker was trying to hurt, not Roy. Sure, hitting him with those bottles was meant to torture Roy. But at the same time, it seemed to be another cruel Joke about alcohol killing his loved ones, one by one, even though Joker couldn’t have even known that.
The Warehouse, the way he had beaten Roy, the smile on his face when he had seen the Red Hood enter the Room.
This hadn’t been about Roy, but it still caused his death. He had been forced to give his life to a scheme that hadn’t even been targeted at him. Not a heroic death that would be honored by the league, nothing special.
At that moment, Jason decided that he was going to make the league remember him. If not for his death, then for his life. He wouldn’t be forgotten, by no one. Just like none of Jokers’ victims should’ve been forgotten. Just like he hadn’t been.
He suddenly saw Roy shifting, moving. Having woken up, he wanted Jason to get into his bed with him. He held him in his arms, Roys’ head resting on the same place in his chest that it always did when they were cuddling. He savoured every single one of Roys’ words, wishing for the moment to never end. He tried to mentally point out every single thing that was happening, hoping to remember it forever. The tone of Roys’ voice, the sleepiness that drenched his expression. He hated knowing where it was from, but he loved the person wearing it. He would frame it in his head, looking up at it every single day, because it’d be better than anything he’d see of Roy in the future.
No matter how much pain he was in, it was better than remembering him as just another memorial, or as nothing more than a body.
He held him close, trying to remember every crevice of his lips when they kissed. He knew that he’d eventually forget, forget the sound of his voice and the exact shade of his eyes, just like their old memories were blurry and blended together. But he didn’t want to, he wanted to hold onto it forever, or at least as long as Roy should’ve been able to live.
It felt like every moment with him was ripping his heart in pieces and healing it simultaneously, the bittersweetness of the moment being more than he could handle. Who knew that of all he had been through, this was what would truly break him. Not because it was traumatic, but because he could’ve avoided this. He threw not his own, but Roys’ life away. And while his own crashout was traumatic, it hadn’t hurt like this.
Maybe that was because he still couldn’t bring himself to truly like who he was. But Roy, oh Roy, he couldn’t remember a time in which he had loved someone so dearly before.
He was still holding Roy when he felt his breathing calm down, slowly drifting off to sleep. Jason was tired, the comfort of Roy on his chest almost causing him to do the same. But he kept himself awake, telling himself that this would be the last time he would ever feel that familiar weight, playing with Roys’ hair as he leaned against him in his sleep.
He didn’t cry again. He didn’t want to cry in the last moments he would have with the man in front of him. He had already grieved him earlier, and he could do it again when he was gone. But not right now. Not when Roy still thought that he was safe with Jason, that he would wake up the next morning.
Jason would give him the illusion of safety as long as he could. He wondered if it was cruel to keep this from Roy, but he ended up deciding that it was for his sake. That the knowledge of only having such little time left and not being able to do anything with it because of his state would kill his psyche before his body died too.
Bruce had contacted his family earlier to inform them about what was going on. Ollie had said that he’d come to the funeral, but didn’t want to see Roy while he was ‘high out of his mind’. Bruce suspected that Ollie simply thought Roy wouldn’t want him there.
Jason stroked Roys hair, trying to remember exactly how it smelled. If only he could put all of this in a jar and keep it forever, a memory of the man that was supposed to spend many more nights with, holding him in his arms.
Eventually Roys breathing started to slow down more, sounding less controlled with every breath. Jason knew it was coming, but he only held Roy closer. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to let go again.
Roys’ last breath sounded painful, short and unsteady, like he was trying desperately to hold on. To hold on to the life that he had so desperately wanted, that he had fought criminals his entire life for. So that one day, the world would be safe enough without him.
Now that day would have to come much sooner than he had planned for it, the weight of the life he could’ve lived hanging heavy in the air, suffocating Jason slowly.
“I wish you was holding me close”
Jason remained in that position for hours. He didn’t cry, not wanting to get any tears on Roy. Until eventually he thought that maybe that would wake him up, so he let them go. Let them roll down his cheek onto the bed sheets, some of them finding their way into Roys’ hair. He should’ve woken up now. He wasn’t a heavy sleeper, and surely he would care about what was going on that would make Jason cry.
But rationally he knew. Knew that no matter what Roy wanted, he couldn’t wake up again. That the body he was holding so tightly was slowly going cold and stiff, just like he once did.
That this was the end of Roys’ life, however unfair and short it had been.
It should’ve been him. But it wasn’t, and all he could do now was hold onto things that had been. He replayed the last conversation they had had over and over again, as if that would bring Roys’ voice back to this lifeless body.
Eventually, Alfred came in and took Roy with him. Not without Jason protesting, crying, screaming that he was just resting. But it was time. Rigor Mortis had already set in, making Roy look stiff as he was being carried out.
Jason stayed in that bed. It still smelled like him, letting him remain in the fantasy that Roy wasn’t truly gone a little longer. If he was dead, then why did he still smell him? Why could he hear him talk, feel his lips pressed up against his own?
He didn’t know how much time had passed when Dick entered the Room to sit down next to Jasons’ bed. No, Roys bed. If this belonged to him, it meant he would return to it, to lay down next to Jason and place his head on his chest.
“How are you doing, little wing?”
“Where’d they bring Roy?”
Dick sighed, pausing for a bit before answering the question.
“I can’t tell you exactly where his body is, but they are arranging his funeral right now.”
Only now did Jason see Dicks’ reddened eyes. Of course he was crying. Roy had been his best friend for so many years, they had always had some love for each other, even after Jason and Roy started getting closer.
“Bruce wants us to help with the arrangements since Ollie obviously isn’t exactly up to date with how Roy would’ve wanted things.”
Oh.
“Not right now- just, think about it.” His older brother took a deep breath once again, trying not to cry in front of Jason. He had never been good at hiding his tears.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No”
The days after were messy. When Jason wasn’t helping with what Roy would’ve wanted his funeral to look like, he was rewatching the surveillance footage from the MedBay of that night. He could see Roy alive, speaking, smiling. He always skipped back to the beginning once he saw Roy fall asleep on his chest.
He still went out as Red Hood. It took a week of tracking him down, but eventually, he found the Joker. He shot at his head, once, twice, three times, until he was sure that the Clown was dead. The body was burned just outside of Gotham, his ashes buried in the next Woods. No one could bring him back now.
Jason didn’t feel the satisfaction he once thought he would feel at killing the Joker. But he wasn’t surprised, not when all he could think of when looking at the Clown was that if he had only done this a little bit sooner, Roy would be right beside him now, and not in a morgue.
They finally figured out everything about the Joker Venom, even though it became pretty unnecessary after the mans’ death. It had a certain combination of Drugs that would make the victim act in a way that benefitted the venom, like causing the victim to take a Drug the venom could amplify, or hurting itself in a way that the Venom could take advantage of.
All Jason heard was that Roy had been forced to relapse and had apologized to him for it.
Day after Day passed, and he couldn’t even bring himself to show up at Roys funeral. He couldn’t make himself confront reality like that. It felt like Roys’ death would only be real if he saw him being buried, 6 feet away from Jason.
He hated himself once more for not showing up. Instead he was at crime alley as Red Hood, making sure to regulate the Drug traffic further. He couldn’t stop it completely, no matter how much he wished for it, but he could try to make sure that no kids were targeted, no vulnerable people.
He made the kids promise him to call if they thought that someone needed help like the red haired man back then had. He got every single one a burner phone and made sure his number was saved.
He didn’t really sleep. It was almost painful to lay in his bed without Roy by his side, the Gotham cold getting to him for the first time.
Eventually he visited the grave. Told Roy about all that he had done, talked with him for hours. Occasionally Roy replied.
Jason knew it was a hallucination, but he had come to accept those. He would accept anything that would bring his Roy back, even if it was merely a cheap copy.
Sometimes he screamed at them, yelling that they weren’t real, that they didn’t deserve to look and act like Roy because they weren’t him.
Everywhere he looked, he saw what Roys future could’ve been. Maybe he opened his own mechanics shop on that corner over there. He could’ve bought that flat for him and Jason to live in, maybe even adopt a kid.
It hurt to think of the future and of the past, but Jason relished in it. Relished in the memory of Roy.
“Can’t be without you, I’d rather overdose”
Notes:
Fucking hell this is the longest Story I've ever written and it only took me like, a week total?
Also I hope you cried because I did too.