Numerous Things That Never Happened

Roy’s had his share of morning afters. There’s the morning after that’s all laughter and confusion, getting each other’s names and sorting out each other’s clothes. There’s the morning after that starts with him feeling like butter melting in the sun, warm and liquid and pleased with the world, and then turns into the taste of vomit in his mouth and rejection in his gut. There’s the morning after that’s the start of something new, when he doesn’t want to move his nose from his companion’s side, and figure out what they’ve begun, because the warm smell is like home.

This isn’t like any of those. He’s stiff, and sore, and cold, and lying on a concrete floor. And being mooned by Robin. Not even by Dick, which wouldn’t be a completely new experience, but by the new one who hasn’t got a name. “What happened?” he croaks, but Robin ignores him and squirms slowly. Roy realized he’s not being mooned on purpose. Robin is hogtied, and his tights are around his ankles. Then Robin gives a grunt and pulls his hands away from his ankles, and Roy realizes two things at once. First, that Robin wasn’t hogtied, he was manoeuvring his legs between the hands tied behind his back to bring his hands in front. And second, although Robin is across the room and Roy’s eyes are still crusted from sleep, he knows that Robin’s hands are tied with his bowstring.

With his hands in front of him, Robin kneels up, and then sees that Roy’s awake. Roy is paralysed looking at Robin. There’s no mistaking the kid for anything but mauled. His lips are bruised, and his throat, and there’s a hand shaped bruise on one hip.

Robin looks at him and Roy has no idea what it means that he can recognize expressions through that mask. Robin’s giving him the boiler-plate Bat look: a “may I help you?” that encourages a negative response.

“Oh god, please tell me we didn’t.”

“We didn’t,” says Robin, flatly, and a bit too loudly, which makes sense when he reaches up with his bound hands and pulls plugs from his ears. He doesn’t bother trying to pull up his tights, but examines his bound wrists. He twists his (swollen) mouth and applies his teeth to the problem.

“Fuck, we– what happened?” He gets up, and stumbles across the room to Robin.

Robin stops gnawing. “You don’t remember?” He looks like the situation is about as troublesome as a mild case of heartburn.

“God, no. I– fuck, let me get you untied. Where’s my– Where’s your belt?”

“You threw it down the heat register.” Robin tells him this, and watches him mildly interested, for fuck if he knows what kind of reaction he’s supposed to be displaying to the news he’s apparently raped a kid and tied him up and–

“I’m–” he stumbles and catches himself against the wall and chokes, gags.

“Hey!” says Robin. “Don’t vomit, untie me!” So Roy finds his own belt, which has a blade in the buckle. Robin holds his hands up to Roy like it’s nothing, and Roy manages to cut him free without nicking him.

Roy remembers something that hadn’t made sense earlier, and asks, while Robin pulls up his tights, “Why did I put– in your ears, what was that?”

Robin says, in precisely the didactic tone Roy expects from Bats, “I put them in. It’s how you got the jump on me. They were supposed to counteract the effects of Circe’s spell by playing white noise.” He frowns at them, and then his mouth twists in a little not smile. “I guess they worked.”

How like a Bat, to imply that the only reason he could take a kid who hasn’t been shaving for– but that line of thought reminds Roy that he doesn’t exactly have the moral high ground.

“Shit. I need to go–” find a body of water big enough to drown myself in, before Dick finds me and does it for me. “Oh god, Dick’s going to kill– Batman’s going to eviscerate me.”

Robin frowns sharply, head coming out of his undershirt, which he’s in the corner retrieving. “Roy, you were raped. I’m sorry, but you weren’t responsible for what happened.”

“I was– Why are you taking this so– I’m freakin’ out here! I just fucked a fifteen year old!”

“Okay first, I’m eighteen, so you can stop that.”

“Like hell you are.”

“Hey, I’m not that short– never mind. Second, I’m not injured, and we’re both alive–”

“Did I– Did I fuck you?” asks Roy desperately. He thinks he can live with himself if–

“I’m not answering that!” says Robin indignantly, like, hey, that’s personal.

“Please, tell me if I did or not,” begs Roy.

“No. I’m trying to repress here. I’m not giving you a play by play.” It’s amazingly easy to forget who the victim is here. Robin’s wearing his tights and a black tank that wasn’t part of the uniform when Dick was Robin, (and the mask, always the mask) and looks like a member of a modern dance troupe.

“Just, I need to know, just– I won’t ask any other questions.”

Robin heaves an exasperated sigh, and scrubs his hand through his hair. His wrists have ligature marks on them. “No, okay. So you don’t have to worry about that. Look, we need to find everybody.”

“I didn’t– how are we defining ‘fuck’? Was there penetration?”

“I’m not answering– Dammit!” Finally Robin looks a little upset. “Stop asking me! Or I swear I’ll tell Dick what you called me when you weren’t calling me ‘baby’.”

“I– wait. Are you saying I…”

Robin gives him an amused eyebrow. “Do you really want to know?”

Roy considers. “I think… no.”

Robin sort of smirks, and says, “It’s given me a whole new picture of your relationship with Nightwing.”

Roy wants to wake up, and have this never have happened. He closes his eyes and tries. Nope. Zero for something like a million. “How come you’re not freaking out?”

“I freaked out, like, an hour ago. I’ve had my freak out. If you’ve had yours, can we go find everybody else, and maybe figure out how to get my utility belt out of the heating system?”

“I bet the JLA never has missions like this,” says Roy, trying to decide if he can cancel the panic.

“Or if they do, I bet they never get written up in the official report.” Roy snorts. “I promise, I don’t want anyone finding out about this any more than–”

The door bangs open and Superboy flies in. “Robin! Thank god. I just–” He shakes his head like a dog trying to get water out of his ears. “I just saw the robot girl and Metamorpho,”

“Shift,” mutters Roy.

“doin’ it, and they were all over the place. Like really. I mean, the Ravers were into some weird, kinky shit, but I don’t… I need my brain scrubbed out with Kryptonite soap. Seriously.”

“Kon,” says Robin.

“And I think Bart was with Kori when it happened, because they were, uh…” Superboy seems to suddenly realize what he’s looking at. “Whoa. Uh. Is this… Did you… um. You and Arsenal?”

“Kon,” says Robin, sounding like someone Batman has raised, “now would be a good time for you to exercise discretion.”

“Rob, uh. Are you… okay?” Superboy seems pretty concerned for Robin, in that unsubtle way of his. He steps toward Robin, realizes that this may be a bad time to try to make physical contact, and hesitates. Roy goes back to feeling like a paedophile, and covers his face with one hand.

“Discretion, Kon,” says Robin, very tightly.

“You’re sure you’re–”

“Superboy!” calls a voice Roy knows all too well, from down the hallway. “Have you found him?”

“Stall!” hisses Robin urgently, and bolts for the corner where his uniform is piled. Roy checks himself over as well as he can, but shit. There’s not much they can do to disguise–

“No?” says Superboy, as lamely as possible. Robin makes a disgusted noise, wrestling with his boots, then suddenly drops the boot, and pulls on his gauntlets.

Roy hopes Lian won’t miss her father too much, and that Mia and Connor will prevent Ollie from giving her a lame nick-name and putting her in a cape.

“What the hell does that… mean,” says Dick, coming through the door, and stopping at the spectacle facing him. Roy knows he looks guilty as hell, Robin’s only just pulled the green tee on, and Roy notices for the first time the beard-burn across the edge of Robin’s face.

“Tell me you didn’t,” says Dick woodenly.

Robin obediently says, “we didn’t.”

“You did.”

Robin shrugs. “Next time, I will absolutely put the ear plugs in sooner. I have learned a valuable lesson. Can we go now?” He lies just like Dick: by implication, and without hesitation.

Dick’s eyes narrow, and he strides forward and grabs Robin by the wrist. “Why are you wearing the gloves, in bare feet?”

“You have no grounds on which to criticize anyone’s fashion choices, Nightwing.”

“What the hell did you do to him that he’s hiding his arms?” demands Dick over his shoulder, still holding Robin.

“Hey!” says Robin. “Do I ask you about the peanut-butter and the bat-cuffs I found under the–” and Dick swings back to look at him and they appear to be conducting some kind of rapid fire negotiation with their eyebrows. Which is pretty impressive, since they both have masks on.

“Uh, so,” says Superboy, trying to break the tense silence. “Uh. Boy. I can’t believe I got separated from that blonde chick right before the mojo hit. Is that unfair, or what?”

The Bats break eye-contact, and Roy can’t tell who won. “Cassie?” asks Robin, distracted, and gives his arm a tug which Nightwing doesn’t respond to.

“Thunder?” asks Nightwing.

“No,” says Kon, “the one with the, uh, costume,” he indicates with a what Roy at first thinks is an obscene gesture and belatedly realizes is meant to represent Anissa’s diving décolletage.

“Nightwing?” comes the new Wonder Girl’s voice from outside and down the hallway. “Nightwing, are you there?”

“Nightwing, I can’t get dressed if you don’t let me go,” points out Robin. Nightwing drops his arm, and turns his slitted glare on Roy as Robin puts on his boots.

“Yeah,” calls Dick back, flicking his gaze back to Robin. Roy realizes he wants to keep watching both him and Robin, and also keep himself between them, and as a consequence his head is whipping suspiciously back and forth. If Dick thinks he needs to chaperon them… Then he’s very wrong. The gaze he turns on them is impartially pissed, which means that he’ll probably forgive Roy for this in a couple of years..

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she calls as she approaches, “but would you be willing to get tested? I mean– Oh. Hi, guys.”

Roy covers his face. Typical Dick. “Nice one, Boy Wonder,” he says into his hands, and then pulls them down to look at Dick.

Dick’s got his stoicism-in-the-face-of-humiliation face on, which is subtly different from his I’m-gonna-kick-six-kinds-of-ass face. Robin is wincing hard: it pains Bats to see secrets kept poorly.

It’s nice to have Dick’s attention off him. Not to mention the comfort of company in the paedophile club. Superboy is looking at mini-Wonder with a baffled expression on his face, and Roy leans against the wall, then just lets himself slide down it.

“You– Are you okay?” asks Superboy asks her. Good to know it’s not just Roy who he thinks is… whatever.

Mini-Wonder turns bright red slowly, from the bottom of her collarbone all the way up to her hairline . There’s a clunk, and a faint whirring sound which Roy wouldn’t even notice, except that Robin cocks his head in what on anyone else would be “alert” and on a Bat means there’s some kind of life threatening emergency. Or they’re going to pretend there’s one to get out of an awkward situation, which Roy wishes he’d thought of first.

“What?” asks Dick.

“Uh… I think that’s the heating system and my belt’s down the vent.”

“But–”

“Yeah, but the experimental new one is thermo-labile.”

“Everyone out!” says Nightwing into the comm, and they’re all running for the door, Superboy still looking confused but, like Roy, smart enough to run when Robin does. He ends up being swooped out of the building by a flying mini-Wonder which is not even close to the most undignified thing to happen to him today.

She puts him down and says, “Sorry.”

Clearly he’s a man who doesn’t learn, because he only narrowly stops himself from giving her the look and saying, anytime. He brushes himself off, instead. Nightwing is doing a roll-call, but everything is quiet and Roy wonders if Dick overreacted.

Until the blast knocks him ass over tea-kettle into Superboy. A piece of burning debris lands in his hair and singes it, and while he’s batting it out he doesn’t notice that his trousers are burning until Robin points it out.

“Thanks.”

“Please,” says Robin. “Don’t mention it.”

“All right,” says Nightwing. “We’ve managed to lose Circe. I want the teams to rendezvous in our respective headquarters and debrief.”

Roy can’t believe that Dick still thinks they can salvage anything from this.

“But first,” says Dick, toggling off his comm, “there’s something we need to deal with.”

If Dick just wants to beat the shit out of him, Roy’s okay with that. He kind of thinks he’ll feel better about himself afterwards. But he’d hoped Dick could wait ’till the kids weren’t watching.

“We need to all agree that this never happened.”

“Deal!” says Robin, almost before Dick finishes his sentence.

“I, yeah, I can agree to that,” says tiny-Wonder.

Roy feels like… like Ollie should feel half the time, but doesn’t. Like he’s probably given this kid trauma for the rest of his life. “Robin,” which, God it feels weird to say about this kid, “are you sure…” he lowers his voice. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to… talk to someone about this?”

“Arsenal,” Robin explains patiently, “It was like being climbed all over by an overeager puppy who wanted to lick my face. There’s nothing I need to talk about.”

Roy looks at Robin. Robin looks at him. Roy has the horrible, sinking feeling that Robin is telling the truth.

“…It never happened,” Roy tells Dick.