Stand Alone: Just to Know You're Alive
Title: Just to Know You're Alive
Wordcount: 2000
Pairing/Characters: Hints of Dick/Roy if you look, Roy Harper, Lian Harper, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Oliver Queen
Summary: Roy wakes up. (Fixing the canon fuck-up, one fanfic at a time!)
A/N - For everyone as pissed off by Roy's new comic as I am, here is a happy piece of denial.
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Alone, locked away from everything he knew, Roy Harper screamed after Dick and Dinah. The bright room burned behind his eyes and the sweat drying on his skin pulled his suit tacky against his back. They wouldn't come back, though. He could see them beyond the room and hear their alien conversation.
“The only person who can get Roy through this part of addiction is Roy. He has to get that crap out of his system. Keep it out and want to keep it out,” Dick said, and Roy wanted shake him. He did want to keep it out; he never wanted it in him. He had no power here. The world spun around him, but his body moved and said and thought without him. He didn't want this, not any of this.
His little girl was gone, nothing, and Roy felt something on the edge of his mind begging for attention, but every time he reached for it, some dark thought would crawl into his mind. Why worry about things he can't remember? It doesn't matter. They abandoned him, everyone, and he was all alone. He had nothing left to live for, his mind whispered, why stay here?
They stripped him of all his weapon and tossed him in a hospital, but a hospital was a very easy place to die.
“What do you mean they want to revoke bail! I've already had the hearing, you...”
Roy jerked, looking around the empty room. “Ollie?” He asked, timidly. Roy's heart clenched and he wept, “Ollie!”
“... idiot! Doctors say his heart rate's been spiking again! If you start yelling again, I'll chuck you over the balcony, Queen.”
That was.. that was Dick. But that was impossible. Dick wasn't here anymore. He and Dinah were driving a hundred miles per hour as far away from him as they could go.
“Sor.....addy,” a soft heavenly voice whispered and he could almost feel Lian's lips against his ear. Roy closed his eyes and listened, listened oh so closely to the sound of her voice. If this was going crazy, it was the most comforting feeling he'd ever known. “They get like this when the doctors worry. It'll get better, I promise.”
And this time, Roy really did feel it. Butterfly soft kisses pressed to his head and he wasn't sitting alone anymore. He was stretched out on a narrow bed with bars along the side that dug into his shoulder. The beep of the heart monitar slipped into the background while the world around him came alive with wonder. He couldn't open his eyes, but it was alright. The voices were enough.
“Listen up, Grayson. The only reason why your ass is allowed in here is because I cleared you with the medical staff, so you can just get your head out of your ass and let a man take care of his business in peace.” Ollie snapped irascibly, but Roy heard the undertone of exasperated fondness in his voice. Ollie huffed, “Just go back to sleep, you freak,” and opened a door. The rush of noise meant an outside door. The hallways.
Apparently, Dick and Ollie were getting along. Who know?
Lian wasn't talking anymore, though, and he wanted to hear her, touch her, see her, smell the gentle warm of her hair. The dark voices in his head whispered viciously, battering his spirit back in to darkness, but he refused. Not this time. He wasn't going to hide in darkness when he could imagine his little girl alive and happy.
He opened his eyes.
His vision swam and his eyes were crusty with disuse, but the sight of Dick awkwardly wedged in a tiny visitors chair draped sleepily around a hospital issue pillow was the most perfect thing he'd ever seen, right up until he turned his head and saw Lian, happy, healthy, living Lian with a trashy romance novel in her hand, twirling her ponytail while she read.
He had a passing urge to tell her she was too young for bodice rippers, but he couldn't. Let her do whatever she wanted. It meant she was alive. Roy decided he'd watch her for a little longer before he played parent. He didn't want to forget this moment for the rest of his life.
He noticed, to his surprise, Damian standing in the corner behind Lian, surreptitiously reading the pages over her shoulder. He was working hard to look uninvolved, but his eyes flicked voraciously over the pages and Roy noticed his nose wrinkled impatiently when he finished before Lian.
Ollie opened the door again, head tilted against his shoulder to prop up his cellphone while he carried two cups of coffee, “... Well if they're so concerned about what I'm doing, tell them to give me a damn ankle bracelet. I've been at the God damned hospital with my comatose son and you can quote that to the fucking press!”
“Ollie!” Dick snapped sleepily, “Roy!”
Ollie set the cups on the counter and grabbed fumbled his phone when it slipped, “Hey, the said talking was good for him!”
“Yelling is not talking!”
“Fine, whatever, Princess,” Ollie muttered, storming over to the door. He tossed over his shoulder, “Dinah wanted me to tell you she didn't forget your tea, but she had to go to the Starbucks on the corner to find it. Be grateful, Rich Bitch.”
When the door eased shut, Damian asked, “Do you wish me to give him a nerve pinch, Grayson?” and Roy was terribly proud of Lian for her quick reflexes. In a blink, she'd spun around and clocked the little Wayne upside the head with her book, just as Dick cut in.
“No, Damian!” He insisted fiercely, “You will not nerve pinch a fellow hero.”
Of course, Roy wasn't particularly concerned for Ollie at the moment. Damian was glaring murderously at Lian and she was giving him the stink eye right back. Little bastard's fingers were twitching, too.
:”Damian,” Dick growled, “You will not nerve pinch the civilian, either.”
“But she assaulted me!” He objected, and Roy had to smile a little. Even under all the stiff training, Damian was still a whiny kid who lived by 'that's not fair!'.
“If you can't take it, don't dish it,” Lian snarked.
Dick pinched the bridge of his nose and pleaded, “Lian, don't taunt the junior assassin. He's working on his people skills, but it isn't fair.” Damian squawked indignantly, but they quieted down.
Lian stuck her tongue out cockily and plunked back in her seat, flipping through the pages of her book. Damian sulked against the wall. After a few moments, he muttered, “Page 134.”
Lian turned her nose up at the help, but she stopped flipping aimlessly and settled her book high in her lap so he could easily read it.
Finally, Roy couldn't take it anymore and he started laughing. It was such a good feeling, surrounded by family he didn't even know he had. Lian popped out of her seat like she sat on a tack, staring at him while Dick fell out of his seat all together. Feeling particularly playful, he reached out a heavy arm and snatched the romance novel out of her hand. “You are way too young for these, little lady,” He rasped.
Next thing he knew, he had a bouncing armful of squealing ten year old clinging to his neck. He pulled her close and smelled her hair, just like he wanted to. Absently, he noticed something a little different. Roy pulled back and smiled at her, petting her hair behind her ear. Or trying to. “Oh,” He blinked, looking at the stump where his arm used to be.
Dick pulled Lian back and asked her quietly to fetch Ollie. Obviously, he expected Roy to take this badly, “No, it's ok,” He assured, “I, uh, already knew?” Dick looked at him like he was going crazy, “Coma. Still dreaming. Bad dreams,” He let out a heavy sigh and reached for Lian, “So many bad dreams.”
She stepped forward and clasp his hand to her cheek and Roy closed his eyes and reveled in the wonder. She was alive, never dead, perfectly safe here with Dick and Ollie. Dinah was nearby and now he was awake.
He was awake. And, just like that, he was laughing again because this was the most wonderful realization he'd ever had. Life was perfect. Life was beautiful. No death, no drugs, and if the worst he had to deal with was his arm, it didn't matter. He dreamed of a bionic arm; it might be impossible. Roy was okay with that. He loved archery and saving the world, but if his heroing days were over, he had everything he needed right here.
“Come on,” Dick said, pulling her away again with a soft smile, “Go get your grandad. He'd never forgive me if we made him wait.” Lian gave her father another furtive look and nodded, grabbing Damian's hand as she went, hauling him out with her.
Smart kid, she could always take a hint.
Then, Roy had an armful of acrobat pulling him half off the bed. Dick burrowed his nose in Roy's hair and sniffed wetly. Shit. Roy squeezed back hard as he could - which wasn't half as hard as he wanted to - and let Dick hide for a moment. While Roy was dreaming of losing his best friend, Dick was living it.
“Hey, it's okay now,” He promised, “I'm not going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are.” Dick sniffed stubbornly, “There is nothing medically wrong with you. You are coming home and Dinah's going to feed you until your too fat to do anything dangerous ever again.”
Roy chuckled, “I can live with that.”
“You'd better.”
Dick was warm and comforting in the way only Grayson could make 200 pounds of solid muscle. He had his own smell to him, too, and Roy couldn't believe he missed that in his dreams. Nothing smelled right. It was all empty. He should have known. “I'm glad your here,” Roy whispered.
“Hey, I always will be. Always.” Dick promised.
Roy shook his head, not denying him, but it wasn't true, “You weren't there,” He choked, “In my head. I needed you and you came and then you left me alone, crashing and strung out because my baby was dead.” His throat tightened dangerously and he wept, “Oh Gods, Dick. She was dead, my little girl was dead.”
Dick didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. He just held on.
“Oh shit,” Roy started suddenly.
Dick whip-lashed back and stared in horror, “What? What's wrong! God, Roy, what's wrong?”
“I think I had sex with Cheshire.”
Now his best friend was looking at him like he'd gone a little crazy, which was entirely ok, Roy decided. “No, you didn't. I promise. I was here,” Dick said, patting him on the shoulder.
“In my mind, Dick. I feel so dirty.” And that was it. For the third or fourth or however many times since he'd found himself again, Roy laughed long and hard with Dick slumped against him in mirth.
“Well, hey. You're coming home tonight,” the 'one way or another' was clearly implied, “How about I raid Ollie's liquor cabinet and we watch lots of porn filled with plastic surgery enhanced blonds? That should wipe away the memory."
Roy thought about it for a moment and, with a tired smile, offered instead, "... How about you buy a case of soda and we watch 'Cinderella' half a dozen times with the kids?"
Dick beamed like it was the best plan in the world,"Can do, buddy. Can do."
Come to think of it, maybe it was.