Life in a pint

[arsenal_arrow]

Roy Harper spent most of his day in front of a drum set. It wasn't practice, per se, as he wasn't concerned about what came out wrong. He's gotten better over the years, far beyond the novice he started out as, but he isn't as self-conscious of the mistakes when it's just him and the drums

Comments

[redhood_robin]

Jason was starting to become a regular at Warriors. It wasn't exactly the Cheer's bar, but at least he wasn't turning into a sloppy drunk. Just a beer or two on nights when he wasn't particularly busy with anything...which were most nights that he didn't patrol. And he tried very hard to make sure he took a night off a week. During quiet times, two. During unquiet times, usually none, but they seemed to be in a semi lull for the moment.

And, there's his partner in brainwashing. No doubt off to lull his sorrows in the bottom of a beer glass. "Seat taken?"

[arsenal_arrow]

Roy looks between the voice and the seat. "Move your meat, lose your seat," he says jokingly, and then wonders if that's a bit too evasive.

"No, it's open. Lemme buy you a beer." It's what you do after you partner to destroy the world, right?

[redhood_robin]

Jason smiled flirtatiously at the waitress, and nodded to her question of if he wanted his usual. "I'd let you, but I heard through the grapevine your lady has bun in the oven...and I'm making a regular paycheck these days that doesn't come from the old man."

[arsenal_arrow]

Roy just rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to argue. It wasn't the day for it.

"The Elite, right." Government bastards Roy couldn't trust as far as Lian could throw that fat bitch Amanda Waller. Jason was... different somehow. He was still one of them even if he didn't think so and would fight you on it until he was blue in the face. It's best not to go here.

"Are you still seeing Helena?"

[caleb_z]

That elicits a chuckle from the Russian. "Bounce has always worked just fine for me," he jests weakly.

"I worry about failing the people around me. When, uh ... when Amelia pulled her Trojan horse, we rallied and counter-attacked in time. I got my hands on Corrine. I was there - physically in possession of her unconscious body - but it it wasn't enough. I didn't even have to overcome Philip ... all I had to do was not loose long enough for my team to mop up his associates, and I couldn't even accomplish that."

"Back when I was with the DEO, it all seemed so simple. I was a big shot, and I developed an ego to match. God, what a fool I was. Now, I'm absolutely terrified that my team is going to need me, and I'm going to fail them."

[arsenal_arrow]

"Welcome to being a human being, and on a superhero team," Roy says, not joking at all. "You think the rest of your team feels any different? You think they're looking at you, and not themselves? Just like you? It ain't about you."

He sets his beer down on the bar, and leans forward to look straight at the other man. "Lemme tell you a lesson I kept getting punched with the hard way, Dr. Zukov. If all you do is count your losses and failures in this business, you're going to have a lot of ghosts that follow you around. Trust me when I say that can be a worse predicament to find yourself in than facing even your greatest enemy. Everybody's worst enemy is themselves. You start thinking about all the things you didn't pull off, start breaking yourself down..." He shakes his head. "It's a bad way to go. Don't do it, man."

[caleb_z]

Caleb quietly absorbs Roy's advice. It isn't as simple as snap your fingers and you're outlook is different, but if nothing else, it's a pattern of behavior to keep an eye out for.

"Sound advice."

[redhood_robin]

"Coming from the crazy section, s'long as we're trading warm and fuzzies?" Jason said, going back to his beer. He was a mean drunk when he let himself go to far and that wasn't the goal tonight. "Count on your family. That don't mean blood. I got traded to the Joker by my blood family. Got saved by my real one."

Later

[arsenal_arrow]

It's well on into the evening, and Roy's still around listening to the ambiance and scribbling little bits of songs and notes on napkins. He'll have to try them when he gets home.

That also reminded him, he'd left a note for Donna saying he was going out, but it was getting late. After Killswitch, he knew she worried. He would, too. ::Takin care of some Arrow biz @ Warriors. Fill u in later. Luv ya gorgeous.::

Now for the actual business. He finds Tara's number in his contacts, then chuckles at his own irony. ::Got some free time for a big brother?::

Re: Later

[green_shield]

The package came today. Her diploma. As soon as she opened it up she'd be Dr. Tara Strong. Her lifelong goal and the one thing that made her fit into this life more then any skill with a bow or super durability. So why was it still on her desk?

Her phone buzzes and she texts back. ::When?::

Re: Later

[arsenal_arrow]

::Why, got something better to do?::

Tara can probably hear Roy yucking to himself. It's a rhetorical question among heroes.

::Now works.::

Re: Later

[green_shield]

Ooooookay...

::Now's good. Where? Prefer quiet.::

[arsenal_arrow]

He nods solemnly. "Russel died because of someone's careless accident. Someone saying someone else would take care of it. It's a tragedy, and I'm sorry."

Roy looks straight at her. "But 'stupid kiddie stuff'? My wife would disagree because you were there for the Titans. I'm sure Ollie would, too. You saved me when the Tower got attacked. What about people like Staaya? Someone's gotta watch her. What about Mia, people like her? There's a lot of voices out there to be heard, nobody's listening, and you heard that call, Tara. But you can't be responsible for every voice that fades before you get there

[green_shield]

"Christie was screwed up. I knew that when I had to keep her from chasing my cat with Dad's razor and other wonderful stuff like that. I'm a total shit for thinking her destiny was going to be one involving Blackgate prison - and I know she hated me before and after. She was a freak. So am I."

"I'm not responsible for all those voices calling for help, Roy. I just needed to be there for the people I was supposed to be beholden to. With all due respect to everyone in this business...It's not family. I don't get how it can be." she shakes her head. "My first mission was watching you convince your team to give the Jersey State Bird to a god and calling yourselves 'family' and I still Do. Not. Get. It."

"I don't get how you can love one another like that when family is supposed to be -" She throws up her hands. "I don't know."

[arsenal_arrow]

"Because you've chosen to be responsible for some of them, and if you're not, you might want to tell the people around you that," he says pointedly. Frustrated, he brushes the dirt from his hands onto his jeans, and then combs his hair back from his face. He looks at his hands for a minute, remembering what Killswitch showed him of the fire that killed his father. It was a memory that had been lost in time, when his child-self woke to see hands cut, burned, and bruised. He learned to hold a bow with those hands before he learned to write the English language, and the old scars were replaced with new callouses that have followed him through life like a tale in and of themselves.

"Family is who and whatever you make it. The Titans are a family because no matter what kinda freak you are, where you come from, what you did before-- you come into the Titans, and we've got each other. A lot of us didn't have anybody else before this. Some of us were rejected by our family. You look at someone like Fauna, and you realize what some of us give

[green_shield]

She's been fighting that feeling since preventing Cheshire into making Ollie road pizza.

She looks up at him. The Outsiders have mixed messages on that idea. The Zukovs are still Zukovs even when one or both of them act like supervillains. Corrine Bertrand is still Therese D'Aubgine. Hell, Hank even talks about his old man and mom with a mix of love, frustration, and loathing. Tefe and Ibn were much the same way. Bobo even loves the guy that named him "Bobo."

We're all fucking stuck, and that's what we have in common.

"Can you...really change your family? I feel like, except for Mark, I'm with these people that -" It's both pain and relief to say this. "Can't go where I need to go. It's not a lack of love it's just...irreconcilable differences."