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Stale, dry air hit starved lungs.
Gulping a few more desperate lungfuls, Roy groaned.
His head hurt.
His everything hurt and his limbs felt like lead.
Jesus, he was never drinking again.
It took a few rounds of gasping for breath and repeating that mantra for Roy to figure out that, that wasn't quite true. Although he didn't know why?
It also took him that long to feel out that he was wrapped in what felt like mouldy sack cloth.
Wait.
Was this a body bag?
Was he, dead?
Gasping, Roy shook his head and immediately regretted the action when the wire wool currently stuffed in it scraped along his skull.
Prising open reluctant eyes, he confirmed that yes, yes he was in a body bag but he wasn't dead.
Had he been dead? Had he pulled a Jason?
Jason, where was Jason? And Kori?
What was going on?
Sunlight peeped through a slight hole above his head. His arms, especially his right one, screamed in protest but he poked his fingers through it and began to rip the sacking cloth.
He needed out of this damn bag to get any answers.
Sun hit him like a burning ball of fire as he tore the material down to his waist. Shielding his eyes he looked around.
It was hot and desserty. And he was most definitely in a ditch, the sort of ditch you'd throw a corpse into. Christ, had he been murdered?
What on earth was happening?
He remembered Jason shoving a dirty cup of something green and smelly in his hand with a small, nervous smile.
‘It won't kill you. It’ll be just like Romeo and Juliet, Harper.’
‘But- but, no! I know that one! They die at the end!’
Jason had frowned and looked at him as if he'd just dribbled down his shirt.
‘Well, yes? But only Juliet took the potion, and she would have lived, if not for the whole stabbing herself thing.’
Roy remembered the bitter God awful taste in his mouth when he'd given up the argument and downed the concoction he really did it trust. A cloudy part of his memory recalled struggling to breathe; Jason running fingers through his and Kori's hair, telling them how much he loved them. That son of a gun poisoned them!
Roy didn't have too long to get riled up about it though. Shielding his eyes again, Roy noticed another body bag, similar to his own, tossed a few feet away. Gasping, he stumbled out of the remains of his bag and crawled over. Surprised to see that he still had the knife in his boot, he made quick work at tearing apart the sacking.
‘Kori!’
His princess looked dead.
The usual glow extinguished from her skin and her hair looked almost human, dull and limp. The sight was too much to bear and Roy's heart shattered. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he cradled her head gently, peppering her still face with desperate kisses.
‘Kori? Princess, baby please? Please come back? Come back sweetheart. I love you so much. Don't leave me.’ Roy sobbed, his entire world crumbling around him. Kori felt so cold in his arms. Kori burned as bright as the sun, a constant steady stream of fire and passion. Kori should never be cold.
A stuttered breath was drawn in between dry lips and Roy paused his kissing to gape at her.
‘Kori! Kori!’
Quickly lowering her head back down, he pinched her nose and leant over to breathe even more oxygen into her lungs. His princess was coming back!
‘Come on Kori! Breathe! Breathe!’
Kori's eyes flew open and Roy had never been so relieved to see the glow behind her green eyes. He couldn't help but gaze in wonder as her very being seemed to light up, as if he had flipped the switch on Star City’s Christmas lights. He'd never seen anything more beautiful in his life. The fire that proved that Kori was alive was burning, she'd come back to him.
‘R-Roy?’
‘Kori! Oh Kori, you're alive! I thought, I thought-‘ unable to finish, Roy sobbed in sheer relief. Pulling Kori tightly to him when she wrapped her arms around his neck.
‘We made it, Jason’s magic worked!’ Kori chuckled against his shoulder, looking up at Roy with a bright smile. ‘He saved us!’
‘Saved us? Exactly how did he save us? He tried to poison us!’ Roy said, he tried to remember more about what happened but his head still ached something terrible.
Kori frowned and pulled away from him with a shake of her head.
‘No, that is not so. Those men wanted to kill us. Jason made a magic potion to make us appear dead when we are not. It worked. Those men have dumped us. We are safe.’
Roy blinked, that sounded, familiar? Yes! Yes that was it, they'd somehow ended up in an awkward undercover job trying to stop an arms deal in some place in Costa Rica. Then things went wrong and the gang decided to kill them all. Jason had tried to poison the team in a bid to escape a bullet to the head. Kori was right, Jason had saved them but Jesus at what risk? The amount of variables that could have gone wrong made his blood run cold.
‘Hang on, where is Jason?’ Roy asked, looking up at Kori in concern, who looked just as worried.
As if on cue, there was an all too familiar scream of terror.
Looking over his shoulder, Roy spotted a thrashing body bag and couldn't help but let out a long suffering sigh. Apparently, the idiot hadn't realised how much he would freak out waking up in a body bag. Christ, they were lucky their corpses were deemed unimportant enough to dump and they hadn't been buried. Roy had a sneaky suspicion Jason wasn't up for round two of being buried alive.
‘Jaybird! Woah, woah, you're alright buddy! Let me help you outta there?’ Roy called out, dashing over with Kori hot on his tail. With Kori restraining the random protruding lumps, Roy somehow managed to avoid a thrashing Jason and cut away the sacking with his knife.
Jason burst out like a thing possessed, his face the sheer definition of terrified. Roy and Kori lept into action. Each taking a flailing arm and holding him firmly between them, ducking the odd kick and head butt as they did so.
‘Steady Jaybird. Follow my breathing, you're alive Jaybird.’ Roy soothed, exaggerating his steady breathing to try and coax Jason into following it with debatable success.
‘Dead! I'm dead!’ Jason roared, renewing his struggle until Kori clutched hold of his hand with a smile.
‘Feel that? Feel my hand Jason?’
The young man stilled and blinked down at Kori's hand before nodding slowly.
‘Warm.’
‘That is right. If you were dead you would not feel it, would you?’
‘No.’ Taking a deep breath, Jason closed his eyes before opening them again. ‘Oh, right, yes I remember now. It worked!’
Releasing their hold, Kori stepped back with a smile, but Roy had other ideas.
‘You good Jaybird?’ He asked, stepping closer to Jason who nodded. ‘Good.’
Clenching his fist, Roy delivered a hefty right hook sending Jason tumbling back onto the abandoned body bags.
‘You asshole! It worked? Explain. Now. Jaybird. And the truth this time or I swear to God you'd better start running!’
Swallowing, Jason let out a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
‘Well, erm, like I said, it was a poison of sorts. But like the sleeping death from Romeo and Juliet? You look dead but aren't? The plan was for the lackeys to find us dead, then being lazy, decide to just dump the bodies and skip the whole shooting in the head part. There was a small risk of still being shot in the head and the small, okay, kinda 50/50 chance, that I could of gotten the method wrong for the poison and made actual poison. I never made it before, just studied it when I was with the League?’
Roy gaped, he couldn't, just couldn't believe what he was hearing.
‘Are you off your freaking meds Jaybird? What on earth made you think this was a good idea? The stakes were higher for us to die than for us to not! We all could have died Jason! As in actual death!? Bye bye, night night, adiós amigos!’
The Spanish phrase seemed to spark a memory for Jason because he was suddenly on his feet and pointing a very threatening finger at Roy.
‘You! You are the reason our cover was blown in the first place! You are such an idiot Harper!’
‘Guys, calm down. Arguing is not going to make this right?’ Kori tried to intervene but was largely ignored.
‘Me? What's this got to do with me?’ Roy defended, throwing his arms out to the side in exasperation.
Jason’s narrowed his eyes to give Roy a glare that some how was even more disturbing than the Batglare.
‘I gave one order Harper. One order! I told you to shut up! I used small words and everything? Once we got inside the building, I was to do all the talking. Y’know? Being the one who actually can speak Spanish? But oh no, Mr Big Mouth just couldn't shut the hell up for once!’
Blinking, Roy frowned, the conversation Jason was referring to slowly coming back to him, and he shook his head.
‘Oh come on! I needed to pee? I just asked where the bathroom was? How was I to know that they'd kick off?’
‘That, was not what you said. You insulted the leaders grandmother! You never, ever insult someone's grandmother Harper! I don't- none of what you said even closely resembled needing to fucking piss. You insulted Jhon’s grandmother! No wonder he wants to kill you, I want to kill you. You just don't do that!’ Jason screeched like some sort of berserk chicken, arms flying in every direction as he spoke. Roy frowned and nodded, finally what he had done wrong had been explained to him.
‘What did I say?’ Roy asked, lifting his head to see that Jason had stopped flapping and was just staring at him.
‘Come again?’
‘What did I say? About Jhon’s grandmother?’
Jason's eyes widened. Roy had seen Jason terrified before, he had been moments ago, but this? This was terrified on a whole new level.
‘My mamá did not raise me to say such things, Roy Harper!’
‘Oh come on Jaybird? Please?’
Shaking his head, Jason backed up and held up his hands defensively.
‘No! My abuela will be furious if I repeated something so disrespectful!’ Jason gasped, looking around him as if expecting some old woman to suddenly materialise out of thin air.
Snorting, Roy shook his head and placed his hands on his hips.
‘Get a grip Jaybird. You never met your grandmother?’
‘No, but that doesn't mean she won't come whoop my ass! I will not disrespect her or Jhon’s grandmother by repeating what you said. I am a good boy.’
Roy raised an eyebrow at that. He's was pretty sure some people, like the cops, would not agree but then family was family he supposed. Maybe if Jason's family was alive they would think him a good boy?
‘Alright. Fine. Whatever. So, anyone have any ideas as to where we are?’ Roy groused, looking over at Kori who just shrugged. ‘Well, we’re in a ditch, in the desert that's a start right?’
‘No Harper, we are not in the stupid desert!’ Jason snapped, pointing out a grove of trees, he stumbled out of the ditch and squinted at a nearby road sign.
Nicaragua. We're in Nicaragua. 10 miles out of San Carlos apparently. Our best bet is to somehow get to Mexico and then, get over the border into America with an alien, a redneck and a dead Latino guy. It's gonna be awesome.’ Sighing, Jason massaged his temples and looked up at the sky. ‘Better call dad I suppose. See if he can pick us up?’
‘That- probably isn't a good idea.’ Kori said with a sheepish smile. ‘Have you boys forgotten what happened before Roy started insulting grandmothers? Look at your arms?’
Brushing her hair to one side, Kori revealed a tattoo on her shoulder. A gang tattoo.
Gasping, Roy pushed up his sleeve to see that he was sporting the same and by the distraught wail, Jason had made the same discovery.
‘We joined a gang?’ Roy muttered, staring up at his teammates in horror. Kori shook her head and Jason was back to staring pure homicidal intent at him.
‘Yes. We joined a gang. I remember now! Before you sentenced us all to death you said ‘si’ when Jhon asked us to join his merry band of arms dealers!’
‘Oh.’ Chuckling nervously, Roy tried to shoot Jason his winning, ‘please don't kill me’ smile. ‘I thought he was asking if we were hungry? He was motioning towards food on the table behind him?’
Jason just blinked back at him in bewilderment and Roy dropped his gaze, cheeks almost matching his hair.
‘Guess you couldn't help me with my Spanish when we get back? Jaybird?’
‘Don't you Jaybird me!’ Jason spat, throwing his arms out to the side. ‘We can't call Batman to come get us. So what are we gonna do? Walk to the border?’
‘Well, I'm sure if we explain that we didn't mean to do it, then-‘
Cutting off, Roy gaped in surprise when Jason burst out laughing and motioned between the two of them.
‘Sure, lets tell Batman that the crime lord and the addict didn't mean to join a gang. How well can you see that one going down Harper?’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, oh.’ Jason replied, fully raged out he rested his forehead against Roy and sighed. They were all royally screwed, and apparently walking to Mexico.
‘Boys? If you're finished fighting? Might I suggest you get in the truck so we can be on our way?’ Kori called over, waving at them from where she was stood by some guy and a pick up truck.
‘What the hell?’ Roy said, exchanging looks with Jason, he waved at the stranger.
‘Hey man, thanks for the ride, this is Jason and I'm Roy. Look, we just got to get to America and we’ll be sure to make it worth your while and-‘ trailing off, Roy frowned at the man staring blankly at him.
‘Um, Roy, sweetheart? This is Emilio. He doesn't speak English.’ Kori informed him, turning to the man she gave him her most flirtatious smile and fell into a stream of Spanish that fell from her lips like a native. Frowning, Roy looked over at Jason who was looking both shocked and embarrassed all at the same time.
‘What’re they saying?’
Shaking his head, Jason swallowed and folded his arms tightly across his chest.
‘Like I said, my mamá didn't raise me to say such things!’ He grumbled, just as Kori let out a giggle that was far from innocent and moved over to them. Ignoring Roy, who had a face like a boy who'd just had his lolly pop taken off him.
‘Emilio says he can drive us to the US border and he also knows someone who can supply us with the required documentation.’ Kori grinned. Jason just raised an eyebrow and unfolded his arms.
‘How come you can speak Spanish?’
Giggling again, Kori reached up and kissed him on the lips before slipping off to climb into the truck. Jason froze for a moment, like he always did when his princess kissed him, lifting fingers to lips that still tingle he shook his head in confusion.
‘It's how she picks up languages Jaybird, remember?’ Roy explained with a slight smirk.
‘But- hang on a darn minute! She spoke Spanish when she found me? Before we kissed?’
Shrugging, Roy starting tugging Jason towards the truck whilst simultaneously posturing at Emilio.
‘Dick can speak Spanish, Einstein. Trust me, be glad you weren't there for that saliva swapping session!’