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In his two short lives, Jason had encountered more life-threatening situations and world-ending calamities than he could count. He had faced down odds that should have killed him, time and again. He had died. But he didn’t think he had ever come up against something that scared him more than this did.
Lian’s lower lip trembled. “Daddy’s not gonna be back in time for trick or treating?”
Jason sighed, holding the phone away from his mouth. “No, princess. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck,” Roy’s voice said over the line. “She upset? Here, give the phone to her.”
Jason nodded even though Roy couldn’t see him and handed the phone to Lian. She took it in her two little hands, mashing it into her cheek. “Daddy, you promised!”
Roy’s voice was just faintly audible on the other end, the tone soothing, although Jason couldn’t make out the words. He already knew the gist, anyway. Team Arrow had gotten caught up tangling with Count Vertigo in Vlatava, and though there was no cause for alarm - it was Count Vertigo, for Christ’s sake - they wouldn’t be back until the next morning at the earliest.
Jason was new to the whole sort-of-step-dad thing - he’d only moved in with Roy and Lian three months ago - but so far, he thought he’d been doing pretty well taking care of Lian for the past two days while Roy was out of town. He’d dropped her off at school and picked her up, talked her into eating her vegetables at dinner, and read to her at night. He’d picked up the tiny socks and hair elastics and toys scattered around the house and only gotten choked up once or twice at how impossibly tiny all of her belongings were. He’d loved spending time with her, honestly, and he thought Lian was enjoying spending time with him.
But none of that changed the fact that her real daddy wasn’t going to be home in time to take her trick or treating this afternoon.
“Okay, Daddy,” Lian said finally, sounding resigned. “I love you too. Bye.” She handed the phone back to Jason and then clung to his leg, pressing her face into his thigh.
“Hey,” he said into the phone, smoothing his hand over Lian’s soft hair.
“How’s she taking it?” Roy asked.
“She’s disappointed,” Jason admitted, and then pushed cheerfulness into his voice for both of them. “But we’re gonna go out anyway and we’re only going to save you the yucky candy, right, Lian? Black licorice and stuff.”
“Such is my fate as a dad,” Roy said. “But listen, there’s something else.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Yeah.” Roy sighed. “Her Halloween costume is in my go bag.”
“The go bag that’s currently in Vlatava with you?” Jason asked.
“That’s the one.”
“Shhh...oot,” Jason said, glancing down at Lian. “Okay. Uh. We’ll figure something out, I guess.”
“You want me to break it to her?”
It was Jason’s turn to sigh. “No, no, you’ve been the bad guy enough already tonight. I can do it.” Lian looked up at that, fixing him with a suspicious eye. Oh boy. “Stay safe, okay? I love you.”
“Love you, Daddy!” Lian called, blowing kisses at the phone, which Jason dutifully relayed.
Roy chuckled in his ear, low and soft, and Jason suddenly missed him so badly it hurt. “Love you too. Both of you. So much. Have fun!”
Jason hung up and Lian narrowed her eyes at him. “Why’re you a bad guy?” she asked.
He squatted down to her level. “Well...Daddy had your costume in his bag when he had to go with Grandpa Ollie and the others. And he still has it.”
Her little brow furrowed. “But he’s in Vat...Valt…”
“Vlatava,” Jason agreed. “Yeah.”
Oh no, there went the lip again. Jason had seen Lian cry before and knew it wasn’t the end of the world - she was five, five-year-olds cried - but it always made him feel like his heart was breaking.
Roy, who was used to it, said he was a sucker. Roy was absolutely right.
“Hey, no, it’s okay,” Jason said. “We’ll come up with a new costume! A better one!”
“But I wanted to be a space mermaid!” she protested.
Jason was well aware; she’d talked about nothing else for the entire month of October. “Maybe we can make a space mermaid costume real quick with your arts and craft supplies?”
She gave him a look like he was the stupidest person alive, which, fair. The costume she’d planned to wear was incredibly elaborate; the reason it was in Roy’s bag at all was because he’d gotten it tailored to fit, thereby spending more money on something she’d wear for one night than any of Roy’s actual clothing for himself. But Jason’s frustration with Roy’s hobo chic wardrobe was beside the point.
“Then we’ll have to come up with something else, like I said,” Jason said. “But we’ll think of something really good, and when Daddy gets back we’ll also think of somewhere fun you can wear your space mermaid costume. So that’s two costumes. Plus, you still get candy tonight.”
He waited, bracing himself against tears or, worse, a full-fledged tantrum. Lian screwed up her face and thought.
“All right,” she said finally. “But I don’t know what we can make. It’s almost trick or treat time!”
She was right - the afternoon was wasting away, and she was a little too young for real after dark trick or treating. Jason led the way into her bedroom, looking around for inspiration. “What about something from your dress-up box?”
“That’s dress-up, it’s not a costume,” she said, rolling her eyes. Jason wasn’t sure what the distinction was, but it clearly mattered to her, so he let it go.
“Okay, well, who do you think it would be really fun to be for the night?” he asked. “Someone cool to play pretend as. A princess? A monster? A superhero?”
“I should prolly be a superhero,” she said thoughtfully. “I know so many, we can get the costume just right.”
“Sounds like a plan. Which one?” Jason asked, even as his mind filled with costumes that were either impossible to make, way too cold to wear outside in October, or both. God, what if she said Aunt Kori?
She scrunched up her face, then brightened. “Grampa Ollie!”
Jason blinked. “Grand...you want to be Green Arrow?”
“Yeah!” she said. “I already have a bow and arrows, and you can make me a fake beard! It’ll be so funny!”
“I...sure, okay,” Jason said. Green Arrow wasn’t cracking his top ten list of favorite superheroes any time soon, but Lian actually looked excited, and he wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth. “We need to have a quick dinner before we go out, so let me make us something to eat and then I’ll start putting a costume together for you, okay?”
They were perilously short on time, so Jason slapped together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sliced up an apple. He stuffed his own sandwich in his mouth while he rummaged through Lian’s clothing for serviceable costume elements. Luckily her fall jacket was already green, and she had a pair of brown leggings that would do, even if the vibes were more Connor than Ollie. She even had a little green domino mask from her Robin dress-up costume, a costume Jason had never really known how to feel about, but it came in handy now. And of course she had a tiny feathered cap because, well, she was a Harper.
He rejoined her at the kitchen table as he painstakingly cut a mustache and Van Dyke beard out of yellow construction paper. He could only find her tiny safety scissors and his hand was cramping by the time he was done, but it was worth it for the entertained look on her face as she picked at her apple slices.
“You better finish those,” he warned, shaking his hand out. “You eat too much candy without real food in your tummy and you’ll puke.”
“Gross,” she giggled, but dutifully took a real bite of apple.
Once she was done eating, he used a damp napkin to wipe the peanut butter and jelly off her face, then stuck the beard and mustache on with Scotch tape - and immediately lost it, doubling over with laughter.
“Do I look funny?” she asked, bouncing in her chair. “I wanna see!” She jumped up and ran to the bathroom, and a second later he heard peals of laughter echoing down the hall.
“You happy, princess?” he asked, coming to join her.
“I look so silly!” she said, beaming up at him. “I love it!”
“Good,” he said. “I laid out the rest of your costume on your bed, so go hurry up and get dressed and we can go.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“What are you gonna wear?” She gasped, clearly struck by inspiration. “You should be Speedy!”
Jason blinked. “Ohhh no, I don’t think…”
“You gotta!” she said. “You can wear Daddy’s old costume!”
“That definitely won’t fit.”
“Oh, fine,” she said, conceding the point. “But he still has the hat! Please, Jay?”
Of course Roy still had the fucking hat. Jason scrubbed a hand through his hair. He’d sworn his sidekick days were behind him...but hell, if he was going to break that rule for anyone, it would be Lian.
“Let me see what I can find,” he said, and Lian cheered. “Go get dressed!”
Ten minutes later, Jason was wearing the Speedy hat, a plain red T-shirt he’d stolen from Roy’s side of the dresser, his own Red Hood domino mask, jeans and sneakers because like hell was he going out in red leggings and pirate boots, and a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves. He didn’t want to take any of Roy’s field gear with him - who knew what was in those trick arrows? - but he’d taken a sporting bow and quiver with some regular arrows from Roy’s collection, just for the look. Lian stood proudly beside him in her own cobbled-together ensemble and construction paper facial hair.
Jason appraised them in the mirror. If he was honest, the last-minute hot garbage effect was really kind of working for them. “Princess, I think we look awesome.”
“Yeah!” she said, jumping up and down. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!”
“Pictures for Daddy first,” he said, and took a bunch of selfies of the two of them together, then a truly ludicrous amount of Lian on her own, her little suction cup arrow nocked to the string of her toy bow. Then she insisted on taking a bunch of him, which he knew would all have thumbs in them but he would keep anyway. He texted a bunch of the best ones to Roy, and then to Dick and Kori and Tim because he knew they’d get a kick out of them, and they hit the streets.
Trick or treating in an upper middle class neighborhood in Star City was nothing like trick or treating in the Narrows in Gotham. For one thing, Star was the kind of “city” that had houses and lawns and even occasionally picket fences instead of just apartment buildings, which in Jason’s mind meant “suburbs” but everyone here looked at him like he was crazy when he made that argument. For another, the emphasis was very much on decorations and candy and not on how much vandalism you could get away with before the cops or Batman showed up.
Also, they gave away full size candy bars here. And not even crappy ones like Baby Ruths. Star City trick or treating was wild.
He and Lian were an absolute hit, which probably wouldn’t have been the case anywhere else, but Jason had learned since moving out west that Star City loved their homegrown vigilante the way they might love a terrible baseball team, or a dog that kept getting into the garbage. Lian got a lot of double candy bars, and some people even took pictures of him and Lian together, which was a little weird but Jason supposed he didn’t mind. Technically she was wearing a disguise, anyway.
“Your daughter is adorable,” one woman said as she dropped like seven packs of Jelly Bellies into Lian’s quiver. Jason opened his mouth to stammer out an explanation, but Lian just beamed at him and slipped her little hand into his. Jason swallowed past the lump in his throat and steered her to the next house.
Back home, Lian poured a truly enormous haul of candy onto the floor to sort it, but only got about halfway through before she was drooping like a flower in a drought.
“Why don’t we do this in the morning?” Jason asked. “I think it’s bedtime.”
“Nooooo,” she protested, rubbing at her eye. The paper beard was crumpled and the mustache had disappeared at some point. “I can do it.”
“I know you can, princess, but nothing’s going to happen to the candy if we leave it until tomorrow. Besides, it’ll be like stretching Halloween into a second day. Double Halloween!” Plus hopefully Roy would be home by then, but Jason didn’t want to suggest that and have another delay crop up.
Lian sulked but agreed, and Jason swept the candy back into the quiver she’d used to collect it while she changed into her pajamas. She teetered on the edge of an overtired meltdown when he insisted she brush her teeth before bed, but he managed to get her through it without tears, and let herself be tucked into bed without complaint.
“Thank you for trick or treating with me,” she said when he turned on the nightlight and turned off the lamp. “I’m glad you came to live with me and Daddy.”
There was that lump again. “Me too,” he said, and kissed her forehead before standing up.
“Jay?” she said as he reached the door.
“What is it, princess?”
“You can have a grape lollipop if you want.”
Jason smiled. “Thank you.”
“Y’r welcome,” she mumbled into her pillow. “I don’t like them.”
Jason did in fact snag a grape lollipop as he straightened up the house. It wasn’t that late, but he was exhausted, so he climbed into bed and checked his phone to see if Roy had answered his texts yet. He was the only one who hadn’t responded, but to be fair, he was also the only one fighting the landed nobility of a small Eastern European nation.
His phone rang while he was scrolling through his texts, and he grinned. “Hey, babe.”
“Those pictures, oh my god,” Roy said, laughing. “Ollie cried. Did she have fun?”
“Yeah, she had a blast,” Jason said, snuggling down under the covers. He would have preferred for Roy to be next to him, but having Roy’s voice in his ear was pretty good.
“Did you?”
“More than I expected,” Jason said. “That hat just made me feel so irresistibly sexy and cool.”
“Hey, at least my original outfit came with pants.”
“Fair.” Jason yawned into the phone. “How are things over there?”
“All wrapped up, we’re actually on the way back now,” Roy said. “Ollie stole one of the League’s superjets - ”
“Borrowed!” Ollie yelled in the background.
“ - so I should be home in a few hours. Don’t eat all the candy before I get there, okay?”
“I have been restricted to a single grape lollipop, don’t worry.”
“Oh yeah, she hates those. Love you, Jaybird. See you soon.”
Jason fell asleep shortly after that, and only half woke when he felt the bed dip behind him. “Roy?”
“Shh, go back to sleep,” Roy said, curling close and kissing the back of his neck. “It’s not dawn yet.”
Jason smiled, eyes still closed, and put a hand on the arm around his waist. Lian would be thrilled. All right, fine, he was thrilled.
Maybe this sort-of-step-dad thing would work out after all.
“Welcome home,” he mumbled, pressing back into Roy’s warmth.
“Thanks,” Roy murmured, pressing a smile to his skin. “Happy Halloween, Jaybird.”