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The call comes through from Roy’s phone, and Ollie answers immediately. It’s early- much earlier than Roy usually calls, especially on a weekday.
“Roy? What’s wrong?”
“Grandpa?”
Immediately panic grips through him. “Lian! Hey princess, what do you need?” He tries to keep his voice steady, fairly certain he’s not succeeding.
“Daddy’s still asleep.” She’s whispering. “Can you come take me to school?”
“Yeah, of course, I’ll be there soon. Want me to stay on the phone with you while I drive?”’
“Please and thank you.”
“Nice manners sweetheart. Do you know why Daddy’s still asleep?” he asks as he shrugs on his coat and grabs his keys.
“He’s been working a lot,” she sighs. And Ollie knows his boy, knows that it means that Roy’s burning the candle at both ends, trying too hard to be a hero and a dad.
“And he’s been really tired hasn’t he?”
“Yeah. He yawns a lot.”
“I bet he does…”
It’s not a long drive to Roy’s, especially before seven in the morning, and Lian’s watching for him from the window, peeking out from between the curtains. She gives him a big hug once she’s carefully tiptoed out the door and to the car. He gets her buckled in and she kicks her legs idly.
“When do I get to stop sitting in a car seat?”
“When your dad says.”
“But I’m seven!”
He turns around in his seat to look at her. “And you are the most important person in his life and he wants you to be safe, princess. If your dad says we’re putting you in a car seat, we’re putting you in a car seat.”
The drive to school is quiet, but halfway there a little voice pipes up, “Is Daddy gonna be okay?”
“Hmm? Yeah of course he is, I’ll stay and take care of him after I take you to school, okay? He and I can even pick you up together this afternoon.”
“Okay….Thanks Grandpa.”
“Course kiddo, it’s what family does.”
It makes him smile, the way she beams and bounds off to join her friends at school. Makes him wonder if he’d made the wrong call with her dad- if he should have kept Roy in school rather than homeschooling him. But it’s too late for that kind of thinking, his son needs him now. Roy needed him back then too, but there’s nothing he can do to change the past. He knows that all too well.
Lian hadn’t locked the door behind her and Ollie makes a mental note not to tell Roy. The last thing his boy needs is another stressor, so he lets himself in quietly and smiles softly when he sees Roy asleep on the couch. It reminds him of those mornings after a long night on patrol, when they’d be so exhausted they’d just flop onto the couch, still in their costumes. In those earlier days Roy would lean against him easily, happy to tell him that he was a comfortable pillow. But this isn’t those earlier days. Roy’s an adult now, a father himself, and Ollie knows that he can blame this burning the candle at both ends on himself, that he can trace this back to his mistakes as a father. But being a father doesn’t stop when your kid grows up, so he finds a blanket to drape over his son. Roy looks younger when he’s asleep, more peaceful, less troubled, less burdened by life. He sighs softly, and gets to work.
It’s almost eerily quiet in the house, too quiet for comfort at any rate. Roy’s dead to the world and Ollie’s fingernails dig into his palms with worry when he doesn’t so much as see Roy shifting in his sleep like he used to all those years ago. To distract himself he puts on music- some old jazz album that he and Roy used to listen to while cooking dinner together. He plays it quietly from his phone, not looking to wake Roy quite yet. Ollie then makes himself useful, picking up Lian’s toys, washing the dishes in the sink, and he even takes out the trash- the little things. Simple chores that barely put a dent in the chasm that still exists between them, taking care in a way he hasn’t been let close enough to in years. Once he’s done the few chores he feels aren’t too intrusive he sits in the chair next to the couch and thinks.
Ollie thinks about how much he always has and will love his son, about all the ways he’s failed to show him that. He thinks about the slowly closing distance between them, about how it’s his own fault. He laments that parenting is something you learn as you go. It's his mistakes with Roy that make him better suited to be there for Mia, that it’s his mistakes with Roy that make him able to bridge the gap between him and Connor. He doesn’t like the idea that Roy’s a “test” kid, that because Roy was his first it somehow excuses all the ways he messed up, all the ways that he hurt his kid. He hurt his kid, that’s something he has to make up for, not excuse away.
Roy stirs slowly, blinking awake with evident confusion. “Dad?”
Ollie’s chest feels tight- Roy so rarely calls him that. He usually says it when he thinks that Ollie needs to hear it, or when things are going very very wrong. But here, in the warmth and comfort of his own home, it feels different somehow. Like a step in a new direction.
“Hey kiddo, your little girl’s worried about you.”
Roy sighs, hands rubbing over his face roughly, much the same way Ollie would when Roy would wake him up back in the day. “Fuck.”
“Hey, it’s fine. She called me and I took her to school this morning, I caught you up on some housekeeping. It happens kiddo.”
“I fucked up.”
“Only because you’re trying too hard. You need to find a balance, Roy.”
“So that when I die they can not invite my family to the funeral? So that they can spend the whole thing talking about how mediocre I was and all my personal failings they only know from gossip?”
“So that you can be awake enough to be the kind of hero and father that your daughter knows you are. Sometimes you’ve gotta take care of yourself first.”
Roy stares bitterly at the floor as he sits up. “Yeah, you’d know all about that.”
Ollie sighs. “And I’ve regretted it every moment since.”
“Not enough.” Roy snaps. “Our relationship would be fixed-”
“If it wasn’t for my guilt.” He finishes. “I miss it too. Us, the relationship we had. But I’m so fucking scared of hurting you again.”
“I…. know that….on some level I know that.” Roy whispers, awkward. “It’s just-”
“Easier to be mad at me.” Ollie finishes. “I know. I get it.”
“I forgave you a long time ago…You changed when I needed you to- but I wanted to be mad that you didn’t change
before
then.” Roy’s shoulders are shaking, hands clenching and unclenching rhythmically. “I just….I wanna be your boy again. It’s been
so long
-”
“Roy-” There’s more to say, but his voice catches in his throat in a painful lump. That tight feeling is back in his chest. That's all he can say. “Roy-”
Roy’s crying now, quiet, fat drops rolling down his cheeks. “I don’t want to lose you again but I don’t know how- I don’t know how to go back.”
Ollie hugs him then, moves to sit on the couch and just pulls him into his chest and holds him. Runs his fingers through his hair and tries to be gentle when they catch on the tangles. He’s taken back to the day they’d learned that Brave Bow had died, when Roy had raged and raged until he finally crashed into him, looking for comfort. “We can’t go back.” He whispers. “But we can go forward….We can- we’ll figure it out Roy. You’ve always been my boy, always , even and especially when you’re mad at me. That’s never changed.”
Roy’s grip on him tightens. “I keep trying to be like you.”
Ollie shakes his head and pulls his son closer. “Now why would you go do a stupid thing like that? You’re better than me kid, always have been. I keep trying to be like you . You inspire me Roy. That’s how I know that if you take care of yourself that you’ll end up an even better father and hero than you already are.”
“Don’t go…”
“I’m not going anywhere. I promised my granddaughter that you and I would pick her up from school together, so that’s something we’ll have to do in a few hours.”
It makes Roy laugh, wet and raspy from his tears but it’s a laugh. “Always trying to do too much, old man.”
“Yeah well, you had to get it from somewhere…..Wanna go get lunch?”
Roy shakes his head. “Let me shower first, but then yeah…I’d really like that, Dad.”