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It’s still weird- Ollie being a civilian. Even weirder watching him try to build a civilian life for the first time in decades . It’s… hard. Realizing that Ollie’s entire life has been about other people for all these years, while something he already knew, still makes him feel a little… hollow. All those years of push after push from his father for he and his siblings to have lives outside of hero work, and it’s finally clicking that it’s because Ollie didn’t have one . It feels more real somehow, now that his booming voice no longer echoes in these halls of justice, officially replaced with his son’s warm, even tone. It’s nice working with Connor, but it’s still strange to come out of a League meeting without the others complaining about Green Arrow. For all of Connor and Ollie’s similarities, most of the League still seems hesitant to make him their whipping boy like they had Ollie.
Wally stops him as he’s heading out of the hall. “Hey, some of us are grabbing a drink after, wanna come?”
It’s a truce, an attempt and helping Roy feel like their friendship hasn’t been eclipsed by Connor and Wally’s friendship- it’s nice but, “Oh, I actually promised Ollie that I’d go over to his and Uncle Hal’s for a movie tonight, old times’ sake sort of thing. I think we’re watching some sort of campy action movie. Tell Linda I said hi though, yeah? She and I will have to catch a game sometime.”
“I’ll let her know. Tell Uncle Hal I said hi too. And let me know when Lian’s coming to the states again? I can never keep up with where she’s at but Linda and I wanna catch one of her shows.”
“Will do. See ya later Wally.”
They still haven’t removed the zeta line to Ollie’s house. He’s technically a reserve member, and Roy’s fairly certain that you can’t really retire from being a Green Lantern, so it’s at least going to be connected for Hal’s sake still. In any event it’s still weird zeta-ing into his father’s bedroom.
As he walks down the stairs he calls. “You could have had that thing installed in the basement y’know… where all the equipment is!”
Ollie yells back. “And not have my bed close by to pass out in? No thank you!”
In between laughs, Hal yells, “we’re in the kitchen Roy! The Green Chef decided he needed to make snacks before you got here.”
Roy laughs, “Who couldn’t do for a little heartburn with their movie?”
As he rounds the corner to the kitchen he sees Ollie grin and poke his head out. “That’s my boy! At least someone around here gets it!”
Hal rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but Roy can see the smile tugging at his lips, and Ollie still has to swat his hand away from newly finished snacks.
“So what are you making me watch old man?”
Ollie’s practically beaming . “Dragon Heart!”
Roy frowns. “Didn’t that movie come out while you were dead? And like nobody watched it?”
Ollie nods. “Yeah, but it looks great, so we’re gonna watch it.”
Hal sighs and looks at him. “He saw ‘buddy cop dragon and knight’ movie and decided we had to watch it. I’ve been hearing his theories about what the movie’s gonna be like all week. ”
Roy nods. “Riiiight.”
Truth be told, he’d been interested in the movie when it had first come out, it had looked like something silly and fun that he could have invited the other Titans to see with him, a chance to reconnect with his friends in the wake of the loneliness of losing another father. But something about the film, and what he’d heard about it gave him the impression that watching that movie would only make him cry. That instead of helping him reconnect with his friends it would just make him bitter and angry about being barred from Ollie’s funeral when Dick was there. That it would make him bitter and angry about the fact that he and Ollie hadn’t managed to get over themselves enough to fix their relationship before the latter had died. That it would make him bitter that he wasn’t going to get to watch it with his dad.
But now? Now he can.
The movie’s barely started when Ollie adjusts himself to settle against Hal’s chest, and it makes Roy’s chest ache- Ollie so rarely lets himself appear that vulnerable and yet here in the comfort of family he’s content to let himself be held. It’s nice to see him so relaxed for once. He taps Roy with his ankle. “Whatcha think Speedy?”
Roy’s chest now feels tight for a completely different reason. He’s in his forties, the same age Ollie was when they’d lost each other all those years ago, and now here he is, being called the name he’d gone by as a kid. All this work. All this fucking work just to be treated like a kid again. “It’s fine, not really sure where it’s going. Sean Connery’s always good though.”
Hal nods, looking unbothered. “True.”
And oh doesn’t that hurt too? Hal, who had looked at him with pride and told him he looked like a man, who had helped him become Red Arrow, who had helped him pick the name- unbothered by Roy being reduced back to a child.
If he’d seen this movie twenty years ago when it had come out, he’d have cried for want of his father. The movie is almost too perfectly suited to Ollie’s tastes to have not had Roy leave with puffy eyes and an aching heart. But here now, with Ollie’s voice, alive and well and calling him Speedy, he wants to cry out of frustration. Wants to cry out of anger. He wants to rage. So much so that he’s almost intentionally ignoring the movie in the hopes that either of his fathers will notice.
Ollie notices first, likely a byproduct of the coddling that seems second nature to him. “You okay Speedy?”
Roy’s eyes snap open and he turns abruptly to face Ollie. “I’m not a fucking child.”
Ollie’s reaction is almost immediate. His facial expression doesn’t change, but there’s a shift in his eyes, the kind Roy’s only seen when his dad’s been shot- his shoulders push forward seemingly of their own accord and his head drops maybe an inch. He’s shrinking in on himself, hiding as much as his pride will allow.
Hal frowns and presses a firm, lingering kiss to Ollie’s temple before hauling himself up and off the couch, muttering something about needing fresh air. It’s clearly a lie, a convenient line to give him an excuse to leave so he’s not caught in the middle of this. Both his and Ollie’s eyes follow him as he leaves and Ollie sighs, fiddling with the edge of the blanket over his lap. “I know you’re not.”
“Then what’s with the name?”
Ollie tenses his hands and his knuckles audibly crack, a soft sound that betrays his nerves. .” “Well, Red Arrow’s kind of a mouthful.”
Roy’s eyes darken and narrow. “ Ollie .”
His father refuses to make eye contact. Gone is the masked confidence worn so proudly all those years, replaced now with that ever constant underlying guilt as he licks and then bites his lip. “I-...it…. I gave…..it was your-”
And suddenly, as he watches his father shrink smaller and smaller into the couch, stumbling over himself to find the right words. What Ollie meant hits him.
Speedy. It was his nickname, the first one Ollie ever gave him, before they’d even started to realize that they were father and son- before either of them would ever admit that they’d been starting to become family instead of simply “best friends.”
Roy thinks back to his jealousy over Mia becoming Speedy, the way that Ollie had watched him carefully, almost hoping to see it- to see some kind of proof that Roy still cared about being his Speedy.
Because it’s not about the nickname. That’s something he should have realized decades ago.
It’s never been about the nickname.
That feeling of loss that’s persisted all these years as Ollie’s held him both too close and too far at the same time. Ollie’d told him once that it was his guilt that prevented him from putting things back to how they’d been- had explained once that when he feels guilt it’s this all consuming thing, a sensation that takes up residence in his very soul and even knowing he’s been forgiven isn’t enough to stop it from taking over.
But it’s been more than twenty years, and there have been many tearful admissions about fatherhood, the pain of being a son, their anxieties, and of Roy’s desire to just be Ollie’s boy again and Ollie’s regret over not being able to give Roy that feeling.
But that’s what Speedy is. So he moves, and sits on the couch next to his dad. Ollie still isn’t looking at him, is staring at his fingers where they mess with the blanket.
“I’m sorry.” Ollie whispers. “I didn’t mean- you’re not a kid, you’re my kid but you’re not- it was stupid.”
Roy leans against his dad’s shoulder and takes a measured breath in a vain attempt to stop himself from crying. “Dad, I’ve always been your Speedy, I just…needed to remember what it meant.”
Ollie holds him in a hug, awkward due to the angle, but firm, comforting, paternal. “It’s not the same.”
Roy knocks their heads together. “Doesn’t have to be.”