Archive of Our Own

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The main problem with this, Roy reflected grumpily, was that he could no longer parent Lian without feeling immensely guilty about it all. Now that he had temporary – thank god – telepathic abilities, all of her emotions flooded into him the moment he was even slightly stern with her.

She was definitely milking it, too. He could tell. Every time he caught her looking from her little reflection corner, he was flooded with mental giggles. It was the best sound in the world, so Roy kept doing it.

But the rest of the team weren’t that great at shielding their thoughts, which was annoying, and honestly, for a group that regularly fought magical villains, you’d think they’d have safeguards in their mind and whatnot. When Roy had brought this up with Raven, all she’d done was raise an eyebrow.

Do you understand how difficult it is, she’d projected into his mind, to teach someone to do this?

“But I gotta keep seeing like… the most traumatising shit!” Roy had said. “Just now, I was walking down the hall, and Gar was there picturing Vic and him with some weird technical thing and…argh! I don’t want to know about their sex life! Why’s he always an octopus?”

“You could try creating mental blocks to stop their thoughts from intruding in yours.”

So now Roy was trying with all his might to picture a brick wall. It was tall, and surrounded him, and he couldn’t see over it. It was a little like the wall that’d surrounded Ollie’s place, back when he’d been a kid, and Roy was self aware enough to recognise that he was probably picturing that particular wall because he’d always felt safe within its boundaries.

“Okay,” he said, when yet another terrifying mental image of some kids’ puppet show entered his mind, “your reflection time is over. What’ve we learnt?”

Lian bounded over, jumping onto the couch. All the air left Roy’s lungs as she landed on him. “That you don’t like puppets,” she said. “Or video games.”

“Hey, that’s cheating.” Roy stood up with her under his arm, carrying her like a duffle bag. Lian shrieked and wriggled her legs, arms pressed tight against her body. “But also, I don’t think that should be considered as a kids’ program.”

“It’s only adults who get scared of it,” Lian told him sagely. “Jai likes it too.”

“That kid likes everything,” Roy muttered. “Just like his dad.” His thoughts about Wally were… complicated at the moment, ever since this mind whammy. Wally’s mind was annoying to read – he seemed to always be thinking about something, at just a fast enough pace that it was discernible if Roy paid attention, and rapid enough to guarantee it’d catch his mind.

Not to mention the fact that he thought he and Wally had gotten past whatever strange rivalry Wally had had with him back in the day, but apparently the other man was still holding grudges.

He wondered if anyone had told Dick that Wally had had a massive crush on him. That’d been the reason that he’d always thought Wally hadn’t liked him, when they’d been the Teen Titans – at first it’d been Wally’s crush on Donna, and then it’d been his crush on Dick.

But it wasn’t like Roy could do anything about that. It wasn’t exactly his fault that both of them had decided to date him at various points.

“Where’re we going?” Lian asked, craning her head around to look at him.

“To see where the rest of the team are,” Roy told her, swinging her a little. He was rewarded by the mental image of himself as a giant swingset, all in red paint and his tiny little feathered cap from his Speedy days on top.

He followed the buzzing sensation in his head. He was lucky that the Tower was on its own island – Roy couldn’t imagine how annoying it would’ve been to be in any metropolitan area with this power, all the constant thoughts that were impossible to block out with just a handful of people but would be absolutely excruciating in a city.

Garth was standing in the kitchen, peering down at a bowl. “Hey, Lian,” he greeted. “Roy.”

Roy looked away as Garth’s mind flashed to Cerdian, just like it always did for one split moment whenever Lian, or Irey and Jai, were around. He didn’t know if Garth even knew that that happened, or if this was something he’d just accepted. Lian was wriggling a little too much in his grip; he released her and she landed like a cat, before running to see what Garth was doing.

“You cooking?” he asked suspiciously. Garth had been notorious for oversalting things.

Garth raised his arms even as he bent down to pick Lian up and place her on the counter beside him. “After the threats I keep getting from you and Vic? Nah. Just descaling some fish.”

Roy nodded slowly, trying to block out Garth’s thoughts as they went from his dead child to dead fish, and troubles in Atlantis. “You know where everyone else is?”

Garth shrugged. “The kids took off outside. Something about a picnic,” he said, referring to Grant and Toni, and possibly Jesse. “I think Wally went home. I saw Dick coming in about a half hour ago.” He slid a knife right down the middle of the fish, and now instead of seeing Garth’s memories, Roy was flooded with his own, seeing his childhood before his eyes as Ollie taught him how to fish when you were light on supplies.

“I thought Dick was in Gotham.” Roy frowned, registering Garth’s words. He and Dick were… complicated, at the moment. It’d been complicated even before they’d started half dating, but now with this spell, with Roy having been unconscious for a whole day, it had all gotten a few levels worse. Now he’d barely seen Dick since he’d woken up, had only heard from the others that he’d barely left Roy’s side even as the core Titans had made sure that Lian was okay.

“Actually,” Garth stopped what he was doing, and handed Lian the little knife and her own fish. Lian looked delighted; Roy stepped a little closer. “You might wanna go check on him. He wasn’t moving right, but he was in a really bad mood, so I thought I might as well leave him alone, and find him in time for lunch.”

That explained the fish. Roy could see brief flashes from Garth’s mind about Dick, as he mentally recalled the situation. He could pinpoint the exact moment Garth had zeroed in on Dick’s movement, normally fluid and graceful in a way that Roy could never hope to emulate, being stiff and jerking.

“I’ll take him something to eat, then,” Roy said. “Lian, how about you hand that back to Uncle Garth.” He was immediately flooded with upset from her, and he heaved a sigh. “Garth, man, c’mon. She hasn’t even mastered the bow yet, and you’re already handing her a fish to gut?”

Garth frowned. “In Atlantis, children are taught how to gather their food from around this age,” he said. “I can show her, if you’d prefer that.”

Roy hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly. “Okay, but if she’s using the knife, then your hand is on it too.”

“Of course.”

“Lian, you listen to Uncle Garth and you do not grab the blade, okay?” Lian nodded eagerly, her mind saying duh, and Roy wondered just what he was doing raising his daughter in a building of superheroes.

But it wasn’t like any of them would’ve fared better if they’d been left to their mundane lives, separate from each other. He could see how much it helped her to be around other kids like her, like Wally’s kids. He really needed to get on less awkward terms with Wally so he wouldn’t feel so awkward every time he mentioned a playdate out of the blue.

Scrounging through the fridge and keeping one part of his attention on the telepathic link he had with Lian at all times, Roy found leftover chilli from the night before. He placed some of it into a bowl and put it in the microwave to heat up, wondering if Dick would want anything to drink with it.

In the end, he just grabbed a glass of water and the bowl, and left for Dick’s room. It was near Roy and Lian’s, though he didn’t use it as often as they did, what with the constant coming and going from Bludhaven and Gotham.

As Roy stepped closer, he could feel Dick. He was counting in his mind, doing some sort of meditative breathing. That never bode well.

And that was before a sharp wave of pain washed through Roy, and he almost doubled over, gasping. Water sloshed around in the glass in his hand, spilling over the sides a little and wetting his hand. Roy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to follow the mental countdown Dick was doing, getting the pain under control as much as he could so he’d be able to walk in without letting on to Dick that he knew.

Dick always clammed up tight when he thought they were calling him out for hiding injuries.

“Knock knock, coming in,” Roy called, opening the door with an elbow. He sucked in a breath at the sudden wave of panic and guilt and… Roy frowned, because that couldn’t be right. He cleared his throat. “Hey, Wingster. Figured I’d bring you lunch.”

“You didn’t have to.” Dick looked like shit, as though he hadn’t slept the entire time he’d been away from the Tower. Knowing the kinds of emergencies Dick got called away for, Roy wouldn’t be surprised. “Please tell me that’s your cooking, though.”

“What, you don’t trust anyone else in this place to cook?”

Dick gave him a look, and Roy huffed a laugh, swallowing hard to avoid gagging at Dick’s memory of the time Wally and Donna had tried to make steak.

Roy tried not to look around the room as Dick gingerly sat down at the little table, but he couldn’t help himself. They’d been… well, he wasn’t exactly sure what they’d been doing, but it was definitely each other. Sometimes. He was extremely glad that he was the one with the telepathy, because thoughts like these were mortifying.

But looking around Dick’s room, at the absolute mess he’d made in less than an hour of being back, it was hard not to remember tripping over a stray shirt on the floor as he snuck in late at night after putting Lian to bed. Roy pulled his eyes away from the little couch by the window, remembering all the times he’d gotten up and sat there after Dick had fallen asleep to get dressed.

There it was again from Dick, the feeling like a door being slammed shut just as Roy was about to follow him in. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Having telepathy had made some things so much clearer, but other things had somehow gotten worse.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” he said, getting up to walk outside. Dick being on edge like this while Roy was here wouldn’t help him heal; he should’ve just sent Garth in to check. Garth was good at being empathetic – if Dick was annoyed enough at Roy to not want Roy to even get a gist of his thoughts, then speaking to someone might help.

“Wait!” Dick stood up a little too quickly, and Roy’s vision went white. He caught himself against the bookshelf, wheezing in a breath and trying desperately to tell his body that the pain wasn’t his.

That was the thought that jerked him out of it, because the pain was Dick’s. Roy had never been able to watch Dick in pain and not try to do something about it. “You’re hurt,” he said, trying to make it come out like a question, though they both damn well knew that he knew.

Dick’s face had gone pale, his tan skin looking pasty and pallid. He was leaning forward, hands braced on the table and hunched in on himself. And then he had the audacity to say, “Nothing serious.”

Roy would’ve laughed if it wasn’t taking him all this effort to keep Dick’s feelings and sensations to one corner of his mind. He stalked forward and held Dick by the shoulder, moving him away from the table and back into the chair. “Where?” he asked. “What happened?”

Dick wasn’t looking at him, but he responded after a brief pause. “Broken ribs. And a bit of a stab wound.”

“A bit of a stab wound?” Roy reached forward and yanked his shirt up, and then hissed in a sympathetic breath at the sight of Dick’s torso. “Rob, you couldn’t’ve found anyone else to bandage this for you? You aren’t even supposed to wrap broken ribs anymore…”

Dick made a small shrugging motion. “Had to improvise,” he said with a smile. “They keep moving around. Also, the stab wound.”

Roy sighed. “Okay, I’ll… I’ll get Vic. He’s much better at this than I am—”

Dick’s hand latched on to his sleeve. “Wait—”

“Yeah, you said that already, but in case you’ve forgotten, you’re the one who’s been avoiding me this whole time.” Maybe it was a cheap shot, especially when Dick was injured and looking at him with those wounded eyes, but Roy had spent this entire time since waking up with the curse waiting for Dick to even so much as look at him. It didn’t track with the Dick he knew, or the Dick he’d been somewhat dating.

Dick’s hand fell, and he exhaled. “I know,” he said. “I’m just… the telepathy thing. It’s messing with my head.”

“Messing with your head?”

“That came out wrong.” The humour on Dick’s face was only surface level, because Roy couldn’t feel a trace of it in Dick’s mind. “What I mean is… I know you wanted this to be casual. And I’m trying, but it’s a lot to try and stop every single thought—"

“Hold on.” Roy sat back down opposite him. “Wanted what to be casual?” His heart was pounding wildly in his chest, and he could feel the way that Dick’s thoughts froze, and then began buzzing in his mind all at once. “Geez, don’t hurt yourself, pretty bird.” He grinned at the wash of what felt almost like teenage embarrassment – and… pleasure? – that washed over Dick at the nickname.

“Us,” Dick responded slowly. “I know you wanted us… to be casual.”

Roy was trying to keep calm. “And why would you assume that without ever discussing it with me?”

Dick stared back. “Are you saying you don’t want casual?”

“Dick, I know what you like, what kind of relationships you’re okay with! Even if I did want casual, I wouldn’t do that to you, not when they’re not the sort of relationships you do.” Roy ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, I… guess all the times I ran off after didn’t do anything to help that impression.”

Dick ignored that, and Roy tried to ignore the overlapping thoughts running through his mind. “So you’re telling me you… have we been dating?”

“Course not,” Roy said, forcing his face to not show the way his stomach fluttered at those words. “Trust me, you’d know if you went on a date with me. Just ask Donna. But,” he continued, for the sake of transparency, to be completely clear so they wouldn’t fall into more misunderstandings, “I want to. Date you, I mean. If you want to, anyway.”

Dick just looked at him for a moment, before grabbing Roy by the front of his shirt and tugging him forward. Roy came easily, not wanting Dick to move more than he had to, and half leaned over Dick as Dick yanked him down to his height and kissed him, full and wholeheartedly.

Does that answer your question? Dick thought, loud and clear. Roy’s hand spasmed where it was cupping Dick’s cheek, and he broke away with a gasp of breath.

“We’ve been wasting so much time with this telepathy thing,” he said.