Chapter Text
POV: Roy Harper aka Arsenal
November 7th, 2018, around 00:41
Location: Titans Tower, bathroom
Roy felt his chest puff out as his stomach clenched inwards, as the last bit of vomit flowed out of his mouth, his head tilted over the toilet, his fingers tightly gripping the edges of the cold porcelain seat.
He felt awful, for the past two weeks he’d been p at throwing up every morning and it was now starting to happen at the smell of some foods.
It was confusing, so, so confusing, and frustrating as well, he should have gotten over this stupid stomach bug by now. He was pretty sure that if it didn’t stop soon he’d be benched (which would be a fucking nightmare), as people were starting to notice his sickness after he keeps runnimg off the past three times he’s tried to eat around others.
As his jaw hangs open in fear of vomiting again, thick globs of spit running down his lip and onto his chin, he almost scoffs. He swears it sounds like he’s pregnant but he knows there was no way.
It had been two years since he had come back from being cryogenically frozen by the Light after all.
The last time he had sex was two weeks before the Light captured him. There was a weird thing the Light did, he hadn’t remembered this originally but he did remember, with the help of therapy, that the Light had put a spell on him as he flitted in and out of consciousness, right before they cut off his arm.
But at this point he’s pretty sure it was just to help with the cryogenic freezing. Eventually sitting his chin against the edge of the toilet seat Roy let his eyes flutter close.
He felt exhausted, he felt drained, tomorrow he had a mission and all he could hope was that it would go well and he wouldn’t throw up over anyone.
Though it might be funny if he threw up on the criminals they were going after. Letting out a low groan, Roy finally allowed himself to slowly lift his chin up and off the toilet seat, using his one arm, he had put his prosthetic away, to rub at his eyes. Once he finally felt awake enough to finish getting around he wiped the spit away from his mouth and chin, grimacing at the weird grossness of the spit against his hand.
Stumbling over to the sink he glanced up at himself in the mirror.
He was currently a mess, his red hair was ruffled and going all in which way.
The trans tape he wore to flatten his chest was starting to peel away (he’d need to change it tomorrow morning, he’d been wearing it for three days already), and there were red creases in his skin where he’d pressed his chest against the toilet for hours as he’d gagged up the last of his dinner.
His eyes were dull, dark, and tired, the bags under his eyes were almost a purple, the skin itself puffy and big.
Glancing over to his stump arm, he could see it looked a bit red and rubbed raw from wearing the prosthetic all day (he hated not wearing it. Everyone looked at him so weirdly otherwise. He felt helpless otherwise).
He could feel it aching and burning and he knew he had to deal with that before going to bed or else he’d regret it.
He felt like pressing a harsh palm into the bridge of his nose but he didn’t feel like worrying about getting his probably bile laced spit all over his face so he turned on the sink instead.
He quickly shoved his hand under, allowing the cold water to wash over his hand and cause that fuzzy numb feeling until it started to become warm.
Once it became warm enough he pulled his hand out from under the faucet, rubbing the dripping water off of his hand and onto his face.
The warm water seemed to soak into his skin, calming him slightly.
After covering his whole face he grabbed his face towel from the rack next to the sink and patting it dry. Once it was dry he threw the towel into one of the counter’s corners and got some lotion. He carefully rubbed the lotion into the raw end of his arm’s stump, holding his breath until cool relief finally began to seep in. He covered the whole bottom and sides in a light layer, allowing it to settle for a second or two as he washed his hand.
Then he pulled out his toothbrush and toothpaste, having to finagle to get the toothpaste on the brush.
Then he quickly brushed his teeth, he needed to get the taste of vomit outside of him and he needed to clean and on time for tomorrow mission.
Spitting out the now dirty watered down paste, he allowed himself to bring up the flem and anything else that could possibly be there from the previous day.
He then gave himself one last glance into the mirror and headed to bed.
—
POV: Roy Harper aka Arsenal
November 7th, 2018, around 21:05
Location: Outer areas of Central City
Roy took a deep breath as the cold air wiped against the skin of his that was bare.
He kind of missed when his hair used to fly around due to the wind, and while he was growing it out, it was quite short, not enough for the wind to significantly move it.
As he let the breath out Roy watched as it appeared in the air, causing him to smile softly. Roy’s eyes wandered around his surroundings, looking at the buildings around him. He had been put on watch duty, everyone knew he kept getting sick so this was the best thing, though he did have to travel between multiple buildings.
It was embarrassing, but at least he didn’t have to stay still, he thinks he might die if he had to.
He was honestly getting quite tired of getting sick, it was awful, the nausea and vomiting, the quick coming exhaustion, the dizziness, all of it.
It was so strange for him to have, but he was hoping it’d go away in time. He could have gotten some strange bug from when he and the team went to Atlantis on the previous mission.
He had no idea how he would have gotten or what type of bug he would have gotten but considering Atlantis was a completely different country (it’s technically considered a kingdom but he’s saying country because he can), and the people living there probably had very different immune systems.
Also, it was underwater and Roy distinctly remembered accidentally breaking his rebreather which caused him to inhale some of the ocean water.
It was probably whale shit making him sick.
Probably, that’s what he’s going to say and has been saying, though he honestly thought he’d be fine by now.
Eh, he’s already decided to go to the doctor if it doesn’t start even getting better (because it’s only been getting worse so far) after the third week mark. Even though he really doesn’t want to, he’s always refused going to JL doctors unless for emergencies.
He didn’t want them finding out he was trans, god knows they’d treat him differently. And he honestly didn’t want to see how his teammates would react, that would be terrifying.
He tries to not let people know he’s trans unless necessary.
Ollie knew of course, he had adopted him after all, and he had told Dinah.
Ollie hadn’t cared and Dinah was very receptive. But, Batman also knew, he had learned from Ollie that Batman would find out anyway so he’d just told him. Batman didn’t care, said it was no big deal as long as he got his health checked regularly so there would be no health issues interfering in the field.
Though he had also demanded that Roy only use trans tape when on missions due to him having a concern of more extreme injury to ribs if injured, and breathing issues.
Which surprised Roy, so so so much.
He was later on told by Ollie that Batman had apparently done a lot of research into trans people and transitioning after Dinah had told him he was trans.
Ollie had also warned him about Batman trying to fund his transition but he thinks Ollie was joking with that.
Shaking his head and bringing himself back to reality Roy felt himself yawn as he slowly rose up, knees cracking, and stretched his back. Glancing one last time at the current angle he had of the back entrance Roy decided to move to another building.
He was getting bored with staying on this building at this point and he wanted to move. He gave a running start and jumped to go to the nearest building on the right.
The next thing he knew he was on the ground, pain wracking his body, especially his back and stomach, as he threw up.
He could hear his comm buzzing with concerned voices (Fuck. Forgot to mute himself.), and he felt a prick of annoyance. He had to bite his bottom lip to stop himself from letting out a whine as he finally finished throwing up.
Then a voice pipping up on the comms (Impulse his brain supplied), almost halted him, “Are you sure that’s just from dirty water R— Arsenal? Maybe you got magically pregnant or something…”.
As Roy stilled, brain running a mile a minute, he could hear everyone arguing over the comms, and he swore he heard Blue Beetle asking if it’s something that happened in Impulse’s future or something. Fuck.
—
POV: Roy Harper aka Arsenal
November 9th, 2018, around 01:00
Location: Titans Tower, bathroom
Roy ran a hand through his hair as he paced nervously occasionally glancing down at the six upside down pregnancy tests.
He couldn’t believe he was actually doing this but he just had to be sure, he had to be sure. He could feel his nose wrinkling at the, for some reason, strong smell of pee as he checked his watch. ‘00:05’ the timer said, causing Roy to take a deep shaky breath in, counting down the seconds to his head.
He decided to count an extra ten seconds just in case, but eventually he had to do it. He wasn’t sure about this, what he would do.
He was terrified, if he was pregnant he didn’t know if anyone could do anything about it.
He also didn’t really want to go to anybody in Young Justice, or Teen Titans, as they didn’t know that he was even trans, but Ollie did and he definitely did not want to go to Ollie.
He was so upset with the man still, and he couldn’t help but be terrified how disappointed Ollie would be of him, which he did not need. He would have to quit Young Justice, he’d almost been there for two years too, which meant he’d have to move out. He had no idea who would even be okay with him moving in with them, a possibly pregnant teen.
Fuck.
Oh he was so fucked.
At least if he was pregnant, maybe he wasn’t.
Pulling himself out of his mini spiral Roy shook his hand to try to wake himself up before picking up the closest, and first test he took. Flipping it over he flicked to the results and wanted to scream.
It was positive, of course it was, but maybe the others would be negative, it could be a false positive. Quickly he found himself flipping over the other five only for a pit of dread to form in his stomach.
They were all positive, “Fuck..” Roy muttered out.
Roy could feel as the tears decided to not even wait to form, just pouring out of his eyes in large clumps.
Backing up to lean against the wall, he found himself sliding down as his head fell forward.
He shakily brought his hands into his field of vision, palms up as the world around him began to whirl and go all fuzzy. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, or who to go to for help.
This was probably his worst nightmare, and he didn’t even know how it happened.
The only thing he can think of is that he got pregnant from the last time he had sex (he can’t even remember if it was protected or not, fuck.), and the Light realised that when they kidnapped him.
The spell they put on was probably to freeze the progress of the embryo developing and allow him to go under anaesthesia.
Roy didn’t know if it was supposed to wear off, or if it got broken somehow, but he didn’t know what to do, he was terrified. Letting in a big sniff Roy tried his best to get out of his head and clear his vision back to normal. As it finally came back he could see that he had been texting Dinah while completely out, snot had been dripping down his nose and over his lip, his whole face a sticky sweaty mess. Doing his best to snap back to attention Roy re read some of the texts, almost making his panic worse.
In his dissociated state he decided to tell her everything, but now the reasonable and rational part of him is screaming.
Scrambling to do so Roy deletes all the messages and sends a small waving hand emoji.
If he was correct she was assigned to a mission recently, meaning she wouldn’t see the texts.
A blessing in disguise if you asked him. Taking a deep breath in, he muttered, “Fuck. I need to run”, and began to prepare himself to get to his things.
He was so glad he always made sure to keep an update to go back just in case he needed to run.
—
POV: Roy Harper aka Arsenal
November 10th, 2018, around 02:23
Location: Titans Tower, zeta tubes
Roy let out a small breath as he tapped the final button to send him to Will’s house.
Glancing over his shoulder he looked around at Titans Tower, possibly for the last time. Gritting his teeth he wondered how much he could’ve seen. But he made sure to unclench them soon after, knowing it’d probably be hard to find decent dental where he was going.
Tilting his head up to stare at the security camera across from him he allowed himself to stare for a few seconds.
Then he turned around and stepped into the zeta tube, allowing the blue light and the dizzy disorienting feeling to consume him.
——
POV: N/A
November 11th-20th, 2018, around 14:00
Location: Justice League Comms
Messages between B-01 & B-00
(Aka Nightwing & Batman)
B-01 : B. Arsenal is missing. He hasn’t been seen in person in the last 32 hours, and he was shown on cameras leaving Titans Tower by zeta tubes at 02:23 the other day. He also left his tracker and phone behind in his room.
B-00 : Check his phone and check where he went on zeta tubes.
B-00 : Also check in with Green Arrow, Canary, and Red Arrow.
10 minutes later . . .
B-01 : Well
B-01 : Phone has been completely wiped, Robin is working on trying to recover stuff now.
B-01: And zeta tubes says he left for Red Arrow’s house. Around ten hours later there's a record of Arsenal leaving Red Arrow’s zeta tube and going to one in Gotham.
B-01 : Green Arrow says some money is missing in his accounts, it looks like it’s been taken slowly over months and a lot was taken out just after Arsenal left Titans Tower.
B-01 : Canary says she got notifications from Arsenal, but he deleted them before she could read them so all she has is the preview. She says he was talking about how he was panicking over something.
B-01 : Still waiting to get a hold of Red Arrow.
. . .
B-00 : See if you can find if he has any online accounts, specifically banking, or social media.
B-01 : I can try but.
B-01 : Turns out Arsenal put a virus on his phone that detonated the physical phone itself after it corrupted Robin’s spare laptop, meaning we cannot use any data that he had gotten.
B-01 : So the phone is a no go
B-01 : He also always refused to use any community devices unless it was strictly for hero related stuff so we can’t look at community devices.
B-00 : Is Robin okay?
B-01 : Yup! He noticed the phone heating up to a dangerous degree and chucked it before it could explode in his face.
. . .
B-01 : I’m worried for Arsenal.
B-01 : Green Arrow says that this is unusual, even from before he got frozen.
B-01 : He was apparently always secretive but he never ran away.
B-00 : Hm.
B-01 : There’s another strange thing.
B-01 : Arsenal had been getting repeatedly sick for the previous two weeks before disappearing. He would also get tired much more easily.
B-01 : He wasn’t like that before and Green Arrow said he wasn’t like that before Arsenal got frozen and Red Arrow took over either.
B-00 : See if you can check Arsenal’s room at Titans Tower.
B-00 : Continue working on getting in contact with Red Arrow as well.
2 days later . . .
B-01 : Looked through Arsenal’s room and we might have found some stuff.
B-00 : Report.
B-01 : There were chunks of a destroyed laptop, the drive having been smashed so much that nothing can be recovered.
B-01 : We also found a hidden stash of fake records, like birth certificates, licenses, etc.
B-01 : They all have different names, and some are variations of his own.
B-01 : He did leave other stuff behind it seems but we couldn’t find anything else.
B-01 : Still waiting on a response from Red Arrow.
B-00 : Hm. Send me the list of names used.
1 week later . . .
B-01 : Finally got ahold of Red Arrow, he wouldn’t say much though.
B-00 : What information did you manage to get?
B-01 : Apparently Arsenal had arrived at his house at around 02:45 on November 10th. According to Red Arrow he was panicking and crying. He refused to talk to Red Arrow until he was sure that there was nothing that could possibly be recorded.
B-01 : Red Arrow refuses to tell me what they discussed but at around 03:39 they stopped talking and Arsenal slept in the Red Arrow’s guest bedroom.
B-01 : Red Arrow says he woke up around seven hours later. They apparently sat and talked for another hour and a half until Arsenal left with supplies provided by Red Arrow. Red Arrow did not sneak a tracker on Arsenal but he did confirm that Arsenal was heading towards Gotham.
B-01 : He told me that Arsenal had his reasons, though he refused to disclose those reasons and then hung up.
B-00 : Interesting. I haven’t found anyone using any of the fake aliases provided so if Arsenal is using one he must have chosen one and not left any trace.
B-01 : I. Just hope he’s okay.