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"Headed back to Star," Roy said, dragging his hand across the back of the couch as he walked behind Dick and Donna. "Ollie says there's some family thing."
Dick quietly filed away the lack of hair-ruffle which would usually have accompanied this movement, instead of the hand-dragging, and looked up from his cold case. "Shout if you need," he said, as he always did when one of them left.
"Give everyone our regards," Donna agreed.
Roy grunted, and disappeared into the zeta room.
Dick and Donna exchanged a glance.
Roy had been off for a few weeks now, and Dick would attribute his own distraction in the wake of Jason's death with his inability to say exactly when things had shifted.
Donna thought he was exaggerating, but something about Roy was worrying her too. On her insistence, he was waiting for a sign. So he tried to file away his worries, and turned his attention back to his case.
Nearly six hours later—and where had the time gone?—the Tower comms pinged.
Dick answered on the tv, although he probably should've gone to the actual communications room for it. He and Donna were the only ones in the tower at the moment.
"Justice League," he greeted in surprise, looking at nearly the entire roster. "Is this an emergency?" His hand hovered over this tablet, ready to recall his scattered team.
"No," Uncle Clark said. "We're reviewing the quarter's cases, wanted to ask you some clarifying questions. Is the rest of the team in?"
Dick shook his head. "Flash II is in Central, Tempest is somewhere on the west coast," he said.
"Oregon," Aquaman said. "Fisheries."
Dick nodded. "Jericho is in Quebec with Ravager running a con on a former HIVE scientist." He glanced at Donna.
"Starfire is in Milan, I think," Donna said.
"Arsenal?" Green Arrow asked.
Dick felt ice slide down his spine. "Whoever knows what machines he's tinkering with," he said lightly. "What can I answer?"
On the screen, B sat up a little straighter. There was a barely-there smile on his mouth, like he was proving a point, and he was smug about it. "Nightwing, can you walk us through your process for the action on December 9th? Against the alien stingray things."
Green Lantern said the actual species name, which had a consonant combination Dick always messed up, so he'd started calling them stingrays.
Dick sat up a little straighter, and started walking the Justice League through the battle.
When they finally hung up, Dick and Donna exchanged a glance. "So Oliver doesn't know where Roy is," Donna said quietly.
"He lied to us both," Dick said.
Donna nodded slowly.
Dick stared at his phone.
"Be careful," Donna said quietly.
In the end, Dick just texted Roy, "Countback from 50." Then he put his phone face down on the arm of the sofa and tried to push down his worry. He picked his cold case back up, trying to ignore the churn in his gut.
Donna squeezed his shoulder.
Focus was next to impossible, so Dick finally gave up and went to the kitchen for dinner. He paced as he cooked, and he ate his serving pacing before the big windows in the common room.
Donna, watching Bake Off and crocheting, kept shooting him nervous glances.
At just after nine pm, Dick's phone buzzed on the sofa.
Dick dived for it, and his stomach dropped at the message.
"Tag you're it."
It was Roy's fault the Titan's personal code was themed off of Hide and Seek, as often as he'd replied 'ollie ollie oxen free' when asked if he was all right going back to Star and the Queen house. 'Ready or not here I come' had come to mean, "please make up an excuse to get me out of here." Donna, kidnapped in her civilian identity had invented 'Tag you're it!' as an urgent "come get me now." Dick, reeling in the aftermath of Jason's death and desperate to know his recurring nightmares of his friends' deaths weren't real, had added "Countback from 50" to the repertoire, a request for a status update.
Donna was already pulling up the tracker data on the tv while Dick scrambled for his field kit.
"Dick," Donna said quietly.
Dick stared at the gps pin. It was a trendy club in downtown Star City, and Roy's phone was right in the thick of it. Dick hesitated for five seconds, and then started stripping off the Nightwing uniform.
It took him twenty excruciating minutes to get changed into appropriate club clothes, Zeta to Star, and get into the club. Another eight to find Roy.
Roy was sitting in the back corner of the men's restroom, knees drawn to his chest. His head lolled back against the wall and his pupils were huge.
"Hey," Dick said softly, kneeling down.
"Rob," Roy murmured, listing towards him. His fumbling hand curling into Dick's shirt showed the needle sticks in his arms.
Dick clenched his jaw so hard his teeth hurt, and gathered Roy to his chest. "Come on," he said softly. "I'm taking you home." Roy was three inches taller and twenty pounds heavier, but Dick had built himself with the intention of being able to carry more than his own weight. He scooped Roy up bridal style, and let Roy hide his face in Dick's neck as he carried him out of the club and into the taxi Donna had called them.
Roy, breathing slow and shallow against Dick's neck, made a low, helpless sound.
Dick held him. "I've got you," he promised.
"Heroin," Donna said, looking at the toxicology report on Dick's tablet. Roy was asleep, finally, in Dick's lap. Dick nodded shortly, still wracking his brain to find the places he'd missed this.
"It can't've been long," Donna said, stroking his hair briefly.
Dick nodded. They'd been in space most of December and early January, and Roy, Wally, and Donna had barely left the Tower during late January, as Dick faltered under the weight of his grief. It could only have been a few weeks at most.
"Withdrawal is still going to suck," Dick said.
Donna nodded. "Also there's this," she said quietly. She turned his tablet. "Oracle nabbed it, but not before it hit a few places."
Dick grimaced, and looked. It was a blurry cell phone photo. Roy was impossible to distinguish, face tucked into Dick's neck, but Dick's face was clear and obvious even through the sunglasses he was wearing, indoors and at night, and anyone who knew him would recognize him. And then it wasn't much a leap to Oliver Queen's redheaded former ward. "Cross that bridge when we come to it," he said. "At least it's Richie Wayne and not Nightwing."
Donna nodded, and stroked Roy's hair before she went to call Wally and start the soup.
Withdrawal was going to suck.
Dick left messages for Garth and Joey, and recalled Wally and Kory, knowing Roy would need his friends around him. He also knew, and warned his team, that Roy was not going to want them around.
Thankfully, Kory was basically impervious to Roy's bad moods—any of their bad moods—and Dick had a thick skin. Donna and Wally took frequent breaks, both from Roy's vitriol and the miserable physical symptoms of heroin withdrawal.
Roy was finally sleeping again after a bitter argument with the wall that was Kory's affection, when the zeta notification flashed. It was a miracle it had taken this long.
"Walls," Dick said.
In a flash (pun entirely intended), Dick was braced across the doorway to the zeta room, arms crossed across his chest.
"Dick, move," Ollie ordered.
Dick did not move, and Ollie crashed right into his body check.
Ollie startled, and really looked at Dick's stone face. "You cannot seriously be enforcing the autonomy of the Titans right now," he said.
Dick held his gaze, face hard. "From you? Yes." How often had Roy, Donna, and Wally stonewalled Batman when Dick hadn't wanted to talk to him?
"Dick," Ollie snarled.
"No," Dick replied.
Ollie cracked. "He's my son," he pleaded.
Dick didn't relent. "And does he know that?" Dick demanded. "Are you going to treat him like that?" He pushed Ollie back towards the zeta when Ollie tried to push past him again. "Or are you going to treat him like a criminal, with demands and recriminations, when your son needs your support?"
Ollie opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
The zeta lit, and Batman stepped out. "Ollie," he said quietly. His whiteout lenses were up, and his eyes flicked to Dick, and then back to Ollie. "Ollie, come on."
"He's-" Ollie said quietly.
Bruce wrapped and arm and a cape around Ollie's shoulders. "Come back to the Cave," he said. "We'll get a spin story into the news, and we can talk about how you're going to talk to Roy when he's ready to see you."
Dick nodded at Bruce, and B tugged an unresistant Ollie back into the zeta.
When they were gone, Dick wilted back into the wall.
"Well done," Donna said, kissing his forehead.
Dick sighed. "It felt cruel," he admitted.
"It was what Roy needed. Batman will give Ollie what he needs. You can't be in charge of the whole world."
Dick leaned briefly into her embrace.
Then, from afar, was the sound of glass breaking, and Roy's raised voice.
"Once more, unto the breach," Donna muttered weakly.
"Everyone always seems to forget that the next line is 'or fill up the gap with our English dead,'" Dick reflected as they headed back to where Roy was shouting at Wally and Kory. He was silently preparing himself to do something maybe kind of stupid.
The physical withdrawal symptoms had faded, and now it was just Roy being an ass to cover how vulnerable he felt, and how afraid he was that he would lose them.
Dick strode into the middle of the argument and demanded, "Do you want to fight, is that it?"
Roy stared open-mouthed at him. Then he lunged.
Dick met him head on, hand-signing the others to let them be.
Dick and Roy were two of the most well-trained combatants on the planet. They were unenhanced humans who routinely went toe-to-toe with metahumans, aliens, and gods, and won.
And this was a schoolboy scuffle. Roy was slapping at Dick's torso instead of punching, and Dick was tugging at clothes instead of hair. Roy bit him, but not even hard enough to drawl blood. In return Dick headbutted his shoulder, which hurt Dick as much as Roy.
"Fuck you," Roy snarled, when they rolled to a stop, entangled and out of momentum.
"Up yours!" Dick snapped back.
"You're gonna fucking drop me, just do it already," Roy demanded.
"Fuck you," Dick snarled back. "Fuck you for thinking one bad call overrides nearly a decade of friendship. Fuck you for thinking you get to hold me through the worst week of my life and I won't return the favor! Fuck you for calling me your best friend and not letting me mean it back!"
Roy shuddered once, in his arms, and then rolled into him and buried his face in Dick's neck. "I need help," he whispered.
"I have you," Dick replied, just as soft, and held on as Roy cried.
It did not magically become easier after that, although at one point Dick did ruefully wish they could call Zatanna about it. It wasn't the only time Dick and Roy fought, nor was it the only time any of them cried. But Bruce hammered sense into Ollie, and Ollie got Roy into counseling, and the Titans united behind Roy.
"Countback from 50," Roy texted the group chat. It must be his designated phone time for the day. The rehab facility he was in was strict about electronics, but on their visits, Roy said it was good for him to focus in the here and now.
Wally replied with a picture of sixteen sandwiches spread across the counter in the Allen's kitchen. "I am so good," he said.
Donna replied, "Diana is trying to buy me a tiara."
Joey texted a picture of Ravager flipping off the camera. "Grant says if our code is going to be this stupid we should actually play hide and seek next game night."
Kory said, "That idea is delightful! Someone will have to teach me the rules."
Garth, to Dick's surprise, said, "I need you to finish at that facility and come give me advice. I met a girl."
There was a string of reactions and emojis and laughter.
Dick finally said, "Quiet at the Tower, but rest assured I'm now trying to figure out how to hack Atlantis so I can stalk Garth's girl."
Every day was a little easier. For Dick, still missing the boy who should've been his brother, and for Roy, finding himself again slowly.
Dick noticed other things, too. Arthur softening the way he spoke to Garth, and the frequency with which he reached out. Barry, appearing in New York sometimes for "speedster lunches" with Wally. Diana, inviting Donna back to Themyscira more often. Bruce, sending a check in text, instead of waiting for news from Alfred.
He also noticed the list of Justice League Approved therapists appear quietly on the Titans' mainframe, and made sure to flag it for the teams' immediate review.
They were going to be all right. Dick would make sure of it.