Chapter Text
For the longest part of his life, Roy has had a hole in his chest.
He called it Loneliness.
Loneliness is a bleeding, gaping hole that just never seem to be able to close itself, no matter what.
If Roy thinks about it, he believes he can track down the moment she first paved her way in his chest.
It was probably when he was just five years old, the dry grass of the Navajo reserve tickling his bare feet as he watched the silhouet of his father becoming a dot as he entered the burning forest.
The only person to have came back had been Brave Bow. He had kneeled down in front of Roy and put a hand on his chest :
"He lives in you, now," the old man had said, eyes filled with regrets.
When he had lifted his hand, it felt like he had taken a piece of his flesh with him, leaving a bleeding gap for the cold breeze to pass through.
Ever since then, the wound had turned into a hole and had only grown and grown as the years passed.
Roy did not know why Loneliness was lingering. After his father's passing, he had never been alone once.
He had been welcomed into Brave Bow's clan, was made a part of his family, given a new name too. He had been happy, for the most part.
But then, Bravo Bow died and then he was given the name of his manhood and suddenly, he couldn't be part of his family anymore.
The hole inside of Roy's chest expanded.
Then, he met Oliver Queen. He welcomed him into his home and yet, the hole deepened.
Roy was not like every kid he went to school with, he wasn't part of their world and they made it clear to him. If he couldn't adapt, he would never be accepted as one of their own. And Roy wanted so desperately to belong... If he didn't belong with the Navajo people, then he had to belong in Oliver's world.
So, he did his best to make the man proud and pretend like everything was fine. Yet deep inside, Roy always wished his guardian could have seen the other side of the mirror. He wished Oliver would have one day pull him aside and make him spill all of his woes.
But Oliver had never been able to. He had never been able to see the ugly hole eating Roy away and despite himself, most of his arrows would end up stuck inside, the metalic tips digging in Roy's chest and tearing the flesh appart.
Then, he met the Titans and yet, the hole continued to bleed.
At first, he was barely with them. He couldn't feel bad about not belonging, he didn't want to try anymore. But the more he stuck with them, the more he found that he actually wanted to be a part of their team. He wanted to feel close to them, to anyone really.
He thought Donna could have fixed his problem. But the Amazon had just been a temporary bandaid, not absorbent enough for all the blood. And even if he loved her, even if she loved him, it had not been enough.
He believed Dick could have stitched the hole. Except he realised soon enough that Dick had a similar one, but his was rotting away.
And even if Dick tried, there was just so much blood that it got all over him instead. It seeped through his fingers and inside the his chest, while Roy's own hole started to rot around the edge.
When Roy was freshly sixteen, he thought to have found a way to fill this gap in his chest, to stop feeling like a walking corpse.
Heroin, heaven dust, made the bleeding cavity numb. She had made the teen forget all about it.
Every shot felt like it was filling the hole, leaving Roy's carcass with a deceptive sensation that it was whole again and could pretend to be alive. Every time he felt the effects of the opioid fade away and the floating and numbing feeling dissolved into thin air, the smoke screen recovering the gaping hole would evaporate.
It would leave the hole to burn away, igniting the rest of his body like he was a match and leaving his ashes to be blown away in the cold wind.
Eventually though, Roy met Jade Nguyen, Cheshire, and surprisingly, she made the hole bearable for a while.
The fiery assassin had seen Loneliness and digged her hand inside of her. She had twisted every organs inside of Roy's body and suddenly it stopped bleeding.
Roy had understood, later, how she had been able to do that : Jade had the same hole, burning in her chest. He saw it too and took care of it.
But then, Jade had to pull her hand out and a gush of wind shook every one of his organs back in place and the hole was bleeding again.
(Roy was pretty sure he ripped her open too, when he had to go).
Roy left, Jade left though she did not do it alone, she left with their child.
When Roy discovered his daughter's existence, the only thing dragging him out of bed was the sole idea of finding her, meeting her and bring her home.
And once he did, it felt like the gaping hole had finally closed itself.
Lian, all small and babbling, had filled the cavity inside of Roy's chest when the latter had given up on ever trying to get rid of it.
She had not just built up a wall to cover it, she had fitted inside perfectly. As if the hole had always been for her, waited for her for all of Roy's life, expanding just so it could welcome her.
With Lian by his side, Roy felt whole. A feeling he had forgotten could ever exist.
Then, an explosion.
An arm torn appart.
And Lian inside a crater too big to fit her, under rambles too heavy for her to escape.
Lian's small body barely fitting on the cadaver table, barely fitting inside her coffin, barely fitting inside her hole.
And suddenly, the cavity inside of Roy's chest was back, like an old friend that always return. It bled and bled and it never stopped again. No matter what Roy seemed to do, Loneliness kept on expanding. The blood kept on spreading everywhere and on everyone.
It was uncontrollable and she controlled Roy.
He had to learn how to live with her all over again. And just when he had believed he was starting to get used to that gaping hole once more, Lian was back.
The moment she threw herself into his arms, the moment he felt her beating heart against his, Roy was whole again.
Lian was back.
She had grown, she had blue hair. Her once cheery smile was worn, her eyes still sparkled...
She was alive.
"Nothing will ever keep us apart again, baby. Ever again" he had promised her.
And Roy kept his promises.
Once everything with Amanda Waller and Oliver was resolved, once the world was safe, once it was just Lian, Roy and Jade, they talked :
"So, what do we do now?" Lian asked, looking up at both her parents.
Roy and Jade being in the same room together, in front of Lian, always felt special. Like a forbidden reunion.
The two were constantly walking on egg shells around each other, tentatives glances thrown when the other believed they were not watching, words that could not leave their mouths without that pinch.
That pinch that reminded them of how things were, of how things could have been and of how things will never be.
Jade had re-shaped Roy's bleeding hole. Roy did the same with hers.
The moment she had plunged her hand inside Roy's Loneliness, the wound had forever changed. The moment he caressed it, her wound forever changed as well.
Then she had left him to deal with the consequences and he left her to deal with her own.
The two once-lovebirds shared a glance, all the history betweent them flashing through their eyes, too much to handle after all these years.
They looked away.
"What do you want to do, Pumpkin ?" Roy softly asked, studying his daughter.
He was trying to piece back her five years old self with the current fourteen years old standing in front of them, in a costume mixing perfectly Roy's sidekick's days and Jade's assassin's persona.
(If Roy tried too hard, his smiling five years old daughter would turn into a small, pale corpse).
Lian seemed to falter for a second, her arms uncrossing a little before she found her words again.
"I want to stay in Gotham," she asserted, defyingly staring at her parents' eyes as if she was daring them to argue with her.
Roy paused for a brief second. He even glanced at Jade just to be sure he heard her right.
Gotham ?
As in Gotham City ?
Also known as the most dangerous city of the U.S. ?
His first impulse was to immediately rebuff his daughter.
But then, he took a good look at her.
For the past eight years, Lian had been living in Gotham and, by herself. She had spent more time in Gotham City than in any other city she ever lived in when she was with Roy.
What right did Roy have to uproot her from everything she had grown familiar to ?
He forced an easy smile on his cheeks. He deeply breathed in.
"Sure. We'll find a nice place in Gotham."
Lian raised a brow at that.
"We ?" She asked, visibly bemused.
"I'm not letting you out of my sight again, didn't I tell you that already ?" The archer replied with a teasing smirk, his heart swelling up with affection just by watching his daughter's face flicker through so many expressions.
Lian had always been an expressive child. When she felt something, it was written all over her face.
She had not changed that much after all.
"Alright," she ended up saying after a beat, with a soft, almost relieved smile.
She then turned to her mother with an inquisitive stare.
"What about you ?"
Jade chuckled, maybe a way to hide the fact Lian caught her off guard.
"Well, I'm certainly not welcomed to settle in Gotham City," she started as she softly look at her daughter, "I will go on with my life, but I'll drop by every now and then. I promise."
"You'll still kill people ?" Lian asked, sounding disappointed.
Jade's expression fell appart for the split of a second before she pulled herself back together.
"I'll work on that, Sweetheart."
Roy had never heard Jade so eager before, so truthful.
Jade had always been full of deception, lying through her teeth like it was second nature, taking every opportunity that would benefit her and never seeming to see the wrong in that.
But Roy could see it, Lian was changing her.
By herself, Lian was already re-modeling both Roy and Jade's chest cavity just so she could fit inside again.
"Let's go, then," Roy said, extending his hand to Lian as if she was still five years old, leaving for the mall and Roy was terrified at the idea of losing her in the crowd.
Lian smiled and took his hand, probably reminiscing on old times as well as she did so.
She turned and grabbed Jade's hand and the three of them made their way outside the Island, joining the rest of the family.
Finding an appartement in Gotham City turned out to be way more complicated than Roy had believed.
Despite Lian growing up in Gotham's East End, Roy had refused to settle there.
Sure the prices were low but so was the security. East End was where were gathered some of the most dangerous streets of the city and he wanted his daughter to finally catch a break from everything. He wanted for Lian to finally sit down and breathe out, to not be on a constant flight-or-fight response.
So, he decided to go for a place less crowded and away from the city's effervescence.
Except Roy had no idea where he could find such place.
"Bristol is probably the less crowded area," Dick said after he took a sip of his hot chocolate, "Or at least the safest... But it's probably also the most pricey," he winced.
Roy and Dick were currently meeting up in a random coffee shop in Bludhaven. He had been the first person Roy had thought about when he had decided to move in Gotham City with Lian. He was glad they managed to find a hole in his friend's busy schedule.
Dick had grew up in this city and knew every part of it. If Roy had to trust anyone to pin him on the best place to settle in, it would be Dick.
And not only that, Roy and Dick went way back in time.
They were both the first sidekicks to enter the heroes stage and for a little while they had been the only ones. Then, they had been the only humans of their team and even if they didn't always see eye to eye they had this unspeakable understanding of the other. One where only one glance was enough to know what the other was thinking.
Dick had seen the hole inside of Roy's chest and in return, he had shown him his own.
Sometimes, Roy liked to think of them as two stars wandering together across the universe, forever caught in the other's momentum.
Together until they get too close from each other. Until one of them had too much, had enough. Until it exploded.
When a star burst into a supernova near another star, it brings the other down with it. The supernova resulting of the implosion will torn apart its partner star. There are no ways of stopping the destruction, both are powerless against it.
Sometimes, it had felt like Roy and Dick were condemned.
Roy could not get close to Dick without tainting him with his blood and, Dick could not approach Roy without his rot spreading to Roy. It was always like that. They were a broken record always growing out of synch. One that kept starting over and repeated.
Roy stayed quiet as he watched the man in front of him.
They had not seen each other for years, outside of a mask.
And during these years, Dick had died and came back. Then Roy had died while Dick had lost his memories. Then he regained them and Roy had came back.
There was so many things they could, should, talk about and yet here they were, discussing Gotham's real estate.
"Well, I have some money I've been sparing and I can always get some jobs here and there," Roy shrugged.
Dick shook his head, "Hey, I got most of Alfred's wealth, I don't mind sharing."
"You still have some of it left ?" Roy asked teasingly, "After everything you've been doing in this city, I would've thought you went bankrupt."
Dick rolled his eyes, taking another sip.
"I'm not as unreasonable as you may think."
"Sure you are," Roy huffed mockingly, "Not what Alfred used to say."
Roy did not miss the way Dick's hand tightened around the cup, nor the way a heavy cloud seemed to pass in his eyes, darkening them ever so slightly.
Maybe Roy should be more careful around that subject.
Alfred, one of the two men that had raised Dick after he had lost his parents, had died after all.
"Hey, I'm sorry for your loss," Roy said more quietly, studying Dick's face. He didn't have the opportunity to be there when Alfred died, he wasn't there to hold Dick nor did he get the chance to pay his respect to the old man.
Dick's easy smile faltered for a brief second. It was so quick that if Roy had not known Dick, he would have thought he had imagined it.
"It's fine," he looked down on his drink and an awkward silenced settled down between them.
It was full of unsaid words, never done moves and undid acts. So many things they could have handle differently, so many mistakes they could have avoided.
Maybe that was why Roy and Dick lost touch over the years.
Their shared history sat too heavy between them. They knew too much of the other for it not to hurt.
"So, do you want some of my money ?" Dick eventually looked up with a neutral expression.
One Roy knew was forced, his mouth was too still. It did not hold that natural ghost of a grin Dick seemed to always carry around.
"No," Roy shook his head, "I don't want to leech off someone else's money."
"Fair," Dick merely replied as he took another sip of his drink, "If you want to know, Bruce and Damian have settled in downtown Gotham. You could even school Lian at Damian's school, I've heard good things about it."
"If the Batman himself has settled down there, it must be a nice place," Roy snorted, his voice low enough that no one heard him outing Bruce's secret identy.
"I'd like to school Lian but I'm not sure what's her actual level. As far as I'm aware she never went to school past five years old," he finished after consideration.
"That's right..." Dick hummed, "Well, you'll focus on that once you'll move in," he shrugged the problem off like an expert.
"Yeah.."
Another agonising silence settled between them. Roy looked around their table, observing Blud's citizens go on with their day.
Roy remembers the city being blown up. He still had the image of the huge crater that had swallowed almost the entirety of the haven printed in his mind. Looking at the pictures in the news had been painful.
He only understood Dick's pain two years later, when Star City was blown up, when he lost his daughter.
"Bludhaven is looking up, isn't it ?" He asked mindabsentedly as his eyes continued to wander, but this time outside of the window they were sitting by.
"Yes," Dick said, his voice strangled, "The city really needed a new breathe."
"How are things with the Titans ?" Roy turned back to look at him.
When Roy had came back, he had came back to the Titans, his family. But then he left to find Lian and now, he had no idea what the team was up to.
"It's going alright," Dick answered, "Bludhaven is treating them well."
The Titans establishing in Bludhaven was the only thing Roy knew, and if he hadn't, the huge T-tower rising among the city's buildings should have given him a clue.
Then another pause, another silence. As if Roy and Dick were walking on landmines and had to carefully choose their next steps.
Roy remembers of a time where words used to flow between them like a never-ending waterfall.
That waterfall had apparently dried out.
"Have you considered coming back with us ?" Dick asked, with an almost shy, tentative voice.
"Yeah," Roy paused, "Maybe once Lian and I have settled down. We have a lot to catch up, but if you ever need a hand I'll be only a car ride away," he huffed an awkward laugh.
Dick mimicked him before he took the last gulp of his cup.
"Well, let me know if you have other ideas. In the meantime, I'll send you whatever affordable places I can find."
The man rose to his feet, pushing on the table as he did so. Roy followed suit and they walked up to the bar to pay.
"Thanks, man" he clapsed Dick's shoulder, they both smile at each other, "I'll keep you in touch".
Roy could not wait to be home with Lian again.
They had lost so much time.