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Title: Broken Arrows and Bedside Promises
Fandom: DC Comics
Author: K8
Rating: PG
Characters: Arrow Family
Words: 5,000!
Summary: AU of RoA, Roy loses his arm, Lian doesn't lose her life.
A/N: For my AU Bingo. Alternate History: Author's Choice. Lines at the beginning lifted liberally from Rise of Arsenal.
Roy could hear the rumble of voices and the faint sounds of hospital equipment. It hurt to think, hurt to come out of the deep dark sleep he had been in, even if it was haunted by nightmares and pain emanating from his right arm. As he wakes up, the pain increases and the memories start to come back, everything rushes back with a painful jolt when Roy forces himself to wake up, sit up, get up, do anything. He cannot allow himself to lie back with Prometheus loose, he had to… Roy sees the heroes around the bed and breathes a deep, painful breath. He'd warned them about Prometheus in time, he can't remember doing it, but he remembers Supergirl, he's also pretty sure he passed out in a puddle of his own blood. It's… hazy, colored with red and pain and Prometheus' mocking voice.
"Where…" Roy's fingers fumbled and it's a painful realization that hits as he stares down his body. His vision swims but it is clear, he lost his right arm. It hurts and the pain hits Roy as powerfully as the memories did, like a sledge hammer. He smacks away the hands reaching for him and stares down at the discolored stump. There's a metal band wrapped around his arm and the flesh looks uneven, puffy and painful and swollen. There are tubes leading into and away from it.
Roy takes a breath. "It's really gone…"
Hal talks. Roy barely catches most of what he says as he looks around the room. Friends, family, there for him. "…coordinated attack on dozens of cities." It catches Roy's attention, makes him turn. There's a look on Hal's face that twists his mask to mimic the sadness of his eyes. "Star City took heavy damage."
Roy winced. Dinah and Hal hovered by his bedside but Ollie stays across the room, silent with his head turned away. "Tell me you got him." Star City. It's Ollie's city, it's Connor and Mia's city. It's Dinah's city when she chooses to claim it. It's not Roy's city, it's not where he was born, or where he stays, but in his heart it's his home. It's where he and Lian live now, their little house in the suburban part of Star City, he tried to make as good a home for her as he could. Ollie's face hardened, just slightly, and if he had heat vision he would be burning a hole in the floor. Roy felt something in him go cold. He was not around the first time Ollie went dark, but he could tell Ollie was close.
"Not yet," And when Dinah spoke Roy fought through the pain and whatever drug they were giving him to listen. "But we'll find him. Barry and Wally are out looking for him, right now." Roy glanced down at his arm. Barry and Wally, two speedsters he assumed he could trust. Wally he knew, Barry… not as well. "I know it's hard for you, Roy. But you have to stay calm. Your body's been through a terrible trauma," Roy's arm throbbed and his fingers curled tightly in the thin hospital sheets, "you need to save your strength."
Dinah laid her arm on his uninjured shoulder and Roy looked up at her. Then, and only then, did something make its way through the pain and the fog and the shock. "How bad was the damage to Star City?" Dinah's face crumpled a little and Roy's panic surged. "Wait. Dinah. Lian, where's-"
"Roy." Dick spoke up this time and it is odd to hear Dick's voice coming out of the Batsuit. More than that was weird to hear Dick's voice tinged with Batman. "Lian's fine. She's alright. She, Connor, and Mia are at your house right now, getting some rest." Dick glanced at Ollie, a facial twitch almost invisible underneath the cowl. Another fact makes its way through Roy's brain. They're not safe. Dick has to keep his face covered, his identity secret. They're not in the satellite. "I'll go get her right now if you want." And there was something about the look he shot Ollie as well. Something about the way Ollie's eyes pinched at the corner's at the mention of Connor's name. It was a familiar look, one that Roy usually only saw Ollie wear when he was in the room.
"No…" Roy took a deep breath and released it. Even breathing hurt. Everything hurt. "As long as she's alright." Lines of pain radiated from his arm to his shoulder and from his shoulder to everywhere else. It was covered up by fuzz, faint, and not at all powerful enough. Roy wondered what type of painkiller they had him on, it didn't feel like being high, so maybe it wasn't morphine. But then again, maybe it was.
"She's a little banged up," Dinah supplied helpfully, "But she's alive, and she's waiting for her dad to be ready to see her."
That doesn't sound good and Roy vaguely wondered how long he's been asleep. He glanced at the faces that surrounded his bed, Dinah, Hal, Donna, Dick, Ollie… Roy felt his eyes droop despite the aching pain that plagued his arm. "I want to see her." He curled up on his side, his head rested on the flat hospital pillow and his arm curled under him. "When I wake up."
A warm hand touched his shoulder, traced the line of his jaw. Dinah. Another one reached out and tentatively graced his ankle. "She'll be here, Roy."
Another warm reassuring hand, this time on his knee. It squeezed and Roy found his lips curled into a smile even as sleep claimed him. Hal. The fact that Ollie hadn't spoken a word the entire time, had stood there dark and silent and eerily calm, didn't bother Roy as he slipped away into dream land, even if his dreams were haunted by pain and the eerie blank sensation of a lost limb.
Roy doesn't remember the dreams when he wakes up, pain and agony spiking so hard through his shoulder that he curls into a ball and shouts into his knees. He doesn't hear the glass pane whoosh up or the scientists and doctors crowd into the room. He's overcome with the sensation of the burning pain that gnawed at his arm. He felt as if he had stuck his arm into a red hot meat grinder and left it there. It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
He doesn't hear the scientists, doesn't notice when Doctor Mid-nite comes in, doesn't feel the slick touch of a patch being pressed into his skin. He doesn't feel anything for a second and then it seemed like he could breathe again without wanting to scream. He took another breath and found the pain slowly ebbing. The doctors chattered, something was inserted into his I.V. bag, the scientists asks questions. Roy glanced up at Doctor Mid-nite who stood with his arms folded talking to another person dressed in a lab coat. She had a S.T.A.R. labs I.D. on her pocket and Roy assumed that must be where he was being kept. There's another spike of pain and then the sedative kicks in and Roy drifted back to sleep again, snippets of words followed him into dream land.
"…nanomite…"
"…flesh eating…"
"…residual nerve damage…"
When Roy woke up next he was still in the observation room, which was stark and scientific and now that Roy was slightly more clear-minded made him feel like a lab rat. He noticed the cameras, two on either side of the door, and there was the equipment which beeped and buzzed and hummed all around the bed. There were two observation windows, one that doubled as a door and one that allowed the doctors to peer into Roy's room from above, and Roy saw scientists moving around on the second level. Roy stared up at it for a second before he glanced down at his arm again. It looked slightly less red and puffy this time, and the pain was not as bad. Or maybe they had just perfected the medication.
The door to the room swished slightly when it opened and pulled Roy's attention away from his arm. He barely had time to note Connor standing in the doorway while Mia hovered behind him before he felt a small, but still noticeable, impact to his chest. "DADDY!" Big, beautiful, wide eyes stared up at him and it was reflex to wrap her up in a hug. He didn't remember until he squeezed her against his chest with only one arm that his hugs were going to be a little one-sided now. Lian burrowed his face against his chest and squeezed him back… with just one arm, Roy could feel the other trapped between their chests in a sling.
"Lian." Roy bent his head forward and buried his nose in her hair. She smelled like the floral sweet expensive character shampoo he'd bought her two months ago and faintly of french fries, he took a deep breath and clung to her. There had not been a point where he had thought 'I'll never see her again' but part of him had worried. When he felt Prometheus sever his arm, when he had been so outmatched, he'd felt it, the fear that he would leave her alone. "Baby girl. Etai yazi, I love you."
"I know, daddy." Lian's words were muffled by Roy's chest and the threat of tears. "But you went and got hurt again!"
Roy shifted on the bed and adjusted his hold on Lian, who looked up at him with eyes filled to near dripping with tears. There was a long scratch down the side of her face, and bruises that were not quite hidden by the neckline of her shirt. "Lian, you know that's part of being a hero." He let go of her for a second and placed his hand on her cheek, then swiped one falling tear with his thumb. "How'd you get hurt, sweetheart?"
Lian sniffled slightly, the tears in her eyes surged and then she blinked repeatedly, a few fell down her cheeks before her eyes were clear. "I was at Aunt Dinah and Uncle Ollie's and the house started to fall down." She rubbed her cheek against Roy's chest, her cheek rubbed soft and wet over his old scars. "It came down all around me daddy."
"I'm glad you got out." Roy pulled his little girl up and kissed her cheek. "You got out all on your own?"
Lian nodded her head up and down repeatedly like she was going for the world record of consecutive nods. "I did. And the house came down behind me like BOOM and the ground shifted and I was so scared daddy." Her nose bumped against his face every time she nodded. Roy clung to her tightly knowing that at that moment all she had wanted was him and what was he doing?
He was passed out cold.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there, sweetheart." Connor and Mia hovered in the doorway still and Roy looks over at them for a second. Connor is dressed casually, Mia wears her Speedy uniform. She stood in a manner that should be relaxed, but to someone who knew how to read body language was obviously defensive, she also stood behind Connor.
"It's alright, daddy." Lian took a deep breath and then she hit him, right in the chest. As far as punches went Roy had taken harder and come back swinging but as a punch from his baby girl it packed a wallop. "You were the one who almost died. Stupid. How'm I supposed to learn how to shoot a bow right if you're not there? Uncle Connor's crap."
"Lian!" Roy almost shot up straight, he was halfway through the motion before his arm screamed at him and he carefully reclined back. "Language."
"Sorry, daddy." Lian didn't look sorry at all, but Roy let it slide. "Uncle Connor's awful since he got shot, and I don't want Uncle Ollie to train me, he's not you daddy. And he gets sad." Lian looked up at him through teary eyelashes. "He gets sad when you're not here like you get sad sometimes."
Roy looked into Lian's eyes and couldn't help how tight he held her. He could have lost her so easily. Could have lost everything so easily. So damn easily. He'd always considered Lian the most important thing in his life, the most important person, but really? He'd always been so scared of being a real dad, he might have been there for her when she needed him for the big stuff, but never for the little stuff. His work as a hero had put her in danger more times than he could count. He couldn't always rely on someone else to be there for her when he wasn't, one day they weren't going to be.
"I told you kiddo, I don't get sad." Roy planted a kiss on her forehead. "And Uncle Connor's now awful, he just needs to find his way again."
"No," Connor pulled up a chair over from a corner and sat down in it, "I'm pretty awful, Roy. I couldn't hit a target twelve feet away if I had six feet of arrow."
Roy's lips twitched slightly. He knew things had been bad for Connor since the accident, that Connor had planned to go find himself and maybe find his Zen again and that this was a serious subject, but the mental image of Connor standing with a six foot arrow unable to hit the target was amusing. "Still can't handle the bow?"
Connor shrugged, just a light toss of his shoulders that still made muscles ripple under his tight t-shirt. "I'm good with my hands, but I guess I haven't found my center when it comes to archery." Something flickered across his face, a dark and nameless emotion that Roy was all too familiar with. So that was why Dick had looked at Ollie when he said Connor wasn't there, something had happened between the two of them. Roy glanced up and over at Mia who stood like she was unsure of her welcome, one arm crossed over her chest and holding onto the other.
"Something wrong, Speedy?"
Mia looked momentarily shocked, like she'd forgotten she was in costume, then her fingers ran around the edge of the mask. "I guess you could say that." It took her a second but she stripped the mask off and looked at Roy with a bare face and emotional eyes. "I'm sorry I… I left Lian alone."
"I told you it wasn't your fault." Lian spoke up and pushed herself off of Roy's chest to slide off the side of the bed. "There was a bad guy out there, and you're a hero! It's your job to stop bad guys."
"But I didn't stop him and you could have died, Lian." Mia squeezed her arm tightly, hugging herself. "The house was totally gone by the time we got there. If you hadn't… Roy, I'm…"
"No sweat, Mia." Roy shrugged, like his heart hadn't broken a million times over at each caught breath and choppy break in Mia's rhetoric. "I wasn't there either, remember?"
Lian patted Roy on the leg and then took a few quick steps across the room to hug Mia tightly around her middle. Mia sniffled and she dropped down for a hug, but then her game face settled pretty quickly. "Star City's a mess. Prometheus and the Calculator really did a number on us." Mia glanced at Roy, then at his arm, then at the machines that surrounded his bed, at Connor, and finally down at Lian. "G.A. goes totally batshit when people are hurt, you know, and he's been absolutely horrible to deal with since you got hurt."
"He's never been good when his family gets hurt." Ollie had always reacted with anger when the people he cared about were injured. Roy thought of the number of times in the past few years Ollie's family had been hurt. …then he tried to think of a span of a few months where one of them *hadn't* been hurt. It was like the universe was trying to drive Ollie back into that dark time he'd been in before his death. Between illness, injury, and kidnappings, it seemed as if there was always an Arrow in distress. Roy can remember sitting at too many bedsides recently, but at least they weren't grave sites. "Give me a few days to get back on my feet and I'll give him hell about brooding, alright?"
Mia smiled slightly at Roy, a smile that was sick looking and wane. Connor stood up and dragged another chair over and pushed it in Mia's direction. Mia glanced from it to Connor to Roy then down at Lian before she sat down and pulled Lian onto her lap. Roy vaguely wondered where Connor was getting the chairs from or if they just appeared out of the wall when commanded. Maybe Connor had developed magic chair creating powers.
Heh. That would be the lamest superpower ever.
"What would be a lame superpower?" Lian chirped from Mia's lap. Mia looked interested as well and Roy wondered if he'd actually said that out loud. Apparently he had.
"Uh, the power to pull chairs from thin air." Connor's lips quirked, but both Lian and Mia stared at him blankly. Roy smiled a little ruefully. "Never mind." As if it was a well-trained pet cued to distract people by being cute when its owner found themselves in a bind Roy's stomach growled and he found himself suffering from hunger pangs. "Am I ever going to get meal service around here?"
"I'll go ask Doctor Mid-nite!" Lian chirped and hopped off of Mia's lap. Mia stood and reached out to grab her hand quickly.
"I'll go with her, and we'll run out for something if you want." A guilty glance again, at Roy, then his arm, then at Lian. Her grip tightened imperceptibly on Lian's hand, a move that Roy would have missed if he hadn't been watching for it. "Anything you want."
"I'm definitely craving some McDonald's." Roy paused, just long enough for Mia and Lian to start to head for the door. "Except I should probably set a better example for my daughter than that." This time the guilt was obvious on Mia's face. Lian turned with an angry foot stomp and some more puppy eyes.
"But daddy! It's an emergency! You always say that fast food is fine in an emergency!"
"Emergency's over." Roy instinctively waved his finger at Lian and then remembered that there was no finger, there was no arm there to wave. It filled him with nausea, although it was possible that was the drugs. "Don't make me put Uncle Connor in charge of food duty, you know I will."
"But I don't want to eat tofu!"
"Tofu isn't the only thing I eat." Connor protested and Roy listened with half an ear to the short resulting argument between Connor and Lian about Connor's eating habits. By the time Mia and Lian left it looked like their moods had lifted slightly, even though Lian's eyes kept darting back to Roy and his raw looking injured arm. Roy kept up a small smile on his face until Mia and Lian had left the room and the door had closed behind them. Then he slumped down onto the pillows behind him. If he could have he would have sunk into the mattress and become one with the bed. His body felt tired and prickled with pain. There was also the emotional fatigue, there had been too much tension in that room.
Connor looked sympathetic.
"Everyone's been messed up by all this haven't they." Roy shook his head. That was the understatement of the year, and he'd made some pretty big understatements that year. "Mia's…"
"She left Lian alone." Connor interrupted whatever Roy was about to say. He leaned forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced under his chin. It was a pose Roy didn't think he had ever seen Connor in; it looked defensive and closed off. Yet Connor had seemed more himself, with that argument about tofu with Lian, than Roy had seen him in ages. "When she was informed of the devices she left Lian alone at Ollie and Dinah and tracked down The Electrocutioner, he got away from her… Star City started to fall apart. It was a mess, Roy. I wasn't there…" Connor swallowed and looked away. He actually looked guilty. Was that the emotion Roy was going to end up facing from his family? Guilt? "When the League pulled Mia off a collapsing building she had them fly her straight to the house. You might think Lian looks beat up now, but Roy you've been out of it for longer than you might think. She was half buried in rubble, her lungs were clogged with dirt, she was bleeding from a head wound and had a concussion…"
"It's not her fault." Roy looked up at the observation window and caught a young female scientist looking through it wistfully. It did not take a brain surgeon to realize she was staring at Connor wistfully and Roy felt amusement wash through the maudlin again. "And don't look now, but you've got a secret admirer."
Connor glanced up at the observation window when Roy nodded towards it and the scientist turned away quickly and hurried off. "…you know, Roy, this really isn't the time."
"It's not your fault either." Roy fought down the urge to rub at his arm. HE was pretty sure that the wound wouldn't react well to rubbing. Instead he rubbed at his shoulder which caused the IV on his other arm to twinge and pull painfully. "It's not anyone's fault, and I have a feeling I'm going to have that conversation more than once." Already Roy wanted Lian back in the room, to know she was safe. Losing his arm he could handle, it wasn't going to be easy but he could handle it, the idea that he could have lost Lian… Lian wasn't his reason for going straight, or for being a hero. She was so important to him, but he couldn't even quit being a hero for long enough to pick her up from school.
She'd been in danger so many times and he'd almost always arrived too late.
"Roy." Connor rested a hand on Roy's knee. Oddly, it was the only part of Roy that didn't hurt. Connor was wearing the small half-smile he often wore when he felt he was going to say something particularly profound that also held an edge of sarcasm. "It's not your fault either."
It took Roy a second to find something small and non-lethal to throw (there were any number of heavy or sharp objects around his room), eventually Roy had to ball up a tissue and throw it at Connor's head. "Be glad we're family."
Connor of course, being family, picked the ball out of his lap and tossed it back at Roy. Tissue balls didn't fly particularly well but they had an impromptu game of catch before Lian and Mia walked in. Roy took the chance, since he had the ball, to throw it at Mia whose eyes widened when a ball of tissue hit her square in the face. It falls onto the floor before Lian scoops it up and places it in the trash.
"Doctor Mid-nite said you could eat boring food, daddy." Lian hopped back on the bed which jolted Roy uncomfortably but he smiled through the pain and hoped he managed to hide the wince. "Like oatmeal or eggs or-"
"Or a soup and sandwich." Mia set the bag on Connor's lap and looked at Roy. She had her mask pasted on and a serious expression on her face. "The city is sort of… well, there's looting and mayhem. I can't stay, Roy, I'll see you later." That guilt again reared its ugly head, she didn't bother to approach the bed, just looked at Roy with a closed face while her arms hung limply at her sides.
"If it's that bad," Roy frowned and made an aborted movement to get out of the bed. Lian grabbed his shoulders and pushed and Connor stood up quickly, faster than Roy could have gotten out of the bed with his arm sending spikes of agony through his entire nervous system. His breath hissed out of clenched teeth and it took him a second to blink the spots out of his eyes. "…okay, so maybe I'd be more of a liability."
Mia's laugh was brittle, but the snort was real, and the smile was actually amused. "Stay down, Red Arrow. Me and G.A. have this handled." Then Mia glanced at Connor, who nodded, and was out the door.
"I'm guessing you two are my babysitters?" Roy really wanted to cuddle Lian, to roll around with her on the bed and tickle her until she squealed, but if just attempting to get out of the bed had caused him that much pain he did not want to imagine what rough housing with his daughter would do. "I don't need to be watched."
Lian rolled her eyes and slipped off the bed to go rifle around in the bag of food Connor was holding and pull out a sandwich. Then she found a tray table and wheeled it over to Roy's bedside after she cleared it of medical detritus. "You don't leave me alone when I'm sick, Daddy." She placed the wrapped sandwich on the tray and then looked expectantly at Connor who placed the Styrofoam cup of soup, a spoon, and some napkins on it too. Lian nodded then, imperiously like the queen she was, and gave Roy a down the nose superior look that Roy knew meant she'd been spending too much time around Dinah when Dinah was in a 'mood'. "And Uncle Ollie isn't here to watch you like a good daddy, so I'm not leaving you."
Lian squeezed his remaining hand tightly. "I'm not leaving you ever."
It's hard for Roy to sleep. The food doesn't sit well on his stomach, there are people wandering in and out to check on him or the machines, the bed is uncomfortable and Lian shifts on the uncomfortable cot they brought for her to sleep on just as much as Roy shifts on the mattress. Roy stared at the ceiling in between fits of restless, haunted sleep. He had until morning, then a few more hours of observation, and he could probably manage to convince Doctor Mid-nite to let him off. If it was not for the other man wanting another day of observation Roy was not sure he would have stayed this long. Roy's arm itches now, like fire ants are crawling over the flesh, but the pain doesn't spike up and down his spinal column whenever he moves and the inflammation appears to have receded. Roy rolled over on his side and stared at the wall for an hour before his eyes drifted closed.
The next time he woke up, face stuck uncomfortably to the plastic-y pillow case, legs tangled in over-starched sheets, Roy shot up because he spotted a figure seated in shadow across from the bed. "W-" It took one blink and a head shake before the shadows resolved into Ollie and Roy felt his heart catch up on that skipped beat. "Fuck, Ollie, don't do that to a guy."
"I'm sorry." It's not like Ollie to apologize, although he has before, and Roy knows that Ollie isn't just apologizing for making the heart monitors spike in a way that is probably going to get a nurse or two to rush into the room. "For everything, Roy."
"Ollie." And this isn't like Ollie, it's actually a lot more like some of the creepy nighttime encounters Dick had described with Batman, and Roy reached out with his dominant hand and once again realized that there wasn't a hand there. "I realize we're all going to need some serious group therapy after this but it's not your fault."
The shadows followed Ollie after he stepped out of them; they pooled in his eye sockets and above his bear and clung to his clothing. "I don't know if I'll stick around for that long, Roy."
"…Ollie." And Roy felt sick horror pool in his stomach as his daughter sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Lian's sleepily murmured 'Uncle Ollie' was overpowered by Roy's question. "What did you do?"
Ollie's head dropped forward as the nurses finally rushed in.
"Roy…" A pause for breath as the medical staff realized there was nothing wrong and Roy attempted to reassure them so he could grab Ollie before Ollie bolted out of the room. "Just, know that I'm sorry." And it was too late, Ollie had already bolted.
"Daddy?" Lian clung to the edge of the bed and looked from Roy's face to the doorway. "What just happened?"
"I don't know, sweetheart." Over the clamor and the questions Roy leaned forward and brushed his lips across the top of Lian's head. "But I think you and I are going to have our work cut out for us at fixing everyone."
Lian nodded, slow and solemn. "It's like what happened when Uncle Connor got hurt. Everyone's broken up on the inside now. Except Uncle Ollie isn't sitting here for you like he was for Uncle Connor."
The old Roy would have felt envy, but he knew that Ollie cared about him in his own way, and that there was a whole ocean of guilt that had driven Ollie to sit at Connor's bedside. "That's because he's off being stupid, just wait, kiddo, once I can get up we'll both help fix him."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Fandom: DC Comics
Author: K8
Rating: PG
Characters: Arrow Family
Words: 5,000!
Summary: AU of RoA, Roy loses his arm, Lian doesn't lose her life.
A/N: For my AU Bingo. Alternate History: Author's Choice. Lines at the beginning lifted liberally from Rise of Arsenal.
Roy could hear the rumble of voices and the faint sounds of hospital equipment. It hurt to think, hurt to come out of the deep dark sleep he had been in, even if it was haunted by nightmares and pain emanating from his right arm. As he wakes up, the pain increases and the memories start to come back, everything rushes back with a painful jolt when Roy forces himself to wake up, sit up, get up, do anything. He cannot allow himself to lie back with Prometheus loose, he had to… Roy sees the heroes around the bed and breathes a deep, painful breath. He'd warned them about Prometheus in time, he can't remember doing it, but he remembers Supergirl, he's also pretty sure he passed out in a puddle of his own blood. It's… hazy, colored with red and pain and Prometheus' mocking voice.
"Where…" Roy's fingers fumbled and it's a painful realization that hits as he stares down his body. His vision swims but it is clear, he lost his right arm. It hurts and the pain hits Roy as powerfully as the memories did, like a sledge hammer. He smacks away the hands reaching for him and stares down at the discolored stump. There's a metal band wrapped around his arm and the flesh looks uneven, puffy and painful and swollen. There are tubes leading into and away from it.
Roy takes a breath. "It's really gone…"
Hal talks. Roy barely catches most of what he says as he looks around the room. Friends, family, there for him. "…coordinated attack on dozens of cities." It catches Roy's attention, makes him turn. There's a look on Hal's face that twists his mask to mimic the sadness of his eyes. "Star City took heavy damage."
Roy winced. Dinah and Hal hovered by his bedside but Ollie stays across the room, silent with his head turned away. "Tell me you got him." Star City. It's Ollie's city, it's Connor and Mia's city. It's Dinah's city when she chooses to claim it. It's not Roy's city, it's not where he was born, or where he stays, but in his heart it's his home. It's where he and Lian live now, their little house in the suburban part of Star City, he tried to make as good a home for her as he could. Ollie's face hardened, just slightly, and if he had heat vision he would be burning a hole in the floor. Roy felt something in him go cold. He was not around the first time Ollie went dark, but he could tell Ollie was close.
"Not yet," And when Dinah spoke Roy fought through the pain and whatever drug they were giving him to listen. "But we'll find him. Barry and Wally are out looking for him, right now." Roy glanced down at his arm. Barry and Wally, two speedsters he assumed he could trust. Wally he knew, Barry… not as well. "I know it's hard for you, Roy. But you have to stay calm. Your body's been through a terrible trauma," Roy's arm throbbed and his fingers curled tightly in the thin hospital sheets, "you need to save your strength."
Dinah laid her arm on his uninjured shoulder and Roy looked up at her. Then, and only then, did something make its way through the pain and the fog and the shock. "How bad was the damage to Star City?" Dinah's face crumpled a little and Roy's panic surged. "Wait. Dinah. Lian, where's-"
"Roy." Dick spoke up this time and it is odd to hear Dick's voice coming out of the Batsuit. More than that was weird to hear Dick's voice tinged with Batman. "Lian's fine. She's alright. She, Connor, and Mia are at your house right now, getting some rest." Dick glanced at Ollie, a facial twitch almost invisible underneath the cowl. Another fact makes its way through Roy's brain. They're not safe. Dick has to keep his face covered, his identity secret. They're not in the satellite. "I'll go get her right now if you want." And there was something about the look he shot Ollie as well. Something about the way Ollie's eyes pinched at the corner's at the mention of Connor's name. It was a familiar look, one that Roy usually only saw Ollie wear when he was in the room.
"No…" Roy took a deep breath and released it. Even breathing hurt. Everything hurt. "As long as she's alright." Lines of pain radiated from his arm to his shoulder and from his shoulder to everywhere else. It was covered up by fuzz, faint, and not at all powerful enough. Roy wondered what type of painkiller they had him on, it didn't feel like being high, so maybe it wasn't morphine. But then again, maybe it was.
"She's a little banged up," Dinah supplied helpfully, "But she's alive, and she's waiting for her dad to be ready to see her."
That doesn't sound good and Roy vaguely wondered how long he's been asleep. He glanced at the faces that surrounded his bed, Dinah, Hal, Donna, Dick, Ollie… Roy felt his eyes droop despite the aching pain that plagued his arm. "I want to see her." He curled up on his side, his head rested on the flat hospital pillow and his arm curled under him. "When I wake up."
A warm hand touched his shoulder, traced the line of his jaw. Dinah. Another one reached out and tentatively graced his ankle. "She'll be here, Roy."
Another warm reassuring hand, this time on his knee. It squeezed and Roy found his lips curled into a smile even as sleep claimed him. Hal. The fact that Ollie hadn't spoken a word the entire time, had stood there dark and silent and eerily calm, didn't bother Roy as he slipped away into dream land, even if his dreams were haunted by pain and the eerie blank sensation of a lost limb.
Roy doesn't remember the dreams when he wakes up, pain and agony spiking so hard through his shoulder that he curls into a ball and shouts into his knees. He doesn't hear the glass pane whoosh up or the scientists and doctors crowd into the room. He's overcome with the sensation of the burning pain that gnawed at his arm. He felt as if he had stuck his arm into a red hot meat grinder and left it there. It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
He doesn't hear the scientists, doesn't notice when Doctor Mid-nite comes in, doesn't feel the slick touch of a patch being pressed into his skin. He doesn't feel anything for a second and then it seemed like he could breathe again without wanting to scream. He took another breath and found the pain slowly ebbing. The doctors chattered, something was inserted into his I.V. bag, the scientists asks questions. Roy glanced up at Doctor Mid-nite who stood with his arms folded talking to another person dressed in a lab coat. She had a S.T.A.R. labs I.D. on her pocket and Roy assumed that must be where he was being kept. There's another spike of pain and then the sedative kicks in and Roy drifted back to sleep again, snippets of words followed him into dream land.
"…nanomite…"
"…flesh eating…"
"…residual nerve damage…"
When Roy woke up next he was still in the observation room, which was stark and scientific and now that Roy was slightly more clear-minded made him feel like a lab rat. He noticed the cameras, two on either side of the door, and there was the equipment which beeped and buzzed and hummed all around the bed. There were two observation windows, one that doubled as a door and one that allowed the doctors to peer into Roy's room from above, and Roy saw scientists moving around on the second level. Roy stared up at it for a second before he glanced down at his arm again. It looked slightly less red and puffy this time, and the pain was not as bad. Or maybe they had just perfected the medication.
The door to the room swished slightly when it opened and pulled Roy's attention away from his arm. He barely had time to note Connor standing in the doorway while Mia hovered behind him before he felt a small, but still noticeable, impact to his chest. "DADDY!" Big, beautiful, wide eyes stared up at him and it was reflex to wrap her up in a hug. He didn't remember until he squeezed her against his chest with only one arm that his hugs were going to be a little one-sided now. Lian burrowed his face against his chest and squeezed him back… with just one arm, Roy could feel the other trapped between their chests in a sling.
"Lian." Roy bent his head forward and buried his nose in her hair. She smelled like the floral sweet expensive character shampoo he'd bought her two months ago and faintly of french fries, he took a deep breath and clung to her. There had not been a point where he had thought 'I'll never see her again' but part of him had worried. When he felt Prometheus sever his arm, when he had been so outmatched, he'd felt it, the fear that he would leave her alone. "Baby girl. Etai yazi, I love you."
"I know, daddy." Lian's words were muffled by Roy's chest and the threat of tears. "But you went and got hurt again!"
Roy shifted on the bed and adjusted his hold on Lian, who looked up at him with eyes filled to near dripping with tears. There was a long scratch down the side of her face, and bruises that were not quite hidden by the neckline of her shirt. "Lian, you know that's part of being a hero." He let go of her for a second and placed his hand on her cheek, then swiped one falling tear with his thumb. "How'd you get hurt, sweetheart?"
Lian sniffled slightly, the tears in her eyes surged and then she blinked repeatedly, a few fell down her cheeks before her eyes were clear. "I was at Aunt Dinah and Uncle Ollie's and the house started to fall down." She rubbed her cheek against Roy's chest, her cheek rubbed soft and wet over his old scars. "It came down all around me daddy."
"I'm glad you got out." Roy pulled his little girl up and kissed her cheek. "You got out all on your own?"
Lian nodded her head up and down repeatedly like she was going for the world record of consecutive nods. "I did. And the house came down behind me like BOOM and the ground shifted and I was so scared daddy." Her nose bumped against his face every time she nodded. Roy clung to her tightly knowing that at that moment all she had wanted was him and what was he doing?
He was passed out cold.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there, sweetheart." Connor and Mia hovered in the doorway still and Roy looks over at them for a second. Connor is dressed casually, Mia wears her Speedy uniform. She stood in a manner that should be relaxed, but to someone who knew how to read body language was obviously defensive, she also stood behind Connor.
"It's alright, daddy." Lian took a deep breath and then she hit him, right in the chest. As far as punches went Roy had taken harder and come back swinging but as a punch from his baby girl it packed a wallop. "You were the one who almost died. Stupid. How'm I supposed to learn how to shoot a bow right if you're not there? Uncle Connor's crap."
"Lian!" Roy almost shot up straight, he was halfway through the motion before his arm screamed at him and he carefully reclined back. "Language."
"Sorry, daddy." Lian didn't look sorry at all, but Roy let it slide. "Uncle Connor's awful since he got shot, and I don't want Uncle Ollie to train me, he's not you daddy. And he gets sad." Lian looked up at him through teary eyelashes. "He gets sad when you're not here like you get sad sometimes."
Roy looked into Lian's eyes and couldn't help how tight he held her. He could have lost her so easily. Could have lost everything so easily. So damn easily. He'd always considered Lian the most important thing in his life, the most important person, but really? He'd always been so scared of being a real dad, he might have been there for her when she needed him for the big stuff, but never for the little stuff. His work as a hero had put her in danger more times than he could count. He couldn't always rely on someone else to be there for her when he wasn't, one day they weren't going to be.
"I told you kiddo, I don't get sad." Roy planted a kiss on her forehead. "And Uncle Connor's now awful, he just needs to find his way again."
"No," Connor pulled up a chair over from a corner and sat down in it, "I'm pretty awful, Roy. I couldn't hit a target twelve feet away if I had six feet of arrow."
Roy's lips twitched slightly. He knew things had been bad for Connor since the accident, that Connor had planned to go find himself and maybe find his Zen again and that this was a serious subject, but the mental image of Connor standing with a six foot arrow unable to hit the target was amusing. "Still can't handle the bow?"
Connor shrugged, just a light toss of his shoulders that still made muscles ripple under his tight t-shirt. "I'm good with my hands, but I guess I haven't found my center when it comes to archery." Something flickered across his face, a dark and nameless emotion that Roy was all too familiar with. So that was why Dick had looked at Ollie when he said Connor wasn't there, something had happened between the two of them. Roy glanced up and over at Mia who stood like she was unsure of her welcome, one arm crossed over her chest and holding onto the other.
"Something wrong, Speedy?"
Mia looked momentarily shocked, like she'd forgotten she was in costume, then her fingers ran around the edge of the mask. "I guess you could say that." It took her a second but she stripped the mask off and looked at Roy with a bare face and emotional eyes. "I'm sorry I… I left Lian alone."
"I told you it wasn't your fault." Lian spoke up and pushed herself off of Roy's chest to slide off the side of the bed. "There was a bad guy out there, and you're a hero! It's your job to stop bad guys."
"But I didn't stop him and you could have died, Lian." Mia squeezed her arm tightly, hugging herself. "The house was totally gone by the time we got there. If you hadn't… Roy, I'm…"
"No sweat, Mia." Roy shrugged, like his heart hadn't broken a million times over at each caught breath and choppy break in Mia's rhetoric. "I wasn't there either, remember?"
Lian patted Roy on the leg and then took a few quick steps across the room to hug Mia tightly around her middle. Mia sniffled and she dropped down for a hug, but then her game face settled pretty quickly. "Star City's a mess. Prometheus and the Calculator really did a number on us." Mia glanced at Roy, then at his arm, then at the machines that surrounded his bed, at Connor, and finally down at Lian. "G.A. goes totally batshit when people are hurt, you know, and he's been absolutely horrible to deal with since you got hurt."
"He's never been good when his family gets hurt." Ollie had always reacted with anger when the people he cared about were injured. Roy thought of the number of times in the past few years Ollie's family had been hurt. …then he tried to think of a span of a few months where one of them *hadn't* been hurt. It was like the universe was trying to drive Ollie back into that dark time he'd been in before his death. Between illness, injury, and kidnappings, it seemed as if there was always an Arrow in distress. Roy can remember sitting at too many bedsides recently, but at least they weren't grave sites. "Give me a few days to get back on my feet and I'll give him hell about brooding, alright?"
Mia smiled slightly at Roy, a smile that was sick looking and wane. Connor stood up and dragged another chair over and pushed it in Mia's direction. Mia glanced from it to Connor to Roy then down at Lian before she sat down and pulled Lian onto her lap. Roy vaguely wondered where Connor was getting the chairs from or if they just appeared out of the wall when commanded. Maybe Connor had developed magic chair creating powers.
Heh. That would be the lamest superpower ever.
"What would be a lame superpower?" Lian chirped from Mia's lap. Mia looked interested as well and Roy wondered if he'd actually said that out loud. Apparently he had.
"Uh, the power to pull chairs from thin air." Connor's lips quirked, but both Lian and Mia stared at him blankly. Roy smiled a little ruefully. "Never mind." As if it was a well-trained pet cued to distract people by being cute when its owner found themselves in a bind Roy's stomach growled and he found himself suffering from hunger pangs. "Am I ever going to get meal service around here?"
"I'll go ask Doctor Mid-nite!" Lian chirped and hopped off of Mia's lap. Mia stood and reached out to grab her hand quickly.
"I'll go with her, and we'll run out for something if you want." A guilty glance again, at Roy, then his arm, then at Lian. Her grip tightened imperceptibly on Lian's hand, a move that Roy would have missed if he hadn't been watching for it. "Anything you want."
"I'm definitely craving some McDonald's." Roy paused, just long enough for Mia and Lian to start to head for the door. "Except I should probably set a better example for my daughter than that." This time the guilt was obvious on Mia's face. Lian turned with an angry foot stomp and some more puppy eyes.
"But daddy! It's an emergency! You always say that fast food is fine in an emergency!"
"Emergency's over." Roy instinctively waved his finger at Lian and then remembered that there was no finger, there was no arm there to wave. It filled him with nausea, although it was possible that was the drugs. "Don't make me put Uncle Connor in charge of food duty, you know I will."
"But I don't want to eat tofu!"
"Tofu isn't the only thing I eat." Connor protested and Roy listened with half an ear to the short resulting argument between Connor and Lian about Connor's eating habits. By the time Mia and Lian left it looked like their moods had lifted slightly, even though Lian's eyes kept darting back to Roy and his raw looking injured arm. Roy kept up a small smile on his face until Mia and Lian had left the room and the door had closed behind them. Then he slumped down onto the pillows behind him. If he could have he would have sunk into the mattress and become one with the bed. His body felt tired and prickled with pain. There was also the emotional fatigue, there had been too much tension in that room.
Connor looked sympathetic.
"Everyone's been messed up by all this haven't they." Roy shook his head. That was the understatement of the year, and he'd made some pretty big understatements that year. "Mia's…"
"She left Lian alone." Connor interrupted whatever Roy was about to say. He leaned forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced under his chin. It was a pose Roy didn't think he had ever seen Connor in; it looked defensive and closed off. Yet Connor had seemed more himself, with that argument about tofu with Lian, than Roy had seen him in ages. "When she was informed of the devices she left Lian alone at Ollie and Dinah and tracked down The Electrocutioner, he got away from her… Star City started to fall apart. It was a mess, Roy. I wasn't there…" Connor swallowed and looked away. He actually looked guilty. Was that the emotion Roy was going to end up facing from his family? Guilt? "When the League pulled Mia off a collapsing building she had them fly her straight to the house. You might think Lian looks beat up now, but Roy you've been out of it for longer than you might think. She was half buried in rubble, her lungs were clogged with dirt, she was bleeding from a head wound and had a concussion…"
"It's not her fault." Roy looked up at the observation window and caught a young female scientist looking through it wistfully. It did not take a brain surgeon to realize she was staring at Connor wistfully and Roy felt amusement wash through the maudlin again. "And don't look now, but you've got a secret admirer."
Connor glanced up at the observation window when Roy nodded towards it and the scientist turned away quickly and hurried off. "…you know, Roy, this really isn't the time."
"It's not your fault either." Roy fought down the urge to rub at his arm. HE was pretty sure that the wound wouldn't react well to rubbing. Instead he rubbed at his shoulder which caused the IV on his other arm to twinge and pull painfully. "It's not anyone's fault, and I have a feeling I'm going to have that conversation more than once." Already Roy wanted Lian back in the room, to know she was safe. Losing his arm he could handle, it wasn't going to be easy but he could handle it, the idea that he could have lost Lian… Lian wasn't his reason for going straight, or for being a hero. She was so important to him, but he couldn't even quit being a hero for long enough to pick her up from school.
She'd been in danger so many times and he'd almost always arrived too late.
"Roy." Connor rested a hand on Roy's knee. Oddly, it was the only part of Roy that didn't hurt. Connor was wearing the small half-smile he often wore when he felt he was going to say something particularly profound that also held an edge of sarcasm. "It's not your fault either."
It took Roy a second to find something small and non-lethal to throw (there were any number of heavy or sharp objects around his room), eventually Roy had to ball up a tissue and throw it at Connor's head. "Be glad we're family."
Connor of course, being family, picked the ball out of his lap and tossed it back at Roy. Tissue balls didn't fly particularly well but they had an impromptu game of catch before Lian and Mia walked in. Roy took the chance, since he had the ball, to throw it at Mia whose eyes widened when a ball of tissue hit her square in the face. It falls onto the floor before Lian scoops it up and places it in the trash.
"Doctor Mid-nite said you could eat boring food, daddy." Lian hopped back on the bed which jolted Roy uncomfortably but he smiled through the pain and hoped he managed to hide the wince. "Like oatmeal or eggs or-"
"Or a soup and sandwich." Mia set the bag on Connor's lap and looked at Roy. She had her mask pasted on and a serious expression on her face. "The city is sort of… well, there's looting and mayhem. I can't stay, Roy, I'll see you later." That guilt again reared its ugly head, she didn't bother to approach the bed, just looked at Roy with a closed face while her arms hung limply at her sides.
"If it's that bad," Roy frowned and made an aborted movement to get out of the bed. Lian grabbed his shoulders and pushed and Connor stood up quickly, faster than Roy could have gotten out of the bed with his arm sending spikes of agony through his entire nervous system. His breath hissed out of clenched teeth and it took him a second to blink the spots out of his eyes. "…okay, so maybe I'd be more of a liability."
Mia's laugh was brittle, but the snort was real, and the smile was actually amused. "Stay down, Red Arrow. Me and G.A. have this handled." Then Mia glanced at Connor, who nodded, and was out the door.
"I'm guessing you two are my babysitters?" Roy really wanted to cuddle Lian, to roll around with her on the bed and tickle her until she squealed, but if just attempting to get out of the bed had caused him that much pain he did not want to imagine what rough housing with his daughter would do. "I don't need to be watched."
Lian rolled her eyes and slipped off the bed to go rifle around in the bag of food Connor was holding and pull out a sandwich. Then she found a tray table and wheeled it over to Roy's bedside after she cleared it of medical detritus. "You don't leave me alone when I'm sick, Daddy." She placed the wrapped sandwich on the tray and then looked expectantly at Connor who placed the Styrofoam cup of soup, a spoon, and some napkins on it too. Lian nodded then, imperiously like the queen she was, and gave Roy a down the nose superior look that Roy knew meant she'd been spending too much time around Dinah when Dinah was in a 'mood'. "And Uncle Ollie isn't here to watch you like a good daddy, so I'm not leaving you."
Lian squeezed his remaining hand tightly. "I'm not leaving you ever."
It's hard for Roy to sleep. The food doesn't sit well on his stomach, there are people wandering in and out to check on him or the machines, the bed is uncomfortable and Lian shifts on the uncomfortable cot they brought for her to sleep on just as much as Roy shifts on the mattress. Roy stared at the ceiling in between fits of restless, haunted sleep. He had until morning, then a few more hours of observation, and he could probably manage to convince Doctor Mid-nite to let him off. If it was not for the other man wanting another day of observation Roy was not sure he would have stayed this long. Roy's arm itches now, like fire ants are crawling over the flesh, but the pain doesn't spike up and down his spinal column whenever he moves and the inflammation appears to have receded. Roy rolled over on his side and stared at the wall for an hour before his eyes drifted closed.
The next time he woke up, face stuck uncomfortably to the plastic-y pillow case, legs tangled in over-starched sheets, Roy shot up because he spotted a figure seated in shadow across from the bed. "W-" It took one blink and a head shake before the shadows resolved into Ollie and Roy felt his heart catch up on that skipped beat. "Fuck, Ollie, don't do that to a guy."
"I'm sorry." It's not like Ollie to apologize, although he has before, and Roy knows that Ollie isn't just apologizing for making the heart monitors spike in a way that is probably going to get a nurse or two to rush into the room. "For everything, Roy."
"Ollie." And this isn't like Ollie, it's actually a lot more like some of the creepy nighttime encounters Dick had described with Batman, and Roy reached out with his dominant hand and once again realized that there wasn't a hand there. "I realize we're all going to need some serious group therapy after this but it's not your fault."
The shadows followed Ollie after he stepped out of them; they pooled in his eye sockets and above his bear and clung to his clothing. "I don't know if I'll stick around for that long, Roy."
"…Ollie." And Roy felt sick horror pool in his stomach as his daughter sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Lian's sleepily murmured 'Uncle Ollie' was overpowered by Roy's question. "What did you do?"
Ollie's head dropped forward as the nurses finally rushed in.
"Roy…" A pause for breath as the medical staff realized there was nothing wrong and Roy attempted to reassure them so he could grab Ollie before Ollie bolted out of the room. "Just, know that I'm sorry." And it was too late, Ollie had already bolted.
"Daddy?" Lian clung to the edge of the bed and looked from Roy's face to the doorway. "What just happened?"
"I don't know, sweetheart." Over the clamor and the questions Roy leaned forward and brushed his lips across the top of Lian's head. "But I think you and I are going to have our work cut out for us at fixing everyone."
Lian nodded, slow and solemn. "It's like what happened when Uncle Connor got hurt. Everyone's broken up on the inside now. Except Uncle Ollie isn't sitting here for you like he was for Uncle Connor."
The old Roy would have felt envy, but he knew that Ollie cared about him in his own way, and that there was a whole ocean of guilt that had driven Ollie to sit at Connor's bedside. "That's because he's off being stupid, just wait, kiddo, once I can get up we'll both help fix him."
"Promise?"
"Promise."