---- From chapter 37, Text Me Back ----

W: Aaand Overprotective!Roy has been activated.
D: Great, this will end well

----

Dealing with assassins is always a pain.

Roy kept his eyes trained on them as he marches alongside the building in the direction of the front door. He could see them through the large window, in between wrinkled advertisements and window-chalk drawings of teacups, weaving in between tables and booths, towards Dick. Which wasn't inherently bad, they were a server at this particular coffee house by the looks of it, and it wasn't uncommon for people to approach Dick in public- he was famous, after all- but Roy had definitely seen them slip a silver stake knife into their apron pocket.

Honestly, Roy mentally chided as he reached the front door. It caught angrily when he tried to pull it open. They'd locked him out. He couldn't even step out for a smoke without Dick getting into some kind of peril.

He'd left his jacket on the back of his chair, so he was didn't have his cell phone- unlike Dick, who was fully absorbed in his- or his lock picking kit, but he did have a bobby pin clipped to his back pocket, so the locked door went from being an obstacle to obsolete very quickly. Still, it cost him precious seconds, and by the time he shouldered the door open, the bell chiming above, they had reached Dick.

Dick looked up, a charming smile fixed on his face, Wally's blue-collared influence making him naturally friendly to waitstaff and the rest of the working class, and there was no way Roy could make it across the cafe in time to save the idiot high school students life.

The knife came down with a flash of silver and Dick dodged infuriatingly slowly. The teeth of the blade nicked the skin just under his eye, which was better than sinking into his forehead like had been intended, but still wasn't, per se, great.

Roy was going to kill him after this.

In the background, where Roy had expected to hear screaming there was silence. The few citizens that had been in the cafe with them had gone still, not drawing attention to themselves.

The attacker- Cass, their name tag said- brought the knife back for a second swing, and it thudded dully against the table as they brought it down heavily, aiming for where Dick's hand had been hovering as he played through the act of trying to catch his balance. Seriously, what good was a cover if he got killed trying to keep it?

Roy could see the exact moment it stopped being a farce, though. It had only been a few days since Dick's last mission: Roy didn't know the details, but he knew Dick had at least two cracked ribs and a long stab-wound along his back that would heal into a wicked scar. Dick was facing him, so he couldn't know for sure, but Roy wouldn't be surprised if the idiot had torn his stitches.

Egg yolk splattered across the table with the next flick of the knife, and Roy glanced down to see that they had stabbed the center of his breakfast. He had idled a few feet behind the attackers lithe frame, watching their limbs tense and relax as they shifted stances to be on guard against him. They were completely silent, and they moved with the smoothness only a dancer or experienced fighter carried.

That and the foresight to lock the front door pointed to this being someone with training- good training- and, if he had to guess, someone who knew their secret identities too. That narrowed down possible culprits significantly, but if he was being honest Roy didn't entirely care about the who and why at the moment.

Part of him wanted to grab the knife from their hands, but his instincts were telling him he'd end up stabbed before he could get that far. Before he could come up with a solid game plan- something he'd had to work on since he'd done solo- Cass took another well-aimed swing and Dick looked very intent on letting himself be stabbed. Roy's higher-thinking shut down and he found himself going purely on instinct as his hand shot towards the table nearest to him.

He grabbed a bent, cheap, café knife from the selection of silverware, an empty table yet to be cleaned since the last patron left. Probably because the waitstaff was busy trying to accomplish an assassination.

Roy's knife sailed delicately through the air like a well-made paper airplane and both pieces of silverware clanged loudly as they dropped onto the table. Cass drew their hand back, wrist smeared red with blood, and Dick slouched into the seat.

Roy picked up the next piece of silverware, a spoon, and pointed it towards Cass, trying to appear threatening. If he was honest, if his opponent was someone who had come to blows with Dick and gotten away, he probably wouldn't be able to take them in a fight, but he could put on an intense enough face to keep their attention while Dick went for one of the knives.

Dick swiped at their legs, but they danced out of the way before the blade could connect. Roy nearly had them, then, reaching for their wrist so he could get them in a pin, but they managed to dodge him, too. An equal distance away from both of them, with their guard up, Cass regarded both of them. Roy couldn't gauge what they were thinking at all; their face was cold and impassive, displaying no emotion. They didn't look like they could overpower him in terms of raw strength, but that didn't mean much considering Roy knew from experience- courtesy of Dick- that there were twenty different ways he could get his ass kicked regardless.

Their hand drifted up to their ear, brushing short, black hair aside to reveal a comm. They listened intensely, saying nothing, and between one breath and the next, Roy's lungs and vision filled with smoke. He knew better to charge into the mist, holding his arm across his mouth and breathing through his sleeve in case the fog was laced with anything, and he knew they were gone long before he could see clearly again.

"Fuck!" he cursed, hand tightening on his spoon until he felt the metal give under the pressure.

"Don't worry about it, Harps," Dick waved off from the booth where he had returned to eating his- Roy's- breakfast and stealing bits of sausage off his- Roy's- plate.

Roy took a deep breath, then retook his seat, which was actually Dick's seat, since Dick had moved around the booth during the fight, aware that the cafe had emptied out completely as soon as the citizens had deemed it safe enough to move.

"Harps?" he asked, instead of anything else. It was always frustrating when the bad guy got away, but there was nothing he could do about it anymore; this wasn't even his city. He reached across the table and swapped their plates so that he had his own meal back and Dick was left with what he had originally ordered.

Dick tilted his head, eyes impossibly doe-like and betrayed, pouting as he picked at his own food, "You don't like it?"

Roy ate half his toast in one bite, slurring around the cold mix of bread and jam, "'s fine, I gu'ss."

Dick nodded, taking note of his reaction and mentally adding it to his ever-growing list of nicknames, then his tongue darted out to lick a smear of ketchup- or possibility blood- from the corner of his mouth. Roy swallowed the second half of his toast before he scoffed, reaching across the table with a handful of napkins to dab at the cut on his face. It was shallow, he found upon inspection, and had already stopped bleeding. He didn't seem to have torn his stitches, but Roy would make him prove it later. Nothing they couldn't wait until after they'd finished their cold breakfasts to patch up.

"Are you gonna tell me what that was about?" Roy asked as he propped his foot on the opposite bench, nudging Dick's hip.

"Meh," Dick shrugged, more focused on getting around Roy's dual spoon-fork defence to steal his last piece of sausage, "League of Shadows stuff. Cass is supposed to kill me, Bruce is trying to adopt them. Same 'ol same 'ol."

"Right," Roy nodded, pretending to leave an opening on the right so that Dick could successfully complete his sausage heist, "and you were just gonna let them stab you?"

"Well..."

Roy huffed a laugh, taking a bite of cold eggs and immediately regretting it, but continuing to eat anyway.

"Of course you were."

"Cass is actually really cool!" Dick defended, setting his silverware on his empty plate and dropping one hand off the table to undo the laces on Roy's sneakers, then do them back up again.

Roy didn't need to reply- paragraphs could be written about his expression. It said it all.

"Sorry," Dick said quietly, for once not sarcastically. He knew Roy worried.

Roy reached across the table to ruffle Dick's hair because he wasn't nearly as emotionally mature enough to have a proper response, briefly getting distracted by how soft it was.

Eventually, he drew back, stacking their plates and leaving more than enough cash on the table to cover their meal and even the most generous of tips.

"Ready?" He asked as Dick reached behind him to shrug Roy's leather jacket onto his shoulders.

"Yep," Dick replied, "Wanna go catch a movie?"

"You don't wanna go find the person who just tried to kill you?"

Dick shrugged with one shoulder, tucking one of his hands into Roy's pocket, "Bruce is handling it. Let's go watch Alien."

"Where are you gonna find a movie theatre playing Alien in this day and age?" Roy pulled open the door and waited for Dick to walk through before flipping the open sign to 'closed' and letting it swing shut behind them.

Dick held up his phone, showing Roy a picture of an extravagant looking movie theatre taken from just outside what looked like the front doors.

"I happen to be the proud owner of Monarch Theatre, and- oh-" Dick looked delighted- "look at that! They're playing Alien in... about twenty minutes." He pretended to check his watch, then glanced up at Roy from under his lashes. "Unless you want to walk. Then it's thirty."

Roy reached into his back pocket and drew out a carton of cigarettes, since he'd never actually gotten to have his smoke break, then his lighter.

"Lead the way, bird-boy," he said around his cigarette.

"Lead I shall, Harps," Dick replied, taking Roy by the wrist and leading him through the streets to the distant Theater District.

----

It's worth noting the biggest threat to Wally is himself.

No, seriously. Roy firmly believed that Wally wouldn't last a day without either him or Dick. Dick may have been more inclined to mischief, but at least he was capable of executing his plots without tripping over thin air and knocking himself out.

Wally was going to die because he doesn't know how to tie his shoelaces properly.

Roy's hand shot out to grab the back of Wally's athletic wear, catching his collar before he could introduce his face to the dirt path they were jogging along. A voice in his head that sounded uncomfortably like Dick's said, 'Nice receive!'

Wally stagnated at about a forty-degree angle with his face hovering less than two feet above the ground, blinked, belatedly putting his hands out to catch himself.

"Oh my god," Roy said, dropping him.

Wally hit the ground with a quiet oof, but after a moment he turned his cheek against the cold dirt, humming in comfort at the brief relief from the day's heat. Roy glared down at him.

Run the marathon with me, Wally said, my university said anyone can participate, he said. It'll be fun, he said. Roy was decidedly not having fun. He had been planning to get drunk and binge-watch all the Die Hard movies this weekend. Instead, he was stuck halfway through a marathon around part of the MIT campus.

"Get up," Roy nudged Wally's side with his sneaker, digging into the vulnerable flesh of his ribs. Wally groaned and batted at him, but reluctantly peeled himself off the muddy path.

There was a smear of dirt across his face, and he rubbed the heel of his palm against his face until the skin was red and still muddy, but other than that he was unscathed.

Roy, on the order hand, was still breathing hard and drenched in sweat, his own athletic clothing sticking to his skin in uncomfortable ways. Their little break had given the soreness in his muscles a chance to set in, and his body was already buzzing with an aching he knew would only be worse when he woke up tomorrow. Sure, he could do a marathon- maybe even triple, if he was pressed- along rooftops for the sake of chasing down a bad guy, but for fun? His body hated him.

"You've still got mud on your face," Roy pointed out dully. Wally blinked owlishly- stupidly- at him until Roy reached across to smudge his face clean for him.

Wally rewarded him with a bright grin, and Roy turned away and started jogging again so that he didn't have to look at the amusement dancing in Wally's green eyes.

Wally huffed in boredom only a few seconds after they'd started running again, "Man, are we done yet?" Roy glared at the speedster.

"You were the one who wanted to-" he cut himself off, choosing instead to save his breath. His lungs were burning.

"Yeah," Wally replied anyway, easily turning around to jog backwards a few feet in front of Roy, "but I didn't think it would be this boring."

Roy resisted the urge to roll his eyes, already used to Wally's three-second attention span. Wally stumbled over a few roots and divots in the path, eventually returning to matching Roy's pace after at least two "on your left" jokes.

They hadn't seen any other runners since they'd passed the last one least ten kilometres ago, and Roy had a sneaking suspicion he was only there so Wally could gauge how fast a reasonable finish time was.

As it turns out, Roy was not a very good control group. Not only did Wally cross the finish line first- two steps ahead of Roy- but he set a new record.

Wally laughed off those who came up to congratulate him and the school journalists covering the results awkwardly, looking over the heads of his admirers for Roy, his expression a cross between regret and help me.

Roy watched passively from a bench on the sidelines, chugging his way through the first water bottle handed to him and nursing a second. Running had edged off his craving for a cigarette, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind he knew he'd have to have one soon, preferably after showing, before he and Wally went out for food.

His unfriendly expression kept most people away from him, but one of the event organizers did appear with a sweat towel and finisher medal for him after he dumped the last of his water over his head. He thanked her absentmindedly, tucking the medal in his pocket and throwing the towel over his shoulders, more focused on the crowd surrounding Wally. Event organizers were dispersed when Wally waved them off and promised whatever they needed from him on Monday, but the amateur journalists persisted.

Wally grinned brightly for a few pictures. With the way the sun brought out his freckled complexion and the shades of red in his hair, complemented by the wide array of blues and greens surrounding them, Roy wasn't hard pressed to see why they wanted to take photos of him then and there. As much of a people-person as Wally was, he still posed with the awkwardness of someone unused to being on the model side of the camera.

Roy tossed his empty water bottles in the nearby recycling bin, and when he turned around again one of the photographers had his arm thrown over Wally's shoulders, pressed against his side with the camera held in front of them. He said something, and Wally laughed, his shoulders shaking and eyes crinkling. The photographer was watching him out of the corner of his eye, and everyone else was watching too.

Roy felt the drags of irritation roll in his stomach, a persistent ache in his molars not letting him forget how many hours it's been since he last smoked. Looking away, Roy searched for somewhere to return the towel to, and found an empty laundry hamper seemingly for that purpose. Liberating the towel from his possession, Roy checked his phone and found the group chat to be one long thread of Dick complaining about being alone and bored vying for Wally's attention. Before Roy could type out a response his ears pricked up at the sound of Wally laughing. Again. Genuinely- joyfully.

The photographer had put some distance between himself and Wally, probably to stay out of the way of his fellow camera-dawning peers still trying to take photos. The expression on his face was nervous, but hopefully, and Wally being the more oblivious attractive person alive didn't help.

Roy was halfway across the park before he knew what he was doing, purpose in the way the soles of his shoes met the pavement.

When he was a few feet away, he clapped once, loud and booming. Everyone shut up and looked at him, some of them without even realizing.

Nice, Roy thought, glad to see his commanding presence was still, in fact, present and accounted for. It was hard to tell, considering everyone he spent his time around was unruly and a regular recipient of Bruce's disappointed stare.

"Roy!-" Wally started, only to be interrupted by Roy.

"Wally is grateful all of you are so eager to talk to him," repeating things he's heard said to reporters over his years of living a life under the spotlight was easy, and Roy tucked one hand into his pocket, feeling the corner of his cellphone. "Unfortunately, he's short on time and has somewhere to be." Roy couldn't resist sending a pointed look to the touchy photographer, "His boyfriend is missing him and the reservations are non-reschedulable."

Wally freed himself from the clutches of the crowd, one hand on the back of his neck and the other folded across his chest, nodding along with what Roy was saying.

"Sorry guys, you heard the man. Non-reschedulable. I'll be a free man next Monday, so feel free to set something up with-" Wally stumbled, looking around as if the answer he was looking for would fall from the sky and strike him, "-uh... whoever is in charge here."

Roy sighed, grabbing the sleeve of Wally's shirt and pulling him away before he could make any more promises. Wally stumbled for half a step, then righted himself and Roy dropped his hand. Other finishers were starting to fill the space, and Roy felt Wally's hand curl around his wrist, making sure they didn't get separated.

They had made it halfway to the exit, and Roy was trying to make out the far-off sign that told them which direction the parking lot was when a voice called from behind them.

"Hey, guys!" Wally stopped, so Roy had no choice but to turn around too. The photographer, who Roy could see had a blonde undercut and had a distinctly Ken-doll like appearance, if Ken dolls wore spiked earrings and baseball team themed crop tops.

He blanked a little once he had their attention, slowing from a jog a few steps away from them, something clutched in his fist. Roy tried to keep his annoyance from showing, but it must have shone through his expression anyway because the photographer glanced at him and looked quickly away.

"One of the people in charge said they forgot to give you this," he said to Wally, opening his hand and offering Wally a finisher medal. "Would be weird if the guy who came in first didn't get one and all," he gave an obviously forced laugh, glancing between the two of them.

Wally, stupid and oblivious Wally, stared at it for a moment, then brightened considerably, "Oh! Thanks, man. I totally forgot they had these things."

"Idiot," Roy said, unable to cuff Wally upside the head due to the gingers grip on his wrist but promising himself he'd do it later, even if Wally will have forgotten the reason.

Wally pouted, but before he could say anything the photographer interrupted, "Right... listen, I'm uh, sorry about hitting on you before. I didn't know you guys were together."

"Huh?" Wally said, clueless to the world around him. Roy sighed, closing his eyes and counting to ten, wishing for patience. How he and Dick actually got together Roy will never know. It was nothing short of a miracle, considering how stupid the two geniuses could be.

"We're not-" he corrected, opening his eyes, but the photographer was gone and Wally was trying to manoeuvre the medal over his head with one hand and failing spectacularly.

He looked adorably bothered by his inability to manage it, but he was even more adorable after Roy used his free hand to help him slip the medal on, the metal resting against his chest.

"Woah, hey, Roy," Wally called, turning to him as they navigated their way to the parking lot, "Did you get one of these?"

"Yep," Roy said distantly, scanning the horizon for any signs that would indicate a smoking zone.

"Then we match!" Wally celebrated as they conquered a small grassy hill in the middle of the tarmac parking lot, stumbling over his untied shoelaces in his excitement and taking them both to the ground.

----

Roy grew up attending rich parties with rich people, but somehow Wayne gala's manage to stun him into silent awe every time.

Held in the library rather than the ball room, this particular party was smaller than the usual ostentatious get-togethers Bruce Wayne was known for; a private event. The guest list included only associates of Wayne Enterprises and their nouveau-riche wives.

Roy was nursing his second champaign, trying to stay just on the edge of sober but tipsy enough his conversation with various wealthy dilettantes didn't kill him. Usually he would tune everything out, but he was on mission; the party was a smoke-screen for one of Bruce's investigations or another as far as Roy had been briefed. Unfortunately this forced him to keep his mind turned on, regularly sweeping the entrances and keeping an eye on each of the guests.

Lex Luther, notably, was absent from the guest list and it was the talk of the party. He'd wondered if it was somehow connected and made the mistake of asking, leading to him hearing the same cycles of gossip four times over. The consequence being he could now, unfortunately, relay in detail who was sleeping with whose wife, who made a bad investment, and who's handbag was without-a-doubt a knockoff. The only mindedly interesting point he'd heard all night was Davenport's wife leaving him for his secretary.

Roy's only comfort was that he wasn't alone in his suffering and that he, as he had been told by various sources, looked delectable in his suit.

Wally was sweeping around the room disguised as a waiter, trying to look busy so Roy didn't suspect him of being the one who stole his cigarettes, even though Roy had felt the weight of them lift out of his pocket last time Wally had passed him. As revenge, Roy kept grabbing glasses off passing trays and setting them down on random surfaces.

When Wally wasn't serving hors d'oeuvres or gathering half-empty glasses, he was staring across the room at Dick.

Dick being his usual self was bad enough, but he came alive under the scrutinizing light of Gotham's rich and richest's attention. They idolized him for it, but in a dangerous fickle way; they stared at him like they'd find the thesis of the universe smeared on his mouth like lipgloss, but if at any moment he stumbled, they'd descend upon him like rabid dogs.

Roy knew Dick was intimately aware of this, but he made his way around the room like he was teasing them.

As it was, the setting sun reflected off the glass window panes and the room was washed in soft reds and oranges. Roy watched it sway across the parquet design of the maple hardwood floors. Usually all it took was one breath to smell the usual old, grassy notes of the library, but tonight it was masked by various expensive perfumes and the type of smoke that clung to clothes.

He watched Wally's bright hair dance obnoxiously through the crowd from across the room, easily spottable amongst all the gray and black. They'd once spent an entire afternoon trying to put a name to how the library spelled, and in the end the best they could do was something with a tang of acids, like the first hint of the taste of an orange and a dash of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.

Roy's champaign-fueled musings were interrupted when a window next to him shattered. He had about two seconds to be impressed- all the windows in the Manor were more than bulletproof- before the click of a gun uncomfortably close to his face consumed all his thoughts.

Should have volunteered to house-sit, he thought, could have been watching Jaws right now.

Roy obediently dropped his watch into the bag held in front of him, not really mourning the loss of either. The watch had been a gift from Olie and, really, if it wasn't stolen he probably would have pawned it.

He grimaced as his wrists were tied together in front of him, the criminals working their way down the like of petrified, kneeling upper class. Once they had moved on from him, he subtly scanned the crowd. Bruce was nowhere to be seen, but Roy had noticed him slipping out- interestingly enough- alongside Clark nearly an hour ago. It wouldn't be long, then, until the unfortunate criminals robbing them got a visit from the Batman, then.

Further down the line he could see Dick and Wally and he focused his eyes on them, trying to communicate to them through glare alone.

The whole 'being bound and robbed' thing was really more of an inconvenience until one criminal- the leader, by the looks of it- realized their party's host was absent.

Dick was the next best target.

Roy felt his shoulders go tense when the man approached Dick, gloved hand slipping into his hair and pulling him off his knees. The man was talking to him in a low, rough tone but Roy couldn't hear what was being said.

He felt himself rising to his feet, only for the hands of those on either side of him to grab his jacket, tugging him downwards and holding him there. He turned to glare at each of them and received only urging looks in return. Of course, Gothamites were so accustomed to crime, even the richest of the rich, they knew to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

Roy flicked his gaze between Wally and Dick respectively, forced to watch from across the room as whatever witty reply Dick gave to the man got him backhanded.

There was yelling, a mad scramble as the lookout barrelled into the room and announced the guards outside were unconscious. Roy heard none of it, the sound of Dick being slapped still echoing in his head.

The group decided to take their spoils and make a quick getaway. Dick, still held tight in the grasp of the leader, his cheek red, apparently counted as spoils.

Roy stood, this time too fast to let the hands reaching out to grab him stop him, but Wally was faster. Roy watched as the a gun-wielding fist came down on Wally's head and there was something especially terrifying about the way the speedster went limp, his body scooped up alongside Dick's.

Roy knew he had no chance of catching them, considering he could hear the roaring of a helicopter, but he didn't stop until he was standing on the front lawn of Wayne Manor. The grass forced out of its neatly-mowed position around him, Roy watched as the helicopter ascended higher and higher until it was out of sight. He swung his fist out in a random direction out of frustration, catching sight of Dick's phone laying, cracked, on the ground near his feet.

He picked it up, turning it over in his hands, confirming that it was Dick's cellphone.

He put in the password, the screen flickering to life and displaying the conversation between Wally and Dick from a few hours ago, when he had caught another waitress hitting on Wally.

W: Aaand Overprotective!Roy has been activated.
D: Great, this will end well

He sighed, his fingers curling around the edge of the phone. Clearly his protectiveness was not unwarranted, considering he'd just watched the two most important people in his life be kidnaped by unknown assailants.

Roy stared down at the screen for another minute, police sirens growing closer in the distance, until something buzzed. He pressed a few buttons at random, trying to find the source of the buzz, until he realized it came from his own phone in his pocket.

A message from Dick's communicator- Roy didn't even know how he made it send text messages- lit up his screen.

D: Part of the plan, RoyToy! Don't worry <3

Roy put both phones in his pocket and started the walk back to the party, intent on getting another glass of champagne. Or, if he could manage it, something stronger.

He very carefully hoped Dick and Wally had done all they wanted to do in life, because the next time Roy saw them he was going to kill them both with his bare hands.