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thejusticelounge2014-05-05 04:33 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2014-05-05 04:33 pm
foundling
There was, Ollie couldn’t deny it, a tiny voice in the back of his mind telling him that the boat would be gone, unmoored and scuttled when they made it back to the drop point. That they’d be stuck here, the three of them, and maybe for longer this time and with higher stakes than one less dissolute, useless boy billionaire in the world. But as the three Arrows made it up onto the southern beachfront of Starfish Island, Ollie took a deep breath. Took a good look at his two kids flanking him, scrubby red-brown head and wet sleek blonde, and forced his mind back to the present. They weren’t here floundering this time; they had a plan.
“So if my source is on the money – and there’s no reason to think she ain’t – we’re gonna be working our way up into that crater to find where Tak’s being kept.” Ollie pointed up the rising cliffside, shaking sea water from his arms. “There’s a road coming down the north face of the slope, but it’s well-guarded so it’s a no-go if we wanna hit ‘em by surprise. Lucky for you kids, we’ve got some climbing gear.” Ollie picked through his quiver and tugged out one of his line arrows, grinning at Mia and Roy. “Last time, I had to do it with my fingernails and bare feet.”
"Oh, so we’re even going to be doing ‘back in my day’ things here?" Mia asked throwing a smirk over at Ollie as they trudged through the sand. She imagined it was probably weird for him to be back here. She was aware of his aversion to island in the first place and this particular one? The blonde looked around curiously trying to imagine what it must have been like to be here all alone — well mostly alone back when he didn’t even really have any sort of survival skills at all. Scary probably.
Mia fixed her ponytail squeezing excess water out of it. “So, how long do you think it’ll take? Do you think we’ll be attacked? We should stay on our guard anyway, right?” She didn’t mean to ask so many questions that there were probably not definite answers to. But it was better that then going in with no estimation of information at all.
"Two days at the very most, yes we’ll probably do some fighting no matter how stealthy we are, and no, there’s no need to stay on our guard. I think we should break for a rousing game of charades."
Ollie delivered this last comment in almost an absent tone, since he was busy scanning the landmarks as he made it. Starfish hadn’t changed much in feeling — still humid and clinging at the tail end of the rainy season, still green and alive with the sounds of birds and insects and the constant rushing beat of waves — but the forests had reclaimed certain areas, released others.
He started heading inland to the foot of the long-extinct volcano, to begin their trek up its steeper side. “At least we won’t have to worry about food or water. You kids are gonna like breadfruit and unicorn fish. That’s the kinda food that’ll keep you full of energy for whatever fight’s waiting for us at the top.”
There was something about the humidity that was getting to him.
Back in Star, yeah, the humidity was high, but it was a California high: the kind of weather that made you feel enveloped in a dewey newness, a sort of fog in the mornings and evenings, and kept the heat at bay during the sunlit hours of summer.
Then, there was the desert, where it was just hot—so hot it could curl your eyelashes when you stepped out of your car—but that was it. You could splash water on your skin, wear a hat, shades, and coast around in shorts and a t-shirt with no issue.
It wasn’t like that here. Here, the heat was sickening, the sort of nauseating wet dampness that slapped itself behind the rise his calf muscles, under his pits, making the curling hairs there stick to his skin as they moved up the steep, mountainous terrain, sweat gathering and pooling in the hollow of his neck, his collarbones, everywhere and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Groaning in disgust, Roy stopped, and wiped his damp bandana across his face.
"Who are we waitin’ to see at the top, old man?" He asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Ninjas."
Ollie turned to look back at his kids, grinning. He was feeling the heat and humidity as much as they were (it was impossible not to, with the damp green hot pressing in on them from all sides) but there was something exhilarating about it. “Taiana — that is, Dr. Nandan — mentioned the place was being guarded by people with serious martial arts skills. So I figured, we prepare for ninjas, and then if it turns out to be anything else, we’re set.”
They had to navigate a fairly vertical section of slope at that point, preventing Mia and Roy from too much follow-up on that; when they reached a more easily navigable area, Ollie said, “The plan’s your basic smash-and-grab. I don’t wanna waste any time looking around or showboating, you two got that? I want you to find Tak. That’s your job. I’ll concentrate on keeping the guards occupied.”
Mia clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes letting out a sigh that came out more like a deep breath due to the almost suffocating humidity stifling her at the moment. “It’s too bad Connor isn’t here! He could have taken out all the martial artists for us and we could have just sat back and chilled on the beach or something.” It was true. the three of them could train all they wanted but they weren’t as good as Connor when it came to that. She was pretty sure she wasn’t blowing his skills out of proportion. But hey, he wasn’t such a great archer so whatever.
"I hope you’re talking to yourself here because you’re the showboater, mister boxing glove arrow." Mia muttered, but said loud enough for him — and hell Roy too — to hear too. "Have we figured out how old this kid is? Is he a kid or like… my age? Or is this still going to be a surprise?"
"For all we know, she’s outfitted him with a Gundam and he’s older’n Ollie and a Ghostbuster," Roy stated, huffing as they continued up the mountain. He looked up at his sister—Ollie was leading the way, Mia was in the center, Roy on the flank—and grinned.
"Hey, that boxing glove arrow TOTALLY had it’s applicable.. applications," Roy contested, and then added, "But yeah, Ollie, you’re totally the one who’d showboat our way into a ninja dungeon."
He stopped, briefly, reaching out to snag a few red fruits off a nearby tree. Holding the branch, Roy reached into the belt of his pants, opening a pocket knife to cut into them. He smirks to himself, recognising the fruit—wax jambu—he tucks a few into his pouch before cutting off a piece and tapping Mia’s shoulder, holding it out for her. He shoves the rest in his mouth, talking around it: "I just don’t get why the hell we couldn’t just drop down onto the island..” Chew chew. “-don’t we have..” Chew chew. “—planes.. and shit?” Swallow. Ahh.
"Planes and shit we got," Ollie agreed, ranging ahead of them a ways to inspect the angle of the cliff face above them before coming back. "But this place used to be overrun with US military testing bombs, and then drug traffickers dealing in millions’ worth of heroin. I’m not real eager to go testing how well fly-overs are still being monitored and met."
Slinging his quiver and pack off his shoulder, Ollie continued, “Shado wasn’t real pleased about Tak being aged up — she thought it might jumpstart his leukemia again, and considering she almost killed Connor and rounded up a faction of the League of Assassins pretending to be Ra’s in order to get him cured in the first place, that wasn’t a risk she wanted to take.”
He put his hands in the small of his back, stretching. “We’ll camp here for the night. Get a fresh start in the wee hours — the guards’ll be less alert then.”
interlude 1: roy and mar'i
Roy , over on Starfish, kicks the portable router, shouting at it, unintelligibly.
Mari looks over at her comm as it does a half-beep, but after it fails to continue the sound, returns to her book.
Roy shouts at the box again, but when Mia shouts back at him to be quiet (the irony escapes it at the moment, but he’ll grin about it later) he hisses: “Wayne Tech piece of shhyeah—Mar’i?” He speaks into the comm.
Mari nearly jumps when Roy’s voice comes through, crackling softly with static, and throws herself across the hospital bed—stitches be damned—to grab her comm before the signal cuts off again. “—OY?” she calls back into it, settling back onto her pillow. “Are you there?”
Roy grins and responds. “God, it’s good to hear your voice, sugarbutt.” He doesn’t care who is monitoring the channels right now—he never has. He leans back and continues. “Signal is shit out here.”
Mari mirrors his leaning, although neither of them can realize it. She nearly sinks in the bedframe with the way his voice unravels the stiffness in her shoulders, the crook of her spine. “Well, you weren’t expecting one at all, were you? So it’s better than nothing.” She closes her eyes for a moment, smiling softly. “Gotta give me better notice ahead of time when you’re gonna leave me alone, nutkin. Give me time to make a body pillow with your face on it or a custom dildo or something…” She snickers a little, covering her mouth to mute the sound.
Roy feels the flush rise up in his cheeks and he grins, knowing she’ll hear it, and explains. “I’m using one of Ollie’s company routers and some weird set up he’s got going on to get through to you, so if anyone’s listening, and I really hope it’s just like.. Vic, or something,” Roy scowled, knowing how easily their conversation could be captured for the other man, “I gotta preface that we’re always this nasty, aren’t we, baby girl?” He laughs, and then leans back, adjusting his bedroll. “Hey, I wanna see your face. Do you wanna try and connect?”
Mari snorts. “Whatever, Vic’s half-cyborg and does all the routing for the Titans Tower AND the Watchtower. I think he’s dealt with his fair share of phone—err, comm sex.” She laughs again, resting her hand over her chest as she does so, but leans up again when he speaks. “X’Hal, yes, please. I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone’s face as much as I miss yours right now.”
Roy grunts, and pulls the comm away to get it set up. “Okay, hold on, lemme— er..” He presses a few buttons, and after a moment, the image connects, and Roy grins broadly, waiting for her to show up. Of course, the moment he sees the bluebell sheets, the wires and cables behind her, the grin disappears and he sits up. “What happened??”
Mari immediately throws up her hands. “I’m fine!” she insists at the same time as he asks what’s happened, and shakes her head. “Just a little scuffle getting Dick back.” She smiles, tilting her head to the side. “But we got him back safe and sound. Got the son of a bitch who took him, too.”
Roy doesn’t seem relieved at this and shakes his head, his hand behind him pushing him upright. “Tell me.” There is an edge in his voice, but it isn’t demanding or authoritative: he is asking her to trust him with this, that he won’t go overboard with the information. That he can handle it. He inhales, holds it, and exhales. “Tell me, baby.”
Mari grimaces a little and takes a deep breath. “The guy had this pheromone that made people all…” Mar’i shakes her head. “I don’t honestly think it worked on me, or maybe I was just too pissed to tell. But it got Bai bad. And she…” she’s staring into his eyes now, as if they are only inches apart, not oceans. “…she attacked me. Tried to get us into the Speed Force and ended up taking chunks out of both our stomachs.”
Roy exhales, roughly, and lifts a hand to scrub at his face. “But you’re fine?” He looks at her too, the granulated picture doing nothing to trick him out of thinking that she’s right there, sitting in front of him, the way they sat some nights on the bed while he was studying: cross legged, with snacks within arm’s reach. He arched his eyebrows. “Your.. your stomachs, nothing wrong, right? Everything back?”
Mari nods her head. “Everything’s back,” she repeats, tone warm and calm. “Everything’s fine.”
Roy exhales, and nods. “Okay. And all the.. girl parts are there.” He grins a bit, knowing full well every part of the anatomy involved in being a girl, but preferring to lighten the mood with his ridiculousness.
Mari rolls her eyes playfully. “Real cute, buttface,” she snorts, crossing her arms and sticking out her tongue at the screen.
Roy grins. “Adebayo treatin’ you?” He reaches over for one of the collapsible waterboxes they’d been collecting rain water in, and took a long drink, before he grabbed a piece of fruit from his pouch.
Mari ”Yeah,” Mar’i confirms, shifting when Roy does, searching for her own bag of Lian-provided candy and retrieving her book from the crook of the bed frame. “I mean, I’m under a sun lamp thing, but it’s no island vacation that someone—I won’t say who—that someone gets to take.” She dog-ears a page in the book, then leans a little closer to the camera, as if examining Roy’s background. “So what’s it like? You sunburnt yet?” She squints, already able to tell the answer to that question.
Roy grins. “Nah! But I am getting a bunch more freckles.” He scowls. “Losing water weight. Fuckin’ hotter than Satan’s nutsack over here.” He takes another swig of water. “How’s Lian doin’? And, babe, I wish this was a vacation.” He frowns. “I’m not even entirely sure why we’re doin’ this ‘cept for the fact that it’s a family thing.”
Mari breaks out into a grin that is sheer happy to the point of goofy. “I love your freckles, so bring ‘em on,” she giggles. “She’s perfect, as usual. Brought me a basket of candy, ate most of the candy, and then went back to stay with Rose. I thought about asking her if she wanted to have a sleepover in this room, but I think hospitals make her nervous? At least, seeing her in a hospital makes me nervous, I guess.” She leans in again, a few long strands of hair blocking off the side of the camera. “Family things are important enough,” she confirms, then watches him quietly for a moment. “Everything gonna be okay? You think you’ll run into any trouble?” she asks softly.
Roy shrugs, though the motion is lost on the small screen, and moves to recline back on the bedroll. Mia, to the side of him, is also messaging, while Ollie, above in a tree.. Well. Who knows what Ollie is doing. Mia was already in her hammock, but Roy found that sleeping in it made him anxious, so he opted for the floor. He would, by Mia’s—and, if he admitted it, his own— estimation, end up in the hammock before midnight but for now, he laid back and held the screen above, framing his love’s face in the starry sky. “Nothin’ we can’t handle,” he grins. “And if nothing else, our ragamuffin bunch isn’t above runnin’ away in noble retreat.” He lifts his chin in a pantomime of knighthood, and then, interrupts himself. “Did you DVR Game of Thrones??”
Mari ”Oh, my sweet, sweet man, of course I DVR’d it.” The corners of her smile go wicked, a hint of what the episode will hold for him, but she changes the subject quickly. “HEY, wanna see what I found at the library?”
Roy laughs. “Is it a dictionary with the ‘penis’ entry circled?”
Mari throws back her head and laughs. “You do realize you just made it seem like I would need a dictionary to know what a penis is, right? Not exactly flattering for yourself, cowboy.”
Roy arches his eyebrows. “Hey, I check EVERY dictionary to make sure that and vagina are circled, okay.”
Roy makes a face where he puffs his lower lip out, and lowers his eyelids, a sage expression. “The youth need to know.” He might as well be stroking an imaginary beard.
Mari is laughing so hard she’s snorting, head rolled back onto her pillow.
Mari finally subsides in her laughter after several minutes, wiping tears out of the corners of her eyes. It’s a task that proves difficult with how tightly her cheeks are pinched up in smiling. “I love you, Roy Harper,” she murmurs.
Roy kisses the screen, smacking loudly, and then laughs, himself, his voice pitching low. “I love you, Mar’i Harper,” he returns, his voice joking but fond, because he likes how much it sounds. He rolls over, propping the comm up besides himself. “Tell me what you found at the library.”
Mari flushes when he says her name like that and doesn’t seem to hear what he says afterward for a moment, before she shakes her head. “Don’t make fun of me,” she warns, then holds it up. The book is old, published no later than the 70s or 80s, when a yellowing cover that reads Diné Bahaneʼ. Mar’i looks up at him, checking his expression before she cracks it open on her lap. “I found one…it was right around…” She chews her lip as she searches, then makes a noise of excitement when she finds it. “Here! Náhookǫs Bakąʼí and Náhookǫs Baʼáádí!” She turns the book back towards Roy, the constellations visible, if fuzzy.
Roy squints at the pictures, even though he understands the words, and grins at her. His voice is soft when it comes out next, and it isn’t because he can hear Mia’s soft-rabbit sounds while she sleeps, or even Ollie’s own laughter, up in his tree—was he talking to someone back home, too? Kate, and then Bruce crosses his mind, as possibilities, and cradled in the womb of the forest, the warmth strangely comforting now with the jewels of the night sky bright.. somehow.. the latter thought doesn’t seem to bother him—but the way that his heart swells to cracking his chest, splintering his sternum. “Been readin’ up, huh?”
Mari smiles softly. “Of course I have. We gotta be sideways, backwards, and forwards on each other’s stuff, you know,” she teases, gently.
Roy rubs at the side of his face, chuckling. “Yeah.” Sleep was headed his way, he could feel it, and the softness of her voice and her expression was making it harder to ignore. “What did you think of it?”
Mari ”An archer and his fire-basket chick up in the night sky? What’s not to love?” She sinks lower onto her bed, resting her cheek on her pillow. “I wanna hear all the stuff you know and remember. Every bit of you.”
Roy would almost laugh at the two of them talking like this, like teenagers, but instead just smiles. “It’s not a lot of stuff, you know?”
Mari shrugs. “Maybe not to you. But it’s a lot to me.”
Roy ’s smile fades the tiniest bit. “I mean, I’ve done my own bit of readin’, it’s not like I can claim this stuff being told to me by firelight..” He arches his eyebrows, something in his expression laid bare at the admission: it isn’t one he makes to anyone. Ever.
Mari shakes her head gently. “I don’t mean just that normal kind of memory. I mean like…like, blood memory. The stuff that doesn’t have to be told to you when you’re a kid to be part of you. The stuff that made the people that made your parents that made you.”
Roy blinks, and falls silent, listening to her and swallowing, and remembering to breathe. He nods, and readjusts his bedroll, the edges of the waterproof bedroll he was laying across—the one under his head was his own, the one he was wrapped in, Ollie’s—giving himself a moment, before he settles in and begins, quietly: just for Mar’i’s ears. “Mom didn’t start with the big ones, the big stories.” He pauses. “Or she did and I didn’t really care about the First Man..” He grins and snorts. “Kinda like Lian, I was interested in the stories about Coyote.” Roy clears his throat. “I don’t remember if my dad’s schedule was set, but I know that we went out to the rez pretty often, but always early in the mornin’..” He licks his lips, eyelids drooping, as he continued. “..he always had those big orange Rubbermaid coolers in the back of the car, with water in case he saw hikers or whatever who were runnin’ out.. And he’d pack sandwiches and stuff for us before he loaded me in the car..” Roy shuts his eyes, grinning to himself. “In the winter, I slept most of the way because he’d run the car before taking me downstairs from the apartment and stowing me in the backseat, so it was warm..” He licks his lips again, voice getting softer. “And everytime I woke up, ‘cause of a pothole or whatever, the sky would be a different color than the last time..”
Mari nods her head as she talks, her own eyelids hanging low over her peridot-eyes. “It was a Jeep, right?” she asks quietly, when he reaches a pause, letting him know she remembers what he’s told her. “A Jeep in the desert…” Her head rolls, eyes flickering shut.
---
interlude 2: kate and ollie
K: *tries to hook up her FaceTime to the QI satellite system*
O: What’re you doing? Because I already found out how to stream porn on this thing.
K: Isn’t that supposed to be ‘what are you wearing’?
O: I already know your wardrobe! It’s no surprise.
K: You could ask what I’m wearing underneath.
O: I already know the answer to that too.
O: Nothing.
K: That’s actually incorrect.
O: It was wishful thinking, maybe. -grins- So what’re you wearing underneath, honeykitten?
K: Black.
O: -growls- Black /what/?
K: Black.
O: … jesus god, Katie. -makes a sound that’s very near to a whimper-
K: Well, it wasn’t NOTHING.
O: It’s close. And so many /straps/… -wipes his mouth-
K: I’ll keep it in one piece for you.
O: You know how I feel about straps. And cages.
K: I do. It just came today, I thought I’d try it on.
O: Just try it on?
K: Yeah. It’s not all that fun by myself.
O: Sigh.
K: You’ve got those puppydog eyes again. It’s an interesting contrast, the whole puppydog look combined with the horndog look.
O: -dryly- At least I’m within the same species.
K: Frustrated?
O: Yee-eeee-eeessssssss.
K: …should I maybe leave you alone for a bit, sweetie?
O: You shouldn’t tease me when you say you’re not gonna, is what.
K: You’re the one who started out talking about streaming porn.
O: As a point of interest! As a silly offhand comment!
K: Oh, okay. *tiny smirk*
O: Should I tell you what underwear /I’ve/ got on?
K: Sure.
K: Special insect-repellent sexy tropical undies.
O: -checks- Those purple ones that you decided rode up on you and you were gonna get rid of. -shows her the waistband-
K: oh jesus oliver
K: in the JUNGLE?
O: Why not? Better than wearing Bruce’s. His always feel like some kind of punishment.
K: They probably ARE.
O: -snickers, settling back down- It’s true. It’s more comfy wearing his shirts. His t-shirts, your panties. It’s a good look for me, I feel.
K: Without any pants. *chews on her lower lip*
O: Naturally. Comfiest sleepwear in the world.
K: Sleep? Who said anything about that?
O: -grins- That’s its inteded purpose. Whether or not you two let me get any rest is up to you.
K: Mmm, well, I wouldn’t let you get any now.
O: Sleep I can do without. You, I need.
K: Likewise. *worries her lip some more, as wind blows through the window and messes up her hair*
O: -puts his fingers against the screen- Is she giving you trouble?
K: *brushes her fingers against the screen* No. Which is what I’m worried about.
O: *is quiet for a while, the sounds of the jungle loud around him* If she … if she hurts you, Katie, I’ll hunt her to the ends of the earth.
K: *says nothing for a moment, watching him, then, quietly* Do you think she would?
O: I don’t know. She never tried to attack Dinah, but things might have changed. I mean, she put a contract out on me when she thought that was her only way to save Tak, so.
K: She… *doesn’t want to worry him with this stuff, he’d asked her and Bruce to look after Shado, for fuck’s sake*
O: What? What is it, Kate?
K: I don’t know, she’s kept going on about women and sisterhood and how she’d love to have tea with me and Mar’i and whatever. It’s weird. I don’t buy it.
O: *blows air through his pursed lips* I dunno, really. The woman doesn’t have any friends, never has. She really /could/ just be reacting to the possibility of social interaction.
K: I know. It’s just. I’m on my guard. I don’t need to tell you Bruce is on his.
O: Yeah. And that’s probably best. I mean, I kept letting my guard down around her, and look what happened to me for my troubles. *digs the heel of his hand between his eyebrows for a moment* She shouldn’t get violent. But you two’ll be able to handle her if she does.
K: *expression nearly crumbles as she looks at him, and she reaches out to brush her fingers against the screen*
O: *pulls the screen closer* I love you. I love the both of you. Tell him for me. Tell him to kiss you for me.
K: I love you too. And I’ll tell him. I’m sure he will.
O: Did you two get a chance to talk? About stuff. Babies. Not-babies.
K: Not really, no. Some shit’s, uh, gone down here, with Dick and a cover mission and…
K: I swear I will.
K: …he told Damian about Talia’s baby, and that’s been…a thing.
O: A thing? What kind of a thing? A Damian smacking somebody thing?
K: Actually no. Just…Damian processing. It’s just that there’s been a lot on the table.
O: I don’t — *stops, and says the same thing he’d been about to, only more gently* I don’t care. Honey, if we wait for the perfect time, it’ll never come. This is important. You and him and your feelings about this are important. Just as important as Damian dealing with this Talia shitshow and Dick’s cover mission.
K: Okay. *quirks one corner of her mouth*
O: You pissed at me? *rubs his thumb against the screen, that quirked corner*
K: No, I know you’re right. *the quirk turns into a fond, if tired, smile*
O: Okay. Because both of you put yourselves last, and wait and wait, and if it takes me pushing you to make yourselves a priority, then hell. That’s what I’m gonna do.
K: You know that’s always gonna be your job in some form, Ollie.
O: *smiles back, at almost the same levels of tired fondness* Yeah. My two serious little clams.
K: Pretty much. *considers for a moment, then says* Just how many pairs of my underwear did you take? You know Roy’d never let you live it down.
O: Just the one! Laundry wasn’t high on my list of priorities. *shakes his head* It’s trippy being back here. I feel overstimulated. Like an exposed wire. And it’s not all bad, is the thing.
K: What do you mean? *lets her hair down around her shoulders for a minute and then pulls it back up into a fresh ponytail because it’s clearly irritating her*
O: It’s /exciting/. It’s stressful as fuck because the smells and the sound and all of it takes me right back to how goddamn scared I was the first time, but I feel invigorated, too.
K: You’ve got a cause, cielo.
O: Yeah. *looks around at a particularly loud monkey cry* It’s kinda making me realize how far I’ve come, in twenty years. Coming back here with my kids, with my partners waiting for me back at home.
K: Do you see it differently now, or is it all the same?
O: Six a’one half dozen of the other. Some things are exactly how I left ‘em, just more weathered. Some things are completely gone. Which isn’t so bad, considering it used to be opium and a forced labour camp. And me personally … I guess it looks different mostly because I’m not alone, and I know I’m getting outta here soon.
K; *swallows hard, nods* The kids doing okay?
O: *smiles* Cranky and loud, but that’s them normally. It’s doing them some good to see the crucible where the old man was tempered, I think.
K: They’ll do better when they can let off some steam.
O: Tell me again you miss me.
K: *looks at the screen, biting her lip* Oh, cielo, I miss you so fucking much.
O: *nods, hungrily, his eyes big and dark* Fireblossom. I can’t wait to come back home to you.
K: …I want to touch you so bad. Not even sex. Just…you know?
O: Yeah. God, yeah, I know what you mean. The smell of you — it makes me crazy when I can’t get the smell of you.
K: You’re not gonna get much off those panties.
O: I can conjure it up, if I’m in dire straits. *closes his eyes, concentrating, and then gives a small, blissful smile* Oh, yeah. There you are.
K: Is that normal me or sexy me?
O: *opens his eyes, looking astonished* There’s a difference?
K: Well, sexy me probably smells more like sex.
O: No, that’s not true. Sometimes sexy you smells like sunshine. Sometimes like ballpoint ink. Sometimes like Bruce.
K: What about sunny Bruce writing with a pen?
O: No such thing exists and you know it.
K: I dunno, we could make him.
O: We could. But that wasn’t the point, dearheart. Don’t go off on a tangent here.
K: That sometimes I smell sexy without sex.
O: Yes, exactly.
K: *looks him over, nearly says something, then closes her mouth*
O: What??
K: Nothing, you said not to tease you, so I’m not saying anything.
O: *stares flatly* You know that saying that is teasing me.
K: So no matter what I say or think, I’m being a tease.
O: No! Only when you draw my attention to it!
K: *siiiiiiiiiigh*
O: I’m not that observant, Katie. It’s not hard to keep these things from me. I have enough to contend with when it comes to my /own/ imagination and you.
K: I’m being nice and not telling you!
O: But now you HAVE to tell me, because you brought it up!
K: I’m just picturing you eating me out while wearing those panties. That’s all.
O: *opens his mouth and lets his tongue loll out at her*
K: Yeah, not so sexy.
O: *grins big at her* You’re just lucky I didn’t start drooling, ‘cause that was my first instinct.
K: I could start bringing myself off right here and now, you know.
O: /Yes/.
K: *gives him a slow, steady look* Is that what you want?
O: Yes. That’s what I want. *after a moment* Don’t let me see what you’re doing. Unless your hand’s hidden.
K: *shifts so she can lie down but still watch the screen, sliding her hand under the edge of her jeans, and making a soft little sound as she shifts her hips* Like that?
O: *shifts too, settling down with the screen on his abdomen* Yeah. Exactly like that, honey. What does it feel like?
K: Warm. *laughs a little* Hot and close and just a little wet. *reaches and undoes her jeans but doesn’t pull them down, just so she has enough room to move*
O: Sticky? I like it just before you start getting really wet, when it’s still like honey.
K: Mm, yeah, sticky. *moans very softly, spreading her legs just out of his line of sight, and working her fingers inwards, tracing her lips* God, you know what I want?
O: *licks his lips, over and over* What’s that, baby?
K: Want your fingers working me open nice and wide, just so I can sit on your lap and ride your hand. *closes her eyes for a second, biting her lip at the slight sweet ache between her legs*
O: mmmm. How many fingers? Two? Three? Want my thumb on your clit, Kate?
K: Three. And no, leave that to me… *shifts back and forth, rocking softly against her fingertips as she presses them against her entrance* So I can come and you can screw me then when I’m already open, fucked out.
O: *shuddering, reaching down to cup his hand against his thickening cock* Beautiful. Ripe and mulberry red and juicy, just waiting for me to fill you up. You got your fingers in your cunt yet, honey?
K: *stretches upwards to make room for her hand, sliding two fingers into her—she bites her lip, it’s a stretch at this angle, but her hips are rocking down to take it after only a moment* Yeah. You hungry yet?
O: Ravenous. Getting hard. *pushes down against himself* Can you hear it? The sound your fingers make, sliding in your pussy?
K: Just a little. A little’s enough, I like the way it feels on my fingertips. *shifts so she can reach down with her other hand, stroke her clit* Tell me what you’re going to do, Oliver. Tell me you’re going to make some stupid excuse, lean your back against a tree somewhere and toss off hard and fast and rough.
O: Worse. I’m gonna get on my hands and knees right here, Kate, in the wet leaves and dirt, and get my cock out to jerk off. So I can hear how it sounds when it hits, think about you with each drop. *groans, pushing his hips up and then turning on his side* Not before you, though. I wanna see you come before I do.
K: *he’s saying this just as she gets her fingers on her clit, and she makes a hoarse little sound in the back of her throat at the mental image, the soft noise of her fingers pressing in and out of her becoming just audible* Oh god, Ollie, yeah. God…
O: *softly, but with an evident hunger* Keep doing that. Say my name, Kate, tell me how good it feels. Want you to come hard enough to soak through your jeans.
K: That…won’t be hard. *rocking down roughly now, almost bucking, as she tries to get her fingers in deeper* Oliver, fuck…want you so bad, want to come for you, come all over you. So close, amado. It’s…*gasps and forces herself not to close her eyes* It’s been a couple days. Since I got off, last.
O: *voice roughening as he rolls jerkily over onto his belly, shoving the screen in front of him* /Kate/. You mean with Bruce, in our bed? God, I’ve been mentally going that one over in my head every couple of hours. How wet you made the sheets, the taste when I eat you out after Bruce has fucked you full of his come… *drops his head for a moment to collect himself* Go faster, Kate, do it harder. *pushes himself up on his hands and knees*
K: Both. With Bruce or on my own. Haven’t been…miss you too much. *groans, low and deep in the back of her throat, then gasps, throwing her head back, close enough that she’s run out of words—it’s a moment or two more, a matter of seconds, before she closes her eyes, head falling back against the sofa, and comes, making a little keening sound and shaking as she does* Ollie. Please, Ollie. *and there’s something in her voice that says it’s not just about wanting him*
O: *had used this time to open his trousers, taking himself in hand and stroking, hard and fast with no finesse* ah, jesus, Katie, you’re so fucking beautiful like this, and I swear I can smell you right now — that dulce de leche smell, all chile and salt and ginger, god, baby, I’m so fucking hard, gonna come all over your panties, gonna spend so long going down on your when I get home— *grits his teeth together as he shoots, so violently that a few drops spatter against the screen*
K: *worries her lip and opens her eyes so she can watch him, quiet except for her breathing in short little pants, eyes dark and intense, and reaches out to brush her fingertips against the screen as she bites down on her lip* God, yes.
O: *calms down, still stroking his cock, milking the last drops out* I love you. And you … you get me to love being me more than I ever have. *licks his lips, still panting a little bit, eyes willing her to understand what he means*
K: *licks her lips as she watches him, the familiarity of him finishing, then takes a second to parse what he’s said because her brain is a little woobly from…stuff; she nods* Yeah, cielo. I’m so glad. I love you too.
O: *flicks the wetness from the screen with his clean thumb as he gets up on his knees, tucking his cock back into her underwear and his pants* That helped take the edge off. A little. For like a good twenty minutes at least. *smiles, tired but happy*
K: *can’t help but smile back, fingers drawing up slick against her belly* Glad to see I haven’t lost my edge.
O: You gonna be able to sleep well tonight? Bou sleeping with you?
K: Yeah, she tends to crawl up in the night. I’ll be okay, I promise. As long as you promise to be okay.
O: I promise. And we both better keep those promises.
K: I intend to.
K: I love you so much.
O: *taking a deep breath* Yeah. Yeah, Kate, same here.
K: *quirks a smile, lifting an eyebrow at a scratching at the door* I gotta teach her not to do that.
The sun was just starting to warm the rim of the horizon by the time they made it up to the lip of the crater the next morning. Taiana had told him that the opium fields they’d met in were long gone, but still, Ollie was taken aback at the new layout of the crater. Manicured lawns and curated tropical gardens were laid out like a skirt around a low, sprawling dogtrot house. From where they were hunkered down, the Arrows could make out at least a dozen guards patrolling in an irregular pattern — but the semi-automatic weapons they were carrying didn’t exactly mark them as ninjas.
"Well," Ollie remarked dryly, "so much for the martial arts aspect." He pointed at the bifurcated house. "You two go get Tak. I’ll draw off the bulk of the guards."
With that, he was up and moving swiftly along the semi-rounded edge of the crater to a spot thickly planted with fan palms and ferns. It took the space of two of the guards dropping heavily after being hit with concussion arrows before a bunch of them took notice, starting to move out across the lawn and into the garden, away from the house.
Mia sent Ollie a flat look when it appeared that well they were going up against guns instead of close range fighting. And she had gotten everyone katanas too. Well, maybe they’d come across a use for them when they got inside the house that was indicated before Ollie ran off to cause a distraction or whatever it was he was doing.
She set off in the direction of the house, along with Roy moving as carefully and stealthily as possible glancing over at him. “I guess be on the look out for a little kid, or a teenager. Or something…” Mia said moving between the cover of one house to the other leaning her back against it trying to listen inside to see if there was anyone in there waiting. Then she straightened up and listened carefully… for some sort of signal, like a lot of gun shots in some other direction, to know that most of the guards were good and not paying attention to what was going on around them.
Roy laughs as they begin moving towards the house, him and Speedy, but he keeps it low, a learned skill from years of stakeouts with Ollie, then his time with CBI. The sound of it was less pitched than it normally was—that raucous cacophony of sound and volume and music—and rumbled in between the last two slats of his ribs. He quieted it down as they moved down, towards the valley were the houses were, and opted to follow after Mia, breaking off to move a bit further out.
Looking over at where there was a massive rush of guards out of the house, Roy gestured to Mia, signalling with his fingers that he was going ahead. And, going ahead, he did.
Drawing an arrow, he looses it on the first guard, pinning him through his bicep to the outside wall. An elbow to the jaw knocked the guy out, and Roy pulled the arrow out, just in time as the man slumped, fell to the ground. Pushing that arrow into his quiver, in the same motion, he pulled another arrow out and stepped over the unconscious man and into the house, scanning the area in front of him, stance low and strong.
Mia did hear what she was listening for — sporadic gunshots interspersed with shouting, a volley of gunfire and Ollie laughing and hollering mockingly back at the guards, giving full throat to Roy’s so-similar dampened laughter — which made it harder to hear if there was anybody moving around inside.
By the time Roy made his way through the open, breezy passage that connected the two parts of the house and into the building proper, he was greeted with a simply furnished room whose most noticeable feature was the strewn, deeply unconscious bodies of four guards. They’d clearly been ushered into this state with efficient brutality; none were moving at all, and their guns had been removed.
There was a short, harsh bark from the back room followed by a thud. Then a tall teenage boy came out, wiping blood from his knuckles and forearm with a grimace of distaste. He dropped the cloth on the ground and pushed his floppy hair back, regarding the two archers.
"Where’s my father?" he asked, voice as casual and unhurried as if they were at a garden party, making small talk over iced tea and finger sandwiches.
Mia followed Roy carefully through the house unsure if she should keep her hand on her bow, or the katana though she opted for the bow keeping it up, and an arrow ready. But the house was cleared apparently thanks to this kid, who she assumed before he came out that he probably wasn’t a kid — though considering she was well acquainted with Damian it was probably stupid to underestimate children’s abilities.
But she was right though as it was a teenager who appeared out of the back room and Mia let out an almost annoyed sigh. Oh no, he was cute. Stupid Ollie and his stupid sons. Still, she eyed the blood on his hands and hoped that was just fighting blood, not murder blood, but stepped around Roy anyway and motioned in the direction of the gunshots outside. “He’s out there making a distraction so we can get you out of here safely.”
She jerked her head towards the door. “So, we should go before they realize what is going on and send reinforcements or something.”
The first thing that Roy noticed was that the kid looked nothing like Ollie.
The second thing that he noticed was that the kid looked exactly like Ollie. Great.
Lowering his bow, Roy nodded and gestured to Tak with his head. The kid didn’t have any issue with speaking in English, to Roy took that to mean that he spoke it and stated, his voice firm with authority: “You two take the lead, I’ll be behind you.”
Speedy looked like she was going to protest, when the rattling tic-tac sound of gunfire started up outside, and simultaneously—these children of the bow—began to move outside. Roy tucked his tongue under his teeth and gave a sharp whistle—two notes, one long and then one short—indicating to Ollie that they were on their way out.
Reaching down, he opened the snap on a side holster, drawing and arrow and nocking it as they moved from the house back out to the jungle.
Tak made a click-hiss sound of annoyance that his question hadn’t been answered, but that didn’t stop him from moving all apiece with the other two when they left the house for the grounds outside. He followed close to Mia in an almost preternatural half-crouch, watching and listening as Roy whistled his signal to Ollie. “My mother must not know you’re here,” Tak remarked, almost to himself. He sounded pleased. “Where did you come up? I probably know a faster way down—”
His boast was cut short when the group of guards in the wide yard began to move further away, together like a flock of giant birds. “Is that my father?” Tak asked, pointing over to their target. Ollie was, in fact, down on the ground and engaging with the mostly disarmed guards, his double fistful of katana flashing in the bright overhead sun as he drew them off from the three younger members of the family.
Reaching out to Mia’s quiver strap, Tak snatched her collapsible katana with a slanted, wicked grin and ran out across the field towards the guards.
Mia slowed as they reached a good spot to see what was going on and she nodded over at Tak when he pointed down at Ollie. “Yep.” Then he was running off with the Katana she had taken and she clicked her tongue, glancing over her shoulder at Roy, in what was clearly a 'this kid' look, as she pulled an arrow out of her Quiver aiming at one of the guards up high who looked like he was calling for more help.
He went down, and Mia pulled out another arrow looking around. “You want to go down there? I can cover you guys from up here.” She had no idea how many guards there were, but she thought she could take a good number of them out before they got down into the fight. Make sure Ollie, Tak, and Roy didn’t get over whelmed. Since she didn’t have a Katana anymore. But at least it was being put to good use.
Roy returned the look and nodded when she gave the order-that-wasn’t-an-order—they didn’t work that way, not like the other families that were scalloped out in their line of work; there was no one ‘in charge’ of anything.. they all got dragged along, like a chain of paper dolls, interlinked—moving after Tak to beginning putting arrows in the arms, legs, hands—non-vitals, missing major arteries—of the guys attacking Ollie.
"Hey, old man!" Roy shouted, as he punched one of the guard, sending him sprawling. "We gonna hang around with these losers all day, or you wanna get to moseying?"
Another guard came running at him, and Roy ducked, using the man’s momentum and a sharp rise up to flip him over his back, standing up grinning.
The guard that Roy flipped came up and went right back down again, courtesy of Ollie’s elbow. “You couldn’t keep a leash on ‘im?” he groused, pointing his chin over in Tak’s direction where the teenager was whirling around, gleefully wielding Mia’s katana with no fear as Mia’s arrows zipped past him from her vantage point. “Hey, kid! No casualties!”
Tak paused long enough to adjust his grip on the sword, turning it in his fist so it looked like he was flipping one really long, shiny bird at his father and brother before going back to his work. Raising a wry eyebrow at Roy, Ollie shoved his katana back in the quiver holsters as they collapsed back down, unslinging his bow from his shoulder to finish the movement.
"Let’s get to moseying," he said, and hollered over the groans and grunts of the already- or currently being-assaulted, "Speedy! Net these turkeys, we’re headed home!"
She took out a few men who came up over the other side almost trying to sneak up on the three that were down there fighting — before she got to them at least. Then after that it wasn’t long before Mia was called down and gave Ollie a nod, “Alright! Everyone out of the way!” She called back before knocking an arrow launching a wide net around the guards and making her way down towards the three males as she hitched her bow back over her shoulder.
"Hey." She said breathlessly — still because of the stupid heat — as she reached Ollie and smiled at him. "Have fun?" It was a rhetorical question, because this was Ollie she was talking to. "And you—” Mia turned her head and looked over at Tak squinting for a moment, like she was sizing him up. He was taller than her. “Next time you try to grab something off me, you should give me a warning first.” It was probably too much to ask that he ask first, and in fighting circumstances also not always possible. But wahtever.
They were back in the thick of the jungle by the time they were fully regrouped and Roy took no time at all in restrapping the firearm he carried in his side holster. Tucking it back under his shoulder blade, against his quiver, he pulled out the machete he had to the other side, hacking through the leaves in front of him, already sweating buckets and with no clear air to speak of as they all trudged up, back towards the mountain’s peak, the way they came.
"And if we’re going to go with next times—" Roy grunted, hacking at a particularly stubborn plantain frond in front of them. He’d tweaked something in the scuffle with the guards, he could feel it now, the pain bouncing up his arm and burying itself into the socket, and under the blade where he’d landed when he’d fell, a few months prior. Stubborn. Annoying. It painted his voice with the aggravation when he continues. He glanced back at Tak, mouth quirking to the side before he turned back to the path he was carving. "How ‘bout next time you don’t go runnin’ off towards the bad guys, huh, kid? That sound like a plan?”
Glancing at Ollie, carefully, Roy shifted his quiver to the opposite side of his dinged arm, and continued hacking, pushing forward, further and further away from the sounds of the rallying guards down in the valley.
Tak made that click-hiss sound of derision again, pushing ahead of Roy to slash at the thick green in front of them. “I told you,” he said impatiently, “I know a better way down.” Turning, he flashed a cocky grin at Mia, lifting his nose on a slant to look down at her. “I’m brilliant with katana,” he boasted, “so I didn’t think you’d mind if I grabbed it off you. Or if I grabbed anything else off you, come to thin—”
"Watch it," Ollie cut him off gruffly from where he was bringing up the rear. "That’s your sister there. Quit jawing and show us this way down to the beach. You can recommence talking shit once we hit the water."
For a moment, Tak stared at Ollie, but then turned back to face the swathes of jungle greenery in front of them. The sounds of the guards coming after them weren’t worrisomely close, but the fact that they were starting to rally was enough to create a palpable sense of urgency.
"This way," he pointed to Roy, somewhat subdued. "There’s a dead waterfall and we can scale down the rockface with good coverage from the ferns along the sides."
It was a somewhat slippery climb, but with all four of them lashed together and Ollie anchoring them, the two teenagers in the middle, it wasn’t long before they were headed along level ground to the beach. Tak had been silent on the descent, but he suddenly piped up as they hiked across fallen trees and the soil growing sandier.
"I’m not used to other people," he said, contrite and faintly defensive. "I’m used to being an only child. Not part of a family." Tak hesitated, panting from the heat and exertion, before he mumbled out, "—yet."
"We can’t stop moving," was all Ollie said.
“So if my source is on the money – and there’s no reason to think she ain’t – we’re gonna be working our way up into that crater to find where Tak’s being kept.” Ollie pointed up the rising cliffside, shaking sea water from his arms. “There’s a road coming down the north face of the slope, but it’s well-guarded so it’s a no-go if we wanna hit ‘em by surprise. Lucky for you kids, we’ve got some climbing gear.” Ollie picked through his quiver and tugged out one of his line arrows, grinning at Mia and Roy. “Last time, I had to do it with my fingernails and bare feet.”
"Oh, so we’re even going to be doing ‘back in my day’ things here?" Mia asked throwing a smirk over at Ollie as they trudged through the sand. She imagined it was probably weird for him to be back here. She was aware of his aversion to island in the first place and this particular one? The blonde looked around curiously trying to imagine what it must have been like to be here all alone — well mostly alone back when he didn’t even really have any sort of survival skills at all. Scary probably.
Mia fixed her ponytail squeezing excess water out of it. “So, how long do you think it’ll take? Do you think we’ll be attacked? We should stay on our guard anyway, right?” She didn’t mean to ask so many questions that there were probably not definite answers to. But it was better that then going in with no estimation of information at all.
"Two days at the very most, yes we’ll probably do some fighting no matter how stealthy we are, and no, there’s no need to stay on our guard. I think we should break for a rousing game of charades."
Ollie delivered this last comment in almost an absent tone, since he was busy scanning the landmarks as he made it. Starfish hadn’t changed much in feeling — still humid and clinging at the tail end of the rainy season, still green and alive with the sounds of birds and insects and the constant rushing beat of waves — but the forests had reclaimed certain areas, released others.
He started heading inland to the foot of the long-extinct volcano, to begin their trek up its steeper side. “At least we won’t have to worry about food or water. You kids are gonna like breadfruit and unicorn fish. That’s the kinda food that’ll keep you full of energy for whatever fight’s waiting for us at the top.”
There was something about the humidity that was getting to him.
Back in Star, yeah, the humidity was high, but it was a California high: the kind of weather that made you feel enveloped in a dewey newness, a sort of fog in the mornings and evenings, and kept the heat at bay during the sunlit hours of summer.
Then, there was the desert, where it was just hot—so hot it could curl your eyelashes when you stepped out of your car—but that was it. You could splash water on your skin, wear a hat, shades, and coast around in shorts and a t-shirt with no issue.
It wasn’t like that here. Here, the heat was sickening, the sort of nauseating wet dampness that slapped itself behind the rise his calf muscles, under his pits, making the curling hairs there stick to his skin as they moved up the steep, mountainous terrain, sweat gathering and pooling in the hollow of his neck, his collarbones, everywhere and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Groaning in disgust, Roy stopped, and wiped his damp bandana across his face.
"Who are we waitin’ to see at the top, old man?" He asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Ninjas."
Ollie turned to look back at his kids, grinning. He was feeling the heat and humidity as much as they were (it was impossible not to, with the damp green hot pressing in on them from all sides) but there was something exhilarating about it. “Taiana — that is, Dr. Nandan — mentioned the place was being guarded by people with serious martial arts skills. So I figured, we prepare for ninjas, and then if it turns out to be anything else, we’re set.”
They had to navigate a fairly vertical section of slope at that point, preventing Mia and Roy from too much follow-up on that; when they reached a more easily navigable area, Ollie said, “The plan’s your basic smash-and-grab. I don’t wanna waste any time looking around or showboating, you two got that? I want you to find Tak. That’s your job. I’ll concentrate on keeping the guards occupied.”
Mia clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes letting out a sigh that came out more like a deep breath due to the almost suffocating humidity stifling her at the moment. “It’s too bad Connor isn’t here! He could have taken out all the martial artists for us and we could have just sat back and chilled on the beach or something.” It was true. the three of them could train all they wanted but they weren’t as good as Connor when it came to that. She was pretty sure she wasn’t blowing his skills out of proportion. But hey, he wasn’t such a great archer so whatever.
"I hope you’re talking to yourself here because you’re the showboater, mister boxing glove arrow." Mia muttered, but said loud enough for him — and hell Roy too — to hear too. "Have we figured out how old this kid is? Is he a kid or like… my age? Or is this still going to be a surprise?"
"For all we know, she’s outfitted him with a Gundam and he’s older’n Ollie and a Ghostbuster," Roy stated, huffing as they continued up the mountain. He looked up at his sister—Ollie was leading the way, Mia was in the center, Roy on the flank—and grinned.
"Hey, that boxing glove arrow TOTALLY had it’s applicable.. applications," Roy contested, and then added, "But yeah, Ollie, you’re totally the one who’d showboat our way into a ninja dungeon."
He stopped, briefly, reaching out to snag a few red fruits off a nearby tree. Holding the branch, Roy reached into the belt of his pants, opening a pocket knife to cut into them. He smirks to himself, recognising the fruit—wax jambu—he tucks a few into his pouch before cutting off a piece and tapping Mia’s shoulder, holding it out for her. He shoves the rest in his mouth, talking around it: "I just don’t get why the hell we couldn’t just drop down onto the island..” Chew chew. “-don’t we have..” Chew chew. “—planes.. and shit?” Swallow. Ahh.
"Planes and shit we got," Ollie agreed, ranging ahead of them a ways to inspect the angle of the cliff face above them before coming back. "But this place used to be overrun with US military testing bombs, and then drug traffickers dealing in millions’ worth of heroin. I’m not real eager to go testing how well fly-overs are still being monitored and met."
Slinging his quiver and pack off his shoulder, Ollie continued, “Shado wasn’t real pleased about Tak being aged up — she thought it might jumpstart his leukemia again, and considering she almost killed Connor and rounded up a faction of the League of Assassins pretending to be Ra’s in order to get him cured in the first place, that wasn’t a risk she wanted to take.”
He put his hands in the small of his back, stretching. “We’ll camp here for the night. Get a fresh start in the wee hours — the guards’ll be less alert then.”
interlude 1: roy and mar'i
Roy , over on Starfish, kicks the portable router, shouting at it, unintelligibly.
Mari looks over at her comm as it does a half-beep, but after it fails to continue the sound, returns to her book.
Roy shouts at the box again, but when Mia shouts back at him to be quiet (the irony escapes it at the moment, but he’ll grin about it later) he hisses: “Wayne Tech piece of shhyeah—Mar’i?” He speaks into the comm.
Mari nearly jumps when Roy’s voice comes through, crackling softly with static, and throws herself across the hospital bed—stitches be damned—to grab her comm before the signal cuts off again. “—OY?” she calls back into it, settling back onto her pillow. “Are you there?”
Roy grins and responds. “God, it’s good to hear your voice, sugarbutt.” He doesn’t care who is monitoring the channels right now—he never has. He leans back and continues. “Signal is shit out here.”
Mari mirrors his leaning, although neither of them can realize it. She nearly sinks in the bedframe with the way his voice unravels the stiffness in her shoulders, the crook of her spine. “Well, you weren’t expecting one at all, were you? So it’s better than nothing.” She closes her eyes for a moment, smiling softly. “Gotta give me better notice ahead of time when you’re gonna leave me alone, nutkin. Give me time to make a body pillow with your face on it or a custom dildo or something…” She snickers a little, covering her mouth to mute the sound.
Roy feels the flush rise up in his cheeks and he grins, knowing she’ll hear it, and explains. “I’m using one of Ollie’s company routers and some weird set up he’s got going on to get through to you, so if anyone’s listening, and I really hope it’s just like.. Vic, or something,” Roy scowled, knowing how easily their conversation could be captured for the other man, “I gotta preface that we’re always this nasty, aren’t we, baby girl?” He laughs, and then leans back, adjusting his bedroll. “Hey, I wanna see your face. Do you wanna try and connect?”
Mari snorts. “Whatever, Vic’s half-cyborg and does all the routing for the Titans Tower AND the Watchtower. I think he’s dealt with his fair share of phone—err, comm sex.” She laughs again, resting her hand over her chest as she does so, but leans up again when he speaks. “X’Hal, yes, please. I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone’s face as much as I miss yours right now.”
Roy grunts, and pulls the comm away to get it set up. “Okay, hold on, lemme— er..” He presses a few buttons, and after a moment, the image connects, and Roy grins broadly, waiting for her to show up. Of course, the moment he sees the bluebell sheets, the wires and cables behind her, the grin disappears and he sits up. “What happened??”
Mari immediately throws up her hands. “I’m fine!” she insists at the same time as he asks what’s happened, and shakes her head. “Just a little scuffle getting Dick back.” She smiles, tilting her head to the side. “But we got him back safe and sound. Got the son of a bitch who took him, too.”
Roy doesn’t seem relieved at this and shakes his head, his hand behind him pushing him upright. “Tell me.” There is an edge in his voice, but it isn’t demanding or authoritative: he is asking her to trust him with this, that he won’t go overboard with the information. That he can handle it. He inhales, holds it, and exhales. “Tell me, baby.”
Mari grimaces a little and takes a deep breath. “The guy had this pheromone that made people all…” Mar’i shakes her head. “I don’t honestly think it worked on me, or maybe I was just too pissed to tell. But it got Bai bad. And she…” she’s staring into his eyes now, as if they are only inches apart, not oceans. “…she attacked me. Tried to get us into the Speed Force and ended up taking chunks out of both our stomachs.”
Roy exhales, roughly, and lifts a hand to scrub at his face. “But you’re fine?” He looks at her too, the granulated picture doing nothing to trick him out of thinking that she’s right there, sitting in front of him, the way they sat some nights on the bed while he was studying: cross legged, with snacks within arm’s reach. He arched his eyebrows. “Your.. your stomachs, nothing wrong, right? Everything back?”
Mari nods her head. “Everything’s back,” she repeats, tone warm and calm. “Everything’s fine.”
Roy exhales, and nods. “Okay. And all the.. girl parts are there.” He grins a bit, knowing full well every part of the anatomy involved in being a girl, but preferring to lighten the mood with his ridiculousness.
Mari rolls her eyes playfully. “Real cute, buttface,” she snorts, crossing her arms and sticking out her tongue at the screen.
Roy grins. “Adebayo treatin’ you?” He reaches over for one of the collapsible waterboxes they’d been collecting rain water in, and took a long drink, before he grabbed a piece of fruit from his pouch.
Mari ”Yeah,” Mar’i confirms, shifting when Roy does, searching for her own bag of Lian-provided candy and retrieving her book from the crook of the bed frame. “I mean, I’m under a sun lamp thing, but it’s no island vacation that someone—I won’t say who—that someone gets to take.” She dog-ears a page in the book, then leans a little closer to the camera, as if examining Roy’s background. “So what’s it like? You sunburnt yet?” She squints, already able to tell the answer to that question.
Roy grins. “Nah! But I am getting a bunch more freckles.” He scowls. “Losing water weight. Fuckin’ hotter than Satan’s nutsack over here.” He takes another swig of water. “How’s Lian doin’? And, babe, I wish this was a vacation.” He frowns. “I’m not even entirely sure why we’re doin’ this ‘cept for the fact that it’s a family thing.”
Mari breaks out into a grin that is sheer happy to the point of goofy. “I love your freckles, so bring ‘em on,” she giggles. “She’s perfect, as usual. Brought me a basket of candy, ate most of the candy, and then went back to stay with Rose. I thought about asking her if she wanted to have a sleepover in this room, but I think hospitals make her nervous? At least, seeing her in a hospital makes me nervous, I guess.” She leans in again, a few long strands of hair blocking off the side of the camera. “Family things are important enough,” she confirms, then watches him quietly for a moment. “Everything gonna be okay? You think you’ll run into any trouble?” she asks softly.
Roy shrugs, though the motion is lost on the small screen, and moves to recline back on the bedroll. Mia, to the side of him, is also messaging, while Ollie, above in a tree.. Well. Who knows what Ollie is doing. Mia was already in her hammock, but Roy found that sleeping in it made him anxious, so he opted for the floor. He would, by Mia’s—and, if he admitted it, his own— estimation, end up in the hammock before midnight but for now, he laid back and held the screen above, framing his love’s face in the starry sky. “Nothin’ we can’t handle,” he grins. “And if nothing else, our ragamuffin bunch isn’t above runnin’ away in noble retreat.” He lifts his chin in a pantomime of knighthood, and then, interrupts himself. “Did you DVR Game of Thrones??”
Mari ”Oh, my sweet, sweet man, of course I DVR’d it.” The corners of her smile go wicked, a hint of what the episode will hold for him, but she changes the subject quickly. “HEY, wanna see what I found at the library?”
Roy laughs. “Is it a dictionary with the ‘penis’ entry circled?”
Mari throws back her head and laughs. “You do realize you just made it seem like I would need a dictionary to know what a penis is, right? Not exactly flattering for yourself, cowboy.”
Roy arches his eyebrows. “Hey, I check EVERY dictionary to make sure that and vagina are circled, okay.”
Roy makes a face where he puffs his lower lip out, and lowers his eyelids, a sage expression. “The youth need to know.” He might as well be stroking an imaginary beard.
Mari is laughing so hard she’s snorting, head rolled back onto her pillow.
Mari finally subsides in her laughter after several minutes, wiping tears out of the corners of her eyes. It’s a task that proves difficult with how tightly her cheeks are pinched up in smiling. “I love you, Roy Harper,” she murmurs.
Roy kisses the screen, smacking loudly, and then laughs, himself, his voice pitching low. “I love you, Mar’i Harper,” he returns, his voice joking but fond, because he likes how much it sounds. He rolls over, propping the comm up besides himself. “Tell me what you found at the library.”
Mari flushes when he says her name like that and doesn’t seem to hear what he says afterward for a moment, before she shakes her head. “Don’t make fun of me,” she warns, then holds it up. The book is old, published no later than the 70s or 80s, when a yellowing cover that reads Diné Bahaneʼ. Mar’i looks up at him, checking his expression before she cracks it open on her lap. “I found one…it was right around…” She chews her lip as she searches, then makes a noise of excitement when she finds it. “Here! Náhookǫs Bakąʼí and Náhookǫs Baʼáádí!” She turns the book back towards Roy, the constellations visible, if fuzzy.
Roy squints at the pictures, even though he understands the words, and grins at her. His voice is soft when it comes out next, and it isn’t because he can hear Mia’s soft-rabbit sounds while she sleeps, or even Ollie’s own laughter, up in his tree—was he talking to someone back home, too? Kate, and then Bruce crosses his mind, as possibilities, and cradled in the womb of the forest, the warmth strangely comforting now with the jewels of the night sky bright.. somehow.. the latter thought doesn’t seem to bother him—but the way that his heart swells to cracking his chest, splintering his sternum. “Been readin’ up, huh?”
Mari smiles softly. “Of course I have. We gotta be sideways, backwards, and forwards on each other’s stuff, you know,” she teases, gently.
Roy rubs at the side of his face, chuckling. “Yeah.” Sleep was headed his way, he could feel it, and the softness of her voice and her expression was making it harder to ignore. “What did you think of it?”
Mari ”An archer and his fire-basket chick up in the night sky? What’s not to love?” She sinks lower onto her bed, resting her cheek on her pillow. “I wanna hear all the stuff you know and remember. Every bit of you.”
Roy would almost laugh at the two of them talking like this, like teenagers, but instead just smiles. “It’s not a lot of stuff, you know?”
Mari shrugs. “Maybe not to you. But it’s a lot to me.”
Roy ’s smile fades the tiniest bit. “I mean, I’ve done my own bit of readin’, it’s not like I can claim this stuff being told to me by firelight..” He arches his eyebrows, something in his expression laid bare at the admission: it isn’t one he makes to anyone. Ever.
Mari shakes her head gently. “I don’t mean just that normal kind of memory. I mean like…like, blood memory. The stuff that doesn’t have to be told to you when you’re a kid to be part of you. The stuff that made the people that made your parents that made you.”
Roy blinks, and falls silent, listening to her and swallowing, and remembering to breathe. He nods, and readjusts his bedroll, the edges of the waterproof bedroll he was laying across—the one under his head was his own, the one he was wrapped in, Ollie’s—giving himself a moment, before he settles in and begins, quietly: just for Mar’i’s ears. “Mom didn’t start with the big ones, the big stories.” He pauses. “Or she did and I didn’t really care about the First Man..” He grins and snorts. “Kinda like Lian, I was interested in the stories about Coyote.” Roy clears his throat. “I don’t remember if my dad’s schedule was set, but I know that we went out to the rez pretty often, but always early in the mornin’..” He licks his lips, eyelids drooping, as he continued. “..he always had those big orange Rubbermaid coolers in the back of the car, with water in case he saw hikers or whatever who were runnin’ out.. And he’d pack sandwiches and stuff for us before he loaded me in the car..” Roy shuts his eyes, grinning to himself. “In the winter, I slept most of the way because he’d run the car before taking me downstairs from the apartment and stowing me in the backseat, so it was warm..” He licks his lips again, voice getting softer. “And everytime I woke up, ‘cause of a pothole or whatever, the sky would be a different color than the last time..”
Mari nods her head as she talks, her own eyelids hanging low over her peridot-eyes. “It was a Jeep, right?” she asks quietly, when he reaches a pause, letting him know she remembers what he’s told her. “A Jeep in the desert…” Her head rolls, eyes flickering shut.
---
interlude 2: kate and ollie
K: *tries to hook up her FaceTime to the QI satellite system*
O: What’re you doing? Because I already found out how to stream porn on this thing.
K: Isn’t that supposed to be ‘what are you wearing’?
O: I already know your wardrobe! It’s no surprise.
K: You could ask what I’m wearing underneath.
O: I already know the answer to that too.
O: Nothing.
K: That’s actually incorrect.
O: It was wishful thinking, maybe. -grins- So what’re you wearing underneath, honeykitten?
K: Black.
O: -growls- Black /what/?
K: Black.
O: … jesus god, Katie. -makes a sound that’s very near to a whimper-
K: Well, it wasn’t NOTHING.
O: It’s close. And so many /straps/… -wipes his mouth-
K: I’ll keep it in one piece for you.
O: You know how I feel about straps. And cages.
K: I do. It just came today, I thought I’d try it on.
O: Just try it on?
K: Yeah. It’s not all that fun by myself.
O: Sigh.
K: You’ve got those puppydog eyes again. It’s an interesting contrast, the whole puppydog look combined with the horndog look.
O: -dryly- At least I’m within the same species.
K: Frustrated?
O: Yee-eeee-eeessssssss.
K: …should I maybe leave you alone for a bit, sweetie?
O: You shouldn’t tease me when you say you’re not gonna, is what.
K: You’re the one who started out talking about streaming porn.
O: As a point of interest! As a silly offhand comment!
K: Oh, okay. *tiny smirk*
O: Should I tell you what underwear /I’ve/ got on?
K: Sure.
K: Special insect-repellent sexy tropical undies.
O: -checks- Those purple ones that you decided rode up on you and you were gonna get rid of. -shows her the waistband-
K: oh jesus oliver
K: in the JUNGLE?
O: Why not? Better than wearing Bruce’s. His always feel like some kind of punishment.
K: They probably ARE.
O: -snickers, settling back down- It’s true. It’s more comfy wearing his shirts. His t-shirts, your panties. It’s a good look for me, I feel.
K: Without any pants. *chews on her lower lip*
O: Naturally. Comfiest sleepwear in the world.
K: Sleep? Who said anything about that?
O: -grins- That’s its inteded purpose. Whether or not you two let me get any rest is up to you.
K: Mmm, well, I wouldn’t let you get any now.
O: Sleep I can do without. You, I need.
K: Likewise. *worries her lip some more, as wind blows through the window and messes up her hair*
O: -puts his fingers against the screen- Is she giving you trouble?
K: *brushes her fingers against the screen* No. Which is what I’m worried about.
O: *is quiet for a while, the sounds of the jungle loud around him* If she … if she hurts you, Katie, I’ll hunt her to the ends of the earth.
K: *says nothing for a moment, watching him, then, quietly* Do you think she would?
O: I don’t know. She never tried to attack Dinah, but things might have changed. I mean, she put a contract out on me when she thought that was her only way to save Tak, so.
K: She… *doesn’t want to worry him with this stuff, he’d asked her and Bruce to look after Shado, for fuck’s sake*
O: What? What is it, Kate?
K: I don’t know, she’s kept going on about women and sisterhood and how she’d love to have tea with me and Mar’i and whatever. It’s weird. I don’t buy it.
O: *blows air through his pursed lips* I dunno, really. The woman doesn’t have any friends, never has. She really /could/ just be reacting to the possibility of social interaction.
K: I know. It’s just. I’m on my guard. I don’t need to tell you Bruce is on his.
O: Yeah. And that’s probably best. I mean, I kept letting my guard down around her, and look what happened to me for my troubles. *digs the heel of his hand between his eyebrows for a moment* She shouldn’t get violent. But you two’ll be able to handle her if she does.
K: *expression nearly crumbles as she looks at him, and she reaches out to brush her fingers against the screen*
O: *pulls the screen closer* I love you. I love the both of you. Tell him for me. Tell him to kiss you for me.
K: I love you too. And I’ll tell him. I’m sure he will.
O: Did you two get a chance to talk? About stuff. Babies. Not-babies.
K: Not really, no. Some shit’s, uh, gone down here, with Dick and a cover mission and…
K: I swear I will.
K: …he told Damian about Talia’s baby, and that’s been…a thing.
O: A thing? What kind of a thing? A Damian smacking somebody thing?
K: Actually no. Just…Damian processing. It’s just that there’s been a lot on the table.
O: I don’t — *stops, and says the same thing he’d been about to, only more gently* I don’t care. Honey, if we wait for the perfect time, it’ll never come. This is important. You and him and your feelings about this are important. Just as important as Damian dealing with this Talia shitshow and Dick’s cover mission.
K: Okay. *quirks one corner of her mouth*
O: You pissed at me? *rubs his thumb against the screen, that quirked corner*
K: No, I know you’re right. *the quirk turns into a fond, if tired, smile*
O: Okay. Because both of you put yourselves last, and wait and wait, and if it takes me pushing you to make yourselves a priority, then hell. That’s what I’m gonna do.
K: You know that’s always gonna be your job in some form, Ollie.
O: *smiles back, at almost the same levels of tired fondness* Yeah. My two serious little clams.
K: Pretty much. *considers for a moment, then says* Just how many pairs of my underwear did you take? You know Roy’d never let you live it down.
O: Just the one! Laundry wasn’t high on my list of priorities. *shakes his head* It’s trippy being back here. I feel overstimulated. Like an exposed wire. And it’s not all bad, is the thing.
K: What do you mean? *lets her hair down around her shoulders for a minute and then pulls it back up into a fresh ponytail because it’s clearly irritating her*
O: It’s /exciting/. It’s stressful as fuck because the smells and the sound and all of it takes me right back to how goddamn scared I was the first time, but I feel invigorated, too.
K: You’ve got a cause, cielo.
O: Yeah. *looks around at a particularly loud monkey cry* It’s kinda making me realize how far I’ve come, in twenty years. Coming back here with my kids, with my partners waiting for me back at home.
K: Do you see it differently now, or is it all the same?
O: Six a’one half dozen of the other. Some things are exactly how I left ‘em, just more weathered. Some things are completely gone. Which isn’t so bad, considering it used to be opium and a forced labour camp. And me personally … I guess it looks different mostly because I’m not alone, and I know I’m getting outta here soon.
K; *swallows hard, nods* The kids doing okay?
O: *smiles* Cranky and loud, but that’s them normally. It’s doing them some good to see the crucible where the old man was tempered, I think.
K: They’ll do better when they can let off some steam.
O: Tell me again you miss me.
K: *looks at the screen, biting her lip* Oh, cielo, I miss you so fucking much.
O: *nods, hungrily, his eyes big and dark* Fireblossom. I can’t wait to come back home to you.
K: …I want to touch you so bad. Not even sex. Just…you know?
O: Yeah. God, yeah, I know what you mean. The smell of you — it makes me crazy when I can’t get the smell of you.
K: You’re not gonna get much off those panties.
O: I can conjure it up, if I’m in dire straits. *closes his eyes, concentrating, and then gives a small, blissful smile* Oh, yeah. There you are.
K: Is that normal me or sexy me?
O: *opens his eyes, looking astonished* There’s a difference?
K: Well, sexy me probably smells more like sex.
O: No, that’s not true. Sometimes sexy you smells like sunshine. Sometimes like ballpoint ink. Sometimes like Bruce.
K: What about sunny Bruce writing with a pen?
O: No such thing exists and you know it.
K: I dunno, we could make him.
O: We could. But that wasn’t the point, dearheart. Don’t go off on a tangent here.
K: That sometimes I smell sexy without sex.
O: Yes, exactly.
K: *looks him over, nearly says something, then closes her mouth*
O: What??
K: Nothing, you said not to tease you, so I’m not saying anything.
O: *stares flatly* You know that saying that is teasing me.
K: So no matter what I say or think, I’m being a tease.
O: No! Only when you draw my attention to it!
K: *siiiiiiiiiigh*
O: I’m not that observant, Katie. It’s not hard to keep these things from me. I have enough to contend with when it comes to my /own/ imagination and you.
K: I’m being nice and not telling you!
O: But now you HAVE to tell me, because you brought it up!
K: I’m just picturing you eating me out while wearing those panties. That’s all.
O: *opens his mouth and lets his tongue loll out at her*
K: Yeah, not so sexy.
O: *grins big at her* You’re just lucky I didn’t start drooling, ‘cause that was my first instinct.
K: I could start bringing myself off right here and now, you know.
O: /Yes/.
K: *gives him a slow, steady look* Is that what you want?
O: Yes. That’s what I want. *after a moment* Don’t let me see what you’re doing. Unless your hand’s hidden.
K: *shifts so she can lie down but still watch the screen, sliding her hand under the edge of her jeans, and making a soft little sound as she shifts her hips* Like that?
O: *shifts too, settling down with the screen on his abdomen* Yeah. Exactly like that, honey. What does it feel like?
K: Warm. *laughs a little* Hot and close and just a little wet. *reaches and undoes her jeans but doesn’t pull them down, just so she has enough room to move*
O: Sticky? I like it just before you start getting really wet, when it’s still like honey.
K: Mm, yeah, sticky. *moans very softly, spreading her legs just out of his line of sight, and working her fingers inwards, tracing her lips* God, you know what I want?
O: *licks his lips, over and over* What’s that, baby?
K: Want your fingers working me open nice and wide, just so I can sit on your lap and ride your hand. *closes her eyes for a second, biting her lip at the slight sweet ache between her legs*
O: mmmm. How many fingers? Two? Three? Want my thumb on your clit, Kate?
K: Three. And no, leave that to me… *shifts back and forth, rocking softly against her fingertips as she presses them against her entrance* So I can come and you can screw me then when I’m already open, fucked out.
O: *shuddering, reaching down to cup his hand against his thickening cock* Beautiful. Ripe and mulberry red and juicy, just waiting for me to fill you up. You got your fingers in your cunt yet, honey?
K: *stretches upwards to make room for her hand, sliding two fingers into her—she bites her lip, it’s a stretch at this angle, but her hips are rocking down to take it after only a moment* Yeah. You hungry yet?
O: Ravenous. Getting hard. *pushes down against himself* Can you hear it? The sound your fingers make, sliding in your pussy?
K: Just a little. A little’s enough, I like the way it feels on my fingertips. *shifts so she can reach down with her other hand, stroke her clit* Tell me what you’re going to do, Oliver. Tell me you’re going to make some stupid excuse, lean your back against a tree somewhere and toss off hard and fast and rough.
O: Worse. I’m gonna get on my hands and knees right here, Kate, in the wet leaves and dirt, and get my cock out to jerk off. So I can hear how it sounds when it hits, think about you with each drop. *groans, pushing his hips up and then turning on his side* Not before you, though. I wanna see you come before I do.
K: *he’s saying this just as she gets her fingers on her clit, and she makes a hoarse little sound in the back of her throat at the mental image, the soft noise of her fingers pressing in and out of her becoming just audible* Oh god, Ollie, yeah. God…
O: *softly, but with an evident hunger* Keep doing that. Say my name, Kate, tell me how good it feels. Want you to come hard enough to soak through your jeans.
K: That…won’t be hard. *rocking down roughly now, almost bucking, as she tries to get her fingers in deeper* Oliver, fuck…want you so bad, want to come for you, come all over you. So close, amado. It’s…*gasps and forces herself not to close her eyes* It’s been a couple days. Since I got off, last.
O: *voice roughening as he rolls jerkily over onto his belly, shoving the screen in front of him* /Kate/. You mean with Bruce, in our bed? God, I’ve been mentally going that one over in my head every couple of hours. How wet you made the sheets, the taste when I eat you out after Bruce has fucked you full of his come… *drops his head for a moment to collect himself* Go faster, Kate, do it harder. *pushes himself up on his hands and knees*
K: Both. With Bruce or on my own. Haven’t been…miss you too much. *groans, low and deep in the back of her throat, then gasps, throwing her head back, close enough that she’s run out of words—it’s a moment or two more, a matter of seconds, before she closes her eyes, head falling back against the sofa, and comes, making a little keening sound and shaking as she does* Ollie. Please, Ollie. *and there’s something in her voice that says it’s not just about wanting him*
O: *had used this time to open his trousers, taking himself in hand and stroking, hard and fast with no finesse* ah, jesus, Katie, you’re so fucking beautiful like this, and I swear I can smell you right now — that dulce de leche smell, all chile and salt and ginger, god, baby, I’m so fucking hard, gonna come all over your panties, gonna spend so long going down on your when I get home— *grits his teeth together as he shoots, so violently that a few drops spatter against the screen*
K: *worries her lip and opens her eyes so she can watch him, quiet except for her breathing in short little pants, eyes dark and intense, and reaches out to brush her fingertips against the screen as she bites down on her lip* God, yes.
O: *calms down, still stroking his cock, milking the last drops out* I love you. And you … you get me to love being me more than I ever have. *licks his lips, still panting a little bit, eyes willing her to understand what he means*
K: *licks her lips as she watches him, the familiarity of him finishing, then takes a second to parse what he’s said because her brain is a little woobly from…stuff; she nods* Yeah, cielo. I’m so glad. I love you too.
O: *flicks the wetness from the screen with his clean thumb as he gets up on his knees, tucking his cock back into her underwear and his pants* That helped take the edge off. A little. For like a good twenty minutes at least. *smiles, tired but happy*
K: *can’t help but smile back, fingers drawing up slick against her belly* Glad to see I haven’t lost my edge.
O: You gonna be able to sleep well tonight? Bou sleeping with you?
K: Yeah, she tends to crawl up in the night. I’ll be okay, I promise. As long as you promise to be okay.
O: I promise. And we both better keep those promises.
K: I intend to.
K: I love you so much.
O: *taking a deep breath* Yeah. Yeah, Kate, same here.
K: *quirks a smile, lifting an eyebrow at a scratching at the door* I gotta teach her not to do that.
The sun was just starting to warm the rim of the horizon by the time they made it up to the lip of the crater the next morning. Taiana had told him that the opium fields they’d met in were long gone, but still, Ollie was taken aback at the new layout of the crater. Manicured lawns and curated tropical gardens were laid out like a skirt around a low, sprawling dogtrot house. From where they were hunkered down, the Arrows could make out at least a dozen guards patrolling in an irregular pattern — but the semi-automatic weapons they were carrying didn’t exactly mark them as ninjas.
"Well," Ollie remarked dryly, "so much for the martial arts aspect." He pointed at the bifurcated house. "You two go get Tak. I’ll draw off the bulk of the guards."
With that, he was up and moving swiftly along the semi-rounded edge of the crater to a spot thickly planted with fan palms and ferns. It took the space of two of the guards dropping heavily after being hit with concussion arrows before a bunch of them took notice, starting to move out across the lawn and into the garden, away from the house.
Mia sent Ollie a flat look when it appeared that well they were going up against guns instead of close range fighting. And she had gotten everyone katanas too. Well, maybe they’d come across a use for them when they got inside the house that was indicated before Ollie ran off to cause a distraction or whatever it was he was doing.
She set off in the direction of the house, along with Roy moving as carefully and stealthily as possible glancing over at him. “I guess be on the look out for a little kid, or a teenager. Or something…” Mia said moving between the cover of one house to the other leaning her back against it trying to listen inside to see if there was anyone in there waiting. Then she straightened up and listened carefully… for some sort of signal, like a lot of gun shots in some other direction, to know that most of the guards were good and not paying attention to what was going on around them.
Roy laughs as they begin moving towards the house, him and Speedy, but he keeps it low, a learned skill from years of stakeouts with Ollie, then his time with CBI. The sound of it was less pitched than it normally was—that raucous cacophony of sound and volume and music—and rumbled in between the last two slats of his ribs. He quieted it down as they moved down, towards the valley were the houses were, and opted to follow after Mia, breaking off to move a bit further out.
Looking over at where there was a massive rush of guards out of the house, Roy gestured to Mia, signalling with his fingers that he was going ahead. And, going ahead, he did.
Drawing an arrow, he looses it on the first guard, pinning him through his bicep to the outside wall. An elbow to the jaw knocked the guy out, and Roy pulled the arrow out, just in time as the man slumped, fell to the ground. Pushing that arrow into his quiver, in the same motion, he pulled another arrow out and stepped over the unconscious man and into the house, scanning the area in front of him, stance low and strong.
Mia did hear what she was listening for — sporadic gunshots interspersed with shouting, a volley of gunfire and Ollie laughing and hollering mockingly back at the guards, giving full throat to Roy’s so-similar dampened laughter — which made it harder to hear if there was anybody moving around inside.
By the time Roy made his way through the open, breezy passage that connected the two parts of the house and into the building proper, he was greeted with a simply furnished room whose most noticeable feature was the strewn, deeply unconscious bodies of four guards. They’d clearly been ushered into this state with efficient brutality; none were moving at all, and their guns had been removed.
There was a short, harsh bark from the back room followed by a thud. Then a tall teenage boy came out, wiping blood from his knuckles and forearm with a grimace of distaste. He dropped the cloth on the ground and pushed his floppy hair back, regarding the two archers.
"Where’s my father?" he asked, voice as casual and unhurried as if they were at a garden party, making small talk over iced tea and finger sandwiches.
Mia followed Roy carefully through the house unsure if she should keep her hand on her bow, or the katana though she opted for the bow keeping it up, and an arrow ready. But the house was cleared apparently thanks to this kid, who she assumed before he came out that he probably wasn’t a kid — though considering she was well acquainted with Damian it was probably stupid to underestimate children’s abilities.
But she was right though as it was a teenager who appeared out of the back room and Mia let out an almost annoyed sigh. Oh no, he was cute. Stupid Ollie and his stupid sons. Still, she eyed the blood on his hands and hoped that was just fighting blood, not murder blood, but stepped around Roy anyway and motioned in the direction of the gunshots outside. “He’s out there making a distraction so we can get you out of here safely.”
She jerked her head towards the door. “So, we should go before they realize what is going on and send reinforcements or something.”
The first thing that Roy noticed was that the kid looked nothing like Ollie.
The second thing that he noticed was that the kid looked exactly like Ollie. Great.
Lowering his bow, Roy nodded and gestured to Tak with his head. The kid didn’t have any issue with speaking in English, to Roy took that to mean that he spoke it and stated, his voice firm with authority: “You two take the lead, I’ll be behind you.”
Speedy looked like she was going to protest, when the rattling tic-tac sound of gunfire started up outside, and simultaneously—these children of the bow—began to move outside. Roy tucked his tongue under his teeth and gave a sharp whistle—two notes, one long and then one short—indicating to Ollie that they were on their way out.
Reaching down, he opened the snap on a side holster, drawing and arrow and nocking it as they moved from the house back out to the jungle.
Tak made a click-hiss sound of annoyance that his question hadn’t been answered, but that didn’t stop him from moving all apiece with the other two when they left the house for the grounds outside. He followed close to Mia in an almost preternatural half-crouch, watching and listening as Roy whistled his signal to Ollie. “My mother must not know you’re here,” Tak remarked, almost to himself. He sounded pleased. “Where did you come up? I probably know a faster way down—”
His boast was cut short when the group of guards in the wide yard began to move further away, together like a flock of giant birds. “Is that my father?” Tak asked, pointing over to their target. Ollie was, in fact, down on the ground and engaging with the mostly disarmed guards, his double fistful of katana flashing in the bright overhead sun as he drew them off from the three younger members of the family.
Reaching out to Mia’s quiver strap, Tak snatched her collapsible katana with a slanted, wicked grin and ran out across the field towards the guards.
Mia slowed as they reached a good spot to see what was going on and she nodded over at Tak when he pointed down at Ollie. “Yep.” Then he was running off with the Katana she had taken and she clicked her tongue, glancing over her shoulder at Roy, in what was clearly a 'this kid' look, as she pulled an arrow out of her Quiver aiming at one of the guards up high who looked like he was calling for more help.
He went down, and Mia pulled out another arrow looking around. “You want to go down there? I can cover you guys from up here.” She had no idea how many guards there were, but she thought she could take a good number of them out before they got down into the fight. Make sure Ollie, Tak, and Roy didn’t get over whelmed. Since she didn’t have a Katana anymore. But at least it was being put to good use.
Roy returned the look and nodded when she gave the order-that-wasn’t-an-order—they didn’t work that way, not like the other families that were scalloped out in their line of work; there was no one ‘in charge’ of anything.. they all got dragged along, like a chain of paper dolls, interlinked—moving after Tak to beginning putting arrows in the arms, legs, hands—non-vitals, missing major arteries—of the guys attacking Ollie.
"Hey, old man!" Roy shouted, as he punched one of the guard, sending him sprawling. "We gonna hang around with these losers all day, or you wanna get to moseying?"
Another guard came running at him, and Roy ducked, using the man’s momentum and a sharp rise up to flip him over his back, standing up grinning.
The guard that Roy flipped came up and went right back down again, courtesy of Ollie’s elbow. “You couldn’t keep a leash on ‘im?” he groused, pointing his chin over in Tak’s direction where the teenager was whirling around, gleefully wielding Mia’s katana with no fear as Mia’s arrows zipped past him from her vantage point. “Hey, kid! No casualties!”
Tak paused long enough to adjust his grip on the sword, turning it in his fist so it looked like he was flipping one really long, shiny bird at his father and brother before going back to his work. Raising a wry eyebrow at Roy, Ollie shoved his katana back in the quiver holsters as they collapsed back down, unslinging his bow from his shoulder to finish the movement.
"Let’s get to moseying," he said, and hollered over the groans and grunts of the already- or currently being-assaulted, "Speedy! Net these turkeys, we’re headed home!"
She took out a few men who came up over the other side almost trying to sneak up on the three that were down there fighting — before she got to them at least. Then after that it wasn’t long before Mia was called down and gave Ollie a nod, “Alright! Everyone out of the way!” She called back before knocking an arrow launching a wide net around the guards and making her way down towards the three males as she hitched her bow back over her shoulder.
"Hey." She said breathlessly — still because of the stupid heat — as she reached Ollie and smiled at him. "Have fun?" It was a rhetorical question, because this was Ollie she was talking to. "And you—” Mia turned her head and looked over at Tak squinting for a moment, like she was sizing him up. He was taller than her. “Next time you try to grab something off me, you should give me a warning first.” It was probably too much to ask that he ask first, and in fighting circumstances also not always possible. But wahtever.
They were back in the thick of the jungle by the time they were fully regrouped and Roy took no time at all in restrapping the firearm he carried in his side holster. Tucking it back under his shoulder blade, against his quiver, he pulled out the machete he had to the other side, hacking through the leaves in front of him, already sweating buckets and with no clear air to speak of as they all trudged up, back towards the mountain’s peak, the way they came.
"And if we’re going to go with next times—" Roy grunted, hacking at a particularly stubborn plantain frond in front of them. He’d tweaked something in the scuffle with the guards, he could feel it now, the pain bouncing up his arm and burying itself into the socket, and under the blade where he’d landed when he’d fell, a few months prior. Stubborn. Annoying. It painted his voice with the aggravation when he continues. He glanced back at Tak, mouth quirking to the side before he turned back to the path he was carving. "How ‘bout next time you don’t go runnin’ off towards the bad guys, huh, kid? That sound like a plan?”
Glancing at Ollie, carefully, Roy shifted his quiver to the opposite side of his dinged arm, and continued hacking, pushing forward, further and further away from the sounds of the rallying guards down in the valley.
Tak made that click-hiss sound of derision again, pushing ahead of Roy to slash at the thick green in front of them. “I told you,” he said impatiently, “I know a better way down.” Turning, he flashed a cocky grin at Mia, lifting his nose on a slant to look down at her. “I’m brilliant with katana,” he boasted, “so I didn’t think you’d mind if I grabbed it off you. Or if I grabbed anything else off you, come to thin—”
"Watch it," Ollie cut him off gruffly from where he was bringing up the rear. "That’s your sister there. Quit jawing and show us this way down to the beach. You can recommence talking shit once we hit the water."
For a moment, Tak stared at Ollie, but then turned back to face the swathes of jungle greenery in front of them. The sounds of the guards coming after them weren’t worrisomely close, but the fact that they were starting to rally was enough to create a palpable sense of urgency.
"This way," he pointed to Roy, somewhat subdued. "There’s a dead waterfall and we can scale down the rockface with good coverage from the ferns along the sides."
It was a somewhat slippery climb, but with all four of them lashed together and Ollie anchoring them, the two teenagers in the middle, it wasn’t long before they were headed along level ground to the beach. Tak had been silent on the descent, but he suddenly piped up as they hiked across fallen trees and the soil growing sandier.
"I’m not used to other people," he said, contrite and faintly defensive. "I’m used to being an only child. Not part of a family." Tak hesitated, panting from the heat and exertion, before he mumbled out, "—yet."
"We can’t stop moving," was all Ollie said.