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Birds and Bees	By : defying3reason Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2564 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, or any aspect of the broader DC Universe, and I make no money from my fanfiction

Chapter List
- 25
- 26
Chapter 26
Piper was walking back from the used record store downtown when he stopped and did a double take.
Roy Harper was standing on the other side of the street, looking incredibly irritable and grumbling under his breath at a twitchy looking white fluff ball on a glittery pink leash. The dog had a white rhinestone collar, and there was a pink silk rose clipped to its fur.
Piper threw his hand over his mouth, and once he'd contained his laughter at the ridiculous sight he crossed the street to say hi.
"Hello Roy. That's…certainly not the type of dog I'd have expected you to be drawn to."
Roy looked up at him with a scowl. He was wearing his douchey red aviators, a sleeveless t-shirt, and baggy jeans with a chain (so attempting to look tough while being several years out of fashion). "Hey Piper. I think you know who picked out the god damn dog. Say hello to motherfucking Arrow Dog."
"Arrow Dog?" He assumed the 'motherfucking' was optional.
"That's what everyone keeps calling her. She's not my animal sidekick though."
Piper crouched down and held his hand out. Arrow Dog gave it a cautious sniff, then immediately peed herself. "Well she's cute." If absolutely nothing else.
"Ah huh. I think she's got some kind of bladder problem. She keeps peeing all over everything." He sounded positively thrilled about that.
"She might have a UTI. You should take her to the vet."
"Not until Lian gets back from the Tower. She's the one who got the flea bag, so she's going to be responsible and take care of the damn thing."
Piper scratched Arrow Dog's ears, and she jumped up on his knee and licked his other hand. "I just got back from the Tower myself. We got a lot done today. I think you and the other League alumni will be really pleased with it. I'm still going back next weekend to keep working on it though."
Roy frowned at him. "You got plans or something?"
"No…" Piper asked, wondering (a tad bit hopefully) where that was going.
"Oh. Then why'd you leave already? I mean, there's plenty of weekend left right now."
Piper inwardly groaned, realizing he'd just talked himself into a corner. He'd left early because the Titans had been called out on their first mission (which was pretty close to them, being in Keystone, but Roy probably hadn't heard about it if he'd been out running errands with the new pet). Piper had offered to tag along with the kids, considering himself useful in Rogues disputes, but Jai had begged him to stay behind. The brand spanking new teen hero didn't want it to look like he had an adult chaperone.
"I, um…the kids were busy, and, well…first weekend and all."
Roy broke off into a string of colorful and creative cursing. Piper waited for him to finish, and watched as a woman with a stroller abruptly changed courses on the sidewalk to avoid them.
"They've already got a mission?" Roy finally yelped.
Reluctantly, Piper nodded. "It's just the Rogues and Downpour though-"
"So it's here? Why didn't you go with them?!"
Well at least someone thought he was useful.
"The kids didn't want me tagging along."
"So?!"
"We're a very quick phone call away Roy. Calm down. Just give them a chance to impress you, okay? Your daughter is working with some incredible and experienced young people right now."
Roy had Arrow Dog's leash in a white knuckled grip and he was biting his lip so hard Piper was surprised he didn't see a trickle of blood slide down his chin. After a moment Roy gave a stiff nod, and he started walking towards his house. Piper was momentarily offended that Roy had just walked off without saying goodbye, but then Roy turned around and snapped at him. "C'mon Piper. You just dropped that bombshell on me so now you're going to sit and wait next to every phone and signal device I have with me."
Piper suddenly regretted admitting that he didn't have plans. He hefted up his bag of new records and CDs and followed after Roy Harper and his ridiculous little dog.

The battle with the Rogues did not go at all how Damian expected.
Battles in Gotham, though not simple per se, at least had some sense of rhythm. Sometimes they did a little detective work, although their regulars often negated the need (hm…someone robbed the Second National Bank on 22nd Street of two hundred thousand dollars in two dollar bills). Then they had a fight, or a series of fights if it was some kind of master plan, and eventually the crooks were sent to Arkham or Blackgate, where they would break out and begin the merry cycle again.
There were variations, but typically that's how it went. Maybe Gotham was the odd city, but Damian was pretty sure he'd never seen the part of a villainous battle where the heroes chit chatted with the bad guys (y'know, unless the bad guy was nicely filling out a cat suit).
And yet, that was the very first thing Bart Allen and Irey West did when they arrived on scene. The two speedsters ran off while Wonder Girl was still parking their plane, and when the other Titans caught up to them Bart was having an involved conversation with Captain Cold. Irey was across the "battle field" (a pedestrian mall) making an appeal to Downpour.
Captain Cold had made a wall of ice to protect him and two other Rogues (Heat Wave and…Prankster? Trickster? Something like that, at any rate). He was leaning against the wall rubbing his glasses against his parka while he spoke with Bart. "So they promoted you again kid?"
Bart had changed into a Flash costume. "Kind of. Impulse was ready to be Kid Flash, so I'm doing this now. Try not to kill me this time, okay?"
"I told you, that was mismanagement. Impulse was good enough to be Kid Flash ages ago…new Teen Titans?" Cold guessed, noticing the group of confused looking heroes approaching him.
Bart smiled and waved at the group. "Yeah. I think you've already met Wondergirl. This is Shaytun, Speedy, and Burst."
"Hi." Speedy waved at the Rogues with her fingertips. Cold gave them a curt nod, Heat Wave saluted them with one of his flame guns, and the younger one made a purring noise at Lian. She took a step back, and Damian took a protective stance in front of her.
"Uh…aren't we supposed to be fighting them?" Burst asked.
"If it comes to that," Bart said. "Cold and his guys want pretty much the same thing we do. Get the area cleared of civilians and get Downpour to stop pitching a hissy with as little fuss as possible. So for now we're all on the same side."
"And what triggered this 'hissy'?" Damian asked with a sneer.
Bart turned back towards his Rogues. "Guys? It's a good question."
"Kid found out how Mardon died. Got it in his head that we were responsible," Cold said.
"Oh gee, maybe because you coated his legs in ice and left him for dead," the little pervy one said.
Cold whapped him with the butt of his gun and the guy hit the ground with a loud 'oof'.
"Mardon had a fighting chance. He shoulda known what would happen when he broke the rules."
"Mm, well fascinating as all that is," Bart interrupted, "what you're basically saying is that we've got a crazily superpowered meta freaking out right now because of his long suppressed Daddy issues, and you're the focal point of his rage. Didja think of maybe getting your own sorry butt away from all the innocent bystanders?"
"Um…isn't Kid Flash trying to reason with the crazy kid right now?" Speedy asked.
As if on cue, Irey was blasted into the other side of Cold's ice barrier. He calmly put his glasses back on and added another layer of ice, as the indent Irey made had put some cracks in it.
"Oh holy crap! Is she okay?" Lian tried to dart out from the barrier, but Damian grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
Bart zipped around and back in the time it took Lian to shrug out of Damian's grip. He was holding Irey in his arms. She looked dazed, and there was a trickle of blood coming down the side of her face. "Irey?" Bart murmured.
She looked up at him in confusion, then her eyes focused and she struggled out of her cousin's arms. "Well someone's in a mood. I was pretty close to talking him down, but then he trashed my new uniform and blasted me with a lightning bolt."
Cold smirked. "The kid's not a fan of the Flashes."
"We always got along before," Irey whined. "I'm gonna try again."
"Kid Flash, wait!" Bart yelled, but Irey had already taken off.
"Um, um, I've got distance weapons. Should I try to shoot him?" Lian asked.
"Knock yourself out," Heatwave said. "I think Flash the youngest had a good point about us clearing the area Len. We're just putting people in danger."
"And where the frick would he like us to go?" Cold snapped. "Siberia? How're we getting there, exactly? Whatever goes down, we have to fight our way out."
"I could give Evan a call."
"Yeah, Trickster could give Mirror Master a call. Where the hell is he anyway? He was here earlier," Heatwave grumbled.
While the Rogues argued among themselves, Lian edged up to the ice wall and peered over it. Damian walked up behind her and squinted into the distance. He could see Irey running from mini tornadoes and lightning blasts. They couldn't hear anything, given the roaring wind, but it was clear that Irey was trying to reason with Downpour, and she looked distressed while doing so.
"What are you going to fire at them?" Damian asked.
Lian chewed her lip. "I'm not really sure. Actually, now that I see all that wind I think my odds of hitting him are pretty terrible."
"Do you have anything that would disperse if you got close to him?"
"Yeah. Oh, I've got one with knockout gas." She started rooting around in her quiver. "And it wouldn't even hurt Kid Flash if it got her too. She'd metabolize it like right away."
Then Irey was blasted again, with a bolt so powerful it lit up the cloudy sky like fireworks. Irey went soaring through the air.
In the blink of an eye Cassie was up and over the ice shield. She caught the unconscious speedster and started for their jet, avoiding more blasts and twisters as she went.
"Try the knock out arrow," Bart instructed. "I'll see if I can distract him."
"What should I do? Should I do that?" X'hawn asked.
Bart considered him. "You fly, right?" X'hawn nodded. "Then yeah. But be careful." Bart took off, running wildly around Downpour and drawing his fire.
X'hawn looked pale, even for him. He took a deep breath, then flew unsteadily over the ice barrier.
Damian let out a groan when he saw X'hawn in the air. It was pretty clear he'd barely practiced flying, and that none of that practice had involved heavy winds. X'hawn was being whipped around by the manifestations of Downpour's temper tantrum, but at least any time a piece of debris came too close to him he was able to zap it with solar energy blasts.
"Here goes nothing," Lian murmured. She took aim and sent her knockout arrow in the general direction of the young supervillain.
It got pretty close to him too.
Unfortunately, Downpour noticed the arrow before it detonated. Lip curling in annoyance, Downpour aimed his left hand at the arrow and sent it hurling back towards the ice barrier. It landed in the top, and then thick pungent smoke started spurting from it.
Damian threw an arm over Lian's back and started running with her from the smoke. He lost track of the Rogues as they fled the knockout gas, and then they had to dodge debris until they found cover behind a tipped over vendor's cart.
Lian was coughing. "Shit, that sucked! Oh Dami, I'm so sorry. I dropped my bow. I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Damian ground out through clenched teeth. "It's not helping."
"S-sorry, um, I mean-god I suck at this!"
"Well there is a learning curve. Don't let it get under your skin. We're still on the field."
"Right, right."
Damian cautiously leaned around the cart. While he scanned the ground for Lian's bow he saw the Trickster, an obvious victim of the knockout gas as he was sprawled on the ground, and terribly vulnerable to Downpour's attacks. There was no sign of Captain Cold or Heatwave.
"Speedy, that criminal is in harm's way. We've got to move him."
"K-kay. My bow's not too far away. Um…should we just, like, run out there?"
"I'll cover you," Damian snapped. He extracted a couple of batarangs from the compartments in his arm bands (for all the good those would do in a windstorm), and then the two darted out into the open, hunched over as low to the ground as possible.
Lian retrieved her bow and Damian pulled the unconscious criminal back to the ice barricade. Lian followed. "We can't stay here," she said. "Without Captain Cold to keep reinforcing it, this ice thing's gonna give the next time something big hits it."
"It's good enough for now. What we've got to do is stop Downpour. How are Flash and Burst doing?"
Lian peered over the edge of the barricade. "Not so great. Flash can't seem to land a hit and Burst is just kinda flopping around up there. I wonder where Wondergirl is. Do you think that means Kid Flash is really hurt? I mean, that she hasn't come back?"
Damian was certain that it was a bad sign, but he didn't want to say anything and so pretended the roar of the wind had drowned out Lian's words.
"How much do you know about Downpour?" Damian asked.
Lian scooted down behind the ice barrier and frowned. "Not much. Irey always said he was a good kid, just screwed up, but this is really pushing it. She thought he was going to reform someday, like the Pied Piper."
"Hm. And then he shot her in the chest with a miniature hurricane."
"Yeah, hopefully she's over him now. I hope she's okay."
Damian crossed his arms. "We need more information. Downpour is not one of my Rogues. I don't understand his abilities or how to engage him in combat."
"So…should we call Tech? I mean, Downpour is one of his family's Rogues, and he's supposed to be our Oracle."
Damian scowled, but she had a point. They needed whatever info Jai could provide them with. "Call him and give me the relevant details. I'm going to see about finding us more permanent shelter."
"What about the-" The cart they'd crouched behind before whizzed over their heads and into a building façade, showering the pavement with pieces of brick and plaster. "Yeah, you should get on that."
Damian hunched down again and ran blindly through the storm, looking for a place to hide. He saw a glint of light in one of the store windows before it was smashed in by a park bench. Damian whipped around, wondering what had gotten his attention, and then he saw another storefront (a mirrored surface) that contained two of the Flash Rogues.
"So Mirror Master is around," he murmured. He continued running, looking for anything that could make effective shelter, but Downpour was really wreaking havoc on the little mall. They might have to fall back and strategize.
At least all the civilians in the area had managed to flee by then.
Damian got back to the ice barrier just as Lian was ending her communication with Jai. "Thanks for the help Tech. Bye." She looked up at Damian with a forced smile. "He couldn't tell me a whole lot. Downpour's real name is Josh Jackam. He inherited his powers from his dad, who wasn't a meta, but used a weather controlling device he stole from his brother. The device didn't give his dad powers, but he got them somehow. His mom was sacrificed to a Flash worshipping cult when he was a baby, and then he was shuffled around a bunch until he was seemingly killed by Inertia."
"Seemingly?"
"He was teleported to a hell realm, apparently. Since he's come back he's been screwed up but manageable. I guess he started running with the Rogues in an effort to understand who his dad was."
"How did his father die?" Damian asked. He'd gotten that the Rogues had something to do with it, but their overheard argument had lacked specifics.
Lian shrugged. "No one's really sure. Mark Mardon was found in an abandoned building with his throat cut. There was evidence of frost bite and hypothermia, but we just heard Cold say he'd frozen the guy's legs. No one knows who actually killed him."
"And Downpour is reacting like this because he feels betrayed," Damian summarized. He took a measured breath. "Tech didn't have any detailed information on Downpour's powers? Is there a chance he'll exhaust himself?"
"No one's seen him do that much before. He's pretty new to the costumed villainy scene, and like everyone's said, he's never freaked out like this or done anything terribly evil and reckless before."
Damian definitely did not like proceeding without appropriate intel. He would have to have words with Bart Allen later about misleading his team regarding the difficulty of a mission. "The other Rogues are still present. I saw Mirror Master and Heatwave in a store window. Apparently they don't leave their own for dead after all." Damian toed Trickster with his boot.
"Should we huck him at a piece of glass and run for it?" Lian asked.
Damian looked down at the ridiculously clad burden and considered it. "That…doesn't seem responsible. I'm sure my father would complain about it."
"Kay. So what do we do?"
Damian caught a flash of orange and green out of the corner of his eye. He darted forward, and grabbed onto the arm that had been reaching out of the ice wall. He flipped Mirror Master over his shoulder and then pinned him to the ground.
Mirror Master started growling swears and threats, so Damian kneed him in the gut and put a little more pressure on his hold. "I can break your arm in three different places from this position. You might want to reconsider your tone."
"Fine, you fucking pri-ow! For fuck's sake will you stop it?! I'm just trying to grab Trickster and get out of here!"
Damian looked behind his shoulder at the ice wall, and then down at Mirror Master. "I have a plan. It requires your cooperation-"
"I ain't fucking helping a group of sidekicks-"
"If you do as told I will look the other way when you and your cohorts exit via mirror. But if you'd rather fight me on this then I've no problem showing you how many of your bones I can break before you pass out from pain."
"Um, Shaytun, that's probably considered cruel and unusual-"
"Go ahead an' try it on me you stupid fucking shit! Weren't you Robin until last week? Do you think your nancy little fairy booties scare me-AURGH!"
"Shaytun, what are you doing?!" Lian yelped.
Damian had made good on his threat, and broken Mirror Master's arm in the three different places. "Are you feeling cooperative yet?"
"Aye, aye, just let me go! There's no need to turn the arm, that's just bad manners!"
Damian carefully let the Rogue up, ready to pounce on him again if he tried to run. Mirror Master sat up and gingerly felt along his broken arm with his good one. "So what's your brilliant plan?"
Damian communicated it, and only had to break a few of Mirror Master's fingers before he agreed to it.
He was going to have to talk to Irey and Bart later about their Rogues' impression of him. How in the hell had Mirror Master confused him with a prepubescent Dick Grayson?
He'd thought his reputation was more far reaching than that.

"How can none of the local news stations have footage of the fight?" Roy snapped. He threw his TV remote across the room and glared at his television set as though it had personally wronged him. "I'm going down there."
"Don't go down there," Piper said dully. He was getting rather tired of repeating himself. In the two hours he'd been sitting in Roy's living room staring at phones, signal devices, and the completely unhelpful local news, he'd had to talk Roy out of suiting up and heading out to help the kids at least once every five to ten minutes. At one point he'd had to grab him by the arm and haul him back to the sofa.
"Clearly they need help!"
"And yet no one's called the Justice League."
"It doesn't take this long to take down Flash Rogues!"
Piper narrowed his eyes. "And how much do you know about the Rogues?"
"I know…not a whole hell of a lot, but I'd never thought Wally's guys were as bad as, like the Gotham ones or anything." Roy sat back down on the couch. "C'mon, that wasn't a shot at you. You haven't been a Rogue since before the kids were born."
"And since then I've been helping Wally deal with them. Look, even though I don't think any of them will hurt your daughter, they're still not exactly an easy takedown. You need to give it time."
"Right, right."
They went back to sitting in an uncomfortable total silence (as all the phones and signal devices continued to be stubbornly quiet), and after a few minutes Roy jumped up again. "Roy-"
"I'm getting my laptop. Maybe somebody posted something online about the fight."
Piper rolled his eyes, but he remained seated on the floor with his back leaning against the couch. While Roy looked for news on his computer, Piper opened one of his new CD sets and started reading the liner notes.
"What's that?" Roy asked.
"Hm? Oh, a Bessie Smith box set."
"Bessie Smith? That's going back a ways."
"To the dawn of recording," Piper said. "I'm surprised you know who she is. I usually get blank looks from people your age when I talk about Bessie Smith."
"People my age?" Roy asked with an amused grin. "Dude, I'm not that much younger than you. And if the only other guy my age you talk to is Wally, that explains the blank looks. He only listens to top forty radio. It's probably a side effect of living here. The music scene in this city is fucking terrible."
"It used to be much better," Piper said with a long suffering sigh. "All my favorite little hole in the wall clubs and bars closed down. No venues, no music scene."
"And the radio is a fucking travesty here."
"Mm. Amen to that. So…you like music?" Piper asked, intrigued and trying very hard to conceal it.
Roy looked up from his laptop, also visibly invested in the conversation. "Love music. I used to be in a band, actually. Damn, that was forever ago now."
"What did you play?" Piper asked.
"Bluesy kinda rock stuff. We were probably terrible, but when I was eighteen I thought we were the shit. I was the drummer." He patted his empty shirt sleeve. "It was a long time ago. Were you ever in a band?"
Piper shook his head.
"But you're such a music nut. How come you never joined a band?"
"Because I suck? I just like to listen to music. I'm not very good at making it."
Roy shook his head. "I call bullshit. Anyone who cares about music the way you obviously do can learn how to make it. So who convinced you you sucked?"
"Everyone. Always."
Roy rolled his eyes. "I'll drop it for now, but dude…I'm not going to believe you when you say you suck until I hear you play something."
"I wish I could hear your band. You spoke pretty dismissively of them yourself just now, but based on your passion equals talent argument…"
Roy shut his computer down and stood up. "If you really want to hear a Great Frog album, I can oblige you."
"Great Frog?"
"That was our name."
Piper smacked a hand over his mouth, not quite in time to hide his amused snort. "That sounds terrible."
"Told you. C'mon, I've got a couple of our records upstairs."
"Alright. Lead the way."

A lot of the Bats were master strategists. Everyone knew Batman was capable of outthinking just about any hero in the business, to the point that he was unsettlingly manipulative as an accidental default. Tim Drake had turned out to be exactly the same, and even though Dick wasn't invasive with his intelligence, he was usually the hero his agemates turned to when they needed a plan.
Damian could strategize. When he wanted to.
Usually he preferred to just hit the bad guys until they stopped moving.
As such, his plan was pretty simple. Lian fired arrows at the glass storefronts until enough reflective surfaces were swirling through the air that eventually some settled near Downpour. Mirror Master teleported himself and Damian just behind the distraught teenager, and Damian got him in a chokehold.
Five minutes later, the unconscious supervillain was zip stripped, Bart was on the phone with the KCPD, and the Rogues had departed via mirror just as Damian promised.
Damian threw a withering glare Bart's way before stalking off to the plane.

"Holy cow!"
"What is it?" Damian asked.
"Someone told my dad about the battle," Lian answered. "I've got a bazillion text messages asking me if I'm okay. Uh…Wondergirl!" Lian jogged over to Cassie. "I want to apologize in advance if my dad harasses you or Flash about our mission."
"It's okay Speedy, I already took a few texts from your dad while I was flying us back to New York," Cassie said with a wry grin. "We knew what we were signing up for when we took our posts. Everyone in the community knows how protective your dad is of you. We think it's sweet."
"Sweet's certainly not the word I'd use," Lian said. She looked down at her phone and frowned. "Oh gross. Daddy wants me to take our dog to the vet. I've got school work and Titans stuff now. When the heck am I supposed to go to the vet?"
The Titans had just gotten back to their tower, except Bart, who had remained behind in Keystone to talk to the cops and do a little cleanup. He'd still gotten back to the Tower before everyone else, and had transferred Irey to their infirmary as soon as the plane landed.
"You guys should head inside, clean yourselves up, and apparently call your dad. I want you back in the conference room in a half hour though. We still have things to talk about before our first day is done, alright?" Cassie asked.
Lian nodded, and went for the elevator. Damian fell into step behind her, and X'hawn meekly got on the elevator after them.
"You need some instruction in flight," Damian said, almost as soon as the doors had closed.
X'hawn frowned and looked at his feet.
Lian briefly looked up from her phone to roll her eyes at Damian. She finished her text, and then gave X'hawn's shoulder a gentle pat. "Maybe Cassie can give you some pointers. We've all got a lot of room for improvement right now, since we're just starting out."
"Some of us aren't just starting out," Damian reminded her.
"Then some of us should be better at talking to their teammates," Lian said, making unflinching eye contact.
Damian frowned and turned away, unsettled by her reprimand.
He hadn't been wrong. X'hawn did need to learn how to fly if he was going to use his flight in battle.
The elevator stopped on the main floor, and the teens went their separate ways to their private rooms.
Thanks to superspeed accelerated healing, by the time a half hour passed Irey was also ready to join them in the console room. She was spinning a chair around with her heels when the rest of the kids got in.
Lian ran up to her and gave her a hug. "Hey! Feeling better then? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Believe it or not, but that wasn't the first lightning bolt to the chest I've ever taken. Did you guys have a good rest-of-mission without me?"
"Oh yes," Damian said sarcastically. "We only had to threaten a mercenary and then strike up a deal with him to subdue the rampaging meta." He turned the full strength of his glare on Bart. "You completely misled us about the nature of that fight. Had I known how powerful Downpour was, I never would have allowed you to take a team of amateurs to face him. Someone could have been killed."
"Josh wouldn't kill anyone," Irey insisted.
"Sweetie, he zapped you pretty good back there," Lian said as gently as she was able. "I don't think his intentions were very good."
"He was freaking out, but…um…he wouldn't really hurt anyone," Irey mumbled.
Jai looked around nervously, and then threw in his tentative agreement. "That whole thing was really out of character for Jackam. Shaytun…Bart wasn't trying to mislead you."
Bart rubbed at the back of his neck. "Thanks guys, but Damian's right. It was probably a bad idea to rush right out like that. Let's say no more missions until at least next weekend? Cass has some training exercises she wants you to do. It's all like team building stuff."
They nodded their tentative assent.
Cassie looked at her phone and frowned. "I think it's getting on the late side to start any of this now though. Why don't we break for the night and get an early start in the morning. Sound good?"
Murmurs of assent went around the table, and they were just about to leave for their rooms once more when the automatic doors leading to the main hallway slid open.
Several things happened very quickly before anyone was able to see who opened the doors. First Bart and Irey shot out of their chairs and took defensive positions in front of the table. Lian pulled an arrow from her quiver at random and nocked it, aiming coolly at the doorway. Damian moved in front of her, armed with a batarang. Cassie rose from her seat and calmly turned her attention to the doorway, and X'hawn and Jai looked around in confusion.
Importantly, not a single alarm sounded.
The slender Asian teenager standing in the doorway took all this in with a serene expression, and then he inclined his head in a short bow at the assembled heroes. "Hello Titans. My name is Billy Hong. I was interested in joining your team."
The Titans continued to eye him with suspicion, but no one fired their weapons. Apparently taking that as an invitation, Billy strode into the room and seated himself in an empty chair.

Dick spent a good chunk of the day on the road driving his possessions from New York to Keystone, with Tim along for the ride as his moving buddy. It was pretty late by the time he pulled into Roy's driveway (his driveway too now; he had to get into the habit of thinking of this as his house and not just Roy and Lian's or he was going to piss his boyfriend off), and Tim had fallen asleep with his head resting against the passenger window. Dick left him curled up in his seat for the moment, and went inside to greet his boyfriend.
"Roy?" Even though the light was on, he wasn't in the living room. Dick stuck his head in the kitchen, which was also empty, and then he heard noise coming from upstairs. He could hear music coming from Roy's room.
Dick walked into the bedroom and stopped short. Roy and Piper were sitting on the bed together. Piper was looking through old pictures, album art, and fliers, and Roy was leaning over him looking over his shoulder. They weren't doing anything in the least bit sexual, which made the sudden flicker of 'mine' Dick felt shooting through his system all the more surprising.
No, the atmosphere in the room wasn't sexually charged in the least, but there was something intimate about it despite that, and Dick felt like he was intruding.
Then he realized what album they were listening to, and he felt a stab of hurt. Dick hadn't listened to Great Frog in years, not since they'd broken up. He'd asked Roy repeatedly for a copy of their only recording, but he'd never gotten around to burning it for him.
Piper was the first to notice him lurking in the doorway. "Hello Dick. Did you just get here?"
Roy shot up off the bed and walked over to him. "Hey. You made really good time. I can't believe you're here already. Where's Tim?"
"He's…he's sleeping in the truck. Um…" Dick gave himself a mental shake, still a little thrown. "I think we should probably move my stuff in the morning. Is it cool if he crashes here with us tonight?"
"Yeah, of course. The guest room is Ollie-free, so consider it Tim's."
"Are you moving in?" Piper asked. Dick nodded, and while Piper congratulated them Roy turned off the music and gathered up all his mementos of his old band. Dick watched with some regret as he put the odds and ends back in a box in his closet. "I'd better get going. It's pretty late, and you two clearly have things to do. It was nice seeing you again Dick."
"Yeah, nice seeing you too," Dick said, making the effort to give Piper a genuine smile.
Roy quirked an eyebrow. "Everything okay?"
Dick nodded, and then went downstairs to wake Tim up.
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Birds and Bees