Archive: Fine, but if you want it, please ask first.
Feedback: Hell, yes.
In Public
The pictures were all over the Internet within minutes and about the only good thing that could be said about them was that the blackmailer wouldn't be paid nearly as much as he wanted since everyone on the planet had now seen them. That was the only good thing about them.
The pictures, surprisingly high definition after being run through a computer and cleaned up were graphic and left nothing about Robin and Speedy's relationship to guesswork. The two boys were caught kissing and holding hands, obviously murmuring sweet nothings and voicing their concerns after Robin was admitted to a local ER following the recent crash of the Batmobile in a Gotham tunnel. Batman was driving and by flat-out sheer luck and nothing else, no one was seriously hurt but the repercussions of the pictures would follow the boys for the rest of their lives, both personally and professionally.
Alfred, having found the pictures when Leslie forwarded them to him in an e-mail, first told the Master who made infuriated and inarticulate sounds and then, tentatively, went to the solarium to inform the two lads there was something they needed to be made aware of.
"Excuse my interruption, gentlemen, but I fear we have a bit of a problem which I think you may need to address."
The two were relaxing, it was late afternoon; Dick was reading a book for school and Roy was doing God knew what to another arrow, modifying it for some esoteric purpose. Even though they were sitting on different chairs, their feet were rubbing in a manner which would likely lead to something if allowed to continue. "What's going on?" Dick knew he wouldn't say anything if whatever the current problem was hadn't reached critical mass. "Alfred?"
Alfred handed over the laptop he'd brought in with him, pushed a couple of keys and watched Dick's eyes widen. "Holy shit." Alfred shot him a reproving look that was, for once, ignored. "Roy—look at this."
"Crap. Does Ollie know?"
"Language, please, gentlemen and Master Queen has been made aware, yes. He informed me that we should expect him…"
They could hear the footsteps pounding on the marble before they heard the voice; "Jesus H Fucking Christ—have you lost whatever brain you had? What the fuck were you thinking—were you thinking? I mean with your head, the one on top of your neck, the one which doesn't get any use whatsoever with your true love here batting his baby blues at you day and night…any chance you might consider using it for once in your frigging life, you damn idiot?"
Roy looked at the source of the bombast with boredom; he'd heard it all before. "And nice to see you too, Ollie."
"You wanna fuckin' explain this? I mean, I know you two boys like each other lots and lots, but haven't you had the conversation about keeping it in your pants when you're in public?"
Unimpressed, Roy ignored Ollie but Dick tried to reason with him. "We thought we had privacy; the curtains were closed, no one was in the room with us and the damn camera was hidden. Plus I was in shock and had just been admitted to the ER after Bruce totaled the Batmobile and Roy was worried I was hurt, okay? Cut us some slack, Ollie, will you?"
"Slack? Like the slack every fuckin' news agency on the planet is going to cut you? Have you seen CNN in the last half hour, by any chance? How about the crawls on every major station in New York, Metropolis, Gotham and all points in between? You're even on the big ol' news crawl over Times Square, boys—did you know that? Congratulations. And I hear you have next week's cover of every fuckin' gossip rag and tabloid in the country along with Time and Newsweek raising the big gay question just in time for the politicians to get maximum mileage out of it. Hell's Bells—maybe you two could lead the charge for the Gay Marriage Initiative."
"Ollie, so good of you to join us and a pleasure as always to have you here; may I offer you a drink?"
"Fuck off, Bruce—this is your doing and have you heard what's happening?"
Bruce had heard the buzz of the JLA transporter in the main entrance and suspected who was dropping and why. He was as calm as he always was and also equally unimpressed with Green Arrow's tantrum. "Batman just accepted a invitation from Nightline for this evening to discuss it; perhaps you'd like to join me?"
"The hell I would."
"Calm down, Oliver, we all knew this was bound to come out sooner or later, surely you had some plans as to how to handle it when it did and you're supporting the boys isn't a bad idea at all, especially since Clark will be hosting the program."
"He is? Supes will be lobbing the questions? Well, maybe…"
Alfred, who had been watching the TV mounted over on the wall all along, chose that moment to speak up. "Sirs, if I might interject, it appears that the Hero community is united in their messages of support for the young masters—it's quite heartening, in fact. Would you care to see?"
Wonder Woman was standing in front of the UN, where she'd just been attending some conference about women's rights. "I don't see why there's any problem; they're both wonderful young men. I've worked with both of them and would gladly do so again. Now if you'll excuse me…"
The Martian Manhunter: "They're good kids, more power to them. I'll never understand why something so simple is an issue on this planet, to be honest…"
The Flash: "We're friends, we're still friends. They watch my back, I watch theirs…wait, maybe I should rephrase that…"
Green Lantern: "I have no comment."
Koriand'r: "Robin and Speedy? Really? Um, well…are you sure about that?"
Aquaman: "Robin? I'll be fu…a monkey's uncle. Does the Bat know?"
Supergirl: "Those guys are together? Oh man, all the good ones, you know…I guess it's true."
Black Canary: "Well, so…?"
"So Bruce, you're going one to one with Clark about this tonight on the national news? You think you can handle it?" Ollie had a straight face, but Roy knew he was about to drop a shoe or two.
"I don't see why there should be a problem, but you're welcomed to join me if you'd like. Boys? I think it might be better if you let us take this for now and you can make your own statements electronically or something, no need for you to jump in the deep end immediately."
Dick looked over at Bruce at that—"You mean you'll run interference for us? But we're going to have to face it sooner or later. I don't see what's to be gained by putting off the inevitable now that its out."
"And so, it seems, are we—out, I mean." Roy gave Dick a small smile. Sure, they knew this would happen sooner or later, it just never seemed like sooner would actually happen and now that it was here, well…this somehow made it all the more real and scary. "No turning back, huh?"
"'Guess not."
"Okay, Bruce, go ahead and I think it might be a good idea if me and Roy were there to make an appearance, too, maybe make a statement or answer a couple of questions or something. You okay with that, Roy?"
"Yeah, sure, what the fuck. 'Might as well get it over with so we can talk about something else in a few weeks or whenever this blows over." He instantly turned red. "I didn't mean that."
The TV continued with man in the street questions about two of the young heroes being outted as gay.
"Like I care?"
"Yeah, I saw them—kinda sweet, aren't they?"
"Disgusting, the both of them and it makes you wonder what else they may have been doing, doesn't it? What on earth kind of families do they come from, I ask you…And what makes you think it's just these two? I mean, c'mon—those guys all wear those skintight outfits, they leave nothing to the imagination and they parade around in front of everyone. Yeah, well, I'm not surprised."
"Which one's the bitch?"
"'Bout time a couple of those guys admitted it. Maybe now we'll get some more attention, positive attention for a change."
"Robin and Speedy? Really? No shit!"
"Oh no, not Robin! He's like so totally cute!"
Later that afternoon, about five o'clock, the four heroes were in a small TV studio in Metropolis waiting for the questions to start. Clark had told them all that he would go easy on the kids, but that he needed to ask some personal questions and he knew they understood that.
The five men were seated in chairs, the two boys next to one another but not touching. Their mentors were opposite and Clark was in the middle.
"This evening we're talking with Batman, Green Arrow, Robin and Speedy to discuss the pictures which are causing a world wide uproar." The pictures were shown on the screen as Clark spoke. They clearly showed the boys kissing, Roy running his hand through Robin's hair in a caress and them holding hands as they spoke to one another. Robin, lying in a hospital bed, was covered by a sheet up to his waist and was shirtless, though he was wearing his mask. Speedy was in full costume. The pictures were sexy, no question.
"Obviously you've all seen the pictures? Shall we get right to it, then? Robin and Speedy, do you have any kind of a statement?"
The boys exchanged a glance before Robin spoke. "I think they're pretty self evident. Yes, we're friends and yes, we're involved with one another."
"What was your reaction when you first saw them?"
Robin started, "Just what you'd expect—anger, a feeling of being violated, of being stalked and having my—our—privacy invaded. I know a lot of people say that when you decide to live a public life you have to take the good with the bad and expect to lose some of your rights but I don't really buy that. We were in what we thought was a private room, with the curtains closed; the pictures were stolen. It's not like we were standing on a street corner or something. There are lines and levels of decency and they've been crossed."
"Speedy?"
"I was angry, y'know? It's nobody's business. Cripes, we're not hurting anyone; leave us alone."
Clark nodded. "Could you tell us how these pictures came to be taken and how you were made aware of their existence?"
Robin spoke again. "They were taken about a week ago, I had just been in a car accident and was taken to a hospital to be checked out; these were taken in the ER. One of the medical technicians or orderlies in the hospital made some copies of the tape from a security camera we didn't know was there and tried to blackmail us with them. He wanted...how much was it?" He looked over at Batman.
"Ten."
"Ten million dollars to destroy them. We refused to pay, the tapes were confiscated and destroyed, restraining orders were filed against the papers and TV shows but he had some stills—that's what were released. And no, I have no idea how much money he was paid for them, though I've heard anywhere from five to twenty million, worldwide."
"I see. And were these pictures offered to you first?"
"No, we didn't know about them until someone showed them to us on a computer this afternoon, but I'm not really surprised. It would just make sense that he'd make some kind of backups in case his original idea didn't pan out."
"How old are you two?"
"We're both seventeen and yes, we're of legal age in Gotham."
"Batman, surely you've heard the rumors which have followed you and Robin ever since you took him on as a partner; that there was a sordid element to your relationship. Some people are saying that may have been the reason this scandal happened. Comments?"
Batman looked momentarily annoyed at the old insinuation but kept his cool, as always. "Those suggestions have always been garbage and there has never been any truth to them. If there were anything going on the Justice League would have stepped in very quickly to protect Robin, especially when he was younger. The sidekicks are watched over very closely; nothing untoward happening to them would be tolerated."
"But didn't Speedy have a serious drug problem a couple of years ago which went unnoticed? You were a heroin addict, right?"
Roy nodded, spoke, "It was my problem and I kept it secret. None of my friends knew about it for a long time, for over a year—none of them, not the Bat over there, not GA, not even Superman paid any attention and as soon as it was found out, shit…Robbie saved my life. I mean that—he sat up with me, cleaned me up, made sure I was clean, made sure I didn't go back. If he hadn't been there I'd be a damn corpse and that's the fuckin' truth." He paused, the others looking at him, the men's stoicism mixed with some guilt, Robin with compassion. "And no, that's not when Rob and I got together. That didn't happen for like another year. We're friends, really close friends and have been since we were twelve years old. Y'see, when you do what we do almost no one else can really understand what your life is like—Rob understands. He knows what I deal with and I know what's bugging him and we've always been able to talk about stuff, ever since we were kids. The other thing, us hooking up, didn't happen until like a year ago and no one knew about that either for a long time. Even these guys," he indicated the Bat and GA, "didn't know until just a couple of months ago." He stopped, out of steam. "And yes, I'm still clean."
"Where is the blackmailer now?"
"He's been arrested and even though the pictures are out there and it's too late to stop anything, we're going to file charges against him and follow up on them."
Clark nodded with some encouragement and apology. "Did you know that GLAAD has come out in support of you two and the ACLU has offered to take the legal aspects on as a civil rights case?"
The boys looked at each other again with small smiles. Rob spoke up, "No, this is the first we've heard of that, but it's great."
"I suppose I have to ask these next two questions; when did you two realize you were gay and," he looked over at the older men, "how do you react to your protégés being together? Any problems with that? Boys, you first."
Robin; "I don't know that I am gay, per se. I know I want to be with Speedy so I guess that seems pretty clear cut, but I'd want to be together if he was a girl, if that makes any sense. It really doesn't make any difference to me, I just want to be with him, whatever it is that makes him unique, that's what I'm attracted to and want to be with. It may sound weird, but the gender thing doesn't make any real difference to me. He gets me and I get him—it's really that simple."
Speedy: "I feel the same way. You could say we're bi if you had to put labels on us, but it's just the individual who attracts me, I mean damn—just look at him, y'know?" Robin blushed and started laughing. "I like girls just fine, right now though, I want to be with him."
"Batman, Green Arrow?"
Batman spoke quietly. "In many ways Robin is my son and, like any parent, I want him to be happy and satisfied in his life. If this is what brings him fulfillment, than I support him completely. I have no illusions that this will be easy for either of these young men, but they're both strong and know what they want."
"Green Arrow?"
"Yeah, well, I gotta admit it was a kick in the teeth at first, but if that's what works for him and he's off the junk and working, doing okay in school, then what the hell, I say."
Clark declined to pursue that. "There have also been some criticisms leveled against all of you because the Teen Titans are seen as role models for young people. Do you think this will have any impact on that?"
Roy looked at Dick to answer. "I'm leader of the Titans and I won't tolerate any kind of prejudice from any member, whether it's racial, religious or sexual. It's flat out not allowed. As long as we're doing our jobs and getting things done, I don't see it as being a problem."
"But that's naïve and a bit simplistic, Robin." Clark wasn't going to let him off that easily. "Excuse me, but you know as well as I do that gays are discriminated against in this society—just last week two state courts reaffirmed that gays have no intrinsic right to legally marry and without question that will be on a number of ballots come November concerning gay rights. You're held up as role models, like I said. The Titans fill magazines and TV specials and are surrounded by fans everywhere they go. This is certainly going to impact that—do you honestly not see a problem?"
"I think the fans and the press will take their cues from us. If we're cool, they'll be okay with it. Speedy and I have been together almost a year now and no one saw any problems. Nothing has to change."
Speedy added, "Sure, we'll probably catch some shit, but so what, y'know? We're not hurting anyone and we'd still doing our jobs. No problem, man."
Batman jumped in here. "Of course we realize there will be some repercussions, but we would hope that as people see that they boys are the same as they ever were, just as smart, just as talented and capable and just as dedicated that things will settle down. This is just today's news. In a week or two, the uproar will die down."
"…And people will wrap fish in it, I take it?" Clark smiled at the boys.
"That's our hope."
"I wish you luck."
A hour later they were back in the Manor, dinner cooking and watching the reactions from their interview. "Congratulations, gentlemen. The early returns show that people are overwhelmingly supportive of the young masters." The e-mails to the TV studio and the instant public opinion polls showed a 67 favorable rating with high disapproval ratings for the blackmailer and a strong call to prosecute him and find him guilty of harassing the boys. Robin and Speedy were described as 'strong' 'brave' 'open' and 'incredibly cute'. "It seems everyone does, indeed, love a lover."
"That's great, Alfred." Dick smiled, but he wasn't happy and Roy moved closer, speaking softly so just Dick could hear him as Alfred went back to the kitchen to get the chicken out of the oven.
"What's wrong? You know this will all be forgotten by this time next month—as soon as Paris Hilton takes does something stupid or Britney drops her kid again or something. Live will get back to normal, Babe."
"Sirs, dinner is ready, if you'd be so kind as to join Masters Bruce and Oliver in the small dining room."
"Yeah, I know that. I just never really wanted to be known as the Gay Hero and now every time anyone writes anything about either one of us it will be 'Robin, who came out publicly at the age of seventeen with his boyfriend, Speedy…' It sucks, y'know?"
"Yeah it does, but it's like you said—if we're cool with it, other people will be cool, too."
"Yeah. Maybe." Dick looked like he was really worried, as if the reality of what happened to day had finally hit home.
"It'll be okay, Dick."
"I guess…"
"It'll be okay." Roy put his arms around him, holding on for a few long seconds then kissing Dick. It wasn't sexual, it was the reassurance they both needed.
Later that night, after dinner and homework and patrol, Dick climbed into the shared bed, Roy already laying on his back on the far side, his side. As Dick settled in beside him he stirred. "Patrol go all right?"
"Fine. Everything good here?"
"No problem." Roy reached the few inches and took his hand, gently, just wanting the connection. He knew Dick was lying, something happened he didn't want to talk about yet. If, and when, he decided to share it Roy would know what it was. There was no point in pushing. He pulled Dick's hand up close so he could kiss it. "I love you, Dick. Get some sleep."
"You too." Dick didn't tell him, didn't want him to know that someone had taken spray paint and written 'Fag' on the side of his motorcycle tonight.
It was starting already.
7/9/06
11