Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:09:31 -0400 From: Dusty Hansen Subject: Poison Ivan part 4 Obligatory warnings and disclaimers: 1) If reading this is in any way illegal where you are or at your age, or you don't want to read about male/male relationships, go away. You shouldn't be here. 2) Robin, Superboy, Poison Ivy, Changeling, Arsenal, Batman, Nightwing, and any other characters mentioned here (except Poison Ivan) are trademarked and registered and copyrighted and all that to DC Comics. I'm using them without permission. For those who read the comics and worry about such things, this story takes place sometime after the start of the current "Teen Titans" comic, probably somewhere in the first dozen issues or so. Comments can be sent to "dustyh75@hotmail.com" Thanks for reading, and to everyone who wrote after the first part and said I should keep going. *** Roy Harper, the former Teen Titan and current Outsider known as Arsenal, was walking through his apartment, a towel hanging loosely on his slim hips, when he heard Ivan's voice in his head, speaking to him through the Green. He hadn't met Ivan yet, face to face, even though it had been an entire day since Superboy had passed along Ivan's gift and welcomed him to Ivan's family, but he knew the voice just the same. It wasn't like he'd been impatiently waiting to hear from Ivan, though. Gar and Kon had kept him very occupied for the last day, the three of them twisting into human knots and sweating, groaning tangles that fulfilled every Green-fueled fantasy that popped into their heads. After the seed had bloomed in him and the Green spread through his mind, embracing him completely, Roy had left Gar and Kon to sleep while he scooped up Lian and took her as quickly as he could to Black Canary. Claiming business, he left her with her "Aunt Dinah" and raced back to the apartment, feeling the urge to fuck again already, to let himself go in the arms of his new lovers. He, Gar, and Kon had moved through the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and back again, every room except Lian's, with Roy fucking Gar and Gar fucking Roy and Kon fucking them both, all of them licking and touching and caressing and sucking and swallowing until they had collapsed, physically exhausted and sexually sated, in Roy's bed. Minutes ago, Gar had left, transforming into a bright green eagle and taking to the skies from Roy's windowsill, answering a summons from Ivan to return to Titans Tower in Los Angeles and try to determine the whereabouts of Robin. Kon, stepping slowly into his jeans and pulling on his t-shirt, had asked Roy how to contact Nightwing and then taken off for Bludhaven, Nightwing's base of operations. Roy, suddenly alone, had decided to shower, and on his way to the bathroom he heard the voice, a soft, seductive whisper in his head. He shivered, his muscles tensing, nipples hardening, and beneath the towel his cock began to swell again, twitching gently at the delicate whisper of Ivan's voice in his head. "Roy, Roy Harper, my new love," Ivan whispered, lying back on a soft bed of green clover and slowly running his hands over his own chest. He could get lost in this, what his mother called his "baser instincts", so easily, but he had to follow his plan. All of the pieces were almost in place, and it was time to begin gathering them up. The Batman had proven maddeningly difficult to locate, but Ivan could reel him in by using his partners as bait. It was time to gather them up, Robin, Nightwing, and their friends, so that when the Batman did come, Ivan could overwhelm and take him. He didn't plan to do it the way he had the others, not his own father, but would deliver Bruce Wayne to his mother's arms, where they could be a family. "Yes?" Roy answered, running his hands over his own firmer, more developed chest, mirroring Ivan's movements. "Gather your equipment," Ivan whispered, his fingertips lightly brushing over one of his pale, pink nipples. "Finish your grooming, gather your equipment, and come to Gotham." Roy shivered as his fingertips brushed his own tender, slightly sore nipple, a mixture of pleasure and pain running through him as he touched the spot where Kon had nibbled earlier for what seemed like hours as Gar rode his cock. "Where?" Roy moaned, his voice husky. "Where in Gotham?" Ivan looked over across the back yard of the Manor at the elderly butler, bound to a column by thick twists of vines. Alfred glared back at him, unable to move or break free. Ivan had no interest in one this old and unattractive, but he was loathe to destroy anyone or anything in his father's house. He smiled, thinking again of Roy. "Roy, my new love, follow the sound of my voice," he sighed. "Follow the sound of my voice, and soon, we will all be together." "Yes, Ivan," Roy answered, jerking his head toward the door as someone knocked. Ivan had already broken the link, but Roy still felt the drive to head for Gotham, the urgency of the Green throbbing deep inside him. He had to get rid of whoever this was so that he could shower, gather his equipment, and leave. He opened the door and stared into the calm, unblinking eyes of Connor Hawke, the second Green Arrow, his mentor and trainer's biological son. Connor's eyes darted over Roy's almost naked body, ticking down to the bulge in his towel almost imperceptibly, and then fixed back on Roy's face. "Roy?" Connor asked, his smooth voice slightly accented. "May I come in?" "Sure," Roy answered, shrugging. "But I need a shower." Roy walked away toward the bathroom, the muscles of his back and butt shifting languidly if Connor cared to notice, and Connor slowly closed the front door behind him, making an effort not to notice Roy as he carefully evaluated the rest of the apartment instead. There was a smell here, a musty, closed in smell, and also a strong note of sweat. There was something else Connor couldn't immediately identify, something very familiar, and he tried to still his mind and pursue the thought as he stood, hands in the pockets of his hoodie and feet flat in sandals below his jeans, but Roy's voice snapped into his thoughts before he could put it together. "Do you still have your Justice League transporter?" Roy called down the hall. Connor looked up to see Roy standing in the bathroom doorway, cut in half, one arm on the frame and one bare hip visible, and he felt the faintest blush rise in his cheeks before he caught himself. "Yes," he answered, flicking his eyes over the living room instead. The furniture was all slightly off, the couch not straight against the wall, the coffee table pushed aside with such force that a spill of magazines and children's books had tumbled to the floor, and the cushion on the arm chair was crooked. "I'm still a reservist, so I have access to the Watchtower and the transporters. Why?" "I need to get to Gotham kind of fast, and I'd appreciate the ride if you could," Roy answered, smirking, catching the faint blush beneath Connor's smooth, Zen veneer as he had so many times before. Connor nodded his head, still looking around the apartment, and Ivan whispered to Roy. "Take him. Bring him to me. Kiss him, my handsome Roy. Bend him to you." "I won't need to kiss him," Roy whispered, turning on the shower. If worse came to worse he could, but he wasn't fumbling Gar or immature Kon. He was Roy Harper, and he could seduce anyone he put his mind to, especially someone who wanted to be seduced as much as Connor did. Connor might not know that yet, but Roy could help him out with that, too. *** I know that the Titans are supposed to be a family, but sometimes you can love your family and still not want to talk to them. Sometimes there were things that you couldn't talk to your family about, anyway, like telling your dad that you were really Robin, or telling your Uncle Batman that you got drugged into sleeping with Superboy and now you kept wanting to do it again even though you weren't drugged anymore. Sometimes you're not ready to tell your family some things, and sometimes you don't know how you'd go about telling it because you're not even sure of the whole answer yourself. Being in two hero families, the Titans and the Bat-family, on top of my real family meant that sometimes it was a little difficult getting work done without people looking over your shoulder. I couldn't do any tests on Ivan's blood in the Batcave, because Bruce could walk in at any moment, look over my shoulder, and start demanding answers. He was away right now, off in space or something with the League, but he could come back at any moment, and even after all my years of training, I still couldn't hear him coming. Too many times I'd been in the cave working on something and had to force myself not to jump when I heard his grim and gritty Bat-whisper telling me that I'd missed something in my math or that I needed to run this other test to catch what I was overlooking. What made it even worse was that half the time I didn't even know that I was overlooking something. With the Batcave ruled out, I had to do my work in the labs at Titans Tower, but the same problem would have popped up here, too, if anyone had known I was there. Starfire might come back from wherever she was at the moment and want to hang out and try to keep forcing herself into a role that she wasn't fully comfortable with. As a trainer she was wonderful but as a big sister that we could confide in and lean on she was all thumbs. She just wouldn't let herself stop trying to do both, not since Donna died, and Vic was almost as bad. If he'd known that I was in here, he'd want to come help, or just stay and talk and tell me yet another story about the old days and the time they blah blah blah whatever. I appreciated it some times, but right now I had other things to focus on. This blood, for example. There was a lot going on here, and some of it I could only guess at. Ivy's physiology was unique on the planet, but there were a couple other markers in the database that we could look at along with hers, and I compared them all as I tried to understand what Ivan was and where he had come from. Humans were at one end of the scale I used, and at the other were Alec Holland, the Swamp Thing, and Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man. Both of them were pretty much entirely plant now, with human memories and personalities but no real humanity left. Tefe Holland, Alec's daughter, fell somewhere in the middle, as did Poison Ivy, but Ivan's blood was somewhere else entirely. I'd thought he would match up with his mother, not entirely since he was male and she only had X chromosomes to pass along, but given his same abilities with plants and toxins I expected a high degree of similarity. Ivan was significantly less human than his mother. It didn't seem possible, since he was the product of his mother's genes and some other human, so he should only be, at most, a quarter plant if she was half. Granted, I was thinking of this in less than scientific terms, but thinking of them as "plant" was an easy mental shorthand for everything that entailed, genetically. Back to the matter at hand, something didn't add up about this, and I set one of the computers to scan his DNA against matches already on file. It could take a while, but maybe knowing who his father was, if that was available, would help explain his makeup and provide some clues to where to find him and figure out what he wanted. That matching could take a while, though, so I let it run in the background while I went back to my other, more disturbing hypothesis. Pamela Isley was a normal human before chemicals transformed her into Poison Ivy, binding her to a world of plants and nature that she referred to as the Green. What if Ivy had taken her son and done something similar to him? It seemed monstrous, but she was certifiably insane. To her, it might seem like the perfect expression of a mother's love. The fact that Ivan was a teenager seemed to bear this idea out, since she hadn't had her powers long enough to have a son his age with the same abilities. They couldn't be inherited unless she'd done something to him. A dose of whatever it was on top of her genetic legacy might explain his level of inhumanity, but the original dose had rendered her insane, and I was starting to suspect that Ivan was, too. He may have sounded rational and calm at the greenhouse, but he had acted, well, a little irrationally. That was the only word I was going to use for it right now, because thinking too much about that would distract me. Speaking of distractions, I needed to check on Cyborg again. I may have snuck into the Tower, but that didn't guarantee that Vic wouldn't wander by the lab at some point. I wheeled over to the monitors and flicked them through from camera to camera until I spotted him down in the T-Jet bay. He looked busy with whatever he was doing to a motorcycle I hadn't noticed before, and I was about to go back to my work when I saw a flicker behind him. Changeling stepped out of the shadows, alone, and I felt a pang of jealousy as I remembered what he'd been doing and who he'd been with the last time I saw him. What the hell? Was I a teenaged girl in junior high? Kon wasn't my boyfriend. He could fuck whoever he wanted to. Irritated, I started to turn away, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I switched on the sound just in time to catch half of Vic's sentence. "-haven't seen Robin anywhere," Vic said, apparently answering a question. Why was Gar asking if he'd seen me? "He wasn't with you and Superboy?" "No," Gar answered, shrugging. I frowned. They'd been together this entire time? That thing in the showers was days ago. Surely that had just been a one time thing, a quick release for Kon. He couldn't possibly feel anything toward Gar, could he? I was his best friend, not Gar. I was the one who was always there for him, not Gar. I was the one who needed to pay more attention to what was going on in front of me. Vic was still bent over his work table, the light from above glinting off the steel part of his head, but Gar had moved in awfully close. Maybe he just wanted to see what Vic was working on, but something about his posture seemed off, somehow. He was moving like he was sore, or had pulled a muscle or something. Maybe he was injured? If so, where was Kon? Gar spoke again and I leaned forward, watching and listening, worried now. "Has Robin contacted you?" Gar asked, standing just behind Vic. "Has he called or stopped by?" "No," Vic answered, sounding a little exasperated. He spun in his chair, looking up at Gar. "If you're looking for Robin, why don't you just call him?" "Superboy was looking for him," Gar answered, and I smiled. Fuck you, Garfield Logan. Whatever you two had been up to, Kon was still thinking about me. "We needed him for the thing we're working on." "What are you two working on?" Vic asked, stressing the "are" in confusion. I leaned forward as Gar did onscreen. "This," Gar answered, suddenly leaning in and kissing Victor on the mouth while my jaw dropped in surprise. What the fuck? *** Connor Hawke, the second Green Arrow, paced Roy's apartment slowly, taking it in and thinking as the shower ran in the background. The main room, as he'd noticed before, was disarrayed, the living room furniture moved out of place, everything at that end of the room slightly askew. The kitchen half seemed ok, but there were no plates or glasses in the sink, no sign that anyone had eaten here in the past day or two. The table itself was off center on the linoleum, the chairs scattered haphazardly around it, but had they been moved or was this the usual state of Roy's apartment? Looking closely, Connor noticed that the tabletop was bare. The salt shaker lay on its side, beneath a cabinet by the stove, and the pepper shaker was nowhere to be seen. Had someone swept the tabletop clear? If Lian had done it before Roy dropped her at Dinah's the day before, wouldn't he have picked everything up by now? More and more, Connor began to share Dinah's suspicion that something was wrong with Roy right now. His apartment looked almost as if a struggle had taken place, at least in the front room, and then there was that smell, too, vaguely familiar but so far unrecognized. Maybe he should check the bedrooms and see if there were any signs there. He didn't have any ideas, not yet, but based on Roy's past there was always a constant worry that he might slip again, a constant unvoiced fear on Dinah and Ollie's part that Roy might start using again. Connor didn't share it, but he hadn't known Roy then. He didn't really know Roy now, either, not in the way that their status as adoptive brothers suggested they should. Connor didn't know if Roy resented him or felt displaced by him or was just busy living his own life, and Connor had his own reasons for avoiding Roy. Lian's bedroom seemed normal, typically messy for a child her age, but there were oddities here and there. The door had been closed while every other door in the apartment was open, as if Roy meant to keep something or someone out. The drawers in her dresser were hanging open, as was her closet door, as if Roy had packed her in a hurry, but, like the kitchen, why had he not gone back and put things away? Connor closed the door behind him, listening to see if the shower was still running, and stepped toward the back bedrooms. He jerked to a stop outside the bathroom, though, surprised for a moment. Roy hadn't just left the bathroom door open, but was also showering without the curtain closed. Right now he was slowly rubbing his chest, and Connor watched as the water streamed down his broad back, flowing over the smooth curves and down to his buttocks, which flexed slowly as Roy moved. The water continued down his strong legs, and his longish red hair was slicked back on his head, flattened by the shower spray. Connor started to step back when he caught sight of Roy's face in the medicine cabinet mirror, smirking at him. Their eyes locked for a second and Connor felt that blush rising in his cheeks again as he turned away. "Sorry, I," he began, not sure how to continue. Sorry I saw you naked while I was snooping through your apartment? He walked quickly toward the living room, centering himself, thinking calming thoughts, as he heard the shower squeak to a stop behind him. "It's ok," Roy called from the bathroom as he toweled himself off. "We're just guys here." "Right," Connor said quietly. He swallowed, exhaling slowly, and felt that he was fully calm, completely in control again. It held for about ten seconds, before Roy walked out of the bathroom with the towel slung around his hips again, grinning companionably at him. "What brings you by, anyway?" Roy asked, his arm flexing as he ran a hand through his damp hair. He'd expected Connor to look, to at least drop his exotic, almond-shaped eyes to Roy's chest for a second, but no luck. Maybe he was wrong about Connor, but he didn't think so. He'd kept enough of his own secrets to know when someone else was keeping one. "Honestly?" Connor asked, his mouth curving into an uneasy, small smile. Roy was looking at him intently, but Connor was used to that. His mixed heritage left him with honey colored skin, a shade darker than the average tan that seemed even darker under his bright blond hair. He was told that his face was handsome, and a number of women had found him striking. They stared, they made passes, sometimes they even made outright offers, but none of them got very far. "Dinah was worried about you. She said you seemed, well, not yourself." "Do I look like myself?" Roy asked, grinning, as he held his arms out. Connor looked him over, taking in the broad pecs and ripple of abs, glistening with tiny water droplets still. He hadn't shaved, Connor noted, as his eyes flickered over the auburn stubble on Roy's chin. "You look like you always look," Connor answered, looking away. Calm. Centered. Inhale and exhale. "Thanks," Roy said, grinning as he leaned back against the counter, knowing that it highlighted his torso and thrust the bulge beneath his towel forward, all while looking completely casual. "I really appreciate you stopping to check, though. I know we haven't always, you know, been super close or anything, but it was good of you to stop in and go through my whole apartment to check on things." Connor blinked, not sure what to say. Roy's tone was light, but there was a definite accusation there, and Connor tensed. "You didn't think I noticed your eyes flicking around everywhere, Connor?" Roy asked, stepping closer. Connor took a step back, keeping space to move between them, still not sure if Roy was about to turn hostile. Roy was still grinning, though, that easy smile curving across his face, his eyes locked onto Connor's. "There's one place your eyes never flick to, though. I've noticed that, too." "I don't know what you mean," Connor said quietly. Roy couldn't, Connor was always so careful, so controlled, it wasn't possible that Roy, of all people, knew. "I think you do," Roy said quietly, stepping closer again. Connor stepped back again, and felt the kitchen counter behind him. "You and I aren't that close, are we, Connor? We never hang out, never spend any time together, and I think I just figured out why. I think you came over here thinking I had a secret, thinking that I was keeping something from everyone, when really it's you, isn't it, Connor?" Roy was very close to him now, his presence filling the room, his body blocking all of the places Connor's eyes wanted to flicker to. His wet, almost naked body, the one Connor was taking great pains not to look at, the one that was only inches from him now. Roy's voice was softer, almost a whisper, a low purring sound that seemed to make Connor's chest vibrate. "Roy," Connor began, his voice tense but struggling to maintain that placid calm it always carried. "Shhh," Roy said sharply, and Connor swallowed. "You've always got that control, that calm Zen thing going on, that restraint, but nobody's ever asked why you're like that. Everyone thinks it's because of those monks, because of all your training, but why would you need to maintain that kind of control all the time? What about living with a bunch of monks, a bunch of men, would make you need to keep yourself all bottled up like that, Connor? What would make you need to always keep yourself under control? You know what I think?" "What?" Connor asked, rigid. How had this happened, exactly? He needed to get out of here, needed to get away from Roy, but there was nowhere to go suddenly. Roy had him all but pinned against the counter, even though they weren't touching. "I think you have a secret, one that's right out in front of everybody but nobody sees," Roy answered, smiling at him again. "Everyone knows that you're shy around girls, that you don't have any social skills, any experience, but nobody ever stops to think about why, because you're Ollie Quinn's son, the long lost offspring of the world's biggest womanizer. There's no way that Ollie Quinn's boy doesn't know anything about girls because he doesn't want to. It's just not possible, everyone thinks, but I know, Connor. I know that you're always in control because you're scared of anyone finding out. I know that you don't work with me, or Kyle, or anyone besides Ollie because you're afraid that one of us is going to see, and one of us will figure out your secret, one of us will know why you're always in control. You don't have to be afraid, Connor." "What?" Connor asked again, blinking. Roy's hand reached out, ever so slowly, and grabbed the tab of the zipper on the front of Connor's hoodie. "Roy?" "You don't have to be afraid," Roy repeated. "Let go, Connor. Don't be afraid. You can let go." Roy slowly pulled the zipper down, noting the way that Connor's shoulders slumped in surrender. Roy smiled as Connor's honey-colored pecs and chocolate brown nipples slid into view and he leaned forward, whispering in Connor's ear as he pushed the hoodie off of his shoulders, trailing his fingertips down Connor's torso. Roy's own towel fell to the floor, his hard cock springing out to slap against Connor's jeans, and then Roy was unfastening the button at Connor's waist. "It's ok, Connor," Roy whispered, his breath hot on Connor's ear, his stubble scraping along Connor's cheek. Roy's hand slid into the front of Connor's jeans, the fingers darting like spiders beneath the waist of Connor's briefs, and then Roy's strong, calloused hand was wrapping around Connor's hard cock and stroking. Connor inhaled sharply, almost yelping, and looked helplessly at Roy as Roy stroked him. "You can let go." And suddenly Connor did, gasping, slumping against Roy, feeling cum shooting out of his cock. That was the smell he couldn't place, the scent in Roy's apartment, but before he could wonder how it got there Roy was pressing gently on his shoulders, pushing him to his knees and bringing him face to face with Roy's hard, throbbing cock. Roy's hands were in his hair, not pulling, just caressing his head, and Connor opened his mouth, leaning forward, looking up at Roy. Roy smiled down at him, his muscular chest expanding as he inhaled, feeling his hard cock slide into Connor's mouth as Connor's eyes submissively closed. "You have to come to Gotham with me," Roy said, still grinning. "There's someone there you need to meet." *** To be continued.