Side Effects

Chapter 9

Nightwing's POV

God, I hate the press. If I ever find out who recommended that I become the public face of the United States Metahuman Forces after the 'Waller incident,' I might just kill them. Because as soon as my name was thrown out there, the head brass decided that I was a perfect match. 'Years of handling the press in Jump while leading an effective team establish him as a perfect representative of what the USMF wants the public to see' was the line that did me in.

I agreed, mainly because it would give me more influence, if nothing else. It also means that I can't be killed by the USMF, should they ever want to. It never hurts to be prepared.

I brushed up on some politically ambiguous things to say in order to defend our assets, and assumed that I would field questions at your normal press releases. But oh no, when the media found out that Robin, just barely out of his teens, was going to talk to them, they went crazy.

And that's how I landed on a talk show, waiting backstage as they introduce me to the crowd. At least I was given a chance to pick which talk show I wanted to appear on. Being the protégée of Batman, I'm a fan of the old school in a lot of ways, including training and late-night talking heads.

"And welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the show; I'm David Letterman, and up next we have a special guest. Now, I've been told to say a lot of things about him, so tonight's Top Ten list is going to be Facts about our Guest!"

The crowd cheered for a few seconds, then sat back down. Everyone suspected that it would be someone important, but my appearance was supposed to be kept secret until the reveal; all anyone knows is that there will be a section on 'recent events.'

"Fact number 10: Although he does not have super powers, he is here tonight on behalf of the USMF! That's kinda odd, isn't it?"

The crowd booed a little when they heard 'USMF,' but Dave trudged on anyways.

"Number 9: This person is the only person to ever tell Batman that he is too 'happy!'"

That time, the crowd laughed and was obviously interested at the mention of The Bat.

"Number 8: Despite wearing a 'traffic cone' costume he has been contacted by Playgirl Magazine and the Superhero Sexy Calendar Organization!"

Despite myself, I laughed at that one. There weren't many people who knew that, but way back in the Titans' first year I got a 'feeler' letter. I've held that over BB and Cyborg for years, now.

"Number 7: Upon receiving that letter, his teammates photoshopped his face onto the cover of a gay porno magazine!"

To my horror, they even had the image and displayed it on the screen (killing the 'suspense,' but the crowd was in hysterics). The image was of two men in tights and suspenders with no shirts, with the back man obviously towering over the smaller man; my face was imposed on the smaller man's body, and the other man had Batman's masked head.

There is only one Titan capable of working a computer that well, and something tells me that—

"How you doing, Rob?" Cyborg put his arm around me; I jumped, both being surprised at not hearing him and on edge after that picture was released.

"You son of a b—"

"Number 6: Robin is so cool that he was once left Titans Tower for a few days, and came back to find the other four titans all cosplaying in his own uniforms while eating pizza!"

Again, an image was shown to the crowd, and the laughter almost never stopped.

"I like the new outfit... black and blue; you trying to give bad guys a hint or something?"

I shrugged, as that was not intended but I hadn't thought of it.

"No. Just felt the time was right for a change…"

"Number 5: Robin once led the Teen Titans against Godzilla and lost. Fortunately, Mothra and Bat(Man)ra showed up in time to save the day!"

A few of the crowd's older crowd snickered at the fabricated filler joke.

"That's a stretch. It wasn't actually Godzilla…" Cyborg mused.

"Number 4: The Teen Titans once ended the world. Fortunately for the old folk like me, they got bored and undid it so they wouldn't have to make their own pizza!"

That one received mixed responses of laughter and boos, to which Dave replied with "Aww, come on, that's a good one!"

That one made Cy and I go stiff; the whole Trigon Incident was part of the data leak. If Cy didn't know about that fact but created some of the others, who put this list together?

"Number 3: An old man once stole Robin's youth, but gave it back when he found out that Robin was no fun!"

Cyborg gave me a big elbow nudge for that one.

"Yea, I wrote that one!" He prodded while giving me a big grin.

"Number 2: Yes, Robin and Starfire are officially a Thing…" Massive cheers erupted from the crowd, before Dave calmed them down enough to continue, "…but if he performs like an old man then who knows how long that'll last!"

The crowd just about died from laughing so hard. Tears were shed both in the audience, and right next to me.

"OH, man, you should see the look on your face!" Cyborg finally wheezed out. Even being half robotic, he was still struggling to breathe!

I cut my eyes to Cyborg, trying not to give him the satisfaction of making me move my head.

"And lastly, NUMBER ONE: He is no longer 'Robin.' He's here tonight to announce to the world that he is officially changing into…NIGHTWING!"

That was my cue, and I walked out on the stage and waved, just like they told me to. The crowd cheered, Dave laughed, and I found my seat next to him, with a third seat still open.

After a few minutes of Dave and I bantering back and forth to show the audience that I can be funny (the lines were written for me), things began to wind down and Dave shifted gears.

"Well, I know our audience has certainly had fun, but I understand that you are here—or you're supposed to be, anyways—to answer questions about all that's been happening lately with, uh…Superheroes…"

"What do you mean? I actually have to work tonight? They didn't just want me on TV?" I improvised, displaying the sarcasm that must have rubbed off from years of watching Raven and Beast Boy quarrel.

"Ha ha, yea, same here. I signed the contract and then they told me that I actually had to run the show. Weird, huh?"

"Oh, absolutely…"

"Well, anyways, Robin—or Nightwing, I hear it is—we polled our web-visitors on some key questions that they want answered by a superhero (they didn't know what superhero would answer them), and I've got some of them here in my hand. This first one really works well for you, I think: Does your mask ever itch doing a fight?"

Now we were at the part of the show that is 'unscripted,' which is a fancy way of saying the writers have their questions and I get to hear them for the first time.

"Oh, absolutely."

"So what do you do? Like can you commandeer a bathroom and wash your face, or is there like something that helps with the itching?"

"Well, personally I always lace my masks with Baby Lotion, so much that it feels like my eyes are being guarded by a baby's bottom…"

The crowd chuckled at that, and Dave wasn't ready to let it go.

"B-Baby Lotion?"

"Yea, I used to go through bottles of the stuff before I figured out how to lotion the masks themselves…"

"And what did your teammates say about that, did they like know the mask secret?"

"No, not for a year until they put them on…"

Dave looked incredulous, like something out of that had struck him as more odd than the rest. I was probably about to hear it, too.

"So, what did they think? 'Oh, there goes Robin to the pharmacy to get more lotion! He goes through that stuff furiously!"

Everyone laughed, including myself, and I had the decency to blush slightly. When neither Dave nor I had any other comments, he switched to the next question.

"Well, anyways, this next question is put kinda bluntly—I think Ricky backstage wrote this one, because it's been written in crayon over the original question—but how often do you guys (the USMF, I guess) kill other superheroes?"

Yup, it was going to be one of those nights.

"Gah, I knew I'd get to talk about this. But the Arsenal Assassination…I don't know, that's not really what I signed up for—I know a lot of heroes who would agree to that. You know, power has always corrupted, and I was opposed to how the Suicide Squad ran back when I found out about it."

Dave seized the lull in my talking to further toughen my job, or so I assumed.

"What about it, exactly? How would you run a government supervillain-assassination team?"

I ran a hand through my hair while I pondered that question. The room was silent.

"Well, I've always believed that silent ops should be silent. If it's a secret team, no public targets. But really no one knew about the Squad until the data leak, and even then it wasn't discussed. But I was against its leadership. The moment that Slade Wilson was allowed to help run the Suicide Squad, I knew something was wrong."

"You say Slade Wilson, as in the supervillain that rivaled the Titans for years in Jump City. Is this the same man that leaked the footage of the War-room that killed Speedy?"

I nodded solemnly.

"That's him. He helped out the Justice League back during the Invasions (which I was opposed to) and in turn the Justice League hired him full-time to help the Suicide Squad."

I hoped that Dave would pick up on that. His eyes widened slightly, and I assumed it worked.

"Wait, so a supervillain helped the JL for free, and in turn they put that supervillain in charge of the SUICIDE SQUAD!?"

I nodded again.

"If you ask me, I honestly put Speedy's—Roy's—death on the Justice League. And we figured that out and disbanded them, right? The USMF is here to do better than the League; we just didn't take down everything, apparently."

I knew that line was a good one the moment I thought of it. The look on Dave's face told me that I had struck political gold with that line, and that even if I botched every other question then tonight would still be a success.

We bounced around through a few more topics—Resistances being the overarching topic—before the show took a brief commercial break. During the break, the make-up teams came out and made sure we were comfortable, and other staff came and slightly rearranged our chairs to accommodate two more people.

"You know, Nightwing, when they told me that we were going to get to host an official USMF representative, I did not envision it would be that fun. And here I thought that all you 'Bat-People' were known for having sticks up your butts…" Dave joked.

"Well, that's kinda because he does! Why don't you show us those scripted lines, Robin?" Cyborg cut in for me, coming from behind stage to take the third seat.

"Hardee-har-har, Cy. Shouldn't you be getting ready for your strenuous walk to the chairs?"

"Nah, I told the boys that he can just show up in the chair when we come back. Otherwise we risk having too many introductions…" Dave asserted. I didn't know who the fourth person would be, but something tells me it is someone from an opposing viewpoint in order to make 'good TV.' As if there is such a thing.

Then again, I am on air, so…

"We're live in 5!

4

3

2

1…"

"And we're back live, and if you are just joining us, I'm about to sit here and reunited Nightwing—ex-Robin, as me and my wife both call him for some reason—and the internet's favorite son, Cyborg!"

The audience applauded, and we waited for things to die down.

"Okay, so earlier today we showed a…photoshopped…picture of Robin. It's my understanding that you, Cyborg, and responsible for that?"

I gave Cy a disdainful look that made Dave and Cy both laugh.

"Yup! That was my work!"

"So, did these things happen often back in the days of the Titans? I mean, when the city started approving teenagers to live together, what did they expect?"

"Oh yes, Cyborg and Beast Boy were known for their insistent prank war. BB was once died pink for about a week, way back in the beginning." I answered for Vic.

"Gotcha. So how often did other Titans receive one of these pranks?"

"Well, we—I, at least—very quickly learned not to piss off Raven or Starfire. I don't know if BB ever stopped trying to prank Raven…that may be why he's still missing!"

I was afraid Cy would go there, but at least he's trying to broach that through humor. The public is still unaware of anything about Raven or Beast Boy.

"And I was on the receiving end on only a few pranks…that picture is by far the most…intricate one…" I quickly jumped in, in order to keep Dave from fixing in on Raven.

"So Cyborg, is this the sort of thing you take pride in? Successfully pulling one over on Batman-lite?" Dave asked, obviously softballing Cyborg.

"Oh, you bet your audience I do! That photoshop is still one of my favorite accomplishments! Robin turned pink for a full two days when he first saw it!"

Dave laughed, the crowd laughed, and I played the part of the slightly embarrassed fool. This better make good TV.

"Well, I'd rather not bet my audience. There's still one thing that's just…bothering me about that. I just wonder…" now Dave seemed to really be getting at something, and I braced myself for whatever might happen next, "…how much gay porn did you look through until you got that picture?"

And like that, the bottom fell out of the entire studio audience. Even in the 20 seconds it took to get everyone to stop laughing and hollering, Cyborg couldn't come up with a comeback. So I took the chance.

"You know, that explains how you went through 17GB of data in that one week…" I lied with a grin, and Dave was the one to laugh hard this time. Cyborg just looked as red as his cybernetic eye.

The laughing died down, and everyone looked insistently to Cyborg, who was still shell-shocked that everything had turned on him so completely. He almost looked guilty.

No, scratch that. He looked absolutely guilty.

"You know, the fact that he hasn't replied actually makes me think that he's ashamed to answer that!" I announced, and the crowd laughed again when Cyborg slowly brought a hand up to rub his face.

"Cyborg, now, please, we're not judging here. How much gay porn did you go through, in rough estimates?"

Finally, Cyborg had recovered enough to speak. His manner suggested that he had utterly embraced himself for the worst humiliation of his life.

"Well…once I got the idea, I wrote a program to search the internet and bring me the best candidates for the picture. And naturally, I thought 'if I use my processor to run the search, I can have it done in the hour.' Well, once I started, I couldn't stop it, and I forgot to allow a setting that made the program run passively…"

Most of the audience didn't know what that implied, but I did. I immediately gasped, before laughing at his face.

"Well, okay, Nightwing is judging you…" Dave quipped.

"Does that mean that you…?" I choked out.

"I saw, in glimpses, all the gay porn on the internet at the time, over the course of an hour. It took me two weeks to completely burn the images out of my memory, and my human half is still scarred!"

We weren't able to regain control of the crowd after that, and we went to commercial break. Cy decided that he had had enough TV life for one day, and Dave's staff helped him walk out by chanting "Boo-yah" in an extremely homoerotic and suggestive tone.

Suddenly, this TV stuff wasn't so bad.

"Welcome back to the David Letterman show. For those of you just joining, we probably just humiliated the superhero Cyborg more than anyone else has ever been humiliated on this show…possibly on all talk shows! Now, to balance out the fun, we're going to be hosting a 'Frienemey Debate!'" The announcer announced.

"Thank you. Now, our last guest is here to debate Mr. Nightwing. He is a billionaire playboy who has recently retired from the Tech life in Starling City. He was accused of being Starling City's own superhero—The Arrow or The Green Arrow—twice, and released when the Arrow turned up elsewhere both times. Since then, he has made it his business to study superheroes and is considered an expert in the field (to the surprise of his family). He is an outspoken opponent of the USMF and is considered the Public Agent of more than one superhero, namely The Batman. Yes, join me in welcoming Mr. Oliver Queen!"

Oliver walked on stage and looked more comfortable in the spotlight than any other superhero that I've ever seen. Not even Bruce—a fellow playboy billionaire—is comfy in the spotlight.

Oliver shook everyone's hands, and after a brief round of banter he and I were set up to talk back and forth at a notch just below a true debate.

"Now Oliver, I'm aware that you are extremely upset about the death of Roy Harper aka Arsenal?"

And like that, the game was on. This is why they wanted me here.

"Absolutely. When did the people give the government the right to assassinate a U.S. citizen who was not breaking any laws, and had no Metahuman capabilities making the USMF null in his case? I don't ever remember voting on that issue…"

The trick is not to disagree with him until we hit a point where I absolutely cannot allow myself to agree with him.

"I didn't vote on that either. Could we get Amanda Waller out here and talk to her?" The crowd was silent, and for a rare moment on TV, there was silence. "I didn't think so. She's in custody, likely facing solitary confinement at the hands of the CIA. All that's left is to better manage what remains to be managed."

"No, that's not it. Roy Harper was a friend of mine—I even let him date my sister. And the Suicide Squad that shot him was functioning under government orders in tandem with the United States Metahuman Forces. It was in the leaked schematics that the four Directors would be in contact with black ops."

Still not quite the place to disagree, but close. Dave was just watching everything unfurl to the side; what did he care how this went, he was retiring soon anyways.

"Yes, and it's evident that too much of the Justice League's old structure still remains. The Justice League put Slade Wilson on the Suicide Squad's management, and when that happened it was a sign that the League could no longer be trusted. It's just tragic that it took us this long to realize that."

"Did you see the same video I did, where Slade the supervillain was the only person with any reservations about killing a Superhero? Seriously, you think that Slade is the problem when Amanda Waller, a government sanctioned agent, is the one calling the kill? The same government that abused the power of the Suicide Squad now reigns over the world's superheroes. Does that instill confidence in you? Can you sleep at night knowing what that arrangement is capable of?"

And then I froze. Everyone watching froze. While the debate had been calm, those last lines stumped everyone. No one spoke for 15 seconds, and I was obviously outmatched by Mr. Queen's prepared arguments.

Silence reached the 30 second mark, to the point where it was so awkward that it hurt. And that was the point.

Until gunfire eroded and Oliver Queen slumped over, with a bullet squarely through the chest being televised live.