Salve-ation
By Reccea 
 
	Cissie's door creaked as it swung part-way open and 
Roy's head popped through the small space. "Hey, you awake 
yet?" There was no response, so Roy edged more of his body 
into the Forbidden Territory. He gave the room a cursory 
glance. Her training clothes from the day before were 
strewn across the floor. Which was a clear sign that the 
long day of training had done her in.  
	He caught a slight movement from the lump on the bed. 
Aha! She wasn't dead after all. "C'mon Cissie," He walked 
over to bed and jostled what he thought might be her foot. 
It felt like a foot anyway. But there was no way of telling 
if Cissie was one of those `sleeps on the wrong end of the 
bed' types. "It's time to get up." 
	"Go away, Roy," came the muffled reply from the head 
of the bed. Yep, he was holding her foot. 
	"Oh, now don't be like that," Roy admonished. He 
grabbed hold of the blanket and began to slowly tug it 
down. Two pale slender hands snaked out from under the 
covers to latch tightly onto the blanket. This was a bad 
sign. "Cissie, come on," Roy urged, tugging more at the 
blanket. It stayed in position, Cissie's white knuckles  
attesting to the reason.  
	He yanked hard and suddenly an annoyed face with 
narrowed blue eyes blinked back at him. She tugged hard on 
the blanket and it flew out of his hands and back over her 
head. "I hate you," she announced. 
	Roy sighed, his breath pushing his hair off his 
forehead dramatically. "Well that's a nice thing to say," 
He grumbled under his breath and considered tugging the 
blanket off of her, for real this time. 
	"Go away," Cissie grunted in reply. Her small form  
constricted into the fetal position under the covers.  Roy 
arched an eyebrow. He glared at the grumpy, blanketed lump. 
His hand shot out and yanked the blanket off before she 
even had a chance to respond. Which really had been 
Nightwing's point when he'd ordered the extra training. 
Cissie still had Young Justice instincts. She needed Titans 
instincts. Because no self-respecting Titan would ever have 
allowed their blankets to be stolen. 
	Cissie sat straight up, her blond hair sticking out 
every which way. Now that was an impressive case of bed-
head. Her light blue tank top rode halfway up her stomach 
and her flannel boxers were hopelessly twisted. If she'd 
been anyone else, and he'd been any less grumpy, he might 
have admitted that Cissie…looked adorable in the morning. 
	She stared at him, her blue eyes wide in disbelief. 
"I can't believe you just did that," she said, her jaw 
slack. 
	Roy wasn't paying attention to her look of disbelief. 
He stood frozen, blanket in hand, as his eyes wandered over 
the red, swollen flesh of her forearm. She followed his 
line of sight and her face scrunched in annoyance. Their 
eyes locked, hers filled to the brim with crankiness and 
his etched in guilt and anger.  Cissie reacted first. She 
*did* have the great injustice of being woken up to speed 
her actions. And no one ever escaped retaliation for that 
wretched act. Waking someone up was simply rude. 
	Particularly on a Saturday. She launched herself off 
the bed and tackled Roy Harper. 
	There was a loud crash, a muffled thud, and a lot of 
cursing.  
	Cissie sat triumphant on top of mummy-Roy. She had 
managed to, albeit accidentally, secure him in the cocoon 
of her favorite blanket.  
	Everything from his ankles to his shoulders was 
trapped. She smirked at the red-headed archer.  
	"Very funny, Cissie." Roy frowned seriously at his 
young protégé. She stopped smirking and hid her arms behind 
her back. Roy frowned more. "Why didn't you tell me you 
needed new gloves?" he asked. 
	She sighed and stood up. She pushed him over with her 
foot until he rolled out of the blanket. "Didn't think 
about it," she mumbled. 
	Roy pushed himself off the ground and proceeded to 
untangle himself from the blanket. "Cissie, look at your 
arms. Why didn't you say something yesterday? We could have 
quit early. That would've been fine." 
	"Yeah right," Cissie scoffed. "With Nightwing 
checking on everybody every few minutes? I don't think so." 
	"Nightwing doesn't go out without the proper 
equipment." Roy rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "He would 
have understood. Not that it matters now." He headed out 
the door and turned at the last second. "I'll be right 
back." 
	He disappeared out the door and Cissie sighed to 
herself. She looked at the welts along her forearm. 
Frowning she flopped back onto the bed, hoping that Roy 
wasn't planning on bringing back Nightwing for a lecture. 
She did not want to deal with that right now. Her arms  
hurt, both were the string had stung the skin repeatedly 
and the upper muscles, overworked from pulling back the 
string time and time again. She was exhausted and cranky. 
This was not the best time for a Nightwing Lecture. This 
was a cup of hot chocolate kind of time. 
	Roy bumped back into the room, his arms overflowing 
with various items. He set each of them down on Cissie's 
nightstand. He sat down on the bed, his hip gently resting 
against hers. He picked up her arm and grabbed a bottle 
from the nightstand. "What are you doing?"  
	He poured a small amount of cool liquid onto the 
angry flesh and slowly began to rub it in. The pain 
lessened a little as the cool, soothing liquid seeped into 
the skin. "It's a salve, it should lessen the pain and the 
swelling." 
	"Thanks." She smiled a little at him.  
	He grinned back. He took the other arm and massaged 
salve into it as well. It figured that he'd make her 
practice with both arms. He finished and wiped his hands 
off on a cloth he'd brought in with him. "So, your muscles 
ache?" 
	"Yeah," she groaned. Roy took her arm back into his 
hand and began to knead the muscles. Cissie closed her eyes 
and sighed, "Thank you." Roy grunted a reply and worked the 
tension out of the muscles in both of her arms. His fingers 
working over and back on the soft skin. Her arms tingled 
and Cissie resolved to never move again. 
	He eased all of the tension and residual ache from 
her arms.  
	Then he brought two chemical coldpacks off her 
nightstand. He cracked them, waited for them to get cold 
enough and laid them down on the welts. A relaxed happy 
smile worked its way onto Cissie's face. "Feel any better?" 
he prompted. 
	"Much," she purred. She opened her eyes and looked 
over at him. "So how come you woke me up?" 
	"You were already awake," Roy pointed out. "You were 
just in denial." 
	"You got me there," she agreed. "But you wanted 
something, didn't you?" 
	He shrugged, gathering his things. "I'm was going to 
take you out to lunch. Make up for pushing you so hard 
yesterday. But I think I'll just cook you dinner tonight 
instead. Sound good?" 
	She nodded and smiled bashfully. "You really don't 
have to." 
	"Oh, I'm well aware of that." Roy nodded solemnly. 
Shaking his head, he got up to leave. "Tomorrow, we'll go 
glove shopping?" 
	"Sounds good." Cissie sighed and shut her eyes. 
"Thanks Roy." 
	"Hey, what are mentors for?" He asked. The door 
clicked shut behind him and Cissie sighed to herself. Maybe 
she didn't totally hate him. Maybe just mildly. Maybe.

The End