When you first met Roy Harper, you would have bitch-slapped anyone who suggested you'd find yourself in a relationship with him six months later. He'd been brash and cocky and he'd fucked up your science project because he just couldn't be bothered or didn't have the time. You'd thought he was just stupid. You were fifteen.

Later, you'd found out that he was one of the smartest guys you'd ever met ─ though, for a sixteen-year-old, it wasn't a hard standard to beat. It was like being the tallest dwarf. He was smart, though, intelligent. Smart enough to be Speedy, tech-genius and arrow-chucking sidekick to Star City's very own Green Arrow.

You'd kissed him the same night he'd told you. You didn't mind ─ you'd always skirted the edges of a blade, with how you lived. Just another risk to add to the bucket list ─ and a good-looking one, at that. That was how it started. With the intention of it being nothing more than another high school sweetheart.

Now he was sitting at the foot of your bed, four months later, using one hand to hold your nail polish and the other to switch the song you'd just put on. He didn't have anything against Nirvana. He just thought The Arrow and Friends were better. Wink wink.

"C'mon. You've gotta let me have one song. After all, it's my... uh, my birthday year." He'd never been good at excuses. Not with you, not really. "Forget it. You were talking about your friend and her friend and his girlfriend and how they were all really fucking shit up for themselves."

And listening to you spill the latest tea because nothing paired with red nail polish better than a conversation concerning your friends and their latest mishaps. That, and he liked listening to you talk.