sometimes the only way out is through

okay so the thing about roy and garth is they seem like they won't actually work as a couple. and they Won't. but not for the reasons everybody thinks. like, sure, they don't seem to get along very well, but neither do... any of the titans. that's just sort of the vibe. they all are mean to each other constantly but they're also a bonded set do not separate. roy and garth are no exception. their deal just Seems worse cause garth doesn't give as much as he gets. but he doesn't mind either, really; the only time we actually see him get upset ab roy's shit is in the infamous camping issue where they're being influenced by the monster of the week to be mad at each other (and roy is shocked upset. the second he thinks garth is Actually Hurt by what he's saying he backpedals.) roy's a massive bitch but it genuinely is all in good fun and when push Actually comes to shove, we see them looking out for each other and having each other's backs repeatedly.

the Real reason it'd be a bad match is that one of them is just incapable of settling down in any real capacity. and what makes this dynamic fascinating to me is that it's Not roy "manwhore" harper of "my daddy has a lot of girlfriends" fame. roy absolutely Could and Would settle (and tbh i wholeheartedly believe that if shit would stop happening and he could take lian to the suburbs and just chill and be safe with her he would.) roy's romantic issues are just that he keeps falling for people who it just won't work out with for whatever reason. garth, on the other hand, literally was married for a while and Still couldn't stay in one place. he's constantly getting dragged back and forth between atlantis and the titans and the magic groups and the fuckin UN or whatever, i don't even know. he just doesn't have a lifestyle that's conducive to a serious healthy long term relationship. and its not even Really his fault. he might very well Want find somewhere he can just stay, but honestly, i don't think he even considers what he wants cause it hasn't mattered in decades. he didn't choose to get married, it was a societal pressure. he didn't choose the tempest mantle. he had a whole argument with the guy that gave it to him over not wanting some cosmic destiny and ended up with one anyway. he didn't even name his own Kid, aquaman did. garth is just so used to going Wherever He's Sent that he just won't stop and take something, no matter how bad he wants it. he might not even register the desire at this point. his whole life is just fulfilling his responsibilities and trying to be useful and that's it.

now. that being said. i Do still believe in roygarth and I Will Tell You Why.

roy harper is practically grown in a lab to make garth feel like shit about him self.

"but wait," you're saying. "you said earlier it was friendly banter." yeah!! and it is!! honestly the way roy acts around garth feels more like a middle school boy tugging on his crush's pigtails than anything else and ill die on that hill. its a bid for attention and quite frankly, given how much of his life garth spends being overlooked, someone acting up for his attention On Purpose isn't that much of a problem. the ways roy Actually hurts him have nothing to do with roy's actual actions and everything to do with the circumstances.

because here's the thing. they're both fucked up traumatized dudes. they've been through a lot. the kicker is, when you take apart all of the fucked up things in garth's life specifically, they're essentially perfect mirrors of all the ways in which roy's life is Good.

here's what garth has. garth has a mentor that raised him, that he's worked alongside for most of his life, that he has practically worshipped since he was a kid. and that hero appreciates him when he's useful, maybe even enjoys having him around sometimes, but at the end of the day that hero considers him disposable. he Definitely doesn't consider him family.

garth has a titans team that he never quite fit on. he was the weird one, the quiet one, and when he eventually left they wasted no time in filling the gap. they're his friends and they love him, sure, but its always just a little different from how they love each other.

garth has the atlanteans who aren't really a family, and when they are he certainly isn't a part of it. he has responsibilities and expectations, but he has to earn his place. its not simply there for him.

garth has a dead wife and a dead son who he wasn't really there for even before they died and he never wanted in the first place, really, but that doesn't make it any better that he failed them.

he's got no real ambitions and no real home and no real family.

and then here's roy harper. roy harper, who has fucked up repeatedly and gone through his bad patches but still at the end of the day is ollie's son. roy, who fit on the teen titans immediately and filled garth's spot smoother than garth had ever filled it himself. roy, who has Led the titans and every time he turns around he forms a new team and he's just overflowing with people he can count on who won't forget about him. roy, who can go home for the holidays and eat chili with practically every archer in the dc universe and whose dad would never choose his own life over his kid's and who goes on outings with his little brother. roy, who lost his daughter and *got her back*, who has always put her first and tore apart the universe to find her.

and its not jealousy. because jealousy requires wanting. and because how can you be jealous of someone when they deserve what they have and you don't? how can you resent them for having things that you Could have had, Should have had, if you hadn't fucked it up? if you had just been a little better?

but how could he ignore it either? how could you possibly not be aware of it. because here is someone who has succeeded in every way you've failed. here is someone who is everything you never quite managed to be. and he did it without powers, and he did it through his addiction and through his years on his own and through losing like three seperate father figures.

it has to be something of an obsession, that. you either have to love him or hate him. and they're titans. they can't hate each other. that's not in the cards. so there's only one option left.

and oh, roy harper. roy who is haunted by the mistakes he can never really escape and the things he wished he'd done different, who Knows he's a mess. what would it mean to someone like that to know that you are someone's golden boy. you are what they think a person Should be like. and roy harper is such a lover. he's built for it. he loves easily and he loves with everything in him.