Chapter Text
Roy wrenched the door open after typing in the code Jason provided. Inside, a repurposed utility closet, served as Nygma's 'nursery.' Lexie was sitting on the small cot, still dressed in the star and moon patterned night gown she had been put to bed in, arms crossed, looking thoroughly annoyed to be there. Across from her on the table sat a chess board; some pieces were knocked over while the rest were arranged in a foolsmate a clear indication that Nygma had tried to challenge the girl to a game of chess only for her to immediately throw it. Roy could almost hear the frustrated squeal Nygma must have let out.
Lexie looked up, arms still crossed over her chest , her red hair catching the dim light. "Took you long enough, Roy," she sniffed, standing up slowly. "I was just about to tell Nygma I'd answer his stupid riddles if he got me a slice of pizza. I'm starving.”
“Don’t you cop an attitude with me, little missy.” Roy scolded “You snuck out after I put you to bed! You’re lucky it wasn't someone more dangerous! Ollie is beside himself, Dinah's just about ready to kill someone and here you are running your mouth.”
“I didn’t sneak out you dimwit!” Lexie squeaked gesturing to her night gown “Look at me! You think I purposely left the house in this?! I just climbed onto the roof outside my window to look at the moon and stars and I was accosted by that questionmark clad freak!”
“Lexie, you are definitely not allowed on the roof…” Roy replied with a shake of his head. “And more importantly, you know as well as I do that the security sensors were bypassed from the inside. That is the definition of sneaking out, regardless of how far you were going. You know what happens next, Kiddo.”
Alexandra's eyes widened, her hands instinctively flying to cover her bottom as the reality of the situation set in. "Wait... a spanking? Here?! Now?!" she stammered, her voice rising an octave in panicked disbelief as she glanced around the dingy, repurposed utility closet.
"Here and Now," Roy confirmed firmly. He reached out, pulling one of the heavy wooden chairs away from the small chess table where Nygma's discarded game still lay in a mess of toppled pieces. He sat down heavily, the chair creaking under his weight, and patted his lap with a look of grim resolve.
"Ollie usually does it in my room or his office," Lexie argued, her lower lip trembling as she tried to stall for time. “Theres a build up to it! Theres… etiquette!”
"Oh, don't worry. You'll get one from Ollie too," Roy countered, his voice steady. "You know how he gets when he's worried sick, and you've had the whole team on high alert tonight."
"But that's double jeopardy!" Lexie squeaked, her face flushing with a mix of indignation and fear. "It's... unconstitutional or something! You can't punish me twice for the same thing!"
"Yeah, tough break, kid," Roy replied, his tone completely unsympathetic. He leaned forward slightly, his gaze narrowing. "You bypassed security from the inside and ended up in Nygma's clutches. You're lucky it's just a sore seat and not something worse. Now, quit stalling and c'mere."
Lexie pouted. Her cheeks puffed out, her fists clenched and she stomped her foot in frustration. But she crossed the distance over to her eldest brother. Roy reached out and caught her wrist in his grip before gently pulling her across his knees. He flipped the skirt of her nightgown up and gently pushed her underwear out of the way
The first strike landed; a firm, controlled open-palm smack that sounded sharply in the small closetlike room. Lexie gasped, and buried her face against her brothers knee. The second and third landed just as sharply and in rapid succession across her bottom before he settled into a quick pace. He wasn’t hitting hard enough to inflict injury, but the swats were coming hard and fast enough to cut through the girls Luthor Pride. Her breath hitched on a wet, choked sob. According to Ollie Lexie hated being spanked and usually broke into the waterworks pretty quickly. Which was definitely consistent with his current experience.
“I’m sorry…” She sniffled kicking her feet “I’m very very sorry!
“Oh I’m sure your sorry. Anyone with a bottom as sore as yours it about to be is going to be sorry. You knew what the consequences would be for leaving the manor, Olivia.” Roy replied deciding to use her new domestic name as he continued the smacks “You were testing me, Weren’t you? You wanted to know if I had a spine. You were trying to see if your Big Brother would actually do it. Well guess what Squirt? I will. And i’ll do it again if you give me sufficient reason. And you know what else? Mia will do it too if she has to and so will Connor and… well… Connor…”
Roy paused in his ministration as he realized both Connor Hawke and Connor Kent were Lexie’s Brothers in different ways. Lexie tried to use the opportunity to push herself up, but she was held in place.
“I’m sorry, Roy! Please! I was just getting fresh air!” Lexie whined, her voice hitching as she tried to squirm out of the firm grip Roy held on her waist. Her red hair was a strewn mess and her face was flushed a deep, embarrassed crimson.
“No you weren’t. You were being a contrary brat just to rile me up and get my attention. Ollie says you do it all the time, he says you have a history of this, that whenever he draws a line you treat that line as a jumprope.” Roy said, his voice stern but layered with the exhaustion of a big brother who had spent half the night tracking a runaway sibling “ Honestly kid? It’s almost seems like you want to be spanked by Ollie,
Lexie’s face suddenly flushed an even deeper, protesting red, her eyes flashing with indignant fire despite the tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I do not! Why would I ever want to be spanked by that ridiculous man?! Roy, he uses mustache wax to curl the tips of his mustache like he’s preparing to go onstage for a particularly kitschy performance of The Pirates of Penzance!”
“Lexie, you love The Pirates of Penzance,” Roy reminded her with a dry smirk, his hand coming down in another rhythmic, stinging smack against her bottom that made her jump in his lap. He maintained the steady discipline, each swat punctuating his point. “Dinah says the DVD of the vhs recording of the time she did it in highschool basically lives in your DVR…”
“That doesn’t mean I would take fashion advice from it!” Lexie shot back, her head snapping around to glare at him over her shoulder. “And it certainly doesn't mean I'm out here trying to get myself in trouble just so he can lecture me about 'responsibility' while I'm stuck over his knee!”
Roy snickered, though he didn't stop the smacks. “Okay, okay. The mustache is a choice, I’ll give you that,” he admitted. “But I still think you want Ollie’s attention and don’t know how else to get it than to misbehave. ”
Lexie huffed and crossed her arms, her chin digging into the crook of her elbow as she remained draped over Roy’s lap. She certainly didn’t enjoy getting spankings; they hurt and were pretty damn embarrassing for someone who prided herself on being perfect. But if she was being honest with herself, the contact of it all—the close physical contact with her guardian, that feeling of being firmly held in place by him—was something she craved in a way she couldn’t even articulate to herself. Her birth father, Lex Luthor, had never truly held her. Well, he almost certainly had with some regularity when she was a baby, if only to satisfy the requirements of a photo op or just to physically move her, but not since she could remember. In fact, any physical contact with him had been a performance for a camera or a brief and rare reward for making him look good in front of someone he wanted to impress.
That is unless she had done something to really upset him; it wasn’t like she had never been spanked by Lex or Mercy. Her mother had dealt them out occasionally as a matter of efficiency, while Lex did so far more rarely, usually only if she had been foolish enough to openly defy him in a way that threatened his sense of absolute control. But the punishments she received from them had always felt clinical, cold, and indifferent. With her birth parents, a calculated correction of an asset, delivered with the same detached concern one might give to a malfunctioning computer or a faulty piece of laboratory equipment. It was the cold, mechanical reinforcement of her father’s will, intended to prune away any thoughts of dissent and enforce absolute unquestioning obedience to him. With Ollie, and Dinah, and now with Roy, it always felt far more focused on her well-being, her personal development, and her safety than on simply punishing her for not complying. Even now, as her bottom burned from the continued application Roy’s palm, the firm grip on her waist felt less like a cage and more like a tether, keeping her from getting sucked into the dangerous world her father had left behind.
“And it’s not just your siblings, Alexandra,” Roy continued, rousing her from her musings as he continued to land stinging swats. “Ollie gave a good chunk of the Justice League and league associates explicit permission to spank you too. Bruce, Diana, Superman, the Martian, the Flash, Nightwing, Alfred, the Kents, Kara, Lois, Hal Jordan, and John Stewart—and that’s just the short list.”
Each name Roy uttered was punctuated by another sharp slap against her burning bottom, driving the reality of her situation home. She wasn’t just being monitored by her foster family; she was being raised by a literal army of heroes who had all apparently agreed on how to handle a wayward Luthor.
“Even Alfred?” she choked out between sobs, the thought of the dignified Wayne Manor butler delivering such a common punishment feeling like the ultimate betrayal. “And Superman? He’s supposed to be... nice!”
“He is nice,” Roy countered, his hand maintaining its pace. “That’s why he doesn’t want you growing up to be like your father. The League is more than just a bunch of heroes that work together, its like a big messy family and if you’re going to be part of the family, you are going to be held to the family standards. No exceptions, not even for the smartest girl in the world.”
“Don’t call me that! It’s very assumptive. I mean, yeah, okay, maybe I scored well enough when tested, but what percent of the world is actually in a position to have their intelligence measured on a Mensa-level scale? The data set is inherently biased toward those with the luxury of educational access, relative political and economic stability and generational wealth. And considering my dad scored so highly and I have personally watched his so-called ‘genius’ lead him into making decisions I considered to be highly questionable and which have on multiple occaisiona nearly got him killed, aswell as Ted Kord who scored very highly and just a week ago managed to accidentally hang himself upside down by the underwear from a fire escape, I am highly skeptical of the accuracy of that test in general. Need I even get into some of the things Tim Drake is on record as doing?”
"You humble little bastard," Roy said with a soft, genuine chuckle, pausing for a brief second to affectionately ruffle her messy red hair before returning his hand to its rhythmic task and pacing himself even faster. He couldn't help but be impressed by her ability to launch into a sociological critique of the perceived fairness of standardized testing while currently draped over his knees in a utility closet. She had, according to the trinity, been lamenting the ways in which the system was set up to fail the working class majority, and how much progress humanity has lost to the suppression of the downtrodden, since first contacting them about her father’s crimes. She truly was Oliver Queen’s daughter even if it wasn't by blood and she hadn’t even technically been raised by him.
Lexie let out a frustrated wail, as the spanking sped up her legs kicking weakly as the heat in her seat intensified. It was overwhelming to think that the entire Watchtower was essentially a revolving door of people who had the authority to put her over their knee. The thought of being 'corrected' by Wonder Woman or having to face the stern disappointment of Batman while receiving a lecture on security protocols was enough to make her want to crawl into her room once she got home and never come out.
“It’s a village, Squirt,” Roy added, his tone softening just a fraction even as he delivered a final, particularly firm trio of swats to emphasize his point. “And this village has a very low tolerance for sneak-outs and security breaches. You’re lucky it was me who found you tonight and they didn’t call in clark or worse Diana. She’s way less patient with misbehaving teens. Trust me.”
“You speak from experience?” Lexie asked, her voice small and still thick with the remnants of her tears, yet clearly tinged with a new sense of amusement at Roy's expense.
“Yeah, maybe,” Roy said, his hand moving to rub the back of his neck as his face took on a slightly sheepish expression. “I mean, most of us former sidekicks have had some experience to speak from when it comes to being handled by the League's heavy hitters. You think Oliver is the only one who believes in a firm hand? Try pulling a stunt like yours when Diana is the one in charge of you. She makes sure the lesson sticks.”
He looked down at Lexie, who was still draped over his lap, her bottom radiating a steady, pulsing heat from the discipline he’d just administered. “The point is, we’ve all been there. We’ve all thought we were smarter than the rules or faster than the sensors. But the reason we’re still here—the reason we're a family—is because we look out for each other, even when that means making sure a wayward little sister gets exactly what she earned for being reckless.”
“Can you let me up now?” Lexie asked impatiently. The fire in her seat was beginning to ebb into a dull, rhythmic throb, and she was eager to regain even a shred of her dignity.
“Oh no, after what you pulled, I’m carrying you to the car,” Roy replied firmly, ignoring her squirming. He stood up, righted her clothing and hoisted her small frame with practiced ease, tucking her against his shoulder like a sack of potatoes while she huffed in indignation.
“Roy, put me down! People will see!” she hissed, her face heating up so much she buried it into his shoulder as he navigated through the dimly lit corridor of the hideout.
“Good. Maybe a little public embarrassment will reinforce the lesson,” he countered, his stride unwavering. “Besides, you’re exhausted, and I’m not giving you a single chance to make a break for it again tonight. You’re staying within arm's reach until I hand you off to Ollie.”
Lexie went limp, her resistance dissolving as the physical and emotional exhaustion of the night finally caught up with her. She slumped against Roy's sturdy frame, realizing the futility of the struggle against his superior strength and stubborn resolve. As Roy navigated the exit of the warehouse and regrouped with Jason, who was waiting by the vehicle with a knowing, slightly pitying smirk, Lexie kept her face hidden. Still, as Roy carried her out and carefully buckled her into the backseat of the car, she couldn't deny the treacherous sense of comfort she derived from being carried;even if she would take that to the grave before admitting to her brother.
The drive back to the Manor was a quiet affair, the hum of the engine punctuated only by the occasional crackle of the police scanner. Lexie stared out the window at the passing streetlights, her bottom still radiating a dull, rhythmic throb that served as a constant reminder of her recklessness. When they finally arrived back at the secret entrance of the Arrow Cave, the car had barely come to a complete stop before Lexie lunged for the door handle. She swung the door open, hoping to scramble out and assert some semblance of independence before Roy could attempt to scoop her up again. However, her feet barely had time to hit the cold concrete floor of the garage before a blur of green intercepted her and she found herself swept off her feet and pulled into a crushing, hug by Ollie. Ollie's grip was tight, almost desperate The scent of his cologne, a familiar mix of cedar and something faintly medicinal, filled her senses, anchoring her.
"You scared the hell out of me, kid," he murmured into her hair, his voice rough, lacking the usual bravado that defined the Green Arrow. He pulled back just enough to look her in the eye, his face a mask of exhausted relief battling with severe reprimand. "Roy told me what happened. Do you have any idea what could have happened out there?”
Lexie felt a prickle of shame, the lingering sting on her backside making her acutely aware of the consequences of her choices. She wanted to snap back, to argue, but the raw intensity etched into Ollie's features made the words die in her throat. Instead, she just slumped against him.
"You are getting the paddle!" Ollie declared, his voice booming through the Cave with a finality that brooked no argument. He didn't wait for a response, shifting his grip to tuck her firmly under his arm, his stride purposeful as he headed toward the drawer that held the implement.
"But Roy already–" Lexie started to protest, her voice muffled against his side. She tried to squirm, but Ollie's hold was like iron.
"I don't care what Roy already did!" Ollie snapped back, cutting her off before she could finish. He looked down at her, his eyes flashing with a mixture of lingering fear and paternal fury. "You are in so much trouble, Alexandra! I was so worried! I've spent the last hour imagining the absolute worst-case scenarios. I am spanking you and then I'm not letting you out of my sight until you are 30!"
“Maybe you could hold off until the morning, Ollie, it’s late and she’s clearly exhausted,” Dinah suggested softly.
“No way, she’s been asking for this, Dinah,” Ollie countered. He adjusted his grip, securing Lexie even more firmly under his arm as he procured the small wooden paddle
Lexie looked at Dinah pleadingly, her eyes wide and shimmering with a desperate hope that her mother-figure might intervene. Instead, Dinah offered a firm, knowing look. Ollie sat on a bench and bent his daughter across his knee. The paddle came down with a sharp, echoing crack as he landed 10 harsh swats Each impact of the wood against her already sensitized skin was a sharp, biting shock that stole her breath as she sniffled over his knee. The stinging heat of the paddle was far more intense than Roy's palm had been. Tears flooded her eyes, spilling over in hot, rapid tracks as her pride finally crumbled completely.
When the tenth swat landed, Ollie didn't immediately let her go. He set the paddle aside on the bench and kept her draped over his lap. Lexie was sobbing openly now, her face buried. Ollie leaned down, and spoke in a voice that was low and vibrating with a mixture of sternness and profound affection. "I did that because I love you, Olivia.. I will spank you every time you look at a window for a bit too long if that's what it takes to keep you safe and sound within these walls. Do you understand me?" He waited for her tearful, muffled nod before gently helping her upright, pulling her into a final, soothing embrace.
Lexie knew Ollie was exaggerating when he said he would spank her just for looking out a window, but she knew he fully meant that he loved her with a ferocity she was only just beginning to grasp. Ollie looked down at the girl, about to say something more about the rules for the upcoming week, but realized the soft hitches of her breath had evened out. She had fallen asleep in his arms. With a sigh of quiet relief, he hoisted her up, settling her weight against his chest to carry her up to her room.
“I’ll handle Lexie” He told the others “You guys deal with the three stooges”