AN: Set either during the first season or during the time skip. I don't own anything.
Wally had never liked banks. They were stuffy, uncomfortable and full of angry people. Aunt Iris didn't like them either, so she wasn't exactly disappointed when she had to send Wally instead because she was too busy. He sulked all the way.
Which is why, as he sat on the bank floor with a zip tie around his wrists, he was strangely grateful.
At least I have to have a bad day in a bank. If I had it in my favourite restaurant or something I'd never be able to eat there again without remembering it, The off duty Kid Flash thought. Barry had had that happen to him once. It happens to Batman all the time at Wayne Enterprises, according to Robin.
Apparently, the chance of common criminals attacking buildings with off duty superheroes nearby was very high.
The ringleader of the gang stalked in front of the hostages, who were all sitting against one wall. His dirty blonde hair (both in colour and hygiene) flopped around as he yelled, "Yo, listen up! All you hostages gotta do is sit silent, a'ight? I don't wanna hear no peep outta none of ya!"
Wally mentally cringed at the awful grammar even as he couldn't help but feel the tiniest white speck of fear. He started to wish the police got here faster, even if there wouldn't be much they could do. Those guns looked pretty high tech and there were tons of goons. Maybe he should call in The Team since Flash was off world. Out of costume, he couldn't do much more than growl at the thieves... who were pretty good at growling themselves. A little girl, about 8, had started to sob as the leader walked past her. He immediately spun and grabbed her arm threateningly.
"What'd I jus' say?" He snarled, shaking the girl. Her terrified mother screamed and he spun on her instead.
Oh no. In costume or not, Wally was a hero. There was no way this situation was going to get any better with these coldhearted thugs. He wasn't about to let this family die, not as long as he had anything to say about it, and say things he could. After all, his biggest weapon was his big mouth.
"Hey! Better put that girl down before you infect her with your suck you stupid oaf!" Not the best insult ever but hey, heat of the moment here. Cut him some slack.
At least the ploy worked. Thug Numero Uno dropped the girl and stalked towards Wally instead, "Smart guy, uh? This'll shut y'up!" he picked up the teen by the arm.
"Dude, my mouth isn't on my arm," Wally snarked. He couldn't help it.
Another thug (Wally named him Thug Numero Dos) looked over indolently. Hired help, if Wally had to guess. "Just get him out of here," Thug Numero Dos said, "Throw him in a vault or something, something soundproof."
Uno growled and started dragging him away from the other uncertainly watching hostages, namely the girl and her mother. They stared at him fearfully, though they still had that spark of gratitude in their eyes that Wally had become accustomed to while hero-ing. It made his deeds pretty worth it, at least. With one last reassuring smile, Wally was dragged around the corner and towards the bank vaults. One of them, a box about waist high, was thrown open. The snowflake of fear the speedster had felt earlier grew into a snowball-sized ball of icy dread in his stomach.
Uh, cops, now would be a very good time!
Before he could protest, Wally was tossed headlong into the vault. The burly thief gave one last cruel smile before slamming the vault door shut and locking it with one final, fatal click.
For a second he sat there, motionless, in pitch darkness. Then the panic set in.
Fists blurred against the vault walls, "Hey! Let me out! Let me outletmeoutlemmeoutlemmeoutle-" He stopped, panting. He was talking like a speedster. If anyone heard him they'd know, but thankfully the vault was airtight so-
Airtight. Oh gods, the vault is airtight.
The snowball of fear became a blizzard.
Blindly, Wally fumbled for his communicator. He was shaking too hard to get the zipper open so he sat for a second, trying to calm his breathing. Speedster hyperventilation was never a good thing, especially when said speedster was locked in a small, dark, impenetrable, solid-
The Justice League communicator finally slipped out of his pocked. He silently celebrated the fact that they'd taken his phone and hadn't bothered to look further.
"Kid Flash to Justice League. Kid Flash to Mount Justice."
Static. Was it just Wally or was it getting harder to breathe?
"Kid Flash to... to anybody! Come in!" Please "Does anybody read-"
"KF? What's going on?" Wally had never been so happy to hear another human voice.
"ROB! Whereareyouwhencanyougetherecanyou-"
"Woah! Dude, slow down! What's going on?"
"I'm at Central City Bank and I... I," he was definitely getting a bit lightheaded now, "I need help."
A zeta beam sounded on Robin's end, "Alright, alright, I'm coming with the team. Just stay traught and-"
"Rob... they- they locked me in a vault."
The footsteps stopped, then started again, quicker this time, "How small?"
Wally reached up and touched the roof of the vault. He paled, "Too small. A-and it's... airtight."
"We're coming buddy. Don't talk, ok? We're coming." Vaguely, shouting echoed through the link.
All Wally could do was nod.
"Hurry up!" Robin yelled, running towards the zeta beams, the team following closely behind
Wally's voice spoke again, "Rob? You still-"
"Shh! You're not supposed to talk, remember? Just stay calm, alright? We're zetaing to your position now"
Aqualad looked at Robin, "Why is it necessary for Wally to remain calm?"
Oh right, I have to tell them, "He's locked in a vault and if he doesn't conserve air he's gonna suffocate."
Before the team could react, the zeta beam sucked them in with a flash of light.
Recognize: Robin, B01. Aqualad, B02. Superboy, B04. Miss Martian, B05. Artemis, B07.
They jumped out of the tube on the other end, about 3 blocks from Central City Bank, and hit the ground running.
No sound of running, however, could block out the wheezing breaths coming from the com.
"We gotta move faster!" Artemis snarled, "He's gonna run out of air soon, you know how fast he needs to breathe!"
"How long does it take someone to suffocate?" M'gann asked overhead.
"Not sure, but-"
"C-can we... not talk 'bout suffo- *cough* suffocation?" Wally rasped before a fit of coughing stopped him
The team exchanged worried glances until Robin spoke up, "Sure, bud. What would you like us to talk about instead?"
"A-anyth..."
"Okay, okay. Did I tell you about the time I, uh, beat Mr. Freeze?"
Robin went on like that for awhile, rambling on about various stories during his time as Robin (he tried to stick with the funny ones, not the scary ones, but he was paying much more attention to Wally's increasingly forced breaths than his soliloquy) until they reached the bank doors.
"You should've seen the look on Freeze's face when he fell through the roof! If Zitka'd been there, she'd have laughed so hard-"
"Wally, we have arrived at the bank." Aqualad said, pushing open the doors. The current conditions didn't allow room for stealth. The only response from the link was weak coughing.
A hail of gunfire greeted the five heroes the minute the doors opened, sending everyone but Superboy diving for cover. He lunged forward and took out the first gunman, giving the others the opportunity to drop the rest.
Aqualad stormed up to one of the few that retained consciousness, a burly guy with dirty blonde hair, "These are not all of the hostages that were present during the robbery. Where is the missing one?" He hoped fervently the robber would be too dumb to wonder how the team supposedly knew how many hostages there were. Said thug pointed a shaky finger towards the hallway with vault he'd locked Wally in earlier.
"Thank you." The team wasted no time, sprinting down the hallway.
"Wally? Wally, you still there dude?" Robin yelled as he ran, com in ear. Not a whisper slipped through the line. He tapped it a few times, praying it was malfunctioning. Still nothing. A waist-high vault sat forlornly at the end of the hallway, among a ton of other half-open vaults along the walls.
"We're here, ok? Just hang on a little longer!" He crouched to pick open the lock before being shoved aside roughly by Superboy, who ripped the metal door off its hinges in half a second.
Wally tumbled out of the vault at his teammates' feet, completely limp. Aqualad immediately began CPR, always the clear-headed one, while Robin didn't move from where he'd been thrown. He sat, frozen, staring at Wally's equally unmoving form. The red hair clashed horribly with his pale skin, skin that looked almost blue in the fluorescent lighting. Only the sound of Aqualad's increasingly frantic breaths penetrated the silence. The team surrounded them, as if looking at Wally hard enough would magically grant life. Superboy was moving just as much as stone would at that moment, M'gann gripping his arm. Artemis had already broken an arrow in her hands and was twisting another one agitatedly. They stared.
Suddenly, Wally gasped and gagged, back arching on the bank floor. The team sprung to his side, desperate for any signs of consciousness.
"Wally? Can you understand us, friend?"
"I can't sense his mind!"
"Wake up, Baywatch!"
"Everyone stay traught, he's breathing, that's the important thing."
Wally groaned and settled back down, eyes squeezed shut. His breathing returned to a steady pace as his posture relaxed. It would have looked like he was asleep except for the too-pale skin, and even that was abating as his breathing improved, slowly returning colour to his skin.
Aqualad sighed with relief, "He's stable, we should return him to Mount Justice, med bay."
"Can we transport him through the zeta tubes when he's like this?" Artemis asked.
"The only other option would be to walk him back on foot. We have no choice." Robin said, grim.
Zeta tubes were the fastest method of transport available to heroes, which is why the team used it to get to Wally. If they'd used the bioship they would've been far too late. Unfortunately, getting back became a bit of a problem. Wally had started to come to by the time they'd reached the zeta beams, eyes fluttering and groaning right before they stepped through. When they reached the other side, however, he was out cold again and didn't wake up again. Supposedly turning someone into billions of tiny particles (and back again) directly after near asphyxiation was bad for their consciousness. Go figure.
Now, sitting next to a fully unconscious Wally while a frantic Flash zipped around the city in an ill-fated attempt to calm down, they had nothing to distract them from just how wrong everything was. Wally was always moving, always talking, full of energy, life... watching him still and silent somehow made everything still and silent. Too still and silent. Unnervingly still and silent. It was the sort of silence that swamps you in horror movies right before the jump scare. The creeping feeling that sends chills down your spine, not as much scary as disconcerting. Wrong.
Finally, Artemis couldn't stand it anymore. "Why is it so quiet?" she snapped.
The rest of the team looked at her sadly. They all felt it. Nobody answered.
"I believe it is because he is the energy of the team." Kaldur said at last, hesitantly. Meeting many confused stares, he continued, "Wally is the most energetic of us, breathing warmth and humour into the team dynamic. There is no doubt that his absence or injury makes the team feel silent and lifeless."
The pondering silence that followed made the truth undeniable. It felt like someone had cut away the energy of the team, leaving a dull shell in it's place. Sure, they'd keep superhero-ing like usual, but it wouldn't be nearly as spirited. Wally filled the empty space in a way no other team member could with his humour and life.
Which meant, seeing as he was indisposed at the moment and the empty spaced silence was getting painful, someone else had to step in.
Robin wriggled his eyebrows at Artemis, who was staring at Wally like everyone else. "Impressed, huh?"
The archer scowled at him ill-temperedly, "Not on your life, boy blunder."
"Hey!"
"Team, please. Just because Artemis loves Wally doesn't mean we should fall into chaos," Aqualad smirked.
Robin doubled over with laughter, M'gann giggled, Superboy grunted and Artemis turned bright red.
"Looks like you've gotten yourself into quite the interstice there, Arty." Robin teased.
Said archer was about to cut a sharp reply when a groan sounded from the bed.
The world came flooding back in a sharp gasp, pouring in and overwhelming Wally with its vibrancy. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. His chest felt like it was being squished by the elephant Dick kept yammering on about. Geez, he was so hungry he could eat that elephant. What happened? Where were his energy bars?
A relieved snort echoed from somewhere, "Your energy bars are gonna have to wait, Baywatch."
Arty? Artemis was here? Oh great, he probably looked awful. Was the whole team here? Wait, he'd said the energy bar thing out loud? Was he saying this out loud?
Someone else chuckled, sounding just as relieved, "Yeah, you are."
All of it? Even the Artemis part?
"Yeah dude, even the Artemis part."
Wally swore and forced his eyes open. All his teammates were there, Aqualad, M'gann, and Conner looking relieved and Robin and Artemis laughing their heads off.
"Welcome back to the land of the living my friend," Aqualad said.
"Thank you," Wally croaked. Why was everyone looking at him weirdly? Sure, usually he liked the attention of pretty girls, but something in their expressions was... different. Maybe it was about what Robin had said back in the vault. Wally had listened extra hard to that speech, probably because it had been the only thing to distract him from his... predicament.
"Uh... guys? Is everything ok?" he asked.
"We're just happy to see you up again!" M'gann squealed happily.
"Ohh-kay..." Wally glanced at Robin. He looked normal, but just to be sure... "You ok dude? You really took a trip down memory lane."
For a second, Robin looked bewildered, "What?"
"You know, about your first year? Back when I was... uh, yeah."
"OH." Robin's expression went from bewildered to shut up faster than Wally could talk.
"Oh yeah! I had been meaning to ask, who is Zitka?" M'gann chirped.
"Uh..."
"Who's Batgirl?" Superboy asked.
"Um-"
M'gann kept going, "Did you say something about a butler? Are you rich?"
"I-"
"What exactly happened with Two-face? You kinda glossed over that part." Artemis interjected. She usually wasn't one to pry too much, but she wasn't about to let the bird's previous comments slide so easily.
"Well... uh, I sorta..." Robin fidgeted, the eyes of the whole team on him. Wally mouthed, Sorry. If Robin had super speed, his chair would have been a pile of ashes right now. He flushed, tempted to pull the classic bat-escape that annoyed Wally so much.
"Hm. Looks like you've gotten yourself into quite the interstice there, Rob." Artemis smirked.
Robin caved to temptation. He sprung onto his chair and leapt off the armrest, swinging himself into the rafters and out of sight.
Wally howled with laughter while M'gann and Aqualad chuckled. Even Superboy cracked a smile listening to Artemis yelling at the empty ceiling.
"What?! Get down here and answer the question! You can't just escape like that! Stupid little-"
An airy, haunting laugh floated from the rafters, enraging Artemis all the more. The... descriptive words made M'gann wince but had Wally laughing all the harder. He forgot all about small spaces, vaults, and suffocation. For a second, he even forgot he was in a hospital bed and that he'd almost died. He let go of his pain and did what he did best—live.
Until Uncle Barry ran in.
AN: Alright! Thanks for reading the first half of Interstice! The second half should come along soon enough... yeah, I like two-shots.
The whole thing is dedicated to the awesome MarburyBlur, who supplied the prompt. Check out some of her work, she writes an amazing Wally.
Also, I know I'm stretching the definition of the word interstice a little, but (to me, you can look it up if you want to) it basically means a small space. I feel like it can represent the vault Wally got locked in or the awkward, tight situations Artemis and Robin talked themselves into. Or both (yay, double meanings!)
Oh! One more thing. All the events Robin refers to during his speech occur in Robin: Year One. For all my fellow Robin lovers, that's a great read.
That's all for now. Thanks again for reading! I hope you enjoyed it (especially you, MarburyBlur)
Thank you.