Dick couldn't believe it.
He stood leaning on the hotel balcony, looking out toward the sea blankly. And he remembered why he was here; Bruce had said this vacation would take his mind off of things. Alfred was even here. But right now, Dick didn't want to talk to anybody. Anybody but Wally; but that wasn't possible now.
Dick still couldn't believe it. Even when he could vividly remember what had happened.
He and KF had gone on a mission by themselves. Maybe that had been the mistake. It was nothing special, just your average recon of information. There were so many people that Dick wanted to blame-the Justice League for not knowing the bomb had been there, the Mexican drug gang who had planted the bomb, but mostly he wanted to blame Batman for saving his own apprentice. And failing to save Flash's.
Come to think of it, that was the one person Dick wasn't mad at right now. Flash. Only he knew how painful this was, how horrible it felt to be without Wally. But how could they ever look at each other again without thinking of his nephew?
Suddenly, a memory came to mind. It was the day Kid decided to try out his new snowboard- on the water of Lake Runningway. It was stupid, really, KF had ended up putting too much speed on the thing and it shot forward so quickly it created the biggest wave you could imagine. The look on Al's face when he got wet was priceless. But everyone was just laughing so hard they didn't care.
"Master Dick?" A voice from behind him made Dick's smile fade and his memory vanished like mist.
"Dinner is ready," Alfred continued.
"I'm not hungry," Dick mumbled, looking down. The wind tussled his black hair and part of his jacket.
Alfred walked over, and Dick barely budged as he squeezed in next to him. "Would you like to talk about it now?" Alfred sounded as calm as ever. Ever since Wally had died a week ago everybody had been using their gentlest voices around him, their slowest of gestures, doing whatever they could to tiptoe around Dick…and he was sick of it.
"Why can't you have emotions for once?" Dick suddenly shouted. Alfred stood there calmly, so Dick continued. "Did it ever occur to any of you why I liked hanging out with him so much? You're all the SAME! You all don't feel anything, you're all just a bunch of feeling less zombies who don't get excited, or mad, or jealous…" He was now pacing the balcony, his hands up in the air. He suddenly stopped, his back toward Alfred.
"Master Dick, you would be terribly mistaken if you don't think I contain emotion," Alfred said. Dick's fists stayed clenched, his head down and his back still turned.
"We all miss him. But unfortunately death is a part of life-"
"You don't think I know that?" Dick suddenly turned, screaming again. "I got the same speech when my parents died, Al!" Tears streamed down his face.
Alfred walked forward and hugged him. And Dick was too sick and tired to move or push him away. So he just stood there, crying into Alfred. "I can't even remember them much anymore," Dick admitted, still a little choked up. "What if I forget him? Like I did with them?"
Alfred held Dick out, both hands on his shoulders. "You will not forget, Master Dick. Wally will never forget about you, and you will never forget him. Always remember that."
Dick went back into Alfred, crying a little more. As soon as he had calmed down more, someone coughed in the doorway. Dick turned to see Bruce. Something in himself immediately hardened.
A moment of silence passed. "I'll leave you two to talk," Alfred nodded to each and then walked out. Dick and Bruce looked at each other while he did.
"How're you feeling?" Bruce finally asked, walking out.
Dick looked away, "Fine."
"You don't look it," he sat down in a nearby patio chair.
Dick sighed, then looked back at the composed Bruce. "Why did you let us pull off a mission by ourselves? Why didn't the League know about the bomb?"
"I already told you the answer to the latter; it didn't register on our scanners," Bruce said. He watched Dick like a hawk. Like some kind of intriguing experiment under a microscope. Dick hated it.
"Scanners? You trusted scanners?" Dick spat, "What happened to the Batman that I knew, who actually saved lives?"
Now something in Bruce hardened. "Dick, you know it was complete accident. You don't understand-"
"Oh I understand-"Dick cut him off, narrowing his eyes. "You never liked Wally; you didn't care what happened to him,"
"Dick-"
"So if he lived, you'd say 'tough luck,'"
"Dick-!"
"But when he was presumed dead, you called off the search two days early!"
"Dick, there was no trace!" Bruce shot up, out of his chair. His chair clattered to the floor as the two stared each other down.
Bruce wordlessly turned and left. Leaving once again, a hurt and angered Dick.
That night dinner went on quietly in the Wayne's beach house. Nobody said anything, though Dick did steal a few quick glances at Bruce. He wasn't sure what he was looking for…another angry word? A tear? It didn't matter though; because nothing ever did happen.
Except later, in his room, Dick heard a knock on his door. He looked up from a magazine about something or other-he wasn't really paying attention. In entered Bruce.
"I'm sorry Dick," Bruce said. Something had changed in Bruce's tone, which caught Dick more off guard than what he had actually said. So, he continued to listen. But he looked back down at his magazine.
"I know Wally was a close friend of yours. Believe me or not, I listened to your stories all these years about you two running in and out of trouble together."
Dick swallowed, but said as strongly as he could, "Why didn't you ever say anything before?"
"Because nobody ever appreciates anything until it's gone," Bruce sighed, sitting down on Dick's bed. "Nobody but you, Richard."
Dick stared at the magazine page, the words and pictures jumbling and swirling together into something so interwoven that he could no longer distinguish anything. Did he really appreciate Wally as much as Bruce said?
'No trace', Bruce's earlier words echoed in his head. Dick squeezed his eyes shut, envisioning the explosion again. The atom-wiping, self-disintegrating explosion. No, there had been no sign of a red-and-yellow costumed redhead with a comedic attitude. No evidence of the green-eyed kid who laughed a lot.
"Are they done searching the site for any…remains yet?" Dick asked, eyes still closed. It was too hard to ask the flat out question of his best friend's remnants.
"Not yet; the League projects that they will be finished noon tomorrow." Bruce said. "But Dick,"
Dick looked up and over at him. "This was never your fault." He got up, leaving the room and turning off the light on the way out.
Dick dropped the magazine off the side of his bed, and turned over in his blankets. He thought about the advice he had gotten throughout the day- You will not forget, Master Dick. Wally will never forget about you, and you will never forget him…..this was never your fault.
Somehow, he fell asleep, still hoping that they were both right.
Dick slept in very late the next morning, having gotten next to no sleep in the last week. Well, week-and-a-day now. He walked into the kitchen, dressed for the day, with as much excitement and motivation as yesterday on the balcony. But something was wrong; Bruce wasn't around. Though his coat was. "Where's Bruce?" Dick asked Alfred, who was promptly scrambling eggs.
Alfred looked back at him. "He had to take care of some business, Master Dick. The remains of your friend the League has been trying to find…were not found."
Dick's eyes widened a little. He checked the microwave clock. Then the oven clock. He looked at every clock in the kitchen and realized that they were all right; it was 1 pm. An entire HOUR after the time predicted the League would find what was left of Wally in the wreckage.
"What happened? How'd they miss him?" Dick said frowning, sitting in a chair at the table.
"Nobody knows," Alfred had gone back to cooking, "Master Bruce left to help them investigate. He knows how much this means to you."
Dick frowned, looking down. He suddenly thought of Flash. "Didn't Flash help with the hunt? Isn't he there?"
"Yes, and he is very upset. As you would imagine," Alfred turned and walked back to Dick with a plateful of sausage, bacon, eggs, and toast. Dick knew Al thought breakfast the most important meal of the day; and he knew he had worked very hard on it. So Dick took a few bites even though he wasn't hungry.
"Can we go there?" Dick asked, after a few attempts at the food in front of him.
Alfred turned, smirking, "I was wondering when you'd ask that, Master Dick."
Dick returned the smirk, only weaker, as he stood up to grab his jacket. He was going back.
The full weight of Robin's question came back and hit him hard when he finally arrived. The building-what was left of it- was located on the outskirts of Gotham City, which was partly why he needed to get away from his home in the first place. Quite a few members of the League were talking urgently, motioning toward the mounds of rubble and demanding answers from one another. Robin had never seen any of them worked up so much over someone like KF. Robin saw Batman right away, off to the side and talking with Flash. As if on cue, he saw Robin's car and walked up as Alfred pulled up in a grassy spot near the back; out of the public's eye.
Not that there was a public eye to watch this. The people of Gotham over the last week had either lost interest or had been asked to leave by various members of the League. Robin knew none of them had even the slightest idea of what had happened here anyway.
"No sightings, no trace," Batman was talking to Alfred through the window. Robin realized that he was missing out on the conversation that he had been waiting on all day. "Nobody knows what happened to him."
Robin slumped a little in his seat, looking out the window. What had he been expecting? Wally would just pop right out of the rubble, claiming that this whole thing had been a scheme of his, a trick? Was he hoping for him to still be alive? It wasn't possible…was it? He decidedly opened the door up and walked out to investigate. He'd find out himself what was going on.
Batman paused in his briefing to watch him go, then resumed.
Robin's feet led him to Flash, who was now talking to Wonder Woman. "Flash, I know where you're coming from and everything, but we must face facts; he's not here," Wonder Woman said calmly and carefully.
Robin could tell Flash didn't like that tone either. "Then tell me where my nephew is. He has to be here. Where else could he be?" He sounded desperate.
Robin coughed a little, to let his presence be known. The two supers looked down and over at him. "Robin, we didn't see you there," Wonder Woman started.
"Can I talk to Flash? Privately?" Robin asked. Wonder Woman nodded. "I'll leave you two alone," she walked off.
Robin and Flash watched her go before Flash looked down at Robin. "What can I do you for?" He had his hands on his hips. But his tone still hadn't changed since he had talked to Wonder Woman.
"I was wondering if you thought any of this was…strange," Robin sounded small.
"You're suspicious too? I knew something was fishy around here," Flash looked off towards the rest of the League. "I have a feeling that whatever went down our sensors won't be able to pick up on it."
"So you think they're hiding something?" Robin asked, suddenly interested. "You think our sensors are just off?"
Flash looked like he wanted to say something, but just sighed. "To tell you the truth Robin, I don't know what to think anymore. They're right; it isn't possible for Wally to have survived that explosion alone."He paused, regaining his composure. "But we should have found a trace then…unless the explosion was so hot that there couldn't have been any possible traces," Flash's eyes widened the same way Wally did when he came to a realization.
Just then, a voice floated across the stretch of land, "Flash!" It sounded like Superman. Flash and Robin looked over. Sure enough, there was Clark Kent as Superman, standing near the rubble with a few other supers. He motioned for Flash to come over, "We need you."
Flash looked back at Robin. "Looks like I've got to skedaddle, kid," he sighed. "Will you be alright?"
Robin just nodded, not knowing what else to say. Flash put a hand on Robin's shoulder, before walking away. But Robin heard him mutter, "He was so young. I just wish it had been me."
Weeks went by. It seemed to Dick that everyone believed Flash's theory, and one-by-one, everyone just gave up. The world went on as it had always gone on. Dick went back to school; he walked home as always, studied as always, and fought crime as always. Dick received word somewhere around the second week that Flash came down with some sort of illness from the stress and depression of losing his only nephew and partner. In short, life sucked.
One day, when Dick had driven his motorbike to school instead of walking, he decided to take a detour home. He took a left at the place he and Wally used to meet up every day after school, then a right. He kept driving on, ignoring everything but the street he was on. And soon enough, he found himself back at the building site.
The site had changed a lot in the past few weeks- it was now a construction site. Builders and workers were just packing up for the day, the evening sun glinting orange off of the high metal beams and various tools. Dick hated it.
Just then, his phone rang. Dick dug through his bag to pull it out, checking caller ID first. It was the home phone; Alfred.
Dick answered it, "Hello?"
"Master Dick, where are you?" Alfred's voice came lightly over the phone.
"The construction site," Dick said. He didn't bother asking why nobody had told him they were now building on these grounds. He knew they didn't want to upset him anymore still.
There was a pause over the other end. "Dinner will be ready soon. We're having macaroni," Alfred tried to tempt him.
"I'm not hungry, Al, thanks," Dick was about to shut the phone.
As if sensing this, Alfred said "Master Dick, do you think he would have wanted you to be acting this way? Refusing to eat? Not sleeping? Letting your-"
Dick hung up before he could finish. He needed closure, not a lecture from Al.
One of the workers seemed to notice him then, so Dick thought it best to leave. He turned and sped away into the fast approaching and humid night, feeling just as crappy as the day Wally died.