Last One Standing
By Nchan.
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed herein do not belong to me. They belong to DC comics, which I am given to understand is a subdivision of AOL Time Warner. I am making no profit from this fanfic.
Author's Note: This fic contains SPOILERS. Lots of SPOILERS. These are for current Flash events, Teen Titans: The Future is Now, and Identity Crisis.
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It was only recently that he had become the last one standing, but Robin had regretted the betrayal of trust for months.
Festering, gnawing at him, it had been all he could do to stop it from poisoning him as completely as it had polluted what had been the greatest friendship three people had ever shared, at least, from his side.
A year later, and he'd slowly started to forgive himself. Bart, ever generous, never reacted to the implied slight. Perhaps, with the details of Jack Drake's death obscured, he'd never known for sure about the implicit vote of no confidence.
Tim was sure, though, that Bart had felt it. He'd known the chasm was there, the rift ever widening between the two of them, close friends, team-mates. Two survivors out of the original three. It had seemed insurmountable even before Robin left with the rest of the Batclan for a year of review.
By the time they joined forces again to fight Deathstroke on Titans Island, there was no room for anything but the regrets.
"Kid Flash, cause a distraction like the old days –"
"It's just Flash now, Robin, and go easy on the orders. Just because I'm here doesn't mean I want to be a Titan again!"
It had taken all his training not to cringe at that. Flash didn't want to be a Titan the way that Kid Flash had needed to be. Bart wasn't Impulse anymore, and who he was now was capable of far greater things.
Impulse could distract, confuse. He could fight, and, at high speed he could win.
But he couldn't be entrusted with rescue.
Tim had often wondered, during his year of traveling, whether it was himself who had made that initial assessment, or if he had simply subliminated Batman's evaluation in place of thinking through his own. Impulse. From synapse to action in a single step, and as flighty as only the truly speed-gifted can be. He knew Barbara, having never met the young fleet-foot, had taken Bruce's judgement at face value. And Batman had not seen as the two-year old speedster had grown and developed, and adapted to the 'Real World' that was so different to the game scenarios he'd been fed at hyperspeed as a child.
Then Impulse had become Kid Flash, and read a library, and nothing had really changed as he was still just as intelligent a conversational partner, only now with added erudition. And thus his usefulness in conflict was essentially unchanged, at least according to conventional Batcave wisdom.
Distract. Get the bystanders out. Thump the metahuman menaces as and when they arose. Be very closely supervised whilst doing same by Max Mercury, or Flash, or the rest of the Teen Titans.
Robin, while happily exploiting Kid Flash's developing competence as an asset while he refined his strategies with the Teen Titans to expand the other's role to more than distraction, had not fought strenuously to have Batman review his views on the two year old teen.
That was a mistake, and one he'd paid a bitter price for.
That night, the terrible, soul-shattering night that was indelibly engraved in his mind. He had relived it in his nightmares for months. He suspected he would for the rest of his life.
If he thought about it, he could feel the soft chirr of the flame-resistant covering on the Batmobile seats, hear the controlled panic audible even through the slight static of Barbara's – not Oracle's - transmitted voice.
"Tim, get home. Now."
"What's wrong? What are you talking about?"
"It's your Dad."
Harsh wail of tires, flair of headlights, pressure forcing him back into his seat as the car spun three hundred and sixty degrees. Engine, purring and now roaring as Batman flattened the accelerator.
"Dad? Dad, are you okay?!"
"Barbara, call Wally."
Losing it. Too close to the heart, to close to home. Depending completely on the others, on Bruce and Oracle, who aren't equipped with the latest information. Who don't yet know how good at being a hero Bart really can be.
"Already tried. He's not picking up."
Lost it. Begging Batman to save his Dad. Knowing full well that they're minutes away, even with the Batmobile hitting one-sixty and its engine kicking up a notch.
But not calling Kid Flash, who has a Titans communicator.
Not calling Bart Allen, whose mobile number, while not on speed-dial, is still in Oracle's database.
Bang.
It festered. When Robin returned to Titans Tower only a week later, it was hard to talk to Superboy. Hard, to bring himself to acknowledge that the other teen knew. As if that somehow made it real.
But beyond hard, he could barely look at the speedster who formed the other third of their triumvirate.
The details of that night, of the conversation, were known only to four people. Three living Bats, and one dead father.
And one speedster never even got the call for help, never even knew he'd been passed over. Robin wondered if that, in the end, was why Bart had left the team.
Titans Together. Or not.
Tim had wanted to talk to the speedster after the battle with Deathstroke on Titan's Island. To apologise, though he knew he'd never tell this older, more severe Bart what he was apologizing for. The vote of no confidence, failure by omission, was not something he'd ever voice. Sometimes talking made things more real than they had any right to be. But with Jericho in Match, and the Flash needed elsewhere, goodbyes had been a hasty afterthought. The promise of a proper reunion delayed again for another time.
And then suddenly Wally West was back, and Bart was dead, and Robin the only remaining survivor of the original Young Justice. Last one standing of their triumvirate.
And Tim had never gotten the chance to apologise.
It was because of that, and because of the esteem in which Bart had always held the older man, that Robin nobly refrained from punching Wally's teeth in when he finally saw the newly resurrected speedster.
Couldn't be bothered to answer the phone that night, didn't have the JLA communicator with him.
Came back to be Flash before Tim was able to say how sorry he was to the Flash who truly deserved that apology.
It wasn't Wally's fault, and Robin knew that.
It was his own.
Last one standing.
Note 2: I consider this somewhat unsatisfactory as a piece of writing. I didn't really get to the nitty-gritty of what I wanted to, so please, when reading, be aware that this may not be the last time I play with this particular issue as I don't believe I've really done it justice.