It's a beautiful June morning. The sky is clear and the sun is warm, not so much that it's uncomfortable to stand in the grass field, but the black clothes seem too dark, too hot, too restraining, especially for someone who doesn't don the color so often.
Dinah is by his side, holding his hand so tight he's afraid she might hurt herself. He feels the callouses on his palm brush against her soft skin and the ring she's wearing, a promise and a commitment. To his right, Roy holds his baby girl, while a very displaced Jade Nguyen has an arm around her sister's shoulders. Something inside of him breaks, something that was still somehow in one piece, when he sees the look on Artemis' face. He went to her mother's house the very next day to check on her, but Paula asked for them to talk somewhere else, so they went to the diner a few blocks down the street and they talked like the old friends that they weren't, and she eventually confessed she had an hour-long speech prepared for when she saw Artemis again. And how each word had become ash in her mind and in her tongue when she saw the red eyes and the way the Martian girl held her and put her in bed.
"It's not fair," Ollie murmurs to himself, shaking his head and gripping Dinah's hand a little harder. The kid had sacrificed months of her life and when she finally came back and was about to get a new chance... "It's not fair," he repeats a little louder and Dinah is bringing a handkerchief to her eyes.
Artemis raises her head, almost as if she could hear him. Her gray eyes pierce him and he feels once again like a failure. It doesn't matter that the first Roy is alive – he's gone rogue and stays as unreachable as he can. It doesn't matter that the second Roy has a daughter now – he never really lets go of the fact that he thinks he's a fraud. It doesn't matter that Artemis wasn't killed by Kaldur'ahm, that it was all a plan, that she's back – this girl he knew nothing about when he took her as his protégé had become part of his family. He had started finding himself calling her over to Star City for a patrol simply because every hand in the game was betting against her odds of not repeating the mistakes of her entire family, and he cared. And when you let someone in, and when you see them going from a stubborn girl to a confident young woman, it is hard not to feel that part of it has to do with you. And so it's hard not to feel that he has failed this girl, and he has failed both Roys, and maybe he will fail Dinah too.
He's the one to break the eye contact, because he can't stand this. The feeling of impotence. So he glances the group gathered by the empty tomb. So many of them, kids who weren't even suppose to know how long a broken bone took to heal unless it was caused by a bike accident, all of them counting much more stitches than would be fit for their years.
"We should go and talk to Barry and his family," Dinah says, shaking him out of his numbness. This is the second service the Wests are holding and he can see the emptiness on those people eyes, the same emptiness that fills the casket buried six feet under. All the Leaguers and all the Team members decided there was no need to make them go through this again, but Barry said they had insisted on being there, at least for a few minutes.
He nods, but lets her hand go and takes the few steps that separated him from Artemis. Her sister looks at him with an evil eye but releases her grip on the girl's shoulders before taking her baby from Roy. The three archers are less then three feet apart but there is a chasm between them. They won't speak. They don't have to.
"Do you need anything?" he asks both of them, breaking the silence. Roy looks a little surprised, which hurts. Artemis looks numb, which hurts even more. But she's the one who answers first. It's an unsure movement at first, but once he understands he's holding her close in her arms and stroking her hair, that was let lose today. "You know you can call me, right?" She shakes her head, almost imperceptibly.
Ollie is selfish. He's been told that before, in different times of his life, but never before has he found himself agreeing with such a statement, and so strongly.
Because as he strokes her hair and sees the pity burning its way to Roy's eyes, he's actually somewhat happy.
"It's not fair," he repeats, cooing her.
But he has just recently found out that one of his kids was not in fact dead. And he's hugging her for the first time since.
When Dick arrives, he's actually waiting for Nightwing.
Which makes no sense, as he is Bruce Wayne, sitting in his office at Wayne Enterprises, dealing with impending issues that were waiting for him to come back from his "spiritual journey" or whatever other excuse for his absence was given by Alfred. The papers are piling up, his civilian agenda is filled for weeks to come and there are still matters to be discussed in the Watchtower.
So seeing Dick ends up being a whisk of fresh air.
He still sees the scrawny nine-year-old from the circus, avid for revenge, eager to learn. He hears the high-pitched laugh resonating on the Batcave, disrupting the bats' sleeping hours and his own concentration. It doesn't matter how many other children he takes under his black wing, it doesn't matter how old and how tall he has grown, Dick is always going to be his kid. He is also one of the few, very few people in the world, who eventually saw through him, through the cowl and the white lenses and the constant mask beneath them, so he couldn't blame him for trying to move on.
But he cannot say it was easy to let go.
This is the first time they meet – only the two of them – since he came back. No masks, no company.
As soon as Dick steps into the office, he knows this won't be easy.
There is a light inside his eyes, despite the dark circles under them, and his steps try to be less hesitating then they are. He is trying to hide himself, something Bruce can only tell because he has known him for years and knows his tells, maybe even better them Dick himself knows them.
"How are you?" He tries to sound casual.
"You weren't at Wally's service." Dick sounds hurt. "Everybody was there."
Dick has seen through him, Dick knows who he is, Dick knows how to confront and when. He is not here to discuss Team and League matters.
"I had urgent matters to attend. I believe you understand it."
Dick shakes his head, a ghost of a smile on his face, haunting.
"Not this time, no."
Bruce knows where this is going. He does not want to acknowledge it, because this is not supposed to happen. But he sees the tells. It is not just the tired look on Dick's face, it is not the red on his eyes. It's the way he's sitting at the chair, it's the way he asked to see him, it's the way his voice is broken.
"I know he was your friend."
"He was my best friend. And one of the very few, too."
They are looking at each other, all defenses down from Dick, all defenses always raised from Bruce. He sees a boy sitting across from him, crying in a damp cemetery before his family's tombstones. He sees a boy excelling in acrobatics and in hacking systems.
"I am sorry, Dick. I really am."
"I've spent the last week going through old files." And old memories too, Bruce is sure of it. "Like the day we found Conner."
He sees a boy playing video-games with his red-haired friend, killing zombies until both of them are exhausted. He sees a boy going through different suits because he is growing out of them so fast now.
"I know," he says, simply because he feels Dick needs the incentive.
"It will be six years next week." He sees a boy telling him he needs to move on. He sees a boy asking him his permission and his blessing and his opinion on his new costume. He sees a boy packing his belongings and moving out, to a warehouse in Blüdhaven. "I've been a hero for most of my life." He sees a boy who laughs everything away becoming a secluded and solitary man finding solace in his work. "I think I need a break."
"From the Team?"
"From the job."
He sees Nightwing, and his first Robin, and the youngest of the Flying Graysons. And he nods.
"If that's what you want..."
Batman is disappointed. He always is. But Bruce gets up from his chair, walks around his table and hugs Dicks, in the awkward and unfamiliar way he knows how to.
He wants his son to be happy, if he can.
He hasn't had a lot of free time in the last two weeks, but whenever he does, he comes here. He knows Iris needs him, that the League needs him, but he can't stop himself. In one minute, he's in Central City, the sun of a hot Sunday afternoon warming him through his suit. In the next, he's breathing the polar air.
There's nothing there anymore, nothing left. The first day he came was June 21st, and already had their track marks been erased by the winds. He knows the spot, though. He feels like his body is magnetically drawn there, and maybe it is. The days go by and he goes back to the same spot, and he knows that even if the MFD left some kind of residual magnetic energy in his body, it is gone by now.
And still he comes back, the same spot every time.
A foot into the snow, and he remembers the first time he saw the kid running. He actually remembers a lot that comes before that, like him trying to make the kid understand that he didn't want a sidekick, or the way the would run around the house since a young age, telling his parents that one day he would run as fast as uncle Barry, the kid running around him for the first time, still slow but so much faster than anything before, demanding his attention...
As scared as he was, as nervous and anxious as he could possibly feel, he could never deny that the kid was built for that. That running made him even more alive. And Barry understands that. He understands it in a way that is not logical, but comes from his heart and his guts, because he too only feels complete and fully alive when stomping the floor with his feet, when buzzing through other people's lives.
So from there, he accepted wholeheartedly what it meant to be a mentor, what it meant to have a sidekick. And then, faster than even he could understand, he had grown happy with the fact that he had someone to share it all with. That he had a partner rather than a kid he had to guide through the life.
He stops. He tries to stop completely, to feel the rhythm of the world around him like a non-speedster would. It takes effort, even more so because he doesn't have Iris to anchor him. He needs to breath in and out, to embrace the icicles that prickling his cheeks. If he reaches out, if he stretches his hand into the snow dust surrounding him, he can feel the flux of wind of someone running and disappearing before his very eyes, even if he cannot see through the thick curtain of tears. He wasn't strong enough. He wasn't fast enough.
"It was my fault..." he tells no one, he tells himself, he tells Wally. "It was my fault, Kid..."
He falls on his knees and allows the tears to fall as well. It's the first time in two months he does so. He hid from Mary and Rudolph, because he knew he couldn't face them. He hid from the League for three days, because he knew he couldn't face them either. Now, in the Arctic, there are no curious eyes, there is only Barry and Barry doesn't want to hide anymore.
"I loved you so much..." he almost chokes with his words. "If you only knew..."
"I think he did."
This boy looks smaller, thinner, his hair is darker and his voice is of a higher pitch. His smile is more timid and his teeth are not as white. It's Bart who is kneeling in front of him, and it's Bart who holds him in a tight, awkward and loving embrace, one Barry has learned to expect.
"Bart, what are you doing here?" he asks when he's able to, the sound of his voice muffled by the mane of brown hair.
The boy lets go and takes of his goggles, looking at Barry with a pair of West green eyes, so much like Iris' and Wally's.
"Had a little time off. You know, between missions. Decided to come down here. It's usually a lot less crowded, though."
Even sitting on his heels, Bart is still on the go. His eyelashes batting too fast, his fingers drumming on his knees, even his speech sounds almost confusing. But then he notices that it is not his grandson's speed that causes it, but the tears that also fall down his freckle-less cheeks.
"Yes, I..."
"I miss Wally." It's an frank response, and one that robs Barry of the air on his lungs. "Didn't have a lot of time with him, but I liked him."
They lower their eyes to the goggles resting on Bart's legs. Barry has to force himself to breath in and out. He misses Wally, the boy who came running into his life and clung to the image of his uncle and to the Flash. He misses his sidekick, his partner, his friend. And he's afraid of how much it hurts now he lets himself miss his nephew.
"Wally was right," he says. "Someone should continue the family tradition of yellow and red."
He looks up, back into Bart's eyes. The boy who came running into his life, who clung to the waist of his grandfather. He's faster than Wally, he's almost as intelligent. His brows are tense, his lips pursed.
"What?"
It's July 4th. It's been six years since Wally started the Team.
"I don't know if he ever told you but... He wanted you to take the Kid Flash mantle once the invasion was over."
Bart nods, slowly, a strange movement coming from him.
"He talked about it. In the summit."
It's been six years since Barry has realized that Wally would grow up, grow wiser, and maybe one day become his idol so Barry could grow older and calmer.
"So...?"
The boy's face is once again relaxed, but still unsure.
"It would be an honor."
They share a smile. One full of pain and of uncertainties. It's Barry's turn to hold Bart, and he hopes that with this he can assure the boy that he doesn't have to be afraid of not belonging, that he has a place in this world and in this time, that he is not a substitute but his own person, that his path and his mistakes are his own. There's so much he wants to say, to Bart, to Artemis, to Mary and Rudolph, and to Wally.
It's been six years since his nephew challenged the League. He was so proud of him.
And there's only one thing he can bring himself to say.
"Let's make Wally proud."
Autor's note: I started writing this the day after "Endgame" aired and hadn't been able to finish it until now. Turns out, it was hard dealing with the aftermath of Endgame because I too have had a hard time moving on and letting go. While this is not a goodbye, it is my way of finishing 2013 accepting the good and the bad that have come - Young Justice included.