They had planned the perfect weekend.
It happened to be the first weekend of spring break, and old bats had given Dick the okay to spend a couple days in Central with Wally. They had planned to live it up. Beach parties and hot girls and late nights: everything spring break was supposed to mean for normal teenagers. But of course Kid Flash and Robin: The Boy Wonder were anything but normal teens...
"Look out!"
Robin's voice pierced through just milliseconds before the whistling bullets that nearly took Kid's head off.
The pair of young heroes currently found themselves in the transport hanger of Central City's major shipping warehouse. They were spending their beautiful afternoon avoiding bullets and bombs. Never mind the zoo that was open three blocks down; ignore the pizza parlor that gave Wally unlimited breadsticks. Forget all further plans. There's a city that needs saving. And when you're the only pair of superheroes around, (of course Uncle Barry had a league mission this week. Isn't that always how these things work?) it's your job to disregard those things when some new mad man decides the east end of Central is the perfect place to test out his new atomic bomb torpedoes.
Apparently this new guy, calling himself Nitrostorm, had some grand scheme planned out to hold Central City for ransom by using an arsenal of small nuclear torpedoes as his bargaining chip. If the city paid up, he wouldn't blow them all to smithereens.
It was the classic new Supervillain agenda, if Kid Flash said so himself.
"You mini supers are downright pitiful! I mean, I knew ol' Flash was outta town but I expected more fight outta my resistance." The new villain taunted.
Neither Kid Flash nor Robin replied as both dodged the latest flair of bullets coming from Nitrostorm's goons' semi-automatics, using super speed and a triple summersault respectively.
The goons relentlessly pounded away at the building's exterior with their bullets. The harsh, rich echoing reverberated in Wally's ears like a sick warning chant. Robin was forced into another summersault in attempt to avoid Nitrostorm's seemingly endless supply of grenades. Wally was no better off; the goons seemed to find him particularly interesting and were contently unloading their semi-automatics on his blur of a body. Dodging the fray was not nearly as easy as The Flash always made it out to be, and Wally couldn't suppress the wince that escaped his mouth at the sudden pain of a skidding billet against his thigh. The pair was sitting ducks in this confined, unstable place. In the middle of freaking nowhere, too, Wally cursed to himself.
The two friends made their way to a corner of the warehouse and took cover underneath a wall of shipping boxes, a rainfall of bullets immediately hitting the other side.
"KF, we need to bail!" Robin called over the roar. His eyes were hidden under his domino mask, but Kid Flash could still see the twitch in them.
"No shit!" He resisted the implied 'Sherlock' at the end. No need to get angry. Barry had been trying to tell him that lately. Missions were not the times to let your heart do the ruling. Kid Flash had a job to do, and mouthing off at his one ally wouldn't do him any good.
Too suddenly for Kid's liking, the bullets stopped. Robin sent a wary glance his way before looking over the top of the crates cautiously. Wally followed suit to see Nitrostorm shooing his men down, his mini-nuke-torpedo-thing strung across his back. "Come on out, kids. Ya must know by now there's nowhere for ya to run."
He spoke with a calm, confident demeanor that sent Wally's blood boiling at the same time that chills ran down his spine. The speedster looked to Robin to see the hacker typing furiously at his wrist computer. Wally hoped to God the Boy Wonder had some crazy trick up his sleeve because both heroes knew this guy was just taunting them. Nitrostorm could toast them whenever he wanted.
Wally tended to talk when he got nervous. "I don't know, looks to me you're the one hiding behind your little posse of guns over there, cowards!" He called, glad his voice shook less than his hands.
Barking laughter echoed around the warehouse. "'Cowards'? Big talk for the one without the guns, little man. Come on around now. I don't wanna have to pull this out if I don't need to." He gestured threateningly to his attached, make-shift torpedo.
Wally swallowed. Would this psycho really try to launch that thing with them all inside? The only way he could see this working out for Nitrostorm was if he let his goons shoot and keep the two of them there while he shot the entire building from afar. Somehow Wally doubted his goons would like playing babysitter shark bait very much.
Still, the speedster trembled. "Hey Rob, got any ideas-?"
He turned, expecting to find his friend right behind him, only to be met with empty air. The boy wonder's signature cackle echoed through the walls as Nitrostorm's goons whipped their heads around trying to find the source. Wally too searched the room's ceilings and hidden cubbies in a knowingly fruitless attempt to locate the bird. He unconsciously let out a sigh of relief. Wally never really liked it when Robin disappeared like that—irritating little show-off—but usually when he did, things turned out alright. What could he say, bat training was good.
Robin's snicker rang out once more, but this time distinctly to the left. The five goons' heads, plus Wally and Nitrostorm's, whipped over to see the Boy Wonder standing over the loading crates filled with Nitrostorm's atomic weapons prepared for fire. The condescending smirk evident on his features, he cockily pressed a button on his wrist computer. One by one, the blinking lights on the activated weapons started going out, and, one by one, the structural component started to disintegrate, rendering the bombs useless.
"No…!"
Wally looked over to Nitrostorm to see the horror comically plastered on his face. The speedster almost felt pity for the villain as he anxiously gripped fistfuls of his hair in his hands and screamed "No!" even louder.
"Sorry," Robin mocked, "I guess your ammo had some wiring problems. You might wanna look into that next time."
God, Wally loved that kid.
Nitrostorm's face was livid. The man looked deranged as the gravity of what Robin had done started to fully sink in. He pressed a foot forward and jabbed his pointed finger towards the Boy Wonder. "Finish them!"
As the coward turned to retreat, his goons started firing their semi-autos once more.
'Well, not really one for the villain monologuing then, are we?' Wally thought as he ducked once more behind the crates. Wally thought he saw one of the goons place a hand over his ear, as if listening to a radio call, but really, at the moment he was more concerned about not having his face blown off, and hoping that his protective boxes were filled with steel blocks.
The sudden, faint cry of a little bird alerted Wally's attention. He whipped his head around, suddenly not particularly caring if he got hit, to see his friend clutching his side while crouching behind another set of crates.
"Robin!"
At a speed that would have put The Flash to shame, Wally zipped forward to his friend, ignoring the flurry of bullets still coming. The speedster's hands immediately went to Robin's shoulders. The poor kid' face was scrunched in pain while his gloved hands pressed hard against his side. Red liquid seeped through his fingers. Oh god... That was blood. That was Robin's blood. That was a lot of Robin's blood. Shit.
"Rob! Dude, what happened?"
"Got scraped," He grunted, lifting his wet hand up to look at it. "Stupid bullets..."
"Can you walk?" Of course he couldn't walk, Kid Idiot. His freaking blood is decorating the floor!
Robin just shook his head, getting right back to business. "The primary settings on the bombs have been deactivated, but the league's still gonna want to see the hardware of the mechanisms. As well as find out how someone like this guy could get his hands on so many of 'em. I need you to speed over and gather as many as you can and run 'em back to base for analysis. Then you gotta—ack!"
Robin doubled over, grabbing his pained side. Yeah, no. Kid Flash would do no 'speeding away' unless it involved carrying a certain partner out of the firing zone.
"Aaand that's my queue to get you out of here." Wally made to scoop him up, earning a shove of protest and a tiny whimper. "Sorry! Sorry, sorry." He mumbled. "You'll thank me for this later when we're back at the Hall and Bats asks you what exactly happened and you'll gesture gratefully to your loving savior and-"
"KF, shh!" Robin gestured with his free hand. Immediately Wally knew what was wrong. The bullets had stopped firing. Wally lifted his head up over the crates to see an empty floor. The goons were gone. Why were the goons gone?
Kid Flash and Robin exchanged a look of dreadful realization. Neither of them were idiots. They both knew exactly where the men went. They both knew why their leader had left earlier. The more distance he got from his firing target, the less risk he put on himself, after all. And you didn't stay in business by blowing up your partners. No. You gave them enough time to get out of the building, too.
Even as he scooped up Robin, (he would never get over how light the boy was) Wally knew they would never make it. It was almost as though the hairs on the back of his neck had some sixth sense that told him the torpedo had already been launched.
The world around the heroes exploded in a flash of bright, clichéd white light. The boom which reverberated the once standing walls was ten times more than Wally's Meta-human ears could handle. He tried to super-speed the two of them out, but sudden debris from the explosion slammed hard into his back and threw him off balance. With a cry of surprise and pain, Wally tripped on his feet, and Robin was flung out of his arms. Too much was happening at once. He was pushed to the ground, skidding on his stomach. Pieces of crumbling concrete and metal fell all over the place. He thought he saw Robin shouting something to him. Wally lifted his head to see the screaming face of his best friend. Wally tried to lift his hand, to show Robin that he saw him, but something hit him hard in his back. His world turned black.
~.~.~.~.~.
Wally came to an immeasurable time later. He was first aware of a hard pressure on his back: the board that struck him, he assumed. 'Oww… that didn't feel like a back massage.' He tried wiggling his fingers first, then his toes—'Still twitching. Good sign, at least.
He let out a long, pained groan and slowly lifted his body up. He thanked the karma god that had only piled that single metal sheet on top of him. That could have been a lot worse... Wally flung the board off and stood slowly, cracking his back. He was going to be sore tomorrow.
Wally looked around at the mess. The warehouse had been completely obliterated. Nothing was left in-tack from Nitrostorm's explosion, and, from the looks of the small fires still burning here and there, Wally hadn't been out for too long. All too harshly, memories from just before the explosion came back.
Wally's heart dropped, "Rob!"
Faster than the blink of an eye, Kid Flash sped around the debris. He flung up pieces at random, anything that looked like it could hold a small, thirteen year-old boy. He searched, all the while his heart rate increasing with his anxiety.
"Damnit... Damnit... Damnit" He muttered under his breath.
Far too long of a time later, he flung up a discarded piece of what looked like scorched metal to find an unconscious face underneath.
"Rob!"
His best friend looked terrible. Robin's masked face was the only thing uncovered, and streaks of blood seeped slowly from an open wound in his head. That wasn't even the worst part. Not only was the rest of his face peppered with multiple nicks and dirt stains, Wally was unable to uncover the rest of him. Rob's torso was held by a large pipe that pinned his small form to the ground.
Wally zipped to the pipe and lifted ...tried to lift. The pipe must have weighed nearly a freaking ton because Kid Flash could hardly budge the damned thing.
Freaking Damnit!
Wally went back to Robin's face and lightly smacked his cheek, "Robin! Dude, wake up! Come on, man, ya gotta give me a little something here. Robin! Wake up! Please!" Wally didn't even mind how desperate he sounded. He needed Robin to open his eyes.
Slowly, too slowly, Robin's eyes fluttered up as the white holes in his domino mask expanded. His head turned and he let out a slow moan in pain.
"Rob!" Wally couldn't hold back his smile.
"KF..." Robin's voice was so quiet. "Wha... What hap'ned"
He didn't remember... Why didn't he remember? "There... there was an explosion, man. Remember? That jackass with that mini nuke decided to launch his thing at the warehouse. Guess he decided to play karma. Don't think he's entirely qualified, if you ask me."
That earned a small chuckle from the Boy Wonder, but it quickly turned into a fit of tiny, wet coughs that started attacking Robin's body. Little splashes of blood came out of his mouth, landing on his cheek. Wally's stomach dropped and his body started to vibrate with worry.
"Okay, okay no more talking." He fumbled, "Time to get you out of here."
Wally tried the pipe again, to no avail. His muscles screamed in protest under the load. Come on, come on, come on! Why wouldn't this damn thing budge! Robin's little cry of pain reached Wally's ears as the pipes pressure slip deeper into his stomach and the speedster let go immediately.
"Sorry! Sorry. Sorry. Sorry." He repeated. His breathing started to hitch.
"Ow..." Robin breathed.
"What's wrong?" Besides the obvious.
"L-leg... Hurts."
Wally's brow furrowed as his eyes went to where the Boy Wonder's legs should be buried. A large steel box covered most of the area, but, with the extra adrenaline that was surely running through his system, Wally went over to it, pushed on its side, and managed to roll the box out of the way.
That didn't make him feel any better, though.
That box had been right on top of Robin's left leg. What remained was a bloody, broken mess that used to be bone. Robin's leg was completely shattered...
"KF... What is it?" His voice was surprisingly steady... albeit quiet.
Wally's, not so much. "N-nothing, dude... You, uh... just got a little… banged up."
"That bad?"
Wally frowned. He forgot that he was talking to a bat. He didn't reply, however, as he returned to Robin's line of sight.
"I'm gonna get you out of here, alright." He promised. Damned if he couldn't lift the freaking pole, he was going to find a way.
"Okay..." Robin muttered. His eyes under his mask fluttered dangerously.
"No, nononono, don't you go to sleep. You gotta stay awake, man."
"Kay."
Wally cursed (more than Robin's thirteen year-old, sensitive ears have ever heard, he was sure) when the eyeholes in Robin's mask became slits. No! This wasn't right. Wasn't batman supposed to have trained this kid to handle anything? Surely gaping head wounds would have been covered in one of his simulation things! Right? Why didn't Robin know what to do? Why did Wally have to handle this...? How was he supposed to know...?
Wally tried slapping his friends face again. Harder. Nothing.
Wally stood and took several, super-speed laps around the ruins, running exasperated hands through his sweaty, dirty hair. Too close. Everything was too close and confining. He wanted to run. He wanted to feel the wind whipping through his hair as he left this whole mess behind him at the speed of sound. But no, he needed to help Robin. He tried to lift the pole one more time. Running at the thing from every angle possible, using other, smaller poles to try and pry it up. Yet nothing he did budged the thing even a bit.
This wasn't working. He needed to get help. But to do that would mean leaving Robin. The Boy Wonder was already far more bloodless then he thought any normal human could live through. Then to add a severe concussion on top of that? Still, Wally was doing no good here. There was no way he was going to lift that pole off Robin by himself. Wally steeled himself for his friend's sake and zipped back to his side.
He tried shaking him again, "Rob? Wake up." The guy could hope.
By some miracle, Robin let out a small groan. "Mmm."
"Rob! Dude, you with me?"
"Kinda..." He paused. He was breathing really hard for some reason, "Not really feeling the aster currently."
Wally let out a gasp of wild laughter, more out of relief than anything. "I don't really blame ya, man. I'm gonna go get us some help, alright? Find someone to get this pole off you."
"Kay." He still sounded exhausted. Wally wondered if he could find a way for him to stay awake. "Maybe... Maybe get Supey. He can… lift… heavy things."
Wally managed a nervous smile. Robin was starting to get delirious. Whether it was from the blood loss or the head trauma, Wally couldn't afford to speculate. He swallowed hard, "Yeah. Yeah I'll see if I can find him. I gotta leave you here for a bit though. I'll see if the zeta tubes are workings so hopefully I won't be too long. But you gonna be alright for a bit?"
Robin started to nod before whimpering and scrunching his eyes in pain. Wally stifled his own sob with a wince. Why did his best friend always get the worst luck? "I'll be alright, KF. You get out of here."
Wally nodded, "I'll be right back. You stay awake you hear me?"
"Aye aye captain."
Wally hitched another sob. Why did seeing his friend's small, reassuring smirk make his heart sink? Why did he get this horrible feeling that this was going to be the last time he would see Dick alive? Wally's breathing quickened and his body started to shake. No. He wasn't going to let that happen.
"I'll see you soon alright? If you're lucky, M'gann will come too, and you can pretend to be unconscious so she'll have to resuscitate you. But only if you promise to fake it. None of this actual unconsciousness, you hear?"
The Boy Wonder chuckled, "You sure... that's not... you... getting lucky, Wally?"
At the use of his real name, a ball of cotton lodged itself in Kid Flash's throat, "I'll be right back, Dick. Just hold on, alright."
Dick blinked furiously under his mask, nodding weakly a couple of times. Wally saw him swallow several times and watched his mouth pinch together tightly. Damnit. Wally wasn't crying either. No. They were going to see each other again. There was no need to cry. Wally put a hand on his best friend's head and closed his eyes for a moment, urging, praying that everything was going to be alright.
"I'll be right back." And with that, the speedster took off as fast as his Meta-legs would take him.
Thoughts?
I'll hopefully be posting the next part soon. Reviews are more then appreciated! I've browsed through the YJ stories before but I've never come across a Robin!wumpage where it's just him and Kid and there's nothing Kid can do about it. I wanna see where this goes (that and I'm a horrible person)
Special thanks to my wonderful friend Sweetened Spoilers for taking and cleaning up the mess I sent her. You're amazing, hon!
Thank you so much for clicking and reading!