A/N: AU in which Wally and Black Canary talk in their therapy session after the failsafe mission. Wally tells her how he really feels. My first POV fic, I hope you like it!
"And how do you feel?"
I blink. "What?"
"How do you feel?" she asks again, over pronouncing every word as if I can't understand her. It's a simple question. I'm not an idiot, I know what she means. I just wasn't listening.
But that's a good question. How do I feel? In all honesty, I'm not sure. Am I supposed to be happy? Because if I tell her that I'm moments from falling apart and breaths away from sobbing and shouting and yelling, she won't be pleased. So what
am I supposed to say? Telling her that I'm good and happy basically makes me sound like a complete psycho. Who's happy after their best friends' deaths? After their own death? No one. I hope.
When I'm quiet for more than three minutes, she asks again, "How do you feel, Wally?" after letting out a long and somewhat frustrated sigh. I kind of want to yell at her. Like, c'mon woman, give me more than two minutes to think this question over. You're
supposed to be patient.
I've been putting up this front and I know she knows it. And she knows I know she knows too. I'm the comic relief guy, you know? The one who's serious but playful and immature enough to turn the situation around. The one that saves the day when it feels
like all hope is lost. I'm supposed to be that guy. So why wasn't I when everything fell through the floor? When Kaldur just vanished into thin air, when Dick and I freaking exploded, and when...when she died. Why couldn't I hold myself
together?
"I don't know," I finally say. "I don't know." I run a hand through my fiery locks and it suddenly starts to feel like everything around me is unraveling. I'm back to that place and it hurts. It freaking hurts and I don't know how to breathe anymore.
My chest feels like a weight is pressing down on it and I can't breathe. And I don't know if I start hyperventilating but Black Canary says, "It's okay, Wally, everything is over." I guess I got a little carried away.
"I had to watch everyone I love vanish," I whisper. My voice is hoarse and my throat is sandpaper when I swallow. "Everything—it was just gone. Everything I had come to love, come to know just disappeared in seconds. Years of friendships and relationships
just evaporated."
She sits back in her chair and listens. I know she expects me to go on. I do too.
"I was floating," I admit. I take a deep breath and lean my head back against my chair. The heels of my hands find their way to my eyes somehow and dig into them. Flashes of memories and trauma come flooding back to me at a speed that'd put Barry to shame.
"I was floating one minute. I couldn't reach the ground and everything moved in slow motion. I kept thinking that somehow we'd be alright. We'd find a way to fix this, to fix everything and we'd be okay. And then I was falling. Never mind coming back
down to the floor. There was nothing there. It died out from beneath me and I fell. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to break my fall, it felt like hours, years even, that I could have been suspended there. The world around me stopped spinning."
I stop. She waits. After a minute she encourages, "It's okay, Wally. You can keep going."
But I can't. I can't keep going, I can't keep talking about this. As much as I want to, I can't move on. But I have to try. I have to get past this and the only way to do it is to let it go and stop thinking about it, stop talking about it. "I can't,"
I say.
She tells me I can. I bark back at her, "No I can't! You don't get it! You weren't there!" Tears rim my eyes but I refuse to let them go. I refuse to show them because I'm too stubborn for that. At first she's surprised. Then her stoic mask appears and
I'm left yelling at a brick wall. "I had to watch everyone die! You, Barry, Batman, Green Arrow, everyone! I lost my team! I lost my family!
"You think you know how that feels? And I know that everybody goes through loss and confusion and anguish but nothing can ever compare to that. Nothing at all. That is something I will never forget." Somehow I'm standing. My legs shake beneath me. When
did I stand up? When did I tower over her and start yelling? I can't remember and frankly I don't want to.
"I have to get over this. You have to let me get over this." I sigh and sit back down. My legs were going to give out if I didn't. "You don't understand," I croak. "Hell, I don't even understand. It was a doomed mission, there was no
failsafe. Not for anyone. Not even the Justice League."
Once again, she asks, "And how do you feel?" after several minutes of silence interrupted by only the clock ticking in the background and the muted white noise of the TV as it remains with no signal.
"I feel like it's not worth it. It's not worth all of this pain and this risk. And what for? For some good deeds? We're not martyrs, Dinah, we're not saints! We bring chaos to this world as much as we bring safety and reassurance! We risk our lives, others' lives, for
something we can never stop! So what's the point? What's the point of everything we do as heroes? As the Justice League? There's no failsafe to this life. And we all know it."
If she's about to argue with me I don't hear it. I'm out of the door and onto the streets before she can even take a breath. This session took what seemed like hours. It's dark outside and I can barely see since I forgot my goggles. But that doesn't matter.
I'm not even sure of what I know, what I believe in anymore. And when things like that are a blur, the only thing to do is join. So I become a blur and I run all the confusion and hurt away. At least for now.
A/N: Well did ya like it? I have this weird obsession with the headcanon that they all know what this life is doing to them. It's taxing and somehow, it doesn't seem worth it. It hurts and they lose people they love. Their lives are turned upside down and inside out for things they can never control. And at times it doesn't feel worth it. They have to bottle it up and pretend like they don't care, like this is the perfect life for them because they're heroes. Sometimes it just gets to be too much.
I know it's kind of stupid and it's not really Wally's personality but I could just kind of picture him this way. So R&R please! Even if it's criticism or praise a lot of it helps me going and encourages me to do more. I'm currently uploading a fic I did a few years back or so from Wattpad so I will post that later on. I hope you guys have a good one and I'll see you later. Bye!