יהוה

Flying down by the beach area, I stayed relatively high up to hopefully avoid attention from the public. I didn't have the greatest night vision, and I hadn't thought to equip my stealth costume to get the wider sight range. Stupid, really – how was I supposed to find him if I couldn't see him?

Nevertheless, I flew determinedly, if slowly, onward, sweeping my eyes across the beach-front buildings and beach itself, searching for Wally. And as I did, I thought. I thought about everything I had done since I'd gotten here, everything I'd changed.

Wally lost a hand. It was healed, sure, but – how damaging was that to ones psychosis? To be crippled – potentially for life – only to have it immediately healed? He had expected to go out on missions again as soon as possible, not even a break inbetween losing a hand and going out on missions. Then this event that he probably figured wasn't a big deal gets blown up by his parents- who take him out of one of the most socially validating places he could be.

We'd talked about school before, but Wally had never brought up friends at the place, and he was always back to Mount Justice as soon as possible – went back home to tell his mum, maybe, then straight to the zeta tube for an extracurricular club where he risked his life, if not weekly, then daily.

The show had never really touched on the psychological problems faced by the kids – at least, not until the disastrous simulation – but these kinds of missions where having some effect, at the very least on Wally. Hell, he was probably the most normal kind among us, and he valued his time with the team a hell of a lot more than his time at home.

And Superboy... Christ, the whole situation with Doctor Fate was so fucked up. Wally hadn't been there to grab the staff, so Superboy had done so instead, and- now he was playing host to a Lord of Order that was slowly unlocking a full suite of Kryptonian abilities in his host. A magic Kryptonian – wasn't that a terrifying prospect? And I'd been the one to cause it.

But what was more terrifying was the prospect that this fucking magic mind-controller would be taking over his mind and body and using him like some goddamn puppet.

All thanks to me.

I lapsed into a mental silence and continued searching for Wally.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was the one who found him in the end. He was sitting on top of one of the beach-side buildings, slowly chewing on some kind of nutrition bar he had for long journeys. I wasn't... totally sure how he had managed to get up there – did that running up walls thing actually work? I thought it was just some BS comic book physics thing – but he wasn't doing much of anything, just staring out to sea. I flicked my broadcaster a few times to get Robin's attention, then dropped down just behind Wally.

"Hey." I said simply, perhaps a little uncertainly.

Wally jerked immediately to his feet, spinning around with unnatural speed the second I made noise. He blurred into a combat stance, facing me- then dropped it as soon as he saw who it was.

"Alex." He said, breathing a sigh of relief. "For a moment I thought – never mind."

"That I was the Flash?" I inquired, not moving forward.

Wally shrugged one shoulder and dropped back to where he was sitting. "Something like that."

"Wally-" I began, moving forward with one arm outstretched.

"Don't." He replied harshly, then seemed to force himself to calm down. "Just- don't."

I moved slowly down next to him and took a seat, my legs dangling over the lip of the building. "You wanna- um- talk about it?" I asked hesitantly.

He let out a small laugh. I took it as a victory. "Sure. Why the hell not. Get counselling from the freaking space rock."

I paused. "Uhhhh..."

He looked over at me with a somewhat condescending look in his eye. "Cause you're Comet...?"

I paused. "Oh."

"Wow."

"Hey, I didn't-"

"Wow."

"Oh, shut up."

Wally laughed, and I cracked a smile. I felt like we'd moved past the awkward moment of whether he'd be comfortable talking about his feelings – mainly thanks to him, but I had contributed... Somewhat.

"Do you wanna talk?" I asked after a short moment of silence.

"Not really..." He said, and I winced. "But I figure you've already signalled someone to come and get me, so why the hell not?"

I remained silent for a moment, a guilty look on my face. "Why did you run, Wally?"

"... I..." He laughed abruptly, the cut himself off just as quickly. "Running, huh? That's what got me into the whole superhero biz. All because I wanted to be the Flash's sidekick. Then I was on the team, and now I can't do either."

"Well, you-" I began, only to get cut off by Wally once more.

"-Faced no more risk than any of you, but Batman doesn't say anything about you guys leaving the team, does he?!" Wally leapt to his feet. I shifted uncomfortably.

"I'm stuck at home listening to my mom complain about how loud the neighbours are when I know the team is out there saving hundreds of lives! And I could be helping, but instead I'm stuck doing my freaking English homework and explaining why, 'Iago was not a mastermind but a villain of opportunity!' Pointless bullshit that's just a waste of time!" He heaved out a few breaths before continuing. "And to make matters worse, I'm eating more now than I used to! How the hell does that work?! I sit at home, I do nothing, and this hunger just builds up instead of dying down! I need to get back out there, not just to help other people, but to help myself!"

"Wally..." I paused. "I agree."

"You- what?" He said, dumbfounded.

"I totally agree." I struggled to keep a straight face. "Iago was a villain of opportunity."

Wally shook his head, but I could tell he was laughing. I put a hand on his shoulder. "Seriously, Wally." I said, looking straight at him. "I get it, and I agree. Before I joined the team, I just stayed at my apartment all day trying to find a job. Now? I couldn't imagine going back to that, not in a million years. I get it – but running isn't the answer."

"But-"

"Running away from your problems isn't going to help- if anything, it'll just make them worse. You need to confront it, tell your parents that you need to help people, and convince them to let you back on the team!"

"But how?!" He practically yelled.

"Wally." Robin's voice came from behind the speedster. Wally spun around to see Robin standing on the edge of the roof, Miss Martian floating just behind and above him with a pitying look on her face.

"Robin?" Wally asked. "Uh, how much did you...?"

"Enough." Robin cracked a smile. "Enough to know that I haven't been upholding my end of this whole 'friendship' thing."

"Heh." Wally replied, sagging slightly in exhaustion. "Well, I guess haven't exactly made it easy for you."

"Well, we can both start getting better now." Robin suggested, marching forward and slinging an arm around Wally's shoulder. "Come back to the cave. We'll talk to Batman, get this mess sorted out. You down?"

Robin held out a fist to the side. Wally looked at it for a moment, a smile slowly breaking out on his face. "I'm down," he grinned, and bumped fists with his friend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We returned to Mount Justice triumphant, and Wally and Robin disappeared almost immediately to speak to Batman. That left me, and M'gann to sit back and relax. M'gann, apparently, didn't see things that way – instead, she immediately got to work cooking.

I knew that she got most of her knowledge of Earth from an old TV show, but... Does she really have nothing else to do?

"I'm so glad Wally might be finally rejoining the team." She spoke up suddenly.

"Yeah, we could've used a speedster on some of our more recent missions." I replied, reclining on the couch and flicking on the TV.

"It's not just that," she said exaggeratedly. "He's, y'know, the one who always grabs souvenirs. And he's always joking around, right? He's like the team clown!"

"I don't know how much Wally would appreciate that nickname, but I suppose you're right." I said absently, flicking past a few news stations idly.

With that, we lapsed into a semi-comfortable silence. A report about some seismic activity of some kind in the ocean was blaring out, drowning the sound of M'gann chopping up vegetables.

Eventually however, even that grew boring, and I began to drift off to sleep – only to be rudely awaken.

"I cam as soon as I heard." Superboy said evenly, striding in and pulling off the Helmet of Fate. "What's the emergency?"

Me and M'gann looked at each other uncomfortably. "Ah," I began hesitantly. "We, uh, solved it without you." I gave him an uncomfortable smile. "Better luck next time?"

"... Right." Superboy said, shifting slightly. I couldn't decipher his expression, but a guess he felt somewhere between guilty and annoyed. "Well, I guess I'll just... Get back to it then." He began to put on the Helmet once more.

"Wait!" M'gann cried, and he paused. "Um... Why don't you stay for dinner?"

"... Sure." Superboy replied, a miniscule smile breaking out on his face.

I observed the two, smiling shyly at each other, and barely stopped myself from laughing aloud.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me and Superboy helped out M'gann with the meal after that, trying to get it finished in time for Wally and Robin's return. That only really served to make things worse – I had no idea what I was doing, and mostly stood around pointlessly, whilst Superboy actively detracted from the cooking – he kept getting in the way of M'gann's telekinetically controlled foodstuffs, so eventually we banished him from the kitchen and made him set the table.

It was fun, oddly enough. I'd never been a particularly good cook – I could follow instructions, but improvisation wasn't a strong point. Or at least, whatever it was that meant I wasn't a good cook. Working with M'gann was fun, though. She was incessantly cheery and optimistic, and chattered virtually non-stop about whatever came to mind. Despite the fact that I normally hated people like that, M'gann was so naïve that it came off endearing.

Superboy seemed happy to remain in silence, offering the occasional grunt in response to the fairly random questions M'gann would throw out.

Thankfully we made it through the meal without too much going wrong, and by the time we were finished and laying the dishes out, Robin and Wally had returned in high spirits.

Wally was silent for a few moments.

"I'm back in, boys and girls!" He cheered, throwing his arms up.

The celebrations lasted pretty long into the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aqualad returned six days later to the news that Wally was officially back on the team, and that, apparently, so was he. There had been some uncertainty after he had disappeared to Poseidonis for six days, but he was back to assure us that we were stuck with him.

Of course, there was no downtime following Aqualad's return – almost immediately Batman informed us that we had a new mission.

"The Watchtower detected an immense power surge in the Bialyan desert," he began.

As everyone focused in on the briefing, I couldn't help but think to myself that maybe – just maybe – I hadn't screwed things up as badly as I thought I had.