Warning: Some of the content in this chapter may trigger some people. Death, abuse, and terribly-written angst is down below.
"Bruce Wayne has provided an excuse for you," Batman said. "If your father starts to yell at you for it, however, you are to come straight back here."
Wally nodded, but on the inside, his thoughts were scrambling, hoping he wasn't showing any cracks in his lies.
He had told the man that his father was an abuser. Wally had just barely summed up the courage to do it at his mother's request, but he had finally done it. Of course he didn't, however, correct the Leaguer when he assumed the speedster meant it verbally.
But that was fine by him.
Despite his uncle's warnings, he had had a restless night of sleep and was one of the last to wake up. It was long into the afternoon, and Wally had just shaken off another dose of medication. The rest of his team was already gone, accompanied by a League member each.
After Wally's moment of silence, Batman paused typing in the coordinates. "Are you sure you don't want me to escort you? Barry could even chaperone you," he offered, and Wally felt a twinge of happiness go through him at his consideration.
He shot a smile in Batman's direction. "Sorry, this is just a little too personal," he answered, and Batman nodded. The Leaguer handed him a thin, black device.
"If there is an emergency, just press the button inside. We'll arrive at the scene immediately," the man said, and Wally took the device gingerly before placing it in his jacket pocket.
"Thanks. I'll see you in a couple hours," Wally said before standing in the zeta tubes. The world around him flickered and disappeared before rearranging themselves into the familiar scenery of Central City.
Wally sighed in relief. It had been too long since he had been here. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he fingered the lighter-shaped device before he started walking out of the alleyway the zeta tube was tucked in.
He looked up into the sky, looking at the slight yellow tint that was visible on the horizon. The speedster shivered and zipped up the crimson-colored coat he was wearing, and he stepped out onto the sidewalk. Looking to each of his sides, he was made aware that he was alone in the bright street.
He released a shaky breath, half in relief that there was no one there, and half in fear of what was going to happen. He started heading home, telling himself that everything would be okay. And if it didn't, he could always run over to Gotham and bug the bats while they were out on patrol if Batman was in the mood to deal with him.
Speaking of the man, Wally had found it odd that Batman would ever ask him on his help on any of his cases. Batman could usually figure out everything, and even if he couldn't, he'd still do it alone. After some pestering, Batgirl finally revealed that the big bat was struggling with all his cases, not just the one he asked for Wally's help on.
After another hour of poking and prodding, and several punches to his face, Batgirl relented and told him that Agent A had a heart attack.
"Oh."
"Just oh?"
"I feel bad now."
"Don't. Batman will be okay. Agent A is fine, just a little weak. It just really messed Bats up."
... Perhaps bugging the Bats wouldn't be a good idea. Wally knew how much Agent A meant to Batman, especially after Robin disa-, no. Not disappeared.
After Robin died.
Biting his tongue, he forced himself to start walking home, before he paused and changed his direction.
Hospital first. Then home.
After double checking that no one was out on the street, he started to speed walk. Fast enough to make better progress, but not fast enough that his identity was in danger if he bumped into someone's view.
He paused when he turned the corner, aware that there were many more eyes on that particular street. It wasn't surprising — the hospital was well-known, and there were plenty of people who lived nearby to check on certain patients — and Wally was forced to slowed his pace.
He watched a boy, no older than seven, run past him, an older girl — he assumed a sibling — chasing after him as they both laughed. The girl caught up to him and picked the giggling boy into her arms.
"No running. You still have to finish your dinner," she scolded.
"But Dana!"
"No buts, Ryan. I will force those vegetables down your throat if I have to." The older girl pulled her brother back into the alleyway.
Wally let a small smile appear on his face before he walked out of earshot, crossing the practically empty street. A car whizzed past him as his feet hit the sidewalk, and Wally flinched as it came a little too close for comfort. A cold gust followed the speeding car, settling a deeper chill into his bones. He sighed before wrapping his arms around his body.
The sun was just starting to touch the edge of the horizon when Wally arrived at the hospital doors. He pushed the glass door open just enough so he could enter through, and the door closed behind him in seconds. He walked to the front of the desk, where the same receptionist sat. The man was in his mid-thirties with light brown hair, and the corner of his eyes crinkled slightly when he saw Wally.
"West," he acknowledged. "What brings you here after so long? I thought you had left for good."
Wally blinked. "Of course not," he said slowly. "I had some business to take care of that kept me from coming down here. I would never leave for more than possible."
The man cleared his throat. "I see. Well, I suppose that you would like to go to your mom's room now, right? She's in the same room, as always."
"Alright," Wally said, his voice layered with suspicion. He quickly made his way up the flights of stairs, almost bumping into several people, including a woman whose stomach was slightly swelled.
Soon, he was greeted by the bolded numbers 342, which were nailed to the side of the doorframe. He was panting, but he calmed his racing heartbeat to make his way into the room. His mother was sitting up, her chin placed on the palm of her hand. Her eyes were gazing at the windows — she had to crane her neck to do so — and she looked at the setting sun with a grim face.
"Mom?" Wally whispered, and the woman's eyes widened. For a second her gaze didn't move, but she turned to her son after a second's silence.
"Wally," she croaked out, and she patted the side of her bed. The redhead silently made his way over to her, pulling up a chair to sit next to her. Another moment's silence. "Why are you here?" she asked, her voice like sandpaper.
Wally blinked. "I don't understand," he replied. "Why would you even ask that?"
His mother sighed and took the redhead's hand into her own, gently rubbing the pad of her thumb over the knuckles and the back of his hand. "I thought you had left for good. I thought you had finally moved on from me," she said, but she didn't sound sad, or relieved that he was here. She sounded...
Disappointed.
Wally gaped at her. "Why... But... Of course I wouldn't just leave you, mom," he said. "Why would you even think that?"
She was silent for a while. "The last time you entered this room, I had been the one who spoke the entire time, to you, not the other way around. That was a long while ago. I thought... I thought that you had finally understood where I was coming from. I thought you got over me. I thought that I had finally stopped being dead weight for my son to drag around." She sounded bitter when she spoke again. "I guess I was wrong."
Wally felt his eyes burn at the comment. He wanted to be mad, but he couldn't bring himself to be. It required too much effort. The silence lingered for another second, hanging over their heads. Wally opened his mouth to speak, but he closed it again. He looked at the hand that was holding tightly onto his.
The sun started to tuck itself underneath the surface of the horizon, sending dark shadows on the room.
"Do I really mean that little to you?" Wally whispered, his throat dry as he tried to keep himself crying.
"No," his mother said. "It's because you mean so much to me that I wanted you to leave me. I've done absolutely nothing for you, you know that? Nothing. And yet here you are. Again."
Wally refused to speak. He was afraid that a sob would break loose. He pulled his hand, intertwined with his mother's, up to his forehead. He scrunched his eyes closed, tears threatening to escape.
"Why do you do it, Wally? Why do you do it?" his mother asked.
A sob escaped. His shoulders shook as he sniffled a response out. "I don't know. I don't know, Mom." Tears cascaded onto their hands. "Please don't leave me." A hiccup. "Please don't."
A sigh. She leaned over and pressed her other hand on his head. "Wally, look at me."
His sobs eased up for a second, but his position did not change.
"Wally, look at me," she said more forcefully, but still gentle, and the boy looked up into her dark eyes. She sighed through her nose, and she was quiet for a second as she looked into the bright green eyes of her son. "Wally..." She trailed off for a second before she regained confidence to say the words. "I'm never going to be the right person. I'm never going to be the right parent. I'm never going to be the one to help you up when you fall, when you have a problem that you can't fix. I can't help you because I can't help myself. I was never responsible enough to have a child, as much as I loved having one."
She frowned slightly at the tears that were rolling down Wally's face and pulled her hands out of his grip to brush them from his cheeks. "Only Barry and Iris can help you. They're the only ones in this family that aren't rotten tomatoes. I'm not good enough, and your father-" She cut herself off and didn't continue.
"I can live with him," Wally argued half-heartedly. "He never hits me anymore, not unless I do something really stupid-"
"He shouldn't be hurting you in the first place," she said. After Wally refused to respond to that statement, she sighed and pulled the drawer to her bedside table open. After rummaging around for a second, she pulled a stack of letters out.
She pulled at the string for a second, making sure that it was securely wrapped, before she placed it into Wally's hands. "If you ever need to get away from your father for good, take that to Barry. He'll know what to do."
Wally stared at the stack quietly and with bloodshot eyes. "I don't want to take it to him though," he said, and he cringed at how childish he sounded.
Wally's mother took his hands into her own. "Please, Wally," she whimpered, and Wally watched as she shook her head. Her face scrunched up unappealingly as her own tears made there way out of the corners of her eyes. "Let me do something right for once in my lifetime. I've caused so much hell, blamed it on other people... Let me just do something right."
Wally hiccuped before he launched himself forwards and hugged her. She sobbed as she held him back, rocking the two of them back and forth. "Don't come back for me," she said to him, her voice clear, even as the tears fell down her face. "Let this be your last visit for me. Please."
Wally didn't say anything, but she could feel him nodding against the texture of her hospital outfit. Another silence, and her frown tilted into a lopsided smile. Her lips trembled.
"You'd be a good parent," she whispered.
0o0o0o0
Wally felt the receptionist's stare at the back of his head when he made his way towards the entrance of the hospital. He held the letters close to his chest, and he wiped his nose on his sleeve. It was obvious to the people who just entered the building that he had been crying. His eyes were red and puffy, and his hands were shaking as he pushed through to the door.
He never said goodbye to the friendly receptionist, even though he knew it was the last time he was ever going to see him.
The door closed behind him loudly, and he wrapped his jacket closer to himself as the dark night closed in on him. The stars were bright. He crossed through the parking lot. Down the street. Crossed another. Ryan was crying when Wally looked into the dark alleyway he had seen before.
Orphans.
He couldn't see all of Dana's body, but looking at the car not too far away, and its jacked-up front, Wally put the pieces together. The boy was now alone.
Wally lingered a second longer before moving on.
He walked towards his neighborhood, and he came across the playground he had loved as a child.
"You want me to push you?"
A soft voice.
Wally made his way towards the swing set, and he sat down heavily into the too-small seat. He clutched the letters closer to his chest as he sat there.
A sigh.
The gentle gust pushed past him, waving small strands of his hair in front of his face. Wally's hands found their way on the chains on either side of him, and he internally winced from the chill.
It was cold.
Wally sat there for what he thought was an eternity. His feet dug a depression into the dirt below, and his eyes stared endlessly into the wooden chips. Their texture. Their color.
He didn't know when he got up, or when he started walking home again, but soon, he was met with the familiar white door of his house. He sighed and tucked the stack of letters into the inner pocket of his jacket, where it couldn't be taken from him. It created an outline where it was visible, and it pressed against against the side of his stomach.
He walked through the doorway.
He should have been surprised that his father was sitting in the couch nearby. He wasn't.
Ruddy's face turned red when he looked at him, and he placed his beer bottle loudly onto the table in front of him. He stood up and made his way towards him.
Wally didn't move.
"Now you're here, eh? You were supposed to be here at five in the afternoon from whatever shit you had to deal with!" he yelled, his voice growing continuously, and the aggressiveness made Wally want to curl up into himself.
Wally opened his mouth to reply, but his father cut him off.
"It's just about two in the morning! I had already lost one bitch, who's stuck in the fucking hospital, and I thought I just about lost another one. How do you think I feel, waiting nine hours for you to come home!?"
"I-I'm sorry," he stuttered quietly.
"Sorry," Ruddy echoed. "You're sorry. Yeah, sure you're actually sorry; all you do is think about yourself. Who do you think is paying the bills? Who got all your work that you missed from school so you could do it tonight? Who's paying for your education, for your mother to be in the hospital? Who's paying to feed your ungrateful mouth?"
Wally didn't respond.
"Oh, this is what I get? No response for worrying your dad? No, 'I understand what I did was wrong'? You unappreciative brat. I could've left you out on the streets, I could've let you starve on the side of the road! You could be an orphan right now-"
Ryan. Dana.
Ryan. Dead.
"-and yet you won't even take a couple minutes out of your time to think about how I feel!"
Wally bit his lip before he responded. "I was visiting Mom in the hospital," he said.
Ruddy growled. "Oh, so you visited a worthless piece of trash that does nothing but suck up money from my wallet, and yet you couldn't even drop by for a minute to tell me where you were going!? I nearly called the police to find where you were!"
A shadow fell over Wally's eyes.
"And now you're giving me the cold shoulder." A hand gripped his collar and pulled him up slightly. "Answer me!"
It was very quiet. Not a peep. Not a sound. The silence was overwhelming.
Wally could feel his heartbeat. He couldn't hear it, but the repetitive tremors caused his body to tremble slightly. He was walking in a never-ending hallway. It was bright. The only color was the blue and white vase sitting off to the side on a dark oak stand. His skin was gray, as was his eyes, and the rest of his outfit.
A bunch of blacks and whites and mixtures.
He walked towards the relic — it was expensive, elderly. The bottom rim of it started shaking as one of the legs of the small table snapped. He watched it tip over. The colorless flowers were caught in the gravity, and their petals gently shifted. The water inside was glowing, revealing thousands of bland sparkles as it caught in the nonexistent sunlight. He watched the vase's surface gleam. It was cleaned spotless.
For seconds, that was how it was. The vase was titled in midair. The flowers slipped out of the opening of urn, and the water started to trickle off the lip. The droplets were suspended, glittering like diamonds. It was a beautiful sight, one that brought a dark dread in the pit of his stomach.
Like all beautiful things, it started crashing down.
The vase hit the ground, shattering into tiny, intricate pieces. The flowers were crushed, and the water spilled all over the floor, absorbing into the floor.
Wally remembered exactly what he was thinking right then.
"If only I was faster. If only I could be faster. If only I could be faster, so that I could catch that vase. If only I could be so much faster, Dad wouldn't hate me. If only I was so much faster. If only, if only. I'd run from home, I'd run far, far away. I'd run from everything. From all those problems, and I'd take my mother with me. We'd both run.
"If I was just a little faster."
If only Wally could tell his eight-year-old self that that wouldn't happen. If only, if only.
A beast appeared, gazing upon the expensive relic that was trashed on the ground. A growl, then a howl, and Wally felt himself being lifted up. A hand around his throat, a wail of pain from him as he kicked his feet. As he scratched at the meaty hands holding him up, desperate for air.
A soft, angelic voice cried out. The voice would turn into a croak, but then, the young woman's voice was heavenly as she was pounding on the demon's side, crying her eyes out. Her voice, a gentle screech.
He felt his father's hands adjust on his neck as he shoved her away, and then he dropped him. A foot started to stomp on his frail form. Every bone protesting, every bruise forming, the only color on his body. Dark purple marks.
"If only I could heal faster. I could take all my mother's hits, and I could take my own without wondering how to hide them. I could make my mother happy again."
If only.
Wally stared at his bruised hands, the lights long since turned off. His eyes were unseeing as he looked around himself. Pain. That was pain, right? He looked down to his stomach, his eyes softening when he saw that the letters weren't trashed. Glass was strewn in front of him, most likely from the beer bottle. When had he gotten hit by that?
Biting the side of his cheek, he slumped back into the floor. He didn't bother curling up — the action hurt too much — but he reached into the inside of his jacket and let his fingertips graze the side of the paper. It was quiet. Dark, but silent.
Then, the phone rang. It split through the silence, and Wally winced. He knew he would have to get that, unless he wanted to get an angry father on his tail. He huffed as he brought shaky hands underneath him, pushing himself up. He made his way to the home phone, and brought it to his ear.
"Is this the West household?" the voice asked.
"Yes," Wally croaked, tired.
Silence. "I'm sorry." A few more words.
Wally didn't bother replying. He placed the phone back into its rightful place, and he walked back over to his spot on the floor. The shattered pieces gleamed from the moonlight that streamed through the windows, and Wally curled back where he was. Silent, clear liquid streamed from his eyes.
The vase. The glass.
The water. The tears.
Too bad his flower just wilted.
He was starting to lose his grip on his life, and he felt it streaming past his fingertips, mocking him. Robin. His father. His mother. Gone, gone, gone. The sound of thunder echoed throughout the house, and soon, the moonlight was covered by dark clouds. Rain pattered against the windows.
Gentle pulsing throbbed throughout his form. He couldn't hear his heartbeat, but he could practically feel it threatening to rip him into pieces and swallow him whole. He felt the tears flow faster, and he let out a sob into his knees as he curled up. Pain thrummed along the surface of his skin.
If only he was slow enough to enjoy his mother's lack of time. If only he didn't heal so quickly, so he wouldn't forget the pain in the morning and had a reason to fight back.
If only, if only.