・ ・ ・

Somewhere, far off in the distance of my mind, I know that my fingers have long since gone numb.

Everything is cold.

My hair, thickly plastered against the sides of my face from rain, drops thick sheets of water down my neck, soaking through my shirt; but I don't care enough to push it away.

Black Canary says that they should try writing down how they feel, so I guess this is my own little sorry attempt. I don't expect that anyone will ever read this, seeing as I'm not about to breathe a word towards its existence and it's conveniently staying tucked inside my crappy old school book underneath a loose floorboard in my closet where I used to write letters to my father that I never even dreamed of ever delivering to the man. I don't understand why they all have to write down how they feel. I don't understand why everyone acts like they're all still part of some great, perfect little team.

Whatever, it doesn't even matter anymore.

It was October 18th, the day my petty little rivalry with Artemis, never too serious and always painted on a little too thick, turned deadly.

It was October 18th, the day that my entire world fell apart at my feet.

But I think I'm getting a little too ahead of myself now.

You see, this isn't about me. But I'm going to start my tale with myself because I'm really not sure what else I'm supposed to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to say, or even think. I don't know if it's okay to dream, or smile. Or if spending my days frowning would be selfish or not.

The last time I felt this way was almost twelve years ago now. There wasn't any blood staining my chubby, four-year old fingers; but the digits still felt sticky from copper. The vomit-tinged stench of her flesh- not yet even a day old- mingled with the barely-there tinge of rotten antiseptic that shouldn't have even been possible for my tiny nose to detect, but it did, and it choked me. I stood there under the harsh florescent lights for a long, long time- past the muddled voices of plastic, gentle paramedics just doing what they're taught with people like me, past my father's drunken, grief-fuelled tirade that went in one ear and internalised in my fucked-up head forever (there may not have been any literal blood on my hands, but as far as my father was concerned they were drenched in the stuff)- looming over her chosen deathbed of cold tile and moist condensation, waiting for someone or something to tell me what the hell I was supposed to do next.

That something came in the form of a drunkenly-assisted fist.

My mother's death brought upon a change in my father that, really, she'd known resided deep inside his soul all along. Sometimes I wonder if that's why she did it- took thirty-seven too many white-powdered capsules with who knows how many drinks. Escaping in the only way she really knew how.

A lot of days I wish she'd taken me with her.

Drunken screaming morphed into drunken fists, drunken kicks, drunken bouts of incomprehensible rage bursting thick glass bottles across my temple, raining alcohol down my cheeks, snapping bones, mingling blood with acid spittle, unfocused eyes bearing down on me as the clink of a belt buckle rang through the room; eyes more empty than the pair staring up from my mother's smiling corpse had ever hoped to be.

Long sleeves turned into thick layers of stolen concealer, missing meals from the school cafeteria turned into the next night's dinner, make-believe study sessions turned into afternoons spent hiding in shady alleyways, clothes gifted from Uncle Barry became the only things saving me on winter nights spent curled up in the furthest, darkest corners of my room- money that should have gone to heat and electricity bills tipping down my father's throat, night after night, day after day, for the rest of my life.

Until I met the Boy Wonder.

Richard 'Dick' Grayson, aka Robin the Boy Wonder, the only light thats ever graced my life, is the only person to ever know that the "Perfectly Re-Enacted Science Experiment" that turned me into Kid Flash was actually a suicide attempt.

I'd wanted it to look like an accident, funny how things work out.

I don't know necessarily when, or even how he figured it out. I never said anything to anyone. It was raining that day too, I remember, but we were walking back together to the Zeta tube I had to take to get home despite that. We each had an entirely too large umbrella that Alfred had insisted we take after we'd denied his requests to take us in the car, but we didn't ever end up using them. Dick, always so vibrant and happy and ridiculous, was silent the entire way there, until suddenly, without any warning, his fingers wrapped around my wrist half a block before the Zeta tube in a death-grip that, despite my best efforts, violently lurched my shoulders in a harsh spasm of icy fear.

"Come back with me." he said suddenly when I turned to face him, his baby-blue irises burning into my own with such a fierce passion that I was temporarily rendered speechless. He gave my arm a gentle but firm tug, almost as if he intended to single handedly drag me the entire way back to the mansion with him no matter what.

"I-I can't," I said after finally finding my voice, "I have to go."

"Don't go back there." My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, eyes saucer-wide. Dick took a step closer to me so that we were barely inches apart. "Stay with me, with us. Where it's safe."

"I don't know what you're-" I tried to step back, but his grip on my wrist was iron-clad.

"Yes, you do." He said, reaching up to my cheek with his other hand to ghost over the ugly bruise I knew hid beneath layers of waterproof concealer that he shouldn't have, couldn't have, known about. He'd smashed another beer bottle against my cheek the night before, still holding the bitter liquid inside it that I'd come to gag at the stench of. A liquid that two hours sobbing under my breath beneath the ice-spray of the filthy shower couldn't remove from my skin.

"Come with me, Wally, please. He's hurting you, don't try to lie to me. You don't fucking deserve that."

"Yes I do!" I was surprised to feel sudden warm tears dripping down my cheeks at the confession that had sprung free from my chest, burning, words I'd never once admitted my belief in out loud. "I do. I killed her. It's my fault she's dead."

"No, it isn't." Dick's voice wavered with a rage he couldn't manage to quite conceal. "That's bullshit, Wally. Don't-don't listen to whatever he told you. He's a monster, okay? What he says doesn't mean anything. You don't deserve that. Just...come home with me."

"I-I-"

"Barry is already working with Joe to get him behind bars for life. Bruce and Alfred are happy for you to stay as long as you want." He tugged on my wrist again.

"You told them?"

"I didn't have to."

Before Robin, Uncle Barry was the only one who had ever bothered to ask. On the days he insisted to meet me at home for patrol, I always made sure to greet him outside the door. Never opening it in invitation; always squeezing through it and slamming my keys into the rusted lock the very second I'd slipped past the tiny space I'd allotted myself to. Every time he asked where my father was, smile seeming tighter and tighter as the months went by (or was it my own paranoia? I never could tell.) I responded with my own plastic, falsely apologetic smile and shrug, oh, you know. Work. knowing full well that my father was curled up on his side upon the tiled bathroom floor, cheek wet from where it lay against his own vomit; in exactly the same position I'd found her in.

He did that a lot.

Back then, I couldn't ever hate him. I still can't truly, because there's a fucked-up part of my head that Dick says is too empathetic for this world that understands. I don't really know him, but I can remember, so faintly, hazy early days spent with the two of them, faceless, as I sat in the swings at the park laughing. What I think is their own laughter always echos mine in those memories, laughter from ghosts I never got the opportunity to recognise. I don't know him, but I know that he must have loved her more than anything else in the world. Because if he didn't, then why would he be killing himself this way? Why would he be killing me? I couldn't hate him for falling apart when she died. I still can't.

But, very gradually, Dick taught me that what he'd done to me wasn't okay.

In a way, my escape to Wayne Manor wasn't anything spectacular. No one really seemed to change all that much, save for myself. Dick's fingers refused to relinquish their white-knuckled grip on my wrist, as though he were afraid that if he let go I might change my mind. Later, I was glad that he didn't, because the single pivoting motion of my heel, the unspoken decision of yes, I'll go with you, seemed to flip a catastrophic switch buried somewhere deep in my mind, and suddenly the world didn't make sense anymore like it once seemed to.

I floated through reality, cotton-mouthed and hazy-brained, as though all the colour in the universe had suddenly been sucked out and replaced with something bitter-tasting and static. I don't remember anything else about the walk to the place I'd eventually grow to call home save for the ringing in my ears and Dick's warm hand guiding me along the way.

It's not your fault, you didn't deserve any of that, you're safe now, you're my best friend and I love you. Those words became an utterance, ethereal like a prayer, whispered from Dick's lips to my ear almost every day- sometimes even multiple times. Even after I'd moved in with Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris he never failed to call me even on the days I visited, every night I wasn't there to spend with him, and he wouldn't hang up the phone before repeating his firm mantra as though the words had been tattooed into his soul at birth. At first I'd shake my head, squeeze my eyes shut and bite my bottom lip hard enough to taste metal as the words burned my skin in their incomprehensible unfamiliarity. But he'd just wrap his arms around me firmly, resting his head on my shoulder and sighing ever so softly. He never got angry, or even frustrated, or if he did I never knew it. He never raised his voice because he knew it scared me. He never once touched a bottle of alcohol, and the few times that Roy would forget and get plastered around us he'd kick him out.

When we both joined the team together he always stuck by me- even though he was surrounded by people so much better, so much more interesting, so less damaged and scarred than I was that he could have easily replaced me with. He saw through my obnoxious humour and ridiculous flirting for what it was- nervousness, insecurity, terror, even. He averted glares and hushed raised voices with a black, plastic-screened gaze that rivalled even Batman's own blank yet utterly intimidating one.

Gradually, anguished denial became soft smiles in the direction of my own personal prayer. Soft smiles became heads dropped on shoulders and quiet sighs as the words began to familiarise themselves with my mind. Until one night, his words echoing in the silence of his room, I finally, truly heard them. A tiny sob sprung free from my lips. Then another, and another, increasing in their intensity until I was drawing my knees up to my chest from my position next to him, leaning against his bedside, my hands coming up to cover my mouth as loud, anguished cries tore from my throat and salt water soaked my skin. His hands came up to wrap around me, pulling me closer to him despite me being the taller one.

"I don't understand...I don't...why did he...why did she...what's wrong with me?"

"Nothing is wrong with you, Wally." Dick whispered, rubbing my back gently. "Nothing at all."

"Then...then why?"

"I wish I knew. Sometimes I wonder if knowing the reasons would make things easier, in a way. I don't know why he did it, KF, or why she did...but I do know that it isn't your fault. You didn't make her take those pills. She chose to do it. You didn't make your father cruel, he just is. You understand me? It's not your fault. I wouldn't lie to you about that."

"It's not my fault." I mumbled, and something shifted ever so slightly in my chest.

"Yeah, Wally, that's right." Dick whispered, sounding close to tears himself. "It's not your fault."

With that, the perpetual ringing in my ears started to fade away. The world seemed just a little bit clearer, my head not as fuzzy as it had been before. And from that, I began to notice things that I hadn't before; all cooped up inside my own head. Like how Black Canary's eyes seemed a little dull (like Dick's) and how Roy's eyes were always lined with red. Conor always seemed to shake a little bit, and Kaldur never actually disagreed with anyone unless their lives depended upon it on a mission, or unless it was Robin. But unsurprisingly, the most things I started to notice were about Dick, like how he didn't eat much, or how he barley slept, or how dark, indigo circles lined his eyes, or how he always wore long sleeves, jackets, or arm guards.

I wasn't stupid. I knew that the second he closed his eyes he saw them falling all over again. He saw their corpses, crawling towards him in a mangled pile of cracked bone and shredded gore, eyes dark and accusing, asking him why he didn't catch them; the same question he asked himself every day. I knew that some months, Alfred's cookies were like heaven searing into his tastebuds, but most months food tasted just about as good as ash. I knew that he kept razor blades hidden between the baseboards underneath the sink in his bathroom, and I knew that they weren't for self-defense like he tried to claim they were, wide-eyed as he watched blood trickle down my finger from where I'd accidentally caught one while cleaning up a spill of water. He'd made me run the stinging digit under his sink tap, holding my wrist in place with trembling hands, and when he'd shut the water off I reached for his wrist and held it, like he'd held mine just a year ago then.

"It wasn't your fault. You didn't deserve that. You're my best friend and I love you." I whispered.

"I can't stop." he murmured after a second, eyes closed and still shaking.

"I'll help you."

"I-I don't think that you can."

"I'll try."

"Are you going to tell Bruce?" his eyes flickered to mine, uncertainty shining through them.

"Do you want me to?"

"No."

"Then I won't, if you promise you'll try. For me."

"Okay, I promise. For you."

But like I said, I'm not stupid. I know he still does it. He tries not to, because I cry every time he does and that makes him cry. But it's like the blades call to him, some psychedelic goddess that croons in his ear, just one cut, or maybe five, and everything will be better.

I tried to figure out what else triggers it, what always ends up pushing him to the edge after a week free of bloodstains on his fingers. When I looked for his reasons I realized that all my worrying about him replacing me with someone else from the team had been quite silly, because I finally saw that no one else seemed to trust him. They all seemed to like him just fine- the team that is- because who wouldn't? He was charming, beautiful, sweet, and he always made everyone laugh. But no one would ever be able to know him like I did or ever dream of being that close, because there were some secrets he just couldn't breathe to anyone else.

There's no part of me that believed for a second that Bruce was happy with him spilling their most guarded secrets to me in that second summer we shared together during a walk across an abandoned park under the late setting sun, walking side-by-side with me to the Zeta tube hidden there. But I think he must have noticed the same disparity shining through Dick's eyes that I heard in his voice, momentarily stunned by his sudden wait and a hand flicking his signature sunglasses up to his forehead, wide blue eyes staring back at my own shocked emerald.

"I've...I've always wanted someone to know me. The real me. Not the boy in the papers with the stupid hair or Batman's partner. Just...just me. I trust you, and I want that person to be you."

I told him his eyes were the most beautiful blue I'd ever seen.

After Roy, he was strictly forbidden to ever reveal his secret identity to anyone else, lest his title as Robin be stripped from him. Robin meant everything to him. His last connection to his parents. The only time he truly felt alive, he'd say.

He wouldn't risk that for the world, and a part of him understands that Bruce is also concerned for his own secrets. The two are too closely linked- if someone found out Dick Grayson was Robin it wouldn't take them long to find out that Bruce Wayne was Batman. Despite all their arguments and issues, Dick loves Bruce, and he wouldn't risk that for the world either. Not when he's tied down, bloodied and screaming, and not when the team grows colder and colder towards him; which I think hurts him more than any blade ever could.

And I feel like shit. Because there's nothing I can do. I can't make things better for him the way he made things better for me. I can't do anything except be there for him, lay beside him on the weeks where he doesn't have the strength to even lift his own head, much less force himself out of bed; bandage fresh wounds on his wrists ever so gently with trembling, shaking fingers; and hold him when he wakes up screaming and begging and wailing to me that he wishes he'd fallen too.

It's not like everyone on the team hates him, or that he can't trust them to have his back (though I know he feels safer if I'm the one watching his six). But I know he feels isolated, guilty, and hurt. I know he blames himself for the awkwardness that permeates the air of the mountain. I know it's an erosion to the integrity of the team- this elephant in the room. One of these days the tension that's been so steadily increasing with every "classified" or "confidential" that I know makes him cringe every time he's forced to speak it is going to burst. But for now, M'gann keeps baking her cookies, Kaldur keeps up with his silent judgement and blocking Robin from ever putting in his input during missions, Artemis keeps up with her lazy sneers, Conor keeps up his blank staring and shaking at the television static, I keep up my annoying jokes, and Robin keeps up his cheery facade.

Until October 18th.

Three months before, as Robin and I left the Cave for Wayne Manor, Artemis appeared right as we reached the tubes. The computer voice, announcing her arrival, never reached my ears, and the chip bag I was holding fell to the floor with a soft crunch the second I smelled the alcohol reeking off her skin. She was gripping the wall half-heartedly for support, bloodshot eyes trailing down from my face to the bag and then back up again, her lips curling into a nasty sneer.

"Gonna lap that up from the ground, pig?" she slurred softly, her disgust for my eating habits unfiltered in her haze of slight drunkenness. Her voice was too low for anyone but Robin to have heard, who stood seemingly frozen in front of me, but the harsh phantom sting of glass breaking against my temple, welts on my back from the heat of the leather belt, ribs cracking against a heavy work-boot, filled my mind with enough ice to break past the mental shields Robin had taught me, prompting a curiously concerned sounding, Wally? from M'gann in the kitchen. Her soft voice seemed to snap Robin out of whatever trance he'd been trapped in. He growled something at Artemis, his arm coming to wrap around my shoulders, rubbing my back when I flinched harshly, leading me quickly through the Zeta tube. We sat together, curled up on top his bed, arms wrapped around each other, silent as I flinched and jumped from a seemingly endless attack of phantom pains; Dick helpless to do anything but pet my hair as quiet tears soaked into his sweater.

Artemis only got worse from there. We hardly ever saw her sober, always drinking and always angry. She's lucky we never were called for a mission, or she'd probably have been dropped from the team. Robin was the only one who ever told her to stop, whether that's because he was worried or because he was angry on my behalf, I'll never know. The others either looked the other way, or in Conor's case, drank alongside her. The only difference was that he never got drunk. I never did know why she started doing it, or what made her crumple so quickly to the drink in her hand, or why no one closer to her ever succeeded in intervening. I only knew she must have had a reason, just like Conor must have had a reason for joining in, and Kaldur and M'gann must have had their own reasons for watching, but not seeing.

People always are so good at destroying each other, but what they're best at is destroying themselves.

The evening of October 18th began just like every other evening when Artemis bothered to show up- only that night she started smashing things. Robin always took my hand and pulled me away, even though I'd started to flinch less and less as the weeks went by. But when she smashed her beer bottle down on the floor at her feet, eyes wild with hazed fire, I couldn't help but whimper.

The noise set Robin's brain ablaze.

"Artemis, this has to stop," his voice climbed an octave to be heard over M'gann's soft crying. It was colder than I'd ever heard it be. "I don't control how you spend your free time, but this bullshit where you show up at the Mountain drunk and throw a fit? It's got to stop. Now."

"Oh, fuck you!" Her nostrils flared in a way that reminded me faintly of a bull. "Fuck you and your bullshit attempts to be a leader, Robin. I'll do whatever the fuck I want, thanks!" Shaking, I rose from my position on the couch, uncaring of how I gripped Robin's jacket sleeve like a lifeline, trembling.

"Rob, let's just go, please?" I whispered, eyes firmly fixed onto the floor.

"Oh, look at that. What, are you scared of a little alcohol, Kid Mouth?" Artemis slurred, snatching up the bottle Conor had out on the table, who didn't so much as even blink. I took a step back as she stepped forward. "Aw, he is, what a fucking baby."

"Artemis, shut up. You don't know what you're doing." Robin growled, his fingers finding mine.

"Oh, what? More secrets the Boy Liar can't fucking tell us?" Robin flinched just slightly, my only indication being the twitch of his fingers against my skin.

"Must we fight about this yet again?" Kaldur sighed, running a weary hand across his temple.

"Again?" The fear thrumming beneath my veins was beginning to morph into a beat of anger, my skin crawling at the way her shaky gaze fixed on Robin with such a burning hatred.

"You want to be team leader so bad, yet you still don't trust us with something so little as your own name." Artemis whispered.

"You know I can't do that."

"Yes you can!" She barked, "If you actually wanted to you could. It's very easy, you see. Hi, my name is blah blah fucking blah. See? But noooo, you're too good for that, aren't you? We're all beneath you because you think you're so much better than us." Robin's mouth opened and closed, stunned to the point of silence.

"Shut up!" I stepped a little closer to her, a fierce protectiveness for my only true friend drowning out my anxiety. "This isn't a game! You know that if he went against orders and told you his ID, that would not only be putting you all at risk, but his mentor too!"

I didn't realize my mistake until her eyes went wide.

"You all? As in, Kid Dumbass already knows? You trust him but not the rest of us?"

I couldn't stop the flinch.

"Yeah, I do." Robin growled, coming to stand beside me and placing a hand on my arm. "He's never, ever pressured me into telling him anything I wasn't comfortable with. He never questioned it, and certainly never ambushed me about it while drunk. I trust Kid Flash more than I trust myself. I trust you just about as far as I can throw you."

There's an ugly looking vein threatening to burst at the side of the archer's skull.

"Then why are you fucking here? Seriously? Why do you even bother staying here? All you're doing, all you've ever done is tear this team apart! I thought I liked you in the beginning! Until I realised it's all some stupid mask you wear to try and charm everyone so they forget that, for all Canary's fucking training sessions with us together, there is no us. It's just Robin, Kid Dumbass apparently, and the rest of the 'lowlife' team. Well you know what? We're sick of it! I'm sick of it! No one wants you here anymore, Robin! We want a real fucking team, and you're too selfish to let us have that!" She's inches away from Robin now, her slight advantage in height and the way he's subconsciously wrapped his arms around himself making him seem suddenly much smaller. It happens in a split second, the Mountain stunned into silence after her outburst, that Artemis lunges for his sunglasses. Her aim is screwed up entirely by the alcohol raging through her system, and even through Robin's frozen to the spot she probably would have missed anyways. But even so, I did something that night I never once thought I'd do.

I punched her.

"Don't you touch him" I spat out, my voice dripping with venom. My body shielded Robin's own when I stepped in front of him, her nose cracking underneath my fist. M'gann's crying morphed into louder sobs, anxiety lacing her breaths. Kaldur's book clattered to the floor at his feet. Conor blinked.

Artemis laughed from her new position on the floor, not bothering to attempt to stunt the blood streaming freely from her nose. Her eyes burned into Robin's own behind me.

"You just fuck everything up."

"You fucking bitch!" I started to scream and her face wavered then, suddenly. Even Conor's eyes adopted an emotion entirely foreign to him- one I didn't have the time or the care to place. Then I heard it, the soft sniffle from behind me. Robin was crying. Red swam through my vision, uncaring of the slight hint of guilt that now coloured Artemis' features or the ashen-grey tinge that came over her face, just like my father before he'd succumb to unconsciousness. I pivoted on my heel, swallowing down the rage that threatened to consume me until the world didn't look so fuzzy anymore. My hand found Robin's bicep as I gently turned him around, towards the tubes like he'd done for me so many times, and left without a single word.

I didn't know whether to be relieved or cry when we didn't find Batman lurking in the cave. The damp air was quiet save for the gentle drip of water from stalactites to the floor and the almost noiseless patter of our footsteps. My hand was still gripping Dick's bicep, guiding him closer to the steps that led up to the Manor itself. He was mute, silent, eyes a void of nothingness. I could feel it all draining away, all the small smiles I'd coaxed out of him that week, the portions of soup I'd convinced him to keep down every night, the mornings I'd successfully gotten him to leave his bed, all of that was slipping through my fingers like sand and there was nothing I knew to fix it.

A glance to my watch as I led Dick through the silent hallways of the manor up to his room spelled out 12:39 am. Bruce was likely already on patrol. I swallowed past my uncertainty and pushed Dick's bedroom door open, leading the both of us to his bed where I sat in front of him.

"She didn't hurt you, did she?" I asked softly even though I already knew the answer, just to say something; my fingers prodding carefully around Dick's eyes as I slid his sunglasses off his face. He shook his head.

"Please, say something." Dick offered a poor excuse for a smile, his eyes duller then I'd ever seen them.

"I'm fine," he croaked out, blinking as he studied the bedspread. I squeezed my own eyes shut as his fingers clenched and unclenched, wishing desperately that I was as good at comforting people as he was.

"Rob, don't just-"

"I'm fine." he repeated vehemently, shaking his head back and forth. "I'm fine, I-I'm fine-" My arms wrapped around him before the first tear could fall, pulling him close to me as he shook.

"It's okay." I whispered, rubbing circles into his back.

"Not it's not!" He whimpered, clutching at my t-shirt. "Why...why do I have to screw everything up? I should have quit the team a long time ago. I-I fuck-"

"You don't screw everything up." I said, and then repeated it a few more times, holding him a little tighter. "You don't. They're just...they're messed up too and...it's not your fault."

"They're right though." Dick finally whispered after a moment, pulling back slightly so he could look me in the eyes. "We can't have a team that doesn't trust each other completely, not in this line of work. It's better off if I'm not there anymore." His words, spoken with such a finality, made something cold and slimy slide into my chest.

"But-" I couldn't finish the sentence.

"But nothing," he smiled at me sadly. "Artemis may have been drunk, but she had a point. I'm fucking everything up just by being here. If the rest of them disagreed they would have said something."

"I disagree!" I yelled, wishing I could shake sense into them all. Wishing I had some magic button that would reverse all of this and make everything go back to normal; back to when Artemis didn't drink and back to when Dick didn't look so dead. If there even was such a time.

"I know. It's okay. I...it makes sense. I guess. It was stupid for me not to realise it sooner." Dick's voice had taken on a strange edge to it. My skin crawled. He rose from the bed and seemed to almost shake himself.

"Hey, could you do me a favour?" He asked, his voice airy and weird. I nodded, rising slowly as well, desperate for any sense of direction. Anything to make things better.

"Since...since I'm really quitting the team...I have some stuff in my room. A few gadgets I'd kind of like to have but...could you...would you mind going back and getting them? I just don't-"

"Yeah." I murmured, frowning at the blank expression on his face. "Yeah, I'll...I'll only be a minute."

"Thanks. I'm going to take a shower then." I hesitated, my eyes trailing in the direction of the bathroom.

"Do you have blades?" I asked bluntly, staring directly into his eyes. Stupid question. He always has blades. "Are you gonna-" Dick frowned.

"No." Came the soft whisper.

"Promise me. Promise me that you won't." Something strange flickered in his eyes.

"I promise I won't cut myself." I held his gaze for a split second before sighing.

"Okay, okay. I trust you. I'll be back, alright?"

"Alright." I turned, halfway out the door. The ghost of his voice filtered towards me. "I love you, Wally." I smiled automatically, turning back to him for a second.

"I love you too, Dick."

I didn't understand why the words tasted like acid on my tongue, or why the slimy thing in my chest wouldn't shut up. He turned and disappeared into the bathroom, followed quickly by the sound of running water. I hesitated again, staring at the closed wooden door as my skin crawled with something rotten.

It's nerves. I decided, turning back to my original path down to the cave. You're just nervous about going there alone. Being alone with her. But it's fine. You can do that. You can do it because Dick needs his stuff, and you're not a baby. Get a grip, West.

The flash of the computer and the dull ringing announcement of my arrival only briefly tickled my senses before the slight stench of acidic vomit, a stench my nose had been abused with for far too long, had me reeling back. I steadied myself, pinching my palms in an attempt to get myself together. You can do this.

"Kid Flash," Kaldur addressed me cautiously from his tense position beside Conor, who I noticed was shaking again, his blue eyes far, far away from the rest of us all. "You're...back." I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the more than obvious statement, risking a glance in their direction. M'gann, crouched beside Artemis' shaking form on the floor, was doing her best to hold the archer's dirty, unwashed hair away from her face as she gagged into the large mixing bowl someone had placed in front of her. M'gann's gentle brown eyes flickered up to mine, before widening in horror, reeling backwards as though she'd been the one I'd punched.

"Wally," she gasped, her voice haunted, eyes immediately filling with tears. I cursed under my breath, her presence poking around my head very much unwanted. I showed her that much by my less than gentle barricade of the mental shields I'd forgotten to put up.

"Leave it." I muttered, knowing exactly what she'd seen. "I'm just here to get Robin's stuff."

"Why?" Conor spoke up suddenly, eyes less clouded as they settled on my face. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets at the empty gaze.

"You...he thinks everything she said," I pointed my head in Artemis' direction, "Was true. He's quitting the team. Thinks that might make shit better for you all." Artemis lifted her head in my direction, a weird mix of satisfaction and horror grazing her features.

"He can't quit!" M'gann sounded genuinely shocked.

"You..." I pressed my fingers into my temples, fixing them all with an exhausted glare. "You know, every day is a struggle for me just to get him to even eat something. Or hell, wake up. I know that you guys don't know any of that shit, but there's a lot going on with him that you can't see. I'm sure it's frustrating, but that gives you no right to treat him like such an...an outsider. He can't tell you guys any of it. Batman threatened to retire him if he did, and being Robin means the world to him. I just...fuck. I don't even know why I'm telling you this. He made up his mind and he's stubborn as shit. He's quitting the team, and so am I. I'll be out of your hair in a second."

"He doesn't keep anything in his room." Kaldur spoke up as I moved in the direction of the living quarters. "It's there for him, but he hardly ever uses it." I could feel every vein in my body freeze into ice.

"What?" I didn't wait for them to answer, speeding to his room in a bright flash of static. Sure enough, Kaldur was right. The place was spotless, not a single gadget in sight. Dust was beginning to collect on the nightstand.

I screamed.

"The Cave!" I shouted at the computer as I reappeared in a streak of panicked light. "F-fucking ca-ave! Now!" My entire body shook so hard I was almost vibrating, uncaring of the haze of panic I was letting fill the room.

"Kid Flash, what's going on?"

"Wally, calm down!"

"Kid!"

Their voices meant nothing to me. In a second, I was in front of Dick's bathroom door, pounding on the wood, rattling the knob against the lock.

"Dick!" I shouted. "Dick open the door!" The slimy, wet thing in my chest was expanding, swallowing me whole in pure terror. "Please! Fuck! Fuck, please, DICK! Open the FUCKING DOOR!"

He never answered me. Not when I started to sob loud, hiccuping cries that choked out my words and closed up my throat. Not when I began to slam my entire body against the door, punching, kicking, anything to open it. Not when the door finally did splinter, slamming back against its hinges. Not when I dropped to my knees, screaming. Not when I gathered his body into my arms, the empty bottle of sleeping pills clattering to the floor, begging him to wake up. Not when Alfred and Bruce burst into the room behind me. Not when Bruce himself dropped to his knees and wailed.

He was already dead.

Now somewhere, far off in the distance of my mind, I know that my fingers have long since gone numb.

Everything is cold.

My hair, thickly plastered against the sides of my face from rain, drops thick sheets of water down my neck, soaking through my shirt; but I don't care enough to push it away.

Alfred and Bruce have his body. It's covered up with a white sheet in the cave, already cooling. I didn't stay when they finally managed to pry him away from me. Alfred's broken voice never reached my ears. The phone that's been buzzing in my pocket for the past hour, Barry, means nothing to me anymore.

Nothing means anything. Nothing makes sense. He's left me, just like my mother did. Escaping in the only way they knew how, and I wish they'd taken me with them.

"Why...why'd you have to...Dick...there's nothing left for me here anymore." I choke out against the onslaught of rain against my shoulders. Weights hold me down, dragging me, calling me into a depth I understand greater than anyone now; the same psychedelic voice of his blades.

It's sweet.

"I love you." The words escape into the empty Gotham air, pointless and unnecessary. They won't bring him back. But they should have held me back. The strange light in his eyes, the rotten, uncomfortable feeling that had spread through me the second he rose from the bed should have held me back. But I blamed it on my nerves. Just like always. Much too selfish, much too stupid.

It's my fault he's dead.

"I love you." I repeat. "I'm sorry."

My fingers slowly drag off the metal railing I'd been gripping. The rain ceases. All that's left is the wind whipping through my hair. My phone, still buzzing, slips out of my pocket. I briefly wonder where it might go.

I never closed my eyes. I kept them open as the concrete approached me, much too fast.

I'm coming, Dick.

Just like my mother did, I died with a smile on my face.