Tempest: Chapter Ten: Wounds Unseen


Amara tried not to wince when her mother held her tightly, but the weight pressing down on her wasn't helping her injuries. "Mom…you're hurting me," she mumbled before Iris released her abruptly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sweetheart!"

Iris West-Allen had come tearing into the hospital wing like she was on fire, and Amara had been startled to say the least, having just awakened from her drug-induced nap.

Robin had gone by that time, but Wally had taken his place, giving her a sheepish smile as her mother hugged her.

Iris' eyes were red from crying, which she had started up once more, "Oh, thank God, you're awake! You worried your father and I sick!"

Amara's lips drew downwards. "I'm sorry," she apologized.

It wasn't like it was her fault that that she'd been shot off a building.

Iris stroked her cheeks, smoothing her hair away from her face as she looked at her daughter. "I'm just so happy that you're awake and feeling better," the red-haired woman said in relief. "You are feeling better, aren't you?"

"Just a bit," Amara said, wincing when she shifted her shoulders and a flare of pain shot over her wounds. "How long do I have to stay here?"

Amara hated hospitals, especially since the time she had awoken in one after her biological father had nearly electrocuted her.

Iris opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by the sound of rushing air and a few seconds later Barry was standing in the room.

His trainers were smoking slightly, but he didn't seem to care, his eyes bright as they focused on Amara.

"You're awake!" he said before leaning down to feather a light kiss to Amara's brow, which only served to make her roll her eyes and make Wally snigger where he was sitting off to the side. "How do you feel?"

Amara stared at him blankly. "Like I've been shot through with a couple of arrows, obviously."

She earned a reproachful stare at that. "It's not so bad," Amara amended, "if I don't move and they keep me pumped full with morphine."

Of course, then the morphine made her tired and sleeping terrified her. Merlyn's face looming over her with a shadow that would not leave.

"Do you remember if he said anything to you?"

"Barry," Iris said softly, "is this really the best time?"

Their daughter was swathed in bandages with grey circles under her eyes, looking to be the epitome of exhaustion, and Barry was sure that was exactly what she was, but he had heard the recording that Batman had taken from Amara's goggles.

And he needed to know what she had heard.

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," Barry said and Amara couldn't help but frown, thinking back to him leaning over her, speaking words that she would have remembered even if pain hadn't heightened her memory.

"He…said it was a pity I didn't die from the fall," Amara said, swallowing thickly and Iris squeezed her hand in reassurance. "He thought that hurting me would make Weather Wizard 'cease to be a hindrance' , but I don't understand, no one's heard anything from him since he broke out of Belle Reve, right?"

"The League hasn't," Barry concurred, smoothing her hair from her forehead. "Was there anything else?"

"Sadly, it's not my intention to kill you. It's a pity, but your mother wants proof of relation; it'll be my own head if you're killed, so try not to die."

"No," Amara lied, closing her eyes, "that was all he said…that was all I heard."

Amara didn't know what to think about that comment about her mother, but she had a feeling that it would probably be better if she didn't mention it to Barry, because there was something a bit off about his line of questioning, like he was fishing for something in particular.

She didn't see how he relaxed almost imperceptibly at the lack of mention of her mother, grateful that Amara at least still didn't know her identity.

The doctor cleared her throat as she entered, forcing Amara to open her eyes and for all those in the room (Barry, Iris, Wally, and Amara) to look towards her.

"Hello, Amara," she said with a smile, "how are you feeling?"

"Like I've been shot," Amara said dryly and Wally snorted, but her parents didn't smile.

"Yes, well, you wouldn't be wrong," the doctor conceded, walking around to where Amara's feet were, pressing her palms lightly to Amara's soles. "I want you to press down against my palms with your feet, all right?"

"Okay?" Amara looked at her oddly before doing as she asked, but her feet barely moved, no matter how hard she tried. The fear shot through her veins, making the heart monitor beep as her heart rate increased.

"You did great, Amara," the doctor soothed, but it didn't convince her, even as she took her parents out of the room to speak with them privately.

"What is it?" Barry asked, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "What's wrong with her legs?"

"We believe that there was a neurological toxin that Merlyn had laced his arrows with, so that in the event that she survived the attack, she'd be out of commission for awhile," the doctor explained patiently. "Star Labs is still working on the breakdown of the toxin."

"I don't understand," Iris said, her voice trembling slightly as Barry wrapped a tense arm around her shoulders, "are you –are you saying she'll never walk again?"

"I can't ascertain at this point if her inability to use her legs is coming from the toxin or if it's psychosomatic—"

"Psychosomatic?"

"If it stems from a psychological issue," the doctor explained delicately, "the stress of the attack and her fear about it itself could be physically crippling, but at this point we don't know…but with time she will get better, that I can promise you, but it will take time."

Wally opened the door and peered out to his aunt and uncle. "You're making her nervous…and you're kind of freaking me out too." He looked from one face to the next and the color faded from his cheeks. "What's wrong?"

Barry jerked his head towards the doctor who gave a sharp nod, walking past Wally back into the room to stand close to Amara's bed. "Amara, can you feel your legs?"

The heart monitor spiked once more and Amara swallowed. "A little…what's wrong with them?" She tried to keep her voice from shaking, but it didn't quite work.

"Merlyn's arrows were tipped with a neurological toxin that is effecting the nerves that send signals to your legs to tell them to move," the doctor explained gently, "but it's also possible that its psychosomatic, brought on from your emotions rather than a physical injury…either way it's going to take you awhile before you can get back on your feet."

"No," Amara said, shaking her head so much that it seemed like her head could only move in that direction. "You're wrong, my –my legs are fine! My legs are fine!" Her voice was rising gradually with her denial as Wally's eyes went wide in horror and Iris presses a hand to her mouth while Barry looked down.

"I need my legs!" she insisted, tears streaming down her face. "I need them! I'm a sidekick! I can't be Black Canary's sidekick without my legs!"

Then, before anyone could stop her, she was sitting upright –no matter how much it made her head spin–, pulling at the many wires she was connected to, from the heart monitor to the IV drip, which had her doctor springing forward.

"Amara! You will aggravate your wounds!"

"I need my legs!" Amara repeated, completely white before she leaned over the side of the bed and vomited what little was left in her stomach, which gave the doctor the opportunity to return the IV to her arm, and inserting morphine through the IV push.

Barry moved around the bed, carefully avoiding the pool of sick to coax his daughter back into bed.

"I know," he said gently as the morphine began to work, already making her drowsy and her eyesight blurry. She gave little protest as he laid her back against the mattress. "I know."

And then Amara drowned in nothingness.


All she could hear were echoes and feel nothing but the pain.

"It's a pity the fall didn't kill you, little Storm Chaser. Sends a better message if you're dead…maybe then Weather Wizard will cease to become a hindrance...dead daughters are such tragedies, don't you think?"

"Sadly, it's not my intention to kill you. It's a pity, but your mother wants proof of relation; it'll be my own head if you're killed, so try not to die."

Amara remembered the arrows tearing through her and the stabbing pain, and then nothing once more, and that, she found, was bliss.


When Amara awoke again, it was to see Roy sitting beside her bed, thumbing through what must have been a textbook for school. She blinked hazily, curling her fingers around his where they were wrapped around her wrist and he pulled his gaze from the book to look to her, giving her a smile. "You look like hell."

Amara didn't smile. "I can't use my legs, Roy," she whispered and he gave a sigh.

"Yeah, I heard that," he said, sliding their hands together so that their fingers could interlock.

"I can't be your partner anymore," she said, her eyes brimming with tears, "I can't go out on patrol or watch your backs…I'm useless."

"Hey!" Roy reproached, his blue eyes bright with emotion. "You are not useless! The legs not working right is just a setback. You're going to get better, it just, you know, it might take awhile."

Amara's eyes shifted to stare at the ceiling, ignoring him, and ignoring his words, something that faintly annoyed him, but he tried not to show it.

"Remember when you came after me? You and GA? Everybody else had given up, but you didn't, and it took you some time to find me, didn't it?"

"That was completely different!" Amy snapped, the tears spilling out the corner of her eyes as she glared venomously at him. "You were kidnapped! Look at me, Roy! I can't use my legs! You can!"

"Don't get mad at me, I wasn't the one that shot you!"

She looked away from him bitterly; if she'd been able to move her legs, she would have rolled completely onto her side. She wished in a single miserable moment that Merlyn had killed her then, better to be a dead sidekick than a crippled one.

And if there was one thing that Amara had loved, it was being a sidekick. To be robbed of the ability to do that was nothing short of immensely painful. Amara had had everything in life she wanted –granted, she would have preferred her father back in prison, and would have wanted to know the identity of her birth mother, but you couldn't get everything you wanted– and then everything had gone wrong when she was just a week shy of her twelfth birthday. And Amara hated her birthday.

She blamed the bad karma on her father, of course, the bastard deserved it.

So Amara scowled, pulling the wires and tubes off and out of her skin before sitting up and grabbing at her legs with shaking arms, swinging them over the side of the bed one at time.

"What're you doing?" Roy asked, startled before giving a surprised noise when Amara pushed off the bed, her feet making contact with the ground, holding her for a split second before they buckled under her, sending her crumpling to the ground, and Roy was around the bed in an instant, kneeling beside her. "Hey, what're you thinking—?"

He paused, drawing back slightly when he saw how her whole body was shaking with her teeth clenched and her hands in fists.

The door opened and Amara's eyelevel gave her a perfect view of a very familiar pair of dark combat boots.

"What happened?"

"She tried to walk," Roy attempted to explain and Dinah gave a small sigh.

"Of course she did," she said sadly. "Grab her other arm and leg, will you?"

Dinah and Roy helped her sit up before hooking one arm under the crook of her knee and under her armpit, hoisting her back onto the bed.

"I know this is going to be hard," Dinah said gently, smearing the tears on her cheek, "but you aren't going to be able to do all the things you used to."

Amara looked away, flushed with anger and with embarrassment, the feelings burning inside her like acid eating away at bone.

"I know you're angry," Dinah added, her eyes just as gentle as her voice, and that did nothing for Amara. "And you have every right to be. What Merlyn did to you was awful, but you will get better, Amy, I promise you, you will get better. You just need to work at it."

"I want to go home," Amara told her sullenly with a glower.

"Well, you can't right now," her mentor said apologetically, "your house is being renovated."

Amara's head shot up in surprise. "Renovated? Whatever for?"

There wasn't anything wrong with the house, not that Amara could remember, anyways, besides, she liked it as it was.

"Well, it needs to be wheelchair accessible," Dinah told her delicately and Amara, being very firm in her denial of needing a wheelchair, or anything else for that matter to assist her with walking, gave her a glare, which her mentor ignored. "Batman's footing the bill."

"Why?" Amara asked shortly as Dinah pushed her back gently into the bed so as not to aggravate her still healing wounds before her mostly numb legs up onto the bed with her, pulling the sheet up to her waist, as it hiding them from view would make Amara forget about her current condition; it wasn't something she would be forgetting anytime soon.

"Well, he is the head of the Justice League," Dinah told her lightly as Roy returned to his seat, watching his friend carefully. "Though I'm sure that Robin appealed to him, as well." She gave her protégé a wink, which Amara also ignored. "Either way, you're staying put until your wounds are done healing…you're not going anywhere, Amy."

"Great," Amara said, "because I'm exactly a huge fan of being stuck in hospitals."

The scorn when she said 'hospitals' was evident.

Roy snorted and Dinah cracked a smile before a thick scent of spices filled the air and Amara's stomach gave a pitiful moan as Oliver entered bearing a bowl of what she was almost certain was his famous chili.

"I come bearing gifts!" Oliver proclaimed cheerily, and for the first time since she'd been told the news about her legs, Amara smiled, reaching for the chili eagerly, and for a moment she could forget about her injuries and the assortment of problems that had been brought on by them.


Robin stopped by a few days later to find Amara and Wally in the commons area of the Justice League's hospital ward. Amara was no longer wearing a hospital gown, but a simple pajama shirt and pants that wouldn't have looked amiss during the night, but it was only the afternoon.

She was also nestled in a wheelchair, shuffling cards between her hands as Wally spoke animatedly across from her, no doubt attempting to keep her mind off things (he really was a good cousin to her, Robin kept forgetting that they weren't actually related), but Robin couldn't tell if it was actually working…but at least it looked like her injuries had healed for the most part.

"I really don't think she's into you, Wally," Amara told him dryly. "You're probably just setting yourself up for failure."

"I am not!" Wally insisted. "She's totally into me, I swear, she's just, you know, shy about it."

Amara gave him a dubious stare. "Shy, right, I'm sure that's it. Are you sure that you're not confusing being shy with avoiding you?"

"Of course I'm sure!"

Amara rolled her eyes before looking up to see Robin walking towards them in his casual wear with perpetual shades over his eyes (what was the point of that? They were inside for God's sake!) and her eyes glittered and she smiled. "Hey, Robin, come to join the fun?"

She looked both better and worse than when he'd last seen her. There was color back in her cheeks, yes, and she certainly looked healed, but there were still dark circles under her eyes, and she was much thinner, like she hadn't been eating enough to sustain her Metahuman body.

"Poking fun at Wally's nonexistent love life?" Robin asked with a grin, plopping down into the spare chair. "I'm in."

"It is not nonexistent!" Wally countered, glaring at them both as they laughed. "I'm being serious! She is totally into me!"

"Right…" they drawled as one before sniggering at the outraged expression he tossed towards the both of them.

"Wanna play Go Fish?" Amara asked Robin. "We're beyond bored and the adults are actually blocking the exits after my last escape attempt." She shook her head sadly and Robin snorted.

"Why not?" Robin said with a shrug. "I don't have anywhere to be."

Amara hummed in agreement, dealing the cards. "You have a nice-sounding name," she told Robin whose cheeks warmed slightly at the unexpected compliment.

"Um, thanks," he said, scratching his cheek while Wally gaped at his best friend.

"You told her before me?" he demanded outraged. "Way to throw your best friend under the bus, Rob!"

"To be fair, I've known him longer that you," Amara retorted, continuing to deal the cards ("By, like, a few minutes, how is that fair?"), "besides, you're too fast for a bus to run you over."

Robin sniggered again as Wally swiped up his cards and scowled at them both. "That's an unimportant detail."

"I feel it's a very important detail if you're about to be run over, don't you think?"

And then they laughed at Wally's expense.


Amara felt like her room was supersized, even though it wasn't vastly larger than it had been when she'd last been in the house, but compared to what it used to be, the difference was a bit significant and there was just so much space, leaving Amara a bit at a loss as she sat awkwardly in her wheelchair.

"You didn't have to do this," she told her parents, her fingers wound tightly around the stems of the Chrysanthemum bouquet that Wally and Robin –Richard, she had to remind herself– had given her while she'd been in the hospital, and since they had yet to die, she had brought them with her quite happily. "I would've managed."

"We know, sweetie," Iris said, kneeling beside her wheelchair so that they were more level. Amara felt a pang; she might not have been very tall before, but her mother hadn't had to kneel in order for them to be more level. "But we want to make your life a little easier, if we can. I know…I know none of this is easy, but you're not doing this alone. You've got me, your father, and all your friends to help you out."

Amara gave her a dry stare. "You say that like I've got so many friends, Mom."

And her mother laughed while her father curled a stray lock of hair around her ear as he smiled. "Don't be afraid to ask us for help, all right, we'll always come when you call."

Amara thought that might be a bit difficult if they were working and resolved not to call them when they were at work, no matter what they said, Amara didn't need them taking sick days just to help her move up and down stairs that she could clearly float down to forming a cloud around herself.

"I'll keep it in mind," she promised, lying right through her teeth, but neither parent picked up on it, for which Amara was grateful.

Then she wheeled carefully across the floor that still had the carpeting –she was sure they were debating about ripping it out and replacing it with wooden panels to make it easier for Amara to wheel across it and were only waiting for Amara's decision before doing so– coming close to the bed and pulling on a short lever on each side of the wheelchair in order to lock the wheels into place so she could try her hand at getting into bed by herself.

Barry surged forward to assist, but Iris drew him back as Amara hoisted herself onto the bed with a little bit of effort.

She shrugged off her jacket before pulling herself into the center of the bed, and then pulling the blankets out from under her in order to pull them up her body. "Goodnight," she said, a bit flatly when she realized that her parents were simply staring at her as if waiting for her to do something that required their assistance.

"Goodnight, Amy," Barry and Iris said as one before turning off the light and closing the door quietly behind them.

And Amara just lay in the bed staring up at the ceiling, feeling so completely and utterly alone despite being surrounded by so much love and care.