Back! Man, it's been a bit, sorry. School and all that jazz. Hopefully I can pump out two or more during break, esp. since I'd love to do a Holiday one!
I will try my best to get back to everyone who reviews, but thank you to everyone who has been reading thus far!
I channeled a lot of random emotions into this one. I hope you guys like it.
Rating: K+? (I'm so bad at rating stuff... D;)
Timeline: Blue eyes ref. at the Thanksgiving chap (but doesn't really fit the timeline); takes place after Failsafe and beyond into alt. tangent. (LOL MY FAVORITE EPISODE. =u=) Read with a little slash in mind.
Standard Disclaimer.
Edit: Fixed line breaks. FINALLY.
He takes off his mask. Blue eyes, just like he said.
"Rob. Rob what are you doing?" He hears his voice like an echo. It's soft, a whisper.
"Promise you won't forget me. Ever, okay?" He opens his mouth to say something. Anything.
But the Boy Wonder is gone and Wally feels pushed back by a heavy explosion. His mind translates what has just happened and time seems to slow down. He can hear his heart thudding in his chest as he's laying on the floor.
-o-
Wally wakes up sweating. He lurches up from his bed and his hands go to his eyes to stop the sudden tears. It's been two weeks since the training simulation that went wrong. His dream-no, nightmare-it was different. This time, Robin had set up some suicide explosion to save his friend. Him. Wallace West.
Wally chokes, his mouth is incredibly dry. He's breathing hard. The digital clock on his right reads 3:27am. He can't go back to sleep like this. He slides one foot out and over and then his other leg. He slips on his jacket. He treads like a sloth out of his room. When he gets out into the hallway he doesn't really know where he's going.
Kid Flash finds himself suddenly by the ocean. Bare feet in the cold sand and the water coming up on the shores. The world suddenly looks so big. He knows he can go around the world in a blink of an eye, but it just seems too huge. Whelming? No. Overwhelming.
He doesn't know what he'd do without Robin. He slumps into the sand and then lays down. The water sounds peaceful. He looks up at the stars. They look so big too. Well, small, but if he was there, it would burn him up. He knows that he probably couldn't reach the ends of the universe in a blink of eye.
"Jesus Christ, Wals. What are you doing?" Wally gets up suddenly. He should've heard the other. Or, Robin was skilled at being light footed so maybe it was okay if he didn't hear him.
Wally gives him a sheepish smile. Robin's eyes narrow. "That's my jacket…"
Wally looks down at the jacket. "Well, it's mine now, right?" Robin sighs. His sunglasses look silly at this time of the morning with it's still dark outside. Robin flops down on the sand next to his best friend. Wally looks at him and suddenly gets curious.
"Why are you here?" Wally asks, staring at his best friend.
Robin shrugs. "Bad dream." Wally looks back at the ocean and smiles. "Hah, me too."
Robin looks at him. "Really?" Wally nods. Robin looks back at the ocean too.
"They suck." He says softly. Wally has never really closely seen a sad Robin. He's seen many facets of Robin. There's been his serious side, his happy side, his hurt side, his bored side, his mischievous one. But not quite sad Robin. Wally digs through his brain for a time he must've seen Robin cry or feel sad or something. He suddenly feels bad for wishing something like that and stops thinking about it, but he can't help but agree with Robin's earlier comment.
"Yeah, they do." There's silence and Robin slowly leans and rests his head on Wally's shoulder. Wally doesn't stiffen, as Robin expected, but relaxes a little.
"Thanks, KF…" Robin can feel the hitch in his throat, the sudden block. It's right before tears. God, why can't he forget. He hates nightmares. He hates waking up gasping after seeing his parents, Bruce, the team, his friends, his family, and then all that blood. So much blood. The blood and the fear and being so, so powerless.
Wally murmurs a 'welcome' and then hears short sobs. Wally, shocked turns abruptly to look at Robin. Robin immediately sits up right and is wiping under his shades.
Wally pauses a moment and then takes his arm and wraps it around Robin and pulls his head back to his shoulder. The sobs subside. Both are breathing in time to the water that comes and goes against the sand.
"I'll always be here for you." Wally thinks it's appropriate to say.
Robin is silent.
He then whispers, and it can barely be heard above the ocean. "Always."
Always is such a strong word. It's a promise. Robin follows up with, "Me too."
For breakfast, Artemis is complaining about the amount of sand that the mountain seems to be tracking up. M'gann suggest they try some spring-cleaning and Superboy has to ask why because it is the winter season right now. M'gann isn't sure. Aqualad is the only one to notice the slight difference between Kid Flash and Robin.
They seem to be holding skin contact more than usual. Like doing dishes, shoulders and arms touching or lounging on the couch or even when waiting their turn to take on Black Canary, they are just in very close proximity of each other. Aqualad isn't one to assume and he knows their friendship is very strong.
He notices that they fall back into less skin contact as the week goes by and dismisses it.
-o-
It's different this time. M'gann is unconscious for sure and maybe dead. No one knows, but their mental link is down. The comm. link seems to only generate a lot of static so that's down too. Wally doesn't know where Supey or Kaldur might be but Robin is next to him.
The stupid bad guys totally were waiting for them. They pushed them out into the forest area and they got separated. Artemis was shot down while going for the run into forest cover. Everyone saw. That's when they lost the mental link.
Robin is close to him. They don't know if they've got a chance. They are obviously out numbered and have no way to contact the JLA. Wally wonders if Robin has anything in his utility belt that might save their lives.
Suddenly the scene changes and Wally is in a warehouse. He knows, somehow, that only he and Robin are the last ones alive. Robin nudges him and hands him something. Wally looks at it. Robin nods.
They down it dry at the same time and get up. Time to go down fighting. The pill was most definitely some sort of pain-repressant or adrenaline pill. He doesn't feel it when bullets hit him.
It's weird, but when he down on the ground, the last thing he sees in Robin's face.
-o-
Wally sleeps lightly, but there's a lingering smile. When he wakes up, he will only remember fragments of this dream. It was a nightmare, but almost not. He will take the jacket off the doorknob of his room and bring up to his face. It smells like him but also like Robin. He closes his eyes and tries to memorize the scent.
This seems a little weird to him, but it's comforting. Always there for you. He decides then and there that he wants to die in only two ways. Either young and with Robin or old and with Robin. He will grow to fear dying alone, but he's still only fifteen, and Robin, thirteen. They see death as part of their job, but are still living in a moment of invincibility.
It becomes the unspoken rule between them. Death doesn't seem likely despite the fatality statics of their career, and they just go on their way, knowing that neither will be far from the other should death occur.
By the end of the month, Wally will forget and move on. Robin's jacket will have gone through the wash one too many times and lose it's last owner's smell.
Robin, however, will never forget. He clings to the idea that he will never be alone. He fears being alone. He fears the day Batman will die as well as Alfred and suddenly it will just be him in the Wayne Manor or the Bat Cave. He fears losing people close to him. He attaches himself, despite his nonchalant demeanor and what Batman has taught him about attachments.
-o-
Dick Grayson and Robin are alike in they way they are selfish when it comes to Wally West.
It's shocking and Wally is the first to be demanding rash action. Robin is gone, apparently. Batman is in the hospital. There was a brutal attack that had gone down in Gotham. Wally freaks out. He is demanding details when he knows he isn't getting any. He is practically yelling at Superman, yeah the Superman, why he couldn't do anything.
"Stand down." Flash says as a warning. Wally gives him a pleading look.
"No. Never. Not until we find Robin." He says loudly. Artemis puts her hand on his shoulder.
"I agree." Suddenly it's the entire Young Justice team saying they will scout the ends of the Earth for Robin. Perhaps not that dramatically, but it's a pledge. Wally's heart is going to break out of his chest. There's so much nervous energy filling him right now. He feels like he can do anything to find Robin and he feels like he's just going to fall apart at the same time.
They find him, eventually. Batman gains consciousness to say very little. He is quiet for the most of it. He is ashamed. He will be broken if Robin dies from this. The rest of the League leaves Batman to heal himself. They have the information they need.
They have most of the pieces to find Robin. Robin is in some old headquarters and the villains have conveniently fled. Perhaps they just didn't think they had the ammo to take on the entire JLA, not yet anyways.
Hal Jordan finds Robin first. He is unconscious. He must've been stuffed in that meat locker last minute. He's cold but breathing. He needs treatment. He's suffered cuts and burns. Broken ribs bones and something with his leg, by the way it's awkwardly bent. Hal remarks that being somewhere cold has definitely slowed down the bleeding, but that the boy needs medical attention quick.
Wally is in a rage. He is yelling profanities when Aqualad keeps KF away from Robin. KF knows that he can't follow Robin into surgery. He needs to wait. He doesn't want to. It almost breaks Kaldur, trying to hold his friend back. Eventually Kaldur needs Connor's help to keep Wally in the waiting room.
Everyone tries to be comforting but Wally yells scathing remarks.
M'gann flinches when he asks her what she could know about human sorrow. She's a Martian. Superboy growls and Wally takes a step forward, accusing Superboy doesn't even care and shouldn't even be on the team. He's not one of them, he says. Kaldur and Artemis step in, knowing this is going too far and Wally actually throws a punch at Kaldur when Roy comes in and then Flash has to break up this throw down. He's yelling at them and then his voice goes hoarse.
Wally breaks down. He's crying. Flash asks if he wants to leave. Wally shakes his head furiously. Never.
He feels so alone.
Like one in a billion. No. One in the universe. Just one. One tiny grain of sand on a beach. Where was his other half? Gone. Robin was just gone.
The waiting room falls to silence. M'gann ends up blocking everyone out because she feels like she will be destroyed by everyone's collective emotions or maybe she may just end up crushing everyone else's brains with hers.
When they allow visitors, no one goes. Not even Wally. Batman gets that first. Wally hates the waiting.
-o-
The first thing Wally says to Robin is, "Thank god." And then softer after most of the others have left, "If you'd died, I wouldn't have been far behind, you know. Never alone, right?"
Robin looks at Wally with sad eyes. "No, you can't do that."
Wally has his forehead pressed against Robin. Robin with no mask. "No, I would."
Maybe it's a telepathic moment, but both of them are just breathing softly. Perhaps imagining being free souls, out of the confinements of a mortal body, going around the world and to the ends of the universe. Just together. Then, neither of them know that what they feel is love.
In times when Robin will find himself in thoughts about death and his own death, he is fearless. He still has the fear, but he's comforted. Never alone.
Someone has placed him above the mission. Someone has put him above the call of justice. Robin feels better now. He can do the same.
The first week Robin is back is when Wally also apologizes for his behavior. Everyone is forgiving. The worst it gets is when Artemis says, "Christ, Kid Douche. Don't let your Jersey Shore side come out too much, okay?" KF has the best retort but bites it back. He laughs instead.
Kaldur notices it again, how physically close Wally and Robin seem to be. Or need to be. Sometimes, they just stare at each other from across the dinner table and mouth each other things or makes faces. It's precious, to say. A few weeks after, they go back to 'normal'.
Robin will wear that jacket every once and a while so the wash can never get rid of his smell. Wally jokes about how it's funny how that jacket fits both of them (Robin more loosely). M'gann makes a comment about how it reminded her of this one movie called The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. While Wally always complains that he doesn't like his relationship with Robin being compared to a chick flick, it's secretly one of Wally's favorite movies.
And always R&R!
xoxo, Stamps