Wally refers to Bruce as Batman for a bit in this chapter, despite the fact that he knows Batman's name is Bruce. This is due to the fact that in that passage, he is literally talking about Batman, the superhero/figure/mentor/symbol, not Bruce, the person (hopefully that also answers a question I got in a review about a similar situation earlier. Sorry!)
I like and don't like this chapter at the same time? But hey, there's foreshadowing!
Also, NOTE: There's a flashback in this, and it's inserted in the middle of what's present-day, before melting again into present day. I don't italicise or bold or such and such for flashbacks. It's literally in the middle of a paragraph. So just keep on the look out for that and realise that after it explains present-day events, the rest of the chapter is occurring in present-day.
I hope you guys enjoy, and don't be afraid to leave me a few words! I get overjoyed at the sight of them. c:
Wally knew that Barry Allen had forgotten about him. He knew it. He'd known it since he had died.
The man had returned to normal. All bright and sunshine, his and Aunt Iris' home, where Wally used to live and the place he'd haunted in his first few months as a ghost, was never silent. There was music if there was no talking, there was dancing if there was no singing, always with food on the plate and bright lights from the ceiling, even on the sunniest of days. Hell, exactly one month after Wally had died, and he knew because he had been counting on the calendar in the kitchen, Iris had taken Barry on a picnic.
Was that all that Wally had amounted to? Picnics, in the very field that he and Barry used to run at night in the early stages of his training as Kid Flash?
Wally knew that Barry had forgotten about him, and that was frightening.
Wally had never known that he had done it throughout his life, but a year after meeting Dick, the two of them ages 11 and 13, Dick had pointed it out. It was remarkable how immature Dick always acted and how observant he really could be. He had told Wally, after a night spent patrolling together with Roy and all three of their mentors, that maybe they could spend some-
"-more time together," Dick had stated, and Wally had felt a bit awkward, the younger boy grabbing onto his sleeve like that outside of the zeta tube connecting to the Batcave. Batman, Barry, Green Arrow, and Roy had already gone through, and Wally was to go next. Dick was last in order to attach some-shiny-device-or-another to the zeta tube that was supposed to allow him to recode, after he had gone through, the coordinates of the teleporter from the Batcave back to its original destination in Metropolis. "Just the two of us."
If that hadn't sounded suspicious coming from the prodigy of the World's-Greatest-Most-Paranoid-And-Busiest-Detective-In-The-World, Wally didn't know what did. "Uh, sure, man," he had answered uncomfortably. "I'm all for hanging out. But…why?"
It seemed to occur to Dick then how his words must have sounded, and he let go of Wally's sleeve with a cackle. "Because you're cool and all in a group, but I want to know what you're really like."
"What?" Wally had frowned. "I'm pretty sure you've got how I act down by now. Why should hanging out together make any difference?"
"Because then you won't keep trying to grab everyone's attention. It'll be only me, and there will be no one competing for my focus," answered Dick, as if Wally was totally supposed to know what that meant. Well, he didn't. Stupid birds. Dick must have noticed Wally's confusion, because he continued. "You're loud and silly so that you won't be forgotten, right?"
Wally had wanted to protest to that. Hearing it out loud was so much different from hearing it in his head. But there had been truth to Dick's words. There had been so much truth that Wally couldn't find it in himself to lie. He was a terrible liar, anyway. "I want to get to know the real you," Dick had said with a playful shove of Wally's shoulder. "And that means taking away all of the variables that get you acting like the class clown. It means making it so that you aren't always trying to be the centre of attention. You're not going to be forgotten, Wally. I'm pretty sure it's hard not to notice you, no matter how quiet you are."
Wally had to think hard about an answer to that statement. "Well, duh, you guys can't actually forget about me when I'm right there," he had reasoned. "I just…" Say it, Wally. Say it. Dick had already known everything just by guessing. What harm was there in a little more information? "I don't want to be ignored."
"No one does," Dick had shrugged, before offering a brilliant smile. "If you were ignored, I wouldn't be standing here. Now go away before we start a soap opera - Batman's gonna be pissed if we're late," he had said, shoving Wally under the zeta beam. Wally had appeared in the Batcave moments later and, after Dick had finally shown up, nothing more on the matter was ever said.
Still, Wally, for days afterward, had thought about what Dick had meant. Wally wasn't so naive as to think that no one in the world felt like Wally did, especially not about being ignored. But there was something there that Wally didn't believe Dick had understood. Something rooted deeply, so deeply that it stirred Wally's limbs into vibrating, kick started his heart into racing.
It probably could have been traced back to when Wally was younger, after his mother had walked out and before his father had been thrown into jail for drug abuse. Wally knew that he had gotten off good compared to the other kids in the situation that he was in. A kind CPS agent had said so, right after Rudolph West had been dragged off to rehab. He had an uncle and aunt close by, more than willing to take him in. He had never been physically hurt by his father, at least not badly or past normal, albeit a bit harsh, child discipline. There had never been physical, although somewhat mental, abuse in the West household. But Wally hadn't been much of a talker at that time, so he didn't blame that particular CPS agent for not considering an important factor.
Wally had never been abused. But he had always been neglected.
He hadn't wanted that to happen ever again. Especially not by Barry. As he was raised under Allen eyes, Wally could almost forget about that fear. At least, when he wasn't around Dick after Dick had given that short speech of his. Though a new personality had sprung from the ashes of his childhood in a vain attempt to ward away the possibility of his nightmares coming true, it was unintentional. He never truly feared being neglected by Barry or by Iris. He had been certain that he would never be ignored or forgotten again.
It took his death for Wally to find out that he had been wrong.
Even Dick forgot about him. Wally knew it. Dick didn't, but Wally did. When Wally first became visible to Dick, it was Wally that was the centre of Dick's world. Wally had never asked to be the centre of anything, he just didn't want to be so far in the distance that he wasn't seen. Still, once Wally gave Dick the happiness that Dick had lost, it wasn't uncommon for long periods of the day to go by where it was as if Wally didn't exist at all. That other day at the mountain with the team, for example. Once Artemis had sat down, all throughout the night, after the movie and during the jokes, it didn't look as if it had occurred to Dick that Wally was still around. That morning, Wally had been absent, testing to see if Dick would notice, and when he walked up to Dick in the late afternoon all that he got was a 'hi', as if Wally had been there the entire time.
After Dick had left Wally earlier that day on his R-Cycle, Wally had decided to take the zeta tube in the Batcave to the mountain because he had no clue where the one that Dick was headed for was located, but once he hopped beneath the beam, he had quickly figured out that not even zeta tubes knew that ghosts existed.
Fantastic, really. The last time that Wally had entered through a zeta tube was because Dick had been the one who had activated it, and Wally didn't think that Dick was getting back anytime soon to help his pal out.
He never knew that his hero would be Batman, of all people. No, Wally never knew that his hero would be Bruce Wayne. Gah, it was still weird to digest.
The man had just suddenly appeared. Wally figured it was from one of the many shady caverns that were more than abundant throughout the cave, but the redhead thought that Batman at least tried to be silent during missions. Nope, that was just how the man was. A bit freaky, in Wally's opinion. Batman would be a better suited assassin than crime fighter.
He had never taken the time to really get to know Batman. Hell, Wally had never taken the time to really look at Batman. He was always too intimidated by the towering man. Though Wally still got the nerves, despite the fact that he was on a different physical plane than the billionaire, he could credit himself with having more confidence around him than before. Enough confidence to stride up to the man and take a look at the papers that he was looking at.
Or, lack thereof.
The file on top of the desk where Bruce had sat down wasn't opened. In fact, Bruce wasn't even touching it. His elbows were on either side of the manila folder and one hand was tightly gripping his bangs away from his face. Startling Wally almost to the other side of the room, he suddenly groaned and slammed his hands down, shaking the desktop nestled a foot away. Bruce spun around and grabbed his costume, beginning to change as Wally forcefully trained his gaze on said computer.
The former speedster had never thought that he would ever get into Bruce Wayne's breathing space, let alone potentially watch the man strip. It felt like things were getting more freaky when he was dead than when he had been alive, and that was saying a lot.
Wally knew that Bruce was done when he spoke. "Batcomputer, deactivate lights," he commanded as the redhead turned around. The cave went dim, and Wally was still recovering from hearing the Batsuit speak in something other than a Clint Eastwood imitation when the man in question headed towards the zeta tube.
If that wasn't Wally's chance, nothing was. He had darted forward and stood uncomfortably close to Bruce's chest as the door of the phone booth was sealed shut and the light whisked the both of them away.
After having heard Bruce mention to Barry that he had been looking for Dick, Wally thought that he had a good idea as to why the man had groaned in the cave. In fact, that was what he had been trying to tell Dick when he had finally found the boy, but fate was no longer giving him the chance. The moment that the pair had stepped into the training arena, Black Canary (that amazing woman with her amazing body, wow, did Wally miss training with that, she made even his ass getting kicked look beautiful) wasted no time in directing the team into fighting groups. The first to go up was Dick, and Wally wasn't about to break Dick's concentration.
When Dick finally stepped back down after his spar with Artemis, however, was when Bruce decided to walk in, causing Dick to beeline to his room. That, in turn, made Wally feel that he had best keep his mouth shut about anything involving Dick's somewhat-adoptive father.
Instead, a new idea had taken root in his mind. An idea that had shoved Bruce's suspicious behaviour to the sidelines and was just itching at Wally's mouth, begging to be voiced. He eyed Dick as his best friend sat down on the covers of his bed, legs crossed, bangs gripped tightly over his forehead.
Wally didn't point out how similar the gesture was to Bruce.
He could feel his voice at the back of his throat and his lips already shaping the request. All he had to do was ask it. How hard could that be? Very hard, apparently. But the silence in the room was oppressive, and Wally wanted to do something. He wanted to move. He needed to take some sort of action.
"Sit down," Dick said. His voice sounded hoarse. Wally frowned.
"I can't. I go through furniture." Dick didn't answer, and Wally took a deep breath in an attempt to better force the words from his throat.
Come on.
It wasn't as if he were asking Dick to shoot Klarion's cat, god dammit.
"Can you tell Barry that I'm a ghost?" If Wally had still had superspeed, he thought that he probably would have rushed those words out too fast for Dick to hear. Thankfully, he didn't need to repeat them.
Dick looked at him as if he were insane. Maybe he was. "He wouldn't believe me," the acrobat deadpanned. "Would you, if Barry was a ghost?"
"Please," Wally begged, feeling as if his throat were constricting with something suspicious. "Just...try. All he needs to do is empty his mind to see me, right? To hear me? Just tell him to do that and I'll do the rest."
"It won't work," protested Dick. "I can't-"
"You can!" Wally exclaimed. His throat burned. "Dick, please. I can't, but if you can single-handedly throw the Joker into Arkham, you can convince-"
"I know you miss him," Dick interrupted. "I miss my parents too, Wally. But you have to-"
Wally narrowed his eyes. "It's not like that," he corrected.
"Then what is it like?" challenged the acrobat.
"I want him to feel guilty," Wally spat, and Dick's eyes widened in surprise. "He forgot about me, Dick!" the redhead said as his voice rose. He tried to keep it down, he really did, but then he realised that no one could hear him anyway. No matter how loudly he screamed, no one would ever hear him.
He didn't exist.
"He just forgot. Everything. The crimes we stopped together, raising me, taking me in after my dad went to prison, and then he doesn't even grieve when I die. He practically spits on my grave! He makes a point to go to every place that means something to me and laugh! He doesn't care about me. He never did!" the redhead shouted.
"So you want him to mourn for the rest of his life, do you?" Dick shouted back as Wally's hands curled into fists. God, was it frustrating, not even being able to hit something when he was mad. "You want him to cry himself to sleep every night? Because believe me, if he's anything like I was, he does. How can you be so stupid?"
Stupid. Right. Because that was all that Wally was. Stupid enough to get himself exploded before his high school diploma. He felt the tears stream down his face as he screamed into his fists. It was so unfair.
Was justice even real? Or were heroes only doomed to suffer in place of all the suffering that they stopped?
"I don't believe it," Wally mumbled tearfully.
"Then you're only making yourself suffer for something that isn't even true. How could you do that to yourself? To Barry's memory?" Dick demanded.
"You're acting like Barry's the one who died!"
"And what if he was?" asked Dick. Wally fell silent. "Your mother left you. Your father got what he deserved. They never really cared about you and you know it. You didn't grieve for them, don't pretend you did, you only grieved for yourself. And you should have. Hell, you should have grieved more. You should have kicked and screamed until they got the worst punishment possible for not giving you the childhood that you deserved. But Wally, they weren't the loving, caring parents that died in your average depressing backstory. You weren't the living one who thought that he'd lost the people he'd spent his life with. You're not the one alive, with family who is dead. What do you know about how a person mourns for their kid?"
"I'm not Barry's kid," Wally croaked. Damn Dick. Damn Dick for knowing too much about him.
"Maybe not to you, but to Barry you are," Dick said, standing up. "You know what I did after my parents died? I became Robin. I busted the guy who murdered them. I fight crime in their memory. What do you know about how people honour a memory?" he panted. "Barry already fights crime. You two were the sunny duo. The ones who skipped in every day and ate everyone's food and laughed during serious missions and joked about the most terrifying of all villains. Why would Barry cry in your memory? Your memory is fun. Barry doesn't laugh at your memory, he laughs for it."
"Why do you think you know more than me about the guy I grew up with? About my mentor? My partner?" demanded the redhead. "You didn't see him! You haven't spent every waking moment with him for the past two months!"
"No, I haven't seen him," Dick sighed, slumping again. Wally's fists uncurled at the sudden lack of energy radiating from his best friend's side of the argument. "And honestly, I'm so done with all of this negativity. I can find happiness for just a little while, and what happens? Bruce thinks I'm insane and better off being depressed, and you're convinced on nothing that the man who watched you during every waking moment for way longer than just two months wants to spit on your grave. Is everyone out of their minds? Maybe I'm out of my mind." Wally could only watch as Dick curled his head close to his knees, clawing at the hairs on the back of his neck. "Maybe I'm just seeing things. Hell, maybe you're not even real."
"You know that's not true," squeaked Wally. He cleared his throat in an attempt to dislodge the knot that had yet to unravel. Wally didn't want Dick to continue that train of thought, to protest Wally's claim, but Wally preferred that to the silence Dick left him with instead.