"When I said to help your fucking kid, this wasn't what I had in mind!"

Wally jumped, startled at the booming and reverberating voice of his uncle as the ghost appeared in the middle of the Allen residence's dining table. He frowned, curious and with a stone sized weight of dread sinking in his gut as he slinked forward into the living room, as if Barry would somehow be interrupted if he just pranced in. Iris had her head ducked purposefully on the couch, concentrating completely on her laptop as she began typing what was probably a report for the next day's paper.

Wally was unnerved that Barry was actually shouting and, by Iris' miniscule winces, she was uncomfortable, too.

"What do you mean? Of course he was acting strangely - he was locked in his house." A tense pause, then, "Oh, and you don't think that might have been your fault? Look, I get that you're not the most ideal father figure, but you've been pushing him way too hard. Yes! Yes, that has everything to do with why he reacted like that. You're way too paranoid, Bruce, and you passed it on to him! I'm pretty sure thinking everyone is trying to kill you is part of the membership."

Alarmed, Wally ran as fast as his dead-now-human legs would allow, pressing himself as close as possible to the speaker of Barry's cell phone. He could barely make out Bruce's words:

"What was I supposed to do, Allen? If I let him go back to school, he might have had another attack. If I let him outside, he would have wanted to go in costume. If I let him in costume, he could have easily gotten himself killed - he was way too distracted. He was acting weird before he went to the Commissioner's house, the school wouldn't have even let him come back until he got properly medicated, and even then he was acting strange. What, exactly, do you think I should have done differently?" Bruce sounded angry, in his cold and calculated sort of way. Wally found that odd, because as Batman, Bruce would easily let his anger out in a burst of explosion, but as Bruce Wayne he seemed to lock himself into a little emotionless box. Wally used to think that it was the other way around.

But the part that was alarming Wally most wasn't Bruce's behaviour, even though that was odd. It was the topic of the conversation, the fact that they could have only been talking about Dick, and that was reason in of itself to be concerned. Wally knew that Dick was missing school. He knew that he wasn't allowed to go outside. But medicated? With what medication? Wally thought that he had only spent a few days at the park, but with a quick glance at Iris' computer screen, he realised that he was far off.

It had been weeks.

A cold shudder worked its way down Wally's spine. If time passed so easily for ghosts, it was no wonder that they were rumoured to stay around for centuries without even realising it. Was that what would become of him? A sad ghost lost in the passing of time?

Was he made to wander alone forever?

"Are you serious?" Barry was saying. "I don't know, maybe talk to him? Ask him what was wrong?"

And Bruce was responding before Barry had even finished: "That's his therapist's job. If he can barely talk to Miss. Frances, what makes you think he'd talk to me?"

"You're the closest person in his life! Practically the only person he has left. He's survived this long without a father, you're right, but that's because he'd always had his best friend. He needs a friend, Bruce, not a dictator."

Normally, Wally would be cheering Barry on for how animatedly he was calling Bruce out on all of the things that the World's Greatest Detective regularly missed, but Barry didn't get angry easily. Sure, the argument was long overdue, but Barry had as much reason to say his thoughts before as he did right then. The only reason Barry would be so intense at that moment was if something had happened.

And given the topic of the conversation, that something had happened to Dick.

"What's done is done, Barry," Bruce sounded drained. It was the first time Wally had ever heard him call Barry by his first name. "I don't have any concrete reason to take him out. It wasn't even my choice to put him there in the first place. Do you think I want him anywhere near the real crazies? Something went wrong, but I don't know what, and I can't do anything until I find out."

Barry took a deep breath, probably to still his nerves. Wally knew from experience just how easily already fast-moving nerves could get worked up. "I'm coming to Gotham."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. You just said yourself that you need help investigating this."

"No, I didn't. You have a job and a life in Central, this is my city and my problem, I can do it on my own."

"Quit with the self-sacrificing bullshit, Wayne," Barry practically growled.

"There isn't any bullshit or self-sacrificing going on," Bruce barked back. "If I wanted metahumans here, I'd allow them here. But I don't. Metahumans are not allowed in Gotham, because if you guys start coming over here, either your villains are going to follow, or my human villains are going to start getting even bigger ideas. Let it go."

"And what? Leave Dick to rot in jail?" Barry sounded part worried and part terrified at the possibility.

"Insane asylum," corrected Bruce automatically.

"Is that supposed to be better?" snapped Barry in his mournful, near tears way.

Wally couldn't blame him. He wanted to shout, too. All he could do, though, was wait with bated breath for the name of the asylum, for at least the general area, something to give him an idea of where to go to find his best friend. His heart raced and his vision blurred with something like tears, though his eyes were dry. He didn't know what he'd do once he found Dick. He had no end goal in sight. But he felt responsible, and oh so guilty, and awful, and he needed to somehow set things right. If staring uselessly as Dick crumbled in front of him was the best that he could do, then he would do it for an eternity.

It was his fault that a woman had died under Dick's watch. Dick wouldn't die because of him, too.

Wally turned back to the computer screen on the couch as he heard the frantic clicking of Iris' computer mouse. She was opening up multiple tabs beside the latest news articles from her office, and Wally didn't think that was too healthy for the laptop considering she probably already had a dozen tabs up. But the second that she got to Google, Barry sent her a look, and Wally knew that look. It was a look of action.

Iris began typing.

Five minutes later, Wally had a list of "Top Ten Asylums and Jailhouses in Gotham" and was frantically trying to commit their addresses to memory when Iris scrolled down quickly to the very bottom of the list, where hyperlinked text with a bolded asterisk claimed, "Is Bruce Wayne's Ward Insane?"

If that wasn't the holy grail, Wally really didn't know what was. Iris clicked on the link faster than Barry probably could have, and within minutes Wally was chanting an address that he had never heard before over and over again. Barry angrily hung up the phone, though Wally had no longer been paying attention to the heated conversation that he had been having.

"Got it," Iris said unnecessarily. Barry snatched the piece of paper that she had written the address down upon. Iris didn't hesitate in snatching it back. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.

"Where do you think?" Barry replied, though instead of snapping it, he only succeeded in sounding bewildered and overwhelmingly upset.

"Bruce isn't going to appreciate you racing over there right now," she warned.

"Of course he isn't, but who cares? If he isn't taking action to get Dick back, I will."

Iris frowned. "Barry, I'm sure that he's doing everything that he can. He knows how Gotham works better than you do."

"All he cares about is the mission, not Dick," Barry responded.

"Dick is the mission," reminded Iris. She was quiet for a moment, letting her words sink in. "Is this about Wally?"

Wally paused. Barry froze under Iris' intent look. "What?" Barry said, as Wally echoed the same word with him.

"You couldn't save Wally, so you want to save Dick to make up for it. To right a wrong," she stated, too calmly for the topic at hand.

Staring between his two former caretakers, Wally knew by Barry's wide eyed expression that Iris was right. But he didn't want to stay to hear the conversation out. He had had enough time to try and correct his own issues. At that moment, Dick needed him. Wally vanished, envisioning the old inner corridors of what the pictures on the website had promised.

Dick felt broken. Not metaphorically, not spiritually, but very literally broken. His limbs ached with soreness, his knee caps felt cracked with the way that he kept skidding them on the hard stone ground but showed no symptoms of being so, and his head throbbed. His skin was hot to the touch, feverish, and he was dizzy, but the woman in the white coat checked his temperature before throwing him into the cell that he sat and stated with an annoyed expression that he was perfectly healthy.

He didn't feel healthy.

Where was he? What time was it? Day? Where was everyone?

Did they lock him up, casting him aside for another day when they could properly deal with him? Was he there simply awaiting his demise? Should he stay or escape? Did they forget about him, and he was safe where he was? Would he be found if he got out?

He was safe where he was. Safe. Trapped. Safe. Imprisoned. Stuck. Stuck. Alone. Alone.

Sick. Ill. Perfectly healthy.

Dick's back hit the brick wall before he knew that he had moved, and his breaths stuttered raggedly. There was something to his right. A bed bolted to the ground. There was a toilet, too, seat cracked-cracked, made of-something sh- it was sharp. Sharp. Weapon if he needed it?

No. Bolted, too. Smart guards. Experience taught them.

How did he know that?

No window. Time of day. What was the time of day? Why did he need the time of day?

How long-how. How. How what?

Brick digging into his back. Where was his shirt? His shirt wasn't white. It was too thin. Too thin. He was too cold. Walls were too thick.

There were voices. Coming from where? They said nothing. Nothing. But they were there. Static, pushing, pushing at his aching, aching head. From outside. Inside? Outside and inside and all around, he-

Two white tablets, pushing into his palm. Time was all meshed together. But it felt that once he was finally swallowing the tablets, was forced to swallow the tablets, choke them down with his jaw clenched in bony white fingers, gurgling his spit and trying to fit them correctly in his throat and choking, sputtering, don't want to swallow, what if they'll kill him- He felt that once he finally swallowed the tablets, shuddered as they scraped their way down to his stomach, shook with what they could entitle, he was suddenly being forced to do it all over again.

Again. Again. All over again. It was a never-ending cycle, and he didn't want to eat, because if Bruce wanted him dead then the rest of them did, too, all of the voices passing down the corridors, all of them, and what if the food was safe and he got used to it but then one day, they realised why feed him, why do any of it, they should just get it over with-

He didn't want to eat. They didn't make him. At least, not until the 9th medication cycle, when his stomach was eating itself and he shook with any sort of movement, he puked his own spit, and it was the 5th medication cycle of not drinking, his tongue was heavy and dry and his throat felt cracked like sunbaked pavement and when they forced him onto his back, held him down unnecessarily, his head spun and he wanted to turn over and heave. Everything felt wrong and he was too hot and he was too cold and he was too ill and too perfectly healthy. The liquid that poured over his lips was icky warm and frustratingly refreshing but there was a taste there, just a little taste, he could taste it with the back of his tongue, just a hint of it, there was something in the water, he knew that there was something in it- Dick would keep smacking his lips, long after they were gone, trying to recreate the taste until all he could taste was the blood from his cut lip.

Dick was so exposed when he was held down that way, his arms splayed and shoulders burning as they dug into the stone beneath, his shoulder bones sharp and painful. There were so many ways that he could be murdered and no one would ever know.

Choke him. Slice a knife across his jugular. Across his femoral artery. Between his ribs. Into his liver. Into-

He would thrash, sometimes. When he had enough energy.

It's why they wrapped him up in the too thin shirt.

It was a weird shirt. It was a familiar shirt, and Dick was horrified at first, disgusted and afraid because he thought that maybe he had seen it on the Joker before, was he wearing the Joker's shirt? Had they washed it? Was he covered in the Joker's sweat, and oh god there the Joker was, standing on the other side of the small tiny bars guarding the small tiny window on the big, big door. The Joker was laughing, and it was getting louder, and closer, and then the Joker was inside the cell, he was with Dick, and then the Joker had red hair and green eyes and ghostly skin and he was floating, Dick didn't know that the Joker could float, but then it wasn't the Joker at all, it was Wally.

And Dick was moaning, only because he felt too weak to scream. Wally's voice arrived in fragments, disoriented fragments, chips of a delusion, but he didn't disappear or melt into something else as had all the others. He was shaking his palms and he looked frantic, he wasn't laughing and he didn't necessarily seem terrifying, so Dick stopped moaning but he did keep shaking and shuddering with wide eyes and parted lips and tears.

What happened next was: "Dick, godgodgod-" and, "Lemme get you out of here, how to get you out of here-" and, "What's wrong? Jesus Christ, why'd they put you here?"

Dick was blubbering, trying to explain, trying to make sense of it all. "Tried to poison me," he said.

"Who? Why?"

"Bruce, and Gordon, Barbara needed protecting but she wouldn't let me, wouldn't believe me," and suddenly Dick was incoherent even to himself, but Wally seemed to understand. He seemed to get it. Until Dick didn't want him to understand, because Wally wasn't real. That was when Dick kicked and fell onto his back with a painful exhale of air, cold stone harsh to all of his sharp features. He tried rolling around, but that only pressed the hard ground into his bent arms and that also hurt, it hurt his stomach too, the way his elbows dug into it. It made his heart hurt and he was puking all over again.

Wally was muttering soft nothings. Dick couldn't feel Wally, Wally couldn't touch him, but while Wally's voice started out as angry static, it soon melted away into something like clear water, and if Dick concentrated on that surprisingly gentle voice, he felt that maybe, maybe, he could begin to sort his mind out.

He decided that it didn't matter if Wally wasn't real. Wally was the only thing that made sense anymore.

Hey, look! You guys should be happy! You've been asking me for chapters upon chapters to bring Wally and Dick back together. c: I've fulfilled your wishes, haven't I?

Y'know, it's just that Wally can't do anything because he's a ghost, he's making Dick think he's even MORE insane, and Dick is basically being tortured. No biggy.

Don'tkillme. (On that note, happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans?)

Oh, but important question: Thoughts on Bruce? Still hate his guts?

Thanks for reading and be sure to drop a few words on what you think!