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Recognized. Kid Flash. B03.
Wally’s hands were still shaking as he stepped out of the Zeta Tube port. The Hall of Justice was stale, like old carpet and untouched books. The scent hit him immediately, in the dark chamber hiding the teleportation device. By the time the heavy metal doors slid open, light flooding in as he walked out, it overwhelmed him. Not just the scent, but that stagnant air, the suffocating feeling of knowing you were in a familiar place when nothing about it felt familiar at all, like this place was standing still and you were being jettisoned into the new and terrifying. Wally clenched his hands into fists, took in a deep breath through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to contain his fury and fear as the doors opened up to the central meeting area of the Hall. The moment he saw Dick sitting at the table, nursing a cup of coffee with is head bowed, all that stagnant emotion came rushing over him with the force of a tidal wave on his head.
He’d just been getting home from classes when Mal had called him. Wally had been one hand on the door to his apartment, key still turned in the lock, when his phone had buzzed in his pocket. He’d almost let it go to voice mail. The only reason he had decided against it in the first place was because he’d hoped it would be Dick. When all he’d heard on the other end of the line was Mal telling him about an explosion, about finding Dick unconscious and about to sink into the harbour, about Mount Justice being gone, it’d taken all of his strength just to keep from falling. As it was, he’d had to steady his back against the wall, hastily finishing the phone call with the promise to be at the Hall of Justice as soon as possible before running inside, changing, and heading to the nearest Zeta at an infuriatingly human pace.
“Dick’s okay. He’s in rough shape, but nothing lifethreatening-”
“Non-lifethreatenng doesn’t mean okay, Mal! Fuck, he could have-”
“I know man, but okay’s as good as we’re gonna get.”
Wally had been replaying every word of that conversation since the moment he’d left his apartment. Mal told him that Dick had been unconscious for two hours after the blast, and it hadn’t been until a few hours after that, once he’d been checked out and things had started to calm down, that Mal called Wally. Dick had still been recovering. The fact that he hadn’t been called right away still dug at him. There was that lingering resentment, a feeling of being left behind, The echo of his old moniker didn’t help the matter. However, that was one detail he could push aside for the time being.
At the moment, he had only one thing on his mind.
“Dick.” Wally called out as he stopped in front of the port.
Dick hadn’t even noticed Wally walk in yet. At his name, the vigilante looked up from his mug. He ducked his head again for a moment, seeming to slump in on himself as he reached up to his face. When he looked back at Wally, the domino mask was gone, revealing bone-weary blue eyes. “Wall...” he sighed.
Wally had believed Mal when he’d told him that Dick was okay. He just hadn’t realized how much he’d needed to see it for himself until now. In a few long stride, Wally crossed the distance and wrapped Dick tightly in his arms. His boyfriend was still sitting, but Wally held his head to his chest, suddenly all too aware of how fast his heart was beating. Dick was slow to respond at first, but gradually lifted his arms to hold Wally back. With a trembling exhale, Wally pressed his lips to the top of Dick’s head and just took a moment to close his eyes and reassure himself that Dick was alright. He still smelt like ocean water, and certainly looked like he’d just been blown sky-high off of a mountain.
But Dick was okay. Now that Wally knew that, the anger came.
Pressing one more fierce kiss to the crown of Dick’s head, Wally stepped back and looked down at his boyfriend, trying to keep his voice calm and even when all he wanted to do was scream. “What. Happened?”
Dick looked back down at his coffee, long since gone cold, with not even a whisper of steam left rolling off. “It was necessary.”
“It better have been,” Wally snapped. “Spill.”
Heaving a sigh that rattled through his frame, Dick began the struggle to articulate exactly what had happened that night. “Aqualad needed to find a way to help us rescue Lagoon Boy,” he began. “He had already injected a microscopic tag into La'gaan's bloodstream. And he used the raid on the cave to pass essential intel,” Dick said as he plucked a small, blue USB from off the table. “A flash drive with, among other things, tracking software that can locate the tag.”
“Like that's all he did,” Wally crossed his arms over his chest.
Dick shook his head, pushing himself to his feet. Stubborn as he was, he stood strong and squared off, but Wally could see the way his legs shook as he rose. “Wally, he had to make it look good. He put inhibitor collars on us. But he knew I'd get us out of them.”
“He took three more hostages!” Wally shouted, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Members of your team!”
“And we'll rescue them when we rescue Lagoon Boy!”
Wally’s hands shot out, grabbing Dick by the shoulders and holding him in place as if he could force sense into him. “Dick, he blew up the cave! You almost died!”
Dick blinked, caught off guard by the sudden outburst. “No-Walls,” he stammered, laying his hands over Wally’s forearms and gently pushing him away, “it's all on the flash drive-”
Wally let go, rougher than he’d meant. “I don’t care about the fucking flashdrive, babe!” he turned, hands in the air, fingers coming down to push back through his hair as he paced away.
Now, it was Dick’s time to snap. “Would you listen to me?” he snarled, finally catching Wally’s attention again. Once Wally had turned to face him, giving him a “go on” gesture, Dick shook his head and continued. “He knew I'd have to pursue to make it look legit, and that's exactly what happened. He gave us time to get out. We just-” he trailed off. “We got caught in the debris fields from the explosion.”
Wally shook his head. “Do you even hear yourself? What if even one of you had been left behind?” Unable to answer the question, Dick turned away and walked toward the table. Wally, however, wasn’t finished just yet. “Huh?” he pressed on. “Why take that risk? Why go to such extremes?”
Sighing as his head dropped between his shoulders, Dick leaned back against the edge of the tale, bracing his hands on either side of him. “The drive explains that too,” he began, shooting Wally a sharp glare when he caught him rolling his eyes. “He- he needed to cement his position with the Light and the Light's partner.”
“Wasn't that why he "murdered" Artemis?” Wally sneered.
“I... guess it didn't convince everyone.”
“You guess?!” Wally roared. “I had Zatanna coming over in tears for a week after they said goodbye at the Docks! That stunt you pulled is wrecking her, and now you guess it wasn’t enough? Faking Artemis’ death was supposed to be the final piece! Not destroying Mount Justice!”
“The cave is-” Dick started up and stalled just as fast, blinking as he realized his mistake and stumbling to recover. “Was just a place! Worth sacrificing if it helps us stop the invasion,” he said as he shoved off the edge of the table, throwing his arms out at his sides. “Look, I'm so sorry you lost all your precious souvenirs-”
That was the final straw. Wally brought his hands up to either side of Dick’s face, cupping his cheeks and holding his gaze firmly in place as he stepped in close. “Are you serious?! I don't care about that junk! I'm worried about you, Dick!”
In the aftermath of Wally’s voice, cracking under the strain of his own emotion, there was silence. Dick didn’t seem capable of forming a response if he tried, shocked quiet by the ferocity and desperation in that single statement. Wally held onto that tension for as long as he could, but in the end, the air rushed out of him. He shut his eyes hard, leaning forward just enough to press his forehead to Dick’s. Their noses bumped just lightly, breaths mingling in the hesitant space between their mouths.
“Do you have any idea how fucking terrified I was when I got that call from Mal?” Wally murmured. “If he hadn’t been there, if he’d been just a minute later, you would have drowned, Dick. I would have lost you, just like that.” Letting his hands drop from Dick’s face, Wally straightened up and moved back. “All for this insane plan. You’re working yourself too thin over this. One person can only handle so much, and it’s no secret that you’ve been stressed and exhausted. What if your judgement is being affected by all this? Kaldur blew up Mount Justice, Dick. I just... I can’t help but fear that you’re playing right into his hands.”
Mouth opening and closing with no words to show for it Dick, finally found his voice. “Wally.... we're talking about Kaldur here.”
Wally looked away. “I know. Kaldur. Our friend,” he said as his gaze rose slowly up to meet Dick’s, speaking with a calculated tone. “Who, in the space of a few months, lost the love of his life and found out Black Manta was his father. Isn't it possible that-”
“Stop it,” Dick cut him off with a sharp growl. “Stop. You know you don’t believe that.”
Wally faultered. He searched for his own conviction and came up empty. Guilt slammed into him, that same tidal wave of emotion that had seized him the moment he’d walked into the Hall now leaving him drained. “I know,” he breathed. “But I also know what losing Tula did to him. Dick, when I thought about losing you...”
Dick didn’t let him finish. Raising a hand to his jaw, he pressed a tender kiss to Wally’s mouth to silence him. Wally surprised even himself with how quickly he responded, circling his arms around Dick’s waist and holding him tight. He only relented when he felt Dick draw back, wincing as his sore bones protested. From this close, Wally could really see just what “rough shape” his boyfriend was in. He had a nasty bruise forming on the right side of his face, and burn marks that jut out from his neck like lightening. On top of that, he was pale, the bags under his eyes heavy, and his breaths came rattling from a raw, salt-water ravaged throat. He loved this man more than anything, and more than anything he hated seeing Dick do this to himself. Dick’s heart was too full, and sooner or later Wally feared that it was going to drag him down into an early grave.
Dick sagged against Wally, nuzzling his forehead against his neck. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“I’m sorry too,” Wally breathed as he ran a hand soothingly up and down Dick’s back.
Humming into the collar of Wally’s black sweater, the spent vigilante finally seemed to give under the weight of the night. “Can we just go home?”
Home. Wally felt the world vibrating through his bones at a frequency that could reach the Pacific. “Yeah...” he brushed Dick’s hair off his forehead as he pulled back. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Can’t sleep yet,” Dick shook his head. “I’ve gotta finish a log on this, and Conner-”
“Dick,” Wally interrupted in a tone that was more tired than angry. “I’m done arguing.”
For a moment, it seemed that Dick might try to push the matter, but in the end, he let it go. “Okay... you win this time.”
Mount Justice was gone. Dick had been right when he’d said that it was just a place, but Wally couldn’t help a sense of mourning later that night as he lie in bed. His boyfriend was fast asleep, face pressed into Wally’s side and arms draped haphazardly over his waist. Wally flipped through pictures on his phone, old albums of memories at the Cave. It had been their place. Where they had first been a team, where they first started dating, where they’d built so many incredible memories - and now it was just gone. Memories lived on, though. Wally looked down at Dick in the hazy blue light of his phone, not a trace left of a harsh edge on his face in that halo glow. Memories lived on, and Dick was here, safe beside him. Wally would have traded the world in a heartbeat for just a little more time with him.