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The moment Hartley walked into their apartment, something felt wrong. For one, Wally hadn’t immediately run up to him when he walked into the living room or otherwise acknowledge he was home. In fact, he didn’t see his boyfriend at all!
He checked the clock. Only ten thirty, too early for the speedster to have gone to bed. He didn’t remember hearing about anything that would need the Flash handling it, but then again, he had been stuck in a music hall all day. Maybe he was called in for a mission with the League or Titans? He hoped it wasn’t the Titans. Dick had made his dislike and disapproval of him very obvious, almost unreasonably so. He understood it, God knows how he would react if the roles were reversed, and he saw his friend dating a former villain, and he was happy that Wally had good friends watching his back even out of costume. But did the guy really need to be so uppity about it? For Christ’s sake, the man’s younger brother was in a group called the Outlaws!
As he walked further into their home, he could hear a quiet noise, a continuous thumping sound. He looked around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. After a minute or so of spinning around and looking like an idiot, he heard shuffling from behind the bedroom door.
He opened it cautiously, looking around. He felt his heart sink at the sight of Wally curled up shaking in the corner. No, not shaking. Vibrating.
Lightning flitted off him in small bursts, sounding like cymbals in the small room. Hartley could hear his heartbeat, pounding like it wanted to burst out of his chest, the hummingbird beat crying out like drums to Hartley. The putrid percussion was highlighted with quick breaths and the occasional plip plop of tears hitting the carpeted floor.
He quickly ran up to his boyfriend, crouching in front of the speedster, careful not to crowd him. “Hey, Walls,” he called quietly. “Wally,” he repeated, slightly louder, when he got no response. When he wasn’t acknowledged, he looked around and, yep, Wally’s hearing aids were sitting boldly, perhaps defiantly, on the nightstand.
He sighed. It was always harder to calm him down when he couldn’t hear. Hartley reached out and gently touched his knee. The second he did, Wally disappeared with a breeze. The sinister symphony sounded behind him, and turned to face him. He kept his hands up placatingly, trying to show Wally he wasn’t a threat.
Wally was now standing up, his back pressed firmly against the wall. He blinked at him, eyes flicking over him. “Hartley?” he breathed out shakily. His voice had a slightly staticy quality to it, as it normally did when he panicked. Hartley stood up slowly, trying to not scare him.
Evidently, he didn’t need to worry. In the blink of an eye, literally, Wally rushed him and hugged him tightly. He was blurry around the edges. Hartley huffed out a breath. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the crushing grip of a distressed speedster.
He hugged Wally back, gently pulling them both towards their bed. He turned around, pushing Wally onto the bed before sitting down as well, situating himself against the headboard. The redhead quickly crawled into his lap, burying his face into the crook of his neck. He put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back slightly. With his free hand, he grabbed one of Wally’s and pressed his firmly against his chest. Then, he moved his hand from his shoulder to grip his chin and tilted it up to look at him properly.
“Copy my breathing, okay?” he whispered. Wally’s eyes flickered from his lips to his eyes and nodded. Hartley breathed deeply, and Wally tried to do the same. His breathing stuttered, the speedster unable to hold it for more than three seconds.
It took around ten minutes before he fully calmed down, and when he did, he flopped down onto Hartley’s chest, completely limp. He let out a quiet oof in response.
As he threaded his hands into the redhead’s hair, he let his mind wander. How long had the panic attack been going on? How long had his boyfriend been curled up in the corner of his room, forced to be alone with nothing but his thoughts? It had to have been a while, considering how haggard Wally looked. But the more he thought, the deeper one question wormed its way into his mind. What set him off?
It had been months since he’d had a panic attack, even longer since he’d had one this bad. The last time he had it this bad was after a fight with Zoom. He would’ve heard if Zoom was out again, right? At the very least, Wally or even Barry would’ve called him.
A part of him wanted to ask, to know what had happened, but Hartley knew that was a bad idea. The last thing he wanted was Wally to feel pressured to answer, especially if he didn’t want to talk about it. On the other hand, if something or someone was hurting him or hurting one of their friends, Hartley needed to know about it.
His internal dilemma was cut short when Wally pushed himself up from his chest and wiped his eyes. His eyes were trained down, leaving them slightly obscured beneath his hair, as he muttered a quiet “Sorry.”
Hartley shook his head, tilting Wally’s head up to see him. He blushed slightly, and Hartley thought it was cute. It was always so easy to fluster the speedster with a simple gesture.
“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault,” Hartley murmured, not focusing on volume. Wally huffed in an imitation of a chuckle.
He was always so quiet without his aids. He remembered asking about it once, why he didn’t talk much without them. The response was simple. He had poor volume control and tended to overcorrect the problem when he couldn’t hear himself. It made sense. When Wally spoke, it was often in dramatic, jubilant shouts or exclamations. Always so hyper.
It reminded him of a time, early in their relationship, if Hartley had to guess, though he supposed it could have been before when Hartley asked if Wally wanted him to try using one of his machines so he wouldn’t have to worry about his aids dying in the field. Wally shook his head, saying they probably couldn’t keep up with superspeed and the constant lightning that flew off him when he ran. Hartley conceded, seeing the point Wally was making. As a joke, or maybe it was something he actually did, it was hard to tell Wally said that having the machines would strip him of the “absolute power move” of taking his hearing aids out during a villain’s monologue or one of Batman’s lectures.
Wally stared blankly at his chest for a minute or so before speaking again. “Rudy broke out of jail.” And there it was. The facts are laid out on the table without any fanfare. Just like that bastard deserved, he thought bitterly.
Hartley gripped Wally’s hips, but Wally continued. “They don’t know how yet. Saw it on the news. I think Barry texted me, but…” he trailed off, vaguely tilting his head towards the corner.
“Oh, baby,” Hartley cooed, the nickname rolling off his tongue easily. “He’ll never hurt you again. I’ll make sure of it,” he promised, pressing their foreheads together. Wally smiled momentarily but pushed away all too soon, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to ground himself.
“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Hartley started worriedly, but Wally continued. “The prison wall was melted. It was in a perfect circle, like when Superman uses his heat vision. They don’t have that kind of technology in prison, and the jail he was in doesn’t have metas.” Wally tensed slightly, his eyes growing watery as he tried to keep the panic from his voice. He looked Hartley in his eyes. The fear in those emerald green eyes made his chest tighten. “Someone broke him out,” he whispered, starting to vibrate again, thankfully slower this time. Friction burns were no fun.
“I-I don’t know who,” he stammered out. “Iris is his only living family member and she hates him, he doesn’t get visitors, and the only people he had constant contact with before prison was me and Mary, and Mary’s dead. This wasn’t an accident, the hole was made in the middle of his cell. It wasplanned and wehaveno leads andhehas dangeroustech, OhGodwhatifhegoesafterJayorBarryorIrisoryouor-”
His speed-talking quickly devolved into hyperventilating. Hartley grabbed his hands and pulled him closer, placing a comforting hand on his cheek. He quickly calmed down, leaning desperately into the touch. Hartley suspected he used his superspeed to work through the breakdown, as he, and a lot of other speedsters from what he’s heard, was prone to do.
After around ten minutes of silence, Wally clinging onto Hartley’s hand, and certainly long after his legs had fallen asleep, Wally spoke again. “I have to tell Ace. Tell him to keep an eye out. I don’t want him to get hurt. This was planned, and if whoever did this has access to that kind of machinery, then it’ll do me some good to know he’s at least aware of it. Barry’s probably already there trying to figure out what happened, and knowing him, he didn’t tell Ace what was going on. Or he did. It doesn’t matter. It might help if I know he’s being more careful ‘cause of this.”
“Does Ace even remember him? He was like four when Iris took you both in.” Hartley asked. “Five,” Wally corrected, “He remembers enough to know he was bad. Rudy never did anything directly to him, but never kept him from watching or hearing what he did to me. He knew enough to be scared of the man by the time we ended up on her doorstep. He was kinda ignored by Rudy.” Wally smiled ironically, “Y’know, I used to have to sneak out to get him inside when Rudy and Mary accidentally locked him out.”
Wally frowned, and it reminded Hartley of just how wrong it was to see the normally upbeat speedster upset. “Even after Iris took us in, he was skittish. A child should sleep on his bed, not under it.” He paused for a moment, considering what he wanted to say next. A heavy sigh escaped him. “He used to sneak into my room. I thought it was nightmares, but I asked him about it recently. He said he could hear me crying sometimes at night, wanted to see if I was okay.”
He clenched the fabric of Hartley’s shirt, glaring at the memory. He continued, the anger in his voice was obvious, “A five-year-old shouldn’t have to deal with that. He shouldn’t have had to feel responsible for me. He shouldn’t have had to go to bed every night hearing his older brother getting beaten and raped in the other room.”
“And did that older brother deserve the abuse?” Hartley questioned. Wally glanced up, tilting his head to the side like he always does when confused. Hartley firmly repeated, “And did you deserve it?”
Wally bristled, eyes looking anywhere but him now. They’ve had this conversation before. It was a constant fight with him to get him to understand that what his sperm donor, and Mary to a lesser extent, which isn’t saying much, wasn’t his fault. A battle, going on since his childhood, his allies in the war being the other speedsters. Sometimes, even the Titans and Linda. He was getting better, truly he was, but no amount of reassurance would easily undo what he had been told all his life.
Hartley placed a hand on his shoulder, bringing Wally’s attention back to him. His thumb caressed a scar on the side of his neck. From Zoom, if he had to guess. “You didn’t,” Hartley whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “You don’t,” he continued, another kiss placed on his nose. “And you never will,” Hartley finished with a chaste kiss planted on Wally’s lips.
Wally blushed, a small smile on his face. He leaned forward and kissed Hartley, the musician eagerly returning this kiss.
It was soft and slow, like the ones they shared on their days off or in the morning when Hartley didn’t want to wake up, not the solemn kisses stolen before a rogue fight or the quick kisses in the morning before work. Hartley threaded a hand into his hair, and Wally cupped his face with his hands. The redhead shifted in his lap, trying to get impossibly closer.
Hartley bit the other man’s bottom lip, eliciting a quiet noise from him, which was quickly swallowed by the kiss.
After a few moments, they broke the kiss, panting. Their foreheads pressed together, and grins on both their faces.
“One day.” Wally said with an air of finality. “One day I’ll believe it.”
Hartley smiled, a sense of pride filling him. No “if” or “might” or “maybe.” Progress. And who was he to argue with that?