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The thin band around his wrist tightens like a noose when he pulls at it.
They still want him, still want Neil, and even though the worst parts of his story have been revealed, the mask of his other most important identity feels like it’s going to come crashing down on him.
He’s never been able to keep his mouth shut, his temper staying and manifesting as minute-hour long rambles and info-dumps to anyone who would listen. (to his best friends who didn’t know the stories behind the scars and the flinches but stayed and held him and let him talk for minutes-hours and cleaned his wounds and didn’t ask and who didn’t understand, not really, in the same way that they understood completely.)
“So,” Allison drawls, an empty shot of vodka laying next to her, “are we ever going to get an answer about…” She doesn’t finish, merely waving her hand to indicate the centimeters that separate Neil from Andrew, their thighs pressed together and pinkies locked.
Andrew stares blankly at her, and Neil blinks faux-cluelessly. He’s oblivious, yes, but then it hits him in the face (it had before, and it had never amounted to anything besides stolen kisses after a fight because he’s seen the news and has seen the get-together and the breakup without him and sometimes he wants to scream because he doesn’t know what’s going on there but he wants to, so badly that he debates taking off the bracelet and running but he’d promised Andrew he wouldn’t run and it wouldn’t be fair to any of them so he stays).
“What do you mean?” he asks, deliberately tilting his head slightly into Andrew’s space. Aaron is glaring, face flushed with anger, and Neil wants to laugh at him.
“Can we not?” Kevin interrupts, and Neil thinks yes, because he knows what Kevin is about to say—
“We’re on vacation,” Allison stresses, pointing a perfectly manicured finger into Kevin’s chest and stopping just short of actually touching him. “Can we not talk about Exy? It’s only a few days, we’ll be fine—”
“We can’t afford not to—”
Neil opens his mouth to join, but Andrew’s hand hovers over his knee so he looks at Andrew instead, meeting his eyes, and Andrew tells him, “if the next words that come out of your mouth have to do with that damn sport I am going to stab you,” and Neil settles back down because what else can he do?
He mocks Aaron under his breath instead, and the seconds pass and the minutes-hours pass and Baltimore is still a heavy weight on his shoulders but it’s less like Atlas, now, and more like attempting to lift rubble off an injured civilian, straining and straining by himself until someone comes to help him.
He sits on the bed in the room assigned to him and Andrew, later, fingering the band around his wrist and letting his phone ring out.
Unknown caller, it says, even though Neil knows exactly who’s calling him. Andrew enters, then, sitting next to Neil and raising an eyebrow at him.
“I have a few more secrets,” Neil admits as the phone starts to ring again. “It’s not—they’re not bad, not like the rest of them are, like the ones that brought me to them, but—”
“Answer it,” Andrew commands, and Neil deflates even as his chest balls up with anxiety. “Speaker.”
Neil obeys, laying the phone flat between them and on speaker, and then a voice that he hasn’t heard in years save through a TV screen comes out of the tinny speaker and Neil has to dig his nails into his palm so he doesn’t cry. (can he still cry, or was that beaten out of him like near everything else?)
“Wally?”
Neil flinches at the sheer hope that pervades the room. The word has a desperate edge to it, and Dick has never sounded so young.
“Rob,” Neil chokes out. He has to press a fist to his mouth to keep from—he doesn't even know. Sobbing? Andrew waits on him patiently until he nods, and then his hand settles on the back of Neil’s neck, a steady reminder that he leans into with a ferocity that almost surprises him.
“It worked,” Dick says, and Neil can hear the relief in his voice, the exhaustion that accompanies it. He flinches again, this time out of guilt. Andrew squeezes, an unspoken reminder to breathe, and Neil sucks in a gulp of much-needed air. “Holy shit.”
“Holy shit,” Neil agrees. “When was the last time you slept?”
It’s instinct to ask, no matter Andrew’s raised eyebrow or the years that separate Neil from Wally.
“You,” Dick says, “you do not get to ask me that.” And there’s the anger, Neil thinks distantly. It still amazes him how so little people see it, the thrum of it pounding under Dick’s skin in a rhythm only he can feel. “What the hell, Walls, where have you been?”
“You know that,” Neil says dully, “you wouldn’t have been able to find me if you didn’t.”
A beat, then: “How much of it was a lie?”
Neil winces. “A lot,” he admits, eyes flicking up at the thump he hears. He wants to investigate, but Andrew doesn’t let go and Dick is waiting on the other end of the line so he stays put. “I—had to. My father…I…”
“Breathe,” Dick says, a practiced reminder as Andrew’s hand squeezes in the same command. He almost wants them to meet, but he’s also wary of what they’d be like if they ever team up on him.
“Sorry,” he mutters, and gives Andrew a dirty look when his forehead is flicked.
“Start from the beginning?”
So he does.
He glosses over a lot of it, starting from when he and his mother went on the run, and slowing down to explain how he stayed so long as Wally because Andrew deserves the explanation just as much as Dick does.
“She had to leave, for a while,” he says, “never told me where or why but now I’m pretty sure it was to Uncle Stuart. So she left me with one of his people that he trusted—”
“Iris,” Dick fills in, and Neil nods even though he knows Dick can’t see him.
“Yeah,” he confirms. “She just didn’t anticipate…”
“You used that to stay?”
“I didn’t want to leave,” he whispers. “You and the others were the most real thing I’d had in over a year.”
He’d managed to stay for three years, he explains, long enough to go with Dick and the others when Bruce had forced Dick’s hand, but soon—even if he had spent less and less time as Wally, he knew his time was coming to an end.
“I couldn’t face you,” he says, choking on the words, “so while you were busy with Slade, I left.”
It’s one of the things that haunts him the most—leaving his fifteen-year-old best friend to deal with the most dangerous mercenary in, possibly, the world. He’d found out later that Dick had been saved, that he’d not broken enough to make Renegade someone real, and that night he’d hid a panic attack from his mother, shaking and trembling like he hadn't since before his father had beaten that sort of thing out of him.
He hadn't wanted to leave, is the thing. He'd gotten comfortable. He liked being Wally. His mother, though, had somehow sensed that, and had scooped him back up without a word to the wise.
He skirts around the speed, makes references that are blatant enough that doesn’t tell Dick someone is with him but too vague for Andrew to pick up on. Andrew doesn’t deserve an explanation like this, directed towards someone else. He deserves one of his own, and Neil will give it to him.
“My father is dead,” he says, finally catching up with the present. It still seems unreal. “He’s dead, and I can still play, and we’re going to win every game and then the finals.”
Andrew rolls his eyes, but his hand, which had stayed on Neil's neck throughout the explanation, lifts and settles instead a hairsbreadth from Neil’s.
“I’ll be watching,” Dick promises, and then disconnects. And Neil knows they aren’t at all close to being done talking about this, but Dick is giving Neil space and himself time to process because he knows that Neil understands, knows that Neil will not judge him for not having all the words at once and a good answer and so Neil lets the phone sit on the bed, unmoving even as Andrew picks it up and saves the number.
“I’m sorry,” Neil whispers, “you deserve so much more than what I can give you.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Andrew says, a bored expression on his face.
Neil slumps against him like all his strings have been cut. Andrew snakes an arm around him, squeezing once and retreating, but he doesn’t make Neil move so he stays. He picks at the bracelet, uncertainty warring with want.
“There's something else,” he says finally, not daring to look at Andrew's face. “I…you know the Justice League, the Teen Titans?”
“I've heard of them.”
“Right. Well. My—Iris’s husband, he didn't know about her connections, but he had some of his own. He…you can't tell anyone.” Neil knows Andrew would never, but even so, he can't take that risk; it's been beaten into him almost as well as the laws of being on the run had.
Andrew’s expression tightens into a pinch of curiosity, but he remains silent, so Neil goes on.
“One night, I was fucking around with Uncle Barry’s stuff—he’s a CSI, has a lab of his own, and I was, uh, pretty nosy, so I went in, fucked around, got hit by lightning…”
He lifts his shirt, showing Andrew the faint traces of lichtenberg scars that spiral and crisscross across his skin, going down from his neck to just below his waistline.
“The, uh, collision of the lightning and the chemicals caused a latent activation of my meta powers.”
“Meta powers,” Andrew repeats.
“Yeah. Uncle Barry—he’s the Flash. I was Kid Flash.”
Andrew is terrifyingly silent, and Neil waits for the repercussions of his statement. He squeezes his eyes shut, but it does nothing except elevate his hearing, and all he can hear is Andrew's steady breathing.
Then, a hand in his hair, lightly tugging. Neil goes with it, and the hand slides down to cup his chin.
“Is that what that is?” Andrew asks, nodding towards the band around Neil's wrist. It is so far from anything Neil expected him to say that he blinks, startled. It is only slightly less startling than the gentleness of the hand.
“Yes, it—it’s an inhibitor collar. Modified.”
“Inhibitor?”
“It blocks a meta’s power. In this case, it blocks my connection with the speedforce.”
“Speedforce,” Andrew echoes. “Superspeed. You could have run.”
“You told me to stay,” Neil says simply, like that's all there is to it—and it is.
Andrew stares at him. Neil graciously refrains from pointing it out.
“Idiot,” Andrew mutters, and draws him in for a kiss.
“I can't do this. Why did I think I could do this? I should go, Kevin's gonna yell at me for missing practice—”
“Since when have you cared about what Kevin does?” Andrew snorts. He sips his coffee, less liquid and more whipped cream, and flicks Neil’s shoulder. “Calm down, rabbit.”
“Sorry,” Neil says, slumping down into his seat. His fingers continue to drum anxiously, though, unable to shake the thoughts that snake into his mind.
They're at Jitters, in Central, because Neil wants to ses Barry and Iris even if he refuses to do it straight up because he's—well. He's scared. So, so scared, because even though Iris knows some, she doesn't know all, and god, but sometimes Neil wishes he'd never signed that fucking contract.
He's not entirely sure how Andrew managed to convince the others to let them go off, but he hadn't asked, too thankful for the support. Andrew had visibly hesitated as Neil had crouched slightly in invitation, but just as Neil was going to suggest an alternative, Andrew's expression had hardened and he'd clambered onto Neil's back.
“Staring,” Neil mutters now, in an effort to think about something else.
“I hate you,” Andrew returns, and for whatever reason it's enough to calm his nerves, even if only somewhat.
Then the door opens, and Neil sees who walks in through the door, because he'd chosen a seat with a view of the door for this exact reason, not to mention his lingering paranoia—
He stiffens as Dick makes his way over to him, purposeful and calm, Roy and Donna trailing him.
“Christ,” he says, eyes wider than Neil can ever remember seeing them. He's managed to shock Dick. He fights down the laugh that threatens to bubble up at that.
Dick's hand hovers over his cheek. Andrew watches with a bored expression.
“Can I?” Dick asks, and Neil nearly tells him no, but this is Dick, so of course he says yes. He sighs into familiar touch on his face, Dick rubbing his thumb over where his tattoo used to be.
“Hey,” he murmurs, voice low. Dick lets out a choked laugh.
“What the hell happened?” Roy breaks in, eyes keen.
“Seconded,” Donna says with a frown. “And who's he?”
“I got kidnapped,” Neil deadpans. Andrew pinches his thigh and Neil glares at him. “Andrew.”
“Neil,” Andrew replies evenly, staring at him with that stupid face— “Breathe, idiot.”
Neil obeys, reluctantly dragging his gaze away from Andrew.
“Dude,” Roy mutters. Neil flips him off. Roy's eyes narrow into a glare, but it's lukewarm.
“No,” Donna says, shoving Roy lightly and laying a hand on Neil's shoulder. None of them attempt to hug him, and while part of him does want to, another part is grateful. “We are not doing this now. Have your dick measuring contest some other time.”
Both Neil and Roy protest, but Dick laughs and Neil's words die off on his tongue, because this is his best friend who is beautiful and wonderful and here.
Roy rolls his eyes. “I'm gonna get us drinks.” He stomps off with a glare towards Neil.
“I missed that,” Neil says with a laugh as Donna and Dick sit down. Andrew is sitting on his right, so Dick takes the seat to his left, Donna sitting across.
“And we missed you,” Donna says, eyes soft. A bubble of guilt bursts in Neil's gut.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, looking down at his coffee. “Sorry.”
“Don't,” Dick says fiercely. “Don't—god, Walls.”
Neil searches for something to say, but he can't. His throat is dry and his mind is empty and his tongue is heavy in his mouth. Roy slides into the seat next to Donna, handing over the drinks.
“So,” he says, leaning across the table and gazing at Andrew with a suspicious look. “Who's your boyfriend?”
Neil startles. “Oh, he's not—”
A hand on the back of his neck cuts him off.
“Andrew,” Andrew says simply. He says nothing else, and the other three's expectant looks disappear.
They turn to Neil, clearly searching for answers, but Neil just stares back blankly.
“Riiiight,” Roy says, drawing out the i . “Anyway. I want the full story.”
Neil winces. “The full full story?”
“Yes,” Donna says.
“Okay.” Neil takes a deep breath and starts talking.
“I can't,” Neil says, turning on his heel away from the inconspicuous house.
Dick sighs, placing his hands on his hips. Andrew had wandered off somewhere earlier after Donna and Roy had left (with lots of hugs and an exchange of numbers and an extracted promise to never lose touch again), so it was up to Dick to drag Neil here.
“Wally,” he starts, then stops. Glances at the house, then back to Neil. “Wally, it'll be okay. They've missed you.”
“But I'm not Wally,” Neil snaps. “Wally isn't a broken mess, Wally isn't so fucked up that he can't stand to look in a mirror—”
“No,” Dick agrees quietly, disconcerting enough that Neil stops talking. “You're not a broken mess. Yeah, you might be fucked up, but aren't we all? They love you, both of them do, and it doesn't matter what name you go by or what scars you have, that won't change.”
“Fuck,” Neil says. “Okay. Fine.” Gathering up whatever courage he has, he strides up to the door and rings the bell.
It's less than a minute before the door is opening.
Neil closes his eyes, braces himself, and opens them. “Hi, Uncle Barry.”
A strangled gasp. “Wally?”
The next thing he knows, he’s being swept up into a tight hug, and tears are dampening his hair. Neil doesn’t mention that. Nor does he mention the wince he swallows down as his ribs twinge. What he does is fist a trembling hand in his uncle’s shirt and bury his face into Barry’s chest because fuck but Neil’s missed him so much.
“Let’s take this inside,” Dick says gently, ushering them both through the door and closing it softly behind them. Neil stands in the house he’d lived in for the longest span of time since he was eight and breathes.
“Iris!” Barry calls out. His voice cracks. Neil can’t bring himself to separate from his uncle, and he’s too scared to look up. God. Yeah. He’s fucking terrified.
There are footsteps. A low cry, and then Iris is there, taking him into her arms like she did the first time she’d heard him having a nightmare, cradling him in her arms and holding him close.
“Wally,” she weeps, “god, Wally.”
“Aunt Iris,” Neil whispers. He clutches her like he hasn’t clutched anything since his father had torn apart the stuffed bear Uncle Stuart had gotten him for his third birthday.
Iris pulls back after a few long moments of just holding him and cups his cheeks. Her face falls as she takes in the ruined expanse of skin. Neil can’t bring himself to meet her gaze.
“Oh, baby,” she chokes out.
“It’s okay,” he says. The words hurt, climbing up from his scratchy throat. “I’m—it’s over.”
Or. It’s almost over. They still have to make it to finals, to beat the Ravens like Neil knows they will. But his father? That part’s over. For good.
“I’m so sorry,” Iris says, her eyes filled with guilt. Neil startles. What? “I should have fought harder to keep you. You were happy here, I saw it, you liked being here. I shouldn't have let her take you.”
“Aunt Iris…” Neil sucks in a breath. This whole day has been exhausting. “It's not like you could have stopped her,” is what he settles on saying. “We had to leave. Mom kept tabs on how long we were able to stay, and here—I couldn't have stayed. They nearly caught up to us.”
Dick frowns. Neil tips his head towards him. Dick's expression smooths out and he shoots Neil a smile. It's strained and fake and Neil wishes he'd just drop it.
“I'm here now, though,” Neil says. “My father is dead and I'm on Palmetto's Exy team.”
“Palmetto?” Barry repeats. Iris looks shocked.
“Nathan is dead?” she asks. Neil just barely manages not to shudder at the name.
“Yes,” he confirms. “I was there.”
“And…and Mary?” Iris asks hesitantly.
Neil's face shutters. “Dead.”
Barry speaks then, perhaps because he wanted to break the somber mood that had settled over the pair. “Palmetto's where Kevin Day is, right?”
Neil raises an eyebrow at his uncle. Iris moves them to the couch first, and Dick slides down to the floor, resting his head on Neil's thigh, his black hair brushing against Neil's pants.
“I didn't realize you were an Exy fan,” Neil says curiously. He hadn't; Barry had never displayed an interest in the sport.
“Ah, I wasn't, but Hal likes to watch it.”
Neil exchanges a look with Dick, both of them hiding their snickers poorly.
“That explains it,” he says. Barry heaves a sigh, laden with fond exasperation. “But yeah, Kevin's there. He's an asshole, though, don't be fooled by his press smile.” Neil makes a face. “It's so creepy when he does that. All charming and shit like he's not a piece of shit like the rest of us.”
“You're not a piece of shit,” Dick interjects. Neil tugs at Dick’s hair.
“I am. We all are.”
“We?” Barry ventures.
“The Foxes.” Neil smiles. It’s small and pulls at his scarred face but it’s a smile nonetheless. “We’re the rejects, you know. The ones society doesn’t give a shit about.”
“Someone did,” Iris says softly.
“That’s ‘cause Coach is delusional,” Neil says with a snort. “But. Yeah. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”
“He’s good to you?” Iris asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, Aunt Iris.” Neil ducks his head. His red hair dangles in his peripheral vision. “He’s really good.”
She settles back down, satisfied. “Good.”
“Hey,” Dick says, nudging him. “Tell them about your boyfriend.”
Neil pales as Barry yelps out a surprised “What?” Iris merely grins, a sharp glint in her eyes that Neil’s always associated with her hunting for a story.
“Do tell,” she says, leaning in.
“I—that’s not—Dick!”
Dick laughs.
A few hours later, Neil is barely managing to stay awake. After he yawns for the third time in five minutes, Iris, with a fond, love-filled smile, shoos him off the couch. Dick had left a while ago, citing that he wanted to ‘give them privacy’ even though Iris loves him almost as much as she loves Neil.
Because Dick’s an idiot.
Neil missed him so fucking much.
Iris presses a bag filled with freshly-baked cookies into his hands and makes him promise to let her know when he gets back safe. She also manages to get a weekly call out of him. It draws another smile from him.
“I love you,” she says, hugging him so hard he thinks his ribs are going to break. Again. “I love you so much, okay? Text me when you get back.”
“I will,” Neil says. He refrains from rolling his eyes, because Iris deserves more than that, even if she’s being overprotective. She’s earned the right. “I love you too. And Uncle Barry. I guess.”
“Hey,” Barry complains, but he’s smiling, so Neil takes it as a win.
Neil, in a decidedly childish move, sticks his tongue out at his uncle. “I really don’t want to hear about your sex life with Hal.
Iris’s surprised chuckle isn’t nearly loud enough to cover Barry’s scandalized protest, his ears red. Neil tries to memorize this moment. This—this is why he’d fought so hard to get back. This is why he’s still alive. For moments like this, with the people he most cherishes.
“I should go,” Neil says reluctantly. He untangles himself from his aunt. With one last wave, he sets off to find Andrew.
“Okay?” Andrew asks the next morning. He hadn’t brought up the events of the day when they had gotten back. Neil supposes that he was waiting. For what, he’s not quite sure.
“Yeah,” he says, leaning his head against Andrew’s chest. Andrew’s hand cards through his hair, playing with the messy curls.
“Hm.”
Neil huffs out a laugh. “Thank you. For coming with me.”
“Someone had to make sure you didn’t run,” comes Andrew’s unimpressed answer. Neil, though, hears the of course woven between those words. He smirks up at his partner. The band is back around his wrist, but now—now, Neil can take it off without panicking.
It’s not over. It’s not over until they beat the Ravens in the finals. But Neil knows they will. He knows they’ll beat Edgar Allan.
“I’m not running,” Neil says. “Not anymore.”
Not unless Andrew is there with him.
Neil smiles.