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“You're a hero! You're supposed to save everyone!”
Those were the words that echoed in his head, remnants of a nightmare. He could still feel the wet stickiness of blood on his hands and could just see the way the girl lay limp in his arms amongst the rubble.
“Wally? Are you okay?” A voice startled him from his thoughts. Wally's head whipped over to see Robin staring at him behind his domino mask. “Yeah,” Wally swallowed, a lump thick in his throat. “All good.”
Robin frowned. “You look a little green.”
Yeah, he felt the same way. Hunger had fled and nausea had taken up residence ever since the nightmares began. Even in his nightmares, death was so slow. Wally would watch a girl, a boy, a parent, someone dying in his arms. It was so slow.
Sometimes Wally hated being a Speedster. Death, accidents – it was during those times that he hated it. That he hated himself. Wally noticed every little twinge of pain, every little pump of blood as the heart kept beating. Sounds, gasps, last breaths – those were extended in a dark, humorous sort of way. They didn't sound the same to others.
“Are you sure you're okay?” Wally's stomach does flips that would impress the young bird themed hero and he gives a jerky nod. “Just forgot I have somewhere to be. I'll see you later,” and without a second look back he races out of Mount Justice.
Wally's halfway to his uncle's in Central when his stomach caves and he skids to a halt in an alley, bending over holding his stomach as he pukes his guts up. There's an acid taste in his mouth with something he doesn't want to think about as he wipes his mouth and stumbles back until he's plastered against the opposite wall.
When his stomach protests again, he lurches forward to empty anything that could've possibly been left in his stomach. God, he feels pathetic. What would it look like to anyone who bothered to look in this alley on their way home in the near dark night? “Kid Flash Sick? Sidekick Pukes in an Alley!” Yeah, no, he doesn't want to think about having a headline like that.
After all that throwing up, he's left feeling weak. His metabolism is kicking him in more ways than one. 'Do I even have the energy to move,' he wonders to himself as he tries to think through the fuzziness of his mind. It makes him frown how he's not sure.
He's not too keen on eating with his stomach as it is. Wally flashes out of the alley in determination (stupidity). And it turns out, yeah he's running on fumes and then he's officially out of it when he face-plants into the side of a bar he recognizes.
Pain explodes as his body meets brick and he feels bones crack. He can't be sure but he might've cried out as he fell back onto the pavement. Even that felt like it took an hour. Wally lay there writhing in agony as his body fought to heal, but with no energy, fed from him in the effort.
'Make it stop.. Make it stop.. Please make it stop..'
Beneath the wringing of his ears he could hear voices yelling, alarmed. 'Civilians?' The very thought of a civilian finding him brought back the nightmares. The blood, the gore, the life leaving their eyes.. He dry heaved, head tilted to the side and that hurt .
Wally yelped, voice cracking as hands fell upon him carefully. There were people. Blurry people. No, it was his vision. Someone tried to move him and his body jerked in pain so terrible his vision went from blurred to spotted and before he knew it he was slipping into a peaceful, nightmare-less unconsciousness.
–
Len could admit that he hadn't expected that dull, heavy thud of something hitting the bar wall outside hadn't led him to suspect anything like this. There was nothing more terrifying than seeing Kid Flash sprawled out on the ground, moaning in pain, blood slipping from his parted lips and revealing the ghost white skin beneath it.
As he ran his hands, experimentally over the kid, Len could just feel bones that had broken or cracked. It wasn't a surprise considering the indentation on the brick wall. Damned if the kid didn't have a concussion.
Mick and Hartley tried to move the kid and all froze in horror as the kid cried out in a broken sound and blacked out.
And there was one thing that stood out the most to Len. The kid wasn't healing. Wally wasn't healing. That fact was causing his calm control to slip and panic to seep through.
“Piper, call the League,” Len said in a cold, detached, yet strained voice. Hartley looked at him funny, as if he can't believe Len asked him to hack the fucking Justice League and get their attention. “He's not healing,” he explained, wrenching his emotions back under a weak semblance of control. “Flash – he's off world. Flash can't help.”
While Hartley set about to hacking the Watchtower to get someone, anyone to help, Len turned to Mick and nodded towards Kid Flash. Mick grabbed his legs and Len got his shoulders. It was easier to move him when he wasn't so obviously in pain.
It wasn't long before they were stumbling into a nearby safe-house. “Put him on the couch,” Len ordered, regretting the decision to not add beds to this safe-house. He'd fix that later. Couldn't have unconscious company with no bed, but eying the kid he really hoped he wouldn't need to have a bed here.
Hartley practically flung himself into the living room, a homemade comm in his ear, threatening someone. Most likely a hero, and Len could hardly fault him for that. If anything he felt a bit proud to see the way he just cut off his comm in someone's mid-yell.
“Who's coming?”
Hartley's eyes flicked nervously to Kid Flash and then back to Len. “Gotham's own.. dark knight,” Hartley winced as he saw the way Len's eyes darkened at the news, but he didn't scold him or protest, so that was something.
Len wasn't sure how he felt about having the Bat there, but if that's what it took to help the kid, it was fine. They'd sacrifice this safe-house. They had others after all.
Fifteen minutes later, they all heard the way Wally moaned. It was a stuttered, broken sound that bubble from his throat like an animal drowning in its own blood and it made them all shiver with fear. His eyes twitched behind his closed lids.
“Shit, kid,” Len muttered, kneeling beside him and stroking his hair lightly.
“What happened?” The three Rogues jumped, startled at the sudden gruff voice and even more startled by the dark knight standing by the open window. Len ignored the way Mick cursed fluently under his breath, although he really wanted to do the same.
“Found him in the alley after he ran into a wall,” Len explains, cautious as Batman makes his way to the couch. “He's having a nightmare,” Batman states. Len winces, because yeah, he had noticed and he wasn't sure what to do.
Batman pulls a bag off his shoulder and from it takes an IV, setting it up and attaching it to the kid. “His wounds aren't healing. He doesn't have enough energy.”
Len blinks. 'Not enough energy? He's not.. eaten enough? Or..' Then it hits him. The kid's breath. He'd been throwing up.
Batman seems to know they know who Kid Flash is under the mask as he reaches to remove the cowl, goggles already broken and of no use. He pauses though and looks each of the Rogues in the eyes, narrowing his own in a way that has them more than understanding the way criminals in Gotham fear the Batman. If they hurt Wally, he'll skin them alive and this is his way of letting them know. It sends a cold chill down their spine that Len refuses to admit as he nods his understanding.
Batman reveals Wally's face and he looks so pale with tear streaks running down his dusty cheeks and blood still staining his mouth. It's then that Len notices the dark circles under Wally's eyes. 'He hasn't been sleeping.. How long has he had these nightmares?'
Everyone except Batman visibly startles when Wally jolts up, eyes wide and a sob in his throat. He looks so scared, pale, and panicked and by the way he sways and hisses in pain, he is less than okay.
“Wally.” Len looks at Batman, confused at the soft tone coming from Gotham's bat. “Wally, it's okay,” Batman murmurs to Wally, who takes a few shuddering breaths before his eyes focus on those with him. Len likes that he can see them because it means he's not still seeing whatever horror had been haunting him in his sleep.
It's a little… unnerving, even to Len how Batman wraps his arms around Wally and pulls him close. This is a picture that would make everyone in Gotham lose their shit.
“S'not okay...” Wally sobs, crying against Batman. “They're all dead! Everyone I see in my dreams! They're all dead!” Len has one too many guesses about what he means and the way Wally is crying is heartbreaking. He's never seen the kid looking so broken… so sad… And then he says something that shocks everyone, even Batman visibly.
“Sometimes I hate being Kid Flash,” Wally whispers, eyes unseeing, with a broken voice.
It takes everyone a few moments to process what he just said.
“Every time I see someone die… see someone hurt or in pain… It takes forever.” He pauses, taking deep breaths to calm down before looking at Len with a look devoid of happiness. “If someone shot you in the heart, it would take you a few seconds to die.”
'That's a cheerful thought,' Len thinks to himself sarcastically.
“But for me… those seconds… For a Speedster it could be hours.” Wally shifts in Batman's arms, wrapping his arms around his trembling form. “Hours of watching you suffering… watching the life slowly leave your eyes… Hours of begging you not to die and promising to do anything I could to help you, but being helpless….”
There are no words to express the amount of dizzying realizations that hit the Rogues like bricks. Batman seems to have had prior knowledge because he reaches up and starts to stroke Wally's hair.
“Wally,” Batman says gently, “you already know that sometimes there are those we can't help, people we can't save and you've seen them. But how many times was someone saved because of your gifts? Because you chose to be a Speedster.”
Wally's silent and seems to be thinking it over as Len comes and kneels beside him. “Kid,” he says, waiting to catch Wally's attention before he speaks, “Our lives might be slow, but every day we live, we are slowly dying. Every day we wake up is the day it could be our last. I know it's scary to see things so intently, so painfully slow, but those are just the bad things.”
Len smiles a little at Wally's puzzled look. “Think of all the times you had time to see the good things in life. We're all so much slower than you and we tend to miss the little things because life is passing by too fast for us to see everything. We can't see the little bits of happiness that are all around us because we don't have time to, but you can.”
Wally blinks, brain not surprisingly slow considering his body's condition, but he can tell he's catching up. 'That must be some IV,' Len makes a note to himself. He can see the way bruises are fading faster, some already gone. Cuts have turned into red lines as the kid's healing accelerates back to normal.
It's a few minutes in silence, but Wally finally nods and looks Len in the eye and then Batman and smiles a little. “Thank you,” he murmurs, leaning into Batman and closing his eyes, face finally relaxing as if some huge burden were just lifted from his shoulders and Len thinks perhaps it was.
The Rogues and Batman smile when they notice that Wally has slipped into a peaceful sleep. Len and Batman exchange appraising looks, each silently thanking the other before they turn their attention back to the sleeping Speedster.
It had been unsettling to see a Speedster so full of life and joy become so sad and lost, but it was a reminder to them all that even a Speedster can be heartbroken. Batman shifted, laying Wally down on the couch gently. And looking down on that small form, they make a silent promise to keep a closer eye on him so that when he needs to remember the joys of life, they can be there to remind him that life no matter how fast or slow is full of happy little moments every day.