maskormenacelogs | BACKDATED

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BACKDATED - AUG 15

WHO: Robin (Dick Grayson,

performance) & Kid Flash (Wally West,

runningstart)
WHERE: Cave of Justice, Smokey Mountains, North Carolina
WHEN: August 16th, morning, after this revelation
WHAT: Robin confronts KF about his lie by omission. Yelling and crying. It's all very dramatic.
WARNINGS: Discussions of death, etc

One text.

with batman

Nothing after that. And KF's been hanging out in the living room next to the entrance, sitting on the edge of a chair almost all night, leg jiggling up and down nervously. Every so often he stuffs something into his mouth, habit, like refueling a car but everything tastes like sawdust. If he wasn't so hungry, he wouldn't bother.

Robin's going to want that explanation. Eventually, he's going to want it, Kid knows him. He's probably had it way in the back of his head all night, festering unseen and he's probably going to be livid by the time he shows up. If KF was smart, he'd get the hell out of here. If he had any sense at all he'd run to Jaime's or Shade's and beg them to let him stay-

Shit, if Jaime's even okay. Khaji's probably looking after him.

God. Everything's a mess. His secret IDs been compromised at least three times tonight -last night- and so many people are dead because of what's happened, because of what Crane did. Not just imPorts. People who won't ever have a chance to come back. KF remembers seeing one of them, a man curled up in the corner of the audience chamber, he'd been looking at his presentation with interest, he'd told Wally that he was smart-

KF smacks the heel of his hand against his head. Again. Stop.

There's not much he can do now. All he can do is sit and wait for Robin to come back, if he even does. Maybe he went straight to Bruce's, maybe he doesn't want to hear what KF has to say. ...Kid wouldn't blame him, but he can't- he can't run now. Not now. Not when he's at the risk of losing Robin over this.

Shit. That's what he'd been trying to avoid from the start.

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If the Porter had any decency at all, Robin thinks, it would have given him the power to turn into a bird and just fly away. There's a small, traitorous, cowardly part of him that wants to run away from everything. He doesn't know where he'd go. Maybe he'd just get on his bike and drive west, just keep going until he hit the ocean. Cut his hair and change his name and make his way in some big city somewhere and see if anyone ever came looking.

Maybe he's afraid of finding out they wouldn't.

Wally lied. It's been beating the inside of his skull like a drum all night.

He hasn't slept. How could he? No matter how much he scrubbed, he could still feel all that blood on him. Because he wasn't good enough. Because he wasn't fast enough. Because he'd deferred to Batman and didn't warn people about Scarecrow. He could've stopped this, and he didn't, and people are dead.

And his best friend—

—or the person who he'd always thought was his best friend—

... But then, they've been drifting apart for longer than Robin's wanted to admit to himself, haven't they?

He's had the conversation in his head two dozen times by now and he still doesn't know what he's going to say when he walks in the door. It feels like someone's hollowed out his insides and left him all raw and empty and angry and scared and so, so alone.

Someone. No. Wally.

He looks like hell when he finally comes back to the cave mid-morning, bruised and scraped and beyond exhausted. A hoodie covers the worst of the damage, and sunglasses hide the dark circles under his eyes. It's a cold comfort to see that Wally looks terrible too. Does he deserve it? Facing his own apparent death — does he deserve to be miserable about anything more than that? Robin wishes he knew. For a moment he considers breezing right past him, heading to the bedroom, but he knows Wally would follow anyway.

So he stops just in front of him, folding his arms over his chest and fixing him with a level gaze that does little to calm the wild, clawing feeling in his chest.

"All right," he says, without preamble. "Explain."

Kid meets Robin's eyes for all of a second before he looks down again, fixes his gaze somewhere on the ground just past Robin's left knee. He sits quiet there, half-slumped atop the armrest of the couch, blood on his suit (none of it his), sweat crusting salt along the edges of his mask (all of it his) and laces his fingers between his knees. He just has to say it. He just has to say it. It feels like cutting open a wound and letting the pus drain out but finally, at last, Kid Flash says it.

He tells Robin everything.

June 20th, 2016. The Reach are being driven away. They activate the magnetic field disruptors, their failsafe for if they lost the planet, largely because they're sore losers (if I can't have it, nobody can). Wally had gotten back into the game just a few days before, finally putting the costume back on and, according to reports, loving it. Also according to reports, more than happy to give the title to Bart.

Then the North Pole. The last one. Barry and Bart already there but it's not enough, not fast enough, not strong enough. The decision is an easy one to make; even now, not having done it yet, Wally can justify it in his head. Of course he goes. It's more than saving the world. That's his family.

He's not fast enough. No- he's fast enough to help. And hell, maybe if he wasn't there to be slower, one of them would have been hit. Maybe it would've gone belly-up no matter what, but he's...

He disappears. Kid doesn't know why or how. It's what Bart said, that he's just gone.

The quiet after he stops talking is deafening. KF doesn't know what else to say. He stares at the floor and he thinks if he apologizes, Robin might sock him, but as per usual his mouth opens before he can think about it. "Rob, I was gonna tell you-"

It's eerie, hearing someone describe his own death. Relating events about himself that he knows secondhand but hasn't experienced. Robin listens all the way to the end, letting Wally get the whole story out. He doesn't ask questions. Doesn't want to stop him, maybe, or just doesn't know what to ask.

So Wally comes back just in time to die. He remembers he's a hero and he dies for it.

Robin recognizes the way that grief feels as it settles into his bones, slow and quiet like a snowfall. His body doesn't quite feel like his own; everything hurts, but in a distant, disconnected sort of way. He doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to be himself. He wants to be someone who gets to hold onto the things he loves. Just once, he thinks, to whoever's listening. Just once, can't I keep something? Haven't I been good enough? Can't I please just keep him?

It isn't until Wally starts to apologize that Robin finally, finally finds the words to cut him off.

"When?"

His voice doesn't crack, doesn't sound desperate or terrified or any of the thousand things he's feeling. He just sounds angry. Maybe it's better this way.

"I'm not stupid, Wally. It's my job to read people, and I know how to tell when they're lying." He'd learned from the best, after all. Right now he half-wishes he hadn't. If he could be naive enough to believe that Wally was planning on telling him...

But. "You've known for a long time, haven't you? I know you. You'd freak out about this, and you're not. And Blue Beetle knew, so..." Robin's hands tighten against his upper arms, fingers digging into the cloth of his jacket. Blue Beetle knew before he did. Which means that either Bart had told him, or Wally had, but either way, they'd talked.

And here was Robin, in the dark by himself.

"You said..." He inhales, and lets it out in a rush, a raw, ragged sound. "You said, last night, that you didn't want me to find out. That's the truth. Isn't it?"

Edited 2015-08-25 07:45 (UTC)

"Yes- no!" Kid grabs at his hair with a noise of frustration. "I mean I didn't want you to find out like that!"

For a dozen reasons, he hadn't wanted to tell Robin. Because telling someone who cares hurts him just as bad. Because Robin's already lost so much and telling him felt like taking more away. Because Wally remembers how he'd hovered and stayed up for hours when he found out that Wally quit the team, because he worries himself sick whenever Wally gets hurt or sent back home, because-

Because if he tells Robin, that's it. There's nobody else to deny it.

God damn it, he'd just wanted an answer before he told him. A solution he could follow it with, use as a bridge to cross that yawning pit of fear, five years left, five years Kid. If he could just have a fix ready, then telling Robin would be okay.

KF clenches his fists on his lap. "Look- Look. I'm already working on it. I've got some theories."

Wally might as well have slapped him. Seconds pass, the weight of the silence between them pressing down on his thin shoulders.

"You're working on it," Robin parrots back, finally, cold and disbelieving. "You're working on it." He tightens the fold of his arms, afraid that his hands will shake and betray him. Wally might as well have just said it: you can't help me.

Maybe it's true. Maybe he's worthless here. He doesn't know the first thing about alien tech, and his years of experience don't matter when he's half a decade away from the date. And if Robin can't crack the case, then who needs him around? What else could he be good for? He isn't that good at— people. Apparently.

"What does Blue Beetle think of your theories? Or— or his AI, or whoever that was." It isn't a real question. It's a statement that means one thing: I'm onto you.

"Khaji's- he's helping me, with one of the theories. It's just- it's Reach stuff, I don't even know anything about it, it's all Reach tech." KF pushes himself to his feet when Robin backs up a couple steps. Maybe being taller will help him stop feeling so low. Resentment crawls up the back of his throat because he knew it, goddamn it he knew Robin would be angry before he'd be anything else. He knew it.

"Only other thing is maybe working on a Porter, to...to keep people from being sent back before they're ready." Before they can find out how to fix their own deaths. "That's with Tadashi-"

"—what?!"

No. No no no. This can't be happening. Robin's eyes go wide behind his glasses, and for a moment he feels such overwhelming vertigo that he nearly stumbles. Blue Beetle would be one thing, he's a hero, but Tadashi's— he isn't even—

"How many people have you told?" Robin asks, his voice coming out quiet and uncertain now, some of the sharp sting of anger replaced by cold betrayal. "God, Wally, am I the only person who doesn't know?"

"No! Geez, I- Look, only a few people know, and only a couple because I actually told them! Some people found out by accident- Bart's the one who told Jaime, he already knew." KF takes another deep breath to keep from shouting. "Dude, don't make a big deal out of this, okay? It's not what you're thinking."

"I asked how many!"

Robin drops his hands to his sides, fists clenching like he's preparing for either a run or a fight. He's not sure which it's going to be. "Or is that a secret, too?"

KF unconsciously fists his hands at his sides too, glaring at Dick before looking away again.

"...four. Might be five, I don't know. Last night is hazy."

"Of the people you told? Or the people you told last night?"

Robin drops his gaze to the ground, his heart pounding, a sharp, unwelcome spike of jealousy lancing white-hot through him.

"Never mind. Don't tell me."

"Of the people I told, period," Kid answers anyway. He's not doing the 'nevermind forget it' game. He's not doing it now, not when they're both raw and ragged from the night prior, not ever if he can help it but especially not now. "And- And you don't get to lecture me on this dude, it's my freaking death!"

The silence that rings after that is too open, too empty. It takes Kid a second but he's getting the vague realization that he might have just gone too far. He's been sitting on the knowledge of his death for months, yeah; he's almost gotten used to talking about it. Robin just learned of it twelve hours ago.

Robin's eyes go wide and his stomach lurches; for a moment he thinks he might vomit. He's thrown violently backwards in time, reaching for hands that'll never hold his again, smelling blood and sawdust, the heat of stage lights, everything thrown into harsh shadow—

no no no no no not again

He staggers back like he's been struck— then takes several steps forward, grabbing Wally by the front of his uniform. He's not sure if he's going to shove him or hit him — in the end it's neither one. He yanks Wally closer, voice cracking as he shouts, "And I'm the one who'll have to live with it!"

Edited 2015-08-28 07:29 (UTC)

Anger.

Anger is easier. Just like with Khaji. Just like with Artemis, just like with everything.

Anger is so, so much easier.

"So then what does that mean to you?!" KF lets Robin yank him forward but he fists a gloved hand in the front of his hoodie also, tight and coiled up and ready to snap. "That you get to take control? That you're the first and only and best person to deal with this? What the hell can you do that you think I haven't already thought of?! I've been sitting on this since December, Dick, so why don't you go ahead and tell me that you could have done a much, much better job!"

That's it.

That's what he thinks.

You can't do it, you can't change it, you can't help, you can't do a damn thing. And all the frustration, all the miserable failure, all the white-hot undirected rage that's been boiling inside him since the first of the gas hit comes to a head.

"So that's it?" He pulls at the material of Wally's uniform, shaking him like he can make him see sense somehow, holding on like if he lets go Wally will vanish right in front of him. "If I'm not useful, I don't need to know! Is that what you think of me?"

They both look like they're one step away from a fight, but there hasn't been a punch thrown yet. That's not how they do things. Bruised knuckles and bloody lips are for bank robbers, muggers, murderers and thieves. That's not how they work.

Even now, fighting each other, rooting down into the depths of each other's insecurities and looking to wound, they use words. Maybe because they both know that's the sharpest weapon they've both got.

Kid lets Robin yank him closer, gets right up in his face because he's taller and he's bigger even though he knows neither of those things have ever intimidated Robin, least of all coming from him. "Looks like you already made up your mind what I think of you, dude! Since everything I'm saying just goes right over your big fat head!" That's not the case, it's not and Robin fucking knows it's not. He has to, he's just being an asshole.

God, he's such an asshole sometimes.

"What's going over my head, exactly? That you have plans? That you have people working on those plans? That you didn't want or need me to know about any of it?"

Robin honestly doesn't know, because Wally hasn't told him one damn thing, really. Just justified and rationalized and defended his reasons for not telling him, a long list that all boils down to one simple thing: I don't need your help. It might as well be a lecture from Batman, or a mission briefing. It's like he doesn't know him at all.

"What am I missing?"

"You know what? You got it in one!" KF finally knocks Robin's fist away then, taking a step back and jabbing a finger in his direction like he'd love nothing more than to stick it right into Robin's stupid eye. "I didn't want you to know about it! I still don't want you to know about it! And if I didn't know you'd just hack into everything I've ever owned and probably interrogate anybody I've ever talked to, I wouldn't have told you anything today!"

Robin doesn't so much as flinch at the finger jabbed in his direction, just stares back for a long, wounded, furious second. Years. They've been friends for years and this is what he has to show for it. He'll never, never trust anyone like he trusts Wally, and this is as good as it's ever going to get.

"Fine," he says, at last, sharp and dry as a twig snapping. "If that's what you want? Then this conversation never happened. Good luck with your theories."

He storms past Wally, heading for the bedroom, bumping hard and deliberately into his shoulder as he goes. The jolt to Robin's messed-up arm sends pain sizzling through his nerves. Good.

"And speaking of things we should never have told each other? It's Robin from here on out."

He feels sick just saying it, sick and awful and wrong, but it's already too late to take it back. But maybe if it hurts, Wally will remember that he's supposed to care. Maybe he'll act like Robin's expecting him to act, instead of... whatever this is.

"Oh yeah?" KF scrambles after Robin, stomping down the hallways to follow, gut burning like it's been lit on fire, hands shaking because he's so angry and he's hurt and he wants to just lash back out and make Robin hurt as bad. "Well, you can still use Wally if you want, which is hilarious because I didn't even tell you my secret ID! You just rooted it out yourself! Apparently you deserve to know everything I don't tell you, so go right ahead! Enjoy yourself!" And Kid slams their bedroom door for Robin, standing in the hall, staring at the door and shaking before turning on his heel and darting out of the cave as fast as he can.

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BACKDATED - AUG 15

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