Archive of Our Own ^beta

" KF, get out of there!” Dick says in the mind link. “The place could blow any minute!”

Wally mentally sighs. “I’m going, I’m going. Don’t get your scaly panties in a bunch.” He makes a conscious effort to think in real time instead of speed-thinking too fast for his teammates to understand. It’s gotten easier to do that the longer he’s spent with them, even when his body is moving at the speed of sound.

The team was sent on a mission to investigate a drug ring in southern Ohio, and stumbled across their HQ. Which would be an awesome accomplishment, if only the baddie in charge didn’t rig a bomb to erase all of the evidence as he was being taken away. Rude.

Wally runs from room to room in the large building, checking every inch for stragglers. Yeah, everyone here is involved in a dangerous business and is going straight to jail, but Barry always lectures about how every life is worth saving and whatnot. Might as well save the crummy dirtbags.

So what if Wally hasn’t eaten in hours and the only thing keeping him moving at this point is a steady surge of adrenaline? He’s done far more with far less energy before. This is nothing.

The rest of the team is outside where Wally left them, and he can feel their annoyance from here. There had been several protests when he dashed back into the building, insisting he’ll be fine as he went to search for any remaining people who needed help evacuating.

“Kid, get back outside,” Kaldur orders now. “The place is clear.”

“Aw, you worried about me?” Wally speeds past a cluttered desk, then immediately backtracks. He picks up a Batman action figure. “Wow. You’d think a drug lord would be more discreet about his hero fetish.”

“Are you seriously wasting time going through the bad guy’s stuff right now?” Dick says.

“No, I’m shopping for our souvenir. You’re welcome.”

Kaldur’s exasperation is a living, breathing creature at this point. “Time is of the essence here, Kid.”

Artemis mentally snorts. “I say we leave him here.”

“Shut up, Ar—” Wally stops cold in his tracks, narrowly avoiding skidding headfirst into a wall. “Fuck.”

“What is it?” M’gann asks.

Wally approaches a figure on the ground. The man is unconscious against a wall—most likely taken out by the team and promptly forgotten. Wally would have missed him completely if he didn’t stop to check this room. “I found a guy. Gonna get him out of here.”

“Hurry,” Dick says, and they can all hear the background murmur of calculations in his head. “Even at your top speed, carrying another person is going to slow you down, and you’ve got less than a minute.” 

“Geez, have some more faith in me.” Wally stoops down and lifts the man over his shoulder. He stumbles from the weight but steadies himself. With some effort, he manages to get moving toward the exit. Thank you, adrenaline.

“On my way, guys.” He runs down the stairs and catches sight of the exit not too far away, running as fast as his legs will carry him.

He’s not fast enough.

Before even Wally’s fast-paced mind has time to comprehend a thing, he is knocked clean off his feet by the massive explosion. Heat, impossible heat flames against his back as it propels him forward and he falls to the ground.

It’s quick, as all explosions are. But Wally’s a speedster. And so the blast rages on and on and on, and he knows he’s completely screwed once the noise settles and his ears ring.

His consciousness must go spotty, for the world around him blinks in and out. Orange and red to gray in half a second. One moment he was holding the man he was trying to save, and in the next he’s alone. Then, after a length of time Wally can’t track, his friends’ faces appear above him—each one a different expression of worry.

Wally’s on his back, but something feels wrong. His skin feels fuzzy, almost, and it distantly occurs to him that the explosion blew him from behind, probably searing his back in the process. He doesn’t want to think about what that means in terms of damage, and luckily the adrenaline makes any thought or feeling ungraspable.

He coughs, blinking back the smoke stinging his eyes. The ringing continues, but another sound takes its place in front; a voice. “Wally, can you hear me?” He’s not sure who says it. It might be Dick.

It takes Wally a second to find his vocal cords. “...Ow,” he groans.

“You idiot,” Artemis says, voice a mixture of relief and rage and fear. Fear for Wally. Nice. “We told you to get out of there!”

Wally musters a grin, but he’s pretty sure it turns into a grimace halfway through. Grin-mace. “Sorry, beautiful.” His head clears in pulses, but he’s not sure if that’s a good thing once he can feel his body again. With clarity comes a full-body stinging sensation that only grows with every millisecond that passes.

“We need to get him back to the cave,” Kaldur says, and Wally tries to focus on that. “M’gann, can you levitate him?”

She shakes her head. There’s sweat on her brow, and she’s leaning against Conner. “The heat,” she says in explanation, biting her lip apologetically. “Right now I doubt I could levitate myself more than a few feet.”

The adrenaline has faded considerably, and the fuzzy feeling in Wally’s back starts to shift from irritation to flat-out agony . He groans and turns onto his side, trying to escape the steadily mounting pain.

He hears gasps as the team gets a look at his back, and knows that’s a sure sign he’s fucked. He doesn’t want to imagine what kind of burns must riddle his body—second degree, at least. His thin suit did nothing to shield him from the blast. He grits his teeth as the adrenaline makes way completely for pain, pain, pain.

“This isn’t good,” Dick murmurs.

“Can’t he heal?” Conner says.

“Out of—of energy, I’m afraid.” Wally chuckles weakly, then winces. Every movement stings like a thousand tiny knives drilling into his skin. He hisses. “Son of a bitch —”

Artemis kneels beside him, gently guiding him onto his stomach so she can survey the burns covering what has got to be the majority of his back. He doesn’t miss her sharp intake of breath. “Guys, this is really bad.”

“I’m r-right here,” Wally says. “Try to employ some—some bedside manner, huh?” Artemis shushes him and places a hand on his shoulder: one of the few places on his body that’s not charred. He realizes he’s shaking and presses his forehead into the ground below him, trying to keep his breathing steady.

“We can handle this,” Kaldur says. He’s using his “responsible leader” voice and it helps to calm Wally’s racing pulse. “Miss Martian, call the bioship.”

He thinks M’gann answers, but Wally can’t tell what she’s saying. In fact, everything seems to have tunneled—vision and hearing both. Not his nerves, though. Those are working perfectly if the agony coursing over his skin is anything to go by.

Think of something else. Anything else. “Th-The guy,” Wally remembers. “Is he…?”

Artemis is staring at something past where Wally can see, face grim. She shakes her head, and Wally swallows thickly.

Great. So not only did he suffer major injuries, but he failed horribly at the one heroic thing he was trying to do. Perfect. Super fucking perfect.

“Hey Megs, if you could—could brain blast me right now—” He swallows back a groan. “That would be great.”

Dick’s gloved hand grips his tightly. “Sorry, man, but you’re going to have to suck it up for a little while longer. We’ll take you back to the cave and get you some painkillers, and...”

Before Wally knows it, he’s fading out again, and he doesn’t even mind this time around. The more he drifts, the less he feels. Artemis is talking urgently, trying to get his attention, but Wally doesn’t feel like explaining why this is actually way better than being awake.

As he drifts, he hears the distant sound of the bioship approaching, and he gratefully sinks that last inch into unconsciousness, knowing that his friends will be there when he wakes up. 

Two days later, and a partially-melted Batman action figure now sits in the souvenir room of Mount Justice.