Stop, god, stop it, [Wally says over the end of Robin's last sentence.] Stop calling me the best, stop calling me great, nobody else thinks that! I'm not the best at anything! I'm literally not the best in any aspect of anything I do! If I was then I wouldn't be dead five years from now, would I? So stop!
You keep- [Wally's voice goes far away because he throws his phone down on the bed and takes a second to just calm himself down because he wants to chuck his fucking phone in the fucking lake and watch Alli eat it.] You keep making me sound like this gilded god who- Who can think his way out of anything or- or just run or just do it and fix it but I can't and I don't and- And stop it! You're not allowed to say one nice thing about me ever again unless you finally swallow the idea that you were my hero first, you idiot.
I don't care what you can't do! I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. Why do you think you're not the best? You— you give me 200-mile-an-hour piggyback rides, and that's so unbelievably cool, but... Kid Flash is amazing because of who Wally West is! I'm never gonna care who can run faster than you or do complicated stuff at lightspeed. I don't care what Barry or Bart can do because they're not you! If one day you woke up and your powers were totally gone, you'd still be my favorite person. I'd still love you, you stupid, stupid jerk! You're my best friend!
[ Crap. Now he is crying. And he knows Wally can hear it, but he doesn't care. Maybe he needs to hear it. Maybe— he doesn't even know anymore. God, he doesn't want him to die, please, please, please. ]
Don't you get it? God, you're so— I-I don't want to be your hero, I want to be your partner!
Why do you think I could tell everybody but you about this?! You think it's 'cause you're not important enough but you're wrong! I can handle Bart giving me that look back all during June, I can deal with Jaime shutting up whenever the topic comes up but you think I could look at you and just talk normal about this? With you?!
I couldn't! Not in a thousand years! Not because you aren't important, you idiot, it's because you're the most important person I've got! God, Dick, do you seriously not get that? What do I have to do, run into another explosion with you?!
No! I don't need some big dramatic gesture, Wally, I just—
I feel like I failed you, okay? I wish I'd been there when you found out! I wish you'd thought, "I want to talk to Dick." I don't need you to shelter me, I don't need you to protect me, I just need you!
For the first time since learning about his death back in December of last year, Wally begins to question his decision not to tell Robin. He'd known Robin would be angry; he knows he would be, in his place. He'd known Robin would be upset he wasn't told, but he'd thought his concern for Robin, his desire to keep Robin from being hurt again would override that. Or maybe- maybe it was more like he thought Robin would see that.
But he doesn't.
Of course he doesn't. When had any of them ever preferred secrecy and safety over sticking together?]
I wasn't trying to- I just didn't-
[There it is again, huge and encompassing, that acknowledgement that if Robin knows -if Wally stops being stubborn, if he continues to refuse any fault in this, that he's going to have to accept that he's going to die. Not in that long-off, distant sort of way teenagers like him look at old age and death but immediate, like looking at a train bearing down on him, like looking at the gun of a barrel, like-
Wally realizes his hands are shaking.
He hadn't told Robin to protect Robin. Well, he had, or that's what he'd convinced himself, but that was wrong. No, Robin knowing- that means nothing is normal anymore. But he'd gone and fucked that up anyway, hadn't he? Somewhere between then and now, he'd already started to push Robin away, maybe in yet another misguided attempt to protect them both. When did he start doing that? When Robin told him he loved him? When Bart told him that he'd quit the team, or was it after, when Bart told him he was going to die? When had he started disentangling himself from Robin's life in a subconscious effort to save them both the heartache?
Wally's vision swims and he sits down heavily.
No, there's a simple truth here and it's this: Robin was his last chance to deny that it happens. Robin was his last puzzle piece before getting the whole picture, the keystone to the bridge that's slowly been building itself in his head between denial and despair and now that Robin knows, that's it. That's the end of all of it. The train's going to hit him, the gun's going to go off and in five years, if none of them can figure out a way to change the fabric of reality that doesn't tear about the structure of their universe he, Wally West, is going to die.
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performance) wrote2014-04-10 06:52 pm
no subject
You keep- [Wally's voice goes far away because he throws his phone down on the bed and takes a second to just calm himself down because he wants to chuck his fucking phone in the fucking lake and watch Alli eat it.] You keep making me sound like this gilded god who- Who can think his way out of anything or- or just run or just do it and fix it but I can't and I don't and- And stop it! You're not allowed to say one nice thing about me ever again unless you finally swallow the idea that you were my hero first, you idiot.
no subject
[ Crap. Now he is crying. And he knows Wally can hear it, but he doesn't care. Maybe he needs to hear it. Maybe— he doesn't even know anymore. God, he doesn't want him to die, please, please, please. ]
Don't you get it? God, you're so— I-I don't want to be your hero, I want to be your partner!
no subject
Why do you think I could tell everybody but you about this?! You think it's 'cause you're not important enough but you're wrong! I can handle Bart giving me that look back all during June, I can deal with Jaime shutting up whenever the topic comes up but you think I could look at you and just talk normal about this? With you?!
I couldn't! Not in a thousand years!
Not because you aren't important, you idiot, it's because you're the most important person I've got! God, Dick, do you seriously not get that? What do I have to do, run into another explosion with you?!
no subject
I feel like I failed you, okay? I wish I'd been there when you found out! I wish you'd thought, "I want to talk to Dick." I don't need you to shelter me, I don't need you to protect me, I just need you!
no subject
[He did.]
...I just- [Robin already knows.
For the first time since learning about his death back in December of last year, Wally begins to question his decision not to tell Robin. He'd known Robin would be angry; he knows he would be, in his place. He'd known Robin would be upset he wasn't told, but he'd thought his concern for Robin, his desire to keep Robin from being hurt again would override that. Or maybe- maybe it was more like he thought Robin would see that.
But he doesn't.
Of course he doesn't. When had any of them ever preferred secrecy and safety over sticking together?]
I wasn't trying to- I just didn't-
[There it is again, huge and encompassing, that acknowledgement that if Robin knows -if Wally stops being stubborn, if he continues to refuse any fault in this, that he's going to have to accept that he's going to die. Not in that long-off, distant sort of way teenagers like him look at old age and death but immediate, like looking at a train bearing down on him, like looking at the gun of a barrel, like-
Wally realizes his hands are shaking.
He hadn't told Robin to protect Robin. Well, he had, or that's what he'd convinced himself, but that was wrong. No, Robin knowing- that means nothing is normal anymore. But he'd gone and fucked that up anyway, hadn't he? Somewhere between then and now, he'd already started to push Robin away, maybe in yet another misguided attempt to protect them both. When did he start doing that? When Robin told him he loved him? When Bart told him that he'd quit the team, or was it after, when Bart told him he was going to die? When had he started disentangling himself from Robin's life in a subconscious effort to save them both the heartache?
Wally's vision swims and he sits down heavily.
No, there's a simple truth here and it's this: Robin was his last chance to deny that it happens. Robin was his last puzzle piece before getting the whole picture, the keystone to the bridge that's slowly been building itself in his head between denial and despair and now that Robin knows, that's it. That's the end of all of it. The train's going to hit him, the gun's going to go off and in five years, if none of them can figure out a way to change the fabric of reality that doesn't tear about the structure of their universe he, Wally West, is going to die.
Wally feels lightheaded when he says,] I-I got-
I gotta- I gottago, I gotta-
[and he hangs up.]