Prompt Post - Part Six [CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS]
THIS PART IS NOW CLOSED. YOU CAN CONTINUE POSTING FILLS, BUT PLEASE PROMPT ALL NEW THINGS HERE.
I am so sorry for the delay, guys. Life has been hectic lately (exams, haha) and I lost track.
Part one here!
Part two here!
Part three here!
Part four here!
Part five here!
Feel free to reprompt posts from parts one, two, three or four in part five once. If ( Read more... )
“I’m not hungry, Alfred.”
His eyes don’t move from the screen in front of him. He’s watched the video surveillance of the explosion more than a dozen times by now, and he sees the same thing every time: Dick runs through the corner of the image about a minute before the bomb goes off. There are shots of almost everyone else, on both teams, in the video, but Dick is barely there at all. He has to be missing something.
“You haven’t eaten anything all day, Master Bruce.”
“I’m fine, Alfred. Thanks.”
He switches from the video surveillance on screen to the reports he’s received from local hospitals. They haven’t admitted any boys matching Dick’s description.
“Master Bruce-”
“Alfred, I’m fine-”
“You are most certainly not fine.”
Bruce finally turns away from the screen to see his butler glaring at him.
“How could you be fine after this?”
Bruce narrows his eyes. “Alfred, he’s not d-”
“I never said he was. And I hope more than anything else in the world that he isn’t,” Alfred says, and Bruce can see the sorrow in his eyes. “But if he is, Master Richard would not want you to do this to yourself.”
“And if he’s not, I’m not going to leave him out there when he could be in the hands of some villain with a vendetta, or lying in an alleyway somewhere trying to recover from the explosion.”
“And what if he’s-”
“What if he’s dying, Alfred?” Bruce interrupts, letting the anguish he’s feeling drop into his voice. “What if he’s not dead but he’s close and he needs help? Would you have me leave him wherever he is when he needs me?”
Silence bounces back at them from the walls of the cave. When Alfred doesn’t respond, Bruce turns back to his computer, pulling the video up again and starting from the beginning.
“I’m going to find him,” Bruce says to himself.
“I never doubted that you would,” Alfred assured.
--------------
An hour later, he’s still in the cave. But someone else is there now.
“Barry tells me you‘ve stopped looking,” Bruce says, and Kid Flash steps around the Batmobile and comes to stand next to Bruce’s chair.
“You’re not angry that I’m here?” he asks.
“Dick told me that you found out about his identity. It’s not too much of a stretch to assume you would be able to find the cave. You didn’t answer my question.”
Kid Flash pauses, and when he speaks, he sounds dejected. Bruce can’t remember the last time he ever heard the young speedster ever sounding so unsure. “I haven’t stopped looking. I just don’t know where to look anymore,” he corrects.
Bruce doesn’t have a response to that. He’s facing the same problem.
“You know, I’m surprised that you don’t have some tracker GPS thing on him.”
“I do,” Bruce says. Kid Flash chuckles sadly.
“Of course. Then why isn’t it-”
“I can’t get a signal from it. It’s in his costume, not on his person. It might have been damaged.”
Kid Flash pales slightly. He runs a hand through his hair. “Do you really think he’s still out there?”
Bruce turns to look at the teenager. “You don’t?” he asks instead of replying.
He shrugs. “I want to. I need to. But it’s been a week, and I’m starting to feel like…we would’ve heard something from him by now. This isn’t like him.”
Bruce blinks. He hadn’t realized it had already been a week.
“I miss him,” Wally murmurs, and Bruce has to hold himself back from saying that he does too.
“Even if he is….” Kid Flash trails off and the unsaid word hangs between them. “I’m still going to keep looking for him. I want to find him anyway.”
Bruce doesn’t respond and after a minute he feels a breeze as Kid Flash zips away. He hasn’t learned anything from this visit, but he feels like part of him is starting to come to terms with something.
He still can’t accept it.
Reply
Leave a comment