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 want to help, Rob,” Wally pleads. Robin’s chin is tilted downwards against his chest.
Kid Flash leans his head down and attempts to look into Robin’s hidden eyes. Wally wonders if Robin is crying beneath that mask. He could cry all he wanted and his friends would never know…
Wally grabs Robin by the wrist and pulls him back into a hug. Robin squirms in his arms and attempts to worm away but the older boy has speed on his side. Robin cannot make a movement to flee in any thing other than slow motion in Wally’s eyes.
Dick hates this. Why is he always the one who without the power to make things better? Wally, brilliant, enthusiastic and hopeful Wally, made himself powerful. He thought about what he wanted and then he went for it; that’s why Wally is the one holding Dick together in case he cracks like the piece of glass that he is.
Robin tries to toss Kid Flash’s arms off of him, but Wally only hushes him and returns his arms around his friend. Dick wants to laugh at himself again. He pounds his hands helplessly against Wally’s chest.
Maybe if he hits him hard enough Wally will feel the pain which Dick feels from having to be comforted. He hopes that if he beats harder on his friend’s body, then that physical pain will translate every emotion he is feeling mentally to Wally.
Robin might give in now. He might pretend he doesn’t care about what other people think or about responsibility but he was raised too well for such denial. His parents…his Bruce…his Alfred….his Wally and his Conner and his Kaldur and his Artemis and Megan and Roy…they expect more from him. And most importantly, he expects more from himself.
"I'm fine," Robin insists. His voice is raspy and he winces as he hears it. He forces out his words anyways. "I don't need your help,” he tells Wally as well as Conner who he knows is listening in.
The redhead searches the smaller boy’s eyes. He wets his lips and worries. He doesn’t know if Dick is muttering in Romani to hurt him, to show that Wally could never understand what he is feeling, or if maybe this means something worse. Maybe Dick is really just that broken.
"Just leave me alone! I'm not the one hurting here," Robin whispers as Wally embraces him.
Wally wants to help. Wally know that nobody can help unless he gets Dick speaks his thoughts plainly. Wally wishes he didn’t have to break this to his friend. Robin, when he learns he is speaking in his mother tongue by accident, will be embarrassed. Wally holds him closer and hopes he won’t hide when he explains his problem.
"I don't understand a word you're saying, Rob. You have to calm down and try to think clearly." KF brushes his fingers through Dick’s sweaty hair. "I really want to help but,” he unearths Robin’s face from his lap, “I can't do that when I don't understand what you're saying..."
Wally stresses the words ‘understand’ and ‘saying’ so that they ring in the hollow caverns of Dick’s mind.
He hears what those words really mean and that scares him. He’s afraid to talk. What will keep his next words from being so vulnerable and raw? What will stop him from using the speech which he calls his parents and not his own, having divorced himself from it in an attempt to forget the pain?
Dick doesn’t care when Wally gasps as he pushes away from him. He doesn’t care that his eyes water more as he wipes his dirty gloves across his lids.
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Robin doesn’t know if his words are the right ones. If he is explaining properly or even in English, but he needs to say this all out loud. He needs to know he can admit the truth to himself and the world as long as all ears are open to hear.
“I don't need your help,” Dick explains. He turns his head to face the little girl who sits in the medic’s lap across the lot. “She needs mine."
Kid Flash doesn’t follow Robin’s eyes to the little girl. He is left confused and worried as he listens to Robin’s foreign words. Wally doesn’t know if he can help his best friend so he begins to beg him to help him understand.
"I fight my own battles," Robin replies slowly and forcefully to the other teen’s concerns.
Robin looks to the fists which he used to beat against Wally’s chest. He pulls off the dirty gloves but they get stuck on the clasp that wraps the broken holo-device to his belt.
He had forgotten that the murder weapon was still on his person. How could he forget something like that? What kind of hero is he?
His body stiffens as he holds in his self-loathing. He lets Wally unfasten his caught gloves without argument. Once Kid Flash has the gloves in his hands, Dick swirls on his boot and rushes away.
He isn’t escaping his fears. He isn’t fleeing his friend. He isn’t running away from himself. He is heading towards the only person that can make him matter anymore. He is looking for the little girl. He will give her hope.
Lost in his thoughts, Robin clips Commissioner Gordon as he passes by.
"Excuse me," he mutters. He stops. The holo-device is still attached to his belt. He unclips it and holds it in his small, bare palms. It’s evidence and he’s holding it without gloves. He quickly panics and tosses it into Gordon’s hand.
"Pardon?" Gordon says to the hero. Robin realizes he isn’t speaking English but he doesn’t have time to sort that out. He’s needed somewhere else. Someone else needs him.
"I'm sorry," Robin apologizes again. The commissioner finds the holographic device in his hands before the boy runs off again.
Robin vaguely hears the commissioner call out to him as he runs off. He doesn’t slow his sprint. He’s waited long enough.
Robin stops before the ambulance where Mr. Dalca's orphaned daughter is and starts a breathing kanta.
His last thought before he opens his raw throat to comfort her and his shaking arms to embrace her is: I can help her now; at the very least, I must have the power to do that.
“Du’ dera,” he whispers as he holds her tight, “I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”
Dick doesn’t care that he starts crying before her.
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I've been really busy and I'm always juggling a bunch of stories even when I'm not busy.
I plan on buckling down and working on a bunch of things on the weekend. :)
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