Chapter Text
Wally met him the very first time he appeared, supposedly. Entirely by accident, mind you, because Barry would not have let him anywhere near the situation if he’d know that a league level threat like Batman was involved, let along actually there.
The point is, Wally might have been the first hero ever to encounter Batman’s brand new protege, Robin.
Though, Robin certainly didn’t seem new to the field.
What should have been a fairly routine break-in at Star Labs in Central City for both the Flash and Kid Flash to prevent went off the rails almost immediately. For starters, no alarm even went off, it was pure coincidence that Barry was on the phone with a co-worker when he suddenly cut off, otherwise they wouldn’t have even known anything was wrong. Entering the scene was surreal, every single person in the building was unconscious and strung up in bundles hanging from the roof, the doors and locks were untouched, presumably hacked.
It was eerie, that this could have happened in such a short time, but the question of how was thrown out the window as soon as they found the culprit. Holding whatever piece of machinery he’d presumably come to steal stood the infamous Batman in all his glory; a looming wall of stern darkness that almost merged with the shadows around him, Wally didn’t need to know who he was or see the rapidly paling face of his mentor to realise the guy was bad news.
He struck first, a rare occurrence with the Flash, throwing down a smoke bomb and lashing a heavy kick straight into Barry’s chest, launching him into Wally and both of them out the door. Barry’s up almost immediately, launching himself back into the room to fight, and Wally’s about to follow when the lights to the whole building cut out entirely, leaving nothing but the faint glow of the miscellaneous tech lying around.
The downright creepy laugh of a child is all the warning Wally gets when a weight drops on top of him from nowhere.
Wally may or may not have shrieked as whatever landed on him manages sweep his legs out while still clinging to his back.
Wally falls to the floor as they kick off his back and he manages to regain his baring as the figure vanishes completely. Pacing wearily — one arm poised defensively in front of him while he fiddles with his belt one-handedly for a torch — he listens for any sign of movement, but all he hears are brief bursts of eerie giggles in the darkness.
Finally getting a real source of light, Wally flicks it on only to immediately scream and drop it. Standing with his face mere inches away was a boy who looked no older than thirteen; blank white lenses of a domino mask, a Cheshire grin across his face and dark hair that faded into the shadows. Wally didn’t get much more as he dropped the torch, and by the time he’d picked it up again the boy was gone, just an echoey laugh signifying he was even there in the first place.
“Ok,” Wally muttered to himself, casting the torch around him in search of the boy “starting to get a little creeped out here.”
“Only starting?” Wally spun at the sound of an amused voice behind him, but nothing was there. “You shrieking like a little girl as soon as I got the drop on you says otherwise.”
“Like a little girl is a bit harsh, though I’ll admit you were creepy from the get go.” Wally replied, backing himself up against a wall, torch panning the room “Anyone ever told you, you have a beautiful laugh?”
“Aww, that’s so sweet of you to say.” The boy fake flattered voice rang out, seemingly directionless “Cute, charming and funny, it’s honestly a shame we couldn’t meet under better circumstances.”
“Tough luck, dude, I know I’m hard to resist.” Wally faux bragged, feeling oddly flattered even through the heavy sarcasm “I got people lined up round the block for a piece of this.”
“With hair like that, I bet you do.” Wally froze at the feeling of a gloved hand carding through his hair, back against the wall and staring at the completely empty space in front of him. A soft giggle accompanied the hand in his hair, making Wally’s breath hitch and his arm finally unfreeze.
“Look up, silly.”
Tilting his head up — and unintentionally back into the hand — and raising the torch to follow revealed the boy hanging, upside-down above him, face barely a breath away. His dark hair almost brushed Wally’s cheeks, one hand still curled around Wally’s head, the boy used the other to hold his grappling line and trap a black cape against his blood red tunic.
“Boo” The boy grinned before dropping on top of him once more.
Wally cursed as the torch was kicked out of his hand, spinning on the ground and casting the boy in only brief flashes of light. He was overwhelmingly losing, back against the wall as the boy completely crowded into his space, twisting and contorting his body to avoid getting hit with barely any movement at all. He’s too close, Wally doesn’t even have the space to think, let alone move.
The takedown was startlingly efficient; one moment Wally was barely holding his own, the next he was on the ground, feet tied together, hands zip-tied to two opposite tables, spead out like a cross with the boy straddling his chest, lit up from beneath by the fallen torch.
“Gotcha.” The boy smirked, sat proudly atop Wally’s chest, heedless of the way he’s crushing his ribs. From this angle Wally can see the inside of his cape is yellow, along with his utility belt. A golden ‘R’ sat in a circle over his heart. He wore surprisingly bright colours for a guy who acts like a horror movie monster.
“I’d like to state that this fight would have gone very differently in better lighting.” Wally felt the need to defend himself from the boy’s smug expression.
“Sure it would.” He replied disbelievingly “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“No offence, but nothing about this encounter is going to help me sleep at night.” Wally shrugged as bet he could in his position. Banter was something Wally could do, and as much as it pains him he really needed to stall right now and wait for Barry to finish up and help him.
“Oh?” The boy crowed in delight “You gonna stay up at night thinking about me?”
“Not like that!” Wally spluttered “I mean like nightmare fuel, dude, you’re, like, twelve or something!”
“And you’re, like, fourteen or something.” The boy replied mockingly, before sighing “You’re getting pretty flustered either way, and I heard you were the flirty type.”
“Yeah, with girls.” Wally retorted
“Wow, is that sexist or homophobic? They really don’t make heroes like they used to.” The boy pondered aloud.
“What the hell! It was neither!” Wally defended “Stop putting words in my mouth.”
“I could put something else in your mouth.” The boy purred, leaning his face down closer.
Wally froze as his view was obscured by waves of soft hair, the boy’s hands moved from his chest to brace his forearms on either side of Wally’s head, breath ghosting across Wally’s mouth.
Squeezing his eyes shut and bracing for impact, Wally waits a beat. Then two.
Then he hesitantly pries his eyes open to find that the boy has already sat back up, head turned to the side, hand over his mouth, fighting to muffle his laughter. He turns back to face him and promptly loses the fight, bursting out into a loud, bright peel.
“Your f-face! Oh my g-god!” He chokes out between giggles.
“Why would you do that?” Wally whines, mortified “What the fuck, man?!”
The boy doesn’t answer, breaking down into further laughter, leaning forwards to rest his forehead on Wally’s shoulder. The absurdity of the situation catches up to Wally as he feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth, trying and failing to tramp down on his own snickering.
Wally just about regains control of his lungs when the boy suddenly tenses, shooting back upright and swinging his head to the side. Following his line of sight Wally feels the blood drain from his face as the dark shape of Batman emerges from the shadows.
Not the Flash.
Barry lost.
“Robin.” Batman’s gravely voice freezes the air in Wally’s lungs, even as it’s directed at the boy — Robin, he supposes.
“Batman.” Robin nods back in acknowledgement “You got everything you wanted?”
“We’re not here to have fun.” Batman says pointedly, nodding at Wally’s sprawled form, completely ignoring the question. Robin’s flinch was small enough that Wally only noticed it because he was still sitting on top of him.
“I was just distr—”
“No excuses.” Batman’s growl cut him off, taking a step closer. Robin’s flinch was visible this time.
“I got into their restricted data.” Robin switched topics, reaching into his belt and holding up a USB with a small ‘R’ symbol, matching his tunic. “Thought it might be useful.”
Batman grunted in acknowledgement — whether positive of negative, Wally couldn’t tell — stepping closer and swiping the drive out of his hand, stepping over Wally’s prone figure. He pauses, considering Wally for a heart stopping second.
“You didn’t break his legs.” He states.
“Sitting on him seemed just as effective.” Robin replied with false cheer. Wally could feel his hands flex slightly where they were settled on his chest.
“Hm.” Batman hummed tonelessly. Wally held his breath as he narrowed his eyes —lenses? — at him. “We’re leaving.”
He turned on his heel and stalked out completely soundless, melding into the darkness. Wally let out a relieved sigh as the tension melted from Robin’s shoulders.
“Well, I’ll see you next time.” Robin grinned, standing up “you might not see me, though.”
He followed his mentor, vanishing into the darkness, leaving Wally still tied up on the floor. Taking a couple minutes and more than a couple curses to get out of the bindings, Wally picked up the torch and made his way back the where Barry was fighting Batman.
It was worse than he thought.
The room was completely destroyed, expensive equipment scattered along the floor, walls busted in, the lighting ripped out of the roof, blood splatters sprayed all over. But Wally’s focus was on the Flashes mangled form in the corner.
One arm seemed to be dislocated at the shoulder and nailed to the wall with three broken metal chair legs, the fourth nailing his other hand to the floor. His legs were a twisted mess, tied up with barbed wire, forcing them to remain in their broken position, Wally could tell the bone was already healing wrong. His whole from was cut up and leaking blood still — Wally didn’t want to think about how deep the wounds must have been for them to still be unhealed — and the blood and shattered debris on the right side of his head indicated his head had been bashed into something multiple times.
“Barry!” Wally exclaimed, but was only met with laboured, rattling breaths. He didn’t even know where to begin with this, he definitely couldn’t move him. Fumbling with his belt for his phone he let out a frustrated growl when he realised he couldn’t get a signal, Batman must have set up something to block calls in the building.
Barry let out a pained groan as Wally rummaged through his belt for his league communicator, muttering apologies as he went. Slipping the communicator in his ear, Wally had to pause and take a breath as panic welled up in him.
“Hello! Uncle Hal?” Wally couldn’t conceal the shake in his voice as he hit the call button. “Or- or anyone? I d-don’t know what to do.”
Barry’s breathing was getting worse, but Wally couldn’t put him in the recovery position when his arms were nailed to the wall and floor.
“Wally, is that you? Where’s Barry?” Hal’s voice sounded though the communicator and Wally almost choked on the relief “What happened?”
“There was a break in at Star Labs, we thought it was just a normal one.” Wally began to chatter “But- but fucking Batman was there!”
“Shit, shit.” Hal’s panic was not helping Wally “Is he still there? Are you hurt? Star Labs in Central right?”
“Central, yeah. And- and Batman’s gone, I’m not hurt, but Barry…” Wally could feel his breathing speed up “I can’t take him to the hospital, his- his arms are n-nailed to the wall. And- and his legs are super fucked, and I think his ribs… I can’t move him without making it worse.”
“Okay, deep breaths Wally, you’re doing great. “ Hal soothed “I’m sending Superman to take care of Barry, but you just wait there, I’m coming to get you.”
Wally tried to follow Hal’s instructions, counting his breathing, but calm breathing like this was hard for speedsters. He was jerked out of his growing panic by Superman’s arrival.
“Jesus Christ.” Clark breathed, taking in Barry’s injuries. Carefully crumbling the wall and floor around the metal poles, he gently lifted Barry without removing any of his impalements. “Wait out the front, son. I’ll handle the rest.”
Then he flew out, leaving Wally to sit in the dark and try and get his breathing under control. The coppery tang of the room was suddenly overwhelming as Wally got up and sped out the front of the building, plopping himself down on the front steps. It felt weird to be so untouched when Barry was so heavily injured.
Letting out a breath and running a hand through his hair, he felt his fingers snag on something. Frowning, he pulled it out to reveal a small circular hair clip with a red-breasted robin sewn in.
“Souvenir.” Wally mutter dispassionately, fiddling with it as he waited for Hal.
“Okay, can you go over the whole thing from the start?” Hal asked gently.
His soothing presence was slightly offset by the fact that Wally was essentially being interrogated by Green Arrow and Hal was just there as a guardian because Barry was in a medically induced healing coma.
He’d protested to Wally being questioned about the events, and usually a report by the end of the week would be sufficient for a non-time-sensitive case, but everything involving Batman needed to be taken to an extra level.
At least Green Arrow meant Roy was there, his shoulder pressed comfortingly against Wally.
“Well, we didn’t actually get an alarm, but we were finishing dinner and Barry was on call with someone who works there when they suddenly cut out. Barry said he had a bad feeling about it, so we suited up to check it out.” Wally explained, flipping the robin hair clip though his fingers “Everyone in the building was tied up and unconscious, and by the time we got to the storage room Batman was just standing there with this… thing. I don’t know what he grabbed.”
“Can you describe it?” Oliver pressed
“It had green lighting, and a handle. It wasn’t gun shaped, or anything, but it was a hand held something.” Wally frowned “but it wasn’t activated or anything, so it might, like, unfold or something later. Pretty sure I can identify it if there are pictures in the record.”
“We’ll look into that, continue.” Hal urged.
“Batman threw a smoke bomb and kicked us out the door, across the hall into the opposite room. Barry got up to go back and I was just about to follow when the lights cut out.” Wally grimaced “I paused because there was this weird, horror movie child laughter. I should have just followed, Barry got really hurt.”
“No, you did the right thing, not getting involved.” Hal stated firmly “Batman isn’t someone to be taken lightly. Even if you went in, we’d most likely just end up with two very injured speedsters and no-one to call for help. You saved his life Wally.”
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t have really done anything anyway.” Wally sighed “This kid, Robin, managed to take out my legs almost immediately.”
“What kid?” Oliver asked cautiously.
“This crazy horror movie ninja kid, like twelve or something. Jumping in and out of the shadows and giggling like something out of a nightmare. He was working with Batman.” Wally frowned “seemed kind of scared of the guy, though, I don’t know.”
“We’ve never heard of Batman working with anyone, let alone a kid.” Oliver looked disturbed, shooting a brief glance at Roy “Can you describe him.”
“Sure, uh, dark hair, red tunic with a yellow ‘R’ on the chest, yellow utility belt. Um, black pants, black cape with a yellow inside.” Wally furrowed his brows “The lighting wasn’t great, I didn’t really get a good look. Batman called him Robin, matches this hair clip he gave me.”
“He gave you a hair clip?” Roy raised a brow at his side, leaning forward to inspect the hair clip Wally held out to Oliver to look at. “How did that happen?”
“He, uh, when he first tripped me over he didn’t pin me, just disappeared again. To be honest, we didn’t really fight that much, it was like a game of flashlight with higher stakes, I was trying to find him, he was giggling, we talked a bit.” Wally felt his cheeks heat up “His laugh was really creepy, so I, y’know, jokingly said he had a beautiful laugh, he sarcastically told be I was, uh, ‘cute, charming and funny’ so I, um, said ‘yeah, people are lining up for me’, as a joke. I’d backed into a wall, trying to scan the room for him with my torch and he said ‘I bet they do, with hair like that’ and I just felt this hand in my hair. That’s probably when the hair clip thing happened.”
“That’s freaky.” Roy muttered “At least you finally found someone who will flirt back with you.”
“Thanks for the contribution, Speedy.” Oliver said pointedly “keep going Wally.”
“I kind of froze, because it freaked me out a bit, and he said ‘look up, silly’ so I do and his face is, like, right above me. He drops down and, I don’t even know, the fight was confusing. It was dark and the guy moved like water, he was right up in my face but I just couldn’t hit him. One minute we’re fighting, the next I’m tied up on the ground and he’s sitting on my chest. Fuck, he’s definitely younger than me, it’s embarrassing.” Wally flushed “So I to stall by talking to him, and I guess he was stalling too because we basically just had a conversation until Batman showed up. Robin completely tensed up, Batman’s got a really presence, we both stopped laughing, like, immediately.”
“You were laughing?” Hal frowned “Why?”
“Look, He’s a villain and all, but Robin was a pretty funny guy, he did this prank and…” Wally cringed at the thought of explaining “It’s not really important, I’ll put it in the report. The point is, Batman showed up and things got really tense.”
“Be detailed here, Wally.” Oliver reminded “Anything about Batman and how he interacts with this ‘Robin’ is important.”
“Right, so, uh, Robin got really tense, Batman stepped out of the shadows and said ‘Robin’, that’s where I got the name from. He said ‘Batman’ back and Batman, said they ‘weren’t there for fun’ I think that was about us laughing earlier. Robin flinched, it was small, but he was sitting on me, so I noticed.” Wally swallowed, recalling the heavy fear of being in Batman’s presence “Robin tried to explain, but Batman growled ‘no excuses’ and Robin flinched more visibly. Then he changed the topic and said he got some ‘restricted data’ on a drive, Batman came up and grabbed it. He, uh, noted that Robin didn’t break my legs and Robin said sitting on me had the ‘same effect’, but the seemed even more tense about that than before. I’m not sure how Batman took that, he just hummed and said they were leaving. Robin got up and said he’d ‘see me next time’ but I ‘might not see him’ and they both vanished. I got out of my binds and went to find Barry, and, well, you know the rest.”
“That’s… concerning.” Hal frowned “They definitely seem to know each other though.”
“It kind of sounds like he broke protocol with you Walls.” Roy added thoughtfully “I think he was probably meant to break your legs, like Batman did to the Flash.”
Wally paled dramatically, the image of Barry’s mangled legs, tied up to force them to heal in their broken position forced its way to the front of his mind.
“Thank you, Roy.” Oliver scolded
“What? He deserves to know the danger he was in!” Roy snarled back
“You didn’t have to shove it in his face like that. Jesus, Roy, have you even looked at Barry’s injury list?”
“Dancing around the topic isn’t going to help anything! Wally’s not that fragile, he’s not going to burst into flame if you mention Barry.”
Wally tuned out their fighting, used to the ever escalating arguments between them. He missed when everyone seemed to just get along, now it’s all trust issues and thick tension. Wally feels like the older heroes don’t seem to be aware that they’re growing up, a year or two doesn’t feel big to them, but Roy, Kaldur and Wally aren’t the same as they used to be. Sometimes it feels like Barry and Hal still think of him like he’s twelve and only had his powers for a month; reckless, naive and inexperienced. But two years can do a lot to change that, and he can tell Roy is getting sick of waiting for everyone else to catch on.
“I was saved by my undeniable charm, then?” Wally grinned, interrupting the argument
“He’s a criminal, Wally.” Roy snorted “It’s a given that he has bad taste.”
“Hey, I taste amazing!” Wally protested indignantly.
“Pfft!” Roy laughed “you did not seriously just say that.”
Settling into the familiar rhythm of banter with Roy, Wally couldn’t help but wonder why Robin didn’t just break his legs. As much as it hurts his pride to admit it, Robin could have downed him in that first him, just dropped down and taken his legs out in a more literal sense. Wally wouldn’t have even seen him at all if he did that.
Maybe that was the point.