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It occurs to Wally sometime between the two hundred sixteenth and the two hundred twenty-fourth loops that he might be insane. Like, by definition. That’s what Albert Einstein said, isn’t it? To do the same thing over, and over, and over, and over again expecting a different outcome to somehow occur…you’d have to be bonkers.
It takes four minutes and thirty-two seconds for Dick to die.
It starts off with a gunshot. Four of them, to be precise, but Wally is a speedster. To anyone else, it’s a groundshaking rumble like a dozen firecrackers going off simultaneously, too fast to decipher the individual shots. Wally has the advantage of watching the scene in slow motion as the bullets pierce his best friend’s chest one by one.
The gun was automatic. A dozen more bullets would have followed in the span of a breath had Wally not snatched the weapon from the shooter’s hands and knocked him out cold before he had time to defend himself.
Wally has always counted himself lucky that, unlike many of the metahumans he’s met, it’s easy to conceal his abilities in his civilian identity. His skin isn’t permanently green. His body isn’t made of metal. He doesn’t have gills. Everybody forgets that, at the end of the day, and as confidently as Wally blends in when he wants to, he’s still not normal.
To be a speedster is to be not quite human, but not quite something else, either. Normal people don’t experience a minute like it’s an hour. They don’t want to rip their skin off because a five-minute car ride is so damn long it feels like being in prison. Wally has to keep himself in check every minute of the day to keep from accidentally going too fast and electrocuting an entire room.
And yet, despite it all, Wally still isn’t fast enough when it matters.
“Walls…” Dick chokes out, even though he’s the one who always enforces the rule about only using code names when they’re masked up. He stares down, bug-eyed at the blood already staining the front of his uniform. The shooter struck him right above the R symbol in some kind of serendipitous, sick joke—a straight shot to his heart. Two of the others hit his left lung. The fourth is lodged somewhere in his abdominal cavity.
Wally knows the bullets’ locations intimately. He spent the twelfth through eighteenth loops trying to dig the bullets out of Dick’s body while the boy wonder screamed. As if removing them would make a difference. As if he wasn’t already bleeding out.
Wally has tried cauterizing the wounds, packing them with gauze, and—in a moment of pure desperation—calling for Superman. None of it has worked. Superman isn’t fast enough to make it here before Dick stops breathing.
Wally West is one of the fastest people alive, but he’s not Barry Allen. He can’t phase through walls, can’t stop without skidding. Can’t even go back in time longer than four minutes and thirty-two seconds without ripping himself in half. The fourth bullet struck Dick four minutes and thirty-three seconds before Wally started the loop.
Dick collapses to his knees. The shock is setting in by now. Wally catches him in the blink of an eye, lies him down. It’s routine by now. Dick’s breathing is already erratic as blood spreads through his abdominal cavity. His punctured heart loses blood with every beat. The clock has started.
“Damn it,” Wally sobs as he has many, many times before. He’s been crying for over sixteen hours. Every time he watches the life leave Dick’s eyes, he shatters apart all over again. It hasn’t gotten any easier. “No, no, no. Damn it!”
Wally knows he can’t go on like this forever. His suit is soaked through with sweat. His hair is drenched and dripping into his eyes. His entire body trembles with fatigue, but he can’t afford to let himself fall. If he loses even a second, it’s all over. He’ll lose the world. He can’t just stop.
And fine, maybe it is insanity. Maybe he’s a fucking crazy person and he’s putting his best friend in the world through endless torment for no reason, but he doesn’t care. Wally will push off the inevitable for as long as he can. He’ll keep going until his body gives out. He’ll gladly lose his mind if that’s what it takes to keep Dick breathing one nanosecond longer.
And he will. It'll be different this time. He can still fix this.
“Wall—” Dick coughs. Despite the blood gushing out of him, he doesn’t cry. He never does. He’s Robin. Robins don’t cry. They don’t die, but he does. He will. He has already done it two hundred and twenty-six times today. If Barry doesn’t show up within the next three minutes, he’ll die a two hundred and twenty-seventh.
Wally presses the emergency button in his glove another fifty times. Barry should be here by now. Even if Wally’s distress signal is late, Barry is better at this than he is. He has the means to go back far enough to save Dick before Wally even needs to start the loop. What’s taking him so long?
“I’m sorry, Rob, I’m sorry.” Wally’s tears mix with the blood on his gloves. They’re stained with a hundred layers of Dick’s blood.
“It’s...it's okay, Walls,” Dick says, like he has any idea what’s really going on here. Knowing him, it’s entirely possible that he does. Maybe he can see it in the sweat on Wally’s brow, or the fact that Wally has dropped a dozen pounds in the span of a couple of minutes because it’s taking every ounce of energy he has to keep going.
On the fifty-eighth and ninetieth loops, Wally had to leave Dick to die alone so he could run to the closest convenience store and stuff as much food into his body as he could so he’d have enough energy to go back again.
He’s in desperate need of another recharge, but he can’t bring himself to do that again. Wally can’t vanish another time while Dick dies by himself. He can’t stomach it.
Barry is coming. He'll show up any minute now, and everything will be fine.
Dick is gripping Wally’s hand so tightly it hurts. His mask is still fixed over his eyes, but Wally can see pain creasing the edges. He’s been in pain for over sixteen hours. “I...I love you, Walls. You know that, right?” Dick’s breath hitches. “Will you—t-tell Bruce, too? Tell him—”
“Stop, stop,” Wally cries. “Not again.”
Tell him I love him. And Alfred. Tell them I love them, and I—I’m sorry I messed up. Don’t tell ‘em I cried. Say I d-died brave. Tell them, okay?
Wally has heard it one hundred and seventy times. Sometimes the wording changes. Sometimes Dick is screaming too much while Wally tries (and fails) to save his life to form words at all.
“You won’t die, okay?” Wally cups Dick’s pale face in a bloody palm. “It’s gonna be fine. Barry’ll show, and you’ll be okay. This’ll have never happened in the first place, I promise.”
It’s as if Dick doesn’t hear him. “M-Make sure the JL takes care of the—the body,” Dick gurgles around fresh blood. He’s fading fast. “If the—if the cops get it, they’ll…the mask…” He coughs again, and this time blood stains his lips. This is when things start to go downhill very quickly.
For someone who should have all the time in the world, Wally is fast running out of it.
“Stop,” Wally says. He presses his forehead to Dick’s. “No one’s taking you. You’re going to live. Barry is coming.”
Four minutes and ten seconds.
Barry, where are you?
It’s not fair. Wally can heal himself from damn near anything. If he’s fueled up, his skin can knit a scratch back together in minutes. Bruises fade near-instantly. Gunshots like these would be dangerous, but Wally’s body can hold off the dying process long enough for him to get medical attention. Barry is fast enough that he’d never be struck by a single bullet in the first place.
But Dick is human. So tragically, fragiley human. It’s okay if Wally lets himself get hurt on a mission, but Dick could die so easily. He’s already done it two hundred and twenty-six times.
Despite the pain, despite the darkness that’s surely started creeping in on Dick’s vision by now, right on schedule, he smiles. He squeezes Wally’s hand weakly. “S’okay, Wally, don’t…”
“I’m trying,” Wally wails. He’s so tired. He just wants to lie down next to Dick and sleep, but he can’t. He has to start the next loop. He has to keep Dick alive. “I’m trying to be faster—trying to save you. I can’t watch it again. I can’t—I can’t—”
Dick’s eyes fall closed. They don’t reopen.
“Please, please—Barry!” Wally presses his forehead to Dick’s chest and screams.
Four minutes and twenty-nine seconds.
The final breath leaves Dick’s body. Again. His heart pumps its last beat. Again. Wally’s heart rips itself in half. Again.
Two hundred and twenty-eighth time is the charm, right?
“Walls…” Dick chokes out.
“Damn it,” Wally sobs as he has many, many times before. "No, no, no." He presses his hands on Dick's chest in a fruitless effort to keep the blood inside of him just a little while longer, but he knows in his gut he can't do a damn bit of good. He can't fix it all himself, he's just a kid. They both are.
“Wall—” Dick coughs. Despite the blood gushing out of him, he doesn’t cry.
Wally presses the emergency button on his Flash ring until it breaks. He smashes the rest of it against a wall.
"Barry, help!" he screams at the ceiling.
“I...I love you, Walls. You know that, right?” Dick’s breath hitches. “Will you—t-tell Bruce, too? Tell him—”
"Stop! Shut up! Barry!"
"Tell him I love him. And Alfred. Tell them I love them, and I—I’m sorry I messed up. Don’t tell ‘em I cried. Say I d-died brave."
"Dick, I—"
"Tell them, okay?"
Dick dies. Again.
Wally’s heart rips itself in half. Again.
Two hundred and seventy loops.
This time it'll work. This time. This time.
Wally screams when the bullet penetrates Dick's heart. He punches the shooter's teeth out with the butt of his own gun. He smashes the man's skull on the pavement because why shouldn't he? It won't matter if the guy ends up with permanent brain damage. It won't matter if he dies. He'll be alive again in four minutes when Wally resets the loop again.
“Walls…” Dick chokes out. Despite the blood gushing out of him, he doesn’t cry. Robins never cry.
Wally can't stop crying.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Wally wails.
“Will you—t-tell Bruce, too? Tell him—”
"Shut up! Stop saying that!" Wally covers his ears with blood-crusted palms. He keels forward until his head touches his knees, trying to tune out the sound of Dick's rattling breaths that get slower every moment.
“S’okay, Wally, don’t…”
"Barry, please," Wally whimpers. "I can't do this again. I can't, I can't—"
Two hundred and eighty-five.
“Wall—” Dick coughs.
"Fuck you," Wally cries, gripping Dick's hand so tightly his knuckles are white. "Shut up."
"Tell them—"
"Barry's coming. He'll be here any second."
"Wally—"
"He's coming."
Three hundred.
Wally can't even remember what the original mission was. He has no idea why the shooter was even there.
Three hundred and...three? Four?
Dick coughs up blood.
Wally pounds his own knuckles bloody on the ground. He breaks at least two fingers.
When he starts the next loop, he kills the shooter one-handed.
Wally doesn't bother counting anymore.
"You h-have to let me go, Wally. You're killing yourself. Y'can't go forever."
"Shut up." Wally's legs ache. His entire body feels like a throbbing wound. He's never been so exhausted in his life.
Dick smiles sadly through the pain, through the blood burbling at the back of his throat. "Y'never...never know when to quit."
Wally cradles Dick's corpse and sobs into his hair, never mind that he's too dehydrated to form proper tears anymore.
Just as Wally is about to force himself to his feet and start the next loop, like a miracle, something in the air shifts. His hair prickles with static, and Wally can taste the sharp tang of lightning in his fillings.
He doesn’t even waste a second taking it in. He runs and collapses into his uncle’s arms with an exhausted sob.
Barry clutches Wally’s tired, trembling body close. “It’s okay, kid. It's okay. You did good.”
"I tried—I couldn't—" Wally can barely keep his eyes open. His legs have given up on keeping him upright, but Barry doesn't let him fall. "I'm so tired, Barry."
"Shh. I'll take care of it, Wally. He's going to be okay." He's going to be okay. "Rest, now."