Author's notes:
1. Thanks to thoughtsfromaclutteredbrain for the beta!
2. I wrote this because I thought Wally got the fuzzy end of the lollipop in "The Once and Future Flash", even compared to the rest of the team, and I wanted to mitigate that a little. Also, this show needs more positive portrayal of people with disabilities yesterday or sooner, so there's that, too.
3. Concrit always welcome!
Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but every week that passed after Iris' death only made Wally angrier. It had been almost fourteen months now, and his rage was constantly fueled by everything around him.
Reports of damage done around the city by Savitar and his metahumans.
Dad, who seemed to shrink a little every day, steps slower, gray speckling his hair.
Julian and Cisco, with their desperate search for a cure for Killer Frost, even after she'd proven to be far enough gone to kill her own mother. Caitlin's mother. Wally wasn't sure if evil alter egos had mothers.
Even H.R. had become more quiet these days, and mostly spent his time cooped up in his room writing, as if the sheer mass of words gathered in his stories could make the horrors of reality go away.
And then there was Barry, haunting Star Labs with a singular purpose: to bring about Savitar's downfall in any way possible, the more painful, the better.
There was a sort of kinship in the shared rage between Barry and Wally, but that didn't make it any less painful to see that shell of a man and remember what he used to be like.
"We have to go after him," Wally argued after yet another of Savitar's attacks against the parts of the city which still held out against him. This time, he had caused a high-speed train to derail right by a station.
"We got most of them away safely," Barry said, face paler than usual beneath the mask.
"'Most of'? There was a time we wouldn't have been satisfied with that! And you know he's doing shit like this just to keep us occupied so we can't be any real threat to him. It's not enough to put out the fires he starts, we have to get straight at him."
"Don't you think I know that?" Barry growled. "Do you have any idea how many of me he's killed? I would lay my last life on the line if it meant taking him down with me, but I can't. We haven't got anything that'd work right now."
The images came unbidden to Wally's mind: of Barry stabbed, burned, beaten to death, torn apart by his own speed, and of the last surviving time remnant, injured and half-deranged by pain and grief, who they'd had to send off because having two Barries in the same place for too long would destabilize the spacetime.
How many times could you split someone in half and still have enough of a person left?
Beyond all that, there was Iris, the sister Wally had come to know much too late, who had only had one life and lost it, and whose lifeless face never vanished from his nightmares.
So, yeah. Maybe Kid Flash didn't have what it took to destroy Savitar on his own.
But he couldn't live with himself a single day longer without giving it his best shot.
The truth of it was, Savitar wasn't that much faster than him. Though there had been a couple of slips during their fight, and Wally had lost sight of his foe once, eventually Wally had Savitar cornered, and was starting to put some cracks into that armor.
He hadn't realized that the suit could move on its own, without anyone inside. Just as he was breaking through the stony exterior, a lightning bolt struck him from behind, followed by a body pummeling into him, too fast for him to put up any defenses.
Wally's back hit the lamppost with enough force that both he and post fell over. There was a sharp pain in his neck and shoulders, but not bad enough to keep him from getting back up. Except his limbs seemed to be caught in some invisible net, tied immobile next to his body. He could see his hand splayed out in front of him – but no, that couldn't have been his hand, because that hand was badly scraped in a way that must sting, and his hand didn't hurt at all. It wasn't lying on the cold, hard asphalt either, it was... it was...
"Ah. There we have it." The cold, detached voice was both strange and sickeningly famiiliar.
Wally's world tilted, the pain intensified for a moment, and then he was looking in the other direction, up towards the sky and at the sneering, scarred face of Barry's time remnant.
"Barry," Wally whispered.
"Oh, so now I'm Barry, am I?" The remnant leaned down, staring into Wally's eyes. It truly was Barry, Barry as he had become, with that desperate, pained, blood-thirst burning in his one good eye. "No," he continued. "You don't get to call me that. Not after what you did. You know who I am."
"Savitar." The word tasted of ash in his mouth.
"That's it." Barry bared his teeth in what might have been called a smile.
"Iris... Why...?"
"She was already dead, to me. Ancient history. And now she had to die, so I could be born, and so the rest of you could suffer, as you made me suffer." He got in closer. "You think you know what pain is? You have no idea."
Once again, Wally tried to get up, only to be met with a spike of pain and no result at all.
"Oh, yeah," Barry mused. "Strange sensation, isn't it, breaking your back? Of course, even an injury as severe as this one would heal eventually, if I let you keep your speed. But I learned a neat little trick while I was away."
He reached into Wally's chest, and as he pulled out his hand again, lightning crackled around his fingers.
The hum of speed, ever-present in Wally's body since he'd come out of the cocoon, faded into a mere whisper, and then died away. Combined with the lack of sensation, it felt as if his whole body had been erased – but no, it was still there, barely visible from where he was lying.
"I could just keep this for myself." Barry let the lightning flow back and forth between his fingertips. "But then again, I'm fast enough already, and we don't want you to go blabbering to Team Flash about me. No, it's much more satisfying if I use it to form a sort of tether." He flashed that bare-toothed smile again, and the single eye glittered in a perversion of glee. "You see, I don't have to send your whole body into the speed force. I've learned how to keep it right here, to breathe, and piss, and shit, and do all those inconvenient things that bodies do. I could even let you keep just the tiniest bit of your mind. Enough to let you see what a ruin you've become, and how much sorrow that causes your friends and your dear, old dad. As for the rest of you, I know exactly where to send you." The smile broadened. "Welcome to my nightmare, Wally West."
Barry laid his palm flat against Wally's forehead, and lightning crackled through.
Wally screamed.
The persistent sound of the EKG flat-lining in his mom's hospital room.
"I'm sorry, she's gone."
Iris, lying dead on the street, eyes wide and unseeing.
Savitar, plunging his blade into her.
No, Barry. Barry with that sneer and the milky eye.
The other Barry, face unmarred, except for the same burning rage.
Barry as Wally had first met him, young and idealistic and ever the golden boy, but that wouldn't last, the sneer was lurking invisible beneath the surface.
"Baby, the doctors say it's MacGregor's syndrome. There are some treatments we can try, but when they catch it this late..."
Doing everything he could to ease his mom's breathing when the medicine didn't help, or the anxiety made her believe that it didn't help, and what was even the difference?
He should have known earlier.
He'd told her to see a doctor, but he hadn't insisted enough.
She was tough, his mom, he'd thought she could handle anything.
"I'm afraid the damage to the spine is extensive. We've tried to scan for neurological injuries, but unfortunately, there seems to be some issues with the CT scanner and we can't get an accurate reading. All I can say is that he's still unresponsive to stimuli..."
Even racing didn't help against the grief. Eyes on the road ahead, buildings whizzing by, the despair heavy like lead in his chest.
Iris, struck by a shard of glass.
By Savitar's blade.
In a coffin, slowly lowered into the ground.
His mother's coffin.
Dad holding his hand, looking older and grayer than he'd ever looked, except that wasn't real, that wasn't his hand, it wasn't there...
A woman, a stranger, smiling and singing as she turned something over and washed it.
A body.
His body.
His dead body.
He was dead, and she was preparing him for the funeral, singing at his corpse.
"Thank you, Beth." Only flat weariness behind the polite phrase.
The coffin was down in the newly dug grave now, dirt thrown on the lid.
Who was in that coffin?
Was it Iris or Mom?
Was it him?
The cold hospital lights, the sterile walls, and Mom's rattled breaths.
"In Central City news tonight, the speedster Savitar killed another six officers of the CCPD. The mayor urges everyone to follow curfew."
Barry crying, hair falling down into the red-rimmed eyes, face hardened into Savitar's expression.
Cisco, ashen, cradling himself with arms that ended in nothing.
Keep running.
He wasn't fast enough.
"Baby, the treatment isn't working... they say I haven't got long now."
He wanted to die along with her.
That coffin.
Was he dead?
His body was gone. It was rotting away. He was dead and it made no difference. It would never stop, the lightning in his head would never stop. Even as worms ate his skull clean and all he had to see with were empty eye sockets, they would still see Mom die, see Iris die.
"Son, I thought you should know, we got Savitar. He's gone now."
But that wasn't true. Savitar was always there, plunging his blade into Iris.
Behind Barry's eyes.
In the crackle of lightning.
Always.
Always.
And forever.
"Hey, buddy, how're you holding up? We got the team back together. Well, those of us who are left. It's not the same, but we've done some good. Stopped some bad guys. We miss you, though. Wish you could be there."
Barry. Not the young, innocent Barry, with the wrong path laid out ahead and no idea he was about to plunge right down it. This was an older Barry, more like what he had become, but there was something in that soft, sad voice which hadn't been there before. Something in those eyes different from the rage and desperation that had lodged there for so long.
Wally blinked.
"Hope," he said.
Barry's expression changed. "Did you say something? Joe, did you hear that? He said something!"
Dad, by his side. "Son, can you hear me?"
A hand on his cheek. That was real. The cheek was real, and the hand was, and for the first time in forever, he knew that something was real.
The lightning was already crackling to pull him back in. It hurt to resist, but this might be his only chance, and so he looked straight into Barry's eyes and told him as much as he had time for:
"Speed force. In my head. Get me out. Please, hurry!"
Their faces faded away, and he was back at Mom's hospital bed, listening to an unsteady EKG rhythm.
Another crackle of lightning, and Barry was standing by his side, looking bewildered.
"Wally? Wally, let's get you out of here, yeah?"
Wally couldn't help it. After all these years, he withdrew instinctively, even though he'd been the one begging for help.
"Are you you?" he asked. "Not him?"
"Not who?"
"I think he's talking about me." Savitar was standing in the doorway, blocking the exit. Even without his suit, he seemed to loom over them.
Barry's eyes widened in shock, and before he had time to react, Savitar was on him, a blur of motion tossing his counterpart across the room and then jumping up to sit on his chest.
Wally didn't have that kind of speed, not anymore, but he couldn't stand by and do nothing either. He lunged himself at Savitar, trying to weigh down that vibrating arm.
Savitar threw him off without so much as a glance in his direction.
"Now, now. Dead men don't fight back.. Stay in your grave, West!"
"He's not dead!" Barry – the other Barry – flipped his opponent over with renewed strength and held out a hand. "Wally, listen to me, you're not dead! I can get you out of here, just take my hand and follow along!"
Wally grabbed the outstretched hand and was yanked forward, in a race unlike anything he'd felt since he arrived here.
The EKG machine's beeps went flat.
"My mom," he panted. "I have to..."
"Your mom is dead!" Barry shouted. "She's been dead for years. I'm sorry, I can't do anything about that. But you're still alive. I'm going to get you out, but don't stop running!"
The images shifted. Wally closed his eyes against the onslaught and concentrated on following Barry along, wherever they might be running.
Lightning crackled.
Wally opened his eyes.
Barry and Dad were both kneeling in front of him, Barry panting heavily, Dad with one of Wally's hands between both of his.
"Is this real?" Wally asked.
Dad gave a laugh full of tears. "As real as it comes, son."
Wally looked down at his hand. It still didn't seem to belong to him. "My hand's... not real."
Understanding mixed with pity dawned on Dad's face. He cupped Wally's chin. "What about this? Is this real?"
The sensation sent a jolt through Wally's body. This was Dad's hand, Dad's warm and comforting hand that he hadn't felt for so long.
Tears flooded his eyes and spilled down his cheeks.
"Yeah. God, yeah. Dad, I'm home."
"Six and a half years," Wally said, trying to wrap his mind around that fact, and trying to forget that he was sitting in a wheelchair in the middle of the living-room and couldn't get out of it. The closest he got was moving his left arm an inch or so, and that took a scary amount of effort.
He looked from Dad, grayer, with glasses, to Barry, thinner, with longer hair. Dad was smiling. Barry wasn't.
"I'm really sorry I didn't get you out before," Barry said.
"I don't think you could have," Wally said. "I wouldn't have trusted you, until I saw that hope in your eyes. I never could tell what was real or not, but I never got hope in there."
"Sounds like a good thing you woke up," said the fourth person in the room. "How much do you remember from the past years? Do you know who I am?"
He looked at her. She was a fairly short, Asian woman wearing a comfortable-looking red cardigan, her long, brown hair in a braid, and with a soft smile that seemed like it should come accompanied by a song.
"Beth?" he asked.
"That's right," she said. "Elizabeth Limbaco. I'm your nurse."
"Oh. I thought you were an undertaker washing my corpse for the funeral."
"Jesus," Dad said. "That place really did a number on you, huh?"
"I kept returning to this grave, and I could never tell if it was mine, or Mom's, or Iris'." His eyes welled up again, the relief of being out of the speed force mingled with the remaining grief.
The tears were stuffing up his nose, and there wasn't anything he could do about that. Beth brought a tissue over and wiped it, as if she had done it a thousand times before, which she probably had.
"A nurse, huh?" Wally asked, feeling a slight hint of panic rising up. "Guess I'll still be needing you."
"Unless you'd rather have someone else with less funeral-like associations," she said. "But I'd like to stay, if you'd have me. I think we'd get along, now that we can finally meet for real."
"Yeah," he said. "Sure." This wasn't the kind of thing he'd want to hear from a stranger, and so he sought out Dad's eyes. "I'm not going to get better, am I?" he asked, definitely losing out against the panic. "This is it for me."
Dad looked pained. "Let's not talk about that right now. You're back, that's the important part."
"Mr. West, don't deflect," Beth said, standing up. "Wally, I'm going to go get the doctors' notes about your injury, okay? I want to be sure I'm not remembering things wrong. And there are some tests we can run, too. I'll be right back."
"I'm not going anywhere," Wally said.
Beth left the room, and there was a moment's pause, before Barry said:
"We could try to get your speed back, to help with your healing. Your body's still primed for the speed force."
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Language," Dad warned, but there was no heat in it.
"I just got out of there. Six and a half years, and you want to throw me back in?"
"I'm not talking about throwing you back in. I'm talking about jump starting your powers again."
"With the help of the speed force. The thing that tortured me for six and a half years, which, by the way, felt a whole of a lot longer. Not gonna happen."
"I just feel that there's got to be something we can do."
"Barry, please," Dad said. He knelt down and put his hands on Wally's shoulders, holding him steady. "Wally, we're not going to do anything to you that you don't want us to do. I'm just glad to have you back, son. I've been waiting so long for this."
He gently wrapped his arms around Wally, who wished desperately that he could return the hug.
"Okay," Beth said, coming back in. "I've got the papers here, and it's pretty much as I remembered. You've got multiple spinal fractures; the highest level of injury is at C5, but it's not complete until C7. That means there's a pretty good chance you'll eventually be able to use your arms again."
"Yeah?" Wally asked. It wasn't like being one of the fastest people alive – hell, it wasn't even like being able to walk. But at least it was something.
"Yeah," she said. "I can't promise how much, but to some extent, almost definitely. Once we build up some strength. It's going to take a lot of work. I've been doing my best on my own, but it'll be much easier now that you can help out. So, what do you say? You think you're up to it?"
Wally forced a smile. "You bet."
There were a lot more questions that needed an answer than just the ones about his injury, but they weren't the sort of things that could be discussed with outsiders, and so Wally waited until Beth was on a break before he asked: "What happened with Savitar? Did you guys get him?"
"Yeah," Dad said. "We found a way to trap him in the speed force."
Wally gave a breath of laughter, and then cried again, because of course. Of course they'd both been in there together, and ridding the world of Savitar had served to make his own hell worse.
He'd always been pretty good at keeping himself from crying, but it seemed the speed force had wrecked that capacity, which was pretty damned awkward when he couldn't even wipe off his own tears.
Barry looked pained as Dad helped with that part, and said, "About Savitar..."
"How are the others?" Wally hurried to ask, because there were some questions he wasn't ready to handle right then. "The team. Are they okay?"
"They're alive," Dad said cautiously. "Caitlin's still Killer Frost. We don't know how to turn her back, and she resists any attempts to. So she's kept locked up, and Julian minds her."
"That kind of sucks," Wally said. "Glad they're not dead, though."
"Mm. H.R. is actually doing pretty well. Got some superhero romance novels published. They're not bestsellers or anything, but he's got some devout followers." Dad smiled a little. "Plenty of single women."
Wally grinned, pleased that at least someone got their happy ending. "Good for him. How's Cisco?"
Dad and Barry exchanged uncomfortable glances.
"Still making new gadgets for Team Flash," Dad offered after a moment's pause.
"This is going to sound super weird if I'm wrong," Wally said, "but did he lose his hands?"
"Yes. You remember that?"
"Kind of. Things got jumbled up a lot. What happened?"
"Killer Frost shattered them. He designed himself a pair of robot hands. They're good, real good, state of the art – but he can't vibe anymore."
"Shit," Wally said, pondering that. "We should form a support group or something. Ex-superheroes."
It was meant as a sort of joke, if not a very good one, but instead it made Dad cry, and Barry, leaning against the wall, look even more miserable than before.
"I'm sure he'll be happy to hear from you," Dad said, swallowing down the tears.
"I'll be happy to hear from him too. I'm glad he's still kicking around, at least. And we don't have to worry about Savitar anymore – " his gaze caught Barry's, which, while sad, still held a peace it hadn't before " – so it's better than it was. A lot better."
"Who is Savitar?" Barry asked abruptly. He must have noticed that glance. "Beneath the armor."
Wally looked away. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do. Killer Frost said he'd shown himself to you."
"Barry," Dad started, "I'm not sure Killer Frost is the most reliable witness."
"Does it matter?" Wally asked. "He's gone now. I don't think he'll be coming back."
"The things I saw when I went into the speed force," Barry said, stepping closer. "That time remnant. And you said you wouldn't have trusted me if I'd come sooner."
Dad fell silent at that, and both of them had their full attention on Wally. What else could he do but answer? "That was him. Savitar."
"He's me."
"Your time remnant. Yeah."
"How? Why? How could any me kill Iris? Do what he did to you?"
"Iris was already dead when he was created," Wally said. This was the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about, but keeping quiet wouldn't do any good, either. "That rage, and grief, was how he was born, and then the way we threw him out."
"He couldn't have stayed here."
"I know. I'm just saying, I don't think it helped. From his perspective, by the time he got back here, he was reliving his own history. And honestly, I don't think he cared about anything anymore, least of all us. He really hated us."
Dad listened in silence, and he was holding Wally's hand so hard he could see the pressure, even though he couldn't feel it.
"Jesus, Wally," Barry said. "I'm so sorry."
"It wasn't you. Not this you."
"It was a me. And I created him. By letting myself get so swept up in my own grief. By creating Flashpoint in the first place. I laid the foundation, and I was the one most vehement about kicking him out..."
"Stop it," Wally said, seeing Barry's intensity build up to a level that was getting a little too close to remnant land for comfort.
"And I was the one who let you go off alone, and who left you in there for years, and couldn't even patch myself up enough to help you. Not to mention everyone else. I'm so, so sorry. Joe, I'm sorry."
"It's okay, Bar," Dad said, still looking dazed.
"How can it be okay? Iris is dead, Wally is never going to walk again, and that's on me. All of it is on me. I thought if I could be the Flash again, I could make things better, but I'm the reason it all went wrong in the first place. Wally, I don't know how you could ever forgive me."
"Well, I can," Wally said. That part hadn't been hard – but for some reason, these apologies were making it harder.
"Maybe if we could fix your speed. I know you don't want me to, but..."
"That's right, I don't. I'm not trading in my mind for my body."
"But this is all my fault, and I can't bear the thought of..."
"Will you just shut up and stop apologizing?" Wally snapped. "You're doing that thing. That thing you do, where you're so sorry I'll end up having to comfort you. And I don't feel up to it. I forgive you, okay? Now, go be sad somewhere else, because I can't take any more of it!"
"But..."
"Go!"
Barry fell silent, and zapped out of the room so fast that Wally suspected he'd hurt his feelings. Which did make him feel guilty, damn it.
"I guess I shouldn't have done that," Wally said.
"No, you should have," Dad said. He took a firm grip around the back of Wally's head. "You were right. I love Barry, and I'm gonna go comfort him in a minute, but that's not your job right now. You worry about you, okay?"
Wally turned his head to the side, so he could bump his cheek gently against Dad's hand. It was the closest he could get to a caress, for the time being.
"Dad, I'm so scared," he admitted. "I'm glad to be home, I really am, but I'm scared, and tired, and I don't know how to do this."
"We'll figure it out," Dad promised, pulling him into another hug. "I got you, Son. I got you. I ain't ever letting you go now."
Since he'd returned ten months ago, Wally had been to Star Labs practically every day, yet today as they pulled up to the garage, he got the jitters like it was the very first time. He opened the door to the passenger seat, and waited as Beth went back to fetch the chair. The new, manual chair he'd only just started using.
When she returned, it was still in pieces, and she handed him the frame.
"You want me to...?"
"Yup," she said.
"I've never done it before. And I've got, like, half a working hand."
"Then you're going to put that hand to work, aren't you?"
There was no arguing with her when she got like this, which wasn't going to stop him from trying. "I was kind of looking forward to showing it off to the others."
"The sooner you get it assembled, the sooner you can do that."
Unfolding the frame and getting the seat there wasn't so hard, really. Getting the front wheels in place was trickier, but manageable. But when she handled him the first of the back wheels, he fumbled it, and it rolled down the pavement like a barrel hoop.
Beth laughed and chased after it.
"Hasn't anyone told you that it's mean to laugh at the disabled?" he called out to her.
"I'm a mean, mean person," she said, returning with the wheel. "Here you go. Keep it in place with your right, attach it with your left."
"I know," he bit back, did as she'd instructed, and was met with the satisfying click when everything slid into place. The second one went easier.
"Don't forget the stoppers before you transfer."
"I've got to do the transfer by myself too?"
"Wallace West, don't be lazy. You know how to transfer."
"And what exactly are you going to do?"
"I'm going to make you self-sufficient enough that I can spend a majority of my working days in front of the TV, eating your dad's cookies and watching The Real Housewives of Star City. Now, brace yourself against the car seat, put your feet on the ground..."
"I know."
"Then why don't you show me?" she asked sweetly.
As it turned out, transferring was actually easier in the new chair, and his efforts were rewarded when he went inside and was met with Cisco's beaming smile in the corridor.
"Look who's driving a manual! Wally, my man!"
"I know, right!" Wally said, spreading his arms to preen. "I had to put it together, too, so blame Beth if it falls apart."
"It won't fall apart," Beth said. "Hi, Cisco. Has any new crisis befallen Central City?"
"Hostage situation at a bank," Cisco said. "Must be out-of-towners. Regular Tuesday for the Flash. Which means, speaking of driving, that I have plenty of time to show you guys some modifications I made on the Mercury."
"Sweet, I can't wait!" Wally said.
"Mercury is the race car?" Beth asked as they entered Cisco's workspace. "I thought your dad nixed that idea."
"My dad nixes everything. He nixed rugby, for crying out loud."
"Yeah, because you tried to pitch it with a movie called 'Murderball'," Cisco pointed out.
"That was an awesome movie, and it's an awesome sport, and I'm gonna play it someday. So, what do you have for me?"
Cisco pulled up the 3D graphics on the computer.
Most of it was stuff they'd been working on together before. The original schematics for Mercury had been way too bulky for racing, so they'd made a couple of attempts at a sleeker model, but then Wally would have to leave the chair behind. The latest design was a sports car two-seater with a passenger seat that could slide into the floor, so he could either fold up the new chair there, or in the trunk when he had a passenger. The hybrid bio-fuel propulsion system had been virtually the same for months, with minor adjustments to make it even more efficient. That part had even made it to the physical stage, though it was yet to be installed in any sort of chassis.
"Okay, first thing," Cisco said, "I figured out some low-level automation that means you'll slow to a halt if you're about to crash into anything. I know, I know, your steering is fine, but at these speeds, better safe than sorry, yeah?"
"Sure, great," Wally replied with a grimace. "Hope it's not all nannying, though."
"Not even. The rest is just perks and minor commands. I originally meant to use buttons, but I have way too many ideas, so that's way too many buttons, which is just super fiddly and not what you need at all. So now it's just the basics: gas, brakes, lights, communication, force field, and vocal commands for the rest."
"The force field is a button?"
"Yeah, because you may need a force field quickly. For vocal commands, I was thinking a metahuman dampening field. At first I thought we could make that standard, but then I thought Barry or somebody might need to use their powers near the car. So it's better as a command. One for opening the weapons cache – that's underneath, right there, nothing fancy, just a few things. And how do you feel about a flamethrower? Do you think we could pull it off without risking the whole thing going up in flames?"
"Flamethrower on a race car?" Beth asked, and then, "Oh, God. You're going back out there? To chase metahumans?"
"Well, not all the time," Wally said. "Just when they need backup. You know, all hands on deck, or a getaway driver."
"Why would the Flash need a getaway driver?"
"I might," said Cisco. "Or Julian. The Flash can't be everywhere at once. Granted, he can be a lot of places quickly, but there's still plenty of room for a skilled driver with a sick-ass car."
Beth still looked a little green, which was unlike her, so Wally asked:
"You think I shouldn't do it?"
"I don't go around telling you no, Wally," Beth said. "That's your dad's job. I tell you to try things, and you're welcome to try this. I just want to make perfectly clear, first, that I will not be getting into a 250 miles per hour flame-throwing race car to chase metahumans. Out there, you'll be on your own."
"Okay."
"I'll be there with him," Cisco pointed out.
"Because you never get hurt," Beth said softly.
"What's second?" Wally asked.
"What?"
"You said 'first'. So, what's second?"
"Oh. Your dad's going to kill you. And then possibly me. But I hope he sticks to killing you."
"So worth it, though. Hey, can we make it amphibious?"
"Easy, kiddo," Cisco said. "Save it for a later model."
Half an hour later, they were discussing whether to buy a used chassis or build one from scratch, when a whoosh of air entered the room.
Barry leaned heavily against the doorframe, face drenched in sweat.
"Hey, Beth," he said. "How are you with shotgun shells? The skin's already closing over them, and it hurts like hell."
"Jesus," she said and stood up abruptly from where she'd been fiddling with her phone. "On it."
"How did you get shot?" Cisco asked, looking alarmed. "Didn't you see it coming?"
"From behind, sawed-off shotgun, close range, ow. And yes, I did hand him over to the CCPD before I got here. Beth?"
"Coming!" She wrapped an arm around Barry, taking his weight, and commented. "You know, the job's changed a lot since I first signed on."
"Hope you don't regret it," Wally said.
"Got to roll with the punches, Wally boy," she said, leading Barry out of there.
"Yeah," he said quietly as he watched them go. "I'm learning that."