Inertia
Author: Ms. Terrible Frostbite
Disclaimer: JLU, all heroes and villains are owned by someone who is very, very lucky and probably very, very rich. This person also happens to not be myself. Also, the original concept of this fic was taken from one of the Flash comics. I have jerry-rigged and made it to my liking and to fit the show and to not . .be . . you know. .copying the comic . . . No infringement is intended; I just do this because I have a lot of free time.
Rating: PG-13 -- For language, violence, adult situations (whatever that means) and . . stuff. May go up. Who knows.
Pairings: Pretty much going to be canon.
Post Divided We Fall, pre I Am Legion
Chapter One
"You got the stuff?"
It seemed such a ridiculous, cliche, popped-out-of-a-90's-Bruce-Willis movie line to Cutler Davis that he almost blew their cover, overtaken by the suddenly violent need to punch the younger, pig-nosed man right in his huge, upturned snout.
"Of course I got the stuff," he snapped. "What is this, you're first deal? You little pip-squeak, you think I'm some kinda chump?" Something about his little beady swine face made Cutler fall into the same action film jargon -- he would have never otherwise said 'chump' in his life. "I'll take my business and go if that's the way you want to play it, you little skid-mark."
"No, no." Jason, or Jeff, or Rick or something's tongue slid across his lower lip, making it sparkle in the dim yellow light of the parking garage lamp. A three story, winding parking garage, abandoned in the late hour. Cutler had been around the block. No tall buildings a little nuisance could suddenly pop off of with his tight little spandexed ass.
Plenty of dark corners, though. Cutler patted his pockets unconsciously, dark eyes shifting to the recesses of the concrete structure. Plenty of dark corners, but that was all this city seemed to be.
"No." Rick or something repeated, dragging a hand crowded with sausage fingers across his mouth, the spittle disappearing with it; the same hand redirecting to smooth his thinning hair. A small smile touched the corners of his eager mouth."I heard, you know . . I heard this shit is good."
The corner of Cutler's lips turned up in a mocking sneer. "Only the best."
The stocky, two hundred fifty pound, six foot two man turned to his Civic -- a piece of junk that was going to be gone tomorrow, hopefully, if this deal went according to plan, replaced by a Jag or something equally as beautiful (Rick was some sort of stockbroker, he knew that much) -- and popped the trunk. An emergency roadside bag, a jack, and a simple black briefcase were revealed in the pale, flickering overhead light.
Cutler took the cool handle of the case and when he turned around, Ricky-boy was reaching into his jacket. For a moment the large man froze, thinking that lard-o was going to pop out with a .9 mm but Ricky soon pulled his fist back into view, and what was clutched in those little piggy fingers was definitely flat, definitely green, definitely thick as a brick in the dim light. Cutler had never paid attention in school but he knew enough to see that neither Abe, Andy or Georgie Porgie were on those bills.
The swap was quick, smooth; he had actually touched the face of Benny Frank before a black boot crushed his jawbone with a sound similar to breaking fresh snow; a fist shattered three of his ribs and drove all the air from his lungs and Cutler was thrown into unconsciousness with only the thought Pig musta ratted me out
The Batman reached down and tied Cutler's hands behind his back, his feet for good measure. They were old acquaintances, and the Bat knew his tricks. The man a few feet away, spread eagle with a rising welt on his brow, however, was unfamiliar. Batman knew the unconscious man was wearing at least fifteen hundred dollar suit; Bruce Wayne, however, had never met him. Unlikely, if he were local or high echelon.
A quick search yielded a leather wallet in his left lapel -- California license. An out of towner.
"Ramone Peasly." The name rang no bells. And other than the thirty thousand in his hand there was nothing on his person, save the keys to a rented Nissan parked maybe fifty meters away.
Bruce restrained him as well, not bothering with anything more than zip ties on his thick wrists. Inches from where the man's limp, fat hand had lain was a simple plastic briefcase, tagged with a masking tape label, print in magic marker.
"Velocity 9." Sirens blared floors beneath, outside the red and white lights reflected on the surrounding buildings. There was a lock on the case, a cheap one -- the Dark Knight could have dispatched it at the age of eleven.
Three layers of thick black mesh lined the briefcase's inner cavity, not unlike the kind that would cradle expensive photographic or electrical equipment. Instead there were syringes. Dozens of them, lined in military foam trenches. All filled to the brim with a clear liquid.
"Over here!" The Batman stepped away, fading back into shadow, a syringe securely in his grasp.
He had just reached the corner of Main and MLK and punched the crosswalk button when a Honda Civic blew the light and T-boned a green VW bug with a ferocious metal scream. The two skid in a yoked ballet before slamming into the traffic pole opposite the man, bringing the light down at his feet with a terrific bang.
"Aww, man!" Wally West groaned and glanced around, considered bailing for half a second. It was four minutes to the hour, and he was totally going to miss Heroes.
"Should have teleported home." It had been a hard day, full of runaway tour buses full of Japanese tourists (Frash, you taka peecha?), robbed banks, super valuable somethings stolen from a maximum security something else, topped off with enough grown men prancing around in spandex for West Side Story On Ice. All of this handled on too little sleep -- monitor duty from midnight to four, and then, since his good friend Ralph Dibny hadn't shown, till eight.
Pressing detective business my ass
Plus a full day at work. And he would have been home by now, obliterating boxes of Cap'n Crunch and vegging on The Greatest Show Ever -- leaving this shenanigan to the normal cops -- had he not decided that an unfamiliar back alley a few blocks down from the Lab was a good place to give his favorite Martian a call.
He'd been half-way through "J'onn," when he felt a drizzle on his head. He had looked up to see the dubious, puckered face of an ancient woman a few stories above, watering the pansies that hung from flower boxes off the wrought iron railing of her deck. So concentrated was she on her eavesdropping that she was completely missing the flowers.
A woman had just seen him duck into a back alley, touch his ear and talk to himself.
Pretty high on the 'Yeah, Probably Not Good' meter.
"J'onn," had transformed into: "Jjjj--George Clooney!" The only man who could talk to himself in back alleys and be quickly written off as bonkers came instantly to mind. "Uh, yeah! George Clooney! Oceans Eleven the leading cause of athletes foot! The Moon Landing is fake! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BIG RED GUM?!"
And then he had run off, clawing his hair and screaming.
Wally glanced around nervously, as if he were expecting a news crew to suddenly pop out from behind a newspaper stand, Oh-Em-Gee! It's Wally West, better known as The Flash (capital T, capital F)! Hopefully it was enough for old bag to think I'm loony and not a super . . hero . . or . . you know . . anything else like that.
Okay. So it sounded kind of stupid and unnecessary now. Nevertheless, in a world of security cameras, watchful eyes and suspicion, the event had left him a little paranoid.
Whatever happened to phone booths?
He could have just run home in his civvies. High speeds made it so people could only see him as a blur, but he was on a tight budget already. He couldn't exactly afford to keep replacing his melted shoes. Converses were expensive, and the kid in Famous Footwear was starting to give him funny looks every time he came in.
So he was walking. Had been walking.
Smoke was rising from beneath the Honda's hood and what might have been oil or gas or hell, washer fluid dribbled from beneath the car in a steady stream. With a sigh, Wally started over.
Super hero responsibility and all that. Uncle Barry had beaten it into him with a jackhammer.
The speedster whimpered pathetically, checked his cell phone clock again while dialing 9-1-1. Three minutes. He really needed to invest in a TiVo. Maybe GL was taping it. Hopefully, though that old codger only had a VCR (he knew the dude had been off Earth for ten years . . but really, he'd been back for three and it was just getting sad) and Wally only had a DVD player. Which meant he'd have to watch it over there . . and Vixen would probably be there . .
Not that he had a problem with Vixen.
Or anything.
Right?
Right.
He liked her.
Really.
He just didn't like Vixen and GL.
Together.
Viantern
Grixen
or was it Marohn?
. . Jari?
"Ohhhhh, my neck!"
Car accident. Right. Limbs weren't on the ground, there wasn't a super villain in sight; plainclothes Flash could probably handle it. Plus, changing would take time, and then there might be
(LindaPark)
media and all that junk, whereas, Wally West might only miss the recap by being a good samaritan.
Quote unquote.
Not a super-hero.
See, and everyone thought he was dumb.
There was no one else on the street, but in the flaxen evening light Wally could see a few people craning their heads to look from the cafe almost next door. He muttered the address to the emergency dispatcher as he approached; a man who had been walking his Labrador tied the dog's leash to a parking meter and also started towards the scene. Someone was moaning. Wally quickened his pace into a jog.
There was a woman in the Honda, a teenager in the bug.
Might as well go for the closest.
"Hey babe, what's up?" The front of the car looked as if someone had taken a giant sledgehammer to it, the hood bent upwards in a sloppy M and both the headlights busted out. She, however, seemed relatively unharmed, save a slightly bleeding nose.
"It was yellow I swear to God it was."
"Nah, that was a pretty red shade of yellow from what I saw." She looked up from the deflated carcass of the airbag. He grinned his trademark, goofy grin (she's pretty, with those big blue eyes and all) and pulled the door open. "Now lets get you out before our first date takes place somewhere in China."
She stood up and he reached to steady her, "Easy there," catching her as she swayed unsteadily. Time tested, golden pick-up lines were racing through his mind as she fell against him, one hand resting by his neck, the other pressing what he hoped she realized was a very toned muscle of his chest.
"What's your name, gorgeous?" More people were approaching, sirens wailed in the distance. The teenager was being told to sit tight by Mr. Labrador. Wally didn't notice.
"Veronica." Pretty blonde Veronica smiled. Something about the smile made Wally bristle, made his eyebrow cock and his muscles steel. It wasn't the appreciative smile of a rescued victim--
he vaguely realized that the hand on his shoulder was moving, moving far more quickly than a normal person's should or could and there was something in it
--but the small, sly smile of a child who's done something naughty.
Sharp pain exploded in his neck and he staggered back, clawing at his throat, choking on the air suddenly caught in his lungs. Veronica, pretty blonde Veronica was still smiling.
"Nighty night, fastest man alive."
Plastic. Long Plastic. He grabbed it and wrenched it out.
A syringe. The plunger all the way compressed.
The world spun under his feet. The needle fell from his fingers, clattered against the asphalt as he fell.
He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Hmm, that seemed a little . .rushed . .to me. Anyways . .
Thanks! Hope you enjoyed. Reviews are appreciated