Standing proudly before the long, mahogany table, Wally West placed his hands on his hips and stared out the large window towards Earth. The sun peeking from the corner shone brightly down on him, reflecting off him the walls were blanketed in scarlet.
Since the main members of the JLA had flown off into space, to clear their names involving crimes committed five years ago, the watch tower and Earth had been left to the sidekicks. They were the ones looking after Earth, protecting the people, and dealing with all the responsibility that was slammed down on their shoulders. Earth couldn't know that the JLA had left Earth in the hands on minors. They'd be enraged and most likely end up rioting against them.
Wally, however, had left the JLA a long time ago. Both him and Artemis had left together, swearing to never return to the hero life. But, Artemis couldn't resist the danger and had all-too-soon returned to the scene. She had been killed in a battle against Kaldur. Wally had warned her that it had been a dangerous mission and she could get hurt, she hadn't been on the field in years! And all of a sudden she wanted to return, to jump right back is as if she had never left. This ended up with her losing her life.
That was only a couple of months ago, and since then Wally had been exceptionally lonely. With nothing to do, except school work, and the absence of Artemis, Wally had offered his services to the league. Specifically for the job of guarding the watchtower It had been proven, five years ago, that the zeta tube could be hacked and anybody could reach come and go as they pleased. So, the JLA needed it to be on lock down, or at least guarded at all times.
Dick, of course, would have denied him this job instantly. However, Dick really needed the extra hand. Currently he was dealing with the whole kroatien dilemma and needed every member on the feild in search of every little pest.
Letting out a deep sigh, Wally ran his hand over the polished wood. He had always dreamed of sitting at this very table. In full costume and finally taken seriously. Covered in scarlet and ranked one of the top members, Wally would be seated right next to his two best friends; Dick and Kaldur.
Taking Barry's seat, Wally could just imagine what the room would be like. Kaldur would be ranked number one, the leader. Wally would be seated to his left, ranked number three, and Dick his right. They'd be the invisible trio, able to do anything together. They had even created the covert team together. It was their thing in the beginning, then people were added, and it became something important.
They were best friends, and they would be taking their mentors places. But, Kaldur and Dick would never take their mentors names and costumes. Dick would stay as Nightwing and who know's what Kaldur would end up being. Wally on the other hand, knew since he first became Kid Flash that he'd become exactly what Barry was. The Flash. He came into the game knowing, expecting him to, and that's the reason that he left. He couldn't be Barry, he wasn't fast enough.
Yet, here he was back in the watch tower, wearing an old costume that he made in honor of Barry. It was almost an exact replica of Barry's costume, although it did have a few differences. To be just like Barry was what Wally had always dreamed of. Even if it had driven Barry insane sometimes. Barry was his hero, and who doesn't want to be like their hero, if not exactly like them?
Wally stood up and left the room, it was about time that he moved on to the next area. He had to watch the whole tower, not just the specific rooms that he liked the most.
Meandering through the hallways, Wally finally came to the office area. He had never been alowed to enter this part of the tower, mainly because it was where the members kept their emergency stuff, and also because Wally was a big snoop. He'd get into everything and take stuff without their permission or knowledge. A souvenir he'd say as he added it to his legendary library.
The hall itself looked to be endless, doors on either side, each belonging to an office or room of a superhero. Years ago this hallway would have seemed extremely boring, but recently it came to Wally's attention that with each room came a spare costume. They were held in there in case of incidents where a member's suit was damaged or even lost, which confused Wally. Who loses a costume?
Opening the first door on his right, he hesitated. It hadn't been locked, but it did make sense since it was Superman's quarters. Of course he wouldn't keep it guarded, he trusted everyone in the JLA. He was so patriotic, that also confused Wally. Clark Kent wasn't even human! Why is would he be patriotic towards America? This made no sense to him.
Taking the first step he hesitated once more, in case he activated a secret alarm that Bruce would have had installed. After a moment or two of silence, nothing sounded so he continued toward Clark's desk. The room had been assembled like that of the presidents, no surprise there. There were two flags by the desk, a window behind, along with the whole aroma of leather. Wally opened the top drawer to the desk, deciding he wanted to snoop first. Sifting through unimportant documents, Wally didn't find anything that seemed interesting. Nothing about any gossip or secret activities that occurred in Metropolis. Moving onto the next drawer, Wally continued his process coming out with negative results each time.
Collapsing in the spinning chair, he tapped his chin with his index finger. Since there had been nothing in the desk, where else in the room would Clark hide his important documents, including his back up suit? Catching the glimpse of a slightly ajar door, Wally's grin grew. He had found the closet, and it hadn't taken that much searching. Was Clark that naive? Would he really put his suit in a closet like a businessman? Of course it was, this wasn't a big surprise Within the surprisingly average looking closet hung a single suit. The sun peaking through the window made the stars sparkle resulting in an unusually high-pitched, feminine squeal escaping Wally's lips.
In any other circumstance, he probably would have been mistaken as a woman finding the right dress to go with her shoes. But in this case, it was sparkly stars on a costume. Wally began stripping off his costume as he replaced it with Clarks. With the red and yellow fabric, that he'd previously been wearing, hanging over the back of the chair, Wally stood before a mirror and examined himself. The costume was irregularly tight on his legs, but extravagantly loose when it came to his chest.
The upper portion hung over his left shoulder a bit, revealing the upper part of his chest. The colors definitely clashed with his personality as well, and they really didn't go with his blond hair. The only thing that could have explained how he looked was through medieval times; loose, baggy shirts and tight leggings. But then again, Clark did have a built figure with tiny, pee wee legs. Letting out a disappointed sigh, Wally ran over to the room adjacent to Clark's.
Opening the door slowly Barry waited for some sort of "NO MEN ALLOWED" alarm to go off, since this room did belong to Diana. Maybe she just expected everybody to understand her case and leave her room alone. It didn't seem much like her, but it wasn't entirely impossible. Hesitantly he entered the room and looked around. It was empty, with exception of a lone chair and a phone thrown in the corner. A closet rested on the right side of the room, its doors already left wide open. Peeking in, Wally was surprised to see a giant walk-in closet, which, of course only held her costume and thousands of back up shoes. Shaking his head he closed the closet doors. That'd just be too weird and uncalled for.
Onto the next room he barged into Hawkman's room. Not bothering with any traps, Wally shed Superman's layer and replaced it with Hawkman's. He wore green leggings, red underwear OUTSIDE of the leggings, red and yellow boots, a weird yellow thing that crossed both ways over his chest, and a helmet. Wally smirked, this, he look damn fine it. It would have been much better on him if he had been a bit tanner, but Wally was a red head. You can't expect a redhead to be tan, that's just too abnormal. Posing in front of the mirror he began to have fun. The next room was Bruce's and that was certainly something to have fun with.
Speeding down the hallway he stood before the bad door, which was perfectly labeled "Bat Door." He labeled everything, probably for organization. But, it was most likely his way of marking his territory Wally placed his hand on the doorknob and felt a slight shock. Yanking his hand back in surprise, he pressed his palm. It hadn't hurt, but it did scare him. Trying it again, but faster, he twisted the knob. Locked, of course. Bruce was always secretive with the JLA. Sure, everyone had their secrets, but Bruce was the one who wanted them to remain a secret.
Wally looked at his watch, it had only been two hours since he first arrived in the watch tower, he only had half an hour left until Connor was going to take his place. Dick never trusted Wally enough to leave him in the watch tower for a whole day. Made sense, but Wally still couldn't feel like Dick was acting like, you know, a dick.
Cursing underneath his breath Wally ran back towards Superman's room and replaced Hawkman's costume with his red spandex. Closing the door silently behind him, he ran as far away as he could from the hallway. He hadn't cleaned up the costumes, but that didn't matter. Nobody was likely to go into each and every room while the rest of the watch tower needed patrolling.
Wally ended up running into Connor Kent in the kitchen with Megan, of was baking, of course, and he was arguing with her. This was an exceptionally unusual situation to walk into, mainly because Connor stopped talking to Megan. Why? Wally didn't know, it had something to do with Megan's powers, but other than that he had no idea. Neither of them really trusted Wally enough to vent to him.
"I'll be heading out" Wally said with a raspy voice. Connor nodded silently and Megan avoided eye contact. Without looking back Wally stepped into the transporter and beamed back towards Earth. He laid back down in his bed and rolled onto his side, grasping a picture of Artemis. A tear rolled down his cheek and stopped onto his upper lip that was formed into a smile.
"Artemis, if you were here you would have laughed and called me an idiot. Hauling my ass back up there, you'd have made me clean everything up... I miss you... come back safe." But, little did he know, Artemis had been eaten by a sea pancake.