((This chapter is mostly setting stuff up, and I guess right now it's technically all Spitfire, but don't expect it to stay that way.
Young Justice belongs to DC and all that.))
The first thing to greet Wally's eyes when he woke up was the broken ceiling of a derelict old barn.
What caught his attention, though, were the strange symbols written on the weather-beaten beams in-was that blood? It was hard to tell from a distance. The speedster absentmindedly tried to push himself into a sitting position, but found his hands wouldn't move. He turned to see what was holding him down and saw what would be giving him nightmares for a long while afterwards.
The same strange symbols as the ones on the ceiling ringed the place where he was laying, this time definitely written in blood, since some poor animal's corpse was laying just outside of the ring. There were other things inside of the circle, though, that were just as terrifying. An enormous skull from some unknown carnivore leered up at him from down near his legs, and what seemed to be a partially-decayed human hand was resting next to his own, which was, by the way, covered in blood and tied to a bolt in the floor. In fact, pretty much everything was covered in blood, including his Kid Flash uniform, and Wally hoped desperately that it hadn't come from a human being. He carefully avoided looking past those two items, sure that there was probably something worse on the other side. Wally was just glad the bolt wasn't stuck /through/ his hand at this point.
Easily vibrating through the bonds holding his hands, the speedster sat up carefully and tried to remember how on earth he had gotten here. The last thing he remembered was kissing Artemis, and then... dying.
Wally felt a sudden wave of nausea at that last memory. It had been terrifying to die, and Wally had taken a bit of solace in the fact that he wouldn't have to relive it, but now the memory of his last few seconds was replaying in his head and he felt like he was about to lose what little was in his stomach.
His hunger was enough of a distraction to pull him out of his memories as his stomach growled. Wally had no idea what day it was or how long it had been since he had eaten, but if he didn't get food soon his metabolism would start destroying his insides. Quickly untying his feet, the speedster stood up shakily and stumbled to the open barn door.
His mood got distinctly worse as he realized that he was in the middle of nowhere. The only landmark nearby was a two-lane highway that cut through the enormous field of grass that spanned Wally's entire frame of view.
It took Wally maybe ten minutes to shakily walk to the highway, at which point favor smiled upon him and he found an emergency phone situated to the side of the road. He sped over to it, too impatient to conserve energy and very aware that he was still covered in blood.
Picking up the phone, he dialed the first number he could think of and waited for someone to pick up.
After a few moments, he heard someone pick up the phone. "Who is this?" the person asked, sounding a bit exasperated.
"...Artemis?" the speedster asked tentatively. "It's Wally."
There was a gasp from the other side of the line, and then "don't move, I'm coming" before Artemis hung up and left Wally standing there with the phone still to his ear.
Minutes later the Batplane came screaming into view, skidding to a halt in front of him on the highway. Wally was a little surprised to see Nightwing jump out of the cockpit, but his old friend didn't seem surprised to see Wally in his Kid Flash uniform and, y'know, covered in blood.
"Get in," Nightwing ordered curtly, and Wally's expectant smile deteriorated into a frown. So instead of his girlfriend, he got a stone-faced Dick. Pun intended.
"So, uh, we going back to HQ or something?" the speedster asked, quickly settling himself into the second seat. "I suppose Artemis called you. Sorry I didn't call you in the first place, I forgot your number-"
"Wally, I don't think you understand the situation here," Nightwing interrupted as he started the plane back up. "You've been dead for a year."
Wally took a moment to process that phrase. A year? That was way too long. No wonder Artemis was surprised to hear his voice. His attention was brought back to the present as he realized that Nightwing was still talking.
"...And now you show back up in the middle of nowhere. We're not even sure that you're you," the other hero finished, turning around in his seat to look at Wally. "You could be a shapeshifter or something, or this could be another cyborg Superman kind of thing, so until the League figures out what's going on you need to just stay put and try not to get anyone's hopes up too much."
Wally sat back in his seat with a frustrated sigh. "You can't even let me see Artemis? Come on, I can convince you that I'm me, just let me have a few pizzas and I'll prove it-"
"Shut up!" Nightwing said, now shooting daggers at Wally through his mask, and Wally wondered what all he had missed in the past year. Dick's frustration was starting to really confuse him. "You were gone for a year, Wally," Nightwing continued in a more controlled tone. "I... We... aren't going to be able to just pretend you never left. So stay whelmed until we figure this out, okay?"
"Of course, Dick, you coulda just said so," Wally replied, his mood too sour to be brought all the way back to normal. "Just do whatever you need to so I can go home."
"That's the idea," Nightwing confirmed, seemingly a bit less frustrated now, and turned back around to face the controls. "Just hold tight and don't let Batman bother you."
Wally tried to ask what was up with Batman when Nightwing hit the gas and he was pushed back into his seat as the plane took off.
As soon as they reached the Hall of Justice and got out of the plane, Batman rushed out onto the landing pad. "Come with me" was all he said, grabbing Wally's arm with a vice-like grip and pulling him down a few hallways and into a zeta tube.
They re-emerged in the Watchtower, where Batman continued to drag Wally down another few hallways, ignoring Wally's complaints about his arm and questions as to their destination. He finally opened a seemingly random door and pushed Wally inside.
The room was, in fact, an interrogation room, Wally realized with an increasing feeling of dread. Batman had rushed him in here too quickly to allow time for any substantial protest, too. On the bright side, it seemed to double as a prison cell, with a small shower nozzle and a set of clothes layed out for him, as well as a bed that he hoped he wouldn't be using. The speedster glanced at the one-way glass that took up one wall of the room doubtfully, then decided that whoever was watching could deal with seeing his ass for a bit. It was either that or sitting through an interview with Batman while still covered in congealed blood, and Wally was not quite up for that at the moment.
Wally was sitting at the table that took up a majority of the room, having changed his clothes and gotten most of the blood off, when the door opened and Batman strode in. After sitting down across from Wally and twitching his cape into a comfortable position, he immediately got down to business.
"You're aware that you were considered dead for a year, correct?"
"Yeah, Nightwing told me," Wally replied impatiently. "You going to tell me what you're planning on doing with me?"
The eye slits in Batman's mask narrowed, but ignored the question and continued on. "Where were you when you woke up?"
"In a field somewhere," Wally easily fibbed, purposefully leaving out the part about the barn full of blood and body parts. No need to tell Batman that he was part of a satanic ritual.
"Did Nightwing tell you anything else?" Batman asked, turning to glare at the one-way glass before returning his gaze to Wally.
"No, not really," came Wally's response. "Just that you guys are worried that I'm not me."
Batman nodded and stood up, apparently satisfied with that response."We're going to do some tests now to compare your vital signs to the ones we have in our records. Refusing to cooperate will mean that we'll have to assume you're not, as you put it, you." The hero stood up and was almost out of the door when something else seemed to occur to him.
"By the way," Batman added turning back to Wally, "The Flash died while you were gone. If you do prove to be Wally West, we'll be offering you his position in the League." And with that he shut the door, leaving Wally to deal with the bombshell he had just dropped.
Wally barely moved an inch from where Batman had left him, sans moving an arm to hold a bandage over the vein in his elbow where his blood test was taken. He should've been there, there must've been something he could've done, even though he had no idea when or where his mentor had died, not to mention that Wally had been dead during the whole event. Batman hadn't told him any of the details, how did he expect him to react? Wally wasn't even sure he could trust that the Dark Knight was telling the truth, considering he didn't trust Wally either. And Wally just kept reminding himself that Barry was dead and that he was never going to see him again, and by the time Batman re-entered the room Wally had descended into a cloud of worry and depression.
"So, your blood test and fingerprints check out," Batman began, raising a masked eyebrow when Wally flinched at his words. "Have you been considering what I said about taking your mentor's position as the Flash?"
Wally swallowed thickly and didn't respond for a good minute. "...I, uh... I guess someone has to do it," he said eventually. "I'll have to move to Central, huh... guess I should tell Artemis..."
Batman leaned back in his chair. Wally guessed that he had been hoping that Barry would be replaced, mostly because he seemed a lot less like he was trying to be intimidating now. "Artemis will be informed and the League will find a place for you to stay. Right now you'll need to go get a new uniform, since I don't think the old one will be fitting you. Follow me."
Wally was given a moment to process that last terse sentence, then Batman was pulling him by the arm again to somewhere else in the Watchtower.
After an hour or so of being wrapped in tape measures, Wally was escorted to what he guessed was his new house by a civvied up but still-silent Nightwing. Not that Wally blamed him, since the speedster wasn't up for much talking either. Something was off about the whole thing at the Watchtower... Batman had been too quick to sign Wally up for being the Flash, especially when he had made it clear that he didn't trust Wally. Everything was going too fast, really. The last couple of hours felt like at least a week, and the speedster was having trouble keeping up with it all.
The present slapped Wally in the face as the car jerked to a halt when Nightwing hit the brakes, apparently having trouble finding somewhere to park on the crowded streets of Central City. All thoughts of Batman and the League suddenly miles away, Wally peered out the window to check out the neighborhood. If they had gotten him some crappy apartment, Artemis was going to kill him.
Thankfully, however, they seemed to be in the suburbs. Dick pulled the car into a generic-looking driveway, still grumbling a little about the jerk driving in front of him not knowing where he was going.
"Well, here's your place," the hero said, turning around to check on Wally through his sunglasses. "All your stuff has been moved already, and I think Artemis is here too. Oh, and one more thing," he added, grabbing Wally's hand before he could escape and run off to his girlfriend. "Catch up on the news, okay? Anything you can find. I'm sure there's stuff Batman didn't tell you."
Wally nodded quickly, too impatient to pay much attention to Dick's warning. "Don't worry, I won't miss anything," he confirmed, then zipped out of the car before Dick could say anything else. He had been waiting far too long to get back to Artemis.
"...Wally?" And speak of the devil, there she was. Well, not really the devil, more like a really hot angel. Artemis was standing in the doorway of the house, looking somewhat tired but otherwise just like Wally remembered her. Wally sped over to the door, genuinely smiling for the first time since he had died, and wrapped his girlfriend in a tight hug. It took her a moment to hug back, but then she was smiling too when Wally finally pulled himself away. "You're back," she said somewhat incredulously, staring at the speedster with wide eyes.
"You really think I'd leave you all alone?" Wally replied, his grin widening. "Now come on, let's go see this new house," he added before Artemis could question him much.
Artemis's smile faltered for a moment and put a small dent in Wally's relative level of happiness. "You're gonna have to explain what's going on here, Wally," she said, glancing back inside the house and biting her lip nervously. "A couple of League members just showed up and said we were moving, and nobody would tell me anything."
Wally's smile started to disappear as well when Artemis reminded him about what he had just signed up for. And Artemis had just used that you-better-make-something-good-out-of-this tone he easily recognized. "Well, uh, it's a long story," he said, moving around Artemis and into the house so he wouldn't have to look at her. She always knew when he was feeling guilty about something. "Let's clean some of this stuff up first, huh? We can't just live out of boxes here."
"Wally..." came Artemis's warning. "I just got pulled out of our old house and I'd like to know why. And I know you're not telling me."
"Can't I at least eat first? I don't think I've eaten in a year-"
Artemis, nearly glaring now, advanced towards Wally until he was forced to back up into a cupboard. "You did something stupid already and you haven't even been back alive for twenty-four hours? What the hell did you do?"
Wally gave an attempt at a smile. "Well, I was kind of messed up 'cause Batman had just told me about Barry, and I didn't really think about the implications at the time, but I kinda, y'know, signed up to be the Flash...?"
Artemis was silent for a moment. "...You could've just said so," she said eventually. "I know how much he meant to you. I can just... learn to deal with all this." She gestured almost helplessly at the boxes stacked around the room, and Wally felt a bit of guilt at the sight.
"Hey, I'm living here too, I'm helping," Wally objected a little jokingly, reaching over to hold Artemis's hand. "Let's just unpack the sheets and stuff so we can get some sleep, 'cause I think we're both way too stressed right now to do much."
Artemis looked like she was going to object and also possibly start crying due to stress, but after a moment of hesitation she instead pointed Wally in the direction of bedroom and he got to work setting up the bed.
By the time he had figured out which box even had the sheets inside, it was nearly nine, and after another hour of putting some necessities in the bathroom and finding some more clothes, they both just about fell into bed without bothering with blankets or even conversation. Wally carefully wrapped an arm around Artemis's waist in attempt to make her feel better, and by the slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth he considered it a small success. Maybe he'd talk to her some more tomorrow. Within a few minutes of that thought he was asleep, with Artemis following seconds later.
Maybe a half-hour later, Wally jolted awake, nearly biting his hand to keep from yelling and waking up Artemis. As the nightmares he had just seen started to play again in his mind, memories of dying and waking up that day, as well as things from between those two points that he couldn't quite pull into conscious memory, he pulled his legs in toward his chest and tried to go back to sleep. He'd never hear the end of it if he woke Artemis up for some silly nightmare, and it wasn't like it'd be recurring.
Hopefully.