All I can say is just don't kill me for this.

Words: 3500+

A/N: THIS IS DARK! THIS HAS malignant WALLY AND DEATH!

I do not own Young Justice or its characters.

Utopia

A long time ago, not that long ago actually four or five years, Wally was in University and he was a hero - or more accurately a sidekick; the name still leaves the stinging taste of betrayal in his mouth. He was good and kind and smart and everything he was supposed to be. He was what everyone expected him to be. But he wasn't happy. He's not happy now either but it's better than what the alternative is.

It's a grim and broken world that he sees as he stares out the window at the grey earth and polluted, smoky snow. It's hard to tell anymore if its ash or snow falling but he doesn't really care he's not the one outside working. He's a king and this is his kingdom.

"Well?" queries Blue Beetle pressing his hands against the heavy wooden table, "We're giving you a new shipment of meat to harvest the dump but where's our recompense?"

Wally sneers lighting a cigarette. "Hey, Beetle Boy remember who calls the shots here." He remembers Jamie. Sweet kid. But the Beetle's the one in charge now and it's only instinct is survival and The Reach is its master so really it's no surprise that Jamie can't regain control - if there's even a Jamie left in there.

Wally breathes out his eyes following the rising river of smoke until it peters out into nothingness before finally letting his eyes return to the stiff form of the armoured man. "If I know Dick, who am I kidding?" he laughs cruelly, "I know Dick he's probably hiding them in the underground cave network just outside Gotham." The man looks confused so Wally elaborates, "Sector 61. They're probably all huddled together being fed some nonsense crap about how banning together will save them. They just have to hope." He almost bites through the cigarette as he recalls the last time he heard that. Hope doesn't fix you. It's a load of crap.

Blue Beetle cracks her knuckles cackling as he tosses a clipboard on the table, "Pleasure doing business with you. I always appreciate talking to a backstabber."

Wally doesn't even acknowledge the comment scanning through the pages on the clipboard ash sprinkling over the pages. Just another day.

This is who he is now. If he wanted to dwell on sentiment maybe he would but that's not him anymore. The old days are over. The limp can't be hidden behind pretence anymore. Initially there were whispers and looks of hatred when Central City - because this place once did have a name - was overthrown the people had looked at him as he stood aside and let the enemy in. But that first generation hadn't lasted long, unaccustomed to hard labor as they were most died quickly especially once mediocre housing conditions and disease set in. Then that made way for the stronger meat to replace them, the ones who cowered in fear but kept their mouths shut. The ones who were programmed by fear to obey. Free thinking had no place in this regime. Collars, terrifying black weights were placed around every free thinker's throat a warning to any who dared resist, they weren't simply decoration.

He squints at the shipment as numbers are called off the list to correspond with each person.

"101016." A woman strides forward head high and shoulders back, even in her shabby attire she looks imposing. Her blonde hair is tied up in a high, taut ponytail but she doesn't even spare him a glance marching forward and Wally is intrigued. Her hands are shackled and so are her feet but it's still breathtaking to watch her move like water amongst a crowd of blundering boulders and whimpering slugs. He hasn't seen this fine a woman in a long time - back when there was sunlight and grass and nice things to eat.

"101016," he states idly his voice cutting through the quiet shuffling of feet, "Step forward." She stops and turns with exact precision towards him, like a solider. He likes that.

"You have a name?" The woman remains silent. "That's true names only complicate things." He pushes a piece of loose hair behind her ear, she stiffens but stares back unfazed. He likes that, too.

"She'll be working under my direct supervision move her off combing duty and place her in the pits."

The subordinate blurts out voice gritty from smog, his pen and clipboard clattering in shaking hands, "That's man work!"

Wally raises an eyebrow dangerously. His word is law.

"She looks like she can handle it," he gestures at her, eyes raking over her form without concealment. Her body is lean but her muscles ripple beneath the taut skin. "Send the rest to assembly. I'm taking her to the compound."

He grabs her beneath the elbow and drags her forward and finally he gets the desired reaction.

"You don't own me!" she screams wrestling her arms in his grip, "You don't own ME!" Her voice has this husky undertone that's quite nice. He likes it. The defiance is a pleasant change from snivelling submission.

Wally leans down a breath away from her face and runs a hand over her chest till he reaches the black manacle around her neck. "I think you are mistaken." He leers hands dipping beneath the collar snapping her forward so their noses brush, "I own you."

At first he's content to watch her from the window. She works surprisingly hard for a female. She's a perfect specimen and she's all his. Pickaxe in hand she splits the rocks with ease as if she can sense the fissures running through each stone, as if she can read nature. It's surprising to feel again. To want something. Need something so deep in his gut it hurts. He smiles enjoying the moment as he watches her pick perfectly split a rock in two, the sweat collecting on her brow and running trails through the grim that's collected on her face and body. She's a work of art.

He turns to the accountant. "Tonight, bring her to my room tonight."

She's like stone and he sits in the chair drinking her in as she is bathed in moonlight from the window behind him his shadow imprinting his essence on her in the semi-darkness as she glows.

"Strip." She does as she is told each too big article of clothing crumpling to the ground around her until all that's left is her in a pair of enticingly small underpants.

"Good," he mutters to her rigid form. Breasts shining in the ethereal light barely twitching in the cold but moving with every breath she draws. "Good. Come." He's drawn a bath. It was tedious work. Only people like him get this sort of luxury and even then it's archaic - a throwback to yesteryears of big houses and grand yards where manservants rushed about boiling water to fill the tubs of the wealthy. That's what it's like. The water is barely warm given the passage of time but it's purpose to not to make her feel comfortable neither of them are naive enough to think this is an amicable situation. He ponders that the woman can't be any older than he is but she is a mystery. All he has is a number and tempestuous grey eyes to tell her story. She stares at the water as if it has personally wronged her and maybe it has. Parts of the worlds have already sunk like Atlantis into the abysses of the sea.

"Get in." Calculating eyes watch him but she doesn't fight him.

It would be stupid to.

The water is tepid at best and he pulls off his shirt skimming his fingers through the water till he reaches a creamy shoulder. He rubs away the dirt caked to her skin and she doesn't move even when his hands come to massage against her breasts. How could one person be so dirty? He scrubs harder hands running over every crevice of her body igniting a dormant fire within him that hadn't sprung to life since college when there was time for girls even if he didn't have time for them. He has time for them now. No one will ever refuse the geek again.

He washes her until he's making her more dirty with her own filthy water and then he commands her to stand up. Water trickles down her form filming over her panties before plinking back into the tub as she stands ankle deep in the grimy water. She's trying to conceal her shivers, it's cute that she tries.

Then he's yanking her out so fast she's stumbling over the lip of the tub and he drags her across the room and throws her down on the bed dragging her underwear down her legs using reflexes that have laid idle for years and finally he just sinks into her. To her credit she doesn't make a sound but her faces presses hard into the mattress. She's a prisoner. His prisoner. He doesn't relent even when he sees blood pooling on the sheets.

"I want someone to tell me I'm human," he drawls taking a large drag of the cigarette all these foolish innovations to make the meat last longer means the negative affects of this carcinogen have no affect on him now. He's been treated. But there are some things even The Reach can't fix. The woman snorts from her fetal position wrapping the blanket around herself more tightly.

"Not a word?" he queries, "Not one?" How easy would it be to have this woman killed? How easy to eradicate the tumultuous pleasures of grey eyes and tousled golden hair. He is not an animal. His basic pleasures could be meet by any woman wandering around the compound - in fact they'd all be thrilled to do it. The prospect of comfort for one night too thrilling to sacrifice but he doesn't want them. He wants a challenge.

He places the smouldering cigarette in the ash tray the smoke curling out in gasping breath before going out and reaches over placing a large palm against her clothed shoulder she stiffens inexplicably at the contact.

"Come now pet," he murmurs. "Be good." The blanket scuttles farther away and curls further into itself. Wally laughs. It's a cruel sound. It didn't use to sound like that. But those luxuries are not his to enjoy.

He rolls her over ripping the sheets from her grappling hands revealing the naked glory and revels of her body. He can't understand why she's still resisting. He's already taken her and he's not going to kill her. She's beautiful and broken. Now.

Defensively her arm lashes out her nails scratching long tracks on his skin and Wally frowns. "That wasn't smart, pet." The woman is easily overpowered and he's soon above her again staring down into defiant, albeit, terrified eyes. "It would hurt less if you didn't struggle." She spits at him, gravity unfortunately causing the projectile to fall back upon her face but to her credit she doesn't even squirm. Wally simply stares as the trail of saliva drips down the apple of her cheek before dribbling off onto the mattress he is pressing her into. He licks it. Follows the trail up her cheek to the bridge of her nose before descending to close his lips overtop hers. She squirms and struggles and bites his lip and he pulls away miffed the blood pooling and painting the petals of his mouth crimson.

"Not smart girly." She doesn't spit again but she glowers at him, eyes sparking maliciously with the hatred of a scorned nation; world. Wally doesn't care and after two, three more times he sends her back to her quarters and leans against his headboard smoking.

She has one of those tattoos on her shoulder, it's crude and done with sewing needles and poorly mixed ink. It's in the shape of a dragon because those rebellion fools think it symbolizes something. He wants to rip it off, crave it from her skin, and show her what false hope means. There's no such thing as loyalty. If she's one of them where's her rescue? Why have they left her behind?

It becomes habit all too soon and eventually he can only sleep after. After the seedy and uncontrollable troughs of passion and rush of wanton lust. Where he empties and she fulfills but never reciprocates with anything more than just cold, hard eyes and bloody lips.

She merely has to look backwards towards the window through the sheets of freezing rain to where he stands, because he can't walk for very long, to know it's one of those nights. She doesn't bother resisting, she's not stupid, but she's just as silent and stiff as usual nothing he does can move her. In his younger days he would have perceived this as playing hard to get, someone he could make like him if he tried hard enough. She isn't like that. It's her only defence against what he is doing to her - she has to be indifferent.

He escalates.

He starts using a whip trying to get a reaction from her. The blood running along the tracks of her body in a hypnotic spell, he kisses the hurt away. Still she says nothing eyes cold and hard staring at anything but him. Her hands never embrace him. Her fingers never comb through his hair. Her lips never move against his it's all empty.

He wants to consume her rage. Rage would mean he's touched her, in some delicate deep part, her anger hot and red with fiery determination must taste delicious. But nothing moves her. Nothing cuts through her marble exterior, he doubts even diamonds could do it. Nothing can sway her, break her, but he so desperately wants her to respond.

"Good," he whispers sucking on a pert nibble, the blood from his whip earlier clotting beneath his lips, while his digits slip between her folds. "Good?" She shudders but it must be from disgust because she's as dry as a bone. That hasn't stopped him before but he angrily sinks his teeth into her shoulder and then tells her to get out of his sight. She leaves with alarming speed and he angrily lights a cigarette but only gets two draws out before he presses the burning stub into his useless leg.

Then he spies it. Little puddles of blood he had forgotten in his haste shimmer on the floor. He kneels by the substance his fingers dipping into the rubin pools languidly moving them through the red depths.

He stares at her blood. The blood he's spilled - breathing in its heady scent. He could almost be disgusted with himself if he wasn't just so apathetic to the whole thing. Sickeningly he presses his face against the pool a baptism of her anguish writing itself on his face.

"Good."

He takes the collar off because it's in the way, and because he wants to see the graceful column of her neck without the weight of the black ligament hanging there. Like usual she doesn't make a sound even when he dips his gentle reverberating fingers into her core.

"A year," he whispers to no one in particular, "And you still won't acknowledge me?" It's not angry or sad just an observation.

She stares back at him and just let's him do it. Just let's him press and fondle and touch. It is the ultimate balance of hurt and blissfulness and Wally soaks it in like a sponge. She's gotten skinnier.

"I was somebody you know," he's still inside her thrumming gently and his hands are around her neck, because he's never seen her with her collar off and he revels in the softness and traces the line of pale skin that contrasts sharply with her normal darker skin tone that has been accosted by the cruel elements. He contemplates putting the collar back on. How easy it would be just to keep her. Nobody would notice if she went missing - just one in a million lost souls.

If it was a different time and place maybe it could be different.

He can vainly imagine still being able to run freely, still seeing the blue sky of spring, summer, fall, and winter, and the idea that somewhere out there was someone who would care for you. But that was all it would ever amount to be - imaginations. Fleeting, whispering thoughts of once weres and could bes. He's so tired of it all.

He's not surprised when he wakes up, tired and neck sore from sleeping on the floor, and the dagger he keeps on his person is gone and the collar has been placed around his own neck. He hears the rumbling in the distance of trucks, only the rebellion uses trucks. They like to play it old school, like they've romanticized fighting their oppression.

He knew this was coming. Taking the collar off would be all it would take for her to act. She's efficient and deadly and she'd have killed him before she let him put the collar on her again.

He sighs picking up his clothes, fixing the suit and tie to ultimate perfection. There's comfort in the motions, in the care he takes as he walks out into the yard and guns are trained on him by youth and adult alike and him and his fellows are lined up in the yard like animals.

"People like you make me sick." A voice snarls and Wally looks up blandly into Roy Harper's eyes.

"Back at you." Roy presses the gun into his chest, clearly bows and arrows aren't cutting it anymore for him. He's adapted.

"Give me one good reason not to kill you."

Wally doesn't move. There isn't one. There is no reason for anything. He did what he did to survive. Everyone had left him behind anyways - no one bothered with broken merchandise and he was angry and he thought he could make things better for his city if he simply handed it over. He supposes he didn't try hard enough. But then again he doesn't regret anything he's done.

A familiar hand pushes the gun away. "He's mine," states 101016. Funny even now he still doesn't know her name. Roy gives her a look over assessing her, eyebrows furrowing, but he relents whispering something in her ear before walking away to assist with the other prisoners.

"Hello pet."

She activates the collar and he crumples to his knees, gasping. So that's what pain feels like. She stares down at him and he just can't help but grin as her boot pushes against his head forcing his face against the muddy ground.

"You're a sick fuck, you know that right?" she asks as people mill around her cuffing his subordinates and removing collars. "I looked you up you know." She continues, "Before I was transferred here. You were really something and you gave it all up." Wally shrugs the mud is caking on the inside of his nose.

"No witty comeback," she presses, "No snide remark or unfeeling apology you leech."

"I suppose I should have left your collar on? Whoops my mistake." She pulls him up eyes roving over his features. What is she searching for? He's dead inside.

"You could have been a hero. Things could have been so different if you were on our side." He looks at the contempt on the woman's face and realizes somewhere vaguely that he probably loves her. Probably. Can it really be called love though? He looks at the limp blonde hair; deprived of nutrients it hangs down in stringy masses and her body is marked with the scars he inflicted but he didn't put the one on her smooth cheek. She is not a picture of beauty or health but her mind is just as sharp as ever. Her will so unbroken. Maybe he admires her? Her steadfast ability to do what's right, her unrelenting strength?

"You sold them out."

"Think of it more as strategic repositioning." Love he realizes blandly is stupid. Stupid people die for love. That's what Barry died of. Love.

"You could have been something."

"I was."

She shakes her head. "No one will remember you. This you. You're barely a blip in history." She's unbuttoning his shirt and no one is looking at them. They're very much alone in the cataclysm of chaos around them. He looks down at her lithe callused fingers as they push the buttons through the holes.

He accepts it. It could be worse.

She stands on tiptoe eyelashes brushing against his ashen cheeks as she kisses him hard. He doesn't make a sound as the blade slices into his chest. He drops to his knees face pressing into her thighs. He spies his own knife dangling in her hand out of the corner of his eye, it's dripping and he's flowing.

He doesn't believe in any of that theological stuff. He's going nowhere but a shallow unmarked grave. But he died with his dignity. The rebellion would probably have had him executed publicly anyways. This a much nicer way to go. His fists go limp from where they've been clutching and it feels as if time is slipping away and he feels human again.

"Good."