He looked around in perturbation and grudging awe, not knowing where he was or when.
He shook his head in annoyance, filled with disbelief that he had so foolishly walked into what he now realized was an obvious trap. More concerning, however, was the nature of the trap; of how it had been set and for whom.
How had they known? He had been so careful. He had told no one.
Well, except for Artie. It couldn't have been Artie, though; he trusted Artie with his life - literally - and had for as long as he could remember.
Yet he had been discovered. But by whom? Who had the power to affect this?
How had they learned Kurt Hummel was Wonder Boy?
He grimaced at the name, his hatred for it causing bile to rise in his throat. It had never been his choice. So much of his life had never been his choice.
It had been four years since he had put on the belt, had donned the costume that was the only legacy of his mother save the few warm memories he struggled with each passing year to recall.
His grandmother had given him the name and he supposed it had its uses. After all, he was the son of Wonder Woman and brand recognition was everything. When he turned up in his suit he didn't have to explain anything; he just uttered his mother's public persona.
Secret identities were so troubling, which was why he had dispatched of Kurt Hummel altogether. As far as the world was aware, Kurt had perished in the car accident which had claimed his father's life.
Attending your own funeral was a surreal experience. He hadn't realized he had been ... loved. Oh, he had friendships, some of which he supposed were very close, but he hadn't been prepared for just how keenly he would be missed. He wasn't sure how he felt about that even now.
He still recalled the vacant stares of Mercedes and Rachel as their heads bowed in prayer during the service. He remembered the lost and frightened look in Finn's eyes. He remembered Santana's anger and Brittany's confusion and Quinn's sobbing. He remembered Mike's hurt and Puck's regret and Sam's devastation and Tina's denial.
But it was better this way. It was.
He hadn't had to tell himself that in a very long time and wasn't sure why he was doing so now.
Besides, they had all eventually moved on, for which he was happy. Distractions had no place in his life anymore. He didn't have time for Glee or Cheerios. He could not longer accept being bullied or his lot in life being used to make others feel better about their own.
He had to save the world.
And he had. Over and over again.
But someone knew and they had punished him. They had removed him from the picture as easily as Artie had removed him from vital statistics databases all those years ago. No trace remained.
And now he was here, wherever here was, and he had no Artie, no money, no clothes.
Nothing. He had nothing.
He was nothing.
Nothing but a dead boy playing superhero.
The city was large but drab. It could've been anywhere, really. He had been on his way to DC to meet Steve Trevor, his mother's former mentor, though the term was negligible at best. Trevor had been Mom's cover and even close friend, but she had never told him. And when she met Burt and married, she had disappeared from public life and erased all traces of her former identity.
It must have run in the family.
Wonder Woman had just faded away. Little did anyone know she became a wife and mother before finally dying.
He still didn't know how or what had happened. Obviously what he had been told was a lie born in ignorance or calculation. Wonder Woman was supposedly immortal. She couldn't have been felled by some human medical condition, no matter how obscure and mysterious.
His grandmother was convinced her daughter had been taken and hidden away. He had just begun accepting the idea - it had taken a long time for him to reconcile past events with what he now possibly believed was the truth - and had been about to ask Trevor for help, but then ... this.
The weather was of no help in determining anything. It was neither warm nor cold, just overcast with a slight breeze that sent the stench of decaying garbage in his direction. Urban life.
He knew he was no longer in Columbus. He had been there enough to recognize the major landmarks and hadn't even hit the city limits when he had somehow fazed into this reality.
For that was what he was sure had happened. He had been displaced from his own space and delivered here. The technology, from what he could see on the streets, was comparable to that of his own time, so he hoped the shift was merely translocational and not temporal.
Scientists had theorized alternate universes for far longer than most people knew. Black holes, string theory, mirror worlds. He knew the concepts, knew they were theoretically possible, knew governments were experimenting with ideas, but ...
He sighed and kept walking.
The more he walked, the less anxious he became. It was counterintuitive but he was often contrary just for the sake of it.
He hadn't really been paying attention to his surroundings, but wasn't too surprised to find himself in one of the city's poorer sections. He would've liked to assume he was attracting so much attention because he was just that gorgeous, but he had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with his clothes and wristwatch.
He repressed a sigh. It had been a while since he was subjected to jaded and presumptive looks from complete strangers. Life was just one interminably extended high school cafeteria encounter.
He kept walking and paid no mind to his suitors, keeping his stride easy and confident.
And then he heard a scream because of course.
He casually strolled into an alley, made sure the coast was clear, and transformed.
He had already fought and disabled the three reprobates who had tried to gang-rape a ten-year-old girl three blocks up and one over. The tearful victim had leapt into his arms, legs locked around his waist and sobbed. Thankfully she had a cell phone she withdrew from her backpack when prompted. Apparently Verizon didn't exist here.
Just as he was about to call the police, he found himself confronted by two people dressed even more ridiculously than he.
What kind of bizarro world was this?
"Who are you?" he demanded of neither of them in particular.
"Uh, we're the Justice League, dude," said the man dressed in a red onesie with thunderbolts over his ears. "Who are you?"
"The Justice League?" he repeated in a dazed voice.
The girl in his arms squealed and kicked at his sides so he would turn her around.
"Oh, my god! It's Flash!" she shrieked. "And Black Canary! You're my hero!" she bleated, trembling in awe.
The woman allowed a soft smile to overtake her otherwise stern countenance.
"Dinah?" Kurt whispered to himself, still confused.
The woman's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
"Where am I?" he countered. Dinah was here but didn't recognize him. He didn't recognize anything. What was this?
"Earth!" said the Flash. "Welcome!"
Dinah and Kurt scoffed and rolled their eyes as the little girl giggled.
"You guys look just alike when you do that!" Flash exclaimed.
"And how are you, little one?" Dinah softly asked.
The girl bit her lip. "They tried to do stuff to me, but he saved me!" She looked around at her unconscious attackers, nodding with a smug smirk. "He kicked their butts, too."
"How is this happening?" Kurt wondered, not realizing he had asked the question aloud.
Dinah took a step forward, eyes widening when the other man reflexively took a step back and held the girl more tightly to him.
The girl patted his shoulder. "It's okay," she stage-whispered. "Black Canary saves people just like you do. She won't hurt you."
Dinah opened her mouth to counter the argument before abruptly closing it, realizing the girl was right. The man was afraid of her.
"You have nothing to fear from me," she said softly. "You saved this girl, putting yourself at risk. I won't harm you."
Kurt relaxed only slightly, shifting the girl in his arms and looking down at her. "We should get you home, sweetheart."
The girl blushed, giggled, and buried her face in Kurt's shoulder.
"I can do that!" Flash said cheerfully.
Kurt glared at the other man, sizing him up.
"Can we go really fast?" the delighted girl squealed.
"I don't know how to do anything else!"
"Yay!"
The girl launched herself into Flash's arms and he sped off before Kurt could say anything about it.
"Are you okay?" Dinah asked gently.
Kurt slowly shook his head, blinking back tears. "No," he warbled, looking down at the concrete and wrapping his arms around himself. "I haven't been okay for a very long time."
"Let's see what we can do about that."
Two hours later, Kurt found himself in the Hall of Justice and facing an interrogation only slightly more restrained than the Inquisition.
"But who are you?" Superman again demanded. "There have been no reports about a meta with your costume."
"A what?" Kurt helplessly repeated.
"He doesn't know anything," a confounded Batman concluded. As ludicrous as it was, he nevertheless believed it to be true. "You really are from a different world."
"I guess so?" Kurt said, though it was phrased as a question. "I can't think of any other explanation."
"How did you get your powers?" asked Martian Manhunter.
Kurt blinked. Martians were real now? "I was born with them. Well, and the suit. My powers were dormant until I put on the suit."
"And we don't exist in your world?" asked a startled Superman. In every other parallel world they had visited, either by choice or force, the members of the Justice League had existed in some form. This was entirely new territory.
"Dinah does," Kurt blurted. "She's one of my best friends."
Dinah gave him a warm smile, though her eyes were plainly wary. It hurt him to see it.
"But no Superman or Batman?" Martian Manhunter pressed.
Kurt shook his head.
"What's your name?" Superman asked.
Kurt paused, unsure of how he wanted to answer. He hated the moniker he'd been assigned and this would be the perfect opportunity to change it, to make this identity his own and not an echo of his dead mother.
"Solum."
"Latin for only." Dinah mused.
"It also means lonely or having no companion or protector," Batman said, feeling the parallels and discomfited by them. He wished Robin were here; at least the two of them were a comparable age. The boy before him couldn't be more than fifteen. "What of Wonder Woman? Does she exist in your world?"
"Dead." Kurt said shortly. He wasn't opening this can of worms - at least not yet - but knew he wouldn't be able to put it off any longer. The look in Batman's eyes suggested his suspicion.
Superman had to sit down. Even Batman paled.
"She's immortal," argued a stunned Dinah.
"Apparently not." Because what difference did it make now? If he couldn't get home, he couldn't save her. He never could. Just one more failure to add to the very long list.
"Did you know her?" Batman asked, treading carefully though he was anticipating the answer. "Your costume is similar to hers."
Kurt looked down at himself. His suit was navy blue, comprised of a material unique to the Amazons, speckled with several white stars. His boots ended at mid-calf and were a dark crimson. Around his waist was cinched the Golden Belt of Strength, attached to which was the Golden Lasso. Golden bracelets of Feminum adorned his wrists while a golden circlet sat atop his head, a large Burmese ruby embedded in its center. On his face was a red mask which covered entirely his eyes and nose.
If they knew Wonder Woman, they knew what his accoutrements were, whence they had originated. He couldn't deny the similarities and any fabrication he offered would be seen as just that.
"She was my mother," he whispered.
"What?" asked a faint voice.
Kurt stilled, his entire body going rigid. He ceased breathing. He turned around slowly as the sound of waves, or maybe his own blood, roared in his ears.
And there she stood. His mother. His dead mother.
Wonder Woman.
Whole and hardy and hale. Ebony hair cascaded down her back as cerulean eyes pinned him in place. She was tall and lithe; her physique athletic but the epitome of feminine. Her costume was slightly different, her voice more strident, but it was her. It wasn't her, but it was her.
His eyes rolled up in his head as darkness descended.
Dinah raced to catch him.