My name is Wally West. I'm a geek, a nerd, a dweeb, and proud of it. Graduated high school ate age 13, I was given scholarship to all over the country. I chose to be close to home – Central City University. My aunt Iris even got me a job as an assistant to her husband – Dr. Bartholomew Allen, or "Uncle Barry" as I knew him.
Well, technically he wasn't a doctor yet. He was a graduate student with one year left, working on his thesis on the purification of metals with electromagnetism. Together, we built a device consisting of four giant spherical electrodes that the object to purify was placed in the middle of.
To wrap up his thesis. Uncle Barry got permission from the history museum to purify some ancient golden sandals with wings on the ankle, allegedly belonging to the Greek god Hermes. Once the machine was turned on, the sandals glowed and sent lightning across the room, striking the both of us.
As I fell backwards to the ground, I managed to overcome the pain of the lightning strike before I hit the ground. Then I looked around me and saw debris seemingly falling in slow-motion. My body began to accelerate, and I stumbled to get on my feet as I landed, while everything else was still moving super-slow. I noticed a large chunk of debris falling slowly toward my head when Uncle Barry grabbed me around the waist and pulled me aside.
We both watched the laboratory slowly collapsed on itself; then, as if merely by our own will, it finished falling back at normal speed. Turns out, the sandals really had belonged to the real Hermes, and now we both had obtained his power.
Despite popular belief, that power isn't technically super-speed. Rather, we can willingly grant our bodies access to the fourth dimension – time - and move along it at a faster rate than the rest of the world. That was hard to explain on his thesis.
I'm sure you can figure out the rest. We decided to use our powers to fight crime as the hero-sidekick duo, nicknamed by the citizens of Central City as Flash and Kid Flash.
But no origin story is complete without some type of tragedy. It happened one day at school, when I heard gunshots coming down the hall. I went into speed mode and rushed toward the sound. Sure enough, there was a sophomore pointing an AR-15 at a girl, ta bullet exploding out from the nozzle.
I knew the right thing to do would be to remove all the students from the area and subdue the shooter, which was something Uncle Barry and I had gotten used to. I started off doing exactly that. But then I had to move his victims: two boys and a girl, sot in the head, chest, and stomach respectively. For the first time, I was really concerned that someone would die in front of me, in my arms. That's exactly what happened.
Then it was just me and the shooter. I knew I should have just left him bound for the authorities. But this was hardly the first school shooter in my lifetime, and I recalled what had happened to the others. All given life in a luxurious prison cell, three square meals a day, letter correspondence with their admirers, and voting rights. I didn't want that scum to get off so easy.
Following my rage, I ripped the rifle from his hands and beat him with it until I had shed more blood then he did. An hour later, the cops and press showed up. They called me a hero, but I didn't feel like one.
Uncle Barry arrived and after I cried for a while on his shoulder, he began to walk me home. That's when we walked past the school's security officer, who admitted to being outside the hallway when the shooting took place, and quickly rushed to action by hiding in the janitorial closet.
This man … whose sole job was to protect the students … failed to do so … acted like a coward … and was showing no remorse for it.
A second later, Uncle Barry was standing where that coward was - right leg sprawled out in front of his left, his right arm punching forward – and the coward ws replaced with a blood explosion.
The nation couldn't stop talking about the shooting. Gun control advocates used it to push for stricter gun bans (even though the shooter was too young to legally purchase any firearm, and anyone who pointed that out was accused of hating children). On the flip side of the spectrum, alternative radio hosts accused the shooting as a government set up, and the grieving families were crisis actors who needed to get summer jobs.
Thankfully, Aunt Iris finally shut the media off. She knew what we needed was time to grieve. To realize that we couldn't save everyone, and how rage can easily take us over.
/
All my life, I've been nothing but bad luck. It started the day I was born, when my mother suddenly died after I was delivered. The doctors couldn't explain that, nor could they explain how the other babies in the nursery caught a cold.
This continued throughout my childhood. A month didn't seem to go by without something breaking or someone getting sick, or just some general type of misfortune. It never let me down, though. I just thought they were weird coincidences.
When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said that I wanted to be a magician like my hero – Zatanna. She was a magician, a superheroine, and pretty. My father was also a magician (as in, real magic), but he never seemed to mind I preferred a girl idol over him.
When I was 12, he promised to show how that could happen. He asked if there were any boys that I liked – any that were friends of mine, but I felt weird talking to. There was one boy, named Jake, who was invited over on a study night under the promise that my father chaperoned.
My father brought us into a room where a slideshow had been set up. HE then gave a presentation on how to engage in sexual intercourse. Jake was the same age that I was, so we were both in the beginning phase of changes to our bodies and minds. So, our first sex ed course was really uncofrtable, but it wasn't enough to prepare us for how father ended it.
"Now, you two are going to have sex, right now in this room."
We both gave him a blank stare.
"You want to be like Zatanna, right? Well, you can't have magic powers without having sex first. Now, get to it!"
"Can't I do it by myself?"
"No, you need a physical and spiritual connection to another person."
Jake wasn't leased about this and tried to leave, only to find the door locked. Also, the temperature began to get much colder, to the point snow and icicles decorated the room. Only father was unaffected.
"Sorry, son. You're not leaving till I say so."
Both of us shivering, Jake and I got on the bed and, after some good reluctance, kissed in the wasn't romantic or lustful, just sloppy. We then undressed each other and, while we both liked what we saw, what happened next was still sloppy.
Jake was so sloppy that he came long before I would have. Father was disappointed.
"Such a shame. I was hoping that my daughter could look to a friend to unlock her power. Oh well, you're free to go. I'll finish it."
We both knew what he meant, and it just sounded – wrong. Jake frantically performed oral on me, ignoring my pleas to stop. I yelled louder and louder until I finally climaxed, and my first spell was cast.
All of Jake's teeth fell out of his mouth, and his tongue turned into banana pudding. He ran out of the house butt naked and got hit by a car, killing him. Horribly confused, I hurried began putting my clothes back on, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My skin was light gray, and my hair and eyes were pinkish-purple, and my pupils were like a cat's. I ran away too, but without any knowledge of how to control my awakened powers, I only caused more misfortunes towards everyone in my path.
Finally, I came back home. Father was waiting for me.
"You've got a lot to learn. That means going to a new school."
He taught me enough so that I could unleash my powers only when I wanted to. Then I accepted enrollment into Junior HIVE Academy. It was there that I finally embraced the teasing nickname that I had been given throughout my childhood – Jinx.
/
Out of all the sidekicks, I'm probably the one with the happiest life. It's probably because I'm the only one who can maintain a fairly decent social life outside of heroics.
Not that being a sidekick is easy. Monsters and psychos try to take you down everyday, and it's only a small matter of time before they learn how to work around your super-speed.
But the best thing about my life was when Supergirl came to visit. When she wasn't helping her cousin, Kara visited the other sidekicks to spend some quality time with us. This would involve a variety of fun activities, from carnivals to video games to sex.
Yes, sex, and Kara felt no shame over it. She knew that if us sidekicks were to be heroes forever, our chances of finding a special someone were next to none. So, using her super-senses, she taught the rest of us how to pleasure her super-body, making us all super-happy.
I'll never forget my first time. I was pushing the speed force harder than I ever had before or since, and I was still covered in sweat by the time I made her scream. As I caught my breath, she thanked me with a kiss and called me, "The Fastest Boy Alive!".
I used that line with all the pretty girls I met. But I still kept my body for Kara, and later Donna (I don't mean to brag, but I enjoyed sipping a good soda while laying in between them as they caught their breath), truly thinking I'd never find a soulmate.
That is, until the day I dropped by Jump City and met a hellish angel named Jinx. I had heard about her from Bumblebee, about how she really wanted to be good. I helped her out with that.
/
I've gotten along well with the other HIVE students, but there are only three that I can consider friends, Gizmo, Mammoth, and Bumblebee. The last one special, not just because she helped me face sex without fear again, but because she would listen about my secret desire to be good. I had gotten afraid of mentioning that to the other students, but she was the first one not to laugh at me.
Of course, she was an undercover agent, so that may have been something to do with it. However, she did teach me plenty about using my body to control boys. I managed to get five boys in particular wrapped around my finger – Mammoth, See-More, Private HIVE, Billy Numerous, and Kyd Wykkyd. Oh, and Gizmo, but he hadn't gone through puberty yet, so I just threatened to slice up his gadgets.
We called our group the HIVE Five. Yeah, there were seven of us, but that name just sounds good. Anyway, I was finally given the chance of a lifetime by capturing Kid Flash and presenting him to Madame Rouge, my favorite teacher from Junior HIVE Academy.
But, things didn't work out. Kid Flash escaped, m hero tried assaulting me, and they both made me realize something: I was only with the bad guys because that's what I had been told all that I was good for. I didn't want that anymore. I wanted to be myself.
So, I turned good. Not because I wanted to, but so that I could be with the one person who wanted to accept me for me.
/
The Brotherhood of Evil had been defeated. Wally took me back to his place on the outskirts of Central city.
"Aunt Iris won't be home, so make yourself comfortable."
He showed me to my room, helped me unpack, and wished me goodnight as he left.
"Wait, Wally."
"Yeah, Jinx?"
"Well, it's just that, we're sort of boyfriend and girlfriend now, right?"
"Well, we did kiss right before Paris. That was truly magical."
"Yeah, it was. Would you like to do it again?"
"Um, sure, OK."
He got on the bed next to me and we kissed. It was even more romantic, and lasted long enough for lust to settle in. As we both grabbed each other's shirts, Wally pushed himself away.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Aren't boyfriends and girlfriends supposed to have sex?"
"Well, yeah. It's just that, I've done it a lot before, and it was just playtime with a friend. I don't want that. I want it to actually mean something between us. I don't know much about these types of relationships, but I have heard that we need to take our time so that our intimate moments feel like we belong to each other and only to each other."
I blushed at him. "So, you don't want sex."
"No, Slow Poke. When we do it, I want us to be making love."
We silently stared at each other for a few seconds. Then Wally got up, wished me good night again, and started to leave.
"Wait, Wally."
"Yes, Slow Poke?"
"Well, it's just that … I haven't slept alone in a long time. So, could you … just stay with me?"
"Um, OK, sure."
"Thanks, I'll let you go under the covers…"
"No, you can do that. I'll stay on top."
So, we slept on the same bed that night. Me under the covers, him next to me on top of the covers, holding my hand tightly. It was the most chaste night of my teens so far, but also the most intimate.
/
"Jinx, when I first met you, you said you were bad luck. Well, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I want to spend the rest of my life being the best thing to happen to you."
Pretty corny wedding vows, but still touching nonetheless.
Out of all the former sidekicks, our wedding was the smallest and simplest. When your other options are Robin marrying the Queen of New Tamaran, Speedy marrying an Amazon Princess, and Bumblebee marrying a Warrior-Prince of Atlantis, you seem a little insignificant.
Not that we care. Especially since our lives are definitely the most normal.
Weird and chaotic, but still mostly normal.
And yes, that goes for our baby girl. Our little good luck charm, Iris West.