"Peter" or "Why Wally's Metabolism is a Superpower" Chapter 2
Chaney
Author's Note at the end!
A crash resonated through the one-bedroom hovel Wally called home. "Stupid lamp! All...flickering...and stuff. Geeze, I need some more pizza," his grumbling voice followed the sounds of destruction. Superman and Green Lantern, now donning the outfits of Clark Kent and John Stewart, walked quickly up to Wally's door. Hearing the noises they bypassed knocking and just walked right in, breaking the lock.
"What do you think you're doing here?" Wally yelled at them, astonished.
Clark looked around the apartment. "You're destroying your home, Wally! What's going on?"
With a growl Wally grabbed his coat and stormed past Clark at superspeed. Clark threw a glance at John before racing after Wally. He quickly caught sight of the blurry figure weaving through people and objects on the sidewalk.
A chase ensued as Wally glanced behind and saw Clark's figure trailing him. The frown present on his face all day deepened as he decided to show the other man just who he was messing with. He quickened his step easily and soon Clark was struggling to keep up. The two were just colors speeding past pedestrians, and although it was as easy as stepping around a stone while walking for Wally to avoid the people around him when at super speed, more than a few people found themselves with bruised shoulders.
Clark knew he couldn't continue the chase for too much longer. It would be a wasted evening to simply trail his friend until he felt like stopping. Clark had never been as fast as Wally, hunting a prey he could never catch wouldn't help anything. Clark came to an abrupt stop in an alley and, checking that no one was watching, flew up to the roof of the building. From there he had a clear view of the surrounding streets and attempted to find Wally. If he couldn't chase, maybe he could keep an eye on Wally and just catch him when he eventually stopped. After a few seconds of searching Clark spotted Wally's blurred form weaving up and down Fifth Avenue. He tracked Wally as he seemed to run blindly through the road, knocking people down if they were in his path. Clark noticed him glance over his shoulder, apparently finally registering that he wasn't be followed any more. His path zagged a hard right as he veered into Little Joey's Pizza Parlor. Clark jumped off the roof and headed in that direction.
He came to a stop at the door of the pizza shop. Not wanting to alert Wally of his presence and make him run again, he stayed outside and watched through the window. Wally was munching on a piece of pizza, an empty box already behind him, while one of the workers turned to yell at him.
"You no-good thief! You have to pay for the food before you eat it!" The person yelling at a bored and irritated looking Wally couldn't have been older than 20. His face was slowly turning red as Wally ignored his protests. "That wasn't even your order, you just stole it from those people in the corner!" he continued.
At this Wally spun around and slammed his hands on the counter. Shouting around a mouthful of crust he said, "And why should those people in the corner, who I don't even know, get this pizza when I wanted it? I've been running around doing this city's dirty work for years and I can't even have a pizza?" His voice was rising steadily as he became engrossed in his sudden mistreatment at the city's hands. Clark decided to it would be a good time to grab Wally while he was distracted, and before the fight got more out of hand and details were loosed. He slammed the door open, ran up, grabbed Wally by the wrist and dragged him away before the worker could take a breath to argue back.
Clark managed a strong enough grip on Wally that he couldn't get away in the time it took Clark to get them around the corner and into a darkened alleyway. He pushed his com-link and yelled to whoever answered, "We need transport back! Now!" Sensing the urgency, Batman immediately activated the teleportation beam. He swiveled his chair to face the landing pad as Clark, still tightly gripping Wally's wrist, materialized.
"Let me go!" Wally shouted. "What, now you're the big bad policeman of the League, too? Not satisfied with policing the whole world, you have to control the other superheroes too?" Batman sent a questioning look to Clark and Wally continued to rant mindlessly at them in the background.
"Call Green Lantern and have him come back, let him know I've got Wally," he told Batman. "I'm going to take him over to the medical bay and we can explain there." Batman turned back around, spoke quietly to into a hidden microphone speaker, and soon Green Lantern was in the room with him.
"Superman's taken Wally to Medical," he said before turning and stalking down the hallway that led to the medical bay. Green Lantern quickly fell in step beside him. The two of them didn't speak until they reached the area Clark had taken Wally.
When they arrived they saw Wally being examined by the on-site doctor, though not without great protest. Clark still had a grip on Flash's hands, obviously not trusting the straps on the bed to hold him. The doctor had a needle he was trying to get into Wally's arm, but Wally was shaking his body back and forth trying to get free and the doctor couldn't clearly hit a vein.
When Clark heard Green Lantern and Batman enter the bay he turned his head toward them and called, "Can you come help me out here? Hold down his arm for the doctor."
Batman and Green Lantern grabbed the arm the doctor was trying to use, holding him steady enough for the needle to penetrate the skin.
Wally yelled his protests. "You can't just force a guy into the hospital and poke him with needles! You need my consent! I know my rights, you're holding me against my will."
"We need to find out what's going on, Wally," Clark said. "Something's making you act this way."
"I can act however I want. Just because you don't like it doemmmphh!" His sentence was cut off as Batman used one of his hands to muffle Wally's mouth.
"I can't handle your talking nonstop on a normal day. I like it even less when you're talking nonsense." Turning to the doctor, he stated, "Get to it."
Wally continued to shout under Batman's hand as the doctor drew back the plunger and withdrew a vial of blood. As he removed the needle Green Lantern asked him, "Can't you give him something to make him calm down, or sleep?"
The doctor shook his head. "His metabolism is too fast. I have to give him an extremely high dose, and that's just not safe to do until I know what else he has in his system." He took the vial over to the vast machinary the Watchtower was equipped with.
Clark, Batman, and Green Lantern continued to hold down Wally while the doctor started running tests on the blood, but after a particularly violent struggle from Wally, Batman growled, "Let's move him to a containment room. The iron room."
The iron room was routinely where Superman went to keep himself in shape and hone his powers when he had to be on the Watchtower for longer periods of time. The walls were a foot thick and made of iron, hence the name. They all knew it was highly unlikely Wally would try to vibrate himself out through such a thick and dense material.
Clark nodded and said to the other two, "John, grab his legs. I've got this side. Bruce, you grab his other side. Ready?" They lifted Wally up as one and quickly shuffled out the door and down the hall. A left, another left, a sharp right, second door.
The three all but tossed Wally inside before shutting the door quickly. Clark used the keypad lock to enter the locking code which made the keypad inside the room unreponsive. As soon as Batman heard the lock loudly click into place he spun on his heel and eyed Clark and Green Lantern. "Would someone like to explain the situation to me?" he demanded.
Green Lantern turned and gestured back toward the control room, indicating they should speak there. The walk was quick and Batman made sure to activate the monitor inside the iron room so they could keep an eye on Wally before the explanations began. "Well?" Batman prompted.
Clark and Green Lantern looked at each other before Clark sheepishly answered, "We're not entirely sure, actually." Batman glared until he continued. "We noticed Wally was acting very different that usual earlier today. He seemed angry at everything for no reason, and quick to get out of patrol duty. But he also looked like he might not be in control of what he was doing. I had Atom check his work for anything out of the ordinary and he said all of Wally's coworkers were acting the same way. When I tried to get him to come back to the Watchtower he put up a big fight. I had to chase him through half the city before I finally got a hold of him when he stopped to steal some pizza."
Batman's eyes narrowed. "Definitely out of character." He looked at the monitor to see Wally was consistently running in circles around the room. He occasionally stopped to yell at the camera, but thankfully Batman had turned off the sound.
Just then the doctor who had been running tests on the blood ran up to them.
Guys, the amount of sucky I am, I know. You're all totally justified in hating me. It's been over a year since I posted the first part. I never planned on finishing it, but when everyone left such nice comments and put it on alert, I thought it wasn't fair to stop. Obviously you notice it's still not done. I've been working on it for a while and was going to wait until I had it completed before putting up part two. The plan was for it to be totally done last weekend, but some real life extenuating circumstances made that impossible. I will continue to work on it and hopefully I'll have the last piece up before March is over. ::crosses fingers::
One last note is that you'll notice I change how I'm referring to the characters: Wally, Clark, Batman, Green Lantern. I attempt to match name to costume, so no costume = civilian name. For the curious, I work under the assumption that the League has at least one doctor on staff with whom they don't hide their identities, and of course that the original six know each others.
See you soon!