DEF: Okay, so I've come to my attention that some of you don't understand the two voices the one 'Writen in quotation is Scarecrow over an intercom' the words that are in Italics alone is the voice in Wally's head and the ~ones like this are ringtones~.
Vita: Wish her a happy birthday, our Fucked Up Bastard is finally 15! We don't own angsty Walls or oblivious-but-not-really Robs and Roy but we do own this bucket of cookies and cream ice cream.
His alarm clock read 3:45am and he wanted to throw it against a wall, why couldn't he sleep? He was dead tired from their earlier mission with Scarecrow and the fear gas had worn off on the way home, not that anyone had noticed as he clutched at his temples hard enough to draw blood. His fingers brushed the slight rise of the crescents at his temples, even those would be gone by morning but it wasn't the scars that bothered him.
No, scars he could deal with, it was the simple fact that no one had come over to ask if the fear toxin had affected him, why had he gone so fast and most importantly, was he okay? Well duh Wally, they didn't give a damn how you felt now did they? Not even the paranoid Bat had said anything after the initial gassing three weeks ago and he sure as hell hadn't said anything this time.
He supposed Bruce's logic was that he was a Flash, even the most lethal poisons affected them for short periods of time and he'd been gassed before with about five minutes in his nightmare. Still, he didn't blame Bruce for anything, his supposed teammates were the ones he was blaming, couldn't they see something was wrong with him?
Kaldur and his obsession with team building, Megan and her telepathy, Superboy with his super hearing? They were all hypocrites; each and every one of them, at least Artemis didn't try to hide her disgust, the one thing he actually liked about her. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind, not caring who the hell she hurt so long as she got her say.
Uncle Barry wasn't one for noticing the big things, he was a crime lab tech, he was all for the minute stuff so Wally's 180 in personality wasn't something he'd pick up on right away. Either that or he was deliberately ignoring him, yeah that made more sense, after all he was always complaining that Wally was too slow, too stupid.
He scowled at the Flash poster tacked to the wall, he would always be second best to a much better man and was expected to idolize his competition. It wasn't that he faulted Barry, hell if he were in the blond speedster's place, he would feel the same way about his screw up sidekick because really that was all he was, a sidekick.
He wasn't like Roy, he would never be able to break out of the mold his mentor had crafted, he wasn't like Robin, the complete opposite of his mentor so much so that people couldn't help but notice him. He was a fraud, he was always trying to please because when you were the copy of a man loved by all, everything you did was scrutinized to the smallest detail and faulted because you hadn't handled it the way he would.
He bit his lip against the curses that threatened to spill from his mouth, he was mad but he wasn't even sure what he was mad about and underneath that anger there was something…else. Something so much worse than mere anger, it was like a deep dark abyss that was sucking away at his sanity, everyday more of it would crumble away leaving an ever lesser ledge on which to stand.
'~When you see my face hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell~'
"Hey Rob," he answered happily, not that he really was happy but he had to put on a show, for appearances sake.
"Hey KF, wasn't sure you'd even be up now, anyway me and Roy wanted to know if you wanna catch the late night viewing of that new action movie showing in Gotham," the other explained. He chewed on his lip for a while, the anger he'd been feeling just moments ago was nowhere to be found, so he supposed it was okay to be around other people.
"Sure, what time does it start?" he asked pulling on a pair of sneakers, really that was all he needed, when he'd gotten back from the mission he'd changed back into civvies.
"Five minutes, the Gotham theater, we'll meet you in the lobby," Rob replied before cutting the call. The red head stared at the device in his hand for a few seconds then launched it at the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
"Fuck." He hissed panting as pure anger overwhelmed him.
"Wait, Wally hit the speed of light and didn't stop once to gloat? Hold up, better question, why didn't you do something? He's obviously under mind control or worse!" Roy hissed, the younger boy scowled, as if he hadn't thought about that already, he was the Bat's apprentice after all.
"Don't you think I thought of that? Mind control doesn't work on him because of the whole increases brain activity and if I mention anything these days he denies it and runs off," Dick muttered glaring at a grease stain on the wall behind Roy's ear. He was a horrible friend, he should've realized something was wrong way before this but he was just so caught up in his own stuff that he wouldn't have noticed if Wally dressed as a banana and sang the peanutbutter jelly song.
"Damn and I thought something was off when he visited Star the other day but I guessed it had to do with school or something. I'm such a dumbass!" The green eyed archer growled gripping his hair in frustration.
"It's both our faults, but now we need to find out what's wrong with Wally. Do you think we should tell Uncle Barry?" he suggested biting his lip. He wasn't sure the older speedster had noticed anything weird about Wally either, every time Barry came around base Wally took off claiming he had something important to do.
"Not yet, I mean we don't know what's wrong, maybe the two of them had a fight or maybe it's something that went wrong during a mission?" Roy guessed yanking slightly at paler red locks, a nervous habit he had.
"Not that I can think of the only missions we've had were botched attempts at getting Scarecrow. Both times Wally got gassed but you know the fear toxin doesn't work on him," Dick reminded the elder boy.
"I dunno maybe it has something to do with that therapy session Bruce had us take last year, I still don't know what's wrong with me. I think it had something to do with anger issues," the archer mumbled embarrassed. Yeah, it didn't take a professional shrink to figure out that Roy boy had temper issues, Wally constantly compared him to the yellow bird from the stupid Angry Birds game, the one who's always cussin the pigs.
"Big shocker there Roy boy, I only got the chance to do the inkblots test before she left to complain to Bruce about how uncooperative I was being blah blah blah," he reminisced rolling his eyes. The therapist had held up a series of inkblots and told him to call out the first thing he saw, it wasn't his fault he saw the Joker and Bats and Robin and abused children and dead men and tortured animals.
"Ha, trust boy wonderful to freak out the shrink but seriously what do you think she said about Walls?" Roy mused eyes narrowing once more.
"Who said what about me?" a familiar voice asked causing the two to jump apart hastily, they'd had a lot of experience with the Bat, Ollie and Barry but Alfred had them beat hands down.
"Diana, Bruce was talking with her the other day and she asked how we were doing in YJ," he lied smoothly. They were all accomplished liars with everyone else but the true test came when they tried to lie to each other, there was always a fifty-fifty chance that they would get caught.
"Okay, the show started two minutes ago, we should head in before all the good seats're taken," Wally advised leading the way to the theatre. He didn't have to turn his head to see the relieved sighs they exchanged, did they really think he was an idiot?
He knew both of their tells, Dick's was the subconscious twitching of a vein in his neck, Roy's was pulling on his hair, he didn't have one, Rudy had beaten it out of him long ago. He grit his teeth as they took seats in the highest row, all the way in the corner, the way they did when they didn't want anyone to see them. What were they ashamed of being seen with him now?
Richard Grayson and Roy Harper, the adopted sons of two of the richest and most notorious playboys in the world were too good to be seen with lowly Wally West. They had an image to uphold, snobby, well-mannered billionaire brats, obedient to the letter because if they weren't, their rich daddies would punish them.
"Popcorn Walls?" Dick hissed shoving a bucket of popcorn in his lap, his nose scrunched up in disgust, the popcorn smelt disgusting; it made him want to vomit. He clamped down on the need to retch, it wasn't like there was anything for him to bring up anyway, he hadn't eaten in a while.
"Nah, that stuff'll kill you faster than Joker," he replied all but pelting it back across Roy to the young Bat, he didn't miss the raised eyebrows at that, he usually scarfed down the stuff faster than they could blink. He folded his arms and pulled as far as he could into the wall, he really didn't want to talk otherwise he'd start cussin the both of them.
"I swear, it's a sign of the apocalypse," Roy muttered rolling his eyes, ignorant of just how close he was to having one pissed off speedster out for his blood. Wally bit down on his tongue so hard he tasted blood, the tangy copper taste only fueled his ever growing anger, he was fed up of this, of them, of everything!
They thought they knew every damn thing about him, what he liked, what he didn't, his favorite bands, hell they probably thought they knew what brand of underwear he bought. They didn't know shit about him, they didn't know he was allergic to coffee and cinnamon, they didn't know that he was deathly afraid of small spaces or being alone or rainstorms or his father or his powers.
They didn't know that the smile he wore every fricken day was a better mask than Dick's domino, they didn't know that sometime's he'd contemplated ending it all himself. Uncle Barry worked in forensics, they handled all the evidence in cases, they had more than enough guns to take out a speedster, how hard would it b to steal one?
How hard would it be to press the cold steel flush against his temple and squeeze the trigger? How hard? It was too damn easy!
"Woah, that guy flew ten feet easy, damn good special effects," Dick commented sarcastically, sipping obnoxiously on his drink Roy snickering next to him. His hands cramped with the effort it took to not reach over and strangle the pair of them, it would be easier than pulling the trigger and he could cover his tracks so that no one ever suspected him.
"Oh, here," Roy said handing over the soda when he saw Wally stretching towards them, the speedster grabbed the cold paper cup gladly. To his overheated hands it nearly hurt but it calmed him down enough to realize what the hell he'd just been about to do.
He'd almost strangled his two best friends, what the fuck was wrong with him?
"Walls, you okay? You're really pale," Dick pointed out turning his attention away from the screen where two boys had just been strangled, too close to reality for his fragile sanity to handle.
"Upset stomach, back in a flash," he spat speeding out of the dark theater faster than sound, he didn't care who saw, all he knew was he couldn't spend one more second in that dark room otherwise he might come out a killer.
Run, run, run as fast as you can
I'll always catch you because I'm part of your mind!
DEF: I hate project term, some people are complete and utter assholes, that's all I have to say on the matter.
Vita: Nothing witty to say this time, so just review and live safe I suppose?