So many reviews! Thank you so much!
little miss BANANNA HEAD: Actually yes, I do have something planned where the worlds touch again, but that won't happen for a while yet. Like, a really long time to come. Thank you so much for liking my story!
Kit: Wally is so tragic here! I love writing it! The friend in the Flashback was Superboy, sorry to leave that hanging.
Kekejo99: Thank you!
Isadorator: Ah whoops! Sorry, I never remember how many R's to put in Mar(r)y's.
saya4haji: I couldn't even watch Blood C to be honest, I gave up like half way in. The Rogues take care of Wally, as much as they would like to finally beat him. They're really pretty good people, especially compared to Superman or Batmans. Really, Batman's are just horrible. There's such a balanced dynamic between Wally and his Rogues, it's really fun to write.
SynesTheoretical: Oh if that's how your heart is now I'm going to rip it to shreds in the future.
duskrider: Happy Birthday! I meant to post that earlier but it was in a flashdrive I lost.
SilverPhantom88: If you eat your phone you won't be able to read this chapter!
Triskelion3467: OH, we'll see what Waller does. Nothing pleasant.
AkariWarriorofSoul: Oh hell yes! I would love to see that, but I could not write it myself. Any volunteers?
Chibi-Twan: Thank you for reviewing anyways! I'm really glad you enjoy this.
Arekanderu: Thank you!
Moonshadowcuteness1: Yeah, Wally's death really fucked up Dick. And now he's got Jason back to worry about and all sorts of horrible things in the Horizon.
Guest from Jan 16: Hooray for contrast!
greymouser: You'll get more as time goes on!
Guest from Jan 18th: Thank you so much! Imagine how horrible everyone will feel when they find out how sad he is and they just treat him like a kid all the time! He's the light in their dark world and in some ways he's the darkest of them all.
WildJay1585: Someone will notice something. I'm just not sure who just yet.
Cairine the Elf-Hearted:Thanks!
Rae Kid: Dude you're taking away my biggest conflict! The Justice Lords are going fuck this child up so horribly, he'll have all this pressure on his shoulders and oh, oh, if no one knows where he's from by the time it happens it would be ever worse.
Wally West.
Two boys, two different ages. Same red hair and green eyes.
One, a twenty two year old forensic scientist. The other, an eight year old boy with a penchant for math and science. Both had connections through one man.
Barry Allen, the elders coworker and friend, and the youngers own uncle. Logically he could be a part of the Flash's appearance in this world.
The only problem with that theory was that he had never done anything wrong in his life. His record was cleaner than anyone Amanda had ever seen. And what was worse, it wasn't faked the way it should have had to have been. No one was that squeaky. He barely had a parking ticket!
So he was out.
That meant that that the only thing connecting the pair of red heads was their names.
And, if this paper was right, their DNA.
An exact match, every single chromosome. It was impossible, unless they were twins, or clones, which they weren't. She'd checked personally.
All of this lead her to a few conclusions.
The first was one she liked much more. He was from the future. Easy, simple, neat.
The other was much more messy.
This separate world that the Flash had torn his way out of and into theirs, they had identical people to the one in hers.
Now if that wasn't disturbing, Amanda didn't know what was.
A world where there were doubles of people in this one. Was another her? Her mother, father? Her assistant? How many double gangers? How many doubles?
How many were already there?
It was such a disturbing thought. They only had evidence of one arrival, and none had come sense. Was it possible that he was the only one? If so, why? What had happened there that would force someone like the Flash to run away?
Normally they saw him running straight towards danger.
It was a frightening thought.
The entire situation was frightening. Worrying. Terrifying with its possibilities. It had all of Cadmus on high alert, everyone who knew about it. Their greatest worry was for the fastest man alive, for where he had come from and what it might entail.
The most worrying person on the planet was the one that the public loved beyond all others, the one who could greet everyone from mayor to cab driver by name.
It was about time that she went and had a little chat with the Fastest Man alive.
Snow.
Wally had a love-hate relationship with it.
On one hand, he had wonderful, amazing memories of it. His birthdays, Queen Perdita, learning to ice skate with Len when he was twelve, having hot chocolate in the back of paddy wagons with Mick when the man was suffering from cryophobia in the cold winter months.
Snow ball fights outside the cave, losing horribly to Kaldur and M'gann. Teaching Bart the delicate art of snow man building.
Snow Angels with Artemis.
Now the cold was bittersweet, filled with happy memories that made him smile and wistful longing that made him want to cry.
It reminded him of what he had lost.
The day he had lost it.
Cold, cold, so cold at the South Pole. Waking up against the long packed ice. Everyone gone, everyone there.
The confusion, the fear. The long months of grief he spent on park benches until he had his feet under him. The small thefts he committed just to keep himself fed.
If he was being honest he would have much rather been doing League business than his own patrols around his city, no matter how much he loved the people there.
The only problem was that out of all the members of his Justice League he was by far the least equipped for underwater combat. Even Batman would be more useful, and was being more useful, scanning the world for… something.
He didn't know. He was too busy trying to keep busy. In this case he was running around Missouri in the first snow of the year, probably curtesy of Mark or Len, taking care not to fall flat on his face. It was funny, there had never been any snow in Central or Keystone before the two of them showed up, but in the past few years people had grown so used its random popping up in the past two years you'd think they were from Colorado instead.
Already people were leaving their houses with salt bags and skies. They were used to this sort of thing by now. They knew that cross country was faster than driving at this point.
They were the ones Wally kept a particularly close eye on, making sure no one skidded off into the streets or walls. He had to be everywhere at once, all over.
Had wasn't the right word.
Wanted to be, in truth. He liked being of use, and really enjoyed being able to trot by and talk to people.
Annabeth, the baker-in-training who let him try her new creations every morning, listened to his 'expert' critique. He was pretty sure she just wanted to feed him. Not that he would ever complain, she was a wonderful cook and a very pretty girl, a year or so younger than himself.
Jeremy the bar tender, who fed pigeons in the park on Sunday mornings. Wally liked to sit with him and watch the church across the way as the Mass goers flocked out into the rest of their days. Some days he'd bring an extra loaf of French bread for Wally to have. That morning Wally made sure he didn't slip on his way up the stairs to his bar.
Lorelei, a singer at the alternative bar Hartley liked to drag him to no matter that he denied interest in boys. A very nice girl who needed a little help getting her groceries in from the car when her porch was iced over.
Jimmy the cab driver, who always forgot his paper got the fastest delivery of his life when traffic stopped entirely on the bridge out of the city, curtesy of the fastest man a live.
Wally should have been a Pizza boy. He'd get a fortune in tips for how fast he delivered things.
The Flash was in the middle of a snack break, something his citizens were very used to, when the chaos they'd all been bracing for came about in the form of a news report.
"Breaking News!" Iris West-Allen told the Camera. Wally wished she would wear a thicker parka, "City Hall has been frozen over in an attack staged by Captain Cold. He has already made the demands of one thousand dollars each in exchange for Mayor and the other one hundred and three hostages they've taken."
If there was one thing that had to be given to his Rogues it was their treatment of the media. They knew how to get the word out without hurting the reporters.
Especially not Iris. Wally had put that rule down already.
Every eye in the McDonalds turned to the Scarlet speedster. Wally inhaled the rest of his fries and stood up, adjusted his mask and saluted the crowd.
"Gotta run!" he announced, and vanished in a blur of red and yellow. He could practically hear the pained groans and amused laughs at his stupid joke.
When he hit the ice he was surprised to find that he bounced right off of it. Into the air. To land at the feet of this worlds version of his aunt.
Green eyes met with those the exact same color, though it was impossible to see through his cowl. Iris pushed her hand down instead of the microphone, like many reporters would have done.
Wally accepted her help with a smile. He'd thought he'd been going fast enough to break through the Ice but it appeared that he was wrong. The ice was thicker than he'd thought.
"Miss West. West-Allen. Hi," he stumbled a little, his breath partially knocked away by the impact.
"I don't know what took my breath away, the fall or seeing you," he flirted horribly. It felt weird, really, really weird to flirt with his Aunt Iris but it was what it was. He flirted with everyone else, it would look weird if he skipped over her.
Iris smiled at him tolerantly and held up her hand to show off the pretty gold ring on it.
In return, Wally bowed his head, thoroughly chastised with just that motion.
"Flash, how do you plan on getting everyone out of the ice?" she asked, finally pushing the microphone to him. Wally, never one to lie, gave an utterly comical shrug.
"Buy a really big hair dryer?" he offered, "I'll figure it out, don't you worry."
He already knew what to do. The same thing he'd done with the ice that had temporarily frozen him during his Race with Bruce. Wally moved to the wall of ice again and started taping it here and there, looking for the thinnest point. That would probably be the top but he still had fears of sliding down vertical climbs.
Since he didn't feel like breaking anything that day he went on looking. It was times like this when he wondered if it was too late for him to introduce his goggles into his uniform. They made finding things so much easier.
Eventually he picked a spot. The only place where he could clearly see the pillars of City Hall. His hand started shaking, the shaking turned to flat out blurring into yellow and a few stripes of red before he placed it against the ice, using the friction to melt right through. Once a hole formed he ran his hand along its edges until it was big enough for him to step through without bending down.
He wasn't too worried about the civilians, the Rogues weren't there for killing. Just money.
Thank god for the code that Len set down.
That did bring up a question. They wouldn't kill, but they didn't normally take hostages either. Things got too messy when they were involved. Which worried the man.
This was unusual.
Unusual was usually very bad. For him.
Wally knew his way around the Mayors office, so he took a short cut. Or, really, a Robin Cut. Through hallways no one used, down tracks of tile that were pristine, never worn down. He went quick, unseen entirely.
When he arrived at the hostage point it was using tricks that Speedsters never bothered with to gain height.
He perched on the moldings of the arched ceiling, tucked into the shadows. He'd kept one aspect of his old suite, the Stealth Mode, integrated into his new one. It kept him in the dark, away from prying eyes.
What he found was very, very disturbing.
It was not Captain Cold that was prowling around the crowd of officials and assistants.
No, it was Plastic Man and Killer Frost.
This was wrong. So very, very wrong. Patrick wasn't always a saint but shit, he was never someone who did this. And he was never, ever a person who worked with real criminals. So something else was up.
Wally took a slow, deep breath. This wasn't good. Killer Frost had that name for a reason, and Patrick had always worried him a little. Not because of his morals, or his past as a crook, but because the shear amount of possibility in his powers. He was a light hearted goof, it was his nature as much as it was Wally's, but his powers could be used for so much more than merely stretching out.
In this case, it had been used for a metamorphosis of Captain Cold, though that had been left behind already aside from the goggles and the blue parka he was using. Wally was ninety eight percent sure the only reason the man had to stick to reds and yellows was a mental block.
The speedster took a breath. He was going to have to move fast if he was going to do this. A sneak attack, since Frost was truly going to kill her hostages. Maybe if he could knock her out first he could talk Patrick out of this.
He didn't want to hurt the man. He knew how, had heard stories of contingency plans Dick had stumbled across. Extreme heat and cold could melt or shatter him, and Wally could do heat. He just didn't want to. God knew it would be horrible, painful, probably traumatizing.
Talking would be a better idea.
He slipped away from the scene, light on his feet before he was racing back in, faster than the human eye. The ground had been iced but he used the lack of friction to his advantage, gaining momentum before he smashed his fist into the back of Kill Frost's head.
She crumpled to the ground, probably with a nasty concussion.
Wally barely had time to change his angle and hit the ground like a penguin before Patrick could snatch him up with an elastic arm.
The man looked panicked.
Oh boy.
"What did you just do?" he demanded. His voice actually cracked.
Wally lifted his hands. "Hey, hey, take it easy. She's just out cold."
Even Wally's stupid pun didn't make Patrick relax, he looked tighter than a spring. Strange for a man made of elastic.
"No, no, no," he shook his head. "She had to make the call, in five minutes she has to make the call."
Worry turned in Wally's stomach. "What call?" he asked, stepping forwards.
Patrick didn't lash out at him, even let him put his hands on his shoulders while he was freaking out.
"Plas, what call?" he repeated, more firm this time. The joking speedster was no where to be found. If Plastic man was Serious, he needed to be too.
The man looked from him to Killer Frost, his neck extended to see above the Hero's head.
"The call to her guys. They have my girlfriend."
Everything clicked together.
Wally looked down at Frost, then back at Patrick. "Do you know where?" he asked.
Plasticman shook his head miserably. "She wasn't going to tell me. I have no idea…"
Wally hummed before he tapped the side of his cowl. He searched Frost while the line connected with a gruff, 'Batman', fishing out the woman's phone.
He flipped it open, just an old fashioned burner with no fancy security codes, and checked the call history. Just one number.
"Bats, hey, I need you to trace a number for me. Now," he tried to lighten his voice but he must not have done a very good job, or Batman would have said something snappish. He felt it when Patrick pushed an extended ear up against his lightning bolt, close enough he would hear the Comm too.
"Go."
Wally recited the number, giving the Dark Knight just enough time to type it in. Then, they had to wait.
Luckily, it was Batman who was doing it, so the waiting wasn't for long.
"There's a warehouse outside Seattle that the signal is coming from. What's going on, Flash?"
When Patrick moved to run off Wally caught his arm, which stretched until he noticed someone was holding it.
"Kidnapping," he said simply, pulling out a word of wire to tie up Frost. It wouldn't get brittle with her powers if she woke up before the cops got in to cart her off. Once that was done he scooped up Patrick, ignoring his indignant yelp.
"Hold on," he instructed.
Patrick gave him a funny look. Before he could say anything witty the Flash exploded forwards, shattering the sound barrier. Patrick was practically liquid against him they were running so fast, the speed blowing away his words.
Wally wasn't worried, the man would be fine. He was rubber, and even if he wasn't the Speed Force protected Wally and the people he held while he ran for him. Thankfully.
If it didn't they would die of whiplash. And so would he, probably.
They reached Seattle with thirty seconds to spare.
The warehouse was inhabited by a group of thugs, fifteen, and a tied up woman. Blond, pretty. That would be Penny.
Wally set down Patrick, his eyes on the group in front of him. He gave a gallant bow to the elastic man.
"I believe the honor is yours," he joked.
Patrick smiled at him. "Thanks, Flasher."
Wally scrunched up his nose, personally offended by the name. While Patrick fell onto the kidnappers he turned and rushed away. His work was done, and the sun was setting.
It was a good day, he figured, zipping back into his apartment.
Until he found that he was not alone.