...
...
...
...
... Ugh.
His head.
What a headache... And it sure wasn't helped when he attempted to crack his eyelids open. Stupid light... He felt around with a heavy hand and managed to hit upon something soft and cushion-y. Definitely a pillow. With an exaggerated groan he grabbed at it with both his hands and stuffed his head under it, being exactly that kid who refused to get out of bed in the morning... It was only after his headache began to subside, and when feeling began to return to the very tips of his toes that wasn't an aching acheyness, that he began to gather any sort of motivation to care for where he was or what had happened. All that mattered for the first moments of his consciousness was that he was on a bed, and it was comfy...
...
... Okay. Probably time to get some kind of bearing or something. Grumpily, he shoved the pillow off from over his head and turned over on to his side, squinting his eyes open... When the flood of light, natural sunlight, he noted, had subsided, color and sharpness flushed back into his vision and painted the scene out in front of him. It was... immediately familiar to him. That closet over there, the chest of drawers, that carpet and the color of the walls... He frowned to himself in thought and turned over to his other side, where he was met by a large window veiled by curtains, through a crack between which rays of sunlight streamed through. ... Yeah, he knew this room. It was...
Uncle Barry's apartment.
Made alert by this realization, he sat bolt upright in bed all of a sudden, running his hands over the covers of the bed and looking it over, as though actively confirming his thoughts. This was... definitely...
As if to helpfully cement his hypothesis, the door to the bedroom clicked open and the familiar figure of his Uncle carefully walked through and seemed headed towards the closet... until he noticed Wally was up. At which point he turned and faced him, folding his arms across his chest. Uh-oh...
"Hey, kid. How 'you feeling?"
Wally clenched at the bed covers awkwardly, as of yet unsure as to how much Barry was aware of. He decided to play it... vague, for now, so he could find out.
"Umm... Good. Good! I feel good..."
Barry looked entirely unconvinced, so Wally provided just a teensy bit more.
"Uhh, apart from a headache. Got a... bit of a headache..."
Eheh.
Barry heaved an unsympathetic sigh, reaching into his trouser pocket and fishing out a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it as he talked.
"No wonder about that. So. What were you doing last night, again...?"
He tossed the paper onto the bed, and Wally tentatively picked it up, drawing it towards him and leaning over it as he began to read. Barry added a few more considerations to take into account as he did.
"Found you outside the building at 4 am in the morning, with this taped to your chest."
...
'Dear Whom it May Concern... (you know who you are),
You really need to keep a better eye on the kid. What kind of mentor figure are ya anyway? We were just on a nice, normal, standard night patrol when we came across this one slumped in the gutter outside a downtown bar. He was surrounded by empty bottles of wine and other alcoholic drinks. We don't know what he was up to but, he's getting to that age, ya know. You were lucky we came across him first. He gets a free pass this time, but keep 'im out of trouble!
- C.C , ... (you know who I am) '
...
What.
"He's right, you were lucky they came across you first. But I'm very, very disappointed in you Wally. I want you to know that. A 'long run just outside of town'? You can come tell me what happened when you're ready, once your 'headache' is better, but until then I hope you understand how shocked I am at your behavior. Unbelievable."
Before Wally could even emote properly in his utter confusion, his Uncle briskly departed the room, muttering how if it hadn't come from Leonard he wouldn't have believed it for a second.
...
Ju-...
H-...
...
What.
Wally ran his fingers over the lined paper, reading it over again and again. That was definitely, definitely Captain Cold's manner of speech. The way he'd address Uncle Barry, being mindful of keeping some secrecy but still coming across as amazingly blunt and to the point, slipping into his speaking word even as he wrote... The writing looked like it could be his, too, it certainly suited him with its articulated, yet scratchy style. Leonard Snart definitely knew that his Uncle Barry was The Flash, it all made so much sense. ... But he definitely, definitely wasn't out drinking alcohol last night, so what-...
...
( 'I faked your handwriting, slipped some notes where they live and work. ' )
( 'He'd have gotten your 'note' by now though, your Uncle. Actually, I know he has. Made sure he did.' )
( 'You're so funny.' )
...
... Darn it Izzy!
. - . - .
He'd sighted his Kid Flash costume slung over the back of a nearby chair, and quickly he shifted over to it and grabbed at one of the gaudy red gauntlets, clicking open the primary compartment and looking for his comm device so he could write CAPS LOCK texts to Izzy for making his Uncle think he's a premature drunk. Turns out he'd grabbed the wrong gauntlet, as the comm device wasn't in there... However, something else was. Tipping it out with growing curiosity, he recognized that it was a sleek, black USB flash drive. The moment the drive fell onto his skin, it emitted a brief blue light against his palm, that eventually turned to green before switching off again. ... Huh. He... definitely hadn't had that in there before... ...His green eyes flitted over to the laptop which was oh so helpfully sitting atop the chest of drawers over there.
A quick trip over there and back again, and he was back under the covers with the laptop on his thighs, booting it up and plugging in the memory stick. It took a while for the whole thing to load, and then again for it to even register the external device. Ugh, too slow... ... But then finally he was able to open it up and see just what this drive contained. A folder entitled, 'Wally Visits Gotham City' ... Um, okay... What was in it? ... JPEGs, apparently. A lot of 'em. Enlarging the icons in the menu, he saw that they were... photos?
He opened the first one.
... Okay, a nice shot of him lying splat on the rooftop ground unconscious and apparently having started drooling.
-)
... A nice shot of him lying splat on the rooftop ground unconscious and still drooling, whilst a black gloved hand does the 'Peace' sign in the near corner foreground of the shot.
-)
... Still him unconscious and drooling on the ground, the black gloved hand in the foreground now doing a thumbs up, and the photo now featuring a new pair of large, black armor-booted feet that were standing over him on the other side.
Oh.
Oh god.
Was that-.
That...
...
-)
Close up of his red gloved hand being held up in the 'Peace' sign, specifically doing 'bunny ears' over what looked like a two-pointed black cowl thi- oh god yeah it was definitely him.
Oh god.
God.
...
-)
His unconscious body slumped against a big lowered wheel that extended down from a network of thick metal pinions and joints, he could just see the flat black surface of metal plating along the top of the photo. The jet, then.
-) His red gloved hand being made by smaller black-coated fingers to point down into the alley where he had saved Nightwing. The other matching bunch of tiny dark-gloved fingers was doing a thumbs up at the other side of the photo.
-) His hand being made to point up at the large 'W' at the top of the skyscraper they had talked on.
-) His hand being made to thumbs up beside a linear trail of yellow and red graffiti paint on a residential building's wall.
-) His hand being made to hi-five Nightwing's in front of a company tower, you can just make out the top of Izzy's black hair.
-) His body sitting in a limp slouch on a wooden bench, propped up only by Nightwing's visible side next to him along the edge of the photo. Izzy's arm is slung around his shoulders and the hand of it is pinching his cheek, pulling it into a funny face.
-) Him lying 'languidly' across the branch of a planted tree. Izzy's hand is pointing at him.
-) Him sitting slumped atop a mountain of garbage at the dumping site, as though he were its king.
-) Him pointing at ships at the dock.
-) Knocking on the door to an abandoned warehouse.
-) Sitting under a sign advertising a Steel Mill company.
-) Slung over a carved stone grotesque on the corner heights of an older building.
-) A large, spiked black gauntlet.
-) A shot largely obscured by a long black cape.
-) Someone's arm.
-) Black hair.
-) Masked eye.
-) Masked eye with his own ginger hair somewhere in the background.
-) Blurry version of previous photo.
-) Weirded out/terrified mobster.
-) Weirded out/terrified civilian.
-) Weirded out/terrified Mayor of Gotham City.
-) Weirdly not terrified Enigma with an arm around his unconscious body and giving the camera a cheery thumbs up.
-) Same photo except with a small black-gloved thumbs up now at the side in the foreground.
...
(- Weirdly not terrified Enigma with an arm around his unconscious body and giving the camera a cheery thumbs up.
...
...
-) Same photo except with a small black-gloved thumbs up now at the side in the foreground.
...
-) Weirded out/terrified policewoman.
-) Weirded out/terrified security guard.
-) A building.
-) Another building.
-) A dog.
-) A neon light fixture.
-) The dog again.
-) A sign containing a punctuation error.
-) Zoom in of where the sign made a punctuation error.
-) Upside down shot of Gotham at night.
-) The wheel of their jet again.
-) View of Gotham's skyline at night outside a slanted glass window.
-) Large spiked gauntlet hand holding an aircraft side-stick
-) Wally's unconscious body lying in a corner.
-) A strawberry milkshake sitting in a cup-holder.
-) Toy Story playing on a screen on the dashboard.
-) The Mid-west countryside at night outside a slanted glass window.
-) Photo of the forged letter from Captain Cold... with a small black-gloved thumbs up.
-) Wally's body slumped outside Barry's apartment building, with a once again cut-off Izzy standing over him in the corner and giving a visible 'Peace' sign to the camera.
-) Same photo except Izzy's making it look like Wally's picking his nose.
-) Further back shot of Wally sitting just by the building's door.
...
...
And that was the last of them.
Wally slumped back in his chair, absolutely stunned beyond words or comprehension... ...
... Huh...
He looked back over his shoulder to make sure Barry hadn't snuck into the room, before selecting the whole folder and attempting to drag it over into My Pictures. ... ... It... didn't want to drag over there, for some reason. Copy and Paste? ... Uhh, Cut and Paste? ... Um, individually? ... Ahahah! Print Screen! ... Wait why wasn't the Print Screen button working. Why were the photos all suddenly disappearing within the file. Hey, hey! ... ... An empty folder? What the-... Well, it had to still be on the memory stick, right?
He took it out of its slot and stared at it, only to hiss in momentary pain as something burned hot and fizzled from within the device. A spark emitted from it as he dropped it to the floor, and a small trail of smoke wheezed out from its casing...
Aw man~.
... He could have at least bragged about the Enigma one later...
Scratching at the back of his head, he gave a tired chuckle and shrugged his shoulders. Oh well, it wasn't like he'd be forgetting those any time soon. He guessed it was intended to be kept in mind only... Well, that he could do... Somewhat amused as well as creeped out, as ever, he reckoned this only made more things he needed to contact Izzy about. Shutting down the computer, he put it back on the chest of drawers and clambered back onto the bed, tucking the busted memory stick back in the gauntlet he had taken it from, before checking the primary compartment of the other one. Not only was there his comm device, but... something else again.
A folded up, printed out photograph...
Having taken up the comm device in one hand, he quietly set it down again at his side, taking both his hands to the folded photo and opening it up. It was a portrait photo, as large as a page to your average A5 book. Wally drew back at first in surprise, but then a bright, beaming grin quickly spread across his face.
It was a photo of that 'giant lightning bolt' he had used the last of his graffiti on, painted all down the side of that building...
His expression softened into a genuine smile, and he folded the picture back up again and stuffed it back into the gauntlet compartment for now. Once he'd told Barry the truth about everything, all of this, which was bound to come up the moment Mr. Len expressed a significant quantity of confusion at any mention of drunken Kid Flashes... He'd want to show him that. Maybe then it could go on the fridge or something... Hahah.
Finally, he picked up the comm again and checked for any recent messages.
(2) New Messages, apparently.
'That was fun. - ѵ'
...
'You should come again sometime. - ѵ '
... ...
'dude what the heck? i was so close to /actually/ getting to go on your jet-plane-thing! - KF'
...
...
-bzzt-
'But you /did/ get to go on our jet-plane-thing. - ѵ '
...
'ugghh shut up - KF'
...
'also i dont get it, whatever you gave me shouldve burned out in like, minutes! - KF'
...
-bzzt-
'Yeah we just shot you up again every time you made a noise. - ѵ '
...
'i can hear you laughing over there. - KF '
...
-bzzt-
'It was pretty funny. - ѵ '
...
'jerk. - KF'
...
-bzzt-
'Loser. - ѵ '
...
'creep. - KF'
...
-bzzt-
'Sucker. - ѵ '
...
'stupid. - KF'
-bzzt-
'Drunk. - ѵ '
...
...
'darn ur good at this - KF '
...
'I try. - ѵ '
...
'you better give me something awesome for christmas to make up for the jet thing - KF'
...
...
'We'll see. - ѵ '
...
' ;P - ѵ '
...
...
' :D - KF'