Ohgod these chapters are just getting longer and longer. Good thing we've only got one left after this, or we might all be dead by the end of it.
Thanks to everyone who read, followed, and favourited this story. Special thanks to OptimusPrimeAddict, Mozart's Fantasy, iFanboy, White Wyrsa, AlexanderxKiba and the anon who left reviews.
iFanboy: Oh flip, sorry mate. Bit of a writing error there, guys. I'll make sure to correct it when I go back and edit. D: Thanks for telling me!
White Wyrsa: Thank you tons for leaving that review. I know there are things wrong with this story, and I hope that I can improve it at a later date, like you said. I always like a little bit of constructive crit. :)
Chapter Twelve
The first thing Wally saw when opening his eyes was a blindingly white ceiling, which was strange, because the last place he remembered being definitely did not have a roof. The ceiling didn't look familiar to Wally, but then again, many ceilings don't he thought.
Listening for anything was also equally useless, as, wherever he was, quietness ruled.
At least I have a bed this time. After sleeping on cold, hard tiles for months, a simple mattress felt like a luxury.
The brightness of the ceiling was really starting to annoy him; Wally had spent years, perhaps, in that little prison underground. The last thing he wanted to see was plain walls, and ceilings, and artificial light. But rolling over onto his side was somehow impossible, and trying to move at all made him grit his teeth in pain anyway.
Just his luck to be injured again. These days it seemed like constant troubles followed Wally wherever he went. He lay in the bed for a few minutes more, feeling unabashedly sorry for himself, before his bed began to lift itself up.
He didn't feel like opening his eyes, but the itching sense of curiosity forced him to, and he therefore found himself propped up and facing the stooping figure of Superman, who looked extremely tired. The Man of Steel was saying something, but all Wally could hear was a faint buzzing.
And that was when Wally remembered that his life wasn't an action movie, and as cool as his powers were, they couldn't protect him from the consequences of an explosion. He just prayed that his hearing would return sooner rather than never.
Sitting up in the bed allowed him to look around. He instantly realized that he was currently staying in the medical ward of the Watchtower, and he wasn't alone. On his left and right slept Hawkgirl and J'onn, who looked worn down, but relatively okay. Further along the row, next to J'onn, were Wonder Woman and GL, the latter of whom was awake and nodding at whatever Superman was saying.
His body was still tingling with pain, and looking down at himself confirmed his suspicions of being burnt during the explosion. It wasn't too bad; his skin was simply pinkish and raw in certain places, most likely from the flaming pieces of debris that had been catapulted into the sky. He was pleased to see that his injured arm and leg had been freshly washed and bandaged, despite both limbs being healed already.
Wally would've preferred to have returned to sleep at that point, there being nothing he could do right now, but sitting up in the bed rendered this impossible.
Superman came closer to Wally's bedside, his conversation with GL apparently finished. The Kryptonian pointed at his own ears, which sat beneath very straggly-looking hair, and then pointed at Wally with a questioning look.
Wally shook his head sadly.
Superman nodded gravely, than mimed 'sleep?', and Wally nodded. The bed was lowered again.
When he woke up next, his hearing was considerably better, probably due to his quick-healing factor more than anything else. The uncomfortable tingling was almost gone, and he found that moving slightly caused no pain whatsoever. He was being held down with straps, and with the pain now dulled, it didn't take long to easily break free.
Wonder Woman and J'onn were still sleeping, but GL and Hawkgirl's beds were bare, and there was no one else in the ward.
When Wally stood up, the icy-cold floor alerted him to the fact that he had nothing on his feet. Wearing the typical hospital clothing whilst wandering around the Watchtower didn't feel like a good idea, so he snooped around for anything to wear. Luckily, someone happened to have left a tidy pile of clothes on a chair at the end of his bed, so he swiftly put them on and enjoyed the fact that he could wear something normal for the first time in months.
The fact that he didn't have to immediately put the Flash suit back on was the best news he had heard for a while, although not completely unexpected. He was not sure when he wanted to resume duty, or if he wanted to at all. He walked to the door in no haste, mulling things over.
There was no one in the corridor outside the medical ward either. The Watchtower was far too big for just seven people; the rooms echoed hollowly, and the whole place just felt lonely. That was exactly how Wally felt now, as he wandered slowly.
He'd slept for hours, but his body was still feeling tired. This is gonna call for one long holiday he thought to himself, and almost didn't want it to be true, because being alone on some remote beach in Spain would be worse than resuming duty immediately.
His feet seemed to have led him to the control room, and just looking at the door was awakening some sort of deep pang of familiarity in him. The past few months had just been one long nightmare.
When the metallic doors slid open with a fwoosh and a clink, the figure inside the room swiveled around in the chair in which he was sitting, as if he were expecting Wally (which he probably had been, Wally reminded himself whilst looking at the screens).
"Flash." Batman said, and then he stood and smiled.
As if this day could get any more surreal.
"Bats." Wally replied awkwardly. It didn't feel right with him being in normal clothing, and Batman wearing his full uniform. The tension in the room was mounting, although it shouldn't have been, and somebody had better say something soon before the whole situation was labeled a disaster.
"There you are!" Came a voice from behind. Hawkgirl enveloped Wally in a crushing hug from behind, as Batman sat back down and resumed work.
She turned him around and cradled his face in her hands, eyes shining slightly, before pressing their foreheads together and laughing for no reason other than because she could.
She was back in her suit already, but Wally expected nothing less of her. She would always be his big feisty sister, valuing everyone else's safety above her own comfort.
"Want a coffee or something?" She asked after drawing back, and he nodded in affirmation. Hawkgirl glanced past Wally, obviously looking at Batman, "Do you want anything, either?"
Batman didn't even look up, but answered 'no' and then after a second or two, added 'thanks' to match her politeness. If they were all planning on still working with one another after this, they would definitely need to have a few days of team-building skills, Wally thought.
Hawkgirl motioned to the door with her arm, "Coming?" He wanted to reply 'yes', but he needed to talk with Batman, if only just for a minute.
"In a little while. But I won't be too long."
She casted a knowing glance between Batman and himself, and then turned and strolled out of the room, wings looking haggard from behind. Wally let out a breath with the clinking of the door as it closed
"Soo," He swiveled to face Batman, who still stubbornly stayed looking at the screens, "How are you?"
"I'm fine. How are you?" He replied stoically, still absorbed in his work.
"This isn't facebook, Bats. Lets have a proper conversation." Wally said, exasperated, and walked towards the other man hopefully looking more confident than he felt.
"About what?" Came the reply, and this time it was accompanied with Batman turning in his chair to face him.
"About…how you didn't get blown into dog food yesterday. Or whenever the hell the explosion thing happened."
"Two days ago."
"Yeah. Then."
Batman crossed his arms and leant back into the comfortable-looking black chair.
"Someone saved me." He admitted, breaking eye contact and looking instead at the incredibly interesting wall behind Wally's head.
"Who?" He asked, confused. Superman had been carrying him, and the others had been unconscious and presumably miles away by that point.
"Aquaman." Batman mumbled, and he sounded kind of ashamed. Wally laughed for a little while just to rub it in, and then finally spoke,
"How…how did that even…"
"It just did."
"Is it 'cause he has magical water powers and stuff?"
"…Yes."
"How did Aquaman know what was happening?"
"Superman apparently got worried when we didn't appear. He called for back up. Green Arrow was there as well, and some others. Even if they're not part of the league, we still have contact with them."
Wally leant on the control board for a little while, thinking things over. Aquaman had never been a part of the League. They'd asked, but he'd refused, and he had his own kingdom to rule, after all. So the seven of them had just started the League by themselves. But now, things were different. A new superhero would pop up every week, out of nowhere it seemed, and the Watchtower had so much room…
"Hey Bats, are you thinking of recruiting some more people?" Wally blurted out.
"It was…suggested. By Superman. But we're waiting for you and the other members to recover your health before making any decisions."
"Why wait? You know it's going to happen anyway. That Green Arrow guy, the robot one with all the cool technology, this was always going to happen. I say expand the League. It only means more things get done around here. And imagine what the Christmas parties will be like."
Batman slowly nodded in agreement, and smiled up at Wally.
"You know, that's the second time you've smiled at me today. I think you might need to go to the medical ward yourself. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine, Wally."
"Who-o-oa. How do you know my name?" Wally had nearly fallen off of the panel in surprise.
Batman shrugged "I've know for a while. I hope you realize that there's a file for each Justice League member on the computer."
"Wait…so you've stalked us all?"
"I prefer to call it actually doing my job."
"Ohh. Low blow right there," Wally grinned, "I better go anyway. Hawkgirl-"
"-Shayera-"
"-What? Stop it! Hawkgirl, is gonna wonder where I am."
Batman smiled and turned back towards the computer as Wally walked to the door. Just when he was about the exit the room, he remembered something, and turned around again, "By the way, Bats, I'm thinking of just going back to my flat for a little while. I might stay there for a few days; I just need to see the outside world again. "
Batman, who had swiveled back around at the first syllable, nodded in understanding, and there was something soft in his eyes that, by all Batman-logic, shouldn't have been there. It made Wally feel slightly awkward, and so he nodded at nothing and left to find Hawkgirl.
One coffee in the Watchtower had quickly, but happily, turned into several coffees, a canteen sized jar of nutella, and a not-unwelcome game of Twister. Wally had called it a day after nearly breaking his neck for the fourth time, and had left GL and Hawkgirl playing by themselves.
With both of them being as competitive as they were, Wally reasoned that they probably hadn't even noticed that he had gone.
It was six in the evening when Wally finally reached his flat in Keystone. Luckily, it was still relatively bright, or else Wally might have simply camped out at the Watchtower all evening. He wasn't afraid of being outside, but rather, afraid of who might be lurking in the darkness. There had been no trace of Clayface, or any of the rogues, and it didn't take a genius to guess that they were busy either hiding themselves, or planning for another batch of trouble.
It was only when Wally was halfway up the dilapidated stairway to his apartment that he realized he didn't have or know where his key was, and that it had probably been in the set of his own clothes he had worn last, months ago. He had just begun to wonder and plan how he was going to break into his apartment, when he finally reached the door and realized that all plans were now unneeded.
It was hanging off of its hinges, slanted, and allowed Wally to see straight into his rather trashed-looking apartment.
He pushed gently at the door with a shaking hand; it swung open with a high-pitched squeak and a crash as it fell to the litter-strewn floor.
As he gazed around at the remainder of what had once been a fairly decent flat, a thought struck him. Had this been a final 'fuck you' from the rogues?
In a neighborhood such as Wally's, break-ins were common and overlooked. It could easily have been a group of teenagers looking for a quick thrill, or a thief who had observed that the apartment had been unlived in for a while. Even so, "Rick" had known Wally's identity. And if Rick had been Clayface…
Was his identity now common knowledge in the criminal world?!
It was something that should've been panicked over, but Wally was simply too tired to really care at this point. The rogues wouldn't expect him to take a quick sleep in a destroyed apartment, so that was exactly what he would do.
When Bruce had walked in on a very intense looking game of Twister, his entrance scaring all those involved into falling over, it had almost been amusing. Hawkgirl's face had turned pink with exertion, and also perhaps with the fact that she was entwined with Green Lantern. Bruce wasn't an idiot; he'd seen how they'd acted around each other lately, especially after what had happened in the last few months.
Diana, J'onn and Superman had been sitting on a couch nearby, watching the game with amusement. Diana and J'onn looked better than they had a few hours before, although they still looked exhausted.
"Ah! Batman!" Hawkgirl said from underneath GL's back, laughing slightly as she tried to extract herself, "I thought we could talk for a moment!"
Batman didn't know why. Hawkgirl had always resented him as far as he could tell. She finally managed to squeeze herself from under the dead weight of a sprawled and laughing GL, and proceeded to stand up on wobbly legs.
"What about?" Batman asked, confused. He'd come in here for caffeine, and without it, he could feel himself becoming unfocused.
"Let's step out into the corridor, yeah?" Hawkgirl replied, grabbing him by a Kevlar-covered arm and pulling him to the door.
When they were alone and secluded away from the others, she turned to him with a smile.
"What did you and Wally talk about earlier?" She quizzed him, an arched eyebrow rising slowly.
"What?" Batman asked dumbly, because whatever he had expected her to say, this had not been it.
"You two! Are you…you know…?" She left the ending of the sentence open, as if waiting for him to finish it. Batman just stared at her in bewilderment. Slowly, her grin faded.
"Wait, you don't know? I thought you knew." She was looking at him expectantly.
"Hawkgirl, I really don't know what you're talking about."
"You and Wally! I thought you guys were…well…together? At least, I thought that's why he wanted to talk to you in private earlier…" She trailed again, and this time, he understood.
"Wally…likes me?" He asked, unsure how to react, and slightly scared of the bubbling feeling in his stomach.
"Yes! Well, I mean, no…Well, you'll have to ask him."
He stared at her.
"Oh just talk to him when you next see him." She muttered, and stalked away, feathers ruffled.
The area of Keystone in which Wally lived was frankly awful by Bruce's standards. The paint on the houses was peeled and smudged with years of dirt, and the streets were meadows of litter. The apartment building in which Wally lived wasn't any different. The paint peeled, the pavement outside was littered, and the whole place just felt wrong.
When Bruce reached the floor on which Wally's apartment was listed as being, he was faced with a door that looked rather like it had been leant up against the frame instead of attached. When he lifted it and moved it to the side, he was again bombarded by the image of garbage and dirt, which had quickly become tiresome to him.
The room looked like it had been trashed; various things were broken and ruined, and the whole place seemed uncared for. Bruce had, at first, not seen Wally, but it hadn't taken long to spot the bright red hair poking up from the couch in the middle of the room.
As Bruce walked over, avoiding the majority of the rubbish on the floor, Wally visibly stirred. When Bruce leant over him to see whether he was still awake, Wally awoke with a jump and a slight yelp. He stared up at Bruce with huge eyes, and looked so petrified that it took Bruce all he could do to not laugh.
"W-whuh are you doing here…Mr. Wayne?" Wally asked, trying to sit up and make himself presentable. Bruce realized that Wally didn't even know who he was, he hadn't told the speedster his identity yet. Wally had just woken up to see the famous Bruce Wayne leaning over him as he slept on a wrecked couch. "Wally, it's me." And Wally eyes squinted in confusion at first, before they widened into surprise as he recognized Bruce's voice.
"Wait…you're Bruce Wayne? Batman is Bruce Wayne?! Why the hell has no one guessed this before? It's so obvious!"
"So obvious that you didn't know until just now."
"Yeah, well, whatever." He replied excitedly, raising himself to his knees on the couch.
Bruce looked around at the flat, not to observe it again, but to just create an opening for his question, "Do you need to…stay somewhere else?"
Wally paused in his frantic bouncing on the sofa and replied somewhat-soberly, "Well I was gonna pack some things and go to the Watchtower when I woke up, so…"
He didn't finish the sentence, and the room grew quiet and slightly awkward with the absence of any conversation.
"That's…good." Bruce replied for the sake of saying something, and Wally nodded before asking, not impolitely,
"Why are you here?"
Bruce looked down at his feet, and was thrown off by the mess underneath them, so he looked up again.
"Well…Hawkgirl told me…"
"Told you what?" Wally asked quizzically, and he looked so innocent in that moment, that Bruce couldn't help himself.
Because the speedster was kneeling on the couch, Bruce wasn't required to stoop as much, but he still bowed his neck as he leant forwards and brushed his lips to Wally's.
I'm sorry, I think I actually just cockblocked everyone reading this.
