Author's Note: Alrighty beautiful readers, here's the next chapter! It's dedicated to 19-1037992 for having the best penname this round. Read, review, and enjoy!
Responses to Guest Reviews:
Kermit – I'm going to be completely honest here. Plastic Man was not supposed to be a recurring character. He was supposed to show up for that one scene just to be a plot device but I adored writing him so much that it came to this. Cameron too. Cameron was supposed to be not even remotely in the fic and now he's become a regular character. What has this fic come to? Thanks for the review!
Dossypet – When am I not setting Wally up for a world of hurt? Also, your description of Wally as a 'dumb smol boi' was so, so accurate. Thanks for the review!
SpoonGoon – Intense music whilst doing/reading/watching intense things is definitely awesome. Haha, your high school sounds interesting. And I totally know what you mean by a huge campus (my school has two campuses and it's actually horrible trying to get around from class to class especially at the beginning). I really hope that you end up loving your high school years and I hope that you make a ton of friends and all that! I'm still stuck in high school personally (I say stuck, but I actually love every moment of it :P). Thanks for the amazing review!
Button – Haha, your reaction to my comments on your fanart is exactly my reaction to every review I ever get. I'll get that up as the cover as soon as possible! Thank you so much again for the fanart and the review!
HHHHHH
Hartley grumbled quietly as he walked, "I don't see why you had me and James doing this. What happened to working on our school work? Anything about the fact that we have midterms next week and you think we should study ring a bell? And don't give me that 'you'll fit in better' bull that you spewed earlier. We are actually the only children in this entire building." James giggled next to him. The passing goon gave them a strange look.
A voice came from Hartley's hip, "You're the best improv person we've got. You're also the least recognizable." It was Sam responding from the mirror he was looking through. It was secured into Hartley's belt to the point that it looked like it fit with the rest of the outfit. It was almost impossible to see Sam's face peering out of it.
Hartley hissed at him, "Then why is Trickster the one you decided to send with me? He might be one of the newest Rogues, but I'm pretty sure that everyone can identify that actual mess of a suit."
"You're small and can run faster according to Mark." Sam added drily.
Hartley simply pinched his nose in response. He and James continued their trek down the hallways. They were in the residential area of the Light's headquarters. This was their way of trying to find something to help them identify the mole. At first, they'd just tried out their connections, feeling around to see if anyone had a clue, but there was nothing. As a week passed and then another, the Rogues noticed that the Light was getting increasingly busier and more hectic. A lot of missions were grounding to a halt as people were recalled and a lot of new missions were being set forth with the recalled people. The big battle was coming soon and the little league needed to know who the mole was before that point. If they didn't… Hartley wasn't sure what would happen. There was a good chance that the League wouldn't win.
"What am I even looking for?" Hartley sighed.
Sam responded, "Len says that you're looking for one of the little leaguers or a sign of their presence. Their name on a document, someone talking about them, one of their weapons left behind. Something like that. That's what I said, Len! Okay, sorry! I didn't use exactly the same words that you did. Why? I didn't need to! That's why! Stop yelling at me!"
Hartley sighed and rolled his eyes. He was honestly the most mature member of this entire team. Everyone else was a complete moron.
Before Hartley could tell the two to shut up already, he heard someone say the name Wally. Eyes widening, Hartley moved silently towards a wall. He motioned Trickster to keep moving forward with his walking teddy bear beside him so the person who said Wally's name would believe that whomever was walking by had already completely left. Hartley would meet up with Trickster as soon as he figured out why this guy said Wally's name. He peered around the corner and narrowed his eyes at the vision in front of him.
The man was wearing an… interesting outfit. The suit was bright red and long sleeved, but his chest was exposed by a slit that went all the way down to his black and gold belt and was just barely held together by some sparse lacing. His shorts were the definition of short-shorts. There were huge white glasses with black lenses on his tan face, winking out at the hallway under wavy black hair. It was definitely a unique wardrobe choice for a villain. Hartley was listening to the red-garbed man's side of the conversation and could just make out what the voice on the other end of the call was saying. He relayed the conversation quietly to those listening in through the mirror on his belt. The red-garbed man was saying, "- isn't just me that they're not allowing to leave. Wally was a special case in that he couldn't leave even though he joined all that time ago, but now they aren't letting anyone leave the compound unless they're on a mission. People who joined as recently as I did are even still blindfolded and disoriented when we leave. I came in with the last wave of people trying to nab a job with the Light. No one else is allowed since it's so close to the Big Day. Whatever that is."
The other voice said, "Have you gotten a chance to talk to Wally alone?"
Red-garbed Man responded with a sigh, "Are you kidding me? You heard what they're doing to the poor kid. The little ginger's being run through the gauntlet. Between training, missions, and the lab, the kid's barely getting enough time to eat and sleep. Those scientists must be pretty stupid too since they seemingly aren't able to see the giant bags under his eyes or the way his suit hangs off him just a little bit. Even his trainer, Cheshire, is starting to get worried about him. According to some of the other guys around here, she had been forcibly removed from the lab one day because she went to go yell at them after Wally went to sleep. There's literally zero chance for me to talk to him."
The other voice sighed, "We'll deal with that eventually. Do you know what the scientists are doing to him?"
"You don't understand how hard it is to figure that out, man. I mean, it took me forever. Most people didn't even know Wally was being sent to the lab. Then all I got was that they were doing experiments on metahumans for some metahuman thing. Someone mentioned that it was Luthor's project, but the rest of the head team were all invested in the project for some reason or another. At that point, I gave up trying to see if anyone knew a thing about it because it was obvious that the people who I'm expected to interact with don't have a clue. So I did some super sleuthing with my super skills and I listened in on one of the conversations in the labs. Apparently they've been injecting Wally with some substance twice a week. From what I gathered… I'm not sure how accurate this is, but from what I gathered, now that they've built up enough of the stuff in Wally's system, the scientists are able to shut his powers off."
Hartley almost fell back in shock. He actually had to take a moment to compose himself before he could relay the rest of that statement to his team. That was… to be able to shut off a meta's power like that. How did they do that? Why did they want that? Thankfully, it seemed like whomever was on the other side of the phone call was just as shocked as Hartley was because he was silent for a good few moments. It was enough for Hartley to recover so he could start relaying the conversation again once it started up.
The other voice sounded strangled when he spoke, "What… how… Wally is in incredible danger. Think about the missions they send him on. If his powers were cut off during that time..."
"Yeah, I get it." Red-garbed Man responded, "I'll work on getting him alone to have a conversation with him. So, any news for me?"
"There's nothing much to report. I mean, Robin's apparently got some sort of informant who's getting him information about the Light. That's where the Team is getting most of their missions. No one can figure out who it is. Robin won't say who the informant is. Could you try to look around and see if you can figure out who the snitch is?" The other voice asked.
Red-garbed Man's eyebrows rose, "You saying there's someone grassing on the Light and they don't know about it yet?"
"This the first time you hear about a snitch?" The other questioned. Red-garbed Man answered in the affirmative and the other voice responded, "Then yeah, there's someone informing on the Light and they don't know about it yet. I'm sure you'll handle that situation, though."
Hartley's mouth parted in surprise. No way. Was this the mole? Was that seriously the mole talking on the other side of that phone? He just needed to wait and listen and see if someone used names and then they'd have it. This was what they'd been waiting for!
Red-garbed Man nodded and glanced around before lowering his voice slightly, "And you're sure my girl is looked after? She's getting the money I'm wiring through to her and no one's messing with her, right?"
The other voice was soothing when it responded, "Of course, Plastic Man. I told you that I'd watch out for her as long as you did this." Hartley shook his head. The things people were willing to go to in order to help those they loved. He could tell that whomever it was on the phone was convincing this Plastic Man that his girlfriend would be looked after and treated right after the Light took over as long as Plastic Man helped pass on information about the Team. Hartley couldn't even fault Plastic Man because the villain was just trying to do the best he could for the one he loved. Hartley definitely blamed whomever it was on the other side of the phone, though. They were the kind of scum who would betray their own and manipulate someone into doing it with them. Hartley hoped the Justice League was merciless with the mole.
"Thanks man. I owe you." Plastic Man sighed out in relief.
The other voice was tired, but still pleased when it responded, "Nah, you're doing enough as it is. I couldn't possibly ask more."
Plastic Man laughed, "Just as selfless as ever, Flash."
Hartley's whole world crumbled around him. He barely heard the other voice – Flash! – laugh back, "What can I say? You could hardly expect anything less from Central City's friendly speedster. I've gotta go. The League's having a meeting. Keep up the good work, Plastic Man. I'll call in with more info when the meeting's done."
"Alright, stay safe man." Plastic Man responded, shutting the phone and glancing around the hallway again before setting off in the direction opposite the one Hartley was standing.
Sam's voice cut through the fog that had settled over Hartley's mind, "I'm sorry… did you just say Flash? As in Flasher? As in our hero? Our mortal enemy speedster?"
"Yeah." Hartley croaked, eyes wide and mouth practically permanently stuck open at this point.
Sam's voice sounded just as wrecked as Hartley's, "I'm not going to bother repeating most of what the others just said because it was basically just a lot of cursing and yelling out for revenge. Jesus. Who would have thought that Flash was the mole this whole time? According to Len, worse than the fact that Flasher is the mole is the fact that now Flash has informed the Light about us being a mole for the other side."
"They don't know that it's us yet." Hartley protested although the idea immediately made him shrink into himself, eyes growing more watchful as the shock passed and cold reality settled in.
"Digger says that they will know if you don't get out of there soon. You've gotten what you came for. Find Trickster and get out." Sam reported.
Hartley nodded, "Will do."
He immediately started off towards where James had wandered off. Trickster had finally started taking his medicine again so Hartley didn't have to worry about him getting really distracted and blowing the mission by wandering into the cafeteria or anything. Trickster knew to stay away from highly populated places and to keep going slowly straight until Hartley could catch up with him.
It didn't take the Pied Piper long to find his multicolored teammate, but he still wished that he'd have found him earlier. There was a man looming over Trickster's slim form. He had unruly brown hair that had been wrestled into some vestige of control and a thick brown mustache crawling across his upper lip. There were wrinkles along his forehead and under his smug brown eyes. Hartley walked up next to James before the huge man could say anything. He rested a hand on his pseudo brother's shoulder and glared at the man in front of him, "Can we help you?"
The man smirked, the expression in his mud brown eyes twisting into something darker, "You one of the new metahumans running around?"
Hartley narrowed his eyes, "We're not metahumans."
The man's expression didn't change except to maybe become a little bit more mocking, "Too bad. I thought you might have actually been able to contribute something to this organization."
"Excuse you?" Hartley asked, "We don't need some powers to be useful. I could take you down without even touching you and I don't need any powers to do it. You're just some two-bit lackey who's too stupid to realize who you're talking to, though, so I'll forgive your insolence this time."
The man straightened, expression tightening and eyes churning in anger, "Who the fu-,"
Another voice interrupted their argument, "I think the real question we should be asking is what all of you are doing here? This is the residential area. It's off-limits to everyone who doesn't live here. And yeah, West, I know that you live here and help out the scientists, but you've got different quarters because sometimes we don't like seeing scientists running around right when we come back from missions. Some of us aren't big fans of scientists." Hartley glanced over and saw Icicle Jr. standing there with a decidedly unimpressed expression on his face.
The man, West apparently, slouched back down again and leveled a sneer at Icicle Jr., "Yeah, whatever. Just make sure to get these kids out of here too."
"As long as you make sure to not come back here again." Icicle Jr. remarked, eyes frozen the same way Len's were sometimes. West scoffed and backed off, going down a side hallway that Hartley hadn't noticed before.
Icicle Jr. gestured back towards the way Hartley and James had come from, "Come on. Let's get you out of here before you're caught."
"Does this not count as getting caught?" Hartley asked cautiously.
Icicle Jr. snorted, "Not even close. The Light would probably have you and your team killed if you were caught in here. I may not be incredibly high on the food chain around here, but I'm high enough to know that you Rogues made a deal with the Light that you'd get to see Momentum once their main plan was out of the way. What if you'd run into him here? Because, news flash, he lives here now. The Light would not have been pleased if you went back on your deal. Luckily he's out on a mission right now otherwise you would have been screwed."
"Why are you helping us, then, instead of getting us in trouble? You could be just as screwed if the Light finds out that you knew we were in here and you didn't tell them." Hartley asked. It wasn't that he was ungrateful. He was just curious.
He got a shrug in return before the ice-themed teenage villain responded, "Momentum would be upset if you guys were, like, killed or something. He's stressed enough as it is."
Hartley licked his suddenly dry lips, "Does he talk about us a lot? I mean, does he mention us at all?"
Icicle Jr. gave Hartley and James an inscrutable look before going back to looking at the hallway in front of them, "At first, he barely mentioned you. If you ever did come up, he'd just get all sad and mopey. But once he realized that the Light lied to him about the reason why you guys weren't there the day they split the world, he started talking about you guys more. I think he really misses you. He's looking forward to when you guys complete your mission and are able to talk to him."
Hartley didn't have a response for that, so he just sucked in a breath and kept walking. His head was spinning from everything he'd learned in the time he'd been there. How did all of this happen? How did everything fall to pieces like this in a matter of months?
James's voice pulled Hartley out of his thoughts, "Who was that guy in the hallway?" Hartley remembered the brown haired, brown eyed jerk with the mustache and curled his lip in derisively.
Icicle Jr.'s rolled eyes indicated that he didn't think much of the man either, "That's one of Luthor's goons. No one's really sure what he does. We all know it's something to do with the scientists, but beyond that we've got nothing. His name's Rudolph West. He's a real piece of work. Word is he hates metahumans – something about his brother or his kid or whatever ending up as one or something like that. I don't know. He always leers at us metas; it feels like he's contemplating ways to kill us when he looks at us like that. And he's always disappointed when he finds out someone's not a meta because he can't imagine creative ways of killing you. The man's a psychopath. Don't worry, though. I've made sure that Momentum and West don't cross paths. I don't want Wally anywhere near that creep."
There went all of Hartley's air again. He's had too many sucker punches that night. Icicle Jr. might not have made the connection, but Hartley did. How many Wests were there running around? Well, honestly, there were probably a lot. How many Wests with Wally's eye shape and Wally's unruly hair were running around? How many Wests with a hatred for metahumans because one of their family members became one were running around? How many were with a group of scientists? Wally had never told the Rogues his parents' names. He'd probably never considered there to be a need to because he thought they were well and truly out of his life. But despite not knowing Wally's father's name, Hartley somehow knew that the Rudolph West he just faced in the hallway was his pseudo brother's father. And that, honestly, was the last thing Wally needed.
Shaking his head to clear it of the thoughts, Hartley realized that Icicle Jr. had just started talking, "Hey, so… you've got a metahuman on your team, right? That Weather Wizard guy?"
"Yeah…" Hartley said, not at all sure how this conversation was going.
Icicle Jr. scraped his foot along the ground. Hartley just noticed that it was bare and that the blue villain was wearing pajamas. He felt a sudden flash of guilt for making Icicle Jr. deal with all of this while he was supposed to be sleeping. Icicle Jr. spoke up finally, "And he's treated the same as the rest of you?"
Hartley tilted his head, "You mean the same rules that apply to the rest of the group apply to him? Yeah, sure. The usual rules about how to conduct business apply: make sure that he tells someone when he's going on a heist, don't run off a competitor until Captain Cold's approved it, make sure someone's available to get to your location when you're running a job so you've got backup. The house rules all apply: he gets to request a certain hour of the TV for his favorite TV show once a week, he has to do at least one cleaning activity a week, he has to be not drunk during the days so he can pick us kids up from school if he needs to without getting us thrown into child protective services. The same rules apply to all of us all the time."
"Even the kids? They're still treated the same?" Icicle Jr. asked. It didn't seem like he was asking out of curiosity. There was something dark and so immensely, dangerously, brokenly sad in his eyes. It was like looking at chunks of ice that were so thick that you couldn't see the other side, but you could see the breaks and fractures inside it.
Choosing his words carefully, Hartley said, "Yeah, they're still treated the same. I mean, the adults will look out for us more and they'll still expect us to do our homework and get to bed at a reasonable time and all that, but they still respect our opinions and all that."
Icicle Jr. hummed in consideration, but didn't say anything in response. By that point, the trio had reached the doors. Holding up his silence, Icicle Jr. opened the door and nodded for the Rogues to leave. He'd shut the door behind them before Hartley even got a chance to say goodbye.
It didn't take long after that before they got to a large standing mirror. It wasn't the one they'd used to get into the residential area, so it took Sam a little while to find it, but the two younger Rogues were still back in the nearby safehouse soon after being escorted out of the residential area.
Hartley immediately plopped into the biggest, fluffiest couch in the living room, gratefully accepting the mug of hot chocolate that Mick extended to him. He snuggled into the chair and delicately sipped the hot drink, closing his eyes slightly as he let everything but the comfort he was feeling right at that moment go. After that moment passed, Hartley said, "You guys made the same connection about Rudolph West as I did, right?"
"If you mean that the… monster is Wally's dad, then yeah, we made that connection and then got proof of it too." Mark said, something dark and dangerous written across his face. He nodded his head towards the open computer that showed a stoic family picture of Rudolph and Wally West along with a stern looking redhead who must have been Wally's mother. None of them were smiling.
"As unfortunate as it is that Wally is in the same building as that man, there are other things we have to focus on. Wally has been kept away from his father so far. We can expect that the Light will keep it that way for at least a little bit longer." Len said, frowning uneasily.
"Ya mean the fact that Flasher is the bloody mole." Digger said, eyes alight with anger.
Sam shook his head, "Who would have even guessed? I mean, it didn't seem like any of the little leaguers were even considering that it might be a League member. And the Flash… He's our city's hero! I expected better out of him. I guess I shouldn't bother expecting things like that anymore."
Hartley suggested a little hopelessly, "There could have been a mistake?"
"He gave a member of the Light information that wouldn't have been known by anyone who didn't have direct contact with the little leaguers. He said that Plastic Man would be able to handle it and he asked him to find us. What else are we supposed to think?" Len said. The way his eyebrows curved inwards gently and the way his expression wasn't as severe as it normally would be in a situation like this told Hartley that he was trying to be gentle about this. The Flash was their hero and the idea that he wasn't as heroic as they'd been lead to believe... It should have made them happy to hear that he was actually on the villain side – he was another potential ally – but it was so wrong to think of Flash as anything but the happy go lucky hero of Central City that the idea repulsed them.
Len closed his eyes and sighed, "I guess there's nothing for it. We'll have to tell Robin that we found the mole."
Author's Note: Oh the misfortunes of misunderstandings. Let me know if you see any mistakes or if you have any suggestions! Thanks for reading!
