Author's Note: So, I'm impressed. A lot of you knew that quote. I barely knew that quote and you guys were like, bam, piece of cake. Beta Ray Bill was the first one to get it, though, so this chapter is dedicated to them! Congrats! Hope you enjoy it! Read, review, and enjoy!
WARNING: So, there's a pretty graphic description of blood at some point in this chapter. It's, like, a paragraph long, so it's not that bad, but if you want to skip it, then skip the paragraph after the sentence, "This must have been awful for him." Just letting you guys know in case blood is what really gets to you.
Responses to Guest Reviews:
Weiver – I remember you! You're the one with your guest name being review backwards! It's certainly been a while. It was not Jason. It was actually Harvey Dent. I didn't get any tattoos. My mom is a definite no on the tattoo thing until I'm an adult, so I've got to wait until then. Thanks for the review!
Guest – You got it! You didn't get it first, but I'm still impressed. If I had seen this challenge before I wrote last chapter, I wouldn't have been able to get it. Thanks for the review!
Arsenal3.14 – That's it! Unfortunately, you didn't get it first, but still, good job! Thanks for the review!
Button – Haha, nope. It was Two Face himself, before he became Two Face. Thanks for the review!
Zatannagurl – It was Harvey! Thanks for the review!
3A07 – Yeah, there's definitely a reason. I hate writing action scenes. Well, hate isn't the right word. I don't have a problem with doing them, I'm just bad at them, so they're hard and that frustrates me while I'm writing which is really not why I write, so I just shorten them instead. Oops. Anyways, that's why I do that. Thanks for the review!
Stranger ways – Haha, you know that you're never actually late until I've posted the next chapter, right? Although, honestly, any time I get a review is on time because reviews are beautiful and feed my soul. Anyways, I can guarantee you that your heart won't be getting a break this chapter, but… sorry? The end is nigh, and happiness will eventually reveal itself! Thanks for the review!
DDDDDD
Dick was enthusiastically engaged in the plan until he heard his phone ding slightly in his pocket. He knew instinctually that it was the burner phone he'd been using to contact Wally. Did that mean? Surely, that had to mean that it was Momentum. There was no one else that knew this number. An ugly voice in the back of his mind said that Momentum could have given the number and the alias to his employers, effectively destroying this identity before it got a chance to even be really used.
No, he couldn't think like that. Wally wouldn't do that to him. Quickly, Dick pulled his phone out and glanced at the message. The number wasn't one he recognized, but he opened it anyways. The Team still had Wally's burner phone, so there was still a chance that Wally hadn't sold him out. When Dick started reading the lines of text, he knew that he was right. This was Wally.
The text itself broke his heart. It was painful how considerate Wally was being in the text. Dick wanted to be mad at him, to accuse him, to hate him for running back to that evil organization, but he couldn't. He especially couldn't when Wally tried to assure him that the Team hadn't done anything wrong in getting him to trust them. Dick hadn't even hinted towards the fact that he was worried about that and Wally knew how to assuage the worries.
But Wally didn't trust them to take out the Light. Why? Why was he so determined that they didn't have a chance of winning? What was it that he knew that they didn't that made him believe that they didn't have a chance? They knew who the mole was. What else was there to know? Heart heavy and mind racing, Dick kept reading.
He didn't believe Wally when the speedster said that he didn't understand loyalty. In Dick's mind, Wally was one of the most loyal people he knew. Sure, Wally left people at the drop of a hat and always had one foot out the door, but that didn't mean that he wasn't loyal. Roy had told Dick that the only thing that got Wally to agree with the criminal informant thing was the knowledge that Wally wouldn't have to get dirt on the Rogues. This was when Wally thought that he'd been abandoned by the Rogues, so that was saying something.
And, from what Dick could tell of the missions that the Team knew Wally had run for the Light, he'd stayed true to their strict code of moral conduct. Wally had never given away Dick's identity to anyone. He was loyal, just… not in the traditional sense. And, honestly, that was what Wally was. He was everything, just not in the traditional sense. It was actually pretty amusing.
What wasn't amusing was the ending. Wally actually told Dick to never contact him again. He stressed the thought and then said goodbye, presumably permanently. He said he was going to miss Dick. Dick wanted more than anything to send a message that said the same thing back. He wanted to be furious at Momentum, but Wally was too sweet and understanding to even pretend to be mad at.
It didn't matter, though. They were going to find him, and they were going to defeat the Light and Wally was going to see that they were trustworthy after all. Wally was just going to have to wait until they tracked him down and got him.
At least, that was his thoughts until he saw Batman shift out of the corner of his eye. His mentor's scowl grew fiercer as he glanced at the computer, quietly clicking away at the keyboard and scowling more. There was something wrong.
Knowing that if Batman wanted to draw attention to it, then he would have already, Dick stayed quiet, drawing himself back into the discussion with half of his attention still on his mentor. For another few moments, Batman's tension increased, but the rest of the room still didn't seem to notice anything.
Finally, Batman looked up and broke over whatever it was that Clark had been saying, "We have a problem."
That certainly got everyone's attention. Green Arrow and Green Lantern dropped their heads and groaned in unison and Diana asked sharply, "What is wrong?"
Batman stared out at the group, "Momentum's tracker has gone offline."
Dick's face paled dramatically, "I thought you said that the only way that could happen was if he lost a lot of blood." Apparently, that hadn't occurred to the rest of the group, because everyone else's faces paled with those words. What happened to Wally? Why was he hurt? Was he dead? What attacked him? What was going on?
Batman swept upwards silently, stalking through the door. The rest of the Justice League and the Team scrambled after him. He carefully inputted a location into the zeta beam and swept into the machine, a drab voice announcing his departure from above. One by one, the rest piled in.
They found themselves in a quiet alleyway between two suburbs in a city that Dick didn't recognize. It looked quiet and sleepy and not at all like the sort of place that should have a veritable small army of superheroes traipsing through it. Batman led them through shortcuts and small forest paths until they reached the back of a quaint little house that was larger and tidier than the rest of the houses on the lane, backyard pristinely mowed, and fence painted a brilliant white.
Carefully, quietly, the group moved towards the house, expressions tense. They reached the backdoor. Batman made a series of complicated hand gestures that only Dick, and the League members got. It was something that Batman never set aside time to teach the Team about. Dick realized that he should probably bring that up at some point because the Team was hovering, confused, in the background. Quickly, Dick nudged at their telepathic link, sending out, He wants us to stay here with a couple of the League members and Plastic Man. The rest of them are going to go through the house. They'll let us know when it's clear.
The Team nodded back to him solemnly. They all knew that there was a good chance that they were going to be finding Wally's dead body in this house. How else could he have lost enough blood to have gotten rid of the trackers in his bloodstream?
It was a tense few moments where the Team sat outside and waited for their mentors to finish the search. Kaldur had one hand on Dick's shoulder and the younger teen relished in the small contact while he could, expression tight with worry and fear. He thought back to the text he'd gotten. Could that have been his last bit of communication with the ginger speedster? Was that the end of their friendship?
Batman looming in the doorway brought Dick out of his depressing contemplation. He blinked wide eyes as Batman motioned them forward. The warning look Batman sent him made Dick's stomach clench into knots. There was definitely something in the house that Batman didn't want him to see. Some of the League members went back outside, joining the others that were already there. There were only so many people who could comfortably fit in this house at once and the League respected that the Team had a vested interest in investigating this. Apparently, Batman, Plastic Man, Red Arrow, and Flash did too, because they were the only adults that came down into the basement with them.
Dick immediately had to crush down the urge to vomit as a strong coppery scent invaded the room. Connor paled and pinched his nose shut, expression tensed. This must have been awful for him.
When Dick finally got past the scent, he took a moment to glance around the room. At least, he tried to. His eyes were immediately stuck on the enormous pool of drying blood on the carpet. From the pattern and spread, it looked as if there had been two epicenters of blood splatter that eventually spread enough to merge together in the center. The thick grey carpet was clogged with the blood, congealed bits stuck on the plush chair that seemed to be in the center of the blood. Some of the blood seemed to have hardened and crusted towards the edges of the pool, while others were jelly-like clumps that wiggled when people took steps forward. There was, of course, large amounts of blood that hadn't had the time to soak into the carpet yet and was simply sitting there in a wet pool around the chair legs.
Breathing harsh and face chalk white under his cowl, Flash stepped forward with shaky legs. He clenched his fists before crouching down and announcing, "The blood all seems to have been released at roughly the same time. I'd say over a five to ten-minute interval. Based on the way the blood goes down the couch and the fact that there seems to have originally been two pools of blood, I'd say… I'd say his… wrists were… slit." Barry swallowed harshly, and Dick thought that he hadn't heard Flash take so long to get words out in a long time. Barry continued, "Assuming he would lose blood at roughly the same speed as I would and, additionally, that he would replace the blood at the roughly the same speed as I would… I think, based on the amount of blood that seems to be here and the fact that there's no body, that he's alive. Theoretically, he could survive this much blood loss. He's going to have a wicked headache and he's going to be exhausted for a couple of days, but I think he'll be fine. He should be able to regenerate the blood fast enough."
Artemis's voice was clogged with horror when she asked, "But why? Why would they do… this? Who even did this?"
Batman's expression was stone when he answered, "My guess is that the same group that was with him when you captured Momentum is the group that did this to him. There are signs around the house and, especially, here in the basement that point towards this being a Light safehouse. They most likely left that evidence here to mock us. As to why they did this… they were likely trying to get rid of the trackers."
Plastic Man shook his head, eyes seemingly glued to the expanse of blood, "How would they know? How could they have possibly known about the tracker? Wally obviously didn't, or he'd have prevented it before he left."
Roy's voice was blank and his expression scarily similar to the one he'd worn when Wally had said 'broken arrow', when Roy answered Plastic Man's question, "Me. It must have been me. Maybe I gave them access to the system and they heard us through our tech. Maybe I put up cameras for them. I don't know. But it had to have been because of me."
"You mean it had to have been because the Light are manipulative monsters." Flash said firmly, finally standing and stepping away from the blood on the floor. Roy's expression twisted, but he didn't say anything.
There was a pause of silence where everyone weighed the situation before Kaldur spoke and said the words that everyone had been trying to avoid saying, "So, we no longer know where Wally is. We cannot find him."
WWWWWW
Wally spent most of the car ride sleeping. When he wasn't sleeping, he'd just silently, drearily, listen to whatever was playing on the radio until it lulled him back to sleep. The splitting headache and the bone-weary tiredness never seemed to lessen while they were driving, but when the car stopped, and Wally was shaken awake, he realized that both had drifted away a little, more like suggestions at the back of his mind than the crushing presence they'd been before.
Still, Wally had to practically lean entirely on Cameron as they made their way from the parking garage to the main conference room where the heads met. Wally had been kind of hoping that everyone would just leave him alone for a day or two and allow him to recover, but apparently, they were doing this whole thing right now. That was okay. Wally could deal. It was going to suck, but he could deal.
Thankfully, someone had thought to set out chairs for the group. Wally practically fell into his, not even caring that the lead council of the Light were already there, watching him pant and struggle to get from the door to the chair. Cameron was a little more graceful, but only because he was forced to move slowly by the pain in his ribs. Sportsmaster and Cheshire sat on either side of the two teenagers, bracketing them.
Luthor opened his mouth to speak, but Savage was faster, growling out, "Idiot boy! How dare you humiliate us this way?"
When Wally did nothing but flounder for an answer, Luthor took back control of the conversation. His expression was regretful and angry, a hint of something bitter that said that he'd lost. He spoke carefully and without true emotion, "Wally. Unfortunately, due to your actions which have proved to be counterproductive to the aims of this organization, we will need to kill you."
By the time he'd finished speaking, Wally had gotten better control of himself. He knew what he needed to do. He lifted his chin and ignored the rest of the council, looking straight at Luthor, "You won't kill me." He heard Savage's angry growl but resisted the urge to flinch away or glance in the immortal's direction.
Luthor raised an interested eyebrow, "And why is that?"
Wally continued carefully, "You won't kill me because your experiment won't work if you do. That whole thing with turning my power off? I bet you think that you successfully turned my powers off until you got them back on earlier today. They didn't turn off all the way. I was still able to think at superspeed. My heartbeat still moved at superspeed. The entirety of my superspeed came back for a couple seconds at one point. Your little experiment didn't work, and I don't think you want to go through this whole process with a new person."
By this point, even Ra's al Ghul was looking interested. Wally could just see him in his peripheral, leaning forward with eager, glittering eyes and a dark expression. It made a chill sweep through him, causing him to clench his fists and put all of his attention back onto Luthor.
The man looked ecstatic. There was something insane about how intrigued and happy he looked, and Wally felt a part of him die at the sight. That was not going to end well for him. Luthor's lips curled up into a cruel smirk, "So, what I'm hearing is that you will go freely to be experimented on if we let you live."
Wally's jaw clenched, and he lifted his head again, "No. What you heard was why you were going to keep me alive. You haven't heard my conditions yet." He heard Sportsmaster snort from off to Icicle Jr.'s side, and Wally glanced over to see Sportsmaster give him a nod of what seemed to be approval.
Cheshire was basically on the other end of the spectrum, faced slightly away from Wally and arms crossed over her chest. There was disapproval lining her shoulders and anger caught in her tensed muscles. Wally didn't know what was wrong with her. Did she want him to be killed? Would that have been preferable to her? Then again, she'd been acting off since Wally had first seen her after getting kidnapped. There was something that was bothering her, but there was a good chance that Wally was never going to figure it out. Maybe someday, but considering the fact that, currently, it looked like the rest of his days were going to be spent getting experimented on, then maybe that someday would never come.
It didn't matter. Cheshire wasn't his priority right now. Right now, he needed to make sure that his conditions were met. Savage had gone silent with rage, veins pulsing and expression quite frankly more terrifying than Wally had ever seen. This group of monsters that stared down at Wally would haunt his nightmares for a long time. They weren't human anymore. There was no part of them that could even pretend to be human and it was terrifying.
Luthor finally spoke again, tone amused and indulgent, like a parent talking to their slightly spoiled child, "And what would those conditions be?"
Wally listed off his first one immediately, without any hesitation, "Icicle Jr. does not get hurt by you. I get to see him, even if it's through a glass or whatever, every other day. If he is hurt one of those days and it was by you, I'll kill myself." There was a sharp intake of breath from Cheshire, but she didn't say anything. Cameron was sitting with his head held high, ready for the occasion.
"I believe that can be granted. There will, of course, be times that Icicle Jr. is injured on missions. Do you intend to… kill yourself… if that happens?" Luthor practically purred. He wasn't taking this seriously. He would comply with Wally's demands only because he thought that there was no harm that could come from it, because it amused him to watch Wally dance on his strings. It made Wally sick to his stomach. For the moment, though, he'd have to play along. Someday, he was going to surprise Luthor. He was going to knock that smug grin off his face and he was going to laugh.
Today, unfortunately, was not the day. Luthor was still infuriatingly condescending when he asked, "And will there be any other conditions?"
Hands shaking slightly (in rage, or fear? Wally couldn't tell), Wally said, "Just one more. I want to continue my training with Cheshire."
Queen Bee barked out a laugh, the first sound one of the other council members had made since Savage had quit growling, "You are aware of how… vigorous these experiments can be, correct? Surely you cannot except to keep up a training regime at the same time."
Expression cold and completely unaffected by the sultry charm that Queen Bee wore next draped around her shoulders, Wally stated blandly, "I'm sure I can handle it."
Affronted and angry that someone dared to spoil her fun, Queen Bee's eyes darkened, and she turned her nose up, "I will very much look forward to the moment when you realize you cannot handle it and you break under the knowledge that it will never stop." The two stared at each other for a moment, expressions dark and foreboding. Honestly, though, Wally wasn't afraid of her. Sure, Queen Bee was a big hitter with a literal empire at her feet, but she didn't have the same level of intelligence as Luthor or Savage. She didn't have the same level of insanity as Klarion or, he suspected, Ra's al Ghul. She just wasn't that threatening when compared with the rest of them. Wally could see, reflected in her eyes, that she knew it too.
After a moment, Queen Bee dropped her gaze, cheeks heating in shame. Wally was certain that particular incident was going to come back to bite him at some point, but, again, that was not today. All he could do from this point on was to focus on the present. The future didn't matter. The past didn't matter. All he needed was the present to keep going.
Luthor watched him delightedly as he verbally sparred with Queen Bee and won. He commented, "Consider your demands met so long as you continue to allow us to experiment on you and you do not attempt to escape." He paused for a moment, a threat in his eyes the only warning he needed to give, before continuing, "Now, let us begin. I have someone here who can take you to your new home in the science labs. He's not particularly charming, but I have the strangest thought that you'll get along great. At the very least, I know that he's so very excited to see you."
There was something wrong with that whole speech. There was something inherently wrong in the predatory glances that everyone was giving him. It made Wally feel trapped, and vulnerable. There was something that they knew that he didn't, and he could already tell that he hated it. Throat tightening and hands shaking, Wally got up and turned around slowly, knowing that, whoever this person was, they were waiting behind the chair he was sitting around.
When he did finally turn around, he immediately regretted it. Death would have been a better option. He should have let the Light kill him and Cameron and left the heroes to struggle on their own. This was worse than anything they could have done to him.
There, stood in front of him, expression twisted with dark, childish delight, was his father.
Author's Note: Cliffhanger! I know you guys love those. Plus, I haven't had one for a while and this just felt like a good place to stop. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Let me know if you see any mistakes or if you have any suggestions. Thanks for reading!
