Kid Flash?
Wally didn't feel so good. He felt really groggy, more than a little sick to his stomach, and the bright white light that pierced through his closed eyelids wasn't helping his splitting headache either. Wally cracked his eyes open tentatively before slamming them shut again as it felt like knives were being driven through his sockets and into his skull. He wondered briefly if he was hungover. He'd heard that hangovers could be pretty awful. Then he remembered that he couldn't get drunk, let alone hungover. His metabolism was too fast. That's when he started remembering everything else and his eyes flew open, the pain from before completely forgotten.
Wally pushed himself up and looked around. He was in what looked like a glass box surrounded by a large white room with bright lights glaring down from the ceiling. Wally knew a prison when he saw one.
Stay whelmed Wall-man. Gotta find a way out.
There was a small microphone/speaker set on the stainless table next to him and the table was coupled with a stainless chair. Wally was currently sat on a bed and while the frame was also stainless, everything else about it was as white as the rest of the room.
So my kidnappers are courteous but have bad taste in furniture.
It was really quite the feat, kidnapping him, especially since he'd discovered that his already enhanced speed was even more enhanced than it used to be. When he'd figured that out, he'd guessed that he might have been even faster than his uncle, assuming he could run without the friction and static discharge catching him on fire. Whoever had taken him, had done it by surprise and with how he'd felt when he'd first woken up, they'd probably dosed him with enough tranquilizer to take down three grown African elephants.
So they probably know about my speed if they knew to use enough to overpower my metabolism.
Wally walked to one wall of his transparent cell and placed a hand on it, feeling its surface before moving his ear close to it and rapping on the surface with his fist.
Doesn't really sound or feel like glass, but it's not plastic either.
Wally picked up the chair and swung it once against the wall before setting it back down to inspect the damage he'd done.
Not a scratch.
Wally guessed that it was some kind of bulletproof ceramic even though he admittedly didn't have much to go on. That meant that flinging objects at high speeds weren't going to get him out. He considered trying to phase through the wall, he was probably fast enough to do it now. Wally decided against it though. It wasn't something he really knew how to do since the last time he'd tried had been before the MFD and all he'd gotten out of it was a nosebleed. Add that to the fact he was still feeling a bit off from whatever his captors had dosed him with and he was pretty sure that trying to phase would be a bad idea. Then it hit him.
Resonance!
Wally placed his palms against the wall and pushed lightly, before relieving the pressure. He pushed again and let off, this time faster. Wally kept going, slowly increasing the frequency of the vibrations, hoping to find the resonant frequency that would allow him to shatter the wall. Eventually he did, but only too late. The door that led from the white room popped open to reveal a bald dark-skinned man with an eyepatch and a black trenchcoat. But it wasn't the appearance of this man that caused Wally to stop his escape attempt. Honestly, Wally had expected one of his captors to show up sooner or later and he'd been close enough to breaking through that he would have been free anyway. What stopped him was the surprise at seeing who stepped into the white room behind him.
"Peter?"
Peter looked just as surprised but by something else entirely. Wally saw him face the man in the trenchcoat. "Wait, if he's here Fury, then he can't have stolen EDITH. There's no way he could have gotten from London back here in only a couple hours."
"What's this about EDITH being stolen?" Wally cut in, confused as to what was happening.
The man in the trenchcoat, Fury, just ignored him. "Don't be too sure about that Parker."
"But the flight from London is—"
"And what makes you think he flew? We live in a world that is becoming increasingly superhuman. Is it so strange to think that enhanced humans won't start using their abilities to commit international crimes? The Winter Soldier already did."
Wally saw an expression of awe and a little fear dawn on the young man. "Oh my god. He can teleport?"
Wally couldn't help himself. "Teleport?"
Again, Wally was ignored. "For a science student you have a bad habit of jumping to conclusions," Fury remarked. "No, he shares abilities with the late Pietro Maximoff, but we suspect he's even faster."
Now Wally saw realization dawn on Peter as he turned back to face him. "You're the Blur?"
Wally had always thought that that was a rather dull name and he'd been prompted on more than one occasion to wonder why the internet of this world was so unimaginative. Even Beck's name had just been a corruption of an Italian phrase. "It's Flash actually," Wally replied. "Well, Kid Flash."
"Kid Flash?" Fury asked.
So now he pays attention.
"Hey, I was thirteen when I started the whole superhero thing," Wally replied defensively.
"Then why haven't we heard of you until now?" Peter's curious tone contrasted with Fury's aggressive and skeptical one.
"I was small time," Wally replied. "I stuck mostly to my hometown and I quit shortly after I started college." It wasn't a total lie. "Why am I here?" Wally asked, before either Peter of Fury could ask him another question. "And why'd you bring Peter here?"
"You're here Mr. West, if that really is your name, because you were just caught on camera stealing the most powerful pair of glasses in the world from the UN. Given the Blur's record of quiet civic service in both Sokovia and London, I'm not inclined to think that you stole EDITH, even if you could have done it."
"You think it's the man-Alice?" Peter asked.
"Man-Alice?"
Fury ignored both of them this time and just pressed on. "But you're also here because you're an enhanced human who, until October of last year, didn't exist. That makes you an unknown quantity and a potential threat, neither of which I like.
"Parker, is here to help with the interrogation."
"I am?" Peter seemed to not be on the same page as this Fury person.
"You seemed close enough at the hotel when you chatted," Fury remarked. "I thought that perhaps you might be helpful."
"At the hotel?" Peter and Wally asked confusedly.
"The concierge," Fury replied. "He's one of mine."
"Of course," Peter replied. "Was the thing with the picture even real?"
"Yes. He wanted me to tell you that his son really liked the autograph."
"You gave a guy an autograph?" Wally asked.
"Well I couldn't say no," Peter replied defensively.
"I suppose not." Wally turned his attention back to Fury. "Look, Mr. Fury, whoever you are. You've got it wrong. I've been here the whole time you just must have incomplete records or something. The blip really made a mess of things you know."
"This has nothing to do with the blip," Fury returned sharply. "Before October 2023, before the Avengers snapped everyone back, there was absolutely no record of you. No criminal records, birth certificates, school transcripts, medical records, not even a picture or a social media presence. Then you suddenly appear after Stark's infinity gauntlet gets used, only to disappear again in Sokovia."
Wally was beginning to regret not learning more from Dick about hacking. He'd have been saved a whole lot of trouble if he'd known how to break into official databases and forge official records.
"I want to know who you are and where you're from," Fury continued. "And I want the truth."
Wally was silent for a moment. He had to carefully consider his next move. Odds were, he wouldn't have much chance of escape now, even with his speed. It would take too long to break the wall through resonance again and Fury would probably just dose him with some sort of gas this time if he tried. Even if he did manage to get past the wall, he'd still have to deal with Fury and Spider-man. Fury, he could probably manage, Peter was another matter. He could tell them the truth, that he was from another Earth, but they'd heard that story before and it had turned out to be a fraud. If he'd thought they wouldn't believe him before Beck, they certainly wouldn't now.
Wait, what if this is Beck or his cronies? It could all just be an illusion.
With that, Wally made his decision. "Okay, I'll tell you," Wally said. "But first I need proof that you're who you say you are."
"Wait, you think we're the man-Alice?" Peter asked.
"If you're talking about that shapeshifting Russian that tried to kill you then one, you need to come up with a better name, and two, no. I was thinking Beck or his team." Wally replied. Peter seemed to pale somewhat at the thought of them still being around but Wally didn't give him time to say anything else. "Peter, back at the hotel, what was the first thing I said to you?"
Peter's expression became contemplative for a moment. "You said I shouldn't brood," he replied. "That it wasn't a good look on me."
Satisfied, Wally nodded. "Okay, now since I don't know the real Fury and you seem to—"
"It's him," Peter affirmed.
"The ginger has a good point Parker," Fury put in. "How do you know it's me?"
"It's part of the spider thing," Peter replied. "I get this tingle when something's wrong or when I'm in danger."
"So it's like a spider-sense?" Wally asked.
Good thing I didn't try escaping again.
At the suggestion, Peter's face lit up as if he'd been trying really hard to figure something out for a long time and had just been struck by the answer to his problem. "Yeah, a spidey-sense," he replied. "I only recently got a handle on it though. After Beck."
"Would've been nice if you'd gotten a handle on it before Beck," Fury said darkly.
"It's not like I'm the only one he fooled," Peter shot back, though his sheepish expression took some of the bite out of his words. It seemed that Fury had been involved in those events as well.
"Okay then," Wally said at last. "One last thing, do you trust him?"
Peter nodded.
"Okay, you might want to take a seat then because this'll be a little hard to believe."
When all three of them had sat down, each in their own stainless steel chair on opposite sides of the transparent wall, Wally began his story. "So, I come from another universe, or at least I think I do. The only other explanation is that someone time travelled and seriously messed with history."
"Dr. Banner tells me that time travel doesn't work that way," Fury replied. "And this thing, about being from another universe, another Earth, we've heard that story before."
"Well, then, I guess that eliminates time travel because where I'm from, time travel does work that way. At least according to my cousin Bart."
"Your cousin?" Fury asked skeptically.
"Well, first cousin once removed. He was from the future."
"But that still doesn't prove that you're from another universe," Peter replied skeptically. Wally didn't like the look in his eyes then but he couldn't blame him. This probably felt all too familiar to him. Kind stranger with superpowers claims to be from another Earth and gives advice to young, lost superhero. According to Peter's court testimony, that was exactly what Beck had done.
"That's true," Wally replied. "But that's the only other explanation I can think of for why everything is so different here."
It looked like Fury was going to press with further questions but Peter, in what seemed to be a moment of uncharacteristic assertiveness, interrupted him with a question of his own. "Why don't you tell us about your Earth then? If it's real then you shouldn't have a problem with the details."
"Well, it's a lot like this one. Physics are mostly the same, though it seems that time travel is the exception. A lot of the countries are the same, but there's a few that this Earth has that mine doesn't and some that mine does that this Earth doesn't."
"Care to give an example?" Fury asked, deciding to go along with Peter's line of interrogation.
"My Earth doesn't have a Sokovia," Wally replied. "But Markovia is very similar and is in about the same location with about the same shape. That's how I was able to live in Sokovia for most of the last year. I had a little Markovian under my belt, not much, but enough and it's pretty similar Sokovian."
"I thought Sokovian was basically Russian," Peter pointed out.
"Not quite," Fury corrected before signaling Wally to continue.
"There's also countries like Vlatava, Qurac, and Bialya on my Earth that this Earth doesn't have."
"Okay. What else is different?" Peter asked.
"We don't have the Avengers," Wally said. "We have the Justice League. They're like the Avengers but there's more of them. My uncle I mentioned earlier, Flash. He and my best friend's adoptive father are founding members." Wally continued to give them details about the differences he'd noticed between their worlds and eventually got onto the subject of his own personal life on the other earth. Wally wasn't too keen on giving them all the details, at least not Fury, but he still had to give them enough that they'd believe him.
"So why are you here then?" Fury asked at last. "Did some trans-dimensional foe of yours destroy your earth before coming here to do the same to ours?"
Wally didn't like Fury's tone. "Do you think I would have been speed building homes for displaced Sokovians for the better part of the past year if I had?" Wally replied acidly. "No, I'm here by accident."
"Then why don't you go back?" Peter asked, his skepticism now replaced with concern and curiosity.
At least I seem to have convinced someone.
"Would if I could," Wally replied. "But I don't know how I got here, let alone how to get back."
"How did you get here?" Fury asked.
Wally sighed. It wasn't a moment he liked to remember. "My uncle, future cousin, and I were trying to shut down an alien magnetic field disruptor that was going to destroy the planet. We had to run around it counter to its rotation to cancel its kinetic energy with our own. But I was slower than Flash and Impulse so I started acting as a siphon for the MFD's energy. The last thing I remember from my Earth…"
Is asking Uncle Barry to tell Artemis I love her.
"Wally?" Peter's concerned voice pulled Wally back to the conversation.
"The last thing I remember is being struck by another energy discharge before disintegrating. Then I found myself in this Earth's Arctic region and it was October 2023, not June 2016," Wally finished.
"So your Earth is destroyed," Fury said.
"I hope not," Wally replied. "I'd hate for all that to have been for nothing. I have to believe that we succeeded."
"I believe him," Peter said at last.
"Well you're gullible as hell," Fury shot back. "And I don't believe him. So he stay—"
Fury was interrupted by a voice echoing over the intercom. "Nick, I really don't appreciate you kidnapping my students."
Fury swore.
"Who's that?" Wally asked.
"It's that damned Englishman," Fury said, more to himself than to Wally.
"Dr. Wells?" Peter asked.
"So you've learned to hack our comms now Wells?" Fury asked angrily.
Another, feminine voice came over the speaker this time. "Actually that would have been me."
"Computers are more Renee's thing than mine," Dr. Wells replied.
"I keep forgetting there's two of you now," Fury said. "As if one wasn't bad enough."
"Soon it'll be three Nick," Renee replied. "You're invited to the baby shower by the way. Now about Peter—"
"Mr. Parker is an Avenger and he has certain responsibilities, especially in a crisis and if you've seen the news lately I think you'd agree that this qualifies," Fury interrupted.
"He's also our student," Renee replied. "As such we have a certain obligation to ensure his safety."
"He's an adult. He doesn't need you watching him like helicopter parents, especially when you aren't even his actual guardians."
"Tu quo que, Nick," Dr. Wells shot back. "But I can see your point. I guess I'm just as paranoid as you are. Just make sure to let us know next time, the last thing we need right now is the press descending on the academy asking questions about how we let a student get kidnapped. Letting Spider-man get kidnapped would be even worse. Have a good night."
"Dr. Wells, wait!" Peter shouted, looking like he'd just had the greatest idea in the world.
"Yes Peter?"
"Is Dr. Anders there?"
"Liv? I imagine she's gone to bed by now."
"No she hasn't," Renee cut in. "She only sleeps about two hours a night so she's probably still in her lab."
"Could we talk to her?" Peter asked.
"What about?"
Peter gave Fury and Wally a grin. "I think we might have a visitor she'd really like to meet. Given her research into the multiverse and all."
And there you have it. I was actually a little concerned I wouldn't get this one done before I went back to work on Monday but here we are and we finally get another Wally POV. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I expect the next chapter to be a week or so out. I've got the whole plot roughly planned out by this point, it's just a question of how much time I get throughout the week to craft the finer points.
-Pandalien