Kid Flash sat there on the first step of the 14 story stairwell of Titans Tower for several minutes. It wasn't that he hadn't believed the story when he'd first heard it from Professor Zoom. If asked to place a bet, he would have put his money down on it being true. It explained everything. But it hadn't been confirmed. He hadn't had to accept it. Now he did. His real father was Professor Zoom, sometimes called the Reverse Flash, the whack job villain who'd killed Aunt Iris. It was true.

Villain spawn.

No tail bone. No appendix. No certainty that I don't turn nuts like him, like my . . father. Ugh. How do I face Flash? How do I tell Uncle Barry? That guy who killed the woman you're still mourning? Surprise! I'm his kid.

He sighed and wiped a tear from the corner of one eye thinking of all the time Flash had put into training him, all the kind words, just normal courtesy for Flash, just standard operating procedure for a good man dealing with a boy who was his relative, but every one, every pat on the shoulder like rain in adesert of neglect for him. What'd Robin say? Oh yeah. You've practically got a super speed dynasty there. Uh huh. There's a dynasty of sorts but not what anyone thought. Sigh. What'll Superman and Batman say? And all the others? They'll never trust me. They'll throw a sidewise squint at me every time. Hmmm. Seems fine but his skinny ass is 90 percent Zoom. I could patrol a thousand times and never be anything but a hero and they'd still look at me funny as soon as I had my back turned. They'll never let me near the satellite again. They thought I was nuts to give Jinx a chance, to fall for her. You're the son of who? Heads would shake in disgust. Once bad always bad. That's how they see it. Professor Zoom is one of the worst villains Flash's ever had to deal with and S.T.A.R. Labs says I'm 90 percent him. What'll they think of that? Sigh.

Kid Flash leaned back on his elbows a step up and forced a couple deep slow breaths. Then he breathed faster, trying to force some energy. He hated the tinge of victimhood he was feeling about the whole situation. He hadn't given in to it with his family, with the help of Aunt Iris and decided he wouldn't give in to this. I'm not a vulnerable little kid anymore. I'm15. A man. Maybe it takes some time to get over but I'm Kid fucking Flash, godammit! I'm not some charity case or some fricking guest on Jerry Springer no matter what my background is. I'm Kid fucking Flash. He stood up.

"I'm Kid fucking Flash!" he said out loud and enjoyed the mild echo in the stairwell. He ran up the stairwell at super speed, bursting out into the hall on the 13th floor and then going to his door, a red and yellow blur in the hallway. He knocked, in case Jinx was changing or something and went in. She was sitting on the edge of his bed near the nightstand with something in her hands.

"Jinx?"

She looked up surprised. "Oh, Wally. I was just going through these from your aunt. What'd the doctors say?"

Wally sighed. "I'm . . . he's my father. They said that there's something funny with my DNA, too, because I'm not like fifty fifty. I'm 90 percent him, 90 percent Zoom, 90 percent 29th century guy."

He sat down on the bed next to her. "Why didn't you tell me I don't have a tail bone?" he chuckled. "You've always got your hand back there."

She was relieved to see he could joke about it. "Really?" she smiled.

He nodded. "They told me at my physical. One guy reached back there with a rubber glove," he said with a roll of his eyes.

"Sure he didn't just want to sample a pair of sweet buns?" she said with a pat.

"Please. They were all over me before that."

"But there's no doubt who's your father?"

He sighed and shook his head.

"Oh, Wally!" she hugged him. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," he whispered over her shoulder and there on the bed, he saw something surprising. He separated from Jinx. "Where'd you get those?"

"Where do you think? I'm an heiress!" she laughed.

The pictures had dropped haphazardly on the comforter. She scooped them up and turned them all face up and right side up. She shifted to sit with one leg out straight to the floor and the other bent on his bed. He adopted the same posture and she laid the pictures out between them and pulled them from the stack one after another.

"They arrived at my mom's farm Saturday with a cover letter that said they were from the estate of Iris West. Did your aunt really just divvy up her stuff?"

"Uncle Barry said that they'd just been to their lawyer because they wanted to talk about . . about having a kid and what they should do about a trust of something. He told 'em they should start thinking about wills too. I guess she did."

"I'm in a couple of these but they're mostly you. Oh! Where is it! Where is it!" she said flipping through the stack. "Oooooo here!" she said and burst into laughter. Wally groaned. It was him as a little kid running naked in the back yard at Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry's house. Jinx read the cursive script in blue pen on the back. "Under 6 and over 90 degrees clothing was optional. August 1995"

She reveled in his eye rolling exasperation. "Look at the little skinny boy's buns!"

"Oooooo! There's another one!" she giggled and flipped through the stack. She found a slightly discolored one of a little orange haired boy smiling in the bath tub. A white shirted arm could be seen along the edge of the tub and the side of a head of short cropped blond hair. Uncle Barry. Jinx looked at Wally. He smiled sort of wistfully. "What's the back say?" he asked.

"Okay . . .Giving orange hair a bath October 1991. Little son of a gun already knows his alphabet and more."

"I never saw that before. That's kind of nice."

"Look at this one!" she said, pulling one from the stack. It was a picture from a family Christmas get together. Presents and a tree could be seen in the background. People in sweaters and dress clothes were packed in tight in a semicircle around a tv and some open space. And there in that space was a reed thin orange haired boy captured in mid step by the photographer, one foot in the air, dancing and grinning, obviously quite enjoying it. Meanwhile, a semicircle of faces looked on disapprovingly, not one smile among them.

Jinx giggled. "Gee, who doesn't fit in in that family? Hmmm."

Wally studied the picture. He identified all the faces in his mind. He didn't clearly recall it but it seemed perfectly plausible, him dancing and everyone else wanting nothing to do with him. Jinx flipped the picture over. "Orange haired pariah feels joy. How dare you feel joy? December 1999"

Wally chuckled at that caption. There were 25 more photos. Aunt Iris had given Jinx photos having to do with Wally. He was in every one. Sometimes he was alone. Often, with Uncle Barry. A few times with other family and a few times with Aunt Iris who seemed to have taken almost all the pictures. Even if the other person in the photo had been covered with tape, Jinx thought she would've been able to tell. With the other Wests or other relatives, little Wally usually looked anxious, insecure and simply unhappy. They all looked at him coldly. The expressions were almost comical, silent movie theatrical glares of enmity.

But when Uncle Barry or Aunt Iris were with him, he was a different boy. He looked calmly into the camera with an arm around his Uncle Barry's waist or sat on the arm of Aunt Iris's chair at a thanksgiving get together and smiled as she rubbed his little back. There was a picture of 6 year old Wally sleeping contentedly on top of Uncle Barry's chest in his back yard hammock. There were photos of him playing catch with Uncle Barry at three different ages, throwing the ball to his uncle as a very thin 7 year old, catching it when thrown back as a 9 year old then firing it back again as an 11 year old, grinning each time.

"They were your family," was Jinx's verdict.

He nodded agreement. "Just not as often as I'd have liked."

"You know what Dinah, what Black Canary said?"

He shrugged ignorance.

"She said that she and Iris and Sue Dibny had been talking over a period of years and that you were Aunt Iris's special project. She said that Aunt Iris wanted to give you enough love to make up for how your family treated you and that she was delighted with how you were turning out. I can kind of see it from the pictures."

Wally flipped over the last one of the bunch, him standing next to Jinx, both smiling at something but not for the camera, simply captured in a moment of happiness. The caption read "First one! Holy shit! He gets it right on the first one!"

Wally burst into laughter and hugged chuckling Jinx. He held her tight and then let her go with a deep breath. "You're a very rich heiress," he said.

He went to the kitchen to get something to eat pre-lunch. He took a spot on the couch in the great room finishing off a plateful of fruit and bagels as Cy and Gar laughed and talked trash playing the new beta test version of Grand Theft Auto. He was lost in solemn thought, attention divided only enough to get food from the plate to his mouth. He sighed.

"I can help you."

"Huh? What?" Wally looked up to see Raven standing over him.

"I can help you. You look like you still have pain from your aunt's death. I can take it away."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I'm an empath, KF. I can literally take your pain from you. All you have to do is let me. Just let me touch you. Just an embrace and I can literally pull the pain from you."

"Look, I . . . that's too freaky. Isn't grief a process? But, more than that, I wasn't grieving."

She shook her head. "More denial? How can you do that? You're intelligent and yet you want to deal with situations by pretending they aren't there. You're-"

"What!" It was nearly a shout and the constant sound of button pushing by Gar and Cy stopped as their heads swiveled over to the side.

"You-you don't know what you're talking about."

"KF! Please! I do!"
Wally jumped to his feet. "No. You don't. Because I wasn't thinking about my aunt's death except sort of tangentially. You wanna know what I was thinking about? I'll tell you. I've just found out that I'm not actually Wally West. My actual father is a guy named Thawne. You might've seen him in the papers. He's also known as Professor Zoom. He's one of Flash's arch rivals, a super speed villain. He's a whack job and a fucking murderer. He killed Aunt Iris and he's my biological father. You wanna know something else to just top it all off? I'm a joke. That's what I am. Here's a good one! Wally West! Pretty funny, huh? That's how I came to be. My biological father, a villain from the 29th century wanted to get my aunt pregnant and trick Flash into caring for the child of a villain in the mistaken belief that it was his. That was the joke that Zoom wanted to play on Flash. I was supposed to be like a- like a prank played on Flash. Only Zoom got the wrong Ms. West pregnant. So he lost interest in his joke child, in me. I just found all this out two days ago. S.T.A.R. Labs confirmed it this morning. That's what I was thinking about. Is that far enough away from denial? I'm a joke! I was created as a joke. Did I face that openly enough for you? Christ! As if having someone magically pull pain from you wouldn't be a sort of denial."

He faced her angrily, an anger that was not diminished by Jinx arriving at his side and asking what was going on. He stewed over the situation through lunch and dinner. Robin could see that his pal needed to let the anger go and knew just the prescription. He suggested that the two of them patrol through the warehouse district, waterfront and railyards for a few hours. Kid Flash readily agreed and sprinted out from the Tower and across the bay while Robin took the T-car from the roof, flying across the bay thanks to Cyborg's recent upgrades. But Robin parked the vehicle and patrolled on foot through the waterfront district, agreeing to meet Kid Flash at the edge of the warehouse district later.

Kid Flash focused his mind on his job and streaked through the warehouses and factories on the bad side of the city. But something was off. At first, it was only an odd feeling. Kid Flash couldn't quite put his finger on it. He just kept super speeding through that part of the city on the lookout for criminal activity. There wasn't any but eventually Kid Flash became certain that something else was going on. It wasn't something that the teen speedster had ever had to deal with before, but it was happening. He was being followed. He'd heard sounds a couple times, footfalls that weren't his and echoes off alley walls when he was traveling under the speed of sound. He ran through an older office park area trying to figure how to confirm it and hit upon one. He ran through a series of offices with flimsy looking dividers between cubicles. They burst apart after him even though he'd vibrated cleanly through.

Kid Flash came to a halt in the parking lot outside a large complex of warehouses.

"Come on out and show yourself!" shouted Kid Flash into the still warm night air of the half lit parking lot. "I know you're here. I know you followed me. I did an extra vibration going through those japanese style paper walls. They were going to burst if anyone came near them, even vibrating through,for a minute afterward. I know you've been trailing me. Come on out!"

There was a rustle of air in the factory parking lot and, instantaneously, a yellow clad figure, six foot two and a hundred seventy five pounds stopped 10 feet from Kid Flash.

"I-I wasn't trying to ambush you, Wallace. I-I just want to talk with you and wasn't sure how to approach you. You understand that urge don't you, a father wanting to talk to his son? They confirmed it for you didn't they, your S.T.A.R. Labs?"

Kid Flash slowly exhaled. "Yeah. They did. You're my biological father. About that urge, it hits you about every fifteen years, does it?"

"It was just one year of my time."

"You let me grow up being treated like shit. If you're really concerned about me why'd you wait till I'm fifteen to show up?"

"I . . . Wallace! I can barelytalk about this with you now, how would I be able to talk about this with you if you were ten years old? How much more emotional would a 10 year old Wallace be?"

"I don't know. How much more vulnerable was I then?"

"Wallace,Wallace, Wallace." the larger yellow clad man said, like a sort of tsk tsk and he stepped closer to Kid Flash who responded by throwing up his red gloved hand like a traffic cop telling someone to stop.

"No way. No closer!"'

"Wallace! Why must you make this so hard for me?" Professor Zoom pleaded.

"Is that what counts, what's hard for you? A real father would be concerned about his son not his convenience. When Flash was teaching me to use my super speed he stayed with me hour after hour even when he had other things to do. You're like some phony 17 year cicada of a father and it's tough on you? Well, boo fucking hoo."

"Well, why do you stop to talk to me then, Wallace, if that's your attitude?"

Kid Flash stammered.It was true. The interest wasn't only one way."I-I guess I'm . . curious but I'll never stop being angry with you. You're-you're so lucky I didn't just kill you the last time we met."

"You gave me a good beating, Wallace."

"You deserved a good beating. You deserve more beatings. 15 years away and thenmurdering Aunt Iris? You deserve lots more beatings."

"Why didn't you kill me Wallace?"

"Because there may be something to your claim that it's a later you who killed her and because I-I suppose the title of father has a lot of emotional freight, deserved or not, for me seeing as I've never really had one. And . . I'm . . curious. I have intellectual curiosity. The doctors at S.T.A.R. Labs said I'm 90 percent you. They said all kinds of things about me. I guess I'd like some answers."

"Oh, ho ho! I see, Wallace. You want something from me, too, do you? Should I beat you up as payment for your getting them? I'm still much bigger than you. I'm a match for Flash. What do you think would happen if you fought Flash, Wallace? Hmm?"

"Well, unless I'm actually a much better fighter than you. You let me beat you up last time. And why would you do that if you didn't know you deserved it? Hmm?"

Improbably, Professor Zoom smiled. "You always impress me, Wallace. Not just a young mercury but also very shrewd like an odysseus."

Kid Flash waited several moments to respond alternating between the opposite poles of telling him off or accepting the compliment. He tried to strike a middle ground. "I have to be as shrewd as I can be so that I don't get killed. I have my speed and my wits, no other protection under this uniform."

Zoom chuckled. "That uniform! Haha! It's the perfect statement of you."

Wally glanced down at his skin tight uniform, perplexed.

"Your bottom half is red but your top half is yellow. Your bottom half, your animal instincts and lust are red like Flash. Your heart and head are yellow like me. And your orange hair is a mix of the two. You've been raised a West, your lower half, but you're really a Thawne, your upper half."

Kid Flash shook his head angrily. "I'm not a Thawne. I'm a West. That could have been different, perhaps, but I was just a joke to you. Remember? Well, I don't want compliments or prophecies. I'd like some information. I have so many questions."

"Well, you'll have to give me something, Wallace. I'd like to embrace my son."

"No. You can-you can take a step for giving me an answer."

Zoom chuckled. "Alright, Wallace."

"The doctors at S.T.A.R. Labs said that I don't have an appendix. But I've never had mine taken out. They said you don't have one either. Have-have people simply evolved past having an appendix in the late 29th century?"

"No, Wallace. Such changes don't happen that fast. It's been officially discouraged, illegal even, but for hundreds of years leading up to the time I was born, parents have been sifting. That's the term, sifting. It means choosing the attributes of their offspring. Choosing to include some genetic attributes in them and to take out others. Some estimates are that a quarter of the populace or more has been at least partially sifted in 2873. You don't need an appendix. Why allow it to be there? I'm quite sure my father doesn't have one. And I don't either." Zoom fininshed and raised his eyebrows. Okay? Kid Flash sighed but said nothing and Zoom took one step toward him.

"What about my tail bone? They told me I don't have a tail bone either?"

"Oh, Wallace. Another anachronism. You don't need it. Your hip bone is stronger without it. Not having it allows you to have a narrower pelvis that's just as strong or stronger and carry less weight overall. It's another sifted trait. I see you frowning. But you shouldn't. You were given a great gift in being so finely constituted."

When Zoom finished, he raised his eyebrows again and seeing no objection took another step closer.

"The doctors, they were surprised that I didn't seem to have any unexpressed predispositions to any diseases at all. None. Things like not having a predisposition for a certain cancer but a chance of passing it on to children. They said it was like my DNA had been scrubbed clean. More sifting?"

"Of course, Wallace," he chuckled. "Would anyone have chosen a more evolved digestive system and a more evolved pelvis but let diseases fester in their DNA? Even the authorities who are supposed to be enforcing prohibitions against sifting genetic traits look the other way in regard to sifting to remove diseases."

He finished and raised an eyebrow toward Kid Flash. Okay? Kid Flash sighed and Zoom took another step toward him.

"What about . . . ?" Kid Flash glanced at his crotch.

"Wallace?"

Kid Flash cupped his hand over the appropriate spot. "My . . . you know. Did you or the-the Thawnes sift for that, too.? Is that why I'm so . . . ?"

"Hahahaha! I almost forget, Wallace that you're only 15, still a boy with a boy's thoughts at times."

"Hey! I'm not just being a stupid kid. It's more than a bit . . unusual. It always was. If I buy a jock from a store . . . I mean, no way, doesn't work for me."

"Wallace. I don't believe the Thawne family bothered to sift DNA to produce that. Some attributes are still chance. Your unusual hair, for example."

He took a step closer to Kid Flash. He was just a couple steps from him, now.

"How did they treat you, Wallace?" Zoom pleaded to know. "Your expression when I spoke to you last time seemed to indicate that you were thinking of all you'd been through at their hands. Did they really hurt such a perfect boy as you?"

Kid Flash glared at him. "Uh uh. You want information from me, you have to take a step back."

Zoom fumed. "What!"

Kid Flash's expression showed no intention to bargain over this point.

"Oh, alright, Wallace!" He took a step back.

Kid Flash spoke in a very precise, unemotional tone, almost as though it had been someone else's experience. "To this point in time, they've given me as much affection as you have. None. They never cared for me, never wanted to be bothered by having to do anything for me. They never gave me their time or affection, ever. I was almost crushed by insecurity,anxiety and an unfocused reaction of anger at times growing up. I-"

"But you still want to call yourself a West, do you Wallace?"

"My Aunt Iris, Iris West, looked out for me until you killed her. So did Flash. And I think that when I was a baby, Grandma West watched me some of the time."

"Wallace? Why do you think I'm here if I have no interest at all in you? You're the-the culmination of the Thawnes, my magnificent son! The best possible result of sifting of DNA. Even without super speed, what an athlete you would be with your slender frame and wonderful tone. Such good deltoid, calf and gluteal muscles. Ahh! And your face! Wait till your grandfather sees how handsome the continuation of his line is."

"Well, take a picture for him, then."

Zoom smiled and shook his head slightly. After a few moments, Kid Flash understood.

"What! No way. No fucking way! I'm not going with you!"

"Wallace. Think this through. You said that they did not treat you as just any boy should be treated, never mind a superlative mercury of a boy. I want to know my son, Wallace. I regret what I did in leaving you here."

"You're crazy. You-you think I would leave my friends and-and Jinx to travel to the future with you? Yeah, I was treated like dirt by my immediate family. But I'm a Teen Titan. The other Titans are my friends. Robin's like-Robin's like a combination best friend and older brother that I never had. And I love Jinx. You think I would leave them? Ever? You're nuts."

"You would form new attachments, Wallace. And you would be fascinated by the science of a future almost 900 years evolved from your present. You're a very intellectually curious boy. I know you are. I know that it intrigues you. And Wallace," Zoom paused partly for dramatic effect. "If I really did come from a year or two further in my time line, from perhaps 2874 or 2875 and killed your Aunt Iris, wouldn't your presence dull or eliminate whatever mania made me do such a thing. You can save your aunt, Wallace."

Kid Flash stared dumbfounded. Oh my god! Did he really say what I think he just said?

While he was in shock, Zoom stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his offspring.

From the roof of the nearest building where he'd been watching for a minute now, Robin pulled two birdarangs out from his utility belt and prepared to shout out a number to Kid Flash to tell him which direction to run as he threw the birdarangs to the other side.

But the yellow clad villain just hugged a shocked Kid Flash and rubbed his back. "Oh, Wallace. I was so foolish to leave you here with these cavemen."

Kid Flash, found himself in the bizarre circumstance of being hugged by a super villain. "No," he whispered. "No," he said in conversational voice. "No. No! No! No!"

He pushed the yellow suited super villain away from him.

"No! Aunt-Aunt Iris didn't want to screw up other lives for her sake. And-and, well, I'm not completely sure of time theory so I don't know that it would bring her back. Besides that, I have my friends! I have teammates, the Titans! I've made a commitment. I've cast my lot here! That's not provisional! I-I didn't tell Jinx that I love her unless something else comes along. I love her and there's no Jinx in the 29th century. There's no pal like Robin in the 29th century either. No. Uh uh. I don't care where my DNA comes from, I'm a 20th and 21st century guy."

"Wallace! Think about what you're choosing! This may be your only opportunity to be restored to the time where you were made to live. You're a Thawne. You're Wallace Thawne. Accept your destiny in the magnificent future, Wallace," said Professor Zoom offering his hand as if he would pull Kid Flash forward to the year 2873 with a tug toward him right then.

Kid Flash shook his head. "I don't believe in destinies. I believe in possibilities and trying to make those as good for people as I can by being a hero. Go back to your time. Go back as soon as possible. If I see you tomorrow, you're not my father, not that you ever were. You're just another villain who needs to be brought to justice."

"Wallace!" Zoom muttered in a pleading tone.

"You heard me!" half shouted Kid Flash his expression hard with anger.

Zoom shook his head and muttered to himself, he started to walk away and looked over his shoulder at his son. Kid Flash looked away to avoid eye contact. Some part of him regretted this.

There was a whooosh as Professor Zoom left the area at super speed. A second later, a sonic boom could be heard. Zoom accelerating past the speed of sound and not vibrating his molecules to prevent it.

From the roof, Robin peeked at Kid Flash alone in the parking lot. He just stood there sighing every few seconds and tilting his head to one side then the other lost deep in thought about all that had just taken place.

Robin pondered things a moment himself then moved away from the edge of the roof. He made his way, with the perfect stealth that only a protege of Batman could, to the end of the building away from the parking lot and Kid Flash. He jumped down from the 18 foot high building with a somersault and landed silently on his feet. He let himself sink slowly to a crouch in the process, looked around and then burst up from his crouch to sprint in the direction away from Kid Flash. He ran as hard as he could, till his lungs were on fire and the muscles of his legs burned as well. He ran to be some distance away when Kid Flash found him. Let him tell me at his own pace. He doesn't have to know that I do. He's got enough to think about for now without bothering with my knowing about it.