Happy late 4th!
My reviews are almost in the 30's, how amazing is that? Thank you all, and a special thanks to Tigereye13 for looking at all my mistakes like that, I fixed them and you rock.
This is kind of a shortie, FYI.
Dc owns this.
Thankfully for Bart and the rest of the Allen family, the people at Arby's (Aunt Iris had wanted to go some place nice but they were way to tired for that) were to surprised that they had ordered three of everything on the menu to notice the fact that Bart and Barry appeared as though they had just got done participating in some sort of Battle Royale.
Bart had wanted to wake up Wally, his totally crash cousin who at the end of the day had probably saved him from a far more mode thrashing from Inertia than he had already received, but Uncle Barry said no.
If his face didn't hurt so much he may have argued.
As they waited for their food Bart thought about Inertia. Of course he knew Inertia was his least favorite school bully, Thad Thawne, but the other boy had been getting stronger somehow. At first Bart could handle him, no problem, but lately he had been wiping the floor with Bart. He couldn't just be getting stronger on his own, well he could but not that much stronger. Bart just couldn't figure out how Wally, who had never even been in a fight with someone going his own speed, had been able to beat Inertia first try.
None of it made sense and Bart was feeling the mode for sure.
"Order 34!" Bessy, the cashier, called.
Bart's stomach did a happy dance as the family descended on the counter, grabbing all twenty of their fast food bags.
"Let's eat at home," Uncle Barry suggested.
Everyone nodded in agreement. Bart wanted to be home, he was tired an had school tomorrow.
If makeup wasn't a teen superheroes best friend, he probably could have skipped.
"This is Wally's," Aunt Iris said, placing four bags on Dawns lap as they climbed into the car.
"Why didn't Wally come?" Dawn asked.
"He's in trouble," Uncle Barry said, starting the car and pulling into the street.
"Why am I not in trouble? I talked him into it," Jenni sighed.
"You're a eleven, Wally is sixteen, and you're grounded. Just not total lock down grounded."
"But Wally did a good job. Why is he in so much trouble?" Don asked.
"Because your father and I love Wally very much. Wally could have been hurt very badly and I don't think I could handle losing one of you kids. If Wally wanted to help he should have asked Barry to work with him more," Aunt Iris said.
Bart agreed with his aunt to some extent, but Wally still did good.
Bart's aching bones gave a sigh of relief as they pulled into the driveway. His sweet, sweet bed was calling his name almost as loud as the Arby's in his hand.
"Table please!" Iris called as they entered the house.
"I'll get Wally! Dawn called as she raced up the stairs only to reconds later she returned with a frown.
"He's gone."
"He's probably just in the bathroom, Sweetheart," Aunt Iris said.
"No, I checked the whole house and the yard! He's gone!"
"WALLY!" Uncle Barry called, probably assuming Dawns recovery mission had gone wrong due to her own error and NOT Wally's actual absence.
When Wally didn't appear Uncle Barry went looking for him.
"Gone," he confirmed, running a hand through his hair.
"Were we that hard on him?!" Aunt Iris asked, tears forming in her eyes.
"I..I didn't think so," Uncle Barry said nervously.
"Let's go look for him! I bet he's still in the city!" Bart said, running to the closet to retrieve his running hoodie. As he pulled it out, it snagged on the jacket behind it, dropping it to the floor.
"Who's is this anyway?" Bart asked, holding up the pink polka dotted green jacket.
"James's. Him and Hartley left it here on accident," Dawn said.
"James and Hartley? What do you mean, were they here?" Barry snapped at his daughter.
"Yeah! Wally's friends. They spent the night, we told you about it, remember?"
"Wally was in direct contact with both Piper and Trickster last night," Barry said, eyes growing wide.
"You don't think.." Bart started to say as a rush a wind passed him by.
(..) (..)
The trip through the mirrorverse reminded Wally of the time his friend in Star* talked him into recreational drug use and he then tried to run home at super speed.
Nauseous, spinny, and trippy.
After what was probably only a few seconds but felt like hours, Wally was shoved through a mirror and back into the real world.
"You can let go now," Mirror Master said.
Had Wally been clinging to the man like a baby monkey?
Way to play it cool, West.
The room Wally had been pushed into was strange, like it used to be a lobby for a hotel or something. There were three mix-match couches and two chairs circling two plasma screen televisions and a older box TV. One TV was playing what appeared to be an episode of Rugrat's, while the other two were on Discovery Channel. Through a doorway Wally could see what appeared to be a kitchen and some stairs that presumably led up to a different story. The walls were white and they had this nice crown molding on the trim. It would have been a pretty nice place if there weren't half finished weaponry, children's toys, playing cards, and beer cans everywhere you stepped. It was really weird.
The people gathered in the room were even weirder. The baby and the little boy from last night both sat in the floor playing with toys, a redheaded man whom Wally could only assume was Captain Boomerang slept on one couch while a decently intoxicated bald guy talked to a blond woman on one of the others.
"We did it! Leeen! We got him!" James called as he and Hartley emerged from the mirror behind Wally.
"Well bring 'em here!" A gruff voice called from the kitchen.
James grabbed Wally's wrist and drug him into the other room. Upon entry Wally could see Cold playing some sort of card game with Weather Wizard. They looked weird in everyday clothes, more like people and less like..well you know.
Cold stood up and walked over to Wally, who was internally panicking. Should he try to escape? Would they just kidnap him again? They were all unarmed at the moment, could he get away?
"So you're Wally 'eh?" Cold asked, eying the younger.
It dawned on Wally that he was still in his Nirvana tshirt and Mountain Dew PJ pants. Being kidnapped was so inconvenient.
"Yeah. I'm guessing you're Len?"
"You'd be guessing right," he said, shooting James and Hartley a look.
"Are you gonna, you know, kill me?" Wally asked.
"Not planin' on it," Cold smirked.
"So, not to be like blunt or rude or anything, but what do you want exactly?"
Cold shrugged lightly, "To thank you."
"To..thank me?" hadn't they ever heard of, like, Hallmark cards?
"Yeah, I mean, Josh would literally be dead if it wasn't for you. I don't know what I would do without that kid. He's pretty damn important," Weather Wizard piped.
Oh yeah, the baby, that made sense.
"You're welcome."
"So you get to spend the night here forever!" James sqweled behind him.
"What James means to say is that we'd like to invite you to join our team," Hartley corrected.
Hold up here. Wally, a Rogue? You know, his life was pretty freakin' normal two weeks ago. If he were to become a supervillan that would mean stabbing his family in the back. Quietly shoplifting was one thing, publicly robbing banks and shit was a literal life ruiner. If he joined the Rogue's, being anything else in his future would be out of the question. Unless he was never caught or something. What if Wally didn't want the same things when he was thirty that he did now? Ugh, his head hurt.
"Don't panic, you don't have to decide right now. Just know that the offer stands," Cold said and Wally nodded.
"But you can sleep over," James interjected, "don't worry, you can barrow my clothes in the morning to wear to school."
Wally smiled halfheartedly at James as Hartley mouthed 'You can barrow my clothes,' over his shoulder.
"Come see my room," James said, grabbing a hold of Wally's wrist and dragging him up the staircase and down a long hall full of rooms (no way this wasn't a hotel at some point) to a blue door with 'James!:)' painted on it.
"This is it!" James stated proudly, shoving the door open.
Inside was an epileptic persons worst nightmare. Each wall was painted a different blinding color, there were even bright rugs all over the floor, circus posters and poorly taken photographs were splattered on every wall and the sealing, toys (that Wally assumed were not really toys) and clothes were scattered about the floor.
"I'm working on these!" James said, walking to a desk decorated in Cartoon Network stickers and holding up a pair of bright orange converse. He hit the bottom of one and it came to life, floating in the air a few seconds before bursting into flames. James calmly patted the fire out.
"Still got some bugs."
James sat the shoes down and flopped down on a bed that had five different colored blankets and about a million multicolored pillows.
"Do you like it?" James asked.
"It's...very you, James," Wally said, and James beamed.
"Wanna see Hartley's?"
Wally shrugged his indifference as James went to the door across the hall and knocked.
"What, James?" Hartley (who had fallowed James and Wally upstairs) called.
"Show Wally your room!"
Wally could hear Hartley roll his eyes as the door opened and he gestured them in.
Hartley's walls were green, a giant music note painted on the one above his black clad bed. Rats (ugh that was so wired) were in cages or running around the room happily, stray instruments sat on his bed, dresser, and desk. He had posters of Mozart, Bach, Beethov-
"Is that shirtless Zac Efron?"
"Yeah, Piper thinks he's smexy."
"I do not! I only have that for...cultural references!"
"And to make googlie eyes at," Wally snickered.
"Of course not! I do not make googlie ey- you know what, just forget it," Hartley sighed, face redder than Wally's uncles uniform.
"Don't think I can," Wally smiled.
(..) (..)
The Rogue's were surprisingly...normal.
They watched TV, ate dinner, complained about The Flash, made their kids take baths and brush their teeth...but there was no bed time.
Even on school nights.
Not that Wally had had a bedtime when he lived with his dad, but Barry was pretty strict about that 11 o'clock crap.
"So what are you going to do about him tomorrow, Dig?" Heat Wave asked Captain Boomerang, gesturing to the redheaded little boy in the floor.
"Owen!" Boomerang called at the boy, "Ya go ta school?"
Owen nodded, "Keystone Elementary, I'm in Mrs. Nelsons class."
"What grade?" James asked.
"The first."
"You can't just send him there, all his records have Zoom's name on them. Zoom could just go pick him up and nobody would even try to stop him," Mirror Master said.
"He's still gotta go ta school, Sam," Boomer snapped, rolling his eyes.
"So, falsify some records and enroll him in Central. Just have Piper and Trickster pick him up every day, they won't call the cops on those two and I doubt Flash will choose Zoom to have him over us," Captain Cold said with some finality.
"I can't just go to a new school, you guys," Owen said seriously.
"Why?" Golden Glider asked.
"I have two girlfriends. It's pretty serious, they're gonna be mad if I just move."
Everyone either laughed or snickered at that, Wally included.
"Well if your such a lady's man, you should have no problem getting a new girlfriend at your new school, right?" James smirked.
"I guess. But the teacher better be nice," Own sighed, resuming his job of keeping the toys out of Josh's mouth.
Wally really liked hanging out with The Rogues. Their total lack of care for the law and their love for poker really reminded him of home, his real original one. Iris and Barry were always on about doing whats right and being honorable, and all that other trash. The Rogues didn't seem to care about any of that, just about loot and how much beer was left in the fridge. As awful as that sounds, it was honestly funny to listen to Central City's worst crooks argue over a slice of cold pizza.
Wally even liked sleeping on the super broke couches with Hartley and James at 4 am.
The only thing that bothered Wally was Owen. He acted a lot like the twins and it reminded Wally that The Flash that The Rogues were complaining about was in fact Wally's uncle. Sure, the good life may not have been for him, but that didn't mean his loyalties didn't lye there.
Ugh, what was he gonna do?
*Next chapter foreshadow be like.
It was kind of short.
What will Wally do?
Even I'm not 100% sure.
You should review though.