Chapter three is here! Thanks for all the lovely messages!
Days passed. Or at least, they felt like days: periods of sleep and rest and endlessly pacing his cell, punctuated by three of what only the most generous person would call a meal. To Wally, it wasn't even a snack, and the distinct change in diet was causing his stomach to complain, he felt weaker every passing hour. In an attempt to take his mind off the gnawing hunger, he turned to his last resort: small talk.
As the archer girl was the only one present in the room and did not seem to enjoy communicating, the resultant conversations were quite heavily one-sided.
For example, the day before, Wally had talked to the blonde while she adjusted the fletching and binding on her arrows.
"So... What's your favourite colour?"
Silence.
"I'm guessing green. You like green, right? You're always wearing green."
No answer.
"Me, I like red. Like the red on my suit- wait, watch this- look, it changes colour. Black. Colour. Black. Colour. Back to black. Cool, huh?"
He received a shrug, but little else.
"Does your outfit do that? I guess not, unless you wanted to blend in with your pals. Do you know Cheshire? I think you'd be great pals with Cheshire, y'know, you're both the kick-'em-while-they're-down type, to me at least. What about Sporty, your bow is totally-"
Wally shivered. If archer girl kept looking at him like that, he was going to get frostbite.
However unnerved he was, however, by the glares and silent death threats, it didn't stop Wally from talking. Everyone on the team knew that when the speedster wasn't eating, he was talking, and he sure hadn't done much eating recently.
"Can you shoot that thing? Speedy- I mean, Red Arrow is really good with a bow."
"I like your boots, they're pretty cool boots. Like, badass kicking boots."
"What's your favourite ice cream flavour? I like Ben and Jerry's- the cookie dough is so good."
"You don't talk much, do you?"
"Do you know what the time is? Not that it matters, it just feels like lunchtime."
"See, you act all tough on the outside, but I bet you're a big softie- like Batman, but not as tall."
"Would it annoy you if I sang? Do you want to sing? We could do a duet..."
"Are you a vegetarian?"
The constant stream of what was quite literally verbal diarrhoea began to wear down archer girl. She was good at hiding it- a clenched jaw here, a twitch in the eye or the hand there- but her impatience grew, and eventually she exploded.
"WOULD YOU PLEASE SHUT UP? I swear, if you say one more word, I'll go out, find some duct tape, and..."
The girl left the threat hanging, and if Wally was honest, he felt a little turbed to see her so furious. And a little bit triumphant. He hadn't heard from the Justice League- at least, his questions had been ignored by hers truly, and the speedster was starting to feel a little abandoned. Quite a lot abandoned, actually. More frequent than he would have liked, a malignant, depressive thought pricked him:
They've forgotten about you~ Nobody's coming to save you, not this time~ They're better off without you...
But seeing the girl get so angry with him made Wally feel just a little bit better. He had it together, he could still do something, no matter how small or insignificant. He had purpose.
And then he remembered the bandage on his shoulder and how she had told him his friends were okay and he felt worse than before.
Wally sighed. He just had to say it.
"It was kind of you to- I just wanted to- thanks for telling me my friends were okay... It helped. A lot." The blonde nodded once, but did not speak. "That was really kind."
Wally waited for her eyes to meet his, and held her gaze. Archer girl bit her lip.
"I felt sorry for you, Kid Idiot, and I'm not making that mistake again." Her mouth twisted wryly while Wally's opened with outrage.
"That is so not what I'm called!"
"Would you like me to use your real name, because that's no better." It was the first time Wally had seen archer girl look remotely pleased, and he hated it. "What kind of an alias is 'Kid Flash' anyway?"
"It's a great name-"
"It definitely isn't, and you're losing points on originality too. You don't see 'Kid Bat' and 'Kid Arrow' running around, do you?" She countered.
"No, but-"
"They have proper names! Granted, 'Speedy' is kind of confusing, but at least-"
"It's not Speedy anymore, it's Red Arrow."
Artemis frowned.
"Well then, his name is just as bad as yours."
"Hang on a minute, your evil villain buddies' names aren't any better." Wally argued. "Take Queen Bee- she's got nothing to do with bees, she doesn't have some weird fixation with insects-"
"It's figurative!" Cried archer girl, but Wally ploughed through her words with his own.
"The Brain: absolutely no creativity there. He could have had Synapse, Grey Matter, Impulse-"
"Those all suck, and you know it."
"... And don't get me started on Sportsmaster."
"I'll let you have that; it's a pretty poor name."
Wally chewed on the inside of his mouth, thinking of some way to argue back.
"Hey, you never told me your name, y'know, your evil villain name."
"Uhhh, yeah." Archer girl hesitated. "Um, I'm still spitballing."
The speedster straightened up. "Need any help?"
"From Kid Dork, no thanks." She scoffed. "It's you that needs naming assistance."
"You harpy-" He started.
"Creep-"
"Freak-"
"Bastard-"
"Bitch."
Archer girl did not retaliate, and Wally cringed at the insult he left wavering in the air. He didn't dare to breathe, expecting the worst. Eventually she spoke.
"Yeah, I don't think any of those are usable."
The fight had gone from archer girl's tone, the right side of her mouth was pulled up into a half-smile. Wally soon realised he was making the same face, but it was too late to wipe it off so he just sat there, grinning like an idiot, and although the sense of foreboding tainted the feeling, it was the first time he felt genuinely... Okay.
"I have a question."
"...yeah?"
"Are you serious about the duct tape?"
"Deadly serious."
And so they sat in relatively amicable silence until the steel door burst open. Wally stood, his hopes flying into the stratosphere before they came back down at his top speed. Not the Justice League. Instead, four armed idiots barged their way in, much to the dismay of archer girl, who promptly stood and began to argue.
"What's going on?"
"We have orders to take this one to the questioning room." Droned one of the men.
Questioning room? Wally thought. Sounds like fun. However, I prefer my fun pain-free and U rated, so I'll have to RSVP a no.
The blonde seemed to have the same idea.
"Orders from who?" She asked, jutting her chin up at a guy who was a good six inches taller than her, and also holding a semi automatic.
"The boss." Was the only answer, and when the girl tried to argue she was shoved backwards into a wall. Wally started forward, shouting.
"Hey, you're hurting her!" He was about to push the offending goon away, but was stopped by both the chain around his ankle, then the butt of a gun to his stomach. With a groan, he doubled over. In the background archer girl was shouting, hissing, but Wally's vision was blurred when his ankle was released, only to have handcuffs wrapped around his wrists. He struggled as they pushed him out the door, but he was tired and weak and received a jab to the -still very tender- back of the head. Although he couldn't see her, archer girl was following, her seething words barely audible.
"Hired muscle... No thoughts, no sense... Inadequately trained..."
Wally was led down through a maze of corridors, until they reached another steel door and Wally was pushed inside, along with two of the armed idiots and archer girl.
"Well, what a pleasant surprise." The voice came from a man at the end of the room, a hockey mask on his face. Sportsmaster. Wally managed to scrape up the remnants of his courage.
"Really? You totally told these guys to bring me here, so obviously you're not surprised to-"
"Shut up, kid, I wasn't talking to you." Sportsmaster's gaze shifted to his right, where archer girl was now standing.
"You said you wouldn't." She hissed. "Not until the League got in touch."
"Well the league hasn't made any effort to contact us." Sportsmaster replied. Wally panicked, surely they would have tried to negotiate- "And you really shouldn't try to undermine me." He took archer girl's chin in his hand and she stiffened, barely masking a grimace. "-Not after the fiasco of an assignment you caused."
His grip on her began to tighten, until she shook him off.
"That wasn't my fault-" smack.
The girl staggered, the older man's backhand leaving an angry red print on her cheek. To her credit, she didn't make a sound, and when Sportsmaster spoke, his voice was dangerously low.
"Now, when I tell you that I don't want to look at your ungrateful face for a week, I mean it. And when I take a prisoner in for questioning, I don't want an argument. Are we clear, baby girl?"
What did he just call her? The speedster tried to make sense of what Sportsmaster said as he watched archer girl square her shoulders, clench her jaw, and reply:
"Crystal."
"Perfect. Just as well you came, I wanted the remote for the collar." Wally's stomach hit the floor. This couldn't be good.
The girl dug in her pocket for a second, then almost reluctantly, she held out the little black box. Sportsmaster took it.
"Thank you, baby girl." He drawled, lingering on the last two words and watching as Wally flicked his gaze between the two of them, archer girl's head hanging. "You can go."
The speedster was surprised to feel a little more alone when the door clanged shut, but he steeled himself. He refused to be afraid, his friends were coming, at any moment they would charge in and it would be over, he'd go home and eat ice cream and watch TV and save the world and everything would be back to normal.
Baby girl...
"I've got a few questions for you, kid." Sportsmaster called.
"If it's a quiz on current events, I'm afraid I'll be useless." Wally quipped. "I've been a little... reclusive, the last few days. Not my fault though-"
He was cut off as an all too familiar feeling snatched the words from his lips and stuffed them back down his throat, crackling needles of electricity pricking him everywhere. The speedster fell to his knees, shaking.
"Cut the snark and I might not do that again." Sportsmaster began to walk the room, making a slow, lazy circle around Wally. The armed men watched on as the speedster struggled to his feet, his hands still cuffed behind his back.
"Bring it." He muttered. Again, the collar sent him to the ground, twitching as white hot bolts of ouch screamed through his veins.
"Whoops. My finger slipped."
The 'questioning' lasted for what Wally would have sworn were hours. Sportsmaster was relentless, but the speedster was stubborn. Stubborn enough to continue to grit his teeth and yell obscenities, even when his face hit the ground and his body burned with the strain or the shock or both. The questions fired at him merely rattled off his skull, his replies a swift, but ineffective, counterattack.
"What is your mentor's secret identity?"
"Your mum. Weyyyyy-" A grunt of pain.
"Where is your team based?"
"Wouldn't you like to kno-" A sharp cry.
"What are the real names of your teammates?"
"Mickey Mouse and Abraham freakin' Lincoln-" His cries had become shouts.
"Where does intel for your missions come from?"
"Google, you Neanderthal-" Wally's shouts evolved into screams.
"Where is the Watchtower located?"
"Up your fat, hairy-" His screams were drowned out by the intensity of the electric shocks, he prayed for them to leave but they left searing trails in his brain, each question promising their return. He couldn't do this, he couldn't do it-
And then, without even realising how he got there, the speedster was back in his cell, ankle shackled to the wall, and annoyingly, his hands still cuffed. He looked for the girl, but she wasn't there. Wally didn't even know if he wanted her help, not now, not after the revelation in the questioning room. He felt sick and he wasn't sure why, but those two words spun around and around and around in his mind until he was dizzy: baby girL baby girl baby girl.
Thanks for reading- remember to leave a review, it really helps!