Wally stared, in awe, at the mansion he was standing in front of. He knew Dick was rich, but it exceeded his expectations nonetheless. He didn't know anyone who lived in a mansion, save possibly Roy, but he wasn't exactly sure. It wasn't as if they had discussed housing situations at the party last night, and this was the first time he'd gotten away.
After they got home, although Wally didn't remember as he'd fallen asleep in the car, his parents had almost immediately went to bed themselves. The next morning, his sister had arrived, chattering on about her one-night stay in Central City, to their parent's dismay. They had never liked anything to do with that couple.
It was actually noon. Wally stared at the gigantic door, although he had no intentions of knocking with the huge lion-head knocker, made out of some kind of brassy metal. First, he was in his Kid Flash suit, second, what kind of spy knocks? He looked at the knocker for a few minutes before running over to the side of the house and scouting for windows.
They had entirely too many if they were trying to hide something. Large, too, if any of them could open he could step through them easily. But they were curtained. Wally frowned. He read quite a bit, not having much else to do most of the time, and he'd read enough spy novels to know that almost all mansions had complex security systems that he'd never figure out or be able to dodge without further knowledge in a million years. Even if this wasn't a spy novel, he was going to have to find another way in.
Thoughts still full of books, Wally sprang to lasers and shoot-outs, then to ventilation systems, then to sewers. At the last one, he wrinkled his nose. The ventilation might work, though. Although he was talking about either Bruce Wayne (billionaire) or Batman (superhero) or both. Well, if it was Batman it was both, but..
Anyways, ventilation was out whoever this was. Wally couldn't just go ring the doorbell, Kid Flash suit or not, it'd be suspicious either way. Although he could probably ring the doorbell (assuming they had a doorbell, his attention had been on the knocker) and run, then sneak in while they weren't looking...
That would work. Hopefully the (fictional) high-tech security system wouldn't blast him into pieces. But people lived there, right? And they weren't blasted to pieces, so why should he be?
Because I'm an intruder! Wally answered himself. Oh well. Goodbye, Suzie. You can have my Kid Flash suit and my quarter collection and that model car you always liked... Stop it. Wally jerked himself out of his depressing mood and ran back to the front of the house. If he didn't do this fast, he was going to lose his nerve. Luckily fast was his middle name. Kid Fast Flash, Wally Fast West. Mm hmm. Yes. He was not going to be shipped home to his house in little bitty pieces.
He took a deep breath, held it, held a contest with himself to see how long he could hold his breath, then let it out. Finally he dashed up to the door, figure probably blurring, and grabbed the lions'-head doorknocker. It was heavier than he expected, cool in his hand. He lifted it high then let it fall, seconds later on the other side of the house, wishing he could see inside the heavy curtains.
Wally waited for a few seconds and heard the door open. Taking one last deep breath to steady himself, he darted out from his semi-hiding place and past the person standing at the door, who looked old from Wally's brief impression of him. He took in the room without stopping, making a hairpin turn in the doorway apparently leading to the kitchen, having located a good hiding place in the few seconds he'd been inside.
Or at least, a tolerable hiding place until he could find something better. Wally grimaced at the room as he squatted behind a chair.
After darting around the room for a good five minutes, looking for better hiding places, Wally finally stopped moving after diving underneath a couch in a small alcove, hearing someone coming. He peeked out from the curtain-like fabric, seeing, what do you know, Dick. He was muttering something under his breath, and Wally cursed his hearing, wishing he had superfast hearing or something. Or that he just had better hearing. Either way.
He considered running out there to a better hiding place that was closer, but it was hard to start running from this position and Dick was already almost out of the room already. Dick walked into the doorway Wally had almost ran through some time ago and grabbing something from the massive kitchen (everything seemed to be built with giants in mind in this house) he walked back through the doorway. Wally held his breath as Dick turned on the 24-inch screen television he'd barely noticed. He was directly across from Dick, the television was right next to him.
Dick flopped onto the couch and started flipping channels. From what Wally could hear, it was mostly commercials. Great. He was in the same room as his suspect and he couldn't even SPY on him! He could look, of course, but even that was risky, and at this point there was no way he could move. He couldn't hear anything Dick might say over the television, not that Dick was saying anything right now. He might as well go reveal himself and get blasted to pieces, this trip was such a fail so far.
Although he didn't necessarily have to spy. He could snoop for clues. He wasn't expecting a Batman suit to be lying in the next room, but who knew? He was pretty sure if people were really looking at him they'd figure his secret out, especially if they got into his house.
But he still had one small problem-how was he going to get past Dick? He couldn't work up enough speed from here to be a blur, and a blur would raise suspicions anyways. Wally scowled at Dick, who was oblivious as he lazily flipped through channels. Okay, maybe he could sneak behind the TV or something..
Pretty soon, Wally realized the situation was impossible. He would just have to wait it out. Wally ducked his head back inside his temporary shelter and examined every little detail. After a couple of minutes, he'd memorized the entire cramped area.
If only he could-oh. He was so dumb. Why hadn't he remembered? Stupid mind for not thinking of that earlier. DUH! A couple of seconds later, Wally was back outside, having vibrated through the wall. Luckily this room was on the back of the house. He was such an idiot.
After mentally berating himself for a few minutes for not remembering, Wally vibrated back into the house, once again in the front hallway. It seemed the best place to start. He looked both ways, making sure no one was around. Then he quickly, but not too quickly, ran around the house, getting a feel for its layout. He almost ran into the man who had opened the door once, and just barely caught himself. He didn't see Bruce Wayne anywhere. Strangely enough, there wasn't any servants or anything, unless the butler guy was actually a butler. Protecting their secret from snoopy servants? Or maybe they just didn't like servants. Either way..
He peeked in a couple of rooms, mainly seeing bathrooms or guest rooms. Almost all were locked. Finally, he struck gold-a pretty clean room, but not as military clean as the guest rooms, and obviously lived in. It didn't look like a Bruce Wayne type of room, or the butler guy. Wally grinned and vibrated into what he assumed was Dick's room.
Well, what better place to look than the closet? The room itself seemed to hold no secrets-made bed, no things that exactly qualified as toys, per se, only a few posters on the wall, a nightstand and dresser with only a few trinkets on top. Entirely too clean, but that was the only complaint Wally could manage. And maybe holding no clues.
He opened the closet door, wincing at the creak, and his eyes widened to see it was almost as large as the room itself. He could see it went back far beyond the suits hanging in the front row, or the regular clothes hanging behind that. But to his disappointment, the rest of the closet was ordinary, boring clothes. Maybe Dick was just a normal guy who happened to have a billionaire for a father figure.
As he was walking out, dejected from not finding anything and not knowing where else to look, Wally saw something he hadn't noticed.
A black and white domino mask.
A few hours later, Dick Grayson returned to his room. He immediately knew something was wrong. The closet was open. He looked around for other clues and found one in plain sight-a piece of torn notebook paper, reading, Hi Dick. Wanna hang out later? I think I can get Roy to come too. It was signed WW/KF.
As he frowned at the piece of paper, his mind flashed back to the party last night for some reason. He remembered Wally mentioning his last name was West. So-WW? He couldn't think of anyone else he knew with those initials. But what was the KF supposed to mean? How did Wally get here, anyways? Didn't he live in Keystone? And how did he get in, and into his room? The door hadn't been unlocked.
Frowning at the puzzle, Dick thought of a nickname. That could explain the KF. But how many words started with K? Kill (or Killer, maybe) kick, kangaroo, Kim, Kate, Ken, Kid-wait, that might work. Kid. Kid something-that-started-with-f.
Well, he could do the first strategy again. Flicker, flame, flew, flight, flax, flan, flash... Heh, Kid Flash! He'd met that guy once. Seemed a little uncertain at the time, but not unfriendly. They'd been in the Justice League Satellite, he was new to everybody there. To tell the truth, it had been Dick's first time too, he just hid it better.
No need to go off on a tangent, though. How did he even know the first one was Kid? He didn't. He turned the note over, looking for anything else that could give him a clue, and saw a PS on the back.
You should hide your masks better. It's positively sloppy to leave them where anyone could find them. And tell Batman to get vibration-proof locks next time.
Oh. Duh.
So, all in favor of me writing another chapter showing the aforementioned 'hang out' time? (It ends in a battle, by the way) All in favor of me skipping directly to the last chapter, which is set just before Lightspeed?