Chapter 5
She stared out her window, waiting for some movement, waiting for….something. She had her weapons at the ready, but nothing lethal. She didn't want to hurt him, at least not yet. Not until she knew what he was and what she was up against. That's what she told herself anyway.
It had been two days without a sighting, without a clue. Artemis considered herself a night person, but the long hours were taking their toll. Zatanna had called and left three messages for her. The magician's show was coming back to Gotham for its final stop, and then a plea for a trip to the islands was mentioned. Mai Tai, bikinis, sun, and of course men would do them both some good. Any other time Artemis would have at least considered it, Zatanna was her best friend after all, but now wasn't a good time to say the least, Artemis was too busy going insane.
A severe storm warning blared out all over of the Gotham airwaves. It wasn't hurricane season yet, but possible tornados and flooding were possible. Bottom line was stay inside and let it pass. Sound advice she thought. The severe weather would make patrolling a messy affair, but right now she was more concerned with what was hunting her, not vice versa.
It was 2 a.m. and the storms were still pounding the city. The archer was mesmerized by the sheets of rain dancing off the street lights that flooded the roadways. Her bathroom window was not properly sealed and drops of water leaked onto the ledge. The owner of her apartment was going to get an earful in the morning as every couple of hours she had to replace the damp towels.
She loved thunderstorms, always had. Watching the lightning pop through the sky delighted her since she was a kid. She imagined them as weapons of the gods, protecting the innocent, destroying those friends of her fathers that would always boast of their crimes, the people they'd hurt or worse. Lightning meant justice to her.
A bolt stuck near the park in front of her apartment, lighting up the neighborhood. There were many mature oaks growing in Gotham Central West that were rare for this city. They were beautiful and she'd spent as much time as she had free to sit under them and read, like they had back at Stanford. Together. Another bolt struck, even louder and brighter than the first, and then she saw him.
The figure, the man, stood with his arms crossing his chest, most likely for warmth. She had a trained eye, (you had to - to be the shot she was with a bow) and even from that distance she could make out that he was shivering, cold, scared, maybe all three.
She stepped outside in her track pants and sweatshirt, standing on the stone stairs as the fierce wind blew through her. Within seconds she was soaked to the bone. She had her dagger tucked into the back of her waistband, hidden under the oversized Stanford shirt she wore, just in case.
She stood in plain sight and looked at his silhouette, briefly lit from time to time by the storm that blew around them. She slowly, carefully approached him and he didn't move. She kept her hands in front of her to appear as non-threatening as possible. He slowly stepped out the shadows, his eyes locked with hers, never blinking, like she was the only living thing left in the world. Oh my god she cried inside. Wally.
The man stared at her with apprehensive fear. She could tell his natural instinct was to run, to be in constant motion, but he was battling that urge, trying to fight the need to hide. He was scared.
He looked slightly gaunt, pale. Being out in the elements without the proper clothing despite his higher body temperature didn't help provided he was really like her speedster. He was unshaven, hair unruly. His green eyes still stood out, but there was a definite fear behind them. It was talking all his strength to be still, and it looked like he didn't have much left.
She wanted to ask the obvious, but was not ready for the answer. So she took the next one in sequential order.
"Why are you following me?" she asked as calmly as possible.
His lips trembled, and she could barely hear his reply over the pouring rain.
"I ….I don't know," he spoke as his voice broke in painful desperation. He nervously began to stutter. "I…I don't know why."
He dropped his head and wiped his eyes. "I know how bad this looks, I'm not some stalker ….it it's just….god…." and he trailed off unable to finish.
Her body tensed. She didn't know what she had expected him to say. He looks like him, he sounds like him. The Tigress inside kept her sharp, on guard, but the Artemis inside was struggling to break free.
"What's your name?" she asked. She wanted so desperately to hear him say it, to wrap her in his arms and tell her he's back and he'd missed her, but she still stroked the dagger she tucked away gingerly. Artemis realized it could be a trap, that someone may have perverted his memory and turned his DNA into a weapon.
She trusted Karen and trusted her abilities, but there were sick dangerous people out there, and she had a lot of enemies. Sometimes science was wrong; pure and simple. She had to remain calm and vigilant, and if he tried to harm her, she wouldn't hesitate.
"I don't know," he answered exhausted. "I don't know who I am or why I'm here. I'm losing losing my freaking mind," he sniffled, his self-revelations wearing him down.
His despair impaled her heart, but she stood firm.
"I promise I'm not going to hurt you," he sniffled and she realized along with the rain he was crying. He looked so sad, confused, so tired, so utterly alone.
A small part of her armor chinked away at his words. "I know," she whispered. Artemis even allowed herself to believe it for a moment.
"Do you know who I am?" she swallowed hard, her mouth gone dry long ago despite the pouring rain.
"No." he said lost, as the rain splattered around them.
"I don't know who you are, why I'm here" He blew out his breath in despair, "I ..I saw you on the street and I…I had to find you."
His shoulders slumped and his tired body surrendered to the elements, sliding into the ground, sadness and exhaustion battling for dominance. "You should call the cops and get it over with. I won't run, I can't do this anymore." he replied his hand rubbing his weary eyes.
"No one's calling anyone. Not yet at least. Just don't give me a reason to ok?" she told him.
He nodded as a puddle formed around him.
"My name… my name is Artemis."
"Artemis," he repeated as if he could taste the words, and for the first time that night his eyes lit up just for the briefest of moments. "That's beautiful."
She bit her tongue hard and swallowed the pain, the pain of those wonderful words leaving his lips, but she wouldn't allow herself the joy, she couldn't. This can't be happening she demanded. This is some fucker's sick joke. She was not standing here with her dead lover; she was not getting soaked in the rain with a ghost. I'm losing my fucking mind. Her hands began to shake.
Thunder erupted nearby and his head jerked around. He was skittish and she was convinced he would disappear if she didn't take a chance soon.
She knelt down, unconcerned with the water and mud; she needed to be on his level, calm him as much as she could. "What is the last thing you remember?"
He paused and his eyes closed, she can tell he was searching. "I was on a beach, there was a long bridge covered in lights. I just ran," he spoke his voice filled with exhaustion. "There was a house…. with these long stairs on the outside. No one lived there anymore, it was empty, cold. It made me so freaking sad. Why would it do that?" he questioned painfully, a slight sob forming in his words. "I'd never been there before in my life but this place….I had some connection to it." More tears began to form in his bloodshot eyes. "What's happening to me?" he asked in desperation, lost in his heightened emotions.
He tried to cam himself; center himself despite the elements pounding down on them both. "I know this is real, I know I'm standing here, I just don't know where here is or why," his breathing becomes faster, fearful..."and I keep following you and I….." He slammed his fist into the ground while Artemis's hand carefully slid behind her back, her fingers tickling the handle.
Mud flew all over the red head "What am I doing?" he whimpered. "I'm really sorry, I know how fucked up this sounds. I'm not crazy, but god who knows anymore. I've …I've got go," and he tried to get to his feet, but they slid out from under him in the mud and he fell back down to the ground, landing hard on his back.
His hands covered his face as he tried to hide the tears.
"Why is this happening?" he pled to no one and just laid there.
Artemis's heart was being torn to pieces inside. She and Tigress were locked hand to hand with each other. Tigress wanted her to stand back and prepare for an attack, Artemis wanted to run to his side and ease his suffering. They called a truce.
"Do you know your name?" she asks like a parent reassuring a lost child.
"No," he sighed and pinched his eyes, frustrated with himself for his stupidity. He tried again and this time successfully got to his feet, sliding just a bit forward.
She reached for his hand to steady him, but quickly her stepped back, almost afraid of her touch
"I'm sorry," he said realizing the awkwardness." I'm just nervous."
"I'm not going to hurt you either. I need you to believe me." Artemis affirmed.
"Ok," he whispered calming himself.
"Let's get you inside and into some dry clothes. I might have something that would fit you. I'm guessing you might be hungry too."
He nodded and smiled that smile she had seen in countless pictures she kept locked away, all except the one in her bedroom on her dresser. She would have to hide it easily before he could see it; neither needed the confusion at the moment. She'd clean him up, feed him, and together they would begin unraveling this mystery. That was the plan anyway.
"Thank you…. for the other night. Thanks for saving me."
He smiled and she swore she could see a slight blush form on his face. "Yeah…about that…" he hesitated.
"We can talk about it later. You evidently know my secret, when it's time maybe you'll tell me yours."
He nodded and smiled, relief finally beginning to show on his tired and wet features.
They made their way across the street; and she reached back and took his hand like a parent would to a child guiding him across. He stopped suddenly and she whirled around to see him examining the coupling, her hands locked in his. He just stared at them with a confused expression on his face. His eyes then looked at her quizzically, studying the contours of her face, the matted down strands of her long hair, almost with a spark of recognition in his eyes.
He asked hesitantly. "Do you uh….do you know me?"
"Yeah, Yeah I do. Come inside and we'll figure this out ok?"
He nodded, but didn't move, lost her beautiful features.
He smiled and whispered to her "You're welcome….uh… for the um…for the rescue." and inside her heart soared.
He hesitantly followed her into the apartment and cautiously looked inside. She placed several towels on the couch and guided him to sit. Inside her cupboards where the energy bars he loved so much. They were designed for speedsters, but she found them very useful for long nights of patrolling
Within seconds five were already gone. "Oh man these are good…thank you so much."
"I've got tons so don't worry. Let's get you some clean clothes then we can talk."
Up in her closet, boxed away on the highest shelf were things she could never let go of, things that were so distinctly him. The West's had heartbrokenly taken back most of his belongings, but some she just couldn't part with. His favorite jeans with the tear right above his thigh that his unique collections of boxers would hang out from, a few t-shirts including his long sleeve Kid Flash T-Shirt that he jokingly complained someone was making money off of.
Boxers, track pants, dress shirts, more stuff then she should have kept, but smelled so much like him. She placed them all in secure air tight bags so his scent would never leave them. At her weakest moments, she would take one out to sleep with. It still made her feel sad, but somehow safe at the same time. She kept a separate box for mementos, love notes, souvenirs that they collected together, not for the cave, but for them.
Artemis carefully picked out an outfit and brought them to him
"My uh... my ex was about your size, these might work,"
She brought the clothes into the den and dropped them on her coffee table.
"I'm going to change into some dry clothes; you should do the same here. I'll be back in just a minute. Don't go anywhere ok? You're safe here."
He nervously nodded. She didn't know if the speedster really believed her or if he was too hungry and exhausted to run anymore. She hoped it was the former.
She stripped out of her wet clothes and found fresh jeans and sweatshirt folded neatly on her chair for the next day. She cracked open the door just slightly as she saw the red head completely stripped down, the lean muscle in his back bulging as he moved to navigate the filthy mud soaked clothes. It was hard for her not to stare, not to lose her breath. He looked so real, so alive. She could imagine her bare body pressed up against his and never letting go again, but something was wrong, something was different.
Wally was rarely reckless, but he was clumsy. On more than one occasion he had been victim of a knife would or a gunshot. He healed quicker than most, but it still left scars. They had spent so many years exploring each and every one of them, the most noticeable being the one that haunted her most, a surgical slice down his back, given to him by her father. It was almost seven inches long and rested right under his left shoulder blade, but the man standing naked in her den had none, not a scar, not a blemish.
Fuck she cursed and her body tensed, her senses heightened. The speedster had to be a clone despite what Karen had researched. Clones in of themselves were not evil, just some times their creators were, and the only ones she had come across; Jim Harper, Roy Harper, Conner Kent, they all had secret programming embedded deep in the psyche, instructions hidden inside waiting to be activated. Now she possibly faced another, one that could be programmed to kill her at moment's notice. All she had to do was say a trigger word, do something completely normal that could activate that order, and then suddenly she could find herself in a life or death struggle with someone with Wally's abilities. No matter what he was, if it reached that point, she didn't know if she had the heart to watch him die again.
She placed her preloaded crossbow behind her door. If something happened, she felt that she could get at least that far. If she could stun him, keep him secured somehow, maybe someone could help determine who had created him. She needed to call Dick, hell the whole League, but there wasn't time tight now. If this was a weapon sent to kill her, she would find who did this, and make the fucker's responsible wish they'd never been born.
But Karen had said the DNA was not altered, not a copy. It was pristine she said, almost new, like he'd just been born. Reborn? It wasn't possible…was it?
After her first suspicion days ago, she spent hours accessing the Justice League database and researched the process thoroughly. Ray Palmer had written and recorded several comprehensive reports detailing the process which Cadmus had used not only for the Superboy project, but Roy and Jim Harper as well. Needless to say it was eye opening.
Contrary to popular belief cloning is a very, very complicated process. The material needed is not like in the movies; a blood sample, a hair follicle, a piece of dead skin. It takes quite a lot of tissue and blood, sometimes even bone to ensure a proper replication. The process is very hard on the original sample, that's why so much of it is needed in case of failure, which was quite common. When someone took a sample from a host, you knew it. It hurt.
There was no body left to take a sample from after Wally's death. The original source material taken from him at Cadmus had been destroyed, Dick was positive of it. There would be a 100 different ways someone might have obtained his DNA, but that would never have been enough, would never have lasted. His metabolisms constant need for energy was the only thing that kept those cells alive.
At the 0.05% chance someone had succeeded, why would they unleash him now? Kid Flash wasn't dead as far as the world was concerned, Bart had seen to that. Memories could be implanted, but not specifics, not about them, about her. He'd described Palo Alto and San Francisco to a tee, and somehow had tracked her to Gotham. No one knew where she lived other than her mother and Nightwing. It made no sense. This wasn't some genetic copy in there, this was him. She couldn't explain it, it was just a feeling, but when it came to Wally West she just couldn't trust herself anymore. Not yet.
Questions continued racing through her mind that she needed answers to, but she wouldn't get them tonight. Keeping Wally…keeping this person alive and safe would be the first step of that process.
After he was dressed she came into the room and gathered his wet clothes and towels and put them in their hamper. Artemis sat down in the chair across from the couch he sat and examined him, much the same he did her.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
He nodded. Something about his somewhat relaxed mannerism spoke to her that he really was, at least for the moment. "Do you want something to drink?"
He swallowed hard; she could tell he was nervous.
"I'm fine. It's just really-really frustrating, not knowing…. anything."
"I'm sure," she responded.
"Can I ask you some questions?"
"Sure," she answered.
"Who am I? What's my name?" he asked cautiously.
"It's Wally,"
He looked so relieved to know he had one. He had been searching his mind for weeks hoping one of the million that ran through his head would stick. He had a name. Someone actually knew his name. Then the excitement in his eyes quickly turned to confusion.
"Wally? Really?"
"Yeah," she smiled
"That's a horrible name," he replied. She tried but failed, and cracked a smile which made him do the same.
"I like Wally," she smiled
That seemed to cheer him up. "Fine Wally it is. Do I have a last name?"
"Of course you do. It's West."
"Wally West," he repeated, rubbing his chin contemplating this new information.
"Do I have a middle name?"
"I…uh…I don't' know what it is," she lied. There was no chance she was going to tell him it was Rudolph.
"How do we know each other?"
"We were friends a long time ago, um… at school."
"Ok," he accepted.
"Wally, it's been a long time sense I saw you last. You fell off the radar a while back and we kind of lost touch." Those words almost destroyed her, but she never lost her composure. There were enough kernels of truth in them that she felt justified in the lies that surrounded them. She hid the un-comfortableness that followed, but he still noticed, he always could
"Artemis are you ok?"
"Yeah I'm fine. I just…never thought I'd see you again. I'm ok, don't worry about it."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I'm good," she lied. "What else do you want to know?"
"Do I….Do I have any family?"
"Yeah I think so…somewhere in the mid-west maybe," She lied again, "You…you never talked much about them much. We can search the internet later and see if we can find them, it just might take some time though, maybe a couple of days."
She didn't want to overload him with too much new information, she hated lying to him, she always did, but they needed to take it slow for now, and this course of deception would buy her some time.
He looked nervous, like he wanted to say something, but was afraid too.
"Wally we were friends…. we are friends. You don't have to be scared. You can talk to me."
He looked at the ground distressed. "There's something wrong with me."
"I know. It's called amnesia."
"No that's not what I mean I….oh boy…," he blew out his breath and tried again. "I can uh….I can move really fast. I mean really really fast."
"I know that too Wally. I know what you can do, you don't have to hide it or be nervous about."
"You do?" How did it happen? How did I get this way? Was I born with it?"
"Slow down Wally. There a lot of things about you that we need to discuss. This is going to be really hard to explain so bear with me." God how do I start this she wondered.
Over the next few hours, she told him as much as she could without giving too much away and overwhelming him. How do you tell a complete stranger, that not only had he died saving a world he didn't remember, but that somehow he had come back, possibly cloned, perhaps reborn, or a hundred other explanations that she had never considered? How do you tell this person that the woman in front of him was the love of his life, his soul mate, the person he hoped to marry one day? The short answer was you don't.
The words Meta-Human was defined and explained as well as the experiment he had created years ago. The school she discussed previously had morphed into more of a loose affiliation of friends that were instructed about their gifts and how to use them properly and safely, almost like a team.
She tried to describe that this team used their gifts and abilities to help others from time to time. He never questioned her, never doubted her. She could tell by his body language that he trusted her, but also that he was nearing an over-saturation point. As hard as he tried his eyes got heavy, his yawning constant, but he tried to fight through it. She realized he had probably not slept for days, not real sleep anyway.
"Wally I want you to stay here tonight? You'll be safe. We'll get you feed and cleaned up and then tomorrow we'll start putting the pieces together. We'll get you right Wally, I promise."
She could tell he wanted to protest, but he was too exhausted, and despite not having any memories, he knew he had no place to go.
"Ok. Thanks. I'll….I'll find some way to repay you for all this. I promise."
You already have she spoke to herself
She considered offering her bed to him, she taking the couch instead, but as soon as she pulled the blankets out, he was asleep. She sat on the chair beside him and watched over him for the next few hours. Artemis wasn't sure if she thought he'd disappear again, or possibly attack her in her sleep, or if she just wanted to be near him because she had missed him so god-damn much, that just watching him breathe brought her more peace than she had felt in months.
Once she was sure he was sound asleep she had to take a giant step back and truly asses her situation. He didn't know who he was, she didn't either. The girl he left years ago barely existed anymore. If he woke up with any kind of memories intact, she wondered if he'd recognize her at all. She had blood on her hands, lots of it. She'd done horrible things in the name of justice and had absolutely no regrets. Her heart had grown hard, cold, bitter. It started on Manta's sub and never really stopped.
She became Tigress, because it was the only to survive, and soon it became someone to place the blame on for the atrocities she was forced to commit. She had to keep the archer trapped inside, while denying herself the small sliver of hope that she would ever make it out alive. When she was revealed at the Summit, and the Light were defeated she finally allowed herself to become Artemis Crock once more, the hero, the teammate, his partner, his love. It would last for less than a week before Wally was taken from her.
She wasn't the Artemis he remembered, and couldn't be again. She didn't even know that person anymore She hadn't intended to become Tigress again and take that path, life pushed her that way just like it had him when he ran into the Zeta's to aid his family, save his friends.
She knew all these facts to be unflinchingly true, and yet here she was, standing over a complete stranger. He may share the same body and mannerisms, the same DNA and abilities, but he was a potential threat, possibly dangerous. Her career was based on sound judgment and decision making, clarity of thought and control of emotion, but she was prone to destructive behavior as well, from countless assassinations where stealth and guile would have served the same purpose as making a statement and sending a message, to the recent one night stand at Falcone's club, and now this.
She was in over her head and she knew it, but if there was any chance this was really Wally West, her Wally West despite the warning screams of Tigress echoing in her head, she would have to take the risk, take the chance, but she'd been wrong so many times before.