Ch 5 Narration

AN: I wish there were superheroes in real life. I'm going to ask another favor of you guys, if any of you are religious, will you please pray for Boston, and all the things happening here?

…

I hope you guys like this, as always and thanks for the great responses. It really makes my day when I see people enjoying this.

XxXxX

Wally was thrilled when the doctors cleared him to leave medical, though this was tempered somewhat when they explained he wasn't yet ready to return to active duty. On top of that, Superman was waiting for him as he stepped out of the Med Bay, meaning he couldn't zip off to find Artemis again.

"Don't look so put out. You're still recovering; it won't kill you to slow down and walk with me to the meeting." Clark rolls his eyes when Wally sticks his tongue out at the man. "C'mon. The more you stall to make faces the longer it'll be before we can meet up with your girl again."

"Right! What are we waiting for? I know you can move faster than that, Superman! Keep up with the fastest man alive." Clark's never seen the younger man this keyed up. Well, at least not in this way.

"You really love her, don't you?"

Wally stops vibrating and turns to the Kryptonian. "Don't you love Lois?" And Clark knows the answer. More than anything.

Wally changes the subject, and chatters on like usual as they approach the boardroom. Clark smiles and lets him. It gives him a chance to really look at his friend. To remind himself that he's back, and he's safe, and he doesn't need to hunt someone – Luthor – down. He had thought the man would be down and out for longer after their confrontations with him and Brainiac. Yet here he was, amassing power and threatening the people the Man of Steel cared about. Again.

He didn't approve of killing. He didn't. But so many villains just won't stay down. Bruce knew he was tempted, sometimes, but he doubted anyone knew just how tempting a permanent solution was to him. Ma and Pa wouldn't approve, but they were his parents, and he knew they would forgive him. They weren't enough of an incentive to stay his hand. The League would disapprove at first, but if the Lords proved anything to him, it's that they would succumb to their doubts and fall in line easily enough. Lois would be shocked, but they didn't have to be like the Lords. If they stayed out of the governments, only went that far with the worst of their foes… she might come around.

It was usually around this point in his musings that he ran into the real reason for his hesitation. Wally would be disappointed in him. Like Clark's parents, the speedster wouldn't stay mad at him, but he wouldn't follow him, or even stay out of the way. And he could just picture Wally speeding in to rescue some villain and falling… whether to betrayal by Superman's victim or to one of Clark's own unstoppable attacks, it wouldn't matter. So he would cut off that line of thought, and consider instead how to protect the world, protect his family, without compromising the morals his parents engrained him. The same morals Flash lived and defended with every step he took.

Laughter echoed down the corridor, cutting off Flash's explanation of how to make the perfect double-BLT.

"Artemis!" And suddenly his companion is gone from his side. Clark turns the corner to find him embracing a blonde woman in civilian clothing.

"Mm. Missed you too, Wallman." The woman finally responds when the two break apart.

Feathers brush against him, and Clark realizes Shayera had come to stand next to him while he stared. "I know. They're cute, right?"

"Yeah. That is Tigress, right?"

"Artemis. She prefers Artemis." She clarifies at his look.

"Oy, Supes!" He turns back to the couple. Their arms are loped around each other's waists, but they're focusing on him and Shayera now. "I want to introduce you to Artemis. Artemis, this is Superman. Try not to break him."

"No promises. It's nice to meet you. Thank you for taking care of this spaz for me."

And no matter the strange circumstances, his Ma raised him better than to be rude, especially to friends of friends. He takes her hand and shakes it, gently. "It was no problem. It's a pleasure to meet old friends of Wally's."

Suddenly, Batman round the corner and stalks past them, Green Lantern stomping angrily behind him. Shayera mutters to him, "Oof. Someone's still ticked."

"Can we get started already?" John grinds out, and they comply, following him into the room to see the other two founders already there.

"Wally! I'm so glad to see you safe!" Diana rises from her seat to offer the man a hug.

"'Course I am, Princess! Have more faith in the Fastest Man Alive!" He spins her around before speeding back to his seat by John, pulling Artemis into his lap. "So, what's up?" The mood sobers immediately.

"Why don't you tell us? Or better yet, Bruce can." John glares pointedly at Batman.

Artemis speaks instead. "It's not... don't blame Batman. I was the one who went to him, and who asked him to keep it secret." She shifts nervously under the gazes of the other six heroes, and Wally decides to stop her.

"Babe. I need to be the one that tells them. Where we're from. They– they deserve to hear it from me."

Artemis shifts to look him in the eye. "Of course. You're right."

"Er. I don't really know where to start." He looks at the assembled heroes – at his family – and tries to think of how to tell them that they don't know him. Not really.

Artemis understands his hesitation. "Start at the beginning. The Flash, of course." Of course. He takes a breath, and starts.

"When I was a kid, I knew that the Flash was the greatest hero there was." Eyebrows raise, because his family in this universe know him as the first and only Flash. "When I was ten, my aunt married the man that I quickly realized was the Flash. When I was thirteen, I reverse-engineered his super-speed experiment based on the product logs at his lab. I became Kid Flash, the third junior partner to a member of the Justice League."

"You're… from an alternate universe." John sounds as disbelieving as the rest of the League. They've dealt with alternate universes before. It shouldn't be unbelievable. But he supposes it's different to think about people you care about that way. That it's surprising to hear that your friend isn't who you think he is. Well, unless you're Batman, who appears as unflappable as always. But he needs to make them understand. They need to know everything. So before they can interject more, Wally holds up his hands. "I am. But please, let me finish."

So he does we he's always done best. He talks. He talks about befriending Aqualad, Speedy and Robin. He talks about The Day and Cadmus and strong-arming the League to get their own team. He talks about the team, and the Light and the 'Missing 16 hours.' About the invasion and Nightwing's plan. He talks about Artemis's 'death.' He talks about the North Pole.

"I never expected… when I stepped into that zeta tube to leave the watchtower, I thought it would be for the last time. I knew the math, the physics behind it. I knew, even at their incredible speeds, that Bart and Uncle Barry didn't have the kinetic energy to contain it, not without sacrificing themselves to an implosion of power. They needed another speedster. I had messed up the experiment when I gained my speed – I was never as fast as them, never fast enough to push the vortex over the edge and contain it… but I could be the one who fell in the gap between too slow and fast enough. One whose lagging speed would siphon off the excess energy… by letting the energy rip him apart."

"Oh, Wally." It's Diana who speaks, though all of their eyes are sorrowful. He doesn't want their sympathy. He doesn't regret saving his world, his first family.

Artemis is holding him, her face buried in his chest. He thinks she's crying. He does regret that.

"Forgive me, Beautiful." He strokes her hair. "I knew if I stopped to say goodbye to you, that I wouldn't be able to do it. And I couldn't let them die. Bart's just a kid. He's my baby cousin. And Uncle Barry… he's my hero. He was about to have babies with the second most wonderful woman in the world. He and Aunt Iris deserved it. The world needs the Flash. More than they needed some second-string speedster-wannabe."

"Hot Shot, you don't…"

"No, GL. It's the truth." Firm hands grasp his face; force him to stare into steely gray eyes.

"Don't ever say that again."

"But I-"

"No. I've forgiven you for that stunt. I understand why you had to do it, and that you would do it again if you have to. You wouldn't be the stupid boy who could trust – who could love – a villain's daughter if you didn't. But you need to know how much you're worth. Not just to me. Be chalant about your life – you can't just sacrifice yourself needlessly. You've seen the Lords."

He searches her eyes, but there is no yield to them. "Yeah."

"Then you don't do it again. Not without a better reason than 'I'm not important.'"

"Listen to her, Wally." And Shayera's using her big sister voice. No fair. They know he can't say no to either of them, much less both.

"But, I mean. I know you'd miss me; I love you guys too! But you wouldn't… do that. We've seen how that turns out…" They're carefully avoiding eye contact with him now. "You guys can't!"

"But we would," Superman whispers, face falling into his hands.

Wally doesn't know what to say to that. Luckily, he's always been good with deflection. "Does anyone care how I popped up here instead of… disintegrating? Because I know Bats is probably dying to compare my story to the energy readings logged on the Bat computer…" And that glare tells him that this might not have been the safest change of conversation. Effective though.

"How do you know that?"

"Er, when I first showed up here, I was looking for data on heroes, the League, trans-dimensional travel and the like. I figured Batman's systems would be most likely to have the information I needed."

"You… hacked Batman's computer." And even the J'onn's solemn face is twitching in either amusement or disbelief.

"Is it considered hacking if you have all the passcodes? I think it would actually be considered, like, remote access because technically-"

"Flash. How. Did you get. The codes?" Bats grinds out, obviously still ticked about his unauthorized access.

"Er, I told you I was best friends with Rob, for like, ever. He shared most of B's passcodes with me. I never woke up to a batarang at my throat, so I assume that was cool with him." Because there was no way the Dark Knight didn't know that someone outside the Bat Clan could see those files. "Bats' used the same codes here. Y'know, for such a clever guy, you're really predictable. You, B, and Lord Batman all used the same passwords… and shutting up now."

"Dare to dream." John mumbles.

Batman continues to glare at him, although the others mostly seem lost in thought. Finally, Diana asks a question he's been waiting for, although it still hurts. "How long have you been here? Did you… did you replace our Wally?"

"I've been here since about six months before the Invasion that brought us together. And as far as I can tell, there was no Wally West here before me. I am your Wally. But I'm also their Wally. I'm … me." He finishes lamely. Artemis is holding his hand in hers again. John puts a hand on his shoulder.

"And we're glad you're you, Hotshot."

"Thanks." He's quiet for a moment, before realizing he should continue. "Anyways, once I realized, one, there's no League to go to and two, I didn't exist here, I realized that I didn't really have any one else to go to. I decided to make a life for myself, and hope a League would form and share tech soon."

"Your records are impeccable for someone who didn't exist before a few years ago."

"You know you're allowed to actually ask questions, Bruce," he grumbles. Silence is his only reply.

He sighs. "I knew if I got into the hero biz, my records would have to be perfect. I knew Bats would eventually look into me, and I didn't need him to be any less trusting than he already is. B made sure we could create fake identities for undercover work, and a simple paper trail wasn't hard to fake after years of having to do it on the fly for missions."

"Yet you chose not to give yourself your own credentials."

"Hey, you of all people should know that things get exponentially harder to fake if you want to look like anything special. There have to be records. Newspaper articles, school citations, blog postings… I'm not good enough to do all of that. Not to your level of scrutiny. So instead, Wally West became… average." And after a lifetime of striving to be special, to make people notice him, to make people proud… that was hard.

"For all intents and purposes, I got grades that were just good enough to get me through community college. My relatives left me just enough money to get an average apartment, but are dead now and can't be cross-referenced. My 'former employers' wrote letters of recommendation just good enough to scrape me a job as a Technician's assistant at Central's crime lab. And so on.

"Of course, after that, I couldn't just show up with the knowledge of, say, an expert biochemist. It would be too suspicious. So I became what the papers said Wally West was. When I was finally able to debut the Flash, I couldn't bear to be Kid Flash, or even the Flash the way my Uncle was. Luckily, Central loves their kind-hearted, goofball version of the Flash."

"Why keep this from us at all?" The disappointment and hurt in Diana's voice makes his toes curl. He hates that he lied to her. "You could have told us, we would have understood. I thought we were getting over keeping secrets like this."

"Because I'm good at focusing on the present. Because bringing it up would have hurt too much. For all of us." He whispers the last part. How could he tell J'onn that he knew the Mars he wistfully remembers because it was never destroyed in his universe? How could he tell Shayera that the earth he grew up on is at peace with Thanagar; that she's happily married and respected by her people? How could he tell Bruce that he could have had a family, that the Batman he knew as kid was happy?"

Because he tried. He tried so hard. But he wasn't Dick, or M'gann, or Katar. He couldn't replace the family they never had here, even when they became his family.

"So why bring it up? I thought there was no chance of ever getting back." He's not bitter, though in his frustration he probably sound that way. "We didn't have the tech to travel dimensions. Even Lord Batman's portals only accessed similar dimensions- oh, right, you guys probably didn't notice me checking his stuff out while you were finishing up with your counterparts. Whoops." He rubs the back of his head sheepishly. Chagrin is better than guilt or sorrow. His attempt to divert the mood isn't working as well as it usually does, though. The others are still troubled. "So, er. Now you know." He finishes weakly. He doesn't have anything else to say, and they're not asking. Not yet.

Luckily, Artemis is there to take the pressure off of him. "That's where I come in, I guess." She stands to address the table, but hesitates.

"It's not an accident that I'm here." She finally starts. "I mean, I didn't know Wally – my Wally – was here, but I didn't jump here accidentally like he did. I came he specifically to protect the Flash – Wally West."

"Er, Babe, I'm touched that you would care that much about me – even an alternate version of me – but I can take care of myself." It hurt, a little, that she didn't seem to have faith in him, despite all they had been through together. It rubbed a little too close to too young, too loud, too slow.

"I know, love. We all know you can." And he didn't realize how much he needed to hear that until she said it. "But this isn't your run-of-the-mill villain we're talking bout. This is bigger than that. Something's out there targeting you specifically. Something's trying to eliminate Wally West from the Multiverse."