I am Wally x Linda trash and this season makes me super excited to see Wally get his powers (seriously, did you see how pouty he was in 3x03?) and more importantly, I'm super excited for Wally and Linda.

I'm not including Wally's dreams about Alchemy in this.

(Also, the idea here is that if Jesse can get her powers in a life-or-death situation that doesn't involve lightning, Wally can too.)

Enjoy! :D

Really, the excitement wasn't getting to him.

The crowd's cheers continued to boom in his ears, the stench of cheap hot dogs and slurpees engulfing the air around him, and children and adults shouting excitedly as Player #12 skidded over to third base. Wally sighed again and slouched in the seat.

(This is a waste of time,) Wells's voice declared, quiet amid the noise, his dry tone crackling through the earpiece.

Wally couldn't have said it better himself.

(Any suspicious activity?) Cisco's voice asked.

"No," Wally muttered, before picking up his binoculars and glancing around the packed baseball stadium yet again. Team Flash was facing a new dangerous meta with the ability to manipulate thermal and body heat. She fed on the warmth of humans like some kind of heat-thirsty vampire, food no longer nourishing her after Alchemy restored her powers, and now, she 'hunted' for victims in large groups of people.

"Really?" Wally had challenged, back at the Lab, "She's hunting for victims now?"

"What? She's a vampire. She hunts," Cisco had alleged with an aloof eye-roll, back at the Lab, "She steals energy from people, just takes it away from them - she's hunting them. Like some kind of... Thermo-thief, or something. Thermo-thief. How's that? Not bad, eh, guys?"

Caitlin and Iris both rolled their eyes.

"Yeah, well, we better find out where she'll strike next before we let anyone else get hurt," Barry answered sensibly, pulling over to one of the computers at the main desk.

"Well... there is a baseball game down at Central Stadium this weekend," Iris suggested with a shrug.

"If she's looking for a big gathering of people to hunt in, she's guaranteed to get one at the ball game," Caitlin agreed, nodding, "I say it's worth a shot."

Barry and Cisco both paused.

"Iris, you seriously think a metahuman is stupid enough to attack in a large, secured arena?" Wally retorted, looking up to his sister with a half-smile.

"If she overestimates her powers, of course she will," Iris chirped, squeezing his shoulder.

"Yeah, her history of attacks has mostly been in huge, crowded areas," Jesse noted, "Ten out of ten say we can find her fore sure at the ball game."

"What if we can't?" Wally found himself asking.

"Then, sadly, I guess we'll just have to enjoy the game," Wells muttered, walking away.

And now the entire squad was scattered throughout the stadium of roughly a dozen thousand or so, doing their best to survey as much of the arena as they could, searching for the needle in a haystack.

To be honest, a baseball game wasn't the biggest of his worries. He chided himself and forced himself to relax a little, even if there was no action. Given how turbulently his life had changed in the past year, relaxation wasn't something he could take for granted.

Just six months ago, Wally had been living a good life out in Keystone. He lived with and looked after his mother, and (illegally) raced expensive, exotic cars in order to earn good, solid cash. The ease and lack of stability in his life enthralled him, and racing - going fast - gave him that extra kick of adrenaline, that extra shock in his blood, that he loved. Then - Mom revealed that she was suffering from MacGregor's. Wally became worried, and tried to pay off as many bills as he could. They were struggling to make ends meet, but Wally wanted nothing more than to see his mother live. In the end, though, he couldn't keep up with the increasing medical expenses, and Mom... actually began to accept her incoming demise.

Then came the hasty move to Central. Wally learned that his father was alive - that his father was Joseph West, a detective who had no idea he had a son, but had a daughter and had adopted an orphan as well. Mother died, and Wally was forced to give up his reckless lifestyle. Joe secured a seat for him at the engineering school at CCU. He wasn't one to stand having a criminal for a son after raising two goody-two-shoes kids - Iris, the perfect role model sibling, and Barry, the weirdo. And Wally, now beginning his third year as a mechanical engineering student, was doing very well again in his new, very different life - despite having lost his mother and being forced to adjust to a new family he hardly knew.

Things were looking up for him.

Then the metas began showing up.

The man in red, who could run faster than light. Reports of a man who could slow down time. A drug-addicted woman speedster, who had ransacked a nightclub and nearly took down an entire bridge. A talking shark in pants.

Things in this quaint little urban city were starting to seem like scenes right out of a sci-fi thriller, then Wally had been kidnapped by Zoom, a murderous demon incarnate speedster from hell. Wally had been abducted by a serial killer and was held hostage in an entire other universal dimension.

The Flash had given up his speed to bring Wally back. Metahumans from another universe raged a full-blown war in Central City, who no longer had a speedster to protect it. Wally did what he could to help, then watched, surprised, as Zoom kidnapped Henry Allen and Barry sped off after him in a fit of lightning.

Barry. It was Barry - his dorky stepbrother. Barry had given up his power to save the entire city in order to let Wally live.

Zoom nearly took over the whole damn universe, Wally freed Barry from the pipeline prison and now, apparently none of that actually happened because Good Ol' Barry claimed he had turned back the entire timeline all in a single night, and now the poor shmuck did nothing except complain about the British wannabe Draco Malfoy at work, and thanks to the Flashpoint, some new villain was granting innocent people powers that they supposedly had in another timeline.

It was only three days ago that they had dealt with a little girl named Magenta, who threatened to drop a tanker over the CC General Hospital and kill his sister, and Barry and Jesse both risked their lives to stop the poor girl.

Yeah... Wally fixed his cap over his head and a long, satisfying drink of his soda.

A baseball game was the least of his worries.

"Guys, I got nothing," he asserted into the comms, the stadium suddenly erupting into jubilation.

No response from the team.

"Guys?"

(Did you see that-) a sketchy voice demanded through the audio network.

(-oh, my god. Never seen anything like-)

(- run!) a last voice yelled.

"What?!" Wally asked, his ears perking up at 'run'.

(Run, Wally!) His father repeated loudly in his ear, and Wally immediately stood up, bringing the binoculars to his face again.

"Where is she?! Dad, what's happening? Where are you all?"

(Umm... we're still watching the game?) Someone replied sardonically.

(Damn, that was a sad pitch! Diamonds are so gonna win this one.)

(-haha.)

"Hello?" Wally called again, now clearly confused as he continued scoping the arena, "Guys, what's happening? You told me to run..."

(Wally... Son, we were talking about the home run,) Joe stated cautiously.

"What?!"

(The home run-)

(Yeah, Rydinger just played it-)

(Baseball is pointless here. Home runs - on my earth, we call them home 'leaves'.)

(Then why don't you leave? Gosh, Harry...)

(Are you not watching the game, Wally?)

"No?" Wally responded, still searching around. "Guys, I thought we were looking for the meta."

(Poor West just wants - a good run," Jesse retorted, startling Wally almost out of his seat as she suddenly appeared beside him out of nowhere, shrugging. "He just wants his super speed, doesn't he? Well, Wally, I guess it's too late for the meta to attack now. Might as well watch the rest of the game since we paid for the tickets."

She fixed her coat and sat down in the empty seat next to him, holding her bucket of popcorn out to him.

"Jess - what the-" Wally mumbled, shocked at the sight of her before he exhaled and smiled, shaking his head in disbelief, "I am not in it for super speed-"

"Liar," Jesse replied with a pointed grin.

Wally smiled back sheepishly, snatching some popcorn. "Don't be so quick to jump the gun, Wells. You're the one who shouldn't be using her speed in publ-"

(Young lady, where on this earth did you run off to now?!) Harry immediately yelled into the comms, alarming them both, (You can't use your powers in public, Jesse - we talked about this. We agreed about this. I let you use your speed, but only if you st-)

"Only if I stay careful. Got it, Dad," Jesse sighed, hooking one leg over the other as she nonchalantly took another handful of her popcorn into her mouth.

(No, Jesse, you can't do that-)

(Harry. Shut up. Now.) Cisco ordered, (Jeez, you're such a fun killer even when we're not at the Lab.)

Soon the duo began squabbling, and Wally chuckled as he found Cisco with his binoculars. "There they are," he said, handing the binoculars to Jesse and pointing with his free hand. Sure enough, Cisco could be seen across the stadium in a baseball jersey with a full-sleeve shirt under, Caitlin next to him in a matching jersey and cardigan. She seemed bored - or was it annoyed? - as Cisco continued to curse into his mic.

"Where's our dads?" Wally asked, smiling at the scene, and Jesse gestured to a higher-level seating where she had been just moments earlier. Joe could be seen covering his face with his hands as Harry growled back into the mic.

"Is anyone here having fun?" Wally joked.

Jesse nodded and pointed the binoculars down, near the right field pavilion, before she handed the binoculars to Wally. "Mhmm, those two sure are."

Sure enough, Barry and Iris were sitting there, all sickeningly adorable and in love and stuff, holding hands and cheering. Iris had managed to snag some quality seats from her job as a reporter, since reporters needed good views, and Wally recognized a small handful of other members of the CCPN there as well. Scott Evans. Talullah Higgs. A young Asian woman with a red scarf round her neck, who was being filmed and relaying coverage directly to the JumboTron.

"Well aren't they cute?" Wally asked blandly, gesturing to Barry and Iris.

Jesse smiled before she rose from her chair. "Gotta admit they are. I'll be right back, I just wanna get a refill-" and rushed back to her seat with a whoosh! Before Wally had even blinked, she had returned, her red paper bucket topped high with the popcorn spilling out.

Wally grinned, and Jesse returned the expression with a crooked smirk.

"Quick, you gotta stop rubbing the speed in my face," Wally laughed, snatching some popcorn before focusing his attention back to the game.

"Don't be so jealous, Wally," Jesse taunted playfully, kicking her feet up, "All else aside, you'll get your own speed someday."

"High-key want it now, though," Wally admitted.

"You'll find your time soon. You'll just know when you'll get it," Jesse described, sipping her soda, "The Speed Force isn't one to fail you."

Wally scoffed. Not gonna lie - he was pretty envious of Jesse. She returned to his earth after only a few days, proudly zooming around with heroic lightning stringing behind her. She had super-human hunger pangs, super agility, speedy thinking and automatic cellular regeneration, in other words, crazy fast healing. She seemed more alive and her smile brighter, more confident and at ease - assured of her own abilities, like how Barry was. If anything, she was more herself.

Wally wanted that. He wanted that badly; he craved the speed, the adrenaline singing in his veins, the rush of air whipping past him.

He had looked up to the Flash, who had selflessly given up his powers, his ability to run like that. The city's only hope had given up his ability to save people for Wally, and Wally would be in denial if he said he didn't want to repay the debt. He appreciated his father being supportive of him, and Barry and the Team letting help, but it didn't feel enough for him.

And ever since Jesse returned a speedster, Wally wanted that too. He kept up his vitals, started working out a little in case the Speed Force only acted if he was in good shape. Wally watched what he ate, voraciously read articles about human physiology, left home early in the morning before school to go to the gym and beat himself over on the treadmill. He analyzed the data Caitlin had on Barry, before she caught him and chastised him for screwing around in the speed lab. Heck, he even asked his professors more questions about the applications of kinematics, despite having aced the material in the semesters before.

He was leaner and muscular now, like a track runner. He knew he was built for speed - that after everything that happened to him in his life, Wally knew he was meant for this.

But it only felt like abuse when Jesse was coursing around the city, getting yelled at by her father for using her powers, while Wally was getting scolded for simply wanting powers.

But, like Jesse said, the Speed Force wasn't going to fail him.

"Neither are the Central City Diamonds, apparently," Wally finally answered, cracking a smile. The two smiled as they watched the remainder of the game in peace, ignoring the occasional comment and its follow-up snappy come-back that Cisco and Wells threw at each other, and before they knew it, Team Flash had actually enjoyed a decent day out, sunshine, perfect weather - no metas or anything. The Diamonds won, and the crowd was visibly happy over this.

Then came the scream.

Wally and Jesse both turned their heads towards the JumboTron, now depicting the two male commentators letting out howls of pain as they turned blue, a crazy woman with hollow eyes holding up her hands. The men's energies turned a ghostly white as it floated from their weakened forms towards the metahuman woman, who smiled and inhaled as she became rejuvenated right there in front of thousands, the men crumpling to their feet - an actual nightmare on the big screen.

There was a crackle of lightning and a wall of wind, and Jesse disappeared from Wally's side, reappearing on the JumboTron screen with the men and metahuman in her red, yellow and black suit and mask in the span of a millisecond, the Flash soon appearing as well.

Wally's own heartbeat began to quicken as the voices grew erratic and urgent in his comms, and he jumped up from his seat, rushing to help people out the doors.

(Guys - guys, there's more than one!) Cisco yelled, (Repeat - there's more than one Thermo-thief!)

(They're in the crowds! They're attacking!)

All hell broke loose in the stadium as hordes of people yelled and screamed, blocking the exits on their way out, and Wally heard several gunshots and a loud zap that could only have been his father shooting his pistol and Wells firing his pulse ray from where they were in the stadium.

Then two bolts of lightning flickered about the seats, the walkways instantly being cleared away as the speedsters did their magic, bringing people to safety. Caitlin, Cisco, his dad, and Wells were all firing away at the surprise vampires, growling and and hissing loud enough to be heard throughout the entire stadium.

A whole group of meta-human vampires, holy crap, Wally thought, adrenaline and uneasiness stretching across his skin as he realized he was doing nothing.

He turned and scrambled about, helping children up from where they were hiding and guiding as many people as he could towards the exits lest another thermal vampire show up, when a sight on the baseball diamond below him made the blood freeze in his veins.

The woman - the reporter in the red scarf. She was screaming as she ran away from a gray-skinned monster, who was clearly much faster and much stronger than her, down at the baseball diamond.

She would not be able to outrun it.

"Guys, there's a woman down at the diamond!" Wally urged into his comms, "She needs help! Barry!"

Wally faltered when he heard no discernible reply, heard nothing but his friends dealing with their own opponents, the two speedsters doing their best to be everywhere at once.

"Guys! There's a woman down there. She needs help!" Wally yelled again.

The woman below, nothing more than a tiny figure from where she was several stories below him, had nowhere left to run, had her back against a wall.

A second meta-vampire appeared from the dugout.

Not stopping to think about what he was doing, Wally instinctively charged forward and... jumped?

Down?

He had idiotically jumped.

He had jumped right over the railing.

To his death.

What the hell? his brain immediately shouted, and Wally grimaced at his own impulsive stupidity. This did not go as planned. He had somehow thought he could jump to the story below, then run and jump off of it again to the one below, continue parkour-ing down like a badass till he reached the baseball diamond and could run in to save the poor woman, but no, this was reality, not a scene from Kingsman.

Vampires attacking a baseball game, his friends out there, heroically risking their lives to help others - and then there would be him, the moron who plummeted to his own death, blood, bones, and a brown suede jacket.

Then Wally's breath hitched in realization.

Something... was wrong.

A person of his weight, jumping right off the side of a baseball seating arrangement, the acceleration of gravity - he should have fallen a long time ago. He shouldn't have been able to have thought all those things. What the-

Wally forced himself to open his eyes and quickly became frightened at the sight of himself frozen in mid-air, like a marble in jello. The ground was moving towards him unbelievably slowly - Wally should have died.

But he didn't.

By the time he landed - the grass soft under his shoes as he impacted, sticking a perfect landing on both feet - Wally was still confused. Was this... was this some kind of silver lining between life and death? Everything slows down? You get a final taste of life before you black out?

No.

The two metahumans were still advancing achingly slowly towards the woman, who had a look of pure terror on her otherwise pretty face, the ends of her scarf suspended in the air behind her.

Out in the stadium itself, Barry and Jesse seemed frozen too, their lightning stuck in place as if it was physical, snaking along behind their forms at the pace of a snail.

Wally could easily see Caitlin, Cisco, Wells and his dad, all scattered throughout the arena. Their voices still hung in the air, frozen in mid-yell.

Wally took a step forward, as if testing this new altercation of reality, before it finally clicked.

Time wasn't frozen.

He was simply moving too fast for his surroundings.

He finally had what he wanted.

Warmth seeped into his muscles, the wind suddenly felt in place - everything fell together. Wally couldn't help but wear a cheesy grin again as he surged forward, summoning the new energy that seemed to snap inside him, and jolted forward, feet kicking over the grass, arms pumping beside him and cold air battering over him.

Wally darted forward like it was second nature and swept the woman up off of her feet, ducking as he ran the two of them right under one of the meta's arms, and made for a clean super-charged sprint towards a tunnel that opened out into the field. He safely dropped the woman off, but he couldn't stop there, not at this pace. He turned and accelerated forward again, circling along the field's walls before he arrived at the two confused metahumans. Before they could even realize what was happening, Wally grabbed them both by the backs of their scraggly collars and rushed forward again, knocking them against the stadium's walls. They both fell unconscious, before Wally careened the other way and returned to the woman, skidding to a stop in the tunnel.

Smile frozen in place, skin still jittery from the euphoria, Wally finally exhaled and looked down at his hands in awe.

All of that happened in a under a few seconds. All of that happened because of him.

He finally had what he always wanted.

He had jumped from nearly ten meters up in the air and landed on both feet, he had run forward and saved a women from her death, he had stopped two metahumans on his own-

All in under a few seconds.

(Barry?!) Jesse shouted in the comms, jarring him back to reality, (Was that you?!)

(No, I was right here the entire time?)

(Who was that-)

(Wally?!) Joe shouted.

Wally smiled and stepped forward towards the shivering reporter, her hair frazzled as she tried to accept what happened, her neat dress now wrinkled.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked gently, and the woman nodded, still struggling to catch her breath.

She leaned against the wall for support, pointed a finger at him as if trying to say something. "That was... that was pretty cool out there," she panted.

Wally smiled, before he crinkled his forehead as he looked down to his sneakers, now worn away and burnt into his socks from the friction. "Thanks. I... actually had no idea I could do that."

The woman furrowed her eyebrows and wore a quizzical expression, as if she was trying to figure him out. Then she smiled at him. "You mean you literally just... landed in the middle of a baseball field and began running at a thousand miles per hour."

He chuckled sheepishly, and shrugged. "I mean, I actually jumped from the third story 'cause I saw you needed help, but I didn't really think it all through, so, it's pretty cool that I didn't, you know... die."

She stared back at him in astonishment before shaking her head in disbelief. "Spunky one, aren't you?" she laughed, holding out her hand towards him, "What's your name, kid?"

"Wally," he answered, taking her hand in his, giving it a friendly shake. "Wally West. And you are...?"

"Name's Linda," she answered, smiling as she brushed a tangled piece of hair away from her face, "Linda Park. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

Please leave a review and let me know what you thought! :D