"The fact that you survived a direct lightning strike, much less recovered in just two days, puts you in a category that's... well, less than one percent," the doctor said, his voice steady but still filled with disbelief. He glanced down at his clipboard, as if rereading the notes would somehow make more sense of the situation. "Frankly, it's a medical anomaly."

I lay in the hospital bed, my body still sore but surprisingly functional. The sterile smell of the room mixed with the faint hum of machines around me. I glanced over at the small group gathered at the foot of my bed.

Mom was standing closest, her arms crossed tightly, her face pale and tense, eyes still red from crying. Dad stood next to her, his expression unreadable, his usual scowl absent for once. He looked... shaken. And then there was Aunt Iris, hovering by the door, her hands clasped together as she stared at me, her face a mixture of guilt, fear, and relief.

The silence in the room was thick, and the doctor's words hung in the air like a weight.

The doctor's words were still sinking in when I began to notice it—the strange sensation creeping in whenever I focused too hard. Time itself seemed to... slow down. It wasn't immediate, more like a subtle shift, but there was no mistaking it. Everything—Mom's anxious shifting, Dad's furrowed brow, Aunt Iris nervously biting her lip—moved at half-speed. It wasn't like the comics, where everything becomes a blur. It was more controlled, as if I was just... faster than the world around me.

I blinked, and suddenly, everything snapped back to normal. The doctor was still talking, but I couldn't hear him over the sudden rush of my thoughts. Was this it? Was this what Barry had felt? Or... was this something else?

The moment I left the hospital, I had to test it. As soon as we were outside, walking across the parking lot, I concentrated. And just like that, the world slowed again. My thoughts raced ahead of everyone around me. I could see a bird mid-flight, its wings lazily flapping as if it were stuck in molasses. My heart pounded in my chest as I took in every detail of the scene. But it wasn't like Barry. It wasn't lightning-fast reflexes or supersonic speeds.

It was just... different. It was less of me being faster than them and more like everyone was slower than me, the best guess I could get was a localized time-dilation effect that allows me to move through time at different rates while retaining full awareness of his original time frame.

As I stood there, letting the sensation wash over me, I realized something: I had powers. Speed, yes, but not the way I expected. Not like Barry's. Not like in the comics.

This was real. This was mine.

When we got home, Aunt Iris was quiet, too quiet. She barely spoke to Mom and Dad, her face tense with an emotion I couldn't quite read. After a brief conversation in the living room, she turned to them and said, "I need to talk to Wally alone."

Mom hesitated, glancing between the two of us, but Dad just nodded. "Go ahead," he said gruffly, though I could see the suspicion in his eyes.

Aunt Iris gripped my arm, leading me up the stairs to my room in silence. As soon as the door shut behind us, her composure cracked. She turned to face me, her voice trembling, a mixture of anger and pain spilling out as she looked at me with tear-filled eyes.

"Why, Wally?" she whispered, shaking her head as if trying to make sense of it all. "Why did you try to replicate Barry's experiment?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but she didn't give me a chance.

"Do you know what it was like to lose him? To watch the man I loved—your uncle—die because of this... this speed?" Her voice cracked, and she pressed a hand to her forehead as if trying to hold herself together. "Why would you want to become the very thing that killed him?"

Her words hit me hard, like a punch to the gut. I stood there, frozen, unsure of what to say. I hadn't thought about it like that—hadn't really considered how much this would hurt her. To her, speed wasn't a gift. It was a curse. It was the thing that had taken Barry away.

"I... I didn't think—" I started, but she cut me off again, her voice louder now, more frantic.

"No, you didn't think!" She wiped at her eyes, frustration overtaking the sadness in her voice. "You didn't think about how dangerous this is, how reckless! You think this is a game, Wally? You think you're invincible just because you've survived this long?"

Tears were streaming down her face now, and all I could do was stand there, watching her break down in front of me. I had no answer for her. What could I say?

"I couldn't lose you too," she whispered, her voice barely audible now, her body trembling as she collapsed onto the edge of my bed. "I can't... I can't lose anyone else."

I wanted to say something, to tell her that I'd be careful, that I didn't mean to hurt her. But the truth was, I didn't know if I could keep that promise. I had to do this.

For two days, I was basically on house arrest.

Mom and Dad barely let me out of their sight. Every time I so much as moved from the couch, Mom would ask if I was okay, and Dad would shoot me these suspicious, almost guilty looks. Aunt Iris, on the other hand, couldn't even look at me without her eyes welling up. She avoided me most of the time, staying in the guest room, but when she did see me, it was like she was holding back tears, her expression a mix of fear and grief.

The whole time, they made it clear: I wasn't leaving the house. Not even to get some air.

"Just rest, okay? You need to heal," Mom would say, even though I felt perfectly fine—better than fine, actually.

But I couldn't stay cooped up anymore. Not with this strange feeling inside me, this itch I couldn't scratch. Time was... different. Slower, in a way that made everything around me seem like it was moving underwater whenever I focused. I knew something had changed, something big, and I needed to test it.

It took two days of convincing and pretending like I was just going for a short walk around the block before they finally relented. With a promise to be back in an hour, I slipped out of the house and made my way across town to the old abandoned warehouses near the river—places nobody ever went to unless they were up to no good.

The rain had stopped, and the air was cool, the sun hidden behind a blanket of thick clouds. The warehouses loomed over me like giant, rusting skeletons, their windows shattered, doors hanging off their hinges. It was perfect. No one would bother me here.

I stepped inside one of the larger buildings, the air thick with dust and the faint smell of rust and decay. The echo of my footsteps bounced off the walls as I walked through the empty space, my heart pounding in my chest. I needed to see if what I'd been feeling was real—if I could control whatever was happening to me.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, focusing. The world around me slowed, just like it had in the hospital. The slight creak of metal in the wind outside became a drawn-out groan, like it was moving through molasses. My heartbeat, which had been racing just moments before, now thudded in slow motion.

I opened my eyes, and everything was in slow motion. Dust motes hung in the air, suspended like they had all the time in the world to fall. The wind rattling through the broken windows was sluggish, almost eerie.

I wasn't fast. Everything else was just... slow.

Testing it, I took a step forward. I expected to stumble or feel heavy, but instead, it felt normal—like I was moving through a world stuck in time. I ran across the warehouse, and even though I wasn't going at superspeed, I was faster than anything else in this frozen world.

I could feel it now, the power humming in my veins, a connection to something deeper. This wasn't just a trick of perception. Time itself seemed to bend around me.

I stopped, my breath coming in slow, deliberate gasps. This was it. The first step. Whatever had happened in that lightning storm, it hadn't just given me speed. It had done something to time itself.

I needed to figure out just how far I could take this.

I started with the basics.

I picked up a loose piece of metal, something small—rusted, jagged around the edges. With a deep breath, I focused again, trying to slow everything down. The hum in my veins returned, and just like before, the world shifted into that syrupy, slow-motion state. The wind outside seemed to drag lazily, the dust particles still hanging mid-air, and the distant sound of cars honking in the city became long, drawn-out echoes.

I tossed the metal piece into the air, watching it float like a leaf, barely moving at all. To anyone else, this would've looked insane, like I had just become a blur of speed. But the truth? I wasn't moving fast. Everything else was just crawling.

I jogged across the warehouse, covering a decent distance in seconds, but it felt... normal. Boring, even. I was expecting the rush, the thrill of speed like Barry or any of the speedsters I'd read about. But no. I was just walking. Moving.

The metal piece finally clattered to the floor behind me, echoing loudly in the slow air.

I frowned, trying again. This time, I sprinted as fast as I could, darting around the warehouse, weaving between old crates and debris, pushing myself. And still, the world remained slow, while I felt like I was doing nothing extraordinary. The movement wasn't exhilarating; it wasn't exhilarating at all. It was just... normal.

In reality, to anyone watching, it probably looked like I was blazing through the space, leaving a trail of speed behind me. But to me? It felt like running on a treadmill—normal speed, normal effort. I wasn't zipping through space, I was just living in a slowed-down bubble.

The realization hit me hard: *I'm not a speedster.* Not in the traditional sense, at least. I didn't have super speed; I had a messed-up relationship with time. From my perspective, I was just moving like anyone else. Everything else? It was slow, not me fast.

I stopped, panting slightly, my frustration growing. Sure, this ability had its advantages—dodging attacks or reacting to danger would be easy in this state. But there was no adrenaline, no thrill of being faster than anyone else. Just... normalcy. Did I mess up the experiment or did I get connected to some kind of Time Force instead of the Speed Force?

As I stood in the middle of the warehouse, another realization sank in. I picked up a rock, clenching it tightly in my fist, and whole running I threw it at one of the rusted beams with all my might.

The rock sailed through the air slowly, just like everything else. It hit the beam with a soft thud, barely making a dent, then tumbled to the ground. No satisfying crack, no destruction. Nothing.

Of course.* I cursed under my breath, rubbing the back of my neck. Force equals mass times acceleration.

And I wasn't accelerating—at least not in the way a speedster should. Since time was slowed down from my perspective, my strikes, my movements, everything followed the same principle. To me, it felt like I was giving it my all, but without that increased speed, my punches didn't pack the power they should have. There was no added velocity to make them hit harder.

No super strength, no supersonic punches. Just a normal person throwing normal punches in a slowed-down world.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the undamaged beam, frustration building up inside me. The whole situation felt ridiculous—here I was, thinking I could become the next Flash, only to realize that I didn't have the strength or speed I needed to live up to the name.

But then, something clicked.

So what if I couldn't punch through walls or move faster than lightning? I could still move faster than anyone else. From my perspective, everything around me was slower, which meant I still had an edge. I could react before anyone else, think faster, avoid danger, and outmaneuver anyone who came at me.

I might not be Barry, but that didn't mean I couldn't make a difference.

"I don't care," I muttered to myself, my fists tightening. "I'm going to be the Flash. No matter what." I didn't want to be the Flash not really, but it was my responsibility for being in this body.

This power—whatever it was—was still mine, and I was going to use it.

Authors Note: Started this story on a whim wrote all the chapters today. what do you guys think?

Since this is obviously an AU, tou can gusy are free to make suggestions on how this DC universe looks like. Want Cassandra Cain to be the first Robin? Want Supergirl to be around?

Make suggestions, I'll try and take them into consideration