A/N: Hello hello. Guess who was busy during no wifi vaca. I just wrote this on my phone during that time. Hope you enjoy. It is slightly longer than the rest, but that way even more fun!

Trigger Warnings: mentioned blood, mentioned abuse and childhood trauma

Short Summary: The Flash loves to run. The Flash also zones out a lot, which leads him to knocking himself out on a boulder. Cue a worried JLA and a very confused Wally West.

If there was one thing that Wally West loved above all else, it was the sense of freedom, particularly the type found in running.

He had always run, it was a matter of habit. When he was younger, he ran away from playground-bullies: away from his problems. When he got older, he ran at the bullies: towards his problems. After he got his powers, he ran towards other people in danger: towards their problems. And occasionally, just because he could, he would just run, for the sheer thrill of the wind whipping through his hair and the cold biting at his face.

Today was one of those days. He had woken up fairly early, at 6 to be exact, thrown on his Flash costume, and decided to go for a few spins around the globe.

He fondly remembered that one time he had had a race with Superman. It was their first ever meeting, and Wally had toyed with the poor boy-scout. In truth, though they were neck-on-neck throughout the race, he could go much faster than the man of steel, though he would never admit that.

Of course, after the Luthor-Brainiac situation, it had become quite obvious which of the two heroes was the faster one, and Supes had given him a look which betrayed exactly what he was thinking: "You were really toying with me during that race." Wally had merely given him a cheesy grin, and promptly fainting from overexertion, a very good answer to the unspoken reproach.

For speedsters, there were many dangers: things that came along with their powers that put them at more risk than the average superhero. One of those things was zoning out whilst running. Which was exactly what Wally was doing at that exact moment, as he reminisced about the Luthor-Brainiac fight, and thought back to the speedster.

This was probably the reason that everything went downhill fast. He left land, still occupied with his thoughts, and sped over the Indian Ocean, an ocean that he now knew like the back of his hand.

If he had watched the news, he would have known that during the night, a volcano had erupted in the middle of the ocean, expertly crafting a new island from scratch. If he had been paying attention whilst running, he would have seen the newly made island, and would've been able to avoid it. Only, he wasn't paying attention until the last possible millisecond.

His eyes widened as he saw, only 10 metres in front of him, a humongous boulder, probably obsidian, looming directly in his running path. Frantically he dug his heels into the sand, into the tiny bits of obsidian surrounding him, desperately trying to halt his advance.

He succeeded only a little, and slowed his speed so much, that the damage to his head would probably be reparable. Before he could curse nature for hating him so much, he collided with the boulder, his head hitting it with a sickening smack.

Everything reeled around Wally as blackness engulfed him and he fell down on the pointed rocks,out even before his head bounced on the shingles.

- 6 hours later -

Captain Cold does not seem to be stopping, as he relentlessly evades the police, making his expert escape with the money he stole from Central City's Orphanage. The question on everyone's mind right now is, where is the Flash? Usually he would have already been here by now, but no sign of our favourite superhero can be seen. It looks like for once, the police might be on their own as… no wait, what is that? It's Superman! Oh, and there is Gotham's Dark Knight, The Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl and the Martian Manhunter. All of the JLA's founding members are here, except for Flash.

The reporter turned around to view the scene quickly unfolding. Captain Cold quickly lost to the inferno of Superheroes intent on putting him behind bars and Batman waltzed over to the reporter.

'Batman! Linda Park from CCTV, can you tell us anything about the whereabouts of Flash?' the reporter questioned, but the Black Knight didn't answer for several seconds.

'You mean to say he isnotdealing with something else right now?' The Bat's voice came, dangerously low.

'No, we haven't seen him since yesterday.' Came the confused reply of Linda Park, 'Why, I thought you would know where he was?'

'I thought he was dealing with a situation,…' Batman trailed off, pressing his finger to his ear: 'Flash, this is Batman, report in.'

No reply. The other founding members grouped around.

'Flash, report.'

No answer.

'Flash, override code 8Z06, respond.' Batman commanded, making the superheroes stiffen and the civilians look confused. No response came.

'Batman, what's going on?' Linda Park questioned nervously. He glanced at her quickly, seemingly trying to decide whether to say something or not. He finally decided he would:

'If you see Flash, tell him to come to HQ, immediately.' he responded gruffly, not really answering her question.

'Is he okay?' Linda Park asked, but the superheroes had already sped off, all in rather a hurry as many flew into the skies and one summoned a plane to transport him, leaving Central City in surprise.

Linda Park turned back to the camera: 'Well folks, something is going on alright. It seems like the Justice League themselves don't know where Flash is and he doesn't seem to be answering whatever it is that they use to communicate with. Which begs the question: where is he, and is he alright?

*In the Watchtower*

Batman stalked onto the central deck, looking down on all the superheroes he had summoned here. The deck was glowing with an eerily flashing purple light, as many heroes stood about nervously. Green Arrow was in the process of explaining to Stargirl, who was rather new to the League, what this all meant:

'You know when there is a world-threatening situation, it flashes red, right?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, different colours mean different things, of which we hope to never see green or blue. Green meaning a Leaguer died, blue meaning one of the big 6 died.' GA continued, 'Then there's pink and purple. Pink means a Leaguer is missing: probably mortally wounded, dying or kidnapped. Purple means the same thing, but for a founding member.'

'You mean one of the big 6 might be dying right now, as we speak?' Courtney asked, her eyes widening. GA responded with a curt nod and Courtney looked more and more agitated.

Batman cleared his throat, effectively making everyone quiet immediately. Normally that wouldn't have worked, but nothing right now was very normal, now was it.

'I assume you are all aware of what Code Purple means.' Batman stated, though he still searched the crowd, making sure none of the newer members were confused on what was going on. To his satisfaction, they all seemed to understand, or were in the process of being told by an older member. 'Flash has not been sighted by any civilians, since yesterday night when he was fighting Captain Boomerang.' he stated simply, causing many heroes to look even more agitated: they would not admit it openly, but mainly had their preferences to which one of the big 6 they liked more. It seemed like many preferred the Flash.

'We do not know how the fight ended,' Batman continued, making many more people frown even more, 'All we know is that Flash took him out of the city to fight, as that no civilians could get hurt. We as the League had not been aware of the fight, and therefore did not check in on him again. Flash seemingly did not think it something worrying, or else he would have reported in afterwards.'

'What we do however know, is that he did arrive home again that same night around 10.' Many shoulders slumped in relief, though many older members knew there was more to it, and stayed as stiff as planks, 'We are unaware as of now, whether he won the fight or not. He left his house again at 7:03 in the morning, and never returned. He ran off somewhere, but at some point started running so fast, that he was untraceable even to my machinery. He strangely also left his comm in his apartment, which means we have no means of tracking him.' Batman concluded.

'As of now,' Superman stated, stepping forward from behind Batman, 'we assume that he went for a morning run, and got detained in some way or another, as he has now been gone for nigh on 6 hours and 15 minutes. We can't rule out abduction. We also can not rule out that something might have happened to him during his fight with Captain Boomerang, which means that Batman and Hawkgirl will go interrogate him, wherever he may be. The rest of you: start a search and rescue along the lines of the trajectory he usually takes on his morning runs, the coordinates of which will be sent to each of your devices. Stay safe out there, if this was an abduction, we do not know whether anyone else is at danger of being taken. That is all.' Superman concluded, then walked off with Wonder Woman, preparing to go to the bar they knew the Rogues would drink at often. They were going to get answers as to their friend's whereabouts, and they would get them soon.

*on the newly formed volcanic island*

The man woke up to a severe pounding in his head, like a headache, but then about 7 times as worse. He briefly wondered what could have happened for him to feel this way, but shook the thought of as he realised an even more worrying aspect about his situation: he couldn't remember his name.

Groggily the man stood up and frowned at what he was wearing, but then grinned: it was actually kind of cool, even though it looked kind of weird, he totally dug it! The man scrunched up his nose as he looked around, his eyes flitting this way and that at incredible speed.

He briefly wondered about that, then dropped it immediately as he perceived that he was on a volcanic island. Great, just great. Why on earth would he go here? Better question: who on earth was he? Why couldn't he remember anything? Why couldn't he even remember how he got here, wherever here might be?

He felt at his head, and, just as he had suspected, it came away covered in half-dried blood: that couldn't be good. He turned around to face a giant boulder and found that there was a serious smear of blood at around eye-level. Well, that explained that: he had walked or run into this boulder.

Okay, how had he donethat?! Hadn't he seen the boulder? Had he been too preoccupied with his thoughts to see it? Even so, it wouldn't have cause him to bleed this much if he had simply walked into it. Had he maybe run? Why would he have run though?

With a sigh he pulled back the cowl that was covering his head, wincing slightly as it tugged at his forehead, having been stuck to it by the dried up blood. The wind whipped around his face, offering a cool relief for his clammy skin.

His stomach growled at him to get food, but he told it to shush and be sensible: he was on a volcanic island, there was no way there would be any food around here! He winced as he looked up at the sun, from its position, he guessed it was about midday, possibly a bit later.

His mouth thinned into a smooth line as he looked around, trying to remember anything about surviving. The only thing he could think of was to not drink sea-water, but to find sweet-water. Huh, sweet water on a newly formed island, how was he supposed to find that?! There was probably not a single water source over the whole of it. What was more, there were streams of lava lazily flowing down from the top of the island! With a sigh he plopped back down on the ground, putting his head into his hands. He didn't know how he had done it: but he might have just found himself in the worst possible location he could have ever thought of!

-Evening-

The man sighed as he lifted his head. He had nodded off to sleep earlier, and now found it was dusk. He pushed himself off of the ground, wincing as pain shot through his head. Slowly he trudged towards the sea, cupping the water in his hands and bringing it up to his face, gently washing away the dried up blood.

He found he could now add a second piece of knowledge to his survival skills: don't put salt water on wounds, it hurts.

He gave a surprised shout as the salt burned into his scalp, hardly resisting the temptation to claw at it to get it out, since he knew that would only make it worse.

With a hiss he sat back on his haunches, the wet sand clinging to his red costume. Why was he wearing that thing again? True, he looked rather stylish, but he couldn't help but think that this might possibly not be the normal dress-code.

He looked out over the water, regretting how there was so much of it around him, but so little of it to safely drink. None, to be frank. He set about cleaning his wound again, hissing in pain as the salt burned into his already burning skin.

Apart from the burning in his head, his stomach was also acting up, at which the man could only grumble: there was no way that he had gone without food for more than 12 hours, so why was his stomach already hurting so much? It was like his stomach had decided to eat himself up from the inside out?! Which was a really weird notion, but it really felt like that.

In a flash, he was standing up again, and decided to run rather than walk to a nearby cave that he had spotted. Which was when all of his questions were answered. He didn't run at normal human speed, no, he ran at superhuman speed and promptly collided with a boulder, falling to the ground with a loud groan.

Slowly he staggered up again and retreated into the cave, his face pale with fear. He had run fast. He had run really fast. That wasn't normal. He was wrong. Something was wrong about him. He was a monster. He wasn't normal. Normal people couldn't do that. Was he even a person, or was he some other gruesome creature, that looked like one?

One thing was for sure: there was probably a reason why he was on an island with nobody but himself to keep him company. Realization hit him: he was a monster, and monsters were dangerous. He had probably been put here by the government, to keep the people safe. He was dangerous to people, which meant he could never see them again.

He put his head in his arms, sobs racking his body. He was a monster. He was dangerous.

*Back with the league*

It had been exactly 18 hours since the Flash had last been spotted. Not a single superhero had gone to bed that night. Which led them to all sit in the cafeteria, sullenly eating a breakfast no one really felt like eating.

They had searched high and low. The rogues had been a dead end. Captain Cold had run off before the fight ended and was in hiding, though it had only taken Batman about an hour to locate him and force the truth out of him. Only there was no truth to be forced, since Captain Cold knew nothing of the Flash's disappearance.

It had also become evident that the Flash had not taken his normal morning running route. The people who had grown accustomed to waking up by a loud windy noise, told the heroes that it had not been the case for once, which meant either abduction, or that Flash had altered his route for some reason.

Just as Shayera was about to take another half-hearted bite out of her sandwich, Batman rushed in, looking practically ecstatic: 'I found him!' he shouted jubilantly, not even bothering to put on his normally gruff voice, 'I found him, come on!'

With that, the entire League deserted their breakfast as each and every one of them ran to the teleporters and dock to step into planes.

-about 15 minutes later-

Batman quickly rushed over the shingles of the newly surfaced island that he had tracked down, Superman not far behind him as he looked down at the ground.

'There!' he cried, pointing at footsteps on the beach, that led to a cave. Batman quickly ran over, the other founding members behind him, as the other Leaguers trailed behind. The big bad bat stooped into the cave and quickly came out with the Flash's unconscious form, blood covering his face, though it seemed like he had tried to clean some away.

Gently B put Wally down on the shingles, calling for a first aid kit, making annoyed noises as he inspected the wound, which had started to get infected.

'Superman?' B asked, not needing to further ask anything, knowing that the boy scout understood the question. Superman quickly scanned the Flash:

'Cracked skull, flesh wound that goes all the way to the bone which is infected, Fever of 35 degrees Celsius. It doesn't look good, B.' he added sullenly, which was when Flash decided to groggily open his eyes.

Shayera was immediately next to the man that had become like a little brother to her: 'Hey man, how are you feeling?' she asked softly, stroking some of his stray hairs away from his wound. Wally however, did not react like one would expect, and scampered back from her touch, scooting away from everyone with a fearful look on his face.

'Flash?' Batman inquired softly, wondering what was going on with the speedster.

'No, no! Stay away from me!' Wally cried out, shielding his head behind his arms. Several Leaguers gasped as B frowned in confusion:

'Why should we stay away from you, Wally?' he asked, breaking his own no names rule.

'I'm a monster, I'll hurt you, stay away!' Flash cried out, effectively stopping all the whispering around him as everyone was cast into dumbfound silence.

John stepped forward: 'Come on Hotshot, who told you that? You know it's not true!' he urged gently, trying to hide the anger in his own voice as to not alarm his teammate any further. Making a mental note to haunt whoever's dreams it was that make his little brother think like that.

Flash however, was not convinced, cowering in on himself even further, mumbling incoherently under his breath and rocking back and forth. Batman turned back to the others:

'There is something seriously wrong with him, I just don't know what.' he stated, glancing back at his teammate, who was hiding more and more into his arms, 'J'ohn, I know it's not really a thing Flash would appreciate you doing, but could you look into his mind?'

The Martian nodded sullenly, walking towards Flash, who was now cornered against a boulder, nowhere left to run. J'ohn quickly put his fingers to Wally's temples, making sure the other wouldn't try to run for it either.

They sat there for two minutes until finally the Martian stepped back and Flash crumpled to the ground, only being caught just in time by GL.

'What did you do to him?' Batman questioned.

J'ohn shook his head forlornly: 'I put him to sleep, that seemed to be the best solution as of right now. Batman, he lost his memories of who and what he is.' he explained, 'As always when losing ones memories, impressions still stay. Which is why certain impressions that were ingrained on him as a child stayed. People who have powers are monsters, and should be locked up and feared.'

'But why would he think that?! He himself has powers!' GA exclaimed from behind them, as Batman started administering first aid to Wally.

J'ohn shook his head: 'I never said he believed that, just that others around him told him that at an early age, which meant his mind reverted back to those ideas when it could find nothing of substance in recent years to help explain the superspeed he found he had.'

Batman grumbled something under his breath, then spoke up: 'His memories being gone is temporary right?' he questioned the Martian, who shook his head:

'It's permanent, unless if I can figure out how to undo the damage. As of right now though, we should really get him to the Watchtower to treat him properly.'

To this Batman nodded, calling Superman over to fly Wally to the watchtower, as many of the League stared at him, their minds working overtime: who had told younger Wally that meta-humans were monsters? Would Wally be okay? And most of all: would he ever regain his memories?

*infirmary, some time later*

The man woke up to a beeping at the top of his head: rather annoying if you asked him, he much preferred the lapping of waves on the sand. Though, in all fairness, he didn't feel as utterly hungry as he had before, and the pain in his head was gone, which made up for the annoying beeping.

He lazily looked around, his eyes widening as he took in the scene in front of him: there were people in the room with him. This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all. He was a monster. He was dangerous. These people, were in danger.

-no longer Wally's POV-

B glanced over at Wally as the heartrate monitor started to spike. Quickly rushing to the others side, he spoke softly: 'Calm down, it's okay, you're chained to the bed, you can hurt no one.'

Where normally Wally would complain loudly about being stuck in one place, it now calmed him significantly and he sat back against the pillows. The other founding members had now woken up, but at a glare from Batman, stood at a distance. Wally decided to speak up:

'Listen, I'm dangerous, you need to stay away from me: I could hurt you. I'm a monster. You need to stay away, please!' he begged Batman, who didn't move a bit, but smiled at him:

'It's okay, you couldn't hurt me, I'm a better fighter than you.' he stated simply, though he knew that was a lie: Flash could take on all of them at once and still win, they had learned that back when they had all been brainwashed. It seemed to calm Wally down a bit and B smiled up at him:

'Okay listen, you lost your memories, so I'll just fill in some stuff for you, okay?' Wally nodded, though tears threatened to fall again, 'Your name is Wally West, you're 23 years old. You live in Central City. You're a hero known as the Flash. You save peoples' lives every single day. You saved the world together with us several times. You saved it on your own a couple of times as well. You're a superhero, not a monster.'

'But…' Batman cut him off:

'Now I know that deep inside of you, you feel like anyone with powers is a monster, right?'

Wally nodded.

'Well, it's not true okay, you were told that earlier on in your life, but it's a lie spread by people who were crooks themselves. You understand?' he asked softly, Wally nodded again.

'Okay, I have a friend, J'ohn, step forward.' he told the Martian, who approached Wally. 'He can give you back your memories of who you are, can you sit still and let him do that for you?'

'Does he need to get close?' Wally asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

'Yes.' Batman replied, then quickly added: 'But he has really strong psychic powers with which he could win from you in a fight.'

'Oh okay then.' Wally submitted. J'ohn stepped forward and pressed his fingers to the other's temples, his eyes glowing as Wally sagged back against the headrest, Diana's hand in between his head and the wood, so that he wouldn't get hurt.

In total, exactly 3 tense hours went by. Diana repositioned herself so that Wally's head now lay on her lap and she was sitting fully on the bed. The others had stayed, tense silence filling the room as they could only guess slightly at what J'oh would be doing right now.

Thankfully, finally, J'ohn's eyes dimmed and Wally's opened softly as he stared around at the others. Realising he was sleeping with his head on Diana's lap, he tried to scramble away, but B's hand on his shoulders stopped him.

Batman searched the younger speedster's face, his brown eyes sweeping over the expression worn by their younger teammate, finally, he spoke: 'Wally, how do you feel?'

'Weird.'

'Mhh…'

'Did J'ohn poke around in my head?'

'I did, sorry.' J'ohn spoke up as Wally frowned:

'Did you have a good reason?' he demanded to know grumpily, not liking it when people entered his mind. J'ohn now knew why, though he decided it was not his place to tell.

'You went missing about two days ago.' Batman said, making Wally's frown deepen, 'You went on your morning run, took an alternative route, and collided with a piece of obsidian on a newly formed volcanic island. You left your comm at home so it took us some time to track you down. You had quite a bad head injury that hadn't healed yet because you didn't have any food, you also lost your memories, which J'ohn restored just now.'

'Oh, in that case thanks J'ohn. How exactly did you do it?'

'Just pulled the red thread of your memories back, putting some in place again et cetera. Had to look at some memories to see where they belonged. No big deal.' the Martian quickly stated, catching the speedster's eyes, which were begging him not to tell. Not to tell what the Martian had seen. A slight nod confirmed that he would not.

Batman, however, would have none of it: 'Wally, J'ohn explained to us that certain principles stay even if one loses his memories. When we found you, you thought you were a monster and dangerous. Apparently that was a deepfounded principle, how come?'

'Awh Bats, even I don't know how my brain works. Don't ask me that.' Wally mentioned with a laugh as he sat up, leaning back against the headrest.

'Yeah, we're not buying it hotshot.' John stated, frowning at his friend, 'What happened that cemented that idea in your mind.' he then gasped and took on a fearful face: 'You don't still believe that do you?' he demanded.

5 concerned sets of eyes swivelled to Wally, who was quick to deny it: 'Nah man, I'm awesome, trust me: I know I ain't no monster!' the words sounded hollow even in his own ears. He cringed internally at how bad he was at lying.

'You do.' Batman stated more than asked, his eyes filled with a light Wally hardly saw: deep deep worry.

'No, I don't.' Flash answered, vibrating his hand out of the cuffs that he was locked in onto the bed. 'Is there any food in the cafeteria.'

'Yes, but…' Batman started, but Wally was already gone, having sped down the hall and into the cafeteria, of course not before changing back into a spare Flash costume he had stored in his room on the watchtower. He sped into the cafeteria, getting a lot of smiles as he entered and he waved at several members, stocking a tray full of food, and sitting down at a table with GA and BC, only because he wanted to disturb their alone time, just because he could you know.

'Hey Flash!' BC cried out happily, 'You okay again?'

'Yup!' Wally replied happily, pushing fries down his throat, 'How you to been without me to chaperone?' he added with a sly grin, making the couple laugh.

'We're married and have two kids now.' GA joked as BC rolled her eyes and Wally smiled contentedly. Everything was okay. Everything would be okay.

'Hey Flash, back there on the beach you were acting kinda weird…' GA stated, trailing off at the end, not even sure of what he was about to ask.

'Eh, don't worry about it: I'm good again, it was a side-effect from hitting my head.' Wally quickly replied as the couple nodded their heads, believing his lie.

Which was until Batman stalked in: 'Flash.' he said grumpily.

'Yeah Bats?'

'Don't call me Bats.'

'Batsy then?'

'Bats is fine.' Batman grumbled as several superheroes snickered at the exchange between the two friends.

'Okey-dokey Bats, what's up?' Flash asked innocently.

'You.'

'Technically we all are. We're in a watchtower up in space.'

'You're avoiding again.'

'It's what I do best.'

'So it seems. We have a meeting with all the founding members in 5. No skipping no matter what.'

'Can I skip, I had a head injury.'

'Your head's fine.' B growled, though he didn't truly believe his own words. Wally wasn't fine, and he couldn't believe he hadn't noticed earlier.

'Okay, but apparently Central City…' GA cut him off smugly:

'..is covered.' he finished for the speedster, 'BC and I have been patrolling it for you, we won't mind doing it a bit longer.' Wally scowled at him and GA stuck out his tongue.

'Okay, I'll be there.' Wally grumbled and Batman nodded. The speedster went back to obnoxiously eating his food, contemplating whether he should run or not. Just leave the watchtower, go back to Central and hope this whole thing would blow over within a day or so.

He shook his head at the though: yes he ran, but the time that he ran away from his problems was over. It was time to face them, like he had done countless times before. It was time to be the Flash and run towards his problems.

*founding members meeting room*

Wally zipped into the meeting room to already see Diana; Bruce; Clark; John; Shayera and J'ohn gathered, all sitting in their assigned seats. He sighed as he plopped down on his own, putting on a smile:

'So, what are we meeting about?'

'The fact that you phased out of the handcuffs keeping you to the bed, then ran after lying that you didn't think you were a monster.' B said seriously, ignoring the light tone with which Wally was talking.

'Uh-huh: first off: what did you expect: I don't like sitting around in one place for too long, and secondly, I didn't lie.' Wally defended himself as Diana just stared at him with worry, making Wally squirm on the inside: he didn't like it when he worried people.

'Flash, if you don't tell them, I will.' J'ohn threatened.

'Whatever happened to patient-doctor confidentiality?' Wally joked with a laugh, hoping beyond reason that J'ohn was bluffing.

'I'm serious.' the Martian intoned, 'This is a problem for the team's dynamic and for your own health. You shouldn't be dealing with this alone.'

'I've been doing great with dealing with stuff on my own up until now.' Wally huffed, sliding down in his chair.

'Have you?' the Martian asked, making Wally rolling his eyes:

'Hey, so what if my way of dealing with stuff is punching trees, at least I deal with it!' he defended himself. 4 people blanched up, Flash didn't seem like the type of person to punch trees to deal with stuff.

Wally sighed: 'There's no way I'm getting out of this is there?' he questioned, giving up. 5 people shook their heads and Wally sighed again, then, he talked:

'I uh… my dad wasn't really happy about superheroes. It was back in the day when the Justice Society still existed. I loved them. He hated them. He said they were monsters. I guess that stuck with me a bit more than that I thought.' he admitted, looking up at his team, then continued:

'He never knew I became the Flash, he just complained about the Flash. The Flash was a monster, useless, a crime against humanity. The Flash would be better locked up on some random deserted island for all he cared.' Wally explained, 'I guess I believed him more than I cared to admit, probably why that part of people with powers being monsters stuck.' he concluded.

Batman, however, wasn't satisfied: 'How exactly did that information get ingrained into your mind?' he questioned. Wally sighed, and then he told them.

He told them of how he had been a child during the Justice Society. How he had admired the then Flash Jay Garrick. How his father hated the Flash. How he beat him every time he even mentioned a superhero, especially Flash. How the beatings got worse over time. How Wally had started to believe those words his drunken father shouted in his face. Superhumans were monsters, which meant Wally was a monster. Wally was useless. Would never amount to anything. But most of all he was a monster. He put up with that for years on end, until he finally filed for emancipation at the early age of 16, and had started living on his own. He never talked to his father after that, ever again.

When his tale was over, Diana was close to tears. Shayera close to murder. John seemed like he would help her in said murder. J'ohn and Batman were as stoic as ever.

'We'll fix this, Wally. Okay? We'll fix this.' Diana told him, putting her hand on his shoulder in reassurance. All he could do was nod and give a watery smile.

*a few months later*

Wounds heal over time. When they were physical wounds, they quickly healed, at least, if you were Wally West. Mental ones took longer. It took half a year until finally Wally no longer believed his fathers words. He had agreed to therapy, amongst a lot of grumbling of course, and J'ohn and he had worked on it.

Of course, wounds leave scars. Wally West would never forget what his father did to him or the words the man had spoken. But he knew that he was a good person. He was a hero. Not a monster. There was nothing anybody could say ever again that would make him believe otherwise.

As for Rudolph West, he was soon after sued by Bruce Wayne himself for child abuse. Let's just say he stood no chance against the millions of Lawyers Bruce hired, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The media went crazy about this, wondering about the connection between Bruce Wayne and Wally West, until those two came up with a story, that later on became a reality. Bruce Wayne had seen the genius of the man and had hired him as one of his personal technicians and had learned thus about the Mr West's past.

Bruce soon found that Wally was indeed great with Chemistry and Technology, as the media insisted on coming to visit on a workday. Bruce had grilled Wally the day before on what to do and say, and had gotten half a heart attack when the latter went off script, but found that Wally knew what he was doing. He also found out that day that Wally West was on the same level of IQ as him.

Wally West was now working with Bruce Wayne. Not for the main company, but for the secret one. Bruce really appreciated having someone else who could build his baterangs and repair the batmobile. And hey, if occasionally the batmobile turned into a driving disco party, he'd take that with it. After all, this was Wally West, and Wally West could never resist a good prank.

A/N: soooo maybe this should be a story of its own but uhhh, like why would I? I mean here people will see it and I'm too lazy to add another work to my profile lol. hihihi. hope you enjoyed this awefully long abonination!