The Broken Reflection
Dec. 2nd, 2007 01:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shankieSequel to After the End of the World.
I actually wrote three versions; but only one ever went anywhere. It’s a Justice Lords-verse story, too, but... different. Nobody’s really a bad guy or a good guy anymore, and the world’s all on it’s head in a dark way. Pushing these guys until they snapped was... well, it was something else.
Writing Wally doing some of the things he ends up has been, and I’m sure will continue to, creep me out just a little. It makes the ending satisfying for me, much moreso than if I’d just left the story where it was, but I wouldn’t say it’s a happy one; but it leaves the potential for happiness. And that’s something.
The Broken Reflection
DCAU AU I suppose you could say. Wally/Clark, NC-17; explicit non-consensual sex, consensual sex that’s still fucked, violence, attempted suicide, language. I did mention it was dark, right?
10k+ words.
When Wally finally decides he can’t live anymore as a prisoner, a wish is granted; to escape to a world where the Flash is already dead, and Superman doesn’t have any powers. Free to go wherever he wants, he still ends up back to Clark; but a very different one than the Clark he’s escaped from.
The television mentioned--as a footnote by the reporter, an older guy, being notable because it was only recently anyone other than young, pretty chicks were on much of anything--which struck him as Bruce's idea for some reason--that this day marked one year of peace and tranquility in the care of the Justice League. It seemed like a lifetime.
Clark didn't yell at him so much as he had more important things to worry about. Wally was dully complacent and didn't need any worrying about. His own fault, but Wally still never did anything about it. He didn't want to owe Clark anything by asking for something. He'd never give Clark the satisfaction of thinking Wally could owe him for anything. But could go into Clark's rooms now whenever he wanted, which he could help but find a little ironic. As soon as he was able to find something to wear, maybe even something...
What would be the point?
Hearing the click of the door opening, Wally shut off the TV and closed his eyes, drifted away. His body had turned into a compliant sex toy. Sometimes he even caught himself believing the same things Clark did about him, that he really was this idiotic rebel who lived to fuck. But what Wally believed didn't matter. He draped his arms back over the couch, threw back his head and waited.
It was already turning into the most vivid part of his icy little universe.
Clark was carrying something when he came in, set it down on the low table before groaning appreciatively and settling over Wally, holding his waist in his hands, kissing under his chin and ears, over the skin now used to wearing the shock collar on his neck. The bare scrap of fabric tore like wet paper in Clark's fingers. "I missed you," he sighed, squeezing Wally's thigh.
He got up to undress and lift Wally's knees over his shoulders, heft his ass in his hands, shoulders still draped over the back of the couch when fingers pushed him open and the cock thrust into his body. Wally moaned and yelled, try as he might, he could never keep quiet. Dug his fingers into the fabric and almost hated how it didn't hurt that much anymore. Clark fucked him quickly, luckily without the time to care the Wally wasn't erect, never got into it that far. He just pulled out after the last hard pushes and came over Wally's thigh. Marking his territory. Semen pooled by his groin, then ran down his leg as he was set back down, to go clean up.
Clark wiped off his dick with the remains of Wally's loincloth and tucked his uniform back together as Wally came back in, not feeling any cleaner than before. He didn't bother with the soiled rag to cover up.
"I have something for you," Clark said, smiling, holding the box over his lap. "A surprise."
Wally sat down beside him and feined curiosity. Something new to the monotony, he supposed. The lid opened, and a uniform came out, that Wally took a moment to register was too small for Clark, but was about his own size. Wally hadn't worn clothes since he'd gotten here, making that a genuine surprise.
"For me?" he asked, barely a whisper.
"Not just this," Clark replied, handing over a sleeveless top, V of red truncated at the waist, pointed at the back, widening and coming to points at the shoulders. Red. "I'm taking you to our new base. Our friends want to see that you're alright."
Wally wanted to laugh or cry, but just nodded and smiled as much as he could. "I'd like to go out," he sighed, imagining how beautiful it must be outside his prison to felt a flutter of excitement. But about seeing the League again... A few times, he'd heard one of his former teammates come in the Fortress with Superman, but Wally knew better than to think risking Clark's further wrath would be worth it. He never let them see him.
"Put it on."
That didn't take long, even if it was a trick to figure out, especially since he'd not dressed himself in so long. He did laugh, bitterly, when he put it on; the design had retained a metal belt and a red loincloth over tights and black boots with heavy buckles. Looking not a thing like himself as he appeased Clark by following him to the mirror in the bedroom. The cloth flowed out like an extension of the red slash in the top, which flowed up under his collar and just under his chin. Or maybe he looked exactly like himself. There was no mask. Little point in a secret identity. It was strangely confining in the snug, thin fabric, fluid as it was; Clark squeezed his shoulder and grinned. "Like it?" he asked, like someone asks when they already know the answer to be in the resoundingly positive.
"Yes," Wally automatically replied. The metal fittings matched his shock collar. He hated the very feeling of this thing on his body.
"It breathes and beads water, just as friction-proof as the last suit you wore. The boots should be better, more durable soles."
"It's less aerodynamic," Wally pointed out in soft monotone.
"You'll manage. I doubt you'll be doing any running this trip, anyway," Clark murmured into his ear. "If you do, it'll tell me you're not so ready for liberties as I'd thought."
The threat of being locked away in the little room made him shiver, like a ghost had passed through. "I won't run."
Clark had mentioned beading water, of course, because he carried Wally against his chest through the tunnel of water that he'd almost drowned in. The pressure made Wally close his eyes until they flew up clear of the waves, and then... he saw the world again.
The sweet smell of fresh air and open ocean overwhelmed him as he blinked against the blinding sunlight, adjusting to it to see glittering landscapes of ice beneath him, sparkling deep blue waves, a clear sky of puffy clouds. The sky. It was so beautiful tears pricked Wally's eyes. He felt free, just a little, at the sight of the outside. "It's wonderful," Wally breathed.
"A perfect day," Clark said warmly, holding him a little closer. A moment later he sighed and leaned against Wally's arm around his neck. "I forgot how long it's been for you."
He was wet and cold but hardly cared, just to be out here. He would ask to be able to run, just a little, if he thought Clark might let him. If only he wasn't trapped in Clark's arms right now, this could be perfect.
Wally smiled and pretended he was still living in the past, just long enough to enjoy the trip.
Stretches of ocean became lined with beaches and green land, cars and houses like ants below them, roads curling like patterns in fields and trees. The land became more cold, windy and snowy in America as they neared their destination off the coast of D.C.
A gleaming fortress floated over the ocean, like a smaller replica of New Genesis, a massive tower at the center with the League shield. It read JLU as before, but with a different sort of meaning to the acronym now. A few colourful heroes could be seen flying about like caped birds, taking off or landing within the citylike structure. It was green with plant life, warm as they approached somehow. "We moved, a stronghold closer than up in the sky, more suited for our needs now than the Metro Tower."
"I can imagine." Wally was distracted, trying to catch glimpses of familiar faces. He saw a few as they got closer. Those he recognized all wore the same costumes as before, a few gathering in a treed courtyard before the central tower. Wally wondered how long it would take for Superman to change his costume. Atom Smasher, Vixen, those with names he couldn't remember, a few he didn't recognize... and Shayera.
When he was set down, Wally took a few stumbling steps backwards, away from her as she walked forward, a sympathetic look that made it all worse. Eyes of a stranger, full of nothing Wally wanted from anyone. He backed into Clark, not meaning to, regretting it as his hand settled on Wally's half-bared shoulder like a vise.
"Flash," she said in wonderment. "How are you?"
"Fine, just fine," he snarled quietly, rage flaring, passionate feelings he'd not let himself indulge in for some months. He hated them so much he felt as if he could hardly contain it. A vessel overfull of burning anger, he burned his eyes into hers.
"We never..."
"Don't," Wally cut her off. Sneering. "Let me have a little dignity without your damned pity."
Shayera looked hurt and resigned as it was her turn to back off, giving him a nod. Thinking she could possibly understand what they'd all done to him. Clark gently urged him forward, strided ahead for Wally to follow along a cobbled path through flowers and grass. It smelled heavenly. Wally walked with his head down to avoid looking at anyone.
Coming to the headquarters of the Justice League shouldn't feel like being led to sacrifice in the lion's den. The entrance towered into vaulted halls, similar but different from the Watchtower, more graceful.
He hadn't seen Shayera following them, but she was, joining the rest of the Council--or at least the remains of it at only five--gathered around Wally in the back of a massive marble-floored chamber dominated by a black stone obelisk engraved with words he didn't look long enough to read. He didn't look up at the former teammates, either, just the shapes of their shadows on the floor.
They tried to talk to him, said hello, asked questions, finally just asked for any kind of response at all, but Wally refused. He stared at slightly shimmering specks in the polished tiles and gritted his teeth together. Batman's butter-smooth deep voice, Diana's light chimes of words, John's worried barks, Shayera's few hesitant words. None of them deserved a reply in their self-serving apology, but he was grateful none of them tried to touch him.
Apparently, either none of them dared to venture they might let Wally go, or none of them wanted to release him from Clark. He waited for someone to suggest he might go free, not caring about anything else, but nobody did. Not even a transfer to the Slab, which at this point, he might be willing to consider. So he had nothing to say to them. They had made him the enemy, not the other way around.
Finally Clark grunted angrily and dragged Wally away, back into the sky, back towards the Fortress, the view from the height less lusterous in its wonder for their destination. Now he'd surely never let Wally go out again. At least, not anytime soon.
The Fortress opened back around him like chains wrapping around his body.
Clark didn't have anything to say, just looked at Wally like he was something he'd just scraped off his boot. Wally went into Clark's rooms and took off the uniform. He knelt down, naked on the floor, folded the fabric and metal, set them beside the boots on the edge of the wall, then crawled up onto the couch.
Wally knelt against the back of the couch, folding his arms over it, laying his head down, spreading his legs. He couldn't feel any lingering sensations from being taken here earlier, but he could remember it well enough that he almost did. "I guess fucking is all I'm good for," he said. "You might as well get it over with and leave me alone." He hadn't meant for it to come out choked and pitiful, but it did, and he didn't really think Clark would just then. "Or just put me out of my misery."
"Wally..." Clark sighed. "You don't..."
"I want to die," he whispered, realizing with horrible certainty it was true.
There was a heavy silence, cold and seeping into everything as Wally waited. For what he didn't know, this time.
A hand finally reached out to touch his shoulder, sparking digust and rage and motion. Wally whipped around, his fist squarely meeting Clark's nose with a snapping of bones. All Wally's bones, Clark merely giving Wally stunned surprise as the sensation of buzzing in his blood filled his body, the split-second precursors to the crippling pain of the shock collar. Pain he almost welcomed in an attempt to prove to himself that he was still alive at all.
When it passed, he was alone. Clark would think his display of despair was a trick to get him to let down his guard. A trick, to hurt him, just a little.
Wally curled up on Clark's floor, set the bones in his fingers, and laughed. Laughed until his throat was sore and his lungs were burning and tears were forced out of his eyes. He didn't want to live anymore. There wasn't anything left. He wondered if the collar would stop him from trying to kill himself.
Over the next two days, suicide was Wally's main goal. The collar did indeed try to stop him. Aggressive action, even against himself, it knew about. He figured there might be some sort of telepathic thing in it, he never saw Clark use a button or switch to use it, and even when the robots weren't around, it would know. That would be the upgrade, then.
The first few times, Clark would show up before Wally would wake again. Be there to touch him and try to tell him he would be free to leave when things became more settled, that he had only to wait, to show the League he wouldn't offer them resistance or scorn when the time came and he could have his own life again. Lies. He knew better than to think Clark would ever let him go.
He had to escape somehow. Even into oblivion.
Once Wally awoke--from trying to drown himself--in a laboratory, strapped down to a metal table, Superman bending over him. He tried to speak but found himself unable to move anything as Clark muttered about a wire coming loose and put it back to slip Wally back into dreamless sleep.
The robots were watching for him to throw himself in the water or try to make an edge to cut his veins open. So Wally was laying on the icy cavern floor beside the water, the robots watching on, but he moved little. Shivering as he repressed his metabolism, shorted as it was by his too-small meals. He'd skipped the last few, flushing them down the toilet to make this easier. Waiting for hypothermia to set in.
The robots didn't seem to realize anything was wrong.
He thought he might let himself starve to death, but Clark would see that before it would work, and he doubted it'd be any more pleasant. Clouds were filling his mind, and he could hardly feel his hands and feet anymore.
Just... slipping away, like shedding an unwanted burden.
He raised his hand up in the air, with difficulty, looking at a bluish tint that was settling in. Behind it he could see splashes of sparkles swirling, a hallucination of course, materializing into the shape of a beautiful black-haired woman bathed in light. Wally coughed out a chuckle.
"Hello pretty lady," he brokenly whispered, as much of a smile on his face as he could manage as his arm fell to his side on the ice. "Are you an angel?"
"No," she said. Looking so sad. "But I can try."
"Am I dying?"
"No, Flash. But I can take you somewhere." She leaned down and felt real, warm fingers on his chest. Her eyes were glassy blue-violet, and he thought he should know who she was, taking his hand, pressing feeling back into it. "I was sent by a friend. I'm here to help you."
"Friend?" Wally coughed, doing his best to touch her back.
"Where would you go, if you could go anywhere in space or time or reality, Flash? Right now, where would you want to be?"
His eyelids felt too heavy to keep open, so he closed them and loved the sound of her voice. "I'm already dead. And Clark doesn't have powers. I think that would be a nice place."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Wally sighed. "I wish you were real."
"I am real." Her lips pressed against his forehead, made him all warm again, again feeling the cold floor underneath him and the tips of his toes.
He slipped away.
* * *
Wally wasn't dead. He couldn't be, able to realize it, sense coming back. It had been Zatanna. She'd not wanted anything to do with the League for years. And he was still alive.
There was still ice underneath him, but he opened his eyes to the cavern looking very different. The main console was draped with a white cloth, the lights dim and spare, no hum of air circulation. It felt like a tomb, long abandoned. He was either in the future or... he didn't quite know.
Hands flew around his neck in shock as he realized the collar was gone. As if it had never been there, the weight was lifted and his skin was bare and...
He was free.
Where he was didn't mean a whole lot anymore, just that he could run out through it, run away or wherever he wanted to go. It seemed only fitting he was stark naked when he swam out, finally making it out and away, and ran across the cresting waters of the ocean towards his real home, towards Central City.
In South America he stole a pair of denim cutoffs and a hole-ridden black t-shirt off a clothesline and some steaks off a grill at a picnic. A pair of old sneakers, mismatched socks. He felt bad about stealing, but he had nothing to trade for it, and could hardly be naked if he wanted to seek out someone to talk to. The places he'd taken from he committed to memory, promising quietly to repay the theft as soon as he could.
He could run.
Running was like a drug coursing through his system, the best kind of high he could imagine, bliss and adrenaline, pumping muscles, wind screaming past his ears. He was alive again!
There was a memorial to the Flash where the Museum used to be. It had been there for a while, the carved stone tablet before the statue of the Flash a little worn around the edges. Beloved guardian and friend, may he now be at peace. A grave that had been there for about a decade, maybe more.
Central City was as beautiful as his dreams, but it didn't feel quite like home anymore. Snowy, peaceful trees in the park. People bundled against the cold, talking and laughing together. Maybe it would in time, if this is where he really belonged. He began to be more certain he knew where he was, with the lack of Justice League posters or mentions in any newspapers. It never quite existed here.
Superman wasn't in Metropolis. Steel was, instead. Nightwing and Batwoman were the shadowy protectors of Gotham City. The Green Arrow and Black Canary were still in Star City, Aztek still in California... a few things were the same.
Wally touched the glass in front of an electronics store, watching the mute TV screens play captioned news programs and sports. He was sure now. This was another reality, the one he'd been to before.
The Justice Lords had ruled here, and he'd helped to bring them down. Clark himself had taken their powers all away, before he'd gone and forgotten why. Wally could remember better now, what he'd asked Zatanna for in his half-dazed state. Of course she'd have sent him here; it was exactly what he'd asked for. The Flash was long dead. Clark didn't have any powers.
A commercial ended, and to his surprise, Clark's face appeared on the screen. Not Superman. Clark. He had wire-rimmed glasses on his nose, faintest sprays of a few silver hairs at his temples, crinkles beside his eyes and laugh-lines around his mouth despite a somber expression in a gray suit, sitting behind a desk. He was a news anchor, emphatically speaking, the captions telling Wally he was reporting on global warming.
Clark Kent still existed after Superman didn't anymore.
The story changed to one about a charity marathon race across New Hampshire and Vermont. It was still winter here, too, and Wally had to look absurd in his stolen South American clothing when everyone else was in overcoats on the chilly sidewalk, but his captivity had taught him not to feel the cold even now. Clark smiled on the screen and Wally sniffled, wiped his eyes, and hated himself again.
Even after everything, seeing Clark made him want to go to him. It wasn't the same man, he could see that.
This Clark had tried to kill him, looked him in the eyes and said as much. At least that had been honest. And Clark... Wally was still alive, but he couldn't call himself by the name of a dead man and expect for chaos not to ensue and make everything much more complicated and insane than he wanted.
His mind was still catching up to being liberated at all.
Wally could go to Clark. Maybe he couldn't trust him, but. He shouldn't have powers. Wally still did.
He went to Metropolis and found the television station, part of a rather big communications complex, loitering in the parking lot as unobtrusively as he could, hiding behind a smelly, overfull dumpster as he watched snow fall softly over black pavement and parked cars.
"This is so stupid Wally. You could go anywhere now, do anything. What are you doing here?" he whispered to himself. "Cold and miserable, waiting for Clark. Cripes, haven't you learned anything?" He hunched down and rubbed his arms absently, kicking away a curious rat with his scuffed shoe to scramble back into the trash.
A few coated men and women, made-up reporters and more scruffy camera crews or whoever they were came and went. It was still so strange to see so many strange faces, just... here, like this.
Clark's face was so familiar it seemed to beam out from everywhere when he stepped outside, tugging his wool overcoat around himself as he fiddled with his keys, shivering once. He seemed so much more human than his Clark had been, no trace of the arrogant swagger, not those commanding shoulders. Just a man, coming from work, on his way home.
Wally ran to him, startled him into stepping back, Clark's eyes wide in shock as a dead man materialized in front of him and grabbed his arms desperately. "I know you're not him, I know that, God I do, but I don't know why I can't... I just... I can't... There's nowhere else for me to go!" He began to sob, lost control and threw himself into Clark's arms. Clark uncertainly wrapped one arm around him, held him gingerly.
"Are you... Wally? But you're.. gone."
"I ran away!" he wailed into his coat, hating himself for wanting to tell Clark everything just then.
"But... you... you died..."
"The Flash did but I didn't, I wished so hard I had..."
"I'll... I... come on. I'll take you to my place, we can talk," Clark said comfortingly, confusion heavy in his voice, uncertainty in his hands, leading him to what had to be his snow-sprinkled red car. "Whatever it is, I'll do what I can."
Wally gripped his hand the entire ride, losing it again when he noticed he'd cut off Clark's circulation, his fingers gone a little purple.
He wasn't invulnerable. Just a man, who made him tea in a modest kitchen, who nervously offered it to Wally, unasked questions in Clark's blue eyes. He hadn't looked into Clark's eyes in a long time, had forgotten they were... beautiful, when not masked by lenses, not filled with hatred and anger and...
The apartment was small, almost spartan. Not grand or self-indulgent at all, not a home for a dictator. It was hard to remember that was what this man used to be. He was just like his Clark, years ago.
"I'm..." Wally started, then stopped, cupped the warm mug in his hands and sighed. "The Justice League who came here, who... took your powers away. That Flash... used to be me."
"Are you looking for a way home? I don't know..."
"No. I'm not going back." Wally frowned at Clark's face, drawn in guilt and concern and confusion. It made him angry. "You tried to kill me. You locked me up and tried to take over my world."
"It took me a long time to realize I was wrong. There's... there's nothing I could ever say or do to show you how sorry I am for all that," Clark said softly. "To make up for it."
"No, I don't really think there is. But I want you to answer me some things, and I want the truth from you. I deserve it."
"Okay." Clark pulled up a stool in front of the refridgerator, across from where Wally was perched, and pulled off his tie, undid a few buttons of his shirt... it prompted unwanted responses from Wally's body. "Anything."
Wally let him squirm in silence a moment, burning hatred.
"You don't have your powers anymore."
"Sometimes I think they might be coming back, but they never have." Sorrow flickered in Clark's eyes.
"Good," Wally said shortly, despising himself for enjoying Clark's hurt, just a little vindication.
After a moment, he looked away, out the windows, a view of the snowy city glowing with a setting sun breaking here and there through thick clouds. The snow had stopped falling.
"Do you have anywhere to go?" Clark ventured timidly. "It's not much here but... you can stay here, if you want. Or I could ask someone I trust."
Wally finally took a first sip of the tea, bitter and strong now, but still hot. "I'll eat you out of house and home in a day."
"It's alright, I make enough at the station." Clark smiled hesitantly. "I didn't expect you to say yes."
"Whatever." Wally hopped off the counter and zipped into Clark's bedroom, neat, tidy, decidedly unshiny, and locked the door to keep Clark out.
The bedsheets were cotton, a dark comforter on top, a normal bed. He took off his clothes, folded them on the edge of the floor, and crawled into bed, laying awake while the sun set outside the window, staring up long after that. His mind blank and unshed tears in his eyes.
* * *
Every day, Wally woke up, ate, and ran. Just coming back to Clark's place, to which he now had a key, to eat, shower, sleep, and do it all again. Every day, Clark went shopping for as much as Wally wanted, not looking for any kind of thanks, and Wally couldn't speak to him enough to give any. He'd end up just saying something hateful again, and Clark didn't understand why he was so angry. He didn't speak to anyone, or avoided it as much as possible. Clark just cooked as much as Wally would eat, sitting at his kitchen table, staring at the window.
From up here, it was so pretty.
He had clothes now, too. Clark bought him clothes, without even being asked to, without understanding why Wally just hugged them for a while before putting any of them on.
Once in a while, he'd run across someone who needed help, and he'd give it. No big heroics though, he avoided those to be left in the care of the other heroes here, who were best left unaware of his presence just yet. Thinking too much about anything was a little like crushing shards of glass into his soul. He didn't want to deal with answering questions.
He suspected this would be the sort of world to be happy in, much better than what had happened to his own. But that fact alone kept him from enjoying it so much as wishing things were different.
Perhaps he would have died fighting the Justice League, if he'd been free in his own world. Perhaps he would be contacted by an underground that had to have formed, and he'd have seen enough to join up. Knowing they'd more than likely die. His Clark might have been right about that. And Batman. Clark had led him to believe it was all Batman's idea. Maybe that was true.
Wally imagined being strapped down in that laboratory, the two of them standing over him, deciding his fate as they locked the collar around his neck.
Clark knocked politely on the door to the sound of Wally crying, but he would just find himself stopping, like turning off a switch. He'd not unlearned that just yet and refused to explain himself.
And Clark didn't say much at all, either, just little niceties, reminding Wally he still kept in touch with a few people "from the old days," but never mentioning any of the others of the seven. Talking about some news story he'd reported on that night. He still did investigative reporting, even still wrote for the Daily Planet on a weekly basis, despite being a national news anchor. Didn't sleep much at night. He'd moved into the living room, explaining all about being too busy to use the bedroom much. The nicest sort of reaction Wally could expect for kicking him out of his own room, unbelievably nice.
This Clark, the former Justice Lords Superman, was nothing like his Clark. But he was exactly the same.
Long, uncomfortable weeks passed, but Wally couldn't bring himself to leave, and Clark didn't ask him to. It was all like a hazy sort of dream. He felt like he might wake up any second.
Then, one morning Clark was cooking eggs on the stove, juggling bacon on another burner, toast, and a boiling teakettle. Wally wasn't looking until he smelled smoke, and Clark yelled in alarm; he'd set the sleeve of his shirt on fire.
Without thinking, Wally reacted, dousing it in a wet kitchen towel before the grease had a chance to even burn Clark's now-vulnerable skin at all. "Thank you," he said, a little startled. "That was stupid of me."
"Yes, it was," Wally replied, more sharply than he should have, frowning at him and himself, stepping away.
The first words he’d spoken in so long they sounded like someone else’s voice.
Clark ripped off his shirt and threw it on the floor, his tie hanging over his bare chest in a way Wally thought was a little funny, but he kept it to himself. "What do you want from me!?" Clark yelled in long-repressed frustration, then let out a heavy sigh, calmed himself. "If I should be doing something different, let me know."
Wally was going to cry again. He decided it didn't really matter at this point, and tried to ignore the tears running down his face, blinking them irritably out of his vision. "I get why you did what you did, okay? You were just... you just... you expect me to forgive you for... it wasn't you, but... Damn it! You did the same thing he did, even if you didn't do it to me! Would you have, if he was alive then? Died before you could hate him and lock him away and torment him with your happy little Hell? Would you!?"
"I'm so sorry..." Clark stepped forward, made to wrap his arms around Wally, but he got out of the way.
"Don't touch me."
"Okay."
He couldn't bear Clark's sad face anymore and ran away.
Slept in warmer climes, stealing space in hammocks in Australia or about the Equator, using Clark's American money in places where nobody spoke English. He got on that way a surprising length of time, sleeping in a dozen countries before he had to think about what to do next.
The last dollar went, and like a sign, sent Wally back to Clark's apartment after he knew he'd be home from work.
He still had the key, just walked in. Clark was watching television, only one lamp lit. He jumped up when Wally ran over, but Wally didn't let him say anything.
"I'm sorry, Clark, I've been a jerk. I'm just saying goodbye and all that, alright? I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I’ll pay you back." He turned to leave, but Clark grabbed his arm.
"Wait. Talk to me." Wally hung his head and sighed at the earnestness in Clark's voice. "You won't let anyone else even know you're alive, I'm not sure why that is but... I can listen. Maybe that'll help."
Wally sat down stiffly on the couch and looked him in the eyes, trying to avoid any kind of expression. At first, he just looked at him, before he formed the words. Clark looked so... open. Telling the truth.
"The same thing that happened here. Except I didn't die. So it just took longer. Superman imprisoned me in the Fortress of Solitude so I couldn't fight them. He hated me for not agreeing with him, I think. I guess running the world is a lot of pressure, so he wasn't very nice about it."
Wally sat and stared at Clark's ear. "He really did that?" Clark seemed to put the details together himself. Wally didn't want to say much else, anyway. "I can't believe it would happen again," Clark said softly.
Wally was surprised to find himself longing, rushing forward, capturing Clark's face in his hands, their lips together. He was surprised under Wally's kiss, then pushed into it, the tips of their tounges meeting hot and wet. It felt like ice in his chest was melting for a sweet moment. Sucking gasping breaths between devouring each other.
It felt so good.
Until Clark pulled away, looked down, brushed his thumb across his bottom lip. "No, I can't do this. He... hurt you."
"I'm not fragile," Wally snapped defensively, sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Should I go?"
"Where?" Wally didn't have an answer for that. "Stay."
"I guess."
Things went back to they way they were before, except the silence was lighter. Tension over the kiss instead of doom. They'd eat together, watch TV together, and it was all comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.
Knowing his world went on without him, like a runaway train now too far away to catch.
"I want to get a job, I think."
He was staring at Clark again, who started chuckling and took off his tie, a gel-stiff lock of hair coming loose around his temple. Couldn't even see the silver hairs when it was like that, or parted in the middle. Wally wondered if it was just the stress of being taken down like that. Was he still Kryptonian?
"Why are you laughing?"
"We just fired our message boy. A track star who spent the day running up and down the back staircase with scripts and files and... well, whatever we needed. He got into a fist-fight with the morning weatherman."
Wally laughed, too. "Sounds like something I would do. The fighting, I mean."
"I can talk to Charlie for you. Runs all that."
"Okay."
* * *
"Alright, now this is the way it is. We have a system, and the system works, long as the cogs are all oiled up, right?" It would sound like a come-on coming from anyone but a grizzled man chewing on an unlit cigarette and wearing a purple sweater with a fish on it. His eyes were hidden by a pair of enormous sunglasses, and on second thought, he might just as easily a pornographer as in charge of Internal Communications on the fourth floor.
Charlie commanded a squadron of IT geeks that would generally come to work in their pajamas, and Sandi, who moonlighted as an exotic dancer and always came in looking perfect. During the day she was a network specialist, but her... assets... made her the face of the department, while the others, the "little nerdos" as Charlie called them, were more than happy to let her do all the talking. He also managed the phone system, or at least oversaw Chris and Ned, who spent the day running around almost as much as Wally did with a box of tools. He knew all this because Charlie told him on the elevator ride up. "You carry a pager. It rings, a number comes up. That's a code for where you're gonna go. Room numbers. You'll figure it out pretty quick if you're worth my time."
"I'm a fast learner."
"Good. I don't care what you do during downtime, if you get it, or lunch, you get that. Law requires it."
"Right."
"Just play nice with suits, okay?"
"Suits?
Charlie went into his office, which had 'Charles Branson' on a sign on the door, and a statue of Daffy Duck on the cluttered desk. He sat down behind it and put his feet up. Wearing plastic sandals. Wally sat down across from him and felt at ease. "Yeah, suits. They're like actors, these TV people. You know about actors, right? Well, they're crazy. It's the cameras. And the what-not up top, just... play nice."
"Right."
Wally thought about Linda a lot here.
The 'what-not' turned out to be network executives, secretaries, interns. They were mostly sent up packages, films he imagined. And were altogether too busy and important to say much to the errand-boy in track shoes, but the tech crews downstairs all had enough to say about them that everyone got a good laugh behind their backs. Sometimes Wally would get an invitation to go out after work to the local bar or party, but he'd decline.
He'd see Clark during the day sometimes, too, but they were both busy.
Wally ran back and forth from work, too. And generally was alone in the back stairwell, so he could run as fast as he liked. It didn't really matter if anyone guessed he had powers, not everyone who did became a superhero or a criminal. Especially in this world. Here, the most trusted superheroes were the ones without powers.
Metas who minded their own business were left alone.
The janitor had caught Wally running several times and did little more than remind him that tread marks on his newly-waxed floors were unacceptable.
It was a little weird at first, but he grew to like the sort of casual dismissal that he was anything extraordinary. Being out in the open, so to speak, made it look like he didn't have anything to hide. He was just very good at his job, and the art department was especially grateful. He'd still help out, discreetly, sometimes, with hero-things. Fires, accidents, lost children. That sort of thing. If Clark was jealous that Wally still had his powers, he never said so or let on.
And being less than discreet about his powers got attention from the heroes, just sooner than he'd thought. But they didn't go to him; they went to Clark.
"They want to know who you are. There's no group, but they keep in touch. I've heard from Nightwing."
"I never see anything about Bruce. Is he still around?"
Clark paused at the counter, set down the empty glass in his hand. Gave him a serious look. "We didn't stay in touch. He's still around somewhere, I'm sure."
"What happened after?"
"Rioting."
"I read about that."
"We were arrested by the US government and given a choice. Once they were sure we weren't the same threat anymore. Hang up our capes, not talk about who were were, go on with our lives, and we'd be allowed to do it. So we vanished into our secret identities. And we don't talk."
"None of you?"
"If any of the others do, I don't know about it. That's behind us all now."
"Is it really?"
"One day I woke up, went back to my family, my career, my friends, my life that really mattered to me. Once I'd figured that out." Clark looked defensive, crossed his arms.
"I know."
"They're not going to give you a hard time, they just want to know who you are."
"Fine. Tell them and tell them I want to be left alone."
"Nightwing wants to talk to you."
"Whatever."
"I think it's a good idea."
"And you're always so full of good ideas, aren't you?" Wally snapped, then backed off, looked away. "I didn't... nevermind."
Talking was so hard to get right.
Running away was easier, so he did for a while.
* * *
"Please don't," Wally choked, his throat so tight with fear he could hardly breathe. Rooted to the spot, his mind screamed to run but he didn't do anything as Clark came close enough to grab his wrists and slam them back against the wall.
Clark's eyes were red, so angry he wasn't listening to anything, though Wally had no idea why. He tried to shrink back against the cold metal, but Clark just trapped him there, kicked his legs apart. Wally's lips bled under the force of his kiss, he turned away as soon as Clark moved down over his neck, pushing him up the wall on his twisted arms. "No, stop," Wally begged softly.
"Still playing chaste? You disgust me," Clark snarled. He let go only to backhand Wally into stunned silence, slammed him against the wall, covering Wally's mouth with his hand, growling into the back of his neck.
He didn't let go, held him down even after his hand began muffling screams.
"WAKE UP!"
Wally's eyes opened to Clark on top of him and yelled something mangled and terrified, pushed him frantically away as he pushed over and ended up falling off the edge of the bed in a tangle of sweaty sheets.
He caught up to what was going on before he could catch his breath, Clark slowly daring to come back into view, sitting on top of the bed. "Are you alright?"
"Dream," Wally said, frowning, shaking his head. "I'm fine."
It was dark, but the curtains were drawn, and city lights showed Clark to be wearing plaid pajamas, his face sleepy but alarmed. He blinked a few times, glanced out the window, then looked back at Wally with his brows drawn in concern. "You shouldn't be here."
"Are you asking me to leave?"
"No."
Wally got up from the mess, Clark looking away as he pulled a pair of boxer shorts on. "I'm sorry I woke you." He remember then that he hadn't locked the door before he went to bed.
"Don't be."
Clark looked back and Wally was consumed by the desire to hurt him, hold him down and show him what he couldn't tell him about. He was the powerful one now. He could do it, and Clark wouldn't be able to stop him. Make him scream and bleed and know what it was like to be truly powerless. "I'm going out."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"Will you be back..?"
"I don't know! Okay!?!" Wally didn't wait any longer, put clothes on and ran.
He shouldn't be here, but he didn't belong anywhere.
Halfway down the coast, Wally turned back and headed toward Gotham City. Still knowing it well, not losing his familiarity with geography with time. He could still remember how to find Wayne Manor just north of the city, at the end of a dark winding coastal road that ended in a set of formidable gates.
It was the middle of the night, and he didn't see any lights on, but that wouldn't mean much in this place. So he rang the gate's buzzer and waved up at the security camera.
"It's me, Wally West? The Flash? Not yours, but... no. Dick wants to talk to me, and I figured if you're still here, and I do mean you oh dark one, I could, ah, talk to you first." Nothing happened. "Pretty please? Oh fine. You want to be a bastard, so just kick rocks, buddy."
Wally turned to leave, grinned to himself as he heard the gate click and swing open behind him. He just knew that was Bruce.
The front door was open when he got there, a somber figure of Mr. Wayne himself in a soft light from overhead that gave him deep shadows under his eyes. He looked like a vampire. "You're the speedster in Metropolis," he rumbled, intrigued.
"Does that mean I can come in?"
Bruce arched a brow and stepped aside. "If you must."
Most of the furniture inside was draped with white cloths, only a few lamps lit. It felt like an abandoned museum more than a home, until they got down to the cave. That was littered with take-out boxes and trash here and there, dust visible on the once gleaming display cases draped with piles of odds and ends.
Wally stole a slice of cold cheese pizza off the computer console and sat down in a swivel-chair near Bruce's big one. Bruce wasn't wearing a suit or a uniform, but a pair of wrinkled jeans and a black sweatshirt. Living like a bum in a cave, which was certainly... different. "Time travel?" Bruce asked.
"Alternate reality," Wally answered through bites. "I was part of the Justice League."
"Not anymore."
"No. Things fell apart, and they pulled, well, a you. That's why I'm here. I had to escape..." He trailed off and tapped on the arm of the chair. "Ended up on the losing team before the fight even started."
"And now you're living in Metropolis."
"With a duplicate of my captor, of my own free will. Yeah. I know that's messed up, you don't have to tell me."
"So what do you want?" Same old blunt impatience.
"Things happened to me. I think I have to tell someone. Or I might end up doing something I regret, one way or the other." He also needed Nightwing and all these guys here to know there was no way he’d ever go back to his uniform. He was done.
"And you can tell me?"
"You're not going to try to send me to a therapist or pity me. And you know how to keep your mouth shut."
"Alright," Bruce said, less abrasively, looked suprisingly receptive and merely waited for Wally to speak. Like he understood already. Or was curious because he didn’t have anything better to do.
"He wanted me to suffer." Wally looked out over the railing on the edge of the massive computer console, down to where a line of cars were draped with gray cloths. They looked sad. "Superman, I mean."
Wally couldn't hear any bats, wondered if that meant they were gone, or if they were silently listening along.
"He raped me. All the time." The words echoed and faded like something that someone else had just said. "Because I guess he thought I deserved it. And he liked it. He liked to pretend it wasn't that, but I would beg and..." Wally closed his eyes, sucked in a shuddering breath. "It would be so much worse if I begged him not to. So I just... gave in."
Now he felt small, wanted to make himself smaller and vanish.
"It wasn't your fault. You didn't deserve it."
Crying in front of Batman was never something high on Wally's to-do list. But there wasn't much he could do to stop the tears that forced their way out and down his nose, itching as he wiped them away. "I really should believe that, shouldn't I?"
"You will when you're ready to. Just don't commit suicide prematurely."
Wally sniffed and rolled his eyes at Bruce, glad he'd come here. "I think I made it out of that patch. But sometimes... he looks just like him."
"Perhaps you should stay somewhere else a time."
"I know I should."
"You think you have feelings for him now."
Wally couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah. But they're not always healthy feelings."
"And him?"
"I don’t know."
"So let him try to fix you. That's what he's good at, after all. Salvation." Bruce got up and paced over to the rail, looked down into the endless cavern depths. He had a limp he'd been masking before, and Wally couldn't help but wonder how he got it. "So tell me. Why are you here?"
"Why am I not there, fighting back? It's not like it was here, Bruce," he said, before guaging if Bruce would like him calling him that. "Bats. Just before he locked me up, we had forty-eight members. And not all of them would follow them right away, but. They won. Quickly. And now they control everything. It’s not like it was here. It’s worse because we tried to stop it from happening."
"So it's hopeless," Bruce replied coolly. "I see."
"Whatever." Wally stood up, edged toward the door. “Listen, thanks, but I’m not... You don’t understand.”
“Alright.”
“Okay then.”
They looked at each other like they weren’t sure what else to say.
Wally could run off if he wanted to, so he did. Bruce was never big on niceties, anyway, wasn’t he always the one leaving without saying goodbye?
Clark was waiting for him when he got back. Sitting anxiously at the kitchen counter with a plate of cookies, like he was trying to lure Wally back with them.
A mouse trap with sweet bait.
“That was quick.”
“Batman doesn’t talk much.”
He reached for a cookie and Clark took his hand. “Wally, I don’t understand...”
The words, the hand touching him was too much.
Apparently talking about it just made it worse. Brought it back to the surface.
Wally slammed him into the refrigerator door, Clark calling out in pain and surprise. His human bones and flesh didn’t have the strength to resist, his eyes full of unveiled fear.
It was so easy to hurt him. Just like he’d known it would be. Wally spun him around and threw him over the counter, twisting his arms behind his back. Holding him still with just one hand. Clark didn’t say anything, didn’t fight.
Wally twisted a little harder. “Do you really want to understand?” he growled. “Do you want me to show you?”
“Yes,” he replied, soft and timid.
It pissed Wally off. Guilt was making Clark want this, was that it? He grabbed a fistful of Clark’s shirt and tore it off painfully. He knew it was painful because Clark was moaning and twisting.
“You feel guilty for what you did to me?”
“I’m so sorry.”
Wally threw him on the floor, audibly knocking the wind out of him.
“Take off your clothes, you filthy whore.”
Terrible realization dawned on Clark’s face. He was trembling as he fumbled to remove the tattered remains of his shirt. His tie was like an askew noose before he took that off, too.
He kept looking up like he was hoping Wally would tell him to stop, that it was enough, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Time had treated Clark well. Gray hairs or not, he still had the body of a Greek sculpture. Still shaking, modest, ashamed. Already bruising.
“You don’t deserve to live. Selfish, self-important bastard. Don’t play shy, it disgusts me.” He kicked viciously at Clark’s knee, forced his legs apart. Clark reflexively closed them again, pushed back, but spread them again out of fear. His cock looked exactly the same, of course.
Wally got a bottle of whiskey and came back, pulled a stool over to where Clark was sniveling and made himself comfortable.
“You wanted to fuck me, didn’t you? Slut. I know you did.” The whiskey burned in just the way he wanted right now. Wally spit some of it down onto Clark’s chest. “Never had the balls to do anything about it until I couldn’t fight back. Do you know what that makes you?”
He kept drinking, waiting for an answer. Clark was slow to realize it, stuttering as he tried to answer. “I-I don’t... I couldn’t...”
Wally spit whiskey on him again, snorted in genuine disgust.
“It makes you a coward.”
Clark was still wearing his socks. Gray dress socks with that diamond pattern on ugly sweater vests.
“All those people you lobotomized. Ever fuck any of them? Maybe keep a pretty sex toy in your closet?”
“No, no.”
“Lying slut. I know you did. Did they still cry after you violated them?”
Without an answer, Clark moved his mouth but couldn’t seem to find any words. Wally sneered at him.
“I bet they did. It doesn’t matter what you think. I bet they remembered what they were before you destroyed them. Cried and prayed to be saved from you, but they weren’t saved in time. Too little too late.”
“Wally...”
He snarled and whipped off the stool, kicked Clark until he took a fetal position. Watched him fight to keep it together, bruising. Pitifully vulnerable. “You don’t get to call me that, whore!”
Wally took a long, deep drink and set the bottle on the counter as he wiped off his lips. Sat back down heavily. “Get in front of me, on your knees.”
Clark was so terrified he didn’t move.
“Now!” Wally barked, and he finally did. Ready, wanting to hurt him again.
Looking up at him, begging with his eyes.
The enjoyment Wally was getting out of it made him hate himself even more. But he didn’t fight it. He was hard, and he opened his fly, pulled himself out so Clark could see.
“Look what you did, whore. Do something about it.” He spread his knees apart so Clark wouldn’t have any illusions about it. But Clark didn’t move. “Suck my cock, you dirty little slut, or I’ll choke you with it,” he snarled, spitting hatred.
Clark closed his eyes, a few tears falling down his cheeks as he moved forward and put his lips around Wally’s dick. But Wally couldn’t watch as he sucked him, turned away and felt like he wanted to cry, too.
There wasn’t any satisfaction in his wet lips. Wally sounded pained to himself when he came, Clark making little choking sounds.
Wally took a shaky breath and looked back down.
Clark had come on his face, looking straight ahead at nothing.
“Now you understand,” Wally said in a raspy voice.
He put himself back together and walked out of the room, taking the bottle with him.
Enjoying that made him the same kind of monster, but he couldn’t hate himself any more than he already did, not really. There was a feeling of power again, that’s all that was different. It wasn’t good or bad, it just was.
Maybe it was all bad.
Maybe there wasn’t any good left in him.
Maybe he didn’t give a shit.
Wally drank as he packed his things, what few things he had, into a backpack. He moved at normal speed, not wanting to burn out the alcohol.
It gave Clark time to be waiting when he walked out of the bedroom; waiting in the kitchen doorway, cleaned off but still naked, clutching the frame of the door, half hiding behind it.
“What?” Wally snapped. “Something to add?”
“Don’t go.”
Absurd. Wally laughed bitterly. “You must be joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Did you miss the last fifteen minutes?”
“I wanted you to do it.” His voice was so soft and timid now. Clark couldn’t even keep a steady gaze, glancing up from the floor.
Wally didn’t know how to respond to that. Or even how to feel about it. But he knew one thing.
“That’s so fucked up.”
“I deserve to be punished for what I did.”
“You’re not the one who ra... it wasn’t you.” Wally ground his teeth together, shook his head. “I shouldn’t have forgotten that. I’m sorry, and I’m leaving.”
“I love you.”
Wally stared at him and blinked in disbelief. The bottle fell on the floor, the cap on, so it made a hollow splashing tone and merely rolled a bit, then came to rest against his boot. Clark shrank against the door, didn’t look up. Like a shy, scared little boy.
“You can’t, there’s no way. I’m the evil bastard, what part of that don’t you get? You don’t love me, and I don’t love you. Did you forget how we met, too?”
“I didn’t forget. When I saw you... I knew I had to... I thanked God you were here. Every day. I need you. Not just because I miss him.”
Wally laughed like a madman and went reaching for the whiskey. He took it to the couch and was pretty sure he was going insane. “This is fucked, this is so fucked it’s unbelievable.”
He actively ignored Clark, who got dressed and came over, sitting on the other side of the couch like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed on the furniture.
“You don’t have to care about me. I’ll do whatever you want, but... please, W... let me help.”
“It’s alright if you call me by, you know, my name.”
“But...”
“I wore a shock collar. He’d zap me and break a bone or two if I called him Clark.” Wally stared at the bottle, drank some more. Half gone already. It felt good, enough that he didn’t care when he realized he was touching his own neck where it used to be.
Wally went to the kitchen, ran there and back with the discarded tie. He slipped it back around Clark’s neck, the knot still intact to pull snug. The ends of the tie he wrapped around his fist, until he was holding Clark close, threatening to choke him gently. Clark leaned into his grip and, still, didn’t fight back, even when he experimentally cut off his air supply for a moment.
“I enjoy hurting you,” Wally redundantly observed. “I don’t love you. Did admit to Bats about having feelings for you. Sick feelings. You don’t want me to stay, you really don’t.”
“I’d leave with you, anywhere you’d want to go, if you let me.”
“That’s twisted. I’m practically a rapist.”
“I said yes.”
It took Wally another hour, at least, to finish the bottle and throw it in a corner. The entire time, Clark pliantly let Wally casually hurt him a little. Let him pull hairs out of his head, gray ones, smack him around.
He’d never thought of himself as a sadist, but it was relaxing. It did make him feel better.
There really was love in Clark’s eyes. Alongside everything else.
“Alright,” Wally said, breaking the long silence. “I’ll stay.”
He let Clark lean his head on his chest, resting there so softly. So gently, sighing in something like content as Wally absently stroked his hair.
“I’ll stay,” he repeated. Not just here, in this apartment, in this insane mess he’d made. The delivery boy job, saving the occasionally pet from a tree without anything more he had to do.
He never wanted to go back to his own world.
He wanted peace.
I actually wrote three versions; but only one ever went anywhere. It’s a Justice Lords-verse story, too, but... different. Nobody’s really a bad guy or a good guy anymore, and the world’s all on it’s head in a dark way. Pushing these guys until they snapped was... well, it was something else.
Writing Wally doing some of the things he ends up has been, and I’m sure will continue to, creep me out just a little. It makes the ending satisfying for me, much moreso than if I’d just left the story where it was, but I wouldn’t say it’s a happy one; but it leaves the potential for happiness. And that’s something.
The Broken Reflection
DCAU AU I suppose you could say. Wally/Clark, NC-17; explicit non-consensual sex, consensual sex that’s still fucked, violence, attempted suicide, language. I did mention it was dark, right?
10k+ words.
When Wally finally decides he can’t live anymore as a prisoner, a wish is granted; to escape to a world where the Flash is already dead, and Superman doesn’t have any powers. Free to go wherever he wants, he still ends up back to Clark; but a very different one than the Clark he’s escaped from.
The television mentioned--as a footnote by the reporter, an older guy, being notable because it was only recently anyone other than young, pretty chicks were on much of anything--which struck him as Bruce's idea for some reason--that this day marked one year of peace and tranquility in the care of the Justice League. It seemed like a lifetime.
Clark didn't yell at him so much as he had more important things to worry about. Wally was dully complacent and didn't need any worrying about. His own fault, but Wally still never did anything about it. He didn't want to owe Clark anything by asking for something. He'd never give Clark the satisfaction of thinking Wally could owe him for anything. But could go into Clark's rooms now whenever he wanted, which he could help but find a little ironic. As soon as he was able to find something to wear, maybe even something...
What would be the point?
Hearing the click of the door opening, Wally shut off the TV and closed his eyes, drifted away. His body had turned into a compliant sex toy. Sometimes he even caught himself believing the same things Clark did about him, that he really was this idiotic rebel who lived to fuck. But what Wally believed didn't matter. He draped his arms back over the couch, threw back his head and waited.
It was already turning into the most vivid part of his icy little universe.
Clark was carrying something when he came in, set it down on the low table before groaning appreciatively and settling over Wally, holding his waist in his hands, kissing under his chin and ears, over the skin now used to wearing the shock collar on his neck. The bare scrap of fabric tore like wet paper in Clark's fingers. "I missed you," he sighed, squeezing Wally's thigh.
He got up to undress and lift Wally's knees over his shoulders, heft his ass in his hands, shoulders still draped over the back of the couch when fingers pushed him open and the cock thrust into his body. Wally moaned and yelled, try as he might, he could never keep quiet. Dug his fingers into the fabric and almost hated how it didn't hurt that much anymore. Clark fucked him quickly, luckily without the time to care the Wally wasn't erect, never got into it that far. He just pulled out after the last hard pushes and came over Wally's thigh. Marking his territory. Semen pooled by his groin, then ran down his leg as he was set back down, to go clean up.
Clark wiped off his dick with the remains of Wally's loincloth and tucked his uniform back together as Wally came back in, not feeling any cleaner than before. He didn't bother with the soiled rag to cover up.
"I have something for you," Clark said, smiling, holding the box over his lap. "A surprise."
Wally sat down beside him and feined curiosity. Something new to the monotony, he supposed. The lid opened, and a uniform came out, that Wally took a moment to register was too small for Clark, but was about his own size. Wally hadn't worn clothes since he'd gotten here, making that a genuine surprise.
"For me?" he asked, barely a whisper.
"Not just this," Clark replied, handing over a sleeveless top, V of red truncated at the waist, pointed at the back, widening and coming to points at the shoulders. Red. "I'm taking you to our new base. Our friends want to see that you're alright."
Wally wanted to laugh or cry, but just nodded and smiled as much as he could. "I'd like to go out," he sighed, imagining how beautiful it must be outside his prison to felt a flutter of excitement. But about seeing the League again... A few times, he'd heard one of his former teammates come in the Fortress with Superman, but Wally knew better than to think risking Clark's further wrath would be worth it. He never let them see him.
"Put it on."
That didn't take long, even if it was a trick to figure out, especially since he'd not dressed himself in so long. He did laugh, bitterly, when he put it on; the design had retained a metal belt and a red loincloth over tights and black boots with heavy buckles. Looking not a thing like himself as he appeased Clark by following him to the mirror in the bedroom. The cloth flowed out like an extension of the red slash in the top, which flowed up under his collar and just under his chin. Or maybe he looked exactly like himself. There was no mask. Little point in a secret identity. It was strangely confining in the snug, thin fabric, fluid as it was; Clark squeezed his shoulder and grinned. "Like it?" he asked, like someone asks when they already know the answer to be in the resoundingly positive.
"Yes," Wally automatically replied. The metal fittings matched his shock collar. He hated the very feeling of this thing on his body.
"It breathes and beads water, just as friction-proof as the last suit you wore. The boots should be better, more durable soles."
"It's less aerodynamic," Wally pointed out in soft monotone.
"You'll manage. I doubt you'll be doing any running this trip, anyway," Clark murmured into his ear. "If you do, it'll tell me you're not so ready for liberties as I'd thought."
The threat of being locked away in the little room made him shiver, like a ghost had passed through. "I won't run."
Clark had mentioned beading water, of course, because he carried Wally against his chest through the tunnel of water that he'd almost drowned in. The pressure made Wally close his eyes until they flew up clear of the waves, and then... he saw the world again.
The sweet smell of fresh air and open ocean overwhelmed him as he blinked against the blinding sunlight, adjusting to it to see glittering landscapes of ice beneath him, sparkling deep blue waves, a clear sky of puffy clouds. The sky. It was so beautiful tears pricked Wally's eyes. He felt free, just a little, at the sight of the outside. "It's wonderful," Wally breathed.
"A perfect day," Clark said warmly, holding him a little closer. A moment later he sighed and leaned against Wally's arm around his neck. "I forgot how long it's been for you."
He was wet and cold but hardly cared, just to be out here. He would ask to be able to run, just a little, if he thought Clark might let him. If only he wasn't trapped in Clark's arms right now, this could be perfect.
Wally smiled and pretended he was still living in the past, just long enough to enjoy the trip.
Stretches of ocean became lined with beaches and green land, cars and houses like ants below them, roads curling like patterns in fields and trees. The land became more cold, windy and snowy in America as they neared their destination off the coast of D.C.
A gleaming fortress floated over the ocean, like a smaller replica of New Genesis, a massive tower at the center with the League shield. It read JLU as before, but with a different sort of meaning to the acronym now. A few colourful heroes could be seen flying about like caped birds, taking off or landing within the citylike structure. It was green with plant life, warm as they approached somehow. "We moved, a stronghold closer than up in the sky, more suited for our needs now than the Metro Tower."
"I can imagine." Wally was distracted, trying to catch glimpses of familiar faces. He saw a few as they got closer. Those he recognized all wore the same costumes as before, a few gathering in a treed courtyard before the central tower. Wally wondered how long it would take for Superman to change his costume. Atom Smasher, Vixen, those with names he couldn't remember, a few he didn't recognize... and Shayera.
When he was set down, Wally took a few stumbling steps backwards, away from her as she walked forward, a sympathetic look that made it all worse. Eyes of a stranger, full of nothing Wally wanted from anyone. He backed into Clark, not meaning to, regretting it as his hand settled on Wally's half-bared shoulder like a vise.
"Flash," she said in wonderment. "How are you?"
"Fine, just fine," he snarled quietly, rage flaring, passionate feelings he'd not let himself indulge in for some months. He hated them so much he felt as if he could hardly contain it. A vessel overfull of burning anger, he burned his eyes into hers.
"We never..."
"Don't," Wally cut her off. Sneering. "Let me have a little dignity without your damned pity."
Shayera looked hurt and resigned as it was her turn to back off, giving him a nod. Thinking she could possibly understand what they'd all done to him. Clark gently urged him forward, strided ahead for Wally to follow along a cobbled path through flowers and grass. It smelled heavenly. Wally walked with his head down to avoid looking at anyone.
Coming to the headquarters of the Justice League shouldn't feel like being led to sacrifice in the lion's den. The entrance towered into vaulted halls, similar but different from the Watchtower, more graceful.
He hadn't seen Shayera following them, but she was, joining the rest of the Council--or at least the remains of it at only five--gathered around Wally in the back of a massive marble-floored chamber dominated by a black stone obelisk engraved with words he didn't look long enough to read. He didn't look up at the former teammates, either, just the shapes of their shadows on the floor.
They tried to talk to him, said hello, asked questions, finally just asked for any kind of response at all, but Wally refused. He stared at slightly shimmering specks in the polished tiles and gritted his teeth together. Batman's butter-smooth deep voice, Diana's light chimes of words, John's worried barks, Shayera's few hesitant words. None of them deserved a reply in their self-serving apology, but he was grateful none of them tried to touch him.
Apparently, either none of them dared to venture they might let Wally go, or none of them wanted to release him from Clark. He waited for someone to suggest he might go free, not caring about anything else, but nobody did. Not even a transfer to the Slab, which at this point, he might be willing to consider. So he had nothing to say to them. They had made him the enemy, not the other way around.
Finally Clark grunted angrily and dragged Wally away, back into the sky, back towards the Fortress, the view from the height less lusterous in its wonder for their destination. Now he'd surely never let Wally go out again. At least, not anytime soon.
The Fortress opened back around him like chains wrapping around his body.
Clark didn't have anything to say, just looked at Wally like he was something he'd just scraped off his boot. Wally went into Clark's rooms and took off the uniform. He knelt down, naked on the floor, folded the fabric and metal, set them beside the boots on the edge of the wall, then crawled up onto the couch.
Wally knelt against the back of the couch, folding his arms over it, laying his head down, spreading his legs. He couldn't feel any lingering sensations from being taken here earlier, but he could remember it well enough that he almost did. "I guess fucking is all I'm good for," he said. "You might as well get it over with and leave me alone." He hadn't meant for it to come out choked and pitiful, but it did, and he didn't really think Clark would just then. "Or just put me out of my misery."
"Wally..." Clark sighed. "You don't..."
"I want to die," he whispered, realizing with horrible certainty it was true.
There was a heavy silence, cold and seeping into everything as Wally waited. For what he didn't know, this time.
A hand finally reached out to touch his shoulder, sparking digust and rage and motion. Wally whipped around, his fist squarely meeting Clark's nose with a snapping of bones. All Wally's bones, Clark merely giving Wally stunned surprise as the sensation of buzzing in his blood filled his body, the split-second precursors to the crippling pain of the shock collar. Pain he almost welcomed in an attempt to prove to himself that he was still alive at all.
When it passed, he was alone. Clark would think his display of despair was a trick to get him to let down his guard. A trick, to hurt him, just a little.
Wally curled up on Clark's floor, set the bones in his fingers, and laughed. Laughed until his throat was sore and his lungs were burning and tears were forced out of his eyes. He didn't want to live anymore. There wasn't anything left. He wondered if the collar would stop him from trying to kill himself.
Over the next two days, suicide was Wally's main goal. The collar did indeed try to stop him. Aggressive action, even against himself, it knew about. He figured there might be some sort of telepathic thing in it, he never saw Clark use a button or switch to use it, and even when the robots weren't around, it would know. That would be the upgrade, then.
The first few times, Clark would show up before Wally would wake again. Be there to touch him and try to tell him he would be free to leave when things became more settled, that he had only to wait, to show the League he wouldn't offer them resistance or scorn when the time came and he could have his own life again. Lies. He knew better than to think Clark would ever let him go.
He had to escape somehow. Even into oblivion.
Once Wally awoke--from trying to drown himself--in a laboratory, strapped down to a metal table, Superman bending over him. He tried to speak but found himself unable to move anything as Clark muttered about a wire coming loose and put it back to slip Wally back into dreamless sleep.
The robots were watching for him to throw himself in the water or try to make an edge to cut his veins open. So Wally was laying on the icy cavern floor beside the water, the robots watching on, but he moved little. Shivering as he repressed his metabolism, shorted as it was by his too-small meals. He'd skipped the last few, flushing them down the toilet to make this easier. Waiting for hypothermia to set in.
The robots didn't seem to realize anything was wrong.
He thought he might let himself starve to death, but Clark would see that before it would work, and he doubted it'd be any more pleasant. Clouds were filling his mind, and he could hardly feel his hands and feet anymore.
Just... slipping away, like shedding an unwanted burden.
He raised his hand up in the air, with difficulty, looking at a bluish tint that was settling in. Behind it he could see splashes of sparkles swirling, a hallucination of course, materializing into the shape of a beautiful black-haired woman bathed in light. Wally coughed out a chuckle.
"Hello pretty lady," he brokenly whispered, as much of a smile on his face as he could manage as his arm fell to his side on the ice. "Are you an angel?"
"No," she said. Looking so sad. "But I can try."
"Am I dying?"
"No, Flash. But I can take you somewhere." She leaned down and felt real, warm fingers on his chest. Her eyes were glassy blue-violet, and he thought he should know who she was, taking his hand, pressing feeling back into it. "I was sent by a friend. I'm here to help you."
"Friend?" Wally coughed, doing his best to touch her back.
"Where would you go, if you could go anywhere in space or time or reality, Flash? Right now, where would you want to be?"
His eyelids felt too heavy to keep open, so he closed them and loved the sound of her voice. "I'm already dead. And Clark doesn't have powers. I think that would be a nice place."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Wally sighed. "I wish you were real."
"I am real." Her lips pressed against his forehead, made him all warm again, again feeling the cold floor underneath him and the tips of his toes.
He slipped away.
Wally wasn't dead. He couldn't be, able to realize it, sense coming back. It had been Zatanna. She'd not wanted anything to do with the League for years. And he was still alive.
There was still ice underneath him, but he opened his eyes to the cavern looking very different. The main console was draped with a white cloth, the lights dim and spare, no hum of air circulation. It felt like a tomb, long abandoned. He was either in the future or... he didn't quite know.
Hands flew around his neck in shock as he realized the collar was gone. As if it had never been there, the weight was lifted and his skin was bare and...
He was free.
Where he was didn't mean a whole lot anymore, just that he could run out through it, run away or wherever he wanted to go. It seemed only fitting he was stark naked when he swam out, finally making it out and away, and ran across the cresting waters of the ocean towards his real home, towards Central City.
In South America he stole a pair of denim cutoffs and a hole-ridden black t-shirt off a clothesline and some steaks off a grill at a picnic. A pair of old sneakers, mismatched socks. He felt bad about stealing, but he had nothing to trade for it, and could hardly be naked if he wanted to seek out someone to talk to. The places he'd taken from he committed to memory, promising quietly to repay the theft as soon as he could.
He could run.
Running was like a drug coursing through his system, the best kind of high he could imagine, bliss and adrenaline, pumping muscles, wind screaming past his ears. He was alive again!
There was a memorial to the Flash where the Museum used to be. It had been there for a while, the carved stone tablet before the statue of the Flash a little worn around the edges. Beloved guardian and friend, may he now be at peace. A grave that had been there for about a decade, maybe more.
Central City was as beautiful as his dreams, but it didn't feel quite like home anymore. Snowy, peaceful trees in the park. People bundled against the cold, talking and laughing together. Maybe it would in time, if this is where he really belonged. He began to be more certain he knew where he was, with the lack of Justice League posters or mentions in any newspapers. It never quite existed here.
Superman wasn't in Metropolis. Steel was, instead. Nightwing and Batwoman were the shadowy protectors of Gotham City. The Green Arrow and Black Canary were still in Star City, Aztek still in California... a few things were the same.
Wally touched the glass in front of an electronics store, watching the mute TV screens play captioned news programs and sports. He was sure now. This was another reality, the one he'd been to before.
The Justice Lords had ruled here, and he'd helped to bring them down. Clark himself had taken their powers all away, before he'd gone and forgotten why. Wally could remember better now, what he'd asked Zatanna for in his half-dazed state. Of course she'd have sent him here; it was exactly what he'd asked for. The Flash was long dead. Clark didn't have any powers.
A commercial ended, and to his surprise, Clark's face appeared on the screen. Not Superman. Clark. He had wire-rimmed glasses on his nose, faintest sprays of a few silver hairs at his temples, crinkles beside his eyes and laugh-lines around his mouth despite a somber expression in a gray suit, sitting behind a desk. He was a news anchor, emphatically speaking, the captions telling Wally he was reporting on global warming.
Clark Kent still existed after Superman didn't anymore.
The story changed to one about a charity marathon race across New Hampshire and Vermont. It was still winter here, too, and Wally had to look absurd in his stolen South American clothing when everyone else was in overcoats on the chilly sidewalk, but his captivity had taught him not to feel the cold even now. Clark smiled on the screen and Wally sniffled, wiped his eyes, and hated himself again.
Even after everything, seeing Clark made him want to go to him. It wasn't the same man, he could see that.
This Clark had tried to kill him, looked him in the eyes and said as much. At least that had been honest. And Clark... Wally was still alive, but he couldn't call himself by the name of a dead man and expect for chaos not to ensue and make everything much more complicated and insane than he wanted.
His mind was still catching up to being liberated at all.
Wally could go to Clark. Maybe he couldn't trust him, but. He shouldn't have powers. Wally still did.
He went to Metropolis and found the television station, part of a rather big communications complex, loitering in the parking lot as unobtrusively as he could, hiding behind a smelly, overfull dumpster as he watched snow fall softly over black pavement and parked cars.
"This is so stupid Wally. You could go anywhere now, do anything. What are you doing here?" he whispered to himself. "Cold and miserable, waiting for Clark. Cripes, haven't you learned anything?" He hunched down and rubbed his arms absently, kicking away a curious rat with his scuffed shoe to scramble back into the trash.
A few coated men and women, made-up reporters and more scruffy camera crews or whoever they were came and went. It was still so strange to see so many strange faces, just... here, like this.
Clark's face was so familiar it seemed to beam out from everywhere when he stepped outside, tugging his wool overcoat around himself as he fiddled with his keys, shivering once. He seemed so much more human than his Clark had been, no trace of the arrogant swagger, not those commanding shoulders. Just a man, coming from work, on his way home.
Wally ran to him, startled him into stepping back, Clark's eyes wide in shock as a dead man materialized in front of him and grabbed his arms desperately. "I know you're not him, I know that, God I do, but I don't know why I can't... I just... I can't... There's nowhere else for me to go!" He began to sob, lost control and threw himself into Clark's arms. Clark uncertainly wrapped one arm around him, held him gingerly.
"Are you... Wally? But you're.. gone."
"I ran away!" he wailed into his coat, hating himself for wanting to tell Clark everything just then.
"But... you... you died..."
"The Flash did but I didn't, I wished so hard I had..."
"I'll... I... come on. I'll take you to my place, we can talk," Clark said comfortingly, confusion heavy in his voice, uncertainty in his hands, leading him to what had to be his snow-sprinkled red car. "Whatever it is, I'll do what I can."
Wally gripped his hand the entire ride, losing it again when he noticed he'd cut off Clark's circulation, his fingers gone a little purple.
He wasn't invulnerable. Just a man, who made him tea in a modest kitchen, who nervously offered it to Wally, unasked questions in Clark's blue eyes. He hadn't looked into Clark's eyes in a long time, had forgotten they were... beautiful, when not masked by lenses, not filled with hatred and anger and...
The apartment was small, almost spartan. Not grand or self-indulgent at all, not a home for a dictator. It was hard to remember that was what this man used to be. He was just like his Clark, years ago.
"I'm..." Wally started, then stopped, cupped the warm mug in his hands and sighed. "The Justice League who came here, who... took your powers away. That Flash... used to be me."
"Are you looking for a way home? I don't know..."
"No. I'm not going back." Wally frowned at Clark's face, drawn in guilt and concern and confusion. It made him angry. "You tried to kill me. You locked me up and tried to take over my world."
"It took me a long time to realize I was wrong. There's... there's nothing I could ever say or do to show you how sorry I am for all that," Clark said softly. "To make up for it."
"No, I don't really think there is. But I want you to answer me some things, and I want the truth from you. I deserve it."
"Okay." Clark pulled up a stool in front of the refridgerator, across from where Wally was perched, and pulled off his tie, undid a few buttons of his shirt... it prompted unwanted responses from Wally's body. "Anything."
Wally let him squirm in silence a moment, burning hatred.
"You don't have your powers anymore."
"Sometimes I think they might be coming back, but they never have." Sorrow flickered in Clark's eyes.
"Good," Wally said shortly, despising himself for enjoying Clark's hurt, just a little vindication.
After a moment, he looked away, out the windows, a view of the snowy city glowing with a setting sun breaking here and there through thick clouds. The snow had stopped falling.
"Do you have anywhere to go?" Clark ventured timidly. "It's not much here but... you can stay here, if you want. Or I could ask someone I trust."
Wally finally took a first sip of the tea, bitter and strong now, but still hot. "I'll eat you out of house and home in a day."
"It's alright, I make enough at the station." Clark smiled hesitantly. "I didn't expect you to say yes."
"Whatever." Wally hopped off the counter and zipped into Clark's bedroom, neat, tidy, decidedly unshiny, and locked the door to keep Clark out.
The bedsheets were cotton, a dark comforter on top, a normal bed. He took off his clothes, folded them on the edge of the floor, and crawled into bed, laying awake while the sun set outside the window, staring up long after that. His mind blank and unshed tears in his eyes.
Every day, Wally woke up, ate, and ran. Just coming back to Clark's place, to which he now had a key, to eat, shower, sleep, and do it all again. Every day, Clark went shopping for as much as Wally wanted, not looking for any kind of thanks, and Wally couldn't speak to him enough to give any. He'd end up just saying something hateful again, and Clark didn't understand why he was so angry. He didn't speak to anyone, or avoided it as much as possible. Clark just cooked as much as Wally would eat, sitting at his kitchen table, staring at the window.
From up here, it was so pretty.
He had clothes now, too. Clark bought him clothes, without even being asked to, without understanding why Wally just hugged them for a while before putting any of them on.
Once in a while, he'd run across someone who needed help, and he'd give it. No big heroics though, he avoided those to be left in the care of the other heroes here, who were best left unaware of his presence just yet. Thinking too much about anything was a little like crushing shards of glass into his soul. He didn't want to deal with answering questions.
He suspected this would be the sort of world to be happy in, much better than what had happened to his own. But that fact alone kept him from enjoying it so much as wishing things were different.
Perhaps he would have died fighting the Justice League, if he'd been free in his own world. Perhaps he would be contacted by an underground that had to have formed, and he'd have seen enough to join up. Knowing they'd more than likely die. His Clark might have been right about that. And Batman. Clark had led him to believe it was all Batman's idea. Maybe that was true.
Wally imagined being strapped down in that laboratory, the two of them standing over him, deciding his fate as they locked the collar around his neck.
Clark knocked politely on the door to the sound of Wally crying, but he would just find himself stopping, like turning off a switch. He'd not unlearned that just yet and refused to explain himself.
And Clark didn't say much at all, either, just little niceties, reminding Wally he still kept in touch with a few people "from the old days," but never mentioning any of the others of the seven. Talking about some news story he'd reported on that night. He still did investigative reporting, even still wrote for the Daily Planet on a weekly basis, despite being a national news anchor. Didn't sleep much at night. He'd moved into the living room, explaining all about being too busy to use the bedroom much. The nicest sort of reaction Wally could expect for kicking him out of his own room, unbelievably nice.
This Clark, the former Justice Lords Superman, was nothing like his Clark. But he was exactly the same.
Long, uncomfortable weeks passed, but Wally couldn't bring himself to leave, and Clark didn't ask him to. It was all like a hazy sort of dream. He felt like he might wake up any second.
Then, one morning Clark was cooking eggs on the stove, juggling bacon on another burner, toast, and a boiling teakettle. Wally wasn't looking until he smelled smoke, and Clark yelled in alarm; he'd set the sleeve of his shirt on fire.
Without thinking, Wally reacted, dousing it in a wet kitchen towel before the grease had a chance to even burn Clark's now-vulnerable skin at all. "Thank you," he said, a little startled. "That was stupid of me."
"Yes, it was," Wally replied, more sharply than he should have, frowning at him and himself, stepping away.
The first words he’d spoken in so long they sounded like someone else’s voice.
Clark ripped off his shirt and threw it on the floor, his tie hanging over his bare chest in a way Wally thought was a little funny, but he kept it to himself. "What do you want from me!?" Clark yelled in long-repressed frustration, then let out a heavy sigh, calmed himself. "If I should be doing something different, let me know."
Wally was going to cry again. He decided it didn't really matter at this point, and tried to ignore the tears running down his face, blinking them irritably out of his vision. "I get why you did what you did, okay? You were just... you just... you expect me to forgive you for... it wasn't you, but... Damn it! You did the same thing he did, even if you didn't do it to me! Would you have, if he was alive then? Died before you could hate him and lock him away and torment him with your happy little Hell? Would you!?"
"I'm so sorry..." Clark stepped forward, made to wrap his arms around Wally, but he got out of the way.
"Don't touch me."
"Okay."
He couldn't bear Clark's sad face anymore and ran away.
Slept in warmer climes, stealing space in hammocks in Australia or about the Equator, using Clark's American money in places where nobody spoke English. He got on that way a surprising length of time, sleeping in a dozen countries before he had to think about what to do next.
The last dollar went, and like a sign, sent Wally back to Clark's apartment after he knew he'd be home from work.
He still had the key, just walked in. Clark was watching television, only one lamp lit. He jumped up when Wally ran over, but Wally didn't let him say anything.
"I'm sorry, Clark, I've been a jerk. I'm just saying goodbye and all that, alright? I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I’ll pay you back." He turned to leave, but Clark grabbed his arm.
"Wait. Talk to me." Wally hung his head and sighed at the earnestness in Clark's voice. "You won't let anyone else even know you're alive, I'm not sure why that is but... I can listen. Maybe that'll help."
Wally sat down stiffly on the couch and looked him in the eyes, trying to avoid any kind of expression. At first, he just looked at him, before he formed the words. Clark looked so... open. Telling the truth.
"The same thing that happened here. Except I didn't die. So it just took longer. Superman imprisoned me in the Fortress of Solitude so I couldn't fight them. He hated me for not agreeing with him, I think. I guess running the world is a lot of pressure, so he wasn't very nice about it."
Wally sat and stared at Clark's ear. "He really did that?" Clark seemed to put the details together himself. Wally didn't want to say much else, anyway. "I can't believe it would happen again," Clark said softly.
Wally was surprised to find himself longing, rushing forward, capturing Clark's face in his hands, their lips together. He was surprised under Wally's kiss, then pushed into it, the tips of their tounges meeting hot and wet. It felt like ice in his chest was melting for a sweet moment. Sucking gasping breaths between devouring each other.
It felt so good.
Until Clark pulled away, looked down, brushed his thumb across his bottom lip. "No, I can't do this. He... hurt you."
"I'm not fragile," Wally snapped defensively, sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Should I go?"
"Where?" Wally didn't have an answer for that. "Stay."
"I guess."
Things went back to they way they were before, except the silence was lighter. Tension over the kiss instead of doom. They'd eat together, watch TV together, and it was all comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.
Knowing his world went on without him, like a runaway train now too far away to catch.
"I want to get a job, I think."
He was staring at Clark again, who started chuckling and took off his tie, a gel-stiff lock of hair coming loose around his temple. Couldn't even see the silver hairs when it was like that, or parted in the middle. Wally wondered if it was just the stress of being taken down like that. Was he still Kryptonian?
"Why are you laughing?"
"We just fired our message boy. A track star who spent the day running up and down the back staircase with scripts and files and... well, whatever we needed. He got into a fist-fight with the morning weatherman."
Wally laughed, too. "Sounds like something I would do. The fighting, I mean."
"I can talk to Charlie for you. Runs all that."
"Okay."
"Alright, now this is the way it is. We have a system, and the system works, long as the cogs are all oiled up, right?" It would sound like a come-on coming from anyone but a grizzled man chewing on an unlit cigarette and wearing a purple sweater with a fish on it. His eyes were hidden by a pair of enormous sunglasses, and on second thought, he might just as easily a pornographer as in charge of Internal Communications on the fourth floor.
Charlie commanded a squadron of IT geeks that would generally come to work in their pajamas, and Sandi, who moonlighted as an exotic dancer and always came in looking perfect. During the day she was a network specialist, but her... assets... made her the face of the department, while the others, the "little nerdos" as Charlie called them, were more than happy to let her do all the talking. He also managed the phone system, or at least oversaw Chris and Ned, who spent the day running around almost as much as Wally did with a box of tools. He knew all this because Charlie told him on the elevator ride up. "You carry a pager. It rings, a number comes up. That's a code for where you're gonna go. Room numbers. You'll figure it out pretty quick if you're worth my time."
"I'm a fast learner."
"Good. I don't care what you do during downtime, if you get it, or lunch, you get that. Law requires it."
"Right."
"Just play nice with suits, okay?"
"Suits?
Charlie went into his office, which had 'Charles Branson' on a sign on the door, and a statue of Daffy Duck on the cluttered desk. He sat down behind it and put his feet up. Wearing plastic sandals. Wally sat down across from him and felt at ease. "Yeah, suits. They're like actors, these TV people. You know about actors, right? Well, they're crazy. It's the cameras. And the what-not up top, just... play nice."
"Right."
Wally thought about Linda a lot here.
The 'what-not' turned out to be network executives, secretaries, interns. They were mostly sent up packages, films he imagined. And were altogether too busy and important to say much to the errand-boy in track shoes, but the tech crews downstairs all had enough to say about them that everyone got a good laugh behind their backs. Sometimes Wally would get an invitation to go out after work to the local bar or party, but he'd decline.
He'd see Clark during the day sometimes, too, but they were both busy.
Wally ran back and forth from work, too. And generally was alone in the back stairwell, so he could run as fast as he liked. It didn't really matter if anyone guessed he had powers, not everyone who did became a superhero or a criminal. Especially in this world. Here, the most trusted superheroes were the ones without powers.
Metas who minded their own business were left alone.
The janitor had caught Wally running several times and did little more than remind him that tread marks on his newly-waxed floors were unacceptable.
It was a little weird at first, but he grew to like the sort of casual dismissal that he was anything extraordinary. Being out in the open, so to speak, made it look like he didn't have anything to hide. He was just very good at his job, and the art department was especially grateful. He'd still help out, discreetly, sometimes, with hero-things. Fires, accidents, lost children. That sort of thing. If Clark was jealous that Wally still had his powers, he never said so or let on.
And being less than discreet about his powers got attention from the heroes, just sooner than he'd thought. But they didn't go to him; they went to Clark.
"They want to know who you are. There's no group, but they keep in touch. I've heard from Nightwing."
"I never see anything about Bruce. Is he still around?"
Clark paused at the counter, set down the empty glass in his hand. Gave him a serious look. "We didn't stay in touch. He's still around somewhere, I'm sure."
"What happened after?"
"Rioting."
"I read about that."
"We were arrested by the US government and given a choice. Once they were sure we weren't the same threat anymore. Hang up our capes, not talk about who were were, go on with our lives, and we'd be allowed to do it. So we vanished into our secret identities. And we don't talk."
"None of you?"
"If any of the others do, I don't know about it. That's behind us all now."
"Is it really?"
"One day I woke up, went back to my family, my career, my friends, my life that really mattered to me. Once I'd figured that out." Clark looked defensive, crossed his arms.
"I know."
"They're not going to give you a hard time, they just want to know who you are."
"Fine. Tell them and tell them I want to be left alone."
"Nightwing wants to talk to you."
"Whatever."
"I think it's a good idea."
"And you're always so full of good ideas, aren't you?" Wally snapped, then backed off, looked away. "I didn't... nevermind."
Talking was so hard to get right.
Running away was easier, so he did for a while.
"Please don't," Wally choked, his throat so tight with fear he could hardly breathe. Rooted to the spot, his mind screamed to run but he didn't do anything as Clark came close enough to grab his wrists and slam them back against the wall.
Clark's eyes were red, so angry he wasn't listening to anything, though Wally had no idea why. He tried to shrink back against the cold metal, but Clark just trapped him there, kicked his legs apart. Wally's lips bled under the force of his kiss, he turned away as soon as Clark moved down over his neck, pushing him up the wall on his twisted arms. "No, stop," Wally begged softly.
"Still playing chaste? You disgust me," Clark snarled. He let go only to backhand Wally into stunned silence, slammed him against the wall, covering Wally's mouth with his hand, growling into the back of his neck.
He didn't let go, held him down even after his hand began muffling screams.
"WAKE UP!"
Wally's eyes opened to Clark on top of him and yelled something mangled and terrified, pushed him frantically away as he pushed over and ended up falling off the edge of the bed in a tangle of sweaty sheets.
He caught up to what was going on before he could catch his breath, Clark slowly daring to come back into view, sitting on top of the bed. "Are you alright?"
"Dream," Wally said, frowning, shaking his head. "I'm fine."
It was dark, but the curtains were drawn, and city lights showed Clark to be wearing plaid pajamas, his face sleepy but alarmed. He blinked a few times, glanced out the window, then looked back at Wally with his brows drawn in concern. "You shouldn't be here."
"Are you asking me to leave?"
"No."
Wally got up from the mess, Clark looking away as he pulled a pair of boxer shorts on. "I'm sorry I woke you." He remember then that he hadn't locked the door before he went to bed.
"Don't be."
Clark looked back and Wally was consumed by the desire to hurt him, hold him down and show him what he couldn't tell him about. He was the powerful one now. He could do it, and Clark wouldn't be able to stop him. Make him scream and bleed and know what it was like to be truly powerless. "I'm going out."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"Will you be back..?"
"I don't know! Okay!?!" Wally didn't wait any longer, put clothes on and ran.
He shouldn't be here, but he didn't belong anywhere.
Halfway down the coast, Wally turned back and headed toward Gotham City. Still knowing it well, not losing his familiarity with geography with time. He could still remember how to find Wayne Manor just north of the city, at the end of a dark winding coastal road that ended in a set of formidable gates.
It was the middle of the night, and he didn't see any lights on, but that wouldn't mean much in this place. So he rang the gate's buzzer and waved up at the security camera.
"It's me, Wally West? The Flash? Not yours, but... no. Dick wants to talk to me, and I figured if you're still here, and I do mean you oh dark one, I could, ah, talk to you first." Nothing happened. "Pretty please? Oh fine. You want to be a bastard, so just kick rocks, buddy."
Wally turned to leave, grinned to himself as he heard the gate click and swing open behind him. He just knew that was Bruce.
The front door was open when he got there, a somber figure of Mr. Wayne himself in a soft light from overhead that gave him deep shadows under his eyes. He looked like a vampire. "You're the speedster in Metropolis," he rumbled, intrigued.
"Does that mean I can come in?"
Bruce arched a brow and stepped aside. "If you must."
Most of the furniture inside was draped with white cloths, only a few lamps lit. It felt like an abandoned museum more than a home, until they got down to the cave. That was littered with take-out boxes and trash here and there, dust visible on the once gleaming display cases draped with piles of odds and ends.
Wally stole a slice of cold cheese pizza off the computer console and sat down in a swivel-chair near Bruce's big one. Bruce wasn't wearing a suit or a uniform, but a pair of wrinkled jeans and a black sweatshirt. Living like a bum in a cave, which was certainly... different. "Time travel?" Bruce asked.
"Alternate reality," Wally answered through bites. "I was part of the Justice League."
"Not anymore."
"No. Things fell apart, and they pulled, well, a you. That's why I'm here. I had to escape..." He trailed off and tapped on the arm of the chair. "Ended up on the losing team before the fight even started."
"And now you're living in Metropolis."
"With a duplicate of my captor, of my own free will. Yeah. I know that's messed up, you don't have to tell me."
"So what do you want?" Same old blunt impatience.
"Things happened to me. I think I have to tell someone. Or I might end up doing something I regret, one way or the other." He also needed Nightwing and all these guys here to know there was no way he’d ever go back to his uniform. He was done.
"And you can tell me?"
"You're not going to try to send me to a therapist or pity me. And you know how to keep your mouth shut."
"Alright," Bruce said, less abrasively, looked suprisingly receptive and merely waited for Wally to speak. Like he understood already. Or was curious because he didn’t have anything better to do.
"He wanted me to suffer." Wally looked out over the railing on the edge of the massive computer console, down to where a line of cars were draped with gray cloths. They looked sad. "Superman, I mean."
Wally couldn't hear any bats, wondered if that meant they were gone, or if they were silently listening along.
"He raped me. All the time." The words echoed and faded like something that someone else had just said. "Because I guess he thought I deserved it. And he liked it. He liked to pretend it wasn't that, but I would beg and..." Wally closed his eyes, sucked in a shuddering breath. "It would be so much worse if I begged him not to. So I just... gave in."
Now he felt small, wanted to make himself smaller and vanish.
"It wasn't your fault. You didn't deserve it."
Crying in front of Batman was never something high on Wally's to-do list. But there wasn't much he could do to stop the tears that forced their way out and down his nose, itching as he wiped them away. "I really should believe that, shouldn't I?"
"You will when you're ready to. Just don't commit suicide prematurely."
Wally sniffed and rolled his eyes at Bruce, glad he'd come here. "I think I made it out of that patch. But sometimes... he looks just like him."
"Perhaps you should stay somewhere else a time."
"I know I should."
"You think you have feelings for him now."
Wally couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah. But they're not always healthy feelings."
"And him?"
"I don’t know."
"So let him try to fix you. That's what he's good at, after all. Salvation." Bruce got up and paced over to the rail, looked down into the endless cavern depths. He had a limp he'd been masking before, and Wally couldn't help but wonder how he got it. "So tell me. Why are you here?"
"Why am I not there, fighting back? It's not like it was here, Bruce," he said, before guaging if Bruce would like him calling him that. "Bats. Just before he locked me up, we had forty-eight members. And not all of them would follow them right away, but. They won. Quickly. And now they control everything. It’s not like it was here. It’s worse because we tried to stop it from happening."
"So it's hopeless," Bruce replied coolly. "I see."
"Whatever." Wally stood up, edged toward the door. “Listen, thanks, but I’m not... You don’t understand.”
“Alright.”
“Okay then.”
They looked at each other like they weren’t sure what else to say.
Wally could run off if he wanted to, so he did. Bruce was never big on niceties, anyway, wasn’t he always the one leaving without saying goodbye?
Clark was waiting for him when he got back. Sitting anxiously at the kitchen counter with a plate of cookies, like he was trying to lure Wally back with them.
A mouse trap with sweet bait.
“That was quick.”
“Batman doesn’t talk much.”
He reached for a cookie and Clark took his hand. “Wally, I don’t understand...”
The words, the hand touching him was too much.
Apparently talking about it just made it worse. Brought it back to the surface.
Wally slammed him into the refrigerator door, Clark calling out in pain and surprise. His human bones and flesh didn’t have the strength to resist, his eyes full of unveiled fear.
It was so easy to hurt him. Just like he’d known it would be. Wally spun him around and threw him over the counter, twisting his arms behind his back. Holding him still with just one hand. Clark didn’t say anything, didn’t fight.
Wally twisted a little harder. “Do you really want to understand?” he growled. “Do you want me to show you?”
“Yes,” he replied, soft and timid.
It pissed Wally off. Guilt was making Clark want this, was that it? He grabbed a fistful of Clark’s shirt and tore it off painfully. He knew it was painful because Clark was moaning and twisting.
“You feel guilty for what you did to me?”
“I’m so sorry.”
Wally threw him on the floor, audibly knocking the wind out of him.
“Take off your clothes, you filthy whore.”
Terrible realization dawned on Clark’s face. He was trembling as he fumbled to remove the tattered remains of his shirt. His tie was like an askew noose before he took that off, too.
He kept looking up like he was hoping Wally would tell him to stop, that it was enough, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Time had treated Clark well. Gray hairs or not, he still had the body of a Greek sculpture. Still shaking, modest, ashamed. Already bruising.
“You don’t deserve to live. Selfish, self-important bastard. Don’t play shy, it disgusts me.” He kicked viciously at Clark’s knee, forced his legs apart. Clark reflexively closed them again, pushed back, but spread them again out of fear. His cock looked exactly the same, of course.
Wally got a bottle of whiskey and came back, pulled a stool over to where Clark was sniveling and made himself comfortable.
“You wanted to fuck me, didn’t you? Slut. I know you did.” The whiskey burned in just the way he wanted right now. Wally spit some of it down onto Clark’s chest. “Never had the balls to do anything about it until I couldn’t fight back. Do you know what that makes you?”
He kept drinking, waiting for an answer. Clark was slow to realize it, stuttering as he tried to answer. “I-I don’t... I couldn’t...”
Wally spit whiskey on him again, snorted in genuine disgust.
“It makes you a coward.”
Clark was still wearing his socks. Gray dress socks with that diamond pattern on ugly sweater vests.
“All those people you lobotomized. Ever fuck any of them? Maybe keep a pretty sex toy in your closet?”
“No, no.”
“Lying slut. I know you did. Did they still cry after you violated them?”
Without an answer, Clark moved his mouth but couldn’t seem to find any words. Wally sneered at him.
“I bet they did. It doesn’t matter what you think. I bet they remembered what they were before you destroyed them. Cried and prayed to be saved from you, but they weren’t saved in time. Too little too late.”
“Wally...”
He snarled and whipped off the stool, kicked Clark until he took a fetal position. Watched him fight to keep it together, bruising. Pitifully vulnerable. “You don’t get to call me that, whore!”
Wally took a long, deep drink and set the bottle on the counter as he wiped off his lips. Sat back down heavily. “Get in front of me, on your knees.”
Clark was so terrified he didn’t move.
“Now!” Wally barked, and he finally did. Ready, wanting to hurt him again.
Looking up at him, begging with his eyes.
The enjoyment Wally was getting out of it made him hate himself even more. But he didn’t fight it. He was hard, and he opened his fly, pulled himself out so Clark could see.
“Look what you did, whore. Do something about it.” He spread his knees apart so Clark wouldn’t have any illusions about it. But Clark didn’t move. “Suck my cock, you dirty little slut, or I’ll choke you with it,” he snarled, spitting hatred.
Clark closed his eyes, a few tears falling down his cheeks as he moved forward and put his lips around Wally’s dick. But Wally couldn’t watch as he sucked him, turned away and felt like he wanted to cry, too.
There wasn’t any satisfaction in his wet lips. Wally sounded pained to himself when he came, Clark making little choking sounds.
Wally took a shaky breath and looked back down.
Clark had come on his face, looking straight ahead at nothing.
“Now you understand,” Wally said in a raspy voice.
He put himself back together and walked out of the room, taking the bottle with him.
Enjoying that made him the same kind of monster, but he couldn’t hate himself any more than he already did, not really. There was a feeling of power again, that’s all that was different. It wasn’t good or bad, it just was.
Maybe it was all bad.
Maybe there wasn’t any good left in him.
Maybe he didn’t give a shit.
Wally drank as he packed his things, what few things he had, into a backpack. He moved at normal speed, not wanting to burn out the alcohol.
It gave Clark time to be waiting when he walked out of the bedroom; waiting in the kitchen doorway, cleaned off but still naked, clutching the frame of the door, half hiding behind it.
“What?” Wally snapped. “Something to add?”
“Don’t go.”
Absurd. Wally laughed bitterly. “You must be joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Did you miss the last fifteen minutes?”
“I wanted you to do it.” His voice was so soft and timid now. Clark couldn’t even keep a steady gaze, glancing up from the floor.
Wally didn’t know how to respond to that. Or even how to feel about it. But he knew one thing.
“That’s so fucked up.”
“I deserve to be punished for what I did.”
“You’re not the one who ra... it wasn’t you.” Wally ground his teeth together, shook his head. “I shouldn’t have forgotten that. I’m sorry, and I’m leaving.”
“I love you.”
Wally stared at him and blinked in disbelief. The bottle fell on the floor, the cap on, so it made a hollow splashing tone and merely rolled a bit, then came to rest against his boot. Clark shrank against the door, didn’t look up. Like a shy, scared little boy.
“You can’t, there’s no way. I’m the evil bastard, what part of that don’t you get? You don’t love me, and I don’t love you. Did you forget how we met, too?”
“I didn’t forget. When I saw you... I knew I had to... I thanked God you were here. Every day. I need you. Not just because I miss him.”
Wally laughed like a madman and went reaching for the whiskey. He took it to the couch and was pretty sure he was going insane. “This is fucked, this is so fucked it’s unbelievable.”
He actively ignored Clark, who got dressed and came over, sitting on the other side of the couch like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed on the furniture.
“You don’t have to care about me. I’ll do whatever you want, but... please, W... let me help.”
“It’s alright if you call me by, you know, my name.”
“But...”
“I wore a shock collar. He’d zap me and break a bone or two if I called him Clark.” Wally stared at the bottle, drank some more. Half gone already. It felt good, enough that he didn’t care when he realized he was touching his own neck where it used to be.
Wally went to the kitchen, ran there and back with the discarded tie. He slipped it back around Clark’s neck, the knot still intact to pull snug. The ends of the tie he wrapped around his fist, until he was holding Clark close, threatening to choke him gently. Clark leaned into his grip and, still, didn’t fight back, even when he experimentally cut off his air supply for a moment.
“I enjoy hurting you,” Wally redundantly observed. “I don’t love you. Did admit to Bats about having feelings for you. Sick feelings. You don’t want me to stay, you really don’t.”
“I’d leave with you, anywhere you’d want to go, if you let me.”
“That’s twisted. I’m practically a rapist.”
“I said yes.”
It took Wally another hour, at least, to finish the bottle and throw it in a corner. The entire time, Clark pliantly let Wally casually hurt him a little. Let him pull hairs out of his head, gray ones, smack him around.
He’d never thought of himself as a sadist, but it was relaxing. It did make him feel better.
There really was love in Clark’s eyes. Alongside everything else.
“Alright,” Wally said, breaking the long silence. “I’ll stay.”
He let Clark lean his head on his chest, resting there so softly. So gently, sighing in something like content as Wally absently stroked his hair.
“I’ll stay,” he repeated. Not just here, in this apartment, in this insane mess he’d made. The delivery boy job, saving the occasionally pet from a tree without anything more he had to do.
He never wanted to go back to his own world.
He wanted peace.
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on 2007-12-03 12:34 am (UTC)This was great. Entirely fucked up and strangely at the same time awesome.
Feels good to read a good fanfic after a while x.x
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on 2007-12-03 01:35 pm (UTC)I always liked to think that Justice Lords Clark eventually came to be guilty about what he did, being a good person deep down inside.
Thank you. :)
Oh, sheeeet.
on 2008-06-21 01:55 am (UTC)I'm so glad you wrote this sequel, because ending it with Wally stuck there would have been so depressing... besides, I'm sure you broke some level of creepy with this. Which I love (I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing or not, but let's say it is).
Re: Oh, sheeeet.
on 2008-06-21 07:08 am (UTC)Might not be a good thing, but I'm glad it worked for ya.
Re: Oh, sheeeet.
on 2009-05-16 09:18 am (UTC)It remains my favorite.
You're right about not being able to leave Wally in total despair. I tried that too and ended up having to add more. It's just not right that such a free spirit should be left without *some* hope even if the ending isn't Happily Ever After.
The first time I read this I had no clue as to who Zatanna was. Now I think I understand that it was Batman who sent her to free him.
NOTE: found out how to do a simple reply, but the damn thing won't let me send. Thinks I'm spam. I am not a meat byproduct.
Re: Oh, sheeeet.
on 2009-05-16 06:55 pm (UTC)I occasionally get a thought about a third one, actually. Wrapping up things even more neatly, one way or the other. Still might, who knows? It'd have to be "worse before it gets better" but.. hm.
I thought of it as... he didn't so much send her as quietly informed her of where Wally was, and that things had gotten out of hand. He was pretty much the only other person who knew where he was.
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on 2011-03-22 07:32 am (UTC)WOW that is SO fucked up it's amazing. Just freaking amazing
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on 2012-09-03 08:35 pm (UTC)But I still love it!!
The whole dark theme surrounding Wally & Clark is wonderful :D
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on 2013-05-12 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2013-07-03 05:17 am (UTC)