A Flash by Any Other Name

[shankie]

Wally visits Bruce, and while hashing out the details... gains some more family.


Part Twenty-One: Impulse

Wally had visited prisons quite a few times; as Flash. He'd always gone to see his less awful rogues or petty criminals after they were arrested, to talk. Try and let them know that there were other options in life, better ways to live than crime and dangerous costume fetishes. But the name Wallace West had only ever been written down in a visitor's log once before, when he was still a kid, before the lab accident.

Without his mask to protect him, he felt the awful darkness of the place acutely.

The sound of clanking barred doors and the painted concrete walls of Stonegate were oppressive, and even a few minutes being led by a guard were enough to dash the spirits he'd been working up. He couldn't imagine how awful it was for Bruce.

He sat down in a hard plastic chair in front of a thick glass divider, a little booth in a long row, with a dull green telephone receiver on his right side.

It was so very dark in here.

When he finally saw Bruce being led out, he couldn't see his eyes, just long shadows. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit with a number sewn on the chest. Bruce kept his gaze on the floor as the guard unlocked his wrists and he slowly sat down.

Wally lifted the receiver impatiently, but Bruce didn't.

"Pick it up, damn it!" He yelled, hoping it'd make it through the glass. "Don't you dare not talk to me now, Bruce!"

He thumped his fist against the glass and left it there; finally, Bruce picked up the phone.

Wally picked his words carefully, knowing that there was a good chance it was all being recorded.

"I'm sorry I didn't come earlier... I didn't know."

"You shouldn't have come at all."

"Bruce..." Wally unclenched his fist, leaving his flat palm against the cold surface. "How can you say that?"

There was a long pause, and Wally sighed deeply.

"Damn it, talk to me, Bruce. Talk to me."

"What do you want me to say?" He said quietly.

Wally shut his eyes tight and swallowed a lump in his throat.

"That... fuck." He wiped away a tear with the back of the hand holding the receiver, then put it back to his ear. "I need to hear you say it. I need to."

"That I didn't do this? That I haven't been using you for my own ends? That you're not just another flirtation? Is that what you need to hear?" Bruce replied somberly.

"Yes." Wally whispered.

Bruce finally looked up, and he could see his blue eyes, dark with repressed emotions Wally couldn't read.

"Wally." Bruce reached up and touched the other side of Wally's palm with two fingers, a pained expression crossing his face. "I can't tell you how much you mean to me." He said finally, quietly.

Another tear fell, unheeded.

"I'm sorry, Wally. You deserve better. You always have."

Wally smiled sadly.

"Hell with that." He laughed bitterly, then sobered again. "Bruce... I need..."

"I know."

They gazed at each other through the light reflecting off fingerprints and scratches in the divider, still unfeelingly reaching for each others hand.

"I didn't do it."

Wally let out a long shuddering sigh of relief, almost angry at himself for ever doubting.

"It was him." Bruce said with a sudden terse conviction.

Brannock. Of course. All he'd done was try and either use them or get them out of his way. And now, he'd found a permanent solution to his Bat problem. Wally clenched his fist again.

"We'll figure this out. We will."

"I don't know how much longer I can wait."

Wally's eyes widened as Bruce's took on a different conviction. 'Oh no...'

"Bruce, you can't..." He leaned forward looking emphatic. "You can't do anything... rash."

He didn't reply, and Wally bit his lip.

"You have to promise me, you'll wait. Please. For now. Please."

"For now."

The guard walked back over, signaling that their time was up.

"Bruce, I..." Love you. He mouthed as the guard wasn't looking, with another sad smile.

Bruce managed a faint smile in return, before he hung up the receiver, and was chained up again, not turning back as he was led back into the shadows.

* * *

Dick Grayson's apartment in Bludhaven wasn't hard to find; a call to Alfred got the address, a loft overlooking a drainage system in a particularly grim part of town. It was late afternoon, so hopefully he was awake. Wally knew how the Bats all had the same wacky hours.

The door didn't have a name, just a number painted in chipping white on the metal surface. When he knocked, it sounded like pounding on an empty barrel. He also couldn't help but notice a little black camera, almost invisible, pointed at him from the edge of the wall.

"Just a minute!" He heard from inside.

Wally shuffled his feet in the hall, looking out a grimy window at the harbour in the distance. When the door opened, after the tell-tale noises of an electronic lock being disabled, Dick was standing there in a pair of jeans, his hair wet and dripping down his neck.

"Hey, Wally. Come in."

The apartment was spartan, with a dragon tapestry hanging on one wall near a low, neatly made bed, one of the crazy Bat-cycles standing under the high skylight, and martial arts weapons the only other decorations. Unopened boxes sat in a corner, as if he'd just moved in.

Dick closed the door, and they walked over to a black futon and sat down.

"You can prolly figure why I'm here."

"Yeah." Dick nodded, rubbing at his long black hair with a towel.

"I just went to see him."

"How's he doing?"

"Well as can be expected, I guess." Wally sighed. "What do you guys have?"

"Well..." Dick got up, picking up a laptop from his desk and walking back over with it. "These are the crime scene photos I got a hold of." He flipped through pictures of Bruce's bedroom, covered in gore, with a brown-haired woman, once obviously beautiful, laying in a crumpled heap next to the bed, her glasses shattered in front of her.

Wally had seen death, plenty. But brutal murder... wasn't something that happened a lot in Central City.

"Who was she?"

"A journalist. Travelled in high-society circles in Gotham and New York, did a few pieces on charity work and the underprivileged there... but that's not the crazy part. She'd been working on trying to discover Batman's secret identity when Bruce and her broke up. He never said, but I'm pretty sure that was why." Dick frowned.

"And the gun... it really was his?"

"Apparently. The cops got footage of him buying it, as himself, in a crummy place on the East End. God only knows why..." Dick pulled up a still of Bruce in a leather jacket, handing a wad of bills over a revolver on the counter. "We still haven't figured out how they got in the manor without us catching it on the security cameras. But... at the time of death, there's a ten-minute blackout on all the feeds. I've been matching up who could pull that off with who's running loose right now. It's a long list."

"He told you about what's been going on with Brannock, right?"

"Yeah. While we were busy trying to catch you a few months back."

Wally rubbed his forehead in frustration.

"And that's it?"

"Tim was able to get a look at the scene, but after the cops left. Not a stray print anywhere."

"Tim?"

Dick blinked, then frowned at himself as he looked back at the screen.

"Robin."

"Oh."

"I'm transferring to Gotham PD for a couple weeks so I can get a look at the evidence room, but that'll be a couple days. They're locked up tight, breaking in wouldn't be a good idea, even for us, right now."

"You're a cop?"

"Man, does Bruce tell you anything?"

Wally frowned.

"Not really."

"Don't take it too hard, Wally. He's like that with everyone."

"Yeah..." Wally sighed. "Is there anything I can do?"

"I'll let you know. I think it's too early to bring in the League on this, if that's what you're asking."

"In part."

"Let us do what we can on our end. When we get some more definite suspects, someone quick on their feet might come in handy." Dick put his hand on Wally's shoulder. "We're all doing our best, trust me. We care about him, too."

"I know."

Wally got up and started pacing back and forth in front of a wide window.

"I have another... personal... reason for coming here. It's not important, especially right now, but I just... need to ask." He hugged his hands across his chest, looking at a pair of ornamental katanas mounted on the wall.

"So ask."

Wally took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"What's the deal with Batgirl?"

Dick didn't answer, so he looked back. The other man had taken on a dark frown, closing the laptop and putting it back on the desk before he finally spoke.

"Babs and I... dated for a while. When I was still Robin. After I quit, we tried again, but it didn't work out."

"I meant, with Bruce."

"I know. I'm getting to that." Dick put his hands on his hips and stared out the window expressionlessly. "I'm not clear on all the details... what I do know is that she always had a thing for him. Hero worship or something. And when it was just the two of them for a while... it turned into more. Then about a year and a half ago she came crawling back to me in tears. I don't know." Dick shook his head. "I don't think he ever really loved her like that, if that's what you're asking."

Dick turned to face Wally with a serious look.

"You have to understand... under that mask, all the lies he lives, he's always been lonely. Does it to himself. Always did."

Wally nodded slowly.

"He hasn't said anything... but I know you mean a lot to him."

"I think... I'm pretty sure that we're like... that he's my boyfriend." Wally couldn't help but laugh a little at how silly that sounded. So juvenile and ill-fitting to the Dark Knight. "So I just needed to know."

Dick shook his head and chuckled.

"It would take someone that runs at the speed of light to keep up with his fool head."

They were both quiet for a moment, thinking their thoughts.

"Listen, I've got my shift coming up, so I need to get ready. But I'll keep in touch."

They shared a quick hug, that made Wally feel like he'd just been given a little more family in his life; it made him smile.

"You know how to get a hold of me? Of course you do." Wally laughed.

Like father, like son.

Dick grinned.

"Take care, Wally."

"You too, man."

Wally took off at a run back to Missouri, his heart feeling a lot lighter, despite everything.

Just outside the city, something whacked into Wally with incredible force, sending him sprawling in the dirt.

"The fuck..?" He picked himself up, spitting grass out of his mouth with distaste.

A kid, couldn't be more than thirteen, was sprawled next to him. He leapt up at speed, revealing a tan and burgundy costume, kinda like his own, with no mask, and the burgundy streak was wide down his torso, not a lightning bolt. He looked up with wide, golden eyes under floppy auburn hair.

"Hi my name is Bartholemew Henry Allen the Second, but people call me Bart, but not a lot of people because I don't really know a lot of people, and I'm looking for you, because you're the Flash, right? You're Wallace Rudolph West, my uncle I guess, that's what Grandpa Barry told me and..."

"Woah, woah, WOAH! Hold up!" Wally held out his hands, shaking his head to process all that.

The kid was talking at speed, something he hadn't heard since Barry vanished, and it took a moment to register.

"You're who, now?"

"Bart. I'm from the future."