A Flash by Any Other Name
May. 18th, 2006 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shankieThe vigilante life continues, with some encounters, both new & old.
Part Twenty-Six: Rogues Gallery
Wally was vibrating contently in Bruce's arms, curled up with his head resting on his arms over his chest. He could feel Bruce's heartbeat under his hand, strong and steady like a clock keeping perfect time.
He was happy, but his thoughts were still worried.
"I... still can't believe Zoom is Bart's uncle." Wally sighed.
"Hn."
"Bruce?"
"Mm?"
"You've pretty much raised a kid, right?"
Bruce looked down at him, then back up at the ceiling.
"I suppose so."
Wally shifted a little, pulling the covers around his waist a little tighter and gathering his thoughts.
"I'm thinking about adopting Bart. Mom said she'd help... he's there now. But... I don't know." Wally sighed. "I guess I'm afraid if he lives with me, he'll just turn into what I was at his age... well, relative age. I was happy and all, but sometimes I wonder what'd it have been like to have a real childhood, you know? I don't want to take that away from him."
Bruce was quiet for a minute, prompting Wally to raise his head up and look at him. His face was sombre and thoughtful, as if he was re-living memories. Wally wondered if he shouldn't have brought up the 'c' word after all, but Bruce finally looked at him and answered.
"Do you think it's even possible for him to have a so-called 'normal' childhood?"
Wally put his head back down and chewed on his lip.
"No, prolly not."
"I'm the last person you should ask about that, at any rate. That sort of thing hasn't existed in this house for a generation." He paused. "If you choose to take him in, the choice, at least in part, will be yours. If you don't, it will be his. And without the proper guidance to learn restraint." Bruce said quietly. "He is already powerful, Wally. And power without control is dangerous."
"Is that what you think, or is that the Bat talking?" Wally said with a smile.
"I am Batman."
"Usually." Wally pushed himself up, leaning over Bruce with a grin. "But somehow I doubt the Bat is ticklish."
To prove his point, Wally manipulated his fingers over the sensitive skin he knew would prompt the deep laughs and wiggles it did. When he stopped, Bruce was beaming at him, his eyes twinkling in a way that had once been so rare.
"My own secret files, remember?" Wally taunted.
"What am I going to do with you?" Bruce said in feigned exasperation.
"I have a few ideas." He replied with a wicked grin.
* * *
In his dark cell at Arkham, Harvey checked his watch. 11:55pm.
"Knight to B-1." He said, moving the white piece in place on a board set up on the desk in front of him.
"Rook to D-2." Bruce replied from the shadows outside.
"Mm." Harvey moved the black piece and rubbed his chin, his thumb tracing over the scarred side facing Batman.
"I have questions tonight, Harvey." Bruce said, stepping into a beam of light so that his white cowl-eyes were visible.
"You want to know why we betrayed our friend." The voice was taking on a rough edge as both egos spoke as one.
Bruce knew to tread carefully; only Harvey would give him anything useful. The half that was, despite what he'd said to Wally, still dear to him.
"Yes."
"We got an offer, and the coin decided for us."
"Of your own free will."
"We have no free will, Bat-man." Two-Face said roughly.
"There is no more free will." Harvey added quietly.
"Who?"
"We think you already know."
Bruce nodded.
"Until tomorrow night, Harvey."
In the cell, Harvey didn't respond, but rubbed his chin in thought, musing over the game. Bruce watched him with a twinge of regret before taking his leave.
* * *
Bart stood at the top edge of the half-pipe, balanced on his board. He studied the smooth rounded surface below him, covered in worn graffiti and endless track marks of other riders that had come before.
He leaped forward, pushing off with a tiny burst of speed so that his velocity would send him high into the air on the other side.
Once up at the peak of his flight, he grabbed the board, and willed time to a stop. Up here, like this, he could really pretend that he could fly. He'd been able to in VR, but not in the real world; not really.
Bart knew that nobody really considered him the thoughtful type, but living between ticks of a second would make anyone reflective, with all the time in the world.
He missed the parents he'd barely known, the brother he'd never met, the grandfather he'd lost early on, the grandmother who'd saved him from a cloning machine. He missed them more than the fantasy-world he knew far better than any of them, because they were real. They'd meant something, and most of his life... hadn't.
Bart frowned, then tried to turn off his thoughts, looking around at the grassy ground, the court to his left that was full of older kids throwing a ball through a hoop, with a few people sitting on benches all around, watching, reading.
A kid on a bench to his right was looking at him. Something told Bart he could really see him... and he was... familiar.
Bart let time speed back up and descended back, rolling through the half-circle and coming to a stop back where he'd started, grabbing his board up in his hands. But by then, the kid was gone.
"Hmmmmmm..."
"Bart honey!" Aunt Mary walked over, waving with the blue book clutched in her hand. "We should be getting back, do you want to go get some ice cream first?"
'Aiskrim!' Bart jumped down with a grin.
"Yeah!"
She put her hand on his back as they walked over to a vendor, scooping cones on the sidewalk across the street. He gave them a merry grin as Bart asked for chocolate and she made sure to insist that he request for ten scoops was a joke. He wrinkled his nose at that, but didn't say anything.
The old man's hand was handing him the cone, hovering in mid-air as Bart spotted the blonde kid again, peering at him from around the corner of the library.
Bart dropped his skateboard and took after him at a run, around the corner and after the boy.
'He runs like I do! Does that mean he's the kid Wally and Mr. Nightwing were talking about? Is it Dat?' He chased him out of the city and to a grove of trees on a hill overlooking the river, where he lost sight of his blue streak. Bart scratched his head. 'Where'd he go?'
He got his answer quick, as the other kid jumped out from behind a tree and clocked him good in the eye, making Bart land on his back in a patch of moss.
"Ow..." He rubbed at the spot, looking up with the other eye.
It was like looking in a mirror, if he was all angry and stuff.
"Dat?" He asked uncertainly.
Who else could it possibly be? He had the same nose, screwed up in a glare, the same lips all hard and pushed together. But he didn't answer, just kept looking all mad... maybe a little confused, too... then vanished.
Bart considered this for a second, then ran back to Aunt Mary, grabbing his board before it hit the ground, along with the ice cream, turning his face away so that the already surprised-looking ice cream guy didn't see his swollen eye. But she did, and grabbed his arm, leading him away sternly.
"Young man, where did you get that?"
Bart shrugged. He didn't see any reason to worry her, she already worried a lot.
"I ran into a tree."
* * *
Wally had been pretty certain Bruce would never let him patrol the Gotham with him; but Bats was, after all, full of surprises. As long as he kept to the name he'd taken on in this uniform, Shadow, and kept out of sight, he could go out now and then. At the moment, they were waiting for Brannock's next move, and Bruce explained that an extra pair of eyes couldn't hurt.
The suit had a grapple that would fit on the right wrist, but Wally had been too chicken to try it out yet. Bruce had showed him how... and he wanted to prove to himself he could do it alone.
So there he was, looking up at a ledge he knew would hold his weight, taking deep breaths and shaking off his worry. 'Ok big man, you never know when you might need to do this, so you'd better just suck it up and do it now.'
He raised his arm, aimed, and fired, grabbing the line and testing it's hold, then pushed the retractor and went flying upwards.
"Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!"
It was an effort not to shut his eyes, knowing he'd need them to land on the narrow ledge he was aiming for. He held his breath as his feet touched down, steadying himself at the dizzying height with the line before dislodging and retracting it back fully.
"Well, that wasn't so bad Wally, now was it?" He muttered, staring down at the distant ground skeptically. "Now, can you make it over there?"
He looked over at a higher, flat roof, and judged the best way to make it over, before letting the line fly again to a tower overhead, swallowing a yell as he arced over and landed with a few unsteady steps on the tarpaper.
"Ok, ok, this could work out."
Wally walked over to the edge, peering down again; this time with a bit more confidence.
"New in town?" A sultry female voice behind him said.
He whipped around and saw a slender woman in a black catsuit... ears and all, brandishing a whip like an exotic dancer.
"Woah baby. I gotta visit Gotham more often." He whistled and cocked his head to one side.
"Charming." She drawled. "And who are you supposed to be, anyway?"
"You first."
"Catwoman." She cracked the whip and walked forward a few steps, her gait and bearing dripping with a confidence Wally didn't see often, not even in League members. "You look like a Batling to me... but not so little, I think."
Wally watched as she began to crack the whip towards his feet, obviously meaning to grab them and knock him over, and responded by moving as slowly as he could while still avoiding the blow, ending up on her left in a crouch.
"Seems I'm not the only one with catlike reflexes up here." She said with an amused smile. "I still haven't caught your name."
"Who, me?" Wally stood up and pointed at his chest in mock confusion. "I'm just a Shadow; I was never here."
With that, he ran at speed off the roof, leaping to the next and up to the tower overlooking the bemused woman, hunching out of her sight as she looked around her. 'Catwoman, huh?' He grinned and chuckled before taking off again to find Bruce and tell him he'd finally gotten the hang of the grapple line.
He couldn't help but be proud of himself.
* * *
Bruce sat in front of his vast computer console; ever screen filled with his Joker files. Wally was behind him somewhere, looking at all the displays he was endlessly fascinated with.
Bruce's focus on the Joker wouldn't be properly defined as fascination.
He growled, then shut off the terminal.
"You look like a man who needs some distraction." Wally said behind him.
In an instant, he was on Bruce's lap, kneeling over his legs; still wearing the black and red costume, his hair slightly damp with a light rain that had begun to fall before they returned.
"That so?" Bruce said with a smirk.
"Mmmhmmm..."
Wally leaned in and licked Bruce's lips before slowly locking them with his own; they were still amazingly warm from his running and metabolism, soft and moist against his own. He leaned back, pulling off the mask, then pushing back Bruce's cowl, fluttering his eyelashes coyly.
"And that sounds like a job for the Flash."
* * *
More art of Bruce & Shadow by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yazzle
Part Twenty-Six: Rogues Gallery
Wally was vibrating contently in Bruce's arms, curled up with his head resting on his arms over his chest. He could feel Bruce's heartbeat under his hand, strong and steady like a clock keeping perfect time.
He was happy, but his thoughts were still worried.
"I... still can't believe Zoom is Bart's uncle." Wally sighed.
"Hn."
"Bruce?"
"Mm?"
"You've pretty much raised a kid, right?"
Bruce looked down at him, then back up at the ceiling.
"I suppose so."
Wally shifted a little, pulling the covers around his waist a little tighter and gathering his thoughts.
"I'm thinking about adopting Bart. Mom said she'd help... he's there now. But... I don't know." Wally sighed. "I guess I'm afraid if he lives with me, he'll just turn into what I was at his age... well, relative age. I was happy and all, but sometimes I wonder what'd it have been like to have a real childhood, you know? I don't want to take that away from him."
Bruce was quiet for a minute, prompting Wally to raise his head up and look at him. His face was sombre and thoughtful, as if he was re-living memories. Wally wondered if he shouldn't have brought up the 'c' word after all, but Bruce finally looked at him and answered.
"Do you think it's even possible for him to have a so-called 'normal' childhood?"
Wally put his head back down and chewed on his lip.
"No, prolly not."
"I'm the last person you should ask about that, at any rate. That sort of thing hasn't existed in this house for a generation." He paused. "If you choose to take him in, the choice, at least in part, will be yours. If you don't, it will be his. And without the proper guidance to learn restraint." Bruce said quietly. "He is already powerful, Wally. And power without control is dangerous."
"Is that what you think, or is that the Bat talking?" Wally said with a smile.
"I am Batman."
"Usually." Wally pushed himself up, leaning over Bruce with a grin. "But somehow I doubt the Bat is ticklish."
To prove his point, Wally manipulated his fingers over the sensitive skin he knew would prompt the deep laughs and wiggles it did. When he stopped, Bruce was beaming at him, his eyes twinkling in a way that had once been so rare.
"My own secret files, remember?" Wally taunted.
"What am I going to do with you?" Bruce said in feigned exasperation.
"I have a few ideas." He replied with a wicked grin.
* * *
In his dark cell at Arkham, Harvey checked his watch. 11:55pm.
"Knight to B-1." He said, moving the white piece in place on a board set up on the desk in front of him.
"Rook to D-2." Bruce replied from the shadows outside.
"Mm." Harvey moved the black piece and rubbed his chin, his thumb tracing over the scarred side facing Batman.
"I have questions tonight, Harvey." Bruce said, stepping into a beam of light so that his white cowl-eyes were visible.
"You want to know why we betrayed our friend." The voice was taking on a rough edge as both egos spoke as one.
Bruce knew to tread carefully; only Harvey would give him anything useful. The half that was, despite what he'd said to Wally, still dear to him.
"Yes."
"We got an offer, and the coin decided for us."
"Of your own free will."
"We have no free will, Bat-man." Two-Face said roughly.
"There is no more free will." Harvey added quietly.
"Who?"
"We think you already know."
Bruce nodded.
"Until tomorrow night, Harvey."
In the cell, Harvey didn't respond, but rubbed his chin in thought, musing over the game. Bruce watched him with a twinge of regret before taking his leave.
* * *
Bart stood at the top edge of the half-pipe, balanced on his board. He studied the smooth rounded surface below him, covered in worn graffiti and endless track marks of other riders that had come before.
He leaped forward, pushing off with a tiny burst of speed so that his velocity would send him high into the air on the other side.
Once up at the peak of his flight, he grabbed the board, and willed time to a stop. Up here, like this, he could really pretend that he could fly. He'd been able to in VR, but not in the real world; not really.
Bart knew that nobody really considered him the thoughtful type, but living between ticks of a second would make anyone reflective, with all the time in the world.
He missed the parents he'd barely known, the brother he'd never met, the grandfather he'd lost early on, the grandmother who'd saved him from a cloning machine. He missed them more than the fantasy-world he knew far better than any of them, because they were real. They'd meant something, and most of his life... hadn't.
Bart frowned, then tried to turn off his thoughts, looking around at the grassy ground, the court to his left that was full of older kids throwing a ball through a hoop, with a few people sitting on benches all around, watching, reading.
A kid on a bench to his right was looking at him. Something told Bart he could really see him... and he was... familiar.
Bart let time speed back up and descended back, rolling through the half-circle and coming to a stop back where he'd started, grabbing his board up in his hands. But by then, the kid was gone.
"Hmmmmmm..."
"Bart honey!" Aunt Mary walked over, waving with the blue book clutched in her hand. "We should be getting back, do you want to go get some ice cream first?"
'Aiskrim!' Bart jumped down with a grin.
"Yeah!"
She put her hand on his back as they walked over to a vendor, scooping cones on the sidewalk across the street. He gave them a merry grin as Bart asked for chocolate and she made sure to insist that he request for ten scoops was a joke. He wrinkled his nose at that, but didn't say anything.
The old man's hand was handing him the cone, hovering in mid-air as Bart spotted the blonde kid again, peering at him from around the corner of the library.
Bart dropped his skateboard and took after him at a run, around the corner and after the boy.
'He runs like I do! Does that mean he's the kid Wally and Mr. Nightwing were talking about? Is it Dat?' He chased him out of the city and to a grove of trees on a hill overlooking the river, where he lost sight of his blue streak. Bart scratched his head. 'Where'd he go?'
He got his answer quick, as the other kid jumped out from behind a tree and clocked him good in the eye, making Bart land on his back in a patch of moss.
"Ow..." He rubbed at the spot, looking up with the other eye.
It was like looking in a mirror, if he was all angry and stuff.
"Dat?" He asked uncertainly.
Who else could it possibly be? He had the same nose, screwed up in a glare, the same lips all hard and pushed together. But he didn't answer, just kept looking all mad... maybe a little confused, too... then vanished.
Bart considered this for a second, then ran back to Aunt Mary, grabbing his board before it hit the ground, along with the ice cream, turning his face away so that the already surprised-looking ice cream guy didn't see his swollen eye. But she did, and grabbed his arm, leading him away sternly.
"Young man, where did you get that?"
Bart shrugged. He didn't see any reason to worry her, she already worried a lot.
"I ran into a tree."
* * *
Wally had been pretty certain Bruce would never let him patrol the Gotham with him; but Bats was, after all, full of surprises. As long as he kept to the name he'd taken on in this uniform, Shadow, and kept out of sight, he could go out now and then. At the moment, they were waiting for Brannock's next move, and Bruce explained that an extra pair of eyes couldn't hurt.
The suit had a grapple that would fit on the right wrist, but Wally had been too chicken to try it out yet. Bruce had showed him how... and he wanted to prove to himself he could do it alone.
So there he was, looking up at a ledge he knew would hold his weight, taking deep breaths and shaking off his worry. 'Ok big man, you never know when you might need to do this, so you'd better just suck it up and do it now.'
He raised his arm, aimed, and fired, grabbing the line and testing it's hold, then pushed the retractor and went flying upwards.
"Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!"
It was an effort not to shut his eyes, knowing he'd need them to land on the narrow ledge he was aiming for. He held his breath as his feet touched down, steadying himself at the dizzying height with the line before dislodging and retracting it back fully.
"Well, that wasn't so bad Wally, now was it?" He muttered, staring down at the distant ground skeptically. "Now, can you make it over there?"
He looked over at a higher, flat roof, and judged the best way to make it over, before letting the line fly again to a tower overhead, swallowing a yell as he arced over and landed with a few unsteady steps on the tarpaper.
"Ok, ok, this could work out."
Wally walked over to the edge, peering down again; this time with a bit more confidence.
"New in town?" A sultry female voice behind him said.
He whipped around and saw a slender woman in a black catsuit... ears and all, brandishing a whip like an exotic dancer.
"Woah baby. I gotta visit Gotham more often." He whistled and cocked his head to one side.
"Charming." She drawled. "And who are you supposed to be, anyway?"
"You first."
"Catwoman." She cracked the whip and walked forward a few steps, her gait and bearing dripping with a confidence Wally didn't see often, not even in League members. "You look like a Batling to me... but not so little, I think."
Wally watched as she began to crack the whip towards his feet, obviously meaning to grab them and knock him over, and responded by moving as slowly as he could while still avoiding the blow, ending up on her left in a crouch.
"Seems I'm not the only one with catlike reflexes up here." She said with an amused smile. "I still haven't caught your name."
"Who, me?" Wally stood up and pointed at his chest in mock confusion. "I'm just a Shadow; I was never here."
With that, he ran at speed off the roof, leaping to the next and up to the tower overlooking the bemused woman, hunching out of her sight as she looked around her. 'Catwoman, huh?' He grinned and chuckled before taking off again to find Bruce and tell him he'd finally gotten the hang of the grapple line.
He couldn't help but be proud of himself.
* * *
Bruce sat in front of his vast computer console; ever screen filled with his Joker files. Wally was behind him somewhere, looking at all the displays he was endlessly fascinated with.
Bruce's focus on the Joker wouldn't be properly defined as fascination.
He growled, then shut off the terminal.
"You look like a man who needs some distraction." Wally said behind him.
In an instant, he was on Bruce's lap, kneeling over his legs; still wearing the black and red costume, his hair slightly damp with a light rain that had begun to fall before they returned.
"That so?" Bruce said with a smirk.
"Mmmhmmm..."
Wally leaned in and licked Bruce's lips before slowly locking them with his own; they were still amazingly warm from his running and metabolism, soft and moist against his own. He leaned back, pulling off the mask, then pushing back Bruce's cowl, fluttering his eyelashes coyly.
"And that sounds like a job for the Flash."
* * *
More art of Bruce & Shadow by
yazzle
no subject
on 2006-05-18 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-05-18 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-05-18 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-05-18 04:50 pm (UTC)I'm not dead, and I got narcotics plus an awesome breakfast before they sent me off after a morning of being wheeled around on a comfy bed, so I can't much complain. I'm feeling fantastic now, sunny day, driving around, percocets, what more could I ask for?
no subject
on 2006-05-18 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-05-18 05:39 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's what my brain keeps going, from Bart and Thad in the park to Two Face and Bruce with chess, to Wally and the grapple line, and Wally being a distraction for Bruce.
no subject
on 2006-05-18 11:09 pm (UTC)LOL!
Great One Again!
no subject
on 2006-05-19 11:55 pm (UTC)I've really been enjoying this fic, and you've surprised me a lot with all the twists.
Thank you for sharing this with everyone!
no subject
on 2006-05-20 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-06-12 03:52 pm (UTC)I love Your version of Bart. 'Aiskrim' is just way too adorable to be legal in any place but the future.
Wally leaned in and licked Bruce's lips before slowly locking them with his own; they were still amazingly warm from his running and metabolism, soft and moist against his own. He leaned back, pulling off the mask, then pushing back Bruce's cowl, fluttering his eyelashes coyly.
"And that sounds like a job for the Flash."
*dirty thoughts* You know I used to have a thing for GL/Flash, but I've been totally converted now. BM/Flash FOREVER!!!!!!!!
no subject
on 2006-06-12 04:05 pm (UTC)My work here is done. ::doffs fedora::