Work Text:
My name is Wally West. I’m the fastest man alive. But right now I have to be-
Faster.
Faster.
Keep it going. Longer strides. Open it up. Everyone’s in danger. Linda’s in danger.
Right now I’m crossing the Rockies. Pursuing Abra Kadabra’s – did his parents really name him that? – puppets, clones of each Teen Titan’s younger self. Just Titans by now, I guess. We’re not teens anymore. I’m not. I don’t know what they are.
I’ve been in other worlds before. Other timelines. This isn’t that. This is my home. This is the place I was trying to get back to, all this time. There’s a unique vibrational signature underpinning every multiversal reality- whatever. Suffice it to say this is where I come from. This is where I belong. But it’s all wrong. There’s just- it’s hard to explain, but there’s just so many people. New people, old people, heroes and villains, there’s just so many of them. There’s so much that I should know. So much I should have seen. So much lost time. And Linda- Oh, Linda. I saw her and a hole opened up in my body. She’s so young. I’m so young. What happened to this world? How can this all be true?
Fake Omen and Tempest have Dick and Donna on the back foot. That’s alright. They’re tough. They’re the best I know. They don’t need much from me to turn the tables. Hit Lilith in the back of the head before she can even think that I’m here. Hit Garth two or three times ‘cause he’s tougher. But no one’s tough enough for a guy going an appreciable fraction of the speed of light.
Back across the country.
My connection to the speed force is as strong as ever. Stronger, even. It’s still the same as it’s always been. It feels good to get up this fast, to brush along the edge of infinity like this. The world isn’t right. Speed is. Thank God, too, because I really don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t. The world’s messed up enough. I don’t even know Keystone anymore. I spent my life there, for God’s sake! And now the streets aren’t even recognizable. I was patrolling the other day and I heard a crime was happening on the intersection of Johns and Waid. For over a decade I lived in Keystone, I’ve run down every side street and back alley in that damn city and I’ve never heard of a Johns or a Waid. Not in Central either for that matter. And it all wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s all the little things that are gone forever. Where’s the cart on 12th that I can always snag a few hot dogs from? Where’s the best pizza delivery? Who’s good on the Combines? I can learn a new city, the veins and arteries of pavement. I can memorize a new heartbeat-
Oh Christ. The kids. Linda. The kids. The Titans said something earlier. Supposed to make me feel better. I have all this time to make some new memories. I didn’t tell them. God, how could I tell them? Lilith was poking around in my head, trying to make sense of my reality. She picked up on Linda’s name. Of course. Started needling me about it like we were teenagers again. Rest of the team jumped in. Ooh, Wally’s got girls on his mind. Who’s Linda? Same old Wally, ha ha. It’s not girls! It’s not some fling! She’s my wife! MY WIFE AND THE MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN!
I would have gotten up from that table and throttled Roy. I wanted to grab Garth by the shoulders and shake him until his brain rattled around. Then I dropped out of super-speed emotion to blow it off. They don’t need to know. They don’t need another burden. Speed force is my business. My problem to handle.
Fake Arsenal’s arrows are fractions of an inch away from Garth and Lilith. I’m cutting it too close. Need to pick it up. Get the arrows. Unite them. Tie up Kadabra’s fakes. Let them take it from here. Gotta speed up. Took out my fake and Dick’s when I started. Got Lilith’s and Garth’s on the west coast. Donna and Roy were here. Turn the corner. Metropolis to Gotham. The Acela does it in fifty-five minutes. I have less than a second.
Linda’s there.
I’m pushing up on lightspeed but I keep accelerating. I can feel it nipping at my heels, feel my fingertips flicker in and out of existence. But I need to stay solid. I need to stay on this side of the light for a few more microseconds. Just enough to get Linda. Then it’s done. Then you can do whatever you want with me. Just let me get her.
The rope she’s hanging from has burned through. She’s already fallen a centimeter. How could I have been so slow getting to her? Have to save her. Have to be faster. An image of her, encased in ice, comes to my mind unbidden. I’ll never let her get hurt again. One last burst of speed, one last hurdle and she’s in my arms. Just focus on the mechanics of the catch. Can’t let anything go wrong now. Extend my speed aura and envelop her. Gently, gently. Ease in.
There it is. I have her and I cleared the vat of whatever and she’s in my arms and the whole world is right. Just in this moment I relax, Linda’s back in my arms and it’s like she was never out of them. I can feel her relax a little in the microseconds in between. Her head falls into the crook of my shoulder just like it used to and it’s all back in front of me again. The life we had. It was my world. I woke up in the morning because she was next to me. I kept running because she was at the finish line. I’ve seen realities where she died and I don’t recognize the man I become there. I need her. I have no life without her.
I could make it real again. I could take a deep breath and build it again. Get to know this Linda, ‘cause she’s probably a little different. I can already see she doesn’t drum her fingers on her leg when she’s nervous the way she used to. She used to touch me that way. Used to tap out patterns on my leg when we were in bed. She still worries her bottom lip between her teeth, still chews on the end of her pen when she’s writing. She did that with my lips too. I’ve done it before. We started on rocky ground that time too. It can happen again. It shouldn’t have to. It’s the proper thing to do. Can’t I want the improper thing for once? Do I have to sacrifice everything I’ve ever had again? My whole life has been running one way or another. Running away, running towards. Trying to catch up to Barry’s back. Trying to walk back my public identity. Running with no end. Can’t I, just once, just once, God, keep my reason to stop?
My reason to stop. My family. Linda. The kids. It eats me up every second of every day that my children are somewhere missing out there. They have to be, same as I was. Jai and Irey. The sweetest kids anyone’s ever had. I’ve been trying to do that vibration trick that used to work, that would pull them into my slipstream from wherever they were. I’ve been trying all over the world. They aren’t here. They must be in some other timeline or some other planet or dimension, or still in the speed force, or, or…
It’s okay, kids. Wherever you are, I hope you still have each other. Daddy found Mommy now, and he’s going to find you next. Just hang in there. I’ll bring you back if I have to turn the whole multiverse upside down. This is what the rest of the Titans don’t get. What I can’t tell them. I can’t build this back again. Maybe with Linda, but I can’t just replace Jai and Iris with some other children. The very thought is almost sickening. The first time I held them in my arms I looked at their little faces and I suddenly understood. I understood it all. Why we truly do what we do. Yes, stopping crime is good. Saving the world is good in itself. But why we, why I get up every day and do it again. Why I’ll keep doing it until my legs fall off under me. It’s for them. So their world is as good as it can be. As I know it could be. As I can make it. For them. I don’t want a new family. I don’t want to make new relationships. I want the ones I had back. I want everyone to remember.
I can feel the vibration in my forearms, in my shins and moving up my legs. I screwed it up. I went too fast. I’m slipping into the speed force now. I’ll be swallowed by it soon enough. Fine. Take me. I’ll find another way to take out Kadabra. The Titans will probably have it in hand. They can take him well enough. Maybe I’ll come back. Maybe I won’t. This Linda doesn’t know me. She might not be able to pull me back. Maybe that was Kadabra’s plan all along. Maroon me in the speed force. Then I’ll go out some other exit. He thinks he knows everything about speed because he heard me say “lightning rod” a couple times. His loss. The tingle’s up to my spine. I can feel myself phasing out of step with reality. I’ll be back soon enough, Linda.
Oh, shit. Linda’s still in my arms.
Too late to drop her. I had to bring her up to my speed to save her – she’s going in with me. I can see her mouth opening to say something to me. Her face gets so cute when she’s indignant. I have to cut her off.
“No time. Just hold on to me. Everything’s about to get really disorienting. Just stay in contact with me. I’ll take you through.”
“Wally? I feel- what’s going on? It feels so weird-”
And we’re gone.
It’s impossible to describe the speed force. It’s like a dream, logic and rules go out the window and as soon as you leave you start to forget it. Forget the truth of how it was, forget the immensity, the power that crackles all around you, the shape of infinity. You just can’t hold it in your head. But when you’re in it, when you can see it with your own eyes, it starts being easier to comprehend. Still not possible. But it’s easier.
“Wally, what is this place? What’s going on here? It’s like… the world is collapsing to a point… folding in on itself… reversing inside out-”
“I’m sorry I had to take you here, Linda. This is the speed force. The extratemporal dimension where I draw my powers from, you know-”
“Oh yeah, we’ve all got a dimension that gives us speed powers. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
I’m not a total moron, Linda. I can tell when you’re being sarcastic. “I had to go this fast to save you. To save everyone. I broke the lightspeed barrier. When that happens, I end up here. And I dragged you with me, I’m sorry.”
“Sure, you just had to be going that fast to save me, huh. It’s got nothing to do with your messed-up memories of some crazy timeline where we were together.”
Fuck. That hurts. Because she is right. I didn’t need to push lightspeed. I probably could have found a more efficient route. I could have dropped her before the speed force took me, even. There were a million things I could have done. Except there wasn’t any other way it could have happened. Not for me. Not with her. Yes, it’s selfish. But allow me one indulgence before the universe gets back to punishing me.
“I’m sorry.” I keep saying it. It’s all I can say. “I’ll get us out of here and I won’t bother you again. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” I can’t look in her eyes. If I do, I’ll- I don’t know what I’ll do.
“Oh, when we get out of here I’m getting that exclusive. It’s the least you could do.”
I have to give a wry smile. She still makes me laugh. The universe can reset itself all it wants but it’ll never take that away from me.
“Fine. Just hold on to me as long as we’re here,” she rolls her eyes, “I have to keep our vibrations aligned so I don’t lose you. I might not be able to find you again if I do.”
She looks properly frightened at that and she does nestle in a little closer. Am I taking advantage of her? But she does need to stay in my aura, but she-
My thoughts are cut off by a little gasp escaping her mouth. She’s looking around now, really taking it all in. When I called it heaven I wasn’t lying. It’s beautiful. The swirling colors, stretching into a single point on the horizon, where the whole world seems to collapse and invert into itself. The speed force is infinity. It’s beyond dimension. It’s a single point that turns into a line turns into a circle turns into a sphere turns into some 4-D shape I bet Barry’d know the name of. Dimensions rise and fall like waves. And just looking into the lightspeed wall, everything seems to make sense. It all becomes obvious, even. The secrets of speed are never so clear as here. And it all turns into a perfect line to a perfect horizon, the infinite runway, the greatest journey. It’s impossible to pull away from.
You just have to find someone you’ll do the impossible for.
I concentrate on Linda on instinct. I can feel it fizzle out in my brain. I can feel the horizon pull on me. Maybe I miscalculated. Maybe I can’t get back. It’s like a black hole. I’ve outrun those before but it’s different, it’s gnawing at me, it won’t let go-
“Is that me?”
Linda points to a hazy image suspended in space next to us. The image that brought me back the first time. Her frozen in time, reaching out as Keystone crumbles around her. The faintest recognition in her eyes even though I know I’m moving too fast to be seen. Somehow, she can tell I’m there, holding her hand, telling her goodbye.
“My hair’s longer,” she says. Funny how we fixate on such minor stuff. “Wally, wait. I-” She cuts herself off. Lost in thought somewhere. She reaches out, fingers stretching out to brush hers in the projection, then jerks her hand back like it was a hot stove.
“Wally, I remember this.”
Oh my God.
Something flashes in her eyes and another image pops up. It’s not one I was thinking of.
Yeah. In fact I was just thinking that. Completely, totally, and absolutely alone.
Good.
Another one.
Tell them you got carried away.
A third.
How do these other people... fit into our life?
A fourth, and a fifth, and on and on.
Once upon a time I fell in love with a boy with lightning in his eyes.
But you weren’t there.
I believe in miracles with all my heart.
Hey, Red! Long time no see. Linda Park-West, Channel Four News. How about an interview?
Wherever, whenever you are. Someone loves you on the other side of the universe.
‘Till time stands still. And everything after.
The truth... is that I have no life... without her. My name is Wally West. I’m the Flash. And when Linda’s in my arms… I’m the luckiest man alive.
“Wally…”
I can’t look at her. I don’t dare hope. I’ve killed her. I killed the person she was just because I missed my wife. I’m as bad as Zolomon.
A hand reaches up to touch my cheek. A thumb wipes a tear from under my eye. I didn’t notice that was there. I look down at her. Linda Park. The only woman in the world. There’s recognition in her eyes. She blurs in my vision.
“Is this what it’s like being you? Having these memories, this double life? Being here?”
I can only nod.
“It’s beautiful. But it’s so… empty.”
“That’s why I always come back to you.” I try to give her the cocky superhero grin but she sees right through me. She’s so smart. I can never get one over on her.
“Shut up,” she says, pulling herself up by my neck. I lean down and close my eyes and it feels like coming home. I’ve felt lost since Barry pulled me out of the timestream, but now we’re in each other’s arms and her mouth is on mine and my feet are stable on the ground.
She breaks away from me and I lean further after her, instinctively, like a lost dog. “Wally, let’s go home.”
“Sure, Linda.”
It takes great effort to drop out of the speed force. Doubly so to take someone out with you. Like juggling a couple hundred balls. I have to sync my vibrational signature with Linda’s. Have to slowly, gently ease us out of phase with the speed force so we just simply slip out, like a wet bar of soap. And all this is a thousand times harder when you don’t have a sympathetic vibration on the other side, someone you can align yourself with and drop into the space of. It’s always been Linda for me. I could match myself to her vibration in my sleep. I can’t take that route now, but Kadabra’s a fool if he thinks that’ll slow me down. There are other people I love more than life, after all.
Dick. Donna. Roy. Garth. Lilith. Repeating their names in my head. Adjusting my vibration on the order of microHertz, slowly, slowly, sinking out of lightspeed, dropping through the floor. Almost there. And…
With the crack of a lightning bolt we’re back in Kadabra’s lair. In a couple nanoseconds I survey the scene. His advanced technology (not magic!) has the Titans on the back foot. I set Linda down, ready to jump into the fray.
“His wand,” she says, “he told me his powers come from the wand.”
Perfect. Have to pick my moment. Go!
I accelerate into super-speed, drop a quick kiss on Linda’s temple and amble on over behind Kadabra. I’ve been hitting relativistic speed for the last few minutes, faster than the eye can see seems like a Sunday jog. He quickly parts with the wand. Of course, he doesn’t know he’s parting with it. Not yet. This is my favorite part. He’s still cackling. I head back over to Linda to watch it unfold.
“West was the only one who could stop me! And now-” He’s cut off when Garth’s fist spins his jaw around. He makes a gesture with his empty hand, just now realizing what I did.
“Wha-”
“Looking for this?” I step forward.
“Wally!”
“West!” Kadabra shakes his fist at me. He actually shakes his fist.
I twirl the wand between my fingers. “Like they say, Kadabra. Blink and you’ll miss it.” Then I punch him thirty-seven times in one second. He goes down in a heap.
“Wally!” The rest of the Titans crush into me. Roy’s ruffling my hair, Donna might be about to break my ribs, Dick and Garth are on opposite shoulders. I let myself relax, held up by them.
“We thought you were dead, man!”
“It’s just speed force stuff,” I say, waving my hand, “Been there a million times.”
Lilith can see that’s not all, but I think as loud as I can at her not to push it. Thankfully she lets it slide and gets up from our group hug to talk to Linda. Linda. I want to reintroduce her to everyone. I want to talk to her about it, about her life, my life, everything we missed. I want to book a hotel for a week and never leave the room.
“Ms. Park? Is everything alright?”
“You, uh, you referred to me as ‘Wally’s Linda’ last time we met?”
“Oh, yes, I’m deeply sorry, it’s just that we had talked to Wally about his past and he, well he mentioned you a lot, I didn’t mean to imply-”
“It’s alright,” Linda extends her hand, “Linda Park-West, Super News. And if anything, he’s Linda’s Wally.” She grins. Lilith shakes her hand and her shoulders move like she’s holding in a laugh.
“Dude, you’re whipped,” Dick jabs me under the ribs.
“Worth it,” I say.
“Damn right,” Roy lets out a low whistle.
I smack him in the back of the head. “Eyes to yourself.”
“If you don’t mind over there, I’d like to borrow Wally for a bit. There’s some time stuff we need to catch up on.”
“I bet,” someone says under their breath.
“Sure, be right with you.” I extricate myself from the pile and it sags in on itself a little. I’m by her side in an instant.
“We’ll take care of Kadabra,” Donna calls.
“Appreciate it!” We head out to the side alley.
“Did she say Park-West?”
“Are they married?”
“What the hell, Wally?”
We’re outside in the Gotham night. There’s a general miasma that seems to pervade every inch of this city and it’s especially seeping into the alleys around this warehouse. The air feels thick. Linda turns to me.
“Wally.”
“Yeah?”
“The kids.”
“I know.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“No. I’ve looked over every inch of this planet, I swear. I’m trying to align with their vibrations to pull them in but I’m not hitting. I don’t think they’re on Earth. They must be somewhere in the timestream, somewhere I haven’t looked yet.”
“It’s alright, Wally.”
“I’ll find them. I swear, Linda. Every day and every night I’ll look.”
“You found me.”
“You’re a public figure, it’s a lot easier to find a reporter than it is to find two kids that might not even exist yet.”
“I’m expressing my faith in you, Wally. You’ll find them. We’ll all be together again. It’s what you do.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“I’ll always be here for you. If there’s anything I can do. Rely on me. Please, Wally.”
“Just stay here for me. I’ll always come back to you. As long as you leave a light on for me I’ll be back at the end of the day.” I pull her into my shoulder and I can feel tears start to fall against my costume, hot and wet. Her head shudders under my hands.
“Why does this have to happen to us?”
I’m starting to tear up again. I feel it running down my cheeks. I bury my chin in her hair to try and stem it a little. Not working.
“I don’t know. But I’m going to fix it.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I let go of her and get down into a sprinter’s start.
“You’re going now?”
“I’ll be back before you know it. I just need to take a look around the higher dimensions. I have to get started. I can’t sit just around while they’re out there.”
“I get it. I only wish you could take me with you. Drop me off in Central and then go.”
“Right. Where do you live, anyway?”
“Corner of Messner and Loebs.”
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“What?”
“Alternate timeline, remember? I don’t recognize the names of half the streets in Central. It’s been driving me crazy.”
“Wow. Okay. Weird. Just drop me off at City Hall, then. I can get back from there.”
“Sure thing.”
I take a deep breath. I can do this. I outraced Death. I beat a fourth-dimensional teleporter. I escaped a black hole. I’m faster than Superman. I’m Wally West. I’m the Flash. Hold on, Iris. Hold on, Jai. I’m coming as fast as I can.