Chapter Text
Wally opened his eyes as the energy raced over his body. In the distance, he could see a glowing portal, getting bigger as he approached it. 'Bingo!' He was finally to the next dimension. He smiled to himself, hopefully this dimension would be better than the last.
He squinted as the light grew too bright to look at. Blinking as he opened his eyes, he shrieked. “Wall! Wall! Fuck!” He ran passed several figures in the room he'd entered. There was too much speed to suddenly stop and he wasn't ready to just phase through the damn wall. Seriously. It's a good thing he'd learned a bit from Dick about acrobatics.
As soon as he got close to the wall, he darted up it and flipped back onto the floor, crouching to absorb the shock. Wally eyed the wall and cursed fluently in Chinese, mocking its existence. He even went over and gave it a good kick, trying to calm his anger, but all it did was hurt. He grimaced and bounced up and down holding onto his hurt food.
“Fucking broke my toes, dammit all!” Wally swore and plopped down on the floor, wincing as he popped his broken toes back in place.
“Ahem!” Someone cleared their throat and he jerked his head around, body tense for a fight to see some familiar outfits. Green Arrow, or someone with similar fashion, was pointing an arrow right at him. To his side was Flash, although his costume was a little bit different. Wally could see his eyes through the cowl.
“Um.. Got milk?”
The Flash raised his eyebrow and smirked a little. “Do you need milk?” Ooohh, Wally liked this dimension's Flash. He quipped back. Heck yes. Wally tilted his head a little and looked at them like it was obvious. “The wall did just break my toes,” he said. Green Arrow snorted, amused. “Nope, think you did that part on your own.”
“Why would I break my own toes? Besides, it takes two to tango or in this case break toes,” Wally motioned towards the wall. Someone burst out laughing. Wally's eyes caught a figure behind the two heroes, bent over laughing. “I love this guy!” Wally grinned, someone thought he was funny.
He stretched, cautiously wiggling his toes and hissing in pain when the bones rubbed together. “So yeah, do you have milk or anything to eat?” Wally spotted a protein bar on the floor that he must've knocked over when he arrived. He snatched it and downed it, trying to remain slow. “Wait!” He heard Flash say, but he had already bitten into it.
Wally's face scrunched up. “Yuck! This is chocolate flavored?” He grimaced and finished it off. “That's also a high calorie protein bar, like seriously high,” Flash said, frowning. Wally shrugged and wiggled his toes again, smiling when he'd found they healed fast. “Much better,” he said, stomping once or twice to make a show of it. “My toes, not the taste,” he quipped.
He felt triumphant as he saw even Green Arrow smirk at that one. Obviously, he'd been told of the fearful super protein bars. Whether he'd tasted one or not, Wally couldn't tell, but it was possible. “Hey,” a blonde woman in a lab could protested, “they aren't that bad!” Flash snorted, amused. The woman pouted a little, betrayed by her friend.
“Question: are you the good guys?” Wally asked. Honestly, he did need to know. They looked a bit different from the Green Arrow and Flash he was used to, so he wasn't feeling as threatened. But a flick of the wrist and a supersonic punch and he could very well be adding them to his list of PTSD grade traumas.
It was amusing to see the two heroes look at each other quizzically. Seems they were unused to being ask. “Duh,” the man who'd laughed earlier said. “It's not cosplay, you know. They're the real McCoy.” Wally's left eyebrow darted up. “Gee, couldn't tell,” he quipped back, probably sounding a little snooty.
“And you are?” Green Arrow dude asks. Wally rolls his eyes. “Obviously the tooth fairy.” He shook himself after those words slipped through his fingers. He had to stop using humor as a defense some time. Though it was hard to tell if that time would ever come. “I'm sorry,” he tells them with an apologetic smile. “Been through a lot of shit lately.”
When nobody told him to watch his language, he felt a small rush of satisfaction. This definitely wasn't his home, but it did look amusing. “My name is Wally. Have any experience with other dimensions?” He blurted out, purposely leaving out his last name. He didn't want to spring too much on them.
When they nodded, minus Green Arrow, he smiled a little. “Well then, don't try and kill me and we'll get along great!” Wally said cheerfully. “Woah woah woah, little dude,” the guy who'd laughed said. “You're from another dimension?” He inclined his head, curious at the over excited reaction. “Sweet~” He high-fived Wally, grinning from ear to ear.
“What are you doing here? Please tell me there's not a dimensional crisis or something,” Flash begged. Wally just snorted in amusement. “Not that I know of? I'm actually something of a lost boy,” and no he wasn't referring to Peter Pan, though his de-aged self did look like he could play the part. “I'm looking for my dimension. Some stuff happened and the next thing I know I'm in the Speed Force. Then I somehow get flung to another dimension,” he continued, stomach rolling a little at the feeling of leaving the Speed Force.
That had everyone blinking in shock. Except for Green Arrow, or was he called that here? Meh. Arrow dude just looked confused. “Speed Force,” he'd mouthed to himself as if that would make what he heard make sense. The guy obviously didn't like not knowing things. Wally wondered if he had any relation to the Bat here. Was there even a Bat here? If not, it would make him sad to not see that rough, gruff kickbutt black knight.
The blonde lady in the lab coat approached him and looked him over. “Ahh… A doctor?” She nodded and he shrugged. “Dr. Caitlin Snow,” introducing herself absentmindedly. “How are you feeling? May I test your vitals? Is your physiology the same as Ba- Flash's?”
Dr. Snow rambled on with a surprising speed as Wally looked at Flash with an eyebrow raised in amusement. Flash just shrugged with a smile on his face. He was obviously used to this.
“Dude, I have so many questions for you about the Speed Force,” the guy who'd laughed at his quips came forward, words spilling from his mouth. “How fast were you going? How did you get out? What was it like there?”
Before Wally could open his mouth, Dr. Snow was butting in. “Cisco, I'm sure your questions can wait, I mean I'm as curious as you are, but I'd like to run some tests to make sure his molecules are going to fall apart.” Wally's eye twitched a little. Was that seriously a concern? He'd been doing fine so far.
“Gee, Doc, thanks for the interesting imagery, but I'll have you know this is not my first dimensional run,” Wally tells them. “I've done good so far and I'm sure with everything I've been through if anything was going to kill me it'd be alternate Flash and the Justice League.”
Wally frowns to himself as he mentally goes over his more than bitter tone. He misses the way the others look – shocked, eyes wide, slightly fearful as they exchange private glances with one another.
“Me?” Flash asked at the same time as Cisco says “Justice League?”
Wally eyes them with an eyebrow raised in curiosity, tapping his foot lightly. “Um, well, yeah? What? Is there no Justice League here?” Cisco shakes his head. Green Arrow look-alike staring with an admittedly piercing gaze that makes Wally a bit more than uncomfortable after all he's been through, but the outfits are a bit different and this guy doesn't feel remotely like his Uncle Ollie, so it's easy to separate the two.
“Justice League – group of superheroes?” They shake their heads. “Headquarters in space?” Cisco's jaw drops and he numbly shakes his head. “Ah,” Wally says, feeling relieved and amused at the lack of a Justice League in this dimension. “Cool,” he mutters to himself.
There's several moments of silence that cause the slurping of a drink to resound in the room. Everyone looks at Cisco who smiles sheepishly and stops.
“Anywho! So,” He points to Flash. “Barry Allen, right?” Flash frowns. “Well, yes, but how did -?” He points to the archer. “Oliver Queen?” He asks the second time more carefully because this archer has a darker feel to him. He's not certain, but the archer scowls, which is basically a 'yes' to him.
“Who told you,” Oliver – because he's not sure of his alter-ego here – demands.
Wally just shrugs. “Well you did. Actually, not 'you'. My 'you' did. Uncle Ollie had this bet that I'd go nuts over an archer instead of a Speedster, which didn't work out, by the way.”
It's easy to see how confused they look, but despite his confusion, Wally can see Barry smirk victoriously. Apparently being chosen over an arrow was as joyous an occasion here as it was in his home dimension. Oliver just scowls beneath his green mask. 'Must be his default expression,' Wally thinks to himself, amused.
“You don't call yourself 'Green Arrow', do you?” Flash shakes his head as Arrow guy's face just looks blank. “Close, he's Arrow now,” Flash tells him, leaning in to whisper “but he used to be called Hood.”
Wally can't help the small snort of laughter.
“Well, Iris called you the Streak,” Cisco mentions, “offhandedly” and Wally cannot stop the full blown laughter.
“Oh my God, are you serious!? The Streak!?” Wally swallows his laughter before he starts shaking as he tries to contain it. “There goes the Streak!” he says in a very official sounding voice, “...streaking by.”
Oliver cracks a grin and chuckles at Flash's wounded look while Cisco and Dr. Snow can't hide their laughter. Flash finally smiles a little bit. “Good one, kid.”
A shudder rips through Wally's form as he chokes, laughter fading away. Kid. 'Fuck.'
Everyone stops laughing when they notice Wally's no long laughing and quite honestly he looks like a kicked puppy.
“Are you alright?” Dr. Snow asks him, concern in her eyes. Wally takes a breath to steady himself and nods. “All good. Just some memories,” he admits and waves it off like it was nothing.
He notices Oliver and.. -should he call him Barry? Why not- Barry exchanging glances, speaking with their eyes. 'Close,' he notes.
“So… how long are you going to be here?”
Wally cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brows. That was a good question. How long was he going to be there? It wasn't his home. That much had been verified by the people and the names. His world didn't have a Cisco or Dr. Snow, at least none that he knew of and this Flash appeared younger than his.
Honestly, he had no real reason to stay and every reason to go, but there were some.. less important reasons. He needed a break. It wasn't his body that felt battered but his mind and his heart. It felt like all the terrible things were just building up inside and were threatening to bury him. So yeah, he needed a break.
“I could stay for a while.. Maybe a week or so.” Wally shot a glance at Barry and Oliver. “If it's okay with you,” he tacked on, slightly anxious that they might not let him stay. They might've been family in his dimension, but here they were under no obligation to take him in.
“Okay!” Wally's eye twitched as Barry tugged off his cowl, face lightening up with excitement. “You can stay with me!”
“Pst, are you sure?” Cisco asked Barry, voice low, but not impossible to pick up on.
Barry shrugged. “Why not? We're both Speedsters and technically Iris and Joe already know about me, so Wally won't have to hide there either.”
Wally's body stiffened at the mention of Iris and he could see Oliver's eyes narrow behind his mask, noticing the motion. Wally ignored him and his childish side seemed to whine at the idea of being back with his aunt and uncle.
He shuddered and gave himself a shake, because this wasn't his home and this dimension's Iris and Barry weren't his aunt and uncle.
“What do you think, Wally?”
Wally jolted out of his thoughts and looked at Barry with a sort of confused look. “Hunh? About what?” Then he remembered and shuffled nervously. “Oh, yeah, sounds good. Maybe… give me a second?”
He didn't wait for their response as he zipped over to a computer and speed searched this world. It wasn't hard to find information about Barry and his family as well as Oliver. The Flash and Arrow were prominent figures in the media, which Wally just shrugged at and kept reading. “Singularity?” That was new. 'Barry Allen – coma – lightning – meta-humans'.
One thing that stuck out was sightings of a Speedster in yellow. It made his heart sink and his fast pace stuttered to a halt.
“What the--!?”
“Zoom?” Wally asked, eyes fearfully wide.
Cisco blinked and looked at Barry who look similarly lost. “No.. we called him the 'Reverse Flash'.”
'Reverse Flash?' Wally breathed out in relief. “So, not Zoom. Cool.”
“Zoom,” Cisco frowned. Wally just waved it off, although video of the Reverse-Flash made him shiver in fear because the two were so similar they could be twins and wasn't that a scary thought.
“So.. Eobard was your evil enemy,” Wally said, mostly talking to himself, “like Zoom is my evil enemy… Well, this is fucked up.” He began to pace back and forth, ignoring the looks between the others.
“Reverse-Flash goes after Barry and Zoom comes after me.. just my luck. Seriously? What is this? Why does the world hate Speedsters so much? Not like we could all just get along, no that would be too hard. Gotta have someone trying to kill Flash and Kid Flash. Obviously.”
“Wally?”
“Must be some sort of game… Fucked up, that's what it is..”
“Wally!”
Wally stumbled, startled out of his depressing rant about the world. Barry tapped his foot, frowning the same way his uncle would when Wally made a mistake or did something wrong. “Um..” Wally bit his lip, sheepishly. “What?”
“We have no idea what you're talking about, but you're starting to panic,” Oliver told him, bluntly.
Wally blinked and looked at his trembling hand before looking back up at them with a small, wavering smile. “Oops? Sorry.”
Cisco just shook his hand and clapped a hand on Wally's shoulder. “Man, dude, you Flashes have the worst luck.” Wally looked at Barry who gave him a small, encouraging smile with an expression that said he didn't think Cisco was wrong in his assumptions.
“Just our luck?” Wally shrugs. Cisco snorts while Oliver frowns, unamused with his response.
“So, do you want to tell us what you’re doing here?” Oliver asks, trying not to sound demanding, but failing at it. He was very intimidating in this dimension.
Wally sighs, running a hand through his hair. “You wouldn’t believe me. I don’t even know where to start.”
“We know that you’re a Flash,” a cool, familiar voice states from the doorway that has everyone’s heads whipping to find the source.
“Uncle Len!” Wally cries with a big smile on his face. Oliver and Barry who had tensed as the sight of Captain Cold faltered enough to look at him in astonishment. Cisco’s jaw has dropped open and Caitlin just blinks in shock.
Captain Cold raises an eyebrow. “’Uncle Len’?” He smirks a little. “Never been called anyone’s uncle.”
“Seriously, Snart? That’s what you get from it?” Barry snarks.
“Wait.” Oliver cautiously says, body remaining tense and ready to strike at the thief at any moment. “You said he’s ‘a Flash’…”
Cold looks at Oliver critically and gestures towards Wally’s hand. “Either that or he has some relation to the Flash. Look at his hand.”
Everyone’s eyes shoot to Wally’s hand and his brows furrow in confusion as he looks where everyone else is. “Oh.” He had completely forgotten about the ring adorned with a lightning bolt – the Flash’s symbol. “Oops.”
Wally’s cheeks reddened at the sudden attention on him. “Seriously, Uncle Len, you’re outing me?”
Cold just shrugs like this doesn’t affect him in any way and there’s nothing weird about this situation. Barry looks at Cold with a betrayed kind of look that Wally doesn’t understand. He knows that they’re not friends persay. They’re more like two opposites that frequent the same wave length.
“Really, Snart? This isn’t weirding you out being called ‘Uncle Len’ and a kid Speedster just coming out of nowhere?”
Cold just shrugs. “Just another day in Central, I guess.” He gives Barry a more critical look. “And aren’t you just the embodiment of the unusual being a meta-human yourself?”
Barry looks sheepishly down and kicks the floor in a very Barry-like action, defeated. “You’re right,” he says with a sigh before he looks over at Wally again. “Sorry,” he smiles apologetically.
Wally inclines his head, although he’s feeling a little bit lost on what just happened, but he’s a Speedster, he can roll with it.
“So.. are you a Flash or some relation?” Cisco asks, eyes flicking over to Cold with caution like he’s watching a bear that might attack him. ‘Polar bear,’ Wally snickers to himself because it’s oddly fitting.
“Both-ish?” He was called Kid Flash, plus he’d been the Flash in the first dimension he’d woken up in. There was no question about his relation to Barry Allen – they were family.
Oliver raised an eyebrow at his answer, unsatisfied. “’Ish’?”
“Ish,” Wally stated firmly.
“Are you going to be this vague about everything?” Wally glanced over at Cold who had a glint in his eyes that he recognized. It was the same glint that his Uncle Len got when he had found something new he wanted to steal.
“May~be?” Wally said, drawing out the word in a long tone.
“Or you could just tell us now, you know,” Barry suggested, trying to appear like he was saying it offhandedly, but Wally knew better. He wanted to know. Cold wasn’t about to give up on answers, even though he didn’t seem as open as his Captain Cold was. Oliver had his eyes narrowed at Wally that reminded him of a hawk ready to snag its prey.
With those three, the answers were bound to come out sometime.
“Fine,” Wally threw his arms up in the air exasperated. “Just know that if you dare try to attack me, I will most likely jab my vibrating hand through your body.”
Seeing Caitlin and Cisco’s horrified looks, as well as the way they stepped back and the way the two heroes and the Rogue tensed slightly he quickly added, “Not on purpose, I mean!”
Skeptical looks met him and he rambled on, “I mean that I’ve been through a lot and I’m most likely going to lash out if anyone threatens my safety.”
‘Either that or fall apart into a crying mess of tears,’ Wally thought to himself, frowning. “God, I’m a mess.”
Caitlin stepped forward, a maternal instinct of hers kicking in as she saw the dark, broken look on Wally’s face. “Hey,” she murmured softly. “It’s okay. Nobody is going to hurt you,” she assured him, glaring like a harpy at the criminal and two heroes. It was clear that if anyone dared, they would find themselves sawed into little bits and scattered over a lake or some odd fate.
“Yeah, man,” Cisco grinned at him. “What she said.” Although he kept shooting her glances like she could turn on him and tear him to shreds if he overstepped his bounds.
Cold scoffed, “Like I’d hurt some meta-kid.”
Barry’s eyebrow quirked at Cold’s statement, but he didn’t call him out as a liar so Wally assumed Barry trusted Cold that much. Probably not much more than that though.
Oliver crossed his arms, looking about as harmless as a rabid bear. “I don’t kill people anymore.”
Wally eyed him with suspicion, because wasn’t that weird? He couldn’t imagine his Uncle Ollie killing anyone. Ever. Yet this Oliver seemed to have been killing criminals until recently. It was a scary thought actually.
Mind made up, he took a deep breath and began.