#5: Wally West

The Flash
#5: First Steps Part 5
"Axel Walker”
“Wally West”

My name is Wally West and I feel like the only orphaned kid alive.

Blame it on my classmates. They stare at me as if I am…as if I’m about to crack any minute. Like I’m as fragile as glass. I hate it. It’s not that I don’t feel anything. My parents died for Christ’s sake! It’s just…they make me feel a lot worse.

So I have to get out of here. Now.

...

A dark-skinned junior high student finished writing in the small book—his journal—he held down in his locker. His therapist was the one who’d recommended he write out his feelings. Wally hated to admit it, but it actually helped. Thing is, it didn’t help enough. It couldn’t stop the others from staring at him out of the corner of their eyes, as if he didn’t notice.

Wally slammed his locker door shut, drawing the attention of those around him. No one asked him if he was okay. They just stared.

Grabbing his backpack, Wally stormed off, past the computer lab and into the debate room. He didn’t do debate, but he knew the room was almost always empty. The program hadn’t gotten enough funding, so it had been silently shut down, although the room remained.

Wally reached into his pocket and produced a bent paperclip and some wire. He then began to pick the lock, and managed to do so right as the bell rung. He was officially late for third period, English. Who cared?

Wally glanced around to make sure no one was looking, and then snuck into the room. Inside, he hurried over to the windows, unlocked and then opened them. Taking only a moment to make sure no one was outside to catch him, he crawled through the window and sprinted away, his feet pounding against the pavement.

…

Barry’s feet pounded against the pavement as he picked up speed, swerving between cars and at times accidentally clipping their mirrors. He felt awful about it, but there was a criminal on the loose. Even still, he swore he’d rush back after he caught Axel Walker, find and fix every vehicle he damaged.

It didn’t take long to locate the sirens, and even shorter then to find Axel, who was in fact distancing himself from the police officers. His lead only grew larger as Barry approached, because he released spikes from the back of his car, flattening many of the police cruisers’ tires. Great. The kid had tricked out his sports car. No wonder the cops couldn’t catch him.

Luckily this time they weren’t working alone.

Barry ran up to the side of Walker’s car, and slowed down enough to communicate with him. The teen had a unique style, sporting a yellow leather jacket, a striped blue and white shirt, and an undercut streaked with black.

As he blared “Fuck tha Police,” the criminal teen called back, “…fascist losers—what the actual fuck?!”

It was at that moment that he’d noticed Barry racing beside him, hood held up to cover his face.

“Pull over, kid. I don’t want to hurt you,” Barry warned.

“Pull over? Pull on my dick, cumwad,” Axel spat, pressing a button on his dash.

Suddenly, wings extended out from his car. Barry had to slide over them to avoid being tripped.

Worse still, the wings began to tear into the sides of passing vehicles. One completely lost balance and began to flip over. Barry sped to it and leaped through the massive hole that made up the driver’s side, grabbed the driver, and dropped her off on the side of the road. He then ran back, diving through the passenger window to save her boyfriend, who he placed beside her, just as the car flipped onto its top for the first time.

The chaos didn’t end there. Although Axel retracted his wings, the flipping car was going to cause even more accidents. Thinking on his feet, Barry began to run in circles, creating a cyclone, which he used to launch the car over the edge of the highway and onto an empty patch of grass, where it exploded.

Barry took a second to make sure every civilian was okay, and then took off after Axel. He caught up in the blink of an eye, and began to race around Axel’s car.

“Iwarnedyou,” his words blurred together.

“Fuck this,” Axel muttered, pressing a button marked with a fire emoji.

The sports car suddenly picked up a lot of speed, catching Barry off guard. It slammed against him as he reached the front of the car, and sent him flying off the highway and into oncoming traffic below. Even with super fast reflexes, Barry couldn’t react fast enough to avoid crashing into a car.

Drivers slammed on their brakes. The car Barry had fallen onto skidded to a halt. Traffic stopped altogether. People rushed over, as the driver of the damaged car checked on Barry.

“Oh my God. Are you okay?!” he asked.

“Have to…stop…him…” Barry groaned as he forced himself onto his feet, only to collapse to the ground.

“Don’t move!” the man said, before crying out. “Can I get a doctor? Somebody call 911!”

But Barry could already feel his bones mending. Despite it all, he should have been dead anyway. Something had protected him. His powers…the energy he felt coursing through him. In his daze, Barry could make out a faint golden aura around him.

He had to keep moving. He had to help stop Axel Walker, because nobody else could.

One hand at a time, Barry pushed himself up. The man protested, but Barry waved him off, and stood upright. Just as another civilian began to reach for him, Barry sped away.

…

The intersection of Venditti and Booth was the scene of the crime. It was the very place Wally’s parents had died—instantly he was told—after drunkenly driving through a red light right into the path of an eight-wheeler truck. Wally hadn’t been in the car. They’d left him home alone as they always did when they went out partying on the weekends.

He could never walk on the ground where they’d been hit, obviously, as it was an intersection in the heart of downtown, but he could stand over the place where there car had stopped flipping on the sidewalk by the wall of—ironically enough—a hospital.

Wally crouched down and looked at the mini-memorial he and the other Wests had built there. Pictures of his parents, young and happy, had been glued to the wall. Underneath them sat a heart-shaped wreath. They’d put it up every Christmas. Wally had hated that ugly wreath.

Tears welled up in his eyes. He picked up the wreath and held it against his chest, softly sobbing. Passerbys gave him a look.

One even asked, “Are you okay? Did you lose your parents?”

To which he shook his head and said, “Mom’s inside,” indicating the hospital.

The passerby stared at him, unsure of what to do, before continuing on across the street.

Wally didn’t notice the sirens until the chase was a block away. Looking for the source of the noise, he saw Axel racing through traffic toward the intersection. Someone screamed. The same passerby who’d checked on Wally was frozen in fright amidst the crosswalk. Axel Walker couldn’t swerve to avoid her, or else he’d crash at hundreds of miles an hour into other cars, and he didn’t have enough time to slow down.

The reckless teen’s eyes widened in shock as he neared the woman.

Wally reacted instinctively, dropping the wreath and kicking up off the ground. He reached the woman just as Axel entered the intersection, and pushed her away. Even as he tried to dive to safety, he knew he wouldn’t make it. The car was inches from him. He was finished…ready to see his parents again.

The second passed and there wasn’t a thump. No pain. Nothing. Wally opened his eyes and realized he was in someone’s arms—a man’s. The man lost control and tumbled to the ground, but protected Wally throughout the fall. After crashing against the memorial, the hooded man through off his jacket, which had caught fire. It fell onto the wreath, causing it to light up.

Yet for those few moments, Wally didn’t care. He stared at the man’s face, his blue eyes, his messy blond hair. This man had saved his life, and he’d done it at super speed.

Realizing the boy could see his face, Barry vibrated to conceal it, but it was too late. Wally wouldn’t forget him for his life.

“Sorrygottarun,” Barry said, saluting Wally and then speeding after Axel.

Wally stared after the man for nearly half a minute, long after he’d left, before finally realizing the wreath was on fire. Still, Wally just watched it burn. Even as paramedics came to him and rushed him inside, all Wally could think about was the person who’d saved him, the fastest man alive.

…

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

Barry didn’t speak to Axel. He didn’t offer him a chance to stop. He simply opened the door, grabbed Axel, pinned him against the grass across the street, ran back to his car, and then slowed it to a halt. When he returned to catch Axel, he fully expected the boy to have run off. Instead, he found him leaning against a tree, defeated.

Remembering to vibrate his body to stay disguised, Barry said, “You could have killed dozens of people. What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Axel chuckled, staring at the ground. “I was trying to save my life. I turn 18 in a month. You ever been to prison, man?” He looked up, glaring at Barry. “You know what they do to people like me?! It rhymes with fucking grape!”

Barry was taken aback. He didn’t know what to say.

“Yeah, I may be a piece of shit, but you aren’t any better. All of you do-gooder pricks. You don’t know what I had to grow up with. What I had to do to survive. All you assholes with your loving parents, your perfect little lives--you don’t get it,” Axel grumbled.

“That doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want—to endanger other people’s lives. I’m sorry, Axel. I am…” Barry said, as police cruisers pulled up behind him. “…but grow up.”

With that said, Barry disappeared in a flash.

…

After grabbing lunch alone, Barry returned to the station, ready to work. He needed to let what Axel had said simmer for a while. What could he do to help people like him? He couldn’t pardon criminals, but with his speed maybe he could do more than the average police scientist. Maybe Chester had been right. Maybe he should fight crime, but certainly he should do more than that. He could build better housing for the poor, and feed the hungry. He could act as a symbol for a better tomorrow. Well, it was something to think about, anyway.

Entering the bullpen, somebody called his name, “Barry!”

Barry turned to find Joe West with Daniel and another boy.

Oh no. No no no no.

…

One Minute Ago

Joe hadn’t been happy at all to get that phone call. He’d told Wally that the instant he saw him in the hospital. He continued to say it as he drove him to the police station, and even now…

“You know what I thought, getting that phone call?” Joe wondered.

“You’d misheard them. I couldn’t be out of school. I couldn’t have been caught saving a woman’s life,” Wally added.

“While you were playing hooky. You start skipping school at twelve and by sixteen you’ll be selling dope. Wally…this isn’t what your parents would want,” Joe said.

“You’d know, right? ‘cause you talked to my dad so much after he knocked up my mom,” Wally spat, and instantly regretted it.

His parents had been outsiders in both of their respective families, and after Ira had drunkenly gotten Emma pregnant, after they lost control of their lives, Joe hadn’t spoken to them more than a few times a year, even though they lived just across the Ruby Bridge in Keystone City.

“Wally, your Pop-pop’s just trying to tell you…listen, little man, if you need to talk to anyone about all this, just know…you’ve got us, okay?” Daniel said, bending down to talk on his level.

Wally looked down at his feet and nodded. A few awkward moments passed, and then Joe called, “Barry!”

Wally West followed his Pop-pop’s gaze right to a man he instantly recognized: the speedster.

“Barry, I want you to meet my grandson, Wally.”

Barry and Wally stared at one another. Both recognized the other, and they knew it, too. Slowly, Wally’s lips curled up into a grin.

...

My name is Wally West, and I know who’s the fastest man alive.