Kid-Wally

Chapter One
Uncommon Feat

The Watchtower wasn't secure. It was late (by Earth standards) and Batman was the only one in the League still there.

And all of his instincts were telling him he wasn't alone.

He scoured the security monitors for any sign of an intruder, but of course the cameras could be fooled into not seeing things that were there, or at least tricked into delivering a false report. So, he began to walk the halls of the WT, looking for anything that might tell him who was here that wasn't supposed to be.

I didn't take long to pinpoint the sounds of human activity, as the silence of space made every tiny noise seem all the louder. But it wasn't what Batman had been expecting.

Someone was crying very softly, and for a moment Batman considered just going on his way. He wasn't the consoling type, and he didn't like to deal with crying people very much. Especially his fellow Leaguers. Of course, he still didn't know if the crying person had a right to be there or not, and the need to check won out over his desire to avoid the situation.

He rounded a corner into the kitchen to see someone very small huddled underneath one of the tables. That's how they hid from the cameras, Batman mused, walking over to the table. His footsteps echoed throughout the room ominously, but the crying person never looked up.

As he approached, Batman realized that this person was very small. Child sized, in fact. And he didn't have a clue who it could be, which was more bothersome than the crying itself.

Once he stood directly in front of the table he stopped walking, plunging the room into silence yet again. A moment passed and then the person looked up.

Glossy green eyes stared into the slits in his mask and shocked Batman (an uncommon feat). The person's eyes were the first thing he saw, closely followed by the smooth red hair that hung down in them slightly. That was when he saw that this small person wasn't just child sized. He was a child.

The boy looked up at him fearfully for a moment before Batman realized that he wasn't a very kid-friendly image, and that he should say something.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, rather harshly. He frowned at his lack of tact. That hadn't come out as consoling as it had sounded in his head.

"I don't know," the boy said, softly. A tear ran down his already wet cheek and he let out a little sob, burying his face in his hands. Batman sighed, and then crouched down so that the was on the same level as the boy.

"Stop crying," he said, trying to sound comforting. Even to him the words weren't as convincing as he would have liked. "You're safe here." Batman was still wary of this little intruder, as he had seen magic (among other things) do much more than cause someone to appear as a child. But his deep rooted paternal instinct was rearing its ugly head and he couldn't quite help but give the boy the benefit of the doubt as to why he was there.

The boy sniffled and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "Why don't you come out from under there?" Batman asked, moving back a bit to give the boy space.

The kid looked at him a little less fearfully than before and crawled out from beneath the table. Batman noticed with a flicker of interest that the boy had on a red shirt that bore Flash's circle-and-lightning symbol.

"Who are you?" Batman asked, beginning to think about what he was going to do with the kid (if that was really all this person was).

"Wally," the boy answered, catching Batman off guard and making it the second time in as many minutes that the kid had surprised him.

"What did you say?" he asked, sounding slightly more menacing than was strictly necessary.

"Wally. I'm Wally." The boy looked a little intimidated by Batman's demeanor, but gave his answer in a perfectly clear voice.

"Wally?" Batman repeated, recognition bubbling up inside him. "Wally...West?"

"Yep," the boy said, smiling a little bit. As he grinned he seemed to lose some of his fear, as if just smiling could give him all the confidence he needed. He puffed out his chest in pride and stood a little straighter. "I'm Wally Wudolph West," he said, stumbling over the 'R' in Rudolph.

Batman stared. His mind worked frantically to deny what he was being told, but the boy standing before him did looked like the Wally he knew. The hair, the eyes... It was a wonder that those features hadn't triggered some level of recognition before.

"Are you..." Batman struggled to find the right words to make this kid-Wally understand. "Can you... run fast?"

The kid-Wally looked puzzled, and then shrugged. "I can run sorda fast. But there are lotsa people who go faster than me."

Possibilities muddled Batman's thoughts. The Flash I know turned into a kid? Could be Flash from the past, and the present-day one is around here somewhere... In order to narrow them down, he asked, "Do you remember how you got here?"

Kid-Wally's eyes got very large and round, and he nodded. "Yeah! There was a big light, and then it was gone, and there was a guy with no hair, and he said something but I didn't know what it meant, and then he went away and left me here, and I was alone for a long time and I didn't know where I was so I got sad and I came in here and started to cry, but then you came and I stopped crying and now... Now is now!" He was smiling and looking very proud of himself.

Ignoring to extreme run-on and lack of actual information in the story, Batman thought for a moment and picked out what was probably the only useful fact contained within the entire narrative. "A man with no hair? Can you tell me anything else about him?"

"He had a black suit. And he was tall."

Batman considered this with a sinking feeling that told him the Flash he knew was standing right before him, scratching his head and mussing up his hair.

"Wally?"

"Yeah?" kid-Wally said, now trying to smooth back his hair so that it stayed out of his eyes. It seemed to stay in place for a moment, but flipped back into his face as soon as he dropped his hand.

"Do you remember anything before that?"

Kid-Wally stopped playing with his hair and blinked at Batman. He thought for a moment, chewing on his lower lip while his eyebrows pulled together. Then he looked down at his feet and started to shake slightly. It was only when kid-Wally started making whimpering sounds that Batman realized he had begun to cry again.

"Do you remember anything?" Batman repeated, unsure of how to deal with this fresh round of tears.

"I remember s-some stuff. B-but not e-everyt-thing," kid-Wally sobbed. He looked up from the floor for a moment before rushing forwards and throwing his arms around Batman's neck in a hug. He then buried his face in Batman's shoulder and continued to cry softly.

"I'm scared," he murmured between tears.

Batman's first instinct was to pull away from the embrace, but after a second's thought he figured that pulling away would not only hurt the kid-Wally's feelings, but would also probably knock him to the ground and physically hurt him. Instead he returned the gesture with the most Batman-ly hug he could summon and tried to think of something that would relax the boy.

"Are you tired?" he asked. And then, remembering Flash's never ending quest for food, he added, "Or hungry?"

Kid-Wally pulled back from the hug and sniffled before saying, "I'm sleepy."

Clearly this wasn't just a miniaturized version of the Flash.

"Alright." Batman stood up and was about to take kid-Wally in the direction of Flash's room, when his instincts told him how bad of an idea that could prove to be. If this was Flash from the past, showing him his future self's bedroom might mess up the time line or something equally damaging. "You can sleep on my bed," he said, deciding that it was better to be safe than sorry, and began to walk towards his room in the Watchtower.

"What about you?" kid-Wally asked, following behind at a slower pace.

"I have to go home. I'm needed in Gotham for important business tomorrow and-"

"No! You can't leave me alone!"

Batman turned around, surprised by the boy's sudden outburst. "I have to."

"Then I'll go with you!"

"No."

"But I'll be scared alone," kid-Wally said sadly. He rubbed at his eyes and looked as though he was about to cry again.

It appeared as though Batman had forgotten how manipulative children could be when they wanted something. The thought that he could ever have forgotten the many times he had been tricked into doing something he hadn't wanted to by Dick made him inwardly embarrassed. But, the damage had been done.

"I'll stay. But don't cry!" he growled, a little harshly. The boy smiled up at him anyway. It would have made Batman angry had it been the Flash he knew, but since it wasn't and it actually did make sense for him to stay so that he could explain to the other heroes the next day, he let it go without another word.

The two of them walked in silence until they reached Batman's room. He tapped a code into the keypad beside the door and it slid open without a sound. "There's a cot around here somewhere that you could sleep on," Batman said. He rummaged around in his rarely used closet and pulled out an unfold-able cot along with an extra blanket and pillow.

Once it was set up, he motioned for kid-Wally to get in bed, while he went into the bathroom and changed out of his Batman suit and into pajamas more suited to Bruce Wayne.

Upon reentering the room, he found kid-Wally apparently sleeping soundly on the cot, so he followed the kid's example and climbed into his own bed. It felt good to finally close his eyes after the long day he had spend wide awake, but as soon as he felt himself drifting off there was an unexpected pressure on the bed. Bruce cracked an eye open to see kid-Wally slipping in bed beside him. He thought momentarily about ousting the boy, but decided to let it slide after he heard a soft sniffle that indicated Wally was still upset.

He closed his eyes again, and fell asleep to the sound of kid-Wally's soft, steady breathing.

AN: So, there you have it! Thanks for reading! Superman pops up next chapter... It would make me very confident if you reviewed, because right now I'm seriously doubting whether or not anyone besides me is going to be interested in this story.