"Two"
“You want me to what?” Jessica Chambers struggled to control her surprise. It wasn’t as if she had never heard anything shocking before. As the super-hero Jesse Quick, she had actually become accustomed to seeing and hearing things firsthand that most people only read about or see on television. And it wasn’t as if what she had just heard was particularly scary. Even for someone who had come to expect the unexpected, though, this had come completely out of nowhere. Across the table, Wally West sat forward, his elbows on the table. He smiled, amused at Jesse’s reaction. “Did I stutter?” Jesse smiled and took a deep breath. “No, no, it’s just…wow. I didn’t know what to expect when you asked me to run with you this morning, but that was definitely not even anywhere on the radar.” “Okay. Let me try it again, then. Maybe with a little more of a segue this time.” “Thanks, yeah, that’d be nice.” “Okay.” Wally cleared his throat. “Linda and I are trying to have a baby. When it gets here, which isn’t for a while, of course, but when it does get here, someone’s going to have to take care of it. Linda’s working, and she loves it, she’s not going to stop for the baby, especially when I pretty much just sit around here at home when there’s not an alien invasion or a rogue to stop. So, when it gets here, I’m going to be taking care of it. Taking care of a baby and being The Flash aren’t exactly things that go hand-in-hand. I can’t really strap the kid to my back the next time the Weather Wizard decides to show up, but I also can’t just ignore the fact that Keystone and Central need a Flash. Basically, I can’t be in two places at once. So Jesse,” he said, looking her straight in the eye, “Will you be The Flash?” Jesse shifted in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest and sitting back. “It won’t be for a while.” “No. She’s not even pregnant yet, that we know of, so you’ve got at least nine months to make any kind of plans you’ll need to. And if you want to work on some things between now and then, I’d be happy to help you if you need it. But you’re competent and you’re an excellent hero. I know you can do this.” She sat for a moment, tapping the tip of her forefinger lightly on her upper lip. Wally watched her intently, waiting. “This is for real, Jess,” he said, trying to sell her on it. “You can think on it if you need to, I don’t want to press—” “Okay,” she said flatly, interrupting him. “I’m in.” He sat quiet for a moment. “Seriously?” “Yeah,” she replied with a smile. “Yeah, I’m in. I’ll be The Flash.” Two Days Later… A cool wind pushed past the curtains and into the bedroom of Wally and Linda West. The window on the far side of the darkened room stood open, and strong moonlight illuminated the windowsill and some of the floor inside the room. Linda West rolled over with a grumble and a shiver. She didn’t remember opening the window before she and Wally had gone to bed, but she figured he had gotten up in the night and cracked it. The aura which kept him safe from friction when he ran also kept his body heat in, and while it wasn’t usually a problem, when Wally slept under covers he would get very warm. Linda didn’t mind; it was nice, on cold nights, to sleep next to a perpetually warm body. Linda slid out of bed and stepped lightly towards the window. She quietly closed the window and pulled the curtains tight, drowning out the moonlight. She turned to go back to bed. “Wake him up.” The gravelly voice did more than startle the groggy Linda, who looked up and caught a brief glimpse of the terrifying visage in front of her. She shrieked, stumbling backwards, away from the shadow-cloaked figure and into the curtains, grasping one of them to keep from falling. Before she could blink, Wally was out of bed, pinning the larger man to the wall, his forearm across the man’s chest, his other hand cocked back in a tight fist. His face was taut, and he barked at the man. “WHO ARE YO-” He cut himself off and blinked before letting the man go. The sound of Linda’s scream had snapped him out of sleep, and he had acted on total instinct. It had taken him a few seconds to realize who the intruder was. In the darkness, it wasn’t clear, but having pushed him into the moonlight, Wally’s stomach tightened. The man’s long, black cloak covered most of his body, and the black cowl obscured his facial features, save for his mouth. The top of his head was flanked by two long horns which protruded from his cowl. Linda moved towards her husband. She wrapped her arms around his torso, and he put his arm around her shoulder. Across from them, The Batman grimaced. “Wally.” Wally sighed. “You couldn’t just call or something?” “Harvey Dent is coming to Keystone and Central. I thought you should know.” “Seriously, like a phone call would kill you.” “He’s obsessed with the number two.” “Yeah, yeah, I know, Dick’s told me about him. Why’s he coming here?” “Keystone and Central are known as the Twin Cities. Look for duplicate crimes in both cities, perhaps even simultaneous occurrences.” “Right.” Wally cocked his head towards the dark knight. “You’re here now, and he’s one of yours anyway. Why don’t you handle it?” “This is your city,” Batman replied plainly. “I have my own to protect.” “Fair enough,” Wally replied with a smirk. He glanced down at his wife, who was shaking in his arms. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you the costume isn’t effective,” he said, looking back to the spot where Batman had been standing. He was gone. Wally kissed the top of Linda’s head and hugged her. She tightened her grasp around him and he smiled to himself. “He’s gone, sweetie. Take a deep breath.” 1:52 PM “You’re sure you’re okay?” Wally paced across the linoleum floor of the kitchen. He held the phone lightly to his ear. On the other end of the line, Linda sighed. “I told you, I’m fine.” “Don’t sound so annoyed, it took you an hour to calm down enough to get back to sleep last night.” “I’m okay, Wally, I promise. It’s one of those things where I remember what it felt like, but I can’t even really remember what exactly happened. I was tired to begin with, that probably made it worse.” “Next time I see him,” Wally said, trying to sound authoritative, “I’ll tell him not to sneak into people’s houses when they’re sleeping.” He heard Linda laugh. “No you won’t.” He paused for a second. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said with a shrug. “He’d probably make me cry…oh, wait, I’m not you.” “Are you making fun of me because Batman made me cry?” “If it makes you feel any better, the first time I met him, I wet myself.” “And that goes in the file of things I didn’t need to know about my husband…” “But then, I was a thirteen-year-old kid at the time, whereas you are a fully-grown woman, so…” “And you’re not being a thirteen-year-old kid now?” “Touché,” he said with a smile. “Seriously, though, you’re okay?” She was silent for a moment. “Yeah.” “What’s wrong?” “Nothing, we can…we’ll talk later.” Wally knew this meant two things, the first being that whatever they had to talk about wasn’t good, and the second being that he should drop the subject. He went to speak again when he heard a clicking sound over the line. “I gotta go,” he said, “I’ve got another call coming in.” “Okay, I need to get back to work anyway. Love you.” “I love you, too.” He held the phone away from his ear and pressed a button before putting it back to his ear. “Hello?” “Flash, it’s Phil Harris, I need you to get here now.” 1:57:21 PM Detective Phil Harris hung up the phone as a strong gust of wind rushed through the bullpen offices of the Keystone City Police Department. He scrambled to keep any loose papers on his desk from flying into the air, and a moment later, a pair of crimson-gloved hands appeared to assist him. “You know people work here, right,” he questioned without looking. The Flash placed the last of the papers back onto the desk and smirked. “Sorry. What’s going on?” Harris hurriedly rooted through several papers before pulling one out. He handed it to the costumed man next to him. “Got this literally a minute ago. Read it fast.” Wally took the paper from him and scanned it. A moment later he was gone. The paper wafted in the air, and Harris caught it before it hit the ground. He slowly sat down in his chair and read the note again. 1:57:31 PM Wally recited the main points of the note mentally as he ran. Twenty-two bombs. Eleven in Keystone, eleven in Central, placed randomly throughout. All set to explode at two o’clock. I have less than three minutes. This could be a problem… He thought as he ran, in and out of every building. He knew this city like the back of his hand, but finding eleven bombs, and who even knew what they looked like, wasn’t exactly easy. Doing so before three minutes was up simply added insult to injury. And that was just Keystone, he’d still have Central to search. As he found the third bomb, it hit him. I can’t do this. I can’t be in two places at once. That’s what he’s counting on, too, his obsession with two’s. I can’t be in… His thought trailed off, and he flipped down the receiver from his earpiece… 1:59:49 PM “It’ll be over soon.” He punctuated his sentence with the flipping of a coin. The coin spun in the air for a second before falling. Harvey Dent snatched the double-sided silver dollar from the air and smiled. The gnarled skin of the left side of his face stretched as he did so, and the sound made the hired goon that was driving the car almost wretch. Dent turned over his shoulder, looking out the rear window at the cities he was leaving behind. “Isn’t it refreshing,” he asked no one in particular. “No ransoms. Just destruction. The twin cities, perfection, scarred forever. The Flash could never save both cities.” He paused for a few seconds, watching the cities, waiting. He wondered if he would be able to see the explosions, and which city The Flash would choose to save. Seconds more passed. Neither city’s skyline changed. Dent’s smile faded slowly. He whispered to himself. “What?” Without warning, the car dropped a few inches. Dent watched the wheels spin off the sides of the moving vehicle, and the sound of metal scraping across the pavement filled the ears of both of the car’s occupants. The car finally slid to a stop, and Dent kicked open the rear passenger door, sliding out of the car carefully. He stood and looked around. On the other side of the car, the driver scrambled from the car and took off running. A few feet from him, The Flash stood, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the disfigured man. Behind him in the distance, the cities Keystone and Central stood intact. Dent stopped in his tracks. “No!” The Flash smirked. “Yes.” “It’s impossible!” “You’d think so.” “You couldn’t have…” “I couldn’t have what?” The scarlet speedster moved towards him slowly. “I couldn’t have found all of them? You gave me almost three minutes, Harvey. You would’ve had more of a chance if I’d only had two.” “No,” Dent replied, backing into the car, away from the still-advancing hero. “I don’t…” “You can’t just stay in Gotham? You have to come here and cause trouble?” The Flash sped up, stopping right in front of Dent’s face. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Stay out of the Twin Cities. Batman may tolerate your kind of crazy, but I won’t. Do I need to say this twice?” Dent shook his head, and Wally stepped back from him. “Good.” He balled up his fist and swung, hitting Dent hard on the unscarred right side of his face. He fell against the car and slumped to the ground. Wally smiled to himself and stepped back. “You get the driver?” He blinked and a woman in a red and yellow costume appeared before him. She dragged the driver behind her. “Yep.” “Great. Thanks for your help on this one. For once, the madman was actually right. I couldn’t have done it on my own.” Jesse Quick smiled. “No problem, I’m happy to get out of the office during the day.” “It’s kinda funny, if you think about it.” “What do you mean?” “It took two Flashes to stop Two-Face.” “It took two Flashes to stop Two-Face.” Linda looked blankly across the table at her husband. “I bet you thought that was really clever when you came up with it.” Wally laughed. “You’re saying I’m not funny?” “I’m saying you shouldn’t plan to write jokes for Conan O’Brien one day.” He winced jokingly, and Linda ate another forkful of spaghetti. Wally smiled. “On another up note, now that Two-Face is gone, Batman shouldn’t be popping by any time soon.” He looked at his wife carefully. He had wanted to segue into talking about whatever had been bothering her earlier, but he couldn’t come up with anything better than what he had just said. He didn’t like pushing her, but at the same time he knew she sometimes needed to be pushed. Linda put her fork down and took a drink of milk. “I’m sorry about earlier,” she said as she put the glass down. “Don’t be,” he said. “Just…if you want to talk about whatever’s bothering you, I’m just saying we’re sitting here now.” They sat silent for a long moment. He could see she was collecting her thoughts. “I’m just not…I don’t know.” “What?” “Look at our life, Wally.” She looked him in the eyes as she spoke. “Look at…God, Batman came into our room last night! And I knew this was how it was going to be when I married you, part of what I love about you is how weird your life is, but I don’t…how can we, in good conscience, bring a baby into this?” It was something Wally had thought about at length. Since the age of ten, his superspeed had been a factor in nearly every decision he had had to make. He had a hard time remembering a time when he didn’t have speed. He sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair.” Linda eyed him. “Wally…” “Not to you, not to me, not to the baby. It’s not fair to anyone. And I’m sorry for that.” “Don’t be,” she said. “I made a choice. I came into this.” “Yeah, but the baby can’t decide for itself. We haven’t even…there’s so much to think about that we haven’t yet. So many different things that could happen.” He paused. “I guess I don’t think about what my life is anymore, because it is my life. It’s normal to me.” He stopped, reading her face for a moment. She looked down at the table, and Wally slid his chair around, stopping next to her. He rested his arm on the back of her chair and spoke slowly and quietly. “When we have the baby,” he said, “however that turns out to be, that’ll be normal. It’s a relative normal. And I swear to you, right here, right now, I swear I will do everything I can to protect that baby. I think that’s all either of us can do. That’s all any parent can do, powers or no.” He leaned forward and Linda looked up at him. He smiled. “If I promise to love it and to keep it safe with everything that I have…I think I can feel alright about bringing it into any world.” They looked at each other for a long time. Finally she moved towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He held her tightly. Linda took a deep breath and released her hold on him. “How’d you get so smart all of the sudden?” Wally’s smile widened. “It was Batman, actually, he OW OW OW.” Linda released the hard pinch to her husband’s back, and Wally winced. “Can’t say I didn’t deserve that.” Next Issue: Magenta Previous Issue | Next Issue |
