#2 - 24 Hours in the Fastlane

By Bill Kte'pi

"Would you pick up your cards?"

"Look, there's really not much point. This isn't my game. It's too easy. If I'm not careful, I can catch a glimpse of the cards as you're dealing them, and when your heartbeat increases, I feel the velocity shift in your veins. You can't bluff me."

"Nifty. Pick up your damned cards, Barry. You're about to be schooled in the gentle art of poker."

"Not like we haven't played before." Barry dropped by Tim Hunter's place in the English countryside about once a month -- although he knew Tim often felt it was longer, or shorter, thanks to the accident that'd messed with his sense of time -- for a game of poker, some good gin, and the meat pies Tim made meticulously from his mother's recipe. Tim was pushing forty, but they'd always gotten along pretty well -- they'd met when Tim helped the Justice League on a case when Felix Faust had kidnapped all the Leaguers' kids, and somehow just clicked, even though Barry was only twelve at the time. He figured Tim could probably relate to a kid who had powers he didn't know what to do with and wasn't sure he wanted.

Tim grinned, looking over his cards as he leaned back in his wheelchair. "I've always gone easy on you. This time, we're playing for the big stakes."

"Yeah, well, don't go betting the house. I've beaten you, what, 45 games out of the last 50?"

"So you've nothing to lose, then, right?"

"Sure. Whatever. Pass the pie?"

Tim handed over the rest of the pie. "Have at it. You know I only make a whole pie cause I know you'll eat it. You should drop by more often, I don't get enough chances to cook. I try to when John comes by, but his appetites are ... strange."

"Tim Hunter, gourmet chef. It's a long strange trip from Boy Wizard, man."

"Not so far as all that, really. The world may not have any magic left, not the kind it used to, but cooking -- cooking's the oldest magic there is. You take one thing, you turn it into another. Doesn't get any better than that."

"Pretty damn good pie, anyway."

Tim picked up his cards, and Barry picked up his. Two queens, a deuce, a three, and a nine. Tim's heartbeat stayed steady as he looked at his cards. No ripple, nothing. "You want to trade any in?"

"Yeah. Three cards." Tossed away the digit cards. Got another queen, a ten, and an eight in return. Three queens. Good hand.

"Dealer takes one card." Tim's heartbeat jattered a little. Not the good "I just filled out my straight" jatter, but the "I got what I didn't want" jatter.

"So what've you got?"

"Hang on. How do you feel about upping the stakes?"

"What, you want to lose more than a buck?"

"Don't assume I'll lose."

"Uh-huh. What'd you have in mind?"

"You win, I take your powers away."

Barry blinked at him. "What?"

"You heard me. It's what you've always said you wanted. You're like a President's son or something, you've said. People expect big things. They expect too much. Just cause you have the physical ability, says Master Barry West, doesn't mean you have the ability to play the role. Maybe I don't want to be a superhero, says Master Barry West, maybe I want to be a chemist or a bricklayer or a bus driver. So okay. I'll take em away. You can be a bus driver."

"I said all that?"

"You get talky when you're drunk."

"Eh."

"You get drunk a lot."

"Eh. Look who's talking."

"Don't be silly. I'm British, we don't get drunk. We get wankered."

"This is all pointless. You can't take my powers away."

"Sure I can."

"And you've never mentioned it before?"

"Just because I can doesn't mean I want to. I love you like a cousin, Barry, a distant hill-country cousin I avoid at large gatherings, but when it comes to your costume angst, you've a knack for whinging. Einstein didn't go around moping that he was so smart people expected him to not do dumb things. So you happen to have got your advantages by genetics, not effort. So what. You needn't be your father, but you can at least be yourself."

"Look who's talky now. I still don't see how you can do it. Magic died. It's all gone. Nothing's left except the Elementals and Integrals, right? The Holland chick, stuff like that? Or is there something you haven't told me?"

Tim smiled. "I'm a magician, Barry. Of course there's something I haven't told you."

"So fess up."

Tim pointed at the mantel over the unused fireplace. "See the owl?"

It was wooden, simply carved, like the kind of thing a gifted but novice sculptor might come up with. Unpainted, so it was hard to make out some of the detail. "Yeah."

"That's it."

"That's what?"

"That's what was left over of the magic. All the magic in the world, the drips and drabs that stuck to things when the rest got sucked away. I collected them, put them in an owl for safekeeping. They can't save the world or even a life -- it's harder to give than it is to take away -- but it's enough to make you normal."

"Not to bring back Iris."

"No. And Barry -- we talked about that when your mother died."

"Yeah yeah, the whole monkey's paw argument."

"Just one of those things, kiddo. So are we upping the stakes or what?"

Barry looked at his cards. "And if I lose ... ?"

"Thought you didn't lose."

"But if. I mean, you're a magician and all, I'm not wagering my immortal soul here."

"Nor would I have it. If you lose, you go see your father. You spend a minimum of twenty-four hours with him. Non-stop. Starting in the morning, Keystone City time. You don't have to hold his hand while he takes a wee, but that's it. I expect you to bond, but that's not technically a requirement of the wager."

"..."

"Well? Put your money where your mouth is, speedo."

"This is stupid."

"So?"

"Tim, you know I'll win. You're one giant tell to me. Your whole biochemistry gives you away. I couldn't ignore it if I wanted to. I can't even handicap myself. It's like I've got the script and you're playing blind."

"So you've nothing to lose but your powers, then. Are you chickening out because you're afraid to win? I don't have to take them away. Or not right off. You could wait ten, fifteen years before taking me up on it. You know how I am about time. It's all the same to me."

"Man, screw that. Sure I want em gone. All right, fine. Fine, we're in."

"On your honor as a gentleman and a scoundrel, binding agreement, and so forth?"

"Jesus. Yes. I solemnly swear to uphold the terms of the wager, et cetera et cetera."

"Okay, then. What've you got?"

Barry spread his cards out on the table. "Three queens, Unca Tim. Get that owl ready, no point in waiting. Hit me with the whammy stick and send me back to Kansas."

Tim smiled that Tim smile, and gracefully spread his cards out like a Monte Carlo blackjack dealer. Four aces and the king of spades.

"No way."

"Oh, but yes."

"No fucking way. I would've noticed. I would've felt your heartbeat."

"You know how Houdini did his thing? Breath control. Pulse control. Magic wasn't my only trick, Bar."

"Four aces? Four damn aces? How'd you know you'd win?"

"That's the other thing." Tim grinned that Tim grin. "I cheated."

"You son of a --"

"Watch it. Don't blaspheme the Inventor Of The Pie."

"Never trust a magician."

"Told you that more than once. Hell, I told you that tonight, you silly sod."

"Don't suppose you'd play another hand for the owl."

"That's the other other thing. I lied about that. I made the owl when I was a kid. It's just wood."

"..."

"Magic isn't bread dough, Barry. There are no drips and drabs. It just went away."

"Shit on toast."

"No time for breakfast, chum. Morning in Keystone started twenty minutes ago. Better get moving."

Hour one.

Tim didn't say I had to talk to my father. I just had to spend twenty-four hours with him. Fine. Was I being creative in my interpretation? A little like a petulant child? ("You didn't say I COULDN'T have chocolate cake for breakfast!") Also fine. Tim cheated. It was only out of some weird screwed-up inherited sense of honor and fair play that I felt I was still obligated to hold up my end of the bargain.

Didn't mean I had to do it the way Tim wanted me to.

I used to love the old tall tales about Pecos Bill, Mike Fink, Paul Bunyan, stuff like that. The movie Pixar did a few years before I was born, it was on cable a lot when I was growing up. Pecos Bill saved a farmer's crops by shooting the raindrops out of the air before they could hit the ground. That was great, I thought.

It's the last time I remember being in love with speed.

But whatever my feelings about it, I could still take advantage of it. Wally was slow now. Human slow. Normal slow. Cross at the light slow. Let me just put you on hold for a minute slow. My father was everything I'd wanted to be for the last fifteen years or so. Just a normal guy who used to wear too much spandex.

So he wouldn't see me if I didn't want him to. I dodged photons like shooting raindrops from the sky. I stayed right by his side, just like I promised I would, shifting the velocities of air currents so he wouldn't even feel my wind brushing the ginger hairs on his arms. Because that's how good I was.

Bart got watered-down genes, the shit that had been passed down and chipped and ripped and tattered and battered for a thousand years, even if it was bulked up by the Thawne side. Me? I was close to the edit. I might not have had Wally's full ability -- when he had any -- but it was near enough, and because I hadn't lived my life kissing the Speed Force, I was more adept at it. I lived in the fast lane; Wally, for most of my life, had been going too fast to even see the road.

Iris got the full dose, I thought. It was hard to say: she died so young, only sixteen. I had six years on her. And by following Wally's model so closely, she emulated the ways he used his powers: calling herself Kid Flash, it was so old school, it was like she was just trying to resurrect someone who didn't exist anymore, instead of doing it her own way. She wanted his respect. She wanted his love. She thought the best way to get it was by being as much like him as possible -- the him he'd been, when he was still human.

Problem was, I figured, Wally didn't like himself very much. Not after Mom died. Not after Hal died. And Jay, and Max, and Jesse. Jay lived long enough to be at Mom's funeral. That was good. I mean, it's not like I had anything against superheroes. And Jay? Jay was a Flash you could respect. Jay was human, as human as they came, "just plain folks" like they used to say. Jay kept it real.

So seven a.m., there I was, following Wally.

He didn't have a damn idea what to do with himself.

He couldn't seem to stop fidgeting, couldn't stop moving, but he was getting tired. He'd jog around the park for a while -- he didn't even have a house anymore, where was he gonna go? -- and then stop, panting, this look on his face ...

I didn't like seeing the look. Didn't like thinking about it. There was so much pain there. More than at Iris's funeral. More than at any of the funerals. Pain, and frustration, and disbelief, and sheer helplessness.

It's like --

In the movies. Those bleak, hyper-real movies, the ones that are supposed to show you just how true to life the filmmakers are being. When the guy's wife gets run over, the car coming out of nowhere, the blood so real, the neck so snapped. And he picks her up, he's still talking to her, he's trying to stop the blood, as though blood loss is what you gotta worry about when you're dealing with someone whose head is as loose as a spent elastic. That look on the guy's face, when he finally looks up enough that the camera can catch his expression. That's the look. It's more than sorrow, it's more than anguish, it's this nerve-freezing shock.

Hour Two.

Breakfast, and he over-ordered. Wally, Wally, Wally. You're not Captain Lightspeed anymore. You don't need a dozen Egg McMuffins to chase your dozen Wafflewiches.

I watched him eat the first handful in big tearing bites, and the queasiness pass across his face as he realized he wasn't processing it at the speed he was used to. He was full, painfully full, I could feel his metabolism creaking from the effort of churning fried egg, cheese, ham, waffle, bacon, apple.

Well, at least the Justice League expense account would be taking a lesser hit.

Hour Three.

I got a respite from Wallysitting. He spent two hours in the bathroom. Tim specifically said, I didn't have to follow him there. For two hours I kept an eye on the door while reading King Lear, watching Tarantino's loose adaptation of it, Cordelia Hits It, and writing a paper on the differences in scene structure for a film studies journal, editing as I went. Like Wally used to, I went through a lot of food in a day. Unlike Wally, I didn't have the Justice League expense account to fall back on. I made ends meet, because there weren't many skills I couldn't learn if I took the time, and my productivity was off the hook. A little freelance here and there kept me in Ramen and beer -- I just couldn't afford too many nice clothes or nights on the town. My money all went to food. The apartment I'd inherited from Jesse.

Hour Five.

Green Lantern paid a visit -- Guy Gardner, the new one, the old one, whatever. He'd shaved his head to hide his near-baldness, and floated down from the sky surrounded by emerald, like a god. I hadn't seen him in a few years, not since he was reassigned to sector 2712, and the new kid had taken over for Earth. Wally was just leaving the McDonald's.

"Wally."

"Guy. Long time."

"Yeah. I've been clearing an infestation of Sinestroids out of my sector. But Kyle wanted to say hi."

The glowing green spirit of Kyle Rayner, who sacrificed his body to rebuild the Green Lanterns' Central Battery, floated out of Guy's ring. He looked only a few years older than me. "Wally. Hey, man. I felt what happened."

"You felt it?"

"Yeah. I mean -- first with Iris. I was there at the funeral, with the kid, but you know. Couldn't get your attention to give my condolences."

"'Preciate it, though."

"Felt you leave the Speed Force, too. What's up, man?"

"Just one of those things, Rayner. I lost the touch. 'Crisis-Bomb,' Bart calls it."

"Impulse?"

"Flash now. Passed it on to him."

"What about Barry?"

"What about him?"

"Wally."

"He doesn't want it. He never wanted it. Doesn't want me around. Hates me. Don't blame him. I don't even know why I'm still in Keystone. I should go retire somewhere. The Florida Keys --"

"Man, don't say Key."

"Yeah, wasn't thinking. Florida, though. California. Back to Blue Valley. I don't know."

"Can't see you as the retiring type, Wall."

"What can you see me as?"

Long silence. Guy looked at his feet. "We both kind of moved on to other things, didn't we?" Kyle asked.

"Well, you died."

"Only my body. And -- part of me, I can feel part of me off in some other place. Iris is there. And ... she's there, too --"

"Don't say her name."

"I just wanted you to know. She's there. She's happy. It's a good place."

"I never thought otherwise."

"Wally, you've been ... something else ... for a long time. I mean, I feel weird even calling you Wally. For awhile there -- I'm not sure where you ended and the Speed Force began."

"I don't think there was a 'where' there. It was like you and the Battery."

"Yeah, but I died. You didn't. You're still alive. You gotta learn how to be alive again."

"Look, I appreciate this, and Kyle, it's good to see you -- it is, I didn't realize I'd missed you, you son of a bitch -- but I don't need you playing Clark right now, with the pep talks and the 'go team go.'"

"So down to business, then?"

"There's business?"

"Corps business."

"Can't be much help to you there, I'm just a guy now."

"Yeah. But you wouldn't have to be." Kyle nodded at Guy, who took a ring from a pocket. "Ff'ffl'wicz in 1079 passed away in his sleep. Old age. I need a new Green Lantern. You want the job?"

Wally looked at the ring for a long time. "You're serious."

"Damn right I am. Like I'd doubt your competence? Hey, we had our friction, but you saved my life almost as many times as I saved yours."

"Twice as many."

"Half."

"If it weren't for me, the Mirror Master would still have you trapped in that emerald --"

"And if it weren't for me, you'd still be hauling Qward across the galaxy."

"Anyway."

"Anyway. You want it or not?"

Wally looked at the ring for a long time. "No. No. It's -- thank you, Kyle. Guy. Really. Thank you. But it's not the same. No offense, but it would be like a consolation prize. I don't miss power. I just miss me."

Kyle nodded, and Guy put the ring back. "We all do, Wally. We all do. But the power wasn't you. We've been missing you a lot longer than you have. Think things over, okay? And talk to your son. Really."

Kyle nudged me, and I jumped, almost losing concentration and showing myself to Wally before the emerald spirit disappeared back into the ring like a genie.

"Anyway, Wally," Guy said, "I've got some yellow bastards to beat the crap out of. But, you know, if you need anything, you can get ahold of me through the JL. Just like always."

"Yeah." Wally shook Guy's hand, and smiled a weak smile. "Yeah, thanks Guy. Seriously. It was good to see you. I'm out of sorts. We'll get a drink sometime."

And Guy was gone again, gone to the sky far above us.

Hour Six.

Wally picked up a pair of sunglasses and a hat he could pull down and hit the Flash Museum. Jesus, was this guy the expert at bruise-probing or what? I spent a few hours shadowing him as he made his slow way past the Gorilla Ray, the Cosmic Treadmill, the Velocity Exhibit, the Costume Cage, the Interactive Timeline.

A couple people recognized him. They didn't say anything. Respect? Uncertainty? His identity may be public, but the last time most people got a glance at Wally West, he didn't have any grey in his hair.

He walked right past the gift shop. Down the service hall. Stopped. The wall at the end of the hall led to the Flash's secret room in the Museum -- but there were no doors. You could only enter by vibrating through, or being brought through by someone else. It was the closest thing he'd had to a home since Iris started college early. A place where he could inspect evidence, interrogate perps, that sort of thing. Now he couldn't even get in.

Bart was in there. The room must have had proximity sensors or something, cause he came vibrating out in his zappy new Flash costume, silver with red trim: and he saw me, of course. Dodging photons didn't make me invisible to someone who could do the same thing, no matter what physics says.

"Shut up, Bart." My voice was a superfast squeal, something Wally couldn't hear any more than he could hear a dog whistle. "Wally doesn't know I'm here, and I want to keep it that way."

"The hell for? You're spying on your dad now?"

"I made a bet with Tim Hunter. I lost. I have to spend twenty-four hours with Wally. Okay?"

"I'll keep it zipped for the moment."

The brief exchange took place in a pie-slice of a second, and Bart turned his attention to Wally, speaking in normal time. "Wally, hey. You want in?"

"How many hours has it been so far?"

"We're in on six now."

"Surprised you've stuck it out this long. I don't know why you hate him so much, Barry."

"It isn't hate. It's just ... I don't know him. You knew him before. I didn't. Only when I was a little kid."

"Yeah, well. But you could know him now."

"Nah," Wally said. "I was just, you know, looking around, I guess."

Bart shook his head. "C'mon. It's your place, really. C'mon in."

"So," he asked me. "You're not allowed to leave his side at all? Gotta stick it out the whole two-four?"

"Yeah."

"One million bottles of beer on the wall, one million bottles of beer. Take one down, pass it around --"

"What're you doing?"

"I'll stop when you go visible and talk to your father. Nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine bottles of beer ..."

I followed Bart and Wally through the wall to the Flash's office, where the two of them talked over theories of velocity, Bart doing his best to get Wally's accumulated wisdom on how best to use the speed. Bart kept telling him I should be the Flash. Wally kept saying I didn't want to be. In between syllables, Bart kept singing. And singing. And singing.

Hour Fourteen.

"Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse! ... THREE billion bottles of beer on the wall, three billion bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around --"

Wally took a nap. Bart didn't.

Hour Sixteen.

"I'm 'Enry the Eighth I am, 'Enry the Eighth I am I am, and I've got TWO billion bottles of beer on the wall, two billion bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around --"

Bart had long since gone invisible along with me, and was tailing me tailing Wally, who sat outside a coffeeshop fidgeting with his coffee. I think he was trying to fight off being tired. He'd lost his metabolism. He had to sleep now. And he didn't like it.

Dinah was the next caller, in her civvies instead of the red and blue robes of the priesthood, heavy S symbol hanging around her neck like a retro rapper. She dropped down from the rooftop on all fours, bathed in the green neon of the coffeeshop's logo, and grunted as she cartwheeled left into the chair opposite Wally. The way Dinah moved since the Kandor Caper always reminded me of that Aeon Flux movie. Not bad for a sixtysomething. She'd aged damn finely, like Sophia Loren.

"Wally," she said.

"Dinah. How'd you know where to find me?"

She smiled. "I'm still technically a Leaguer. The satellite can track you now that you're slow enough."

"Ah. Thanks for the reminder."

"Wally, I'm here to make my pitch."

"For the League?"

"For the Church of Superman."

"Dinah ..."

"Stop."

"You know how I feel about that sort of thing, after what happened back in the day."

"This is different."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. Look at yourself. You're straight-up human now, total vanilla. Obviously you're not a god."

"Thanks."

"It's not an insult, Wally. You didn't want to be a god. But Kal-El --" Dinah pronounced it the church way, "ka-LELL." "Kal-El is another story. He's died and come back. He lives in the sun. There have been signs --"

"-- like the Virgin Mary in a waffle --"

"-- like spontaneous bullet deflection. You know even the Catholic Church is debating revising the requirements for beatification, to allow for the inclusion of immortals."

"What?"

"You didn't hear?"

"Until recently, I was ... on the go a lot, Di."

"There's a movement to get Kal-El beatified and eventually canonized as the saint of superheroes. Since some of our members co-practice Catholicism, we're considered a cultus in their favor. It's gaining support, Wally. It's going to change the world of religion."

"So you're asking me to be, what, a priest?"

"Yes. A bishop eventually, I would bet, the bishop of Keystone and Central. But I can't promise that. I'm only a Cardinal."

"Dinah, this is such a strange conversation. Can you imagine having this with Barry?"

"Your son only attends our services to piss you off --"

"No. Barry Allen."

"Oh." Dinah frowned. "Barry was a good man, but his time has long since passed. The world has moved on. Vigilantism's over with, Wally. It's time to do more than fight crime. It's time to fight evil at its core: behavior and belief. Change the way people believe, and you will change their likelihood to do evil. It's time to do something about ethics."

Wally frowned. "It's not that I don't see your point. It really isn't that. I just -- Di, it rubs me the wrong way. I think Ollie's right, I think it's asking for trouble -- or that at the most, you can expect a fad like transcendental meditation or memory regression."

Dinah stood up, giving him her best regal bitch. "I'm sorry you feel that way." She turned to leave so abruptly that she knocked his coffee over. He reached for it, but by the time his fingers were anywhere near, it'd landed on the ground.

He just sat there, watching the coffee leak over the sidewalk.

Hour Seventeen.

"I'M 'Enry the Eighth I am, 'Enry the Eighth I AM I AM, and I'll tell you what I want, what I REALLY REALLY want, I want ONE billion bottles of beer on the wall, ONE billion bottles of beer, take one down, smack it around, nine hundred ninety-nine million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall..."

Bart was seriously getting on my nerves, but he shut up when Batman stepped out of the shadows. Not Dick. Bruce. I probably should have seen him coming, but -- well, he was Batman. That's how it went. He hadn't worn the costume since Dick put it on, but that didn't fool anybody. He hadn't aged like Dinah had. He was more like Kirk Douglas. Gnarled and thewed, like he could beat your ass with one hand while cashing in his social security with the other.

He didn't bother to take a seat.

Wally looked up at him, with this look of something or other in his eyes -- respect, maybe, or even awe. Hard for me to remember, old as the old man was, that when Batman hit the scene Wally was just a teenager, younger than me. "God, Bruce. I've had too many offers today. Please don't tell me you want me to be Robin."

Batman grunted. "Sorry to hear about your loss, Wallace. The man responsible has been dealt with."

"Yeah, I know, Bart told me. The Psycho-Pirate. Picked him up in a Sugar and Spike hypertimeline, sent him to the proper authorities."

Impatient grunt. "I said your loss."

"I'm sorry?"

"Not your powers, Wallace. I'm sure it's a shock to be human again, but I'm talking about Iris. The man who killed Iris."

What? "You found him?" Wally stood up. "You found the son of a bitch who --"

"Yes."

"Where is he? Who is he? What the fuck --"

"Hired man. Working on the leads to the boss. I'll let you know. But it's in hand."

"I want to see him. I want to see the man who killed my little girl." I'd never seen this much emotion from my father before; he was trembling, his hands shaking against the table.

"... I've already taken care of him. Some things aren't for a father to do, Wallace. I know that better than anyone. Some things need to be done in the dark."

"What did you --"

"You don't want to know."

"Bruce, goddammit --"

Batman crouched down so his eyes were level with Wally's. "I said you don't want to know, boy, and that's the end of it. The matter has been dealt with. You still have a son. You still have a child. Count yourself lucky and leave the dirty work to me." Wally started to say something else, but Batman had already turned around and was walking back to the alley, disappearing into the shadows. His voice called out from the dark, "She was a good girl, Wallace. A strong fighter. I'm sorry."

"Bart," I said. "Follow Batman."

"What're you, nuts?"

"Do it.

"Why? And what's with giving me orders? I'm almost twenty years older than you."

"Only physically. Go. Before he disappears like he always does. Follow him. Find out what he's got on the guy who killed Iris. It wasn't random, we know that. Whoever it was had something that wonked out her speed."

"Yeah, I know, I've been trying to find --"

"And Batman's gonna beat you to it. Go. Come on. Iris died, and Wally lost his powers. You think it's coincidence? The Psycho-Pirate's gotta be tied up in it. You could be next, Barto."

"You're just trying to get me to stop singing."

"I'll go visible, if that's what it takes."

"You're bluffing."

"Question is, are you more scared of Batman than I am reluctant to talk to Wally?"

"Fuck."

"You're wasting time. Go."

"Word of honor, you'll go visible and stay that way till your wager's up."

"Word of honor."

Bart vanished, zooming down the alleyway after Batman. And I did the only thing I could do. I slipped back into the way of the photons, and let Wally see me. I was sitting in the chair at the next table, with a coffee I'd been vibrating to keep him from seeing it, the excess heat shunted off to the sides.

"Barry?"

"Yeah ... hey."

"How long have you been here?"

"Awhile."

"... what, spying on me? What're you up to?"

So I explained. Told him about the bet. He gave me this look, this -- this thing, like he was thinking about the fact that I'd had to lose a bet to spend a day with him, and then did so invisible. But he didn't say anything about it. Just: "How much longer you got left?"

"Little less than seven hours."

"Long time."

"Yeah."

"Of course, I'll probably end up asleep for most of that. Guess you lucked out."

"Wally --"

"You never call me Dad anymore."

"Haven't since I was little."

"Why is that? Iris did."

"You stopped being Dad. You were just this thing. This thing that zoomed through the world. This thing that made it safer."

"I wasn't that bad."

"Oh, like fuck you weren't. My high school graduation?"

"I was there!"

"Yeah. AND you were fighting the Mirror Mistress."

"I should've, what, let her go? Forget about her?"

"Everybody's gotta draw the line somewhere. That's just one example. You? You didn't draw a line. You stopped everything you could. You never stopped moving."

"With great power comes --"

"Shut up."

"Iris understood."

"Iris NEVER understood. She just loved you anyway. And now she's dead."

He stared at my coffee. "You say that like there's a connection."

"Make of it what you will."

"Watch it, kiddo. I'm still your father."

"No. You know what? You're not. Hell, Tim is more of a father to me than you are. Do you even know anything about me?"

"Do you let me?"

"I can't believe we have another seven hours of this."

"Fuck it. I'm tired anyway. I'll get a motel room and sleep."

"Use my apartment."

"Why?"

"Cause I still have to stay near you. And I'd rather go to my apartment."

"You're really sticking to this wager."

"Magic or not, Tim's a magician. I figure it's not a good idea to break my word to him."

Hour Twenty-Two.

He didn't sleep well. I read books, watched silent movies with my finger on the fast-forward button, finished the final touches and remixes on an album I was producing for the Dirtysomethings.

He kept talking in his sleep, tossing and turning and calling out Iris's name, and my mother's.

Hour Twenty-Four.

The first thing Wally did when he woke up was look at the clock. "Time's just about up," he said.

"Yeah."

We didn't say anything for awhile, as he showered his slow shower and sat down at the table. Before I could make any coffee, Bart zipped in, arms laden with Krispy Kremes, Wafflewiches, hash browns, and Starbuck's. "Figured you two would be here," he said. "Got, what, twenty minutes left. So you can talk to me instead of each other, if it makes you feel any better."

"You're supposed to be watching Batman," I said.

"Yeah. I did. Sort of. He found me. I mean, the Batcave -- well, it's pretty equipped. We'll talk about it later."

"Chocolate kreme, who wants the chocolate kreme? C'mon, grumpy gusses, I've got chocolate kreme, blueberry glazed, powered huckleberry, jackfruit twist, pineapple kreme, coconut kreme ... who wants what? And eat the Wafflewiches while they're hot! I got em with extra maple and triple bacon."

Bart and I divvied most of the breakfast up among the two of us, while Wally cautiously nibbled on a single glazed donut and a chaispresso, and everyone ate in silence.

"C'mon," Bart said. "A toast. To the twenty-four hours almost being over! To getting through the day!" He raised his coffee, and I stopped him, raising mine.

"No," I said. "To Iris."

Wally looked up, and nodded. "Yeah. Okay. To Iris."

Bart touched his cardboard coffee cup to ours. "To Iris, then. To Kid Flash."

Somehow it was more of a funeral than the real one had been.