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Zolomon shows him his children, and Wally sees red.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, can’t slow down. Irey and Jai need him, if only he could find them. He has to get to them, has to save them, because he knows they can be saved. They’re trapped, and they need him. So he’ll find them. And then they’ll be together, him and Linda and the kids, and they’ll be a family again. They’ll be okay.
But Linda’s gone, stolen away by that twist in time nobody foresaw. Wally can’t let his children go the same way. He can’t be alone.
Time is relentless. The children are gone.
Wally sees red.
The Lanterns try to stop him. Try to contain him. Splashes of green splattering against his red world. A hammer, a rocket, a net, a dragon. Misguided attempts to slow him down, to stop him.
He can’t be stopped. He won’t be stopped. Not by them.
“You have to give it up!”
Kyle — an annoyance. The arrogant rookie who tried so hard to prove himself. Who wouldn’t listen. When did he become such a hotshot?
“He’s too strong!”
Jessica — a stranger. The new Lantern who didn’t exist in the Before. She doesn’t know him. She doesn’t know what was taken from him.
“Wally, don’t do this!”
Hal — who might’ve been a second uncle. Who took him for ice cream and joyrides. Who taught him how to flirt, how to get a date, how to win over the cute reporter. Who razed the Lantern Corps to the ground when he lost his home.
“I don’t want to hurt you.!”
Hal — who lived to see his home, his life , restored.
“That ring will destroy you!”
Hal — who taught him how to use a ring, years and years ago.
“Just give it to me.”
An open hand. Beckoning.
He sweeps them all aside.
Wally sees red.
Lightning swirls around him, a cacophonous twister of scarlets and golds, velocities greater than physics allows, electrons moving between potentials faster than a mind can process.
He knows this lightning. He knows speed intimately as he knows his own mind. It’s part of him, essential as his flesh and bone, as his heart beating in his chest, as his blood pouring through his veins, spilling from his mouth.
It calls his name. His name. Not Linda. Not Iris or Jai. Not any part of him that matters.
He knows this lightning, but it seems to barely know him.
“Listen to me!”
He lashes out, moves with the lightning. Follows close enough to touch, riding on an impulse that tells him not to let the lightning out of his sight.
“Stop!”
A child lays at his feet, limbs splayed, surrounded by rubble. Goggles and auburn hair, a cream suit with a single bolted stripe, and the world slows, just for a moment. Just for a moment, his heart is light, and the edges recede.
Impulse.
“Please … ”
But it’s not his child. It’s not his Irey.
He screams, and the sound is jagged. It brings the world down around him, crumbling buildings like so many sandcastles, until all that’s left is him. Him and the lightning.
“What have you done?”
But the lightning isn’t corporeal. It’s only a sign, a trail.
The man kneeling defensively before him is corporeal. The hand brushing back a strand of hair, protectively gripping a small shoulder, is corporeal. The face, half-hidden but painted with fear and devastation, is corporeal.
Barry.
He breathes, and the world goes quiet, just for a moment.
“Kid Flash, dont —!”
The yellow blur nearly knocks him off his feet. He knocks it to the side in turn, engulfing it with his own red. It burns, and he lets it, brighter, bigger, stronger ...
“No!”
Barry’s anguish slides off him. Any pity that might have stayed his hand is extinguished with the sight of this boy. This boy with his name, with his suit, with his mentor — but none of his history.
“Stop! You’re killing him!”
What then? If the boy dies, won’t Barry just go back in time and save him? Another flashpoint, another timeline, another life wiped from existence. Another family stolen with no warning, no salvation.
“Wally, please! Don’t make me fight you. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Haven’t you already?
He drops a building on the Flash.
Wally tastes blood.
The hand glows, bathes the space around it in flickering, iridescent red. Its edges are rough, jittery, and drops of liquid light fall from it like molten lava.
He flexes, and the hand flexes in turn.
It belongs to him. An extension of his psyche, of his rage. He boils and it burns; he commands and it follows. There’s power behind every movement, every curve of a finger or bending of a joint, fueling every twist and twitch and clench.
Vitriol simmers beneath his skin, and it manifests itself in that red hand.
The air is still around him, heavy with dust illuminated by the last of the sun’s rays. The League had converged on him, and then dispersed, laid low and dripping red. If there was a fight, it’s hardly worth mentioning, much less remembering. All that remains is him, and the dust, and the hand.
He curls his fist, and the hand tightens its grip.
There’s no need to look at whatever it is the hand crushes. The trunk of a tree, the body of a car, the neck of a friend. All inconsequential. He’s alone — he’s more completely alone than he’s ever been. Perhaps more alone than anyone’s ever been.
He closes his eyes. The world is red behind his eyelids.
Where once there was a family, there’s now nothing more than a memory. Less than that — a hole, just behind his heart, gaping and bloody, ready to expand, to consume the world that had stolen everything from him. And he would let it, and he’d watch as everything crumbled, until all that remained was him, and the dust, and the hand.
“Wally.”
The voice is soft; the caress on his fingers is softer. He looks down. Brown eyes gaze back.
Iris .
She gazes back, so firm in her stance, so soft around her eyes. Her hand reaches up, barely able to graze against his fingertips where they dangle at his side. He hadn’t even noticed he was floating several feet off the ground.
“My precious boy.”
Here is the woman who raised him. His beloved aunt, who took him in, who taught him love. Who gave him family.
Something shifts.
The hand is still spitting off drops of light, but it’s dimmer now. The glow is muted, the jitters slower. It was never an extension of himself, merely a projection of the fire burning in his chest. It’s nothing more than a construct. He sees that now.
And he sees past the construct, to the gloved hands clutching at its grasp, to the blue and black armored body jerking and kicking below, to the unmasked face gasping for air above.
He sees himself choking the life out of his best friend.
No … Not him .
Wally relaxes his hand, and the construct fades away.
Nightwing’s knees hit the pavement moments before his own, and immediately he is engulfed by soft wool, the scent of peaches, amber, and sandalwood, the nostalgic sense of warmth and safety. There’s a hand tangled in his hair and another rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder blades.
“Wally … oh Wally … I’m so sorry.”
Iris’s voice is steady, but laced with sorrow, with loss. She understands , Wally realizes. She remembers them .
He lifts his face from her shoulder, marvels momentarily at the spot on her sweater soaked through with blood. His blood. He tastes it on his lips, feels it dribble down his chin.
A memory bubbles to the surface. Hal, with no grey at his temples, explaining the Lantern color spectrum. How there’s only one Orange Lantern. How every Star Sapphire is a woman. How a Red Lantern’s body will cannibalize itself.
Perhaps it is not simply rage that fuels the fire in his chest.
Nightwing approaches slowly, tentatively. His gait is uneven, one foot trailing on the ground. Wally watches his boots, unwilling to meet his gaze, to see the hurt, the betrayal that must be written in those eyes.
How many nights had Dick been there for him? How many times had he shared a drink, lent an ear, offered comfort?
How could Wally look at him now?
Dick kneels before Wally, takes his hand. His grip is gentle, reverent almost, as he slides the red ring off Wally’s finger.
Without the ring, the power that infused Wally’s body leeches from him, leaving only the weight of his bones and his deeds. He coughs, watching the spray of red from his mouth, and slumps in Iris’s arms.
How many people did he hurt — friends? How many did he …
“You’re gonna be okay, Walls.”
Dick’s voice is hoarse, barely more than a whisper. Iris adjusts her arms, cradles Wally to her chest, rests her cheek against the top of his head.
Wally buries his face in Iris’s sweater, chokes back a sob. He isn’t alone now … he never was.
But still, behind his eyelids, he sees red.