Chapter Text
Betrayal is a funny thing. It makes you wonder how good of a person you are, whether you belong wherever you are, whether you deserve the life you’ve been blessed with.
It’s not a good feeling, and it’s even worse when you have to look in the eyes of the very people you’re betraying while you do it.
It’s especially hard for one Wallace Rudolph West to smash the crowbar into the back of Artemis Lian Crock’s head. It would be worse if he had to look in her eyes. So he does it from behind.
The bar makes a horrible sound as it collides with her head. She falls straight away. Wally takes a moment to breathe deeply and stare in shock at what he’s done. Her hair has red in it. Oh god, he’s made her bleed. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
There’s red shining on the crowbar under the light of the flickering bulb. Maybe the light knows what’s about to go down.
It only takes seconds for one of the other members to respond. Seconds feel like forever to a speedster.
Wally? a panicked voice echoes in his head. M’Gann sounds worried. Understandable. Are you and Artemis okay? I can’t sense her mind anymore.
He pulls out of his funk with the hope that M’Gann won’t feel his remorse. She’s good at knowing emotions, too good, and too often his brain’s got stuck on The Plan only to look up and see her staring in confusion.
She’s never called him out on it, but it’s always been a worry.
Not like it’ll matter soon. Today’s the day, after all.
We’re both fine, he replies, systematically removing all of Artemis’ weapons – her bows and arrows, the knife she keeps in her left boot. It’s awkward to wiggle the shoe off and tip it upside down, but when the knife comes tumbling out he snatches it from the cold, hard ground. I don’t know why you can’t sense her. She’s definitely awake.
The mental link is silent for a few moment. Wally holds his breath. Here’s hoping M’Gann won’t somehow realise he’s lying. Or, hell, any of them. He’s sure the others can hear them, but it probably doesn’t matter to anyone but M’Gann, and they can’t risk trying to contact Artemis over the comms to check for themselves.
M’Gann is too trusting.
Well, if you’re sure…
Of course I’m sure, beautiful, he insists, speeding out of the room with Artemis unconscious inside. He locks the door behind him. The two of us’ll head over to you now. There’s nothing here, anyway.
Except that there is something here. There’s a whole stash of Velocity 9 packed into storage crates underground, right beneath this very warehouse, sitting pretty for the Wests to collect and distribute. There are people who work for his family outside, ready and waiting for his call to come and collect the members of his team. There are his teammates who are about to stop being his teammates. Because, oh yeah, he’s betraying them.
It’s weird. Even though this is what his whole life has been dedicated towards, even though he’s been preparing for this moment ever since he was ten, it still doesn’t seem real.
Artemis’ weapons get stashed in a box close to him. If she miraculously wakes up and gets out, she’ll still be screwed.
If she does he might have to fight her.
He doesn’t want to fight any of them, he doesn’t want to hurt them at all, but it’s sickeningly easy to use the same crowbar to smack down on Kaldur’s head. From behind, again. Why? Because Wally is a coward, that’s why.
Kaldur falls. There’s blood. He better not be dead.
He knows Kaldur has weapons because Kaldur trusts him. It strikes him, as he throws them across the room, that it’s just another thing that he’s breaking.
“Wally?”
M’Gann’s voice is. Oh. Shit. Her voice isn’t in her head. So that’s what Kaldur was looking in the doorway for.
“What are you…?” She trails off as her eyes fall on Kaldur’s limp form, flicking between that and the crowbar Wally’s still holding in his hands. Right. The crowbar.
“This is not what it looks like,” he promises, even though it’s exactly what it looks like and both of them know it. Her distress is vibrating through the link. He needs to knock her out before she can warn the others.
Wally darts forward and M’Gann stares at him in shock. This time when he slams down the crowbar he’s making eye contact, and it’s so much worse. He sees the water in her eyes. Sees the blur of himself.
The good thing about being a speedster is that things can go into slow motion. He catches her gently and lowers her to the ground. She’ll be one of the most hurt by this, but also the most likely to forgive him.
He doesn’t want her to forgive him.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, numb both from the shock of his own terrible self and the absence of the link. He stands are stares. M’Gann doesn’t carry weapons, because she is the weapon. He can relate.
It shouldn’t be this hard to walk away. He forces himself not to look back at the bodies. He needs to just carry on with the mission the way he’s supposed to.
Now for Robin.
It’s vitally important that he gets rid of Robin next, because Robin has a certain something in his utility belt that Wally needs to take down Superboy, and Superboy is Superboy and Wally could never even dream of being as strong.
But what he is is fast. He zooms in.
Conner has fast enough perceptions that he notices Wally running beside Dick (Robin, think of him as Robin and it’ll be easier) and slamming the crowbar into his ribs. He shouldn’t have to see that. And he shouldn’t have to see Wally yank the Kryptonite from inside Robin’s utility belt and dash over to him, hurling it without having to do so much as dodge a swipe.
Conner is meant to be strong, the strongest of them all, and seeing him fall to a small rock is almost funny.
“Wally,” Conner says. He sounds so vulnerable that Wally stops and stares for a couple seconds, unable to move. “Why?”
Wally hesitates. He can’t explain why, they’d never understand, and if they could he’s not strong enough to admit it.
He brings down the crowbar.
The couple of minutes it takes for the flood of people to arrive feels like forever. His father is at the head. Rudolph West looks grimly satisfied in his suit. He smiles when he sees Conner unconscious.
“You did good, son,” Rudy says, and Wally beams with pride.
But a smile can’t stop the guilty part of a heart.