Log: Jesse and Wally Who: Jesse Chambers and Wally West What: The first meeting between two awkward and powered up 13 year olds. When: March 2001 Where: Jesse's teenage home in the NYC burbs.
The Chambers. Wally wasn’t sure what was so important about them, but Barry seemed to think they were worth visiting. Honestly, though, sitting around while grownups yakked was boring. Wally had to sit through that often enough with his mom’s friends when littler. Now at thirteen, it wasn’t so easy to pin him down to sit, and he was hardly ever home anyhow (if he could help it).
So as soon as Barry started talking to one of the adults there, Wally looked around, looked back at Barry, stuck his foot out slowly and made a big, obviously-trying-to-sneak-away step. Then paused, watching him. When Barry paid him no attention, he grinned to himself and zipped away.
He passed a room at high speed, then backpedaled quickly, looking. His face immediately brightened. Yay! A younger person!
So suddenly he was there at the side of her desk, hand up and waving.
“Hi! I’m Wally. Wanna play?”
~~~
Jesse knew they were expecting company, but she’d been trying to get some homework done. She had a couple books out and a loud clacking could be heard as she typed away on her computer. She took a minute to stretch only to have a gust of wind show up and flip all the pages in her books. She looked up at the sudden intruder, slightly annoyed. She had been on a roll.
And while she was normally at least polite she couldn’t help the strange look that came over her face. “Play?” How old was this kid?
~~~~~
“Yeah!” He entirely missed her expression, looking at her through his goggles. “We can play... I dunno! Cards, board games.” Okay, so those could be really boring. “Or we can run around outside!” Because that’s what he liked to do.
Then he realized where he was, looking around and blinking. “Is this your library?” Cause while there was a bed in here, it didn’t look like a kid’s room. Or maybe she was hanging out in someone else’s room? He zipped over to her desk, looking it over.
Nosy? Yes.
~~~
She blinked at him a couple of times. She knew exactly who this was. Yes, Wally had just introduced himself, but even if he hadn’t the costume would have given him away. And while the thought of hanging out with someone her age with her powers was kind of awesome, it seemed the reality of the situation might have been different. He’d just interrupted her work and was now poking around her desk like an annoying gnat that couldn’t be swatted away.
“This is my bed room!” She said defensively. Shutting off her monitor and closing her books, not that it was private but as a show that being nosy wasn’t cool.
~~~~~
“What? But it’s so...!” He looked at her expression, his mouth still wide open. Then rubbed at the back of his head, looking up at a distinctly blank, plain white corner of it. “Nice.” The eyes whipped back to her. “Not that you wouldn’t have a nice room! But it’s...”
What AM I doing in a girl’s room? Even if it’s totally not girly looking?
He rushed out, which didn’t help, because her papers flew everywhere. He stood at her doorway, shifting his weight side to side. “Should we get a snack? Do you guys have soda? Maybe we can go outside! It’s nice out, you know.”
~~~
And suddenly just as he’d arrived, he was gone again in a gust of wind, knocking all her papers everywhere in her room. Which wouldn’t be that bad if she hadn’t been working on making French flashcards earlier, which meant that along with the papers her cards went everywhere too. All 150 of them. Annoyance crept through her, and she could feel her back tense as everything tumbled to the floor.
“Can you not turn that off?” She asked, partly it was annoyance, but it was also partly pure curiosity as well. She had turn hers on, so to speak. But she got down from the chair and began picking up her papers and putting them in some semblance of order. She shook her head recited the formula and had the papers up in a couple of seconds. “I think we have some fruit.” She replied helpfully. John Chambers who was all about living up to your potential wasn’t the biggest fan of junk food.
~~~~~
“Turn what off? What do you mean? What--.” He watched her, the cards being picked up. It looked normal to him, but then he realized his perception had changed, and the way she was picking up cards was much faster. “Are you...?”
Wally stared, at a loss for a full three seconds. Then suddenly he jumped back, pointing at her. “AH! You’re a GIRL!”
~~~
“It. Don’t you ever turn it off?” Hello, she was speaking plain as day right. The thought that he couldn’t turn it off never even came to her mind. That was how hers worked so why wasn’t his the same.
For the second time during this encounter she blinked at him, wondering if he was really real. “Are you high?”
~~~~~
He didn’t bother answering the question. Were his fast-as-light brain still not in a loop of being shocked that he had just learned about another speedster, he’d probably be very offended at the notion that he would ever touch drugs.
“You’re a speedster! A GIRL speedster!”
He may have been yelling a little.
~~~
“Why do you think you’re here?” She asked had he not been told what was going on. Her dad had mentioned that they were dropping by. God, she’d been placed on a speedster playdate hadn’t she?
“And yes, I’m a girl. Well spotted.” She said with a tint of hysterical sarcasm in her voice. “Is there a problem with that?”
~~~~~
“I DON’T KNOW!”
Because it was a legacy, right? Barry had the speed, and Wally’d had the same accident, and he was now a speedster too, and it was cool because it was kinda his and Barry’s thing! Not a girl thing! Especially not this very un-fun seeming girl! How did this happen?
He zipped in close, looking her over. “Didyougetzappedwithchemicals? Bylightning? Didithurt? Itstungabitforme!” Crap. Nope. His brain was not wrapping around this idea. He was still looking at her with a bit of a freak-out mode in his green eyes.
~~~
“You don’t know if there’s a problem with that?” Oh yes, Jesse was now just completely insulted to the very core of her being. And it really didn’t help matters when Wally zipped up close and looked her over asking a ton of questions. She clutched her papers to her chest and took a giant step back, but really it was towards the corner of her room, and she didn’t want to be cornered.
“No, lab accidents.” She replied quickly. “We have a- My father and I have a formula we recite.” Which didn’t make the biggest amount of sense. Her father explained it regularly but it was always coupled with talk of mantras and potential and whatever, and how she’d need to understand all of that to use it. She was wondering a little if he was full of it, considering she still didn’t get all of that but could use the speed anyway.
~~~~~
Wally looked at her dubiously, trying to decide if he did know if there was a problem with that. Okay... so slow down... She was a girl. She was a speedster. They weren’t bad guys, because otherwise Barry wouldn’t be over here visiting, right? Okay. Okayokayokay! It was okay!
“None? Not even a zap? Aw, C’monIwon’ttell! If it’s secret, I can keep a secret!” Well, he didn’t think he was lying. But he totally was. “How fast are you? Are you super fast? I bet you’re not as quick as Barry! Do you want to go outside? We can run! It’ll be fun!”
Because being a speedster was fun, he thought. The last three years had been a blast for him. Dangerous... but a blast!
~~~
She’d noticed that he actually hadn’t said her being a girl wasn’t a problem. Stupid boys. But apparently the mechanism in which she got her powers wasn’t interesting enough for him. “Not even a zap. I just... say the formula.” That sounded lame. Great now she was feeling self conscious about all of this. “So no secrets.”
She’d only figured this out a few months ago so questions like ‘How fast?’ were kind of over her head. She and her dad were still working on that. “I’m still trying to figure all of that out.” This idiot apparently had more experience with this, and he was way better at it. This was unacceptable. “I can fly though.”
~~~~~
“You just... say a formula...” Yeah, one of those red eyebrows was up. It wasn’t hard to tell, even with the goggles. “And zip! Off you go?” He obviously did not believe her. But he had seen her pick up the cards, so she obviously could do something. He just didn’t believe it was as simple as reciting words. Not yet.
Then she said she could fly and he laughed. A high speed laugh, which actually to normal ears sounded quite bizarre. Gee, and here he thought she wasn’t funny. She could make jokes! Which was good, because he liked jokes! “You can fly? Good one! No! Wait! I know this movie! Dark Crystal, right?”
~~~~~
“Yes, that’s exactly how it works.” She replied defensively. She didn’t know the exact mechanics, but that was the jist. She slapped the papers on her desk with a bit more force than was necessary. Now he was laughing at her? “You’re rude.” She stated straight away.
She took a step up to him. “I can too fly!” She could! She was just kind of... not so great at it at the moment.
~~~~~
“I am?” That made him stop laughing, hand to his chest. Nah, he wasn’t rude... Was he? “I’m not laughing at you!” But then he was grinning again. “It’s just funny!”
Uh-oh. Now she was back in uber-serious mode again. He zipped up in response to her step forward, no problem being face to face with her. “Okaaay-proveit.” He folded his arms, because this... this was going to be good!
~~~~~
“You don’t believe me. So you’re laughing. That’s rude.” She said defending her assessment of his character. He was being rude right now, no amount of explanations would change that. And then Wally went and did it. He put forth a challenge.
“I will.” She spit out pushing past him. She recited the formula under her breath-- she really didn’t want this guy knowing what it was-- and took off in her own gust of wind down the stairs and out the back door.
~~~~~
She seriously wasn’t joking, was she. Yep, this was going to be good! And he wasn’t missing it! (Even if she thought he was rude. He already thought she was uptight and pushy!) She muttered something, but he didn’t know what, and she took off.
“Wow!” he said, rather pleased. She was fast. Good! He rushed after her. All of Jesse’s cards and papers ended up floating around the room and settling on the floor again. By that time, the two were outside.
“See? I told you it was nice out here!” Maybe she would cheer up now that she wasn’t in that clinical, spotless, orderly room of hers.
~~~~~
Jesse didn’t much care how nice it was outside, even if it was a rather beautiful day. She looked around making sure to take in and pay attention to where the trees, houses, and power lines were.
She turned to look at him jaw set defiantly, and that was when she willed herself into the air and took off quickly circling a couple of trees. Ha! That should shut him up.
~~~~~
“Well? Anytime you’re....” His smirk dropped off his face, looking up. “...ready.”
The shock quickly wore off, and he sped along the ground, looking up. “Hey! You can fly!” That was cool! Wait... Why couldn’t he fly? He screeched to a halt, heel digging up some of their very nicely tended lawn, looking down at himself. How did she do it?
“Hey! How do you...?” Wally looked up, then pointed. “Heylookoutyou’reaboutto-!”
~~~~~
Alright, so she might have been feeling a bit smug, because when Wally started to get excited and actually admit that she could fly... well she’d done an extra loop de loop even if her control wasn’t the best. She was just about to answer that she didn’t actually know how she flew.
But when she looked it was just in time to hit a giant overhanging branch of a neighboring tree. It caught her right in the middle knocking the air out of her as she tumbled to the ground.
She wasn’t terribly hurt considering her main thought on hitting the ground was. Well, crap.
~~~~~
“Uh-oh.” Because he didn’t have anything more intelligent to say. It was also really instinct that if someone was falling, you found yourself underneath them ready to catch them! And wincing because you knew the landing was going to hurt. Wally put his arms out, then closed his eyes, grimacing at the inevitable.
“Oof!” Okay. She was a girl. She could fly. She was solid. There was nothing soft or fluffy about her. He was a tangled heap underneath, hand twitching. “Nice landing!” He squeaked when he said that. He totally did.
~~~~~
She hadn’t landed on the ground. Well not completely. She’d landed on something long and gangly, which meant she couldn’t even lay there to regain her breath. She swatted at the boy under her. “Your knee is in my kidneys.” She stated rolling off of him but staying on the ground.
“Why’d you try to catch me for anyway? You don’t have superstrength right?”
~~~~~
Wally squirmed out from underneath her awkwardly as she started to roll, laying flat on his back as well. “Well, you... have a sharp butt!” he retorted. Really, this girl didn’t have any fat on her. Did she work out all the time? Wait, he didn’t have any fat on him either. No wonder why the collision hadn’t felt great at all.
Then he sat up and blinked at her. “Well, no. But that’s what...” He rubbed at his hair, was distracted for a brief second as he rapidly flipped grass out of it with both hands. “It’s what you do!” Really, was he supposed to just watch her fall on the ground? He’d be the jerkiest sidekick ever if he let a girl do that!
Then he leaned back on his hands, looking up at the tree limb with a grin. “Still, crash aside...!” That had been pretty cool!
~~~~~
“I do not!” She argued back, resisting the urge to stand up and check out her own behind. But really it probably was an accurate assessment. Thus was the suckiness of being thirteen. “Thanks.” She said, because he really didn’t have to catch her, and he did. “But you really didn’t have to do that you know.”
She didn’t get up yet. “I probably shouldn’t have been showing off.”
~~~~~
“Why not? It was cool!” Suddenly he was crouching at her side, leaning over her, elbows on his knees as he grinned. He had missed some grass that was stuck in his bangs. He started to speak very rapidly, buzzing at her in excitement. “When did you learn how to fly? Who taught you how? Are you and your dad super heroes too? How many bad guys have you stopped? Do you think I can fly, too? Will you get a cape? Flyers tend to have capes! Maybe we can go running together! Yeah, that’d be cool! There’s this awesome place in South America that has a waterfall in a cave and thousands of water drops everywhere! Millions! Can you run that far? I can!” Then suddenly he stopped, standing. “I’m hungry. Let’s get a snack!”
He ran three steps, then stopped suddenly, looking back at her. “Oh. What’s your name?”
~~~~~
Why not? Well, she obviously wasn’t very good at it yet, and she had a feeling her dad might not be too happy about using her backyard for flying demolition derby. Still she didn’t have a chance to answer before Wally was rapidly shooting questions at her. “I haven’t run that far yet.” She admitted, again thinking she sounded lame. Was the Flash taking this kid everywhere like that? Because man was her life unfair.
“I’ve only been like this for like 6 months.” She continued trying to take the sting off of how ridiculous she felt. “But I think capes are a bad idea, what if they get caught on stuff?” Wally was already up three stairs and she was only now getting ready to get up. “Jessica.” She answered. “But everyone usually calls me Jesse.”
She met him at the stairs and led him into the kitchen, tossing an apple at him.
~~~~~
“Jessica? Jesse. I like Jesse better, too!”
He frowned, thinking about that. “Oooh, you’re probably right.” He was clumsy enough. She... didn’t seem too graceful herself. Cape was probably a bad idea! Yep!
He was busy exploring her kitchen (because he was a little rude), when he turned and got an apple in the goggles. “Ow! Hey!” His hands blurred, fumbling to catch it before shoving it in his mouth. Then there was a bag of popcorn in the microwave and he had discovered the bread, peanut butter, bananas, and chocolate syrup and was making a mess on the counter as he made a pile of them. “Do you want soda or juice?” he asked, head stuck in her fridge and apple core in his hand. “And we need a blanket!”
~~~~~
Almost as soon as they’d entered her kitchen there was an explosion of crazy as Wally made himself at home and started assembling an obscene amount of food. Her eyes got a little big. “We have some koolaid in the fridge.” she said amongst the flurry of activity. In a few seconds there was a second bag of popcorn in the microwave and there was a pile of sandwiches. “A blanket?”
~~~~~
“Yeah! Cause we’re not eating inside.” He grinned at her. “We’re going to eat on the roof.” He handed the two cups of koolaid to her while rushing away to steal one of the blankets off her bed. Yep, her room was a mess now. Then he was hurrying back and wrapping the sandwiches up in it. “Come on! This will be fun!”
~~~~~
She watched the flutter of activity and frowned. “And you’re getting on my roof, how exactly?” She asked grasping the two cups tightly in her hand. Honestly, this was ridiculous, but he seemed to be dead serious. She winced as the food was wrapped up in the blanket from her bed. “Hey! That’s not cool!”
~~~~~
“It’ll totally be cool! Besides!” He jabbed a thumb at himself. “You may be able to fly, but I run up walls.” He started taking off. “And if this is your first picnic on top of your own roof, you definitely need to get out more!”
Besides, she was a speedster. Kinda made her family, right? She could be fun if she wanted to. Wally was sure he could help her want to. It was simple, right?
Life was going to be full of lessons...
~~~~~
She winced when he was done wrapping things up. “I sleep with that!” She exclaimed. It was going to have chocolate stains all over it. “And picnics happen in parks!” But it was then that she registered what he’d said. “You can run up walls?”
~~~~~
“Oh man, you do have a lot to learn. Noworries! Follow me!” Because he was good at showing off! The tricky part was just finding a suitable place to run up the wall and make it on the roof over the eaves, but once he did, he blazed up the side of the house and scrambled over the edge, nearly dropped all the food.
“Now, we feast!”
~~~~~
The second Wally was out of the house in a gust of wind. Jesse made a move to at least put things in the sink and wipe down the counters after him. Seriously... the mess. But it didn’t take long and soon she’d glided to the roof and landed as softly as she could, and she barely even stumbled! She sat down on the blanket, which as she predicted was covered in chocolate.
“So you have all your picnics on roofs?”
~~~~~
Wally wasn’t near as quiet and timid about being on the roof. Underneath, it sounded like a herd of elephants galloping as he ran about for the perfect spot and set up before she sailed down.
“Not all of them! But it’s fun to. And your roof is huuuuuge.” Seriously. His apartment compared to her house? Wow. He sat cross legged on the roof, holding his glass of juice and a sandwich disappeared down his mouth, chocolate smearing at the corner of his lip. “Don’t you ever try fun things like this?”
~~~~~
She looked around her roof, but it wasn’t like she could deny it was large. Her family had been blessed with money, and while her father wasn’t overly ostentatious and didn’t like to spend on more than he and his daughter might need, the house was still of notable size for the NYC suburbs.
She didn’t actually crinkle her nose when he ate his sandwich. She’d seen a lot of speed eating in her day. “I have fun.” She said shaking her head. “I like to read, and other stuff.”
~~~~~
“Dude... reading?” He looked at her, entirely unconvinced as a piece of banana started sliding free from his sandwich. “Sooo, what about movies? Or exploring woods? Gathering fireflies or catching crawdads?” He looked down in surprise as the banana smacked his forearm. He sucked it off his forearm, trying to get the chocolate sauce off. “Mmf... Maybe going and hanging out with friends? Or running around and defeating bad guys?” Cause the last one especially was fun!
“Or...” He flopped back, looking skyward at the clouds. “Even just chilling.” He pointed upward. “Bunny. Well, if it had only one ear.”
~~~~~
Jesse finished her sandwich and hugged her knees to her chest as she listened to Wally’s questions. “I like movies.” she answered. “We just moved here a couple months ago though.” So she really didn’t have friends here yet. “From Philadelphia.”
She looked at him curiously as he flopped backwards and started announcing what clouds looked like what. “I’m bad at this game.” She said, looking up. “That one kind of looks like a three legged turtle.”
~~~~~
“That one?” He pointed. “Wait, you mean that one? That one looks like a deformed ninja turtle, maybe... Or do you mean... Get down here! I can’t see where you’re pointing!” He frowned, looking. “Oh, that parts it’s head.”
Then he looked sideways at her. “Soooo, if you just moved here, do you have any friends?” Wally liked to think at school he had friends. Liked to. It wasn’t exactly true. But he knew all sorts of people! And even if he didn’t go to school with them, there was Dick and Roy, and they were really cool.
~~~~~
She shot him a bit of a look that clearly said she thought he was an immature brat, but there she was leaning back on the roof of her house on her chocolate stained blanket with her head near his trying to point out exactly where the deformed turtle was.
That question was on the nose. “Not really.” She answered honestly with a shrug. She went to this snooty sort of private school, and she’d near instantly knocked one of the more popular girls from the academic top spot. “Maybe a couple, but some people don’t like me overmuch.”
~~~~~
Didn’t like her? Why that was...! He opened his mouth, then closed it, looking sideways from her to the clouds again. Okay, so maybe there were reasons people didn’t like her. She seemed way too serious. But then, she was up here pointing out clouds with him, so she wasn’t hopeless! (He could be hopeless, too, but he really wasn’t in the whole self-awareness loop.)
“Well, I think you’re okay.” Then he gasped, pointing up. “Lightning bolt cloud!”
~~~~~
She studied him for a second to try to figure out if he was telling the truth, but really what reason would he have to lie? She didn’t say anything else on the matter, but she did give out a bit of a snort when he noticed the lightning bolt.
It was then that she heard her father’s voice. “What is going on up there? It sounds like a stampede on my roof!” He called out. Jesse crawled over to the edge of the roof and looked down at her father who was in the middle of the backyard. He didn’t look angry, but he didn’t really look all that impressed either. “And is that your comforter?”
She looked over at Wally just in time for Barry to arrive as well. “Wally,” he tacked on sounding more resigned to the crazy that was his sidekick, “clean up the kitchen.”
~~~~~
Wally pursed his lips when he heard her dad, but then could only grin when he heard Barry. He looked at her with a look that was going to become very familiar over the years, a part apology, part grin and not a lick of regret in those green eyes.