#gotham reader

The first time you casually drop something horrifying, you’re both sprawled on the couch after a long day. Wally has his legs tangled with yours, one arm thrown over your stomach, half-watching a documentary he absolutely swore he was interested in and is absolutely about to fall asleep during.

The narrator mentions urban legends.

You snort.

Wally cracks one eye open. “What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking about how Gotham urban legends are usually just, like, actual guys.”

He hums. “Define actual guys.”

“You know. Croc in the sewers. The Court of Owls. That guy who used to leave teeth in people’s mailboxes.”

Wally lifts his head. “The what?”

You wave a hand. “He wasn’t a big one.”

“A big one?”

“Yeah, not like Joker or Scarecrow or anything.”

Wally sits up so fast the blanket slides off him. “Hold on. Pause. Rewind. Circle back. You had villain tier lists growing up?”

You blink at him. “Everyone did.”

“No, babe. Everyone did not.”

And you say it so calmly. That’s the part that breaks his brain. You’re not trembling. You’re not telling him this with dramatic lighting and sad violin music. You’re reaching for popcorn like you didn’t just reveal your childhood had a recurring cast of themed nightmares.

Wally stares at you. You stare back.

“What?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

Finally, “I need you to understand that most people’s neighbourhood hazards are potholes. Maybe raccoons. Not sewer crocodile cryptids and clown terrorism.”

You frown thoughtfully. “We also had potholes.”

“Not the point!”

The second time is worse. Because it happens in public.

You’re both at a grocery store. Wally is pushing the cart with one foot on the bottom rail, letting himself glide like a menace until you tell him he is one loud crash away from being banned from produce.

He’s tossing snacks into the cart at speedster velocity.

You catch a box before it hits the bread. “Wally.”

“What? Snacks are essential infrastructure.”

“You got three kinds of cookies.”

“Exactly. Infrastructure.”

Then there’s a sudden loud bang from the back of the store. Someone dropped a pallet. Totally normal. Totally harmless.

But you go still.

Not dramatically. Not visibly to most people.

But Wally sees it.

Your eyes flick to the exits. Your shoulders lock. Your hand tightens around the cart handle.

It lasts maybe two seconds. Then you blink, exhale, and keep moving like nothing happened.

Wally doesn’t say anything until you’re outside.

He loads the bags into the car slower than usual. Which, for Wally, is basically a medical event.

Then he asks, gently, “You okay back there?”

You shrug. “Yeah. Just sounded like one of the old evacuation alarms.”

“Evacuation alarms?”

“At school.”

Wally pauses.

Your voice stays casual. “We had different ones. Fire, rogue attack, gas exposure, active shooter, Arkham escape within two blocks—”

“Within two blocks?”

“Yeah. If it was further than that, they just locked the outside doors.”

Wally stares at you over the trunk.

You blink. “What?”

He looks like someone just handed him a bomb. “Your school had an Arkham escape alarm?”

“Not officially.”

“That does not make it better.”

“It was more of a bell pattern.”

“Babe.”

“What?”

“That is so far from normal I can’t even see normal from here. Normal is in another zip code. Normal packed a bag and left.”

You almost laugh because Wally is doing that thing where he gets animated when he’s upset, hands moving too fast, words tripping over each other.

But then you notice his face.

He’s not joking. Not really. His eyes are too soft. Too bright. Like he’s trying to outrun how much it hurts to imagine you as a kid, sitting under a desk, learning the sound difference between fire danger and fear toxin danger.

You immediately backpedal. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Wally goes very quiet.

That’s rare. That’s how you know you’ve accidentally stepped into something serious.

He closes the trunk and walks around to your side of the car, not crowding you, just standing close enough that his warmth is there if you want it.

“Hey,” he says softly. “I love you. So I’m gonna say this very carefully.”

You swallow.

“It was that bad.”

And because it’s Wally, because he’s usually motion and laughter and bright lightning under skin, the stillness of him makes the words land harder.

You look away.

He doesn’t make you look back.

He just says, “You don’t have to convince me it didn’t hurt.”

That one gets under your ribs.

Because Gotham taught you that pain only counted if someone didn’t survive it. Anything else was just “lucky.”

You say, “Everyone had stories like that.”

Wally’s jaw tightens. “Then everyone deserved better.”

That shuts you up completely.

After that, Wally notices everything.

Not in a paranoid way. Not in a pitying way.

In a Wally way. Which means he notices at the speed of light and then tries extremely hard to act normal about it.

He notices how you don’t like sitting near windows in restaurants. He notices how you track every person who enters a room wearing heavy coats, even in warm weather. He notices how you hate carnivals but love fair food.

He notices how you never say “I’m scared.” You say, “This is probably fine.”

Which, he learns, means you are very much not fine.

He starts translating your Gotham-isms.

“Could be worse” means: I am uncomfortable but trying not to be inconvenient.

“Funny story” means: This is about to be deeply alarming.

“I had a weird childhood” means: A supervillain may be involved.

“It was fine” means: It was not fine, but I survived, so I filed it under fine.

Wally becomes so offended by the word “fine.”

You say it once after flinching at fireworks, and he points at you with a French fry.

“Nope.”

You blink. “Nope?”

“Not accepting ‘fine’ as a valid emotional status. Try again.”

“I’m okay?”

He squints.

“I’m… mostly okay?”

“Better.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Yeah, but I’m cute and emotionally available, so it balances out.”

He makes you laugh even when you don’t want to. Especially then.

That’s one of Wally’s gifts: he doesn’t use humour to avoid feelings. He uses it like a lantern. Something warm enough to make the dark less humiliating.

The first real conversation happens after a nightmare.

You wake up with your heart sprinting faster than even Wally could manage, throat tight, fingers twisted in the sheets.

For a second, you don’t know where you are. The room is too dark. Too quiet.

No sirens. No shouting. No distant helicopters.

Just Wally’s apartment. Soft blankets. The low hum of the fridge. Rain whispering against the windows.

Wally wakes instantly.

He’s a speedster; his body is basically allergic to delayed reactions.

But he doesn’t grab you. Doesn’t shake you. Doesn’t flood the room with questions.

He just sits up slowly and says, “Hey. You’re here. You’re with me.”

You try to laugh it off. “Sorry. Stupid dream.”

Wally’s face does that thing again. The soft hurt. The careful patience. “Was it Gotham?”

You go still. That’s answer enough.

He nods once, like he’s accepting the shape of the thing without forcing you to name it. “Can I turn on the lamp?”

You nod.

He turns it on. Warm golden light fills the room, gentle as sunrise.

Then he asks, “Can I touch you?”

You nod again.

Only then does he reach for you.

And Wally West, who could move faster than thought, touches you like time is holy.

Slow hand on your shoulder. Gentle fingers around yours. A soft squeeze.

“There you are,” he murmurs.

You hate that your eyes burn. You hate that he sees it. You hate even more that he doesn’t look away.

“I’m fine,” you whisper.

Wally gives you a look.

You huff. “Mostly okay.”

“Thank you.”

You sit there in the lamplight for a while, your hand in his.

Eventually, you say, “There was this thing when I was a kid.”

Wally stays still.

You tell him about being trapped in a subway station during a rogue attack. How the adults kept whispering, like quiet could save everyone. How you learned to breathe through your sleeve because someone said there might be gas. How the lights flickered for hours.

How afterwards, everyone called it lucky because Batman showed up before anyone died.

Wally listens.

No jokes. No interruptions. No “but you’re safe now” thrown like a blanket over a wound that still remembers the cold.

When you finish, he says, “How old were you?”

You answer.

His eyes close for half a second.

When he opens them, his voice is careful.

“I’m so sorry.”

You shrug automatically.

He catches your hand before the gesture can finish.

Not hard. Just enough to stop the reflex.

“You don’t have to do that with me,” he says.

“Do what?”

“Make it smaller.”

You look down at your joined hands. “It’s easier.”

“I know.”

That surprises you.

Wally rubs his thumb over your knuckles. “I do it too. Different stuff. Different flavour of messed up. But I know what it’s like to turn something awful into a joke because otherwise it just sits there taking up the whole room.”

Your throat tightens. “Does it work?”

He gives you a small smile. “Sometimes.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“The rest of the time, you let someone sit in the room with you.”

That becomes the foundation.

Wally doesn’t try to fix you. He’s not naïve enough for that. He wants to, obviously. This man loves with his whole chest and half the Speed Force. If he could run back through your timeline and carry kid-you out of every bad moment, he would do it in a heartbeat and probably break twelve cosmic laws in the process.

But he knows he can’t. So he does the next best thing.

He stays. He stays when you tell another story in the wrong tone. He stays when you go quiet. He stays when you laugh too sharply. He stays when peace makes you restless because your body keeps waiting for the next alarm.

And he makes safety feel less like a locked door and more like a living thing.

A hand in yours. A light left on. A text that says: made it home, no rogues, no drama, just one suspiciously judgmental cat outside.

He starts sending you little updates because he realises uncertainty is one of your triggers.

Not obsessive. Not controlling.

Just thoughtful.

Running late. Actual running. Be there in six.

Big storm tonight. I’ve got you.

Fireworks downtown at nine. Wanna watch a movie louder than capitalism?

He learns your nervous system like it’s a map.

Lovingly. Respectfully. With snacks.

So many snacks.

Wally’s love language is food, movement, and pretending he didn’t just sprint across town because you casually mentioned craving a specific pastry.

One night, you mention that you never really did normal fairs growing up because Gotham fairs were, quote, “villain bait.”

Wally looks personally wounded. “Villain bait?”

“Yeah.”

“Like, regularly?”

“I mean, it’s a lot of people gathered in one place. Very kidnappable energy.”

He stares at you.

You sip your drink.

He points at you. “Shoes. Now.”

“What?”

“We’re going to a fair.”

“It’s nine at night.”

“I know a place.”

“Wally.”

“Nope. You deserve fried dough and rigged games and one emotionally significant plush animal.”

That is how you end up at a small-town night fair two cities over, lights glowing warm against the dark, music drifting through the air, Wally practically vibrating with determination.

At first, you’re tense. Too many people. Too much noise. Too many bright colours. Your eyes keep catching on exits, dark corners, strangers with oversized bags.

Wally notices.

He doesn’t call attention to it. He just offers his hand. “Wanna start small?”

You nod.

So you start with food.

Then a quiet booth.

Then a game.

Wally deliberately loses three times before realising you’re better at the ring toss than he is.

You win him a plush turtle.

He gasps like you proposed. “For me?”

“You’re embarrassing.”

“I will treasure him forever.”

“You’re going to lose him in two days.”

“His name is Bartholomew, and he’s family now.”

By the end of the night, you’re laughing. Really laughing. Not Gotham laughing. Not sharp-edged, survive-the-bit laughter.

Just pure joy.

Wally sees it and almost short-circuits. Because there you are, under cheap carnival lights, holding a paper tray of fried dough, powdered sugar on your sleeve, face open in a way he doesn’t get to see often.

He looks at you like you’re faster than light.

You catch him staring. “What?”

He grins, softer than usual. “Nothing. Just like seeing you happy.”

You roll your eyes, but you lean into him.

And Wally, because he cannot help himself, kisses powdered sugar off your cheek.

“Gross,” you say.

“Romantic.”

“Sticky.”

“Also romantic.”

The fair becomes one of your safe memories.

That’s what Wally does. He doesn’t erase the old ones. He helps you grow new ones beside them. Carnivals become fried dough and Bartholomew the turtle. Storms become blanket forts and terrible movies. Sirens become Wally squeezing your hand and saying, “Ambulance, three blocks over, moving away.”

Crowds become escape plans and shared headphones. Quiet becomes less terrifying because Wally fills it with humming, breathing, life.

The first time you tell him that, he cries. You’re lying together in bed one morning, sunlight slipping through the curtains, and you mumble, “I like quiet with you.”

Wally goes still.

You glance up. His eyes are shiny.

“Oh my god,” you say. “Are you crying?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I have allergies.”

“To emotional intimacy?”

“Yes. Very serious condition.”

You laugh, and he buries his face in your shoulder.

But his arms tighten around you.

Because he understands what you actually said. You didn’t just say the room was quiet. You said your body trusted him enough to stop listening for disaster.

That is not small. That is cathedral-level trust. That is holy ground.

Wally treats it like it matters.

He also becomes your number one defender against your own minimising.

You: “It was just a mugging.” Wally: “You were nine.” You: “But it was only a knife.” Wally: “I need you to hear the sentence you just made.” You: “It wasn’t even one of the big gangs.” Wally: “Baby, I say this with love: your scale is broken.” You: “Gotham scale.” Wally: “Exactly. Broken.”

He starts using the phrase “Gotham scale” whenever you underreact to something insane.

You tell him your old dentist accepted protection money from Penguin?

“Gotham scale.”

You mention your neighbour had a bunker under their laundry room?

“Gotham scale.”

You say your elementary school had a “no riddles from strangers” assembly?

Wally has to lie down.

“Gotham scale, but also I’m suing the concept of childhood.”

Sometimes, though, the shock gives way to anger.

Real anger.

Not at you. Never at you. But at the city. At the adults who normalised it. At the way Gotham turns children into witnesses and then calls them resilient because it sounds better than abandoned.

Wally tries not to let you see the worst of that anger.

But you do.

You’re both visiting Gotham for a brief errand. You insisted you were fine. It was just a day trip. No big deal.

But Wally watches the city change you.

Your shoulders tighten before you even cross the bridge. Your voice goes flatter. Your eyes sharpen. You know which streets to avoid without checking a map. You know the sound of distant gunfire and don’t even flinch until you remember Wally is there.

That hurts him in a way he can’t joke around.

At one point, you pass your old school.

You mention, almost absently, “That’s where the Scarecrow lockdown happened.”

Wally stops walking.

You keep going for two steps before realising.

“Wally?”

He’s staring at the building.

There are kids outside. Laughing. Running around.

His jaw is tight.

You touch his arm. “Hey.”

He looks at you. For once, he doesn’t have something funny ready.

“You were just a kid,” he says.

You don’t know what to say.

He looks back at the school. “You were just a kid.”

The repetition cracks something open.

Because you know that. Obviously you know that. But hearing him say it like he’s grieving, like he’s angry on behalf of a version of you no one protected, makes it feel real in a way you have avoided for years.

You whisper, “So were a lot of people.”

Wally nods. “Yeah. And every single one of you deserved better.”

You have to leave after that.

Not because of danger. Because of kindness.

Which is somehow harder.

Wally gets you out of Gotham fast. Not because he thinks you’re weak. Because you asked, and he listened before your pride could interfere.

Back home, he doesn’t push. He orders your favourite food. Puts on a comfort show. Sits beside you close enough to touch but not close enough to trap.

Eventually, you lean into him.

He wraps an arm around you.

“I hate that place,” he admits.

You laugh weakly. “That place made me.”

“No,” Wally says, firm but gentle. “You made you. Gotham just made it harder.”

That line sits between you for a long time.

Then you whisper, “I don’t know who I am without it sometimes.”

Wally kisses the top of your head. “That’s okay. We’ve got time.”

Of course, because he’s Wally, “time” is a loaded word. He has outrun it, broken it, lost people to it, begged it for mercy. But with you, he means something simpler.

Mornings. Weeks. Years.

Slow things. Human things.

He is a speedster who chooses patience for you.

That’s how you know he loves you.

Wally helps you learn that healing doesn’t have to be dramatic.

Sometimes healing is him convincing you that not every unknown package is suspicious.

Sometimes it’s him labelling leftovers because you once mentioned food insecurity after city shutdowns.

Sometimes it’s him keeping extra batteries, water, and first-aid supplies in the apartment—not because he expects disaster, but because he knows preparedness helps your body unclench.

Sometimes it’s him making silly playlists for “non-traumatic cleaning day.”

Sometimes it’s him asking, “Do you want comfort, distraction, or solutions?” and actually listening to the answer.

Sometimes it’s him understanding that you may never love surprises.

So he stops surprising you in big ways.

Instead, he gives you small, predictable joys.

Your favourite drink appearing in the fridge. A blanket warmed in the dryer. A note on the counter: No emergencies. No mysteries. Just love you.

The first time he writes that, you stare at it for a full minute.

Then you stick it on the fridge.

Wally notices.

He does not make a big deal out of it.

He absolutely takes a picture when you’re not looking.

He is sentimental as hell. It’s terminal.

There’s also a funny side to all this, because Wally cannot exist without becoming at least a little ridiculous.

He starts rating your stories based on “how much they emotionally damage him.”

You: “One time Two-Face robbed the movie theatre I was in.” Wally: “Seven out of ten. Upsetting, but Gotham-coded.” You: “I still remember the smell of fear gas.” Wally: “Ten out of ten. I need to walk into the ocean.” You: “My old landlord was probably laundering money.” Wally: “Three out of ten. Honestly, that could happen anywhere.” You: “Through Black Mask.” Wally: “Eight out of ten. Why would you save that for the second sentence?”

It becomes a weird little ritual.

Not making light of it.

Making room around it.

Because with Wally, the wound is allowed to breathe. It doesn’t have to be hidden, but it also doesn’t get to swallow the whole sky.

He reminds you that joy can be defiant. That laughter can be a survival skill and a love language. That being soft after Gotham is not weakness.

It is rebellion.

And Wally loves your softness.

He loves when you get sleepy and clingy. He loves when you trust him enough to complain about tiny problems. He loves when your biggest issue of the day is that he ate the last of your cereal.

Which he did.

And he is sorry.

Mostly.

Okay, half sorry.

He replaces it at superspeed and adds two more boxes because he values his life.

Wally also gets emotional the first time you call his place “home.”

It slips out naturally.

You’re looking for your keys, distracted, and you say, “Did I leave them at home?”

Wally looks around. “Your place?”

You blink.

Then realise.

“No. I meant… here.”

Wally freezes.

You freeze too.

For a second, neither of you breathes.

Then he smiles. It starts small, then grows, bright and devastating.

“Yeah?” he asks.

You look away, embarrassed. “Don’t be weird.”

“I’m gonna be so weird.”

“Wally.”

“This is a historic moment.”

“Don’t.”

“I need a plaque.”

“I will take it back.”

“You can’t. Verbal contract. Speedster law.”

You groan, but he pulls you in, laughing softly into your hair.

He doesn’t tease you for long.

Just enough to make it feel normal.

Then he murmurs, “I like that this feels like home to you.”

You press your face into his chest. “Me too.”

And that’s the thing. Wally doesn’t make you feel like a tragedy. He makes you feel like a person with a future. Not just someone who escaped Gotham.

Someone who gets to build something after. A life with sunlight in it. A kitchen with too many snacks. A couch where nothing bad happens. A lover who can run faster than almost anyone alive but never rushes your healing.

When your past comes up, Wally is shocked every time. He can’t help it. The man is expressive. His face has no security system.

But beneath the shock is always the same steady truth: He believes you. He grieves what hurt you. He loves what survived.

And he is so, so proud of who you became.

One night, much later, you ask him, “Does it bother you?”

He looks up from where he’s fiddling with the TV remote. “What?”

“All of it. The Gotham stuff.”

Wally’s expression softens.

He sets the remote down.

“Bother me how?”

You shrug. “That I’m… like this.”

He moves closer, slow enough that you can move away if you need to.

You don’t.

He takes your hand.

“I hate that it happened,” he says. “I hate that you had to learn fear before you got to learn peace. I hate that you still flinch at things that should just be sounds.”

Your throat tightens.

“But you?” He squeezes your hand. “You don’t bother me. Not ever.”

You look down.

He ducks his head until you meet his eyes. “You’re not hard to love.”

And that one ruins you. Completely.

Because Gotham taught you to be useful. Alert. Tough. Prepared. Quiet when needed. Fast when necessary.

Wally teaches you something else.

You can be loved tired. Loved scared. Loved healing. Loved messy.

Loved on bad days. Loved when the past catches up. Loved when you don’t have a joke ready. Loved without having to earn it by being okay.

Wally West loves like lightning, yes—bright, wild, impossible to ignore—but with you, he also loves like morning.