sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2012-08-10 08:54 pm
sam_storyteller) wrote2012-08-10 08:54 pm
Entry tags:
Victory Bonds 6/6
Title: Victory Bonds
Rating: PG (for profanity)
Summary: The year is 1947, and Daily Planet front-pagers Clark Kent and "Louis" Lane are about to get the story of their careers, courtesy of the fledgling Justice League: the enigmatic Superman, the spy-turned-vigilante codenamed Bat, intelligence agent and newly minted Green Lantern Alan Scott, and Ambassador Diana, Princess of Themyscira.
Warnings: See Chapter One.
Chapter Five
Epilogue
Central City was located a few hours southwest of Chicago, on the Illinois-Missouri border, and perhaps arrogantly billed itself as "The Last Culture Until San Francisco". Being smaller than Chicago and more distant from anything interesting, it had a lot to prove. There was no reason for any of the Justice League to be there, let alone two of us, except for the 1952 World's Fair, which Central City was hosting.
Lois and I were covering it as a working honeymoon, reporting on the exhibits. I'd seen Bruce in the World Of The Future pavilion, promoting his new Electronic System Integrated Computer -- ESIC could play music, answer simple questions, do complex equations, and fit into a coat closet, and IBM was chewing their hats trying to figure out how he'd done it -- but I hadn't been able to speak to him. There would be time; Lois and I had ten days at the Fair, and sooner or later I'd catch up with Bruce.
It was day three, hot and dry, and Lois and I were considering giving up on reporting to spend the day sitting on the shady portico of an ice-cream shop watching the world pass, when there was an explosion from the direction of the World Gone Wild zoological exhibit.
We looked at each other.
"You go, I'll get the story," she said, and I took off like a shot. I'd been practicing changing midair, which doesn't show any skin when you're going as fast as I can, but does require a certain lack of modesty regardless. By the time I reached the explosion, most of the fairgoers had scattered. The animals were screaming in their pens or stampeding out of them, and one of the tents was on fire.
The zoological exhibit stood in the shadow of the fairway, with its high Ferris wheel and precarious thrill rides. I looked around, trying to figure out what had caused the explosion or where it had gone, but there didn't seem to be any particularly villainous figures around. I was blowing out the fire when Bruce arrived in full getup, darting through the animals that had gotten loose.
"You brought your uniform?" I called down.
"You're one to talk!" he called back.
"Point," I said. "On your ten, look sharp."
"I thought herding was your job," he replied, wrestling a smallish yak to the ground and securing it with rope from a collapsed tent. A Spanish bull charged him and he jumped deftly onto its back, flipping off to land behind it.
"Do you good, city boy," I replied, catching the bull one-handed and using the rope he tossed me to tie it to a metal tent stake. It snorted, looked me in the eye, and decided it had better things to do than attack me, like eating some tasty-looking grass. "Where's Robin?"
"Looking after Gotham," he replied, pulling part of the scorched tent down on a zebra. He caught my gaze. "Diana's with him, don't look at me like that."
"You didn't let him come? It's a fair."
"He's coming out next week," Bruce protested.
"Well, good. Hey, I saw ESIC, I'm very impressed," I said, as a whole cadre of monkeys chittered at us from a tree.
"Thank you. What the hell caused this?" he asked. "I was ready for a lot more than -- "
He broke off as something red zoomed past us, so fast it was nothing more than a blur. He looked the way it had gone, then looked back at me.
"Cheetah?" I suggested.
"Over there," he said, turning again. The blur was leaving a trail of dust though the exhibit, heading straight for the Ferris wheel. I could see something dark, climbing the struts --
"Gorilla," we said in unison. I dropped low enough for him to get an arm around my neck, then made for the Ferris wheel as fast as possible. It had begun to sway; the red blur we'd seen earlier was circling it. Almost -- yes, it was a man, I could see when he stopped occasionally. He was climbing the wheel too quickly to see, pulling people off and depositing them safely on the ground.
A bullet zipped through the air, bouncing off my head.
"Oh. That's a gorilla with a gun," Bruce said in my ear.
"Makes you long for Nazi robots, huh?"
"Not even a little bit," he replied, firing at the wheel. His grappling gun caught and he climbed up my back, jumping off my shoulders. I tried to draw the gorilla's fire. The ape had reached the top of the wheel, more or less, and was slinging something off its back; the next time the red blur circled the wheel, he stuck out a meaty, hairy arm and the man collided with it, tumbling through the wires and struts. Bruce jumped, swung, and caught him, lowering him to the ground before he started to climb again. I was still dodging the occasional bullet, trying to get closer.
"Okay," I heard the man in red yell from the foot of the wheel. "Who gave the monkey a grenade launcher?"
Which was about when the grenade hit me in the chest. I caught it on the rebound and threw it as high as I could. It exploded like a fireworks show.
"I AM NOT," a voice roared, "A MONKEY!"
"Talking ape, this just gets better," Bruce growled, still working his way up. The gorilla fired directly at him, and the man in red -- the blur in red, really -- was up and swatting it away before it could hit them. Bruce dodged, swung around a spur of metal, and shook his head.
"Hit him up top," he yelled. "Red and I'll get him on the ground."
"I AM GRODD!" the gorilla yelled. "I HAVE COME TO FREE MY PRIMATE BRETHREN!"
"Great," I yelled back, and slammed into him at full speed.
We went down together, tumbling through the air, him struggling as I tried to pin down his wrists. He kicked and bit and had really bad breath.
A cloud of dust kicked up when we landed. Before I could roll and pin him, his ankles were tied. Bruce was strapping his wrists together, avoiding his snapping teeth, and then the man in red was there, arms around the gorilla's throat from behind, holding his jaw shut with visible, straining effort. When we finally had him tied -- he snapped Bruce's line twice before Bruce bound him at the elbow to keep him still -- the man in red vanished.
"You will rue the day you tangled with Grodd!" the gorilla snarled. "The apes will come to my aid!"
"Doesn't look like it," Bruce said, straightening and dusting off his uniform. Grodd continued to rant as Bruce reached into a car of the Ferris wheel, pulling a leather safety-strap off with a grunt. He tossed it to me and I wrapped it around Grodd's head, effectively gagging him.
"Get out of here," I said, jerking my head at the rear entrance to the midway. "I'll handle this."
"Like hell you will. You go subdue the bison, I'll handle this," he replied.
"Fine. Just remember, Lois is going to be reporting on it, and it would be nice if my wife didn't hate you," I replied.
"I make no promises," he said, but he grinned.
About half of the animals -- mostly the smaller ones -- had already been penned or tied up by the time I got there. The zookeepers were staring at the place in dismay. I helped them shoo the monkeys out of the tree, got an antelope unstuck from a fence, shoved a very recalcitrant rhino out of the hippos' wallowing pool, and rescued what I was told was a civet from the clutches of a grizzly bear. I didn't blame our blurry red friend for not going near the bear.
When the situation seemed to be mostly under control, I looked around for Bruce (already fled) and Lois (on a payphone in the Communications building, filing her story) and then our speedy red friend. I finally found him standing on the roof of the tall, Greek-columned Tribute To Ancient History building nearby. Behind him, I could see a shadow flitting around the decorative statues that littered the roof.
He caught sight of me when I was halfway up, but he didn't move until I'd touched down.
"Well," he said. "You're not from around here, are you?"
"What gave it away?" I asked, offering my hand. "Superman. Didn't mean to tread on any toes."
"You didn't. It's an honor, sir," he replied. His handshake was firm, though it almost felt like his skin itself was vibrating. "Thanks for stepping in."
"Happy to help. That was good work. You're local?"
"Local and new. Around here they're calling me the Flash," he replied. "Good a name as any, huh?"
"Speed's your thing?"
"Mostly. Long story -- well, not long, just not very interesting. So, talking gorilla. That's got to be the work of a mad scientist, right? Or you think he's just a gorilla-shaped alien?"
"My money's on mad science," a voice said. Flash startled, looking around so fast I hardly saw it; I just smiled.
"Batman, stop lurking," I called. "Come meet the Flash."
Bruce stepped out from behind a statue of Apollo. Flash yelped and danced backwards.
"He does that," I said. "Be nice, Batman."
"Why?" Bruce asked.
"We're guests," I replied.
"We're paying fairgoers," he replied. I saw him studying Flash -- the red single-piece suit with a cheerful yellow lightning bolt on his chest and yellow art-deco wings on his cowl, the red leather boots with no visible laces, the blue eyes under his mask and the wary set of his mouth. Finally Bruce nodded at the uniform, which was skin-tight pretty nearly everywhere. "Not particularly shy, are you?"
"Hey, this is top of the line," Flash said, gesturing to the suit. "Low friction, low wind resistance. First time I tried out this power I set a pair of pants on fire. This is an improvement."
"Polymer?" Bruce asked, and I could see him putting his attitude aside in the face of an interesting chemistry question.
"Natural textile," Flash replied, looking equally interested now. "Haven't got the technology to work on a molecular level yet, but that's where I'd have to go with polymers to get better than this."
"You're a chemist?"
"I dabble. The suit was designed by a friend. He's been working with soy silk. So what are you using?" Flash asked, and before I could warn him, he'd poked Batman in the head curiously. "Just leather?"
"Specially treated for durability," Bruce replied, without eviscerating him, which I was kind of expecting. "I was experimenting with armor, but none of it's light enough."
"I could probably improve on that if you let me know what you're looking for," Flash said.
"It's a different set of needs than yours."
"That's all right, I like puzzles."
I don't think either of them noticed when I slipped away to find Lois and give her an exclusive comment from Superman.
***
The next time I saw Flash was about six weeks later, and he was in Gotham. Normally the League met at Bruce's place, because it was easier for us to go to him than for him to come to DC or Metropolis, and the Manor was secluded and private. When he got in touch to set up a meet on a rooftop near Arkham Asylum, I figured we might be having company.
"Sorry I'm late," I said, landing next to the huddle of heroes. "Stopped on the way to help a family with a flat tire."
"Superman does tires now?" Diana asked, teasing.
"Boy, were they surprised," I replied. "Flash. Good to see you again. I assume Batman's been introducing you."
"Likewise," Flash said, beaming brightly. "It's pretty neat. Every time I come here I see something new. Till a few months ago I'd never even been to Gotham. Well, through it on the way to somewhere else, but I didn't have much time to stop -- "
"What's your average travel time to get to the coast from Central City?" Lantern asked, cutting off what sounded like it could become a monologue.
"Never really timed it. Five, six minutes maybe? Ten at an easy lope." He cast a sidelong glance at me. "But I imagine in the future I'd be hustling it a little."
"He's the reason we're meeting?" I asked Batman.
"I have a proposal to make," Batman replied. "Robin!"
"Yes, sir!" a voice called from above.
"League meeting. Come down."
"Yes, sir," Robin sighed, swinging across from a gargoyle on another building.
"He's going through an overly stealthy phase," Batman said with a parental roll of his eyes. Ari landed lightly, dark red cape tucked around his shoulders, and gave us a professional nod. Five years had put muscle and height on him; he was as tall as Batman now, a rangy sixteen-year-old with all the drama that being sixteen entailed, even being sixteen and a superhero. He'd given me back my medal a few months ago, when he and Bruce decided he was probably old enough that Luthor wouldn't link him to the boy he'd kept in a cage years before.
"I like the new uniform," I said. He looked down at his dark green suit, a pleased smile crossing his face under the maroon domino mask. In reality I thought he looked a little like a Christmas tree, but Bruce had told me it was a work in progress. "So, now that we're all here..."
"I've been speaking to Flash since our encounter in Central City," Batman said. "I think he could be a benefit to the League."
"We don't particularly have anything in place for admitting new members," Alan said.
"That was always a goal, though," I pointed out. "Structure, stability. Perhaps it's time we added that chapter to the rulebook."
"There's a rulebook?" Flash asked, voice a little strangled.
"Metaphorical," Lantern said. "There won't be a test."
"Oh. Phew," Flash exhaled, glancing at Batman. "Yeah, so -- the thing is, we don't really get your caliber of evil out in Illinois. I can mostly handle Central City myself. But uh, I'd like to learn with the League, and I figure I can offer to help out here on the coast. I can get here fast, faster than you can get to me anyway, but I'm not...much of a fighter, really. Batman's been giving me lessons, but I'm nowhere near his level yet. Don't think I'll ever hit yours," he added to me.
"It's not that common," I agreed.
"I'm really good at rescue, though, and it's be an honor to serve with all of you. So in the end it's a net gain, you know, I'd be helping you and learning and you wouldn't have to do much -- oh, I uh -- I forgot part of the speech -- "
"Flash," Batman said quietly. "Breathe."
"Right. Sorry, I'm nervous," he said. "I also work with the police, is what I meant to put in there somewhere, I'm in forensics, so I can help with the detective end. Not that you need it! But I could, if you did. So."
Lantern looked like he was trying not to laugh. Robin had his lip caught in his teeth. Diana smiled.
"I'd like to join if you want me," Flash finished.
"Private ballot?" I suggested.
"I don't think we need that much," Lantern replied. "Batman's vouching for him. General call for objections?"
We all exchanged looks. Robin shifted nervously. We hadn't done this when he'd joined, not that it had ever been that official. When he turned fourteen he'd just started showing up at Batman's side, and none of us had minded or bothered to question it.
"If there are no objections, I say he's in," Lantern said finally.
"Not an objection," I said, and everyone looked at me. "Just a point of order. I think -- we all know each other, in terms of who we are when we aren't the League. I think maybe that should be a rule. We have to trust each other. So if he's in, we have to know who he is. And he should know who we are, fair's fair." I looked at Flash. "Agreed?"
"Oh," he said quietly. "I don't -- I mean, I don't mind, but you don't have to, you barely know me -- "
"He knows who I am," Batman said. "He's met Robin out of uniform."
"Seriously?" Diana asked. Bruce revealing himself was one thing; revealing Ari, who he protected from the public as much as possible, was another.
"I vetted him," he said. He looked around at our surprised faces. "What?" he asked, annoyed. "Superman said it. We have to trust each other."
He pulled his cowl back. Ari, behind him, peeled his mask off. Lantern glanced at me, then let his own mask fade. Diana never had hid anything, but she gave Flash a reassuring smile. I concentrated for a moment, letting Superman slip away.
Flash tugged his cowl back from his face, letting it hang behind him. He had shaggy blond hair and a striking profile. He looked about my age, maybe a little younger. His face was friendly and open, marked with what looked like a burn scar, small and high up on one cheek.
"My name's Bartholomew Allen," he said. "Barry. Or Bart, I answer to both."
"Alan Scott," Lantern said. "Central Intelligence Agency. Glad to know you."
"Diana, princess of Themyscira. Not that I ever have to tell anyone," she said teasingly.
"Clark Kent, Daily Planet," I added.
"Clark Ke -- like Lane and Kent?" he asked. "The reporters?"
"Another one for your fan club," Diana told me, then turned back to him. "If I can ask, Bart, how did you come by your abilities?"
"Oh, I -- " He gestured to the scar. "Freak accident. Lightning electrified some chemicals in a storage shelf behind me. They exploded. Lucky I survived, really. When I woke up, I was...fast."
He looked around at us, examining every bare face, even Bruce's and Ari's. I noticed a silent communication that passed between him and Bruce, the way Bart's eyes lingered on his face, and something clicked. My head snapped around to look at Bruce, and he shook his slightly -- not now.
"Welcome to the League," Alan said.
"Thank you," Bart answered, and I could see the sincerity under the anxiety. "I promise I'll be a credit to it."
"You'll fix him up with an alarm-box?" Lantern asked. Bruce nodded. "Then I think we're done for tonight, unless anyone has other business."
Bruce was already pulling up his cowl, and Ari had plastered the mask back on his face. Bart pulled his hood up too, watching awestruck as Diana and Lantern lifted off, heading for home.
"Robin, take Flash back to the mansion," Batman said. "Superman looks like he needs a few words."
"Race you," Flash challenged, and took off, running...straight down the side of the building.
"Not fair!" Robin exclaimed, leaping off the edge and throwing a grappling dart into the opposite building. Bruce watched indulgently as the boy tried to catch up. When they were gone, he glanced at me.
"Might as well out with it," he said.
"You and he...?"
"It's personal."
"You could have told me, Bruce."
"It's personal."
I nodded. "Not the same as uniform business, I get it."
"Do you?"
"Regardless of anything else, we have each other's back, and that doesn't change. I might be from farm country but I've been around the block more than once. Enough to know better than to leave a pal to twist over who he...spends his time with."
"Well, that's gracious of you."
"All right, that sounded wrong. Point is I don't care, and I wouldn't have if you'd told me, but I understand why you didn't." I paused. "It's dangerous, Bruce. You know that."
"Not more dangerous than anything else I do."
"Different danger. It's a different kind of illegal. If anyone found out -- they'd arrest you. Take Ari from you."
"No one's going to find out. And if they do -- " he shook his head. "There are benefits to being wealthy. I can buy myself out if I need to."
"Can you? Can you be sure Gotham wouldn't make an example out of you?"
"I thought I was the one who always borrowed trouble," he said, but he sounded tense, like he was barely containing his anger.
"Bruce -- "
"Would you give Lois up?"
"What?"
"If it were illegal. If you were endangering her -- which, by the way, you sometimes do -- would you give her up?"
I had a moment where my perspective seemed to shift radically; he always did know how to turn things around on me, give me a new view of whatever we were arguing about.
"It's that serious?" I asked, because I couldn't think of what else to say.
"It could be." Bruce was silent for a while. "He's been visiting Gotham. Training with us. Nobody outside the League has ever been as good with the kid as Bart. It's -- well. I...knew. When I saw how he treated Robin. Before I even knew who he was."
"So," I said. "Love at first sight?"
Bruce groaned. "Hardly. He puts too much trust in his speed to protect him. He gets distracted. He...blithers. And eats like nobody I have ever seen. He's a smart-aleck when he should be a professional. He wears that incredibly loud cherry-red uniform -- he won't even consider something more sensible like black -- "
"And he makes you happy."
Bruce glanced at me. "He understands this life. He treats Ari well. He likes me, Christ knows why."
"He'll be a good addition to the League," I offered.
"I think so."
"Plenty of people like you, Bruce," I added. "Maybe not quite the way he does, but you're our friend. The best friend I have. I'm glad for you. Worried, but glad."
"Thank you. Hey, is the heart-to-heart over now?" he asked, but there was humor in his eyes, the anger subsiding.
"Sure. See you next time the world needs saving."
"Keep safe."
"Likewise," I said, and lifted off. By the time I looked back, he'd disappeared into the shadows again.
I hoped he was going home.
Rating: PG (for profanity)
Summary: The year is 1947, and Daily Planet front-pagers Clark Kent and "Louis" Lane are about to get the story of their careers, courtesy of the fledgling Justice League: the enigmatic Superman, the spy-turned-vigilante codenamed Bat, intelligence agent and newly minted Green Lantern Alan Scott, and Ambassador Diana, Princess of Themyscira.
Warnings: See Chapter One.
Chapter Five
Epilogue
Central City was located a few hours southwest of Chicago, on the Illinois-Missouri border, and perhaps arrogantly billed itself as "The Last Culture Until San Francisco". Being smaller than Chicago and more distant from anything interesting, it had a lot to prove. There was no reason for any of the Justice League to be there, let alone two of us, except for the 1952 World's Fair, which Central City was hosting.
Lois and I were covering it as a working honeymoon, reporting on the exhibits. I'd seen Bruce in the World Of The Future pavilion, promoting his new Electronic System Integrated Computer -- ESIC could play music, answer simple questions, do complex equations, and fit into a coat closet, and IBM was chewing their hats trying to figure out how he'd done it -- but I hadn't been able to speak to him. There would be time; Lois and I had ten days at the Fair, and sooner or later I'd catch up with Bruce.
It was day three, hot and dry, and Lois and I were considering giving up on reporting to spend the day sitting on the shady portico of an ice-cream shop watching the world pass, when there was an explosion from the direction of the World Gone Wild zoological exhibit.
We looked at each other.
"You go, I'll get the story," she said, and I took off like a shot. I'd been practicing changing midair, which doesn't show any skin when you're going as fast as I can, but does require a certain lack of modesty regardless. By the time I reached the explosion, most of the fairgoers had scattered. The animals were screaming in their pens or stampeding out of them, and one of the tents was on fire.
The zoological exhibit stood in the shadow of the fairway, with its high Ferris wheel and precarious thrill rides. I looked around, trying to figure out what had caused the explosion or where it had gone, but there didn't seem to be any particularly villainous figures around. I was blowing out the fire when Bruce arrived in full getup, darting through the animals that had gotten loose.
"You brought your uniform?" I called down.
"You're one to talk!" he called back.
"Point," I said. "On your ten, look sharp."
"I thought herding was your job," he replied, wrestling a smallish yak to the ground and securing it with rope from a collapsed tent. A Spanish bull charged him and he jumped deftly onto its back, flipping off to land behind it.
"Do you good, city boy," I replied, catching the bull one-handed and using the rope he tossed me to tie it to a metal tent stake. It snorted, looked me in the eye, and decided it had better things to do than attack me, like eating some tasty-looking grass. "Where's Robin?"
"Looking after Gotham," he replied, pulling part of the scorched tent down on a zebra. He caught my gaze. "Diana's with him, don't look at me like that."
"You didn't let him come? It's a fair."
"He's coming out next week," Bruce protested.
"Well, good. Hey, I saw ESIC, I'm very impressed," I said, as a whole cadre of monkeys chittered at us from a tree.
"Thank you. What the hell caused this?" he asked. "I was ready for a lot more than -- "
He broke off as something red zoomed past us, so fast it was nothing more than a blur. He looked the way it had gone, then looked back at me.
"Cheetah?" I suggested.
"Over there," he said, turning again. The blur was leaving a trail of dust though the exhibit, heading straight for the Ferris wheel. I could see something dark, climbing the struts --
"Gorilla," we said in unison. I dropped low enough for him to get an arm around my neck, then made for the Ferris wheel as fast as possible. It had begun to sway; the red blur we'd seen earlier was circling it. Almost -- yes, it was a man, I could see when he stopped occasionally. He was climbing the wheel too quickly to see, pulling people off and depositing them safely on the ground.
A bullet zipped through the air, bouncing off my head.
"Oh. That's a gorilla with a gun," Bruce said in my ear.
"Makes you long for Nazi robots, huh?"
"Not even a little bit," he replied, firing at the wheel. His grappling gun caught and he climbed up my back, jumping off my shoulders. I tried to draw the gorilla's fire. The ape had reached the top of the wheel, more or less, and was slinging something off its back; the next time the red blur circled the wheel, he stuck out a meaty, hairy arm and the man collided with it, tumbling through the wires and struts. Bruce jumped, swung, and caught him, lowering him to the ground before he started to climb again. I was still dodging the occasional bullet, trying to get closer.
"Okay," I heard the man in red yell from the foot of the wheel. "Who gave the monkey a grenade launcher?"
Which was about when the grenade hit me in the chest. I caught it on the rebound and threw it as high as I could. It exploded like a fireworks show.
"I AM NOT," a voice roared, "A MONKEY!"
"Talking ape, this just gets better," Bruce growled, still working his way up. The gorilla fired directly at him, and the man in red -- the blur in red, really -- was up and swatting it away before it could hit them. Bruce dodged, swung around a spur of metal, and shook his head.
"Hit him up top," he yelled. "Red and I'll get him on the ground."
"I AM GRODD!" the gorilla yelled. "I HAVE COME TO FREE MY PRIMATE BRETHREN!"
"Great," I yelled back, and slammed into him at full speed.
We went down together, tumbling through the air, him struggling as I tried to pin down his wrists. He kicked and bit and had really bad breath.
A cloud of dust kicked up when we landed. Before I could roll and pin him, his ankles were tied. Bruce was strapping his wrists together, avoiding his snapping teeth, and then the man in red was there, arms around the gorilla's throat from behind, holding his jaw shut with visible, straining effort. When we finally had him tied -- he snapped Bruce's line twice before Bruce bound him at the elbow to keep him still -- the man in red vanished.
"You will rue the day you tangled with Grodd!" the gorilla snarled. "The apes will come to my aid!"
"Doesn't look like it," Bruce said, straightening and dusting off his uniform. Grodd continued to rant as Bruce reached into a car of the Ferris wheel, pulling a leather safety-strap off with a grunt. He tossed it to me and I wrapped it around Grodd's head, effectively gagging him.
"Get out of here," I said, jerking my head at the rear entrance to the midway. "I'll handle this."
"Like hell you will. You go subdue the bison, I'll handle this," he replied.
"Fine. Just remember, Lois is going to be reporting on it, and it would be nice if my wife didn't hate you," I replied.
"I make no promises," he said, but he grinned.
About half of the animals -- mostly the smaller ones -- had already been penned or tied up by the time I got there. The zookeepers were staring at the place in dismay. I helped them shoo the monkeys out of the tree, got an antelope unstuck from a fence, shoved a very recalcitrant rhino out of the hippos' wallowing pool, and rescued what I was told was a civet from the clutches of a grizzly bear. I didn't blame our blurry red friend for not going near the bear.
When the situation seemed to be mostly under control, I looked around for Bruce (already fled) and Lois (on a payphone in the Communications building, filing her story) and then our speedy red friend. I finally found him standing on the roof of the tall, Greek-columned Tribute To Ancient History building nearby. Behind him, I could see a shadow flitting around the decorative statues that littered the roof.
He caught sight of me when I was halfway up, but he didn't move until I'd touched down.
"Well," he said. "You're not from around here, are you?"
"What gave it away?" I asked, offering my hand. "Superman. Didn't mean to tread on any toes."
"You didn't. It's an honor, sir," he replied. His handshake was firm, though it almost felt like his skin itself was vibrating. "Thanks for stepping in."
"Happy to help. That was good work. You're local?"
"Local and new. Around here they're calling me the Flash," he replied. "Good a name as any, huh?"
"Speed's your thing?"
"Mostly. Long story -- well, not long, just not very interesting. So, talking gorilla. That's got to be the work of a mad scientist, right? Or you think he's just a gorilla-shaped alien?"
"My money's on mad science," a voice said. Flash startled, looking around so fast I hardly saw it; I just smiled.
"Batman, stop lurking," I called. "Come meet the Flash."
Bruce stepped out from behind a statue of Apollo. Flash yelped and danced backwards.
"He does that," I said. "Be nice, Batman."
"Why?" Bruce asked.
"We're guests," I replied.
"We're paying fairgoers," he replied. I saw him studying Flash -- the red single-piece suit with a cheerful yellow lightning bolt on his chest and yellow art-deco wings on his cowl, the red leather boots with no visible laces, the blue eyes under his mask and the wary set of his mouth. Finally Bruce nodded at the uniform, which was skin-tight pretty nearly everywhere. "Not particularly shy, are you?"
"Hey, this is top of the line," Flash said, gesturing to the suit. "Low friction, low wind resistance. First time I tried out this power I set a pair of pants on fire. This is an improvement."
"Polymer?" Bruce asked, and I could see him putting his attitude aside in the face of an interesting chemistry question.
"Natural textile," Flash replied, looking equally interested now. "Haven't got the technology to work on a molecular level yet, but that's where I'd have to go with polymers to get better than this."
"You're a chemist?"
"I dabble. The suit was designed by a friend. He's been working with soy silk. So what are you using?" Flash asked, and before I could warn him, he'd poked Batman in the head curiously. "Just leather?"
"Specially treated for durability," Bruce replied, without eviscerating him, which I was kind of expecting. "I was experimenting with armor, but none of it's light enough."
"I could probably improve on that if you let me know what you're looking for," Flash said.
"It's a different set of needs than yours."
"That's all right, I like puzzles."
I don't think either of them noticed when I slipped away to find Lois and give her an exclusive comment from Superman.
***
The next time I saw Flash was about six weeks later, and he was in Gotham. Normally the League met at Bruce's place, because it was easier for us to go to him than for him to come to DC or Metropolis, and the Manor was secluded and private. When he got in touch to set up a meet on a rooftop near Arkham Asylum, I figured we might be having company.
"Sorry I'm late," I said, landing next to the huddle of heroes. "Stopped on the way to help a family with a flat tire."
"Superman does tires now?" Diana asked, teasing.
"Boy, were they surprised," I replied. "Flash. Good to see you again. I assume Batman's been introducing you."
"Likewise," Flash said, beaming brightly. "It's pretty neat. Every time I come here I see something new. Till a few months ago I'd never even been to Gotham. Well, through it on the way to somewhere else, but I didn't have much time to stop -- "
"What's your average travel time to get to the coast from Central City?" Lantern asked, cutting off what sounded like it could become a monologue.
"Never really timed it. Five, six minutes maybe? Ten at an easy lope." He cast a sidelong glance at me. "But I imagine in the future I'd be hustling it a little."
"He's the reason we're meeting?" I asked Batman.
"I have a proposal to make," Batman replied. "Robin!"
"Yes, sir!" a voice called from above.
"League meeting. Come down."
"Yes, sir," Robin sighed, swinging across from a gargoyle on another building.
"He's going through an overly stealthy phase," Batman said with a parental roll of his eyes. Ari landed lightly, dark red cape tucked around his shoulders, and gave us a professional nod. Five years had put muscle and height on him; he was as tall as Batman now, a rangy sixteen-year-old with all the drama that being sixteen entailed, even being sixteen and a superhero. He'd given me back my medal a few months ago, when he and Bruce decided he was probably old enough that Luthor wouldn't link him to the boy he'd kept in a cage years before.
"I like the new uniform," I said. He looked down at his dark green suit, a pleased smile crossing his face under the maroon domino mask. In reality I thought he looked a little like a Christmas tree, but Bruce had told me it was a work in progress. "So, now that we're all here..."
"I've been speaking to Flash since our encounter in Central City," Batman said. "I think he could be a benefit to the League."
"We don't particularly have anything in place for admitting new members," Alan said.
"That was always a goal, though," I pointed out. "Structure, stability. Perhaps it's time we added that chapter to the rulebook."
"There's a rulebook?" Flash asked, voice a little strangled.
"Metaphorical," Lantern said. "There won't be a test."
"Oh. Phew," Flash exhaled, glancing at Batman. "Yeah, so -- the thing is, we don't really get your caliber of evil out in Illinois. I can mostly handle Central City myself. But uh, I'd like to learn with the League, and I figure I can offer to help out here on the coast. I can get here fast, faster than you can get to me anyway, but I'm not...much of a fighter, really. Batman's been giving me lessons, but I'm nowhere near his level yet. Don't think I'll ever hit yours," he added to me.
"It's not that common," I agreed.
"I'm really good at rescue, though, and it's be an honor to serve with all of you. So in the end it's a net gain, you know, I'd be helping you and learning and you wouldn't have to do much -- oh, I uh -- I forgot part of the speech -- "
"Flash," Batman said quietly. "Breathe."
"Right. Sorry, I'm nervous," he said. "I also work with the police, is what I meant to put in there somewhere, I'm in forensics, so I can help with the detective end. Not that you need it! But I could, if you did. So."
Lantern looked like he was trying not to laugh. Robin had his lip caught in his teeth. Diana smiled.
"I'd like to join if you want me," Flash finished.
"Private ballot?" I suggested.
"I don't think we need that much," Lantern replied. "Batman's vouching for him. General call for objections?"
We all exchanged looks. Robin shifted nervously. We hadn't done this when he'd joined, not that it had ever been that official. When he turned fourteen he'd just started showing up at Batman's side, and none of us had minded or bothered to question it.
"If there are no objections, I say he's in," Lantern said finally.
"Not an objection," I said, and everyone looked at me. "Just a point of order. I think -- we all know each other, in terms of who we are when we aren't the League. I think maybe that should be a rule. We have to trust each other. So if he's in, we have to know who he is. And he should know who we are, fair's fair." I looked at Flash. "Agreed?"
"Oh," he said quietly. "I don't -- I mean, I don't mind, but you don't have to, you barely know me -- "
"He knows who I am," Batman said. "He's met Robin out of uniform."
"Seriously?" Diana asked. Bruce revealing himself was one thing; revealing Ari, who he protected from the public as much as possible, was another.
"I vetted him," he said. He looked around at our surprised faces. "What?" he asked, annoyed. "Superman said it. We have to trust each other."
He pulled his cowl back. Ari, behind him, peeled his mask off. Lantern glanced at me, then let his own mask fade. Diana never had hid anything, but she gave Flash a reassuring smile. I concentrated for a moment, letting Superman slip away.
Flash tugged his cowl back from his face, letting it hang behind him. He had shaggy blond hair and a striking profile. He looked about my age, maybe a little younger. His face was friendly and open, marked with what looked like a burn scar, small and high up on one cheek.
"My name's Bartholomew Allen," he said. "Barry. Or Bart, I answer to both."
"Alan Scott," Lantern said. "Central Intelligence Agency. Glad to know you."
"Diana, princess of Themyscira. Not that I ever have to tell anyone," she said teasingly.
"Clark Kent, Daily Planet," I added.
"Clark Ke -- like Lane and Kent?" he asked. "The reporters?"
"Another one for your fan club," Diana told me, then turned back to him. "If I can ask, Bart, how did you come by your abilities?"
"Oh, I -- " He gestured to the scar. "Freak accident. Lightning electrified some chemicals in a storage shelf behind me. They exploded. Lucky I survived, really. When I woke up, I was...fast."
He looked around at us, examining every bare face, even Bruce's and Ari's. I noticed a silent communication that passed between him and Bruce, the way Bart's eyes lingered on his face, and something clicked. My head snapped around to look at Bruce, and he shook his slightly -- not now.
"Welcome to the League," Alan said.
"Thank you," Bart answered, and I could see the sincerity under the anxiety. "I promise I'll be a credit to it."
"You'll fix him up with an alarm-box?" Lantern asked. Bruce nodded. "Then I think we're done for tonight, unless anyone has other business."
Bruce was already pulling up his cowl, and Ari had plastered the mask back on his face. Bart pulled his hood up too, watching awestruck as Diana and Lantern lifted off, heading for home.
"Robin, take Flash back to the mansion," Batman said. "Superman looks like he needs a few words."
"Race you," Flash challenged, and took off, running...straight down the side of the building.
"Not fair!" Robin exclaimed, leaping off the edge and throwing a grappling dart into the opposite building. Bruce watched indulgently as the boy tried to catch up. When they were gone, he glanced at me.
"Might as well out with it," he said.
"You and he...?"
"It's personal."
"You could have told me, Bruce."
"It's personal."
I nodded. "Not the same as uniform business, I get it."
"Do you?"
"Regardless of anything else, we have each other's back, and that doesn't change. I might be from farm country but I've been around the block more than once. Enough to know better than to leave a pal to twist over who he...spends his time with."
"Well, that's gracious of you."
"All right, that sounded wrong. Point is I don't care, and I wouldn't have if you'd told me, but I understand why you didn't." I paused. "It's dangerous, Bruce. You know that."
"Not more dangerous than anything else I do."
"Different danger. It's a different kind of illegal. If anyone found out -- they'd arrest you. Take Ari from you."
"No one's going to find out. And if they do -- " he shook his head. "There are benefits to being wealthy. I can buy myself out if I need to."
"Can you? Can you be sure Gotham wouldn't make an example out of you?"
"I thought I was the one who always borrowed trouble," he said, but he sounded tense, like he was barely containing his anger.
"Bruce -- "
"Would you give Lois up?"
"What?"
"If it were illegal. If you were endangering her -- which, by the way, you sometimes do -- would you give her up?"
I had a moment where my perspective seemed to shift radically; he always did know how to turn things around on me, give me a new view of whatever we were arguing about.
"It's that serious?" I asked, because I couldn't think of what else to say.
"It could be." Bruce was silent for a while. "He's been visiting Gotham. Training with us. Nobody outside the League has ever been as good with the kid as Bart. It's -- well. I...knew. When I saw how he treated Robin. Before I even knew who he was."
"So," I said. "Love at first sight?"
Bruce groaned. "Hardly. He puts too much trust in his speed to protect him. He gets distracted. He...blithers. And eats like nobody I have ever seen. He's a smart-aleck when he should be a professional. He wears that incredibly loud cherry-red uniform -- he won't even consider something more sensible like black -- "
"And he makes you happy."
Bruce glanced at me. "He understands this life. He treats Ari well. He likes me, Christ knows why."
"He'll be a good addition to the League," I offered.
"I think so."
"Plenty of people like you, Bruce," I added. "Maybe not quite the way he does, but you're our friend. The best friend I have. I'm glad for you. Worried, but glad."
"Thank you. Hey, is the heart-to-heart over now?" he asked, but there was humor in his eyes, the anger subsiding.
"Sure. See you next time the world needs saving."
"Keep safe."
"Likewise," I said, and lifted off. By the time I looked back, he'd disappeared into the shadows again.
I hoped he was going home.
no subject
AHA! I didn't even pick up on that!
I enjoyed the story, it was a great amalgamation of the various JLA attributes (not that I am *deeply* familiar with any of their canons.) I like how much the epilogue opens up the world, not only in Batman's relationship reveal, but the fact it is five years later than the body of the story.
I can't recall if I mentioned before that I love that you do footnotes with links to some of your research / inspiration for a story, but I find them a wonderful addition. (Especially the artwork over in Exquisite, and the musical links in the Avengers fic.)