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Wally has a new boyfriend.
Don't get Barry wrong. He loves his nephew and he's super proud of Wally for coming out. Even more than that, he's glad Wally felt safe coming out (to him and Iris as well as coming out in general)! And he's absolutely thrilled that his newly minted out-and-proud bisexual nephew's first boyfriend is someone that makes him smile like that!
It's just.
Wally's new boyfriend is kind of odd.
No, okay, scratch that.
Wally's new boyfriend is super odd and it’s been driving Barry nuts.
On the one hand, Wally's boyfriend is ridiculously attractive. It's not like Barry thinks that someone that attractive wouldn't be interested in Wally, either. It's that Barry has no idea where Wally would even find someone like that, like, anywhere. Let alone in Central or Keystone.
It would be way easier if Wally's boyfriend was a model, but no, the dark-haired, bright-eyed pseudo-model isn't an actual model. Like, not even on the side or anything. He’d said so himself.
And then, on the other hand, there’s the whole ”new” part of ”new boyfriend.” Barry can't believe Wally just found this guy on the street somewhere and asked him out. Frankly, Barry can't see Wally just going for it like that, especially not so soon after he's come out to the people in his innermost circle. Wally was a chronic flirt, but – as far as Barry knew – he'd never actually asked out anyone he didn’t already know, like, pretty well.
(Barry had the feeling that Wally's boyfriend wasn't so much a product of Wally coming out as Wally coming out was a product of Wally’s boyfriend; like, Barry had a feeling that the two of them had already been dating before Wally was out.)
Barry had no idea where Wally and Wally’s boyfriend had met, or when they’d met, or how they’d met.
And then there's that other thing. Barry has no idea what Wally's boyfriend’s name is. Like, at all. Wally usually just calls him Rob (which Barry initially thought was his name, but when Barry had asked, Wally had laughed and said it wasn't – without offering up what Rob’s name actually was).
This guy was around practically all the time and Barry didn't even know his name!
So, yeah. Wally's new boyfriend is kind of odd.
This guy was practically always around, right? But from what Barry gathered, he also wasn’t a Central or Keystone native. He wasn’t even a Missouri native, like, at all! But he was always around. And always with Wally. Barry didn’t even know how to broach that particular subject. How did the guy even get to Central if he didn’t already live in the area, anyway? Magic?
--
The first time Barry had found Wally’s boyfriend in Wally’s bed was a weird one, for everyone involved. It was one of those days when the kid hadn’t been around during the day (a rarer and rarer occurrence, the longer they dated) and hadn’t been expected for the next few days. He was busy, according to Wally.
Barry had knocked on Wally’s door and poked his head inside to tell him that breakfast was ready.
The room was dark, which was a bit unusual for Wally. Generally speaking, Wally didn’t draw his curtains because he found opening and closing them to be too much of a hassle. But they were drawn neatly closed so that the sunlight could only creep in around the edges.
Wally’s shock of orange hair was easy to spot, even with the minimal light, but against Wally’s spare pillow was a head of dark hair, spread in a halo across the pillowcase. Wally was higher up on his bed, wrapped around the dark-haired boy. Rob, which was still the only thing Barry had to call Wally’s boyfriend, had his head tucked under Wally’s chin.
Barry blinked.
On the one hand, Wally was old enough to make his own decisions (and it didn’t look like anything but actual sleeping had happened in that bed). On the other hand, though, it was Barry and Iris’s roof and Barry would have liked to know that Wally had had his boyfriend over, especially if it was going to be an overnight situation.
“Uh,” Barry cleared his throat. “Breakfast?”
Wally scrunched his nose, but barely stirred. His dark-haired counterpart, on the other hand, moved out from under Wally’s arm and sat up. The kid’s hair had been short when Wally’d first introduced him to Barry and Iris, but it had been growing ever since, with only a trim to interrupt what was a clear intent to grow his hair out. “What time is it?” Rob whispered. He rubbed one of his eyes with the back of his hand and bit back a yawn.
“Nine,” Barry said.
Rob stiffened, eyes snapping wide. “Nine.” He swore softly. Well, Barry thought it must have been a swear, but he didn’t recognize the language it was in. Rob turned and shook Wally’s shoulder.
“No,” Wally turned his face into his pillow.
Rob shook him more urgently. “It’s morning,” he said.
“That’s what happens when the sun comes up,” Wally mumbled into the pillow.
“Wally,” Rob huffed and sat back, rubbing his hands over his face. “I wasn’t supposed to stay over.”
“Can’t you just call your dad?” Wally mumbled.
All the while, Barry hovered awkwardly at the door. Part of him thought he should just leave and let them have their moment, but the mentioned of Rob’s father had him interested. For all intents and purposes, Rob was still a stranger to Barry. That, at least, confirmed that the kid had a family. Which was more than Barry had known ten minutes before.
“ Wally ,” Rob hissed. “I need to be home, like, yesterday.”
Wally groaned and sat up.
Barry was pleased to see that both boys were, in fact, fully dressed. In fact, Rob was in his day clothes, probably from the day previous. Barry was less pleased about what sounded like Rob sneaking out to see Wally. Or else simply not having permission to go to Central, let alone stay overnight.
“Give me like ten seconds, I’ll run you home before brunch,” Wally yawned.
Run? Barry made a face. “Does that mean you need the car?” he asked carefully.
Wally blinked a few times, clearly trying to get his bearings. “Why would I want the car?” he asked.
“To run your... Rob home?”
Rob turned to Barry again, smile strained but amused. “That would be some drive,” he said.
“Okay, wait,” Barry pushed the door open, all the way, and flicked Wally’s light on. Wally yelped and fell off the side of his bed. “When did you get here? Why would you need a ride home, in the first place? I’m confused.”
“Uncle Barry,” Wally sat up and put his elbows on the bed. “Can we do this later?”
“I used the Zetas,” Rob cut in.
Wally and Barry both stopped to look at him. Barry was just surprised. Wally, on the other hand, looked both surprised and wary. “You sure you want to go that route?” he asked. ‘That route’ seemed to be the truthful one.
Rob waved him off. “The Zeta in Central’s like forty minutes from here, on foot. I walked, obviously, but that’s forty minutes I don’t have if it’s nine . Oh my god,” Rob reached over to Wally’s bedside table and grabbed his phone. “Nine fifteen. Oh my god.”
Zeta. As in. League transport.
League transport that wasn’t available to civilians. League transport that wasn’t even disclosed as existing, in the first place. Civilians weren’t supposed to know about that form of transport, let alone use it.
Barry looked Rob over, as he sometimes did, and tried to figure out where he might know him from. He was pretty sure the answer was, in part, ‘not the League,’ but the Zeta information had him doubting himself. Civilians just. Didn’t know about Zetas. Didn’t use them. “How do you have access to the Zetas?”
“I mean, I’m not supposed to. Wally, come on!” Rob threw himself across the bed and whacked at Wally a few times. It was cute.
Wally sighed and, before Barry could react, zipped around his room to get dressed, a crackle of Speedforce lightning ghosting along behind him. “All right, all right. I’m ready. Let’s get you to brunch before your dad flips.”
“Um,” Barry blinked. Alarm started in the back of his skull, then suffused the entirety of his being. Not supposed to use the Zetas? And Wally was comfortable using his meta abilities around him? “Who are you?” And how did he manage to use the Zetas if he ‘wasn’t supposed to’?
Rob grinned at Barry, which was the last thing Barry saw before Wally zipped away with him.
--
For a while, Barry tried – he really did – to get answers about Rob out of Wally. Weirdly, Wally wouldn’t even drop a hint. Before those attempts, Barry had honestly considered Wally... not that great at keeping secrets. He had to reevaluate that.
“Not my story to tell,” was the most Wally would say, though he usually went with the more diplomatic option of redirecting the conversation elsewhere, entirely.
So, Barry let it go. It wasn’t like he was looking to drive a wedge between himself and Wally, and – as frustrated and curious as Barry was about Wally’s increasingly enigmatic boyfriend – Barry trusted Wally. Barry trusted that Wally wouldn’t put himself, or his family, in danger just because he liked someone.
Sometime later, Barry was on patrol – Wally over in Keystone doing the same – when he spotted the bright yellow of Wally’s Kid Flash costume out of the corner of his eye, on the rooftop of one of Central and Keystone’s higher buildings. He circled back around, if only to ask Wally why he wasn’t still on patrol, and saw that Wally was up there with someone else.
Barry felt the inkling of suspicion, but it took getting much closer to confirm that the figure in black was, yes, Wally’s boyfriend. The ever more mysterious “Rob.”
“Uh, KF?” Flash greeted.
“Uncle Barry,” Wally turned to grin at him, cowl clearly pulled back. “Sup?”
Barry ran a hand down his face. “Why is Rob...?”
“Oh,” Wally turned to Rob, who was kicking his feet out, over the edge of the skyscraper. No fear. “He found something.”
Barry resisted the urge to repeat the motion, albeit barely. “I mean, that’s nice and all...”
“Drug runners,” Rob cut in. He turned to smile at Barry. “I figured, since the information isn’t doing me any good, and since they’ve moved into your territory and all, I’d pass on the information.” He picked up a folder from between himself and Wally. “They’re operating out of Keystone.”
Barry blinked very slowly. It was actually kind of impressive how slowly, in hindsight. “You have... information. On drug runners. In Central. How?”
“I have my ways.” Rob shrugged and stood. “If you need a hand...?”
“We, uh, don’t like to involve civilians in our line of work,” Barry said.
Rob gave him a funny little smile. “Well. I’m a phone call away.” He turned to Wally, who jumped up to stand with him, and gave him a brief kiss. “Seriously, call if you need help.”
“Of course, babe,” Wally said.
Then, to Barry’s utter horror, Rob turned and jumped off the building .
“Wally!”
Wally caught Barry’s arm before Barry could zip down the building and catch Rob. “He’s fine,” Wally said. He was as relaxed as if he’d just watched his boyfriend get into a car. Except that his boyfriend hadn’t gotten into a car, or done anything as mundane and harmless, but had leapt from the roof of one of the tallest buildings in Central.
But Wally was right. As Barry watched, Rob produced a grappling device and zipped across Central like a silent shadow. It was reminiscent of how both Green Arrow and the Batman zipped around, but it wasn’t like either hero had an exclusive right to grappling as a means of travel. And neither of them was quite as graceful as Wally’s Rob was.
--
Drug runners. They had been a pain to deal with, but Wally and Barry, with a brief assist from both Jay and – a bit later in the operation – Bart, managed to shut them down in a way that put all the local ‘runners behind bars, implicate their accomplices (that weren’t in Central with them), and leave the evidence remarkably untouched.
It was a success.
Wally never did tell Barry how Rob would have had access to the information that would have led to the drug runners, though, and Barry – who wanted to believe the best of Rob – was left wondering if, somehow, Rob wasn’t associated with the scene from the side of the angels. After all, another answer to the mysterious nature of Rob’s appearances and abilities was, like, cat burglar or something. He’d heard about a similar shadow, after all – Catwoman – who, while usually victimizing Gothamites, had gained a reputation for pulling high-stakes heists basically anywhere there were interesting things she could get her hands on.
Wally assured Barry that it wasn’t the case, that Rob was definitely on the side of the angels, but Barry still worried that, maybe, his nephew was caught up in something.
Barry’s worrying took a sideline, however, when Rogue activity started acting up, again.
It had been a bit too quiet, in the weeks leading up to the unexpected showdowns – one Rogue after another, working in tandem to seemingly wear the Flashes down – and Barry, if he hadn’t been increasingly preoccupied with the mystery of ”Rob” probably would have been suspicious about the quiet. He hadn’t been, though, so the showdowns were surprises. Nasty little surprises that came on the heels of a particularly busy week at the precinct.
It didn’t seem like it was going to be an easy fight. Fights. Whatever.
Rogues were always worse when they started cooperating. Naturally, that was why Len liked to get the Rogues to cooperate against Barry whenever possible.
Barry was halfway to calling up the League for help when a flurry of movement – two sets of bolos – took down Mirror Master, who had been aiding Heatwave against Wally and Captain Cold against Barry. Mick's and Len’s guns, heat and cold both, shorted out at almost the same moment. And then Golden Glider was... tazed?
Barry, panting from his attempts to get at Len through Glider and Trickster’s interventions, couldn’t for the life of him figure out what happened, but he went for Len when the chance presented itself. The gun was shorted by an EMP disk, evidently thrown at the gun. He had a feeling that Heatwave’s gun was shorted through similar means, if not the exact same ones.
Wally and Barry had Mick and Len tied up in no time, Mick’s heat gun dismantled neatly and Len’s cold gun divested of its power source. Even though they’d sped through that, though, it seemed that Glider and Trickster were both incapacitated when their backs were turned. And, of course, there was Mirror Master in his bolo binds.
That left Weather Wizard, who had been distracting the police force away from the fight.
“What?” Barry managed.
Really, he should have noticed the shadow immediately, but it took the shadow moving to test the cuffs on Len’s sister, Lisa, for Barry to realize that, you know, there was a person knelt beside Golden Glider, Lisa, in the first place.
“Oh, hey,” Wally said. “Thanks for the assist.”
The shadow lifted his head and grinned over at Barry and Wally. “Yeah, no problem,” he said. His costume, because of course he was costumed, was all black, aside from the lines of blue that made an arrow on his chest and across his shoulder blades, then spread down his shoulders and arms and down, down, all the way to his fingertips. His mask was blue, too, and he had a set of escrima sticks, evidently electrified escrima sticks.
Barry had no idea who it was.
Wally zipped over to Trickster to check his bonds, then zipped around to gather all the Rogues up. He paused in his self-imposed duties to ask: “Weather Wizard?”
Barry opened his mouth, but the shadow answered first.
“Took care of him, first,” the shadow said.
“What?” Barry asked.
“Well, I was in the area – seeing as I was here to grab KF – and Weather Wizard was causing major traffic issues, which, I mean. Not cool. It wasn’t a problem, though, because Weather Wizard, much like the rest of your Rogues, never seems to expect someone taking the sneaky approach. They, like, look forward to the Flash showing up with the whole ‘stop this, you’re hurting people’ or ‘you wanted me, here I am’ schtick.” The shadow tossed something Barry’s way. “Weather wand,” he said. “I left the Wizard with your police force, but I’m used to collecting trophies and keeping them out of evidence lockers, so I was halfway here before it occurred to me that your police force can probably be trusted with shit like your Rogues’ weapons.”
Wally snorted. “Unlike your police force,” he said.
“Hey, the Commissioner’s done wonders for the precinct, but yeah, long way to go yet. Last thing we’d want, over there, is to leave the tools of our villains where morally dubious cops might get their hands on them,” the shadow shrugged.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Barry asked.
The shadow laughed again. “Right! We haven’t met like this, have we? I mean, I don’t have much reason to be in-costume in Central, but I keep forgetting that we don’t officially know each other.”
“Officially?”
Wally zipped over to pick up the stranger in his arms, then spin him around a few times, apropos nothing.
“Um,” Barry scratched the back of his head (with the weather wand, but never mind the lack of wisdom in that particular choice). He took another look at the shadow. His hair was long enough to need pulling back, and kept in a neat, tight bun at the nape of his neck, just above the collar of his suit. He was slender and almost pale. He had dark hair.
Barry had no idea who he was. He had no idea what hero on the scene looked like that, or fought like that. If he’d worn a cape (and maybe a cowl), Barry would have been tempted to make a connection between him and Batman, but as it was... he had no idea.
Unless.
Oh. Oh, shit.
Wally let the stranger slip down in his grip, though he still held him up in the air. The shadow wrapped his arms around Wally’s neck and looked completely comfortable in Wally’s arms. The two of them kissed, giggling against each other’s mouths.
“Rob,” Barry said weakly. And he felt like the answer should have been obvious to him sooner, especially with how he’d seen Rob leap from the rooftop, and how Rob had managed to gather a file on drug runners that were brand new to Central (though established and organized before their arrival).
The shadow – Rob – turned to him, still smiling. And, yeah, Barry supposed the smile was a little familiar, after all. “Nightwing,” he corrected.
Barry sighed.
“You said you were fetching me away?” Wally asked.
Barry should have realized that Wally was just... that entrenched in the community. Of course his Rob was going to be someone from the community. Though the option of ‘cat burglar’ or other type of villain was still an option, albeit an unlikely one if Rob was going to help take down Rogues for no reason other than to get to Wally for whatever reason.
“Yeah, Titans duty,” Rob said.
Wally nodded. “Okay, sure. Unc—uh. Flash?” Wally turned to Barry, still grinning with his armful of possible-vigilante boyfriend. “Sounds like the Titans need a hand for something. Talk to you later tonight?”
Barry straightened. “Yeah, I can handle this. But wait. Uh. Rob? Are you one of the Titans?”
“Newly minted. The amount of begging it took to get my dad to let me out of the city was something else, let alone permission to join the second-gen superhero club.” Rob tapped Wally affectionately on the shoulder. Wally set him down. “I’m thinking you’ll be hearing a bit more about Nightwing, after today. Not that it’ll tell you much more about me than you already know.”
“I don’t know much,” Barry sighed.
“You know I’m KF’s bf,” Rob said. ”That’s the important part. KF has pretty stellar instincts about people. If I were you, I’d count that as the most important information you have about me.”
“You can’t just... tell me who you are?” Barry asked.
“Mm, no. My dad’s rules. If I don’t want to be grounded until I’m thirty, I’ve got rules I gotta follow,” Rob’s smile was brilliant. “I can’t tell you who I am, where I’m from, who trained me, or the names of any of my associates or family members. You know, the stuff you already know you can’t get out of me.”
“I never asked who trained you.”
“And now you know you probably shouldn’t,” Rob agreed.
--
That was how it went.
Rob was “Rob” and “Nightwing,” and Barry couldn’t even figure out where he lived. It was almost like the whole Batman situation, where Batman was “just an urban legend” or something, because Barry couldn’t find any tell of “Nightwing” in news outlets, no matter where he looked.
At least Barry knew where the “urban legend” of Batman was located. He didn’t even have that much on Nightwing.
Until one day when his Google Alert finally served him.
“Nightwing: Hero or Villain” was the title of the article that popped up on his phone. It didn’t have a lot of information, but there was a blurry picture that certainly could have been Rob. The article was from Blüdhaven, which was...
Barry googled it, uncertain if he was right. But he was.
Blüdhaven was Gotham’s sister city, a cesspool of a place just on the Batman’s doorstep.
--
It took a literal apocalypse, of the alien invasion variety, for Barry to get some of the answers he wanted about his nephew’s boyfriend. It had been years since they’d started dating, and Barry was relatively sure that “Rob” wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The longer Rob was around, the more Barry wanted to know something – anything – about him.
Well, to be more accurate, it was the aftermath of the invasion, after the League had pushed back the assault, with help from the Titans.
Casualties were low, but one of them had been Nightwing.
Barry had gone with Wally to the medical facilities, on the Watchtower, to visit with Rob. When they got there, they heard low voices, talking. They rounded the corner into the medical facilities and. Well. Barry hadn’t expected to find Batman at Nightwing’s bedside. And, with the elegance of a newborn giraffe, Barry asked, “What brings you around, Bats?”
Nightwing and Batman both looked over at Barry.
Wally poked his head out from behind Barry and waved at Rob.
Batman, upon seeing Wally, seemed to relax a little. “I should have expected you’d be receiving visitors,” he said, turning back to Nightwing. Who laughed, then winced. “Be careful. You’ve got broken ribs.”
“No shit,” Rob said. He leaned back and took a slow, pained breath.
“Language. You know how Agent A feels about swearing.”
And. Well. To Barry, that was a weird statement. “You guys know each other?” he asked.
Wally zipped over to Rob’s other bedside and took his hand, kissing the bruised knuckles of his boyfriend and just completely leaving Barry to flounder.
Batman chuckled, which was probably in Barry’s top five of least favourite and/or most frightening noises. “Yes, Barry, I am acquainted with Nightwing.” He began to stand, but Rob’s hand shot out and grabbed his forearm. Batman stilled, then slowly sat back down. “I won’t be far,” he soothed.
“I don’t want you to go,” Rob mumbled.
Wally didn’t seem in the least miffed to hear his boyfriend say that to someone else, which struck Barry as a little weird. Barry inched further in the room. “Honestly, I know about as much about Rob as I know about you, Bats,” he said, “So, I mean. I guess something I said was funny? But I don’t know why.”
Batman hummed thoughtfully, taking Rob’s hand in his own. “I’m surprised Wally has been able to keep so quiet about that.”
“Yeah, me too,” Barry admitted.
Wally continued to pay him absolutely no attention. He and Rob actually began whispering to each other, though Rob’s grip on Batman’s hand was impressively tight. Weird.
“Wally talks about, like, nothing else. But never anything about Rob’s actual identity, or his hero identity, or anything remotely useful in terms of either. The only reason I even know Rob is Nightwing is because they can’t go like five minutes without touching or kissing,” Barry said.
Batman chuckled. “Nightwing is very... tactile,” he said.
“God, I wish I could ask why you know that.” Barry pulled a chair over from an empty bedside.
Batman turned to Barry, clearly amused. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “This isn’t just a passing fancy. And Wally being like a son to you,” Batman gave another thoughtful hum and turned his gaze back to where Wally and Rob were bent close, whispering. He seemed to make a decision, then turned back to Barry. “He’s my son.”
Wally and Rob stopped whispering and snapped their attention back to Batman.
“B,” Rob struggled to sit up.
“Don’t,” Batman tossed a glare that had Rob dropping back against the pillows with a huff, then Batman turned back to Barry. “You might as well know, seeing as it’s more and more likely that our families are, to a significant degree, connected through our legacies. My son and yours.”
“He’s my nephew,” Barry said.
There were distant voices breaking into the edge of Barry’s awareness, argumentative and too-loud for the medical area of the Watchtower, but Barry was stuck on the newly discovered information.
“Well, you’re a better dad to me than my bio dad was,” Wally cut in.
Barry nodded slowly. “Okay, so... I’ve had Batman’s son. Under my roof. For months.”
“Yep,” Rob smiled.
And that was enough revelations for a lifetime, in Barry’s opinion, but then there were more bodies shoving their way into the infirmary. The argumentative voices in flesh. They were all speaking over each other, but it seemed to be about who would get to visit first.
Batman sighed and turned his attention away from Barry and to the new parties. “None of you have Watchtower clearance,” he said.
Barry would have been more concerned if Batman didn’t look entirely at ease while saying it.
“Piece of cake,” one of the shortest of the group said. He wore red and black, primarily. “Same exact security as the Cave, B. Barely a three on a scale of one to ten.”
Behind the group of newcomers, none of which Barry recognized, Superman hovered, looking both amused and nervous. “I was threatened with Kryptonite,” he said.
Batman’s gaze narrowed in on one of the group members, who wore a red helmet instead of the usual masks that seemed to be favoured by these younger vigilantes.
“Oh, hell no! I’m not taking the fall for this one!” the helmet’s modulated voice said. “It was the demon.”
The shortest of the group, who wore a hood with his black, red, green, and yellow ensemble, gave a scoff. “Of course I threatened the Alien. If Nightwing is here, we have every right to see him!”
Rob perked up. “Wally, he does love me,” he stage-whispered.
“Okay, wait, who are these?" Barry asked.
Batman sighed a very familial, parental sigh and turned to look at Barry once more. “These are, unfortunately, the rest of my children.”
Barry nodded for a moment, as if that was perfectly understandable. Then froze. That... that was a lot of kids. He turned to look at the group. Batman’s kids. Batman’s family . A bunch of unknown vigilantes and... and wait. The helmet. Wasn’t that...?
“Uh, Batman?” Barry turned back to him. “Are you sure these are all, you know, your kids?”
“No,” Batman pointed to a girl in purple, then a boy in Bat-themed armor. “Those two are not my children, exactly, though they’re family regardless. Spoiler,” he pointed at the girl in purple again, and she waved at Barry, “is dating one of my daughters. Batwing,” he pointed at the armored bat again, “is one of two family friends involved in our war on crime, in Gotham.”
“Batman has kids,” Barry whispered to himself.
“And a grandkid,” Rob put in, suddenly looking giddy.
Batman smiled softly. “Well, if Hood ever ties the knot, that will be true. Until then, I can hardly lay any claim to the little girl in his life.”
Over the speaker came a short laugh. Following the feminine laugh came a voice. “ Hi, sorry. B? You do realize they, quote unquote, ‘accidentally’ signed civil union forms when they opened their joint bank account, right? Technically, you’ve had that granddaughter for almost a year.”
“ That’s the other family friend, Oracle,” Batman said. He was, however, frowning at the helmet-clad bat again. “You married him and didn’t tell us?”
“Uh, excuse you, old man, but I only proposed to Roy last week. The fact that my fake identity might be in an official civil union with his civilian identity is irrelevant,” he actually pulled off his helmet, then, and Barry actually recognized the intense-looking individual under the helmet. Particularly his messy, dark curls and the shock of white.
“Oh, holy shit,” Barry said. “Roy. Roy’s Jason. Dude, that’s a crime boss. Bats, your son is a crime boss.”
“Ex crime boss,” Jason muttered.
And, okay, everything was getting out of hand real quick. Especially if Jason, as in Roy’s Jason, as in Jason Todd... was... the newspaper Jason Todd like Barry had always suspected. Because that would mean... “You, uh,” he looked at Batman. “Must have a big house. To have that many kids.”
Roy’s Jason liked to joke about his death.
And Ollie had once told Barry that Roy’s Jason had actually died and had an autopsy scar to prove it . Which. Wow.
And if Jason Todd was the Jason Todd from Gotham that died overseas in an unpleasant, tragic accident, then his father would have to be Bruce Wayne. And if this Jason was Roy’s Jason, but this Jason was also Batman’s son. Then.
“A Manor,” Batman nodded once.
Then Barry was screwed. Because he knew exactly who Batman had to be.