Chapter Text
The Flash was in the cafeteria.
That wasn’t the strange part.
The Flash was in the cafeteria with someone. With someone that no one knew. With a stranger.
And, yeah, strangers weren’t too uncommon, in the expanding numbers of the Justice League. But complete strangers absolutely were uncommon. Every new member of the JL had been at least formally introduced, before they made their Watchtower debut. Had had some kind of profile circulated (you know, so that no one would attack them as potential trespassers).
This guy, though. The one that the Flash had his head bowed close to. The guy who sat practically in the younger Flash’s lap. He hadn’t been announced or introduced. He wasn’t a member. Or, if he was a member, someone had forgotten to do the very important task of making sure the rest of the Justice League members knew he was a member. Which was, of course, pretty unlikely.
As already mentioned, it was the younger Flash. Wally.
Wally had taken over Flash duties for the two weeks the elder Flash, his Uncle Barry, was off-planet during a mission with some of the League alumni (that is: Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, and the second GL, John Stewart). Then Barry had gotten hurt, leaving Wally with approximately one more week of Flash duties spanning across both his city – Keystone – and his uncle’s city – Central. And Monitor Duty. And League missions, if those came up.
Wally wasn’t the kind of guy who took everything with stoicism or indifference, either. He didn’t – probably couldn’t – hide his emotions, hide how he was struggling. Which meant that people could see him wearing down, tiring, over the course of those three weeks.
All this meant that, previous to this stranger’s appearance, people – Leaguers – were getting concerned for him. Without, you know, knowing how to help him.
And now they had this stranger.
Wally sat sideways on a cafeteria bench. The stranger sat opposite of him, with his knees thrown over Wally’s thighs and his ankles crossed behind Wally, so that he could sit right up against Wally. Wally had his face buried in the stranger’s shoulder. The stranger had his arms around Wally, one hand rubbing circles on his back. He had his head leaned up against the side of Wally’s head and seemed like he might be murmuring or... singing, maybe. But that seemed almost absurd.
Wally’s shoulders shook briefly and he lifted his head, smiling.
The two young men kissed, then returned to their previous, cuddled up positions. And it was weird.
No, not like that.
The League had strict policies in place to keep discrimination at a very firm minimum. Some people didn’t share the core beliefs of the League, but they had to respect those core beliefs – including kindness and equality across the spectrum of gender, sexuality, race, and so on – in order to be a member of the League.
It was weird because no one knew Wally was in a romantic relationship.
No one knew of a mask that was romantically involved with either the Flash or the Flash’s civilian identity. And no one knew of a civilian identity that was romantically involved with Wally or Wally’s vigilante identity. Well, no one who was talking.
Hal, from his lack of reaction to the scene, seemed to be one such person who knew of the romantic development, but who wasn’t talking about it. Which was, you know, weird. Hal wasn’t a gossip monger of the same caliber of Ollie, but he wasn’t shy about talking up rumours and speculations, even if it had to do with his friends or family. Wally was both “friend” and “family” in Hal’s book and Hal hadn’t once mentioned Wally having a boyfriend, let alone a mystery vigilante boyfriend.
But, hey. Wally’s heart was on his sleeve. Constantly. And that heart seemed to be soothed and quieted by the presence of the mystery boyfriend.
Superman confirmed that the mystery guy was singing, quietly, to Wally. A lullaby or something. In a language Clark wasn’t immediately familiar with, which was weird for the polyglot. A language Clark didn’t know? It had to be a less common one, then.
(Clark mentioned, however, that he’d heard Batman, over comms, speaking that language – if slightly less fluently. “Romani,” he offered, albeit with some hesitance. “It’s on my list, but I haven’t gotten around to learning it, just yet.”)
And. Wow. A lullaby. That was... almost absurd in its innocence, really.
But though it seemed to make Wally laugh a few times, it also seemed to soothe him.
Of the League members to run into the cafeteria scene – which lasted a very long time, in spite of Wally’s usual flitting from one thing to another – most of them were on guard about the stranger. But – and this really frustrated Ollie, at least – but not the big guns, not the Leaguers who could do something about what almost felt like an invasion.
Superman, besides telling Ollie that it was a lullaby being sung to Wally, didn’t do anything to remove the stranger or interrupt the scene. Actually, he told Ollie to leave the two of them alone, with all that Kansas earnestness coming through in his ridiculous puppy eyes.
Wonder Woman took one look at the two of them, then told Dinah – all authority and self-assuredness – that “the child is not a threat” and that they should be left alone, as if she and Clark were somehow of one mind about the stranger, in spite of being spoken to about him separately. Which spoke to some kind of familiarity with the stranger, but not to what kind of familiarity.
Batman, when Ollie caught him to mention to potential security risk, grunted and almost disappeared on the spot, but took a moment to congratulate Ollie on “doing the right thing,” before ripping his “doing the right thing” apart with a well-placed “if only you could apply that to a situation that actually called for that kind of attention,” like the jerk he was. Ollie felt both flattered and offended. The latter was a normal feeling that he consistently associated with Bats, the former – however – was a new one, because Batman was probably the worst about giving praise, out of – like – everyone Ollie had ever met. Ever. Even the Martian, who didn’t really understand human niceties in the first place.
So, yeah. The Big Three weren’t any help. GL apparently knew the mystery trespasser, but wasn’t willing to talk about it. And Wally was finally getting some much-needed support.
Ollie still felt kind of like the Watchtower had been invaded, but Wally was one of Roy’s friends, and Ollie didn’t feel like seeing Wally looking like a kicked puppy, so he decided against any attempt to confront him about his guest.
The question remained; How in the hell had this mystery mask gotten on the Watchtower and why was nobody (who had authority to do something) concerned about it?