Chapter Text
It’s common knowledge among the League that Batman was in charge of their special ops team; Young Justice. But at the end of the day, they were still the League’s partners and they still have to patrol their own cities. Sure they had the occasional mission, and the frequent training sessions, but they always had time for their original mentors.
This was something that the Flash was very grateful for. He enjoyed spending time with his nephew, since he didn’t get nearly enough time as of late. Wally was always on a mission, training or hanging out with Dick. The only times that Barry even saw the young superhero was when he came over for dinner or when they went out on patrol.
Now was one of those times. They were out chasing after all the Rogues. It seemed that they thought it’d be a great idea to break out all together and go cause trouble in separate and far apart places. Sure they had super speed, but there was only 2 of them. There was only so much that they could do.
They were currently chasing after Trickster, who was causing all kinds of trouble - Barry didn’t even want to think about where he got the giant rubber duck - while the others were raiding various places ranging from ice cream trucks to banks. All those who weren’t stealing were doing their best to distract them.
It was working that’s for sure. Despite having 2 speedsters, the younger Rogue had managed to evade capture for well over 2 hours. How does that even happen? It wasn’t even with smart plans either. They’d literally fallen over a speed bump in their pursuit of the criminal.
Well, technically he’d tripped, but Wally hadn’t. He’d simply jumped over the speed bump without missing a beat. How had he not thought of that? When he’d tripped, he’d gone flying into a building. It’d only taken him a couple seconds for him to recover and continue running, but by then Wally had already zoomed ahead. Since when was the kid so fast?
By the time Barry caught up to Wally, Trickster had been caught and Wally was holding him up by his collar. Sure Trickster was small - Wally was actually around the same size - but last time he’d checked, Wally had never worked on his strength, preferring brains to brawn. He wouldn’t be able to support Tricksters weight for long.
“Hey Kid Flash! You got me, so you wanna put me down?” Trickster asked nervously. Barry mentally frowned, why would the Trickster be nervous? He was friends with Wally, it wasn’t like Wally would actually hurt him. But then he saw Wally’s face. He was smiling, but it wasn’t like his usual smiles, though it was equally as bright.
His normal smiles were filled with simple childish joy. But despite how bright the smile looked at first glance, this one was cold. If you looked closely, the smile was just a little too wide. It seemed forced - fake. But then the smile was gone and his entire demeanor changed.
In an instant, he had gone from a chilling smile to a dark and dangerous look. The smile dropped from his face and was replaced by a snarl. His eyebrows furrowed and hooded his eyes slightly. There was a gleam in his eyes that promised pain.
Barry was incredibly unsettled by the sight of such a dark expression on his nephew’s face. He was only able to marvel at it for a second before his attention was drawn back to the Trickster. He’d gotten this look of shock on his face that quickly turned to pure terror.
The look was caused by Wally lurching forward towards the edge of the building, dangling the Trickster over the edge. Barry’s eyes widened in horror. What was Wally thinking? Wally was definitely not strong enough to bear the Tricksters entire weight with his arms extended for any amount of time. This was getting dangerous.
Wally’s arms could give out, and if they did it was a long way for the Trickster to fall. “Well now that I’ve gotten your attention, what’s the plan?” Wally snarled. It was such a polar opposite from his usual behavior. Where had this come from? Apparently the Trickster seemed to think that Wally wasn’t serious and was actually pulling his leg.
Barry was hoping that this was all a joke. It’d be a horrible joke, but Wally couldn’t actually be this scary and dark. “Hey Baby Flash, you can stop playing now. It’s not really funny anymore.” Trickster said. He smiled nervously, trying to hide the fear he was feeling at being held so high off the ground.
Wally simply sneered at him and shook him roughly, pulling him slightly closer. Just enough for the criminal to place his toes on the edge of the building, relieving some weight from Wally’s arms. Barry sighed in relief knowing that Wally’s lack of physical strength wouldn’t accidentally kill the Rogue.
But that did nothing to make Barry fell better. Wally’s facial expression turned even darker. “You think this is a joke?” Wally demanded sharply. The low growl of his voice was already intimidating, but then he kicked it up another notch. As soon as he’d finished speaking his suit began to drain of all its bright colours.
It was as if someone had dumped a bucket of water on him and washed away all the colour. The colours just drained away and left a dark gray and black theme behind. There was bits of maroon on certain places, but it was overall a very dark take on the Flash uniform.
Barry vaguely remembered Wally saying something about their new ‘incognito’ uniforms. He wondered if this was his. “Listen, I’m not in a good mood right now. You and your buddies are causing a lot of trouble for me. Now a fall from this height won’t actually kill you, but it’ll hurt a hell of a lot. So… are you ready to answer some questions?” Wally asked in a cold tone that left no room for discussion.
The Trickster gulped nervously and nodded his head frantically. “Alright then, what’s you plan? Cause mass panic? Rob as many places as possible?” Wally, no Kid Flash asked. Trickster shook his head, “who do you think we are Baby Flash? No, we’re not planning anything big! We just wanted to get out and about! We’ve been locked up for a while, and when we were out you weren’t here!” Trickster yelled pouting like a disappointed child.
“So when we heard you’d be on patrol tonight, we all broke out so we could play” Trickster admitted. He no longer looked like the mischievous criminal that he was by night. Instead he looked like he’d been sent to the principal’s office for doing something wrong.
Kid Flash looked him right in the eye as if searching for a lie. After a few moments, his stiff posture began to relax. He pulled Trickster back onto the roof of the building. After making sure that Trickster wasn’t going to fall off the roof, Kid Flash raised a hand and pressed the Flash symbol on his chest.
As the colour returned to his suit, Kid Flash transitioned back to Wally. He smiled a bright honest smile that the Trickster returned shyly. It was such a polar opposite from only seconds before that Barry barely suppressed a flinch in surprise. But then Wally was moving and Trickster was on the floor. Confused, Barry looked down and was surprised to see he was tied up by… zip ties.
Since when did they resort to zip ties? He looked up just in time to see Wally pull the flare that Trickster kept to let the other Rogues know if he needed help out of his pocket. He released the flare and zipped over to Barry. “Come on! I doubt that the Rogues are going to do anything else tonight. Let’s go have dinner!” Wally said excitedly. He grabbed Barry’s arm and began to drag him in the direction of his house.
“You weren’t going to actually drop him, right?” Barry asked as they ran back to where Iris was waiting for them with a big meal. Wally wouldn’t actually kill or injure the young trickster. The were around the same age, it’d just be wrong.
“Of course not, uncle B! Heroes don’t kill! I just scared him a bit,” Wally replied flippantly, as if he hadn’t just threatened someone’s life. Barry was concerned, he’d never encouraged Wally to use any sort of interrogation techniques. They usually just caught the bad guys and called it a night.
His nephew was becoming more like a Bat and less like a speedster.