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[one]
As Flash—that is, Wally—ate his second pie this monitor shift, he watched Green Lantern.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know that all of them were a group of perfect strangers. It wasn’t like he just forgot this fact, not on a team with mister first name: I-don’t-do-friends, last name: Batman. Sure, they didn’t know each other’s names or histories, that came with the territory. But sometimes… sometimes it struck Wally how they knew nothing about each other.
So he stared at Green Lantern. Stared at the man’s unnatural, all-green, glowing eyes that made it so difficult to tell where he was actually looking. Eyes that glowed brighter than the rest of him did at any given point. And the rest of him sure did glow too. Not all the time, and not always brightly, but he did glow. His suit too wasn’t made of any material that Wally recognized, not with the way it bent light around it and the fact that he still couldn’t find any seams in it. And… well, GL sometimes floated when he was deep in thought, like he didn’t notice it. Like it was innate. Natural.
So Green Lantern was definitely an alien.
Wally spent a lot of time thinking about this. He had a whole mental list of facts about GL in his head. It wasn’t a particularly long list. They didn’t spend a lot of time together outside of official League stuff. And by ‘not a lot’, he meant none. Wally liked to hang around the Watchtower when off duty occasionally, and the others—besides of course Batman—did as well, to varying degrees. But not GL. The man did not seem to ‘hang out’. But even during League work, GL wasn’t chatty. Oh, he was vocal about plans and strategies and chastising Wally every time he tried to lighten the mood or put his feet up on the table, but he never shared a single thing about himself. Not his past, his current life, not even his likes or dislikes. Wally didn’t even know how he liked his coffee.
“Is there something you want?” GL snapped at him, turning his head in Wally’s direction and away from the monitors they were meant to be… monitoring. And Wally realized he had been staring for quite some time now.
“Uhhh, nope!” he blurted out after a moment’s hesitation.
“Are you sure,” GL asked, his voice as dry as it could be, and it certainly felt like his eyes were staring into Wally, even if he could never tell where exactly the man was looking.
Well, he might as well. “Yeah actually yeah,” he said. “I was just wondering what you do when you’re not here?” A good place as any to start.
GL just stared at him for a few more moments, looking supremely unimpressed before answering, “Well I do have the entire rest of my sector to protect, Earth’s only a part of it.”
“Your sector?” This was the first Wally was hearing of it.
GL turned fully towards him then and put on a voice that reminded Wally rather eerily of one of his favourite university lecturers. “The universe is divided into 3600 sectors, each sector is assigned one Green Lantern to protect it by the Guardians.”
“Oh,” said Wally, “So the Green Lanterns are like…”—don’t say a race, Wally, don’t say race—“like a whole… group of people. You’re not like, the Green Lantern.”
“Yeah,” said GL, nodding. “There’s a lot of us.”
Oh it was so uncommon that he got to learn anything about his teammates, this was fantastic. “Oh okay, that’s cool! And do they all glow like you do?”
GL raised an eyebrow. It was really hard to not immediately back down from a look like that. Green Lantern opened his mouth to say something.
Wally screamed internally and answered before GL could. “You know what, never mind, forget I said anything, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna go get something to eat, I’ll be right back.” And he shot out of there before GL could say anything. Wally resisted the urge to smack his forehead. What an idiotic question. And probably offensive. Do you all glow? Ugh, come on Wally. Why don’t you go full cliché and just ask him why he’s black? “Ugh, why would I even do that,” he hissed out in response to himself, alone in the Watchtower’s kitchen.
After taking a moment to himself just to thunk his head against the fridge, he grabbed himself some food and sped back over to the monitoring station. He was the fastest man alive after all, he couldn’t exactly be gone long if he was just supposed to be getting a snack. But he wasn’t just getting a snack. He knew this, and GL definitely knew this as well. But the intricate social dance of politeness had to be maintained, and all that.
“Are you serious?” GL said as soon as Wally returned. “You’ve had two already.”
“Hey!” Wally said, his mouth already full with the first few bites of his third pie of the night. “I’ve got a hyper-accelerated metabolism, I burn calories faster than any other person alive, I need to eat.”
“But three pies? Come on man, that can’t be good for you.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t like pie,” He said, before pausing and looking seriously at GL. “Please don’t tell me you’re a cake person.”
“Ugh no, I–” GL groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, which was a reaction Wally seemed uniquely skilled at eliciting. Wally took the moment to marvel at the fact that even with GL’s eyes closed, he could still see a faint green glow seeping out from beneath his eyelids if he looked close enough. “I’m just not much of a sweets person,” GL finally finished with.
“How could you not like pies though?” Wally demanded. Being an alien didn’t excuse you for not liking pies. Hell, Superman was known to love pies and he was definitely an alien.
GL crossed his arms and said defensively, “I like meat pies just fine.”
Wally sighed, perhaps a little overdramatically and said, “Well I guess that’s better than nothing.”
Added to Wally’s list of things he knew about Green Lantern:
- there’s apparently more than one Green Lantern
- hates sweets
- comes from a planet that has meat pies
- the universe is divided into 3600 sections??? how? who decided this? (this one wasn’t really about Green Lantern, but it was a lot for Wally to take in regardless, and he did find himself intermittently staring at a wall thinking very hard about this over the next week, so it went on the list anyways)
[two]
“So do you know what planet Green Lantern is from?”
Hawkgirl blinked at him. “What?” she asked.
“Do you know what planet–”
“I heard you fine,” she said. She still didn’t respond.
“Well do you?” Wally asked again. He leaned forward on the chair he was straddling, hugging the back to his chest. He had pulled it up to Hawkgirl’s table in the dining hall.
She stared at him some more with a particular flavour of frustration and annoyance that Wally had recently figured out translated more closely to confusion. “Earth?” she said eventually, less like she was unsure and more like she was checking whether Wally was an idiot.
“What?” Wally scoffed. “No, that guy’s definitely an alien.”
She pursed her lips, still looking like a predator bird that was sizing up his intelligence. “I’d assumed he was from Earth,” she reconfirmed.
He huffed out a breath. “He glows,” Wally said, assuming that should be sufficient. When Hawkgirl just tilted her head at him, he continued, “He glows, he floats, that costume of his definitely doesn’t have any seams and I have no idea what it’s made of, and have you seen his eyes?” he huffed out a breath. “Like hey, I know you’re new to Earth, but humans don’t typically do like, any of that.”
“Huh,” she said, “I guess not.”
“Yeah, no, that’s not normal.”
“Okay,” was her response to that. She gave him a nod and went back to stabbing at her food with a fork like she had to kill it first. Like the issue was resolved and therefore the conversation was over.
“Come on,” Wally said, whining only a teensy bit. “You’re from space, right? You gotta know something. There’s like, a whole bunch of Green Lanterns out there apparently, at least that’s what GL said.”
Hawkgirl looked back up at him, realization coming in a few slow blinks. “Yeah, the Green Lanterns run a cross-galactic peacekeeping group, whatever that’s supposed to mean. You didn’t know that?”
“Man, I’m from Earth,” he said. Every day he learned new things about the universe and it was just so exhausting at this point. Like was the whole universe divided into parts? It was infinite though, so surely not, right? Next someone was going to tell him it wasn’t infinite and they knew exactly where and how it ended and that would really just put him over the edge. He sighed. “I live on Earth. I’ve never left Earth. I don’t know anything about any space rangers.”
“Huh,” she said again.
“So do you know where he’s from, or what?” he asked again, because she still hadn’t really answered and he would not be letting this go, not this easily.
Hawkgirl considered for a moment, looking like she was putting together pieces she had never bothered to think about before. “I always thought they were from all over but I don’t actually know. They more or less just left Thanagar alone, because whenever they did show up we ran them out. We don’t need so-called peacekeepers or anyone else messing with our business,” she growled out. “But I think they have their base on Oa. Though I don’t know if anyone actually lives there, but who knows.”
“Do you know about these ‘Guardians’? GL mentioned them. Do you think they live there?”
“Oh, the Guardians of the Universe?”
He chuckled before he realized Hawkgirl was being serious. He blinked. “I’m sorry, the what?”
“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes, saying just what she thought of that name. “That’s what they’re called. Yeah, I think they’re from there.”
“Oh okay, so maybe GL’s from this Oa place but maybe just his bosses are?” Wally confirmed. “Maybe that’s where his work office is. Where he files like, reports or something.”
“Maybe.” Hawkgirl gave half a shrug, not sounding very committed one way or another. “Why do you want to know, anyways?”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“About what random planet in the universe he’s from? I guess, but I’m not really invested in it. Why are you? You said yourself, you don’t leave Earth.”
“Well, because we don’t know.” Wally said, exasperated. He had spent so long thinking about the mystery of Green Lantern and it was unbelievable to him that no one else had. “We know you’re from Thanagar, which is like a gladiator war world or something.” Hawkgirl rolled her eyes but didn’t interrupt. “We know J’onn’s from Mars, obviously, and we already know his whole deal. Superman’s from Krypton, last son and all that, and we know he hangs out in Metropolis sometimes. Wonder Woman’s from Themyscira with the Amazons and all their nonsense. Batman’s, you know, Batman. So Gotham. You all even know I’m a Central City boy. But GL? He operates all over and never socializes, and we know nothing about him!” he finished, throwing his hands up in the air.
Hawkgirl had put her fork down sometime in there and now wore a considering face. She stared down at the table while she thought through the little she could come up with that they knew about Green Lantern.
“You know, you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right!”
“Don’t push it,” she growled back, pointing her fork at him like it was a weapon, before she went back to stabbing her food to death. “Have you asked around to anyone else?”
“No, you’re the first. But I do have a list!”
“How is ‘has meat pies’ a qualifying factor?” Hawkgirl demanded.
“What do you mean? That’s something!”
“Flash, everyone puts meat in some sort of bread-like container. That does not narrow things down as much as you think it does.”
“Well how would I know!”
So they went to ask someone else.
[three]
The two of them weren’t going to come up with anything more on their own, that became clear fairly quickly. They had Wally’s wild theories based in no knowledge of anything beyond Earth, and Hawkgirl’s knowledge as someone who was from another planet at least, but who was unfortunately from an aggressively insular planet that didn’t take well to outsiders. So they wisely sought another perspective.
This brough the two of them to Superman the following week. Wally hadn’t stopped thinking about the mystery of Green Lantern over that time. He wasn’t sure if Hawkgirl had, or if she was at all invested, but she showed up just the same.
“Hey Supes, you’re from outer space, right?” Wally began casually. He would not be intimidated by Superman, even when he turned that easy smile on the two of them. How was he this tall? It was hard not to believe some of the wilder stories that circulated about Superman when you got to actually stand next to him for any length of time.
“Well, I’m from a planet, Krypton. People aren’t often just from ‘outer space’,” Superman said with a good-natured chuckle. Don’t be intimidated, don’t be intimidated.
“Sorry, yeah, sorry, uh,” Wally said quickly. “You’re from Krypton. Which is a planet. That’s not Earth.”
“That’s right.” Superman gave a bemused smile. And while he was amused, Wally was sweating. This guy was definitely otherworldly. He just gave off an… aura or something, Wally didn’t know what, all he knew was that Superman could snap him like a toothpick. Ahhhhhh.
“Uh huh,” Hawkgirl said. She was looking at Wally, not Superman. She didn’t look intimidated, she just looked annoyed. What did this particular flavour of annoyance translate to, he wondered. Probably something along the lines of what-are-you-doing-flash-come-on-pull-it-together. Or less specifically, she probably just looked unimpressed.
“So! Since you’re from another planet, we both thought”—he stressed that this idea was both of theirs, Hawkgirl was coming down with him—“that you might know about Green Lantern. Like his planet. The one he’s from. Yeah.”
Wally was good at talking, he was. But that did not extend to trying to talk to a living legend, the most powerful man on Earth, who was so strong he might as well be a god, who—he couldn’t stress this enough—could snap him like a toothpick. You’d think he would have gotten used to it by now. He hadn’t.
Superman took a moment to think before he responded with, “Everyone on this team is entitled to a secret identity if they want to keep one. How would you feel if he went around asking about your history?”
“No, yeah, of course! Of course!” Flash waved his hands around, only slightly panicked. “I’m not trying to get his whole life’s story, I just wanted to know more about where he’s from and if anyone knew, that’s all! Not trying to pry!” The internal screaming had recommenced.
“Of course you weren’t,” Superman said easily. “But no one on this team should feel like anyone else here is prying into… their… business.” He had paused near the end of his sentence there, looking off slightly, as if realizing something unfortunate about his statement. And as difficult as Wally found it to read Superman, he could tell that they were on the same page here, because he had had what he would assume to be the same thought at just about the same moment as Superman had.
That thought being that they were all on a team with Batman. They were all on a team with Batman and there was no way the man hadn’t already pried into all of their lives as far as he possibly could. Hell, he probably knew what Wally had had for breakfast last Tuesday. God, they should probably ask Batman, shouldn’t they.
“Yeah, for sure,” Wally said, instead of what they were both thinking. “Well I’m assuming that means you don’t know where he’s from then?” he confirmed, finding a little courage at how mortal Superman actually looked at the thought of some of Batman’s more… nosy tendencies.
“He hasn’t said,” Superman said politely.
“Well alright then, no worries! Thanks for your time!” Wally responded with faux enthusiasm and the politest, most professional words he could think of and threw out a salute before his brain could catch up with his actions. “Well we’re off!” He spun around, his face heating up in embarrassment. Ahhhhhhh.
He saw Hawkgirl offer Superman a polite nod before following Wally off with a casual saunter to Wally’s awkward shuffling that he always ended up doing whenever he desperately wanted to speed away but knew that that would be taken as rude.
Once they were out of the main monitor room where Superman had been, Wally leaned over to Hawkgirl and hissed, “Great help you were in there.”
“I thought you had it covered,” she answered with a grin. Oh great, he was bringing amusement to everyone today. “What’s your problem with him anyways?”
“What’s my–” Wally gawked and stopped walking. “What’s my problem? My problem! That’s Superman!”
“So?”
His hands found his head and he regretted then that the full head cowl he wore didn’t allow him to grasp at his hair. “So? So???” Wally near squeaked. “That’s, that’s Superman! The most powerful person on Earth.”
Hawkgirl cocked her head to the side. “I’m not from Earth.” She crossed her arms, unimpressed. “Besides, I don’t know why you’re so intimidated by him. He’s the most relaxed, polite, soft person I’ve ever met. I doubt he’d last long on Thanagar.”
Wally choked on air. “What!?”
[four]
Wally was keenly aware that out of the Justice League, he was the one who was just some guy. Sure, he had superspeed and could do amazing feats. Sure, he saw the world in a fundamentally different way than anyone else. And sure, he had six thoughts in the time that it took anyone he was talking with to have one—which really didn’t help with his chronic issue of foot-in-mouth disease. So because of all that, on most of Earth, he would be considered extraordinary. But in the Justice League? Surrounded by its other members? Yeah, no, he was the normal one.
And yes, besides the aliens and Amazons, he was reasonably sure that Batman was at least… mostly human. He probably had some subtle meta abilities in there that helped him survive the kind of terrifying shit that seemed to be routine for Gotham. But he couldn’t fly, he couldn’t deflect bullets, he couldn’t melt metal with his eyes, he couldn’t phase through solid objects, or make whole buildings out of green light… but he was an urban legend that had been scaring the living daylights out of people for years and Wally did not measure up to that.
The League was… a lot. Being in the League was a lot. Oh, it was great to have backup, to be on a team, to be able to hang out with people casually and not have to hide his abilities, and it was so great to have backup, that could not be overstated. But Wally couldn’t help the frequent feeling that he was surrounded by giants on this team.
He had gone to Hawkgirl first because despite her prickly exterior, and her penchant for violence, and her scary spiked electric mace, and her very prickly exterior… because Wally found her one of the easiest in the League to talk to. Everyone else was either too close to straight up godhood (Superman, Wonder Woman), or talking to them was like two projectiles trying to connect at fundamentally divergent angles (J’onn), or they were, well, Batman (Batman).
Wally did in fact find it pretty easy to talk to Green Lantern, but that didn’t change the fact that Wally still couldn’t get a read on the man. Hawkgirl, on the other hand, would tell you immediately if you had insulted her or otherwise done something she didn’t like. She was straight forward and was happy to tell you how she felt. Either with her words or imminent violence. And their ability to understand each other had only improved with Wally’s increasing ability to read the meaning in her different expressions.
So, Wally had another list in his head. Or, well, more like a ranking. It was a list of the League members from most to least intimidating to talk to, particularly during a monitor shift, because Wally was, after all, a scientist. So of course he was going to try to control factors and make a ranking as objective as it could be. J’onn wasn’t that far away from least intimidating, if only because J’onn didn’t feel the need to talk much at all during shifts. Which did make Wally supremely awkward and more than a little rambly, but it was certainly better than the shifts Wally spent ready to jump out of his skin from nervousness at any given moment. Those were shifts with Batman or Superman.
But Green Lantern… was a mystery. Despite the fact that the man’s no-nonsense exterior and aversion to any kind of small talk that Wally recognized made it supremely difficult to understand each other, he still found himself seeking the man out for shifts and after meetings and in the halls. Despite the fact that he and Wally couldn’t be more different from each other, and that Wally barely knew a single thing about the man, he did still know a few things for certain: 1) GL was his favourite to be partnered with for missions and monitor duty, 2) Wally could get him annoyed very easily, sometimes he made a game of just how quickly he could get GL to pinch the bridge of his nose, and 3) Wally really liked the guy.
[five]
The next time Flash and Green Lantern found themselves alone on a monitor shift together, it didn’t take long for Wally to give up his usual activity of desperately trying to see if there were any seams on GL’s costume, all while trying to pretend he wasn’t eyeing him the amount that he was. How did the man get that damn thing off? Beyond that, how did he get it on in the first place? This was taking up far too much of Wally’s daily brain power in all honesty. But what the hell was that suit even made of?
He exhausted that line of thinking pretty quickly, and so turned instead to asking GL something else he had been wondering about for weeks now. Something that wasn’t as rude to ask as ‘dude what the hell is your suit even made of and do you have to sleep in it?’.
“So…” Wally began. “You said before you have a whole… sector? That you have to take care of. When you’re not watching Earth. So what exactly is… your sector?” He finished lamely. He could think nearly as fast as he could move, but he somehow always found himself starting a sentence before knowing how to end it.
“Sector 2814,” GL replied easily, like that explained everything. It didn’t.
“…Okay?” Was he supposed to know what that meant? Was that a thing he should know??
GL’s mouth ticked up at the corner and Wally realized he was messing with him. Wally let out a little chuckle and shook his head. GL continued, “It goes from about Agragia-7 to Nideesi. Here,” he said, and began typing on one of the keyboards around them, until he had pulled up a star chart on the big projection. He walked around the table and tech to stand in front of the three dimensional map of space that now hovered in the monitor room. “Here,” he said again, pointing, “to here.”
Wally stared at all of the dots on the chart that meant so little to him.
“And here’s Earth over here.” GL pointed at another dot which… helped, he supposed, before he motioned at a whole area around those three points. “This whole area is sector 2814 and my responsibility.”
“Oh wow, okay. That seems like a lot of area,” Wally said. None of that meant much to him, he didn’t know any of the planets in there, didn’t know any planets outside their solar system, really. But that looked like a large area. “And it’s just you? Alone? That must be lonely, being so far away from your… people? Your home. All the time.”
GL shrugged. “Yeah…” he answered, almost wistfully. He stared more intently at the starmap, putting his hands on his hips. And Wally wondered which one of those little dots was GL’s home world. Which of those dots held the place he had been born, had grown up. Where his family still lived, if he had any.
It was a lot to think about. There was just so much space.
[six]
Hawkgirl came to stand next to Green Lantern at the railing that had a full view of the level below, and beyond that, of the huge glass panels that gave the best uninterrupted view of the space they floated in, dotted with nothing but distant suns.
GL’s monitor shift should have ended not too long ago, if she wasn’t mistaken. He gave her a silent nod when she leaned on the railing next to him, but otherwise neither of them spoke. They stayed like that for some time, just comfortable in each other’s company and silence. Easy companionship while staring out into the vastness of space.
It was nice. But Hawkgirl, Shayera, she could tell that there was more on Green Lantern’s mind than just the beauty of the stars. She could tell by the set of his shoulders, the intent with which he looked out at space, the way he leaned on the railing. So she broke the silence, as much as she didn’t want to. “What’s on your mind?”
He was silent for a few moments, but Shayera had learned how to be patient in moments like these. And she was familiar with this type of silence from Green Lantern, he had a few. This one meant that he was searching for the words.
“It’s difficult to be so far away from your old neighbourhood, all of your old friends and family for so long at a time.” She hadn’t looked away from the view when she had spoken, and now neither did he.
Shayera let out a slow breath. “I know that feeling well.” And oh, she certainly did. She certainly did.
“And sometimes it’s difficult,” he said, “More difficult than being away, is being back.” His voice was contemplative in a way Shayera had so little experience with.
She looked over to him then for the first time in this conversation. Looked at his profile lit softly from the lights behind them and even softer by the stars in front. He leaned further down on the railing and just kept looking out.
He said to the stars, “To go back to what used to be home for so long and realize that in the time you’ve been away you’ve become more comfortable out there”—he nodded towards the view—“than you are at what was supposed to be home.”
Shayera was a fighter, a warrior. She had long ago conquered fear. At least that’s what she told herself. Because at that thought, at the thought of going home, of realizing, of knowing she was no longer the same person… She wasn’t supposed to be more comfortable here, so far from home, than she ever had been then. She wasn’t supposed to be. And the thought of going back to– well, it terrified her deeply.
At her silence Green Lantern looked over at her, at how she gripped the railing in front of them. And she looked away from him, back out to space and didn’t try to find where Thanagar hung in the darkness, didn’t try to think about whether it was in view, whether it was one of the lights dusting the black.
“You must have seen a lot of interesting places travelling around,” he said easily.
She let out a breath of a laugh. “I have. You must have too.”
She felt him shift beside her and look back out at the stars before he leaned closer to her and pointed. “I stopped a kidnapping ring there,” he said. And she smiled, following his finger to a light twinkling in the darkness.
She leaned in too and pointed in turn to a different point off to their right. “I killed a sea monster there.”
That startled a brief laugh out of Green Lantern. “Really?”
“Really,” she reasserted, unable to wipe the smile from her face.
And maybe it was okay to be a different person, to have changed so noticeably, to be so far from what was. At least when it gave her moments like these it didn’t feel so bad.
[seven]
The next time Flash and Hawkgirl found themselves alone with another member, it was Wonder Woman, once again in the dining hall. Just before they went to talk to her, Hawkgirl asked if Flash was going to ‘panic, faint, or swoon again’, in her words. And the thing was… the answer to that was no. Which was perhaps strange given that Wonder Woman was also way too tall and could definitely snap Wally like a toothpick without breaking a sweat.
She was near god-like, perhaps even to a greater degree than Superman, what with how she talked about the Greek gods like she knew them personally. Like Zeus had wronged her personally. She was undeniably powerful and absolutely terrifying.
And yet, Wally found it easier to talk to her than to Superman. He had no idea why. They just had different energies, as unscientific of a qualifying factor as that was. They radiated power in different ways, perhaps. Like Wonder Woman wasn’t trying to hide hers, was happy to put her frankly huge arm muscles and easy strength and power on display. Which made her easier to understand, easier to gauge. Fewer surprises. More straightforward. Maybe it was the fact that she was newer to the superhero gig and didn’t yet have a larger than life legend built up around her in the same way that Superman did. Maybe it was the lack of cape. Maybe it was that she didn’t act like she was wearing a costume.
But, if anything, Wonder Woman was certainly more given to murderous rages. Which should have made her ten times scarier than Superman in that she not only could snap Wally like a toothpick, but she might actually decide to. He had seen her wield a sword once, that one event alone should be enough.
And yet… he still found himself less intimidated by her in practice, found her easier to talk to, just like Hawkgirl. Actually… no actually, what was with him being so trusting of powerful ladies with tendencies to violence? Did he have a death wish?
So they talked to Wonder Woman. And Wally didn’t even start vibrating in place this time.
“And his costume doesn’t even have seams! That’s weird right? You’re an Amazon and everything about you is basically flawless, and even your outfit has seams!” He pointed emphatically at the side seam in her top.
Diana raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at him but otherwise did not react. He wisely retracted his finger from within stabbing range. Just because he wasn’t as scared of her, didn’t mean he wasn’t at all. He wasn’t an idiot.
Once he had, she said, “I concede that I don’t know much about the world of men, but Green Lantern does seem rather… unusual.”
“Right? That’s what I’ve been saying,” Wally responded, excited to have someone on his side besides Hawkgirl, who really seemed less invested in finding out about Green Lantern than she did in watching Wally make a fool of himself. “Aren’t you curious?”
After a moment’s consideration Diana responded, “I admit that I do occasionally wonder about some of our teammates. Though I must ask, why is it that you two are so curious about where Green Lantern is from?” She looked between him and Hawkgirl. “What do you hope to gain?”
Wally answered, “Well, I just wanna know more about him. And where someone comes from is usually a good place to start. It’ll, I don’t know, I think it’ll help me understand him. Context, or something.”
“But why ask other members?” Wonder Woman continued questioning.
“Well, in case anyone knows.”
“Surely you don’t think any others would know more than the two of you do. The both of you seem to be the closest to him.”
Hawkgirl shrugged. “I’m mostly just following him around.” She jerked a thumb in Flash’s direction. “He can be fun to watch.”
“Hey!”
Diana hummed and gave a nod, like she was considering Hawkgirl’s words.
“So why do you, Flash?” Wonder Woman asked him more directly, even though Hawkgirl hadn’t really answered the question and they both knew she hadn’t really answered the question.
It took him a moment to put all of his thoughts into words. “Well it’s just like if either of you wanted to find out more about me,” he said. “If you asked around, Batman or Superman could easily tell you I’m from Central City, seeing as they’re both pretty Earth-focused and it’s not a thing I hide, it’s where I’ve always been. But you two wouldn’t know that because you haven’t been around the area that long. So I figure one of the more space-focused members might just already know where he’s from.”
Wonder Woman hummed again. “I believe I understand your reasoning now.” She nodded, as if she had come to a decision. “I will join you both on this quest to better understand our teammate.”
“Sounds great,” Hawkgirl said at the same time as Flash said “Wait, what?” He hadn’t realized they were recruiting.
The two women grinned at each other before turning towards him. He had the sudden feeling that this was more about following Wally himself around to see what messes he caused than about finding anything out about GL. He also realized that, if the talk with Superman was anything to go by, he would be the one doing all of the talking, but with the added ‘bonus’ of two super powerful women watching him like a train wreck.
“Oh boy,” he said.
[eight]
“So can you make anything with your powers?” Wally asked.
“Not anything,” Green Lantern replied, “It comes directly from a person’s imagination.”
“Huh. So anything you can think up–”
“I can make. Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s why what a Green Lantern can make differs so widely from person to person.”
“Huh.” Wally said again. He hadn’t known that. “So what’s the most complicated thing you can make?”
Green Lantern hummed and looked at the opposite wall. He rubbed his chin in thought before he said, “Alright,” and stood up. They were alone for one of the most boring monitor shifts after all, so Wally jumped up with him, excited to get both a distraction from the monotony as well as a demonstration.
GL went around the monitoring station to the open floor of the level and pointed his fist at the empty space. Specifically the fist that held that ring he wore. Wally watched GL as he created; he didn’t usually get the chance to. It wasn’t often that he got to see him create constructs when their lives weren’t also in danger. He was wreathed in green light, his eyes in turn glowing brighter, blinding, almost like two tiny suns, with his ring glowing just as bright.
Wally turned from GL to see a massive green construction, faintly glowing, unfolding in front of them. It was all right angles and perfect curves, and despite the fact that it was made out of green light, Wally could tell it was meant to be made of perfect blocks of stone. It soared above them in the most monumental way. As what appeared to be a massive, old-style building unfolded and grew in front of him, decoration unfurled on it with parts of the stone receding or jutting out. Wally stared, slack-jawed, as the building was completed, nearly touching the ceiling of the largest open area in the entire Watchtower. It reminded him of some of the old government buildings and churches downtown.
“So probably that,” GL said from beside Wally, a smile audible in his voice, “for the most complicated thing I can make.”
“What,” Wally whispered, still staring slack-jawed at the towering structure in front of them that was made entirely out of green light. He took a tentative step forward.
“You can go in,” GL said, his voice amused.
“I can what?” Wally hissed back, actually turning to look at Green Lantern who stood slightly floating with his arms crossed in pride and a satisfied smile on his face. He was glowing, both literally and figuratively.
“Come on,” he said, and led Wally towards it. “Man, it’s been a while since I made something like this,” he added on as an afterthought, almost to himself.
They walked in, using doors that opened. On actual hinges. Once through the door, he stared up at the large open space inside of the building itself, with its green lofted ceiling and all of the supports and arches that crossed the ceiling in the most intricate way. There were stairs to a raised area and a door beyond that which Wally was sure also opened.
He turned numbly to his friend and just said, “From your imagination?”
GL shrugged. “I’m an architect,” he said almost tentatively, glancing at Flash.
“You sure are, geez,” he replied, and turned back to stare around the interior. And looking at this now and some of the other things he had made in the past, yeah, Wally would certainly refer to this man as an architect of a kind, for sure. Would certainly refer to the skill he commanded with his constructs as architecture. He shook his head and turned back to GL with an impressed grin. “Man, this is cool as hell. Did you get taught any of this? Like is there a Green Lantern professor who gives you all the tips and tricks before they ship you out?”
“Ha, no,” GL responded, looking around the interior of the construct himself with a smile. “Green Lanterns really just learn as we go, learn by doing, from the moment we get our powers. But it came pretty naturally, yeah, making these constructs.”
“Guess so, huh.” Wally said, still unable to stop marvelling at what GL had built. He wondered how young Green Lanterns were when they got their abilities, how young his GL had been when he had made his first construct. And oh, his GL, huh? Well it wasn’t untrue, GL was Earth’s very own green guardian. So his Green Lantern.
GL was absent-mindedly twisting that ring of his around on his finger, as he looked at what he’d made. So Wally decided to ask. “That ring of yours…” he started. “Is that like, a focus for your powers? You always point it when you make your constructs.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. I don’t tend to like to make the ins and outs of my abilities publicly known.” He brought his hand up to look at the ring. “But it is pretty important for using my powers. It’s, I guess you could say, the conduit for my power. It’s what I focus my willpower through to make constructs.”
“Huh. Neat,” Wally said. GL held his hand out towards Wally so he could take a closer look at the ever-present ring. He found the same lantern symbol on GL’s chest to also be emblazoned on his ring.
“Come on,” GL said after a few moments with a smile. He waved Wally over as he floated further into the constructed building. “I’ll show you up the stairs.” Wally sped after him.
[nine]
The next person Flash managed to talk to about GL was J’onn. Which was good. Because J’onn was friendly, if a little strange—or a lot strange—and he was from a different planet too. It was also good, because he was the second last person to ask, and Wally really did not want to ask their last person.
And just as he had suspected, how the conversation went was with him doing all of the talking, while Hawkgirl, and now Wonder Woman along with her, just hung out and watched. He tried not to feel too much like a science experiment under investigation. One that you were just waiting to see in what spectacular way things would go wrong with it this time.
J’onn, unfortunately, wasn’t much help, as much as Wally had hoped he would miraculously be able to answer everything. He seemed unbothered by Wally’s list of points (the seams J’onn, the seams). To be fair, maybe he shouldn’t have expected him to be but J’onn’s outfit had seams and Wally didn’t even know how that worked. Regardless, J’onn didn’t know where GL was from either.
“Have you tried asking Green Lantern himself?” J’onn asked.
“Well… no,” Wally said.
“Why don’t you ask him then?” His tone of voice sounded very reasonable.
Wally made a sputtering noise at the suggestion. Gesturing wildly he exclaimed, “Well because that’d be rude!”
Silence hung between the four of them. All three stared at Wally.
“The intricacies of your Earth customs continue to elude me,” J’onn eventually replied.
“Yeah, same here,” Hawkgirl said, her arms still crossed, but amusement in her voice. Wonder Woman nodded heartily in agreement.
Wally groaned loudly and theatrically at this group who were just no help. He threw his hands up into the air. “I give up.”
[ten]
Weeks of saving the world and similar hair-raising, anxiety-inducing, but nevertheless mundane events passed. And eventually, when all they could do with the latest world-endangering issue was wait and see what turned up… it could not be put off any longer. Wally really should have started here with this whole mystery, but it wasn’t like Batman was around very often. And it wasn’t like when he was the rest of the League wasn’t also there. And it wasn’t like…
Wally had been making excuses since curiosity over GL’s whole deal had first gripped him. But none of that changed the fact that Batman still wasn’t around the Watchtower all that often when they weren’t fighting for their lives or planning how to fight for their lives later. When bringing up to what had become their little group of three the reasons why he hadn’t yet talked to Batman, Hawkgirl called him various names that said just what she thought about his courage, and Wonder Woman had simply eyed him before nicely suggesting that they could just give Batman a call.
And that is how the three of them found themselves in the dining hall, as seemed to be the preferred place for this. They were seated around one of the circular tables with Wally’s League communicator placed screen up in the exact centre. It was on speakerphone. It was ringing.
It picked up. “Yes?” came Batman’s gruff voice.
Wally stared at the other two with panic in his eyes. Yes, they had phoned Batman with the goal of him answering. That didn’t mean Wally was at all prepared for that eventuality. Hawkgirl made a go on gesture at him, because of course just because there were three of them now didn’t mean it wasn’t still just Wally helming this thing.
“Uh, hi. Batman. Hi Batman,” Wally said.
Hawkgirl dropped her head into her hands on the other side of the table. Wonder Woman made wide eyes at him, he had no idea what information that was supposed to be conveying but it certainly was supposed to be conveying something.
“What’s wrong?” Batman’s gruff voice came over the communicator, his tone no nonsense and to the point.
“Uhhh,” Wally said, “We just had a question. For you. We had a question for you.” Come on Wally, where was your confidence?
“About the latest mission? I can be there in thirty.”
“What? No, no, no, that’s really okay.” Despite being on an audio only call, Wally waved his arms around, as if that would help convey anything to Batman. “We don’t want to trouble you.”
“Flash, if there’s any new developments with the mission I’ll come up to the Watchtower.”
“No really, it’s okay, you don’t need to. It’s not about the mission.” Perhaps this was not the best time to have phoned Batman.
“Then a different mission? Has there been progress with the Spain case?”
“No, no, not that either. Sorry, it’s not about any case. Just a quick question.”
There was the briefest pause over the line. “What is it?” Batman asked.
“We, uh.” Flash looked at Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman for help. They did not offer any. All they offered were silent expressions with various degrees of whatever thoughts and feelings the two women were trying to convey to him.
“Yes?” Batman prompted, sounding a touch more… something. The man was impossible to read at the best of times, and that was when they were actually face to face.
Wally swallowed. “We were just wondering if you knew what planet Green Lantern was from.”
Wally winced at his own words and the following silence.
He looked desperately between the other two with him, wishing that one of them had talked instead of him. Hawkgirl would have been better than him, probably would have gotten to the point faster, and was certainly more durable. Wouldn’t get her bones stolen by Batman if he didn’t like what she had to say like Wally might. Wonder Woman would have been way better for this. Batman actually liked her.
All things considered, the awkward silence didn’t last terribly long, not long enough to be excruciating to anyone but Wally, before there was a single click over the line.
“Uhhhh, Batman?” Wally asked tentatively. There was no answer. He looked up at the other two. “Folks, I think Batman just hung up on us.”
Hawkgirl just raised an eyebrow at him.
“That could have gone worse,” Wonder Woman said encouragingly.
“Yeah,” Hawkgirl said, less kindly, “It could have gone anywhere at all.”
Wally put his head down on the table and just groaned.
[eleven]
With the latest god-complex-having bad guy finally tracked down, battled, and put away, it was time for the League to debrief. This had been an all hands on deck kind of thing, as they didn’t often have anymore.
Wally was sore as anything, and so wished they could debrief later. Like maybe after he had gotten himself some ice cream. Wow, he could really go for an ice cream. But Batman had a system and he did not like to change it. So they would debrief today and now. As soon after the mission as Batman could wrangle.
GL had given him a lift up to the Watchtower and now the two of them walked through the halls together, on their way from the ship bay that held the Javelin to the main room where they held their meetings. Wally stretched his arms behind his head as the two of them made their way, trying to alleviate his poor sore muscles. He was definitely going to be feeling this tomorrow.
Wally was, of course, complaining and grousing to GL the whole way over. Complaining about having to make the trek up here right after they had just been in a rough fight. Complaining about Batman ordering them around despite trying to act like he wasn’t a fulltime member of the League when he totally was. He complained right up until GL laughed at all of Wally’s complaining and said, “Yeah, I’ve never been great with authority either.”
Wally stopped complaining and stopped walking. GL went a few more steps before realizing Wally wasn’t with him and turned back with an eyebrow raised. “You have a problem with authority???” Wally demanded. He caught up in a mere moment and the two of them began moving forward again. “You? Mister ‘I always have a plan and am happy to lead any mission that no one else wants to take point on’? You?”
GL just gave a single huff of a laugh. He shook his head. “Yeah, I was court-martialled once.”
Wally blinked. “You were… what?”
“Court martialled,” GL said easily, like that wasn’t the most insane thing he had ever said.
Wally still stared at him. He blinked again. Neither of them said anything for a few more feet before words burst out of Wally’s mouth. “You were court-martialled???” He demanded again, his voice reaching new heights. “And they let you keep doing your Green Lantern job?”
GL looked over at Wally then, eyebrows furrowed, finally looking at least a fraction of the amount of confused Wally was. “What?” he said, “No, this was before I was a Green Lantern.”
“…Before?” What did he mean before?
“Yeah?” GL asked rather than stated. At least they were both confused now.
Wally finally managed to get over his shock to ask more clearly, “You weren’t born a Green Lantern?”
“What? No.” He was looking at Wally as they walked with slight confusion and a little more amusement. “It’s like a title,” he said.
“What?” Wally asked again. This was a lot, this conversation was a lot. “But…” Wally gave up. “You know what, never mind.” He already knew so little about Green Lanterns, he might as well just accept this. Besides, they were just reaching the door to the meeting room then. This could just go on Wally’s GL List, and he could sort through it after the meeting, preferably with Hawkgirl.
Wally shook his head and laughed. “You were court-martialled…” he muttered before the door in front of them opened to reveal the rest of the Justice League beginning to gather around the large table.
Green Lantern just laughed good-naturedly. And then the meeting began.
[twelve]
“It’s kinda like a… tradition? Or something,” Wally attempted to explain.
“So everyone on Earth does this?” J’onn asked, openly fascinated.
“No, no, no. It’s just like, it’s like the thing to do. Sometimes. For some people.” Why was he always the one who had to explain Earth things? Well, he supposed the next most Earth person was Batman, and Wally doubted he was about to be explaining this. Everyone else was an alien or an Amazon.
“And you said this place was royal? Queenly?” Wonder Woman asked.
“Yes. Well, no. It’s not actually royal. It’s just called Dairy Queen. Or you can go to other places too. Other places do sell ice cream.” Oh man, he was not doing a good job of explaining this.
It was at this point that Green Lantern joined their little group off to the side, after having exchanged a few more words with Batman following the meeting. He was apparently intrigued enough by J’onn, Diana, and Hawkgirl watching Wally with interest and varying levels of confusion, while Wally himself flailed his arms about in an effort to explain anything. Batman and Superman were still discussing something or other over by the Watchtower’s giant windows.
“So people go to get this… ice cream after participating in a sporting activity?” Wonder Woman confirmed.
He nodded emphatically. “Yes.” She was getting it. Hopefully.
“But that mission wasn’t a sport,” she pointed out, her brow furrowed. Aaaaaaand there it was.
Hawkgirl made a considering sort of ehn noise and shrugged minutely, while still keeping her arms crossed. She leaned up against the wall, seemingly content to be entertained.
Wally sighed. He would get there, he would get them to understand. Oh, he was going to introduce the three, now four of them to ice cream, he absolutely would. But why was he always the only one doing this? Why couldn’t any of the others who had at least been on Earth for a while have anything to share? Why had none of them had ice cream before? It was a crime, is what that was.
“No, no, I know that. But like… it’s the idea, right? Like it’s a similar idea.” He tried to come at it from a different angle. “We just did what was basically a bunch of exercise, right? I know it wasn’t a sport, but it sure was a physically taxing activity.” He stilled and stared at his four-person audience, hoping they got it this time. J’onn still looked confused, Hawkgirl looked amused, but he was holding out hope for Diana. He was tired, his muscles were so sore. He just wanted to eat and then crash. But first he would explain going out to ice cream after sports to them.
“Are you trying to convince them to get ice cream with you after the mission?” GL asked from beside Wally, with amusement pulling at the corners of his mouth, even as he stood as solidly as he always did with his arms crossed.
“Yes,” he said. “We should absolutely go out for ice cream at least once after a mission, and no one’s understanding why. Do you at least understand what I’m saying here?” He was desperate for anyone to help him out.
“Yeah,” GL chuckled. “Yeah, my mom used to take me out to Dairy Queen after all my soccer games when I was a kid.”
“Exactly. See–” Wally did a double take in the middle of his sentence. “Wait what?”
“What?” GL asked in return.
Wally blinked at his friend and teammate Green Lantern. His alien friend and teammate who had just said his mom used to take him out to Dairy Queen as a kid.
“Sorry, they have Dairy Queens where you’re from?” Wally got out, absolutely gobsmacked and incredulous.
“Where I’m from?” Green Lantern repeated, his eyebrows raising.
“Yeah! Your planet!” Wally threw his hands enthusiastically into the air. “In space! They have Dairy Queens in space???”
“My planet?” Green Lantern was taken aback for all of half a second before he was incredulous, “I’m not from space.”
Wally stared at Green Lantern. Green Lantern continued to stare at him. He felt the silent eyes of the other three still on them both as well. Wally stared.
“What!” the word burst out of him in something approaching a shriek. “You’re not from space???”
“No?? You thought I was from a planet? In outer space?” he demanded. Green Lantern’s mouth was half open in bewilderment. His arms had dropped to his sides.
“Well yeah!” Wally shouted.
“I’m from Detroit.”
Wally choked on air. Sputtering, he managed to get out, “You’re what?”
GL continued to stare at him like he was the most interesting yet nonsensical lab results in the world. Wally turned to the others and sputtered at them, waving his hands around at them, particularly at Hawkgirl with a silent ‘help me out here’ in every motion.
Hawkgirl just shook her head with what looked like maybe a touch of amused embarrassment. She huffed out half a laugh that was more of a ‘well what do you know’ than anything else. Wonder Woman had her fist over her mouth in hard consideration as she studied them. And J’onn… looked like J’onn did. Impassable, unreadable. Like he hadn’t quite figured out most human facial expressions. Which, to be fair, Wally knew he hadn’t.
Wally sputtered and waved at the three of them some more, but still didn’t get any full sentences out. He turned back to Green Lantern, who was still just staring at him.
“You thought I was an alien?” GL finally said, unimpressed. His words absolutely dripping with disbelief.
“Hey man!” Wally replied indignantly, his mouth finally catching up to everything else. “Your eyes are neon green! You glow! You float! Your suit definitely isn’t made of any material you can find on Earth and it doesn’t have any seams!” He waved his hands wildly in the air as he shouted.
“You seem to be quite concerned with the lack of seams, Flash.” Wonder Woman pointed out mildly and with amusement.
He whirled back and forth between her and GL at a speed faster than their eyes could track. “It’s weird! That’s weird! How do you get dressed!”
“It’s– It– What?” GL seemed to truly be at a loss for words for a moment in the face of Flash’s ardor. Now that was a rare occurrence. He managed to gather himself and say, “It comes from the same place my constructs come from. When I’m powered up I have the suit. When I’m not, I don’t,” he explained simply after he had a moment to gather his composure.
“What? Are you serious?” Wally was shouting again. “Your costume isn’t even real?”
“Of course it’s real.”
Wally continued on like he hadn’t interrupted. “It’s not real it’s just hard light like the rest of your constructs?? What? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well at least you know why his costume doesn’t have seams now, huh?” Hawkgirl said, the smile audible in her voice.
Wally made a strangled noise and dragged his hands down his face. “Why do the doors in your constructs have working hinges but your costume doesn’t have seams…”
“Is this not what you wanted?” J’onn asked, with some concern. “To know what planet Green Lantern comes from?”
Instead of answering directly, Wally just moaned through his hands, “This is a lot.”
He heard Wonder Woman laugh heartily. He sighed one more time and dropped his hands. Batman and Superman had turned in their direction earlier when Wally had first shouted, but hadn’t made any moves towards them and were still discussing who knew what on the other end of the open area. With enough seriousness and solemnity radiating from Batman to make up for Superman who stood relaxed with his hands on his hips looking like he was having the world’s most pleasant conversation with an old friend.
Wally dragged his eyes back to the four in front of him. They were all looking at him with varying levels of what he realized then was fondness. Even J’onn, who still looked a little confused at everything that had happened had a smile on, with his eyes crinkling in Wally’s direction. An easier emotion to convey. Hawkgirl looked infinitely relaxed leaning against the wall. She was smiling that smile she gave in only some rare, brief moments that broke through all of her prickly outer layers to tug insistently at the edge of her mouth, as she did that one supremely specific head tilt. Green Lantern still looked like he didn’t believe half of the nonsense that had come out of Wally’s mouth, but the way his mouth pressed together and the skin around his eyes pulled told Wally that he was holding back laughter more even than the others. He was holding back laughter in a way that always made Wally celebrate every time he managed to get GL past the initial cover of professional annoyance to reach this reaction. And Wonder Woman… well she looked like she was having the time of her life.
“So…” Wally said eventually, deciding to ignore how red he definitely still was. Even now, they left him to be the first to talk. “You guys wanna get ice cream then?”
Hawkgirl barked out a laugh and pushed off the wall. “Stars, yes. Let’s go.” She began bodily herding the whole group of them down the hall before any of them could say anything, and before even GL could escape. Wally noticed him turn to look helplessly back at the other end of the room where the last two League members were.
Superman just called from the far end of the space, “You all have fun!” and gave them a wave.
With that Hawkgirl shoved them all out through the doors. She said, “I wanna know if it lives up to…” she gestured vaguely in Wally’s direction.
“Hey! I described it great!”
She let out another laugh and Wonder Woman hid a smile. J’onn put a comforting hand on Wally’s shoulder. “I thought your description of ‘going out to ice cream’ was very compelling.” J’onn wasn’t being sarcastic, and Wally knew he wasn’t being sarcastic. He knew he was trying to be supportive. But Wally heaved a world-weary sigh regardless. This team, man. They were going to tease him into joining a creative writing class one of these days, weren’t they? Or improv even. God.
Hawkgirl herded them all the way to the Javelin—the League’s ship—in the Watchtower’s ship bay. Wonder Woman and J’onn had both gotten Wally to spend the entire walk over describing the ordering process at a Dairy Queen. So that they were ‘well prepared’, they had said. Like they were going into battle. God, Wally loved this team.
Buckling into his seat near the back of the Javelin, Wally had a sudden realization and he stilled, halfway into buckling in. “Wait a second,” he said, whipping his head around to look at GL seated to his side.
GL finished buckling in and looked over at him. He wordlessly and pointedly eyed Wally’s half undone harness. Wally huffed in part-annoyance, part-amusement, and finished buckling in at superspeed. He then motioned at himself, theatrically and fake-imperiously presenting his secured harness to GL for approval with his eyebrows raised. Only then did Green Lantern answer with a professional, “Yes?”
Words spilled out of Wally’s mouth at a speed he had been told on multiple occasions was too fast to follow, but he just couldn’t not sometimes. “So when you said before that you were an architect you were–”
“Offering my first piece of personal information, yes,” GL jumped in easily and at a normal pace, without issue or complaint at the speed of Wally’s words.
“And– and I missed it???”
“Yeah, I guess your reaction then makes more sense now.”
“Gah!” Wally ran his hands over his face and head again, before turning to motion with two flat hands in GL’s direction. “So you’re an actual architect? Like an actual architect? Like that’s your real human day job?”
“My real human day job.” GL repeated, his voice perfectly flat and inflectionless. Now that was a skill.
Wally just stared back, equally unimpressed. Only vibrating in place a little bit.
GL sighed, giving in. “Yes, I am an actual architect, that is my real human day job.”
“Wow. Huh,” was all Wally could say to that. GL had a job. “Hey the two of us should like, get lunch or something one of these days. Talk about jobs and the weather or something, like real people,” he offered.
Green Lantern frowned. He opened his mouth slowly and consideringly, with an expression like every other time he had turned down a social event.
“Or not!” Flash cut in quickly, “That’s okay too. I’m happy to just get ice cream after missions every once in a while.”
GL closed his mouth and nodded in thanks before turning away. But then he paused. And glanced back at Flash without moving his head. He looked away again and wasn’t looking at Flash when he said casually, “Maybe.”
Wally whipped back around to face him. “Maybe?”
“Maybe.” The one word was matter-of-fact, just like the man who spoke it.
A grin pulled across Wally’s face.
Wonder Woman turned around from her seat in the front, beside Hawkgirl’s pilot’s seat. “I still don’t quite understand the significance of this ice cream. Is it really that good?”
“Well we’re about to find out,” Green Lantern said with a laugh before Flash could respond.
“Yeah,” Hawkgirl said from the pilot’s seat. “Learn by doing, princess!” And she gunned the Javelin out of the ship bay with a loud shouted whoop.
Wally let out a squeak as he was slammed back into his seat, and held on as Hawkgirl pulled the Javelin into a loop the very first moment she had enough space between them and the Watchtower to do so. Mixed shouts of excitement and alarm filled the ship. As they shot towards the Earth, Wally let out a breathless laugh and released his grip on the seat. And with the next inhale, he found himself looking fondly around at the others in the Javelin with him.
Yeah, they were all new to each other, new to this team, many of them new to friendship in this way as a whole. And maybe it was hard to see, what with the secret identities and everything that went along with them, but they weren’t as new to each other as they had been before. This team wasn’t as green, and neither were their relationships to each other. Even if they didn’t know everything about each other, even if they didn’t even know each others’ names or histories, they still had come to know each other in other ways that mattered.
Wally saw how J’onn, from his middle seat between all of them, similarly peered around at the other four in the Javelin with an expression on his face that the Martian had figured out in this form. Care. And their eyes met as they both took in their companions, and J’onn offered him a smile, a silent acknowledgement, before turning back around. He closed his eyes and rested his head back on his seat’s headrest with content stretching across his face, even as they rocketed through space.
Wally saw how Diana was leaning forward in her seat, an expression of pure and open joy on her face as she savoured the rush and the speed. He saw how much she loved the flight and hurtling towards any destination. And Wally saw how Hawkgirl took sharper turns, and accelerated more quickly, and leaned on the throttle more heavily whenever the Amazon was in the passenger seat.
Wally saw Hawkgirl’s head and eyes move imperceptibly to glance behind her at him and GL. He mouthed thank you at her, before he could think about it or before she could pretend she wasn’t looking. She turned back around, acting to all the world like she had never turned away from her course. But Wally could see, in the line of her shoulders and the muscles in her back, how very slightly she loosened up.
Wally saw how Green Lantern, beside him, was leaning to the side in his seat, straining against the harness just barely, like he didn’t even notice. All to get an extra few degrees of visibility out the window at the rapidly approaching blues and greens and swirling whites of the Earth, with a warmth in his face. And it was a wonder Wally had ever thought the man could have called anywhere else home.
Wally smiled to himself for this group of people who he was so glad had been brought together.
And Wally turned his own head to watch out the front of the ship as home steadily approached. And with it, the promise of introducing some new friends to ice cream.