Schooled

[Kid Flash]

You know the coolest thing about the world today?

Cosplay. I'm not kidding. That cosplay stuff is amazing. There are people out there that spend literally hours pouring over every minute detail of every police sketch, candid photo, and hour of press footage that they can find, trying to piece together the perfect replica of Green Arrow's hood, or Batman's cape, or those little red trunks that Superman used to wear. I have seen so many people back in Central City dressed in amazing replicas of the Flash's costume. They aren't all correct, they aren't all perfect, but there's a lot of love there. A lot of heart. They may all be different shades of red, different fabrics, different variations on all the lightning bolt patterns, but they all have one thing in common: they love the Flash, and they look up to him. Central City's hero. And now I'm one of them.

Sort of.

Okay, so I was kind of a brat when they shipped me off to Gotham. Mister Wayne pulled some strings and hooked me up with a sweet scholarship to one of the most prestigious schools in the country, and I got all cranky because I wanted to stay at home and keep being Barry's sidekick. Can you believe that? Can you believe how dumb I was? I get a golden ticket to Gotham, home of the worst criminals in all the country, and I make a fuss because I'm not allowed to go out and play with Captain Cold any more? I'm such an idiot sometimes.

...don't tell anyone I said that.

But yeah, the cosplay thing. This is me, making my own suit. I'm my own man now, y'know? Out from under the Flash's shadow, so there's no need to be the Kid Flash any more. I'm cutting my own path. By... copying his costume. But hear me out, okay? When you've running at superspeed, there's only so much play you've got in your costume. Capes are dumb, you need a mask for disguise, tight fitting stuff that isn't gonna cause any kind of supersonic chafing - not a whole lot of variations on that theme. Why do you think all of the evil speedsters basically all dress the same? Goes with the territory, yo. This is how a speedster looks.

Well, unless your hair is made of magnets, or whatever it is that keeps Mister Garrick's hat on. But whatever.

So yeah, Flash's suit is where I started from. Went with the over-the-head cowl thing, because duh - what kind of idiot wouldn't want to be like freaking Batman if they had the option? Besides, that whole drop top convertible look I had going on was so lame, and fixing my hair afterwards was always a pain in the butt. And okay yeah, I kept the red, but like, yellow is what the Reverse-Flashes wear, y'know? I don't want that kind of negative publicity, and I know for a fact that Barry won't mind. At least, once he gets over the initial yelling part and I make puppy dog eyes and tell him how he's my hero and I just want to be like him, then he'll be okay with it. Probably. And it's not even the same red. I went darker and sexier, because that's what you do in Gotham. I tightened it up, too, made it figure hugging in all the right places, because the ladies deserve that. So, you know, it's basically a whole entirely new original thing because of how much stuff I changed.

Works for movies, right?


* * *

A bolt of gold wove it's way lightning fast down the Gotham street, zigzagging from parked car to parked car in a blur that almost hurt to look at. With a gust of air, Wally West came to a skidding halt, face beaming, clapping his hands enthusiastically.

"Oh man," he uttered, taking the time to appraise the three car jackers before running headlong into action, the way Barry always kept telling him to. He couldn't help the chuckle at the irony of it all though. He was just out stretching his legs - wearing the suit, obviously, because apparently the whole scholarship thing didn't include a discretionary fund for new shoes - and getting a feel for Gotham's streets, getting the hang of the road surfaces, how tight the corners were, all that stuff. He hadn't expected to be out here dispensing justice so soon, but there they were, Gotham's ever-present criminals, just waiting for him like a wondrous buffet. "You guys are so screwed right now, I don't even know what to tell you."

The guy trying to jimmy open the window stopped and turned and unfolded himself from where he'd been hunched over the car, and okay yeah, he was kinda intimidatingly tall. Not in a Gorilla Grodd sort of way, but definitely in an oh crap, why do I have to be so small and scrawny sort of way. Wally stood his ground though. He may have flinched a little bit there at the start, but a cavalier attitude was kind of his thing, and now was the time to saddle up and get Frenchy.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

Okay, so that stung a bit. Wally looked down at himself, just to make sure that he hadn't accidentally left the dorm in his jimmyjams or something. Nope. Costume was there, looking sexy and badass. What, were these guys blind or something?

"Ain't Halloween yet, kid."

"Hey, ain't that the Speedster's little snot nosed brat?"

Wally wagged a knowing finger in their direction. "Ah," he interjected, before any more insults could be thrown his way. "You're thinking of that super awesome guy from back in Central City, with the yellow suit, and the -" He waved a hand emphatically above his head, simulating his usual quiff. "- hair. That ain't me. I'm someone new."

He put his hands on his hips, striking his best Kal-El of Krypton pose. "You can call me Impulse."

Impulse, right? Like physics class? The force that makes speed stuff happen? Pretty cool, right? Catchy, too. Few more nights of this, and it'll be the name that everyone is talking about -

"Whatever you say," one of the thugs snorted. "Run along home, Kid Flash."

Wally's eyes narrowed. He didn't see red - honestly, he found that expression confusing - but he totally felt the way that people felt when people said they were seeing red. His hands tightened into fists, the material of his costume creaking a little under the strain. In his head he counted backwards from three, the speed force crackling around him; and then in an instant he was in motion, pinballing from Jimmy Bar to Mister Snot-Nose, high-speed shoulder barges flinging the two of them in either direction. Captain Halloween managed to throw himself out of the way before Wally could change course and take him out too; proving that there were exceptions to the whole honour among thieves rule though, Halloween didn't do the smart thing and flee, instead trying to help out his buddies by taking a few futile swings. Wally dodged with ease, practically toying with the guy as he blurred from side to side, up and down. "Nice try," he taunted. "Stop trying to hit me and -"

He heard the impact across the back of his head more than felt it, a clunk against the ever so slightly reinforced material of his cowl that sent a disconcerting ringing sensation through his entire skull. "Jerk," he managed his mutter out behind a wince of pain, suddenly wheeling around to face Jimmy Bar and his jimmy bar, a quick flurry of punches launched towards his chest to knock the wind out of his chest before a high-speed left cross dropped him to the floor. Wally took a moment to glare at Captain Halloween and his dirty underhanded distraction tactics, before a surge of speed force sent Wally's forehead smashing into Halloween's, and a reverse elbow strike crashing against the bridge of Mister Snot-Nose's jaw. Halloween dropped to the ground just as unconscious as Jimmy was; Snot-Nose just lay there clutching his face and making baby noises.

"Damn it guys," Wally muttered, shaking his head. "You went and made me look bad."

With a sigh he strode a few paces away, hand digging into his admittedly too-tight pants to fish out his QPhone and punch in 911. "Uh, hello?" he uttered in as nervous and feeble a voice as he could, pacing backwards and forwards to help inject a little more frantic into his tone, faking a little bit of a vacuous Star City accent to really add to the performance. "Yeah, hi, I just... I just witnessed... I'd like to report a crime stopping? This, uh -" Wally's hand gently clutched the back of his head as he walked, already feeling a lump starting to form. "- this really handsome and totally dreamy looking super fast guy? I just saw him take down these car jackers on 29th Street, and, uh... I dunno, you should probably come and arrest them or something?"

"Slow down, sir. I need you to make sure you are somewhere safe, and then describe to me -"

Click. The phone hung up, and was fumbled back into Wally's pants again. Hopefully Batman hadn't gone and given the GCPD call tracing gear that was good enough to break the scrambling that all the superhero community people had on their cell phones. That would've been pretty dumb. He could imagine it now: getting dragged out of class, police officers in the corridor, Barry standing there with his arms folded because when did that guy ever miss out on an opportunity for an I told you so -

"Damn it, Jimmy," Wally growled in the direction of the fallen jackers. "This is all your fault."

And without another word, Kid Flash huffed off into the night in an explosion of speed force.

[Wally West]

"Ugh."

Wally was getting good at zombie noises. Super metabolism or not, staying up half the night to fight crime would kinda do that to a guy. Getting hit in the head by lumps of iron, or steel, or whatever that stupid thing had been made of didn't help either. Okay, so had he been a regular person he would be in the hospital right now after a trauma like that, but come on. He was supposed to heal super-fast, and from what Barry had told him, his metabolism was so amazeballs that he couldn't even get drunk. How the hell were headaches still a thing that could happen.

Slouching his way through the halls, Wally did his best not to bump into anyone, as usual. It wasn't like when he'd first got his powers, and he had to keep being super careful not to accidentally superspeed anyone; it was just the way that high school worked. Didn't matter what kind of fancy uniforms you forced everyone to wear, didn't matter how rich and well-to-do their parents were supposed to be, didn't matter that Wally was seventeen and these damn kids should treat him with some respect because he was secretly a superhero and better than all of them with their stupidly expensive shoes and their smug rich person glares, it was just the way that it worked. He was one of the new kids, and would continue to be treated as such until newer people came along to take his place.

Making his way out into the yard, he deposited himself on a bench, and slumped against a wall. A brief "AaAaah," escaped from him as he stupidly let his head clunk a little bit too hard against the bricks behind; another almost followed as he realised he was only ten minutes away from the insufferably boring torment that was math class to a kid who thought at the speed of light and had super-genius superhero scientists for sort-of friends. Maybe this would all pay off. Maybe Mister Wayne's elaborate plan to get him in the Gotham school system so he'd be eligible for early entry at Gotham U next year would all pan out - the way that Batman plans usually did - and get him learning actual interesting stuff that he didn't already understand inside and out. For now though? Basic calculus. Please, please, please, let Bane show up and start breaking things or something.

"Kill me, please," he whispered softly to the universe, closed eyes aimed up at the sky. "Kill me now."

[Supergirl]

Back on the Kent's farm, 'Linda Danvers' had been the plain looking, slightly dorky niece of Martha and Jonathan Kent, living with them, with mousey brown hair and big glasses. Because Kal insisted that Kara needed a secret identity, and as far as Kal was concerned, 'glasses and being a dork' was the ultimate disguise. But Kara was a sixteen year old girl. And more than that, she was a pretty one, and she knew it. By Kryptonian or Human standards. She had no intention of being the mousey, forgotten dork in school. And since Kal, Ma or Pa weren't around, there was nobody to stop her from finally dressing like she wanted to.

So she turned up to school in her favourite short shorts, a skimpy tube top, and a small jacket over the top that was both sleeveless and only came down to her midriff. Yes, Kara tended to show a bit too much skin for a sixteen year old, but when your skin was bullet proof, why not? Human schools might be weird (they didn't even have AI teachers yet, how far behind the times were they?) but she was sure she could pull off being popular. That bit would be easy, right?

"Oh my god, what is the farm girl wearing?"
"Who does she think she is? One of us?"
"Ugh, yeah, right. Look at those boots. They're like, at least two seasons old."
"Probably the newest thing they get in farm town."

Of course, her super sensitive hearing immediately heard all of the actual popular, rich girls gossiping about her, and it suddenly hit her that perhaps this blending in to Earth society thing would be harder than she thought. She sat down at her desk, next to some little skinny kid she didn't know properly, and sighed.

"Ugh. Kill me, please." She sighed, at almost the exact same time, although she wasn't talking about the lesson... (She hadn't even thought about it yet).

[Wally West]

Wally's eyes snapped open at the unexpected sound, his head trying to turn towards it. Unfortunately his movements were a little overzealous, and managed to dislodge him far enough over the edge of the bench that an embarrassing puddle on the floor was a very real possibility in his future. With all the grace of the ballet dancing hippo from Fantasia, he managed to catapult his way awkwardly to his feet - it took another few seconds for him to realise just how much attention his little display of clumsiness and arm-flailery was likely to have drawn; his face started turning red even before it had managed to muster an embarrassed smile.

"Hi," he blurted out before he even knew what was doing. "I'm Wally... Wallace -" he corrected with a grimace; not much of an improvement there, "- West. Not a very cool name, I think it's my grandfather's or something, but at least it's got alliteration, WW, like Wonder Woman, only less -"

Hot. That was both the end to Wally's sentence, and the sentiment that floated through his mind as he realised who he was talking to. He'd heard about the new girl. The farm girl. She was from Kansas, or so the rumours went, some place called Smalltown or something. Central City was in Kansas too, but Wally had spent most of his time either in the city itself or across the river into Keystone, so he didn't really get out into the sticks too much. For some reason, Barry had always been sorta reluctant to let Wally run off into that part of the state, kept being all ominous about how it probably wasn't the best idea, but would never explain why. Whatever. The farming part of Kansas was super boring anyway. If you played eye spy, you'd be stuck on C for Corn pretty much the entire time, with the occasional T for Tree every hundred miles or so. No wonder Farm Girl had come to Gotham - better to live in the gun crime capital of the United States than in the boredom capital of the known universe.

But circling back to his earlier sentiment, Farm Girl was hot. And not regular person hot, she was proper glamour model hot. She had the hair, the clothes, the make-up, the lip gloss - there was no way she hadn't at least been to Central City to go shopping every now and then. Which probably meant she had gone for coffee, and eaten food, and walked past the parks - all kinds of things that Wally could totally talk about to make her like him and avoid any sort of awkward standing around not saying anything nervous dorky -

- oh.

It suddenly dawned on Wally that he had been standing around doing nothing but thinking, staring, and awkwardly fidgeting with the flourishing lump on the back of his head. The first and last he managed to stop pretty quick, but the second seemed to require more effort than he was capable of mustering. "You're Linda, right?" he managed to blunder out, awkwardly thrusting one of his long and annoyingly scrawny arms towards here.

[Supergirl]

Kara had to repress a small giggle when Wally fell hopelessly on the floor next to her. Kal had always said that humans and Kryptonians were actually very similar, at least when the Kryptonians were on Krypton, but suddenly Kara found herself wondering if humans were significantly less co-ordinated. Ma and Pa had never seemed to have any problem. Neither had anybody else in the tiny school she'd gone to in Smallville, even if she had seemed very out of place there. (Much like Wally assumed, yes, she went shopping in Central City with her allowance a lot, since it was only a short flight for her).

"I think it's a cute name." She smiled, because, well, it was sort of adorable. And on Earth or on Krypton, there wasn't a tiny piece of a girl that didn't like being flattered by making a boy awkwardly stammer. And it did wonders for her confidence after the snide comments from the girls outside, even if she somehow doubted they were the type to want attention from Wally. "Yeah, Linda. Linda Danvers." She smiled, introducing herself with her fake name. It didn't quite have the same ring to it as 'Kara Zor El, last survivor of the planet Krypton!' (she didn't really count Kal, he had been a baby when he left, but she could still remember it all) but that would probably attract too much attention.

"You should probably sit down before the lesson starts." She laughed, waving to the seat with a smile. Maybe you could attend class standing up here? On Krypton, you'd have to sit down to attach the nodes to your temples, and to see the screen anyway. Here, since people just talked to you, she supposed you could learn equally well on the ceiling. Although that would probably be considered disruptive...

[Wally West]

Cute?

Oh no. This was like alert level one on the Watchtower. Wally could already feel the bashful smile broadening on his face, and the part of him that was still capable of intelligent thought entered into full panic mode. It knew what happened every time an attractive person was even remotely nice to Wally. It remembered all of the street lamps he'd accidentally smacked into when a pretty girl walked past. It knew this path. It screamed at him to turn back.

Wally didn't listen.

"Should, uh..."

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the main building. What had she even said, aside from the cute thing?

"I could..."

Right. Class. Math class. Did Linda also have math class? Should he ask if she did? Should he offer to carry her books? Focus, West. Focus. Be cool. Be suave. Be Flash.

"Want me to walk you to class? I know how easy it is to get lost in these corridors when you're new."

[Supergirl]

Walk her to class? On Krypton everything was automated, she never had to think about where to go, and well, since reaching Earth, it wasn't hard for Kara to find her own way around, since she could just X-Ray vision through the classroom walls. Or in one particular part of her old school in Smallville, just peer straight through them anyway because the wall was so thin, but apparently it wasn't supposed to be like that according to the other kids, so that was an exception.

"Sure. That's me! Always getting lost." She laughed, lying of course, part of her 'cunning disguise', after all. She was sure that Kal would be proud of her for the ruse. "Sometimes I get so confused I just wish I could see straight through the walls, y'know?" She added, because she couldn't resist the urge to be a little bit clever. She got up, and held out a hand for him to lead the way, her books in her stylish (at least, she thought it was stylish) shoulder bag. Her confidence in herself was getting restored now, Wally clearly was bumbling around her, and she enjoyed the feeling. Besides, he was sweet, and she much preferred sweet to the snobby rich girls that had mocked her.

Yes, Kara also badly wanted to be popular and loved in the school, but confronted with Wally, she realised she'd rather have friends like him than friends like the others.
"Okay, well you can lead the way. Just don't try and copy my notes, right?" She teased playfully. She'd been discovering a reputation blondes had on Earth too. That wasn't something that happened on Krypton! But certainly back in Smallville when she'd gotten something wrong Earth kids assumed was easy (usually history or literature) they made lots of comments about the colour of her hair, so she doubted Wally would expect her to be smart. But smart she could be. At least with maths, since most Kryptonian kids mastered it when they were small. It was a cornerstone of so many scientific achievements.

If Kara could remember any of it. It was so long ago she'd learned it, and truth be told, she'd never been interested....

[Wally West]

Don't copy my notes?

Oh no, was she smart too? Did she have the kind of notes he might want to copy from? Instantly Wally was overcome with the desire to show off, to somehow demonstrate his lightning-fast intelligence and prove that he wasn't just as stupid and dull-brained as the rest of these private school douchebags, that he didn't need to copy anything from anyone. Maybe he could bust out a witty one-liner, or regale her with some amazing scientific fact that would blow her mind and make her -

Wait no. Apparently he was just going to trip slightly over his own feet. Fortunately it wasn't enough of a stumble to send him face planting or anything, but it was enough to jar his thoughts away from trying to impress Linda, and focus instead of just trying not to seem like too much of an incompetent clutz that was a hazard to himself and everyone around him.

He tugged on the strap of his own book bag, tugging it a bit more firmly onto his shoulder. "So, uh," he bumbled, deciding that he should take a stab at conversation before actually bothering to work out what he was going to say. "What, uh, what brings you to Gotham?"

Ooh, smooth. Mister Queen would have been proud of that one, deflecting the conversation around so that Linda could talk about herself, giving Wally the opportunity to shut the hell up. Slightly more confident in his tactics now, he focused as hard as he could on making his face look super interested, ready to hang off every word Linda decided to say.

[Supergirl]

Sure, Kara might have come from a hyper advanced (by human standards) society, she might possess super powers vastly beyond a normal human being, but at heart, she was still just a teenage girl, and so the dangling offer to talk about herself worked perfectly, and Kara, who naturally enjoyed being the centre of attention in the way so many teenage girls did, couldn't resist but start talking.
"Honestly? I had to persuade Ma and Pa to let me come here." She explained, not quite realising how 'farm girl' 'Ma and Pa' made her sound, since they were terms she'd picked up off of Kal. "I mean, I love them, and everything they've done for me. They took me in, after my real parents..." Well, and her entire planet, but she couldn't mention that. She shook it off. "...The thing is, I love them, and everything they've done for me, but Smallville is just... so ... boring."

She winced for a moment, as if any moment Kal would descend from the heavens to tell her off for saying such a thing. After all, he could actually do that if he wanted. After a moment passed and he didn't, she sighed with relief.
"I just wanted... more, you know? Life in the big city seemed like the right step! I used to live in a city after all. I wasn't always a farm girl..." She didn't say that city was the gleaming perfect city of Argo, hyper advanced and totally beyond anything on Earth. But she did realise that she was being truthful, at least, as truthful as she could be without bringing up the whole Supergirl thing. And it actually felt good, for once, to talk to a stranger about how bored she'd felt, how alone.

"It's all my cousin's fault. Ka-... Clark. He's really overprotective of me. He wouldn't even let me leave the house at first. I know it's because he cares, but I think he forgets I'm my own person. I can't live on that farm just because it's where he grew up. It's not me..." She went on, explaining further.

[Wally West]

Wally shrugged, and managed to accidentally smile a disarming smile.

"Preaching to the choir there, Linda. I grew up in Central and Keystone - I know all about how boring that part of the world can be."

He also knew a fair bit about overprotective parents, and relatives, and all sorts. When he'd first developed his speed, mom and dad were all kinds of freaked, wanted to ship him off to STAR Labs to be cured, or lock him inside so he couldn't go out and get himself hurt doing anything stupid. It wasn't until Aunt Iris managed to talk Barry into mentoring him that mom and dad eased off a little, and even then it was only because Central City's scarlet speedster had promised to keep their boy safe. But he wasn't a boy now. Or at least, he was trying really hard not to be. If Linda was here for that same reason, to come into her own and work out who she wanted to be without her parents' guidelines? Wally could get that. Wally could empathise with that.

Oh god, he suddenly realised. I have stuff in common with the hot Farm Girl?

Not just a Farm Girl, though - ex-City Girl she'd said, and Wally had been paying attention. Part of him wondered where, but he didn't want to pry too much: didn't want to press his luck. Besides, he could totally google her later on, she probably had a LexBook profile that he could check out that would have all of those details and stuff. Plus pictures. Hopefully pictures. Hot, plaid-wearing, Farm Girl pictures, hopefully.

He shook that thought aside, fighting really hard not to look embarrassed again.

"Can't have been all bad though, right? Growing up in the city, you don't really get to see the stars, but where you're from? Must've been able to see so much. Must've seemed like a whole different galaxy."

[Supergirl]

"Hey,trust me, compared to Smallville, Central City is entertainmentcentral." Kara replied casually when Wally tried to comparetheir upbringings. She doubted much happened in Central City either,except they had that Flash guy, but it had to beat being shut on afarm for the good part of a year. Especially since Kara was nofarmer. Oh, sure, she'd learned quickly, helped out around the farmas much as she could, and well, it was easy work. Of course, it didhelp that Kara could lift a tractor if she wanted. Somehow shedoubted if she didn't have her powers she'd of found it anywhere nearas easy, but as it was, it was simple and straight forward. Even herpowers didn't protect her from the muck though, which she hated.

Hemade his comment about the stars, and she couldn't help but crack asmile at the irony.
"Youhave no idea..." She replied, because, well, yeah, it really didseem different. She paused though, and gave a slightly sad smile. "I actually used to sit out, watching the stars. There's this one star, right... It looks like all the others. Only, if you know your astronomy, you actually know it's not really there. It blew up decades ago. But the light takes so long to reach Earth... That you can look up and you can still see it. Imagine a whole star... all the planets around it... gone forever... Except, when you look up, it's like it's all still there. Like nothing happened at all..." Kara trailed off, realising that probably sounded a bit rambly. She could hardly add 'that's where I was born' to the conversation, after all. But it was true. She could look up in the sky and see the tiny far off star that had once been Krypton's giant red sun.

But really it was gone. Wiped out forever.
"I dunno. I guess it just makes me feel a bit funny, you know? Being able to see something that's really gone..." She explained, before shaking her head and realising this whole thing must be making her sound like such a massive geek. At least Kal only pretended to be a dork. Kara was pulling it off by accident.

"Anyway, can hardly compare to growing up in Central City. I visited enough times. Seemed pretty cool. Had this great coffee shop. Never spotted that Flash guy though. Kept looking out for him." Well, okay, so once she went looking because she was bored, and by looking she meant 'flew in to the air to see if she could see a red streak'. Only Ma had decided to ring her at that exact point and ask what she was doing and apparently the Kents were so used to hearing their son while flying they could tell by the wind she was in the air and she got told off for using her powers and, ugh, it was a whole thing...

[Wally West]

Krypton.

You didn't need an astronomy degree to recognise that description. Wally doubted there was a kid alive his age that hadn't taken it upon themselves to learn how to find Superman's star of origin in the night sky. Fifty lightyears away or there abouts, if you listened to what Neil De Grasse Tyson said. A star that exploded, wiping out an entire civilisation. That's what they said would happen to Earth one day, assuming some nefarious space villain didn't show up and destroy it first. Well, after the whole becoming a red giant and boiling off the oceans and atmosphere thing, so maybe not quite the same deal. Human civilisation would be long gone before then, probably; either relocated to other stars or, more likely given it's current trajectory, wiped out by a plethora of political and environmental stupidity.

Most kids his age though, they hadn't learned how to find Krypton from the man himself. It was probably the only real conversation Wally had ever had with Big Blue, on one of the rare instances where Wally had managed to tag along with Barry for a little bit of Justice League action. You did good tonight, kid, was about all it amounted to, but yeah. Superman had caught him staring up at the night sky all fan boy, and the big man had stepped up alongside. He'd seemed so sad. Not outwardly sad: that kind of sad that people had when they knew they weren't supposed to be. All noble, all lonely. Made it worse. Wally couldn't imagine what that must be like. Last of your kind. Kinda put everyone else's grief into a certain perspective.

Still, Linda didn't need to hear about that, no matter how much part of his brain wanted to show off that he was a speedster and that he had met Superman this one time. It kinda sucked really. Here he was being all super amazing and heroic in secret, and none of the ladies who were no doubt swooning over his actions could ever follow through on their fantasies of a romantic evening with Kid Flash. I mean Impulse. Damn it. Those crooks had him doing it now, too.

"You mean Jitters?" Wally asked. Okay, so there was more than one coffee place in Central City, but come on. Linda was clearly a classy lady, she wasn't going to stand in line for a crappy LexBucks coffee. "I haven't managed to find anywhere as good here in Gotham yet," he admitted, but his mouth kept on talking. Alert sirens started ringing out in his brain. Shut up wally. Shut up! "Maybe we could go try and find one together? There's so many bankers and office workers in this city, there has got to be a place you can buy a decent cup of coffee in Gotham somewhere."

Smooth, Wally. Real smooth.

[Supergirl]

"Yeah, I think that's the place." Kara replied casually as he named the coffee bar in Central City. She hadn't really taken it in and was just trying to make conversation. What else was she meant to say? 'The crime rate sucks and the Flash stops every crime before I got to have any fun'? Again, not really good for a conversation between two students. Who'd of thought you'd be deprived of so many good topics when having to live a civilian identity? At least back in Smallville she'd been able to talk about her powers to Ma and Pa.

"Sure." She smiled to the offer of getting coffee. She didn't quite process it as a date, but it was a nice offer, and she needed friends. "Oh! Or you could come back to my dorm room." She suggested. Kara had a dorm room after all, provided by the Wayne Foundation that ran the school, since she had no parents in Gotham. "Smallville, remember? We didn't have a coffee bar in the entire town. I used to make it for Ma and Pa. They always said I made a wicked cup of coffee." Okay, only because Kal had shown her the trick he had been doing since he was young. Super strength to grind the beans and heat vision to cook. Making their morning coffee was the least Kara could do. "Bet it'll even beat your fancy Central City stuff!" She offered with a smirk.

Before it suddenly dawned on her that asking a guy back to your room was, in Kryptonian or Human society, a bit of a major thing to do, and this time it was Kara's turn to be nervous and dorky. She laughed, and stammered, waving her arms slightly.
"Uh, I-I mean, if you want to. J-just for coffee, right?"

[Wally West]

It was like walking through a portal into a parallel universe, and finding yourself in the weirdest teen date movie ever. Was the whole do you want to come in for a coffee? euphemism something that people even did in the real world. Wally didn't know, and maybe Linda didn't know either, but from her reaction she certainly was familiar for what it was supposed to mean.

"I would love to come over for just coffee," he replied as reassuringly as he could manage, which was probably not very, especially given the nervous way he was rubbing the back of his neck. "But only if you let me come up with another excuse to show you around the city."

Fortunately, Wally's brain was in gear enough to head off a misunderstanding there before it even had the opportunity to form. "Us Kansas new people have got to stick together, right? Besides -" He gestured and glanced at the other students around them, as they made their way through the school's corridors. "- none of these stuck-up rich kids are gonna offer, and they probably wouldn't know how to get there anyway because their chauffeurs drive them everywhere they need to go."

He shrugged. "Besides, my mom would yell at me if she found out that I hadn't at least offered, and I'm pretty sure neither of us want me getting yelled at by my mom."

[Supergirl]

Okay, whew. He agreed to come over, and it didn't seem to be too much of a thing (Kara was too busy panicking to notice him rubbing his neck like that). Maybe it was more normal on Earth? She was still woefully inexperienced with most humans, and well, Krypton didn't even have coffee, so she didn't really have any parallels to go off here. Either way, she seemed to have avoided a major mistake, and he seemed okay. Besides, he was being nice, he was cute, she hadn't even been allowed near boys for a while, so why shouldn't she hang out with him for a bit?

"Yeah, you're right, who needs fancy limos, right?" She joked teasingly, playing at the fact of course that both her and Wally seemed to be the poorer students, but hinting that obviously really they'd both love to be rich. Again, it was the best reply Kara could give since 'yeah, I can just fly and see the city' wasn't a response she could give. And hey, while she actually had seen the city from the sky often enough, maybe learning it from a human on the ground's point of view would help her too. It would certainly help her learn which area was which.

"That sounds like fun." She smiled, accepting his offer in the least committal, playing it cool way she could. "So, are your Mom and Dad in town? I moved here on my own. Ma and Pa couldn't leave the farm." She explained, not that she ever would ask them to anyway, but wanting to find out more about her new (and only) friend.

[Wally West]

"Nah, it's just me here."

Wally tried to sound upbeat about it, not wanting to come off all sappy if Linda was all cool with being here on her own, but not wanting to stray too far just in case she needed him to be sympathetic. If she wound up getting all emotional, was it okay to hug her, having only met a few minutes ago? What was the protocol on that? Back at Central High, Wally had been great at the whole knowing when to hug people thing. Apparently the girls there didn't find him threatening or anything; wasn't all macho like the guys on all the sports teams, but wasn't too nerdy. Exactly the kind of person that the non-vacuous attractive popular girls wanted to be friends with. Girls like Linda. Universally popular, undeniably perfect Linda Park. Wally fought the urge to sigh. Oh, Linda.

Wait. Damn. Was that why this Linda was giving him all butterflies?

He tried not to dwell on that. "My mom and dad aren't really cut out for Gotham City. They like it back in Keystone. Mom wanted to come, but Dad -"

Dad what? Dad doesn't really like me? Dad doesn't treat mom so great? Dad's probably just glad his speed-freak son isn't in the house any more? Wally had thought all of those things before, it wasn't new ground that his mind was running across, but it was still precarious. His father had always been harsh, strict, judgemental. Mom said it was the way that he was raised, the way he'd never quite got on with his own father; he was doing the best he could with the life he'd had. He didn't mean to yell, didn't mean his words to hurt, didn't mean to vent his anger and frustration in cutting words and stern criticism. He didn't mean to respond to Wally's first act of costumed heroism by criticising the amount of collateral damage that Kid Flash had caused. He didn't mean to say it's a shame you're not as fast as the real Flash quite so many times. He couldn't help it. It wasn't his fault. At least, that's what Wally's mother kept assuring him, every time she had to overcompensate and be extra supportive, extra kind.

He doesn't mean it, Wally. Your Dad just doesn't know how else to be.

Wally pushed that well-practised fake smile onto his face. "- thought it was important for me to get out here and be my own man," he finished without more than a split second of hesitation. It was close enough to the truth that it didn't really even feel like a lie.

"Probably for the best," he added, glancing away slightly as one of the other students stared in their direction as they passed. "I'm uncool enough already without my mom insisting on picking me up after school every day."

[Supergirl]

Wally seemed pretty upbeat about being away from his parents, which Kara was impressed by. (She was oblivious to his actual feelings, of course, she wasn't very good at picking up on those things when she was mostly thinking about herself). Truthfully, she missed Ma and Pa pretty badly, and even Kal. They'd helped her so much this last year, helped her get used to Earth life, sat down and watched TV with her to help her to understand Earth society (although then had to spend months explaining she shouldn't expect so much drama...). But without them around, she was just incredibly lonely. It made her think about Krypton more and everything she'd lost. She tried to phone Ma and Pa regularly but she didn't want to sound like a sap and let them know she was missing them, especially after she had been so desperate to leave and come to Gotham anyway.

Besides, she was enjoying it here. She just wasn't used to being on her own. And if Wally could handle it, adorable dorky Wally, then she was sure that she could too.
"Your parents aren't cut out for it?" Kara laughed, trying to make light of it. "Imagine my Ma and Pa. Lived in Smallville their entire lives. I don't think they'd know what hit them..." She joked playfully, although saying that made her miss them even more and she wished she hadn't. "Besides, yeah, that's the fun, isn't it? Getting to be out here, be ourselves for the first time! Means I get to dress like this without getting yelled at." She said jokingly, waving a hand over her outfit. Kara's clothing choices had often gotten her in trouble with Ma and Pa, since they didn't exactly agree with her fashion sense.

They must have been nearing the classroom soon, something Kara regretted. She was enjoying her time talking to Wally. Maybe they'd hook up for more classes afterwards? Except not hook up! Not like... that!

God, now even her brain was doing it...

[Wally West]

If he was honest with himself, Wally was a little disappointed when the classrooms loomed ahead of him. Normally these corridors felt so long, some gauntlet of stares and disapproving mutters from the wealthy kids as they judged the stupid Kansas kid as he passed. He'd got used to it, to the point where it still bothered him a little, but not bad enough that he couldn't shut it out and ignore it, but there were days where he could just superspeed past them all; just get it over with.

Turned out it was a lot less bad if you weren't walking on your own. But Kara was just a girl he'd met, and managed to sustain a conversation with for a few minutes; not a friend even, barely an acquaintance. That bugged Wally more than he would have expected it to, and forced an unexpected sentence to blurt it's way out of his mouth.

"Do you want to hang out after school?"

He tried his hardest not to undermine it by turning red, or doing more awkward fumbling.

"Just, y'know. Seems like we could both use a friend, but if we try and get to know each other better while we're in school, people are gonna start to talk, and the last thing you want all these rich kids thinking is that your taste in guys is this bad." He gestured to himself for emphasis, and shrugged. "Besides, there is this waffle place just down the street? You have to let me buy you one of their milkshakes, they are out of this world."

[Supergirl]

Kara laughed lightly at Wally's slightly dorky offer, and smiled back.
"Sure, that sounds like fun." She smiled, agreeing, even though she knew it could easily be misconceived as a date. And he was probably right. If Kara wanted to be the popular girl in school she couldn't be seen hanging out with the dorky lonely guy. Not only would everybody think they were dating, but she'd never get in with the popular crowd, and-

She caught herself just as those thoughts filtered through her brain, and she suddenly felt ashamed. Kal couldn't read minds, it was one of the few things neither of them could do, but she could only think about how disappointed in her he would be if he knew she'd just thought that. Living in Superman's shadow was difficult, but often it wasn't the powers. It was how good he was. Kal was always right, even when every bit of Kara wanted to scream at him for being wrong. Loving and kind, and he would never see somebody hurt somebody who was being nice and friendly for something as vapid as popularity.

"I dunno, I think you're kind of adorable, and I don't care what the other kids think." She said instead, even if it was a lie. Besides, they could gossip all they wanted. Wally was only a friend, and she could still prove herself popular. Just they wait until she tried out for the cheerleading squad! Back in Smallville Ma and Pa had banned her, saying it was cheating, but here nobody could stop her. And beside, nobody would ever say Superman wasn't popular and he was nice to everybody. She should follow his example.

The Maths room loomed, and she came to a stop.
"First of all though, I guess we've gotta survive this. So, after school, right?" She smiled.