Totally Not A Date

[Kid Flash]

Damn it. Damn damn damn damn damn.

It sounded like a flurry of blows against a punching bag as Wally's leather-wrapped knuckles whammed into the mugger's pressure points, causing the purse he'd snatched to tumble from his fingers. Wally was rushing things, forgoing his usual wit and banter - mostly; some of that stuff was just natural and irresistible, so he couldn't always help it - to get this criminal dealt with fast. An arm swept out and snatched the purse from the air as it tumbled, hitching it over his shoulder as he delivered a few more punches: not breaking any bones, but definitely enough to give the guy a nasty pair of dead arms and discourage him from trying to fight back. A grab of the guy's clothes and a little burst of speed force brought them racing towards a street lamp; a flurry of blurred motion, and Wally whipped one of the cable ties from a craftily concealed compartment in his costume, and secured the thief's wrists behind him, anchoring him to the pole.

He shouldn't have done this. It was stupid to do this. He had somewhere to be - somewhere important. Okay, so him and Linda meeting up was absolutely not in any conceivable way any sort of date or even date-adjacent encounter, but it still mattered, y'know? Besides, he was a speedster. Being late shouldn't even have been possible. But it had, because he'd got distracted. He'd heard the shout for help from the alley, seen the guy - not even bothering to conceal the piddly little gun he'd threatened some poor woman with - slinking out carrying a purse that absolutely did not match his outfit; and he'd just had to act. Superspeed made it easy to change into his costume. Superspeed made it easy to chase the guy down. But it was going to make him late, and if that meant Linda was going to be upset with him -

Damn you, Percy the Purse-Thief. I will never forgive you if you make her mad at me.

Abandoning the thief to his fate with law enforcement, Wally sped back to the victim, returning the purse to it's rightful owner. But there wasn't time to bask in her gratitude, or deliver his usual suave style of response. "Don't mention it, ma'am," was all he managed to say before he zoomed off down the alley in search of some sort of covert route to where he and Linda had agreed to meet. "Just happy to help."

[Supergirl]

"Oh, come on!" Kara protested as the thug currently perched in the back of the stolen money van lifted up a long cylindrical object. "Where did you guys even get a rocket launcher!?" She complained. This was not her day! What was supposed to be a peaceful little not-date with Wally West, a chance to see the city and make a friend, had turned in to a full blown extended chase through the city as a group of thugs had hijacked a security van, complete with who-knew-how-much-cash inside and enough heavy weapons to hold off the entire Gotham City Police Force.

So how could she no? She'd been chasing it down two city blocks dodging machine gun fire (which stung!) when apparently they had finally decided to go for the big guns. In this case, a literal big gun. Kara had never been shot by a rocket before, but she had no intention of finding out if she could survive it, and dodging it would only mean that it would hit some innocent civilian. She glared at the rocket launcher angrily, and when Kara glared, she really could glare.

Two intense rays of red energy shot from her eyes, hitting the rocket launcher before he could fire it, and with a yelp the thug dropped it, it clattering to the ground and smashing past her. She was getting annoyed now, and it was time to finish this. She shot forwards, soaring over the top of the truck, and knowing that this was going to be difficult, landing in front of it. Standing strong, the truck ran straight towards her, and then at the very last moment, she grabbed the front of it and lifted, throwing it up over her head and then promptly catching the bottom.

And so, there she stood, in the middle of the street, holding the truck over her head as its wheels span vainly. The thing was really heavy, she was probably pushing the limits of her physical strength a little, but she had done it. She noticed the odd camera flash going off, after all, who wouldn't photograph Supergirl holding an entire truck over her her, and she hoped that it wasn't too obvious that she was straining to hold it. She chucked it aside, allowing it land with a heavy thump on its side, and then she shot around to the back as the thugs tried to climb out.
"Sorry boys, but you wanted in that thing, you can stay." She slammed the twin doors on the truck closed, and flew back several feet, before exhaling, blowing out ice cold air that froze the doors solidly shut. She allowed herself a breath of relief as she landed, sirens in the distance as people cheered. She could get used to this!

And then suddenly she remembered how late she was. Crud! Crud! Crud! She hoped that he was still there. The last thing she wanted to do was offend her only friend in this city! She rocketed in the air, shooting down Gotham streets as fast as she could, a simple blur of blue and red...

...until out of an alley trotted Linda Danvers, just running her hands through her hair, in one of her usual revealing, teenagerish school outfits, heels, pulling out her compact to check her make-up. And frowning at the big black smear. She shot back in to the alley for a moment, and thanked herself for her super speed at applying make-up (the one skill she didn't learn from Kal), before re-emerging from the alley.

....and she sighed. Wally wasn't there. He must have gotten fed up with waiting. Her shoulders slumped. Stupid thieves! They'd ruined everything. Ugh. When she'd dreamt of being like Kal, she'd never intended this...

[Wally West]

Wally exploded out of the men's room, stumbling slightly as the door had proven a little harder to open than expected. Glancing down at himself slightly, he stuffed a stray corner of shirt back into his pants as he dodged through the crowd to where -

Oh thank god, Linda was still there.

Okay, so the fact that she was there first wasn't ideal. He'd spent ages that morning in front of the mirror in his dorm room, practising the best way to casually say hey and make it seem like, yes, I have totally just been waiting here for you because I respect you and take this super seriously, but totally not in a romantical sort of way, and if you want to be totally casual about this that is totally fine with me. He'd more or less got it worked out, and there was even a little smile thing that he was pretty proud of. Now that was all for naught.

"Heeey," he said sheepishly, jamming his hands nervously into his pockets. "Sorry I'm late, I -"

He glanced behind him, realising where he'd just come from, and the somewhat limited options for excuses that he had now left himself with.

"- had a really bad breakfast burrito this morning."

Really? Really? That was his opening line? Nice one, Wally. At least he'd ensured that there wasn't any risk of this being mistaken for an actual date-date. If it had been, that would've been one hell of a mood killer.

[Supergirl]

Kara sighed with relief as Wally approached, glad that he was also running late, until he opened his mouth and spoke. For a moment, Kara gazed at him in disbelief. She had just been about to tell him how it didn't matter, but after a line like that? She just gave him a disbelieving look for a moment, before shaking her head.
"I might not know much about living here..." She paused, before realising that didn't quite make sense in her disguise. "...uh, in the city I mean, but... if that's the reason you're late, I think it's one of the occasions it's okay to lie." She told him with a teasing smile. "Make up something heroic. Say you were stopping a purse snatcher or something."

"I was pretty late anyway." She shrugged. "I..." Then she paused, and realised she should have come up with an excuse before she started speaking. "...lost my lip gloss." She finished, and realised it was considerably less gross than Wally's reason, but just made her look like a vain ditz. "Shut up, it's important." She said quickly before he could point out the absurdity of it. Well, it was. Kara did like to look good, after all.

"So, uh... are you still good to... you know, show me around?" She asked with a sceptical glance at his stomach. "I don't want you... you know..." She waved a hand and cringed at the thought.

[Wally West]

Crestfallen was one of those words that you read in English class, but that you didn't really get. Sure, you knew that it meant dejected or deflated or whatever, but you didn't really get what the word meant, where it came from, that et-something-ology word that sounded a lot like the word for bug studies but was something totally different.

Now though? Now Wally got it. He felt like one of those birds, all puffed up and showy-offy, trying to impress a potential mate - which Linda totally was not, by the way - and then suddenly it was all for naught. He could feel the little tuft of imaginary feathers on his head slowly beginning to droop, his expression faltering, body slumping just a little.

But I was doing something heroic.

So much for honesty being the best policy. Okay, so technically it was a lie, but it was the kind of lie that actually seemed like it was too much honesty. He had read enough girly magazines to know that girls like Linda - young women, the magazines were very big on that term - were supposed to like guys who were honest, guys who would try to hide anything, or hold anything back. And okay, so maybe his imaginary fake burrito bowels were something that he should be holding back in more ways than one, but even the kind of guy he was pretending to be, the kind of guy he was trying to be, just wasn't the kind of thing she was into. Wally suddenly found himself feeling all cold, realising that if he couldn't even pull off being the perfect guy, what hope did he ever have of finding someone who would actually like him as more than just a dorky friend if he went around actually being himself.

"Nah, I'm -"

He patted his stomach, not really feeling the full conviction to play up to the lie any more.

"I'm good. Walking around always makes me feel better, and besides, I... I could probably use some fluids, if you wanna, I dunno, grab a drink or something?"

Oh, Wally. Man. Buddy. Me. What the hell are you trying to do? Time to call it, bro. Patient is dead. Let it die with dignity.

[Supergirl]

Kara noticed Wally seemed a little upset at her joke, and she felt pretty bad. She didn't want Wally to be too upset. Well, it was pretty gross, and definitely not what you should say to a person when you were late, but he was being honest and she supposed she shouldn't be too harsh on him for that. Besides, if he hadn't been sick, he'd of caught her being late too, and her excuses were just as lame, if considerably less disgusting. And that would have been a lie from her. At least he was honest.

"Aw, c'mon, smile. I was only joking." She teased. "I think it's cute that you're honest, although, for future reference, definitely file stuff like that under 'TMI'." Kara explained with a slight smile, although secretly she was smiling at the fact that she felt what she just said used Earth slang pretty much perfectly. She had taken a while to get her head around that. She didn't want to wound her pride by telling Wally she didn't actually know what a burrito was. She was doing so well at blending in!

"Yeah, sure, a drink sounds good." Kara said chirply, although she frowned a little when he said he needed fluids. "Seriously, you're sure you're okay, right?" She asked. It seemed despite Wally putting his foot in it and Kara being a little grossed out, she did at least actually care. It was hard not to when you had spent the last year living with the Kents. They had a way of living they just ingrained in to you.

[Wally West]

"I'm fine, honest."

Under normal circumstances, Wally would probably have read way too much into that concern about his well being. Would've imagined it as some secret clue of a kind of affection that Linda was reluctant to admit to. Now though, it barely even registered.

He managed to muster a small smile as he gestured in the direction that they needed to go and started ambling in that direction, hands defensively shoved into his pockets as e walked. You would think that by now he'd be used to it: used to having to deceive people, to make up a story to cover for his superhero antics. You'd think that by now he'd have learned to justify the lying to himself - after all, it was for the greater good and all that - and you'd think that for someone who could think about as fast as he could run, he'd be way better at making them plausible. Problem was, lying had never come easy to Wally West: not unless it was the lying to yourself kind. He was the sort of guy who would blurt out honesty even when it was a bad idea. Not throwing out some smartass comment about his powers or his hero antics was a constant struggle, but at least back in Keystone and Central he'd Barry and his parents to vent those sorts of things at. Here he was keeping it all bottled up inside, and it made him feel like a shaken-up soda can.

Okay so sure, even if he and Linda somehow managed to become super best friends, his secret identity wasn't something that he was just gonna casually reveal to anyone and everyone. Aside from the fact that doing it was dumb, it put people in danger, and Wally was pretty sure that was crappy friend conduct. But everything else? Having someone to talk to, at all? A release valve for all of the other junk rattling around in his head seemed awful nice. Assuming he hadn't managed to ruin everything with such a terrible lie that he was now going to need to maintain the illusion of for the rest of the day.

"So -" He started, his mouth deciding that something needed to be said before his brain had finished coming up with what that was. "I know you've been to Central, and you've been to Gotham, obviously. Where else in our great nation has Miss Smalllville managed to visit? You done much travelling, or is this your first time outside the Midwest?"

[Supergirl]

Kara felt awful. She could tell that she had upset Wally, even if she didn't really think it was fair that she had. She'd only made a joke, and she'd been pretty nice about it, and checked he was okay. Maybe he really wasn't feeling very well? She wasn't sure, but somehow she felt it was her fault. Her and her big mouth. She shouldn't have teased him so early. She forgot they hadn't been friends for long. She supposed because she didn't have any other friends, she forgot her only one was quite new.

Luckily, Wally picked up the conversation again, and Kara hoped they could move on and at least find a new topic of conversation.
"Uh, no, not really." She answered, blatantly lying of course. She'd travelled across the entire galaxy in a rocket ship. The 'Midwest' wasn't much of a concern to her. "I spent some time in Metropolis though. My cousin has an apartment there. I even got to apartment sit once!" She explained cheerily. That was a fun time, especially since Kal was away and Kara got to step in to the role as the city's defender for a short time. But she figured she couldn't mention that.

"What about you? Do you-" She began to say, before she suddenly paused. The two were cutting through a small alley and she could hear something coming with her super hearing. Before she could react however, a black van came squealing around the corner, stopping in front of the pair, its back doors flinging open and several men lowering guns at them. Kara almost reacted immediately, about to tear the guns from their hands, but stopped herself, realising that she couldn't show her powers in front of Wally. Instead, she threw herself in front of him, and grabbed him, as if hugging him scared, but making sure her body was in the path of any potential bullets.

"In the van kids! NOW!" Growled the lead kidnapper, and before Kara and Wally could do anything (well, without using powers...) two of the men grabbed them, and threw them in to the back of the truck,.
"Rich kids from that fancy school of yours shouldn't go out alone, y'know?" Another laughed as Kara felt handcuffs slapped over her wrists from behind, looking at all the guns lowered at them. These guys were serious. And she couldn't use her powers in front of Wally either.

She started to think madly. There had to be something she could do, before Wally got hurt. Ohh, she was going to make these guys pay so ​bad... Just as soon as she worked out how...

[Wally West]

Wally's mind started racing at a thousand miles per hour. Linda was right there, but he was fast. Faster than the human eye, maybe. He'd used his superspeed in public before, lightning fast reflexes, things speedily hidden and shuffled around while people were looking the other way. If Linda was distracted focusing on their would-be abductors, then maybe -

Or maybe not. Next thing Wally knew, he was getting hugged - a surprisingly strong hug at that; Linda must work out or something - and then manhandled into the back of a van. He heard them blabbing about rich kids - really? Okay, so Linda looked pretty fancy with her fashion sense and her pretty looks and all that, but what the hell about Wally West and his cobbled together outfit made anyone even remotely suspect he had more than a few bucks to his name? - but was only half paying attention, eyes already sweeping the van for possible escape routes. If he vibrated his hand against the door, then maybe he could get the right resonance to trigger the latch and open it; and the thugs weren't even worth worrying about, he could subdue them before the nerve impulse to pull the trigger even finished travelling down their arm. Maybe he could even be super-cool and dismantle their guns while they were still holding them, a superspeed version of that thing that everyone tried to do real fast in action movie training montages.

But not with Linda right there. Not with her watching. Would that be so bad? Wally hated that voice in his head, the voice that told him to ignore everything that Barry had taught him about why protecting his identity was important. It wasn't about showing off or anything else that people assumed it was - he just hated lying. Especially burrito lies. I mean, good god Wally, what the hell? It's one thing to use your bowels as an excuse, but sullying the good name of breakfast burritos? That was uncalled for.

Okay, so no superspeed. Not yet. Not until it became the only way to keep Linda safe. For now, he'd just have to do everything he could as stupid dorky Wally West.

He reached out and placed a hand on Linda's shoulder, mustering the most reassuring voice he possibly could. "It's gonna be okay, Linda. I won't let them hurt you."

Next thing Wally knew, the butt of a gun smacked him upside the head, and a spintering pain exploded into existence just above his eyebrow. Oh come on! What the hell was it with criminals and hitting him in the head lately? He glared up angrily at the man holding the gun. The man glared back just the same.

"Keep your mouth shut, kid."

[Supergirl]

Kara watched everything unfold, clenching her wrists as Wally tried to play the manly man and make sure that she was okay, only to get hit in the back of the head. Kara winced and reached over to try and comfort him, but her restrained hands were now coupled against a bar in the van, and if she leaned any further, she'd snap the cuffs. She had to try and resist the urge to do so as it was, it would be so easy.
"Wally..." She whispered, sounding frightened, but only because she feared for him. "Just... do what they say. It's going to be okay." She said, realising of course this was the stereotypical victim thing to say. 'Do what they say'. 'Hope we get rescued'. Ugh, if only she could just tell Wally. 'I'm Supergirl'. And then take them apart. But she couldn't.

"You too kid! Don't think I won't hit a girl!" Threatened the same one that had clocked Wally. Kara looked up so angrily for a moment it took all of her self control to not set off her heat vision, but she didn't dare answer back. Not because she was afraid of getting hit, but because she was aware of the result. If the guy hit her like he'd hit Wally with the gun, the gun would possibly break before Kara's head took any damage, and then they'd know something was wrong.
"You know we don't have any money, right?" Kara tried to argue instead. If Supergirl couldn't get them out of this, maybe Linda Danvers could.
"Yeah, that's what they all say." Insisted the thug as the van came to a halt ."Split 'em up! Seperate rooms!" He ordered as the van door opened, and Kara was uncuffed, being led out.

"Wally! Don't panic! It's going to be okay! I promise!" She yelled as they began to drag her away, only pausing for a moment as it seemed incrediblydifficult to move this tiny blonde girl just for a split second as she spoke, and then everything was normal again...

[Wally West]

Wally don't panic? What about Linda don't panic?

Wally didn't get any opportunity to offer reassurance as the thug who'd cracked him one in the head began to lead him away, taking a certain amount of enjoyment in excessive force. Wally was used to pain; his body was a little more resilient as part of the whole not getting his skin peeled off by the friction of running so fast thing, and everything to do with his metabolism, immune system, and his ability to heal happened at the same faster-than-normal speed as everything else about him. Well not everything. Certain things didn't happen super fast, but now wasn't exactly the time to dwell on that little biological function.

Even so, Wally played along, faked at being a little groggy and compliant the way that his kidnapper would expect him to be. The quicker they got out of sight the better; the sooner he'd be able to bust loose and then... what? Rescue Linda, convince her that he just happened to have been in the neighbourhood at the time, and that he'd already rescued Wally so they absolutely did not have to go find him before they could get the hell out of there? Or did he just superspeed her outside before she had the chance to protest, and then say he was going to go back and get Wally; then take out the thugs and... change back into his normal clothes and jog out of the building as if Kid Flash had told him to just run? Rig up an... I dunno, time delayed explosion somehow so it sounded like their superheroic savior was still in there doing stuff?

Wait no, he couldn't do any of that. If he tried anything at all, the guy restraining him would see. They might not know he was Wally West, but they'd have seen his face, they knew where he went to school, and it'd only take a few minutes and a web search to identify the juvenile speedster. Even if he kept his speed in check and took the guy down with the martial arts techniques he had learned - which would be easy, by the way; this guy didn't look so tough, especially when you had experience fighting giant psychic gorillas - that wouldn't help him, not in Gotham City. Young kids with martial arts skills was kind of a thing here, it wasn't like Central City where no one gave a crap about vigilantes unless they could run real fast.

Anxiety started to take over, Wally's thoughts running backwards and forwards in his head like a speedster whirlwind. He needed to get free and save Linda. Had to. But he needed to do it without seeming super-powered, or super-skilled. Needed to do it seeming like hapless dorky Wally West, the least impressive specimen of masculinity on the planet. There was only one way to do that as far as his lightning fast thoughts could currently comprehend.

His shoulders slumped.

"I had a really bad breakfast burrito this morning," he said quietly, the shame in his voice not entirely false. "Can I use the bathroom, before I -" He grimaced. "- y'know."

[Supergirl]

Kara let them drag her forcefully in to a small side room, her eyes locked on the walls in a way that her captors found odd, but totally ignored. Of course, the reason was that Kara was keeping a careful eye on Wally with her X-Ray vision. She was hoping he wasn't doing something stupid, and she strained with her super-hearing in time to hear his excuse. She had to hide a chuckle. Who would have thought Wally's breakfast burritos would save the day? Or at least, give him enough of a delay for Kara to do her own thing.

Speaking of which, she was forced down in to a chair, one of the thugs leering in front of her as another began to look through her bag.
"Lemme tell you how this works. You tell us your name, your parents, we give 'em a ring on your phone, demand a ransom. Nice and easy." He said threatening, before cocking the gun. "You refuse, you even stutter, an' we have some fun with your pretty lil' hide. Understand?" Kara's eyes flickered to the thug looking through her bag. Well, too late to stop him now, so...
"S-sure. M-my phone is in my bag. I-it has their details..." She stammered, as fake-scared as she could manage.
"Get her phone!" The thug close to her ordered.
"There ain't no phone in here! Just this stupid outfit!" The second thug complained.
"What outfit?" The first asked, snatching it off of him and unfolding it.

The two thugs saw that familiar 'S' at the same time, and both of their eyes went wide.
"Why's a teenage girl got a Supergirl outfit in her-" The second began to ask just before they heard a sound that seemed peculiarly like somebody snapping handcuffs like they were made out of paper. "Oh shi-"

A few crashes later, and the door to the side room flung off its hinges and so far across the corridor it embedded in to the other wall, and out strode Supergirl, in full outfit, a determined look on her face. One of the guards turned, ready to fire his gun, only to find it snatched away before he could even pull the trigger and himself thrown in to a wall with enough force to leave him barely able to stand.
"If he's been hurt, I'm coming back for you." She stated firmly, and headed down the corridor, cape swirling behind her...

[Wally West]

The guy with the gun hadn't been particularly helpful. Whatever building they'd brought them to was apparently undergoing renovations - smart; people would expect a certain amount of banging and crashing; and well, this was Gotham, who was gonna flinch at a couple of extra gunshots if it came down to it? - and that apparently meant no bathrooms. None working, anyway. The gun guy had been so smug when he'd kicked over an empty bucket of plaster, but Wally had simply shrugged, and turned to brandish his restrained wrists in the guy's direction.

"Unless pulling down the pants of a teenage boy floats your boat," he'd added for extra effect, "In which case be my guest."

The man had glowered - Wally decided it was definitely worthy of that adjective - and had cut through the cable ties binding Wally's wrists. Sure, Wally could have just vibrated his way out or whatever, but plausible deniability and all that. Wally had waited until the instant the gun guy had turned away to give him a little privacy, and then he'd booked it, running as fast as a gangly-armed teenager would have been expecting to.

That was when the crashing had come from the other room, enough to snap the guy's attention around. Wally was half way to his backpack by the time the guy had clocked on to him; he swerved at just the right moment, a bullet whistling past his head and ricochetting off a concrete pillar as he dove behind the nearest cover. He peered across at where his bag, and more importantly his suit, lay waiting. The kidnapper unleashed a string of profanities and threats. Language, dude. Wally took a deep breath, counted to three, and then ran.

[Kid Flash]

A burst of golden lightning surged towards the distant wall too fast for the kidnapper to possibly see, pinballing off surfaces until he was certain that the thug had no idea where he had originated from. A few frantic aims, two desperate shots; Wally dodged them with ease, scooping up his backpack, changing into his costume in a whirlwind of superspeed motion.

When it finally came to a halt, Kid Flash stood there, offering the kidnapper his most taunting grin.

"Kidnapping school kids in the middle of the day? Really?"

He sighed and shook his head, tongue clicking out a few disappointed tuts.

"I knew the criminals in Gotham were stupid, but dude, you and your buddy are really dragging down the average."

[Supergirl]

And at that moment, from behind said kidnapper, the door burst quite literally off its hinges, and fell to the ground with a thud. Framed by the light from the corridor outside, cape swirling behind her, in strode Kara, full of heroism, ready to rescue Wally, only to stop, and frown. Wally wasn't here any more, and instead it was the Flash. Or a Flash-like guy. She had never met him so wasn't sure, but the outfit sure looked Flashy.

...Not that kind of Flashy, as in- Wow, was Kara glad she wasn't saying this out loud.

The kidnapper span, surprised to see her standing there, and unloaded several shots in her direction. Unlike Wally, she didn't even bother dodging, and they just bounced off of her. She gritted her teeth and hid the pain on her face, bullets still stung her, but she was determined to not let it show. Not when the kidnappers had made her this angry, and not when there was a whole new hero there to impress. As the last shot went off, her hand snapped out, and closed in to a fist. She then slowly walked towards the rapidly backing away kidnapper, who was looking over his shoulder in terror at Kid Flash who was just behind him. Kara calmly opened her hand, the bullet inside it.
"I believe this is yours." She said calmly. The kidnapper looked down at the bullet, up at Kara, at the S on her chest, span around, at Kid Flash, the lightning bolt, back to Kara, and fainted clean to the ground.

Kara looked down calmly for a moment, checking the threat was over. Good.
"OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!" She shrieked, as soon as she was sure he was unconscious, and began hopping around, clutching her hand. She'd never caught a bullet before, and she certainly wasn't going to again. "OW! OW! OW! OW! THAT REALLY HURT!" She whined, holding her hand in pain. Bullets stung her (as she had spent nowhere near as much time on Earth as Kal), hands were traditionally more sensitive, so of course stopping one like that would really sting. "OW! OW! OOO-" And then she paused, realising the other hero was there watching her.

She very self consciously lowered her hand, and stood still, before placing them behind her back and looking entirely calm.
"I-I mean, uh, I'm good. You okay?" She asked with her best attempted Superman-style heroic expression on her face. "There's another victim here somewhere. We have to-" She was just about to change the subject from her little display to rescuing Wally as she peered under his mask out of idle curosity, thoughtlessly really, it was just something to do as she spoke. But of course, then she froze.

"WALLY!?" She suddenly exclaimed. "You're the FLASH!?"

[Kid Flash]

Wally's first instinct was to deny it. Try to pull a weird face, or put on an accent to seem less like himself. Maybe he was a French speedster.

Ah am sorree madamoiselle, I know not zis Wally you speak of.

Okay, so maybe not French. But something. Some desperate attempt to prove the integrity of his costume, a vain effort to not discover that all of his awesome design modifications had made it super-easy for Supergirl to work out who he was. Did it show too much of his eyes? Did he need to start doing the superhero panda eyes make-up thing? Was it his goofy grin that she had picked up on, or was it -

Maybe it's because she's got a Superman logo on her chest, and Kryptonians have x-ray vision, dumbass.

Wally let out a sigh. "This is why Batman's cowl is lined with lead," he muttered.

But hang on. He didn't know Supergirl. He'd never met the Big Man's space cousin - which was exactly the same as a regular cousin, except also from space. He squinted in momentary confusion, wondering why some hyper-powered alien space blonde was familiar with him at all. Had they met? Maybe she had a secret identity? Maybe someone with different hair, or glasses, or -

"Linda?"

As soon as the realisation dawned, he felt so stupid. Of course it was Linda Danvers. Maybe there was something different about her hair, and that S symbol and the skirt was dragging his attention to places that were already hard enough not to look at; but it was undeniably her. His new friend was a superhero. His new friend was from space. She was related to Superman, she was - was she even called Linda? That didn't sound like a very space sort of name. Wally had so many questions, so many thoughts tripping over themselves to be asked. But there was something more important that needed to come first.

Wally's face adjusted into a lopsided, apologetic smile. "I may have lied about the burrito."

[Supergirl]

"You can tell it's me?" Kara replied almost instantly, a little surprised, although as soon as she began to think about it, she realised that a) she had no mask on and b) she had just called Wally by name, so of course he could tell. As Supergirl, Kara slightly altered her make-up, her hair and so on, but in no meaningful way that made her look different. Then again, Kara was the type of person who thought changing your lip gloss was the most dramatic appearance alteration in the world, so it wasn't entirely a surprise she was shocked. "Uh, I mean, yeah, it's me..."

"Oh, thank god." She said, even as she couldn't hold back a smile and a giggle at the fact he admitted he'd lied about the burrito. She smiled and laughed gently, even if it was tinged with a little nervousness at being found out. "You really need to think of less gross excuses." She teased, wondering whether she should feel guilty that all she was really feeling was relief that somebody local now knew her secret, even if she was terrified he'd shun her now for learning she had lied so much. Even if he had lied too. Heck they had both lied.

"I'm... sorry I lied to you." She said, looking at the floor, slightly ashamed. "My name's not even Linda." She admitted shamefully, before looking back up at him and trying not to look too shame faced as she introduced herself properly. "My real name is Kara Zor-El. When I told you I lived in a city before moving to Smallville, I didn't lie, but that city wasn't exactly in the Mid-West..." She admitted with an ashamed shrug. "It's called Argo City, on the planet Krypton. But our world was doomed. I was sent here when I was fifteen, I was supposed to help my cousin, Kal-El, grow up. I was going to be his babysitter..." She laughed at the absurdity. She didn't know if Wally knew Superman by his original name, but she was sure he'd figure it out. The ridiculousness of being Superman's babysitter seemed so stupid now even Kara found it funny. "Only, my ship got lost in a wormhole, and I arrived decades too late." She told him. "I did actually spend a year in Smallville though, that's true. It's where I've been learning about human civilisation." She told him.

"You lot are weird." She added, trying to at least make a joke of the hugeness of what she had just told him.

[Kid Flash]

Kara Zor-El? So, what, was El the surname or something, like Kal-El and Jor-El? Was that why Superman kept telling people that his whole S symbol thing wasn't an S? Because it was actually an L? But then why did Kara have so many syllables before her name, when Superman just had the one? Was it like calling him by his surname, the way the teachers at school called him 'West' all the time, especially when he was in trouble? Or as it like those crinkle nose people in Star Trek who had their names all backwards, so Kara was actually the surname thing? That didn't seem likely though; Kara sounded too much like a first name, to his human ears at least - but what if Superman was really Kara Kal-El or something.

What if Superman had a girl's name? How cool would that be?

Wally struggled to get a handle on his thoughts, stopping the tirade of lightning thoughts that wanted to springboard off his tongue at a thousand miles an hour. He could ask for answers later, and if he was lucky and stayed on Linda's - Kara's - good side, maybe she'd even give him some. Oh god, if she was from space, did that mean she had a space ship? Did she know about cool space things? It was all too much, all too exciting, and the effort of keeping it in almost had Wally vibrating at hyperspeed.

Still, later. Definitely later. For now, he needed to say something. He knew how agonising the thought of people finding out your secret could be, and if people discovering you were a metahuman was scary, the prospect of people discovering you were an alien and freaking out and treating you differently must have been terrifying. Wally needed to say something so that Linda, Kara, Supergirl, all of the above, knew that he wasn't freaked out. That this was the coolest thing ever. But also in a way that totally came off suave and mature, because he was totally the spokesperson for the entire human race right now and it was his diplomatic duty to make a good impression.

"I want to know everything."

He said it as if it was the most serious, honest, important sentence he could possibly have uttered.

"But maybe standing here talking about it over Captain Kidnap's unconscious body probably isn't the best idea."

Wally pondered for a moment, before unleashing a surge of superspeed, rummaging through his backpack for a scrap of paper and a pen. Sure, he could have just looked normally, it would only have taken a few seconds, but come on. His friend was Supergirl. All of his attempts to impress her had been woefully mediocre; he needed to up his game. A few flurries and flourishes - not at his full speed; he'd learned the hard way that writing too fast could cause enough friction to set people's birthday cards on fire, and that wasn't so good - and he'd produced a note, one that he carefully slipped into the kidnapper's hand.

Crime is bad. Abducting people is very bad.
If you do it again, we will know. We will find you.
- Kid Flash & Supergirl xx

Okay, so the kisses were maybe a little too much, but it was a reflex. And damn it, he'd written Kid Flash instead of Impulse. Even his subconscious wasn't buying this whole rebranding thing. He sighed, and took a step back. Being the Kid Flash wasn't so bad, he supposed. Maybe he should have taken a cue from Green Arrow's sidekicks - gone for a different coloured costume and called himself Black Flash or something. That seemed edgy and cool, and if Black Canary was anything to go by, it was a secret codeword for super-hotness.

His eyes turned to Kara, thoughts rushing through their options. They needed to get out of here, and if they were going to talk and be themselves - their real selves - they probably needed to find somewhere to talk where they wouldn't be overheard. Preferably somewhere less creepy and more comfortable than an abandoned building full of unconscious people.

"You know where Robinson Park is, right?"

An eager grin painted itself across his features.

"I'll race you."

[Supergirl]

Kara smiled a little at Wally's honesty. He wanted to know about her. He wanted to know about Krypton. It was sweet. Most people would freak out to find their friend was quite literally a space alien, but Wally was taking it with his general sweet and good nature. She felt a wave of total relief, but had to agree with his suggestion at getting out of there. She wasn't sure a sternly worded letter was the best way of dealing with them though, even if looking at it she smiled.
"Oh, you're Kid Flash. Not even the real Flash. Well, now I'm just disappointed." She teased, although her smile and the way she playfully prodded him (making sure she did it lightly!) made it clear that she was very much joking. Truthfully, Kara hadn't even known there was a Kid Flash, but well, you learned something new every day. "But I think we'd better tell the cops their here as well. I'll ring them once we get to the park." She said, smirking at his challenge.

"Oh, you are so on, buster." She smirked, as they headed out of the building. "Good luck though. Didn't anybody ever tell you I'm faster than a speeding bullet?" She joked, of course making fun of the old catch phrases they used to say about Kal. Not that it was entirely true in Kara's case of course. Kal might have been faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and all that, but Kara wasn't quite as powerful. Not without spending a lot more time on Earth. But she was still pretty fast.

And of course, she could fly, which meant she didn't have to zig zag around the buildings.
"Try not to leave me waiting." She teased. "Again." She added playfully, sticking her tongue out at him as she floated in to the air, and then shot off in to the sky.

[Kid Flash]

Faster than a speeding bullet? Pssh. Please.

Everyone knew that the Flash was the fastest man alive - Kryptonians included. They'd done charity races to prove it and everything. Sure, so Wally wasn't actually the Flash, and his lab experiment gone wrong on purpose powers hadn't imbued him with the speed force to quite the same extent as the real deal, but Supergirl was new to Earth, right? Superman was solar powered, and Supergirl hadn't been here as long, so surely that balanced things out. Besides, look at those boots. There was no way that anyone could expect to run super-fast in anything that -

Oh right, the flying thing.

"Whatever you say, Lip Gloss," he quipped back, guessing that her own iffy excuse probably wasn't entirely genuine either, and then shot off in pursuit, the speed force crackling like lightning around him.

The thing about super speed was that how fast you went wasn't because of anything physical. It was all mental focus, channelling your determination, opening yourself up as a conduit to an extradimensional source of energy that absolutely was not magic, even though it was sufficiently advanced to sure as heck feel like magic a lot of the time. Your muscles didn't pump your arms and legs super fast all on their own - if they did, you'd burn through all your fat reserves in about three seconds, and would collapse into some sort of scrawny, skeletal, mummy-like heap on the ground - they just sorta took the first step and then the speed force kicked in, catapulting you forward and powering some weird form of hypercharged anaerobic respiration that sorta helped your body to keep up. Sure, it got achy and tired like regular running after a while, but in order for a speedster to feel like they'd run a marathon? Forget twenty-six miles, try twenty-six laps around the whole planet.

Right now, Wally thrust all of his will into going faster. It wasn't that he was competitive, it wasn't that he wanted to win; it was that he needed to. That Kid Flash comment might have just been a joke, but that kinda thing still stung a little; not in an upset way, but in a need to prove yourself sort of way. He needed Kara to know that he wasn't just some knock off imitation, some sidekick, some kid version. Much as he wanted to distance himself from the Kid part, he was proud to have Flash as part of his name, and now he needed to prove that he deserved it.

As he hurtled forward, he felt a familiar vibration in the air; a familiar pressure against his body as he surged forward. 340 meters per second. 767 miles per hour. The speed of sound: the point at which the fluid dynamics of air began to change, interacting weirdly with the aerodynamics of his speed force encased body. Any second now he'd punch through the resistance, and the sonic boom would be cool as hell. But, as Wally had learned back in Central City one day when he'd got a little too carried away, the resulting shockwave wasn't all that great for any windows that happened to be nearby. Holding himself on the cusp, he took a sharp left and then a right, steering onto the broadest Gotham street he could think of. Feet springing him from a car to a van to a full blown truck, Wally triple-jumped his way into the air, launching himself as far off the ground as he could get, grin plastered across his face as the air exploded around him - enough to still rattle the cars on the ground beneath, but nothing that'd cost anyone's insurance any unfortunate window repairs.

Running on air for a few seconds, Wally hit the ground again mid-stride, and pressed himself to go faster still.

[Supergirl]

Flying was pretty much powered by will power as well. There was no physical force propelling you or holding you back. It wasn't controlled by muscles or by wings. You simply flew. It probably upset a lot of physics experts, truth be told. And truth be told, Kara really didn't have much drive when she flew. It was a fun thing, an exciting thing, but she wasn't exceptionally fast. Oh, she could really move when she wanted to, but to really move quickly, like, save-the-day super fast, it had to be a crisis. Kara could be deceptively quick, much like her cousin, but it really had to be the worse of worse situations.

Not to say without that drive she wasn't fast, she still left most things in the dust and could easily keep up with most jet liners, but Wally was faster. Of course, buildings weren't in the way for her, but she could see the streak of golden light whizzing off ahead of her below. She smiled a little. In a way, she wanted to let him win, but truthfully, she didn't think she could beat him even if she wanted to. It'd be pretty close, thanks to her shortcuts, but without it being a crisis, Kara had nothing to drive her on. She wasn't competitive enough to really force herself on to win. She just liked doing this for the fun.

She flew down over the park, ready to drift down and land, but she fully expected Wally would already be there, probably saying something smug. Like asking if she'd stopped to fix her lip gloss or something, judging by his last comment. Wait, actually, that might not be a bad excuse...

[Kid Flash]

In an explosion of speed force lightning, the blur of crimson that was Wally West streaked back into focus on the grass below Kara. He looked around himself in momentary confusion before he realised that he needed to look up. Instantly his face split into a grin, momentarily overcome by the sheer coolness of having just had a high speed race across Batman's city with his new space friend. Central City, home, was a long way away, and he did miss it - he missed his family, his old friends, he missed Barry, and the goofball Rogues making crime fighting fun rather than grim and scary like it was here - but times like this reminded him of just how awesome his life really was, and right now he didn't have even the faintest flickering desire to change a damn thing.

"I hope you're hungry!" Wally shouted, hoping that his voice would be loud enough for her to hear from up in the sky, before realising a moment later that Kryptonians had super-hearing so he could probably have just whispered and she'd have heard him just fine.

He brandished each of his hands up towards her in turn, displaying the paper-wrapped contents of each, relying on her super-vision - that was probably what she called it, right? - to pick up on the details of what he was showing her. For a minute, his brain raced off on a tangent wondering about her x-ray vision, and if he was going to end up getting a harmful dose of radiation if Linda, Kara, Supergirl, whatever wound up staring or glaring at him for too long. It'd suck for her if she had to stop looking at his handsome face and charming smile for the sake of his heath and safety. Maybe he should invest in some lead-lined boxer shorts, just to make sure his baby-making prospects weren't going to wind up getting adversely affected.

"I stopped at a chilli dog guy on the way," he explained. Yes, he was showing off now, but come on. He was on a not-date with Supergirl, and he was Kid damn Flash. Of course he was going to show off and try to impress her. That was kind of the point. "You want the mustard, or the no mustard?"

[Supergirl]

"You're such a show off." Kara rolled her eyes and smiled at Wally as she touched down next to him, and took the chilli dog without mustard. He really was, but then again, he'd picked an easy competition for him. "Wonder who would win if I challenged to you an arm wrestle. Or a flying contest." She pointed out playfully, just reminding him that picking the one thing you were best at for a contest then winning wasn't anything special. "Oh! Or a laser eye competition!" She added with exaggerated thoughtfulness, obviously just messing around. She also ate the chilli dog, with surprising speed.

"Anyway, you wanted to hear about me, and well, this place isn't really the best. I'm not spilling all my secrets in public, you know?" She pointed out to the crowd gathering in the park, because you couldn't really have Kid Flash and Supergirl turn up without any comment. "So, what I'm saying is, finish up that chilli dog quickly and hold on tight, 'cause I'm taking us somewhere more private." She instructed, stepping forwards and scooping Wally up in to her arms.

"You're gonna love this part." She smirked at him.

[Kid Flash]

At that moment, Wally should probably be embarrassed. Linda, or Kara, or whatever wasn't exactly a tiny person, but she was definitely shorter than he was, and being scooped up into her arms like some overgrown damsel in distress wasn't exactly the manliest thing that had ever happened to him. Sure, he'd been carried by Barry, and by the Green Arrow one time, but that was because he'd heroically gone and got himself injured, and he was all beaten-up looking and unconscious at the time. This was awkward.

Or at least, it should have been, were it not for the fact that being in Kara's arms also meant that he was sorta hugged up against her chest a little bit, which was all kinds of distracting. The bad kind of distracting. There was part of Wally that wanted to think of it as the good kind, but nope, there was definitely nothing but bad about this. Knowing what bulletproof Kryptonian boobs felt like was not knowledge that was safe within Wally's head: not with his habit of blurting things out without thinking. All it would take would be one accidental comment, one slip of the tongue when Linda wanted to know if the outfit she's picked out was flattering and there'd be lasers, and bone breaking, and then Superman showing up demanding to know how he knew that sort of thing about his cousin.

Wally awkwardly flailed his arms a little, not entirely sure what to do with them. "Wait, wait," he interrupted, before Kara could blast off towards the sky, and he gave the his chilli dog a mournful look. So often, Wally ate to replenish his blood sugar, but this? This was supposed to be a treat, something to be savoured; but there wasn't the time. Goodbye, my friend, he thought to himself as the chilli dog vanished at superspeed. His hand crumpled up the napkin and tossed it, crackles of speed force lightning crimpling the edges as it sailed effortlessly through the air and into the nearest trash can.

"That's better," he said, turning his attention back to Kara. It took him a few seconds to realise that he'd subconsciously draped an arm around Kara's shoulder, which had legitimately been an oh god please don't drop me thing, but had probably seemed like some kind of super slick move on his part. Damn it, Wally! he rebuked internally. How come he was never this smooth around women when he was doing it on purpose?

"So, uh -"

Oh god, Wally. Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't -

"Your place or mine?"

...damn it, Wally.

[Supergirl]

"Neither." Kara answered without missing a beat, although apparently totally missing any romantic undertones to that question. "His." She answered, and before Wally had a chance to figure out what that meant, she shot off, flying both high and fast. Sure, Wally was faster on the ground, but Kara could get additional height, and she really was pretty speedy when she had a more objective goal in mind. "Oh, and Wally? Sorry, but this location is a secret." She added, reaching forwards, still managing to support him, and with a single hand pulling his mask down over his face so he couldn't see anything.

And then she was off, flying through the cold air as it whistled around them. Of course, she was pretty sure that Wally's suit insulated him, and she was fine, and this was the fastest way to get where they were going. Gotham disappeared behind them in an instant, Metropolis whizzed by, it wasn't long and all of America fell behind them...

...all in all, it still took her about half an hour of flight, but she floated gently down, and lifted up Wally's mask just as they touched down on smooth, white ground, huge crystalline structures lifting up all around them, towering up high in to a bright white light. They were inside, although how they'd gotten inside would be difficult to tell. The place was massive, and stretched off in all directions. It was also deserted.
"He calls it the Fortress of Solitude." She told Wally. "He said I could stop by whenever I wanted. Looks like he isn't home. Which works pretty well for us."

[Kid Flash]

His place? Who was -

Oh.

Oh.

The unceremonious repositioning of his mask caught him by surprise. It didn't really help much, either. Part and parcel of being a speedster was an innate sense of direction - an attunement to the Earth's magnetic field, or something like that. It wasn't as fancy as GPS or anything like that, but if a speedster was moving, they had a pretty decent idea of which way. Kind of an important part of navigating at super speed, else you very quickly wound up getting lost. He tried not to notice, he really did, but the fact that they were heading northwards, and the fact that everything got noticeably colder... he couldn't help it. When Kara finally deposited him on the ground, he knew that they were above the Arctic Circle, no matter how hard he'd tried not to realise that. But as soon as he'd tugged his mask off his face completely and left it dangling behind him, geography suddenly stopped mattering.

Like Kara needed to tell him this was the Fortress of Solitude. Wally had heard stories. Barry had mentioned it, though Wally knew his mentor had never actually been; never been entirely sure when it was. Barry's theory was that Superman lived on the moon. Guess you were wrong on that one, Bartholomew.

Everything around him looked so alien, because of course it did. A crystal fortress - and from the way things were shaped, it was one that had been grown, not built; you could tell from the way the crystal spires interacted with each other, the way they interlocked perfectly, the lack of impurities and distortions. Was this what Krypton was like? Was this Superman's little piece of home here on Earth?

He didn't get very far with that train of thought though.

Looks like he isn't home.

Wally felt his heart rate quicken.

Which works pretty well for us.

Suddenly, Wally kinda wished he'd left the mask on: having so much of his face covered by something that was already a deep shade of red would probably have been really useful right about now. He turned quickly away, trying not to let his mind wander back to the other thoughts from earlier he shouldn't have been having - oh god, were Kryptonians psychic, the way that Martians were? Can you read my mind? - and pretended to be absolutely fascinated by the weird crystalline console that he found beside him; which wasn't actually much of a stretch. How did it work? Were their circuits embedded in the crystals themselves? Quantum computing? Hyperatomic entanglement modulation?

Damn it Wally. Say something!

"So, uh -"

Actual words, Wally!

He gestured around him, letting his eyes follow the crystals upwards to the top of the lofty cathedral of alien glass.

"- is this what it's like on your world?"

[Supergirl]

Kara noticed that Wally had gone very red for some reason, almost the same colour as his costume, and smiled sympathetically.
"Don't worry, I know the change of temperature in here from the outside can be weird for some humans." She told him, assuming that he was just warm. He'd get used to it shortly, she knew. Maybe not everything else. He seemed a little baffled, staring intently at the crystals. Kara supposed it was culture shock. For Wally, this was probably the closest he'd ever get to setting foot on another planet.

She smiled a little sadly when he asked if this was like the real Krypton.
"Not really. I mean, this place was grown using our tech. A lot of our buildings look similar, although the Fortress is bigger than most. But it's so... impersonal. It'd be like one of your skyscrapers being built but being hollow on the inside. Ka-, I mean, Superman, he's tried to make it home, and added a lot to work with here, but it's still... just hollow. We weren't that different from humans, back on Krypton, you know? We went to school, we went shopping, we hung out, we went on the cortex to watch funny holos, and yeah, we personalised our stuff. So sure, my room might have been grown out of crystal, but only the same as your room was probably made of concrete." She finished, looking a little sad as she remembered it.

"I used to have pink walls, and this poster of Char-Ni. He was like, the hottest holostar, and some of those were classics, you know?" She paused, sadness over-taking her. "I guess even he's gone now. And the holos. I'll never be able to watch Sundown: A Bright Dawn again..." She said wistfully. "But hey, at least every copy ever of Transmorphers III got blown up too, right?" She paused again, and shook her head. "If you were a Kryptonian, that would have been hilarious." She told him.

"Sorry, my entire world blew up. Sometimes that's hard to deal with..."

[Kid Flash]

Wally didn't need to think. He didn't need his superspeed to know how instantly he needed to act. His steps weren't rushed, but they were swift, and before either of them could react to anything else, his arms were wrapped around her shoulders, gently pulling her into the most reassuring friend hug that he could muster.

"I'm sorry."

He wished there was some way he could squeeze even more heartfelt sincerity into those words. He should have known better. Who didn't know the story of how Superman was the last survivor of his world? Well, last-but-one now, it seemed. Here he was caught up in the excitement of scrutinising some incredible artefact from an alien world, forgetting the far more important remnant of Krypton standing right there next to him. Here he was, so fascinated to understand what was inside these crystals, and what they were all about, that he'd completely forgotten that what he really wanted to know about was Kara's insides. Not in a creepy alien dissection way, but like, the stuff inside that made her who she was.

"I can't even begin to imagine what that must be like for you."

After all, wasn't that the whole point of today? They'd met up so that Wally could have the opportunity to learn more about his new friend. The fact that she was from space, or that she had superpowers, or that her cousin was famous didn't change any of that. What she could do didn't matter; he could find that out any time. Who she was, though? That was the important part. How fast Kara could fly, how powerful her heat vision was, how the awesome alien technology in her cousin's super secret alien crystal fortress worked - he didn't need to know that. It was awesome and fascinating, sure, but it didn't tell him the kind of things that made her sad, or the sorts of jokes he needed to tell to get a smile back on her face. It didn't tell her what kinds of stories she liked, so that he'd be able to recommend movies, and books, and shows for her to check out - which holy crap, if she was from space there were so many things he could introduce her to, and leech off the happiness she felt experiencing them for the first time. It didn't tell him how she took her coffee, so that he could have hers waiting for her so that she'd remember at least one guy in Gotham gave enough of a crap to pay attention to the things she said and the things she liked.

Powers, technology, alien worlds - those weren't the things he needed to know about to be a better friend; and for a shameful moment, he'd allowed his curiosity to get in the way of him remembering and realising that.

A stray thought crept into his mind.

"If it's not okay for me to be hugging you right now... please don't break my arms."

[Supergirl]

Kara smiled softly as he gave her a hug, and she knew that his words were sincere. She felt bad for bringing it up as a topic, it was supposed to be a fun day, and she was trying to show off, truth be told. Show him the Fortress of Solitude, remind him she knew Superman, make up for losing the race, but being here with somebody she could really talk about it with overwhelmed her a little. Kal tried to understand, he'd lost his homeworld too, but talking to him about it didn't help much, as he never knew what it was like. Not like Kara did.

"The hugging is so okay right now." She told him sadly, hugging him back gently. Kara missed being able to give people tight, clinging hugs. If she did that here, she'd squish Wally like a grape. So instead she held back. The only person she could hug properly was Kal.

"I don't really know what it's like. It's... so much is gone, you can't really process it. Most days I just miss my family, but then some days, a little thing, a tiny memory pops in to your head, and you realise it's gone forever. Like, there was this chair, well, I guess you'd call it a bench, in one of our parks, and it was really old, and the crystal was a bit cracked, and it kind of looked like... uh... well, put it this way, all the immature kids found it hilarious. And I just... I remember things... like that. Details so... tiny... but gone forever. And there's nobody left who even remembers rolling their eyes at all the teenage boys sniggering, thinking they were the first ones to discover it, even though people had been laughing for generations. Just... such a tiny moment in a tiny park on one street of one city of an entire world, but it's gone. Gone forever."

Kara suddenly realised that she was seriously rambling and shook her head, attempting a smile.

"C'mon, I'll show you some cool stuff, before I leave you thinking Krypton is all crystal weiners and bad holomovies."

[Kid Flash]

Wally never really knew what to say even at the best of times, and now was most definitely not the best of times. It wasn't even the memory that Kara shared that made it sad. It was kinda sweet, you know? Kinda reassuring that no matter where you were in the galaxy, if kids saw something that looked like a penis, it was funny as hell. Missing something like that... it wasn't even human nature apparently, it was something more fundamental than that. Sometimes, the big things were just too much to process, too much to conceive. It was the small comforts, the small details, the small victories that made all the difference. To have lost every single tiny thing that made your life, and your home, and your world what it was? Wally couldn't begin to comprehend what that must feel like.

"I would totally have laughed at that," he admitted, wishing that his voice had more of the gravity that Barry or Green Arrow managed to pull off when they talked. "You can roll your eyes at me, if you like. I'm sure I'll do something to deserve it eventually."

There was only one thing for it, Wally decided. Kara had lost everything that made Krypton feel like home. That was terrible. Tragic. Irreversible. But Earth was full of it's own weiner benches, it's own crappy movies, it's own little heart-warming quirks. If it took every waking moment of every day from now until Kara got fed up of having him around, Wally would drag her around introducing her to each and every one of them. It would never replace Krypton, Wally knew that... but maybe he could make it so that the big gaping hole that Krypton left behind wasn't quite so empty.

"And don't go insulting bad movies. About 90% of what I watch is objectively terrible. That's what makes it so fun. Besides, how are you supposed to stuff your face with popcorn and nachos, or make out with the cute girl you talked into watching it with you if you're gonna get all engrossed in a story that is actually good?"

It took precisely 1.38 seconds for Wally to realise what he had just said, and realise it was probably for the best if he never spoke again. Ever.

[Supergirl]

"Zod, you sound like half the boys on Krypton." Kara shook her head with a small smile, completely oblivious of course to any romantic subtext. Welcome to the Friend Zone, Wally West, your stay will last for all of time. However, he did remind her of some of the dorky guys back on Krypton, and their love of terrible movies. "I used to like the holos that were actually, you know, good. Like, there was this one about a girl in our version of high school, and she fell in love with this guy, only he turned out to be this immortal guy, like this kind of cursed immortal monster. I don't think you have anything like it on Earth, but it was awesome!" She told him, before giving him a small smile.

"And yeah, I bet you would have." She teased back about him laughing at the weiner bench. "And I bet you will." She added about rolling her eyes. "But for now, c'mon. I'll stick some of the crystals in, see if I can't at least show you what Krypton used to be like. Maybe give you an idea. There's a crystal around here on Argo City, I know that. Just some thing from the tourism board, really, but I guess for Kal it's the only way he can see the world he never knew." She explained, missing her calling him 'Kal' this time.

"Plus I know you just want to geek out over the computers here anyway. They literally run on crystals. I mean, you humans think iPads are the latest thing. Wait until you see Kryptonian technology." She teased.

[Kid Flash]

Oh please, Wally wanted to say, his mind all too eager to argue back, and prove that he wasn't some technologically backwards caveman, the way he must have seemed to Kara. I've met Batman. Heck, I've met Booster Gold. I know what super advanced technology looks like.

But he didn't say that. For starters, he was still working the make sure she likes me angle, and he was pretty sure that being petty and argumentative wasn't a step in the right direction. There was the whole be nice to her, she's sad thing as well; it was bad enough feeling all helpless when Kara went and made herself feel sad on her own, but actually being directly responsible for that himself seemed like a pretty hideous prospect.

Mostly though, it was the offer itself that kept his mouth firmly shut. Oh hey, Wally, would you like to see what it looks like on an alien planet? Would you like me to plug in one of my space crystal DVDs and show you stuff that pretty much no one else on Earth has ever seen? Yeah, that was something worth being quiet for; though it didn't stop the frantic, emphatic nodding that Wally had responded with.

The only problem was that quiet wasn't really a setting Wally had. It was less of a mute button, and more of a pause: something that left his stream of consciousness to buffer and buffer until he finally hit play, which usually led to an explosion of rambles racing their way out under high pressure. Right now though, his half-effective efforts had at least managed to impede his tirade of words, slowing it enough so that he could actually unleash a coherent string of sentences.

"So are they actually crystals?" he found himself asking. Of all the things he could have had questions about - Argo City, life on Krypton, friends, family, anything - that was what he went with? "Or is it more of a non-crystalline solid, like nanostructured glass or something? I read a research paper from STAR Labs a few years ago, that had this whole crazy theory about using a femtosecond laser to permanently etch a pattern inside a glass structure, to modify the refraction pathways into a sort of five-dimensional code structure. They theorised that an object about the size of a -"

on't say penis. Don't say penis. Don't say penis.

"- candy bar would be able to store something like three hundred and sixty terabytes of data, which is..."

He trailed off, hands gesturing around his head to simulate the explosion of his mind being blown. He stopped half way through making the corresponding noise, suddenly catching on to the way that Kara was looking at him. An embarrassed grimace took control of his expression.

"I'm kinda being a science dork right now, aren't I?"

[Supergirl]

Kara laughed lightly, and smiled softly, as if she was resisting the urge to ruffle Wally's hair.
"Aww, Wally, don't ever change, you're so adorable." She told him with a big smile. "'Three hundred and sixty terabytyes', 'femtosecond lasers', it's so cute when humans try to understand our technology." She smiled to herself, obviously amused. "You know how if you were to show a USB stick to a Medieval Knight, no matter how hard you tried, you'd never be able to explain what was going on inside of it in any way he could grasp?" She asked, although she felt a little guilty for making the comparison. "Our crystals are grown. They store knowledge because they remember it. You can't make them and you can't replicate them. They come from Krytpon and Krypton alone. Anything else... the human language hasn't invented words to explain yet." She smiled. She felt a little guilty, like she was being patronising, but well, Kryptonian technology was ridiculously advanced to humans for a reason.

"Sorry. Look, it's easier if I show you." She floated up to one of the crystalline control panels overlooking the Fortress, certain that Wally would just speed after her and be behind her in a moment, and took a deep breath, before inserting the crystal that she had spoken of. There was a brief pause, and then the appearance of a flickering hologram that enveloped them both. It wasn't quite picture perfect, nor did it seem real, but it seemed to be something else. The vast crystal city of Argo stretched around them, but this wasn't an isolated fortress like they were stood in. Every building had character, every street had life, it might have been alien and strange, but these were still people living their every day life. And the senses seemed to come with the hologram, you could feel the alien air, smell the alien scents, despite the hologram flickering and never quite seeming real, somehow, it seemed more than real.

"The crystals are grown. They grow from crystals before them. This isn't a primitive recording. It's a memory." Kara explained. "The crystals remember. Sure, we edit and we change, but what you're seeing is the memory of a planet long gone. My home. My city." The streets flickered by, showing vast structures, a beautiful crystal stadium, a bustling port full of advanced aircraft, looking like spaceships. "Actually, this crystal is from the tourism board, so you're just seeing the nice spots. It wasn't really like this. They just edit together the best bits." She explained with a small, sad smile. "But, well, it's the best I've got. Kal's ship came with a crystal designed to grow all of this, but even its storage was limited. It didn't have room for every crystal about just one city."

[Kid Flash]

Oh.

So there it was. You couldn't possibly understand, Wally. That old familiar sentiment. The because you're only human qualifier was new, but the rest was the exact same thing he had heard so many times. It was the way that Barry escaped from having to explain himself to his sidekick. It was the way the Justice League had dismissed his skills, dismissed his knowledge, dismissed his understanding. You're just a kid, Wally. You're just Kid Flash.

Part of Wally wanted to argue back. Part of him wanted to quote one of his favourite scientists. Richard Feynman had always argued that if you couldn't explain a scientific concept, the fault was yours: you didn't understand it well enough yourself. Science was a fundamental concept, a constant truth to the universe. Given enough time, and someone who wanted to understand, you could explain anything. There was no concept that was beyond the human imagination: you just to understand the concepts well enough to walk someone through a step at a time, and have the patience to even try. But Kara didn't. Maybe she couldn't. Maybe she was like those people who knew how to plug a USB drive into their computer, but didn't have a clue how they actually worked. Or maybe she just thought he was too stupid, too beneath him, not evolved enough for the effort to be worth it. You're only human, Wally. It was the same feeling he got every time someone emphasised the Kid in Kid Flash.

His shoulders sagged a little, but thankfully Kara was too caught up in activating and explaining her little holographic vista to really notice, and Wally managed to recover himself enough that nothing would show outwardly by the time she looked back. The hologram... okay, so that was pretty sophisticated, more than just projected light; and it completely filled up their surroundings, layering all of the extra experiences that your mind expected on top of the visuals. There must have been emitters embedded in the crystal walls, little fans or thermal induction gizmos to simulate the air movement; and was he really smelling things, or was the Fortress of Solitude just projecting those sensations into his mind, giving enough of a starting point for his memory to fill in the blanks?

He knew better than to ask though, and his mind silenced all of the questions he found his mind whispering. Was the gravity the same? How long was day and night on Krypton? Was there any axial tilt to cause variable seasons, or were the conditions more constant all year round? What differences did orbiting a red giant instead of a yellow dwarf like the sun? Was it warmer? Colder? How had the plants, and animals, and architecture adapted to the increased radiation output? How -

"Do you have any holograms of plants, or animals?" he blurted out; apparently that question was more insistent on being asked. He shuffled a little as he worked out how best to qualify his reason for asking, and tried his hardest to seem apologetic rather than sad or put-out. Maybe she had the Kyptonian equivalent of a book of farm yard animals; something suitable for his inferior intellect. "Even a dumb human like me should be able to appreciate the contents of a Kryptonian zoo."

[Supergirl]

"Aw, c'mon Wally, I didn't mean it like that." Kara replied, slightly abashed and shame-faced when Wally called himself a 'dumb human'. She really hadn't. It was just that human terms didn't really have the right words or right basis to explain Kryptonian technology. Kara actually was very scientifically minded, despite her, at times, seemingly scatter brained attitude, but to explain it all to a human would take weeks in the shortest, because she'd have to go right back to their very most basic fundamentals that differed from human technology entirely. "It's just... not something I can explain in a conversation, y'know? Kryptonian technology has a totally different foundation to Earth technology. To explain it would take weeks of scientific lectures if I even could..." She told him.

"Like, you asked about how much data a crystal could store, right?" She asked. "Well, a single crystal grew this entire place." She waved her arms around at the Fortress. "And all the technology inside. And still had enough left over data to fill additional data crystals around the Fortress on every subject that Kal's parents thought he might need, right down to the holo we just watched." She told him. "So that's the entire structure of a Fortress and the energy resources to build it, and enough data to fill it and educate a baby to adulthood on his homeworld. And that's just the basics of what's here. There isn't even a scale that can be measured on in your language. I'd have to start by teaching you at least a hundred Kryptonian words." She tried to explain, wondering whether she was digging herself deeper or actually helping matters.

"But I do think one of these crystals has the Kryptonian nursery rhyme, Baa Baa Balloonie on it, let me see if I can find it..." She smiled sheepishly, hoping that she was helping but worried she was making things worse.

[Kid Flash]

So it wasn't just his species and his civilization that was inferior, but their language too. Peachy.

It all sounded like excuses and back-pedalling. It would take weeks? Really? Wally had read every book in his house within the first afternoon of having superpowers. He'd cleaned out the school library within the first couple of weeks. He'd had to start getting hard copies of research papers, because computers just didn't scroll fast enough to keep up with the rate he read at. He already understood physics at a post graduate level: that was why he was on this whole fast track scholarship, trying to get him into a university to start earning a degree before it all became too ridiculously easy. He was at the point where he had to intentionally mess up here and there on homework assignments to avoid raising suspicion; just the same way he had to with sports, and with everything else in his stupid life. He had to go around letting everyone think he was a dork and a loser, because if he ever tried to just be himself, it was too spectacular to be considered normal. Here he was, finally in the presence of someone he could be himself around, and the idea of seeing him as an equal, of trying to make him understand, was apparently too much hard work for her to even contemplate. Which was stupid. Give him twenty minutes with Superman's magic crystals, and he'd probably know enough to start correcting her when she got the details wrong.

And really? Only a hundred Kryptonian words? If Kara could speak fluent English inside of a year, why did she assume that someone faster than her couldn't learn her language just as quick. Heck, one time Wally had been stuck home alone and bored, and had decided to teach himself Spanish just for the hell of it.

Soy más inteligente de lo que piensa, Kara.

But whatever. It was too far beyond him, and even trying to explain was an utter waste of time. He wished he wasn't so used to it; but sadly it was pretty much status quo for Wallace West.

He let out a small sigh, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "Don't worry about it, forget I asked." He tried to offer a small smile and a shrug, but neither of them were particularly convincing; his heart just wasn't in it. So much for actually getting to know each other better; at least he had some sense now of what Kara must have thought of him all along, though. God, what must she have thought of him when he seemed like just a dweebish nobody? Just some unevolved monkey from a planet of primitives, probably.

He tried to push past it though, turned his attention back to the Fortress's vaulted ceiling. "So that's all this is? Some giant Kryptonian version of Wikipedia?"

[Supergirl]

"Oh come on, Wally, don't be like that." Kara sighed, feeling that frustration of somebody who was only digging herself deeper with every step. "Look, humanity has been around for, what, in anything resembling its current form, maybe 10,000 years at best? Krypton culture was literally billions of years old. We'd been around so long our sun had grown gigantic and blown up, remember? That's billions of years of technical advancement. The origins of our technology are older than your dinosaurs. Everything we did was built upon billions of years of foundation. And the only person in the entire universe left who could teach anybody about it? Is me." She pointed out. "And I was pretty good at science, okay? It was my top subject in school. But... to teach somebody who wasn't part of that culture, I don't... I literally don't know where to begin. Everything is just part of an integrated system that has evolved over billions of years..."

She sighed, and looked sadly around the Fortress as Wally asked what it was.
"No, not really. It's more... I don't know, a basic guide, the best that Jor-El could put together to teach his son about his home. I know it seems impressive, but if you knew the real Krypton... my real home.. It's just... It's not the same..." She sighed sadly, before shaking it off.

"Hey, do you want to see some science that's easier to explain than the crystals?" She asked, trying to brighten up and offer a smile. "Trust me, you'll like this."

[Kid Flash]

"Linda... Kara... just don't, okay?"

It wasn't arguing, wasn't even frustrated; just tired, and resigned.

"I get it. You're from super-advanced civilization that is lightyears beyond anything Earth will ever be. Our most sophisticated science is the kind of stuff that you had mastered before you were even in kindergarten. It's like being trapped in the stone age, and all our backwards technology is little better than hitting things with rocks. You're so advanced that us feeble, dumbass humans don't even have the words to understand your high and mighty Krypton tech, let alone the capacity."

Exasperation crept into Wally's voice; he flung his arms out, pent up energy sending him pacing and turning about the room, never quite sure if he could bring himself to look at Kara. She just didn't get it, did she? It wasn't even arrogance or ego - she was just so damn certain that humanity was too ass-backwards to measure up that she'd written them all off as inferior. It didn't matter who Wally was; she didn't know a damned thing about him, and yet she was 100% sure that he was stupider by an astronomical margin, because of course he was. Everyone on Earth was.

If that was how she felt, then what even was the point? You're so adorable. It's so cute when humans try to understand our technology. It was like she was talking to a child. No matter what he tried to say, he'd still seem like a two-year old talking about farm animals and choo-choo trains. How did you build a friendship on that, when everything you did was quaint, and stupid, and a billion years too simple?

"You'll fit in great at Brentwood," he heard himself say. He'd probably regret the words later, but whatever. "You've got the whole thinking you're better than everyone else routine down to a fine art."

Wally turned away, slowly shaking his head.

"Don't worry," he added quietly. "I'll show myself out."

[Supergirl]

"Wally, wait!" Kara pleaded, flying down in front of him. Not that she had to. He might have been dramatic, but no, he couldn't see himself out, not without Kara opening the doors or flying him out. The Fortress of Solitude was anything if not secure anyway. "You're not listening are you?" She said, half heart-broken and half angry. "I can't teach you because I'm not a good enough teacher!" She told him. "I don't think I'm better than anybody! I'm not good enough to teach you! I'm not good enough to teach Kal either! Don't you understand!?" She pleaded.

"My planet is gone, Wally. Everybody I ever knew. Every person I ever saw. Every member of my family, every friend, every enemy, every person I ever passed on the street... Out of everybody, everybody I ever knew, saw or met or heard of, the only survivor is me." She told him, but her anger faltered as she said it, the realisation crushing her and becoming a genuine, heartbroken sadness. "Can you even imagine what that's like? Everything Krypton was... is all on me. I'm just some stupid teenager! Why me!? Why should I be the only survivor!? You can't honestly believe I was the most deserving person out of my entire world to survive... And you want to learn about it all... a-and I can't do it. I don't even know where to start."

"Could you? If you were the last survivor of Earth, if everybody you ever knew was gone, could you teach somebody from a totally different culture, who had never even seen your technology before, all about it? Somewhere that operated on totally different scientific principles? Who didn't even have words for the concepts you used? Maybe you could Wally! You've always been smart. So maybe you're some super genius and you could. But I can't! I'm not good enough! I'm not smart enough! My world is gone and I'm meant to carry on its legacy and I just... I can't." She sobbed, tears flowing now, even if they were still at least partially angry.

"Oh, and for your information, I never mastered any of your technology on Krypton. It doesn't exist there. Heck, I struggle here! It's so different from ours. And yes, it's far less advanced, and I'm sorry if that offends you, but it is. But that doesn't mean I had a clue how to use it. I grew up around this..." She held her hands out to the crystals. "Do you think I had the first clue what to do with a plug socket? Or a CD? Or a cell phone? Do you have any idea how many times I nearly burned down Ma and Pa's house because I didn't understand the oven? I don't understand any of this world!"

"And there's one final thing you have to learn about Kryptonians. Just because we were more advanced technologically didn't mean we were better than humans." She added, looking ashamed. "You know my cousin? He's... he's the best person I know. And do you know why? It's not because of his powers. It's not because of the planet he was born on. It's because underneath all of that, he was raised a human, by human parents. He's better than anybody from my world. He's a better person than I will ever be."

"So you're right. I'm a bad person. I'm the last survivor of Krypton, the last person with any real memories of it, and I know what you're thinking, and you're right." She told him. "My people chose the wrong person to save. There was a million, a billion.... people more worthy than me. And they sent me instead. And I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry you're stuck with me. I wish I'd died with my planet and instead you were here talking to one of our scientific geniuses, or somebody with a plan for helping revive Krypton, or at least honour it's memory. But instead you have a dumb teenage girl who can't even keep her friends. And I'm sorry."

[Kid Flash]

"Kara..."

Damn it. She had to go play the last survivor card. Make it seem like he was the jerk here, instead of Miss my entire race is billions of years smarter than you. The tears made it worse. Jay Garrick may have earned his superspeed while attempting to purify heavy water, but for Wally the salty water of tears was his Kryptonite. He wished he could cling on to his righteous anger somehow. He wished he could fire out a salvo of retorts and rebuttals as if they were weapons, unleashing a distraction that would buy him enough time to escape. Instead, he felt as if his whole skeleton had been replaced with lead.

"You're not a bad person, Kara. And I don't think the wrong person got saved - what the hell? What the hell kind of asshole do you think I must be if that's your assumption? It's just..."

He drew in a breath, mustered up all the resolve he could to look Kara dead in the eyes.

"I don't care about the tech, alright? It's hard to explain. I need to learn the basics first. I get that, and I'm happy to. I am a quick study, I read as fast as I run, and I am a massive nerd for that stuff. So yeah, you not being able to explain the stuff in a way that I'll understand it... it's a shame you can't today, but like, big deal? I didn't understand how Kryptonite at first, until I read up on exotic energy radiation from crystalline structures. I had to go spend, like, three whole days studying the groundwork before I could have a conversation with Martin Stein about how his Firestorm Matrix works. Maybe I seem like I'm impatient or in a hurry, but I'm not. I just do everything fast, y'know? So if it takes a month, or a year, or ten years... I still wanna know. And I'm not gonna stop wanting to know just because you told me it's too hard for me to understand. That's like... a red rag to a bull."

He winced at the inadvertent idiom, wishing there were some way he could convey the same sentiment without it being so unaccommodating to the offworlder.

"What bugs me? What -" He hesitated before using the word, but it was the right one. "- upsets me, is that you only just met me, and you already think I don't measure up. I have spent my whole life being the nerdy, scrawny kid from Kansas. I am the Kid Flash, y'know? My name is Wallace. My whole existence is being a consolation prize; being the inferior, disappointing alternative. I'm the friend that is there for people when their boyfriends are jerks. I'm the guy who is smarter than most of the adults I meet, but they take one look at me and they write me off because I'm just a kid. I'm the speedster that saves people and has to see that tiny flicker of disappointment in their eyes that they didn't get rescued by the real Flash. It must be so overwhelming for you, your cousin being so... super, and feeling like you don't measure up. You've only had a year of that, with only one guy... that's my whole life. And just -"

His voice cracked a little, he glanced away, fighting the way his eyes tried to mist over. Wasn't gonna cry. Kara'd already called dibs on that.

"You lost your entire world. You're entire race. Everyone who understands you, who gets where you came from, who can relate to you on an equal footing... they're all gone, and all you're left with is me. I like you, Kara, and you seem to really need a friend - I want to be that. 7 billion people on Earth, and yet most of the time it feels like the loneliest place in the universe. But I am never going to be Kryptonian. I am never going to be able to measure up to that. I am always going to be only human."

Wally sighed, slumping completely.

"I've met the Atom, Kara... but after what you said to me, I'm the one who feels small."

[Supergirl]

"Don't measure up!?" Kara repeated, as if it was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "Wally, you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe you're as super smart as you claim. But by all the gods of Krypton, you're also an idiot!" Kara found herself practically snapping at him. "Look around you! You're in the Fortress of Solitude! Do you have any idea how few people have ever set foot in here!? In the entire universe? Probably less than ten. And I didn't bring the jocks from school, or the Flash, or Batman, or that new Green Lantern guy, even though I've got like, the biggest crush ever on him, which, by the way, you are not to tell anybody ever. I bought you, you idiot!"

"It's me! I don't measure up! I can't teach you what you want to know! And it's great you're happy to go away and work at it, read it, that you study all that for all the important people you meet, but in this case? Where exactly do you intend to learn the basics from? They're not recorded here. The Fortress was to teach Kal his people and his culture, not tiny details. And I know you might get fed up with hearing me mention it, but Krypton is gone. You can't pop down to the local library there and rent out a book on Kryptonian technology! There's exactly one person left in the entire universe who knows anything about it, and it's me, and I don't know enough to teach you what you want to know!" She found herself ranting, still crying, still furiously upset. Every time Wally made a comment about wanting to learn it was another reminder to Kara that there was nobody to teach him, and another reminder that she was a failure as Krypton's last survivor.

"I don't see you as only human, Wally. I don't see any human as 'only' human! I've spent a year here growing up under human parents, and they're the nicest people I've ever known. There's nothing small about being human. But we're just from different cultures. There are some things I can't explain to you. I almost got laughed out class the other day because I didn't know who the Vy King was. I still don't!" She said as an example, unaware of course that 'viking' was not a person, but a race.

She sighed sadly.
"I was trying to tell you I could show you some of the robots around here. Robotics was my best subject in school, and I thought it was fairly universal, it was something I could teach, but maybe this whole thing was a mistake. I should take you home..."

[Kid Flash]

"You could've just said that. 'It's so cute when humans try to understand our technology' sorta sends out a different message, y'know?"

Wally found himself staring down at his boots, a dizzying mix of emotions swarming through his head. There was that whole put in his place thing, sure, but he wasn't a mind-reader. He only had what Kara had said to go on; if she'd said I don't understand it well enough right from the get go, he could totally have offered to like... work it out together, or something sweet like that. Not that it seemed like it would have made much of a difference: you needed to be an older, green-glowing man who could fly to secure Kara's affection, but whatever. The whole Krypton being gone thing felt like an unnecessary sucker punch, though. She'd just been bragging about how Kryptonian crystals could hold a bajillion petabytes of data and still have room to spare - how was he supposed to know that it only encompassed cultural data, and hadn't been programmed to educate her cousin in replicating the technology if he found out needing to? Was she expecting him to have read her mind?

The lack of science data seemed like a pretty dumb decision, truth be told: all that memory storage dedicated to super-realistic nostalgic holograms of cities that Superman wouldn't ever have had any memory of, and not a scrap of basic scientific principles; the kind of thing that humans had been slapping to the side of their space probes for decades. Nix the smells in those projections, and suddenly you had enough room to record a cure for cancer, or the secret to unlimited clean energy. According to the interviews with the Daily Planet, Superman had been sent to earth as a beacon of hope, a shining example; but the aid he was equipped to provide was apparently limited to what he could do alone.

Unless, of course, those holograms weren't intended for him. Superman wasn't the one who would benefit from such stunning simulations of home: the cousin sent to protect him was. Wally wondered if Kara had ever thought of it that way: that her family back home placed more value on a tiny glimmer of comfort for her than they did on saving the human race from disease or ecological disaster. They'd already proven that they valued her above any other members of her own race; but Kara clearly didn't seem to think of it that way.

"I woke up nervous this morning, because I was meeting up with Linda Danvers for lunch. She's smart, and cute, and fun, and awesome; and I really really wanted her to be friends with me. Then I find out that you're some superpowered badass from outer space, and you bring me here to show me all this stuff... it's intimidating, y'know? I don't have an alien crystal fortress to show you. I run fast, and I learn fast, and that's about it. I'm... I'm not even cool enough for someone like Linda Danvers to hang out with, let alone cool enough to be friends with Kara Zor-El. I guess I figured that... if you realised I was smart enough to understand that kind of stuff, then maybe it'd take a little longer for us to run out of things to talk about, and maybe that'd mean you wouldn't want to stop hanging out with me so soon."

[Supergirl]

Kara looked down at the ground sheepishly when he quoted her own words back at her. She'd have to remember Wally could do that. Kara didn't usually remember what she had said, let alone remember and quote what other people would say. It was worse because she'd only been trying to be cute and funny, and instead she'd offended him. She didn't think there was much else she could say on that though, so she let it go, and listened to his heart felt speech on why he'd wanted to hang out with her.

"Wally...." Kara said softly, wanting to reach out for him, but not sure if she should, holding back. "I'm still Linda. I'm.. I'm not like my cousin. I don't really have a secret identity. Linda is me. Just... you know, if I sign up as 'Kara Zor-El' it'd make people a bit suspicious." She explained. "I didn't invite you back here because I'm Supergirl and you're Kid Flash. I invited you back because I'm Kara and you're Wally West and I wanted to show you where I came from. You're here because you're my friend." She told him earnestly. "All I know is I wanted to do was to try and show you who I was..." She explained, before glancing down at her boots, apparently nervous and a little upset. "And I wanted to impress you. I thought you were so cool. I mean look at you! You're one of the fastest people alive! And you're not like me. I didn't earn this. My powers. I just got dumped here and then I have them. You earned yours. How could I compare to that?" She asked.

"And how are we ever going to run out of things to talk about, Wally?" Kara asked. "You're my only friend, Wally, and you have an entire planet to show me! I'm not that smart, I'm nothing special, but if you're willing to be my friend... then there's an entire planet out there I don't know anything about. Even as fast as you are, I doubt we're going to run out of things to talk about."

[Kid Flash]

You thought I was cool?

Of all the things that Kara had just said, that one snagged in Wally's mind, setting fire to the insides of his cheeks, and trying to force a hard to resist grin onto his features. Of all the ways that someone as pretty as Kara could describe him, cool wasn't number one on the list of things he secretly hoped to hear, but it was definitely on the list, and pretty close to the top too. The slump that had crept into his posture reduced; not completely, but enough to stop it being noticeable. His fidgeting grew a little more intense, foot scuffing a little against the ground. Not just cool. So cool.

Wally's myriad insecurities tugged at the back of his mind, but he smacked at them to keep them quiet. He didn't want to hear the way his head found some way to diminish it, didn't want to know how this didn't prove anything, and how she still only thinks of you as a friend. So what if she did? She was a super-advanced alien space babe, and she wanted to be friends with dumb dorky Wallace West, because he was so cool, because he earned his powers; because she thought he was someone worth being friends with.

"You're wrong if you think you're not special," he blurted out, eyes suddenly growing wide as he realised what he'd said. His brain flailed around desperately for something he could say to somehow make it better. "I mean... you're pretty super."

Oh god, Wally. This is why we decided you weren't allowed to talk any more.

[Supergirl]

"Yeah, but so's any Kryptonian." Kara answered with a shrug. "You could take General Zod and dump him on this planet and he'd be super. At least powers wise. And trust me, there was nothing super about that guy." She added for his benefit, since of course she assumed naturally nobody on Earth would ever have heard of 'General Zod'. "My point is, Wally, everything that made me special, it's biological. It's because I was born on a different planet and now I live here. But you? You made yourself what you are today. If it wasn't for the weird effect of your sun, I'd just be another person. But you? You made yourself super." She explained with a gentle smile, trying to get him to see what she did, and understand why she didn't think much of herself.

"This whole.... Fortress thing. I didn't just bring you here to show off though. I mean, there was part of it, you were faster, you made yourself that way, and I didn't really feel like I measured up, so I wanted to show you something amazing... but it's more than that Wally. I can't talk about who I am. I can't talk about my home. Not to anybody. And I thought... maybe if I showed you part of it, it'd help you understand who I was, and let me talk a little about how I felt about losing it all."

She smiled sheepishly.
"I'm not sure it was a good idea..."

[Kid Flash]

"I don't..."

Wally's face conflicted into a mix of embarrassment, frustration, and frown. She wasn't getting it. He wasn't explaining it right.

"I don't mean your powers. They're not... well okay, they are pretty special, but..."

He felt a sinking, twisting feeling in his stomach. It was that guilty feeling he got whenever he complimented anyone, that questioning feeling of whether or not he had some kind of ulterior motive. He was saying it because he thought it was true, and because he thought it was something that the other person needed and deserved to hear... but was that the only reason? Did he want to compliment Kara this way purely for her sake, or was part of him hoping that she might react a particular way if she heard him say it? Was being honest and open the right thing to do, or should he just think the good things about her to himself, and not risk making them awkward by saying them out loud?

"I meant that Linda Danvers is pretty super."

And super pretty. He managed to stop himself from adding that out loud.

"All of this -" He waved his hand around at the Fortress. "- is awesome. You being Supergirl is awesome. But it's not the powers, it's not being bulletproof, it's not the cute skirt or the cape that makes you super. It's the fact that we were just abducted, and you busted out and came to try and rescue me. It's the fact that instead of making friends with the popular girls, you're hanging out with some scrawny dweeb. It's the fact despite being as pretty as you are... you're a nice person. Smart. Caring. Fun to hang out with. Interesting to talk to. It's the fact that for all the things you could do with your powers, you put on that S, and you go save people."

He shuffled a little, eyes flitting back to his feet.

"You don't need a Fortress of Solitude to impress me, Kara. I already was, before I even knew all the extra stuff about you."

[Supergirl]

"Are you sure it's not just because of my cute skirt?" Kara was flattered, it was obvious, and she was smiling a genuine soft smile, but at the same time, she couldn't resist a little playfulness. "I mean, it is pretty cute, and you can't underestimate the special skill that is flying down to confront your enemies in a skirt. It takes a special skill, otherwise every criminal knows what colour panties Supergirl wears." She teased, glad that things were settling now that Wally seemed less offended, and glad to be able to have some fun with her friend again.

She smiled softly again, and looked at Wally with a genuine, heartfelt look.
"That's why I brought you here. I wanted you to see who I was. I know I was showing off a bit, but it tells you who I really am as well. I'm not Linda Danvers. I don't even know who Linda Danvers is. Kal... uh, that's, Superman..." She wasn't sure if anybody knew his real name, or his hidden identity, but she wasn't going to risk it. "...he always says I should invent myself a proper secret identity, but I never.. I didn't want to hide who I am. I wanted to get to be normal without having to put up a shield, or a fake identity, or goofy glasses... So I just made up the name and tried to be myself. I don't know if it's working though. The more I do as Supergirl, the more I get photographed. The more dangerous it is to just go around looking the same in school." She surprised herself suddenly blurting it out, but it seemed a good time to talk about it. It was growing to be a concern.

"Sorry, uh, that conversation got away from me. Thank you, Wally, for what you said. It's very kind." She added, with another smile, even if she wasn't entirely sure she believed it all herself. She liked Wally and he was her friend, but Kara had wanted to be fit in with the popular girls, she had wanted to be the popular, loved girl of the school. Sometimes she worried she was the exact person Wally was proud of her for not being. But then she remembered that while she dreamed of that stuff, her decisions showed where her heart was. And her heart wasn't in being shallow and popular. It was in valuing her friends.

[Kid Flash]

Wally knew from experience - long story - that cheerleaders had ways to make sure that no one saw the colour of their underwear. They were called spanx, or spankies, or something like that: Wally was pretty sure there was a difference between the two, but he wasn't really sure what it was. He almost pointed that out to Kara. Almost. All things considered though, forcing the conversation to linger on the topic of Kara's underwear didn't seem like a smart idea. Maybe Kara wouldn't mind in the slightest, but Wally would. He'd probably burst a blood vessel in his face from blushing that hard.

As for the rest of it, though? "Maybe I can help with that," Wally offered quietly.

Wally's mind frowned at him. Where are you going with this, Wallace? A certain amount of tentative caution crept into his voice, not sure if his suggestion was the sort of thing he was even supposed to suggest; whether it was the kind of thing that would seem like a criticism, seem as if he was saying she wouldn't be able to do it on her own.

"Linda Danvers is just you if you were an Earth girl, right? But all you've got to go off is a year spent on a farm in Kansas, which..." He trailed off, careful not to say anything that might criticise the humans who'd taken her in. "Smallville sounds like a pretty sheltered place, and a year of hanging out there; it's not really gonna help you learn what your favourite Earth foods are, or your favourite songs, favourite movies, all the little things that make a person a person. So maybe -"

He shuffled a little, fidgeting as he tried to delicately word his suggestion.

"Maybe I help with that. Maybe I help you learn what Linda's favourite things are, and along the way I get to find out what Kara's favourites from Krypton are. Wouldn't be hiding who you are, wouldn't be pretending to be someone you'd not: you'd just be discovering who Earth you is."

[Supergirl]

"What? The skirt thing? 'cause I really don't wanna-" Kara was saying when Wally offered to help, before realising half way through speaking that actually he was referring to helping her with her alter-ego, and not so much helping her with seeing up her skirt while she flew. "Ohhhh, wait, nevermind, I get it." She smiled, waving off her own stupidity for a moment. She listened to his suggestion though, and let herself smile again, because she could see he was trying to help. And it wasn't that bad of a suggestion really. Only...

"Thanks, Wally. I'd really like that." She told him. "But I still don't know if it'd help. My secret identity is meant to hide who I am. And if I go around being too samey to the real me, people are going to know I'm Supergirl. I mean, I'm already getting photographed a lot. I need to work on a disguise. More than just glasses and a hunch like Kal. Something... else..." She said, before slapping her hand over her mouth and realising she was talking about Kal's secret identity. "Uh, forget I said that! Any hints towards his secret identity, forget I say!"

[Kid Flash]

Wally was smart, but come on Kara; how many people in the world do you think there are with poor eyesight and bad posture? Hell, in Metropolis alone there must have been hundreds; thousands maybe. And okay, so that list became a little narrower once you factored in a possible connection to Smallville, Kansas; maybe if Wally could get his hands on some census data, cross-reference between residents of Smallville prior to Superman's first appearance, versus residents of Metropolis after his first appearance -

He brought his mind to a screeching halt, remembering the time when Barry had told him off for trying to speculate on the identity of the Green Arrow. Wally had all these theories, about the colour of his suit, about the archery skills, about who in Star City it could possibly be - Barry had shot it all down with one indisputably valid point. If he wants you to know, he'll tell you. That was the crux of it, after all. With so many detectives, so many scientists, so many intelligent and discerning individuals, the concept of a secret identity was a fallacy. You could hide who you were from the authorities perhaps, if you were careful enough, but the people you were close to, the ones you worked with? A domino mask wasn't going to fool anyone if you ever met them in real life; but the unspoken code of superheroism was that you didn't try to figure it out. it was a respect thing. A boundaries thing.

Wally focused on the rest of what Kara had said instead. "How's that any different from any other superhero, though? You think that Kid Flash is different from Wally West? Sure, I dress different. Sure, I don't use my speed as part of my daily life... but I'm still me. Kid Flash and Wally West still like all the same food, all the same movies, all the same music. I bet it's the same with your cousin, too. Superman is who he is because of the person that his Earth parents raised him to be. And okay so sure, maybe his secret identity is hiding a little bit, but that doesn't change who he is underneath. Maybe he lies about his favourites every once in a while, maybe he even has a whole different set of favourites that he pretends his alter ego likes... but he still knows what they are. And I bet that his musical preferences, his favourite movies, the chilli dog vendor on the corner of the street near where he works - I bet all of that stuff is part of what makes him feel like a proper person. I bet that's what makes him feel like he's part of this world, and why it feels like a world worth saving."

He shrugged, as if he were trying to brush off everything he had just said as casual and unimportant. "And if you think glasses, body language, and a bit of a switch in hair style can't fool people into believing you're a completely different person, clearly you've never seen a movie starting Gary Oldman."

[Supergirl]

"Yeah, but Kid Flash wears a mask and moves so fast he's just a blur to most people. Kal kinda sets a standard for me. I have to be unmasked, public, happy to be photographed..." Kara explained, trying to express her worry. "It's a little different when the girl in your class looks exactly like the girl in costume on all the newspapers, right?" She mentioned. Maybe she should go back to the old wig and glasses trick. At least that helped a little. That and the fact nobody expected Supergirl to be sitting in shcool with you.

"Uh, actually, I haven't." She answered when he mentioned some Gary Oldman guy. "Grew up on another planet, remember?" She told him with a smile. "Why do I have a feeling this whole 'teaching me stuff I like' relationship is going to be you showing me a lot of movies?" She teased.