December 26, 2017, 3 AM

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It had been almost three hours since the Wests had finally quit feasting on the remains of Christmas dinner. Wally was no longer scavenging the turkey, Barry and Iris had finished sharing the last delectable slice of sweet potato pie and Joe's uncomfortably tight waistline proved he had absolutely no more room for corn pudding … no matter how loudly it called to him. Three hysterical rounds of Win, Lose or Draw had followed before the nog drinking had stopped for good and everyone had chipped in to clean up, take their presents upstairs and exchange goodnights, but the youngest member of the family soon discovered he wasn't quite ready for bed. Less than forty minutes after Wally shut his door, stripped down then stretched out under his covers, the twenty-year old was back on his feet and padding right back downstairs, now dressed in one of his dad's surprise gifts: a pair of yellow and red flannel pjs with the words "Kid Flash" emblazoned across the back.

The ground floor was dark and kind of lonely, but Wally soon fixed that. He plugged back in all the Christmas lights – tree, windows and stairs – and then he poked and fed the dying embers within the fireplace until flames were once more dancing brightly. There wasn't much nog left in the kitchen – this year's batch of Grandma Esther's recipe had been way too popular for that – but there was enough for a single serving so Wally helped himself. In the living room, he pulled out the family album Joe had compiled covering Barry's first year in foster care and then he sat and sipped while he studied the pages. A shadow seemed cast over Barry at the beginning, his smiles not very pronounced, but by the time Wally reached the middle of the album, Barry's happiness was looking genuine. White or not, nerdy or not, The Flash would have made a great big brother, Wally was sure. He wished he'd grown up with him way back when and to have known his sister too when both were little.

What would it have like to have had older siblings to count on? To not be told he was the 'man of the house' when he was barely five years old?

And why couldn't his mom have gathered her courage and come back home years ago so her son could grow up with his dad? Didn't she know how much Wally had needed him? How could she have been so selfish?

Damn it, why couldn't his mom have made better choices?

Those rapid-fire questions filled Wally's mind just like they always did whenever he flipped through memories of a life he could have shared, and just like always, Wally ordered himself to stop wallowing in what-could-have-beens. He purposely flipped another page then laughed despite himself at a photograph of a young Iris and her best friend in the front yard, both of them frosted in snow and grinning fit to bust.

"Couldn't sleep either, huh?"

Wally turned then laughed anew as Barry tromped down the stairs, dressed in his own brand new pair of red flannel footie pajamas decorated with lightning bolts. "Cute outfit, Bar. Really."

Barry smirked and arched an eyebrow in return. "Uh, pot, meet kettle."

"Hey, I've only barely left my teens," Wally retorted, "so kiddie outfits are still allowed for me. You? Not so much."

"Sue me, I'm young at heart. Besides, these jimjams are really comfortable … but don't tell our dad." Barry climbed over the sofa and slid down next to Wally then helped himself to a cinnamon snowflake, one of the leftover frosted Christmas cookies on the coffee table. He took a look at the pictures staring up at them. "Wow, those photos totally take me back."

Wally flipped the page and chuckled at the snowballs in flight between a giddy Barry and Iris. "How old were you guys then?"

Barry's nose crunched. "Eleven? No, twelve...?" As the patriarch of their family also made an appearance on the stairs behind them, Barry twisted in his seat so he could face him. "Hey, Joe, how old were me and Iris in these pictures?"

Joe came over with a broad smile at seeing his two grown sons wearing the gag gifts he'd given them. He looked over their shoulders for only the briefest of seconds before he went around the sofa, eased into a chair then propped his feet on the coffee table. "You had just turned twelve. Iris was still eleven."

Barry took another look then slouched down with a grin. "Man, that day was a blast. I remember it like it was yesterday."

"Not like I do," Joe said with a snort, "or you wouldn't be thinking back on it so fondly. Wallace, that mug you're holding better not have the last of Grandma Esther's eggnog in it, or I am going to have to arrest you, son."

Wally grinned guiltily and held it out. "Sorry, Dad. You want what's left?"

As Joe reached out and snatched it away then frowned at the pitiful contents in his hand but took a swallow anyway, Barry looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"Are you kidding me?" he scoffed. "That day was great, Joe. I don't know what day you're thinking of but—"

"I'm thinking of the same day you are, Bar, and it was not great. To my recollection it sucked, if you'll pardon my french."

"Seriously, Joe, what are you talking about? Everywhere was covered in white. It was like a city-wide holiday for ages!"

"Just because of a little snow?" Wally asked.

Joe noted his son's skepticism and knew he had to set him straight. "Oh, there was nothing 'little' about that snowfall, Wally. Over sixty inches fell on Central City and Coast City in less than two weeks." As Wally burst out in a laugh, clearly thinking his dad was joking, Joe gestured toward the living room window. "I'm not kidding, son. Cars were buried completely, people where snowshoeing in the streets, even the rear door of this very house was blocked. I had to dig a tunnel a foot taller than my damn head just to access the trash cans in the backyar—"

Before Joe could finish, Barry shook his head and turned to Wally to murmur, "Yeah, but he's forgetting all the best parts."

Wally whispered back. "And what were the best parts?"

Barry ticked them off on his fingers. "School was cancelled for over two weeks, parents didn't go to work, and even our dad here barely went to the station. That snowfall was aweso—"

"I can hear you," Joe interrupted. "And I'm not saying there weren't some perks."

"But…?"

"But the day that picture was taken wasn't awesome at all, Bar, and I can't believe you don't remember that."

"Hey, I—"

"Listen, you and Iris were all smiles in the morning, but those cheesy grins you two are wearing in that photo? Both of them were long gone by mid-afternoon." As Barry opened his mouth to object again, Joe decided it was high time he refreshed the boy's faulty memory. "You kids went tobogganing a little too close to the river … after I distinctly told not to… a river that was not fully frozen over and I was far from happy after I found you sliding right next to it. Does any of that ring a bell yet, Bartholomew?"

As Joe leaned forward, arched an eyebrow at his foster son then stared pointedly at the young man's pajamaed backside, the color promptly drained from Barry's face. In no time at all it was back, though, flushing his skin a deep red from his neck straight up to the roots of his hair. Barry swallowed audibly.

"Was that … the day?" he asked, a sickly green tinge now creeping over his cheeks.

Joe nodded then leaned back in his chair with satisfaction. "That, my boy, was definitely the day."

Barry studied the photo again, then covered his face with a groan. That was it for a confused Wally, who elbowed Barry in the side. "Okay, what're guys talking about? What day? What happened after you and Iris got caught?"

Joe watched Barry sink lower into the couch cushions and chuckled at his distress. "Are you going to do the honors, son, or should I?"

Slowly – ever so slowly – Barry came out from hiding. He folded his arms across his chest, sank even lower into the couch cushions and stared straight at the burning logs across the room in the fireplace because there was no way in hell he was going to make eye contact with his foster brother. "Iris and I … we kinda got spanked for that."

Barry had lowered his voice with practically every word he'd uttered, but sitting directly beside him, Wally heard it all. His jaw literally dropped. The only sound in the room for a moment was the crackling of wood and then Wally's eyes flew from Barry's utterly mortified face to Joe's perfectly complacent one. "No way, you got spanked? You spanked them, Dad?!"

Joe took another tiny sip of nog to make it last then smiled over at his youngest. "I sure did. After the danger they put themselves in, there was no way, as their father, that I wasn't going to."

Wally's brown eyes began to narrow. "Let me get this straight. You spanked Iris and Barry? Your 'baby girl' and 'the pre-flash'? I'm sorry, Dad, but I just can't picture it."

"Thank god," Barry muttered.

Wally shifted in his seat, still incredulous but also curious as heck. Whether he could imagine it or not, it had to be true. His dad wouldn't lie about a thing like that and Barry, well, the poor guy obviously wanted a breach to open up any time now to Earth 2.

"How'd you catch them, Dad?" Wally knew he was being kind of dick by begging for details, but he couldn't help it. Besides, they were all family, right? "Did Barry and Iris actually fall in the river and nearly die of hypothermia or what?"

Joe shook his head. "It wasn't anything so dramatic, son. I just went looking for my kids when they didn't come home for lunch and finally tracked them down almost five miles out from where I'd given them permission to play."

Barry glanced over at Joe uncomfortably. "It wasn't that fa—"

"Oh yes, it was," Joe broke in and jabbed a finger at him, "and I know it was because that walk through the snow while dragging you two rascals back home was cold and frustrating and long."

"It wasn't our fault you weighed too much and kept sinking through the crust," Barry grumbled.

As Wally began to snicker, Joe pointed at him next. "Don't laugh, son. Parenting your siblings was hard work back in the day. Especially that day since I also had to hold onto them the whole darn way. They kept trying to escape me so they could go back for one last run down the hill!"

Barry sat up straight to defend himself. "Hey, we had to try for one last run, Joe. The way you were scolding us, we knew you were gonna ground us until spring."

"But I didn't ground you, did I?"

Joe took another sip of his drink and Barry made a face at the smug expression his second dad was now wearing. "No, you didn't ground us. You just made sure we never wanted to sit on a toboggan ever again."

Joe refused to apologize. "Don't give me that look, son. If you two had simply not done what I had distinctly told you both not to do, then none of that would have happened."

As Barry reached forward and snatched up another Christmas cookie to eat before he said something to Joe that he'd regret, Wally smirked and helped himself to a cookie too. "Hey, Barry, was that the first time Dad ever spanked you?"

Barry scowled as he chewed. "Yeah, but it wasn't exactly the last."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"And every time I toasted your big brother's behind," Joe chimed in, "he swore he was gonna tell on me to his 'real' dad who would never approve of some bully hitting his kid. What Barry refused to believe was that I always talked to his 'real' dad in advance to make sure Henry knew and agreed with how I intended to discipline our son."

"Did he? Agree, I mean?"

"Hell, yeah! Once I explained what Barry was doing, Henry never had any objections to my methods."

Wally half-smiled as he studied his father in silence a moment, trying to reconcile the semi-overprotective dad he knew with the super strict dad he was hearing about. "You know, I changed my mind. I can't believe this."

"Why not?" Joe asked.

"Because I know you, Dad, and I cannot believe that you, of all the parents in Central City, would, like, do that."

"Son, it's what good parents do when they have to."

"'Maybe some parents, but you're such a marshmallow." As Joe's eyes widened, Wally continued. "Well, you are, Dad! From what I've been, you practically melt every time Iris is upset, so how could you possibly be strict enough to spank her when she's crying? Ground her, yeah, but definitely not spank her."

"Son, I'll have you know—"

"And what about Barry!"

The Flash in question almost choked on his cookie in confusion. "Wait, what? What about me?"

"Well, you were all wounded as a kid, weren't you?"

"Not all the time."

"Still," Wally insisted. "There's no way the dad I know would ever spank an orphan."

Joe's brow furrowed. "Did you forget what I do for a living, Wallace? A police offer makes for a tough parent, you know."

Barry nodded and muttered, "I can I vouch for that," but Wally laughed it off.

"Yeah, right."

"Do I need to prove myself to you?" Joe asked point-blank. He sat up straight in his chair.

Wally's smile widened. "What do you mean?"

"I mean if I had had the chance to raise you, son, you would never have drag-raced any car more than once after I got through with you. In fact, I'm pretty sure I still owe you at least one trip over my knees for your last street race which put your sister in the hospital."

Wally was quiet a moment, waiting for his dad to grin at him and prove he was joking, but nothing happened. The light-hearted Joe West of a moment ago was now gone and a scary replacement had taken over, one that was stone cold sober and completely driven. Barry, for one, remembered what a look like that portended. He muttered an "uh-oh" and shifted nervously on the sofa, but Wally didn't share his fears. Instead, he jumped to his feet with the exact same bravado he'd shown before and after every one of his street races, totally onboard with seeing (or rather feeling) just how tough his police officer dad could be. After all he'd never been around as a misbehaving kid for Joe to spank and he was of legal age now. How much could it possibly hurt?

"Fine, Pops. Let's do it."

Barry looked up at him in alarm. "Uh, Wally? I wouldn't, dude, seriously. He'll give a whole new meaning to your old nickname, 'Taillights.'"

"Please," Wally scoffed, marching over to their dad and bending over his lap without hesitation. His legs were trapped within seconds, a strong arm pinning his waist in place, but he didn't object. "I'm not twelve like you were, Bar."

"I wasn't twelve the last time I got spanked, Wally. I was—"

"Never mind." Joe gave Barry a look. "Your brother's not interested in details, son. He only wants to know if his old man was really as tough you said. Now, are you gonna stick around for this?"

Barry checked out the cocky grin Wally was wearing, not to mention the foolish way the kid was raising his pajama-clad butt to make it accessible, and he settled back with a smirk. "Are you kidding, Joe? I wouldn't miss this for the world."

Joe promptly got started and Wally promptly decided he must have been mentally handicapped when he agreed to this. He yelped then bit his lower lip quick before any other embarrassing noises could escape, but he didn't bite down hard enough. Another solid whack to his behind knocked a second cry out of him and then a third, and each one was more than loud enough to reach Barry, Wally saw, when he glanced over in agony at his foster brother. The first Central City speedster was cringing with empathy, so it definitely wasn't Wally's imagination that his behind was getting scorched.

That was it for him.

When cries of "Wait!", "Stop, Dad!" and "Please!" didn't do anything to prevent additional slaps from coming, Wally threw his right hand back then spread his fingers over his cheeks as wide as they would go, wiggling fiercely until he could throw his left hand back too. Barry's green eyes shot wide open and he shook his head desperately in warning, but it was too late for that. Joe had seen and he wasn't impressed. A rapid-fire onslaught to Wally's backside followed before he could apologize, spanks that were a lot harder than the initial blitz had been. Wally was certain his behind was going to combust.

"Daaaaaaad! Daddy, please! I'm sorry-I'm sorry-I'm sorry!"

If only poor Wally had known that those last two words were exactly what his father had been waiting to hear! The speedster was a quick study, though, so the very second Joe stopped slapping his youngest son's backside and loosened his grip, a rapidly blinking Wally leapt to his feet, clapped both hands behind him and rubbed feverishly at the sting. He backed up as well to ensure his dad couldn't pull him back over his knees, but when he found himself by the fireplace adding extra warmth to a body part that definitely didn't need it, he yelped and hopped over by the Christmas tree instead. He released one cheek temporarily to swipe an arm across his eyes before anything embarrassing spilled over and then he looked to Barry for sympathy. Big Brother, however, had absolutely nothing to say that was helpful.

"Sorry, bro, but … I did kinda warn you."

Wally was not in the mood for I-told-you-so's. On the verge of telling a grinning Barry exactly that, movement on the stairs caught his attention and he discovered there are worse things than getting spanked almost to tears at age twenty by your dad … like having your older sister walk into the room right afterwards and catch you rubbing your burning butt while dressed in a childish pair of footie pajamas.

"Hey, what's going on down here?" Iris tightened her bathrobe as she stifled a yawn. "I heard yelling and … something. Wally? Are you okay?"

Wally crossed his arms quickly over his chest and tried his darndest not to grimace.

"I'm cool, sis, totally cool. Go back to bed."

"Are you sure? You look—"

"Your brother's fine," Joe interrupted, getting to his feet. He went to Iris and hugged her in such a way that her view of Wally was blocked. "We're sorry we woke you."

"But ... what are you all doing down here?"

"Nothing, baby girl. I was just spending some quality time with my sons." Joe planted a kiss to the top of her tousled hair before he let her go, winked at his boys then headed for the second floor. "G'night, kids. Make sure you turn off the lights before you come up."

Barry exchanged a quick look with his discreetly fidgeting brother then went over to Iris as well, steering her as naturally as he could in the direction Joe had just taken. "Are you beat? I am."

"Yes, but Barry, what—?"

Barry kissed her quickly to cut off her question. "Don't ask."

By the tree, Wally waited for his family to disappear upstairs and hoped that his nosy, reporter-sister was too tired at this late hour to push it. Of course, the moment she was out of sight, Wally went straight back to rubbing. He knew he shouldn't need to anymore – his accelerated healing had already diminished the sting to a fraction of what it had been – but somehow the burn lingered in Wally's mind, especially without his mom nearby to comfort him. He pouted as he looked over at the fire he would have to squat to dampen plus all of the holiday lights he would have to bend to unplug, and he could have kicked himself for provoking his dad into spanking him. He took a step toward the window, hissed, then set to work at super speed, so he could get back upstairs to bed as soon as possible and forget this night ever happened.

And this time when he went to bed, boy, was he going to stay there!