How I Fell For (And In Front Of) Your Mother

by bettercrazythanboring

Sometime in the future, Wally sits his children down to tell them a touching story and pay homage to an old favorite show. Unfortunately, the kids know him and his taste in fiction well, and things don't go exactly as planned.

A/N: This fic is an experiment in storytelling style and strengthening dialogue, not the work of an amateur who has no idea how to use dialogue or action tags, or even paragraph breaks. I'm just saying this in case you stumbled in here by accident and are on your way out because, I agree, nothing but dialogue is usually a bad sign in fic.

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"What's with the serious face, Dad?"

"Sit down."

"Whoa, are we in trouble?"

"No, no trouble. Just, uh… Okay."

"Ugh, spit it out."

"Kids, I'm gonna tell you an incredible story. The story of how I met your mother."

"Oh, wow. I knew this day would come. Hey, wait a minute, this is happening all out of order. I already asked if we're being punished for something."

"Yeah, do I just go ahead and ask if this is gonna take a while?"

"What? No, you're supposed to liste—"

"Uh oh, watch out, sis; I know where this is going. 'A while' means nine years of listening to mundane and wildly inappropriate stories for our age group, and passing the rest of puberty in this room. Get ready for incestuous thoughts, everyone."

"Oh, come on, I didn't show you guys that Comic-Con special so that you could—"

"Yeah, yeah, and peeing in a cup. Dad, I'm telling you right now, I'm not this guy right here. I demand bathroom breaks. Besides, I really didn't prepare myself for spending years in one outfit when I got dressed this morning. I'm not sleeping in this make-up. I'm drawing a line at the skin-care insanity."

"Honey, that's not—"

"Ooh, do you think he'll make us guess who Mom is within the story? Hey, Mom!"

"I'm not here! What?"

"Did you and Dad cross paths time and time again, always almost meeting but not quite, until you finally found each other in a twist of fate so filled with coincidence that you could easily have lived in misery for the rest of your lives?"

"Uh! No. Wally just tripped and landed face-down, butt-in-the-air in front of me. That's... pretty much it."

"Artemis! I wanted to tell the story! And you two! Should be ashamed of yourselves. I was trying to have a moment, okay?"

"Hey, it's your fault for leaving us alone with the DVDs every Friday."

"Yeah, what did you think was gonna happen?"

"Not freaking this. Listen, guys, just… okay?"

"Nice Barney impression. Legen—wait for i—"

"No, this is going too far. I just want to tell a simple story; is that too much to ask?"

"I dunno. Is it? Bro, what do you think?"

"Hmm."

"Hmmm."

"Hmmmmmmmmm."

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

"I swear it's freaky how alike you two are."

"I believe the freaks of this family have reached a conclusion. You can tell the thing as long as we are allowed to mock it mercilessly and you limit this shindig to two hours. I've got a date."

"Oh, what the heck. Sure. Not like this house has never flooded with juvenile sarcasm before."

"Truth! Ow. What was that for?"

"'Truth.' You promised you'd stop saying that! It's dumb and I'm embarrassed to share DNA with you. But. Can I just point out that this isn't even 2030 anymore, Dad? Nice continuity. Couldn't you have done this a few years earlier?"

"Gotta tell you, kiddo, not even sure why I'm doing this now."

"Yeah, neither are we."

"So anyway, where was I? Right. Before I was Dad, I had this whole other life—"

"Did you? Did you really?"

"You kinda haven't changed since we were born."

"Yes. Really. Now stop interrupting me. For starters, I was Kid Flash instead of The Flash. Except for some reason people kept calling me Speedy—"

"Some entirely mysterious reason, obviously."

"—which, you might not know, was your Uncle Roy's identity at the time."

"Seriously?"

"Which Roy's?"

"Both, actually. The only identity they ever shared."

"Oh, wow, I can almost hear all the dick joke ghosts in the distance, lurking in the shadows of their former glorious selves."

"Hey, watch your language."

"Psst. He shot arrows."

"Pffffft, hahaha, even better!"

"Artemis! We're raising two monsters!"

"This morning you said they were angels!"

"I changed my mind!"

"Change it back because, seriously, I. Am. Busy!"

"Whoops, sorry!Okay, so, uh, inappropriate jokes aside, I loved being a superhero. Like, maybe even more than I do right now."

"Is that even possible?"

"Yep. Because, back then, teenagers didn't get the chance to fight villains all that often. I only knew three other such boys in all of America and, get this, I was part of the group. Me! Imagine that. Fighting alongside my mentor, sidekicking it with all I had—though I'd never admit I was a sidekick then—and barely even having a cracked voice. I was quite proud of myself, actually."

"Wait, just four teen superheroes? And all boys? That's so weird!"

"I can see how you'd think so, hun, with the current state of things, but it was a really big deal at the time. Kaldur, Dick, Roy, and I… We were the original founders of Justice League's covert operations team and, dare I say, we made history."

"Hrem, are we talking actual history or that time you swore no one's ever eaten more pancakes in one hour than you did?"

"Uh. Actual history. And, yes, I do take offense to that second bit, thank you for asking."

"Look, we saw you eat. It was unbelievable. It didn't end world hunger."

"Psst. If anything, it added to world hunger."

"Heh."

"Okay, I will agree that the eating wasn't exactly Nobel-winning stuff, but within six years of founding the team, there were nearly thirty kids fighting alongside the Justice League. That's seven times the amount we started with. How's that for impressive? And many of us—most, in fact—went on to become members of the League. Y'know, before it disbanded."

"Holy sneakers! The history books never said anything about that. That's so cool."

"Eh, it's okay, but when are you gonna meet Mom?"

"Oh, that's the best part. So it's a few days after we rescue Supey—I mean Uncle Conner—from Cadmus where he was force-grown in a matter of weeks. Batman's being all dark and gloomy in an abandoned volcano and says the team can be officially formed, right, and he's gonna back us every step of the way, but, get this, instead of the four of us—minus Uncle Roy—there's gonna be five. And we all look over at the Zeta tubes—I swear Supey was still counting how many of us there were—and she walks in from this golden light, all shy and excited, right by her Uncle's side, and she's radiant and I was smitten instantly, and that, kids, is how I met y—"

"Our Aunt M'gann, yea—"

"—your Aun— Hey, wait a minute!"

"—h, we know the story."

"Come on, Dad, this thing you're trying to accomplish here would work a lot better if the pilot wasn't labeled on your computer as 'the greatest psycheout in the history of psycheouts'."

"Seriously. Super obvious."

"Hhhhhhhh. You guys suck."

"We are what you made us. And you made us genre-savvy, so you have no one but yourself to blame."

"Be thankful I didn't name you Luke and Leia."

"Hah! Incestuous thoughts! Called it."

"No, that's n— It was a reference within a reference and forget it."

"Dad, come on, I can see you laughing behind that conveniently placed hand. Drop the act."

"No. I'm having too much fun being exasperated."

"Don't encourage them, Wally!"

"Wh— Babe, I thought you were busy!"

"I still have ears!"

"Then close them and go back to working on your dissertation!"

"I would, but my ears keep trying to hear how you're gonna describe our first meeting!"

"Oh. Well, then what are you doing upstairs? Come down here and tell it with me!"

"Yessss, MOOOOOOOM!"

"Dad, is it legally possible to sue the existence of academic research for depriving developing teenagers of dearly needed mother's love and support?"

"No. And shh, don't let her hear you, she misses you enough as it is. Wow, that was fast, babe. You look radiant, by the way."

"Since when does crawling out of an office-cave for the first time in two days mean 'radiant'? 'Cause I didn't get the memo."

"Since you started doing it, obviously."

"Oh. Keep talking, Flashy, and you're gonna get cited in my paper."

"I can provide quotes any time."

"Ugh, gross. Get a room. What, no, I didn't mean Dad's lap!"

"My eyes. My eyes!"

"Hey, Artemis, when did our kids learn what innuendos were?"

"Probably around the same time they learned to talk, if you are anything to go by. So you were saying—mmm, you taste like peppermint—about us?"

"Yeah. Uh. It was a few weeks later, maybe a month, and we were fighting this super smart android who could learn all our moves instantly and use them against us. We were losing big time and at one point he was choking me, and then, all of a sudden, this arrow came from somewhere above and shot him in the head."

"Do androids bleed?"

"I think they could leak oil, hun, but this time it didn't matter because he made himself immaterial and it passed right through him. Which, you know, bad for the team 'cause we had to keep fighting, but I literally fell through his hands and got loose. And then we won. Obviously. Now, I thought the arrow came from Uncle Ollie at first, and then I thought it was from Roy, but a few days later it turned out to be the arrow of this spunky little blond chick who'd just joined the team and, lemme tell you, I couldn't stand her."

"Nor I him."

"And?"

"Hmmm?"

"That's it? You're the worst storyteller ever, Dad; how did you actually meet?"

"Oh. Well. I came to our base of operations in only shorts and holding a gazillion beach supplies—because, hey, summer—and kinda fell flat on my face when I saw Batman and Green Arrow were there. With her. A really hot archer that I'd never seen before who just heard me call myself 'Wall-man'. Really, that's pretty much all there is to that story."

"You had sunscreen on your nose, babe. You always leave that part out, but it really needs mentioning."

"No, it really doesn't. But, kids, you could say… that I fell for your mom instantly. Get it? Fell?"

"You could say that, but I'd probably divorce you. So don't, 'cause I quite like being married to you."

"Hey, I'm the one who had skinned knees for two weeks; I think I've earned one pun!"

"Aaaaand the angry puppy eyes come out; okay, you can have two whole puns, if it makes you feel better."

"Thank you, I will take advantage of this situati— Uh, actually, no, I think I'm out."

"Uncle Dick wouldn't be."

"Uncle Dick would invent a whole dictionary, son. We don't take after him. We make normal, corny jokes like the goofballs we are, okay?"

"No, we utilize sarcasm and the subtle sophisticated satire influenced by a lifetime of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert; you make corny jokes, Dad."

"Well, that just hurts. Stop laughing, Artemis."

"I will once this conversation actually goes anywhere."

"Nope. I'm done. Ted Mosby didn't get interrupted nearly this much and how he managed to last as long as he did is a mystery to me right now. So, cliff-notes version: the first thing your mom ever did with me was save my life. The second was annoy it right out of me."

"Eh, sounds about accurate."

"And I wouldn't give back a single minute of it."

"I wouldn't let you if you tried."

"This just in: our parents are gross."

"You bet we are. Anyone up for take-out heaping piles of everything? Daddy's really missed Mommy these past few weeks and would like a family dinner. What say you?"

"Well, now you're just mixing fandoms willy-nilly."

"Yeah, Dad, just pick one!"