A.N. One day, I looked over what I've written so far on this fandom, and I realized that my stories have had pretty much the same genre: Hurt/Comfort + Something. What can I say? I enjoy causing pain to my faves! Is that wrong? Hehe...

And then I thought… Gee, what if I tried to write something happy for once?

Just for kicks. :)

This one-shot is sort of based on a few things mentioned in "Outlier". I was looking back at the year 2000 in the official Young Justice timeline, and that was the year that Barry and Hal both started crime fighting. It was before Barry and Iris got married, and it was years before the League even get started. Wally was definitely little. So this is my first attempt at something on the "fluffier" side of the spectrum. *shrugs*

Hope you enjoy! Leave a review if you feel compelled!


Prologue: Year 2000

In the beginning, the kid had no confidence.

Barry sighed as his redheaded companion stared blankly into the water, not moving a muscle. "C'mon, Kid. Just step in."

There was a pause, and Wally stubbornly shook his head. "No way," he squeaked. At five years old, the ginger boy was small for his age, very thin, and slightly timid in the best scenarios. "It'll eat me," the kid mumbled.

With a quiet chuckle, Barry said, "No, it won't. Look, it's not eating me!" He had already waded into the pool, where the shallow water barely came up to his knees. Now Barry was trying to encourage the kid to join him so they could start the swimming lesson.

"That's 'cause you're too big. It can't die-jest you." Wally backed away. "It can die-jest me, though. 'Cause I'm little." Tiny fists clenching tightly, he took another step back while frowning at the water.

Barry sighed. "Kid, wait. Let's just-" But Wally was already running back down the street, putting as much distance between him and the neighborhood pool as possible. Watching his little ginger friend flee, he sighed.

He'd have to try a different approach.


"Hey there, kiddo. Want to go out and play catch?" Barry smiled as he poked his head into Wally's room. The kid was on the floor, playing with his Flash figurine and quietly making whoosh-whoosh sounds. He looked up at Barry and broke into a huge grin, gently setting the toy down on his nightstand and running to grab his ball and gloves from his closet.

"Ready!" he announced a few seconds later. They were just about to walk downstairs towards the front door when thunder suddenly rumbled through the house.

Wally jumped and ran to the nearest window. The world outside was in a downpour, already soaking the grass, shrubs, and everything not under a roof. "We can't play. It's raining," he whispered disappointedly.

"Aww, sure we can! It's just water, Wally." Barry put a comforting hand on the child's shoulder, urging him to follow him out of the house. But Wally resisted with all of his might.

"It's not 'just water', Uncle Barry. Look!" He pointed at the sky as a crack of white lightning danced across the dark clouds. "We'd… we'd get struck by tha' lightning. It'd e… e-lec-tro-cute us."

Barry opened his mouth to object and try to tempt Wally outside, hoping to get him comfortable with wetness before graduating to full-pool-submersion. But he refrained from saying anything more, because… the kid did have a point.

The last thing anyone wanted was for Wally to start to tango with lightning, after all.

So Barry shrugged and settled for watching a movie on the couch with his tiny kiddo instead.


"He'll be six next month, Barry. This is getting f***ing ridiculous."

Hal Jordan, Barry's best friend and confidante, possessed a wealth of opinions and an arsenal of... less-than-tactful language to express those opinions. Most of the time, it was part of his charm, yet right now it felt pretty aggressive. The Green Lantern took another bite out of his burger and gestured exasperatedly with a ketchup-coated french fry. "Y'know, you could also just throw the sucker in and make him figure it out that way," he offered, talking with his mouth full. "It's what my old man did, and I turned out fine, didn't I?" Hal swallowed and grinned widely, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Barry chuckled and rubbed his face. "Not everyone would agree with you on that one, Hal," he joked, earning a fry tossed at his face. But then his face sobered up and he took a pensive sip of his Dr. Pepper. "I've just had to be really, really careful. I'm not a real West; I just met this family last summer. Assuming Iris and I get married in the future - and don't get me wrong, it's pretty serious between us - Wally could potentially become my nephew. I'm just… sowing seeds, hoping he'll like me."

Hal stared at him, eventually shrugging incredulously. "He's a kindergartner, Barry. So he's young, gullible, and impressionable. He's lonely as f***, and he idolizes your alter ego. He spends every moment he can with you. I think we both know that 'wittle Wally' adores the crap out of you, let alone 'likes' you. So… what gives?"

"It's that…" Barry groaned in the effort to find words to his inner turmoil, crunching a napkin in one hand and looking out the window of the small diner where they ate. "It's that… I dunno Hal. I just… I've never had anyone look up to me, and… and Kid… he's special. He's so incredibly special, man. Like you have no idea."

Barry turned back to Hal, blue eyes wide and lively in the moment. "Like, take last week for instance. I came by his house in the afternoon like I usually do, and I found him reading Homer. You get it? The five-year-old was reading The Odyssey. Week before that, he was reading the freakin' Encyclopedia. Chemistry books, almanacs, theoretical physics journals." Barry leaned across the table, whispering in an almost reverent voice. "I found out today that Wally recently taught himself French. He's not even in grade school, and Kid taught himself to speak French. Almost fluently at this point. Just because. He 'was bored,' he said." He sat back in his seat in the booth slowly, eyebrows drawn in a look of both wonder and concern. "That's what I'm dealing with, Hal. Kid's so brilliant - we're talking Mensa-level - but no one appreciates it, notices it, or cares. His parents know he's bright, but they have a hard time showing it. But me?"

"You see his genius and don't want to f*** anything up." Hal spoke matter-of-factly, nibbling thoughtfully on a fry. "Understandable."

"There is so much potential there, Hal. So much." Barry muttered, his voice weighed down with mutual enthusiasm and exhaustion. "Wally could grow up to do amazing things, but he needs that support. He's too timid, too shy, too… too self-doubting. His parents won't give him that boost. His teachers won't. He has few to no friends as far as I know. So the way I see it, I'm it. I want to give Wally some confidence, but I don't want to force it. He's too precious to lose. And here I am, possible future uncle of the kid, barely out of college and chasing a master's, and for some insane reason, I'm also a superhero as of six months ago. Six. Months. Even shorter term than yours, man. And it's just a lot and I don't know how it'll turn out and everything's just- ugh…" He pulled his hair and pressed his face to the cold marble table with a low, long-suffering sigh.

Hal sucked Coke through a straw and stared at his best friend's freak-out with a blank stare on his face. Nothing was said for several minutes. Inhaling, he considered Barry's unusual position. This was a friggin' huge ton of crap weighing on one twenty-five-year-old's shoulders, let alone a guy like Barry Allen, who had the unhealthy tendency of trying to fix the world's problems by himself. It would kill him one day, everyone knew that. But it was Hal's responsibility to make sure that day wasn't coming anytime soon. The guy was going to tear himself apart if he tried to take everything on with the wrong mindset.

Time for some tough love.

After another few seconds, Hal slammed his empty glass on the hard table and gripped Barry's shoulder tight, forcing the blonde man to look him in the eye.

"Look, Barry. I'll be frank. I'm the absolute last guy you should come to when you need help getting your life in order. Let's be honest, it's a miracle I'm even wearing underwear today." Hal shook his head in somewhat bitter, self-deprecating humor. "My socks haven't matched in three months because I'm horrible at doing laundry and keeping track of little things in general. We're both new to the hero game, but your city loves you while mine still refuses to acknowledge that I even exist, for some reason. And I won't be getting engaged anytime soon because I can't even make it from 'one-night-stand' to 'dating' with the ladies. You've got me beat in… well, pretty much every department in life." Hal sucked in a breath and leaned in, squeezing Barry's shoulder harder to make sure he was heard.

"So listen to me when I tell you this, because it's about the only wisdom I can offer, and you're entering a stage in your crazy life where you need to hear this. You. Can. Handle. It. You are Bartholomew Henry Allen, the Fastest Man Alive, freakin' golden-hearted labrat and the best uncle any kid this side of the Rockies could ask for. And I, Harold Jordan, know you better than practically any other soul on this g**d*** planet. And I know that your greatest strengths are your abilities to one," he vehemently held up a finger with his other hand in Barry's face, "adapt. And two, bounce back. Bounce back like a f***ing tennis ball, man. Because as you adapt and try to juggle all these stupid things that come with being a new metahuman in your first year on top of trying to win over a genius five-year-old kid, you will screw up. Because you're still human, moron. And that's okay. No sweat. It'll be fine, because guess what? You. Will. F***ing. Bounce. Back. Alright, Barry?"

By now, the two best friends were head-to-head, Hal's hand gripping Barry's shoulder while his brown eyes stared intensely into Barry's shocked blue counterparts.

"Alright," Barry finally exhaled, and Hal felt his best friend relax beneath his grasp.

"Good," he muttered, gently punching Barry's shoulder before pulling his hand away.

They said nothing for a while, resolving to enjoy the comfortable silence. Then Barry smirked. "Pretty passionate words there, lover boy. Come up with all that on the spot there, did ya?"

Hal wrinkled his nose, rolling his eyes. "You just need to get your head out of the clouds, stupid. I just happen to be good at kicking your sorry butt in gear."

"Again, talking about my butt…" Barry teased mercilessly, earning him yet another fry in the face.

They continued to make jokes and laugh as they caught up, and Barry left an hour later feeling a bit better about the future.

And he had an idea to get Wally's confidence rolling. It was all about… adapting.


Two months later, Wally West was valiantly swimming across the pool towards Barry's outstretched arms, with his parents and his Aunt Iris watching his progress with delight. His Flash water wings and matching life vest kept him afloat - useful tools that were unusually necessary to keep Wally from sinking, since he and Barry figured out pretty quickly that the ginger lacked any amount of body fat to keep himself afloat naturally - and his arms and legs struck out in the water with intensity and confidence.

"That's it, Kid! Almost there," Barry cheered him on from the deep end.

Wally grinned, even though his eyebrows were drawn together with exertion and concentration. Swimming, of all sports, was bound to be the most difficult for the kid who was so impossibly thin and lacking in muscle. Barry had known this from the start. It was exactly the reason why he'd wanted Wally to master it anyways.

Triumph through adversity. Or some fortune-cookie stuff along those lines.

Watching his little buddy making progress along the pool, keeping momentum just the way Barry had taught him… Barry couldn't hold back the unbridled grin on his face.

Wally was a very, very special kid. And Barry had a feeling that right now, they were just barely skimming the surface.

For the two friends - young adult and much younger child - the future was bound to be bright indeed.


A.N. So, that's that! I'm curious about what you think! Leave a review if you'd like! :)

Best,

Iron Woobie