Santa Flash
A little idea I've had every time I watch one of THE FLASH Christmas episode. They definitely should have included something like that in the show. Obviously placed around Christmas, no particular season but after season 1, it's a generic Christmas Episode. I hope you'll enjoy it even though it's very short.
Merry Christmas
Lorelei Candice Black
Barry Allen always loved Christmas. It was a time filled with magic and happiness where everything seemed better, brighter, and now that he was The Flash, he felt like he needed to do more than just stop criminals and meta-humans and buy gifts for his friends and family. He felt like it was his duty as a superhero to do more for the people of his town. He wanted to make them all as happy as he was, even the ones who couldn't afford to celebrate as well as he did or to even exchange presents. He wanted to be a part of letting the magic of Christmas live.
He was the Flash, there was so much more he could do and the idea came to him when he helped Joe, Iris, Caitlin, Wally and Cisco unpack the Christmas decorations. They had decided that they'd decorate Star Lab to make it homier this year and so they each brought a box of their own decorations. Barry had brought the boxes that used to belong to his parents and had been in storage all these years. Some of them hadn't been opened in a very long time, not since his mother had been murdered. He was holding in his hand plain white cotton mass that had been used, a long time ago, on a home made Santa face he had made in kindergarten and brought proudly home for his parents to see. It was now broken, the cotton detached from the broken piece of paper but it gave Barry an idea.
"Barry? You're planning on doing something with that?" Joe asked him after he watched Barry hold onto the ball of cotton for about 5 minutes without moving.
"I'm the Flash." Barry stated.
"We know." Wally replied while Joe smiled, amused and wondering if maybe grandma Esther's famous eggnog was the only alcohol that would affect Barry's super metabolism.
"I mean, it's Christmas, I'm super fast and I dress in Red... I could do so much good..." Barry insisted, like it was obvious.
"I don't get it, don't you think you do enough when you chase criminals?" Joe asked him, shaking his head.
"Oh! Ho!" Cisco exclaimed, understanding where Barry was going with it.
"I could bring gifts to kids, disguise myself as Santa and give hope to the kids who don't get many gifts. I'm certainly fast enough to do the entire town in a few hours only." Barry explained while Cisco was already on his computer and added:
"We'd have to modify your suit to make it more Santa like and to accommodate your speed. I'll definitely work on it and have it done by Christmas eve."
"Where would you get the presents? We can buy a few but we definitely don't have enough money to afford that many presents." Iris asked him.
"We could simply ask people. You write an article, an interview of the Flash who asks people to donate presents for poor kids so that they can be delivered on Christmas Night. We can hack social services to get the addresses of the poorer kids, the families that need it more." Barry replied, confident that this was a good idea.
"Alright, I'll work on it." Iris nodded, getting a notebook out.
She liked how optimistic Barry looked at the moment and she wanted to help him. She, too, thought that it was a good idea.
"We'll have to be quick, we only have one week left before Christmas." Caitlin frowned, thinking of all the wrapping they'd have to do.
"Maybe we can call Team Arrow. I'm sure they'd love to help us. I'll call Oliver right away." Barry replied, brushing it off.
Of course Oliver agreed to come over with his team to help him wrap the present. He thought that it was a great idea and they agreed that they'd make sure Iris' Article was published in Star City as well. This way, Barry would be able to deliver gifts in both cities. With the help of both teams, they knew that they could do it. Felicity would get the addresses and plan, with Caitlin, the best course for Barry to take. They'd decide where to store the gifts Barry couldn't carry so that he could get them later and everything to make it possible.
"Where do we get the donated gifts delivered?" Iris asked Barry.
"Maybe that big hangar outside of town. It's in between Central city and Star city, it's huge. It'll be perfect for us to organize everything." Barry suggested and Iris nodded.
"We could have drop points all over the city, it'll motivate people to give if it's close to them. I'll see if the Captain agrees for us to have one at the station." Joe suggested and so they started planning everything.
.
The next day, Iris' article was published and it was an immediate success. She had mentioned that Green Arrow and his team would help and it had improved even more the popularity of both team of heroes. Everyone seemed to catch a new spark of hope in humanity after reading this article and the town soon moved to help Flash in his new task.
As for the presents, they quickly piled in the dropping points and where being picked up by Diggle and a few others, in their vans. Iris' article seemed to have lifted people's Christmas spirit. Both town's atmosphere was simply lighter, happier and it gave Barry and Oliver hope to see that people could stop being bad for a while. Even the criminality seemed to have slowed down. They soon realized that there would be enough presents so that the poorer families would be able to get two.
The fact that there was much less criminality was a good thing for both teams because they had a lot of work to do. They had to sort through the donated presents, wrap them and decide who would get them. Cisco was already done with Barry's suit and he was working on little elves suit for the Green Arrow and his team. Oliver had reluctantly agreed to Iris taking a picture of them all and so he created costumes that hid their identities as well.
It was a lot of work but they all did it happily, knowing that for once they worked, not to stop criminals, but to make people happy, to lift their spirits and to give hope to little children who lived a life that often made them lose all hope for the future. They had even planned a few gifts that Barry would deliver to homeless kids and families on the streets so that they weren't left out.
.
On the morning of the 24th, Team Flash and Team Arrow were assembled in the hangar to make sure they all knew what to do and where to be. Barry would run from one point to the other, picking up the presents and the addresses in each places and Felicity had printed out, for each stop, a map of the best way to go, which order to hit the houses.
"What about food? Barry's not going to be able to do all of this without fainting if he doesn't eat enough." Joe mentioned near the end of the meeting.
"Well, there will be an energy bar for him at each stop but I don't think he'll need it. Kids usually leave a plate of cookies and some milk for Santa Claus. He'll be able to eat and drink it all." Caitlin replied.
"It'll help kids believe even more of he eats and drink it." Wally nodded.
"I'm so excited about this, it's going to be a great Christmas." Barry smiled before he looked at the special suit that Cisco had made him.
It was a normal looking Santa suit, with a fake belly, a long beard and a hat. It was made in the same material as Barry's Flash suit and he had tried it on before, ran with it and made sure he could phase with it on and the gifts in the sack. If the windows and doors were closed, Barry would be able to phase through the walls or doors to enter with the gifts.
"Now, time for the picture." Iris announced excitedly and so they all put on the costumes that Cisco had procured for them and they posed for the picture, in front of the pile of presents.
"I'll work on the article this afternoon, put the finishing touches on it tonight and it'll be in tomorrow morning's paper." Iris told them after snapping a few pictures of the group.
"Can you send me one? I think we should hang one in the lair." Felicity asked and Iris nodded, happy to help any way that she could.
.
That night, Barry started to make his round after 11 pm, distributing presents and enjoying the glasses of milk and plates of cookies that had been left for Santa Claus. In some houses, he even had a thank you drawing left for him, from the children. It was addressed directly to the Flash and his friends and it made Barry smile. In one house, Barry was surprised to find not milk and cookies waiting for him but 2 bottles of scotch and a box of cigars with only 2 missing, beside it, there was a not saying that the father had promised to stop drinking and smoking for Christmas and so they asked the Flash to take it away. Barry took it, deciding that they'd all enjoy the scotch and the cigars later, once they were done with everything.
In one apartment, the family had so little money that they couldn't afford a tree, instead, they had drawn one on the wall. Since he had some time to spare, Barry went to pick one up and decorated it quickly for them. He also noticed that their Christmas meal hadn't been more than pasta and so he came back later, with a baked turkey and sides that had been left for him in another house, and he left it for the family to find in the morning.
In almost every house, there was a drawing or even a thank you letter for the Flash (or Santa), and Barry took them all, planning on reading them with everyone else once they were done.
As it turned out, everything had been well planned out and Barry realized that next year, they should be able to hit more than these two cities.
"Well, that was surprisingly fun." Oliver stated once that all met back at the hangar to celebrate a job well done.
"For me too. We could do it again next year, maybe organize ourselves so we can do more than our two cities." Barry replied as he emptied his sack of everything that had been left for them: drawings, some cookies that Barry hadn't eaten, a mince pie, a bottle of soda, the two bottles of scotch and the box of cigars, and a few plates, wrapped in aluminum, of turkey.
"You help the city and give them Santa Flash, they feed us for the night." Cisco declared as he clapped his hand in delight.
"With all of this, we have quite the feast." Joe commented as he started serving everyone a glass of Grandma Esther's eggnog.
"I had some time earlier today and I baked us some cookies, here." Felicity told them, placing a large plate on the table.
"I picked up a few things from Big Belly Burger, just in case we didn't have enough." Diggle added, placing a couple of large paper bag on the table.
"Well, Merry Christmas everyone!" Barry smiled brightly.
He was very happy with himself, he felt like he had done the right thing. He had helped a few children believe in Santa Claus, and in humanity, a while longer. Because of them, families would be able to celebrate Christmas, children would have presents to open in the morning.
"Something on your mind Barry?" Iris asked him.
"Just that, I really liked doing this tonight." Barry replied.
"We'll definitely do it again next year." Oliver nodded.
"Maybe, for Valentine's day, I'll do it again." Barry stated.
"On Valentine's day?" Joe asked him, confused.
"With flowers. Go around quickly and give flowers to single women who usually feel left out." Barry replied, making everyone chuckle.
"One good deed at the time, Santa Flash." Oliver chuckled, clapping his friend on the back before he drank his glass of eggnog.
"You'd only receive lots of marriage proposals in return." Caitlin commented.
"Definitely a bad idea." iris nodded with a jealous frown.
I know that this wasn't much but I couldn't exactly make it too big. Team Arrow's involvement was a surprised, it just wrote itself this way.
What did you think?
I'm so sorry, I was going to post this for Christmas but I completely forgot! Happy New Year!
Lorelei Candice Black