Black,White, and Pants

There's several things that Barry understood about the world he lived in at the moment. These things usually make a nice line of coherent sense and normally- normally- it would be acknowledged and life would continue on.

However this, whatever this is, takes the cake. One of his rouges decided it was a wonderful time- around Iris's birthday for godsakes- to plan a heist and this was about the same time he and Rich (He refused to call this boy by the nickname 'Dick' because.. Well hell!) needed to grab some cash form the ATM to get her a present.

At the time he had no idea what had happened until it was all over.

He did his thing as the Flash -after hiding to change of course- and had felt infinitely proud enough when it was over to talk to his 'son' about it.

Apparently, Dick had a strange bemused look on his face at this.

"Is there a reason why you always seem to go easy on them?" The boy asked after he bought some ice cream (ok, so he had half a tower and the kid was eating one cone. It wasn't as bad as it looked. Particularly it was delicious and that reminded him he needed to see if he could pawn Dick off on either Hal or John tonight..eh.. He'll ask John. At least he could be reliable when it comes to being around and with kids).

"Easy?" Barry glanced at him, "I just sent him to jail for another few months. Trickster is behind bars -and is receiving medication mind you- and"

"But you know enough about them to put them away for several years." Dick pointed out but caught himself licking the ice cream so it wouldn't drip on his clothes-Iris would kill him. "So why are you always so..nice to them a lot?"

Now that he was nearly done with his ice cream, Barry shook his head and pats Dick's shoulder. "It's called discretion." He began, "You can't always look at everything so black and white, Rich. The reason why I go easy on them sometimes is simply because of the circumstances that sometimes forces a person to do drastic-admittedly stupid- things." After a moment he shrugged and devoured the rest of the frozen treat. " Since you know so much, why don't I give you one of my first cases to glance at and see how you judge it."

Most people wouldn't give an eleven year old such a thing. However, Barry has known that Dick wasn't a normal kid- not by a long shot.

He gave him a simple B&E case that looked- on the surface at least- like a straight forward deal.

A month later, the boy came back to him unhappy that he couldn't make a clear cut decision on the case. After all, at the time the culprit had robbed that house because it was the first convenient house there was on the block. The only thing the robber stole was some cash and food from the fridge. The reason why the culprit had done so was to feed two children that was under the prep.'s care.

Children from a neglected home that looked decent when Child Services had there random, occasional visits. The culprit also couldn't land a job anywhere because of previous arrests made the culprit undesirable and more or less homeless.

Dick couldn't make himself want to punish such a person.

Barry had only smiled at the time seeing it clicked in the kid's head as to the reality of the situation.

It's only later did Barry come across a few interesting things about the boy that made him confront the very thing he tried to reason that wasn't possible.

Dick followed Flash once, disguised in some outfit (where the hell did that come from?), using skills he practiced on his free time to help him capture Captian Cold by blind-siding the older man with sudden bright light to the eyes.

"Where'd you get that?" Flash had asked(oh god, Irisisgoingtokillme!)"Why are you even here?"

"Well." the costumed boy replied with a sly grin, "I thought I could help you! I mean, I'm good at it-and"

"What?" Flash could only see the horror that would be his wife when she realize exactly where their 'son' was not- which was not at school. "You can't be here!"

"But you looked like you needed help!"

"Yeah, but your mother is going to kill me!"

After a beat Dick glanced at him then at the scene and back again, "...I vote we hide in Italy for a while. I heard there's some great food there?"

Pointless delaying tactic- Flash wholeheartedly agreed.

"Seriously though," He said picking the kid up, "What's with the costume?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Don't you think you should put on some pants?"

"It's a leotard!"

"...While we're there, we've got to get you a better outfit."