Hal Jordan had been preparing himself to leave once more to go over to Wally's house when there was a knock at his apartment door. This surprised him a little bit because he had not been expecting any company. Carol was having one of her bad moments that consisted of hating everything Hal did, so he tried to stay away as much as he could from her. And none of his regular friends knew that he had come back from his 'vacation'.

Still, he went over to the door and opened it, only for his brown eyes to widen at the sight of none other than Bruce Wayne waiting for him on the other side of the threshold.

"Jordan." The blue eyed man greeted simply before he entered Hal's apartment.

If anybody else had done this to him, Hal would have called them out on being rude. But he knew Bruce so he knew that this was just his less than friendly way of saying 'Hey, you're alive, I've got something important to tell you.'

So after he had closed the main door, Hal turned to Bruce and followed him into the small space known as his living room. Hal sat himself on the sofa, throwing his arms over the back to make himself more comfortable, all the while Bruce opted to sit on the recliner.

"You're here 'cause of Wally, right?" Hal asked as he eyed the small contraption in Bruce's hands.

"Yes." The slightly older man nodded, frown in place, "You had him go back to his parents house."

Hal sat up at the slightly accusing tone, but nodded, "I was only there for at most an hour, Bruce, but I immediately knew he had to go back to them. The kid was not progressing with his uncles."

Bruce shook his head and asked him, "Did you know why we had sent him to live with Barry? Why we had tried our best to get him out of his house?"

"No. I didn't. I still don't. Ollie kind of right out on me after I had made my decision and Barry said he was stupid for believing in your dumb theories." Hal shrugged now.

He didn't mean to come off as sarcastic or condescending, but he had heard enough from Wally and Barry both to know that Ollie and Bruce had most probably overreacted over whatever was going on.

But Bruce instead of answer him with anger, the blue eyed man stood up and offered him the phone in his hands, "Would you like to hear why we decided to get him out of his home?"

Hal hesitated for a moment, but eventually grabbed the device and began to listen to the recordings Bruce had managed to acquire from the West household.

~/~

To say he had been shocked after hearing the recordings Bruce had brought him would be an understatement. The words used by both Mary and Rudolph West were insulting and made to scathe and were all clearly aimed at Wally. It hurt to hear him be insulted in such a nonchalant way, and Hal began to understand just why Barry had acted so rashly when it came to the kid.

But he stood clear on what had to be done with the kid.

"You still have those bugs in his house?" He had asked after the last recording, one in which Wally's father reminded him to stop being so useless and pick up some groceries.

Bruce nodded, "But because Wally hasn't been in the house, I haven't really heard any insult towards him. The worst thing I heard was his father saying it was all Barry's fault Wally had gotten into so much trouble, but that was the last I managed to hear."

Hal nodded after a moment, then said, "Keep the bugs in there. The kid's going back to that house, so we might need ears inside to make sure those two are acting like real parents."

Bruce quirked an eyebrow at his words, "You insist on returning Wally to that house? It's an abusive household-"

"And all we have are recordings that prove that both his parents like to use bad words, Bruce." Hal interrupted, shaking his head, "The only way to permanently solve this problem is to catch his parents in the act of hurting the kid. Because Wally is much too brainwashed to give them up. He honestly misses his parents and wants to go back to living with them."

"So you're just going to throw him back in there?" Bruce asked, voice steady but serious, "And here I thought you would like to play hero."

Hal rolled his eyes at the words, "Ha, who know Bruce Wayne had a sense of humor?" But sobered up, "Mary and Rudolph have both calmed down. They have another kid on the way too, and can't afford to get caught abusing Wally. And Wally is too head strong to leave them right now. So I say we reunite the family and have them live together. And the second Rudolph raises his hand against Wally, we run in there like hell hounds."

Both men looked at one another after Hal had said this, but Bruce relented, "This wasn't the worst thing you could have come up with, Jordan. Goodbye."


The day Hal had heard the recordings Bruce had acquired from the West household had happened almost three months ago. In the days after, he had begun to doubt his plan and his own thoughts, but eventually he managed to convince himself that his actions were the correct ones.

Wally was everything but his son and he liked to think he knew the kid better than even Barry did. Which is why he knew that having ripped the kid away from his home so suddenly had been one of the worst things to do. Wally had always been rather attached to his parents, which made sense because he was an only child, which meant that trying to get in between those bonds would have done more bad than good in the long run.

So it had been clear to Hal that the first thing they would have to do to regain their ever smiling Wally was return him to his parents. And one week after having gone back to them, when Hal had gone to visit, the kid's smile was back in place and his eyes shone with a light that had been almost extinguished while living at his aunt and uncle's house.

This didn't mean that Barry and Iris had been bad family members and not taken care of Wally, not at all. Wally was just too emotionally attached to his parents to suddenly be told they didn't want him there because he caused his mother unnecessary stress. Being forced to stay with those two had basically made them Public Enemies #1 in his mind, which is why he had made their lives so difficult. It wasn't their fault, really. It was just who Wally was.

Hal had made a point to visit Wally every week after he had returned. He had missed out on a whole month of his life when he went to Oa and came back to find the kid in shambles. He wasn't about to make the same mistake again.

And every time he picked Wally up at his house with plans of going somewhere new, the boy always smiled brightly and agreed energetically to go with him. After some time, he had even insisted they take his other friend with him, which was when Hal met Kate, Mike, and Ike.

At first, he had been surprised to find out that Wally had not been speaking about James and Hartley when he spoke of his friends. But once he got to know the three teenagers Wally chose to hang around with, he wasn't too bothered by the friendships he had chosen. Sure, knowing he didn't want to hang around with the two young Rogues was shocking, but at least the friends he had now weren't about to take him on a bank robbery or another heist like that.

Now he was heading towards his job over at Ferris Aircraft and was kind of annoyed at being an adult. He knew for a fact that on this Friday, Wally would be heading out to the movies with his three good friends and Roy and Richard because the kid had told him yesterday, via text message. And because Carol was still kind of pissy over his month long absence, the man didn't really feel like going over to his job and spend a whole day there. At the moment, he would have given anything to be Wally's age again, without a care in the world.

With a sigh he made his way into the building, trying to push Wally into the back of his mind. He loved the kid to death, honestly, but sometimes he believed the very boy was going to be the death of him.

There was a reason why he was Wally's favorite uncle.


Kate, Mike, Ike, Dick, Robin, and I had all gone to the movies a few days after I had that small conversation with Captain Boomerang. I was actually interested with how well both my old friends got along with my newer friends, even though I could tell they both had a certain amount of apprehension when it come to the kids from my school.

Richard proved to be the easiest to convince because he was cracking jokes with Ike about the movie almost five minutes into it. I sat with Dick to my left and Ike to my right, so I too got in on the fun of insulting the stereotypical female main character that was accompanied by an all too tough male accomplice. Mike was seated to Ike's right, Kate beside him, and Roy was sitting by Dick's other side.

Kate shushed us every now and then because we were much too annoying to be able to enjoy the movie, but this only made Ike's wisecracks become more frequent and much more brutal. Actually, we got to a level of not taking the movie seriously that Mike threatened to kick us out. He and Kate actually wanted to watch the action/romance flop and they didn't really appreciate us interrupting them.

And, come on, Mike was a pretty scary dude. So Dick, Ike, and I managed to lower our disdain for the movie and began to say the jokes in whispers. This had worked for the most part and both Mike and Kate had gained comfort in knowing that even though we weren't going to shut up, we were still nice enough to whisper the jokes instead of blatantly yell them out. But then Roy had smiled mischievously and turned to Dick.

This was at about the very middle of the movie. The heroine was busy chasing after a gang of vampires- don't ask why- while the hero was being kidnapped by said gang. I guess the makers wanted to seem different by having the male role by kidnapped, but in my mind, this movie was too bad to find any redeeming qualities in. And as the red and black haired woman ran, she yelled out all kinds of curses and threats.

"I honestly think watching Conner's static would be a thousand times more entertaining than sitting here watching this thing that is so bad not even the Joker would laugh at it."

In all honesty, what Roy had said wasn't all that funny. But the reason why both Dick and I burst out into laughter was because it was specifically Roy that had said it. If it had been either Dick, Ike, or myself, it would be expected. But no one even thought he was paying attention to what was going on in the terrible movie.

And because we had set off on such raucous laughter, both Kate and Mike growled and commanded us to leave the showing. Ike blinked at us in confusion, clearly wanting to be in on the joke, but we were laughing too much to explain. And when we got up to leave Mike and Kate alone, he followed after us, apparently having decided that his money was not well spent in watching the film.

Outside I fell to my knees because of how much I was laughing. And Dick collapsed right beside me, holding on to my shoulders as we both laughed loudly at the joke.

"Come on, guys, it wasn't even that funny." Roy groaned, looking around the hallway we were in to make sure that nobody could see us.

But Ike was chuckling at our reactions and shaking his head at me.

"I don't think I've ever seen Wally laugh so much." He smiled broadly, then turned over to Roy. "Just what did you say that cracked them up like this?"

Roy rolled his eyes at Ike and shrugged, "I just said that watching one of our other friend's crappy television shows would be a lot better than being stuck in that movie for a second longer."

Ike quirked an eyebrow at this and glanced over at Dick and I.

We were still too busy cracking up over the fact that Roy was able to say something funny and were just about lying completely on the floor and rolling around in our fit of laughter.

"I agree with Ginger Sr., Walls. That wasn't so funny."

Roy made a type of grunt/growl noise deep in his throat. He didn't like being called Ginger Sr. and for some reason Ike insisted on calling him that. I think they both got along great.

"You know, there is about a whole hour left for the movie and we can't leave because Mike's our ride. Want to hit up the arcade?" Ike asked all of us, even though I'm pretty sure he was mostly inviting Roy.

Slowly Dick and I both began to sober up and soon we were seated up on the floor and looking up at both older teenagers.

"Lend us money?" We both asked at the same time, which made Roy immediately groan.

This was a lesson he had been taught long ago. You see, back when we were kids, Roy was always given the money that would be used by all three of us. It had been our mentors way of making sure none of us lost our money and had worked back then. The thing was that the habit had kind of stuck and Dick and I still asked Roy for money even though we had our own.

But... Maybe we did this because we also didn't want to waste what was ours when we could waste his first.

"Come on, Walls. I want to beat you up at Tekken." Ike told me as he offered me his hand, then turned over to Roy once I was standing. "Well, go on, give him his money."

Roy frowned at that, but still fished out his wallet and began to check how much money he had left.

I helped Dick up and we high fived because we knew that we had won once more. Then, when Roy handed us both three dollars each, we cheered and took off running over to the arcade, Ike chasing behind us while Roy walked calmly.

It felt nice. Being able to hang out with my friends once more without having to worry about keeping a facade up. It was nice to not need to use one of my many masks whenever I went out. It was nice to finally be happy.

After we had changed the dollars for coins, Dick and I immediately ran over to Tekken to begin fighting as Ike changed his own money. And after we had played a few rounds against one another, both Ike and I had been beaten by the little bird. But, unlike myself, Ike apparently did not know when he was not the better player and insisted to continue playing against Robin.

It was as they played and yelled over one another that I received a phone call.

At first, I didn't think much of it and excused myself from my friends with a smile on my face. I had gone outside of the arcade to not have so many noises surrounding me when I answered and leaned against the wall to answer the call. I hadn't even checked who had called me.

"Hello?" I had answered, still smiling after everything that had gone on with my friends.

"Wally?"

Upon hearing the man's voice, bells began to ring in my head, "Rory? What's going on?"

The Rogues never called me on my civillain phone. They would always contact me in much more creative ways than that.

"We have a small problem, kiddo. Zoom's back."

My blood ran cold as soon as he said that name.

Professor Zoom was... The worst type of villain I had ever met in Central or Keystone City. While most of my villains were part of the Rogues gallery and had a code within themselves, Zoom was a loose cannon. If it hadn't been for... Uncle Barry... No. Uncle Barry was still alive and Zoom had been sent back to his time.

"He arrived out of nowhere and demanded that the Rogues help him take down the Flash." Rory whispered into the phone and I listened intently, "We have no idea how hew was able to get into the headquarters, but... He's got James and Hartley, kid. He's using them as bait. We Rogues... We can't do anything against him, kid."

"Rory? What do you mean? Don't sound so sullen, just wait for my uncle and I to get there, we can help you save-" I tried to tell him, but he cut me off.

"The bastard's making us do things, kid..." Rory sighed, then I heard a door squeak open. "Cold's telling me I don't have much time. We called to tell you that; no matter what you see or hear about us Rogues; we still love you. And we... We never meant to hurt you."

My eyes went wide immediately and I could feel terror start to grip at my chest. "Wait, Rory! We can come up with a plan! We can stop Zoom!"

"We all love you, kid." This time it was Len who spoke up and my breathing began to quicken. "And even though I can't stand what we're about to do... We can't let Zoom kill the kids. They're just Junior Rogues. Goodbye, Baby Flasher."

And the call was cut.

I stood there for a moment, motionless and barely breathing. Then I turned around and immediately ran over to Roy and Dick.

I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn't about to let Zoom out of all people hurt my friends. I'd be damned if I let him.

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