Location: Mount Justice

Date: Aug 25th

Time: 17:32

Wally West prided himself on many things. He was a pretty talented guy, after all. His understanding of Chemistry, Astronomy, PhD-level Physics, his near eidetic movie quote memory, and his ability to break the sound barrier in his sneakers were among the more obvious of his skills. One thing that he didn't advertise as much during his bragging was his sense of smell. Long before the accident that had made him Kid Flash, he had been sensitive to smells. He was that kid who had to leave the classroom anytime someone threw up because the rancid interruption of food peristalsis and gastric acid was enough to make him hurl too.

The accident didn't just speed up his legs and metabolism, it heightened all of his senses. Not a crazy amount, he couldn't see through walls or perfectly hear a conversation taking place half a mile away or anything. But he stopped needing glasses, he could hear people whispering at the other end of a room, and he could identify who was around him by their smell.

Most of the people in his life had pretty straightforward smells. His mom was vanilla over a coconut oil base. His dad was car grease under the peppermint cologne his mom bought for him every Christmas. Uncle Barry was the musky cologne that was the "first thing to make Iris notice him" with a hint of fresh air and burned rubber. Wally knew he usually had a bit of that scent following him around too. The speedsters couldn't always be wearing the anti-erosion boots in their uniforms when they went for a run, after all. And Aunt Iris was blueberry pie over cherry blossoms.

His teammates were easily identifiable too. Superboy smelled like Old Spice Dragon Blast, Wally preferred the orange-y Wolf Thorn himself. He liked to smell like food, sue him. Dick smelled like whatever overly expensive cologne Bruce had handed down to him for the month and blue cotton candy. Wally wasn't sure how he knew that it was the blue cotton candy, but he just did. M'gann smelled like chocolate chip cookies and sunshine. Kaldur smelled like a fresh ocean breeze and sushi. Wally had told him about the latter when they first met only to receive a raised eyebrow from the Atlantean. Wally had stumbled over himself trying to explain that it was a compliment because he was talking about the really fancy sushi that gets made in front of you right before you eat it, but Robin had curled over with laughter and offered the speedster no help. Kaldur had eventually just given the flustered speedster's shoulder a sympathetic pat and moved on. That was the day Wally learned not to mention how people smelled. The newcomers were typical too. Artemis smelled like lavender over fireplace smoke. Hunter smelled like maple syrup and his Kid Flash-themed strawberry lemonade shampoo. Wally chuckled as he remembered the way Emmy's left eye twitched yesterday when her brother loudly proclaimed that he would only bathe with that shampoo from now on. It had been the first full sentence Hunter ever said out loud, (Wally had coached him for two hours after gifting him yet another bottle of the shampoo), and Emmy was clearly torn between pride for her brother and fury at the speedster. And Sage smelled like vaguely flowery propylene glycol from the kaleidoscope of Bath and Body works lotions and perfumes she had begged Emmy to let her get. There was some variability day-to-day, of course, but the scents of the people in his life were always easily recognizable. Except for, you guessed it, his greatest thorn-in-side teammate.

Emerald East was an enigma in more ways than one. Every time his nose thought it had her pegged, she'd change again. It had only gotten worse once she started going to his school because now it was possible for him to see her four or five different times a day. It had taken a while, but he thought he finally had her figured out. If she smelled like cucumber, then she just washed her face. If she smelled like mango body lotion, then she's fresh from the shower. If she smelled like grapefruit, it was from the tinted lip balm she wears. He missed the days before she started wearing it where the presence of light didn't send his eyes searching for the reflection on her lips. If she smelled like lemons and green tea, it was from a perfume far more subtle than the ones adored by her younger sister, and if she smelled like oranges it was from her deodorant. It did not escape his notice that they both preferred orange deodorant, but a lot of people like fruit so, whatever, not a big deal.

The one problem he was still having with Emmy was that he could not for the life of him figure out what her base scent was. As soon as the fruity smells faded away, he was left with a mystery smell that was as spicy as it was intriguing. It was alluring and dark and sexy (not that he would ever admit that) and made his head spin a little if she got too close to him. Was it bitter almond? Smoky vanilla? Jasmine? Jacaranda? All of the above? He had no idea. All he knew was that it was driving him crazy and he did not appreciate the nightmare of a girl smelling so damn good. He apologized for the way he iced her out during her first week of school when she helped him on the beach last Saturday. That meant he'd actually talked to her a few times during their shared classes this week, and he kept having to back away before he did something incredibly stupid and humiliating like sniff her.

It wasn't that he liked her or anything. Far from it. A 2004 Psychological Science article had confirmed that anyone who smells good and unique makes people more interested in them as an individual, so it wasn't any kind of emotional indicator that he paid attention to Emerald's perfume. It was just science. He was a butterfly, and she was a pollinated flower, nothing more nothing less. It just bothered him that he couldn't figure out exactly what her undercurrent scent was. He had firm descriptions for all his friends, his family members, and his teammates except for this infernal girl. He huffed to himself, eyes staring at but not really seeing the basketball game on the tv. She can't even make identifying her smell easy for him. Typical.

A waft of mango and something unnamed tickled his nose and Emerald was walking past him, wet hair wrapped up in the weird towel turban all girls do. He reminded himself to ask her if alien girls did that too or if it was just an Earth thing. Her skin was shining from lotion and post-shower water retention, and her high cheekbones glittered slightly in the tv's light.

"Hey, Wally," her voice was uncharacteristically relaxed, and she nodded casually at him with a small smile on her face.

He watched her open the fridge and cursed the neurons firing in his posterior piriform cortex that made him differentiate her elusive scent from the rest of the world. But then she asked if he wanted any peanut butter waffles and, in his dash to the kitchen, he forgot what he had been thinking about before she walked through the doorway.

Not to tattle on myself, but this is just a random one-shot I thought of when I was first outlining the story and thinking about Wally and Emmy. The specific date doesn't really matter, so if you want to pretend it fits somewhere else in the story timeline, go for it.

-TheDarkAbyss