Disclaimers and Useless/Useful Stuff to Know:
Don't own Justice League. Never will. WB and DC got dibs that I don't. Takes place around the first season of JLU, pre-The Return.

Originally, this chapter was going to be a flashback chapter. But as I kept writing it, it seemed way too boring, since I think the real kick that me as the writer and you as the audience gets is the dynamic duo-ness with Flash and Question. So you guys get to be kept in the dark for awhile longer until I figure out how to explain what the hell is up. Have fun with this instead! Cheers.


Onions and Cakes

by Alba Aulbath


While it wasn't a long run to the docks, it was still a bit irritating to have to carry the Question everywhere. He couldn't have a jetpack, or be genetically infused with hummingbird DNA or something - no, the Question had to be a human being with a faceless mask and just be sortakindaCRAZY, in the Flash's own words.

Regardless, the Flash let the paranoid detective settle to his feet before zipping over to one of the old-and-slightly-rotting buildings, checking into his comlink with Wonder Woman, "Signal still there, right?"

"Yes, he's in there-"

Diana was probably saying something else that was relatively important, but it didn't seem to take as much of the Flash's attention as the roof of the building tearing off did; not too many flying debris smacked him, at least, since the Question reacted calmly enough to yank the red-suited hero back. Flash was fast, but he had been briefly surprised. Arising from the remains was a hovercraft, taking off into the air.

"Uh," the Flash pointed out.

"J'onn's signal just disappeared," Diana told them, cursing softly to herself. Something in Greek, probably; Flash didn't quite catch it.

The Question glanced over his shoulder, watching the hovercraft. "Going in the direction of Metropolis," he murmured. "Come on, Speedy." He started to head into the building, what remained of it.

"Call ya back, Princess," the Flash assured the Amazon over the comlink before racing after the Question. "The heck are you looking for? The craft went thataway." He pointed for reference.

Nodding, the detective knelt down and shoved aside some debris. "Yes, but we know the general direction it's going. We need to know what they want to leave behind." He found himself a trapdoor, and kicked it in; there were stairs, leading to a basement. The Question started down the staircase, musing to himself as he eyed at the walls. "Lined with lead."

No comments were required; it was evident that if Superman or Supergirl had the time to help, they wouldn't have been able to use one of their thousands of visions to find J'onn. They went down the stairs, finding themselves in a lab of a reasonable size. There was an examination table, but it was currently empty.

And on the floor was Dr. Pierce Tan, unconscious and with a gunshot to the abdomen. Alive, but bleeding profusely.

"Pierce!" Flash zipped over to the fallen scientist, kneeling down beside him. "Where the heck is J'onn?"

"Aircraft," the Question muttered. He paused, observing the lab while the Flash took care of Pierce. The detective explored the area. "Notes on the Martian. Celluar memory - extended explanations of the Replicant... ...hmm, what's this..." He picked up some notes, then stopped. Pocketing what he had discovered, he brushed away papers and noticed a device sitting on the counter.

Quickly turning to the Fastest Man, the Question told him sharply, "Get us out of here, Speedy!"

Without another word, the Flash took Pierce over his shoulder and hurried to grab the Question; with both men, he raced out of the building, making it several feet away before the entire thing erupted into an explosion. Turning around, the Flash stopped running and narrowed his eyes.

"Lemme guess: didn't wanna leave a trail," the Flash remarked.

"I have something of their's," the Question told him, in some form of assurance. "Drop Dr. Tan off at Iris's; she'll take him to the hospital and handle everything else in between. We need to focus on grabbing the Martian and making sure the Replicant doesn't go online - if it hasn't already."

The Flash had a sour expression on his face. He didn't want to just drop off Pierce, but he was in no position to argue. If there was something to accept, it was that even if he was a bit nutty the Question was sharp and knew precisely what ought to be done. Similar to Batman in a way.

"Back in a sec," the Flash conceded, carefully taking Pierce into his arms and dashing away.


He was faintly awake, and only aware that Pierce was no longer there. J'onn was incapable of sensing him, but knew there were several other people surrounding him. Wherever he was, he knew there was Heat Wave down at some part of wherever he was, and Firefly at the other end. A few other people his mind grazed over briefly, but then... he was positive that Dr. Milo was nearby.

Opening his eyes, he knew for sure he was in a completely different environment. An engine running, the sounds of flight - he was in a vehicle of some form, though he couldn't tell much beyond that. Turning his head, he found himself startled to see a humanoid creature - asleep, apparently - behind a containment glass with containers of some kind of chemical at either side of it. Its eyes were closed, but in appearance, it appeared to have a throbbing dark energy core in the middle of its chest, fiery orange energy rushing through its body.

"Pretty amazing, isn't it? I can't really take the credit, though." Dr. Milo had noticed the Martian was awake, and was allowing himself to smirk darkly at him. "The Replicant was Pierce's idea. He had a lot of interesting things in his lab. I can tell you, we're going to make great use of it, alien."

J'onn narrowed his eyes. The last he remembered... yes, he read Pierce's mind and had come to understand what happened to the young scientist and why it happened. Why he was involved, so unwillingly. Pierce had repaired the tracer in his comlink to silently let the League know of his location.

But Dr. Milo had come down and taken care of both Pierce and his comlink.

"Pierce," J'onn muttered softly, but he still silently demanded to know his location.

Milo shrugged, "Up in smoke, I'm hoping." He grinned. "I wouldn't worry, if I were you. You've got bigger concerns when we get to Metropolis."

J'onn winced and closed his eyes. That was supposedly his fate, but he didn't so easily believe that was the end of him.

After all, he started to sense someone quickly approaching from below.

Frowning, he attempted to reach out mentally. (...Wally?)

(Rightnowisareallybadtimetotalk! Glad you're okay gotta go be right there!)

Definitely Wally.

J'onn took comfort that he would be all right... soon, hopefully. He opened his eyes and could only wait, regaining his strength.


"Do you know how ridiculous we look?" the Flash grumbled as he ran along to catch up with the hovercraft; the Question had his arms around the red-suited hero's neck, being that he was still his only lift.

"Less chat, more run; complain to Batman later about it. He has the funds." Flash was quite sure he traced some form of a grumble in the Question's tone.

Dashing up the side of a tower, the Flash sprung off of the edge of the roof of the building, latching onto the edge of the hovercraft - barely. He grunted, agitated, "Don't you... have some kinda... grappling hooks or whatever!"

"When I have a utility belt and wear spandex, you can complain." The Question managed to climb over Flash and onto the top of the craft without making the speedster's grip slip or make it difficult on the shifting of weigh. The detective knelt down, taking Flash's wrist and helping him to his feet.

Staying atop the hovercraft wasn't an easy feat; the Question, in spite of his good balance, stumbled. He gestured sharply, shouting to the Fastest Man, "Find a door or make one!"

"Keep yer hat on, I'm working on it!" The Flash edged his way down the aircraft before slamming the heel of his boot down atop a latch, caving it in. He waved the Question over quickly, then reached out to help him down the hatch before hopping down after him.

Immediately, they were greeted by Heat Wave, who was waiting at the doorway. He smirked and held out the hand of his suit, "This just keeps getting better, doesn't it?"

"Yer tellin' me," the Flash grumbled, glancing to the Question. "You grab J'onn, I'll take this loser."

"What do you expect me to do, fly down?" the Question asked a bit darkly.

The Flash considered, then placed his hand to the detective's shoulder a bit overdramatically, "You're the smart one, you'll figure it out."

Then he quickly moved, punching Heat Wave into the next room over where they began their battle, speed and flames going around in the room. The Question muttered, "Don't get too fried, Speedy." He stood up and went into the other direction.

The room was hardly sparse; to the east side of the wall, the Question saw that the Replicant was set up behind a containment glass with several containers of chemicals set up around it. One the table, he quickly noticed J'onn in his natural Martian form, apparently too weak to stand. The detective recognized Dr. Milo, who quickly became alert of the Question's prescence and turned, fleeing to the front of the hovercraft. Firefly approached from his stance, holding up his flamethrower.

"Nice of you to drop by." Firefly's voice was smugly spoken as he stepped forward to face off with the detective. "But it's time for you to burn."

Flamethrower lifted up and pointing, he pulled the trigger and ignited a stream of fire at the Question; the faceless man ducked down quickly, rolling under the flames. The detective kicked up his heel at Firefly, knocking the flamethrower out of his hand and temporarily disarming him. Question got to his feet swiftly, in time to be rammed in the abdomen by the pyromaniac once he activated his jet, feeling his back slam roughly against the wall.

Though he felt Firefly grab onto his neck - with the intention of strangling him, no doubt - the Question noticed the Martian out of the corner of his eye. J'onn opened his glowing yellow eyes, sitting up quickly with a look of determination. Eyes flaring, he appeared to do a sort of mental attack onto Firefly, since the pyromaniac suddenly howled in pain, reeling back and releasing the Question.

Dropping to the floor onto his feet, the detective turned and quickly approached the psychic. "Able to fly?"

J'onn paled and his eyes dimmed. "No," he whispered.

"Terrific." The Question turned his head sharply, watching Firefly rise to his feet after picking up his flamethrower.

Then, the containment glass that held the Replicant slid open, its eyes opening with a strong white glow. It took a step forward, grabbing onto the Firefly's jetpack and lifting up the pyromaniac, who let out a cry of surprise. The Replicant reached around, taking the flamethrower, and simply paused for a moment before dropping both Firefly and the weapon.

Finding it easier to speak with telepathy rather than with a voice, J'onn 'spoke' to the Question. (What is that?)

"The Replicant. Long story, tell you all about it later, and now we should go." Question placed J'onn's arm around his shoulders quickly.

(Where is the Flash?) J'onn's eyes narrowed a bit. (He is here...)

"Busy," the Question told him.

Which was one way to put it; Heat Wave was suddenly thrown into the room, slamming against Firefly and landing atop the other pyromaniac. The Flash was at the doorway, his arm burned a bit. "J'onn, hey! Are you all right?"

(I am fine. It would be best if we leave, though.)

The Replicant turned and stepped over the bodies of both pyromaniacs, holding up its hands; at its palms, there were openings, and fire began to ignite. There was an annoyed grunt from the Question as he pulled J'onn from the table and ducked behind it; the Flash quickly moved aside as flames filled the space where they had just been.

"I'll take care of the Replicant; get J'onn outta here!" the Flash shouted to the detective, then raced up to the Replicant, landing a solid punch to its face.

The creation made no noise as it was hit and stumbled back, but it turned and backhanded the Flash against the containers of chemicals; one broke open, spilling something black onto the Flash's suit. Though, the Fastest Man hardly paused and started to return blows at a blinding speed; the Replicant, in turn, took hold of Flash by the shoulders and activated the jets on its back that it copied from Firefly, ramming through the roof and taking Flash with it.

(Wally...!) J'onn attempted to stand up on his own, but failed. The Question shook his head and helped the Martian walk.

"Speedy will be fine. Let's find a way out of here," the faceless man told him.

"Leaving so soon, aren't we?"

Turning his head, the Question spotted Volcana walking out of a sliding door, where Dr. Milo had run off to. She folded her arms, grinning. "Don't be shy; I'm dying to spend some quality time with you boys."


In the air, the Replicant kept its jets activated while the Flash continued to send blows against it in highspeed - though it appeared to be not doing too much damage to the Replicant. The creation tilted its head and held up its hand, preparing its flames to ignite against Flash.

His eyes went wide in a very 'oh crap' expression, then he narrowed them in determination. "Sorry, but I'm not gonna be Kentucky Fried," he muttered. The Fastest Man knew when to think on his feet - or off, at the moment - and reached around the Replicant, slamming his fist against its jets. How organic or how mechanical this thing was, he wasn't sure. Lucky him, he just found out, as they quickly began to plummet towards the city below.

The Flash planted a foot against the Replicant, kicking him away before he slammed his forearm against its head. The Replicant grabbed for the red-suited hero's wrist, reaching out and grabbing onto his chin; its white eyes dimmed, seeming to calculate.

For reasons the Flash wasn't sure he could explain, he thought of random memories - like the time he'd first met Barry, or the time he had that charity race with Superman - and twisted out of the Replicant's grip, staring at it.

"Wally West," it droned to him.

Recalling the Replicant's original design, this was exactly what it had meant to do, or meant to be; it read some of his information through skin contact. The Flash narrowed his eyes and raised his other fist, planting another blow across the Replicant's face.

As they started to get closer to the streets, the Replicant's jets attempted to activate itself, and the pair twisted in the air as they did battle until they crashed through a window of a building that the Flash didn't bother to recognize; he and the Replicant slammed against the floor, and the Flash went tumbling for a moment.

Hearing people cry out in surprise and quickly begin to scatter definitely insinuated this was a building with civilians in it. The Flash groaned and started to his hands and knees until he felt the Replicant slam a firm and possibly metallic foot into his back, causing him to make good friends with the floor once again. Gritting his teeth, the Flash placed on hand against the floor to brace himself, the other swinging around and grabbing the Replicant by the ankle; he threw it off of him and against the floor. Getting to his feet in a matter of a second, the Fastest Man ran up to the Replicant, landing a swift kick into its side and causing it to crash out the window.

The Flash ran up to the broken window, watching the Replicant land roughly into a construction area below - where there were likely several tools it could copy.

"Brilliant, Flash," the red-suited hero groaned to himself before zipping out the window to catch up with the creation.

The young hero dashed across the street and to the construction site, finding the Replicant rising to its feet, holding a drill in one hand and a jackhammer in the other. Turning its head, the Replicant eyed at the Flash, dropping the tools in its hands before turning sharply, holding out its hand and igniting a stream of flames at the hero. The Flash dodged out of the way and ran up at the Replicant, preparing to land another solid blow to the creation; however, it seemed to have expected it.

The silent creation ducked out of the way before slamming its shoulder into the Flash's chest. The Replicant caused him to hit his back against a beam of the construction site, and moved swiftly to plant its hand against his throat to pin him against it.

The Replicant held up the other hand, and it morphed into a larger version of the drill it absorbed, and attempted to stab it into the Flash's head; the red-suited hero grabbed onto the Replicant's arm in time, grunting in strain as he tried to prevent it from drilling out his face.

Gritting his teeth, the Flash kicked up one leg at the arm with the drill, so that it was pointing above his head, and quickly released the Replicant; it drilled right into the beam, getting is arm stuck. Letting of the Flash, the Replicant attempted to yank its arm out - and eventually succeeded, twisting the beam away from the construction, striking the Flash in the midsection with it, letting the beam land onto the ground on top of him.

The Replicant turned and formed the other hand into the jackhammer, but stopped when the construction beams began to tremble and collapse towards both creation and hero.

The Flash cursed something under his breath, managing to shove the beam off of his abdomen. It was likely his ribs were either broken or bruised - he was incapable of telling at the time - and he quickly dashed out of the area as the beams collapsed atop the Replicant.

Flash skidded to a stop, turning around and looking at the collapsed area. He let out a sigh as he heard police sirens in the distance. Good; he had to catch up with the aircraft.

So he turned and prepared to go find it.


As soon as Volcana had shown herself, the Question had made sure to push J'onn behind the table in order to keep him out of the way - which was luckily just in time, as Volcana created a ball of flames and threw it at the detective. The Question ducked out of the way, but the fireball just managed to ignite a tabletop full of papers.

"What're we going to do?" Volcana inquired, her tone mocking. "I throw some fire, you keep dodging out of the way? Not a very fun game now, is it?"

Question was a little more practical than deciding to converse during a battle; he moved from his spot, circling around Volcana and closing in. While she was one of several superempowered rogues, the Question was simply a human - believe it or not.

A human with martial arts training.

The detective spun around, delivering her a quick and powerful roundhouse kick. It knocked the pyrokinetic away faintly, causing her to stumble. Volcana made a fast recovery, turning and heating up her hands to form a low flame; she struck out at the Question, who ducked out of the way. Volcana ended up burning into the wall behind the detective instead, and said detective attempted to land another sharp kick at her. The fiery woman dodged away, and turned herself so she grabbed onto the Question's shoulders with her burning hands.

There was a quick holler from Question, though he bit off any sound of pain abruptly. Volcana smirked at him. "That is so cute, pretending to be such a big man."

The flames at her hands immediately grew, bursting out and sending the Question across the room; he made impact with the wall and slid down to meet the floor. For a moment, he seemed to go limp - unconsciousness was merely a guess, considering his faceless mask.

That seemed to be satisfactory enough for Volcana; she turned and approached J'onn, who had been sitting against the table. Lifting his head, the Martian met his gaze with the fiery woman, holding almost an inclination of fear in his glowing yellow eyes. She grinned, speaking mockingly, "Aww, don't worry. I'll fry 'im with you when I'm done."

Volcana then felt a blow to her head from a foot. She stumbled away, turning sharply to see the Question. Preparing another fireball, he held up his own weapon:

A fire extinguisher.

Triggering it, Volcana let out a scream of fury when she was covered with the foam; though that didn't seem to be the Question's only intentions. He swung the fire extinguisher, landing another and final blow to her head before she fell unconscious.

Wordlessly, the detective tossed aside the extinguisher and stepped around the table, looking down at the psychic. "All right?" the Question asked, standing as if his chest hadn't been atrociously burned.

"More than you at the moment," J'onn commented quietly.

Question shrugged, as if it hadn't matter and as if shrugging didn't hurt. "How far off is Flash?"

"He is coming." J'onn paused, narrowing his eyes. Then, the aircraft shook and suddenly shifted its weight, as if it was taking a dive. The Martian scowled. "Dr. Milo..."

Not even waiting for J'onn to finish, the Question hurried to the door where Dr. Milo had fled to, where no doubt the pilots were at. Pressing the sliding door open, he stopped when he saw nothing but the outside, wind whipping at his face. Looking up, he saw the front part of the hovercraft flying away without them. Then the rest of the craft was falling quickly down to the city below without either a pilot or an engine to help its flight.

"Perfect," the Question muttered.


When the Replicant was taken care of significantly - Jerry and others from the lab came to help temporarily shut it down since they weren't sure how to do it permenantally - finding the hovercraft hadn't been so difficult. The Flash found it quickly enough, and began to concentrate on looking for a tall enough building to leap from and catch onto the craft for a second time.

Only, this plan was put on hold when he saw the front of the aircraft suddenly unlatch from the rest of it and begin to fly off.

"Speedy, we could use a bit of help here," the Question grumbled into his comlink.

"Yeah, I noticed that - what about the part that flew off?" the Flash wondered, frowning.

"Forget about it. We got three unconscious pyromaniacs here, the Martian can't fly, and I'm ... having a bit of a hard time moving much to even think about carrying everyone and chancing a jump."

The Flash continued to dash after the falling hovercraft, thinking to himself. "Yeah, okay. I'll figure it out. Flash, out." He turned off his comlink and picked up his speed, hurrying himself until he was ahead of the diving craft.

It was definitely dangerous, doing this in the street like this; even the Fastest Man Alive would get knocked around from a car crash if he couldn't avoid it. Regardless, he turned around so he was running backwards. Lifting up his arms, the Flash started to twirl them at highspeed, enough so that gusts of wind was formed and a small typhoon surrounded that hovercraft. It began its descent to the street much slower, though its speed still suggested it wouldn't be an easy landing.

The aircraft slammed into the street, skidding and throwing sparks. Cars slammed their brakes and twirled in the street, attempting to avoid a collision. The Flash attempted the best he could, still whirrling his arms until the aircraft stopped.

Eventually, it did, and Flash let out a breath of air. That'd been close. He raced over to the aircraft and hopped inside from one of the couple of holes that were made into it already. Question was in a corner of the hovercraft, helping J'onn to his feet; the detective had visible burns on his body, though seemed to be currently ignoring them. Approaching quickly, the Flash held out his arms.

"I'll take J'onn," he offered. "You all right, Question?"

"Had worse," the Question replied stiffly, but didn't hesitate to pass on the Martian. He pressed his comlink. "Wonder Woman, we got the Martian. Might want to send down a Javelin. We're not exactly in top shape, any of us." As soon as the message had gotten through, he turned to the Flash, who was supporting J'onn's weight. "What happened to the Replicant?"

"I kicked its butt," the Flash replied smugly. "Jerry's got the rest handled." Question replied with a noise of either confirmation or 'by the way these burns really sting'; the speedster could not tell.

"I'll round up these three. Go ahead and head outside; a Javelin should be swinging by."

The Flash glanced at the detective, then nodded. "Don't be a moron and push yourself." The Question merely made a noise that somehow managed to scoff at him. Quickly, the speedster helped J'onn outside, ducking behind the craft from the civilians.

"You doing better?" the Flash asked the Martian, in which J'onn smiled wryly.

(I might be asking that of you, Wally.)

"Yeah, well." Flash shrugged. "I'm okay, I guess."

There was a pause before J'onn spoke further. (If you do not mind... I would like to talk with you later.)

The Flash tilted his head, then grinned. "Sure. Cool with me."

(I am glad. ... There is much to say.)

Honestly, Flash would have liked to have asked what he had in mind, but he remained silent and just nodded.

Glancing up, the Flash waited for a sight of the Javelin.


Predictably to be continued.


Next chapter: J'onn and Wally talk, and unfortunately the Question eavesdrops. There are conclusions, questions, and loose threads. The Question realizes there is something to be concerned with, even with the Replicant taken care of.

Notes:

Again, I would have done a flashback. But it was sucking and boring and you bloodthirsty fellahs probably would have liked the action sequences here. Which were difficult to write, 'cuz things sound cool to me in my head but probably don't have the same impact in text. Regardless, things will be pretty much cleared up in the next chapter, where the Flash and J'onn finally have a chance to talk. Hoohoohoo.

To my loving audience:

Red Tigress: Kyle's an awesome G.L., and I'm hoping to make many references to the Lanterns. Another one will be mentioned in the next chapter. START MAKING GUESSES.

Tomboy13: The Question can be quite stalkerish. I'm probably going to elaborate on this later in the story series I have in mind. I have a sequel in store for 'Onions and Cakes', after all. The Question will be explored... but so will the Flash, because hell, he's too cute to just ignore.

Dacker Spaniel: More given! returns cup And more will still be given. I think we've got a chapter left of 'Onions and Cakes' until I work on its sequel that I have in store. Hopefully, you will enjoy that as well. It won't be too much of a mystery story as this has been unraveling to be, but it should be enjoyable all the same. I hope.

JenniferJ: No worries, J'onn's been saved. ...You know, for now. Really now, are any of the League safe? cackle

HawkAngel XD: Thank you thank you!

Keep up with the reviews! OH HOW I LOVE THEM SO.