Jay Garrick is proud of many things in his past. There's the war, of course. The Justice Society kept 'em flying when it looked like there was no hope left for the free world.
There's all those years of protecting Keystone city. From racketeers to superpowered villains, no threat had been too big or small to escape the Flash.
But some days, it felt like most of Jay's accomplishments were relegated to trophy cases - strictly property of the past. A certificate hangs in the JSA's old brownstone, thanking them for their contributions to WW2. A plaque commemorates the place he stopped Shade from engulfing Keystone City in eternal night. The Flash Museum has an entire wing dedicated to his adventures and accomplishments.
There are few things that exist in the here-and-now that Jay Garrick can take personal pride in, but one of those things was Barry Allen. Barry, with his bright eyes and infectious smile, who had vibrated himself into Earth 2 and turned the multiverse upside down.
There hadn't been much call for mystery men after the war. Between the armistice and the Red Scare, masked men had been forced underground or into retirement, and by the time the 60s rolled around, most of them had started to consider themselves outdated. Some of them, like Jay, had been mulling over the idea of coming out of retirement, but just needed a… spark to set them off again.
Barry had brought the whole lightning bolt.
He'd been overflowing with an exuberance and enthusiasm that Jay hadn't seen in a long time. When they joined forces to foil Shade, Thinker and Fiddler, the role of the Flash came to him as though he'd never left. When they reunited again to save the Justice Society from Vandal Savage, it became clear that Barry's enthusiasm was truly catching.
Jay had told a couple members of the Society, Carter and Al, about Barry after their first adventure together. They shook their heads and laughed, amused at Jay's transition to mere semi-retirement, and astonished at the existence of other worlds, full of heroes inspired by themselves.
They nodded placatingly, but Jay knew they were humoring him when he described the energy Barry carried in his footsteps, the righteous determination that colored his voice. There wasn't a trace of selfishness or ulterior motive in Barry Allen, and in the world of grey that had enveloped the world after the war, Jay could appreciate how rare that was.
He took an undue amount of pleasure when, after the incident with vandal Savage, Carter pulled him aside and admitted that Barry was everything Jay had built him up to be.
It was strange, the amount of personal pride he took in the man. He hadn't trained him, not really. When Barry had first arrived he was doing things with his speed that no one on Earth 2 had ever imagined. He hadn't watched him grow up, or choose the title, and most of Barry's life had been spent a vibrational plane away.
But Barry had still modeled himself after Jay, and, even if the costume was styled differently, Barry had chosen to wear the scarlet and the gold in Jay's honor. From the first day they met, Jay felt as though a missing piece of his life had snapped into place.
Every year he looked forward to the JSA/JLA team-up, and he kept a package of Barry's favorite tea squirreled away in the kitchen just-in-case there was to be an unexpected house call. The day Barry announced that he was bringing his wife to Earth 2 to meet him, Joan hadn't had any housework left to do for all his enthusiasm in ensuring everything was perfect.
She laughed, but she understood. For all their intentions, they never had really… gotten around to having kids. And for the universe to drop Barry into their laps, this incredible hero of a man who carried on Jay's legacy in a world he had never dreamed existed… it was almost too good to be true.
It was almost like the other shoe should have dropped long ago.
And yet he hadn't been concerned, not really. He supposed… he had assumed, naively, that Barry, young and energetic and alive and in love couldn't die before he did. That Jay, the older hero, would naturally die first, and the younger generations would move on.
He should have known better. There was nothing natural about what they did.
