Jay instinctively kicked into Speed Mode as he fell through the air and the bright, vibrant colors of the world became muted. His descent halted and he hung upside down in the air. Looking around, he counted seven others falling off this side of the bridge, and who knows how many more on the other end. Next, he spun himself around so that his feet were pointed to the ground. If he let himself fall to the ground naturally, he would end up with only enough time to save the people on his side, and none to save anyone on the other, he estimated. That wouldn't cut it. His job was to save everyone, and he'd do just that, time be damned. He raised his arm into the air and began to spin it. Not so fast as he would if he were in combat, but fast enough so the vortex would push him to the ground.

Jay's body was toughened for travel at light speeds, so a short fall onto the ground caused him no great discomfort. As soon as his feet hit solid ground, he discarded his long coat, donned his helmet, and went under the bridge to check how many people were knocked off that side. He counted four, meaning he had eleven people to save. Child's play.

Backing up, he made a running leap to grab at two of the falling pedestrians and set them on the ground safely. Next, he ran up the side of the bridge and snagged the other two, once again set them down without a scratch. With that side cleared, he ran towards the more populated side of the bridge, where he was tasked with catching half a dozen people, who were still suspended in mid-air. Seeing they were too far out to reach from the wall, he slowed his mind down. The pedestrians fell through the air at an alarming rate before snapping back to a stop when they were reachable from the ground. He grabbed one by their collar and another around their waist, bringing them down and placing them safely on the ground. Jay repeated this process three more times until everyone was safely on the ground.

He normally stopped to talk, but there was a more pressing matter at hand. Running up the side of the bridge, he found a few frazzled but unhurt people topside before dashing off in pursuit of whatever had endangered them in the first place.

It wasn't too difficult to catch up to what had thrown him off the bridge. All Jay had to do was follow the trail of destruction left in its wake. Once he caught up, he realized it wasn't one large object, but many smaller ones, perhaps twenty or so. Men and women with what he reasoned must be speed Quirks. It looked like they were racing. He didn't particularly care about the unlawful use of powers. Jay didn't believe in that in the first place and was illegally using powers himself, but tearing up the street and endangering the lives of innocent citizens was where he drew the line.

Jay removed the helmet from his head, took aim, and let it loose. The helmet soared through the air and made contact with one of the racer's heads before ricocheting into another. As the marathoners tripped, Jay passed them by and used a trick Wally had shown him. He absorbed their kinetic energy, slowing their fall and adding their speed to his own, but not before scooping up his precious helmet.

Two down, eighteen to go.

A sprinter that was slightly behind one of his fallen brethren turned to see what had struck them but was met with only Jay's fist shattering his visor. Jay once again absorbed the speed and accelerated more.

Three down.

The remaining runners seemed to not have noticed the missing three and kept moving through the streets.

Jay next decided on something Clark had taught him. He clapped his hands. At human speeds, it wouldn't have even reached anyone's ears, but at Mach twenty, it created a sonic boom. Said sonic boom tore through another seven of the racers, who's speed Jay once again took for himself.

Ten left.

The sonic boom and loss of seven racers did not go unnoticed of course, the remaining ten racers looking back at the source of the noise. They saw Jay approaching, and a trio of racers slowed their speed to meet him.

They began to rain blows at superspeed, perhaps forty in a second between the three of them. It would have been hard for anyone else to keep up with, but Jay was the Flash. Each blow was expertly blocked at eye blurring speed, using techniques taught to him by Wildcat, Carter, Hippolyta, and the original Atom to name a few. After a few seconds, the trio stopped raining punches on him, and Jay felled them all with a single punch, once again absorbing the speed so they would not splatter.

Seven to go.

Jay finally pulled in front of the remaining sprinters and slid to a stop, eyeing down the lead racers before charging towards them himself.

He rammed through them all and sent them flying like bowling pins while stealing his last dose of speed.

Jay slid to a stop and looked back at the racers he had knocked down.

Six were out for the count, but one was struggling to his feet.

Jay marched over and grabbed the front of his jacket, bringing the man's helmet close to his face.

"Do you know how many people you almost killed?!" Jay roared.

Behind the race car helmet, the man's eyes widened, "What are you talking about?"

"Back at the bridge! If I hadn't been there, eleven people would have fallen to their deaths!" Jay shouted.

"I can explain!" the man said.

"Do it fast," Jay growled.

"I'm a hero! My name is Rush Hour and I just saw these people running around! I heard about these drag racers before and I was going to trip them all up once I made my way to the front!" He explained, panicked.

Jay's eyes narrowed, and he spotted Rush Hour going for his pocket. Jay lashed out and grabbed his wrist.

"Chill, man, I was going for my license!" Rush Hour protested.

Jay released Rush Hour's wrist and allowed him to pull his license out of his pocket, which he then offered to Jay.

Jay looked at the license he had no way of knowing was legitimate or not, and decided to give Rush Hour the benefit of the doubt.

Releasing the man's jacket, Jay put a step between them and then offered his hand.

"Sorry about that. Folks call me the Flash," Jay said with a friendly smile that for once, didn't quite reach his eyes.

"You're American? You got the accent," Rush Hour observed.

"Yep," Jay confirmed before suggesting, "Why don't you help me round these fellas up?

After parting ways with Jay and Carter, Alan staggered his way through the city, still feeling the effects of his power exhaustion, for once feeling almost as old as he actually was.

Walking past an electronics store, Alan saw a handful of televisions in the window playing an ad, displaying a smiling hero in a striped, blue suit along with a ridiculous hairdo.

"The Anniversary of All Might, #1 Hero, and Symbol of Peace is approaching! Find official All Might merchandise near you!"

Stopping to look closer, Alan squinted and could see the words "Paid for by the All Might Team" at the bottom of the screen. He grimaced. That was the entire problem with this world. The commercialization of superheroics. Superheroes get paid by the government for their work and then use their pay to have employees put together ads like this one to boost their popularity to sell merchandise, thus getting paid more.

This isn't how it's meant to be. Hero work and paying jobs are kept separate. That's how it is, how it's always been.

He wondered how many heroes even had secret identities here. Alan knew superhero appreciation was common, it should be. Brave men and women risked and lost their lives protecting the world from danger, but they're meant to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, not out of self-interest. The very idea of young men and women entering into a profession Alan helped to cultivate to help only themselves made him sick.

Alan sneered and continued to stagger down the street.

Alan only made it a few more feet before he felt his brow getting damp and his knees gave out.

On his way to the ground, a hand wrapped around his underarm to keep him upright.

Looking up, Alan saw a boy, perhaps middle school age, with red hair and a small scar above his eye.

"Woah, you okay mister?" the boy asked.

"I'll be okay, help me over there, son," Alan requested, pointing towards a bench a few yards away.

The boy nodded and wrapped Alan's arm around the back of his neck, doing the bulk of the walking to the coveted bench where Alan could rest his exhausted body. When they reached the bench, the boy gently sat Alan down and then sat next to him.

Alan wiped his brow and then turned to the boy.

"Thanks, son," he said, giving a small smile.

"You're welcome, sir," the boy said.

"You don't have to call me sir or anything. Name's Alan. Alan Scott," he said, extending his hand.

The boy shook his hand and introduced himself as well, "I'm Kirishima."

"Well, Kirishima, you saved me from quite the fall there."

"It wasn't anything special," Kirishima said.

"Maybe not to you. When a hero saves someone, it's another day in the life, but when someone gets saved, that's something really special to them. Something that will stay with them forever. A hero's job is just as much to inspire as it is to save, and there's no better way to inspire than to save," Alan rationalized.

"Have you ever been inspired, Alan?" Kirishima asked.

"All the time. By my friends, by my family, and by you," Alan said.

"Alan, I told you it wasn't anything special," Kirishima shrugged.

"Never say any act of kindness isn't special. It's something that's not common enough," Alan said with a sad smile.

As Alan finished speaking, Kirishima's phone buzzed in his pocket.

Pulling it out and looking at the message, Kirishima's eyes widened and he shot up.

Bowing down, Kirishima said, "I'm so sorry, sir! I have somewhere to be!"

"Don't sweat it, son, I'll sit here until I'm ready to go. If I need help I'm sure someone else with a heart just as kind as yours will turn up," Alan laughed.

"Goodbye, sir, I'm sure we'll see each other again someday!" Kirishima waved as he ran away.

"I told you to call me Alan!" he shouted after the boy.

Chuckling, Alan leaned against the back of the bench and rested for a few minutes before standing back up.

A gust of wind blew, and Carter's hand shot out. Wrapping his fist around a newspaper before it hit his face. He smoothed out the paper and briefly skimmed the contents before crumpling it into a ball and throwing it into a trash can. Nothing interesting. As he passed by an alley, Carter's superhuman hearing caught a faint sound. The familiar sound of knuckles against flesh, followed by a whimper and laughter. He paused and turned towards the alley before setting down the path. The sounds of violence got more intense as Carter journeyed through the innards of the city. Coming to a fork, Carter focused his hearing and determined that the fight was down the left path. Continuing, Carter's path came to an end when the pathway turned into an open area large enough to park a handful of cars.

Zeroing in on the fight, Carter was unsurprised to learn it was less of a fight and more of a beatdown. Two boys held another one down while a third whaled on him.

"C'mon, man, use your Quirk to fight back, save yourself! Oh, that's right! You don't have one!" the boy, who Carter assumed was the ringleader, taunted as his cronies laughed.

As the boy brought his arm back for another punch, Carter grabbed his wrist and tossed him across the clearing careful not to do too much damage to the lad.

The two cronies looked up at Carter before dropping the boy and jumping at Carter. One boy's fist drew earth from the ground in an eyeblink and the other had his fingernails extend into claws.

The older man put no effort into evading the attacks and spent some time maneuvering to a position he wanted. Picking up the lid off a trashcan, Carter used it as a shield and let the one boy's claws glance off of it before stepping to the side and heaving him into the trashcan headfirst, encasing the boy in darkness as he returned the lid to its rightful place and giving the trashcan a kick for good measure.

The ringleader recovered from the throw and charged Carter as his fingers extend a lot like Plastic Man's would. Ducking and rolling, Carter evaded the extended fingers and ended up at the head honcho's feet.

Shooting his leg out, Carter rotated and knocked his feet out from under him.

Standing and putting a foot on the boy's chest, the last one, realizing how hopelessly outclassed he was, ran to the trashcan to rescue his friend, who still seemed quite dizzy from Carter's kick before running off.

"Come back here, you cowards!" the boy under Carter's foot shouted as he attempted to pitch Carter from his perch. A minute or two of unsuccessful struggling later, Carter leaned down and said, "I don't want you or your gang picking on that boy any longer. If I hear about anything, I'll come back for you, you understand?"

The boy nodded, anger on his face, but smart enough to know he could not do anything. Lifting his foot, Carter watched as the boy scrambled away.

Turning his attention across the clearing to the assault victim, who laid in a ball, Carter approached and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"They're, uh, they're gone now, kid," Carter said, awkwardly trying to be comforting, which had always been more Jay or Alan's area of expertise.

"Go away," the muffled voice of the boy said into his pants.

"I just need to make sure you're alright," Carter said.

"I'm fine. Leave."

A part of Carter wanted to leave, knowing that he was not very good in this type of situation, but for some reason, he refused to move.

Sitting down next to the boy, Carter tried to make small talk, "You don't have a Quirk, huh?"

The boy didn't respond. Probably was a sore subject that Carter shouldn't have touched.

"What's your name?" Carter tried, deciding to restart with the basics.

"...Matsuda," the now identified boy responded.

"I'm Carter," he said.

"I've never heard a name like that before," Matsuda said.

"I'm American," Carter explained.

"Oh."

"How old are you?"

"Twelve."

"Are you okay?"

"Fine."

"I made sure those boys won't be messing with you again."

"Thanks."

Carter would never get the boy to open up at this rate.

"If you could have any Quirk at all, what would it be?" Carter asked, hoping to engage Matsuda.

Matsuda sighed and sat up, revealing a beaten and bloody face looking Carter straight in the eye before dragging his finger in a circle on the ground.

"Flight," Matsuda responded after a few seconds.

Carter smiled and said, "Yeah, flying is pretty great."

Carter was waiting a few seconds to see if Matsuda would say anything more when an idea struck him.

"What if I told you I could take you flying right now?" Carter asked.

Matsuda's eyes shot to Carter, a brief flicker of hope igniting before he looked down and said, "Don't patronize me."

"No patronizing here, Matsuda," Carter said standing up and retrieving his mask from inside the coat and then taking off the coat, handing it to Matsuda and saying, "Hold this for me?"

When Matsuda took the coat, Carter rolled his shoulders and pressed the medallion on his chest, wings springing out of the harness and extending fully.

Matsuda's eyes went wide and he looked at Carter in awe before finally asking, "You-you're a hero?"

Carter fit his mask over his head and extended a hand to Matsuda.

Matsuda carefully reached out and grasped Carter's hand.

Carter picked the boy up and carefully began to rise, before shooting into the sky.

Carter looked to Matsuda, whose eyes were filled with wonder, Carter imagined he looked something like that on his first flight.

"What's your hero name?" Matsuda asked, looking back at Carter.

"They call me Hawkman!" Carter shouted over the wind.

Carter and Matsuda flew for near an hour, until Carter asked, "Where's your home, son?"

Matsuda scanned the cityscape until his eyes caught sight of the street he lived on, and pointed down.
"So how do you wanna do this? Dive or float down?"
"Dive!" Matsuda shouted enthusiastically.

Carter smiled and took a steep decline down towards the street and at the moment it looked as if he would crash Carter pulled up and landed on his feet.

Setting Matsuda onto the ground, he handed Carter his coat back and ran towards his home, motioning Carter to follow.

Matsuda bound up the steps and rapidly rang the doorbell until his mother answered.

Upon seeing the state of her son's face, his mother gasped and gently rubbed her fingers over the wounds, to which Matsuda replied by waving her away.

"Did those boys hurt you again?" his mother asked.

"Yeah," Matsuda started, sounding down, before perking up and pointing at Carter, "And then Hawkman sent them running off and he flew me around!"

Finally taking her eyes off the boy, Matsuda's mother registered Carter's presence and a look of surprise crossing her face, no doubt shocked that a hero was standing at her door.

"You saved him?" His mother asked.

Carter nodded, "Those boys won't be bothering him anytime soon."

"Thank you, sir," Matsuda's mother said, bowing down to Carter.

Carter bowed as well, saying "It was my pleasure, ma'am."

"Hey, Hawkman! Wanna stay for dinner?" Matsuda asked.

Carter knew that he was meant to rendezvous with Jay and Alan at six, and it must have been quarter of, but he also knew that the boy was in desperate need of as many pick-me-ups as possible.

As his mother shushed him and started to apologize for Matsuda's abrasiveness, Carter said, "If your mother is okay with it, I don't see why not!"

Matsuda started begging his mother to let Carter stay for dinner, and she finally relented, apologizing to Carter and saying she was sure he had better things to do.

Carter waved her off and told her it was fine. A hearty meal later, Carter bid farewell to his young friend and flew back to the hotel, where he reunited with Alan and Jay, who were both relieved that he was safe and frustrated that he blew off the rendezvous.