8 year old Aiden Riley was happy. Why?

Because today would be the day his dad, Jack Riley, would return home from overseas and finally be with his family again. As a result, his mom, Tracey Riley, had asked him to look presentable. So here he was, standing in front of his mirror, trying to tame his black hair.

Aiden adjusted his pants, they were tight and he didn't want to think about why. He attempted to fix his raven hair and looked at himself in the mirror. Unsure blue eyes looked back at him and Aiden tried to think of ways to make himself look better. But after 10 minutes of staring at himself, he walked down the stairs into the family room and his mom gushed and kissed his cheek. They both set out to get the best dinner ready for his dad. All of his favorites were going to be made, no expense was going to be spared. Jack Riley would have the best welcome home ever.

Three hours later and Aiden's dad still hadn't come home yet. Aiden was sweating in his outfit and Tracey was more jittery than usual. She kept fretting over the smallest things like how much the distance between the knife and fork was, how the napkins were aligned on the table and constantly over how her chestnut hair looked.

Finally after three and a half hours of waiting a knock finally came at the door. Aiden rushed to the door from the kitchen but stopped short in the hallway when he heard his mom's voice.

"No…no John please."

"I'm sorry Tracey, Jack's gone." A voice said from the doorway. It snapped him out of his stupor and he made his way to the door. In the entryway was the most intimidating person Aiden had ever seen. He was very tall, dark-skinned and in full military uniform, with his hat placed in his arm.

"Where's Dad?" Both the man and Aiden's mom turned at the sound of his voice. Tracey's eyes were red with tears spilling down her cheeks and the man held a stoic posture, but was giving Aiden a curious look.

"You must be Aiden," the man said, still giving Aiden that curious look. "My name is John Diggle, I served with your father."

"Served?" Aiden asked. The man's look changed from one of curiosity to one of sadness.

"That's right Aiden, today your father and I were scheduled to come home from our tour. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but your father didn't make it."

13 year old Aiden Riley was a criminal. And guess what?

He didn't care one bit.

Over the last 5 years of his life everything he had ever known was dismantled. Aiden's mother Tracey had thrown herself into her new software job headfirst, using it as a coping mechanism to the point where there were times when Aiden honestly thought she didn't remember she still had a son.

As a result, Aiden needed something as well, an outlet. That came one day when he was 9 years old. Late one evening, he had found a coding manual on his mother's desk and decided to take a look through it. It piqued his interest and he began his foray into the world of computer science.

Aiden loved it.

He was, in his humble opinion, a genius at this sort of thing. He was coding things that people with university educations were doing, so much so that he became bored by doing mundane programs. So Aiden decided to try his hand at breaking and entering, the digital way.

His first attempt at this sort of thing worked for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was a hot summer day, in which every student at his elementary school was complaining about the lack of air conditioning idea. During last period he had an idea and propped open his laptop during his French class and began to furiously type away.

15 minutes later the school received an unexplainable malfunction to their fire safety system as every sprinkler in each classroom simultaneously began firing off jets of water. The result was complete and utter pandemonium, but in the best of ways.

Back in Aiden's French class, he looked around at his handiwork and admired the results. Every kid in the class was running around with large smiles on their faces, the shared happiness caused a smile to erupt on Aiden's face as well.

Secondly, it worked because it gave him a best friend.

"Was this you?" A voice sounded from behind him. Aiden turned and looked at what was quite possibly the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and a radiant smile on her face. "So what if it was?" Aiden asked, "Are you gonna tell the school?"

The girl snorted. "Hell no, you saved us from the hottest day of the year in spectacular fashion. I swear this French class was like Dante's circles of Hell."

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Aiden quipped and the most curious thing happened. She laughed, right then and there Aiden decided it was his favorite sound in the entire world. He held his right hand out.

"Aiden Riley."

"Christina Pearce."

6 months later, both Aiden and Christina, who he had discovered was a math prodigy, got letters of acceptance into Central City's most prestigious high school, Central City Collegiate. The school where wealthy businessmen sent their kids and where child prodigies gathered to challenge each other.

That was also the day Aiden sold his first digital battering ram to an anonymous person on the internet for a direct wire transfer of $565.

Eventually Aiden found himself with another friend, this one completely unexpected. His name was Liam Smith, the scion to the prominent Smith family in Central City. They were friends of circumstance, as Liam needed an escape from all the attention he was receiving and decided to hang around Aiden, who had gone into self-imposed social exile.

Christina on the other hand, flourished wonderfully at the prestigious school, becoming well-liked by both students and staff, the only seemingly 'weird' thing about her was that she was close friends with a guy who nobody else talked to. As a result, Aiden, Liam and Christina became very close friends, and all the while Aiden continued to commit cybercrimes in secret.

This continued on until Aiden was 16 years old, when his mother had an unexpected heart attack while he was at a café completing another digital deal with a not-so-upstanding-citizen. He was Tracey's emergency contact, but as with all of his other deals he had turned off his phone and was unreachable.

Later that night, in a fit of guilt, he destroyed all evidence of his involvement with the slimier side of the Internet, used the money from his digital escapades to pay for his mom's hospital bills, a new phone and laptop. Aiden resolved not to let another tragedy befall his mother due to her newfound heart condition, the doctors told him that any extreme stress might be fatal.

Something changed in Aiden and Tracey's relationship that day. She suddenly realized she had basically missed out on the last 8 years of her son's life. Tracey began to repair her damaged relationship with her son. It took a while and a lot of tears but Aiden had his mom back and Tracey had her son back.

Now, 18 year old Aiden Riley was nervous and happy and a million other emotions all at once.

Why?

Because today was his last exam as a high school student and in the fall he would be heading to Central City University for Computer Science. But first things first, he had to get his last exam out of the way. As usual, he got dressed and made his way to the kitchen for breakfast.

He arrived downstairs to his mom making some of his favourites, including her world class pancakes. The breakfast was a quiet one, with Aiden recalling facts he had been studying the night before while his mom watched him with an amused expression on her face. At first, Aiden tried to ignore it but after a few minutes his resolve waned and he finally turned to her.

"What?" he asked, fixing her with an attempt at a glare. She raised her eyebrows and gave Aiden an all-knowing look that all mothers seem to have. "Are you going to tell her today?"

Aiden dropped his head on the table and groaned loudly. He knew his mom was talking about Christina. Who, for the last two and a half years, was completely oblivious to how his feelings for her had started to change. Aiden had silently harbored these very obviously unrequited feelings and had all but resolved to let them fade into the aether, however, they just refused to go away. Thus, he was permanently locked into a cruel fate of watching guys at his school moon over her and try to get to her through him.

"You and I both know the answer to that," he spoke with his voice muffled by the table. "There's no way in hell she feels the same way and I'm not about to embarrass myself and ruin one of my longest friendships." His mom gave him an all-knowing look that infuriated him to no end. "How do you know she doesn't feel the same way?"

"She just doesn't," he said exasperated, "please just drop it?" His mom nodded and began to clean up the kitchen. 15 minutes later, Aiden and his mom were in the car on the way to school.

"You really should be working towards your licence," Tracey said, "It would make our lives a lot easier."

"Driving is overrated."

3 hours later Aiden walked out of school with his two friends Liam and Christina. High school was finally over, it was time to enjoy summer. Liam placed a hand on his shoulder, "It's finally over, ready to begin the rest of our lives?"

Aiden slung his arms over his two best friends and looked at Liam's green mischievous eyes, "I thought you'd never ask. How about a celebratory muffin from Jitters?" Both of his friends nodded.

At Jitters, the trio swapped some of their favourite stories from high school, laughing and reminiscing. Aiden wanted to capture this moment forever, the promise of new and exciting things in the future, while remembering all the good times from the past.

Naturally, it didn't last.

The TV that hung in Jitters blared out a warning alarm, something the news broadcasts had developed to catch the city's attention when a major threat, mostly of metahuman origin, was happening. The news anchor blipped onto the screen, "Attention all residents of Central City within the confines of Adams to Queen, and Johnson to King, The Flash is engaged in a battle with a large speedster in a metal suit. Emergency personnel implore you to evacuate immediately."

Aiden turned to look outside and saw a white and red blur pass by the Jitters.

"Oh you gotta be shitting me."