A week was exactly what Wally needed.

While his parents more or less left him alone in his room to rest, Wally found he had more than enough time to test himself, to see what he could do – what his potential was. It also gave him the time to discover that his speed augmented everything in his body.

His heart beat at a rapid speed, which for the first few days, had Wally feeling lightheaded and high strung. This meant the blood pumping through his system did so quickly and turned him into a walking, talking furnace with the amount of heat he was capable of producing. His metabolism was now the bane of his existence, for there was not a moment that went by that didn't have him wondering what there was to eat.

He found that ignoring his perpetual hunger was dangerous, for he became sluggish and tired to the extent where just standing upright took more energy than he had to spend.

His heartbeat problem took a little more time to work out, and when it had been combined with gnawing hunger the experience had been extremely unpleasant. Eventually, he forced himself to lie still and focus on his breathing – to listen to his heartbeat and pay careful attention to the pace. With enough patience and focus, he found he could alter the speed at which his heart would beat.

It would take practice, but he was sure he could work out how to make his body maintain a somewhat normal pulse when he needed it to. Plus, in the event he had troubles working out how to do that and maintain it, he could always ask Barry for help. Barry had been through it all, he knew the ropes and knew how to handle living a normal life as a speedster.

As the end of the week approached and with still no word from Barry, Wally had decided to give one of the Flash's famous techniques a shot.

Often on news reports and on the rare in-person occasion, Wally would watch the Flash run right through a wall without breaking it down, his speed unaffected. Over time and after thinking it through scientifically, Wally had concluded that the man was vibrating his molecules at a pace that matched the molecules of the subject, allowing him to pass right through it.

It was Flash's speed that allowed him to do that, but now, Wally had that speed. Did that mean he could do it too? He was eager to find out.

He had started with the most basic aspect of the technique – by getting his molecules to vibrate at all. He sat himself in the middle of his room and focus hard on his hand. He didn't know what he was supposed to do to get his molecules to move, he just knew that in order to go through things, they would have to.

Wally was beginning to feel like a fool after an hour or so, aware that he must have looked crazy staring so intently at his hand for so long.

Then finally, after staring at his hand for an impossible amount of time and trying to envision the entirety of his speed concentrated there, his hand began to blur before his eyes. It was such a slight change that he was sure he wouldn't have been able to see were it not for the speed his brain could now process information.

"Hah!"

As soon as Wally realized he was doing it, the vibrations promptly stopped.

For days Wally put all his effort into recreating that small accomplishment, finding it to be near impossible on his own. Despite having acheived some form of success, he still didn't really know how he'd done it. Learning that trick would be far easier with help, so Wally had decided to put the vibrating idea to rest for a while, content with the progress he had made in such short time. But then again, as a speedster, Wally noticed that time was something he had a lot of. Everything he did normally, he now did faster, so time seemed to go slower. As for the vibrating, he would have to ask Barry for some pointers.

The fact that he could go to Barry for help now made the boy smile pleasantly, feeling as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his chest.

When Wally woke up to the weekend, he began to worry that Barry was not planning on calling – that he'd changed his mind about taking an apprentice. The West house had gotten calls all week, but none of them had been for the boy who was so desperately awaiting one. If his uncle had changed his mind, Wally wasn't sure what he would do. Could he keep his Kid Flash mantle? Who would he go to for help with his powers? There was always Jay, but would he react in the same way Barry did?

If nothing else, he was grateful for his timing. With spring break officially here, he had two weeks to work on refining his abilities. Hopefully, he could head back to school after break with a better understanding of his powers.

These thoughts were heavy on the boy's mind as he stumbled down the stairs Saturday morning, unsure where to start. He'd been so distracted that he almost didn't notice his uncle seated at the kitchen table.

"Pack your stuff, Kid," Barry said with a smile at his nephew's amazement. "You're spending spring break with us."

The smile that lit up the boy's face was infectious and Barry couldn't help but to notice how fitting it was that Wally was back downstairs with a suitcase in a flash.

"Well, you're having the opposite problem I had."

Barry helped his apprentice to his feet with a lighthearted chuckle. The youngster grumbled and brushed himself off, having gotten a face full of debris and dust when the sheet of plywood had exploded in front of him.

It was the third time Wally had tried to put only his arm through the wood, and the third time his subject had exploded violently and sent him skidding back. Barry seemed to find it amusing, while his nephew was getting more and more frustrated.

"Not as easy as it looks, is it?"

"Why can't I get it to stop...you know...blowing up? I'm getting real sick of hitting the dirt here."

"When I first tried the idea of vibrating through something, I couldn't get my molecules moving fast enough. You on the other hand, expel too much speed – you increase the velocity of the molecules around you and bam, explosion."

"Okay," said Wally, "how do I avoid "bam, explosion?""

His uncle replied without missing a beat

"Practice."

The boy gave a dry laugh.

"Of course."

'Practice' was what Wally had been doing every day of the week since arriving at the Allens' home. Some days, Barry would give him some exercises he could do on his own – like time how long it took him to get to a specified location and back, or a speedster workout routine that involved a lot of cardio and just as much muscle building.

Other days, Barry would take Wally out to a quiet location to work on some more advanced techniques, like regulating his heartbeat and body temperature, explaining some of the natural abilities of a speedster – such as the science behind why they didn't burn up from friction when running – and at Wally's request, how to move his molecules fast enough to vibrate through solid objects.

"You're making good progress, though. If anything, you've got a pretty reliable way to make a bomb."

At that, Wally grinned. He could only imagine what kinds of explosions he could produce if he tried this trick on a larger, more solid object. He would have to be careful with what sort of materials he practised on.

"But you've probably blown yourself up enough for one day. Why don't we go for a quick lap of the world and head home?"

'A quick lap of the world' had become a daily routine, meant to help familiarize Wally with his speed. For the past eight days, his only task had been to keep up with Barry. Now he was ready for a challenge.

"Make it a race and you're on."

Barry pulled his cowl over his head and the Flash laughed, propping his fists on his hips in a familiar display of confidence.

"Getting a little overconfident, Kid?"

Wally pulled his own mask down over his face with a grin.

"Confident? Yes. Over? Definitely not."

As the two red-and-yellow clad speedsters stood side by side, Kid Flash took a moment to position his goggles over his eyes. He looked up to the white lenses of his mentor's mask and braced himself to run. After a unified nod, the pair were gone, leaving the abandoned construction site that had been the location of their training behind.

Unsurprisingly, Flash won. But this time, his younger counterpart had managed to pass his mentor for a minute or so just as they were crossing the Pacific.

Two weeks at his aunt and uncle's had not only been a therapeutic and welcome break from his 'normal' life, but his daily sessions with Barry had given him a firm handle on his speed. On his very last day, he had been clocked going at least fifty times the speed of sound. While his mentor told him to always aim for light speed, he insisted that in such a short amount of time, breaking the sound barrier so finitely was no small accomplishment.

Out of curiosity, Wally had asked if Barry knew how much faster light was than sound was.

"Oh, I don't remember the exact number," he had said, "but it's somewhere around eighty-five hundred thousand times."

Wally had laughed, though had been unable to explain why. Maybe it was because that meant he would have to go eighty-four hundred thousand, nine-hundred and fifty times faster to be even close to light speed.

However, despite the eventful month, Wally hadn't forgotten Dick's request and he still intended to follow through with the meeting. He'd also respected Richard's wishes and kept the planned meet a secret from absolutely everyone, he hadn't even told Barry, though part of him really did want to.

But no, Dick trusted him. He wasn't about to betray that trust.

On the night of the meet, Wally waited until just after his parents had gone to bed. The meet time was still an hour or so away, but he still had to get to Gotham and find the dock warehouse they were supposed to meet in. He climbed out of his bedroom window in his Kid Flash uniform and took off towards the infamous city, his mind just as busy as his feet.

Thanks to the science of Barry's rings, Wally could whisk in and out of his Kid Flash costume in the blink of an eye. This meant he not only had his uniform, but a set of "civvies" as well.

He wasn't sure what he was going to tell Dick yet.

Furthermore, he didn't know what was so secretive and important to Dick the he felt he had to arrange such a discreet rendezvous. But the look on his young friend's face had been serious. This was no childish play date like those they used to have when they were younger.

But was this meeting also the meeting that would see him sharing his new found secret with the boy? Barry had told him that it was important to keep your hero identity and your own identity separate and safe, so that the enemies you make as a hero couldn't harm the ones you love out of the costume. But this was Dick, his best buddy and practically a brother. Could he even keep a secret from him?

Kid Flash tore through Gotham towards the docks, his mind still buzzing with conflicting thoughts.

"To tell or not to tell," chuckled Kid, "that is the question."

By the time he reached the harbour side warehouses, the ginger had decided to show up in his costume and go from there, subliminally aware that this would likely mean revealing himself, but he wasn't all that opposed to the idea. Sharing this secret would be a good way to solidify their friendship – to make it stronger with something important shared between them.

He had no idea that Dick was thinking the exact same thing.

Forcing himself to slow, the boy walked into warehouse five. He wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting to find, but the place vast and filled only with a few crates scattered here and there. The only light in the building was the light that flooded in through the open door – a mixture of street and moonlight.

He was instantly wary of who or what could be lingering around in the dark in a city with such a reputation as Gotham. He made sure his footfalls were light and refrained from calling out into the silence.

Wally stood still in the middle of the room, trying to make out shapes in the shadows. He could hear his own heart hammering away in his chest, but nothing else. It was eerily quiet, and this combined with the creepy atmosphere of the warehouse and the rumours circling the city's more unstable residents put Kid Flash on edge.

That was when the boy heard a creak in the rafters above.

"Hello?"

The word escaped him before he could think through the repercussions of talking out – of giving away his location. It had been a reflex, just as flinching at the sound had been. Shrugging this error off, he took solace in the fact that next to his uncle and perhaps Jay – no one could catch him should he decide to run. This knowledge gave him the confidence to squint up at the rafters and call out again.

"Hey, is anyone there?"

His words bounced off the roof and back at him, uncomfortably loud and made the silence seem all the heavier in their wake.

For the longest time, the ginger was left standing in silence, staring upwards as if waiting for something to appear there.

"Wally?" The voice that cut through the dark made the boy jump, coming not from the rafters above but from behind him. He whirled almost too quickly, coming face to face with the white lenses of a stranger's masked face. Wally stumbled back in surprise, his heart a frenzy of sound in his ears. It took him a moment, but after studying the stranger, Kid Flash managed to calm himself down.

The stranger was only a boy. Furthermore, he appeared younger than Wally and fit a description he had heard sometime earlier.

The boy was probably a head or so shorter than Wally, the mask he wore covering his eyes and capped with a mound of dark, messy hair. His uniform was made up of colours of red, black and yellow, the latter two found in the short cape hanging from the child's shoulders. The 'R' insignia on his chest was a big clue as to who it was Kid Flash was staring at.

He had heard stories about Batman and the boy wonder, Robin. The two were Gotham's protectors, and while they managed to avoid too much media coverage, the rumours that surrounded them gave them quite the reputation. Batman was someone to be feared, a reason to stay straight in Gotham – as if Kid Flash ever intended not to – while his young ward was not someone to be underestimated.

A clear truth, due to the fact that Kid had only been in the boy's presence for a few minutes and already his secret identity was out of the bag.

"Wally, is that you?"

"It's Kid Flash," Wally corrected flatly. "You must be Robin. I've heard about you. How do you know my name?"

The boy's eyes went wide behind his mask.

"Well...I...uh..."

Really, it wasn't all that surprising to run into Robin in Gotham, due to the fact that it was his city. However, it was a little unusual to run into him here, of all places, considering this was kind of out of the way and the last place someone like the boy wonder needed to be.

But Wally also knew that Robin shouldn't be considered a threat and that he really didn't have anything to fear from him. He was one of the good guys, after all, and Robin couldn't touch him once Kid got running.

The boy in front of him fidgeted uncertainly, his eyes on his shoes. Something about that reaction hit Wally with a wave of familiarity. He squinted at the child, his mind beginning to make connections he wasn't sure they should be making.

"Do I know you?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

Robin sighed.

"Well, I did say no more secrets."

Kid Flash narrowed his eyes in suspicion, though whatever was familiar about Robin was steadily growing.

"What?"

The youngster reached up, pulling away his mask with his hands and turning his blue-eyed stare onto the elder boy. Wally stared in silence for a moment, his eyes picking out familiar features in the shadowed silhouette of Robin's front.

Wait. Not Robin. Not anymore.

"...Dick?"

Richard Grayson smiled.

"Hey, Wally."

It took him a few moments to collect himself before Wally could properly react. He started by realizing that both their 'secret identities' were now in the past. Kid Flash pulled back his cowl, staring openly in disbelief at his young friend.

"You're the boy wonder?"

Dick smiled and gave a little nod, still holding his mask in his right hand.

"It's still kind of a new development. It's taken me a while to get used to myself..."

Wally stepped towards his friend.

"I can imagine. I guess this explains what you've been 'busy' with lately."

"Yeah. Between training and Gotham, it's hard to catch a break."

Wally could only nod as things just seemed to click into place. If Dick had been spending his days at school and training to be the boy wonder and his nights as Robin on patrol, that would leave very little free time for himself. Really, Wally was now flattered that his younger friend had somehow managed to make time for him at all.

"This is what I wanted to tell you...I wasn't ignoring you and I did really miss you."

"I know, I've always believed you. This is just the...explanation, I guess. I knew you were busy, I just never knew with what."

"You do now," Dick added with a grin. Wally matched it with one of his own, then watched as his junior's expression became puzzled and his eyes wandered up and down the ginger's body. "Okay, your turn," he said, "what's with the Flash insignia there? I know you're a big fan, but if this is an attempt to impersonate him, the costume is wrong. Plus, impersonating him is probably dangerous. You're gonna attract all the wrong attention."

With a confident chuckle, Wally pulled his cowl back over his head and snapped his goggles over his eyes.

"Dick, buddy, have I got a surprise for you."

In a blur of colour and a rush of wind, the boy was on the move. In a second, he'd crossed the distance between them and begun to rapidly circle his younger friend. The wind picked up around the dark-haired child, forming a miniature cyclone that slowly lifted him off the ground.

"W-whoa!" The boy struggled to keep his balance in the wind tunnel, being lifted upwards and tugged in every direction all at once. When Wally stopped moving, the wind abruptly stopped and brought Dick's levitating with it. Despite the sudden fall, the boy twisted and still managed to land gracefully on his feet. The ginger was now standing just in front of him, a smug grin plastered on his jaw.

Dick took a moment to run his hand through his hair and out of habit, put his mask back on.

"That's new," he said, a little winded. His friend puffed out his chest with pride.

"I know."

"How new is it?" Dick wasn't sure if he should feel betrayed or not. Having superpowers was a pretty big thing, but then again, Dick had been moonlighting as a superhero for over a year now. He was the last person who could complain about his best friend keeping a secret from him.

"Remember that explosion I was in?"

Robin suddenly felt guilty for ever thinking Wally had betrayed him.

"So this...all happened within the span of a month?"

"Feels like much longer to me, but I guess so, yeah."

Silence took a hold of the warehouse once again, but Dick made no effort to break it. He had a feeling Wally wasn't done yet, and he was patient. The ginger was busy making connections in his head with this new piece of information. He looked as if he was something to say, he just wasn't sure what it was.

Either way, Richard wasn't kept waiting long.

"You know, my uncle used to tell me you were always 'busy' with some serious stuff...did he...?"

"Know about me? Yes."

Dick regretted answering the instant after he did. Giving away his own identity was significantly better than hinting at the identity of someone who would rather not be exposed to anyone he didn't already approve. And he wasn't talking about the Flash.

"I guess that...sort of makes sense..." Wally didn't sound very offended by learning this, which was a good thing. "I mean, you're both superheroes, it makes sense that you might know each others identities."

"You know about Barry?"

"Dude, that's part of the reason I blew myself up in the first place."

"Oh...you handled the news well, then?"

"Like a champ," said Wally with a winning smile. Dick returned the look with a grin of his own, then stepped forward to put his hand on his taller friend's shoulder and speak sincerely.

"Sorry for keeping this a secret from you, Wally."

The ginger only kept on smiling.

"No, no. I understand. I would've understood had I known sooner, and don't worry, your secret is safe with me. I won't tell a soul."

Dick breathed a long sigh of relief, though not at having his secret kept. Honestly, he wouldn't have told Wally if he didn't trust him to keep secrets. He was only grateful that the ginger was so understanding, so accepting. His greatest fear of the evening was seeing his best friend angry at him for keeping such a big part of his life hidden.

But Wally understood, just as he always did.

"Thanks Wally," Dick was sincere again, "yours too."

Before he could protest, Wally had him in a tight hug.

"Gotta hug this out, buddy," Wally said against his friend's halfhearted squirming. "I missed you!"

Richard laughed, eventually freeing himself from the crushing embrace. Caught up in nostalgia, the boy found himself flooded with adrenaline. He fished out a line from their childhood with a grin.

"Hey, do you want to see something cool?"

Wally grinned and responded – just as he had the first time – without missing a beat.

"Do I ever!"

YeaaaaaaBoi!

Hello. You know the drill, you`re all fabulous people. Want to become even more fabulous? Tired of all that level grinding you have to do to reach that specific level of kickass? Want a 'get rich quick' scheme in terms of awesomeness? Well do I have the solution for you! You just roll your little clicker down to the review button, click it with all the feeling you can muster, and in as many words as you deem necessary, write your thoughts!

Send the review and Voila! You are just that much more of an epic individual!

Also, unrelated pop quiz. If you could have a super power, what would you pick?

Thanks for reading this far! (I really do love all of you. Let's get married?)

Toodles~

Shmee