They don't really know how the joke officially got started, or who made it first, but they were almost 14 and 16 years old when they took it and ran with it.
Wally and Robin were sprawled on the couch, with Robin laying halfway on Wally's chest, their legs loosely tangled together. One of those mindless Youtube channels that has an influencer reacting to dumb videos was playing on the TV; this episode was proposals gone wrong.
"So when I hypothetically propose to you," Wally asked, while distractedly playing with his friend's hair, "Would you say no if it was a bad proposal?"
"I dunno, how bad are we talking? It depends."
"Wow, that's kind of shallow of you bro. Surely our hypothetical love is strong enough to withstand a hypothetical shitty proposal?"
"Why, are you not capable of a pulling together a somewhat decent hypothetical proposal? You're making me question my own hypothetical judgement on hypothetically saying yes."
On the other couch were two of their friends who were notably not cuddled up to each other or playing with the other one's hair. Artemis gave a look to M'gann that a person didn't need to be telepathic to interpret as, "Are you seeing this too?"
...
"We should hypothetically rent birds."
"No."
"Come on man, it would be so funny. We could at least get doves or – hey, peacocks! We could even get those cool white ones, you know, like Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter. That would be so awesome. Wait. Do you think a person is able to rent flamingos?"
"Wally, our hypothetical wedding is not going to turn into a petting zoo, and I can tell you right now that my side of the family is not paying for that."
...
"What time of the year would we hypothetically set the date?" Wally asked, thinking about bad sunburns and uneven tan lines. As a redhead who has these things on his radar, he felt he was being perfectly reasonable when he said, "I vote winter."
"Summer."
"Dude, be so hypothetically for real right now."
Wally was applying even more sunscreen to himself as their group walked down to the beach. Kaldur offered a water bottle to Connor and was decidedly looking forward to listening to the sounds of the ocean instead of hypothetical wedding planning.
"Fine, then summertime means it's going to be hypothetically indoors."
"Mmmm...no."
"Dude!"
...
"What song would we play for our hypothetical first dance?"
Knowing exactly where this was going, Robin immediately responded with, "Wally you are NOT hypothetically breakdancing for our first dance."
"Pfft, duh. WE would be hypothetically breakdancing for our first dance. We could hypothetically pretend to start out as a waltz or something boring and then the music cuts out, people think there are technical problems, and then boom – we bust out the dance from White Chicks."
A few minutes later M'gann walked into the training room to be accosted with a very loud song that was singing about something being "tricky", Robin literally on the floor laughing, and Wally dancing what she's pretty sure is called 'hip hop,' but when it comes to Wally...who honestly knows.
...
"Hypothetical honeymoon destination?" Wally inquired, sitting next to Dick in the backseat. "You're paying for that one by the way, Mister Richie Rich."
"Hypothetically you should have a JOB by then unless you're just hypothetically marrying me for my money."
"Are you calling me a hypothetical gold digger?" Wally dramatically gasped, clutching his pearls. "I'm hurt."
Wally then took a large bite of his bagel and proceeded to say, or at least Dick thinks what Wally said, was "Whatcha hypothetically think about Bali?" Hard to make out, around the bagel and all.
Bruce felt like he was missing something. From the passenger seat he glanced at Alfred, who continued driving, but not without quirking an eyebrow in an upmost British fashion.
...
"A hypothetical engagement photo shoot."
"Mmph...what? Dude, its like 4 in the morning, roll over and go to sleep."
"The hypothetical photo we use on the invitations is us going downhill on a roller coaster, and it says, 'Taking the plunge!'"
"Yeah sure, whatever Wally. I'm tired. We can figure it out tomorrow.
"Hypothetically."
...
"What's going on between Robin and Wally?" Black Canary asked the remaining team members before they dispersed, having finished up their training for the day.
"They're just in a snit over the wedding planning," Artemis dismissively replied, already walking towards the showers.
"Hypothetical wedding planning," M'gann corrected, following her.
Black Canary, confused about the response and why it was being discussed as casually as the weather, looked to Kaldur for further explanation.
Without preamble he stated, "There is a disagreement surrounding the hypothetical wedding cake," before heading to the showers himself.
...
"What if we end up getting hypothetically divorced, who gets the hypothetical dog?"
"You haven't even hypothetically proposed to me yet and you're worried about the dog in the divorce? Since when were we getting a dog?"
"I don't know man, I've always wanted one and figured since we'll hypothetically have our own place, a dog could work."
"I mean we can talk about it, I guess. Do you have any specific breed in mind?"
The team was out to eat for lunch and did not bat an eye at Wally and Robin hunching over a phone together to look at hypothetical dog breeds, arguing about the attributes of their favorite ones.
...
"We need to choose a hypothetical color scheme. You know, for decorations, flowers, outfits, pretty much everything."
"Red would look good for a hypothetical December wedding, just saying."
"Hm...I like blue."
"Red and blue?"
"No, blue instead of red. Both would look dumb, like the Fourth of July or something."
"Worse than red and yellow?" Wally did the little eyebrow wagging thing. Such a dork.
"Dude. You are hypothetically so full of yourself right now."
Oliver gave Roy a look of pure confusion at the conversation he was witnessing at their dinner table. Dinah was ignoring it and Roy just rolled his eyes and shook his head, which is Roy speak for 'Don't ask.'
...
"I call dibs on Roy."
"O..kay? for what?"
"Best man."
Wally gasped, never so taken aback in his life; "You BASTARD."
5 minutes later on the phone
"I'm busy, what do you want." Roy's greeting deterred neither teenager on the other end of the call.
Wasting no time, Wally jumped in with, "Roy whose hypothetical best man are you going to be, mine or Dick's?"
"What? Oh for Christ's sake. Whoever asks first I guess."
"But I already called dibs so you're mine!" Dick piped up, sounding very smug.
Roy heaved a sigh. "Sorry Wally, if that is true then you gotta honor dibs. But why can't I just be both your guys' best man? That way you can leave me alone?"
"Hypothetical," Dick interjected.
"What?"
"Hypothetical best man."
"Yeah whatever. Also, you're like twelve so isn't this a conversation for, oh I don't know, TEN years from now or so?"
"I'm FOURTEEN Roy."
"Cause that's so much better. Guys, I'm busy. Wally, your child bride already called dibs so either share a best man or fight it out."
"Alright, alright, fine...BYE Roy! We LOVE you!" Wally yelled into the phone, laughter and a shit-eating grin clear in his voice. They both knew that overt displays of affection drove Roy crazy. He was used to these dramatic antics after years of it, but still let out a long-suffering sigh.
"Hypothetically, of course." Roy deadpanned.
"Nope, I am non-hypothetically crazy about ya, maybe I should be marrying you instead of Dickhead."
"Hey! What if I decide I want to hypothetically marry Roy instead of you?"
"Well sucks to be you then 'cause I call dibs!"
Rolling his eyes, Roy hung up the call, knowing it would be a while before they noticed anything outside of their bickering/lovers quarrel or whatever.
Those idiots weren't even officially dating.
...
The problem was that Wally wanted Connor to be a hypothetical groomsman, but Dick wanted him to be a hypothetical ringbearer.
"We've been raising him together, Wally, who's side he would stand on? How is he supposed to hypothetically choose one parent over the other?!"
"Guys stop fighting, you're upsetting Connor!" Artemis yelled at them from the living room where she was sitting on the floor for some reason.
Robin and Wally paused their argument to peer out of the kitchen and into the living room. Connor was sitting on the couch, still as a statue, watching TV static exactly like he had when they'd left the living room to get a snack 20 minutes ago. In response to Artemis' outburst, which was a poor attempt at a distraction from the issue at hand, Wally retaliated by informing her that SHE would be a hypothetical flower girl.
"Oh really," Artemis challenged, glaring at him.
"Yep. With a frilly pink dress," Wally taunted. He truly had no sense of self-preservation.
"Pink was never discussed as being part of the hypothetical color scheme." Robin snapped at him.
"Do you have something against my hypothetical happiness?"
...
Barry lingered in the hallway, listening to Wally and Dick chat in the living room of his and Iris' home.
Wally and Dick, who were 17 and 15. Surely not old enough to be discussing...wedding rings?
"I don't know why so many wedding rings are hideous," Dick complained, "Like, is it that hard to have any sort of taste?"
"Shh, what about this one?"
There was a pause; they must be looking at pictures online.
"It's alright. Oh, wait, I like that one better! Go to that link."
Barry heard Wally groan.
"Do I need to hypothetically save money starting as of, oh I don't know, yesterday, to afford your taste in jewelry, dude? Cause I've got like, five bucks."
"Well, there's plenty of other hypothetical rings genius, and good taste doesn't have to necessarily be expensive. Lots of ugly rings are expensive too."
"Okay but I have a question. You said if the hypothetical proposal sucks, you won't say yes. What about if the hypothetical proposal is great but the hypothetical ring sucks, where is your stance on that?"
"Well..."
"Oh my god you are SO high maintenance!" Wally exclaimed, exasperated, and Barry could hear Dick giggling.
Barry entered the living room at that point, acting like he hadn't been eavesdropping on their conversation. He raised his hand in a halfway sort of greeting as they acknowledged his presence.
Were Bruce and Barry going to be hypothetically...in laws?!
...
Years later
The proposal and the ring were both perfect, entirely non-hypothetical and of course Dick said yes. The details of what they wanted for their wedding had conveniently been bickered about and settled upon over the years, so all they really had to do was pick a date and make the arrangements.
...
Wally's family picked a date and took care of the arrangements.
It was a summer funeral.
Authors Note:
Yeah, that ending hurt me too...
BTW, while I did not ship Birdflash back when I wrote the majority of my fics, during my hiatus from writing over the last few years I've been converted. Either way, I love them as best friends and I love them as a couple. They're so cute :)