His companion makes a rude gesture and tries to follow, but can't figure out how to run across the surface of the water; he goes down with a splash.

With a fractured giggle, the boy in black and gold runs back to shore to help him up.

Unknown to the two boys, they have been watched for the last few minutes by a man in red, with a lightning bolt on his chest and a mask covering his face. 

As soon as he sees blue-and-silver start to fall, he starts towards the pair on pure instinct. Engaging with the kids wasn't the plan for today, but he's a hero, dammit. It goes against the grain to watch someone in danger of drowning and not help. 

He's too slow - not something that happens very often - and skids to a halt on the shoreline a few yards away. 

"Wow, you're fast."

Black-and-gold flashes a brilliant smile in his direction. "Thanks!" he says cheerfully.

Blue-and-silver hops out onto the shore, wet and grumpy but unhurt. "Oh, it's the middle of nowhere, you said," he mutters. "Nobody'll see us, you said." His mask includes an obscuring pair of mirrored lenses, but the tilt of his head and the tone of his voice suggest that he is rolling his eyes.

Black-and-gold shrugs unrepentantly.

They're the same height - less than five feet tall - and the same build, and their voices are very similar. Probably brothers, possibly twins.

"I mean, to be fair, I'm only here because I was already tracking you," says the man. 

"...wait, that sounded bad, didn't it."

...he cracks up. "Wow, nice."

"My brother is entirely to blame for the trail of sonic booms streaking across the countryside," says blue-and-silver.

"Hey, that's not fair. One of them was you."

"I was just trying to keep up! If somebody could muster the patience to stay below the speed of sound for ten minutes, we would've gotten here in perfect silence!"

"Heh. I was the same back when I first got my powers."

He shakes his head. "Oh, right, forgot to introduce myself. I'm the Flash, but...you probably knew that. Do you two have names? I mean, obviously you have names, everyone has a name..." 

"Warp," says blue-and-silver.

"And Impulse," says black-and-gold.

"Cool, cool. Nice to meet you both." He gives them a brief, careless salute. 

"Soooo, how'd you two wind up with superspeed?"

Warp points at Impulse.

"...once I found out that superspeed could be given to people, I wanted to see if I could do it. Turned out that yes. I promise to be responsible about it."

"Impressive. I mean, I did it, but I had J - my predecessor's notes to work from. You created a working formula from scratch?"

"It took me a couple years. Well, longer if you count the fact that I had to teach myself alchemy first. And chemistry, but they offer chemistry classes in high school, alchemy not so much."

He nods absently.

"How did you find out alchemy even existed? It's not exactly common knowledge." 

"Oh, uh - when we were thirteen we were at an ice cream place next door to a bank and I caught a supervillain about to rob the bank and talked him down. I promise it was way less terrifying than it sounds. He's an okay person, really, he was just having some problems in his life around then. I wasn't in any danger. And we kept in touch and he explained the basics of alchemy, but he didn't know enough himself to keep teaching me after the first couple of months."

"...Wow," he says again.

"That's really something. And you did that when you were thirteen?" 

He pauses.

"...how old are you now?"

"Seventeen!" he says brightly.

Seventeen, okay. That's not too bad. Batman's sidekick is younger than that, probably, he thinks. 

"So you're twins, then?" he checks while he starts figuring out what to do about suddenly teenage mini-Flashes. 

Sidekick...now there's a thought.

"Yep," confirms Warp.

"Right, so." Flash thinks carefully about how to put this, not wanting to offend them.

"I don't feel comfortable letting two boys under eighteen run around fighting crime with just each other for backup," he says, measuring each word, "even if you do have superspeed. So...how would you like to be my sidekicks? Just for a few months, so I can be sure you know what you're doing, and maybe teach you a few things."

And keep an eye on them to make sure they're not going to abuse their powers, not that he'll tell them that part. 

"Sure, that sounds awesome," says Impulse.

"Oh, this is gonna be fun," says Warp, with moderate irony.

"Great! I look forward to working with you." 

Uh, he should probably be responsible here...

"But, ah, you should maybe get your parents' permission first. Or your guardians. I don't have to meet them if you want to preserve your secret identities, but it seems only polite to let them know what you're doing."

"Way ahead of you."

"I mean, if you want us to specifically ask our parents or guardians 'hey, can we go be the Flash's sidekicks for a while', I admit we didn't think of that one in advance, but we've been open from the beginning about our ambition to be superheroes."

Flash grins in approval.

"Very sensible. Now, as to how we're going to stay in touch..." 

He roots around in various pockets - all cleverly hidden and streamlined to look like part of his suit - until he finds the one containing his backup earpiece.

"Unfortunately I only have one spare communicator right now, so you'll have to share until I can bring you another one. We can call each other like so - " and he quickly demonstrates how the earpieces work, simultaneously reconfiguring the backup so it can only send and receive calls with him, rather than the entire Justice League.

"Ooh, gadgets," says Impulse, bouncing excitedly.

Warp pays attention too, but less with the radiant glee.

Flash hands the earpiece to Impulse.

"I'd tell you not to take it apart to see how it works, but I have a feeling that would just make you more likely to do it," he says. "Also, you'd probably put it back together better, judging by last time."

"Oh, good, you're getting the picture," says Warp.

"I'll at least try to hold off until it's no longer my only line of communication with you short of waiting for you to stalk us again, that seems like the mature responsible thing to do."

He sighs. "I wasn't stalking you, okay?"

Scratching the bridge of his nose, he continues, "I'm monitoring every seismograph on the planet, including ones sensitive enough to catch your little faster-than-sound jaunt on the way here. Cross-referencing with flight paths rules out regular supersonic aircraft, which means any other sonic booms are either unauthorized flights, or...speedsters."

He stops, and coughs. "Er...sorry. Little too much detail there. But you get the picture." 

Impulse bounces again. "No, that's not too much detail, that's awesome."

"So, anyway," he continues a little awkwardly.

"We should probably arrange a training session or two, see how we work together before we get into a real fight. In fact, if you have time now, I'd like to see what the pair of you can do."

"Definitely!"

"If you have a better place for that than this random pond in the middle of nowhere, I should probably grab our stuff and call home," says Warp.

Flash grins.

"The Justice League has a facility in Nevada with a ridiculously long racetrack and remote-controllable obstacles and environmental effects. There's a zeta-tube entrance in Toronto that'll take us straight there."

He hops from one foot to the other. "When you're ready to go, we can race to Toronto as a warm-up. I reckon about two minutes at my normal running speed." 

Warp giggles, and zips over to retrieve a backpack that's hanging from a tree about a hundred meters away. There turns out to be a cellphone in it.

"Hi Mom! The Flash showed up." Pause. "Yes, obviously." Pause. "Yeah, so he wants to know if our parents or guardians are cool with us being his sidekicks for a while." Pause. "I figured. And he's gonna take us to a Justice League training facility so we can show off." Pause. "Uh-huh!" Pause. "Love you too, bye."

(Meanwhile, Impulse bounces.)

While Warp is calling his mom, Flash pulls up a virtual map of Toronto and shows Impulse the location of the zeta-tube. 

"I have a feeling you two might be faster than me, but wait somewhere sensible if you get there first, alright? You'll need me to grant you authorization before the security system will let you through, and we don't want to draw attention to the location by having a couple of superheroes hang out next to it in full costume." 

"Of course!"

Warp glances at the map, puts the phone away, tosses the backpack to his brother, and while it's in the air says, "Cool, let's go," and zips off.

Flash wastes about half a second laughing at himself for not seeing that coming, then collects himself and sets off in pursuit. 

His acceleration is better than theirs, through years of practice, and he looks set to catch up with Warp despite the head-start.

Impulse meets the backpack in the air and sets off as fast as he can go, but still lags noticeably behind the other two. He doesn't seem upset about his brother's flagrant cheating; in fact he's laughing.

When Warp sees Flash start to pull ahead of him, he grins and puts more effort into acceleration.

There's another pond in the way, coming up fast; he takes a risk on trying to run across the water, and this time figures out the trick of it.

Flash just breezes across it like it's solid ground. 

He stops accelerating once he has a solid lead on the boys, wanting to keep an eye on them so he can pull them out of trouble if necessary.

Warp... does not stop accelerating. From Mach 2 up through 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5... he doesn't have a speedometer on hand but he can tell he's going much faster than he or his brother did in their little game of tag.

As he continues to accelerate, he loses hold of the quietness trick a few times. Loud sonic booms echo across the countryside.

Impulse's acceleration is not so steady. He nearly catches up to his brother - falls behind, his speed staying constant while Warp's continues to increase - manages to put on a little more speed somehow or other - repeats this pattern several more times.

To begin with, Flash can pretty easily accelerate enough to stay ahead of them, even turning around to run backwards for milliseconds at a time, so he can make sure they're still following. 

The gap between them slowly closes as he gets more confident, and therefore careless, of his lead. 

Warp glances back at his brother during one of the times when Impulse nearly catches up.

There is definitely some significance in this look that is not legible to outsiders.

But nothing comes of it immediately; they keep racing, with Warp pouring on speed at a more or less steady pace and Impulse catching up and falling behind over and over again.

Toronto begins to be visible in the distance.

Flash stops accelerating again, in preparation for hitting more densely-inhabited areas where they'll need to be more careful, but doesn't actually slow down yet.

Warp... does not stop accelerating.

There's a lot of suburbs and outlying towns to get through before they find their way into the city proper, but the boys seem to know the terrain well enough to stick to the less-trafficked areas. Lots of long stretches of road without any cars on them.

Flash's lead shrinks, then vanishes. 

He follows Warp, sticking close behind him since the kid seems to know where he's going. 

Their lead on Impulse keeps stretching, and he keeps having a harder and harder time closing it.

And eventually, he turns off the road Warp is following and heads down a different one.

Interesting.

Flash guesses almost immediately that Impulse has taken a shortcut - is Warp deliberately leading him by a longer route? - but by the time he figures out he'd probably be better off following Impulse, enough distance has elapsed that there's no point switching tracks.

Once he's close enough to their destination to plot a safe route himself, he'll put on a burst of speed to overtake Warp so he doesn't come in dead last. That would be embarrassing. 

When they arrive at their destination, there's a kid in jeans and a hoodie leaning against a wall very close to the zeta tube entrance, playing Candy Crush on his phone. He looks up at Warp and the Flash, for all the world as though he's been there for an hour.

"What took you?" he inquires, smirking.

...Warp starts laughing so hard that he has to sit down on the sidewalk lest he fall over.

...yeah, Flash is just glad he managed to beat one of the twins. He can tell they'd never have let him hear the end of it.

So they're doing the unmasking thing? Makes sense; they are going to be working together for a while. He'll wait to reciprocate until they're somewhere more secure, though.

"OK, I'm impressed," he admits. "But could you have pulled off the same trick in a city you didn't know quite so well?" 

"Might have," says Impulse. "Warp wasn't leading you on a wild goose chase or anything, he was just taking the safe route with a minimum of obstacles and leaving me to approximate a crow as best I could. It would've been harder to navigate but the principle would've been the same."

He puts his phone away.

"And I only beat you by about two seconds, I just couldn't resist the joke."

"I figured."

The zeta-tube entrance is disguised as a disused phone booth. Opening it and stepping inside, he waits for the system to scan and acknowledge him - *RECOGNIZED: FLASH, DESIGNATION 04* - then gestures Impulse to join him inside the booth. 

In he goes!

Flash fiddles with a few buttons, provides a confirming voice print, and a green light scans Impulse from head to toe. 

*AUTHORIZATION GRANTED: IMPULSE, B-04*

"You might as well go on through to the Nevada facility," Flash says. "I'll send Warp after you, then follow myself - it's only set up to take one person at a time."

"'Kay."

Rather than setting it up himself again, he says, "The code is zero-zero-three. Wait 'till the door's closed or it'll light up the whole street." 

He steps out of the booth and closes the door.

And Impulse enters the code.

*RECOGNIZED: IMPULSE, B-04*

There is a flash of white light, accompanied by a whirring noise, and when it clears he is somewhere else.

He is standing just inside the entrance to what looks like a fairly high-tech building. The ambient temperature is noticeably warmer. Behind him is the zeta-beam entrance, just powering down after transporting him:

He still has his costume on under his civilian clothes; he takes a moment to put the civvies away in his backpack, then gets out of the way of the zeta tube and examines the lights on the walls.

Meanwhile, back in Toronto, Flash repeats the process with Warp.

*AUTHORIZATION GRANTED: WARP, B-05*

And off he goes to join his brother!

Right before Warp appears in the entrance, Impulse hears the mechanized voice on his end. *RECOGNIZED: WARP, B-05*

The same happens when Flash follows him through the zeta-tube a few seconds later.

*...FLASH, 04* 

He nods approvingly when he sees Impulse is back in costume. "Right, this way to the racetrack."

He zips off, simply assuming they're quick enough on the uptake to follow.

Yep. They're right behind him.

Then they can zoom through identical windowless metal corridors until they come out onto a massive indoor racetrack, which curves around at each end, somewhere in the distance to form a giant loop around the outside edge of the facility. There are observation windows along the inside in this particular section. 

"We'll go round the track once as it is, then I'll head up to the control panel and start adding complications," Flash explains.

"There are no lanes, and anything goes as long as you don't hurt each other - or me - or damage the equipment. Not that it's particularly fragile, but I race Superman around this track; the rules are calibrated for him." 

Warp snickers.

"I'll do my best not to mess up your racetrack," says Impulse, bouncing again.

"We'll see," he says, flashing them a smile, and takes off clockwise around the track with no further warning. 

Time to see how Impulse measures up in a straight race where there are no shortcuts. 

—slower than Warp. Noticeably so. And he's clearly trying, it's not a tortoise-and-hare situation.

Warp finds this endlessly entertaining.

- also, it turns out he wasn't anywhere near his top speed when the race ended.

Hmm. Well, adding some obstacles to slow Warp down might level the playing field a little. 

"Was that as fast as you can go right now?" he asks both of them when they come to a halt back where they started. 

"I'll check on the system, but I'm pretty sure Warp was getting close to Mach 5 at the end there."

"I think I could still go faster."

"I keep trying to go faster, and the weird thing is that it works but not right away, like there's some kind of - reservoir of speed that will dispense more on request but takes a second to get around to it. I don't think that's how this is supposed to work."

He frowns.

"No, I've never experienced anything like that. Do you have to do that every time, or is there a practice effect?"

"I wasn't measuring, obviously, but I think the top speed I got to in the race to the zeta tube is the same top speed I could reach without trying when we did this race. And then I was back in that pattern of - spaced acceleration."

"Well, that's something at least," Flash says. 

"Right. Warp, I want to see what your top speed really is; run a few more laps until you think you've hit it, and we'll see what the computers measure."

He turns to Impulse. "I want you to tell me everything about your experiments that could possibly have led to a difference between your powers and his."

Off goes Warp.

Impulse frowns thoughtfully.

"As far as I can tell, there isn't anything," he says. "We used the same batch - I was very careful about lab safety, there's no reasonable chance anything got into it that shouldn't have - and I'd have expected it to not work, or explode, or something along those lines, if I'd messed up that badly - we're identical twins so it's not likely to be a difference in our respective reactions to the formula, there aren't that many things that are different between us - and the way the difference is presenting itself is deeply puzzling, why would I have a limited top speed that I can raise by wanting it to be higher?"

"It's probably the alchemical side that's the issue, rather than the straight chemistry," Flash contributes.

"Which unfortunately means it's out of my expertise - I'm afraid I leaned somewhat heavily on my predecessor's notes for that part of my formula. I might ask around in the League if it continues to be a problem, see if any of them know more." 

He glances at Warp blurring by.

"All right. It's not particularly inconvenient so far. There aren't that many purposes for which I might need to break Mach 5. It does kind of bug me not to know what's going on, but that's not urgent."

"Fair enough. I expect you'll let me know if that changes," Flash says wryly.

"Let's go ask the computer what your top speed was just then."

He heads up the stairs in the direction of the control room for the track. He needs to be there for the next part anyway, and he has a feeling Impulse will be fascinated by it.

Impulse follows Flash.

The control room is pretty impressive. As well as a viewing window onto a section of the track, it has multiple monitors that, between them, cover a decent portion of the rest. A bank of controls let someone standing in the room change the environment of the track, adding both holographic and physical obstacles, or environmental effects like snow, heat or cold.

Flash pulls up an analysis of Impulse's speed.

"Mach 4.2, not bad. Warp managed 4.5 in that lap, and he's up to 4.8 right now - 4.9 - "

"What's your recorded top speed?"

He checks the logs. 

"The highest I've managed on this course is...Mach 12, apparently. I keep trying to push it higher every so often, but there's only so fast I can go and still have time to make it round the corners."

Impulse giggles.

Flash checks the monitors.

Warp's speed is still climbing. Mach 5.1, 5.2, 5.3...

"Want to see how this stuff works, while we're waiting for your brother?" he asks, but before Impulse can answer, someone clears their throat in the doorway.

"Flash. Care to explain the two latest additions to the clearance list?"

He looks at Impulse.

"I take it this is one of them?"

"Hi," he says cheerfully. "Impulse. Nice to meet you."

"Ah, Impulse independently recreated the superspeed formula," Flash explains.

"My scans picked them up making a trail of sonic booms across Canada. I offered them a position as my sidekicks, they accepted, and now we're doing powers testing. Warp is down there on the track, trying to find his top speed." 

He peers at the screen again. Are the numbers still climbing?

Yep. Pretty steadily.

"I see. And they come as a matched set?"

    "Seems like it, yeah."

Batman looks at Impulse, taking in his current expression, and back to Flash.

"Good luck," he says, in a tone that means you're going to need it.

Impulse giggles.

"Your League affiliate cards will be delivered in the next few days," he tells Impulse. 

"And - if Flash is willing to vouch for your suitability - you'll be eligible for full membership once you're eighteen, which would be...?"

"Next April."

"Hm." Batman, probably wisely, does not make any comments about Impulse's deceptively small stature.

"I'll leave you to it," he says instead, and turns to leave. 

"Bye!"

He turns back to the Flash.

"Yes, I absolutely do want to see how this stuff works."

"Somehow I thought you might."

He gives Impulse an overview of the system, not actually making any changes to the track yet. It's possible to add holographic obstacles varying from innocent bystanders to targets to enemies, all capable of moving. Some of them fire projectiles at the runner. 

"When Warp is done, I'll set you both running again and see how you deal with some of this." 

Gleeful bouncing seems to be his reaction so far!

"This place is so much fun."

"I'll be sure to pass on your compliments to the other designers," Flash says with a smile.

...he fiddles with some settings to temporarily disable the cameras monitoring the control room.

...Impulse looks up at him.

"Just because Batman probably already knows my secret identity," he says as he pushes back his mask, "doesn't mean I have to make it easy for him." 

Under the costume, Flash has short blond hair that he scrubs a hand through nervously.

"Hi. Barry Allen, pleased to meet you. I figure...you already showed me your face, and Batman all but said outright he's going to find out your name, so...it's only fair." 

...Of all the reactions Impulse could've had, a sudden fit of giggles probably wasn't the one Barry expected.

"Oh no we rhyme," he says, giggling. "Merry Nelson. Pleased to meet you too."

"I'd share my identity with your brother too, but - is he still going!?"

Flash - Barry - checks the readings again. 

7.0, 7.1, 7.2...

"Guess he hasn't found his top speed yet!"

"Acceleration's pretty steady...I don't think he's even close yet," Barry says almost to himself.

He switches views to an acceleration graph; once he factors in the need to slow down for corners, it's an almost perfectly straight line. Impulse's graph, in comparison, is much less smooth, although there's less data there. 

While he's at it, he pulls up a few of his own records, one from his first day using this facility and one from a week ago, to show Impulse the difference. The older one is wavering and inconsistent - this was back when Barry was still working on getting the hang of his superspeed. The newer one is a smooth curve, steeper than Warp can manage, but trailing off at the high end around Mach 10. 

"I wonder..." he says musingly, studying the graphs. "It looks like - you had the speed right from the start, you just couldn't figure out how to use it - and with Warp it seems more like he's - doing the same thing I did, just a lot more smoothly? I might be reading too much into it."

"No, you could be right," Barry muses. 

"Or it could be that Warp is more cautious than I was about increasing his speed, or has a natural talent for this, or both. Four speedsters isn't enough to identify any patterns for certain, especially when there's so little data from my predecessor."

"He's generally more cautious than me but that's not a high bar to clear..."

"I guess we'll find out when he stops, and we can ask him how fast he was trying to accelerate. While we're waiting..."

He sets the boys up with profiles on the Justice League intranet, which will let their powers and capabilities be visible to other League members. They can also get accounts that'll track their progress in training and help them keep track of how their powers develop. 

Putting his mask back on, he turns the cameras back on and swivels one of them to point at Impulse.

"Can I get a mugshot for your profile? Mask on, not off - none of us officially know each other's secret identities." 

"Sure," he says, with a sunny smile for the camera.

"—so, wait, Batman isn't even spying on people for some kind of official database, he just does that to everybody for no reason?"

"I think he just likes knowing more than everyone else," Flash says carelessly.

"Guy's a little outclassed, if you think about it - he's pretty much the only member of the Justice League without any powers. That's gotta make a man nervous."

"Depends. I wouldn't be nervous. I'd just figure out how to get superpowers."

"You did," he points out.

"I guess Batman could as well, but he says he doesn't need them. Doesn't trust them, more likely." He mimics Batman's deep voice: "'No currently known method of superpower acquisition is guaranteed risk free'..." 

Come on, Warp. Kid must be getting tired by now...

Merry snickers. "Breathing isn't guaranteed risk-free. Somebody should tell Batman to live a little."

Meanwhile out on the track, Warp's acceleration is finally starting to drop off. Over the course of a few seconds, he stops accelerating, coasts at Mach 8.2 for a bit, and then comes to a gradual-for-a-speedster halt, looking tired but gleeful.

"There we go. Mach 8.2, not bad." 

Flash heads for the stairs down. "I think your brother might need some food; he's burned a lot of energy just now."

He gives Impulse a considering look.

"I keep a stash of high-energy snacks near the entrance to the track - want to see if you can find it?"

"Is it particularly hard to find?" he asks, but rather than waiting for an answer he zips ahead to inspect the area for signs of a snack cache.

It's not immediately obvious, but it is findable. 

There are quite a lot of hidden cabinets and compartments embedded into the walls, now he's looking. Some of them are more easily found - and opened - than others. Quite a few require fingerprints or other access codes that Impulse doesn't have yet, but the snack cabinet is merely better-camouflaged than some.

Yeah, that barely qualifies as a challenge. He opens the cabinet and zips over to meet Warp on the track and hand him a snack.

Nom.

"Superspeed is so cool," he says. "I don't think I even hit my top speed, I just got tired first."

"The monitors had your highest speed just now as Mach 8.2, nearly twice Impulse's current maximum. Nice going."

He notes the time as well, recording how long it took Warp to get tired. 

"When you've rested, I'll set up some complications on the course. Red holograms are enemies, green are civilians, blue are allies, white are assets you need to protect. We'll start off with just red and green, plus some physical obstacles. Sound like fun?"

"Definitely."

Impulse beams.

"I should probably explain how that works..." he continues.

"You can bounce off physical obstacles, as long as you're confident you won't hurt yourself. Holograms, you have to avoid. The difference between civilians and enemies is that the former will try to get out of the way, but the latter will try to block you." 

"All right."

And he waits for Warp to be ready, then sets them off round the course. 

To start with, he just places a few obstacles, spaced reasonably far apart. A low fence rises from the floor to block the track, so they'll have to jump over it. A lone 'civilian' hologram, glowing green, stands on a corner to make them swing wide. 

The brothers are unhindered by these petty inconveniences.

If they so much as brush against a hologram, it'll be recorded on the system and counted against their time. Speaking of which, is Impulse keeping up better this go around?

On the next long stretch, a whole series of 'villains' line up to create an increasingly tight slalom course with the help of some crates, ending in a cluster of red figures that block the way entirely. 

Impulse is already up to his recorded top speed, but doesn't seem to be accelerating past that.

And Warp isn't going any faster than his brother; they seem to be taking on the course cooperatively rather than competitively.

When they reach the maze of red holograms, he drops back a little to let Impulse take the lead.

His path through the obstacles is pretty unsurprising, until he reaches the mass of red holograms at the end.

The brothers should be able to jump over the clustered enemies. But apparently he's not confident in the clearance afforded by a leap from ground level, because he hops up onto a crate and launches himself into the air, sailing over their glowing red heads by a good six feet, and lands on the wall where it curves to make the next corner, from which point he cheerfully bounces off and keeps running.

Warp follows, giggling.

They should not have been able to make that jump. They should have been able to make maybe half of that jump. It might just be superspeed plus low body mass, but those things alone wouldn't have landed them halfway up that wall.

But of course, never having made a leap like that before, they have no way of knowing it was more superhuman than expected.

Flash, watching them with sped-up perception, blinks.

He sets the computer to auto-generate a medium difficulty course within the parameters he's laid out, to keep them occupied while he goes over that section of the recording again. 

...they really shouldn't have been able to do that. He's pretty sure he couldn't do that even if he ran that course twenty times. 

They experiment with their powers, refining their expectations of how high and how far they can jump, how tightly they can make a turn, how close they can get to a hologram without clipping it.

And when that gets boring, they branch out into more daring experiments, including throwing each other past obstacles, which they really shouldn't be able to do.

They occasionally fail to avoid a hologram, but inflict no damage on themselves or the equipment.

An array of monitoring equipment records and analyzes their movement, comparing it to records of Batman, Robin, Flash, and other people who've used this facility. 

They're doing pretty well with the holograms for their first time through, so Flash has the 'enemy' figures start shooting at them: little holographic blips of red to represent bullets, easily dodged if one is a speedster. Cover is provided in the form of more (and more varied) physical obstacles, sliding out of the walls, floor and ceiling.

Green 'civilian' holograms scatter or are mown down to blanket the floor, adding to the challenge.

Impulse is the more creative of the two, with Warp tending to follow his lead. They communicate amazingly well without the use of words, which is useful when they're going too fast for sound to be an effective medium.

They don't come across as veteran superheroes; they're clearly still learning, making new discoveries moment by moment about tactics and their own powers. But they're learning very, very fast.

Well, that'll be useful in the field. He'll have to run some simulations with them at some point, so they can learn to work with a third person. 

...he starts throwing in a few white holograms, moving among the herds of green, to see if they remember what those mean. The 'enemies' switch from focusing on the superheroes to firing at the white figures as well. 

They rearrange the obstacles to provide cover for the white holograms.

Their cover isn't perfect, though. One of the white holograms at the edge of a group of greens is in the path of a bullet and not going to get out of the way in time. Warp, by now moving at speeds that make the bullets seem to crawl, points out the problem to Impulse—

—who sizes up the situation in an instant, then matches velocities with the bullet and very deliberately grabs the intangible red blip out of the air. It vanishes as soon as he touches it, of course, but the intent is clear: if these weren't holograms, he would have saved that person's life, at minimal risk to himself. Then he changes course again and bounces away to stack some more crates.

After a few more variations on such scenarios, all of which the pair deal with pretty well given their inexperience, Flash ends the training session.

"I expect you're hungry after that."

He frowns. "What time did your mother want you back? I'd like to discuss some things I noticed about the way you handled that course."

"She'd rather we were home by seven but won't start worrying until ten."

It's only mid-afternoon. "Plenty of time, then. Let's get some proper food into you before we do anything else." 

He leads the way to the kitchen, which is conveniently nearby, and cooks them a - rather belated - lunch. 

"First of all," he starts during a lull in the cooking process, "I was very impressed by the way you two work together as a unit. But for exactly that reason, I'm worried you might find it difficult to adjust to working with me, since you're so used to each other."

"Yeah. We're quick learners, though. As you may have noticed."

"I did." Flash smiles at them over his shoulder.

"Good job with the white holograms, as well. I know I said I wouldn't include those, but I thought you could do with the added challenge." 

"It was fun!"

The food is done; he chose something that would cook quickly.

After a break to serve it out, Flash brings up the issue of their unexpected strength. He pulls up the video on a screen and plays it back for them - that jump, landing halfway up the wall, the various times they picked each other up and threw. 

"You seem to be able to jump, and throw each other, further and higher than I would expect from your size and apparent physical fitness. That's not a standard effect of the superspeed formula - I mean, I can't do it."

"I thought there might be something odd about that, but it was hard to be sure. Well. Another interesting mystery for the collection, I guess."

"I'm starting to wonder if you weren't already some kind of metahumans," Flash muses.

"Did you notice anything like that before you acquired superspeed?"

"I wouldn't have been nearly as intent on acquiring superspeed if I had!"

Flash chuckles. 

"So it wasn't your first choice, then?" he asks, mock-offended.

"You didn't spend years dreaming of working with your hero, the Flash?" 

He strikes a pose, which would probably look more heroic if he'd bothered to stand up from the table first. 

Impulse cracks up.

"Nope, sorry, it was all about the easily accessible superpowers."

"'Easily'," Warp repeats. "Uh-huh. Four years of work definitely qualifies as 'easy'."

"By comparison to 'I have no idea how to even start', it absolutely does!"

In between jokes, they go through the rest of the training exercise, discussing how the pair handled it and what they could have done better. They managed pretty well, but their inexperience shows. 

"I think we still have time to go another round with me in the mix, if you're recovered from the last one," Flash says when they're done.

"I'll tell the computer to generate a randomized course, same sort of thing as last time, so I won't have any more idea what's coming than you." 

Impulse bounces. "Ooh, yes please."

"Do you have a solution to the problem of communicating at high speeds when you can't wait for sound? We tried learning sign language but it turns out bad sign language is actually less efficient than just knowing each other really really well. Probably should've stuck with it long enough to get good, but we weren't expecting to end up as your sidekicks."

"If we're not actually moving at the time, we can just...talk faster," Flash explains.

"I've practiced that with the previous Flash. Otherwise, there's the method I use with other Leaguers, which is...basically texting? That's better for asynchronous communication, though. Maybe sign language is the way to go."

"We can talk faster up to a point, sure, but sound is still so slow, I'm not waiting forty milliseconds for an answer when I've got shit to do. Texting works if your computers are fast enough, which I assume they are or what is the Justice League even good for, and sign language works if we all actually learn it, so it won't solve our problem today but it'll be useful to have for later."

"There's your homework assignment, then," he says, only half-joking. "Learn ASL so we can use that to coordinate. For now, we can use the talking-faster trick through earpieces."

Speaking of which, only one of the twins currently has an earpiece. He should fix that. "Back in a flash!" 

He zips off, acquires an earpiece, and sets it up the same as the other one on the way back.

The boys are both giggling when he returns.

He grins and offers the earpiece to Warp, bowing. 

"My wife tells me I use that line too often, I warn you now."

And now he has an earpiece. "I contest the assertion that it's possible to use that line too often."

"We'll see if you're still saying that in a month, shall we?"

And now they can go back to the control room to set up the track, then down to the track itself and start running.

Whee!

This round starts off pretty similar to how the last one ended: varyingly complicated arrangements of civilians, enemies and assets. Flash is better at avoiding holograms than the twins are, probably just because he's had more practice on this course. 

He gives them a brief explanation-slash-demonstration, made briefer by the speedup, of how to do the talking thing.

They pick up on it pretty quickly. Appropriately enough.

Somehow he completely fails to be surprised by this. 

There is, however, a noticeable difference in efficiency between this method of communication and whatever it is the twins do. It'll probably smooth out once they've worked together more. 

In the meantime, the communication gap sometimes leaves the twins explaining their plan to the Flash while they're already in the middle of executing it.

They only do that when Impulse is pretty sure his bright idea is going to work out better than whatever the Flash would've come up with.

He's usually right.

Well, there are worse ways this could be working out. 

Flash reconfigured the settings so the holograms would react realistically to being hit, rather than just flashing and winking out. He takes advantage of this to disable a few enemies that would have been hard to neutralize in other ways, after warning the twins not to copy him.

"You don't know how to avoid killing people at this speed yet!"

"Seems like a good opportunity to learn!"

"Fair enough."

He taps something on his wrist computer to pause the holograms, and proceeds to demonstrate using conveniently-placed 'enemies' as visual aids. 

"OK, I'll unpause and you can try it on these two. Ready?"

He unpauses without waiting for an answer; that's probably all the warning they needed.

Yep.

They understand the theory right away, and it's just a matter of practicing until they have the muscle memory to go with it. Impulse has fun; he likes the challenge of the game even when he messes up.

Warp takes his mistakes a little more personally, perhaps because he makes more of them.

...yeah. Flash is slightly more worried about Impulse's attitude, honestly. Sure, right now they're just playing with cool hologram tech they didn't know existed yesterday, but when it comes to using these skills in the real world, mistakes like the ones they're still making could actually kill people. 

Neither of their reactions are seriously concerning, though, just the amount of variance he'd expect to see between any two teenage superheroes. 

"Ready to try at full speed, with all the complications added back in?"

Impulse bounces excitedly, but lets Warp answer.

"Yeah, sure."

And so they resume their several-times-the-speed-of-sound dash around a track populated with variously colored holograms, now with the added option of punching the bad guys before they can shoot the good guys. 

After a while of that, the enemies get more dangerous. Some of them seem to be modelling various powers of their own: the environment shifts and changes in ways that help them and hinder the speedsters.

Warp gets more hesitant with the increased difficulty; he does a lot of looking to his brother for cues.

Impulse, by contrast, gets bolder. He takes chances, takes initiative, tries things that don't always work out.

That's fine, and Flash is honestly surprised it's taken this long to find something that inspires caution in either of them.

Well, he might have been surprised if you'd asked him this morning. By this point he's not sure anything daunts Impulse. 

Given their difference in approach, it might work to split them up for a few laps. He suggests it: Impulse on his own, Warp paired with Flash. They can try other configurations too, if that one doesn't work.

They agree to the change.

Warp benefits from the rearrangement; without his brother's insight to lean on, he learns how to work more closely with the Flash.

That was part of the point, yes. Hopefully that'll translate over when they go back to working as a trio. 

Flash checks the time, decides they can afford a few more rounds, and swaps twins. He tells the computer to go easy on Warp: he's sure Impulse had fun bouncing round the course on his own, but his brother seems to need a little more guidance. 

In just the short time he spent alone, Impulse has already improved significantly. He's making around the same number of mistakes, but at much more difficult tricks.

That's great, but Flash is willing to bet his ability to coordinate hasn't improved. 

At least he has the advantage that he can stay one step ahead of Impulse literally, if not metaphorically, thanks to the difference in their current maximum speeds. 

He is actually not all that bad at teamwork, just - until he has a better idea. (And his better ideas are often actually better, but not always.)

Does he at least get better at communicating these better ideas before implementing them, that being the main point of this exercise?

It might, after all, be helpful to have someone who can move at speeds greater than Mach 5 on short notice. 

Well... yes and no. If he sees an opportunity he goes for it, explaining along the way. He does get better at delivering those explanations in a way the Flash can understand, but he's still, for lack of a better word, impulsive.

...they probably need to come up with a faster method of communication. He'll work on that.

In any case, eventually it's time to stop so the boys can make it home in time for dinner. Flash maaaybe cuts it a little fine on that front. 

"Same time next week work for you boys, or would another time be better?"

"Same time next week is fine!"

So Flash books the track for another training session the following week, and sends his sidekicks home. 

The zeta tube network can drop the twins back in that one phone booth in Toronto, unless they want to pick a different city. They could, technically, run all the way, but there are multiple reasons they didn't do that to get here, including the fact that the Justice League does not especially want it known that they have a training facility in Nowhere, Nevada. 

They take the zeta tube network back to that one phone booth in Toronto and run home from there.

The next week, they show up a couple of minutes early.

The Flash is, just barely, late. 

"Great, you're here! Shall we get started?" 

Neither of the boys says anything about the Flash being late.

A speed test reveals that Impulse's top speed has gone up since last week; he denies having pushed it, and it hasn't lifted very far.

Racing with Warp would be almost pointless, though, because Warp now clocks a solid Mach 12, and says he could probably go faster if he didn't have to worry about corners.

Impulse has no theories to offer about why they're so different.

He does notice that although his external speed is still lagging, he can run his mind much faster than his body, thinking and perceiving at a rate that keeps up much better with the movements of the other two speedsters in the room. This is useful in supporting his ongoing habit of tactical improvisation.

Overall it's a pretty good training session. If this is what they're like after a week, the Flash is going to have some really impressive sidekicks.

Ah, but what's their rate of mistakes with the holograms like? If it's low enough, he might take them out on patrol with him sometime soon. 

When he mentions that to the boys, Impulse laughs.

"If you want me to do a perfect run, I can do a perfect run," he says. "But the holograms are an opportunity to make mistakes without actually hurting anyone, so I'm taking advantage - push until I screw up, figure out how not to do that, repeat."

Well, that explains a few things. Flash is substantially less worried about Impulse's attitude now than he was a week ago.

"I would like to see a perfect lap, actually," he says, "just to make sure you're not accidentally training yourself into bad habits. I've done that a few times." 

He looks at Warp. "You're not doing the same thing, are you. You're treating it like it is real." It's not really a question. 

"Yeah. Well - sort of. I'm not doing what he's doing, but - there' a lot of stuff I wouldn't try if it was real, 'cause somebody might get hurt, and I have to learn it all sometime. So I'm treating it... as though it was real but getting the job done was important enough to be worth taking chances, I guess."

"That makes sense," Flash agrees.

He still challenges Warp to complete a round with no mistakes, though, along with his brother. Shouldn't be too difficult for either of them. 

Warp is a lot more cautious this round, but manages to perform adequately without making any mistakes that would hurt someone in the real world.

Impulse... is not a whole lot more cautious than usual. But he's cautious enough. He delivers his promised perfect run on the first try, despite some very narrow misses.

Flash reviews their results.

"Well," he concludes with a sigh, "you probably won't do more than mildly terrify a few random bystanders if I take you on patrol in Central City. Maybe not even that; they're used to me. Interested?" 

"Definitely!"

How did he guess that would be the answer. 

"When's a good time for you? Central City's an hour behind Toronto..." 

Flash arranges a patrol for one evening when the boys are free.

They'll meet at the Central City zeta tube entrance, which is hidden in an abandoned construction site. "The destination code's 008. If I'm not there, wait a minute or two then go home or here instead. I don't want you going looking for me." 

"For a particular reason, or...?"

"I'm a speedster. If I'm more than a few minutes late, that's not just 'something came up'. It's 'something came up that I couldn't handle', which means I don't want you trying."

He looks straight at Impulse, trying for stern.

"This isn't about whether you can do it, or how much I trust you, or anything like that. But you're under 18, and that means..."

He pauses to get the wording right. "It means you're my responsibility during a patrol. If I've run into something I can't handle, you don't come help me, because that puts you in danger too. You get away, and you call the League so they can help. Okay?"

"If I think you're in serious trouble I'll call the League, and I'm not going to assume by default that it's a good idea for me to get involved on top of that - but if I have an actual reason to think it's worth it, taking the consequences into account, I will."

"I'm much more natively inclined to run away from anything that gives you that much trouble, but I trust my brother's tactical assessments," says Warp.

"I suppose I'll have to live with that," Flash says with a sigh.

He reaches up as if to run a hand through his hair, but ends up scratching the back of his cowl instead. 

"It's not likely to happen, anyway. I'll meet you at the zeta-tube, we'll go on patrol, maybe we'll stop a few muggings or a bank robbery. Nothing too exciting." 

"Yeah," says Impulse. "Oh, by the way, Mom wants to meet you, want to come by for dinner after patrol?"

Flash thinks about it before replying. He doesn't have anything scheduled - never does, after a patrol - and it would be responsible to meet his sidekicks' legal guardian at least once. 

"As Flash or in my civilian identity?" he asks, grinning. "Do I need to bring a clean shirt?"

"Up to you whether you want her knowing we rhyme, I guess!"

He laughs.

"Sure, why not. We'll see if she finds it as amusing as you do." Probably not - Impulse seems to do most things more intensely than other people. But maybe his mother is where he got it from. That could be interesting. 

Giggle.

When it's time to go on patrol, the zeta tube network spits the twins out into the concrete shell of a half-constructed building. 

Their mentor doesn't seem to be there waiting for them. 

Their mentor is bizarrely un-punctual for a speedster. There's no reason to worry until it's been a minute or two.

But they probably shouldn't stand around in costume waiting for him, so they might as well zip around the immediate area for a bit, and once they're doing that they might as well also take the opportunity to look for items of interest such as 'signs of obvious supervillain activity they should interfere in or tell the League about' or 'the Flash, zooming sheepishly toward them'.

Oh look here's a zooming speedster.

...he comes to a halt in front of them, looking sheepish.

"Sorry, sorry. Hope I didn't worry you." 

Impulse giggles.

"Don't worry," says Warp, "we pretty much expect it by now."

Flash laughs along. He's well aware of his lateness habit - it used to be worse before he got his superspeed. 

"Shall we get started?" 

Bounce. "Yes let's!"

Flash's patrol route is one which takes full advantage of his superspeed - zooming on the fastest safe route between one vantage point and another, covering the likeliest hotspots for trouble in the city.

And, speaking of "hotspots"...

A man dressed in what looks like asbestos is waving a flamethrower around in the middle of a reasonably crowded street, laughing in delight as his surroundings go up in flames. 

Impulse glances at the Flash, for once actively seeking his input on how to proceed.

Flash ramps up the speed and babbles out a quick explanation.

"This is Heat Wave, I've fought him before, the thing on his left arm's a fire suppressant but we should get local authorities here as well - " 

He sketches out a plan of action, sending Warp to zip around rescuing civilians while he and Impulse try to disarm Heat Wave. 

The boys follow this plan!

Impulse, looking delighted at the puzzle in front of him, manages to find the safety shutoff on Heat Wave's fuel-tank backpack and flip the switch without otherwise disturbing anything.

And then he zips around in front of the villain and slows down enough to say, "Hi! You look like you're having fun."

"...well. I was." He sounds somewhere between petulant and bemused, like a kid who's just had a favorite toy inexplicably stop working. 

"Yeah, sorry about that," he says cheerfully. "If you want to play with fire uninterrupted I recommend doing it somewhere else. Neat flamethrower, by the way, did you make it yourself? I've built a few but they didn't work nearly this well."

Impulse seems to have this under control, so Flash goes to help Warp rescue people from the flames, not wanting to wait for the regular emergency services to arrive. He keeps half his attention on Heat Wave, just in case Impulse has overestimated his ability to talk the guy down. 

Heat Wave is looking a little sheepish. His hand twitches around his flamethrower, which does indeed look homemade along with the accompanying suppressant.

"Uh...yeah, I did." He peers at Impulse through his goggles. "Why do you care? And who the heck are you, anyway?"

"A superhero, obviously! Call me Impulse. I'm one of the Flash's new sidekicks. My brother Warp is off rescuing people—" he gestures in the direction of the blue-silver blur. "But I'm the friendly one so I get to talk to you. That one's the fire suppressant, right? How's it work, can I see?"

"...fine." 

Keeping a firm grip on the items in both his hands, Heat Wave begrudgingly fires a splash of suppressant towards a nearby patch of flames. It looks like the same white foam that comes out of a fire extinguisher, and is just as effective at smothering the blaze. "Happy?" he grumbles.

"Oh cool, so—" and he's off into a sharp-eyed technical analysis of the functioning of both gadgets, brimming with obvious admiration for their design and construction.

Heat Wave's annoyance at the interference gradually subsides in favour of bemused delight at the interest Impulse is taking in his work. 

After a while of this, though, he interrupts Impulse to demand, "What's the catch?" 

(Meanwhile, Flash and Warp have removed everyone else from the danger zone, and a firetruck has arrived to deal with the blaze.)

"...what do you mean?"

"You're a hero," he accuses, spitting out the word like it's an insult.

"Heroes don't do this, not unless they're planning somethin' else and stalling. So - what've you got up your sleeve?"

"It's my first day heroing, maybe I'm not very good at it yet. I'm supposed to get you to stop setting things on fire so Warp can rescue everybody, and doing that by geeking out about your awesome flamethrower setup seemed like more fun than most other ways I could've managed it? Does that qualify as a catch?"

That actually surprises a laugh out of him. "You're alright, kid." 

He glances around nervously, noticing the presence of emergency responders and trying to track the twin blurs of the other two speedsters. 

"Might be time for me to go, I'm thinkin'. You gonna try and stop me?"

"Nope. Bye! Please try to cause less public mayhem in the future!"

He snorts and scarpers, clearing a path for himself through the remaining flames. 

Flash comes to a halt next to Impulse. "How'd it go?" 

"I like him! I have high hopes for eventually convincing him to indulge his love of flamethrowers more responsibly!"

"Well, I wouldn't bet against you." 

...aaaand the news vans have arrived. "Do you two want to be on local, maybe national, television as my new sidekicks, or would you rather skip it?" 

"Kind of rather skip it for now," says Warp.

Flash nods. 

"Find somewhere out of sight to wait for me. I probably won't be able to avoid mentioning you entirely, but I can go heavy on the 'no comments' if you like." 

"Sure. See you."

Off they zip.

Flash knows how to talk to the media. "...and I would like to commend the prompt response of the fire crew..." He can almost do this on autopilot now. Smile, wave, don't take all the credit...

The reporter asks him about Impulse, who was clearly visible during his conversation with Heat Wave. Is he a new hero? A new villain, working with Heat Wave to keep him out from behind bars?

"The individual concerned is not a supervillain," Flash begins. He guesses Impulse won't mind him confirming that one. "They were assisting me in de-escalating the situation by distracting Heat Wave." To the following barrage of questions (What are their powers? Their superhero name? Is this another speedster? Are you working together?) he mostly answers "No comment."

Once the reporter is finally placated and the cameramen have left, he looks around for his still-just-about-secret sidekicks. 

"Hi. How'd it go?"

"They asked me about you; Warp seems to have gone unnoticed in the confusion and I didn't correct them," Flash recounts.

"I confirmed that you were on my side rather than Heat Wave's, but didn't give them any more details. People do seem to have noticed that you're a speedster, though, and it probably won't take much for them to put the pieces together."

"That's fine. I don't mind publicity eventually, we just didn't want it today."

Flash nods.

They move on. The rest of their patrol is uneventful, and they eventually circle back to the zeta-tube. 

"Back to Toronto for all of us, I think?" He gestures for the boys to go first. 

"Yep!"

*RECOGNIZED: IMPULSE, B-04*

*...WARP, B-05*

*...FLASH, 04*

Flash blurs around the corner and comes back dressed in civvies: a shirt, tie, and red sweater vest. 

Impulse and Warp likewise get into their civvies, and then they lead Flash - or, rather, Barry - home to where their mother is waiting.

"Hi Mom, look what we found!"

She laughs.

"Hi. Carita Nelson, pleased to meet you."

"Likewise. I'm Barry Allen."

He gives her a charming smile.

"Thank you for inviting me to dinner." 

"You're welcome! Come in, make yourself comfortable—how was your first patrol?" she asks her sons.

"So apparently there's this villain called Heat Wave who likes setting stuff on fire with his awesome homemade flamethrower. I said hi and geeked out about his cool gadgets while the other two were off rescuing everybody."

"Providing a very effective distraction," Barry adds. 

"I'll have to try that trick myself sometime, although I suspect it won't work so well for me." 

"It's a very Merry trick."

"I am getting that sense," Barry agrees.

"Oh, and we should discuss your public identity as superheroes, since you've been caught on camera now." 

"What goes into having a public identity as a superhero? And how long can I get away with never talking to the press? I don't wanna talk to the press. I bet Merry's fine with talking to the press but I'm not."

"You can let Merry do the talking for both of you," Barry reassures him.

"I'm sure he'll do a great job. I'm talking about things like...when and how we make it known that you two are my sidekicks, for example. I managed to avoid mentioning it today, and even avoided giving away that there are two of you, but we can't expect to keep that up forever." 

"I don't mind if people find out I exist, I just don't wanna have to talk to them."

Barry nods.

"Merry? You're being uncharacteristically quiet," he jokes. "Any thoughts?" 

He laughs.

"I actually don't super wanna talk to the press a lot either? I'll do it but I'd rather not make a habit of it. It seems like it's a really different skill from talking to specific people."

"We can tell them to leave you alone after the first interview, especially since you're under eighteen. But that'll be a lot easier if they've had one interview," Barry explains.

"I can be standing right next to you the whole time, if that'll help. I know how to talk to the press; I've been doing it for years." 

"Sure, sounds good."

He looks at Carita. 

"What do you think of all this, Mrs - sorry, it's Ms Nelson, isn't it?" 

"Yes, but I prefer Carita." She smiles. "What are you looking for my input on, exactly?"

"Your sons being superheroes?" he suggests.

"The fact that it's very likely they'll be famous soon, although hopefully only in their superhero identities?" 

"Seems like they're doing pretty well so far."

"Well of course we are."

Barry beams at Merry, pride shining in his face. 

"Your mom is great," he stage-whispers.

"I know," he whispers back.

Carita laughs.

"Anyway, as I'm sure you've discovered, superspeed is hungry work," Barry says to Carita. 

"I expect all three of us are ready for a good meal after that patrol." 

"In that case, you're in luck!"

She shows Barry to the dining room and has the boys help her serve a very substantial dinner.

Barry is very appreciative!

As Carita probably anticipated given that she's been feeding two speedsters for a while, he eats substantially more than one might expect from a man in such good shape. 

"Mmm, this is good."

"Thank you!"

"Our mom is the best mom."

"I would agree, but I can feel my own mother rising from the grave to shake her head in disappointment," Barry jokes. 

"So I'll have to say second-best." 

He beams at Carita. 

"A title I'm proud to hold, under the circumstances."

Dinner proceeds, and is enjoyed by all. 

Barry arrived vaguely expecting an interrogation of some sort from the twins' mother, but has pretty much forgotten to worry about that.

After dinner, she sends the boys to clear the dishes and turns to Barry.

"I don't mean to hold you to account for your teammates' actions, but I heard something about Batman being likely to spy on us?"

"...yes, he does that," Barry admits. 

At least she's not mad at him?

"There's no evidence, of course, but I'm pretty sure he knows the secret identities and weaknesses of everyone in the League - and our associates. He's all but admitted to knowing Superman's."

"Seems a little impolite of him."

"A little, yes. Especially when no-one knows his identity, or Robin's." 

Barry scratches the back of his neck. "Not sure what we can do about it, though. I can't exactly get him kicked off the League; he's far too essential..."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of trying something like that. But I'm disappointed in his lack of respect for my children's privacy."

"What do you want to do about it, then?"

Barry's a scientist; his first instinct when faced with a problem is to look for a solution. 

"Maybe I should talk to him."

"I can pass a message on," Barry offers. 

"I'm guessing you don't really want him in your house? I might be able to get you clearance to meet him at one of our bases..." 

"You are correct that I don't really want him in my house," she agrees. "If meeting him at one of your bases doesn't work out, I suppose I can always visit Gotham."

"I'll see what I can do." 

What he can do, apparently, turns out to be arranging a private meeting with the Bat at a particular address in Gotham a week later.

Barry offers to run her there, since she doesn't have clearance to use the zeta network. 

Sure, why not.

"I did literally mean 'run'," he clarifies.

"And, well, I'm told it's a little undignified." But sure, if she's fine with the Flash bridal-carrying her across several states. 

She's perfectly fine with that!

He picks her up. The world around them is a blur for a minute or two. Then they are in Gotham. 

The address Batman gave them is a perfectly innocuous private residence, in a part of the city nice enough that the streets are safe to walk but not so nice that the modest townhouse is out of place. 

"Well, this is the place. Should I stay outside, or - "

"Oh, I don't mind either way. If you think you'd have something to contribute, you can come in."

On the one hand, Batman is scary. On the other hand, he wouldn't miss this for the world. On the other other hand, this is about his sidekicks. 

"I'm not sure if I have all that much to contribute that you can't, but if you don't mind...I think I'll come with you." 

She smiles. "I don't mind at all."

They head in. 

The inside of the house is mostly consistent with its outside. A little sparse and impersonal, perhaps - it's increasingly obvious once they're past the hallway that no-one actually lives here - but nothing that would attract unwanted attention if a neighbour happened to wander in. Nothing in plain sight, anyway. 

Batman is waiting in the living room, a dark silhouette against the light streaming in through the blinds. 

"Ms. Nelson," he greets her. "Flash." If he's surprised to see both of them, it doesn't show. 

"Batman. Thank you for meeting with me," she says. "I heard a rumour that you make a habit of learning the secret identities of everyone associated with the League, and I was wondering if you'd like to explain yourself."

...well. She doesn't waste much time, does she. 

"I do," he admits.

"For security reasons." 

"Security reasons such as?"

"Ms. Nelson, one of the first things any villain does when a new hero comes on the scene is try to figure out their civilian identity. If they succeed, that villain now has leverage over the hero, in the form of friends and family they can target as hostages." His tone has a slight lecturing air. 

"As chairman of the Justice League, it is my responsibility to protect Leaguers and their associates against such attempts. The most efficient way to do so is by attempting to track down civilian identities myself, and ensuring that no-one else can succeed in the same manner." 

She raises her eyebrows slightly. "And is there a reason why this isn't officially acknowledged League policy?"

"The previous holders of my position disagreed with me about the necessity of such measures."

"See," she says, meeting his eyes, "my complaint here isn't necessarily that you do this at all. It's that you do it unacknowledged, unadvertised, under the table, in a way that presents it to your teammates not as a security measure but as a personal quirk, so that instead of being given official notice before associating themselves with the League, my sons get to hear 'oh, it's Batman, he just does that' when it's already well past the time when they might have factored that information into their decision to become the Flash's sidekicks. I don't think you gain any worthwhile security benefits from doing it this way. It's unethical, unprofessional, and borderline threatening, and I expect better from someone who's supposed to be in the business of making the world a safer place."

"While there may be ethical concerns with my methods," Batman grits out, "I differ from many of my associates by prioritizing security over all else.

"If it were official League policy to keep records of every member's civilian identity, the many enemies of the League might eventually learn of it. The more people that know, the higher the chance that it could get out," he explains. 

"From there, it would only be a few steps to them attempting to hack into the League's computer system and gaining the information themselves. All databases can be cracked if someone knows they're there. It's better if they don't know to look."

Carita listens thoughtfully to all of this.

When he finishes speaking, she waits a moment to be sure he's done, then responds:

"As I said, I don't think you gain any worthwhile security benefits from doing it this way. Regardless of your feelings on the matter, it is an open secret among League members that you do this; and, frankly, I don't have much faith in any plan that relies on no one guessing that a man whose tagline is 'world's greatest detective' might list invasion of privacy among his hobbies."

She pauses again, making sure she has his full attention before she continues.

"When the coin you're paying in is the trust of your allies, you had better make damn sure you're getting your money's worth. And you manifestly are not."

"..."

Flash is very quietly vibrating in place. There may or may not be a hole forming underneath him.

She waits.

"You...have a point," Batman concedes eventually, forcing the sentence out through gritted teeth. 

"I take it you have an alternative to propose, since my methods have so obviously failed."

Is he glaring at Flash again? It's hard to tell under the cowl, every emotion looks like a glare. 

"The way I see it, you have several options that improve on what you're currently doing," she says. "You could stop doing it entirely, but I suspect you won't, and the practice does have some value. You could make it official League policy and have new League associates informed of that policy before they join. You could make it official League policy and also make it official League policy not to tell anyone about it - if you think you can convince your colleagues to abide by that, and if you think that the extent to which it's already somewhat common knowledge doesn't make future secrecy into a case of locking the barn door after the horses have gone. Or you could continue doing it unofficially, but tell people about it before you spy on them. I can't comment on the relative viability of these options, because I don't know the first thing about internal League politics."

"I think you overestimate the extent to which this is 'common knowledge' among the League," is Batman's first response. "A few individual League members have guessed that I investigated them in particular. The Flash is the only one who knows for certain that I make it a habit, because I told him.

"Regardless, I think the best course at this stage is to make it official League policy - and hope that my fellow members can be trusted to keep it from their...junior associates."

He doesn't sound wildly optimistic. 

"Good luck."

"Thank you."

He waits a moment. "Was that all?"

"Seems so."

"Then I look forward to seeing you again, Ms. Nelson," he says in a tone that somehow manages to convey the exact opposite.

"Flash," he adds, nodding at the other hero. 

Flash returns the nod, a little jerkily, and zips over to open the door for Carita. 

He looks like he can't wait to get out of that room. 

"Thank you for hearing me out," she says, and leaves.

Flash visibly relaxes once they're outside. 

"Want a ride back home?"

"Yes, please."

It's the same wild, disorienting ride as last time. Possibly a little more so - he's shaken enough to be slightly less careful. 

And here they are back in Toronto. 

"Well, that didn't go terribly." 

"I think it went pretty well, actually! I'm glad you said something to Impulse, this would've been a much more awkward conversation to have six months from now."

"I can imagine."

...yes, he can, and it would have been terrifying. He'd probably have been caught in the crossfire as well, for helping keep it a secret. 

"I don't know how much it will help, but I'll back Batman up when he takes it to the League. Tell them this really is the best option." 

She nods. "Thank you. I think it's better for everyone if there's a widely agreed-on policy for this sort of thing."

"Agreed."

Flash seems to be relaxing now the tense situation is past. 

"So, uh, I'll see the boys for training at the weekend as usual?" 

"Sounds good!"

Training goes as usual. 

"How's your speed doing, Impulse? Have you figured out what the problem was yet?" 

"It remains a mystery. My top speed goes up noticeably when I push it; when I don't, it still goes up but much slower."

"Hmm." This is puzzling!

"Well, it doesn't seem to be slowing you down - " he pauses, grinning at the unintentional joke " - so I'm inclined to let it keep doing that. Unless it's bothering you. Is it bothering you?"