milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The door opens.

For a few seconds, there's several gusts of winds, the kind you might get when a speedster is rushing around, doing a little bit of recon. He grabs some of the info that was kindly set out for newbies to read and zooms through the inside of the bar and some of the rest of the building before taking a look at the outside of the building.

Maybe a minute later, the gust of wind blows the door leading to outside open again, and then there's an eighteen-year-old in a red hoodie at a table, tipping his chair back while he surveys the place again, this time at normal speed.

"Cool."

In another couple minutes, he is going to have an enormous amount of food on his table, if anyone wants to try their luck at getting him to share. Or just wants to say hi to the new face.

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After a few minutes, he might see a small boy peeping at him over the top of the table.

"Are you new?" he asks. "Most people here don't have as much wind."

Huh.

If he's concerned that the kid is linking the gusts of wind to him, he doesn't show it. Bart peers back at him, amused. "Maybe. How much wind do people here normally have?"

(It's a perfectly reasonable question.)

"It depends." Fry says. "If they live in a very whooshy place, or they eat lots of beans."

Beat.

"But I have to know whether you're new or not because I am doing my Greeter Badge." he says, pointing to his Scouts hoodie on which he already has a badge for Photography (Tiny Person) and Sledge Engineer.

Riiiight, he remembers reading about that. "Milliscouts, right?" He's pretty certain that's what it was called. It's kind of weird, but then, so's this whole place. "Yeah, I'm new."

"Welcome to Milliways." Fry says promptly. "I will give you a leaflet." he hands him one of the leaflets he already has.

"You have to not thump people or hunt them down because you have a grunge or take off your pants unless you are in the toilet." he informs him.

"No grunges," he repeats seriously, clearly taking it with the great solemnity that Fry's pronouncement deserves. "Got it."

Fry nods solemnly.

"My name is Alexander Jefry Sandhu but I like to be called Fry."

"Smallfry, huh? I can work with that. My name's Bart. Allen," he adds, because he is so not saying his whole name. Not for safety reasons (although he probably should consider that more) but because Bartholomew.

Blank stare.

"Fry." Fry corrects. "I am on the ninetieth centile for height."

"Bart Allen." Beat. "Is Bart short for Barry?"

"No, it was a nickname, it - "

He stops himself and shakes his head. "Nevermind. Fry. And nah, it's short for - " A brief wince. "Bartholomew."

Fry notices neither the wince nor anything to take the mick out of, and nods.

"My Dad used to have a friend called Barry Allen." he says. "That's why I wondered. But I bet there's lots of Allens."

It's like he stops breathing for a second.

(Wally West. Max Mercury. Jay Garrick. Barry Allen.)

"Yeah?" he says, with very forced casualness. It's not a big deal, it doesn't have to mean anything. Just because it's one of the names he's known since the first time he woke up. "What was he like?"

Edited 2015-02-13 23:07 (UTC)

"I think it was before I was born." Fry says. "But he was a good man and he helped set up the Infirmary here and he saved my Dad's life."

If he looks like he's listening a little too intently to Fry's words, it's because... he is. "Yeah? He a doctor or something?"

"Yes. Well Dad is, I think Barry Allen was a flasher or something."

Uhhhh.

Bart's really not sure how to take that. "You sure you heard that right?"

"Not exactly." Fry admits.

"It's cool. But being a flasher is kinda not cool, so you might not wanna use that unless you know for sure that's what they are."

Bart: champion of the next generation.

"Okay." Fry says.

"I think I heard he was cool so he probably is something else, like a fisher or a fashioner."

"Those are way cooler," Bart says, once again employing that totally serious voice that means he may or may not be deeply amused on the inside but too nice to let it show.

"Are you a grown up or a teenager?" Fry asks.

He lets himself bristle in obviously fake indignance. "I can't be both?"

Fry hesitates, not knowing what the bristling is. They didn't cover that yet in his new social skills lessons.

"How old are you then?"

It goes away fast enough. Bart's getting the idea that this is kid isn't too great with the social cues. "Eighteen. So a teenager but legally an adult."

"Depending on where you live." Fry says.

He shrugs.

"Most places I hang out."

"Where's that?" Fry asks.

"US, mostly. Mexico's pretty cool."

"I heard it was hot there."

Jay doesn't look up from the motorcycle parts he's working on . He doesn't need to. He knows the sound a speedster makes, a theory reinforced by the piles of food. "Having fun there?"

Bart glances up from his pile of way-too-much-food and eyes him, vaguely amused. It's always fun watching people stare at his food intake and try to figure out how the hell he manages. "You could say that."

Jay hasn't so much as looked sideways at the food. It was just a confirmation of his theory. "Don't get a lot of Speedsters here. I think you might be the first one I've seen."

He says it dryly, still cleaning the parts at hand.

Bart's reply is way too casual. "What makes you think I'm a speedster?"

Jay raises an eyebrow. "The lap of the bar and grounds in record time, the pile of calories you're replacing right now. The fact you didn't ask me what a speedster was."

Bart's answer is delivered with a perfectly straight face. "That's like an old sports car, right?"

"Haha." Jay replies a little wryly. "I'm Jay, by the way. I'm the bar's mechanic in residence."

"I'm kinda hoping there's an unofficial what happens in Vegas rule going on here, cause superpowers? Not really supposed to be common knowledge."

Jay nods and gives him a casual shrug. "There are quite a few metahumans here. Current and ex superheroes too. The whole secret identity things is a bit flexible here, pretty much up to you how you want to be know. I rarely go by my mask name here."

"Yeah? What's that?"

Hey, Jason knows his superpower! It's only fair.

"Red Hood." He watches Bart's face for any sign of recognition.

"Cool. Nice to meet you. My codename's Impulse, which I totally did not pick for the record."

Somewhere in his head, a tiny chibi Bart is raising his fist to the sky and cursing Oliver's name. (Actually he might draw that later. It would be cute.)

Jay nods. "Can't say it rings a bell but that's not that strange for here. I know there's a Kid Flash in the new team Red Robin's putting together."

"What do you prefer to go by?"

"Kid Flash?"

Bart lets out a super-unimpressed snort. "Bart. Like I said, didn't get to pick the codename."

"So, who picked it for you?"

"My boss."

Slash-adoptive billionaire benefactor. Bart would make a Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson joke if they existed in his universe (yet).

Jay raises an eyebrow. "Mind if I ask who you're working for?"

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