Souvenir

Wally stared at the wall of shelves in front of him. They held souvenirs from all the missions the Team had been on. Weaponry, parts of costumes, various trinkets that made no sense unless you knew the story. It was all there, all on display.

He held in his hands his Kid Flash costume. It almost felt heavy in his hands. Retiring had been his idea, and to do that he had to give up the costume and all that came with it. Artemis went along with it surprisingly well. She chose to keep one last costume of hers for memory’s sake though (maybe it would be used for late night patrols when she wanted to relax). Wally thought he should too, but that would go against his idea of retirement. It was a bit of a conundrum in the Crock-West household.

The ginger shook his head at the thought, trying to shake it out. No more arguments about hero stuff, that was the agreement. Only arguing about what they should have for dinner, or who was the better kisser. Wally was adamant that he was. Artemis refuted. Those arguments usually dissolved into a make-out session until they agreed they were both good kissers. But that’s not the point.

Beast Boy, walked into the room, “So this is the souvenir room.” His green eyes assessed everything in sight. Being the newest member of the Team, he still had a lot of the Cave to discover, and a lot to learn.

“Yup, there are years worth of stories in here,” Wally looked at all of it sadly. The full impact of leaving hadn’t hit him yet, but it was starting to.

Gar walked up to the shelves, running his fingers over a section of folded white fabric, “What’s this?”

Wally put down the Kid Flash suit on a nearby table and grabbed the bundle of white. He unfurled it and the red S on the chest shone proudly. “This is what formed the Team, or at least the person in it at the time.”

Superboy had agreed to give up the solar suit for the souvenir room; it was an important part to the Team’s history after all. It wasn’t hard to part with it. The hard part was convincing the Boy of Steel to not throw the thing in the trash.

“Me, Robin, and Aqualad were left alone in the Hall of Justice. That was the first thing the League shouldn’t have done. The second was not Robin-proofing their computer system.” Wally chuckled. “We decided checking out a fire at a Cadmus building was a good idea, something to prove ourselves to the League. Boy, were we right. They gave us our own team after we said we’d do something just as stupid again, and they couldn’t stop us.”

“So the Team was created because you guys got bored?” Garfield couldn’t help the smile slowly spreading on his face.

Wally shrugged, folding the solar suit back up and putting it on the shelf once again, “Pretty much.”

Gar kept asking for the stories behind the objects and Wally kept telling them. Every story was a reminder of what he was giving up. It almost made him want to stay. Almost.

“So you guys just pick up this stuff on your missions?” Gar asked curiously.

“I do, kinda self appointed. Well, I did.” Wally’s eyes never tore away from the green arrow proudly situated on one of the middle shelves.

Beast Boy shrank down, “Oh yeah, you’re leaving.”

“Don’t be disappointed. Out with the old, in with the new.” Wally rustled Gar’s hair as an indicator of what he meant.

“But the old can be good sometimes. We never even got to go on a mission together.” Garfield looked almost devastated. After some of the Team showed up in Bialya he wanted to be just like them. The oncoming of his superpowers seemed to be just the way to do it.

“Don’t worry; I’d just trip over myself like usual. You’re not missing much.” Wally joked.

“Noted,” the green boy begrudgingly agreed. He picked his eyes back up to meet green with green. “Whose gonna pick up souvenirs while you’re gone?”

Wally noticed how it sounded like Gar believed him and Artemis were just going on vacation, not leaving permanently. “You can, if you want.”

“Really?” Gar smiled from ear to ear, happy to carry on the tradition.

“Really,” Wally affirmed. He grabbed the Kid Flash costume off the table and held it out to Garfield, “Here’s your first one.”