Sweet Embraceable You

When Wally was eight years old, his Uncle Barry had taken him into his laboratory. Uncle Barry's lab had been a magical place, even years before a lightning bolt came through the roof and made him a genetically altered, fully certified mutant-ADHD teen, in a haze of chemicals and burnt ozone.

Uncle Barry had taught him that science was cool on a Saturday afternoon when they had learned the joys of the second law of thermodynamics. His uncle had called it a fine example of entropy and had went on for a while about the binding of nucleotides, proteins, and genetics, but Wally only vaguely remembered the words. What he remembered was watching perfect crystals form and bind, creating their own pattern after a while. Uncle Barry had understood that the magic wasn't always in the science, but in the seeing. Wally could still feel the weight of his hand on his shoulder and the smile in his voice when he gave up on the science talk. "And that's how we make rock candy. Wait til you try it."

Sugar. Pure, clear, concentrated sugar. A drop that he had suspended on his finger when it began to cool, fascinated with the clear perfection of it. It was the secret to the sweetest treat in the world, with miracles locked inside, waiting to happen with just the right conditions. Wally had been in love.

Sitting on the floor at Chloe's feet while she cried and tried to explain to him why she had been arrested and why she hated the babealicious, but balls out crazy Harley Quinn, and why she just couldn't play second to anyone, anymore because she'd had that role all of her life, he thought maybe it happened again. Rock candy had popped into his mind and stayed there as he processed the running confession, his eyes fixed on the tears that spilled out along with her words. Swiped away stubbornly, and replaced against her will, but flowing from some place inside of her where she was hurt and afraid and angry and--Wally was a superhero. He should know how to fix this. Reaching up, he caught one of the tears that slipped past the bruise beneath her eye to slide down her cheek. Pure. Clear. Perfect. Miracles, just waiting to happen.

"Marry me."

Chloe blinked, her breath hitching as she swiped at another tear. Her brows knit, a familiar furrow appearing between them, her voice muffled and stuffy from the tears. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Marry me," Wally repeated as he rubbed the tear between his thumb and finger. "You'll never be second best with me, Chloe. We'll have adventures. And, I don't know, a mortgage. Or a lease! Yeah, and credit card bills and a checkbook that I can't balance and think of the cool coffee makers we're bound to get as wedding gifts." He tilted his head and worked on coaxing a smile out of her. "We might even get a cappuccino machine."

"Are you...did you just..." The frown warred with a stunned smile that kept appearing and disappearing again until she winced from the strain on her split lip. Her voice had gone all wavery and rushed with emotion and now laughter. "Are you serious?"

He should've had a ring. A ring would have made it right. A ring would have convinced her, but foreplanning was never a secret power of The Flash. No, really, it was in the Flash Code Book. Or it would be if he ever got around to getting Chloe to ghost write for him. Forethought and planning and details were things for Bruce and John and Diana.

Wally and Chloe were impulse and instinct and intuition, and right this moment, all of those things were screaming at him to marry this girl before she wised up to him and got as far away as possible. "I'm serious." And he was. "Marry me, Chloe." The words came so easily, they should have scared him. "I promise to pick up my wet towels and leave my boots out on the fire escape so they don't smell up the apartment, and--ummph!" His eyes widened as she tumbled into him, pushing them back onto the floor with the force of her kiss. Split lip, hell. Chloe Sullivan was invincible.

And she tasted sweeter than rock candy.