InsaneJournal

Not So Secret Identity, The Flash, Julio Mendez
Title: Not So Secret Identity
By: dragovianknight
Fandom: The Flash
Pairing/Characters: Julio Mendez
Rating: gen
A/N: I never believed Julio didn't figure out Barry's secret identity by mid-season. Not for a minute.


The thing about Barry is, he's a smart guy. Put him in a lab, and there aren't too many - besides me, of course - who can keep up with him. He's just not too smart about people. Why else would it be taking him so long to hook up with Tina?

So when he became the Flash, in some ways he did a really good job of covering it up. Just not in the ways that involved coming up with excuses, or remembering how long it'd take a normal person to get somewhere, or learning how to lie without a huge neon sign blinking "I'm lying!" over his head.

Okay, so it couldn't have been that bad, since most people didn't suspect a thing, but it was that obvious to me. You see, I'm a smart guy, too. And I'm smart about people. It took me about a month to figure out Barry hadn't just had a few screws knocked loose by the explosion, and another two months to convince myself I hadn't had a few screws knocked loose. After all, when your best friend gets super powers he tells you.

Apparently not.

At first I thought he was dropping hints, like maybe he couldn't work up the nerve to tell me. After all, some of those slip-ups were pretty blatant (Hitting the computer's enter key so fast his hand was a blur? Seriously? When the station computer can't keep up with me in a rush, even on its best day?). I decided nobody could possibly be that hopeless at the whole secret identity thing, that maybe he was feeling me out; after all, super powers are kind of a big deal, and the poor guy was going from media darling to media scapegoat just about once a week.

Then I finally asked him, and discovered that, yeah, Barry could be that hopeless. Though for about two seconds he pretty damn near convinced me I was nuts, what with the Flash conveniently appearing across the street. The only problem with his plan was that I remembered how we'd been teasing Murph about the Flash being fast enough to be in two places at once.

I'd have been more pissed, except Barry had to know he was going to kick up a pretty good breeze with that stunt. And he had to know - or hope - I was going to overlook it. Which I did, just barely.

I almost went ahead and asked anyway, just to see if he'd lie to my face about it, but he was giving me this sincere, wide-eyed, oh-man-I-hope-you-bought-that look, and I just couldn't do it. It would have been like kicking a puppy. Not that that's stopped me from poking him every now and then, just to see him squirm. I mean, a guy has the right to a little payback when his best friend puts on spandex and doesn't tell him, right?

Besides, I kind of want to see how long it takes him to figure out I know.