#realization lights up Barry's face before she even has the chance to say anything and then cut to black and roll credits

[icedteaandoldlace]

Alright, I've got it figured out now. I've been torn on whether Cisco and Kamilla's first dance song for their wedding should be something slow and romantic or fast and peppy, and now I've got it, and this way it can be kind of both.

So it starts out with Winn on the piano, playing a soft, slow, wedding-ified version of Only One. (Can Winn actually play piano outside of Barry and Kara's musical dream? Don't know, don't care, he can now.) Cisco leads Kamilla onto the dance floor, doing that thing where they're holding hands and keeping a wide distance apart, and she walks in a big circle until she's standing right in front of him. Bart sings the first verse solo (I couldn't decide before if adult Bart and Nora should be at the wedding, but, well, looks like they are now). Cisco and Kamilla begin with a few basic ballroom dance steps. They both look a little tentative, but they get through it gracefully and without any missteps. It's a perfectly romantic moment, and it looks like it's gonna be a pretty standard first dance for them.

At the end of the first verse, Winn takes over for the last couple of lines (Kendall's part of the song). The nervous look on Cisco's face suddenly disappears. Holding Kamilla's gaze, he very slightly tilts his head forward in half a nod. Kamilla subtly nods back. They both grin, and as the chorus starts, several things happen at once: more instruments start playing, the tempo picks up as the bass drops, Barry takes the lead on vocals, and Cisco dramatically spins Kamilla out and they go full Fred and Ginger, to the surprise of several of their guests.

Iris's jaw is on the floor. Chester is losing his mind. Caitlin is beaming. She knew Cisco could dance because he's mentioned music being a big part of all Ramon family gatherings before, but she's never seen him do it when he wasn't goofing off. Barry of course knew what the plan was, but he's still thrilled to see it actually happening and to be a part of it. He takes his eyes off the happy twirling couple only long enough to direct the first half of the second verse to Iris, who smiles right back at him, and then he gets his head back in the game.

Why the heck it never occurred to me before that Barry should be singing at Cisco's wedding, idk, but he leads for the rest of the song, with Bart and Winn's voices harmonizing beautifully with his (and jumping into small solos where it makes sense for them to), and Cisco and Kamilla absolutely killing it on the dance floor, their eyes locked on each other the whole time.

[mrowmrowmrow9]

unfinished Crisis AU snippet

This is an unfinished fic built off of the last prompt fill I did (x). I haven't worked on it in a while and was considering it fully abandoned until @madeunmexico left a comment on ao3 asking to see the full story and now my interest has been renewed slightly? I give it like a 50/50 chance of being finished 😅 Anyways, here's what I had including the original microstory.

_

Barry. Kate. Kal. Fear on their faces. Blood on Oliver’s. Shadow demons hurtling towards them—

A familiar voice. “Kara.”

A harsh whisper, bordering on frantic. “Kara. Hey.”

She wakes up screaming, limbs flailing, fighting against the hands pulling at her and the arms wrapping around her middle.

“Shh. It's okay. It was just a dream. You’re okay.”

Kara gives up struggling and lets herself be held, choking on tears. She knows that voice, she does, but her mind dismisses the thought as soon as it forms. It can’t be him. Can’t be. She realizes for the first time that it isn’t nighttime, the reason everything’s dark is because her eyes are squeezed shut, so tightly it hurts. She opens them slowly, blinking rapidly to adjust to the light.

She’s in her apartment, wearing pajamas. That doesn’t make sense. What makes even less sense, if that’s possible, is that when Kara opens her eyes and raises her head and blinks to clear her vision so she can see who’s holding her, she’s met with a face that she’s only seen in dreams for the past two and a half years. 

Mon-El. 

When Kara sees him, she throws up. 

Actually throws up, for the first time in her adult life—super-speed has never been more helpful as she makes it to the bathroom just in time to hurl the contents of her stomach into the toilet. The person that looks like Mon-El and sounds like Mon-El and smells like Mon-El but cannot possibly be Mon-El comes running in after her. It’s too late to hold her hair back and she hears the faucet running instead.

“Here, do you want some water?”

She takes it automatically and drains the glass in one gulp, presses a hand to her head with a groan. Crisis. Oliver. The Monitor—she has to get her thoughts in order. How did she get here? Also very important: “What. What are you doing here?” she manages to get out.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, I know it’s early, Rhonda’s girlfriend is in town and she asked me to trade shifts.” Possibly-Mon-El checks his watch. He’s fully dressed; he must have heard her from the kitchen before leaving the apartment. That he…seems to live in? Was staying in? Nothing makes sense. “Crap, I should probably get going. Unless you need me to stay?” He looks at her expectantly, those warm gray eyes filled with concern.

“No, you’re fine,” Kara says quickly and closes her eyes, her head throbbing. I meant, what are you doing in my apartment? In this century, for that matter? Whatever. The sooner he’s gone, the sooner she can figure out what the hell is going on.

“Alright.” He sighs, reaching out to gently brush her hair off her shoulder. “I hope the morning gets better. Let me know if you need anything—I think we still have some fruit salad left from yesterday. You said it helped with the nausea, right?”

She nods absently without registering his words, and watches him go. With some deliberate stalling while brushing her teeth, she manages to hide out in the bathroom until he leaves. But not without calling out “Love you!” through the door and Kara nearly has a heart attack. What kind of fucked-up dream could she be having? This cannot be real. It can’t be.

Her appetite eventually comes back, with it the realization that she’s seriously late for work, and as she grabs the container out of the fridge to bring with her the light glints off her left hand, catching her eye. 

Kara has always thought of herself as a reasonably intelligent person. This belief is somewhat shaken by the realization that it’s taken her this long to notice the engagement ring on her finger.

_

He doesn’t suspect anything. Why would he? She did seem oddly confused to see him, but dreams can be disorienting. Theirs certainly are—dying families, exploding planets, backstabbing allies. And that’s on top of everything…else.

He just hopes she’s happy. He hopes it’s nothing he did.

_

So, Nia’s clueless. Who isn’t? Still disoriented as all hell, Kara returns to the Catco building to find her coworkers exchanging tearful embraces. It looks like a middle-aged woman with curly hair whom Kara has never seen before in her life is leaving Catco for a job in Utah. At least, according to the conversation Kara listens in on in an attempt to figure out how to act normal.

Evidently she doesn’t do a very good job, because Nia frowns at her while she’s discreetly taking Brainy’s super-strength Advil and asks, “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Julie?”

“R-Right, yeah,” Kara stammers, heart pounding, and awkwardly makes her way over.

This Julie is clearly under the impression that she and Kara are close friends, judging by the tight, rose-scented embrace Kara’s enveloped in before she can blink.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Julie rushes over to the desk that must have been hers and pulls a large paper bag out from underneath it. “I know I’m going to miss the party, so I wanted to give you this before I leave. They’re not new, but they’re still in good shape and, well, we don’t really need them anymore—I thought you and Mike would appreciate some extras!” She hands the bag to Kara, smiling expectantly.

Kara doesn’t think she’s ever been more confused in her life. She takes the bag, because what else is there to do, and cautiously peers inside. 

Baby clothes. Little socks and hats and a onesie with little ducks on it—great Rao, why is her vision getting blurry? “W-What are these for?” Kara asks, almost demands really, frantically blinking the tears away.

Now it’s Julie’s turn to be confused. “Well…the baby, of course!”

The fucking what now? “Right…of course,” Kara says slowly, fumbling for the right thing to say. “That’s so generous, thank you.”

“No problem!” Julie smiles and reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. “I’m really going to miss you, Kara.”

Kara watches her walk away, gaping openly.

One thing is clear: she needs to talk to J’onn. Immediately.

_

They’re out on the balcony together, standing a careful distance apart and it feels like old times in the worst way possible. 

On a masochistic impulse, Mon-El plays back a moment from only twenty-four hours earlier.

He’s drifting off to sleep in their bed, drowsy and content with Kara in his arms and his hand over her belly right where the baby grows and he thinks to himself, a life like this is too good to be true. And yet it is. He should have known better.

Three years ago Mon-El returned to the 21st century with a wife by his side and claimed he felt nothing for Kara. That couldn’t have been further from the truth, but now it’s the last thing she remembers of him. The irony.

She doesn’t remember how he came back for her, or rather refused to leave again, even as she told him he was being selfish. She doesn’t remember how he said, I know. But one of us has to be. And we both know it was only ever going to be me. She doesn’t remember how they found their way back to each other, how he asked her to marry him and she said yes and their happiness was so great they just had to share it, create their own little family. It sounds like a fairy tale to him now, and he realizes that maybe that’s all it ever was.

Mon-El blinks back the tears that arise at the thought, swallowing down the lump in his throat. It isn’t the time for that now. He’s already cried on Alex’s shoulder, had J’onn explain everything to him a hundred times over. Right now, an emotional response from him is not what Kara needs. “I went over and got my things from the apartment,” he says, fighting to keep his voice even. “J’onn says I can stay with him for a while.”

“Okay.” Kara exhales. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to kick you out, I just—”

“No, it’s fine.” He meets her eyes and tries to muster some kind of half-smile. “It’s a lot, I get it.”

She nods, biting her lip, and the turns to him abruptly. “Can we talk somewhere more private?”

Thank Rao.

He rethinks agreeing to go to the apartment almost as soon as the door closes behind him. Everywhere he looks is a reminder of their life together, the one that Kara doesn’t remember.

She wrings her hands together. “Before we talk about anything else, there’s something I need to know.”

Mon-El braces himself. “Okay.”

Kara draws in a deep breath, and then blurts out, “Do we have a child?”

There it is. “No,” he says carefully. “Not…yet. But…” He licks his lips and steps forward, gently setting a hand on her belly. He watches the realization dawn in her eyes.

“I’m…”

“Yeah.” He retracts his hand and lets it hang awkwardly at his side. “Twelve weeks.”

She puts a hand on the countertop as if to steady herself and says nothing, eyes wide.

“I’m…sorry I didn’t say anything before,” Mon-El adds helplessly, ducking his head to try and meet her gaze. “I wasn’t sure if you already knew, or if physical conditions even carried over for the Paragons, but then I remembered you threw up this morning so I just figured—”

“Shh—stop talking.” Kara holds a hand up, closing her eyes. 

He shuts up.

She breathes out, slowly. “I-I’m sorry.”

“…It’s okay,” he says awkwardly.

“I just, I need some time to…think.”

“Right. Yeah, of course.” Mon-El takes a step back, clears his throat. “I, um. I’ll go. We can…talk more tomorrow?”

Kara nods absently, staring past him like he isn’t even there.

He shuts the door behind himself, and manages to avoid breaking down until the elevator. Small victories.

[quietwingsinthesky]

what if barry wheeler-centric fanfic. what then.

Someone had to pick up the pieces.

And that was what he did, right? The real job every agent knew they were signing up for was janitorial.

Alan was gone. It didn’t feel real to Barry, and maybe that was why he was the one in Alice’s kitchen making her dinner when she couldn’t even get out of bed. Alan was gone, but Barry walked by his office and expected to hear him groaning at his desk about a sentence he liked too much and knew he has to cut. Alan was gone, and he even took his last manuscript with him.

Real selfish, Al, Barry thought, don’t you know I’ve gotta eat, too? He knocked on the door that led to what was Alan and Alice’s bedroom. He waited. She didn’t say anything, but the light escaping under the crack of the bedroom door was on, always on. (Not like Barry didn’t keep every light in his home running as well. Alan was still paying for their electricity bills.) He left her plate by the door, like maybe the smell of it would coax her out.

Barry had never liked her. Alice had never liked him much back. They both loved Alan too much, and they had both walked away alive because he hadn’t.

He figured out a new course for himself: the Old Gods of Asgard, who partied like they were half their age and drank like death couldn’t touch them. Repping them was a dream come true. Even when they finally faltered, one last tour while Barry set up funds for a retirement home. He should have made sure the construction was going as planned in person.

He couldn’t. Bright Falls swallowed his best friend whole, and he was supposed to believe it wasn’t hungry for seconds? Not a chance. But that old crazy pair headed back into the maw of the town like they were used to holding it wide open with swords. (He’d been rereading Alan’s books too much. His metaphors took root in Barry’s head. He still has Alan’s voice on talkshows and radio interviews, but his books sounded more like him than anything. With a plummet in Barry’s stomach, he wondered if Alan really did belong on the page, in a story, all along.)

The movies took most of the narration word-for-word. Barry had to fight for that, had to call in more favors than he really had to spare.

What else was he supposed to do, sit on the rights to Alex Casey and let him rot away in those books? Let him die in there?

Alan would have loved hearing the words he wrote on the screen. He would have hated that Barry made them change the ending, even if only a little bit, just the suggestion that his title character didn’t bleed out in a back alley, that maybe the light he saw before his eyes shut for the final time wasn’t hellfire or heaven’s gates, but a friendly flashlight and a person looking to help.

They had cut-outs of Alan at the premiere next to ones of the stars. Barry had thought it was funny when he’d ordered them.

He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he’d seen Alan’s face like that, so clear and close. The years were passing, and Barry felt every single one. Suddenly, the plan to smuggle one into the back of his car and drive it home seemed a lot less funny with no one else there to laugh about it.

He couldn’t bring himself to go back to Bright Falls, but some nights, Night Springs was on the air. Some nights, Alan’s words came to find him rather than the other way around.

And Barry thought, maybe this time, as the signal on his janky TV fuzzed out and Alan’s old dialogue faded — maybe this time Barry would shut his eyes and when he opened them again, there would be a page on the floor, telling him what he was supposed to do next, telling him he wasn’t holding onto that last sliver of hope in vain.

Come on, Al. How hard was one page for a novelist?

[mosylufanfic]

Color My World (just paint it with your love)

For the Killervibe Gift Swap, a gift for @ava-has-a-closet-murderboard. Eventually I hope to get everyone a gift but it’s going real slow, y’all!

You see in color when you meet your soulmate AU. (Also obviously Ronnie died the first time and didn't come back as Firestorm, sorry Ronnie.)

Title from the song Color My World by Petula Clark

Color My World (just paint it with your love)

When Ronnie died, the world went grey in an instant. 

Even as Caitlin screamed his name, she knew it was hopeless. Just the same as the world had exploded with color between one blink and the next the moment she'd met him, it reversed the moment his heart stopped beating.

-

For years, Caitlin assumed that Cisco saw the world in the same shades of grey as she did. She knew he was friendly and flirty and went on dates, and well - he was Cisco, after all. So she always expected to see him come rushing into the cortex one day, looking around at everything and seeing the colors after having met the person he was supposed to spend his life with.

So when she walked into his lab one day to find him comparing two apparently identical swatches, it was a surprise - but it wasn't.

"Cisco!" she cried, and he whirled to face her, stuffing both swatches behind his back. "Are you seeing in color?"

"Um, I - what? No. I was - comparing - um." He sagged. "Yes."

"You met your soulmate! Who is it? When can I meet them? What's their name?" She realized he wasn't looking as excited as people usually did in that first flush of color and love. "What's wrong?"

"I haven't met anyone new."

"Well, of course you have, you're seeing in color -"

"I met them years ago."

"Years? You've been seeing color all this time? You never said anything."

He nodded. "Sorry. Yeah."

"But when? And why didn't you - why aren't you - what happened?" Dramatic, overblown scenarios raced through her head, taken from cheesy cable movies with titles like "Soulmate to a Serial Killer.”

"Nothing happened, exactly. It's - " He looked away. "They're my soulmate, but I'm not theirs."

She goggled at him. You heard about those things, of course. Small percentages. Sad stories whispered behind hands. But knowing Cisco was one of them - "How do you know?"

"They'd already met their real soulmate when I met them."

She shook her head, attempting to wrap her head around it. "Are you sure? Have you told them? Have you talked about it at all?"

"Yes, I'm a hundred percent sure."

How could the universe be this cruel? Warm, laughing, loving Cisco, to be matched with someone who wasn't matched to him. To watch from the sidelines as they built a life with someone else. 

It was almost as horribly unfair as losing your soulmate. No - no. More unfair. She'd at least had a life with Ronnie, no matter how short it had been. Cisco never had that with his soulmate, and never would. 

"Why didn't you ever say anything? I always thought - "

"Because I didn't want you looking at me exactly the way you're looking at me right this very moment. Like I just told you my puppy has cancer."

She tried to rearrange her face. "I'm just -"

"Caitlin, it's fine. It happens." He shook his head a little. "I'm sorry I kept it from you."

"Who else knows?"

"Barry. And probably Iris."

"Has he met them?" A flush of - jealousy? she didn't know what to call it - washed up her throat.

"No, he doesn't even know who they are. Just that they exist." He shrugged and tossed the swatches on to the table. "Couldn't exactly keep it from him when we were designing suits together."

She said very quietly, "Did Ronnie know?"

He shook his head hard. "No, he didn't. No. Not even a suspicion. Look, I don't talk about it because there's nothing I can do about it, and there's nothing you can do about it, either. A soulmate is a soulmate, right? Even when they're not."

She reached to put her arm around his shoulder. "Cisco - "

Gently but firmly, he shrugged her hand away. "I've come to terms with it. It's just the way things are."

She swallowed hurt. "But you've been dating. Haven't you?" He had an app on his phone, and sometimes he would take it out and swipe through photos. She'd thought it was a regular app that just set you up on dates with other people who hadn't met their soulmate yet.

"It's a different kind of app. We all know the score. Nobody's on there to meet their soulmate. Just to find a good time."

"Is it just people who are - " She floundered. There was a term for people like Cisco, but to her mind, it was nasty and rude.

He said it anyway. "Third wheels?"

She made a face. It sounded even worse now that she knew it applied to him.

"Most of us, yeah. But there's a pretty good number of people who - uh - " He looked at her sidelong. "Who lost theirs."

"Oh." She couldn't imagine seeking anyone out after Ronnie. "Really?"

"Yup. I mean, they're not dead just because - well, anyway, if you ever wanna - you know. See the app. You can."

"Thank you,” she said. “But don't try to distract me. How long has it been?"

"A few years," he said. "Look, it's just a thing about me. Like having brown eyes and vibes and a rockin' fashion sense. Can you do me a solid, as a friend?"

"Anything. Of course."

"Let's never talk about this again."

Painted into a corner, she bit her lip. "Okay. If that's what you want."

"It's what I want."

Of course, she hadn't gotten the chance to ask the question that burned the most. Who was it? Who could possibly overlook Cisco? 

But she'd promised.

-

She thought about it, though. She thought about it a lot, in her cold bed, in her grey house with all the colors she couldn't see anymore. At her kitchen table, set for one. When she opened up her phone and looked at the last picture Ronnie had sent her, a selfie with a particularly gigantic donut.

In black and white, of course. Like everything else, all the pictures of him had drained of color when he died. It made everything sting worse. She'd seen his face in color from the beginning, but now she couldn't remember the exact shade of his eyes or the different tones of his hair.

She didn't ask Cisco anything more, but she did go down a rabbit hole of research. One-sided soulmate was the technical term they used in social science surveys. OSS for short. She looked at reams and reams of statistics, quantitative and qualitative and longitudinal studies. Some of the OSS's said they were happy, some were depressed, some simply accepted it. Surprisingly, the stats on their overall mental well-being weren't all that different from people who were with their soulmates, or still waiting to find them. 

Some one-sided soulmates spent their lives alone. But others dated and slept with and sometimes even married others like them.

She gave into curiosity and read the research on people who'd lost soulmates. She found the stats there very much the same. A little more depression, maybe, but there were a surprising amount of people who did just as the one-sided soulmates did - dating, sleeping with, marrying people they met. 

Sometimes those people even found a second soulmate. 

When that particular revelation popped up on her screen, she dropped a full cup of coffee and completely ruined her keyboard.

-

The day everything changed was just a regular day at first. The Flash and Vibe were out investigating a sketchy warehouse, and Caitlin was trying not to fret while reading yet another study on people who fell outside the soulmate norm. 

"Cisco!" she cried as Barry whooshed them into the cortex, almost doubled over trying to support his weight. "What happened?"

"Got my bell rung," he slurred. "Ow, dude, ow, gentle -  "

"The guy knocked him into a concrete pillar," Barry reported, settling Cisco onto the edge of the bed. 

"No, don’t lay him down. 'll take care of him. You go get changed." As he whooshed out, she gloved up quickly and checked Cisco's pupils. They were the same size, and he denied any nausea or dizziness, but she’d still have to monitor him for signs of a concussion. She set her penlight down and gasped.

"What?"

“You’re bleeding.”

He wiped his face and blood smeared across the back of his hand. “Just a bloody nose. I’ll be fine in a minute.”

She tsked and pressed a square of gauze to his nose, gently feeling its shape. It wasn’t broken. “Are your teeth okay? Your tongue?”

“Mhm.”

“Don’t lean back! Just breathe through your mouth.” After holding it a few minutes, she checked, and indeed, the blood had stopped its flow. She let him straighten up. "How's your head?"

"Could use an aspirin."

"You got it." She turned away, but before she pulled her gloves off, she looked at the blood smeared over the fingertips and soaking into the gauze.

Against the light grey of her gloves and the white of the gauze, Cisco's blood showed scarlet.

-

At first, she thought she’d been mistaken. It had just been the blood, not anything else.

But then the sprinkles on the ice cream he brought her the next day showed up vividly blue and pink and orange against the rich brown of the treat. And the chips and guac she shared with him the day after that were pale yellow and brilliant green. 

Color seeped back into her world a little at a time, mostly following Cisco. It was so different than before, but so wonderful at the same time. She'd forgotten how vivid red could be, how lavender was so delicate, how green was so rich. Sometimes she would just sit and stare at whatever had lit up today.

He noticed, of course. "What's wrong?" he asked one day, as the sunlight filtering through the skylights in the cortex picked out rich highlights in his hair.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"You were staring."

"There was a - a bug on you. But it flew away," she added hastily as he swiped at his hair. 

It wasn’t like it had been with Ronnie. Then, it had been instantaneous, like a finger snap. Not this slow bloom of color, spreading outward from Cisco like watercolors soaking into paper, until every corner of the world had a different hue and shade. But Cisco wasn’t Ronnie, and she didn’t want him to be. 

She worried about it sometimes. Did this mean Ronnie hadn't been her soulmate? That she didn't love him anymore? But she knew he had, and she knew she did. She would never stop.

It was just that she was one of the lucky very few who got a second soulmate. 

And then the thought followed: what if Cisco's mystery soulmate was her?

She turned it over in her head, as carefully as an antique china plate. The facts fit. She had been with Ronnie when she and Cisco had met. She even remembered them telling him about their first meeting, over dinner or something. She struggled to remember his reaction, what he'd said or looked like, but couldn't. 

And when Ronnie had died and the color had drained from the world, she'd told him that too. 

She pressed her fingers to her eyes, watching the newly colorful starbursts behind her lids. "Oh, Cisco," she murmured to his past self. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I never saw. I know you couldn't tell me, but I wish I'd realized you were hurting."

Watching her with Ronnie must have been torture for him. Watching her after Ronnie died - that must have been torture in a different way, her loss of color confirming every day that he wasn't her soulmate. 

But it was going to be different now. If they were soulmates, he deserved to know.

And if they weren't - 

Her stomach pitched uneasily at the thought.

-

Her heart thundered in her chest as she made her way down to his lab. She'd kept this secret for a month now, clasped to her chest. And he'd kept it for years. This was going to change everything,

For the better?

She hoped.

He was head and shoulders into the souped-up treadmill Barry used to test his speed, a tool box open next to him. "Hey," he called out as she came in. She never could surprise him. Was that a soulmate thing, a Vibe thing, or just a Cisco thing?

"Hi," she said brightly, almost shrilly. She swallowed  hard and perched herself on the edge of his table, wiping her sweaty palms on her favorite skirt. "What are you working on?"

"Oh, just tuning this old girl up. How about you? What brings you down here?"

"Do I have to have a reason to come down here?"

He peered at her over his shoulder. "No, but you sure look like you do."

She wiped her palms again. "I was just thinking."

"Uhoh," he said cheerfully, turning back to the treadmill.

"About your soulmate."

Although he didn't say anything, all the cheer sucked itself out of the room.

"About, um, when you met them, and how long it's been, and -"

"Caitlin," he said in a heavy voice. "You said you wouldn't talk about this anymore."

"I know, I did, but I'm just curious - "

"You promised," he said. "You made me a promise."

"I - I did - "

He straightened up again, crossing his arms, resting the greasy wrench against his shoulder. His brows loomed heavy and serious. "So why the hell are you breaking it now?"

Okay, this wasn't broaching the subject like she'd thought it would. "You should put that wrench down," she said. "You're getting grease all over that shirt."

"Subject changed appreciated, but why - "

“And I like that shirt," she said. "I like that color on you. “It’s very flattering.”

He dropped the wrench on his foot.

When the clanging and the yelping and the jumping up and down and the checking that his foot wasn't broken had all died down, he wiped his greasy fingers on a rag, getting the fingers greasier. "So," he said levelly, "you met someone. That's great. That- that's awesome. What's their name?"

Oh. She hadn't expected this.

"Cisco," she said. "It's you."

He looked up, pain filling his eyes, and probably not from his foot. "No, it's not."

"It is," she insisted. Oh, wow, she hadn't expected him to be this stubborn about it.

"No," he said. "No. You met someone and you didn't realize, that's all. I don't know why you think it's me, because we've known each other for years, and it's never been me before." His voice cracked.

She reached out to take his hands. "But it is. I've been seeing in color for a month now. Just a little at first. But now it's everywhere. And it started with you. Cisco, it's you."

He shook his head slowly. "How?"

She shrugged. “I’ve been researching. Did you know it's a whole field in social science? The study of soulmates. Amatology. It's so much more complicated then everybody thinks, Cisco. We always hear how you know in the first moment, and it's just that one person, forever, and - and that's not accurate! You can have more than one. And you know somebody for years before they become your soulmate. And that's what happened to me. With you," she added firmly.

He was pressing his lips together. "It was - " he said, then stopped. Swallowed. Took a breath. "It was the first moment with me. The first color I saw was the gold of your engagement ring."

"Oh," she breathed. 

He swallowed again. There were tears in his eyes. "I've loved you for years, Caitlin, so I need you to tell me right now. Swear to me you're sure, and you're not screwing with me, and you - " His voice sank to a whisper. "And you absolutely know I'm your soulmate."

"I'm sure," she said. "I'm not screwing with you. I absolutely know that you're my soulmate, Cisco Ramon. And you know why? Because I don’t want it to be anybody but you."

He kissed her, hard, pulling her close. She had half a thought for her meticulously selected outfit, then mentally consigned it to the rag bin and kissed her soulmate back.

When they had to come up for air, he rested his forehead against hers. "I never wanted it to be anybody but you, either," he breathed.

"Even when - Ronnie?"

He nodded. "Because he made you happy. I wanted that more than anything else."

She traced the lines of his face, the arch of his brows, the curve of his lips. Dear and familiar and beautiful. "You're going to make me happy too."

FINIS

[lovely-necromancy]

A Cure for Insomnia CH 14

Somehow someway you had ended up spending the night in Toby's room. What had started out as sitting next to him turned into laying down next to him. And after a while of no talking or movement, just the steady sounds of breathing. You more or less closed you eyes for a minute.

Before you knew it you were waking up to sun in your face. And found a blanket haphazardly thrown onto you. Though honestly you probably just moved a lot in your sleep. A quick glance around the room tells you you're alone and by the looks of it have been for a little while now. Weirdly there doesn't seem to be a clock in the room and when you go to check your phone the battery is dead.

'Oh God what time is it?' you worry as you gather yourself to leave the room in search of a clock.

Even though you have the strongest suspicion that you're already late for work. Fuck Nate is gonna kill you. You hope you don't get fired for this. That doesn't really seem like the Cowell way but you really don't want to risk it. No where else in town would pay the bills plus give extra cash for doing jack shit.

Just as you closed the door behind you you see Toby and Connor walking up the corridor. Toby has two bowls in hand and his steps falter a bit when he sees you.

“Shit did I wake you up?”

You can see the veins in his arms as he tenses, poor guy must have a tic coming on. You hold your hands out to give him the option of handing them over so he can relax. With no hesitation on his end he does just that.

“No? I don't think so, I just woke up. What time is it?”

Toby's hands jolt in place. A large tremor of movement, thankfully you took the bowls from him so he wouldn't have splashed...cereal? Your confusion must have shown because you get a nervous laugh in response.

“It's like eight twenty or something.” seeing you visibly deflate he adds, “Barry told me to tell you you're excused from work today.” He took a bowl back from you and placed a hand at the small of your back to push you back towards his room. Apparently done with having a conversation in the hallway and letting your breakfast get soggy.

“Barclay.” you remind him, your efforts award you a shrug, “and are you serious? Because making me late for work wouldn't be very funny.”

He plops on his bed and a bit of milk sloshes out of the bowl dropping on to the sheets. In the back of your mind you think about how Barclay more than likely is going to ban Toby from the lodge for anything other than an emergency. At least if he ruins the bed by dropping food all over it...actually you're pretty sure Jake's mentioned there being a rule about eating in the rooms.

“I'm serious, you can go ask him yourself.” his face flushes as he shovels a spoonful of Captain Crunch into his mouth, “twey shed somfingu bot ah ahpawawgee for da kid”

You give Toby a sneer as you process what he just said. Even normally your brain didn't always process what was said to you properly and Toby speaking with a full mouth certainly didn't help in any case. But you can kind of gleam a bit more context from his red cheeks that your spontaneous three day weekend is thanks in part to Jo hanging out with you yesterday.

Really you didn't mind that she hung out with you. But you would accept the apologetic day off for her attempting to give you a love life. You aren't one of her gossip stories nor do you wish to be.

“First, gross dude. Second, I'll take it.”

He snorts, “Watching me chew through the hole in my face is ne-neat but me talking with my mouth full is where you draw the line?”

“Honestly I never even thought of that.”

You can't help but let out a chuckle at how dumb that must have made you look. Geez you were such a dork sometimes. On the other hand it seems like that must have been the funniest thing Toby's heard in a while as he roars with laughter. Soon your chuckles turn into full blown laughter from Toby's contagious mirth.

“I'll get out of your hair after I finish eating.” you finally say when the two of you calm.

“...you don't have to do that. I-i thought we cou-cou-could hang out?” he says sheepishly.

Toby tends to stutter when he's nervous you notice. Maybe this was to be expected you kind of did solidify that you both wanted to be friends. Of course that would mean opening up to hanging out together on purpose more often.

“I'd like that! Did you have something in mind?”

The room goes quite, well more accurately Toby goes quite as you finish your cereal. Looks like someone hadn't thought this far ahead. At least you aren't the only dork in this room or this friendship for that matter.

Toby's dark eyes scan around the room, not really looking for something while he thinks of something you could do today. Instead of just staring at him like a creep you turn your attention to the rottweiler looking at you with hopeful eyes. Connor's eyes briefly moving towards your bowl where a tiny bit of milk sits and then back at your face. Licking his chops as he looks you dead in the eyes.

Having a pretty good idea of what he wants you look for Toby's bowl. If it was on the ground that'd be a good indication that Connor's allowed a bit of cereal milk if it was on the bed well then you'd still have your answer.  And sure enough right next to Connor's butt is an empty bowl.

Yup, Barclay is so gonna ban Toby from the lodge.

Throwing out any thoughts of the lecture you'd get if Barclay were to find out you let a dog eat from his bowls you place the bowl in front of Connor. Who sits in his position and won't stop making eye contact with the bowl. Tail going a mile a minute as he stares at his prize in anticipation. God he really is the best boy in the whole world.

“Thank you Connor.” you whisper to the dog before he attacks the bowl.

As the pup rips into the left over cereal milk, which wasn't even that much, you can't keep yourself from flapping your hands right by your chest. The fast movement seems to catch Toby's attention and brings him out of wracking his brain for ideas. Giving you a moment to just enjoy the happy stim he just watches. It isn't until Connor has bounded over to you letting you pet him as a 'thank you' for giving him a treat, that Toby speaks up.

“Is there...what's there to do here?”

Looking at Toby as you shake Connor's ears around, you don't immediately say anything. Honestly thinking of just what the two of you could do in this small town. Something that wouldn't prove to be too distracting and maybe give the two of you a chance to get to know each other better. Something without too many interruptions or things to get you off topic.

“Wanna go get a slushy?”

Toby's brown eyes cut as he stares at you unimpressed.

“I kno-rrow that we're in a small town but, 's not that small.”

“Oh no it's actually smaller.”

He rolls his eyes with a huff ready to bite in with a snarky remark no doubt until he catches your eyes and the serious expression. He stares at you, eyes darting across your face looking for a sign that you're joking.

Thankfully you aren't one to leave a friend in the dark.

“Tobias, the gas station Tim works at is the only one for this town.”

“That can't be right, it's not even in town. What about...” once again Toby's eyes shift as he tries to think of any other gas stations within Kepler.

When he comes to the conclusion that you are indeed not fucking with him and Kepler does just have the one gas station his shoulders slump. Almost like he's in shock that he hadn't caught that sooner. You can feel the tinkling sensation of a tic coming up, at the base of your neck. Timing it mentally as you watch Toby go through the stages of grief you miscalculate and ruin your tic.

Head jolting into your right shoulder rather than jerking above it. Letting out a small “fuck” at the fact that you're about to be in an uncomfortable sensation, not totally unlike when you chase off a sneeze but still do need to sneeze. You feel the tic at the back of your head but know it won't be going away anytime soon and all thanks to your hubris.

Looking back at Toby you find he's moved on from the single gas station fact and is looking at you mildly amused. Briefly you wonder if he's ever chased off a tic and felt the uncomfortable sensation you're now dealing with. That leads you to ponder if he's ever even felt the anticipation of nerves before a coming tic. It's not really a painful sensation but discomfort sometimes goes in hand with pain so maybe CIPA affects that feeling too. You'll have to ask, but first you have to shut his stupid face up.

“Shut it.”

“Didn't say anything.” he smirks.

His smiles are really growing on you. They feel special and very genuine despite the awkward nature of his facial movements.

“Hey wait, the mini mart doesn't even have a slushy machine.” he says as the realization finally sets in.

“Yea we have to drive to another town for one. So far Franklin has the best slushies but it's like two hours away.”

You lean your weight back onto your hands watching as Toby's wide eyes stare at you in disbelief. Actually in this light you really can't tell if Toby's eyes are blown wide or in their normal state. Judging from the way his lips curl over his teeth you figure they must be as he stares stunned by something you've said.

“Do you seriously drive two hours for a slushy?” the disbelief in his voice is thick, but not thick enough to cover the thinnest hint of amusement. Maybe even pity.

“Not all the time, sometimes its only like thirty. One night I actually drove five hours without realizing it...though to be fair I did get lost.”

Lost in your thoughts on that particular night some how you'd ended up in Point Pleasant. Instead of a slushy you'd gotten a Mothman themed iced coffee. A nice trip over all but one you didn't want to go on at the moment.

Coming back to the present in time to catch Toby flopping back on the mattress his curls bouncing up over his face as he did so. He let's out an exaggerated groan.

“Still, Brian's got the car today.”

Pfft that's not an issue.

“I have a car.” you say plainly.

That must not be the issue because Toby raises himself onto his elbows to look at your lax form on the carpet. Leaning back on your hands with Connor splayed across your lap looking ready for a nap. Toby opens his mouth to say something before shutting it and looking off to the side. He seems to collect himself quickly but not enough to look at you.

“Uh..I, that's not really the...” well maybe he hadn't collected himself that much.

Brow furrowing as you squint at the man before you. The two of you don't know a lot about each other but from what you've noticed Toby has some hang ups about drivers and driving. Although he's let you drive him home once that doesn't mean he was comfortable with it or wanted a repeat performance. And while you don't consider yourself a bad driver you'll spare Toby the difficulty of admitting he isn't comfortable with you driving.

“You can drive.” dark brown eyes are on you the instant the words spill from your lips, “You've driven my car before. Plus I don't mind I like not driving.”

His eyes dart from you to Connor and back up into your face. Even though they're darting slightly you know he isn't such evaluating your expression. He's thinking and weighing his options.

“You sure?”

And with no hesitation at all, “Absolutely, you've driven it before.”

Though he hadn't been thinking of that particular issue with being given the choice of driving your car. It did bring up another insecurity before hastily stomping it into the ground. He has driven your car, albeit once, before and you are giving him explicit consent to drive it again. Regardless of his tourette's, Toby honestly can't believe you have such blind faith in a person you've just befriended. Then again that's friendship isn't it.

“Ok then...let's go?”

After a nod from you Toby grabs Connor's gear to get him ready for the drive. Meanwhile you take the dishes back downstairs to the kitchen, letting Toby know you'd meet him by the door. Unsurprisingly Barclay is in the kitchen when you get down there to place the bowls into the sink.

Seeing as it's just the bowls and spoons in the sink you decide you can wash them before placing them in the sanitizer rack.

“Mornin'.”

“Good morning.”

“Basket's on the table.”

“Thanks.”

A quiet settles over you two and you can feel Barclay's brown eyes trail towards your form every few seconds. Finishing the dishes you turn, leaning your butt onto the counter, to face the lumbering man.

“Can I help you?” you raise a brow at him. Clearly he had something more he wanted to say.

“I, I just thought we were closer than that.” he sighs.

Okay what now? Your confusion goes ignored as he continues to speak.

“Seriously YN, you didn't need to sneak away last night if you wanted to spend the night here, and with your boyfriend. I wouldn't have judged.”

“My who? Tobais? He's a friend!” you whisper scream in case Toby is near by. God could at least save one of you this embarrassment.

“Really YN? From the things I'm hearin' you two are a bit more than friends.”

“Ok seriously where are you getting your info from? We haven't done anything. Like just YESTERDAY we agreed we were friends. We've known each other maybe a month?!”

“See that's why this is confusing, you don't touch just anyone. And suddenly you're handsy with some new kid.” Barclay had the decency to start whisper screaming with you. He's gesturing vaguely towards the rest of the lodge before bringing his hands before him and flailing them away. As if to say 'what am I supposed to do with this now?'

“He's neurodivergent!” you say bringing your palms up in front of you.

“So are Jake and Aubrey.”

“And I high five Jake so much.” throwing your arms outward to indicate how much you two high five. “Plus he gets a hug nearly every time I see him.” hands brought back to emphasis this point.

Barclay thinks on that for a bit, “Point taken,” he stands from his hunched position and crosses his arms over his chest, “so y'all aren't dating? Nothin' happened last night?”

“No and no.”

“Don't have to deep clean the sheets today.”

“Gross and no.” best keep the milk droplets out of this, you'd really like to leave the kitchen sooner rather than later. Preferably with no lecture about hygiene and the importance of respecting other's property.

Barclay looks down at you scanning your face for something you aren't quite sure of. But you have a feeling he's treating you like a child for a very specific reason.

“I'm not a virgin.” you deadpan as the man before starts to sputter.

His eyes wide with disbelief. So he really thought you were a virgin this whole time? You wonder who else thought this, you hoped they wouldn't try to confront you about your nonexistent relationship.

You'll just never understand why people assume you're a virgin and why they try their hardest to butt into your life when they think that way. This topic tends to put you in a sour mood and you can already feel it on your face. It's disgusting how people can't mind their business about baseless assumptions.

“Jeez sorry YN,” he does look it as he rubs the back of his neck, “it's just you've never shown an interest and I guess we all got swept up in the possibility of seeing you happy.”

“I am happy?”

“I mean in a relationship, happy in a romantic relationship.” He claps his hands gently on your shoulders. A touch you've gotten used too, had you not wanted it you would've taken a step back.

“Kirby's not in a relationship.” you point out.

“Kirby's gross, and you're adorable.” he chuckles at your glare, “a-dor-a-ble.”

“I will bite you.” he lets go of you with a laugh.

“We're just...trying to keep you safe.” he sighs, and though you don't understand what any of their weirdness has to do with “keeping you safe” you nod. Just to get this over with faster.

“Can I leave now? Tobais and I were gonna get slushies.” he didn't need to know your plans but you didn't want him assuming you two were sneaking off for a date.

“Yea yea, sorry for keeping you.” he leans against the counter as you grab your basket and head out of the kitchen and towards the main door.

Toby and Connor were already waiting for you. If the swaying of his weight was anything to go by they'd been waiting for you for a bit. Seeing you coming his subconscious movement stops and he opens the door. Keeping it open for you.  You lead him over to your Soul as you look through the basket for the keys.

“Keys?” he questions as you pat your pockets.

Toby stops walking with you as you begin to panic. You've lost your keys. Before you voice that though you look through the basket once more, placing it on the hood of your car so you can use both hands to check. His eyes follow you and are caught by a gentle swaying.

“You are a serial killer's wet dream.”

He opens your passenger side door and comes out holding your keys that had been in the ignition. If the blank look he gives you is anything to go by he's not impressed.

“I,I,I was in a hurry!” you say flustered that you did something so stupid. His expression doesn't change.

“Could you pop the trunk please?” you ask not looking in his direction.

The click of the lock is all you need to hear before you rush around him to place the basket in the back. As you do you catch sight of the deer skull still in your trunk. With everything going on you hadn't been to see Madeleine for a mount for the guy. You'll have to remember to stop by her shop this week.

Toby had already gotten Connor situated in the back by the time you sat down in the passengers seat. After buckling in and plugging your phone in to charge you stare ahead of you waiting for Toby to start driving. When you look over at him you see he's staring right back at you with a brow raised.

“Yes?”

“Where are we going?”

Yes the key detail of any road trip, the driver needs to know the destination. Unfortunately for you and Toby you've forgotten to tell him one crucial detail. You drive with no sense of direction. And you relay this to Toby. He looks seconds away from getting out of the car and claiming he's never seen you before much less ever been friends with you.

He takes a deep breath and collects himself.

“Y'know what Brian's worse with directions.” he says more to himself than to you.

He calmly puts the car in gear and heads off to town. No input from Connor, you may have chosen a really good day for this drive. Your phone hits one percent as you pass Resort Row. You know the Hornet's Nest is coming up and that intersection leads to the interstate despite not having legible signs.

“Hey when you get to the Hornet's Nest swing right then drive straight, we'll end up on route 3 onto the interstate.”

“Hornets' nest?”

“It's a skate/stunt park. You'll see it after we get away from the mountain.”

Just as you said Toby saw the Hornet's Nest as he turned onto the road leaving the mountain. By the time you were on route 3 your phone had charged up to seven percent. Enough to turn it on and put on a playlist. You put on one of your sea shanty and folk punk combos.

Toby hasn't even let the song get thirty seconds under way. “No vetoed, we are not listening to sea shanties.”

So he does have music preferences, fair enough. You switch to a playlist with a more chilled electric vibe that has a few oldies tossed into the mix. Toby hasn't heard this playlist before and you are determined to learn his music tastes today.

“Wait wait wait, so you'll listen to folk punk but not sea shanties?”

“How are those even related?”

“They are literally the same thing.”

The two of you continue to bicker back and forth about how similar, or different, shanties and folk punk are. Occasionally it's broken when you read a sign, noticing Toby's horrible squinting, to see if you're on the right route to...well you don't know the destination Toby's been ignoring most of the exits for the past forty minutes though you're sure you two could find a gas station with a slushy machine at any one of the surrounding towns.

You don't mind though you're really enjoying the ride. The soft sounds of the car cutting through the wind at seventy three miles an hour. And the dull hum from the engine falling into the background as They Might Be Giants plays softly through the radio. With a majority of his focus being directed to the road  and the handful of other cars around you, your conversation is limited to topics that don't require much thinking. Really you've just ended up playing twenty questions with the other pulling uno reverse.

Not life altering secrets or deep talks...well until the question was favorite romantic comedy.

“How is Venom a romantic comedy?” Toby laughs after you answer.

“They kiss!” Toby just snorts.

“No Venom in Anne's body kisses Eddie.”

“Yes Venom kissed Eddie. Romance.”

You hear the murmur of 'oh my fucking God' come from Toby as you giggle in your seat. Having been egged on by that simple phrase you continue.

“Eddie is always giving Venom chocolates.”

“Oh yes, sorry, that's very romance.” Toby laughs out rolling his eyes.

“Thank you, I'm glad I could enlighten...” you pause as a sign for the next exit catches your eye. Had you two already driven two hours? Time really does fly when you're having fun. “Hey next exit, Franklin.”

“Thanks got it.” this time he turns on the blinker to get over into the exiting lane.

“What gas station am I looking for?” smart man. He's stopped asking for specific directions and is now asking for a land marker.

“Giant baby.” the car comes to a stop at a red light and Toby takes his eyes off the road to face you.

“...is this...will I just know when I see it.” “When you see it” you say the last part in unison with him nodding solemnly.

To his credit Toby has gone a long way with your weird antics, despite being your official friend for less than a full day. Keeping up with this pattern he doesn't ask anymore questions about this giant baby, keeping his eyes peeled for anything worthy of that title. His valent efforts are rewarded not even ten blocks from the turnpike.

“Is that...”

“Giant baby.” you nod knowing he sees the giant opposum decal in the window of the beat up gas station.

Opening your glove box you remove a spare mask for yourself before offering a sealed in package one for Toby. Who readily takes it after he parks your car in front of the store. Turning to look at you, you can read all the skepticism on his face. It's funny how this is where he questions you, your destination and not like the way over here-or the moment right after you told him you had no sense of direction.

“They have the four divide mega slush.”

“What the hell is that?”

With a coy smile you put on your mask and exit the car waiting at the front for your friend to get his shit together. He doesn't take long to follow you, Connor's lead in hand, into the gas station.

For as dingy and beat up as it looks on the outside it isn't bad once you step inside. Might actually be cleaner than the mini mart in Kelper. Toby glances around taking a mental tally of all the patrons in the store and their positions. He does this a bit. Just hyper aware of everyone when in enclosed spaces.

Dragging him over to the slushy machine after acknowledging the cashier's greeting. Showing him the four divider mega slush cup you demonstrate how it works. Choosing the only three flavors you like and adding a random extra of the three into the forth slot.

The face he makes when you stick the straw in the middle is priceless.

Toby demonstrates how a slushy should be made. Grabbing the single cup and over filling it with cherry flavored ice. He doesn't pick up a straw and you two make your way to the counter.

Since Toby drove here you had no problem paying but he was quicker to get his wallet out and hand the cashier a ten for your slushies. They give him back his change and you two wind up back in the car, taking off your masks.

You take a long sip from you drink.

“I can't believe we drove for two hours for you to just wreck your taste buds.” a playful disdain in his voice.

“Not 'we', you.”

He cuts his eyes at you before shaking his slushy into his open mouth. Guess he couldn't use a straw when he was missing part of his cheek. No suction there.

“So?” you say adding the questioning lilt to your voice.

He shrugs, “It's good.”

“Worth the drive?” He shakes his head.

“Nah - drive made it worth it.”

[patriciasage]

promises, promises

Author: Patricia_Sage

Fandom: The Adventure Zone - Balance

Summary: 

Taako made two promises to his sister early on in this seemingly endless mission. Firstly, he isn’t allowed to intentionally cut a cycle short, no matter how much time is left, no matter how much he misses her. Secondly, if she’s gone, he has to take care of Barry.

He isn’t sure what his sister was thinking with the second one. ‘Taako’ and ‘take care of’ are not words that naturally go together for anyone other than Lup. He loves the entire crew, of course he does, but he would rather kill for them than comfort them.

This is the first cycle where Lup is dead and neither Taako nor Barry had gone with her.

posted in full under the break but you can find me on AO3!!

There are two months left in the cycle and Lup is gone. She, Merle, and Davenport were poisoned during a political meeting.

Taako hadn’t been hungry that day. He wishes he would have taken a drink. Magnus hates when he says it, but he prefers to die by her side than live without her. And death would have been much more preferable to watching her choke and spasm in front of him. Helpless.

Lucretia has a lot on her plate now, attempting to negotiate with the bastards who killed them. There was death on both sides, since Taako literally burned the place to the ground. It seems as though they’re on the verge of war – the four remaining crewmembers versus this country’s royal armies.

Taako doesn’t give a shit.

“What’s the fucking point?” he asks Lucretia when she made plans to meet with the royal representative. “This cycle’s gone to Hell; let’s just go.”

“We have two months left,” Lucretia says. “We have a chance to work through this and get the Light. Then they didn’t die in vain.” Her voice cracks. Taako attempts to be gentle with his friend, even though rage flows through him like a roaring stream.

But quiet vitriol escapes his mouth. “Are they even worth saving?”

Lucretia looks at him with bright, brown eyes. “Taako.”

“They killed Merle and Davenport and Lup! And they should have killed me too. And we’re still going to bend over backwards in order to save them? They obviously wouldn’t do the same for us.”

“That’s not how this works,” Lucretia says, quiet and stern. “We don’t decide who is worth saving or not.” She places her dark hand on Taako’s shoulder. “I know you’re hurting, T. And I won’t make you be a part of this. But I’m going to try and get the Light of Creation. And you’re going to make it through these next few months to see her again.”

Taako could see her again right now if he wanted to. But he doesn’t say that. And he doesn’t let himself truly entertain the thought. He promised.

Everyone on the ship is grieving in their own way. Barry becomes entirely reclusive, locking himself in his lab. Magnus cries a lot over the first few days and blames himself for not being at the meeting to protect them, but then he focuses his energy into learning to pilot the Starblaster. Taako attempts to distract his mind from the grief that sits deep in his bones.

Knowing their deaths are temporary doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Magnus makes it his personal mission to take care of Taako, which is very annoying but also helps with his plan for distraction. He sits next to the Magnus as the fighter test-drives the ship. It’s hard to think about your dead sister when your friend is crashing a spaceship into a lake.

But Magnus isn’t only recklessness and aggressive enthusiasm. He’s also soft and sensitive – and fucking manipulative. He tells Taako he needs a hug or someone to keep him company when he sleeps. Taako knows these are partial lies. He knows that Magnus just wants to hold his pieces together, to shield Taako from the nightmares that tear him apart.

Taako travels through the days like molasses. He wants to exist in the bare minimum, avoid the smouldering flame threatening to burn him up. But it’s hard to exist, unfeeling, in a world where he’s always had her at his side. He can’t do anything without thinking of her.

He drinks too much.

It helps a little, but it causes Magnus to make that sad, helpless expression, so Taako hides it as best he can.

He made two promises to his sister early on in this seemingly endless mission. Firstly, he isn’t allowed to intentionally cut a cycle short, no matter how much time is left, no matter how much he misses her. Secondly, if she’s gone, he has to take care of Barry.

Taako isn’t sure what his sister was thinking with the second one. ‘Taako’ and ‘take care of’ are not words that naturally go together for anyone other than Lup. He loves the entire crew, of course he does, but he would rather kill for them than comfort them.

This is the first cycle where Lup is dead and neither Taako nor Barry had gone with her.

Food is always an effective way to build a bridge between two stubborn souls. Taako steps foot into the Starblaster’s kitchen for the first time since the disaster a few weeks ago. Lucretia is a passable cook, so the remaining crew haven’t been suffering too much, but her meals are nothing compared to the twins’ concoctions.

Absolutely everything on this ship reminds Taako of his sister (pretty much every aspect of existence reminds him of his sister), but the kitchen is particularly salient. He stands in the doorway and breathes through it, thankful that no one is around. Lup is the only one who knows him at his core, the only one who’s ever seen his soft, fragile centre. Magnus has been digging closer and closer every cycle with his big hands and even bigger smile. But there’s no one Taako trusts like he trusts Lup.

And she’s gone.

And he made her a promise.

There are so many lakes on this world. Taako had spent most of springtime fishing and filleting, so the freezer is full. He takes out a few cuts of cod, expertly deboned, as well as some salt, pepper, lemon, chili powder, and dill. He starts the rice boiling and thaws the fish with a flick of his wand. The meat hasn’t been frying for too long before Magnus and Lucretia appear at the kitchen table, summoned by the smell. They’re looking at him with an irritating mixture of encouragement and wariness. He ignores them and focuses on cooking. He’s mentally batting away memories and feelings constantly and it’s starting to take a toll.

The kitchen is silent except for the sizzle of fish in the pan and the soft murmur of boiling rice. Taako transmutes some beans into asparagus and tosses that in the pan as well.

“Fucking talk,” he says to the stove.

Magnus startles into conversation. Taako feels his friends’ gazes move away from his back and toward each other. He focuses on their chat even though it’s boring. It’s easier than fighting his heart’s insistent ache.

He avoids looking at their faces while he places their meals in front of them. “Thank you,” Lucretia says softly. Magnus places a big, warm hand on the wizard’s shoulder.

Taako feels his mouth press into a shadow of a smile. He squeezes Magnus’s hand and steps away. “Dig in. I’m gonna bring some to the lab rat.”

Barry is asleep at his desk, drooling on a sketch of one of his prototypes. Taako sets the plate down next to him and watches the smell wake him up. His glasses are askew even when he lifts his head.

There’s an awful moment when he looks at Taako and his face softly lights up. Taako’s stomach sinks, and then Barry comes fully into awareness and looks away. Taako regrets shaving his face his morning and he regrets wearing his hair up the way Lup usually does before bed. He doesn’t blame Barry for the disappointment.

“This is good shit, so you’d better not let it get cold,” Taako says. He leans against the workbench with his arms crossed.

“Smells good,” Barry replies with his characteristic, gruff awkwardness. Taako tries not to fidget. The chill of Lup’s absence is strongest in the kitchen, but it’s swirling around the lab, too. It’s typical to see Lup sprawled on the couch pretty much every evening, chattering while Barry tries and fails to focus on his work.

Barry puts a forkful of rice in his mouth and speaks around it. Gross. “Did you eat already?”

Taako is absentmindedly surprised when he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything except a bite of toast that Magnus practically shoved in his mouth this morning. He curses himself for thinking about it too long and ruining what could have been a perfectly good lie. “Yep, sure did.”

“Taako…” Barry says disapprovingly, lowering his fork.

“Get outta my ass, Barry. I’m, like, a hundred years old, or something.” Age doesn’t mean much to them, anymore. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

“I’m not treating you like a child. I’m treating you like – ” He sighs. “Do you have some left over upstairs?”

“Yeah,” Taako lies. He walks toward the door. “Gonna go eat now, so…enjoy, or whatever.”

Barry rubs his eyes under his glasses. “Thanks, Taako.”

“Shit,” Taako mutters as he climbs the stairs. Why didn’t Lup tell Magnus or Lucretia to take care of Barry? Hell, anyone would do a better job than him.

Taako enters the now empty kitchen and casts Prestidigitation to clean the dishes, but he stops before he can leave for the upper deck. There’s a full plate of food on the table. It’s obvious that Magnus and Lucretia had each put half of their meal onto a clean plate. They’re taking advantage of his inability to throw away food, engrained from his childhood. Taako sighs but sits at the table to eat. He feels more solid when he’s done, but just as empty.

The next day is better.

“Come for a walk,” Taako demands from Barry’s bedroom doorway. Barry yelps and covers his chest with a blanket.

“Taako!”

“Come for a walk!” the elf repeats, leaving the door ajar as he leaves.

Barry joins him on the Starblaster’s lower deck in a few minutes, hair messy but fully clothed. “Where are we going?”

Before Taako has a chance to respond, Magnus rushes in. “Don’t forget your cloak – it’s kinda cold. Oh, hey, Barry. You coming with us?”

“I guess I am.”

“Great!”

Magnus hands Barry his denim jacket and throws Taako’s thicker cloak in his direction. The security officer himself is wearing a wool-lined vest with no sleeves. Taako resists the urge to roll his eyes when he notices.

The men don’t talk a lot as they traverse the path that Magnus and Taako have worn down over the last few weeks. They skip rocks on the surface of the still water. Barry stays far away from the water’s edge. Magnus picks Taako up and pretends he’s about to throw him in. Instead of protesting, Taako looks the man in the eyes with a challenge. “Do it. I fucking dare you, Burnsides.” Magnus freezes and just stands there holding the elf in his arms for a moment. Taako smirks. “That’s what I thought.”

Barry disappears into his lab when they return to the ship, but Taako still considers it a success. After a few days, Barry no longer needs to be woken up; he joins them in the foyer, sleepy but ready, every morning. Lucretia comes, too, when she’s not out negotiating.

Taako cooks when he can.

Sometimes he’s good. Sometimes the air of the kitchen suffocates him. Barry sees him once, standing in the pantry, frozen and overwhelmed. “Hey,” he says. There’s something soft and complex in his expression when Taako whirls around.

“What’s up, my man?” Taako’s voice breaks more than usual. The stiffness of his hands betrays him, too. Barry beckons him out of the pantry. Taako follows quietly as the scientist travels to the Starblaster’s upper deck.

The endless night sky is strangely comforting. There aren’t many constants in their life besides each other, their target, and their enemy. But the sky is always there and ready to take them away.

Barry opens a hatch near the centre of the deck and brings out what looks like a piece from a broken chair. “Ready?” he asks.

“What?”

Barry just nods and then throws the item high into the air. Taako understands when it reaches his highest peak, but he can’t bring himself to take out his wand. The piece of wood falls into a nearby like with a soft splash.

“Oh, sorry,” Barry says awkwardly. “You’re supposed to hit it with a spell –”

“I know what I’m supposed to do, Barry. I’ve lived with her my whole life,” Taako snaps. He takes a breath and tries again. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, man. But that’s her. She feels things build up inside and needs to let ‘em out in a way she can control. But I- …I’m not full of anything.” He turns to leave. “So, thanks, dude, but this isn’t gonna work for me.”

Barry grabs his wrist. “Taako, wait!” He looks a little helpless. “Then what does work for you? Tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on.” Barry attempts a smile but he’s shivering a little in the night air. “Like you said to me the other day – you’re over a hundred years old. You know. So, tell me what makes you feel better when you feel like shit so I can help you out.”

“I don’t want your fucking help, Barry.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad!” Barry rarely raises his voice. It echoes across the empty deck and is swallowed by the night sky. “Tell me, Taako.”

He knows the answer will hurt both of them when it leaves his mouth, but he says it anyway. “Being with her.” Barry averts his gaze and Taako feels both sick and triumphant. “Just…being in her company makes me feel like a person again. So. Unless you can do that for me, I think we’re done here.”

Taako stands outside Magnus’s bedroom door for a few minutes. He raises his hand to knock then lowers it again. He spends the night on a nearby dock, listening to the waves lap against the shore and slowly emptying a bottle of rum.

The next morning, they pretend it didn’t happen. They go for their morning walk and let Magnus carry the conversation.

Lucretia gets the Light of Creation against all odds – and just in time. There’s only about two days left in this Cycle. Taako makes her favourite dish, piri piri chicken, and they allow themselves to celebrate with wine and music. It never feels completely right to celebrate, knowing the Hunger is still going to cause a lot of damage, but they need to allow themselves these small successes. The men also feel the need to show appreciation to Lucretia, since she worked tirelessly to save this world while they went for walks and crashed the ship into lakes.

Magnus is dancing with Lucretia in the kitchen and Taako makes a quick exit before the big man can trap him in another embrace. He finds Barry on the couch, lost in thought. He sits down beside him, touching their wine glasses together in a small toast. “We made it,” the wizard says before taking another drink.

“Yeah,” Barry says. They’re both thinking the same thing. They’ll see her again soon.

Barry turns to face him. “Listen, Taako, I’m sorry I was so pushy the other night.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s just…” Barry sighs. “I promised her I’d take care of you and I –”

“What?” Taako interrupts. They look at each other, incredulous and inquiring. “She made me promise to take care of you, dude.”

Barry smiles and laughs. Taako fumes. As if Barry Bluejeans could take care of him – what was she thinking? “We both did kind of a shit job, didn’t we?” Barry says.

“Hey, without me you would’ve starved to death.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

A few days later, Magnus flies the Starblaster through the Hunger’s advancing tendrils, their bodies fragment, and the entire crew materializes in their set places. Before Lup can even take a breath, Taako shoves her hard. “What the fuck?” she sputters. He silences her with a hug.

The IPRE crew puts the past behind them and they settle into a new life on a new world. Barry and Lup go back to their routine of being attached at the hip and stubbornly not talking about their feelings. Lup and Taako cook and practice magic together. Barry and Taako aren’t close, per se, but they tolerate each other in a new, honest and kind way.

It’s worth it to see the smile on Lup’s face.

[animemangasoul]

We Parted Ways A Long Time Ago

Summery: Lucius Fox is Tim's emergency contact number.

In which Bruce and Tim have drifted apart and Bruce doesn't realize it until it's a little too late.

Chapter: 5/4+ (Final)

“Tim isn’t coming back.”

Bruce freezes. One hand around the doorknob and the other clutching at the business card his son had left behind as a parting gift. “You don’t know that.”

“I do. He isn’t coming back B. He doesn’t want to.” The words are said carefully, almost gently, but there is no denying the steel behind them. Bruce grits his teeth. How dare Jason side with Lucius Fox. Tim needed him. Tim needed them. He was just confused and angry and Bruce could fix this. They could fix this. There was a way to make this all go away. There had to be.... because if there wasn’t then--

“You don’t know him like I do Jay--”

A short bark of laughter interrupts him, making Bruce swivel around, a glare burning in his eyes. Jason quirks an eyebrow in return. “I don’t think you know him as well as you think you do B.”

“Jason,” he grits out in warning.

“What? ” His second oldest scoffs. “You don’t believe me? Cuz I aint lying to you. You don’t know him anymore. He’s changed.”

Bruce wants to snap at him, wants to insist he knows nothing, wants tear at his own hair.

But more than anything he wants his son back. He wants Tim to know how much he loves him, how much he’s worth and how much it tore him inside seeing him walk away.  

He wants to shout at Jason too. Wants to scream how much he didn’t understand. That he couldn’t possibly understand because he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there when Tim dragged him back from the brink of insanity. Wasn’t there when Tim laughed with those sparkly eyes that saw the world differently. Wasn’t there when Tim cracked that one snide joke at Barry Allen’s expense that had Hal cackling for hours.  

None of his kids were there when Tim told him he felt safe by his side, despite the blood on his knuckles and the snare on his mouth. They weren’t there when Tim sat next to him as Bruce drove himself mad trying and failing to let go of the ghost of his dead son. Tim had been his anchor, had been his light, his hope, his robin.

His son.

He wanted to scream and rant and get angry, but--

But this was Jason.  

Jason who still cringed at loud noises when they took him off guard. Jason who died. Jason who he’d failed time and time again. Jason who’d finally started opening up and who sometimes laughed like the world wasn’t out to destroy him. His Jason. His boy.  

So instead of letting the floodgate crack open, he closes it shut, slams on the brakes and breathes. Eyes falling shut momentarily as he composes himself.  

“He belongs here Jay. With us. He belongs with us. Not with Lucius Fox and his family.”

Opening his eyes, he meets those of his son, holding them until the younger sighs and looks away first.

“What makes you think he aint perfectly fine where he’s at?”

Was Jason kidding?

“Because he’s a Wayne. He’s one of us. He’s one of mine. He belongs here, with his family.” With each word, his fingers tighten around the card and his chest constrict. Jason should know this, understand this. It was simple. It was right.

Of course Tim wasn’t fine where he was. Why would he? It was just the easier alternative. As long as Bruce told him he was welcome here, told him he had a home with him, Tim would come back. Bruce was sure of it.

“Do you even know why he fucking left!”

Startled at the abrupt shift in tone, Bruce narrows his eyes. “I don’t have time for this Jay. I--”

“No.”

“Jason...” he can’t quiet keep the bite out of his tone. “I can’t do this right now. I need to--”

“Need to what?” his son snaps, taking a step closer, eyes flashing green. Bruce frowns in concern. “The rep—Tim's probably at Foxes right now. What you gonna do? Drag him back by the hair?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what!” Jason was practically growling by now. The tint in his eyes even more prominent. “What you gonna do Bruce? Huh? Tim left! He left and he was fine, why can’t you just....” He trails off, fingers clenching and unclenching and---

He just doesn’t understand. Jay doesn’t get it and Bruce doesn’t have time for this.

“Jay, son--”

But again his second oldest cuts him off, arm slashing through the air to indicate how little he was willing to listen to him. “You can’t keep pretending everything is fine B! Cuz it aint. Fuck, it’s not fine. It hasn’t in God knows how long and...” Lips twisting into a something ugly, Jason runs a hand through his hair, puffing his cheeks before letting out the air in a quiet huff. “You keep acting like it’s some kinda small misunderstanding that ruined everything. And that isn’t true. It isn’t. You know it isn’t. This shit’s been long time comin and you need to accept that.”

It was as if with every word spoken a knife was dug into his soul, twisting, scarring, damaging. With every word out of Jason’s mouth, Bruce felt coldness seep into his veins, felt his heart twist, because.... because..... what if he was right? Did Bruce even know anything anymore?

World’s greatest detective,….

Him?

What a joke.

Yet, the words wouldn’t make sense. They wouldn’t fit together. As if him and Jason were playing too entirely different puzzle games and while they were the same in color, his pieces were infinitely more complex. More difficult to put together.

Jason didn’t understand. Jay was only now getting to know Tim, so he couldn’t understand their history. His relationship with his son.

“He’s my son Jay. I love him.”

It was as simple as that wasn’t it?

If you loved someone, you could eventually figure it out together, right?

Then why.....

Why did Jason’s last words stay with him all throughout the night. Long after he’d gone to bed? Long since he’d abandoned rushing after Tim. Long after Alfred and Jason had convinced him to wait till tomorrow, why did those words haunt him?

“You don’t love him. Not really. With me, with Dick, with all of us, you try and you apologize. But you never try with him. You just watch and tell him he aint good enough and that’s fucked up.” Jason’s eyes were wet. “I love you B. Course I do. And you’re doin right by me for the first time in forever, but that’s the problem aint it? Is your love like a zero-sum game or something old man? You don’t have it in you to care for your batch of fucked up orphans, equally?”

Closing his eyes tight, Bruce tries to sleep.

“Hey B.” Furrowed brows and red rimmed eyes. “How fucking tiny is your heart?”

-------------

Cassandra is halfway out the car when he reaches out and stops her. She pauses, registering the hand on her shoulder. Shifting back into her seat, his daughter gives him the softest of smiles before closing the door. “Yes?”

[How fucking tiny is your heart?]

He gazes out at the parking lot, fingers drumming absentmindedly against the wheel as he tries to collect his thoughts. Cass is nothing but patient. Her own hands folded delicately across her lap, not a single word out of her mouth to remind him she would be late for practice if he didn’t hurry up.

Bruce gut churns in guilt.

Clearing his throat, he looks down at his lap; brows furrowed and lips drawn in a thin line.

“Why did you call Lucas Fox yesterday?”

His daughter doesn’t miss a beat. “Tim want out. I help.”

Grip tightening around the steering wheel, Bruce grits his teeth. “He didn’t want out. He was just a little bit uncomfortable. We were going to fix things.”

“No fixing. Too late.”

Bruce tenses. A sick feeling crawling up his throat. If Cass was saying this-- “Why do you say... that?” Fumbling with the last word, Bruce curses silently, biting his tongue to stop himself from saying anything else he might regret, not that it mattered seeing as this was Cass he was talking to.

“Tim want home.”

“He has one,” Bruce says, words coming out fried at the edges. “With us.”

But his daughter is already shaking her head. “Tim want home,” she reiterates. Body still as a statue and eyes staring at something far in the distance. “He ask me. I say, not here. Your home not here. Your home, Lucius, Tanya and Tam and Luke. They home for you.”

“Why would you say that?” Because this was betrayal. His daughter had betrayed him. Went behind his back and practically ousted Tim from their family. And... he didn’t understand why.... Why would Cass do this? She loved Tim. More than anyone else, so why would she---

“I want Tim happy.” Her voice cracks at that, and for the first time Bruce notes the mild shake of her hands and the quivering of her bottom lip. “I want see Tim happy. Little brother deserve happy.” Reaching out to open the door, she steps out, Bruce too dumbstruck by her words to stop her. “Happy not with us. We need.... to.... understand.” With those last words she’s gone. Leaving behind the ghost of girl unwilling to cry at the face of loss and pain.

How was any of this fair?

How could his children expect him to accept this when they clearly did not want to lose their brother? How was Bruce supposed to just let this go when there still was a chance to mend fences and go back to how things used to be? Tim most have left him his business card for a reason. His son wanted to talk to him. Wanted them to fix things and Bruce wouldn’t let Lucius and his family get in the way of that. Not when the solution to all his problems was right in front of him.

Cassandra wouldn’t have to be sad anymore.

Dick wouldn’t have to look so heartbroken anymore

And Alfred and Jay and even Stephanie and Barbara. They all were walking around with a sizable hole in their lives and if Bruce could only find the son that fit in that hole, then he would have managed to do right be each one of them.  

He just needed to talk to Tim. To apologize. To make amends. He--- He just needed Tim to understand. Bruce might have been busy when he came back, but it was only because the others needed him more. Not because he didn’t care about his third son. He’d believed Tim had been better off, more well-adjusted, more in control, so of course he’d focused his attention on those who were already slipping through his fingers.

That didn’t mean he loved his boy any less.

Tim had to understand that, right? If he explained himself? If he---

It’s only eight in the morning, but Bruce already feels a bone chilling exhaustion fall like a blanked over his body and with a sigh, he pulls out of the parking lot and begins his drive to the company.

The sooner they fixed things, the better.

-------------

He arrives at Wayne Enterprises in daze. Barely taking note of the employees who jump out of his way as he strides by. Some try to talk to him, but one look from Bruce have them scurrying away and eventually Bruce is standing in front of Tim’s office. Stomach doing flip-flops and breath hitching slightly.

This was it.

Now or never.

He couldn’t mess this up. He couldn’t. For everyone, for Tim, for himself. He needed to get this right.

Knocking gently he waits for the soft “come in” before sliding the door open and finally stepping into the vaguely familiar office.  

It’s a bit different than he remembers. Just like Tim’s apartment, tons of homely objects have been left to decorate the previously barren space. Tim’s desk practically drowning in colorful pictures of his friends and the Fox family. And lighter tone had been added to the room, taking away the edge of gray and giving it more of a homely feel.

Swallowing tickly, Bruce tries not to linger on the changes. For they spoke of things he wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge.

“Hey Bruce.”

Stepping forward, Bruce echoes Tim’s smile with a tiny one of his own. “Hello Tim.”

“You said you wanted to talk.”

“I did.” Pulling out one of the chairs, he sits down. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Well then,” pushing the stack of papers aside, Tim folds his fingers under his chin and tilts his head. “Let's talk. I think it’s about time we do this too.”

Clenching his fists, Bruce stares at his son.

Sees the exhaustion in his eyes, sees the downtrodden face, sees how he’s trying his damn hardest not to show any emotion, and it burns. It burns and scorches his soul. Because Bruce and Tim should never have this kind of divide between them. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

The desk between them feels like an ocean. A distance so wide it prevents him from reaching across it to hold onto his kid. It feels as if he’s too late.

He wants to make things right. Tim is sitting right in front of him and he wants to make things right. He can do this. They can do this, so taking a deep breath he lets it all out.

“Why didn’t you come to me when things got bad?”

“What?” There is a twitch to Tim’s brow. His son leaning back slightly as if struck by his words. “What?”

Shaking his head, Bruce tries to keep his voice as gentle as possible. “When you started to feel the distance between us, why didn’t you come to me?”

Because.... how could they ever hope to fix anything if he couldn’t figure out why it happened in the first place. Sure he knew his busy schedule had robbed him of his third son, but what was Tim’s excuse? He’d known him for years. Years before Bruce himself died, and Tim should have known he could reach out. He’d always done it before. Reluctantly yes, but Tim had always reached out to him first when he needed him, so why?

For the first time it feels as if he’d finally gotten to the root of his frustration.

Tim hadn’t given him the chance to fix this. He’d just up and left and that wasn’t right. Because Bruce would have figured it all out with him, if his son had just given him the chance to do so, so why?

“Why didn’t you come to me son?”

“What makes you think I didn’t?” The words are soft, but Tim’s eyes are narrow and his teeth are clenched. “What makes you think I didn’t try?”

“I don’t rememb--”

“Of course you don’t,” Tim says, cutting him off; voice as soft as always but the sharpness behind them undeniable. Rubbing a tired hand across his brows he sighs. “That’s the whole point Bruce. You don’t remember.”

Taken back, Bruce frowns. “What do you mean?”

Shoulders bunched up and teeth gnawing at his bottom lip, Tim furrows his eyebrows, And Bruce.... Bruce finds himself reaching across the table unconsciously and gently tapping the other under the chin.

An all too familiar action that immediately stops Tim from abusing his lip. It takes his son a second to realize what he’d done, but when he does, he flinches away, a bone aching pain flashing through his eyes.  

Bruce stiffens, watching as his son scoots away from him and....

It was..... It hurts. Chest tightening, Bruce takes a deep breath and leans back, away from Tim.  

His son visibly relaxes at the motion and Bruce has to swallow down the sick sensation crawling up his throat. “What....” he starts again, trying to get them back to the conversation, trying to forget what just happened. “What do you mean? What did you mean by me not remembering?”

Tim shrugs. His face is still a bit too tight and his fingers drumming an unknown beat on the desktop. “I mean exactly that,” he says. “I came to you twice. Once after you had around two and a half weeks to relax and get to connect with the others, and....” there is a tiny wobble to his mouth when he says this. “You were in your office working on something and.... I came to maybe..... I just--” looking away, Tim fidgets with his suit jacket. “I wanted to see if you would like to have lunch together during break. I wanted to catch up with you, see how you were doing, how the others were and--” There is an undeniable hurt in his voice now, and it’s all Bruce can do not to cringe away from it. “It wasn’t anything big or--- I mean, it was just lunch. We were both in the building and I could finally maybe get to talk to you again, but.... You told me that you had plans with Dick and Damian and maybe I could come back another time.”

Bruce remembers that day with a sudden clarity.

[Not now Tim. Dick and Damian need me right now.]

[Please close the door after yourself when you leave.]

Oh

Oh

“There was never another time because you stopped coming to the office after that and saddled me with the rest of your work so you could spend more time with your family.” These words are almost spat out at him and---

He’d done that, hadn’t he. Sure it was the right thing to do at the time, but Tim, his son, his boy.... Tim had deserved better.

Was this why he was so close to Lucius? Was it Bruce who’d forced them together when he left? Was this all his fault?  

“The next time I came to you, I was sick.”

Bruce blood runs cold.  

No, God no. Please... please don’t say he had turned away his son when he was sick. Not Tim. Not Tim who lacked a spleen. Tim who got so easily sick. Tim who never asked for him, so for him to ask and for Bruce to---

“I contracted a virus while working a case and it didn’t get better.... it was bad B.” There is a sad smile curling around Tim’s lips and his kid shrugs, meeting his eyes. “I was gonna go to the future with Bart so his mom could try and fix me, and I called you to tell you.... so if you maybe--- If you could come with me? For support? But you didn’t even listen.”

[I can’t right now Tim. Damian got in trouble in school and I need to go pick him up. Another time, ok?]

And.... God, he feels sick.

Tim might have died and he hadn’t even listened to what he’d tried to say. No wonder the kid never--- Why did everything go so wrong?

“Lucius came with me instead. Lucius and Tanya.” Tim’s smile is bit more genuine this time. “They freaked out so much, you have no idea.” He looks very amused now. A true smile blossoming across his lips as he remembers his time in the future. “Tanya wouldn’t let go off me cuz she didn’t trust anyone there and Lucius couldn’t believe his eyes.... if I hadn’t been sick it would have been hilarious, cuz they were freaking out like crazy and they wouldn’t listen to Bart and their eyes.....”Tim shrugs, smile turning into a tired grin. “It was... nice. Having them there I mean. They came to the future because they wanted to make sure I was ok. They..... they’d never been to the future before, but still--- It was nice.”

Tim’s eyes are wet by now. He isn’t crying, his cheeks aren’t red and his nose isn’t running, but his eyes are wet and....  

They’d been there. Lucius and Tanya Fox.

Bruce hadn’t.  

His son might have died in the future. Might have never come back and.... he hadn’t been there.

“I’m.... I didn’t know Tim. I... I didn’t know it was that serious. If I had I swear---”

“I know,” Tim says, giving him a tight-lipped smile. “I know.”

But he doesn’t know. It’s clear as day that he doesn’t know. He’s just saying that to a peace him, and.... Bruce can’t let it end there. He can’t. Not like this.

“We can fix this.” He suddenly blurts out; not even thinking before he speaks. “We can fix this Tim. Let’s us fix this.”

Tim is already shaking his head before he’s even finished talking. “We,” he says waving a finger between them. “Can’t fix anything Bruce, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That wasn't what I meant.”

“I know exactly what you meant. You literally just asked me why I didn’t come to you Bruce. It sounds like you blame me for this too.”

“I don’t blame you!”  

Slamming both hands on the table, Tim suddenly shoots up without warning. “Of course you do! You always do! I’m always at fault for every fucking thing!”

“That’s not true.”  

“Yes it is,” Tim snaps, eyes blazing and lips drawn back to show teeth. He’d never seen Tim this angry before. “You always pick out my flaws. Always. Never Jason or Damian or Dick. Just me. Never mind that you demon child--”

“Tim!”

“See,” Tim hisses, eyes wide and chest heaving. “You’re doing it right now! You always stand up for him. Always. But you never do the same for me. When he threatens me you never.... you and Dick you--” Blinking furiously, Tim sways slightly. “You always pick your kids over me.”

And.... it was as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer.  

How could Tim think---

“You’re my kid too.”

Tim scoffs. It sounds broken. “Not really.”

“Tim--”

“If I was,” his son interrupts him, sitting back down with a sigh. “If I was your son, you wouldn't single me out every damn time. You wouldn’t let Damian talk like that to me. You wouldn’t let Jason and Damian try and kill me without facing consequences.... like I did.... with Boomerang. You---” A deep breath. “You wouldn’t let them hurt me, but you do, you always do, so I’m not your son. I’m not.”

Not his son?

Gritting his teeth, Bruce tries to breathe through the turmoil coiling in his stomach. Tim didn’t know what he was talking about. He was just angry right now. He was just--

But, did being angry take away the truth to his words?  

Did it make what he’d just said invalid?

Damian and Jason had tried to kill Tim on numerous occasions, and he’d never said anything to them.  

But when Tim spoke up.... how many times had he felt compelled to stop him? How many times? Tim.... he held his third oldest to a standard none of the others-- standards that went above and beyond what he held the others to. He held Tim to his own standards and anything below that was a disappointment.

That.....

That was wrong. Tim was just a kid. A kid with too much on his shoulders and he,…..

[How fucking tiny is your heart B?]

Damian hated Tim. Hated his brother and what had Bruce done to change that? Giving it time? Hoping they would somehow magically fix things between them and then what? Was Tim supposed to just sit there and deal with it till Damian found it in himself to stop?

What kind of parent did that make him?

It was as if every uneasy feeling he’d been hiding away suddenly bubbled up to the forefront of his mind. Every uncertainty, every fear, every worry. Everything he’d been shoving away in hopes of mending fences and going back to how things used to be.  

The wave that hit him almost rocked him out of his chair. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t---

Tim had suffered. Under his watch. His son had suffered in silence. Alone, in pain, uncertain, scared.... and Bruce had let it happen.

For a second it’s as if he can see it all. His son wandering the darkness of his own apartment. Patching up his own injuries with tiny whimpers because he can’t make himself go to the cave. Because he doesn’t feel like he’d be welcomed there.  

Tim who is working so hard in his lonely office, taking on too many projects until he eventually passes out. Tim who doesn’t smile as much anymore. Tim who stiffens when Dick hugs him. Tim who doesn’t belong with them anymore.

Tim who doesn’t want to belong with him anymore.

It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to feel as if his very world isn’t falling apart all around him. It’s hard.... but he’s Bruce Wayne, and this wasn’t.... this wasn’t the time... so taking a mouthful of air, he shakingly looks up to meet Tim’s wide-eyed gaze. His son is halfway out of his chair, arm hoovering in the air, hesitant to touch him. And.... doesn’t that picture speak louder than any words.

“Hey, B? You ok?”

He nods. A jerk of his head that takes all the effort he has left to make happen. “Yes.”

“Ok, yeah. Ok. That’s good.” Tim sits back down, still an uncertain worry in his eyes, and Bruce can’t take it anymore.

“What can I do,” he says, cringing at the underlying pleading in his tone. “What can I do to fix this? Because we need you Tim. I need you.”

A shadow passes over Tim’s features and his kid stiffens. “There is nothing to be done,” he mutters. “I think it’s too late for that.”

No, no no no no.

“Son--”

Tim waves a hand, cutting him off. “I took on a job B. I took on a job too big for me and I pushed and pushed for more, but that’s all it was. A job. I filled a spot in your life you needed filled. I was the kid who saved Batman, and I was fine with that. I was ok with that. Helping you, I think it helped me in turn. But I’m done. I think we’re both done B.”

No, no no!

“I still need you.” He’s leaning forward again, not even caring about the unabashed pleading breaking through his voice loud and clear for all to hear. “You’re my son, my family. I can’t lose you. I need you Tim.”

“Well,” his son says, a croaked smile pulling at his mouth “I don’t need you, not anymore.”  

It’s like a knife in his heart, those words.

And all he can do is stare, watch as the dullness in his son’s eyes turn into a glimmer of determination. Watches as Tim steels himself for one last battle. “It was not my job to do right by you B. It wasn’t my job to save you. I shouldn’t have done any of that, because.... I was just a kid. It wasn’t my job to save you from yourself. It wasn’t my job. I should have never made it my job. You shouldn't have needed a kid to bring you back from the dark, but it happened. And we’re here now. So I just want to say this.” A pause as Tim folds his fingers atop of his desk and takes a deep breath. “I want so say to you, that you hurt me. You hurt me really badly B, and I don’t want to be hurt anymore.”

Bruce felt too many things to count then. Too many emotions, too many things. But most of all, he felt helpless.  

What else could he do, but to understand that he did this. He’d hurt Tim. His precious son who used to laugh like the summer itself. His son who’d told him Batman needed a Robin. His son who’d knelt down next to him; amidst the bloodbath and taken his hand. Not afraid of his darkness, not afraid of who he’d become. “It’s ok B,” he’d said, gloveless hand touching his face. “It’s ok B. You’re not alone anymore. I’m right here. Right here.”

Tim had been his anchor.

His life saver, his hope. Hope that he could be Gotham’s Batman again and Wayne Enterprise Bruce Wayne.

Timothy had saved his legacy and his life and---

“I’m sorry.” The words come out as nothing more than a whisper, but Tim still startles back, eyes wide and mouth agape. “I’m sorry,” Bruce continues, feeling the itch in his eyes intensify. “I was wrong. I wronged you. You... I hurt you--”

God, it was painful to speak. Painful to voice these things. Things he’d known but refused to acknowledge, and for what? So that he could keep living on in a blissful ignorance while Tim suffered?

What kind of monster did that make him?

“I should have done better by you. I failed you, and I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry Tim.”

“Yeah?” Fat drops of water spill past Tim’s cheeks.

“Yeah,” Bruce chokes out, blinking furiously to keep it all in. To not infringe on Tim’s sadness, to not ruin it for him. “Yeah.”

“Oh......Thank you B.”

He nods, biting his bottom lip hard to make it all stop. But then.... a gentle tap on his chin makes him startle and look up to meet Tim’s gaze. His son tapping at his own lip to indicate why he’d done what he did, and.... Bruce snorts, it sounds wet and hoarse. Tim grins back and Bruce finds himself smiling through the painful burn in his chest.

How familiar. How nostalgic.

“I love them you know.”

Bruce smile turns into a grimace, before he quickly pulls it back up. “The Foxes?”

Tim shakes his head, before he pauses. “Well yeah, but that’s not what I meant.” Wiping at his cheeks, he huffs. “I meant the others. Dick and Jason and...... All of them. “A pause. “I think I’ll always love them. More than I can ever love you if I’m being honest.”

That stung. It really did.

“And I’m sure,” his son continues, whispers floating past his smiling lips, eyes incredibly sad. “That they love me in turn. In their own way.” He shrugs.

“Then why--” Bruce starts, but again, Tim is there to stop him from finishing his sentence.

“I’ve learned,” he speaks up over him. “That without respect, love can never be enough. Not really. And I deserve respect Bruce. I do. Not because I’ve earned it, but because of who I am. That’s what family means. You don’t earn anything. You have it because they love you.” Folding his hands under his chin again, Tim tilts his head. And for the first time it strikes Bruce. How much his Tim has grown.

How truly different he’s become.

How he’s learned to express himself so well. Unafraid, eloquent, proud.  

He was so different.

And not his anymore. Not his.  

“Is this goodbye?” Tim nods, eyes shining wet and sad.  

“Yeah, B. I think it is.”

“But--”

“If you don’t want me to head the company anymore, after this, I understand.”

“That’s not--”

“Of course I wouldn't advice it. Since Damian’s still pretty young and I was already planning to hand it over to him when he’s older. But if you don’t trust me to--”

“Of course I trust you.”

Tim freezes.

Sighing, Bruce tries to collect himself. This was... it was too much. But he couldn’t let it all fall apart just yet. Not yet.  

“I trust you,” he reiterates. “I wouldn't take away your job just because.... You’re still my family Tim. Even if you don’t consider me as such anymore.”

His son flinches, but he doesn’t deny it. Maybe that hurts him more than anything else that had been said today. Maybe.

“My last name...” Bruce doesn’t know why he’s bringing it up. “I... you...”

Tim looks just as conflicted. “I would like to keep it,” Tim says in a rush. “Until Damian can take his position I mean. I don’t want to create a media frenzy so--”

“Yeah,” Bruce nods; feeling numb. “Yeah, ok. That makes sense.”

He was losing his son.

“Hey Bruce?”

He feels numb. Tired, just... tired. “Yes?”

Fidgeting in place, Tim leans forward trying to meet his eyes. Bruce can’t find it in him to avoid his gaze no matter how much it hurts. So he does, even though his very soul is screaming at him to just get out. To leave and never look back. “Can I give you an advice? About Damian?”

Scrunching up his nose, Bruce frowns. Why were they talking about Damian now? This wasn't about his youngest. This was about Tim and what Tim didn’t understa--- No. No, this wasn’t about that either. This was about Bruce and what he didn’t understand.

So, taking a deep breath and centering himself the best he could, he nods. “Go ahead. What do you need to say.”

Eyes lightening up, Tim smiles at him; it’s less worried, less uncertain and.... yeah, Bruce would sit here and listen to Tim ramble about anything and everything if it meant he could see him smile like that forever.

“Damian can’t be better all on his own B.” There is a light frustration to Tim’s voice that catches Bruce’s attention. “You need to teach him. He can’t learn it on his own. That’s not how growing up works, trust me.”

“I know you don’t like him--”

Scoffing, Tim shrugs. “That’s an understatement.”

“But,” Bruce continues, deciding to ignore the attitude. “He’s changed a lot. He is better. It’s just that he sometimes slides back whenever you visit.” Giving Tim an apologetic smile, he shrugs as well. “He’s working on it.”

Tim’s sighs, disappointment evident in his eyes as if he’d expected something of Bruce and he’d somehow ended up letting him down, again. “That’s the thing Bruce. You keep saying he’s getting better. And He is working on it. But.... why is he doing it alone? You and Dick somehow expect Damian to figure it all out and miraculously become a better human being while neither of you ever correct him on what exactly that entails. That’s not possible B. You need to do something before it’s too late.”

Too late.

Those two words had taken so much from him.

Too late.

Too late.

“Children need guidance B,” Tim cuts off his train of thought. “They need consequences. You need to give him that or Damian will grow up believing it’s ok to hurt people to get somewhere in life, and that’s not ok.”

For a second the world shifts and Bruce isn’t looking at Tim anymore. Instead its father sitting across the desk from him. Eyes as serious as ever and lips drawn into a grimace.  

He tells him hitting other boys to get what he wants isn’t ok. That consequences are the defining line of life and he; Bruce needs to be careful with the steps he takes. “You can’t hurt people and expect to get away with it Bruce. It’s not ok.”

Who would have thought Tim would grow up to remind him of his father?

It almost..... it almost brings him to tears. Seeing his dad in the son he’d left behind.

When had Tim grown up to be who he is today?

“I will do my best.” The words hitch in his throat, but they are clear enough and Tim, Tim smiles again and.... yeah, he would do his best. Perhaps it was time he put his best foot forward. For the sake of his family, for the sake of his kids. His best might not be good enough anymore. So perhaps it was time to do better than his best.

“That’s all I ask for B.”

The conversation seems to be coming to an end and Bruce knows it. Knows this might be the very last time he and Tim can sit across from each other and talk like this.  

The very last time.

“How did we get to this?”

A shrug and then a hopeless smile. “I don’t know B. Maybe it was always meant to go like this.”

It’s not right. It shouldn’t be right.

“So,” he says, feeling as if everything he’d ever known was suddenly crumbling down around him, piece by piece. “This is it? We part ways and never.... And never---” He can’t find it in himself to finish the sentence.  

Tim smiles, it’s a sad smile. A resigned one. Accepting, hallow. “We parted ways a long time ago B. You just never realized it before now.”

[How fucking tiny is your heart B?]

How tiny indeed that he hadn’t even noticed his son drifting away until there was nothing left connecting them to each other but his own grand delusions.  

Somehow in the midst of his turmoil, Lucius Fox arrives. Slamming the door open, a frazzled Tam Fox at his heels.  

It all feels so far away.

Bruce turns around to look at them both. Watches as Lucius Fox scolds Tim for going to work when he’d told him explicitly that he’d take care of the paperwork and it hits Bruce once more.

How right Tim was.

Bruce hadn’t even taken note of Tim being in his office when he’d been sick just two days ago. But Lucius had. Rushed to the office the minute he found out probably. What did that say about him?

Blinking slowly he watches as Lucius pulls Tim out of his chair, pressing a hand across his forehead than tsking in disapproval before collecting his things; not for one second sparing him a glance.

And it’s all too much.  

It’s all so..... final.

When Lucius hands Tim over to his daughter; Tam leading Tim out of the office, a scolding tone to her voice, Bruce has already turned away. Not wanting to witness the physical manifestation of his son walking out of his life.

“Bye Bruce.”

He stiffens.

Eyes squarely resting on his lap for a second. It’s..... it’s all over, isn’t it?

“Goodbye Tim.”

“He doesn’t look back, doesn’t raise his head afraid the reflection from the windows will show him what he’s trying so desperate to avoid seeing. He doesn’t look up until the door finally swings shut and he’s alone in the office. Well, not alone per say.

“I never took you for a coward Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce scoffs. It’s a bitter and an angry sound. His fists clench around his knees and he meets the steady gaze of one Lucius Fox.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Lucius.”

The other man lifts a brow, hands stuffed in his pockets. “I always wondered when you’d realize. And then time passed and you never did, so I figured you didn’t care.” The last words aren’t said any harsher than any of the others, but they hold a steel under them that’s unmistakable.  

Bruce is on his feet before his mind even has time to contemplate the action. “I care about all of my kids, Lucius.”

This time it’s Lucius who scoffs. “Not equally, but sure.”

Bruce wants to be angry. Wants to just lose it on Lucius Fox. Wants to blame him for everything that had gone wrong ever since this man had made himself at home in Tim’s life. But.... he can’t.

Because reluctant as he is to admit it, Lucius had saved Tim while he’d failed him. Protected him, gave him a place in his family and had shown him nothing but love ever since. He hated Lucius Fox, not because the man stole Tim from him.

No, he hated Lucius Fox because the man managed to be the father to Tim that he never could. Lucius Fox was the winner in a game no one but Bruce had been playing. And he hated him for it.

“Tim,” he says finally, eyes far away and throat burning at the words he is unwilling to say. “You will keep him safe?”

Lucius gives him a hard stare. Face grim and eyes dark with something Bruce can’t quite decipher. And then the man nods. “I don’t plan to let him down anytime soon.”

Nodding, Bruce is careful not to waver where he stands. He can’t afford to show weakness, but at the same time, this was his friend. His friend who chose to do right by his son because he himself wasn’t competent enough to get the job done. “Ok then. Ok.”

A final stare from Lucius as if the man expects him to say something else, but when he doesn’t, Lucius moves past him and its only when he is at the door; Bruce back turned to him, that he speaks. “I respect you as a hero Bruce, I always have. But it has been a long time since I last respected you as a father.” And with those last parting words he’s out the door and gone.  

Leaving Bruce standing by the chair. Eyes dull and chest hallow.

It was the end wasn’t it?

The final line.

Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne had made his chose and he hadn’t chosen them.  

Suddenly it becomes all too hard to stand so he sits back down, hand coming up to his face, shaking, uncontrollable. It’s not easy realizing you were the bad guy all along.

When tears slide down his cheeks, Bruce only covers his eyes and lets himself cry. Silent, alone.... alone. His shoulders shake and his throat tightens, and Bruce Wayne cries.

For Tim who’d been so bright and hopeful until he’d met him. For Dick who he’d saddled his legacy on without care. For Jason who he’d never allowed himself to mourn. For Damian who he’d failed before he’d even started. And for Cass whose many chances he didn’t deserve. He cries for his kids that he still had and for the kid he’d just lost. He cries. And it doesn’t make anything better. Doesn’t make Tim come back or makes Jason to forgive him. Doesn’t make the haunted look in Dick’s eyes fade away or makes Damian someone he isn’t. It doesn’t erase those red rimmed eyes of Cass. But it makes him accept it all.  

Accept that he’d messed up.  

He did that.

No one had made him do it. No one had forced his hand.  

He had failed Tim and there was no taking it back now. No getting around it. No winning it or resetting to try again. Because it wasn’t a game and Bruce wasn’t coming out on top. This wasn’t a comic book. Batman wouldn’t win this time, because there was nothing to win.

So he lets the hot tears carve a path down his cheeks and he sits there, alone, hand pressed across his eyes and he cries.

He cries.

Hours later Alfred rests a hand on his shoulder and sighs. “Perhaps we may learn from this Master Bruce.” His voice cracks. Bruce doesn’t comment.

Perhaps.  

The End

@miss-choco-chips

@throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen

@river9noble

Finally it’s all over. It has been a ride folks. I might write some one-shots connected to this universe when I find the time, but no promises. That’s all. Thank you for sticking with this story for as long as you did! I appreciate it! Bye!

[general-kenobi357]

Someday Soon-Chapter 7

Pairing: JJ Maybank x Fem!OC

Summary: The Pogues try to pawn off the gold they found but run into more trouble then they bargained for.

Word Count: 4.2k

🔅🔆🔅

The next morning John B parked in front of the pawn shop in town as we all piled out of the van. I grabbed the hunk of gold which had been melted down earlier, I handed it off to JJ, who began to criticize Kie’s work.

“Hell of a job melting it down, Dr. Frankenstein.” He said weighing the gold in his hands.

“Like you could've done better.” Kie countered.

“I could have.” He said, turning to look at the group. “I took a welding class.”

“Yeah, that you skipped every day to visit me in English.” I pointed out, reminding him of the previous school semester.

“Whoa, whoa. Hey. Sh! Chill out, okay?” John B broke off the bickering.

“Easy for you to say. You're not the one that has to pawn this piece of shit off.” JJ responded, looking at the gold in his hands. “How did I get this job anyway?”

“'Cause you're the best liar.” Pope answered without skipping a beat as he entered the pawn shop and we all began to follow.

The bell rang above me as the door shut, I followed Kie to go look at a shelf of trinkets while JJ started talking to the women who sat behind the counter.

After a lengthy debate a price was finally agreed upon and we were told we’d have to go to a warehouse to complete the sale. I found it strange that this pawnshop had a warehouse when there were quite a few bare shelves in the store. Why would they need a warehouse to hold stuff when their shop was half empty? I figured that maybe I just didn’t know enough about the in and outs of pawn shops and chose to not voice my concerns while we all exited the shop with a warehouse address in hand.

🔅🔆🔅

We were driving through the Cut on our way to the “warehouse” and something felt off, but then again things had felt off since we had started this treasure hunt, so I decided to push down the feelings of dread that were beginning to bubble up. I sat between JJ and Kie staring out the window which was across the van watching the rows of trees fly by as we continued down the road to the most deserted part of the island.

“So they keep money out here?” Pope asked in disbelief.

“That's what she said.” JJ replied, pausing for a minute a smirk grew on his lips. “That's what she said.”

“Stop.” Pope cut off JJ from laughing at his own comment.

“I've never even heard of Resurrection Drive.” Sarah turned around to look at us from the passenger’s seat.

“'Cause you're rich.” JJ commented.

“You've never heard of it either.” Kie defended Sarah while I smacked JJ’s arm. “There's nothing but weeds back here.”

A moment passed before the car behind us flashed on lights and sirens signaling us to pull over. The stealth cop car pulling us over in the middle of nowhere only added to the doubt I felt. Something was definitely wrong.

“Cops? Out here?” Kie asked as we all looked back while John B pulled over.

“God! Are you kidding me? What did we do?” JJ demanded on edge. “I hate cops.”

“Did you bring the gun?” Kie asked as he began to hide the gold in his bag, I prayed the answer was no I wasn’t sure what would happen if he had.

“No. Okay? Iz told me that I couldn’t bring it with me everywhere I went. I left it back at the place.”

“Thank God.”

“He's walking up.” Pope warned as JJ stuffed his bag under the seat.

I was looking back at the car when I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking near John B’s open window.

“Why don't I go ahead and see them hands in the air?” A masked man demanded loudly, waving the gun in front of John B. “All y'all's hands up in the air now!”

Everything became a blur as he ushered us out of the van before instructing us to lay down in the ditch. I focused on remembering how to breathe as he began to rip apart the van clearly looking for something. It was all a set up, there was no warehouse, only a dead end road where one man could threaten us at gunpoint in order to take the gold we had found. I hadn’t noticed John B sneak away towards the car that had pulled us over but I did hear the muffled protest from the rest of the group. I could hear JJ cursing beside me while I watched the masked man find the gold and head back to his car which John B had just snuck into.

There was a pause before John B called out to us and we all rushed to his side. Incapacitating the man who had robbed us before John B ripped off his face covering so we could find out who he was. I didn’t recognize him but JJ seemed to, rambling about how he supplied his father with coke.

“Come on, let's get outta here.” John B urged as JJ grabbed the dealer’s wallet. None of us wanted to wait around for the real cops to show up.

“We got one last stop.” JJ told us, looking at the id he had found. “Let's go see where this son of a bitch lives.”

The dealer screamed threats at us as we made our way back to the van so that we could get outta there.

🔅🔆🔅

“Welcome to Crackhead Wasteland.” Sarah spoke up as we drove up to a rundown trailer.

The ride here had been silent as we all tried to recover from what had just gone down.

“I don't know about this, man.” Pope spoke up uneasily. “Dude, why are we at Barry's?”

“This'll only take a second.” JJ responded hopping out of the van before making his way to the steps of the trailer.

“Where are you going?” John B asked JJ as he made his way across the porch.

“Yo soy justicia.” JJ responded as if that answered the question before disappearing into the building.

“Did you glean anything from that?” Pope asked as we all shook our heads.

“You know somebody should probably…” Kie started to say before John B got out of the van.

“Yeah, I got it.” He reassured, following JJ’s path into the trailer.

The rest of us stayed quiet as we waited for the pair to return. I felt numb still trying to figure out what was going on and why I hadn’t spoken up when I had the chance. Maybe if I had voiced my concerns we wouldn’t be here, maybe we could’ve gone to the mainland, traded the gold with someone else.

I was pulled out of the thoughts that were beginning to drown me when the rest of the gang got out of the van as JJ and John B approached us. I stayed sitting near the door figuring we would be leaving soon anyway.

“All right, so we're looking at five grand each for reparations for putting us through that bullshit.” JJ spoke to us all digging through a bag full of cash. “Sorry about that, y'all.”

“So that's what we're doing now? We're robbing drug dealers?” Kie asked hopelessly.

“This Barry guy's gonna find out.” Sarah reasoned. “And he's gonna come after us.”

“Yes, he will. This is not the time to start wilin' out.” John B added, it seemed like he was continuing a previous conversation they had most likely had inside.

“How'd you like havin' a gun pulled on you?” JJ asked finally snapping and pinning John B against the van.

“Relax.” John B told him in an attempt to calm JJ down.

“He had it right here on you, bro.”

“What are you gonna do when he comes for us?”

“We punch him in the throat.”

“Yeah, good fuckin' idea, JJ.”

“I'm not putting it back.” JJ finally said letting go of John B. He climbed past me into the van and sat down before looking at everyone. “You guys getting in or what? What”

“We're sick of your shit.” Kie told him.

“Oh, my shit?” JJ challenged getting back out of the van.

“Yeah. Yeah. Your shit. Yes. Your pulling guns on people shit.”

“You acting like a maniac…” Pope added.

“Okay, Pope, I took the fall for you, man!” JJ cried out. “Know how much I owe because of you?”

“I'm gonna pay you back, and I didn't ask you to do that!”

“I just did pay it back. Right here, right now, by myself.” JJ spat holding up the money he had found inside. “You know what? That's exactly what I'm gonna do. Go off by myself.”

“JJ... Hey, wait, man.” John B spoke up trying to stop him. “Iz could you?”

“Yeah I’ll go see what I can do.” I said. I didn’t have to hear the rest of the question to know John B wanted me to go after JJ thinking he might listen to me.

“Should we wait?” Kie asked as I began to follow JJ.

“No, I’ll um meet you guys at The Wreck later.” I stated, figuring it might take awhile to talk to JJ.

🔅🔆🔅

It took me a couple minutes to catch up with JJ who was walking a lot faster than I expected. When I finally caught up to him I put a hand on his shoulder hoping he would turn around and he did, looking the most pissed off I had ever seen him.

“Jesus, what?” He groaned before realizing it was me, his face softened slightly but he couldn’t take back the comment.

“What? JJ, really?” I asked now that I too was pissed off. “I want to know what the hell is going on. Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? I’m paying off the restitution.”

“JJ we have the gold, you don’t have to use that drug money. You don’t have to make more enemies.”

“It’s a little late for that Iz. Why do you even care?”

“Why do I care? Oh I don’t know maybe cause you’re important to me, because I know that you’re better than this.”

“Then clearly you don’t know me.” He told me before turning to continue walking. “Stop acting like my girlfriend, I don’t need someone telling me what to do.”

“Where are you even going?” I asked, trying to keep up with his quick pace while also attempting to let go of the comments he was making.

“Home.” He said after a moment. “I gotta go prove to the old man I did it. By myself, without him.”

After that comment I stopped trying to keep up, I stood still and watched him go. The tears I had been holding onto all morning finally springing free as I watched him fade from view. It felt like I had just lost the one person who kept me together.

🔅🔆🔅

I felt more lost than I ever had as I found myself walking up the stairs of The Wreck and towards the table that my friends were all seated at.

“There's about a zero percent chance that JJ goes home.” Pope said, I assumed it was an answer to a question that I had not heard.

“That’s exactly where he’s going.” I corrected Pope as my friends all turned to look at me.

“Are you alright?” Kie asked standing from the table and holding me an arms length away to inspect my features.

At that question I fell apart all over again and as the tears fell freely down my face the rest of my friends got up and all pulled me into a hug. After a couple minutes they all let go of me as Kie led me to sit down.

“What happened?” Pope asked concern written across his features.

“We fought about the money and then he left and I couldn’t stop him.” I explained between hiccups caused by my previous sobbing. “I’m fine guys or I will be, I’m just worried.”

They all gave me a look of uncertainty as if they didn’t believe what I was telling them but after a couple minutes Pope finally decided to change the topic effectively dropping it.

“Okay.” He started hesitantly. “It's too dangerous to pawn this thing off piecemeal. So our best bet is to go down there and get the rest of it. Bring it all up at once. Put it in... in a safe or a vault or something. I... I don't know. Just until we can find someone who won't rip us off. I can figure it out tonight, get it done, and we can be out there tomorrow morning.”

“All right, let's do it.” John B said ready to start planning.

“What about that thing with my dad?” Sarah asked him.

“What thing?” Kie asked as John B cursed under his breath.

“I have to go fishing with Ward.” He explained to us.

“You can't get 400 mil 'cause you're gonna go kill fish?”

“Look, I have to go.”

“Blow it off.” Pope spoke up. “It's 400 million in gold!”

“Make something up!” Kie added

“Look, I... I have to, okay?” John B shut down their suggestions. “He... he saved me, all right? If it weren't for Ward, I'd be in foster care. I have to go. Plus, it'll be better to do it at night. Right?”

“Fine. Fine, go fishing.” Kie said. “And at least JJ will probably have washed up by then.”

But I wondered if he would. As much as JJ’s words had hurt me I still worried, I had seen what Luke Maybank had done before and I knew he would want to keep the money that JJ had got for himself.

“I um I gotta go to work.” I said finally standing up when I noticed the clock on the wall. “I’ll see y’all later.”

“Yeah we’ll meet you at the Château tonight.” Kie reassured me letting go of my hand that she had been holding since I had arrived.

🔅🔆🔅

I closed the car door with a sigh, the sun was low in the sky. My mom had just dropped me off at home after we were done working and was about to go collect Emmy.

“I’ll be back in a while.” She assured me as I opened the back door to grab my bag from the seat.

“Okay I’ll see you then.” I said with a smile as she drove out of our driveway once again.

I made my way up to the porch and was about to go into my house when I noticed something on the dock at the Château. Confused, I dropped my bag on the steps before heading in that direction to go investigate.

As I got closer I noticed someone in a suit working on laying out a blanket. Then a head of unmistakable golden hair popped up as the old deck creaked under my feet.

“JJ?” I asked, confused by whatever was going on.

“Sweetheart.” He greeted me with a smile, meeting me halfway down the dock before leading me towards the picnic he had set up.

“What is this?” I asked him, my concern growing as he sat down.

“Sit, please. I got it all set up.” He stated, avoiding my question.

After a moment I sat as he offered me champagne.

“What is this?” I asked him again, pushing away the glass he was trying to pass to me.

“It’s um, It’s an apology. For this morning and for midsummers. I know I shouldn’t have run away-”

“It’s fine JJ.” I interrupted him trying to figure out what was really going on.

“No. No it’s not fine Iz. I mean I was a dick and I just didn’t know what to do. I’ve never liked a girl as much as I like you and I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” He confessed but I had no idea how to react. This is all that I wanted, he was all I wanted and yet now that he had finally said what I had been waiting for him to say I couldn’t hear it.

“JJ did you spend all your money?” I asked him.

“What? No, not on this dinner.” He answered and I knew he was dancing around the question. “Now will you please just stop worrying and enjoy this meal with me after I told you how I feel about you, Sweetheart.”

At that I decided to stop, to give into his request and push away my worries for an hour. Kie and Pope would be here soon, they would know what to do, how to help.

We had finished eating and JJ had convinced me to dance with him. Which is what we were now doing, dancing slowly to the music that played softly from the radio that JJ had brought out onto the dock.

“Can I kiss you?” JJ asked me suddenly, as I looked into his blue eyes.

I took a moment to consider it before nodding my head. This kiss was different from the last, we both knew it was going to happen and as our lips met it felt like it was meant to happen. All of the questions and worries I had melted away as I deepened the kiss.

But as I pulled away to catch my breath they all came crawling back. The questions of where we stood and what we were burned in the back of my throat, begging to be let out but I swallowed them back down as I looked into JJ’s eyes again and saw the smile playing on his lips.

I smiled back as we continued to dance, hoping to prolong this moment as long as I could before we had to go back to reality.

“Hey, do you have a swim suit on?” He asked as the song playing ended.

“Um no. Not right now.” I answered wondering what else he was planning.

“Well go get one.” JJ instructed as we pulled apart from each other. “I’ll meet you at the Château, okay? I’ve got one more surprise.”

“Yeah, okay.” I replied hesitantly making my way over to my house.

As I walked in Mom and Emmy both turned to look at me from the kitchen.

“Hey Hon what’s going on?” Mom asked.

“Um, not much I think I’m gonna hangout at John B’s for a while more.” I explained as I made my way towards my room.

I closed the door behind me before changing into a bathing suit and then throwing on a pair of shorts as I wasn’t sure where JJ was taking me. I had no idea why I needed a swimsuit but I figured maybe if I listened to JJ it would finally explain what was going on. Before I left my room I turned on my phone. I hadn’t used it in days since I had no way to charge it and I was trying to save the battery for anything important. This constituted being important. I dialed Kie’s number and listened to it ring before finally going to voicemail.

“Hey, where the hell are you guys? I’m with JJ at the Château, something is wrong. I don’t know what to do. Please get here soon.” I talked to her voicemail hoping she would hear it soon.

I tried Pope’s phone but got no response there either. After leaving a similar voicemail I figured I should head back over to where JJ was. I considered for a minute asking my Mom for help but then I thought it best not to. I wasn’t ready to explain everything that had gone down in the past few days and I wasn’t even sure how to.

🔅🔆🔅

I crossed the lawn quickly to find JJ waiting in front of the Château for me. He still wore his dress shirt which I found an odd choice since he had ditched the rest of the suit for a pair of colourful swim trunks. In one hand he held tightly to the bottle of champagne he had opened earlier which was now almost empty.

“Finally.” He said, smiling as I walked over to him. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

“Sorry. I couldn't find a bathing suit.” I lied, not wanting to tell him I had called our friends.

“That’s alright.” He said, his words were slow as he finished the last of the champagne before setting down the bottle. “Okay cover your eyes, I’ve got one more surprise for us.” He instructed before taking my hand.

With my eyes closed I couldn’t tell where we were headed but I knew it wasn’t far as we came to a stop after a short walk.

“Okay keep 'em covered.” JJ spoke hesitantly as he let go of my hand. I could hear the shuffling of fabric then a pause before I heard the sound of splashing water. “Alright you can look.”

As I opened my eyes it took me a moment to readjust to the bright lights that surrounded me. I stood with my mouth open in shock. That’s when my gaze lowered to where JJ sat in a huge hot tub a smile covered his face as if he was proud of all this.

“What the hell?” I muttered, still looking around the yard which was completely different. Had I not been so worried about JJ I could’ve appreciated how beautiful it was.

“I bought a hot tub.” He stated, grabbing a new bottle of champagne, I watched him open it, trying to figure out what to say.

“Yeah.” I muttered agreeing with his comment. “Why?”

“I figured we had earned it. You know the Pogues deserve a little luxury.” He explained. “Now you need to get in here, immediately.”

“Did you spend it all?” I asked, hesitantly moving closer to where the hot tub sat.

“Pretty much all of it, yeah. But, I mean, like, come on, look at this!” He exclaimed, waving his arms around. “Finest in jet-based massage therapy, that's what they told me.”

I wanted to scream at him and ask what the hell was going through his mind but I couldn’t form any response. I stood paralyzed watching him. I could feel tears forming, clouding my vision begging to be let out but I wouldn’t let them, I had cried too much today I didn’t want to again.

“Sweetheart, what?” He asked, noticing that I was barely holding it together. “Can't a man have a little luxury in life?”

“JJ, seriously?” I asked, finally finding my voice. “You could have paid for restitution!”

“Okay, well, you know what? I didn't do that!” He snapped, standing up and pointing a finger at me. As he stood I saw the huge bruises covering his torso. It all made sense and I realized that I shouldn’t have let him walk away. I shouldn’t have let him go home. “I got a hot tub! I got a hot tub for us. For my friends. You know what? No, you know what? Screw friends. I got a hot tub for my family!”

“JJ, what happened?” I asked, the tears finally falling down my cheeks. I didn’t need to ask though, I already knew.

“No, you stop being emotional. It's fine, okay? Sweetheart, I’m fine.” He tried to convince me but his voice cracked with every word he spoke, he started moving closer to where I stood. “Just get in!”

JJ held out his arm for me to take and I did. Kicking off my shoes before I climbed over the side, I stood beside him pulling him into a hug. I held him while I cried, I didn’t know what to say. How to make it better. And as I held him he began to break down as well, sobbing into my shoulder.

“I just couldn't do it.” He started to say between sobs. “I can't take him anymore! I was gonna kill him. I just wanna do the right thing.”

“I know.” I tried to tell him but I couldn’t speak very loudly as I choked on my words. “I know.”

We stood there for what felt like hours, I could hear voices speaking behind us before two people climbed up the steps and joined our hug. I could tell it was Kie and Pope as they muttered to us, trying to sooth JJ as he continued to sob.

After we all finally pulled away, Kie explained that they had arrived slightly after our conversation had begun. They had heard it all, they didn’t need an explanation. The rest of the night we all sat in silence. I never left JJ’s side, I held onto his hand like my life depended on it, as I tried to make sense of it all.

🔅🔆🔅

[journalofimprobablethings]

take me back to the start

That idea about the Chalice and Lucretia would not leave me alone, so here's the full dang thing. Turns out Lucretia's temptation takes about 4k words.

Tags: Mentioned Lup, Mentioned Magnus Burnsides, Stolen Century Spoilers, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation

Summary: The Chalice makes Lucretia an offer, and she has to decide whether she's willing to pay the price for a second chance.

Full thing below but you can also read it on AO3 here

--

Lucretia wakes up in a white space.

She blinks, and as the room comes into focus, she can see it's not just an undefined void. There are shapes around her: furniture and plants, pillows and blankets and a coffee table, all so familiar—and she realizes with a pang that she's in the lounge of the Starblaster. But it's like she's in a ghost version of the room; everything is washed out, somehow insubstantial. She reaches out and touches a pillow, and even though she can feel it, there's something not quite there about it.

She looks around, torn between confusion at her surroundings and a sort of painful joy at the familiarity of it all. Then she jumps as a voice speaks behind her.

"Hey, Luce."

She turns and there, sitting on one of the couches, is Magnus.

Unlike the rest of the room, he's not washed out or ghostly. He's all there, solid, full-color. He's leaning back against the cushions, his arms spread over the top of the couch. He looks so relaxed, totally at home in a way she hasn't seen in a long time. Something about the whole scene bothers her, but she can't put a finger on what it is.

"Magnus? Where—what is this?"

"I thought we should talk. Since you finally found me and all."

"Finally found you? What are you—?" She looks at him more closely. There's something...off about him. The way he's sitting, the way he holds his head—it's like someone doing an impression of Magnus: the broad strokes are there, but the details are not quite right.

Then she realizes what it was that bothered her just now:

He'd called her Luce.

It's been years since anyone has called her that. Magnus always used to, before. But the Magnus she knows right now, at the Bureau, has never used that name for her. He's forgotten that he ever did.

She takes a step back.

"You're not Magnus."

He smiles, and there's a sharpness in it that sends a shiver down her spine. "No, I'm not."

"Who are you?"

Magnus—or the thing pretending to be Magnus—leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees.

"What were you doing just now? Before you came here?"

She thinks back. The boys had just gotten back from Refuge, had told her the story of the time-stuck town and all their loops—all their deaths. (And she'd wondered then whether it had felt familiar, all that dying. But she'd said nothing.) They'd told her, in broad terms, about the thrall of this most recent relic, how it was different from the others.

And then she'd gone back to her office, to channel the Light out of the relic into her staff.

She looks at not-Magnus again, a mix of fear and fascination roiling inside her.

"The Chalice," she says. "You're the Chalice."

He smiles, wider this time, and a smile that is distinctly un-Magnus-like.

"That's right," he says. "And I want to show you something."

Lucretia closes her eyes against that smile, takes a breath to steady herself.

The Chalice.

When she’s thought about what it would take to collect the relics, this is the one that has always worried and frightened her the most. The others have their thrall, but the things they offer—riches, power—are things that she has an easy enough time rejecting. She’s never wanted those things, not really.

But the Chalice holds something that she has always wanted desperately: the opportunity to fix your mistakes. The idea of second chances.

She’d worried about sending Magnus and Merle and Taako after it—even without all their memories, there are plenty of things they might wish were different. They didn’t go into detail about what the Chalice offered them, but she knows it can’t have been easy. She's proud of them for resisting it.

She's not sure she'd be as strong.

Lucretia opens her eyes, and summons every bit of the gravitas and distance she has cultivated in the last decade, pulling her professional mask back into place.

“Thank you, but I’m fine,” she says. “I know what I’ve done. And even if there are things I wish were different, I know you’re not the solution.”

His face twists into a wry smile. “Look at you, Luce. We used to think you were such a wallflower. And now here you are: Madam Director. You're so...sure. So certain that everything you've done is for the best."

She shouldn't let it hurt her, the hint of judgement in his voice. This isn't Magnus, after all. But she can't help feeling stung.

"I did what I had to do," she says.

"And it's worth it? Worth the price you made us pay?"

"Don't say us," she snaps. "You're not him."

"You're avoiding the question."

He stands, and she resists the urge to step away from him as he approaches her.

“Come on,” the Chalice says, with Magnus’s voice, Magnus’s earnestness. “There really isn't anything you'd change? You really don't want a second chance to get it right?”

She could almost laugh at the question. Of course she wants a second chance. Of course there are things she wants to change. Every day when she looks at Davenport, when she watches the boys train and notes the difference in how they treat each other, she longs for what used to be. She can’t say she hasn’t thought about what she could do with the Chalice’s power, wondered what it would be like if she--

Wait.

There’s something missing here, something she’s forgetting. It’s a terrifying feeling, like missing a step on the stairs, putting your foot down expecting solid ground and finding only empty air. (Is this what it felt like? a tiny part of her whispers. Is this what she did to them?)

She does back away from the Chalice now, just a few steps. Her heart is beating hard in her chest, and she closes her hands into fists to stop them shaking.

"Why am I here?" she asks. “You shouldn’t be able to do this.”

"Oh, Luce." He smiles again, that same, awful, sharp smile. “You know why. You picked me up.”

She—

Oh.

Oh, no.

She had been in her office, getting ready to channel this piece of the Light into her staff, to join it with the others. She didn’t need to take the relic out of the iron ball it had been placed in to do this. No need to touch it, to risk being thralled. That was the point.

But she had been so curious.

This relic, of all of them, has always held such fascination for her.

“You wanted to see what I can do," the Chalice says. “And here I am.”

And with that, the lounge around them disappears. The ghostly furniture vanishes, leaving only the white void behind—and the Chalice standing next to her, still wearing Magnus's face. He reaches for her hand, but she jerks away before he can take it.

"Let me show you," he says. "I promise I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do. Just let me show you."

Then he gestures, and the void around them bursts into life.

At first, there is so much at once the Lucretia can't parse through the chaos of colors and images. But as her eyes grow more accustomed, she realizes that they are surrounded by her memories. She sees snippets of herself over the last weeks, sitting in her office at the Bureau, talking to Avi in the cannon bay, visiting Johann and Fisher downstairs. She sees herself at the spa with Merle, trying Taako's macarons at the Candlenights party. The memories move farther and farther back in time, and as they do they begin to fly by faster and faster until the images blur together and the specifics are lost in a swirl of color. The flash and movement of it churns Lucretia's stomach, and she tries to turn away, to block it out, but the Chalice takes her by the arm and will not let her turn.

"Look," he says.

The blur of memories is slowing again, enough that she can once again pick out individual images—and as they resolve, the memories they show hit her like a knife in the gut.

Lucretia is surrounded, suddenly, but images of the day she broke their family apart.

She sees herself leaving Merle in the house she found for him on the beach

walking away from Magnus's carpentry shop in Raven's Roost

leaving Taako asleep in the back of his caravan

finding Barry's body in a field outside Neverwinter

collapsed on the floor beside Davenport's bed as he curls under the covers, clutching his temples.

Each image is clearer than the last, and each one twists the knife in her gut a little deeper. She wraps her arms tight around herself, trying to steady herself, to hold herself together, but she can't keep the tremor out of her voice.

"Please," she says. "I don't want to see this."

"Why not? I thought you did what you had to do." There is no pity in his voice. "I thought this price was worth paying."

The memories keep coming, and she sees herself finding each of her family after the redaction, reaching out to try and calm and comfort them. She sees Magnus walking into her room, the journal floating in Fisher's tank, a duck painted to look just like her dropping to the floor. She watches herself catch Magnus as he staggers, watches as her knees give out under his weight, as she catches his head before it can hit the floor and whispers assurances and love that he is too lost to hear.

The Magnus standing next to her watches too, expressionless.

It feels like they linger on that scene for an eternity before it, too, fades away.

Then, finally, the flashes of memories slow and stop, exactly where Lucretia knew they would.

They're standing in her quarters on the Starblaster, the glow from Fisher's tank casting the room into shades of grey and blue. Along one wall, the bookcase where she kept all her journals is half empty, each shelf pockmarked with holes. The desk is a mess of papers and journals and mugs of tea long gone cold. Lucretia looks to the corner where Fisher's tank sits, and even though she knows what to expect, the sight still takes her breath away.

She sees herself, wearing her red IPRE jacket, her hair longer than she's had it in years, stray curls escaping from the cord holding it in place. She's standing frozen in front of Fisher's tank, holding a blue journal bound in silver trim in both hands. Her grip on the journal is so tight that her knuckles are white.

The Chalice looks over at Lucretia. The whole time he was scanning through her memories, his face had been blank, dispassionate. But now, for the first time, he's looking at her with compassion and understanding in his eyes.

“This was the moment, right? The moment you changed everything.”

Lucretia nods. She remembers the feeling of this moment: like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, getting ready to jump. The terror of it, and the possibility.

She looks at her past self, standing at Fisher’s tank clutching the journal in her hands. Gods, she forgot how young she used to look. Her face is lit by the glow of the tank, her lips pressed tight together and eyes shining. There’s fear there, but there’s also hope—hope that this will be worth it, that she will be able to help her family be happy again. Hope that she will be able to fix everything.

She’s not sure when that hope transformed into a need; when the belief that her plan would work morphed from a quiet determination to a desperate desire, a story she told herself because to believe otherwise would break her.

Would she still have that hope, if she had made a different choice?

You can change it," the Chalice says. "Everything you just saw. All that pain you caused them. It doesn't have to go that way."

Lucretia looks at the frozen memory of herself, a version of her that thought she knew the cost of what she was doing. Who had no idea what loneliness and heartbreak she held in her hands.

What would it mean, if she had the chance to try again?

She could talk to the others about her plan, try to get them on board. She could still go through with the redaction, but she could make sure her family were inoculated first. The worst thing, the hardest thing, about what she’s done has been seeing what it did to the others. Seeing the sharp, cold person Taako’s become without Lup; the way that Davenport’s been left a shell of himself. Knowing that Barry is out there somewhere, alone and angry and afraid. The fact that the lives that she built for them fell apart one by one, and she could only watch.

She could save them that pain, if she changed this moment.

Everything she just had to watch, everything they've lost, everything they've suffered because of her.

She could fix it.

She could—

Could she?

The last time she tried to fix everything with one big decision, she ended up here.

If she did this, what new pains would come instead—what unintended consequences would such a choice unleash? If there’s anything she’s learned in the past decade, it’s that she can never fully predict the effects of her decisions, no matter how hard she tries. What if this decision only leads to new regrets?

Lucretia drops her head in her hands, all her desires and wishes and hopes warring inside her with a dreadful fear at what other hurts she might inadvertently cause.

The price of using any relic is so high; she's not even sure what exactly the price of this one would be. She has spent the last ten years working so hard to keep others from using them, to collect them so that she can cast her barrier and stop the Hunger once and for all. Would she really sacrifice all that to fix this one mistake?

She wants to say she would. She wants to say that if she knew she could spare her family pain, she would sacrifice everything else she’s done. But when she asks the question bluntly, the same answer that has gotten her through the last ten years comes up.

She did what she did for a reason. It cost them all so much more than she ever thought it would. But she’s not sure what else would be lost, if she tried to change this moment—and there is too much at stake for her to risk getting it wrong again.

No. She can't fix it. Not this way.

Lucretia lowers her hands, slowly, and shakes her head.

“I made my choice,” she says. “It hasn’t turned out exactly like I thought it would, but...I did what I had to do. I have to see it through.”

She lets her hands fall to her sides, staring at the still-frozen form of her past self. That's it, then.  She should feel proud of herself, she supposes, for resisting the Chalice’s thrall. But instead she just feels empty.

She looks up at the Chalice, expecting him to be angry, or frustrated, or at least disappointed. This was his last big play, after all. The temptation of Lucretia.

But the Chalice only smiles, and she hates the way that smile looks on Magnus’s face, all condescension and smug knowing.

“I thought you might say that,” he says. “You’re nothing if not stubborn."

What?

She had thought she knew what was happening here: a temptation, an offer that the Chalice hoped she would take and that she would have to resist, and if she did, then she would win. If that's not what this was--reliving those memories was bad enough, but to do it for no purpose?

Lucretia does her best to hide her confusion, to let only anger show in her voice. "Why did you show this to me if you knew I wouldn't change it?"

He shrugs. "It was worth a try. You might have surprised me. And it's important that you saw this first."

"What do you mean?" She doesn't like the sound of first. "I thought we were done."

“Not quite," the Chalice says. "There’s one other moment I want to show you."

The images around them are already blurring again, the vision of her standing in front of Fisher’s tank disappearing into flashes of color and memory. Lucretia braces herself for another onslaught, but it's only a few seconds before the blur slows, and when it stops, they are once again standing in her quarters on the Starblaster. It’s nighttime, the room lit only by a candle on her desk, and the glow from Fisher’s tank.

The younger version of her sits at the desk, her head leaning on one hand, the other hand twirling and pulling at a loose curl. She's reading one of her journals. Two more journals sit to one side on the desk, and there is a pile of several more at her feet. The young Lucretia’s leg is jiggling, and her hand pulls on her hair hard enough to hurt. Her posture might seem relaxed, but present Lucretia can feel her anxiety.

Her heart sinks. She remembers this night. It was the night after Lup had told them about the gauntlet’s latest death toll in Cordelia—and one of the first nights she really thought about what it would take, to use Fisher to erase the relics. She remembers the weariness on Lup’s face, the despair at what these things they’d made were doing to the world. How much she wanted to wipe that weariness away, how she’d thought that there had to be a way to fix it. She had sat up late into the night, a growing pile of journals surrounding her as she read through her records of the last year, and then further and further back into the century. Eventually she had fallen asleep at her desk, her head pillowed on an open journal, her mind spinning with questions—whether such a plan would work; whether it was worth it.

The next morning, they had found Lup’s note on the kitchen table.

"You think about this night a lot," the Chalice says. "The last night you were all together."

He walks over to the desk, looking down at the memory of her, and Lucretia resists the urge to step between them, to protect her younger self from the future looming over her.

“You didn’t know it at the time, but you were awake, when Lup left,” he continues. “She waited until she thought everyone would be asleep, and then she left her note on the table, and she slipped away. She thought she would only be gone a few days.

“And while she did that you were sitting at your desk, reading, thinking it might be time to take a break soon, but not ready to put down your work just yet."

Past Lucretia turns a page and sighs. Even more than the last version of her, Lucretia thinks, she has no idea what's coming.

"You never did end up taking a break, that night. And by morning she was gone.”

The scene shifts, and suddenly it’s like they’re standing inside the wall between her old room and the corridor outside. She can still see herself, sitting at her desk. But she can also see a figure in a hooded red robe making her way along the hall, her footfalls carefully soft. The scene freezes just as Lup passes Lucretia's door.

“Right now, in this moment, she’s walking past your room on her way to the kitchen. If you get up now, you’ll run into her, and you’ll be able to talk.”

Lucretia stares, frozen, at her younger self, at the cloaked figure of Lup outside the door. She had been right there. She had been so close. She never even thought—

What would have happened, if she and Lup had talked before Lup left?

If she had told Lup what she was thinking, of her plan to use Fisher to stop the war?

If she had asked Lup for help, tried to get her to stay?

What would have happened to them all, if they hadn’t lost Lup?

Suddenly, all her earlier firm resolve dissipates like mist. Lucretia looks at the figure silhouetted in the dim light of the corridor, and her heart aches and her stomach clenches with longing.

Lup.

It shouldn't change anything. All her arguments from before still stand.

She doesn’t know what consequences such a change would have.

She’d be sacrificing everything she’s done, everything she’s worked for the past ten years.

The price of using a relic is still so very high.

But Lup.

There’s a sudden, gentle touch on the back of her wrist. She startles, but this time she does not pull away as the Chalice takes her hand in his. His fingers are rough and calloused, the exact feel of Magnus’s hands, and the sensation brings tears to her eyes. It’s been so long since she’s felt anything like this.

“You can save us, Luce,” the Chalice says—Magnus says. “You know we fell apart, after Lup left. You can stop it. You can persuade her to stay, and we can find some other way to stop the war. Together.”

"Don't say us," she says, but there is no fire in it. She can see it, the future he describes. She can see it so clearly.

"Please, Lucretia." His eyes meet hers with such an earnest look. "You can save her."

And despite herself, despite all her caution and well-honed arguments, Lucretia can feel herself faltering.

When he made his first offer, she had been able to push her own desires aside. However much she might want to change what has happened since the redaction, she knows she did what she did for a reason, and she is too practiced at setting aside her guilt to let it sway her.

But this. This is different.

Lup's disappearance had no reason behind it, no purpose. She might have left with an intention in mind, but Lucretia is certain her not coming back was not part of any plan.

And now, she's being given the chance to make it right.

If she can keep Lup from leaving, then Barry will never have to waste away on a fruitless search, Taako will never be reduced to moving through the ship like a ghost, half empty. If she can talk to her, maybe they can keep their family together, keep them from falling into that place where the redaction felt like the only option. With Lup still with them, maybe the Chalice is right—maybe they can find another way to save the world.

There will be a price to pay. She knows this. The stakes are just as high as before, the uncertainty in some ways even higher. But by now she is used to calculating the costs of her decisions, and the prices she has to pay herself are always the easiest to bear.

And to save Lup? To bring her back? She's willing to pay just about anything.

Lucretia looks up at the Chalice, and though she knows he is not Magnus, he is so like him that just for this moment, she can pretend that there is nothing else lurking behind his earnest expression. She takes both of the Chalice's callused hands in hers, and she looks him dead in the eye, and she makes her choice.

"What do I have to do?”

[barryjeanblues]

taako meets death (again)

(also posted to my ao3)

taako has met two raven queens in his life before now.

well, close enough, at least. most - though not all - of the worlds the starblaster had traveled to had gods, and surprisingly enough, those gods were usually - though not always - strikingly similar to their homeworlds gods. (this was useful, because one of the crews number relied very heavily on a certain nature god for his magic. luckily, the nature or life god of each world always seemed to have a soft spot for little old merle, even if they werent merles traditional cloven-hoofed pan.)

twice, taako had met the death god - someone equivalent to faeruns raven queen. 

this had led to taakos understandable trepidation upon kravitz finally putting his foot down and insisting taako meet his mother boss. 

the first time taako had met a raven queen, she had been… overwhelming. the light of creation had fallen into a forest dedicated to her and her followers, and the head acolyte refused to give the wandering crew the light unless they first received permission from the queen.

the crew had agreed, with no other option, bracing themselves to firmly explain the direness of the situation. surely a goddess would be intelligent enough to understand. 

that raven queen had burst into a forest cleaning in an explosion of black feathers, half illusion, half steel, so that when lup brushed the smoky feathers from her eyes they blurred and dissipated, but when magnus tried the same thing he yelped and brought his hand back bleeding. 

that raven queens laughter had been eerie and echoing, almost but not quite mocking, almost but not quite infectious, almost but not quite joyous. the crew had stood firm and offered their argument, and the queen had given them tests and tokens and bargains and tricky promises with too many clauses and loopholes and at the end of it all the ipres numbers had been halved and the rest were weary and worn as they caught the light of creation and fled with only minutes to spare, the faelike laughter of death following them terribly even through the overwhelming cacophony of the hungers assault. 

that laughter had trailed after them longer, if only in their heads. taako would be making stir fry, planning outfits, swapping merles shampoo for hair-loss potions, when hed have to sit down suddenly and breathe through the musical trills of the raven queens cruel pleasure. it had seemed to bounce in his head the way a rubber ball might, ricocheting off thoughts and feelings until it rolled under a couch to be forgotten about, till some slight movement sent it rolling and bouncing about once more. 

davenport had died in an illusion, thinking he was saving his crew. poor merle had been choked by his own plants, betrayal writ across hos face. barrys skin had grown sickly purple with poison - ten to one odds arent very good odds. taako doesnt forget easily. he decides the goddess of death can go fuck herself. 

the second raven queen taako had met much later in their journey, and taako had met her alone. 

lup and barry had become liches a few cycles back. it was something taako had still been coming to terms with. 

taako loves lup. this is an immutable fact of any and every universe. taako loves lup and lup loves taako and not death or memory or space can separate them, not for long. but seeing your sister die, and then… go beyond death, to twist herself and latch on to a chance that she may never return except in madness and spite - thats a hard thing to grasp, even when she succeeds. taako had still found himself shivering when his sister forgot she had a body again and grabbed a hot pan off the stove, crying out in pain. taako still woke sweating from nightmares in which his sister and his friend flew apart and reformed as cackling red robed horrors of insanity and cruelty, too far for him to reach. 

until that cycle, though, barry and lups choice had only been an asset. 

but some raven queens do not take kindly to anything they see as a perversion of their domain. 

barely a week into that cycle, taako had awoken from the guilty non-elven pleasure of a nap only to find himself in some cold, hard court, fashioned seemingly of steel and silver and concrete, onyx lining the floor and the only color coming from sparse sapphires sparkled throughout the long echoing hall. 

at the end of it - and taako had known his eyes must have played tricks on him, because at first the being at the end of the hall seemed, while large, not much larger than a giant, but when hed called a nervous greeting his voice had echoed so awfully he knew the hall stretched much farther than hed thought and the goddess at the end of it must have been unimaginably huge. 

her eyes had glinted a flinty sapphire in her carven steel face when she ordered him to defend the existence of his sister and his sisters lover. 

taako had tried. he truly, truly had. but while taako is a being of preservation and caution, full of intelligence and cleverness, he is not one of cold hard logic. perhaps lucretia could have convinced this raven queen, the only of their number who had ever been able to grasp true hard reason… but taako doubts it. he had doubted it then and he doubts it even more these days. 

the point is, taako, for all his love for his family and his brilliant wit and devotion (probably, in fact, because of it) taakos arguments couldnt convince that raven queen. she saw past his genuine belief that lup and barry had made a good decision, and into his fears for her, and the goddess of death had based her own argument on those. she won. taako never had a chance. 

he, lup, and barry had woken up in the next cycle, newly resurrected. taako never stops feeling guilty about it. 

so. yes. 

taako is more than a little nervous about meeting the goddess his boyfriend serves so devotedly. but, and youd be hard pressed to convince him to admit it, taako would do anything for kravitz. and despite it all he does actually want to see what the deal is with his sister and his best friends boss, and his patron gods… friend? lover? girlfriend? taako isnt quite sure what fate and death are to each other, but its definitely something.

kravitz lays a warm hand on taakos shoulder, but taako squares them up. he can do this, for fucks sake - hes died a shitton of times, he can meet death. 

the doors open and taakos breath - the only breath in this realm of the dead - catches in his throat.

taako is a die hard istus fan, and shell always be his goddess. but if taako wasnt a taken elf, hed follow the raven queen, he realizes with a startle.

shes beautiful, yes. shes gorgeous, and taakos always been weak for beauty, but hers isnt the cold hard beauty of gemstones and gold, thinks his nimble fingers snatch up and hoard in his endless pockets. the raven queen is beautiful in a way that taako cant describe as anything other than simple.

he cant pin down any features. she has a kind face, gentle hands, bright eyes, but taako can tell she is a goddess because despite staying still the image of her flicks and shifts in his head. at once she seems to have every kind face hes ever seen, even if he doesnt recognize anyone. her hands reach out to comfort him - no more than comfort - but she stands without moving in front of taako and kravitz. her eyes glitter and sparkle and crinkle up with cheerful laughter, except taako isnt entirely sure she has eyes at all, or maybe she has too many. 

he thinks… he thinks maybe she has wings, or maybe theyre arms, or maybe theyre black fabric, draped around and behind and below and above her, shifting with the last breaths of every mortal in the universe. its darkness but its not scary, taako realizes, its solacing, healing, the way that he feels when dusk passes to night and the sky is huge and warm and the brush of lups hand against his as she says goodbye for the night is a relief and a love. 

hello, taako, death says. its lovely to meet you. 

she means it, taako knows. he can tell, somehow. shes just happy to meet him. nothing more, nothing less. 

'oh,' taako says aloud, and kravitz laughs his quiet sweet dorky laugh, and the raven queen laughs too, and its just that. its just a laugh, and its a nice one.

'oh indeed,' kravitz says. 'taako, did you really think id serve a monster or a cruel master?'

'well,' taako replies hesitantly, 'honestly, homie, i kind of thought you were, and id, like, have to start some quest to slay death itself and rescue you.'

the anthropomorphic personification of death laughs again, a note of delight in her tender voice. i like him, my kravitz, she says, good job.

kravitz does the dead-reaper equivalent of blushing. taako grins a little because its very cute. 

'death is different here,' taako hums. 'its… it wasnt like this anywhere else i went. it was cold, or cruel, or empty. i dunno why its different in your world.'

'then i guess we're the lucky ones, huh?' kravitz asks. taako leans up against him and murmurs an agreement. 'its why i love my job so much, why it means so much to me. its not that im some hardass, i just…'

'yea, cha'boy gets it now,' assures taako. 'still.' he looks at the ever-shifting, ever-stable face of death again. 'you better treat my boy kravitz and my lady istus well, capiche? or we will have issues.'

its a deal, taako, the raven queen says, smiling. 

when taako opens his eyes, hes in his home in the material plane, and kravitz is next to him, and theyre both smiling. 

[saiilorstars]

Rise Up

Ch.10: A Jinx's Path

Previous Story: It Had To Be You || Current Masterlist

Pairings: Barry Allen x OFC

Chapter Summary: Team Flash and Arrow join together, along with time traveler Graciela Haynez to defeat Vandal Savage. It's only in the end that Graciela reveals the true nature of her status.

This chapter (and the previous) serve as a prequel to Graciela’s full story Redemption.

Pronunciation of OC: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog​ @maaaaarveeeeel​ @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles [If you’d like to be part of this OC’s taglist, let me know!]

Visiting Star City when it was due to some strange, mystical man wasn't exactly on Barry's top five things to do. Yet there he was because an innocent woman was being hunted down by the mystical man. At least he could be surrounded by friends who would be able to help him in case something went wrong.

While everyone came up with a decent plan for Kendra Saunders, they gathered in Oliver's apartment for some drinks that night. Barry had listened to how much had changed for both Felicity and Oliver, and honestly couldn't hide his shock.

"So, you're the CEO of Palmer Technologies," Barry pointed to Felicity Smoak as he wrapped his mind around the idea of Felicity being big boss as a company, "And you're now living with Oliver Queen."

"There you go, you got it!" Felicity sarcastically hit him on the arm.

"It's insane how much life can change in six months, huh?"

"Which you would know better than anyone, considering that there's another Flash, another Dr. Wells, from another... earth. I mean…" but as much as Felicity tried wrapping her mind around a new Earth it just wouldn't. "I wonder what Oliver's doppelganger would look like. Bald, pot-bellied…" Barry laughed at the idea and sneaked a glance at Oliver in the kitchen. "Haven't asked, how are you and Belén doing?"

"Uuh...I mean, we're good," Barry meant to be honest in that in terms of being a couple they were indeed good, but there were some rough patches that didn't exactly pertain to their relationship.

"I sense there's a 'but' somewhere there…" Felicity narrowed her eyes on him, ready to scrutinize him on the spot.

"It's not about us, it's just we're dealing with...you know...other world and stuff."

"Oh…" that seemed to calm Felicity more or less.

"I love her and I hate seeing her so stressed... I want to help her but I don't know how." And Barry despised that fact. He had the answers to his speed because there were people to train him, even if some of those were evil, but the fact laid in that he garnered the skills because of guidance. Belén didn't have that. To find the answers, she was basically on her own.

~0~

While everyone mingled, Cisco took opportunity to have a word with Barry on the side. He hadn't been sure if he wanted to tell Barry what he saw but Cisco was sure it would inevitably help Kendra in the end.

"You 'vibed' Kendra?" Barry was surprised to hear.

"Unintentionally," Cisco left that clear before he went on. "But remember the man with wings? It wasn't a man. It was Kendra. She was, like, a bird. You think that she's a meta-human?"

Barry could not be sure, and neither was Cisco. "Mm... Wait. Why didn't you say anything about this sooner?"

Cisco gave a light shrug. "Well, I didn't think it was related, but I guess now it has to be. Look, I don't want her to know about my powers. I have this great thing going with her. She laughs at my jokes, and she loves movies, and... I just... I've never felt like this before, and I don't want to sabotage it."

"I get the feeling," Barry could honestly relate.

"Look!" Kendra had jumped from her seat to point at the glass wall overlooking the city.

Vandal Savage was swinging forwards and broke through the window. Everyone backed away as the man got up. He certainly seemed at home when he saw Kendra. " I will always find you, Chay-Ara."

Barry sped Oliver and Thea their arrows. Oliver quickly took aim on Savage. "Don't move."

"Then how will I kill you all?" Savage pulled out several pocket knives in a second and threw them strategically at them all. Barry sped down and managed to get the knives before they were able to hurt anyone.

Oliver then took his moment to shoot arrows towards Savage. The intended victim ducked and dodged like there was no tomorrow. At the same time, a familiar purple and black leathered figure swooped in through the hole Savage left on the wall. With one leg stretched on the floor and a hand keeping her from falling, Jinx shot her purple beams at the lights above and caused massive sparks to fly down on the group.

"You again?" Savage faced her, fairly curious with the persistent women.

"Me, again," Jinx smirked as she straightened up. "We weren't finished."

"We weren't," Savage didn't hesitate to start throwing more blades her way.

She backtracked while dodging them all with those bright purple beams that seemed to either change the blades' direction or crush them altogether. Oliver and Thea joined again, although neither was sure who that woman was, and shot more arrows towards Savage. Jinx dropped her hands and ran forwards to engage Savage in hand-to-hand combat. She proved to be skilled as she jumped and blocked Savage's punches while throwing one of her own. Finally, Savage became agitated it was all taking too long and surprised Jinx with a different, golden chopped knife. It would have came straight at her heart if Barry hadn't sped in and grabbed it three inches away from her. In her shock, Savage took his opportunity and escaped by jumping off Oliver's balcony.

"No!" Jinx cried as the man disappeared. She tried to chase after him but Barry grabbed her arm.

"He's not going to make it!" he said, but she yanked her arm from his grip.

"He's immortal you idiot!" she shouted angrily and hurried to the balcony. She looked down but, no surprise, Savage was gone again. "Dammit!" she grasped her hair and turned around to the shock-stricken group staring at her.

"Hey…" Barry meant to approach her calmly but she was too angry to stop and realize.

"I said to stay out of it! I only have a couple chances before they find me and you keep ruining it!" she gritted her teeth and scoured the group until she spotted Kendra. "I'm not messing up again."

Kendra felt this was a warning that encumbered her too and suddenly stepped back. Jinx lowered her arms and straightened up.

"You're the one he calls Chay-Arah...so you're it." Jinx smiled and thrust an arm in the group's way, or so it seemed. Her beams had hit the pillars that were part of the supporting pieces of the ceiling.

"Ah...what's happening…?" Felicity couldn't, and wouldn't, take her eyes off the ceiling.

Jinx was running towards Kendra but Oliver and Thea took aim up again on her. It made it a struggle for Jinx to keep going as she had to constantly battle the arrows threatening her. Barry decided to end it by simply taking Jinx over her victim and pinned her against the back wall.

"Kendra isn't going anywhere with you," he warned her.

"You don't get it, she's the key," Jinx kicked him in the stomach. "It's not like I'm going to hurt her. I just...need you…" she laid dark eyes on Kendra.

"Yo, not happening," Cisco barred the way to his girlfriend.

Jinx laughed mockingly at his defense. She raised a hand, making Felicity panic. She'd figured out Jinx's powers by now.

"Not the ceiling!" cried the blonde.

Jinx rolled her eyes but redirected her hands to the kitchen. Energy beams made fire erupt from the oven and another shot at the walls made pipes burst. Even if they wanted to stop Jinx, the natural disasters prevented them from saving Kendra. Jinx had taken her all too easy in their distress.

~0~

"All right, Lance is gonna call if he gets any information on... whoever they were…" Oliver said after hanging up the phone.

"And the ceiling…?" Felicity hadn't taken her eyes off the ceiling since the fight. It kept grumbling and groaning like it would collapse at any moment.

"Homegirl Jinx lives up to her name," Cisco bitterly kicked the couch from behind.

"New metahuman?" asked Diggle.

"Man, we don't know what she is except she's crazy with bad luck powers!"

Barry put a hand on Cisco's shoulder, understanding he was sick worried over Kendra. "Look, you can call me crazy too but I don't think Jinx is going to hurt Kendra." Cisco turned on Barry with an incredulous expression on his face. "I just meant-" Barry took a precautionary step backwards, "-she clearly wants to get this man as much as we want to and she's made the connection that wherever Kendra is that man will follow."

"You saying she's gonna use Kendra as bait?" Thea raised her eyebrows.

Barry shrugged, knowing that the possibility of Kendra being bait didn't exactly make Cisco feel much better. "It's just…"

"It's exactly what we would do," Oliver spoke up.

Cisco's eyes nearly popped from his head. "What!?"

"And if she's thinking like that then maybe we can reason with her," Oliver continued like Cisco hadn't spoken. "We could get her to help us instead."

"And maybe have her fix our ceiling…" Felicity mumbled.

"Felicity, you think we can find Kendra by pinging her phone?" Barry asked.

"Oh, watch me!"

~0~

Kendra found it was useless trying to pull on the ropes binding her wrists and ankles together. She leaned against the wall where Jinx had put her and frowned at the woman who had kidnapped her. Jinx was sitting on a table, literally, tinkering with the metal wristwatch (as it appeared to Kendra) on her.

'There's a 98% probability Vandal Savage will be around the area, Miss Haynez,' a computerized voice informed her.

"What is that?" Kendra couldn't help be curious of the device.

Jinx looked up with a smirk. "It's a miniature A.l device I knicked off a friend."

"You stole it?"

"Oh, I'm gonna give it back when I'm finished in this time," Jinx put both her hands on her lap. "My friend will probably shout at how irresponsible it was to go through time and blah, blah, blah-" she rolled her eyes, "He always likes to be dramatic."

Kendra's eyebrows knitted together. "Wait, time? You're a…"

"Man, I read all about these metahumans before coming - the Flash, the Azalea, the Arrow, Black Canary? I thought they were super smart enough to figure that out."

"Give them credit," Kendra frowned. "It's not everyday we come across time travelers and immortals."

Jinx laughed. "True."

Kendra studied the woman for real now and came, fairly quick, to the conclusion that whatever Jinx wanted it really had nothing to do with her. She wanted Savage. She was merely the bait.

Jinx hopped off the table and walked towards Kendra. "I need you to wake up or something."

"Wake up…?"

"C'mon, it would be a lot easier to fight Savage knowing you could defend yourself. I don't want liabilities."

"I have no idea what you mean," Kendra pulled her legs closer to her as Jinx neared her.

"I know you have powers, Kendra. And I know there's another of your kind-"

"My kind?" repeated Kendra, now truly confused.

"The male. I don't know where he us but that's okay since Savage seems to want only you right now. But c'mon, sprout the wings, pull the sword out or something."

"Okay I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Jinx looked mighty frustrated and disappointed with Kendra. "Tell me you're kidding?" Kendra's blank face said it all. "Woman!"

"I'm just a barista!"

"No, you're not! You're like a...I don't know, reincarnation? I honestly didn't read too much on that background. All I know is that you and some other guy die and reincarnate over and over because of Savage. And since you don't even have your powers activated it's gonna be a hell of a lot easier for Savage to get you!" Jinx growled and turned away from Kendra. "I don't have that much time here before they find me…" she rubbed her face and hoped to God something would pop in her mind to help her out.

Meanwhile, Kendra tried to internalize what she'd been told about herself apparently? None of it made sense but it would explain why Savage was so hellbent on killing her. There was a hell to pay that she didn't even know about.

About thirty minutes later, Jinx returned to Kendra and pulled the woman up without saying a word. She pushed Kendra towards the exit of the abandoned room.

"Wh-where are we going?" Kendra tried digging her heels into the ground to stop herself from going.

"Relax, I'm taking you out to the street. I figure maybe your powers will show up if you're under stressor, also known as me."

"Wait, what!?"

Jinx pushed Kendra out and forced the woman to go to the dark street. She left Kendra tried by the wrists and stepped back. "Ready?"

"NO!"

"Yes!" Jinx's excited voice went over Kendra. She swung an arm forwards and her energy beams hit the nearest street pole by Kendra.

"No! Stop!" Kendra cried and jumped backwards just as the pole groaned and fell over. From the force, Kendra fell back.

Jinx clapped a hand to her forehead. "This is seriously not how I imagined things going."

Kendra shot the woman a glare from the ground.

"We're going to need to 'up' the stakes," Jinx theorized, lowering her hand to her chin. "I suppose it's like a self preservation. The bigger the stressor…the more chances of getting those powers…"

"Please…" Kendra scuttled backwards, unable to get up on her own, "...whatever you want from me...it's not going to work…"

"Wouldn't say that," Jinx's eyes raised up to the electricity cables. "Perfect."

Kendra followed the woman's gaze up and felt her blood run cold. "Oh n-n-n-n-no…"

"Sprout those wings, woman!" Jinx raised her hands above her head and was about to shoot at the cables when an arrow struck her by the shoulder and pushed her to the ground. "OW!"

Before she knew it, Barry had sped in front of her and looked down. "If you don't want another arrow, I suggest you listen."

Behind him dropped Oliver who took a threatening aim at Jinx. Jinx's dark eyes flickered between the two and could see past them where Diggle and Thea were helping Kendra up. Suddenly, Barry lowered a hand for her to take, confusing her of course.

"First you shoot me-" Jinx pulled out the arrow embedded on her shoulder like it was nothing and threw it to the side, "-and then you offer help?"

"You haven't been all that straight forwards either," Barry retorted and motioned her again to just take his hand.

Jinx grasped his hand and let him pull her up. She cast a suspicious glance on Oliver who still didn't lower his arrows. "What now? You'll imprison me?" she challenged but scoffed in the end. "Because if I'm being honest, you're gonna have to get in line."

"We just want to talk," Barry reassured but Jinx cleared her throat and nodded her head at Oliver. "Dude…" Barry tried pushing away the arrow Oliver had until eventually Oliver lowered it completely. "Thank you. Look," Barry tried again with Jinx, "we don't understand anything-"

"-clearly," Jinx crossed her arms.

"-but it looks like you do and we have a common enemy so...why don't we help each other out?"

"She tried crushing me with a street pole!" Kendra shouted from across. Now that she was free she frantically motioned to the pole on the ground.

"Hey that was only to get you to sprout those wings!" Jinx snapped. "And it didn't even work!"

"I don't have any wings!" Kendra waved her hands in the air. "I don't have any powers! I keep telling you that!"

"I know you do! You just haven't activated them!"

Kendra stalked towards them but a male figure - flying - in a golden suit with wings suddenly swooped down and took her off the ground. "HELP!" Kendra screamed but no one could possibly do so.

And then, just like that, Oliver took aim against Jinx again. "You have some explaining to do!"

"Oh calm down," Jinx wasn't even looking at him anymore. She raised her wrist that had the watch-like device strapped to it and pulled up several holographic screens.

"What the hell was that?" Thea came running over with Diggle.

"Not a 'what' but a 'he'," a big smile, like the Chestshire cat, was spreading across Jinx's face. "It's the other one! I've hit the jackpot!"

"Explain!" demanded Oliver.

"Sure, just lower the arrows," Jinx ordered. Begrudgingly, Oliver did so but his hand was still wrapped around the bow pretty tightly. "Look, don't worry, she's not in danger, alright? That's probably her reincarnated soulmate."

Everyone winced because Cisco had given a mighty big 'oh hell no' in their ears through the comms.

"What are you talking about?" Barry asked Jinx but the woman kept working on the device. "And what the hell is that?"

"I read about them, alright? There's two of them and Savage will always kill them both! It's obvious the guy has figured his powers out," Jinx sighed. "I should have gone after him instead."

"Whoever he is we need to find him," Diggle said.

"He's not gonna get far once he sees Kendra hasn't activated her powers," Jinx turned her wristwatch off. "I need to go after them before Savage finds them."

"You are not going anywhere," Thea warned her. "We don't even know your name. We're not letting you go anywhere near Kendra."

"If anything, she should be back in the base explaining things," Barry offered, much to Jinx's dismay. "We'll find Kendra and that guy...and we'll bring them back. But you-" he pointed at Jinx, "-need to be committed to cooperate with us. And you're gonna start by telling us everything you know and who you are."

"Fine, but on the other side, I'd like you to guarantee me that Savage dies. It's crucial for me, do you understand?" and in truth there was something in Jinx's eyes indicating this was more than a simple hunt for her. There was something important she was fighting for.

Barry extended a hand forwards. "Deal."

Jinx nodded and shook hands on it.

~ 0 ~

And although the strange man gave quite the chase, Barry and Oliver had managed to bring him down with some tranquilizing arrows. That of course didn't sit well with Jinx when they expressed the idea of chaining the man up.

"He is a key to all this!"

"He kidnapped me!"

"He was just trying to protect you!"

"You know, I don't like you very much," Kendra crossed her arms and glared straight at Jinx.

"You know, liking you has nothing to do with this. You're just a way to get to my goal," Jinx responded and glanced back at the unconscious, chained up, man across them.

"Yo, we trusted you enough to bring you in here," Cisco gestured to the base. "So mind doing your thing about explaining all this? Start with your real name, please?"

Jinx drew in a deep breath as she resigned herself to disclosure. She hadn't planned on revealing anything about herself while in the past, but to be honest she hadn't expected on killing Savage to be such a difficult task in the past.

"Yo? Name?" called Cisco once he felt like they were losing her again.

"Fine," the woman spat. She folded her arms over her chest and sighed. "My name is Graciela Haynez, but I'm also known as Jinx."

"And how are you connected to all this?" Barry then asked since none of them could figure it out yet.

"I'm not connected," Graciela clarified first. "But my life, as well as my entire world, has been affected by that man. Vandal Savage, as you have guessed, is a murderer. And where I'm from, he's a dictator."

"And where are you from again?" Felicity asked from the platform. She was leaning against her desk, refusing to be too close to Jinx for the moment. Jinx looked to the side, apparently reluctant to answer.

"Hey, you promised you would tell us everything," Barry reminded her.

Graciela threw her head back and rubbed her face. "Fine! I'm from the future."

"Okay, can we lock her up now?" Thea sarcastically asked.

"I'm not kidding! I'm from the year 2166 and I came back here to stop Savage before he takes over my city and the whole frikin world!"

But everyone continued to stare at her like she was spilling nothing but lies.

"Fine, you want proof?" Graciela raised her wristwatch and activated it. There were various images displaying a destroyed city and the last one showed Vandal Savage at the head of an army. When Graciela shut the device off, she was subjected to various horrific stares. "There's your proof. That's home sweet home for me."

"Wait," Cisco shook his head as if that would erase everything image he just saw, "You mean to tell me you time traveled back in time to stop Savage from ever becoming dictator? Isn't that like...against rules or something?"

"Oh yeah, but the thing is I don't care," Graciela said like nothing. "I've been fighting a rebellion for as long as I can remember and even though I know people can fight him, that organization has refused to do it. So, I'm doing it. So can we get this moving?"

Barry looked at Oliver to see what he was thinking. As usual, there was nothing describable in Oliver's face except for pensiveness.

"Might I suggest something?" Barry finally asked.

~ 0 ~

It took a lot of explaining, but after things were clear - or at least decently clear - Star City's finest returned to Central City with Barry, along with Graciela, in hopes of coming up with a good, airtight, plan against Savage.

First thing in order was to relocate somewhere remote.

"A bunch of superheroes in a farmhouse?" Thea gave a weird look at the grassy field they arrived at. "I feel like I've seen that in a movie before."

"We need a secure location," Oliver moved around their black van without so much of a glance to their surroundings. All he knew was that there was a decent home and it was far away from the city.

"And what's wrong with STAR Labs?" asked Belén just as she got off the STAR Labs van.

"Well, I mean, absolutely nothing if you forget about the revolving door you guys installed so the bad guys can come and go as they please."

Belén exchanged a look with Caitlin beside her, both offended on behalf of their beloved STAR Labs.

"And remind us again what happened to your old lair?" Caitlin was the one to respond first, but of course Belén had something else to add.

"Or the one before that?"

Oliver glared at both women.

"Well, lair number one was compromised by the police, and…" Felicity trailed off when Olivier's glance switched to her. She cleared her throat and looked down. "I will stop helping."

Oliver decided to stop paying them attention before he would lose it. Instead, he led the group towards the safe house. "Savage only let Barry and I live because he felt Kendra start to emerge as Hawkgirl and went after her. He can sense her and Carter's presence. We don't need to make it easier on him by staying in the city limits."

"Bet you wish you were staying at your mother's place now," Belén mumbled to Laurel since the latter had been staying in Central City anyways.

"Ha!" Laurel practically snorted.

It had been half an hour since the group settled into the house, and only then did Cisco, Barry and Graciela appear.

"Barry, you're late!" Oliver's sharpness had no effect on Barry anymore. He'd come to get used to Oliver's way of being a long time ago. Instead, he learned how to make comebacks.

"Sorry. It turns out, it's not easy finding the ass end of nowhere!"

"Yeah, for real," Cisco pulled out his cellphone and immediately checked for his internet status. "The roaming charges alone are going to bankrupt me."

"...are those my clothes?" Belén raised an eyebrow the moment she spotted Graciela wearing her pink cardigan.

Graciela, in turn, uncomfortably shifted on her feet while flailing her arms. "Yeah, and I hate pink."

"Be a little grateful, won't yah?" snapped Cisco. "We borrowed-"

"-my clothes?" Belén's voice started getting that same sharpness Oliver owned so well, and that was something Barry still had no comeback to.

"Uuuh…" Barry drew it out while he pulled Belén to the side in the meantime the others started gathering with Cisco's cart of inventions.

"Barry, she's wearing my clothes," Belén said quietly though in growing irritation. Her eyes flickered to Graciela who was indeed wearing everything that belonged to her. "I'm all for sharing but I'm not comfortable doing it with someone I don't know and who also attacked my friends multiple times."

"I know that, and I understand, but it's okay now. Graciela's okay. She's on our side," Barry tried to explain quick before she got actually angry. "She's from the future and she didn't have anything and you always have spares at STAR Labs, sooo…."

"Fine," Belén crossed her arms. "But can I at least meet her now? I mean, the only reason I know her name is Graciela is because you just said it right now. Last time we saw each other, she attacked us."

"It's been a busy day," Barry said in his defense.

"Mhm," Belén's hum was almost like a red flag.

It was a good thing Barry wasn't naive to believe it was all due to borrowed clothes. As soon as he'd returned to Central City yesterday, Belén filled him in on what had happened in his absence. She'd been forced to tell her mother that she the Azalea, they had Harry stabilizing back at STAR Labs (under the care of Nina), and of course no one could forget she was going crazy trying to figure more things out about Datura, and the lack of success was getting to her. Her training, while good, still felt like it was mediocre against Datura's and Poison Ivy's.

Borrowed clothes were merely the tip of the iceberg for Belén.

"We need to get rid of Savage's magic stick thing," Oliver couldn't believe he was actually saying those words.

"Yeah, Staff of Horus," Carter corrected but it really didn't matter.

"Well, it's protected by some kind of energy field," Graciela said bitterly. "It's impossible to get to. Believe me, I've tried."

"What about some mittens, then?" Felicity joked for a second until she got the actual idea. "Ooooooh, maybe some insulated gauntlets…"

Caitlin seemed to catch the idea as well since she chimed in, "Oh, yeah, yeah, the magnetic shielding could disrupt the-"

"-the staff's magnetic polarity!" Cisco even had a go and started leading the two women into the hallway.

"Well, while the geek squad works-"

"-heard that, honey!" Felicity called to Oliver, actually making him wince.

"While they work to get the staff away from Savage, we need to know everything there is to know about him." Oliver's eyes landed on Graciela and Kendra, but the latter seemed pretty uncomfortable to say anything.

"What's to know about him is that he's evil, manipulative, and powerful," Graciela listed off her fingers before shrugging. "That's about it, really."

"He's been around for 4,000 years - he should have a trail or something."

"You're from the future, right?" Belén moved closer to the group. "You obviously know more about him than we will ever know right now."

"I mean…" Graciela seemed like there was a lot she wanted to say but failed to come up with a way to say it. She dragged a hand through her short curls and sighed. "You have to understand that where I come from, he's already won. He's the dictator. He's all powerful and there's no way of stopping him because those two-" she jerked a thumb at Kendra and Carter, "-are dead. I don't know everything about Savage. I just know that in the 21st century he comes across metahumans that almost stop him."

"So what was your plan, then? When you first thought of coming here?" Barry wondered since her first appearance seemed a hellbent on killing.

"To be honest, I don't know," Graciela crossed her arms, looking rather guilty about her confession. "I'm impulsive and I…" she once again paused to gather her words, "...I read in the history files that when Savage goes up against the Arrow, the Flash, the Azalea, Black Canary...his weapons are his downfall. I thought maybe if I showed up and take the weapons I might have a chance of fixing my future."

"Okay, how about I check with A.R.G.U.S., see if they have anything on him?" Diggle offered since it was clear they had nothing.

"That sounds great," Laurel nodded her head. "And Thea and I can check police reports and stuff like that."

"It's not gonna matter," Graciela called to the trio who were moving to start on their tasks.

"We're going to do our best," Thea offered one sour smile before following Laurel.

"And Kendra," Oliver turned his attention to Kendra, the sudden gaze making the woman stiffen. "We need to find a way to utilize your new ability."

She blinked until it hit her of what he meant. "My ability?" Of course he meant her 'ability', because she now had abilities. Because she wasn't normal. She was...she was some...

"It might give us an advantage," Oliver's voice pulled Kendra out from her thoughts.

Barry cleared his throat as he moved on around the group. "Yeah, whatever you do, don't let him train you." At that, Oliver gave him a look, but Barry was full on straightforward with his words. "I'm sorry, but when it rains, I can still feel where you shot me with those arrows."

"He's not that bad," Belén spoke up on Oliver's behalf, though it earned her an offended glance from Barry. "What? You were being smug and you got shot with arrows. What did you say to me before running?" She pretended to think about it before mocking him, 'And give Bells a show'."

Barry nearly glared at her for bringing that one up. Okay, so he might have been a little over the top then but he didn't deserve to be shot with arrows.

"It's okay," Carter stepped forwards, hands held up, "I'll handle her training, then."

Kendra kept her mouth shut because the moment someone asked her directly whether or not she wanted to 'train' she'd say an automatic 'no'. Instead, she watched Carter leave the house for something in the van, no doubt that big chest box he'd carried with them.

~ 0 ~

"Where are you going?" Belén's question stopped Barry just as he was about to take off from the front porch.

"Well…" Barry prepared himself for what he knew would be a difficult explanation, "...I got a call...from, um...one of Oliver's…" he paused for a significant long time, making Belén rather impatient for she thought this would be him coming up with an excuse, "...frenemies."

"Which one?"

"Don't know...Merlyn?"

"You got a call from Merlyn?" Belén's tone of voice indicated she knew exactly who that was. Barry then remembered she and Laurel were completely close. "What the hell does he want!?"

"To talk to me and Oliver, I guess." Barry admitted to himself he didn't like the idea of meeting up with that type of man, but since Oliver was on his way too he had no choice but to go as well.

"Just you two? That's a bit rude," Belén folded her arms and deeply frowned. "And I'm sugarcoating it. You do realize this whole Savage thing involves a lot of people. Whatever he's going to say to you and Oliver, make sure you repeat it to us later, got it?"

"Got it," Barry dutifully said, even saluting for show. Once he saw a small smile trying to creep across her face, he knew she wasn't that upset.

"Just be careful, alright? I'll hold down the fort here," she said and looked to the side. She could see Kendra and Carter on the field, presumably training. "Though to be honest I think we might end up killing each other before Savage gets to us. Reincarnation, immortality and time travelers?"

Barry snorted with a laugh. "Yeah. This one's out of our terrain. But listen, Graciela? She knows a lot more than she's giving on. Maybe you can get her to talk more."

"Me?" Belén pointed at herself, relatively confused since she'd barely crossed a word with the time traveler. "But I haven't even met her. It's not like she's a big talker."

"Try to look at it from her perspective," Barry attempted to go through a different tactic. He stepped closer to Belén and lowered his voice in case anyone was nearby. "To her, this is a lost battle. It's like she said, she's already lost so this is technically one of her last options. And who knows what she left behind in the future. She could be fighting for something we don't know about. Someone maybe."

"I hate when you make sense," Belén sighed and ignored his smirk.

"Just try it. If there's anyone with a sweet voice it's you!" he swooped down and kissed her cheek.

"I'm gonna do it, you don't need to keep kissing up," she playfully rolled her eyes and pushed him away.

"K, gotta go!" Barry waved before rushing off.

Belén drew in a deep breath and prepared herself to go find that...unique...time traveler.

She moved back into the house in search of Graciela, but only found the three scientists working hard on those gauntlets-to-be, and then saw the other trio looking for traces of Savage. It led her to go back to the fields where Carter and Kendra were still going hard on that training, which looked rather frustrating for Kendra judging by those growls. Eventually, Belén spotted Graciela sitting on a rock just outside the shed. The closer Belén got, the better she could see Graciela was talking to something around her wrist.

"Show me London again," Graciela was instructing and suddenly a baby blue hologram flickered to life above the watch on her wrist.

It was not a pretty sight.

"Time hasn't changed," Graciela said with full disappointment. However, as soon as she saw Belén coming towards her, she pushed that disappointment to the back of her mind and turned the hologram off. She awkwardly cleared her throat and crossed her arms, effectively covering the watch.

"Hi," Belén was in the same awkward boat. "Um...I'm Belén, just in case you didn't get it before." Graciela gave a slight nod, but nothing more. Belén cleared her throat and came a little closer. "Were you talking to someone? Did I interrupt a conversation?"

Graciela shook her head. "Nah. People I talk to are a little bit busy right now...fighting…or dead..."

Belén raised her eyebrows, unsure of what to say to that. It looked like Graciela understood and decided to be nice and further explain the situation.

"I'm part of a rebellious group against Savage in my time….and even if I wanted to talk with any of my partners...they don't have this," Graciela revealed the futuristic watch on her wrist and gave it a gentle tap on its silver surface. "It's not even mine, to be honest."

"What do you mean by that?" Belén eyed the watch with a little more focus than before and saw it had some writing on the surface, but she couldn't make it out.

"It's my friend's - well, don't know if he qualifies me as a friend anymore. Either way, once he realizes I stole the watch from him he'll end up hating me even more, if that's possible. Unlike me, he's...proper," Graciela rolled her eyes. "He's part of this elite Time group and, to be frank, it's stupid. They know exactly what's happening to our world and they're not doing anything about it. And since my friend is too tied up in their rules to break anything...I did it." And even as Graciela retold the story, she didn't sound one bit regretful. "I have two friends in that stupid organization so I just waited for my moment to steal one of their watches. I needed to stop Savage."

Belén could see the struggle in Graciela's eyes to truly accept the consequences of her action. Graciela didn't regret it, but it didn't mean she was ready for what came next. "So it was worth it, then?"

Graciela's shrug was so little it barely looked like one. "I mean, I'm checking the future and everything is still the same, so...maybe it wasn't. I don't know." She shook her head and took a moment to calm herself by staring hard at the ground. She couldn't afford to feel doubtful, and much less to be ridiculous and cry. It was the journey she decided she would make for the sake of the world, despite what was coming for her.

"Are you-" Belén was just about to reach for Graciela's shoulder when the latter raised her head.

"Anyways," Graciela sniffed and rose from the ground with a whole new expression she was trying to make casual, "Sorry about your cardigan." She once again folded her arms and grazed the soft pink fabric of the cardigan. "Barry just offered them and I…"

"It's fine," Belén raised a hand to stop the woman. "I'm not that type of girl, trust me. Besides, you look good in pink."

"I don't like pink," Graciela bluntly reiterated.

"Right…" Belén looked away for a moment, and just in time to see Kendra falling flat on her back after a failed attempt to punch Carter. She scrunched her face, feeling the ghost of that pain from her own training. "That had to hurt."

Graciela followed Belén's gaze to Kendra and sighed. She walked a few steps towards the scene and watched it go on again. "If she keeps that up, we'll never take Savage down."

"She just discovered she's not really who she thought she was," reminded Belén. "That can't be easy to manage."

"We all have baggage," Graciela said too matter-of-factly to be genuine. "And we have to get over it in order to succeed. In order to live. Savage will use any weakness to kill. He's done it before."

"What do you know about him? For real?"

Graciela turned sideways to see Belén expectantly waiting for an answer. "That he's been here for a good while. He's helped build empires and he's watched them fall. All these centuries he's been calculating and he's struck whenever it was most convenient for him. He has an immense power that...only they-" she pointed back to Kendra and Carter, "-can take down."

"But why?" Belén wanted to know so badly.

"Because they're locked in a never ending cycle of life and death. I know you guys aren't big believers on magic, but it does exist. I would know," Graciela's eyes flickered a purple that made Belén take a step back. "I'm part of their world."

"You're definitely not a metahuman…"

"No. I'm something else, but…" Graciela shook her head, deciding it wasn't worth it. "It doesn't matter what I am. What matters is how we take Savage down. I don't exactly have all the time in the world. And to be honest, with every passing second I'm a little less faithful in those two over there."

"We just gotta give them some time," Belén's optimism wasn't met with much agreement.

"As much as it pains me to admit out loud, I'm going to need all of you," Graciela made a move to leave. Where she was going, exactly, she didn't know.

Belén turned after her, choosing to follow her. "Well I don't know how much help I'll be to be honest. I'm sort of struggling to hone in on my powers." That admission made Graciela abruptly stop. She turned sideways to give Belén a strange look.

"What? You don't have powers?"

"No - I…" Belén sighed, bringing a hand to her head, "I do have powers and I use them fairly well I should say."

"Then what's the problem?"

"That I'm weak. I've been dealing with a metahuman who's like me but not me. She's a siphoner and no matter how much I train, she still kicks my ass."

Graciela seemed to be confused judging by the scrunch of her face. "You're the Azalea. You're a botanical metahuman. Why don't you just go to the Green for help?"

Now it was Belén's turn to be confused. "The what?"

"The Green," Graciela shrugged. "That one place where botanical metahumans gather?"

Belén drew a blank on her words. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"This is why time traveling isn't allowed I guess," Graciela mumbled. "But screw it. The Green is famous for being the place where all botanical metahumans can meet and train, and converse."

Belén tilted her head while she thought about this place. "It's...it's kind of like the Speedforce with Barry. Like the place where your powers originate from. But how do you know about this place?"

"I read about it in the files," shrugged Graciela. "There's an article that, um..." she blinked then gave Belén a certain kind of look, "...you wrote, actually. It talked all about the Green."

"I wrote it?" Belén tried to wrap her mind around that one and considered it very unlikely due to the fact she didn't even know what that place was.

"Yeah, in the future."

"Well how do I get there?"

Graciela looked at Belén as if she were crazy. "I don't know. I'm not a botanical metahuman but you are so...figure it out." She have another shrug and turned to walk away like nothing, never seeing Belén's face.

~ 0 ~

It honestly was not that surprising that Merlyn had arranged a meeting with Savage to figure out what he wanted.

"What do you want?" Merlyn led the meet and hoped to God that Oliver and Barry would keep their idiotic mouths shut for once.

"What all living things want- not to die," Savage answered in well-mannered tone. For now, this was merely a conversation.

"I thought that wasn't a problem for you," Oliver said.

"Only if I take the lifeforce from Prince Khufu and Priestess Chay-Ara. The three of us are locked in a vicious circle played out over thousands of years. None of your concern."

"We've made it our concern," Oliver all but snapped and shot one of his arrows directly at Savage.

Savage, however, took the arrow to the chest like a scratch and pulled out the arrow like nothing. "Robin of Locksley. I taught him how to use a bow. He taught me how to not feel pain. I'm the enemy you can't defeat. The only way for you and yours to live through this is to render onto me what is mine. Turn over Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-Ara within 24 hours, or I will lay waste to this city, killing everyone that you hold dear. And after that, I will travel to your home-" he directed a finger to Oliver, "-and do the same thing there."

"All right, I'm just curious- did you rehearse that speech in a mirror this morning, or this all just off the cuff?" Barry was slightly afraid, but it wasn't something he would say out loud.

"Why would you risk the lives of your friends and family for two strangers? 206 times I have killed them. What hubris possesses you that makes you think that you can prevent me from doing so again?" Savage paused his streak of questions to mock them with a laugh. "Oh, let me guess, the little time traveler? I certainly hope she's not your weapon because she will fail. I came to this meeting out of curiosity. It is now sated. Bring Khufu and Chay-Ara to Jurgens Industrial in 24 hours or I will see you dead and buried under the bodies of your loved ones."

He didn't even bother giving them a chance to respond. He was certain of himself and their choice anyways.

~0~

"We have 24 hours," Oliver started off exactly like that, without a readable expression. Everyone in the living room seemed lost.

"Until what exactly?" Kendra asked after a couple minutes of silence.

"Until we are supposed to hand you and Carter over to Savage, or-"

Carter all but rolled his eyes. He'd heard this so many times already. "Savage lays waste to Central City. Yeah. We've been through this before. 1887, the Huang He floods, Savage killed nearly two million people to get to us. And he did."

Though the revelation was huge, Plover didn't let it stop them. "We weren't helping you then. We are now. We have 24 hours to come up with a workable plan."

And no matter how much they discussed, it didn't make sense to Kendra. Eventually, she snapped. "No, this is insane! My life isn't worth millions of people's lives! You can all just stop!"

"Kendra!" Carter called as the woman stormed off.

"I'll talk to her," Cisco volunteered but Carter shooed him off. "Hey, I got this-"

Carter once again stopped him but this time with a mere look. "I said, I'll talk to her."

Cisco glared after the man then sourly said, "Hey, here's an idea- why don't we just toss him over to Vandal Savage?"

"Cisco," Caitlin disapprovingly said.

"Fine!"

~ 0~

"Hey," Belén called to Barry - who was inside the shed - but unintentionally startled him. He paused in what seemed to be a back and forth pace. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I was just wondering where you were since-"

But before she could finish, Cisco pushed past her in a dramatic manner. "-you basically missed the whole, save the city or turn my girlfriend over to an immortal psychopath briefing!"

Belén glared at Cisco's back but rolled her eyes in the end. She'd let it pass since what he said was indeed true.

"Um...sorry…?" Barry said in a questionable manner that forced Cisco to stop his complaining, and even the screwdriver he was about to throw in anger.

"Okay, what's wrong with you?" Cisco put the screwdriver down on the table.

"Seriously," Belén took full notice of Barry's nervous demeanor. He had his twitching fingers fiddling with each other when he wasn't putting his arms behind his neck...or his hands in his hair. "Can you stay still for a second?"

Barry dropped his arms when he realized what she meant. He'd been doing his best to keep it at bay, but the more he thought about it the more difficult it was to keep it a secret. "I...I don't really know how to say it…"

"Just say it, maybe?" suggested Cisco, earning himself a momentary look of sarcasm from Barry.

"Fine. Um...earlier when I was on my way to meet with Merlyn and Oliver...I ghosted."

"No…" Cisco immediately went, while Belén tried to understand on the first go.

"Yeah, I think I'm going-"

"-don't say it," Cisco wagged a finger at Barry, not that it mattered since Barry went ahead and said it out loud.

"I think I'm going to time jump."

"I just told you not to say it!"

"Cisco!" Belén exclaimed at the man in out rage while Barry apologized.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do!"

"Barry, you're fine, trust me," Belén said first, hoping to ease his guilt but Cisco had something else to say.

"The first rule of time travel is you don't talk about time travel!"

"Cisco!" Belén covered her face in frustration.

"Because by having this conversation, we're screwing history!"

"Cisco! What was he supposed to do? Keep it bottled up?" Belén gestured to Barry's already nervous state. "One more day and he might fall apart."

Barry wanted to argue in his defense, but it'd really only been a few hours and it was already killing him. "Look, I know that time travel has consequences. I mean, the last time you vibed-"

"-well, I'm not vibing anything right now," Cisco said, calmer than before. "Okay, um, all right, look, don't panic. A: you don't know that you time jumped for a bad reason. It could have been a good one, right?" Barry dutifully nodded, really hoping Cisco was right. "B: now that you know you time jumped, you might not do it, right? So knowing the future might change the present, which might change the future."

"My head hurts," Belén rubbed the side of her head, eyes flickering between Cisco and Barry. "How could anyone be attracted to either of you?"

Barry's and Cisco's looks of pure offence were rather amusing for Belén...not that she'd tell them.

"I'm gonna remember that one," Barry decided to warn, but Belén smirked in return.

"What are you going to do? Stop kissing me? Go ahead, we'll see who suffers more," she winked and turned to leave.

She purposely moved away from shed and even the house altogether. Once she felt like she was truly alone, she pulled out her phone and dialed.

"Belén, hello?" Iris' voice soon answered the call.

"Iris, hey! How are things at STAR Labs?"

"Don't worry, Nina and I are holding down the fort," Iris proudly said. Belén could even picture her friend smiling from ear to ear. "How are you guys doing with Savage and that time traveler?"

"Uuh...things could be better," Belén admitted. She brought a finger to scratch behind her ear. "Listen...I wanted to ask a favor."

"Sure thing! What do you guys need?"

"Well, it's not so much of a group necessity as it is...a necessity for me," Belén hated to admit right now when it was such a time for teamwork.

"Oh, okay, what is it?"

"I...I...I just recently learned that I can maybe meet with other metas who are like me...in another world."

"Really? How so?"

"I see it like Barry and the Speedforce. It's called the Green, and if I can access that world then I can maybe get a further understanding of my powers."

"That sounds cool! How do you access it!?"

"That's the thing. On my own, I'm not sure. I thought maybe if I found another botanical metahuman they could help me. And that's why I'm calling you."

"Okay, what do you need from me?"

Belén looked around as if someone was watching her. She didn't mean for it to be a secret, but right now it wasn't the right time to tell the others. They needed to focus on Savage. "Can you maybe start a research on any other botanical metahumans nearby? Other than Datura and Poison Ivy, of course."

"Of course," Iris repeated, both sharing a laugh afterwards. "I can definitely look into it. Just because we haven't heard about another botanical metahuman doesn't mean they're not out there."

"That's what I'm counting on," Belén sighed. "Because right now I need all the help I can get and this might be huge"

"I'll do my best, don't worry!" Iris promised.

Belén hoped there would be some light down that dark path Datura was leading her. Hopefully, it started with this...with another botanical metahuman.

~ 0 ~

"What do you guys have?" Graciela expectantly asked of Laurel, Thea and Diggle as soon as the trio returned from their unannounced trip.

"Has a simple 'hello' died in the future?" Thea joked, but Graciela looked unamused.

"Yes, that tends to happen when there's a dictator massacring people."

"Could've just said yes," Thea mumbled and moved away.

"We have something that might help us," Laurel pointed to Diggle who raised an old VCR tape.

Graciela looked lost. "What the hell is that?"

"Aw, I didn't know those still existed," Belén remarked as soon as she came in and saw said tape.

"Lyla hooked us up," Diggle explained. Of course ARGUS would hold onto something like that.

"Where's Felicity?" Laurel looked around for the missing blonde.

"Don't know," shrugged Belén. "Just like I don't know where Barry and Oliver are. You know when those two get together, their secret outings get annoying."

"Sounds more like Oliver's doing than Barry," Laurel said. "And you're right, it does get annoying."

"Well we don't need Felicity to play a tape," Thea motioned Diggle to come over to Felicity's laptop. "We'll just hook it up."

"I'll go get the others," Belén said and hurried to go find them. By the time she returned with the whole group, sans the three missing, Thea had successfully gotten the tape to display on the TV.

"The tape came from a conspiracy theory group that's interested in Savage," Diggle explained just before the tape would play. "Pentagon had a file on Savage back in '86, but it's all been heavily redacted."

Thea pressed the play option and soon a dark-skinned man appeared on the screen.

'My name is Dr. Aldus Boardman. I'm a professor at St. Roch University. The date is April 8th, 1975. I don't think anyone else knows this, and those that do, don't believe. He's a myth. An urban legend. He has been compared to Machiavelli and Nostradamus. He's gone by many names, but I know him as Vandal Savage, and he will be the death of the world. But I believe there is a way to stop him. Savage is an immortal, Egyptian priest. His long life is a result of an unearthly calamity. I believe that any object associated with this calamity should be able to undo its effects and kill him. And I suspect that our precious, fragile world may one day depend upon us doing so.'

Thea promptly turned the screen off and looked directly at Kendra and Carter. "Do you have any idea what he meant by these objects? This calamity?"

The two in question exchanged mutual confused looks.

"No, I-I don't recall a calamity," Carter answered first. "And the staff…"

"Staff of Horus?" Graciela chimed in. "That staff belonged to Savage back in ancient Egypt."

"How are you sure?" Diggle asked.

"Because I'm from the future and I read a lot?"

Kendra looked down at her feet when a couple images started playing in her mind. Though they were fast, and partly incoherent, she saw that golden staff in Savage's possession. Graciela was right. But she didn't want to admit she was remembering.

Luckily, Graciela always had good self confidence. She knew exactly what she was talking about. "That staff is key to killing Savage. We need to get it."

"Great, let's get it, then," Carter nodded and led the way.

It was dark when Barry, Felicity and Oliver returned to the safe house, though each at a different time. Oliver was the last and the moment he set foot in the field, Felicity caught him. Barry spotted them through a window and wondered what the hell was going on with those two, because one moment Oliver had him doing secret DNA tests and the next thing he knew Felicity was on his case for helping Oliver.

"What are you doing?" a voice startled Barry, making him knock his forehead against the glass. He quickly pulled away before Felicity or Oliver saw and turned around to see Belén standing there.

"What?" he rubbed his forehead.

"You have been secretive today and I feel like a babysitter," Belén stated plainly, thinking it was enough to make him cautious with his response.

"I...I honestly couldn't tell you what was going on because I don't know what's going on," Barry went with the honest truth. He was not going to get in trouble over something he had no part in.

Belén could more or less deduced he was being honest because he did look rather weary. She moved around him and peered out the window to see Felicity and Oliver presumably arguing. "Oh no. That's not good. Especially when we're about to fight an immortal man. What are they fighting about?"

"I don't know. Should we go out there-"

"-oh no," Belén whirled around, as if to catch him before he got the idea to go. "We are not getting anywhere near that fight. Our mission right now is to make sure Kendra and Carter are ready. Besides, it's a couple fight and...they're not really asking for opinions, are they?"

Barry gave a shrug. She was right. Oliver had been really secretive with that DNA test, making him swear to keep it from Felicity (which he failed but that's not the point). "Fine."

A couple minutes later, Oliver and Felicity came into the house but made beelines away from each other. One could only deduce that the argument did not end in good terms.

"We're coming up on Savage's deadline," Oliver took control of the group the moment he could. "Are the gauntlets working?"

"They have to be, we're out of time," Caitlin said after checking the clock in the living room.

"But I think they'll work," Cisco said in hopes of adding positivity to the mission. "That staff's going to go from "can't touch this" to "invisible touch."

"Savage doesn't know Kendra has access to her full abilities, which makes you our ace in the hole," Oliver's intense gaze on her made Kendra feel even worse. She felt nowhere near ready to fight, but there wasn't much of an option now was there?

"Okay," she nodded quietly.

"We're going to put you up against Savage; you attack with the element of surprise. I will lay down the cover fire. Barry, you speed in, and-"

"-snatch the staff, I got it," Barry said.

"So where do you need us?" asked Diggle.

"This is me, Barry, Kendra and Carter. We've got it."

There were various reactions from the group, but all seem to fall in a mutual disagreement.

"You can't sit us out," Belén frowned.

"No, we're not risking any more lives tonight than we have to," Oliver's tone hardened even more.

"I don't know how you run in the past, but I'm not following it," Graciela stepped forwards. "You can sit the rest out but I'm not doing it."

"It's not up for debate-"

Graciela's eyes flashed an angry purple, making the pipes of the house creak. Everyone around her, more so Felicity and Cisco, looked up in fear. "-you're right, it's not, cos I'm going."

Oliver stared her down but he had come to his match because she was not wavering. She knew exactly how these things went and she had enough practice as a crook to have her own strength.

"Let's go!" Graciela shouted to the others, choosing not to waste any more time.

However, even though she was on board the others were still more cautious.

"I think we can stay as backup," Belén was the one to say to Barry in the end. "I mean, I'd love to be there up front but...Savage might not realize it."

"Just don't tell that to Oliver," Barry muttered, watching Oliver head out the house. "He's out of it."

"Yeah, I really wish I knew what they fought about," Belén crossed her arms. "But look, right now we just gotta focus on Savage. Be careful, alright?"

Barry nodded. "You too."

"I've got the Black Canary on my side. I'll be good," Belén smiled cheerily. She leaned up and kissed his cheek, sending him on his way.

~ 0 ~

Savage was waiting in the warehouse just like he said he would. A sinister grin spread across his face when he spotted Oliver and Barry bringing in Kendra and Carter, the two wearing their suits as well.

"You brought them. And dressed for the occasion, I see," Savage moved forwards.

"We're only doing this because two lives aren't worth two cities," Oliver said.

"Well, in that case, you are wiser than I gave you credit for." Savage took a moment to look Kendra and Carter over, scoffing a minute later. "It's been a lifetime. Still wearing those ridiculous outfits, I see." He raised a finger to Oliver and Barry. "You don't need to be here for this. The culling has a tendency to be…" He paused as he drew a sharpened knife from his coat's inside pocket, "...unsightly." He turned the knife over for show, making sure both Kendra and Carter got a good look at what was coming. "Your new friends betrayed you."

"Just do what you're going to do," Carter snapped.

Savage smiled at Kendra, practically ignoring Carter. "It's wonderful to see you again, my love."

Kendra felt true disgust at the man. "I will never be your love."

"I know. That always makes this...easier. Chay-Ara, parting is such sweet sorrow." Savage raised the knife and offered Kendra one last smile before drawing it down.

"Now, Kendra!" Oliver screamed.

Kendra delivered a hard kick to Savage's stomach, knocking the man to the ground. She opened her arms, ready to become that weird warrior she was destined to be...but nothing came out. Graciela dropped in from the ceiling and shot a beam of purple energy to keep Savage down while Oliver prepared the gauntlets.

"LET'S GO!" she shouted.

Carter swiped the staff from Savage and tossed it over to Barry who, in turn, handed it to Oliver so that the gauntlets could make contact. A powerful blast erupted from the gauntlets immediately. It made Oliver stumble back but he kept his balance in the end. However, with all the energy hitting him, Savage was still able to get on his feet.

"Crap!" Graciela said just before Savage knocked her to the side with his own magic. Her body tumbled across the warehouse, only picking her head up in time to see him grab Carter's neck and stab him on the back.

Barry started speeding in a circle to create quick thunder, but Savage caught him midway with another blast. The speedster crashed into a set of metal machinery. Like Graciela, he looked up in time to watch Savage stab Kendra on the chest in one swift move.

"No! It's not working!" Graciela scrambled to get on her feet. Her eyes were a dark, almost demonic purple, as she made a run at Savage. The metal around her groaned as its properties were being forced to change at her will.

"Graciela!" Barry called, but at the same time the metal behind him pushed forwards. He barely escaped as it took Savage's body for a ride until Savage destroyed it with a hand movement. "What the hell…" Barry was truly tired of this magic business because he had no idea how to combat it.

He heard Oliver's groans and turned to see him still holding onto the staff and the gauntlets. "Oh God." His eyes widened because Oliver was starting to resemble an old man. The gauntlets and the staff combined seemed to be drawing Oliver's life source. "Oliver, let go!" he panicked when he was able to see bone.

"Barry? What's going on?" Belén's voice came through the ear pods.

"Oliver?" Laurel came in next. "We're coming in!"

"No! Don't!" Barry sped up beside Oliver. "Kendra and Carter are dead!"

"We're coming in!" Belén and Laurel said in unison.

"Please don't-" Barry couldn't finish on account of Graciela crashing into him.

Savage stretched an arm out for Oliver, but only attained his staff again. At the same time, both Belén and Laurel came running in to help.

"This isn't going to end well!" Graciela picked herself off Barry and looked back at Savage. "I know about this - Barry you have to time travel!" she said in quick whir, almost making Barry miss it.

"I have to what-"

"-A DO OVER! GO!" Graciela's scream came just as Savage plunged his staff into the ground, causing an eruption of bright blue energy. It wiped out everything around it, and before Barry knew what he was doing, he ran.

He didn't know what the hell was going on except that everything around him was being burned to death. His first thought went to Belén and the others. They'redeadthey'redeadthey'read.

But Graciela's last words came to mind: a do over. Time travel.

And that's when he remembered the 'ghosting'. All his previous fears of time traveling and causing a disturbance in the time lines went to hell. He needed to push himself or everything would be dead.

Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun. Barry went as fast as he could. The blue eradication behind him nearly caught him a few times but he was going to do it. Everything around him became a blue, but only for a few seconds did he see the 'ghost' of his past self running beside him. It disappeared within seconds...and as did the blurry world.

Barry came to a skidded stop in the same place Malcolm Merlyn wanted to meet.

"Thank you for coming…" he heard Oliver's voice, though it still sounded a bit garbled after all the running Barry did.

But once Barry saw the day was still early...he released a heavy breath.

A do over.

~ 0 ~

"What the hell is the Green?" Belén called out to Graciela after their odd conversation. She should've known talking to a future girl was not going to end well, but here she was doing what she could to help out. She turned in the opposite direction Graciela walked off to and started making her own way. She only stopped when she saw Oliver and Barry returning to the safe house after their meet up with Merlyn. "They're back!" she called to Kendra and Carter, forcing the two to stop their training (which, by the sounds of it, was not going well). She sprinted to get there first, and perhaps it was a good thing because Barry was not intending on keeping his time travel a secret. "Hey! What did Merlyn say?"

"Belén!" Barry forgot for a moment what he'd told Oliver and rushed to Belén. She was not expecting such a tight, needy hug but she would always accept one.

"Okay, what's wrong?" she patted his back and looked over his shoulder to Oliver. He had a face as well, like he was processing something.

"He time traveled," Oliver was the one to answer.

Belén's eyes widened in alarm, but even if she wanted to pull away from Barry to look at him...Barry wasn't budging. He pressed a kiss to her hair and held her tight. "Barry, you did what?" she pressed her hands against his chest to pull away. "Barry!"

With a groan, he finally let her go the amount she needed to see him face to face. "Yeah…"

"You're not supposed to do that…"

"Well, Graciela did it-"

"-yeah, and she's probably going to get into trouble. Believe me, I just learned she stole the time travelling watch on her wrist. Why'd you time travel?"

Barry lowered his arms to his sides and turned sideways so that he could talk to both her and Oliver. "We were fighting Savage but things didn't go so well. Everyone died...including you two."

"Oh…" Belén now understood his needy hug and felt the urge to hug him again.

"Graciela was the one to tell me to time travel and...I did," Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "She said she knew what was coming."

"She's from the future, of course she knew that," Oliver sighed.

"Look, what we were doing to fight Savage wasn't working. The gauntlets didn't work and Kendra couldn't access her powers. Savage killed them both and used his staff to create the explosion that killed everything."

"Okay, okay, we can work with this," Belén nodded, choosing to forget the death part right away. It technically didn't happen and she was just going think about that. "It's like when you discovered you went back in time to your mom. We use this as a study guide. We fix our mistakes."

"Right," Barry agreed and turned specifically to Oliver. "That means you, for starters."

"Me?" frowned the man in question.

"When we go up against Savage, your head's not in the game. You're not yourself. And I'm sorry to say this in front of Belén because I don't know if you were planning on telling anyone about it, but...I know you're going to ask me run a DNA test."

Oliver stiffened, ignoring Belén's strange look.

"That said test is going to cause you and Felicity to get into a huge fight. That fight sounded like it was over between you two."

"So when we go up against Savage, I'm not focused," Oliver concluded on his own. "I don't use everything we've got."

"What are we going to about the Kendra not being able to use her powers?" Belén quietly asked. "And the gauntlets?"

"I'll work on that," Oliver muttered, quietly thanking Barry for his knowledge of the future and walking off.

"Someone should tell Graciela," Belén said once they were alone. "She's already time traveled once, who knows what this might mean."

"That we failed?" Barry started for the house, rather glum now that he had time to settle. "She knew exactly what was going to happen when Savage took his staff, so this must have happened before."

"Which is exactly why we need to discuss with her. Maybe she has some pointers too," Belén picked up her pace and beat him to the front door, blocking his way in. "Let's make sure we don't make the same mistakes again."

"I won't," Barry promised her. A warm smile came to her face knowing what he meant. "I had to run and when I did...you were already dead…"

"Not happening again," she leaned forwards and gently kissed his lips. "Now let's do this...again…"

~ 0 ~

With the knowledge of their failed attempt to win Savage, the group worked harder than the first time. Cisco and Caitlin triple checked those gauntlets, and would have gone for a fourth had Oliver not convinced Cisco to try his hand at helping Kendra access her powers. The only one who seemed to be having trouble with the news, more than the others anyways, was Graciela.

"I mean, we'll get him this time," Barry attempted to ease her doubts before they gathered for another brief. Well, it was really more of a group effort with him, Oliver and Belén.

Graciela shook her head, looking far more concerned but it was pertaining to the fight against Savage. "You don't get it. You time traveled in the same period I did. That means they felt it."

"They? Who's they?" Oliver asked.

Graciela seemed reluctant to speak freely, but then again her options weren't so good anyways. She drew in a breath and leaned against the dining table. "The people I stole the watch from. They're Time Masters and...they have eyes all over the timeline. I knew that time travelling here would get me into some trouble, but I figured I'd have more time to finish things...but Barry time travelling in the same period I did, so close to the date I first arrived...they're coming for me, quicker now."

"Then we'll stop them," Belén said matter-of-factly, but Graciela shook her head.

"No, we're focusing on Savage. I want him dead by tonight."

"But if you're head's not in the right place, we won't be able to do that," Barry said, knowing exactly where he spoke from.

"I know," Graciela agreed. She took in a deep breath and used it to relax herself as much as she could. "I read about Savage's staff in the future. There were rumors that the timeline had been rewritten several times because he did the same trick. The Time Masters...they're very good when they want to be. They've restored the timeline, but...we can't let Savage do that again. For the sake of my home, and yours, he needs to die tonight."

"And I think I know how to make that happen," Kendra strode into the house with a new sense of confidence. Cisco seemed pretty happy as well, indicating his talk with her had gone well.

"I'm all ears," Graciela leaned off the table.

Kendra made sure the rest of the group were in the room so that she could explain herself. "I remembered how Savage killed us the first time back in Egypt. These sky rocks-meteors- they fell and they completely destroyed the royal palace."

"During the Middle Kingdom, Egypt experienced a high level of meteorite activity," Felicity recalled from her vast knowledge.

"That can be the calamity Professor Boardman was referencing in the tape," Caitlin realized quick.

"It makes sense," Kendra agreed. "The meteors, they had a glow about them. And Savage's staff had two gemstones with the exact same glow."

"So the gemstones might be made up of the same element as the meteorite," Barry made the connection as well. "That could be why the gauntlets didn't work the first time."

"Yeah, the gemstones might be made up of the same element as the meteorite. The Egyptians would use meteorite in their craftsmanship. And the minerals glow in proximity to each other," Cisco suddenly grinned when he got to add, "Like Sankara Stones."

"Oh, wait, the Indiana Jones reference is the only thing I understood," Thea looked to someone for help.

"Two pieces of the same meteorite, that is the key to counteracting the staff," Belén was proud to say that she understood.

Laurel got on her laptop fast when she remembered something about meteorites from their previous research on Egypt and Savage. "Look, there's there's a sample of the meteorite from the Middle Kingdom at the Keystone City Museum of Natural…"

But Barry took off without another word, leaving a wind trail behind him. He returned two seconds later with the meteorite in hand. "Got it!"

Cisco snatched it from his hand, gingerly holding it while he examined it. "I could synthesize the compatible isotope out of this and coat the gauntlets with it."

"That I did not understand," Belén mumbled to Thea who agreed with a hum.

"This can work," Graciela said with a newfound confidence. It was good because she knew by this time she was reaching high on the Time Master's priority list.

"It will," Oliver agreed. "Everyone else: suit up."

~ 0 ~

Like before, Savage was waiting for the group to arrive at the agreed place. However this time, everyone was ready for the 'trade off'.

"It's wonderful to see you again, my love," he said for Kendra, who shivered in disgust.

"I will never be your love."

"I know. That always makes this easier. Chay-Ara...parting is such sweet sorrow-"

But Kendra could not wait for him to finish. Oliver drew an arrow and shot the knife right out of Savage's hand.

Kendra immediately followed with her wings, and perhaps a hawk scream. She took Savage into her arms and pulled him into the air before dumping him on the ground. A black van screeched as it made its entrance into the building, making a quick swerve so that it's trunk faced the fight.

As soon as its doors flung open, the Black Canary's sonic scream filled the room. It forced Savage to stop fighting against Kendra and Carter for a second and fight off the sound waves.

It was then that Belén flung a vine and forced the staff out of Savage's hand. He growled and turned to retrieve it but Graciela delivered a consecutive wave of energy beams. Despite Savage's attempts to fight off the energy, he couldn't break free of the others' combats. It gave Barry the perfect shot to retrieve the staff from where it landed.

"Get clear!" he ordered. The group jumped out of the way just as he ignored the staff with the gauntlets. Savage was hit with the force of power, but it wasn't enough yet to take him down. He fought it with his bare hands.

Oliver joined Barry and together held the staff, hoping that between them it would be enough to stand against Savage. The others encircled the procession in case anything went wrong...but to their fortune...it didn't. The staff erupted with a new force of energy and burned Savage to ash.

Before Barry and Oliver knew it, the staff was no longer in their hands. It had disappeared.

"Did we do it? Is he gone?" Thea stared at the ash as if Savage was reform any second.

"Grace?" Belén nicknamed the woman without even noticing.

"I don't know, it's never happened…" Graciela admitted and turned her attention to Kendra and Carter for some additional help.

But like her, they were at a loss of words.

~0~

It was a beautiful day at Central City, especially when it was rid of villainous immortal beings.

"One Java chip and caramel macchiato for Belén!" a Jitters barista called as she pushed two coffee cups down the counter.

Belén was there to pick them up and return to the group waiting by the doors with their own drinks.

"Thanks," Graciela took her Java chip and took a moment to smell the sweet chocolatey scent. "Mmm, we don't have that smell at home anymore."

"Hopefully now you do," Kendra smiled, knowing Graciela was getting ready to return to the future.

"We'll see," Graciela raised her cup in the air before taking a sip. She moaned as she tasted the delicious drink. "Oh my God this is good!"

"So how do you feel now that Savage is pushing daisies?" Cisco asked Kendra and Carter once they were outside. "Does this mean you guys are the immortal ones now and he's the one who gets reincarnated? 'Cause that would suck."

"I just sprouted wings a few days ago, and I'm just trying to wrap my head around that," Kendra said, really just taking step by step.

"He does raise a good point, though," Barry admitted. It'd been the question they couldn't answer since last night. "Savage is gone for good now, right?"

"I don't know. We never defeated him before," Carter paused to think about something else they hadn't yet. "But we're free." Kendra agreed and hugged him.

"Ugh, get a room," Cisco muttered. Belén partes his back comfortingly, knowing he was doing his best to keep his feelings out of this.

"You finally have the rest of your lives in front of you. Have you thought about what you're going to do?" asked Oliver.

"Carter says in our past lives, we used to help people. And after everything you guys have done for me, I think I should give that a try," Kendra said with a sense of determination.

"You make it sound like this try is happening somewhere else," Belén noted, feeling worse for Cisco.

"In our prior incarnation, we used to live in St. Roch, and we really liked it there," Carter looked at Kendra, but she was already gazing at Cisco.

"Could Cisco and I have a moment?" she asked softly.

"Of course," Carter was the one to say and led the way away.

Graciela ominously checked her time watch and saw a red dot blinking on the screen. She quietly cleared her throat and took another sip of her coffee.

"Hey Grace - sorry," Belén has caught herself before and she hated that she kept doing it.

"It's fine," Graciela smiled. "I kinda like it."

"I was just going to ask...about that place you talked about before?" Belén awkwardly smiled. "The Green?"

"Right," Graciela released a breath, giving the wrong indication that she didn't want to go further on that subject.

"I mean I totally understand if you're trying to keep the timeline in tact and all...we don't have to-"

"-no, we can," Graciela looked at the whole group with a smirk. "It's not like I was one for keeping it intact, right?"

"Still…"

"Look, Belén, I'm not an expert on the Green. I just read about it, from your article I'll remind, and there's always rumors about it. Every botanical metahuman has a connection to that place."

"How do you get there, though?"

"You command it with the mind but you physically go in," Graciela shrugged. "I think it's just up to you to access it."

"Oh, well, that should be easy," Belén sighed.

Barry placed a hand on her shoulder. "And she'll get it. Because she always does."

"Thanks for the support," Belén languidly said and drank dejectedly from her coffee.

"So what are you going to do now?" Oliver inquired from Graciela. "Go back home? Or…"

Graciela didn't tell them she heard the alert on her watch getting louder, they'd soon see for themselves. "Home. I don't belong in this time and...I knew what was going to happen when I stole the time watch."

"About that..." Barry was cautious in how he spoke about the matter, "...the people you stole it from...are they going to be okay with that? I mean, you said your friend, right?"

"I don't regret it," Graciela reiterated, though now she was looking past the two metas. They, along with Oliver, followed her gaze to see a portal opening and letting in a group of uniformed men and women.

"Who are they?" Oliver narrowed his eyes on what he perceived as the threat.

"The Time Masters, coming to collect their prisoner," Graciela drank the last of her coffee and dumped it into the trash bin behind her.

"Graciela Haynez," a man from the group called as he led the way. "You are under arrest for theft and illegal time traveling." Just as Graciela was raising her hands, the man yanked her arms harshly and turned her around to cuff her from behind.

"What are you doing to her?" demanded Barry, ready to step forwards when Graciela called for them to stay still.

"It's okay! Don't do anything!" she faced the man that shot her with a glower. "It was worth it. The Time Masters' organization is a sham. It's full of convenience."

"And yet you fraternize with two of ours," the man behind her made sure to say loudly, as if it would shame her into silence. "You calling them fake as well?"

Graciela rolled her eyes. "They're my friends, and they're genuine, but they don't have the power to change the entire system. So I took it into my own hands. And now I'm ready to face the consequences."

"Graciela Haynez, ," the man pushed her to turn for the portal, but she fought to turn around and face him. "You have changed the timelines without consent-"

"-I don't care!" she snapped and smacked his chest with her shoulder.

"You also have murder on your tracklist, according to London's authorities-"

"-and!?"

"Barry, they're hurting her!" Belén attempted to move but Barry and even Oliver held onto each of her arms.

"She said not to," Oliver reminded, but it was hard to watch knowing how it was going to end.

The group had moved in on Graciela, each attempting to subdue her. Despite being cuffed, Graciela did put up a fight.

"I'm not resisting! I just want to say goodbye!" she yelled frantically. "That's my legal right, isn't it? Or has your corrupted system taken that out as well?"

The Time Masters seemed unsure and looked to their leader for a command. The leader, in turn, noticed the people around them starting to stare. He gave a nod for them to pick Graciela up and give her what she wanted. Once she was back on her feet, two of them held her arms and walked her up to the trio.

"What's going to happen to you?" Belén asked, her eyes flickering to the dangerous-looking people behind Graciela.

Graciela shrugged, returning to normal within the second as if things weren't going down like this. "I'm going to jail."

"And you say it just like that?"

"Because that's what she was always going to do," Oliver realized,

Belén whipped her head in his direction. "What?"

"He's right," Graciela nodded. "It was the plan. I said it."

"But why?" Belén found herself asking. And to be fair, it was a good question. Graciela had the means to run and hide after all. "That watch can take you anywhere."

"I also said I stole it from a friend that I...deeply care about," Graciela's eyes lowered for a minute. It gave enough indication of just how much she cared for this friend. "If I know this... organization enough, then I know they're probably dragging him through the mud thinking he gave me the watch in secret."

"You're clearing his name by putting yourself in jail," Barry nodded.

"I love him. I can't do that to him," Graciela nodded to herself. She would never openly admit that but she wasn't ever going to see any of these people again. "He's one of the two who are honestly trying to help people, unlike this lot."

"Will we ever see you again?" Belén assumed she knew the answer, but she had to try.

Graciela shook her head. "Probably not. But it was really cool meeting you guys." A big grin came to her face. "I always read about the metas from the 21st century. I think you guys are the most famous, honestly. The Azalea, the Flash and the Arrow - not to mention Supergirl and Solar? You guys are awesome. And for a crook like me to actually get to fight alongside you guys...it gives hope that maybe one day a new Jinx might take up the mantle and do some good."

"Let's go," called the leader.

"Bye guys," Graciela offered a smile before she was forced to turn around.

"No, wait!" Belén called but it was too late.

Graciela was forced through the portal with all the Time Masters around her as if she would escape. In two seconds she was gone with no trace after her. It was as if things never happened.

~0~

After saying goodbye to everyone else, and boy was it a decent amount of people, Belén was ready to return home. Home sweet home. But after such an intense two days, it was a bit difficult to unwind and just...be normal again.

"Not hungry?" Barry asked two times before Belén finally heard him. They were at her apartment, attempting to have a normal dinner that night. Things weren't going that well.

Belén stopped picking at her plate and put her fork down. "Sorry. I'm tired...and I just can't stop thinking about…"

"Grace?" Barry finished for her and got a nod from her.

"It's too bad her nickname caught on after she got sent to jail," Belén sighed and pushed her plate away. "I'm sorry. Thanks for dinner but I'm not very hungry."

"Yeah, I see that," Barry got up from his seat and moved to Belén's chair. He held his hand out for her and pulled her up from her seat. "And I'm sorry I can't do anything to help you."

"I'm not the one that needs help," Belén pointed out. "It's Graciela. I mean, she helped us take down Vandal Savage and what's her prize? Jail."

"Belén, she stole a time watch and she time traveled illegally. Those are crimes in her time," Barry sighed. "I mean I know I should look at who's talking, but…"

"I know," Belén nodded, but it didn't make it easy to deal with. "I just think it's not fair."

Barry took her to the living room and sat down on the couch. He gently pulled her body onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her.

"Kind of puts our morals into question, doesn't it?" Belén rested her head over his shoulder. Her light breathing tickled Barry's neck. "She did a bad thing to do a good thing. And from what I got, she used to do bad things but she turned a new leaf. I hope she's being treated decently."

"Mhm," Barry pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Belén let a few minutes pass in silence. Her body was tired, as was her mind in general. She felt so comfortable with Barry right now, she didn't want it to end. "Hey Barry, can you stay tonight?" she picked her head up and brought a hand to his shoulder.

Barry didn't want to say it out loud but staying overnight was something they both needed. She died in an alternate timeline, after all. The burning blue behind him wasn't something he could forget so easily.

"Just...to sleep, just sleeping," Belén said after a minute passed without Barry's response. They hadn't really stayed in the same bedroom since they fought the Reverse Flash, but even then it'd only been to sleep, nothing more.

Barry felt his face warm up but he quickly nodded in an attempt to hide it. "Yeah, of course. Just to sleep. Sleeping is good. Good, good, good…"

A smile came to Belén's face, as well as a light chuckle. "Thanks. I love you."

"I love you too," Barry smiled with her. He tucked some of her hair behind her ear and kissed her.

~0~

Graciela was pushed down into a rusty, metal chair of an interrogation room. Her wrists were forced down on the table and kept there like magnets.

"Do we really have to go through this when I am pleading guilty?" she raised an eyebrow at the Time Master in front of her. "I just needed a chance to clear up any mistakes in your file."

"We already know what happened," the man said matter-of-factly. "The Time watch in your possession belonged to our fellow Time Master, Rip Hunter. Question is, how'd you convince him to hand it to you?"

Graciela didn't know whether to laugh at how ridiculous that was, or cry out of frustration that she had to once again repeat her entire guilty plead. "You're kidding right? I thought of a plan and I executed it on my own. Rip didn't have anything to do with this and the idea that he willingly gave up his watch is laughable." The Time Master stared long and hard at her while he deduced whether or not she was being honest. Graciela just smirked in the end because no matter much trouble she was in, it was damn worth it. "I did what you all wouldn't. A Jinx might have saved the world. Vandal Savage is dead."

The man across her did not seemed fazed. "Is he, though?"

Graciela's smirk faltered. "What?"

"Vandal Savage is crucial to our timeline, to our world. You cannot kill him."

By now, Graciela's smirk was gone. "What - what are you talking about?"

"He will live, because he is meant to." The Time Master snapped his fingers and the interrogation room door opened. "Because this is only the beginning of things. You did exactly what you were supposed to do, what we saw you doing."

"You don't - you can't say that! He's dead!" Graciela started pulling at her wrist binds, essentially pulling at the table. "He's dead!"

"He lives," the man reiterated with such confidence it rocked Graciela to the core.

"NO!" she started screaming when two men entered the room to unbind her from the table to take her away. "STOP! HE CAN'T LIVE! Not after what we did! STOOOP!"

Her echoes carried out even as she was dragged away.

[austarus]

HR Wells x Reader Hidden Among The Fairy Lights (Part 1 of 3)

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to its rightful owner.

*Just taking a small break from my Crisis of Infinite Wells reader insert series. Plus, I miss HR and I’m still baffled how they always dismiss him and Harry and all the Wells as if they mean nothing to the audiences. They mean just as much as Barry and Cisco and Iris. A reminder, the beginning dialogue is from the HR scene in 3x05.

Word Count: 4389

Part 2  Part 3

“You were named Entrepreneur of the Decade by “Tech Magazine”?” Cisco read off the monitor, arms folded as he maintained a look of doubt on his features. Iris sat on a chair; one leg crossed over the other as she rested her head against the palm of her hand. Barry stood right behind where his love sat, glancing from the screen back to the Wells doppelganger and crossed his arms like his best friend. Caitlin leaned against the main Cortex desk with both hands on her hips and a tired expression on her face. Wally hung back a bit on the other end of the main monitor desk. 

You were at the main desk, sitting back with your hands folded in your lap. With pursed lips, you would glance down at your fingers ever so often at this supposed trial. He lied to us, but so did Harry when he first came to Earth-1 and he didn’t turn out as bad. Just prickly at times and soft in others. When this meeting was called to confront HR, you had decided in your head that you’d want the full story from HR before judging his course of action to lie to you all.

“That's right,” HR confirm with a drumstick pointed at his entire resume, eyes avoiding your gaze. He had calmed his breathing, but when his eyes met yours, he felt the tension climb within himself. He hadn’t wanted you of all people to find out like this. If only my charade had gone on for a few more weeks, I would probably have entrusted my truth to you. You had been the one cutie on the Team to not look at him oddly, especially when he made minor errors during his charade. A voice at the back of his mind told him that you had probably already figured out that HR wasn’t who he proclaimed that he was, but then again, you hadn’t questioned him. So, he left it at that… until the team called for him to fess up.

“Is any of what's on here true?”

“All of it.” With a pocketed hand, HR waved a drumstick to the screen for emphasis. His electric blue eyes caught you looking off to the side. HR didn’t need to know what you were thinking to hazard a guess of what you thought of him right now. What everyone thought of him when they learned his truth.

“How? You can barely turn on a computer.” Barry quipped up, nodding his head towards a random computer.

“There are two parts to every idea. There is the inception and the execution. I provide the former.”

“So, you come up with the ideas?” Iris clarified while Barry kept a dubious look on his face directed at the dark-haired doppelganger.

“Yeah, I don't know how to implement them. I'm the idea man.”

“So, you didn't actually solve the cryptogram that we sent you?” Caitlin asked, knowing that she had already answered her own question.

“No, that was my partner at STAR Labs on my Earth. I'm the face of the company.” HR responded making a photograph gesture of his face before fiddling with his drumsticks once more. Caitlin gave him an incredulous look at his response. You moved your gaze up, taking a peek to the rest of the contents on the screen before looking back at HR. The drumstick fiddling had caught your attention more than once since his arrival here and you’re more than convinced that HR does it when he’s nervous. Especially when he’s been caught red-handed. “I'm more of the inspiration behind the company. Then I was exposed.” His tone had softened, glancing at you from the peripheral before dipping his head down. Your heart caught in your throat at his dejected body language. Iris and Barry locked gazes with each other before listening HR’s continuation. “Well, people thought that I was something that I... I guess I wasn't. Anyway, it... it kind of all fell apart for me.” HR let out a little breath, before continuing. Your heart fell a bit at the amount of hurt that had been laced with his voice. “But then I got your message. My partner brought me your message. I realized he's bringing me an opportunity to come to this Earth to write this book.” HR’s face gradually lit up as he finished, a true novelist articulating his emotions through his words and gestures.

“So many planets in the multiverse,” Cisco mused in disbelief to himself while everyone glanced to one another, “and we happen to pick the one Wells who's not a scientist.” You made eye contact with Caitlin, who shook her head while you did a subtle shrug of the shoulders.

“You're right. I wasn't completely honest with you- with all of you.” HR took a seat as he spoke, rolling a bit closer. HR let out a breath, swinging the drumstick around. He couldn’t look at you in fear of what he might find. “I feel badly about that. I regret that. But let me ask you a question, has there been none amongst you that has ever shaded the truth for what you believe to be the greater good?” He’s right, we all try to hide our demons, our own terrible truths from hurting others. Barry from telling Iris that he was the Flash, Cisco when he first found out he was a meta, and so on. I’m no different either.

“It sounds to me like you're a con man.” Wally interjected in the silence. Murmurs of agreement rang out through the members of Team Flash while you only raised a confused eyebrow at Wally’s conclusion. Then I guess we’re all con men? I mean, we’ve all kept the truth from each other before. You kept your comments to yourself as you watched the others and HR. You already had your verdict, setting your chin in the palm of your hand as you rested your elbow on the cool surface of the desk.

HR got up towards Cisco, readily defending himself, “Was I a con man when I showed San Francisco here how to track the beast using car alarms? Was I a con man when I showed him how to fashion a rope using carbon fiber?” You held in a snicker when he referred to Cisco as ‘San Francisco’. I guess that’s one thing we have in common with his Earth.

“I came up with those ideas!”

“You were prompted by my suggestions.”

“Oh?” Cisco shook his head slightly at HR.

“That is how ideas work! People, you need a muse! I can be your muse,” HR pointed to himself, hoping to any higher power that the Team would accept that role for him to at least do. You gave him a soft smile at his suggestion.

“What about stopping all the metas on your Earth?” Wally asked, gesturing to the doppelganger before taking a step forward. Barry and Wally exchanged looks before shaking their heads at one another as HR started speaking.

“More of an advisory role for me, but I was there. I remembered how we- you don’t think that's something? Let me present you with a scenario. You're confronted with something, a threat that you've never seen before. You don't know how to stop it. Who does?” He pointed his drumstick towards himself. The novelist needed them to reconsider whatever decision that they already had. To reconsider booting him off this Earth and to give him a chance. “That's value to you. Let me prove my worth to you. If I fail, I will pfft right back to my Earth, but if I succeed, I will have succeeded not just in redeeming myself but also… will have done some good with my life,” he quickly mumbled the latter part, feeling sheepishly embarrassed, maybe even humiliated by the last statement, but if this is the way to go for redemption then it was certainly worth trying for.

“You know, you're lucky we're pretty big on redemption and doing good here,” Barry spoke on behalf of the team, gesturing to you all with a hand, “so I think you can- I don't know stay for a few weeks, try to prove yourself, but if not, fyoo, back to your Earth.” You watched with a quizzical look as Caitlin left the room. Must be the exhaustion from today. I hope she’s alright.

“Thank you,” HR sighed in relief, clapping his hands together in thanks towards Barry. He couldn’t help the fact that his eyes took a quick glimpse of you. He told himself he wasn’t sure why anymore; he had been exposed as a fraud once more. You wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Simple as that.

“Hey,” Cisco had stopped HR with a pointed look and finger, “no more repackaging.”

“Word is bond.”

“That- just- no more of that.” Wally and Cisco started heading out from the Cortex.

“All right, HR,” Barry and Iris were the last pair to go, bidding their ‘goodnights’. You had gotten up with them, knowing there was nothing else left to say, but to go home for the night to rest up for any more of the new timeline metas. Walking halfway through the corridor towards the elevator and trailing behind the West-Allen Gold Standard, a thought stopped you. Maybe… he just needs someone to teach him- You weren’t able to finish the thought as your feet silently carried you back to the Cortex. There HR sat with his back towards you, a drumstick in hand and his other hand rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at the screen that held his resume and qualifications. While he was given a chance, you knew that he would have to effectively and efficiently find a way to prove himself before his time ran out.

“Word is bond, that’s a cute saying,” you softly spoke out, leaning against the metal frame of the Cortex entrance. HR let out a little “ah!” at the suddenness of your voice, accidentally throwing one of his drumsticks backwards. It sailed back towards your general area. You giggled at the reaction, picking up the instrument piece and handing it over to him when he had turned around. HR had let out a word of relief with a hand over his heart when he realized it was you. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“For a little birdy, you sure do know how to be as silent and sneaky as a snail.” His cheeks felt warm when he heard you giggle; a bright smile had graced your features when you approached him. HR hoped you wouldn’t notice.

“Don’t you mean a mouse?”

“Snails can be silent.”

“I know, but the saying is ‘silent as a mouse’.” You pulled up a chair to sit beside him. The now dimmed lights of the Cortex had eased your headaches. “I guess that’s just another comparison between our Earths.”

HR looked at you oddly, running his fingers over both drumsticks that he held in one hand, “It doesn’t bother you?”

“Hm? What would?”

“How- How I say words and phrases differently? Do things differently from the people here on Earth-1?”

“I just think that makes you really unique,” you shrugged your shoulders a bit, giving him a soft grin. HR felt the heat returning to his cheeks again and now spread up to his ears. No one has really called him unique, certainly not in a good way either.

“But the others think its peculiar, just too much.”

“Well, I think it’s cool that there’s some form of variation from our Earth’s. Give the others some time, they’ll get used to you, I promise.” You secretly prided yourself with the ability to give people of various backgrounds and characters the benefit of the doubt. Open-mindedness as well as kind acts can go a long way, after all.

A deep chuckle left HR’s lips and you felt something jump in your stomach. HR glanced up to the monitor before looking back at you. “I’m guessing you’re not here just to chatter-chitter, huh.”

“You’re right, I’m not.” You folded your hands together in your lap, intertwining you fingers as you crossed one leg over the other. Almost looking business-like. “I have a proposition for you, HR.”

“Oh really?” The novelist quirked an eyebrow at you, he sat back to match your body language as if the both of you were associates discussing a business transaction.

“Yes sir, but you have to keep this a secret between us, ok? Word is bond?”

A smile laced itself onto HR’s ruggedly handsome features at your iteration of his Earth’s phrase. You swore the room lit up a little bit at his smile. “Word is bond.”

You nibbled on your bottom lip, choosing your words wisely before speaking up again. “… I also want something in return.”

“Naturally, an eye for an eye, but it’ll depend on the prize that you want. What’s your proposition, little birdy?”

“I want to help you realize your worth and value to the team. You know, find a way for you to be helpful with the time that you have here. And starting with teaching you the basics of turning on a computer.”

“At what cost?”

“Three questions.” You simply held up three fingers.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’d need to answer a total of three questions that I could have at any point of your stay here. No resisting and no shading of the truth. No avoidance, either. Just the honest to God truth.”

“…” HR remained silent, contemplating your proposition and the costs. Wondering your true intentions and if you would be the type of person to betray him. Like so many others have in my life. HR took one took at your smug-ish face before a sigh left his mouth. Your smile had twisted into a grin.

“Well?”

“Do you promise on your soul not to blackmail me?”

“Word is bond,” you repeated gingerly. HR reluctantly agreed with raspy voice, blue eyes holding some form of trust in you.

A cheeky laugh left your lips as HR relaxed a bit in his seat, sort of contemplating what he had just gotten himself into as he watched you stand up from your seat. You offered a hand to him, that grin on your face turning into a slightly mischievous one as your other hand had held your tablet close to your chest.

“Let’s get started.”

***

The next few weeks you would hang out with HR, teaching him the basics of scanning the city for metas, understanding the basics of how a computer works, and so on. He really had been putting in a lot of effort, asking to take notes which you thought was sweet, even if some of the others didn’t welcome it at the time. HR had gone to the extent of re-reading old meta case files that the team had stored and would go on coffee runs every morning just to make sure the team was awake for the next meta sent by Alchemy. You found out about the files one morning when you found him in his pre-caffeinated sleep state in the Cortex with the files littering the computer screens. You had gotten a spare blanket and draped it over him so he wouldn’t be cold.

It wasn’t until you heard some yelling and soft curse words being thrown around from within the Cortex, that your feet picked up their pace from where you were in the corridor. You tilted your head, standing at the door-frame as you can sense the frustration emitting from Cisco towards HR. Caitlin was rubbing her temples while Barry was just running a hand through his hair as he tried to keep his irritation off his face.

“Good afternoon?” Your greeting was more in the form of a question as you knocked on the metal door-frame to alert the others of your attention. Barry and Caitlin had breathed a sigh of relief at your presence, sending you gracious smiles towards you. Cisco had shut his eyes, massaging his temples. “I brought homemade goods?” You held up the bag that had been filled with sugar cookies, sweet berry tarts, and brownies.” A small smile was on your face, glancing at everyone before setting the goods down. HR lowered his drumsticks and internally felt at ease that you had come at just the right time before Cisco’s berating would soon turn even nastier. With swift feet, the author left the room, probably going to make a new cup of coffee that he’s gotten so attached to.

“Finally, someone sensible around here,” Cisco grumbled to himself, making his way to where you placed the goods in hopes that delicate pastries from your hands would calm his spiked-up mood. “Please keep him out of the labs today,” the mechanical genius leaned into you, holding up a brownie.

“He’s just trying to help, Cisco,” You whispered back to Cisco, giving your friend a side-glance.

“I know, but we really have a lead on all these husks, and we don’t want him distracting us from that,” Cisco stated almost desperately. “Please, just this once.”

“You’re lucky that I’m a good friend.”

“Yes, I am. And,” Cisco pulled out a paper from his pocket, handing it over to you, “I have a list for you.” You gave him a quizzical look as you took the paper and unfolded it, to which Cisco spoke again. “We’re going to need a few items for the break room and from Star City, mainly Felicity.”

“Why can’t Barry speed over to get these?”

“Because CCPD, specifically Barry’s new partner, needs him to be on time whenever they call or else, he gets reported to Sighn. Again.” Caitlin spoke up, taking a sip from her cup of lemonade.

Barry sheepishly looked over at you, a tart half-eaten in his mouth as he waved at you with a cookie in hand. “Uh huh,” you rolled your eyes, not really liking doing errand work, but at least you get to see Felicity again, “just do me a favor, don’t touch my algorithms.”

“No promises. Oh, and one more thing.”

“Yes, San Francisco?”

“Don’t call me that.” He rolled his eyes. “Make sure you crazy kids don’t stay out for too long,” Cisco winked at you, hinting towards something he and Caitlin had confronted you about earlier that week. Barry looked confused as ever, mumbling out a huh ‘huh?’ with his mouth still full. The blood rushed to your cheeks before you flipped him off, earning a cheeky look from your friends who just smirked at your reaction. You left the room, throwing Cisco one more pointed look about your coding and algorithms before striding to the breakroom to find HR, who’s probably sulking with his heavily caffeinated cup of coffee.

***

“Hey HR,” you entered the breakroom, spotting the broad back of the dark-haired doppelganger, “why don’t you come run some errands with me?”

HR was silent for a moment; the only sound was the clinking of the coffeemaker as it began to hibernate once more. “Did they want me out of the labs today?” You heard the hurt in his voice as he finished brewing his perfect blend, turning around with a dejected expression. You nodded a bit as you looked down, taking a step closer towards him and resting a hand on his forearm. You squeezed it slightly, feeling incapable of lying to him about… anything really. His shoulders fell, shaking his head as he pulled away from your warm touch.

“Give them some time to cool off,” You spoke softly in a low tone. “In the meantime, we’ve got a few places to visit. And I’m definitely going to need a strong hand.”

HR chuckled a bit, holding his cup of java close to him. “I’m sure you can handle it on your own. You’re a strong, independent, and intelligent female.” His comments made the blood rush to your cheeks. You gently took a hold of his free hand, feeling stubbornness wash over you.

“Yes, but I want your help. I want you to come out with me today.” You pouted at him. The both of you stared at each other. “And I’m not going to take no for an answer.” You poked his shoulder as you stated that.

“…”

“…”

You smiled widely when he sighed in defeat, rolling his eyes slightly before setting his coffee down. You both knew his answer. HR couldn’t deny the amount of light that he saw twinkle in your eyes at how he gave in. He liked to think it was because he agreed to accompany you today, but… He pushed his thoughts aside as you giddily pulled him along as you grabbed one of his dark jackets that he had left on one of the couches. He hastily snatched up his drumsticks as well.

“Where are we going, little birdy?”

“We, my dear bookworm, are going to visit an old friend in Star City.”

***

After finishing up with Felicity in the Arrow Cave, you and HR bid her goodbye with the materials that Cisco had noted down for you, but not before she pulled you close and whispered “Go get’em tiger” in your ear, pushing you in HR’s general direction which caused you to stumble forward with pink cheeks. Said man looked confused at the exchange, you stuttered out that it was nothing. Felicity and HR had gotten along well enough, causing something to stir slightly inside you. But you shook those feelings away. Felicity sent Cisco a quick text message once the two of you left, feeling happy for her close friend, who sadly remains oblivious to the signs of love. HR seems like a nice enough guy, not as shady as Eobard Thawne. I just hope he doesn’t break her like all the other guys she’s been with before. Even Felicity had noticed the way HR had looked at you. The genius hacker pursed her lips and went back to monitoring the city. 

He does have to admit that leaving the labs today was a good change in scenery. HR didn’t feel as cooped up as he initially did. Leaving Star City, a thought came to you as you and HR entered downtown Central City. Cisco had also given you a grocery list to complete since him and a certain speedster were always running out of things to eat in the breakroom. I swear they have bottomless pits in their stomachs. A literal void of absolute emptiness that’ll never be satisfied. And how many freaking things do we need to buy??? HR and you had both agreed to drop off the tech pieces at the Labs for Cisco before completing the errand run. 

“HR?”

“Yes, little birdy?”

“Why do you always call me ‘little birdy’?”

“Is that the first question you wish to use?” He perked an eyebrow up at you. I feel like a Djinn about to grant three wishes to the one who released me from my lamp prison.

“… No.”

“Then I guess, my secrets shall remain in the depths of my being.” HR watched a pout form on your face, and he had to force himself to look away. Clearing his throat, HR asked, “Where to next?” HR made sure the leather backpack of tech Cisco needed was securely on his back.

“Apparently, we have to do the Team’s grocery shopping today,” you sighed in annoyance, running a hand through your locks. Checking the time on your phone, you chewed on the inside of your cheek. “I was hoping to at least have some time today to drop by CSMC.”

The CSMC? HR furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “What do you do exactly?”

“Me? Well I’m a Computer Scientist, guess you figured out that part from my expertise with computers.” You laughed a little at yourself, not noticing the graying of the clouds. “Felicity’s two years my senior back in grad school, she taught me all the ropes in coding and hacking. When I finally graduated, we both had big dreams for the future, one of mine was to fund an establishing tutoring program to encourage more girls into careers involving computer science, robotics, and mathematics.” HR grinned at the notion, readjusting the strap of the backpack. “Felicity soon joined me in my endeavors with advocating for younger girls while pursuing her own and ever since then we’ve been visiting CSMC when we can.  Society is changing and people are beginning to understand that these fields aren’t just for men, but for all people of various backgrounds. Central City and Star City work in collaboration to keep the centers running.”

HR was a bit speechless, the capability of your thoughtfulness seemed to know no bounds. “I shouldn’t have expected any less from someone as intellectually gifted as you.”

You glanced up at the taller man, a slightly humorous look on your face, “HR, I’m not smart. I just try to work really hard. I finished school at the bottom of my class actually. Hell, Cisco catches my mistakes still. It’s a miracle that I even got hired at STAR Labs. I’m not perfect really.”

“But you’re good enough that you’re able to work wonders with Team Flash. Saving lives, disabling villainous security systems. You really are an incredible soul.” I can’t do any of that…

I bet you’re incredible too, you just don’t know it yet. You pursed your lips smiling up at him, one that he returned before nudging you with his elbow. You giggled and nudged him back before walking in silence once more. “I think I know what I want to ask for my first question.” HR quirked a pesky eyebrow at you, his smile turning into a wry smirk. He pocketed his hands as you both seemed to lose track of time.

“What was your life like back on Earth-19?”

HR felt his blood freeze in his veins at your question. HR had stopped, causing you to stop as you found yourselves a few blocks away from STAR Labs. *The truth would come out sooner or later. A haunting voice echoed at the back of his mind, mentally presenting his nighttime demons that revealed themselves in his dreams. All of it.

[raging-violets]

ShadowStar: Chapter 2

Chapter Two

It’d been a week and there was no sign on the horizon that they were going to get back to their Earth anytime soon. Barry did everything he could to try and re-create the circumstances that had sent them from their Earth to…whatever Earth they were on. However, he quickly realized pushing himself wasn’t going to do anything to help their plight. If they were going to figure out how to get back, it would take time to do so.

So, to Brady’s mild horror, they settled into Blue Valley, Nebraska. Found a house to rent (it seemed that the Nash name still meant a lot while on another Earth), went out and got some new clothes, started to acclimate. And Brady was bored. There was nothing to do in Blue Valley; sure, it was picturesque, sure he knew there was barely a chance to getting back to the life they knew. But he missed his friends, missed his old life. Wondered and worried about what would happen the longer they were gone.

Nevertheless, he knew he didn’t have a choice but to sit and wait. It wasn’t like Cadence hadn’t tried to teleport back to the other Earth, her powers hadn’t worked to get them though, either. As if there was some sort of block that was keeping her from moving. Brady’s own powers, his phasing powers, weren’t strong enough to get him to another Earth, even before being stuck there.

So, he took to figuring out what it was that Blue Valley had to offer while his parents went to crate a life for them. And there was nothing. Blue Valley was as much of a ‘normal’, ‘picturesque’ town as anyone could say it was. Like living the ‘American Dream’ as he’d heard in many history classes. There was one movie theater, one drive-in, a few restaurants, a few stores. Nothing that would have a bunch of teenagers so entertained. He bet there were a lot of house parties with no supervision.

Not that it was a problem, Barry always seemed to be uneasy when it came to Brady going to parties. (Probably because Barry hadn’t been to many when he was a teen). But Brady was fifteen and needed to find some creative outlet to handle his boredom that didn’t include his powers and being found out as a meta.

Too bad he didn’t have any friends or parties to go to.

So, for that week, he moped around the house, finding what was new on the Earth they were stuck on. (Apparently, the Kardashians weren’t famous on that Earth, and that was alright with him). He was about to start another day on the computer and play video games when he saw a sheet of paper sitting at his spot at the kitchen table.

He picked it up and lifted an eyebrow toward his mother, who bustled around the kitchen making breakfast. He snorted quietly and asked, brandishing the sheet, “You enrolled me into school here?”

“Yep,” Cadence replied, popping the ‘p’ on the single syllable word. She lifted her gaze, noticing her son still staring at him and asked with a chuckle, “What did you think you were going to do? Stay home and play video games all day?” Cadence gave Brady a sharp look when his eyebrows rose. “You’re not staying home and playing video games all day.”

Brady scowled, mostly annoyed she’d managed to read his mind, as she did practically every day. (Enough so he was starting to wonder if she managed to manifest it with her meta abilities. But he hadn’t known any other firestarters to be able to do that). “There’s such a thing as homeschooling,” he pointed out.

Cadence smirked, folding her arms. “Do you want to try and sit still as Barry tries to explain your lessons to you?”

Brady’s upper lip cured. Yeah, that was a stupid idea. Barry could hardly keep from rambling when he didn’t know something. And when he did… “What about online school?”

“You need the social interaction.”

Brady snorted. “Is that what people told you when you were pregnant with me?”

Cadence pretended to think. Her words dripped with sarcasm when she finally responded. “Well, I know you didn’t have ears by that point, so you probably couldn’t hear it when people called me a slut and a whore and said I threw away my future.” Cadence smirked. “You know I don’t care much for other people’s opinions on how I raise you.”

“How about my opinions on how you raise me?”

“Don’t be such a teenager, Brady.”

“I can’t help it.” He smiled.

Cadence smiled back. “It’s called getting acclimated.”

“It’s called being forced to go to school against my will.” Brady watched as his mom left the kitchen and went to the living room where Barry sat in front of his laptop, staring intently at it. He followed her. She sat next to huer husband, who barely reacted when she joined him. “I’m sure there’re laws about that.”

“Not as bad as the laws of me not sending you to school.” Cadence’s voice turned firm. “Nice try, bud. You’re going to Blue Valley High.”

“But…” Brady’s words died on his lips as he sighed, unsure of how to explain that if they got ‘acclimated’, it meant they were staying.

Though, he was sure from the look on his mother’s face she already knew that. His mom and Barry didn’t fight much, they’d gotten better with their communication over the years. But even Brady couldn’t ignore the low rumblings of their argument from the night before when they thought he’d been asleep.

Blue Valley High it is.

Besides, he didn’t quite know what was worse, the idea of having to deal with the social hierarchy of high school or the try to figure out what was keeping them stuck on another Earth.

Either option didn’t seem very fun.

-

Courtney couldn’t get out of Pat’s car fast enough. She was practically clawing at the doors when Mike went on and on about his boredom and not liking Blue Valley High. Became even worse with the sound of his chomping and chewing on his breakfast burrito, gabbing all the way while dropping him off at the Middle School. And even that was marginally better than having to deal with if she let her mom drive her to school.

It’d be nothing but reassurances of being the new kid isn’t so bad. That Blue Valley High was great. That she had all those wonderful memories of going there herself. Ugh. The very last thing Courtney wanted or needed.

So, when Pat’s car pulled up at the front of the school, Courtney clambered out as quickly as she could. Fast enough she could breathe a sigh of relief. But not so fast that she wasn’t able to escape Pat’s attempt at talking to her. At trying to be a father-figure to her. She tried tuning him out, texting her friends from home.

But he talked and talked. Something about him moving around a lot, his father having been in the army, him having not many friends. Something. She wasn’t paying much attention. Well, enough attention to tell him to leave her alone and that she was talking to someone.

He respected her wishes for silence…until he gave her a hearty, “Hey, have a super great day!” the second she got out the car.

Courtney cringed, shoulders coming up to her ears when she saw all eyes turn her way in a brief, sweeping glance. Dismissive. She slammed the door behind her, wondering if anyone hard that embarrassing display of affection. When it appeared that no one was paying too close attention to her, she sighed, shoulders slumping as she relaxed. Okay. Good.

First impression wasn’t ruined yet.

She could do this.

She could handle it.

She could…find her way to the main office…maybe.

Courtney’s eyes trailed over the students that walked in front of her, streaming into the school. Studied their flannels, long sleeves, hoodies, long pants…all so different from California. Back home, she’d still be wearing her shorts and crop tops, the weather wouldn’t have turned even remotely cold. Now, she was in a green jacket, a white t-shirt with a cherry print on the front (her favorite shirt, actually), and a pair of blue jeans.

She looked…like she fit in.

With a light sigh, Courtney walked into Blue Valley High, eyes scanning the faces and places as she went. Finally, she went into what looked like the correct office; there were lines of students sitting on a stool to get their pictures taken, and others that appeared they were being given their schedules. The second Courtney stepped through the door, she was swept through line after line, giving her name after a slight hesitation.

A paper was thrust in her hands, which she quickly glanced over, before a fast-moving, teacher ushered her toward the stool where everyone was getting their pictures taken. Her eyebrows came together when she noticed a spot missing. Something she’d looked over time and time again on the school’s website, the only thing that was keeping her hope alive about having to move.

“Uh, excuse me?” She asked tentatively. “I think there might’ve been a mistake with my schedule. I was supposed to have been signed up for gymnastics.”

The teacher gently shook her head. “Sweetie, we don’t have a gymnastics team here.”

Then what was it that she was looking at time and time again? With girls who were so bendy Courtney didn’t know where their tops started and their bottoms ended. They were definitely more flexible than she was, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t get there. Did she imagine all of that in her wish to stay in California?

“But it was on your website!” Courtney exclaimed. She followed the teacher’s instruction once more, perching on the stool, dropping her backpack to the floor. “Blue Valley High has a gymnastics team!”

“And we did…last year.” The teacher waver for Courtney to stop slouching as she ducked behind a computer. “But the academic and athletic programs have been recalibrated by the American Dream for optimal participation by the students and the faculty.”

Courtney lifted an eyebrow. “I…have no idea what any of that means.”

“There are plenty other after school activities,” the teacher said. She set her coffee mug down and moved to stand behind the camera, readying it. Her eyes lit up seconds later.  “How about cheerleading? That’s basically gymnastics! Plus, boys love cheerleaders.”

Courtney couldn’t help the face she made. Boys love cheerleaders? Is she serious? The thought barely crossed her mind before a blinding flash went off in her face. And seconds before she heard a light snickering behind her that made her realize someone had heard and was…laughing at her?

Annoyed, Courtney looked over her shoulder to see a boy about her age; shaggy blonde-brown hair that fell into blue-green eyes. Eyes that appeared to shine with as much mirth as the side of his turned-up mouth showed. There wasn’t anything too remarkable about him, he wore the same as any boy her age; gray t-shirt under a black button down and jeans, a bag slung over his shoulder. The disinterested look that any teenager would have, flickered through his eyes.

He noticed her look his way and lifted an eyebrow. Courtney rolled her eyes and turned away. She got up from the stool, curled her upper lip at her new photo ID, and stuck it in her pocket. She swung out into the crowded hallway once more, nearly leaping out of her skin when a girl with white-black hair and a curly haired girl suddenly appeared behind her.

“Hey new girl!” The white-black haired girl said with ease.

“Hi…” Courtney said slowly. Her eyes shifted over the two. Clearly, they were the two popular girls, or else the first one was, and her curly haired friend was her sidekick. Why else would she quicken her pace to try and keep pace with the other two.

“I’m Cindy.” The girl smiled the tiniest bit. “This is Jenny.”

“Courtney,” She introduced herself, still watching the two closely. She blinked in surprise when Cindy shrugged and gave a quick, “I know,” in response. As if she actually did know. And…how could she have known?

“So you’re from California?” Jenny asked.

Courtney’s eyes shifted back and forth. How’d they know that? Duh, Courtney, you’re new. People try to figure these things out all the time. They like to know everything about the new kid. “Yeah…”

“So, we should all hang out.” Cindy said it so finitely, so definitely that Courtney couldn’t help but feel a little kick of excitement. Maybe this was it. Maybe she was going to be able to make friends in that…slow paced hell hole sooner than she thought.

“Uh, yeah, sure!”

“Cool, I’ll text you.”

“My number is—”

“—I already have it—”

Courtney blinked in surprise, once again. Knowing where she was from, that wasn’t hard. Anyone who looked at her car’s license plate, they would’ve seen they were from California. And Blue Valley would’ve been slow enough that people would pay close attention—especially with how many people continued to wave at them. (No one was that nice!). “—How do you have my—”

“—don’t worry about it!” Cindy waved her off. Then, seconds later, she was back to her perky self and said, “Hey, you should try out for cheerleading, I’m team captain and I’m looking for a new second. I need someone who can do the splits.”

“Thanks.” Courtney sighed, feeling the annoyance shoot through her stomach once more. “But, cheerleading’s not really my thing…” She trailed off the second Cindy stopped walking. There wasn’t any outward change with Cindy, but there seemed to be a sudden chill that hung through the air. Hung between them.

A glacier that slowly but surely rocked the waves and wedged its way between them.

“Wait, so…you don’t want to hang out?” Cindy asked. Courtney thought for a moment, trying to figure out what it was that she’d said to make things get ruined so quickly. Just when she was about to turn things around. “What? No, that’s…that’s not what I was saying—”

“—So then I’ll text you!” Cindy smiled then it immediately dropped. She tipped her head to the side. Her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch, flashed briefly. “Or, maybe not! Bye!”

Courtney sighed, watching her walk away. Her shoulders slumped, the weight of her sliding backpack nearly knocking her to the ground as she did so. She slung it back up her shoulder and gasped, nearly knocking into the guy who had just been laughing at her.

“Oh! I’m sorry!”

“No problem.” He waved her off, still going down the hallway. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

Courtney’s eyebrows furrowed. She watched him as he walked by, looked at her bag, then back to him. Her eyes narrowed.

Was it her imagination…or did the bag pass through him?

Calm down, Courtney. This place is weird, but not that weird.

-

When the day ended, Courtney wanted nothing more than to text her friends about everything that happened. But they were in California time and who knew how long it would take for them to respond. First there was Pat being cringey, then there was no gymnastics team, then Cindy picked her up and dropped her off before she could even begin to have friends. Then there was the incident at lunch…where she was trying to help the girl at her lunch table from being slut shamed and bullied from the jerks in the letterman jackets.

He’d tried to take her phone and…Courtney had never been one to sit back and let people be bullied. So…she grabbed her phone back and shoved him…and landed in detention for it. Who got detention just for shoving someone? And her phone was taken away because of it, where it sat on the teacher’s desk as punishment. Like that was supposed to be a big thing, that they couldn’t hold onto their phones for a few hours. But…it just reminded her of how little she had to hold onto, for excitement and things to look forward to.

And, finally, when she was let out of detention, she’d missed the bus. All she could do was watch as it slowly drove out of sight. With no way of knowing how he was going to get home. And the last thing she was going to do was call Pat to drive her home, where she’d have to deal with his trying to be ‘father of the year’ and pry into her life. Couldn’t he be like all the other normal fathers and leave her alone and make her mom deal with everything? And stop being so…bumbling?

Well, I guess that is like all other fathers, Courtney reminded herself. You just really wouldn’t know. Reaching up, she used both hands to brush her hair back from her face while letting out the biggest sigh she could muster. Turning, she looked back to the school, wondering if there was going to be another bus coming. Her eyes leveled and, within seconds, she recognized the boy lounging on the steps in front of her, watching her curiously.

The same one she’d seen all day; the one who laughed at her, who she’d hit with her backpack, who’d been nearby in the cafeteria when she shoved that bully and there he was after school!

All at once, Courtney felt all the day’s frustrations hit her. “Who are you?” She demanded. “Why are you stalking me?” Courtney demanded. He looked startled for a moment, then annoyed. Courtney frowned, noticing he didn’t answer her questions. “What is your name?”

“Brady Nash,” he replied, continuing to lounge on the steps, legs stretched out. He worked a yo-yo in his hand, shooting it straight out in front of him then back into his palm without looking. He shot it in an around the world motion then looked back up at her. “And I’m not stalking you. I think they have new students have similar schedules.”

For a moment, Courtney felt her cheeks flush. That’d make sense. “You’re new, too?”

Brady made what was a cross between a smirk and a snort. She was starting to hate that. “I’m always new.”

-

Tag List: @darknightfrombeyond​ @hogwarts-is-my-wonderland​ @foxesandmagic​ @ben-bcrnes​ @witchofinterest​ @jerigoats​ @perfectlystiles​ @itsjustgracy​ @codenamekryptonite​ @ochub​ @ocappreciationtag​ @arrowverseocs​​

[lovely-necromancy]

A Cure for Insomnia CH 14

Somehow someway you had ended up spending the night in Toby's room. What had started out as sitting next to him turned into laying down next to him. And after a while of no talking or movement, just the steady sounds of breathing. You more or less closed you eyes for a minute.

Before you knew it you were waking up to sun in your face. And found a blanket haphazardly thrown onto you. Though honestly you probably just moved a lot in your sleep. A quick glance around the room tells you you're alone and by the looks of it have been for a little while now. Weirdly there doesn't seem to be a clock in the room and when you go to check your phone the battery is dead.

'Oh God what time is it?' you worry as you gather yourself to leave the room in search of a clock.

Even though you have the strongest suspicion that you're already late for work. Fuck Nate is gonna kill you. You hope you don't get fired for this. That doesn't really seem like the Cowell way but you really don't want to risk it. No where else in town would pay the bills plus give extra cash for doing jack shit.

Just as you closed the door behind you you see Toby and Connor walking up the corridor. Toby has two bowls in hand and his steps falter a bit when he sees you.

“Shit did I wake you up?”

You can see the veins in his arms as he tenses, poor guy must have a tic coming on. You hold your hands out to give him the option of handing them over so he can relax. With no hesitation on his end he does just that.

“No? I don't think so, I just woke up. What time is it?”

Toby's hands jolt in place. A large tremor of movement, thankfully you took the bowls from him so he wouldn't have splashed...cereal? Your confusion must have shown because you get a nervous laugh in response.

“It's like eight twenty or something.” seeing you visibly deflate he adds, “Barry told me to tell you you're excused from work today.” He took a bowl back from you and placed a hand at the small of your back to push you back towards his room. Apparently done with having a conversation in the hallway and letting your breakfast get soggy.

“Barclay.” you remind him, your efforts award you a shrug, “and are you serious? Because making me late for work wouldn't be very funny.”

He plops on his bed and a bit of milk sloshes out of the bowl dropping on to the sheets. In the back of your mind you think about how Barclay more than likely is going to ban Toby from the lodge for anything other than an emergency. At least if he ruins the bed by dropping food all over it...actually you're pretty sure Jake's mentioned there being a rule about eating in the rooms.

“I'm serious, you can go ask him yourself.” his face flushes as he shovels a spoonful of Captain Crunch into his mouth, “twey shed somfingu bot ah ahpawawgee for da kid”

You give Toby a sneer as you process what he just said. Even normally your brain didn't always process what was said to you properly and Toby speaking with a full mouth certainly didn't help in any case. But you can kind of gleam a bit more context from his red cheeks that your spontaneous three day weekend is thanks in part to Jo hanging out with you yesterday.

Really you didn't mind that she hung out with you. But you would accept the apologetic day off for her attempting to give you a love life. You aren't one of her gossip stories nor do you wish to be.

“First, gross dude. Second, I'll take it.”

He snorts, “Watching me chew through the hole in my face is ne-neat but me talking with my mouth full is where you draw the line?”

“Honestly I never even thought of that.”

You can't help but let out a chuckle at how dumb that must have made you look. Geez you were such a dork sometimes. On the other hand it seems like that must have been the funniest thing Toby's heard in a while as he roars with laughter. Soon your chuckles turn into full blown laughter from Toby's contagious mirth.

“I'll get out of your hair after I finish eating.” you finally say when the two of you calm.

“...you don't have to do that. I-i thought we cou-cou-could hang out?” he says sheepishly.

Toby tends to stutter when he's nervous you notice. Maybe this was to be expected you kind of did solidify that you both wanted to be friends. Of course that would mean opening up to hanging out together on purpose more often.

“I'd like that! Did you have something in mind?”

The room goes quite, well more accurately Toby goes quite as you finish your cereal. Looks like someone hadn't thought this far ahead. At least you aren't the only dork in this room or this friendship for that matter.

Toby's dark eyes scan around the room, not really looking for something while he thinks of something you could do today. Instead of just staring at him like a creep you turn your attention to the rottweiler looking at you with hopeful eyes. Connor's eyes briefly moving towards your bowl where a tiny bit of milk sits and then back at your face. Licking his chops as he looks you dead in the eyes.

Having a pretty good idea of what he wants you look for Toby's bowl. If it was on the ground that'd be a good indication that Connor's allowed a bit of cereal milk if it was on the bed well then you'd still have your answer.  And sure enough right next to Connor's butt is an empty bowl.

Yup, Barclay is so gonna ban Toby from the lodge.

Throwing out any thoughts of the lecture you'd get if Barclay were to find out you let a dog eat from his bowls you place the bowl in front of Connor. Who sits in his position and won't stop making eye contact with the bowl. Tail going a mile a minute as he stares at his prize in anticipation. God he really is the best boy in the whole world.

“Thank you Connor.” you whisper to the dog before he attacks the bowl.

As the pup rips into the left over cereal milk, which wasn't even that much, you can't keep yourself from flapping your hands right by your chest. The fast movement seems to catch Toby's attention and brings him out of wracking his brain for ideas. Giving you a moment to just enjoy the happy stim he just watches. It isn't until Connor has bounded over to you letting you pet him as a 'thank you' for giving him a treat, that Toby speaks up.

“Is there...what's there to do here?”

Looking at Toby as you shake Connor's ears around, you don't immediately say anything. Honestly thinking of just what the two of you could do in this small town. Something that wouldn't prove to be too distracting and maybe give the two of you a chance to get to know each other better. Something without too many interruptions or things to get you off topic.

“Wanna go get a slushy?”

Toby's brown eyes cut as he stares at you unimpressed.

“I kno-rrow that we're in a small town but, 's not that small.”

“Oh no it's actually smaller.”

He rolls his eyes with a huff ready to bite in with a snarky remark no doubt until he catches your eyes and the serious expression. He stares at you, eyes darting across your face looking for a sign that you're joking.

Thankfully you aren't one to leave a friend in the dark.

“Tobias, the gas station Tim works at is the only one for this town.”

“That can't be right, it's not even in town. What about...” once again Toby's eyes shift as he tries to think of any other gas stations within Kepler.

When he comes to the conclusion that you are indeed not fucking with him and Kepler does just have the one gas station his shoulders slump. Almost like he's in shock that he hadn't caught that sooner. You can feel the tinkling sensation of a tic coming up, at the base of your neck. Timing it mentally as you watch Toby go through the stages of grief you miscalculate and ruin your tic.

Head jolting into your right shoulder rather than jerking above it. Letting out a small “fuck” at the fact that you're about to be in an uncomfortable sensation, not totally unlike when you chase off a sneeze but still do need to sneeze. You feel the tic at the back of your head but know it won't be going away anytime soon and all thanks to your hubris.

Looking back at Toby you find he's moved on from the single gas station fact and is looking at you mildly amused. Briefly you wonder if he's ever chased off a tic and felt the uncomfortable sensation you're now dealing with. That leads you to ponder if he's ever even felt the anticipation of nerves before a coming tic. It's not really a painful sensation but discomfort sometimes goes in hand with pain so maybe CIPA affects that feeling too. You'll have to ask, but first you have to shut his stupid face up.

“Shut it.”

“Didn't say anything.” he smirks.

His smiles are really growing on you. They feel special and very genuine despite the awkward nature of his facial movements.

“Hey wait, the mini mart doesn't even have a slushy machine.” he says as the realization finally sets in.

“Yea we have to drive to another town for one. So far Franklin has the best slushies but it's like two hours away.”

You lean your weight back onto your hands watching as Toby's wide eyes stare at you in disbelief. Actually in this light you really can't tell if Toby's eyes are blown wide or in their normal state. Judging from the way his lips curl over his teeth you figure they must be as he stares stunned by something you've said.

“Do you seriously drive two hours for a slushy?” the disbelief in his voice is thick, but not thick enough to cover the thinnest hint of amusement. Maybe even pity.

“Not all the time, sometimes its only like thirty. One night I actually drove five hours without realizing it...though to be fair I did get lost.”

Lost in your thoughts on that particular night some how you'd ended up in Point Pleasant. Instead of a slushy you'd gotten a Mothman themed iced coffee. A nice trip over all but one you didn't want to go on at the moment.

Coming back to the present in time to catch Toby flopping back on the mattress his curls bouncing up over his face as he did so. He let's out an exaggerated groan.

“Still, Brian's got the car today.”

Pfft that's not an issue.

“I have a car.” you say plainly.

That must not be the issue because Toby raises himself onto his elbows to look at your lax form on the carpet. Leaning back on your hands with Connor splayed across your lap looking ready for a nap. Toby opens his mouth to say something before shutting it and looking off to the side. He seems to collect himself quickly but not enough to look at you.

“Uh..I, that's not really the...” well maybe he hadn't collected himself that much.

Brow furrowing as you squint at the man before you. The two of you don't know a lot about each other but from what you've noticed Toby has some hang ups about drivers and driving. Although he's let you drive him home once that doesn't mean he was comfortable with it or wanted a repeat performance. And while you don't consider yourself a bad driver you'll spare Toby the difficulty of admitting he isn't comfortable with you driving.

“You can drive.” dark brown eyes are on you the instant the words spill from your lips, “You've driven my car before. Plus I don't mind I like not driving.”

His eyes dart from you to Connor and back up into your face. Even though they're darting slightly you know he isn't such evaluating your expression. He's thinking and weighing his options.

“You sure?”

And with no hesitation at all, “Absolutely, you've driven it before.”

Though he hadn't been thinking of that particular issue with being given the choice of driving your car. It did bring up another insecurity before hastily stomping it into the ground. He has driven your car, albeit once, before and you are giving him explicit consent to drive it again. Regardless of his tourette's, Toby honestly can't believe you have such blind faith in a person you've just befriended. Then again that's friendship isn't it.

“Ok then...let's go?”

After a nod from you Toby grabs Connor's gear to get him ready for the drive. Meanwhile you take the dishes back downstairs to the kitchen, letting Toby know you'd meet him by the door. Unsurprisingly Barclay is in the kitchen when you get down there to place the bowls into the sink.

Seeing as it's just the bowls and spoons in the sink you decide you can wash them before placing them in the sanitizer rack.

“Mornin'.”

“Good morning.”

“Basket's on the table.”

“Thanks.”

A quiet settles over you two and you can feel Barclay's brown eyes trail towards your form every few seconds. Finishing the dishes you turn, leaning your butt onto the counter, to face the lumbering man.

“Can I help you?” you raise a brow at him. Clearly he had something more he wanted to say.

“I, I just thought we were closer than that.” he sighs.

Okay what now? Your confusion goes ignored as he continues to speak.

“Seriously YN, you didn't need to sneak away last night if you wanted to spend the night here, and with your boyfriend. I wouldn't have judged.”

“My who? Tobais? He's a friend!” you whisper scream in case Toby is near by. God could at least save one of you this embarrassment.

“Really YN? From the things I'm hearin' you two are a bit more than friends.”

“Ok seriously where are you getting your info from? We haven't done anything. Like just YESTERDAY we agreed we were friends. We've known each other maybe a month?!”

“See that's why this is confusing, you don't touch just anyone. And suddenly you're handsy with some new kid.” Barclay had the decency to start whisper screaming with you. He's gesturing vaguely towards the rest of the lodge before bringing his hands before him and flailing them away. As if to say 'what am I supposed to do with this now?'

“He's neurodivergent!” you say bringing your palms up in front of you.

“So are Jake and Aubrey.”

“And I high five Jake so much.” throwing your arms outward to indicate how much you two high five. “Plus he gets a hug nearly every time I see him.” hands brought back to emphasis this point.

Barclay thinks on that for a bit, “Point taken,” he stands from his hunched position and crosses his arms over his chest, “so y'all aren't dating? Nothin' happened last night?”

“No and no.”

“Don't have to deep clean the sheets today.”

“Gross and no.” best keep the milk droplets out of this, you'd really like to leave the kitchen sooner rather than later. Preferably with no lecture about hygiene and the importance of respecting other's property.

Barclay looks down at you scanning your face for something you aren't quite sure of. But you have a feeling he's treating you like a child for a very specific reason.

“I'm not a virgin.” you deadpan as the man before starts to sputter.

His eyes wide with disbelief. So he really thought you were a virgin this whole time? You wonder who else thought this, you hoped they wouldn't try to confront you about your nonexistent relationship.

You'll just never understand why people assume you're a virgin and why they try their hardest to butt into your life when they think that way. This topic tends to put you in a sour mood and you can already feel it on your face. It's disgusting how people can't mind their business about baseless assumptions.

“Jeez sorry YN,” he does look it as he rubs the back of his neck, “it's just you've never shown an interest and I guess we all got swept up in the possibility of seeing you happy.”

“I am happy?”

“I mean in a relationship, happy in a romantic relationship.” He claps his hands gently on your shoulders. A touch you've gotten used too, had you not wanted it you would've taken a step back.

“Kirby's not in a relationship.” you point out.

“Kirby's gross, and you're adorable.” he chuckles at your glare, “a-dor-a-ble.”

“I will bite you.” he lets go of you with a laugh.

“We're just...trying to keep you safe.” he sighs, and though you don't understand what any of their weirdness has to do with “keeping you safe” you nod. Just to get this over with faster.

“Can I leave now? Tobais and I were gonna get slushies.” he didn't need to know your plans but you didn't want him assuming you two were sneaking off for a date.

“Yea yea, sorry for keeping you.” he leans against the counter as you grab your basket and head out of the kitchen and towards the main door.

Toby and Connor were already waiting for you. If the swaying of his weight was anything to go by they'd been waiting for you for a bit. Seeing you coming his subconscious movement stops and he opens the door. Keeping it open for you.  You lead him over to your Soul as you look through the basket for the keys.

“Keys?” he questions as you pat your pockets.

Toby stops walking with you as you begin to panic. You've lost your keys. Before you voice that though you look through the basket once more, placing it on the hood of your car so you can use both hands to check. His eyes follow you and are caught by a gentle swaying.

“You are a serial killer's wet dream.”

He opens your passenger side door and comes out holding your keys that had been in the ignition. If the blank look he gives you is anything to go by he's not impressed.

“I,I,I was in a hurry!” you say flustered that you did something so stupid. His expression doesn't change.

“Could you pop the trunk please?” you ask not looking in his direction.

The click of the lock is all you need to hear before you rush around him to place the basket in the back. As you do you catch sight of the deer skull still in your trunk. With everything going on you hadn't been to see Madeleine for a mount for the guy. You'll have to remember to stop by her shop this week.

Toby had already gotten Connor situated in the back by the time you sat down in the passengers seat. After buckling in and plugging your phone in to charge you stare ahead of you waiting for Toby to start driving. When you look over at him you see he's staring right back at you with a brow raised.

“Yes?”

“Where are we going?”

Yes the key detail of any road trip, the driver needs to know the destination. Unfortunately for you and Toby you've forgotten to tell him one crucial detail. You drive with no sense of direction. And you relay this to Toby. He looks seconds away from getting out of the car and claiming he's never seen you before much less ever been friends with you.

He takes a deep breath and collects himself.

“Y'know what Brian's worse with directions.” he says more to himself than to you.

He calmly puts the car in gear and heads off to town. No input from Connor, you may have chosen a really good day for this drive. Your phone hits one percent as you pass Resort Row. You know the Hornet's Nest is coming up and that intersection leads to the interstate despite not having legible signs.

“Hey when you get to the Hornet's Nest swing right then drive straight, we'll end up on route 3 onto the interstate.”

“Hornets' nest?”

“It's a skate/stunt park. You'll see it after we get away from the mountain.”

Just as you said Toby saw the Hornet's Nest as he turned onto the road leaving the mountain. By the time you were on route 3 your phone had charged up to seven percent. Enough to turn it on and put on a playlist. You put on one of your sea shanty and folk punk combos.

Toby hasn't even let the song get thirty seconds under way. “No vetoed, we are not listening to sea shanties.”

So he does have music preferences, fair enough. You switch to a playlist with a more chilled electric vibe that has a few oldies tossed into the mix. Toby hasn't heard this playlist before and you are determined to learn his music tastes today.

“Wait wait wait, so you'll listen to folk punk but not sea shanties?”

“How are those even related?”

“They are literally the same thing.”

The two of you continue to bicker back and forth about how similar, or different, shanties and folk punk are. Occasionally it's broken when you read a sign, noticing Toby's horrible squinting, to see if you're on the right route to...well you don't know the destination Toby's been ignoring most of the exits for the past forty minutes though you're sure you two could find a gas station with a slushy machine at any one of the surrounding towns.

You don't mind though you're really enjoying the ride. The soft sounds of the car cutting through the wind at seventy three miles an hour. And the dull hum from the engine falling into the background as They Might Be Giants plays softly through the radio. With a majority of his focus being directed to the road  and the handful of other cars around you, your conversation is limited to topics that don't require much thinking. Really you've just ended up playing twenty questions with the other pulling uno reverse.

Not life altering secrets or deep talks...well until the question was favorite romantic comedy.

“How is Venom a romantic comedy?” Toby laughs after you answer.

“They kiss!” Toby just snorts.

“No Venom in Anne's body kisses Eddie.”

“Yes Venom kissed Eddie. Romance.”

You hear the murmur of 'oh my fucking God' come from Toby as you giggle in your seat. Having been egged on by that simple phrase you continue.

“Eddie is always giving Venom chocolates.”

“Oh yes, sorry, that's very romance.” Toby laughs out rolling his eyes.

“Thank you, I'm glad I could enlighten...” you pause as a sign for the next exit catches your eye. Had you two already driven two hours? Time really does fly when you're having fun. “Hey next exit, Franklin.”

“Thanks got it.” this time he turns on the blinker to get over into the exiting lane.

“What gas station am I looking for?” smart man. He's stopped asking for specific directions and is now asking for a land marker.

“Giant baby.” the car comes to a stop at a red light and Toby takes his eyes off the road to face you.

“...is this...will I just know when I see it.” “When you see it” you say the last part in unison with him nodding solemnly.

To his credit Toby has gone a long way with your weird antics, despite being your official friend for less than a full day. Keeping up with this pattern he doesn't ask anymore questions about this giant baby, keeping his eyes peeled for anything worthy of that title. His valent efforts are rewarded not even ten blocks from the turnpike.

“Is that...”

“Giant baby.” you nod knowing he sees the giant opposum decal in the window of the beat up gas station.

Opening your glove box you remove a spare mask for yourself before offering a sealed in package one for Toby. Who readily takes it after he parks your car in front of the store. Turning to look at you, you can read all the skepticism on his face. It's funny how this is where he questions you, your destination and not like the way over here-or the moment right after you told him you had no sense of direction.

“They have the four divide mega slush.”

“What the hell is that?”

With a coy smile you put on your mask and exit the car waiting at the front for your friend to get his shit together. He doesn't take long to follow you, Connor's lead in hand, into the gas station.

For as dingy and beat up as it looks on the outside it isn't bad once you step inside. Might actually be cleaner than the mini mart in Kelper. Toby glances around taking a mental tally of all the patrons in the store and their positions. He does this a bit. Just hyper aware of everyone when in enclosed spaces.

Dragging him over to the slushy machine after acknowledging the cashier's greeting. Showing him the four divider mega slush cup you demonstrate how it works. Choosing the only three flavors you like and adding a random extra of the three into the forth slot.

The face he makes when you stick the straw in the middle is priceless.

Toby demonstrates how a slushy should be made. Grabbing the single cup and over filling it with cherry flavored ice. He doesn't pick up a straw and you two make your way to the counter.

Since Toby drove here you had no problem paying but he was quicker to get his wallet out and hand the cashier a ten for your slushies. They give him back his change and you two wind up back in the car, taking off your masks.

You take a long sip from you drink.

“I can't believe we drove for two hours for you to just wreck your taste buds.” a playful disdain in his voice.

“Not 'we', you.”

He cuts his eyes at you before shaking his slushy into his open mouth. Guess he couldn't use a straw when he was missing part of his cheek. No suction there.

“So?” you say adding the questioning lilt to your voice.

He shrugs, “It's good.”

“Worth the drive?” He shakes his head.

“Nah - drive made it worth it.”

[supermanshield]

But not all of them, he loves

~~~

If anyone’s heart is big enough to love two people, it’s Clark’s. 

~~~

This deals with polyamory and open relationships. Clark/Lois and Clark/Bruce. The main focus of the fic is Clark/Bruce, but it’s angsty.

Words: 2,896

A/N: The timeline/continuity on this is weird, maybe. The boys are still quite young (I imagine them at the end of their 20s in this), have maybe been superheroing for a couple years max. There is a league.

Read on AO3

______________________________________________

Jimmy’s chosen the place. He’s absolutely star-struck and aware of the company he’s in, but keeps it cool as he leads their little party into a relatively quiet bar in downtown Metropolis. Barry had suggested a karaoke place in Tokyo, and Clark had to remind him that not everyone he wanted to invite would be able to fly, run, or teleport there. So, Barry is here, in civvies, and Hal with him. Behind them enters an eerily human-looking J’onn, and John Stewart, even though he’s not in the league anymore, but he tells a damn good story and Clark wouldn’t want one of his closest friends to miss his bachelor party. Pete has flown out here all the way from Smallville, just for him.

As if by miracle, Bruce has shown up too, although he keeps looking over his shoulder when they’re still out on the street, high-collared jacket and baseball cap obscuring his face. Clark is happy to see him take it off once they’re inside, but some of that fades when he notices the stiches above one of his eyebrows and makeup covering a bruise on his left cheek.

When they’re all finally settled around a large table tucked into the back of the bar – it’s quiet, even for a Friday, but you can never be too careful, and Clark is happy he let Jimmy choose the location because he obviously knows his way around Metropolis nightlife – Oliver walks in, large grin plastered onto his face. Bruce looks as if he wants to castrate him, grumbles something about discretion and leaving any society reporters at the door. The two billionaires argue back and forth a bit, Clark hears Oliver mention something about it being fine that he parked his helicopter on top of the Metropolis branch of Wayne Enterprises, and yes. They’re complete. The night of his bachelor party is underway.

Lois is with Diana, Cat, and a couple of other friends. Clark has offered to let everyone choose, they didn’t have to do the traditional men-women thing, but Diana said she would choose Lois’ bachelor party over his any day of the week. To which, of course, Lois was absolutely rub-it-in-your-face for about a week. That Wonder Woman wanted to party with her, and not with him, and somewhere, Clark can’t wait to hear what they’re getting up to right now. Everything at its time, though.

He orders everyone a round of drinks, Hal claps him on the back (which he immediately regrets and Clark is the one to apologize), there’s toasts.

“Are you nervous, man? I know I was,” Hal starts. “They say nothing changes, it’s just a piece of paper, blabla, but it does!” Everyone laughs. “I’m telling you, the moment you get back from your honeymoon, you’re knee deep in domesticity and no more going out.”

“I don’t think that will be much of a problem with Lois, Hal. Although we did have that a little bit when Jon arrived. But Lois couldn’t wait to get back out.” It’s Clark’s turn to laugh.

“If anything, she’ll start dragging you out to more things,” Jimmy adds gleefully and winks at Clark.

“Anyway,” Oliver starts, holds up his glass. “Last night as a free man!” Clark’s never really understood that. Lois has already captured him a long time ago in so many ways. All of them he loves, but he raises his half-empty glass anyway.

The table settles into a comfortable chit-chat, more jokes about Clark, stories of the early days of the league, memories and laughs. Somehow, his gathered and stray group of friends mixes surprisingly well, for which he’s grateful. Maybe this really won’t be so bad, and tomorrow will be the best day of his life (or so they say).

-

Amid the chatter, he looks at Bruce on the other side of the table, utterly out of place between their friends in a dark brown bar and jazz music playing softly. As Clark talks and laughs with the others, Bruce looks back at him. The gaze unsettles him, as it always does, makes him question things, as it always does. It shouldn’t. Not anymore.

(He’s chosen. A long time ago in fact. Lois is the one that waits for him, all the time. That doesn't turn him away. The one to make him laugh and feel at home in a city where no one knows each other. The one that holds him at night when the world has been too much. Bruce can simply never be that.)

---

“We should stop,” Bruce breathes, inch away from his mouth and the wall of the cave wet behind his cape.

“She’s okay with it.”

“To what extent?”

Clark sighs, swallows. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“That’s something you might want to consider discussing.” Bruce turns away before he can come up with a reply. The rock crumbles under his hand and Bruce tells him to leave when he reaches the computer.

---

“… and then Hal went and actually asked her for it! You should have been there!” The group’s laughter pulls him out of his thoughts and he laughs along meekly when Pete taps him on the shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.”

“Not getting cold feet are we, Clark?” Oliver asks.

He looks at Bruce. “No.”

-

The night eventually takes them back out onto the streets, half of them already stumbling as they make their way out of the small bar, but the cool night air sobers them up. Jimmy hangs onto Clark’s shoulders, Barry tries to jump onto his back for a piggyback ride, but Clark is fast to blur away, too fast for Barry, who, despite his fast metabolism, is a little intoxicated.

“So, what now? Night’s still young.”

“That it is, Hal. If you’re on the west coast.” Oliver has his hands in his pockets, Bruce’s cap is back over his eyes.

“Hey, supes can just fly around the world and spin back the clock a little, yeah?”

“You know I can’t actually do that, right? Ask Barry.”

“Nope, not tonight. I’ll throw up.”

“Not to mention you’ll mess up big time.”

“Any other good joints around here, Jimmy?” John asks.

“Plenty. What do you say, Clark? Another bar? Something more adventurous?”

“I have an apartment close to here,” Bruce cuts in. “Bar’s fully stocked.”

“Of course you do.”

“Don’t you?” Bruce raises an eyebrow at Oliver. “Comes in handy when I have to keep an eye on a certain Superguy around here.”

The small crowd looks at Clark, awaiting answer. “Sure,” he shrugs. “It has a nice view.”

---

Lois is pregnant at home on the couch and he’s in an unfamiliar bed, away from her. The apartment feels cold, not kept by Alfred, and only illuminated by a bright moon streaming through the sheer curtains draped across large windows. The bed sheets are white, the walls light, and the corners angular, modern. A bigger contrast with Bruce’s bedroom at the manor is near impossible.

“I don’t know what you want anymore, Clark,” Bruce says as he rolls away from him, sits up. “Don’t you like this place?”

“Bruce. You bought a penthouse in downtown Metropolis. For what? To be closer?”

“It seemed convenient.”

“Don’t talk to me about convenience when I could fly to Gotham in less than a minute.”

“You know what I mean.” When the baby arrives.

“Bruce,” he starts again. But gets stuck, because what does that mean? He swallows, makes a decision in the span of a second. “I won’t be here. He’s going to need a dad. Lois needs me.”

“Okay. That’s clear.” Bruce gets up. “Okay,” he says again as he walks to the bathroom.

Yet after that, there’s the bed, cold and warmed up by their bodies on a chance night, or a take-out dinner on the couch, a documentary running quietly on the large flatscreen TV while they talk. Lois never asks, but only because she knows. Jon grows healthily, strong, Lois falls asleep in Clark’s arms, and he feeds Jon in the middle of the night.

---

Now, the apartment smells clean, the fridge is empty but the pantry fully stocked. And the bar, as Bruce said. Two couches face each other in front of large windows, Clark knows which door leads to the bedroom. He doesn’t look at it.

Bruce switches on all the lights, it floods the place in yellow. It’s bright in a way Clark’s never seen it, he realizes. He pulls out a couple of bottles, asks the others what they want. A mirror of Brucie Wayne, host and not how Clark has ever seen him, here.

“You been here before, Clark?” Jimmy asks.

“Yes,” he admits.

“Sweet place.”

The group gets comfortable on the couches, Bruce suggests they could play pool, and Clark has a hard time imagining Bruce doing anything so casual. He wonders if he’s good at it, if he’s played here before, with anyone else. The pool table is new.  

John draws up some kind of a tournament, teams are formed and bets are placed. Clark sits on one of the couches next to Bruce, watching the others play, another beer in hand and Bruce has started a glass of whiskey. He’s savouring it, clearly enjoying the flavour and laughs at Barry’s jokes, J’onn’s overly serious tactics at the pool table. Clark can’t get a grasp on how normal Bruce looks, how calm, as if nothing will change tomorrow. Here, of all places and it’s somehow not fake.

He realizes, Bruce brought them here to abandon the illusion that were those slow, quiet nights. It’s a normal apartment, he says with this. It will be, now. After tomorrow. A comforting thought as much as a terrifying one.

The cashmere of Bruce’s turtleneck is soft under his fingers when he reaches out to him and there’s a glint in his eyes that Clark is unable to read, hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Can I try a glass of that too?”

“I didn’t know you were into whiskey.”

“Hey, it’s my bachelor night. I got taste buds.”

Bruce smiles. “Sure.”

Clark leans against the large island counter as Bruce reaches for a whiskey glass that he could have easily found himself.

“It doesn’t have to end,” he says to Bruce’s back.

“Doesn’t it.”

The soft kitchen light hits Bruce’s shoulders just so, accentuates his jaw, and makes him yearn for simpler times. Bruce on one of the bar stools, humming as he tastes the food Clark’s cooked for him, same light, same cashmere sweater. Who was the one to complicate it anyway? Briefly, Clark wonders if he’s made a mistake by asking Lois to marry him, but no. Bruce is the mistake. Clark was just the one to make it.

“I mean,” he starts. “I don’t know. What difference does marriage make, anyway?” Clark laughs. It comes out hollow.

“This ended a while ago, Clark. Tonight is merely closure.”

Bruce is right, of course. “Okay.”

Bruce hands him the glass, their fingers touch, and that’s it. He sends him a look, one that says are you, though? but Clark doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just walks back to the living room. It’s his turn at pool.

-

Not an hour later Clark finds himself on the bed, the carpet in front of him only illuminated by the faint light reflected off the clouds over Metropolis. Raindrops stick to the large windows as they trickle down, and isn’t that ironic? Rain in Metropolis the night before Superman gets married.

“Thought I might find you here.” Laughter and yelling drift into the room before Bruce quietly shuts the door again.

“I just needed a minute to come to terms with the fact that we just... broke up, I think?”

Bruce stays in the middle of the room. “You knew that would happen. You chose.”

“I did.”

“Then stop with the guilt. I’ll be fine." His expresssion softens. "I have a kid to take care of now, too.”

“He’s great,” Clark smiles. “I know you will be.”

“Worried about yourself then?”

“I think I’ll just miss you. Miss this.”

Clark gets up and walks past Bruce. The glass of the window is cold under his touch, the street far below them. Bruce's fingertips white, his palm pressed flat again the glass, same view. He kisses Bruce's neck, tells him he loves him. He chooses those moments carefully, when it barely registers, when Bruce is almost physically unable to respond. But he makes sure he knows, anyway.

“Me too.” Bruce’s hand is on his arm now, turning Clark towards him. Bruce has captured him too, in many ways. But not all of them he loves.

(It’s hard to love Bruce Wayne. It’s hard not to love him.)

A tentative smile forms on Bruce’s face. “Last night as a free man, right?” Bruce’s offer is tempting, they’re already crowding each other’s space, heartbeats loud and it won’t take much more now. But that will only make it harder. Clark shakes his head. Still, he hugs Bruce closer, caresses his temple, mindful of the stitches on his brow. Bruce leans into the touch.

“Why does it feel so wrong to love two people, Bruce?”

Bruce huffs. “Society. Most people don’t have a big enough heart. Plus, partners cannot deal with the jealousy.”

“But you do.”

“I’m not Lois, nor is she me.”

They could never replace one another. Clark’s breathing feels restricted, his throat thick, in spite of Bruce’s comforting presence. “What if I don’t want to choose?”

“Then don’t.” Bruce’s hand moves up along Clark’s arm. “Then don’t.”

He isn’t sure who starts the kiss, but their noses touch, breathing the same air, lips brush. There’s no tongue. It’s not a start, not tonight. It’s an end.

“I’m sorry.” Sorry for loving you. Sorry for choosing Lois. Sorry for everything we did together.

“Don’t be.” Bruce is the one to make sure there is some breathing room between them again, his hand lingers. “You and I both know I've always been number two. And I... was okay with that. It was enough. In fact,” he chuckles. “It was almost too much.”

The cave is only illuminated by the blue light of the computer monitor as Clark lifts Bruce out of his chair, already fast asleep. Alfred watches from a distance and thanks Clark for arriving so fast. On those night, he sleeps next to Bruce, just to keep him in bed. On nights that Bruce pushes him away, stuck in a case and his anger almost palpable, even Superman admits defeat. Clark waits for him upstairs and eventually leaves through the window before dawn to go back to Metropolis, bed unslept in.

He’ll make sure Bruce is fine without him. Alfred knows who to call.

“I want to move out to the farm with them. Jon needs room to grow. Rao knows I did.” He smiles at the memories of Kansas, yellow fields and endless sky where he learnt to fly, where he could be himself.

“Stubborn. Thinking you can take Lois out of the city.” Bruce doesn’t know they’ve already talked about it. “But that’s good. I’ll make sure to visit with Dick and Alfred.”

“We can play baseball.” Outside, the rain has stopped, the sky slowly turning lighter.

Bruce throws him something as he walks back to the door. The key to the apartment. “Stay here tonight.”

“It’s morning.”

“Whatever. I’m going home, I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“Catch some sleep,” Clark tries before Bruce opens the door, but he’s already gone.

In the living room, the others are in various states of consciousness. John and J’onn, back in his alien form, are still wrapped up in their game of pool, Barry and Hal asleep on the couch and Jimmy and Pete passed out on the other. The coffee table between them is littered with beers and glasses. Oliver has his forehead on the cool marble of the kitchen island. He turns his face to Clark.

“Bruce just left without saying anything. What happened?”

Clark thinks, shrugs. “Not important. He gave me the key, we can stay here until we’re ready to go to the wedding in a couple hours.”

“A couple hours…” Oliver groans.

“Is that an early wedding gift, Clark?” John asks from over by the pool table.

Clark looks at the key in his hand. “No,” he chuckles. “I’m pretty sure he’ll want it back.”

“I’ll never understand the guy.”

“Don’t even try. That’s what we have Clark for,” Oliver says to the marble counter.

“I mean, I like to think I’ve got a pretty good grasp of him, but he surprises me too.” His soft insides contrasted by a hard shell, blackened by trauma and the night. His cryptic language that is like a puzzle for Clark to unfold, understand, reciprocate. They’ll still have that, have friendship. And the memories of time spent together.

In the distance, he hears Bruce’s heartbeat speeding back to Gotham. With him, doubt that leaves Clark, replaced with a light and excitement. He looks out the window up at the blue sky over the city. He’s getting married today.

He regards his friends, a bunch of gathered individuals, outcasts like himself who have found each other through Clark, through the purpose of trying to do good. “Who wants breakfast? I’ll go get eggs.”

[capsized-heart]

Lady Liberty and The Captain / Part One

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader (1940′s Brooklyn AU)

Summary: You are a rising young star and the newest breakout actress in Hollywood’s Golden Age! When war finally descends on the west, your reputation as America’s Sweetheart finds you cast in a promotional picture alongside Captain America himself.

Yet, he looks eerily familiar, like your Stevie from childhood…

Word count: 4.7k+

Warnings: fluff!!

A/N: hello, everyone!!!! I hope you’re staying home, warm, and safe during these crazy times. I’ve been snuggling with my doggie and continuing with my university’s online classes in my final semester..absolutely crazy how things are rn. I hope this new story can help brighten up your day just a little bit.

First of all, I just want to say thank you💖💛for all the love that old and new readers alike have shown this blog recently. I’ve been writing on this platform for a little less than a year and I never thought l’incendie would blow up as much as it has. You guys are amazing. I’m really excited and eager to share new pieces and hope you enjoy the content I have coming! Please don’t hesitate to pop in and say hi, or shoot me a message. I’ve really enjoyed connecting with readers and would love to know your thoughts on my fics, or just to talk about fandom stuff! Timmy included! PAHAHA

So, this chapter is gonna be a part of a mini-series for a 1940′s writing challenge and I’m using the prompt of wartime romance! This will probably be split into two or three parts and I will tag the host as soon as the last chapter goes up, I’ll most likely make a masterlist in the end as well. Reader has a name in this fic, but hopefully the choice of name will make sense later on :D

As always, feel free to drop a ask/message if you’d like a tag in the next update.

ENJOY!

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Film: ‘Apple of Discord’, Lola Swanson’s Dazzling Debut! 

By NICHOLAS WATTS                                                                                                                      September 1, 1943

----------

The film drama from the original screenplay written and directed by Andrew Campbell opened to a roar of applause and acclaim at the Radio City Music Hall yesterday evening. Apple of Discord is a reimagining of the myth and Plato’s allegory, focusing on the tumultuous, profoundly elegant life of a young noblewoman during the Trojan wars.  

The film’s frontrunner and leading lady is Hollywood newcomer, young and fresh-faced Lola Swanson. Swanson’s performance is so thoughtful, so unfaltering, so intelligent and controlled that it is hard to believe this is little Lola’s long awaited motion picture debut. And what a debut this is! 

Starring opposite Hollywood veterans Sean Schultz, Kash Dennis, and Gracie Smith, this star-studded cast packs punches and sizzling chemistry and yet, Swanson does not fizzle out but confidently holds her own, demanding your attention in every scene, and rightfully so. Watching Swanson in this picture is watching a major actress in the making. 

Born and raised in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen before moving to Brooklyn to pursue acting, some may recognize Lola from her daytime television roles in Insanity and Passion, It’s a Date! and as Jessica in Jessica Davis Returns.

Now we know these roles were preparing Swanson for the debut of the decade.   

“APPLE OF DISCORD” is now showing at the Radio City Music Hall and Cinema 2. Tickets at 25 cents. Running time: 139 minutes.

★★★★☆

——

APPLE OF DISCORD, written and directed by Andrew Campbell; director of photography, Laszlo Kovacs; edited by John Wright; music by John Barry; released by Universal Pictures.

----------

The newspaper trembles hard between your fingers, threatening to tear its edges. Pulse pounding, ears ringing. You can’t stop smiling. You feel like crying. 

You reread the words again and again, the words written by legendary film critic Nicholas Watts, the man you’ve only dreamed of making an impression on, that he’d someday see you in a picture. And here he’s written a glowing review of your major motion picture debut. 

You erupt in a fit of giggles and screams, twirling around the small space of your apartment in a swirl of nightgown, pinned curls. A neighbor, Mr. Krisinski, you think, pounds on your wall to shut you up. 

It’s still early morning and you had gone downstairs at first light to buy a paper from a newsboy. Outside your window, the streets of New York already yawn and bustle with morning commute. The movement of people, gleaming automobiles against the red brick buildings and muted gray of Manhattan. Warm sun washes over it all, your heart brimming and full, mirroring the glow of golden dawn. 

You feel on top of the world. Maybe you’ll finally make it here.

Your phone rings. You rush over to the mint blue rotary telephone on your bedside table, snatch up the receiver before Mr. Krisinski can break down your door with all the racket you’re making.

“Hello?” You say into the mouthpiece, cradling it between your hands. You feel breathless, high strung and buzzing, like you’d just downed a whole case of Coca-Cola, whirring with the taste of sugar and success, bubbling with starpower. Maybe it’s Kash or Gracie calling to congratulate you. Hell, maybe even President Roosevelt.

“Lola! It’s me. Have you read the paper?” The cool voice of Peggy asks you through the receiver. You quietly laugh at your own fantastical expectations. Of course it’s Peggy. Punctual, collected Peggy. 

Peggy Carter is your talent agent and manager at MGM. Peggy had snatched you up while you had been working as a background actress on Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, so hopeful and beholden just to be in the presence of such respected artists, willing to stay the extra hours even after the other girls had gone home when realizing they wouldn’t be seen in the shot. It hadn’t been your first time on a hot set, you were used to the itchy costumes, long hours of endless waiting, and the empty stomachs, but no way you were going to miss a chance to see Ingrid Bergman and Madeleine LeBeau up close. 

Back then, only a few years ago yet a lifetime away it seems, Peggy had been a casting assistant, seeing your dedication and marching right up to you between takes to hand you her card. On the back, written in smooth blue ink, a time the next morning for an audition at MGM Studios in downtown New York. Eight o'clock sharp. 

You didn’t sleep at all that night after you wrapped.

She’s worked at getting you into audition rooms and meetings for years, pushing you onto writers, production assistants, riggers, directors. She had secured you an audition with Andrew Campbell after “accidentally” leaving your headshot in his mailroom and later calling his assistant with threats of stolen property. MGM’s new fresh face had been penciled in for a side read the following week. 

Fierce, ingenious, and your own bright star, you’ve risen through the ranks and fought your way up with Peggy at your side. 

“Yeah, Peg. I have it here in front of me. This is...absolutely nuts.” 

“Not really, you were brilliant in the picture, darling. But it’s a comfort to know Watts has finally replaced that cotton in his brain with some sense.”

Another laugh from you, twirling the telephone cord around your finger.

“Let me have this one, Peg.”

“If you insist.” 

You hear the rustling of newspaper from the other end. You can practically see Peggy sitting at her desk, perusing the paper over a morning cup of coffee, her hair curled, makeup and nails all scarlet red and perfect. The golden placard glittering on the frosted glass of the door. 

Margaret Carter, Casting Director.

“I’m calling to tell you about an offer we received this morning from Paramount. I think you should take it.” 

That rush of giddiness burns bright again in your veins, pulse skyrocketing. 

“Paramount? Geez, what did they say?”

“They want you for a promotional picture that’s being produced by Senator Brandt. Brandt is hoping to boost the homefront’s war bond sales with a little starpower from you and from Captain America. You’ve seen his posters, haven’t you? That costumed bloke?”

You have. Plastered everywhere and looking like an absolute buffoon. Nice physique, though. 

The disappointment that settles in your stomach is ugly and cold, like a fruitless pit, hard, rough, a sour taste in your mouth. It’s stupidly childish, yet your own expectations for your first movie, first box office hit, for that very first taste of the promised fame and fortune of success, begin to blink out. Expectations you’ve held on to since you were a little girl, since you realized this is the type of work you want to do for the rest of your life.

You’ve managed to impress Nicholas Watts, the most cynical film critic in all of Hollywood, and this is your big break? A Paramount picture featuring you and a tights-wearing mascot?

Peggy is practically asking you to star alongside Mickey Mouse.

“Is that all they offered?” You respond. You wince at the demanding, ungrateful tone. Afterall, showbiz has hardened you to go after what you want, to take and take because this lifestyle does not guarantee anything. You’re told no more than you are yes, the constant rejection having molded you into a diamond tough girl, glitzy and solid, unbreakable, beautiful. 

But how many girls would kill to be in your place?

“The only sensible deal. They also offered you the role of Violet for It’s a Wonderful Life, and Ruthie in The Grapes of Wrath.”

“What?! Peggy, contract me for those instead!” 

“Well, I’m not going to. And you listen well as to why.”

You twist your lips together. Peggy’s voice filters clipped and disapproving through the phone line, the way she always gets before she offers you damned good advice. 

“Not just Watts is impressed with your work, Lola. You’re finally turning heads and for all good reasons. Anyone can get in front of a camera if they have the right look. But you’ve shown them that you have the look and the raw talent. Critics are saying you’re rivaling Judy Garland, darling. And you’re telling me you want the part of a lousy love interest? A secondary daughter? All because the pictures have big names behind them and people may go see it?

“No,” you mumble.

“No is right. You know better than anyone that people expect young stars to burn out fast so they can take their place. It’s all business. If I put you in for those roles, we’d be playing right into their hand. We’d use up all your potential in one summer. The public would get sick of seeing your face in every big picture. We have to earn their affection, darling. It’s slow and tame and not always glamorous, but this deal is smart.”

You listen, silently.

“Morale is low. War is when people turn to familiar pastimes and simple pleasures. To treat themselves, to take their minds off all the grizzly headlines. Captain America embodies all of that and more. If we take this, I promise you, Lola, that people will remember you as the girl who got them through the darkest times. This will do wonders for your career years down the line. And then, if you still want to play Violet, I’ll phone Frank Capra myself.” 

You close your eyes and draw in a breath, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. 

“Well, it looks like I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“Wonderful. I’ll phone Paramount now. We’ll be in touch.” 

--

Growing up with poor Irish immigrants for parents, the rare moments you could afford to splurge on luxuries, you spent them at local cinemas and theaters with your brother. Any day was a good one when you and Samuel bought tickets for a noon screening, the cheapest showing of the day, scraping together pocket change to split a popcorn if you were feeling extra special.

And reclining in a nearly empty theater with refreshments and goodies between the two of you, you’d watch the silver screen with hope in your mouth and stars in your eyes. In here, it no longer mattered how little money you had, or the discrimination your family faced, or the war in Europe, or the meager apartment you’d go home to, lucky if the electricity and heating had been paid for. In here, nothing else mattered but the visual stories. 

And you realized that you wanted to help tell them. You wanted to be in front of the cameras, to embody characters and personas and let audiences worldwide empathize and identify with your performances. 

You’ve loved playing make-believe since you were a little girl, having never really grown out of it. You could do it, you think. Dangerous dreams, perhaps, but what child doesn’t hold this wish within them? To see their name in lights and to be admired and commended, but most of all, to provide for their family?

 How hard could it be?

**

At sixteen, you land your first speaking role. It’s pathetic. You’re working on set as background, per usual, only this time, the director picks you out from the crowd and gives you the line of, “Good morning, sir.” You’re to look off camera as the actor playing Kent entered the scene and you would then say your line. 

You’re stupidly excited. Three simple words. You’ll be uncredited, of course, but your face would finally be seen! With butterflies fluttering in your stomach, the scene resets, Kent takes his mark, the cameras roll, and you deliver.

The scene is cut from the final reel. 

**

You pound the pavement. You scour newspapers and flyers for casting calls, you phone agencies and playhouses, you save up to get your picture taken on glossy photo paper. You keep looking. You keep working in background until you can land a steady role. 

Then, you finally get one. A miniscule part of a friendly neighborhood girl on a TV drama for CBS. You only have mere minutes of screen time, but the checks that arrive in the mail from Columbia Broadcasting System after your first few episodes air say otherwise. 

You open a savings account. You plant your paychecks and watch them grow into a comfortable sum of money. You land another guest starring role for a daytime soap, the secretary of the title character. Combined with your parents’ salaries from your mother’s sewing and your father’s work on the railroads, you become the main breadwinner.  

You move your family out of Hell’s Kitchen, out of your cramped, dark apartment. You sign a new lease under your new stage name and move to Brooklyn together. 

**

Brooklyn is slightly cleaner, but the familiar hustle and bustle, the noise of shopkeepers and dialects and children and cars is comforting, grounds you in your roots. When your CBS drama wraps months later with your last check in the mail and you’re looking for your next gig, your brother works odd jobs to help shoulder the burden. Brick laying, chimney sweeping, milk and mail delivering, Samuel becomes no stranger to any and all work, so long as it pays. You become a typist on the side as you wait for auditions and callbacks. 

Samuel tells you his aspirations to be a poet, a writer. He hasn’t said a word to your parents, but he shows you the small bound notebook he carries with him, leafing through pages of prose and verse. You encourage him to submit his work to newspapers, publishers. He gives you a shy smile, says he’ll consider it as soon as you get your motion picture debut. You shake on it. Together, your already close bond of brother and sister grows stronger as you each work to support your art.

**

You’re waiting for Samuel to finish his shift so you can catch a late showing of His Girl Friday, a warm September day when you first meet Bucky Barnes down at the wharfs. He’s tall, lean, and glistening with sweat when he rounds out of the warehouse with an armful of crates and nearly knocks you off the pier.

“Hey, watch it!” he snaps. His eyes flash like the water around you, blue and cold and dangerous. Brown locks curl with perspiration against his forehead, the sleeves of his workshirt rolled up over his shoulders, the exposed skin of his throat and arms flushed and tan. 

Embarrassed, you try to steady him, to which he growls in annoyance and spins out of your reach. He makes a great show of bearing the weight himself, grumbling as he sets down his load. You don’t miss the way the muscles in his back flex and dip. It isn’t until he slowly stands back up, wiping his palms on his khakis, that you get a good look at each other.

The hostility in his eyes softens ever so slightly, simmering into a look that cinches your chest tight when his gaze travels shamelessly up from your kitten heels to the curves of your lips and cheek. His breathing is still labored as he surveys you and you can feel heat and color blooming against your skin. When his eyes finally settle on your face, you can’t decide whether you want to slap or kiss him. 

“You lost or something, honey?” He asks with a whisper of a smile. He strolls in a lazy half-circle in front of you and moves to go back up the ramp to the warehouse. Then, he pauses and turns back to you.

“Have we met before? I swear I recognize you from somewhere.”

This delights you deliciously, that a handsome young man you’ve met by chance has seen your work. Not glamorous, acclaimed roles by any means, but recognition nonetheless. You bite the inside of your lip to suppress your smile and give him a coy, bashful flutter of your eyelashes.

“If that were the case, I’m sure I’d remember you.” 

He grins wolfishly, pleased, and takes a step closer. “Yeah? Think you’ll let me take you out for dinner tonight?”

“She’s got plans with me, Buck.” Samuel’s voice carries across the water. Your brother emerges with wooden boxes and sets them between you and Bucky in a huff, as if he’s implementing a physical barrier, both childish and endearing. Bucky glances at you and Samuel.

“Are you two..?”

“Steady? No. She’s my sister.”

Bucky snorts and his eyes find you again, glittering in the evening light. “You never told me you had a sister, Sammy. And such a looker too..”

“Makes you wonder why I never brought her up,” retorts Samuel and gives him a playful shove, traps him briefly in a headlock. “At least Steve wouldn’t ogle.”

“Stevie would get a nose bleed and pass out.” You hear Bucky grunt back. Samuel moves as if to dump him into the drink and Bucky pinwheels, scrambling. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Satisfied, Samuel releases him and socks him in the shoulder for good measure. Bucky stumbles, looking boyish and smooth despite his shirt and hair all disheveled. 

You’ve seen his type in casting offices all across New York; bold, alluring, and charismatic. It’s a look and type you’ve longed to act opposite of someday, as all young starlets dream of, but a look that simultaneously sparks the feminine temptation that shivers between your breasts. You wonder if Bucky would look the same in a dark bedroom, with him on top of you and your fingers running over his back…

Bucky grins toothily when he catches you staring and shoots you a wink. None of those movie star hopefuls hold a candle now to his rugged, spirited charm.

Samuel guides you back up the pier so he can punch out his time card and the two of you can be on your way. And as you’re about to set foot on solid ground, you hear Bucky call out to you.

“What’s your name, honey?” 

Samuel sighs and shakes his head. “Cripes.” He mutters to himself. Before Samuel can stop you, you laugh and turn back to the water with a fresh and girlish aire, warmth and excitement whispering through your veins, young and naive and sixteen.  

“Dolores!” You give him your full name, your real name. For once, you don’t want to be Lola Sparks. You want to be your natural, honest self, the girl who deserves young love and joy and an untroubled adolescence. The sound of your voice rings clear and strong, the diva that you are, and Bucky’s mouth curves upwards.

“See you ‘round, Dot.” 

**

Much to Samuel’s displeasure, you tail your big brother around the docks like a lost pup whenever you have time. And being a C-list actress and a part-time typist, you have plenty of it. You loiter with the excuse of bringing sack lunches, waiting on Samuel and Bucky at the edge of the warehouses. It’s lonesome and bores you to no end being all by yourself, until one afternoon when someone is already waiting at your spot by the pier.

Small, skinny as his own shadow with a fringe of blonde hair, he leans hunkered and folded within himself, timid and seemingly conscious of how he occupies space. His jacket droops over his shoulders, eyes downcast even as you approach. He has a sketchbook in his hands, concentrated as the pencil moves across the page in fast, gentle strokes. You see an impressive likeness of the piers and Bucky’s distant figure in charcoaled lines.

“That’s really something.” You say.

He jolts so hard the paper tears and he crumples it into his fist in a single motion. “Huh?” he answers. When he looks to you, you realize his eyes are a pretty shade of teal. He flushes, petrified, the tips of his ears coloring pink. You feel horrible when he goes to pocket the ball of paper.

“I’m so sorry for scaring you,” you breathe. Gently, you offer your palm to him. “If you’re not keeping it, do you mind if I have it?” You ask softly. A few seconds pass and he shakes his head before placing it in your hand. You unfurl the paper, carefully smooth it out as he watches you from the corner of his eye. 

Shyness is a barrier of art you’ve known all too well, from your own experiences in audition rooms to your brother’s reluctance to find a publisher, you understand that sting of insecurity better than anyone. So, you let him watch you as you admire his work, let him know of his talent and let your actions speak for you. You smile and slip the drawing into your purse. 

Then, his stomach grumbles audibly, almost comically loud. He folds his arms around his stomach, so tight you’re afraid he’ll snap in half. You quickly reach into one of your paper bags and hand him a sandwich wrapped in cellophane and a can of lemonade. 

“Here, let’s trade.” 

“That’s awfully kind of you, but I can’t accept..” he starts. The timbre of his voice is surprisingly gallant and sure, pleasant, sweet. You have a gut feeling that the world has been taking advantage of that kindness his whole life, scaring him away from genuine compassion, that everything must have a catch. It makes you press harder.

“I insist. Please. It’s the least I can do for sneaking up on you.” He eyes you warily and again that feeling of regret washes over you. “Consider it payment.” You smile. 

Finally, he takes Samuel’s lunch from you and unwraps the sandwich. He eats quickly and quietly, draining the lemonade only minutes later. Perhaps it’s his bony statue, but you feel happy to see this stranger eat.

When he’s finished, he wipes his mouth and turns to you. His lips, pretty, pink, part as if about to speak, yet no words leave him. Instead, he stands frozen with that transfixing blue-green gaze keeping you still, lingering. 

That is until a stream of brilliant scarlet red dribbles down his chin and splatters onto his dress shirt. He pinches his nose, doubling forward and his flustered complexion matching the blood spilling from his nostrils.

“You must be Steve,” You laugh lightly and quickly hand him your handkerchief of cream yellow lace and embroidered flowers. You help steady him as he keeps his head tilted down. “Bucky’s told me all about you.”

Steve groans and presses the handkerchief to his face, blushing all the way down to his neck. 

**

Steve returns your handkerchief days later with an embarrassed hush, carefully cleaned and laundered. It smells of lavender and clean linen and the image of him working the fabric between his thin fingers with soap and suds warms your heart. 

You tell him it’s his. He blooms and keeps it neatly folded in his breast pocket. 

You and Steve quickly grow close in the hours you spend together waiting on Bucky and Samuel. You pack extra lunches for him and sit by the piers chatting, skipping stones as Steve sketches the Brooklyn skyline day in and day out.

“Draw me!” you tease. “Isn’t that the request that all artists want to hear?”

But surprisingly, he does. He always draws you and Bucky and Samuel with striking, intimate familiarity. His sketchbook gradually fills with portraits and pictures of you, sketches that could put your very headshot to shame.

**

After their usual shifts, the four of you head to the drugstore for your ritual of sodas and sundaes. Two pairs, brother and sister and brothers by blood enjoying a rare wartime treat. With the rations on sugar, it’s a special and memorable circumstance just to be together and sharing something sweet.

It’s there, at your corner booth in Wolfe’s Pharmacy over ice cream, that Bucky opens up a paper for that night’s television network schedule and sees your name. 

His eyebrows shoot up. “Dot,” he says. “What do others call you?”

Defeated, you twist your lips, hesitant to break the short spell of normalcy you’ve had with your new friends. Samuel sips at his Coke with a silent grin. 

Time for the truth to come out.

“Well, ‘doll’, by Stevie,” you giggle and toe Steve’s foot under the table. Steve shyly shrinks back into his seat. “But CBS calls me Lola.”

Bucky’s jaw drops. 

“Get out of here. You’re pulling my leg..”

“I absolutely am not.”

“Sammy, tell me she’s pulling my leg.”

“She’s not.”

Two pairs of brilliant blue eyes dart between you and your brother. Bucky’s face breaks into an open smile, laughing. Steve lurches forward. 

“Have you ever met anyone famous?” Steve prods with a hint of that honest, innocent charm.  

You wrinkle your nose sheepishly. “Mason Cook?”

“Who?” Bucky asks around a mouthful of sundae.

“Exactly.” Samuel snorts.

“Well, I’m sure he’s very talented.” Says Steve.

You swipe his maraschino cherry and let the stem dangle between your lips. “At least Stevie believes in me.” 

“Dot, honey. I saw your pilot episode. If anyone’s a fan, it’s me.” Bucky feigns hurt, hand to his chest. 

You stick out your bottom lip before sucking in the stem, working it into a tight knot in your mouth. “Are you still gonna be when your girl is signing autographs with John Wayne?”

You place the knotted stem on your napkin. Bucky nearly chokes. 

“I better be.”

Samuel coughs. Steve giggles. 

**

You thank your stars that your secret doesn’t change anything between Steve and Bucky. They treat you just the same; as Samuel’s baby sister who tags along with the boys. The teasing, the fleeting looks all unchanging. 

Girls, you’ve unfortunately realized, are catty and mean. You’re competing for roles, after all. But with Bucky and Steve, your first taste of homecoming since moving to Brooklyn, you don’t have to worry about silly competition, or fame, or being the best in the room. They keep you level-headed, reminding you of your girlhood and life’s simple pleasures.

Bucky drives you and Steve around town in the company truck on weekends. Hopscotch and jacks on brick roads and warm nights, watching sunsets until the sky blushes peach and mango yellow at Coney Island. 

A Saturday afternoon on Rockaway Beach, a vacation for you all after a draining week of work and auditions when Bucky promises to win you a stuffed bear when he sees you eyeing the one on careful display. 

“Buck..Bucky, give it a rest, we can try the next one.” Steve chides.

Another plastic ring pings off the neck of a glass bottle. Bucky curses, rings his hands together and slaps another dollar onto the counter.

You and Steve trade looks. Bucky’s been at it for ten minutes. At this rate, you know you’ll be walking on the train tracks home tonight.

So, you and Steve huddle close and cheer him on. Do it for our doll! says Steve. Finish it so you’ll stop wasting money, you dolt! you cry. Hell, even the vendor finds it humorous and joins in.

And when Bucky wins that grand prize and you’re handed a teddy bear as big as Stevie, you hoist it on your back, careful to not let it touch gravel or dust as the three of you walk in line with the train tracks later that evening.

Paradise, a sheltered haven from the broken landscapes and realities that the European newsreels broadcast home in grim black and white. 

**

True to Bucky’s word, they become your biggest supporters, helping you run lines and monologues and accompanying you to auditions. Bucky’s not bad for a scene partner, and Steve’s awareness of emotion and character motivation is impressive.

The attention you receive from casting directors and auditionees doesn’t hurt your chances either, lanky Steve and smoldering Bucky wishing you luck before stepping into the green room.

You book a drama. Then, a short film. Then another. You call them your lucky charms. 

And when your humble little short film “premiers” at the corner cinema, squeezed in between an empty noon showing of a cartoon rerun, Steve and Bucky whoop and holler when your character is shown on screen. They throw popcorn and gumdrops, jostle you by the shoulders. Bucky even runs down the aisle and mimes kissing the projector screen.

“That’s our girl! That’s our Dot!”

The usher threatens to throw you out. Steve tells him you’ve paid good money for your tickets and you’ll stay and watch as long as you please.

The following week, you’re scouted by Peggy Carter. 

Your world, your career will never be the same.