![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batsutousaiTitle: Nobly Save or Meanly Lose
Series: Overprotective Criminals 'Verse
Fandom: CW's The Flash
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Barry Allen/Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, canon ships
Warnings: Established relationship, polyamory, canon-typical violence, pile 'o OCs, bigotry & hate-language, identity reveal, Barry wants to save everyone
Summary: Five times Barry Allen helps out other metahumans while out of costume, and one time he helps them as the Flash.
Disclaim Her: Not mine.
A/N: I started and binned the start of this fic a half-dozen times, ugh. It's a bit OC-heavy, sorry, because most of the canon metas are either enemies of the Flash, or else we've already met them as part of Barry's team.
The timeline stretches through the first season of the show, and into the potential start of the second; Wellsobard's will is brought up, but it can be assumed that was opened sooner than in canon, as Barry doesn't avoid everyone, legal attorneys included, once Len and Mick get him back to Central in this AU.
As a head's up, unlike the rest of this fic, the +1 is third person omniscient, because I wanted to be able to explain why the OCs react the way they do.
With thanks, as ever, to my lovely beta reader and cheering squad, StillNotGinger10.
This chapter follows directly after the events of A Distraction of Ice and Fire (this AU's alternate version of episode 10 Revenge of the Rogues).
It does include an OC being very anti-metahuman, with a side of internalised meta-racism in our titular OC.
You can also read this at Archive of Our Own or LiveJournal.
It's something of an unspoken rule, among the long-term residents of the streets bordering mob territory, that if you see another resident in trouble with the police or mob, you do what you can to help them out.
Which, well, Barry can't always involve himself when it's the police, since he wants to keep his job, and he knows enough about his 'neighbors' to step back and let his co-workers do their jobs at least half the time. And, too, once they make it into the precinct, he can't really do a whole lot to help them out. But there have been a couple of times when he's 'accidentally' spilled coffee on a cop just outside the precinct or while waiting for the lift on the ground floor, and the 'neighbor' involved – usually caught shoplifting or pickpocketing, though he's also rescued a couple of working women he met while he was staying in the flat on the edge of the red-light district with Len and Mick – would make a run for it and deal with their handcuffs once they're well away from any police.
(Becoming the Flash made that unspoken rule a bit more complicated, because part of his job – in costume, at least – was stopping muggings and burglaries, whether they were his 'neighbors' or no. He'd eventually settled on only passing them to the police if a weapon was involved, and taking his time comforting the victim if the criminal was unarmed, which usually gave them time to at least find a hiding place he could 'overlook'. Which, well, he hadn't been called out by his team about letting small-time criminals get away, the handful of times he'd done so while on comms, and he'd never heard it mentioned around the precinct or at Saints and Sinners, so that became his new normal.)
A couple of days after Len and Mick start playing supervillains, as Barry is walking out of the bullpen after giving Charlie Conwell the lab report for one of his cases – the detective was one of the older set who still preferred paper copies of reports over emailed copies – he happens to see a familiar face being shoved out of the lift. And, for all he'd usually turn away and keep his head down, this 'neighbor' is a kid. And, he realizes as he spots the small mottled-brown wings on his back, a metahuman.
Barry doesn't need to see the way people's faces twist when they notice the wings, or the way the officer holding him is roughly shoving him forward, to know the kid isn't going to get a fair treatment. His stomach churns, because he doesn't know the kid's name, but he knows enough about him to know he's a small-time pickpocket, making just enough to buy himself some real food a couple times a week; he doesn't deserve the shit he's about to get dumped on him for being a metahuman in a city that's only just starting to realize that there are people with powers who want to make things better, instead of worse.
So Barry swallows down bile and forces a smile onto his face as he steps forward, calling, "Little Birdie! It's a little early for lunch!"
The kid's head comes up and his eyes go wide as he sees Barry, and Barry can't tell if he's recognized him or thinks he's going to make things worse, and that aches.
The cop shoving him along, though, stops and blinks at Barry in what's very obviously confusion. "You know this freak, Allen?"
The kid flinches, ducking his head down and rounding his shoulders forward, the picture of shame. Even his wings droop, the top edges vanishing behind his shoulders.
"He's not a freak," Barry hears himself snap. "He's a kid."
"Yeah. With wings," the officers insists.
"So what?" Barry shoots right back, furious.
He opens his mouth to continue – and, he'll realize once he's calmed down, probably out himself as the Flash – when Joe says, from behind him, "You gonna be calling the Flash that, Anderson? 'Cause he's got superspeed."
The officer – Anderson – turns a sickly sort of pale and shakes his head.
Joe pats Barry's shoulder. "That's what I thought. Now, what's the kid in for?"
"I–" Anderson looks between Barry and Joe, then down at the kid and doesn't continue.
"Someone saw his wings and freaked out," Barry guesses.
"He was panhandling," Anderson says in the same tone Barry and Iris used to use when they knew they were wrong, but were still trying to validify their misbehavior to Joe. (Any more, neither of them bother trying to excuse themselves, just ignore Joe's disapproval as best they can and keep right on.)
"Uncuff him," Singh orders from somewhere behind Barry, because panhandling isn't a crime. (Neither is being a metahuman, though Barry expects it's going to take a while before the people of Central City actually believe that. Maybe once the Flash becomes less of an urban legend, people will be willing to accept that not all metahumans are looking to use their abilities to commit crimes, like Nimbus and Tony.)
As soon as the kid is free, he runs to Barry. Whether because he recognizes him or because he knows who his strongest ally is, Barry doesn't really know, and he doesn't particularly care, pulls him into a hug all the same, which the kid returns with a sob that sounds relieved.
Singh gives him a moment before calling, "Allen."
Barry swallows and turns to look at his boss, keeping a protective hand on the kid's shoulders. "Captain?" he says, and feels the kid tense and shift like he's trying to hide behind him.
Singh casts a quick glance at the kid, then focuses on Barry. "Do you know his parents?"
"Ah, no. I've never met them," Barry says honestly, squeezing the kid's shoulder because he flinches at the mention of parents; he has a sinking suspicion that his parents are very much not in the picture any more. "But he lives in my neighborhood."
Singh raises an eyebrow at him, and Barry winces, because the address the precinct has on file for him is Joe's. And no way this kid lives in that neighborhood, not if he's begging on the streets. Still, Singh doesn't call him on it, instead saying, "Have a word with his parents; they may not be aware he's spending his days panhandling."
"Yes, sir."
Singh nods, then turns and makes a few pointed comments about how there should be work getting done, which scatters most of the gawkers.
"I've got this, Joe," Barry says before his foster dad can start asking any pointed questions about where he lives or what he's going to do with the kid.
Joe shoots him a look that says he sees right through him. But he's not going to make a scene in the station – as much as he disapproves of Barry's personal life, he's usually pretty good about keeping that behind closed doors, which Barry appreciates – so he just nods and suggests, "Why don't you take an early lunch, today?"
"Yeah, I think I will," Barry agrees. Then he ducks his head to try and meet the kid's eyes, which is made more complicated by him hiding tight against Barry's side with his head down. "Hey. Where's your coat?" Because it's way too cold out to be panhandling without a coat. "Or hoodie?" he corrects, because he has a vague recollection of seeing the kid wearing one the few times he's seen him.
"Gone," the kid whispers, sounding ashamed.
Barry has a sinking suspicion that the coat or hoodie was lost when his wings were revealed. "Well, I've got an extra up in my lab you can borrow. Okay?"
The kid looks up at him, then, his brow furrowed with confusion. "Lab? You're not a cop?"
Barry smiles a bit and shakes his head, even as he starts walking, and his smile widens a bit when the kid walks with him without any fuss. "Nah. I'm a CSI. One of the lab geeks who looks over the evidence found at a crime scene and handles the science side of the investigation."
"Is it fun?"
"I think so. But it can be frustrating at times, too. When there's no evidence, or the officers and detectives screw up my samples," he adds a bit drily, because the latter had happened a couple of days ago, and he's still suffering the blame game because some officers can't accept that it was their fault that the sample is completely useless.
The kid lets out a quiet giggle and straightens a bit. Like he's maybe relaxing in Barry's presence.
Barry grins at him, pleased, and leads the way into his lab. He makes a beeline for his locker, where he pulls out his coat. "This okay?" he asks, holding it out.
The kid looks startled, like he hadn't expected Barry to actually give him his coat. (Or, else, he's surprised at how nice it is? It was a gift from Iris a couple years ago, so it looks a little nicer than most of the stuff Barry buys for himself.) He does take it, though, after a moment of hesitation, and pulls it on with careful motions. "It's warm," he says, hugging it around himself.
"Yeah," Barry agrees, smiling. "It's a good coat. It's not bothering your wings, is it?" Because the kid's pretty thin, but so is Barry, and he doesn't know how much room his wings need.
The kid sort of ducks his head and shrugs. "Yeah."
Barry watches him for a moment, looking for any signs that the fit's uncomfortable, because he's spent enough time around people who will just suffer in silence to have a good idea of what to look for. But the kid doesn't shift like it's bothering him, so he nods to himself and pulls out a couple of the many, many S.T.A.R. Labs sweatshirts he has – he keeps forgetting them at home or in his lab and then needing another while he's at S.T.A.R. Labs, which he never thinks to bring back, so he needs another one, and so it goes – to pull on.
"S.T.A.R. Labs?" the kid asks, sounding disgusted.
Barry pauses in the act of pulling down the second sweatshirt and blinks down at himself. "Ah." Yeah, he expects most metahumans aren't as cool with the building that made them what they are. And since he doesn't want to explain his particular relationship with the building, he says, "You wouldn't believe how cheap these things are."
The kids snorts at that and crosses his arms over his chest. "Bet I would."
Okay, he probably would. Though, given Barry doesn't actually know how much the local thrift shops are giving them away for, he lets the topic alone, instead offering his hand. "I'm Barry, by the way. I've seen you around, but I don't actually know your name."
The kid blinks a couple times, then reaches out to take his hand and give it a quick shake. "I'm Angel. Are you–? I mean, I didn't know there was a co– a not-cop living..." He trails off with a complicated frown, probably as uncertain what to call their neighborhood as Barry is. Because it's not quite slums, really, because it was originally part of the business district, but it's pretty run-down and abandoned by everyone but the handful of criminals who don't want anything to do with the Families. (The police jokingly refer to it as 'no man's land', while the media's in the habit of calling it some variation on 'the badlands'. The Families, of late, have started to call it 'Cold's territory', from what Barry's heard, and a part of him hopes that catches on.)
Barry grimaces himself. "I'm living with my boyfriend," he offers as an explanation, because he's not going to be giving any names or discussing criminal histories in the precinct, no matter how sound-proof his lab door is. He shakes his head, then says, "I wasn't actually joking about the lunch, if you want something to eat?"
Angel startles. "What? I mean, you don't really– You helped me, that's, that's enough, right? You don't have to eat with me."
Barry frowns, confused by what he'd said. "This isn't a neighborhood obligation," he says, assuming that's where this is coming from; helping each other out with the police is one thing, but buying lunch is a little different for most of the people who live in that area. If only because those who can afford to pay for more than themselves are few and far between. (And almost always wanted by the police for something worse than a bit of pickpocketing.)
Angel snorts. "Like anyone in the neighborhood would eat with me." He motions to his back, then shrinks in on himself a bit, like he just admitted to something dirty.
Barry feels bile climbing his throat again and he hates that the anti-metahuman sentiment in the city is ruining something that should be awesome for this kid. Because, seriously, who wouldn't want wings? Given, they don't look like they're big enough for flight, but they're still cool.
(He hates, so much, Nimbus and Tony and Mardon and all the other criminal metahumans who have made having powers or wings a bad thing.)
He swallows down a spike of fear and holds out his hand, making it vibrate for a second, just long enough that Angel's eyes go wide with shock. "I'll always eat with you," he promises quietly.
"You're like me?!"
"Yeah. Lunch?"
They do end up going out for lunch together, and Barry picks somewhere relatively nice, but where they won't look at Angel funny when he refuses to take off his coat, because Barry knows that need to keep his metahuman-ness hidden. Barry keeps Angel entertained with stories of police being dumb and the weirdest crime scenes he's been to while they eat. He doesn't ask about where the kid is from or his family, because he suspects those questions won't be met with smiles.
He walks Angel back to the edge of the neighborhood after lunch, and when Angel makes to take the coat off, Barry touches his shoulder and shakes his head. "Keep it. I'm due for a new one, anyway." He offers a smile. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure my sister, who gave that to me, would really like that it's gone to someone who'll appreciate it."
Angel hugs the coat around himself again, like Barry's seen him do half a dozen or so times since he first put it on. "You sure?"
"Absolutely," Barry promises, then waves for Angel to go on, so he hurries off with a wave.
On his way back to the precinct, Barry shoots off a text to his boyfriends, so neither of them see Angel wearing the coat and corner him about it.
And, when he sees Angel in the neighborhood after that, he always smiles and waves. And Angel, looking a little like he can't believe someone's willing to do so, always waves back. And he is always, always wearing Barry's old coat.
AN: The title of this fic comes from the closing of Abraham Lincoln's second annual message to congress on 1st December 1862, one month before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law:
'I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed to the Congress of the nation by the Chief Magistrate of the nation, nor do I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you have more experience than I in the conduct of public affairs. Yet I trust that in view of the great responsibility resting upon me you will perceive no want of respect to yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to display.
'Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosperity and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here--Congress and Executive can secure its adoption? Will not the good people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure these vital objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not "Can any of us imagine better?" but "Can we all do better?" Object whatsoever is possible, still the question recurs, "Can we do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
'Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.'
Part One: Criminal Partners
Part Two: A Distraction of Ice and Fire
Part Three: Relationship Status
1/Cisco Ramon || 2/David Singh || 3/Felicity Smoak || 4/Eddie Thawne || 5/Henry Allen
Part Four: Whatever Happens Here, We Remain
One ||| Two ||| Three
Part Five: Nobly Save or Meanly Lose
+1/Flash Day
Part Six: The Trials of the Hero's Beleaguered Captain
.
