![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batsutousaiTitle: Only Half the Rainbow
Fandom: CW's The Flash & Legends of Tomorrow
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Barry Allen/Mick Rory, Barry Allen/Iris West, Barry Allen/Mick Rory/Leonard Snart
Warnings: Soulmate AU, canon character death, grief, PTSD, alcohol dependency, verbal abuse, canon-typical violence, slow burn, happy ending
Summary: The thing no one ever tells you about being the hero, is that you always lose something when you're saving the day. And, some days, when you finally make it home, it turns out you've lost the only thing that ever mattered.
Disclaim Her: Not mine.
A/N: My original intention for this soulmate AU – I also have another one I'll get around to eventually – was, uh, way less angsty than this one. My muse (as muses tend to do) insisted this plot was a far better one. I may yet fire him. *eye roll*
This fic touches briefly on pre-canon, when Mick and Len met in juvie, before jumping to the end of both season 2 of The Flash and season 1 of Legends of Tomorrow, while ignoring the lead-ups to the next seasons. Basically, Len and Henry are both dead, and both Mick and Barry are grieving. They do not always handle this well. (Who am I kidding? They're both complete and utter messes and it'll be a miracle if they don't bring an end to their universe in the process. XD)
Because it's canon, yes, Barry has feelings for Iris, and that comes up a few times. However, ultimately, they don't have a relationship.
Mick and Barry are both in a shitty place when they meet up. They do a lot of blaming themselves (and Mick says, at one point, that Len's death is Barry's fault, to his face, just to hurt him), and violence occurs on at least one occasion between them. Please read responsibly.
A thousand thanks and much love to StillNotGinger10, who kindly agreed to play beta when I sprung this monster on her at the last minute.
You can also read this at Archive of Our Own or LiveJournal. A really shitty cover I made can be found on tumblr.
Chapter One
-0-
The only reason Mick had saved the new kid, honestly, was because he hated Dickie after he'd reported Mick's stolen lighter, and he was the fucker who had the kid cornered. So he'd grabbed the back of Dickie's collar, dodged the shiv Dickie swung at his belly by the skin of his teeth, and punched out two of the fucker's teeth.
Dickie and his little gang of assholes hadn't wasted much time in making themselves scarce, because only idiots thought they could take Mick in a fight.
The kid, who had a busted lip and would probably be sporting one hell of a shiner soon as it finished coloring, straightened and shot him a cute little glare. (Mick suspected he thought he looked scary, or something. He didn't, though. Was too pretty.) "Didn't need your help," the kid snapped.
And then he pushed away from the wall, took a step, and crumpled with a gasp.
Mick caught him without really thinking how it might turn out – best case, he got snarled at, worst case, he got a shiner to match the kid's – already opening his mouth for a smart line about the kid doing just fine on his own. Except the grey world around him twisted and changed, filling in with that mysterious 'color' that so many people seemed to think was the best thing in the world.
The kid gasped out a curse, grabbing for Mick's arm and squeezing tight, his eyes – hues of color changing the grey into something slightly different – wide and disbelieving.
"What?" Mick heard himself ask, a little belated.
The kid's name – Mick's soulmate, holy fuck – was Lenny Snart. He was only in for a couple months, first offence. (Though not, Mick would discover soon enough, his first crime. Also not his fault he was caught, because he is a damn good thief, given how Mick's got a new lighter within ten minutes of Lenny finding out he wants one.) Mick's gonna be in for longer, but he promised to find Lenny soon as he was back on the outside. And, so long as they were both on the inside, they watched each other's backs. (And Mick somehow ended up with a hoard of lighters, because Lenny took to pickpocketing any guards he saw with one; Mick had a sinking suspicion he was halfway in love with the clever little wretch by the time Lenny got out.)
Mick did hunt Lenny down once he got out, and the first time he saw Lewis smack Lenny, he almost returned the favor. (Lenny stopped him, just barely in time. And it was only the quiet warning that anything Mick did to Lewis, Lenny or his baby sister would get in return, that kept Mick back the many, many times after. Didn't stop him from keeping a record, though, because he fully planned to report the fucker soon as Lenny was old enough to take his sister. Didn't end up needing to, in the end, because another one of Lewis' shitty plans ended him in the slammer for a long while.)
Mick and Lenny both, in their own time, found out that they couldn't actually see all colors. But it took them almost three years before they admitted as much to each other. (Even then, it was only because Lenny needed someone who saw colors he couldn't see that it came up. Thankfully, they saw different colors – Lenny saw reds and oranges, while Mick saw blues and purples – so they hadn't needed to hunt down another criminal who saw colors.)
"There aren't any reports of people only being able to see half the colors," Lenny told him that night, when the darkness of their bedroom made the conversation feel a little less forbidden. "I did a search at the library soon as I figured it out."
Mick had done something similar, though his way had involved more asking around about old wives' tales about soulmates, because reading was hard for him, and he hated having to ask for help. (Hated having to explain it to Lenny, too, but Lenny hadn't mocked him about it. Had just taken to working that into his plans, same as he'd been doing with his own partial colorblindness, without anyone realizing he was doing it.)
"Maybe there's someone else?" Mick suggested, because that seemed the most sensible explanation.
Lenny scoffed. "Someone else? Like, what? Some pretty little girl between us?"
Mick knew Lenny'd be making a disgusted face, because while Mick liked looking at girls sometimes, Lenny didn't. He could play the part for a con – Mick'd seen him do it a half a dozen times since he'd met back up with him on the outside – but he was very much only into guys. "Maybe it's another guy," he said.
Lenny was quiet for a long minute, then he said, "We don't need anyone else." And that was that.
(It didn't stop Mick from wondering, sometimes, what their third was like. Who they were. What sort of criminal record they had. What their gender was. If they looked more pretty, like Lenny, or rough, like Mick. If they'd be more inclined towards using their fists or their brain.)
In the end, it didn't matter, because Lenny sacrificed himself to save all of time while he could still only see half the colors. And Mick, still struggling with lifetimes of loneliness and abandonment, would burn an immortal dictator like he thought it would fill the hole in his chest, then find a pub and drink until the bartender kicked him out, because if fire didn't help, it was better to just not be.
The victory against Zoom was a hollow one, for Barry. Yes, his city – the whole multiverse – was safe, but his dad was dead. And Iris might believe she'd finally got over Eddie's death enough to give Barry a shot, but it still felt like it was just her pity making her offer. And that...
Barry wasn't strong enough for a relationship with anyone, let alone his best friend and long-time crush.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the group sitting around the living room on the other side of the window, because he was about to change all of their lives. And then he turned and ran.
He headed for S.T.A.R. Labs first, because he'd need the suit for the sorts of speeds he was aiming for. Except, about six blocks from the building, he tripped over something and desperately circled his arms to keep from faceplanting as he stumbled back into normal speed.
His right hand hit something, and someone called, "Goddammit!"
"Shit, I'm so sor–" Barry started as he managed to catch his balance and twisted to look at his unintentional victim. Except he knew that face.
More importantly, that face was in color.
Despite the long shadows of the night, the hue of not-grey skin was obvious, and Barry couldn't stop himself from staring in disbelief. He'd resigned himself, back in college, to never finding his soulmate, because most people had found their other half by the time they hit twenty, if they were going to meet them, and Barry'd had his heart set on Iris, anyway, even though he knew they weren't soulmates. (Not that you had to marry your soulmate; Barry'd heard plenty of stories of people falling in love with and marrying someone else long before their soulmate came along. Or them only ever really being friends with their soulmate, so they both married someone else – or no one at all – and just stayed in each other's lives as friends.)
Mick Rory met his eyes and the snarl that had been curling his lips – Barry had hit him, after all – vanished as his mouth fell open.
Barry couldn't really say what sort of response he'd been expecting – maybe an exclamation of surprise, or a shocked curse, or something – but it definitely wasn't for Rory to take a step back, throw back his head, and shout to the sky, "Y'can't fuckin' do this t'me!"
"Uhm... Rory?" Barry tried, confused.
"Fuck off, kid," Rory snapped at him, before adding, clearly to whatever inexplicable thing or being or whatever he'd just yelled at, "I ain't havin' nothin' t'do with some kid."
"Hey! I'm not happy about this, either!" Barry snapped.
And then he realized what he'd just said as Rory turned a flat stare on him. "I mean– Oh, shit. Like, you're a criminal."
Rory's face was flatly blank for a long moment, and then he let out a laugh that sounded a little bitter. "Oh, he's laughin', ain't he?"
"He who? Snart?" Barry guessed, because he didn't actually know much about Rory. (Or Snart, if he was being honest.) Except that he hung around with Snart.
"Yup," Rory said, expression twisted with some emotion that made Barry's stomach churn, though he couldn't quite tell what it was.
"Wh-where is he?" Barry had to ask, glancing around. Because, shit, as soon as Snart found out Barry and Rory were soulmates, things were going to get seriously complicated.
"Dead," Rory said, the word falling like a bomb between them.
Something in Barry's chest seized and he stumbled back a step, because what? Snart was–?
Given, he was a criminal, and he'd seemed to get a kick out of shit like playing cat-and-mouse with Barry, so of course he'd die eventually. But he'd been so large, almost indomitable, and Barry couldn't–
First his dad, and now Snart? It shouldn't have hurt – Snart was his enemy – but it did. Different from watching the life fade from his dad's eyes, but still a blow that made something in his chest feel like it was cracking apart.
"No," Barry whispered, shaking his head and blinking back tears.
Rory's face did something complicated and he sort of half raised his hands, like he wanted to grab Barry's arms or something, then thought better of it. "Hey, kid. Are you–?"
"I'm s-s-sorry," Barry stuttered, ducking his head and rubbing angrily at his eyes. "I don't– I shouldn't even be– Shit!" He jerked his head up, staring at Rory as it occurred to him. "He was your f-friend. Are– Are you okay?"
(God. In what possible corner of the multiverse could Barry have expected to be checking that Mick Rory was okay? He was a criminal – an unapologetic pyromaniac and a thief – who had kidnapped Barry's friends and tried to kill him during their first 'meeting'. And Barry was...worried about him?
In his defense, Rory was his soulmate? Apparently? Fate had a shitty sense of humor.)
Rory just sort of stared at him for a long moment, disbelief obvious. And then, before Barry could open his mouth and say...something else (he wasn't certain what it would be), Rory's expression wiped blank and he said, "Soulmate."
"...what?" Barry asked, confused.
"Snart – Lenny – he was my–" His mouth twisted with a smile that sent bile climbing Barry's throat, and he let out a harsh, barking sort of laugh. "He was our soulmate."
Snart was–?
The world spun, faster and faster, until it fell completely away.
Okay, honestly? Mick hadn't expected the kid to faint.
Ha, 'kid'. He knew exactly who he was; would have made a pretty shitty minion of the Time Pigs if he didn't know who the Flash was: Bartholomew Henry Allen, Central City CSI. Son of Nora and Doc Allen, foster son of Detective Joseph West, eventual husband of Iris West-Allen.
Soulmate of Leonard Snart and Mick Rory, apparently; somehow, that hadn't made it into the official record. Go figure; no one would want to believe that their perfect little hero was the third mate to a couple of criminals.
(Were they still criminals? Lenny's sacrifice had given everyone through time their free will back, and Mick had taken part in destroying Savage. Did that make them heroes? Or were they...what's it called. Anti-heroes?
Was he; Len was dead.)
Mick swallowed down the rush of grief and focused on the kid collapsed in the middle of the pavement, because figuring out what to do with the Flash was much easier than facing the absence of his other half. Third. What-the-fuck-ever.
He was tempted to just leave the Flash. Probably would have, if he hadn't turned out to be Mick's soulmate.
(Fuck Fate and her shitty fucking sense of humor, anyway; giving Mick and Lenny a third who's a fucking superhero. Not to mention waiting until Lenny – who would have fucking loved this – was gone to spring it.)
Mick huffed to himself and crouched down to pick up the kid, throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. As he stood, he debated where to go. He'd been intending to get so fucking hammered he couldn't tell what was up or down, but he couldn't really do that with the kid over his shoulder, especially not while the kid was out cold. Him and Lenny had a couple safehouses within ten blocks, but Mick couldn't really bring himself to use any of them; didn't matter that they'd been abandoned for at least six months, they'd still remind him too much of Lenny.
So he turned and started the trek back to the shitty motel he'd rented for a couple nights.
Soon as he shoved his way into the room, he dropped the Flash on the bed, then left again for the 7-11 he'd seen the next block over. Bought himself a couple twelve packs and returned to his room to drink until either the kid woke or he passed out.
It had been...months since Barry didn't rush his way to consciousness. Not since before Zoom had broken his back, in the days when he'd still had hope that things would end easily and well. That, unlike with the Reverse-Flash, no one would die.
It seemed like a lifetime ago.
So it was odd, but also kind of nice, that he slowly rose up through the fog of unconsciousness. Opening his eyes to an unfamiliar room, though, dispelled that relaxation, and Barry bolted upwards on the bed (?!?) he was lying on.
" 'Bout time y'woke," someone slurred.
Barry twisted, making a conscious effort to keep to a normal speed, because he couldn't quite place the voice.
And then he saw Rory sat in a chair against the far wall, an array of empty beer cans spread around him, and something terrible swooped up through Barry's stomach, choking him.
"Shit," is what came out of his mouth, even as he did some quick calculations about the cans, because that was immediate and simpler to tackle than whatever his own stomach was doing. He somehow doubted Rory was a lightweight – he certainly had the body mass to hold a fair amount of liquor – and most beer didn't have that high an alcohol content – not that Barry had exact numbers, though he was starting to wish he did – but there was no sign of food, and that was a lot of cans. Like, a scary number.
"Y'should join me," Rory told him with a lopsided grin that made Barry's stomach roll, because he might not know Rory that well, but he was pretty sure that smile was about twenty kinds of wrong. "Think there's 'nother can 'round 'ere sum'ere." Rory snorts. " 'Pose it won't take you long t'git more 'nyway, Flashy."
...Rory knew he was the Flash?
Well, that made things...both simpler and more complicated, really. For the moment, speeding around the room – hotel? motel? – and collecting all the cans faster than Rory could finish reaching for one of the few that weren't empty seemed like an excellent use of his powers.
Rory stared a bit dumbly up at him for a moment once Barry stopped in front of him, the two unopened cans hidden in the closet, while the array of empty cans were lined up on the bathroom counter to be rinsed and tossed in either the bin or the recycling, depending on how environmentally conscientious this dump was. To be determined after–
"Think I'm gonna be sick," Rory decided.
That, actually.
Barry flashed him to the toilet and sat helplessly on the edge of the tub as Rory retched into the porcelain bowl.
"Fuck," Rory said eventually, and blindly reached up to pull the handle and flush everything away.
"That was dumb," Barry commented quietly.
Rory let out a harsh snort, then spat into the swirling water before twisting and flashing Barry a mean little smile. "Fuck you, kid. Shoulda left me be."
Barry twisted so he was sitting sideways on the narrow tub side, leaning back against the tile wall and pulling one leg up to curl around. "I'm done with watching people die this week," he admitted quietly. Because it mattered less that Rory was his soulmate, and more that Barry had watched his dad being murdered five days ago. Had led the time wraiths to snatch Zolomon and watched as they carried him away, his face decaying as they did, just that evening. And then to find out Snart was dead? (That he was somehow also Barry's soulmate? Was that even...possible? To have two?)
No. Barry wasn't going to just leave Rory to drown himself in alcohol. Criminal record or not.
Rory barely breathed for a long moment, then he asked, "Who?"
Barry couldn't tell if he really cared, or if he was just looking for someone else's grief to focus on (which, fair; cleaning up the room and focusing on Rory had helped Barry forget, for a moment). He didn't suppose it really mattered, so he said, "My dad. Zoom, he–" His throat threatened to close up and Barry snapped both his eyes and mouth shut. Forced himself to breathe for a too-long second, because he was not going to cry. Not in front of Rory.
"Doc Allen?" Rory asked.
There was an edge of something in his voice that made Barry look up at him, made it sound like he'd known Dad. And there was something about his expression – somewhere between shock and regret – that broke Barry's tenuous hold on his tears. "Yeah," he got out on a sob, dropping his face to hide it against his knee. Because he might not be able to stop the tears, but he could damn well hide them.
"Fuck," Rory said, loud and emphatic, and Barry wasn't sure if the sound he made in response was more of a sob or a laugh.
There followed a moment where neither of them spoke and Barry tried to muffle his crying, and then Rory said, "Fuck it, 'm drunk. Git over 'ere, kid." A hand tugged on Barry's arm, gentle enough to not upset his balance on the narrow tub side.
Barry resisted for a beat – it was Mick Rory – before giving in and slipping off the edge of the tub and letting Rory tug him close against his side. He was warm and sort of hard/soft in all the right ways, kind of like Dad had been, like he could have been a really excellent hugger, in another life. And that just made Barry sob harder, curling against Rory's side while muscled arms wrapped tight around him.
Impossibly, for the first time in way too long, Barry felt safe.
Mick didn't really know when he'd nodded off against the bathroom wall, but he knew he'd be regretting it even before he tried to move.
Moving, it turned out, was made especially difficult on account of the kid curled up against him, one hand wrapped tight in Mick's shirt over his heart, like he was afraid Mick would vanish or kick it while he slept. Given what he'd said, about his dad being gone, and Mick's valiant attempt at death by alcohol, the fear probably wasn't entirely unfounded.
Fuck, Doc Allen was gone.
Mick had met the doc a couple of times – limited chances to avoid other prisoners on the inside, even when one's a fucking model prisoner who did good shit like helping with wounds from stupid fights in the yard or a shiv to the side during a riot – and he'd honestly liked him. Especially after that one time he somehow got his hands on whatever drug it was that gave you the runs, then got it into Lewis' food after Mick let it slip – mostly on accident – what he'd done to Lenny and Lisa.
Well, shit, he guessed he knew exactly where the Flash got all of his do-gooder (sometimes by being nasty) tendencies from.
How'd the doc die? Flash'd said something about Zoom.
Mick frowned, thinking over what he'd learnt about the Flash's history under the Time Pigs.
Zoom. Speedster from an alternate earth. Flash somehow got him stuck in the Speed Force, or something? He couldn't quite remember, but he got his, in the end; let it not be said that the Flash didn't take care of threats to Central City, eventually. So long as he was alive. (That didn't always hold true; Mick had been to alternate timelines where the Flash didn't make it. He supposed now he understood why a part of him had hated those timelines, even though no Flash should have been a good thing, at least for the criminal part of him; he shouldn't have had an opinion at all, as Chronos.)
So, Zoom had killed Doc Allen. In front of the kid, if his earlier comment had meant what Mick suspected it had.
Fuck.
He huffed out a quiet, tired laugh, because it sounded like him and the kid had both lost a hell of a fucking lot in the past week. No wonder fucking Fate had finally tossed them together. And no wonder there were three of them; they were never meant to all be together.
Grief choked him for a moment, the loss of his other half like a gaping hole in his chest that he could ignore for a bit, but he always remembered it eventually, and it got to hurt all over again.
And then the kid shifted against his side, hand tightening on his shirt, and Mick could breathe past the loss again.
"Rory?" the kid mumbled, sounding like he was still trying to wake up.
"Yeah, kid."
The kid cleared his throat and slowly pulled away, letting go of Mick's shirt to rub at his eyes. (Mick tried to convince himself he didn't miss the contact.) "It's Barry," he said, very obviously not looking at Mick's face.
Mick considered that. He'd got so used to using nicknames for people – usually insulting, though too much of the Legends team had decided they liked them, morons – because that was an extra distance between them, meant they couldn't get close enough to really hurt him. But the kid, like Lenny, he was Mick's other half. Third.
(Whatever.)
There was no way to change how much he meant, because that hadn't been up to him. (Either of them, really.) But the kid was the Flash, and no matter how many heroes Mick rubbed elbows with, he was still a criminal, at heart; they weren't friends.
Mick rubbed at his chest, where he imagined he could feel the gaping wound where Lenny had once been, and admitted, at least to himself, that he wasn't ready to let someone in that close again, not so soon. Even if they were soulmates.
"Red," he said.
The kid's mouth twisted with a smile that ached in all the wrong ways, like he maybe understood all the reasons Mick had shied away from using his name. "Yeah, alright," he said.
Mick grunted and braced a hand against the wall, then levered himself to his feet. "Too old fer this shit," he muttered. Not that he really knew how old he was any more; his time under the thumbs of the Time Pigs was a messy, messy fucked up sort of timeline, and thinking about it too hard made his head hurt.
"What time is it?" the kid asked, even as he twisted and tugged a mobile out of the back pocket of his jeans. "Oh. Oh, shit."
Mick could make an educated guess, based on that response, and he didn't really think about it before he said, "Tell 'em yer takin' a day off; the city can survive a day without the Flash."
The kid let out a rough, broken sort of snort. "Sure it can. Not like the last time I was benched nothing went to shit." And then he flinched, full-bodied, and Mick had a feeling Zoom had been involved somehow.
"Yer not benched, yer takin' a personal day."
"The Flash doesn't get personal days," the kid replied, flat and unimpressed, just like the stare he turned on Mick once he'd got to his feet.
Mick narrowed his eyes, because the kid's stubborn streak was as bad as Lenny's.
He opened his mouth to set down an ultimatum, same as he'd have done for Lenny. But then he remembered he wasn't talking to Lenny, but his other soulmate. The one he barely knew, who he had a really shitty history with, one night spent sleeping in a crappy motel bathroom notwithstanding. He didn't really know the kid, didn't have the right to tell him what to do or how to manage himself. Shouldn't even care, probably; hadn't he just decided he wasn't going to let the kid too close?
But then he took another look at the kid, took in the heavy bruises under his eyes and the way his shoulders were already starting to slump, like the weight of the world was resting on them. He remembered the way he'd curled in on himself, muffling his sobs, like he thought he didn't have the right to cry.
Mick remembered a hand clutching tight to the front of his shirt all night, desperate to keep him there, and how having the kid next to him had already helped Mick with the loss of Lenny, just a little.
He straightened – he had about half an inch on the kid and he was damn well gonna use it – met the flat stare with all the fire he could muster, and said, "Either ya come quiet, or I kidnap ya. 'N don't think I won't."
The kid sort of blinked a couple of times, his mouth dropping open like he couldn't believe Mick had just threatened to kidnap him. "You can't just– I have superspeed!" he shouted at last, disbelief in every word.
Mick nodded. "Yup. 'N I've thirty years keepin' up with sum'un twice as smart 'n jest as stubborn."
"That's not–!" The kid choked out a little laugh that sounded a little crazed. "Oh my god, I'm not Snart!"
Mick couldn't stop the flinch, barely managed to bite back a hiss when the hole in his chest throbbed. "No," he made himself say, though every word tasted like bloody bile on his tongue, "yer not. He's dead."
The kid was the one who flinched, then, his eyes squeezing shut. "Shit," he hissed through his teeth. "Shit. Rory, I–I'm sorry. That was–"
Mick swallowed down bile and made himself say, "Barry," because he had a feeling it would get the kid to shut up. It did, and Mick found himself staring at wide eyes that were a color he'd never been able to see before the kid had hit him in the street. He opened his mouth to speak, but he just...couldn't think of what to say. Couldn't find the courage to plead – he'd spent lifetimes being alone; as much as he hadn't wanted to be around the rest of those do-gooders, he didn't want to be on his own, either – didn't have enough practice playing good to come up with an excuse that would keep him there.
The kid stared at him for another moment, then he looked away, down to his mobile. Touched the screen a couple of times and brought it up to his ear. "Joe?" he said after a beat of quiet. "Yeah, I'm–" He swallowed, cleared his throat, and glanced up at and quickly away from Mick. "I need to clear my head. Just..." He let out a breath that sounded relieved. "Yeah," he whispered. "I don't– I'm not sure how long, no. But just... I'll have my cell. If you need me. If something– Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Bye."
As the kid hit the end call button, Mick heard himself let out a breath he hadn't even known he was holding. The kid shot him a surprised look, which twisted into a crooked smile. "So, breakfast?" he suggested.
Mick didn't really feel hungry, but he suspected that was grief talking. And, well, the kid had given in to his demands he stay; Mick supposed he could stomach something light for breakfast. So he grunted and led the way out of the bathroom.
There was a greasy little diner a couple of blocks over that did a reasonable approximation of breakfast food. The kid made a face at the selection, but still ended up eating enough for three people. Watching him eat it all was simultaneously fascinating and sickening, and Mick scrambled to find a topic to break the silence that had followed their leaving the room.
"So," he finally settled on. "Made it sound like yer gettin' out of Central fer a bit."
The kid's progress noticeably slowed, mouth twisting down slightly in a way that reminded Mick, achingly, of Lenny. "I don't know," he said finally.
Mick considered that, then said, "Haven't been t'a beach in–" god, it had been lifetimes "–a long time."
The kid shot him a quick, blink-and-miss-it shocked look, then shook his head, a wry, apologetic smile twisting his mouth. "Shit, sorry. That was...rude. Wow."
Mick raised both eyebrows at him in a silent request for an explanation.
The kid stared down at his food as he explained, "Almost asked about you being near water."
Mick apparently startled them both with his harsh snort. "Yer as bad as Snart," he said, and the kid looked like he didn't quite know how to take that. " 'M not gonna melt if I get a bit wet, or whatever. 'N beaches 'r good fer bonfires." Not that Mick really felt the need to set a bonfire. Hadn't since the Time Pigs fucked around in his head.
(Fucking damn them.)
"I...didn't think about that," the kid admitted, expression turning thoughtful. "Coast City's less than an hour out, if something happens. It's not...optimal, but..."
Mick shook his head a little in disbelief at the idea of halfway across the country being less than an hour away – only the Flash could turn a holiday at the ocean into a day trip – and said, "Coast City it is."
The kid looked startled for a moment, then he huffed and slumped a bit in his booth. "Yeah, alright. I'll have to run home and get some stuff–"
"Jest get it in Coast. S'what I usually do."
"I am not wasting money on new clothing when I have plenty at home!"
"Never said nothin' 'bout spendin' money," Mick pointed out, mostly just to see how the kid would react.
Predictably, the kid's expression twisted with horror. "I'm not stealing stuff! Oh my god!"
Mick didn't bothered trying to suppress his laughter, because the kid's reaction was pretty much everything he could have hoped for.
The kid moaned and dropped his face into his hands. "I can't believe I just agreed to blow off work to hang out with a criminal."
It felt...good, laughing. It felt even better when the kid peeked up at him and Mick caught the gleam of amusement in his eyes, like he was enjoying the chance to joke around, too.
Maybe, just maybe, Fate had known exactly what she was doing.
Rory did end up letting him run home to pack a bag, if only because the train west wouldn't leave until that night, and Barry grabbed enough for two days, just in case, and almost forgot his swim trunks, even though that had been at least half of his excuse for wanting to bring his own stuff. (Because the trunks had been a gift from Dad, when Barry ran out to visit him at one point and Dad dragged him out swimming. And it hurt seeing them, seeing that reminder, but he couldn't not bring them.)
He'd also taken the chance to run past the precinct and ensure there wouldn't be a problem with him leaving for a few days – "It's called bereavement leave, Allen. If I see you in here again before at least a week has passed, I'm having you kicked out," Singh had snapped at him, almost before he could ask – and let his friends know he was going to be on the west coast. Which, well...he honestly hadn't expected them to all look quite so relieved at that.
"It's been a tough year, Bare," Iris told him when he looked at her, askance. "Getting out of Central for a bit will be good for you."
"Maybe Cisco and I will plan our own holiday," Caitlin added with a smile that trembled.
"But a little closer to home," Cisco quickly added. "Some of us chance getting pulled over if we have to race back home."
They'd all managed strained laughter at that, and Barry and Iris agreed that Caitlin, especially, should get out of the city for a week or so, given how she kept jumping at shadows and her own reflection. (God, Zolomon had done a serious number on all of them.) Iris even joked about getting Joe to take her and Wally on holiday somewhere, though both she and Barry knew Joe would never leave the city while the rest of Team Flash were away. Hell, getting him to take a holiday even before the lightning had been akin to pulling teeth.
He left them all with the promise to keep in touch by text and to bring back lots of souvenirs, then got himself a quick dinner before going to the train station.
In trade for letting him stop past home and set his affairs in order, Rory made him take the train with him. "Yer on holiday, Red," Rory had insisted before Barry left the crappy motel Rory'd been staying at. "That means ya gotta slow down, take it easy."
"You'd know all about taking it easy, wouldn't you?" Barry had muttered, rolling his eyes.
Rory's face had done something complicated that Barry couldn't quite read, before forcefully smoothing out. "Easy'sa only way ta take it," he'd said with a manic grin that looked forced, and Barry had returned his own forced smile before running off, because he hadn't really known how to respond to him.
Barry had spent a little too much of his day running around wondering what had happened in the past however long it had been since the last time he'd seen Snart and Rory. Months. Something, clearly, something that had ended with Snart dead.
He still wasn't sure he had the courage to ask for details.
So he didn't. Instead, he joked, "Are you sure I can't just meet you there? Trains aren't really my speed," when he met him at the train station.
Rory closed his eyes, looking vaguely pained. "Yer puns're jest as shitty."
Barry's stomach churned as he realized Rory was comparing him to Snart. Which...it did and it didn't hurt, but he wasn't entirely certain it hurt for the right reasons; he shouldn't be regretting not having the chance to get to know a criminal like Snart better, to be comfortable enough to trade jokes instead of threats. (He'd thought, at Christmas, that they might be there, or close to it. But then Snart had left, had vanished from Central City entirely – the CCPD, at least, had enjoyed not having to go chasing after Snart and Rory on a bi-weekly basis – and died.)
Honestly, he wasn't certain he should care that Rory was comparing him and Snart at all. Except, well, soulmates. (Was that why he'd found it so easy to trust Snart again and again, even after what he'd done to Cisco and Caitlin? Even after how he'd betrayed them at Ferris Air? Because they'd been soulmates?)
"Danger of spending so much time with Cisco," Barry heard himself say from a distance. "He likes them. A little too much."
Rory scoffed, then grabbed Barry's arm and dragged him along towards where their train was being called.
Once they'd found seats, Rory asked, "Cisco's the geek with the long hair? 'N the dumb brother."
Barry had never actually met Cisco's brother, but he'd heard enough about him to know he was, at best, a difficult person to get along with. "Yeah, that's him."
Rory grunted and gave a brief nod. " 'N the lady doc?"
"Caitlin. Snow."
Rory gave another nod.
Barry bit his lip, debating for a moment, then added, "Cisco's a metahuman. He goes by Vibe." Rory shot him a narrow look. "If you're trying to find something else to call him."
Rory's mouth ticked up slightly at one corner. "Vibe," he repeated, sounding a little like he was tasting the alias. "Yeah, that'll do. 'N the doc–"
"Not something cold related," Barry requested, because he was fairly certain that the idea of Killer Frost still spooked her. (Honestly, after everything that had happened, Barry wasn't really comfortable with Rory calling Caitlin something that would remind him of her doppelganger.)
Rory's expression had gone suspiciously blank, and it took Barry a beat too long to remember who else had a cold name attached to them.
"Shit," he whispered.
"Lady Doc," Rory decided at last, rolling his shoulders in something that could be mistaken as a shrug. "Dunno any others, 'nyway."
Barry swallowed and nodded. "Yeah, okay."
Rory grunted and sat back in his seat, eyes sliding closed. "Wake me fer breakfast," he said.
Barry sighed and settled in for a long trip, because he'd never slept well on trains. He'd grabbed a paper at the station, but it didn't take him long to read it, even forcing himself to go at a normal speed. Still, at some point while he'd been reading, Rory had leant sideways enough that his head was resting on Barry's shoulder, Rory's own shoulder pressing warmly against the side of Barry's arm. Which was...comfortable, inexplicably.
Barry figured he owed Rory for not leaving him in the middle of the road after he'd fainted, not to mention whatever weirdness had occurred in the bathroom the night before, so he let him stay there, only shifting a little to ensure he could still turn pages without disturbing Rory.
At some point, not too long after Barry finished his paper and was seriously considering starting on the sticky magazine some previous passenger had left in the seatback ahead of him, the elderly woman sitting across the aisle turned and whispered, "It's so refreshing to see you young people these days, unafraid to be public."
"Be– I'm sorry, what?" Barry asked, confused.
"You and your boyfriend, dear."
"Wh–what?!" Barry hissed, just barely remembering to keep his voice down. Because what? They were so not boyfriends! "We're not– This isn't–!"
The woman smiled like she knew better, and she winked at him. "Oh, it's fine. I don't mind, dear."
Barry forced himself to take a deep breath, squeezing the hand in his to help him settle himself.
Wait. Hand in his?
Barry glanced down and was a little disturbed to find that he'd joined hands with Rory at some point, their fingers laced together like some sort of clichéd 'perfect fit'; no wonder the woman thought they were–
"He's my soulmate," he heard himself say, couldn't quite bring himself to look up at the woman. "We're not– We don't really...know each other." Which was...so true. What did he even know about Rory, really? He liked fire – arsonist – had limited morals – criminal – and he'd been friends – soulmates – with Snart. He was badly burnt on his back and arms, according to Caitlin. Tended to get a little philosophical about fire, from what both Caitlin and Cisco had said.
And he knew Barry was the Flash. Had Snart told him? From what Lisa had said, he hadn't expected him to have told Rory any more than he'd told his sister. (Although, soulmates; would Snart have been less likely to hide things from his other half? Other third? Whatever.) Or had Rory noticed Barry's speed before he'd accidentally hit him? Or was it something else that gave Barry away? His voice, maybe? It wasn't like Barry'd ever taken pains to hide how he sounded with Rory.
He didn't know. There was just...too much he didn't know. And he was certain there were dozens of things Rory didn't know about him. Because there was only so much about him on the internet. (Er, hopefully.)
"Oh," the woman said, sounding surprised. Then, after a moment, she reached across the aisle and grabbed Barry's wrist in a grip that felt far too tight for how old she looked. Barry turned to stare at her, wide-eyed and a little spooked. "You look after him, kid," she ordered, something sharply knowing in her pale grey eyes. "People have soulmates for a reason; take care of him, because he needs you just as much as you need him. Do you understand, Barry?"
The way she said his name was familiar in a way that jumped Barry's heart to his throat. "Snart?" he gasped, then flinched back from her hold on his wrist, which was suddenly icy.
"Watch it," Rory snapped behind him.
Barry twisted, realized he'd flinched back a little too far and fast, straight into Rory, who was glaring at him as he rubbed his head. "Shit, shit, sorry. I didn't mean–" He swung his head back around, looking at the seat across the aisle, because the woman–
She was gone.
Barry jumped to his feet, barely ducking in time to avoid cracking his head on the overhead, and spun a quick circle, trying to spot the woman. But she was nowhere in sight.
"Red," Rory snarled, yanking on the back of Barry's shirt hard enough that falling back into his chair was the least embarrassing option to the sudden shift in his center of gravity. He looked angry when Barry turned to him, but that started to bleed away into something that might have been concern as he took in Barry's expression. "Ya look like ya seen a ghost."
Barry lifted the wrist the woman had touched and flexed his fingers, wasn't certain if he'd imagined the freezing cold touch or not. Wasn't even certain that hadn't been some sort of dream, that he hadn't dozed off without anything to distract him. "I don't know," he whispered, curling his hand into a fist and squeezing tight.
Rory was silent for a beat, then he said, "Okay." And then he reached a hand out across Barry and shoved him back against his chair. "Stay there," he ordered, then dropped his head back to Barry's shoulder and, so far as Barry could tell, fell back asleep.
Barry held perfectly still, eyes darting back and forth across his field of vision, certain he was still too keyed up from whatever had just happened to relax any time soon.
Except, somehow, every quiet breath tickling his clavicle eased the tension in Barry, until he found his head dropping to the side to lean against Rory's, his eyes falling shut. He tried to fight it, but eventually gave in to the draw of sleep, giving a silent plea that his dreams were forgettable, if not mundane.
Something on the train had spooked the kid, but Mick couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what it had been. If it had been Lenny twitching suspiciously in front of him every time someone walked past, he'd have assumed he'd stolen something or killed someone and was dreading getting caught before they could get off the train. But the kid in front of him was the Flash. He'd no sooner commit a crime, than Mick would–
...okay, there wasn't a lot Mick wouldn't do for the right reward.
He probably could have asked, but that had never worked with Lenny, and he'd automatically discarded the idea. Then he'd stopped, reconsidered the possibility, and decided he didn't really know the kid well enough to decide how'd he'd react to being asked about whatever nightmare was setting him twitching.
So, instead, he asked, "When was the last time ya went t' the beach?" Because that seemed like a good, innocuous question. Maybe help distract the kid.
The kid started, blinking at Mick a little too rapidly to be normal. "Wha– Oh." He cleared his throat and rubbed at his hair. "Uhm, wow. Like, the ocean-beach, or a lake-beach?"
"Either," Mick decided; the point was to distract the kid, not to get specific.
The kid swallowed, his eyes starting to look a little watery, and Mick wondered if he'd maybe picked a bad topic. "Few months ago," the kid whispered, a world of pain in his voice.
Mick opened his mouth, thinking to change the topic – to what, he wasn't certain – but the kid didn't give him the chance.
"A bit before Christmas, after Zoom–" He shifted, sitting up a little straighter. "Well, I needed a couple days off, I guess, like now." His mouth curled with a small, strained little smile. "Dad, he was staying at this little cabin overlooking a lake. Beautiful view. He dragged me out swimming, even though the water was freezing." He let out a quiet little laugh that sounded like it hurt. "He caught a cold. Said it was worth it, getting to spend time together." He blinked and two tears rolled down his face. "Shit, sorry. I don't–"
"Red," Mick said, reaching out and catching the kid's hand before he could wipe at his face. He wasn't really used to dealing with tears – Lenny'd never once cried in front of Mick, and Lisa outgrew that phase not long after Mick'd first met her – but he'd lost his own family once, and while the head doc the state had tossed him at hadn't done him much good, he'd said some things that – though Mick couldn't for the life of him remember the exact wording – had stuck with him. Like a part of him had known he'd need that wisdom somewhere down the line. So he frowned a bit in thought, then gingerly said, "Ya don't– Look, yer grievin'. Hurtin'. That's allowed. Doc Allen, he was a good guy, wouldn't want ya bottlin' it all up. Ya gotta cry, ya cry. S'what cryin's for, gets out all the shit what's bottled up inside a'fore it turns t' poison. 'N 'nyone gets fresh with ya, I'll punch 'em out."
The kid stared at him like he'd never seen Mick before, eyes wide and tears rolling silently down his cheeks. Which probably should have been insulting, but Mick had got good at hiding himself. It had been easy, with Lenny always being so loud, drawing all the eyes. Harder, now he was gone. (Mick forced himself to breathe through the reminder of loss, focused on the hand in his and the teary face across from him to settle back in the present.)
The kid swallowed and twisted his hand in Mick's, gripping him back instead of pulling away, like Mick had expected. "How'd you know my dad? I mean, prison, I guess?"
Mick shrugged. "Coupla times I was in same time, yeah. Didn't know him personally, but everyone knew 'bout Doc Allen. Never started shit, 'n he was always good fer the personal questions, saw t' little shit ya didn't wanna take t' the clinic without judgin'." Mick snorted. "Maybe a little judgin'."
The kid let out a quiet, pained little laugh. "Yeah. He... When I was little, I'd get into fights. Well, lose them, really," he admitted, mouth twisting with a wry little smile. "Mom, she'd tut and tell me off. But Dad, he'd tell me I'd done good, that I'd get them next time. He was–" He choked, ducking his head into his free hand and squeezing Mick's hand tight enough to ache, just a bit. "He was so proud of who I'd become. And I got him– It's my fault–"
"Zoom killed him," Mick said, keeping his voice flat and hard, and the kid flinched. "Ya didn't do nothin'."
The kid's head snapped up, anger and self-condemnation making his eyes burn. "He ki– He did it because of me. Because–"
"He did it cuz he was a psychopath with an inferiority complex," Mick snapped back. He couldn't really say where the words had come from, but judging from the way the kid slumped, eyes falling closed, he hadn't been far off the mark. "That's on him," he added, because this was familiar territory; he'd talked Lenny back from enough ledges – usually figurative, thankfully – because of something Lewis had done. "Ya can't take the actions of fuckers like that on yer own self. Ain't yer job. Yer job'sa keep goin', be everythin' he wouldn'ta wanted."
The kid stared at him for a long moment, before his expression eased into a faint, tired sort of smile. "So," he said quietly, "it's not just fire you get philosophical about."
"S'not philosophy, jest good sense," Mick insisted, like he always used to do when Lenny or Lisa would comment on his habit of talking them down with what he'd always thought was just common sense. (According to Lenny, he was as good as the next Descartes. Whoever that was.)
The kid laughed, his whole face lighting up. "Maybe. Doesn't make it sound any less wise."
Mick huffed, but he had to give the kid that one, he supposed. And he'd stopped twitching, seemed perfectly happy to get back to his food without worrying about other passengers.
The kid also hadn't let go of Mick's hand. Weirdly, Mick wasn't feeling much like he needed to pull away, either, even though he'd never remembered being particularly tactile, even before his family burnt. Hell, him and Lenny had rarely touched at all, outside of the bedroom, unless they were fighting each other. Hadn't needed to, always knew the other one would be right there, would have their back, like other halves were supposed to do.
Until they hadn't. Like Lenny leaving him after Mick'd got burnt so bad. Or when he'd abandoned him in that forest in the middle of nowhere.
Until the moment he'd bashed Mick on the back of the head and died in his place.
"Rory?" the kid called, his voice heavy with concern. "Are you–?"
" 'M fine," Mick snapped, trying to pull his hand away from the kid's, but he wouldn't let go, and Mick didn't have the energy to put up a proper fight.
"Thinking about Snart?" the kid guessed in a gentle voice that grated.
"Shaddap."
"It's okay to cry," the kid insisted, watching Mick like he was waiting for him to implode or some shit.
" 'M not gonna cry."
The kid reached across the table with the hand that wasn't holding on to Mick's and touched his cheek. Then he drew it back just enough to show Mick that his fingers were wet. "You're allowed to grieve," the kid said quietly, gently. Like he knew Mick would feel like he was throwing his own words back in his face if he said them with any more force.
Mick turned to glare out the window next to them and tried to pretend he wasn't aware of the dampness on his face. Fucking Lenny, sacrificing himself for him. And fucking Barry Allen, for talking Lenny around to trying to be good. And for not telling Mick to go fuck himself when he'd bullied him into taking a holiday.
The kid finished the last of his breakfast in the following silence, eventually holding out a paper napkin without a word, so Mick could wipe his face.
Once they'd squared their tab – well, the kid had done, because he'd apparently decided that Mick bought the train tickets, so he'd buy the food; given how much he'd eaten, Mick wasn't inclined to argue – they returned to their seats and checked that they had all of their things, then settled in to wait out the next forty minutes until their stop.
"Tell me," the kid said after no more than five minutes of silence, "that you've got better accommodations than a cockroach-infested motel, this time."
"Didn't want better'n Central," Mick muttered, skirting around the truth.
The kid huffed. "No cockroaches, Rory."
It...probably should have been strange that the kid had just assumed that they'd be bunking together. But, well, Mick had sort of assumed the same thing. He wanted to blame it on them being soulmates, but he suspected at least part of it was just not wanting to be alone. For both of them.
Either way, Mick hadn't been much interested in cockroaches while on holiday in Coast City, either, and while he and Lenny had usually stayed in one of Lisa's places while they were there, Mick knew a couple of motels that weren't complete shit, but wouldn't ask too many questions about his credit line. He didn't really want to face Lisa yet, and she'd know soon as he cracked the door on one of her places, so while the kid was racing all over Central City, he'd rung around and got them a room at the motel closest to the beach. (It wouldn't even bankrupt him, not after Lenny had taken to setting up bank accounts for both of them any time they stopped in the past, which Mick hadn't found out until he'd discovered the paperwork in Lenny's things after they'd finally offed Savage. Though he hadn't actually had the courage to go to the bank and look into any of them, had just used the funds still in the accounts they'd had before getting on the Waverider.)
"No cockroaches," he said, mostly to keep the kid from bitching any more.
The kid managed to be quiet for another five minutes or so, then he started talking about his little friends.
Mick sighed, but didn't try to shut him up; so long as he was talking, Mick wasn't left alone with his own thoughts.
Epilogue
.
