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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.
A/N: I'm the asshole who's waiting with baited breath for the responses to the end of this chapter.
Also, sorry in advance if you leave a review that sort of needs a response? (Not that I'm really expecting any to this chapter. XD) I've work tonight and tomorrow night – I'm heading to bed as soon as this is posted – so while I'll try to respond to people on the bus and/or during my lunch break, you all might get the next chapter before you get a reply. Be assured that I am seeing your reviews, though.
Chapter Two
-0-
The motel Rory had booked them at was almost familiar, in that Barry had stayed in many not-quite-sketchy places while chasing after the impossible, before the lightning. It did lack such additional guests as cockroaches and bed mites – yes, Barry had checked that with some equipment he might have bought years ago for his impossible-chasing trips – and was close enough to both one of the public-access beaches and a shopping district with plenty of places to eat and a reasonable grocery, that Barry couldn't really excuse using his speed to get around.
"I guess we're on holiday," he muttered at the map on his mobile.
Rory let out a snort that sounded way too amused.
Barry didn't really think about the consequences, just reached over to the head of his bed, grabbed one of the pillows, and tossed it in Rory's general direction, same as he would have done with Iris.
Rory let out a startled grunt. Then, before Barry could finish working his way through the rush of embarrassment, disbelief, and horror, he said, "Ya know this means war, Red." And then he tossed Barry's pillow back at him, hitting him in the face.
Even with his speed, Barry barely managed to dodge the swing of a pillow Rory followed the pillow to the face with, somehow managing to grab his own pillow and get up in the time it had taken for Barry's pillow to fall to his lap. "Holy shit!" he yelped, rolling out of the way. He'd abandoned his original weapon, but his roll had put him in range of grabbing his other pillow, and he had it up and shielding himself as Rory aimed at him again.
Rory was, Barry quickly discovered, fast, way faster than most non-speedsters he'd traded blows with, and he was a lot more mobile than Barry would have expected for someone in his forties to be, especially given what he knew of Rory's burns. Barry was fairly certain Rory was pulling his strength, though – he'd seen him break free of two cops with very little apparent effort, and there were notes in his police files about him lifting heavy objects over his head and tossing them at any pursuit – and he held back on his speed in return.
Given their history, the pillow fight should have been less fun than it was. But Rory was wearing the widest, most honest grin Barry had ever seen on him, which shaved away decades worth of wear. Barry, himself, eventually called surrender because he was laughing too hard to keep going.
"I can't believe we did that," Barry admitted once he'd managed to catch his breath.
Rory snorted from where he was attempting to beat his pillow back into its original shape. "S'what happens when ya throw pillows at people."
Barry rolled his eyes and got up to try and fix his own pillow a bit. "Yeah, I'll remember that next time. Jesus, you're brutal."
Rory's raised eyebrows were utterly unimpressed.
Barry ducked his head, though probably not fast enough to hide his grin. "You want to go check the shopping center? Maybe get some lunch?"
"Do ya ever not think 'bout food?"
Barry made a face and had to debate with himself for a moment before he allowed himself to admit, "My metabolism's as fast as everything else. If I don't eat enough, I'll go hypoglycemic." Not really something he'd normally share with a criminal, but Rory was his soulmate. That...had to count for something. Right?
He chanced a glance up at Rory and found the man watching him with narrowed, intelligent eyes. "Is that a normal thin', or jest when yer speedin' 'round?"
Barry blinked. "Uh, well, we caught it pretty early? I kept getting dizzy spells, then fainting when I ran anywhere. I haven't done it in a while, though, because I've been careful. Keeping a buffer of stored fat–" Rory let out a disbelieving snort, and Barry glanced down at his skinny frame. "Yeah, I know, doesn't look like it. Caitlin usually tests me every few days, helps me keep track of that. And I have emergency calorie bars, but they're kind of gross? Pizza's way better."
Rory's gaze went distant. "Pizza," he murmured. "Haven't had that in–" His brow furrowed, something dark and lonely passing over his face for a brief moment, before he gave a violent shake and it was gone. "Pizza," he repeated, louder and more firmly. "Few blocks past the center there's a good place. Weird choices, but delicious."
"Sounds like a plan," Barry agreed. In part because, now they were talking about it, he really wanted pizza. But, too, that darkness had spooked him, and he was grateful for the distraction from thinking about it.
They ended up poking around the shopping center a bit on the way to the pizza place, but didn't loiter with the promise of food. Which, they had some pretty weird options, yes, but was also as delicious as promised. Barry may or may not have finished off two whole pies on his own, then eaten about a third of Rory's, all of which he'd had to steal, and one slice of which had been covered in almost half the shaker of crushed red pepper in an attempt to protect it, which he maybe regretted a little.
"Pepper always worked on Snart," Rory complained while Barry chugged water.
"There was no way you were going to eat that," Barry insisted. Because he could totally see covering a whole pizza with that much red pepper being fine, but a single piece?
Rory raised both eyebrows at him, dumped a healthy pile of the red pepper on his current slice, and bit into it without flinching.
Barry shook his head in disbelief. "Yeah, you win this one. I will never challenge you to a pepper-eating contest."
Rory finished his slice – adding more red pepper, possibly just to make certain he'd driven his point home – before asking, "Should I be worried 'bout pepper-eatin' contests?"
"Uh, no?"
Rory nodded and set about covering his final slice in red pepper and eating it.
(Barry was only a little disturbed. And maybe a little turned on, but no way he'd ever admit as much out loud.)
The proprietor was laughing and shaking his head at them as he rung them up, and Barry was fairly certain they'd ended up with a hefty discount, but he didn't ask, just tipped really well. (The pizza was delicious. And the service had been pretty good.)
Rory had apparently taken what Barry'd said about his metabolism to heart, because their next stop was the grocery, where he stocked up on the sort of high-calorie snacks Barry often kept stocked at home and in both labs – constantly looking between Barry and the nutrition information on the bag of the container, and putting back anything Barry didn't care for or Rory deemed lacking in some way – as well as some more healthy options clearly meant for himself, and some beer and other supplies clearly meant for taking down to the beach.
It was while they were changing to go down to the beach – Barry got the bathroom first by virtue of being faster, which Rory had very obviously rolled his eyes about – that Barry remembered that he maybe, possibly, had a thing for guys who were well muscled. (Not in the way Tony had been, where it was as much for show as anything else, but more the way Rory was, where they were clearly meant to be more functional than meant to impress. Which, well, it could just as easily have been a soulmate thing, he supposed, but there had been a couple of guys he'd known in college who'd worked construction to pay for classes, and he'd developed a crush on a couple of them. Never gone anywhere with it, because Barry hadn't been dumb enough to chance a beating, but it had happened.)
Barry had about a minute to wonder how much more awkward things with Rory were going to get, before something else registered: "Didn't you have burn scars?"
Rory stiffened and quickly grabbed the t-shirt he'd left on his bed when he'd gone to change and yanked it on. "Yeah," he said in a tone clearly meant to shut Barry up.
Barry bit his tongue to keep his questions in, tried to convince himself it wasn't his business. Because it wasn't. (Or was it? How did this work for soulmates? He'd given up on ever finding his other half so long ago, he couldn't remember anything he'd once looked up about the most widely accepted etiquette. Not that he expected Rory would agree with most of it.)
The vanished scars, Snart's death, the dark shadows that kept passing over Rory's face... Something had happened, something bad. Barry should ask, have a better idea what was going on with Rory, but he...he couldn't. Wasn't sure it would be allowed, and wasn't certain he had the energy to help Rory with his issues when Barry was still struggling with his own.
'Take care of him, because he needs you just as much as you need him.'
Barry shuddered and hugged himself against the chill that went down his spine at the reminder of what that woman had told him. If she'd even been real.
"Red?" Rory called, frowning over at him.
Barry shook himself and straightened, pasting on his best, widest grin. "So, beach?"
"Yeah, beach," Rory agreed, and motioned for Barry to lead the way out.
He didn't, Barry couldn't help but notice as he made his escape, stop frowning.
Mick might not melt or whatever in water, but he wasn't really one for frolicking in the waves, either, so he found them a spot in the sand while the kid whooped and ran out into the spray. It made him seem even younger than Mick knew he was, but it was also kind of charming, even though Mick usually found that sort of childish exuberance irritating. He couldn't really tell if that was more due to them being soulmates – he knew from long experience that actions that would've had him throttling anyone else, tended to be little more than minor annoyances from Lenny – or because he'd watched the kid cry his heart out twice in the past thirty-six hours, and watching him enjoy himself was about a thousand times more preferable.
Usually, when Mick went to the beach, it was to look for easy marks (usually for Lenny, but sometimes Lenny would make him do the stealing, because he insisted Mick had to keep his skills fresh, as if he didn't manage just fine doing sleight of hand tricks with matches and lighters). Beaches were magnets for tourists, and tourists tended to be at least twice as dumb about personal safety as your average city-dweller. They'd do things like leave their wallet or purse in their bag on their towels, then leave it behind to keep track of children or just because they wanted to get a little wet before sunbathing. The assumption being, of course, that no one would dare to steal their things at the beach.
Idiots.
He was tempted to do so now – had already picked out three likely victims – but he was out with the Flash, who was a fucking superhero, not to mention a cop – cop-adjacent, technically, but given his night job, he might as well be a full cop – and he wasn't really looking to make things any more tense because he couldn't resist taking some things that weren't his.
The kid came back after about ten minutes, his white t-shirt doing nothing to hide how ridiculously fit he was, despite his eating habits, and grinning widely as he flopped down onto his towel next to Mick's. "You're not going out into the water?"
Mick turned a flat stare on him. "Do I look like the sorta person inter'sted in takin' a swim?"
The kid blinked, expression turning thoughtful. "Is that a trick question?" he asked after a moment.
Mick sighed and twisted to pull a bottle of beer out of the cooler, both of which he'd grabbed at the grocery.
"I mean, because you clearly do beaches. Unless you only really do beaches for bonfire purposes?" the kid continued, starting to sound a little worried. "Should we have waited–?"
"Red," Mick interrupted, because the kid was clearly not going to stop on his own. "I ain't goin' inta the water, but that ain't the only reason t' go t' the beach."
The kid considered that for a moment with a faint, thoughtful frown, fingers playing along the bottom edge of his t-shirt. "I guess," he finally said, before shaking his head and looking over at the cooler. "Did you put anything other than beer in there?"
"Ya got issue with beer?" Mick demanded, even as he leant over and pulled out a water for the kid. Because, yeah, he'd noticed how utterly uninterested the kid had looked in the beer aisle.
The kid shrugged and took the water. "Thanks. It's not that I have a problem with it, or anything, though I'd like to not repeat two nights ago, if possible?"
Mick grunted and took a long drink, because he wasn't quite stupid enough to make any promises. Not that he much wanted to be bent over the toilet seat again, spitting out a bellyful of drink. Just, he knew himself well enough to know he'd have days when sitting at a bar seemed like the only way to get through it.
Which, about that... He reached up and rubbed at the empty ache of his chest.
"It's got no effect," the kid said in a rush, not meeting Mick's gaze when he looked over. He was watching the hand Mick'd just used to rub his chest, though, and he silently cursed that tell. "The alcohol, I mean. Goes right through me."
"Well, shit," Mick said with feeling, because that sounded like the shittiest possible downside to having superpowers he'd ever heard. Especially when you've just gone and lost someone important.
"Yeah," the kid said quietly, his shoulders rounding inward. "Caitlin made some sort of concoction to give me a buzz, once. Said it was something like five hundred proof."
Mick whistled, uncertain if he was more impressed or horrified; speaking of making a bid for alcohol poisoning.
The kid's mouth twisted with what Mick suspected was meant to be a smile, but looked more like a grimace, to him. "Yeah, but it only lasted, like, a minute."
Well, that really was shitty. And it sounded like there wasn't a whole hell of a lot that could be done for it. "Guess I'll jest have ta drink for ya."
"No," the kid snapped, turning a disapproving glare on him. "I am not breaking you out of custody when the local police realize who got admitted to the hospital with alcohol poisoning!"
Mick snorts. "I ain't goin' ta no hospitals."
"If you get that shit-faced, I'm not giving you a choice."
Lenny had threatened something similar, once, but they'd both known there was no way he'd have been able to get Mick to a hospital against his will, no matter how shitty his reflexes had got. The kid, though... Mick suspected he could get him to hospital fast enough he wouldn't have time to fight back. And, unlike Lenny, he wouldn't be chancing an arrest in doing so. And the kid was just enough of a goodie two-shoes to think he was helping by dumping Mick in an emergency room.
Mick grunted and knocked back the last of his beer, if only to appear difficult.
The kid sighed and shook his head.
Mick paused in the act of setting the empty bottle aside as he recalled the rest of what the kid had said. "Ya can break me outta custody?"
"What, seriously?" the kid complained. "I'm not going to spend the next couple of days breaking you out of police custody for the sheer fun of it."
"But yer sayin' ya can," Mick pressed, because that was...interesting. Potentially useful information. (Not that he was intending to get tossed in any prisons any time soon.)
The kid sighed and turned a tired look on him. "Yes. I can vibrate fast enough to move through solid objects." And then he reached down and pushed one buzzing hand through his towel.
Mick's stomach did a weird, unfamiliar little flip, and he swallowed. "Handy," he heard himself say.
And then the kid raised both eyebrows at him and he realized what he'd said. "Don't say it," he ordered.
The kid wiggled his fingers at him, grinning so much wider than Lenny would have done if he'd caught Mick making an unintentional pun, but the delighted light in his pale eyes was exactly the same. Mick wasn't certain if he wanted to groan or cry, so he busied himself with pulling out a water and taking a long drink of that, instead.
"So," the kid said after a moment, apparently deciding to be kind and change the subject, "if you're not going into the water, and you're not sunbathing–"
"Says who?" Mick demanded, even though, yeah, he'd never been much interested in sunbathing. People tended to fuss about him taking his shirt off because of all his scars, even before the burns. (Not that he had any of them left; apparently, his burns had been hampering his mobility, so the fucking Time Pigs'd decided to get rid of them. And since they were already taking care of one mass of scars, might as well take care of the lot of them, right? Fuckers.)
The kid just turned a flat, unimpressed stare on him. "Rory," he said, "you are the single most overdressed sunbather I've ever seen."
...okay. Kid had a point.
"I people-watch," he said, mostly because he didn't really want to know what other beach activities the kid would come up with. Beach volleyball and building sand castles, probably. (Which, well, he'd got dragged into some pretty excellent beach volleyball games by Lenny, over the years, but those had all been with other criminals and involved a lot of violent threats and cheating. Which he somehow suspected weren't things the Flash would be good with.)
"People-wa–?" the kid started, before snapping his mouth shut and casting an intelligent eye around the nearby beachgoers. He let out a sharp laugh and shook his head, not looking at Mick. "Oh my god, of course you do. Wow." He got up in a rush, while Mick was still trying to figure out how to respond to that. "I'm going back to the water," he said drily. "If I catch you in the act, you have to put it back."
And then he was walking back down to the surf, leaving Mick gaping after him, because–
Holy shit. Central City's perfect little superhero just gave him permission to steal. No way Mick was going to stay on his towel, after that.
Barry probably shouldn't have been as willing to let Rory steal as he was. But, well, despite popular opinion and the police generally being on his side, he was a vigilante, illegally meting out justice against wrong-doers. He'd trapped people in illegal prisons, stood back and let Oliver torture people for information (in his defense, Oliver hadn't given him much of a choice), and damned an entire other world to the unforgiving reign of a psychopath. And he didn't always keep his hands clean while fighting metahumans, had been forced to kill a few of them because there'd been no other way to stop them. Which included Zoom, and probably would have included the Reverse-Flash, if Eddie hadn't shot himself first.
It probably shouldn't have chaffed, the way the city and even his friends all seemed to see nothing but the best in him, but it did, sometimes. It was something he did his best to ignore, but the idea of his soulmate (who happened to be a career criminal; both of them, evidently) thinking he was some sort of saint?
Well, Barry wasn't certain he could bring himself to actually join Rory on his little thieving spree, but he could and did ignore it for almost an hour, helping a couple of kids build an epic sand castle because their parents were too busy sunbathing or napping to realize their kids were struggling with lugging the buckets full of sand and water up to the spot where they'd been ordered to stay.
When he finally made his way back to their towels, Rory was lying back with a relaxed sort of smirk that Barry was fairly certain he'd never seen on the man before. It wasn't a bad look, was actually kind of attract–
And Barry was going to pretend he'd never had that thought, thanks.
He'd finished the last of his water and was looking around for a bin, when Rory called, "Catch!"
Barry had to use his speed to catch the wallet Rory'd thrown at him, and it was for the best that they were well away from Central City, because people in Coast City weren't watching for signs of the Flash. Probably weren't even thinking to watch for metahuman powers at all, despite them being around for more than long enough, now, that the entire world knew they were a thing. "This isn't yours," he couldn't help but say as he looked over the wallet he'd caught.
Rory snorted. "Buy them kids ice cream 'r sum'thin'."
Barry frowned and flicked open the wallet, suspicious. He wasn't actually surprised to find the ID sporting the photo of the kids' father, because the parents had seemed pretty inattentive. Though, still... "When did you grab this? I was sitting right there."
Rory raised both eyebrows at him. "Yer not that observant, Red."
Barry opened his mouth to insist he was, but then he stopped because, okay, actually, that was fair. He'd been purposefully avoiding keeping track of Rory, and he had made a couple of trips down to the water to refill the bucket; if Rory'd already been standing nearby during one, he would have had plenty of time to snatch the wallet without Barry seeing him.
He huffed and tugged a twenty out of the wallet, then tossed it back at Rory.
"Yer not gonna return it?" Rory asked, sounding surprised.
"I told you only if I caught you," Barry reminded him and turned towards the ice cream truck by one of the paths up to the road.
"Red," Rory called after him, and it was only because of how serious he sounded, that Barry looked back towards him. Rory was watching him with a thoughtful frown. "Ya weren't tryin' t'watch, were ya?"
Barry swallowed and held up the bill. "Do you want something?" he asked, uncertain how to answer that; he might be willing to let Rory commit crimes, but actually admitting to it? Not so much.
"Nah," Rory decided and lay back down on his towel.
The kids were delighted about the ice cream, and if their parents noticed they were eating stuff given to them by a stranger, they didn't say anything.
(Yeah, they totally deserved having their things stolen; Barry hoped Rory had got the mom's stuff, too.)
He stayed with the kids until the dad woke up, looked at the time, and started insisting it was time to go. Barry made himself scarce before the parents realized things were missing, returning to his towel next to Rory just as the outcry started. "Should we make a run for it?" he asked Rory, who looked perfectly content to watch the mayhem with a wide smirk.
"Not if ya dun wanna look guilty," Rory replied, rolling his eyes to the side to shoot Barry an unimpressed look. "If they come over 'n ask, ya look 'em in the eyes 'n tell 'em ya dun know nothin'. Ya were playin' with the kids the whole time."
Barry groaned and dropped down to lie flat on his towel. "You realize I'm a terrible liar."
"Gonna hav'ta fix that," Rory replied without any hint of apology or regret.
(Not that Barry had expected any.)
The family did not end up coming over to question him, thankfully, and Barry let out a relieved breath when they left shortly after.
"Ya ever stole 'nythin' afore, Red?" Rory asked once the family was long gone.
Barry frowned and pushed himself up on his elbows so he could look over at where Rory was stretched out, his eyes closed. Had he ever stolen anything before? Sure. He'd done it a couple of times as a form of rebellion against Joe, when he was a teenager, and he'd walked out of a couple of convenience stores with a candy bar or pre-made sandwich he hadn't paid for while he was in college, because he'd wanted or needed it and been between paychecks. More recently, he'd sometimes speed-make himself food at Big Belly Burger or drinks at Jitters, and while he'd usually try to leave payment behind, if he didn't have cash on him, he'd have to leave without paying.
"I've never stuck around to watch any fall-out," he said, instead of properly answering the question.
Rory grunted. "Suppose yer fast enough, no one's gonna see ya fer long 'nough t' make note o' ya."
"I suppose."
Rory opened his eyes then and turned an amused smirk on Barry. "Lying no, avoidance yes."
Barry blinked, confused. "What?"
Rory huffed and shoved himself into a sitting position. "Ya said ya can't lie direct. Which, yeah, lotta people can't, 'specially them raised honest. But yer avoidin' good 'nough. Jest answer the question they ain't asked 'n yer good. So long as they dun push."
"...are you seriously trying to teach me how to lie?"
"Shouldn't hafta, not given ya should be good at hidin' yer night job," Rory replied drily.
"I do fine!"
"Uhuh."
Barry huffed and started getting up. "Whatever. We should head back to the motel to change. Unless you want to wear your trunks and shirt to dinner."
Rory snorted, but obediently joined Barry in collecting their things. "It's the beach in summer," he pointed out once they'd shaken out the towels as much as they could. "No one's gonna care s'long as I'm wearin' shoes 'n a shirt. But I ain't takin' the cooler along, so we might as well go back."
Barry rolled his eyes, but he had to admit that Rory had a point about no one caring about whether or not they were wearing beach things. Still, his own clothing was especially sandy, after he'd got wet a couple of times, then sat in the sand for long periods, so he wouldn't mind getting changed.
Well, if Rory didn't care, that meant there shouldn't be a line for the toilet. Not that Barry usually cared about waiting for lines.
Mick could admit, at least to himself, that it was easier to get along with the Flash than he'd have expected. He wasn't certain how much of that was their souls just aligning, or whatever shit, and how much was due to his having suffered a whole crew of wanna-be heroes. Which, well, given that crew had been the entire reason Lenny'd tossed him out – picking them instead of his fucking soulmate, just like he used to do for Lisa, and Mick hated that that correlation had made it easier to forgive him – you'd think they'd have made it harder to stand getting stuck with another hero.
Except, really, next to the lot of them, the Flash was way less of a goody two-shoes. He didn't have Haircut's need to prove he's both good and smart, or the professor's condescending assumption that everyone else was dumber than him. He was more like the fire-kid, who'd got dragged along and was just making the best of it, or Blondie, who knew her own darkness and did her damnedest to fight against it. Maybe even a little bit of English, who'd been so very driven by his need to save his own family. Except the Flash had already lost his family, and he didn't have a handy time ship to undo it.
(Or did he? He had foggy memories of speedsters being able to travel in time, but he couldn't remember if it was some sort of tech that had been created by a speedster for others like them, or something they could do on their own. He probably needed to clarify that with the kid at some point.)
Really, he reminded Mick of Lenny as he'd been with that crew. Trying so hard to play by the rules, but unable to completely hide the fact that he was a villain deep in his soul. Except the Flash was almost the opposite: Trying so hard to break the rules, but unable to hide how utterly good he was inside.
Did that make Mick the Legends crew?
"Great," he told the pile of burnables he'd been spending the last hour building up, because if he was at the beach, he was gonna have a bonfire. "Jest what I need, t' be the villain o' this holiday."
"What was that?" the kid asked from behind him, clearly just back from another run to collect materials; Mick had set him the task both because he could go further to find materials faster, and because building the bonfire was soothing in a different way than watching it burn, and Mick had decided he needed both sorts after the past fuck knew how many years he'd had.
"Nothin'," Mick snapped, irritated at being caught unawares while talking to himself. He grabbed a couple more sticks from the pile and turned his back on the kid.
Kid was quiet for a couple breaths, then he offered, sounding a little uncertain, "Well, you are a supervillain?"
Mick couldn't quite hold back a laugh that tasted bitter, and the turned to face the kid with a mean smile. "Yer mixin' me with Snart. He was the supervillain. 'M jest the hired help."
The kid blinked a couple times, looking startled, before he straightened and shook his head. "No way. Heat Wave's just as nasty a character–"
"Heat Wave's 'n afterthought," Mick snarled, clinging to anger because then his chest didn't hurt as much. "Wouldn't even exist without Cold. He pointed 'n said 'burn it', 'n I burnt it! I ain't cut out fer supervillainin', fuckin' failed at bein' a hero, 'n I helped off them what turned me inta mercenary! All that's left is arson, 'n I can't even 'njoy that now!"
The kid stared at him, eyes wide and hurt. "Sorry," he whispered, and was gone before Mick could blink.
Mick stared after him for a long moment, still clinging to his rage and glad the kid was gone. The Flash was the whole fucking reason Lenny was gone, after all. Turned him into a supervillain, talked him into playing hero, got him loving the idea of being good so much, he went and died for it.
He stormed over to the cooler and yanked out a bottle of beer, chugged the whole thing, then dropped the empty bottle in the sand and pulled out another. He drank that one slower, carried it back to the wood pile and sipped it as he finished building the burnables up. He poured the last little bit on the wood closest him, then pulled his battered old lighter – a gift from Lenny over a decade ago, and one of the few physical reminders of him that Mick hadn't been able to leave behind – and used that to light it.
The pyre went up beautifully, like a work of fucking art. Once upon a time, Mick would have been left staring at it, mouth hanging open and standing so close, his clothing would chance catching fire. Once upon a time, Lenny would have had to pull him away, and Mick would have immediately started bitching if he didn't get to watch the last embers die off.
Mick left while it was still blazing, heading for the nearest place that served alcohol, because he hated how little the fire meant to him, now.
For all that Rory had made it pretty clear that Barry was ruining his fire building and watching, and he'd honestly intended to stay away, he hadn't been able to resist the urge to go back and at least watch the fire from the distance; Barry might not enjoy fire the way Rory did, but he wanted to try and understand it, a little. (Also, he was maybe a little worried about him; he knew Rory had pyromania – it was in his police file – and Barry was a little afraid he'd try to give himself new burns, since his old ones seemed to have vanished.)
When Barry got back to the beach, the bonfire was almost half-burnt, and Rory was nowhere in sight.
That rolling, sick feeling was back in his stomach, the one that he kept suffering when Rory did or said something that wasn't quite right. Like some part of him was trying to warn him that there was something wrong, wrong, wrong.
(Was it their soul bond? He thought he remembered something about soulmates knowing when their other half was in trouble, but that could have easily been something he'd read in one of Iris' trashy romance novels. Which Barry had only ever read on a bet. Honest to god.)
When Barry approached the fire, he found three empty beer bottles strewn around the area, the cooler left open with one unopened beer left.
"Shit," he whispered, because he already suspected Rory had an alcohol problem – he'd seen too many cops use alcohol as a crutch when times got rough to miss the signs – and he had a sinking suspicion that he'd gone off in search of something harder than the beer.
Barry barely waited long enough to put out the last of the fire – surrounded by sand or no, he wasn't going to leave an unattended fire burning – then he turned and ran to check the local pubs, using his speed because fuck secrecy, anyway; he wasn't going to lose his soulmate to alcohol poisoning, no matter their shitty history.
Even with superspeed, it took him almost twenty minutes to find Rory, which was due almost entirely to Barry overlooking a ratty little hole-in-the-wall pub that he'd only spotted because someone had been walking out when Barry ran past for a third look of the area closest to the beach.
Rory was sitting hunched in his barstool, shoulders rounded forward in a manner that was more exhausted than anything else. Still, the glare he threw at Barry as he slid into the stool next to him was angry enough to give him pause. Though that might just have been the suspicious shine of wet to his bloodshot eyes. "Get the fuck outta 'ere, Red," Rory snarled.
Barry took a deep breath and finished settling himself in the stool next to Rory. "No," he said, quiet and firm. "I'll leave when you leave."
Rory let out a rough-sounding laugh and flashed his teeth at Barry in what might have been a smile in another life. "Oh, right," he said, low and full of anger that somehow made Barry's chest hurt. "Central City's saintly little superhero–"
"I'm not–!" Barry started, before cutting himself off as he realized he was way too loud.
"So perfect, so good," Rory continued like Barry hadn't tried to interrupt, "that 'e even tries to save his villains."
That made Barry frown, because, "I thought you weren't–"
"Snart," Rory snarled, and blinked once, twice, quick and rapid enough that Barry had a sinking feeling that he was fighting back tears. "Went 'n fuckin' talked 'im to suicide."
What?
" 'M sure ev'rone's so proud–"
"I didn't!" Barry snapped, fighting to ignore the bile climbing his throat, because he would never–
"Oh, but ya did," Rory said, grinning wide and angry and a little unhinged. "Yer the one what killed 'im. 'S yer fault. Such a good–"
"Shut up!" Barry shouted, and swung a slightly wild punch at Rory's face.
His fist connected with the edge of Rory's deranged smile. But it barely moved him, and Barry couldn't say how much of that was due to him lacking the balance to put sufficient force behind the punch, and how much was due to Rory spending literal decades as Snart's muscle.
"Lemme teach ya how t' throw a punch, kid," Rory said, a gleam in his eyes that made the most base part of Barry's hind brain run screaming.
Barry managed to dodge the first swing by half falling off his bar stool, and the second only because Rory threw it while sliding off his own stool. He tried to cut and run before Rory could throw a third – soulmates aside, it was clear he wasn't welcome – but something – the glass that had been sitting in front of Rory, Barry assumed, based on the shattering of glass when it fell to the floor – hit him in the back of the head hard enough to make his eyes water, and he stumbled.
"Hey! That's enough!" someone shouted, right before a fist connected with Barry's shoulder, knocking him around hard enough he ended up perpendicular to Rory.
As Rory moved to throw another punch, everything slowed around Barry, his speed kicking in and giving him plenty of time to think and react. He started to move away, but then he caught sight of the shine of tears on Rory's cheeks, just like on the train. And, just like on the train, his eyes were full of more grief – of loneliness and self-hatred; Barry was familiar enough with both, after this year, to recognize them in others – than the anger Barry had expected. Which made him pause, taking too long to decide how to react, because Rory was hurting just as much as him, was just lashing out at him because...what? Barry wouldn't let him drink himself into oblivion?
(Barry could...kind of understand that anger; his own self-destructive behavior tended towards refusing to sleep and taking down criminals until he couldn't stand up any more, which few people would be inclined to stop him from.)
Rory's punch connected with Barry's cheek, doing a lot more to move him than his own punch had done to Rory. But Barry's aborted movement meant Rory ended up overextending, and he stumbled a step forward, chest crashing into Barry's shoulder.
If a couple of hands hadn't yanked Rory back, while someone steadied Barry, they probably would have ended up in a heap on the floor.
"Hey, you okay?" the guy who had steadied Barry asked, even as Rory turned on the two burly guys who had pulled him back.
Barry's cheek and jaw hurt where Rory had connected, and the back of his head and his shoulder weren't much better, but it would heal quickly, and Barry was getting good at ignoring his pains. (He'd also suffered enough broken bones, over the past two years, to know Rory hadn't managed to break anything, so he wouldn't have to re-break and properly set anything later if he ignored it for a bit.)
Rory, though, looked like he was about to get the beating he'd just tried to aim at Barry, and Barry was thinking clearly enough, now, to know he needed to stop things from getting any worse. So he pulled away from the guy who had helped him and started towards where a third guy had joined the other two trying to hold Rory still. "Ro–" No. "Mick," Barry called.
Rory fell still, and the gaze he turned on Barry was agonized.
Shit, he'd put the same emphasis on his name as he'd heard Snart do the couple of times he'd been trying to get Rory's attention during a fight.
Well, nothing for it, so he took another step forward, close enough to touch, and quietly offered, "I'm sorry," because he'd thrown the first punch.
Rory very obviously turned his head away, probably would have started walking away if he wasn't being held in place by strangers. "Shoulda jest left me, Red. Told ya."
"Not happening," Barry said, and meant it with all his heart; his imagination or not, that woman had been right: Rory needed him to be there, stopping him from drinking himself to death, or starting a fight he wasn't going to win. Same as Barry had needed someone to get him out of Central, make him slow down before he fucked over everyone's lives. They'd been stuck together for a reason, dammit.
(Had to have been, or the world would have given him Iris, instead, and Eddie never would have got involved and shot himself to save Barry. Then there wouldn't have been a singularity, and Ronnie wouldn't have died closing it, and Zoom never would have found their universe.)
And then – maybe to keep his thoughts from falling deeper down the dark hole they were aiming for, maybe because it was just what he did when the people in his life were so obviously hurting – Barry took another step forward and ducked down slightly so he could hug Rory without getting in the way of the men who had pulled him back. "I'm sorry," he said again, because it felt like the sort of thing he should say.
Rory sagged, and the guys must have let him go, because he hugged Barry back, after a long few seconds. "Little idiot," Rory muttered, and Barry thought he could hear the evidence of his tears in his voice. "Stop 'pologizin' 'fore I hafta punch ya'gain."
Barry huffed, because that made zero sense – unless the idea was that Barry wouldn't be able to apologize again until after Rory had? – but he didn't push it, because he was pretty sure they'd done enough fighting for the night. So, instead, he said, "I think you've had enough to drink tonight, so let's go back to the motel."
"Knew yeh'd say that," Rory muttered, tugging out of the hug and moving to return to the bar.
"Mick," Barry said, unimpressed, and grabbed his arm to stop him.
"Red," Rory returned in the same tone. "Ya want me leavin' without settlin' my tab?"
Well, when Rory put it that way... Barry sighed and let him go.
"You sure you're okay with him, kid?" one of the burly guys who had grabbed Rory asked once he'd left them to settle things with the bartender.
"We can take him out back and teach him not to throw punches at you any more," the other burly guy added.
Barry blinked, thrown. He guessed he should have been grateful that they were willing to stick up for him, but he was more annoyed that they thought he needed protection. Although, given appearances, and the fact that Barry's first punch hadn't done much to Rory, he supposed it made sense.
Still.
"Not gonna punch 'im again," Rory muttered as he returned. When the burly guys turned skeptical looks that looked dangerous, somehow, on him, Rory grunted, clearly unimpressed by them, then said, "Red'll eventually stop playin' nice 'n pullin' his punches."
Barry actually might throw a proper punch at Rory, one with some speed behind it so it had to hurt, if he hit him while they weren't in a public place. Which, well, Barry wasn't certain how he felt about that. Because Rory was his soulmate and a normal human, not a meta, but he was also a criminal, and Barry was a member of the CCPD and a superhero; where was the line supposed to be? And how many times would one of them hurt the other before they found it?
Rather than thinking too hard on that, or waiting to see how the burly guys respond to the certainty that Barry – who no one in their right mind would ever think could take Rory in a fist fight – would be strong enough to keep Rory from resorting to violence again, Barry grabbed Rory's arm and half-dragged him from the pub.
The trip back to the motel was made in silence. And while Rory wasn't stumbling every three steps, like Barry would have expected, there was something very focused about his movements, like he was only walking on his own through sheer force of will.
Once in their room, Barry grabbed two granola bars and shoved them at Rory, because they were hardly the most filling thing, but they would at least be something in his stomach. And they were the easiest thing to access.
Rory's expression when he looked down at the food suggested he wasn't going to take them, but when he looked up at Barry – mouth opening to, very likely, tell him to shove them up his ass, or something equally pleasant – his gaze sort of slid to one side slightly and he stiffened, then snatched the granola bars and turned away as he ripped one open.
Barry frowned and turned to look behind him, trying to figure out what Rory had seen. But there was nothing behind him except the peeling wallpaper.
When he turned back to ask what was wrong now, he happened to spot himself in the mirror over the bathroom sink: His cheek had turned a spectacular shade of yellow-ish green where Rory had punched him. Barry expected it would heal completely within the next ten minutes or so – that was about right for his bruises – but it was still there. And pretty obvious.
He waited until Rory had finished the first granola bar and was opening the second, before asking, "Is this going to be a thing? Me dragging you out of the bottom of a bottle?"
Rory took a large bite of his granola bar and didn't respond.
"Mick." His first name had worked pretty well before.
Rory's shoulders slumped slightly and he sighed. "Probably," he said, and the word sounded exhausted.
"Okay," Barry said, even though it wasn't. Still, at least he knew it would be a recurring problem, and that meant he'd know to keep an eye out.
"S'not," Rory muttered, shoving the last bite of granola bar into his mouth. He tossed the wrapper in the general direction of the bin, then turned to face Barry, his expression twisting with a mix of anger and regret. "C'mere. Lemme see."
"It'll be healed in another few minutes. Don't worry about it," Barry insisted, reaching up to cover his bruised cheek with one hand.
Rory grunted, then pointed at the bedspread next to him. "Sit."
Barry huffed, but obediently joined him on his bed. "Seriously, don't make a big issue about it. I get worse than this most of the time I put on my suit."
"Not the point," Rory snapped, tone angry, but the fingers that touched under Barry's chin, turning his head so Rory could get a better look, were gentle enough that even a kid would have been able to resist, if they'd wanted to. "Shouldn'ta been throwin' punches. 'Specially after drinkin'."
"I started it," Barry couldn't help pointing out, because he had.
"Lenny were here, he'd have my head. Dun matter who started it," Rory insisted. "Lemme see yer shoulder."
"It's healed," Barry said, because it didn't even twinge any more. "And why the hell would Snart being getting on you for me starting a fight?"
Rory proceeded to stare at him in silence, clearly waiting for something.
"Oh, for the love of god," Barry muttered, then tugged off his shirt and twisted so Rory could see that his shoulder was fine.
Rory's fingers against his bare shoulder were warm and gentle, and Barry couldn't quite stop a shudder at the touch of skin-on-skin. " 'M not Lewis," Rory said, right before one hand curled around Barry's side to tug him into a better position to, judging by the gentle hands combing through his hair, check where the glass had hit his head.
Barry let Rory turn him, mind short-circuiting and taking a dive south at the unexpected touch – it had been months since the last time he'd had sex, okay? And Rory was both his soulmate and attractive, and they were on a bed – before Rory's words registered and Barry's body cottoned on that sex wasn't on the table. "Snart's dad?" he heard himself say, even as he connected the dots: Lewis Snart had abused his kids when he'd got drunk, so of course Snart – Leonard – would take issue with Rory throwing punches while inebriated.
"Blood in yer hair," Rory said quietly, regret clear in his voice.
"It'll wash out," Barry pointed out.
Rory was quiet for a long moment, his fingers continuing to gently comb through Barry's hair, like he was maybe trying to get the blood out that way. (Barry wouldn't be surprised if Rory had to wash his hands after; he doubted the blood would have dried enough for it to just flake off.)
And then Rory quietly said, "I'm sorry. Shouldn'ta punched ya. Shouldn'ta said all that stuff, neither."
All of what–? Oh.
Barry swallowed down the return of bile climbing his throat and made himself ask, "Was it? My fault?"
Rory's hands left his hair, and when Barry twisted to face him, Rory was staring down at the stain of red on his hands. "Dunno," Rory finally said, which wasn't particularly comforting. "Mighta gone without ya puttin' ideas in his head."
Barry took that to mean it was his fault, at least a little. Which, well, shit.
'Central City's saintly little superhero', indeed; turned out Barry's actual superpower was getting the people around him killed.
"I'm going to bed," he whispered, because he needed to just not be for a while.
When Rory grunted in response, Barry got up and got ready in silence, then climbed into bed and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping sleep would come quick.
One ||
Epilogue
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