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edsbrak · 7 years

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Read on Ao3 | New Kid AU

It's senior year and Eddie is determined to get through it with ease while also scared about what awaits him on the other side. But then a new kid arrives in town and turns Eddie's life completely upside down, in ways he never would have expected.

Tags: Modern Setting, Strangers To Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Coming Of Age

Chapter 1: New Kid On The Block (3.8k)

Life in Derry, to say the least, was quiet.

Some might say that equals to boring, some would argue that it was untouched paradise. But to most, in the end, all simply agree that it was their town, nothing special, and for one Eddie Kaspbrak that was enough.

“Eddie dear, you’re going to be late for your first day back,” calls Mrs. Kaspbrak from the bottom of the stairs.

“Coming ma!” yells Eddie, before he turns to look at himself in the mirror one last time.

It was their final year of high school and Eddie has already counted up the days until their sweet release into freedom. Eddie thinks if it weren’t for his best friends Bill and Stan high school life may have been a less than average one. He was in the middle of the spectrum – not popular nor an outcast, just someone who would do what was expected of him, no more, no less.

Eddie runs his fingers through his mop of hair again, watching as the almost-curls bounce back into place and wondering if he should cut it.

His clothes, once colourful and daring when he was younger, were now a basic washed-out jeans and button down shirt combo. Eddie found by not drawing attention to himself around town, he could get through life a little bit easier. It was better this way, regardless of moments when he felt as if his heart was made of lead and pumping out ice-cold water.

“Eddie, hurry up!”

With a sigh he picks up his backpack and steps out of his room, down the stairs to where his mother is waiting for him by the front door.

“I can drive you to school, pumpkin. I don’t want to be getting a late call from your teacher,” she says warningly.

“No, ma, I’m fine. I’ll just take the shortcut if I have to,” says Eddie.

She eyes him warily before finally kissing his forehead and handing him his packed lunch. “Okay. Be careful please. And don’t forget to give the school nurse your updated medication list.”

“I know,” says Eddie lowly, pecking his mother’s cheek and leaving the house quickly.

“Don’t be back too late!” calls Mrs. Kaspbrak, and Eddie hears their front door finally click shut.

Eddie scuffs his shoes on the sidewalk and hikes his heavy bag around to sit more comfortably on his shoulders. The morning rush in Derry always happens at 8 o’clock sharp, every day, and so his walks to school were frequently quiet ones. A car or two might drive by, or someone might be walking their dog, but at this time, the streets belonged to Eddie.

He wanders into the middle of the road, knowing full well if his mother were here she’d be screaming profanities up the wazoo. It was one of Eddie’s less than impactful rebellious schemes, but it was his own, and he likes that.

“Oh, shit!”

That was the only warning Eddie gets before a bike swerves out in front of him and just barely manages to miss a full-frontal collision. Eddie can only step back slightly when it happens, too shocked to react any faster, and watches helplessly as the rider comes to an unskilled stop at the curb and nearly falls right off his bike.

“Jesus,” the guy – a teenager, Eddie observes – exclaims worriedly, and turns to face Eddie. “Dude, why were you in the middle of the road? You got a death wish or something?”

Eddie startles, only mildly registering the edge of bitterness in the boy’s tone, and focuses more on the wild mane of black hair and the worn through leather jacket with a Clash patch on his sleeve. His dark eyes were pinned on Eddie, brows furrowed, and it’s not until an impatient gesture is made that finally Eddie answers him.

“Sorry,” he says, feet still rooted in place. “I didn’t think being the only moving thing on the road would throw you off that much. I’ll be more careful next time.”

The boy gives him an incredulous look and scoffs as he shakes his head shallowly. “What the hell, man.”

Finally Eddie steps over to the boy, taking in every detail he can; from his black converse to the chain dangling from his pocket, the scab’s on his knuckles and the splatter of freckles across his face. He was undoubtedly attractive, which somehow pisses Eddie off for reason’s he can’t quite place.

“Wanna take a picture?” asks the boy as he straightens out his bike.

“I’ve never seen you before,” says Eddie.

“Why Mr. Holmes, I didn’t expect to run into you in this lifetime. And I’m not surprised – you probably inadvertently kill a bunch of people before you get the chance to meet them,” he says, only half-heartedly.

“Funny,” says Eddie before he steps away and begins his walk again to school.

There’s a brief lapse of silence until he hears a “Hey, wait!” and a bike peddling behind him. Eddie doesn’t slow his pace, and debates ignoring this boy as he comes up to ride alongside him obnoxiously.

“You’re heading this way too?” the boy asks, and Eddie spares him a glance. “Think of me as an escort – so you don’t accidently hurt anyone else.”

Eddie swallows down his remark and rubs absently at his nose. Ten more minutes until he’ll reach the school grounds, and he doesn’t think he can handle listening to this guy talk the entire time there. So he makes a sharp left turn in the wrong direction, not caring he’ll be late for his first class and hopes the boy doesn’t follow.

He does.

There’s another grunt of distress. “Whoops, almost lost you,” he huffs as he turns his bike swiftly. “Warn me next time.”

“There won’t be a ‘next time’,” snaps Eddie.

“Whoa, who pissed in your cereal this morning,” he jokes, letting go of the handle bars and crossing his arms, still perfectly balanced. Eddie tries not to get nervous as he watches. “So what’s your name?”

Eddie breathes through his nose in an effort to calm the racing of his heart. This guy. “Eddie,” he grits out.

The boy hums. “Cute.”

“What?” says Eddie and comes to a stop.

The boy grips the handle bars again in favour of cycling in circles around Eddie. “What? No one ever compliment you before? What a waste.”

Eddie follows the boy’s movements, mind stuck on replay. What in God’s name was happening right now? Had he stepped into the Twilight Zone when he wasn’t looking? He rubs idly at his temple and makes the decision to strongly ignore the heat that has spread to his cheeks.

Finally the boy makes an abrupt halt in Eddie’s path, teeth showing through a grin.

“Don’t you wanna know my name?” he flirts.

“Not particularly,” grumbles Eddie.

“It’s Richie,” he says, offering a hand. Eddie looks down at it. There’s ash covering the tips, and instantly Eddie’s mother is shouting warnings about dirt and disease in his head. Eventually Richie pulls it back when Eddie doesn’t move. “Well, uh… this has been… educational.”

“Sure,” says Eddie slowly.

Richie eyes him carefully and chews on his bottom lip. Eddie wants to tell him it’s a bad habit. Then Richie nods once, smiling, and says, “I do hope we meet again, Eds. But be careful in the future, promise?” he gestures to Eddie as a whole. “Precious cargo.”

He’s riding away before Eddie can even respond, and he’s so thrown off by the unwelcome safety lesson and blatant flirting that he didn’t even register how casually Richie slipped in that nickname.

“Unbelievable,” mutters Eddie, and takes off in a run after checking his wristwatch and seeing the time.

He was late to school, but somehow couldn’t bring it in himself to mind too much.

Eddie’s second class for the day was English. Bill was placed in the more advanced class for their final year, but Eddie didn’t mind so much since he still had Stan to sit with.

He walks in on time and sees Stan sitting in the middle of the room. They bump fists before Eddie takes his seat next to him and pulls out his notebook. Their teacher this year was Mrs. Crawford – a short, beady-eyed woman with seriously bad dental hygiene, but at least her assignments were more selective based than most so Eddie can’t complain that much.

“I can’t believe this is our last year,” says Stan.

“I know,” says Eddie. Nothing in this room has changed for 20 years, except for the students that come and go every new year. Soon he’ll be one of them. “I’m still stuck on what I should do once we finally leave here.”

“My father wants me to take over the synagogue.”

“Well, if it’s what you want,” shrugs Eddie. “I’m not sure I’ll even leave Derry. I can’t see myself getting past my mother.”

Stan hums quietly as he writes something down.

Soon everybody seems to have arrived to class and Mrs. Crawford takes attendance, ticking them off one by one, all students that Eddie is familiar with. Then his mind suddenly wanders back to that boy on his bike.

“Now class,” announces Mrs. Crawford as she walks over towards the door. “We have a new student starting with us this year,” she calls out into the hallway, “Come on in, dear.”

Eddie’s attention focuses on the door and he can’t shake the sudden feeling of dread brewing in his gut. The entire situation has an element of b-grade-sitcom to it and Eddie was not at all ready for this.

A figure in all black steps into the room, and just like that all of Eddie’s scrambled thoughts are confirmed.

Immediately the room is filled with excited whispers. Richie stands at the front of the class, still wearing his jacket even in their poorly air-conditioned classrooms and carrying no stationary or books at all. Eddie tries desperately to shrink down out of sight.

“Well dear, you’re welcome to tell us a bit about yourself,” says Mrs. Crawford, gesturing out to the rest of the staring students.

It’s quite rare in Derry for anyone new to just appear in their town – even rarer that it’s another student. Eddie knows for certain it’ll be talked about for weeks, maybe even months, and just when he thought his last year of high school was going to flow by undisturbed. Typical.

“Why thank you, gorgeous,” says Richie with a wink to Mrs. Crawford. Eddie tries not to gag or roll his eyes loud enough to draw attention. “I’m Richie. I arrived here in your lovely town a few days ago from Rhode Island. And if someone here could tell me where you run your underground brothels that would be real helpful—”

“Okay Mr. Tozier, that’s quite enough. Take a seat please,” interjects Mrs. Crawford over the hushed giggles in the front row. “I see you didn’t bring any of your books.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. My uncle was getting it all for me today, I promise,” says Richie with a charming smile.

Mrs. Crawford eyes him before she sighs. “Alright. Take a seat next to Mr. Kaspbrak in the middle there. Eddie, please make sure Mr. Tozier leaves today’s lesson with all of the necessary notes.”

“Fine,” grumbles Eddie, hardly believing his luck.

He sees instantly when Richie’s eyes light up and he’s grinning as he walks towards Eddie to take his seat next to him.

“My, my, what great luck I’m having today to run into you again, Eds,” says Richie.

“What?” Stan whispers to Eddie, but not quietly enough.

“Oh, I already know dear old Eddie Bear here,” says Richie, wagging his eyebrows. He then holds out his hand to Stan across Eddie’s desk. “Richie. Nice to meet you, Eddie’s Friend.”

“Stan,” he corrects, and shakes it. “I’m surprised Eddie made a new friend all on his own.”

“Hey—” objects Eddie.

“Ah, I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” says Richie, giving Eddie a wink. Eddie wonders if the floor will swallow him up if he sinks any further in his seat. “But I’m sure over time my charm will just become too irresistible. Isn’t that right, Eds?”

“It’s Eddie,” he says irritably.

“Well, welcome to Derry, I guess,” says Stan, and his attention snaps to Mrs. Crawford once she clears her throat pointedly.

There’s still a number of hushed words spreading around the classroom, most definitely still pertaining to Richie’s sudden appearance. Eddie’s glances around and notices a clique of girls all giggling amongst themselves as they keep looking over to where Richie is now casually leaning back in his seat in true devil-may-care fashion. Eddie makes a point to stare them down into silence, suddenly more irritated that this guy is causing so much chaos already.

Soon he tries to distract himself from the constant murmuring and focuses on whatever it is Mrs. Crawford is trying desperately to mould into their minds, until there’s a light tap on his shoulder. He looks over to see Richie giving him a sheepish smile.

“Hey, uh, can I borrow a pen?”

Right, he didn’t bring any supplies with him, thinks Eddie.

He sighs lowly and hands Richie one of his seven spare pens from his pencil case before facing the front once again. There’s peace for maybe 20 seconds (not that he was counting) before there’s another tap on his shoulder.

“Can I also borrow a sheet of paper?” asks Richie, and his voice is a lot closer so as to avoid a scolding. Eddie sees Mrs. Crawford shoot them the look anyway.

As quickly as he can, Eddie rips out a page from his notebook and almost throws it in Richie’s face. Richie leans back and settles comfortably in his chair, and like some kind of sixth sense Eddie just knows Richie is still looking at him.

“Thanks, Eds.”

That same hot feeling makes an appearance under Eddie’s skin, and hoping Richie will finally ignore him, Eddie gives him a curt nod and resumes his attention on Mrs. Crawford.

It isn’t until about halfway into the lesson that curiosity gets the better of Eddie and he finds himself sneaking a glance over to where Richie has been writing non-stop since he gave him the paper. But instead of notes all he sees are… doodles?

Richie was just… drawing?

With a disbelieving scoff, Eddie watches the clock atop the door frame and desperately waits for the minutes to tick down.

When the bell for lunch rang out on the second day Eddie hails it as a blessing. After rushing out of the house this morning and stupidly skipping breakfast despite his mother’s protests, his stomach is brewing up a storm and his eyes are on the prize.

“Jeez, Eddie, slow down or you’ll choke,” jokes Stan once they’re outside and sitting down to eat.

“Whaaeber,” says Eddie around a mouthful of food.

Bill, sitting to Stan’s right, laughs quietly at him and opens up his container of pasta salad. Together they mostly eat in silence until they’re all finished, and during that time Eddie likes to observe the other students around them. About half the school’s population sits inside in their cafeteria during breaks, but Eddie’s never quite liked the awful lighting and gross plastic seats covered in probably a million germs from countless food fights.

Years ago Stan, Bill and himself chose this spot under a large basswood tree. It was just far enough away from everyone that Eddie could forget for a few moments that he was here – that he could imagine he was anywhere else.

They were always nice thoughts until the bell rang and brought him back to reality.

Only today his daydreams are interrupted prematurely when Stan says “Hey, isn’t that the new kid sitting on the roof?”

Instantly Eddie’s attention is caught and he’s following Stan’s helpful pointing up to where there is, in fact, someone sitting near the roofs edge. The mop of black hair is unmistakable, as is his token leather jacket, and Eddie feels a mixture of annoyance and nosiness creep its way to the surface.

“How the hell did he get up there?” he says.

“I d-didn’t think anyone was allowed,” says Bill.

“Of course he’s not allowed,” says Eddie lowly. Richie held what looked to be a book in his hands, and somehow that made the situation even more bizarre. He was sitting far back enough that the students closer to the school couldn’t see him, but where Eddie and his friends were they could view him plain as day.

“At this rate this guy is just asking for trouble,” says Stan.

And then, as if somehow sensing he was being watched, Richie lowers his book and his gaze seems to look out to where Eddie was still sitting and watching him intently. Eddie feels as if he’s been caught with his hand in the metaphorical cookie jar, but then he wants to laugh at himself because he’s not the one doing something as stupid as breaking onto the school roof in the middle of the day.

Then as if in slow motion, Richie holds up his hand and waves right at him.

Eddie feels his face scrunch up into a deep frown, but has trouble tearing his gaze away. When some time passes and he doesn’t wave back, Bill speaks up:

“Uh, Eddie… w-w-why is the new kid waving at you?”

Still stuck in some kind of frozen limbo, Stan takes the reins and waves back to Richie before looking at Eddie expectantly. Eddie avoids their gazes.

“How do you know he wasn’t waving at Stan?”

“Pretty sure he knows you the best, ‘Eddie Bear’,” says Stan, his tone clearly teasing.

“That’s stupid,” mumbles Eddie. “And don’t encourage him by waving back. He shouldn’t be up there. Something’s seriously loose in his mind, I’m telling you.”

“He seems friendly enough,” says Stan conversationally, but then he turns to ask Bill about their weekend plans and so Eddie is left to deal with his many, many thoughts about what this kid’s deal is.

Not long after that the bell finally goes off and they pack up their stuff to head back inside. Biting his lip, Eddie looks up to see if Richie is still there. He’s not, and Eddie shakes his head shortly, following behind Bill and ignoring the inkling of desire to scan the hallways for those infamous dark curls.

When school lets out at the end of the day, Eddie declines Stan and Bill’s offer to go to the Aladdin, insisting his mum wants him home early enough to be able to tape her shows while she’s out visiting her friend. His friends give him pitying looks but ultimately say goodbye, and Eddie begins his walk home in the dry, slightly overcast Fall afternoon.

He brings his hands up to his lips and blows out a low tune as he ambles down the street. The wind blows past him loudly, distracting him from his tone of key, and with a sigh he starts up again.

A ring of a bell dings once behind him, and Eddie stays in his lane to let the bike pass him safely. Only it doesn’t ride past, and Eddie feels like he should have seen this coming.

“Well, well, fancy meeting you here.”

Eddie lowers his hands in favour of clenching them slightly, and angles his head over to see none other than Richie giving him a thousand watt grin.

“Do I somehow have a note stuck to my back that says ‘Yes, please come over here and bother me to your heart’s content’?” says Eddie.

“Oh, touchy,” teases Richie.

“Are you stalking me or something?”

Richie’s eyebrows rise. “Does it get you all hot and bothered thinking that you have my undivided attention? Aw, Eds.”

“What is your problem?” says Eddie. “You’re seriously the weirdest person I’ve ever met.”

“Really?” says Richie, sounding genuinely surprised. “Although, I suppose ‘weird’ is better than ‘freak’ or ‘ungrateful pig-headed degenerate’.”

Momentarily curious about where those names came from, Eddie chooses instead to just focus on the road, glancing at his wristwatch again and seeing he still has time before his mother’s show starts.

“How did you get on the school’s roof today?” asks Eddie, because the still begrudgingly impressed side of him wants to know.

“Ah, that’s for me to know and you to find out,” answers Richie unhelpfully. “The view sure is nice, though.”

“I bet it is,” grunts Eddie and speeds up.

Richie catches up easily. There’s an awkward moment of silence. “Do you really not like me?” he eventually asks, tone losing some of its bravado.

The word ‘No’ should be leaving Eddie’s mouth over to Richie’s awaiting ears. ‘No, I don’t, so go away’ should be making its grand entrance once and for all, but they grow stubborn. Frustrated at himself, Eddie decides to not say anything at all.

Something in his non-answer must cause Richie to relax slightly because he continues to ride alongside him, and then cautiously he begins to hum.

Eddie recognizes the melody after a few moments, and without much thought to it he joins in with Richie when the chorus hits, and they don’t stop until they finish the song together.

“You dig Thin Lizzy?” asks Richie when they’re done.

“Of course. They helped me to get through eighth grade, man,” says Eddie, eyeing Richie carefully.

“Nice,” says Richie with a smile. Their eyes meet briefly and then Eddie jerks his away quickly. “I have all of their music, so if you ever wanna come over and borrow something you totally can.”

Eddie licks his lips before saying, “Cool. Uh… thanks.”

“Not a problem, Eds,” says Richie, and gets a better grip on his handle bars. “I must be off, sadly. But let’s do this again sometime, yeah? See you in class tomorrow.” And with that, he makes a u-turn and heads off in the opposite direction. Eddie watches him raptly until he’s out of sight.

If you were to ask Eddie right now what exactly was happening, he wouldn’t be able to give you an honest answer.

But in knowing that, Eddie couldn’t smother the budding flame of excitement rooted deep in his gut.

Maybe life in Derry was about to get interesting.

if you wanna be added to the tag list, lemme know! :D xxxx

#richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #reddie #it 2017 #new kid au #lost and found #bill denbrough #stanley uris #it #my fics #roughandreddie

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robininthelabyrinth · 7 years

Note

Could i offer a prompt where barrys dad dies instead of his mom? Im just so tired of the dead mom trope...

Fic: Tornado Warning (ao3 link)Fandom: The FlashPairing: Nora Allen/Henry Allen, Leonard Snart/Mick Rory, Barry Allen/Iris West, Barry Allen/Iris West/Eddie Thawne

Summary: Nora Allen doesn’t know where the man in yellow, the man in the lightning, came from, but he killed her beloved Henry right in front of her and she knows deep in her gut that he’s after her beautiful baby Barry.

There is no way in hell she’s going to let that happen.

—————————————————————————————–

It happened in a flash.

She remembers every second.

She doubts every one of those seconds.

She came home late, driving home on instinct in the dark - she’d been worried about picking up the dry cleaning in time and whether the milk had already expired, whether Barry would want pancakes tonight for the millionth time, a dozen ultimately unimportant things - she’d settled in at home, kicked off her shoes, walked in humming -

And then he attacked.

At least, she thinks it was a him. Crackling lightning, a whirlwind, a figure surrounded by light, blurred too fast to see -

She screamed, she’d been screaming -

Barry ran downstairs -

Henry had been there, Henry turned to him at the doorway, Henry told him to run -

Run, Barry, run!

Barry had run, but in another flash of light, Barry hadn’t just run, Barry had disappeared - the man screamed in rage - he was after Barry, then, after her baby, and she realized it at the same moment that he blurred again, grabbing the knife from the kitchen and lunging at her -

This is not how I should die, she remembers thinking, a single moment of clarity in the terror.

And it wasn’t, though sometimes she wishes it was.

The man - the creature - was fast, but Henry was already leaping towards her, she reaching for him, and she caught his hands and pulled him towards her, through the whirlwind around her -

And the knife meant for her struck him, instead.

She screamed again.

No - not Henry - no!

The man in yellow disappeared.

“You have to hold the knife in,” Henry gasped, blood bubbling on his lips, always the level-headed surgeon, the mild-mannered man she’d fallen in love with in college, never losing his head no matter what. “Only chance not to bleed out - Nora - Nora, I love you -”

“I love you,” she whispered. “Henry - Henry -”

That was how the police found her.

–

It takes her unforgivably long to realize the police weren’t on her side.

She’d known that, of course she had - she was a college professor, for heaven’s sake; you think she wasn’t hip to how the police state wasn’t necessarily friendly once you were in custody?

No one says “hip” anymore, Henry’s voice in her head reminds her, warm and loving as always.

That was the only voice of his she’d ever hear again, now. He died on the way to the hospital.

They didn’t tell her the entire time she was at the station, no matter how she’d begged to hear if he was all right. If Barry was all right.

Instead, they handed her a cup of coffee and let her dry her eyes (a hopeless task) and they started asking her questions.

It wasn’t until the questions started turning to her and Henry’s personal life - if they fought, if there were marital problems, bizarre questions that she couldn’t understand the purpose of - that she’d remembered herself and asked for a lawyer.

“Don’t see why you’d need one,” Fred said genially. It’s Fred Chyre - Joe’s partner. Joe’s here, too. Joe was Henry’s friend, as far back as college; they’d bonded over their interest in blues and jazz. Since Nora was utterly uninterested - my tone-deaf little pigeon, Henry’s voice laughed in her ear - she’d been happy to let Joe be Henry’s plus-one for all of those events, while she went out with her own friends. It worked well for them. “Is there a problem with us asking about your relationship with Henry?”

“What?” she asked, blinking. It hadn’t been that at all, honestly; she’d just recovered from her shock enough to remember the lessons of her childhood: always ask for a lawyer. “Oh, no, nothing at all. I just remembered that I hadn’t asked for one yet. I think I have a number - I can call one myself and explain, if it’s easier, or we could ask for a public defender for the time being -”

“Introducing a lawyer just makes this whole process more difficult,” Fred said, shaking his head. “I mean, you have the right to one, of course, but it’d be so much easier to figure this out if they weren’t involved - they always muck things up, you know, lawyers, with all their fiddly technicalities - and we all really want to catch the person who did this to Henry and put him or her behind bars -”

“Him or her?” she asked, frowning. “I already told you - it was a man - there was a whirlwind - lightning -”

“Yes, you told us about that. Why don’t we talk about the last few weeks instead?” Fred suggested. “You and Henry were arguing, weren’t you?”

“What? No,” she replied, and that’s when she noticed how fixed his smile was, how cold. “No, don’t be absurd - wait. You don’t - do you think I had something to do with it?”

“We’re not saying anything,” Joe said.

“Was Henry ever abusive?” Fred asked, oozing sympathy. “Is that what happened?”

“What?!” she exclaimed. “What are you - Henry abusive - I don’t – why are you even asking that?!”

“We understand you recently had a miscarriage,” Fred said.

Nora went still and cold, all of a sudden. “Who told you that?”

Fred went silent, but the way his posture shifted towards Joe was damning.

“That is private information,” Nora said through numb lips. Henry and Joe were close; of course Henry would have mentioned it to him, how hard they’d been trying to give Barry a little brother or sister, how they were grieving together. But that Joe would mention it onwards, to people she barely knew like Fred Chyre? That was unforgiveable. “And irrelevant. Joe, what’s the meaning of all these questions?”

“We just want to know what happened,” Joe told her. His face is unfeeling.

“But - asking about my miscarriage? Asking if Henry was abusive? Damnit, Joe; Henry’s your best friend!”

“Yeah,” Joe said, his face twisting, ugly with rage. “And you killed him, you bitch.”

Nora rocked back in her seat as if she’d been hit.

Fred turned an annoyed glare on Joe, his friendly façade cracking to reveal irritation. “Damnit, Joe, if you can’t stick to goddamn script, you can’t sit in on the investigation, you know that -”

There was a script.

They were trying to pin Henry’s murder on her.

Oh, Nora knew all about policemen and their scripts, their nice and tidy little friendly faces that smiled even as they noted down the words they would use against you, uncovering the private facts of your life in their quest for an easy arrest and a quick end to the whole affair. She knows all about how innocent men and women go to jail over fudged evidence and good-enough-for-conviction circumstances, especially when one of the police decided he had it in for you and that it was your fault. She knows all about it.

And she will be damned if that happens to her without a fight.

Henry’s best friend or not.

“I think,” Nora said very carefully, “that I’d like to see my lawyer now.”

And that’s almost all she said for the next four hours, ignoring every petition and threat and wheedling they did to try to make her forget about the request, until they finally gave in and got her one.

The only other thing she asked for in those hours was to know if Henry was all right.

If Barry, her baby, her precious wonderful baby, was all right, if he’d been hurt, if something had happened to him -

They refused to tell her until the very end.

Nora Allen is still very angry about that.

–

The first lawyer she gets – and she has the money for one, thank god, and she’s never been happier to be a middle-class white woman in her life, as depressing as it is to have to think about things like that – tells her that the evidence doesn’t look good and suggests that she plead domestic abuse as the cause for the murder, accepting a plea deal that was more punishment than anything else.

She fires that one and gets another.

The second lawyer says the same thing, more or less, but that she’ll do her best to fight if that’s what Nora wants. It is. Nora’s going to fight this all the way to the bitter end if she has to.

Henry wasn’t abusive, and she won’t say that he was to knock ten years off a sentence she shouldn’t be serving at all.

The second lawyer also says that there’s something fishy about how they’re doing the prosecution.

That part makes Nora actually sit down and listen.

“They’re pushing too hard,” the lawyer tells her. “They’re going to offer you another deal.”

“I already told you, I don’t want a deal!”

“We’re going to listen to the deal,” the lawyer says implacably. “Because just knowing what the deal is will tell us loads about how much they think they have against us – and why they’re so goddamn eager to close a case involving the death of a generally beloved but otherwise not well known surgeon. It’s not like this is a big deal, all the papers and televisions talking about it; yeah, it’s a matter of discussion, but it’s not a 24/7 media circus. So why are they trying to close it so quick?”

Nora bites her lips, but nods.

She tells her lawyer about Joe, about how he irrationally blames her for it, and her lawyer nods thoughtfully.

“That might do it,” she says critically. “We might be able to use that. Let’s see how this goes.”

The deal, when it comes, is –

Nora is very happy for all of those years of work at the college, all that training in keeping a straight face when people say stupid stuff (students, yes, but especially other staff), because otherwise she would be losing her temper.

“I’m sorry,” she says very politely when they’re done, the assistant district attorney and Joe, sitting side by side across the table in front of her. “I’m not sure I understand. You want me to plead guilty, go to jail for at least twenty or thirty years, and I’m supposed to accept this offer…why, exactly?”

“You have family to think of, Nora,” Joe says. He sounds reasonable. He always sounds reasonable, except for that one little reveal he’d had in the investigation room – the ugly anger that lurks there, sorrow for Henry mixing in with anger at her, blaming her. Worst of all, Nora knows why he does, and it has nothing to do with her at all - they always got along fine, both of them loving Henry more than each other, but a nice cordial relationship nevertheless. No, this is all about Joe and Francine, and how he hates her for abandoning him and Iris, how he blames her for everything. This is all of that coming out and aimed at her like a gun. It’s unprofessional, that’s what it is. “You need to think about your family. What about Barry?”

“What about Barry?” she asks. “I was under the impression that he’s at a foster home right now, at least until the trial is over.”

She’d never regretted not having a larger family more. They were all dead and gone, both hers and Henry’s parents, and none of them had anyone else. They’d had each other and thought that was enough.

“He is,” Joe says. “But the foster system - well, it’s a very harsh place, Nora. Very hard on kids, going from one house to another, jumping school districts in the middle of the year. You don’t want him to live the rest of his life among strangers, alone.”

“So if I accept this deal –”

“We’ll make sure he’s placed somewhere nearby, somewhere safe and stable, with people who love him –”

“People like you, you mean,” Nora says, getting it.

Her lawyer is silent, watching, vigilant in case Nora says anything amiss.

They both see Joe blink, taken aback, like he thought she wouldn’t see what he’s doing. Joe always did think he was a reasonable man, even when he was being incredibly unreasonable. He’d always thought he was sneakier than he really was, too. “Of course,” he says, rallying. “You and Henry always said that if something happened to you –”

“Consider that revoked,” Nora says harshly. “I wouldn’t give you permission to raise Barry if you were the last man on earth.”

Joe has the audacity to look surprised, like he thought she would just – go along with it.

Henry probably would’ve, but Henry’s a bit of a pushover, especially where Barry is concerned. Nora was always the one who imposed discipline in their family.

“Nora –” Joe starts.

Nora smiles.

It’s not a nice smile.

“Firstly,” she says, “I believe it would be more appropriate for you to call me Mrs. Allen.”

He flinches. Still surprised by her audacity to question the righteous Joseph West’s judgment call.

Still ashamed, just a little, by the reminder that she was the one Henry had chosen to wed and that she claimed his name as her own.

“Secondly,” she says to her lawyer, “I think that I want to sue.”

“I think,” her lawyer says, “that I agree. We can file against the city, the DA’s office, and the CCPD -”

“Wait, wait, wait,” the ADA running the case says, holding up her hands. “Sue? On what basis?”

“Malicious prosecution,” Nora’s lawyer says. Nora likes how slick and hard and professional she is. “A policeman who’s friends with the victim shouldn’t be involved with assisting the DA’s office in prosecuting the case. Gives rise to questions about revenge as the motive for pushing it so hard.“

“This is not about revenge -” the ADA starts.

“It’s especially inappropriate,” the lawyer continues, undeterred, “when the city starts mixing in questions about adopting children with a prosecution. Especially when the policeman pushing the conviction is also the one potentially adopting the defendant’s child - and even more especially when it’s one with a convicted felon for a wife.”

“A what?!” the ADA exclaims. She scoots a little away from Joe.

They’d been sitting pretty close, Nora notes. She recalls now that Joe had mentioned something about having a bit of an office romance with one of the DAs; this must be the one.

“You never did file for divorce from Francine West,” Nora’s lawyer says. “You’re a married man, Detective, and she’s a felon who still technically has rights to your house. That means it’s not a safe environment for children who might be exposed to a repeated drug addict, a potentially dangerous one.”

“Now wait a minute –” Joe starts.

“You go anywhere near my Barry,” Nora says to Joe, very sweetly. “And I will make sure Iris knows every last lie you’ve ever fed her, you son of a bitch.”

“Maybe we should have this conversation without you, Detective West,” the ADA says, clearly realizing that she’s made a terrible mistake in thinking that Joe’s presence would make Nora more susceptible to simply taking the deal.

“But –”

“Now, Joe!”

Joe goes.

The ADA turns back to them.

“My client is not pleading guilty,” Nora’s lawyer tells her. “My client is, however, going to be going to the press and explain in explicit detail exactly how the CCPD and the DA’s office have conspired to bully her into giving up her parental rights and freedom just because they can’t be bothered to actually do their jobs.”

“I’ll be sure to mention the fact that you’re dating Joe,” Nora says, watching the ADA rear back in alarm even as her own lawyer’s eyebrows shoot up. “The newspapers do love a good public corruption case.”

“It’s hardly corruption,” the ADA says stiffly, but she knows it doesn’t look good. Not when Joe’s helping her prosecute this case, and is moving to adopt Nora’s child.

It looks a lot like child-stealing, to be honest. And as much as Nora hates it, hates how dirty it makes her feel to even think about it, she is, in the end, still a middle-class white woman, with all the privileges that affords her. She’ll be a sympathetic guest on every talk show in the country within days - the right-wing ones, because Joe’s a black male carrying a gun, and the left-wing ones, because Joe’s a policeman, and in any case she will accuse him of trying to steal her baby away in every court of opinion that will have her.

To save her baby, Nora is going to use every last weapon she has and stain her soul as black as she has to. To save her Barry from a life without her, she’ll do anything.

“If you have the evidence to go out and fight me in court, let’s do it,” Nora says, her fingers interlaced in her lap to hide how white her knuckles are. “Because I promise you, I will make this as nasty and dirty a fight as I need to, because I am not letting you touch a goddamn hair on my baby’s head.”

“You’ll lose,” the ADA says.

“So be it,” Nora replies. Most criminals who insist on going to trial do; her lawyer warned her of that. But she can’t go down without a fight. It’s not in her. Henry was the kindness in the family, the sweetness, the desire to do good in this world; Nora was the implacable stubbornness, the insistent optimism, the fierce conviction that if you are right then you must prevail by whatever means you need to do it. “But by god, I will drag down as many of you as I can with me.”

“The evidence is all against you,” the ADA says, crossing her arms.

“The evidence,” Nora’s lawyer says. “The evidence initially collected by – Detective Joe West, correct? The same one applying for custody of my client’s son?”

The ADA bites her lip. “There’s nothing to support your theory that it was a third party attacker.”

“It is not a theory,” Nora says. “It’s a fact.”

“Your son thinks he saw a man in yellow in the lightning,” the ADA says.

Nora arches her eyebrows. “So you’re telling me that you have two witnesses to my side of the story.”

“A man in lightning,” the ADA emphasizes. “That sounds crazy.”

“What sounds crazier,” Nora’s lawyer says, “the idea that an eleven year old boy added in lightning to a story about a third party, a man in yellow, attacking his beloved father, or the idea that my client – without having spoken to her son once, a blatant breach of her rights as his parent – somehow fed him a stupid story that would clearly not survive scrutiny?”

The ADA grits her teeth.

Nora Allen was born and raised in Central City, with its rough and tumble politics, with its corruption, with its slums and its gangs and its organized crime. She is nothing like her soft-hearted husband, raised in softer, friendlier places; Joe was always closer to Henry than to her, and he underestimated her. They all underestimated her.

“I want to see my son,” Nora tells the ADA. “Now.”

They continue to refuse to let them see each other, but in the end they drop the charges before Nora’s final trial date rather than risk a down and dirty battle, and that means they have to let her go, and once they let her go, they have no reason to keep Barry from her.

He runs into his arms, crying, and she holds him close and swears to Henry’s ghost that she will never let anyone hurt him.

Not least of all the man in yellow, the man in the lightning. He’s still out there.

And he’s still after Barry.

Nora’s sure of it.

–

Nora starts by moving back to her old neighborhood, the one she grew up in before Great Uncle Wilbur died and left her family enough money to get her a ticket to Columbia and a brand new life.

Also got her dad a one-way ticket to enough liquor to go into the grave, of course, and her mom following shortly thereafter for lack of people to yell at since Nora wouldn’t put up with it, but there are still enough people around the old place that remember them.

"Eleanora!” old Grissom shouts happily from his porch. He probably hasn’t moved from that place since she left for college. “And you brought your young ‘un, too!”

“Barry’s my boy, Griss,” she says. “Barry, this is Grissom. Yes, that’s his real name; just like the TV show. He’s awful and he smells.”

Barry giggles.

“Is he the one you said babysat you when you were a kid?” he asks shyly.

“That’s right, my beautiful baby boy,” Nora says, petting his hair. “And now he’s gonna help babysit you while Mommy runs some errands, okay?”

“I hope you like Star Trek, m'boy,” Grissom tells Barry. “It’s the only thing I’ve got. But I do got lots of it, and it’s all courtesy of your mum.”

“I like Star Trek,” Barry confirms.

“Then go inside and see if you can get the old box to work,” Grissom says. “Not saying there’s no cookies in it for you if you can…”

Barry yips happily and runs inside.

“And what can I do for you, Eleanora?” Grissom asks, smile fading into something more serious. “Heard the pigs did you wrong in the end, even after you got that fancy degree and everything.”

Nora shrugs. “Central City doesn’t forgive or forget easy,” she says. “And neither do I.”

Grissom’s eyebrows go up just a fraction, which is all the surprise she gets for that particular turn of phrase. “Murder for hire’s a tough line, Eleanora. You sure you’re ready for that?”

“Way I see it, I don’t have much of a choice,” Nora says. “Can you get me some names?”

“Depends on who you want done in,” Grissom replies. “That cop that turned on you and yours?”

“No, not him,” Nora says. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Grissom tilts his head in silent question.

“I’m gonna need someone real good,” she says. She’s been back in the neighborhood for less than a day and she can feel her vowels and subjects and adverbs sloughing off back into the gutter. “Best of the best. And not just a two-bit shooter, neither. I need a brain to crack a puzzle, hands to do what’s needed, and -” She hesitates for a second. “And I need someone to burn the fucker to the ground.”

Grissom nods slowly.

“Might be a long term job,” she warns.

“Might be expensive,” he shoots back.

“I’ll pay,” she says. “Cash, favors, whatever.”

“Why’s it so important?”

“Because the fucker’s after my Barry, Griss. He’s killed my husband and he’s ruined my life and he’s after my baby boy. You get me, Griss? For this, I’ll pay anything.”

He nods slowly.

“Can you get me what I need?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll get you what you need.”

“Good,” Nora says. “Good.”

And then she goes out to buy groceries.

After all, she has a growing boy to feed. He’ll probably want pancakes, Nora reflects. That’s his go-to comfort food.

–

“So let me get this straight,” the man drawls, long and low and Central City bred so deep in his bones that Nora wonders if they played together as children. “You want me to find a man who runs like lightning, who may as may not exist, who disappeared into the air, who you think might be after your boy.”

Nora nods. It’s a hard story to swallow. She wouldn’t be surprised if the man threw it back in her face.

The men. There are two of them, one larger than the other, looks like a thug, but Nora’s no slouch. She can see the intelligence glinting in their eyes.

She’s done her research. The finest thief Central City’s produced in two generations, ever since the great Kitt kicked the bucket back in the ‘40s, and his partner the arsonist.

Man like that doesn’t partner with a dumb thug, though, so she’ll not be underestimating either of them.

“You have any evidence this man’ll be back?” the man asks.

“Nothing but the rage in his scream when my son ran where he couldn’t find 'em,” Nora says. Her face and voice are calm, but her hands are gripped under the table and her knuckles are white.

She asked for the best of the best. This is them, without a doubt. If they say no, she’ll go forward, she’ll get others. But they won’t be the best.

She wants the best.

“Will you do it?” she asks.

He hums.

She stays silent, waits.

“You’re gonna need to put up with us for the long haul,” he says. “We’re not signing up for full time bodyguarding gig, mind you, but there’s no guarantee your man won’t wait a good long while before giving it another shot.”

Nora swallows. “You’re saying yes.”

She almost can’t believe it.

Her story is - unbelievable. She knows that. Intuition and a mother’s instinct; nothing of the sort that these criminals work with. Nothing but smoke and fantasy.

But he’s saying yes.

Leonard Snart smiles. His teeth glint in the light. “I like a challenge.”

–

Nora wasn’t entirely sure what she was expecting, but two notorious criminals coming home with her and making dinner wasn’t it.

She’s not about to let Mick-Fireball-Rory alone in her kitchen alone, though; she hovers over him for a few hours until she realizes that was sort of the point, because she hasn’t seen hide nor hair Snart in those few hours.

When she looks for him, she hears them.

Snart’s upstairs. Barry’s room.

He’s sitting on the bed, feet up, boots on the bed like the mannerless boor he is. Barry’s beside him, feet also up, arms wrapped around his knees.

“- and that’s all I remember,” Barry’s saying.

“That’s all you think you remember,” Snart corrects. “I bet you there’s more you haven’t thought of – the feel of the air, the smells, everything. We’ll work through it, though; no need to worry now.”

“You’re gonna catch him, though, right? You’re gonna catch the guy that killed my dad?”

“I’m gonna do my best,” Snart says. “And my best is pretty good.”

“But what if he doesn’t come back, not for years and years?”

“Then we’ll be keeping an eye out for you,” Snart says. “For years and years, if that’s what it takes. And for what it’s worth, kid - it’s gonna be in the next six months, or it’s gonna be years and years, as you put it.”

Barry wrinkles his nose when he frowns. “Why?”

“Two types of people in this world, kid. Thinkers and doers. One type, the thinkers, they plan shit out. They over-think shit. They’re paranoid. They go into contingencies. But doers? Doers are different. They don’t pause, they don’t think, they just do. So if they’re a doer, it’ll be in the next few months. If they’re a thinker, it’ll be years. But it’s one or the other. Never both.”

Barry nods. Nora can see his back straighten, his shoulders broaden. He’s being talked to like an adult and he recognizes it. “So depending on what he does, we’ll know more about him.”

Snart points at him. “Exactly.”

“How do you deal with him?” Barry asks. “Either way?”

“By being better at it than he is,” Snart says. “I’m a thinker. My partner, he’s a doer. We’re real good at what we do, and we balance each other out. We’ll out-think the bastard from both sides. Now, I make no promises, kid. Life ain’t certain. But we’ll do our best and our best is damn good.” Snart turns to look at Barry. “But I need you do something for me, kid. I need your best, too. I can only do so much; if you’re the target, kid, then the rest of the heavy lifting, I need you for. Can you do that?”

Barry looks at Snart, and Nora can tell that he believes him. Nora can tell that he believes him, believes in him, for the first time since it happened. For the first time since Henry died, she sees hope in her son’s eyes. She sees her beautiful baby boy smile with hope and faith and joy, and mean it. Just like he used to. Henry’s faith and goodness, her endless stubbornness and strength, together in one.

“Yes, Mr. Snart,” he says. “I’ll do that.”

Snart makes a face. “Not 'Mr. Snart’,” he says. “Snart. Or Len, if you like.”

“Thanks, Len,” Barry says. His face is glowing like the sun.

Nora sighs. She supposes that means Snart and Rory are sticking around.

She turns around and goes back to the kitchen, where Rory has miraculously failed to light her kitchen on fire.

Dinner is delicious.

(Mick lights the stove on fire making dessert, but Nora still considers it a win.)

–

The man doesn’t come in six months.

“Planner, then,” Len says. “Give him time. We’ll be around.”

They play the long game, instead. It’s fine - it’s good, even. Barry gets to go to school. Gets to grow up. High school. College.

He remains friends with Iris West, magically enough. Nora never forgives Joe West for not siding with her, of course; Barry is never permitted to go home with Iris, though Iris is always welcome at theirs.

Iris protests about the injustice of it once. Age 17.

Nora tells her the entire story, from beginning - Henry’s friendship with Joe, back in college - to the end. She uses no emotion, tells it as dispassionately as she can, but she leaves nothing out.

Nothing.

“Francine?” Iris says haltingly. “My - my mother? She - she died when I was six.”

Nora says nothing.

“Didn’t she?”

“I’m only telling you what happened,” Nora says. “I owe your father nothing, but you aren’t him, so I don’t mean to hurt you. But you are seventeen years old. You can decide to do with the information what you like with it.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?” Iris demands. “You hate my dad, you’ve hated him ever since -”

“That’s true,” Nora says, and thinks that Henry would never have done what she is doing, but she likes to think Joe wouldn’t have blamed Henry, if she were the one who was dead. That they were better friends than that - worthy at least of the benefit of the doubt, instead of the policeman’s immediate assumption of guilt. But she isn’t Henry. Not at all. “I do. But you don’t need to believe me, Iris. Just look up Francine West in Keystone City. Or perhaps she’s going by her maiden name -”

“No,” Barry says quietly from the door. “I asked Uncle Len to do a bit of research for me - for you, Iris. She’s going by West. I have an address, if you want it.”

“You knew?” Iris whispers.

“I asked you if you wanted to know a secret that was being kept from you,” Barry says, clearly referring to an old discussion because Iris nods. “You said if your dad didn’t want you to know, you’d rather wait for him to tell you. So I didn’t. And I waited - and waited - and waited -”

“He was never going to tell me,” Iris says. “Was he?”

“Maybe,” Nora says, giving Joe that little bit of grace, parent to parent, even though personally she thinks Joe would’ve waited it out until Francine was buried in the ground and then sighed in relief that his life was never found out. “But you’re right, Iris. I hate him. So unlike you, I’m not going to respect his wishes and help him lie to you. Good luck.”

After it all passes over - well, after Iris has successfully applied for early placement at her university and is no longer speaking to Joe, anyway - Joe storms up to Nora, spitting accusations.

Nora warns him, twice, to go away.

He doesn’t.

She punches him in the face.

“Maybe next time,” she says to him, sitting on his ass, blinking in disbelief, “you’ll learn that lies aren’t a valid life strategy - either for parenting or for policing. Come near me ever again and so help me, I will slap a restraining order on your ass, and I’ll go to your boss to get it if I have to.”

Mick gives her a high five.

Barry gives her a dirty look.

(Iris calls her and tells her that it was very not nice, but also good for her - and would Nora like to meet her newly-found brother?)

Nora’s pretty sure they’ll make up eventually - Joe’s an ass and Nora’s never going to forgive him, but Iris West’s a bigger person than that, even if the treatments she’s going through to help save her mother’s life are taking their toll - but until then, she’ll welcome Wally West to her dinner table and watch Barry’s awkward flirting dance with Iris get even more awkward with the addition of a younger brother peanut gallery.

–

“Something’s wrong,” Mick says.

Len’s fingers are drumming ceaselessly on the table. He and Mick are tense right now, after that big fire and the ensuing fight they had, but they’re still together. Not all the time, no, they’re still bitter and sore, but a thinker like Len knows he needs a doer like Mick to keep him in check and Mick -

Well, Mick just knows what he knows. He feels what he feels. He does what he does.

And when he says something’s wrong, something that Len hasn’t spotted, he’s always right.

“Given that you’re at my table, I’m not surprised,” Nora says dryly. She organizes her papers - she works at a private company, now, Mercury Labs, instead of at a college. Too much scandal to continue being a college professor, but there’s always work for a chemist. Barry took after her and went to college for chemistry - she’d always rather hoped he’d make a late break for pre-med, but that wasn’t to be - and now he was working as a CSI at the CCPD.

Joe recommended him. Probably Iris’ urging - he and Nora would never get along, even if their kids were probably going to end up married to each other, but he was at least mature enough to put it aside to help Barry.

He hadn’t had much of a choice, now that Iris was working as a cop, too, following her childhood dream over his attempts to sabotage her.

It did make the CCPD staff-and-family barbecues awkward, though. Nora attends every single one of them, smiling at all the veteran CCPD officers that flinch when she walks by.

(“You’re a magnificent troll,” David Singh tells her when she delivers cupcakes to his office to congratulate him on his promotion. “I admire your devotion to the art.”

“Living well is the best revenge,” Nora tells the one cop that refused to assist in her prosecution.

“Damn right,” he says, and takes a cupcake.)

“Do you know what’s wrong?” she asks.

“If I did, Snart would’ve planned for it already,” Mick grumbles. He rubs at his eyes. “City feels wrong.”

“He’s right,” Len says abruptly. “Something in the air. Wrong. Out of balance. Like a tornado warning, you can taste it in the air.”

Mick nods. “It’s coming.”

“All the people in town are antsy,” Barry says, voice tinny from the speakerphone on the table. He was still on the train back from Starling - one of his investigations into the supernatural. “Everyone who was born in Central can feel it. I don’t know why, but petty crimes are way up recently.”

Nora nods. She’d hissed at the person who cut her off at the grocery store - actually hissed - and they’d snarled back. That wasn’t normal.

Tornado warning indeed.

“Do we think this is the man in yellow?” she asks Len and Mick. She can’t imagine why else they’re here.

Mick shakes his head. “Not unless he’s involving the whole city in what he’s up to.”

“Which he might be,” Len says. “He wants something.”

His fingers keep drumming on the table.

“I’ve heard about him,” he adds. “A few sightings, nothing concrete. But he’s out there, our man of yellow and lightning. More sightings in the last few months than for years before - he’s building something.”

Barry sighs. “My train from Starling comes in this evening,” he says. “Gonna try to make the STAR Labs opening ceremony, but I’ll probably be too late, so I’ll go to the office and take a look at the statistics again.”

“You do that, BA,” Mick grunts. He rubs at his eyes again. He looks tired; his eyes keep drooping. “Be careful.”

Len’s fingers keep drumming on the table.

“Will do, Mick,” Barry says. “Anyway, we’re about to hit a tunnel. I’ll tell you all about my trip when I get home.”

He hangs up.

“Something’s wrong,” Mick says. He’s slurring. “Something - Barry -”

He slumps over onto the table, starting to snore.

Len’s fingers stop drumming.

“You drugged him,” Nora observes. It took her too long to figure out, but that was what always happened with Len’s plans; she didn’t take it personally anymore.

“Something’s wrong in the city,” Len says. “He should be somewhere safe till it blows over. Him and Lisa, and Lisa at least agreed to go out of town.”

“He’ll be pissed at you going after Scudder and Dillon by yourself.”

Len shrugs. “I need to work,” he says. “Keep busy. Something’s going to happen to my city, Nora, and it’s aimed right at Barry. I’m good, but I’m a thief. I can stop a man. I can’t stop a nuke.”

“I don’t expect you to,” Nora says, thinking that he was exaggerating.

When STAR Labs went up, only hours later, she realizes he hadn’t been.

–

Barry does not wake up in STAR Labs, nine months later, to friendly strangers looking down at him.

No.

He wakes up in his own bed at home, in the downstairs bedroom next to the kitchen so Nora could keep an eye on him even when she was cooking or working from home - she’d gone on FMLA leave when it had happened, of course, but she was back at least part-time now. Tina was happy to let her work from home when she was doing non-lab stuff, and half the neighborhood was willing to take turns watching over Barry for the times that Nora did need to be in the lab.

That horrible man over at STAR Labs had been pushing her to let him take Barry in since day one, offering to treat him since the hospital didn’t know what to do with a boy who had no heartbeat but still kept breathing. She would’ve thought that he would’ve gotten over her refusal by now.

“I want to help undo the damage I’ve done,” Dr. Wells said that first time, his blue eyes sharp under his glasses. “Please, Mrs. Allen. I may be able to do something to help young Mr. Allen.”

Nora swiped at her streaming eyes. “What’s your success rate?”

He paused. “What?”

“Success rate,” she repeated. “What facilities do you have? What staff? Have you been rated by the review boards? What other patients have you taken in?”

“I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Allen,” Dr. Wells said carefully. “I’m not a hospital - just a scientist.”

“Yes, a physicist, I know,” Nora replied. “I’ve read your book -” It’d been funny, actually; the man’s ghostwriter had been an arrogant snot. She hoped it was a ghostwriter, anyway. “- and I know your resume. You’re not a medical doctor, so I assumed that you’re helping the victims by setting up a clinic.”

“As a man of science, I think I can help Mr. Allen in a more individual -”

“A man of the wrong type of science,” Nora said, stressing the words. “Dr. Wells, I’m a chemist myself. I’m not a rube off the street you can wow with fancy science words. I want verifiable facts. Records. Statistics. What’s your success rate for the individuals you’ve taken in so far, that you think you can help Barry?”

Dr. Wells doesn’t respond immediately, a considering look in his eyes.

Fine.

She looked around and - “You there.”

The young man with the long hair, one of the two people that had come in with Dr. Wells, was investigating the hospital’s machinery and took a second to realize she was talking to him. He blinked. “Uh, me?”

“Yes, you. You’re with Dr. Wells, correct?”

“Uh, yeah. My name’s Cisco. Ramon. I mean, Cisco Ramon. Hi. Nice to meet you.” He stuck out his hand. “You’re the mom of the guy we’re taking back with us, right?”

Nora’s eyebrows went up. “Now that’s presumptuous of you,” she said. “What’s your staff? I’d heard STAR Labs was down to a skeleton crew.”

Cisco stuttered, glancing between her and Wells. “Uh, yeah, I mean, it’s me and Caitlin and Dr. Wells, really -”

“Three people,” Nora said flatly. “And what’s your degree in, Mr. Ramon?”

“…mechanical engineering?”

“And yours, Ms…?”

“Snow,” the blond girl said, wringing her hands. “Caitlin Snow. I am a doctor, actually. Internal medicine and nutrition, secondary degree in biochemical analysis.”

Nora squinted at her. “What hospital did you intern at?”

“CCN for my residency, ma'am.”

“And you’re a private doctor now?”

“Not many places hire after you’ve been at STAR,” Caitlin said shyly.

“Not many physics labs need a doctor,” Nora said. “So you’re the only doctor to - how many patients?”

Caitlin looked surprised. “Uh, well,” she said. “I mean…”

“Your son would be the first,” Dr. Wells cut in smoothly. Too smoothly. “Mrs. Allen -”

“I’m sorry, but no,” she said. “My son will not be the guinea pig to your attempts at philanthropy or forgiveness or whatever the hell you’re doing this for. Thank you for your kind offer. Please go away now.”

They’d gone, but Wells kept coming back.

He was more aggressive, too.

“It’s a pity you won’t let us treat him,” he said sorrowfully. “I’m just trying to make good what I’ve done, a moment of penance –”

“Are you a religious man, Dr. Wells?” Nora interrupted.

“Why - no, not particularly. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m not your priest,” she said. “And I’m not your shrink, either. I don’t have to listen to you be sorry about anything. Go away.”

He went.

“Hospital stays are expensive, Mrs. Allen,” he said the next time, oozing with sympathy. “I’d be happy to take him pro bono -”

Nora handed him a card.

“What’s this?”

“I think it’s called a GoFundMe,” Nora said. “I’m raising money for Barry’s care. Since you care about the financial burden so much, I’m happy to give you an opportunity to donate. But he’s not going to your facility.”

Wells left again. He was getting worse at hiding his annoyance.

“I’m starting to think he’s going to steal Barry from the hospital if I keep saying no,” she told Len, who is still recuperating from the ass-kicking Mick had given him over the 'drugged me to avoid putting me in danger for the explosion’ incident. Though they had at least started sleeping together again, at least.

Men. Nora will never understand them.

Len blinked owlishly at her. “Move him home, then,” he suggested, like it was obvious.

“I couldn’t -”

“Hospital themselves told you that they don’t know shit,” Mick said, bringing Len his dinner. “May as well not know shit at home with a nurse as not know shit in a hospital with a doctor.”

So she’d moved Barry home.

Len and Mick stuck around. They said it was the least they could do.

And that’s how it was that she was cooking dinner and arguing with Len and Mick over what type of sauce to put on the pasta when Barry woke up, yawned, got out of bed and came into the kitchen, scratching himself in uncomfortable places, saying “I like Uncle Mick’s marinara plan, Uncle Len; no one eats ketchup on pasta except you.”

Nora shrieks and flings herself at him.

Len and Mick don’t, but that’s because they’re emotionally constipated idiots. They are grinning, though.

“Welcome back,” Len says.

“You’ve been driving everyone up the wall, you know,” Mick says.

“What happened?” Barry asks. “The man in yellow?”

“No,” Nora says. “The Particle Accelerator exploded. You’ve been in a coma.”

“A coma?” Barry yelps. “How long has it been?”

“Fourteen years,” Len says promptly.

“What?!”

“Nine months, BA,” Mick says, swatting Len. “You know better to listen to this asshole.”

“Still!” Barry exclaims. “Someone could have had a baby in that time!”

“Speaking of which,” Nora says, utterly unable to resist. “Barry, you ought to meet your new baby brother. Mick, could you go get him?”

“Sure thing,” Mick says, making to get up.

Barry’s spluttering is hilarious.

“You’re all trolls,” he grumbles when they all stop laughing. “Trolls, trolls, trolls! Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to run to work to make sure I still have a job.”

“You just want to see Officer West,” Nora teases. Barry and Iris remained the most adorable thing she’d ever seen, and she’d seen Henry Allen attempting to wear pastels.

“Maybe,” he sniffs.

“Go, then,” she says. “I’ll make you pancakes.”

“With hot chocolate?”

“And mini-marshmallows,” she promises.

“Say,” Len says. “I don’t suppose –”

“Yes, you can have some too.”

The hot chocolate development was all his fault, anyway. Barry had been content with just pancakes, before him.

“You’re the best, Mom,” Barry says, and runs off.

Well, he tries to.

They find out about the super speed more or less immediately thereafter.

“Would you consider theft as a viable career alternative?” Len asks. He’s positively drooling.

Barry groans. “I don’t know what to do about this,” he mutters. “Man, if I hadn’t found that nice guy who offered me help -”

Nora’s spine goes straight. “What guy?”

“Oh, didn’t I mention? There’s a guy – he was measuring speed stuff down on the highway and flagged me down - he’s totally cool, said he’d be happy to help me figure this out - he works at -”

“No, let me guess,” Len says. He’s scowling, too. “STAR Labs.”

“Yeah! How’d you know?”

“Dr. Wells offered to help take over your care within a month of the explosion,” Nora says. “I said no. He kept asking. I said no. He asked to visit. I said no. He tried to go around my back, get info from the hospital. I thought about getting a restraining order, but I figured what the hell; I didn’t care that much, especially since I was moving you home the next day. He tried to come visit here. I said no. And now that you’re awake, his people are offering you help? Less than a day into you waking up?”

“Suspicious,” Mick agrees.

Barry is gaping. “But - why?” he asks in a small voice. “I like - I liked Dr. Wells. He’s a genius - he wrote those books -”

“Supposedly it was because he felt bad about what had happened,” Nora says. “But he never offered to help anyone personally - no one but you.”

“I went to STAR Labs after the first few times he came around to bug your mom -” Len starts.

“Broke in, you mean,” Nora grumbles.

“And it was set up as an infirmary for one person,” Len finishes, ignoring her.

“But if he’s willing to help with my speed…” Barry starts.

“Your speed? What about the fact that your clothing lit on fire, BA?” Mick says. “I liked that part.”

Nora swats him.

“Cisco - that’s the guy I met - he was really nice,” Barry says stubbornly. “And they have equipment that can help - stuff that can measure my speed, a treadmill that can handle high speeds, all of that.”

“A treadmill?” Nora asks, bemused. “What possible use is there for a super-speed treadmill?”

“Measuring a speedster’s running speed,” Len says. His eyes are narrow. “Barry, do me a favor and run up and down the stairs again?”

“But I like this shirt -”

“Then strip.”

Barry begrudgingly does a few laps in his underwear, blurring as he does.

“Interesting,” Len says.

“What is?” Barry asks.

“A treadmill made for super speed is just what we’d need to measure you,” Len says.

“Exactly!”

“There was a treadmill already there when I broke in, Barry.”

“…so?”

“Weird to have a machine that’s only use is for measuring a speedster’s powers before there’s even a speedster. Maybe you’re not the only speedster to come out of STAR Labs,” Len says.

“No - the explosion is what caused -”

“You spark when you run,” Len says. “Sparks. I bet if you ran in a circle, it’d come off as lightning. Lightning and whirlwind.”

Barry falls silent. “The man in yellow.”

Nora’s throat is tight. Henry’s murderer.

“We always knew he was aiming for Barry,” Len points out. “We always knew he was making a plan, a really big plan -”

“Dr. Wells’ work on the Particle Accelerator,” Barry whispers. “Mom - mom, it started -”

“Within a year of what happened,” Nora says, nodding. She’s read the biography, too. “But Wells was already an established scientist, and not one we’d ever met before! Why would he care?”

“Only one way to find out,” Mick says.

–

Barry is a terrible liar, of course, but he’s learned enough to get the job done. Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow clearly mean nothing but the best – even they talk about how weird it is that their boss seemed totally obsessed with having Barry in his grasp – but Dr. Wells remains abnormally interested in Barry.

Specifically, in Barry’s speed.

“So he’s super creepy,” Barry says with a sigh. “But nothing yet.”

They were out shopping. Grissom - who was still kicking, bless his heart - was having the building swept for bugs again. The electric kind, that is. It happened about twice a month; more, if his radio programs had managed to convince him that the government intended to harvest them all as alien sacrifices to the United Nations or whatnot. Since he’d actually found some bugs in the building a few times, everyone was more than happy to indulge Grissom’s paranoia.

The people in 3b, which Nora distinctly suspected of being Family, even insisted on it.

“We’ll figure it out,” Nora says. She’d been doing her own brand of fruitless research. Harrison Wells had a solid alibi for the time of Henry’s death, but he’d also undergone what could quaintly be termed a radical shift in personality shortly afterwards. Yes, his wife had just died, but the changes were - rather significant, to say the least.

Len broke into Wells’ house a few times to leave bugs of his own, borrowed from an unspecified friend. Nora didn’t really want to know. Mick did, in detail, since he hadn’t been invited.

Honestly, the sooner Len and Mick got over their little spat for good, the better.

Besides, the bugs hadn’t turned up anything that useful yet…

“Is Uncle Len still on for next week?” Barry asks, mind clearly going on lines parallel to hers.

“He’ll be a magnificent supervillain,” Nora says drolly.

“He is the best thief in Central,” Barry says, not without pride. “I got to help clean up one of his scenes a while back - right before the whole coma thing - and it was amazing, Mom. Totally slick. Not a trace of useable evidence.”

“I wonder how he means to approach it,” Nora muses. “Supervillainy and thieving don’t seem to be that similar.”

She’s right: one of them requires subtlety, finesse, and careful planning.

The other involves derailing a train on public television while literally ice-skating away.

Well, maybe not literally.

Still, what the hell.

“I saved them all,” Barry groans, rubbing his face. “But also - ow, ow, ow - that cold gun hurts -”

“Are you seriously hurt?” Nora asks.

“Well, no, not really…”

“I’ll make you hot chocolate and pancakes for dinner,” she offers. “My poor baby.”

Barry - who, as she’d suspected, was mostly after being spoiled rotten - beams at her.

Len comes back to the apartment much later than she would’ve expected. That little mystery is solved by the way his arm is firmly placed around Mick’s waist.

Looks like their little spat was resolved at last, thank god.

And all it took was -

“You gave him a heat gun capable of what?!” Nora shouts.

–

They’re almost certain that Wells is the man in yellow, now. They’ve collected enough evidence to that effect - walking without the wheelchair, for one, and also being in the same house as someone who can move as fast as lightning though the camera is to slow to identify who. But why he keeps toying with Barry isn’t clear until the day Barry accidentally travels in time for the first time.

“It all makes sense now,” Len crows.

“Would you like to share with the rest of the class?” Barry asks. His head is in Mick’s lap; he didn’t much appreciate being used as target practice a second time and had demanded at least an hour of Mick’s patented guaranteed-to-make-you-feel-better shoulder rubs to make up for it.

“It’s time travel!”

“That much we figured out,” Nora says dryly.

“No,” Len says. “That’s why the sequence is off.”

Mick is nodding, but that’s because he understands everything Len says. Even Lisa looks to him for guidance in understanding what the hell is going on in Len’s head.

(One day Nora will figure out how to deal with Lisa. She hadn’t really expected to adopt a second child, especially not one who was already out of the house and independent at sixteen, but she can roll with the punches. Barry certainly seems to act as though they’ve been siblings forever. That had been Len’s price, though, and the more she got to know Lisa, the happier she was to pay it. Lisa’s a good kid. Her good kid, now, and if that Lewis Snart thinks he can argue otherwise, he’ll being going up against the full fury of Nora Allen.)

“Listen,” Len says. “A traditional sequence is: boy grows up, boy becomes hero, boy meets mortal enemy, boy fights mortal enemy. Right?”

“Right…?”

“Add in time travel, though, and you can change the order of that. Say, take 'boy fights mortal enemy’ and move it back to the beginning.”

“Wait,” Barry says, alarmed and starting to raise his head only to be shoved back down by Mick. “Are you saying it’s my fault?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Nora says. “It’s the fault of the asshole who decided to attack a small child and murder his father.”

“Mom! Don’t swear!”

Nora shakes her head. She blames Henry for Barry’s slightly prudish streak. Or possibly all the time he spend with the Wests…

“But think about it,” Len says. “The lightning you described - yellow and red. We know Barry’s lightning is yellow. What if this second speedster, the man wearing yellow the same way Barry now wears red, what if his lightning is red?”

“So there were two speedsters that night?”

“Time travel,” Len says with satisfaction. “Our Barry - well, no, not our Barry, just a Barry - all grown up and trying to stop the bad guy, and the bad guy - that’d be Wells, whether he is our speedster or if he’s just assisting him - was bringing the fight back to when Barry was a kid. That’s how Barry ended up so far from the house - the future Barry rescued him.”

“But my dad?”

“He must not have died in the original timeline,” Len says. “But you still became the Flash. Wells keeps pushing you to go faster - he wants something from you, or more specifically from your speed. That’s why the speedster teamed up with Wells or decided to take on Wells’ identity; the Particle Accelerator was built remarkably fast for such a big construction project, so the speedster must’ve helped with it. Wanted to get you back to being the Flash because he needs you up to speed!”

“But why?”

“…no idea,” Len concedes. “But let’s not find out, shall we?”

“I’m going to call Iris,” Barry decides. She’d been the first person he’d informed of his new condition after they’d found out about it; she’d been delighted. Her (their?) other boyfriend, Eddie, worked with Barry on how to properly fight metahuman bad guys within the law, or as much as possible. “I want her input.”

“You do that,” Mick says, releasing Barry. “We’ll plan an ambush.”

“What about paradox?” Nora asks. “If Barry doesn’t go back, does that mess with the timeline.”

“The timeline’s already been adjusted, so I don’t think so -”

“Wait,” Barry says. “Could I go back? Now, I mean? Could I save Dad?”

Len scowls at him. “Kid. I know you’ve seen and read enough sci-fi for me not to have to tell you why that’s a terrible idea.”

“Future Barry who saved you probably doesn’t exist anymore because his history was so different,” Nora says gently. “If you go back and change it, we don’t know what might happen. Maybe I die instead of Henry. Maybe we both die. Maybe we all die. Maybe the world ends. There’s no way to tell in advance.”

“But Mom…it’s Dad. I could save Dad!”

“I loved your father,” Nora says, thinking of how that voice in her head still sounded like Henry after all these years. “I loved your father so much, baby. But if I knew one thing about him is that he loved you more than anything. He’d look at how you turned out - college grad, CSI, superhero, happy - and he’d be so proud. So proud. He wouldn’t have you risk that for him.”

Barry nods mutely and flees to call Iris, but Nora knows her words have sunk in.

It’s only when Len hands her a tissue that she realizes she’s crying.

Oh, Henry, she thinks. What a life we led. What a life we could have led, if we’d been together.

–

The capture of Harrison Wells - née Eobard Thawne, apparently, much to Eddie Thawne’s horror - is something of an anticlimax.

Once they confirmed via their cameras that Wells was the speedster rather than just assisting him, Barry picks a moment at random, then sprints and locks Wells into the cell designed to hold a speedster. Then he ties up his friends and calls for help.

“Sorry, guys,” he tells Cisco and Caitlin apologetically. “I can’t afford you guys letting him go.”

Cisco yells some things through the gag.

“No, trust me on this one, it’s not a Bivolo thing. It’s a -” he hesitates. “It’s a matter of justice.”

Eddie comes in and reads Wells his rights. Wells laughs in their faces and confesses everything freely, asking only for a chance to go back to his era using Barry’s speed, dangling a chance to fix Barry’s past in exchange.

“I’ve already decided against that,” Barry says. “You yourself said that time travel generally makes things worse.”

“I just want to go back to my era, Barry,” Wells says gently. “To go home. That’s not so much to ask.”

“You’re guilty of first degree attempted murder and very likely an argument can be made for first degree murder, given how fast speedsters think,” Eddie says. “We’ll get you a judge and a jury, but as long as we have a place to hold you, you’re not going anywhere.”

“You’re my least interesting ancestor, you know that?” Wells sneers as him.

“You make me want to consider a vasectomy,” Eddie shoots back.

Wells flinches.

“You will be held here pending trial,” Eddie says. “I’ll bring the judge here. We won’t be taking any chances.”

“You knew about the Particle Accelerator,” Caitlin says to Wells when she’s untied. “You knew the entire time, you knew, you knew what might happen to Ronnie, and you -” She turns away.

Cisco stares at Wells for a long moment before he, too, turns away.

There is a moment of excitement when Wells decides to take advantage of the judge’s arrival to try to escape, but as he lunges for her, Len ices him.

“Thank you, Mr. Snart,” the judge says, hand on chest.

“No problem, your Honor,” he says, holstering the gun. “Let’s call that one a clear-cut case of self-defense, shall we?”

“Let’s,” she agrees.

And that was that.

Life goes on.

…with superheroes.

–

“Now you listen here, young man,” Nora Allen says, hands on hips. “If you think you’re too old for me to put over my knee, you had better think again.”

Savitar squeaks a little. “I - uh - I -”

“Oh no you don’t,” she says. “No excuses, no justifications, no nothing. God or no God, I’m still your mother.”

“But -”

“You are coming home with me this instant.”

“But if I don’t kill Iris, I’ll never be born!” he yelps, throwing a helpless look at Barry, who’s wide-eyed with equally helpless sympathy.

“You listen to me, Bartholomew Henry Allen -” Nora starts.

“Oh god, it’s the full name,” Barry whispers.

“It’s been a while,” Savitar whispers, equally terrified.

“Both of you,” she amends.

“What did I do?!” Barry squeaks.

“Both of you are going to sit at my table, not make a single sound until I’m done preparing dinner, and we are going to talk over this whole matter like reasonable people having a reasonable conversation over pancakes.”

“Wait,” Savitar says. “Pancakes? Can I have some hot chocolate, too?”

Nora sighs. “Fine. Hot chocolate with mini marshmallows. But it’s conditional on your good behavior. Both of you.”

“I don’t want to fade into non-existence,” Savitar grumbles even as Barry nods. “That shouldn’t be debatable.”

“Sit!”

“Yes, mom.”

#dccoldwave #westallen #barry allen #leonard snart #mick rory #iris west #nora allen #my fic #anti joe west #tornado warning

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