#they're not actually capable of holding grudges against each other anymore

[babytarttdoodoo]

i love your prompt fills! <3 so, a prompt for me: jamie and roy go out for a beer again, they don't have a fight this time! platonic or romantic is fine, wtv you prefer, i just want them to have a nice time lol

I actually had so much fun writing this and it very quickly became what could be the start to my post-S3 universe that I've been spinning headcanons and lore for.

Because of that, it ends a little weird, but I hope you enjoy it regardless.

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Jamie was picking at the edges of the label on his beer bottle. His thumbnails had scraped a nice little mound of soggy, gluey paper onto the shiny surface of the bar and didn't show signs of stopping.

He'd elected for a seat near the door. If this all went sideways, he wanted to make a quick retreat before it came to blows. Again.

His phone buzzed.

From: Roy Running behind. Be there in 5.

Well, he wasn’t being stood up, at least.

To: Roy No worries mate. I’ll get a round in 🍻😜

Jamie flagged down the bartender and asked for another beer, not bothering to replace his own barely touched bottle.

True to his word, Roy strode into Bones & Honey a few minutes later, predictably dressed down in jeans and a leather jacket. Jamie had opted for a nice shirt this time, since his (albeit designer) hoodie had left him feeling out of place on their last outing, even before it got ruined.

He gave Roy a little wave to catch his attention and smiled when he drew close.

“Heya, lad. Just got you a beer, that okay?”

Roy grunted, taking in the two drinks and the pile of scraped up label. His eyebrows did something complicated.

For a moment, Jamie thought Roy was going to berate him for having alcohol and felt indignation swell in his chest. He could do what he fucking liked during the off-season, thank you very much.

He didn’t, though. His gaze lingered on Jamie’s hands around the bottle for another second before he took his seat without complaint and all the fight response deflated from Jamie’s hackles as Roy took a sip from his own waiting beer.

“Sorry I’m late,” he offered, clearing his throat. “Had to drop Phoebe off at her mum’s.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jamie said. “How is she?”

Roy narrowed his eyes, unfairly suspicious of a perfectly innocent question. “My niece or my sister?”

Jamie snorted, freeing up some of the tightness in his chest. “Phoebe. But if Ruth’s been asking about me…?”

“She fucking hasn’t.”

“Right, then, the nine-year-old it is.”

He grinned cheekily in the face of Roy’s eyeroll, sure he wasn’t imagining the faint twitch of a smile.

“Phoebe spent two hours explaining why she’s planning to cover her room in magic plants or some shit for the summer solstice and only shut up when I gave her ice cream so, apparently, she’s getting weirder. But, yeah, she’s fine.”

Jamie nodded, considering. “Mint. Kids are fucking bizarre. It’s brilliant.”

The quick little exhale of air from Roy might have qualified as a laugh if Jamie were feeling generous. As it was, he was more preoccupied by how… weird Roy was sitting.

He was rigid as a board on the plush stool, leaning decidedly away from Jamie with a hand gripped on the edge of the bar. It looked as uncomfortable as fuck.

“D’you want to move?” Jamie suggested, wondering if the high seat was messing with Roy’s knee, or back, or some other old man body part. “There’s a free table over there.”

Roy’s eyes followed Jamie’s gesture to the booths set along the back of the room and he shook his head. “This is fine.”

“You sure? ‘Cause you look one sneeze away from falling over.”

Roy sighed heavily and made a visible effort to relax, settling more comfortably. “There. Better?”

“You tell me, mate,” Jamie said, bewildered.

Roy grunted again and took a long pull from his beer. It seemed to fortify him for voicing whatever was spinning around in his head.

“Thank you,” he eventually settled on, growling like the words had been dragged unwillingly through his clenched teeth. “For. Suggesting this. We didn’t… I didn’t know if you still wanted to be… Friends. After.” He waved a hand around, gesturing to their surroundings and clearly referencing the last time they’d been there.

“Oh.” Jamie blinked, pleasantly surprised by the admission. “Well, yeah. Didn’t get much of a chance to straighten all that out, did we? I were on a plane fairly quick after the season.”

Roy nodded, staring back at the bartop with that same intensity Jamie could now recognise as discomfort with the subject matter. Or, at least, mostly that.

“Keeley didn’t go with you.”

It wasn’t a question but Jamie answered it anyway. “Er, no. Doubt you’d have wanted to be trapped with me on the other side of the world after all that, either.”

He had been disappointed when Keeley emailed to say Barbara was going to be accompanying him ”for the sake of their professional relationship”. It was fair - it still hurt.

Barbara turned out to be a surprisingly good laugh, though, and was very protective of their contract. In turn, that meant she was militant about ensuring Jamie was taken care of on every shoot and that he got a say in what went to production.

She even kept up with their entirely GIF-based text thread after returning home. It was nice.

“Wouldn’t have minded a free holiday.” Roy broke into Jamie’s thoughts with a shrug and it took him a second to catch up to the conversation again. When he did, he scowled at Roy’s poorly disguised smirk.

“Eh, it weren’t an holiday! I was working! Don’t need to be rude just because no one‘s wanted to take your picture in the last century.”

Jamie sniffed and took a sulky swig of his beer.

“Oi.” Roy knocked their shoulders together. “I’m just joking. I know you work hard.”

“Yeah, well, everyone would do if it were easy, wouldn’t they?”

Roy tilted his head in a ‘fair point’ kind of way and shifted to face Jamie, instead of being actively primed for an escape. “Got anything else lined up for the summer?”

Jamie hummed and shrugged. “Driving up to Manchester next week. Not staying long, though. Mummy and Simon are going on holiday for most of August. Might see if any of the City lads are about.”

“Didn’t realise you still talked to that lot.”

“Not many of the first team. But there’s guys on the reserves and doing PT stuff now that I came up with. We still try to hang out when there’s a few of us in the same place.” Even though Roy seemed more curious than judgemental, Jamie wondered if he was about to be accused of divided loyalties.

He would definitely be at risk of a hefty fine from the team for ‘cavorting with the enemy’ if he ever went on a night out in Manchester during the season.

“You got any friends like that?”

“A few.” Roy’s face turned pensive. “No one from my Sunderland days is playing anymore but I’ve been invited to weddings and shit. Stopped talking to anyone at Chelsea when I left.”

Jamie scoffed. “What’d you do that for?”

The immediate tension in Roy’s jaw made him regret asking but, to Jamie’s surprise, a moment later he took a deep breath and offered an explanation.

“I didn’t want reminders. Wanted to… fucking… disappear. Fuck off and… be forgotten.”

Jamie gaped. “But you’re Roy Kent.”

Roy barked a laugh. “Yeah. Suppose I forgot that for a bit.”

Jamie huffed and shook his head, draining the rest of his beer to cover the warm feeling in his chest at making Roy genuinely laugh.

“Alright, then, you’re an old weirdo with no friends. What are you up to for the rest of the summer?”

The good humour deflated out of Roy again and Jamie immediately regretted whatever had tumbled out of his mouth to cause that reaction.

“I, uh, I’ve been talking to my doctors a lot.” He looked down at his beer, grip turning white-knuckled around the glass. “Looks like I need a partial knee replacement. Soon, if I want to be… fucking upright by the start of the season.”

“Fuck,” Jamie exhaled lowly, glancing down to the leg in question and worrying again about the high bar stool. “They can fix it, though?”

“Theoretically. Said that last time, though, didn’t they?”

Jamie blinked. “What last time?”

Roy turned to him with a furrowed brow. “Oh, right. That was before you came back.”

“You, er, you had to have surgery, then?” Jamie felt vaguely ill. “When you retired?”

“Yeah. Small one. Didn’t help like it was supposed to.” Roy shrugged. “Artho-something. Just made it worse, then better for a bit, then back to a shitting mess in the span of a month.”

Jamie nodded, processing that. Any thoughts he’d spared to Richmond that summer had revolved about Ted and the little army man he still had in his trophy case. He’d avoided thinking about the game that got them relegated as much as possible. Fucking awful night all round, that had been.

Thoughts about Roy, when he let himself linger on them, had been ugly, tainted with guilt and resentment.

His tongue darted out to nervously wet his lips.

“Well, let me know when you’re out of commission this time, yeah? Need me coach to get me back in shape, don’t I?”

Roy chuckled again, smaller this time, and Jamie instantly felt lighter.

“Alright, fair enough.” Roy indicated the empty bottle Jamie was still titling around between his hands. “Same again?”

“Yeah. Yeah, go on then.”

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

I think this is genuinely such an underrated Bart and Wally moment.

There are 17 Rogues duking it out in downtown Central City and Wally is getting his ass kicked. He's near death. He isn't going to last much longer.

So Bart runs out to help Wally because Wally needs help.

"Not that he'll admit it" Bart says because Bart has an excellent understanding of their relationship. Bart and Wally don't really do honesty. Every interaction they have is slathered in about ten layers of 'bits' and 'sarcasm'. They would rather die than say "I love you" or "I need you". That's just how they are.

Bart gets there just in the nick of time and he doesn't miss a step before jumping right into the classic speedster quips. Unfortunately, they are fighting 17 guys who can hold their own against the Flash solo, so even with Bart and Wally both there, they're about 15 guys short of a fighting chance.

Bart is about to receive a fatal blast from Dr. Alchemy but Wally pushes Grodd into the beam instead. I'm pretty sure that was a murder? I think replacing all of the blood in his body with formaldehyde would definitely kill Grodd. But they don't dwell on it.

Anyway, this is such an underrated panel. It's so small but so significant.

Wally thanks Bart. Bart says "You're welcome"

That's a normal polite conversation. That's downright respectful.

And this, guys gals and nonbinary pals, marks the defining moment in Bart and Wally's relationship where they actually got over their rivalry.

Wally and Bart had matured a lot since they first met. Wally stopped seeing Bart as a reflection of all the worst parts of Wally's younger self and started seeing him as a separate person, capable and responsible in his own right. Wally was over his hang ups with Barry and himself and he didn't see Bart as a threat anymore.

And Bart wasn't the scared insecure kid he used to be. He'd lived with Max and Helen, he'd trained with Jay, he had friends. He had a stable life now and wasn't prone to blindly lashing out at authority figures like before. He had also learned not to keep grudges and to forgive people.

So this right here? Wally thanking Bart and acknowledging him? Bart responding with just "You're welcome" and no snarky comeback?? THAT HADN'T BEEN DONE BEFORE PEOPLE.

The two of em stand back to back. They're expecting to die but they're making their last stand and they're doing it side by side as family.

And I mean, honestly, the attitude shifts from here on out. They still insult each other, sure, but even later in the arc something happens and Wally says that he can "trust Bart to use his brain to do what Zoom can't".

It's a really small scene but this is when Wally stopped seeing Bart as the kid he has to babysit and Bart stopped seeing Wally as the authority figure he has to rebel against.