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mikauzoran · 4 years

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Adrienette: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: Kiss Eighteen

Read it on AO3: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: ...as encouragement.

“What did I miss?” Adrien called as he trotted up to his friends waiting at the bottom of the school’s front steps.

“Marinette’s going to win this contest Hermès is holding,” Alya announced with a smirk. “You know. No big.”

“Alya,” Marinette sighed in exasperation. “I haven’t entered yet. I haven’t even come up with a design.”

Adrien gave Nino a fist bump in greeting before turning to beam at Marinette. “Yeah, but you’re going to win once you do.”

“I don’t know about that,” Marinette mumbled, looking back down at her sketchbook.

“I do,” Alya snickered. “Listen to the boy. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s a fashion thoroughbred.”

Adrien blushed, finger going to tug at his collar. “Uh, technically, I think I’m more of a nouveau riche upstart, but I definitely know a thing or two about fashion, and you’ve got talent, Marinette. What kind of contest is it?”

“Ties,” she sighed, trying to hide how red her cheeks had become at his praise. “The artistic director for the men’s line, Véronique Nichanian, is going to be judging the finals herself, so I really want something that’s going to stand out.”

Nino gave Adrien a nudge. “Didn’t you do some modeling for Hermès a year or so ago when your father was pimping you out to other fashion houses to quote-unquote ‘expand your resume and build up the foundations of your career’?”

Adrien sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah. That happened.”

“Well, hook a girl up,” Alya chuckled, giving Adrien a teasing shove. “Not that I don’t think Marinette can win on her own merits, but having an edge never hurt anyone. What kind of insider knowledge do you have?”

“Nothing really,” Adrien admitted shamefacedly. “I wish I could be more helpful, but the only piece of advice I can think of is to do a fun, quirky pattern, but camouflage it so that it doesn’t look tacky. Like, Hermès does have some silly patterns. For example, there’s this one with horses and jockeys up in the clouds, and then on the reverse side it has the horses and jockeys with parachutes.”

Nino cracked up. “Seriously? And let me guess…they want, like, two hundred euros for it, yeah?”

Adrien shrugged helplessly. “It’s hand-sewn silk?”

Nino shook his head sadly. “Mec…no. Two hundred euros for a silly tie? That’s criminal.”

“Okay,” Adrien admitted. “That one’s a little…less sleek, in my opinion, but then they have this one tie I actually really like.”

“Also probably for two hundred euros,” Nino chuckled, elbowing his best friend playfully.

“It’s got a bunch of little blue fish on it,” Adrien explained, giving Nino a light shove. “From afar, it just looks like a normal tie with a small geometric pattern repeating, but when you get up close, you can tell that they’re fish, and it’s kind of funny. It looks professional at a distance, but up close it’s a quirky tie. I think that’s the kind of design the judges will be looking for.”

Marinette, who had been hanging on Adrien’s every word, nodded, making mental notes.

As if coming to an important realization, Adrien gave a start and hurriedly added, “Only if that’s what you’re inspired to do. I don’t want you thinking you have to limit yourself based on what I said. I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and you have such a sharp instinct for this kind of thing, so…just do whatever you think is best.”

“No, I really appreciate your input,” Marinette assured, stepping in across the little circle their group had formed to rest a hand on his forearm. “In the end, I’ll go with my gut, but what you said gave me some ideas, so I think I’m off in the right direction. Do you think there’s anything I should avoid doing? Any colours or patterns or subjects?”

Adrien bit his lip as he considered briefly. “A lot of their products have the H logo all over them. I think they’ve done the H in all the ways it’s possible to turn an H into a design element. I know you’re super innovative, but I think that, since it’s their signature thing, they’ve probably seen pretty much everything and have higher standards for what they want in that kind of design, so it might be really hit or miss. I’m not saying to play it safe, but maybe save tackling a new take on one of the signature elements of their branding for later.”

“Noted,” Marinette affirmed.

“Also, maybe avoid horses,” Adrien added with a grimace. “It’s another one of their things. I’m sure plenty of other people do horses, so if you do horses, you might not stand out unless your design is over and above amazing—which I’m sure it will be anyway, but—and, besides, they already have a lot of merchandise with horses on it, so I don’t know that that’s what they’d be looking for.”

“Why horses?” Nino couldn’t help but wonder aloud…though, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.

“If I remember correctly, the company founder originally made luxury leather goods like saddles and stuff for English nobles for horseback riding. So, yeah. Lots of horses,” Adrien explained with a smile and a shrug.

Nino frowned. “I mean…I guess that’s legit.”

“So, do you have any ideas now?” Alya excitedly inquired of Marinette…who didn’t respond because she was already absorbed in her sketchpad, quickly drafting the beginnings of a handful of possible designs.

The squad watched in awed silence as Marinette’s pencil moved frenetically across the page.

Less than five minutes later, she had three rough sketches and half a dozen other fledgling ideas in the works.

“What do you think?” She flipped the sketchbook so that the others could see the page with her quick sketches and notes on colour.

Adrien’s eyes went wide as he observed that the designs were all Chat Noir-inspired.

The first featured green paw prints on a black ground, spaced close together and turned around anticlockwise on their axis so as to give the impression of cohesive dynamism.

The second was black cat heads on a rose-pink background that had the same effect as Adrien’s fish tie. From a distance, it would look like a respectable, grownup tie, but up close you could see the fun in the design.

The third had miniature Chat Noir batons arranged in staggered, downward diagonal lines that, again, looked like a normal tie design from farther away.

“That’s amazing,” Adrien breathed, looking up at Marinette as she stowed the sketchbook back in her satchel. “Did you seriously just come up with all these right now, in, like, five minutes?”

Marinette smiled shyly, tucking a bang behind her ear as she shrugged. “What can I say? You really inspired me.”

A surge of joy and pride and love welled up in his chest.

His girlfriend was the most talented, incredible woman, and he wanted to put her up on a pedestal so that everyone could see how awesome she was. And yet, she was so humble about her gift and her achievements, going so far as to pretend that he had anything to do with her genius.

He took her by the hands and watched as her eyes went wide, locking with his.

“You are so amazing, Princess,” he cooed, overwhelmed by her greatness and the miracle that a girl so out of his league could be interested in him. “You’re going to win this contest. I know you are. Do you even know how epic you are?”

She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off as Adrien leaned in, catching her lips in a short, sweet, bolstering kiss.

Marinette froze as her brain tried to reboot.

Alya gasped even as she mentally lamented the fact that she hadn’t been recording this momentous occasion.

Nino cursed under his breath, preparing to build his bro back up after Adrien inevitably got shot down.

“I am so proud of you,” Adrien continued obliviously as he pulled out of the kiss. “You’re going to have your own label before you graduate.”

“Adrien!” Marinette hissed as her system came back online, pulling back and turning away.

Adrien blinked, shrinking slightly at her sharp tone. “What? I think it’s true.”

“Adrien, you can’t kiss me like that,” she groaned.

“…Oh, crap,” he breathed, covering his face with his hands. “I did it again. I am so sorry, Marinette. I don’t—”

“—Back up,” Alya interrupted. “‘Again’? As in, this has happened before?”

“Al,” Nino growled warningly.

Alya didn’t seem to hear him. “How many times have you guys kissed behind my back?”

“Three now?” Adrien mumbled miserably.

“Alya, this is serious,” Marinette chided. “I have a boyfriend—a serious boyfriend.”

Alya rolled her eyes. “Who I’ve never met and don’t even know the name of. Girl, you may have given up on Adrienette, but I haven’t. If my ship is sailing, I deserve to know.”

“Alya,” Nino snapped even as he put one arm around Adrien’s shoulders and rested the other hand on Adrien’s forearm. “Situational awareness much?”

To Adrien, he directed a soft, comforting, “Hey, it’s okay, Mec. It’s going to be okay.”

“This is kind of a big deal,” Alya huffed. “My bestie could easily have the man of her dreams, but, instead, she’s insisting on pretending to have some fake boyfriend she made up because she’s afraid to accept happiness and the good things the universe has sent to her. Clearly, an intervention is necessary for the good of both of our best friends.”

“He’s not fake!” Marinette retorted vehemently. “I told you, I met him online. We game together, and I only know his username, but he’s a real guy, and we’re really dating, so I can’t be making out with other blondes behind his back.”

“The good of our best friends?” Nino snorted crossly. “Right now, I think the best thing for our best friends is to keep them from getting akumatized.”

“I am so sorry,” Adrien repeated powerlessly, unsure of what else he even could say.

Nino gave him a squeeze. “It’s okay, Mec. Why don’t we head down by the river and try to calm down, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marinette huffed, making a break for it and striding off towards the bakery. “I’m going home.”

“Marinette!” Alya called and started to chase after her.

Nino sighed, briefly watching them go before getting back on task.

“Come on, Adrien,” he gently coaxed, leading Adrien down onto the walkway along the river.

They found an empty bench and sank onto it, Adrien snuggling up against Nino’s side and dropping his head onto Nino’s shoulder while Nino wrapped an arm around his friend and gave another supportive squeeze.

“It’s okay,” he repeated like a mantra, keeping an eye out for purple butterflies. “It’s okay.”

“I think I just ruined things with the person I’m desperately in love with,” Adrien responded blandly. “I don’t think it’s okay.”

Nino was silent, contemplating for a moment before he amended, “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to make this okay for you, all right? Marinette’s still going to be friends with you, and everything’s going to be fine, yeah?”

Adrien didn’t have the energy to engage in optimism. “I royally screwed up, Nino.”

“Yeah, but what you did wasn’t unforgivable,” Nino tried to comfort. “Things can be patched up. You’ll see. Just hang in there for me right now, okay? Try to think happy thoughts.”

Adrien managed an affirmative grunt.

And then his phone chimed with an incoming text.

There on the screen was a short message that restored his strength.

Marinette had written: “I’m not mad at you. <3 Everything’s fine between us.”

Adrien tipped the screen so that Nino could see and then smiled up giddily at his friend.

“There you go,” Nino chuckled. “Everything’s fine.”

Adrien sighed, sinking back into Nino. “No, it’s not. Wanna hear a secret?”

Nino shrugged. “Sure.”

“I’m Marinette’s boyfriend.”

It felt really good to finally get it out into the air.

Nino took a deep breath, schooling his expression into a cautious neutral before responding. “…The one she plays online games with?”

“Yep. She doesn’t know it’s me, and you can’t tell her. She has her reasons, but she won’t let me reveal my identity to her, so…I keep accidentally kissing her because she’s my girlfriend, but she doesn’t know she’s my girlfriend, so…we end up having scenes like the one you just witnessed,” Adrien wearily informed.

“…Dude,” Nino replied poignantly.

“Yeah,” Adrien sighed.

“You have to tell her,” Nino insisted. “No joke.”

“Yeah,” Adrien repeated. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nino pursed his lips, trying to process. He wanted to tell Adrien that nothing too bad had happened when Nino and Alya found out about Rena Rouge and Carapace’s secret identities. (In fact, Alya had seen through Carapace right away, so…) And nothing bad had come of Nino being ninety-nine-point-nine-repeating percent sure that Adrien was Chat Noir, so…

Nino took a deep breath and let it out, giving Adrien’s hair a distracted tussle. “Well…if…when you do want to talk about it, I’ll be here. You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Anything.”

“Yeah,” Adrien breathed, snuggling in closer, resting his head under Nino’s chin. “Yeah, I know. I want to, and I know I can trust you with anything, but…I can’t talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” Nino agreed, letting his chin rest on top of Adrien’s head. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Adrien hummed, closing his eyes and letting himself relax.

#Adrinette #Adrienette #Marichat #Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Chat Noir #Nino Lahiffe #Alya Césaire #Kissing #Writing Prompt #Mikau's Writings #Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses

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sophiainspace · 5 years

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Fic: The View

A one-shot in the Stealing Time (coldwestallen) ‘verse. Won’t make sense unless you’ve read that first - follow the AO3 link in my profile to find it.

Fandom: The Flash (TV 2014)/DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Featuring: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen/Iris West-Allen (but this one’s mainly coldflash with background coldwestallen) 4802 words Summary: Len tries to get lost. Barry finds him. (Every fic in this series gets a song: ‘A Sorta Fairytale’ by Tori Amos)

The View

Sometimes I think I came back wrong.

As soon as Len hit ‘send’ on the message, he regretted it.

Not because he didn’t want to talk to Barry. He wanted nothing more than to pour out his damn heart to him. The one he never knew he had, before that impossible, wonderful man and his incredible wife fell into his life like a miracle that he didn’t deserve.

Len wanted to talk to him so badly, he ached. He just didn’t know how.

He glanced down at his phone screen again, wishing he could take the message back. For a moment, he almost understood Barry’s constant temptation to change the timeline.

Maybe they weren’t so different after all.

The trail of evidence of their contrasting experiences of time travel had been left all over STAR Labs, in the bleary morning residue of frenetic late-night whiteboard scribbles. In Barry’s red pen, a straight timeline with a tiny runner immersed in it, hurling himself desperately from the future to the past and back to the present. On the other side of the board, blue marker in Len’s hand approximated his mess of a perspective - distant, twisted webs lit by points of light. A bird’s-eye view of Time.

(“We could call it an… Oculus view.”

“You’re not funny, you know.”

“Oh, but I am.”)

It was probably harder for Barry, with his unrelenting longing to make things better, and no way to pull back and see what havoc his changes on the timeline would wreak.

But Len didn’t want the god’s perspective on the river of Time.

(channel it three feet in one direction, drown a village; divert its course two inches another way, starve a world)

Some days, he just wanted Time to leave him the fuck alone.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed.

Different. Not wrong.

“Sure, Barry,” he muttered. He leaned back against the rock, there on the time-forsaken beach on the coast of northern France. When he had realised he needed a break from… everything, he’d found himself here, in his usual way. Decided it would be best for everyone if he stayed a while.

He laughed out loud at the idea that any of this was usual. It had been a fucked-up shitshow from the beginning, and maybe it always would be. Letting his fingers trace the rough stones beneath him, he kept his breathing steady, fighting the old panic that came with thinking about his powers and everything they brought…

No, not the old panic. He mostly knew how to handle the day-to-day effects of his powers now. Now he was just freaked out by the bigger perspective.

The Oculus view.

I miss you, he texted back to Barry.

He smothered the old dread that came with saying words like that to another person. The past didn’t always repeat, even for him. Barry and Iris loved him.

Even if he sometimes questioned their wisdom there.

The phone buzzed again so fast he wondered if Barry had used his speed to answer, but it pulled Len out of the dark rabbit hole he was tumbling down. So come home, Barry’s text read. Len chuckled as a line of dots appeared, disappeared, and reappeared - a nervous speedster typing and deleting more messages.

“Oh, Barry,” he murmured. “Why do you care this much?” He’d mostly given up asking that question a long time ago, but sometimes it resurfaced.

Like today, on a beach at the edge of the world.

Can’t, he finally typed back, after staring at the phone screen for a couple of minutes.

...Can I come to you?

He coughed another laugh, then dialled a number, lifting the phone to his ear.

“Are you okay?” Barry’s voice raced in, true to form, before Len could say a word.

No, he wanted to say.

I’ve forgotten what okay feels like, he wanted to say.

I need you, he wanted to say.

“Not quite how I’d put it,” is what came out.

“...Len.”

He sighed out at the drab, colourless ocean. “I’m in Baie de Lannion. Texting you a map link.”

“Thank you,” Barry breathed, relief palpable in his voice, even down the tinny phone line.

He counted the waves crashing in and out against the rocks four times, before a trail of lightning flared across the beach and stuttered to a stop beside him.

“Now, was that so hard?” said Barry’s voice, a hint of gentle mockery in it.

Len smiled.

I don’t know what takes hold Out there in the desert cold

--- Barry found him sitting against a rock on a desolate beach. Len had taken his shoes off and was letting the tide roll in and out over his socks. Barry tugged his coat closer against the wind - he’d run there in Cisco-patented civilian clothes - and glanced down at Len in his jeans and light black sweater. No parka in sight. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked, then rolled his eyes at the answering chuckle. “Seriously, Len? That was barely a pun.”

“Good enough,” Len murmured. His eyes were fixed on a point in the distance.

The coastline curved ahead of them around a sheltered bay, with a cluster of tiny islands beyond the headland and a blue tower perched on the furthest rock. A lighthouse.

At least Len had warned them before he left, this time. Standing at the fireplace running his fingers over the mantle, avoiding both Barry and Iris’s eyes. He needed some time alone, he’d said. All things considered, that was progress. Better than back when he’d just disappeared - either in a burst of blue light, or in old-fashioned freaking out and running away.

It still hurt.

“Why can’t he talk to us? Even now?” Barry had asked Iris a few days later, when he’d clocked that ‘time alone’ meant longer than he’d first thought.

She’d shifted closer to him on the couch. Warm against his side, where Leonard was cold. Here, where he was absent. “I wish I knew, babe. Give him time. He’ll come around.”

He smiled gratefully at her, always trusting her to solve the mystery of Leonard Snart.

But he hadn’t expected it to take over a week before Len got in contact.

Not waiting for permission, Barry dropped down next to him on the stony beach, pulling his knees up to avoid the tide quietly surging around them. “Comfy.” He shuffled awkwardly. “I think there’s a stone up my ass.” At the lack of sarcastic reply - he’d been hoping for something about how it was better than the usual stick up there - he glanced over, trying to make it look like he wasn't staring.

Len didn’t look too bad, considering the week-long disappearance. He was clean-shaven and looked almost rested. But he’d always known how to lie through appearances.

Barry fought his way slowly through the silence for a while. Then, quietly, with his eyes on the sea, he said, “Talk to me.”

He caught Len’s shrug out of the corner of his eye. “Caitlin says acceptance ain’t a... straight line.”

Pretending that didn’t make his heart sink, Barry let his eyes flicker right again. Len looked so lonely. “Good days and bad, right?” Pulling at any thread he could follow to break into his lover’s isolation, he said, “I get that. My powers were all pretty positive from the beginning, and I still had days when I couldn’t handle what was happening to me, at first.”

That time, the silence was longer, while Barry thought of and threw out a dozen things he could have said that... wouldn’t have helped. Hating the helplessness that washed over him like a wave, he still made himself wait till Len was ready.

At last Len turned his head to look at him, raising a hand in a gesture at the beach around him. “You ever run to anyplace like this? Somewhere where nothing ever changes?”

Barry met sad blue eyes and smiled, remembering the thrill of going where no other human feet had ever run. “Oh yeah.” He hugged his knees tighter. “Polar ice caps, Sahara Desert… Timeless places.”

“Not quite,” Len mused, narrow-eyed. “But, yeah. Close.”

Another swell of silence lapped around them, rising and falling. Barry listened to Len’s deceptively calm breathing until he couldn’t take it anymore. “Caitlin said you had a tough week in therapy.” At the sharp head tilt, he scrambled to clarify, “She didn’t break any confidences. She was just worried.”

A little fishing boat was coming into view, struggling on rough waves. From this remote vantage point, it looked perilously close to going under.

Len shrugged, eyes distant again. “Things got a little tricky. I, uh... I couldn’t...” He let out a quiet noise of frustration.

The tide of helplessness rushed through Barry again. He hadn’t understood how difficult words could be for Len, until he really got to know him. For someone who talked a whole lot, Len didn’t always say very much. He wielded words like a shield, like a weapon. Anything more real - sharing, connecting - could be a struggle.

Watching jittery fingers tapping against the rock, Barry reached out a hand, letting it sit at Len’s hip. “I don’t have anywhere else to be. Take your time.”

A black-gloved hand slid across the rock to meet Barry’s, locking their fingers tightly together. It set something warm curling in Barry’s chest. “Can I ask you something?”

Keeping a tight hold on his hand, Barry shifted around to look at him. “Sure.”

Len stared down at their hands with a calculating look. “How did it feel, at first, after you… changed?” he asked, drawling on feel as if the word grated.

“When I became the Flash?”

Len nodded.

“Insanely powerful, at first. Like I could do anything. Save anyone.” A sense-memory flooded him, those first, wild moments of running, and he laughed quietly. “And, honestly, so much fun. It took a while before that turned into real helplessness.”

That got him a raised eyebrow.

He took a breath that felt like slamming into a wall. “Eobard Thawne. Zoom… Times when it felt like the whole universe was out to ruin my life.” A lightning-flash of memories, grainy and fixed forever like an old, miserable film strip. He swallowed, refusing even to think of Savitar, who didn’t deserve to be remembered. Iris… “To take the people I love away from me.”

Sharp eyes were trained on Barry. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”

Well, yeah. Most people saw sunshine and light, when they looked at Barry. He kept the rest to himself. Maybe he wasn’t so different from Len, that way.

...Len, whose eyes had gone distant again. Barry poked him, “Nice deflecting. Weren’t we talking about you?”

“You were.”

“Len.”

A wry raised eyebrow later, Len turned back towards the open ocean. “Barry,” he said, and it came out like a sigh. “Before this thing with you and Iris, how much time do you think I spent talking about my feelings?” He drawled the last word a little, but not in disgust this time - closer to bemusement.

And Barry was done feeling helpless. Squinting at the bay where it curved out of sight, he squeezed Len’s hand. “Come for a walk with me.” He expected the cynical head-tilt, and ignored it. “Come on - I mean it. I ran across a cliff-top just up there—” he jerked his thumb behind him a couple of times— “that looked like it had an awesome view.”

A surprise of a smile broke across Len’s face. “God’s-eye view,” he murmured, studying Barry, who didn’t ask what that was about.

But he saw the moment Len decided to try.

“And how exactly are we getting up there? I don’t see any steps.”

Barry grinned.

“No,” Len said firmly.

Barry tugged on his hand, in what he hoped was a good impression of a puppy with a stick to chase.

Len rolled his eyes to the sky. “Why does the universe keep feeling the need to punish me?”

“It gave you me, to make up for it!” He ignored Len’s snort and tugged on his hand once more. “Come on. You won’t even feel it.”

“Fine.”

The vertical run up the cliff face was easy - for him. He deposited a doubled-over-coughing Len very gently on the clifftop. “Oh, that wasn’t even fast,” he mocked. Taking advantage of Len’s inability to speak, he added, “Drama queen.”

When he got his breath back, Len rasped, “You love my fondness for drama.”

Barry smiled and took his hand again. “Yeah.”

--- Half a mile along the clifftop, Len started to feel the familiar magnetic pull towards a fixed point in time, prickling in his fingers and toes.

It turned out to be an abandoned graveyard by a ruined church.

They’d been having a casual chat about the perils of being a super...hero, but as Len knelt down to examine a headstone so old he couldn’t read the writing, he felt Barry’s mood shift.

“And then there’s the places time does touch,” Barry was musing behind him.

Len could feel his gaze against the back of his head. “Hmm.”

Barry dropped down beside him, not letting Len avoid his eyes anymore. Typical. “What do you mean, you think you came back wrong?”

He ran his hand quietly over the mottled stone for a minute. Barry could wait for him to craft a thought, for once in his breakneck life. When Len was damn well ready, he said, “You know, I touch this, and I know how old it is. Fourteenth century. It’s…” He squeezed his eyes shut, letting his mind follow the little flares of light along the timeline. “A woman’s grave. Country woman. Tough life.”

Beside him, Barry hummed. “Can you always do that?”

He shook his head, opening his eyes to examine the stone again. “The object has to be linked to a fixed point in time.” He glanced up at the church behind them, sitting right on the edge of the clifftop - time had taken its toll in erosion on the land beyond it. Ornately carved pews had once covered a floor now overgrown with weeds. The walls, now crumbling and ivy-infested, had once been adorned with hand-painted images. “She fed a king - hmm, right here in the church. Brought him soup that kept him alive after a battle.”

“And that’s all it takes to create a fixed point?”

He tried to keep his shrug casual. “Sometimes. If the king made enough impact on the timeline afterwards.”

The dark wave of the timeline was dragging him under. He pulled his hand away from the stone, suddenly, like it had shocked him. Sat back on his heels to catch his breath.

Barry, who clearly hadn’t noticed Len’s little freak-out, was gazing at him with a look of wonder. It turned Len’s stomach a little bit. “You’ve got a gift, Len,” he said, in that same voice he’d once used to tell Len there was good in him. The cocky confidence of a hero who knows he’s right.

“Please,” Len replied, aiming for drawn-out and dismissive. “I’m using my powers. You don’t need to keep persuading me they’re useful.” He folded his legs under him, adding in a mutter, “Use them every damn day, on the Waverider, when I’m not taking a break to sort my head out.”

Oh yeah, he used them - till he was wrung and out and exhausted and so done with life that he was just about ready to throw the Oculus’s gift back in its face.

To just give up, and let himself be washed away on the river of Time.

Barry criss-crossed his legs next to him. More gently this time, he asked again, “What did you mean, came back wrong, Len?”

Clearly he wasn’t going to let this go. Len ran a hand over his head, taking him in. His impossible, wonderful love.

“It still hurts, Barry. Still messes up my head, seeing this colossal view of the timeline, like a gaping wound in the universe…” He shook his head at the headstone. “I tell you the story of this grave, I have touch something… terrifying. And sometimes it just pulls me in, and I can’t make it stop, and it fucking sucks.” He glanced up at Barry, expecting the raw look on his face. “A gift? Some days I think you’re right. Others, it’s a curse.”

Bracing himself back on his hands, Barry sighed. “I know about the side effects of your powers, Len.” He was looking at him like Len was ripping his heart out.

“Do you? Because I’m only just beginning to understand what I can do, and what it means for me. Disabled, Caitlin called it. I didn’t get what she meant, at first. Thought I was just broken. But I didn’t break… just sometimes wish I had.”

Barry was oddly, uncharacteristically silent.

“Ignore me. I’m just having a self-pitying moment,” he drawled. He should stop talking, but the trickle he'd already let out had burst something, and now it was all pouring out of him like a flood. “Don’t know whether to blame the Oculus, or the powers it left me with, or a world that doesn’t have room for me anymore. Not… not like this.” He shrugged, hearing his voice slip into a deflecting tone that he couldn’t fight. “Like you said. Good days and bad. I’ll be back to the almost-enthusiastic not-quite-hero life tomorrow, probably.”

Barry hummed, his eyes taking in the ocean far below them, the waves crashing against the rocks, drowning them and retreating. For a moment, the little lighthouse was all that could be seen above the water. “You think the world doesn’t have room for you?”

Len inclined his head towards him. “Freaks and meta-heroes not included. At least the Legends can handle my unreliable disappearing acts. In the middle of missions…” He trailed off, avoiding the hard gaze Barry had turned back on him, as if he could see the anxiety swirling in his gut.

“Is that what happened?”

Len just nodded, since his voice was about to betray him.

“Does it happen a lot?”

He cleared his throat. “No. Just enough that they’re too forgiving about it.”

Barry snorted. “Of course they are. Have you met them? They can barely…”

He must have caught sight of Len’s face, because he stopped talking and grabbed his hand again.

Len held on.

The strange pressure to keep talking built again, threatening an explosion. “And then there’s how they treat me like I’m sick. Which I guess I am… I can never do anything with my powers without someone asking if I’m okay.” He aimed a pointed look at Barry. “Do you how often people asked me I was okay before I died?”

Barry’s lips twitched in the beginning of a smile. “Guessing you’d have shot anyone who did.”

That almost hurt, but he let it go. “Pretty much. And of course half the time I’m not okay, and then they just fawn over me more. And Gideon’s treatments - I’m a nauseous, shaking mess half my fucking life.”

There was a squeeze around his fingers. “Is she working on that?”

“Yeah.”

And it was as if the tide had passed. He took a deep breath, and let the silence wrap him up like a coat again.

Barry was watching him, the shadow of pain a little lighter in his eyes now. “You never talk to me about this,” he said quietly. “You say this stuff to Iris, but not to me.”

Len shrugged, a lift of his left shoulder that he knew was overdramatic. “She doesn’t scare easy.”

As soon as it was out, he could see it was the wrong thing to say.

He laid a gloved hand on Barry’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Barry smiled at him, forgiving as ever. “I know.”

Len was idly playing with three blades of grass, twisting them around and around each other, till he could never have separated them again. “She’s an anchor in the storm. You’re a challenge. I need you both.”

“I know,” Barry repeated, grinning wryly at him now. “I get it, Len. I love you too.”

Len grimaced. “I hate that this shit touches every part of my life, you and Iris included.”

But Barry was holding his gaze, and suddenly Len could see the Flash in his eyes. The strength of the hero, who wasn’t afraid to stand beside him.

To share the view.

“Did I ever tell you,” Barry said, after a long moment of quiet, “about the second time I lost my powers?”

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. To ask Barry to spare him the sob story with the happy ending that Len wasn’t going to get. But, once again, he forced himself to do better than his usual shit. “Go on.”

He watched Barry slide into a memory just as easily - and painfully - as Len slid into someone else’s timeline. “Zoom wanted my speed. He had already beaten me half to death and done a dozen other brutal things, and… then he kidnapped Wally.” His face was twisting into that dark expression that Len didn’t see there too often, but was damn terrifying when he did. “By then, we had a way to give him my speed. So, I did.”

Len’s neck cracked as he turned to look at him. “Willingly?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “He had Wally.”

Len remembered his father’s last threat against Lisa, and swallowed down a surge of rage. “What happened?”

A cloud moved across the sun above them. Barry’s face was shrouded in shadow. “Losing my speed sucked. So bad that I let the team torture my powers back into me… You already know the rest of that story.” He glanced over at Len with wary eyes. “I know it’s not the same—”

“No, it’s not,” Len snapped, feeling the familiar regret wash over him as soon as Barry’s face sagged. He bit down on another flash of anger, this time turned inward, and grit his teeth to ask the question of the day. “How did you feel?”

Lost in the moment again, Barry turned focused eyes on him, the slight already forgotten. Always too damned forgiving. “Helpless. Like I was stuck at the mercy of a callous uni— multiverse.” He sighed. “That didn’t really get better for a long time. Zoom killed my dad first… and you know about Flashpoint.”

(helpless)

Barry had gone back to staring at the sea, his face softening into fathomless sadness. This time, it was Len who took Barry’s hand, getting a grateful squeeze back.

Len wasn’t the only one facing battles that he couldn’t fight alone.

“I know it’s not likely I can understand what you’re going through.” Barry raised almost-amused eyebrows at Len. “And you can’t really relate to the things I’ve been through either.” His fingers tightened around Len’s again. “But there’s zero chance of that if we don’t talk to each other.”

Len let out a long sigh, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his free arm around them. “I meant it, you know. When I told the Oculus I’d take whatever came with these powers.”

“I know,” Barry’s clear, trusting voice rang out. So much faith in him, and he still wasn’t sure he deserved it. “Len, you can have a bad week. It doesn’t invalidate what you’ve chosen.” He smiled, a playful grin. “Doesn’t stop you from being a hero.”

Nodding straight ahead, Len tried not to dignify that with an answer. He failed. “You’re gonna keep doing that, aren’t you?”

Barry didn’t stop grinning. “Yup.” He uncurled his hand from around Len’s and lifted it slowly towards his face, a question in his eyes. Len nodded, feeling a little smile pull at his mouth as Barry’s hand rested gently on his cheek. “You’re my hero. That’s what matters,” he whispered conspiratorially. It was always his final statement in this ridiculous bit.

Already an old dance.

He let himself search Barry’s too-sincere face for just a minute. His impossible, wonderful love, who had somehow fallen for an asshole like him. Who knew he couldn’t save him, not from the worst of it, but still kept trying, like the fucking hero he was.

Leaning in, he kissed Barry, gentle and slow, and it felt like home.

He felt the tears on his cheeks as he pulled away. Crying was another thing Len hadn’t done before the fucking Oculus… No - before he fell in love with two people who melted his heart of ice.

Barry reached out to thumb the tear-tracks away. “Len?”

“I can’t do this alone.” He managed to suppress a shudder at the monumental admission of weakness - one he knew Barry would never use against him. And God, Len was right. He didn’t deserve him.

“Then come home,” Barry was murmuring, dropping his forehead against Len’s.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and breathing Barry in. “Okay.”

When he opened them again, he caught a glimpse of a pair of seagulls soaring over the little blue lighthouse, side by side.

For me to take your word I had to steal it

---

“Well, if it isn’t our wandering Rogue,” Iris observed from the couch, as Barry pulled the door shut behind the two of them. She grinned as her husband headed straight over to kiss her, leaning over the back of the couch and giving her a light, familiar peck on the lips. It had her smiling against him and running her hand through his soft hair, and then he vaulted across to sit next to her. Always so eager to be near her, even after all the years he’d spent around her.

She looked back to see Len hovering at the door, hesitant and twitchy. She gave him a no-nonsense curl of her finger. “Are you just going to stand there, Leonard?”

He laughed, his eyes flickering briefly up to the corner of the ceiling, then back to her. His shoulders sagged as he headed over to join them on the couch, only pausing for a second to give the space next to Iris a troubled look. Barry tensed a bit beside her, but she just patted the empty couch seat. “I’m not mad, love. Just been worried about you.”

“Sorry,” he muttered anyway, slumping down beside her.

Iris smiled at him, and some of the light returned to his eyes. “It’s okay. Really.” She reached up to kiss him too - oh, the pain of being with two ridiculously tall men - feeling the reticence melt out of him as he lingered against her lips. When he pulled away, she left her hand on his cheek for just a second.

He nodded slowly back at her.

She leaned back, keeping a little vigil over her two quiet heroes. Len was slowly relaxing beside her, lost in thought as he wrapped his arm around her waist. Barry just looked weary. Probably a mission success, given Len's return, but they both seemed a little wrung out. “So, who wants pizza?”

“Depends,” Barry said through a yawn. “Do I have to run to get it?”

She grinned at him. “If you can stand Central City's Pizza Hut, we can order in.”

Barry squinted at her. “Even if I want twenty?”

Len snorted on her other side, nodding across her at Barry. “We’ll give them a very good tip.”

Barry beamed. “I love you both. I’ll order. Oh and I should, uh—” He scratched the back of his neck. “I should find the pizza cutter—”

He was clattering loudly through drawers before she realised he had flashed into the kitchen.

Len raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Subtle, he is not.”

She laughed, her hand tightening on his where it was sitting softly on her hip. “I missed you.”

His brow crinkled in a frown, eyes averted from hers. “Missed you too.”

Prodding just a little more, since she was always of the opinion that Leonard needed an occasional kick up the backside, she asked, “Are you okay?”

He was aiming a rueful grin at the arm of the couch. “Everyone wants to know if I’m okay.”

But there was a shadow in his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently.

Leonard looked up, holding her gaze for a moment, as if he trying to figure something out.

“Yes,” he said at last.

Over twenty pizzas, with Barry and Iris tangled together on the couch while Leonard lounged on the floor, he talked, and they listened.

Somewhere along the way, he felt his bird’s-eye view of the timeline shift and pull down, till all he could see was the three of them. All in all, was a pretty nice day

#my fic #stealing time 'verse #coldflash #coldwestallen #leonard snart #barry allen #iris west-allen #all the usual tags for this verse #angst with a hopeful ending #mental health issues #post-oculus leonard snart #catharsis #len doesn't want to talk #barry persuades him #cw suicidal ideation #(it's brief and passive but it's there)#much more hopeful than the tags suggest... I think!

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