Notes: This is the first iteration of the story I wrote for the prompt - Barry suffers a permanent injury that affects his work as Flash and Len helps him to work out where to go is the first iteration of the story I wrote for the prompt - Barry suffers a permanent injury that affects his work as Flash and Len helps him to work out where to go next. Warning for a serious injury and mention of blood.
"Hey, Red. I'm telling ya, we have to stop meeting like this," Len says in a low voice, gruff from barking orders that didn't matter worth dick since no one listened to him anyway. If they had, maybe Barry wouldn't be lying on a gurney down in the med center of STAR Labs, slipping in and out of consciousness.
Maybe he wouldn't have had the ever-loving shit beat out of him … again. Even the fights Barry does win usually end up with him getting bashed in the head or kicked in the stomach.
Just because he has the power to super heal doesn't erase the fact that Barry Allen gets beat up a lot.
Len is also a bit worse for the wear – a gash on his right cheek that might require stitches, a blackened left eye, an arm he'd thought was broken wrapped tight in an ACE bandage. But that's nothing compared to what happened to Barry – slammed in the gut by a high-intensity photon blast that was meant for Len and thrown over two hundred feet straight up. Had Barry come back down the way he went, Len might have been able to break his fall, plus his whole body in the process. But Barry had traveled, and Len abandoned the fight, abandoned his team, to go on the search. Halfway out of town, Len found Barry skewered on an iron fence post, the spear-like tip protruding from his chest and covered in blood. When Len saw him - bent impossibly backward with arms and legs limp - his heart stopped.
He thought his boy was dead this time for sure.
Then along came Cisco and Caitlin, and boy, do they have a convenient sense of timing. They had nothing to do with Len finding Barry, but they sure did rush in and scoop him up as if he was theirs and theirs alone. They barely gave Len a thank you, barely looked him in the eyes.
When it comes to him, Len has discovered, even when he's fighting on their side, they don't consider him on their side.
Perhaps that's the way it should stay.
Caitlin did take a second to check out Len's arm and wrap it up, but that was a consolation prize. A token.
The literal least they could do.
But it was also a message. In their eyes, it made them square. Now Len's job was over, and it would be best for everyone if he stepped back and left Barry alone.
Right. Like that was going to happen.
Caitlin and Cisco packed Barry up in their 'Flash-mobile' and left Len alone out in the middle of nowhere, probably all sorts of assured that he wouldn't make it back to STAR Labs anytime soon.
And, as usual, they were wrong.
Not only was he fifteen minutes behind them the whole time thanks to his newest acquisition – a beat-up old Indian motorcycle he'd spied quietly rusting in an otherwise vacant driveway on his way out of town – but he'd managed to let himself into STAR Labs super slick and steal away into Barry's room the second the Wonder Twins ducked out. Sure they'll be watching Barry like a hawk so of course they'll find him, but now that he's in, he'd like to see them try and kick him out.
Len gives Barry a once over, head shaking with disgust and disappointment.
And guilt.
Barry looks okay. Aside from a few scratches, he's the same as always … on the outside. From what Len could make out while Caitlin and Cisco were talking, the blast scrambled Barry's brain like an omelet, hence his constant waking up and knocking out. From the times they were able to talk to him, Barry didn't know his name, didn't know where he was, who they were, or that he was The Flash. They hooked him up to a dozen or so machines monitoring his brain waves, his temporal lobes and whatnot, but when he finally comes to for longer than a minute, they have no idea what he'll remember.
Or if the memories he's lost will ever come back.
They also can't tell with absolute certainty if Barry is still a meta. The blast doesn't appear to have eliminated his power to heal, but it slowed it to a crawl. Hence why he's down here while the net that is the Speed Force sews him back together, albeit at an infuriating rate.
And why it hasn't worked on his brain? That's another mystery altogether.
Len moves sections of Barry's blankets aside to assess the damage for himself. Large hematomas mar Barry's skin like a battle-scarred landscape. Len's gaze falls on the blood-stained bandages covering the hole in Barry's chest and sucks a breath in through his teeth. By rights, any man who sustained an injury like that should be dead. Since that blast was aimed at Len, that means he should be dead right now – dead and gone while a still young and vibrant Barry Allen mourns for all of fifteen minutes the twisted, dysfunctional non-relationship they have, one where Barry constantly reminds Len that there's good in him as if that means something, and Len spends his nights seething because the good Len wants inside of him is Barry.
"Jesus Christ, you know, you gotta stop taking the blows that I'm supposed to take. When it's my time, it's my time. Nothing you can do is going to change that, Red, no matter how good you think I am."
"Wh-why … do you keep calling me … Red?" a gravelly voice struggles with as Barry turns his head to look Len's way.
Len shrugs, taking a seat in the chair beside Barry so he won't have to move anymore. "It's just a nickname I have for you. That's all."
Barry relaxes back into his pillow now that the object of his attention has conveniently moved into view. Eyelids narrowed, he stares at Len, soaking in the particulars of the man in front of him. "Who ... who are you?"
"Who do you think I am?"
"I … I don't know, but … you seem so familiar."
"I should. I'm your husband," Len teases without thinking, sarcasm stepping in when the alternative means revealing too much at an inconvenient time. Why not? It breaks the tension. Barry is more than likely not going to remember this conversation. Besides, Len is dying to see the look on the kid's face as he tries to comprehend that this tired, filthy, broken old man is his spouse.
And Barry doesn't disappoint. His head jerks back a hair. His eyes widen. His jaw works around wordless questions.
In short, he looks thoroughly confused by life.
"You … you are?"
"Yup."
"But … but the doctors that were in here … they didn't tell me."
Len pats Barry's hand. "They don't like me. I sometimes think they'd like to forget I exist."
"Oh …" Barry's eyes dart back and forth, scanning his brain for any nugget of a sliver of a memory of him being married to the man sitting in the chair next to him. Several long seconds tick by. Len watches Barry's face with an intense curiosity and mild amusement, waiting for his inevitable surrender back into unconsciousness that will herald the end of this charade. Then Len will sit and guard over Barry for as long as he can before his obnoxious wardens return. But Barry doesn't surrender to sleep. He smiles, an unexpected realization overwhelming him that adds color to his pale cheeks and light to his blank-slate eyes. "Oh … my God! We're … we're married?" Barry laughs before Len has a chance to answer. "Wh-what … what lottery did I win to get you?"
A vision of the fight they were in not two hours ago rolls through Len's brain, how Barry got hit, then flew so hard he blinked out of sight like a cartoon character.
"Let's just say I swept you off your feet."
"I thought … I thought it was a dream …" Barry continues. "I didn't think it could be real."
Len chuckles, assuming Barry is thinking of that same take-off moment, until he keeps going.
And then Len's heart stops a second, longer time.
"We met in a theater … didn't we?"
"I guess you can say that."
"We had a wedding on the beach … and our honeymoon … camping at the Grand Canyon …" A spark twinkles in Barry's eyes that Len has never seen. It's not the lightning that lives inside him, that erupts to mirror his emotions. It's different – just as supernatural, but more inexplicable. It sends chills down Len's spine, and that's something that doesn't happen too often.
"Ho-honeymoon?" Len's legs go numb. He turns at the waist, looking for a place to sit until it dawns on him that he's sitting already.
"Yeah." Barry's smile grows and takes a bashful twist. "You and me in a two-person tent on the South Rim, drinking champagne and watching the sun set …"
Voices echo in the hallway. Urgent voices. More than just Cisco and Caitlin. It sounds like Joe might be with them, along with a few other members of the CCPD. Len doesn't hear what they say, but he has his suspicions that they're talking about him.
"Shoot!" Len hisses, wishing the oncoming invasion could take a powder for about five minutes so that Barry can finish telling him about that honeymoon. From the shade of red Barry's cheeks have become, it must have been good. But it would probably be a good idea if he retreats to his favorite air vent for the time being. "Look, kid, I'm going to have to …" He springs out of his seat but Barry grabs his hand with a speed that confirms that yes, he definitely still is a meta.
"Wait, what are you doing? Where are you going?"
"I need to bow out for a minute. But don't worry. I won't go too far."
"Go? What … no! Don't … don't leave! Please?"
The voices become louder, accompanied by hurried footsteps, and Len curses under his breath. Before this little adventure began, weren't they all allies? On a temporary basis, but playing on the same team? "Barry, I'm sorry, but I have to."
"Why!?"
Len looks into Barry's pleading eyes and sighs. Yup, leave it to him to take a joke too far, and now here he is - married to The Flash and sixty seconds away from being locked behind bars.
"Remember those doctors I said don't like me?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, they're coming back, and from the sounds of it, they're bringing the police."
"But, why does that matter?" Barry scans the room, searching frantically for help. "You're ... you're my husband!"
"They may not see it that way."
"I'll make them see! Just … wait here and we'll get this straightened out. Please? Please stay?"
Len opens his mouth, but even though he has to, he can't say no. He shakes his head, taking a step away, and Barry goes into full blown panic mode.
"They said I could have whatever I wanted! Have whoever I want in here with me! Whatever would make me comfortable! If you're my husband, then I want you! We'll tell them that I'm … I'm not staying here without you! I'll … I'll get up and leave!" Barry plants his hands on the mattress pad beneath him and tries to sit up. "I swear!"
"Shhh, easy now, kid. Don't get carried away." Len puts his hands on Barry's shoulders and in an instance feels him relax, which makes Len want to punch himself in the throat. He did this – him and his frickin' inability to not make a joke out of everything. Maybe he and Barry don't always meet on the same side of the law, but he'd never want anything bad for Barry.
Which is why he keeps his distance on the day to day. If Leonard Snart is anything, he's bad for Barry.
But for some reason, Barry seems to believe wholeheartedly that he's married to Leonard Snart. And not just believes it, but has memories of it. But where those memories came from, Len doesn't know. He didn't say enough to plant any subliminal thoughts in Barry's mind, nothing as detailed as a wedding on the beach, or a honeymoon. Where did that all come from? Could it be a side-effect of the memory wipe? Cisco specifically said 'scrambled Barry's brains like an omelet'. Those were his exact words. Barry's mind manufacturing a wedding that never happened sounds like the kind of thing a scrambled brain might do.
Or is there a chance that those thoughts were there in Barry's mind already? Fantasies hidden that the accident unlocked?
Does Barry, on some level, have feelings for Len that venture outside of the hero-villain dynamic they've so masterfully cultivated?
As much as Len would like to investigate that possibility, he can't. They have a situation here that he doesn't have an easy fix for.
But maybe he doesn't want one.
Len knows that this can't go anywhere but downhill, for him and for Barry. But he also knows he can't back out on Barry now. Not with those eyes staring at him as if he's the only thing keeping Barry tethered to planet earth.
No one's ever looked at him that way, with that level of need. Not even his sister.
It's also not lost on him that this is the longest Barry has managed to stay awake since he arrived at STAR Labs. That in itself is a reason for Len to stay.
What Len doesn't know is how the hell he's going to pull this off.
Make a plan. Execute the plan. Expect the plan to go off the rails. Throw away the plan.
Welp. He seems right about on par.
He squeezes Barry's hand gently. To his own surprise, he leans forward and gives him a kiss on the forehead.
"All right, Red," he whispers. "I'll stay. We'll … figure this out."