The first two chapters are really just my headcanon for this series and Barry so please bear with me through them and then we get down to the fun Arthur/Barry stuff.
I am aware that 'Central City' implies a lack of access to the ocean but that just doesn't work for me so I'm ignoring it and assuming it's central and some other way.

This Is Where It All Began
by luvsbitca

Barry liked having a space of his own. His father was in jail and his mother was dead and he'd been kind of alone since he was nine. Sure, he'd moved in with his grandmother but by then she'd been old and frail and he had spent a lot of time by himself. He'd been lucky enough to make friends with Iris and had spent a lot of time at her house for a while but then he'd turned nineteen and his grandmother had had to go into a nursing home and then he'd really been on his own. Sure, he still spoke to Iris and her dad and they invited him over to spend time with them regularly and they were the place he went on Christmas and his birthday and other major days. They were his second family and he loved them desperately but it was still nice to come back to his place after leaving the loving, close family home they had.

He had already started university when his grandmother had needed to go into the home and he had had a couple of choices – give up school, put her in a crappy home, or live off the grid and manage both school and the costs of her care with the money he would have spent on an apartment. He'd chosen to live in abandoned warehouses, apartments, and houses with the occasional stint on Joe West's couch. It had come in handy after the accident when he'd lived partially by illegal means to make his suit and supply the materials he'd needed to fight crime.

Then Bruce Wayne had broken into his…squat and everything had changed. First, he'd met people who were also special even if most of them were special in different ways. They had saved the world and agreed to assist each other as necessary. Then it was over and Barry had headed back to Central City. When he'd landed Alfred had handed him an envelope, a set of keys, and a phone.

"Alfred?" Barry has questioned.

"From Master Wayne," Alfred explained. "The phone is untraceable and allows you to have contact with the remaining members of the 'Justice League' securely." Barry was very impressed with Alfred's ability to add tone to his words that made his feelings about the moniker known. "I could not say what is in the envelope as I would not presume to know or divulge Master Wayne's actions."

"So, you know exactly what it says," Barry said. "Thanks for the lift home. Will I see you next time we have a mission?"

"Invariably."

Barry grinned at him, slipped the stuff into his backpack and walked out of the private airport heading towards the city.

"Your car, Mister Allen," Alfred halted his movements and gestured to a car, driver standing next to an open door.

"Oh, right, thanks."

"You're welcome, goodbye, Mister Allen."

The envelope was open before the driver was sitting in his seat.

Barry,
I have secured a building that would suit your purposes quite well – it's industrial with minimal changes to make it habitable however it is private and has underground access. Alfred would have given you the keys. Please contact me if you would like extra security added. The address is 312 Cohn Street, Central City.
As your grandmother is located at a Wayne Industries nursing facility, her fees are no longer required as thank you for your assistance in the Steppenwolf situation. In addition, you have been awarded the Elizabeth Wayne Memorial Scholarship, your university has been contacted regarding the change and all information has been forwarded to your nominated email address.
Kind regards,
Bruce Wayne
CEO, Owner, Wayne Industries

Barry liked Bruce – in a weird way, for a playboy billionaire, he was surprisingly socially inept when it came to the rest of the Justice League. Alfred may not like the name but Barry did enjoy it.

When the car stopped, Barry looked out to realise they had come to the new address, not his…old place. He needed his stuff but he didn't know what the deal was with the car and he could get it to the new address just fine.

"Thanks," he said, shoving the letter back into his backpack and climbing out of the car. The building was two-storeys, mostly non-descript. It was a 70s warehouse made of redbrick with high windows and looked like it had been recently cleaned as the setting sun was glinting off the glass. The car moved off behind him as he started towards the door; it was a faded, speckled blue and he had a thought about repainting it to look like the TARDIS but thought that might be a bit too conspicuous. He walked inside and saw boxes to the left, his stuff if the 'BA' written on the side and the shapes of both his first and second favourite chairs was any indication.

They had been holed up in Dytyatky for three days while they recovered and made sure that everything was over. There had been a contract awarded jointly to Oxford, CalTech, Wayne Industries Philanthropic, and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne to research the area with so many major international organisations acting as secondary researchers that Barry had taken a full minute to read the whole list. Once it had been set up and they knew it was being contained and handled they had travelled to Paris for an additional two days. Then Arthur left to return wherever, Diana went back to her life, Clark flew off to avert something, and then Bruce, Victor and he had flown back to America and their previously scheduled lives. Except, apparently in that time Bruce had also organised his life.

He knew other people would be annoyed. He didn't understand exactly what it was he was supposed to be angry about. He understood this in a way he didn't understand brunch. Bruce didn't speak with his words. Barry had spent a lot of time discussing the different languages that people used when he was in therapy after his mother's death. His grandmother had been trying to get him to stop saying that his father was innocent as well as helping him cope with his mother's death. Barry had already been testing well beyond his age even though he'd been delayed in both speaking and reading and there was a level of social isolation that even now he had never learned to overcome. His therapist had helped him relate to his peers more than she helped him accept that his father was guilty because she'd been one of the few people who had listened. She was the reason he'd managed to become friends with Iris, someone who was almost as inquisitive as he was though she was much better at dealing with other people. Dr Quinzel would have said that Bruce spoke not through his words but through his actions and he been conditioned to believe that providing for people was integral to his method of showing affection. Bruce was saying that they were more than just people who occasionally saved the world – he cared about Barry and was showing that by helping him to look after his grandmother and get his degree and live somewhere where he wasn't breaking the law. Barry couldn't help but think he'd made the exact right choice that day Bruce had shown up and confronted him.

The walls were brick, there was a kitchen area that looked pretty new, there was a door on the other side of the space from the kitchen and he could see a shower through the door so bathroom. A second door cut off a part of the space and he suspected that was the bedroom. Overall, it was mostly just wide-open empty space. He looked around the space and thought about the best way to set everything up and then thought about the fact he normally slept in his first favourite chair and he could probably buy himself a bed now. He debated unpacking or sleeping first but the thought of a space that was really his made him want to take his time with it so he flipped the protective covering off all of the furniture until he found his favourite chair and then hunted through his boxes to find a towel and soap and had a shower before collapsing onto the couch and using the protective covering as a blanket.

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