Title: A Place for Fear
Summary: West really does love his brother. In his own way.
Warnings: This is very much connected to Twinning. If one hasn't read it, you'll get confused, probably. Oh, and angst with a side of totally inappropriate fluff. This takes place before Lee left in season two, as well.
Disclaimer: The only thing that I own in this is Barry—but he's widely based on the animated Young Justice's Wally West with an age and time and universe change, so that's a toss-up—and I make no money off of this.
Dedication: To Keajo for getting me into actually liking Zeta Project in the long run with her own story 'Only Human' and Rose Midnight Moonlight Black for liking the chapter in Twinning that showcased the brothers.
-:-
Loyalty is a lie. Sacrifice is a test. How far can you take it?
-The Departed.
Jay West loves his brother, he really does. It's just so hard to be overshadowed by someone that's supposed to look up to you and hasn't really neededyou since he got his connection to the Speed Force at age seven.
Really, how can anyone expect him to be a classic big brother when, despite his mother's caring and claims that he is indeed unique and Barry's claims that he does need him (notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary), he's the one useless entity in their entire family? His brother decided to read an entire library in two days when he was fifteen and learned everything he ever needed to with the photographic memory all the Wests had; got training from not only grandpa Wally and mom, but aunt Lian as well and became a member of the Justice League at sixteen, when Jay was still trying—and failing—to pass arms training for the NSA—what did Barry need Jay for?
Nothing. Barry didn't need him for anything.
So the NSA agent stayed out of the way of the new Flash. He wallowed in work, despite this little feeling in the back of his head that tended to flare up when finally confronting the infiltration unit he and his fellow agents had been chasing for nearly a year. West had nearly gotten Zeta many times—like on the train in the luggage car or the Koala Candy factory. He had nearly gotten him—always had him in the crosshairs of his firing weapon—so many times that he was running out of ridiculous stunts to pull when he realizes he can't pull the trigger (damn all of his family for drilling it into him that guns were bad, guns kill people, guns cannot be trusted under any circumstances).
He doesn't exactly know why he presents himself as a fool—when he is not—but he has a feeling it was around the time he realized that if he actually uses the miniscule training he did get for his family and someone asked him where he learned it from—kick boxing, self defense, acrobats, all from uncle Dick and Damian because nobody else would bother with him—he might say one too many lies and get kicked out of the NSA for presumptions of being a spy or god forbid, a terrorist. Or worse, they would look into his family records and start poking around secrets in the family. And, as much as he was bitter towards them, he couldn't let it happen to them. Couldn't betray them for a job.
Funny, when he started out in the NSA, it was to make a contribution to the world that Barry, grandpa and all the rest could never have done. Try and work with the government and make his mom proud for doing things inside of the law instead of being a vigilante and putting his life in too much danger way over his head. Now, he gets why they went with their secrets and lies and vigilantism. Because even when you're supposed to be a good guy—a cop, a lawyer, a federal agent that travelled in a hover ship hunting a rogue robot—it sometimes appears like you're the bad guy. You have information and inclination that the robot you're chasing (with this infuriating blonde girl that reminds West constantly of his mom or aunt) is in fact a hero in his own right and can you do anything to help him out? No. You have to do things by the rules of the up-tight bastards in authority or you could lose your job and be arrested for treason in association with terrorists and go to prison for the rest of your natural life only with chance of parole every twenty years.
It isn't fair. He loves his job sometimes so much that he hopes to do it for the rest of his life; but then, something happens that either puts him in the position of being reamed by his boss or injured because he was trying to do the rightthing—like his family, with knowledge of the truth nobody else had—and he wants to quit so badly and just go home to Central City.
It's awful being so helpless and a victim of fate.
Staring at his phone for what feels like more than an hour rather than the last fifteen minutes of his lunch break, West still can't bring himself to listen to the three messages. All of them are from Barry, he knows and Jay really wants to, but he just can't press the button.
"You're looking rather serious today. What's with the frown, West?"
Quietly and without a hint of surprise—he knew she was coming over; how could he not with the way het tea cup rattled in its saucer?—the redhead clicks his phone shut and moves it into his coat pocket for later. He turns ever so slightly toward agent Lee, the lovely young woman taking a seat across from him. She doesn't need permission, he's grateful to get his mind on other things. She had her usual lunch of Ginseng tea, lemon on the side, a light salad with that gross yellow dressing—the one West never bothered to learn the name of as the first time he tasted it made him gag—and an already half eaten bento box with the red peppers resting in one corner like red Christmas baubles in wrapping.
"Nothing serious," West started conversationally, hoping to wrestle some advice from his friend, his own mouth sipping his scorch hot coffee, "I'm just considering calling my brother."
"You have a brother?" She almost balked, fingers sliding her chopsticks from their thin paper wrap that kept them clean.
"Yes, annoying as he is," he answered with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, rummaging in his pockets and pulling out his wallet, "He's nineteen and in college. Some sort of philosophy or literature major. He's studying Alice in Wonderland at the moment, I think."
Lee unconsciously leaned forward, eyes taking in the photo—an actual Polaroid, if she remembered correctly—he held in his hand. Imprinted in the photo were two smiling teens. West couldn't have been more than nineteen and the other, a redhead, but with more flame and wild overtures than West and dozens of freckles all over his cheeks and nose, couldn't have been more than fifteen. They were on some beach with small clouds hanging over head. The younger brother was riding West piggy-back and both were smiling. Lee grinned at the picture and didn't notice the dull look that came to West's eyes for a split second.
"What's his name?"
"Barry, after our grandfather's uncle."
"Aw, he's rather dashing—I take it your Great Uncle was as well?"
"Yep, aside from being really tall, blonde and tan. Girls, as grandpa tells it, fawned all over him. Not a bad person to be named after in my brother's case, I guess."
Lee picked up a little sarcasm in the ginger's voice, but ignored it in favor of swallowing a large leek and some rice, tapping West's visage in the photo curiously.
"Were you named after someone special?"
West had to think about that for a moment, but surrendered to the safe conversation and Lee actually being interested in something other than their work for lunch this time.
"Our great grandfather. He was…I think, some kind of cross country runner?"
It technically wasn't a lie…
"Why did you want to call your brother?" She asked, picking at a pepper and another leek, sipping her tea as well. She hadn't asked him whether he was a runner—as he wasn't, lord in heaven be damned—and he was grateful to get off that topic.
"I missed Thanksgiving to be here, remember?"
"…Oh," she blushed, as though it had been obvious, "And he won't stop bothering you to ask exactly why you didn't come to—where exactly do you go for holidays?"
"Central City. Where we grew up," he answered honestly, if not a little tight in the lip.
"And you're trying to avoid the winded and uncomfortable conversation of just why you couldn't be there to pig out and watch an ungodly long football game. I see."
"It's not that," West hesitated, sipping his coffee again, "He knows why I couldn't make it and he, kinda, accepts it, but….we just have to keep going over it. He's pesky and obnoxious that way."
Lee contemplated, observing the frown still on the other's face. She never really liked it when West frowned like that, as it rarely happened and was followed for a few days by him messing up in the field much worse and getting yelled at by Bennett. It was like depression, but shorter and with more in the aftermath (just without the downing of prescription meds or slitting the wrists).
"Sounds like he misses you," she said, observing the stray red pepper that had moved away from the others in the bento box corner.
In that moment, and nearly giving them both a heart attack, the phone in West's coat pocket begins singing against his chest some cheery, happy song that disrupts the mood like lightning in a bottle.
'…Let's make this moment worth the while—Let's kill the night and go down in style…'
From the cringe West made (fists clenching and coming up to rest against his forehead), Lee could assume that the little devil's ears had burned and his first instinct was to call the other ginger. The young Asian lady grinned mischievously and poked West's coat pocket with her chopsticks very pointedly, the phone also buzzing and causing the wood to quaver with the touch.
"Well, it looks like you don't have to call him."
One of West's dark eyes—such a contrast to the rest of his family—looked out from between the fingers of his hands and rested for a moment on Lee. Exasperation was apparent, but not unkind, as he picked the phone from his coat and answered, getting up and nodding at Lee that he was going to be a while. Perhaps he would roam the halls or get off the ship from the rest of the break. To her, it was for the benefit of the rest of the crew so his loud voice wouldn't annoy them, but to him, it was for privacy of family secrecy.
He clicked the phone open and disappeared into the hall as Lee snuck the last of West's coffee into her own cup of tea, the flavors mixing very nicely.
She could vaguely hear the other as his steps faded away and she smiled at the words.
"Hello, Barry. What do you want now?"