Summary - Lisa isn't quite ready yet to use the word aromantic to describe herself outside the confines of her head. But she's getting there.

Notes: Goes with "New Years Luck" and "How Hartley Found Missy (Or How Missy Picked Her Pet)"

One Step at a Time

Lisa was fourteen the first time she had a boyfriend.

She can't even remember his name now, but she does remember that she hadn't really wanted to say yes. The timing had either been serendipitous or tragic (or maybe both, really). Her friends had been squealing over their crushes all morning and Lisa had desperately wanted to be left out of it. She didn't have a crush, wasn't interested in dating, just wanted to keep her grades up so that CPS wouldn't have a reason to take her away from Lenny. Squealing friends were distracting when one wanted to be taking notes and, worse, they wouldn't stop bugging her even though she'd told them she wasn't crushing on anyone herself.

They thought she was lying. Lisa remembers that sting clearly. They'd thought she was lying. Then, after repeated refusals to name a crush, they'd called her a dyke.

If she hadn't been so scared of the bitch caseworker who was looking for an excuse to take Lisa away from her criminal brother, she'd have punched her 'friends' then and there. (It wasn't that she thought there was anything wrong with being a lesbian. Lenny was pan and Lisa was so proud of him for being out. It was… the words didn't matter so much as the intent. And they intended to insult.)

So when what's-his-name walked up to Lisa with sweaty palms and a very pretty face, despite his nerve-wracked expression, Lisa had seen an opportunity. She said yes when he asked her on a date.

Her friends teased her about pretending not to have a crush on him and never apologized. Not a single one of them. So from then on, they weren't really Lisa's friends, she just… didn't have anyone else to hang out with so she kept up with them anyway. And she went on a few dates with what's-his-name that were really boring – wandering the mall, a couple of movies, dinner twice – and then Lisa casually mentioned that her over protective older brother had been to juvie and… she was able to break up with him, just like that. No muss, no fuss. The guy got to date a pretty girl and even kiss her a couple of times and Lisa… she got her posse to leave her alone.

They'd try to get her to talk boys after that and Lisa would play the heartbreak card. She knew it wouldn't last forever, but it got her through to the end of the school year and halfway through the next before she couldn't easily wheedle out of those inane conversations anymore.

That was around the time that her not-friends learned about the "Marry, Fuck, Kill" game off the internet, giggling madly in the library as they gossiped about the hottest stars and saying "Marry, 'F', Kill" with meaningful pauses and twitters of laughter on the 'F' as if it weren't obvious to adults what the letter stood for. Lisa had never heard anything more awful, but she formulated a response so that she wouldn't be left floundering when, inevitably, she got asked who she wanted to do the do with.

She doesn't remember which men she chose. She probably should, she'd repeated that list by rote a ridiculous number of times by the time she was seventeen. She even sort of meant it about the guy who rated 'Fuck' on the list.

On graduation day, the class Valedictorian asked her to be his girlfriend. His name, Lisa remembers. Julio Pemberton, who was quiet and a little nerdy, always polite even when assholes threw his mixed race family in his face like it was something to be ashamed of. Julio had always seemed to know who he was and let everything else just sort of flow off his back. His calm made Lisa a little jealous.

Even though Lisa didn't know him very well, she told him yes. He was hot, after all, and Lisa hadn't had sex yet. At the end of the summer, he'd go off to college out of state – full ride on his grades – and if she wanted to end things between them, it'd be easy to say she wasn't interested in a long distance relationship.

The sex was alright. Their first time would've been a lot better had Lenny not walked in on them during the afterglow and scared Julio into crying in the bathroom, but… at least now Lisa sort of understood what the hype was about.

Like Lisa had predicted, breaking up with Julio was easy enough. She looked him up on Facebook when she finally joined the site; Julio had gained a few extra inches in height, grown out his hair, and married his college sweetheart, a very pretty, very successful Asian woman named Jane. They'd looked so happy together, every inch the power couple, and Lisa, who'd been dating the fourth loser in a row, had started crying.

She didn't even want Julio. She wanted to be him. To have his happiness, not necessarily with Jane but with life in general.

Lisa broke up with her boyfriend the next day and swore off romance entirely. But not even a month later, she was dating again. Erik, who held her hand in public all the time. Even though Lisa said she didn't like it and thought that he squeezed too hard and his palms were constantly sweaty and gross… but he liked it so he always reached out to take her hand no matter how much she told him to cut it out. He held too tightly for her to slide her hand away easily.

At least the sex was amazing. Dude was a demon in the sack.

Still, Erik thought he could boss Lisa around all the time. So she kicked him to the curb and thought that was that.

Erik broke into her apartment one night while she was sleeping, a week later. He told her she was his and she didn't get to say when they were over, so Lisa pointed her brother's gun in his face and told him to get the fuck away from her. When he lunged at her…

Lenny disposed of Erik's body. And the gun. Lisa never knew where.

She never wanted to know.

After that, Lisa started pulling heists. Lenny hated it. So did Mick, who'd become, somewhere down the line, an honorary, over protective, older brother. But they didn't stop her either. They just made sure no matter what went down, Lisa's name stayed squeaky clean.

Or as close to squeaky as they could mange.

It was well over a year before Lisa started dating again. Sam Scudder lasted a ten months. But then they had a threesome with Rosa Dillon and… Sam became enamored of Rosa. Lisa didn't get the appeal and she didn't think sex with women was her thing either, but… whatever. She liked Sam better than all her other exes, but Sam's eyes were straying and it wouldn't be long before he either broke things off or cheated on her. So Lisa ended things first. Told him 'no hard feelings' and to go for it with Rosa.

It was too bad they double crossed Lenny the night of the accelerator explosion a few years later. Lisa'd never stopped liking them, not really, and had a few more threesomes with them when she'd been between boyfriends. (She might not have been into chicks, but Rosa clearly was and, if Lisa were being perfectly honest, no one had ever eaten her out quite as spectacularly as Rosa did.)

And then… then there was Cisco. They never dated. Never had sex, though Lisa definitely fantasized a few times. He reminded her a little of Julio with his sweet, nerdy personality and the long hair… not that she'd seen Julio in person during his long haired phase but the point stood. She'd honey-trapped Cisco without hesitation and had never thought she'd regret it. Played him again during the meta-heist. And then… he'd been the only person she could go to for help when Lenny was kidnapped by their father. He'd stood by her, hands surprisingly steady as he took a bomb out of her neck.

When she spoke longingly about the impossible relationship she wanted to have with him, Lisa spoke of friendship. Not dating or romance or even sex, but… she'd desperately wanted to be his friend. But that wasn't… Lisa Snart didn't do friends. So she'd kissed him goodbye, smiled softly when he called her 'Golden Glider', and drove off.

That was supposed to be it.

No more heroes in Lisa Snart's life. They made her want things.

But one night at a club, looking for someone to scratch her itch, Lisa saw Hartley Rathaway trying to get away from some guy on the dance floor who clearly wasn't taking 'no' for an answer. She'd had no idea who he was or the 'small world' connection he had to Cisco. He was just… clearly in distress, his hands kept alternating between batting away the handsy asshole and covering his ears. Lisa didn't like the handsy asshole on principle, so… she'd sauntered over to Hartley and cheerfully announced, "there you are sweetheart, I've been looking all over for you." Then she'd pecked him on the cheek and cooed in his ear, "play along. Want me to break this guy's arm?"

Hartley just shook his head and whimpered, muttering something that sounded like 'too loud'. Poor guy looked so dazed that Lisa settled for gouging the handsy asshole's arm with her nails to make him let go of her 'honey darling' and dragged Hartley right out the back exit.

"Please tell me you aren't having a bad trip. Because I really hate hospitals."

"'m not on drugs," Hartley huffed, having clearly regained his equilibrium, though still slurring slightly in pain. "Only had half my beer too. At least I paid up front since I was only gonna have the one," he added, more to himself than to Lisa. "Its… my hearing, okay? It was too loud, my hearing aids didn't do enough to compensate and I zoned at the worst time. Thank you for getting that creep off of me." His voice grew steadier as he spoke, leaning against the wall of the building next to the club.

"Why didn't you just turn off your aids?" Lisa had known, and learned from, a thief who'd been deaf. They'd always turned off their aids at clubs and felt the beat instead.

"That… would've made things worse," he'd hedged. Then, straightening up, he'd moved to leave the alleyway, only to sway and nearly fall, wincing in pain as some idiot driver flashed their brights on the street ahead.

"I'm not sure I should leave you alone until I'm sure you're okay," Lisa told him. "I've never been a good Samaritan before, but I'm pretty sure that when one acts like a do-gooder they're supposed to hang around to be sure they haven't half-assed helping out."

"I'm gay," Hartley began to tell her, but Lisa cut in with, "congratulations on finding masculinity sexy. So do I, we can bond over that at the twenty-four-seven pancake house two streets over. I'm Lisa Snart."

She has never quite figured out why she gave him her real name and not one of her aliases.

But Hartley grinned, shook her hand, and introduced himself properly.

They weren't supposed to keep in touch. But Lisa… was tired and lonely and Hartley kept saying yes when she'd ask to hang out. They exchanged phone numbers and apartment addresses (she gave him her real address, not a safe house, what was wrong with her?) and then she stole his spare key to make her own copy. (She put a copy of her apartment key on his key ring; fair was fair.)

Somehow… somehow it turned out that Lisa did, in fact, do friends.

She'd never had a relationship make her this happy before.

One of the first things Hartley did was hook Lisa on Doctor Who.

("He totally half-asses this do-gooder thing."

"Yeah, he'd probably have had fewer problems with Daleks if he was better at the sticking around for cleanup."

"What the hell is a Dalek?"

"Pepper pot armed with a whisk and a plunger. Very angry, prejudiced, shouty pepper pots. Should be one in the next episode."

"This show is so weird… I'm going to have to make Lenny watch it when he gets back.")

In retaliation, Lisa introduced Hartley to Discworld… which is when she made a copy of his key because he kept getting so wrapped up in those books that she'd have to get obnoxious with his doorbell to get him to let her inside.

("I mean, I'd heard of Discworld but I guess… I dunno, I guess I just thought it was overrated. Turns out I was very wrong."

"Well you're a convert, so I won't hold calling the precious Discworld books 'overrated' against you. You know better now.")

Their friendship was the most comfortable part of Lisa's life and the only thing that kept her going after Mick told her about Leonard's death. Mick blamed himself. He wouldn't say why and he wouldn't come home. Lisa could only hope that the crew he was traveling with would look after him. But with him gone, she only had Hartley left.

Hartley, who was new in her life and never met Lenny. Lisa thinks her brother would have liked Hartley, though. Or at least he would have approved of their friendship. He'd never have admitted it, but what Lenny would've liked best about Hartley was that he made her want to get out of crime. Lenny never wanted Lisa pulling jobs to begin with and he'd have been glad she'd found someone she cared about enough to get out.

Lisa wondered, though, if it was weird that the person who made her want to go straight was just her friend, not some epic romance. Also he was gay which made the 'go straight' metaphor ridiculous.

It's some time after Lisa officially stopped pulling heists due to this realization (which she did not share with Hartley and he clearly a.) thought she was still involved in crime and b.) did not care so long as she didn't implicate him in her crimes, whatever they might be) that they were found having lunch together by Team Flash.

Hartley is beautifully vicious when offended and when Cisco, Caitlin, and Barry (who was the Flash, he was so the Flash, there was no hiding that ass, it was gorgeous, seriously) tried to warn Hartley off from Lisa… well, Hartley was offended. He puffed up like an angry cat and then just went to town with his insults, complete with what was clearly supposed to be an offhand mention of the handsy asshole responsible for the two them meeting in the first place.

That offhand comment, though? It became the basis of their conversation as the trio basically invited themselves to lunch with them. (It was a cafe with open seating and the only other place they could've sat was one of the communal tables where they wouldn't have been able to discuss anything remotely interesting anyway. Also they did ask first and were surprisingly polite despite their bad beginning.)

"Wait, wait, wait," Cisco had interrupted, "Lisa please tell me something awful happened to that guy."

"The Handsy Asshole?" Lisa asked, just to be sure.

"Yes. Him."

"I wanted to break his arm."

"Yes!" Cisco sounded surprisingly vindictive, causing even Hartley to look a little startled.

"But Hartley said no so I settled for gauging his arm with my nails. He might've needed stitches for one of those." Or possibly two; Lisa had once had to use butterfly bandages on a guy she had a one night stand with when she'd done a little too much damage with her nails while fluttering on the high of her third (or fourth?) orgasm. (It had been, quite possibly, the best sex she'd ever had and she'd been a little disappointed she'd never managed to find him again.)

"Damn," Cisco grumbled while Caitlin hissed his name with a very appalled expression. "What?"

"Cisquito, I'm pretty sure being one of the good guys means you're not supposed to root for the disproportionate levels of violent retribution."

"Cisquito?" Lisa repeated questioningly, looking between her four lunch companions curiously.

"Please don't ever call me that," Cisco begged Lisa.

Lisa, of course, made no promises and smirked cheerfully.

"It's Hartley's nickname for when he really wants to annoy Cisco," Barry told her with a grin, ducking when Cisco aimed a swat at his head.

"Got that. So it's like when I call you Harty-Hart;" Lisa turned to Hartley, smirking sweetly.

"I hate you," Hartley responded, scowling at her. "Also, what the hell, you literally just came up with that."

"But now I'll use it to annoy you, so its a valid comparison. Also you love me. I'm the irritating older sister you never wanted."

"You're something all right," Hartley muttered under his breath, but he bumped shoulders with her anyway.

Cisco was smirking. "Harty-Hart. I'm remembering that one."

The UST between Hartley and Cisco was almost electric. Lisa couldn't help but ship it.

Hartley got a dog. Missy, the embodiment of adorkable nerdiness.

It was at this point that Lisa started making excuses to hang out at Hartley's apartment nearly every day. He didn't seem to mind and Missy certainly wasn't going to turn down attention.

She didn't realize how attached she was getting to them – to a nerdy gay dork and his feisty little mutt - until he started talking Christmas plans, and did she have any?

Lisa didn't really do Christmas. Not really. Lenny had attempted a mash up of Christmas and Hanukkah when she was a kid, but they'd never really gotten into the spirit of either holiday and gave up after a while. They did movie nights and hot cocoa and maybe exchanged a present or two, but…

She panicked. She's not proud of it, but she totally panicked.

Hartley didn't seem upset, thankfully, that Lisa was basically running away to Star City and using her dead brother as an excuse. Maybe he didn't even realize she was running. He was perceptive about some things, but socializing was not the guy's strong point.

See, the thing was… Lisa had a bit of an epiphany. She'd wanted to spend Christmas with Hartley. She'd wanted to make new traditions and play with Missy and sleep on the couch with fluff from mauled puppy toys strewn about.

She loved her gay best friend. Not romantically. Lisa was starting to think that she just couldn't do romantic, froo-froo relationships. But… she loved him. Wanted to spend the rest of her life being his best friend, sort of love.

And it scared her because of course that wasn't going to pan out. Hartley was going to fall in love with someone, start dating, and… he wouldn't have time for her anymore. If she was lucky, it'd be Cisco, and he'd be cool with her being a third wheel on occasion. (Or she could blackmail him with Barry's identity as the Flash to make him be cool with it.)

But she'd needed some space to come to grips with the revelation and the fears that came with it.

Unfortunately, while she was gone, those very fears started coming to pass. Hartley and Cisco hooked up.

(On the bright side, Thea Queen was totally fun to party with and when she was doing archery she was surprisingly hot. Lisa thought she might have to reconsider what her orientation was; maybe it was a competence thing?)

Lisa would try to leave. She really would.

She'd be at Hartley's apartment playing with Missy, Hartley would arrive and ask her what she wanted for dinner. Then he'd casually mention Cisco would be joining them and just… get a sad look on his face when she'd offer to leave. So Lisa would stay.

Or he'd call and say that he and Cisco had a date, but would she check in on Missy for him and did she want to watch a movie later? Sometimes Cisco watched the movie with them, sometimes he didn't.

It was all surprisingly comfortable and Cisco didn't seem upset that so much of his time with Hartley had Lisa there too.

So she stopped offering to leave and she started getting comfortable.

Sometimes she'd cuddle up with Hartley and make Cisco sit with her legs in his lap as she stretched out across the couch. Sometimes she'd call out that she was stealing Cisco for her pillow and fall asleep on him while Hartley laughed and took pictures of them. Sometimes she'd sit off to the side watching Hartley and Cisco be all couple-y and feel all warm and safe like... this was everything she'd never known she wanted.

Lisa would fight to keep this.

Lenny had been pansexual. Openly, unashamedly pansexual. Lisa had been proud of him. But she'd never really considered she might be anything other than straight.

She was attracted to guys and not to girls. That meant she was straight, right?

Lisa was starting to think maybe not. There were a lot more orientations out there than Lisa had ever realized and she wasn't even sure that 'liking sex but not romance' even counted as its own orientation, but... google knew everything, right? If it were an orientation, then all she had to do was plug the words into google and let the search do its thing.

So she did.

Google found a word for her.

Aromantic: a person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others.

Though an aromantic person might choose to be in a romantic relationship for any number of reasons, they're more likely to prefer non-romantic relationships as a source of emotional fulfillment, such as friendships or queer-platonic relationships.

Like her friendships with Hartley and Cisco.

Lisa tested out the word in her head. Aromantic. Ay-romantic. Aro-mantic. How was she supposed to pronounce it anyway? 'Aro' seemed to be 'arrow' for sure, given all the bad puns she found, but the full word?

There were a lot of differing pronunciation guides out there. Urban Dictionary had 'ay-romantic' and 'ah-romantic' as possibilities, while others sites offered up 'aro-mantic' too and eventually Lisa figured it was up to her how to say it.

It felt right, though. It felt like her.

She might have cried a little.

Impostor syndrome is a bitch.

Within hours of finding the word 'aromantic' Lisa see-sawed between being utterly certain that was her, 100%, totally aromantic and... freaking out that it was not her, definitely not her, she'd had boyfriends, right? Surely she'd loved one of them... right?

Back and forth, certain she's aro one moment and equally certain she doesn't really count the next.

Shouldn't she be old enough to know her own mind by now? Her own heart?

Apparently not.

"Hartley… when… how did you figure out you were gay?"

Hartley paused the episode of Doctor Who they were watching. "In high school I was tutoring this basketball player and had a hopelessly awkward crush on him. Thankfully he assumed I was awkward because I'd skipped a couple of grades and not because I couldn't keep my eyes off the curve of his mouth or the way his ass looked in jeans, 'cause it was Catholic school and he was about as casually homophobic as everyone else was." He tilted his head to the side, watching Lisa carefully.

"So you just... knew, then."

Hartley nodded slowly. "I guess. Is that helpful?"

Because of course the genius had to realize Lisa was asking because she was questioning herself.

"Not really," she told him.

"Do you want to talk about what's going on with you?"

"Not yet. I'm still... working out the shape of it, I guess. I'm not ready to say any of it out loud." Lisa leaned against Hartley and snuggled in as he put an arm around her shoulders.

"Let me know when you are ready, then," he said quietly, un-pausing the show.

"I promise."

(Cisco walked in half-an-hour later and collapsed onto the couch, legs over the arm-rest and head in Lisa's lap, complaining about his day and his powers being un-cooperative and how he'd like to spend the rest of the evening not thinking about super-heroing or visions and oh is that Matt Smith? Lisa giggled and Hartley started petting his boyfriends hair and it was all unfairly comfortable. Missy jumped up onto Cisco's stomach and then they were all stuck because obviously no one would dare jostle the spoiled puppy.)

Aromantic.

Lisa isn't quite ready yet to speak that word outside her own mind yet, but... she's getting there.

One step at a time.

A/N - This started as a mash-up of two half-written stories about Lisa figuring out she's aro and Lisa and Hartley bonding as BFFs. It fit pretty nicely into the Missy-verse once I put them together, so that's where it wound up.