Author's Notes: Takes place right around 'Legends of Yesterday' and ends mid-Season 2 of 'Flash' and mid-Season 4 of 'Arrow.'
Enjoy!
Confido: Trust, depend, confide in.
It's risky. Anyone could find him.
But maybe he doesn't care about being found. He is, after all, Oliver Queen, a man with a reputation.
And after his fight with Felicity, he doesn't know where else to turn. He needs something to take the ache out of his teeth so he can focus, sleep. If they're going to beat Savage, he needs to be ready. He can't be if he's up all night.
The house is small and overcrowded with their teams, merged into one big family, but Oliver is careful and no one wakes up. Pushing open the door to a small, closet-like room, an unfinished guest bedroom, he finds a snoring speedster on the floor. Cisco is snoring somehow louder on the bed, arm draped over his eyes, and Oliver freezes in the doorway.
His presence triggers something because yellow eyes are looking at him through half-slitted eyelids, a questioning puff of breath never manifesting into a question. Eyes still burning gold, Barry sits up, his thin sheet pooling around his waist. Ollie? an arched eyebrow asks.
Oliver doesn't need to say, Shh because Barry feels it, tensing before relaxing as Oliver steps inside his turf and shuts the door. Shh, he repeats without a sound, looking at Barry with a hand half-raised. Don't move.
Barry's loud and clumsy and would certainly wake up half the house, Oliver knows, but he doesn't begrudge him; speedsters don't need to worry about stealth to surprise their prey. It's a skill that doesn't need to be in his toolbox. Reading minds evidently is, however, as he watches Oliver with inquisitive but not judgmental eyes.
What are you doing? he seems to ask.
Oliver crouches and folds his legs underneath himself on the floor. Hi, he says, one finger held to his mouth warningly. Don't wake them up.
Barry blinks, those yellow-lightning eyes scarcely human but still somehow sleepy and soft and very Barry. He's almost cross-eyed with tiredness, Oliver realizes, wondering how many hours he's been awake now. From the little he's gathered of Barry's lifestyle, sleep is rarely on the table unless he's recovering from a grave injury. To catch him at rest at all is a surprise.
Lowering his hand, Oliver pushes his luck, lured by the lightning radiating from him in calming waves. He reaches out, resting a palm of Barry's thigh, and can feel the tiny, silent hitch in Barry's breath even as he looks down and aside. Can I stay? he asks, rubbing his thumb over that impressively built muscle, unearned but deserved in a world of superhumans.
Barry's response is, as all his gestures are, equivocal: he nods. Cisco snores uninterrupted on the sheets, providing sufficient white noise for Barry's shuffling, almost shy movements. They're both stupid with sleep and Oliver feels his own gaze lose focus as Barry lowers himself back onto his side and Oliver flattens out beside him, arms folded, belly-down. It should be uncomfortable, sleeping on a hardwood floor, but it's oddly comforting. Homey, even.
He can almost hear the crickets, the waves, the sounds of trees shuffling in a slow-storm-wind on Lian Yu. He's equally aware of the encroaching danger, his ease slipping as dream blends with reality, conjuring the nightmare from the darkness. A twig snaps and his heart pounds, aware of approaching footsteps. He can almost feel an arrow burning through his shoulder and a sword screaming through his ribcage, twisting a little and then—
Then he feels a nuzzling presence at his side and his pounding headache will not allow him to open his eyes but he lifts his arm slightly to let a shivering Barry burrow against his side. I don't get cold, he thinks, eyes flickering, the warmth seeping into him with welcome swiftness.
You're not alone, Barry's presence replies.
He doesn't know when the hammock of Speed Force rocks him to sleep, too, only aware of the footsteps withdrawing as speed promises strength in numbers and Barry's soft, shallow snores keep him grounded.
. o .
Twelve hours prior.
Barry looks at him with dark, unreadable eyes.
Oliver wants to ask, but the sorrow is so arresting he cannot find words. "Barry?" he asks at last. Even in the darkness he can see the tears well up in Barry's eyes.
He can feel the words run, Barry on his tongue, itching to say it with Freudian-like impulsivity. Run!
There's a terrible weight to those eyes and Oliver is careful, persuading him to say it out loud – I time-traveled, you died – and still not processing it fully.
They take down Savage, déjà vu rearing its head as Oliver throws his weight forward to stabilize the scepter, aware of Barry's tense and trembling form at his side, victory flushing off him in almost tangible waves of heat. Barry's relief and joy is tangible with his teammates; he hugs hard, signaling everyone that they succeeded.
His posture is tense, though, and doesn't look like success.
When they part ways in public hours later his expression is fond, cheerful, even, as he reels Oliver in for a hug. Three seconds, Oliver grants him, pulling back with his own irrepressible smile, knowing he looks like young-and-in-love which is ridiculous because he's not.
Maybe, a tiny, impulsive part of him argues, he wants to be.
. o .
John asks him, "What's up with Barry?"
Oliver packs up his duffel, transferring arrowheads from the couch to its many pouches. "Not sure," he replies, looking around. "Is Felicity coming or—"
"She wanted to go out for drinks with Cisco and Caitlin before they caught their train tonight," John answers, leaning back with his arms folded against the kitchen counter of their makeshift safe house. His gaze, while not unreadable, is perplexingly sharp. Like he's reading Oliver, looking for something. "Did you and Barry get in a fight?" he asks.
Years of training keep Oliver from responding with a barked laugh, a suspiciously cavalier response. "What makes you say that?" he counters. John is a perceptive man; he misses nothing.
"He was acting weird. Around you."
"Maybe," Oliver proposes, arranging arrows in his quiver, "he's upset we didn't come up with a cute nickname for Savage."
"Oliver, I'm serious."
"What do you want me to say, Dig? He's Barry. He's weird sometimes."
It feels strange to say it, almost wrong, because Barry's weirdness is his stupidly hopeful exuberance that lets him approach billionaires on a single-minded mission to find his mother's murderer. It's his shameless optimism for the unexpected and inexplicable, like they're puzzles to be solved and not anomalies to be forgotten. It's his unbroken faith in a city which watches with silent eyes, ready to crucify him at the slightest wrong turn and somehow still finding reasons to be joyful.
And that missing spark of joy, he realizes, is what he couldn't read in Barry's expression. It wasn't a new emotion; it was the absence of an old one.
Zipping up his duffel, he resolves to call Barry later, to thank him again for his help. It was a close call, and Oliver can see why he's shaken, even, from the sheer whirlwind that their plan ended up being. Even accounting for the unaccountable – I time-traveled – his responses were anxious, almost frantic. You're not getting it, his frustrated gestures said as he tried to explain why time travel was terrible and bad and not helpful to them.
"Talk to him," John counsels.
Oliver zips up the duffel, hitching it over his shoulder. "I will," he replies.
. o .
It would be easy to say it slips his mind.
After all, with Damien Dahrk, he has more than enough to preoccupy him. Yet he still finds time to check the news in Central City. He just doesn't find the courage to call Barry. What can he say? As time passes, it seems more absurd, and Barry's occasional brusque texts offer no indication that it's on his mind. Why bring it up?
There's something you aren't telling me.
Was there?
He's not a second-guesser, which is why he picks up the phone and calls and gets no answer.
The uneasy feeling twisting in his gut doesn't relent even after he convinces himself a dozen plausible reasons for Barry's unresponsiveness.
. o .
Not among the list is captured by an evil speedster on an alternative Earth.
If he knew, he wouldn't sleep that night at all, knowing Barry is locked up in a cold glass cage, hurting and scared.
. o .
The next time Barry visits, Oliver corners him before he leaves.
He's always been more of a face-to-face conversationalist, needing to see someone to speak to them. He can't gauge emotions behind a phone. He can't find the right words without body language.
Except he can't find anything to say to Barry, rendered abruptly speechless. Why seems harsh; how specific, clinical. What is immutable and who is obvious. He knows when, and he knows where, too.
Barry twitches in his grip, reminding Oliver that he is literally holding Barry by the shoulders, preventing a speedster from speeding away, and he lets him go. But Barry doesn't run, just stares at him with dark eyes, like he's all burned out.
Don't burn out on me, Oliver entreats him as Felicity asks them if they're going to join them for ice cream.
Oliver thinks Barry might answer in the affirmative, tired but willing to accept the excuse, but Oliver catches him by the side of the suit before he can take more than two steps in her direction. We need to talk.
"We'll catch up with you later," Oliver says, tugging Barry back a step. He doesn't protest, going with it. There's a quiescence to Barry's response that aches in Oliver's chest.
Sometimes he hates how trusting Barry is because he knows there are people who would grab him and hurt him, who would use his capacity to forgive against him, who would pulverize his humanity if given half the chance. He knows Barry knows, too, and yet with Promethean obstinacy he takes up the burden every day and pushes it uphill, trusting it not to crush him.
Oliver waits until they're gone. Then he says, "Come with me."
Barry follows.
. o .
There are a lot of places Oliver could take him, plenty of public private places where they could be alone in a crowd, free to speak.
He takes him home instead.
He toes off his shoes, silently inviting Barry to do the same. Barry hesitates, looking around the fancy apartment, the dark wood floors, the fireplace. Oliver shrugs out of his jacket and hooks it up on a rack, turning towards Barry and wordlessly providing the same service, feeling Barry's breath hitch when his thumbs graze his side.
I'm not gonna hurt you, he thinks, surprised at how skittish Barry is. Nudging Barry's boot with a socked toe – take those off – Oliver backs off, giving him space.
Rooting around for a glass of wine – it has been a day, and even with Darhk the petty criminals still manage to take the most out of him – he doesn't tense up when he hears someone come up behind him, lets Barry wrap his arms around his waist. He feels Barry's cheek against the back of his shoulder, holding onto him as Oliver lifts the glass and drinks, reaching up to rest a hand over one of the arms around his stomach.
Content to maintain the moment – and feeling the first sense of normal in weeks – Oliver sips his wine, feigning ignorance but for the thumb rubbing Barry's arm. When Barry loosens his grip, Oliver sets the bottle down and turns in his grip, hugging him firmly, arms hooked under his shoulders to keep him in place. Barry doesn't fight him, doesn't squirm away, just huddles close, pushing Oliver back against the counter like he can melt into him if he just wills it enough.
"It's okay," he promises.
"You died," Barry reminds him. His voice sounds like iron, anchored to a seafloor, tired and sinking fast. "I – I watched you die, Ollie."
Oliver squeezes him gently. "I'm right here."
Barry tells his shoulder, "I can't lose you."
Cupping the back of his head, Oliver assures, "You won't."
Barry holds on tight and Oliver knows he can't make promises he can't keep, but he believes it for Barry, promises it for Barry with every reassuring sweep of his thumb: I won't leave you.
And maybe speedsters don't like cages, but he lets Oliver hold him, a quiet challenge to the universe.
No one is going to take you from me.