12 chapters. I don't know. Maybe 13. Who knows xD Ugh, so many conflicting ideas... I might just keep going with this, or put it in story 2 or something, I don't know. And I have some vague plans for a prequel one-shot, or a few one-shots, which would make this story part 2 or 3 or something, I don't know. Ugh. My head's still on fire and my boyfriend's taking a nap xD Don't ask me to think right now.
It'll be over when it's over. I don't know when that will be. Sigh. Enjoy!
PS: A slightly longer chapter, oh my!
Chapter length: 2920
Onward!
CHAPTER 11 – Grounded
"You 'n me need to talk," Joe West said simply, gun level with Len's chest. "Is Barry here?"
Len nodded numbly, wishing he'd brought his cold gun or something, or woken Barry. Instead, Barry's sound asleep in bed with no idea his father figure is pointing a gun at his boyfriend.
"Is he sleeping?"
Another nod.
"Good. Step outside."
"If you're going to shoot me, I'd rather be inside," Len says.
West scowls at him. "I don't want to have to use this, Snart. Step outside."
Len sighs and does as he's told, still clad in his clothes from the night before, minus his shoes. At some point during the night he lost his left sock, apparently; he steps outside with a bare foot, and a socked foot. His toes curl self-consciously as West looks him over.
"Long night?" he asks.
"Something like that," Len replies. "What's this about, detective? I haven't committed any crimes lately, and all my records are gone."
"I still haven't forgiven you for that little stunt," West says sharply, and Len's mouth snaps shut. "But I'm not here as a detective – I'm here as a father."
Len smirks, unable to stop himself. "Iris told you about the engagement party."
"She told me my son is engaged to a criminal, yes," West says. "I am not pleased, Snart."
Len shrugs; pleasing the detective is really very low on his to-do list. Barry occupies the first five slots. And then there's the matter of moving, and getting a ring, because he's getting married in December.
It still hasn't quite sunken in yet.
Captain Cold, engaged to the Flash.
The concrete step beneath his bare foot tells him this isn't a dream.
"How did you manipulate him this time?" West asks.
And Len doesn't like that tone, or how he's insinuating Len has manipulated the kid before. "Manipulating people isn't really my thing," he says. "I'm a thief, not a psycho."
West's eyes narrow into thin, angry slits. A part of Len wishes Barry were here right now to diffuse this situation; the kid's going to have a field day when Len tells him about this moment right here. If he gets out of it, that is. If West doesn't shoot him for daring to date and plan to marry his son.
Marriage. It's still so foreign to him.
He can't blame his goosebumps on the warm air.
"What is your game here, Snart?"
"No game," Len says simply. "I know it's hard for you to believe, detective, but I like Barry. I'm not using him. I have never once asked him to lie for me. I don't even tell him about my criminal activities, which, by the way, you have no proof of."
"Oh, I know you're not innocent," West says.
"What's your game?" Len demands. "Holding a gun to an unarmed man early in the morning? I'm pretty sure that's illegal, Detective."
"I just want to know what your plans are with my kid," West says.
Len shakes his head. "I plan to marry him in December." He takes in a slow breath, eying the man with the gun. His future father-in-law, of sorts, if he lives through today. "He'd really like it if you were there. If you gave him your blessing."
"I am not okay with this."
"Doesn't matter to me whether you are or not, but Barry… He doesn't like fighting with you, but if you ask him to pick you over me, I'm sorry, but I'm not giving up without a fight."
For a long moment, the two are staring at each other, at an impasse. Len knows Detective West wants him to back down, to admit to using Barry and let him go, but that is something he will not do.
He's not sure how long they stand there, staring each other down. Seconds, minutes, hours, he doesn't know. All he knows is eventually, the gun lowers and West sighs, defeated.
"Do you love him?" he asks.
"Yes," Len replies quietly, swallowing as the detective looks at him, looks for any hint he's lying. But he's going to be disappointed, because Len's not lying. In fact, he hates lying. "I love him… more than anything."
Which is more than he's ever admitted in the past.
"You'll do right by him?" West asks.
"I'll do my best," is all Len can promise.
West sighs, and he looks every bit the worried father. "Dinner, tonight at my place. I expect you both there. Tell Barry to come home for once."
He's already home, is what Len doesn't say.
Instead, he nods, and West leaves.
He can breathe again.
He enters the house and closes the door behind him, making sure to lock it just in case. After that he makes his way back into the bedroom and crawls back under the covers. Immediately, Barry's curling into him, reaching for him, and Len easily accepts the warm kid into his arms.
"Where'd you go?" Barry asks tiredly.
"Just stepped out for a minute," Len replies, kissing the top of the kid's head. "Go back to sleep, Scarlet."
"Mmm…" the kid mumbles, already falling back to sleep.
Len smiles and holds onto him, fairly certain he won't be able to get back to sleep himself.
Instead, he thinks, and he dreams with his eyes wide open.
xXx
"Joe was here and you're just now telling me?"
Len winces at the hurt tone of Barry's voice; that's the last thing he wanted.
"We just talked," Len says.
Barry throws him a glare. "That's a lie – you're lying to me. What happened? Did he threaten you? Answer me honestly, Len."
Len sighs. "There may or may not have been a gun."
Barry's eyes widen comically. At least, it would be funny if it happened to anyone else. Len reaches for the speedster but Barry's already moving away, ready to run out of the room, out of the house and vanish in a flash, and no.
That's not happening right now.
Len's fingers close around the kid's wrist in a tight grip.
"Len, let go," Barry says, attempting to pull his wrist free, but Len merely tightens his hold.
"You're not darting off on me right now," Len says. "Joe invited us over for dinner and it's going to be awkward as hell, but you can talk to him then. No running off to confront gun-wielding fathers alone."
Barry snorts. "It's not like he's gonna hurt me."
"Didn't ask if he would, did I?"
The kid sighs heavily. "I can't believe he came over and threatened you in broad daylight."
"People do crazy things for those they love," Len says quietly.
Barry smiles at him. "Oh? You'd do something crazy for me?"
Len takes in a breath. "For you, kid, I'd do anything."
And then their lips are sealed in a kiss.
xXx
Just after noon, Barry's called away to a crime scene, leaving Len alone at the safe house. Lisa has been out all night, probably with Cisco. A part of Len wants to argue on basic principle; he's the big brother and it's his job to disapprove of his little sister's boyfriends. But it's Cisco, and the kid is hard to hate.
Plus, he's probably good for Lisa. Of all the people she's been interested in, he's probably the safest and nicest. Len can see the two of them together, and the image doesn't immediately fill him with a cold rage, so that's something, at least.
He and Barry are due at West's at six tonight. Len doesn't know how long Barry will be, so he has a light lunch and takes a shower. It's not like there's going to be any 'good impressions' with West, but he might as well clean up and shave and everything. He'd been growing a bit of stubble; now he shaves it all away, going back to the more clean-shaven look that he likes.
After his shower, he checks his phone, and sees he has a missed text.
From Barry: 911 – Nimbus back
The text was sent nearly ten minutes ago, when he first got into the shower. In Flash time, that might as well have been days ago. Frowning, Len brings the phone to his ear and waits while it rings, and rings, and rings.
And goes to voicemail.
He hangs up and tries again.
Voicemail.
"Kid, not funny," he says with a growl. "Answer the phone."
Hangs up.
Tries again.
Again.
Again.
xXx
Len's not sure what to do, or where to go – all he knows is Cisco is probably still at STAR Labs, and he's the only one Len knows how can possibly help. Len wants to go to the station, but Barry said he would be at a crime scene, so not at the station, and even though Len's records have been deleted, just walking into the precinct is dangerous for him.
So he goes to STAR Labs, and keeps trying Barry's cell.
He hears ringing in the hallways – Barry's ringtone.
His tense muscles relax, if only slightly. The phone's here. Barry's here. He has to be.
He follows the sound of the ringing and enters the medical area. On the floor in the middle of the room is Barry's phone, forgotten on the ground.
Next to it is Barry, and he's not moving.
Cisco is kneeling above him, and Lisa's standing over them both, looking down at him with wide eyes. Cisco's hands grab under Barry's arms and haul him up just as his eyes meet Len's, and Len quickly enters the rest of the room.
"Oxygen," Cisco snaps. "He needs oxygen. I'm calling Caitlin."
His phone's already in his hand, and he puts it on speakerphone, dropping it onto the bed next to Barry.
The kid's cold to the touch. The back of Len's fingers trace his wrist, pressing down, but there's no reassuring thud-thud pressing back that he can feel, and that knot in his stomach triples. Time slows.
Caitlin says she will be there in five minutes.
That's too long.
"What do I do?" Len asks, forcing the words past reluctant lips.
"Move," Cisco says, shoving him aside so he can fit the oxygen mask over Barry's face.
"Pulse," Len manages to say, squeezing the kid's wrist, still feeling nothing.
Cisco is doing something, whirling around in a blur of motion too fast for Len to focus on at the moment. Not that he can look away from the kid right now, anyway.
"Barry!" comes a new voice, and Len flinches but doesn't move or look away from what's important, even when he feels eyes on him. "What are you doing here, Snart?"
"Same thing you're doing here," he snaps back. "Cisco, pulse?"
"I'm working on it," Cisco snaps.
The atmosphere is so incredibly tense.
Joe West comes to stand at Len's side.
Len has been unaware of what Cisco's been doing, but suddenly the sound of a heartbeat fills the room, but Len's still gripping the kid's wrist and he feels nothing.
"Barry sometimes gets a very fast heartbeat," Cisco tries to explain. "It's hard to feel and only our monitors can pick it up – the hospital kept thinking he was going into cardiac arrest when he was in his coma, but his heartbeat was just going too fast for the machines to pick it up."
Len's head hurts. "So he's okay?"
"Yeah – he heals fast, and he made it here in time," Cisco says. "He's been hit by Nimbus before. It was Nimbus, right?"
"Yeah," West says gruffly, hovering next to Len, looking down at Barry as well. "We were at a crime scene – Nimbus killed a convenience store clerk. To lure us there, I guess. Well, me there…"
There's a level of guilt and sadness to his voice now, and Len finally tears his gaze away from the kid to look at the detective, who's looking down at the kid all guiltily.
"What happened?" Len asks. "Barry can easily outrun this guy, right?"
"Yes," the detective admits. "Except Nimbus was aiming at me and Barry jumped in front of me."
That explains the guilt.
Anger stirs in Len's stomach, but not directed at West. Directed at Barry, because there had to have been easier ways to get West to safety than taking the gas for him. Fast healing or not, he could still get hurt, he could still die…
Does the kid have a death wish?
First he went into the Singularity – now he's thrown himself into some deadly gas coming from a meta-human. Sure, it was to save West, and the Singularity was to save the city, and maybe Len has no right to be angry, but he is. He's so angry, and betrayed, and he doesn't know why.
"He'll be okay, right?" he asks, to clarify.
Cisco nods. "Caitlin would know more than me, but she'll be here any time and he seems stable for now. He heals fast and he's on oxygen; he should be fine."
Len nods tersely, unsure what to do now.
The angry part of him wants to walk away, be alone for a bit.
The rest of him refuses to budge, because Barry is cold and pale and wrong. That's wrong.
So he stays put, and so does West.
xXx
Barry will be okay.
Caitlin checks him over as soon as she gets there, and says the same thing as Cisco. They've both dealt with this before, after all – sure, they had Wells there to help them, but they seem to know what they're doing. Barry's in good hands, and Len knows that, but he still finds he can't leave.
Lisa calls him later that night, and he tells her what happened. She offers to come to STAR Labs, but he declines, saying he's tired and he'll probably sleep here, and everyone else – save Cisco – has gone home already.
Cisco is growing on him, he has to admit. The kid's a good friend to Barry, and takes his work seriously. The tech genius hardly ever goes home, it seems.
Len's sure there's a story there, but he doesn't ask. It's not his place.
His place is next to Barry.
He sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair, up next to the bed, and traces patterns across the back of the kid's hand. Barry's fingers twitch in his sleep, and the oxygen mask is off now; they're just waiting for him to wake up. He'll be okay.
Len knows he'll be okay.
He does.
But he knows the knot in his stomach won't go away until green eyes open.
xXx
Barry wakes around four in the morning, yawning as he looks up at Len, who wakes at the way his pillow shifts. He lifts his head from where it was previously resting on the kid's arm, and finds green eyes watching him.
"Hey," the kid says with a warm smile, but his skin's still colder than usual.
"Hey, kid," Len says. "How do you feel?"
"I'm good."
Len nods, then glares down at him. "What were you thinking?"
Barry frowns slowly. "What do you mean?"
"You jumped in front of West?"
The kid's eyes widen and he's scrambling to sit up. "Where's Joe? Is he okay?"
Len pushes a hand against the kid's chest, forcing him back down. "He's fine, he went home a while ago – he didn't want to, but he wanted to make sure Iris was safe."
Barry swallows thickly and nods again, relaxing against the pillows. "You didn't have to stay, Len. Those chairs are uncomfortable."
"What kind of fiancé would I be if I left you here alone?" Len asks.
Barry smiles.
"That being said, I'm mad at you."
The smile falters. "Am I in trouble?"
"Yes," Len says, scowling at him. "You are grounded until further notice."
Barry laughs weakly. "You can't ground me, you're not my father, and I'm an adult."
"No, you are grounded," Len repeats firmly. "I will freeze your legs to the floor if I have to, kid."
"Why am I grounded?"
"For being reckless."
"… I'm the Flash, Len, it's kind of in the job description."
"The Flash is reckless, and I'll talk to him later, but Barry Allen is a CSI and it is not his job to jump in front of people," Len tells him, glaring down at the kid. "As for the Flash, you can tell him I'm very angry with him too – he could have pulled West away, dodged the gas himself, but no, he decides to stand in front of it and take it."
Barry blinks up at him. "Wow. You're mad. Okay, uh – I'm sorry?"
"You're grounded, Scarlet. You aren't to leave my side until I say otherwise – understood?"
Barry stares at him for a moment, and then laughs. "Wow, okay. Sure, Len. Yeah, I'll be glued to your side for a while. Sounds good, but what about my day job?"
"CSI Barry Allen can go to crime scenes, but Captain Cold will be watching him. And if he does anything out of line, like get hurt again, Captain Cold will be there in a flash, to personally scold him."
"Oh, no, not scolded," Barry laughs. "I can't handle the scolding."
"You will be scolded, and later punished."
Barry smiles up at him, Bambi-eyes and all. "I love you, Len."
Len takes in a breath, threading his fingers with the kid's cold ones. "Love you, too, Scarlet."
Barry yawns, blinking tiredly.
"But you're still grounded."