Frankie, I'm sorry that things ended the way that they did for you, but that's not an excuse to be treating me the way you are.

Frankie frowned at her phone, her heart almost beating right out of her chest. She'd fought with a lot of people recently, called out a lot of shitty behaviour and been called out on her own, but in her year and a half of knowing Louise, they had never once fought.

I'm trying my best to be happy for you, you know I am

Well it might do you some good to try harder because it doesn't really feel like it atm.

Winn kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye, his hands clasped tight in his lap like he was afraid of reaching out.

I've been covering for you since the day you started and you can't even be bothered to pretend you aren't jealous

He'd invited her over and Frankie had been at home all week trying not to lose her mind, so she'd readily accepted the offer.

She hadn't been ready for Louise's messages.

I don't know what else you want me to say.

Don't say anything, just-

"Frankie, you're bleeding."

Looking up from her phone, Frankie caught Winn staring at her fingers. She followed his eyes and saw several scattered droplets of blood around the edges of her fingernails. She must have been picking at them without noticing.

-let me at least be a little bit happy for myself.

Nobody's stopping you.

They'd been plagued by an odd silence ever since she'd arrived, neither of them quite being able to keep up a conversation that lasted longer than a few minutes, but it was a silence that seemed to have been following her around for the last week like a dark cloud. It felt almost like she was bringing destruction with her everywhere she went.

A sudden knocking echoed through the apartment and Winn and Frankie both turned to look at the door. Winn seemed to consider something for a moment but didn't get up to answer it. Frankie, slightly surprised, put her phone down on the coffee table, ignoring the few last-ditch buzzes it sent out, and turned to Winn just as the knock turned into an indignant bang.

"I think someone's at the door."

Winn shot Frankie a quick smile, but it didn't quite meet his eyes. At that moment, she realised how quiet the apartment itself was. Where normally there was music or a movie playing on his ridiculously oversized flatscreen that she had no idea how he afforded, everything was dark or otherwise turned off.

Maybe she was wrong about the cloud.

Still not quite naturally, Winn got up and walked over to the door, an action that seemed to take more effort and purpose than it should have. The door opened with a noise far higher pitched than when she'd come in an hour or so earlier, which she understood to mean that he was taking his sweet time staring down whoever had been knocking.

"I'm looking for Winslow Schott Jr?"

Frankie stood up at the formality of the greeting, looking quickly to see who it was. On the other side of the door was a woman in a professional-looking suit, backed up by two men similarly dressed and wearing dark sunglasses. It was all a little too Men in Black for her to consider a coincidence.

"Yeah, that's me," Winn replied bluntly.

"I'm Agent Chase with the FBI. If it's alright with you, I'd like to ask you a few questions." The woman's voice was stern, but not overly intimidating, almost like she was trying to seem kindly concerned, but to Frankie, and clearly Winn, it wasn't convincing.

Immediately, Frankie remembered Winn's help with finding her dad. Had the DEO finally managed to catch up with him? Alex usually claimed she was FBI whenever somebody asked after her day-job, maybe this Chase woman was from the DEO themselves, here to give Winn a piece of their mind.

But Winn didn't seem at all surprised by the intrusion, almost like he expected it, which lead Frankie to believe that maybe the DEO wasn't the only government agency he'd hacked into recently.

Chase eyed Frankie pointedly and despite her best intentions, she could feel herself shrinking under the scrutiny.

"I'd prefer it if we could do this in private."

"Is it about my father?"

Frankie's heart froze. Winn had never spoken at length about his father in front of her before. If it came up, he would shut down, so Frankie had long ago clued in on the sore spot, but if the FBI was getting involved...

Maybe things were worse than she'd been led to believe.

"It is."

Winn shook his head. "Then I'd prefer it if Frankie stays."

Again, Agent Chase watched her with suspicion, clearly trying to decide whether or not she could be trusted. Frankie did her best to open her body language, fake an easy smile, whatever she could to make her seem less criminal, but she doubted it made much difference. Chase had to have seen it all before.

"Fine."

Winn gestured half-heartedly to the dining table and Frankie noticed how tucked away it was, shoved against the wall and covered with cords and wires and tools that normally wouldn't live on a dining table. It was clear he never ate there.

Her mother would have murdered her if she'd left the dining table at Midvale this dirty, but the only person in that house who had a hobby of building things out of random pieces of scrap metal had been her dad, so she hadn't had a problem with keeping it tidy in a while.

Chase took the seat facing the wall and made a show of rearranging some of the mess to have enough space to put down the briefcase Frankie hadn't noticed she was holding. The robots behind her stayed in the corridor, clearly to ensure that they weren't interrupted, and gently closed the front door behind Chase.

Winn, for the first time that night, really looked at Frankie, actually made eye contact, and now she could see how tired he seemed. He looked like he'd been hung out and wrung to dry and it was terrifying. Had she really been so wrapped up in her own shit that she couldn't even look him in the eyes without the government breaking the door down first?

Frankie hovered somewhat awkwardly a few feet back from the table, not entirely sure what Winn wanted her to do. It was clear that whatever he'd done, whether or not he'd met Agent Chase before, whatever she knew about him, he was in charge. Something told Frankie that if he wanted Chase to leave, he could make it happen, no problem. He wanted them both here.

Whatever it was, he wanted Frankie to know.

Chase coughed a mildly passive-aggressive cough, her gaze trained on Winn, clearly wanting him to hurry up. He sat down at one head of the table, and because of how it was positioned against the wall, Frankie was forced to make a choice. She could sit around the corner from him, but then she'd be next to Chase, and Chase didn't really seem to like her that much. On the other hand-

Winn's eyes flicked briefly between Frankie and the other head, making it clear that the choice was no longer in her hands.

The second she sat down, Chase began to pull pieces of paper from her open briefcase.

"You're aware, I'm sure, that your father escaped from prison this morning."

"You know this means your dad's a murderer, right?"

"Lay off him, Mack, he's eleven."

Winn stared up at the police officers in front of him. He didn't reply to Mack's question, mainly because the answer would have been no, and he didn't want Mack to know that.

"All I'm saying is some DA somewhere is going to want to know if he had anything to do with the bombs, he's gotta be prepared."

"Can you fuck off and start talking to Schott? I'll be there in a minute."

Mack frowned, an expression that seemed to fit his face well, but turned and made his way down a corridor.

"We've called your mum, she should be here anytime soon," the other officer that Winn didn't know the name of said, his kind grin doing more to stop any anxiety than his words. "Is there anything you need?"

Winn shook his head.

He was lying, obviously, but he knew enough about being polite to keep it to himself.

"Alright, I'll be around the corner. If you've got any questions," the officer pointed to a desk a little to Winn's left covered in loose paper and folders being occupied by a blonde woman in a white blouse. "Ask Cornley over there and she'll get you sorted." He waited for Winn to nod again before he turned and followed after Mack.

The station was busy for it being that early in the morning, but he guessed that if what they were saying about his dad was true, if the conversations he could hear from police officers trying to hide their excited whispers meant anything, they'd caught someone they'd been searching a long time for and they'd need a many hands on deck as they could get.

The chair they'd left him on was huge, or it felt huge, but maybe Winn was just small. He was also cold, but he didn't think that there was too much the police could do about that.

Plus, he was more than a little scared.

He still wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but the police sirens and flashing lights pulsing through the tiny crack in his curtains at two in the morning would be enough to spark that kind of feeling in anybody.

He'd had enough sense to stay in his bed, guessing that something was going on that he really didn't need to be involved in, so he waited as patiently as he could, waited for his mother to come in and let him know what was happening, for yelling, screaming even, but the house was deadly silent, as though he were alone.

He wasn't sure what scared him more, the sirens or the silence.

Hour after hour passed in solitary silence from his part and police officers and men in ties filed in and out of the corridor that Mack and his partner had disappeared down. At one point, he'd even caught a glimpse of one of them carrying one of his father's favourite toys - the Lone Ranger was its official name, his mother usually called it an alcoholic on a pony - completely dismembered and held together by a solitary wire. The only thing he knew about it was that he had always been strictly forbidden from touching it.

No one seemed to know what to do with him, not even the woman, Cornley, who came over every hour or so to offer him food and lollipops that looked older than he was and the longer he sat in that chair, the more he realised that not only were the officers in that room unequipped to handle a child for more than ten minutes at a time, but none of them wanted to.

It was clear that in the excitement they held in finding his dad, they had never once considered what they would do if they were to come across his eleven-year-old son asleep in the house on his own and he couldn't really blame them. No sane parents would leave their kid to the police to do whatever they pleased with, or at least that was what he kept telling himself, trying his best to not look cold or tired.

There was no way he was going to be left alone.

Winn hadn't told anybody that story since the night it happened. Not even Kara.

Chase simply nodded like she'd heard it all before, (which, he reminded himself, she probably had, if not in his father's file then from some other sad kid with a traumatised childhood,) but he tried not to think about it. It was evident she didn't believe him anyway, there was no point getting hung up on trying to sound original.

Frankie radiated shock, he could almost see it coming off her in waves, but Winn understood that it was only because he knew her well enough to catch it. To Chase, she would've looked completely unphased, a miracle if he'd ever seen one before.

"Have you heard from your father?"

"No," Winn muttered, forcing himself to look Chase in the eyes. She didn't scare him, he'd dealt with enough feds and cops in his time to know her act, but these were odd circumstances to be in and therefore he thought he could allow himself a small amount of apprehension.

"He hasn't tried to contact you?"

"I haven't heard from him."

"You haven't seen him?"

"How many times do I have to say it?" He growled, trying to force his voice to stay level but failing miserably. "I don't know where he is, I haven't spoken to him, I don't know where his friends are."

Chase watched him through narrowed eyes, similar to the ones she'd given Frankie earlier. He didn't like to get angry with people, but the last thing he'd wanted after waking up to the headline announcing the Toyman's escape from National City's highest security prison was to be interrogated by an FBI agent and her two oversised bodyguards.

Which, come to think of it, why were they even here? Did they think his father was going to waltz on over to his apartment in broad daylight flaunting his new-found freedom? He was an escaped convict, not an idiot.

If he thought about it hard enough, he could almost imagine his father doing exactly that, bursting through his front door, the same manic expression he'd worn to his trial plastered on a far more wrinkled version of his face.

Imaginary Chase's gaping surprise was priceless.

"Mr Schott, I really need your cooperation here. Your father is dangerous and currently on the loose. Any information you might have would be helpful."

"I don't know anything!" Winn was getting beyond frustrated by this point and Frankie seemed to be growing more and more uncomfortable as the conversation wore on. "If you don't have any questions that I might actually know the answers to, I'm going to ask you to leave."

If there was any way it was still possible, Chase heightened the amount of distrust in her eyes, making it clear that she still didn't believe him, but now, he didn't care. She and her seven-foot bodybuilders had come into his home with no respect for him or the company he kept and there wasn't any part of him that could sympathise with her cause.

She didn't seem to have any response, so after a few seconds, she began to pack away the notes and files she'd brought with her. They'd remained untouched throughout the whole conversation and Winn was beginning to suspect that they were complete gibberish.

Straightening her coat as she went, Chase stood up, gripping the briefcase and tugging it particularly roughly from the table and muttered, "Thank you for your time, Mr Schott," before she turned to leave.

Winn suppressed a comment that most likely would have gotten him arrested, and instead let her go, his eyes following her back as she opened the front door. He could just barely see her whispering something to the bodyguards before the door shut behind her and she was banished from sight.

"Winn, I didn't know, I'm sorry." Frankie's voice was quiet and reserved. She didn't wait for him to speak first, a move that took him by surprise simply because it seemed like much more of a Kara thing to do, but her hands remained firmly in her lap.

He'd wanted her to stay, a split-second decision that he'd made in the moment, but the longer he left it before he answered her, the more he wished he'd thought about it more.

"Frankie…"

"You didn't have to tell me if you didn't want to, I wouldn't have cared if you'd asked me to leave."

Maybe he should've. Maybe it would be easier to meet her eyes.

"I'm totally happy if you want to talk about it more, or even-"

"Frankie, please!" He yelled, and the second he opened his mouth, he regretted saying anything at all. "I don't want to talk about it."

Winn raised his eyes to meet hers for the first time since he'd finished telling Chase about the night his father was arrested, and to what felt like his relief, he didn't see any fear or anger in them. Her eyes had always struck him as a sort of dark orange colour, but at this hour, they seemed to resemble dirt, red and dusty, exactly like the stuff he used to turn into mud on the farm.

She seemed to be in the middle of a battle, deciding whether or not she should press any further, but whatever conclusion she came to, the only action she carried out was to firmly close her mouth.

Winn couldn't decide if he was being unreasonable. On one hand, it almost felt like he owed it to her. Frankie had been nothing but honest to him in the time that they'd known each other, and it didn't sit quite right to lie about this part of himself, like he was lying about who he was.

On the other, the secrets he'd have to explain, the things Frankie would have to learn, those were pieces of wisdom that were buried so deep inside of himself that not even he could think them without shuddering.

Because maybe this would finally be enough to send her running. At this point, she knew more about his father than anybody else, even Kara, especially Kara. He'd handed this bomb to her without warning, without a second thought, and now that she was offering to hold more, what could he possibly say to convince her that the next one wouldn't be real?

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to-"

"Don't apologise," Winn said, his voice quieter now but still more forceful than he would've liked it to be. He half wished she would get up and leave, if only to spare her from the conversation that he knew would come eventually, but the rest of him was sure it couldn't take watching her walk away the way his mother had done.

He couldn't go into it yet.

"When do I get to meet Brad?"

He could tell she was shocked by how far out of left field that remark had been, but outwardly, she merely froze at the change of subject.

"What?"

"You guys have been dating for, what, five months?"

"Six next week."

"And I haven't been introduced yet, I'm offended," he said, trying to inject as much humour into his tone as he could. He'd never been the best at judging how well jokes landed.

Winn could tell that there was a reason she'd kept it all a secret, all but ignored his calls trying to impress upon her how much he wanted to help, and likely for many of the same reasons he was choosing not to have his own conversation, she didn't seem ready.

"Have you talked to Kara? Or Alex? They'd want to know."

"About what?" Frankie asked, her tone making it perfectly clear that she knew exactly what Winn was talking about.

The conversation had dipped back into the same pattern it had followed only a half-hour before. A few sentences, a dry joke, an awkward silence. He knew well that Frankie was under pressure to get back on her feet, Brad's poorly timed jokes probably weren't the first things she was thinking about, but he was mindful of leaving it completely alone, careful to keep asking, no matter how much she seemed to want him not to.

He'd seen enough lives torn apart by people who thought they knew power, knew too many stories that had started exactly the same way, spent enough time living in the desolation left behind to know that he wasn't going to let it slide.

A/N

What the fuck even is 2020? Quarantine me has been in one hell of a slump so this chapter isn't as strong as I would've wanted it to be, but if I didn't get it out I would've just been sitting here picking at it for weeks.

Anyway was anyone gonna tell me Winn grew up in New Jersey or was I just supposed to find that out on my own after I already made the Texas thing up, huh?

K bye