Notes: The Flash rarepair bingo O3 - Accident

Kintsugi

Axel stared at the broken vase with a feeling of mounting horror. It was an accident, but who was going to believe that?

It was expensive and loot from a heist and probably really super old with a shit ton of history to it and he'd just turned it into three large and four small pieces. Which was still closer to being in one piece than Axel would be in once Len or Mick found out.

He'd tripped coming down the stairs and knocked into the stupid thing and now Axel's arm felt bruised. And his stomach felt like it had dropped somewhere down to his feet after he'd stood up to survey the damage.

There'd been this foster home once that Axel really liked. Warm house, smiles were brittle but not the worst he'd seen at that point, there was a dog that was well trained but maybe shied away a bit from Mr. Felding, and the other two kids thought it was great as long as no one did anything stupid. Axel spent three months there and, really, it had been pretty nice. He shared a bedroom, got top bunk, and the Feldings had even gotten him a kid's first chemistry set for Christmas. But then Axel had been clearing the kitchen table one night and tripped over the dog. Broken pieces of CorningWare went everywhere and he'd gotten the worst belting... wasn't too long after that he had to pack up his things and leave. Couldn't have a trouble maker like him breaking all the family's nice things.

They didn't even let him keep the chemistry set.

"Axel? I thought I heard..." Hartley walked into view and his eyes widened as he took in the scene. Carefully avoiding the pieces of broken vase on the floor, Hartley moved to stand in front of Axel. "Are you hurt? Sweetheart?"

"N-no. I mean... my arm's bruised, but I'm... I'm fine..." Axel swallowed against the lightheaded, dizzy feeling in his head that made his stomach - still down by his feet somewhere, by the feel of things - roil uncomfortably.

Hartley did not appear to accept that answer. He, carefully, ran his hands over Axel's arms and down his legs - which, Axel realized as he hissed in pain, actually his ankle was a little screwed up feeling now too. Then Hartley reached back up and gently wiped away tears from Axel's face. Axel hadn't even realized he was crying.

"Come one, let me help you to the couch, okay?" Hartley kissed Axel's cheek. "And then I'll clean this up."

"They're going to make me leave," Axel blurted out.

"What?"

"Cold and Heatwave. When they see I broke part of their score from last night. They'll make me leave. It was an accident, I just fell. I didn't mean to..." his voice cracked and he moved forward, burying his face against Hartley's chest in a failed attempt to stifle the sobs in his throat. "I don't want to leave."

"They aren't going to make you leave," Hartley murmured, wrapping his arms around Axel tightly. Which was just the perfect amount of pressure to keep Axel from just... floating away in the bad headspace entirely.

As it was, Axel still felt a jittery panic in his chest that made breathing difficult even if he hadn't been crying too. He wasn't hyperventilating, but only just barely. Hartley's wishful thinking was nice, but no one kept Axel around once they realized how much of a klutz he was.

Couldn't have a troublesome trickster breaking all the Rogue's nice scores.

"What happened here?" Mick's voice makes Axel flinch.

"Axel fell on the stairs," Hartley said. "The vase must've broken his fall. I didn't see any cuts from the shards, but his arm's got what's going to be a nasty looking bruise in a few hours and I want to get him off his ankle so I can ice it. I think he may have sprained it."

"Get him to the couch, I'll get an ice pack," Mick ordered. Not a word about the vase.

Hartley guided Axel into relinquishing his grip on Hartley's shirt and grasping around Hartley's shoulders instead. One step at a time, Axel still feeling dizzy and panicky and certain he was going to be told to leave when Mick came back with the ice, the two of them made their way into the other room. Axel was settled onto the couch and Hartley grabbed a beat up old ottoman that he dragged over to prop Axel's foot up on - along with two of those decorative pillows with the gold tassels that Lisa liked so much, which Axel's ankle just sank into so comfortably while another propped up Axel's knee so his leg was better positioned.

Then Hartley stole Axel's shoe and sock in order to gently probe Axel's ankle with his fingers.

"It's not broken. Couldn't stand on it or walk if it were broken," Axel muttered.

"I know," Hartley replied. "Swelling doesn't look too bad, but I guess we'll know more later. When Shawna comes back from shopping, we'll get her to take a look. See what she thinks."

How Mick moved so stealthily for someone so big, Axel never understood. But suddenly he was standing beside Hartley, holding out an icepack and a small towel.

Carefully, Hartley wrapped the pack in the towel and then set it on Axel's ankle. It stung for a moment and then... better.

"Gonna get some aspirin and water for ya," Mick said after a moment, seeming more concerned about Axel than anything. Which was weird.

The vase was more important... right?

"Aren't you angry with me? I broke the vase." Axel wanted to take the words back immediately. But it was too late.

"Did ya do it on purpose?" Mick asked.

"No. I tripped. I didn't mean to..." Axel quieted when Mick held up a hand for silence while Hartley moved to sit beside him, arm sliding around his shoulders comfortingly.

"What's more important is you're hurt. The vase ain't too bad looking all considered. Just gotta brush off my kin... suki? Gold repairing skills. Whatever it's called. We can sell the vase off as a one of a kind art piece when I'm done. Might even be worth more instead of less afterwards. Some people go nuts for that kind of repaired pottery stuff." Mick frowned and gave Hartley an oddly... worried look. "Ain't your fault. We should of put the rest of the score away instead of leaving it out in the open like that." He turned and walked out of the room. Presumably to get the aspirin and water.

A weight had fallen off of Axel's chest and he was breathing easier.

"What's Mick talking about? What does gold repair have to do with the vase?" Axel asked, voice a little steadier.

"Kintsugi, or kintsukuroi, is a Japanese art of mending. Using a lacquer made with silver, gold, or platinum dust, the artist takes something broken and mends the pieces. The breakage isn't hidden, but transformed into something beautiful." Hartley smiled and ruffled Axel's hair. "Sometimes I feel like we're all doing that for each other around here."

Axel leaned into Hartley's arms, but he still felt uneasy. He'd broken something old and expensive. He'd destroyed something pretty. It just... didn't make sense that he wasn't in trouble. And how could anything broken be made beautiful again?

Still, he liked the sentiment. Like maybe he was helping Hartley mend all the broken places and Hartley was doing the same for Axel.


"I want you to see this," Hartley said firmly, chivying Axel towards the basement stairs.

Axel grimaced. Stairs were, currently, the bane of his existence. He was mostly healed, though Shawna still wanted him using the cane so he wouldn't limp - and the cane had to be on the correct side of his body, held in the hand opposite his injured ankle, or else he'd actually make his limp worse. It did make it easier for him to go up and down stairs with the cane. Easier still with Hartley's help.

But it was falling down the stairs that messed up his ankle to begin with. And while neither Len nor Mick were upset with Axel over the broken vase, he still felt horribly ashamed about it.

Whatever was going on in the basement, though, must have been pretty important for Hartley to insist on Axel going down to see it. He'd been playing nurse for Axel - somewhat in the fun way and somewhat in the overprotective, wrap Axel in bubble-wrap way - and wouldn't be pointing Axel at yet another set of stairs right after they'd just come down from upstairs if it wasn't important.

So Axel let Hartley guide him to the kitchen and the basement stairs access in there.

Mick had a workshop down there. Mostly welding tools, but Mick was into pyrography too. Though apparently Mick wasn't doing either of those today - which was too bad; Axel liked to just focus in on watching Mick work on the pyrography stuff. And since Mick wasn't supposed to do either indoors without someone there to make sure he didn't loose focus and accidentally burn something important - like himself - that generally worked out for both of them.

The vase was on Mick's worktable.

Axel's stomach lurched a little with remembered shame and guilt.

"You two are just in time. Glued all the pieces together and all the extra glue afterwards has been scraped away. Same with the filler. So now it's time to make it pretty again." Mick grinned and gestured to a little pot of gold lacquer he had sitting by the vase. "S'funny how Len gets all caught up planning every detail of a heist to death but thinks this is boring," Mick said with laugh.

"We've all got our own focus areas," Hartley muttered, wrapping his arms around Axel's waist. "See, the vase is fixed."

"It's got cracks all over it," Axel replied. "How is anything going to make it whole again? I mean, it's glued and filled but it's..."

"Making something broken back into art takes time and patience. Just... watch," Mick replied. And then he picked up the gold lacquer - actually, now that Axel thought about it, it was probably the same faux gold compound Lisa's gun used - and a pin tool. And, slowly, Mick covered the cracks and pits in the blue vase with a line of shiny gold, very carefully tracing along the broken parts and...

Axel's eyes stung. The vase - well, just the small amount Mick had done so far - looked whole again. It looked pretty.

"Oh," Axel murmured, reaching out without bothering to look for one of the bar stools Mick kept for visitors to his workspace to sit on. Hartley had to be the one to actually drag the chair over because Axel was just enthralled by what he was witnessing. "It really is going to be pretty again."

"Just because something's broken doesn't mean it can't still be beautiful." Hartley's words reminded Axel of what else Hartley'd said about kintsugi on the day the vase was broken. That they were all doing this for each other. And Axel liked the sentiment even more now than ever. The idea that they were all helping each other make their broken parts stand out all pretty instead of hidden away...

"Thank you." Axel wiped at his face, feeling all choked up with emotions he couldn't quite name at the moment. "Both of you. For, uh, showing me this."

Hartley squeezed Axel's shoulders gently and kissed his cheek while Mick just nodded and said, gruffly, "things can be fixed, little Trickster. People are more important. Easy to forget sometimes." There's regret in Mick's voice there and it makes Axel wonder. But Mick seems to be talked out now, preferring to - slowly and steadily - apply the lacquer in silence.

Silence didn't exactly come easy to Axel, unless he was watching Mick work. (Or Hartley was helping Axel's brain go all floaty, but that was a different kind of quiet entirely.) So Axel settled down and watched, enraptured, as Mick continued to work.