Summary:
It's been six weeks since the arrival of baby Lisa, and Len isn't exactly handling things well. He seems to be pulling away from his husband and daughter, acting less like himself, and Barry is beginning to wonder - did they make a mistake bringing a baby into their lives?
Notes:
So, I would put this at the super beginning of the series. Just a peek into where they began, and some of the issues Len had with the idea of being a father.
"Waaaahhhhh!"
…
"Waaaahhhhh!"
…
"WAAAAHHHHH!"
"AAAAHHH! Barry!"
"What?" Barry grumbles, barely opening his eyes even though he's wide awake.
"Your daughter's up, and she's calling you."
"She's our daughter. But if you want to get technical, biologically, she's your daughter. Probably why she complains so damned much ..."
"Waaaahhhhh!"
"Ugh!" Len rolls onto his stomach, dragging his pillow over his head. "Why were we so flippin' eager to bring her home anyway? The hospital staff had this baby care thing on lock. We could have gone back and picked her up when she was what? Three? Four?"
"Len!"
"Waaaahhhhh!"
"Or you know what?" Len continues. "Felicity's her mom. Why can't she take her for the night shift and we pick her up in the morning?"
"We have full custody! That's how surrogates work! Besides, Felicity lives all the way in Star City!"
"You say there like you can't zip over there in three seconds and back."
"Not with Lisa. It's not safe for the baby."
"How do you know if you don't even try?"
"Waaaahhhhh!"
"I mean, Cisco can just whip up a pod or something you can carry her in and …"
"Come on, big guy." Barry gives Len a shove that about shoots him out of bed. "Time's a-wasting."
"What? Me?"
"A-ha."
"I'm not even awake yet!"
"You're talking to me."
"It only takes half a brain cell to hold a conversation with you."
"Waaaahhhhh!"
"You know the drill." Barry climbs out of bed, dragging Len by the arm. "She either needs a change or a bottle."
"See? You've got it all figured out." Len struggles against Barry's iron grip in an attempt to scurry back under the covers, but he's not going to win. Regardless of his deceptively slender frame, Barry has that pesky Speed Force on his side. It may not be the same as super strength, but the way Barry manipulates it, it does tip the balance in his favor. "So why don't you just have at it."
"Because, Len. It's your turn!"
"Oh, come on, Bare!" Len wrenches his arm free, but only because his husband lets him go. "You can run in there, change her, rock her back to sleep, and be back here in ten seconds flat. I don't get what the problem is!"
"Because that's not the way we should do it! It's been six weeks already, and I can count on one hand the amount of times you've gotten up to take care of her. Waking up in the middle of the night is a pain in the ass, but it's also important. It's a chance to bond with our baby!"
"I'll bond with her during daylight hours," Len grumbles, staring wistfully at their mussed bed with its comfy sheets and blankets.
"Waaaahhhhh!"
"It's daylight somewhere." Barry puts his husband in a halfhearted half-nelson and leads him to the nursery. Len stops resisting. Better to get this over with so he can get his ass back to sleep. He needs about eighteen hours of it to keep up with their baby. That's part of why he's making such a big fuss about getting out of bed.
Having baby Lisa in the house, Len feels himself slowing up.
Len's not an idiot. He knows he's getting on in years, but he doesn't want to admit it. Who does? Hooking up with Barry on the sly, and then marrying him, had been such an ego boost in that department. To have a man half his age want him made Len feel like a teenager again. And a superhero to boot? If Len's head gets any bigger, he won't be able to fit into his t-shirts. But whereas Barry doesn't seem to ever run down, Len finds himself getting winded more and more every day. Len has spent the past few decades planning heists, running from the cops, fighting Team Flash, even rescuing the crew of the Waverider and multiple Earths from destruction.
It took becoming a father to make him feel his age.
"Waaaahhhhh!"
Three steps into Lisa's room and the two men know exactly what's bothering their baby.
"Phew!" Len groans, head jerking involuntarily to the side. "Good night! What have you been feeding her, Bare? Gravy?"
"Baby formula."
"Is it expired?"
"No," Barry says, offended, though he never thought to check. That can't be the issue. He bought it yesterday. Baby poop just smells … a lot.
"Waaaahhhhh! Waa-AAHHHHH!"
Lisa's wails seem to rise in pitch when her fathers enter the room. Len expects Barry to blow past him and rescue their screaming infant, but he doesn't. Len looks over his shoulder at Barry, of absolutely no help whatsoever, then back to his daughter, miserable and probably as exhausted as he is, with a load of wet yuck stuck to her butt.
"She needs you, Len," Barry whispers.
"I don't see why when she's got you."
"She needs the both of us. And right now, you're up. Do your thing."
"You want me to steal her a diamond?"
"Change. your. daughter. I'm not letting you put a foot back into bed until you do."
Len sighs. All he wants at the moment is to climb into bed and slip back into the open arms of unconsciousness, but his obnoxious husband won't let him. Tomorrow. He'd be awake and raring to go tomorrow. He glances at the Strawberry Shortcake clock hanging on the wall. 2 a.m. He sighs deeper. It is tomorrow. "Fine," he says, trudging toward the crib. "I'm on it."
Barry leans against the door frame and watches as his adorably grumpy husband plods across their daughter's pastel pink throw rug, gathering things he'll need as he goes. Normally Barry would toss himself on the grenade and do it, but Len hasn't been himself lately. He's not quite as witty, definitely not as devious. He sleeps more than usual, he has no appetite, and he stresses over the tiniest things. Plus, his sex drive has gone straight into the toilet.
The first two weeks after Lisa came home, things went fine. They had a rhythm going. They traded off duties - Barry went to work at STAR Labs during the day and Len stayed home with the baby. When Barry came home, he took over with Lisa so Len could have some time to himself. Len has other pursuits. Team Flash and Green Arrow both pick his brain as their 'resident criminal consultant', but he said he was perfectly happy as a stay-at-home dad. They began to feel like real parents. But bit by bit, something in Len started to drift away. He didn't always answer his phone, and Barry found himself racing home to check on him. Things would be fine when he got there – Lisa fed and content, the house generally clean, but Len …
Some days he'd be working himself to the point of exhaustion. Other days, he'd be staring at Lisa with an unreadable expression on his face.
He just wasn't Len anymore.
Looking at the situation through the lens of a scientist, Len seems to be suffering from postpartum depression. It wouldn't be too unusual. Paternal postpartum depression is rare, but it does happen. And Len has the classic signs. He's irritable. He seems at a loss in his role as a parent, determined every time the baby cries that something's wrong with her.
Or that she hates him.
He doesn't show up uninvited to STAR Labs anymore, nor has he tried to break into The Foundry in weeks.
He's been pulling farther and farther away from life as a whole.
Barry would welcome finding out that Len had PPPD. At least, if Barry knew the cause of his behavior, they could decide on a course of action – medication, meditation, therapy.
Whatever's going on with him, Barry has been praying Len isn't regretting their decision to bring Lisa into their lives.
"Okay, little bug," Len mumbles, negotiating their daughter's kicky feet and unbuttoning her onesie, holding his breath when he breaches the seal of cotton holding back the bulk of the stench. "Let's see what's going on … good Lord!" Len pulls a face, blowing a raspberry through tight lips. Lisa stops crying. She stops kicking. She stares up at her father with wide, wet eyes and an o-shaped mouth.
"You need to stop eating cement, girl," Len continues in a softer, teasing voice. "We can pave the streets with this BM."
Lisa waves closed fists. Her lips tremble. Barry takes a step forward, afraid she might burst into tears again, but she doesn't. The corners of her mouth lift slightly. It's not the biggest or the brightest smile. It could also be gas. But when Len sees it, his whole face lights up in a way that Barry has been missing for weeks.
"Yeah. You might have your Papa beat in the full of poop department."
Barry's smile drops when he remembers that Len refers to him as Papa in front of Lisa. "Hey!"
"There you go," Len coos as he cleans Lisa up and puts a new diaper on, wrapping the old one and tossing it in the trash without looking. "That's it. Nice and clean. Feels a lot better, don't it?"
Lisa kicks her legs in response and Len chuckles, carefully sliding one leg at a time back inside her onesie. He buttons her up, then wraps her in her blanket, swaddling her meticulously the way the nurses at the hospital taught them. He considers her a minute, rocking her with his palm pressed lightly against her tummy, but then he picks her up and walks the room with her, swaying in a lazy two-step towards the rocking chair in the corner.
"You know, if you leave her, she'll probably go back to sleep."
"Meh, I'm already awake, and I don't think I'm going back anytime soon thank you very much." Len slides into the wooden chair, setting it rocking back and forth with his heels buried into the rug. Barry smiles, watching the loves of his life sit together in silence – Lisa blinking up at her dad with drooping eyelids, Len gazing at his daughter as if she's the biggest payoff he's ever scored.
"Feeling any better?" Barry asks, padding across the room to be closer to the two of them.
"A little bit … maybe. The jury's still out."
"You know, you're really good at this."
"You think so?" Len swallows hard. "Because sometimes I wonder if …" He stops himself short of spilling his guts and giving voice to every doubt he's had since little Lisa came home. She's nothing like his sister was when her parents brought her home, that's for sure. Regardless of Lisa Snart now, Lisa as a baby rarely made a peep. Or maybe he's just not remembering things clearly. A dark cloud seemed to descend on their house shortly after, one that moved into his brain, obscuring certain details he'd rather not relive. No, his boisterous daughter is nothing like his sister, name notwithstanding.
He just prays that, in the long run, he's nothing like his father.
"Well, this daddy thing has its moments, I guess."
"Yes, sir." Barry bites his tongue. Close. He was so close. But whatever's bothering Len is in there somewhere. And if Len wants to talk about it, he will. Barry just has to give him time.
"Hey, I know she just dropped a huge deuce, but do you think … she might be hungry?"
"I don't think so." Barry puts a gentle finger to her lower lip to see if she'll suck, but she doesn't. Her eyelids flutter shut. She takes a deep breath in, lets it out, and just like that, she's asleep.
In under a minute, and with no Speed Force powers necessary.
"I'm hungry," Len says.
And even though Barry is thrilled that Len's hungry after days of living on pretzel rods and Near Beer, he recoils. "How the hell can you be hungry with that smell still hanging in the air?"
"I'm sorry. I can't help it. My hunger knows no bounds."
"Neither does this stench." Barry yanks the waste basket liner out of the trash, eyes flashing with a thin thread of red electricity.
Len's brows pull together. "What are you doing?"
"I don't want this in the house." Barry's voice cracks, static echoing as he phases with energy.
"Shhh! You're gonna wake the baby!"
Barry steps out into the hallway and closes the door. Even through three inches of wood, the room crackles with the familiar heat of Barry tapping into the Speed Force. The seam around the door glows with a bright orange aura. It blinks out, but a second later, it comes back, and Barry re-enters the room. He puts a white paper bag down at Len's feet, taking a seat beside it on the floor. He opens it and reaches in, the rank odor in the room overwhelmed by the delicious scent of meat and onions.
"What's that?" Len asks, staring at the bulging bag dubiously.
"A double double animal style," Barry says after a bite. "You said you were hungry."
"There aren't any In 'N Outs in Central City."
"No, but there's one in San Diego."
"And that's where you threw out her dirty diaper?"
"Yup. In the dumpster outside the 7-11 next door."
"Don't you think that's overkill?"
"I don't really feel like waking up in the morning to the smell of stale diaper, do you?"
"Fair enough."
"Besides, you can consider it an apology for losing sleep," Barry says, throwing his husband a wink. Len smirks.
"Well then." He reaches down for his share of the meal, but he doesn't take his eyes off his baby girl. Not for a second. "If this is the way night time changing duty is going to go, I'm definitely on board."