Archive of Our Own ^beta

To his credit, the bridge was, the last place he expected to find him, given the circumstances.

It had been the first time-jump that Leonard had been present on the bridge for, since he’d… Come back. Their first two jumps, Leonard had spent in the med-bay, in a gradually stabilizing condition. Gideon helping his heart remember how to beat, his neurons to fire, after his molecules had spent so long scattered.

This time had been different, the team feeling just a little bit more whole, and Ray had been… Excited, rattling off jokes and running commentary. As if it was something more momentous than just a routine jump into the Timestream, for them to plan their next move.

Too excited, maybe, to have noticed that Leonard had been… off, until he had settled after the jump, and looked back over his shoulder at the man. Seen the way Leonard was lurching out of the seat, with a face like he’d been staring at his own ghost.

“Move, Nick,” Leonard said, to Nate, first out of the seat beside Leonard. Had shoved him aside, roughly, to walk out of the room on unsteady feet.

Ray was on his feet in seconds, braced to follow, before Sara gave a hand gesture, stopping him.

“Let’s give him some space, okay?”  Sara snapped, her eyes dark, because it’s her team, but Ray thought she hasn’t been Leonard’s captain for very long, and maybe that made a difference.

“What the hell was his problem?” Nate said, voice petulant, and Amaya nodded, slightly. It’s not unfair of them, he supposed. They just didn’t know Leonard yet, and there aren’t exactly Hallmark cards for ‘Sorry My Past Self Apparently Murdered You/Your Girlfriend, In A Now-Defunct Alternate Reality’.

“For once, I’m as lost as you are.” Stein offered, as Jax frowned.

“And you still say I’m the dumb one.” Mick grunted, and stayed sitting.

Ray wavered, still on his feet. He was transparent enough that Sara noticed, and made the same gesture again. “It’s not going to be easy for him. I should know, remember?”

“And did it help, more, when you isolated yourself? Or when you knew people were there for you?” Ray argues back, and the look in Sara’s eyes is answer enough.

“Give him space.” She’d repeated, anyway.

So he’d done what Sara had said, despite his doubts. Had gone with Jax, to poke around in the engine room. Checked in on Nate, and Amaya, reconfirmed their Star Trek plans for later, and wound up fiddling with six different configurations of a new part for the ATOM, before giving up in distracted frustration, an hour in.

So that had been that. Ray had been the good team player. Not trying to intrude, had done the opposite of deliberately walking the halls of the Waverider, trying to find him. He’d wanted to give Leonard…  Space. Not stumble into the room with him, and certainly not to intrude.

But he’d left his sweater in the bridge, so when he remembered, he walked in, without thinking about it too hard. Until he’d heard the soft sound of a sigh coming from the front of the room, and gotten curious.

So here Ray was, and here they both were.

So there he sits, on the floor, back propped up against the navigation panel. There sits Leonard Snart, staring out at the Timestream, and Ray can’t help but stare at him, in turn.

Maybe it’s just the novelty of it, of seeing his face again, alive. Perhaps he is just unaccustomed, to the point where rationality had gone under, in the weight of relief.

But for a moment, the only word that Ray can summon up for this man is beautiful. Even sitting the way he is. Even with the planes of his face, the close-cut angles of his hair. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

He sees it, the way he’d finally started to, once it had been too late, and he can’t unsee it, now.

“Go away, Raymond.” Leonard drawls, and part of Ray still feels undone, just hearing him speak again.

"I didnt realize you were here."

"That's fine. I dont feel very present." Leonard has been quieter, since he'd come back. Like some of his rough edges had been scraped clean, leaving something a little raw, a little new.

Leonard glances up at him, and it hurts, physically hurts, the sheer vulnerability that flickers in his eyes. That flickers, and then doesnt go away, immediately. Lingers, as Leonard seems to be scrambling to build back his walls, to keep Ray from seeing.

He looks away as much for his own sake as Leonard's. He's never very good at that. At seeing people like that, and not having it hurt a little bit. Not wanting immediately to help.

“Last thing I saw before I died. The Oculus. Funny how things stick in your mind, like that." Leonard remarks, staring back into the light.

Ray’s breath catches in his throat, that old familiar guilt resurfacing. And the thing is. Ray should have known, because he'd seen it too. That he’d thought Leonard was looking at his own ghost, because he had been, in a way.

He’d seen the Oculus, back then. The bright, roiling fierceness of the light, the last thing he’d ever expected to see, until Mick had taken his place. Until Leonard had taken his, and stared that light in the face, until it had destroyed him.

Perhaps it’s true, that the energy in the Oculus was concentrated, an entire span of existence brought under vicious control. Comparatively, raw stuff of the Timestream is almost… muted.

But it's the same light, all the same.

Ray had been so caught up in grief, those first few jumps after the Oculus, that he hadn’t even thought about it, in the specifics. It had just felt... normal, for everything to remind him of those moments, of Leonard. For the leaden ache of guilt in his chest to have felt permanent, then.

After that, he'd done what he always did, with grief, and memories. He'd buried it in throwing himself against the world, in work, in trying over and over, to at least save something. It had almost worked.

Almost.

He thinks as if to leave, remembering Sara’s words about space and then… Can’t, quite. Can’t leave Leonard there on the floor, staring his own death in the face.

"I'm sorry." Ray says, instead, and then knows it's a mistake.

A mistake, by the way Leonard's body relaxes abruptly, all false-casualness in the way that only comes when something truly bothers him. "I don’t want your pity."

“I’m not offering it. But… Look, you’re alive again, but that doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t have to. And I get that. That’s all I was trying to say. That, and… You still have this team, no matter what you might think. We want to help, if you ask. I want…” He keeps going, and maybe it’s good that Leonard interrupts, because even he isn’t sure what he might have admitted, next.

“I can handle myself.” Leonard says, and keeps sitting there, looking out at the Timestream.

“You can. But you don’t have to.” Ray says, and there’s not much more he can do, beyond that, really. He can lead a horse to water, but he knows well enough, what it takes before you’re willing to drink. “But you know what? Fine.”

Maybe Leonard hasn’t changed as much as he thinks. Is still stubborn as anything, insistent on doing everything himself, even if it kills him. It’s not that Ray can’t relate. It’s that he can. That he knows that nothing anyone says, really helps. So he turns, sweater clenched in his hands, and makes to walk away.

"Wait.”

Leonard’s expression is nearly back to unreadable, but there’s still something there, nevertheless. "You can stay. If you promise to shut up."

So Ray take a step forward. Then another, and Leonard doesn’t say no. Not even when he leans against the navigation panel, and slides down, and just… Sits down, beside Leonard, to watch with him. They aren’t touching very much, in honesty. Just the sides of their knees, pressed together, and their elbows bump against each other.

“Sara was worried you, I think.” Ray says, and tries not to feel anything about that.

“I hope she doesn’t think I’m in love with her.” Leonard’s finger traces across the ground, running an idle pattern. It seems nervous, almost. 

“Are you?” Ray asks, because a part of him feels… Something, about what that answer might be.

“It’d probably be easier if I was.” Leonard reflects, but shakes his head. “But no, Raymond. You don’t have to be jealous.”

It’s a joke, and Ray knows it is, knows that Leonard is playing the same game that they played at the beginning, before they’d drifted away from that initial spark, the one that part of him misses, fiercely.

Even if Leonard doesn’t know the way Ray had months to think about lost possibilities that are suddenly not, anymore. Potentials of futures-that-never-could-be, that still aren’t, because Leonard wouldn’t ever, and yet…

Yet they keep sitting there. Every minute that passes, is another where Raymond thinks that Leonard will ask for him to leave. Another where he thinks Leonard will get up, and walk away. But he doesn’t. They just keep sitting there, and perhaps, Ray thinks, that that’s the good part about time travel. You might lose time, in between, but when you need it?

You fairly literally have all the time in the world.

"I keep thinking I'll blink, and..." Leonard says, after maybe the ten minute mark.

Ray presses himself a little closer, against Leonard’s side, hoping the weight of it is enough. Leonard is in the same coat, the one Ray had kept, and worn, while he’d been gone. But he isn’t now, and the coat feels like better proof of that, than anything else. “You're still here, Leonard.”

“For now.” Leonard says,and makes a lazy sort of gesture. “But enough about me. What are you doing here, Raymond?”

Partly, it kills Ray, that he has to ask. Except, maybe that’s fair, for Leonard to ask.

Maybe he isn’t quite ready to tell the truth, and even less sure, if Leonard would accept it. Scared to break this moment, with something a little more. Because he’s willing to run headlong into danger, willing to admit to almost anything in the world, because he has a tendency to fall for someone in a heartbeat…

But every time it gets a little bit harder. Because he’d told himself, after Kendra, that he wouldn’t throw his heart away without being sure.

So Ray makes a joke out of it, at his own expense. “Why am I on the Waverider? Well. I think my motivations were equal parts, wanderlust, motivated by a desire to avoid my problems, good old fashioned fatalism, and a large helping of ill-advised valor?”

He lets that stand for a beat, before adding, with a self-conscious wince. “Still kind of am, actually. It’s a work in progress.”

The corner of Leonard’s mouth twitches. It’s not a smile, but it’s something. “Hate to break it to you, but. I figured that out about five minutes into knowing you. But no. I meant sitting beside me. Trying not to cuddle too hard, because you think you might scare me off. Calling me Leonard, the way you never managed it, before.”

So he shrugs, and tries again, because this is easier.  ”Well, you know. Sara has to be the Captain, and plot our next move. Mick is crap at feelings, Stein is possibly even worse at feelings, I don’t think you’d want Jax to see you like this, and the rest of the team is a stranger to you, so…”

Leonard tenses. He barely even shifts his posture, and if anything, his body actually relaxes. But it’s tense, just the same. “So. You’re stuck on babysitting duty, then.”

“That’s not…” Ray tries, but Leonard doesn’t let him.

“Anyway. You said I’m ‘here’, right? But how long does that last? The team has moved on. Recruited. Filled my room up. Hell, even Mick finally managed to hit the ‘acceptance’ stage, from what you all tell me. And I’m not the criminal you recruited me as, anymore. Just… Doesn’t seem like I’ve really got a place. I dont know. I guess dying as a hero felt a lot easier than acting being whatever I am, right now.”

Ray wants to argue, and knows it will just turn into a fight. Is tempted, anyway, because maybe that will feel normal. Less like they are dancing on eggshells.

But that, somehow, that does it. The resignation in Leonard’s tone, the lack of a fighting spirit, the part that says that Leonard Snart is back in the flesh. But the man himself, is still scared of being merely a ghost, albeit one made just a little more tangible, than usual.

So Ray turns to Leonard, because he’s being selfish, right now. He was trying to just be there for Leonard, without making things… Complicated. To just be a friend, if Leonard needed one. But he can’t lie to Leonard, he can’t, anymore.

“You think that’s what this is? That we’re all just… Tolerating your presence? What, coddling you, somehow?”

"You've all been treating me like I'm made of glass, ever since I..."

"Came back to life? Against all odds, against all logic, after we had months to try and come to terms with the fact you died for us? Yeah. Maybe we are treating you like that. Because it’s not because we dont want you here. It’s because we all keep doing the same thing. Keep thinking I’ll blink, or wake up, and you’ll be another thing that I lost, and never got back.”

He tries using ‘we’, to maintain the distant, to keep his objectivity. Until he slips pronouns, and gives up entirely, on pretending for no good reason, that he doesn’t still care.

“Sure. That." Leonard says, flatly, but there’s an added layer, somewhere underneath the surface, one that Ray can’t quite parse.

"Well, I'm not apologizing."

"Typical."

Ray tilts his head. "Well. Okay. I'll apologize a little bit for being overbearing. But. I haven’t had a lot of miracles in my life. I’m… Not apologizing, for recognizing this one as something precious. I’m not apologizing for wanting you here. Or wanting to be here. Whatever that winds up meaning.”"

There's a pause, a long one, in which both of them feel like holding their breath, Ray suddenly feeling absurdly self conscious.

Until Leonard lets out a soft sigh, mutters, 'damn it’, and turns. It takes a second, for Ray to recognize the gesture. For him to parse Leonard's hand, suddenly on his face, turning Ray’s jaw towards him. For Leonard’s searching glance, to translate into the question it is.

The thing about Ray Palmer? He kind of hates leaving questions unanswered.

So he answers. Just with a nod, but that's enough. Enough for him to Leonard to lean forward, warm and alive, and god, he didn’t realize how much he wanted this.

The kiss breaks off slowly, but too soon, and Ray wants to chase it with another, but forces himself to pause. To see the different kind of vulnerability in Leonard, now. A gentler one, his eyes still half-closed. As they flicker open, and for a moment it doesn’t hurt to look at him.

Even when Leonard says what he says, next, with a wry and fragile sort of smile,. "This is probably a bad idea. For the both of us.”

It’s not that Leonard is wrong, exactly. Because he isn’t. They are both different people, and they’re both carrying baggage with the approximate weight of dwarf star alloy, and it has all kinds of potential to blow up. Neither of them are the easy choice, or the sensible one, for each other.

Except maybe the both of them have spent enough time chasing after things they never really wanted. Maybe the both of them, deserve to at least try, and see where this takes them. Maybe just once, the two of them will both have the right timing. Be in the right place, for something to turn out right.

Maybe it is a bad idea, but Ray is tired of going for what seems easiest. Because easiest is picking the person he’s told he ought to be in love with, and losing them, anyway. Easiest is convincing himself that dying is the best way to make his life mean anything, the best way to account for his mistakes, and come up with a balance.

So. Maybe they aren’t so different, after all.

“Maybe?” Ray agrees, reaching out to smooth his own hand over Leonard's jaw, and tries for something lighter, than all of that. “But in our defence, poorly conceived ideas, with enthusiastic follow-through? Kind of a Legends speciality.”

Leonard leans his forehead against Ray, silently for a moment, then shaking, and at first, Ray is terrified. Thinking that Leonard has just started crying. Until he realizes it’s the opposite, it’s the low rumble of a laugh. One that fades slowly, as Leonard pulls away, and stands.

For a moment, Ray thinks that he blew it, thinks he'd said the wrong thing again, and let a good thing get away from him, because of it.

Until he realizes that Leonard's hand is out, waiting. As Leonard says, "Let's find a better venue, Raymond."

So, Ray looks at Leonard's hand, and takes it.