Chapter Text
Rip bends his ear for hours about ‘chain of command’ and ‘floundering in the timeline’ and ‘reckless disregard for the rules’ and so on. All the while, Leonard stretches out across the doorway of Sara’s room while the three of them – Leonard, Sara, and Mick – play cards. Eventually Rip gets tired of hearing the sound of his own voice and storms back to the bridge, muttering under his breath.
“So…does he know about the souvenirs yet?” Sara asks, thumbing her cards in order.
“First and most important rule,” Leonard replies, “never plead guilty to a crime they don’t know about yet.”
Sara only smirks. Mick gives him grief when Leonard officially calls it a night, making a couple age jokes that earn a solid smack upside the head, then gets into it with Sara when she makes the casual observation that Mick is in fact older and therefore is the true ‘old man’ among them. Leonard leaves them to it and disappears into the sanctity of his room. In carefully storing the diamonds under his mattress (the simplest solutions are often the best ones), the photo slip from earlier falls to the floor and, out of morbid curiosity, Leonard picks it up for further inspection.
Turns out, neither of them ever looked at the camera. Not once. But there is a rather endearing little shot of Barry with his face upturned toward Leonard, a grin for the ages stretched across those little cheeks, with hands resting against the older man’s chest. There is a possibility that the camera captured a responsive smile on Leonard’s face, looking down at the kid, but no one is going to see proof of it and live.
He tucks the photo slip carefully into the half-wall which serves as a headboard, slips under the covers, and turns out the lights.
***
Central City: 2016
“Hey, Barry!” Iris comes down the stairs, skipping every other step as she does, and lightly skids to a halt before crashing into him, “Look what I found cleaning out the last of our old stuff – where did you get this little guy?”
Barry looks up from where he’s been crouched on the floor for the last two hours, taping up boxes for the donation drive, and blinks at the item Iris nearly shoved in his face. “…I don’t remember.” He straightens up, wincing as his knees crack, and takes the plush toy from her hand, “Must have been when I was really little.”
“Oh my gosh, he’s precious!” she coos softly, finger tapping at the black button nose; with a more calculating stare, she lightly adjusts the scarf around its neck, then shrugs, “Definitely showing the years…must have been one of your favorites.”
She isn’t wrong: the white fur, probably originally pristine, shows signs of having been washed multiple times; the red and blue scarf has more than a few frayed threads, and one of the eyes is a little off, like it was sewn back into place after an unfortunate mishap. Still, as Barry combs fingers idly through the fur, an odd sense of security, of comfort, settles down to the bones. He must have been closer to this bear than he thought.
“Still,” Iris lightly plucks the bear back, “someone will get good use of him.”
“Hey, Iris,” Barry says, reaching out with one hand, “not just yet.”
Her eyebrows lift with an amused grin, “Seriously, Barry? Feeling nostalgic, are we?”
“It’s a failing.” He shrugs and tucks the little guy under one arm, “Besides, I think we have plenty of things otherwise to make kids happy. Including your Princess Teacup set. You know…the one you almost didn’t let Joe put in the pile?”
“Shut up.” She swats him with an old sweater, then plops it back on the pile, “Help me finish. Dad’s gonna be here with the truck any minute.”
“Help you finish? I’ve been doing all the work around here.”
“Oh, yeah…because we all know it’s such a trial and effort for you, Flash.”
Just because he can, he zips through the final packaging efforts, then makes a point to tell Joe that Iris tried to steal her teacup set back while he was gone. Then he’s out the door before Iris can officially start yelling at him.
And if Barry goes to sleep that night with a fluffy white polar bear, red-and-blue scarf neatly trimmed back to perfection and blue-eyed smile facing him from the other pillow…there’s nothing wrong with that.