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Barry sighs as he glances at the door for the third time in the last minute.His date is late.By thirty minutes.And he hasn’t even sent Barry a, ‘stuck in traffic' text. He hadn’t expected much. He only knew the guy through a few text exchanges through the app Iris had insisted he download so he could meet someone.He hadn’t intended to even date anyone from the app. He was just humoring her. But the man that had matched with him seemed nice and he wasn’t bad to look at, and sometimes he made him laugh. Which is why he had agreed to meet him in this club. With the too many lights and too loud music.And too many people.Fuck why does it feel like every person in Central City is packed into this club?He should have taken Cisco’s offer to chaperone. Then at least he would have someone to talk to. But he’d said no and Cisco had gone on his own date. Which was really a science binge in the deepest part of the lab where reception is spotty at best.And Caitlin was manning the Cortex to give him a heads up if he was needed.Maybe he should have her phone in an SOS so that he can get out of here without feeling like a fool. Either pretend she’s her date inviting him some where else or if his date does show up, then ditch him for an emergency.“Barry right?” a voice says and Barry looks up.It’s his date, and at least his photo looks like him.His jeans are somehow tighter than his shirt. Showing off everything, and with a body like his, it is everything. And he’d thought Oliver was hot. This guy is in even better shape than Oliver. Which is hard to do.“Y…yeah,” Barry says making room for him on the seat he’d claimed for himself when he had first gotten here and takes a drink from the glass he’d been nursing for a while.He may not be able to get drunk but he was afraid they would kick him out if he didn’t buy anything.And besides he can’t get drunk but he can at least enjoy the taste of the different drinks.“Traffic was brutal,” he says, setting his coat over the back of the seat.“I can imagine. I’m not a driver myself but I’m chronically late,” he says.“And I’m usually chronically early.”“What a pair we make,” his date says.“Let me but your next drink since I was so late.”“It’s alright, I’m not much of an alcohol person. I prefer to have only one or two.”“How many have you had so far?”“This is my first.”“Then this could be your second.”Barry smiles.“I suppose so.”The date goes well. Barry is wheedled into trying each of the drinks his date orders. Nothing red flag worthy. Just him offering Barry a taste of each of them.And Barry’s always been too curious for his own good.His date also doesn’t seem to mind his appetite. Which is nice. He doesn’t feel too awkward out eating him.They talk about their work. His date gets a bit awkward when he mentions he’s a CSI but quickly recovers.It’s a good date.Barry hasn’t has this much fun in a while.And his date even picks up the check.But before he knows it, it’s time for him to head home. Luckily he doesn’t have work tomorrow but he does have to be on call for Flash duties.“This was great. We should definitely do it again.”“What are you talking about? The night doesn’t have to be over yet. We can go to my place and have a little fun.”“Sorry, I have work tomorrow,” he lies.“Aww you could call in sick.”“I also don’t do…that…on the first date,” Barry says, and the man’s face just changes.“So you were just wasting my time then.” He says.“What no. I came here for a date not a meaningless hook up!” Barry says, but the man isn’t looking at him anymore.“Thanks for nothing,” the man says and Barry’s face falls.Yeah that app was definitely a bad idea.He walks out of the club and ducks into the alley next to the bar. He just wants to flash home and curl up in bed. Delete the app and maybe read that new book on fingerprint analysis that Joe had gotten him for his birthday.***************He's surprised when two hands shove into his back and him into the wall. His face connects with it, dazing him and when he recovers someone is sitting on his thighs pinning him down.“H…hey what are you doing?” Barry demands squirming.“I just wasting two hours of my night trying to get into those tight pants of yours.”Barry recognizes that voice.It’s his date.And then he feels hands on his belt.************And he freezes.Him the Flash. Hero who saved Central City.Freezes.Everything just slows down around him.“Hey! What do you think you’re doing!” a voice says and the weight on his back is removed with the sound of flesh on flesh and breaking bone.Barry doesn’t more. He can’t move. He should move. He can’t move.He can’t move.“…alright?Barry doesn’t know what was said.“Kid?”Barry let’s out a noise.“Must…in shock.”“...Stand?”He shakes his head.No he can’t stand.Long hair in front of him. A woman? Gently helping him up. Then guiding him gently.He’s not sure of much after that. He knows he’s in a car. That it’s all women in there with him. But he couldn’t tell you if anything was said to him or around him.He's so used to the world going too slow that now that his brain is the one going slow he’s sort of drifting.He knows he should be focusing on what’s happening but he just can’t.At some point they stop and he’s led somewhere and sat on something. A warm thing settled over him.And he’s not sure if it’s the adrenaline crash, the shock, the warmth, his metabolism, or something else but suddenly he’s sinking into whatever he was put on and passes out.
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Barry slowly wakes to the sound of voices.“…is going to kill us.”“No he won’t.”“We brought a strange kid to the house.”“We’ll be fine. He won’t kill us.”“You’re his sister. You don’t count. But he is definitely going to kill the rest of us.”Barry groans and sits up slowly. Not opening his eyes.“Well look who’s returned to the land of the living,” a woman familiar voice says. In fact all the voices so far sound familiar.“Great, he can witness your brother kill us, because Rory just texted me the five minute warning,” another familiar voice says and Barry finally opens his eyes.Lisa Snart is in his face examining him and she doesn’t even startle when he lets out a shriek.He jerks back from her, banging into someone leaning over the back of the couch he’s on.…Someone who happens to be Axel Walker.“Whoa, calm down kid,” freaking Mark Mardon says from where he’s leaning against the opposite wall.“W…what’s going on?”“Your date last night tried to attack you in the alley. We stopped him.”“Wh…why would the Rogues do something like that?”“See he knows who we are. Snart is going to kill us!” Scudder moans from the doorway to what might be a kitchen.“Why would we do something like that? Kid we’re criminals not monsters. There are lines we don’t cross,” Mardon says.“Can you stop calling me kid, I’m 25.”“I’ll calm you kid until there’s a 3 in the beginning of your age. Besides don’t have anything else to call you. Lisa wouldn’t let us look at your ID.”Lisa shrugs, “it seemed like a violation. Considering what we stopped I thought it would be best not too.”“You can call me Barry,” Barry says.He has no intention of letting them connect him to the Flash so it should be okay.“Welcome Barry, Sam’s making breakfast. Any allergies?”“Hey! Who said I was making breakfast for everyone?”“The chore wheel,” Lisa says.“You really don’t have to. I really should be going. Uh…thank you…uh for last night.”“You really should say and eat something. But you also went through something traumatic so you really shouldn’t be alone at the moment. So if you would rather leave and be with people you actually know then do that. But if not you can hang around here. We’ll convince Cold to let you stay.”“To let who stay?” a voice drawls from the door and they all turn.Snart’s eyes immediately snap to Barry, but his face doesn’t show any emotion, before he raises an eyebrow.“Well, I think this calls for an explanation.”Rory comes in behind him and also takes in the entire situation.Then shakes his head and heads into the kitchen.Honestly Barry can’t even blame him.“Lenny,” Lisa says walking past her brother into the hall and Snart follows, not turning his back till ha absolutely has to.“Don’t take it personal. Snart takes a bit to warm up to people. I’m pretty sure he wanted to punt me off the roof when I first got here. I’m Axel!” the man says sitting next to him on the couch.“Yeah, and he and Mardon go toe to toe almost once a week on various things.”“Yeah, the fact that you’re not an icicle right now is a positive sign.”“Plus you’ve got Lisa in your corner. He can’t say no to her.”“He can, but last time he did she pouted and gave him the silent treatment until he robbed every store she wanted him to.”Barry’s eyes widen, that’s why the Rogues had gone on that crime spree last month? Snart being guilted by his sister?Barry looks up as the two Snarts come back into the room.“Alright he can stay. But he is not allowed to know the address of this place. So eyes closed when he leaves. What’s your name?” Snart says.“Barry.”“Just don’t make us regret it.” Snart says.“Breakfast,” Scudder calls out, and Rory comes back in with several plates, Axel and Hartley take them and begin to set the table.“Come on Barry, let’s get some food in you,” Lisa says pulling him to the table.Sam quickly puts several plates of pancakes, eggs, and bacon on the table.“Dig in!” Axel says.
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Barry has to admit that eating with the Rogues is actually pretty relaxing. Well no…not relaxing but it’s a good kind of not relaxing.Axel and Hartley are bickering. Shawna and Mark are discussing…something.Rosa is holding the plate while Sam fills both their plates. Lisa has already filled her plate.Mick is trying to sneak more food onto Snart’s plate, and Snart is trying and failing to do the same to Lisa. Eventually Barry reaches for a plate.“Whoa you don’t want to take from that plate. It’s the special meta plate.”“Special Meta plate?”“Food made with a special protein powder that Hartley and I made. To give the metas on our team enough calories. But you a baseline human it’s definitely too many calories,” Axel says.Barry considers his options. On the one hand he’s starving. On the other…he would have to reveal that he’s a meta.No one knows Barry Allen is a Meta. He’s never told anyone. Sure a lot of people know the Flash is Barry Allen, and that obviously that makes him a Meta. But he’ll hear the ways people talk about Metas around him because they don’t connect it.But being a Meta and being the Flash are leaps no one will make.So he likes his plates with food with the powder inside.Various cheers and curses circle the table and money changes his hands.“You bet on if I was a Meta?” he asks.“Yeah,” they say with a shrug.“Hartley and I thought you were too cute for it to be natural,” Lisa says and Snart looks like he’s sucking on a lemon.“Axel wanted you to be baseline,” Hartley says with a shrug.“It would even up the odds!”“Axel there’s more baselines than Metas on the team.”“I’m bad at math okay!”Barry snorts at the interaction. It’s nice to just talk casually without it having to be about some battle or something about current events or the Flash.And then he takes a bite of the food.“Oh my god this is amazing. How does the protein powder not effect the taste?”“That was all Axel. I made it useful he made it usable.”“It’s a hell of a lot better than that shit the Flash crew came up with,” Mardon says.“It really is…” he says then freezes.“How would you know that?” Shawna asks.“I…I…When the explosion happened I was thrown into a coma. I lost months of my life. When I woke up I found out that StarLabs had been monitoring me because of it. So when I woke up they gave me a bunch of it.”They seem to buy that.“Shit, a coma? That had to have messed up a bunch of stuff,” Shawna says.“I was actually pretty lucky. Because I was at work when it happened they had to hold my job open. My family had each other to lean on.”The world wasn’t really effected by the absence of Barry Allen. Remains unsaid. He’d never really thought of it that way. The world had kept turning.“So, what do you do Barry?” Shawna asks, pulling him out of his thoughts.And Barry bites his lip.He definitely cannot tell a group of criminals that he works at CCPD. Even if it is as a Forensic Chemist.“Oooooh can we guess? Please! I love guessing games,” Axel asks.“Uh…yeah sure.”“A librarian!”“No way, I say he owns a bookstore.”“No he said that he got to keep his job. If he owned the place that wouldn’t matter.”“What about…hmmm I say a professor.”“I think he works in a lab.”“Oh he reacted! He works in a lab. So he’s something science adjacent.“Well he doesn’t work at Star, not before the explosion and none of us saw him during our stay in their prison.”“He could work for one of the other labs.”“They all went in hiring freeze after the explosion. Labe to lab exchange and interlab promotion only.”“Could he be a doctor?”“Maybe a pediatrician?”“He looks like he would be good with kids.”“He looks like a kid.”“I’m gonna say a lab guy with the cops. Kid is too calm being around us. Even if you did also save him,” Mick says.Barry tenses up.“Ha good one Mick. I think you got it right. Did he? Did he?”“Y…yeah. I’m a Forensic Chemist for the CCPD.”“Oooh a fellow chemical guy!” Axel says, bouncing in his seat.“Don’t mind him. He shouldn’t be having coffee,” Hartley says moving the mug away from him.Barry smiles. It’s nice to have someone excited about his real job. Not his Flash stuff.Eventually they finish eating and Mark takes them to load the dishwasher.“Thanks for everything. But I really should be going.”“Awww come on, this was fun. We don’t get to hang out with people that aren’t us often.”“Sorry, I have to go. I told my friend that I would have coffee today.”Almost as if on cue his phone chimes, and he picks it up.“Hey,” he says.“Hey Barry, I know we were supposed to meet up today, but Eddie got tickets for that show I’ve been dying to see…can we take a raincheck?”“Yeah, sure no problem. Have fun.”“Thanks Barry.”He hangs up.“Ooooh someone has a crush,” Lisa says.“Used to. Used to have a crush. She’s engaged.”“Ouch.”“It’s fine. He’s an amazing guy. They’re great together.”He startles as Axel puts a hand on his shoulder, “well that means you can spend the day with us!”“I wouldn’t want to impose.”“Nah kid. We’re not doing anything important today. You can hang around.” Mark says.Barry looks towards Snart who just shrugs at him with a smirk.And with that a wide eyed Barry is whisked away by the rogues.
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Len isn’t sure what he’s expecting when he comes home. But the flash, or rather Barry Allen, on his shitty couch is not it. What’s worse is the kid looks even more lost for an explanation when he tries to give one.And then there’s his sister, pulling him into the hall and telling him everything.And his blood is boiling. His hand itching towards his cold gun.And there’s his sister assuring him they dealt with the man. That he was bruised and broken and bloody and shoved into a cell somewhere with so few police he would never be noticed.It's not enough but he can’t do more. Mainly because Lisa wants him to help them comfort the boy, the Flash, and thus she won’t tell him where the bastards that hurt him is because she knows he would run off to ice him. Flash deal be damned.Because Snart has never allowed someone like that to leave alive.So she keeps her mouth shut and he knows the rest of the Rogues won’t tell them for fear of her wrath.So he watches the kid practically eat the entire breakfast spread. Mick manages to guess the kid’s civilian job.His partner is smarter than anyone really thinks he is, even those who know he’s smart don’t know the how intelligent he is.But that also means he’s busy distracting his Partner because he’s checking Barry out and Mick has always appreciated people’s bodies, not even in a sexual sense just in an observational way. And if he ever for a second compares Barry and Flash the game is up. And Barry’s identity will be out.So he plays distraction while Barry bonds with Axel over chemistry. And Hartley over engineering, even if the kid looks a little confused sometimes. But hey the kid’s field is chem not engineering so it makes sense.Barry bonds with Shawna over her complaints about her classes and even offers her some advice. Advice none of them could give because of them Hartley’s the only one who went to college and he wasn’t even old enough to drive for most of it.And just hearing that someone else had had these problems seems to put some of the wind back into her sails and she’s able to settle down enough to get her work done.Lisa constantly asks Barry’s input on her makeup, and Barry keeps trying to beg out of a making comments. Something Lisa says he’s smart for but doesn’t stop asking.Mark has taken to him too in his own specific (prickly) way.Mark seems to have taken to looking at Barry the same way he looks at Hartley and Axel. As a little brother. Because his real brother may not be here but those instincts still are.Believe him, Len is the same way with Shawna and Rosa that he is with Lisa.Speaking of Rosa, she and Sam are engaging in a discussion with Barry about dancing. And Barry is holding his own, saying that he had done some dance classes when he was younger but that he had quit once he got to college. Which cues Rosa to vow that she’ll get him to dance with her. Which leads to Sam vowing to assist her because that’s what a good boyfriend does.Barry looks slightly distressed.Len was supposed to be leading them through plans for their next heist but the bonding with Barry takes all day. Every time the hero tries to escape Axel or Hartley will draw him into a science debate. Or Shawna about something to do with college and from there more conversations sprout till he’s been there the whole day.And his Rogues run out of excuses.So Barry waves at them from the front door.“Thank you all for last night…and today.”“Be sure to call or text us every now and then okay? If you want to talk or hang out again. This is the most well behaved any of us have ever been when sitting inside all day,” Lisa says and hands him his phone.“What?”“I put all our numbers in here, don’t worry our names are all emojis. Use them if you want or need to.”Watching his baby sister intimidate The Flash will be a treasured memory for Len. He swears.And before long the kid is gone and his Rogues have settled into the living room again.“So Snart…can we keep having him over?” Mardon asks and Len pinches the bridge of his nose.“He is not a puppy you can keep.”“But he’s cute like one. Even you couldn’t refuse him when he started making cold puns!”Len ignores that.“If he wants to hang out with you I won’t stop it. But you tell him nothing about our plans okay?”“Deal.”And with that Len goes to bed because how in the world did his crew end up adopting their nemesis?
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Barry expects that to be the end of it.The Rogues saved him from being…saved him and now he can go back to fighting them. Maybe he’ll give their next small heist half effort but that’s it.He is not expecting to wake up to his phone beeping with texts…actually many texts if the never ending beeping is anything to go by.Was there a Meta? No Cisco would have set off the alarm on his phone or called him.And no one but him texts this fast and this back to back.And he’s not part of a group chat……Oh he is.Lisa Snart added him to a group chat?Goldie: which one?What follows is two nail polishes. One a deep red and the other is a glittery gold.Weather Channel: isn’t your moniker golden glider? Kinda makes the answer obvious.Boo: Mark, please don’t try to talk fashion.Trix Not For Kids: yeah MarkyGay Emo Musician: Axel, you have different polish on each nail.Ballerina: Hartley…we all saw the black nail polish phase please don’t throw stones.Barry: I like the red. It works with more things and I know both those brands. My friend has used them both before. The gold one’s brand clumps very easily.Goldie: FINALLY SOMEONE WITH USEFUL INFORMATIONBarry: what’s the occasion anyway?Goldie: girls night!Trix Not For Kids: oooooh girls night!Weather Channel: Axel I don’t think you’re invitedGoldie: hush of course he is. His make-up skills are top notch and his hands are amazingly steady for the nail polish. I can’t paint all the nails you know.Trix Not For Kids: yeah Marky. I get to do their nails and makeup and they do mine and we talk about boys and girls and watch America’s Next Top Model and Drag Race.Barry: sounds like fun.Goldie: we’re also doing self care on Friday if you want to come Barry.Weather Channel: yeah more the merrier, and Cold said we could let you come around more.Barry: he did?Trix Not For Kids: Lisa has him wrapped around her finger.Goldie: as long as we don’t take you to the main house and only to disposable safe houses it’s fine.Barry: I’ll think about it. My schedule has a lot of last minute things that can pop up.Goldie: of course. We can also do a special extra self care day when you’re free.Barry smiles softly. This is nice just talking without having to worry about planning to stop the Meta of the week. Of planning to save the world.But with the Rogues he just has to exist and he can be a normal person. There are no speeches, no danger, just Barry.He missed this.Barry: thanks. I’ll try to make it.Goldie: !!!!Trix Not For Kids: !!!!Barry: gotta go make breakfast. I just woke up and need food.Trix Not For Kids: go eat. You need the calories Barry!Goldie: Bye!