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All his life, Ray Palmer wonders if he could be more.
It’s always immediately shut down by his own mind. No. Of course not. You’re getting the best you can. It’s idiotic to wish for more.
His life isn’t bad. He likes his job. Not everyone can do what Ray does, essentially free to roam the halls of STAR Labs almost whenever he sees fit.
STAR Labs is a wonderful place, he thinks. He loves watching the ongoing research in the facility, even if he can only understand the bare minimum of it. Or none of it at all. But the pull is there, and Ray considers himself lucky that he gets to watch it happen up close.
And the city is run by criminal overlords, so overall, this isn’t so bad. It could be worse.
Ray takes pride in keeping STAR Labs clean. He takes pride in keeping the corridors spotless, in making the floors shine, in ensuring the restrooms function properly. He does his best to keep out of the scientists’ way, out of Mr. Jackson’s way, and pushes himself to give them the best environment to work in. If nothing else, he can play that part in the discoveries and inventions that come out of STAR Labs every day. If nothing else, this is how he can help. How he can make a difference.
Felicity disagrees with him, always crashing into his tiny apartment when he least expects it. Always glaring at him from under her dark purple hood as he cleans her latest wound. Always pushing her hi-tech gadgets into his hands and chattering away about how they work, and beaming at him when he catches on.
Ray doesn’t understand why she’s so determined to prove this, whatever this is that she thinks is worth fighting for. He’s just a janitor, after all, and all it proves is that Felicity is good at breaking things down to a level where even he can understand.
He always tells her as much, and almost feels guilty for the crushed disappointment he can see in her eyes.
He doesn’t know what to say to her, to make her feel better, that doesn’t involve a blatant lie. He doesn’t know how to make her see that he’s only telling the truth.
“You have the potential to be more, Ray,” she tells him.
He smiles warmly at her, but he can’t bring himself to believe her.
But her words get stuck in his mind, and they latch onto his thoughts, as he stands in front of algorithms and calculations far beyond his comprehension scribbled across the whiteboards in the Labs. What if? What if? What if he was able to understand all this? What if he could run numbers through his mind like it was child’s play? What if he was as brilliant as the scientists he sees here every day, as brilliant as Dr. Thawne, as brilliant as Felicity, as brilliant as she believes him to be?
What if?
Day after day Ray gives himself a full minute to wonder, a full minute to pretend, a full minute to dream, but inevitably he laughs at his own hopefulness and drags himself back into reality.
It’s stupid to chase after things that are never meant to be, to long after a world he’s never meant to touch, and Ray focuses on what he knows he can do instead. He can take care of STAR Labs. He can keep it clean. He can memorize the layout of the facility to help him keep it clean.
He can provide a hideout for Felicity. He can patch her up as best as he can for being the most wanted woman in Central City. He can support her in her one-woman crusade against the criminal masterminds that run their society. And, if worst comes to worst, he can be a scapegoat to ensure her escape.
He can do his best in the areas that he can reach.
There isn’t need for more. Not from him.
This place won’t clean itself, after all.
Then one day Mick Rory storms into the Labs with a man Ray has never seen before, and tells him that he’s not a janitor.
Ray wants to laugh, and for an absurd moment wonders if Felicity had set them up to this.
But they don’t look like they’re joking, or teasing, or lying. And they tell him about reality being rewritten, about the other life he once led, about him.
“You were more than this,” Rory says, and those words pull at his heart until Ray can feel it threatening to burst.
And for the first time in his life, Ray Palmer dares to believe.