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Ray Palmer is eight years old, and he is alone.
Mommy spends all day out doing whatever it is that Mommies do, and Ray only ever gets to see Daddy every other weekend; it’s been that way for most of Ray’s eight years of life, and as much as he hates it, he’s far too used to it to let it bother him anymore.
Being a twin isn’t as special as everybody makes it out to seem. They’re supposed to be best friends, he and Sydnie, close as close can be, but it’s nothing like that. In reality, Sydnie can hardly stand being in the same room as Ray, and when he is, he spends most of his time tormenting Ray, calling him all sorts of mean names that make Ray cry. The crying only makes the teasing worse, so Ray has learned to keep his distance as much as possible.
He spends his time not at school cooped up in his room, playing with the various chemistry sets he’d begged his parents for over the years, watching Singin’ in the Rain a thousand and one times, and occasionally playing with his action figures.
Relief from loneliness finally comes in the shape of Gumball. Ray doesn’t know what exactly Gumball is, but he can’t bring himself to care – he has a friend, an actual friend (in the back of his mind, he’d always knew Ty and Gus had always only been bullies, never actually friends), one that he can play with and watch movies with and be happy.
It doesn’t last long. Miss Zari and her nice friends come, and Gumball goes back home with his family, and it leaves Ray more than a little distraught. His one and only friend is gone, and the loneliness that he’d felt so heavily before is back again, ten times worse than it had ever been.
Ray Palmer is eight years old, his only friend has just been taken away from him, his parents don’t care about him and his twin brother hates him, and he is alone.
Ray Palmer is sixteen years old, and he is alone.
He’s always known that he didn’t quite fit in with other people his age. His heart had always belonged to science, so much so that he often completely disassociated from other people, all too happy to focus his entire energy on the only thing that he truly loved.
He graduates high school at 15. His parents act proud of him, especially in public, but behind closed doors, he can see the truth in their expressions – that they think he’s weird. They don’t understand Ray, never truly have; Sydnie was the normal twin, the sporty one that brought home girls for them to meet and was never home on the weekends, too busy out having fun with friends.
They merely tolerate Ray, tune him out completely when he goes on and on about one of his experiments, and the only reason they act excited about him graduating high school so early is because it means he gets to go to college early, too, and he will finally be out of their hair.
On his sixteenth birthday, his parents sign off on legal papers that leave Ray legally emancipated. They explain it’s because they want him to be able to live on campus and get the full college experience like the both of them had so many years before. Personally, Ray believes they did it just to get rid of him, but he doesn’t voice those words aloud.
Instead, he accepts a full ride scholarship to a terrific university far away from Ivy Town, packs up his stuff, and goes to college.
Contrary to what he had initially hoped, he doesn’t make friends right away. They all stare at him strangely, whisper among themselves about the sixteen-year-old already taking junior and senior level college physics courses, and do their level best to ignore him.
But it’s okay, because Ray is used to that. As long as he’s got science, he’ll be okay, he promises himself.
Ray Palmer is sixteen years old, he’s attending university on the other side of the country from his family, his roommate pretends he doesn’t exist, and he is alone.
Ray Palmer is thirty-two years old, and he is alone.
He’s numb inside. His mind, for what feels like the first time in his thirty years of life, is completely blank. His heart thumps dully in his chest.
He hears people talking to him, their tones and words full of mostly faked sympathy and understanding, but he can’t process the words.
Instead, he just stares at the casket a few feet in front of him. It’s closed, of course – Slade’s men had done a number on all of their victims, and Anna hadn’t been an exception. He aches to open it, to look inside and get one last look at the woman he loves, the one that was supposed to take his last name, the one he was supposed to start a family with. The only thing that keeps him from doing so is Anna’s parents, standing there next to him, grieving. He doesn’t want to subject them to that kind of horror.
His own family aren’t there, not that he’s surprised even the least bit. They’d all expressed their condolences to him, their fake sympathy for the death of the fiancée none of them had ever bothered to actually meet, but each had had their own excuse for not being able to attend the actual funeral.
Ray is relieved they aren’t there; he doesn’t know if he could keep the anger he feels towards them at bay, not when he’s the most emotionally unstable he’s ever been.
At the end of the day, Ray returns to an empty apartment.
For several hours, he does nothing but sit on their – his couch, staring blanking at the wall in front of him. The numbness is still there. He’s afraid it won’t ever go away again.
Ray Palmer is thirty-two years old, the love of his life is now buried six feet underground next to her grandparents, his family still don’t care about him, and he is alone.
Ray Palmer is somewhere around thirty-six years old, and he is alone.
It sounds ridiculous, considering he’s on a time ship that currently houses five other people and one artificial intelligence, but that familiar sense of loneliness is still there, deep inside his gut where it’s been lingering since he was eight years old.
Leonard is dead.
He has to repeat the words over and over again to himself, just so he doesn’t forget.
He and Leonard had been… close, for lack of better words. There had been something there, a spark that had been there since they’d first woken up on that roof the day Rip had first recruited them to his League of Misfits. After the events in Russia with Valentina, it had been evident to both that the other felt that spark, too. The playful flirting had kicked up a notch or two, the casual touching even more so. For the first time since Anna died, Ray had felt like things were going in the right direction.
But then the Oculus happened. Leonard sacrificed himself to save the rest of them, to give them all a future that wasn’t controlled by an outside force like the Time Masters.
He doesn’t feel the same numbness that he did with Anna’s death, but maybe that’s because Leonard hadn’t died in vain like Anna. He’d died for something, he’d died a hero, and all Ray can feel is grateful for the opportunity that Leonard has given him.
Kendra and Carter are gone, too.
He’d never been the biggest fan of Carter, but Kendra had easily been his best friend on the Waverider, and he feels the loss of her presence heavily. She had promised to keep in touch with him, but Ray wouldn’t blame her if she doesn’t – she and Carter had certainly been through enough in their short time aboard, and they deserved to cut themselves off from it all and live out their destinies without any more worries about guys like Vandal Savage trying to tear them apart again.
He’s not entirely sure why he decides to remain on the Waverider, if he’s being completely honest with him. Most of the time it seems like Sara and Mick barely tolerate him, Rip certainly only cares about him when he needs his scientific expertise for something, and even then, his first choice is typically Professor Stein. He and Jax get along pretty well, but Jax is always going to go to Sara before Ray, he’s well aware of that.
Regardless, he stays. He tells himself that it’s because he wants to make sure the rest of the Legends don’t do something stupid and get themselves blown up, but it’s not the truth.
The truth is, he stays because he has nothing to go back to.
Ray Palmer is somewhere around thirty-six years old, the man he thought he could one day love is dead, his best friend is off living her destiny, and, despite being surrounded by a group of misfits just like him, he is alone.
Ray Palmer is somewhere around thirty-seven years old, and he is alone.
He’s not sure exactly what Rip did to them all, but he’s been in the Cretaceous Period for at least six months, that much he is sure. He has a million theories about how he ended up here, a million and one about why he’s their alone and not with the rest of the Legends.
It’s certainly saying something, but he’s never felt so alone before.
For the first time in years, he begins to truly miss his parents and his brother. They’d never truly understand him, he knows, but that doesn’t stop him from longing to see their faces again.
He misses his team, too. It’s true that they hadn’t exactly treated him the best, but they had always been there when he needed them in the years (because, yes, between being stuck in the 50’s and here, it’s been years) since they’d all first set foot on the Waverider. They’re unreliable at best, completely insane at worst, but his heart aches when he thinks about them.
He spend his days running for his life from a gigantic T-Rex he playfully refers to as Gertrude, named after an old elementary school teacher that always hated Ray for correcting her too many times in class. He does what he can to survive, stealing an egg from Gertrude despite the fact that it puts him in even more danger than before, and capturing what he can with the traps he learned to make all those years ago in Boy Scouts.
“If only Troop Leader Crane could see me now,” he says to himself, huddled up in his little camp area, cooking up yet another bland omelet on a low fire.
He does that, a lot -- talks. He knows there isn’t anybody around to hear him, to respond to him, but that doesn’t stop him. He talks to himself, to Leonard and Kendra and Sara, to Stein and Jax, to Rip, even to Mick. To Anna.
It’s the only thing that keeps him moving forward.
Ray Palmer is somewhere around thirty-seven years old, he has to run for his life daily just to survive, he has to craft dolls of his teammates just to keep himself from going insane, and he is alone.
Ray Palmer doesn’t really know how old he is anymore, but he does know that he is not alone.
Leonard is back. By some miracle, Gideon had been able to track him down in Rio De Janeiro of all places. He’s a little on the thin side, his face more worn than it was before, but he’s there on the Waverider, alive and chuckling at something Sara says to him, and Ray feels more settled than he ever has in his life.
The welcome back party Sara and Jax had insisted on is still going full swing. Nate has had one too many and Ray can’t help but laugh as his best friend dances around the bridge, insisting that everyone join him in a round of karaoke.
It only takes him a few minutes to notice that Leonard has slipped away. Ray doesn’t blame him -- he’s more than a little overwhelmed, himself, and he’s been around these people 24/7 for almost a full year now, in linear time. He can’t imagine what it must be like to be thrown back into their unique brand of chaos after being gone who knows how long.
Before Nate can rope him into karaoke, Ray follows Leonard’s lead and slips out of the bridge, waiting until Nate is too preoccupied flirting with Mick to pay him much attention.
He hesitates just outside the bridge doors for just a moment before heading towards Leonard’s quarters rather than his own. He has the aching need to talk to Leonard, to make sure he’s really here and the whole thing isn’t just a dream.
Not wanting to risk being turned away, Ray doesn’t bother to knock, just waves the door to Leonard’s room open and steps inside. He doesn’t say anything as he crosses the room and settles down next to Leonard on the bed, staring down at his hands where they come to a rest in his lap.
“I feel like this is a dream, and any moment now I’m gonna wake up, and you’re gonna be dead,” he admits quietly. He doesn’t dare look up at Leonard, too scared that he’ll disappear. “It doesn’t seem real.”
“It is real,” he hears that achingly familiar voice, the one he’d missed so terribly much, say. Ray looks up at that, peering over at Leonard. “I’m real, Raymond. I’m here.”
Ray hadn’t realized how much he missed hearing Leonard say his name until that very second. He has to blink rapidly to stop the tears that threaten to fall. In an attempt to distract himself, he nods the slightest bit and reaches out to tentatively take Leonard’s hand in his, giving it a little squeeze. He smiles at Leonard, and as soon as he sees Leonard smile back, he knows that everything is going to be okay.
Ray Palmer doesn’t really know how old he is anymore, be he doesn’t care all that much. The man that he loves is back at his side again, he’s got a crew full of misfits that are his real family, and he is not alone.