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"Um. Hey?"
Arthur looks up.
Great. Another one.
He made good on his exit, with Wayne; but he'd only finished bringing about half the fish in. Somebody must have spilled the beans, told Wayne he'd probably be back again.
At least Wayne had the sense to send somebody else this time. If he'd come back himself, Arthur'd have put him through a wall.
And this guy—this guy came out of a totally different mold than Wayne. Wayne was like Arthur, at least as much as anybody was: big, sturdy. Serious face, serious eyes. A guy who was used to getting his own way, used to being strong enough and hard enough to make it happen.
But this guy? This guy's—not short, not really, but he holds himself in a way that makes him look small anyhow. Narrow, big eyes, messy hair.
Arthur frowns, just a little.
He's not dressed like Wayne was, either. He's wearing more clothes than Arthur, but only in the sense that he's got a shirt on. It's a little ratty around the collar, some band name or something plastered across the front; his elbows and arms are bare, hands tucked with casual nervousness into his pockets like it's not below zero out here.
Interesting.
"Who the hell are you?" Arthur says.
The guy's staring at him, eyes round. "Shirtless," he says.
Arthur raises an eyebrow at him.
"You're—so shirtless." He blinks. "Sorry. What? Barry! Allen. Barry Allen. The Flash. That's my, um. My superhero name. I thought it was a really good one, but now that I'm saying it out loud to you while you're looking at me like that, it sounds—stupider, suddenly." He takes a breath, for the first time since he started talking, and then bites his lip. "And you're Arthur, right?"
Arthur gives him a steady look, and doesn't answer. If this Barry guy is worried he might have the wrong shirtless tattooed guy piling up fish on the shore in Nowhere, Iceland, then he can go have a look around. It's not Arthur's problem.
"I guess you probably already figured out why I'm here. I, uh. I don't really know why Bruce thought I'd be better at this than he was—like, I guess he's not a people person on the inside, but he's pretty great at faking it most of the time."
"I don't like people people," Arthur says, slapping a fish down with an extra-wet slap. "I don't like anybody."
That shuts Barry up, but only for about two seconds. When Arthur glances up at him again, he looks thoughtful.
"So what you're telling me is that I can't do any worse than Bruce did. That's actually kind of reassuring."
Fantastic.
Barry clears his throat, takes a half-step forward and then sits down, and doesn't seem to care that planting his ass on the rocks over here is going to soak his jeans in icy seawater. He loops his arms, loose, around his knees, and looks at Arthur.
"So, you, uh. You're kind of a badass, I guess?"
Arthur angles a sidelong glance at him. "Wayne didn't give you the file."
He knows there's a file. Stands to reason. Wayne hadn't come out here on a whim; ten minutes pinning him to a wall, and Arthur had that much figured out.
"I mean, sort of. I read it, he told me some stuff." Barry makes a face, an anxious little moue. "But I don't really—I get distracted in my head a lot, start thinking about other stuff. I can be a good listener? But not, like, for lots of minutes in a row, if you follow me." He pauses. "But you're from Atlantis! That's pretty sick."
"Sort of," Arthur says.
"Sort of pretty sick?"
"Sort of from Atlantis." Arthur glances up, and Barry's—
Barry's maybe a better listener than he thinks he is: attentive, those big eyes, that open earnest face. Kind of makes you want to tell him shit, just to have him hear it.
Maybe Wayne did know what he was doing, sending this kid up here.
"My mom was the queen, down there," Arthur says aloud, jerking his chin toward the cold gray sea, the waves that keep frothing up toward them and then wandering away. "But my dad's from up here. Lighthouse keeper."
"Oh. Oh. So you're, like, um—"
"A bastard," Arthur says for him, and gives him a cold flat smile. "Literally."
"Oh," Barry says, a little quieter, blinking. "So they don't, uh—"
"I do my own thing," Arthur grits out.
"Right! Cool, cool," Barry says hurriedly, and then he clears his throat. "Well, my dad's in prison for murdering my mom, so." He catches the involuntary reaction that Arthur can feel flickering across his face, and adds instantly, "He didn't do it. I was there. He didn't do it. But—it sucks."
Arthur looks at him, and then away. "Yeah."
"A lot of things suck," Barry says. "The world kind of sucks. But it's, you know. It's the only one we've got."
Arthur takes a breath, and lets it out. "So this is where you give me the pitch again, huh?"
"Sorry," Barry says. "Sorry, I know that was—that was a shitty segue, jesus, that was like the worst lead-in ever. 'Let's share our most uncomfortably personal emotional traumas! Everything is garbage! But we can save it anyway, with your help!'"
He mimes the kind of enthusiasm you see on infomercials at two in the morning, and Arthur feels the corners of his mouth trying to tug their way around, has to press his lips together flat to make it stop.
"I just, um. I guess that kind of is how it is, for me? Like, I'm new to this whole—" He waves a hand back and forth between them. "—superhero thing or whatever, I don't really know. I was just kind of sprinting around trying to help people if I could, but it wasn't anything big. It wasn't the kind of thing that really makes a difference."
Arthur looks at him. "I bet it did to whoever you were helping," he says, and it comes out gentler than he meant it to.
Barry stares at him for a second, mouth slack, color creeping into his cheeks. "Well, uh," he says. "Um. Yeah, actually. I mean, I hope so. Anyway! Anyway, the point is just—this is a really big thing, right? This is the whole entire world we're talking about here."
"Not my problem."
And Barry twitches at that, frowning, incredulous. "I mean, yeah, it kind of is, dude. Your dad—"
"My dad's fine," Arthur snaps.
"Yeah, but he won't be," Barry says. "Nobody's dad will be. Everybody's mom is going to be dead. The world's a mess, but nobody's ever going to be able to figure out how to make it better if some alien warlord asshole sets it on fire."
Arthur sets his jaw. "Is that what Wayne thinks is going to happen?" he says, and he says it cool, even, like it's got nothing to do with him.
Because it doesn't, goddammit.
"Uh, I hate to be the one to have to break it to you, but it's actually already happening."
Arthur looks up.
"That's—that's why Wayne sent me back up here, man," Barry says. "There's these things, these artifacts. Boxes, or something. The Amazons have one, but this Steppenwolf guy showed up and killed a bunch of them and took it."
Shit. Arthur stares back down at the pile of dead fish in front of him, which suddenly feels like some kind of sign, and clenches his fists. That's not good. And Wayne—
Wayne's planning to go up against that. Wayne, who's just some asshole in a suit. Wayne, and the space where Superman isn't since he died.
And, apparently, Barry Allen.
And somehow that's the thing that sticks in Arthur's throat. Barry Allen, narrow nervous Barry Allen, ready to try to save the world even though it sucks a lot.
Motherfucker.
Arthur closes his eyes. "Find somebody else," he says, and it's supposed to be an order, a demand, but his own ears can pick out the plea underneath.
"Man, there isn't anybody else." Barry laughs, kind of, a halfhearted little huff through his nose. "You think Bruce Wayne sat there and said to himself, 'Okay, I've got me, and I've got Wonder Woman. You know what this team really needs? Some ADD punk from Central City who talks too much!' No way."
Wonder Woman. Huh. So Wayne did find somebody else, at least.
Three, then. Three of them, against who the fuck knows what.
"Look, Allen, I don't—" Arthur stops, and shakes his head. Like hell does he have to explain himself to Barry Allen; but the thing is, he wants to. He didn't care if Wayne thought he was an asshole. He doesn't know why it bugs him, that this kid might end up thinking so too. "I don't do this. I can't do this."
"Well, not if you decide not to, no," Barry agrees, pointed.
"I told you," Arthur snaps, "I do my own thing—"
"Not if there's no planet left to do it on!"
"I don't—I'm not—" Shit. He can feel something, something stupid and awful and true, rising up in his throat like bile, trying to get out. "Nobody wants me," he hears himself spit, vicious, bitter, inescapable. "Don't you get that? I don't fit. Not up here, not down there. Not anywhere. And you, you and your fucking team or whatever, you don't—"
"Uh, yeah, we definitely do! Hey. Hey, listen."
And Arthur's too slow—he doesn't know how he's too slow, how it happens, but it's like his vision cuts out, a blue-white flicker, and suddenly Barry's right in front of him, hands on his shoulders.
They're warm. Really, really warm, for a guy who's outside in the winter in Iceland wearing a t-shirt.
"I get it. Seriously, I do. But we're asking. Anybody who doesn't want you is an idiot." He stops, and turns red. "Want you, um, on their team! On their—professionally. In a professional capacity."
Arthur's throat feels tight. His eyes are prickling. But all of a sudden, he kind of wants to laugh.
It feels good.
He raises an eyebrow instead. "And you're not an idiot, is what you're saying."
"I mean, I'm sort of an idiot," Barry admits. "But not in that particular respect. Come on. Come back with me. Help us. Just this—just this one time, and we'll totally never ask you for anything ever again—"
"Right," Arthur says, allowing the word to drip with skepticism.
"Well, no, okay, we probably will," Barry concedes. "But just because you're kickass, and we are definitely going to need you again sooner or later. Can't argue with that, can you?"
Arthur thinks about it for a second.
And the thing is, he kind of wants to give in. He kind of wants to; and since when has he ever not done what he wants to? He doesn't care what people think of him, and he doesn't not do shit he wants to do.
But, he thinks, he doesn't have to tell Barry that just yet.
He tilts his head, instead, and narrows his eyes. And then he reaches up and closes one hand, real slow, around Barry's wrist where Barry's still got him by the shoulders; and he doesn't look away from Barry while he does it.
Barry goes red again, throat working visibly, dark eyes huge.
"I don't know, doesn't sound like there's a lot in it for me," Arthur says.
"Besides, like, the world?" Barry manages.
"Yeah, that," Arthur says. "I'm thinking I might need a little incentive."
Barry blinks. "Like, um. Like—"
Jesus. He is kind of an idiot. It's just on him it's kind of—sweet.
Arthur raises an eyebrow, lifts his other hand and takes Barry by the chin: stretches his thumb up, and presses it, soft and then harder, into Barry's lower lip.
"Oh," Barry breathes, eyes wide, and then shakes himself a little. "Wait, seriously? Are you, um. You really—"
"Starting to think it's going to be just about the only way to shut you up," Arthur murmurs, and holds him there, and kisses him.
And it's—damn. He just wanted to try it, wanted to see if Barry would let him; wanted to see whether he'd been right that there was something there, some kind of potential doing its best to catch sparks.
But it's good. Barry's mouth is soft, sweet, and he lets Arthur do whatever he wants with him—tilt his face and hold it, lick into his mouth, bite down on his lip. He's into it, eager for it. He's—
He's vibrating. Literally.
Arthur breaks the kiss and blinks at him. He's going so fast, in place, that he's blurry.
"So that's your thing, huh?"
"What? Oh, shit," Barry says, voice weird and reverberating like he's driving on train tracks. The smeared dark of his eyes changes, closing, and after about five more seconds he's slowed back down, just barely jittering under Arthur's hands. "Sorry," he says breathlessly. "Sorry, that, uh. That happens when I get—worked up?"
Arthur gives him a considering look. "Eh. Not a problem. I can think of a couple good uses for it."
"You—uh," Barry says, and then grins at him, sudden and wide and shy, color high.
"Yeah, okay," Arthur says. "Fine. I'll come with you."
Barry stares at him. "Wait, really?"
"Sure. Made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Arthur says, and touches that grin, smooths his fingertips along it, and discovers that maybe he kind of means it.