Work Text:
The sound of the doorbell interrupts Len’s third repacking of the cooler. Barry answers it in a hurry. “Spare me from overplanning partners!” he blurts upon opening the door.
Outside, two Lisas erupt into giggles. “Let me guess,” says the Lisa who’s not wearing a blue-and-purple wig. “My darling brother is fretting over whether you packed everything for the picnic.”
Barry nods. “You know he is. Lise, you look really good.”
Lisa-X lifts her chin and straightens her shoulders. “I don’t need you to tell me that,” she proclaims. “I’m working on looking good for myself and not for the men around me.”
That explains the eclectic mix of clothes whose common factor seems to be novelty to an Earth-Xer. She’s wearing the blue-and-purple wig, gold-tipped fake eyelashes and sparkly lip gloss, a gold sequined spaghetti-strap top, and low-cut jeans with rhinestone designs on the pockets. Beside her, Lisa is in her usual black-and-gold attire and beaming with pride.
“But thank you,” Lisa-X adds after a pause. She ducks her head. Barry can’t leave her looking so bashful.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he assures her. “I just genuinely want you to know that you expressing yourself like this is welcome and…it’s just great to see, because I know you haven’t been able to since you were small.”
Lisa-X bites her lip and starts playing with her wig. Lisa kisses her cheek and coos, “He’s right, beautiful. You do look good when you’re happy.”
Leo comes to the door first, cooler clutched in his hands. “Help, I stole it from him and now he’s cross with me!” he blurts, thrusting the cooler at Barry. Not two seconds later, Len appears, scowling. (He doesn’t mind being led on a chase through the house nearly as much as he’s pretending—Barry can see it in his eyes.)
“You absolute bastard, give me my…oh, hello, Lisas.” He stops and glances between the two of them. “You both look perfect…and I see you’ve been enjoying this world’s fashion freedom, Lise?”
Lisa-X nods and goes from twirling to flipping her wig. “Everything is so colorful here,” she says delightedly. “And I don’t have to dress for anyone but me.”
Leo holds out his arms to her. “You look amazing.”
While they hug, Barry glances back into the hallway. Sure enough, Ray is on his way to the door. He waves upon seeing Barry looking for him. “Oven is off, windows are shut, back door is locked,” he reports. It’s become standard when they leave the house to reassure everyone that all is as it should be. “Ready to go?”
“Did someone call for a ride?” With impeccable timing, two Ciscos appear on the porch. Cisco-X is clutching a half-eaten pack of Red Vines and holding his doppelganger’s hand. His eyes widen when he sees Lisa-X.
“You look better.”
She draws her shoulders back and flips her hair, just as she did when Barry complimented her. It’s a defense mechanism that still looks artificial, but Barry’s not going to tell her that. The fact that she’s trying says a lot. “I like this world,” she says proudly.
“It’s got work of its own to do,” Leo cautions. With a soft, unspeakably fond look, he adds, “But…I’m glad you feel safe here.”
Barry clears his throat quietly and holds up the cooler. “We should probably go find a place to picnic?” he suggests. “It will be a lot more comfortable to talk there.” He’s not sure the prompting will actually work—they’re a big neurodiverse group, and that means knowing they should do something logical doesn’t mean they will. Hopefully saying so aloud will motivate the more focused ones, like Len or Ray, to nudge the less focused of them along.
“You’re absolutely right!” Cisco perks up and holds out his hand, ready to make a breach. “Where to? Down by the waterfront?”
Lisa-X nods delightedly. “That sounds lovely!”
Cisco opens a breach. Then, with a playful look at Barry, he makes a sweeping gesture with his free arm. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends!”
In ones and twos, they step through the breach and come out on the waterfront. The breach opens up into a quiet corner of the park on the waterfront. One or two people might see them, but Barry suspects they think it’s just another day in Central City.
They let the Lisas pick the ideal spot. They find an open, grassy space not far from the water, but also where there’s no sand to disturb their picnic. While Ray spreads out a picnic blanket, Lisa-X spreads out her arms and turns a delighted circle. “The sky is so clear!” she gasps.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Cisco-X bounces slightly. The Red Vine in his hand wobbles with his movements. Cisco watches him with absolute glee at his excitement.
Watching all of them, Barry is suddenly, acutely aware that he and Ray are the only ones whose doppelgangers aren’t with them. He knows about Ray-X, or at least about the end of his life; how Cisco-X breached him to Earth-1 when he was injured, how he transferred his powers to Ray and entrusted him with a mission, and how he died within minutes of meeting his doppelganger. (Ray has never mentioned how that made him feel, but seeing himself die had to be a harrowing experience.) He doesn’t know anything about Barry-X. He’s been too scared to ask, and now is no different.
Ray must feel his gaze, because he glances over at him and nods. “I know,” he murmurs. “I see it too.”
Barry ponders, but as it turns out, he doesn’t have to ponder long. With the picnic blanket set out, Lisa and Cisco settle onto it and start snuggling. Cisco-X stares at them in bashful surprise.
“It shouldn’t still startle me to see the two of you cuddle.” He rubs the toe of his shoe back and forth in the grass. “But it kinda still does…like it was a surprise to see you with the three of them.” This is addressed, out of nowhere, to Barry. He tilts his head, confused.
“Yeah, I guess it would be odd,” Cisco says. He seems to not have heard the comment about Barry, or at least to have as little idea of the significance as Barry does. “Seeing me snuggle a woman you literally never met on your Earth, until recently.”
Cisco-X nods and chews his lip. “Well, yeah, but also…I guess part of me had thought couples were consistent across universes? Like, that was a silly thought, but…it’s weird not to see you with Barry.”
Barry and Cisco make an identical “eep!” noise. Well, that explains the mystery of Barry-X, at least. Barry thinks back to Leo’s comment about him and Cisco ‘making it’—that makes a lot more sense now. (And knowing that, in another world, he gets to be with his cute best friend? Well, that’s not so bad.)
“Nope, nope,” Cisco mumbles, shaking his head so that his hair falls across his face. “Not together. Thought about it! Briefly, maybe, but no. No, that got complicated.”
Cisco-X rocks idly back and forth. “Well, I guess at least I know we both thought about it? But, yeah, alternate Earths, makes sense we would end up taking alternate romantic paths.”
“And both such good ones,” Leo praises. He reaches into the cooler and produces a variety of soda bottles, sandwiches, fresh fruit, and potato chips. He closes the lid to keep their dessert cool. (Barry’s stomach rumbles just thinking about it.) “Though of course I’m biased.”
Lisa-X speaks up, albeit somewhat hesitantly. Barry can only assume she’s training herself to talk over men, after a lifetime of not being allowed. “I am also intrigued by possible pairings, especially now, on this Earth.”
Lisa nudges her shoulder. “Oh, tell them! Go on, they’ll think it’s cute.”
Lisa-X straightens her shoulders and pronounces, “I met a pretty woman at the coffee shop. Iris. She even had a pretty name.” This is said with the cutest lovesick sigh. It nonetheless makes Barry choke on a sip of soda.
“You met and flirted with Iris?” he gasps around his coughing.
Lisa-X tilts her head. “Is she your friend? Am I not supposed to talk to her?”
A particularly vigorous thump from Len clears away Barry’s cough. He draws in a deep breath and shakes his head. “Friend, yes. Best friend since we were young. And no, no, I wouldn’t keep you away from her. It just surprised me.”
“She introduced me to the Flash,” Lisa-X sighs. There are various levels of laughter, ranging from Len’s hastily-stifled snort to Cisco’s outright guffawing.
“No, Lise, I think I did that.” Leo smirks. Lisa-X narrows her eyes at him.
“No, I mean the drink. It’s sweet and strong and I like it.”
“So’s he.” Leo affects the dreamiest teasing tone. Barry bites his lip against any embarrassed noises but can nonetheless feel his cheeks turning bright red.
Ray, noticing Barry’s blush, tactfully turns the discussion to other things—namely, making sure everyone has a sandwich they like. For awhile, there are only contented chewing sounds, punctuated by happy hums when people take a particularly good bite. To amuse everyone else, Cisco-X and Ray put on a light show, consisting of one of Ray’s photon beams redirected through several small breaches until it forms the outline of a cat.
“We’d take requests back at the base,” Cisco-X pronounces happily. “And then the real fun was that when the energy is done with, it has to go somewhere, so I’d just breach it to strike some random Nazi building and cause chaos. From what we heard, they never figured out what was happening.”
The Lisas both laugh delightedly. Lisa-X gasps, “I may have been in one of those buildings. Oh, it was chaos. It took an hour for them to relax their guard—but everyone was on the outside of the building. I was able to move around pretty much as I pleased.”
Ray and Cisco-X grin. “I’d always wondered what kind of chaos it caused,” Cisco-X chirps delightedly. “That’s good to hear.”
With a flick of Cisco-X’s fingers, the cat disappears. So too does Ray’s photon energy. “Breached it to a dead Earth,” Cisco-X explains. He snuggles Cisco. “I just learned that trick not too long ago.”
Lisa-X makes a soft, delighted sound at seeing the Ciscos snuggle. “We’re so lucky to have sweet doppelgangers. Imagine coming here and having your doppelganger be…”
“A ruthless criminal?” Len drawls. His eyes flick to Leo as though he’s searching for something. Barry winces on Leo’s behalf. He’s been poked for reactions like that, back when Len was still feeling him out; it’s not fun.
Thankfully, Leo is used to it by now. “Oh, I don’t know. Even in that case, it’s not the end of the world.”
Barry’s heart swells. They’re so at ease with each other, compared to how they were. Especially seeing them with the Lisas and the Ciscos—as happy and at peace as two pairs of doppelgangers with significantly less friction—warms Barry’s heart. “I love you both,” he says softly.
Even Cisco-X’s quiet, playful, “Yep, still weird,” can’t dampen the affectionate moment.