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Len hates these events.
It might be directly proportionate to his passionate, unyielding hatred for his father; or maybe he just hates sitting away from everyone while his father goes and laughs with the other cops and their pretty Stepford wives. Len busies himself by counting the beer cans that pass through his father’s hands – he knows that the old bastard won’t let himself get smashed in front of his colleagues, but it never hurts to count exactly how many gulps of that cheap piss are they away from getting a few more cracked ribs.
Len tries not to let his frustrated, helpless rage show too much. That’s the deal – he plays nice and his father maybe won’t get mad enough to need a physical outlet. Not like anyone here expects Len to be nice, per se: he can see the glances people occasionally shoot him, usually when talking to his father – look, the rotten apple of the Snart family, Lewis’ troublemaker of a son. If they only knew that the rotten apple fell off a pretty fucked up tree… but they won’t know. Lewis Snart might not be the kindest man, but he’s not stupid: he knows not to hit in the face, not when he’s getting ready to parade his kids around a cop barbeque party, to play the role of a caring father. Len wouldn’t ever agree to come if it weren’t for Lisa. Story of his life, really.
At least the food doesn’t suck, unlike listening to a pack of middle-aged cops gush about steak cuts and grill temperatures. Len weaves through the crowd to get a burger for both Lisa and himself and tries not to get stuck in a mindless conversation. Why people keep asking him about school is beyond him: his father expresses his parental martyrdom through sighing about Len’s grades often enough, especially when his son is within earshot. One would actually think he cared: it makes Len gag, and he carries the plate with two burgers away from all the people, sitting down on porch steps while he scans the crowd for his sister’s curly head.
Lisa’s usually right in the middle of a group of cop kids who have been roped to attending this party as well. She’s a natural leader, his sister, and Len would be proud if he didn’t know that she was taking on a role, just like him. He’s happy to see her enjoy herself, but it seems to him like he’s the only one who sees the permanent shadow in her eyes. Cops his ass – they should notice, they should know, they should do something, and it makes his blood boil, watching them talk to Lisa and gush over how cute her yellow dress is, like they don’t even suspect that the sleeves go all the way down to her elbows just to hide the bruises around her arms.
He doesn’t see Lisa now, though, and it makes him twitchy, irritable as he keeps looking around. Where did she go? The other kids, ranging from nine to twelve, have started some sort of a pirate game in the mini-playground in the backyard, if the yelled ‘arrrr’s are anything to go by: Len can’t imagine why Lisa would want to miss this.
And then she’s right next to him, and she’s not alone: she’s holding an unknown boy’s hand, but it looks more like she’s holding him in place, because from his stance, it seems he would like to be anywhere else but here.
Len can sympathize.
“Lenny, this is Barry. Barry, Lenny, my brother,” Lisa makes the introductions, waving between them with her free hand.
“Hello, Barry,” Len says dutifully, more for Lisa’s benefit than the kid’s – but there’s something about the boy that makes Len want to… he doesn’t even know. Hug him? That would be weird… but the urge is there, a little bit. Maybe it’s because the skinny boy reminds him of Lisa – there’s that same shadow in his hazel eyes when he finally, finally looks up from the ground and offers Len his tiny hand, completely serious.
“Hello. I’m Barry Allen,” he says and Len accepts the kid version of a firm handshake. In any other case, he would wonder if the boy was a bit slow, introducing himself after Lisa has already done that, but something about the way Barry speaks makes Len believe that his surname is, for some reason, important to the kid.
“Duly noted,” he smirks, and Lisa lets go of Barry’s hand, nudges him in the ribs.
“His name is actually ‘Leonard’,” she stage-whispers to the kid, and Len raises his eyebrow before she turns to him with a grin:
“Barry said his full name was weird. So I’m trying to make him feel better by showing him you, because Leonard’s so much worse than-“
“Don’t say it,” Barry mumbles, and suddenly Leonard’s curious. Barry glances up at him and blushes – usually, Len finds blushing stupid, just like embarrassment in general, but on this kid, the color’s oddly fitting.
“As a Leonard, I don’t feel like I’m in any position to judge,” he tries to encourage the boy. He usually doesn’t talk to people at these parties, but something tells him this boy needs a little coaxing to talk, that it might do him good if someone pays attention. God (and Len) knows that no attention can be expected from the adults here.
“It’s Bartholomew,” the boy relents, and Leonard smiles.
“Could be worse.”
He sees Lisa eye the plate with the two burgers, sitting next to him on the porch step; he waited for her, wanting to eat together, but he sees her eyes flicker to the plate, to Barry, and then to him, and he understands.
“Wanna eat with us, kid?” he asks as he picks up the plate, holds it to them. Barry blinks slowly, first at the buns, then up at Len, shy, questioning.
“But you only have two,” he argues.
“I already ate,” Len lies with practiced smoothness. He’s not sure he’s fooling Lisa, but she won’t say anything: it was her unspoken idea to feed Barry, and Len doesn’t mind. “I just got two burgers because Lisa here has such a big mouth.”
He winks at his sister, who huffs and kicks him in the shin, just lightly, before she takes the burgers and holds one out to Barry. Not the most sanitary of practices, but Len decides not to comment when Barry accepts the burger, meat juice dripping down his forearm.
“Sit down, both of you… I’ll go get you some paper towels,” he sighs – if Lisa manages to drip burger oil over her dress, their father will freak out at her for sure, and Len would rather try to save the dress before he has to save his sister, again.
The crowd around the tables has thinned out somewhat as people mostly have their food on their plates; Len grabs a couple of paper towels as quickly as he can, but someone mentions Barry’s name and suddenly, Len is purposefully lingering around the condiments, all ears.
After a couple of minutes, the people who were talking about Barry are gone, and Len needs fresh paper towels, since the previous ones got all torn up from the way he was twisting them as he listened to snippets of Barry’s story. Mother murdered five weeks ago, father imprisoned for the deed, no relatives, just Joe West, a family friend. That explains why Len hasn’t seen Barry before – and also why he’s feeling so much sympathy for the boy. Len could write volumes, disturbing and lengthy volumes, about asshole fathers and no mothers.
He grabs three cans of soda on his way back: Lisa and Barry are almost done with the burgers by the time he plops down on the stair below them, leaning a bit against Lisa’s legs and ignoring the way she grumbles, nudges him in the kidney with her foot and reaches for a soda without so much as a thank you.
“You’re welcome,” he snorts and offers soda to Barry as well. He doesn’t smile – encouraging, sympathetic smiles are always so fake, and Len’s so beyond that. But their eyes meet for a second and Len thinks he sees acknowledgement in the kid’s look. They’ve both been dealt shitty cards in life, and maybe it’s a little like a secret club, because they don’t have to talk about it to feel like they belong, in a slightly broken, vaguely comforting way.
“I’m taking Lisa to the pool tomorrow,” Len blurts, before he can talk himself out of it. “You wanna come?”
Barry blinks a little bit, and it seems like he’s deciding whether he can politely refuse without Len getting mad – but in the end, he chews on his bottom lip and shrugs, looking like he kind of maybe really wants to go but doesn’t want to get his hopes up too much.
“I’ll have to ask Joe if I can.”
That’s reasonable, and Len watches the boy climb down the stairs, walk towards the throng of people, searching for his guardian.
“I like him,” Lisa sighs contently, and grins at Len, “he’s a total dork. Just like you. Loves comic books, too.”
“I’m not a dork, you’re a dork,” he huffs, but his mouth curls into a lopsided grin. A little shoe digs into his spine in vengeance.
“I’m a queen, and you’re an asshole.”
“Careful, or Barry won’t like you and your dirty mouth,” Len sniggers – that gets an indignant shriek out of her and they wrestle a little bit on the stairs, Len making sure their soda doesn’t spill over. Lisa is just about to try and elbow him in the throat when Barry walks over, hands in his pockets and looking like someone just killed a puppy in front of him.
Bad mental choice of words, Len thinks as he remembers what he heard about Barry’s mother.
“Joe says I can’t go with you,” he mumbles, embarrassed, and Len feels a surge of anger towards West, because come on, Len’s been taking care of Lisa forever and he never let her drown or get hurt, he could absolutely take care of Barry too – but it’s not like it surprises him all that much. After all, the cops, West included, believe that Len’s evil incarnate.
“Maybe when you’re older, then.” Len doesn’t think it’ll happen, but Barry looks so sad that he can’t deny the kid a bit of a false hope.
Barry’s face lights up a bit as he nods, “It’s a promise. When I’m older.”
He turns and runs back to West, and Len wonders if the kid was told never to even talk to them: for Lisa’s sake, he hopes that she was excluded from the Snart ban.
As it turns out the next week, she probably was, or maybe Barry’s not so good at accepting the rules, because she keeps babbling about the kid and what they did together whenever their father’s not home and they’re free to talk. Len smiles and nods and inquires, and thanks whatever gods there might be that Lisa has finally found a friend she’s not beating up all the time.
Seven months later, when he’s walking out into the pouring rain with nothing but a hastily packed backpack over his non-dislocated shoulder, leaving a crying Lisa and a stabbed father behind, his eyes slide down the road to the other end of the street, where Joe West lives. The sound of police sirens doesn’t allow him to linger; he turns his back to all of it and wishes that the two of them, Lisa and Barry, will take care of each other.