Work Text:
Barry is looking through old security footage in a box labeled for a cold case when he finds something unexpected. He’s been having to use an old VHS player to watch these videos, the case is that cold, and when he pops in the 8th video he realizes something’s not right. This is security footage of someone’s home. That happens sometimes, evidence gets mislabeled, misplaced and then is basically lost. Sometimes evidence from one case can end up in a box for a completely unrelated case.
He’s about to shut it off, set it aside to figure out where it belongs later and resume his scrutiny of the proper tapes when…he sees a familiar figure enter the darkened house.
The figure has a mask on and is covered up properly, but Barry knows that build even that many years ago. More importantly, he knows that gait, that saunter, that…swagger. As well as those purposeful movements, nothing done without deliberate intent. He’s watching a, probably teenage or young adult Leonard Allen (né Snart) commit a B&E.
He should turn it off. His husband probably wouldn’t want this floating around.
But, he doesn’t turn it off. He keeps watching. Sees this younger Len walk through the house, taking what Barry thinks might be silver from the kitchen. He even tests the weight in his hand. Of course, Barry can’t help frowning a little as he watches this display.
He gasps a little bit, though, when this younger version of his husband enters the bedroom and Barry notices something for the first time. The portion of the screen taken up for the bedroom area clearly shows that someone is in the bed, but he’d been so focused on Len that he hadn’t thought to look.
The young Len noticed immediately and stopped short in the doorway, watching the person who was clearly awake squirm and try to shuffle around on the bed, clearly terrified by the masked man who had just entered their bedroom in the dead of night.
Barry watched as the Len in the video put his bag down near the doorway and put his hands out, palms forward. Presumably he was saying something, but there was no sound so Barry didn’t know what it was.
The person, a woman, seemed to calm a little bit. Enough to squirm less.
Len picked up his bag again and went over to the dresser, moved things around, opened things up, found the jewelry box and started to pick up jewelry from it, seeming to appraise it himself. Some things he put back, other things he dropped into his bag.
Barry frowned again. Apparently Len wasn’t concerned with having an audience? With terrifying women in their beds in the middle of the night? She had probably thought he was there to…Shaking his head, he cut that line of thought off right away. And at such an early age, too…Len, already so…Barry couldn’t think of an appropriate word at the moment.
The woman started to squirm and move around some more, reached for her nightstand. Barry saw the lamp wobble but no light flooded the room…she couldn’t really reach the nightstand properly and had banged her hand on the edge of it.
Len stopped what he was doing and turned around sharply, shoulders tense, but then relaxed the slightest fraction. Hesitated for a long few moments, before he set the bag down and went over to the side of the woman’s bed that the nightstand occupied and…picked up a glass of something, probably water, and literally helped the woman sit up and take several sips.
Barry then watched as the Len in the video set the glass back on the nightstand, adjusted the nightstand’s distance from the bed, then…adjusted the way the woman was laying in the bed, noticed how gentle Len was with her and the way he let her put her arms around his shoulders for a moment when he moved her whole body. Barry now understood this woman seemed weak, perhaps ill. She couldn’t reach her water on her own, and she couldn’t even move properly in her bed without help.
He then watched the younger version of his husband situate pillows and blankets to make it more difficult for the woman to fall from the bed now that she was closer to the edge. Then…he left.
Walked out of the room, left the bag of items he was planning to steal on the floor by the dresser, and just…left the room. Walked through the house and exited the way he’d entered.
Barry almost wanted to cry and kept watching for a little while longer. Just as he was about to turn the tape off police arrived. It was 15 minutes after Len had left. Had he called in a wellfare check? Had a neighbor seen some shadowy figure enter the home and become alarmed?
Barry stopped the tape and popped it out. He’d just have to take it home and ask Len himself…after he pointed out that this was proof positive Len had always been good.
His husband still didn’t like hearing it. But, that just made Barry say it more often.