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Len knew something was wrong when the mission went off without a hitch. Ray followed his lead perfectly, there were no mistakes, and they accomplished their objectives. Good, he thought.
But then it kept happening.
Once Len started paying attention he couldn't unsee it; something was off with Ray. He was quieter than usual, no smiles, no jokes, and the mood aboard the ship had taken on a sombre tone, Stein was often away in his lab and the rest of the crew had a tendency to angst at the slightest provocation. He hadn't realised how much they'd been relying on Ray to lighten the mood. Mick was a steady presence by his side and Len was grateful for that but he had to admit the team dynamic wasn't quite the same without Ray being....Ray.
They needed to do something.
*
He wasn't the only one to have noticed.
"Have any of you guys noticed anything strange about Palmer recently?" Sarah said, throwing a few chips into the pile. They were sitting around one of the tables in the eating hall playing poker.
"The guy's always strange," Mick said.
"Yeah, but stranger than normal."
"He has been quiet lately," Len said throwing a few more chips in.
"Hmmm, maybe someone should go talk to him." Rip paused, looked down at the cards in his hand and then threw them on the table. "I fold."
"You volunteering for a heart to heart with Palmer, Captain?" Mick grinned.
"Oh....I...umm...well, maybe one of you..." Rip looked around at them hopefully. Sarah laughed, and Len knew she was going to decline.
"I'll do it," he said.
"You?" Rip raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth as if to say more, but Len shot him a look. "Very well, you...can speak to Dr Palmer about his emotional wellbeing?"
"It'll be fun," Len smirked.
Mick snorted. "Sure it will. I fold."
"Me too," Sarah said, throwing down her cards.
Len pulled the pile of chips towards him and Mick peered over at Len's cards.
"You were bluffing this whole time?" he asked.
Len shrugged. "What can I say, I'm good at it."
*
Right. So now it was his job to talk to Ray and find out what was wrong. Len knew his limitations, he wasn't a therapist. But when he thought about it he was actually one of the more stable choices aboard the Waverider and my, wasn't that a scary thought.
A teenager, two warriors that experience uncontrollable rage, an old man who drugged and roofied said teenager, a pyromaniac, and a distraught widowed time traveller. What a group. He might have a shitload of daddy issues but considering that Dad was actually dead now...not so relevant.
Even so, he didn't think he'd have much success if he just tried to sit down with Palmer and get the guy to open up, what he needed was an activity they could do together where they could also talk occasionally. Hopefully Ray would open up and Len would be able to figure out what was going on.
He'd never really thought about it before but the crew had sort of fallen into friendship groups leaving Palmer the odd one out. He didn't really hang out with the poker group, Stein and Jax were working more closely than ever and actually getting along....Kendra liked Sarah and they were helping each other....but Palmer....he mostly stuck to improving his suit or reading in his room. What activity could they do together?
He decided to take a page out of Sarah's book.
*
"Sparring? I don't need to spar with you," Ray said, and turned back to his book.
"I know you have the suit which gives you a leg up on the competition, but you don't always have it with you. You should learn."
Ray shook his head. "I'm fine."
Len rolled his eyes, and pulled out the trump card. "Rip said you should, he asked me to talk to you." Well, it was partially true and Ray was the sort of boy scout who liked to follow the Captain's orders.
Ray sighed and put down his book. He frowned up at Len from his bed. "Fine, when?"
"How about now?"
"I'm busy."
"Reading...." Len peered at the cover. "A history of technological advancements in the 20th century. Clearly very time sensitive."
"Alright," Ray huffed and put down the book, moving to stand up. "Where are we going?"
"The cargo bay," Len smirked. "Somewhere we won't be disturbed."
*
Len's fist collided with Ray's face. The guy stumbled back, lost his footing and hit the floor with a thump, bashing his ankle on the way down.
"Ow." Ray rubbed his leg.
"Like I said Palmer, you really do need to get better at one on one."
Ray opened his mouth but then he closed it again suddenly, avoiding Len's eyes as he slowly got to his feet. "I know."
Suddenly Len was tired of this pussyfooting around. Screw subtly. He did like planning heists carefully and sneaking around it was true, but sometimes you just wanted to take the direct approach, put on a crazy costume and run around like a comic book villain.
"So...what the fuck is up with you Palmer?" Len said.
"Huh?"
"You know what I'm talking about," he said. "You've been different lately. Three months ago you would have bounced to your feet after taking a hit like that, now it's just a serious 'I know'," Len imitated Ray's tone.
Ray didn't try to deny it. "What does it even matter? The team is doing better, we're more successful now, I don't see what the problem is."
"Yeah, the key word here Palmer is team. As in, multiple people, working together. That means we help each other out, and we notice when something is wrong."
"It's nothing," Ray said. Len just stood there, folded arms and gave him a look. He saw Ray's eyes flicker to the door behind him, and then back at him but if he wanted to escape this conversation he'd have to go through Len first.
"Fine. It's just, I'm obviously not very good at this superheroing thing," Ray mumbled.
"What?"
"I mean, Rip says we're all forgotten in the future, right? For the rest of you, it's either because you don't try or you have legitimate issues. Stein and Jax struggle because they don't get along, you and Mick just don't really try the heroing, Sarah was dead, Kendra and Carter have the whole, 1000s of years old, reincarnation stuff going on. But me...I try. Or, well I did. All the time," Ray waved his hands around in the air, pacing. "It still doesn't do any good." he locked eyes with Len. "I have no excuses, I'm smart, rich, had an easy childhood. All of you, all of you, have actual reasons but Atom's weakness is...well, it's me," he shrugged. "So yeah, I've tried to change. Tone things down a bit. When you try, you're all a lot more successful at this than me."
Len just stood there watching Ray carefully.
"So now you know, are we done with this? Can I go now?" he asked, looking at the door.
"No," Len said.
"Huh?
"Give me a minute to think," he said, holding up a hand.
Well, that certainly explained a lot and the thing was, he wasn't quite wrong. It was true after all, things had been going a lot more successfully than usual and the Len from a year ago would have just nodded and let Ray walk out the door, but something pulled in his gut at the thought. Ray looked....defeated. He wasn't supposed to look defeated.
"I think you're wrong," Len said.
"But-,"
"I mean, you're right about some of it, but the conclusion is wrong."
"What do you mean?" Ray frowned.
"I mean, yes, you've made a few mistakes. But that doesn't mean that Atom's weakness is you."
Ray looked unimpressed. "So what it is then?"
"It's you...alone. Trying to change the world alone. You lost your fiancée, lost Felicity, and I bet if you'd carried on heroing you would have ended up solo. Yeah, I know the Arrow has his own crew and you tag along sometimes but you weren't really part of that team."
"So, you think if I'm part of this team...I'll magically get better?" Ray rolled his eyes.
"No. I think you'll get better because when you fuck up we'll be there to cover you and you're a smart guy Ray, you pick stuff up quick, but you actually have to make mistakes to learn from them."
"I make more mistakes than the rest of you put together."
"So what? You bring something to the team that none of us do, you said it yourself. Not many of us actually tried to be heroes without Rip forcing us. You did, you've always wanted to help people. That's not nothing, it counts a lot more than you might think." Len stepped closer to Ray. "You're really not that different from the rest of us. We all have issues, and obviously we were unsuccessful dealing with them ourselves, history forgot us. You tend towards over eagerness sure, but I tend towards disinterest. For us...the team, to balance you need to be yourself. You need to push the rest of us to try and do good, even when it's not the logical choice, and in return we'll push you when you need to make the hard choices." They were standing barely an arm's length apart, still sweaty from the workout and Ray looked a little surprised at Len's speech.
"I didn't know you felt that way." Their eyes met and Len felt nervous, uncertain in way he hadn't in years. He didn't let it show though.
"All we can do is try and be better than before. Squashing part of yourself, I'm pretty sure that's not better."
"I think I know what you mean."
"So, you'll go back to normal then? It's not just me, the rest of the team were starting to worry."
"Yeah," Ray, scratched the back of his neck. "To be honest, it has been a little hard being so serious and focused all of the time. I don't know how you guys do it," he cracked a crooked smile and wow, Len realised how long it had been since he'd seen that smile.
"I'm just naturally cool, it's a gift." They were very close, and Len couldn't stop his eyes flicking down to Ray's lips briefly.
"I..." Ray stepped closer. "I apologise if I'm reading this wrong," and he leaned down and they were kissing. Len sighed and relaxed into the kiss. He felt Ray's arms come up around his waist and warmth spread through him wherever they touched. It had been a long time since someone had touched him so tenderly, it was easy to forget how important human contact was, how much you really needed it. Len raised a hand and rested it on Ray's cheek, guiding them in the kiss. Whenever one of them tried to pull away so they could talk, the other would gently pull them back in. A few minutes lately they finally managed to separate.
Ray had a wide grin on his face and Len knew his own was probably doing something equally moronic without his permission.
"Wow, I mean...wow."
Their eyes met heatedly, and Ray's eyes flicked to the door for the third time.
"So...do you want to go-,"
"We still have sparring to do," Len said. Ray's face drooped slightly. "Your hand to hand could still use some work, we'll be wrestling together, sweaty from exercise..." Ray perked up at Len's heated expression. "After that....who knows."
"Alright, yeah," Ray said, and put up his hands. "Let's go another round."
*
"I can't believe you don't know how to play poker," Sarah said.
"Oh, well, I know the basic rules but I never really memorised all of the terms and the orders, flush, full house, three of kind...." Ray carried on talking about how he didn't really gamble much.
Sarah shot Len a look, but he just shrugged as Rip dealt out the cards. They were a bit squashed at the table now with five of them, so Len was pressed shoulder to shoulder with Ray, which was an added bonus.
"So Len...." Ray said in a hushed tone to him.
"Yes, I'll help you figure it out what to do," Len said.
"Thank you," Ray smiled. "Okay, so what do we do now?" he said to the rest of the group. "Betting? Or is it one of those five card things, I don't know...."
Mick interrupted Ray and started explaining what they were playing. Len looked over at Sarah and saw her eyes flicking curiously between him and Ray, he knew that they were an unlikely pairing, and on paper it seemed likely they wouldn't work out. But he was aboard a time travelling space ship, fighting immortal super villains, sitting around playing cards with friends. All of those things would have seemed equally unlikely if you had asked Len a year ago. So him and Ray, unlikely? Not even the top ten.
*
Len knew everything really was right again when the next mission went terribly.
"Ahhh, sorry, sorry!" Ray yelled. "I shouldn't have touched it!" The machine behind them started to hum and whir and Len sprinted away from the goddamn thing as fast as he could, Ray by his side. He looked over at Ray as they ran.
"Sorry," Ray mouthed at him helplessly.
Len just grinned back.