Work Text:
Eobard Thawne was an older brother.
He was eight, when Robern was born, and Robern didn’t need to remember to know Eobard had been unhappy about it. He had gone from the only child with all their parents’ lack of attention to having to share the little they did give. Forced to give up time for his studies to focus on Robern and Eobard had always been obsessed with time.
His first memories were of Eobard. They had shared a room for as long as Robern could remember. They had attended mandatory bonding sessions together, their parents pushing them together at every possible opportunity, and Robern thought maybe he hadn’t minded once. He’d been told he’d spent most of his time as a toddler following Eobard around on wobbly legs, mimicking him spending hours in the computer, constantly studying, Robern constantly seeking out Eobard over everyone else. It was Eobard’s hand he reached for first, Eobard the first person he thought of when he needed anything.
He wasn’t sure when he had given up on that. Maybe when he had started school and seen how the other children with siblings acted. Maybe on a rare visit from his father’s cousin and her wife and seen how they doted on their adopted twins (and how his parents disapproved) and known he would never have that. Maybe it had been slow, years of Robern being pushed to Eobard and his anger.
Yet his heart told him he should love his brother.
He had been born to love Eobard. Eobard was the oldest, Eobard was Heir to the Thawne Family. Eobard was the child they had wanted, intelligent, handsome, a child engineered to their exact specifications.
And he was studious. He liked history and science rather than business and politics, but science at least could be bearable. Science could still lead him to importance one day, could still make him a man worthy of carrying on the Thawne name.
Except to be that man he had other obligations. Thawne were meant to be powerful people with powerful connections, and Eobard had to continue that. He had to socialise, form bonds with others, but he had always been content with his nose buried in a book, ignoring everyone around him. He didn’t make friends, he didn’t like people, there were no signs he would at least one day do the bare minimum and meet an appropriate person to bring into such an important family, one he would be able to carry that legacy forward through.
Robern had heard a rumour of a girl once, though he didn’t know if it were true. Sometimes he thought his parents just missed the signs there was someone Eobard would be willing to marry, he just only existed on the pages of the books Eobard was obsessed with.
Sometimes he wondered if they refused to see it because it wasn’t what they had planned for him.
Eobard was an anti-social child. Robern’s purpose was to change that. He was to provide company, he was meant to teach Eobard to be sociable, to enjoy the company of others.
Robern could not be another failure.
Children were expensive, especially ones as specifically designed as Eobard. He was already a waste of money, a poor investment, a faulty product. And he refused to learn, refused to change, he just got more and more headstrong, more stubborn, more certain he was better than anyone else.
If there was one thing their father couldn’t deny, it was that Eobard was truly his son.
Robern was fourteen, when he was told he no longer had an older brother. That he was replacing Eobard as the Heir to the Thawnes, that Eobard was dead to them. Fourteen when he was expected to be everything Eobard wasn’t, when he had to be the perfect son they desired. When Robern knew their parents would never stand for another failure of a child, and he wouldn’t be.
But Robern Thawne had been born to love Eobard.
He couldn’t balance the two. His parents told him to push himself to Eobard, Eobard told him to leave him alone. And now everyone wanted him to leave Eobard alone, but Robern had spent the first fourteen years of his life pushed constantly to Eobard, whenever he needed anything he was sent to Eobard, he was always told to rely on Eobard, and the pressure built and built and built and Robern needed Eobard and Eobard refused to see him.
He was a Professor now, of chronodynamics. Eobard studied physics and history and Robern tried. He did, but he hadn’t needed the same level of intelligence as Eobard, his parents had discouraged anything to do with the sciences, especially after disowning Eobard. Robern was not to be anything like Eobard, he was to be sociable and focused on business and Robern tried. He did, he made efforts to make friends, he represented the Thawne Family as he was told to, and the thought of having to marry one day made him ill.
If he brought Eobard home, if he could fix things between Eobard and their father, Robern wouldn't have to be the one carrying on that legacy, the one that was never meant to be his.
He had tried. He hadn’t managed to get the grades he needed to be in Eobard’s class but he had managed to get the ones for the chemistry degree, for criminology, and if he kept trying with those, Eobard had tried those once-
Robern had knocked on his door once. Gone to the university in person instead of on the computer and knocked on Eobard’s office door, and Eobard hadn’t answered. Robern had invited Eobard to his graduation and Eobard hadn’t answered.
Robern had knocked on Eobard’s door after he joined the Science Police, their father furious with his decision, as furious as he had been once with Eobard, and Eobard had only looked down his nose and shooed Robern away.
He should report this. Anyone studying the Speed Force outside of the Flash Museum was breaking the law. Robern should file this, should take a team, should do something.
Eobard had been obsessed with the Flash since he was a child, sometimes even letting Robern hear the wishes he made, of the stories he would tell himself of the day the Flash would come and Eobard would get to go to the past with him and be his new Kid Flash.
Disowned or not, Eobard was a Thawne, and arresting him would be a scandal. Robern could pass this to someone else, could let someone else make this decision. If he ignored this someone else would find out eventually. These were Eobard’s actions, he had brought this on himself.
Once, Robern Thawne had been born to love his brother.
If Robern went alone, if Robern could just talk to him, if Eobard would just listen for once, then maybe he could stop Eobard before anyone-
Eobard Thawne was an only child.