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Barry hits the ground hard with a pained grunt, and can’t seem to muster the energy to push himself back up. Instead he rolls onto his back, watching his opponent stalk over to his prone form.
“You’re dead,” she tells him.
“I know,” he groans. “Can we take a break now?”
“Is that you asking because you need a calorie bar or because you know this is practice and I’m not actually going to kill you?”
“Both?”
Laurel shakes her head, but the corner of her mouth has twitched up in a show of humor, or perhaps compassion, because then she’s reaching forward to take him by the arms and haul him back to his feet. Barry gives her some approximation of a smile that’s probably more of a grimace before shuffling off the training mat in defeat. He’s too exhausted and sore to even think about using super speed right now. Meanwhile his League-appointed instructor seems to have barely broken a sweat.
That’s right, League-appointed. While going over the roster for new members some of his fellow founders had brought up questions about standards for acceptance. There are of course the issues of character that they all agreed were the most important, but also discussed was the matter of the physical. Good morals and ideals could only do so much out on the field if you couldn’t carry your own weight. So they’d decided a training regimen needed to be implemented to ensure the standards they wanted from all members, current and future.
Barry had been fine and good with all of that—at least until he’d seen his own name, “Flash”, on the initial list of those needing to complete the regimen.
“Nobody’s saying you’re not League material,” Kara had been one of the first to reassure him as they stood in line in the Watchtower commissary for lunch. “You taught me so much about being a hero, Barry. But I had to train with Alex before I was allowed to join the DEO, I had to learn how to fight without relying on my powers. Same with Clark. I mean, what happens if your speed gets cancelled out or you lose it again?”
Barry had shrugged, looking at the ground as he said, “I guess I wouldn’t be a member anymore. My speed’s what makes me the Flash, kind of hard to be a superhero without it.”
“Plenty of our friends do it every day,” she’d pointed out, to which he’d nodded in agreement. “And I know you can, too.”
“Thanks.” His smile lasted for about half a minute before he’d attempted to wheedle, “You’re sure I can’t just, I don’t know, train with Oliver on the side for a bit?”
But Kara had given a slow shake of the head and a drawn out, “Nooo way.”
“Why not?”
Before she’d been able to answer she’d been interrupted by the person behind them in line. “Because if you and Oliver train the way you go on missions you’d spend half of it bickering and the other half flirting,” Mari had explained. “I say that from personal experience.”
Barry had gaped, turning a bright red as he’d looked between the two women. Kara had shrugged while looking like she’d been trying not to laugh. Mari had simply raised an eyebrow as if daring him to question her.
Which he couldn’t, really. Still he’d muttered in an injured tone, “We still complete the missions.”
“Amazingly.” Kara had seemingly choked on air, but the grin on her face had been wiped right off as the women added, “Are you two going to leave enough food or should I come back in an hour?”
Barry and Kara had exchanged a glance. “You should probably go ahead,” he’d decided, stepping aside so Mari could pass.
She’d looked back at him and offered the simple advice of, “Just complete the training, Barry. It’ll only make you better at what you’re already doing.”
So he’d reported to the training room to meet with his instructor, the one and only Black Canary. That more than anything should have told him this was going to hurt.
“So how does this work?” He’d asked. “I just pretend you’re a metahuman criminal instead of a metahuman superhero?”
“Nope,” Laurel had told him. “The whole point of this is teaching you not to rely solely on your powers. So no Cry and no speed. Just you and me, hand-to-hand combat.”
“Ok. Is it like a best two out of three thing? Or do we do this until we need a break?”
“You’re not going to get a break out there,” she’d stated. “Your enemies won’t give it to you.”
“I know. Seriously though, where’d you get that one from, Oliver?”
“From my trainers, actually. Now stop stalling and step onto the mat, I need to check your stance.”
Laurel had done far more than that. She’d shown him how he should be positioning his feet in order to plant his weight, how to throw a proper punch—“Rotate from the hips, Barry, your fist only has so much power on its own.”—and how to dodge or block her own hits before proceeding to kick his ass anyway. Multiple times.
“This is going to take more than a single afternoon to learn,” she says to his retreating back. He tries not to let the despair show on his face as he eases down onto the bench sitting against the wall, but she must see something in his expression for hers softens slightly and she walks over to join him. “You’re already making a lot of progress.”
“How long did you train?” He asks, unwrapping one of his bars and taking a huge bite out of it.
“Well, I was in self-defense classes ever since I was little. Cop’s daughter.” They exchange a wry, knowing look. “Then once I decided to become the Black Canary I trained for months, first with Ted and then Nyssa. And I keep training.”
“So what you’re saying is I’ve got a long way to go?”
“I’m saying that training isn’t just something that you do to get out of the way and then you’re good to go. It’s a process. And you’re not the only one who needs to learn it.” She nods to the door, where he can just see Cisco through the window.
Apparently his session is over for today. He pushes up from the bench and makes his way out of the training room.
As he enters the hallway Cisco looks him up and down, glances at Laurel, then meets his eyes again. “I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”
Barry pats his friend on the shoulder in consolation. “Sorry, dude.”
OoO
Oliver looks up from his desk at the sound of their bedroom door opening. He sets aside the schematics for a new trick arrow design.
“So how’d it go?”
Barry either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t care to answer in words. He simply trudges over and flops onto their bed face-first.
Oliver presses his lips tightly together for a moment to suppress a smile, or worse, a laugh, finally managing to ask, “That bad?”
His partner turns his head in order to speak without being muffled. “I’m sore in places I didn’t know I could be sore.”
“Hm.” He gets up from his chair, instead walking over to perch on the edge of the bed. “I thought that was my job.”
“Shut up,” Barry groans, but is grinning broadly at him. He sobers slightly as he continues, “I’ve got another session tomorrow. If it weren’t for my speed-healing I don’t think I could do this.”
“Sure you could.”
The younger man heaves a sigh. “I know I joke around about it a lot, but people like you and Thea, and Laurel, you guys really put so much into this, so much more than just waking up with powers and abs. I know I’m complaining now but I really am glad I’m gonna learn to do that, too.”
“I was hoping you’d feel that way,” Oliver says, before taking the plunge. It’s not like Barry wouldn’t find out eventually. “Cause I’m the one who put you on that list.”
As predicted, his partner’s eyes go wide and he attempts to shoot up from the mattress. “Wha—ow!” Oliver winces with him in sympathy; clearly a sore muscle has been aggravated. But Barry recovers quickly enough to fix him with a betrayed look that cuts incredibly deep. “You don’t think I’m League material?”
“No. If I thought that, Barry, I wouldn’t have told you you could be a hero in the first place. You can and you have, I know that.”
Barry nods, but he still looks uncertain, which Oliver hates. “Then why, Ollie?”
“Because—c’mere,” he takes careful hold of the younger man, repositioning him so his head is laying in Oliver’s lap. “Because I care about you. Because while I know you’re capable I know that there are others out there who are just as if not more capable that you need to be able to hold your own against. Because I need to know you can take care of yourself when I can’t be there to take care of you.”
He’s started rubbing circles into the other’s back, which Barry clearly appreciates just by the low hum he emits. “You know I save your life on a regular basis, right?”
“I do. And I also know I can’t zip in at the speed of light to save you. You see my problem?”
“Mmmmmaybe?” Barry releases a low groan as his hands find a particular knot of tension, and Oliver switches from rubbing to kneading the muscles. “You could’ve just said you wanted me to get some training. Though maybe not from you; the others think we’d get distracted.”
“Can’t imagine why,” he remarks, even as his massaging produces another moan from Barry and Oliver has to lick his suddenly dry lips. “You’re right, I should’ve talked to you myself.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t completely screwed thing up with us, have I?” When no answer is forthcoming, he pauses. “Barry?”
“Huh?” His partner blinks heavily. “What’d you stop for?”
Oliver chuckles. “Sorry.”
“S’ok.” Barry gives a contented sigh as Oliver starts again. “Just as long as you do this after every training session, we’re good.”
“Sounds like a deal.”
“Great. You know,” Barry begins, pausing briefly for a yawn, “Laurel really is a great teacher. She knows her stuff, she knows how to motivate me, and she doesn’t shoot me in the back with arrows.”
Oliver thinks he feels his eye twitch. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Too late, deal’s a deal,” Barry informs him smugly.
“Yeah,” Oliver sighs, resigned as usual to the idea that Barry knows how to play him better than anyone else. “Yeah, it is.”