Chapter 7
Observational notes, B. Allen:
It’s fascinating to know that my soulmates familiar was effected by the accelerator just because I was affected by it. Ironically it’s a cheetah, so it could already run pretty fast, but now it runs inside the lightning like I can. It’s lightning color isn’t the same as mine though, a paler shade. I wonder if my soulmate picked up on that?
I wonder if other people’s paired familiars also got toned down versions of what they can do? Can you imagine a familiar controlling the weather, on small scale, because their human got upset or was being bullied?
Speaking of doing things on behalf of their humans...Nor has been affecting other people for a while now, no crazy burst of dark matter needed...Did my soulmate dump all of his character points into charisma or something and that’s leaking over into Nor?
(Nor stop looking at me like that, these are my notes, and if I want to make a dumb reference that no one will get, then who will know? No one, that’s who, because they’re my notes)
—
The sofa did not swallow Barry up, letting him escape whatever questions Snart had for him, it made him sad, which made Chain sad, which made the cheetah go and huddle against Snart and that just made the criminal stare at him harder. Fantastic. Barry sped through eating another pizza.
Nor had to hop up next to him and hold his paw out, as if he was going to put it on Barry’s arm, which would have been dumb because at the speed Barry was eating he could have gotten hurt. Barry slowed to a stop and only then did Nor put his paw on Barry’s arm.
“Stop, breath, breath again, drink water, breath,” the wolf said. Barry saw Snart raise an eyebrow out of the corner of his eye, but he still did what his familiar said.
Once he had an arm wrapped around Nor but didn’t reach for the Pizza again he heard a soft, “ oh,” from Snart and he looked up properly at the other man.
“I knew you were nervous meeting me like this and loosing Nor’s game, kid, I didn’t think you’d be having a panic attack over it.” There was a frown on his face and his one hand was rubbing one of Chain’s ears in between it softly.
Barry just shrugged and turned to burry his face in Nor’s fur, something he hadn’t done since middle school really, but it would stop Snart from seeing his face since the man could actually his familiar.
“Are you nervous because I’m world class criminal? Wanted in several countries? Because I know what you did the other night? What do you have to be nervous about kid, I’m your soulmate,” Snart said, his tone playful, if a bit goading.
“He’s worried because he’s on the other side of the law, he’s a CSI, a nerd, and I quote, “just Barry Allen” though I’m not sure how that’s an argument for anything, but our school year weren’t the best and the things bully’s say to you can often stick in your head stronger than anything else,” Nor said, first looking down at Barry but then turning to look up at Snart. “He only sees himself as some scrawny kid no matter how many years pass...even when he gets superpowers and it literally saving people from burning buildings.”
Nor sat quietly as he watched Snart and Chain take that all in, head cocked to the side. He could feel Barry vibrating in pulses against him, his nerves getting the better of him. He leaned more against his human to force him to sit up just a bit more.
“Wait wait,” Chain said, “that streak of red and gold leaving the scene of the burning building a few days ago was you!”
Nor watched as Snart’s eyes went wide as he felt Barry sigh against him, no one had been very pleased with Barry that he kept going back in looking for ‘just one more person.’
“Red streak huh?” Snart said, “so that’s you going around saving everyone, Scarlet? First you’re playing cops and robbers with Clyde Mardon and then you go out and save people from a burning building?”
Snart smirked as he leaned forward, Chain shifting some so that he could put a paw on his humans leg. Snart reached out and rested his hand on the big cat’s head.
Nor watched the cat relax some, Barry was still not looking and it was starting to worry the wolf. He pulled his eyes away from the other pair and forced his nose under Barry’s chin and pushed his head up.
“Ok, ok, I get it. I’ll pay better attention, you dumb dog,” Barry said, only to get a cold, wet nose to the hollow of his throat. He hissed and pulled up to sit completely upright.
“None of that ‘DD’ nonsense...pup,” Nor said, sounding self satisfied.
A chitter and a groan pulled their attention back to the other pair and Barry saw that Chain looked thrilled and Snart looked ...affectionately disgruntled. Barry felt the ends of his ears heat up in mild embarrassment, no one was normally privy to Nor’s side of the conversation.
“You really do seem to be the day to my night, kid,” Snart said as his smirk stretched a bit wider.
Barry threw his hands in the air and let his head fall to the back of the sofa, “great, my own soulmate see’s me as a child. I wake up after a 9 month coma to my familiar calling me ‘pup’ out of the blue, and now I’ve gone right to ‘kid’ with his soul. I can’t win. One criminal will out me if I don’t play his game and now I’m going to be a constant disappointment to another one. How did this become my life?”
Barry buried his face in his hands again and missed the startled look on the human and familiar’s faces.
Snart looked to Nor, Chain and then Barry himself before getting up and moving to partially kneel in front of him. “Only way you can disappoint me is if you tell me you out right reject me as a soulmate. Otherwise we can do this anyway you want.”
He reached out and placed a hand on Barry’s head, slowly threading his fingers into his hair. “You want me to bring Clyde onto my crew and keep an eye on him, fine. Though I’m going to need a way to keep up with you both. Something that can cool you both off. He’s a hot head that’s too quick to anger and can’t think through the problem, if what I’ve heard is anything to go by. You on the other hand, you seem to get worked up and need to cool down.”
Barry’s head snapped up, forcing Snart’s hand to slide the the base of his skull, and he blinked owlishly at the man.
“Wait, you’d do that...for me? You don’t even know me. I’m just some nerd that got struck by lightning and...”
And Barry’s phone chose that moment to chime out a text alert from Cisco, the personalized tone the only real indication Barry or Nor needed to know it was most likely Flash business.
In a sudden burst of light Barry was over at his bag and holding his phone, eyes apparently not moving, but Nor knew that they were just moving that fast.
Barry groaned, “Clyde is at /another/ bank! I didn’t know Central even had this many different banks, branches yes, banks no.” He turned back around to Snart, “we’re going to have to finish this later, if you want to.”
“Believe me, he wants to,” Nor said, wolffish smirk on his long muzzle as he came over to Barry.
“Don’t provoke him,” Barry said softly, catching a hold of one of the wolfs ears and tweaking it gently between his fingers. He looked at Snart and then looked at the door, “I can’t let you stay here, I don’t know how long Clyde is going to try and drag this out.”
The pair watched Snart and Chain nod and stand. Chain coming up to Barry and getting his head under his free hand and getting Barry to pet him.
“It’s ok, Red. Len will get Clyde under control and then you can get a breather,” the big cat said.
“Stop forcing him to pet you, you big kitten,” Snart said, with what Barry thought was fondness in his voice, and gave a slight tug to the cat’s tail. Once Chain had moved to stand next to Snart, the man looked up at Barry again and said, “my familiar is right thought, Scarlet, I’ll find Clyde and get him o heel. It’ll be a bit tricky, sure, since I don’t have any powers, but that just means I have to up my game to do it. Be seeing you around.”
Barry waited until the door was closed before be was flashing down the fire escape and off to go “play” with Clyde...again. He was only half wishing that Snart was able to do something.
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Len wasn’t sure how he was going to keep up with someone as fast as his soulmate was or someone that controlled the weather. It was problematic all around. As he walked back to his bike he pondered it over. The both needed to cool off in different ways, but how?
“Too bad they aren’t like the armored truck you’ve been studying,” Chain quipped next to him and Len stopped short and stared at the cat.
“What?”
“To cool them off, it’s too bad you can actually him them with something cold. And you were muttering out loud. If you want to keep your soulmate’s ID on the down low, you should get that muttering checked out,” Chain chirped happily.
“First, stop sitting in the same room as Lisa, or at least never say ‘down low’ in reference to a person again to me. Second...actually hitting them with cold...”Len trailed off looking thoughtful and hurried to his bike.
“Len, no!”
“Len, yes! Probably...”
~~~
They made it back to the safe house in time to see the end of the news broadcast of the the fight between Barry and Clyde. They watch as Clyde throws actual lightning at their soulmate and Len progressively looses more of his own cool. How dare the younger Mardon try to hurt his soulmate!
Chain was pacing in front of the tv as the fight wound down and “the Flash” dashed Clyde away to where ever it was he took him at the end of their fights.
“I don’t like that, I don’t want to watch their fights anymore,” the big cat complained to his human.
Len soothed a hand over the cats head when he came with in reach, but kept his own eyes on the tv, even though the story had changed. His eyes intent, expression serious.
“Len?”
Len moved his hand to run under Chain’s head and scratch before he said, “we know Scarlet has some dealings with STAR labs...do you think they have anything that could stop him? Any type of counter measure that is.”
It took Chain a moment to answer beyond purring, but after a moment he said, “if they still have anyone that has brains...they might. But what kind of thing would they make to stop our soulmate? And how dare they make anything to Stop our soulmate!” Chain was growling at the end, actually growling. Offended on his soul’s behalf that someone would ever think to harm him.
Len ruffled his ears and turned the news off, standing.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m going to call in a favor and see what’s what in there and then get my hands on whatever it could be so that no one can hurt Scarlet...don’t give me that look. Fine, or Scarlet’s wolf, not that the mongrel deserves my attentions, and yes, I know he’s apart of my soul, but he tried to keep my soulmate from me,” Len said as he turned away from Chain and pulled a burner phone from a drawer.
“You old softy,” Chain chirped at him.
Len flipped the cat off and turned his attention to his call, “it’s me, I need to to tell me what weapon like items STAR labs might have that are vaguely new and then if you can get them out. ...Yes, I know what that will cost you, I know what it will cost me, too. Can you do it? Good. Text this number when you have more information and I’ll send you an address.”
Len tossed the burner on the nearest soft-ish surface before he turned back to Chain, “Done and done.”
“Easy-easy”
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After Barry was finished with his most recent run in (that’s still not funny Nor) with Clyde, and whisking him away to someplace neutral so that the police wouldn’t get him and he wouldn’t spill the beans on Barry’s identity, he’d run back to his apartment to find it blissfully the way he’d left it.
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