But I can picture Barry Allen as the sad, quiet doctor working tirelessly at Arkham Asylum – where Henry was sent because of the heinousness of Nora’s murder, so Barry sought the job just to see his dad. He’s too sweet and optimistic to work with such sadistic psychos, everyone says so… But then that’s why the patients at Arkham all appreciate Barry, in their way; he treats them like people, and they are oddly protective and possessive of him in turn.
They’re also the only people, outside of Joe and Iris and a handful of friends, who don’t treat Barry like he’s just as nuts as his patients. Reactions to Barry’s “conspiracy theories” about the “man in yellow” have made Barry feel so alone and so strange – so different from everyone else.
So of course when Leonard Snart – aka the “Joker”, a name the press gave the always super-serious and cold-blooded killer ironically – ends up sitting across from Barry in therapy, all smooth voice and pretty eyes and too clever questions that ought to be Barry’s to ask… Barry is easy prey. Snart charms Barry, convinces him to help Snart stage an escape – just for the patients who *deserve* to be out, like Snart and Henry, of course – and ultimately betrays Barry, using the opening Barry gives him to break out ALL of the biggest big bads locked up in Arkham.
Except…
It turns out Barry had charmed Snart right back, because after the escape, he can’t stop thinking about the kid. And when he finds out Barry was seriously hurt during the escape – struck by lightning while locked up in the metal room where Snart had put him (to keep him safe, as much as he’d sooner kill than admit it) Snart steals Barry away from the cheap facility housing him in his comatose state. Snart gets him the best treatment, watches over him day and night – thinks about all that was said and done in the process of getting Barry to fall in love with him – a killer and a compulsive liar, locked up in Arkham of all places.
He’d never let himself even consider falling for Barry in return. Being vulnerable is something the Joker doesn’t do – didn’t think he was capable of anymore, actually. But if Barry could love him despite everything he already knew about Leonard, having full access to all his files at Arkham…
And then Barry pulls through. Stronger than before. Stronger than *Snart*. And if Len hadn’t already been deep enough in love, Barry zipping through two walls and bodyslamming Len against a wall – not to get away, but with tears in his eyes, because Len had lied to him – certainly seals the deal.
So Barry isn’t quite like…. Barry, as he was before the lightning. But he’s himself in every important way. Just a little angrier sometimes. A lot less quiet. Never sad, so long as he and Len are on the same page. And he’s somehow even sweeter than he was before he could vibrate his hand right through anyone who makes him feel like not being sweet to them… At least he is to anyone smart enough not to so much as look sideways at Len.
He’s perfect, in other words. Perfect for the Joker. Who makes anyone who so much as looks sideways at Barry regret the day they were born…
The kings of Central City, Amanda Waller calls them.
TELL ME I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO’D LOVE TO READ THIS FIC!!!!
@nevcolleil I FEEL PERSONALLY ATTACKED, HOW DO YOU HIT ALL MY AU BUTTONS OHMERGERD I NEED IT (wait, does that make Mick Poison Ivy who decides to seduce the sweet thing?)
Yes, @a-redharlequin Mick would be a great Poison Ivy! He’s an insatiable pyromaniac self-medicating through gardening and murder. 😃 He loves hothouse flowers the best – fills his apartment with them so that being there is like being inside of a giant terrarium, and it’s Barry’s favorite place to be when he’s not with Len.
I don’t like to imagine Len mistreating Barry the way Joker mistreated Harley Quinn in most versions, so I don’t imagine Mick seducing Barry away. But maybe Mick has always loved Len, he’s and just never known how to talk about it. (Most days, Mick talks to no one other than his plants, and Len’s the only one who’s ever been okay with it. Seems to know what Mick’s saying with just a grunt or a look. It’s one of the reasons Mick loves him, actually.)
Mick figures if Len wanted him, he’d have done something about it by now. Len always goes after what he wants. (So long as he doesn’t want it so bad it scares him, which is what Mick makes him feel – not that Mick knows that.)
And maybe Len knows what Mick is thinking because Mick doesn’t actualky talk *that* quietly to the plants. He’s always talking about Len with Len right there like he can’t hear him, and it’s adorable. Len doesn’t know how to *deal* with that. Can’t begin to start – at least not until after Barry.
I imagine Mick loves Barry at first because Len loves Barry, and it doesn’t occur to this Mick to be jealous or bitter about that. Barry makes Len happy and that makes Mick happy.
Mick happy, by the by, means he glares and grunts less. He doesn’t talk to the plants about how he would kill each person in a given room – with them in it – in detail, if Len didn’t have rules against that sort of thing.
-at least until he realizes how funny Barry finds it when Mick threatens terrified minions via his plants. Barry’s laughter sounds like pretty little flames snapping at the air, Mick tells his plants, and when Barry hears him he starts to love Mick too.
He goes postal on anyone who lights a candle or a cigarette in Mick’s presence, knowing how Mick struggles not to overindulge in those urges again.
He sings to the plants.
*Barry sings to the plants.*
And that makes Mick love him for real, just for himself.
@nevcolleil Valentine’s day was last week and you come after my heart NOW? I don’t even have any flowers to give you!
foolish-identity 