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superman86to99 · 4 years

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Adventures of Superman #505 (October 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMAN! The Reign is over, and Superman does what we’d all do after being dead for several weeks and coming back to life: no, not visiting your parents, making out with Lois Lane.

Or more than making out, since the next page starts with a caption that says “Later...” and lets us know that they both had to take a shower. (NOTE: Check Don Sparrow’s section below for artist Tom Grummett’s definitive take on what happened in that scene.)

Their post-resurrection bliss comes to a stop when they remember a little detail: Clark Kent is still presumed dead. How are they gonna explain his return without making the extremely smart residents of Metropolis suspect that Superman and the guy who looks like Superman but with glasses are actually the same person? Superman’s mind immediately goes into “wacky bullshit excuse” mode and he starts spitballing ideas, like claiming Clark lost his memory, or was carried by underwater currents, or was abducted by aliens. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that last one would work, since there have been THREE major alien invasions in the past few years, but Lois thinks no one would be dumb enough to fall for that sort of thing. Really, Lois? No one?

At this point, Superman picks up some supervillain activity with his super hearing, so he gets dressed and goes there (though it would have been pretty intimidating for the criminals if she’d shown up in that shower rug). A bank uptown has been taken over by Loophole, a S.T.A.R. Labs accountant who stole a gizmo that allows him to phase through walls. When Superman shows up to arrest him and his henchmen (are they all villainous accountants?), Loophole literally puts his first through Superman’s chest, instantly killing him. RIP Superman, again.

Nah, Supes just swats Loophole away and breaks the gizmo, causing him to get his crotch area stuck inside a vault door. Now he has to change his supervillain name to “DickVault”.

(I freaking love Maggie Sawyer, btw.)

After that, Superman goes to one of the areas trashed by his fight with Doomsday and helps clean up the junk that’s still laying around there. It’s then that he finally reunites with his best friend and most valued ally: Bibbo Bibbowski. (Jimmy Olsen’s there, too, unfortunately.)

Bibbo also introduces Superman to the dog he named in honor of his home planet, Krypto -- and it’s Krypto who provides the most significant moment in this issue. The little mutt starts barking at some debris from a destroyed building, leading Superman to examine it with his X-Ray vision and find some kids underneath.

Turns out the kids had been trapped there since the Doomsday fight, leading some random passerby (fine, Jimmy) to wonder if Clark could be stuck in a similar situation. Superman and Lois look at each other... giving Superman an idea and providing the premise for next week’s issue.

Character-Watch:

First appearance of Loophole (real name Deke Dickinson, C.P.A.), who would become a running joke in Karl Kesel’s Superman and Superboy comics. While his phasing powers are tech based, he also has the metahuman ability to somehow convince attractive women to be his girlfriends/henchwomen despite being a balding little dweeb. In this issue he’s dating a blonde named Sheila (who wears a mask, so maybe she’s actually hideous), but I’m pretty sure he had other girlfriends in future issues.

Plotline-Watch:

As I said... holy shit, five years ago: no one draws Supes coming back to Lois after an extended absence like Tom Grummett. This scene is almost a remake of the one from that issue when Superman comes back from his time traveling jaunt. There’s also a callback to Man of Steel #25, when Lois hears a tap on her window and thinks it’s Superman, but it’s just some dumb bird. This time she gets it the other way around:

Don Sparrow says: “There’s a cute visual callback to the last time Superman returned after a long absence on page 18, when Superman is reunited with Jimmy. It’s a near identical pose to Action #643, where Superman returned from exile in space (and in that moment, infected Jimmy with Eradicator-based space sickness, womp womp).” I think he’s instinctively throwing Jimmy up in the air, hoping the cold of space will kill him. Unfortunately, both murder attempts were unsuccessful.

As seen above, Maggie Sawyer wasn’t too convinced that “Fabio” here was Superman at first. That changes when he calls her “Captain” even though she was recently promoted to Inspector, and she’s like “only a dead man wouldn’t know all the precise ranks for the local authorities!”

The surviving non-Supermen are seen arriving at S.T.A.R. Labs for medical care after the Engine City showdown. Don again: “There are some mild continuity issues stemming from Superman #82, which perhaps wasn’t completely finished being drawn while Tom Grummett worked on this one, as Steel’s costume is almost entirely intact, when we last saw it a week ago, it was in tatters. Ditto the Eradicator, who was a wizened husk, and now is apparently a scorched Ivan Drago.” Let’s assume Supergirl worked her clothes-shifting magic on Steel’s armor and the Eradicator’s, uh, hair.

There’s a short scene where Superboy is visited by his reporter pal Tana Moon, who tells him she quit WGBS and is leaving Metropolis. Awww. Goodbye, Tana. Or should I say... aloha?

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor Jr. has a scene with Dr. Happersen where he says he intends to control or destroy anyone who wears the “S” symbol. Basically, if he can’t date them, they should be dead. He also instructs Happersen to help Cadmus’ Director Westfield get in contact with disgraced genetician Dabney Donovan. Get ready for a whole lot of clone-related shenanigans in the near future.

And now, more Don Sparrow-related shenanigans after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

This issue is another favourite of mine, but I suppose all these issues around the Death and Return are faves when I really think about it. My copy of this issue had the holographic fireworks cover, and it’s a good one. I like that Superman and the Daily Planet are in natural colour, rather than holograms. The cover credit goes Karl Kesel, Tom Grummett and Doug Hazlewood, so I’m not sure what the breakdown was (or if that’s just a handwritten cover credit, just in case?

The story opens with one of my favourite sequences ever, with Lois waking up on her couch, having fallen asleep following the events in Coast City. I love the detail as she opens the curtain, we see her engagement ring, indicating she knows her real fiancée has returned. This sequence is followed up by two pages of splashes of the passionate reunion of the best couple in comics. All beautifully rendered as they float, locked in a passionate, sunrise kiss. Just lovely (so lovely that I am willing to overlook a small colouring error, as Lois has black hair instead of reddish brown for one panel). [Max: I can confirm that they fixed that in the collections.]

What follows is a very cute scene, and one of some debate among Superman fans. There’s no overt evidence of what happened, all we get is a cryptic caption reading “later…”. Again, I give credit for the subtlety of the writers, as they depict this scene in a way that can be read either way: maybe Clark and Lois made love, and the “later” we are seeing is afterglow, or maybe Lois had a shower since she just woke up after sleeping in her clothes. Then, after calling his parents while Lois showered, Clark had a shower himself. I feel like today’s writers wouldn’t feel the need to be so subtle, and might lose the sweetness of this scene.

In previous posts, I’ve talked about my friendship with artist Tom Grummett, and how as a boy, I would wear him out with all my dumb fanboy questions. Once I got older, and our relationship became a little more collegial (just a little closer to collegial, since I in no way consider myself anywhere near his level of skill or success) I would really try not to geek out too much when we would visit. But the one question I had to ask was about this scene, and what their intention, or interpretation of it was, as I was always curious. Once I had explained to him which issue it was (the guy has drawn hundreds, so they might not all spring to mind immediately!) he admitted that his assumption was indeed that they had sex. So there you have it! [Max: Hot damn! Another Superman ‘86 to ‘99 exclusive, folks!]

However you wish to read this scene, the choreography, and facial expressions as they horse around is really sweet and fun, and such a nice, light tone compared to the do-or-die pace the books had been for the last two years or so. Their easy joking, and back and forth banter really do a great job of showing them as a real couple.

It’s a very nice pose on Supergirl as she lifts off, simultaneously spurning Superboy’s romantic complaints.

I quite like the design on Loophole, and his gang. Loophole himself kinda harkens back to the silver age villains of the Flash as Loophole has a unique hairline, is an older man, with a pretty average build, which was rare for villains in the 90s. His gimmick is pretty cool, too, though we immediately see its vulnerability.

The tearful reunion of the now-sober Bibbo and Superman is also a great moment—if anyone rose to the challenge of living up to Superman’s example in his absence, it was Bibbo. I discuss the scene in more detail in the observations later, but the image of Superman whipping away the debris on page 20 is a great visual, with the dust clouds creating great motion and urgency.

On the whole, a great first issue for the return to the never-ending battle, even if it brings us closer to Grummett’s last issue on this title (for a while).

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

Could Superman referring to the Death and Return storyline as a dream, while stepping out of the shower be a reference to Dallas, and their famous about-face after an unpopular season, where Bobby Ewing emerged from the shower, alive and well, dismissing a yearlong storyline as a dream?

A coy semi-reference to perhaps my favourite line in the first Reeve Superman film on page 8, where Supergirl says “Easy steel, we’ve got you, then later adding, “ok, you got me”.

A little more issue-to-issue dissonance with Superboy reversing himself from the end of Superman #82, where he said clearly that Kal-El was Superman, with Superboy pointing out that legally, he’s Superman and not Kal. [Max: I think he’s talking strictly in the legal sense, since he helps Superman deal with the legal problem on the next issue and all.]

For all the times that Superman has used his heat vision on guns (as he does on page 11), we’ve never seen rounds get burned off, firing on their own because of the heat. There might be an idea there.

An odd sorta-cameo by Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, who Superman apparently defeats in the waterfront district. An eagle-eyed reader asked Larsen about it in issue #6 of Dragon’s own book, and he nixed any proper crossover rumours, saying it was just a shout-out from Larsen’s buddy Karl Kesel. Eventually they’d meet in Superman/Savage Dragon: Chicago, a so-so crossover in 2002.

A slightly bawdy joke from one of the Loophole gang, on page 14, as the moll of Deke Dickson calls Loophole a “weiner”.

GODWATCH: A stirring moment when Superman detects the faintest of life-signs, thanks to would-be super-pup, Krypto, and responds “God willing” when someone asks if anyone is alive in that wreckage. The love and concern in Superman’s eyes when he says he’d “rather die” himself than let little ones perish is a tear-jerker moment for sure. Bonus points for the cuteness of Superman heaping praise on Krypto, with the line “if that dog could fly, I’d put a cape on him…”

Question: Does Jimmy know? He comes up with the solution to the Clark problem very conveniently. Maybe he’s smarter than we (and by we, I mean Max) give him credit for? [Max: It was all Krypto! Okay, I’ll concede that maybe Jimmy is as smart as a dog.]

#superman #karl kesel #tom grummett #doug hazlewood #superboy #steel #supergirl #S.T.A.R. Labs #eradicator #loophole #maggie sawyer #dan turpin #sydney happersen #tana moon #bibbo bibbowski #krypto #dickvault #the man whose dick is a vault

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robininthelabyrinth · 7 years

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Fic: Win the Race (ao3 link) Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, references to Arrow Pairing: Barry Allen/Iris West; Leonard Snart/Mick Rory

Summary: You make some adjustments when aliens attack and a whole bunch of people get abducted.

Adjustments like adopting some kids - very quick kids -

(in which Len and Mick accidentally adopt Barry and Iris' kids)

A/N: Set past the end of Flash season 3. Very few Legends.

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Losing Barry had hurt worse than anything.

Iris didn't want to eat - their favorite places - or see anyone - everyone reminded her of him - or, well, do anything.

They'd sent out their save the date cards, so at least she didn't have to look at the box of all her hopes and dreams and optimism. Not that that made her feel better. At least Dad took care of calling all of them and explaining that the wedding is off.

It's about a month and a half before people start getting impatient with her moping. Luckily, Iris gets sick right around the same time - vomiting! That means she's really sick, not just more moping! - so that's a good excuse to keep inside and away from everyone.

Play with McSnurtle. At least he doesn't pressure her to move on because "this isn't what Barry would've wanted".

Well, Barry's trapped in the stupid-ass speed force by his own stupid guilt - seriously, Iris has a list of alternative ways they could've satisfied the Speed Force's need for a speedster without having to give up Barry, because she totally hasn't been obsessing over this or anything - so Barry's sort of lost his right to have a say.

There's a knock at her door.

"Go away, Dad!" Iris shouts.

"It's, uh, it's not your dad," a muffled female voice says.

Iris frowns. She doesn't have that many female friends - never did, sad to say - so she's not immediately sure who it is.

She goes over to the door, wonders for a minute if whoever it is outside is going to judge her because she's wearing Barry's old college t-shirt and a pair of his STAR Labs sweats, figures the answer is yes, accepts it, and pulls open the door anyway.

She blinks.

"Caitlin?" she asks. "Or, uh, is it Killer Frost right now?"

"Caitlin is fine," the now white-haired woman says wryly. "I see you're handling what happened better than I handled Ronnie dying. Both times."

Iris hesitates. It's true, Caitlin does know what she's going through. That being said - "I'm not really in the mood for sympathy."

"I'm not here to offer it," Caitlin says. "I'm here to take you to your doctor's appointment."

"My...?"

"By your own report, you've been vomiting on a daily basis for two weeks straight. As a doctor: you are now way past time to see a doctor. Now, we either go to your GP for a walk in, or I kidnap you and take you to my lair to test you anyway. Since I am still a doctor myself."

Iris cracks a smile. "Is your lair STAR Labs?"

"Everything there is still set up for me," Caitlin says, not denying it.

"I'll call my doctor," Iris says. She doesn't want to go to STAR Labs. "She takes walk-ins."

She had time for Iris, miracles of miracles.

Iris wishes she'd taken the time to shower but, honestly, putting on real clothing was about as much effort as she was willing to put into this. Caitlin hadn't commented.

She had refused to leave, which - seriously? Iris isn't going to go out of a window to avoid having to have regular human interactions. Probably.

...not now, anyway.

"So, doc, what's the news?" Iris jokes. "Am I dying?"

She almost means it.

"Nothing like that, Iris," her doctor says warmly. "Just a bad bout of morning sickness."

Iris freezes. "Of...what?"

Dr. Hansen looks sympathetically at her. "Oh, I’m sorry! I didn't realize you didn’t know. Congratulations, Ms. West; you're pregnant."

Pregnant? But -

Barry.

"Oh god," Iris says, and goes to throw up.

---------------------------------------------------------------

"This sucks," Mick says.

"You're the one who wanted to live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland," Len points out snippily.

Mick thinks about objecting - Len needs to let 2046 go already! Mick's gotten over the Oculus! ...mostly! - but then Len blasts a few more aliens and Mick decides to let it go. Len's tired, he's tired. Len's always like order more than he did, and there's not much of that to be found now.

It's the end of the world.

No, really. The Dominators fleeing with their tails between their legs had apparently drawn the attention of the whatever-the-fuck these things were called, and this time, they'd been smart about it.

They went for the heroes first.

Of course, Barry was gone, so Central City was defended by a combination of Cisco - Mick refuses to call him Vibe, especially since Lisa had made that terrible joke about it - and Kid Flash, but they weren't Barry.

They'd never be Barry, and they knew it.

When the aliens came, they were careful to attack a whole bunch of places all at once, all places the heroes cared about, so that there wouldn't be enough time for a team-up. Without Barry to hold it together, any team-up probably wouldn't have worked, anyway.

They got to most of Team Arrow first, luring them onto a spaceship and then portalling it to the other end of the goddamn galaxy. As far as Mick had heard, those guys weren't dead, but they weren't getting home anytime soon, either. At least they'd been with their families when they'd detoured onto that ship - they'd been right in the middle of getting them out of the refugee camps the government had unwisely started forming.

Queen and Felicity were all that were left behind, and they're still standing, last Mick heard. They have a check-in every fortnight with them just to be sure.

Central City, with its metahumans, wasn't anywhere as lucky. The aliens timed their attack well - they'd invaded relentlessly, again and again and again, goading them, then waited until Team Flash got desperate. Team Flash had developed a habit of visit Earth-2 (apparently Kid Flash was dating the Flash of that Earth, which seemed weird, but also the Harrison Wells of that Earth served as their mentor so honestly Mick wasn't gonna ask), and they'd fallen back on the same habit when they decided to go seek help and a safe place to let some of their heroes rest.

That'd been what the aliens had been waiting for, the assholes. They detonate an EMP over STAR Labs just as the going group was jumping, disabling Cisco's universe-hopping device, and then they'd snapped Cisco up into one of those goddamn pods before he could make his way through.

Long-term stasis units, they were called. Fucking bullshit, that's what Mick thinks of them. They zap you unconscious and drag you to one of the pod farms, and then you're just lying there all Matrix-like, not aging, not moving, just asleep. Frozen in time.

But with no universe-hopper and no Cisco, there was no way for Team Flash to make it home. Joe West, Wally West, some other woman, even Caitlin Snow - all gone.

Only Iris West and Julian Albert had been left behind, and neither of them had powers. They'd teamed up with another CSI - some girl named Patty who used to be a cop - but there was only so much that they could do, these last few months.

The aliens were hunting them, too. Any association with Team Flash was as good as a target. They'd gotten Patty a week or so back, and Mick was pretty sure the other two weren't much longer for the world.

Which left Central City under the dubious protection of -

Well.

Him and Len.

Len was Central City's son, born and bred, and he was her foremost supervillain now that Grodd had been banished. The aliens hadn't counted for him in their plans.

Mostly because he'd been spending some time dead at the time they'd made their plans, but hey, what can you do?

(Len likes to tell people it was for tax reasons. Mick likes to hit Len whenever he says that.)

It'd ended up being to Mick's benefit, at any rate; when the aliens ambushed the Waverider, breaking the time drive and stranding them all god-knows-when, Mick was already back on land, nursing a still time-confused Len back to health. Len had gotten over his little brush with death - he'd only come back because they'd screwed up the timeline to such a horrific extent with that spear thing, but he was back and that's what's important to Mick - and now he was back with a vengeance.

A vengeance currently fixated on the aliens that had ruined large portions of his city.

Mick always said he'd give everything to Len, in the end, and he did: he dug up his old ship, with the Kronos armor, and though the time drive there was shot too - decay rather than sabotage, but either way still useless - it was still useful in launching a hell of an effective surprise attack on the bastards from space.

Mick also picked up some tips on armor from Haircut during their time on the Waverider, putting together weapons and cloaks and all sorts of shit you can use growing and shrinking and blaster tech for.

Len took a different approach. He gathered every metahuman still in Central - villain and civilian and confused - and he whipped them into a defense force under his control.

Well.

His and Lisa's.

The Rogues had been designed to be villains, but in the absence of real heroes, they ended up being hero substitutes instead.

Hell, the Rogues had been so goddamn successful that Lisa had ended up branching out, splitting off her own hand-selected group of Rogues and going to Gotham to recruit the villains there into their own version of a defense force. Len hadn't wanted to see her go, of course, but she'd insisted...

"Hey, Mick, you hear that?"

Mick pauses in where he's melting an alien which is probably (definitely) already dead by now, clicking his gun to silence.

Nothing at first, then, very distantly –

Crying.

"Someone's in trouble," Mick says.

"Let's go," Len says. "Unless you're getting low on charge..."

"Nah, I'm good. Ever since we got the dwarf star, the recharge times have been excellent, even if it does make the gun heavy as fuck."

"Good. Let's go."

The aliens are centering around a cute little daycare. There's a car which shows the typical signs of alien attack, so whoever had gone out to get groceries - Mick can see them spilled out on the ground - was almost certainly already pod-bound even as they approached.

The crying was coming from the daycare.

Shit, kids. Len hates it when aliens go after kids.

"Can we get them?" Len asks, trying to come off as dispassionate, coldly analytical as his nickname suggests, but Mick knows Len. His whole brain is bent on trying to figure out how they could save the kids - not at the expense of their lives, which Len knew were too valuable to Central to lose, but certainly with less of a margin for risk than usual.

Mick studies the situation. "Think so," he says, because he does. "Your call, boss."

"Let's move in. I'll go point, take center; you come in later."

Mick nods. They'd figured out the best way to hit these assholes long ago: the reason their plans were so good in advance is because they had their sharpest minds back on their homeworld planning it. The drones they sent to Earth, on the other hand, were shit at dealing with the unexpected.

Which is to say, dealing with Len at all, really.

Even against regular non-armed humans, they'd found the best way was for one human to establish a pattern of attack (like, throwing things) and when the aliens had adjusted to that attack, a second person attacks from a different direction using a different method (stabbing, shooting, whatever). The aliens are momentarily paralyzed trying to recalibrate their expectations, leaving a window of time when the humans can successfully attack or run away.

Mick and Len have been teaching a lot of self-defense classes at the underground refugee camp.

It's not actually underground, to be fair; it was just connected by radio and maintained-with-great-difficulty-and-sacrifice Internet into a living network instead of gathering up in person. The aliens used actual refugee camps as targets - too many humans in one place was practically asking for an attack. So they did the rounds, instead, meeting in short bursts and living off correspondence. But it's still living, which is better than not-living.

Len moves in with his cold gun.

The aliens he hits first die. The rest balk their wings (terrible buzzing creatures, like flies who couldn't achieve lift) and adopt a defensive formation, weakest drones out in front to act as a living shield against Len's ice while the stronger ones harden their shells against the cold.

Of course, a hard shell means that temperatures that go too high will cook them from the inside out.

Mick hoists his own gun and waits for the signal.

Len gives it, and in he goes.

There are more aliens than he'd anticipated, more than usual for these sort of pod runs, but about halfway through the fight Len and Mick swap guns and that confuses the aliens yet again. No one expects Captain Cold to be wielding flame.

Mick ends up having to bring out his Kronos pulse rifle to finish them off, which is a surprise; it's been a while since there have been so many gathered in one spot.

"Big family or important target?" Mick asks Len, who snorts.

"No more important targets left," he replies. "Let's go."

Inside, there are kids.

But not a huge amount, no; there are only two. Not even toddlers, not really - they're something like a year and a half, max. Maybe two, if Mick's being generous. And they're all alone.

"Shit," Mick says, already wracking his brain to see if he can find anyone who wants babies. The foster families are filled to the brim; the underground network is stretched thin...

Len kneels next to the kids. One boy, one girl. "Hey," he says gently, like he's talking to Lisa way back when she was young. "No more aliens, kids. Just me and Mick."

Mick's not expecting it to work - the kids are too young to really understand what Len's saying, and the calm tone he's using will eventually take some time to sooth them - but somehow it does. They calm down and reach out their chubby little arms to Len.

People who think Len's cold-hearted have never seen how quick he melts.

"Hey," Len says gently. "Where's your mom?"

They sniffle. "Momma back?" one asks hopefully. At least, that's what Mick thinks she's asking, it's a little slurred with tears.

Mick thinks of the car outside. "Doubt it."

Len glares at him. "What about your dad?"

"Daddy's gone." That sounded rehearsed, or at least an echo of something said regularly enough by a loving adult for the kids to repeat as well.

"Mick?" Len asks, but he's already put away the cold gun and is gathering them into his arms.

"I'm thinking!" Mick says. "There's a couple of options..." He shakes his head. "No one immediate. We'll have to cover for a few days while I get in contact with people."

Len nods. "My name's Len," he tells them. "You can call me Lenny, if you like. What’s your names?"

Oh, crap, they're at Lenny status already? Damnit Len, you can't get attached to all of them...

"Dawn," the girl says proudly.

"Don," the boy says, equally proud. "I'm a Don."

"Nice to meet you both," Len says gently, and Mick already knows what's going to happen.

Sure enough, by the time - about three days - that Mick finds someone to take the kids in, Len's in love.

Worse, Mick's got a case of the same.

"We can't keep 'em," he tells Len.

"We definitely can't," Len agrees. "C'mon, Duckie, open up for the airplane..."

Don - now proudly nicknamed Duckie, under the assumption that Don is short for Donald - pouts and turns his face away.

Len sighs dramatically. "Oh, well," he says. "Guess I'll have to eat this myself."

"No!" Duckie yells. "Mine!"

"Fine. Then you eat it."

There's a tug at Mick's pants. He looks down.

Dawn - already fed - looks up at him hopefully. "Dawnie up?" she asks.

"Sure, sunshine," he says, and scoops her up. Dawn likes to be tall. "You wanna sit on my shoulders?"

"Yeah!"

Onto the shoulders she goes.

Dawn imperiously waves at Duckie, making him demand that Len lift him as well.

"We can't," Mick says again, but it's weaker.

"You sure?" Len asks.

Mick sighs.

------------------------------------------

It's not that Len and Mick don't try to find the kids' original family. They do! If there was family, even if they're all dead, they'd want to know so they could honor their traditions or some such like that. Len is a stickler for that, talking grimly about the non-consensual adoption of Jewish kids after the Holocaust by converting Christians and how he ain't ever gonna be a party to that sort of shit.

Mick's got fewer personal connections to the issue, but he agrees.

Unfortunately, the daycare has nothing to tell them who lived there or who was using it. Their files were burnt, their walls were scrubbed, everything. The car is equally useless, since the obvious evidence of shoddy hotwiring makes it clear that it was stolen.

Asking Dawnie or Duckie is equally useless. It's not their fault, they're not even three; they happily tell them about Momma (mostly that they want her back and how she made things better), and Daddy (gone), and Paw-Paw (gone away as opposed to just gone), and Auntie C and Uncle C.

Auntie C had cold hands and Uncle C always has the best toys, but they also went “away”.

Not that unusual a story, honestly, but not very helpful.

Honestly, at this point, all they can guess at this point is that, given their light brown skin tone, at least one of their parents was black, possibly both. Dawnie is darker than Duckie, but her hair is straight and fine while his shows distinct signs of kinks and curls as it grows out.

Honestly, they're not even all too sure about that much. Neither of them were ever all that good at identifying ethnicities.

Whatever. The kids are the kids, and that's good enough.

They do eventually find out their middle names, via Duckie’s excellent memory of the fact that their Mommy used to be a first-and-middle name person when she was angry.

Well, okay, he doesn't actually explain that. He just waggles his finger at a misbehaving Dawnie and says in excellent adult mimicry "Dawn Eleonora, stop!"

Duckie's middle name (Henry) takes a bit longer to figure out, but they extract it with patience.

"I can't believe you finally cracked and got kids," Lisa gushes over the phone. "Tell 'em Auntie Lisa is coming to visit!"

"We're not their parents, we're just -" Len starts, but she's already hung up.

Hurricane Lisa shows up a few weeks later - transit from Gotham to Central isn't that easy any more - and that's the moment Mick really considers to be the start of their family.

Lisa's always been the best communicator in the Snart family. The kids love her.

She asks them what names they want to call Len and Mick, since they're going to be their new parents now. Len assures them that Uncle is fine for both of them, but the kids never really had a Daddy before (because their Daddy's gone) and they are delighted by the idea of having more.

"I refuse to be Dad or Daddy," Len says stiffly. "I won't take that away from their original Dad."

Lisa and Mick share a knowing glance, fully aware that it isn't the real reason and the real reason is the man Len called dad right up until the day he died even though he'd long since lost the right to it.

"I called my dad 'Pa' most of the time I knew him," Mick offers helplessly.

"What about what's the word," Lisa says. "From your mom's dad. Sabba."

"No, that means grandfather," Len corrects. "Dad is Abba."

"Then be Abba."

"I think I'd rather be Lenny," Len says, nose wrinkled.

It doesn't help him, of course. Duckie and Dawnie pick up on Abba for him like lightning - they still call him Lenny half the time, but he's their Abba, just as Mick is their Pa as often as he is Mick or Mickey.

They boast to the other kids at their new, underground daycare that they have a Momma, a Daddy, an Abba and a Pa, but of course Momma and Daddy weren’t around. The other kids – most of them with adopted parents of their own by – solemnly agree that this is by far superior to the system demonstrated on the films they watch. Those poor kids on the TV with only a Mom and a Dad and no one else; how sad.

Kids.

Mick hadn't expected he'd love the two of them as much as he does. Oh, sure, he'd expected to feed them - he does - and to worry about them - oh, he does - but he hadn't really thought about the way his shoulders would relax every time he hears their voices. The way his chest would glow and swell every time they run to him first. How every goddamn thing they did was the best way to do that thing, because they were wonderful and brilliant children.

His wonderful and brilliant children.

He hadn't expected how Len would melt for them, and stay melted. How Len was terrified of screwing them up and how he never, ever lost his temper with them. How effective and devastating a disappointed look could be, because Len refused to spank them.

(Mick eventually finds out that the kids had picked up on his and Len's tendency to worry about each other and that Len had exploited this ruthlessly, asking them to think about whether their actions would make their Mickey sad before they did them. He curses Len's name and quickly makes up for lost time by suggesting that they pay close attention to Len to see if he also needs love and affection. Len gets covered in snuggles on the regular. He doesn't complain.)

The kids also grow ridiculously fast.

Okay, totally within normal levels for kids their age - the doc swears it's true - but they're people. They're little people.

Mick can't remember when his siblings became people all those years ago. Nate was still a baby, he remembers that much, but the rest of it...

He's very careful to use the fire pit and lighters and other Len-regulated fire sources, and his kids know everything there is to know about fire safety.

Len teaches them how to spot danger and how to avoid it. He also teaches them how to pick locks.

They're the best four-year-old robbers ever, even if Len really had meant for it to be another safety measure. The idea of them being captured by aliens because they couldn't get through a locked door - unacceptable.

"Also, it's good finger coordination development," Len says, lying like a rug. It is, of course, but that’s blatantly not the reason he’s passing on his skills.

There’s still plenty they don’t know about the kids’ lives before Len and Mick found them: for example, Dawnie and Duckie are clearly twins, but they don’t know when their birthday is. As a result, they argue about it at length - sometime early in the year, they think, because of the vague memories of snow. They end up having January 23 for Dawnie and February 7 for Duckie, just because it's easier to give in than to explain that twins are born on the same day.

At any rate, it gives them more time to pick presents now that the kid are old enough to appreciate it.

Mick and Len are just debating the question of gifts - it's May and Mick had unwisely brought up the issue of half-birthdays - when the old Particle Accelerator, an abandoned and mostly destroyed STAR Labs, suddenly goes up in a painfully familiar mushroom cloud of orange light. It doesn't spread the way the first one did, but it does go up like a goddamn firecracker.

"Oh, shit," Len says.

Mick just runs to get a car.

They're the only ones going towards the labs rather than away; Mick sees people ducking into shelters in well-practiced motions.

The Rogues' war against the aliens was doing that much, at least: the aliens avoided Central more than they attacked it, nowadays. They were focused on subduing other parts of the world.

The same protection applied in Gotham, under Lisa and her girlfriend Selina.

The same in Bludhaven, where Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn - previously part of Lisa's Rogues - had set up their own Rogues.

The same in Starling, which had reverted to its old name out of habit, and where Oliver and Felicity had taken their sweet time about accepting the Rogues' offer to help but now considered themselves the leaders of the Starling Rogues instead of Team Arrow, a name they still used to refer to their long-lost teammates.

Mardon hadn't wanted to leave Central at first, but he couldn't resist Len's carefully structured offer to be the leader of the Rogues in the Windy City. Shawna, who'd been from Chicago initially, went with him to keep his ego in check.

Scudder had managed to get over himself enough to agree to work for Len again, his fear of the aliens managing to break through even his narcissism. After half a year learning how to fight aliens at Len's side, he'd been dispatched to L.A. to teach the self-absorbed assholes there how to really fight an alien movie. He liked Hollywood.

Rosa preferred San Francisco. Len was just happy that there was distance between the two of them - as much as they were still technically together, Rosa's obsession with Sam faded when he wasn't in her sight and she remembered things. Things like having been a first-rate computer engineer, once upon a time, and something of a genius. She did well in San Francisco and the nearby Palo Alto, between its tech industry and its loopier residents.

People were starting to figure out that where there were Rogues, there could be a city again.

Mick wonders, again, if he should inform Len that he'd become a general, but as always decides against it. Len thinks of the Rogues as his crew, albeit a crew that has scattered across the nation and each of whom is leading their own hand-crafted militia unit in the protection of their territory.

No need to trouble Len with politics. It's not like they had anyone strong enough to actually do more than hold back the aliens for a while.

At least, they didn't until they got to the center of the Accelerator, where they found a very confused-looking Barry Allen rubbing his eyes and shouting, "Guys? I'm back! Guys? Is anyone here?"

"Holy crap," Mick says.

Len is somewhat more fluent than that. He always did have a facility for Yiddish curses (Mick particularly likes the one that goes 'may you be as a lamp - so that you can be hung during the day and lit on fire every night!', all in about three or four harsh-voweled words.).

"What now, boss?" Mick asks.

"Now," Len says, smiling like he can't stop, "now we have hope."

"Snart?" Barry asks when he sees them approach. "Rory? What are you doing here? What happened to this place?" He gestures at the ruined room.

"You've been gone five years," Len says. "It's been an interesting time. Let me tell you all about it..."

-----------------------------------------------

"I can't believe it," Barry says, looking shell-shocked, his fingers clenched around a mug of hot chocolate. Len had broken out the good stuff for their guest, which is to say, the Swiss Miss with mini marshmallows. "Five years - and so much has changed -"

"The emotion you're looking for is 'I go away for five years and you assholes trash the place'," Len informs him.

Dawnie giggles. "You said a bad word."

"There are no bad words," Len tells her. "Only bad men."

"Not what Mrs. Levy says..."

"See, that's one thing," Barry says. "You guys have kids! Small adorable kids!"

"We're not small," Duckie says. "We're four."

"Paragons of age and maturity," Mick agrees solemnly.

Barry chuckles, but it still sounds strained and tense.

"Can you still time travel?" Mick asks, curious, thinking of the lost Waverider, still stuck who-knows-when.

"No. Well, a little. Not enough to help."

"What do you mean?"

"Speed force said I was abusing it and took it away," Barry explains. "Even though I tried not to mess up the timeline -"

"Let me get the sequence of this right," Len drawls. "You get told by everyone not to change time. You do it. Everything gets fucked up. You do it again. More fucked up. Speed force shows up personally, says don't do it. You do it anyway. Speedforce comes and gives you an ass-kicking, saying don't do it. And you do it again, but this time you're trying not to mess up the timeline. And you're surprised it yanked your cord?"

Barry makes a face. "Yeah. I've gotten the lecture."

"I'm not comfortable with how we're anthropomorphizing forces of nature," Mick grumbles.

"You think this is a problem, try being in the middle of a three-way argument between Death, Dream and Destiny about whether or not the way your life ended was narratively satisfying," Len grumbles back.

Barry looks a question at Mick, who shakes his head. He doesn't have any answers. He doesn't even want to have questions.

"So my friends..?" Barry asks instead.

"Like we said," Len says, easily distracted away from disturbing subjects. "Most of 'em are fine, just stuck on Earth-2. The only way to get 'em back is Cisco -"

"Who's stuck in the matrix?"

"Matrix-like stasis pod," Len says. "Good news is, you pop 'em open, people inside should be fine. Probably not even notice that time passed."

"And the bad news?"

"There's a shitload of pods, and we've got no idea which one your boy's in," Len says frankly. "Or your girl, neither."

"Why didn't Iris go to Earth-2 with the others?"

"No clue," Len tells him honestly. "Not like they really told us much. Cisco was hit first, yeah. West held up pretty well for a long time, but we were allies, not buddies. She was secretive. Ran a radio program. But a few years back, it cut off."

"She might be dead," Mick warns.

"She's not," Barry says firmly. Not the slightest trace of doubt.

"Speed force tell you that?" Mick asks skeptically.

Barry grins crookedly. "Actually, yes," he says. "It said I could save her if I took it slow."

"What does that even mean?" Mick demands.

"It means we're gonna save the world again," Len says, pretending to be put out about it. "One pod-break at a time."

"Do you know how to get into them?" Barry asks.

"Sure, but the risk's too high," Len says. "Unless, of course, I have a speedster on my side."

Barry swallows and sits up straighter, like he's making a decisions. "In that case, consider me one of your Rogues."

Judging by the delighted look on Len's face, his apocalypse has been made.

------------------------------------------------------------

There's a giggle and a thump and then more giggling.

Len has become a veteran child-raiser in the last two years, if he does say so himself, which is why he puts down the blueprints and heads over to the living room where the giggling is coming from.

Barry is sprawled out on his back on the Twister board, grinning helplessly as the twins crow at him.

"I see you're hard at work," Len says dryly.

Barry beams at him. "They said you and Mick refused to play it with them," he says earnestly. "What was I supposed to do, not teach them?"

"Like you couldn't not teach them the Macarena and the Chicken Dance?"

"Hey, you made me an honorary uncle when I moved in," Barry points out with some justice. Len hadn't been sure how else to explain 'magnet for trouble so I need to keep an eye on him' to the kids after years of refusing to cohabitate with any other family. "Part of that involves teaching them stuff that will drive you nuts."

"Not while you live here, I think. The true terror is Lisa."

Barry nods so fast that he's blurring, undoubtedly remembering when Lisa had managed to dig up some Tickle Me Elmo dolls for the kids' fourth birthday. Len had nearly strangled her - it was a rare item nowadays, so she'd clearly put time and effort into finding them, but it was also designed to drive Len, Mick and now Barry absolutely insane.

"You are menaces, you know," Len informs the twins.

"Like Dennis!" Dawn says excitedly. "Dennis the menace."

"Pa and Abba are pretty good menaces, too," Duckie says loyally.

"I'm not a good menace?" Barry pretends to pout.

"No! You're a hero!" Duckie proclaims. He’s maintained that ever since he found a Flash action figure.

Dawnie gives Barry a hug. "That's almost as good," she assures him with her nearly-a-five-year-old-really solemnity.

Barry laughs and hugs back. "Now," he says, making a big show of checking his watch. "I think you promised me that if I showed you how to play Twister..."

The twins giggle and run away from whatever chore they promised. Barry doesn't give chase, just watches them fondly.

"You're good at this," Len tells him.

"I'm a little jealous," Barry admits. "I've always wanted kids."

"You and Iris...?"

"Oh, no," Barry says. "We were only just getting married. Do you know what Joe would do to me if she'd gotten pregnant? Shotgun wedding doesn't even begin to describe it."

Len frowns. "But if you were getting married already..?"

"Doesn't mean Joe wants to think about us having sex," Barry says dryly. "At least if we were married, he could imagine that we conceived by magic or something."

Len shakes his head. He doesn't understand, but then again, he hadn't ever really expected to have kids.

"You're good with them," he says again.

"They're good kids," Barry agrees. "I hope that if Iris and I ever do have kids, they'd turn out like that." He thinks about it for a second. "Maybe slightly less larcenous."

"That's all good parenting," Len says proudly. "Now c'mon, I want you to see the plans."

Barry nods and is standing by Len's side before the words fade away. "What's the next step, now that we've cleaned out Central City?"

"Figuring out a way to consolidate our gains - installing those shield-makers Felicity reverse-programmed from alien ship tech, for one thing. I want Central City to live like a community again, not just refugees."

Barry nods.

"Also," Len says, "I think it's time to go north."

"North?"

"The largest single pod housing facility in the Midwest is located in the Dakotas," Len says. "We break that, we're talking tens of thousands of people. Possibly hundreds."

"Crap," Barry says, blinking. Most of the pod facilities were measured in the dozens or hundreds. "That means transportation. Serious and immediate transportation. That many people all together will definitely catch the attention of the local patrol ship."

Len stays silent.

"Unless that's the goal," Barry says.

"Mick's in Starling getting a crash course in alien tech," Len tells him. "Between Felicity's deductions and his own knowledge of piloting from his time with the Time Masters, I think we can do it."

"Are you planning on stealing an alien ship?" Barry demands, half-horrified and half-impressed. Mostly impressed.

Len smirks. "I told you, Scarlet. I intend for Central City to be free. The shields will help. Having our own gun-ship? That'll help more."

Barry nods. "And the people -"

"If we can defend them in the ships, we can do a slower transport. Cars, trucks, buses, the works."

"It's going to be massive."

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Barry says. "We're opening pods, which means we could be finding Cisco and Iris. I'm totally in. I'm just saying, it's going to be massive. Who's gonna watch the kids?"

"Mrs. Levy's agreed. Her husband was podded, too."

Barry nods. "Slow and steady," he says. It's been his mantra when it comes to dealing with the frustration that there isn't a single bad guy he can punch to make things better. "Let's save the world."

"Let's steal an alien ship," Len corrects him. "Stop making me sound heroic."

"Oh, no," Barry says, voice dry as dust. "Heroic? You? Never."

"Shut up."

---------------------------------------------------

"I don't want to sit this one out," Barry says stubbornly, but he's already given in, Mick can tell. More to the point, Mick can tell that Len can tell.

It's in the way Barry’s already started to make mac-and-cheese for the kids.

(They'd all been delighted to discover that certain farm-to-pre-made-food had been so automated that re-starting them was a cinch even after the apocalypse, but none more than the kids.)

"Uncle Barry!" Duckie shouts from the next room over. "We wanna piggy-back ride!"

"When the food is cooking," Barry automatically calls back, then scowls as he reveals his intention to be there in a few minutes. "Len, if you're sure -"

"You know we can do it without you," Len says reasonably. "And you know they're expecting you."

Barry sighs and nods. The aliens had immediately pegged Barry as the leader of the resistance once he had made its reappearance, presumably based on their snooping through old files, and they'd taken measures against him that Len was avidly noting down for future speedster problems (Barry seemed to attract future speedsters like flies, before - undoubtedly he would again; besides, what if he got around to having kids?)

The calculators behind the alien army, back on their homeworld, had made assumptions about Barry and Barry's inability to sit a mission he led out.

The calculators still had no conception of how to deal with Len. It helps to have all of your records eliminated, hard and soft copy both, so that the aliens look at you and see some asshole who got rung up on a single manslaughter count (murder in the heat of passion had been the final charge, and wasn't that hilarious?) who was assumed dead less than six months later.

They don't see Len.

And that's the way Len likes it, thank you very much.

Even without that well-timed deletion, though, Mick could've told them that none of them would ever have been enough to predict Len.

Mick has enough trouble doing it, even after all these years. That's why he only gets it then, and waits until they're in the car to actually bring it up.

The car, not the modified alien ship that even now patrols the skies of Central City.

"You think this is the one."

Len glances at him and smirks. "You always did know me best."

Mick nods. Normally, he'd leave it at that, willing to trust in Len, but maybe having two kids has made him a bit more open to actually talking about stuff out loud. "The reason this pod storage expects the Flash to hit it is 'cause that's where they've hidden his girlfriend."

"It was always too well guarded," Len murmurs. "I knew they had to have some valuable people there. It's not until a gap in their security opened up - a very specific gap, best exploited by a speedster - that I realized it was their idea of a trap. And to bait a trap..."

"Why not just fake us out?"

"Aliens," Len says. "Calculators for brain. They understand subtlety in attacking, sometimes, but not subterfuge. This trap is a step forward for them."

Mick nods. "Did you tell him?"

Len shakes his head. "I might be wrong," he offers.

"You don't think you are," Mick corrects. "You think Barry won't be able to resist the obvious trap."

Len shrugs, conceding it. Barry's been working with them for eight months, by now - long enough to celebrate the kids' fifth birthday with them as a much-beloved uncle - and Len usually trusts Barry to listen to the plan.

But, Mick supposes, this is Iris West. She always did make Barry irrational.

"You think maybe Cisco as well?"

Len is silent for a moment.

Mick glances at him sidelong.

"I don't have any reason to think so," he says slowly. "And yet - I hope he is. There haven't been any transfers out of this facility. But he'll be as hidden as Iris is prominent."

Mick nods. "Then we'll look twice as hard," he says, knowing they'll be working on a very limited time frame.

Len smirks. "Oh, you bet we will."

Mick thinks about the extra surprises he packed into his gear this time, the ones not even Len knows about, and wonders if today is the day he'll get to play with them.

Turns out it is.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, God, Iris!"

"Barry?" Iris gasps, her knees buckling, but Barry is there to catch her.

There's gasping and hugging and kissing.

Mick edges back.

Len studies the wall pointedly.

"Forgot how awkward these reunions are," Mick mutters to Len. They hate public displays of emotion.

"Don't remind me," Len says through gritted teeth. "Lisa's taking care of Cisco's, uh, reunion."

Mick snorts. "When's Ms. Levy dropping off the kids?"

"Soon enough. Figured Barry ought to be alone for this."

"Figured the kids didn't need to be getting the wrong idea about being all touchy feely, you mean."

"Or getting an advanced education in human reproduction. Besides, I was thinking we could have Cisco knock open the door to Earth-2, stat, before the aliens figure out how to stop us."

"Good plan."

"Told Lisa," Len says. "I figure they'll be opening the door pretty soon now."

There's a gasp from where Barry and Iris are intertwined.

Len and Mick look over.

Barry's sitting down, looking dazed, like Iris got in a good punch. More likely she said something, Mick supposes. Maybe she got a new boyfriend in the two and a half years he was gone before she also got disappeared?

It's been nearly four years since then, too. The staggered aging of the pod-freed humans and their free counterparts was one of the weirdest elements of the whole apocalypse.

"I'm so sorry," Barry says to Iris, who has sunk down next to him and is clutching his hand. No new boyfriend, then. "God, Iris - if I'd known - if I'd had any idea -"

"I didn't either," she tells him. "I had no clue until a month or two after you'd gone - and then - oh, Bear. I thought I'd lost you forever. I thought it was all I'd ever have of you."

"Of course," Barry says, wrapping his free hand around hers. "I'm so sorry I left you at all - if I'd been here -"

"If you'd been here, the aliens would've adjusted their plans to attack you first," Len says dryly.

They blink at him, clearly having forgotten anyone else was in the room.

Mick's just happy they decided to go with 'shocking revelations' instead of 'joyous reunion sex'.

"Cisco's free, too," Len tells the two of them. "We found him in a hidden chamber."

"Cisco," Iris breathes. "Oh, god, Cisco! Barry - that means he can go to Earth-2 -"

"He'll be able to get Joe and Wally and the others -"

One of Cisco's holes in reality open up in the middle of the room.

Mick hasn't seen them live before, but it's a welcome sight regardless, especially when Cisco and a second speedster stumble out first, quickly followed by Detective West and a handful of others: Killer Frost, a guy that looks like Harrison Wells, a girl dressed similarly enough to the speedsters for Mick to hope that they've now got three speedsters for the aliens to contend with.

He glances at Len, who's smirking his ass off in a way that signifies real pleasure and anticipation.

"You think..?"

"The aliens went for "em first deliberately," Len replies in an undertone, understanding Mick's unvoiced question. "Their calculators-for-brains know that the odds are against them if we've got the full set of speedsters."

Mick nods, pleased. It's well past time for the world to rid itself of the alien scourge so that they can go back to having regular communities and not having to depend on a group of radical net-neutrality activists to man the various ISPs in the area so that everyone else could cooperate using the Internet.

Joe goes straight for Iris and Barry, shouting their names.

Mick sighs.

More reunions. Great.

If only the house were big enough for them to leave...

There are tears. So many tears.

Barry keeps saying, "If I'd only known -" and getting shushed.

Eventually Len runs out of patience (thank god) and says, "As touching as this is, we're starting to get near capacity. Maybe we ought to stop with the hugging and get with the planning?"

"We're nowhere near capacity yet," Barry says. "We have at least room for -" A quick count. "- uh, okay, only ten more. But that’s still something!"

"Capacity?" Joe asks.

"The aliens attack places where humans cluster in too-large numbers," Barry explains. “Well, they try, anyway. It’s a reasonable precaution not to cluster too large.”

"So that's why Snart and his buddy are here," Joe says, nodding. "You're working together against the aliens."

Mick doesn't like how that implies that Barry would otherwise pick literally any group of people other than them if they weren't useful, but he supposes if you've not been around for the last few years, you couldn't be expected to understand. Communal living is the way people survive, now.

"Iris," Joe continues. "What about..?"

"I was captured by a pod," she says, her voice breaking. “I looked through all the pods when I was rescued – they weren’t there –”

Joe’s face is ashen, grieved.

“What were you looking for?” Mick asks.

“My babies,” she whispers, tears filling her eyes.

“You let Barry reproduce?” Len asks, sounding appalled.

Everyone glares at him.

“They might not be dead,” Mick offers into the silence. “Aliens usually ignore kids if they’re on their own – not a large enough heat signature – and there’ve been really good networks for recycling lost kids into the community.”

“Recycling’s not the word,” Barry says, correction made more out of habitual bickering than actual attempt to correct Mick. “But you think – there might be a chance?”

“It’s always possible,” Len says. “Even if we do track 'em down, though, will you recognize even 'em? It’s been three years, and babies grow fast.”

“I’m their mother.”

“Three years,” Len says implacably. “Kids. Trust me, I’ve got two of my own.”

“Who let you reproduce?” Joe asks with a bit of a sneer.

“They’re adopted,” Barry says quickly while Wally elbows Joe, likely more because of the way Len’s hand moved to sit on his gun. “And very happy. Good kids. Ms. Levy have them?”

“She’ll be dropping ‘em off soon.” Len tilts his head to the side a second before Mick hears the sound of the door opening. “Make that, dropping ‘em off now.”

“Abba!” Dawnie shouts. “Pa! We drew pictures today!”

Mick mentally canvasses how much fridge space they have left. They may need to start overlapping…

Dawnie and Duckie skitter into the room, big grins on their faces, sticky hands clenched around artwork made in crayon, and Mick watches in amusement as the amount of tension in the room relaxes as everyone smiles helplessly at the adorable kids.

Then it all goes to shit, because Dawnie’s smile fades into something nervous and wary and wanting and she stares at Iris and squeaks, “…Momma?”

-----------------------------------------------------------

It started, of course, with a lot of yelling in surprise and "holy crap!" and re-introductions and hugging.

Then, of course, came the recriminations.

"Why is my grandson think he's named after a duck?" Joe demands. He's a bit sore because the kids only had the vaguest recollections of their Paw-Paw.

"His name was Donald," Mick says defensively. The nickname had been his. "How were we supposed to know?"

"He was already nicknamed Don," Joe snaps. "Just like my dad."

"I'm amazed they didn't kill them," Wally mutters to girl speedster.

"You saying I hurt kids?" Len snarls at him. "Or just that I'm incompetent?"

"I didn't mean -"

"I bet."

"I'm just saying," Wally says, starting to get annoyed. "You're supervillains -"

"And you were gone, hero."

"That's not Wally's fault," Cisco exclaims.

"Oh, yeah, he's just saying – just like I'm just saying -"

"Why is everyone fighting?" Duckie asks in a small voice.

Mick puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles as loud as he can. Given that he's been using his whistles to silence entire stadiums, it's pretty effective in such a small space.

Everyone shuts up.

"It doesn't matter," Mick says. "We can fight about the details once the kids are asleep."

The Earth-2 people look at him like he kicked a puppy by admitting that they were going to keep fighting. Dawnie and Duckie (and, amusingly, Barry) all relax because this is something familiar. Len and Mick always schedule their fights for after the kids are asleep, explaining to the kids that it helped them get out their annoyance in a reasonable fashion; as a result, the kids have gotten used to thinking of fights that can be rescheduled as no big deal. No need to worry until you wake up in the morning - if the fight is still ongoing at that point, then you know it's serious.

"Let's go have dinner instead," Barry says. "We can talk over that."

"I can make Grandma West's noodles," Joe agrees.

"Not in my kitchen, you ain't," Mick says, because he's got a reputation as a kitchen tyrant to uphold. Neither Barry nor Len can cook, and if he gives an inch now, they'll be back to eating uncooked pasta. In the interests of avoiding another fight, though... "Maybe another time."

They all go to the kitchen. Mick ends up serving out a few cooked chickens he'd been freezing with plans to use over the next few weeks in different preparations, but chicken enchiladas are good for a crowd.

Most of the conversation is fixed on safe subjects, like goings-on on Earth-2 (alien free and a little boring, but for the gorillas) or the kids' achievements.

"They're even doing above their grade level in math," Barry boasts. He's selling the kids hard, but in fairness to Barry, he always does that. It doesn't feel personal.

"That part definitely came from Iris," Joe jokes. "I remember your math scores, Bear."

Mick personally thinks it came from the hours of tutoring Len put in with the kids, but - he reminds himself - they're trying not to fight.

"Kids, dishes or no dessert," he says.

The kids leap to their feet and start collecting plates. There's no dishwasher - or spare electricity to run one - so they'll be in the kitchen extra-long washing plates this time.

"Aww, let 'em have a day off," Wally says, winking at them. "Not every day they get their whole family back."

"If they don't wash the plates, they'll become unusable," Len says, pointedly ignoring Wally’s phrasing. "Humid climate like this, we'll get mold right quick. Rules are rules for a reason."

He waves the kids off.

"Strict," Joe comments. It doesn't sound like a compliment, though it doesn't necessarily sound like an insult, either. He chuckles, his mind clearly shifting directions. "Bet things'll be different when they go back home. Be careful not to give them culture shock, Iris."

"Home?" Len echoes. It's good he does, because Mick was going to speak and the wording wasn't going to be intelligible. "Not sure if your skills have deteriorated in the last few years, Detective, but they're home now."

"I just meant when they go home with Barry and Iris," Joe says.

He doesn't even mean anything by it, that's the most infuriating part of it; he just says it like it's a fact.

Mick sees red anyway.

"Now listen here, you little -" he starts, but Len's hand snaps out and catches Mick's wrist in an iron grip, signaling silence.

"Mick," Len says calmly. "Don't overreact."

"Overreact?”

"Yes. What's happened here is clear." He smirks. "Detective West has gone senile."

"I what?" Joe exclaims. “I have not –”

"You've lost your fucking mind," Mick says. "If you think anyone is taking the kids away from us."

"I just meant -"

"You'd think as an adopted father himself, he'd have more sympathy," Len says. "Unfortunately not."

"Excuse me if I don't want a pair of supervillains anywhere near my grandkids -," Joe says.

"They're our kids, asshole," Mick says.

"And we're grateful you took care of them for a bit while we were gone, but now Barry's here and Iris' here and I'm here, even Wally's here, and we're obviously more fit to raise them, that isn't even in question -"

"Dad, maybe we should wait -" Iris starts to say soothingly.

"No, Iris, I don't think this can wait. I don't see why there's even any debate about this. They're kids. They need a good, loving, stable and safe home environment, and we'll be able to provide that."

"And we won't?" Len says dangerously.

Joe snorts. "No offense meant, Snart, but you're hardly a good role model, and I can't imagine you know anything about raising kids to be anything other than a pack of criminals. Which isn't happening, in case I wasn't clear about that up front."

"Ain’t really your decision."

"No, it's Barry and Iris', as their parents," Joe says like he's speaking to an idiot. Barry and Iris look uncomfortable. "And they will obviously want to take Don and Dawn -"

"We're not going anywhere!" Dawnie yells from the doorway.

Mick immediately twists in his seat to look at them. Their faces are red and they're clearly upset, clutching at each other for comfort.

"We don't want to go away," Duckie adds, his lower lip trembling so hard he's nearly stuttering. "We wanna stay with Pa and Abba -"

"Don, my little guy," Joe says, standing and moving towards them, "you don't understand - you'll be going back to your Daddy and your Momma and your Paw-Paw -"

"We wanna stay with Pa and Abba," Dawnie says, starting to cry, Duckie right beside her. "We wanna stay! We don't wanna go with you! We hate you!"

Joe takes another step forward, clearly intent on convincing them. Mick gets up in his chair, equally intent on punching him in the face - Len is getting up, hand on his gun, face murderous -

"We're not going anywhere!" Dawnie says, and she grabs Duckie's hand and they turn -

There's a crackle of lightning and they're gone.

Everyone blinks.

"Barry!" Joe exclaims. "Bring them back this instant!"

"Uh," Barry says. "I didn't do that."

"Another speedster?" Cisco exclaims.

"I think," Iris says very carefully, "another two, actually."

"Whatever," Len says, clearly done with all of this; the revelation about the kids isn’t even making a dent in his rage. Mick sympathizes. "I don't care. Now stay down here while Mick and I go fix the damage you just did."

The kids are curled up in bed, just like they were taught to go when they’re angry.

Good.

Len and Mick spend three hours getting the now-vibrating-fast-enough-to-hurt children to calm down, explaining that they're not going to be taken away. Eventually, with the help of multiple assurances, a few more comfort animals than they're usually allowed, and a bedtime story or four, they fall asleep.

Then Len comes downstairs, Mick right beside him, and says "Barry, get Detective West the hell out of my house. Take him to Ms. Levy's place and tell them to send a signal to the next train transport - I want him out of Central City by the end of the week."

"You can't do that!" Joe shouts, whatever efforts to calm him swiftly evaporating. “Listen here, you little –”

"Joe," Barry interrupts. "You don’t understand. He can."

"What?"

"He's the head of the Rogues," Barry says. "They protect the city. If he says you're out, then you're out, and you're lucky to be out alive."

"You'd never let that happen."

"No, but - damnit, Joe, he's my boss now! And a good friend! His kids call me uncle!"

"Your kids, Bear, not his kids -"

"His kids! Their kids! Joe, they've raised them for three years; that's more than Iris and certainly more than me. They're the only parents Duckie and Dawnie remember. We're not taking them away."

"Iris -"

"I agree with Barry, Dad," Iris says. She shakes her head a little. "Dad, if Mom had shown up when I was ten or twelve and decided she was taking me away, I'd have thrown a fit about leaving you, and rightfully so. If we have a big fight about this, they're going to pick them, not us, and then next thing you know I'm not going to get to see them anymore and that's just not acceptable. I lost three years of their lives. I'm not missing another day."

Joe is silent, for once. He doesn't agree, Mick can tell that much from the way he's scowling, but he's silent. Good enough.

"West can stay," Mick says, and Len glances at him. "Kids ought to have a chance to know him. One chance. If he acts up in any way, I'll burn him."

He means it, too.

"Won't that be more traumatic?" Wally asks, crossing his arms.

"I'll say he was an alien spy masquerading as their grandpa," Mick shoots back. "They'll be cool with it."

Joe bristles, but Iris glares him silent.

"Let's at least try to make this work," Barry says.

He always was an optimist.

-------------------------------------------------------

To say that this wasn't the life Iris was expecting is something of an understatement.

She'd planned a life with Barry by her side having adventures as a journalist, maybe a kid or two down the line to be taken care of at home. Maybe by her, maybe by Barry, maybe by Joe if he'd retired - maybe even with a nice babysitter helping them out.

Then Barry went away into the Speed Force - for good, she'd thought - and she was pregnant and then she had a new life in front of her: single motherhood, with help from Dad and Wally and her friends, of the two most amazing (and infuriating) babies of all time.

And then the aliens came for them, and her support system disappeared, and she'd thought of herself as a grim Sarah Conner, the prototypical mother figure, determined to survive and to keep her children alive until they could push the aliens back.

Then - nothing.

The sleep of the pod was like sleeping in bed, deep and dreamless as far as she recalls. Like a coma, maybe. Like Barry's descriptions of his own coma, at least.

And now -

Now, Iris has a life with Barry by her side having adventures as the captain of her own alien warship, and she still hopes to have a kid or two down the line to take care of at home when the aliens are gone. But she's also a part-time Momma to the two best kid-speedsters in the world - Cisco calls them the Tornado Twins - and she co-parents them with Barry and his supervillains.

One of whom is the widely acknowledged commander-in-chief of the United States, leader of the real fight against the aliens and to whose offshoot Rogue branches the armed forces have swarmed to pledge their allegiance - not that he knows it, since Mick still refuses to tell Len that the people he's commanding aren't just surprisingly competent criminals - and the other one is the guy who makes sure said commander remains functional. Iris wouldn't have believed that Len thinks ketchup is a legitimate vegetable if she hadn't walked into that argument herself, but she did, so she guesses that if Len has inadvertently become leader of the free world, that makes Mick his First Arsonist or something, and they're all very lucky to have him, too.

They all live together, with Barry and Iris having one master bedroom and Len and Mick sharing the other, and the kids have the entire downstairs to run around in. The downstairs is a disaster zone as a result, of course.

It's okay; Iris spends quite a bit of her time captaining the newly dubbed (by utterly unanimous agreement) Enterprise and supporting Barry from the air. It's awesome.

Wally's slipped happily into the role of Kid Flash and cool uncle, and even Joe has come around.

It's not the life she imagined, but it's a good life. She likes this life.

She leans back in her captain's chair. "Show them in," she orders, and watches as a handful of strange-looking aliens and one human, all dressed in shiny green suits, walk in. Iris smiles. "Welcome to the Enterprise, representatives of - how did you call it - the Green Lantern Corps. Let's talk about what exactly it is you think you can do for Earth - and whether we're going to agree to any of it."

#dccoldwave #westallen #leonard snart #mick rory #barry allen #iris west #my fic

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