Work Text:
“This is not going the way we wanted it to,” Damien Darhk commented dryly, snapping up to fire a few shots over the hood of the truck they had taken cover behind. He ducked back down as several ion blasts and a plume of flame shot toward him.
Eobard Thawne rolled his eyes so hard it was painful. “I know that, Damien. We all know that. What purpose do you think saying it will serve?”
“Maybe he just wants to make conversation,” Malcolm Merlyn said, unperturbed as he drew back his bow and fired.
“Conversation is not going to get us out of here,” Eobard grumbled. He had very little to offer in a firefight and Malcolm had forbidden him to use his speed after he got mildly shot. That mothering streak of his was going to get them all killed.
Eobard edged himself up far enough to see through the window, trying to get a look at what was happening.
The Time Idiots had holed up on the other side of the parking lot, behind a moving van. The side of it was peppered with Malcolm’s arrows and blast marks from the laser pistol Damien had gotten attached to. He couldn’t see any of them, but he slid back down anyway.
“What are the Legends doing in modern-day Phoenix anyway?” Damien asked, as if the Time Idiots had broken a universal law.
“I’d say your guess is as good as mine, but I’m positive my guess is better than yours,” Malcolm replied.
Damien glared murderously, but Eobard stood up into their line of sight. “Does it matter? Those idiots are hell-bent on killing two-thirds of us. We have to focus, gentlemen. I propose that I use my speed to get all of us out of this dead-end and lose them. Is that satisfactory?”
Damien huffed and turned away. Eobard took that as a yes, but Malcolm stooped to check his leg.
“You’re still hurt, Eo. You really shouldn’t be using your speed. There has to be another way.”
“I’m willing to listen, provided you make it quick,” Eobard snapped. Malcolm pursed his lips, but Eobard already knew he wouldn’t come up with anything. There were only so many ways to get away from people who were shooting at you.
Eobard gave him fifteen seconds and when it was over, he grabbed Malcolm and took off running. As always, running cleared his mind the way nothing else could. His every sense came alive, enabling him to keep track of everything even while moving so fast cars looked like they were standing still. Flickers of red lightning slithered lovingly over his body. The only thing wrong was the sharp ache in his lower leg where he had been shot.
Stupid Legends.
He dropped Malcolm on a street corner twenty blocks away and went back for Damien. Once they were both safe, he stopped moving, barely winded.
At least, that was the plan. What really happened was that he arrived with Damien and slumped against him, legs shaking. His stomach howled like he had never eaten in his life.
“Eo! I told you not to run! Where does it hurt?” Malcolm shouted, dropping his bow and pulling Eobard entirely off the ground.
“Mal, it’s just hunger. Stop panicking,” Eobard told him, taking deep breaths to calm himself. He really was getting careless. He would never have risked getting into a fight without a totally full tank before- Well, he couldn’t think of the last time he’d been able to do something completely the way he preferred to.
That was alarming, actually.
“Put him down, Merlyn, you’re causing a scene,” Damien hissed, pocketing his gun and snatching Malcolm’s bow from the ground. “Let’s go and find him something to eat. The Legends will have a hard time finding us as long as we keep our heads down.”
There was an awkward silence as they all remembered they couldn’t exactly blend in. Malcolm had his quiver on his back and the black, studded League of Assassins clothes he was wearing didn’t scream Totally Normal Person. Damien’s Italian suit worked a little better, but he attracted attention wherever he went, thanks to his short-cropped white hair and icy blue eyes. Eobard was better off in his black jeans and leather jacket but staggering about and losing consciousness from hunger wouldn’t do them any favors.
Malcolm took his bow from Damien and tucked it into his quiver. “We’ll figure something out. Come on, Eo. First thing, we’ll get you something.”
They let him walk, but Malcolm tucked Eobard’s hand into the crook of his elbow like he didn’t expect him to be able to keep up on his own. Damien walked aggressively on his other side.
Now, until meeting Damien, Eobard had thought he knew a lot about walking aggressively. Sure, most of the time he moved a bit faster than a walk, but the idea was the same, right? Damien had taken the idea and turned it into an art form. He managed to walk in a way that was both panther-graceful and conveyed all the power contained in his deceptively muscular frame.
Just watching him made Eobard feel clumsy.
Eobard wasn’t sure where Malcolm was planning to go. The man’s tastes still ran to the wealthy restaurants he had gone to as a rich businessman, but they couldn’t exactly get a table with Malcolm dressed the way he was. Maybe he planned to find a place to get new clothes? He didn’t really care, as long as they got some food soon.
Eobard had just noticed his leg was feeling a bit better when a familiar sign caught his attention. That was the place, there was no other option. He slipped his hand free of Malcolm’s arm and walked toward it, blind to anything else.
Until Damien got him in a headlock.
“What are you doing?! You can’t just wander off like this!” Damien hissed in his ear. He really was doing that a lot today.
“Dami, I’m going there, and you can’t stop me. The only option is to come with me,” Eobard replied.
“I’m not going in there and neither are you,” Malcolm said, in his most judgmental rich person voice.
Eobard got tired of both of them and just slipped out using his speed. It left him leaning against the door of the building, dry heaving as his stomach threatened to climb out of his mouth, but he got away. He hadn’t really noticed the heat before, but he was suddenly too hot. Well, air conditioning would help with that. He caught his breath and stepped inside the Big Belly Burger.
There was a line. Eobard knew it was reasonable to expect a line, but he still hated it. Unfortunately, killing all the people in the line would destroy his chance of good service and he just didn’t have the energy to run away from the police. That didn’t stop him from hating the line.
He stood in the back of the line and sorted through his pockets. As a speedster, he was frequently forgetful and he didn’t want to make it to the head of the line, discover he had no money, and have to endure the line and Malcolm all over again. There was nothing in his jeans. Eobard checked his jacket pockets with a sinking feeling of dread.
Aha! He withdrew a crumpled handful of bills, checked to make sure they were appropriate to the time and place, and shoved them into the right hip pocket of his jeans. Now he just had to make it to the head of the line and order delicious hamburgers.
A waft of hot air told him the door had opened again. Eobard didn’t care; he was ahead of them in the line.
Something sharp dug into his ribs. “If you ever do that again, I’ll stab you,” Malcolm breathed, hot breath tickling his neck.
Eobard rolled his eyes. “Really? You said we were going to find food and this place has the best food on the planet. I’ve made my choice and you’re the one who always wants to respect the choices we make in this… whatever it is.”
“The ones WE make, yes,” Malcolm replied, standing normally next to him and putting the knife back in the waistband of his uniform. “You went off on your own again.”
“No one wants to lock you up in a Swiss bank vault again,” Damien added, stepping up on his other side. “And ‘this’ is a relationship. It’s not a crime to call it that.”
“A healthy, adult relationship, unlike this nightmare of a place,” Malcolm agreed, narrowing his eyes as he looked around.
Eobard felt his face get hot. “That’s not something you need to say in public. Besides, you don’t have to be here with me. I have money.”
For once, he added silently.
“That does make a nice change,” Damien said out loud. Eobard fumed while the other two exchanged grins.
“Look, I want to eat here. You can go and do whatever you want. That seems fair, doesn’t it?”
“Not with the Legends looking for us. I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Malcolm stated.
Did normal people have partners like this? Eobard couldn’t remember any of his sporadic dates before becoming a speedster ever acting this. After becoming a speedster, dating had been even more tedious, and he had stopped doing it altogether. Malcolm and Damien had been the first people he ever truly loved, and he always felt like he had no idea how to relate to them or interact meaningfully.
“Stop frowning. You’re going to make people nervous,” Damien said, wrapping his hand around Eobard’s.
Had he been frowning? His forehead hurt, but it was a background problem compared to how hungry he was.
Eobard focused only on the sensation of Damien holding his hand. That was the best way to ignore the hunger and the spastic part of his brain that saw everything in slow-motion whether he was running or not. He didn’t know why, but physical contact ground speedsters in a way that nothing else could even come close to.
“Hi, what can I get for you today?” asked the teenager at the register.
Eobard glanced at the menu, even though he didn’t expect it to be any different from the one in Central City.
“I’ll have two Belly Boxes, six large fries, and a large soda,” he reeled off. The teenager lost his bored expression to a quizzical frown, even though he continued dutifully filling the order. Eobard watched the kid look from him, to Malcolm, to Damien, then turn pale and get back to work.
Damien must have done his ‘do not attempt to ask me anything under pain of immediate violence’ face on the poor kid. Eobard didn’t mind that, he could feel his legs getting shaky.
“Your total is $45.19 today, sir, and your number is 27.”
Eobard paid the teenager, accepted the receipt and his cup, and headed straight to the soda fountain. He wasn’t going to have a soda, since the sugar would put him in a coma, but he could fill the cup with cold water and make his stomach shut up until the food was ready. Malcolm and Damien could have some water too. All of them were wearing black and the sun had been very hot out there.
“So, you just ordered twelve hamburgers. Are you insane?” Malcolm asked once they had settled into a plastic booth.
“No. I’m hungry. You should know by now that pretty much offers all the explanation you need.”
“You are going to die! I know you’ll eat all of it by yourself and that is more unhealthy than I can possibly explain to you. Don’t you care about what you put into your body?”
“Don’t sell yourself so short,” Damien interjected, sounding bored.
Eobard choked on his water and buried his face in his elbow. He wasn’t sure what Malcolm did, but Damien jumped beside him and slammed his knee into the table. Eobard could only hope his coughing could drown out the colorful swear words that followed.
“My POINT is that all that grease and starch and God knows what else is going to have a detrimental effect on Eo’s health! It is our responsibility to keep him in good condition while he solves the problem of restoring his reality. How can you not be supporting me on this?!”
“Mal, think about it. He goes through an unholy number of calories every day. Do you really expect his system to secrete anything he eats? We’re lucky he doesn’t need nutritional supplements to get the proper vitamins. Just let it go,” Damien said in his reasonable voice.
Eobard chuckled into his arm, not quite ready to rejoin the others. Malcolm was relentless about making sure the others took care of themselves, sorted out problems by talking about them rather than using threats and weapons, and generally acted like a doting parent. It was something special when Damien shook off his indifference and behaved reasonably rather than going for the violent solution.
Malcolm was quiet for so long that Eobard put his arm down to make sure he was all right.
“I’m sorry, Eo. You should get to choose what you eat, absolutely. There’s just so much about this situation that bothers me. We’re no closer to fixing things for you than when we were chasing the Spear. I just need you to be healthy so that you can stay alive.” Malcolm spoke so quietly Eobard took a moment to realize he was being addressed. Rather than meeting his gaze, Malcolm spoke to his hands, the cybernetic one balled into a fist and the real one wrapped around it.
Eobard wrapped his hands around them. “You don’t have to worry. One meal of burgers won’t kill me.”
Malcolm rolled his eyes. “I still don’t know what’s with you and red meat.”
“Simple. Cows are extinct where I come from. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of cow.”
“And that’s our number,” Damien said and left to get the food. Eobard grinned at Malcolm until he got a smile in return. Malcolm freed his hands and stole the water, locking eyes with Damien the second he got back.
Eobard ignored them and ripped into the food. He chewed it, barely, but choking was a distant concern compared to how good it felt to fill his belly.
He came up for air after the second burger and munched on French fries instead.
“Do you think the Legends will pick up our trail?” Malcolm asked, passing Damien the water.
“Hard to say. There’s nothing about us that Gideon can trace, unless they managed to get a good reading of the Speed Force around me. They’d have to be a lot smarter to manage that, so the risk is minimal. I don’t think they would bother trying to set up a methodical search and, as far as I know, no one’s reported us for anything. That rules out locating us through police activity.” Eobard paused in his munching as an idea occurred to him.
Damien helped himself to a burger and cut it in half with a knife he produced from his coat. “I know that face,” he commented. “You just got an idea.”
“I might be able to hack their comms,” Eobard said. He slurped down another burger before pulling his phone from his pocket. “This technology is clumsy, but I’ve made a few modifications, so if I do this…” He fiddled with the device, spliced together a few wires from another pocket onto the earpiece he rarely used, and ate another burger absently while he worked.
He was feeling a lot better by the time his earpiece crackled to life. He grinned and put it back in his ear. The others activated their own earpieces and listened in.
“No, I don’t know what the Legion of Doom was doing in modern-day Phoenix,” Sara Lance was saying, her voice packed with irritation. “We’ve been over this a dozen times. Obviously, Eobard Thawne is still trying to make himself real, but if we can’t find them, we can’t stop them. They’ve been avoiding us, so it makes sense that we didn’t know they were still active.”
Eobard didn’t bother listening anymore. The Time Idiots had no clue what they were doing, per usual, and he could finish his meal without having to worry about them. It would be an unenlightening discussion anyway, because he barely knew any of their names. He had learned them once, but remembering things like that was tedious, especially when he hated the people who belonged to the names.
Malcolm and Damien slumped over the table, convulsing with silent laughter. Eobard finished his French fries, pleased that he had accomplished something so positive.