so i was rewatching 2x09 bc christmas and like. thinking about len breaking into joe’s house to warn barry about mardon and jesse. and of course we know that he went and made himself cocoa and sat in the chair, perfectly positioned for his dramatic reveal - but you can’t tell me that len broke into barry’s childhood home and didn’t immediately start snooping through his stuff
first of all i think he’d want to even the score. bc after the events of family of rogues, barry now knows more about len’s past, his childhood and his trauma than i think len would really be comfortable with anyone knowing (hence why he makes that jab to iris about having a rough childhood; he knows barry’s probably shared that information with her, he doesn’t like it, he feels exposed and vulnerable, and so he makes the decision to bring it up before she can and trivialise it, to take that power away from her and own it.)
i can’t remember how much info len canonically has about barry’s life, i don’t think barry would ever have had any reason to share the details of his traumatic past with len and i doubt he’d give len that power willingly with the state of their relationship being what it was (though i also don’t doubt that len would have done some research of his own, because he’s meticulous, and i’m sure he’d have made it his business to learn as many of the flash’s weaknesses as possible. know thy enemy, and all that.) would len really have passed up an opportunity to scope out barry’s home environment, see what kind of person he is behind the mask? his likes, dislikes, hobbies, keepsakes? taking back some of the power he lost when barry learned about len’s abusive father, albeit on a smaller scale, by going through his possessions?
at the end of the day, len knows broadly what kind of person barry is - that he’s brave, honourable, self-sacrificing, persistent; he knows about his family and his career - but he doesn’t know what music he likes, or what pictures he has in his room. he knows who the flash is, but he doesn’t know who barry allen is. and i think he’d want to have that info, both for practical reasons - the more he knows about barry, the easier it will be to manipulate him, to figure him out - and also because i think (and this may be seen through shipper goggles, sue me) that len likes being one of barry’s big villains. i think knowing more about barry than the average meta of the week is something that appeals to him. it makes him different than the other villains. more dangerous. makes the game more interesting.
so like. here i am, thinking about len entering joe’s house and sauntering around the living room. picking up the family photos and examining them. making his cup of cocoa (and absolutely leaving all the washing up for barry to do later, because he’s a dick like that) and while he waits for it to warm, he goes upstairs. goes into barry’s room and wanders around. looks at the bookshelf, skims through barry’s music collection, goes through his wardrobe. opens his drawers and rifles through his belongings. maybe steals something, because he’s leonard snart and he’s incapable of not stealing something, and also because he knows it’ll piss barry off, and he loves getting under his skin. it’d probably only be something small, something easily missed, but that’d be even better - in a few months barry will be looking for something he hadn’t even noticed was gone, and he’ll be frustrated, and maybe put two and two together about who took it. meanwhile len, very smug, lying on his bunk in the waverider, keeps messing with some random trinket he stole from barry’s dresser.
so anyways, len conducts this very thorough examination of barry’s stuff. flicks through his old college textbooks, checks out his dvd collection, catalogues it all, puts together puzzle pieces. working out what kind of person barry allen is.
and of course he doesn’t want to be caught doing this, because that would take away some of the power of the act (and also no way does he want barry to know that len finds him interesting enough to go through his stuff; that would be Embarrassing and len is still trying to act like his attraction to barry isn’t glaringly obvious. like a cat that hangs out in the same room as you all the time but tries to play it cool, like it’s some big coincidence that they just happen to be with you All The Time)
so he heads back downstairs, makes his cocoa, sprawls out in the armchair and waits (and part of me hopes he was waiting for a while bc it’s inexpressibly amusing for me to imagine len sat there having to take a mouthful of cocoa that’s gone cold because he’s been waiting for so long, and having to not react, because that would ruin the effect)
and then of course barry gets back and everything plays out, but the whole time len has that smug feeling, that he knows something barry doesn’t, that he knows him a little better, that he’s evened the score tonight in ways that don’t just involve repaying barry for saving lisa’s life - and it also humanises him a little. because now he knows barry is a person as well as a hero. he knows what music he likes and the dumb action figures he collected as a kid and whether or not he makes his bed in the morning (he absolutely doesn’t) and it softens things a little, so his parting shot, ‘merry christmas, barry,’ doesn’t come out with as much venom as he intended. because it’s hard to keep up the mockery when he’s seen a more personal side to him, hard to face off against the flash when he’s not wearing the suit, when he’s home and surrounded by his things, when it’s impossible to forget that the flash is also barry allen and maybe finding out these little details about him wasn’t such a good idea after all because it’s a lot harder to hate someone after you’ve snooped through their sock drawer
anyway that’s what I’M thinking about tonight, wbu
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