#dctvfic

He hasn’t let himself count how long it’s been since he’s seen Lisa since six months passed. If he keeps doing it, he’ll go crazy, he knows this for a fact--it’s been so long. He’s so tired and restless, and the routine of going home and ending up spending the night alone, laying on his couch and staring at the ceiling, is starting to get old. Which is the depression talking, but it’s the depression that got him in this mess, so it’s...well, it’s ironic, maybe.

The point is, he’s walking home and thinking of ways to kill himself. 

Not because of Lisa! Even though she had been drifting through his thoughts a lot today, which was really unfair. Not because of anyone in particular, actually, but really everyone, and everything, and if he was being honest he was too tired and weighed down and weary to pick out each and every individual reason, but that was the problem, he thinks, the reason he’s plotting this out at all.

He doesn’t want to fail, though, is the problem. If he fails he’ll just upset Barry and Iris and he’ll never get any peace after that, they’ll always be hovering and worrying and fussing--poor little Cisco. Couldn’t handle the strain of being a second-rate superhero so he decided to off himself and couldn’t even do that right. And he can’t think of a fool-proof method of dying; he’s scared of guns, honestly, the real ones, not the kind he made for Len and Mick and--and her, the fantasy guns. And he doesn’t want to burn to death, or drown, or hang, because all of that would leave a mess. 

So, with that in mind, he settles on the next best thing--sleeping for as long as he possibly can, until the calls from Barry wondering where he is become inescapable. Maybe he’ll sleep so much he’ll just turn his brain off for good. That’d be nice.

Anyway. With the sleep of the suicidal on his to-do list, he climbs his stairs and enters his apartment, and does not sit down to cook or order takeout. He just drops his bag and undresses along the way, stopping before his bedroom door to kick off his briefs, his free hand reaching up reflexively over his chest, brushing his surgery scars. He frowns as they throb underneath him and twists the door open, stepping into the dark room and falling into bed to forgo thinking about it.

He rolls over, only to find someone has already claimed his space in his own bed.

There’s a pause. Cisco catalogs the sensation internally, somewhere beneath the initial panic response--warm, big, definitely human, and definitely alive. But also, wet. Water?

No. It’s tacky when he pulls away to sit up. Blood, then. 

“What--what’s going on?” he asks. He can talk, can feel himself talk, make himself move his mouth--so, not a dream, then. But then what the hell--

“Hi, Cisco,” Lisa says, barely above a whisper. She rolls over in his bed and exposes the huge gash across her stomach, bleeding profusely into his sheets, along with the innumerable bruises and minor cuts littering her body. “M’sorry. Didn’t--didn’t know where else to go. I had to hide. I--”

“It’s okay,” Cisco says, from somewhere behind himself, the back of his brain that was still chugging along even though every other part of his thoughts were consumed with blinding panic, “god, I promise it’s okay. You’re safe here, Lis. You’re safe now.”

“Good,” Lisa sighs, “good, that’s...good. With you. Safe.”

She closes her eyes. Cisco shakes her awake. “No, no, don’t do that! Stay awake, stay with me, I--I’m gonna--”

“Call an ambulance,” Lisa says, yawning widely, shuddering in pain. “First things first. And then call the Flash, maybe.”

Cisco’s hand is already in his pocket, pulling out his phone. That sleep he desperately needs will have to wait, but as he searches his thoughts while on hold with the emergency operator, he realizes they’ve retreated back into the constant gloom lurking at the edges of his brain, banished by the golden glow of Lisa’s presence beside him, and the white-hot urgency of her situation.

Lisa isn’t sure why she’s standing in front of public enemy number one with a gun in hand, but an angry mob tends to cloud your judgment, sure enough.

“Hey,” she says, only realizing once she starts speaking that it’s eerily quiet. Her voice carries in the cold air. “This isn’t how Central City does justice. Go home.”

“That’s one of Zoom’s metahumans—“

“I’m well aware of what he is!” Lisa snaps. “But I’m not going to stand here and let you all execute him gangland style! Goddamn!”

There’s a silence. Lisa lowers her gun. “Look. I don’t want to draw on citizens. But you all need to put your weapons away and disperse. If he wanted you killed, he could’ve done it.”

“Don’t,” Reverb mutters, wiping blood from his mouth, “I’d hurt—you—“

“Ssh,” Lisa snapped, turning to the crowd. “Well? We do this by the book, people. Go home. Let the government handle it.”

There’s a rumble of anger and frustrated grumblings, but she’s done the right thing; like covering a fire with a bell jar, the hatred flickers out with nothing left to fuel it, and people start to turn away.

“By the book,” Lisa says, mostly to herself, “by the book. We do this by the book.”

She hefts Reverb up by his coat collar. He doesn’t stop her. “Let’s go.”

“As you wish,” he says, smiling, and it’s not mocking—it’s soft and fond, and it makes him beautiful.

God, she hates herself right now.

…

“Can you text a number if I give it to you?” Reverb says from shotgun, the seat pushed all the way down. He’s laying on his belly watching Lisa drive, his glasses in a curled, twisted heap of smoking machinery next to him. Lisa blinks.

“Why?”

“I need someone to feed my cats,” Reverb says.

“Oh,” Lisa blinks. “Right, yeah, gimme the number.”

He does, and she texts them to feed Reverb’s cats, no questions asked, because he might be part of the most dangerous gang in the city, but she’s not about to let cats starve.

“You gonna lecture me or something?” Reverb yawns, stretching out and grinning. “You saved my life, sweet Buttercup. I should thank you. Devote myself entirely to your service. Would you like that?”

“Oh my god, please,” Lisa snorted. “I just didn’t want to see a bunch of decent people get so worked into a frenzy they did something they’d regret.”

“Pardon me for saying, madam, but decent people tend to not congregate into mobs and go out to murder metahumans,” Reverb remarked. “Speaking of, how’re you doing on the metallurgy?”

Lisa’s hands froze on the wheel. “I don’t know what—“

“When I was in the mayor’s mansion,” Reverb says, “gathering documents. Spy stuff. Nothing gross. I didn’t—mean to see you. But you turned the chandelier gold. And it still glowed underneath all that metal, the light still shining…”

He trails off. “Kind of like you. Hey presto, metaphor.”

Lisa’s face is hot. “You—you prick—“

“Thanks, but I don’t have one,” Reverb yawns. “Point being, naturally, apologies for peeping, but I only saw your meta ability. Nothing else. Scout’s honor.”

“Why should I believe you?” Lisa snaps, her face still pink. Reverb snorts.

“Because if I’d seen your breasts, Buttercup, I’d have rented a blimp to tell everyone all about it.”

Lisa makes a face. “Don’t be gross.”

“Gross? You’re stunning,” Reverb says. “There’s such a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. ‘Twould be a shame to damage yours.”

“What kind of shitty villain quotes a dumb eighties fantasy film?”

“One, not a villain,” Reverb insists, “vigilante. Two—dumb? Excuse me? You’re one of those snobs who doesn’t like eighties fantasy?”

“I never said that!”

“You just did!”

He’s giving her a look of such offense she has to laugh. “Okay. Fair. But I don’t mean it. I…I used to watch The Last Unicorn with Lenny when daddy was out.”

She stares over the dashboard. “He came back and found us one time. He got mad at us for watching a faggy film and broke the VHS over my head.”

Reverb doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“Lenny stole me a new one from the video rental place,” Lisa says. “He didn’t like stealing unless we needed to eat. But he knew I loved that movie. I was…I was waiting for my prince.”

“You were?” Reverb says faintly. “Strange. Amalthea leaves Lír at the end, though.”

“Well,” Lisa shrugs, “I’m not a unicorn.”

“No,” Reverb agrees. “I couldn’t love a unicorn. Wasn’t that the whole point?”

Lisa doesn’t say anything after that. Her heart’s hammering under her chest.

“We can’t go back home,” she says. “Lenny would—Lenny would have you thrown in jail. Or something. Maybe? Um. Is there—do you have a place where we could—hide?”

“I thought you said we were doing this by the book,” Reverb chides her. “Did you save me for nefarious purposes, Buttercup? Do you plan to ravish me?”

“Shut up,” Lisa snaps, her face bright pink. “Look, do you know where we could go to ground or not?”

Reverb sighs. “I know a place.”

…

The place in question is surprisingly comfy and well-furnished, given that it’s a loft on the very edge of Central City.

“High meta population increase around here,” Reverb says. “Property values went way down.”

“Is this going to be a conversation about meta rights?”

“I don’t know, is it?” he replies, walking with her into the building. “You’re the one who’s a secret meta and letting us die in the goddamn streets, Buttercup.”

“Not just me,” Lisa blurts out. “But—but it’s not—“

“Not what?” Reverb shrugs. “Whatever. You’re right. I don’t feel like convincing you of anything. I feel like taking a nap after a near-death experience. Everything else can be worked out later.”

He strips in front of her carelessly, sliding out of his jacket and pants, kicking off his boxers and throwing his shirt off, unclasping his binder and flopping down onto the cot and its blankets, staring up at the ceiling. Lisa stares.

“Are you really going to sleep?”

“I’m going to try,” Reverb says. “Have to fix my goggles. Need to be focused. Can you charge my DS? It’s in my jacket pocket. Charger’s plugged in over by the lamp.”

“Priorities,” Lisa snorts, but she does as she’s told, and tries not to glance back at his nakedness, spread-eagle on the bed. He’s beautiful, and she hates herself a little more for taking note of his body.

She plugs in the DS and stands over him on the bed. “Did you have to strip down?”

“Sleep naked,” Reverb says. “Don’t like it, leave.”

“Didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Lisa sighs. “Shit. You’re not gonna hold this over my head later, are you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Buttercup,” Reverb promises as she takes her shirt off. He whistles and grins. “Cute bra!”

“Thanks,” Lisa grins, and for a second, things are normal and she’s not about to fuck the brains out of the most wanted criminal in Central City.

Well, she thinks, that honor could go to Zoom instead. It’d assuage her guilt some, later, when she remembers to think of things that aren’t Reverb, and her cock, and his silky-soft body sheathing hers.

…

She wakes up and he’s gone. She’s not surprised. She is surprised about the roses on the bed, blanketing the sheets and covers. It smells like heaven.

There’s a note pinned to her panties when she goes to pull them on, and she examines the neat handwriting with a frown.

“Buttercup—just remember. I will always come for you. You own me body and soul now, and you can always call in that debt. I would be honored to repay.

Signed,

The dread pirate Reverb.”