#zaray

I've been on a kick of Zaray feels lately!

Ray doesn’t remember too many details about his parents’ divorce and the subsequent custody hearings. Oh, he remembers sitting in that courtroom, bored to tears and yet hanging on to every word that was spoken. He remembers trying to keep track, to figure out which way his and Sydney’s future was leaning at any given moment. It seemed to always be changing; from split custody, to dad was moving too far away, so then it was going to be sole custody to one parent or the other. But of course he and Sydney were asked, and they were young, so Ray isn’t sure how much of a factor their opinions really was. Regardless they each had different preferences, and so eventually the arrangement was reached. During the school year Ray would live with mom in Ivy Town, and Sydney with Dad in Seattle, and during the summers Ray would go to Seattle for five weeks before returning to mom and Ivy Town with Sydney, who would stay until the start of school another five weeks down the line. Holidays and school breaks alternate, and it’s all a bit of a mess but now that they’re fifteen he and Sydney can get around that mess a little easier. They find ways to get it adjusted if need be, but it’s a pain, so last week Ray packed his bags and came for his five weeks in Seattle.

Which means going with his dad to a cookout for his company.

It isn’t bad… But he doesn’t exactly know any of the other kids. Even if he did, there aren’t any his age. It’s mostly little kids, the oldest is probably ten. He can tell some of the younger adults around are mostly “kids” who were dragged to this party, but they’re older than he is.

Sydney managed to weasel his way out of coming; plans with his friends at the beach. He didn’t seem to think to invite his brother, so here Ray is, dragged along with his dad because “it’ll be fun.”

It is not fun.

Still, this isn’t a setting he’s unfamiliar with. He’s been to plenty of mom’s work functions before and he’s always the oldest. He either spends the day on his own or as a babysitter. None of the young children here have approached him yet, but he won’t rule out that possibility. It’s fine if they do, it’ll pass the time. The cookout is in the back lot of a community center, and it’s sunny, so he’s found a nice spot against a wall where he can enjoy the sun while sipping a soda only twenty feet or so away from where the younger kids are playing.

They’re mostly chasing each other around, playing tag or some made-up game of the like. Two little boys have a remote-control helicopter that they’re carefully maneuvering around a grove of bushes a safe distance from the other kids.

Plop.

He looks into his cup, his brow furrowed, and a pebble sinking down through the middle of his soda.

He turns his head in time with a scratching noise coming from above him, and more pebbles sliding down off the roof overhead, evidently kicked loose by a girl.

She’s about his age, with dark hair tied back into a ponytail and her lip snagged between her teeth.

“Sorry.” She says, “I slipped.”

“It’s ok.” He says, and it’s about then he realizes he’s staring at her. At her black converse and black skinny jeans. At her black tank top with her red and black flannel hanging open over it. It’s a lot of black, he realizes suddenly, but it works for her. It doesn’t intimidate him like his peers who dress in that much black normally do. Then again it isn’t orchestrated in a way that he thinks is supposed to send a message like that, although she is sitting on a roof.

“You ok down there?” She asks, interrupting his thoughts, and he feels like he, somehow, physically stutters.

“Uh, yeah.” He manages. “How did you get up there?”

She looks behind her, like she is either checking something or deciding whether she is going to share her secret or not, before she turns back.

“Climbed from the tree.”

He nods, looks over around the side of the building and at the rather large, if skinny, tree growing just at the corner. He looks up at her again, and she’s watching him.

“Uh… Can I… Can I join you?” She shrugs, “Sure.”

She says so easily, almost confused, like she can’t understand why he’s asking. So he’ll take that for what it’s worth and goes around back to the tree.

Again, the large but skinny tree.

He wraps his hands at either side of the trunk, white bark flaking off at his touch. He gives an experimental shake but the tree hardly wiggles. Ok, good.

There’s a branch hanging low, just high enough for him to grab but… Nothing else within reach once he has that.

The girl is now coming to this side of the roof, stopping at the very edge, with her eyebrows scrunched as she watches him try and decide a next move.

“Here,” She finally says, and he notes her tucking in her tank top. “Let me show you.”

Then, she jumps.

She lands beside him in a crouch, and she straightens up and brushes her hands off from the landing then lightly nudges him aside. She’s shorter than he is, almost by a whole head. She can’t reach the branch just by sticking her arm up. She looks up at it, and then before he can ask if she has some other tactic she jumps and latches onto the branch with both hands and a grunt. He then watches – in nothing short of awe – as she proceeds to curl her body in and upside-down, her legs swinging up between her hands so her knees can hook over the branch. Once she’s secured by her knees she drops her hands and hangs fully upside down. She doesn’t waste anytime moving her hands to the trunk of the tree where she uses them to pull herself up, careful and calculated, walking her palms over the rough bark of the tree. Eventually she’s sitting upright on the low branch and as she walks her hands higher she’s able to use her feet. She’s able to stand, and from there she simply steps over to the roof.

Then, she’s watching him expectantly again.

He reaches again and grabs the branch, and then looks down at his feet still planted firm on the ground, and then back up to the girl.

“Um… I’m not sure I can get my legs up like that.”

She frowns, and as he looks at the tree again an idea strikes him.

He turns sideways so that he’s facing the trunk of the tree and reaches his other hand to the branch. He manages to jump up and walk his feet up the trunk, at least enough that he can eventually turn and half pull his body up over the branch, and when he gets that far she’s able to grab a hand and pull him the rest of the way up.

“Thanks.” He huffs, dusting himself off, and he looks around.

The view actually isn’t much. It’s mostly more slants and slopes of the large pavilion roof. They’re in plain view of any onlookers, but no one seems exceptionally worried about them being up here. He follows her back to the ledge where he’d originally found her, his soda cup now discarded below, and he’s surprised to find an open bag of cheese balls waiting for them.

Or, actually, for some reason he isn’t surprised.

“I’m Ray.” He introduces himself as they sit, her taking a cheese ball for herself before tilting the bag to him.

“Zari.”

He smiles, takes a cheeseball, and for a minute it’s just the sound of them chewing.

“You get dragged along too?”

She snorts, “My options were come here with my dad and my brother, or go shopping with my mom and sister.”

He nods, “My brother was supposed to come but he had plans.” “Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

She laughs then, he does too, and ok, something lights up in his chest. He can’t help it. He knows it’ll never happen, deep down, but all these summers spent coming to Seattle for weeks at a time… sometimes he likes to think maybe he’ll meet a girl here someday. The whole “star-crossed lovers scenario”. It’s… Well, he likes to hope.

“So what are you hiding up here from?”

She pops another cheeseball in her mouth. “Well, I’m not hiding, cause my dad already saw me. But he can’t exactly drag me down from here so…” She shrugs, and then sighs. “Do you really want to know?”

He blinks, and he nods.

“Ok.” She says, and she points out to the party below them. “So, you and me might be the only kids older than seven here, but some of these other guys have kids our age. We’re just the two losers who didn’t have anything better to do today. Now I don’t know all those kids, but the ones I do know suck.”

“But they’re not here.”

“But their parents are.” She says, “And like me, a lot of them are Muslim. Which means parents are starting to think about… futures and… arranging marriages.”

Ray balks. He… He hadn’t thought she could be hiding from something like that.

“Don’t worry, no one forces anything.” She’s quick to assure him, almost laughing – she must see the horror on his face. “Not everyone even does an arranged marriage. But some do, and my parents promised to not go that route with us unless we ask them too. But, for now, my dad might still try and set me up.”

Again, Ray blinks.

He knows, logically, that modern-day arranged marriages are nothing like the tragedies he’s read about in books. He knows too that parents of all backgrounds start to think about their kids futures when they’re teenagers. Hell, him and Sydney, even their mom has expressed concern that if Sydney doesn’t get his act together he’s going to settle down with the first girl he meets in a post-high school crisis and end up divorced by twenty-two.

“Does he want you to get married right away?”

She shakes her head.

“He said he would prefer I didn’t.” She explains, “No, actually I think he’s looking more for my sister, she’s more into the whole marriage idea than I am. But I’m the one here today.”

He nods, “So what do you want to do?”

She shrugs, “Don’t know. You?”

“Well, I’m planning to go to either Hudson University or Harvard, and then I want to start my own tech company. I have a protype design for a nanochip I’m working on, hopefully when it’s fully operational with can be used to restore mobility to people suffering paralysis from spinal cord injuries.”

Out of habit he starts to trail a bit near the end of that. He… He gets that science isn’t everyone’s thing, and normally when people as what you want to do after high school they aren’t expecting an answer like that.

“Ok.” She says, seemingly mildly confused. “So that would technically be a logic chip, correct?”

Ray isn’t sure he has ever smiled brighter.

They talk microchips and tech for what feels like hours. He learns she’s mostly a gamer, but between repairing her consoles from the damage that comes from living in a house with three kids and hacking various online games, she’s come to know her way around tech and computers. He gets her handle for a specific game he plays online with a friend back home, and eventually when someone yells for the two of them to get off the roof he’s reluctant, and only partly because he isn’t nearly as graceful in his landing as she is.

“You gonna be on tonight?” She asks, as he gets up, and a man is motioning for her off in the distance. Must be her dad, time for her to go. “I know glitch. Can spit you out right in the center of Salvation.”

Salvation being the Old West realm of the game, and near impossible realm to get into because it’s home to a host of power ups.

Franky, he would rather fight his way in past the guards fair and square, but he has been trying that for weeks.

i haven't forgotten my roots and i never will

this is my first otp... the one that drove me to start this account and so many others across social media

they would've been a perfect couple if they were just given a chance...

Friends and Teammates

(Of course!)

The blanket settles over Zari's shoulder heavily, but the weight is a comfort. It's what she needs after today, with the reminder that her family is all dead (presumed dead in her parents' case, but she knows better). With the weighted blanket around her, it's like the hug she longs from her brother or her father. There's still a warmth and a safe feeling about it.

Even if she doesn't have human contact with them, she has the next best thing. Ray Palmer, pressed against the couch, his head lolling towards her. On the tv in front of them plays an episode where people are doing science by exploding things. She can't remember what it's called other than Ray's self-admitted guilty pleasure show. There's a few remnants of donuts (gluten full and free) that they munched on three episodes ago.

This was a normal in her childhood years- movie nights with treats. Now it's a luxury afforded by those who aren't persecuted. Zari has no clue whether or not Ray knows this. But with his big heart, how he will go out of the way to make people happy, she wonders if he did look into her time and decided to treat her.

She leans over and presses a kiss to his forehead. His eyes flutter open as he tilts his head to look up at her.

"Thank you," she whispers.

He smiles and gives her hand a squeeze. "No problem."