fulmination

the flash (2011) #9, 16, and 49; the flash (2016) #83; justice league (2016) #23; infinite frontier #2

Besides, Len was harboring some serious doubts about the soundness of Barry's logic. Barry wasn't actually a cop; if anything, he'd proven himself to be a bleeding-heart civilian, with a moral compass that pointed several degrees off north and a documented history of lying through his teeth, straight to his boss’s face. Captain Singh may have given Barry a longer leash once he’d found out whose throat that collar was really wrapped around, but Len would’ve bet the cold gun that Singh was still keeping a damn close eye on Barry to see what he did with the extra lead. 

So Len dropped his lashes on a private smirk, then tilted his head and lifted his gaze to Barry’s. Barry flashed him another hit of that cocky grin, clearly sure that he’d finally struck him speechless. Instead, Len pulled his right hand out of his pocket, lifted it over the table, and then set it down on top of Barry’s. 

Out of the corner of Len’s eye, he saw Singh's head turn toward them. Like a shark the second a drop of blood hit the water.

Or, like a police captain who’d been watching his biggest liability out of the corner of his eye since the second he’d spotted him sitting across from Len. 

Barry, to his credit, only wavered for a second. The smug look dropped off his face with one hard blink, but he didn’t pull his hand out from under Len’s, and he forced the grin back up a moment later. It wasn’t completely convincing, but Barry seemed to be bringing himself around to it. 

Not that Len didn’t sympathize. It had taken everything in him not to react when their hands had touched. He’d had Barry’s gloved hands on him in anger and in aid; Barry’s chest and stomach pressed flush with his own when they were snarling threats at each other with their faces inches apart; his own traitorous hand clasping the Flash suit by the wrist or elbow or cowl, to either help Barry off the ground or drag him down onto it. But he’d never allowed this: the bare skin of Barry’s hand under his own, soft and warm and alive. Len could feel so much more than he’d ever been able to through Barry’s clothes, every shift of the fine bones that Len could’ve snapped without even breaking a sweat. He could feel—

Len paused. He tilted his head in curiosity, letting his smirk drop. He didn’t look down; his eyes would only bias him. He already knew what Barry’s hands looked like. What he needed to figure out was—

There. 

Len had Barry’s hand off the table in a second, his earlier hesitation discarded in the face of such intriguing new information. He reached out with free hand and slid it underneath Barry’s, then, ignoring Barry’s half-swallowed noise of surprise, pressed Barry’s hand between both of his own. 

The silence he needed lasted all of two seconds before Barry interrupted with a strangled, “What—?”

“Quiet.”

Barry’s jaw snapped shut, with a click of teeth that Len registered absently in approval. If he could manage it to keep it that way for a few seconds… 

He turned Barry’s hand over between his, head still cocked, eyes focused on the middle distance. Listening. Feeling. He tightened his grip experimentally, loosened it again, then turned Barry’s hand over again to press a curious thumb over the pulse in his wrist. It wasn’t proper form; on a human, he would’ve had to untangle their hands enough to get his index and middle fingers free to check it properly. But Barry wasn’t human, and there was no confusing their heartbeats; his thumb pressed to Barry's wrist was keeping quick time, but Barry’s was soaring, too fast to count even if Len had wanted to. 

Len wasn't actually trying to check Barry’s resting heart rate—he could always break into STAR Labs and peruse Snow’s files if he needed it—so he moved on. He traced his thumb carefully to the center of Barry’s wrist, seeking, eyes still off to one side. Then he pushed it higher. Barry’s palm was soft—distractingly, obscenely soft. It derailed Len’s thoughts briefly in the direction of Barry's enhanced healing, then derailed them a little further, in a different, much less helpful (but equally interesting) direction.

Barry’s twitch as he smoothed his thumb steadily higher was a helpful distraction, and Len warned him off moving with a quick frown of concentration. 

Len reached the top of his palm and stayed there for another moment. He could feel it if he pressed down, just barely, on the pads at the base of each of Barry’s fingers; he tested each one in turn, just to be sure. Then, needing to check the base of his thumb, too, he stroked his touch down the webbing between Barry’s index finger and thumb.

Barry twitched again, so hard that time that he almost pulled out of Len’s grip completely, and Len tightened his other hand around Barry’s wrist impatiently. Christ, it was like trying to crack a ticklish safe. But he’d definitely felt it, then, unless it had just been the movement of Barry’s muscles underneath him. 

Len shut his eyes to focus. He needed to block out visual input, and also whatever Barry was trying to say as he shifted in his seat and tried to draw his arm back on another weak tug. 

A slow, steady press of his thumb back up the webbing of Barry’s hand seemed promising, so that was his next move. And—there—

He repeated the touch, a little harder, and Barry said, voice agitated, “Snart.”

Len hummed an absent acknowledgment and moved his attention further up when the second stroke yielded no new information. He wrapped the rest of his fingers around the back of Barry’s hand, then shifted the tip of his index finger to rest against the first knuckle of Barry’s. He settled his thumb just on the other side, where his index finger met his palm. Then he drew both fingertips slowly up, one on either side of the length of Barry’s finger, a fraction of an inch by a fraction of an inch. He tilted his head the other way in concentration, then adjusted again when Barry’s restless movements became more pronounced.

He couldn’t just hear what he’d been looking for, now, he could feel it. And because he'd been actively working to tune out the sound of Barry’s voice, it took the full space of three seconds for him to register that Barry had just said his name again. Except, again wasn’t an accurate word. Because Barry had just called him—

“Leonard.”

Len snapped his eyes open. 

The look on Barry’s face was so acutely embarrassed that Len could feel the gears grind in his own head as his attention tried to split in two directions at once. Most of his thoughts were still doggedly focused on the (literal) task at hand, but he cataloged it all on autopilot anyway: the pink flush painted across the tops of Barry’s cheeks; the way his gaze skittered away when Len looked at his eyes; the blown pupils swallowing all but a narrow ring of his irises; the last, half-hearted attempt to twist his hand out of Len’s grip. 

Len put a pin in it; they had other business to attend to, first. 

“No wonder half the city knows who’s under that mask.” When he continued the slow, exploratory stroke of his fingertips up Barry’s finger, he got as far as the next knuckle before a muscle in Barry’s jaw jumped, and Barry threw him a glare. “Oughtta make people sign an NDA before you shake hands with them."

The tips of Barry’s ears went pink, but there was real annoyance behind his eyes when he said, voice tight and testy, “Half the city does not—"

“Or has nobody told you? Your hands vibrate.” 

When Barry broke his grip, it was with a strength just out of proportion with the lean muscles in his arms. That, and a truly impressive blush scorching up the back of his neck, which he only drew more attention to when he slid his newly-freed hand up to cover it.

“They don't—They're vibrating now, because you're—“

Barry threw his hand out in a manic gesture toward him. It seemed accusatory, but otherwise, it was completely incomprehensible. 

Len lifted an eyebrow.