Ready To Run (FLASH/ARROW/GLEE)

Gleefully Surprising - I

When Barry had, against his wishes, agreed to meet with the Glee members from his school days, he did not expect his day to turn out the way it did.

Oliver had left for Starling early in the morning, to take care of some business troubles, after promising to come by in the afternoon. Barry would completely deny that he had pouted for a solid half hour. Oliver had taken great pleasure in kissing that pout off his face, till they were both breathless with laughter, gazing at each other with awe and wonder, love and adoration.

Even after all the time they'd been together, they still found it amazing that they had found each other.

Oliver, who had felt that there was almost no humanity left in him after everything he had done, who had thought that he was broken beyond repair after everything that had happened in his life, couldn't believe that someone as good, as precious as Barry, someone who was the very embodiment of all things pure, saw something worth loving in him. He knew that he'd rather die than see Barry in pain, than let Barry get hurt. Barry was the person who made him feel like maybe, just maybe, he wasn't that broken, that maybe redemption wasn't a hopeless dream. It was with Barry that Oliver felt human again.

After being traumatised at a very young age, watching his mother get murdered and seeing his father incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit, Barry had convinced himself that he could never have anything good in his life, nothing that would stay anyway. He would always love Joe for taking him in and being a father to him in the ways his dad couldn't. But the fact that his dad, Henry Allen, wasn't there, couldn't be there, would always be a wound that never healed.

When Barry had first met Oliver, he was... intrigued. When he realised that he had actually fallen for the vigilante, he suspected it had been a gradual process, the kind that sneaks up on you without you being aware of it, he managed to convince himself that it was never going to work out. After all, why would Oliver want to be with Barry? But there went Oliver, flipping over all his expectations, loving him as both Barry and the Flash, and Barry thought, maybe, you'll be the one who stays, and maybe, I can keep you.

Anyways, back to Barry's day, Barry had been counting on his work at CCPD to be his excuse for getting out of the Glee club reunion. But unfortunately, there had been no murders or any urgent reports to submit. So, all his excuses went down the drain.

Grumbling, he waved goodbye to Joe and walked out of the station. As he walked, his mind kept thinking of different scenarios, each more worrying than the previous one. Barry wished Oliver was there. He would know how to calm him down and say exactly what he needed to hear. Damn it, it hadn't even been a day and already, Barry was missing Oliver fiercely.

As he turned a corner, Barry bumped into someone coming from the opposite direction. With a grunt, Barry fell to the ground. He cursed his lanky body when he saw that the other person hadn't even stumbled.

A hand stretched into his field of vision. Taking it, Barry clambered to his feet.

"I am so very sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going. I was preoccupied and it's totally my fault. Sorry!" Apologies rushed out even before Barry looked at the human pillar standing in front of him.

A low, amused voice with a characteristic timbre interrupted his ramble.

"Hello there, Scarlet."

Barry froze. There was only one person who called him that.

Sure enough, when he finally lifted his head, standing before him was a smirking Leonard Snart aka Captain Cold. He was wearing his customary parka and sunglasses. Barry knew that Snart had his cold gun tucked away even though he couldn't see it.