Archive of Our Own

Ronnie kisses Jason as the universe ends.

Their 90 days are up, their atoms are being ripped apart, piece by piece. In the matrix, Jason could feel every molecule splitting apart, every single one of his pain receptors going off as they detonated, the universe around them crumbling. 

He looked at Ronnie then, the orange glow of the matrix painting him as ethereal, even with his face scrunched up in pain. And Ronnie opened his face, letting the pain crumble away, something like an apology written across his expression as he reached out and grabbed Jason’s hand, squeezing it as the world fell apart. 

And then he pulled Jason in, and Jason let himself be pulled, and Ronnie was kissing him, soft and gentle and like a promise of all the things they didn’t get to say, didn’t get enough time for. Ronnie kissed him like he was thirsty and Jason was a tall glass of water, like he was drowning and inhaling Jason’s breath was the only way for him to get air, like he was dying and Jason was the only thing keeping him alive. 

Jason kisses back, that’s the thing. It’s the end of the world and their lives are already in ruins and Ronnie is kissing him and Jason thinks to himself if he’s going to die he might as well do it in Ronnie’s arms. So he kisses him back. 

And it’s like the pain disappears as Jason melts into the kiss, like the universe is put on hold for this moment, like something, someone out there is granting them just one more minute to answer all the questions they had left unasked, all the moments they hadn’t taken advantage of. It’s like everything froze, just for them, just for that moment where only they exist. 

Jason pulls back eventually and Ronnie practically collapses in on Jason, resting his head on Jason’s shoulder, waiting for the pain to come back, for the world to continue to crumble, for them to die. Jason can only think to be grateful that they had decided to go so far away from civilisation, billions of galaxies away from life as soon as they realised their attempts at salvation were futile. At least the damage will be minimised. 

He feels Ronnie suck in a shaky breath, letting his own hand come around to hold Ronnie’s shoulders as he waits for the universe to finally end.

Only… it doesn’t. 

After a good minute of just floating there, Jason finally tears his eyes away from Ronnie to look at the matrix around them, the orange cracks that had appeared shining with a golden glow as it… stitches itself back together.

“Huh.” He frowns, watching as the universe very much does not end, but begins to repair. It’s slow, but it’s definitely happening, golden light filling in the cracks. He looks out of the matrix, at the solar system they had ended up in that had been empty except for a few desolate planets, and it mainly was empty. 

Except for the fucking sentient sun in front of them. 

The sun seems to be pouring its energy into them, or maybe they’re absorbing the sun's energy. Either way, the sun’s repairing the matrix, repairing the part of them that’s broken, fixing them. Ronnie shifts from where his head is resting on Jason’s shoulder, presumably looking out with Jason at the sight in front of them, but Jason can’t look away, his eyes stuck on the sun in front of them, draining itself until every crevice of their destruction is repaired. 

And then the sun’s gone. 

“What the fuck.” Ronnie says. It’s a statement, spoken in awe, not a question. 

Some moment between the sun’s disappearance and Ronnie speaking, they’ve left the matrix, or at least Jason has, taking the reins of Firestorm. Ronnie might be spiraling, his voice making small quips that Jason can’t quite make out over the inner noise of himself definitely spiraling. 

“What the fuck.” Ronnie says again, directly into Jason’s ears so he can’t ignore it. 

“Yeah.” Jason affirms, looking at the empty solar system around them. 

“What—what do we do now?” Ronnie’s voice is all wrong, small and confused and too quiet for the absence of sound around them. 

“I don’t—” Jason starts when there’s a rip in the space in front of them, a flashing light, and where there was nothing but stars and space in his line of sight, instead there's a spherical glass pod, floating there. 

If Jason squints, he can just about make out the shape of four people standing inside. He tenses immediately, on instinct, until the sphere nears them and suddenly the four people are familiar. 

Booster fucking Gold, grinning next to a floating gold robot that Jason was around 90% sure was called Beeps. An older man with a beard that Jason only vaguely recalls from the crash course that Ronnie had given him on the Justice League affiliations as Rip Hunter stood to Booster's left, with an exasperated expression on his face. Professor Palmer stood on Booster’s right, in his Atom get up, but with an identical grin. 

And Lorraine. 

She stands in the center, the glow of her blue flames like a honing beacon, drawing Jason in, her beaming smile all that Jason can focus on. He hears Ronnie exhale a relieved chuckle as she leaves the sphere, but all he can focus on is her. Her warmth as she pulls him into a tight hug that was more like a murder attempt by suffocation, her laughter in his ear, her bright grin enveloping her fiery features.

“Hey, kid.” She smiles, and she could be talking to him or Ronnie or both, but she’s looking at them with that look she only reserves for Jason, the glint in her eyes that she would shoot him across a conference indistinguishable even as Firehawk. 

“We didn’t explode.” Jason grins. It still feels unreal to him, everything since Ronnie had grabbed him and kissed him feels like a hallucination. “You—you saved us?”

“Of course we did,” She squeezes his shoulder, and part of Jason wishes they were normal so that she could run her hand over his cropped hair like she always would. “I wasn’t gonna leave you hanging, would I?”

89 days ago

Jason sits on the edge of the apartment building roof, the apartment he shared with Gehenna. He still can’t walk inside, seeing pieces of her wherever he turns, spending most of his time instead with Lorraine at her place, more time attached to her hip than when they couldn’t be more than a mile apart. 

Gehenna was gone. The Professor was gone. 

A chill runs through him and he wraps his bare arms around himself, hugging himself to try to rid himself of the cold that the thought brought with it.

It still doesn’t feel real, deep down, that both of them are dead when so many people come back. Fuck—even Deadman came back for a bit. But Jason couldn’t get Gehenna back. And even though he tried, even though Ronnie tried, even though he could manipulate organic matter, he still couldn’t save the Professor.

A part of him is still stuck on that day in the Antimatter Univer, in that moment where Ronnie threw himself in front of Jason, preparing to die. And then the professor took the hit for Ronnie. It’s him, the underlying factor, that’s got them killed. If he wasn’t Firestorm, if he hadn’t binded with Gehenna, if he didn’t stop Ronnie from trying to pull some self-sacrificing bullshit, then maybe they would still be alive. 

“Don’t jump.”

Ronnie’s voice is gruff, startling Jason out of whatever daze he was in. He hears him before he sees him, heavy feet on the gravel of the roof, until he slides onto the edge next to Jason, knocking him gently with his shoulder. He’s wearing a jacket, something well worn and ragged, and holding another in his hands that seems more taken care of.

He catches Jason looking and shoots him a smile. It’s half-hearted, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and Ronnie himself still can’t look Jason in the eye over his massive guilt complex about… everything, really. Jason tears his eyes away, looking at the cityscape around them instead. 

“Why? You wouldn’t wanna clean up the mess?” 

“Nah.” Ronnie snorts. Jason can see his head tip back out of the corner of his eye, exposing his pale throat to the air around them. “I’d obviously catch you, but honestly I can’t be bothered to get up right now.”

“Well.” Jason knows Ronnie wouldn’t let him fall, but it feels different to hear it so casually stated, like it was a fact that always held true. Jason turns to look at Ronnie, seeing the small smile on his face. “As long as I don’t put you out.”

“C’mon, man. We can’t have falling superheroes landing on people on the sidewalk. That would be a PR nightmare.” Ronnie tips his head so that he can look at Jason, meeting his eyes for a brief glance before focussing on something just to the left of his head. 

Jason shoves down the disappointment surging through him at Ronnie’s persistent avoidance of him. He’s trying, Jason knows. He’s putting in more effort to seek out Jason than Jason is to spend time with Ronnie. He’s trying to connect with him. He’s trying to bond. 

But he still can’t look Jason in the eyes. 

“Why’d you leave, Jason?” Ronnie asks, seriousness edging into his tone. Jason looks away, back to the skyline. The sun is dropping below the cityscape, painting the sky a crimson red. “I know that Professor Palmer's experiments weren’t—I mean, the results we got—it looks like we aren’t getting out of this one, and I know that, but we’ve still gotta try, right?”

“I know.” Jason says around the lump in his throat, constricting his airway. “I just—we haven’t just fucked up our lives. We fucked up the universes.”

“It’s the matrix. We didn’t do shit.” 

“Didn’t we?” Jason clasps his hands together, tightly winding his fingers together. “Our arguments. Our incompatibility. Our mistakes.”

“It’s the matrix.” Ronnie reaffirms, his voice a little wobbly, but determined. It’s like he’s repeating it, like a mantra, like if he says it enough times he’ll convince himself it’s true. Jason lets him have it, sitting silent, feeling Ronnie’s eyes roam over his face. Afterall, the only way he’ll ever truly look directly at Jason, if he’s turned away. “Jason, we’re a team. We gotta stick together. So if you run out, if you freak out, if you panic, that’s fine. But just—just tell me. Because I can’t do this without you.”

Because Stein's gone. It’s unspoken, hanging in the air between them, but Jason can feel the words anyway. Ronnie needs the formulas for transmutation, he needs the smart guy to sit behind him, he needs Jason’s brain to be a hero. He doesn’t really need Jason. 

He feels like he’s seventeen again, banished to the backseat as the ghost of Ronnie took over the wheel, controlling Firestorm, controlling them. Firestorms back. And I’ve got it all under control. Like he’s being reduced back to a kid, out of his depth, shoved out of the one thing in his life he thought he could control.

It feels like a spark is being lit beneath his skin, an ember, a small, flickering flame of anger. Of being reduced to the brains behind Ronnie’s brawn, like all the work that he’d put into controlling Firestorm, transmuting and flying and doing it all on his own, was worth nothing.

“Yeah.” Jason says, instead of stoking the flames of fury, letting it dissipate beneath his skin. “We’re a team.”

Ronnie looks away, staring out at the sunset as the sun disappears under the skyscrapers on the horizon. They sit in an amicable silence until the sky turns from burgundy to black, the moon barely glistening behind the polluted skies that covered almost all the stars in the sky, the world lit instead by the lights of the city. 

“Can I ask something?” Jason breaks the silence, tilting his head to look at Ronnie. Ronnie blinks, looking back at him with confusion. “Why do you have two jackets?”

“Oh.” Ronnie looks almost sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “You weren’t wearing a jacket at Professor Palmer's lab. I thought you might get cold so…”

Jason can’t help the smile that sneaks onto his face at Ronnie’s words. “Thanks, man.”

Ronnie pushes the jacket into Jason's chest, offering him a small smile. It feels like something unspoken passing through them as Jason shrugs into it. “I told you. We’re a team. I got your back.”

As soon as the jackets over his shoulders, Jason feels a rush of warmth run through him, coursing through his veins, heating up beneath his skin, like the earlier chill of the night never existed. 

Jason knocks their shoulders together, letting his smile widen into a grin. “I know.” 

Ronnie doesn’t turn away, leaving their shoulders pressed against each other, and his smile turns from small and cautious into something else, something softer and warmer and more open than anything that had passed between them in the weeks that had passed since Ronnie returned to the land of the living. 

Jason leans back into it. “And you know I got yours too, right?”

“Yeah,” Ronnie’s smile impossibly brightens, like a beacon in the dark night. “I know.”

Now

“Wait, I’m so confused.” Ronnie asks as they sit around a table in a house at the end of time. 

Booster Gold and Rip Hunter and Booster’s dead sister and some kid from Daxan in the 30th century had made a home of it, calling it Vanishing Point. Oh, plus the robot that’s definitely not called Beeps. Jason had made that mistake and promptly gotten a verbal beating from a six year old for about ten minutes. Booster had just grinned through the whole thing, like a proud father.

Lorraine sits in between Jason and Ronnie, her hand clasping Jason’s tightly underneath the table. Part of Jason is grateful for the distance between him and Ronnie more than he is grateful for Lorraine’s presence at his side. And then he’s immediately flooded with guilt for thinking about it. 

Booster’s sister—Michelle, she had introduced herself with a welcoming smile and a quip at her brother’s expense—just nodded sincerely, leaning across the table. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

“Not really,” the kid—Rani—frowned, eyeing Ronnie suspiciously. “He might just be stupid.”

“Hey.” Ronnie says with a pout, like he’s taking an actual hit from a six year old’s insult. 

“I’m confused too, and I’m definitely smarter than him.” Jason offers. Ronnie clutches at his chest dramatically, slumping in his chair. Rani grumbles something under her breath, probably insulting Jason’s intelligence as well. “So after we left, you went to Batman.” He points at Lorraine and Professor Palmer. “Who consulted Booster because Booster’s a secret time cop that only Batman and Nightwing and everyone here knows about. And then he figured out that we weren’t meant to die and blow up half the universe with us.”

“Well, you don’t have to sound so surprised about it.” Booster frowns from where he leans against the door. He looks weird outside of his costume in plain jeans and a blue sweater. Jason had been half convinced that Booster slept and showered in his suit. 

“Hey, it means your plan is working.” Michelle grins from her chair. “Greatest hero that the world has never heard of, you know?”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like that everyone thinks I’m stupid.” Booster grumbles, looking away from them. 

“Okay, and then you guys went to the 823rd century—”

“853rd.” Hunter corrects. Jason didn’t really like the guy's tone, but he continued anyway.

“853rd century. And you recruited the evil sentient artificial sun that Professor Palmer figured had enough energy to repair the matrix by tricking him that he’d be able to take over Firestorm if he merged into the matrix.” Jason raises an eyebrow, waiting for Booster and Michelle's affirming nods that he was getting the story right. “And the actual plan for it came from a six year old.”

Rani grins at that, her smile smug and proud. She looks almost identical to Booster in her smile, it’s unsettling. And slightly endearing. But mostly unsettling.  

“So you're a time cop.” Ronnie frowns, looking between Booster and Michelle and Rip. “You can change time.”

“We fix it.” Hunter corrects again, his arms folded against his chest. “It’s more like we try to minimise the changes. And it’s Time Master.” 

“Right. But you brought her back from the dead.” Ronnie’s nods towards Michelle, his frown souring, and Jason can tell where this is going. 

So can Lorraine, her face twisting with a hurt look. “Ronnie—”

“So you can change time. You can save people who were meant to die.” 

“Michelle was different.” Booster states, his voice tight around the edges. “There are some things, some pivotal moments that can’t be changed.”

“Then what about the girl?” Ronnie rises out of his chair, his face flickering with anger. 

“Ronnie, stop.” Jason eyes Rani, a blank look settling over the kids face, all the bright emotion she was showing a second before disappearing under a mask of cold nothing.

“You rescued her from a massacred planet where everyone died and you weren’t even supposed to be there. You can’t say she was meant to survive that without you.” Ronnie glares at Booster. Booster’s face hardens almost immediately and he straightens up to his full height. Ronnie’s not short, not by any means, but compared to Booster, he looks tiny. 

“What are you getting at here, man?” Booster asks, an edge of something creeping into his voice. “What do you really want?”

“Save Professor Stein.” Ronnie deadpans, his face straight and determination set in his jaw. Booster seems to crumple a little under Ronnie’s look, his eyes glancing over to where Hunter stands, a silent question passing between the two of them. 

“No.” Hunter answers. His tone had been cold, almost stern through their whole conversation, but now it was laced with sympathy and understanding and something else. Familiarity. 

“Why the fuck not?” Ronnie practically snarls.

“Ronnie, I’m sorry you lost the Professor. I—I know how much you want him back.” As Booster speaks, his voice almost cracks. “But he was supposed to die—”

“Supposed to die?” Ronnie yells, crowding in front of Booster. And Jason can see it in his face, in his body, in the way he holds himself. The fury, the rage, the anger coursing through Ronnie. He can… feel it too. Like an itch beneath his skin, like something that needs to be scratched. His body feels hot all of a sudden, too hot, too much energy thrumming beneath him. He snatches his hand back from Lorraine, ignoring her concerned look, focussing on Ronnie’s fury instead. “No one’s supposed to die!”

Booster winces, his eyes darting over to Hunter with concern, shrinking back as Ronnie crowds in on him. Jason must’ve been more exhausted than he thought, because he swears he can see smoke pouring off of Ronnie, a golden glow outlining his body as he glares at Booster. “It’s solidified in time, Ronnie. No matter how much we try to change it, we won’t be able to. We can’t bring him back. No matter how many times you try to go back, you’ll never win. You’d only die trying.”

“How would you know? You got Michelle back, you saved Rani, you got them back! You won!”

“I couldn’t save Ted!” Booster snaps, straightening back up, rage flickering behind his eyes. “Do not talk to me like I don’t get it, because I get it more than you can know. I lost my best friend and I almost destroyed the world trying to get him back. I got my friends killed, I got innocent lives stolen, and I would’ve kept the world like that, so long as he was alive.” Booster’s voice breaks, his eyes brim with tears, fury and anguish coating his expression. “But he made that choice to go back to that moment. To save me. To save everyone. Even when I begged him not to, he chose to die. Because he—” 

He breaks off, turning his head away, determination etched in his expression like he wouldn’t let himself cry in front of them. His voice is broken as he continues, quieter, anguish still brimming in his expression. “And I knew the Professor, Ronnie. He would make that same choice as Ted over and over again because he loved you. He died to save you, and he would make that same sacrifice over and over again. Because he loved you.”

Jason can’t see Ronnie’s face from where he sits. His back is turned to him so all that Jason can see is his shoulders as they start to shake. At first he thinks it’s with anger, but then he feels it. The heat, thrumming beneath his skin disappears as suddenly as it came on. And with it, so does Ronnie. He pushes past Booster, barely nudging him, but Booster sidesteps him all the same and lets him go. 

“Ronnie—” Lorraine starts, pushing back her chair, but Jason stops her with a hand on her shoulder, already standing as soon as he sees Ronnie start to move.

“I’ll go.” He says, walking off to follow him. He passes by Booster, seeing the sorrowful expression on his face, the tears that he was trying so hard to keep at bay, and stops. The thought in the back of his mind that had been lying dormant since they told them about Michelle rises to the front. He turns, so that he can look over at Hunter from where he’s crouched next to Rani. “Just—my girlfriend. Gehenna. I can’t get her back either, can I?”

“I’m sorry, Jason.” Hunter says slowly, carefully. Jason just nods, offering them a weak smile. He can’t look at Lorraine, can’t see the sadness painting her face that he knew he’d see if he did. He knew he’d break.

“Yeah. I figured.”

Ronnie once told him he could summon Professor Stein with a thought. Jason had figured out how to that, when Deathstorm turned a construction site into bubblegum and Ronnie showed up hungover and thinking about his dead girlfriend. 

Ronnie also said he could always tell where Professor Stein was. Jason could do that too, learning the cadence of Ronnie in his mind over the past 90 days, the familiar thrum directing him through the halls of Vanishing Point to Ronnie, like a lighthouse guiding Jason’s ship home. 

60 days ago

“I can’t believe you’re moving in together,” Lorraine declares as she stares at the moving van suspiciously, like something might pop out of the boxes and attack them all. 

“Well, we won’t be if we keep staring at them.” Ronnie declares, slapping Lorraine on the shoulder with a grin. She levels him with a glare, her frown twisting in that way it does when someone disagrees with her in congress. Ronnie raises his hands in a fake surrender, taking an exaggerated step to the van. “Ooh, you got your scary congress face on. My apologies, Senator Riley. Take your time. ”

Lorraine shakes her head, hiding a grin as he grabs two boxes and trudges up the stairs to their apartment building. She waits until he leaves so she can look over at Jason, giving him a knowing look.

“What?” He asks, moving to grab his own box.

“You dropped out of Columbus.” She states, watching him stack three boxes on top of each other. “For Pittsburgh University. That’s… that’s unlike you.”

“It’s where Professor Stein worked for the longest. He moved to New York with us, yeah, but Pittsburgh was his home.” Jason eyes her over the boxes. She stands still, her arms folded across her chest. She’s still in her suit, coming straight over from Washington to help. “He was… god. Sometimes I wish Ronnie didn’t jump in front of me. The Professor might still be here then.”

“Jason.” Lorraine unfolds her arms, moving towards him with a frown. “He did it to save both of you.”

“Lorraine, trust me, I get it. He was like a second dad to me, in some ways. But there was only one of us he really considered his son.” Jason sighs. 

He remembers something like this conversation between them, after the Professor disappeared and Lorraine and Jason fused and were literally stuck together. He remembers Lorraine's reassurances and her kindness and he can tell what she’s going to say next. He really doesn’t want to hear it. 

“So. We’re here for him.” He says, before she can speak. “And for us.” She nails him with her piercing blue gaze, like she can see right through him, stripping away his defences and seeing beneath it, seeing him bare. 

“Okay, kid.” She sighs, moving to clasp his shoulder with a quick squeeze. “As long as you're running towards something, not away from someone.”

She doesn’t say her name, doesn’t bring her up, but he knows she’s talking about Gehenna. Or maybe she’s not, but Jason’s always thinking about her these days, and when he’s not, he’s feeling guilty about not mourning her enough. Staying in New York, in Columbus, in that apartment, he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t turn another hall, expecting a green burst and her sudden hugs, expecting to hear her voice in his head whenever he does something stupid, expecting to see her smile at him as she called him boyfriend.  

Pittsburgh wasn’t running away from her ghost though, it was just ending the torture that was the constant ache of missing her wherever he went and she wasn’t there. 

“I could never run away from Gen.” Jason smiles softly. “I can’t be in that apartment anymore but… but she’s always with me. I’ll always love her.”

“Yeah,” Lorraine smiles, picking up a box for herself, walking with him into the apartment building. “Just… I get you’re doing it for the Professor and Firestorm but… make sure you’re doing it for you too.”

Jason smiles back, following her to the elevator and pressing the up button Ronnie appears from the stairway, nodding at Jason's stack of boxes. “Trying to one up me, huh? I see how it is.”

“Ronnie,” Jason groans. “Don’t turn this into a thing—”

“It’s a thing, alright.” Ronnie grins, competition gleaming in his eyes before he glances over to Lorraine’s single box. “Senator Riley! Don’t tell me you’re slacking off!”

“Not my apartment.” Lorraine smiles back. Ronnie gives her a betrayed look before darting back out to the moving van. 

“I’m carrying six!” He shouts as he leaves.

“You really don’t need to!” Jason shouts back, but Ronnie’s already gone and the determinations already settled over him. Jason watches his retreating form with a smile, shaking his head a little before turning back to Lorraine. She’s giving him this look, like she’s putting the final piece to a puzzle in her head. “What?”

“I’m still working through how you feel about him. First, it was like hero awe—”

“No it wasn’t.” Jason scoffs as the elevator arrives. He walks in first, letting Lorraine press the button for their floor with an elbow as she shoots him a knowing smirk. “Shut up, it wasn’t.”

“I was there in the matrix. I heard the whole ‘Mr Raymond’ schtick.” Jason glares at the numbers on the elevator as they tick upwards, counting down the floors until their stop. “And then there was the whole Black Lantern deal, and you hated him for a long time after that—understandably, of course. But now you two are best buds.”

“He’s not—” Jason frowns at her, dropping the pretense under her gaze. “He’s not that bad. And, you know, if we can’t figure this out, we want to spend the rest of the time we have without arguing. Makes it easier to deal with the whole ‘destroying the universe’ thing if we aren’t at each other’s throats 24/7.”

Lorraine’s smirk falters a little and she offers him a half-hearted smile instead. “We’re gonna figure this out, Jason. We’ve been through too much for you to die on me now.” 

“Yeah. Survived turning into a fire elemental but died because I argued too much with the guy I’m stuck with.” Jason quips, as the door slides open, letting them onto their floor. He fumbles with the keys to open up their apartment, leaving the door ajar so that they could dump their boxes next to Ronnies. 

“What, you think you hurt the matrix’s feelings and now it’s falling apart?” Lorraine scoffs. 

“You don’t get it, Lorraine. We need the power of friendship to fix it.” Jason grins back at her. She lets out a laugh. It’s small, but it’s everything that Jason needs to ease up the tense feeling in his chest he’s had since he opened Professor Stein's files in that office. He steps past her to go back down to the van, but she reaches out, grabbing his shoulder to stop him. 

“We’re gonna get through this, kid. I promise.” Her eyes scour his, like she’s searching for something in them. Jason doesn’t know what she finds, but whatever it is, it seems to work for her as she loosens her grip on his shoulders, letting her hand drop back down to her side. 

“I know,” Jason says, keeping his face straight. “Power of friendship, remember?”

She snorts, shoving his shoulder a little. He raises a fist for her to bump, but she only snickers harder, pushing past him out to the door. He grins, calling out to her as she leaves. “Don’t leave me hanging!”

She flips him off without even a glance over her shoulder. 

Now

Jason finds Ronnie on the roof. 

There’s no sunset this time, no cityscape to gaze out over, no polluted New York skies or chill in the air. There’s just the time stream, a colourful blend of pastel colours surrounding the floating Island. Ronnie just sits there, gazing out at it, his face blank, knees drawn up to his chest. His eyes are dry by the time Jason slides in to sit next to him, but Jason can see the tear tracks left on his cheeks. 

He doesn’t say anything, just sits next to Ronnie, a distance far enough between them that it could give Ronnie plausible deniability, but close enough to pull him in if he needs it. He waits him out. When Ronnie finally speaks, his voice is hoarse and tired. 

“I would kill for a McDonalds burger. Think we can get food delivery out here?” 

Jason bites back a smile, nodding his head in agreement. “Yeah. I mean, we’d probably need to give a massive tip for the extra traffic but—”

“Traffic? In the time stream?” Ronnie cocks his head, turning to look at Jason. 

“Yeah, after Rani yelled at me, Skeets told me about how Booster and Rip got rear ended by the Flash.” Jason grins. At the mention of their names, Ronnie looks away, back out into the never ending stream. He stares at it for a moment before burying his head in his hands. 

“Fuck.” He chokes out, like it’s been ripped out of him. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t even think of Gehenna—”

“Ronnie, hey.” Jason reaches out, hovering his hand over Ronnie’s shoulder before deciding fuck it and clasping it, his thumb rubbing gentle circles into the divot of his collarbone. “I came to terms with Gen a while ago. I knew she was—it was permanent. And I asked, too. There’s nothing we can do. For either of them.”

“I’m sorry,” Ronnie practically sobs, tilting his head away from Jason. Jason shifts so that he’s facing Ronnie, squeezing his shoulder. “I killed them both.”

“Ronnie,” Jason tightens his grip. “Look at me.” Ronnie shakes his head, curling in on himself. “C’mon, golden boy. Look at me.”

Ronnie looks up. His eyes are red, tears running down his cheeks, his nose is pink and there are dark bags under his eyes and somehow, for some impossible reason, he still looks like the most beautiful man Jason had seen. The thought has been knocking around in Jason’s head over the past 50 days, but this is the first time it properly solidifies. 

“I killed them.” Ronnie whispers in a broken voice. 

“I know you didn’t.” Jason uses his free hand to hold Ronnie’s face, gently running his thumb over his cheek, brushing the tears away. “Ronnie. I don’t blame you. I know you didn’t kill them because I was there, both times. And I know you. You loved the Professor, and he loved you and he would never blame you for what happened because he made that choice to save you.”

“I couldn’t bring him back.” Ronnie sobs. “I couldn’t fix him.”

“Some things can’t be fixed.” Jason caresses his face, brushing away the tears as fast as they fall.

“Gehenna—”

“You didn’t know Gen, Ronnie.” Jason sighs, changing his grip on Ronnie’s shoulder to push his hair back from his eyes. “I did. She never would have blamed you. She understood being controlled, your body being taken over by someone else. Her father—he had this switch—well. She got it. She would be hurt, angry, and yeah, she’d probably hate you a lot. But she wouldn’t have blamed you.” 

Ronnie looks at him, a long hard look, like he’s looking for any lies or falsities in his words that he could find on Jason’s face. Jason just sits there, one thumb gently caressing Ronnie’s cheek, the other cupping the back of his neck. Somehow, they’d gotten closer, so close that Jason could feel every breath Ronnie exhaled on his cheek. 

Ronnie closes his eyes, dropping his head so that it rests on Jason’s shoulder. Slowly, Jason moves his hand on Ronnie’s neck, stroking the sweat soaked strands of Ronnie’s hair gently, softly.

“I’m sorry,” Ronnie whispers into Jason’s shoulder. “For before Solaris.”

Oh.

Jason swallows down the prick of hurt that Ronnie’s words spark. Right. Ronnie just kissed him because he wanted to feel good in the end of their life. It didn’t mean anything. They’d left earth 15 days ago, stuck together in the matrix for 15 days, flying as far away from their galaxy as they could for 15 days. Jason was the only living being he had seen in 15 days. And maybe some wires got crossed along the way. 

Ronnie regrets it. And Jason…

Jason is dangerously close to being in love with Ronnie. 

But it’s fine, Jason can squash it down, he can push it back in a little box in the back of his mind, he can ignore it.

“I—” Jason starts to speak, but he’s not really sure what he’s going to say. It’s okay? It was just a friendly kiss between bro’s. Bro’s don’t do that? Well, I wouldn’t know, I’m not the one in the fraternity. No, I’m not joining your stupid fraternity, I told you I’m not getting fucking hazed no matter how much I might be in love with you—

But thankfully, he doesn’t have to finish it, because a little tiny voice interrupts them. 

“Ronnie?” 

Ronnie sits up, wiping at his eyes trying to erase the evidence before he turns to Rani. She’s looking at him with these big, brown doe eyes and holding a toy plushie in her hands. Jason almost starts laughing when he realises it’s a toy bear of Booster Gold, but he manages to squish it down. 

“Hey, kid.” Ronnie smiles, still trying to wipe away his tears. 

“I know you’re sad,” She says, almost apologetically, and Ronnie’s face falls. “Is this a good sad or a bad sad?”

“A bit of both,” Ronnie admits. 

“I don’t really get it,” Rani whispers, like it’s a secret. “But Mikey says there’s a difference. When it’s a good sad, I give him ‘The Most Incredible Hug in the History of Hugging’.”

“Yeah?” Ronnie’s lips tug upwards, a ghost of a smile covering his face. “You think I could get one of those?”

“Well, normally you’d have to read me a chapter of my book.” Rani frowns as she sets her toy down on the roof next to Jason. “But you can have an ex-sep-chion.”

Ronnie looks like he’s about to start crying again, but he just bundles Rani up in his arms, pulling her in tight. Jason’s chest feels tight, watching the embrace, a surge of emotion rushing through him, overwhelming him. A surge of… nothing Jason could explain as anything other than love. 

He feels himself go hot, feels himself start to burn up, and—oh man, that’s embarrassing. He feels like he’s on fire.

Rani pulls back from Ronnie. “You’re really hot. Are you sick?”

Ronnie frowns, looking down at his hands like he could see something written on them. “Yeah, I don’t—woah! Jason!”

“Huh?” Jason asks, looking down at himself and—woah indeed. 

He’s smoking, his body is smoking and tiny embers are dancing across his skin, sparks between his fingers like he’s about to light on fire any second. Rani steps back, hiding behind Ronnie’s body, but Ronnie just edges forward, grabbing Jason’s hand to look at it, curiosity, taking over his features. 

The sparks jump from Jason to Ronnie, up his arms, over his clothes.

“Did that hurt?” Jason asks, in a whisper.

“I don’t—No. It tickled.” Ronnie whispers back, looking up to meet Jason’s eyes. Their faces are close, almost dangerously close, so that when Ronnie smiles, Jason can see it in all its glory, full and bright. “I kinda liked it.”

“Freak.” Jason grins back. The glow from the embers coat them both in a golden light, and for a second, Jason thinks Ronnie’s eyes glow a deep red.

“I’m scared.” Rani’s voice is wobbling and small and she’s so young she has a plushie of her dad she carries everywhere. 

And just like that, the red is gone from Ronnie’s eyes just as quickly as Jason’s embers are extinguished, his skin feeling strangely cold without them. Jason looks around Ronnie to Rani where she’s clutching Bear Booster Gold against her chest. 

“Hey, we’re okay Rani.” He whispers, showing her his bare arms without the embers. She reaches out cautiously, tapping his arm with one finger and jolting back like she expects it to burn. When it doesn’t, she holds her finger against his arm, looking up at Jason with those big doe eyes. 

“What’s happening to you?”

“I don’t know,” Jason admits. “But we got Professor Palmer, who’s super smart, and Lorraine, who’s very tough and cool, and Michelle, and Booster, and Rip Hunter, and the whole Justice League. We’re gonna be okay.”

“But what if you’re not?” Her voice wavers and her lip wobbles dangerously like she’s about to cry. Jason reaches out, holding the hand that's hanging onto his arm and gently prying it off so he can wrap his fingers around her tiny palm. 

“You know why I know we will be? Because last time we weren’t okay, we had a super smart, super cool, super tough, top secret weapon. You remember what it was?” She shakes her head, and Jason grins, squeezing her tiny hand in his. “You. So I know we’re gonna be okay. What do you think?”

She smiles, a small smile but it’s a smile nonetheless, and nods her head. 

Jason stands up from where he’s crouched down, turning around so he can look at Ronnie. And there’s a weird look on his face that Jason can’t quite put his finger on, but he blinks, and it’s gone, replaced instead by a smile that doesn’t quite meet Ronnie’s eyes.

51 days ago

Jason hears Superman as he says they did a good job, but he doesn’t feel it, not really. He can hear the man’s screams still, ringing in his head like a dial that can’t stop. For once, he’s grateful that Ronnie’s controlling Firestorm and not him so he doesn’t have to think of some empty offer of gratitude to respond with.

He couldn’t save him. 

When it came down to it, he couldn’t remember the fucking chemical makeup of an airbag. Ronnie couldn’t get there fast enough to save him, and Superman was trading punches with the Villain they were fighting, and they trusted Firestorm—they trusted him to save the man and Jason didn’t. 

“Jason.” Ronnie says—and they’re flying, when did they start flying? “Jason, I really need to know if you’re okay. Please, say something.”

“I’m here.” Jason murmurs, ignoring how broken his voice feels, how broken he feels. He couldn’t remember the formula. He failed. He couldn’t do it. 

Ronnie lands on their apartment building’s fire escape, and it’s night and Jason didn’t even notice the sun set, couldn’t even notice, too stuck in his own head. 

He blinks. They’re separating and Jason is standing on the fire escape in the cold, feeling the chill of the autumn night air as Ronnie pushes open the window. Blink. He’s inside the apartment, in what’s supposed to be his bedroom but instead is a bed, a dresser, and five unpacked boxes. Ronnie’s grumbling about something or another next to him. Blink. Jason’s under the covers of his bed, in his boxers and a Pitt U sweatshirt that is too big to be his. Blink. Ronnie’s next to him, placing a glass of water on the bedside table that Jason had missed when he took in his furniture before. How’d he miss that? Ronnie’s not looking at him. He’s still avoiding his eyes. Jason hates it.

“Ronnie.” Jason whispers, and Ronnie’s eyes whip to him. 

They make eye contact. And Ronnie holds it.  

“Hey, man. I got some water and some tissues and stuff and I know you really like chocolate chips, but not in the cookies, so I got some from the kitchen and it’s right here.” Ronnie says, but his words fall deaf on Jason’s ears, his guilt drowning out any other noise. 

“I couldn’t save him.” Jason admits, feeling his heart constrict in his chest. Ronnie’s face crumples, he grabs Jason’s hand and squeezes it tight. 

He couldn’t save the man, just like how he couldn’t save Mick, how he couldn’t save Gen, or the Professor or Stevie. He makes a hell of a hero, one that only seems to cause more destruction instead of helping. 

“It’s not on you. It’s on the bastard who pushed him off the skyscraper at the same time there was an invasion.”

“I knew it, though. I knew the formula, I knew how to save him, I just couldn’t remember. I couldn’t—I couldn’t be it.”

“Be what, Jason?” Ronnie asks, rubbing his fingers over Jason’s knuckles, like a caress. “Be Firestorm? Because you are. You’re better than me, man. You’re smarter, you can fight just as well, you can fly better than me, you can transmute organic matter, dude. You’re sick. The best Firestorm. You’re the best partner I could have. I wouldn’t want to do this thing with anyone else.”

“Stein.” 

It’s one word, but it’s enough. Jason watches as Ronnie’s face flickers through a million microexpressions, before it lands on one. Concern.

“I can’t be Professor Stein.”

“The Professor was everything to me.” Ronnie says, his thumb still tracing the ridges of Jason’s hand. “But I did Firestorm with him, without him, with Mikhail, and with you. And I loved being Firestorm with him. But with you—Jason, it’s different with you. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t trade it. Even if we argue, like, every day, and we piss each other off, and sometimes when you do that thing with your mouth when you chew it makes me want to punch you. But I wouldn’t trade it. For anything. We’re Firestorm. You and me. We’re a team, aren’t we?”

“Not if we die.” Jason frowns, curling in on himself. Ronnie just grins, giving his hand a squeeze. 

“Eh, I died before. At least, if we die this time we won’t be alone. We’ll be together, right?” 

Jason snorts. He can’t help it. It sounds stupid, like some Romeo and Juliet star crossed lovers thing, but somehow it feels fitting. They’re bonded, connected, their souls wound together by the matrix. They were stuck together. Till death do them part. 

“Hey, Ronnie?” Jason asks, his eyes already drooping. “Can I ask something?”

“Anything, Jason.” Ronnie says earnestly. 

“Can you stay?”

Ronnie pauses, and he meets Jason’s eyes in the dim room, their only source of light coming from the glow of the bathroom light still on down the hall. It feels like an accomplishment, to Jason, even if it only happened because Jason was bordering on having a mental breakdown. 

“Yeah, man.” Ronnie smiles softly, his hand still clasping Jason’s. “I’ll stay.”

Jason blinks. 

And suddenly, it’s 40 days since they got the news they’d blow up instead of 39. Ronnie’s still sitting down, on the carpet of his floor, his hand still clasping Jason’s, his head tilted back against Jason’s bedside table. He’s painted by the soft pink light of dawn peaking through Jason’s blinds, his features looking impossibly soft in the light. 

Jason lets himself smile as he looks at him, closing his eyes once again, and this time when sleep comes, he dreams. 

Now

Jason hugs Rani as they get ready to leave Vanishing Point. Hunter is busy talking to Professor Palmer in hushed voices about whatever the fuck was causing Jason and Ronnie to start smoking and sparking embers like firewood, so it’s just them that are leaving right now. Lorraine stands by the time sphere, eyeing it like she still doesn’t quite trust it even after two trips. 

Ronnie talks to Booster. 

Jason can’t hear what they’re talking about, but it’s low and hushed and they both have this identical look of grief and understanding on their face. When Jason steps back from Rani, Michelle is standing there, like she wants to talk to him.

“I know my brother.” She smiles, but it’s tainted with sadness. “And I know he regrets a lot when it comes to Ted. If there’s anything I learned, what with dying, and coming back, and watching my brother live in a world without his person, I learned that life’s too short.”

“Yeah, I kinda get that.” Jason shrugs. “You know, I almost just exploded, so I really do get that.” She rolls her eyes, like he’s missing the point and nods over to where Booster and Ronnie are still speaking. 

“Life’s too short, so don’t waste it wondering about what if’s. Tell him.” Michelle whispers, like it's a secret between the two of them. Jason winces at how obvious he must’ve been for her to pick it up.

“Okay!” Booster declares. Jason peers past him to where Ronnie is standing. He looks a little shocked by whatever Booster had said to him, but when he meets Jason’s eyes, he gives him a reassuring smile. Jason feels the tension that he didn’t even know he was holding seep out of his shoulders. Booster claps his hands together, an award winning smile painted on his face as he looks between the three of them leaving Vanishing Point. “Who’s ready to return to the present?”

35 days ago

Jason talks to his dad. 

It’s long, hard, frustrating and makes him feel like shit, like a scared kid again. But he does it. He tells him it all, he hugs him, he cries a little, he even hugs his mom, something he hadn’t done since she’d left. 

Still. Doesn’t make it any less of a shitty day. 

It’s times like these where he wishes that he and Ronnie made that rule to compromise on only buying fudge ripple, because he could really use some actually good ice cream right now. Still, he shoves open the door to their apartment, dropping his keys on the hall table and toeing off his shoes, heading straight for the kitchen for some second rate ice cream.

He finds Ronnie instead.

Ronnie looks up as Jason comes in, his face softening with recognition. There are groceries littered over the kitchen island and Ronnie’s jacket is still on his shoulders even though the heating system is pumped up to the max. 

“I was supposed to get groceries yesterday,” Jason sighs, running his hand over his face. He was just so tired. Exhausted, really, his bones feeling heavy with the layers of stress over seeing his parents bearing down on his shoulders. 

“Don’t stress, man.” Ronnie says, like it’s nothing, sliding a box of cereal into the pantry. Jason moves to help him unload them. “How was your dad?”

“How was yours?” Jason countered. Ronnie winced a little, and that was enough of an answer in itself. Jason sighs again, feeling repetitive. “It wasn’t that bad. Turns out the whole ‘about to die’ thing is a pretty good icebreaker.”

“‘Maybe about to die’ thing.” Ronnie corrects, shooting a big grin over his shoulder at Jason. But Jason can see the bags under his eyes, the heaviness that weighs on him now more than ever. 

He knows how hard it’s hitting Ronnie. They’d had countless arguments and slammed doors and screaming matches on their fire-escape. But he knows more from the talks. The ones where there’s no insults traded like physical blows, the ones where it’s melancholy instead of grief-fueled fury that burns inside of them, the ones where there’s whispers in the dark instead of blaring shouts loud enough to wake the whole city. 

“Maybe.” Jason affirms, reaching in the bag where all the freezer stuff was kept. His hands wrap around something like an ice-cream container, and when he extracts it, a frown fits over his face. “This is—”

“Aw, man. I was gonna surprise you.” Ronnie rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. Jason looks up at him, tearing his eyes away from the rocky road label. 

“You hate nuts.”

“Yeah. But you love ‘em.” Ronnie shrugs, like it’s obvious. 

And Jason… Jason feels a surge of emotion rise at Ronnie’s sheepish smile, the way he glances over at Jason like he’s waiting for his approval. He can’t quite figure out what it is before it covers his body like a blanket, engulfing him, coursing through him, settling beneath his skin and bones like it was always there. He grins at Ronnie, and he knows it’s a real smile without needing to see it. 

“Aw, you do like me.” He teases. Ronnie beams back, before quickly trying to stifle it behind a frown. He fails, miserably.

Ronnie groans, rolling his eyes as he puts the final items away. “No, I hate you, and I secretly poisoned your ice cream so I could kill you. Eat up.”

“Nah, you like me too much.” Jason smirks, following him out of the room into their living room, grabbing a spoon along the way. They hadn’t fully unpacked yet, so it was a couch, a pile of boxes as a coffee table, and an ancient television they used because they couldn’t figure out how to work the fancy one that Lorraine found. 

“Just eat your ice cream. But I’m choosing the movie.” Ronnie grumbles, flopping down on the couch. Jason holds the edge of the freezing container to Ronnie’s neck, snickering as he yelps before sprawling out next to him, waiting for the TV to power up. 

“Okay, but you can’t do Jaws for the 5000th time.” Jason points out. Ronnie shoots him these big puppy dog eyes and Jason can’t help but laugh at them. It’s either that, or doing something that definitely crossed the lines of their weird friendship. “I’m sick of Spielberg!”

“We’re not watching anything directed by J.J right now.” Ronnie frowns. “You get ice cream, I get to watch Spielberg movies.”

“Fine.” Jason grumbles, or at least tries to grumble, but it doesn’t come out quite right with the giant grin on his face. “Do E.T. We’ve only watched that 4999 times.”

“Oh, he’s got jokes now?” Ronnie grins as he turns on the remote. “Wanna joke about how many times you watched—and cried—over Brokeback Mountain?”

“Shut up,” Jason feels his face burn up, but Ronnie just laughs, wrapping an arm around Jason’s shoulders and leaving it there, a comfortable presence. 

And yeah, he had a pretty shit day. But this? This makes up for it. 

Now

Their door unlocks like they’ve never left. It feels weird, entering their apartment like the past 15 days hadn’t even happened. Their apartment feels stale without a window being cracked open for over two weeks, the air holding a distinct chill to it, but other than that, it was the exact same. 

Ronnie rolls out his shoulder with a groan, toeing off his shoes and ducking past Jason into the hallway. “I’m taking the first shower,” He declares with a tired smile, already halfway down the hall. 

Jason sighs, taking off his sneakers and leaving them by the front door before he heads to his room. He still has a box in the corner he hasn’t unpacked, one that he deliberately didn’t label so that Ronnie wouldn’t go poking through it. 

It sits in his room, like a heavy reminder of everything he fucked up, everything he ruined. Jason couldn’t open it before, couldn’t look at the remnants left over, but now it feels less daunting, less like an anvil hanging over his head, ready to drop as soon as he opens it. 

He sits down, his back pressed against the wall, the sound of the running water from Ronnie’s shower like a soundtrack as he opens the box. 

The first item lying on top is an action figure of Martian Manhunter. Mick gave it to him on his 15th birthday, even though between the two of them, Mick was the only one who was really invested in collecting the figurines. Jason can’t fight the smile that fits over his face as he places the figurine aside.

He opens a jewellery box, Gehenna’s jewellery box, his eyes immediately landing on the lime green chunky earrings that she only took off in the shower, the green that matched the colour of her powers. He misses her. Her voice in his head, her sweet smile, the way she always said what was on her mind, the way she was never afraid to stand up for herself, and for others. 

He remembers watching the ball drop on New Years Eve, her bright grin and laughter and cheers louder than anyone else in Times Square as it fell. He remembers her love of Uwe Boll films, loving the way they sucked so badly it made it good, loving the way that Jason would groan and cringe every time they watched them. And he misses it, he misses her. And a part of him always will, but another part knows that he can’t cling on to her ghost. 

He sets the box aside, picking up a CD of Kanye West’s Graduation and he can’t stop the laugh it pulls out of his chest. He had bugged Professor Stein for so long through their time at Columbus about learning about all the pop culture he’d missed, until the point where the Professor bought Kanye’s whole discography and got Jason to sit with him, listening as they worked through organic chemistry. For a whole week, all they listened to was Kanye. Graduation was the album that really stuck with the Professor though, the one that Jason caught him humming under his breath too many times to count. 

There’s a picture under that, of the Professor, Jason, Gehenna, Lorraine, Mikhail, and even Head Dollie and Pionic Man from their holidays in New York, after Jason had made up with Professor Stein, and Head Dollie and Pionic Man bought an apartment, and they had a whole moving in party. There’s one as civilians (well, not counting Pionic Man and Head Dollie) and there’s another of them as heroes. 

He focuses on him and the Professor, combined into the Firestorm form they’d pieced together when he saved Jason from his temporal death. He takes it in. Every time he fused with someone, there was something always slightly different in his appearance, usually so small it could be ignored. But he and the Professor were different. They chose everything, from the costume to the fiery trail, to the hair. 

The flaming hair. And Jason has to admit, Ronnie was right, the hair was cool. 

He laughs, feeling it rip from his chest, and then he feels the laughter twist into sobs that he tries to contain, but he can’t. He can’t stop the tears from running down his cheeks, can’t stop the shaking of his shoulders, can’t stop the gasps of air between each sobs that wreck his chest. Faintly, he can hear footsteps in the hallway, fading as they move down the hallway, then growing louder as they creep back towards his room. He covers his mouth with his hands, trying to stifle the sobs, but it doesn’t work. 

There’s a knock on his door. 

His dad never knocked, unless the guilt overcame his anger. Lorraine didn’t knock either when they lived together, bursting into every room without fear. 

Ronnie knocked. 

“Oh, Jason.”

Ronnie slides down the wall next to him, taking the picture from Jason’s hands. He doesn’t say anything, just takes it and sets it down on the other side. He shifts closer, so their sides are lined up next to each other, Ronnie’s body warmth seeping into Jason’s own.

Jason doesn’t know how long they stay there, sitting side by side on the ground as his sobs wrecked through his body. But Ronnie stays. He stays until there’s no more tears for Jason to cry, until his shoulders stop shaking with the force of his sobs, and stays even longer, until Jason can breathe without his breath shaking, until the puffiness of his face goes down, until he can turn his head to look at Ronnie, to properly look. 

Ronnie’s looking back at him, his face angled so close that Jason would have to tilt his head down a little and their lips would meet.

“You okay?” Ronnie asks, his voice low and soft and hanging in the space between them. 

“Yeah,” Jason smiles. It feels real, true, solid and whole. And he is okay. For the first time in a long time, he finally feels okay. It must have shown this on his face, because Ronnie just breaks out into a massive grin, denting dimples in his cheeks and smile lines creasing. This close, Jason can see the splatter of freckles dusting Ronnie’s nose. They’re small, barely visible, but they’re there. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Ronnie’s eyes crinkle around the edges with the force of his smile, and Jason watches them, his eyes trained on Ronnies. It’s only because of his intent gaze that Jason notices the moment Ronnie’s eyes flicker down from Jason’s face, landing on his lips.

The air of the room changes, almost instantly, from a comfortable haven to something charged and heated. Jason feels hot, all of a sudden, like he’s burning up, something beneath his skin lit ablaze, being stoked to burn brighter and brighter with every second he sits there, watching Ronnie watch him. 

Like he’s just realised what he’s doing, Ronnie’s eyes dart up to meet Jason’s. There’s something in his eyes. Guilt, fear, unease written in his gaze as Ronnie moves back, away from Jason. There’s something else though, beneath all the emotion in his gaze, something familiar that Jason has seen before, that he recognises. 

Love. 

It crashes into him like a tidal wave, the realisation, and the blaze beneath his skin only burning brighter with hope. Ronnie’s apology… it wasn’t a rejection. Or maybe it was, maybe Ronnie didn’t feel the same, but sitting here, watching him, Jason finds it hard to believe. 

“Sorry,” Ronnie starts, clambering to his feet quickly. “I didn’t mean to—fuck. I don’t wanna make it weird, I’m sorry—”

“Ronnie.” Jason reaches out, grabbing Ronnie’s hand and holding him in place, using Ronnie to pull himself up. “Stop apologising.”

“But I—”

“Just wait. Give me a second.” Jason tightens his grip on Ronnie’s arm, letting his eyes roam his face. He doesn’t know how he didn’t see it before, it’s written in Ronnie’s face, in everything he does, plain as day. And there’s still that seed of doubt sowed into his bones, but the blazing flame of hope overcomes it, engulfing it, changing it. Jason takes a deep breath, looking at Ronnie's face, the freckles, the smile lines, the creases in the corners of his eyes. And he speaks. 

“I think I might be falling in love with you.”

Ronnie stills. Freezes completely. It’s for a split second, but it’s enough for the seed of doubt to spring up. Oh, fuck. He was wrong, he was so wrong, and Ronnie hates him and he just ruined the best thing he had going for him in 3 months—

“I wanna kiss you so bad right now.” Ronnie blurts out. 

“You can. If you want.” Jason shrugs, like he didn’t just have a mini breakdown. Ronnie grins, stepping closer in a move that he probably thinks is sexy but is ruined by him tripping over air and almost taking them both down. Jason laughs, holding a hand out to steady him. “After I shower, because I still have 15 days worth of space gunk on me right now. And… I mean, no pressure for you to say it, but—”

“Oh fuck!” Ronnie shouts, way too loud and Mrs Greenwich down the hall was probably gearing up to very passive aggressively snark at them, but Jason can’t find it in himself to care. “No, I’m in love with you. Very much so. And also I don’t mind a little space gunk. In fact, I think it makes it better.”

“Really? Is this adding to the romantic atmosphere?” Jason smirks, gesturing to himself with open palms. Ronnie’s grin just widens and he tries that move again, stepping in close to Jason, crowding him against the wall. And okay, it might be a little bit sexy when he’s not tripping over his own feet.

“Yeah. The biggest turn on of all time is the fact that you haven’t brushed your teeth in two weeks.” Ronnie rests his hands on Jason’s shoulder, running one down the side of his arm to his open hand, interlocking their fingers together. “Any future kisses will be ruined for me.”

“Without the space gunk?” Jason smiles, leaning in so their faces are only a breath apart. 

“Obviously. That’s where most of your sex appeal comes from, dude.” Ronnie scoffs. 

“Don’t call me dude when we’re about to kiss.”

“Do you prefer sweetheart? Honey-buns?” Ronnie snickers as Jason desperately tries to scowl. He fails. “What about… hot stuff? Get it? Because you really light my heart on fire. Get it? Jace. Do you get it?”

“Ronnie—”

“No, I only answer to snookums now.”

“Ronnie.” Jason reaches up, around Ronnie’s neck, cradling the back of his head with one hand, the other fisting in his shirt to pull him in impossibly closer, their bodies lined up. Ronnie’s face turns a shocking red, deeper than the red of their Firestorm suit. “Shut up and kiss me.”

“Yeah—okay, that sounds good.” 

The kiss is like coming home. It’s like tasting sunshine for the first time. It’s like the same feeling of Jason’s first flight, the downwards swoop, the racing heart, and then the sense as he glided through the air that he was doing what he was meant to do. It feels right. 

It’s closed mouth, but somehow more passionate than anything Jason has ever done. Ronnie tilts his head, pushing further into Jason, his hand trailing over Jason’s skin with a gentleness that only seems to cause his body to light ablaze. Jason curls his hands into Ronnie’s hair, pulling a little, a light tease, and relishes in the way that Ronnie groans into his mouth. He feels like he’s burning up, every touch of Ronnie’s skin against him lighting a million sparks.

Jason tugs at Ronnie’s hair again, pushing up into him, deepening the kiss from the gentle touch to something filthy, licking into Ronnie's mouth. And Ronnie practically melts into him. 

They part eventually, drawing back for air. Ronnie rests his forehead against Jason’s, his eyes still closed, his mouth in a soft smile. “I love you. So much.” He whispers, low and directly into Jason’s ear. And as Jason looks down at where their hands are intertwined, he sees sparks, dance between their fingertips, smoke steaming from both of their skin. 

“I love you too.” Jason grins back, tightening his grip on Ronnie’s hand. “I really need to have a shower though.”

“In a minute.” Ronnie sighs, untangling their hands so he can wrap both of his arms around Jason’s waist in an embrace. 

Jason pulls Ronnie in just as tight, curling his hands in his t-shirt. And yeah, he was kinda gross from space, their powers are acting up, and they just absorbed a sentient evil artificial sun into the matrix less than 24 hours ago. And yeah, they probably had a lot more unpacking feelings to do, and talking to Lorraine, and Professor Palmer, and Rip Hunter, and he could hear Mrs Greenwich march down the hall to come yell at them for being too loud. And yeah, maybe they were a bit of a mess right now. 

But it could be dealt with later. Right now, it was just Ronnie and Jason. And holding him in his arms, it felt right. It felt like home.