Inertia
You and your partner, Eobard, discover that he has a son. Warnings: Requested work, literally Eobard Thawne, crude humor, sexual humor, language, writer in a flop era Word Count: 5006
in·er·tia/iˈnərSHə/
noun- a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged. In Physics, inertia is a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force. Ex. "The power required to overcome friction and the inertia of the moving parts."
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
“Don’t move until I say.”
“Eobard, please. I have to.”
“I said no. Stay right where you are. Y/N, stop moving, or I’ll make you.”
As the grip of his hands tighten, you back off tiredly in an attempt to keep your movement to a minimum. It still hurts, though it’s far less than it would if you were writhing freely- just as Thawne said.
“Eobard, seriously,” you bite down on your lip. “That’s too deep. It hurts.”
“I know how to do it,” your partner hisses in return. As if in response, you feel his lukewarm fingers pinch a bit of skin on your back to distract from the pain. It’s cruel, but it works. You’re too focused on that sharp, cynical jolt he’s presented you to notice he’s poked you with the needle once more. “Don’t tell me I’ll accidentally break you,” he drawls.
Your eyebrow arches upwards with a suspicion, head tilting slightly. “You can’t do this in super speed?”
Eobard gives a soft, yet throaty, one syllable chuckle, still threading your skin back together. “You don’t want that.”
“I think I do,” you respond. When you look up, you catch a glimpse of the two of you in the dirty mirror that hangs over the bathroom sink. You, sitting hunched atop a step stool, Eobard behind you on the edge of the bathtub. You’re bunching your shirt up for him so he can stitch the wound on your back. It’s a task he’s making more painful than it really is, no doubt on purpose. “I also think you just love to torture me.”
Through the mirror, his lips flick upwards in an evil grin, the rest of his face hidden by a yellow mask. “Oh yeah?”
A nip of skin is squeezed between fingertips- another pinching sensation. This time it makes you flinch.
“I told you not to move.”
“You did that on purpose,” you accuse quietly, trying to keep yourself calm so you can go to being still once more.
“Hm? You want me to stop?” Thawne stops his movement all together. In the reflecting glass, he has a grinning and expectant look on his face- the look he gets when he knows he’s won an argument. Like a brat. Like a dick.
You look at him over your shoulder, meeting his icy blue irises face to face. Any aggression inside of you doesn’t last long, of course. It takes but an instant for a suppressed smirk to grace your own features. So you relent. “Fuck off.”
It’s apparently enough for Eobard, as he goes back to work sewing your wounded skin together.
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
In a way, meeting Eobard was a gift.
Despite being smarter and arguably better than your peers in every way, most everyone liked you. There was no reason for why, or why not- you were too calm to be flashy, too observant to be ignorant. You were quiet, and yet you’d naturally (and oddly) fallen slightly high in the high school social pyramid. That’s how you managed to end up on a trip to the boardwalk after graduating high school, with a girl who was far more popular than yourself.
She’d smiled, you smiled back. You’d been talking about something that either was or wasn’t important, you can’t remember which anymore, when suddenly she was just gone. As fast as a gust of wind, she was over the railing and on the sand below, her skull split open over a rock.
A gust of wind. That was what the police had deemed the cause of the incident. It would’ve been believable if you hadn’t noticed said gust was colored red and gold from head toe. But The Flash had simply been caught up in running somewhere and bumped into someone at too high a speed.
What were you going to do? Go to the police and accuse a super metahuman? No way would anyone on the planet believe you. So you did the next logical thing. Take your genius level intellect, move into a clock tower with one of the most technologically advanced setups in the world, be declared missing by loved ones, and spend every second of your life thwarting Mr. Flash from the shadows.
At the same time, a rather backwards version of the speedster was making himself known. At least three times had you looked up to a television and seen him rampaging through Central City, sometimes against the Flash and sometimes not. Back then, you really hadn’t thought much of him. He was just one more threat in the city like Cold and Heatwave, and it’s not like he ever did something that was over the line. As far as you were concerned, Reverse Flash was a tool for you.
You grew into a legend on the dark web, referred to as Anorak. You could hack anything and anyone. While Flash was in the street, stoplights would confuse the cars and cause crashes and damage to himself or others. Personal information was found, leading to a series of blackmail victims that made you quite a large sum of money before that damn scarlet speedster intervened. You’d even managed to cause the downfall of a rather well known politician.
One day, you watched your enemy zoom through the city as he always does, waiting for the opportune moment to make something go awry. But before you could, another blur knocked into the original, and leered over him. It was Reverse Flash.
So when the “hero” made a break for it, hoping to get him away from civilians or lose him, you caused everything to go wrong. Traffic either made the Flash crash into cars or swerve innocents out of the way. Blackouts made people scream out and distract him. Even big televisions attached to buildings became so hot, they fizzled and made sparks fall to the ground.
Reverse Flash caught up with him not long after, gave him a few punches. He might’ve killed the original Flash if the cops hadn’t shown up, which you blamed yourself for being too distracted to stop. He got away, of course, but you kept a way closer eye on the man after that. He took off his mask and costume in an alleyway one night, which is how you learned his identity.
His name was-
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
“Eobard.”
It takes a second for your companion to respond to you, but he does. “I see it.”
You bite the inside of your left cheek, eyes glued to the words in front of you as you analyze as fast as you can. In the past, they must’ve blended with the others really well for you to not have noticed. Now they stand out like they’ve been bolded all this time, hitting you right in the face.
For a brief instant, the alarm flushes down from your throat with a swallow. Your parted lips close, only to be replaced with a devilish smile as you poke the man beside you. The finger sheepishly juts against the side of his abdomen, which is firm under his yellow sweatshirt.
“Dilf,” you whisper as you look up at your partner. Normally, Eobard would’ve probably cracked a crooked smile at that sort of thing. Now his face is like stone.
Eobard’s icy eyes are locked ahead. His sharp jaw clenches and unclenches like a tightening rope. With his hood pulled over his head, he probably looked suspicious already. But standing here now? Intense and caged? You have to move on soon before someone comes and notices. But where to go?
This is The Flash Museum. It’s full of open spaces and modern structures, leaving little place to hide. You suppose you could take him into a bathroom, but the bathroom’s here are only intended for one person at a time. Going in with him in such a famous place like this would draw eyes and possibly end in getting thrown out.
A sharp squeeze makes electricity shoot through your body. You look up to Eobard again. This time, he’s already tilting his own head downward to make eye contact. Eobard is fit and strong. He’s always loomed over you.
“So what?”
“Did you know about this?”
“No,” Eobard says simply.
“And you’re not… feeling or anything?”
His brows crease, teeth gritting almost angrily. “It’s not like I have to pay child support for it.”
‘It.’
“Thawne.”
Eobard slips an arm around your shoulders to pull you tight against the side of him, his other hand squeezing your adjacent arm. His head croons down slightly until he’s closer to your face. Now you’ve got your cover. From behind, to anyone else, you just look like a regular young couple. In reality, Eobard’s your partner in crime. Friend? Don’t be ridiculous. Boyfriend? Yeah, right. He’s just the person you see the most.
“You’re the one who called me a Dilf,” Eobard says to you, lowly. “What, now you’re complaining?”
You urge quietly. “We didn’t know you were a dad until five seconds ago.”
“The kid doesn’t even exist yet,” Eobard scrunches his face. Then he closes his eyes and whispers, “Fuckin’ child support...”
You pan your eyes from your metahuman ally to the panel straight ahead. In the hall of villains, you and him stand in front of a large, modern Reverse Flash section. It’s lucky the picture of him they chose was him in his suit, otherwise the two of you would be screwed right about now.
“You’ve got a boy,” you read aloud. “Thaddeus. Doesn’t say anything about who you had it with.”
“Maybe it’s you.”
“Hey, there might be more to this kid, Thawne. Apparently we have to go to... slide 15? There’s slides?”
Eobard claps his palms against you as if to wake you up. “So... no child support. Hmm? How does that sound?” He smirks.
“Bullet dodged,” you remark quickly. “Are you seriously not worried about Faddeous?”
“It’s Thaddeus. And it hasn’t happened yet.”
“But it will. It’s kind of literally set in stone.”
“I don’t remember that happening.”
You pass him a look, unintentionally.
Eobard’s facial expression changes somewhat, though you can’t explain how or why. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t be upset.”
“I’m not upset,” you say, upset.
Eobard is still for a moment, staring at you as he pulls himself back up to his natural height. “I thought you were smarter than this.”
“Yeah, you can talk to me about being smart when you unfuck Thaddeus’s bimbo,” you snark as you turn away.
“Fuck off.”
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
You really weren’t actually upset. It was just weird.
How had neither of you noticed it in the museum before? It seems an awfully important thing to know about someone. But you believe Eobard when he told you he has no recollection of this. Once, he told you that he had traveled through time and space just to erase a childhood friend of the Flash from existence. That, coupled with the amount of times Eobard’s pointed at a kid he’d like to kick down some stairs to you, is enough for you to feel secure in the fact that he’s not exactly (purposefully) interested in a child.
So, who’d he have a baby with? Not that you care. Eobard’s your business partner. It’s not really your matter who he has a kid with or not.
Does Eobard have a breeding thing?
“Well if it isn’t the legendary Anorak.”
Two electric fingers poke your sides from behind. Red bolts of lightning jolt through you as you tense momentarily, ripping you from your considerations, before continuing to click your fingers on your keyboard. “I live here,” you mutter. “Where’ve you been all night?”
You finish up what you’re typing to spin around so your many computer monitors are behind you, now facing the golden speedster himself. His body is still thrumming with scarlet electricity, orbs matching dangerously. Eobard must have yet to cool down from his latest spree. Let’s just hope he did some damage to Mr. Barry Allen in the process.
“Out,” he replies with a sinister grin. You love that grin, enough to feel yourself relax slightly as you lean back in your chair.
“Did you get my groceries?”
It’s not uncommon for Eobard to occasionally run errands for you. He practically lives in the clocktower with you, after all. But as Eobard disappears and reappears in a yellow whiz, holding a large, still steaming paper bag, you know it’s not true. “I got dinner. Indian place on Cross.”
Translation: He stole it.
“So like, not my groceries,” you stand and snatch the bag from the man’s large hand as you walk past. “Aren’t you being pleasant this evening.”
“I’m always pleasant,” you hear the man seethe from behind you, Eobard’s voice throaty.
You’re pulling out the contents of the wonderful smelling package when he speaks again. “I have an idea for you.”
Uh oh.
“This food is a bribe?”
“What were you really expecting?”
“If we’re being honest, I expected some food,” you pop the containers open to inspect the contents. “Groceries, even. Can you get me a plate or something?”
“No. Now please-”
Eobard seats himself in the chair across your round table, fingertips pressed together over his lips. Under his golden half mask, he looks at you almost excitedly, brows hanging over his red eyes as his lips curl into a wicked grin. There’s no doubt that Thawne is crazy, but you can handle it. You don’t mind.
“-hear me out.”
Resuming your actions, you search the bag for any plastic forks or napkins. “My listening ears are on. Plate?”
“No. You’ll recall that fun fact we learned in The Flash Museum?”
Right. Plates. They’ll be in the cabinet in the area you’ve designated as the ‘kitchen space’. “Is this about the Dilf thing? It didn’t mean anything.”
Eobard snorts. “We’ll see about that. Now are you going to listen to my idea or not?”
You freeze.
“I can have us meet my son.”
Oh?
Oh.
“Oh.”
Eobard’s fingers play with each other. “I went to see him earlier today. It’s pretty basic time travel stuff, Y/N. You have nothing to worry about. But that kid? Well, I change my mind. He’s... interesting. I want you to meet him.”
You pluck two paper plates from the wooden shelf before walking back to the table. “You want me to meet your son?”
Eobard sits forward. “Don’t think of it like that,” he says. “Think of it more like putting your mind at ease. He’s a good little brat.”
This earns a scoff from you. “There’s nothing to put at ease because I’m not upset.”
“That’s good,” Eobard continues. “But besides the point. Let’s go now.”
A pause. “Right... now?”
Eobard smirks. “Right now.”
You’re about to say no, to narrow your eyes at him and just eat your damn food. But then your lips part, and you ask him, calmly, “Why?”
“He’s a lovely kid,” Eobard promises, eyes glinting. “Smart as a whip, as fast as his father. Little brat doesn’t even need child support. Hell, he’s practically doing everything all on his own.”
You swallow, tentatively pressing the paper plate onto the table. “He has powers? In the future?”
Eobard leans back in his chair, arms crossing over his broad chest. “Yep,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “My time. Any age you want. I’ll make the ride smooth for ya. Did I mention he’s faster than light?”
“I thought all of you were faster than light.”
For a couple seconds straight, your eyebrows furrow and unfurrow repeatedly. “So...” you begin, thinking. “...So... who was the- the-” you do a rotating motion with your hands.
“The other half of the child makin’ equation?” Eobard quips.
“Yes. That.”
Silence. “Does it matter?” Eobard questions. “In my time, you can make your child into anything you want. Parents won’t influence much.”
“You’re not curious as to who you fucked a kid into?”
“Not particularly.”
A pause.
“So, how old do you want him to be when you go meet him?”
You close your eyes and suck in a breath, mind wrapping around Thawne’s words like they’re his last. “What?”
Eobard rolls his eyes. “How far into the future do you want to go?”
You’re quiet for a moment, holding Eobard’s stare. “This is your worst joke to date,”” you decide, breaking the stare.
Eobard raises an eyebrow. “Don’t lie to me,” he warns. “You don’t want to meet-”
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
“Thaddeus?”
As the boy turns around, golden hair glinting in the light of the sun through the windows, a strong instinct to steady yourself with Eobard’s arm washes over you. That’s ridiculous, of course, since Eobard isn’t one to help and you’re not quite one to ask for help. But for one slow, magical instant, it’s a thought.
Thaddeus is the spitting image of his father. Although his hair is a little messy, the style is simple compared to all the other hyper modern ones you’ve seen today. Eobard tells you that in this time, couples can essentially customize their offspring to perfection. Thaddeus is also contrasting this, as if his parents wanted him to be… natural. Even his clothes are so casual, you’re reminded of your own in the tower. You can see it in his crooked lips, the shadow of dimples, splash of freckles over his nose. Besides that, his features are sharp and defining, with brows that frame his young face nicely. Only his eyes differ from his father. They have the same intelligence, yes, but the shape…
You’ve been so memorized and sick from the moment Eobard stopped running, trying to hold back your gawking at the architecture. The lights. The technology. Even the people’s styles- that it’s hard to believe that this one kid is the thing to make your stomach churn and ache. Eobard’s child. Eobard’s son. Eobard has a son!
And after all the skyscrapers you’d walked past, the cars, the screens- it was him who had your attention. Both of them. Your partner, Eobard, and his spawn, Thaddeus. How curious.
“You dropped this.” Eobard extends his hand out to the boy, who’s not nearly as tall as his father but still stocky in size.
Thaddeus looks down. The three of you stand still.
“Maybe you should be more careful with your stuff,” Eobard continues as his son takes the ID card from his fingers.
“Thanks,” Thaddeus says after a moment. Then he’s silent.
Certainly has his fathers social skills.
“You fifteen year olds these days,” Eobard goes on. “I could never find anything when I was your age.”
Thaddeus looks back up at him with an almost dorky smile. “You don’t look so old,” he says. “I don’t know.”
“This one couldn’t misplace a thing if they tried,” your partner leers down at you. “Give him some tips, dear.”
Dear.
His spawn looks you dead in the eye, completely unaware of who or what you are. It throws your brain through an internal loop and leaves your vocal chords up to their own familiarity.
“I don’t know how to tell you not to lose your ID card,” you stuff your hands into your pockets, which are connected to a futuristic black robe and pants.
“Nothin’ weird about that,” Eobard chimes in, laughing at you silently.
“I guess it was a little weird,” Thaddeus mutters.
“I’ll throttle you to death.”
“What?”
“Actually, there are other exhibits we wanted to see. We’re just visiting town,” you save Eobard quickly, slipping your hands around his upper arm. “Any recommendations?”
“Yeah,” Thaddeus glances around. “But um... have I seen you before?”
You almost choke. “I beg your pardon?”
Thaddeus tilts his head. “Haven’t I seen you before? Sorry- for being forward. I’m sorry.”
“We get around,” Eobard smirks- now you’re certain he’s doing it to piss you off. “Why do you ask?”
The boy breathes out and smiles again, looking down before back up. “You just look familiar. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” you tell him, brows genuinely creasing as you watch Thaddeus’s pupils.
He seems… sweet, almost. Anxious.
He sucks in a hissing breath. “I’m not great at small talk. Thanks for my thing. Uh… so where are you guys from then?”
Actually, maybe he doesn’t have his fathers social skills. Eobard would never prolong a conversation.
“It’s pretty far away. I doubt a kid has heard of it,” your partner says. “What about you, Thaddeus?”
Thaddeus puts both hands in his pant pockets almost sheepishly. “I’m from here. In the city.”
“You’re from The Flash Museum?” you quip.
“Fuck, sorry-I wish. Just the city.”
“If you wish,” Eobard starts lowly, “maybe you should apply for a job.”
That’s right. Eobard worked here, didn’t he?
Thaddeus glances around. “I don’t know if I’d be good for business,” he chuckles softly. “You saw my last name right?”
“No,” you mutter. “We didn’t see your full name. Sorry.”
Thaddeus wiggles his fingers in his pockets. “It’s Thawne,” he says, as if it was some kind of curse. “Like… you know.”
You pretend to think for a moment. Eobard does the same. Then your mouths part and eyes widen as if in recognition. “Oh,” you exclaim. “Oh! Like Eobard Thawne. Reverse Flash. Yeah, I see what you mean. God, that guy...”
“Yeah, so I usually just tell my friends to call me Inertia.”
Another juxtaposition between the boy and his father. Eobard didn’t have any friends, nor did he want any.
Eobard speaks up. “I like your name as it is,” he says, words dripping with poison only you and him could be aware of. “A good strong name like that will command people without even intending to.”
“Well said, darling,” you begin to speak. “You can call me-”
“Enigma,” Eobard quickly silences you. “This is Enigma. People call me Zoom.”
What the hell?
“Cool names,” Thaddeus nods with a smile. “Are you two… um, are you guys partners?”
He’s asking if you’re fucking his dad… Eobard’s kid is asking if you’re fucking his dad!
“Yes,” you tell the kid quickly, knowing Eobard had something to say. Your lips split into a grin. “Yes, we’re married.”
And then it’s quiet. Normally, now would be the time Eobard says something. Some quip, some line. So you stare at his son, waiting for the man beside you to speak up. But he doesn’t.
Thaddeus narrows his eyes at the two of you. “Are you sure we haven’t met before? The two of you just look-”
Your eyes flicker to Eobard, but he’s already in motion. A hand clasps around your arm, forcing you to walk backwards in a hurried push. He’s squeezing your skin. It’s a sudden reminder of how he is, in fact, superpowered.
“We need to leave.”
“I’m sorry?”
“We gotta go,” Reverse Flash urges you, staring down into your eyes.
“Uh, bye?” His son calls behind you, watching you walk backwards.
Your brows scrunch in confusion, right before your heels catch and skid across the floor, throwing off your balance. Your entire force of gravity is pulled off- right elbow skirting pink against the floor in a burning sensation.
“Get up!” Eobard hisses, though he’s already bending down to help pick you upright again.
“Thawne,” you murmur back.
Above you, Eobard’s skin is flickering with energy. It crackles like lightning the color of blood, sizzling through his modern outfit and almost burning it away completely. Behind him, Thaddeus steps back with wide eyes, looking around for someone else to see what he sees.
“Yeah,” you nod fervently up at Eobard in agreement. “We gotta go.”
The electric buzz surrounding him begins to hum. “Grip tight,” he orders, though he’s already started pushing off his heels.
You do, nails reaching up to dig into his arm.
“You are so hot,” you nod fervently up at Eobard without thinking.
The last thing you see as the world turns to yellow and red, burning away in a seething fire, is the face of Thaddeus Thawne, who looks like a bewildered version of his father.
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
“Stop moving.”
“It hurts.”
“You think I give a shit? It won’t stop if you don’t stop your squirming.”
You still yourself with a frown, glancing down to your wound. “I can’t believe you let me fall.”
Eobard flicks the inside of your forearm, right in the vein. A shock runs through you with a jump. “I wouldn’t have caught you in time,” he seethes.
“You move in super speed,” your eyebrow quirks.
“Don’t try it,” Eobard warns, earning a smile from you. “Okay, ready?”
“Do it.”
In his hand, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, the man holds a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. In contrast, sitting on a stool, you hold out your arm for him, elbow out.
Eobard tips the bottle over your skin. It skids down in bubbling drips, burning over and over. Dead skin peels from the raw wound. Tiny beads of blood surface. You bite down on your left cheek to stomach the pain that both children and adults alike dread.
“So,” Eobard begins, still spilling the peroxide over your elbow far past the needed amount of time. “How did you like the boy?”
Your eyes flicker up to him. You can smell Eobard’s scent. “I wouldn’t know. Much like the grocery incident, you left before it could get done.”
Eobard downs the entire bottle of fluid over your elbow. It stings and burns, causing you to hiss out in pain. “Thawne!”
“I took you to the future, Y/N. You should be happy. I did it for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that!” you exclaim. “You didn’t even say why we had to fucking go.”
You watch his eyes go red like a light switch. You learned pretty early on that Eobard could do this on command. On a whir, the empty bottle of peroxide flushes to the ground with a sharp bang. “Be careful.”
“Or what? You’ll put your fingers through my goddamn brain?”
Immediately, you regret it. You knew the meaning behind your words were important between you and Eobard. They’re sacred, private. And here you are throwing his own murdered beloved right in his face.
Holy shit. Ho-ly shit. Eobard could end your life right now. He’s superpowered. He’s vibrated his hand into someone’s brain. You’re not. You’re just some bozo who ticked him off.
Your hands fly up to your face on instinct, palms out as a shield. “Wait, wait, wait!” you fold. “Wait! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Then it’s time to wait for death.
“Please don’t hurt me,” you beg- chant. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Movement. You hear movement. And then you hear his voice, stern and compacted, as if he’s trying to keep it together, say, “You’re fine.”
You are not fine. You are dangerously close to death.
You lower your fingers slowly.
“Just don’t ever try that again.”
Eobard’s eyes are still deliriously red. You know he’s pissed. You know you shouldn’t have said it. You know you’ve fucked up. But you also know it’s out of character for him to let it go. It matters to you, maybe just a little bit, in a good way. But there’s no time to analyze it now.
“Yeah,” you whisper.
Silence.
“Eobard?” you start. “What happens to your son?”
When he meets your eyes, they’re not red anymore. They’ve returned to that pretty, icy blue you see so normally. “Why do you want to know?”
A shrug. The movement makes the stinging sensation return to your elbow. When Eobard Thawne’s eyes search your own, the feeling spreads through your arm and neck, up to your face.
“You said he has powers, but he just acted like... a normal kid. He seemed kinda happy, you know? And he didn’t want anything to even do with you.”
Eobard sits in thought for a moment. It’s enough of a moment for you to realize what the silence means.
“He ends up like you? Or close?”
A flash of red rings Eobard’s iris. “Who cares?” he settles upon saying in return.
A beat. Two beats, three. Then you crack a little smile. “No child support… yeah. Who cares?” you say. “Think we should forget about him?”
Eobard rolls his head. “We did it before.”
We.
You frown. “I think you really hurt my elbow this time. No seriously.”
“Good,” Eobard pokes.
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
And it goes on like that forever and ever, or at least that’s what you’d like to believe. In reality, your mind wanders to Thaddeus Thawne, the singular builder of kinetic energy, and how he’s somehow destroyed the inertia you had with his father.
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
Holy shit this took me so long. I just kept running into roadblocks and I started this new job and blah blah blah. I should be back to writing soon. Drop some DC requests for me! I’m really in the DC zone right now. I will also probably go back and revise this eventually since I really feel like my quality is just not it right now at all.