Barry, happily out of his Flash uniform and cooking a simple meal, but a large one, looked over at where, for once, Leonard Snart, usually known as Captain Cold, was setting up the table without being asked by someone in this still strange seeming little team. His partner Heatwave was also somewhere around, though for some reason, Barry found himself having more trouble calling the other man by name than he did with Leonard.

It had been nearly a month since the last sighting of one of Vandal Savage's soldiers, or even the man himself, so for now at least, everyone was working on their own ideas and projects. Which was why Oliver and The Atom hadn't been around for the past few evenings. Nor for that matter had The White Canary, who Barry still had trouble adjusting to on occasions.

Along with himself, the former criminal duo and, on this rare occasion, Rip Hunter, both Caitlin and Ronnie were in, as was Doctor Stein, although Barry and Caitlin had both noticed, with a little worry, that he hadn't come down for the last few meals. Confused, Barry turned to where Ronnie was just entering the dining room, it was almost too small when the entire team was around, but normally fit smaller groups quite comfortably. He spoke to the younger half of Firestorm.

"Is Doctor Stein not coming to dinner again tonight?"

Ronnie blinked for a second.

"No, he's been looking through some new research papers on his computer and has been asked to review some of them, but if you could serve some food up after we've finished, I'll take it up to him."

Barry nodded for a moment.

"Good idea, I know how he can get if his work is interrupted."

With that organised, it wasn't long before the food was cooked and ready to be served up. At some point during the start of the meal, Heatwave made an appearance, settling next to his partner just in time to collect his helping. afterwards there was a steady hum of quiet conversation, although a few times it had slowed and stilted when someone accidentally touched on a dangerous subject. Even working together didn't heal all wounds straight away after all.

Finally everyone finished their first plate of food, after which, Caitlin, who was quite full, kindly took on the duty of seeing who would like seconds. Leonard refused, but stuck around as his partner decided he was still hungry, Barry also took a second refill, as did Rip. Smiling as she looked up to see Ronnie standing in front of her without a plate, she asked him to wait a little while so she could fill a clean plate for Doctor Stein. Quietly, he said as she moved back into the kitchen.

"He doesn't like cooked carrots, and only a little bit of corn please."

Nodding, Caitlin turned back into the kitchen, after a couple of minutes, she came back with a plate of sliced roast beef, coupled with mashed potatoes, peas, a small amount of corn and cauliflower with cheese.

Smiling, he took it from her and headed up the stairs with the loaded plate and cutlery.

However, after 10 minutes, Ronnie still hadn't come back down.

Confused, though not all that worried, she quickly asked around to see if anyone wanted a third plate, Barry, it turned out, had overestimated the amount of food needed, and there was a good amount of leftovers, when they all refused, she began setting out storage containers to put all the uneaten food in. After a couple of minutes, Barry popped over to ask if she needed any help. Smiling, she refused, instead asking him something else.

"Could you quickly check on Ronnie and Dr Stein, I'm not that worried, but I was kind of expecting Ronnie to come back down after he'd finished taking the plate up to the doctor and he hasn't yet."

Barry nodded as he made his way up the stairs, he wasn't quiet about it, figuring Ronnie and the doctor had just started talking about their strange circumstances again.

So when he came up to the slightly open door, what he saw surprised him more than a little.

Barry had known that constantly being in each others minds, and regularly sharing a body would change how people behaved around each other, but this seemed a bit more than he was used to considering.

Slightly befuddled, he watched as Ronnie sat next to Doctor Stein, this was not unusual. It wasn't hard to tell that the scientist was very focused on the computer screen in front of him, this also, was not that unusual, the doctor was rather renowned for his ability to focus on his work, sometimes to the detriment of his personal relationships, no, what was unusual was what was happening with the food Ronnie had brought up with him.

On the plate, the roast beef and cauliflower had been cut into bite-size pieces, the mashed potato had been smooshed in with the pumpkin, and the peas and corn was stirred into that.

As Barry watched, Ronnie speared a piece of meat onto the fork he was holding, and proceeded to bring it up to the scientists mouth. As if on auto-pilot, Stein opened his mouth to accept the food being offered to him, chewing it for a while as his eyes moved across the screen in front of him, then swallowing it just as Ronnie dug the fork into the potato, pumpkin etc mix and brought it up again.

It was then Barry realized that this was the first time Ronnie had requested food to bring up to the doctor, apparently the younger man had started getting worried about the older ones health, but until this night, had listened to the others reassurances that he wasn't hungry. It was also a surprise that Martin, who was usually so independant, had given in to Ronnie's worries and allowed himself to be fed.

But the more he thought about it, the more Barry realized that both of these men had spent a lot of time literally inside each others thoughts, They fought together, got injured together... some evenings, after a major battle, they fell asleep together, and, as far as he knew, during those times, they even dreamt together. These two men probably knew more about each other than they had been comfortable sharing with anyone else, even their weaknesses.

Realizing, finally, that he was probably intruding on this oddly domestic moment, even if only Ronnie had noticed him come in, Barry backed out of the room, and at the understandable motion from the other mans head, quietly closing the door behind him.

The last thing he saw through the narrowing crack, was Ronnie spearing up some cauliflower, just as Stein swallowed his previous mouthful.

Going down the stairs and heading into the kitchen, he ran into Caitlin, who had just finished putting the last of the mashed potato into a container and was moving to the cauliflower, the others already long gone.

"They're both fine." He said as he started packing the already filled containers into the fridge. "Just a little busy right now."

She nodded her head a few times.

"That's good, I knew I didn't need to worry, but sometimes I just do."

Barry looked over to her again.

"I get what you mean."

She finished packing the last of the food into it's container.

"OK, since you're here, why don't you do the dishes?"

"Fine, fine, twist my arm."

They stared at each other for a second, before they both gave a small laugh.

"Consider it twisted."