Legends of Tomorrow - Simple Things Steady In My Heart (gen/team)

Chapter 1

A/N: Written for Day 2 of dctvgen's Gen Valentine's event over on tumblr and the prompt "domestic". Spoilers up to S4 overall for characters. Warning for canonical character death mentioned and some grief/mourning included.

This started out as a 'Legends do their favourite (or least hated) chores' fic but ended up about 80% angst and maybe 20% sort of good feels. Hope it's enjoyed anyhow. :) Two more chapters to be posted across the next week. Thanks to unwittingcatalyst for betareading.

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For Ray, most of his best ideas come to him when he does the dishes. There's something about the repetitiveness that sets him at ease, allows his mind to relax as he scrubs the brush on a pan or wipes a cloth over a plate. Everything is okay when you're doing the dishes. The task has an order to it, so the world feels like it has an order to it.

Washing dishes gave him his first feeling of responsibility when his parents divorced. At the time he was sure it was all about needing to step up, to help as much as humanly possible so his mom wasn't so stressed by the changes going on. He wanted to be better. He didn't see how much it was he didn't want to be a burden like he'd felt he might be, how much it was a comfort to him as their lives changed drastically.

As he got older, and busier, he'd realized it made more sense to pay others to do his chores – it was more efficient. Paying other people to do what they were good at, better than him at, made sense too. He paid well above average because he could and because he valued what they were doing for him, freeing up his time for other things he was better at. But he always asked them to leave the dishes for him to do.

He needed something for himself, a reminder of his life before he became a billionaire. It hadn't felt real at times, this other person the media and his employees saw when they looked at him. He didn't feel different, still himself, but with more money, more possibilities opened up in front of him. Somehow he knew better who he was when his hands were warmed by the water and his mind whirling in the background, silently connecting the dots until it reached a new conclusion.

Things have changed so much since then. No real amount of money in his name. His name not even his anymore when he goes back to his 'real life' – Ray Palmer is still dead according to the paperwork. He's found a different path now, but he still needs something to stay the same. Even with the chore-wheel, the equitable division of tasks that doesn't entirely work out in practice, Ray still looks forward to doing the dishes. That's the task the others tend to 'forget' to do more often than not and he is pretty sure he knows why. Honestly, he's grateful for it. Times change; this feeling he has, as he steeps his thoughts in a sinkful of crockery and cutlery, doesn't. It isn't just the water that warms him through.

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For the longest time, Zari ignores Ray's chore-wheel. It's not that she doesn't appreciate organization, it's just tedious being told what to do, as if she can't organize herself. They're adults, they'll deal with everything in their own time. Except some of them apparently don't. Maybe they do need help, but she resists because...reasons. She dismisses it as nothing. A quirk of Ray's that is an irritation despite his genuine desire to be helpful that starts to become endearing.

She doesn't like to think about how she can't let this place be somewhere she cares about. This place that's too shiny and new, never truly run down. The cleaner and tidier it is, the starker the difference. She's lived in a lot of places. A lot of would-be homes. Shelters from the storm of angry ARGUS agents forever on their tail.