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The highrise building that hosted Star's latest charity gala was honestly kind of disappointing, Barry Allen thought to himself. It wasn't even the best gala Barry had seen that year. They had rich people finger foods, but none of the flavour Barry wanted them to have. The only thing the gala had an abundance of (aside from snobs) was champagne and Barry, with his metahuman physiology, couldn't get drunk even if he wanted to.
Oliver had basically forced him to come along for extra security, but so far the most exciting thing Barry had done the whole night was watch a socialite from Gotham try to brag about Bruce Wayne, only to get shamed hard by the whole party for holding Gotham's sweetheart in high regard. High society didn't exactly like a man who hired ex-cons and created rehabilitation systems for the mentally ill. Barry thought he must have been especially charismatic to have Gotham's socialites hold him in such high regard, but he'd yet to see Oliver to tell him as such. Oliver would definitely do that rich person eyebrow scrunch when they didn't want to openly frown, Barry just knew it. He and Wayne were, like, childhood frenemies or something, according to gossip magazines.
Barry knew all about rich peoples' idiosyncrasies at that point, having lived in a private boarding school for the whole of his high school career. Trying to fit in with those snobs did more for him than Oliver's crash courses on "how to not embarrass Oliver Queen in public (and, if possible, to feed his public persona)" ever did. Oliver honestly thought that people poorer than him didn't know table manners just because they didn't grow up in a manor. Oliver was lucky he was a co-vigilante and also a good friend (most of the time) so Barry felt too bad to shame him for more than three sentences at a time.
But Oliver had left Barry alone for all of the gala (feeding his public persona? being a dick? doing his job surveilling the crowd? who knew) so Barry honestly didn't feel too charitable towards him, even if he thought the fact that Oliver's back was rarely towards him was kind of sweet. Keeping Barry in his peripherals was just the kind of care that made Barry feel kind of mushy. It's not like Barry had had a lot of friends throughout his life (Iris did not count). Until Cisco and Caitlin, Barry had just been married to his job and hadn't even gone out for 4 years, as most of his university friends had moved into different cities and didn't get together anymore. The less he said about middle and high school (hated by everyone for very different reasons), the better.
"Hey, do I know you?" a voice from behind him asked.
Oh god, please let it not be another one of those people who were convinced he and Oliver were a couple because gossip magazines had photographed them together before a few times. He was officially at the gala as Oliver's plus-one, but Oliver had told him (threatened him) to insinuate Oliver's original date (who didn't actually exist) had dumped him for being a cheater/playboy and Barry was just a friend, who was a fallback. Barry had yet to understand why they couldn't just pretend that Barry was his, uh, paramour, but he did guess Oliver was trying to look out for him from the gossip. It was sweet really, but Barry thought it was kind of funny how Oliver thought Barry would collapse from a few articles written about him. Oliver wasn't even that famous, who would even care that much about who he's dating?
"No, probably not," Barry said, turning towards the voice, only to freeze for a nanosecond, instantly trying to cover up his unease with a smile. Oh, why couldn't it have been another one of Oliver's exes trying to give him advice that Oliver was scum and to dump him?
In front of him stood Quinn Fabray, who did definitely know him, and judging by her raised eyebrow, she knew she wasn't incorrect either.
"Really. I see," Fabray smiled, a mischievous edge to it. "Well, I'm Quinn Fabray, I'm a junior associate with Star & Morgan. Nice to meet you...?"
Was he supposed to act like Barry? Oliver knew him as Barry, he was on the guest list as Barry. But Fabray knew (of) him from one of the darkest times of his life, it felt wrong to act like that (and his life as Sebastian) didn't exist, nevermind the fact that he knew for a fact his appearance hadn't changed much from his time as a high school student. He ruined the lives of her friends, did he really have the right to act like he hadn't done that, even as a way to fool her into thinking Barry and Sebastian weren't the same person?
Well, it was for one night, he told himself as he steeled his nerves, they hadn't even gone to the same high school, they had no reason to meet up again.
Being the fastest man alive lent him to a faster reaction time than anyone else so after the nanoseconds he'd had that argument with himself, he altered his sheepish smile to have an edge of slyness to it. Hopefully not enough to tip off Oliver across the room, but enough so it was a bit more familiar to Fabray.
"Oh!" he moved his hand to his chest in an exaggerated movement that'd hopefully signal to Fabray he wasn't out for her blood (just in case) and was taking the meetup in good fun, "Fabray! My, you've gone up in the world."
Oh god, was that still too much of an asshole comment? He might've leaned too much into his Sebastian persona there, he was a bit rusty.
Luckily Fabray just giggled good naturedly. "Aw, and what are you doing nowadays? I didn't expect to meet anyone I knew in Starling."
His smile lost the edge he put there out of its own volition, grinning at her in relief that she was such a good sport, "I don't actually live here, just a plus-one. I live in Central."
"Oh!" Fabray frowned in an exaggerated manner to hide a smile, "and here I was hoping to have a brunch buddy." Her smile won out and she leaned in, whispering, "so which of these hunks is yours?"
Was he supposed to tell Oliver's preplanned lie even to an acquaintance? Wait, actually, yes, Oliver would beat the shit out of him if he said anything else.
"Aw, none of them this time," he sighed, acting put out, "my date's previous date dumped him for," aw, he felt kind of bad saying these lies about Oliver, but them's the rules, he guessed, "cheating on him, so he needed a last-second date. Dragged me all the way to Star just for this. I wouldn't date him under any circumstance," because he was a control freak and also a fellow superhero.
Fabray nodded sympathetically. "I wouldn't date a serial cheater either."
Oh, uh, well, that did explain it, without going into-- wait, was that a dig at that time he tried to break up Blaine and Kurt? She didn't look like she had a malicious thought in her head, but he definitely remembered that she used to be a cheerleader, they probably made comments like that all the time to insult someone, right?
He decided to give her the benefit of doubt, he didn't have proof anyway, even if he wanted to start a fight (which he didn't).
"Well, anyway," Barry tried to think of a new topic, "where did you go to university?" University was always a safe subject.
They had a pleasant conversation that didn't turn (too) awkward over several glasses of champagne ("You have a forensic science degree? That's really amazing!" "Thanks, Miss law school." soft laughter, "Well, you didn't have to wait until your mid-twenties to start job hunting at least."), until Oliver finally descended to the scene, ready to defend Barry from a perceived threat (anyone who spent more than 5 minutes talking to Barry at a party, it was honestly kind of offensive how little Oliver trusted Barry's people skills).
"Barry! I haven't met your friend yet!" Oliver threw a hand over Barry's shoulders, holding him just a bit too tight for a normal human.
Fabray didn't do much more than blink at Oliver for a few seconds, before a smile verging on smirk flashed on her face. She tried to tame it down, but Barry saw it and knowing Oliver, he did too.
Sadly (?) for Oliver's wild imagination, she wasn't a supervillain (...probably?) and instead just a woman who just thought she found some really juicy gossip. Barry would rather she sell it to the tabloids than tell anyone from their shared past.
Oliver, you paranoid bastard, you just made my life a million times more complicated.
"Oh," she paused here for a second just too long, "Barry didn't mention his date was so handsome."
Oliver's fake grin widened, "Thank you, but you'll find both of us are very much taken."
Oliver???? OLIVER???????
Fabray, who definitely remembered Barry telling her he'd never date Oliver in his life, was staring at them with this shrewd grin that kept widening. God, she was totally going to tell everyone she knew from Ohio. Barry tried his best to both not acted shocked at Oliver's fucking gall (he was the one who came up with the cover story in the first place) and trying to convince Fabray with his eyes she should definitely not tell anyone this information, like, ever.
"Oliver, please stop lying to--" oh god, what was he supposed to call her outloud? Miss Fabray? Fabray would laugh herself into next Tuesday if he acted like that, even if Oliver expected it from him, "Fabray. I know you like messing with new acquaintances, but none of us want the press to hear you say that." Fuck you, Oliver, have some more guilt on top of your guilt complex.
"Oh my," Fabray hid her grin behind her champagne glass, "Barry is of course right."
Oliver was squeezing his arm so hard, it was actually starting to hurt, even with his hardy physiology. Geez, you'd think Barry was the one who ruined their plan for tonight (that they'd had an actual, real life meeting to cover some hours beforehand).
"Of course, Barry is just my friend, but he does have a sweetheart in his hometown. First love, very sweet." Good god, this was actual torture.
"Of course," Fabray nodded solemnly, "can't get between first loves." That was absolutely a dig at Barry, goddamn it. They were both out to get him.
"Yes," Oliver said, before starting to drag Barry away from Fabray with the grace of a bull in a china shop, "now excuse us."
Oh god, he was so screwed. Oliver was pissed at him and Fabray was going to spill his location to people Barry had been trying to avoid for a little under 10 years now (with, honestly, little difficulty until now!).
("She was definitely planning to kill you, Barry!" "She was not, please drop this." "Her name is Fabray? I'll look into her. I can have her first name pulled from the guest list." "Please don't." His pleas were ignored, even when Barry eventually caved and said they knew each other in high school. "That's just where the motive lies." "Oliver...")
Hey, Santana, I know we haven't caught up in a while, sorry, you know what moving to a new city is like. You'll never guess who I ran into yesterday though. Sebastian Smythe from Dalton, yeah? No, he wasn't balding, Santana, he's twenty-five. Very handsome, very much still single according to him. No, I'm not trying to-- Santana, listen, okay. He's so handsome that a literal millionaire threw a jealous hissyfit I was talking to his date and Sebastian had just told me 10 minutes earlier that they were friends and he'd never date him. Yeah, pretty funny, right? Pretty boy from Dalton still has men wrapped around his little finger-- yeah, wait, let me get into the mindset, okay, so I'm at this fancy party my new firm invited me to, because my boss is a sleazeball, right? And I see who I think is--