Archive of Our Own

The Cold Gun is a game changer.

Leonard's done well for himself before, but with the gun in his hand, he's unstoppable now. Well. Almost unstoppable, he mentally amends, because the kid in the scarlet gimp suit's a nuisance that'll need to be dealt with one way or another, and soon.

Here's what he knows about the Streak: He's faster than any human should be. He's a bleeding heart who fancies himself a hero. He's too young to have his idealism beaten out of him yet. He's smart, and quick to engage in the banter Leonard throws at him, and easy on the eyes. Shame about the rigid morals.

Leonard deliberately triggers the alarm after he's already emptied the vault, measuring the time until a streak of red lightning zips into the bank.

Under the mask, the kid looks annoyed. "Really, Snart, again? You know they say it's a sign of insanity to do the same thing over and over and expect different results."

Rude. "You never know. Maybe I've got some new tricks up my sleeve this time."

It earns him a snort. "Right."

Leonard grins. "Let's play, Scarlet."

He sets the gun to the highest setting and shoots.

Frostbite hurts like hell. It's one of the things Barry has learned since the particle accelerator exploded and his life turned upside-down that he'd rather not have found out first-hand.

"Snart again?" Joe asks, glowering as he tracks Barry's careful movements.

"Yeah." Barry gingerly touches his flank where the icy blast hit him full force. "I've got to get faster to outrun the Cold Gun. Or maybe get Snart to shoot at me less."

Joe shakes his head. "Son, you can't talk around a man like Snart."

It was meant to be a joke, but— It can't hurt trying, right?

"Have you thought about a career change?" the kid quips.

Leonard fires and misses, but he can't stave off the amusement. There's one thing to be said for the Scarlet Speedster: fighting him is never boring. "You wanna offer me a job? How much's that pay?"

"You could help actually people."

Behind the goggles, Leonard rolls his eyes. "Pass. I'd rather help myself. You should try it." He ices the floor between them, and the Flash slips. "Let me know when you're tired of frostbite, kid. With your skills, you'd make a perfect thief."

With a salute, Leonard walks away.

The kid's cute, with the windswept hair and the cocky attitude. He throws challenges Leonard's way, as if he knows exactly how hard Leonard finds it to resist them.

You bring all the boys out here on a date? Leonard almost asks, just to see what kind of a reaction he gets. Seems like an odd choice to bring the bad guy into the deep dark woods just to negotiate terms. An odd choice to negotiate at all, given the Flash's powers.

Barry prefers peaceful solutions, apparently. Leonard has an idea or two how to use that to his advantage.

"Back so soon? I thought you'd have learned your lesson."

Leonard doesn't need to turn around to know that Barry's seething. Must be, to seek Leonard out so soon, with the betrayal still fresh and all those hopes for team play thoroughly quenched once and for all. Good.

Barry slides onto the seat next to Leonard's, signaling for a drink. "I get it. No more leaving any loopholes when making deals with you."

"No more deals," Leonard snaps. "Unless you enjoy being beaten and double-crossed." Because it'll happen again and again, until Barry understands that this is who Leonard is.

Everything hurts. Without his powers, every painful scrape lingers and burns, all the bruises feel like someone's grinding his bones, and Barry's too tired to put up with Leonard Snart's special brand of posturing today.

"Take the shot, then," he taunts. "I have no speed, no healing. You wanna get rid of me? Prove that you're the villain you always say you are? All you have to do is pull that trigger."

Snart's mouth twists into an ugly snarl. "You wanna die so badly, Flash?"

But despite the menace in his tone, his finger on the trigger remains steady. Unmoving.

"Too slow, Flash!"

No, I'm not, Barry thinks, but before he can fire back a quip of his own, a blast of cold hits his legs. His run is abruptly stopped. He flails wildly, fighting to keep his balance with his feet frozen to the floor.

Snart steps up to him. "Hmm, looks like you're stuck between a cold and a hard place while I walk out with my score." He flings the little blue bag in the air and catches it again, diamonds rattling inside.

The warmth from his breath lingers on Barry's cold skin when Snart's long gone.

There's always something wrong about Barry Allen walking into Saints and Sinners, two worlds that shouldn't be able to co-exist clashing. Everyone else feels it too, judging by the way he draws all the attention, the background chatter going quiet.

Barry makes a beeline towards Leonard's booth.

"Snart." He smiles too brightly when he sits down, oblivious to the fact that everyone inside this room would love to mess him up something bad - rob him or fuck him or kill him, or all three of them.

"Barry," Leonard drawls, and a vicious possessiveness curls inside him and screams mine.

"Do I need to remind you what happened the last time you trusted that man?"

"No, Joe, I remember." Barry rubs the back of his neck. "Just because we work together doesn't mean I trust him, okay?"

Is that true, though? He doesn't necessarily trust Snart not to lie or twist their deal to his advantage. But he trusts that there are lines Snart won't cross. Trusts that Snart won't throw more at Barry than he can handle.

Maybe Joe is right and that makes Barry a fool. But when it comes to Snart, he can't help giving second chances.

For once, the plan works smoothly.

"Looks like we'll both take the win tonight, Flash," Snart says, straddling his bike, and Barry knows that in a second he'll be off and this truce will be over.

There's electricity burning under Barry's skin, the bittersweet taste of adrenaline on his tongue. He isn't ready to head back to S.T.A.R. Labs. Isn't quite ready to let go yet.

He flashes forward, his fingers closing around the key in the ignition milliseconds before Snart's do. The air bristles where they touch.

"Barry—" Snart starts, warningly.

Like all the warnings before, Barry ignores it.

Leonard's always been keen on finding out how to take the Flash apart. This isn't quite what he had in mind when they started their little dance, though.

He trails a hand down Barry's side, over the unblemished spot where he hit Barry with the Cold Gun just last week.

Barry shakes under his touch, tiny orange sparks buzzing over his skin. He's as defenseless as Leonard's ever seen him: no suit, no mask, eyes closed, alone in Leonard's safe-house. A staggering amount of trust Leonard doesn't deserve or want – but he's too greedy not to take what Barry's offering.

He pulls a job less than 24 hours after he's snuck out of the safe-house without a single glance back at Barry's sleeping form. Nothing big, just flashy enough that the Scarlet Speedster will get the message.

What happened between them doesn't change a thing. Leonard's still the same man he was yesterday, the same man he's always been – and if the Flash thinks he'll join his little heroic crew, he's got another thing coming.

Leonard fires the gun at the Flash and pretends all he feels at the hurt expression on Barry's face is a sense of triumph.

"Let me help you," Barry offers.

Leonard's voice is harsh and cold like a blast from his gun. "Pass. Stay out of this, Flash. I clean up my own messes. And don't worry, I'll remember our deal."

Barry knows better than to tell him that he's less worried about Leonard killing someone and more worried about him getting hurt. He has a feeling that concern would be even less welcome than mistrust.

"Fine, whatever. Just—" —be careful, he doesn't say. "The offer's open. If you change your mind."

"Unlikely."

Watching Leonard walk away, Barry stifles the impulse to speed after him.

3 a.m., and Leonard ducks through the open window. The sight of Barry's cozy childhood bedroom almost makes him turn and crawl out again right away, back into the night.

"Leonard?"

Too late now. "Barry. Thought I'd pay you a visit."

"Wha — Are you okay?" Barry's eyes dart to the bloody imprints on the window sill and he tenses.

"Peachy. Ran into a spot of trouble. I might need a place to lie low for a bit. If the offer's still open." He forces a smirk, his jaw clenched tight.

"Always," Barry says. Just like that. No questions. No conditions.

"Hold still," Barry says before brushing the alcohol-soaked wipe over the bleeding wound on Leonard's back.

The reminder is unnecessary - Leonard is so rigid with tension, he might as well be an ice statue, and every gentle touch only has him grow more tense. Barry patches him up in silence, afraid to set Leonard off and make him run.

"Spit it out, Barry," Leonard snaps. "I know you're dying to give that lecture."

Barry shakes his head. "I'm just glad you trusted me enough to come to me."

He presses a kiss between Leonard's shoulder blades and slowly, Leonard relaxes.

Running with Barry is an... acquired taste. Leonard remembers that first time Barry grabbed him and sped off – the rush, the vertigo, the helplessness. He hated it.

It still makes his skin prickle, but it's different when Barry's no longer an unknown variable, when his powers intrigue Leonard more than they scare him. When he knows that, while those powers could easily pulverize him, Barry never would.

The speedforce buzzes around them like their own private thunderstorm, and the adrenaline high doesn't subside when Barry sets Leonard down. Crowding into Barry's space, Leonard kisses him until they're out of breath.

"I don't think he's a fan." Leonard spins around in the chair, clearly unbothered by the way Cisco left the Cortex in a huff. "I suppose I can't blame him."

Neither can Barry, but it doesn't mean he doesn't hate the way his friends react to Leonard with varying degrees of mistrust, anger and fear. He gets it, he does – Captain Cold has made their lives difficult for months. Barry wishes he could make them understand that Leonard is more than a villain with a deadly gun.

"He'll come around."

Leonard huffs. "Not everyone is as forgiving as you, Barry."

Mick's the one who sees through Leonard's bullshit. "Since when d'you wanna play hero, Snart?"

"I don't," Leonard snarls, but the thought he can't shake is Barry'd be proud. He's got all this unending faith. Even when Leonard was doing his best to put the Flash on ice, Barry kept appealing to the better part of him that Leonard told him time and time again didn't exist. And Leonard's tired of trying to prove him wrong.

Captain Cold, a Legend, helping save the future. Imagine that.

Leonard's never been afraid of taking risks. Why not give this a try?

"He died a hero," Ray says, like an afterthought.

—and Barry wants to scream, wants to cry, wants to run until his legs give way and the speedforce raging furiously under his skin is silent and empty. Wants to run back and change the course of time, back to when Leonard was alive, when he was still leaving Barry covered in bruises and frostbite, back to a version of Leonard who would have spat the idea of being a hero in the face.

And he knows he can't and it's killing him.

"A legend," Barry amends, smiling through the tears.

The worst part is the helplessness. Trapped in a plane of existence that's close enough to witness everything and far enough not to be able to do anything about it, Leonard feels six years old again, watching Lewis hit his mum and knowing he couldn't help her.

He watches as Lisa mourns him. As the Legends struggle. Watches the Professor die. Watches Barry almost sacrifice himself for the greater good over and over again as Leonard shouts at him to stop trying to be a martyr.

All he needs to do is shout loud enough that Barry can hear him.

"Barry—" Leonard reaches for him, but when Barry tries to grasp for his hand, he slips away and dissolves into nothing.

Barry wakes up with Leonard's name on his lips and static energy bouncing off his skin.

It's the fifth time this month he's had that same dream. Caitlin says that it's grief. But Barry knows grief; he's lost so many people he loved, and it's never felt like this. He's dreamed of his mom for years, had nightmares of his dad getting killed, but none of them felt this real.

And so, quietly, defiantly, hope blooms in his chest.

Barry runs. He knows he needs to run faster than he's ever run before, trying to outrun time itself.

His legs burn like fire, his lungs feel like they're going to burst, and when he thinks he can't make it, he runs just a little faster.

And then— "Took your sweet time, Flash. Thought I'd have to save myself."

"I thought you were dead," Barry say, choked up, still not sure that the Leonard in front of him with that infuriating smirk of his isn't a mirage.

"Rumors of my death've been—"

Barry cuts the quip off with a kiss.

The blast of deadly cold misses Barry's right arm by inches. He twists around, momentarily taking his eyes off the meta standing in front of him to assess the new threat, only to catch a familiar smirk.

"Heard you needed an assist, Flash."

Barry grins at Leonard. "Joining the good guys now, Cold?"

"Don't get used to it." Beneath Leonard's aloof drawl, there's a warmth that makes Barry's heart flutter.

"Of course not. Wouldn't dream of it," Barry lies.

He never asks for help, but when he's in a tight spot, Leonard shows up and has his back, every time.

Barry phases through the wall of Leonard's place at Leawood. He still calls it a safe-house even though it's more like an actual house, these days. "Hi."

Leonard looks up from the desk. "I have a door," he points out flatly. "You have a key."

He sounds grumpy, quickly shuffling away a stack of blueprints that they'll both pretend Barry never saw when he catches Captain Cold robbing the Santinis' casino next week and they have a stand-off that will end in a tie, as most of their costumed encounters do now.

Barry grins and shrugs. "It's faster this way." What he means is: I couldn't wait to see you.

Leonard clicks his tongue. "Patience is a virtue, Barry."

He steps into Barry's space and pulls his cowl off his head, his scowl fading away and his expression softening at whatever he sees on Barry's face. His hands are nicely cool against Barry's overheated skin, static energy bristling between them.

"There's something to be said about not rushing everything," he says, breath falling over Barry's cheeks when he leans in. His mouth brushes against Barry's, and then he spends a few hours showing Barry the benefits of taking things slowly.