Chapter Text
Barry was powerless. He had his speed, his enhanced reflexes, and lightning coursing through his cells, but he was powerless. He couldn’t fight when a cloth hood was thrown over his head, his wrists were zip-tied in front of him, and he was tossed into the van. He couldn’t protest when he was patted down and his phones (he’d managed to activate the emergency app) and his watch were taken away. A needle was jammed into his neck but, though the sedative burned out of his system right away, he still had to fake unconsciousness. Even when Eddie, likely bound and hooded too, slumped against his side. All because he couldn’t out himself as the Flash.
His thoughts spun faster and faster as the bumpy van ride stretched on. He couldn’t tell where they were going by how many turns the vehicle took or what muffled noises he heard from the streets. Were they crossing Central City? Leaving it? He was too jittery to even guess how much time had passed. The armed thugs hadn’t said a word since the streetside abduction. By the time the van came to a stop, Barry was so riled up, he almost yelped when he was hauled out. He had to swallow down a hiss of pain when his ankle banged on the edge of the metal door.
Suddenly, cold pulsed up from his toes to the tip of his nose.
Len was soothing him. Len was—had been?—in the van with too and, whether or not he was bound and hooded as well, he was trying to keep Barry calm. That revelation kept the speedster from squirming as he was carried across a room—tiled floor, not wood or concrete—and dropped unceremoniously into what felt like one of the exam chairs at STAR Labs. He could hear the clatter of a metal tray nearby, the scrape of steel tools rolling across it, shuffling feet, a heavy door thudding shut further away. Through it all, he focused on the little tendril of cold connecting him to Len. As long as he felt that, his partner was okay. They’d all be okay—
His hood was eased off his head and something that smelled antiseptic brushed the side of his neck. When the edge of a sharp blade pressed against his skin, he jerked away and opened his eyes, blinking against the harsh light of several incandescent lamps.
“He’s awake!” a surprised voice gasped somewhere by the left side of his head.
Barry squinted at a clean-shaven, swarthy-skinned man with sweat beading across his brow and a scalpel in his latex-gloved hand. Bewildered, the speedster took in the rest of his surroundings. He was in a shabby, abandoned-looking room with peeling, cracked gray walls, and boarded windows. The armed henchmen from the van lounged by a supply cabinet and the driver stood in front of one of two closed doors. Eddie was slumped, unconscious, in another exam chair, a gauze pad taped to the side of his neck. Barry had a feeling that, if he’d actually been sedated, he’d have needed the same kind of bandaging in a few minutes too.
“What’s… going on?” he asked cautiously, turning his attention back to the nervous man.
“I’m so sorry,” the stranger—a doctor, likely—blurted out. “He made me do it. He said if I didn’t, he’d hurt—”
“Oh, shut up! You talk a lot more than the last doc we snatched up.”
As the unnamed man paled and backed away, Barry shifted in his seat to see Lewis Snart—the leader of the group of kidnappers—stepping through the unguarded door. The Iron Heights escapee was dressed in a heavy canvas coat and oil-stained jeans, easily mistaken for one of the day workers in that part of town. Once more, Barry was struck by how little Lewis looked like either of his children. Len had barely gotten the shape of his nose and Lisa sort of had the set of his eyes, but that was all. Maybe that was why Lewis had never really cared for them, because some part of him had always second-guessed whether they really were his.
“Where’s Len?” Barry balled his hands in his lap to keep them from vibrating. That anchoring tendril of ice jolted a fraction cooler, so his partner had to be in hearing range at least.
“So, you’re my son’s faggot slut.” Lewis came to stand in front of him, nudging the speedster’s face this way and that with the barrel of his gun. “You look younger in photos.”
Barry forced himself to ignore the firearm. And the insults. “What. Did. You. Do. To Len?”
“You’ve got some fight in you, huh?” Lewis lowered his gun and nodded at the thug by the heavy door. “Johnson, drag Sleeping Beauty out here.”
The van driver, sour-faced and greasy-haired, turned to do as he was told, and Barry glimpsed a pinkish line peeking out over his shirt collar. His eyes flicked to Eddie again, to the gauze-covered patch on his neck, realizing they were in a lot more trouble than he’d thought. Before he could get answers out of Lewis or signal the captive doctor, the Johnson yelled and stumbled away from the door he’d been opening.
“How the fuck are you awake?” the driver demanded, hastily raising his gun.
Len stepped into the room, tossing broken zip-ties to the floor. With his reappearance, the tendril of cold running up Barry’s body pulsed one more time before fading away. “Must’ve been under-dosed,” Len drawled blithely. “Scraped the bottom of the goon barrel this time, Lewis?”
“I know exactly what I’m doing, Leo.” Lewis tapped the muzzle of his pistol against the side of Barry’s head. “I meant to pick up your sister but, since she’s holed up in Gotham, I’m going to have to settle for putting your boytoy to work instead.”
Whether it was because of what Lewis called him or the rest of what his parent said, the corners of Len’s eyes tightened. “I’ll do what you want, but Barry stays here. Our friend too.”
No nicknames. This was beyond serious. The speedster swallowed. “Len, you don’t—”
Lewis pressed the gun more firmly against the side of Barry’s head, flicking off the safety. “You’re all coming,” he declared.
Barry could feel the small, circular grooves of the pistol’s muzzle digging into his temple. If Lewis pulled the trigger, the only way he could save himself was to use his speed. And if he did that, Len would freeze the entire room to protect their secret identities. The stakes only rose further when Eddie groaned, starting to stir in the other exam chair. Should the detective become fully lucid before Lewis put the gun away, the chances of the room turning into a miniature Antarctica would skyrocket. Barry had to move things along faster.
“What if we refuse?” He took his eyes off Len, trusting his partner wouldn’t do anything rash (yet), and turned to look right at Lewis. The muzzle of the gun slid to the center of his forehead, but he forced himself not to think about that. “What are you going to do, kill us?”
“That’s why your pal’s joining us—to keep you in line.”
Lewis stopped pointing the gun at Barry and took a remote out of his pocket. No, a detonation device that looked a lot like the ones from James Jesse’s lair. As Barry registered what he was seeing, time slowed around him. Lewis pointed the remote at Johnson, but it was the micro-play of movement on Len’s face the speedster focused on. The slight widening of his partner’s eyes—horrified realization. The tense press of his lips—grim determination. The faint flare of his nostrils—anger, so much barely contained anger. For a fraction of a second, his eyes brightened, at the threshold of glowing white.
Somehow, Len knew what was about to happen.
Time resumed its normal speed and Barry watched, bewildered, as his partner shoved the driver—a man clutching his head and blubbering in terror—into the room he’d just come out of. A cut-off scream turned into a squelching explosive pop. The speedster flinched as bone, blood, brain matter, and what looked like a piece of nose-flesh flew out.
“Guess your reflexes aren’t as fast as your instincts, son.” Lewis laughed, tucking the remote back into his pocket as Len wiped blood splatter off his face with gauze from a counter.
“The hell, Snart!” one of the remaining goons, bearded and sunken-eyed, swore. “You already offed Nolan. Now we’re down two guys!”
“Quit whining, Ruttenberg.” Lewis patted his pocket warningly. “Or Koch is walking away with your share.”
“I’m happy with what I get, man,” Koch, balding and strangely thin-browed, rubbed at his neck nervously.
Len made a sound of disgust, staring coldly at his parent as he tossed away the bloodied gauze. “Putting bombs in your own crew? That’s low, even for you, Lewis.”
“Consider this your incentive,” Lewis said, jutting his chin in Eddie’s direction. “You even think of snitching again, your friend goes boom.”
Lewis didn’t know Eddie was a police detective, Barry realized. He glanced at his friend, who was blinking sluggishly, still trying to comprehend what was happening. Koch and Ruttenberg strapped him more securely to the exam chair with a length of rope, then zip-tied the doctor’s wrists behind his back for good measure. Barry suddenly wished Cisco and the rest were with them—or that he had his comms. He didn’t know if he could safely phase the bomb out of Eddie’s neck, and the situation would only worsen if Lewis discovered he had a cop hostage.
“You’re not giving us a choice,” he stated, though he already knew the answer.
Lewis’s laugh was pure nastiness. “You really thought you had one?”
“We’ll play by your rules—for now.” Len leveled a calculating look at his father. “As long as you keep the doc alive. And whoever else you’ve got stashed away in here.”
Barry’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t even thought Lewis might have other hostages, but Len’s thermal sensing had never been wrong before. And it explained the doctor’s apology earlier, the other thing he’d been trying to say. He’d been about to tell Barry there was someone else in the building.
“Who else did you kidnap?” the speedster asked aloud before he could stop himself.
A cruel smile spread over Lewis’s lips. He ordered Koch to go to the other room—the one opposite where Johnson’s corpse lay—then yanked Barry out of his seat, shoving him at Len. “Get him loose, son. The way I hear it, you both know our other guest real well.”
Len’s silence—no quips, not even a glare—spoke louder than words. Lisa might be safe several states away, but Mick was in town and the next most obvious target. Len’s (and Barry’s) old mentor had been worried that morning. And even if it wasn’t him in the next room, the list of other possible hostages was far longer than Barry was comfortable with. The speedster pushed down a sudden spike of panic as he shuffled the last few steps to stand in front of his partner.
“I hit the emergency app on my phone before they took it away,” he muttered hurriedly under his breath as Len cut the zip-ties off with surgical scissors from a tray. “The team should be looking for us by now. If you distract Lewis and his guys, I just need a half-second to swipe the remote—”
“Not now, Barry.”
No nickname, not in front of Lewis. That, more than the cold radiating from his skin, made Barry squeeze his hands. Just one quick squeeze—their connection flared up between them—to remind his partner they were in this together. “On your signal,” he whispered, wiping a faint trace of blood off Len’s chin, the last of the spray from when Johnson exploded. “Okay?”
It was the barest of acknowledgements, his partner’s lips pressing together in a thin line, but that was enough for Barry. As soon as Koch came back into the room, the speedster took a reluctant step away from Len, only for his heart to jump and lodge in his throat. Beside the henchman stood a bound and gagged Henry Allen.
“Dad!” Barry’s gaze darted immediately to Henry’s neck. Thankfully, there was no gauze bandaging in sight.
The last time Barry had seen his dad had been that morning, at the bus stop near his and Len’s home. Henry had given him a cheery wave right before stepping into the NS42 bound for the south side of Central City. Now, a large bruise was purpling on his left cheek and his wrists were zip-tied behind his back. Lewis ripped off the duct tape covering his mouth.
“I’m okay, son,” Barry’s dad rasped as soon as he could speak again. “They took Dan and me when we were locking up the clinic for the night, but we’re okay.”
Barry’s eyes widened with realization. “You were the one stalking him in the cemetery!” He glared accusingly at Lewis, pulling his dad closer and checking him for other injuries.
“Doc Allen and I crossed paths a couple times in the clink,” Lewis chuckled darkly. “I was gonna grab just him tonight, but then I saw the family pictures in his wallet. Figured out who that kid he used to mention really was.”
“You’ve gone too far, Snart,” Henry chided in a surprisingly collected voice. “It’s only a matter of time before the police finds you.”
“Pah! Our boys’ll take care of that. Leo’s gonna make sure we’ve got a clear path in and out. And Barry, he’s going to mix up something to get us everything we came for.”
“Barry?” Henry’s calm façade slipped as he stared at his son, who turned his head away guiltily. Barry had never imagined his dad would find out about his other secret like this.
“You didn’t know?” Lewis’s voice was full of vicious glee. “While you were getting exonerated, Doc, your kid went crooked out here. Made a name for himself too—the Chemist.”
Cold pulsed against the small of Barry’s back, Len’s silent, steady reassurance. It gave Barry the strength to finally meet his dad’s gaze. The speedster almost sobbed with relief when he saw nothing but acceptance and understanding shining in Henry’s eyes. They were okay. They were fine. But Henry wasn’t the only one Lewis had outed Barry to.
The speedster risked a glance over his shoulder to where Eddie sat, finally alert to his situation and surroundings. He gaped at Barry, betrayal written all over his face.
For most of his life, Barry had gotten used to living with secrets. His crush on Iris, his search for his mother’s killer, his early arrangement with Len, and then becoming the Flash—when each of those secrets had come out, his life had ended up changing for the better. But being the Chemist was different. Yes, he helped people, kept teens and minor first-time offenders out of jail and juvie, but he also used his skills for more selfish reasons. He could argue that he’d made that replica of the Amon Dagger for Kendra and Carter, that he thought he’d do a better job on that than Cisco or Ronnie or Hartley. But he didn’t have an excuse for the forgery of the Black Pearl. He’d do it again if the opportunity presented itself. And he’d enjoy it.
Right now, though, he hated what he was doing. What he was being forced to do.
“I work faster without a gun pointed at me,” he said through his face mask, glaring at the goon sitting at the counter to the left of his worktable.
“Less talk, more work.” Ruttenberg had his pistol propped up on the counter, but he was typing on a laptop with his free hand. “You got ten minutes left. We only need two cans.”
“I barely have enough supplies,” Barry muttered, adjusting his safety goggles and measuring out the concentrated hydrochloric acid into the beaker on the scale. If he weren’t a meta, the fumes would be more than a little irritating. He had a much better set-up at the loft.
More than insufficient supplies, the crude set-up, and barely passable PPEs, Barry was anxious and self-conscious for other reasons. He and everyone else had moved to a bigger, much sparser room than the one he’d originally been brought to. Despite their wrists still being bound behind their backs, Henry and the other doctor, Danveer Rajendra, had been tied to a column in the center of the room. Eddie had been forced to sit with them, and he had a good view of everything that was going on—including the table where Barry was working. It was hard to ignore his friend’s loaded stare, but the speedster didn’t blame him. Not when Eddie had spent so long looking for the Chemist, only to learn he’d been working in the same building with his quarry most days of the week.
Barry glanced at the trio of bound captives as he screwed the cap on the first of two spray canisters. The nozzles weren’t entirely made of copper and would corrode or even melt with prolonged exposure to his acid-based glass-dissolver. The entire idea was senselessly messy, Barry thought with a frown as he filled the second canister. As the Chemist, he’d developed several more subtle solutions, including a lotion formulated to obscure and even erase fingerprints. He and Len had been toying with designs for a pen-shaped dispenser for an acid-alkali neutralization to short out mid-grade keypad and biometric locks. Lewis’s choice didn’t sit right with him.
He set down the beaker, turning his worried gaze to the other table, where Len stood examining blueprints under the watchful eye of his father and Koch. Every time Lewis got too close, Barry’s partner edged out of reach. The speedster was sure he wasn’t just shying away to hide how cold his skin was.
“Ogle your boyfriend later.” Ruttenberg rapped his pistol on Barry’s worktable, covering his face with his arm when the chemicals made him cough. “Get back to work!”
“I’m almost done.” Barry picked up the beaker again, turning to the goon with a glare. “You shouldn’t get too close to this stuff. Or point that gun at it.”
Before Ruttenberg could retort, Len cut in. “Cool it with the distractions,” he drawled, “before Barry has you doing high-knees to save your shoes from melting.”
“Let the twink handle himself,” Lewis said in a warning tone. “We’re on a clock.”
“Only because I made these plans for a general holding space, not specific displays,” Len argued. As calm as his expression was, Barry could hear the undercurrents of tension in his voice. “The crew that was supposed to hit the place was after a car, not gemstones.”
“They were stupid and got caught before they could pull off the heist. The plan’s never been used, so it’s good enough for me.”
“What about the cameras? And there’ll be additional security measures for—”
“Just focus on your part. And remember, you cross me, your friend explodes.”
Barry’s brow furrowed as Len went silent. The longer he thought about it, the more questions he had. Lewis had to know his son’s heist plans were highly customized. However the escaped convict had gotten his hands on this one, he had to know it still needed to be adapted for tonight’s theft. Why was he adamant about doing things his way? This couldn’t just be about stealing gems, so what was Lewis’s real end game?
Barry finished filling his second canister, then he took off his mask and goggles and went to crouch in front of his dad. “I owe you an explanation when this is all over,” he said quietly, voice full of concern. “You weren’t hit anywhere else, were you, Dad?”
“Don’t worry about me, slugger,” Henry replied, smiling despite his bruised cheek. He turned his head to his left. “Dan, this isn’t exactly how I wanted you to meet my son.”
“I’m glad I didn’t have to implant a bomb in you,” Dr. Rajendra apologized to Barry. He seemed younger than Henry, only graying at his temples.
“What kind was it?” the speedster asked, lowering his voice as he looked over his shoulder at where Ruttenberg sat watching them.
“Thermite capsules.” Dr. Rajendra swallowed hard. “He—Snart—he said I needed steady hands to work with thermite… or I’d end up like my predecessor.”
“Thermite?”
Barry frowned, recalling the case Mike had been working on since the week before. And before he’d left CCPD HQ for the day, some of the other CSIs had been speculating whether a mid-afternoon explosion at the docks had been caused by that same explosive. Initial reports concluded there had been two victims. If one of them had been a doctor and the other had been the man Ruttenberg mentioned Lewis killing before—
“I’ll figure out how to get that bomb out,” Barry promised Eddie. He wouldn’t be able to look Iris in the eye ever again if he let her fiancé’s head explode. “You have to believe me.”
“I’m having trouble believing a lot of things right now,” Eddie replied more than a little skeptically. He did, however, also look a bit green in the face.
Before Barry could reassure him, Lewis barked out his name. “Time to head out!”
Ruttenberg strode over to haul Eddie up. “You know what happens if you cause trouble.”
“You’re not going to get away with this.” The detective rubbed his wrists as soon as the goon cut off his zip-ties, going tense when Ruttenberg started going through his wallet.
“Edward James Thawne,” Ruttenberg read his driver’s license aloud. “Four-three-eight Willow Lane, unit eighteen. Huh, that’s the north side of town. How’d you meet Snart Junior?”
“We go to the same boxing gym,” Len answered for Eddie breezily.
“That so, huh?” Ruttenberg pocketed the wallet, license and all. He sniffed and grinned at the detective crookedly. “Got a day job?”
“Construction,” Eddie lied only a little hesitantly. “I work in construction.”
“Good with heavy lifting, then,” Lewis said with an appraising look. “If you ever wanna get home again, you’ll do what we tell you.”
Eddie only glared back stonily, but when Koch started to pull Henry up too, Barry got in his way. “We’re not bringing my dad. Or Doctor Rajendra.”
“Still trying to bargain?” Lewis laughed mockingly, clicking off the safety on his gun. “You know what? We only need one doctor waiting here after all.”
Once again, the world slowed around Barry. Once again, all he could do was watch a bullet pierce Dr. Rajendra’s shirt. Eddie tried to help, but Koch held him back. Time returned to its normal speed as a deep red stain spread over the doctor’s chest, and all Barry could do was wrap his arms around Henry protectively to shield him.
“You didn’t have to shoot him!” The speedster clenched his fists to keep from vibrating.
“He’s still alive.” Henry twisted urgently in his son’s arms to get a look at the other doctor more closely. “Dan? Dan? He’s still breathing!”
Only the rope bindings seemed to be holding Dr. Rajendra upright, but he still blinked at Barry’s dad. The speedster suddenly imagined phasing his hand through Lewis Snart’s chest. The escaped convict had no qualms about killing his associates, killing an innocent man he’s kidnapped and threatened into working for him. All that on top of the crimes he’d committed in the past, on top of the years he’d spent terrorizing and abusing his children.
“You’ve made your point, Lewis,” Len said neutrally. But his pinkies twitched, just the barest movement that meant the cold field was straining to get out. “You’re in charge.”
Barry tore his gaze away from Len and hugged his dad one last time—to conceal phasing the zip-ties off his wrists. “It’ll be okay,” he said, imploring him with his eyes not to react. He got to his feet and turned to Lewis, further blocking the seated captives from view. “The sooner we get the job done, the sooner we can get back here to help my dad’s friend. Right?”
Lewis laughed again and sneered at Len. “Guess you do keep this one around for more than an easy fuck.” When his son just gave him a chilly stare, he shrugged and refocused on Henry. “Don’t worry, Doc, I’ll take real good care of your kid.”
“I’ll be all right, Dad,” Barry promised. “Just—hang in there, okay?”
Scooping up his spray cannisters, he let Lewis’s men herd him out with Len and Eddie. Henry could take off the rest of his bindings, find his way out of the building, and get help. Barry had to believe that. Because whatever Lewis was planning, he and Len had to stop him.
(Maybe even for good.)
“Most of Lewis’s old crew got tossed into Iron Heights with him,” Lisa said dully. “That or he got them killed. You won’t get any leads by tracking them down.”
Iris thought Len’s sister would have been more helpful. It was past nine PM, over two hours since she’d learned from Caitlin that Barry and Len were in trouble. By the time she’d arrived at the Waystation, the team had more bad news—Eddie had disappeared too. The air in the base was charged with a thick, pervasive kind of tension. No one would say it aloud but, without Barry’s speedy response times and Len’s cutting decisiveness, they were at a standstill.
“We’re missing something,” Iris sighed, picking up Eddie’s phone from the table. The lockscreen was a photo of the two of them in their apartment, smiling happily at the camera, but all she could think of was that the phone had been found in her fiancé’s car. His abandoned car.
“More like there’s too much info to sort.” Cisco looked frazzled as Lisa leaned over his workstation to peer at his data sets. “Cecile said the Trickster gave Lewis Snart thermite for some revenge plot against Len, and then that guy, James Nolan, was decapitated—by thermite.”
“Don’t forget the other victim, Doctor Wilson,” Caitlin chimed in grimly from her seat. “Though I’m not sure the thermite hitting his arms and chest gave him a quicker death.”
“Dad’ll be out looking for leads until dawn.” Biting her bottom lip, Iris turned to Hartley. “Are you sure the car wasn’t just moved to where you found it?”
“That neighborhood doesn’t have many security cameras,” the sonic meta replied, swiveling in his workstation chair. “Our delectable detective’s keys were on the driver’s seat with the phones and Barry’s watch. I had to shatter the front door glass to get those out, but the car’s otherwise intact. Though that isn’t the real compelling evidence that he drove there.”
Iris followed Hartley’s pointing finger to where Len’s motorcycle stood on the platform by the back tunnel exit. When Cisco had turned on the autopilot and recalled it to the base, the GPS indicated that it had last been parked across the street from Eddie’s car. Iris could only think of a few reasons why her fiancé would be meeting Len—and Barry, presumably—in that neighborhood. He must have recruited them for his side project (obsession) to find the Chemist.
“Why didn’t Lenny freeze our dad when he first got his powers?” Lisa asked, dragging Iris out of her reverie. “Hell, he could do it now. Lewis would be dead, problem solved.”
“Len doesn’t just kill people like that,” Iris protested, crossing her arms over her chest. “He and Barry are careful about when and how they use their powers.”
“Too careful,” Lisa retorted. “I’ve seen the news. They could’ve stopped that Iron Heights jailbreak from happening if they’d moved in sooner. And don’t tell me my jerk brother couldn’t think of a better way to stop that Zoom guy than throwing an icicle at him!”
“You don’t know half of what’s been going on—”
Iris’s argument was cut short when the main doors swung open. Ronnie and Jax entered, a faintly greasy stench—practically the entire Big Belly Burger menu—wafting out of the paper bags in their arms. Caitlin and Harry went to help carry everything to the tables in the center of the room.
“Tony and Mick are just moving the cars into the alley,” Ronnie announced, handing his wife one of his paper bags. “Any news—whoa, babe! What’s wrong?”
Caitlin had taken the bag, only to shove it back into her husband’s arms and bolt in the direction of the bathrooms. Iris rushed after her, entering the stall just in time to hold back the scientist’s hair as she dry-heaved over the toilet bowl. “Hey, do you need me to grab you some water? I didn’t realize you weren’t feeling okay.”
“My stomach’s been weird since this afternoon,” Caitlin said thickly, dabbing a piece of toilet paper over her lips. “Then I smelled the onion rings and—this is probably just stress.”
Iris had her own suspicions, but now wasn’t the time to share them. “That’s an understatement. I think we’re all feeling it in some way.”
Caitlin frowned as she got to her feet. “Len almost did use his powers to kill Lewis once. A meta, Rainbow Raider, manipulated him into wanting to, but Barry snapped him out of it.”
“Barry told me about that guy, but he only said he was ‘whammied’ for a while, not Len.” Iris bit her bottom lip, sticking close to Caitlin as they rejoined the rest. “It’s probably not something we should share with Lisa. Especially now.”
“Right.” A shadow passed over Caitlin’s face. “Metahuman powers can be difficult to understand if you’re not exposed to them often. Or if you aren’t one yourself.”
Iris hung back as Caitlin circled the table to where her husband stood. She’d almost forgotten about the scientist’s strange metahuman gene limbo. It was one of the many puzzles the team was splitting time to deal with. But Iris didn’t have time to mull over that just then, not when her fiancé and her best friend—her brother—were missing. She bypassed the table of food, turning to the digital map of Central City on one of the larger wall monitors. As she did, Professor Stein’s face appeared in a corner of the screen, followed by Dr. McGee’s.
“Good news!” Professor Stein announced with a relieved smile on his face. “The Mercury Labs and STAR Labs satellites should finish recalibrating to pinpoint minute temperature drops and short bursts of high-speed activity within the hour.”
“The readings won’t be as precise as our regular ones,” Dr. McGee warned softly, “but if Barry or Len use even a fraction of their powers, we should be able to locate them.”
“Hey, Gray, you sure it’s safe for you and Kendra to be alone at STAR Labs?” Jax asked, stepping closer to the monitors. “What if those two doppelgangers wake up?”
“They’re not alone,” Ronnie reminded him. “The night-shift security staff and the Iron Heights guards are in the building. And we can fly over if anything happens in the basement.”
“If the doppelgangers wake up, they might snap Carter’s head back into the present,” Harry commented suddenly. “That’s one less thing to worry about on this Earth.”
“We haven’t forgotten about Jesse.” Cisco held up his hands placatingly. “I said I’d try vibing her location, remember? I just had to sit down and talk to Dante today and then—hey, as soon as we get Barry and Len back, we’ll get started on that, okay?”
Harry looked only mildly mollified, but he went back to his terminal with a burger and a bag of fries anyway. Iris followed him with two large soda cups. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, handing him one of them. “I know it seems like we’re neglecting your daughter, but—”
“I’m aware we’re in the middle of an emergency,” the Earth-2 scientist cut her off with a heavy sigh. “Jesse’s mother was always better with interpersonal matters than I was.” He eyed Iris critically, sipping his soda. “I’m not certain if it’s a custom in this dimension, especially given the timing, but—congratulations on the return of your family members.”
“Oh, ah… Thank you?” Iris blushed self-consciously. Was it wrong that, with everything happening tonight, she’d forgotten about Francine and Wally?
“Iris!” Caitlin waved her over from the far end of a table of food, holding a napkin over the lover half of her face. She pointed at Hartley, who had his cellphone against his ear and was trying to keep Lisa from crowding close to listen in.
“Shawna’s at CC General,” he said, putting the phone on speaker. “She has news.”
“Hey guys, I saw your texts about that doc who got blown up earlier today.” Wherever Shawna was, her voice was echoey even on the phone speakers. “The thing is, the satellite clinic he was volunteering at was robbed tonight. A cop came here asking about other people who working late there. Doc Allen was on the volunteer list… but no one’s been able to contact him.”
“Henry’s unreachable?” Iris gripped the table to ground herself. “We weren’t going to tell him about Barry until we had a real lead. Could he have been kidnapped too?”
“Couldn’t this just be a coincidence?” Jax frowned dubiously.
“Henry was at Iron Heights at the same time Lewis Snart was,” Professor Stein reminded him reluctantly. “And if he needed a replacement for Doctor Wilson…”
“I need to tell my dad.” Iris fumbled for her phone. “He should be coordinating with Mike and the south precinct guys now. They have to be told about Henry—”
“I can’t wait anymore!” Lisa spun away from the table. Cisco had been talking to her, low and calming, but her fingers were wrapped tight around the grip of the gold gun now. “Is this all you do? Sit around squinting at computers and shooting information to the cops?”
“None of us can dash around the city in ten seconds or less,” Hartley sniped.
Before Lisa could point the gold gun at him, Cisco stepped in front of her. “We’re going to find them. I know this isn’t how you’re used to doing things, but you have to trust us, okay? We’ll get Len back safely. Him, Barry, and everyone else.” He placed his hand over hers and, surprisingly, she let him pry her fingers off the weapon.
Mini crisis averted, Iris turned her attention back to her phone. She was just about to call her dad when a different name appeared on her screen. She answered on speaker immediately. “Mike, what’s going on? Is my dad with you? We just heard—Henry may be missing too!”
“Henry’s fine, Iris.” The detective lieutenant sounded bone-tired. “He’s here, getting interviewed by your dad. Lewis kidnapped him and another doctor this afternoon, but Barry helped him escape. He found a convenience store and called CCPD from there.”
“Why didn’t Barry go with him?” She set her phone on the table as the group crowded around her. “What about Eddie? And Len?”
“I need you to stay calm for this part…”
Iris didn’t know how she didn’t drop her phone or wobble in her boots as Mike explained what was happening. Eddie had a bomb in his neck. Lewis had shot the other doctor and was now forcing Barry and Len to work for him. Somehow, as Mike continued talking, as Cisco and the others pressed the detective for details, anything they could use to narrow down the search, Iris managed to hold herself completely still. She was a journalist, a reporter. She should be able to put the facts together, even through the static growing louder and louder in her head.
“Lisa, what would your dad try to steal?” she rallied enough to ask.
“Something small and portable.” Lisa laughed mirthlessly, leaning against the table and crossing her arm over her chest. “One of the few things he taught me that stuck.”
Just as she said that, the main doors slammed open and Tony stepped in, his eyes glued to his phone screen. Mick crowded in after him, pointing at the monitors. “Got a video to put up,” the gruff thief announced abruptly. “Which one of you nerds can make that happen?”
“Watch the name-calling! If the video’s on Tony’s phone, we can connect it to a terminal remotely.” Cisco scrambled around the table of food, racing with Ronnie towards the computers.
“A buddy from Keystone linked me to this livestream going around,” Tony said, handing Iris his phone. “It looked like some low-budget heist flick—until I saw the guys’ faces.”
Iris was used to Tony acting cocky and brash, occasionally sullen. The concern on his face worried her. The video had no sound and seemed to jump camera angles along a bare-walled hallway. By the time the feed blinked onto one of the wall monitors, six figures had stopped in front of a wide set of double doors and the light brightened enough to illuminate Barry and Len huddled in front of some kind of keypad.
And Lewis Snart’s hand rested on the back of Eddie’s neck.
Barry’s second ride in the van felt a lot like his first one, minus the hood over his head. He was sitting on the floor again with Eddie to his left, Ruttenberg against the back of the vehicle, Lewis and Koch up front. Len sat directly across from him and, though his partner’s expression remained neutral the entire ride, cold pulsed up along Barry’s leg. The speedster pressed the edge of his sneaker against Len’s boot in return.
“Get the gear,” Lewis ordered as he climbed out of the passenger’s seat. “And hurry up.”
Barry frowned, looking at their supplies. All they had were the backpack of spray cans and a duffel of compact canisters for transporting the gemstones, but he was acutely aware that their fingerprints would be on everything that could be considered evidence. As Len passed him the backpack, he rocked forward to speak to him at a whisper.
“I wish I could run us back in time this morning, watching the sunrise with you.”
“You fell asleep before then.” Len’s expression softened a fraction as he met Barry’s eye.
“We can try again tomorrow?” Barry brushed the edge of his partner’s wrist, pushing electricity into him and reveling in the tingle of cold that ran up his fingers in return.
The barest hint of a smile ghosted over Len’s lips, only to vanish abruptly when Lewis barked from outside the van. “Quit eye-fucking your boytoy, Leo. Get over here!”
The cold field surged out past the barrier of Len’s skin as he pulled away. Barry frowned as his partner’s expression hardened back into an unreadable mask. “Lewis is up to more than a heist,” he whispered hurriedly, “you know that, right?”
“He doesn’t know the meaning of subtle,” Len replied under his breath. “Keep an eye on Ruttenberg. He’s a tech guy, but with us here, he’s just extra muscle.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Barry agreed as they climbed out of the van. “I tried to get a look at his laptop screen earlier, but he never turned it my way.”
Even now, the bearded technician had the device tucked under his arm. The van was parked in an alley beside an ordinary-looking building too far from the street for Barry to figure out exactly where they were, but he was more apprehensive about what waited for them inside. And what Eddie was about to witness. The police detective stood stiffly beside Koch, warily eyeing Ruttenberg and Lewis’s hushed conversation by the side door of the building. It was to his credit that he hadn’t said or done anything to tip them off that he was a cop. (Yet?)
“So, this place used to house luxury cars?” Barry asked, noticing the secure keypad by the door. “What changes did they have to make for the, uh, jewel shipment?”
“It’s private storage for high-security goods,” Len explained. “Holding areas double as showrooms. The Kahndaq Dynasty Diamond was kept here a few days while the museum finalized their security measures last year.”
Any other time, Barry would have teasingly asked how closely his partner tracked the artifacts and gems that came through Central City. Instead, he bit his tongue and kept pace with Len as they approached the side door.
“Get to it,” Lewis ordered, gesturing with his pistol towards card-access door lock. He tossed his son a lockpicking kit—Len’s own, which he’d likely confiscated earlier.
From that point, there was no going back. Barry flexed and curled his toes in his sneakers, dug his fingernails into the backpack in his arms, anything to manage the anxious vibrations under his skin. He recognized the door lock system, one almost as complicated as the newest Draycon keypad he was learning to work around, but finicky in its own way. Len disabled this lock in under a minute.
“That’s my boy,” Lewis praised him, and Barry noticed the stiffening in his partner’s frame as he got back to his feet.
“The ones inside will be more complicated,” he said, pulling open the door to get out of his father’s reach. “And we’ll still have to deal with the security cameras and—”
“Leave those to Ruttenberg.” Lewis peered into the doorway, then gestured with his pistol at Barry. “You’re up, twink. Leo taught you to disable motion sensors, right?”
Barry bit back a retort and nodded in silence. From Mick, being called a twink had become a term of endearment. From Lewis, it was plain mockery. As Barry took the lockpicking kit from Len and squatted down just inside the doorway, he imagined whisking both his partner and Eddie to STAR Labs or the Waystation, even out of the city, if that got them out of range of the detonator. He shoved down that wistful thought and got to work.
This wasn’t like breaking into that museum in Coast City or Vandal Savage’s home. His heart hammered in his chest, but the nervousness he felt was of a far more uncomfortable variety. From what little he’d glimpsed of the blueprints, the motion sensor he was turning off only covered one quadrant of the building. And as Len had attempted to point out, those wouldn’t be the facility’s only security features. Barry closed the wall panel back up just in time to see Ruttenberg open his laptop. The technician hooked a small device into the waistband of his jeans, something that looked like a stripped-down version of Len’s looped feed transmitter.
“That’ll keep the cameras from spotting us?” Barry asked warily, swiveling his gaze from Ruttenberg’s device to where Koch steered Eddie through the door and closed it behind them.
“It’ll do what it’s supposed to,” Ruttenberg said a little too vaguely.
“Come on.” Lewis led the way further into the building before Barry could ask anything else. “Security should be changing shifts in the next ten minutes.”
“Eight-point-eleven,” Len amended. He’d commented out of habit, but the sour look Lewis leveled in his direction made him go still.
“No one likes a know-it-all, Leo. But if you’re gonna be like that, you lead the way.”
The seesaw of praise and criticism was another facet of Lewis’s cruelty. Len kept his expression carefully blank as he started walking at the head of the group but, for one brief moment, Barry glimpsed the simmering anger and hurt in his partner’s eyes. As much as Len tried to hide it, he couldn’t be completely cool and clear-headed right now. Barry, growing more worried by the second, shifted the backpack over his shoulder to catch up to him. Before he could, Eddie spoke up by his shoulder.
“This isn’t the first time you and Len have broken in somewhere.”
“He’s taught me a few things,” Barry replied in an equally quiet voice as they walked in the middle of the group, Len and Lewis ahead of them, Ruttenberg and Koch behind them. “Just to help speed things along at crime scenes. Or for when I used to get locked out of my old place.”
“Uh-huh. Right. How could you keep being the Chemist from everyone? From Iris?”
They’d just turned at the next corner by then, and Barry couldn’t help shooting Eddie a halfhearted glare. “You wouldn’t understand.”
This was the kind of conversation Barry never wanted to have. To avoid answering any more questions, he walked faster to catch up to Len. His partner was moving at a cautious pace, his thermal sensing probably extended to make up for the uncertainties along the way. Though he wasn’t obviously looking up at the cameras, Barry was sure he was wary of them too. The red lights were on, so the speedster would have been more comfortable if he could be sure the feeds were really being looped as they moved along the bland concrete hallways. The dim wall lamps barely lit their way, set at intervals between doors of reinforced steel. Green-blinking keypad locks glowed beside each of the doors and Barry read the black-painted line of letters and numbers above each one until they reached a dead end. Or what would have been a dead end if there wasn’t another door with a wider keypad lock to the left of it.
“This one needs two pairs of hands,” Len said, catching Barry’s eye.
Though he doubted Lewis would volunteer to help, the speedster quickly stepped up to his partner’s side. “I don’t know this system,” he admitted once he’d gotten a closer look. He glanced back to see Lewis at Eddie’s side.
“You’ll figure it out.” The escaped convict pressed a thumb threateningly over the bandage on the detective’s neck.
“It’s an inverse version of the Tetrix-Nine Defender.” Len handed Barry two of the tools from the lockpicking kit. “Hold, skip, hold on the electricity flow, while I bypass the codes.”
“At least there’s no biometric scanner,” Barry muttered. He and Len could have broken through the added security, but Eddie had seen too much of what they were capable of already.
A tense minute and a half later, maybe sooner than that, the door to the holding room slid open. Barry ignored Lewis’s snide remarks as they stepped inside a space far too spacious for the five vertical rectangular cases magnetically clamped to the floor. The lower halves had metal panels, likely housing for individual alarm systems, and the upper ones were framed glass-covered displays containing columns of small, twinkling gemstones.
“Rubies, sapphires, emeralds,” Lewis ticked off on his fingers, “a couple of lesser diamonds from Kahndaq.”
“There’s at least thirty mil in this room.” Koch whistled, taking Len’s duffel bag and digging through it for travel cannisters, compact cases for the gemstones. “Close to forty, if we use this fence I know in New Mexico.”
“That thick glass can’t be the cases’ sole protection,” Barry protested, hugging his backpack close and glancing at Ruttenberg and his open laptop, at Eddie frowning down at the screen. “Even if the compound I made can penetrate all the way through, there could be laser trip-wiring or weight sensors—”
“I’m getting real tired of all the backtalk.” Lewis pulled the thermite detonator out of his pocket. “Get your slut to cooperate, Leo.”
Len’s fingers curved over Barry’s shoulder, a silent plea for him to be quiet. A chilled pinky brushed his neck, but the speedster wouldn’t back down. If his partner couldn’t speak up, Barry would do it for him. “There’re too many gaps in your plan. What aren’t you telling us?”
“You get told what you need to know.” Lewis held up the detonator. “And you do what I say or your friend doesn’t make it out of here alive.”
Barry swallowed hard but, to his surprise, Eddie spoke up. “Barr, Len, something’s wrong,” the detective said with only a faint tremor in his voice. “I don’t think the cameras—”
Lewis fired his gun. A bullet hit the ground by Eddie’s left foot and ricocheted into the wall. “Pack mules don’t talk.” He jerked his gun in the direction of the cases. “Leo, you and the twink get to work. At this rate, Doc Allen will be babysitting a corpse by the time we get back.”
Eddie pressed his lips together in a thin line, shooting Barry an anxious stare. His hand shook as he raised it to the bandaged side of his neck. Whatever he wanted to say had to be important—important enough for Lewis to silence him. But the detective wasn’t the only one who’d gotten jumpy.
“No way the guards didn’t hear that, Snart!” Koch gestured wildly at the door.
“He’s right,” Ruttenberg scrambled to his feet, backing towards the center of the room, laptop on one hand, pistol aimed at the door with the other. “We’ve got incoming.”
Barry grabbed Len by the wrist, tugging him towards Eddie, away from possible crossfire. “How many?” he asked in a discreet whisper, taking in his partner’s grim expression.
“Just two.”
As Len spoke, the guards came in with guns raised. Ruttenberg and Koch were ready for them, knocking them out before confiscating their firearms and radios. The thugs used their unconscious bodies to trick the door’s sensors into staying partway open. When they were done, Lewis tapped the thermite detonator on his hip and nodded at Koch.
“Give Leo your piece. Let him take care of these two.”
“No!” Barry blurted out, grabbing Len’s wrist to keep him from taking the thug’s pistol. “No one else needs to get hurt tonight. No one has to die—”
A loud bang reverberated in the room and white-hot pain spread through Barry’s left thigh. He’d been so distracted that, by the time he noticed the bullet flying towards him, it was more than halfway to his leg. Move, move, move—every cell in his body wanted to speed away, but he let the slug pierce his skin. It lodged deep in his muscle—probably grazed bone—and sent him doubling over in Len’s arms with a gasp. The backpack dropped, open, between their feet.
“I’ve got you,” his partner murmured, clasping his hand and cheek, pouring wave after wave of soothing cold into Barry’s skin. “I’ve got you, Sca—Barry, I’ve got you…”
“I’m okay, Len,” the speedster rasped into his neck. “I can take it. I can take it.”
“Chop-chop, Leo, get to it,” Lewis ordered. “Or Doc Allen will have more than one hole in his son to patch up.”
Len lowered Barry to the floor, the cold field rippling erratically over his skin. This time, when Koch offered him the gun, he took it without hesitation. “You’ve got problems of your own to deal with, Lewis.”
He shoved Barry’s backpack at Koch and fired two rounds into it. As acid spluttered up and over the thug’s face, Len pivoted and shot Ruttenberg in the shoulder. Then—only then—did he take four deliberate steps towards Lewis, pointing the gun at his chest. Though Len’s eyes weren’t glowing, Barry recognized the chilly determination on his face. His partner had worn that exact look when he froze and shattered Hannibal Bates.
“Don’t kill him!” Barry pleaded, hand pressed over his wound. When Len didn’t even glance back, he tried to stand on his good leg, but the pain was still too fresh to ignore.
Eddie darted over to help him, talking in a rapid, low voice. “The cameras are broadcasting. I didn’t recognize the program, but I think Ruttenberg’s sending the feeds somewhere.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Gritting his teeth, Barry tried to hop towards Len. His body was healing around the bullet and he could probably run through the pain if he had to. “We knew Lewis was up to something more than stealing, but—”
Barry’s eyes snapped to the elder Snart, who faced his son with a smirk on his lips and his gun held loosely at his side. This was why he’d tried to get to Lisa, why he’d implanted the thermite bomb in Eddie, why he’d terrorized Henry. This was why he’d shot Barry. The heist was just a ploy. He wanted Len to snap. And he wanted there to be evidence of it.
“All pissed because I shot your whore in the leg?” Lewis taunted his son. “I was being generous, not aiming for his balls. Or his skull.”
“Try that and you’ll be ice cold on the ground.” Len’s grip on the gun remained steady, but his other hand twitched the way it did when he was on the verge of releasing a cold blast.
“You’re better than him, Len.” Barry used Eddie as a brace and hobbled several steps forward. “It doesn’t have to end like this.”
“He’s got you wrapped around his little finger, that how it is, Leo?” Lewis sneered. “Heh, you don’t have the guts to pull that trigger. Just like your mother.”
Too long, those four words hung in the air. Eddie went still. Koch and Ruttenberg weren’t exactly quiet breathers, but they watched with tense expressions as they lay slumped on the floor. Len’s silence was the most telling and dangerous of all. The room temperature started to drop. Barry ignored the dull, thudding pain in his leg, taking the last few steps to his partner’s side alone.
“What are you saying?” He took hold of Len’s freezing cold hand, bracing for the truth he was all but certain he’d already guessed.
“She tried to run off with my kid.” Lewis’s laugh was harsh and mirthless, like gravel. “She had my off-duty piece on her, but no clue how to use it. Gave her her first and last lesson right there on the living room floor.”
Lewis Snart had killed Elaine Wynters. He’d committed the same kind of crime Barry’s own father had been framed for. He’d killed his—not his wife, but the mother of his child. And he’d gotten away with it all these years. Dimly, Barry could feel his hand going numb in Len’s. At the same time, his thoughts spun from the dizzying revelation, but he refused to let go of his partner. Not here, not now.
Len’s voice was devoid of any inflections when he finally spoke. “What did you do with her body?”
“Don’t leave any evidence behind. I taught you that, remember, son?” Lewis crossed his arms over his chest in a twisted show of pride.
“You don’t get to call me that. Never again!”
For all his speedy reflexes, Barry almost didn’t stop Len in time. But he couldn’t let his partner destroy the rest of his life. He couldn’t let Lewis win. At the last possible nano-second, he thrust his index finger behind the pistol trigger so Len couldn’t fire.
He just didn’t account for another Snart arriving to take her vengeance.
“Neither of us ever needed him anyway!”
Lewis twisted around in time for a beam of shimmering yellow-gold light to smack him square in the chest. Lisa stepped over the guards and into the room, shooting a single continuous stream from the gold gun at the man she’d been forced to call her father. Between one blink and the next, the monster that had been Lewis Snart was reduced to a misshapen gold-covered statue.
Lisa holstered her weapon, a darkly satisfied look on her face. “Rot in hell, Dad.”
Events moved quickly in the aftermath of Lewis’s death. Even for Barry, who experienced time slowing around him when he rushed through the city streets, everything seemed to move at a dizzying pace. Lisa bolted back the way she’d come, narrowly avoiding the SWAT officers swarming into the building. There were suddenly guns, so many guns in the room. Flashlights glared in all directions, then Koch and Ruttenberg were put in cuffs. Eddie went to check on the security guards and warned the newly arrived police officers about the thermite bombs. For those first few minutes, Barry’s attention was fragmented.
Joe, relief carved on his face, materialized in front of him and started talking, but the speedster only registered bits of what he said. “The CCTV feeds were streaming on several sites… Cisco and Hartley worked with us… It’s over now, Barr. It’s over.”
Caitlin appeared next, arguing with the EMTs. “I’m their personal physician. I saw the livestream and—look, I can handle treating them. Plus transport. You have other patients here.”
“Oh, God, I’m glad you and Len are safe!” Iris barely squeezed Barry’s arm—her lips wobbled as she looked down at his leg—before running to her fiancé.
“Looks like you’re getting a few weeks off, Allen,” Yang laughed as she adjusted the strap of her camera. She and Mendez were the CSIs on call, apparently. “And Beischel can’t even say you’re slacking off!”
He was mostly able to focus again by the time Ronnie came to block his view of the three police officers trying to figure out how to move the statue that had been Lewis Snart out of the room. “How about we get you on the floor, buddy?” the engineer said loudly. “When that adrenalin wears off, you’re going to be in a lot of pain.” Once he’d guided Barry to sit against the wall, he continued in a quieter voice. “Mick got Lisa away safely.”
“And your dad accompanied that other doctor to CC General,” Caitlin added, pulling medical supplies out of her bag. “I’m going to have to cut your jeans to get to that bullet. It’s soaked in blood anyway and… Barry? Barry, are you listening?”
“I—sorry, Caitlin,” the speedster shot her tired smile. “It’s just been—a lot tonight.”
His friend returned the smile with a terse one of her own. “You’re lucky those cameras don’t have audio. And that they didn’t show how close that bullet got to your femoral artery.”
Barry ducked his head guiltily. He’d forgotten that, to the rest of the world, he was grievously injured. He hadn’t even registered how much blood had spread over the leg of his jeans. He was more focused on Len, who was leaning against the wall to his right. His partner was giving Mike his statement in an unnervingly cool, collected voice.
“…don’t know what to tell you about Lisa,” he drawled, arms and ankles crossed. “I didn’t even know she was in town. Or that the cameras were streaming Lewis’s farce of a heist.”
“Thanks to those, we don’t have to go over the details of what happened in here,” Mike said, tapping his pen on his notepad. “At least not right now. What I do need to know is what he said to you right before Lisa came in. He wasn’t pointing a gun at you, kid. It looked like you woulda shot him yourself if Barry hadn’t grabbed your hand.”
Despite Caitlin’s admonishment for him to sit still while she cut into his jeans, Barry fidgeted on the floor. He wanted to interject, but his partner shot him a warning look. “You know what Lewis was like,” Len said, his tone slightly clipped. “Pressing where it hurts. The usual.”
“He confessed to murdering Elaine Wynters.”
Eddie’s announcement made the entire group freeze. As the detective strode over with Iris, Caitlin hesitated with a cotton pad over Barry’s leg. Ronnie stared incredulously and Joe paused mid-conversation with a nearby officer. Barry twitched anxiously as Len’s entire expression closed off.
“He said that, kid?” Mike pocketed his pen and pad, taking a careful step towards Len.
Barry’s partner stepped out of reach by crouching down at the speedster’s side. “Since Detective Thawne heard everything, why don’t you let him give you the dirty details?”
“Len…” Barry chided quietly, reaching for his partner’s hand. They were lucky Eddie hadn’t outed them. Yet.
“We’ve got more important things to deal with, Scarlet,” Len said, and Barry felt a double shot of relief from hearing that nickname and feeling his partner’s fingers twine with his own. Until Len turned to speak to Caitlin. “The sooner you get that bullet out of him, Frosty, the sooner we can blow this popsicle stand.”
Of course Len hadn’t taken Barry’s hand for comfort. He was getting ready to dull the speedster’s pain so Caitlin could take out the bullet. The next few minutes were as uncomfortable as they were awkward. Even with Len holding his hand and with Iris, Joe, and Ronnie creating a makeshift wall to keep the rest of the people in the room from seeing Caitlin cutting into his mostly healed skin to pull out the slug, Barry winced several times. He tried not to be embarrassed when his friends borrowed a gurney to wheel him and his heavily bandaged leg out the front doors. On the ride home in the back of Caitlin’s car, he soaked in Len’s cool, comforting presence and half-listened as Ronnie recounted what the team had been doing for the last few hours.
“…who should accompany Iris to that building when Hartley announced that Lisa and Mick were gone.” The middle third of Firestorm snorted, shaking his head as he drove. “The least he could have done was tell us before they left!”
“The cameras had a clear view of Lisa shooting Lewis with the gold gun.” Caitlin turned in her seat to look at Len apologetically. “She’s a fugitive now, but Tony got a text from Mick saying he got her off the street before CCPD arrived.”
“They’ll be lying low for a few days.” Len shrugged, idly stroking Barry’s knuckles.
The speedster squeezed his hand in return. “We’ll check on them tomorrow.”
“By phone,” Caitlin stipulated. “You need to keep off that leg until noon at least.”
“Good thing we have an elevator,” Barry laughed weakly.
Ronnie joined in, ribbing him a little for forgetting about the injury. The story would spread to the rest of the team by morning, Barry was sure. But he was also hyperaware that, while Len kept stroking his knuckles, he didn’t once interject with one of his usual quips or puns. The rest of the way to their home, Len didn’t say another word.
Barry still worried about that silence half an hour later as he sank onto the chaise in the bedroom, talking to his dad. Henry hadn’t yet left CC General, intent on waiting until Dr. Rajendra was out of surgery. Barry had been concerned his dad was overtaxing himself, but calling him, hearing Henry’s steady, warm voice on the phone was reassuring.
“Iris will come find you when she gets there, Dad,” he promised, staring out the window at the crescent moon with a small smile on his lips. “An ambulance is taking Eddie over to get the thermite bomb removed from his neck.”
“And Lewis’s men?” Henry extended compassion even to the men who’d kidnapped him. “Will they be treated here too?”
“Yeah…” Barry stopped smiling. His compound had caused the acid burns all over Koch’s face and hands. “I’d run over there to keep you company, but…”
“Don’t strain that leg! Besides, something tells me Len needs you more than I do tonight. We can talk about that… other thing another time.” Right, about Barry being the Chemist. The speedster didn’t want to ask if his dad had been told about the elder Snart’s final confession too. However, what Henry said next did catch him off-guard. “I’m not alone anyway, slugger. Shawna’s already passed by to check on me twice. And Tina’s here too.”
“Doctor McGee?” Barry hadn’t realized his dad and the head of Mercury Labs had become that close. “That’s nice of her.”
“As soon as Dan’s family arrives, I’m going home. We’ll talk again tomorrow, all right?”
Barry said good night and put down the phone. While he’d been talking with his dad, he’d also been listening to the splatters from the shower. The beat of the splashes hadn’t changed once in the last few minutes. It was a reminder that, as traumatic the last few hours had been for him, there was one person who’d been more thoroughly affected. His left thigh twinged as he got off the chaise, but he ignored the pain. Slowly, quietly, he pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it onto the bed. He left his watch (Caitlin had returned it during the car ride) on the nightstand, then slipped off his sweatpants and briefs in the walk-in closet. Taking a deep breath, he opened the ensuite door and let the thick clouds of steam engulf him. Len had stewed alone long enough.
If he hadn’t known the layout of their bathroom, he’d have slipped on the tiles. He still bumped his right foot on the stool by the tub before he made it to the door of the shower enclosure. He could just make out Len’s silhouette underneath the rainfall showerhead. The water sluicing onto his head and shoulders had to be boiling hot.
“Mind some company?” Barry asked softly, pushing the glass door open a crack.
Len didn’t reply, but the heat in the enclosure receded and the clouds of steam thinned. He twisted the water temperature knob and the spray turned lukewarm. To Barry, that was enough of an invitation. Stepping into the stall, he traced the diagonal scars along his partner’s back with his eyes. He was always careful when he touched them, those and all the other marks on Len’s skin, but he bypassed them tonight. Instead, he just hugged his too-silent partner from behind and pressed a palm over his chest.
“Anyone in there?” he asked, hooking his chin over Len’s shoulder. He felt their connection come alive and breathed in time to the slow, steady beat of his partner’s heart.
“I borrowed your bad habit,” Len intoned after a while. “The overthinking.”
“Admitting you have a problem is the first step to dealing with it,” Barry quipped, brushing a kiss over his neck. “I’m here to listen. If you feel like talking.”
Len turned in his arms and swiped their bodywash off the shelf. “I just want to wash off the stink from tonight.”
Barry nodded, taking the bottle and working its contents into a lather on his partner’s shoulders and chest. Len wasn’t ready to talk yet. Lisa was safely across the river in Keystone and, whether or not a part of him wished that Barry had let him pull the trigger himself, his father—the monster who’d lurked in the back of his mind for years—was dead. And Lewis’s last act had been admitting he’d murdered Len’s mother. Who Len had always believed had abandoned him as a toddler. If all Barry could do to be supportive right now was help his partner get clean, that was what he was going to do.
He didn’t expect the kissing. One moment, he was working a lather over Len’s arms, the next, his partner’s cool lips were pressed against his own. As they soaped each other up, Len coaxed his way into Barry’s mouth with the kind of soft pecks and nips he normally reserved for lazy evenings on the couch or sleep-hazy mornings in bed. Barry didn’t resist, kissing back contentedly and running his nails over the short burr of his partner’s hair. Briefly, as his cock twitched with interest, he considered reaching between Len’s legs to offer him another kind of distraction. But it didn’t feel right, not tonight.
He blinked when Len pushed him to sit on the bench against the wall. He groaned, pain pulsing though his thigh as he lowered himself onto the seat. He’d forgotten he wasn’t supposed to be standing too long. “Stop taking care of me when I’m trying to take care of you,” he mouthed against Len’s jaw, tugging his partner to his knees.
“You got shot because of me.” Ice crept up Len’s hands and arms before he managed to rein it in. He dropped his forehead to Barry’s shoulder. “I should have protected you better.”
“Not your fault,” Barry whispered, coaxing him to look up again. “I’ll be good as new by tomorrow,” he promised, brushing soft pecks across his partner’s lips until he kissed back.
I’m not going anywhere, he wanted to add, but he swallowed the words down. They finished showering, still trading kisses all the while. As they toweled off, Barry let Len help him up onto the counter and pat his hair dry for him. Horribly as the evening had gone, he understood what his partner was doing. He focused on Barry so he didn’t have to think about anything else.
As soon as Len finished ruffling his hair dry, the speedster took hold of his wrists. “We’re okay,” he said, tipping his head back so the towel fell into the nearby sink. “Right?”
“Yeah, we are.” Len leaned in, breathed against his neck. “We’re okay.”
They stayed that way a while, just holding each other. Barry didn’t object when Len finally carried him to bed. They didn’t bother with clothes, not that they slept in any most nights. Barry huffed as Len tucked him under the thin blankets, finding the soreness in his thigh made lying on his side uncomfortable. As he shifted around, his gaze was drawn once more to the moon outside. He suddenly remembered an old song, heard his mom’s voice and Frank Sinatra’s overlapping in his head, and started humming a few bars.
“That sounds familiar,” Len commented, sliding under the sheets on his side of the bed.
“Mom sang it sometimes when I wanted to wait up for Dad before going to bed,” Barry explained, sidling close as he sang the opening lines. “Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. And let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.”
He’d meant to lighten Len’s mood, make him crack a smile or quip about Allen family musical tastes. Instead, an odd look passed over his partner’s face. He turned on his side to face Barry, but his gaze was locked on the nightstand. No, on the old stuffed dog.
“Did… your mom sing that to you too?” Barry took his hand, squeezing briefly, gently. “But, hey, if you don’t want to talk about that either, it’s okay. I just—”
“It wasn’t that song.” Len seemed to regret the admission, but when Barry squeezed his hand again, he continued. “Johnny Cash, something about sunlight and gray skies. She only sang the chorus.” A sour smile passed his lips. “Makes sense since the rest wasn’t as sugary.”
Barry had a hunch, taking one of Len’s hands and kissing his pulse point. He took a deep breath and, haltingly, started singing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away…”
By the time Barry trailed off, Len had closed his eyes. “That’s the one,” he said in that soft, glass-fragile voice the speedster had only heard from him a handful of times before. His eyes, more gray than blue in the dim light, fluttered open again. “She’d have liked you, Scarlet.”
“I’d have liked her too.” Barry plucked the stuffed toy off the nightstand and turned to lie facing his partner. His left thigh twinged, but he paid the dull ache no attention, placing the dog between them and brushing their twined fingers over the worn red felt. “After all, she made you.”
“You’re not as smooth as you think.” Len sounded a bit more like his usual self. Still, he looked at the stuffed toy uncertainly, stroking its head a few times before he turned his gaze back to Barry. “But you get points for being adorable.”
“Just for you.” Barry smiled and pressed their foreheads together. “I’m yours, remember?” I love you.
That old micro-flash of awe and disbelief flashed in Len’s eyes, but his entire expression softened as he replied, “You’re all mine.” He repositioned the dog against the headboard and nudged Barry’s hip. “Now, lie on your back before you screw up that leg permanently.”
“Okay, okay!” Barry laughed and shifted positions, tugging Len’s arm over his waist. He craned his neck and pecked the tip of his partner’s nose. “Goodnight… nightlight.”
Len smacked his head with a pillow and grumbled about stupid endearments, but Barry only laughed and planted a sound, unrepentant kiss on his partner’s lips. The night could have ended badly in so many ways, but it hadn’t. Everyone who mattered to them was safe, they themselves were (mostly) undamaged, and they were back in their own bed for the night.
Everything else could wait until morning.