Coldflash and Legends One-Shots

Leonard Snart Hops to It (Rated PG13)

Summary:

Caitlin and Cisco are confused as to why it seems like Len has been running to Barry's rescue lately. They find out when Barry shows up after a fight, covered in ice, and begging for their help.

Notes:

Written for the ColdFlashWeek2016 prompt Day 3 'Saving Each Other'

***

"Where is he?" Caitlin asks, anxiously bouncing from one screen to the other, trying to locate Barry and, oddly enough, Leonard Snart. If there's one thing in the universe that Caitlin would have never bet on, it's that lately, when Barry gets himself in over his head (which he does pretty much every time he leaves the lab) that Leonard Snart would be the one to rush to the rescue. How the man even knows where Barry will be is beyond her. He seems to keep showing up in the most unlikely places, at the most fortunately coincidental times. When they spotted him during a bank robbery two weeks ago, that one she could understand. But the fact that he went out of his way to freeze the man with a gun pointed to Barry's head seemed like a departure from his usual m.o..

She had chalked it up to a dispute among rivals, with Barry stuck in the middle. Nothing more complicated than that.

But then there was the fire at the high school three days after. Being fast, Barry can seem nearly invincible. Everyone on Team Flash takes for granted the fact that he's not indestructible, that someday he'll come across something he won't be able to defeat using the Speed Force. The fire that engulfed the six-story building burned so red hot, they could barely find Barry in it using their sensors or any of Cisco's sophisticated tech. For the first time in a long while, Caitlin's heart stopped in her chest watching Barry run into it, be absorbed by it. So it was a relief to see that fire frozen solid as a mildly charred Barry ran in to save the last of the teachers locked in the lounge on the fifth floor.

And then there was the metahuman attack on the CCPD. Barry and the police force had it handled, but it was still lucky that Len happened to be locked in a holding cell that day. Of course, they had entertained the idea that the metahuman attack could have been a ploy to break him out, but when a 500 pound, 7 foot tall man with an iron fist tried to punch Barry from behind, why did Len step in the way he did?

But she can't process all of that now. That, on top of the fact that they just lost contact with Barry, no signal from his locator device, no heat signature anywhere, is making her head spin.

"I don't know," Cisco says, switching between camera views, trying to get a read on Barry. "I saw him for a second, and then ..."

Electricity crackles, light flashes, and a sudden, violent whoosh of air overwhelms the room.

"Jesus!" Caitlin exclaims, spinning in a complete circle as Barry finally makes an appearance.

"Guys!" he pants. "Guys, quick! I need your help!"

"What the hell ...?" Cisco mutters when he gets a good look at Barry, his red suit coated in a layer of frost, holding a bundle of blue, favoring his stomach as if he's about to vomit. "He did it. He finally did it. That bastard shot you! After all this time, I knew there was a reason why he would ..."

"What ...?" Barry pants, confused by Cisco's anger as opposed to his urgency. Barry catches sight of his suit, steam rising as a result of vaporizing cold. He shakes his head. "No, no, Len didn't shoot me." As if to prove it, he unwinds one arm from his waist and puts Len's gun on Cisco's console.

"Then ... what the hell happened?"

"Yeah? And by the way, what's going on between the two of you?" Caitlin asks because this – this – with Barry covered in ice, claiming Len didn't shoot him, even carrying Len's gun, is the last straw. They can't be keeping secrets from one another, not when Caitlin and Cisco are supposed to be helping him, protecting him. "Because I get the feeling you know more than you've been telling us, Barry!"