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1.
The comms had gone dark as soon as Hartley Rathaway showed up, so Cisco and the others had no way of knowing what was happening at the museum. It had looked good for Barry before they’d lost contact, but fights with the Rogues were always unpredictable and could turn on a dime. It was part of what made them so dangerous, and part of what made them so entertaining.
“Do you think he’s alright?” Caitlin asked, rubbing her thumb against her other palm. She was standing on the opposite side of the monitors, having just come in from the med bay when she heard Cisco cursing.
“His vitals haven’t changed,” Cisco reassured her. His eyes never left the screen through, fingers flying across the keyboard as he tried to reestablish a connection to the comms in Barry’s suit. Beside him, Harry waved an unbothered hand at Caitlin and went back to the book he was reading.
Caitlin let out a long breath and started to pace. She made it two lengths of the room before she was halted in place by a blur of red lightning that sent all the papers in the lab flying into the air.
Barry pulled off his cowl, out of breath. “They got away. But they didn’t get the diamond, so.”
Immediately moving closer to inspect him for any injuries, Caitlin frowned. She shared a look with Cisco, whose hands were now hovering above the keyboard. “What happened? The comms went out. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” she asked, looking Barry up and down.
Barry just shrugged, brushing off her concern. “I’m fine,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “No one got any shots in. Hartley showed up and took out my comms, and then we basically ended up in a stalemate until Cold distracted me. By the time I realized that’s what he was doing, the rest of them were already gone.”
Cisco watched as Caitlin let out a breath of relief, but didn’t find himself doing the same. He leaned back in his chair, peering at Barry over the monitors. A fight with five of the Rogues and no one got a shot in? Not that Cisco wanted Barry to get hurt, it’s just that it was unusual. Even with the unofficial deal they had going, The Flash vs. Cold’s gallery of rogues was always chaos. No one walked away without getting hit at least once, least of all Barry, who was always outnumbered even with his team backing him up from the labs.
Heading off to change back into his regular clothes, Barry clapped his shoulder as he passed and grinned at him. His cheeks were still flushed from the fight, and he looked more tired than usual, so it was clear that he hadn’t walked away from the museum without putting a decent effort into stopping the Rogues.
Cisco shook his head. What was he looking for? Proof that something else had gone down when the comms went dark? Barry had no reason to lie to them, and Cisco had no reason to think he would.
It was all the sleep he’d been losing since his vibes had gotten more frequent — it was getting to his head. Just that morning, he’d thought the barista at Jitters was a spy sent by one of their enemies to get intel on him and Caitlin, as members of Team Flash. Clearly, he wasn’t thinking straight.
He should probably cut down on the coffee, too.
2.
Cisco jumped through the breach, stepping off the ground in S.T.A.R. labs and landing in a loading dock in the warehouse district. It closed behind him with a swoosh , but he barely heard it over the sound of something blowing up only a few feet away. He rocked sideways from the force of the blast, but caught his footing.
The explosion had come from one of the transport trucks being launched backwards into the side of the building. Cisco couldn’t see from this angle who had done it, but Barry had to be nearby. He crouched low to the ground, rounding the now-destroyed truck as stealthily as he could—
And stopped. He blinked in confusion. The scene before him was chaos: half the warehouse was charred beyond recognition, the other half was coated in a thick layer of ice, and nearly every piece of equipment was… well, in pieces. It looked like the aftermath of a hurricane, if that hurricane had a maniacal laugh and enjoyed toying with teams of superheroes.
That wasn’t the confusing part. The confusing part was that there, in the middle of it all, stood Barry, unscathed and chatting with Captain Cold . Just standing there, three feet away from each other, Cold’s gun slung over his shoulder and Barry’s hands resting on his hips as he nodded his head along to whatever Cold was saying.
“Flash?” Cisco called out, not even bothering to hide his disbelief. He’d almost called him by his real name, before he remembered himself. The other Rogues could still be here, not all of which knew Barry’s identity. That had never sat right with Cisco — that Cold held something so massive over their heads and had yet to use it against them. Yet, he hadn’t. He’d stuck to their deal and never told a soul, as far as they knew.
Barry was caught off guard. He whirled around to face Cisco and opened his mouth, but Cold was faster. In the same instance, he’d drawn his gun, aimed it just beside Cisco’s head, and pulled the trigger. Racing forward to shove him out of the way, Barry only just made it time to save Cisco from an annoying case of frostbite.
It was like Cisco had pressed play on the paused scene — one of the other Rogues suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started destroying what was left of the place, Mick stepped out from wherever he’d disappeared to and resumed his mission to blow everything up, and the fight resumed.
Only, even as he dodged attack after attack, trying to keep Peek-A-Boo from making off with whatever it was they were here to steal, something felt off. He didn’t have time to dissect it while mid-fight, but it niggled at the back of his mind until they made it back to S.T.A.R labs, heist successfully prevented.
It wasn’t until he was in the med-bay with Caitlin fawning over the burn he’d sustained on his shoulder that he realized what it was. For as many punches as had been thrown on both sides, and as chaotic as the fight had been, Barry hadn’t suffered a single injury. He was always better at dodging than Cisco, given his speed, but in a fight of that scale, he should’ve at least been blown into a couple of walls. It was like…
It was like they hadn’t even been aiming for him. Like they’d been trying not to hit him.
Cisco frowned. He watched Barry fiddle with his phone at the computer station while Caitlin finished wrapping his shoulder.
Had he made some kind of deal with the Rogues they didn’t know about? But why wouldn’t he tell them?
He shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. He was probably just imagining things. Barry had been training harder than ever, so it was only logical that he would fair better in a fight. Besides, he’d fought the Rogues so many times that their movements should’ve been predictable to him by now.
While his sleep had gotten better lately, Cisco clearly still needed to finally bite the bullet and cut down on the caffeine. This was getting out of hand. Caitlin had even started making faces at him when she caught him with his fifth cup of the day, and this jittery paranoia was out of control.
3.
First the museum, then the warehouse, now this.
It was clearly not the sleep deprivation, and definitely not the caffeine. Cisco wasn’t crazy, or paranoid, or imagining things. Something fishy was going on between Barry and the Rogues, and he was determined to find out what it was.
The night had started out pretty standard. Some apartment fires, teenage breaking and entering, a couple pit stops to interrupt muggings and low grade car thefts. A classic patrol for the Flash, and one that didn’t require much effort from Cisco, so he was taking the time to relax and talk himself out of going for that third cup of coffee.
He’d been doing so well this past week, limiting himself to two a day, but he was feeling the effects. He was exhausted. He had his feet kicked up on the desk, leaning as far back in his chair as he could without tipping over, one hand massaging his temples as he struggled to keep his eyes open. It would’ve helped if there was something interesting going on to pay attention to, but Central City had chosen tonight of all nights to be boring.
No sooner had he thought that than the screen had lit up with a red alert. Cisco pitched forward, nearly falling off his chair, and slammed down on the keyboard before his brain came back online and he remembered how to navigate the system.
“Green and Fifth, reports of some kind of mass disturbance. Satellite shows signatures of both the cold and heat guns.”
Barry made a noise to the affirmative and Cisco watched the tracker in his suit change course on the screen, veering towards the scene of the crime. He leaned back in his seat, though he kept his feet planted firmly on the ground this time and flicked himself in the arm to wake himself up more. What were Cold and Heatwave doing there? It was a long strip of small businesses, none of which housed anything expensive enough to be of interest to the Rogues.
He shook his head. When had criminals ever done anything that made sense? They were probably just there to stir some shit up and have some fun. It had been a while since they’d had reports of either of them wreaking havoc; it was long overdue. God forbid they go more than a few months without destroying any—
Cisco jerked forward, nearly sending his chair toppling over for a second time. The computer screeched angrily at him, the screen that monitored Barry flashing red. The comms were down.
That wouldn’t have been so concerning if he’d thought Hartley had shown up again, but that was unlikely since Hartley had taken a step back from the Rogues recently. He’d helped Team Flash (reluctantly) take down a meta a few weeks back and divulged that the life was losing its luster. He missed being a scientist, an inventor, a big deal in a field that didn’t come hand in hand with a life on the run. Besides, the comms weren’t completely offline like they would be if he’d blown their circuits.
In fact, it looked like they’d just been switched off. Like Barry had switched them off.
Cisco stared so intently at the screen he forgot to blink until his eyes started watering. The tracker in the suit showed Barry was still on the scene, though he wasn’t moving. Which meant they weren’t fighting. Or, they’d already fought and he’d been incapacitated.
His vitals were fine. Nothing that indicated he’d been injured, or frozen in place by the cold gun. His heart rate was elevated, but that was normal after he’d raced across half the city. The more time passed, the more Cisco grew concerned, the more he started to question what the hell was going on.
He was just getting ready to change into the Vibe suit and go see for himself when the comms flickered back online.
“Sorry,” Barry’s voice came through, sounding perfectly fine. Not even out of breath. “The comms got all staticy. Did they go out?”
“Yeah,” Cisco said slowly. He pulled up the last twenty minutes of data, but there was nothing to indicate there’d been any issues with the comms before they were shut down. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Just the usual. L— Snart wreaking havoc. I got it all under control. Do you have anything else for me?”
Cisco flicked through their satellite data and the CCPD scanner before sending Barry off to stop a robbery at a bank downtown. Once he’d watched the tracker take off through the streets of Central City, he leaned back in his chair and contemplated the screens.
Something was going on here. Something that went deeper than a few cups of coffee too many making him overly paranoid. Some kind of… conspiracy . Barry had made some kind of deal with the Rogues, or was involved with them in a way he couldn’t tell his team about. Maybe they were blackmailing him, using him somehow.
Horrified, Cisco knew he had to get to the bottom of this.
+1.
He’d caved. Of course he’d caved. It had been a stupid plan — he didn’t even have a problem. He could stop if he wanted to, he just didn’t want to. Because it was good, and made him more focused, and kept him awake through patrols. He wasn’t addicted.
Which didn’t explain why he was sneaking out at one in the morning to get his fix, because Caitlin had taken to giving him very pointed looks when she caught him with a cup and it was practically guaranteed that he wouldn’t run into her so late at night.
He was just getting his hands on a large espresso, completely entranced by the wonderful smell and that warmth on his palms that he’d so missed, when the bell above the door chimed to signal another customer. He didn’t look up, fixated on finally getting the caffeine he’d been antsing for since he finished his last cup four hours ago.
He didn’t look up, until he all but ran into someone and nearly wasted all of that perfection all over the floor and the guy’s shirt. The guy who—
Was Barry? Cisco did a double take when he finally looked up from his cup — which he had just managed to save, thank God. He blinked dumbly at his friend. His first thought was to insist that it was just decaf, because Barry had also started giving him looks when he started fidgeting after his fourth or fifth cup of the day. His second thought was that Leonard Snart looked very different out of the parka.
His third was why the fuck was Barry here with Leonard Snart?
“Cisco,” Barry stuttered. He was just as wide-eyed as his friend, the two of them staring at each other like they’d both been caught red-handed. Which. Had they? What the hell was Barry doing?
Cisco waved a bewildered hand around. “What are— Why are— You and Snart?”
Barry had the decency to look sheepish, glancing away as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Um,” he said. He turned to dart a look at Cold, who was staring back with an amused smirk that offered no help whatsoever. He turned back to Cisco with a deep breath. “Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. Eventually. Not right now, obviously. This was definitely not the plan. But, I guess, since we’re here. Len and I are… together? Ish?”
“Together-ish,” Cold confirmed dryly. His expression had gone flat as soon as he’d directed it at Cisco.
“You’re…” Cisco stared at them. Then, he shifted his gaze to somewhere just behind them and squinted, deep in thought. He brought his espresso to his mouth and took a long sip. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Barry and Cold trading looks. “He must’ve told them he’s off-limits,” he muttered to himself.
“Are you…?” Barry frowned. “I mean, I’m sorry. I know this is a lot, and I know you’re not just going to be okay with it after what he…” He glanced at Cold. “...did. Which is why I hadn’t told you. I was hoping there’d be a better way, but there is no good way to say it, is there?”
“Right,” Cisco hummed, still staring off into space. He took another sip of his espresso. Then, after a moment’s pause, chugged half of it at once. He lowered it back down with a decisive nod. Looking between the two of them, both of whom were watching him with thinly veiled shock, he said, “We’re going to sit down and talk about this, but not now. Now, Barry’s going to buy me another espresso, and then I’m going to leave and you can do whatever it is you came here for.” A date , Cisco’s mind supplied. They probably came here on a date. Because they’re dating.
“Okay,” Barry agreed quickly, already reaching for his wallet. “And we’ll talk about this…?”
“When I’ve had no less than four cups of coffee. Tomorrow, maybe.”
Barry nodded. “Tomorrow,” he repeated, more to himself than either of them.
By the time he’d ordered for the second time that night, Cisco had already finished the other half of his espresso and decided on an extra large this time to kill the headache that was forming. Hopefully, it would also keep him from having to process the fact that Barry, his best friend, was dating Captain Cold, their arch rival.
Though, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The Rogues pulling their punches, The Flash abandoning the fight to stop and chat, turning off his comms when he ran into Cold and Heatwave.
Only, that sparked another question. The heist at the museum that had started all this confusion was nearly eight months ago. The fight at the loading docks was five. The disturbance at the shops was two.
Just how long had they been together?