Chapter Text
The Reverse Flash was going to travel back in time to kill Barry Allen. Why? Because in his own time he had already killed the Flash, and with no one left to challenge him he was looking for a new entertainment. Altering the time/space continuum and potentially creating a time paradox that may or may not destroy reality as Earth 528 knew it might just be the entertainment he was looking for.
Of course this was exactly what landed him on the Waverider's radar.
“So wait, how is it entertaining to kill me as a child without my speed, when he's already managed to beat me in the future with my speed? I mean isn't Eobard's obsession with the Flash about the challenge? What's the challenge for him here?” Barry asked after Gideon had explained the disaster that they needed to prevent on this next Earth.
“Well four months ago I would have said that time travel would be a challenge for anyone.” Kendra said.
“What I want to know is what problem Weather Wizard has with me.” Leonard drawled from the doorway he and Mick were leaning in.
“Yeah, why would Eobard bring Weather Wizard and Killer Frost back with him? Since when does he work with other criminals anyway?” Barry chimed in.
“The Reverse Flash is more involved with the Rogues of Earth 528 than your own future, Flash. His teammates are similarly obsessed with their opposing heroes as he is. Killer Frost has been obsessed with killing Firestorm since their divorce, and Weather Wizard with getting his revenge on Captain Cold since he betrayed the Rogues and became a hero.” Gideon replied.
“So can I assume that you have some sort of plan already in mind Mr. Hunter?” Martin asked their leader at the head of the table.
Rip Hunter looked up from the projections that hovered above the table before them. “All three of the attacks are set for the same time, the middle of the night. Which means that you will have to be split into three teams. Since Firestorm's powers cancel out Killer Frost's own Firestorm and Heatwave will deal with her. Flash will stop Weather Wizard, since he has plenty of experience with that already, and Captain Cold and Hawkgirl will stop the Reverse Flash.”
“Hold on, I've defeated Eobard before, and it was the me from the future that stopped him from killing the me in the past on my own Earth too!” Barry argued.
“The Reverse Flash on this Earth has already killed a more experienced Flash, but the cold gun's affect on speedsters can incapacitate Eobard long enough for Hawkgirl to restrain him with the power dampening collar, whereas Hawkgirl cannot defeat Weather Wizard alone and you can.” Rip explained and gestured to the collar in question.
***
Young Barry Allen woke up to the sound of the front door closing. He got out of bed nervously, wondering who used the door when his parents were asleep. He hoped that he had only imagined the sound, or that it was something else he had heard, but he wanted to see just to be sure. He came down the stairs slowly, and stopped when he saw a man in a light blue winter coat and a masked woman in leather moving through the house.
He began to creep back up the stairs to his parents room as quietly as he could but suddenly he was in the living room, and he fell to his knees feeling dizzy. He looked up and a yellow blur was streaking through the room, Barry realized that his breath was coming out in puffs of fog and suddenly the lights flipped on.
His parents dashed into the room but were knocked aside, tumbling into walls and over furniture as the yellow blur streaked by. Suddenly the woman in leather jumped into the room, giant wings spreading out behind her as she tried to shield his parents from the yellow blur. His mother was on the floor in front of him, covered in blood, and his father was trying to help but Barry didn't know what to do, what could he do?
He watched the woman standing between his family and the blur, and the man in the winter coat was firing some sort of gun that made ice cover everything. Slowly Barry started to see that inside the yellow blur was actually a man in a yellow suit, an angry man that had hurt his mom.
The floor between Barry and his parents was suddenly covered in ice and the man in yellow skidded across it before seeming to avoid that area. Barry darted across the ice, slipping and sliding and the winged woman caught him, swinging him behind her and into the corner of the room.
***
The Reverse Flash was nothing but a yellow blur as he dodged every shot from the cold gun. Captain Cold kept firing as quickly as possible, to keep Eobard from knocking the weapon from his hands. Hawkgirl stood in front of the Allens with her wings spread as Henry tried to stop Nora's bleeding, Barry behind all of them pressed into a corner of the room.
The rest of the floor was starting to freeze just from the drop in temperature, but Cold couldn't tell yet if the Reverse Flash was moving any slower than he had been before, hopefully he could keep a hold of the cold gun long enough for it to make a difference.
He had agreed with Rip's plan in the theory that cold affects speedsters, but he didn't have the experience of predicting Eobard's movements the way he did with Barry. Eobard was more deliberate and calculating, he didn't bounce off the walls like Barry did and that might make all the difference now.
***
As Barry watched it all helplessly the woman's wings shot out at the yellow blur like she was throwing a punch and the man in yellow tripped, skidding across the icy floor and into the wall. The man in the coat shot ice at the man in yellow's feet, sticking him to the ground as he struggled to break free. The woman circled around, avoiding getting in the ice man's way and put a collar around the man in yellow's neck. As soon as she did the man in yellow stopped moving faster than everyone else.
The ice man took the phone from the table and came toward Barry, crouching down in front of him. “Barry, you need to call 911 for your mom.” He said, holding the phone out.
Barry was scared, his mom was hurt, but he looked into the hood of the coat and saw the ice man's face. He wasn't wearing a mask like the man in yellow or the bird woman, there was a pair of goggles around his neck but Bary could see his eyes, and Barry thought that he looked sad. He looked down at the phone that was now in his hands and with shaking fingers dialed 911. Crawling across the room to his parents he didn't notice the ice man and the bird woman carrying the man in yellow out of the house.
As he tried to stay calm like the lady on the phone asked him to his dad didn't look at him, his hands were covered in blood where they were pressing into his mom's stomach, but she looked at him. He felt safer when her eyes locked with his, he was sure that she would be alright.
***
Leonard climbed out of the window after his father, the other thieves following behind. This wasn't the first time that his father had made him come along on a robbery, sometimes he needed someone with smaller hands to reach into smaller spaces. Leonard didn't like it, but after a successful job his father wasn't as likely to hit him or Lisa, and that was worth it.
It was windy outside, really windy, and they stumbled against the gusts as they made their way to the van. Suddenly a man stepped around the side of it, and the wind seemed to flow from his hands.
“I'm going to enjoy killing you again Captain Cold! I came all the way back from the future for this!” The man shouted, throwing the swirling wind from his hands towards them. The two whirlwinds swirled to either side of Leonard and scooped up his father and his crew, throwing them away and slamming them into walls and cars after which they didn't get back up again.
“Back off Weather Wizard, he's just a kid!” A voice shouted. Leonard jerked away as a man in some kind of red leather costume suddenly appeared next to him. A mask covered some of his face but not enough to hide his expression.
“Flash? But you're dead!” The 'Weather Wizard' shouted. Waving his arms and suddenly shards of ice were pelting towards them. Leonard was lifted off his feet and carried by the 'Flash' behind a car.
“Stay put Len.” Flash said with a huge smile.
Leonard stared after him, hearing the crackling of lighting on the other side of the street. He looked over the car and squinting through the wind he saw the red blur circling around what looked like a tornado until suddenly the man that had attacked him was thrown into a car.
“Hey Len, I'm sorry about that, he's not going to bother you again.” The Flash said, appearing beside him again with another huge grin.
Len stared up at him in helpless confusion, feeling a lightness at the sight of the Flash's smile that made him wish that he could smile back. Len had no idea what to think about this grinning stranger, people didn't just show up to help him for no reason. Not ever. The Flash picked him up and there was another rush of motion that stopped before Len could even get used to it and he realized that he was in his house, and the Flash was setting him down on his sister's bed where she was sleeping.
“Take care of your sister, okay? Your dad doesn't know what he's talking about. You two are good kids and you can do a lot better, I'll always see the good in you.” There was another huge grin that Len could barely make out in the dark before the Flash was gone in another rush of air and Len looked down at his little sister, deciding right then that he would protect Lisa like the Flash protected him tonight, from everything he could.
***
They took the Reverse Flash, Weather Wizard and Killer Frost to the Crystal Prison. The other Time Brokers who lived and worked in the Panoptichron marched onto the Waverider and took custody of the villains, and Barry still didn't like it but he admitted that he couldn't come up with a better way to keep the villains from trying the same thing again once the team had moved on to another Earth.
At least not all of their missions have ended this way, and Captain Hunter has said that some of the prisoners have been released before, so it might not be forever. Even so Barry knows he would feel a lot better if he, or any of them who weren't Time Brokers, were even allowed into the Panoptichron.
They only have Captain Hunter's word that the villains will be treated humanely, and have a chance at going home someday. It all just reminds him of his own misguided efforts at the advice from his own world's Reverse Flash in keeping the Metahumans he defeated early on in the STAR Labs pipeline. Running their own secret prison wasn't the right thing to do, and it didn't help the people they were keeping locked away illegally, so he can't see the Time Brokers own methods as doing anything differently than he once did.
***
***
Earth 528, 15 Years Later
“Barry give me one good reason why you're not giving this guy a call.” Iris said, leaning over his desk.
Barry looked up at his sister, everyone at the station was used to Iris hanging around so she didn't mind distracting him from work to finish their conversation even though he was already working late after coming in late that morning. Last night they had gone out to some club that Iris liked and Barry had never heard of because Iris had recently decided to make it her mission in life to find him a boyfriend. She was pretty determined ever since she had realized that he hadn't had a relationship that lasted longer than a month or two. Barry knew why that was, but he knew what Iris would say if he told her that he'd been in love with someone for over a decade already. Someone brave and strong, with ice blue eyes. Okay so maybe he was romanticizing the past but he'd never been able to get the man that had saved his family when he was a child out of his mind.
“Iris I just don't think that he's right for me.”
“Barry you have to give someone a chance. What are you waiting for?”
“I don't know, I just, I don't know.”
“Fine, then I will let you get back to work, and then we can see if we can make it to STAR Labs before they turn on the particle accelerator. Maybe there will be a nice handsome geek there looking for someone just like you.” Iris said, skipping away to another desk.
Barry sighed. She wasn't going to let it go, but then that was one of the things he loved most about Iris. How much she cared about him, like he was really her brother, not just someone her father had taken in after his parents were killed in a burglary. It had happened on his mother's birthday, only a year after the man in yellow had attacked them, but he was still grateful to the ice man for giving them one more year.
He worked as quickly as he could but they ended up watching the news coverage of the accelerator while he kept working. The storm outside had gotten steadily worse in the last hour and Barry was struggling with the window that had been blown open when the news announced that something had gone wrong at STAR Labs.
***
“Barry!” Iris cried. The nurse held her back as they wheeled Barry deeper into the hospital. All around her people crowded into the hospital, bringing in more injured and unconscious patients. So many people had been hurt when the particle accelerator exploded, sending a shock wave through the city. The police had all been called in, and Barry wasn't the only one in the precinct that had been injured when the lightning bolt had hit.
***
***
8 Months Later
“Dr. Stone, something's happening in the Ice Room!” Vibe's voice called over the speaker, echoing through STAR Labs.
Silas looked up from the readings he and Dr. Wells were looking at from their patients in the 'Lightning Room' as Cisco called it.
“Go, I'll keep working here.” Dr. Wells said from his daughter's bedside.
Dr. Stone raced to the Ice Room, another of the inappropriately named labs that had been turned into hospital rooms after they had realized what the particle accelerator explosion had done. The explosion had caused an unknown form of radiation to saturate the city and with the storm that night and any number of events then and since, interacting with the radiation was causing people at random to develop strange abilities. Many of them had been spontaneously dropping into comas in the moment they were affected but often their abilities were evident even as they lay unconscious, thus Cisco was naming the rooms their patients were placed in based on these abilities.
The 'Lightning Room' was named for Barry Allen and Jessie Wells' suddenly impossibly fast heart rates that caused power drains and blackouts in regular hospitals, when normal doctors thought Mr. Allen was having a heart attack his heart was really beating too fast for their instruments to measure. The 'Ice Room' was named for the John Doe and their own Caitlin Snow whose abilities were different but had the same after affect of covering everything in the room with ice.
Cisco was already inside, at the bedside of the John Doe, who was now covered in ice that was inches thick. “It's like a cocoon, I just had a vibe that he's going to 'hatch' after this thing finishes forming. Like as soon as he makes it cold enough in here he's just going to wake up.”
Silas checked the temperature readings. The man's core body temperature was decreasing, but the rest of his vital signs were holding steady, and in the past few months he had come to trust Cisco's 'vibes'. If Cisco thought that the man would come out of this on his own then Silas was willing to trust his judgement.
***
Hot. He was too hot, why was this room so hot? Len struggled to wake up, to open his eyes. He didn't know why it was so difficult. The heat was making him groggy, bogging him down, he wanted it to be cooler. Finally he managed to open his eyes, and he immediately tried to sit up but a hand came down on his chest pushing him back down to the bed. The hand felt like fire on his skin.
“Whoa, hold on there, you just woke up take it easy.” Len heard someone say. He looked around, there were two men standing next to his bed. His bed that was a hospital bed, his bed that was covered in ice.
“What's going on? What is this?” He asked, pushing the younger man's hand away from him, it still burned.
“You've been in a coma for eight months, you need to take a minute, try to stay calm.” The man said.
“Why is there ice everywhere?” Len asked, realizing that it wasn't just his bed, the entire room was covered in ice.
“We should take this slow, I'm Cisco, this is Dr. Stone.”
“You're in STAR Labs, we've been monitoring your condition. This ice, you're the one creating it. You're body temperature is currently 0° Celsius, it dropped 27° in the last twenty minutes. For the last eight months it seemed to be holding steady at 10° lower than normal but apparently you needed to go colder before you could wake up.” Dr. Stone said.
Len just stared at them. That couldn't be right. He was creating all this ice? How would something like that even be poss- wait. He had already seen the impossible, a man who could create a tornado, a man who could run faster than you could see. Creating ice was like that... he was something like the man who had saved him fifteen years ago. The man with the smile he had never forgotten.
He let out a slow breath, one that didn't fog the air the way that Dr. Stone's or Cisco's did. He sat up more slowly this time, shrugging off the hand that Cisco once again reached towards him. “You're too hot, it feels like a burn when you touch me.” He explained.
The two men glanced at each other. “We'll need to run some tests on that, you're whole temperature change too. It may have been necessary to wake you up but it might not be the temperature you're supposed to be day to day.” Dr. Stone said.
Now that he was sitting up he could see that on the other side of the room was another bed with a woman in it. “Who's that?”
“That's Caitlin, she worked here until the particle accelerator blew up. You seem to be extending cold outward creating ice from the water around you whereas she seems to be drawing heat in from her surroundings leaving the water to freeze, similar but not quite the same.” Cisco said. “Oh, and we don't actually know your name, the hospital didn't know who dropped you off so you were a John Doe.”
That was good, if they knew who he was they probably would have had police guarding the door. But he would have to give them a name now and he didn't have an alias lined up, the two he'd had eight months ago could have been used by someone else in his father's crew by now, but would these people be looking for information about him? If he cooperated enough they might not look into his past at all. Before he could come up with anything the woman in the other bed suddenly sat up, gasping audibly.
“Caitlin!” Cisco cried, running over to her.
“The monitor's didn't change, how did she wake up?” Dr. Stone asked, turning some dials on the machines.
Caitlin wasn't answering any of Cisco's questions, Len could see her staring at her pale hands and snow white hair without recognition. When Cisco's hand touched her shoulder she jumped, and then grabbed for him, and Cisco fell to the floor as frost started to creep over him.
“Caitlin! Let him go, you need to let him go.” Dr. Stone said, taking a step back from her bed.
She absorbed heat, was she absorbing Cisco's heat? Was she killing him? Len realized that Dr. Stone didn't know what to do, he was backing away and reaching for a phone on the wall, probably about to call for someone but would that be in time to help the man who seemed to be her friend? The man she was killing? Len didn't like killing people, he didn't even really like stealing, even though he was good at it. That was just from all the practice, doing what his father told him because he didn't see any other option, but he always drew the line at killing even if it made his father call him weak. Dr. Stone had said though, that his ability was different from Caitlin's. She absorbed heat and he radiated cold, but his body was at 0° right now, there wasn't really any heat for her to absorb.
Len struggled up out of the bed that was still covered in ice, and slowly staggered across the room. He had to move slow because of how weak being in a coma for so long had made his body, but he reached the other side of the room where Caitlin was now crouched on the floor over Cisco who was barely breathing. Len fell to his knees, the quickest way to reach them really, and grabbed Caitlin's wrists. He pulled, dragging her away from Cisco but she fought him as soon as her hands left Cisco's skin. Around them both the ice on the floor began rising up in spikes and Len tried to roll/drag them as far away from Cisco as he could but Caitlin started screaming and clawing at him and then ice shot out of her hands directly at his face. It stung, the impact of it, and his face was covered in ice. The temperature may not bother him but apparently he still needed to breathe and he couldn't. He let go of her wrists to claw at the ice covering his mouth and nose and he knew she would be moving away but he couldn't stop her if he couldn't breathe.
After an eternity of struggling a large hand grabbed his face and something cracked away the ice, Len gasped for air, only peripherally aware of the large man that seemed to be mostly made of metal. Once he was breathing normally again he saw that two more doctors were checking on Cisco who seemed to be doing a little better and the metal man was talking with Dr. Stone about Caitlin. The metal man left the room and Dr. Stone approached him.
“Thank you for helping Cisco, I don't know why Caitlin would have attacked him, they were close before. How are you feeling?”
“I don't know, pretty much the same as before now that I can breathe. I thought since my temperature was so low there wouldn't be much she could do to me.”
Dr. Stone gave him an odd look. “What is it about having these abilities that makes so many metahumans want to be heroes?”
Len assumed he was speaking rhetorically.
***
So Dr. Stone wasn't speaking rhetorically. There was an actual team of heroes that operated out of STAR Labs. Dr. Stone's son Victor, or Cyborg; another STAR Labs employee Ronnie Raymond and a Professor Stein who could somehow combine into one person named Firestorm; another STAR employee Hartley Rathaway, or Pied Piper; and Cisco himself going by the name Vibe. Apparently the police and the public were aware that there was a team but didn't know just who the heroes themselves were, except for a pair of detectives, Joe West and Eddie Thawne who worked with the team as well.
Len knew all of this, was told all of this, because Cyborg hadn't been able to stop Caitlin from leaving STAR Labs. They didn't have any idea how to catch her, and they did need to because police reports showed that she was killing people by draining the heat out of them, leaving frost covered bodies all over the city. He could get close to her without being in danger from that though, so Dr. Stone and Cyborg had invited him to join the team. At least temporarily while the doctors figured out how to help Len with his abilities, learning to control the way the temperature in a room would drop suddenly, or how sometimes frost would start to form on any surface near him.
He had finally taken Cisco aside, since he seemed like the most carefree member of the team and therefore the least likely to overreact, and explained that he had been a thief before all of this. That he had worked with his father since he was a child but that he didn't want to go back to that, that he had seen something when he was a child that made him want to do better now that he had this ability.
It was difficult for him to say. He was so used to keeping his feelings secret from everyone that revealing something personal, something that could get him in trouble, was usually impossible. But once he had explained that he was worried about how detectives West and Thawne might come after him the second they saw his face (probably the next time his father stole something or got arrested) in the files the police had on his father, Cisco had agreed to keep his past identity a secret and to talk to the detectives if that ever happened. He also said that as long as Len stayed on the right side of the law from now on and worked with their team to help people Joe and Eddie would see that he was a good person. Len wouldn't go that far, he'd done a lot of terrible things, but he didn't want to keep doing them so maybe that was good enough.
They did seem to accept him though, and Cisco didn't mind when he named himself Captain Cold, apparently Cisco always came up with the code names. He was the one who had named the Weather Wizards, Clyde and Mark Mardon in the first place.
“So, wait, you're saying that you met the Weather Wizards when you were a kid? They just got their powers eight months ago.”
“No, it was just one man, but he said that he came back from the future to kill me.” Len explained.
“You mean like the Terminator? So you're John Connor to the Mardon brothers Skynet?”
“I guess so? He didn't say why he wanted to kill me.” Len said.
“Okay, we've all seen a lot of impossible things since the accelerator explosion but time travel? I can't believe that.” Eddie said.
“No, actually I think it makes sense.” Ronnie said, despite the skeptical look Martin gave him. “Ever since I met Caitlin the day she started working at STAR Labs I've been afraid of her, and since she got her powers I've known why. When I was a kid a woman named Killer Frost tried to kill me too and she looked exactly like Caitlin does now.”
“So does that mean that a bunch of villains from our future went back in time to kill us when we were kids? How come no one tried to kill me? I'm on this team too!” Cisco complained.
***
Len had been living in STAR Labs ever since he woke up. He didn't have an actual home to go back to, even if he knew where his father was holed up he wouldn't want to go back to that anyway, but Cyborg and a few others also lived in the Lab, since their abilities or appearance made it difficult to be around people. He had started helping with anything that needed doing really, there was only so much testing and practicing with his abilities before he needed a break or he would go crazy. Cisco had managed to make some clothing that wouldn't freeze and become so brittle it shattered when he tried to move, though he mostly liked to stick to making their hero costumes so Len ended up wearing one of the blue parkas most of the time even when he wasn't out looking for Killer Frost.
Helping take care of the other coma patients was odd, Cisco had named every room after the strange anomalies that were caused by the patient's abilities; the Ice Room, Lightning Room, Rainbow Room, Dark Room. Cisco was a bit too into this whole hero/villain thing. Len liked being in the Lightning Room though, sometimes it made him feel warmer without the burning sensation that another person's touch elicited.
“You know, I think that your ability has an affect on theirs.” Cisco said. “When you're in the room it gets colder, and it seems to slow down not just their heart rate but everything else too.”
“It doesn't seem to be an averse reaction but we should monitor-” Dr. Wells stopped speaking as Barry's heart rate suddenly sped up to a point that was apparently too fast.
“Is he having a seizure? I think he's having a seizure!” Cisco shouted, jumping forward to try to grab Barry's flailing arm.
“Cold, help Vibe hold him down, who knows what damage he could do to himself moving that fast.” Wells said as he started checking the machines connected to Barry.
Len came over and held Barry's other arm, trying not to start freezing it, though if he froze the man to the bed it might stop him from breaking anything. Suddenly the man gasped and settled back on the bed, eyes snapping open and looking around at everything rapidly. He looked confused, and he should, but his gaze landed on Len and paused. Barry stilled, staring at his face and suddenly he had a huge smile on his face.
Len stared right back at him. He knew that smile, he should have put it together before now, the patients in the Lightning Room moved fast. Barry was the Flash, the man who had saved him when he was a kid. He was now faced with that same smile he had fantasized about for years, childish hero worship that had transformed into desire as he got older. Fantasies about what he could do to earn that smile all for himself.
***
Barry felt like his entire body was on fire. He was struggling against something, he knew that, but he couldn't seem to open his eyes. He felt something cool against his arm, something that seemed to soothe the fire and he managed to relax, finally prying open his eyes. He didn't know where to look at first, he seemed to be in some kind of hospital room, a strange one. There were people on either side of him, but the one on his left was wearing a blue coat. The hood was up over his head but Barry could see inside, could see his ice blue eyes.
He could feel a huge smile on his face as he stared up at the ice man that had saved his life so many years ago. Was this really happening? The man that he had been fantasizing about for half his life was really here with him right now? He couldn't help it, his mind was racing and his heart beating too fast, he reached up and pulled the man down, smashing their lips together brutally. Their teeth clicked against each other and the man fell over him, but the kiss kept going, becoming a real and gentler kiss. The man's hands held his shoulders, one coming up to touch his face. The man's skin was cold, but it felt like it was getting warmer the longer the kiss went on, until suddenly the man jerked away from him. They both were breathing heavily and staring at one another, and Barry finally noticed the other two men in the room.
“So have you two met before or...” One of them asked awkwardly.
“Mr. Allen, my name is Harrison Wells, and you have been in a coma for nine months now. Can you tell me how you're feeling at the moment?” Dr. Wells asked, completely sidestepping the awkwardness of the moment.
“Uh...confused mostly. Wait, nine months? What happened, why was I in a coma?” Barry asked, sitting up quickly.
“The particle accelerator here at STAR Labs was damaged, there was an accident that hurt a lot of people all over Central City. You aren't the only one which is why we have been treating you here in the lab.” Dr. Wells answered him. He took a blood sample while they were talking and Barry was too confused to object.
“This is STAR Labs? I'm in STAR Labs right now? Wait, Iris, is she okay?”
“She's fine, she visits all the time, she came by this morning. We'll give her a call as soon as we know you're okay.” The other man reassured. “I'm Cisco by the way, and your new boyfriend is Leonard.” Cisco continued, teasingly.
Barry peered around Dr. Wells to look at the man, Leonard, in the blue coat. He really did look exactly like the man that had saved him all those years ago. Was it even possible for it to be the same man though?
“I'm sorry about that Leonard, you ah, reminded me of someone.” He said, feeling his face heating up. The heart monitor he was still attached to started beeping rapidly.
“Hah, not a problem Barry, but just who exactly do I remind you of?” Leonard asked, feeling the corner of his mouth twist up. He hadn't done a lot of smiling but he felt like doing so now.
“Yeah, I don't know a lot of people like Captain Cold. He's pretty one of a kind.” Cisco said.
“Captain Cold?” Barry had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but Leonard stepped up close to him again and reached out a hand towards the rail on the side of his bed. He watched as frost started to cover the rail, turning to a thick coat of ice over the metal bars.
“I make things cold. I make everything cold.”
“You don't make me cold.” Barry said, staring up into his eyes. He didn't notice Cisco rushing out of the room after Dr. Wells.
“Actually I think you make me warmer too.”
“Leonard-”
“Call me Len, Barry.” Len said, leaning over him again, bringing their lips just inches apart.
“Len, when I was a kid a man just like you saved my life. I've been in love with him ever since.” Barry admitted, to answer Len's earlier question.
Len smiled. “Someone just like you saved my life too Barry. His name was Flash and he had the same smile you do. I've been in love with that smile all my life.”
Barry sighed and leaned forward, pressing his lips to Len's softly, but Len deepened the kiss right away. His tongue was cold at first but it, and the rest of Len, warmed up the longer they kissed. Len was half on the bed now, Barry's hands sliding in under the coat and around to his back, holding him tight and close-
“Okay, that is not what you want to see the second you wake up in a hospital bed.” A female voice behind them said, shattering the moment.
Barry gasped, whipping his head around so fast that somehow he and Len fell out of the bed, on the opposite side Len had been standing on. He landed on Len's chest and the man scooped him up with one arm, pulling him along as he stood up.
“How did you do that? That was really fast.” The teenager said.
“Barry is really fast.” Len said, helping him back into the bed. Suddenly the door burst open and Dr. Wells came rushing back in.
***
It had been a month since Barry had woken up. He'd joined the team, the STARS, Cisco said the name was a work in progress. Cisco had also made suits for both Barry and Jesse, but Dr. Wells insisted that Jesse wasn't joining the team and Joe agreed that she was still a kid and shouldn't be fighting criminals. Unfortunately there were more metahuman criminals than heroes, and while Captain Cold was tracking Killer Frost in Coast City, Cyborg and Firestorm were fighting the Weather Wizards and Pied Piper was being restrained by Vibe back at STAR Labs after being hit with the recently awakened Prism's ability to control emotions. Apparently Piper really wanted to blow up his parent's mansion right now. Which meant that when Flash was affected by Prism too the only one who could actually stop him from attacking his friends was Jesse, who could match his speed.
The police were trying to sort out the people who had been fighting in the bank to distract from Prism's robbery, and the press had followed the heroes and now pointed cameras at the red and yellow blurs that circled each other outside the bank. Every so often one of the speedsters would tumble across the road as the other managed to trip or throw them, but they always got right back up again and the reporters were treating it like a show at this point, wondering who the new speedster was.
Suddenly a white van with the STAR Labs logo on the side sped through the crowd, swerving to a stop as close to the speedsters as possible. The side doors swung open and Detective West jumped out of the passenger seat.
“Jesse, quick! Grab the Flash, make him look into the lights!” West shouted at the speedsters.
Suddenly the cameras caught the smaller speedster struggling to hold the Flash in a headlock in front of the huge panel of flashing lights.
***
“Jesse Quick, the new speedster is seen here helping to cure the Flash of an affect of another metahuman's ability. Prism, who can control emotions reportedly influenced the Flash...”
“Can you believe that! Leonard, Barry and now Jesse! When was the last time I got to name a hero. It's always villains now.” Cisco whined as the news broadcast continued.
“You didn't pick my name either, and Firestorm's name is because of Professor Stein's Firestorm Matrix.” Hartley said.
“What are you complaining about? I'm the one they went ahead and named. Joe was just yelling at me, that wasn't supposed to be a name!”
“You don't need a name Jesse, you're not doing this again anytime soon.” Dr. Wells said as Jessie sped out of the room in a huff.
***
“Do you think they'll be able to help Caitlin?”
“I don't know, Barry. I'm just glad I finally managed to catch her. I think everyone will be happy as long as they can keep her from killing anyone.” Len said.
They were back in Barry's apartment, he'd felt like he needed more space now that he spent so much time with his sort-of boyfriend who could freeze everything in a room in seconds. His time was usually split between work as a CSI and helping out with the STARS but he and Len usually managed to get together a few times a week. Everyone else at STAR Labs considered them to be boyfriends, but sometimes that didn't seem like the right definition to Barry. He still had trouble sometimes, taking a step back and remembering that this was someone he needed to get to know, someone who wasn't the same hero he'd built up in his mind from one single memory in his childhood. Sometimes Len seemed to have the same problem, but they both really wanted it to work out. The problem was that anything more than a brief kiss made both of their abilities go out of control.
“You know Len, sometimes you do make me cold.” Barry said.
“I don't mean to.” Len said, a sad look crossing his face.
“I don't mind, actually, I think it's your way of flirting.” Barry teased.
Len actually started blushing, it was the first time Barry had seen him blush, and the temperature dropped a little more around Barry as frost dusted the counter he was leaning on.
“See, this is totally you flirting with me right now.” Barry said with a huge grin as his breath fogged the air.
Len leaned over the counter that was between them and kissed Barry. “I don't know if I can control it. If we do more...I don't want to hurt you Barry.” He said after pulling away.
Barry was fast. Everything about him now was fast, and he understood why they should be careful, but you can't just kiss a guy, be the perfect boyfriend, and not expect the guy to put out. Or maybe that was just Barry, and his really fast hormones. Either way he was really in the mood right now, and Len being so sweet and caring with him when everyone else thought he was cold as ice was not turning him off.
So he sped around the counter, half dragging, half carrying Len to his bedroom and pulling him down on top of him on the bed. Len needed a minute to get his bearings, but he stared down at Barry who was breathing hard already and kicking off his shoes.
“Barry, we shouldn't-”
“Practice makes perfect. We can at least try." Bary spoke breathlessly already, excited as he slid one hand up under Len's shirt so that he could feel the man's chest.
Len stared at him a moment longer, but Barry could see in his wide lust filled eyes, the desire that Len felt for him. Then Len threw his coat off his shoulders, tossing the sweater off next and leaving Barry long enough to get rid of his shoes too. Barry tossed his own shirt aside and waited for Len to climb back into the bed. He was still cold, but like every time they had kissed so far Len was getting warmer the longer they touched. The room around them was chilly but Barry was so hot he was nearly sweating, and feeling Len's cool skin was actually a relief.
Len pulled back with a smirk, relishing the fact that not a single fractal of ice had touched Barry's skin. "I guess practice is going well so far, I don't know how much farther we can take it though."
“We should find out. Right now,” Barry panted.
Len chuckled, trailing kisses down Barry's bare skin, and making him shiver with pleasure instead of chills.
Barry's speed was starting to amp up again though, and his whole body shook as Len pressed closer until they were chest to chest and nose to nose and pressing every inch of their bodies together. He kissed Len hard not wanting to give up just yet and Barry ran his hands over Len's back, nails digging in as he finally broke the kiss.
Barry pulled back and rolled out of Len's arms, leaning closer to the edge of the bed with a sigh. Ice crackled around them, not touching him at least but still running rampant throughout the room. Len collapsed beside him with a sigh of his own and they both wound up staring at the ceiling. Practice. It sure had better make perfect someday. Barry was startled out of his thoughts as he felt Len's fingertips brush the back of his hand where it lay between them on the mattress.
Len's skin was warmer than Barry had ever felt it. It might almost be approaching the human normal, so the fingers that entwined with his own weren't uncomfortable.
Barry smiled. “We just have to keep practicing, definitely keep practicing.”
“Sucker for punishment, aren't you?” Len Chuckled.
***
3 Months Later
“Well, I think we figured that out.”
“Don't think you're going to freeze me any more do you?” Barry said with a laugh. Len's chest was pressed up against his back, one arm under Barry's head and the other draped over his waist. His skin kept throwing off lazy sparks here and there when Len touched him but Len insisted that they didn't hurt.
“Just everything else apparently.” Len said, waving a hand at the room beyond them. Barry raised his head from where it was pillowed on Len's arm and looked around. His entire bedroom, starting just a foot from the edges of the bed, was covered in an inch of ice and frost. The bed didn't have a single speck of ice on it, the cold starting beyond where they lay.
“Is it on the ceiling too?” Barry said in surprise, noticing the wide circle clear of ice just above the bed.
“Apparently. Are you cold?” Len asked, brushing his nose against Barry's ear.
“No.” Barry was a little surprised by that actually. Len was still warmer than his usual, but with how much ice was in the room it should be colder. “Maybe it's not just cold. Maybe you're subconsciously not lowering the temperature near us, keeping us warmer on purpose?”
“You should work at STAR Labs. You always have a theory about everything.”
“Mmm... I'll fill out an application tomorrow.” Barry said, drifting off to sleep.
***
“I love you, Flash.” Captain Cold said, holding tighter to his sleeping lover.