Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Barry could admit, almost two years since he’d been struck by lightning, and several months since he’d been betrayed by Captain Cold at Ferris Air, that he enjoyed having a nemesis. Especially since his dedicated supervillain, unlike any that might claim to belong to The Arrow, had set principles he followed thanks to his encounters with The Flash, and a certain flare for dramatics that Barry enjoyed more than he’d ever say out loud to the leader of The Rogues.

Joe had never been on board with their arrangement, but the rest of Team Flash had slowly come around just as Barry had, and they appreciated the truce—their tentative bargain that Cold would keep Barry’s identity secret, and avoid involving innocents or allowing for anyone to get killed during his heists, and in turn Barry would only stop Cold for show.

If he defeated Cold, the Rogue would inexplicably manage to get away before being taken into custody, though a few times he’d stick around, let himself be truly and fully caught only to break out of custody later. And if Cold won, well, he was careful with just how much of Barry he iced with his cold gun, trading banter and taunts more than actual blows.

If Barry was being completely honest, it was like an occasional vacation day in his otherwise hectic life as a superhero. Too often he had real threats to deal with: people who wanted to destroy the city, kidnap or murder someone, actually cause trouble that could get a lot of people hurt. Even the other Rogues weren’t as easygoing as facing Cold. They followed their leader’s rules, of course, but they weren’t as nice to Barry with mere glancing blows.

But Cold…Barry always looked forward to facing him, staring him down with a grin, drawing the fights out, meeting every pun Cold threw at him with one of his own—when he could; the man was notorious for winning at that game—and just simply having fun. They had an understanding, a rhythm, a powerful respect for each other that made Ferris Air feel like a distant memory.

Barry had had a positive influence on Leonard Snart, who in turn had had a positive influence on other criminals in Central City, many of them metas that would be too dangerous in the regular population of Iron Heights. And Barry was a better hero because of Cold. What was wrong with enjoying their game from time to time?

Joe was the one who’d warned him that as much as the arrangement between him and Cold might work out most of the time, and overall kept the city safer than if they didn’t have their pact, it also made him sloppy. Barry didn’t take Cold seriously anymore when they fought, because he expected Cold to go easy on him, to play and tease and let up if things got too intense.

“What happens the day he decides to take advantage of you again, Barry?”

Barry dismissed Joe’s concerns because he couldn’t imagine Cold ever having reason to do that. He would always turn a situation to his advantage when he could, that was true, but there was no future Barry could imagine where losing the truce they had would be beneficial to Cold. If anything, sometimes Barry wondered if the future held something even stranger for them, and maybe one day they wouldn’t have to play this game. He’d asked for Cold’s help before and knew he probably would again, and the fact that that didn’t seem bizarre at all had to mean something. Cold enjoyed the chase more than any of the things he stole.

So no, Barry didn’t expect an ambush or betrayal to be the downfall of their common dance. He certainly never expected that his sloppiness with Cold, or Cold’s ease and comfort with him, would trigger a change from something far more terrifying than Cold turning on him.

“That the best you got, Scarlet? I figured you’d be quicker on your toes. Piper’s already long gone with the haul while you’re wasting time with me,” Cold said, icing the ground in front of Barry, but that was an old trick by now, and Barry knew how to dash around it and keep his feet on ground with traction.

He spun, darted behind Cold, and dashed left when the Rogue sensed his presence and turned back around with a spray from the cold gun following him. “Are you getting near-sighted in your old age, Cold, because so far you’ve failed to land a single hit,” Barry called back.

Cold scowled from behind his goggles within the hooded parka. “Am I keeping you past your curfew, kid? Wouldn’t want Detective West to wait up worrying. You still live at home, don’t you?” He blasted a lamp post that froze solid, creaked and teetered, and eventually toppled, forcing Barry to zig-zag out of its path.

Age was never a good subject for their banter; it always ended the same, with Cold calling him ‘kid’ several more times instead of ‘Flash’ or ‘Scarlet’. Barry much preferred the latter two.

They were in the warehouse district where Captain Cold and Pied Piper had interfered with an entirely different heist Barry had been trying to stop. A local mafia group had stolen an armored car, and just as they’d turned onto what appeared to be an abandoned street with Barry ready to flash in and save the day, the Rogues had leapt in to intercept, while Barry kept busy with the middle men. By the time he’d beaten down all of the mafia goons, Piper was driving off with the truck, while Cold hung back to keep Barry from following.

There was no one around save a few unconscious men almost a full block away now since they’d moved to an empty parking lot during the fight. It was late, dark, a handful of street lights illuminating the area in this part of town. They had the whole parking lot and several city blocks all to themselves. It was everything Barry would have asked for after a busy work week.

“Hurry it up, Barry, you’re letting Piper get away!” Cisco called into his ear.

Oops. Barry had forgotten to actually care about the armored car once Cold was on the scene, but he did have responsibilities and couldn’t play tag all night. He just had to get in a good hit, and he could speed off after Piper. “Working on it,” he spoke into the coms and turned to face Cold again.

“Sorry to cut this short, Cold,” he said, standing squared off against the Rogue, “but you’re slowing me down.”

“Oh, so frigid, Flash,” Cold scoffed, “and here I thought we had a rapport going.”

Barry grinned. “Maybe next time I’ll put you on ice.”

“Try me,” Cold said with a pleased laugh, gun aimed and ready.

Barry couldn’t resist going for one more hit, one more pass. He had time to catch up to Piper.

So he flashed forward and let everything slow. There was Cold directly ahead of him, decked out in his usual gear, the navy parka with the fur-lined hood up, the black sweater, pants, gloves, and boots, the goggles, the taunting smirk on his face. Barry felt a thrill racing toward Cold that could not be reproduced with any other villain—his counterpart, his nemesis.

Barry moved fast enough to watch the slow progression of Cold’s hand on the trigger, readying to fire at him with a pleased smirk, and thought that maybe he’d snatch the gun right out of Cold’s hands, pause halfway across the lot with it to toss it to the pavement, before firing off one last witty one-liner and heading out. He wondered if Cold would feign a scowl or maintain his grin after being disarmed.

But in the split second before Barry reached the other man, extending his hands to take the gun, and shifting just slightly out of the spray of cold as it started to fire, a blue-gloved hand reached the gun first. Barry was too close to Cold to see where the hand came from, just noticed it stretch out and knock the gun away, moving not at the speed that Cold was going, but in time with Barry.

Barry flashed out of the speed force on the other side of Cold, confused by what he’d just seen. He hadn’t managed to grab the gun, because it had been knocked from Cold’s hands, clattering to the ground as he turned back to look at his nemesis. Cold seemed just as surprised, and whirled around to snarl at Barry, assuming he’d been the one to tug the gun from his fingers.

Barry couldn’t find any words, his brain still catching up, wondering if he’d imagined that blue hand and had been the one to knock Cold’s gun away himself without realizing it. He glanced at the gun, which rested on the ground harmlessly enough…but was sparking with aftereffects of yellow lightning, the shimmering blue cylinder that glowed within the inner workings of the gun appearing cracked.

Cold took advantage of Barry’s stunned staring and dove for it.

“Cold, wait!”

But he wasn’t fast enough, just standing there calling out rather than racing forward like he should have. Cold landed on the ground beside the gun, snatched it up into his hands, not seeming to notice its disrepair, and rolled onto his back to fire. He aimed for Barry’s feet, not truly angry, not meaning to hurt him, still playing by their rules as he always did, but the spray of cold never fired—not outward.

Cold’s scream was awful, blood curdling like Barry had never heard before, as the ice that should have shot forward backfired instead, encasing his whole arm up to his elbow, and slowly, then faster and faster, started to climb higher.

Barry had seconds to react. If he didn’t do something, Cold would be consumed by the ice.

The déjà vu as he raced toward Cold was nauseating, everything slowing again like it had moments before when he’d only meant to disarm Cold, only this time, he might very well remove Cold of his arm in the process of ripping the malfunctioning gun away. But what else could he do?

Every inch closer to Cold—who was sprawled out on the ground, in pain, in serious trouble all because Barry hadn’t been able to resist going one more round with his nemesis—choked Barry with shame. He had to reach him. He had to save him.

And then it happened again.

Just before Barry reached Cold, he saw blue, but not only a blue-clad hand, a whole person, moving between them and leaving lightning in his wake so much like Barry’s own. He didn’t touch Cold or the gun this time, didn’t try to get in Barry’s way, just left the trail for Barry to speed into as he raced forward.

The colliding speed forces so near to Captain Cold and around the gun, started to react in ways Barry had never experienced, not any time he’d been close to Reverse Flash. It must be something about the gun, or maybe this other speedster, but the sparks of lightning increased, shimmered, glowed as Barry neared them even with the man in blue now gone.

Barry wondered in rapid succession if it was just an afterimage, or maybe a sign that he would go back in time at some point to prevent all this and he was seeing another version of himself, but then why was the man blue? At least he knew it couldn’t be Eobard—he dearly hoped not—back from the singularity.

But Barry didn’t have time to question further, focusing instead on Cold, on how he had to get to him, had to remove him of the cold gun before the ice climbed any higher, already up past his shoulder. His hood was thrown back from his head, his eyes wide and terrified behind the goggles as he stared at what was happening to him.

Barry was so close, almost there, just needed to reach one tiny bit further, ignoring the way the other speedster’s lightning reacted like a chemical fire to his own, filling his nose with ozone and a clench in his gut, until his hand touched the gun and everything erupted.

Barry was thrown back by the explosion, knocked yards away, not realizing how far until he gasped and rolled and found himself back by the frozen and toppled lamp post. Sparks of lightning filled the air all around him, but they were fizzling, subsiding in the aftermath.

“Cold!” Barry cried before he’d even zipped to his feet, uncaring to any damage he might have sustained, too panicked to even wonder if he’d been injured. He flashed across the pavement back toward where he’d left Cold on the ground, where the gun had gone off, where the colliding speed forces mixed with the damage of the gun had exploded.

“Barry, what’s going on?!” Caitlin cried over the coms. “Your heart rate…”

“What the hell was that noise?!” Cisco shouted.

But Barry tuned them both out. He stopped several feet from what remained of Cold. There was just a block of ice. The explosion had sped up the process, coated Cold completely, looking more solid and irreversible than ever before, and already cracking, crumbling apart into nothing…

“It’s all my fault…” Barry gasped, the pain so great in his chest, the rest of him felt numb, empty, barely able to stand. He let himself fall to his knees as he stared at the ice, what was left of Captain Cold who Barry had just let die. “It’s all my fault…”

“Barry?!”

“What’s happening?!”

“I killed him,” Barry said, hot and ready tears filling his eyes, the ache so powerful it burned. “The gun, it…it backfired, and…and the speed force…exploded…”

“Barry…” Caitlin called more softly, parsing together what he meant.

“Cold’s…dead?” Cisco said.

Hearing it spoken aloud almost made Barry sick all over the pavement. He hunched forward, pulling his hands to his chest, staring at the still cracking ice. Cisco and Caitlin kept talking at him, trying to get him to explain, telling him he must have done everything he could, that it wasn’t his fault, there was nothing he could have done, but that was such a lie.

The man in blue had orchestrated this. Knocked Cold’s gun away on purpose to break it. Collided their speed force trails together to cause the explosion. Barry didn’t know if the target had been him or Cold, but it didn’t matter. None of it would have happened if Barry had been faster, or if he’d simply gone after Piper right away like he should have.

“It was just a game,” Barry said brokenly, cutting off whatever Caitlin and Cisco were saying. “We were just…having fun. I never had to worry with him, not him, you know that, it was just a game.”

“Barry…”

Barry shook his head as the tears streamed down his face. Things had been so much better. They had an understanding, a respect for each other. He never wanted things to end like this. He’d never even thought about them ending.

The ice crumbled further with a loud creak. Barry could see the blue of Cold’s parka and had to turn away for a moment because he couldn’t watch the man’s body break into pieces. But he had to look back, he had to see this and know…only to watch the rest of the ice give way and reveal Cold looking whole and pristine in the wake of it.

Barry flashed to his feet. Was it a trick? In another moment, would the body crumble away too? But even the arm that had first become encased looked fine now, while the cold gun was in shattered pieces beside him. Even Cold’s skin didn’t look chapped or raw.

“Barry, please, you have to talk to us,” Caitlin tried again.

“Wait,” Barry said, breathless, too hopeful to believe what his eyes were telling him. “Just wait.”

He walked to Cold’s side, swiftly but not at Flash speed, too cautious to go that fast just now, and knelt beside him. He removed the glove from his right hand, reached out to feel Cold’s pulse. The slow but steady thrum beneath Barry’s fingers rejuvenated him, and he laughed through his still falling tears.

“He’s alive…he has a pulse, he’s alive!”

“Barry, you have to get him back here!” Caitlin said.

Barry nodded, eventually remembering that his friends couldn’t see him. “I’m coming right now, be ready,” he said, and gathered Cold into his arms, leaving the blown apart cold gun and lingering ice behind.

He looked around once for any sign of the man in blue, but when not even a stray spark of lightning caught his eye, he set his sights on S.T.A.R. Labs and getting Cold to safety.

Caitlin and Cisco waited for him in the main labs when he arrived. Caitlin ordered him to remove Cold of any and all unnecessary gear, and Barry flashed through taking off the parka, gloves, and goggles. It was almost a full minute later, with Caitlin checking his vitals, and Cisco bringing over machines to hook Cold up for a more thorough examination, that they all paused in wonder at the sight of his face.

“Does he look…younger to you guys?” Cisco broached the subject. “Not that I thought he looked old before, but…you know…the grey’s gone, and his face…”

“It’s all smoothed out…” Barry said. He hadn’t realized earlier, certainly not right after the incident, or with the goggles still covering part of Cold’s face. But now that he was in just his sweater, pants, and boots, they could really see him.

“We’ll sort that out later,” Caitlin said, “for now we need to make sure he’s healthy. Barry, I need you to go over in detail everything that happened.”

Barry explained about the cold gun breaking, backfiring, and how, when Barry dashed forward to try and save Cold from the effects of the gun, the speed force had erupted. Then he reminded himself that it hadn’t happened on its own, and described the man in blue.

“A speedster in blue?” Cisco said. “Another evil Flash? Just what we need…”

“He was fast,” Barry said, “but I don’t know if faster than me or just…good at catching me off guard. I wasn’t prepared for him either time, but he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. I didn’t get a good look at him, just the general shape of a person, the blue suit…”

“We’ll figure it out, Barry,” Caitlin said. “For now…Cold’s okay.” She paused in her work with Cold to place a gentle hand on Barry’s arm.

While Caitlin and Cisco worked, Cold still unconscious, which worried Barry more than he could say, he changed out of the Flash suit into some sweats and paced around the labs waiting for news. Cold’s vitals, at first glance, all seemed normal, despite the apparent de-aging.

Barry worried that something about the speed force and time travel had been the cause. What if Cold had lost all of his memories from after he was the age he appeared to be now, and Barry had accidentally reset his supervillain to ten years younger, or more? At least that would be better than having killed him, but Barry didn’t think he could forgive himself for stealing years of Cold’s life away either.

They had a heart monitor on him, no IV, no need just yet, and Caitlin was checking a blood sample, when Barry thought he saw a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. He glared in the direction he’d seen it, standing up, on guard, but when nothing more appeared, he wondered if he was just imagining things now, too distraught to think clearly.

“Barry, you have to look at this,” Cisco called from beside Caitlin at one of the monitors.

“What is it?” Barry said, passing a glance at Cold on the nearby hospital bed, looking unfairly peaceful in his sleep, before joining the other two, Caitlin seated, and Cisco hovering behind her.

“Cold’s blood sample,” Caitlin said. “We don’t have a previous sample to compare against, but I can tell by looking at it that it isn’t normal. In fact, if I compare it to a sample of yours…there are several similarities.”

“The explosion mixed his DNA with mine?” Barry asked.

“I don’t know… The samples aren’t identical by any means—he wouldn’t have your speed, for example, judging by what I see here, but the regeneration…” She shrugged, and glanced at Cold herself. “He’s returned to his prime, maybe from being in the speed force with you, syncing with you somehow and de-aging to match. He doesn’t seem quite as young as you, but close. His healing, his metabolism. That explosion mixed with the speed force was like a mini particle accelerator going off.”

Barry’s eyes widened. “And with the cold gun…”

“You turned Cold into a meta, Barry,” Cisco said.

It wasn’t good news or bad, really, just shocking, and nearly impossible with all of the factors that had had to fall into place for this to have happened without killing Cold instead.

“Maybe that was the man in blue’s plan all along.” Cisco frowned thoughtfully. “He didn’t attack you directly. Maybe he knew…maybe he wanted this to happen.”

“But why?” Barry said.

A soft groan alerted them all back to the bed. Barry was at Cold’s side in seconds, Cisco and Caitlin rushing over as well. Cold shifted in place like he was in pain. He blinked groggily around the room, his hand finding the heart monitor beneath his hitched up sweater before he recognized the faces looking down at him.

“What happened?” he asked in a gruff, exhausted voice. “I remember...pain…” His eyes snapped open. “The gun! My hand…” He stared at his right hand, which was fine, safe, not covered in ice, but as he looked at it…that slowly began to change.

Barry shook his head, assuming he was imagining it, thinking back to the night’s events and what he had seen when the cold gun backfired. But the more he watched, he couldn’t deny that this was indeed happening again. From seemingly out of nowhere, Cold’s hand became encased in ice, and the ice continued to spread up his arm toward his elbow.

Cold cried out, sat up in the bed, holding his right arm out away from him, staring in horror, and Barry waited for that same blood-curdling scream…

And then he saw it again—the flash of blue. Barry wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t sure he was even really seeing anything, but he wasn’t about to be caught off guard again when Cold was panicking in front of him after something this strange speedster had purposely caused.

Barry flashed forward, reaching out for the blue blur, that within the speed force slowed to Barry’s own speed. Barry could see the body, the suit, and with his attention fully on this man, it was almost too easy to grab him by the arm and throw him away from the hospital bed before he could reach it. A crash sounded as the man slammed into a nearby table, toppling and rolling onto the floor as his speed was interrupted. Whatever he had been about to do to Cold, Barry wouldn’t allow it.

He zipped to the man in blue and snatched him up by the front of his suit, so like Barry’s own, he saw—the leather-like jacket, pants, and gloves. Goggles similar to Cold’s covered his face along with a cowl, though it didn’t cover the top of his head like Barry’s, and had sharp protrusions more straight back than Barry’s lightning bolts at his ears.

His hair was shorn short and dark brown, his skin through the opening of the mask a smooth mocha complimented by the blue. The symbol on his chest wasn’t a bolt either, but a tilted 4-point star in white, with a straight on star overlapping it but not connecting, only the points visible, creating something like a spark or jagged snowflake.

“Who are you? What do you want with Cold? Why are you doing this?!” Barry demanded, ready to hurl the man back into the wall if he resisted.

Only he didn’t resist. He pulled the goggles from his eyes and cool blue looked at Barry through the mask, wide, surprised, scared even, while gloved hands came up to hold to Barry’s wrists gently. “I—”

Cold cried out again. Barry risked a glance back to see that this momentary distraction wasn’t enough to hold off the creeping ice from crawling further up Cold’s arm.

“I’m trying to help!” the man in blue cried, dragging Barry’s attention back to him. “Please,” he squeezed Barry’s wrists, but wasn’t fighting, wasn’t struggling. His eyes were beseeching. His voice…sounded so familiar somehow, but Barry couldn’t place it. “I can help. Let me help.”

“You caused this,” Barry growled at him.

“I had to!” the…kid insisted. He sounded too young, and looked it too—his eyes, what Barry could see of his face, despite his mostly grown body. “I had to,” he said again. “It would have happened anyway, I just had to make sure it happened right. Please let me help.”

Cold was breathing heavily on the bed, though he didn’t sound in pain, just frightened, unsure, as the ice reached his shoulder, and Caitlin and Cisco stood back not knowing how to help.

Barry glared into this stranger’s familiar blue eyes—everything about him felt like déjà vu, and Barry didn’t like it, didn’t trust it, but he didn’t know how else to help Cold through this. He set the kid in blue down none too gently.

“Then help him. But if you try anything else…” He let the threat linger.

The kid nodded, and flashed around Barry toward the bed, setting Barry on edge to see another speedster zip around him so easily, but feeling at a loss for anything else to do. Caitlin and Cisco backed away, while the kid held up his hands nonthreateningly as he approached Cold on the bed.

“It’s okay…it’s okay, it doesn’t hurt, right? Because it’s yours now, not the gun’s. It doesn’t really hurt,” he said, like talking down a frightening child. Admittedly, Barry had never seen Cold look so spooked.

Cold stared at his ice covered arm, and frowned, furrowed his brow, seemed to convince himself that the kid was right—it didn’t hurt, not like before when Barry had heard him keen in such awful pain.

“You can control it,” the kid said. “Look, I’ll show you. It’s easy…” He lifted his own right hand, and from out of his palm grew a swirl of ice that soon covered him like an extra glove and expanded into a gauntlet covering his whole arm. Then he retracted it, willing it to recede and melt away until it vanished again like it had never been there.

This kid had the same powers. Ice…and speed. It didn’t make any sense.

Barry exchanged a worried, helpless look with Caitlin and Cisco, who remained backed away from the bed, away from this stranger, and watched on.

Cold’s breathing had even out, his expression calmer, collected, as he took in what the kid had showed him and looked at his own arm to attempt the same. With all the stubborn resolve and control Barry had come to expect from this man since they first met, he stared the ice down…until it started to drift away from his shoulder, retreating slower than what the kid had accomplished, but still dissolving, until finally Cold was left with his normal arm again. It didn’t look wet from the ice, or frost covered. It looked perfectly fine, as if untouched.

Cold tightened his fist, and ice coated his hand again for a moment, then receded just the same as he got a handle on controlling it better. He paused to narrow his eyes at the kid beside the bed, still sitting up, not relaxing or letting his guard down.

“Who are you?” he demanded, and Barry took that as his cue to step in as well.

“You forced the cold gun to the ground when I was just trying to take it,” Barry said, stalking forward so that the kid was trapped between him and Cold on the bed. “You meant to break it. And when I tried to help, you ran in front of me to heighten the speed force, so that when my connection collided with yours…”

“Boom.” The kid grinned back at him. “That was pretty cool, right?”

Barry resisted the urge to snatch the kid up by the scruff of his suit again, but Cold didn’t afford him the same luxury. He ripped the heart monitor from his chest as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Wait!” Caitlin called out with a rush back toward them, but Cold held up a hand, shook his head to say he was fine.

He stood, boxing the kid in between him and Barry even more tightly, and towered over him, the kid maybe an inch shorter like he had one more growth spurt in him before he’d be his full height. “Who are you?” Cold demanded again. “You’re not answering our questions. You’re not denying anything Flash is saying either. Why did you do this to me?”

It amazed Barry that even when Cold sounded angry, he never sounded out of control, which made his tone all the scarier in Barry’s opinion, full of power and promise like the eye of a storm.

The kid flinched, turned to better look at Barry and Cold at the same time without being caught between them, but ended up backing into a table. “Okay!” He held up his hands as Barry took a step closer to him too, taking Cold’s lead.

With the goggles already hanging from his neck, slowly the kid pulled back his cowl, revealing his full face, and…wow, no wonder the eyes and voice had seemed familiar. He looked so much like Cold. His eyes especially, and even though he was darker skinned, the facial features held a similarity too, with maybe just a touch of something at his mouth that was also familiar to Barry but in a different way, an echo of someone else.

Barry looked to Cold for an explanation, because this kid had to be related to him, he had to be, but Cold seemed as confused as Barry.

“I’m Michael,” the kid said. He couldn’t be older than sixteen. “And I told you. It would have happened anyway, I just had to make sure it happened right.”

“Meaning what? How would you know that?” Cold asked, looking even younger to Barry now as he compared him against this teenager. Cold didn’t know about that part, that he looked—was—younger, but it obviously hadn’t affected his mind.

Michael’s eyes darted between them, then looked aside at Caitlin and Cisco, who had started to press in from the other side of the bed. “I’m not supposed to say anything! I wasn’t even supposed to let you see me. You told me to stay out of sight and come home right after,” he pointed at Cisco, “but I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

Cold whirled around accusingly, and Cisco snapped back, shaking his head, “What? I’ve never even seen this kid before!” but Barry began to understand.

“You’re from the future,” he said, arms folded, head bowed as the pieces fell into place. “You have my powers too, the speed force. You came back in time to make sure this happened.” He looked up, eyes narrowed now but not as accusing as Cold still looked.

Cold knew the ins and outs of Barry’s powers, but the time travel aspect had never affected him directly. Barry sometimes thought Cold didn’t quite believe him about that part, but he looked more convinced now.

Michael just nodded.

“But I don’t get it,” Cisco said, walking around the bed since Cold was no longer glaring at him. “How do you have both Cold’s and Barry’s powers? We’ve never seen a meta with two full power sets before.”

“I was born with them,” Michael shrugged.

“Born,” Caitlin repeated, awed and interested now, “metas are going to be born? How?”

He was a striking kid with the darker skin and bright eyes, the lean body within the blue suit. But something nagged at the back of Barry’s mind, something about the kid’s smile, something else in his voice that didn’t fully belong to Cold, something strange and impossible.

Michael gave another hunched shrug, seemingly so small with Barry and Cold so close on either side of him, practically pinning him to the table, while Cisco and Caitlin closed in as well. “Because my parents have these powers. Cold…and Lightning. They call me Hailstorm. But my real name,” Michael said, looking up very purposely at Captain Cold…and then at Barry, “is Michael Joseph Allen-Snart.”

TBC...

Chapter Text

Len’s body went numb, as if he’d once again been enveloped in ice.

The terrible pain of the cold gun misfiring and eating up his arm clung to the back of his mind; the intensity of the explosion, not pleasant but not the same kind of pain, more like feeling stretched and twisted and then molded back together. He had thought nothing could faze him anymore after meeting The Flash and working with so many metas with strange and otherwise unexplainable abilities. But even almost dying tonight and coming out of it instead with superpowers couldn’t compete with what this kid had just spouted.

“Allen-Snart?” Cisco repeated, incredulous, as if the ‘Snart’ part was no surprise, only the hyphen.

"What does that even mean?" Len ground out, too flustered to gather his composure. "Who’s your mother? Who’s your father? How—” He cut himself off with a fierce shake of his head, stepping closer into the kid’s space. Len could admit that Michael resembled him, he wasn’t blind, but too many questions swirled within him. “You can’t imply I’m your father to explain the ice, and Flash is your father to explain the speed—at the same time.”

Michael shrank away from him, his blue eyes wide and pleading and so much like Lisa’s—shit—while his youthful face seemed even younger, barely old enough to drive a car let alone wear a suit like that and mean it. “Why not?” he said in a small voice that sounded—shit, shit—like Barry Allen.

“Because people can’t have two fathers biologically,” Len snapped. He knew he was cracking, his voice rising too loudly, too angry, but this was insane.

“Cold,” Barry interjected, a firm but gentle hand on his shoulder, pulling him back from Michael. From Michael Allen-Snart. Michael Joseph Allen-Snart—after Detective West? Figures.

Len took a breath, rhythmic and deep, closed his eyes and took another, then turned to Barry. Uncertainty warred within the speedster’s hazel eyes, but he steeled his gaze and nodded once to Len, an unspoken understanding passing between them that they needed to handle this calmly, together. Len nodded back to him.

They turned to face Michael as a unified front, and the kid visibly shuddered.

“Just explain,” Barry said. “Is it simpler than we’re thinking? Did our, like…children hook up in the future, and you’re our grandson or something?”

Len didn’t have it in him to counter that argument. Biological children were out of the picture for him period. But then he’d never been upfront about his sexuality with Barry. It was a need-to-know-basis fact about him; what was it anyone else’s business who he slept with? He’d just figured Barry knew.

“No…you’re my dads,” Michael said.

His dads—Len and Barry—so offhandedly stated, a curve to the kid’s lips that was all Barry—all Barry—while the rest looked like Len.

“How?” Len asked again, still simmering with unchecked anger. “Did someone create you as some cruel joke?”

“Snart.” It was Snow this time, her and Cisco having cleared the bed so that the four of them made a semi-circle around Michael. She widened her eyes at him in some leading, silent plea. Len shot her a glare.

But Michael merely snorted, and with a roll of his eyes and twitch of a smile returning to his lips, said, “Yeah, you, Pop. Sure feels like a cruel joke today.”

Did he just call Len—?

“But I’m no superhero/supervillain test tube baby like Con—” Michael slapped his hands over his mouth, appalled he’d apparently almost said something he shouldn’t have. He spoke through his fingers, “Oh my god, I have to stop talking. I’m not supposed to tell you anything! I need to go home...”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Barry said, ignoring Michael’s plea, his eyes trained on the floor as if he was all up in his head. “How far into the future are you from? I mean, sure, Cold and I get along, and we don’t fight the way I do with most of the other villains, but it’s not like we’re dating. We’ve never even flirted before!”

This time Len managed to hold his anger in check, though he clenched his fists, biting back a retort, only for Cisco and Snow to both huff in disbelief on his behalf. He stared at them. So did Barry. So did Michael.

“Did we just…make that noise out loud?” Cisco said, shuffling subtly away from the others, seeming pleased that he was on the end, with Snow between him and Len. “Okay, so…I don’t know what you call what you two do Friday nights, but to the rest of us…” He shrugged, and Snow surrendered to how they’d both been caught and mirrored the gesture.

Barry's jaw dropped. "Seriously? You two think…?”

They shared a look—another shrug. Well. Cisco and Snow had picked up on Len’s advances, but it seemed Barry hadn’t been on the same wavelength.

Len refused to be hurt by that. They were enemies after all, opponents at the very least, and more to the point…Len was practically twice the kid’s age! He never had any delusions about whisking the speedster off his feet when he was the same age as Barry’s adopted father. He just enjoyed the banter, the furtive looks, the way the Flash suit hugged Barry’s body, and his boyish, 1000 watt smile.

But when Barry looked at him, searching for corroboration that he wasn’t the only one in the dark about this, Len couldn’t lie. He only lied with purpose, not because he was a coward; he couldn’t start being one now. He looked back at Barry steadily, not nodding or denying anything, just returned his gaze unflinching.

“That was…flirting?” Barry said with a quiet gape.

Len wasn’t used to embarrassment; he lived life his own way and embraced his eccentricities, but for once he felt heat rise in his cheeks and he hated it. It made him feel like some lovesick idiot that he’d fallen for this boy, this bumbling unshakable hero, and rather than be rejected he hadn’t even been considered.

“Jeez, Dad, you are so dense,” Michael laughed, more relaxed with the attention shifted away from him. “You always said you were clueless back then...back now...but I’ve heard stories."

Len frowned at the kid, this impossible figure who didn’t seem any more possible as the minutes passed, not to him. Len still suspected a ruse, a trick, a lie—he always did. Barry didn't want him; he certainly wouldn't want a child with him. So Len crossed his arms, shielding himself from Michael and what he had to say.

"Aunt Lisa told me everything. And anything she didn’t know, Iris filled in." He grinned wide…then pouted with worry after glancing up and down Len’s standoffish posture. "You don’t believe me… But you have to! I can’t risk making things worse! Dad,” he turned to Barry, “please. You trust me, right? You said you started falling for Pop that time in the woods when he first saw your face."

Len tightened his arms across his chest, glancing aside for Barry's reaction to that. He refused to take anything this kid said at face value, but Barry looked...guilty? Red in the cheeks like he'd suddenly blushed?

“And Pop said it was even earlier for him, but the woods definitely clinched it. I know things got all tense and weird for a while, but all of that changed. It’s already changed. You getting your powers is when…” He pursed his lips as he turned back to Len, brow scrunching in an expression Len rarely saw on his own face, but that he recognized of Lisa, and he realized how similar their eyes were—his and Lisa’s…and Michael’s.

Len felt like he couldn’t move. If he even twitched, certainly if he lowered his arms, something in the air would snap, and the lie would unravel, revealing him as the butt of that cruel joke he’d mentioned. He could feel Barry’s eyes on him, not on Michael, staring, lips still parted in that adorable, unfair gape.

“Dad…” Michael said again to pull Barry’s attention back on him, in his Barry-like voice, with a hint of Len’s own, sadder now, dripping with remorse and desperation that certainly sounded genuine. “The reason I stayed behind when I was supposed to head straight home was because of how wrecked you looked when you thought Pop was dead. I hated having to do that to you. Seeing you like that, crying over him, made me so worried I’d screwed it up, but then the ice cracked and it was fine.” He beamed a bright, 100% Barry Allen smile.

Len glanced at the real Barry, because…had he really looked like that? Had he cried over Len, when he thought he was dead?

“I just wanted to go back with you for a few minutes until Pop woke up,” Michael said. “And then he looked so scared from the ice, and I…I wasn’t thinking. Please don’t freak out and nullify my existence!” he cried with a cringe at how seriously crazy that sounded, blue eyes darting between Len and Barry. “I know you don’t know it yet, but you will love each other so much someday. Like sickenly so. Like, it’s embarrassing,” he choked a strained laugh. “Raf and I bond over the utter embarrassment that is our parents all the time.”

“Raf?” Snow spoke up. “You have a brother?”

“Cousin.” Michael snapped his mouth shut before exclaiming, “Stop getting more details out of me! Urg, I am so screwing this up.” His gaze strayed rather tellingly toward Cisco then, who looked startled, then worried, then contemplative…before catching Len’s gaze and going right back to startled.

“You still haven’t explained how this is possible,” Snow said, her expression the only one remaining clinical and patient. “You really do look like a combination of Barry and Cold in some ways, but your skin tone…”

“Oh that’s from Aunt Iris,” Michael said offhandedly then closed his eyes with a sigh at his utter inability to keep from answering their questions. “Crap, I guess I have to tell you that much too. See, Cisco developed the technology to combine DNA for same sex couples. He found that allowing for a little overlap of DNA with the surrogate helps stabilize everything better. It’s really fascinating. I’ve been doing a genetics project on it in school, and…well, it doesn’t matter, but Iris really liked it, said it made you guys even more like brother and sister if I had some of her too,” he smiled hopefully at Barry.

Iris West, Barry’s not-sister, had carried Michael? That’s why he was such a lovely shade of mocha? The part of Len that wondered if Michael was telling the truth had assumed it was because his own mother was black.

But no, he shook his head; he was just falling for the con. This was a lie, the kid a phony. It was the only explanation.

“I am twice Barry’s age,” he growled, clinging to all of the reasons he knew why Barry would never, ever want to be with him. “And you’re from, what? Twenty years into the future? How would that even work?”

Michael swallowed a chuckle, and when Len took a step forward to counter his insolence, he realized that Barry, Cisco, and the good doctor were all staring at him as if there had been something very important left unspoken.

He passed his gaze to each of them. “What?”

Cisco snatched a tablet off the edge of the table Michael was leaned against, and jabbed at the screen before passing it to Len. Len frowned as he accepted the tablet and turned it toward him. It was setup for the camera, reflecting his own image back to him.

Len didn’t understand, but when he pulled the tablet closer, the frown lines he expected to see, especially around his eyes, were gone. His hair no longer held any speckling of grey, not that he had minded it.

“I estimate you’re closer to around thirty now at the cellular level,” Snow said. “Though, much like Barry and several of the other metas depending on their powers, you won’t age normally now, so it’s a bit of a moot point. For all we know, twenty years from now…neither you nor Barry will look like you’ve aged a day.”

“Maybe a few years older,” Michael said.

Len just stared and stared at his reflection. He wasn’t merely a meta with ice powers. He’d been de-aged by almost 15 years after his encounter with Barry, the speed force, and his exploding cold gun.

The one thing that annoyed Len about Barry after discovering his identity had been his youth. The power in him, his energy, the way his body looked and moved, Len loved all that, but his naivety was grating, how little he knew and understood of the world. It’s why Len pushed so hard in the beginning, because Barry needed to be better, stronger, smarter. Barry had achieved those things as quickly as he did anything else over the past year, but now Len had caught up with him in the one thing he’d been lacking.

It was all terribly convenient.

Len thrust the tablet back at Cisco. “This doesn’t prove anything. None of it proves a damn thing.” He swept his arm out to gesture between them all, but particularly at him and Barry—and Michael. “How do we know this isn’t some plot? I’ve seen my fair share of people coming into this city thinking they can get the better of The Flash. I’ve been one of ‘em. If this is some scheme…”

Michael shrank back as Len dropped his voice to a low threat, but it was Cisco who spoke up.

“Dude…he has your eyes.”

“And Barry’s smile,” Snow added.

“Anything can be faked.”

“Snart…” Barry tried, but Len rounded on him.

“What? Are you going to defend this kid, who you don’t even know and have no reason to trust, or are you going to wise up and realize what bullshit it is? You. Don’t. Want. Me,” Len said deliberately, with one purposeful, swooping step forward that made Barry cringe. “Why would you?”

Barry’s startled expression fell to accusation. “Me? What about you? Why would I have ever thought you were flirting, or even remotely interested before now? What could you possibly like about some gangly klutz of a superhero you constantly call ‘kid’ and try to attack?”

“Scarlet,” Len sneered, “you aren’t exactly hard on the eyes in that suit, ya know. Or out of it.”

“But we fight,” Barry’s face scrunched in disbelief, “almost every week. I mean, yeah, it’s fun, and…and maybe most of the time I look forward to it, but…”

Len felt some of his anger dwindle in the face of Barry’s confusion, in his skepticism that he was worth wanting. Len was the unworthy one; why didn’t the kid get that? “Do you think I’d ever hurt you now?”

“Of course not,” Barry said without hesitation. “I never have to worry about that with you.”

“Exactly. Why do you think that is, huh? Ramon and Snow might be the ones back here making sure you get out of each fight okay, but I am the only one out in the streets making sure you survive, keeping the other Rogues from playing too rough, and keeping anyone who’d go against us out of our city.”

Barry’s tense shoulders sagged in surprise, and Len wished he hadn’t been so forthright by calling it ‘our city’. “You do always follow the rules, always make sure no one gets hurt. Is the only reason you don’t believe Michael because you can’t see any good in yourself? There was even that girl the other week. She got in the way, Heat Wave had me pinned down, I couldn’t get to her, but when you saw her…”

Len averted his gaze to the floor as he remembered. He knew Flash wouldn’t have forgiven him if he let something happen to a civilian. “I just got her out of harm’s way.”

“You say that like it’s not significant.”

“It’s not significant if it’s still selfish motivation! It’s not enough if you only like some warped idea of who you think I am, Barry…”

“We have a son who’s a superhero!” Barry exclaimed. “Or at least acting like one. And it’s not like I’d expect you to change for me, Snart, or even to do anything different than how things have already been. But you made me a better hero, forced me to be better. Why can’t I want the same for you? Why can’t I want you to at least try?

“If you spent one month, hell, one week on Team Flash, just trying things from our side, and honestly didn’t get the same thrill from that as you do from pulling a heist, then fine, I’d never try to take that away from you. But if you did…god, what if you did? What if you liked playing hero? What if all the things that might have made this impossible stopped being an issue? Because age…wouldn’t have been one of them, not for me. Even if it was for you, that barrier’s gone now. I might be dense, I never could wrap my head around anyone wanting me, but if the only thing left that doesn’t make sense about this is the roles we play…”

Len took a step back as it dawned on him what Barry was arguing for. “You’re saying the only thing that would keep you from wanting me is that we’re enemies? Not why we’re enemies, or any of the things I’ve done? There’s nothing else you don’t like?”

That old, familiar, bashful smile teased at Barry’s lips, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. What’s your taste in music like?” he chuckled.

What could Len possibly do but laugh along, a little hysterically maybe, because…Barry didn’t want him to change. He just wanted him to try, to see if he might like life from another perspective, but even if that wasn’t to be, he’d still accept Len just as he was.

“So much has changed this past year,” Barry said. “You’ve kept the city safer in some ways, muscling out other groups, keeping the Rogues in check. You always enjoy yourself so much, and you have this…style,” that was clearly a blush amidst his wide smile, “and I love how much you love the game, the names and personas.

“That night in the woods, any time it was only you and me, it all just…I don’t know. You always made me excited to see you, even to face off against you, even when I was pissed. So maybe I am a fool for not realizing you felt the same, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never thought about it, or wanted this. It just never seemed possible until now. This rhythm, this respect and understanding we have now, if there was a word for friendship where you kind of also sometimes want to punch the other person, we’d at least be that.”

“I think that’s still friendship,” Cisco chimed in, his voice startling after Len had put all of his attention on Barry. “Or rivalmance. You two definitely have that.”

Barry laughed, his eyes glancing around at Cisco before centering on Len again, which prompted another blush, another rub at his neck.

A great weight melted out of Len like an avalanche of ice. He was so in love with this boy, he didn’t know what to say.

“I just never thought you’d look at me as anything but some idiot kid,” Barry said with a shrug, and even that reminded Len of Michael; the physicality, the shyness.

“You are that sometimes, Scarlet,” Len said. “But most of the time you’re something else, something I can’t quite wrap my head around. And you should know by now…” he grinned as their gazes locked, “I do so love a challenge.”

Barry grinned back at him, dopey maybe, but beautiful.

A long, lingering, but not at all uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Len could look at Barry for hours, the full form of him, that face, in or out of the suit. He just liked to see Barry, to be with him. It didn’t matter if they had their personas in place. It didn’t matter what they were doing. Maybe he really could try on a hero’s hat for a time and see how it fit.

“Are you two done yet, coz this is getting awkward,” Michael’s voice brought Len back to the moment, as insane a moment as that might be.

Finally he turned to look at the kid again, and Michael wore an expression of fond exasperation that only a child embarrassed by his parents could achieve.

“Do you believe me now? Can I go home? Nobody thinks I’m some enemy in disguise?”

He didn’t sound worried anymore, and try as Len might, much as part of him nagged to be cautious in every situation, skeptical and discerning, he couldn’t sense any ill intent now that his main reasons for thinking the kid a liar had been debunked. Barry Allen wanted him after all, at least enough for them to try. Maybe Michael really was…theirs.

They regrouped, debated if there was any additional information they should try to pry out of Michael—not that it would take much—and finally decided that since no harm had been done and they didn’t believe the time continuum or whatever it was would suffer from the night’s events, Michael was free to go.

Though Snow did seem disappointed she couldn’t snag a blood sample, or attempt a DNA test. One look at the kid, if Len was being honest, was enough to forgo that.

“So, I’ll…see you around?” Michael grinned his Barry Allen grin at them as he pulled up his cowl and replaced the goggles.

“Seems so,” Len said, not exactly sure how to address this Michael Joseph Allen-Snart, or if a handshake would be more awkward than the rest of the conversation had been. But since Barry didn’t do more than shrug, wave, and wish the kid good luck, Len figured he could do the same.

“Does this mean in order to keep the timeline correct, you two are going to start dating?” Cisco asked with a slight grimace before Michael took off.

Len and Barry looked at each other. A son was too much to take in for one night, after facing near death and explosions and budding superpowers. A date was less daunting.

“How about some provisionary work with Team Flash, Captain Cold?” Barry said teasingly.

“Provisionary?” Cold repeated, nodding once. “I suppose we could see where that goes. As long as some things about our Friday nights remain the same.” He winked.

Barry blushed again, fully aware now of any flirtatious intent.

“Urg, seriously, you two,” Michael lamented, then readied a running stance before tossing them a small salute. “Bye, Dad. Pop. See you on the other side.” And he was off, disappearing in a blur of blue with streaks of yellow lightning.

As Snow and Cisco lapsed into a heated discussion about meeting a kid from the future, and all the things his existence implied—the genetics breakthroughs themselves remarkable—Len turned to Barry.

“Wanna grab some coffee, kid?” he asked, then frowned as he corrected himself, “I mean Barry. Guess I can’t call you ‘kid’ anymore if there’s barely five years between us. Lisa is going to be quite upset that we are practically the same age now. Don’t think I’ll ever tire of calling you ‘Scarlet’ though.”

Barry chuckled. “Good. I kinda like that one. Your treat tonight?”

“I suppose I owe you that. Piper did get away with the goods after all.”

Barry scowled at the reminder. “What are we going to do about The Rogues? I mean…if you start helping us? If you stay?”

Len shrugged, though there weren’t any ‘ifs’ about it. “We’ll figure it out.” He glanced down Barry’s body, at the kid’s—the speedster’s—S.T.A.R. Labs brand sweats, then looked at his own Cold gear, the black sweater and thermal pants. “Detour first. We’re not going out dressed like this. Think you can whisk us away?” He looked at Snow and Cisco again, who seemed to have forgotten them as they discussed Michael.

Barry followed Len’s eyes down his own body, down Len’s, then at the pair of scientists. He nodded. “Whisking is my specialty,” he said, and not for the first time, took Len’s breath away in moments.

XXXXX

Michael had only done this once before, on the way to the past to cause his father’s meta creation, but he felt confident navigating back through the speed force after his encounter with his parents that he so seriously might have screwed up but thought he’d salvaged by the end. When he surfaced on the other side, in the future where he’d come from, he arrived at the section of the Hall of Justice lovingly referred to as Team ColdFlash to find the same group of people waiting for him that had been there when he left.

“All right, Hailstorm!” Cisco high-fived him as he zoomed past and skidded to a stop beside Caitlin, who was tying back her ice-blue hair.

“Any trouble?” she asked, looking like she was getting ready to switch from her hero role to her scientist role for the evening. Firestorm—or at least the half that was her husband—stood nearby with a pleased smile. Even when he was just Ronnie, Michael thought he saw steam rise any time he and Caitlin touched. She’d taught him almost as much about his powers as Pop had.

“Don’t you remember? You were there!” Michael laughed, pulling down his goggles and pushing back his cowl.

“Never doubted you for a second, sweetie. She just means anything unexpected.” Aunt Lisa sat hoisted up on the console near Cisco, long legs dangling out of her skirt, hair golden as it wavered in unseen wind and seemed to glow.

“Why? What changed?” Michael asked, eyes darting between them all and finally landing on Cisco. “Did I screw something up?”

Vibe always knew when it came to timelines and alternate universes. Part of his powers were unique like that, and had been what convinced Michael he could actually pull this off when they told him he had to go back in time to ensure Pop got his powers.

“You didn’t change anything you need to worry about, Mikey,” Cisco said. “Just wizened your folks up a little sooner than the first time around, that’s all.”

“Sooner? Wait…” Michael flashed over to his uncle, who wore his now customary black, yellow, and red suit, his hair cut shorter with neatly trimmed facial hair. “Did you know I’d mess up like that and meet everyone?”

Cisco’s eyes rolled to the side, and the group of adults shared a conspiratorial shrug. Only Cisco himself, because of his powers, and those with him whenever an event like this occurred, were able to retain knowledge of more than one timeline. “Trust us, Mikey, their ignorant flirting sessions weren’t good for anyone.”

“Oh my god!” Michael pressed his hands to either side of his head. “Why didn’t you tell me we were changing things on purpose? What if I’d ruined everything?”

“What’s going on in here?” a voice called from the entrance.

Michael spun around to see his parents striding forward side by side, scowls in place on both their faces, and damn it, Michael should have known it was bullshit when Aunt Iris told him about this plan and that the only reason his parents weren’t going to be in attendance was because they worried about his safety. She’d been on diversion duty, the big liar.

Barry stepped around Caitlin, in full Flash suit but with his cowl pulled back like Michael’s. He barely looked older than how Michael had just left him, maybe five years but certainly not twenty. Len also had his hood drawn back, clad in the sleeveless suit Michael was more accustomed to. Pop didn’t look much older either, right in line with Dad, aging at a snail’s pace side by side with each other, like all the metas, which was nearly everyone in their ever-growing family now.

“Is this what I think it is?” Len shot an accusing look at Lisa. “Why didn’t you tell us it was time to send Michael back?”

“Oh…no reason,” Lisa shrugged.

“We just didn’t want you to worry,” Caitlin said, her lips a dazzling shade of blue to match her hair as she smiled at them.

Not a single accomplice looked truly innocent, but no one who’d been outside the room would ever know that events had once played out differently—and much, much slower.

“It didn’t really make that big of a difference meeting me, did it?” Michael asked, moving to join his parents in the center of the room. “I know I saw your confessions and all, but I figure it must have been a slow burn after that. Right?”

Barry and Len looked at each other, sharing a silent moment that Michael was only too used to.

“Oh yeah,” Barry finally said.

“Terribly slow,” Len added.

“Crawling speed.”

“Like a glacier.”

A round of snickers sounded from the others.

“They are liars and you should never trust anything they say,” Cisco said as he walked up to Michael. “At least not about this.”

Michael eyed his parents who were still smirking at each other, suspicions of the others forgotten, or at least deemed unworthy of their attention. “Urg, you guys are the worst,” he said, but the second the words left his lips, he flashed forward at speeds only he, Dad, Uncle Wally, and maybe a handful of others could accomplish, and tackled both his parents in matching one-armed hugs hooking each of their necks. “You’re welcome, by the way,” he said as he squeezed them.

Barry and Len both chuckled, hugging their son back with equal gusto. Michael didn’t see the way their smiles fell to something more poignant and heartfelt as they looked at each other around his back and Barry muttered a soft, “Thank you.”

XXXXX

Back in the past, Len and Barry never made it to coffee.

Barry flashed Len to the closest safe house where he had clothing they could both change into without having to stop at the West household. Barry still lived at home. Len would have to remedy that if they were going to explore…whatever this was between them. And Joe West would be an entirely different beast to deal with.

Len offered Barry full reign of his closet as he chose some articles for himself. He switched his pants first, but when he glanced back at the lithe speedster, his own black sweater half off over his head, he saw that Barry had, naturally, changed in a flash, and was gently exploring the closet as he looked at the rest of the hanging shirts and sweaters.

He had chosen a deep burgundy sweater, high-collared with a zipper at the neck. It wasn’t the right color for Len, and so he rarely wore it, but it seemed right at home on The Scarlet Speedster.

Len had grabbed a grey Henley for himself, but paused as he watched Barry fingering a soft, cream-colored sweatshirt. He let the sweater from his Cold gear fall to the floor, leaving him shirtless, and called to Barry, “Can you hand me that one, Scarlet? I think I need something warmer than what I chose.”

Barry jumped, startled at being caught admiring the sweatshirt, but complied at impressive speeds, though not quite Flash level. He turned back to hand Len the shirt and nearly dropped it when he found the other man bare-chested. Barry had never seen him in so little clothing before, or even with his sleeves rolled up, so Len allowed him the moment to take in the full array of tattoos that covered his arms, chest, and back.

“Wow…I didn’t know you had so many…wow,” Barry said, eyes wide and mouth hanging adorably. He swallowed with a bright blush that Len was growing so very fond of, and thrust the sweatshirt at him, which Len accepted gratefully.

Len smirked in the wake of Barry devouring him with his eyes, deciding that he’d use the opportunity to draw things out, let it sink in for Barry how he didn’t mind him looking, not one bit, and pulled the sweatshirt on slowly.

Barry licked his lips. “You really were flirting with me all that time, huh?”

“Not all the time,” Len said with a touch of defensiveness; he was also a man of business. “Though apparently, whether I was or not, you couldn’t tell the difference.” He winked as he pulled the sweatshirt the rest of the way on.

Barry turned away with a crooked grin, catching the flirt this time undoubtedly. “I’ll work on that.”

They were dressed, all crises averted for the night, the weight of pain and panic all drained away and leaving Len feeling exhausted. Though there was also a thrill running through him that he’d never experienced before. It probably had to do with the fact that he could create ice at will, a chilling cold like what his now destroyed gun had created, his whole genetic code altered to accommodate. But there were a few other things to be thrilled about.

Coffee would be good, to rouse Len from what parts of him were tired, and to give him opportunity to take in the man across from him more, just sitting together, enjoying each other’s company without the common adrenaline they were used to when fighting. This was a brand new adrenaline coursing through his veins.

Barry seemed to be experiencing the same thing, leaving them both speechless as they stood there, not knowing what to say, how to move forward, even how to leave the room and find a quiet, cozy place to talk as they’d planned.

“This is weird, right?” Barry said, scratching the back of his neck and then up into his ever-tousled brown hair. “After meeting Michael, I mean.”

Len frowned. He had nothing against the kid. He was some remarkable combination of the two of them—and a little of Miss West—with their joint powers and a willingness to face danger and adventure that embodied them both perfectly. But thinking of him as honestly being their son was still too much to take in just yet.

“I’d rather focus on the present,” he said.

Barry nodded, but his bashful expression was soon chased away by something sadder, something that caught the corners of his lips and drew them down. “I really thought I’d killed you. I never wanted…I didn’t…mean…”

“Barry…” Len stepped forward before the speedster could start tearing up, though his voice spoke of more grief than Len had ever expected anyone would feel for him, aside from his sister and Mick. An embrace felt too strange just now, so Len merely gripped Barry’s shoulder.

Barry smiled at him, but it was sad, his eyes downturned to replace the frown. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Me too. I might even enjoy having—”

Soft, insistent lips stole Len’s words before he could finish. He gasped, too stunned at first to react. When he finally came back to his senses enough to respond, it amazed him how soft Barry’s lips actually were. They’d always looked supple and inviting, but until tonight Len never imagined he’d get to test that out.

The faint brush of a tongue just barely breeching his lips made him shiver before Barry pulled away.

“Sorry…” Barry said, shaking his head, eyes cast on the floor, “that was stupid, I just—”

Len surged forward to recapture those lips, that tease of a tongue. He’d known Barry Allen for over a year, had studied him, analyzed him, and wanted him desperately since the moment he first knew what the curve of his cheekbones really looked like, not framed by a red mask but free. Len kissed deeper than Barry had dared, and slid a hand around the back of his neck to pull him closer.

Barry made the most delicious, pleased noises, responding to every advance, and opened his mouth wide and willing as they latched onto each other tighter. Len felt a shock between their tongues, like static, electricity, and something deep within him answered the sensation with a shiver that traveled down his arms.

Barry gasped away, “Your hands!” half in surprise, and half with a startled laugh.

Len stared at the sudden space between them, then at the hand, now suspended, that had been holding Barry’s neck, and the other that had reached for his waist. Both were covered in ice. “Shit,” Len frowned, but relaxed when Barry laughed again. He willed the ice to retreat as he had in the labs. “I guess I’ll have to work on that.”

“It’s okay,” Barry said, blushing beautifully, his smile still in place. “Mine do that sometimes too.”

“Turn to ice?”

Barry laughed again, stepping into Len’s space to press a palm to his chest. “This.”

Len trapped the hand with his own when he felt it start to vibrate. It warmed his chest where it touched, tingling and tickling him, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine how useful that might be elsewhere.

“Usually I can control it,” Barry said, gently tugging his hand away as it stilled, “but some situations are…harder than others.” He looked away, and Len got the impression that Barry meant a very specific ‘situation’.

“Isn’t this going to be interesting? So…should we get that coffee now?”

“Sure,” Barry nodded, eyes twinkling with reticence before brightening with sudden confidence. “Just one more minute.”

He reached for Len’s face, pulling him in until their mouths connected greedily. His lips were remarkable, everything about him, really. Len felt as if he could kiss Barry all night and be satisfied from just that, with the way his lips moved, his tongue swirling so languidly for someone who had a habit of going fast.

They’d only just confessed their feelings and attraction for each other. They hadn’t set any ground rules yet for how to go about this provisionary truce with Team Flash. They hadn’t even had coffee. They should at least get coffee, go on one real date, before getting carried away. But whenever Len tried to get a hold of himself and pull back from their continued lip-lock, he’d think, just ten more seconds. Thirty. Sixty.

Barry’s free hand teased the hem of his sweatshirt.

One hundred and nineteen…

Then Len did something he never did—lost track of time. He couldn’t stop enjoying Barry’s lips, or the way the lines of their bodies felt pressed together. Barry’s hands held to his cheek and waist, occasionally trembling, vibrating, while every so often he’d gasp in a way that told Len his own hands had gone cold again. But it never seemed enough to stop them.

Finally, Barry spoke into the space between them, however little remained. “It’s probably weird that I miss the grey, huh? In your hair? I thought it was sexy.”

Oh, Len loved this kid. This…man. Barry.

“We really should do coffee. It’s been a crazy night,” Barry said, though he did nothing to actually dislodge himself from Len’s hold.

“Mmm…” Len agreed, “insane.” He slid his hands up the back of Barry’s burrowed sweater.

Barry’s lips were plump and kiss-reddened and glistening, opening and closing as he fought for words. “But I’d also…really like a better look at those tattoos,” he finished in a husky whisper.

Len chuckled. He pulled back with some reluctance, but gripped the edge of his shirt, deciding to lift it slowly, echoing how he’d first slipped it on, one tiny peek at a time.

Barry’s eyes widened at each new inch of ink. “Then we should go get coffee.”

“Definitely.”

THE END