Chapter Text
“MOVE IT, MOVE IT, LET’S GO!”
Even as little as a week ago, Leonard Snart would have laughed in your face if you’d told him he’d be taking orders from Joe West.
A lot can happen in a week.
The little regiment he’s become a part of is moving quickly through the wreckage of what had once been downtown Central. At its head is Barry Allen, in all his scarlet-tripolymer glory, followed by West, gun drawn, and one of the metahuman kids who had come forward when everything went to hell, a tiny slip of a street girl named Resa, who could light her fists on fire with a thought. Len and Mick are bringing up the rear, with Hartley Rathaway twitching in between them and the rest of the group. Rathaway was being particularly paranoid – not that such an action was out of place in the hellscape that they were living in now.
“We don’t have much time, so we need to make sure we’re in place before –“ Allen’s speech is interrupted by a blur of blue across the square ahead of them.
“Fuck me.” growls West. “Cisco?”
“Working on it. I don’t know how he’s tracking you. He shouldn’t be able to, with the field working to cancel out Barry’s electrical energy.”
It took precisely three days for Zoom to destroy Central’s CBD looking for the Flash, three days that had torn the world Len knew completely apart – he can still see the look on Lisa’s face when the black-masked speedster had shoved his hand through her chest, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to erase it from the black behind his eyelids. It was that moment that had convinced him to through in his lot with the crew at STAR Labs, when a heist at a museum went sideways, when the familiar rhythm of quips and low-level flirting with the Flash had been interrupted by a trail of blue and a man in black. From there, it had been someone yelling, and a demand for the Flash to give in, and then Lisa had leveled the gold gun at the newcomer’s back and pulled the trigger. Before Len could make it to the vowel sound of ‘no’, or the stream of gold could make it to the spot where he had once been standing, the new speedster is in front of Lisa, arm half-raised.
“Brave,” he’d said, in the same odd, vibrating tones that Barry used when he was trying to conceal his identity, “but stupid.”
Len barely remembers the rest of that day, doesn’t remember Barry speeding him and Mick out of there, doesn’t remember the breakdown that he rewatches on the STAR Labs CCTV later, doesn’t remember punching the alley wall outside Saints and Sinners until his knuckles bled, remembers nothing until Mick was dragging him away with an arm around his waist and more soft words than Len could ever recall him having spoken in one go. All this is blanketed by the emptiness that had filled him in that moment, like Zoom had pulled out his heart alongside the light in Lisa’s eyes.
“Let us have a go at that fuck.” growls Mick, voice like gravel and rust, a look of fury on his face. “Let us slow him down until you have time to make a move.”
To say that he and Mick had not taken Lisa’s death well would be an understatement of truly epic proportions.
“Historically, having the Rogues be distractions has not gone well for us.” says Cisco, through their earpieces.
“Historically, fuck you.” Mick snaps back. “He killed Lisa.”
“Because she did what you’re offering to do!”
“When did you start caring, Ramon?”
“When you got a comm, that’s when. Don’t even think about it.”
It’s easy to imagine the scene in STAR Labs, Cisco standing, bent down over Snow’s shoulder in order to reach the microphone, Snow looking up at him in surprise. Len starts shaking his head, even as he’s aware that Cisco can’t see him.
“You need us to, Ramon.” he says, voice low.
“What? Why?” hisses Allen, from the front of the line. They’ve paused in their advance, crouched behind the wall of a fallen parking garage.
“Because without us to distract him you will never even get close, Scarlet. We have to try.”
The phrasing is deliberate. Len knows Barry’s used it before, always ahead of charging headfirst into another potentially debilitating and verging on suicidal heroic activity. It’s the easiest way to convince Barry to let him do this.
“Unlike you to be so selfless.” West says, but his tone makes what might have been a compliment an accusation instead. “This might kill you.”
Len’s treacherous brain replays the way Lisa’s back had arched impossibly further when Zoom closed his fist.
“I died three days ago.” says Len, and he means it. Impossibly, Barry’s face softens, like he understands, and he asks where they think the best place for this showdown is going to be.
***
Perhaps they didn’t think this through completely.
Len’s ice is barely slowing Zoom down, even on the rare occasions he lands a direct hit. Barry is desperately trying to stay out of the other speedster’s reach, and each dodge is a hair’s breath closer to too little too late. Mick is mostly out of the game himself, unable to fire for fear of burning Barry. Resa is battling it out with a fucking talking Shark, managing to drive him off slowly by drying him out. Hartley hadn’t come back from a mad dash into a collapsing orphanage – meaning he was either unconscious or dead, and either way Len couldn’t afford to think about him right now. West is to his left, squinting at the blur that is Barry and Zoom, looking for any kind of opportunity to fire. Mick finally has an opportunity to pull his trigger, and a long tongue of flame curls around the legs of the black suit. That’s all it takes, apparently, because Len’s feeling this peculiar sense of grief-overlaid deja-vu, and Mick is staring in shock at the arm that has vibrated its way into his chest cavity.
“No –“ says Len, because what else do you say?
“Lenny –“ gasps Mick, and then the arm is gone again.
Len must have blacked out, because the next thing he knows the cold gun is on the pavement and he’s got Mick’s head in his lap, Len’s fingers dancing over the blood on his lips without ever touching his face. Mick has been the constant in his life for so long, his one protector in the face of everything that challenged them, everything that came after Len. He tries to drag in a breath, to see a world without the voice in his ear, without -
MickMickMickMick
“Cold!”
Mick’s gone, Lisa’s gone gonegonegone he has failed them, he has failed at protecting them.
“Cold!”
Oh, oh God that feeling in his chest, the low-humming warmth when Mick was there, that was love, that was what love felt like.
“Snart!”
MickMickMickI’msorryI’msofuckingsorry
“Len!”
And he’s moving. Barry Allen has his arms around his waist, and they’re running at top speed.
“I’ve got one shot at this, so I need you to trust me.” says Barry, voice low-hot in Len’s ear.
“I failed them –“ gasps Len because LisaLisaLisaMickMick they’re gone he let them die he broke his word.
“There’s a way you can save them.” says Barry, breathing hard between words as they run.
“Unless you can travel through time.” snaps Len.
Barry is tellingly silent.
“You can travel through time.” Len’s voice is deadly monotone.
“It results in something terrible happening every time, so I don’t if I can avoid it.”
“And now you’re willing to risk it?”
“I’ll never make it – Zoom would follow me. You, on the other hand –“ Barry’s face is halfway between fear and apology.
“You want to send me back in time?”
“Save Lisa and Mick. Save us.”
“Past you would never trust me, Scarlet.” Len scoffs, because it’s the truth.
“Tell him – tell him that the man in the yellow lightning is real.” says Barry, something soft in his voice.
“Will that be enough?”
“You should be sent back far enough that it is. It’s an inexact science.”
“Oh, joy.” Len deadpans.
“Don’t fight me, just go.”
Len can hear Zoom catching up behind them, the calls reminding them of how little time the two of them have. They’re running in circles, Len knows, unpredictable but undeniably concentric loops, because they keep passing Mick – or rather, Mick’s body, where is lies on the concrete.
Len rather wants to be sick. Mick and Lisa are dead, and it’s his fault, and here’s Bartholomew fucking Allen offering him a chance to fix it, even if it could go dramatically wrong. He tries to imagine living without Lisa, without Mick, if he survives Zoom, but all he can see is the unending emptiness, the constant press of failure in protecting those he loved. It’s not a hard decision to make.
“Promise me you’ll find me.” says Barry, eyes serious behind the cowl.
“You have my word, Scarlet.” affirms Len, and then there’s a tug behind his gut and he’s moving. Barry’s scream as Zoom catches him fades into the background of the swirling images currently forming a tunnel around him, fragmented swirls of memories playing out like an immersive home movie for a fleeting second and then - gone.
Mick, bubbles of blood forming on his lips, trying and failing to say something else after his desperate “Lenny”.
His past self, marching into STAR Labs, offering assistance in stopping Zoom to the stunned expressions of Cisco and Caitlin.
Lisa, silent and beautiful in death, not a mark on her to show where Zoom had ripped the life from her.
Mick, giving Len what passes, for him, as a smile over a beer in Saints and Sinners as the Flash defeats Mardon and the Trickster on the news.
Barry slamming him against the wall of the West house, torn between anger and confusion as to why Len would be willing to give him a warning.
Lisa, wrapping her arms tight around his waist, after Mardon broke him out of prison.
His father, gasping out a final breath on the floor, ice driven through his ice-cold heart.
Barry, lying on the floor, apparently dead, pulling an emotion out of Len he thought only Lisa was capable of inducing.
Mick, mocking his Netflix choices as the two of them lay low after Len double-crossed the Flash.
Lisa, face buried in his parka as they drive away.
Barry, face contorted with pain and disappointment as Len reminds him that he made a deal with a thief, and a criminal, and a liar.
Mick, cautioning Len that double-crossing the Flash will have repercussions, and shouldn’t he have a more detailed plan?
Barry, practically begging for help, lean lines of his body propped against a pool table in a fashion that is pure sin.
Lisa, eyes bright, ducking behind an overturned table with the Gold Gun in hand.
Cisco Ramon’s terrified eyes when Len steps down from behind the banister and demands technologically advanced weaponry.
Mick in the kitchen of Len’s favorite safehouse, head buried in the fridge as he bitches Len out for the lack of anything with a nutritional value, the bitchface turned on Len when he attempts to point out that an alcohol content counts as nutrients.
Lisa, framed like an archangel in the door of the prisoner transport van, rolling her eyes.
Mick in the holding cell at the precinct, scowling from under heavy brows.
Mick, fire leaping from the gun Len had entrusted him with, delighted and laughing.
Mick, drinking black coffee while leaning against the kitchen table, watching Len plan their next heist.
Lisa, laughing at something Len’s said, pixelating slightly due to a poor wifi connection.
The slow, greedy smile that crawled across Mick’s face as he beheld the heat gun for the first time.
Cisco’s hands shaking on a clearly fake “prototype cold gun” as Len walks away.
The first time he really saw Barry, standing opposite him on a train car, a grin derived from the thrill of the chase painted across features that were so young, and would so quickly seem so care-worn.
The perfect, comfortable feel of the cold gun in his hands for the first time, the heat gun that wouldn’t help him but Mick would love, knowing it’s the perfect apology present, knowing he’s going to have to take both.
“Well, if you’re out, you’re out.”
Something moving too fast for Len to register, throwing him from the back of a truck.
Feeling oddly empty as he plans the heist that should net him the Khandaq Dynasty Diamond, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that sounds like Mick.
Len stumbles, feet on solid ground, and grasps at the wall of the back alley he’s standing in. Everything is spinning, like he’s stepped off a manic teacup ride, or fallen thirty stories only to be caught safely at the bottom. Once his head begins to clear, and his internal clock starts ticking, measured and even count of seconds unflinching and automatic, he bends to pick up a wind-blown newspaper.
January 7, 2012.
Two years. He has two years before the accelerator explodes, two years to find Barry, earn his trust, two years to put himself in a position to rewrite history and save the only people he has ever loved.
He has so much to do.