Destiny, Fate, How to Throw a Curveball
by Sandrine Shaw
'You end up being a better man.'
Mick's words echo in Leonard's ears. His eyes still burn from the flash of bright light. He blinks and shakes his head, listening to the sound of Mick's footfalls as he walks away.
Well. So much for that memory wipe.
His hands clench into fists. A year ago, Mick had stepped into Saints and Sinners and told Leonard: 'You're the best guy I ever knew. You may not think you're a hero, but you're a hero to me.' At the time, Leonard thought it was just the sentimental ramblings of a drunk man, but he's starting to realize that the guy who came up to him wasn't the Mick Rory of 2013 at all. Knowing what he knows now, the idea sets him more on edge than Mick's words did. It's not right; that neutered lapdog Mick's turned into traveling back in time to jump-start Leonard into becoming someone he's not. Hero's never been on his resumé, and he has no intention of changing that. He doesn't care about being a better man if it kills him, can't imagine ever being the sort of person who'd put his life on the line for anyone except Lisa. Doesn't want to be that kind of person.
It itches under his skin, the urge to turn around and make Mick understand that being better isn't worth shit if it means being dead. The only reason he holds his tongue and doesn't go for his cold gun is that letting Mick walk away believing he's won, that he's put Leonard on the right path, gives Leonard a tactical advantage.
If they believe they've wiped his mind, they're going to leave him be, for fear of upsetting his path to goodness. Which means he has almost two years of making sure that particular future is never going to happen.
He's snuck into fortified vaults and high-security buildings, walked past heavily armed guards with the loot right in his hand. Compared to that, this is child's play. No one to outsmart but himself. Walk in the park.
"Alright, let's catch ourselves a Speedster." Mick grins, inspecting his shiny new heat gun. For the first time since Mick – the other Mick, future Mick – dumped him at this very warehouse, Leonard feels comfortable in their partnership again.
There's nothing soft about this Mick. He pulls the trigger and a flame shoots up right to the ceiling, followed by a full-bellied, manic gust of laughter. "Hell, yeah! Now we're talking!"
"Careful, Mick. The plan is to set the Flash on fire, not ourselves," Leonard warns, but he can't shake the almost giddy sense of relief at having his old partner back.
He wishes Thawne and the others had told him more about his future, beyond the unlikely, disappointing ending. It would be easier to derail his path to heroic self-sacrifice if he knew how exactly he got there. Which choices to make, which to avoid. He hates having to come up with a plan without knowing all the variables, especially when the stakes are quite so high.
Either way, he figures killing the Flash should do the trick.
And if he fails to do the deed, so what? He's still a villain.
He still lies and cheats and kills, and he makes damn sure that no one will mistake him for a hero.
Some people just don't get the memo.
"You don't have to do this," Barry says, like he genuinely expects Captain Cold to lay down his gun and decide mid-bank robbery that there are better uses for his time, walking out on a vault full of hostages and a few million dollars empty handed.
It's been barely two months since Leonard left the Flash bruised and battered on the dirty ground at Ferris Air, reeling from the fallout of trusting Leonard. Yet here he is, trying to talk Leonard out of committing a crime like he never stabbed Barry in the back.
The kid just doesn't learn.
"That's where you're wrong, Flash. I really have to," Leonard says, aiming his gun.
"What are you—" Barry never gets to finish the question. Leonard pulls the trigger, and the blast freezes Barry's feet to the ground.
Behind them, a few of the hostages who were clearly hoping for a rescue from the Scarlet Speedster let out sounds of shock and distress at seeing their hero incapacitated, however temporarily. It would be altogether too easy to make it permanent. Leonard still has his finger on the trigger and he angles the gun upwards to Barry's face. Their eyes lock, and for a moment, Barry looks scared behind the mask, eyes wide and fearful. Time seems to slow down, seconds turning into minutes as Leonard holds his gaze with narrowed eyes.
Thing is, he doesn't care for easy, never did. There's no challenge, no finesse. It devalues the score.
As he lets his arm drop to his side and powers down the gun, something about the tiny sigh of relief Barry can't quite contain feels thoroughly satisfying.
Leonard steps up to the spot where the fastest man alive is frozen in place and leans in a little, an extra layer of intimidation to make sure that this time, Barry listens. "Stop trying to appeal to my better nature. You should have learned by now that I don't have one."
He shoots another burst of ice over Barry's feet for good measure, smirking at the pained wince it provokes.
It's when his father's heart is nothing but a lump of ice and Leonard is in Iron Heights, looking at Barry Allen's smiling face through a plexiglass window, that he begins to understand that he's taken on an enemy much more powerful and deadly than the Flash, and it might not be a fight he can win.
"There's good in you, Snart," Barry says, and Leonard scoffs at him like it doesn't matter, like those words don't mean that he's failing.
For a year now, he's been thinking of his do-gooder self from the original timeline as someone else. A bleeding-heart stranger who just happened to share his name and his face. An enemy he needed to best. Someone who made bad choices, who went soft and got what he deserved.
But Barry looks at him with so much hope in his eyes that it makes Leonard's heart clench, and he wonders how much of him is already that person he's spent months trying to erase from existence. On the other side of the plexiglass wall, Barry tells him that he shouldn't let his past define him, and Leonard has to bite his tongue to stop himself from telling Barry that it's not his past he's concerned about.
He'll have to try harder, double down on his efforts, snuff out that softness in him before it can take hold.
Except he remembers having the cold gun trained on Barry just the other day, Lewis egging him on to pull the trigger. And for a brief moment, between one heartbeat and the next, he wanted to. To save Lisa, yes, but also because he knew. He knew with absolute certainty that this was going to be a choice that would unravel the course of time, change his path irrevocably. Pull a trigger, take a life. Save his own in the process. Kill Barry, and erase any notion of Leonard Snart the hero who dies saving a bunch of idiots on a time ship.
And he still couldn't do it. Even knowing what it would mean for him, he couldn't.
What it is about Barry Allen that he keeps pushing Leonard into making those bad choices that go against every self-preservation instinct that he has? It's been a slippery slope from the start. He should have known better than to agree to Barry's little mutual assured destruction pact after he found out his identity, should have never let himself be talked into working with him, certainly shouldn't have killed Deadbolt when he was about to waste the Flash.
"So I should be a hero like you, Barry? Risk my life for a bunch of idiots who think of me as a common thug? Pass. I'm not much of a team player."
The reference is, of course, lost on Barry. His mouth twitches into a lopsided smile. "I don't know, I think we made a pretty good team the other day. Just think about it. You'll have plenty of time for that in here."
"Not as much as you think," Leonard promises darkly. He doesn't mean the break-out he's already meticulously planned and hashed out in all its details.
For all his troubles, he still ends up waking up on a rooftop, listening to Rip's spiel about heroes and legends and saving the future while his head is buzzing from the light of the flashy device Rip used to knock him out. It's hardly even a surprise. He wonders what would happen if he'd outright refuse, but he has an inkling that he'd end up on the Waverider anyway, with or without his consent.
Time, it seems, will have its way no matter what.
It makes him feel bitter and angry, a surge of helpless frustration clawing up inside of him at the idea that he's not the master of his own fate. That he can't escape the path he's on no matter how hard he's trying, and every escape road he takes only curves back to the same place he'd started from.
"Where are you going?" Mick calls after him, and he halts in his steps.
"I need to pay someone a little visit. Something I gotta do before we leave."
If he's snappier than necessary, it's not just because he doesn't feel like sharing any details. It's hardly fair on Mick, but Leonard can't help despising him a little. He hasn't done anything to deserve Leonard's hostility; he's so different from his future self that it's close to impossible to imagine him ever becoming that guy. And yet, there's a part of Leonard that blames him for the fact that they ended up here, at this point in time, despite everything.
Mick frowns. "So, we gonna join that crazy Englishman? What, we're heroes now?" He spits the word with all the loathing that Leonard has for it, and Leonard wants to shake him. Wants to ask him how the hell he's going to get so twisted up in the head that he throws away years of partnership and the chance to rewrite time itself however they see fit because of some misplaced loyalty to that same crazy Englishman and his crew of misfits.
Well. He supposes they're going to find out.
"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Mick. Something tells me that you're going to find time travel quite the experience."
He grimaces and slips away before Mick can question him any further.
The West house is dark and empty when the lock gives way and the door slips open. According to his sources with the CCPD, West is pulling a double shift, but Barry should have been off work an hour ago. How does the fastest man alive manage to be perpetually late for everything?
He sits down on a step near the bottom of the staircase, cold gun next to him within easy reach even if he has no intention of using it tonight, as he waits for Barry to come home. Somewhere in the house, a clock is ticking, loud enough that it cuts through the silence. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Like a countdown he can't escape.
It takes a good twenty minutes of listening to the steady, foreboding sound, fantasizing about finding that clock and freezing it, until the front door finally opens and Barry steps through. Even in the dark, his tiredness is showing. Dark shadows under his eyes, his shoulders hunched.
"Long day at the office, Barry?"
Leonard's not exactly in a sympathetic mood, all things considered, and the way Barry's so startled that he literally jumps at his voice evokes a spiteful sense of gratification. Looks like it is possible to surprise the Flash after all. Just not when it counts.
The room is flooded with light when he flicks the switch at the wall.
It doesn't take Barry long to regain his composure. "Snart?! What the hell! You can't keep breaking in here. One day it's gonna be Joe who comes through that door and he's gonna shoot you first and ask questions later."
Just like that, the smug, victorious feeling evaporates. If Barry had any sense at all, he'd be worried about West's safety rather than Leonard's on the occasion that West was the one to interrupt Leonard breaking into his house. He's never going to get used to it, that unshakable faith in whatever good Barry sees in him.
Barry drops his backpack at the entrance and steps up to Leonard, standing so close that he has to lean back and crane his neck to meet Barry's gaze. He wonders what would happen if he reached for his gun. Would he be quick enough to take Barry by surprise? Perhaps it's not too late to chance the course of his future. Perhaps he could—
He clenches his hands and looks away.
"Your concern is touching but misplaced. Something tells me the chances that I'm gonna die in your corridor are very slim." He tries to sound cool and nonchalant as ever, but some of the bitterness that's been clinging to him since that moment on the rooftop earlier tonight seeps through.
Barry leans against the wall and crosses his arms, frowning down at him. "Why are you here, Snart? Don't tell me someone else approached you with a plan to kill me that you didn't find compelling enough to participate in."
"Don't worry, kid. For once, it's not your life that's on the line," he says, and Barry immediately stands a little taller, concern flashing over his face. Leonard presses on before Barry can get a word in. "From what I've heard, you're somewhat familiar with time travel?"
"Time travel? What— No. I— Why would you— I'm not helping you travel through time to steal something, Snart!"
Now, that's an amusing thought. Leonard smiles faintly. "Cute, but that's not why I'm here. There's a little story I wanted to share with you."
So he does.
He starts at the beginning – or maybe at the end, depending on the point of view: Mick coming to him at Saints and Sinners. Thawne. The League of Doom, the Legends, the Spear. Everything Thawne told him about his future. Clashing with Rip's crew on a French battlefield in World War I. How Mick dropped him back off in 2014 and failed to wipe his mind. All the ways Leonard tried to alter the timeline to escape his fate since.
Barry becomes increasingly agitated as Leonard's tale evolves. At some point, he drops down to sit on the step below Leonard's, rubbing his forehead. When Leonard gets to the point where Rip Hunter made him an offer he thinks he quite literally cannot refuse, Barry leans his head against the wall with a muffled thud and briefly closes his eyes. They open again with a fresh kind of determination in his gaze. It's the sort of eternal optimism that makes Leonard feel old and world-weary.
"That's — There has to be something you can do! What if you just don't go on that time ship?"
Like Leonard hasn't already played that one through. "Have you listened to a word I just told you? I tried, Barry. Every choice I made to stop this future I shouldn't know about counted for nothing. If this was something I could avert, don't you think I would have found a way already?"
"Okay, so— Fine. You go on that ship, travel through time with the professor and Ray and the others. Then you get to this... time master place. You said it's out of the timestream, but maybe the Speedforce can get me there. I'll grab you before the explosion and get you out of there. It seems simple enough, right?"
Barry drags a hand through his hair. There's something about his frustration that calms Leonard down. Perhaps because he's already accepted, if not made peace with, what Barry's still struggling with.
"I thought about it. Wouldn't work. If I do anything to make sure I don't die, then that future where Thawne takes me from 2014 to join his little league of supervillains is never going to happen. And if that doesn't happen, then Mick can't dump me back in the past with all the knowledge from that future. Meaning I don't know I'm potentially going to die and won't put in measures to prevent it. Your regular old grandfather paradox."
He can't derail his path because it's that path that led him here.
It's taken him a while to work that out. Too long, perhaps. He could have saved himself a lot of headaches if he'd arrived at the conclusion earlier, but it's not like time travel is an exact science governed by rules of logic.
"So, what, I'm just supposed to let you die?" Barry's anger is familiar, a déjà-vu back to the day when he was lying prone on the asphalt of the airfield, and Leonard told him that he only had himself to blame for not seeing his betrayal coming. Just like then, it's directed more at himself than at Leonard. "Because we both know that this is my fault. I'm the one who kept pushing you to be more... heroic. Be a better person. And now that's how you're going to get yourself killed, and you just expected me to sit back and watch it happen."
"You can't save me, Barry."
"Then why are you even here, if not to ask for my help?"
It's a good question. Why did he come here? He shrugs. "To say goodbye, I suppose."
"That's not fair." Barry's face twists into something ugly and fragile, and the way his voice breaks makes Leonard want to fix it. Not for himself, but for Barry – and isn't that the kicker?
Before he can stop himself, his hand has curved around the back of Barry's neck, pulling him towards him and clashing their lips together. A broken little sound escapes Barry's throat and he returns the kiss with all the desperation of someone who knows that this moment is all they'll have. Leonard doesn't do regrets but it's hard not to get lost in a flurry of 'what if's.
There's always been a low-key attraction between them, right from the start, hidden beneath antagonism and grudging respect and an ever-growing fondness he tried to stave off, but he wasn't aware of just how badly he wanted this until now that time is running out.
Barry's skin is warm under his touch, and the cropped hair at the back of his neck rasps gently against Leonard's fingers. He angles his head and deepens the kiss, trying to imprint the taste of Barry into his memory, the tang of coffee and sugar, that sharp, metallic hint of electricity. Barry presses so close that it's as if he wants them to melt into each other, as if he can stop Leonard's fate if he just clings to him tightly enough, and Leonard in turn holds on a little harder.
They're both out of breath when they break apart. Barry looks flushed, like he just ran all the way to Star City and back. His lips are red and kiss-bruised. Leonard allows himself to give in to the impulse to trace them with his finger because letting go is hard.
But he's only delaying the inevitable. Brushing himself off, he stands and walks towards the door. One step, two, three, four, five. Putting distance between them should help, but it's like with a score that's just out of reach – it only makes him want it more.
"Goodbye, Barry." His voice is almost steady, but then he makes the mistake of turning back. Barry looks wrecked, like he's barely holding it together. The irony that he's found a way to deliver a crushing blow to the Flash just when he last wanted it isn't lost on Leonard.
"I hate you," Barry says quietly, defeated and without any heat behind the sentiment.
Leonard almost wishes that he meant it. It would be easier to walk away if he did.
Things Thawne didn't tell him: The Legends are a bunch of blundering idiots, but they mean well, most of the time. They fuck up badly, more than once, but they trust Leonard when they shouldn't. They forgive Mick when they shouldn't, and maybe that's part of why Mick will be just as willing to forgive them for how they'll treat him in the future.
Maybe that's why, when he steps up to the Oculus, Leonard doesn't even think about the integrity of the timeline or things like destiny and fate, but only about the fact that his partner is about to sacrifice himself and needs to be stopped.
"My old friend, please forgive me," he says, using Mick's moment of confusion to knock him out. Perhaps this, then, will make up for icing some future version of him on a French battlefield.
As Sara drags Mick off, Leonard wonders if he should apologize to her too for what his past self is going to do to them in the future. If he should tell her to have more faith in Mick than she has. But he already tried messing with time, and knowing what the future holds hasn't helped him. Why saddle Sara with the same burden?
When she's gone and he's surrounded by the time masters' cronies, he bares his teeth at Druce in a bad approximation of a grin. The failsafe latch strains against his hand as he pushes it down.
"You're not the only one who knows a thing or two about destiny, old man."
The device vibrates against his hold, building up into an overload, and bright light blinds his eyes. He can barely detect a flash of orange before he feels himself being pulled away too fast, the force of it making his stomach lurch and his world tumble and blur.
When it rights itself, solid ground under his feet again and the pounding in his head ebbing away, he stumbles. A pair of strong hands breaks his fall. It takes him a moment to understand that he's not dead, that the explosion hasn't ripped him into a million little pieces.
The excited sound of Ramon's voice cuts through the disorientation. "Whoa, man, that was some weird shit! You guys okay?"
The hands on his shoulders give him a brief squeeze and when Leonard looks up, Barry's smiling face is inches from his own. As glad as Leonard is to see him, it does nothing to ease the confusion. He doesn't appreciate being the only one in the room without a clue how he got there. Standing a little taller, he fights against the lingering sense of vertigo and frowns at Barry.
"Someone want to tell me what the hell just happened?"
It's simpler than it should be. Ramon vibed Barry to the Vanishing Point, and Barry grabbed him before the explosion could tear him apart. It still doesn't change the one hitch in the plan that Leonard just can't get around. "I thought we'd agreed that saving me was a bad idea."
"No, you agreed, and then you walked out. And you were right. 2016 me couldn't save you. But 2017 me totally could."
Barry looks gleeful and elated, practically bouncing on his feet. When he pulls his cowl off, his hair is a tousled, windswept mess. It's kind of adorable, making Leonard's fingers itch to reach out. Under different circumstances, he'd let himself be distracted by the rush of fondness and desire he feels at the sight of the young man in front of him, but he's too intent on trying to parse what Barry's telling him.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that for all intents and purposes, you've been dead for a year. Long enough for Thawne and the League of Doom to recruit past you."
"How can you be sure?" He remembers everything: Thawne taking him from a warehouse in 2014. France, World War I. Spearing Mick with a shard of ice. Doesn't mean anything. He'd remember it because it happened to him a long time ago.
"The Legends made a stop in Central City the other day." With a sheepish expression, Barry rubs the back of his neck. "Apparently, their little trick to get the Spear and defeat your supervillain buddies broke time, and it took a while to resolve that, so they stuck around for longer than expected."
Leonard narrows his eyes. "What do you mean, they 'broke time'?"
"Honestly, I don't know. There were... dinosaurs. Stein tried to explain it, but it didn't really make much sense to me. It's fixed now. I think."
Dinosaurs. He's almost glad that he'd not been around for that particular mess. Rip's warnings about the consequences of messing with time and altering your own past echo uncomfortably in his mind. "So you went straight back to the past to break time again saving me?"
"I'm not breaking anything. And I didn't go to the past. Trust me, I learned that lesson." A haunted expression crosses Barry's face, and Leonard knows there's a story there, something that happened in the years between their last encounter. Now that the adrenaline rush is fading away, it's hard to miss the weariness that's clinging to Barry, the way the eternal optimism Leonard used to mock him for doesn't seem to shine quite as brightly.
Still, when he smiles, it lights up the whole room, same as it always did. "The beauty of it is, the Vanishing Point exists outside of the timestream. In a way, that made it harder because I couldn't have got there without Cisco, but it also meant I didn't have to run back in time to get to you. He could vibe me there right from 2017."
It makes sense, even if it's difficult to wrap his head around the concept of a singular event happening outside of time. In the months on board of the Waverider, time travel had become a mundane thing they accepted without questioning, but they all tried not to think too hard about the details, the science behind it, the potential ramifications. Even Rip didn't seem to have all the answers. Or any of the answers, really.
Suddenly the full scope of what Barry told him sinks in. He's been gone for almost a year, and everyone thinks he's dead.
He shakes his head trying to clear the lingering brain fog and pull himself out of his momentary funk.
"I appreciate the save, Scarlet, but much as I'd like to stay around for a chat, I have some pressing matters to attend to." His tone is cool, but he means it: He wouldn't mind sticking around for a while and have Barry catch him up on what he's missed in the year that's passed between the Legends blowing up the Oculus and now, but he has to find Lisa first.
Barry frowns a little. "Are you okay?"
"Peachy," Leonard drawls. It only intensifies the unhappy expression on Barry's face, the tension in his stance. Too bad, because he doesn't have time to placate the Flash's worry, even if he was in a sharing mood. Which he's not.
He tips his imaginary hat. "See you around, Barry."
Meeting Lisa goes about as well as he expected. She hugs him so tightly that he almost suffocates, and then she delivers a punch hard enough to knock him off his feet.
"You asshole! I can't believe you let me believe you were dead." She rubs her aching knuckles, glaring at him. "How do you think I felt when Mick showed up here and told me? We didn't even have a body to bury."
Leonard winces. Mick. He'll have to talk to him too. It's not a conversation he's looking forward to.
"If you think you can just waltz back in and I'm gonna hand leadership of the Rogues back to you, you can forget it." She juts out her chin and crosses her arms across her chest like she's daring him to object.
He holds up his hands in a show of surrender. "Wouldn't dream of it. They're your crew now. I have no intention of cramping your style, sis." Frankly, trying to keep the likes of Mardon and Walker in check doesn't sound too appealing. Perhaps he has grown soft, after all.
Placated by his easy appeasement, Lisa grins at him. "So. The Flash saved you, huh? I can't say I'm surprised. I think he missed you. Your boy wasn't quite his usual perky self when we tangled with him."
Leonard snorts. "He's not 'my boy', Lise."
He's almost sorry he's not been around to see how well Lisa held out against the Flash while he was gone, imagines her shamelessly flirting with Ramon over the coms and making Barry feel like an awkward middle-man, thoroughly distracting him from whatever heist she was pulling.
Lisa's smirk grows a wicked, speculative edge, like his protest only serves to confirm her assumption. "Isn't he?" she teases.
He glares at her and tries to ignore how much the idea of calling Barry his resonates with him, a rush of possessiveness making his stomach clench with tight heat.
Leonard is at Saints and Sinners, playing a game of pool against himself and winning, when he feels the subtle shift in the air behind him. He catches Barry's reflection in the mirrored surface of the sign at the back end of the bar and can't quite hold back a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, even if he doesn't bother to turn around or acknowledge the Scarlet Speedster's presence.
He pretends to be engrossed in his game and takes the shot, blue heading straight towards the far corner pocket before the ball is suddenly snatched from the table. Barry just grins in the face of the scowl directed his way.
Leonard raises an eyebrow at him. "Checking up on me, Barry? Did you just come to ruin my game or are you here to negotiate another truce?"
"I think we're past that." Barry twirls the ball in his hands, a sign of nervousness as if he's just waiting for Leonard to contradict him. When no protest comes, he pushes on: "I'm surprised you're still here, actually. I thought you'd rejoin the Legends now that you're back. You did talk to them, right?"
"I did."
Leonard steps up to Barry and takes the ball from his hand, trying to ignore the sharp intake of breath at the brush of their fingers and the way the touch sends a jolt like an electrical shock through his body. It's almost enough to distract him from remembering how his meeting with the Legends had gone. The clench of Mick's jaw. The distrust in Sara's eyes. The way Ray got all fidgety and nervous. They were distinctly more welcoming towards him the last time he'd seen them, right before the Oculus blew up. For him that was barely a few days ago. Fucking time travel.
He shrugs. "We agreed that I'd stay off the team for the moment. I don't think I'm their favorite person right now."
"You're the same guy who gave his life to save all of them at the Vanishing Point." Barry sounds positively indignant on his behalf. It's like he honestly can't understand why the Legends would have reservations about Leonard.
"I'm also the same guy who tried to kill them last week."
"But that was years ago," Barry protests.
"Not for them."
He watches with curious eyes as it sinks in. Barry seems to physically deflate. "That's not fair."
Leonard smiles faintly. "It is what it is. Besides, I don't mind sticking around Central City for a while. Remember what I said when you whisked me away into the woods, the night I figured out your identity?"
"What? The whole speech about how you love this game?" Barry scoffs. "Seriously – you're going to go right back to robbing banks and planning heists?" He sounds more exasperated than angry, like the idea of Leonard picking up his parka and the cold gun and paying Central City Museum another visit is more of a nuisance than anything else.
Perhaps Leonard should give it a try, see if Flash might be more willing to give him a pass now.
"Tempting, but no, I actually meant the other bit. When you suggested I skip town, and I told you that Central's my home. It still is. Everything I care about is here." He doesn't look at Barry when he says that, busying himself with the set up of the table, putting blue back into exactly the same position it was when Barry had grabbed it. He hopes that maybe the words will lose some of their gravity if he doesn't make eye contact.
He doesn't need to watch Barry to realize that he was wrong, that Barry clearly understood all the implications of what Leonard just told him. The grin is plain audible in his voice. "Everything, huh?"
And really, the smugness is pretty damn unbearable. He looks up and feigns a sneer, trying to regain some measure of the casual indifference he normally wears like it's part of his Captain Cold outfit.
"Cool it, Barry. No need to let it go to your head."
Whatever snarky little comeback Barry would have had is swallowed by Leonard's mouth claiming his. Where their first kiss was all desperation and missed chances, this one is worth years of pent up arousal mixed with overwhelming relief. A second chance neither of them thought they'd get, and Leonard isn't sure he deserves.
Several wolf-whistles sound through the bar, a reminder that they're in a public space, on full display, and Leonard's frosty, unapproachable reputation is probably melting away by the second. He couldn't care less, not when he has an arm full of sweet-faced vigilante superhero who seems to have made it his life's mission to save Leonard from everything including, but not limited to, himself.
When Leonard's head is starting to swim from the endorphin rush and a lack of oxygen, he reluctantly steps back. He doesn't get very far, not that he had any intention to put more distance than absolutely necessary between them.
Barry's hands are fisted in the collar of Leonard's leather jacket.
"The last time you kissed me, you were just about to run off getting yourself killed." It's impossible not to notice his fingers tightening, knuckles turning almost white, like he's trying to physically stop Leonard from leaving.
Leonard levels a roguish grin at Barry, but somehow, it gets all twisted up and turns into a smile that's entirely too gentle and fond and revealing. "Don't worry, kid, I don't plan on going anywhere. Looks like you're stuck with me."
Barry ducks his head and laughs quietly, and the relief is written all over his face.
"Good," he says, right against Leonard's lips as he moves in for another kiss.
The End.