Summary: Starfleet Intelligence officers Barry Allen and Iris West have been captured by an Admiral gone rogue. They'll have to team up with notorious smuggler Leonard Snart if they intend to escape and bring Admiral Eobard Thawne to justice.
Notes: ColdWestAllen Week 2019 - May 30 - The 60s
Star Trek premiered in 1966, so that's the era this AU takes place in. Command wears gold instead of red, short skirts everywhere, and the Captain wears an avocado wrap shirt sometimes.
Conspiracy
Barry groaned as he was thrown into the cell, landing awkwardly on his wrist. The cracking sound that accompanied hitting the ground was not, in any way, reassuring. He hissed, rolling onto his back as the force field snapped back on.
"Let me look at that," said a gruff voice while Iris moved his head onto her lap.
"Yeah, sure," Barry pulled his arm onto his chest and just lay there, letting his eyes shut, while Leonard Snart of all people inspected his wrist.
He wasn't even sure it hurt, compared to everything else he'd just been through.
Barry and Iris were both members of Starfleet Intelligence. They'd been investigating odd reports on Starbase 42, only to find that Admiral Eobard Thawne was experimenting on people. Mostly humans, trying to recreate unusual abilities in humans without killing them or turning them into hybrids. Human elitism at its worst. Unfortunately, before they could report their findings back to Starfleet Command, Thawne had taken them captive, adding them to his cache of disappeared humans to experiment on.
That was when they'd met Len. Leonard Snart, smuggler, con artist, thief... his resume of criminal activity was vast. They'd even heard of him before, but never expected to actually meet him.
To say they hadn't hit it off after being tossed in the same cell as him was to put it mildly. Yet... Barry found it a relief to have the other man gently probe his wrist to see if it was a break or a sprain.
"What did they do to you?" Iris asked, voice wavering slightly with worry.
"I have no idea," Barry admitted. "There were... Admiral Thawne injected me with chemicals. I've got no idea what, but... then he started electrocuting me. I... passed out after that." He'd felt like his whole body was on fire at the time, but now he just felt numb and twitchy. "How's my wrist looking?"
"Broken," said Len, voice terse.
"Oh," Barry murmured, feeling his body start to shake. "I-I think I'm going to pass out now."
Barry wakes up a few times, though he only vaguely remembers any of it.
He remembers his body seizing and the world being fuzzy. Iris was crying at one point while Snart held her. Barry wasn't aware enough to realize that she was crying over him, though he realizes it in hindsight.
When he wakes up for real, though, Len is gone.
Barry sits up, slowly, and says Iris' name. It comes out like a croak through parched lips.
"Barry!" Iris is on him in a second, it seems, and she holds on to his arm. "You're awake. Thank god, you're awake," she breathed, wrapping him in her arms and taking a deep, shaky breath.
"Where's Snart?"
"They took him."
"How long ago?"
"Ten minutes, maybe a little longer but not by much." When Barry moved to stand, Iris immediately protested with, "you've been in and out of consciousness for hours, Barry, and having seizures. You're in no condition to..." she trailed off when he rolled his wrist.
The broken wrist, which was no longer broken.
"I think whatever Admiral Thawne did to me worked," Barry told her, voice low. "Which I will be very freaked out about later, but right now we need to get out of here. Find Snart if we can, steal a shuttle, and get the hell away from this Starbase."
"Right." Iris rose to her feet, expression turning determined. "So how are we getting out, then? While you were... out, Len and I tested the force field. No weakness and the emitters are unreachable in the walls."
Iris had joined Starfleet Intelligence after serving as a linguist for several years. Barry, however, had a scientific background. He'd been a forensics expert in Starfleet Security first before switching career tracks. They made a good team, but this sort of situation was more Barry's area than hers. He'd investigated a number of jail breaks over the years, so perhaps he could put that knowledge to the test.
Snart was a career criminal. If he couldn't take the force field down then Barry wasn't going to both with it for the moment. Instead he surveyed the walls and considered what he remembered of the Starbase's blueprints. A jefferies tube ran below their feet, if he was remembering correctly. Technically there were no access hatches inside the cell, but... it was possible to reach the interior of the tube anyway, assuming the base hadn't been upgraded on the sly.
"Over here," Barry told Iris, heading to the back corner. "We need to pry up the carpet."
She joined them and, with some difficulty, they managed to pull up the corner.
The door hissed and they shoved the carpet back down quickly. Luckily, the guards weren't really paying attention to them as they threw an unconscious Leonard Snart back in with them.
They immediately hurried to the thief's side and checked him over as best they could. Snart seemed fine. A little cold, but... just unconscious.
Reluctantly, the duo returned to prying up the carpet once the guards were gone.
"What are we looking for?" Iris asked.
"Do you remember the blueprints for this section of the base?" Barry asked and then told her about the jefferies tube. "This area used to be crew quarters, but about five years ago the base was updated, the quarters were moved and revamped, and this area became the new brig. There should be a sealed up access point to the jefferies tubes beneath the carpet, though. Assuming Thawne hasn't done any further retrofitting before turning this half of the base into his personal laboratory."
"Right."
Several minutes of wrestling with the carpeting later, they found the sealed hatch. Which led them to the question of how they were supposed to unseal the hatch.
Snart made a sound like he was waking.
The thief is covered in a fine frost, which neither Barry nor Iris had noticed on him earlier, and they try to brush it off his face at least only to realize the cold is coming from him. The two Starfleet officers are exchanging concerned looks as Snart's eyes open and he sits up unsteadily, seemingly unaware of how chilled his body is.
"I thought your wrist was broken," were the first words Snart says, giving Barry a confused look.
"It healed, quickly," Barry responded. "I think we've got a way out of here. Are you good to move?"
"Yeah, I think..." Snart trailed off, staring at his frost covered hand in mounting horror. "What the hell..."
"Len," Iris takes his hand tenderly and Barry can't quite help the hot jolt of jealousy he feels.
Once again, Iris is interested in someone not Barry. It stings every time and he wishes... he wishes he could just tell her how he felt, that he was brave enough to face the rejection he knew was headed his way.
"We need to get the access hatch open, but its sealed shut. Think you can give us a hand with that?" Barry asks and feels relieved when Snart nods sharply.
"Let's blow this joint," he agrees.
They gather around the hatch and, honestly, Barry's not sure where to go from here because it's screwed in pretty damn tightly. Self-sealing stem bolts, of all things, which explains why no one came to stop them from ripping up the carpet.
Admiral Thrawne is probably laughing at them, secure in the belief that they're stuck.
Well, Barry has every intention of using whatever the hell was done to him against his captors. He hopes Snart feels the same way.
The moment Snart touches the metal covering, it starts to freeze. He jerks back a moment, hesitantly touches the carpet and nothing happens. He touches the metal again... nothing.
"What were you thinking when you touched the cover the first time?" Barry asks gently, giving Len a steady look when the other man glowers at him.
"I was thinking that I want us to get the fuck out of here." Snart's hand is on the cover and it starts freezing again. Faster, this time. "Well... that's cool."
Neither Barry nor Iris can quite restrain the urge to snort in amusement.
Barry gestures for Snart to move out of the way once he's certain the metal has gone brittle enough. He remembers the feeling that had crept up on him when he had the first seizure that knocked him out for the count. Concentrates on having that feeling again, but in just his hands.
There's an instinct there that wasn't before; once again, Barry vows to freak out about it later.
His hands start vibrating and he places them on the cover... and then through the cover which then shatters.
They're all cut and nicked by pieces, but mostly the shards rain downward. For a long moment, they all stare at the opening below.
"Lets go. I'm first," Iris says, "and I am so grateful I wore actual pants instead of a skirt and hotpants combo today." Then Iris cheerfully drops into the jeffries tubes and starts crawling.
"You first," Snart says, gesturing to Barry. "Then I get double the eye candy ahead of me."
Barry blushes beet red, probably matching his security red uniform.
They make it out of the detention block, but unfortunately the alarms for their escape have already gone off.
"Which way are shuttlecraft?" Iris asks. "I know its several floors down, but..." but they can't exactly take the turbolift. It'll have been locked down by now and they all know it.
Probably bulkheads closed between floors too, to prevent climbing between sections.
"More jefferies tubes in our future," Barry jokes, sourly, and leads them to an access hatch for a ladder that ought to pass through to the floor they want. He's able to open it with the manual override. "Six floors down and then we've got to head east. And they'll be waiting for us there, I'm sure," he added in a more serious tone.
"One problem at a time. Let's not borrow trouble," Snart told them. "We can plan strategy on the way down."
The shuttlebay is, as predicted, teaming with security guards. There's no way of telling which ones are being lied to and which ones are genuinely complicit.
Snart doesn't care, but Barry and Iris do, so they came up with a really bad plan.
They jam the doors just barely wide enough that they can get through and then Barry goes first.
He tested it in an empty hallway first and, yes, he can run really fast. Faster than can be seen, actually, leaving scorch marks on the carpet from the friction. His shoes are a little melty afterwards and his ability to stop is kind of crappy, but... he heals fast now too. It's an advantage.
Snart put out a few flames on the carpet with a directed ice blast that he managed because he was startled. Another advantage, once he figured out how to do it on command. Which he did when security officers had shown up in their empty training hallway.
"I think you all need to chill out," Snart quipped, icing the hallway while Barry opened up a door and then slid the officers into the room easy, locking them inside. (The pun shouldn't have made him even more attractive to Barry than he already was, but it did. Barry wanted to be annoyed with Len, but mostly he just couldn't stop grinning at the thief. They made a good team.)
That was when their plan finally came together.
Barry ran inside the shuttlebay and neatly snatched all the weapons from the security officers. He stacked them out in the hallway and then heads inside the nearest shuttle to start prepping for takeoff.
Snart enters second, once the officers are disarmed. He reaches out with his powers and forms an ice shield, which he and Iris use for cover, running to join Barry, and it seems to be working so far. The security officers are just too confused by what's going on to respond quickly.
The next part is tricky and its all on Iris. While Barry continues take off prep, Iris has to hack the starbase computer and open the shuttlebay doors.
Barry mutters "yes!" as the doors to space start to part and the security officers, realizing they need to get the hell out of there, make a run for the doors to the hall. Barry raises the shuttles shields, however, and rams the shielding between them and space.
The forcefield buckles, just enough for their shuttle to pass through, but it doesn't go down completely. Any officers left in the shuttlebay might've been knocked around a bit, but otherwise fine once the shuttle is outside. The field snaps back up, and Barry immediately jumps to warp. He just picks a direction and gets them out before any tractor beams can latch on to them.
Once at warp, and setting autopilot, finally, they all take deep breaths.
"So... that went better than I thought it would. But now what?" Snart drawls.
"We contact Starfleet Command and report what's going on with Admiral Thawne," Barry responds, slumping into his chair.
"When we were searching his office, there were communiques implicating Admiral Eiling as well," Iris pointed out. "We need to be careful who we trust; this goes beyond that starbase alone, Barry."
"It's a conspiracy," Len agreed. "I was handed over to the Admiral after being arrested for stealing a few paintings on Rylax. That's at least two systems away from the base. It's not just Starfleet, but members of planetary governments as well."
"Unless you were supposed to be shipped to a penal colony and were redirected to the starbase instead," Barry pointed out. "Most penal colony transfers are handled by Starfleet these days."
"I know a Captain we can trust," Iris said, interrupting any argument that might've ensued. "The Enterprise should be in this sector. There's no Captain more trustworthy than Kirk."
"When did you meet Kirk?" Barry demanded.
Iris avoided his gaze. "We might've run into each other on Risa during my last vacation."
Run into each other. Right. Barry felt jealous all over again. And probably nothing even happened. Knowing Iris they bonded over language porn and a strong love and respect for the free press. (Kirk was apparently extremely hot in person; Barry has many reasons to feel jealous that he doesn't feel like unpacking at the moment.)
"Well, lets start trying to hail the Enterprise," Len said. "Then while the computer handles that for us, how about we get to know each other a little better." He smirked at them both, giving them each a once over that made the two Starfleet officers blush. "You're both pretty clearly interested in each other... and in me, so..."
"Barry's not interested in me like that," Iris dismissed immediately.
"Actually..." Barry sighed, shooting a glare at Snart. "I am, but you aren't. So I haven't said anything."
"Oh... oh, Barry, that's... that's not true at all..."
"Hail the Enterprise now, work out your UST later," Snart interrupted, looking equal parts amused and annoyed.
"Right. Sorry," Iris scrambled to set up hailing frequencies. "We need to adjust our heading some, Barry. The Enterprise was supposed to be headed to Thylea for its next mission. They're transporting ambassadors for a peace treaty renewal." She paused a beat, then added, "then it seems like the three of us have a lot to discuss."
Barry adjusted their course to head for Thylea and then glanced between Iris and their attractive thief.
"Yeah, I guess we do," he agreed with a grin.