In which we return to the alternate version of events that is Len (et cetera) still being in Central City instead of joining the Legends team.
And we kinda-sorta reveal the identity of my assassin ("kinda sorta" because Len is kinda-sorta confused due to oncoming hypothermia and isn't sure he'd seen who-or what-he thought he'd seen). Though if you're keeping up on my deviantArt account and saw either the original premise of this story back when it was in the "not yet begun" status, or read Majummed's character bio, you'll have already seen that identity.
Leonard and Lisa Snart copyright to DC, CW, etc.
Majummed (of Earth Two) copyright to me.
The "minute" lasted for nine and a half—Lisa was probably calling some third-rate repairman she could badger into keeping quiet—before Leonard realized he'd been nodding off for the last eight. He stretched out on the sofa and decided to sneak in a quick cat-nap before she caught him with his boots on the furniture.
"Lenny!"
Leonard sprang to his feet, knocking over the coffee table in the process. He bent to set it upright—it was blocking the shortest path to Lisa—when she screamed again.
"Len—" the cry was cut off with a thump and a thud.
"Screw it," he muttered, and he snatched up his gun and jumped over the toppled furniture.
Leonard squeezed past the open cellar door—noting with a curious detachment that the hinges were frozen solid—and raced down the stairs to where Lisa should be.
And he promptly lost his footing on the icy surface. Only a quick twist and a grab for the railing saved him from breaking his neck, but the landing jarred his knee painfully.
Leonard limped over to where his sister lay in a crumpled heap, before finally allowing himself to drop to the floor next to her when crouching proved too painful for his knee. "Lis... Lisa?" Her skin felt like ice... but he could see her breath clouding in front of her. He wanted to pick her up, carry her someplace warmer, but he knew better than to move her without knowing if she was injured. He settled for shrugging out of his parka—ignoring the instinct that screamed he should not be feeling warm!—and covering her with it before he made a fumbled search for her phone.
"Hello? Please, it... it's my neighbor," he said, deliberately stuttering and stumbling over his words. He didn't need to fake the panic that threatened to choke him. "She... she's hurt. I think she might... I think she fell down the stairs? Please, she's so cold..."
Leonard barely listened as the 911 operator calmly tried to reassure him and explain what to do while he waited for an ambulance; he was too busy examining his surroundings to pay heed to anything so mundane. Whatever had befallen Lisa was not the result of a fall; no, his instincts told him there was danger here, something to do with this bizarre chill. He had to get her away... but if she was injured...
The shivering that wracked him had nothing to do with the cold. He didn't dare move her, not without knowing what had happened to her. Even a minor injury could become serious if he moved her without proper precautions. But if he left her to the cold—
"Zoom told me you'd lost your edge," a voice said from the corner, interrupting his thoughts. "I didn't believe him."
Leonard leaped to his feet, wobbling a bit as his hurt knee threatened to give way under him. The phone cracked on the floor, forgotten. He could still faintly hear the operator trying to talk to him.
"Who are you?" Leonard snarled. "What do you want?"
"I'm looking for a challenge," the figure in League robes answered him. "I'd hoped you could give me that before I killed you, but you can't even protect your sister. Such a waste."
Leonard's eyes flashed, and he snatched up his cold gun and shot it at full power.
The ice never even reached the assassin before it vanished. "Really?" the assassin said. He gestured at the frozen room around them. "You attack me with ice?"
The voice on the other end of the phone spoke up again. Leonard ignored it, but the other man seemed distracted. "That's irritating," the assassin said. The phone promptly froze solid and thawed in quick succession until it crackled and died.
Leonard dropped the cold gun and pulled a revolver from his belt, firing off four rounds in quick succession while the assassin was distracted.
The gun froze in his hand, a cold that burned him even through his thick glove, forcing him to drop the weapon with a hiss at the pain before he could pull the trigger for the fifth time.
His eyes widened when he took in the scene before him: the four bullets had slammed into a thin wall of ice, the air itself frozen solid around them, and there they remained, mere inches from penetrating the enemy in some particularly vital areas.
And that enemy hadn't even tried to avoid them. "You have lost your edge," the assassin said, his voice thick with disgust. "At least one of those should've hit before I could react. Do I need to make it easy for you?"
And all of the ice simply melted.
The room was colder than ever—Lisa's breath clouding around her face, and the blue tint spreading along her skin, told Leonard that as his own uncomfortably hot skin no longer could—but the ice was gone. He launched himself at the man, made a grab for his hooded face... and nearly lost consciousness when the man kicked him hard in his injured knee.
Leonard fought to remain conscious; he didn't care that it was a losing battle, he had to keep fighting. For Lisa. He had to protect Lisa.
Even sitting upright was a struggle. Spears of ice jabbed into him every time he moved, many sharp enough to tear through his jeans and draw blood as he passed by them. Sharp enough, he suspected, to slice through muscle; the care to avoid any serious injury forced him to move far slower than he liked.
By the time Leonard had twisted around enough to find his enemy, the assassin was already crouching over Lisa, his back to Leonard and his hood fallen to the side to reveal nothing more distinctive than a shaven head. "No!" Leonard cried. "Leave her be!"
"She's only sleeping," the man said. "She'll waken when I allow her to."
"Don't hurt her," Leonard pleaded. "If you want to kill me, then kill me. But please don't hurt Lisa."
"I would never hurt her," the man said gently. He cradled the unconscious Lisa in his arms, allowing the parka to fall forgotten to the floor, and he turned around to face Leonard.
Leonard recoiled from the sight as much as his icy prison permitted. He blinked, tried to shake his head... the cold was fogging his mind, he couldn't be seeing this... could he...? "But you... you're... You can't be..."
"You?" the man suggested. He grinned. "Not exactly."
This chapter also gives the first of my attempts to be somewhat accurate, medically speaking, though I'm sure I'll be inaccurate in other parts of the story.
One, Len is so cold that hypothermia is kicking in... seriously enough that he's actually feeling hot (leading in real life to a situation known as "paradoxical undressing" in which the cold victim feels so uncomfortably warm that they actually start removing clothing; here Len knows enough not to give in to this urge no matter how warm he thinks he is and he only removed his parka so that he can try to keep Lisa warm).
And two, when someone is badly injured it can be very dangerous to move them if you don't know what you're dealing with-even turning her to a more comfortable position can be bad-unless of course you're moving them from an even more dangerous situation; in this case, Len simply doesn't know what happened (yet) so while he feels there is danger present, he doesn't know if it's dangerous enough to move Lisa elsewhere, particularly since he doesn't (yet) know if she's injured.
Edited for naming in narrative and similar reasons.
