Because chapter names "Unexpected Allies" and "Enemy of My Enemy" have already been used.
In which Oliver wakes up with a migraine, Biv whammies Cisco, Barry is embarrassed and confused, and Doctor Allen is seriously pissed off at two League assassins.
OOC is Serious Business and all that.
All characters seen or mentioned copyright DC, CW, etc.
Roy Bivolo crouched over the barely-conscious Oliver Queen and removed his mask. "Ah, damn," the metahuman said. "Lost that bet."
Shawna Baez smirked at him. "Told you. Pay up."
"Er... rain check?"
"Oh, god," Barry muttered, hiding his face in his hands.
Oliver groaned. "What hit me...?" He lifted one hand towards his head, and stopped short. "Why am I handcuffed to a chair?"
"Need me to hit him again?" Shawna asked.
Mick snorted. "That's supposed to be my job."
"I wanted to knock him out, not kill him," Shawna retorted.
"Oh, god," Barry muttered again.
"You missed a hell of a freak-out, Biv," Mick said, ignoring Barry completely.
Roy frowned. "Pity. But knowing Leonard, it's only a matter of time; I just hope I can see how my power works before he ends up dead."
"Hey, whoa, whoa!" Cisco protested. "That is just sick!"
Caitlin shot Roy a scandalized look. "You want to see if you can enrage Snart while he's having a panic attack?"
"Not enrage," Roy said, turning his glowing blue gaze on the pair. "Calm."
Caitlin yelped and swiftly covered her eyes.
Cisco wasn't so lucky. But instead of becoming angry, the tension simply drained out of him. He blinked. "Oh. Okay, yeah, that's cool." A dopey grin slowly shaped itself on his face.
Roy smiled. "Shall I?" he asked, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the medical wing.
Caitlin stared back and forth between Cisco and Roy. "I... I guess you'd better," she stammered. "Oh! I... I should probably let them know you're here, first, so J—Detective West doesn't try to shoot you."
"Much appreciated," Roy murmured as he followed her out.
Mick whirled around to point his heat gun at Oliver. "I'm impressed," he said.
"You're impressed," Oliver muttered. He dropped the handcuffs and began massaging some feeling back into his wrists. "You shouldn't have been able to hear me."
"I didn't hear ya," Mick replied. "That's why I didn't like it." He scowled. "Arrows burn, little man. So will you if you touch the kid again."
"Wait..." Barry frowned. "You're protecting... me?"
Mick shrugged. "You're protecting Len, ain't ya? Makes you a friend in my book. 'Sides, Len asked me to look out for you; he needs someone around here he trusts."
"Wha... No. No, Snart doesn't trust me," Barry said. He scratched the back of his head. "I don't know why you would think... He just... um... No..."
"Like hell he doesn't!" Mick snapped. He tossed the heat gun aside, folded his arms, and leaned against a desk to stare down at the younger man. "Weren't you watching him in there? He's been takin' his cue from you since he opened his eyes. Ain't no way he could've gone from a panic attack to tolerating that look-alike so easy if he didn't believe that it'd be okay."
"He trusts you," Barry protested. "He knows you'll look out for him."
"He knows I'll protect him," Mick agreed. "But that don't mean he trusts me; it just ain't the same thing. And anyway, I ain't in there protecting him right now, am I? That's 'cause it was you who told him he'd be safe with yer old man, even with the cop and the look-alike in there."
Cisco shook his head. "Anybody else feel like they're on the set of the Twilight Zone?"
"Yeah, me," Oliver replied. "My own team just let them attack me? And unmask me?"
"Honestly, Oliver," Nyssa spat the name. "We didn't let them attack you, we let them defend Mr. Allen." She nodded at Barry. "It's bad business to assault the client this early in the job. Or had you already forgotten who summoned our aid?"
Malcolm snickered, the sound slightly muffled by the hood he still wore. "Though maybe next time the great Al Sah-him won't let himself be taken by surprise so quickly."
Shawna scowled. "I'd like to see you take on a teleporter, Arthur King."
"I'm not the one stupid enough to attack the teleporter's friend," Malcolm pointed out. "And how the hell do you even know that name?"
"The boss does his homework," Shawna replied with a shrug. "Some of us pay attention."
Malcolm sighed and removed his hood. "No point in wearing this."
"This is who you called for help?" Mick asked. He shook his head. "Come on, kid, what are you doing with these losers? You don't need them. Just point me at whoever did that to Len."
"It's not that easy," Barry replied. "Majummed... the metahuman who attacked Snart... He's got Lisa."
"Dammit," Mick grumbled. "That does make it harder."
Malcolm gave a start. "Majummed? You said Majummed?"
"It's... what he called himself," Barry replied.
"That isn't possible!" Malcolm protested. He glanced at Nyssa. "Is it?"
"I wouldn't think so," Nyssa replied. "But I couldn't be certain without searching my father's records."
"Uh... little clue for the newer people?" Sara asked. "Who's Majummed?"
"Majummed is the name used in an experiment my father conducted years ago," Nyssa explained. "Before my time. But as Daughter of the Demon, and," she nodded at Malcolm, "as one of his Horsemen, we were both privy to certain details of the League's history that is concealed from all others. But I am absolutely certain that there is no living member of the League by that name."
"No living member," Barry said. "This just gets better and better."
"That might not matter," Jay pointed out. "Even if your Majummed is dead, anything you can tell us about him—or about this experiment—could be valuable. Many of the people the team's been dealing with lately have come from another universe. That includes Harry, Zoom, and myself. And, of course, whoever attacked Snart."
Cisco nodded slowly. "They're kind of like... copies, I guess, of people from this world. Kinda the same person, and kinda not."
"And they tend to go in the same circles as the ones from this world," Jay continued. "Similar interests, similar goals. Similar personalities. Anything you know about your mystery assassin will tell us something about ours, and might help us figure out a way to fight back if he shows up again."
"Not to mention finding out where he might have taken Lisa," Cisco murmured.
Malcolm nodded. "I'll check with my operatives and see what I can find in those records."
Nyssa grimaced. "I expect we should see this Snart's injuries," she said. "It may tell us something about the pretender's methods."
"Let's do that first," Malcolm agreed. He left the Cortex in the direction Roy and Caitlin had gone.
Sara and Oliver shared a bewildered look. "You two are actually going to work together on this?" Sara asked. "Maybe this is the Twilight Zone."
"I'll deal with that pretender to the throne soon enough," Nyssa snarled. "But this pretender to the League may prove the bigger threat. 'Copy' he may be, but he is not one of ours; if he is using the League's name to kill in this world, then by our laws he is an imposter and must be dealt with accordingly. Cooperation with Al Sa-her in this circumstance is a... 'necessary evil,' I believe you would call it." She swept out to follow closely behind Malcolm.
"I'm not sure that's a..." Barry said. But they were already gone. "Never mind."
Only a few minutes passed before a crash rang from the medical bay and echoed through the labs. Shawna grabbed Barry and Mick to teleport them a few short hops to investigate while the rest of the group raced to catch up.
Barry's eyes grew wide at the sight before him.
The bed had toppled over, taking some of the equipment with it. Leonard was huddled against the wall, wild-eyed and shaking violently. Blood began to soak through the bandages on his side.
Roy and Caitlin crouched on opposite sides of the thief. The metahuman was trying to force Leonard to meet his eyes, while Caitlin applied pressure to the reopened wound and murmured reassurances.
And a furious Henry Allen marched the two assassins out of the room.
Joe and Harry waited outside of the medical bay, both well away from the doctor.
"That's it!" Henry growled. He shoved the two assassins out the door. "Anyone who is not a medical doctor—" he glanced over his shoulder at Roy "—or a metahuman with calming powers—stay out!"
"What did I do?" Joe asked. He recoiled from the look Henry gave him. "Eeh! Never mind, sorry for asking!"
Firestorm flew in from another part of the labs. "What happened?" he asked. "Where is he? We heard a crash and shouting and... uh... nobody's under attack?" He shook his head and separated into Jefferson and Martin.
"Sorry," Jefferson said. "We kinda thought maybe this new meta showed up again. What's Doctor Allen so mad about?"
Martin glanced at the two assassins and grimaced. "I can only imagine."
Henry whirled to glare at Barry and the two Rogues.
Shawna held up a hand. "Studying to be a doctor. Does that count?"
Henry nodded. "You can stay. But you two...?"
Barry and Mick slunk past the doctor and left without a word, neither wishing to bring his wrath down on them by offering a single protest.
"Well, that was... interesting," Malcolm said once they were all back out of Henry's sight. He snickered.
Joe glared at him. "You better mean the part where we all got thrown out," he said. "Or I will shoot you."
"So what happened?" Barry asked. "What was that all about?"
"Snart took one look at these two," Harry replied, with a nod at Nyssa and Malcolm, "and completely flipped out. Which I'm starting to understand is quite out of character for him, but under the circumstances..."
"And I thought that panic attack about Wells was bad," Joe added. "Bivolo's got his work cut out for him. By the way, did any of you know he could do that? Use his power to calm someone down? I always thought he was all about riling everyone up."
"We, uh... just found that out," Barry replied. "Speaking of finding things out, I don't suppose either of you were in there long enough...?"
"The pretender is very good at pretending," Nyssa replied. "I fear Snart's attacker might be all too familiar with the ways of the League."
"You saw his injuries?" Sara asked. "Already?"
Nyssa shook her head. "No. Not yet. But when he... 'flipped out' as Doctor Wells put it, he was not looking at us." She glanced at Malcolm. "He was looking at our outfits. He recognized our gear."
"If we are to examine him," Malcolm added, "we'll have to do so in civilian clothing. And hope that he doesn't recognize us. Not like we were hiding our faces, though; maybe instead we should hope that Bivolo can keep him settled when the time comes." He turned and walked away, only glancing over his shoulder when he reached the door alone. "Coming?" he asked. "Or are we taking turns?"
Oliver nodded at the two female assassins. "Sara can help Nyssa with civilian clothing and get back here quickly. I'll stay here in case this meta shows up."
"Sounds like a plan," Sara replied. She and Nyssa left the labs close behind Malcolm.
"Okay, dude,"Cisco said, "I am seriously scared of your dad right now." He still hadn't lost that dopey grin, but there was an edge of nervousness to his voice.
Point the first: Shawna teleporting Barry and Mick along.
I don't remember if Shawna could've learned Flash's identity in-canon, but for my headcanon she at least suspects who he is. Teleporting him in there was partly helping Barry purely for the sake of helping the guy who's helping Len, and partly making sure he doesn't have to reveal himself by speeding in there himself.
Not that the second reason matters for long, as next chapter's convergence between official canon and this alternate version of events has Barry deciding "Screw it" and just letting the Rogues know who he is instead of trying to sneak back and forth between looking in on Len and dealing with the breaches.
Point the second: Cisco being afraid of Henry. Or more to the point, how I wanted to continue the scene.
That dialogue was supposed to continue with Barry mentioning that he bets Caitlin's just as scared, because of the comment she'd made a couple of chapters back about letting Len die in his sleep... which dialogue is followed up by Mick overhearing and telling the two that an overdose on the medicine wouldn't done anything because those kinds of drugs don't have any effect on Len anyway. Barry and Cisco are shocked and nauseated as they realize this means that Len was awake during the entire operation (or at least until he passed out from the pain), and not merely "until the medicine kicked in."
That version of the dialogue was scrapped, mostly because I'm still working out the mechanics of FF!Len's odd resistance to certain types of drugs. (Current theory is that a local pain killer would work just fine as it numbs the area, but general anesthetics wouldn't because it works by making him forget the pain, and still others fail because they're designed to effectively make him so loopy that he simply doesn't care. Obviously he can't be totally resistant to things that screw with his mind-Darkh likes to play mind control in several of my fics, usually by taking advantage of how Len's temporal illness makes his mind go fuzzy, and Lisa recruited Biv specifically so he could use his power to keep Len calm if necessary-and there are drugs that have to affect him for a critical chapter in one of my fics to work. Thus the necessity of working out those mechanics. But so far I'm getting that he's seriously resistant to drugs that affect his ability to function mentally and, in certain cases, somewhat less resistant to those like Curare that interfere with his ability to function physically, and not nearly as resistant to things that affect the mind via non-chemical sources.)
Point the third: Henry throwing out the assassins when he didn't throw Harry out earlier.
To be fair, none of them knew in the previous chapter that Harry (or rather, Wells) was the reason for Len's panic attack. Had Len not revealed his history with Tess, they would have gone on thinking his panic was due to Cisco's Curare "suggestion" and Henry would have had a very stern word with Cisco as soon as he had the chance. Thus the previous note.
Linked fics:
Biv finally gets to try out his power on Len, Re the reason Lisa recruited him in the Flash Sideways ficlet "Recruitment Drive."
