This one also takes place during the time of the Flash episode "The Runaway Dinosaur." Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.

...

It's a somewhat grumpy and discouraged group that finally makes it back to S.T.A.R. Labs, engendering a wave of reactions in Cisco Ramon that would be fairly amusing, Leonard thinks, if he wasn't so goddamned annoyed.

"Mick Rory? Heatwave?" Ramon gapes at the grinning Mick as he saunters openly into the room with the rest. "Oh, nononononono... oh, hi, Ray. Kendra!? Oh, wow. Wait, what happened to..."

"Differences of opinion," the woman tells him mildly, with a smile. "Carter and I… parted ways. Ray said Central City could use some help."

"Yes! Um..." Cisco glances at Ray, who's earnestly chatting with Iris. "Right..."

The inventor notices the glance and walks back over. "So, um... we sort of need to find this zombie again. Cisco…"

Leonard snorts as he makes his way carefully into the Cortex. This is not how a Snart... this Snart... plans out operations, he thinks, collapsing into a chair. He's gotten… well. Maybe not precisely soft. But out of practice at the precise plotting and planning a well-executed heist entails.

Working with Sara has been exhilarating in its own right. (He smirks a little, watching her cross the room, enjoying the view.) But with an enemy like this Girder, and a group that's not just the two of them, it's different.

Closing his eyes, he finally entertains the thought that's been lurking in the back of his brain since he'd hit the concrete in the Big Belly Burger parking lot … and wonders again if maybe it isn't time to leave.

Cut his losses. Let his wounds mend. Let the insanity ruling Central City shake down a bit before sniffing back around to see what opportunities are available for an enterprising crook and… and…

His mind just doesn't want to go there.

Someone nudges his shoulder, interrupting his train of thought. Sara's returned, holding out the ankle brace he should have been wearing. Her glare says that he better put it on, and so he accepts it without a word. She smiles a little, shakes her head at him, and then turns to perch on the arm of the chair, close enough that he could slip an arm around her waist if he wanted to.

He wants to.

He can't leave. He can't. Not while his city's this open to things like this Girder, like this Zoom, who apparently killed seven cops while he and Sara had been holed up in the safe house and who seems dedicated to being a force for the type of chaos Leonard just can't stand. If Wells is correct—and there's no reason he wouldn't be—eventually there will be nowhere left to run.

And not while Barry is still MIA. While his feelings on Central City's speedster are complicated—he'll admit that—running off while his fate's unknown just doesn't feel right.

And not while Sara won't go with him.

And she won't. There's simply no way. Whatever fragile thing they have, it's no match for her pure drive to be a hero, to help people. It's who she is. He glances up at her, takes in her profile as she watches the others discussing metahuman apps and Girder's probable whereabouts, and thinks about card games and fighting side by side and long hours in bed…

"So! If he's probably at the West's house, are we going to go get him?" Palmer's voice is plaintive. And when Leonard looks over at him, the other man is looking a trifle lost, casting about the room as if looking for someone to tell him what to do.

Well. They do need a plan. And now Sara's looking down at him, a little smile playing about her lips, and damned if maybe she didn't know exactly what he was thinking all along….

Leonard Snart sighs… and levers himself to his feet, resigning himself to his fate.

"That thing's metal, more or less," he says. "I laid out the plan before, although we didn't get a full chance to carry it out. Mick heats it up as much as possible, then I hit it with ice. I don't think I have to tell you what that combination does to metal."

Palmer looks intrigued. "Makes it brittle," he says. "So… what do Sara, Kendra and I do?"

Leonard shrugs. "Distract him. Make sure he stays in metal form. Make sure no civilians get in the way. And when I've cooled him down…"

"Shatter him." Kendra's voice is low. "It's a good plan."

"Of course it is." Turning, he offers Sara a hand. She accepts it, getting to her feet, and smiles at him.

But into this silence, then, comes a new noise: the low hum of the heat gun.

Mick's standing, primed gun in hand, and he's sweeping it back and forth to cover them all, more or less.

"I don't know what the hell he thinks he's doing," he says, staring at Leonard. "But I'm no hero. Sure, it was fun frying zombie ass, but I'm not putting my life on the line for nothin'. There are other cities. Why would…"

"I'll pay you."

At this point, everyone, including Mick, turns to stare at Ray Palmer, who colors faintly, but looks stubborn.

"I'm rich," he says to Mick. "Well, sort of. Not as much as I used to be. But enough to make it worth your while. What's a good take in a heist? Hit me."

Mick snorts, but hesitates… and then names a sizable figure, one that Leonard knows perfectly well is far more than he'd be pulling in on anything other than one of Len's elaborately planned jewel heists, enough that he won't have to pull anything else for months.

And Palmer nods. "Done," he says. "But you have to see this out. After that... well... we'll renegotiate."

Mick stares at him, then lowers the gun and shakes his head.

"I'm in," he says, "for now."

Palmer takes a deep breath, then looks at Leonard. "And you? Is that what it's going to take?"

He's actually surprised at the fury that sparks momentarily. Hasn't he been protecting the city pro bono over the past few weeks with Sara? Wasn't he the one out there about to get flattened by a fuckin' meta zombie? And isn't…

A noise from Sara, though, distracts him from his own anger, and he glances at her to see utter rage in her eyes as she glares at Palmer, who, showing an ounce of self-preservation, takes a wary step back. The hawk woman steps to his side, watching Sara, and Mick watches them all, and this whole thing could go downhill really fast…

Which will serve no purpose whatsoever.

He puts a hand on Sara's shoulder, and when she looks at him, he meets her eyes, trying to convey gratitude and understanding and…

"Got my own reasons," he says shortly to Palmer, still holding Sara's gaze. "So, they say he's probably heading for the West residence? I just happen to already know where that is..."


It is a good plan.

They lure and herd Girder off the quiet city street to a vacant lot in an area when the resulting fallout can't damage much, then put Leonard's plot into motion. While Ray and Kendra and Sara herself harry the lumbering meta zombie from one side and then another, keeping him off base and in his metal form, Len and Mick move around them, alternately heating and freezing him until he finally slows to a stop, metal body stressed to the breaking point by the forces of physics.

Palmer moves into position then, readying his weapons… when what seems to be a shooting star in human form careens right through their midst, smashing into the metal form with a resounding crash and sending chunks of stressed metal everywhere.

The fiery figure loops back into the air, then comes to a rest at the spot when the animated form of a dead man once stood.

"Whoo!" it crows, with a young man's voice. "That was awesome!"

This spectacle earns a long moment of silence, even from Ray, whom Leonard had started to suspect never really stopped talking. It's eventually Mick who, lowering his weapon, shakes his head in amazement.

"This day," he informs the fiery man, "just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

The figure tilts its head and then, with a low rush of air, glows brighter for a moment before separating into two figures who step away from each other as the flames die.

The shorter of the two, an older, bespectacled man who looks like nothing so much as an absent-minded professor, shakes his head.

"Was that," he says, distaste dripping from his voice as he scans the group, "a zombie?"

The other man, much younger and with the build of an athlete, laughs out loud and stretches, looking around at the startled faces around him.

"Like I said," he adds with a grin, "awesome."


The fiery man, it turns out, is two people in one superhuman form: Martin Stein (the older man, who is indeed a professor) and Jefferson "call me Jax" Jackson, who takes his older counterpart's lectures with a combination of fond exasperation and annoyed frustration. They'd apparently also been among the help Cisco'd called in when Barry'd vanished, although Leonard, listening to the two sides of "Firestorm" bicker as they all head back to S.T.A.R. Labs, thinks to himself to perhaps they have some issues to work out as a bit more of a priority.

But then, don't they all.

The members of their little group, flush with the success of the operation, are chattering amongst themselves as they head down the corridor toward the Cortex. Leonard, bringing up the rear side by side (and hand in hand) with Sara, shakes his head in amusement—but then frowns as he notices the silence falling the moment each of them reaches the Cortex. He slows, squeezing Sara's fingers in warning, then lets his other hand drift down to rest on his gun...

… and stops dead in his tracks as they emerge into the room.

Barry Allen, grinning, stands there with Joe and Iris, Cisco and Wells and Henry Allen, still wearing his ridiculous red costume and taking in the group with a smile that just grows wider when he sees Leonard and Sara.

"Hi, guys," he says, spreading his hands out in front of him. "Thanks for the assist. But I'm back!"

Leonard stares at him a long moment... and then snorts.

"Whatever," he tosses over his shoulder as he steps around the bemused speedster and heads for the elevator. "I need a shower."


Barry, as it happens, has returned from an experience with what he seems to believe is the Speed Force itself. He's woken Jessie Wells with a mere touch of his hand, and he seems to have a renewed store of faith that he's meant, destined even, to defeat Zoom and bring balance to the force… or something like that.

But Leonard just can't seem to shake the feeling that something's about to go sideways. He stands in the Cortex and watches the impromptu welcome-home celebration, frowning, until Sara shakes her head, makes him take a drink, and insinuates herself under his arm, leaning against him in a way that once would have had him running, but honestly just feels right.

"What's bugging you?" she asks finally. "And don't tell me 'nothing.' "

He owes her the courtesy of honesty. "Barry seems to think everything's sunshine and rainbows now," he says slowly. "But..."

"It just doesn't work that way," Sara finishes. "So, what are you thinking?"

He exchanges a long look with her, then turns again to look at the group. Mick is regarding Palmer with an expression that seems to be equal parts amusement and bewilderment as the armored man jabbers on at him about dwarf star alloy and astrophysics. The hawk woman... Kendra... is speaking with some animation to the professor (whom he thinks he's met at one point, though he can't recall precisely how) while the kid is watching her with an expression of great appreciation.

A motley crew, to be sure, but... he's worked with worse.

And he can work with this. He can work with them.

"If Barry's not going to be ready for the worst," he says slowly. "We will be."