A/N: Hey yoh ! I never thought I'd be back for another Flash story, but you never know right?

I wanted to get back to writing and I stumbled upon this idea after rewatching Chuck and I got inspired... And since I already wrote a spy Snowbarry story, here is a con artists Snowbarry story for you :D This is an AU story without superpowers.

Also I'm a pretty honest person, scams and cons are not my speciality, so anything related that you'll find here is based off things I found on the internet. Thanks for the inspiration!

I still don't own anything !

Chapter 1. It's nice to con you

The sun was slowly travelling back down as Barry took a sip of coffee, enjoying the soft breeze of mid afternoon. He'd had a slow day and wasn't expecting to achieve much more for the rest of the day.

Sitting on the terrace of a small coffee shop, Barry looked at the streets bustling with life around him; some people were running to burn through their energy, other because they were late; some were slowly walking around without any obvious purpose. He loved moments like these when he could simply enjoy observing people around him, when nobody was really paying attention to him. Those were the moments when people dropped pretences, when he could really see them.

Those were the moments when he could truly learn about people, their habits, their hobbies, the way they moved, the way they interacted with each other… Afternoons like these were part of his job. He had to learn about people, to know them, like really know them, more than they knew themselves. To learn about those little tells they didn't know they had, that showed their true feelings.

From a very young age, Barry had learned to live off what he could find in the streets – as in what he could steal from people. It had all begun with a picking a few pockets and now it was with grand schemes, covert identities and tricks. Through the years, he had developed a whole skill set of various methods to earn his living.

He didn't like the word thief. He considered himself more of an artist… a con artist.

Because it truly was an art to convince people you can be trusted, that you are someone they can confide in. Such an art that most marks didn't realise they'd been conned until you were long gone… with their money.

"Oh no… no no no… no!"

Barry was pulled out of his thoughts by a woman's voice. He glanced behind him to a young woman fumbling through her purse, looking frantically around her. She seemed on the verge of really freaking out, muttering "no" repeatedly under her breath.

With an arched brow, Barry shifted in his seat and decided to pay more attention to that particular woman. She was sitting a few tables away from him, an empty cup of coffee in front of her. Her brown hair was neatly gathered into a bun, except for a rebel lock falling in front of her eyes. She was wearing a casual summer dress and her bag was sitting in her lap, most of its contents laying on the table where she had put them while looking for something.

As panic seemed to rise in the young woman's chest, her movements became frantic and more of her things scattered around her. A lipstick was lying at her feet, sunglasses were on the edge of the table waiting for that final shoved to fall down, an open hand sanitizer was dripping on the table, a pencil was stuck between her lips as she continued her series of "no".

To the untrained eye, that woman looked to be on the verge of crying, and anyone with a semblance of a heart would come rushing to her rescue, trying to help her. But to Barry's eyes, her chaos seemed to be controlled, as if every movement was mastered and calculated. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he felt like there was more to the situation than it seemed. So he decided to let it play out, rather than trying to help out and ask her what was going on. Even though something did pull at his heartstrings, watching her unravel like that.

As expected, Barry's attention wasn't the only one drawn to her; the patrons of the nearby tables were also looking at her. One man in particular, with blond hair and blue eyes, was already getting up to approach her.

"Ma'am? Are you okay?" the stranger asked softly, as he reached the young woman's table.

She jerked her head up, watching him with surprise filling her hazel eyes. "Oh… I… I'm sorry if I disturbed you… and I'm sorry for being such a mess." She stuttered, tucking her stray hair behind her ear. "I just…"

She stopped as if finishing her sentence was too hard for her, and let her head fall forward again, allowing her lock of her to fall back in front of her eyes. The stranger instantly kneeled next to her as she started fumbling through her bag again.

"What is going ma'am? Can I help you with something?" he asked quietly.

The woman stopped again and chanced a glance around her. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to them anymore. Except Barry. And as her eyes caught Barry's, she stopped for half a second, during which masks seemed to fall, panic erased from her features. And Barry almost saw surprise in her eyes.

She was beautiful. The intelligence in her hazel eyes was breathtaking. They looked like they could read any situation, analyse and solve any riddle they fell upon. They made Barry want to know more.

But before Barry could actually read the situation, the woman's attention was back on the blond stranger kneeling beside her, panic written all over her face again. The exchange between Barry and the woman had been stealth and went unnoticed by the blond man.

"I lost my engagement ring!" The woman explained, a slight tremor in her voice. She nodded towards the hand sanitizer on the table and continued. "I took it off just to wash my hands, and now… now I can't find it anymore!"

"Well it must be somewhere around here, couldn't have gone too far right?" The man started looking around them for said engagement ring.

"It has to, but I'm already late for my job interview, I can't stay to look for it. Oh my god what am I going to do?" a soft sob escaped her lips and she instantly put her hand in front of her mouth.

"How about I look for it while you go to your job interview." The man suggested, a reassuring smile stretching his lips. "I'll give you a call when I find it and we can meet up."

The woman seemed to hesitate but then she perked up and smiled back at the man. "Oh thank you that'll be great! I'll give you a reward for it!"

The man chuckled and shook his head. "Oh no, there's no need, really."

"Oh I insist! This is my late fiancé's engagement ring; it is worth way more than money to me." She paused, seemingly considering her next words. "I'll give you a reward of 1500$ for it! No wait, 2000$ even!"

Barry's eyebrows jumped up at that new information as he watched the scene unfold in front of him. He looked around him to see he was the only one witnessing this. Wait no, he wasn't the only one. In the shadow of a building on the other side of the street, he could see someone wearing a hoodie that seemed to be also watching the exchange.

Something told him he had been right all along. There was more to the situation than it seemed. Barry looked back to the woman's table to see as they were exchanging phone numbers. So the helpful stranger had accepted the deal and would look around for the ring while the woman left for her appointment.

With renewed interest, Barry watched as the woman gathered her stuff, thanked the man again and left, while the stranger continued looking around for the ring. For the next ten minutes, he searched without any success, getting more frustrated as each minute passed.

Well of course he'd get frustrated. The idea of such a reward – just for finding a ring that should be lying around somewhere near – would motivate pretty much anyone. And maybe the idea of seeing that beautiful woman again was an added bonus. Except the man couldn't find that stupid ring.

The blond man finally stopped looking around and decided to wait at the woman's table, probably hoping he would stumble onto the ring at some point.

Barry checked the time. 5:10 in the afternoon. Pretty late for a job interview in his opinion, but could happen. Barry opened his newspaper and continued the crossword puzzle he had been doing before. But his mind was occupied by what he had witnessed. He couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't finished.

About 20 minutes later, something in the corner of his eyesight caught his attention. A young Hispanic man with long hair approached the terrace of the coffee shop and was kneeling on the ground to redo his shoelaces.

Barry lifted his head to watch him more closely. He was wearing a dark hoodie sweater with jeans and sneakers. Barry instantly glanced back at the building on the opposite side of the street, but the hooded person he had seen before was gone.

If his instincts were right, the young man doing his shoelaces and the hooded bystander had to be the same person. Barry's attention went back to the Hispanic man. That's when he noticed something shiny on the floor next to the long-haired man's feet. Had he missed it before or had it simply appeared there?

Barry watched as the man picked up what seemed to be an engagement ring and stood up tall, putting the ring in his line of sight. The blond man, that had also seen him find the ring, jumped off his chair and went straight to the other man.

"Oh thank god you found my ring!" He said relieved, instantly trying to take the ring away from the Hispanic man.

But the younger man pulled back his hand, keeping the ring to himself. "What do I get for finding it?" He asked with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

The last piece of the puzzle was finally in place and understanding fell on Barry, drawing a huge smile on his face. Hook, line, and sinker… This was brilliant, Barry thought. The blond man was being conned and he had no idea.

If he were anybody else, Barry would have intervened, saved that innocent man from being conned out of a few bucks. But Barry was also in the con business, he wasn't about to jeopardize the work of a fellow con artist. Especially one as pretty as that brunette woman.

In the next few minutes, Barry witnessed as the two other men negotiated the terms of their exchange. The blond man offered 500$ for the ring (as he would get a 2000$ reward afterwards anyway) and the younger man accepted the cash. And they went they separate ways.

Later today, the blond man would try to call that mystery woman to get his reward for finding the ring, expecting more money than he gave away, and maybe even ask her out. But that number would be a dead-end, no mystery woman on the other side of the line. He would then check the engagement ring in his pocket and realise it was just a cheap piece of jewellery, probably not worth more than 10$. And tonight he would go to bed with 500$ less in his bank account. He'd been conned. Simple but brilliant.

As the Hispanic man was about to turn around the corner, Barry left a few bucks on the table to pay for his coffee, grabbed his newspaper and followed him. He knew how to stay unnoticed while following someone, Oliver had taught him everything he knew. The secret was to stay far enough so that your target didn't feel your presence, but close enough so that you didn't lose sight of them.

Barry followed him for a few minutes, until his target stopped near the driver side of a sports car. He watched as the man exchanged a few words with the driver, before handing in an envelope (probably full of cash) and leaving again.

Barry considered continuing to follow him, but his instinct was telling him that the driver of that car was the person he wanted to meet. So he let the young man disappear at the next street corner before jogging to the car himself.

As expected, he found the mystery woman behind the wheel of the car, counting the bills in the envelope. As soon as she saw Barry approaching, she closed the envelope and threw it in the glove box. When she turned back to her window, he was already standing there, laughter in his eyes. He bowed down to rest his elbows on the windowsill of her car

"I have to say, you have the whole damsel in distress act perfectly mastered."

Her features went from surprise to confusion so fast that the untrained eye wouldn't have noticed. Oh she was good.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She replied in a firm and steady voice, both hands on her steering wheel as if she were about to drive away. "Now if you could please take a step back, I have somewhere I need to be."

"Really brilliant," Barry continued, ignoring her request, "he didn't suspect a thing! He probably still doesn't, really… But you already know that, because you know how good you are. Or you would be long gone and you would have done the money exchange far away from your mark."

"I'm being serious, sir." She repeated, anger appearing in her voice. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Barry smirked. "Oh come on, no need to play pretend, I figured it all out. Nice take on the violin scam by the way."

"Sir, please leave, don't make me call the police." She huffed, glancing around but no one was paying attention to them.

He chuckled at her empty threat. "Oh I wouldn't do that if I were you. The last thing you want is the police paying attention to you."

She glared at him and his breath got caught in his throat. She really was beautiful. She intrigued him. He wanted to know more.

"Let me say it one last time, leave me be."

"Okay sure, let's play it that way." Barry conceded. "I'll leave you alone. Just know I admired your work. It was simple and calculated. It worked perfectly. I admit I would love to see more." He paused, looked her straight in the eyes and smiled. "If you ever need a partner, you know how to join me."

"I… what? No I don't…" She stuttered with a frown and Barry was filled with pride as he watched her act cracking under the surprise. He was sure that if he pushed further, maybe she'd open up a little, maybe he could get her name. But he wouldn't do that. Not today.

"You'll figure it out." He winked at her, a cheeky grin adorning his face, before straightening back up, waving goodbye and leaving her there.

Did he want to know more about her? Yes of course, it had been a while since he had met someone as interesting as her.

So why did he leave so easily? It seemed too simple to get his answers now. He liked the thrill of the chase. He liked not knowing when he'd see her again. He liked wondering how long it would get her to figure out that he had slipped his newspaper in her car. And that in said newspaper, he had scribbled his phone number. Would she contact him? He had no idea. But the ball was in her court.

He had felt a connection when their eyes had met on the coffee shop's terrace. He knew she had felt it too. What she would do with it was her choice.

But who better to understand a con artist than another con artist?

A/N: Let's be honest here, we all know who that mystery woman is, right?

Well that's it for now! Hope you liked it! I don't really know exactly where I want to go with this yet, so any feedback would be appreciated :) It's been a while since I've written anything so I hope I wasn't too rusty and this was enjoyable :)

Also, I stopped watching The Flash during season 4, so don't expect any cannon stuff here.. oops :D I did see that last Snowbarry hug on tumblr, maybe that's what inspired me to write again.

Until next time folks ! :)