Summary: Black frost isn't technically frost at all. When the humidity is too low for a true frost to form but the temperature itself falls low enough that plant tissues freeze, plants will blacken due to cell disruption and die as a result. There is another term used for this type of frost, however. Killing frost.
Of course, if anyone bothered to ask, she'd say her name wasn't that deep.
Notes: For Snowfrost Appreciation Week - Villain/Reformed Killer Frost
I'm playing around with the Earth-2 Killer Frost here. After all, we never actually know for certain that Earth-2's Killer Frost isn't a second personality, just like on Earth-1. She's pretty much a straight-up villain here, but she's got potential to reform there at the end.
The story is very much told in anachronic order.
Content Warnings: various forms of abuse, child death, suicidal thoughts
Killer Frost
Arguably, it started with Charlie. Charlie died and the whole family went to hell.
The whole thing was an accident. Caitlin was supposed to be watching Charlie while their parents set up the campsite. As little boys were wont to, Charlie ran off and, exasperated with her brother's antics, Caitlin gave chase. She wasn't running fast, she wasn't really trying to keep up. They'd camped in these woods every summer since Caitlin could remember and there was nothing dangerous here. She'd catch her brother, tickle him breathless, and then haul him back to their parents for lunch.
Except there was a scream.
Caitlin is running full out after that, shouting her brother's name. She barely manages to stop before falling into the same sink hole that opened up beneath her brother.
It's a long way down and there's so much blood below...
"Failure," Carla shouts. "Drop out. Didn't study enough. Lazy bitch. Lucky I let you live under my roof..."
Caitlin scrambles out of the living room, away from her drunk mother, and hides away in her bedroom, door locked behind her. Not that a privacy lock would do much good against a determined Carla Tannhauser, but...
It gives her the illusion of privacy. Usually that would be enough. But Caitlin's not in high school anymore. She's a college level failure.
The worst part is, she did study. She studied so fucking hard, Caitlin had nearly completed her single-degree course study two semesters early. And then another student stole her work. He had deep pockets - family money. Caitlin had a worthless, drunk mother. It's no surprise who the faculty believed. Money talks.
And now she was trapped here with no degree and no future and no escape...
Her mother's screaming drunken invectives at Caitlin's door now and it's all she can do to hide in her closet, doors shut as she crawls into the part furthest to the back, beneath low shelving that Caitlin can barely squeeze herself beneath anymore. It's a nook full of blankets and stuffed animals and if she covers her ears and hums loudly, she can almost block out the sound of her mother's ranting.
She has to leave this place.
She has nowhere to go.
The temperature drops.
Caitlin can't get the sight of her brother's bloody broken body out of her head. She sits in her father's lap for days afterwards, crying against his chest.
She's already given up on reaching out to her mother. Carla flinches away every time Caitlin tries.
The woman's eyes glitter with some unnamable emotion every time Caitlin looks at her.
She's afraid her mother thinks she should've died instead of Charlie. He was Carla's baby.
Had Caitlin ever been so loved by her mother? She doubted it.
Though she did agree with her mother's silent accusations. Caitlin should have died instead of Charlie.
(She never acts on the impulse, but its there on and off. A quiet little wish that she could join Charlie wherever he was now. To just... sleep and never wake up.)
"Do you remember me?" she purred, voice fractured and echoing.
The Doctor's eyes widened and he shook his head, desperate to get away. Already, Killer Frost had a reputation.
"Oh come now, surely you remember me. I had to be worth a good laugh by the time you were done. Stealing my work and having me kicked out of school to cover your tracks." She saw the glimmer of recognition and smirked in satisfaction. "You do remember me."
"C-Caitlin Snow."
"Caitlin Snow was a weak, sniveling little thing. I should thank you. You flicked over the domino that led all the way to me." She boxed him in against the wall, hands on his shoulders and causing his skin to freeze and burn. "Just a little kiss, to show my gratitude."
She could have frozen him solid with her touch alone. The kiss, though... that's like the signature on a piece of artwork.
Killer Frost walks out of the building, leaving an ice sculpture behind.
Thomas is ill. Carla wrecks her career trying to save him, but what they discover isn't a cure.
Or it is, but at a price.
All Caitlin knows afterwards is that her father assaulted her mother and that Carla shot him in self defense. Given Thomas Snow's descent into anger - into rage - and the bruises lining Caitlin's arms from the once loving father... it's easy to believe.
She never puts it together with the 'vaccine' her father gave her, right before he started getting mean.
And though Caitlin was never... formally introduced to Icicle, Carla was. Right before she put a bullet between his eyes.
Carla's too drunk to recognize the changes happening in Caitlin, though. Not before its too late.
"I'm here to protect you, Caity," are some Killer Frost's first words.
"Who is supposed to protect me from you?" are Caitlin's last.
Ronnie meets Caitlin first. Saves her from a mugging, buys her a drink.
He's a criminal himself. A con artist. A good one. But he doesn't con her and Caitlin falls a little in love with him for it. She doesn't think they'll meet again, though, as she marches back home to her mother's house at a too early hour of the morning.
Carla's too busy being passed out on the couch to notice Caitlin's absence, never mind her late (early) return.
The next time they meet, Killer Frost is in charge, though Caitlin won't have figured out yet why that wasn't a good thing.
She never expected to see Caitlin again, after the little voice in the back of her head faded away.
This Caitlin isn't afraid. A bit naive perhaps, but not the coward Killer Frost remembers when she looks in the mirror too long. There's steel in those brown eyes. Steel her Caity never had.
Or maybe she did, but it got beaten out of her by Carla and Thomas' abuse and the loss of her dreams and every little thing that kicked Caitlin to the floor and then kicked her a few dozen times more after that. Including Killer Frost.
Caitlin had pleaded with Killer Frost every time she murdered someone. Not this one. Not this one. Please, not this one.
This Caitlin, though... she wouldn't plead. She'd punch.
Killer Frost's fingers clench around an icicle that hadn't been there seconds earlier.
She was made to love Caitlin. To protect Caitlin.
But Killer Frost was still so new and young and there was so much she didn't understand.
It never occurred to her that she was smothering her beloved Caitlin until she was all alone.
"Why would you need to be protected from me, Caity? I'm here to take care of you."
No answer. Just silence in her head as her control finally slipped for good and everything she touched iced over.
"Caity?"
Nothing.
"Caitlin!"
Silence.
Carla sends Caitlin sprawling to the floor with the slap and... something shifts. In her chest.
For the first time in her life, she feels strong. She feels powerful.
She looks up and sees her mother turn pale, stumbling away in fear.
"That's right. That's the last time you hurt her." It's Caitlin's mouth, but it's not her voice. Not her words. "Never again."
The person who stands up, who approaches Carla Tannhauser... who shoves an icicle through the woman's chest... that's not Caitlin.
"Who are you? What are you?" Caitlin wants to ask. But her body isn't hers right now. It all feels so unreal and Caitlin wonders if she's having a dissociative episode. Did she really just spontaneously manifest powers and an alternate personality and murder her own mother? Impossible. Just... impossible. She was numb and in shock and none of this was real...
"I'm here to protect you, Caity," the woman speaking through Caitlin's mouth told her, answering the unspoken questions. "No one will ever hurt you again. I promise."
No one but her.
At first it's not so bad. Caitlin makes the other personality promise not to kill again. It's an easy promise to make.
It's not one she intends to keep, after all.
The look up names for her online, but all Caitlin's suggestions are lame. They're human names and she's something other.
They stumble across an article online about different kinds of frost. Caitlin immediately vetoes Hoar Frost because, well... it sounds like 'whore frost'. Which, admittedly, she'd prefer not to go by a name that sounds phonetically like a slur against sex workers. An alternate name for hoar frost is pruina, but she doesn't like that either. She considers just Frost but that's not really her style
She wants pizzazz.
Advection frost is a cool phenomenon (pun totally intended) but it's a terrible name for a person. Same for window frost, though at least it has other names to consider. Fern frost feels too plant-like, however, and ice flowers too delicate. She moves on to the next.
White frost is a boring name, but Rime has potential. She says the word a few times in succession to see how well it rolls off the tongue. Caitlin likes it too, so it becomes the top - and, thus far, only - contender. Technically Rime isn't frost, since it isn't caused by the sublimation of water vapor out of the air. Instead it's a kind of ice, most commonly encountered on ships when super cooled water builds up over time. So it's more of an honorary frost and that's good enough for her.
The last type of frost on the list isn't technically a type of frost either. Black frost, or killing frost, occurs in low humidity when the temperature drops enough to freeze the tissues of various plants. The plants can't survive with frozen cells, so they die and turn black. Killer Frost... it has... poetry to it. But Caitlin shies away from that name.
So she tells Caitlin to call her Rime. But, quietly, she calls herself Killer Frost.
"Well hello there."
Killer Frost looks up from the beer she's nursing and the fuck-off spikes of ice on the bar she used to make some letch who hadn't wanted to take no for an answer back off. It had the unintended consequence of scaring the bartender, however, and he'd been keeping a good distance while she sat there alone. Until now, anyway.
The man who approached was familiar. Ronnie Raymond, Caitlin helpfully supplied. Hottie. Kind. Criminal.
"Snow, right? Seems even more appropriate now than before." He gestured to the empty stool beside her. "May I have the honor of joining you for a drink?"
"Sure. Caitlin remembers you. But I'm not Caitlin. I'm... Rime." She stumbles over the name. Wants to tell him the real one to see if he'd run away.
"Alright then, Rime."
When they kiss that night, he breathes out cold air and laughs beautifully. He watches her with a lazy, possessive gaze that makes her feel like a princess.
The first time they fight, Killer Frost loses control of her powers.
It should have been a sign. She nearly froze Ronnie's fingers when he touched her bare shoulder.
It isn't until she asks Caitlin's forgiveness about murdering the asshole who ruined Caitlin's chances for a degree that Caitlin relents. "No more killing, Rime."
"I promise," she lies, and their powers return to normal.
Ronnie can touch them again.
It should've been a sign, but Killer Frost ignores it.
She was born to protect Caitlin Snow. Except the woman in front of her isn't her Caitlin Snow.
But some instincts are too deeply imbedded to ignore.
Zoom arrives, during Killer Frost's moment of indecision and moves to drag Caitlin back into her cell.
"I'll deal with you next," he tells Killer Frost, offhand.
He could kill her now that he had the real thing. He might accidentally kill Caitlin, given the way he was manhandling her now.
Killer Frost couldn't help it. Her powers had been unbalanced for so long that even if the protectiveness had faded over the years... she'd have still lashed out.
And as the extreme cold exploded out of her, Killer Frost screamed the other woman's name. Screamed Caitlin's name. And then jammed the icicle in her hands home, into Zoom's frozen back.
Caitlin stands there, frightened but ultimately unharmed. Not even the cold dared touch her.
She can't kiss Ronnie, after Caitlin disappears. And Ronnie mourns Caitlin's loss, even as he reassures Killer Frost that he still loves her.
It takes him a while to get used to the new name. He calls her Killer as a nickname and she loves to hear her real name spoken aloud. Finally.
They get married, but they can't seal the deal with a kiss. They can't have their wedding night. Killer Frost cries and her tears hurt.
And then... the accelerator. A fireball crashes into Ronnie and suddenly he burns and he hurts to touch, but she can kiss him now. She can show him how much she loves him.
Even if she's a little afraid he'll burn her away one day. She'll melt away and there'll be nothing left. Not of her... and not of Caitlin.
Where's the line between love and hatred?
("Caitlin? I hate that name.")
Killer Frost never does quite figure that out.
Caitlin - the other Caitlin from that other Earth - takes the man in the mask with her when she leaves for her home dimension. And that leaves Killer Frost alone again.
And now there's no one left she can touch.
She wishes she could go to where her Caitlin went when she left. Wherever that place is inside their head is where a personality could sleep and never wake up.
It was probably peaceful there.
No rest for the wicked. Killer Frost understands that all too well now. No rest, no comfort... no love.
She walks up the steps of the closest CCPD station and turns herself in. She sits quietly when they lock her in a cell. It'd be child's play for her to get out. To kill every cop in the station. But she's tired and alone and killing helps no one. She's learned that much, at least.
(In the back of her head, still too quiet for Killer Frost to notice yet, something - or someone, rather - wakes up...)