Earth 4

Hero Snart/Criminal Lance

xXx

When the particle accelerator exploded, Leonard had been asleep. It had been a long day at work and he needed to crash early if he had any hope of getting up at a reasonable time the next morning. He slept through the whole thing and when he woke, it was in a mountain of snow and ice. He was confused to say the least, especially when he realized he wasn't in his apartment anymore.

"Mr. Snart?" a feminine voice called out, tinny through the the speakers around the room. He turned slightly in bed, finding a young brunette on the other side of a glass window, frost clouding it up around the edges. "Can you hear me alright, Mr. Snart?" she asked again and he nodded. "Good. I'm Dr. Caitlin Snow." she introduced herself.

"Where am I?" he asked, prying himself from bed, joints stiff with the cold.

"You're at Star Labs. You were… affected by the Particle Accelerator explosion." she continued.

"Particle Accelerator? That stupid generator everyone was getting worked up about?"

"That would be it."

"It exploded?"

"Yes...six months ago." she said the last part timidly and it took a minute for Leonard to understand what she was saying. He walked closer to her.

"Are you saying I've been in a coma? For six months?"

She nodded. "And you're not the only one." she stepped back from the glass and across the hallway he could see a young man with brown hair lying in the hospital bed in another room. A young black woman beside his bed, holding his hand. Leonard looked back to Dr. Snow.

"Why is it so cold in here?" he asked her and she turned her attention back on him. She took a deep breath before answering.

"The explosion released Antimatter that mutated certain individuals. For example our resident engineer now has an extrasensory perception." she paused. "You on the other hand… you've display the ability to…"

"Create snow." he finished looking back at the piles of snow around his bed.

"And ice." she added and he turned back to face her again. "But, I'm working on an antimutagenic that should reverse your mutation enough for you to control it."

"But not get rid of it?"

She shook her head. "So far, for the foreseeable future we don't have a cure."

Leonard huffed, his breath condensing in front of him."I suppose control is better than nothing."

That night, Leonard was too wound up to sleep. Too many thoughts were passing through his mind, too many concerns. He was thinking about his sister, who Dr. Snow had assured him was fine and was coming in to see him, like she did every morning before her classes.

He was just beginning to wind down when the monitors next door started going crazy as the young man jerked up in bed, gasping for breath and looking around wildly. Leonard got out of bed and came to stand at the window. Watching the kid move as he tried to figure out what was going on. He finally came to a stop resting his head in his hands and massaging his temples.

"Welcome back kid."

After the initial shock had worn off, both Leonard and Barry worked to control their powers and now, together, along with Vibe they made quite the team.

And then she came into town.

xXx

"You like her." Barry accused although it was more of a tease than anything.

"No, I don't." Leonard replied taking a sip of his coffee before turning his attention back to his work.

"Yes, you do. You think she's hot, I can tell."

"Barry, I swear to god." Leonard threatened, keeping his voice down. "What is the matter with you today? Your even more annoying than usual."

Barry grinned. "See, you say that, but I know you don't mean it."

"Try again kid." Leonard replied.

"You love me."

"I tolerate you."

They fell into silence as Barry leaned back in his chair, Leonard going back to grading midterms. Barry playing around on his phone. Suddenly Barry sat up. "Oh that was good." he said and Leonard looked up at him confused.

"You totally derailed me."

Leonard rolled his eyes. "Yeah, like that's hard."

"Ha ha. But no seriously, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Of all the bad guys you could have a crush on she's like not even close to the worst."

Leonard sighed, tossing down his pen and leaning back in his seat as it became clear he wasn't going to get any work done. "What do you want from me Barry? So what if I like her, there's nothing I can do about it."

"You can try to convince her to join us." Barry suggested. "She's not exactly a terrible person." Leonard sighed.

"See that's the thing Kid, I can't ask her to change who she is to be in a relationship. It's not fair, or right."

"That's a fair point I suppose." Barry replied letting the subject drop.

They both turned back to their perspective tasks completely unaware of prying ears at the table behind them.

xXx

The canary had popped up a few months ago. A thief for hire from what they could tell and a talented one at that. In their first encounter she managed to outsmart all three of them simultaneous, getting away clean. In their second encounter she seemed to have anticipated their arrival and she proceeded to toy with them, paying special attention to Leonard-which they all teased him mercilessly for later. It wasn't until their third encounter that any of them realized that she wasn't the ruthless thief they pegged her for.

She was working in a group this time around, although judging by the way she worked it wasn't her idea or preference. The rest of the team were loose cannons, shooting at anything that moved and just generally being un-agreeable. One of them managed to get the jump on Leonard and he was sure his time was up when Canary came between them, trying to talk her partner down. It was working and when he raised his weapon to take them both out, canary took a deep breath, opened her mouth and screamed, letting out a high pitched sonic cry that deafened their attacker.

She helped take out her own crew and while she managed to get away with what they came for, it was obvious this job didn't mean to her what the other's had. Every encounter since that then involved some kind of intense flirting on Canary's part. She didn't always outsmart him, a fact she seemed to love all on it's own, but she did manage to escape every time, no matter how much they planned ahead of time.

It was exhilarating though, no matter how much Leonard didn't want to admit it. She presented a challenge for him, a chance to think instead of just using his powers to overpower an enemy. He had to be smart to follow her steps and he loved it.

xXx

"What's with the urgent alert?" Barry asked as he proceeded Leonard into the control room. Joe, was there, looking over cisco's shoulder as he typed away at the computer.

"Those guys we caught two months ago with the Canary's help, broke out of prison." Cisco explained.

"When?" Leonard asked.

"Yesterday." Joe replied. "The warden at Iron Heights is up for review and he didn't want a break out to reflect poorly on him. He figured he could catch them before they got too far."

"I'm assuming since we now know, that didn't happen." Barry asked. Joe shook his head.

"They were spotted heading this way by a state trooper. When he pulled them over, they shot him. That twelve hours ago."

"Twelve hours? That means they're already in the city." Barry said, speeding toward his suit and quickly changing.

"I'm checking traffic cameras now." Cisco told him. "If they came into the city…" he stopped short as a warning appeared on screen.

"What's wrong?" Caitlin asked looking over his shoulder. "Intruder?" she questioned, reading the blinking alert on screen.

Before anyone could ask, their attentions were drawn the entrance behind Cisco and Caitlin as The Canary stumbled in, blood dribbling down her chin and oozing between her fingers where her hand was clutching at her abdomen. She stumbled forward entering the room, only to lose her balance. Before she could hit the ground though, Leonard was there to catch her.

He held her, putting pressure on the three bullet wounds in her abdomen as she looked up at him. "I knew that was you." she rasped out, her voice unaltered by a machine this time.

"What?" he asked confused.

"At Jitter's last week. I was at the table behind you." she told him. "You…" she was cut short as she coughed, blood bubbling up with it.

Leonard turned to look over his shoulder calling out; "Snow!" as said woman appeared beside him, tending to the woman in his arms.

"She needs surgery." Caitlin explained.

"Can you help her?"

Caitlin shook her head. "She needs to go to a hospital."

"No." Canary rasped out. "No hospitals. They can't know."

"Can you do anything for her?" Leonard asked.

"I need to stabilize her before we can figure anything else out. Help me get her to the medical suite downstairs." Caitlin ordered.