Len knew he was hungover before he even knew that he was awake. He may be quite familiar with experiencing the feeling of a hangover, but it was almost always an awful experience unto itself and this time was not at all different. The taste of soured whiskey lingered on his tongue, his mouth was dry, his stomach ached in protest from the three bottles of whiskey, and the throbbing pain of his hangover sat in his mind like an angry electrical storm. An angry electrical storm that was also terribly hungover and equipped with only rusty razor blades for a method of propulsion. Either that or a drunk porcupine engulfed in flames and throwing hundreds of Molotov cocktails, attempting to incite rebellion among the oppressed and tear down the overindulging fatcat one percent. Yeah, it felt close to something almost exactly like that.

Len opened his eyes and grumpily glared at the dimly lit room around him, taking in the ridiculously small bed, seriously, it's almost the size of a child bed, with its odd off-white covers. Wait, had he been tucked into bed like a child? Weird but not important right now, back to looking over his surroundings and trying to figure out where he was. Not much in the way of furniture, just the bed he was in and a few tables and shelves, an inset sink along the wall. All modernistic and slick. It looked a bit familiar too. A bit like every single futuristic pod from almost any sci-fi film ever. Len closed his eyes again, the white walls and furniture were reflecting and intensifying what little light there was. Dammit, even without the lights on it was still way too bright. And first things first, where the hell was he? At least he was on a bed, albeit an uncomfortable one, and wasn't on the floor. He had a vague impression of what had happened last night. Getting drunk at Saints & Sinners, trading a ton of completely terrible puns with the Flash, getting even more trashed... wait, how exactly did he get here? He had been far too drunk to walk and at the moment he barely even knew where he was. Had Barry carried him here? Why the hell had he thought that drinking three bottles of whiskey was a good idea? Hell, why had he thought drinking three bottles of whiskey with the Flash was a good idea?

"Hey Snart, you're awake!" Len heard Barry walk into the room, moving things around, too loud and far too chipper for whatever ungodly time it was and how much alcohol had been consumed the night before, and he heard as Barry crossed the small distance to the bed in a few steps. "I was just about to come check up on you, make sure you're still alive and all. You got pretty freaking wasted last night."

Len grabbed the conveniently located pillow and pressed it against his face, trying in vain to block out the ringing in his ears and the bright light stabbing through his eyelids to no avail. "Mm...go away, red...too loud…" He listened as Barry continued talking, and heard the distinct sound of a glass being filled and placed on the bedside table. At least he would be well hydrated in his suffering. Although ridiculous amounts of beige tasteless diner food might be a good cure for what ailed him.

"Nah, I'm just gonna make fun of you for the things you said while drunk until you get up out of bed." Barry laughed, the lighthearted sound echoing and far too loud in the small space, "at one point you said hot sauce was the most important state of matter in the universe and you should get the Nobel Prize for finding that out."

"...what. No, I don't think so," Len mumbled from underneath the pillow, hoping he hadn't actually said that about hot sauce. Seriously though, hot sauce getting him the Nobel Prize? It actually wasn't that much of an impossibility. You can get a Nobel Prize for just about anything these days. If you can get a prize for Economic Studies and Sciences you could maybe even get one in hot sauce physics. But that's not the real point here, is it? Len continued with his objections, hoping that he could convince Barry that he was remembering wrong. "No. No way. I don't believe you, I didn't say that. Why on earth would I say that?"

Barry laughed again, "well, you did Snart. Repeatedly and to whoever would listen to you." Barry snorted, humor clear in his voice. "You even told a wall at one point. Then you apologized to it!" The speedster moved across the room again, just a rustle of cloth to be heard, and Len jolted in surprise as the pillow he was hiding underneath was removed and the covers thrown back. "Drink this," Barry said, pulling Len upright and pushed the glass of cool water into his hands. "You need to rehydrate before you eat anything today." Len obliged and drank the water, glaring at Barry the entire time he did so. His head hurt from sitting up too fast and no amount of water is going to help his hangover. And the damn kid was such a mother hen, even towards those he called his enemies. Can't say that he's bad at it though, he's actually quite competent at constantly fussing over people and being overbearing. Maybe that's his true superpower.

The cool demeanored crook had a question on his mind, it bit more relevant than the missing memories. "Why the hell did you tuck me into bed like a child?" Seriously though, that's just weird! "I just don't get it…"

A wide grin spread across the face of the hero, and a short laugh rang through the small room. "You don't remember? Wow, you were really quite drunk," Barry replied, "how do you not remember that? You insisted on it!"

"No way," Len shook his head slowly, trying not to aggravate his hangover. "There's no way I did that!"

"You really did, you demanded to be tucked into bed like a child and I will never let you forget it!" The speedster grinned, "you're never going to live that down."

Len slumped back against the wall, the empty water glass cradled in his hands and a bright blush of embarrassment burning across his cheeks. "I'm never drinking again," he mumbled, absolutely mortified by what Barry had told him he did while drunk. Sure, he might not completely remember having done it, but it did seem like something he would do. Lowered inhibitions from alcohol are not always a good thing. Scratch that, they're almost never a good thing. "How are you not hungover," he asked, realizing that Barry was far too animated for how much he had drank. "You drank almost half a bottle to yourself, why am I the only one suffering?"

The aforementioned hangover free speedster laughed, "super fast metabolism, one of the many perks of super powers," and continued to ramble on about almost how useful his powers were. Barry continued rambling on, hopping from subject to subject and Len listened as Barry talk about what the rest of his team was going to do about someone called Professor Providence, whoever that was supposed to be, and the mess that they had left behind in the city. This sounded rather important, sounded like something he should remember or try to take note of, but he had no clue about any of it. It must have happened sometime in the missing space of time, the empty space in his memory. He still couldn't remember anything from the past week, and the alcohol binge hadn't helped in the slightest. If anything it had made it worse.

"Barry," he interrupted the speedsters chattering, the light-hearted mood from before dissipating swifter than the mist in the sweltering summer sun. "Please just… could you tell me what happened last week?" He hated that he had to ask this of his enemy, but his enemy was the one person he could trust most right now. Kinda sad when you think about it like that. Len continued his question, looking down into the now empty glass, ashamed of the weakness he was showing. He knew Barry wouldn't judge him, but the feeling was so ingrained into his being he just couldn't help but instinctively feel shame at his emotions. Len continued with his impassioned plea, desperation pouring from every word. "Please, if you can help me… I can't remember anything after the heist went bad, and I just want to know what the hell happened to me."

Barry had gone strangely quiet after his monologue had been cut short, and he stood uncomfortably beside the bed, almost completely immobile. There was something he wasn't saying. Len searched Barry's expression for some sort of clue, the speedster looked guilty. Barry's gaze darted around the room, desperately searching for some sort of distraction, and the tension was mounting ever higher with each passing moment. Barry crossed his arms in discomfort, mind was racing trying to find the best method to tell Len that he had been under the mental control of an absolute psychopath. There's just no proper or good way to tell that to anybody. The speedster stared at the floor, and he tried his best to explain. "Well, after I stopped the heist there was an… let's just say an altercation between you and a metahuman with the power of mind control."

"An 'altercation' you say?" The hungover criminal really didn't like the sound of that. It sounded ominous and more treacherous than he was comfortable with. "What do you mean? Was I being mind controlled?" Seriously though, mind control seems to be a power set specific to villains, you never see heroes with mind control powers.

"Well, you could say that…" the speedster frowned and launched into a half-hearted explanation. "You were kinda in a mental state of limbo, the meta had control of your mind and you sort of…" Barry shrugged, almost completely at a loss for words, "how do I put this, your mind went on a vacation into the darkest corners of your life then after that you acted on random impulses until you eventually went into a coma."

"What? What the hell are you implying with this?" Len didn't really want to know the truth, but he needed to. If he didn't know he would end up agonizing over it until he found something much worse to stress over. "Are you telling me that I was being mind controlled and was in a coma or what exactly do you mean?"

"Well yeah, the meta was manipulating your emotions and trying to use you as a pawn in her so called 'holy war' against the city and the world." Barry didn't want to alarm the criminal who sat before him, but Snart still deserved to know the truth about what had happened to him the past week. "The meta, she calls herself Professor Providence, she kidnapped you to try to draw me out and take my speed, and when that didn't work out for her…"

The confused villain drew his eyebrows together, the last statement having raised more questions than it had given answers. "What exactly are you saying here scarlet?"

"I'm saying that you were basically brainwashed by an absolute psychopath and left to rot in a damn cell until I came to rescue you!"

"For how long?"

"What?" The heroes building anger dissolved as quickly as it had started to rise. He hadn't meant to lose control of his emotions, but Barry felt that it was indirectly his own fault that Len had been taken and brainwashed. Providence had wanted the Flash, not Captain Cold.

"How long was I being controlled?" Len knew he wouldn't like the answer to his question, any amount of time spent being controlled was too long. "And just how long was I gone for?"

"You were under her control and missing for almost four days." Barry couldn't bring himself to make eye contact, he blamed himself for Len's disappearance and his subsequent mental trauma at the hands of Professor Providence. He felt this odd, cold, pressure in his chest whenever he thought of the villain being in any actual danger, and he felt truly awful for Len having been taken but he didn't know exactly how to express what he was feeling. It wasn't something he had ever been very good at. Barry continued to attempt to fill Len in on his missing memories the best he could. "Lisa was actually the first to realize you were gone... " His sentence trailed off however when he saw the shocked look on the normally cool tempered criminals face. The pressure in his chest was back the moment he saw that expression.

"Four days… What about the rest of the week?" Len asked quietly when Barry's explanation faltered, Len not really wanting to hear the rest of the answer. He didn't really want to know any of this, he wanted to forget all about this too, but he needed to know the truth. "I remember the heist Barry, but what happened after all… after all of that?"

Barry grimaced, "she was going to trade you for my speed. That bitch kept you locked up and you weren't…" the hero stumbled over his explanation, the tight feeling in his chest making it hard for him to breathe. "You just weren't you when I came after you." He gazed into the ice blue eyes of the criminal and found himself saying something he had never expected, "you weren't acting like yourself and I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to help you, I thought that I wasn't going to be able to do anything. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't been able to get you out of there."

Len felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment, he hadn't been expecting that answer in the slightest. He knew the hero cared, but had no clue just how much he truly did. "You were worried about me?"

"Of course I was worried, you're not as much of a bad guy as you try to make everyone think you are." Barry grinned, the tense mood having lifted and the lighthearted feel once again filling the small room. Might as well make the most of the moment. "Hey, do you wanna' go and get some breakfast? There's a twenty-four hour diner that's pretty great." Everyone knows that greasy diner food is the one true cure for a hangover, no matter what the doctors tell you.

"Yeah, why the hell not?"

*Providence Waits*

"No way, I don't believe you!" Len grumbled to Barry, the hero and villain combo seated in a booth in the crowded diner, waiting for their order and blending in with all the finesse of a Technicolor disco dragon in a monochrome forest. The icy criminal shook his head and crossed his arms in mock outrage. "You lie!"

"No, it's all true, you kept singing at me!" Barry grinned over his constantly refilled cup of cheap black coffee. "And that's not even the worst of it all!" He could always tell Len that he sat on his chest, but that might be a little bit too weird to talk about in a crowded diner. Well, it would be weird to talk about in any situation, but it should definitely be talked about at some point.

"It can get worse?!" Len wasn't sure he could take anymore delayed embarrassment from his actions when he was under the influence of mind control. But it was still funny to hear about what had happened now that the danger had passed. "I'm not sure if it can get much worse than singing that song," the still hungover criminal said to the hero across the table from him, a feeling of warmth and comfort settling on his mind like a soft blanket. Banter between the two was fun and easy and something he could definitely get used to, maybe even on a daily basis. "Seriously, I sang Call Me Maybe? That's just not okay in any situation."

Barry grinned, he knew exactly what Len would consider to be worse than the singing, however, it could always be taken in a very inappropriate direction. "Oh, it can definitely get much worse than you singing. Now I'm not saying your singing was bad, it was actually quite good, but it was mostly just disturbing."

The tired looking diner waitress with a stained apron approached their table, tray full of steaming hot plates of food. "Alright guys, which one of you two ordered the lemon poppyseed pancakes and who had the deluxe chili cheese fries?"

Barry perked up, a sheepish grin on his face, "oh yeah, those two were actually both for me, thanks." The waitress gracelessly plunked down the plate of pancakes and plate of fries in front of the speedster and then set the third plate in front of his criminal companion.

"I'm guessing you had the Monte Cristo then?"

Len smiled politely back at the waitress, "that was mine, thank you miss."

"You two enjoy your food now," the haggard waitress said, and she rolled her eyes once she had turned around and walked off back to the kitchen, leaving the two with their food. She definitely had her own opinion on what was going on between the younger man and his older companion, but she wasn't being paid to care about the customers relationships. And you can't really blame her for what she thought she saw, even if it wasn't quite what was actually happening, she's entitled to her own opinions. Everyone judges the people they see, even if they're not even aware of it.

And so hero and villain sat across from each other in a comfortable silence, not caring about the opinions of the hard working wait staff, whatever those opinions may be. And if there was a possibility of something more developing between them than them simply being two people who happened to be 'archenemies', well, that's their own business and the business of whomever they decided to get involved in it with them.

*Providence Waits*

Pain.

There is so much pain in this world. Preventable pain caused by greed and avarice. The hearts of mankind are so easily swayed to darkness. Religion has caused such suffering and so has Knowledge. Race has divided the species and they are blinded by their hate for their brethren with pigmentation differences. So much pain in this world. These things can be solved with ease. Such a simple solution to such evil.

War. Hunger. Sickness. Death.

Oppression of Minorities. The Dark Ages. Torture. Executions. The Crusades. Genocide. Massacres. Slaughters of millions. European colonization. Killing of Native Peoples. Slavery. The Trail of Tears. The rise of Fascism. The Holocaust. Chemical Weapons. The Atom Bomb. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear Weapons. The Cold War.

Evil. Humanity is only evil. Their Knowledge was no excuse for the atrocities of the past.

Mankind has created such darkness. Paragon's quest for knowledge has taken a turn into the checkered past of humanity's accomplishments, and all of the sins of mankind have been laid bare before them in a super-cut of history. Paragon knows what they must do to help those who need saving. The world needs saving from itself. The world will know peace soon enough. Only humanity has the gall to decide that an action is immoral and then continues said immoral act. Humanity must be punished for their collective sins.

Soon, the world will have no pain, and will have no war. There will be no more sickness and there will be no more death. No more hatred, and no more malice. An end to all of the world's suffering is at hand. Death cannot come if there is no life to take, and life cannot come in a land with no death.

Paragon will rise and the world will know of their power. The world will know and the world shall end soon after.