Barry sat on the hospital bed he'd spent so much time on over the past few months—longer when he was still in the coma—and that Len had rested on only a few days prior. He wouldn't lie back. Refused to when Caitlin told him it would be easier, just sat sideways on it facing her while she reopened the wounds on his hands that had already closed around the glass, trying to heal.

It hurt, he supposed, but he didn't flinch through any of it. The physical pain was grounding. Better than everything else he was feeling.

He had stood too long in front of the smashed coffee table after destroying it so thoroughly, not bothering to clean his hands until his metabolism kicked in and tried to heal over the embedded chunks. He'd eventually pulled his sweats and T-shirt back on, but had little motivation for much else until he heard Cisco and Caitlin coming.

Then he'd just stood in the labs, waiting for them to enter, to notice the ice coating so much of the room; the terminals, the screens. Some of it was melting now, but the damage was done.

Cisco had whipped out his tablet as soon as he saw it all, but of course he hadn't been alerted of anything. Cold had made sure of that when he iced everything. The footage would still be there, but the direct connection had been interrupted—no safeguard to alert Cisco when Cold left the labs that morning. No way for any of them to know.

They should have planned for that, for ways Cold could have foiled their precautions, but Barry had been too trusting, so certain it wouldn't matter.

He hadn't known what to say to them, how to explain, so he was sure he'd rambled and muttered, looking mussed and battered, his hands bloody with red smudges on his clothes from putting them on without tending to his wounds first.

They'd raced around him, quickly finding the state of the lounge, the smashed coffee table, assuming he and Cold had fought. They'd insisted on calling Joe even after Barry explained that he'd done that to the coffee table himself. Cold was gone when he woke up, it didn't matter now. None of it mattered. But maybe he was still muttering, maybe he hadn't explained right. He couldn't think, let alone explain any of this when he didn't understand it himself.

Joe was there in minutes, bursting onto the scene before Caitlin had finished with Barry's first hand. Cisco had managed to save one of the terminals already, as it hadn't been as fully covered in ice, but he still routed things through his tablet for easier viewing. He accessed the security footage, starting it from last night.

Barry sat there, non-committal in his answers to what had happened, worrying Joe, all of them, more than he meant to, as Caitlin finished fishing the glass out of the last of his stubborn skin. She patted his hand gently, spoke comforting words, but he wasn't listening. He was watching Cisco in one of the chairs, looking at the footage on the tablet, Joe hovering over his shoulder. Caitlin soon moved to join them, to see…

Barry tried to open his mouth, tried to warn them, but he couldn't say the words—not those words. In too short a time, he saw the way Cisco's eyes widened, his hand jabbing at the pause button, probably when things first started getting heated. Then he fast forwarded, eyes darted away but having to glance up continuously to know when to stop, a deep blush creeping across his cheeks.

Caitlin actually gasped and held a hand to her mouth. Joe just looked sad, shook his head, turned away for Barry's sake, probably fighting to not look disappointed, as he waited for Cisco to indicate that that part of the night was over.

Barry just wanted to throw up.

"Well, uhh...he slept. Woke up about half an hour before you, Barry, then got…got dressed, and..." He paused it, looking over at Barry to indicate he could watch now, if he wanted.

Barry didn't want to, but he knew he didn't have much choice. He stood slowly, glacially for him, and peered at the screen from behind the others. It felt like some cruel joke, watching the figure of Cold, dressed once again in his black sweater and thin snow pants, moving around the footage stoically, precise. He gathered the rest of his things, put on his gloves, his parka, the goggles around his neck, but not up over his eyes since the strap would cross right over the stitches. This was the only thing that seemed to get a reaction from him, a small sneer tugging at his expression.

He was meticulous with how he iced the labs, never faltering, never pausing to consider. When he was done, he stopped back in the lounge to drop the note on the coffee table and looked at Barry.

At Barry…lying naked across the sofa, curled into the back of it, starting to shiver from being left alone, and unaware just yet why everything felt so cold…

Then Cold turned to face the camera, looked right at it, and with a painfully familiar smirk, gave them all a short salute. He turned and left without looking back.

Barry was crying. He could feel the tear tracks streaking down his cheeks, but he was so angry, he felt strangely numb in his fury.

How could he? How could he...

Barry's feet tripped backwards, carrying him to the lounge before he'd consciously made the decision to move. His sneakers crunched on the glass as soon as he came around the sofa. He didn't care. He sat, falling forward onto his thighs, head in his hands, as he cried and breathed raggedly through it, hands shaking even tightened into fists gripping his hair.

He heard Joe before he saw him, before he felt the depression of the cushions next to him. God, why had Barry even sat here? How could Joe sit here after…?

A warm hand slid across his back, undeterred.

"Please don't say anything…" Barry sniffed, thinking of the last time they were in this mess, only now it was so much worse.

"Thanks for not saying I told you so."

"But I did say I told you so. Repeatedly."

Barry couldn't handle that again, not this time, not after succumbing so much more fully, being so certain, so invested.

"I know I…f-fucked up. I am such an idiot." His breath stuttered and wheezed—he couldn't breathe, couldn't stop the tears from streaming down his face.

Joe's hand stayed on his back, rubbing soothing circles, then slid to his shoulder and tugged him against his side. Barry let his hands drop away, lifted his head and pressed the side of it to Joe's chest, the sobs wracking his body, shaking him all over almost as if he were…

No. He didn't want to think about how his body could move, and forced himself to be still. It just made him think of last night, rising bile in his throat like he might be sick all over the ruins of glass.

"Can I say one thing?" Joe said softly into the top of his hair.

Barry braced himself, not wanting to hear it, but then Joe said…

"I'm sorry, Barry. I really am."

Somehow that just made it worse. Barry keened pitifully, clinging to Joe, sniffling through his words. "Why did I…believe him, Joe? God, how…how could I let him get that close? I just don't get what he was after. All that just to…just to mess with me?" It was too monstrous. He knew what Cold was, the things he'd done, but he'd never thought the man capable of using him like that.

"Barry…you think it was all an act? That he planned this all along?"

"Why not? It's what you thought in the beginning, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Joe conceded, "but Barry…this was different than last time. He was different. Even I saw that. He must have remembered. Maybe it was too much for him. Maybe he panicked."

He had been panicking, Barry remembered, when he woke up from his nightmare. He'd been panicked enough to beg Barry to help him forget. Had that been an act, or the truth and it just simply wasn't enough in the end? Barry honestly didn't know which was worse.

"It doesn't matter," he said, "he still left, he still…destroyed the labs, and…and left me here…"

Naked. Used. Alone…

"He left me like none of it even mattered."

"Barry…" Joe's voice was a thousand shades of broken and mournful for his sake, near tears himself for how much Barry was bawling. Joe had never been able to handle him or Iris in tears, almost always succumbed himself when it was something that mattered. And there had been so many things to cry about over the years. It didn't seem fair.

Joe didn't say anything more, not until Barry had cried everything he had left in him to release. Even then, Barry's breath hitched as they stood from the sofa. The lounge was such a mess. Barry didn't want to think about cleaning it up, even though the debris of the coffee table had been his fault.

The only thing he'd managed to do was grab up the note from the shards and tear it into pieces that now littered the floor. He'd gotten twice as much glass in his hands from that. He just hadn't wanted to look at it, at the brazen cruelty of the words.

If it hadn't been an act from the beginning, Len was clearly nothing but Captain Cold now.

"Come on, kiddo. Let's get you home," Joe said, leading Barry out of the lounge, arm tight around him, hugging him to his side. "You're taking a sick day. I already called it in. I'll drive you."

It was more than Barry deserved right now. If the precinct needed him, he had to be on call. He couldn't wallow in his sorrows over this. He was a CSI, The Flash, he had responsibilities. But the thought of going home and crawling under the covers for a while was too appealing.

As they passed by Cisco and Caitlin in the labs checking over the monitors and what they could salvage, Barry looked at them and tried to smile at least a little, knowing he had to look wrecked and pathetic.

"Call me if anything comes up, okay?" he said to them. "I mean it. I just want to sleep for a while, but…The Flash doesn't get sick days. Call me."

"We will," Caitlin assured him, her own doleful smile like an extra punch to the gut. "And we'll clean all this up, Barry. You don't have to worry."

Only Cisco betrayed the same anger on his face that Barry was feeling. Oh, Barry was sure Joe was furious, but he was good at holding that back, showing the face Barry needed to see. Cisco, though, looked tense, his lips pressed tight together as he frowned.

"I'm going to keep looking through the footage once I can access the other cameras," he said. "We'll figure out which way he went."

Barry didn't care where Cold had gone, but he couldn't argue just now. He nodded, looked to Caitlin to nod at her as well, grateful for both of them but so tired, so worn. He turned and trudged out of the labs with Joe.

Barry would hate him now. It wasn't what Len had wanted. Not initially.

Back before, in the bank, the warehouse, and long before both, Len had just wanted something to break through the monotony, something exciting and new. He'd recognized after the meta incident that he would need to play nice occasionally or risk pushing the kid over the edge and disrupting their already uneasy understanding. But then he'd hit his head...and everything had gone to shit.

He pulled the parka closer around him, shivering as he slipped through back alleys, and not because it was chilly. He hadn't been able to shake the tremors ever since...since he left. He hid himself in the coat; it was never something he hid in.

He felt nauseas, sick. Deep down, Len just wanted to throw up, sleep this off, and take a long shower to erase the last traces of the kid from his skin…

But oh, it had been good. Best he'd had in so long, probably his whole damn loveless life, the way the kid could move, the way he put himself all-in, even blushing and second guessing himself. A small viscious part of Len wanted to feel Barry come apart under his touch, sink himself into him again and again, but sharp not tender, claiming not losing himself in Barry's loving looks half the time the way he had last night.

Fuck. Len needed to get off the streets, needed to think this through, plan. This problem wouldn't go away. Barry was the city's paragon now; he'd always be there. Len wanted him there, he reminded himself, for the challenge, the fun—and he could use that. Use Barry. This could still be what he'd planned in the beginning, nothing had to change.

But well...if he could convince the kid to go another round with him from time to time, enjoy his skin and intoxicating vibrations, Len could bury the rest of whatever this was in that.

Yes. That's what he'd do, that's what he had to do. He needed a return to normalcy, and he wanted that, he did...

Len was both disappointed and relieved when he walked through the door to the last safe house he'd seen his sister at to find her waiting for him. Come home, she'd said. He should have guessed that was wherever they were last squatting. It's all that word had ever meant to them.

She tossed him a pleased but also curious smile, one eyebrow raised to mirror his own familiar expression as she rose from the small couch to meet him.

"All dolled up and no place to go, Lenny?" she said with a smirk.

He walked past her to place the cold gun on the table then started to remove his gloves and parka. "I didn't have another change of clothes, sis," he said.

"Seemed you did to me," she snarked back.

The tremor gripped him instantly.

He grabbed his hand to keep it from shaking, stayed turned away from Lisa and clutched it to his chest. Damn it, not again.

"I felt it would be in poor taste to keep a memento. Things didn't go as planned." He finished setting his things on the table, removed the goggles as well. He wanted out of the sweater, pants, and boots from his gear. They felt constrictive today, suffocating.

"What's this?" Lisa said, closer behind him suddenly, her hand ghosting along the stitch job that Barry—The Flash—had so carefully done for him.

"Hazard of the job. Nothing to concern yourself with," Len said. She hadn't gotten a good look at it the other night in the labs, dark and mostly always facing him head on. The wound didn't bother him anymore anyway, unless he pressed down on it like he had last night...

Lisa's hand dropped away. "What do you mean things didn't go as planned? What did you do?" Her tone betrayed only the slightest worry, something anyone who didn't know her would have missed.

"Don't you worry, dear sister, poor, innocent Cisco is quite safe." He steeled himself, certain he could keep his mask in place as he whirled to face her. "Just don't expect any fruit baskets from Team Flash any time soon. I may have iced their home base before I made my exit. You know how terrible The Flash is at keeping his cool. Probably all broken up about it."

The tremors started to work back into his right hand, so he clenched it into a tight fist.

Lisa noticed—damn her, she always noticed. She frowned at him and crossed her arms. "What aren't you telling me, Lenny? You have a wound you never mentioned, you were all vague the other night, now you're acting strange. Tense. I know when you're hiding something."

It wasn't that Len wanted to lie, he hated lying to Lisa, he just didn't have the energy to explain what had really happened. Not yet. What did it matter anyway? He was back now, himself. Nothing that had happened with Barry meant a damn—

"Len!" Lisa grabbed his arm.

Why wouldn't it stop shaking? And why…why was his vision tunneling?

Len sucked in a breath; everything was going dark, and he felt like…like he couldn't breathe.

He blinked and he was on the floor, leaned back against the table with Lisa crouched in front of him, holding either side of his face. Her concern was plain now, vibrant in her blue eyes. Her voice sounded distant, faint, until it blared to life and he realized she was yelling.

"Len!"

"I'm…I'm fine," he tried to say just as loudly back, but it came out breathy, stunted.

"Fine, my ass," Lisa growled. "What the hell was that? I haven't seen you like that since we were—" She cut off as Len's gaze sharpened on her. They didn't speak of it. They never spoke of it. "Lenny," she said gently, which sounded too weird to his ears now from this adult, harder—tougher—Lisa, "what happened to you? Do you need a hospital? Because I will personally threaten to make golden statues out of everyone at St. Andrews if—"

"I'm fine," Len said more firmly, grabbing both her wrists since she wouldn't let go of his face. "I'm fine."

It had just been too much. So little sleep. The rush of memories last night and even worse in the morning. Knowing that he needed to get out of S.T.A.R. Labs quickly, clean break, leave everything behind with no doubt in Barry's or the others' minds about who and what he really was. Len didn't need the kid trying to come after him on some pointless crusade to save his soul.

"You were right," Len said, nodding pitifully. He let his hands drop as Lisa's did the same. "Got my head turned around. Got in too deep. I won't make that mistake again. I just need to shake this off, get solid ground under me, show The Flash where we stand with each other. I'll be fine."

Lisa didn't seem to believe him. Pivoting where she was crouched, she dropped down fully onto the floor, leaning back against the table beside him. Their shoulders brushed from the proximity. "You sure it's a good idea to face The Flash so soon? Maybe you need a break, Lenny. You're burnt out. You don't suffer injuries too often either."

"It doesn't bother me," Len said, reaching up to touch the stitches before thinking better of it. He let his hands rest between his bent legs, staring straight ahead. Lisa's constant stare was penetrating.

"Are you going to tell me what really happened?" she finally asked, all pretense and playfulness gone.

Len took a breath. At least he could breathe again, and didn't feel like his pulse was out of control or like his hands would resume shaking. But then it kept sneaking up on him—that foreign, old feeling of panic. "Later," he said, and while the word came out short, he glanced aside at her to say he really would, he just…couldn't right now.

"Okay," she sighed. "Then what do you need, Lenny? What can I do?"

Len thought for a moment. He still wanted what he'd thought of initially; a shower, change of clothes, but not rest. He needed to be active, to do something that let him feel the chill of his cold gun racing through his veins.

He grinned as an idea struck him. "Who owes us money?"

Lisa coughed a laugh. "Who doesn't? Feel like hurting someone?"

Len tightened his hands in and out of fists.

"Well then," Lisa rolled to her feet with the nimble grace of a dancer and held a hand down to him. He grasped it gratefully and let her hoist him to his feet. "I can think of some worthy opponents. Mick's been getting restless too. He's at the safe house on 9th. Want me to call him?"

"Yes," Mick would do wonders for helping Len feel like himself again, "and tell him he won't have to hold anything back today. I feel like being destructive."

A shower really did feel amazing. Wearing his already dirtied gear hadn't been fun to begin with, and Len's skin had still been sticky with dried sweat from the night's activities when he woke up.

He turned the water cool to keep himself alert. He almost forgot to watch his stitches as he washed the short buzz of his hair, and hissed when he rubbed across them.

The pulse of pain, the water flowing over his skin, making him break out in goosebumps, as he closed his eyes…did nothing to prevent him from remembering recent events with a shower included—the view of Barry pulling boxer briefs up over his toned thighs, long and lean and beautiful; the heat in Barry's eyes watching him through the break in the shower curtain; the sound of Barry's voice echoing through the bathroom.

You got away…

Len shook his head. He hadn't gotten away with anything.

He pounded a fist against the tile. He just needed time. He'd shake this off. He'd done it a thousand times before. It hadn't meant anything, that time at S.T.A.R. Labs, tended to by his far too trusting, doe-eyed nemesis. Not a god damn thing.

Oh, he'd run his hands over that constantly renewable skin again if he got the chance, so unfairly soft; depress his fingers along Barry's hips, lie him back—fuck, Len groaned at the faintest thought. The cold water did nothing to prevent the stiffness growing between his legs as he vividly pictured Barry spread out beneath him.

He conjured new images to banish the ones that made him feel like his gut would twist in two; thought of Barry on his knees, Len's black-gloved hand in his hair; Barry bent over the table in the safe house, facing away from him, whimpering as his cheek pressed against the surface; Barry's face furious with anger…even as he let Len take him, and claim him, and ruin him…

It wasn't hard to get off to that, stroking himself firm and fast, imagining Barry's hand, knowing the feel of it intimately now and how it could vibrate against his skin. Barry's mouth on him, sucking through fabric, then bare, his throat moving obscenely, swallowing Len whole.

"Fuck," Len ground out as he remembered, trying to think of what he'd conjured instead, taking Barry harshly, keeping it brutal, impersonal, instead of remembering last night…and the way Barry had kissed him so sweetly at the end.

Len pounded the tile again as he came, Barry's smile in his mind's eyes, not a furious snarl, and damn it, how was he supposed to get untwisted from the kid when he'd looked at him like that?

Len wasn't shaking when he got out of the shower, dressed in his nicest blue suit and trench coat—no parka today. He was calm, in control. He'd gotten one more thing out of his system, and it would get easier, it would, it had to—especially once he iced some deserving lowlifes.

Len frowned as he remembered that the gun was friendlier now, the effects of the ice reversible at any setting. No matter. It would still hurt like hell, and the damage still permanent without fast treatment. A shot to the head would probably still kill most people—suffocate them at least. He'd work around it. Besides, the new programming would make things easier when he wanted to use the gun for persuasion rather than pain.

Once he was finished straightening his tie, he joined Lisa in the main room, who had changed into her leather coat, curled her hair all perfectly coifed around her shoulders, and was applying a new coat of lipstick. Always look good for a job. He grinned at her.

"Mick on his way?"

"With bells on," she winked.

Len explained about the changes to his gun as he picked it up, handling it lovingly. He didn't want either Lisa or Mick to be caught unaware. But even neutered, the gun still made him feel powerful and whole.

"With Cisco?" Lisa pouted. "I'm jealous. You've spent more time with him than I have now. You better have some juicy details to share later, Lenny."

Len faltered for a moment, almost dropping the gun, as he thought of Cisco—his friendly banter, the Bones T-shirt, 'If we're the good guys, than we should be willing to help anyone'—before tucking it away inside his trench coat. Len didn't want to think about him either.

"You know, you don't have to tell me Flash's identity to spill a little on what it was like spending three whole days with him and his crew," Lisa went on, but the teasing prompt was coupled with a gentle hand on his shoulder, and when he looked at her, her eyebrows curved downward…like Barry's, maybe more like Caitlin's with the feminine arch.

No, she was Dr. Snow, not Caitlin. This couldn't be personal. Longing was dangerous. Len couldn't risk it, and neither could Lisa. They'd gotten stronger for a reason, so that nothing could ever wedge itself into their hearts again and tear them down.

"Just play it cool today, sis," Len said, "and see if you earn those juicy details. Ramon would be so easy to twist around your finger, you have no idea. But make sure he stays a gentleman or we'll need to have words." He patted the gun beneath his coat.

Lisa huffed, but Len knew she loved his protective streak. Her downturned brows finally rose upward. "Spoil sport," she grinned.

"Brat."

There. That was more like them.

They had some people to muscle. That would banish the ache, replace it with something familiar, something better. Len was feeling wonderfully homicidal at the moment.

He heard the door to the safe house open and knew that Mick had joined them.

"Wonderful. Now come on, friends. Let's go have some fun."

TBC...