Barry's initial reaction was to rush Cold, tackle him to the ground, punch the damn smirk right off his face, but he was surrounded by civilians all staring, and Cold hadn't actually done anything yet but taunt him. He didn't appear to be armed.

Cold walked right up to him, while everyone else in the bank gaped on, muttering about The Flash being in their midst. Blue eyes darted down and back up Barry's body slowly. Cold winked. "Big fan."

Now Barry really wanted to punch him. "Snart," he hissed, as quietly as he could, "all these people…"

"What of it, Flash?" Cold whispered back, leaning into his space. "I'm just your average citizen, making a trip to the bank in the wee hours like everyone else. Chill out."

Before Barry could think of anything as a comeback, Cold sidesteped past him, saying low enough that only Barry could hear, "Bench on the corner across the street. Two minutes," before proceeding to walk right out of the bank.

Barry followed him with his eyes for a full fifteen seconds before he came back to himself—and shit, someone totally just recorded that on their phone, and what the hell were the headlines going to say about The Flash showing up at 1st National only to have Leonard Snart whisper in his ear? Assuming any of these people had recognized the Rogue. The anonymous tip had probably been Lisa, maybe Cold himself.

With nothing else to do but back off gracefully, Barry gave the crowd a small wave and appreciative smile, and flashed out of the bank toward…home, he decided. Home was closer for a quick change of clothes, and then he wouldn't have to worry about Cisco and Caitlin asking him what the hell was going on.

"Are you actually going to meet him?" Cisco's voice chimed in his ear.

Only Barry had forgotten his com was on, so of course they'd heard everything anyway.

"Barry, maybe you should take a minute—" Caitlin started to say, but Barry didn't have time. He was already forty-five seconds in the hole, and when Cold said two minutes, he meant it. Barry couldn't take any chances when he didn't yet know what Cold was after, or what he'd do.

"I'll check in later. Don't alert the police unless you hear from me," Barry said as he skidded to a halt in his bedroom and clicked the com off, tearing his mask back and allowing himself a few extra seconds to decide what to wear. If Cold thought he could be intimidating in all black, perfectly groomed and smelling that good, then Barry wasn't showing up like some slob.

His red-lined jacket was a must to counter Len's trench, burgundy button-down, black sweater, his best jeans. He was overthinking and out of time, but if Cold wanted to play games, then Barry would fucking play. The bastard wasn't one-upping him this time.

Barry arrived back at the park across from 1st National, right up to the bench and moving to sit down…just as Cold checked his watch from his position seated at the end.

"Almost a second late. You need to work on that," Cold said. He glanced over at Barry casually, eyeing the distance left between them in amusement, and Barry resisted the urge to shiver with the way those icy blue eyes scanned down and back up his body again. "Did you re-fluff your hair for me, Scarlet?"

Fuck off, Barry wanted to say, but he chose a silent glare instead.

"Giving me the cold shoulder already, huh?"

"What do you want, Snart?"

"Hmm…right to business," Cold nodded and turned to face forward. He sat leaned back, hands folded in his lap. The air was cooler for almost summer, the breeze still, the perfect morning weather for this little park, with its clear view to the bank and several other shops across the street. Several people went about their mornings around them without paying either man much mind.

Barry took that moment to really look at Cold, and it was too unsettling, how changed he was, how different—no, how much he was back to the way he'd been before, after being such a kind and timid person the past few days. It ached in Barry to see him like this when he thought he'd seen the man becoming something better, opening up to some part of himself that had always been there, but that he'd forgotten, buried, discarded like unwanted trash.

He also looked unfairly sharp and sexy in the all black attire, and whatever cologne he was wearing smelled amazing. It made Barry shift in place on the bench, reminding himself that this was the first time he'd been this close to Cold since they were together so intimately on that sofa in S.T.A.R. Labs. How was Barry supposed to look at Cold when the man's hands had been on him, and Barry's own mouth—

Barry tore his gaze away, mirroring Cold by staring forward. This was as mortifying as an encounter could get, he decided, but if Cold noticed his extra potent agitation, he didn't comment on it.

"I want to discuss a renegotiation of our agreement," Cold finally said.

"What?" Barry blinked as his head swiveled back to the other man. Was this some kind of joke?

Cold peered slyly back at him. "Our agreement, Flash. Arrangement. Whatever you want to call it. I don't let innocent people get hurt during my…activities in Central City and keep your identity a secret, and you allow me, Lisa, and Mick to go about our business. Of course, do make a good show of trying to stop us. It would be so boring if you stayed away."

That predatory gaze made Barry shift in his seat again. He'd found it hot before, he could admit that, the way Cold eyed him, took him in fully like he could devour everything he saw, and when a portion of that look had come from Len…the other Len...Barry had succumbed to how much it made him blush and feel so deeply wanted.

Now it made his stomach clench.

"The deal also includes you not killing anyone," Barry reminded him, which he couldn't help noticing had been purposely left out.

Cold tsked and rolled his shoulders. "That's going to be difficult considering the state of the Mendozas."

"The—what?" Barry jerked to the edge of the bench. "You mean the fire? That was…Heat Wave," he snarled as it all made sense, his lip curling in disgust. He should have known.

"Hence renegotiation." Cold made a little flourishing gesture with his hand.

Barry's mouth dropped open. "You…you actually think I'd just allow you to—"

"Allow me to what? Do what I want?" Cold leaned across the bench, lowering his voice to an intimate rumble. "You certainly seemed amenable to the idea the other night."

Barry's nails cut into his palms as he formed tight fists. He felt heat fill his face, equal parts humiliation and rage, as the thought 'how dare he, how dare he' repeated through his mind.

And then that smirk again. "We have a good working relationship here, Flash, a good thing going, so much possibility. So if we're renegotiating anyway, why not add some additional benefits?" The eye-flick was slower this time, lingering down Barry's body, penetrating, as Cold's voice turned husky. "You could have had me from night one if you'd asked, you know. You do look so good in that suit. Even better out of it."

The sudden intruding hand on Barry's knee, squeezing possessively, was the only thing that kept Barry from leaping to his feet. He eyed it like some unwelcome tentacle—he couldn't believe Cold; was he fucking serious?

But Cold chuckled and slid his hand away like it was just another grand joke. "You are so fun to play with, Scarlet. So easy to manipulate. That's your problem, you know. Fastest man alive, and in the end, you're predictable." He glanced down at his watch, then caught Barry in an intense, challenging stare. "Like how easily I got you out of that bank."

Barry's eyes widened…

"You really are too trusting."

…and an alarm blared through the quiet morning, sending the street into an uproar of panic.

In an unthinking blur, Barry jolted to his feet, but a tight grip on his arm held him back.

"Lisa and Mick are long gone by now thanks to you keeping those wide-eyed civilians distracted while they snuck in through the back. You should have learned by now, kid. Isn't trusting me how we ended up here to begin with?"

Fury roared in Barry's ears as he spun around to knock Cold's hand away from him. He was shaking, he was so angry, and if going after the Rogues was pointless anyway then Barry knew exactly where to focus his rage. He snatched Cold up by the front of his perfect suit and flashed them out of the park.

It took what felt like minutes to find a suitable place in a sketchier neighborhood several blocks away, but to Cold it would seem like seconds.

Barry threw the man away from him when they arrived out of his lightning. Cold stumbled back, but not shocked or angry—laughing.

"Oh, Scarlet, haven't we been through this before?" he chuckled as he looked around the mostly barren warehouse Barry had brought them to. "Though not exactly a safe neighborhood this time around."

"This time you don't have your cold gun," Barry growled, though he didn't know what he planned to do with the man now that he had him alone. Part of him wanted to beat Cold until he bled—it would be so satisfying to not care about being the good guy for a while.

"Oh? Don't I?" Cold grinned at him.

Barry hadn't noticed the man reaching inside his trench until it flared open as he swept the cold gun up to aim at him. Barry wasn't wearing his suit. He had no protection other than his slightly better than average resistance and healing.

The cold gun fired, and Barry only just managed to dart out of the way of the blast of ice.

He snarled and rushed Cold from the side, not giving him any time to regroup or change aim, and took the gun right out of his hands.

"Ha! You should have stuck with the parka," Barry taunted him, and tossed the gun to the ground.

Cold didn't look deterred. He smirked and spread his arms. "I thought you preferred what was under the parka."

Barry roared as he flashed forward to crash into Cold again—but this time he kept going, zipping them to the other side of the warehouse until the other man slammed into a wall. Cold gasped from the impact, but immediately started laughing again. Their faces were inches apart with the way Barry gripped the edges of the trench coat and pressed forward, pinning Cold in place.

Then Cold ducked his head closer, reducing that space to nothing. His lips brushed Barry's as he whispered, "See? Predictable," before closing the gap and claiming Barry's mouth in a fierce kiss.

Barry gasped at the unexpected intrusion, and Cold took the opportunity to slide in his tongue, tangling them together harsh and demanding, like he owned Barry. Like he was getting everything he wanted.

Electricity surged through Barry and he slammed the man harder into the wall, but he couldn't stop kissing him, couldn't tear himself away. He fought back through the connection, plunging his own tongue deeper, trying to turn the kiss to his control, but Cold matched him at every turn until it was a mess of tightly pressed lips, twisting tongues, and wet, wet heat.

The slide of their bodies together was painfully familiar, along the line of their chests and legs and hips. It made Barry want to press Cold even more roughly into the wall. He felt a slow, quivering vibration building, and all he could think of was how good it had felt writhing with Len on the sofa while giving in to his power for the first time.

In the end it was Cold who pulled them out of it, and Barry hated how desperately he wanted to follow after his lips and reconnect.

Cold chuckled again as he spoke against Barry's lips, "Admit it…you love this. You get off on it. On being mine. On giving up all the control to me, and only fighting so hard because you know you're going to lose." He tried to press their lips together again, but Barry backed off.

He felt sicker than ever as reality and Cold's words caught up to him, disgusted with himself, because part of him had enjoyed that rush, kissing Cold in anger, railing against him with a different kind of heat swirling low in his gut as he gave himself over. But the other part ached, and mourned, and wanted so much more than this.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Barry said as he backed away, shuddering as he left Cold there against the wall, the fight draining out of him until he felt numb.

He wiped at the dampness on his lips. He didn't want this. He didn't want to give in to Cold. He didn't want to play this game anymore. And as Cold fought to regain his own composure—apparently Barry could surprise him—Barry felt tears welling up in his eyes, and they weren't angry tears, just heavy and sad.

"You actually thought I'd go for this?" Barry sniffed, appalled at both of them, and unable to hold the tears back.

He clenched his fists to remember some of his anger, because even though for a moment Cold looked blank and startled—vulnerable somehow—the man quickly sneered and straightened his tie like it was all just something he could brush off.

Barry shook his head. "It really was just an act, wasn't it?" He smiled through the pain and sniffed again because it was too cruel, Cold was too cruel, and he wasn't denying any of it. "You're a fucking liar, manipulating me like that. How…could you?" He couldn't actually say any of what Cold had done to him, because remembering hurt too much and the tears were already falling. He thought he'd shed them all but it never seemed to be enough. "And why? For what? Was it really that fun for you? Why?" he tried to yell, but his voice cracked on the word. He rubbed at the tears but they wouldn't stop falling, and he was trembling and—god…damn it.

Cold just stood there, his smirk gone but so obviously looking down on Barry for how he had ruined the game. It seemed like Cold was shaking too, in resentment Barry assumed, because he soon tightened his hands into fists of his own.

"Why?" Cold scoffed, pushing from the wall finally. "Maybe I just wanted a good fuck, kid, you ever think of that? And why not? You certainly were eager to provide."

Fury coursed through Barry again so quickly, he almost didn't realize what he was doing until he pulled his arm back and met Cold's approach with a lightning fast crack to the jaw that dropped him straight to the floor.

As Len's knees hit the cold, hard ground, toppling forward to barely catch himself with his hands, his head swimming, and an awful roar in his ears after the impact of The Flash's speeding punch, he realized that the only thing that had saved him from a cracked or broken jaw was dumb luck.

But oh, how it hurt. He imagined the angry green bruise that would stain his face tomorrow, and the astonishment of how far he'd pushed Barry, how easily he'd brought them to this…almost prompted him to take it all back.

It was killing him, the way Barry looked at him now, the grief, the sight of him in tears—god, the kid in tears—and his heartfelt pleading.

I'm sorry, had danced on the tip of Len's tongue so many times, like an echo of the past few days and how many times his alter ego had said it—and meant it.

Len's chest burned as hotly as his jaw, but he stubbornly clung to the belief that if he could just push hard enough, something would click and shift within him and he'd be himself again without this incessant need to apologize and pull Barry to him.

So he forced out another laugh as he pushed up from the ground and sat back on his ankles, waiting for his vision to clear and for the ringing to stop searing through his head. He had to break Barry down into fragments so the kid learned what it really meant to face the cold. The kiss had been a risk, equal parts brutality to hurt Barry that much more and Len's honest, open desire, missing the way Barry's mouth felt on his.

Seeing Barry again had hit harder than Len expected, but it just compelled him to push that much harder and see this through to the end.

Len eyed the kid from his beaten position on the ground, not able to stand yet, but looking at him defiantly, and seeing the way Barry's chest heaved, his eyes wide in shock at what he'd done. "You're not used to hitting as hard as you can, are you?" Len grinned.

The shock fell away to a sneer, the tears still dampening Barry's face, but drying, as he tightened his fists. "That wasn't as hard as I can," he said, and it sounded like such a dark threat; Len wondered if the kid meant it that way, and a small part of him hoped he did. It would make this easier.

Slowly, Len rose to his feet, but was instantly met with a wave of nausea. Another concussion so soon after the first wouldn't do him any favors, and before he could catch himself, he staggered—shit.

Barry immediately jerked forward, a blur of after-image trailing him, his hands at Len's elbows in seconds to steady him. All that anger was gone in moments, melted away, leaving only the sadness, the streaks of tears, and caring, candid concern for Len bare on Barry's face.

Why wouldn't the kid learn?

Len's jaw burned and his stomach tilted, but he couldn't waver now. "You make it so easy, Scarlet," he said low and gruff as he leaned up close to Barry's ear, but regardless of the spite in his words he knew deep down he meant it differently—so easy to want something better.

Don't do this to the kid, don't do it, chimed in his mind, in some deep recesses of his heart that he just wished he could carve out. Because he had to go for broke or he'd never be free of this.

"You must really love getting fucked around, Scarlet, to be this gullible," he hissed, and as he pushed Barry away from him, he reached for the other gun in his trench coat—the Berretta he'd claimed from Mendoza—and whirled it upward to point in Barry's face.

Barry was faster, of course, which was exactly what Len had counted on. The gun went off with a crack, missing Barry by inches as he darted out of the way, and in the next second Len was flashed into that same wall behind him again, pinned, the gun clattering to the floor of the warehouse as Barry looked at him like he honestly couldn't believe that had just happened. His hazel eyes showed nothing but loathing now, dismayed to even be touching Len.

Good.

The tears were back, flooding Barry's eyes, but they were angry tears, no more room for remorse. "You'd really just—" He cut himself off, shaking his head. He jerked Len roughly against the wall, and god—he sounded so ruined as he bit out, "You're a monster, you know that?"

Len's hands started to shake.

No. That wasn't supposed to happen. The crushed expression, how much Barry believed the lie now, that Len had never been anything but Captain Cold, was supposed to be the moment when Len won. This was how he beat the tremors and second guessing that had made him such a mess with the Mendozas. This was how he recovered his true self. This was how he forgot Barry Allen.

But Barry's face, the malice in his voice, the hatred, it kept getting darker, more shattered and wrecked, and in that moment, it wasn't what Len wanted anymore. He just wanted to see the kid smile again.

"You're a monster that you can just go back to being this, worse than you were, like all of it meant nothing and I'm just something to be tossed away when you're done with me." Barry growled as he pushed Len into the wall once more and backed off, only it sounded too filled with tears still, for all the anger, like a strangled howl.

He was still mourning, deeply, heart-brokenly, but he hated Len now, hated him, and nothing would ever change that.

Barry shook as he backed away, shook too much in the wake of his emotions to notice Len's own trembles, but his face was hardened despite the renewed tear tracks.

Len tried to steady his hands, tried to think his way through this, but the words that left him wasn't what he wanted to say. "It was three days, kid, what did you expect?"

You were too good to me, Barry. I don't deserve you.

Barry squeezed his eyes shut, and more tears spilled stubbornly down his face. "I expected my friend to be better than this," he said.

His friend…?

Len laughed humorlessly. "Is that what we were? You're pathetic, kid, thinking you could change someone like me…"

I wanted to be better for you…but I'm not.

And damn Barry—because he nodded. "Yeah. I guess I am." He turned to walk away then, to leave Len there, leaning heavily against the wall, and it was all unraveling too quickly, spinning out of Len's control.

This was supposed to be what he wanted—to get one over on The Flash, accomplish a perfect heist, at Flash's specifications, no civilians even aware let alone hurt, but still like a jab to Flash's pride for pulling it off by using his own trusting nature against him.

And then the clincher, the most important part, was what followed, breaking the kid of any thoughts of Len being someone he could save, because if Barry didn't believe that…how could Len? Len couldn't risk believing it, or he'd start to want it, and he'd only be setting himself up for disappointment.

"What did you expect from me?" he called after Barry before he could stop himself, his breaths coming shallow, his whole body shivering. "I told you what I was."

"Yeah, you did," Barry said, his voice cold now, as he remained turned away from Len, steady but stiff. "But I'm not going to let you run around doing whatever you want, stealing and lying, playing cat and mouse because it's fun for you, and then bend over whenever you feel like fucking with the enemy."

The sharpness to Barry's cursing made Len flinch. And in the weighty silence that followed, something opened inside of him that he thought he'd closed off, something raw and terrified, because it was the part of him that didn't want to be the bad guy in this story, to face against Barry's earnest heroics; the part of him that would risk anything, even losing himself all over again, if he could just try for one moment to have what he really wanted.

Because he did want it. This whole mess of a plan was over, he was shaking, and panicked, and damn everything, he still wanted Barry Allen more than anything in his whole damn life.

Len tried to push forward from the wall, but as soon as he didn't have any support holding him up, he saw the edges of his vision going dark. He wasn't sure if it was the blow to the head or the inevitability of a panic attack creeping up on him, but it was happening and he couldn't stop it. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't…speak.

Barry…

But Barry wouldn't look at him. He kept turned away, his shoulders tensing in preparation to run.

"B-Barry…" Len grit out, but his voice was too soft.

"Next time…I'm bringing you in. I don't care if you tell the whole fucking world I'm The Flash."

Len tried to reach toward him. He'd been wrong, so wrong…

"I don't care anymore," Barry finished, and it was so pitilessly final. "I'm done."

And just before Len could try calling out to him again, a streak of lightning carried Barry out of reach.

Len sunk to his knees, his heart racing, and everything hurting, and he was shaking, and shaking…but he hadn't been fast enough, could never be fast enough, not with The Flash, not with Barry, not when he'd fucked this all up beyond ever being able to salvage it again.

He couldn't go back to the way he'd been. When he tried, it tore him apart like some sickness had settled in his gut. He couldn't be something worse than what he'd been, something colder and crueler like he'd tried to be today, because the sight of Barry in tears and so desperately shattered had made it worse, not better. So much worse.

But he didn't think he could be what Barry wanted either. He'd just fuck that up too, and hurt the kid far worse than he had already.

I'm sorry, Barry, he thought, and he meant it, wished he could speak it, but there was no one there to hear him anymore.

The room tilted, the panic not subsiding but increasing with each passing moment, aching in Len's chest. He didn't even feel the pain of hitting the concrete as he crumbled. He was out before he hit the floor.

TBC...