Molten rocks contain dissolved gasses in them, including large amounts of H2O and occasionally CO2 or Sulfur. When magma gets close to the surface, the pressure on the magma drops and the gas begins forming bubbles, just as happens when you open a bottle of a soft drink and release the pressure held inside. In highly viscous magmas, these bubbles can build up pressure until the volcano explodes. In low viscosity magmas like the basalt sitting in this lava lake at Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia, those bubbles will coalesce and rise towards the surface, where they will pop and spray molten rock into the air.
Not all of them are useful, not to Len, but the weight of them in his fingers is grounding, even more so than his gun strapped to his thigh. Barry had been aghast, of course, when Don and Dawn brought them to Len, but now Len wonders if they hadn’t known, somehow, that he’d need them. If it was really just a coincidence, or if it was something more. He hadn’t bothered asking, just thanked them softly, again and again, and promised he was getting their dad back.
Sam and Marc follow him up through the abandoned hospital wing to Iron Heights proper, surveying the cells around them as prisoners start to stir. Their time is limited; even with Barry playing along, Papercut and Folded Man can only keep him occupied for so long; so Len gets to work.
Blacksmith stays where she’s at- Len doesn’t have time to butt heads with Miss New Rogues, nor the patience to try and rein in her chaos. Murmur doesn’t get a second glance, either- he needs a breakout team, not a mass murderer.
The first person Len lets out is Girder, and it’s clear that it’s not out of any goodwill. He locks eyes with Woodward as he opens the door, breaking the airtight seal of his cell and watching the agony crawl across the metal man’s face. “Snart,” he creaks, lurching towards him, but Len keeps moving, letting Sam and Marc push the iron golem towards the Pipeline security that’s surely on its way. If he rusts away, good fucking riddance. Len has no sympathy for a rapist.
Abra Kadabra and Plunder both get passed over, Kadabra briefly meeting his eyes to sneer at him. The 34th century man has thrown in with the Light, and Len wants nothing to do with them, certainly not in a position where he’d be indebted to the shady fucks. He’ll get his people without throwing in with the death cult that nearly handed the world to aliens, thanks.
Plunder- well, Morillo’s just useless.
Len slows at Doctor Alchemy’s cell, rapping lightly at the door to draw his attention from his book. “Desmond.”
“Snart,” Alchemy replies, finger holding his page as he shuts his book briefly. “To what do I owe the honor.”
“Was wonderin’ if you were lookin’ to take a walk,” he suggests, and, while Alchemy sighs, he doesn’t go back to his book just yet.
“And what would incentivize this… walk, Leonard?”
He smiles, briefly. “Flasher’s takin’ it kinda hard over in the city proper. Heard Magenta was gettin’ called in to reinforce him.”
“How is Miss Kane?”
“One way to find out.”
Albert considers Len for another long moment before fully setting aside his book. “I think I’d like that.”
Len nods, unlocking the cell and lobbing the Philosopher’s Stone at Desmond underhand, the Heights-issued version of his costume melting from where it meets his glove outwards. Once he’s really dressed, Alchemy nods regally, striding past Len into the hall.
“Head for the abandoned hospital wing. There’s a tunnel out. And don’t let Girder follow ya, if you don’t mind?” Len suggests, chuckling as Alchemy makes a familiar face at the mention of Woodward.
“Certainly not,” he mutters, reaching out to touch Len’s parka lightly. “Tell your family, when you see them next, that I said hello.”
A nod satisfies him, and he turns to leave, slipping past Sam and Marc as they rejoin Len, past where Girder is engaging the Pipeline guards, and towards the exit.
Peek-a-boo is next, curled up in her cell with her knees to her chest, and Len knocks again, gentle, to get her attention.
“Lashawn?”
“Whatever you’re sellin’, I’m not buying,” she snaps, pulling in tighter on herself, and he sighs.
“Your pop’s at the top’a the transplant list. I figured you’d wanna get out to see him.”
That catches her attention and she stands, slowly, arms still wrapped around her torso. “What’s in it for you?”
“You see your family, I see mine.”
Len can see the doubt, can’t even blame her for it. She’s a good kid. “And after?”
“After, I got papers for you. Clean identity. You can get yourself back to school, see your dad every now and then- no strings attached. Even see what we can do about that metagene of yours.”
If she turns him down, Len’s willing to move on- it’ll suck, but he is. He figured he should at least give it a shot, though.
“One job,” Lashawn tells him, and he nods.
“One job, kid,” he agrees, unlocking her cell and giving her a wide berth to exit, Sam passing over her confiscated gear as their group keeps moving.
He doesn’t have a key for the final cell he stops in front of, and both Sam and Marc make disgusted little sounds, but they know they’re desperate. No one says a word, all regarding each other warily from across the glass.
“Your boyfriend know you’re here, Snart?” August asks casually, too casually, and Len doesn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes.
“The Feds shoved my people in a swamp to rot. You wanna help me help them, or you gonna sit here and twiddle your thumbs like you couldn’t leave whenever the hell you want,” Len challenges, and the spark of lightning in Heart’s eye tells him all he needs to know.
“You letting me out or not?”
Scudder fires off a shot into the glass of August’s cell and steps through, reaching to grab the speedster by the wrist and yank him through into the hall with the rest. August raises his brows and tilts his head a little, obviously offering his collared throat for Len to do something about.
He makes an indignant noise when Len turns away. “Hey, cabrón, forgetting something?” Heart calls, and Len would ignore him if not for the fact that he doesn’t hear his feet moving.
“I’ll take it off when we get where we’re goin’.”
That doesn’t make August any happier. “Really? Someone touches Baez and she blows, and you’re more worried about keeping me under wraps?”
Lashawn doesn’t look impressed by being dragged into this, and Len can hardly blame her, meeting her eyes for a moment before looking directly at Heart. “Baez hasn’t, to my knowledge, expressed interest in killing me before.”
The staredown lasts a good dozen seconds longer than Len would like, but, finally, August shrugs. “Fair enough.”
Marc snorts and Sam doesn’t bother hiding his grin as Len turns away again.
The screech of metal follows them out through the abandoned hospital wing and the tunnels- the screech, and the bellow of Tony Woodward in pain.
Maybe it says something about Len that he doesn’t even flinch.
They leave the Heights behind them, the sounds of fighting ahead in Central proper as Booker and Edwin keep Barry “occupied,” but the group turns towards Keystone instead, to one of Sam’s personal hideouts. He’s obviously still put out by bringing August, glancing over his shoulder with a slight sneer as he unlocks the door of the warehouse and hustles everyone inside and down to the basement.
One whole wall is covered in a mirror, and Len stares up at it as he waits for Sam to lock up and come downstairs, ignoring the heavy silence of their guests until Sam steps into his peripherals.
“Alright.” He turns, setting out the map of Belle Reve, created from his own stay and the twins’ memories, marked with guard towers, security cameras, and any other notes Len had deemed necessary, and begins laying out the plan.
Len counts down on his fingers and then signals for them to go, emerging simultaneously from four panes of glass on Belle Reve’s outer guard towers to take out all of them at once. It goes down without a hitch- Len can hear it over his earpiece, the quick confirmations from the others- and he looks out the window to see the dark clouds over the prison growing even darker, heavy with rain that starts to fall over the outer courtyard. There’s a ripple of unhappiness in the guards in the yard, noises of complaint coming over the tower radio, and they let it go on for a while before Marc increases the storm further, the distant first flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder signalling them to come down from the tower and meet.
When they’re in one place, he pulls one of Lisa’s devices from his pocket- his sister’s damn brilliant, not that Len didn’t already know- and deactivates August’s collar, scooping it up and shoving into an inner pocket of his parka. Heart’s whole body crackles with the familiar static of the Speed Force that makes Len’s hair stand up and his lichtenburg scar itch.
“Wizard. Give him a jump,” Len instructs, and both men glance at him, Marc in concern and Heart in confusion.
“You sure about that?” He nods, and Marc blows out a sigh, taking a moment to focus, eyes shut, more lightning streaking through the clouds over the prison to hide what he’ll do next.
Heart doesn’t look reassured. “What do you mean, a jump?” he asks, and Len can hear the tremor in his voice, used to hearing it when Barry’s stressed, the way he vibrates, trying not to just bolt.
“My wand manipulates electron fields,” Marc murmurs, opening his eyes- they, too, spark and glow with lightning, bright blue, and Len sees Lashawn step back in the corner of his eye. “I can turn potential energy into kinetic- what you speedsters run on. It’ll put you on top of your game, chabón.”
“M’already on top of my game,” Heart argues, but his interest is pretty obvious, and he takes a breath, glancing up and waiting for the next strike of lightning to let the Speed Force come over him, materializing his bright costume in a flash of white-gold lightning. His voice vibrates more now, Godspeed’s voice instead of August’s, and his gold lenses land on Marc. “Hit me.”
For the first time since Len suggested this, Marc actually grins- he can’t help being eager, and Len knows he’s been dying to test this theory for ages- and raises his wand, shocking August with the next lightning strike, blue mixing with Godspeed’s white until the speedster’s edges blur, glowing unearthly and wreathed with static. Lowering the wand again, Marc’s eyes return to normal, still grinning as he steps back.
“You alright, Godspeed?” His head moves- a nod, maybe?- and one speedster becomes two becomes three, and oh, Len hopes this wasn’t a mistake.
“Never better, Snart,” one of them answers, and Len nods curtly.
“You know your role.” All three move their heads- yeah, it’s gotta be a nod- and wait for the next crack of lightning to take off into the yard, disarming guards and knocking them out with a speed and precision that Len would take a moment to admire if he weren’t focused on the job. “Mirror Master, cameras. Wizard, storm. Boo, on me.”
They break, fluid, determined, and Len feels a pang of longing for the old days, when a small team like this would’ve been him, Mick, Lise, Sam, and Digger, just the five of them against anyone who got in their way. It’s so sudden that Len’s pace falters and Lashawn spares him a glance, but he waves her on, pulling the cold gun from its holster and powering it up as they pass the crumpled forms of guards, their dismantled weapons scattered in the mud.
He freezes his heart just like he does the prison wall, watching frost creep over the thick concrete as the beam of his gun reflects in his and Lashawn’s goggles until he releases the trigger, stepping back even further to let Baez do her part.
Standing close but not too close to the frozen wall, Baez shuts her eyes and teleports, the explosion sending brittle chunks of concrete flying through the air. A crack of thunder follows, and Len squints to see through the blinding explosion and the glow of lightning- Godspeed is there, one of him, at least, knocking aside shrapnel in a circle around Len and Lashawn and glancing over his shoulder when he’s done.
“Don’t get yourself killed. Barry would kick my ass,” he tells Len, and it almost seems like a joke, before he bolts again, leaving the duo to get back to their job.
Once the wall is down and Sam confirms he has control of the cameras, two of Godspeed dart ahead into Belle Reve, the clank of turrets and power suit pieces followed by the thump of unconscious bodies as Marc, Lashawn, a third August, and Len make their way in. Sam emerges from the dull shine of a polished metal “mirror,” making a face but not complaining as they head through the halls.
“How’s it lookin’?”
“Deadshot, Plastique, Frost, Bronze Tiger, and the Shark,” Sam relays grimly.
“We couldn’t have gotten any less?” Len grouses, the dull throb of a headache starting at the back of his skull. This is going to suck, but they’re going to do it. They have to. “If Waller lets Task Force X out, Heart, you’re on Bronze Tiger. He’s one of Waller’s enforcers on the team- least likely to listen to reason. Master martial artist, so watch yourself.” Heart nods and is off to help his doubles.
“Nanue shouldn’t be hard. Great whites fall into hibernation under a certain temperature, it’s just a matter of getting him there,” he murmurs, hand on the cold gun. “Peek-a-boo, I want you on Killer Frost. She needs to touch people to absorb heat-”
“-And touching me’s a bad idea,” Lashawn finishes. Not a hard conclusion to come to, but it still makes Len smirk when she does. “Got it.”
“Wizard-”
“Plastique,” Marc volunteers. “Same trick as Heart on her explosions.”
“I got Lawton,” Sam rounds out. “Wiz and I are gonna head for Glider and Top.”
Len nods and they split off to head for the thick glass that separates the two halves of the prison’s indoor exercise area, to the other side where the other Rogues await them. Lashawn keeps pace with Len, no longer faltering as he gets closer to his husband, freezing over unconscious guards to keep them down if they wake up before the job is done. It’s only when a bullet hits the ground in front of his feet that he stops his determined march, hearing Lashawn gasp as she nearly runs into him and hastily stumbles back, trying not to blow while Len searches for the source.
Deadshot waves down at him from a guard post and Len sneers.
“Hey, Snart.”
“Whataya want, Lawton, I ain’t got the time,” he snaps back, voice cracking like ice against the concrete walls, and Lawton raises his hands in innocence, showing that his finger’s off his trigger.
“The Wall was pissed you got to Boomer’s corpse before her. Could’ve been real useful to her,” Lawton drawls, and Len could shoot him, here and now, he really could.
“She wasn’t about to desecrate one of my people’s bodies.”
Lowering his hands again, Deadshot leans against the low wall in front of him, gun dangling in a loose grip that Len knows says nothing about how dangerous he is right now. “I know, Snart. I know.” He searches for his words, and, for once in the conversation, he seems sincere. “I’m glad she didn’t get him, either.”
Len eyes him for a long moment before Lawton nods, flicking on his safety and shoving his gun in the waistband of his prison orange. “My people and me didn’t see a thing. Never encountered you. Go get your family.”
Nodding back, Len gestures for Lashawn to follow, deeper into the prison until they reach the cell block, people gathering curiously at their doors, murmurs getting louder when they realize who and what this is.
Cries of “Cold” or “Snart” are ignored- voices he hardly recognizes or doesn’t care about, no, he’s not here for them- no, it’s the first tentative, tired call of “Lenny?” that grabs his attention.
“Motek,” Len breathes, and he’s at Mick’s cell in an instant, the bruises on his skin and under his eyes making Len’s heart ache, but the little smile he gives Len- god, he’s missed it. “Step back, Mickey.”
He does, his cellie taken back with him by a strong, scarred arm, and Len freezes the cell door, kicking one of the icy bars to watch the whole damn thing crumble.
Mick rushes him for a kiss, and Len grips him even as Mick shivers, even as the prison jeers and yells around them.
“Where’s everyone else?” he asks his husband when he pulls away, and Mick goes from lovey to his game face, confident strides leading Len to the other two Rogues scattered among the prisoners, each of them freed, collars deactivated, and joining the pack, their cellmates left to do as they please.
Len doesn’t stop them from going for the guards, embracing Hartley and muttering my boy into his long hair before bringing Roy in, too, slapping his back heartily as he lets go.
“Couldn’ta been any quicker about it?” Mick grumbles- Len knows, doesn’t snap back, just takes his husband’s hand and squeezes briefly before leading heading towards the rec area, getting a raised brow. “That ain’t the way out, boss.”
“Sam and Marc are getting Lisey and Ros, and we’re all meeting at the big glass,” he explains, the others’ eyes widening in comprehension and letting him push on, the crackle of static crawling up the back of his neck as they head further in.
Mick feels it, too, looks hopeful for a moment, but Godspeed skids into existence and his whole face darkens. “Him, Lenny?”
“I did what I had to, motek,” he answers, knowing that will be a whole other talk when they get home. “What’s going on, Godspeed.”
“Jump wore off,” he answers, voice still buzzing, but not as hard. “I can still maintain one other- he’s doing another round now. Be here soon. Guards are still out, but the cameras are starting to come back online.”
Len nods curtly, lets Heart flash ahead of them and follows the trail of lightning to the open rec space, face softening at the sight of his sister and her partner on the other side of the thick glass with Marc, Sam, and August’s double.
“Mr. Snart-Rory.” He turns to see Amanda Waller herself standing above them. “Did you really think this was wise?”
They stare silently at each other for a long moment before Len gestures to Sam, the fire of the mirror gun muffled by the glass wall, the Rogues on the far side vanishing into the mirror before the closer side ripples, Lisa’s hand reaching through. Hartley takes it first, disappearing through, and Waller can only watch Len’s people leave her impenetrable walls.
“I got a question for you, too, Warden Waller,” he answers evenly, watching Mick pass through before he steps up to the mirror. “Did you really think it was wise to cross the Rogues?”
He only narrowly stops himself from flipping her off before he steps through to the portal to go home.
Maybe- Maybe it’s because he was distracted. Preoccupied by things back home, by Thawne and Barry and how the kids are- maybe that’s why things failed.
But even that isn’t right. Distraction doesn’t account for this mayhem, not when this plan has been in the works for months. Hell, it hadn’t even been Barry- if he had showed up, plans B through L are reserved for him, depending on when he arrived and who he’d gone after first.
It’s the damn Feds. Again, shouldn’t be a problem- except they know. They know every single move the Rogues make, every strategy in their arsenal, every single weakness. Things they shouldn’t know about this job in particular.
They go after Hartley first, taking out the ears of the operation, their early warning system, as well as the danger of his mind control. He goes down with a sonic blast targeted at his implants, flute forgotten as he scrambles to try and shut them off, fingers fumbling in his pain. It gives the Feds just enough time to slap cuffs on him, confiscate his gloves and his flute, and hustle him off. They leave the sonic device on to keep him in too much pain to pick his cuffs, twisting and writhing in the grip of the two agents that drag him along as he tries to escape the noise.
Rosa gets the Boot, fired off before she can even react, the hook clamping around her ankle and anchoring her to the ground in an instant. He snarls, reaching for his belt and the offensive tops within, but another squeeze of the trigger sends 90 thousand volts through him and he drops to his knees. The second the pulse lays them out flat, and the agents don’t even give Roscoe’s muscles the chance to relax before yanking their arms behind their back, making her cry out in pain as they cuff her wrists and begin confiscating her gear.
Mick they corner with a gun not unlike Len’s, bringing the temperature in the room down and meeting the gout of flame he sends at them with a blast of cold, causing the same explosion of steam that Mick and Len crossing streams usually does. It knocks Mick back, growling low as he struggles to his feet, but they’ve frozen the floor, too, like he’s a damn speedster they’re trying to keep off balance, and there’s a crackling crunch of snow cleats breaking through the thin layer of ice as they rush him. He manages a good few swings, clocks one with his gun and sets another’s gear on fire, but his teeth are chattering and he can feel the panic creeping up, and it distracts Mick just enough for a Fed to shove a cattle prod in the back of his knee to bring him down, leg muscles spasming painfully and losing any footing he had on the frozen floor. Crashing down, the Feds pile onto Mick even as he struggles against them, getting him restrained and his gun taken away before some asshole cracks him in the back of the head with their own weapon, and the blunt force head trauma on top of years of it makes Mick’s vision swim almost immediately.
They drag him into the hall where Lisa stands, looking frantic at first but then cold and hard, just like Len, teeth bared as she skates her way towards them, fists clenched. Mick tries to shout a hoarse warning, but Lisa’s too set on her icy rage and doesn’t realize one of the agents is brandishing Mick’s gun until the flames melt the ice from under her blades and send her hurtling ungracefully to the floor. The same cattle prod used on Mick gets jabbed into Lisa’s gut, making her convulse until they decide she’s had enough, cuffing her before one of the agents tosses her over his shoulder.
Another two agents drag Roy into the procession, the Rainbow Raider hanging unconscious between them, his glasses in one of their fists. His tech might be formidable, but Roy’s never been a physical fighter, and a flash-bang to overwhelm his hardlight constructs was all the Feds needed to get to the man himself and knock him out.
Len would have to be an idiot to ignore the explosions, breaking into a jog with his safety off as he heads towards the nearest Rogue- safety in numbers, they’ve got this down- only to find Digger backed into a corner and swaying, swearing up a storm as he clutches his head, his boomerangs scattered across the floor or stuck in the walls.
It feels like being whisked by Barry- going so fast that, for a moment, the world sometimes seems like it’s at a standstill- before Digger’s head swells and bursts outward, a splatter of blood and gray matter painting the walls and the ceiling, and Len hears a sound- is that his voice? Is he screaming?- before he fires his cold gun into the room, icing the four agents who’d surrounded Digger and watched as he-
As he-
In a burst of rage, he smashes his gun down against the forearm of the man holding the detonator, breaking it off from the elbow down to shatter against the floor as Len moves past them, reeling it all until there’s just a shard of ice where his heart should be. He’s calm. He’s rational. He can make this work, even with the plan gone to hell.
First priority is Digger’s body. Len is methodical as he ices it, like he would a patch of ground or a particularly tough safe; his eyes are vacant, unwilling to really look at the body of one of his best friends, the man who was a brother to him, fucking de-
Shaking off the thought physically, he releases the trigger and turns away from the flash-frozen corpse, shouting for Sam and finding him in the reflection off an iced Fed not a few seconds later, looking absolutely haggard.
“Cold, what the fuck’s- oh, Christ.” Even in the reflection, even behind his helmet, Len sees Sam’s eyes go wide at the sight of Digger. “Is he…?”
“Get him outta here, Scudder.” There’s no room for argument and Sam knows it, leaving the relatively safety of the Mirror World to collect Digger’s frozen body from the floor as Len ices over a large patch of the wall to make a larger surface for them to pass through.
There’s a plan in place for this, as much as Len hates to admit it. It’s been haunting him for years, the thought that they’re all mortal, and he’d hoped to never use Avernus for anything more than someone dying of old age in their sleep. Wishful thinking, he supposes, but who wouldn’t want their family to live their longest and fullest lives? Hell, nobody deserves to die like this, not even a miserable bastard like Digger, not even after he’d killed that Gotham capitalist.
Sam fires his gun into the ice and it ripples for a moment before settling, the younger man adjusting his grip on the body before looking back at Len. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
“You don’t give orders,” he growls, but Scudder doesn’t relent, baring his teeth back at Len.
“Job’s gone to hell, Snart, you’ll stay fuckin’ put while I get everyone I can into the goddamn mirror, not go running around to get yourself offed by more Feds.”
Len’s hand flexes around the grip of his gun and then loosens as he nods curtly. “I’m last through.”
“I know, Len,” Sam assures him before stepping into his reflection with Digger’s body.
He can’t help pacing while he waits- part of Len wants to smash the frozen agents to snow, part of him wants to run to find his sister, his husband- but Scudder’s right. Damn him, but he is. They need to get out of here, and Len running off half-cocked and angry, so angry, no matter how he’s tried to freeze it out, will just get him killed.
Like Digger.
Sam’s hand emerges from the ice a few long minutes later and Len takes it, stepping through the reflection, used to the way it clings to him, like emerging from being underwater until the surface tension finally breaks. The Mirror World is never pleasant, and he’s glad for Scudder’s hustle to the next bright spot in the murky and imbalanced dimension, dragging Len through the floor-length mirror in the front hall of the den and then firing his gun again to shut the portal down entirely.
It’s a good thing, too, because Len takes a few deep breaths before turning on his heel and slamming his fist into the mirror.
The way it shatters is utterly unsatisfying, the ugly way his knuckles pop bringing him no catharsis, and the voices that call out in response-
“Len!”
“¡Dios!”
“Cold!”
Only three. Three plus Digger, dead, headless, frozen, and neither Lisa nor Mick among them-
He turns back around to see Sam, Marc, and James staring at him in concern. Marc’s hair is more of a windswept mess than usual, Sam’s helmet is discarded to show the furrows in his brow, and James looks almost green, lips pressed in a thin line as he watches Len from behind his domino.
“What the fuck was that,” he asks aloud, and none of them answer, so he raises his voice. “What the fuck was that? That wasn’t Flash, or Icon, or Rocket- those were the damn Feds, and they nabbed half of us. They m-” The words stick in his throat, if only because he sees a bright puff of red hair around the corner.
“Uncle Len?” Owen.
Len wants nothing more in this moment than to have died in Digger’s place.
“Hey, kid,” he says softly. “Didn’t mean to wake ya.”
“Is everything okay?”
Swallowing back the shake in his voice, Len nods. “Just job stuff, Owen. You need somethin’?”
The boy almost shakes his head, then shrugs instead, looking at his feet.
“How ‘bout Marc comes and reads you one of his boring old books to help you get back to sleep,” he suggests gently, and Owen looks up again to shoot Mardon a hopeful glance.
“Can we keep going with Connecticut Yankee?”
At a loss for words for a brief moment, Marc spares Len a helpless look before smiling gently at Owen. “Of course, niño.”
Marc reaches out to squeeze Len’s arm before following Owen back through the house to the boy’s room, leaving him with Scudder and Jesse, the latter looking ready to squirm out of his skin as he glances at the hallway and then back down, not looking at Len or Sam.
Len watches James until Marc and Owen’s footsteps fade and Owen’s door clicks shut, a chill crawling across Len’s skin as his blood freezes in his veins.
“Trix. Look at me.” James lifts his head and Len sees his Adam’s apple bob, hands curling into fists as he holds himself back from drawing the cold gun once more. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Snart, we don’t know it was an inside job-”
“Don’t fuckin’ gimme that, Scudder, we know damn well it was. No way the Feds would get the drop on us otherwise.” He steps closer to Trickster and the young Rogue flinches. “James. Answer me.”
A soft wheeze escapes him before he musters words. “Cold, I swear to God, I didn’t think-”
“You didn’t think what, Jesse? You didn’t think they’d really catch us? You didn’t think they’d get so many?” It takes everything in Len not to grab James by the front of his uniform and shake him. “You didn’t think they’d murder one of us?”
“No! No, I didn’t, I just thought-”
“They’re the fucking Feds, not the CCPD! They’re competent, especially when some meshugenah hands them all the intel they need because he thinks- what, exactly? What were you thinking, you fucking idiot?”
James shoves Len back, shame turning to something ugly and defiant in the face of Len’s anger, and Len has to put a hand up to keep Sam from stepping in.
“I was thinking about this, Cold! The way you treat me, the way the Rogues fucking treat me- how I never get the chance to prove myself-”
”Prove yourself?” Len cuts in, “Kid, what the hell are ya talkin’ about? You haven’t needed to prove yourself since you first joined up! You made it through the trial period, you showed us you had the skills- that was all we needed! You’re a Rogue! End of story!”
“But it’s not! You all still treat me like a child-”
“You’re second-youngest!”
“-and like you don’t want me around-”
“Because you’re an ass, James, not ‘cause you’re not capable!”
Jesse makes a disgusted noise. “Like everyone in this group isn’t an ass sometimes!”
“Not everyone’s a navel-gazin’ homophobic jerk, James, and you know it damn well,” Len snaps back. “You, you were a pain in my ass, in everyone’s asses, and I stood up for you. I played the leader card, more’n once, because you were family, James. You were my fucking son, and I wasn’t about to put you out.”
A hush falls as James stares at Len, the oh-so-clever Trickster finally at a loss for words. His breath shudders, and Len watches him struggle through his emotions as the words sink in. Sam shifts uncomfortably in Len’s peripheral vision.
“Cold- Len. I’m sorry. I don’t-” His voice falters. “I dunno what I was thinking.”
Len wants to forgive. He does. He didn’t spend years handpicking a team with the intention of giving up on them, or leaving them behind. He didn’t cultivate a family just to turn his back when things got rough, but this-
This is beyond rough.
He hadn’t brought James in, young and scared and alone but so, so brilliant, just to drop him on his ass again. It’s been years of Len trying to help James, make him a better man as well as a better criminal, and to see he learned nothing- to see him betray the family, to see him orphan Owen-
“You broke my heart, kid,” Len admits quietly, raising his hand to halt any answer and talking over James when he doesn’t take the visual cue. “You broke my damn heart, but if you’re out, you’re out.”
His eyes are steely even as Jesse tries to reason with him. “Len, come on-”
“That’s enough.” The words hurt, but Len gets them out, even if his voice is hushed. “Go tell your Fed buddies that James Jesse’s all theirs. The Trickster’s dead.”
James recoils, brows drawn together. “You can’t do that.”
“I can, and I am,” Len assures him. “Trickster’s dead. And if Jesse sets foot in the Gem Cities again, he’ll be dead, too.”
Stepping out of the way, Len gestures from James to the front door. “You know the way.”
The silence draws out between them as Jesse stands there, a tremor in his frame as he stares at Len, as if the look will change his mind, but Len is set. His hand drops to his gun when it starts getting too long for his tastes, and only then does James look away, eyes on the ground as he hustles past Len and Sam, leaving without another word.
Len watches him go and allows himself one shuddering breath once the door shuts behind James, covering his eyes for a long moment before he gets it together.
Cold. Hard. Calm. He’s fine. They’re all gonna be fine.
Everyone but Digger, that is.
He pulls his phone from an inside pocket of his parka, turning it on and dialing a number he knows by heart, eyes distant as he listens to it ring.
“Hey. Yeah. Yeah, I know what time it is. Listen, Flash. I need your help.”
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