This was written for Day 3 of Coldflash week, Rogues vs Team Flash. It also conveniently works as a fill for the ‘Secret Relationship’ square of my Coldflash Bingo Card. Both are hosted by @coldflashweeks. This is just the first two scenes, the rest can be read on AO3.
Summary: Something strange is going on with Barry and the Rogues. Cisco is determined to get to the bottom of it. Just as soon as he gets as handle on his caffeine addiction, that is.
Or, three times Cisco doesn’t understand why the Rogues keep pulling punches, and the one time it all makes sense.
The comms had gone dark as soon as Hartley Rathaway showed up, so Cisco and the others had no way of knowing what was happening at the museum. It had looked good for Barry before they’d lost contact, but fights with the Rogues were always unpredictable and could turn on a dime. It was part of what made them so dangerous, and part of what made them so entertaining.
“Do you think he’s alright?” Caitlin asked, rubbing her thumb against her other palm. She was standing on the opposite side of the monitors, having just come in from the med bay when she heard Cisco cursing.
“His vitals haven’t changed,” Cisco reassured her. His eyes never left the screen through, fingers flying across the keyboard as he tried to reestablish a connection to the comms in Barry’s suit. Beside him, Harry waved an unbothered hand at Caitlin and went back to the book he was reading.
Caitlin let out a long breath and started to pace. She made it two lengths of the room before she was halted in place by a blur of red lightning that sent all the papers in the lab flying into the air.
Barry pulled off his cowl, out of breath. “They got away. But they didn’t get the diamond, so.”
Immediately moving closer to inspect him for any injuries, Caitlin frowned. She shared a look with Cisco, whose hands were now hovering above the keyboard. “What happened? The comms went out. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” she asked, looking Barry up and down.
Barry just shrugged, brushing off her concern. “I’m fine,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “No one got any shots in. Hartley showed up and took out my comms, and then we basically ended up in a stalemate until Cold distracted me. By the time I realized that’s what he was doing, the rest of them were already gone.”
Cisco watched as Caitlin let out a breath of relief, but didn’t find himself doing the same. He leaned back in his chair, peering at Barry over the monitors. A fight with five of the Rogues and no one got a shot in? Not that Cisco wanted Barry to get hurt, it’s just that it was unusual. Even with the unofficial deal they had going, The Flash vs. Cold’s gallery of rogues was always chaos. No one walked away without getting hit at least once, least of all Barry, who was always outnumbered even with his team backing him up from the labs.
Heading off to change back into his regular clothes, Barry clapped his shoulder as he passed and grinned at him. His cheeks were still flushed from the fight, and he looked more tired than usual, so it was clear that he hadn’t walked away from the museum without putting a decent effort into stopping the Rogues.
Cisco shook his head. What was he looking for? Proof that something else had gone down when the comms went dark? Barry had no reason to lie to them, and Cisco had no reason to think he would.
It was all the sleep he’d been losing since his vibes had gotten more frequent — it was getting to his head. Just that morning, he’d thought the barista at Jitters was a spy sent by one of their enemies to get intel on him and Caitlin, as members of Team Flash. Clearly, he wasn’t thinking straight.
He should probably cut down on the coffee, too.
Cisco jumped through the breach, stepping off the ground in S.T.A.R. labs and landing in a loading dock in the warehouse district. It closed behind him with a swoosh, but he barely heard it over the sound of something blowing up only a few feet away. He rocked sideways from the force of the blast, but caught his footing.
The explosion had come from one of the transport trucks being launched backwards into the side of the building. Cisco couldn’t see from this angle who had done it, but Barry had to be nearby. He crouched low to the ground, rounding the now-destroyed truck as stealthily as he could—
And stopped. He blinked in confusion. The scene before him was chaos: half the warehouse was charred beyond recognition, the other half was coated in a thick layer of ice, and nearly every piece of equipment was… well, in pieces. It looked like the aftermath of a hurricane, if that hurricane had a maniacal laugh and enjoyed toying with teams of superheroes.
That wasn’t the confusing part. The confusing part was that there, in the middle of it all, stood Barry, unscathed and chatting with Captain Cold. Just standing there, three feet away from each other, Cold’s gun slung over his shoulder and Barry’s hands resting on his hips as he nodded his head along to whatever Cold was saying.
“Flash?” Cisco called out, not even bothering to hide his disbelief. He’d almost called him by his real name, before he remembered himself. The other Rogues could still be here, not all of which knew Barry’s identity. That had never sat right with Cisco — that Cold held something so massive over their heads and had yet to use it against them. Yet, he hadn’t. He’d stuck to their deal and never told a soul, as far as they knew.
Barry was caught off guard. He whirled around to face Cisco and opened his mouth, but Cold was faster. In the same instance, he’d drawn his gun, aimed it just beside Cisco’s head, and pulled the trigger. Racing forward to shove him out of the way, Barry only just made it time to save Cisco from an annoying case of frostbite.
It was like Cisco had pressed play on the paused scene — one of the other Rogues suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started destroying what was left of the place, Mick stepped out from wherever he’d disappeared to and resumed his mission to blow everything up, and the fight resumed.
Only, even as he dodged attack after attack, trying to keep Peek-A-Boo from making off with whatever it was they were here to steal, something felt off. He didn’t have time to dissect it while mid-fight, but it niggled at the back of his mind until they made it back to S.T.A.R labs, heist successfully prevented.
It wasn’t until he was in the med-bay with Caitlin fawning over the burn he’d sustained on his shoulder that he realized what it was. For as many punches as had been thrown on both sides, and as chaotic as the fight had been, Barry hadn’t suffered a single injury. He was always better at dodging than Cisco, given his speed, but in a fight of that scale, he should’ve at least been blown into a couple of walls. It was like…
It was like they hadn’t even been aiming for him. Like they’d been trying not to hit him.
Cisco frowned. He watched Barry fiddle with his phone at the computer station while Caitlin finished wrapping his shoulder.
Had he made some kind of deal with the Rogues they didn’t know about? But why wouldn’t he tell them?
He shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. He was probably just imagining things. Barry had been training harder than ever, so it was only logical that he would fair better in a fight. Besides, he’d fought the Rogues so many times that their movements should’ve been predictable to him by now.
While his sleep had gotten better lately, Cisco clearly still needed to finally bite the bullet and cut down on the caffeine. This was getting out of hand. Caitlin had even started making faces at him when she caught him with his fifth cup of the day, and this jittery paranoia was out of control.
