entrancelogs | [open] you're as cold as ice -- you're willing to sacrifice

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[open] you're as cold as ice -- you're willing to sacrifice

Who: Leonard Snart and YOU. Also, plot for closed starters by commenting to my plotting comment or hitting me up at

reineke
Where: Throughout Genosha
When: 8/5-8/9
Rating: PG-13? I guess? I'll update if anything bad happens.
Summary: Len has ice powers and is, on the one hand, a thief and generally not so savoury character. On the other hand, he's in favour of free will and equal chances, so somehow he ends up actually being pro-human. He's not sure how he ended up a good guy either.
Will match format, brackets or prose, all good.

1. He's out on the street for reasons known only to himself. Maybe it has something to do with the bank nearby or maybe that man in the expensive suit who passes Leonard and who realises about an hour later that his wallet is missing.

Maybe it's because that place on the corner, where Leonard pays with money from said wallet, has such excellent ice cream. Maybe he's waiting to meet someone, like a hot date or that police woman that'd do better not to be seen with him. Or maybe it is just for some good, old-fashioned fun, like creating a snowball in his palm and holding it as he considers where to throw it.

Feel free to interrupt him at any point.

2. Home sweet home. Only Leonard's current residence is literally inside an abandoned warehouse and as such it's not overly cosy, nor the best suited to keep any unwanted or even wanted visitors waiting.

Of course, unless somebody knows he lives here, they might not bother coming in. It certainly doesn't look very lived in, until one comes to one of the backrooms, which has the couch he's currently reclining on, reading a magazine with his feet propped up on the backrest.

The room is also cold. Not quite below zero, but if someone's breath runs hot, it would be visible. Leonard's breath can't be seen, but there are faint ice crystals forming under his fingertips.

3. [ooc: Throw up your own thing, feel free to plot with me before as mentioned up on top or let's just jump right in.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Snart? Very formal. What got your panties in a twist?" Leonard rolls his eyes, putting a hand in his pocket in a very deliberate movement and retrieving the wallet in question. There's no money in it now, but who's counting? He throws it in Barry's direction, making sure to not throw far enough, so the little hero would have to come his way if he didn't want it landing on the ground. Turning his hand so his palm is facing up, there's a little snowstorm between his fingers, slowly gathering enough for a snowball.

"You seem heated."

It looks like a trap, smells like a trap, and Barry suspects it is one.

He falls into it. Every single time.

With the anti-human movement getting rowdier, Barry's been feeling the heat. Snart's right in that regard. He's impatient and he's restless, and with little things like pickpocketing, Barry's starting to feel a little stretched thin.

In an alternate timeline, he'd been told he could never refuse the chance to play the hero. In this one, he proves that speedster right once again.

Of course he moves forward. In a gust of air and crackling, golden kinetic energy, the Flash scoops up that wallet, and it disappears somewhere in his suit. When he comes to a stop, it's obvious he's annoyed. Captain Cold's like a child sometimes, and Barry reacts as one being riled up by someone bigger.

He shrugs his shoulders, and lets himself say, "We're all allowed to lose our chill every now and then. But thanks, for doing the right thing. Maybe you should make a habit of it."

"I think not."

Splat. That was a snowball to the face, if Barry didn't manage to duck so it hit the ground again. Either way, Leonard looks as innocent as he can - it's not very. He smiles and keeps his eyes on Barry, not bothering to step back. What's he going to do, run from him?

"What do you think the right thing is these days, Barry?"

Barry dodges it — just barely. There's some snow on his shoulder, and he doesn't bother to sweep it off his suit. He suspects there'll be more to replace it.

He sighs. It's not a game he likes to play, if only because Cold's snowballs are sometimes heavy and too cold for him to feel comfortable playing dodge-snow. It tests his speed and his reflexes, but he wishes the snow wasn't so cold.

"Not picking the pockets of innocent people, maybe?"

"Point out an innocent person to me and I'll be sure to avoid them." Leonard gathers another snowball, then just begins to pass it between his hands in a not quite juggle, but at least he's not targeting Barry. Right this moment. "Rich mutant walking around this area at this time of day? Not innocent. You're wasting your precious time."

It's getting harder and harder to determine who's a mutant and who isn't, and then splitting that off to figure out who's good and who isn't. Barry sometimes wishes he simply had a radar for it, like some sort of ability to figure out who deserves to be pickpocketed and who doesn't.

Not that he believes anyone deserves to be robbed.

His eyes don't leave that snowball. He's spent a good portion of his life playing dodgeball with bullies, and though he doesn't think Leonard Snart is one, he's been proven wrong before.

"What should I be doing with my time, then? Throw snowballs at people?"

"It really helps release tension, so why not?" Although he supposes the Flash would have an easier time throwing lightning. He tosses the ball in the air between them and hits it with a cold ray from his hand, quite literally letting it snow. Leonard steps closer to Barry still, until he's right in front of him and can catch his eyes. Must be difficult, trying to do the right thing in a world where more and more is turning wrong each day.

"You still just act in accordance with the law, Barry?"

He looks up, and watches the snow. Despite the cold being practically his opposite, he still does enjoy winter. He likes the snow, the chill of it all — one would think him to find a display of it to be repulsive, but Barry always likes to be a little unpredictable.

Or predictable, as Snart should know what his answer would be.

He doesn't answer immediately, and not with a holier than thou attitude, either. Barry understands Genosha's becoming more grey than black or white, and he tries his very best to keep within those old guidelines. The ones that some people still abide by on either side.

"I try to. I can't just disregard it because I feel like it."

It keeps on snowing, even after the snowball Leonard sent up should be all snowed out. He's resourceful, especially where the cold is concerned and Barry looks so much nicer with some snow settling on his suit and getting caught in his hair. He watches him, head tilted to the side. Judging his words and reading beyond it. He does find Barry predictable, but that doesn't mean he finds him boring.

A good person. They are hard to come by and harder these days. "That must be very limiting. If I feel something isn't right, it being law doesn't make it so. Strange, isn't it? Turns out someone with fewer morals might have an easier time doing the right thing these days."

Barry shrugs his shoulders. It's the best defense he has. He agrees and disagrees, and finds there's nothing to gain if he so much as engages in trying to change Snart's definition of the word. "Are you interviewing for the position?"

He knows there's a criticism there of his own behaviour, of how he must think and feel if he thinks the law's something to abide by. Barry does believe so, given he works within the law enforcement, but he supposes even Barry Allen, CSI, has been bending the rules slightly. What the law thinks to be right isn't necessarily correct, and he's learnt that the hard way when he poses as a human.

He's a little disappointed when he lifts his hand, palm up, to catch some snow and there's nothing left for him to watch melt into his thick red glove. "I could give you a reference if you are."

"I don't think I need one. Turns out I'm in demand." He sees the disappointment and a flurry of snowflakes is sent up from his hand to the sky, only so they can slowly sail down again, for Barry to marvel at all he wants. He watches as one flake lands on Barry's eyelashes, smiling a little to himself. "There's something to be said for letting nothing but yourself dictate what to do." Certainly kept him out of any moral quandaries.

Barry wipes at his face, seeing how the snow collects on the tips of his fingers and melts into his glove. His fingers feel slightly cold from it.

For someone who can create electricity whenever he runs, he still finds it strange and fascinating how others can do the same. Snart with snow. Killer Frost with the same skill, except he doubts she'd take the time to humour him as Snart does.

After a moment of watching the snow, Barry looks to Snart. "How's that working out for you? Going as planned?" Barry's always worked within the laws of right and wrong — the kind Dad had taught him when he was younger. Do right by others, and always step in, never be an observer with regrets on not stopping someone from getting hurt or worse. Is that the same as to what Snart's talking about? Barry doesn't know.

Obviously Leonard doesn't feel cold. He never does, he can't remember ever being bothered by the cold. But he is aware others can feel cold and he isn't actually out to make Barry freeze, so other than the falling snow, the temperature remains steady, leading to the snow melting quickly. Not that he cares, there's more where that comes from.

"Things tend to go exactly as I planned and I even have time for a nice chat with the Scarlet Speedster in-between." Leonard moves his hand, watching as fog rises around them. Can't hurt to make this look a bit less out in the open. "How about you? Stopping petty crime, you must feel very meaningful."

Barry refrains from rolling his eyes, but his mouth forms a line. The Scarlet Speedster is a name he can't get Snart to stop using. He clings to it like frost on a window, and though that would thaw, this doesn't.

It's better than The Streak by far.

"I do," he says, all too seriously. He knows Snart's making fun of him, but Barry can never help but rise to the bait. He does feel meaningful, helping the police when they're stretched too thin. If stopping petty crime that isn't mutant related at all means there's one less civilian losing faith in the police department, then so be it. It's a job well done in his opinion.

"You should try it some day. You never know, you might thaw to it."

"I've bigger fish to fry." It's sort of astonishing, Barry seems to be more committed to using puns on his power than he is. Maybe he should strive to be better in that area, but on the other hand he might as well let Barry have the title of most puns. It's flattering, in a very unique and odd way.

Unique and odd, both good words to describe Barry Allen.

"How about it, Barry?" There's no one around them, just the fog he's brought up and the snow that keeps falling. Idyllic. "Want to take down the government some time soon?"

His answer should be yes.

Yes, he wants to take down the government, especially the individuals who think it's best to try and pit human against mutant. That sort of propaganda is getting too many people killed, and the Flash can only be in so many places within the same minute.

"And let the city fall to anarchy?" Despite the snow, he shakes his head in disagreement, not to dislodge any snowflakes from where they fall and rest on his head and shoulders. "I can't let that happen."

"Anarchy over tyranny, I'd say." But he shrugs in a leisurely way, neither surprised nor taken aback by the answer. A relaxed almost smile and he watches Barry. They're close to each other, but it's not as if retreat would keep Barry from reaching him at a moment's notice. Some of the flakes on Barry's face are melting, droplets against his skin. Len's body temperature is too cool for that, the flakes stay in his hair as they are, adding further white. "Then we're on opposite sides again."

He leans his head back, unable to keep from smiling now. "Cool."

He sounds unsurprised when he almost deadpans, "And here I thought you'd be disappointed."

Truthfully, Barry always is. He doesn't want Snart — Captain Cold — to be on the opposite side of him anymore. Knowing the little tidbits about Leonard Snart that humanises him to Barry, it makes it difficult to want to take him down when he knows there's good inside of him.

In a way, he understands what's made Snart who he is today, given those circumstances have shaped Barry, too, but in a different way.

Frankly, Leonard considers himself to currently be working more on the side of good then he'd like to admit out loud, but there's not really any way to deny it to himself. Risking his life to fight against suppression, using what powers and privilege the system gave him to try and protect others, standing on side of the human resistance? Sure, depending on one's point of view, he was a traitor. But he knows what he's doing and why. If good deeds happened to be against the government, all the better. Win-win, as far as he is concerned.

"I'm never disappointed when I get to face you, Barry."

He almost rolls his eyes.

"One day you will be," he says soberly. Sometimes Barry wants to paint every mutant who's against coexisting with humans with the same brush, but he knows it isn't true. He knows it because of Captain Cold, or Leonard Snart. Sometimes, they're one in the same, the two people Snart happens to juggle.

It's kind of like him, although Barry likes to think the Flash is a better version of himself.

His posture relaxes. It seems as though they're only going to fight with words, and half of that is a defeated battle in itself. "It's only a matter of time. We're on opposite sides, like you said."

Given that the closest Leonard has to a friend is a human, is Iris, and given he just doesn't like people in general, but doesn't differentiate much between mutant or not, that's not really the issue, at least not if they could and would be open about their principles. But Leonard is still a criminal, likes being a thief and doesn't really care whether Barry sees him exactly as that. In fact, it's a lot less disturbing than being looked upon as anything approaching heroic.

"At least you make for a pleasant view." With a grin he turns his hand, gathering snow in his palm. "So, up for a snowball fight or do you have to dash?"

Barry glances over his shoulder, as if expecting an explosion in the distance to beckon him away. But it's quiet, and the world, though not at peace, doesn't seem to need the Flash.

He really should dash away and make sure Genosha's safe, but Barry's one man, and the Flash is only a mutant who can do so much. Sometimes he ignores he has his own limits, and sometimes he needs to stick around instead of dart away in a gust of wind and kinetic, gold energy.

Looking back at Snart, he inhales deeply and sighs. "I'm at a disadvantage," he says, and lifts his hands then lets them drop. "I can't make snow."

"Hm." Len hums in agreement, considering whether it bothers him overly much that Barry is at a disadvantage and arriving on the conclusion that, no, it doesn't. However, he does still throw the snowball in his hand not so much at Barry as to him, as reaffirmed by his encouraging comment. "Catch."

Hey, it's still fairer than racing against the Flash would be.

It's something he should've expected.

Once Snart begins to throw that ball, his entire body tenses, gears up, gets ready to run. It's a natural reaction these days, one he doesn't think much about until he's in that position and he's wondering why he's on the verge of giving into running along the adrenaline treadmill when there's nothing to run from or to.

He tries to catch the snowball, and because his movements are too fast, half of it seems to melt from the mere heat he gives off when the swing of his hands turns gold and he moves too quick for even himself.

In his glove, it sits, almost a puddle of slush. Dodge-snow is a better game to play, given Snart can't run as fast as him and Barry has poor aim when it comes to packing snowballs and tossing them.

"Can you make a football?" he half-jokes.

Whistling under his breath, Leonard brings his hands together for a sarcastic clap, even if his expression is more fond than mocking. This is an impressive display of something, he's sure, but skill isn't it. "Look at you, Barry. You must have been a real jock in high school."

At the question he tilts his head to the side, holding out his hand. "American or soccer? Because the latter comes more naturally." However, even so he starts to form snow, ice, watching as the shape slowly grows and changes in the palm of his hand to the football Barry requested. "You any better at catching those?"

The doubt is obvious.

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