Chapter Text
“Roscoe, look! It’s perfect!” At the voice of his beloved, Roscoe Dillon sighed in relief. Today was the sixth anniversary of their first meeting, and Lisa had dragged him across what felt like the entirety of Central City’s Garrick Mall in search of the present he had promised to buy her. As a lifelong introvert, the noises and crowds found in the mall were a source of endless stress for him, so he was very glad that his darling love had finally found her prize: a necklace with a small pendant in the shape of a snowflake. However, this was no cheap trinket-the snowflake was made out of sapphire, while the chain was real silver. Nothing less than the finest would do for his angel’s anniversary present.
“Indeed it is. The perfect necklace for the perfect woman,” Roscoe replied. Lisa beamed, the lights of the high-end jewelry store making her blonde hair glisten as though it were spun out of solid gold. Roscoe purchased the necklace for $10,000 (a cheap price to please such a gorgeous woman), and his beloved allowed him to gently fasten it around her neck. Naturally, it suited her perfectly, and she wore it like a queen.
“Thank you, Roscoe!” Lisa exclaimed as she pecked him on the cheek.
“Happy anniversary, darling,” Roscoe replied. He held out his arm for her, and she took it. He escorted his darling out of the mall and to their shiny new car (which he and Lisa had “borrowed” from Scudder earlier that morning). He was trying to find the keys to the car when he heard Lisa gasp. Immediately on high alert, he spun around to see….a fat, smelly, and ugly old man wearing hideous sweatpants, an oversized belt, and a wife beater. Something that looked vaguely like a baseball bat hung from one of the loops of the belt, but other than that, he was unarmed. Odd. With the way his darling had reacted, he would have thought that the entire Justice League had surrounded their car. He glanced over to her, and found, much to his surprise, that she was shaking violently and that her face had gone as pale as a sheet. Why was she so afraid of this lout? True, his crimes against fashion and basic hygiene were heinous, but he was certainly nothing that they couldn’t handle.
“What’s the matter, sweet cheeks? Ain’t you gonna say hello to me?”
“I….I….” Lisa stammered. Roscoe frowned. His Lisa was never at a loss for words. What was going on?
“What do you want from us?” he asked the old man coldly; making the threat clear in his voice. The old man laughed, producing a rough, grating noise.
“Is it a crime for a man to want to talk to his own daughter?” he asked. Roscoe’s frown deepened. Lisa almost never mentioned her father, and the few things she had said painted a decidedly hideous picture of the man. But what was he doing here? Before he could ponder the matter much further, he was distracted by the foul-smelling man walking over to Lisa, grabbing her arm with one hand, and lifting up her chin with the other. It was a testimony to how frightened his beloved must have been that she didn’t react by immediately breaking loose and attacking her assailant. He had seen her take down men that were several inches taller and considerably more muscular than this disgusting slob, so the fact that she wasn’t trying to fight back against the hideous creature spoke volumes.
“You’re still a temptress, no doubt about that. Blue eyes, blonde hair...perfect figure. Just like your mother. And judging by this car and the fancy necklace, you’ve been using that to your advantage. Not that I’d expect anything less from a scheming little whore like you,” the old man said. Roscoe snarled in anger. How dare this man say such things about his beloved?
“Leave her alone!” Much to his annoyance, the old man just laughed.
“Who are you...her pimp or something?” Roscoe scowled angrily.
“Certainly not! I am her fiancé!” he exclaimed. The old man laughed harder.
“Your fiancé ? Well, you’re a clever little tart, aren’t you? Just like your mother...using your feminine wiles to take advantage of a man who thinks he’s in love with you.”
“You will not speak to her that way!”
“And why should I listen to a rich dandy stupid enough to be blinded by the big blue eyes of a whore?”
“Because I am the Top. If you value your life, you will leave the city immediately, and never come back,” Roscoe said icily, allowing his eyes to glow both as proof of his identity and as a warning to the foul-smelling piece of trash. The old man let go of Lisa, and Roscoe smirked, waiting for him to scamper away like the rat he was. Being a metahuman had its advantages, and one of them was being able to intimidate lowlifes like this into keeping their distance. Then Lisa screamed, pain exploded in his head, and the world went black.
Roscoe awoke with a throbbing headache, chained to the wall of a room he’d never seen before. The room was dirty and contained one bed, a cracked mirror, and a set of draws. Before he could figure out where he was, or who had had the nerve to attack him, the door opened and his darling Lisa was shoved roughly inside….by none other than the hideous old man from the mall’s parking lot! He had been defeated by some powerless nobody ? How humiliating.
“Looks like your boytoy finally woke up,” the old man said.
“Roscoe! Are you all right?” Lisa exclaimed.
“H-how did we get here? Where are we?” Roscoe asked.
“When you turned away from Larry after you told him you were the Top, he threw his police baton at the back of your head and knocked you out. When I ran over to get him away from you and make sure you were okay, he used the fact that I was distracted to knock me out, too. When I woke up, I was strapped down on some sort of back alley operating table. I’m not sure exactly what those creeps did to me, but they didn’t put me back under when I woke up, so they must’ve done it pretty fast. About thirty minutes later, I was picked up, and now I’m here.”
“I don’t remember ever allowing you to call me by my first name, little girl.” Roscoe watched in disgust as his beloved’s eyes filled with fear. Who did this horrible creature think he was, to put his darling Lisa in such a state?
“What else should I call you? I refuse to c-call you father.” In response, the old man struck her across the face. Furious, Roscoe telepathically commanded the room’s single bed to fly at the old man...only for nothing to happen. Puzzled and alarmed, he tried again, only to get the same result. What had happened to his powers? Then he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the cracked mirror and saw that there was a sickeningly familiar collar around his neck. Somehow, the old man had gotten his hands on a metahuman power dampener.
“Like your new fashion accessory, freak? I picked it up from one of my contacts on the force, just in case some superpowered creep tried to mess with me. Paid to give it a few alterations, too,” he said. He pressed a button, and Roscoe screamed as electricity surged through his body. When the pain finally stopped, Roscoe felt a sickening sense of horror. The power dampener around his neck had been retrofitted so it also functioned as a shock collar. This was not good.
“You are making a very bad enemy, old man,” Roscoe said. Unfortunately, the fact that he was still weak from the shock took much of the menace out of his words, and the old man just ignored him.
“So, little girl, why don’t you introduce me to your boytoy….with the proper respect this time?” Lisa looked at the ground.
“D-Dad, this is my fiancé, Roscoe Dillon. Roscoe, this is my...my father, f-former Officer Lawrence Snart,” she said. Her voice was shaking. Roscoe was furious that he could do nothing to help her, and even more furious that he hadn’t thought to bring some of his weaponized tops with them on their date just in case something went wrong.
“There’s a good girl,” Lawrence Snart replied mockingly.
“What do you want with us, Lawrence?”
“That’s Mr. Snart to you, freak.”
“Very well. What do you want with us, Mr. Snart?” Calling such a loathsome toad “Mister” rankled, but Roscoe knew that he didn’t have the upper hand in this situation. For Lisa’s sake, he would play along.
“Simple. You see, I’m in serious debt to the Monteleone Crime Family, but I’m an old man, and I don’t have as many connections as I used to, so I don’t have many options for payin’ off that debt. What I do have, though, is a young, strong son with some high-tech freeze ray who could work off my debt for me. The thing is, my son’s an ungrateful brat, so I couldn’t just ask him to help, ‘cause he’d say no. So I did the only thing that would make him come to me: I kidnapped his whore of a sister,” Lawrence Snart explained. Upon hearing this explanation, Roscoe decided that his kidnapper was crazy as well as horrid. Who on Earth would go to such drastic measures to work with Leonard Snart?
“And why am I here?” Roscoe asked.
“Collateral damage. You were with my tart of a daughter when I came to get her. That bein’ said, I can’t complain about havin’ to capture you too. Why, sellin’ you to the Monteleones would probably wipe out half of what I owe them by itself.” Roscoe paled. He’d heard rumors about a metahuman trafficking ring, but he’d never really believed them until now.
“Dad, no! You can’t! I won’t let you!” Lisa exclaimed. Lawrence Snart laughed.
“Calm down, you little tramp. I ain’t gonna sell him off. As soon as word gets out that I defeated and captured a metahuman, my reputation will skyrocket, and I’ll start gettin’ jobs again.” Roscoe relaxed fractionally. While being a trophy for this sickening piece of garbage was far from ideal, it was still preferable to being sold as a slave on the black market.
“A question: If you already have Lisa and me, why do you need your son at all? While you won’t let me out of this collar unless you want to find out how painful a demise I want to give you, you yourself said that capturing me will make you more attractive to potential employers, and your daughter is a capable criminal in her own right. Between what I’m apparently giving you and what she can provide, it seems that you wouldn’t need Leonard to pay off your debt.”
“Don’t be stupid, freak. Bein’ a supervillain’s moll don’t make her a real criminal, no matter how blinded you are by her charms. She’s a woman, and that means she can only do three things: be arm candy, keep house, and make babies. She’s bait for her brother, and once he gets here, she’ll keep house for me. That’s all she’s good for. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go meet her brother.” Then he turned to Lisa.
“If dinner’s not on by the time I get home, I’ll take it out on your hide, ya hear, girl?” With that, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Lisa, darling...I’m so sorry. I should have been able to protect you,” Roscoe said.
“How? He took you by surprise because I was too afraid to tell you how dangerous he was. It’s my fault we’re in this mess, not yours,” Lisa replied.
“No, no. Don’t blame yourself. You’re not to blame for this. He is.” Roscoe said. At this, Lisa started to sob.
“I...I just can’t believe this is happening! I haven’t heard anything about Larry for years, and now this ? I worked all my life to escape from him, and now I’m right back where I started, only worse, because he’s got the man I love too! I’m the Golden Glider! I’m not supposed to be some scared little victim anymore, but he...but he...this is like my worst nightmare come to life!” Determined to do something to help his beloved, Roscoe gingerly pulled her into a hug.
“Shh...shh...we’ll get out of here, I promise. I don’t know how yet, but we will. I’ve defeated death itself...I’m certainly not going to lose to a drunken lout like your father.” Lisa smiled weakly.
“Y-you’re right, Snugglebunny. Together, we can do anything,” she said, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself that it was true than anything else. Roscoe could sympathize. As much as he wanted to believe that they would be able to get out of this mess, as much as his ego insisted that a man of his powers and intellect would easily be able to defeat the monster that haunted his beloved, it was difficult indeed to ignore his sense of being hopelessly trapped.