Chapter Text
No matter what Snart said, the first time really wasn’t Barry’s fault.
The mistletoe had been popping up all over Central for two days. Enchanted mistletoe that would appear at random over two people’s heads regardless of sex and gender and push them together, bodies locked in a magical embrace. Only when the two kissed would they be released. At first it had seemed harmless enough and Team Flash even had a laugh about it but that laughter quickly turned sour once it became clear that Barry couldn’t just speed one person away from the other. In fact attempting to do so would result in a nasty boomerang effect and several minor injuries. Before long, the whole city was in total chaos, with people randomly getting stuck to each other in the street and falling down in their haste to get away and by the second day Barry was thoroughly sick of the whole thing.
So of course that was when he got wind of a robbery at Central City National Bank and sped over to find that while he was running around setting people back on their feet and trying to convince them to just kiss each other (It was weird! And wrong, like Barry was the one forcing them), the Rogues on the hand were using that time wisely and had in fact already cleaned up the contents of the safe and were getting ready to pack up when Barry finally drew to a halt, lightning licking at his heels.
“Flash! So nice of you to finally join us!” Despite the cheerful tone, Snart seemed annoyed, a downward tilt to his mouth Barry’d almost dare to call a pout if he wasn’t trying not to get iced, like Barry was the one impeding on his busy schedule by being late.
“Yeah, well, you know how busy the holidays can get, Cold,” Barry joked, which earned him a frown. That was fair, considering it was in fact June. Clearly Cold hadn’t yet heard about Barry’s little mistletoe problem. At least he could cross off the Rogues as the instigators for once.
“Flash!” Mick Rory stepped out of the safe, Heat Gun in hand. “Missed one hell of a party!”
“The party’s not over until I’m here, Heatwave,” Barry bantered back. (This time, Snart really was pouting, Barry was sure of it.) “Shame all of you are gonna have to spend the after-party in Iron Heights.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” interrupted a voice behind him, and before Barry had even turned around he kicked himself into gear and started running, only narrowly avoiding the bast from Hartley Rathaway’s sonic gloves.
“Very villainous,” Lisa Snart purred, stepping out of the shadows behind Hartley with her usual femme fatale persona in full display. “I approve.” To her brother, she said: “Hostages are nice and toasty in the back."
“Hostages?” Barry’s heart sank. He and Snart had a deal — no hurting innocents.
“Relax, Scarlet,” Snart said, like he’d been watching Barry and knew exactly what he was thinking. “Everyone is safe and accounted for. Ten fingers, ten toes, none frozen, exactly how you like them. Bank employees know better than to play hero, which is more than I can say for you."
A reassurance wrapped up in a barely covered insult, that was the Snart way. It shouldn’t have worked to ease Barry’s nerves but it did anyway. Despite his better judgement (and against the advice of literally everyone he knew, he was well aware), he trusted Snart to keep his word.
Barry might still throw his ass in jail for the stunt, though.
Before he could express that sentiment, however, three things started happening at once:
One, Shawna Baez suddenly appeared in the middle of the bank hall, took one look at the scene and grabbed both Hartley and Lisa before disappearing again with an audible ’pop.’ Barry, who’d gotten closer to Snart when he ran from Hartley’s blast, made an aborted move to stop her just as Snart stepped in front of him to block his way, Cold Gun loosely pointed in his direction.
Two, police sirens started wailing from a distance just as Barry heard the jingle of bells, which he knew to be the precursor to the enchanted mistletoe that had now popped into existence right above his and Snart’s head.
And three, before he could even think to utter a warning, the magic seized them and pushed them towards each other until Barry was pressed up shoulder to pelvis against Snart. The spicy smell of Snart’s cologne filled his nostril and Barry felt grateful to the parka for providing a semblance of a barrier between their bodies.
“What are you —”
“Snart!” Rory yelled, pointing his gun wildly in their direction like he might actually burn his own partner to a crisp along with Barry in his frenzy.
Luckily for them, Shawna chose that moment to reappear, grabbing Mick by the arm holding the Heat Gun, and then hesitating at the sight of her leader and the Flash glued together in the world’s most awkward embrace.
“Go,” Snart said, in what was clearly a split-second decision to get all of his Rogues to safety before the cops showed up. Rory roared his disapproval but was cut off by the whooshing sound of Shawna teleporting them both out of there.
Then Snart started to back away.
“No, wait!”
In his haste, Barry foolishly grabbed Snart’s arm, tightly enough that he felt the muscles shift under the sleeve of the parka when Snart’s head snapped back towards him. Barry couldn’t see his eyes behind the goggles but he was pretty certain that Snart must’ve been imperiously glaring at him for daring.
“We have a deal, Flash,” Snart reminded him in a strained voice. “And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t entail whatever this… is.”
“The mistletoe is enchanted,” Barry hastily explained with a note of apology in his voice, although he didn’t immediately let go of Snart’s arm, wary that the man would still try to extricate himself. “It’s been popping up all over Central, didn’t you - do you watch the news? Do you even own a TV? You know what, not important,” Barry cut his own nervous babbling off before he could start asking Captain Cold about his hobbies, because what did the man even do in his downtime when he wasn’t busy being an absolute menace, “point is: it won’t let you go until we kiss.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Snart snapped at him, clearly itching to put some distance between them. He was tense as hell, the veins on his neck bulging through his skin, and Barry heroically resisted the urge to tell him to “cool off.”
“You're telling me! You think I want the police to find me glued to Captain Cold? How would that look?? Look, I’ve tried speeding people away from each other before but all it does is create a boomerang effect and snap them back together. You wanna try it, be my guest.”
Snart shifted his weight from one feet to the other, like he was debating whether it’d be worth it to put Barry’s words to the test just to be contrary, but the echoes of the police sirens were roaring ever closer, and in the end Snart simply sighed and with a “You better be right about this, kid” he leaned and kissed Barry right on his startled lips.
It was barely a kiss. More of a peck, really, barely long enough for Barry to feel the warmth of Snart’s chapped lips against his own before he moved away. There was no discernible reason why Barry’s heart should’ve started racing, hummingbird quick against his ribcage. Maybe he was just getting hungry.
Barry felt the grip the magic had had on him dissipate as the mistletoe disappeared in a shower of sparks, but he couldn’t really focus, not when he opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) and all he could see was blue and Snart’s face. Barry would’ve expected him to haul ass out of there the second the spell wore off or at least back off immediately like Barry was gonna give him cooties but Snart was just watching him.
Barry wished again that he could see Snart’s eyes behind the goggles because the rest of his face was not giving anything away and it was making Barry want to squirm, which seemed like a decidedly bad idea considering the situation they were in.
“Er, you,” Barry started smartly, then stopped to swallow, mouth suddenly and mysteriously very dried. With the chorus of police sirens playing in the background, it wasn’t exactly fair to say Barry’s words ’broke the silence’ and but that’s still what it felt like, like he was ruining whatever moment they’d been having.
“You should probably go,” Barry finished lamely, belatedly remembering to take a step back, putting some much needed distance between Snart and himself. Snart was still watching him, like Barry was a puzzle he was trying to solve, but whatever he was thinking was lost behind the protective shield of his trusted goggles.
“I mean, we do have a deal,” Barry continued, forcing himself to ruin the moment even further because a smug, caustic Captain Cold was one thing but a silent, contemplative one he had no idea how to handle.
Fortunately it seemed like Barry’s aimless babbling was doing its job of snapping Snart back to the necessity of getting the hell out of dodge. Not so fortunately, Snart chose to express this return to reality in the dickest way possible by aiming his Cold Gun at Barry and firing before Barry’s brain even caught up enough to make him duck.
“Ow!” Barry hissed in pain, the cold biting at his feet through his boots. “What the hell was that for?!”
But if he was expecting some sort of parting quip, a triumphant “Sorry kid I gotta run” or a pun of some sort, he was sorely disappointed because Snart just… left and he didn’t even look back. Barry would’ve felt cheated if he wasn’t busy feeling annoyed, gritting his teeth as he tried to push through the cold and vibrate himself out of the ice encasing his feet, before he paused and deliberately slowed down until the officers were bursting in. He felt a little guilty about deceiving them but he figured it was better than to let them think the Flash had just let Captain Cold go. Even though that was exactly what Barry had been doing.
Huh. Now that he thought about it, giving Barry plausible deniability was probably why Snart had shot him on his way out.
He was still a dick, though.