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It starts with a smirk.
Barry’s standing too close to Hartley Rathaway—again. That smug little smirk is playing on the kid’s lips while he twirls his sonic gauntlets like a magician preparing for a trick. Barry is laughing, wide and open and unguarded, and Leonard Snart’s blood is already boiling before he even steps out of the shadows.
He leans against the alley wall, arms folded over his chest, watching the scene from across the street.
Hartley says something with a tilt of his chin, and Barry laughs again. Again.
It’s the laugh that does it.
The laugh Barry only gives when he’s impressed. When he’s interested.
“Getting cozy with the symphony of destruction, Flash?” Snart mutters under his breath. His jaw tightens. The fingers of his gloved hand flex, itching for the weight of his cold gun.
Lisa had warned him. “You keep pretending you’re not into him, Lenny, someone else is gonna stop pretending too.”
He hadn’t believed her.
He believes her now.
Snart isn’t a man prone to jealousy.
He’s a thief. A strategist. A man who plays the long game, not the petty one.
But watching Barry Allen grin at lesser criminals with dimmer sparks and dumber plans?
It stings.
Because Leonard knows Barry. Really knows him. The way he moves when he’s cornered. The way his voice pitches up when he’s worried. The way he lies with too much blinking. The way he flirts with danger like it’s his native language—and always thinks he can outrun it.
He’s never been able to outrun Snart.
Which is why this little charade with Rathaway needs to end.
Immediately.
The opportunity comes two days later. A minor bust gone sideways. Hartley again. Central City Bank. Barry’s caught in a debate about physics with him—of all things—while the building clears.
Snart steps through the broken front doors, slow and deliberate.
Barry doesn’t even look surprised. That’s part of the problem.
“Snart,” Barry says, his voice almost light. “Didn’t realize this was a team-up.”
“It’s not,” Snart replies coolly, gun slung casually at his side.
Hartley glances between them, amused. “You here to help or throw another tantrum?”
Snart doesn’t blink. “I’m here because someone forgot which rogue he belongs to.”
That gets Barry’s attention.
He frowns. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, Scarlet,” Snart says, stepping closer. “I’ve been generous. Patient. Even… entertained. But this little game with the boy and his toys?”
Hartley raises a brow. “Wow. Is this about me?”
“It’s not about you,” Snart says, not even looking at him. “It’s about him.”
Barry swallows, his throat working. “Len—”
“No,” Snart cuts in, voice low and dangerous. “You listen. You don’t get to smile like that at me and then hand it out like candy to every villain with a gimmick. You don’t get to flirt with chaos and pretend you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Barry’s cheeks color. “I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were,” Snart says, stepping in, toe to toe now. The barrel of the cold gun lifts, gently, not as a threat but as a line in the sand between them. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you lean in when someone talks physics? The way you let them get too close? The way you forget who’s been here from the start?”
Barry’s breath hitches.
Snart leans in further, voice a whisper. “I’m not some side act, Barry. I’m not background noise. I’m the main event. And if you keep forgetting that—”
“You’ll what?” Barry asks, but his voice is too soft, too breathless to be a challenge.
Snart smiles, sharp and cold and sure. “I’ll remind you.”
And with that, he drops the gun, grabs Barry by the collar of his suit, and pulls him into a kiss so forceful it steals the air from the room.
Barry gasps against his mouth but doesn’t pull away. His hands twitch at his sides like he doesn’t know whether to fight or cling.
Behind them, Hartley groans. “Seriously? Right now? You two need a room.”
Snart pulls back just enough to glare over Barry’s shoulder. “Leave.”
Hartley lifts both hands. “Fine, fine. I’m allergic to sexual tension anyway.”
When the sound of retreating boots fades, Barry licks his lips, blinking up at Snart with wide eyes. “That was…”
“A long time coming,” Snart says simply.
“You’re jealous.”
Snart shrugs. “Possessive. Not the same.”
Barry’s lips quirk, just slightly. “It’s kind of hot.”
“Yeah?” Snart growls, leaning back in. “Good. Because I’m not done reminding you.”
Later, when Barry shows up at STAR Labs with bruised lips and a suspicious limp, Cisco raises a brow.
“Bad guy fight?”
Barry looks dazed. “Sort of.”
Iris just sips her coffee and smirks. “So which rogue finally made a move?”
Barry just groans.
Because of course they all knew.
And now, so does he.
Leonard Snart doesn’t share.
Not attention. Not territory.
And especially not his Flash.