#bc that’s what they used to call the meet and greet area inside the former carousel of progress

[faeriecap]

WAIT WTF I DIDNT REALIZE THEY REGULARLY CHANGED THIS HEADLINE FJFJDJSKSJDJSKSK

[achangeinpriorities]

I don't know if you take the prompts,I had this idea.Len has returned from a mission with the Legends a few months ago.In Central there’s a new mayor,who hates vigilantes (perhaps bc during a crisis,they failed to save a person dear to him).So he will insert the task force again to capture the vigilantes,but his goal is flash.The mayor will be able to arrest Barry,the problem is if Cecile and his boyfriend (Len),will help to Barry out of prison? or will he stay in prison forever?

Hello friend! I do take prompts, and I’ll try to be quick to respond but I make no promises. I’ve cross-posted this one to AO3 if it’s easier to access there (link here), but here you go:

“So let me get this straight.” Leonard glowers at the tiny, fearless DA in front of him. Cecile Horton meets his eyes, sets her jaw, and doesn’t back down. “I’m gone for about a year, cruising the timeline with a madman in a timeship, and when he plops me back—late, I should add, he got us all back late—I find Central City with a mayor named Hanson who has a personal vendetta against the Flash and has arrested him.”

“That’s a pretty good summary, yes.” Cecile nods once, curtly. “He’s pushing to delay the trial, and I know why. They have Barry locked in the metahuman wing at Iron Heights. If the trial is delayed long enough…”

“One of his former villains is likely to get out and kill him.” Leonard runs his palm over the handle of the cold gun. He was no fan of Bellows—Lord knows the man deserved to be arrested—but if he ever gets his hands on this Mayor Hanson, vengeance will be swift and subzero. “Which, you understand, leaves only one option.”

“Push for a speedy trial?” Joe rumbles. He’s been standing guard in the background as though he doesn’t trust Leonard around Cecile. As though Leonard would hurt her when, for now, their goals align: free Barry, legally or otherwise.

“Break him out,” Len drawls. “Unless you want to risk your sweet little foster son coming back to you in pieces.”

“Yeah.” Cecile purses her lips. “I have to pretend I didn’t hear you say that, but if you’re set on that course of action, Cisco might be able to help you.” Before he can say another word, she holds up a delicate hand. “I can’t stay. I shouldn’t even have seen you. I need to go pressure Barry’s lawyer into rounding up character witnesses—honestly, they gave him some kid just out of law school, I doubt he could tell an exhibit from a motion…”

After she leaves, still muttering, Leonard turns to Joe with his iciest smile. “Well, Detective, are you going to walk me to the Cortex?”

In the Cortex, they find Cisco, Caitlin, Wally, and the Firestorm trio. Jax and Wally have their heads together, whispering. From the looks Stein and Ronnie keep throwing them, they’re discussing something unwise. Leonard clears his throat. “So who here will help me spring the Flash?”

“Captain Cold.” Cisco points a Twizzler at him. “The last person in the world I wanted to see, and yet the only one I’d actually trust to spring my friend from a maximum-security ward. Gather ‘round, gather ‘round. I have blueprints.”

Indeed he does. Leonard has seen the inside of a metahuman cell—only once and extremely unfairly—but he’d had no time to examine the broader layout. Now he sees the austere beauty of the metahuman wards. Cells are arranged in subunits of six around small open spaces; no doubt that central space constitutes a metahuman’s yard time. Each subunit is outfitted with power dampeners, and as a redundant measure, the food contains a temporary suppressor drug. Even if Leonard gets Barry out of range of the dampeners, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to run.

“Oh, and, uh, as a little extra incentive…” Ronnie adds while they peruse the blueprints. “If Barry is convicted, all of us will be, too. The cops are looking for us. They almost got Frost the other day.” He reaches a protective hand out to Caitlin. She flashes him a brief smile.

“In that event, why not postpone the jailbreak?” Stein stares at them. “Right now, public opinion might sway the trial, but if there is a jailbreak…”

“You want to bet Barry’s life on public sentiment?” Leonard scoffs. “Professor, you and I both know people can love a hero one day and loathe him the next. Cisco, who else is in Barry’s subunit?”

“Uh…oh, you’re gonna love this. Sam Scudder, Rosa Dillon, Shawna Baez, and Mark Mardon.” Cisco grins. “There’s one empty cell, so guess where you’ll be going if this doesn’t pan out?”

“Hilarious.” Leonard contemplates the six-sided subunit. “I may have a plan.”

 *** 

Two days later, Cecile reports she’s successfully set a date for the trial. Unfortunately, it’s in two months’ time. Everyone is of the sentiment that they can’t afford to wait.

Jax, Wally, Iris, and Jesse Quick rally some of their friends for a protest outside the Mayor’s office on behalf of metahumans. Leonard doesn’t attend—he’s too busy planning—but he hears the turnout was massive, such that even the formidable Captain Singh stopped by. (This Wally reports with particular delight. Leonard entertains the unpleasant notion that the youngsters may be conspiring without him.)

Leonard calls Lisa and Mick for backup. Mick is less than thrilled when he hears the target (“I’m helping you break your booty call out of prison, Snart?”) but both he and Lisa are excited about a daring escape from under the noses of the police.

On the evening of the great escape, Cisco opens a breach into a small supply cabinet near the metahuman wing. “Now remember,” he says, “you go in there, you’re on your own. Barry can’t help you, and we sure as hell can’t help you.”

Leonard grins. It’s been months since he felt the ice-water clarity that comes with the start of a heist. He’s missed this. “Just the way I like it. I’ll be in touch.”

He steps through the breach, and the countdown begins.

Five seconds later, he swipes a security badge. Five seconds after that, he accesses the metahuman wing. Within a minute, he locates Barry’s subunit, enters, and locks the door behind him. They won’t be leaving through the hallway.

“Barry!”

There’s a clatter of activity from all five occupied cells. Shawna Baez rubs sleep from her eyes and pushes curls out of her face. Mark Mardon launches himself at the bars. Barry bolts out of bed with a heartfelt little “Len?” that breaks Leonard’s heart neatly in two.

“Hey Scarlet.” As much as he wants to go to the bars, catch Barry’s hand, and allow thirty seconds for a sweet reunion, he can’t show that kind of vulnerability around the other Rogues. “If I say ‘jailbreak,’ are you going to chide me for breaking the law?”

Barry’s pout speaks volumes. “I want to get out of here legally, Len. Not—”

Leonard shakes his head. He’s been the disadvantaged kid in the system; he knows how this works. “They’re burying your case, Scarlet. No way are you getting a fair trial. And trust me, Central City needs the Flash too much to let him rot behind bars.”

Five swipes of the keycard releases four irate metahumans and a reluctant little Flash. Mardon goes immediately to the exit. “You locked us in?” he demands.

“No.” Leonard strides to the center of the open area, kneels down, and pops a grate out of the floor. The opening is a little small, but with some work, they’ll fit. “After you.”

Shawna and Rosa have a brief, nonverbal standoff over who’s to be first down the grate. Shawna is first, followed by Rosa, Sam, and Mark. Barry lingers. “Len, I mean it. I don’t want to jeopardize…”

“You won’t.” Leonard shakes his head. “I released everyone else so, in a pinch, you can claim I broke out the Rogues and they took you captive. Now come on, Scarlet. We’re on a tight schedule.”

Reluctantly, Barry lowers himself into the hole. Leonard follows behind him. For a single, terrifying moment, he thinks he’ll get stuck; then someone gives a hearty tug on his ankle and pulls him down. He lands funny, twists his ankle, and bites through his lip to stifle a yell of pain.

“All right,” he says, his voice deliberately even. “Let’s go.”

The hallway into which they’ve dropped leads them through an unused lower level into which the metahuman wing will expand as it fills. For now, it’s abandoned; not even maintenance workers cross their path. At the end of the hall, a door opens into the yard.

“We’re going to have to make a break for it,” Leonard warns. “Don’t worry. In three seconds…” he consults his watch “…there will be a diversion.”

As he speaks, there’s the breathless whoosh of a fire igniting. Barry’s eyes widen. “You brought Mick?”

“Of course I did.” Leonard pushes open the door and beckons for the others to run. Then he grabs Barry by the arm and drags him along, pretending to have him captive. “Now go!”

As they’d planned, a fire blazes on the far side of the prison. By the time alarms sound about the escape, it’s too late. All of them have loaded into an SUV (“What took you so long, jerk?” Lisa greets him when he gets in) and have driven away.

They stop to switch cars. Lisa takes Shawna, Rosa, and Sam in a silver Odyssey that will by no means attract police attention. Mark takes the SUV on his own, despite Leonard’s warnings. Leonard drags Barry into a beat-up Mini, shoves him down in the back seat, and tells him to keep his head down until they reach STAR Labs.

Of course, they never do. They’re rounding the corner onto a quiet stretch of road when Leonard’s phone rings. He stabs the ‘answer’ button, puts it on speaker, and chides, “I’m driving.”

“Which of your Rogues did you tell to make an earthquake happen beneath the Mayor’s office?”

Earthquake under the Mayor’s office? “I…didn’t,” he says, nonplussed. “Although I would like to commend whoever did.”

“Well tell the Flash to get back here, get his suit, and get to work!” Cisco snaps. “If he rescues the Mayor, there’s no way they can arrest him!”

Leonard hangs up on him. “You don’t have to listen.” He glances into the back seat, where Barry has pushed himself up from the floorboards. “If your powers are still suppressed…”

His only answer is a crackle of ozone. When next he glances back, Barry is gone.

By the time Leonard reaches STAR Labs, the results of Barry’s heroics are on every television. There’s a particularly touching still of him holding the Mayor as he cries (Leonard neither wants nor needs the man’s tragic backstory; he can only applaud Barry’s patience). He’s prepared to turn the television off when a few-second clip airs of Barry holding the Mayor, clearly having just rescued him. The look of startled awe on the Mayor’s strangely familiar face makes a dark curl of possessiveness settle in Leonard’s gut.

“And you know what, I’m just gonna…turn that off, now.” Cisco dives for the remote. No sooner has the screen gone black than Barry, Wally, and Jax burst into the room at the same time. Leonard thinks they’re all celebrating until he sees Barry’s hand caught in the material of Wally’s suit.

“—Set up a resonation pattern?” he’s ranting. “The Mayor could have been killed, or someone on his staff could have died, and you and Jax and Hartley would have to live with that!”

Oh. The youngsters reached out to Pied Piper. It’s precisely the sort of chaos Leonard would wish upon the Mayor, but out of deference to Barry’s frustration, he doesn’t smile.

“If it works, will you still be mad at me?” Wally asks.

“If what works?” Barry asks. He doesn’t need to wonder long, because Cecile bursts into the room, her cell phone still in her hand.

“I just got permission from the Mayor to drop your case!” she pronounces. She spares a single, bewildered glance at Wally before pulling Barry into an embrace. “It only took five minutes of wheedling, and Iris may or may not have threatened to release a transcript of what he said to you while he was weeping on your shoulder, but you’re a free man! And better yet…” She pulls a sheaf of paper out of her bag. “I have the paperwork here to amend the operating constraints of the Metahuman Task Force. From now on, any associates of the Flash will be guaranteed immunity.” When there are general exclamations of joy, she beams. “Thank you, I only wrote it myself at two in the morning.”

“Babe, you’re a miracle worker.” Joe wraps his arms around her from behind. She leans back against him and closes her eyes in contentment. Joe spares her a fond look before leveling a wary stare on Leonard. “Don’t think Barry didn’t tell me about your…whatever the hell is going on. So if you have business with my son, take it elsewhere.”

“‘Business,’” Leonard drawls. If he thought for one second that Joe’s distaste for their relationship didn’t stem from his reservations about Barry dating a criminal, he would have icy remarks to make. “Such a discreet way of putting it. Well, Barry, I believe I owe you an explanation for the day’s goings-on. Shall we take our ‘business’ elsewhere?”

Barry snuggles readily into his side. Once they’re out of earshot of anyone in the Cortex, he mumbles, “I still don’t forgive you for the jailbreak. What if it hadn’t worked out like this?”

Leonard smirks. “You think I’m above bringing the Flash on the run with me? I’ve had several incredibly detailed fantasies about that very thing…”

“You’re the worst.” There’s a reluctant smile playing around the corners of Barry’s mouth. He wants to concede, so Leonard decides to give a little in return.

“I’m sorry, Scarlet, I understand how you feel. I just want you to understand that I was worried for you.” He presses a kiss to Barry’s temple. “I’ve had the system set against me. I couldn’t watch them damn you to rot in prison because of your powers.”

Barry’s expression softens. “I know,” he agrees. For a second, Leonard thinks he’ll try for a kiss. Then he tilts his head. “So, what do we do about the Rogues you let loose?”

Leonard laughs. “We’ll worry about them another day. Now come on, Scarlet—aren’t you going to welcome me home?”