It was nearly noon when Jude, Shawna, and Cisco came out of the lab and into actual sunlight, which all three of them appeared to have temporarily forgotten existed.
"You never leave at this hour," Jude said, watching Cisco start the car. "What's the occasion?"
"Field testing." Cisco pulled out of the lot with the energy of someone who had been waiting for this. "I want to see how the equipment performs in a live situation so I can make adjustments afterward. Also—" he glanced over, "—I built the Central City PD a set of shields while I was at it. Specifically designed to block cryogenic freezing beams."
"You're remarkable."
"I had a head start. Your intel on Snart made the countermeasure design possible — I knew what I was building against. And you've taken several metahumans off the board entirely. Shawna, Farooq—"
"Minor contributions."
"Shawna also handled Roy," Cisco pointed out. "In one day, I couldn't have developed countermeasures for teleportation, electrical manipulation, and emotional control. You handled the people problem so I could work on the technical problem."
"The difference," Jude said, "is that you deal with abilities and I deal with people. Anyone with a weapon is more objectively efficient than I am. I just found a different angle."
"The angle of 'direct lethal force' is still a bit far for us," Cisco said.
"It really is."
"Quick question," Shawna said from the backseat. "Our goal today is to protect the painting, right?"
Jude and Cisco both answered simultaneously, looked at each other, and Jude went first.
"The painting isn't the priority. People are."
"Well—" Cisco began.
"Of course people come first," he said quickly, "but twelve million dollars is also a significant work of art—"
"A work of art with a price tag," Jude said. "When you attach a number to it, it becomes an expensive commodity that happens to be beautiful. Different category."
"Understood," Shawna said flatly. "People first. Painting second."
She wasn't philosophically opposed to Cisco's point. She had simply come through twenty-four hours of being maneuvered by someone she loved around the concept of money, and her tolerance for financial enthusiasm had hit a temporary floor.
Cisco, to his credit, read the room and didn't pursue it.
"You two have very expensive taste for people who seem completely uninterested in money," he muttered.
The airport was already locked down when they arrived — police perimeter, private security hired by the Rathaway family layered on top of that, and a formation of officers holding Cisco's new cryogenic shields at the ready. Word had reached the right people that Captain Cold was planning an appearance today, and everyone had shown up accordingly.
The real reason Snart had made no secret of his intentions, of course, had nothing to do with the painting.
He'd announced himself for an audience of one.
Who was, at this particular moment, on a treadmill in a lab across town.
Jude surveyed the assembled forces — the shields, the formation, the security personnel in their expensive suits — and thought about what Leonard Snart's face was going to look like when he arrived and the Flash was not here.
"Cisco," he said, "have you ever watched one of those public proposal ceremonies? The full production — ten thousand candles, a huge banner, someone shouting declarations in a crowded square?"
"Oh, that's so romantic," Shawna said immediately, eyes going a little distant.
The wounds are barely healed. Jude filed that away.
"I've seen it," Cisco said. "I've always thought it's a slightly unwise approach, though."
"Because the other person might say no."
"Exactly."
"The whole structure of it," Jude said, "is that you're handing your sincerity, your dignity, and a significant portion of your self-respect to someone else and trusting them not to drop it in front of a crowd. Most of the time, you don't actually know if they're worth that trust. If she says no, it costs her nothing. If she says no, it costs you everything." He paused. "Keep your sincerity. Keep your self-respect. If she's not the right person, the spectacle doesn't save you. If she is the right person, you don't need the spectacle." He shrugged. "Just tell her honestly. That's enough."
Cisco considered this. Shawna considered this. Neither of them had a counter-argument.
The sound of jet engines cut across the midday sky — a private aircraft making its approach, white against the blue, carrying a famous painting and the couple who owned it.
"It's good to be rich," Jude said.
"It's good to be rich," Shawna agreed.
"It's good to be rich," Cisco confirmed.
None of them had particularly strong feelings about wealth as a concept, but a private jet landing at a commercial airport in the middle of the day produced a kind of involuntary acknowledgment.
"What are you three doing?" Joe appeared behind them, already exasperated, and steered all three of them sideways by the shoulders. "Get out of the middle of the tarmac. If something starts, you'll be directly in the line of fire."
The plane touched down. The cabin door opened.
A man in a well-cut suit, temples going silver, descended with the unhurried ease of someone for whom private aircraft were unremarkable. Beside him, an elegant woman took his arm. An assistant received the painting case directly.
"Welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. Rathaway."
The family butler stepped forward, waited a respectful beat, and continued. "Sir — your son Hartley has called again."
The warmth left Russell Rathaway's face with the speed of a door closing.
"We don't have a son by that name."
The assistant absorbed this without visible reaction and moved on.
It was an old wound, and from the outside it was easy to see the shape of it: a father who had wanted his brilliant son to do the sensible thing — inherit the company, run it well, live comfortably, carry the name forward. The son who had instead gone to work for Harrison Wells at Star Labs, become Wells' most valued research assistant, and then been dismissed in the weeks before the particle accelerator went live.
After that, Hartley Rathaway had simply disappeared.
Until two months ago, when CCTV footage had placed him in the city, apparently smashing windows. Specifically the windows of buildings owned by his father. The city had its share of strange vandalism stories since the accelerator explosion, but this one had a particular, targeted quality to it that the Rathaway had not yet found an explanation for.
The butler waited.
Russell said nothing else, and walked toward the terminal.
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