Snart's eyes moved to the paper bag in Jude's hand.
"I'm not actually here to collect," Jude said, setting the bag on the bar. "Heat Wave's performance the other night was a little concerning. Can you keep him in line?"
"If Mick wants to kill someone, I handle it before it gets that far." Snart pushed his plate aside, dumped the cold fries, and reached into the bag. The smell of fresh fried chicken did something measurable to his posture. "I don't break my promises."
"Have it delivered next time," he added, with the faint air of someone conceding a point they hadn't planned to concede. "It's not that much money. Stop making it a production."
He'd clearly gotten a little flushed since walking out of the museum with a twelve-million-dollar painting under his arm—and just as clearly, the Flash's absence had taken some of the shine off it. There was a particular flavor of disappointment that came from a heist going exactly to plan when the whole point had been the fight afterward.
But judging by the way he was working through the fried chicken, the mood wouldn't last. That was the Rogues for you. Their relationship with the Flash was less criminal enterprise and more ongoing serialized drama, and Snart always found his footing again.
Two problems down, then: Hartley was home being comprehensively managed by his parents, and Snart had his painting and his temporary satisfaction. The city could probably exhale for a few days.
The next afternoon, Jude pulled the food truck up to S.T.A.R. Labs and was intercepted by Caitlin before he'd made it ten steps inside.
"Facial recognition flagged Ronnie." Her expression held the specific tension of someone balancing two incompatible feelings at once. "He's been circling the same building for two days. Do you know who Professor Martin Stein is?"
Cisco materialized at her elbow like a man who had been waiting for exactly this opportunity. "Okay, so—Stein is serious. I'm talking top-tier. His work is focused on matter transformation: molecular deconstruction and quantum splicing, which sounds like science fiction until you look at his publication record. Three Conway Medals. Three. The man is operating on a completely different level."
"It's a distinction I unfortunately cannot claim," Wells said drily, scrolling through the professor's file on his tablet. "Though I suspect the committee's enthusiasm for honoring scientists with major industrial accidents on their record is somewhat limited."
"The thing is," Caitlin continued, "Ronnie has been circling the building where Stein's wife lives. And we dug further—Stein went missing on the same night as the accelerator explosion. And right before he disappeared, he was working on a classified project." She paused, her voice tightening. "It was called F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M."
Jude leaned against the counter. "Any footage of Stein that night?"
"Joe pulled everything from the precinct's archive." Barry waved toward the main screen, where a frozen video frame waited. "I almost missed it when I was going through the files. He was on the train platform before the explosion. I'd actually seen him there in person."
"Quite a coincidence."
"Stein published exactly one paper on the Firestorm project before everything went sideways," Wells said, his tone sharpening. "Molecular deconstruction and recombination—theoretical work that had progressed to the point of practical application. The university administration was furious the moment it went public." He let that sit for a beat. "And after Stein vanished on the night of the explosion, a mutual acquaintance of ours moved very quickly to confiscate every file, every research note, and every piece of equipment related to the project."
"General Eiling," Jude said.
Wells nodded once.
"Molecular deconstruction research with obvious weapons applications, a paper that goes public without military clearance, school administration angry about unauthorized disclosure—that's not hard to read." Jude exhaled. "Eiling's been keeping a lower profile lately with all the public pressure, but the mess he made before is still sitting there. Stein disappears and the military just walks in and boxes everything up without so much as a receipt. Very tidy."
"That's precisely what happened."
Barry hit play. The footage lurched forward, then froze again at the exact moment of the explosion. In the frame, half-obscured by fire and debris, a man was holding a small square device—and a humanoid shape made entirely of flame was hurtling toward him.
Caitlin's voice went very quiet. "That's Ronnie. I don't need an enhancement to know that."
"So they merged in the explosion," Jude said, studying the frozen image. "The two of them became one."
"The Firestorm Matrix." Cisco pointed to the device in the frozen frame. "That's our best theory. The instrument Professor Stein was carrying. The explosion activated it—or completed it—and Ronnie was the nearest target."
"Which is why Ronnie keeps going back to Stein's building. He's not himself. He's both of them, or neither, or something in between." Jude straightened up. "And that's why Firestorm said he wasn't Ronnie when we found him. Because he wasn't—not exactly."
A heavy beat of silence fell over the cortex.
"Is Ronnie still in there?" Caitlin asked, almost in a whisper.
"You'll have to ask Firestorm."
"So." Jude looked around the room, meeting their eyes one by one. "What exactly did you keep me here to tell me all this for?"
"Shawna couldn't get near him," Cisco said, wincing slightly. "We all saw what happened. Firestorm runs at combustion temperature—anyone who tries to close the distance gets roasted. Teleportation doesn't help if you arrive on fire."
"I'm not fireproof either, just to be clear."
"You don't need to fight him." Caitlin shook her head quickly. "That's not what we're asking. It's just that... you have a way of talking to people. Getting through to them when nothing else is working. What fists can't do, you seem to manage with words."
Jude stared at her. "And if I get roasted?"
"We'll treat it with the wine."
"...Could you just get Snart?"
"Firestorm isn't simply a fire metahuman," Wells cut in, seamlessly folding his hands. "The foundational principle of the Firestorm Matrix is molecular deconstruction and recombination. Ronnie hasn't accessed that capability yet—right now he's producing heat and flame, which is just the surface layer of what the matrix can do. But theoretically, a cold gun targets combustion. It doesn't address the underlying molecular process."
"So Snart might not be able to contain him," Cisco finished. "Otherwise we'd just have me build another freeze gun."
Jude looked at the ceiling for a long moment, asking the universe for patience.
"Why is it that every time there's a problem that trained, meta, or at least specialized people can't handle, the solution is 'call the food truck guy'?" He lowered his gaze to Barry. "When are you getting your speed back?"
"I can get to the scene just fine," Barry said, sounding a little defensive. "I just can't... run."
Wells's gaze moved to Barry with the particular quality of someone who has already solved a problem and is simply deciding when to present the solution.
"Don't worry, Barry. Recovery is closer than you think." A brief pause. "Sometimes all it takes is the right kind of psychological pressure."