Chapter Text
The thing about planning a perfect heist is no matter how 'perfect' it appears, there's always something that can unravel it.
Yeah, you can plan for extra guards, unforeseeable employees staying past their shifts, the score having been moved, traffic, the getaway car breaking down, backstabbing and double crossing or a new security system. Among just a few simple examples but a lot you can prepare for.
Then there's the unplannable obstacles like; power outages, faulty information, mother nature throwing a hissy fit, hostage going into labour, annoying heroes turning up at every street corner or sick days. Just because you rob banks doesn't mean you can't catch a cold.
Or in this instant unknown competition accompanying with bad timing.
-
"Right on schedule," Snart hummed approvingly as the security guard slumped unconscious to the ground, courtesy of Mick's fist. "I do love punctual staff."
They swiftly moved towards the loot, wasting no time dismantling the sensors and breaking the glass before filling their bags to the brim.
This heist was exactly what they all needed after that shit storm called Lewis Snart. With the bastard in the ground, Leonard out of prison and Mick located, it was high time for a celebration and a short but very illegal infused vacation.
One not located in Central City where Flash and friends could ruin their laid back fun, no they were somewhere in Illinois. The details where exactly were not important, only that they could have all the undisturbed team bonding fun without any super heroes.
"Too much?" Lisa pipped up, showing off her wrist that was now wearing one of the bracelets, thanks to the flashlight the gold and small diamonds gleamed in the light.
"On you? Never."
"Smart answer," she grinned at her brother before zipping up the bag.
"Be so kind sis and fetch the car. We'll be out in 4 minutes tops," Snart requested as she catched the keys and flug her bag over her shoulder before walking off.
"Don't forget to bring me something~"
"Aah," Mick held up a chalice to the light, the red gemstones gleamed brightly like fire while the King's crown laid crooked on top of his head, only being held in place by the goggles on Mick's forehead.
"Let's not lose focus," reminded Snart before spotting a newly added exhibit that hadn't been there yesterday. From the looks of it, it was a display of well preserved and maintained jewel encrusted swords from a period long since forgotten.
"Mick," nodding towards the glass cages, Snart watched his partner grin wide at the sight of the sharp blades "Do get that, I think it'll look on point with our decor back home."
As the sound of glass breaking followed by an approving 'Nice' as the swords were unveiled, Leonard picked up the abandoned chalice with an interested hum before dropping it into his bag and checking the time. 2 minutes.
"Let's go."
Zipping up their bags, they navigated back through the museum and to their entrance and exit point. The side door still held open by the broken radio.
Stepping into the alley they came to a halting stop as they collided with another group, sending them all jumping back with their weapons drawn.
"What the-"
At the sight of the four individuals, Leonard lifted a brow and interrupted with an unimpressed tone "Lemme quess; ski-masks, crowbars, gloves and a suspiciously empty bag. Mmm- Can it be that you fine gentlemen are trying to rob this fine establishment?"
"Who the heck are you?!" one snapped while leveling their gun at them.
"We're the guys who just finished the job before you," Mick answered while pointing his heat gun at them with an eager expression.
"What?!"
"You gotta be kidding me!"
"You snooze, you lose," Snart drawled, moving around them with Mick on his heel which immediately made one shot a warning shot into the ground. Clearly not familiar with the two villains or what they could do.
"We're not leaving empty handed man!"
"Too bad," Snart responded before swiftly turning back and encasing the gun in ice, along with the hand holding it "But if you want I can solve the hand part."
The other three backed off in fear as their teammate hunched over and started howling in pain.
Then the sound of tires screeching against the payment filled the air and seconds after blue and red started flashing into the dark alley. Surprising everyone as one of the ways out got locked down by police cars.
"It's the cops!" two of the newbies hurried to the other exit only to scramble back as the other way suffered a similar fate "Shit, they've blocked us in!"
"What do we do?!"
"You're all under arrest, drop your weapons and surrender!"
As chaos erupted around them, Len nudged his partner as his plan crumbled before him, he scowled "It's getting too crowded for my taste, lets say we get out of here."
But as they turned around they meet with the automatic door lock clicking into place and beside it a now discarded radio and one missing wanna-be robber. Or more specifically, the one frozen to his gun.
One of the other robbers who seem to have witnessed their comrade leaving quickly cried out "Holy- Elliot just left us!" before starting to yank on the door only to find it locked firmly in place. "We're dead! Danny, wha-" he quickly jumped away as the sound of shouting came from the other side of the door and their 'friend' being told to put down his gun.
"I repeat; there's no way out! Back down or we'll be obliged to use force!"
Mick whipped around with a teeth baring sneer, his eyes lit for a fight "Aaah! Come on and get me piggies! I'll burn you all!"
Taking in the new situation, Leonard looked around for an escape route but quickly came to a fast conclusion that there was none.They were firmly and properly boxed in from every direction except up and down, which did nothing since there was neither a way to go up nor a sewer to go down.
This is why there's always a back up plan in case he needed to throw the first plan away! Only he didn't think to be prepared for stupid and unprofessional competition coming onto the scene and exposing not only themselves but also Mick and himself.
Well live and learn, he wouldn't make that mistake again.
Seems only brute force was going to get them out of this one, Snart thought and loaded up his gun but the idea quickly died at the sound of bullets flying from every direction.
One of the newbies went down, seemingly Danny, as his chest bleed profusely after being shot and soon enough there was shouts of warning behind the locked door before a gun was also fired.
This was bad, these cops were too trigger happy and wouldn't hesitate to put a criminal down. All it would take would be one sole bullet to hit either of them and it would be game over.
"Mick," Snart hissed unheard beside his partner who was burning everything around them with glee while bullets flew around him. The fire only seem to anger the law enforcement who was likely calling for backup. And the people who live here must be calling 911 after hearing the commotion.
He spotted Lisa then, standing and blending in with other bystanders a good distant away from the ally but at an angle where she could see it all. Their eyes meet and Snart came to a quick decision.
Lifting his gun to show it to her which earned him a raised brow, he then placed a finger to his lips in a 'shhh' motion.
Then as Mick stepped forward, gun loaded again, Leonard quickly caught hold of him and yanked him back behind a few garbage cans.
The pyromaniac's eyes were wide and exhilarated by the chaos and destruction, and the flickering of the flame he started was like icing on a cake. "Why you stop me, I just gotten started with those-"
"Unfortunately, my dear friend, that's not part of the new plan."
Eyes still follows the disarray, Len knew he'd gotten Mick's attention when there was a grunt "What's the plan?"
The thing with Mick was, he always respected Len's plan- unless the plan went to shit or his fire obsession got the better of him. But that's what backup plans were for, even if that included knocking Mick out from his fire stupor, conscious or unconscious. Depending on the situation.
"The plan is we surrender but not before hiding our guns for Lisa to find. "
That stomped out Mick's fuse which was evident when he turned around with a frown and a unhappy scowl "Why?"
"Because I rather have them back once we break out from prison."
"Prison?" Mick repeated confused before protesting strongly "We can take these weaklings, Snart!"
"Look around," Leonard demanded before nodding towards the dead robber who've bleed out. "These cops don't care if we die before getting to a judge. And I rather live to rob another bank."
There was a struggle in the pyro's mind, torn between the logical thing to do or that which lead to more destruction. Which was evident further by a grumble "Not afraid to die."
Getting in close, their heads colliding briefly and their breath mingled, Snart spoke low but passionately with words that surely would tickle his partner's fancy.
"Dying in an alley with trash cans and second class robbers, that's not us Mick, not how we go down," they locked eyes and Leonard knew he got him, all that was needed was the final punchline. "We'll die in a blaze of glory."
The last sentence was the winning words as Mick imagined it with a wide grin and a eager "Yeah."
"Plus nothing says vacation than a little short visit to the slammer."
"It's been awhile," Mick agreed referring to himself, before shutting down the heat gun, ready to follow the others lead.
"Seems my dear sister will unfortunately have to do some dumpster diving," Snart grimarched as the stench hit them after removing the lid to one of the garbage cans. Then making sure no one could see them stuffing the guns into it, adding at the last seconds their goggles as well.
They managed to securing everything before throw their hands up just in time as the door finally was unlocked and thrown open with armed police men shouting for them to 'Surrender!'.
Both were roughly shoved to the ground, bags ripped off them before being quickly handcuffed as well as searched while in the not far distant the sound of a shuffle was heard. Likely the other robbers being overtaken.
"We have all four, ceasefire."
"Six," corrected another officer as they pulled up the pair, pointing towards the other two cuffed thieves, one who was sobbing profusely at his dead friend not far away from him while the other was fumbling from blood lost thanks to the wound in his shoulder.
"What the hell, there were only supposed to be four!"
"Someone made a mistake.. I call Petey."
"Nah, Clem, definitely Clem. Beach Tower all over again."
"Shows how much you know, she's on personal leave."
They were herded towards the flashing police cars while being given the 'Miranda rights' speech but it wasn't long until the flashes of an ambulance was thrown into the mix. Burned and wounded police men quickly being taken care of, criminals a mere after thought.
"So far four weapons have been collected, sir. But these two, we couldn't find anything expect a knife and-"
"What about that damn flamethrower?" the obvious chef of this operation, if the cowering the other officers displayed was anything to go on, Leonard noted before he was shoved into the back of the car.
"Nothing so far-"
"Well find it!"
Mick thought wasn't making it easy on them as they tried to get him inside, headbutting the nearest person and making a nuisance of himself as he kicked and growled like a lunatic.
"Get that criminal under control, damn it! Johnsson don't just stand there with your lip hanging, do your goddamn job!"
They struggled to keep a hold of him before finally shoving him in beside Leonard, the pyro landing one kick to a cop's stomach before the door was slammed shut.
---
The thin file slammed onto the table and Snart gave it an uninterested glance while officer Roger Holm glowered at him.
These few days have been long and dreadfully boring as the station fumbled to figure out who these plus two robbers were and how they missed them. And how to deal with Mick, who currently was in the isolation cell after breaking a third nose.
Thanks to that, Leonard appear more put together and non threatening in comparison to his unstable partner. It gave him opportunities as everyone's guard lowered and made him the favored target to interrogate, and in so gave him more control and easier time gathering information.
According to the pieces of information already gathered; someone had tipped off the police about the newbie robbers' plan. So the cops had been lying in wake further down the street and in the progress completely missed the three more experienced criminals slip inside.
But once it had been clear that they've caught the famous villains 'Captain Cold' and partner in crime 'Heatwave', there had been a short moment of celebration and pats on the back. Except for the part that a big chunk of the jewels were still missing even after collecting the two bags they'd carried.
So far it seems Lisa had escaped completely undetected along with her bag of loot. Something that wasn't all that favored by the museum who were harassing the cops to fix it after having let them use the museum as bait. Which the media was eating up like hotcake.
And there had been no word about their guns being found so Leonard took that as a sign that his sister had pulled through like he knew she would.
"Far away from your little city, Snart," Holm's started and took a seat, opening the file. From the look of things it contained the few pieces of Snart's criminal record, at least what's been painfully collected after Flash's little handy work, meaning not much of anything but recent incriminations.
"I'm not restricted to one place, I'm allowed vacation time."
Eyes narrowed, Holm's scowled "You lipping me?
Lips curl up into a smirk "No, I was in fact on vacation."
"Oh yeah? Did that includes breaking the law smart mouth?"
"We all need our little hobbies to pass the time," Len drawled, enjoying the clear frustration the man before him was emitting.
Holm's fist clenched "Where's the jewels, Snart?" he snapped, already sick of this game and was cutting to the chase.
"I think you're going to have to be more specific, Sherlock."
"Don't try being cute," one could almost hear his teeth clenching at the nickname. "The jewels that's currently missing after you and your psychotic partner robbed the museum. The ones not in the bags, where are they?"
"Sound like that's your problem, not mine."
"It's going to be your problem if you don't cooperate, Cold," the cop forewarned, fishing for anyway to get what he needed. "You're looking at a hefty sentence here, not to speak of mister Rory who already assaulted more law enforcement than he probably can count. If you help, you're looking at cutting a deal."
Leaning back in his seat, Snart gave the other a disinterested expression and said confidently "No thanks, I'll manage."
"You either listen to me or you'll regret-" Holm lifted himself out of his chair as he started leaning over the table to appear more intimidating, only to be cut off by the now bemused criminal.
"Is this the part where you beat me with an inch of my life? I mean it must be since this is clearly off the record because my lawyer isn't here and you're talking of deals."
Holm froze before his lips turned down in a foul grimace at being caught, having hoped that the lack of lawyer went unnoticed.
"If you think this is over, then you're deeply wrong."
"You don't say? Well I'll prepare my schedule for your next appointment."
"Oh we'll be seeing a lot of each other until you do what's in your best interest," Holm's expression turned smug and a wide grin grew. "For you see the Captain had a little chat with the warden, you know the one from Iron Heights which you just recently broke out off. And while it would be protocol to send you back to the place where your original sentence was to be lived out. It's clear that you're too high of a flight risk for us to send you all the way over there."
Holm stood and walked over while keeping his gleeful expression "You're being transferred to a high security prison that's local. Fox River State Penitentiary. Along with your hot headed friend."
Leonard kept the surprise from showing on his face at the news as Holm leaned down and got close to the side of his face.
"And I have a good friend over there that'll be happy to let me have a little talk every now and then with you. Off the records."
Make the plan, execute the plan and be ready to throw away the plan if it's high tails off the road.