#He's trying to figure out who the HELL is running around on the Timestream though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

p-artsypants · 3 years

Text

A Gift from Mr. Blanc

Marinette's worst nightmares were of Chat Blanc. But that's all they were: nightmares. Until one day where in the stone cold light of day, Chat Blanc walked into the classroom, with a gift in hand. "This will make you love me again, My Lady."

Ao3 | FF.net

Everyone is on this Chat Blanc train, so I bought a ticket and got a window seat.

“Yes, Timestreamer, find me the best Akuma ever created!” Shadowmoth raised a manic fist as the images appeared before him.

The woman who was once Nathalie Sancoeur stood next to him, now transformed into an Akuma with thick glasses, which almost looked like VR goggles.

In a fit of artist’s block, Gabriel Agreste had vented that he had run out of ideas for Akuma. He had to keep going, and the villains couldn’t slack less Ladybug and Chat Noir get the upper hand.

To which Nathalie had said, “well, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

She had meant it to be cheeky, but he took inspiration from it in a whole new way. Why invent a new villain when one from a different time is sure to work? Timetagger, an Akuma from the future, had seemed to almost win. Perhaps there were more like him out there.

He only needed someone to see the timelines so he could pick his champion.

So here they were, scanning through endless time streams, looking at massive successes, and massive failures. There really was no telling which one would do the job, but unless Timestreamer’s Akuma was taken or, heaven forbid, the Butterfly was taken, they could send villain after villain after villain.

Yes, this was a good plan!

“That one!” Shadowmoth pointed, the stark white catching his gaze.

“That one?” Timestreamer asked, feeling unease looking into his soulless blue eyes.

“That has to be Chat Noir’s akumatized form. He’s perfect.”

Following orders, Timestreamer summoned the Akuma forward.

From the static images appeared a grainy figure, slowly solidifying into a solid white boy. His expression was one of confusion and disorientation.

“Chat Blanc, I am Shadowmoth,” he began.

Immediately, Chat Blanc snarled. “You! You monster!” And he leapt.

Suffice to say, neither Timestreamer or Shadowmoth were prepared for a full on fight this early in the conversation.

Shadowmoth did have training in fighting, and successfully blocked the incoming swipe at his throat with his arm. However, the claws cut right through his suit and into his flesh, making him cry out in pain.

The next swipe hit true, and knocked the butterfly Miraculous from its place on his collar.

Chat Blanc then plucked the Peacock from his lapel while Gabriel Agreste tried to put pressure on his grievous wounds.

“Why?” Asked Gabriel, “don’t you know I made you? Don’t you know I can give you everything you want?”

Chat Blanc didn’t respond, only snapped the goggles off of a shell shocked Timestreamer. He then touched the black butterfly with his claw, and it crumbled into dust.

Nathalie ran to Gabriel and looked at his wounds. “You need to go to a hospital.”

“No!” He protested, pushing her away. “Answer me, boy! You’re easily the most powerful Akuma ever made. Once you get the Miraculous of Ladybug and this timeline’s Chat Noir, we can make the ultimate wish! Whatever your heart’s desire, it’s yours!” He reached a hand out to the boy.

Chat Blanc, who Gabriel knew as the exuberant and emotional Chat Noir, just looked at him with a sharp, emotionless stare.

“You already took everything from me, Father. This is my one chance to get things back to where they are supposed to be.”

“Adrien?”

The gaze didn’t change, but he did raise an eyebrow. “In my timeline you knew. You knew, and you still hurt me. You hurt her. You turned me, and you forced me to kill. You left me alone in that world for months. Left me to mourn. Cursed me to this form—“ he snarled. “That can’t starve, that can’t sleep, that can’t thirst or drown—“ a tear fell down his cheek. “You left me in a prison where I couldn’t die, and would continue to suffer because of your mistakes.” He gave a hint of a bitter smile. “Does that answer your question, old man?”

Maybe it was just the blood loss, but Gabriel felt some remorse. “I’m sorry, son. Give me back the Butterfly, and I’ll set you free.”

“Not a chance. Ladybug will fix me. And when I give her these, she’ll love me again. And I’ll have all the family I ever need.” With that, he summoned his baton to break through the window, and launched out into Paris.

Gabriel laid still on the ground, holding his chest with one hand while Nathalie gripped his wrist with the other.

“I…what am I going to do?”

“Well, you know Adrien has the ring—“

“No doubt Chat Blanc will tell him everything before we can get to him. I don’t think that’s an option anymore.”

“Then…what would you like to do?”

He spent a long time just breathing and thinking.

Choosing.

“I guess, apologize. And then hope that I haven’t done enough damage to lose the only family I have left.”

“Maybe, if he is Chat Noir, and you explain the truth to him…he’ll tell Ladybug. Maybe she’d help.”

“I doubt she’d do anything to help me, after all I’ve done.” He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “I could just bleed out here. Save him the pain.”

“I won’t let you do that, Sir. As upset Adrien will be, he still loves you.”

“But for how long?”

“I think you should live and find out.”

—

Chat Blanc had never been so happy. He should be upset, angry, sobbing even, but he wasn’t.

He was getting his second chance. Paris was full, alive, teeming with traffic and swearing and smoking and everything foul that wasn’t there in his wastelands.

Hawkmoth was gone, and he was on his way to Marinette. With these, she had to love him, she just had to.

Francois DuPont never looked so pretty. The windows showed bored expressions of dozens of students.

Students that were alive and not submerged under water.

He dropped down in the courtyard, letting muscle memory take him up the stairs to his old classroom. The door was closed, but not locked.

Did he knock? Or did he just walk in? It had been so long…did he introduce himself? Did he apologize for interrupting?

He decided to forgo knocking, and pushed the door open on his own.

All eyes turned to look at him, but his attention was only on her.

Though he did get a glimpse of his own horrified face.

“Chat Noir?” The teacher asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “Not anymore.” He never stopped looking right at Marinette.

“I must be dreaming,” the girl in question said aloud. “I must have fallen asleep, and now I’m having a nightmare.” Tears were filling her eyes as her voice crumbled. “Please tell me you’re a nightmare, Chat.”

“No, My Lady. I’m real.” Did she know him from somewhere? Or was she just assuming he was an akumatized Chat Noir? “But this shouldn’t be a nightmare, Marinette.” His steps were slow and soft, trying not to spook her. “I’m your dream come true. Because it’s over now, and we can be together.”

She stood abruptly, smacking her knees on the desk and almost tumbling. “What are you talking about?”

He placed the Miraculous on the desk. “It’s over now. I won. Hawkmoth is no more, and there’s nothing that can hurt us. This will make you love me again!”

“Holy shit…” Said Alya.

Marinette just stared at them, and then at Chat. “How—?”

“He brought me here. Somehow, an Akuma I guess. He plucked me out of my time, and brought me here. This is my chance to start again, you know.” He grabbed her wrist. “Now our love won’t ruin the world! We can be happy again, My Lady! We can be happy and nothing will tear us apart!”

Adrien, who had up until very recently, by reveal of a certain nickname, thought that Marinette was only just Marinette, grabbed Chat Blanc and yanked him back, forcing him to let go of Marinette.

“Don’t touch her!” He snapped.

“And you—“ Chat Blanc grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. “A little liar with too much self preservation! Why didn’t you act sooner?! Why couldn’t you save her?!”

Adrien clawed at the hand on his throat. “I don’t—know what the hell—you’re talking about!”

“Don’t play stupid, Adrien! It’s not going to work on me, and you know that!”

His voice was just a whisper now, as he attempted to meet Chat Blanc’s gaze. “Whatever, man. But you think outing her is smart? You think that’ll make her like you?”

Chat Blanc crushed harder, suffocating him. “It doesn’t matter with Hawkmoth out of the way! And once I kill you, there will be no competition! She’ll love me for sure!”

Marinette had stashed the Miraculous in her purse once Chat Blanc had turned his back. She was going to attempt to talk him down, but at his threat on Adrien’s life, she realized he was beyond talking.

“Tikki, Spots on!”

Chat Blanc whirled back around, only to get a fist to the face.

Adrien fell on the floor, gasping.

“Are you alright?” She asked, helping him up.

He rubbed his neck sheepishly as he nodded. He knew she was Marinette, but the mask still turned his legs to jelly.

“Why do you protect him, Ladybug? Don’t you know you can just be happy with me?”

Marinette pushed Adrien behind her. “I might be able to be happy with my Chat Noir, but never with you. I love Adrien, and I’ll fight to protect him, even if he doesn’t love me back.” Though it was a brave declaration, she still blushed.

“Ugh, don’t you get it? I am him!”

“What?”

“I’m Adrien! Adrien is Chat Noir! We’re supposed to be together! And we were! We were happy, Marinette! And then—and then you told me you didn’t love me anymore. You almost got akumatized over that…but I saved you.” He snarled. “But he kept us apart. My father knew who I was, and he turned me into this…”

“Wait,” Adrien rasped. “Father turned you into…an akuma?”

“Because he’s Hawkmoth, Adrien. He always has been. Mother is alive, in a coma, in the basement. And he never let you see her, because he doesn’t trust you.”

“Shut up!” Ladybug shouted.

“Even after he knew who I was, he still hit me. He beat me, Adrien, because he doesn’t love us!”

Adrien held a hand over his face, willing his sobs to stay silent.

“We’re just a pawn for him. But…I can make it better. Let me destroy you, and everything will stop hurting. I’ll take care of Marinette, I promise!”

“That’s enough!” Ladybug lashed out and snagged his bell, ripped it from his throat, and smashed it on the floor.

Then she caught the butterfly as it emerged, purified it, and let it go. But she didn’t call for a cure, not yet.

Chat Noir, sans bell, glanced around the room in confusion. “Ladybug? What’s going on? Why are we here? Where’s Hawkmoth?”

She met him with tear streaked cheeks. “You’re in the wrong timeline, Chat Noir.”

His eyes flicked to Adrien, who was clearly shell shocked. “That would make…some sense.”

“You were akumatized, and our Hawkmoth brought you here…probably to recruit you.”

“Did I hurt anyone?”

“You beat him. You beat Hawkmoth.”

“And you tried to take my place,” Adrien hissed, showing his bruised throat.

Chat Noir gripped his hair fiercely. “Oh crap! Oh crap crap crap! I’m so sorry! He’ll be all better once you do the cure, right Bug?”

“Yeah. Physically, at least…but you did say some things that will hurt for a long time.”

“I didn’t mean any of it! I was an Akuma, they lie and say all sorts of things—“

“You told me about Father. And mother.”

“Oh…” he sighed. “Unfortunately, that’s too fresh in my mind to be a lie. I saw mom. He wanted to use the Miraculous to bring her back, but he was so unwilling to listen to me, to even think about working with us—that’s how it happened. He got me.”

“I’m so sorry, Kitty.” Ladybug lamented. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

He shook his head. “It’s over now. If I defeated him, then you don’t have to be subjected to it,” he told Adrien. “I don’t mind taking one for the team.”

“Did you kill him?” Adrien asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Even if he did, casting cure would fix it.” Said Ladybug. “There might be hope for a happy ending.”

Chat Noir took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “My Lady, will you send me back? I have to see her again. My Marinette. I have to see her and make up with her.”

Ladybug patted his cheek fondly. “Knowing me, she probably still loves you. But something happened to make her put distance between you.”

“You’ll be happy together, right?” He asked, pouting.

Adrien slipped an arm around her waist and held her. “I think we’ll manage.”

Ladybug hugged Chat briefly. “Thank you. For all your trauma and suffering, you helped us.”

“You also revealed both of our identities to the class, but that’s the kind of mistake I would make as an Akuma…” Adrien winced.

Chat Noir looked at all the shocked and concerned faces around him. “Wow, look at all these comforting, understanding, and loyal friends you have. Where’s Lila?”

“Out sick today,” provided Sabrina.

“Perfect! Don’t ever ever tell her what happened here. She’s a liar and would tell our identities in a heartbeat for a chance for fame.”

“Not a problem, Kitty Cat,” said Alya, with a wink. “Some of us are pretty good secret keepers.”

“You knew!?” Adrien cried, with betrayal in his voice.

Alya winced. “Ah, yeah…”

“Adrien.” Ladybug took his face and held it with trembling hands. “My kitty, my partner, my best friend, what I’m about to tell you is going to suck and you’re going to hate it, and that’s why I haven’t told you.”

“I’ve already had a lot of bad news dropped on me today, lay it on me.”

She glanced at the rest of the class and then Chat Noir. “Let me send him home, and then we’ll talk in privacy.”

He nodded, not really fond of how much the class had already learned about him today.

Ladybug threw her yo-yo up in the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!”

In a wave of fluttering red, Chat Noir was gone, and so were the bruises on Adrien’s neck.

“Spots off.”

Now, the class started whispering. Up until that moment, shock held them in silence. After all, it's not everyday you find out your classmates are superheroes.

“Miss Bustier, are you okay if we leave for a while?”

The teacher stammered a second, unfreezing from her complete and total shock. “I think it would be a crime to make you stay here today.”

Marinette smiled gratefully, before taking Adrien’s hand and leading him out into the hall. He was silent, rightfully so, and Marinette could only be happy there was no chance of him getting akumatized.

Finally, they took a seat on a bench, and waited for the other to speak.

“I…didn’t think this was how our identities would be revealed,” he breathed.

“I always wanted to tell you.” Marinette insisted, “even though I said otherwise. Tikki and Master Fu were so adamant that I not tell a soul.”

“So why does Alya know?”

She rested a hand on his. “I’ll get to that. But first…Chat Blanc.”

Adrien sat attentive and quiet, holding his accusations for later.

“It started about three months ago, when I gave you that Beret.”

“Beret? The one from the Brazilian fan club?”

“Yeah…except it wasn’t. It was from me. Originally, I left it in your room, with my name on it. My real name. A little while after I left, Bunnix came to me, and explained that she needed my help. She took me into her burrow, and led me to the future…the future where you were akumatized.”

“As Chat Blanc.”

“Yes.”

“That same akuma, that same Chat Noir?”

“I assume so. The moon was destroyed, the city flooded. You were all alone, everyone was gone.”

“Where…where was that Ladybug?”

She hesitated to say it, but admitted, “I found her underwater…cataclysmed.”

“No…I wouldn’t have—“

“I know, Adrien. Chat Blanc was upset about it too. He cried. He wanted my Miraculous to make the wish and fix it.”

“Sounds like an Akuma alright,” he said bitterly.

“At the time, all I knew was that you knew my identity, and you said that our love destroyed the world. So…I assumed that you became akumatized by finding out who I was…and that the beret had something to do with it. So I erased my name.”

“Oh…but Chat Blanc said he was akumatized because of my parents.”

“I didn’t know that back then. I wish I had. As it stood, I was certain an identity reveal would end up with an Akuma.”

“I understand your reasoning…but what about Alya?”

She sighed, the guilt toiling around inside her. “That wasn’t…it was a spur of the moment thing. I was back into a corner and people were getting really worried about me. Worried and nosey…and so I told Alya. Rena Rouge.”

“Ah. I see.”

“I should have told you. I should have told you so you could have told someone. It’s not fair to think I was the only one that needed a confident.”

“If I had to pick someone that wasn’t you, it would have been Nino. So I get it. Really, I do.”

Tears welled up in her eyes regardless. He was hurting so badly, but what could she even do to help?

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes! Yes I do! Adrien, you’re my partner. Yes, keeping secrets can keep us safe for a while, but eventually we’ll run out of trust and then we’ll be in danger again. I don’t want to lose you!”

He gave her a little smile. “I might be upset, but you aren’t going to lose me. I promise.”

She squeezed his hand. “No more secrets. We train as guardians together. I’ll tell you all the auxiliary heroes, and all the formulas and—“ she stopped, blushing.

“What?”

“Ugh…I have to tell you something, since I said no more secrets.”

“Is it bad?”

“…no?”

He turned his hand to squeeze her back. “Okay. Well then, let’s hear it.”

She looked away, too nervous to look at his face. “Gah! This is just as hard as it’s always been!”

“I’m not going to judge you.”

“I know! I know!”

Pretend this is just Chat. She goaded herself.

“I…I’m in…love with you?” She squeaked out. There. The deed was done. She shyly turned to look at him.

Wide, sparkling eyes full of tears, but a big smile on his face. “You mean it? You said as much to Chat Blanc, but I didn’t know for sure…”

“Ugh, right. That.” She nodded. “You were the boy I kept turning…well, you down for. I’m sorry…”

“I’m not!” He chirped. “Marinette, if anyone was going to have a crush on me as Adrien, I’m so glad it’s you. You really know me! You’re special to me, and I always considered you as a friend.”

She sighed, hearing the magic words. “As I’ve heard.”

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She blushed again. “It’s just…whenever we had a moment, or I tried to do something special for you, you always remind me that you feel…nothing for me.”

“Wait, what? That’s what you got out of that?”

“That you want me as a friend and just a friend?”

He actually laughed at her and pulled her into a hug. “Marinette, I thought you were nervous around me because you were uncomfortable. I said that stuff to let you know I treasured our friendship. I love you so so much, My Lady. I was deeply in love with Ladybug, and completely in denial with Marinette.”

“Can confirm!” Shouted Plagg from inside his jacket.

“So having you be the same? I’m…I’m so happy!” He hugged her tightly. “Today has thrown a lot of bad things at me, and I’m so worried about what comes next. But with you, I’m sure I’ll be okay.” He pulled away slightly. “You…will stay with me for whatever happens, right? I know Hawkmoth being my dad is kind of a deal breaker…”

Marinette wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned up into him, kissing him right on the mouth.

He stiffened briefly, before melting against her and pulling her tighter into the hug.

The kiss was perfect, not in execution or performance, but because of the love they felt. Adrien nipped at her lip, and Marinette hummed as she twined her fingers into his hair.

They pulled away begrudgingly.

“You and me against the world, right Kitty?”

“You know exactly what to say to make my heart swoon, my lady love.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“Kiss me and I’ll get over it.”

“I’m serious, Kitty.” She touched his cheek. “I knew it was going to hurt, and I foolishly and cowardly put it off, hoping it would go away.”

“Marinette, from what you said…it wasn’t just painful for me. It scared you, didn’t it? You said…when Chat Blanc appeared, that you thought you were having a nightmare. Do you dream of him?”

“Sometimes.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Adrien.”

He considered his next move, and decided to scoop her up into his lap. “So, here’s my idea. If you have another nightmare about him, you call me, and I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

“And do what?”

“Hold you. Kiss you. Reassure you. Cuddle with you until you fall asleep. Whatever you need.”

She snuggled closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you too, bugaboo.”

Silence lapsed between for a while, as they just sat together, enjoying the warmth of their bodies, and the open air between them.

Marinette sighed. “We should probably go confront your father.”

“Yeah. We should…”

“Could…I offer you a reward if we go through with it?”

“What could possibly motivate me?”

“Once we’re done, and everything is put away…we can find a random, secluded rooftop and…make out for a while.”

Adrien stood, with Marinette still in his arms. “You know how to motivate a man.”

“I’ll be with you every step of the way. Just think about later.”

“One peck for the road?”

“One.”

Adrien held her tightly before dipping her and pressing a sinful, toe-curling kiss to her lips. When he finished a few minutes later, she breathlessly huffed, “that was not a peck.”

“No, but I need the strength.”

“Somehow, it’s a lot harder to stay mad at you. You can put me down now.”

“Nah. Plagg, Claws out!”

“Tikki, Spots on!”

The closer they got to the mansion, the faster Chat’s mood tanked. All the surface level happy feelings had bubbled away, and now he was filled with dread and apprehension.

“I…I don’t want to send my dad to jail,” he said, as they landed inside the walls.

“I know Kitty. I can do the talking.”

“You’re so good at it, Princess.”

She knocked twice, but didn’t wait for an answer before entering.

It didn’t matter. Gabriel and Nathalie were sitting in the lobby, waiting, as it appeared.

“Hello son,” said Gabriel, with not a trace of malice in his voice.

Chat halted, paling considerably. “You know?”

“Chat Blanc revealed as much. What did he tell you?”

“He said that…mom was still alive. You wanted the Miraculous to wake her up.”

“That’s right. But…” he sighed. “Can I humble myself and ask for your help, Ladybug? Can you look at her? Can you see if there’s any hope?”

“I would love to.”

#miraculous #ml #miraculous ladybug #fanfiction #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #adrien agreste #chat blanc #ladynoir #identity reveal

117 notes · View notes

stillthewordgirl · 5 years

Text

LOT/CC fic: (I Don’t Believe in) Destiny (Ch. 4 of 11)

Leonard Snart is back, finally pulled from the timestream where he's spent the last four years. But he wasn't alone, and the repercussions of that will echo through the Legends, the Time Bureau, and beyond.

And maybe, just maybe, they'll bring everything around full circle.

Longer chapter! Many thanks to Pir8grl.

Can also be read here at AO3 and here at FF.net.

---

Ch. Four: Every Bridge That We Burned

The relief on Ava’s face when she sees Sara on the viewscreen is almost enough to make Sara feel bad for not communicating sooner. Almost.

“You’re OK,” the Time Bureau director says, the relief filling her tone too. “Sara...what were you thinking?”

The chiding tone puts Sara’s hackles up, but she just lifts an eyebrow, wondering just what Ava herself thinks happened.

“That you’d been holding one of my teammates and hadn’t told me,” she says matter-of-factly, folding her arms. “And I’m sorry for that assumption, but given that I came across him hurt, running through the bureau and desperately looking for a way out, I think you should understand.” She pauses. “Now do you believe me about Druce?”

Ava blinks, then frowns at her. “About what?” she asks. “This Leonard Snart attacked him.” She keeps going as Sara blinks back at her. “Yesterday, before he fled, and it doesn’t help that he’s the one who actually taunted Master Druce before blowing up the Vanishing Point and all those people...all that information...”

Sara cuts in sharply, wondering just what’s going on here—though the mental image of Leonard snarking at Druce after she’d had to leave him there at the Vanishing Point is amusing in a way she’d never thought of before, when it hurt too much to consider.

“He’s my teammate and my friend, and he gave his life—or we thought he did—to save free will and make it possible for us to fulfill our mission,” she tells the other woman, knowing there’s some heat in her voice. “You do realize that was a team effort? It could have been any of us who blew it up. It could have been me.”

Ava gives her an uncertain look, but then frowns, folding her own arms.

“But it wasn’t,” she says calmly. “You wouldn’t have done that. And you didn’t, in the end, did you?”

Sara stares at her.

Get him outta here.

No.

Just do it.

But Ava’s apparently taken her silence, the stunned flash of painful memory, as a sort of agreement. She nods. “Druce says this Snart stole something from the Vanishing Point,” she adds. “Something important, something we need.”

Leonard hadn’t exactly had a free hand to steal anything. Not even a kiss. “What?”

A hesitation. “He didn’t say, exactly,” Ava says carefully. “But we’ll figure that out.” She picks up a paper from her desk, glancing down at it. “When you bring him back here. Are you in the timestream now? How long will it take?”

Her tone is so matter of fact, her demeanor so sure that the Legends will fall in line with her expectations, that Sara’s jaw drops. They’ve had their battles, even when they were together, but how…how could she...

“I’m not,” she snaps as Ava glances up in surprise. “Bringing him back. We’re not. Len...Leonard is one of us, and he’s finally home and he’s been through a hell of a lot. Why would you think we’d just turn him over, abandon him, on your say-so? Especially when we keep telling you that Druce is evil, that this whole Oculus thing is a huge mistake?”

Ava, of course, promptly picks up on the one thing Sara would rather she didn’t pick up on.

“Len?” she asks. “Sara…” She runs a hand over her face, then shakes her head incredulously again. “I know you said, ‘a friend,’ but you’re not actually fond of this criminal, are you? You’ve never said a word about him before in my hearing, and you’ve mentioned all your lost teammates.”

Sara watches her, at a loss for words, and Ava picks up on that too. Sara can see the moment she does.

“That’s…part of the idea, isn’t it?” the Time Bureau director says softly. “You cared too much, didn’t you? Maybe blamed yourself. All for someone who…who’s really the opposite of everything I stand for.”

Sara finds her voice. “Ava…”

But the other woman’s face is closed off now, an expression that Sara knows well—and maybe Ava’s not the polar opposite of Leonard after all, because she’s seen him close off like this too, pulling his ice about himself and acting like he doesn’t care. Even when he does—too much, just like Sara. And just like Ava.

“This is beside the point,” Ava says firmly, nodding to herself. “I don’t care about punishing this...this crook so much, though Master Druce may feel otherwise. But we need back whatever he has, and the Oculus will be rebuilt.” She looks the speechless Sara in the eye, stony-faced. “I’m tired of you insisting that this is a bad idea, when it’s so easy to see all the good that could come of it. You’re so dedicated to holding on to this grudge that you can’t see the big picture here.”

She doesn’t know...she didn’t see... “At least look at Rip’s records!” Sara protests swiftly, trying to get the words in before Ava cuts her off again. “Look at what the Time Masters did, to him, to his family...to so many others, when they backed Vandal Savage. Hell, we could find Kendra and Carter...you could talk to Mick...Leonard...”

The name just makes Ava’s expression ice over more.

“I understand that you consider this Snart…one of your people,” she says, ignoring the protest, “but he’s a criminal and a fugitive, and the bureau will treat him as such.”

And then she cuts the transmission.

Sara stares at the screen, her heart hurting, at war between anger and frustration, disappointment and sadness. She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, then steps away, turning to head back to the main bridge.

It occurs to her suddenly that she hadn’t asked Ava about Druce’s time courier. But it probably doesn’t matter, she decides. Hell, with the way she’s defending the former Time Master, it's likely she gave it to him.

---

Raymond hugs him.

That’s not surprising at all. Leonard thinks he’d be more surprised if the Boy Scout hadn’t greeted him with some demonstration of physical affection. But it’s the sheer joy on Raymond’s face that takes him a trifle aback

This team has lost people. The opportunity to get one back—that’s a fine, rare thing.

A new dark-haired woman, clearly with Raymond, gives him a dubious look and a polite enough nod. Leonard, knowing who she is now, gives her one much the same. He’s not one to judge someone based on who their father was—how could he?—but Damien Darhk had killed Sara’s sister and been part of the Legion.

As, apparently, had Leonard.

He’s still digesting what Mick had told him about the Legion of Doom (awful name, that) and Leonard's apparent presence among them. He doesn’t remember it, not at all, and he’s not sure which way it’d be more unnerving.

(Plus, what Mick had described...well, Leonard knows perfectly well he’s got a pretty crappy past in more ways than one, but even the person he'd been in 2013 hadn't been quite that much of an asshat. He thinks.)

(And the Doomworld thing? What kind of an ideal world would it be if there was no planning to a heist, no challenge? That’s not the kind of world that would have come even partly out of his head, not at all. He can’t believe it.)

But there’s not really time to consider that piece of the past at the present. There are too many things to catch up on, too many new people to meet. Leonard likes Zari, the computer hacker from the future, just about instantly for her wry sense of humor and snark, and he and Charlie size each other up pretty quickly, smirk at each other, and leave it at that. Leonard will admit he has trouble wrapping his head around the shapeshifter thing, but he’s been “resurrected” after more than 1,000 days in the timestream, so what the hell does he know?

Nate Heywood, the aforementioned “Pretty,” is even more dubious about Leonard than Nora Darhk, despite Raymond’s enthusiastic introduction. He’s a historian, apparently, and turns into metal, apparently, and Leonard doesn’t really give a rat’s ass if Heywood wants him there or not.

The new Englishman-in-a-trench-coat is John Constantine. He’s apparently a warlock—all right, then—and just as apparently nothing that even approaches straight, given the once-over and good-natured leer he immediately gives Leonard when they meet. Leonard gives him a smirk of acknowledgment back—OK, he does like his badass blonds—but no further encouragement.

He still needs to talk about that future with Sara.

Who, after all these introductions have been made, strides onto the main bridge like the captain she is, glancing around to make sure they’re all there—and pausing just long enough to give Leonard a particular small smile.

Leonard—like a lovestruck idiot, he thinks, with no particular regrets—returns it. He hears a thoughtful hum from Constantine, who raises a suggestive eyebrow as Leonard glances over but says nothing further.

“All right,” Sara says with a sigh, leaning against the holotable. “By this point, I have to presume, you all know about and have met our new, old teammate.” She looks directly at Leonard then, smiling openly, and Leonard can’t help but smirk back.

Snart, you’re gone.

Mick chuckles and Leonard can hear Zari stifle a noise of understanding, but Sara’s continuing. “You know how I found him and some of the background,” she says, then sighs again. “I just contacted the bureau to try to figure out just what’s going on. It didn’t go well.”

Charlie mutters something that sounds downright filthy under her breath, but Sara ignores her. “Av...the director seems to be willing to overlook anything Druce might have done,” she says. “She wants the Oculus tech from him that much.” Then she looks at Leonard. “They also claim you attacked him. When you escaped.”

Leonard shrugs. “I certainly tried more times than one,” he admits. “But when I got loose, he wasn’t even in the room.”

Sara frowns, as if trying to figure something out, then shakes her head. “She also said you stole something,” she tells him, sounding almost amused. “From Druce, from the Vanishing Point. And that they need it back.”

“Right on!” Charlie tells him happily, but Leonard holds up a hand, shaking his head. He can think of only one thing he might have “stolen” there at the end, in any manner of speaking.

Well. Two things. Though Sara’d more properly stolen the first.

“Druce told me he needs the temporal energy I absorbed, over my years in the timestream,” he tells the group, slipping back into his habitual drawl. “To rebuild the Oculus. Not sure how he plans to get that, but it’s probably not pleasant.”

That stirs a flurry of talk, about temporal energy and how it might relate to life force energy (Constantine and Nora), speculation about computers and supernovas (Raymond and a somewhat baffled Nate), some fairly vivid threats specifically against Druce (Mick), and general profanity (Charlie). Sara and Zari just watch in amused silence, and Leonard watches Sara—until he finally sighs and interrupts the others, drawing all eyes to him.

Leonard shakes his head. “Here’s the thing,” he says, looking around. “Druce thinks it’s a done deal already. That the Time Bureau is meant to become the Time Masters, everything coming back around when the Vanishing Point is created and frozen in time. That it was always that way, and always meant to be that way. He thinks he’s put it all together.”

"Could...could that be true?” Heywood asks, staring back at him.

“And then the Time Masters, in a way, lead to the creation of the Time Bureau,” Sara murmurs thoughtfully. “Time loop.”

For a few moments, silence reigns.

“If he’s right, though, if we stop Druce—would Rip never recruit the original Legends?” Raymond asks plaintively. “What would that do to time? Do we have to let it happen?” He looks around, gaze lingering a moment on Nora and, interestingly, Nate. “If we stop the creation of the Time Masters, we’d never meet…but then we’d never be able to stop Druce. Who wouldn’t be a Time Master anyway. Oh, I’m getting a headache.”

“That’s just bollocks,” Charlies scoffs. “This tosser, Druce…he has to come from somewhere right? So how does that work?”

Sara frowns at that, thoughtfully, and Leonard notes it, but then Heywood speaks up again.

“But…Rip Hunter used to work for the original Time Masters,” he protests. “Wouldn’t he know if he wound up recruiting them? And the Time Bureau has time couriers, instead of timeships. Why would they take the technology a step backward like that and go back to ships?” He pauses. “No offense intended, Gideon.”

Leonard listens for the AI’s response, but the prompt “None taken” comes from what seems to be a human throat, not a mechanical one. He turns, momentarily stunned silent, as he watches another unexpected Legend walk smoothly into the room. Sara grins at his reaction.

“Because it’s easier to control people using ships and AIs than more autonomous devices like time couriers,” says Gideon, in the android body she’s been using from time to time over the past few months. She smiles. “I apologize for my lateness. I was running through a lot of records before I transferred to this body.”

She glances at Leonard. “Hello again, Mr. Snart. It’s a pleasure to meet you in this new form.”

Leonard makes an effort to close his mouth. “Gideon,” he says. “This is new.”

She gives him a rather impish smile. “A bit, yes,” she agrees, then looks at Sara. “Captain,” she says, and Leonard doesn’t think he’s imaging something sad in the title—though she carries on before he can examine it, looking around the room. “Team. I don’t have as much information on the origin of the Time Masters as I would like, but I have more than almost anyone else is likely to have. May I?”

Sara waves a hand. “Please, Gideon. And thank you.”

The AI...android...woman...nods. She perches on the holotable comfortably and looks around again.

“The origins of the Time Masters are shrouded in mystery,” Gideon says a bit didactically. “I’m pretty sure that’s on purpose.” She smiles a little. “Even the AIs that run the timeships, such as myself, were supposed to be wiped from time to time, to keep them...us...from holding too much information or, for that matter, developing personalities.”

Zari laughs. “Let me guess,” she says, pointing at Gideon. “You found a way around that.”

“Well, the fact is, Captain Hunter falsified the records. And he never did wipe my memory.” The impish smile is a little sad again. “Which is why I...am who I am, now.” She shakes her head, getting brisk again. “More to the point, I remember a lot."

Heywood perks up at that. “Do you know what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa?” he asks eagerly. “I...” Then he glances around the room, notes the expressions, and subsides. “Never mind. Later.”

Gideon continues. “The Time Masters, who have also been called the Linear Men...”

“Why ‘linear’?” Leonard interrupts, then waves the question away. “Also, later.”

The AI continues, again, with good grace. “...were supposedly created after some sort of experiment trapped a scaled-down supernova, which some of you are quite familiar with, at what came to be known at the Vanishing Point. When it became apparent, the story says, that this phenomenon froze time in a single repeating instant there, the Time Masters were created to take advantage of it and be the guardians of the timeline.”

Charlie said something profane. “Ain’t that always how these prats spin it?” she mutters, waving a hand in the air. “They’re always the ‘chosen ones,’ all hoity-toity. But the only ones who chose them is them.”

Mick grunts in agreement, and Gideon nods to her. “Indeed,” she murmurs. “Well, the 'prats’ you speak of in this case were the High Council, and Zaman Druce had been their leader as long as I’ve been aware. They were the core group, the founders. Other Time Masters and support staff were brought in and trained, but the council members started it.”

“And because the Vanishing Point was outside of time, no one can say really when it really came to be,” Raymond noted. “You...you think Druce might be right. That he has to create the Time Masters with the Time Bureau.”

Gideon sighs. “I think that if he recruits a core group from the bureau...and causes the phenomenon that traps the supernova in the first place...yes. He may be correct.”

“Wouldn’t you know, love?” Constantine finally speaks up, watching Gideon with an expression that seems oddly gentle. “You have records on these wankers, right? Do they match the bureau’s?”

The AI smiles at him. “The Time Masters used pseudonyms, so I cannot simply compare names,” she reminds them. “And my records do not always include pictures, especially not for the High Council. And I was not likely to meet them.” She spreads her hands out before her. “According to them, I am an object. A tool. Definitely not a person, and hardly someone you’d actually acknowledge, let alone socialize with.”

“Their loss,” Constantine says gallantly, making Gideon laugh, but Leonard’s distracted by the look on Sara’s face.

“Ava?” she asks Gideon, simply, her voice nearly breaking on the simple two syllables.

It’s not hard to figure out what she’s thinking, and Leonard winces. If her ex-girlfriend had actually been...was...a Time Master...

Gideon gives her a sympathetic look. “Not that I know of, Captain,” she says gently. “But many of the High Council were not...visible. They kept to themselves or went hooded in public.”

Mick clears his throat and then speaks up gruffly. “I met some of the High Council, Blondie,” he points out. ‘When I was Chronos. And she wasn’t one of ‘em.” He pauses. “But I didn’t meet ‘em all.”

“The director wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t be part of that,” Nora speaks up, then hesitates, looking at Raymond. “Would she?”

At this point, Leonard would do just about anything to get that look off Sara’s face, but as it happens, he has a point he needs to make anyway.

“But the supernova went boom,” he cuts in, raising his voice a little. “I know. I was there.”

Raymond looked over at him, eyes widening. “Now, that might be what Druce wants the temporal energy for,” he says excitedly. “Could he use it somehow to bring the supernova back? Or to take the Vanishing Point back to when it existed?”

Gideon looked thoughtful. “It might be possible,” she said. “In fact, likely. No offense, Mr. Snart, but you are truly lousy with temporal energy at this point. Enough to work any number of seeming temporal miracles.”

“None taken,” Leonard echoes her earlier words, wondering precisely what she means, but he’s drowned out by Raymond, who’s out of his seat and pacing now.

“Then trap the supernova, harness the Oculus computer to it,” he says, spinning to face them, “and once it’s up and running, you have your time loop.”

“Crap,” Zari says, into the silence. “So, what are we going to do?”

But Sara’s been shaken from her stunned silence, galvanized into action now. “Stop them,” she says grimly, scanning the room. “First, they can’t do anything without Leonard, so we keep him out of their reach.”

“I’ll happily go along with that,” Leonard comments, getting a wry smile in return before Sara focuses on Mick.

“Mick, could you look at some of the Time Bureau records Gideon has?” she asks. “See if you recognize anyone as a Time Master?” He grunts an affirmative, but she’s already moving on, looking at another team member. “Gideon. Can we still get to the Refuge?”

That gives at least some of them—Mick and Ray and Leonard, the ones who know what it means—pause, but Gideon nods promptly. “I can get us there,” she says confidently, rising from her seat on the holotable. “Let me become part of the ship again, and I’ll set a course.” She pauses. “It will take a bit. More than a day in the timestream. It’s a rather…circuitous…route.”

Leonard digests that with a tip of his head, then looks to Sara. The captain looks weary, but nods in affirmation, and Gideon turns toward the corridors—only to turn back a moment later.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Snart,” she says apologetically. “I’m afraid I have your old room. I’ve been trying to learn more about being human, and it seemed that having a human sort of space to myself might help.” She bites her lip, looking quite human in that moment. “I can give it back, but I’ve refurnished it…and my clothes are there…”

Leonard gives her a wry look. “I think I can find somewhere else to crash,” he says, thinking that he’s become a bit of a softie. “A spare…”

“There ain’t any.” Mick shrugs when Leonard looks at him. “We combined a few for more space. I could clean out a bit of mine, but that might take a while…days…”

Leonard thinks of Mick’s propensity for clutter, sighs to himself, but Sara clears her throat then, drawing their eyes. But she meets only Leonard’s gaze.

“It won’t be a problem,” the captain says, watching him intently, tired smile lurking about her mouth. “I think he has somewhere to stay.”

Is she offering…? Leonard tilts his head to the other side. He’s pretty damned sure she is.

“Right,” he drawls in return. “No problem. Got a place.”

Mick looks back and forth at them, barks out a laugh, exchanges a look with Gideon and turns away, talking quietly to the AI as they go. Leonard’s about to lean over and say something suggestive to Sara when he hears a dry chuckle from behind him.

“Oh, is that how it is?” Constantine smirks at them, rolling an unlit cigarette from hand to hand. He leans toward Leonard. “Not totally like Leo, then, are you, handsome?”

Leonard flicks a glance at Sara, who’d already told him a bit about his Earth-X doppelganger. She’s looking resigned, but also a touch amused, and he decides suddenly to mess with the supposed warlock, just for fun.

So, he looks back at Constantine, lowering his lashes and studying at the other man through them.

“Let’s just say that I’m rather more...flexible,” he drawls suggestively, leaning back toward him in return.

Constantine blinks back, looking briefly stunned—until Leonard actually bats his eyelashes and then leans back toward Sara, who loses control of the laugh she’s been restraining. They both smirk at the other man, whose surprise turns into brief amusement warring with irritation.

“Prats,” he mutters, not without humor. “Get my hopes up.”

“It’s true enough,” Leonard informs him. “Just can’t say I’m…available. At the moment.” He looks at Sara, who gazes back. “I think.”

Her lips twitch again. “I think so, too.”

Constantine sighs dramatically, sticking his unlit cig behind his ear. “Pity,” he muses. “Well, let me know if you’re up for…shall we say, another player on the board.”

And with that, he winks, turns, and saunters away, leaving Leonard and Sara alone on the bridge.

#captain canary #legends of tomorrow #saraxleonard #I don't believe in destiny

8 notes · View notes

luckyspike · 5 years

Text

Adventures in America, Ch. 2 - Everyone Hates Airplanes

look i wrote more. also it has a plot. can i get a wahoo.

oh and @copperbadge wrote an amazing fic (titled I’ll Stand on the Ocean Until I Start Sinking) where he posited that demons can’t fly. i don’t claim to be a biblical scholar, but considering how gross Falling sounds and how God apparently sentenced the serpent to crawl on his belly for all eternity (which I can easily extend to include demons, just watch me), i figure i really like that headcanon. i’m gonna run with it. go, babey, go.

Adam left, as promised, on Sunday morning. Wensleydale drove to the airport, and Adam and Pepper sat in the back seat next to each other, hands not-quite touching as they rested on their knees. The four of Them talked, laughed, and, on more than one occasion, Adam and Pepper caught one another’s eye and then hastily looked out of the window, or at their phone, or their knees.

They hugged when Adam got out of the car at Heathrow. He hugged Brian and Wensley too, though, so that was alright. And he made sure he didn’t hug Pepper any longer than those two. He counted the seconds and everything.

She smells nice, he thought, and then he immediately said, “Listen, guys, if I’m going to be in America then you have to make sure Dog doesn’t get in to trouble with my parents. My dad’ll make him sleep in the garden if he doesn’t behave, and he hates that.”

“No problem,” Brian said with a nod, as if accepting a mission from a commanding officer. Which, in a roundabout way, he was.

“And you have to tell me if anything happens at home while I’m away, alright?” he continued, looking to Wensleydale, who was living at home while he attended university*. “Keep me up to date.”

“Of course,” Wensley replied.

“And …” he trailed off, as he looked to Pepper, and then looked over the three of Them, shuffling his feet and re-adjusting his duffel bag on his shoulder. “You know. Call if you want. I got the international plan so if I’m not busy and I can talk then, uh, we can talk.”

“You better remember to call us too,” Pepper answered, arms crossed. She smiled. “Be safe, Adam. Can’t wait to hear all your stories.”

“I sort of hope you find a tornado, but also sort of don’t,” Brain mused. “Just don’t like, fly away like they did in Twister or whatever.”

Adam nodded solemnly. “Man, I will do my best.” They laughed, the tension breaking a little, and Adam re-adjusted his bag again, taking a step backwards toward the door. “Alright. I better go, find the gate and everything. Oh, and I know Anathema and Newt probably have it handled, but if Aziraphale and Crowley need anything while I’m away, you know, look after them.”

Pepper looked doubtful. “They’re 6000 years old. What are we going to do?”

“Have common sense,” Adam replied, reasonably. “They’re not good at that.” The Them considered it, and in turn they each nodded.

“We’ll handle it,” Wensley assured him.

Adam grinned. “I can always count on you guys. Alright, see you later! Text you when I land!”

He turned, and walked away. He couldn’t see Them, but he knew they were waving as he left. In his guts, something twisted - nerves, definitely nerves - but he walked on, through the sliding doors and into the bright, modern airport, phone in hand. He paused, blue eyes flicking from sign to sign, until he spotted the sign for security. He took a few steps, boots squeaking a little on the floor, but stopped a few yards short of the escalator. He looked around.

He had heard Anathema and Newt and Aziraphale and Crowley talking during the party. He knew they were debating following him. He had almost confronted them, several times over the past week, but he had held off. They hadn’t talked about it more, and the night prior to his departure he’d stopped by Jasmine Cottage to say goodbye to Newt and Anathema, who wished him well and encouraged him to call if he needed anything. He’d even gotten a text from Aziraphale this morning, which read simply, ‘Have fun in America! - A+C’. If they were going to follow him, they certainly weren’t acting like it. And considering the involved parties, any subtlety or subterfuge was so impossible that he found himself thinking that they probably actually hadn’t done it. They were just going to, just, let him go to America.

Well. Fair enough. He was eighteen, after all. And he had some residual, well, powers, he considered. Nothing significant, not anymore, he couldn’t raise the dead or change reality, but he’d be alright. If Heaven or Hell was really going to come after him, they probably would have done it already, right? It had been seven years, after all. And storm chasing wasn’t nearly as dangerous as all that.

Still, he glanced around the lobby, looking for any familiar faces. Just in case. There were none. The nerves twisted again, but outwardly he smiled, and proceeded up the escalator.

Behind a sign about security, two human-shaped beings breathed a gratuitous sigh of relief.

The night before

“I don’t want to go,” Crowley murmured, head in his hands, slouched onto the couch in the backroom of Aziraphale’s bookshop. He had, for the past week, been forcing the issue. They’d argued, an actual argument with shouting and everything, which these days was practically unheard of. And he’d lost, every time, because Aziraphale would always have a good point about infernal or celestial dangers, whether they’d shown any ongoing interest in the boy or not, and Crowley would, at length, give in.

Still, it was worth another try. One last time. “Angel, he’ll be fine, I swear, he’s eighteen, we can’t just - just babysit him for the rest of his life.”

“Why not?” Aziraphale looked to Crowley over the top of his book, the lines of his face settling into a resigned expression of ‘here-we-go-again’. “Are you expecting he will outlive you?”

“No. But …” But he needs to be normal, Crowley thought, without saying it. The more we meddle, the bigger the target on him is. We need to let him be normal. Maybe if we just leave him alone, they will too. Another thought, a few layers down, whispered, The angel is right - he isn’t normal. His powers haven’t entirely gone, even now. “I mean, he’s got to be a bit independent, doesn’t he?”

“Which is why we’ll be guarding from afar.” Aziraphale replied, prim, turning a page with care. “No interference unless he’s in danger.” He sighed. “I really am having a hard time understanding why you’re so opposed to traveling, Crowley. I don’t like it either, but it’s for Adam’s sake and if you’re right, and nothing does happen, then what’s the worst we’ve done? Had a nice holiday?” Crowley looked sour. “Don’t make that face. Are you still angry you won’t have the Bentley?”

“No,” Crowley lied. Sort of lied, anyway. He was angry he wouldn’t have the Bentley - Aziraphale had made a point about Adam’s ability to sense miracles, and how recognizable an antique Bentley was besides - but it wasn’t all bad. They’d dropped it off at Jasmine Cottage that morning, tucking it away in the garage, and Crowley had watched as Newt walked around the old car and, hesitating, murmured something about taking good care of it. His expression when the lights flickered on and the car positively growled were almost worth it. Almost. He sighed. “Just don’t understand why you can’t fly over there if he needs you. Seems kind of excessive, following him around.”

“It’ll be better if we’re close, just to keep an eye out. Because it’s at least an 8-hour flight, and then there’s the travel time to get where he is.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Crowley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know what I meant.” There was silence, and he looked up, catching Aziraphale’s eye.

“Because if Adam’s in trouble,” Aziraphale said, quietly, “I’d rather you be there as well, Crowley.” You can’t fly, he doesn’t say outwardly, although he might as well have. You can’t fly and I won’t go without you. “What if it’s a demon? With hellfire?”

“Point taken, but not sure what good I’ll do,” Crowley grumbled, and moved on. No sense dwelling, he thought, on the past. Not right now, anyway. “My main weapon at the end of the world was a tire iron, remember? Least you have a flaming sword.”

“Had.” Aziraphale smiled at him. “You did stop time, dear.” Crowley shrugged in an attempt to act like it was nothing, no big deal, just simple timestream manipulation. Internally, however, he felt the warm glow of pride. “That’s not something just anybody can do, Crowley! It was very impressive.”

“Eh, yeah. Ngh.” He looked into his wine glass - empty - and debated refilling it. Instead, he set it aside. “Probably not going to get much chance to sleep over the next few months.” He stood, and stretched. “Think I might grab a few hours tonight.”

Aziraphale looked up, surprised, and then he shrugged. He didn’t sleep, not ever, not even after the Nahpocalypse**, but Crowley did, with gusto. “Reasonable. Should I wake you in the morning? The brochure said to arrive at least two hours before your flight, so that would be -” He stopped, because Crowley was walking away, waving his hands.

“Whatever works, angel. See you in the morning.” He heard Aziraphale say something like goodnight, but it was muffled by the stairwell, and the sounds of his boots on the steps to the flat above the shop. He made sure to walk around upstairs a little - let Aziraphale think he was really settling in - before he pulled the door to the bedroom shut (it squeaked quite satisfactorily across the floorboards) and stopped. And breathed in.

His wings fluttered out with a soft susurrus, and he breathed out, relieved. Ruined by the Fall or not, letting his wings out was always a nice feeling, like taking off a tight pair of shoes at the end of the day. The left one - the good one, and the sinister one - flexed and flapped a few times, glossy feathers catching the air in spite of the missing ones, and causing the lampshade to rattle a little. The right wing creaked, and Crowley winced, stretching as much as the scar tissue and limited range of the ruined joints would allow. The feathers - more sparse even, on that side, than the left but no less glossy, he (and eventually Aziraphale, too) had seen to that - fluttered weakly with the motion of it. He sighed, and idly picked at one of the coverts which was coming loose. For ages - centuries - he’d fought tooth-and-nail against removing any of the feathers left to him, out of some deep-seated fear that they would never grow back. He’d already lost flight, just like all the other demons, grounded and doomed to crawl for eternity, but he still had his wings. Still had some feathers. Other demons weren’t as lucky - Hastur had one mangled stump and the other wing was half-gone, with only a few marginal coverts that stubbornly refused to burn away. Crowley didn’t want to lose his. He’d always rather liked them, functional or no.

Of course, the feathers did grow back where they could, where there weren’t any scars. It only took him three hundred years to realize it - he’d tried flight again at that time, too, but couldn’t get the lift and didn’t have the range on the right to do much besides spin himself around and create an impressive dust-up. It took rather longer than a few centuries - much longer - to find someone he trusted enough to help him clean the bloody things up properly so they didn’t itch like Hell when he did let them out. He still couldn’t fly, but at least they looked good.

If you have to go, go with style, he’d said, once, while the world was burning around him. He flicked the shed covert away and flapped again, enjoying the stretch of it all, the shine of the light off the black. Not that he was planning on going, at least not in the permanent sense, he considered. He was definitely going to America, though, Aziraphale had made that expressly clear, and he was dam - blessed if he wasn’t going to look better than any cut-rate demon they might meet over there.

He miracled his clothes off with a snap and stretched one more time, wings and all, before he collapsed, face-first, onto the tartan-print comforter, and passed out. He didn’t move when he slept, didn’t stir, even hours later when Aziraphale leaned in to the room to check and smiled at him, a mess of feathers and awful tartan blanket. He looked dead, but it was easy enough to sense the energy - infernal but comforting anyway - and the angel returned to the shop, and his book and his tea. He’d have to wake the demon up in a few hours, which was its own unique challenge that Aziraphale had finally got the hang of a year or two ago, but for now, there was the comforting routine of reading and tea, while his suitcase sat by the door and looked expectant.

British Airways, Flight 191

He’d bought a ticket in economy, because he was eighteen and a university student, and it hadn’t seemed so bad. Three hours in, however, and he was re-thinking that decision. The upgrade would have been, what, another two or three hundred pounds***? He could have picked up a few extra shifts at the shop, maybe done some yardwork for people around the village and made that up, easy. He shifted in the seat, uncomfortable and stiff, and glanced across the other passengers to his right, out the window to the endless blue expanse.

He’d been excited for this flight, a few hours ago. Traveling to America, chasing tornadoes, maybe spending an extra week or two to see some sights - it was the stuff he’d dreamed about as a kid^. Ninety minutes in to a fairly routine flight, though, and the novelty had worn off. Flying was boring, and you could only stare at the endless sky and the sea for so long before you started wondering what else you could do to entertain yourself. I should have kept with crochet, he thought idly, as he watched the woman across the aisle knit happily, not a sign of being bored. Or that Pep was here. Or Brian or Wensley, he added, as an afterthought.

He sat back in the seat, as much as it would allow, and pulled out a book. Aziraphale had given it to him, ages ago, and he’d read it once already, but it was a favorite. He had picked it up from time-to-time through the years, but never fully re-read it. Well, he thought, flipping open to the title page, no time like the present. It was relatively new for an Aziraphale recommendation - published in this millennium - and the angel apparently hadn’t thought much of penning a neat ‘Thought you’d like this’ in a blank space there. Adam smiled, and started to read.

Two entire airline sections away, two supernatural entities were having similar ruminations about air travel, albeit they had the good fortune of doing so together. “This isn’t too bad,” Aziraphale said to Crowley, who was laid back in the first-class seat and watching Golden Girls reruns with a glass of wine. He didn’t have headphones on. He didn’t need them - not by some miracle, but because he’d seen this episode enough times to have the dialogue fairly well-down. The angel shifted in his seat slightly and crossed his legs. “Not as comfortable as my shop but -”

“Not bad for a metal tube hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour?” Crowley suggested. “This is loads better than last time I flew anywhere.” He took a sip of wine.

“When was that?”

“1914.”

“Oh. Yes, I’d imagine it is, rather.”

“More security, though. Way more security.”

“Yes, I wasn’t expecting that. I knew things were more secure now, you know, heard it on the news, but taking shoes and belts and all that off?” He shook his head. “You’d think with the body scanners it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“Well, you know. One guy hides a bomb in his shoe and there you go,” answered Crowley, who had performed a minor miracle through the security line to convince the agents that his shoes were just fine on, thank you very much. “Lucky they let you keep your pants.”

Aziraphale looked down. “What’s wrong with my pants?”

Crowley opened his mouth, and then thought better of it. “Never mind.” He took a sip of wine. “How’s he doing back there?”

Aziraphale paused in his reading, finger hovering over the page. “Bored,” he answered, at length. “Bored, but … fairly happy.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows and studied his empty wineglass briefly, before motioning to the flight attendant for a refill. “Nothing spooky?” This, said with a distinct air of amusement.

“Nothing spooky. The plane is still full of perfectly ordinary people. And Adam. And us.”

“Tickety-boo,” Crowley drawled, watching the flight attendant refill the glass. “Thanks, love.” He gulped another mouthful of wine, and pulled headphones out of, apparently, his jacket but realistically, nowhere. “I’m going to get drunk.”

“Really?” Aziraphale looked surprised, blue eyes slightly widened and his mouth curved down at the corners into a frown. “They’ll be serving food in an hour.” He raised his eyebrows. “There’s ice cream.”

Crowley reclined further, and plugged the headphones in. “Enjoy it. I’ll sober up before we land, don’t worry.”

Aziraphale nodded, and glanced to the TV Crowley was watching. Golden Girls disappeared as he poked at the remote, and the movie selection came up. He flipped through the titles too fast for Aziraphale to see the offerings clearly, but when he settled on one the angel scowled, while the demon smirked. “Really, Crowley?”

He clicked ‘play’ on the title screen for Snakes on a Plane. “I always wanted to watch this. What better time?” He laughed a little, and Aziraphale rolled his eyes, and went back to his book.

* He was working toward earning his degree in accounting. He very much enjoyed his classes.

** Crowley had slept for three full weeks. Aziraphale, to his credit, had only shaken him awake once, just to make sure he hadn’t died. The hissing he’d got in response was answer enough, and since then he’d adjusted fairly well to Crowley’s little sleeping habit.

*** Adam was a bright boy, certainly, but he hadn’t flown before, and the disparities in airline seating pricing still escaped him.

^ Although, it should be noted, not at a very crucial time in his childhood, or this may not have been his first American excursion.

Now with Chapter 3!

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #i wish i didn't enjoy fanfiction so much #adam young #the one where they go to america

2 notes · View notes

falselyprofound · 5 years

Text

Okay, now that I’m home, I’m gonna thought dump on the latest Avengers movie.

Lots of actual spoilers here, naturally, but the tl;dr is that I enjoyed myself much more than I thought I was gonna. Which is impressive, because I’ve only seen, like... four solo Marvel movies. Two of whom got snapped out of existence, and the third only had like four minutes of screen time.

(Christ, though, did Endgame really need to be three hours long...?)

So: I did not like Infinity War at all. I thought it was a massive pile of unfocused garbage, with a 2D villain trying waaaaay too hard to be sympathetic and intelligent, and an ending that was both highly predictable and very unsatisfying. Given that the MacGuffin of these movies is a gauntlet that literally lets you rewrite reality, I figured nothing in either of these movies would matter in the long run, because I presumed that it would all just end in a Magic Reset Button.

My expectations were at rock bottom. I was expecting an hour of angst, followed by an hour of the Avengers manning up and tracking down Thanos and the stones, and then an hour or so of boring back-and-forth fistfighting, and then someone snaps their fingers and reality resets and none of this ever happens.

To put it simply - that doesn’t happen.

Thor decapitated Thanos before the title card, and I nearly lost my shit. WRITERS KNEW WHAT I CAME HERE TO SEE AND WASTED NO TIME IN GETTING TO IT.

So needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of things in this film.

For a start, we actually get to see the fallout of the Snappening. After Thanos dies & the stones are revealed to have been destroyed, we get a five year time skip. Some people move on, others don’t, and it’s honestly nice to see them balance it out rather than just have it all be angst.

It wasn’t until Ant Man showed up that I really started to take interest how things were going, though. I’ve never seen any of his films, but I think he was probably the highlight of the movie for me? Alas, he never goes up anyone’s ass, but his parts are really entertaining regardless.

The perspective of “guy who somehow missed the last five years worth of plot because he was technically locked in his car” was both kind of hilarious and kind of spooky. Plus, having not seen his movies, it was pretty entertaining trying to work out what his deal was. I didn’t know where he’d been, who he’d lost, or why everyone thought he had been dusted - but the writers do a solid enough job of cluing you in without slowing down the action.

Anyway, after that it turns into a full on time-travel movie. Which... was also not what I was expecting. What was doubly unexpected was that they weren’t trying to reset the world to the pre-Infinity War days -- they just want to grab the stones so they can bring people back to the post-Endgame world. Which is both a great way of avoiding time travel paradoxes and a great way of actually making the five fucking hours of movie I had to sit through actually mean something in the long run. Again, I can’t stress enough how much I hate reset buttons, so I enjoyed the hell outta that. (It’s... kind of a low bar but anyway.)

The time travel makes up the bulk of the movie, and they have a lotta fun with it. Visiting lots of locations and eras, comparing and contrasting future versions of characters with past ones, getting closure from deceased loved ones, punching Peter Quill in the face bc he’s too busy listening to music, tracking the quality of Captain America’s ass over the decades, yadda yadda yadda. All the usual stuff.

Also, they fucking made the ridiculous “Captain America is HYDRA” controversy from two years ago a plot point and I am so, so glad.

Things get kinda stupid around the three-quarters mark, though. A character gets sorta-fridged, there’s a giant CGI battle bc of course there is, the timestream gets fucked because people kill past versions of themselves and apparently that doesn’t affect anything... but if nothing else, it’s... coherent. Which is more than some of these bloody crossovers are.

Several characters either perma-die, perma-retire, or get resurrected without their character development. I’m sure people who are more invested in these movies than I am might get a bit emotional over all that, but like... people called this shit years ago. And I never watched their films, so... I didn’t care.

But all in all I found it to be a pretty entertaining movie, despite my lack of knowledge of the series. I’ll probably never bother with the grim pile of sludge that is Infinity War again, but I could see myself picking Endgame up again some time in the future.

Other misc thoughts:

Peter Parker may have only had four lines, but they were all gr8. Welcome back son.

(Also every female character showing up at once to stop him from getting killed? big fucking mood.)

...Hoh man, not liking the implication that all of Peter’s classmates - Ned included - got dusted. I’m lowkey wondering if the reason they cast Aunt May so young is so they could show the effects of that five-year timeskip...

Why was Clint Barton a ninja? Like was that in the comics, or did they just think that was cooler than it actually was

Kinda liked how they wrote Carol Danvers out of the plot. It felt natural, and was probably the first time I’ve seen one of these “Earth is only the ground-zero of a universe wide catastrophe” plots actually address that awful shit is happening elsewhere in the galaxy. (Lookin’ at you, Doctor Who.)

Loved that every time Thor was seen fighting Thanos, he was always visibly aiming for his head.

Loved that Thanos has canonically died like three times now.

I have never heard a cinema audience clap/otherwise go apeshit as hard as they did when Cap picked up Mjölnir. I wish I knew more about the movies so I could share their enthusiasm -- but I was legit happy for them regardless.

...I wish I’d seen Thor Ragnarok. Everyone keeps telling me I should’ve.

(Also, Thor may or may not play Fortnite. I wish I was joking.)

#pointless post #avengers endgame spoilers /#(maybe I should just get a generic 'marvel blogging' tag or somethin...)#marvel blogging

5 notes · View notes

stillthewordgirl · 5 years

Text

LOT/CaptainCanary fic: (I Don’t Believe in) Destiny (ch. 7 of 11)

And maybe, just maybe, they'll bring everything around full circle.

Can also be read here on AO3 or here on FF.net

Ch. Seven: Each Time We Turn a New Corner

Going right to the Vanishing Point didn’t seem really feasible, given that they don’t know what Druce and the bureau are up to now, but staying at the Refuge longer isn’t really something Sara wants to do either. After some thought and a team discussion, she decides to put the ship down in 1892 Siberia, in a remote and uninhabited location where they should be undisturbed, at least long enough to go over plans and see if anyone’s made a move on the Vanishing Point yet.

They’ve used the location before, when they’ve needed a breather, but although the Time Bureau—in the persons of Ava and Gary, anyway—knows about it, Sara figures it’s not likely anyone will be looking for them there at the moment.

Which is why it’s a surprise when Ava steps out of a time courier portal right in front of Sara and Leonard when they’re nearly to their quarters.

The other woman’s eyes widen when she sees Sara. “Oh, thank god.” She squeezes her eyes shut a moment in apparent relief, seemingly not even registering Leonard yet. “When the Waverider blinked back into existence, we found things had reset and we could track you again...I didn’t know what had happened, if you were all righy...”

Back into existence? Reset? Sara can’t help wondering, but there’s no time for that now—because Ava’s spotted Leonard.

Her crook’s gone into full nonchalance mode, although Sara can see still see telltale signs of tension in the way he holds himself and the lines around his eyes. He has the new cold gun he’d fabricated with Gideon at his side, but Sara’s very relieved to see that he’s not in a drawing position. Yet

Ava’s eyes widen just a trifle more and then narrow. For several long seconds, the two just study each other—Sara holding her breath—until Leonard decides to be polite. (Or to be an asshole, depending on how you look at it. Maybe it’s both.)

“Hey,” he drawls, in that “I am a wonder of reasonableness” tone Sara’s heard him use before, usually to people he’s unsure about or not too fond of. “You must be Ms. Sharpe.” A pause, while Sara closes her eyes and sighs inwardly. “Leonard Snart. We haven’t had a chance to meet.”

Given that Sara herself had “met” Leonard again while he was running for his life in Ava’s own Time Bureau, Ava’s clearly not sure how to take that. She looks down at the hand Leonard extends to her, then glances over at Sara, her expression clearly saying, “Is this guy for real?”

And Sara can’t help it. She can’t restrain a smirk, because Leonard’s just so…Leonard…and she’s missed that, even if she feels a little bad for poor Ava, confronted with it in such precipitous circumstances.

It’s the wrong thing to do.

Ava’s face goes blank, and Sara realizes immediately that she’s taken it the wrong way, as if Sara is making fun of her—although Sara hadn’t meant it that way at all. She opens her mouth to say so even as Ava draws herself up, eyes going steely, a defensive posture Sara knows well.

Ava and Leonard do have more in common than they’d ever realize.

“Leonard Snart,” the bureau director says in a clipped tone, “I'm taking you back to the Time Bureau, there to...”

But Leonard’s eyes have gone cold now, too, and he’s tensed in a way that puts Sara on edge. He draws himself up too, and Sara can just see the “you and what army?” in his expression.

Sara steps between them swiftly, already regretting her brief lapse. “Wait,” she says. “Ava, you need to know…”

“I know enough,” her former lover cuts in stiffly, glancing at her. “Why do you think…”

Leonard clears his throat then, and at first, Sara could kick him. Then she sees the look in his eyes and the way he’s edging backward.

Leonard never runs away from a fight. But apparently, for Sara, he’s willing to take himself out of this fray for now.

“Gonna go get some fresh air,” he says quietly, eyes on her. “All right?”

Ava tenses, but Sara nods, holding his gaze. “Might want to wear the parka,” she says just as quietly. “Gets cold here.”

He nods…and with one more opaque glance at Ava, turns and walks away, back down the corridor. Sara lets out a breath as Ava simply stares after him, then turns her gaze back at Sara—who nods quickly at the doorway.

“Let’s take this into private, OK?” she says. “Please?’

Ava hesitates, but gives her a jerky nod, following her into her quarters.

Sara regrets it nearly immediately, though. Leonard’s regular presence here is now unmistakable, really, from the black clothing folded neatly on a chair to the faint scent of sandalwood—not something Sara personally favors, though she definitely likes it on him—in the air. Ava isn’t unobservant, either. She takes a quick glance around, then focuses on Sara with an expression that’s trying not to be betrayed.

“Seriously, Sara?” she manages. “The crook?”

It’s hard not to get defensive, especially with everything Sara knows. But: “That’s beside the point,” she says, trying to sound matter of fact. “It is, Ava.” She hesitates. “Why are you trusting Druce over me? We might not…be together anymore, but I wouldn’t lie to you. He’s working against you in your own bureau!”

But the betrayal is still there. Ava shakes her head. “My job is to do what’s best for the timeline, Sara,” she says starkly. “And he’s offering the chance to make a difference, more than…more than I’ve been able to do so far. And you’re protecting a criminal and a murderer…hell, you’re sleeping with him!” She shakes her head violently, taking a step back. “I shouldn’t have come here, not without backup.”

Sara follows her, her heart hurting. “Ava…” She takes a deep breath. “It’s not so simple. It’s really, really not.”

And then, faced with the look in Ava’s eyes, she makes a decision, immediate and instinctive.

And prays she’s not making a mistake.

“Listen to me,” Sara tells her intently, telling to convey every bit of sincerity she has. “We’ll be at the ruins of the Vanishing Point in a week. Do you hear me? We’re not…not going to lie down and take this, but we have to be there too, and…Ava, you have a choice to make. Please. Please make the right one.”

Ava draws in a breath, and the two women stare at each other.

But then Ava’s expression hardens again. She taps her time courier, takes a deep breath, and steps into the portal.

Sara feels tears well up as she goes.

Leonard saunters back in about a half-hour later, looking a bit more ruffled than Sara expects. Still, she breathes a sigh of relief at his presence—until she catches a better look at his bemused expression, and registers that he’s not wearing the parka after all.

“Where’d you get that jacket?” she asks, leaning against the wall, studying the blue leather coat, which seems both familiar and not.

“Stole it.” Leonard stops in front of her, studying her in return.

“In Siberia?”

“Kind of an unexpectedly long story. The director?”

“Back at the Time Bureau, presumably.” Sara takes a deep breath. “I hope I didn’t make a big mistake. But…I couldn’t…I told her…”

Her voice trails off. And then Leonard, with his usual brand of unexpected sincerity, steps forward, not quite holding out his arms but obviously inviting her into them.

Sara takes the invite. She wraps her arms around him and rests her head on his shoulder, feeling the tears spill over.

And Leonard holds her, as long as she needs it.

Gideon, with many surprised apologies, makes sure that the Time Bureau can’t track them once again, and the Legends take themselves off to another “safe” time and place—Salvation, though not a time they’ve been there before and enough outside the town to stay away from trouble and temptation.

At least, Sara hopes so. (She’s threatened Ray with bodily harm if he decides to go play sheriff again.)

Then she calls a team meeting.

“You told her?”

Charlie sounds appalled, and Sara really can’t blame her. She rubs a hand over her face with a deep sigh, then opens her eyes again to meet the gazes of her team. No one looks quite betrayed, thank god—she doesn’t think she could take that right now—but there’s both confusion and uncertainty on a few faces. John is, as always, hard to read, Mick is stony-faced, and Leonard—who already knew about this—is typically cool.

“We need Druce to be there, after all. To meet Leonard, so we can set this whole thing in motion,” Sara says, knowing that she still sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. “And this way, they probably won’t be chasing us around, trying to arrest him.”

The shapeshifter swears again, but Ray’s nodding. “This gives us a measure of control,” he says, looking around. “Right? I mean, sure, now they know when we’re getting there, but it’s not like Druce can start without Snart.” He looks at Leonard. “Right?”

Leonard shrugs. “Far as I know.”

“But they could set a trap,” Nora points out, sounding a bit reluctant. “Couldn’t they? Shoot us down when we arrive?”

Zari raises her hand. “I’m against that, for the record.”

“Not without risking something they need.” Mick finally speaks up. He doesn’t sound happy, but Sara’s relieved to see that he apparently sees what she’s getting at. “Time Bastards need Snart alive.”

Nate winces at the epithet. “It’s not the whole bureau, though...right?” he asks. “We figure that Druce just recruited the other 11 original Time Masters from there?”

“Yes, Dr. Heywood,” Gideon chimes in. She’s part of the ship at the moment, the better to keep an eye on things outside and to study both charts of the area around the Vanishing Point and the temporal theory that might come into play in this whole mess. “Though we don’t know how much Druce has persuaded others to buy into his plan.” She pauses. “A lot will depend on that.”

Sara reluctantly speaks up again. “I still don’t think Ava’s happy about any of it,” she says quietly. “Giving her this as a good-faith gesture, it might make a difference. And Druce might have his 11, but that doesn’t mean Ava can’t keep the rest of the bureau.”

John chuckles. It’s not a particularly nice noise, and Sara narrows her eyes at him as he leans back in a jumpseat.

“Don’t matter,” he says, taking a cigarette out of his pocket. “Jealousy’s a driving force of the human race, love.” He points at Leonard with the cig. “And far as she’s concerned, you’ve replaced her with someone Druce is telling her is the bad guy. Sometimes we hear what we want to hear, especially where hearts are concerned.”

“The breakup was mutual.” It’s humiliating to have her love life dragged out on the bridge like this. No matter what else has happened on the bridge recently.

“Don’t matter.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Leonard’s voice is cold all of a sudden, and John blinks at him as the crook stalks over to Sara’s side. “What does matter is how we’re going to play this. We need a plan.”

Mick snorts, but it’s amused. “Predictable,” he mutters, and Leonard tosses him a smirk. Then he looks back at Sara.

“Captain,” he says, and there’s no irony or snark in the word at all. “What are you thinking?”

Sara gazes around the room, then back at him. “Well,” she says. “Let’s lay out what we know...”

She’s a good captain.

Leonard watches as Sara handles each of the current Legends perfectly, getting different ideas and bits and pieces of knowledge, putting them all together in the tapestry of a plan. As with the team he remembers, they all have different areas of expertise—some expected, some not.

Heywood’s a historian, but he also has inside knowledge of the bureau. Zari has wind powers, but she’s also a hacker with a keen knowledge of all kinds of tech. Raymond’s got a brain when he cares to use it, and he’s full of odd bits of facts and random shit.

Mick occasionally volunteers something he recalls from his time as Chronos. Charlie’s a magical creature (weird thought), but her grasp of human nature, for all that, is sometimes better than the humans’. Nora’s a magic user, but she’s had an interesting look at other elements of the supernatural as well.

Constantine’s the resident smartass now. Leonard wonders what that makes him.

“So,” Mick says, eventually, “we get there, to the Vanishing Point...or its wreck, anyway.” He looks at Leonard. “Snart slips off to try an’ get into the Oculus wellspring building without anyone seeing him, while we kick up a lotta fuss outside, distract the Time Bastards.”

Nate gives him a look. “Druce’s people,” he corrects.

“Whatever.” Mick continues. “When he gets in there, he either waits for Druce or meets him there. Druce tries to kill ‘im, but Snart does some time mumbo-jumbo and pulls everything outta whack, back to when the star there blew up.” He pauses. “Which doesn’t sound real safe.”

“It isn’t,” Leonard tells him a bit tersely. He remembers the power surging around him at the wellspring. He’s still not sure how he survived long enough to get knocked into the timestream.

Raymond clears his throat. “I think the idea’s that the supernova’s contained, right there, by the wellspring device. Druce will have it back in place, because controlling it is kind of the whole idea.”

“OK, Haircut. And then Snart takes them into the timestream, kicks Druce’s ass and breaks time.”

“No!” Sara, Raymond, and Heywood say in unison before looking sheepishly at each other. Leonard, remembering what Mick had told him about the Legends breaking time and everything that had come of that, can’t blame them.

Mick rolls his eyes. “Fine. ‘Breaks the chain.’” He frowns. “So, is there an Oculus then or not?”

“There would be, wouldn’t there?” Zari says slowly. “And you said Mary Xavier said that wasn’t a bad thing. But no Time Masters. So who makes sure it’s not misused?”

For a moment, the Legends just look at each other.

Leonard actually does have thoughts on that, but he’s not quite ready to share them, not even with Sara. He thinks back to his spell in the timestream, and the things he may have imagined and the things he might not have, and he keeps his peace.

Mick swears. “I ain’t staying on that rock any longer than I have to,” he says definitively. “Spent too long there already.”

Sara sighs. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” She looks at Leonard. “An awful lot of that is up to you,” she says. “Throwing everything ‘outta whack,’ taking Druce into the timestream. You up for that?”

He gives her the truth. “No idea. Time Lady there said it came down to willpower.” He pauses, letting a little arrogance into his voice. “If that’s all it is, I’ve got this.”

Heywood makes a slightly disparaging noise. “You’re a crook,” he says with faint disbelief as Leonard glances at him. “Isn’t that the opposite of willpower? The easy path?”

Sara bristles a little, but Mick laughs. “Easy? You’ve never been on one of Snart’s heists, Pretty,” he advises.

Raymond surges to Leonard’s defense too, somewhat to his surprise. “This is the guy who saved us all at one point or another,” he says staunchly to his skeptical friend, getting his feet and crossing the room to the crook. “You should have seen the shot he made in Salvation.” The scientist slings an arm over Leonard’s shoulders, a familiarity that leaves him bemused. “Hey! We could go show them...”

“No,” Sara cuts in as Leonard manages to smoothly duck out from under the arm. “No one’s going into town. I know what happens when we go into town.” She looks at Leonard again, though. “Seriously, though. You have no idea how to...do that?”

He shrugs. Nora, unexpectedly, is the one who speaks up. “I...we might be able to help with that,” she says, looking at Constantine, who shrugs as well. “Manipulating energy is kind of what magic is all about, after all.” She gives Leonard a tentative smile. “Can you feel it? The temporal energy around you?”

It’s a hard thing to answer. “Sort of. I think.” He hesitates. “I have to concentrate on it.”

Nora nods encouragingly—and Sara nods with relief.

“Nora, John,” she says, “see how you can help Leonard with this...temporal energy thing. Mick, Ray, Gideon, Zari, we’re going to look at what we know about the Oculus and see what we can figure out about it. Nate, take what Mick’s told us and see if you might be able to learn more about which members of the bureau went to Druce’s side. Charlie...well, help anywhere you think you can help and please don’t get into trouble.”

There are murmurs of agreement (and something rude from Charlie), and Sara nods again.

“All right,” she says, looking around. “Go, team.”

#I don't believe in destiny #captain canary #sara x leonard #lot fic #legends of tomorrow

6 notes · View notes

stillthewordgirl · 5 years

Text

LOT/CC fic: (I Don’t Believe in) Destiny (Ch. 2 of 11)

----

Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

Title: All the Stages We Passed Through

Present

“You haven’t seen her at all?”

Mick Rory folds his arms and scowls at the woman on the Waverider’s main screen. “Answer ain’t changed in the past minute.”

Ava pinches her nose with her fingers, looking like he’s making her headache worse. Mick feels victorious.

He figures that if that’s the most he does to Bureau Chick considering that she’s talking about bringing back the same damned thing that killed Snart—well, she’s getting off easy. (And he doesn’t believe for a second that Sara’s gonna let her get away with that, or he’d be doing a hell of a lot more. He’s already decided he’s going to kill Druce. Again. The question is simply when.)

But Bureau Chick really doesn’t seem aware of any of this. Which seems kinda odd, because Mick might not like her, but she’s not stupid.

“Well,” she sighs, as Mick hears at least one of the others—Haircut, he’s pretty sure it’s Haircut, and probably Pretty too—wander on to the bridge behind him. “If…when…you see her. Tell her… it’s not what she thinks.”

Mick doesn’t ask. “Got it.”

The screen turns blank, and Mick turns around, noticing Haircut’s frown and Pretty’s look of confusion. (So what else is new?)

Ray stares at the screen, then looks back at Mick. “She’s looking for Sara?” he asks. “But…Sara went to the Bureau, to try to get a time courier. Hours ago. What happened? Do you think she’s OK? Should we go looking for her?”

Mick sighs, put upon. “Tell ‘em, Gideon,” he instructs, leaning against a jumpseat.

The AI speaks up promptly. “Ms. Lance has been in contact with us, Dr. Palmer,” she says. “A while ago. However, she asked that Mr. Rory and I not tell Director Sharpe that. She said just to wait, and she’d be back in touch.”

Haircut looks confused. “You lied?”

Mick rolls his eyes. And Gideon’s silence is the sort that he knows could easily be translated as “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“I obeyed the command of my captain, Dr. Palmer,” she says finally. “And you may wish to consider why she asked me to do so. Especially given recent events.”

When Sara had first started visiting the Time Bureau in this time and place, the dynamic had been so contentious that it’d seemed only practical to figure out a safehouse of sorts nearby. She’d found a place—a former office building in an unlikely section of town, unlikely to be sold or rented to anyone new—and set it up, figuring it was better to have a bolt-hole than not.

She’d never expected to be hauling one Leonard Snart in there.

Leonard seems…dazed. Far from his usual sharp intellect and gaze. He just stares at Sara as she gently pushes him down on the battered secondhand sofa there. And then she sees his wrists—and the ragged, raw wounds around them.

“What the…” She takes a deep breath, holds it a moment, then lets it out slowly. Her first thought, running into Leonard in the Bureau hall, had been that they’d found him after all, and that Ava had lied. But it’s not adding up, none of these little details, and she needs to know more.

Especially just who or what Snart this is.

And so, she sits down opposite him, trying not to hope, and tries to sound like the businesslike captain and not a woman who…who…

“I need to know,” she tells the man, trying for calm. “If you’re the Leonard Snart from this time and this Earth, tell me something only I would know.”

Leonard’s brow furrows as he looks at her. “This time?” he murmurs. “This Earth?” But then he shakes his head roughly and focuses, blue eyes intent in a way that does things to Sara’s stomach.

“You kissed me,” he says quietly. “At the Oculus.” He looks down at his arms. “You had to pull yourself up, and I couldn’t let go, but…”

It’s enough and too much. “OK,” Sara says abruptly, getting up as quickly as she’d sat down. “You’re you. OK. I’ll be right back.”

Because this safehouse is meant for the Legends, of course there are plenty of first-aid supplies. Sara fills a basin with warm water, and takes that, a soft cloth and some disinfectant back to where Leonard is still sitting, brow furrowed, a rather distant expression still on his face. A variant of shock, she thinks, barely willing to truly accept that it’s him now, really him.

Sara puts the basin down next to him, then wrings out the cloth, reaching out tentatively to take his left hand. Same callouses, she notes. The very same.

Leonard doesn’t flinch or pull away. Shock, Sara thinks again. She gently starts wiping at the raw wounds, and he still doesn’t move, despite what must be considerable pain.

“Did the Time Bureau do this?” she asks quietly, after a moment.

It takes Leonard a long minute to respond.

“I don’t know what the Time Bureau is,” he tells her, sounding just a little more like the sardonic Len she knows…remembers. His lip curls. “Sounds annoying. But, no, that rat bastard Druce did this.”

Sara freezes, then keeps working. “But…”

Leonard doesn’t seem to hear her. “One minute I was in…in the same nothing I’d been in since the Oculus blew up, then I’d landed hard on the floor.” He shakes his head roughly. “He’d been ready, and I…I wasn’t in good shape. Next thing I knew, he had me bound, and…that was it. Not sure how long.”

“How?”

Leonard manages to focus on her, and he seems to realize what’s behind the intense question. “He has this watch gadget,” he mutters. “It opened some kinda portal. Boom.”

No doubt what that is. “Druce has a time courier? But…” She stops. It doesn’t matter right now. The water in the basin is pink, and she starts on the other wrist, letting Leonard rest the other on the basin rim.

“Sara,” he says after a moment, roughly. “How long?”

She’s not going to pretend. “About four years,” she tells him, feeling his flinch then. “A little less.”

“Mick?”

No other words are needed in the question, but Sara’s pleased to be able to give good news here. “Mick is fine,” she tells him, eyes on her work, trying to remove ground-in debris without causing more pain than she has to. “He’s good. He’s still a Legend, and he…did you know he writes? He’s published now. He’s OK, Leonard.”

She’s sure it’s not her imagination that a little tension goes out of him. Then: “Lisa?”

Now Sara hesitates. “You have to realize…” she says carefully, “we all thought you were dead…”

“And you told her.” Leonard’s voice is calm, more accepting than she would have thought. “But…is she OK?”

As OK as she can be. “Yes.” Sara wrings out the cloth again. The water is a much darker pink now. “She is. Cisco keeps tabs on her. She’s traveling, checks in from time to time.”

Leonard sighs. He’s quiet as Sara carries the basin back across the small room, and quiet as she sits down again, taking his left hand again and starting to wind some gauze loosely around his wounds.

After a moment, Sara starts talking again, just to get it out. “Rip’s gone,” she tells him, eyes on his wrist. “Presumed dead.” A pause. “Martin…he died.” She really doesn’t want to go into it more, not at the moment. “And Jax left the team. So did Kendra and Carter—yeah, that’s a long story—after we defeated Savage.” She finishes that wrist, lifts her eyes to his. “It’s just me, Mick, and Ray left, of the original eight.”

Leonard’s gaze is steady. “And you’re captain.”

“Yes.”

She waits for more questions, but in vain. He’s silent, and so is she, as she wraps his other wrist, securing the gauze with a clip.

“There’s a shower,” Sara says after a moment, “and there are some shaving supplies in there, if you want. I kept this place stocked up for any of the Legends who might need to use it.” She glances up at him. “I mean. If you want to.”

Leonard smirks, just a little. “What,” he drawls, and oh hell, she’s missed that drawl, “you don’t like the beard?” He reaches out to touch it, as if he doesn’t remember just how long it’s become, then frowns and glances in the mirror to their left. “Gray,” he mutters.

Sara almost smiles at his vanity because, well, it is—though not unattractive. But she also can’t avoid noticing just how thin he looks.

“Food?” she asks. “I can go get some kinda takeout.”

Leonard’s eyes flicker. He understands what she’s not saying.

“Wouldn’t say no,” he says, and they’ve both won another brief reprieve from feelings.

“Oh, bloody hell!” Charlie shouts, turning and scowling at them all indiscriminately. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?!

The Waverider’s bridge is in an uproar, but Mick is just standing there, staring at nothing in particular and letting the chaos wash over him. He’s still digesting this, trying to figure out how he feels, if he believes it. Sara…Sara wouldn’t tell him this, of all things, without being sure, but…

“Snart,” Constantine muses, leaning against the holotable. “Leo’s doppelganger here? Presumably without the guy at home?” He nods, once, smirking. “Sign me up.”

“Leo’s his doppelganger,” Mick mutters, but not loud enough for anyone to hear him. He turns to face the others, still unwilling to chime in more…yet.

Zari rolls her eyes at British. “I don’t think that’s the part of all this that’s got everyone upset.” She glances at Haircut. “He was one of the original Legends? The one you all thought died at the Vanishing Point?”

“Yeah.” Haircut looks upset. Well, Snart had taken his place—or, Mick’s place, after everything. “Sara doesn’t think the Bureau knew Druce had him…but we can’t be sure, not yet. She said they’re gonna lie low, in case the Bureau is watching the ship, and we can pick them up tomorrow.”

Charlie folds her arms, still scowling. “I don’t know why any of you lot, with what you told me about this Oculus thing, are giving those wankers the benefit of the doubt at all,” she points out. “They want to control people, to control time. Your boy Snart was being held captive there and from what Sara said, he was a bit the worse for wear. They have this Druce character, the one who was your real big bad back in the beginning. What else is there to know!?”

“This is also the one that was part of the Legion, though,” Pretty points out, looking a bit uncomfortable as he glances at Mick. “Are you sure…”

But Haircut glares at his friend before Mick can. “That was an earlier Snart. Right, Mick?” He looks earnestly—well, he does almost everything earnestly—at Mick. “Before the Flash, before the Legends. And the Legion kinda lied to him. That wasn’t the Snart we knew.”

Mick still thinks there was more to it than that, but… “Yeah.”

And Sara would know, he thinks. She’d know. He’ll still feel better when Gideon confirms it, but she’d know.

He doesn’t pray. He hasn’t done that since before his mom died. But he hopes.

He really, really hopes.

The man who walks back out of the bathroom, more or less clean-shaven and scrubbed, looks far more like the Leonard she remembers, except for the odd tentativeness in his eyes where there used to be snarky confidence.

And the fact that he’s not wearing a shirt. Yeah, that too.

Sara rips her gaze away from scars and skin to focus on the gaze again, registering the mix of amusement and awkwardness there. Leonard lets the black leather jacket in his hand fall to the floor by the door and shrugs, folding his arms.

“There weren’t any shirts in there,” he says, with a quick glance down at the borrowed sweatpants that are both a little too big and a little too short. “And I’ll be damned if I’m putting the…the dirty one back on.” His shoulders hunch, and Sara wonders just how long he’d been trapped. “Prefer to save the jacket, if I can. But…”

“It’s OK,” Sara tells him quickly. “I think there are a few out here.” She gets up, waving a hand at the take-out boxes on the table. “Um. I didn’t want to go far. Chinese OK?”

Leonard takes a step forward, eyebrows lifting. “I’ve been getting Druce’s leftovers, if that, so…

It’s an opening, but Sara chooses not to take it. Not yet. She doesn’t want to think of Leonard at Druce’s mercy, because Druce isn’t anywhere she can make him pay right now—and she’s very, very sure she’s going to want to.

Instead, though, Sara just turns away, clearing her thoughts, going to a battered dresser and pulling out a blue T-shirt in approximately the right size, which she tosses his way without looking. “If you want,” she says, staring briefly at the cabinet and thinking of the tracery of pale scars before turning around. “Just…if you want.”

When she does turn around, Leonard has pulled the shirt on, giving her a brief smile as he reaches for a carton of kung pao chicken. So Sara smiles too, and grabs another container, and that’s enough seriousness for now.

“What are we going to do about Druce?”

Haircut’s voice is low and serious. Mick looks up from his typewriter, ready to protest this intrusion into his quarters, then sighs at the look on the other man’s face.

He’s changed, he thinks. Snart wouldn’t…won’t recognize him. But he knows, he knows how Haircut’s feeling, given that Snart had ultimately taken his place and his death. (Mick’s place. Mick’s death.)

“We kill him,” he says shortly. “One way or another. I don’t care what Bureau Chick says. He’s trouble. More than trouble. Disaster.”

Ray perches gingerly on one of Mick’s chairs. “You think Sara will be OK with that?”

“Don’t care.” But Mick sighs. Haircut is the last one, besides Sara, who really gets this. “Well,” he says, taking his glasses off and putting them aside, rubbing his forehead, “yeah, I do.” They’re the only three original Legends left, he thinks with a pang. He hadn’t really wanted to come on this wild ride—that’d been Snart, and he’s still not sure ultimately why—but he had, and he’d changed, and that was how it was.

“I think…” he says, choosing his words carefully—and that’s a big difference too, a huge one, “I think that Sara’s gonna want to do the killing herself. An’ if anything, we might have to stop her from doing it too messy.”

Haircut blinks at him. “But,” he says slowly, “the Bureau…”

“Won’t matter.” Mick hesitates again. This ain’t his story to tell, not really. And frankly, he’d only put a lot of pieces together afterward.

“Won’t matter,” he repeats, looking down at the keys. “Blondie’s gonna want to off him herself. You’ll see.”

Leonard, after eating a fairly decent amount of spicy chicken, has put his head back against the armchair and closed his eyes. Sara watches him for a while, still amazed at his presence, but eventually rises and moves quietly into the space that passes for the bedroom.

She rather wishes that there’s more than just a mattress on a rudimentary frame there, but it’s a king, and it’s comfortable, and that will have to do. She grabs clean sheets and makes it up, adding pillows and an old but soft quilt, then goes back to the main area.

Leonard opens an eye and regards her as she approaches him, but Sara can see the weariness in his face. How long has it been since he’s had a decent night’s sleep? Does the time in the Oculus even count? It certainly doesn’t seem, from the little he’d said, that it was very restful.

“There’s a bed…well, a mattress, in the other room,” she says, jerking her head in that direction. “Not much, but comfortable. I’ll stay on the couch. Sleep as long as you want.”

Leonard opens his other eye, watching her, then gets to his feet, moving in a way that shows Sara just how stiff and sore he is. He hesitates, then glances toward her, then away again.

“I…wouldn’t mind having someone nearby,” he mutters, not looking at her, “I mean, there. In the same room.” A pause, and he wipes a hand over his face while Sara realizes he must mean in the same bed, too. “It was…I couldn’t tell how long it was, in the Oculus, but it was kinda like…maybe sensory deprivation. Sometimes I wake up, and I still…”

He pauses another moment, then gives a thoroughly humorless laugh. “What’d you say? More than three years ago now?” Another pause. “Lonely. Like everyone I….everyone was a million miles away.”

He lifts his gaze and meets her eyes. “I’m not talking about…more, just…stay? I…please.”

It’s a plea, from a man who’s always made a practice of being cool and needing no one. Sara pauses just a moment, then nods.

“Sure,” she says, just as quietly. “Of course I will.”

#captain canary #legends of tomorrow #LOT fic #sara x leonard #I Don't Believe in Destiny

7 notes · View notes

stillthewordgirl · 5 years

Text

LOT/CC fic: In This Life

In one Earth, Rip didn't time-scatter the Legends--he sent the Waverider spinning through the multiverse, damaged, its crew trying to find a way home. And when that Earth's Sara and Leonard approach another Earth's Waverider, they'll find out just what a life and a destiny can turn on.

This is a one-shot (probably) and I'm not even sure where it came from. My tendency to "what-if," I suppose! Just bear in mind that the Earth this starts out in is not canon-Legends Earth (which I suppose becomes apparent very soon).

Many thanks to LarielRomeniel, who kept me from making a rather big goof!

Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

Sara can’t sleep.

That’s not so unusual, really. She doesn’t need much rest, hasn’t since the League—both times. And all this bouncing around through different Earths and timelines has her internal clock even more screwed up than usual. (Damnit, Rip.)

Those are good reasons for why she finds herself wandering the corridors while everyone else is sleeping and the ship hurtles through the timestream and—well, whatever they should call the space between Earths. Excellent reasons, really. But they’re not the real reasons, and she knows it, and—as she steps into the doorway of the galley and stops—she knows she’s not alone in that.

Leonard glances up from where he’s sitting at the counter, no surprise at all in his expression or his eyes. He has a still mostly full drink in front of him, and his right sleeve is rolled up to his shoulder, exposing both his upper arm and the prosthesis that had taken the place of his right hand, wrist and forearm after he’d frozen (and smashed) it off.

Sara can tell that he’s been rubbing the muscles in the upper arm—the prosthesis, created by Gideon, is a good one, far beyond what’s commonly available back in 2016, but it’s still taking a lot of getting used to. And there’s still pain, both phantom and in the nerves and muscles remaining as they grow more accustomed to the new setup. (The nerve reconnections in particular had been excruciating.)

So, he’s rather more exposed than usual, but he doesn’t flinch as they meet each other’s eyes. Sara allows herself a small smile for that as she moves slowly into the room and toward him.

They’re both thinking about what happened earlier in the day, after they’d realized where their most recent jump through Earths had taken them—and after they’d left the ship to approach the other Waverider. How could they not? Sara doesn’t fully know what the other Mick had told Leonard, but she knows what the other Sara had let slip to her. Which may have been more than the other woman had intended.

But... “Hey,” is all she says, moving past him to take a seat, swiveling toward him. “Couldn’t sleep?”

That gets her a wry smirk and a left-shouldered shrug. “Nah,” Leonard drawls in return, fingers continuing to idly rub at the muscles of his bicep. “Too much weirdness today.” A pause. “Brain wouldn’t shut off.”

And that’s the sort of moment of honesty that they do now. Sara sighs in return. “Ain’t that the truth,” she mutters, then edges her own seat a little closer, stretching out an arm along the table toward where his arm is propped. “Let me.”

Leonard only pauses a moment before pulling his own hand away and edging a little closer himself. Sara can hear his nearly inaudible exhalation as she gently starts kneading the muscles right above his elbow, bringing her other hand up to cup his elbow where it rests. This puts them rather more in each other’s space than usual, but it’s not the first time. He knows she can help him here. She’s done it before.

She wonders again why he hadn’t made a move since before the Oculus. The attraction’s there; it’s never gone away. She can feel it in the way he’s holding himself, the way he’s breathing. And after what the other Sara had said...

Abruptly, she moves her left hand away from his elbow and toward the drink that’s still sitting there, letting her right hand continue to work. A long drink—it’s the good scotch; Rob Ray must have given Rip a lot of booze—and it’s a good quarter of the way gone. Leonard lifts an eyebrow, and Sara promptly extends the glass to him. He brings his own left arm up and around to take it, and she tries not to watch the muscles in his throat work as he takes his own long drink.

He passes it back to her rather than try to reach over to the counter, and Sara takes another, quicker drink before setting it down again. Just in time, because Leonard’s apparently decided it’s time to talk.

“So,” he drawls, transferring his gaze back. “She tell you how I died?” He pauses as Sara stares at him. “Well. Other me. That Earth’s me.”

She’d figured he’d known, considering... “Mick...the other Mick...didn’t tell you?”

“Nope.” Leonard tilts his head, watching her. “Actually, he didn’t even tell me I was dead there. Wasn’t hard to figure out, though.”

“No.” Sara’s counterpart, emerging from that Waverider with that Earth’s Mick as Sara had left her Waverider with Leonard, had stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the crook like she’d seen a ghost. So had that Mick.

She’s quiet for a few more moments and Leonard doesn’t interrupt that quiet. He gets it. He always has. Finally, though, Sara sighs, shaking her head, and meets his eyes.

“You...he...died at the Oculus,” she says, aware that her hand has tightened around his arm. “In that Mick’s place.”

A moment of quiet. Then: “Ouch.”

“Yeah.” Sara looks down at the prosthesis even as Leonard does the same. “The regeneration tech on that Waverider hadn’t been damaged there. After...after Chronos...Gideon was able to reconstruct your arm, and...”

“...and when I… he… got to the Oculus, he couldn’t lock it in place, disconnect, and run.”

“No.”

After a moment, an odd noise emerges from him, a huff of mingled amusement and something else. “Silver linings, huh?” Leonard mutters, looking downward, running his fingers over the site where the prosthesis is locked to the area just under his elbow joint.

Sara knows he’s been a little bitter about the loss of his arm. It would be, she thinks, hard not to be, even though the complicated relationship he has with Mick has settled somewhat. On one level, he considers it only his deserved penance for his role in what Mick endured as Chronos. On another level, he hadn’t had much of a choice at the time...and so much of his identity had been tied up in his role as a master thief. Better than Lewis. Better than anyone.

Sara gets that. Gets it on a level that maybe the others, including Mick, never will. Leonard’s said it himself: he’s the crook, she’s the assassin. Except now she’s the captain, and she’s still getting used to that, too.

She moves her hand downward, to rest over his, tracing the line between surprisingly soft skin and uncannily skin-like plastic, listening to another quick intake of breath. The prosthesis is really an astounding bit of engineering, and it uses his own nerves and muscle movements to work. In a way, Leonard can even “feel” with it, and he’s been regaining dexterity in wrist and fingers as time goes on.

It’s not the same. It will never be the same.

But without it, he wouldn’t be here.

Sara glances up again, nearly startled into an intake of breath of her own as she realizes just how close they are, and how intently Leonard’s own blue eyes are studying her own.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asks, before she can think better of it.

His lips twitch a little. “Shoot.”

Spit it out, Sara. “Why didn’t you ever pick up the whole...’me and you’ thing again? I know you’re a hell of a thief.”

Leonard stills, eyes still boring into hers, and Sara immediately figures she’s made a mistake. She glances away, although she doesn’t pull away—Leonard’s already sensitive enough to his arm and the reactions of others for her to do that.

“That other Sara,” she adds quickly in explanation. “She has a lot of regrets. It’s been longer for them than it’s been for us, and I’m pretty sure the other you is only one of those regrets, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t react...kind of badly...to seeing you. She asked...well. She wondered. When she was getting me the info from their Gideon’s files that we needed.”

“You and Snart. Your Snart. Are you...together?”

“We’re friends.”

“Friends.” The other woman laughs, a noise that holds so much that Sara doesn’t even try to parse it out. “Friends are...good. If that’s what you want.” She pauses. “Is it?”

Leonard’s voice jolts Sara out of the memory.

“I guess...there never seemed to be time,” he says as she looks back up at him. “The right time.” A snort. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

Sara thinks about Laurel. About Savage. About Rex Tyler and the Justice Society. “Not in particular.”

Leonard continues, though, quietly. “And, perhaps it...occurred to me...just how badly I’d fucked up,” he says, glancing away. “After the team was captured.” His eyes move back to hers. “I regret that.”

The quiet stretches, and Sara allows herself a moment of relief that the rest of the team is sleeping as she considers how to play this. “You were a jerk,” she says finally. “But...you’ve made up for it.”

That gets a noise of somewhat more sincere amusement. “How? Showing up in Star City and nearly getting arrested by your dad? Turning Savage into a psycho-sicle before you shattered him? Nearly instigating a battle with the Justice Society of America?”

Sara can’t help a smile in return. But he doesn’t seem to be quite getting what she’s trying to say, and somehow, it’s become very important to her. More important than she’d ever realized before hearing her other-Earth doppelganger tell her what’d happened to him in the other world.

“I can’t imagine being the captain of this batch of weirdoes without you,” she tells him abruptly. “I don’t want to think about you not having my back. And I don’t want to lose that. But...”

Her voice trails off. Leonard tilts his head, but Sara’s suddenly at a loss. There’s too much here. Too much to lose. Too much to gain. She closes her eyes, dragging in a breath, remembering the older Sara and the look on her face. A few too many losses, she’d guess. Who were they? And will those be coming for her? Will...

“Sara.”

Leonard sounds even closer. Sara opens her eyes, blinking as she realizes just how close he is, registering the touch as his left hand comes up under her jaw and...

Oh. OK. Yes, he’s a hell of a thief.

And a hell of a kisser.

She closes her eyes again nearly immediately, leaning into the kiss as his fingers curl under her jaw and things start to heat up. The kiss is gentle, very gentle, at first, his lips softer than expected on hers, but as Sara responds, she can feel the subtle hesitation fading away, taken over by passion as they mutually deepen the kiss.

The fingers of Sara’s free hand come up and wrap around the collar of Leonard’s shirt as his teeth scrape against her bottom lip and she moans, then mock-glares at him as he chuckles. Then they’re right back to it, making up for wasted time, tasting and exploring and fairly well forgetting that they’re actually right out in the open there in the galley.

Without much clear thought, then, Sara shifts right off her own chair and into Leonard’s lap, straddling him and wrapping both arms around his shoulders to hold him close. Leonard moves his right hand-prosthesis to her hip almost involuntarily and Sara shudders as the fingertips brush the stripe of skin between her yoga pants and shirt.

He freezes, then pulls away from the continued kiss with a huff of breath. It takes Sara a moment to realize why, but when she does, she reaches down to put a hand over his, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Don’t you dare.”

“It’s not...”

“It’s just fine. It wasn’t a bad thing, Len. And even if it did bother me—which it doesn’t—if it weren’t for that, you’d be...you wouldn’t be here.” She shifts a little more, grinning as it draws a groan from his own lips. “Now, stop overthinking it and kiss me some more.”

And he does.

On Earth-1

“You think they pulled their heads outta their asses yet?”

Sara glances up from her seat, pulling her gaze away from the glass of scotch in her hand and eyeing Mick for a moment where he’s paused in the doorway.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says idly, transferring her gaze back to the glass and then taking a drink.

He doesn’t buy it. Of course he doesn’t. Sara hears an amused snort, but doesn’t look up again as Mick crosses the office, pours his own drink and moves back to plop into the chair on the other side of the desk. (The springs creak. One of these days, she thinks, he’s going to break it.)

“That Sara was giving that Snart quite the side-eye as they left, and not in a bad way,” he informs her, then pauses. “You tell her? How he died? Here?”

This Sara really doesn’t want to have this conversation. Not now. Probably not ever. But she owes it to Mick to give him someone to talk to about it. God knows she hasn’t been good at that in the past.

“I did. While I was copying the files their Gideon needed.” She had, in part, wanted to distract that Sara from asking who else was no longer on the ship. She takes another drink. “It wasn’t all that long ago. For them.”

“Mmph.” Mick’s quiet a long moment. Then he sighs, a melancholy tone that hurts Sara’s heart. But he doesn’t speak again and they drink a while in silence.

Finally, though, Sara decides she needs to bring it up. “You realize why that one didn’t?” She clarifies as he glances up at her. “Why that Snart didn’t die?”

Quiet. Then, quietly, “yeah.”

Someday, Sara thinks, it might help him to know that the actions he still regrets as Chronos actually led to Leonard living, at least on one Earth out there.

Today is probably not that day.

Still. Someday. And maybe it will help the Mick on that Earth mend fences, as well.

“Life,” she tells Mick with a sigh, lifting her glass in a toast, “is weird.”

That gets a grunt of amusement. He lifts his glass back to her.

“Ain't that the truth.”

#captain canary #legends of tomorrow #sara x leonard #platonic coldwave

9 notes · View notes

stillthewordgirl · 6 years

Text

LOT/CC fic: A Million Miles Away

One moment Leonard Snart has accepted death at the Oculus...and the next, he's back on the Waverider, disoriented and alive after all. But a lot of time has passed for everyone but him, and a lot of things have changed. Prequel to "Me vs. You."

After I wrote "Me vs. You," I couldn't get that version of the characters out of my head. So I wrote a prequel. (OK, two prequels. I'll post the other one in a few days.) Thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

Can be read here at AO3.

Sara had been right.

It is lonely.

Oh, maybe he’s not dead yet, but his hands are numb and the rest of him is starting to follow. Leonard stares into the surging blue energy of the Oculus Wellspring, trying to keep his mind empty of anything that might make him regret this decision more than he already is. If those energy waves are hazardous—and knowing the Time Bastards, they probably are—he’s already gotten a good dose of them, and it’d probably be too late even if he wasn’t determined to stay here and blow this damned thing up.

He can still feel Sara’s kiss on his lips, though. It’s stupid and sentimental, but he hopes the explosion happens quickly enough that he can still feel it when he...

There’s a noise in the echoing wellspring chamber, and he jerks his head around, relieved when it’s just a new batch of the Time Bastards’ soldiers and one, he thinks, of the No. 1 Time Bastards themselves. Not Mick, not Sara, not anyone he cares about keeping from this train wreck he’s dedicated himself to causing.

Train wreck. Lisa, I’m sorry.

“Shut it down!” the No. 1 Time Bastard yells. All the soldiers have their weapons trained on Leonard, but no one’s shooting. Maybe a shot would set things off? He tries to make his hand grip the failsafe a little tighter, just in case. The energy is surging, blue waves clouding his vision.

It is, he thinks, nearly time.

What’s it like? Dying?

What’d you feel?

Leonard turns his head, grimacing, toward the Time Bastard. And for some reason, the only right last words he can think of, the only thing that pops into his head, is from that movie Lisa liked so much when she was little, when she still hoped a Blue Fairy might come into their lives and save them.

Leonard Snart smiles grimly. He grips the failsafe a little harder. And he stares right at the No. 1 Time Bastard.

I guess lonely.

“There are,” he tells Druce, “no strings on me.”

And Leonard gets his wish. He can still feel Sara’s kiss on his lips when the Oculus wellspring explodes, blue light surging around him, energy buffeting him and ripping him away.

Like everybody I loved...

He falls into the wellspring, barely conscious, or is he conscious at all? Because the blue light is all he can see. He can’t feel anything. Not pain nor fear, not anger nor regret.

...was a million miles...

Well, maybe regret.

Away.

Something tugs on his arm.

Leonard frowns, turning his head. Blue light flickers through his eyelids, and he squints against it. What...

Tug. Tug.

His hands are still numb, but he tries to jerk his arm away, disoriented and a little annoyed. He’d been falling, he thinks, but he’s not now, and...

Thud!

He lands on something hard and cold, his shoulder smarting from the impact, his cheekbone glancing painfully off something metal. He growls in irritation, ripping his arm away from whoever’s yanked on it, struggling to sit up and get his bearings as the glare of blue light fades slowly from his vision and he becomes aware of a buzz of voices.

Panic surges, and he lurches away. Have the Time Bastards found a way to rip him away before the explosion after all? He thought the explosion had already happened...but then he’d be dead, dying alone, not whole and relatively unhurt, blinking up at a group of people he doesn’t recognize as his vision returns.

They don’t look like Time Bastards.

“Here, mate.” The blond in the trench coat and red tie offers him a hand. “You’ve been through it, haven’t you?”

“Careful!” the man next to him cautions, a worried look on his face. “I told you what he did to Amaya...” The woman next to him throws him a doubtful glance, while the other woman frowns.

“Who the hell’s Amaya?” Leonard snarls at him, but then his attention’s caught by motion to his other side, and he recoils a little at the sight of two figures, one in what almost seems to be a spacesuit.

The other is…in the ATOM suit?

The one on the left gets its helmet off first, and Leonard feels the bottom dropping out of his stomach as he freezes, staring.

Mick Rory gapes back at him for a moment before barking. “Gideon? Is this real Snart?”

Leonard barely hears him, or the response. He’s on the ship. And Mick’s here, Mick’s alive, thank god, so he’d made it out of the explosion zone, but there was one more person there when Leonard took the Oculus and...

“Where’s Sara?” he says, surging to his feet and stumbling. His feet and legs are numb.

“On the bridge.” Another familiar voice. The second suited igure is holding its helmet now--and it’s Raymond, of course. But who the hell are who the rest of these people? Leonard gives them a wary look, abruptly cognizant that he’s on the floor just inside the Waverider’s main hatch.

Which means the bridge is...

Stumbling again, he turns and heads down the corridor, heading for the bridge. He thinks.

“Mr. Snart!” Gideon’s voice rises over the chorus of other voices that seem to be telling him to stop. “You should get to medbay. I’m not certain what the effects of long-term exposure to the timestream...”

He ignores her, grimly, barely hearing the words, or at least not fully registering them. “Gideon? Am I going in the right direction?”

“Yes, but...”

Then someone’s in front of him, and Leonard blinks up at Mick, who’s still wearing part of his spacesuit and staring at his partner. The look on Mick’s face is...

And as weird and disorienting as this whole thing has been, that’s Leonard’s first clear sign that it’s even odder than he thinks.

“It’s really you.” Mick stares, then shakes his head. “It’s you. Not a...a hallucination. Not old you. Not Leo. You.”

Leonard frowns at him. “Leo? What...”

But Mick’s done something really weird now. He’s stepped forward and enveloped his oldest friend in a bear hug, squeezing enough that Leonard feels his breath wheezing out of his lungs. Mick smells like smoke and sweat and beer, just like normal, but his action is so unexpected and out of character that Leonard just stands there in stunned silence until his friend releases him and takes a step back, a thoroughly un-Mick-like smile on his face.

“What the hell?” he asks, conversationally, turning his head as the Boy Scout runs up beside them. Raymond looks like he wants a hug too, but Leonard holds up a hand, and he stops.

The other two men exchange a glance.

“Snart,” Raymond says quietly. “How long did you think it was? That you were gone?”

The words don’t make sense. Leonard frowns at him, then at Mick, whose smile is laced with (also un-Mick-like) consideration now.

“The goddamned Oculus just exploded,” he says, waving a hand back toward the hatch. “How did you get me out of there? Is S...is everyone else all right?”

He takes a step toward the bridge again. Raymond steps in front of him and reaches out to rest his hands on Leonard’s shoulders. But before Leonard can slug him and remove the offending appendages from his person, he speaks again.

“Snart,” he says gently. “It’s been three years since the Oculus exploded.”

Leonard stares at him. “What?”

“He’s right,” Mick says in a low voice, looking down. There’s pain in his voice, and now Leonard hears it. “Been a long time, Snart.”

The idea doesn’t compute. “Three years.”

“Yeah.” Raymond gives him a rueful little smile. “We all thought you were dead.” He glances at Mick. “Until the Time Bureau got a reading showing very dramatic temporal fluctuations in this region and asked us to check it out. And we found you just...floating...there. Mick and I went out to pull you onboard.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is.” Raymond looks sympathetic, but stubborn. “But if you won’t listen to us...” He raises his voice. “Gideon?”

“Mr. Snart, they are correct.” If Leonard didn’t know better, he’d think the AI’s voice had its own share of pain layered underneath the computerized tones. “You were presumed dead in the Oculus explosion. Which was very nearly three years ago as of today.”

Three years.

It’s too much to process. Leonard holds very still, staring down the hallway toward the bridge.

“Savage?” he asks after a moment.

Mick makes a noise of satisfaction. “Dead,” he says. “Real dead.” He frowns at Leonard glances at him. “Didn’t save Hunter’s family, though. And he’s dead too.”

“Sara’s the captain now,” Raymond cuts in as Leonard digests the blunt words. “She’s a good one.”

“Of course she is,” Leonard murmurs. Three years. And he’d never stolen a kiss. He doesn’t want to think about that—but there are some familiar faces he’s neither seen nor heard mentioned. “The professor? The kid? Kendra?”

Raymond and Mick exchange glances. “Stein died,” Raymond says quietly. “In...well. We’ve got a lot to tell you. Jax is OK. He went back to Central City. And Kendra left with Carter. He, uh, got his memory back.”

“Sorry to hear that. About the professor.” And he is. He takes another step, still heading for the bridge, Mick and Raymond falling in on either side of him. “Anything else I should know about?”

They exchange another glance over his head. Leonard’s not sure how he feels about that. “Well, you blew up the Time Bastards,” Mick rumbles. “But now there’s the Time Bureau. They’re the good guys. That’s what they tell us, anyway.”

“Bureau. Sounds…annoying.”

“You have no idea,” Raymond tells him fervently. “But we’ve got a sort of…détente. We work together. And…ah…”

“Blondie was playin’ house with their director.” Mick’s words are harsh, blunt, with the air of ripping off a bandage. Leonard stops in his tracks, looking at his friend, who regards him steadily. “Real serious, like.”

He hadn’t thought Mick knew about his…his feelings for Sara. He’s not even sure what sort of name to put to them, really. But he does know, as he stares at Mick, that there’s a pit of sorts somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach, and a hope he hadn’t even know was stirring again is starting to fold up and die.

“Don’t know what happened there. They ain’t living together anymore, but I don’t know that they’re done, either.” Mick pauses. “Uh. Don’t know that you and her…the director lady…”

“Ava Sharpe,” Raymond interjects helpfully. “Yeah, Snart, I don’t think you’ll be a fan.” He continues obliviously. “She wasn’t a big fan of the Legends until she hooked up with Sara. Don’t really know if she really is now. She’s really big on rules.”

Leonard gives Mick a look he’s pretty sure is equal parts aghast and disbelieving. Maybe with a slight side order of…

Hurt? Heartbreak? He shies away from those terms, already packing the old ice in around his heart. If he even wants to admit he has one….

And then that ice shatters.

“Leonard?”

It’s like some stupid movie cliché, like one of those ridiculous rom-coms Lisa likes. He looks up and there’s Sara, at the end of the hall, staring back at him like she can’t believe her eyes.

She looks amazing. Not so different, really…maybe there’s something different with her hair, maybe there’s now a line or two around her eyes. But there’s something indefinable there, too, like she’s easier in her skin, like she’s made her peace with her past, and it’s just a part of her now.

The lost assassin is found. Or it’s just that she’s found her place, there in the captain’s chair of the Waverider.

Leonard takes a step toward her; he can’t help it. Then another. And…

“Sara!”

There’s another blond woman in the hallway suddenly, appearing behind Sara but moving to her side, giving her an odd glance before looking toward Leonard, Mick and Raymond. She’s wearing a blue suit, and her hair is pulled back, and every instinct Leonard has tells him this is not someone to cross. The air of competence and badassery is really rather like Sara’s—but something else about her (a certain sense of rigidity, of official authority) is rather definitely not.

Sara blinks, looking at the other woman…who’s set a hand on her arm. A rather proprietary hand, if Leonard’s any judge. He starts to bristle, stuffs it down. He has no right. He never did.

Sara seems to sense Leonard’s abortive movement, looking back at him.

“Ava,” she says, looking a little sheepish. “We found the cause of your temporal fluctuations.” She nods toward Leonard, who thinks he’s feeling even more disoriented now than he felt before. “This is Leonard…”

“…Snart.” The other woman—Ava—finishes, staring. The disbelief on her face has started to morph into something else, and Leonard has started to feel like maybe he should get out of here. “The thief. The villain. The man who murdered the Time Masters.”

Sara whirls. “What? No…”

But Ava is advancing toward him. “Leonard Snart,” she says grimly, “I’m taking you into custody. For questioning about the destruction of the Vanishing Point.”

Leonard stares at her. “Ex-cuse me?” he manages.

Raymond and Mick both start talking at once, and Sara, shaking her head in disbelief, moves in front of the other woman, holding out her hands.

“Leonard is a hero,” she says firmly, and Leonard both winces at the word and feels gratified at the support. “He freed time. Didn’t Rip tell you what the Time Masters did? We had to undo their crap to defeat Savage, for free will.”

Ava stops, looking at Sara, and Leonard supposes he should be grateful that there’s enough trust there, at least, that she listens. She glances back at Leonard, and he can see the conflict in her eyes.

“Director Hunter just told us to keep an eye open for him, about what he did,” she tells Sara. “He told us the Vanishing Point exploded, because of him,” she jerks her head at Leonard, “and we were the heirs to the Time Masters, because someone had to protect time.”

Mick snorts. “Good ol’ Rip,” he says, “always leavin’ shit out.”

Ava bristles at him, but Raymond steps forward, between her and Leonard, and damn it, he’s grateful for the Boy Scout now, because Raymond’s posture is both determined and protective.

“We were all part of that too,” he tells the Time Bureau director staunchly. “Mick, me, Sara.” He points at Leonard. “He’s just the one who held down the failsafe and, we thought, lost his life because of it.” He looked thoughtful. “I mean, hell, I was holding it first. Then Mick knocked me out. Then Leonard knocked him out. Sara didn’t knock anyone out. This time.”

Ava Sharpe looks like Raymond’s giving her a headache. Leonard feels some satisfaction—along with an unwilling rush of sympathy. But Raymond’s continuing, glancing at Mick, who’s nodding in agreement.

“Anyway, if you’re going to blame someone, going to arrest someone, you’ll have to arrest us all,” he says. “We were all part of it.”

“He’s right,” Sara jumps in quietly. “And Rip apparently didn’t tell you that it was his plan. To blow up the Oculus.” She nods as the other woman looks at her. “The Time Masters were as corrupt as hell. It had to be done. Or Vandal Savage would still be on course to take over the world and we’d all be dead.”

“Or worse,” mutters Mick, but only Leonard and Raymond hear him.

“Rip probably wanted you to keep your eyes out for him for another reason,” Sara continues, looking at Leonard, then away. “Probably…he suspected Leonard wasn’t…dead.”

“If he did, can we bring ‘im back and kill ‘im again?” Mick asks, but Raymond hushes him.

Whatever there is between them, this Ava trusts Sara enough that she believes her. Leonard can almost see the instant her ire turns from Leonard himself to the absent and presumed deceased Rip.

“Damn it,” she says under her breath, then turns her gaze back on Leonard. He never learns what she would have said, though, because at that point, Sara reaches out and touches her elbow, and her attention wavers back to the captain.

“Come on,” Sara says, her own attention now thoroughly off Leonard. “I’ll tell you the whole…” The pause is so tiny that Leonard thinks that only he hears it, or maybe it’s just his imagination. “… the story.” She glances back at them. “Listen to Gideon,” she says quietly. “Medbay’s probably a good idea.”

And then she’s gone, heading back to the bridge side by side with Ava, and Leonard can’t help feeling like she’s walking right back out of his life again, any furtive chance he had gone before it could be realized, or maybe it never existed at all. And he’s not the sort to hold that against someone, he really isn’t, but he…he has whiplash.

It was only an hour or so ago she’d challenged him to steal a kiss.

And only minutes ago that she’d kissed him.

He can’t feel that kiss anymore.

“You OK, boss?” Mick asks quietly, and even Raymond’s just watching quietly, seeming to understand that there are more things going on here than he realizes.

Leonard Snart drags in a breath. He lets it out slowly. He’s alive. Ten minutes ago, he’d known he was going to die. He has a second chance at life.

Three years.

And he has no idea what to do with it.

“Peachy.”

#rebuilding bridges #captain canary #leonard snart #sara lance #legends of tomorrow

9 notes · View notes