#jenna's involvement with the Popular Kids is interesting because she's certainly not a part of them but she affects their dynamic so much

[robininthelabyrinth]

Countless Roads - Chapter 26

Fic: Countless Roads - Chapter 26 - Ao3

Fandom: Flash, Legends Pairing: Gen, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, others

Summary: Due to a family curse (which some call a gift), Leonard Snart has more life than he knows what to do with – and that gives him the ability to see, speak to, and even share with the various ghosts that are always surrounding him.

Sure, said curse also means he’s going to die sooner rather than later, just like his mother, but in the meantime Len has no intention of letting superheroes, time travelers, a surprisingly charming pyromaniac, and a lot of ghosts get in the way of him having a nice, successful career as a professional thief.

———————————————————————————

"This is worse than cars," Mick grumbles. He looks ill.

It takes a really special something to give a ghost an upset stomach.

The Waverider is precisely that special something, apparently.

Time travel sucks.

Somehow, that detail never really seemed to get that much attention in any of the sci-fi films Len watched.

They arrive in the 1970s, which is a little disappointing - all of history, and they go to a time within Len's living memory, if admittedly just barely? - and deal with some side-effects like numbness or linguistic confusion (another overlooked detail). Hunter announces their target for the moment – some professor who supposedly will have information to lead them to the bad guy they're hunting – and then promptly ditches Len, Mick, and Sara.

“This mission doesn’t require your particular skill set,” Hunter says, then, thinking better of it, adds an ominous, “Yet.”

“Meaning you don’t need anyone killed, maimed or robbed,” Len says, unimpressed.

“Precisely,” Hunter sniffs.

“Sure it’s a good idea to leave these two unsupervised on a time machine?” the tall guy asks.

“Hey, haircut,” Mick snaps. “Deafness wasn’t one of the side effects.”

“We need to hurry,” Hunter says. “Professor Boardman will die in less than 24 hours.”

“Why cut it so close?” Carter asks.

“Because if he's destined to die, then he doesn't have a timeline for us to disrupt, and whatever impact our involvement now will have on the future will be minimal,” Hunter explains. “You see, time wants to happen – that’s what makes our fight against Savage so difficult. This man’s death occurs, and will likely still occur, regardless of any interaction we have with him.”

“Brilliant, if somewhat depressing,” Stein comments. “Jefferson, are you coming?”

"I'm not going anywhere," Jax says, still looking queasy from the flight. "Grey, next time we take off? Roofie me first."

"I would never," Stein says, but he's beaming. "I can scarcely believe it – we're in 1975 once more!"

"Maybe they're faking it," Len suggests. "Like the moon landing."

"The moon landing wasn't faked, Mr. Snart," Hunter says officiously, even as Stein and Jax are rolling their eyes. It's an in-joke to the time someone suggested as much to Caitlin and she spent the next three days in 'someone is wrong on the internet and I need to tell them in excruciating detail why' mode, which naturally meant that everything fake in Central City from American cheese to teenage pop singer vocals was now immediately compared to the moon landing. It wasn’t a comment meant for Hunter, something the man chooses to ignore entirely – if he’d even noticed. He seems rather self-involved. Len wishes that the time ship wasn't ghost-repellant - he'd love to find out more about Hunter, and where better than from his ghosts? "Now, shall we be on our way?"

They leave. Len promptly starts to snoop around the time ship, while Mick finds the television. "Oh," he says wryly. "Reruns."

Len rolls his eyes. For someone who lived through parts of the ‘70s more or less glued to the TV after they constructed the juvie, Mick really has no room to complain.

"Am I the only one on this ship who could really use a drink?” Sara asks after a few minutes, still looking slightly confused by how she keeps drifting over to stand by Len. “I say we go get weird in the '70s.”

"Snart's the freakiest thing here," Mick says. "But I'm game for a drink."

“Excellent idea,” Len says. Beats sitting around on a shelf until Hunter decides to use them, that’s for sure.

"Yeeeah, I'm not legal yet," Jax says.

"Live on the wild side, kid," Sara tells him. "No one's gonna card you."

Behind her back, Len mimes making a telephone call, then draws a finger across his throat. He’s met Jenna. He knows better. She'll find out, somehow.

"My mom will literally teleport through time and space to find me in the act," Jax says, confirming Len’s suspicions. "And then rip my head off. No, thanks. I’m only a few months from legal anyway."

"Your loss."

Len's a bit wary heading out into the past on his own, with only Mick at his side, but everything seems fine – he can hear the ghosts, same as always, buzzing about, and the first unquiet dead that starts sidling over takes one look at Mick and splits. Just like old times.

Besides, turns out the ‘70s isn't really all that different from what Len recalls the ‘80s to be.

Len and Mick follow Sara to a bar, which she finds with the instincts of a drunk sorority girl – which is to say, within ten minutes and with stunning accuracy at finding incredibly cheap alcohol.

"Dollar beers," Mick says approvingly. “You gotta love the ‘70s.” Then he spots a jukebox and his eyes light up.

Len braces himself.

“Who wants to listen to some Captain and Tennille?” Mick asks innocently. “I heard it played when I grew up. A lot.”

Len glares. That had been a very specific period in his life, damnit.

Pity jukeboxes never have any good ‘30s music to torment Mick with.

"Hey, Leonard," Sara says. "Wanna dance?"

"You go right ahead," he says, waving a hand. “I'll watch.”

It's as good an excuse as any to stare at the holes in her, for lack of a better term. The medium that brought her back did a good job – it's definitely her body, that much is evident from the slick and confident way she moves – but whatever technique brought her back to life didn't make for a perfect match between body and soul.

He wonders what she uses to fill those gaps. Bloodshed or sex are the most likely, though food or attention could do it for some. He doubts it for her, though. Some combination, perhaps?

It occurs to him that failed – or partially-failed – medium resurrections could very well be the original source of the vampire myth.

It's an interesting line of thought, sadly interrupted by the bar fight Sara promptly gets into.

She can definitely hold her own, though. Badass. Len approves.

"Now," she says, studying the gang approaching her, "I could do with a hand."

Len takes the polite gesture – she most certainly does not need a hand, not against this few, based on how easily she was disposing of the first few – in the spirit in which it's meant, and he nods, jumping into the fray with Mick by his side.

They're still laughing about it when Len's Cisco-provided comm – currently in his pocket – buzzes.

Len pulls it out, mildly impressed that it still works.

"What's that?" Sara asks.

"Comm link from 2016," Len says. "Jax, that you?"

"Could you guys come back?" Jax asks, aiming for casual and sounding a bit shaken. "We, uh, the Waverider, that is, kinda sorta appear to be under attack."

"Great," Mick says. "I'll pop a car."

As always, Mick drives like a maniac who was born when horses were still more popular a mode of transportation and they were still debating the benefit of regularized speed limits, but Sara seems to enjoy it. Len just holds onto his seatbelt for dear life.

They get there just in time to hit one of the three armored figures, not unlike gussied up storm troopers, attacking the Waverider with what appear to be pulse rifles, not to mention Stein, Rip, the two others and what's probably the professor they went off to investigate.

"We go out for one lousy drink and you guys decided to re-enact Attack of the Clones?" Len drawls as he steps out of the car and charges up his gun. "For shame."

The troopers have very good armor, good enough to resist Len's cold gun, but Len's used to being at a disadvantage, and they aren't expecting him to ice the ground under their feet so that they slip.

And, of course, no one, armor or not, likes to be downstream of Mick's heat gun.

Stein makes it to the ship, grabbing Jax and forming Firestorm, and with his help, they're able to cover their retreat into the ship.

"I think we could've taken 'em," Mick growls as they take off.

"In some cases, Mr. Rory, retreat is the wiser course," Hunter says, and takes them off into something he calls the temporal zone.

He's kinda condescending, but whatever.

More important is figuring out why, exactly, soldiers which were obviously from the future are hunting them down.

Hunter has an answer to that, too, but it's not one the heroes on board like.

Turns out they're not Legends. They're nobodies.

And this mission? Totally unauthorized.

Illegal, in fact.

The storm troopers work for Rip Hunter’s old bosses, who turn out are really pissed about Hunter grabbing his ship and running off to go meddle with the timeline against their express instructions.

Mick shoots Len an amused look, which Len returns. Neither of them really put much stock in something being illegal, for obvious reasons, and Len never really did care about his rep outlasting him. Hell, he's just glad he's still alive for the moment – there’s that family history clock ticking down, after all, closer and closer.

Besides, they’re not on this ship to make names for themselves. They're here to have fun.

"Bet you a quarter they pick 'Legends' as a team name," Mick says when they settle down to repair their guns.

"God, no. That'd be dumb."

"You good for it, then?"

"...nah. It's dumb, but it's just these guys' speed of dumb."

Mick snorts in agreement.

"Still feel like we're going the right way?" Len asks.

"Yeah. Definitely."

"Good to know. No ghosts around us here in the time stream –” It’s oddly quiet, which Len doesn’t like since it reminds him of what happened with his dad, even though this quiet feels a lot more natural than that did. More like travelling from the city to the country, a reduced noise level instead of a total muting. It’s still an uncomfortable reminder, but Len’ll be damned if he stops doing anything because of that bastard. “– but the ghosts in the past feel the same."

"Some of them probably are the same, boss. The 70s weren't that long ago."

"Says Mr. Great Depression."

"Please. Mr. Dust Bowl's more precise."

"Either way, old man."

Mick grins, teeth glinting in the low light. "Hope I die before I get old. Oh, wait now..."

Len chuckles.

Rather unsurprisingly, the heroes decide to stay on with the missions. It's Mr. Perky Scientist – Ray Palmer – who first suggests calling themselves Legends.

Len's glad he didn't take that sucker's bet.

And then, for lack of any better ideas, they go to a nuke auction to find Savage.

"There's a lot of restless spirits here," Len comments to Mick as they head into the auction.

"Wouldn't have pegged you for the religious sort, Leonard," Sara says, coming up behind him.

"I'm not," Len says. "I only celebrate two holidays for real – New Years and Atonement Day, and all that's in between."

Her nose wrinkles. She's probably wondering what weird sect of Christian he is, which is of course wrong - people always assume Christian sect before they assume Judaism, which is really just quite sad. It's not important now, though; he'll just correct her later.

To be fair, he is in some weird sect - while everyone Jewish agrees that Atonement Day's the most important day of the year, it's usually Passover after that, but for his family, it's New Year's, and they observe the rest of the holidays more perfunctorily than they probably ought to as good Jews. But New Years and Atonement Day: his mother pressed those two into his head. The New Year, when you start the year afresh, and Atonement Day, the day when all wrongs have the chance to be forgiven if you ask for them from their rightful bearer. Wrongs against your fellow man, from your fellow man. Wrongs against God, from God. The day of the breaking of oaths; the day of confession; the day of the future.

The day God marks down your fate, closing the book of life and the book of death for another year. The book of life, the book of death, the book in-between, and the black book. Len’s family’s own personal mythology.

Len wonders, idly, how Sara's own religion fared when faced with the proof of her death and resurrection.

"It gonna be a problem?" Mick asks, ignoring Sara. He can see the ghosts too. Most ghosts don’t follow people around, not loved ones, not hated ones, nobody; they just drift, often around where they died, sometimes checking in on loved ones but rarely having enough life of their own to actively follow someone. These are not most ghosts. No, these ghosts are of the rarest sort - neither unquiet nor friendly. They are savage. Feral. They can focus on nothing but the men they follow, their killers, and they are distracted by nothing, not even Len with all his life.

Ghosts of revenge. They gather only around the cruelest of mass-murderers, and they’re here in flocks.

Len would not want to be one of the men in this crowd when they finally die, their spirit separating from their body only to be welcomed by the hands of their waiting victims.

"No," he says. "Let's go."

He lifts an invite, but it's Stein's bluffing that gets them in.

It's also Stein's blunder that gets them caught, but hey, you win some, you lose some.

Savage himself is unprepossessing from a physical standpoint, but he feels wrong, too, the way Carter and Kendra do. If they're partially empty containers, like parts of their lives are somewhere else, then he's some sort of a sieve.

His life is cycling like some sort of self-contained waterfall, which Len doesn't even know what that means; he's never seen it before. That must be what Rip Hunter meant by 'immortal'.

From what Len gleaned from the conversations on board, he's using Kendra and Carter as sources to feed his own life.

A bit like Cabrera wanted, with Len's power.

Fucking mediums. Len goes a whole lifetime without them, and now he can't seem to be rid of them.

Mick ends up setting shit on fire and they fight back-to-back, the same way as always, heat gun and cold gun. Firestorm leaps into action, Ray Palmer (Len can't bring himself to call him 'Palmer', he really can't) pulls out a shrinking super-suit, Sara unleashes some ninja moves with some batons, Kendra and Carter sprout hawk-wings – even Hunter pulls out some dinky futuristic six-shooter that goes with lasers.

Not too shabby, even though Hunter yells at them later.

Of course, the yelling not entirely without a purpose: Ray apparently screwed up the timeline by leaving some future tech lying around, which means that Sara leads team go-and-find-it while Len and Mick volunteer for team get-the-magic-dagger-that-will-kill-Savage, which cannot actually be dumber than it sounds but very well might be. It's apparently hidden at some rich Russian's house; should be a nice easy in-and-out snatch job.

Ray insists on going with them.

"He's gonna screw everything up," Mick complains as they walk up to the Russian's house.

"Probably," Len agrees. "No respect for expertise, this ship; making us thieve and babysit."

"You know I'm right here and can hear you, right?" Ray says indignantly.

"We know," Len says. "The question I have for you is: do you think we care?"

Mick snorts.

Ray scowls for a moment, but just as Len thinks they might be digging in past the endless bright optimism into some real personality, his expression clears. "Hey, I know that!"

Len tries to snatch him back, but can't stop him from running straight up to the dummy box.

He groans.

"These people suck," Mick grumbles.

"Fuck it," Len says, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Go get him out. I'm sending a ghost in first."

He hates to do it, especially for thieving – it feels too much like cheating. But it's not fair to be trying to rob a place with a six-foot-something idiotic impediment dragging him down, either.

"You do that." Mick gets up, shaking his head, and goes to ambush the guards confronting Ray.

While Mick entertains himself with that, Len tilts his head back. "Anyone here wanna help?"

Three ghosts pop up almost immediately.

Two women, a guy, all in their twenties.

"Guy in here do for you?" Len asks, jerking his thumb towards the house.

"I got in where I shouldn't," the guy says with a shrug. "I was a housecleaner. My name is Sergey."

"Not for Maureen and me. We just crashed our car," one of the women says.

“Trish!” Maureen exclaims.

"What? It’s true! Anyway, no relation to the guy who owns the place now. This was our old house, though, for a bit."

"Good enough. Anyway: I'm looking for this dagger, Egyptian..."

A few minutes later, Mick finally drags Ray back. Literally drags, with Ray trying unsuccessfully to dig his heels into the ground, which explains what took them so long.

"I said I'm sorry," Ray hisses. "There’s no need to pull me around! But anyway, it's not all bad. We got the guards, right?"

"We?" Mick echoes incredulously. “We got ‘em?”

"Okay, fine, you got them. But I lured them in! That means we can go in and grab the dagger – "

"The guards not doing their rounds will set off alarms," Len says patiently. "As will the actual alarms that the dummy box set off. No. This is a bad job; I don't like doing heists without casing the joint in advance on a good day, and this job is clearly already snake-bit bad luck. No go."

Mick nods his agreement, but Ray puffs up like an angry toad. "Are you kidding? All that about you being thieves extraordinaire, and you just give up at the first sign of trouble?"

"Part of the reason I am a thief extraordinaire, in fact," Len says dryly. "And not, you know, in prison all the time."

"If we don't get the dagger, we won't be able to stop Savage!"

"I never said we wouldn't be getting the dagger," Len says. "I said we wouldn't be going inside to get it."

Ray blinks. "I think I'm lost," he says. "How do you get the dagger without, uh, getting the dagger?"

"Note the pronouns."

"What?"

"He won't be going to get the dagger," Mick rumbles. "Doesn't mean someone won't."

Right on cue, the bushes rustle and Sergey shows up, Trish and Maureen right on his heels. "I have it," Sergey says, beaming and holding out the dagger. He's shining with the life that Len gave him, strength flowing through his limbs. He is justly pleased: the life means he will be able to say his goodbyes to his wife and to tip off the police as to the location of his body, thus ensuring he will receive adequate burial according to the precepts of his religion, which is the thing he desires most.

Then he'll pass on, satisfied. Now that's what Len calls a good deal.

Trish and Maureen are pouting that they weren't the ones to get it first, but they do offer up some pretty necklaces as consolation. They want the life Len gave them to go spook their friends, which Len thinks is a perfectly acceptable reason, if slightly less mature than Sergey’s. Then again, they’re college girls; as Len well knows, they can be more or less serious in nature and these two are clearly fans of the 'less'. "Good, good," Len says, examining them. "That's great, girls."

"You got patsies to do for you?!" Ray exclaims, only for Mick to loudly shush him. He does lower his voice, but still looks indignant. "It's too risky to go yourself, so you send someone else, is that it?"

"While I prefer to do these things myself – basically, yes," Len says. "And it worked, didn't it?"

"And you got the girls to steal for you, too! Ugh, I can't believe you. What happens when they go back in there? Or if he finds out they took them? What'll he do to them?"

"Nothing worse than a car crash," Len says.

"What?"

"Just...never mind. We got the dagger, we got a stash, let's go before the Ruskie who owns them gets home."

Of course, thanks to Ray's earlier fuck up with the dummy box, that doesn't happen. Instead, a positive army of personal bodyguards sweeps into the place, encircling –

"Savage," Mick says. "This must be his house. Of course he'd have the dagger."

"This guy is everywhere," Len grumbles. "How'd he even make it here from the auction so fast?"

"Private jet. Baddies always have 'em," Mick says.

"Hey, I used to have one," Ray says.

"Evil corporatist, huh?" Mick replies. "Knew you weren't that sweet, Haircut."

"Evil –? Wait, no, I didn't – I wasn't -"

"Shut up before my opinion of you drops further."

Len is peering through the bushes. "I think we're gonna need an exit strategy."

"Can't we just call the Waverider?" Ray asks, reaching for his comm link.

"Or we could sneak out and then call them," Len says, snatching his hand. "Thereby not alerting Savage to the fact that it was us lifting the thing and thus maintaining the element of surprise. We'll need a distraction. Mick, burn the house."

"With pleasure."

"That's destruction of property," Ray says, sounding mildly appalled.

Len has so much he could be saying about that, but he settles for "Yeah, Savage's property."

That wipes Ray’s objections away. Len barely keeps from rolling his eyes – Ray clearly subscribes to the 'if it's good, it's good; if it's bad, it's bad' theory of the world, in which arson isn't arson if the guy suffering it is a murderer. Idiot idealists are incredibly dangerous, because they'll smile like puppies before, during, and after murdering you for society's good, because the fact that they're 'heroes' in their own minds makes it okay.

Len makes a mental note not to rely on Ray for anything beyond technical expertise.

He waits until the fire gets big enough to draw attention, then heads out, hissing for Ray to follow. They get back out over the fence by bashing the two guards left to watch the exit over the head, and a bit of scrabbling. Luckily, Ray is pretty tall, which helps them get over the fence - maybe Len was too quick to judge him good for nothing.

"What about Mick?" Ray asks anxiously. "We can't just leave him to Savage."

Len mentally revises his opinion of Ray up a very, very small notch. At least he understands the idea of standing by your team. That counts for a lot, with Len.

"What about Mick?" Mick asks, stepping out of the brush behind Ray.

Ray yelps in surprise, then turns and hugs Mick before Mick can get away.

Len snorts at Mick's horrified expression.

"We have the dagger," he says. "Let's go to a safe zone and call for a lift."

Once they're back on the Waverider, it turns out Team Suit also succeeded in their mission, so history is back on track.

"This dagger is what we'll use to kill Savage," Carter says, picking it up. "We should go immediately."

"He's in his own house surrounded by bodyguards," Len drawls. "How about you keep it in your pants and pick a better ambushing spot? Or do you just really enjoy failure?"

Carter bristles. "I've fought this man for two hundred and eight lifetimes --"

"And see what you've done with it," Len replies. "Dead, dead, dead, and – if I had to guess – dead."

"We defeated him in Central City less than eight months ago!"

"Well, that clearly didn't take," Mick says, slouching further in his chair. "Have you considered letting the lady try?"

Kendra blinks. "Me?"

"Sure, why not? Since your boy-toy here has a string of failures a mile long, you can't possibly do any worse."

She flushes a bit. "I – I mean – I've never killed anybody?"

"Well, from what I gather from bird-brain here, neither has he," Len says.

Carter tries to throw a punch. It's laughably telegraphed.

Len ducks out of the way, knocks his legs out from under him, and kicks him over and steps on his chest. The entire process takes maybe ten seconds.

"Carter!" Kendra exclaims, but she sounds mostly amused.

"If he's on his back, his wings are useless," Len tells her, using his weight to pin Carter. "Have either of you considered, I don't know, practicing a bit?"

"I am the prince of countless armies – " Carter splutters, his face red. "I have lived centuries and fought in more battles than you can even imagine – "

"Sure, in other lifetimes," Len says. "How about this one? You ever do anything other than work out at the gym? You've got no instincts or muscle memory at all from what I can tell."

"Mr. Snart, get off of Mr. Hall this instant," Hunter snaps, sweeping in through the door, jacket fluttering behind him. It looks practiced.

"He wasn't hurting him," Ray objects, which wins him an approving look from Mick.

An idiot, clearly, but a loyal one. That counts for something in their book.

Fine, maybe Ray isn't all bad.

"Regardless, I will not be having such behavior on my ship," Hunter says. "It's unprofessional."

Len steps off. "Thought you said we were the worst team you've ever worked with. And that you were a fugitive from your former bosses. I don't see why that makes you an expert on what's 'professional'."

"Says the thief, Mr. Snart?" Rip shoots back, as if that's a complete answer.

"Yeah," Len says, starting to get annoyed. "A thief, and proud of it. A thief who you recruited, knowing who I am and what I do. If you think I signed up for this mission to be your ace in the hole when you need a pair of light fingers, only to be ridiculed and judged for those same skills the rest of the time, think again."

"Yeah, that shit's got to stop," Sara says from the doorway. "When I agreed to stay, it was so that I could prove myself a hero. Not to be your – or anybody else's – pet killer."

Hunter looks chagrined, but not in the sort of way where he realizes he's been a jackass; instead it's in the sort of way where someone calls you on exactly what you've been planning and makes it sound so bad you realize you're going to have to actually adjust your plans to deal with the objection.

Len doesn’t like it. He’s never minded working with criminals, but he objects to working with rats that treat their crews like pawns to be used or thrown away without so much as a thought to them as actual human beings.

Rip Hunter, it appears, is just that kind of rat.

(A/N: This chapter features Len's thoughts and opinions about the Legends, not necessarily accurate descriptions of them. His opinion of people will grown and change as things go forward.)