Poderosa or How Snart (and Mick) Got Their Bike
Ao3 link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8948221
Fandom: The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow
Characters: Leonard Snart, Mick Rory
Rating PG13 because of the amount of swearing involved
In response to: Coldwave Winter Wonderland, Day 2: outside the snow is falling
A/N: Based on a true story of the shenanigans my dad’s college fraternity brothers got up to in the 1960s. My dad’s fraternity was the basis for Animal House. The irl D-Day got his bike (the one that got driven up the stairs in the movie) in a manner similar to the one I described Mr. D having gotten it (I have no idea what actually happened to that bike afterwards).
Summary: When Snart got one of his what is common sense ideas in his head, based on an ad for a motorcycle in New Hampshire, he drags Mick along to go pick up the thing in the middle of winter.
How Snart had even found that effing bike remained an utter mystery. It was halfway across the goddamn country with an ad saying pick-up and it’ll cost you a hundred bucks. It was the middle of the coldest week of the goddamn year and the weatherman was promising snow with a gleeful tone in his eye and voice that spoke of things to be afraid of: it was too similar to Snart’s tone when he decided to say fuck it to planning and even sense and do something truly fool-headed and fucking awesome because that was how Snart ran. Somehow, Mick doubted the weatherman’s fuck it to common sense was going to be as awesome.
Why he got that delighted glint in his eyes when actually considering going to go get the thing was anybody’s guess. The thing was in New Hampshire at a little school in a town with nothing but the college in college-town New England. But Snart said the owners were looking to sell the bike to someone and he quoted, “who would get as much fun out of it as they had” and they were looking to use the money to buy a nice little farm near Canada to grow something. Mick had looked at Snart kind of weird after that – Snart disapproved of drugs and what did he think they intended to grow there? What kind of farm one could get with a hundred bucks also made Mick stare trying to imagine it and failing.
But sure enough, they packed a few things and some food into a backpack, fished a wallet out of some guy’s back pocket (who the heck even carried their wallet in their back pocket without at least a coat to cover it?) and held out a thumb on the side of the on-ramp onto I-70.
It was cold enough to see their breaths. It was cold enough that Mick’s hands and legs were starting to freeze after a few minutes, so he had to jump to keep his legs alive and rub his hands together. Snart didn’t seem to feel it, only turning to raise an eyebrow at Mick and comment, “Stop being a baby.” Mick blew on his hands. He would have flipped Snart off, but that would have involved separating his fingers and he currently lacked dexterity for that. Snart laughed, shook his head and held his thumb out even higher.
They didn’t have to wait too long. An 18-wheeler going east pulled to a stop beside them. “Where you going?” asked the trucker. Plaid jacket, fleece lined too, Mick would bet money.
“New Hampshire,” was Snart’s answer.
Trucker met Mick’s face with an expression like there was something wrong with his friend. Mick gave a shrug. “Why the hell d’ya wanna go up there?”
“Friend got into college up there. Wanna go see him,” Snart shrugged.
“Can’t take ya the whole way. But I can take you to as far as Cleveland.”
“That’d be great,” Snart said.
“Get in,” trucker nodded them into the cab of his truck.
“Thanks, man,” said Mick.
Twelve hours and seven rest stops later, where Snart agreed to pay for their snacks and coffee, which was to say he was a shameless little flirt when food was on the line and managed to get everything for free, they came to a stop at a rest stop in Cleveland. “Alright,” trucker said, “Last stop before I turn off. Out ya get.”
Snart and Mick filed out with a, “Thank you, sir.”
Next driver took them to Buffalo on I-90. If Mick thought he was cold before, driving along the lakes there was apparently something called Lake Freeze, which should have just been called Freeze Your Balls Off, because that’s what it amounted to. Fortunately, that drive lasted only three hours, and the heat was on full blast, because the driver, while he seemed to be like Snart and not notice things like ice cold balls, at least had the decency to throw on his heater.
Next driver was a camper. RV smelled like cat piss. At least she got them far as Albany. It was still ice cold. He just wanted to let Snart know that.
Next person was a college kid. She didn’t look like a college kid, driving a beat up station wagon, bundled up in a sweater and scarf, and with a more than healthy amount of beer in the back seat of her car. “Get in,” she nodded when they said where they were going. Three hours later, they pulled onto what was clearly the campus of the school. “You know where you’re going?” she asked.
“We’re looking for,” and he recited the address.
Her face brightened. “Old Mr. D-Day’s?” She bit her lip then laughed, “You here to take that bike of his?”
“Good luck with it. You said the two of you were from where again?”
“Central City. Missouri,” Mick answered.
“Well, according to Mr. D, it was originally from St. Louis, Missouri before he and a fraternity brother drove it here. So, I think it to you.”
“You think?” Mick guffawed. There was no thinking mentioned.
She nodded. “He wants to make sure it goes to somebody just as nuts as he was when he first got it. Have fun taking it back!” She shook her head at them again and parked her car.
They got out and strolled up the street. There was a snowflake. And another one. Mick wished he’d brought his hat. They walked to the address in question and rang the doorbell.
A pleasant man in a green sweater stuck his head out. “Eh? I don’t recognize you. Are you two of my freshmen?”
Snart ducked his head. “We’re actually here about the bike, if now is a good time.”
The man looked from one of them to the other. “Eh, come in. Have some coffee.”
“Thanks.” Snart said as a mug was shoved into his hand. Mick grunted appreciation as a mug was shoved into his.
The man indicated overstuffed chairs and fell back into one himself. “So, you from around here?”
Mick shook his head. “No. This guy brought us here form Central City, Missouri and if we have to pass some test to be able to get this bike, I’m done. I’m going home.”
The man’s face broke into a grin and he laughed.
“Fucking cold out there, right?”
“You know why I asked for someone to come pick it up this week?”
Mick shrugged. “Cause you’re a sadist.”
Snart turned to him. “Mick.”
“Because it was just as cold and miserable when my fraternity brother and I went to go pick it up. We dropped everything, and spur of the moment headed to a town neither of us had ever heard of. And then we had to get it back.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Snart insisted.
“You’re planning on riding the thing home, aren’t you?”
“Good. I just wanted to make sure that Poderosa was going to a good home where she would cause a lot of havoc.”
Mick raised an eyebrow. “What is Poderosa?”
“I named the motorcycle that a couple years back when Che Guevara came out. Either of you read it?”
Mick shook his head. “I don’t really read much.”
The man frowned. “Nothing? At all?”
Mick shrugged. “I let loser there read for me.”
Snart said, “We’re more of the doing type than the reading type.”
The man shrugged. “So what do you do?”
Snart grinned at him. “Pick up odd jobs around Central.”
The man held up his palms and nodded. “I can tell when I’m being told to butt out.”
Mick asked, “Why are you selling her anyway?”
The man shrugged. “My wife and an old roommate and I want to go camping together on a farm we’ve had our eyes on for a while up by Canada.”
Mick leaned forward. “You want it to grow pot on.”
The man shrugged. “If a little pot is grown there, it won’t be my doing.”
Snart inclined his head. “So, do we pass?”
The man laughed. “Yes, you do.”
Snart took out the money and handed it to the man, who pocketed it.
“You can stay the night, if you want. I have a porch out back. It’s glassed in.”
The man showed them to the porch, where there was a bed made up. Mick made a beeline for it. The guy had not mentioned the glassed in porch wasn’t heated, but there was enough heat coming from the house that it wasn’t completely freezing. He kicked off his boots and claimed the pillow for his own.
Snart followed him, bothering to fold back the quilt and climbing under it. “It’ll be warmer under it you know.” Fuck. When he had a point. Mick grumbled something about it being Snart’s fault they were freezing their asses off up here in the first place. When he got under the quilt, Snart was looking concerned. “I didn’t know you’d mind so much, or I wouldn’t have asked you to come.”
Mick turned to look up at Snart’s tired but happy face and at the snow which had started falling in earnest, and thought about the things they had done to get that fucking bike, and about what a great story it would make if either of them ever got around to telling it. “Nah. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Snart nodded and put his head on a pillow he must have grabbed from the window seat on the way by and threw an arm over Mick and was asleep in under a minute. Mick shrugged and followed suit.
The following day, driving the bike called the Poderosa through a blizzard and freezing cold temperatures that Mick knew were what the gleeful expression on the weatherman’s face was about, across New York, down by the Great Lakes and across Ohio and Indiana, Mick shouted at his partner, “Fuck everything I said yesterday! This is the fucking nuts, Snart! You’re hellbent on turning me into an ice-cube, aren’t you?”
“You can’t say it won’t an excellent story! Besides, we got a motorcycle out of it!”
kianamaiart
snowghoul
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
titsay
