thank you so much for the feedback regarding the first chapter - it really means a lot to me and it makes me really happy each time i read your positive and kind words ! thank you a million times.
also, this chapter is really, really long - don’t know what came over me, but it’s pretty good. i hope.
METROPOLIS
2023
Rip sat down on a counter, rolling the bottle of beer between his hands as he watched his father tinker with his visor. His sudden appearance had been with a loud exuberant laugh, a tight embrace that had left Rip’s breathless even when freed of the hug and a genuine smile that was rarely seen in Booster Gold. Michael dragged Rip to a more secluded workshop where laid various futuristic tools and his Booster Gold attire. Rip watched with a content silence as his father re-worked the circuits of his visor, frowning in concentration at it.
“So,” Rip stopped in his movements at Michael’s voice, “I thought you’d be travelling space and time on behalf that of the Time Monsters.”
While the small jab made Rip snort, it didn’t stop his grip from tightening around his beer bottle. Clearing his throat, he shot his father half a smile.
“Time Masters,” he corrected, taking a sip of his drink.
“Tomato, tomahto,” Michael said, balancing a wrench in each hand as if pondering over the question. Twirling the tool between his fingers, he raised an eyebrow at him, “Anyway, you didn’t answer the question, kid.”
“Didn’t I?” Rip hummed, hiding a grimace behind his beer. He sighed when Michael stopped his tinkering, crossing his arms and leaning back against his work station, “I didn’t. Well, it turned out they were in league with Savage and had been manipulating us along so… We, sort of, blew them up.".
Rip couldn’t help but wince again when his father stretched out his neck before retracting it, blinking as he seemed to process what he had been told.
”’ Sort of?’ And what do you mean, ‘we’?“
"Well, we destructed the Oculus which led to the Vanishing Point exploding,” Rip said in a nonchalant way, as if he were talking about what he had eaten at lunch, “As for the 'we’, I was referring to my t- former team. I had recruited them to go after Savage and save both Miranda and Jonas. It didn’t turn out quite as I had planned,” he muttered, taking another swing of his beer.
Michael hummed in a noncommittal way, wiping his forehead with his arm before he threw both wrenches in his toolbox and holding his fingers in eyesight.
“And where are they now?” Michael inquired, holding out a hand, “can you pass me that flat screwdriver?”
“Probably in Aruba,” he muttered, snorting at his father’s puzzlement, “At their requests. Knowing them, they are probably wreaking havoc as we speak,” he continued as he handed his father the tool he had been playing with.
“You don’t seem to worried about that,” he remarked on, spinning the screwdriver between his fingers.
Downing the rest of his drink, Rip let himself slip from the counter and gave a small shrug.
“I’ve spent half a year traveling with this lot, I’ve resigned myself to chaos happening ever now and then,” he sighed, leaning back, “Beside, they’re not my responsibility anymore.”
Once again, Michael hummed, keeping silent as he tinkered with how equipment. He kept silence and Rip can’t help the sudden burst of gratitude and love that he felt toward his father. Their relation was a complicated one - seeing as both were time travelers and had lived their share of adventures separately. Rip didn’t know if the things he knew about Michael were from the lessons he had learned on Booster Gold, at the Academy, or if they were tidbits of memories from a long forgotten childhood. Rip had been sure he was a born-and-raised Londoner until a raid in the Academy’s file room, where he had found that his full name had been Michael Richard Carter Jr, born in 27th century to one Michael Jon Carter and an unknown mother. Rip remembered meeting his father, a wedding invitation clenched in his - sweating - hands as he stood outside his house, listening to his and Ted Kord’s laughter filled conversation. He remembered Michael’s weariness, anger, hope and finally elatation as he swept him a hug that could only be qualify as fatherly before dragging him into the house and bragging about a son he hadn’t known was alive until seconds ego. From that moment, Rip had tried to visit Michael at the same time period, which had proved difficult because of the latter’s profession and inability to stay in one place and time for too long.
Watching as his father leaned against the table, frowning down at his visor, Rip couldn’t help but smile. He had learned of Booster Gold ahead of meeting him and had known of his public persona - the egocentric and over-the-top that had became a hero because of good looks and stolen material. While he knew that both figures were one and he same, Rip couldn’t reconcile Booster with the person that had tucked him in bed for the first four years of his life.
With a satisfied sigh, Michael put down his visor and wiped his greasy hands with a rag before tuning to Rip with a smile.
“Well, I’m happy to see you,” he cradled Rip’s face in his hands, rubbing his cheeks with his thumbs, “no matter the circumstances.”
Rip smiled back at his father, groaning when the latter patted his cheeks with a smirk before moving away. With no more beer bottle to occupy his hands with, Rip shoved them in his pockets and cleared his throat.
“What about you? How have things been?”
“Boring,” Michael retorted with a grimace as he shrugged off his blue overalls and grabbed a black jean from a drawer, “It’s been strangely quiet around Metropolis. Quiet enough for the League to not be needed.”
“That is strange,” Rip frowned, his head tilted to the side, “and the others?”
“All gone their own ways,” Michael shrugged, taking a swing of his beer, “Teddy’s back in Star City, the Bat is in Gotham and farm boy is visiting his mother in Smallville. Not sure where Hal and Dinah disappeared to, though,” he muttered with a frown, oblivious to his son’s perplexed expression.
“Dinah? Drake?” Rip asked, hoping that the dread he suddenly felt was about something else.
“Lance,” he corrected, as if it were obvious, “y'know, Black Canary? Has longue blonde hair, wears fishnets, makes your ears bleed with her super sonic cry? That Dinah. Actually, I remember you having crush on her.”
“No, that’s you. You’re just projecting,” Rip’s sarcastic retort to his father’s teasing was automatic, almost robotic.
His head was buzzing, because he was pretty sure that Dinah Laurel Lance had been killed by Darkh in 2016. He knew she had been killed - he could feel his cheek stink at the mere remembrance of Sara’s furious punch. Yet, here she was, in the future as if her death had been a dream or a fake memory placed in their minds as some kind of twisted motivation. He didn’t acknowledge Michael’s confused and concerned frown, restraining a sigh of relief when Skeets reappeared over their heads and taking the focus away from him.
“We’ve got visitors, boss.”
Rip barely had the time to react before Michael had moved back to where his costume, flexing his fingers as he slipped on his gloves.
“Friend or foe?”
“I’m not sure, actually. They seem quite hostile.”
As if on cue, the bells hanging above the front door chimed, followed by two set of footsteps. Rip slipped a hand behind his back, his fingers wrapping themselves around the gun tucked in his waistband. Noticing the small gesture, Michael gave him a nod before he made his way toward the front of the shop, Rip close on his heels.
“We’re closed, folks,” he announced, hands shoved in his pockets.
Rip turned the corner and froze at the sight of the two familiar figures. Eve Baxter was clad in her usual attire, locks of hair sticking on her bloody forehead. Next to her stood a dishelved Jonah Hex, sticking out like a sore thumb surrounded by cars and futuristic trinkets. Neither seemed much impressed - or scared - by the duo. Eve turned her stare to Rip - who didn’t flinch when a shark-like grin pulled at her lips.
“I don’t think you’d mind giving shelter to two travelers, lost in time and space.”
Oh bollocks. They had really done it now.
LOS ANGELES,
2017.
“Well, I concur that this wouldn’t have happen if we hadn’t gone along with Mr Rory’s ridiculous idea.”
“How is this my fault? I’m not the one who crashed the ship. Plus Gideon is the one who plotted the course.
"Mick’s right,” Amaya sighed, falling in the library’s couch, “we would have been caught in a time quake no matter the destination.”
“ Yeah, but what caused it, though?” Nate frowned as he read notebook after notebook, in search of an answer.
Sara closed her eyes for a moment, her fingers raising to her throbbing head. She could already feel a bruise forming. After having catching sight of dinosaurs roaming around the Waverider, they had decided - minus Ray and Jax, who were currently taking a survey around the ship - to retreat to the library to find out how exactly they had find themselves into this mess. She reopened her eyes to see that had Amaya had joined Nate in his research while Stein and Mick were engaged in a loud round of bickering. As if things couldn’t get worse, Gideon was unresponsive.
“Isn’t it obvious? Ask Blondie,” Mick grumbled, nodding toward Sara.
Sara swallowed a groan when three heads turned to her, gazes staring right through her with different levels of confusion.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Whose brilliant plan has it to go back in time and steal from our former selves?” Mick said, unfazed by her glare.
“Last time I checked, you were all willing participants,” Sara retorted, shooting out of her chair.
But you’re the captain, Lance, a mocking voice inwardly reminded her, all responsibilities and choices made fall back on your shoulders. Her jaw clenched, Sara put both her hands on her hips and breathed through her noise, trying to ground herself.
“Look, right now. We just need to find a way out of this mess without fucking things up even more,” Sara said, her gaze moving from Mick to Martin, “we’re all stuck here together and we won’t make it out of here if we keep arguing or pushing the fault on each other.”
While Mick acknowledged the small speech with a grunt and a swing of his beer, Martin had the decency to look chastised, muttering an apology. Letting out a sigh, Sara leaned back against the desk and ran her fingers through her hair as a tense silence fell back onto the room. Hopefully, Ray and Jax had been more successful in their endeavors. As if they had been able to hear her thoughts, both men arrived in the time library, grim expressions plastered on their faces.
“Want to hear the bad news or the even worse news?” Jax announced in mock enthusiasm, clutching a tablet in his hand
Sara restrained the urge to let her head fall into her hands and scream, choosing to push herself off the desk and stood in front of the two, her face blank and her arms crossed.
“The worse, let’s get it over with.”
“Well, to put it bluntly, we can’t get off the ground,” Ray said, rubbing the back of his neck, “the Waverider is literally into it and we don’t have enough power to take off.”
“Can’t we try to time jump out of here?” Sara asked, frowning at the two.
“Not if you want to get into another time storm and end up in the Middle Age with saber tooth tigers chasing you,” Jax muttered, sighing when met with Sara’s blank stare, “We wouldn’t be able to make it. All systems are offline for the moment, which means we have to switch off to manual and trust me, you don’t want to navigate your way through the temporal zone while blind.”
“And we can’t assess all the exterior damages substained without going outside. For all we know, none of our engines are working,” Ray added, running a hand over his face.
Sara wondered if she looked as physically drained and defeated as their usual optimistic and literal Ray of sunshine. She hoped not. Scratching the back of her head, Sara cocked her head to the side and swallowed the frustrated groan that had risen up her throat.
“Alright, what about the bad news?”
Her frown deepened when Jax and Ray exchanged a look before the younger of the two turned to face her, clearing his throat.
“We found out why Gideon wasn’t responding,”
“I don’t understand,” Amaya said, mirroring her confusion, “ How is that a bad news?”
Jax responded with a sigh and left the room, Ray close on his heels as he gestured for the rest of the team to follow them. Rolling her eyes at their dramatics, Sara threw a look over her shoulder before following them out of the library. She didn’t need to turn around to know that Martin, Mick, Amaya and Nate were behind her, curiosity urging them to follow.
Sara froze in her tracks where she saw Jax and Ray disappear into Rip’s opened quarters. The Captain’s quarters that were supposed to be de facto hers. Quarters that were still filled with maps, books and trinkets that belonged to their former Captain. Sara could count on a hand the times she had went in Rip’s quarters, the latter having the bad habit to fall asleep in his couch or armchair - or simply, on his desk - after long nights of research spent in his study. It wasn’t as if the access to it was forbidden - Sara was pretty sure it was mandatory for the Captain’s quarters to be opened to the rest of the crew. She just didn’t feel right walking in it while he wasn’t here - it almost like walking into the room of a recently deceased person.
Shaking herself out of her morbid thoughts, Sara cleared her throat and walked into the chambers. Only to freeze again at the sight she found in there. Jax and Ray were both standing next to the bed, bracing themselves for their reactions. Reactions to the familiar - real - brunette woman sitting on the bed, naked and shivering - no matter how many blankets Jax seemed to have wrapped her in - her eyes wide opened as she stared back at her.
“Gideon,” Sara breathed out, oblivious to the cries of bewilderment and confusion.
After a long and frustrating - to Sara’s opinion - discussion about how they knew that it was indeed Gideon because they had seen her human form when they had been travelling through Rip’s mind, Sara had found some clothes for her to wear and they had relocated to the med bay, to Martin’s insistence. Sara stood back, arms crossed and a frown plastered on his face, as Martin examined Gideon. Though she hadn’t shown the same shock and amazement than her other crew mates, there was something quite unsettling about seeing Gideon as well as hearing her. The fact that she was actually wearing - and looked unfairly good in - her clothes did nothing to ease her unsettlement.
Ray, standing next to her in a similar position, seemed to be reacting in a quiet and uncharacteristic way. It probably had to do with the fact that he had been the first one, along Jax, to find her. Maybe he was in shock and wasn’t fully aware of the situation. Maybe he had just gotten used to seeing weird, impossible things came true and time aberrations were losing some of its exciting novelty. Sara sighed and focused her attention back on Gideon.
She observed as Martin palped her neck with careful fingers before they moved behind her ears, massaging his temples. He hummed, muttering under his breath before he clicked his pen and scribbled something on his notepad. Sara winced in unisson with Ray when Martin reached for a long needle, flicking the tip of it with two fingers, nodding in satisfaction before he put it pack down down. He cleared his threat and looked up to Gideon with a patient and kind smile that only fathers seemed to be able to give.
“Do you have an arm you’d prefer for me to withdraw blood from?”
“Well, seeing as I didn’t have any until recent events,” Gideon sighed, pushing back both sleeves of her - Sara’s - white sweater and holding her bare arms in front of he, “I’d say I don’t particularly care. Whichever you’d prefer, Professor Stein.”
“Is that really necessary?” Ray said, watching with scrunched up features as Martin tied a rubber band around Gideon’s arm and sanitized the inside of her elbow.
“Well, of course!” Martin said, scandalized by the mere suggestion, “Captain Lance has asked me to be thorough with Gideon’s medical examinations and that is what I’m doing.”
Ray turned his accusing stare to Sara, the latter ignoring it as she watched Gideon barely flinched when the needle pricked her skin. She took note of her subtle clench of jaw and shot Gideon a comforting smile.
“Dr Palmer, if you would?” Martin held the blood filled needle to Ray, instructing Gideon to hold a ball of cotton against her elbow.
“W-what?” Ray stuttered, going pale as he watched the needle.
He winced when Sara elbowed him in the ribs, muttering about the blonde’s bony elbow as he moved forward and grabbed the needle out of Martin’s hands with trembling fingers. Swallowing the bile that had risen up his throat, Ray transferred the blood into a test tube before throwing away the needle with a dramatic shudder. Sara rolled his eyes at her dramatics and walked to Gideon and Martin, the latter applying a bandaid to her elbow before gently squeezing her arm. Gideon shot him a small smile, a whispered thank you leaving her lips as she pulled down her sleeves and wrapped herself in the comforter she had dragged into the medbay.
“You are aware you could have asked me about my vitals, right?” Gideon said, cocking an eyebrow when met with three confused gazes, “To my knowledge, my tension isn’t higher or lower than the one of a regular female human being of my age. My eye sight do not seem to be impaired or in need of an aid, such as glasses. my other senses are as well as good they were, if not slightly heightened. In fact, I seem to be in perfect health, if you were to ignore my lower than normal body temperature and sudden hunger.”
Ray and Sara stared at Gideon, mouth opened in bewilderment while Martin had a wide grin plastered on his face. A chuckle escaped his lips as he snapped off his surgical gloves and threw them in a bin.
“Astonishing,” he said, earning a snort from Ray and an eye roll from Sara, “It is truly amazing.”
“It is,” Sara agreed, smiling when Gideon sat up straighter at the praise, “Ray, take Gideon to the galley. Make sure she eats something and drinks something big before she kneels over.”
Ray responded with a mock salute before helping Gideon off the colt, an arm wrapped around her waist as he walked her out of the med may, his slow steps matching her shaky ones. Sara waited for the doors to close behind them before she walked to Martin, the latter reviewing his notes.
“So what do you think?” Sara sighed, her hands shoved in her pockets, “Is she our Gideon?”
“Well, she matches the physical description Jefferson and yourself gave us and her memories - if we can call them that - match those of our dear Gideon,” Martin said, leaning against the cot with his hands crossed in front of him.
“It doesn’t make sense, though,” she mimicked the Professor’s posture, her eyebrows frowned in concentration and slight frustration, “how can she be physically here?”
“In case it has escaped your notice, Miss Lance, there are dinosaurs currently roaming Los Angeles,” he elbowed her side, a teasing smile on his face.
“Wait- you think Gideon’s a time aberration?” His only response was a tilt of the head to the side. Sara groaned, running her fingers through her hair, “Great. Awesome. Fucking fantastic.”
Martin clicked his tongue and frowned in disapproval, earning a small smile from Sara. With a last sigh, she pushed herself off the bed and made her way out of the med bay, walking backward.
“Team meeting in the kitchens in five. We need to figure our next step before T-Rex’s decided to claw the doors off.”
She turned back around when met with a positive response, rubbing her neck with the heel of her hand. She needed - wanted - a back rub. Actually, she needed more than that but it would have to wait. Sara froze at the door when she arrived at the kitchen. Gideon sat at a single table, still wrapped in her comforter, while eating from a bowl of cereals set in front of her. Ray had set a glass of orange juice and mug of hot chocolate by her food.
While Amaya stood behind her, running her fingers through Gideon’s hair before she decided to braid it humming mindlessly under her breath, Nate and Mick sat opposite her, watching with frowned eyebrows and arms crossed as Gideon went through her cereals with eagerness and curiosity. Ray was sitting on the kitchen counter, his own bowls of Fruit Loops on his lap, lost in his own world. He caught her eye across the room and gave her a small nod, sliding off the counter. The small gesture seemed to alert the others to her presence as they all turned as one. Bracing herself for the assault of questions, Sara pushed back her sleeve and entered the kitchen, only then noticing, with a frown, the absence from of their engineer.
“Hey, where’s Jax?”
“He’s trying to see if he can recalibrate the time drive,” Ray replied, cleaning off the table for Gideon with a small smile, “do you want me to go and get him?”
Before Sara had the chance to open her mouth to reply, she was brought to her knees by a loud and piercing cry. She was vaguely of the bowls in Ray’s crashing to the floor as he brought his hands up to cover his ears. From the corner of her eyes, she could see that Amaya had wrapped herself around Gideon while Nate had stayed upright, immediately steeling up at the sound. The cry, eventually, came to an end, leaving all of them with ringing ears. Her head throbbing, Sara slowly got up to her feet and took a look around the room, watching as the rest of the Legends gather themselves.
Ray rushed - more like wobbled on shaky legs - to Gideon, the latter frowning at the red staining her fingers. Amaya called for Martin, her tone urgent as she noticed the blood leaking from her ear.
“What the bloody hell was that?” Gideon muttered, wincing when Ray gently turned her head so she was facing him.
“ ‘What the bloody hell’s’ right,” Mick grunted as he shoot out of his chair, his grip tightening around his gun
Sara walked in front of him, a firm hand pushing back. Mick growled down at her, to which she responded with an unimpressed cocked eyebrow. Mick gave a last grunt before lowering his gun so the canon was facing the floor and walked back. Having been busy stopping Mick from going out and try to roast dinosaurs, Sara hadn’t notice Martin’s arrival in the galley. The older man had taken Ray’s place in front of Gideon, ignoring as Amaya and Ray hovered, concerned frowns matching.
“Guys,” Nate called, having regained his fleshy appearance.
Swallowing - an umptenth - groan of frustration, Sara went through join at the windows, freezing for a second when she noticed what had caught Nate’s attention. She heard Amaya’s quiet gasp, informing of her presence beside her.
“They’re retreating,” she said, watching the spectacle of T-Rex’s walking away from their preys, without even trying to take a bit of it.
“Astonishing,” Martin whispered, having left Gideon’s side to join their contemplation.
Sara rolled her eyes and crossed her arms against her chest, glaring out the window as the gigantic beasts walked. They all seemed to be walking in synch, as if they had been ordered to left their metallic carcasse. As if they were programmed machines.
“More like convenient,” she retorted, her head tilted to the side and her bottom lip stuck between her teeth.
As if her words were some kind of cue, Sara heard the cargo bay door lower down. A silence fell over the kitchen and her hands tightened into fists in reaction. The rational part of her brain suggested that it was probably Jax playing around the ship’s machinery and making sure everything worked as it should. The dread in her stomach warned her that it was something else. Sara threw a look behind her, finding six pairs of eye staring back at her, hesitant. The annyance plastered on Martin’s face caught her eye, causing the dread to worsen.
“What is it, Professor?”
He let out a shaky breath and shook his head, rubbing his left wrist with a small grimace.
“I’m not quite sure, actually. I just suddenly felt… really angry.”
That was when they heard the heavy pairs of boots running up the ramp and walked and into the ship.
With her bo staff no where in sight, Sara grabbed the first knife she saw and slid into her boot before she turned around to face the rest of the team, her face blank.
“Amaya, Mick : I’ll need you to stay Gideon and the professor,” she held up finger before he could protest, “we need to cover all bases, who knows how many or them are here?”
Sara, then, pointed two fingers to Nate and Ray, indicating them to follow her with a jerk of her head. They walked down the halls in an eery silence, as if inwardly preparing themselves for a fight. Ray was fumbling with the repulsor glove - which Sara hadn’t even noticed earlier - while Nate shook his hands and rolled his neck and shoulders.
“Don’t steel on until threatened,” Sara smirked when seeing his confuse and frustrated frown, “we have the advantage on them, let’s not exposed ourselves to them and lose it.”
“I’ll say that them forcing their ways on board is enough of a threat,” Nate muttered.
Sara rolled her eyes before she caught sight of the intruders and stopped in her tracks, forcing the other two to do the same. Three figures stood in front of them, riffles pointed forward and fingers brushing on triggers. She swallowed a growl when she noticed Jax on his knees, his tools scattered around him as his arm had been forced behind his back by a fourth person. As she moved toward him, she heard the safety being clicked off.
“Stay right where you are,” one of them barked.
A guy. Mid-thirties. Barely a head taller than her, Sara inwardly assessed, cold blue eyes raking over his body - body devoid of any armor or protection. She could take him out in the blink of an eye. She would have if it wasn’t for Jax’s predicament. She decided to stay on the safe side and replied with a smile, taking a step back with her hands up. Ray moved to stand in front of her, his gloved hand hidden his back and his bare Ray one raise in a sign of compliance.
“There’s no need for drastic measures, we’re all innocent and responsible adults here.
"What are you, some kind of hero-wannabe?” another henchman snarled, earning snickers from the other two.
From the corner of her eye, Sara could see Ray swallow his retort and fake a laugh, his gloved hand tightening behind his back. Keeping his composure, he plastered a smile on his face and took a slow, careful step forward.
“I’m just trying to minimize the damage, guys,” Ray kept his tone lighthearted and his attitude aloof before his gaze settled onto Jax, his smile letting place to a frown, “You alright?”
“Peachy, dude. Just enjoying myself on the dirty floor. Wouldn’t mind if that freaking psycho let go of my arm!”
Jax’s captor glowered down at him before he twisted his arm with unnecessary force, causing a cry of pain out of Jax. Screw this, Sara barely had the time to take a step toward him, her fingers reaching into her boot for a knife before she was met with the rifle’s barrel and an ugly scowl.
“I said, stay right where you are,” he hissed.
Sara met his glare with a cold, indifferent stare and lifted her chin up, as if daring him to press the trigger. Too engaged in her battle of stares, she was barely aware of the fifth pair of footsteps - roots that seemed to be wearing high heels - until the new arrival made her presence known.
“Now, now, fellas. There’s no need for that,” she scolded, her tone mocking.
With a frown, Sara tore her gaze away from the henchman to find the source of the - somehow - familiar voice. Her gaze fell onto the tall - hot - all dressed in back brunette assessing the scene with attentive eyes. One of her fingers mindlessly played with one of her curls while her other hand was clenched around a large gun. As she squinted her eyes at it, Sara swore she could see some kind of gold substance in its charger. Brown eyes met blue, and her previously bored expression let place to a wide smirk as she practically skipped to the blonde.
“Ralphie, baby,” she put two fingers on the barrel and lowered it so the canon was facing the floor, “Pretty sure we need them alive if we want to interrogate.
” 'Interrogate. ?“ Nate chimed in, talking a step forward.
"Well, of course!” she tilted her head to the side, a small giggle escaping her lips, “we can’t exactly leave you roaming around the city after you just appeared out of thin air in a stolen time ship.”
Frowning, Sara turned her gaze to Nate and mouthed 'stolen’, the latter shrugging in response, his confusion matching hers. Both looked to Ray, the latter being uncharacteristically quiet as he stared, unblinking, at the other woman. It managed to catch her attention, her focus shifting from Sara to Ray. She cocked an eyebrow and it was apparently all was needed for him to speak.
“You’re Lisa Snart,” he blurted out, his tone filled with awe and suspicion.
Both eyebrows up to her hairline, Lisa let out a surprised laugh and Sara couldn’t help but compare her to her late brother. Where Leonard had been - no pun intended - cold and calculated, Lisa seemed more vibrant and careless. Leonard had been ruthless and Lisa seemed to be easily swayed. Sara willed herself to focus harder and once she saw it, there was no going back. She recognized the mischievousness shining through the pain she had seen in Leonard’s eyes. She noticed discreet, small mannerisms Lisa had surely picked up from her big brother. Sara saw behind the careful picked mask of a bored, dimwit woman and found Lisa Snart.
Lisa slowly made her say to Ray, brushing past Sara - and discreetly pushing her backward as she did so - to plant herself in front of the taller main.
“I see I found myself at a disadvantage here, handsome. You seem to know who I am and unfortunately I can’t say the same about you,” Lisa crossed her arms, her gun carelessly dangling from her fingers.
“Palmer. I mean Ray! I- I mean. I’m Ray Palmer,” Ray stammered out, slightly unsettled by Lisa’s piercing stare. Nate groaned and let his head fall in his hands.
“Hum,” Lisa pursed her lips in thoughts, her eyes narrowed, “Ray Palmer. Why does that sound so familiar?”
“Cause he’s dead,” an unfamiliar voice intervened from behind her, causing the Legends to take action as they turned around.
Nate steeled on while Ray held up his gloved hand, aiming to fire at the young woman who Sara knew hadn’t been there seconds ago. She racked her gaze over their fighting stances before snorting and literally disappearing in thin air, with a pop. Sara closed her eyes, letting out a breath before she turned back around, her migraine coming back with a vengeance. And now, they had to deal with metahumans. If it hadn’t been for her years of training in the League, she’d probably either be screaming or crying out in frustration.
Her eyes reopened at a popping sound, unsurprised when she found the dark-haired woman standing next to Lisa, twirling the knife that had previously been in Sara’s fingers.
“Died when his compagny went ka-boom a couple of years ago,” she continued, as if she had been here since the beginning. And maybe she had.
“Aw, shame,” Lisa pouted before her grip tightened around her gun, her grin almost feral, “Now, who are you really? Former Time Masters? Time pirates?”
“Time pirates-” Nate spluttered, his head snapping up, “We’re actually who we say we are.”
“Which is…what? Felons? Morons?”
“A nice addition to my golden statues’ collections?” Lisa added, her tone disturbingly giddy.
Nate gaped at her before he turned to Ray, slapping his arm with a muttered dude, back me up. Ray paid him no mind, his attention on the newest arrival.
“It’s Shawna, right?” A small smirk tugged at his lips at the brief surprise showing on her, “or Peek-A-Boo, I guess. Y'know, you two are the last people I expect to accuse someone else of felony. Or anyone of your merry bands of rogues. Speaking of, should we expect any more of you?”
Now, Nate was gaping at Ray, staring at him as if he was already picturing the flowers he’d pick for his funerals. As he made to move toward toward the taller man, Sara grabbed his arms, nails digging into his flesh and forcing him to look back at her. She loosened her grip at the sight of his grimace and gave a subtle shake of head. While Ray was always beaming with optimism and positivity and had dreams of great adventures, he wasn’t an idiot. After making sure that Nate wouldn’t intervene, she let go of his arm and turned her attention back onto Ray and Shawna, both oblivious to their silent conversation
“You think you can appeal to me by throwing facts around?” Shawna sneered.
“Of course not, anyone with access to Internet could tell you that,” Ray replied, undeterred, “Which is why I’m trying to appeal to her,” he added, nodding toward Lisa.
Letting out a short laugh, Lisa jutted out her hip and cocked her head to the side.
“And why do I think I’ll be more incline to believe you?”
Ray’s responding smile was genuine, almost fond.
“Because I knew your brother.”
There it is, Sara thought as she watched Lisa’s smirk vanish and her grip tightening around her gun.
“Careful, Pretty Boy. You’re on thin ice, right now.
Nate muttered something about puns obviously being a family thing. Sara shushed him. She liked the puns.
"The guy might have acted tough, but he was a tender heart. He had a sweet tooth, used to drown his pancakes in maple syrup,” Ray gave a small short at the memory, “I told him it was disgusting and he responded by taking my plate and leaving the room. He couldn’t sleep with the door closed, either. I used to find out weird at first, but who was I to meddle in something that’s none of my business?”
Lisa still stood strong, her gun held out in front of her - Sara noticed the hand holding it trembling. She caught sight of Lisa’s brown eyes and noticed that her resolve was starting to crumble, her mask slowly sliding off her face and exposing a grieving sister. Behind her, Sara could see the henchmen growing restless and Shawna growing incertain. Holding his hands up, Ray took the risk of taking a step forward. To everyone’s surprise, Lisa took a step back.
“He had this bear on his bed - he always made it, by the way. A brown teddy pair wearing a blue parka and a pair of goggles. He also had this necklace. None of us made fun of it, cause…,” Ray shrugged, “Well, your brother was kinda terrifying.”
“I gave that to him,” Lisa muttered, her arm slowly lowering, much to Sara’s relief. She cleared her throat and shot Ray a small smile, “it was a joke. Found it next to the Flash in the toy section. The necklace’s mine,” her fingers brushed the pendant hanging from her neck, “we switched them so we always had something of the other to hang on to.”
“Does that mean you believe me, Lisa?” Ray asked, his voice soft as if he didn’t want to disrupt her train of thoughts.
Lisa blew out a breath and, a second later, a cocky smirk found itself back onto her face.
“For now, Ray Palmer.”
“Oh, that is bullshit,” one of the henchmen - Richie - protested, “What, he feeds you some sob story and you fall for it?”
Sara barely has the time to blink before the rogue was standing in front of Richie, the barrel of her gun pointed to the space between his eyes. You could almost hear a pin drop. The other henchmen stared,unsure of what do - of who to point their guns on. Lisa trailed a slow finger the length of Richie’s cheek, their bodies almost flushing together as she got closer.
“If you don’t shut your pretty mouth and question my authority again, I’ll make sure you’ll end up as a statue, standing guard in front of the refuge,” Lisa squeezed his cheeks, her cold ice cold, “Got it?”
“Now, now, Lisa,” a deep voice scolded, “There’s no need to ressort to violence. For now.”
With an eye roll, Lisa smirked at Richie, the latter responding with a whimper, and kissed him loudly on his cheek before she leaned back and skipped to the new arrival’s side. All those people appearing out of no where made Sara’s head spin.
“And who the hell are you?” Nate asked, voicing the Captain’s thoughts aloud.
He responded with a smirk, his eyes from one person to another as he scabbard from head to toe. He couldn’t be older than 20 and yet, he exuded confidence and authority. His short brown hair was swept to the side - as if he ran his fingers through it so many times that it had stuck that way. He was wearing a simple Henley shirt, covered by a dark leather jacket that matched his black pants. That wasn’t the pair of pants that caught Sara’s attention first, but the thigh holster strapped to his leg and the familiar gun in it. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he took a quick look around, his smile turning into something of a reminiscent, nostalgic smile, before his gaze fell onto Shawna.
“Take a look around the ship, there’s more to the crew than these,” he ordered.
Letting out a resigned sigh, Shawna gave him a nod and disappeared in a *pop. With half a smile, he turned back to the rest of his men and frowned on mock confusion, his head tilted to the side.
“You’d think it’d be for you to carry simple orders such as the one I gave you,” his green eyes darted to Jax’s kneeling form, his jaw clenched, “Let him up.”
As he went to protest the order, he was silenced by a simple raise of an eyebrow, as if dared to do anything other than obey, and reluctantly met Jaxup to his feet. Glaring at his captor, Jax brushed away his offering hand, much to the stranger’s amusement, and, giving the latter a wide berth, made to join the Legends’ side. Sara could only muster the force to shot him a smile and give his good arm a small squeeze. She would kill for a thirty minute nap. Hell, Sara was ready to let one of them shoot her if that meant she could close her eyes.
“Again, who the hell are you, dude?” Jax repeated Nate’s previous question, rubbing his sore arm.
“Seeing you’re the one trespassing, I don’t think you have the authority to ask questions,” he rolled his eyes when meeting the Legends’ matching frowns, “You do know that you are currently residing on a stolen military time ship.”
Her thoughts were jumbled and his accent was so odd that she couldn’t attach a nationality to it. Yet, his words carried a familiarity that left Sara second-guessing herself. Had they already met that guy? Nate put an end to her confusing train of thoughts with a long-suffering sigh.
“For the last time, we’re not trespassing, nor are we time pirates that stole the Waverider. We’ve been living for the past six months, at the very least. And plus, we’ve introduced ourselves. It’s only curtesy you do the same.”
“Wrong, he introduced himself,” he corrected, pointing a long finger at Ray, “and even if you truly are who you say are, Dr Palmer, it’s still doesn’t explain what are you doing on my father’s ship with him being nowhere in sight.”
Sara barely heard the whispered and confused 'father’ coming out from Nate’s mouth because all of her awareness was suddenly focused on the familiar stranger. She didn’t know how long it took for Ray or Jax to figure it out but she knew that they had come to the same conclusion as her. Maybe it was that piercing green gaze that seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe. Maybe that was that amused half smile, growing as he observed Jax. Or maybe it had been that futuristic gun strapped to his leg. It only took Sara’s gaze to fall onto a familiar golden pocket watch to know for certain.
Sara slowly lifted her head, blue wide eyes meeting the confused and weary green stare. When she spoke next, her voice came came out as a whisper, almost like a prayer.
“Jonas.”
Sara didn’t feel herself slipping to the floor. She didn’t hear he worried voices calling for her name. She barely remember losing consciousness. Sara did remember Jonas Hunter staring at her, green shining with wonder. She also remembered the cold floor and thinking that there were worst surfaces to fall asleep on.
darkestsight replied to your post “Time Bureau, I think we're on the same track, wrote this earlier on...”
Reading this caused me have a rather worrying thought. What if the thing that causes Rip to create the Time Bureau at the beginning of season 3 is that while trying to fix time, one of the Legends dies. Rip tends to do stupid things when someone he cares about dies.
Ooo, now, that’s very true. Rip is the sort of hypocrite who’s always willing to play martyr on a moment’s notice, but reacts very badly when anyone else does.
He dismantled the team once before, when Leonard Snart died, so there is definitely a precedent.
(Another variation might be that he created the Time Bureau anyway, but meant for the Legends to take part in it...until this happens and he decides, NO, send them home instead!)
I hope though that IF this is triggered by someone’s death, said death is undone quickly.
darkestsight replied to your post: How did Rip even find out about Miranda and Jonas...
I can imagine him coming back home from a mission to find that Vandal’s attacked London, and then racing through the city, dodging soldiers as he tries to get home only to find that it’s been abandoned. He then goes around to all his neighbours trying to find one who knows where they’ve gone. Finally, he finds someone who points him in the right direction. Maybe he spends a long time searching, days even, going from one lead to another checking out all the refuge camps.
Until he comes across a camp that’s recently been attacked and has to search through all the bodies which is where he finally finds them. Now I’ve made myself sad. You want to feel even more sad start thinking about what he did with the bodies. Did he abandoned them there in hopes he would be able to save them or did he take them back to the Waverider?
I’ve thought about this a lot and I don’t think he would have taken them with him or even buried them. Because burying someone means you’re abandoning hope of seeing them again. I don’t see Rip as someone who would try to get over something and THEN decide to do something about it, he takes action immediately. The thing about the spear has told us that, even back then, BEFORE his family was killed, he didn’t trust the Time Masters with it and I think his family’s death was one of (I don’t know how) many things that eventually drove him to act against them. I mean, Savage’s rise to power didn’t happen over night, Miranda and Jonas have been living in that future and Rip has probably been worried about them for quite a long time.
It’s been my headcanon that ever since he tried to kill himself by flying into the sun and “meeting” Miranda and Jonas there that, after he came back, in the hiatus between s1 and s2, he finally went back to collect their bodies and buried them somewhere. I don’t think he would have been able to do that if he’d still been convinced that they could be saved.
But the idea of him running through the streets, desperately trying to find them somewhere...
darkestsight replied to your post “Is it so wrong for me to want to save you?” - Timeship”
This is so lovely! I'm so glad you included Miranda. We saw so little of her on the show and there's been almost no fic about her. (weird coincidence I've actually just been writing something with her in it too) I've always wondered how she would get on with Gideon. I think how you had them interact was perfect! I love them ganging up on Rip. I also love that you showed the moment Rip found out he was going to be a father. Awesome fic! Thank you.
Thank you so much! (Ah, I see we’re clearly on the same wavelength) I’ve always imagined Gideon and Miranda got along great. If anything they ganged up on Rip all the time.
