Title comes from "Let's Kill Tonight" by Panic! at the Disco.
When he looks back on it, Leonard's not quite sure how he manages to get from the ship to the hall where the others are fighting. After he freezes his hand and smashes it off, he doesn't even really feel up to sitting up unaided, let alone walking anywhere. The pain in his wrist is almost blinding, and somehow his right hand still hurts, despite the fact that it doesn't exist anymore. It's a pretty raw deal, Leonard thinks, but...
But Chronos - Mick - threatened his team. He threatened Lisa. Leonard needs to stop him.
But this is also Mick, and Leonard knows he's no more capable of killing him now than he was in that forest.
He did mean to go back, after Savage was defeated and the danger to the team had passed. Leonard never meant to leave Mick there, but apparently, that's what he's going to do. That's what he's already done to Mick. The guilt twists in his stomach like a knife, but it doesn't matter right now. Leonard has other things to deal with. He can't let Mick kill anyone else, but he also can't let him die, so he uses his left hand to pull himself up to his feet, then he cradles the stump of his right arm in his left and staggers off the ship.
Mick leaves a clear trail of dead assassins to follow. Leonard scans each one, but none of them are members of his team. He sees a blonde assassin face-down and his stomach clenches, but when he toes her over, her face is one he's never seen before, and he lets out a sigh of relief. He knows, though, that none of these bodies are likely to belong to his friends. If one of them fell, he can't imagine the others leaving the body behind, especially not after everything they did to recover Carter's body from Savage. No, he'll find all of his teammates in the same place.
And, he's certain, that's also where he'll find Chronos.
It is, of course. Leonard staggers into the room only to see Mick, helmet on, on the ground while the others surround him. They're clearly about to land a killing blow, and Leonard should probably let them, but he can't.
"Don't do it," he yells. "Don't kill him."
"Snart?" Firestorm asks.
"Sorry, don't kill Chronos?" Rip asks, sounding like he's wondering about Leonard's current state of mind. If Leonard looks half as bad as he feels, that's probably fair, but it doesn't change the fact that the others need to know.
"He's not Chronos," Leonard says. "Show them."
Mick makes no move to take his helmet off, so Leonard nods at Firestorm. They do it instead, and Mick glares at them with hate in his eyes when his face is revealed.
"My God," Rip breathes.
"There is no god," Mick retorts, and he lunges for his gun. Before he can reach it, Sara kicks him in the face, and he's out, spreadeagled on the ground. Without his eyes closed against the vicious, animalistic hatred in them, he looks like Mick again, and for a moment Leonard almost feels grateful to have his old partner back again. Then he remembers that his so-called partner just threatened to kill Lisa over and over again, and any gratitude dries up fairly quickly.
"He's Mick," Kendra whispers, staring down at Mick's revealed face as Firestorm splits back into Jefferson and Stein, both looking shocked. "How can he be Mick?"
"Mr. Snart," Rip says, "I believe you- Mr. Snart?"
Leonard is already tipping forward, his legs finally giving out on him, and it's only Sara's lightning-fast reflexes that let her reach him in time to keep him from face-planting on the ground. "Are you-" she starts, then she sees the stump where his hand used to be and her eyes go wide with horror.
"Rather squeamish for an assassin, aren't you?" Leonard asks, exhaustion and pain turning his normal drawl into a bit more of a slur.
"What did you do to yourself?" Sara demands.
"Had to get out of the handcuffs somehow," Leonard says, showing Sara the cuff still attached to his left wrist.
"Jax, Professor Stein," Rip says. "Help Mr. Snart back to the ship. Mr. Palmer, Miss Saunders, I'll need you two to carry Mr. Rory back. And Sara, I believe we have some matters to discuss with Ra's al Ghul."
Sara's face tightens at that, but when Jefferson and Stein reach them, she shifts Leonard's weight from her arms into Jefferson's. Leonard would prefer to support himself, but his body has already decided rather vehemently against that, so he leans against Jefferson and staggers back to the Waverider with him, both of them pretending that Jefferson isn't basically dragging Leonard along. Stein walks on Leonard's other side, his arm curled around Leonard's back, ready to catch him if he falls.
That used to be Mick's job.
Mick wouldn't have carried Leonard like this, with gentleness and concern. Mick always preferred throwing people over his shoulder, and as little as Leonard likes to admit it, he's been thrown over that shoulder quite a few times. But he would have helped him, and guarded him, and made sure he didn't fall. Now, he's the one who pushed Leonard off the edge.
Kendra and Ray surpass Leonard, Jefferson, and Stein fairly quickly, despite the fact that they're hauling Mick's dead weight. Leonard carefully doesn't look at them as they pass. What's left of his wrist still hurts, and Leonard knows enough about first-aid to know that his clammy skin and too-shallow breathing probably mean he's going into shock. He doesn't need to add on the emotional wildfire that looking at Mick causes.
When they finally reach the Waverider, Jefferson and Stein half-lead, half-carry Leonard to the medical bay. Leonard is conscious enough to know that Stein is trying to do something about the shock he's clearly going into, and he figures that, between Stein and Gideon, he's in fairly good hands. He lets himself drift, pulling away from the pain the best he can, until Kendra pokes her head into the medical bay.
"Rip and Sara are back," she says. "I think they want to talk about Mick."
"Then by all means," Leonard says, pushing himself off the chair and waiting out the wave of dizziness that immediately hits, "let's talk about Mick."
Jefferson and Stein both follow Leonard closely as they walk to the brig, but Leonard walks by himself this time. The cuff around his wrist is gone, and he wonders which one of them removed it. He's glad not to have to look at the thing anymore; it felt far too tight and heavy around his remaining wrist.
When they reach the brig, Mick has clearly just woken up, but he's already yelling expletives and threats at Rip and Sara and Ray and anyone else who'll listen. Leonard ignores him and slumps against the wall, still cradling what's left of his right arm to his chest.
"You think this is all over?" Mick snarls. "I will kill every single one of you. I will watch you all burn." He looks right at Leonard and hisses, "You. You should have killed me when you had the-"
Rip presses a button on the outside of the cell, and Mick's voice cuts off. Mick seems to realize they can't hear him anymore, and he turns and walks back to the bench at the back of his cell, watching them with hatred in his eyes.
And then Rip turns on Leonard and says, in the same sort of deadly calm voice that Leonard likes to use so often himself, "You owe us an explanation."
"Yes," Stein agrees, "it's quite remarkable that Mr. Rory is working for the Time Masters, considering you killed him."
"If you think back, I never actually said I killed him," Leonard drawls, aware that it's a flimsy excuse.
"No, you just let us think that you did," Jefferson retorts.
"I didn't have to try too hard, did I?" Leonard retorts, pushing on the guilt he thinks Jefferson still feels for judging him so harshly after he supposedly killed Mick. "Well," he continues, "maybe I should have, then at least he wouldn't have wound up a chew toy for the Time Masters."
He expects the others to agree with him, but instead, Rip says, "But if you did, we wouldn't have this opportunity."
"Opportunity?" Ray repeats. "To do what?"
Rip turns dramatically, staring into the cell. Leonard can normally appreciate some good drama, but right now it just makes him want to scream. Can't Rip just say what he means for once? Can't he just-
"To reform Mr. Rory," Rip says, and Leonard wonders if he's gone insane.
"He killed Aldus," Kendra says, so at least someone is remaining rational.
"Under the influence of the Time Masters," Rip counters.
"Chronos killed Aldus," Stein says. "Mr. Rory was fighting on our side that day."
"I know what it's like," Sara says, "to be trained by an organization for one purpose, to kill, and the kind of loyalty that it can inspire. I need to know that we can reach Rory. For my own sake."
"The Time Masters took one of our own and turned him against us," Stein says. "I say, we undo their handiwork."
"Rory saved my life, back in the gulag," Ray adds. "He's more than just a criminal and an arsonist."
"He's a member of our team," Jefferson says, and Leonard snaps.
"He's a lost cause," he says loudly, but Rip interrupts before he can go any further.
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that. You will see that miracles abound on this old time-ship."
That may be, but the others don't know Mick the way Leonard does, and the others didn't see Mick threaten to kill Lisa. The others don't know what that means. They don't know that Mick helped Leonard raise Lisa, that he's practically another brother to her. They don't know how far gone he has to be to have threatened to torture her, to kill her.
The others can call Mick a member of the team all they want, but Mick never wanted to be a member of the team. Mick never liked being a member of the team. Mick betrayed the team, and that was before he was brainwashed into becoming a temporal assassin. Mick is a rabid dog, and maybe it's not entirely the dog's fault that he's rabid, but that doesn't change what you have to do next.
"You all let me take him last time," Leonard says, "and that was only after he betrayed us once. Now he's been trying to kill us for months, and you're all getting squeamish?"
"If you recall, we all had our reservations about killing a teammate," Stein says. "You more than all of us, apparently, considering you didn't do it."
"You can call him your teammate as much as you like, but that's never what Mick was," Leonard snaps. "He never wanted to be part of this team. That's why he tried to stay behind in 2046. That's why he betrayed us to the time pirates. Mick never gave a damn about any one of you."
The words leave silence in their wake, as Leonard knew they would. The team is so absurdly optimistic, so focused on all being friends, and Leonard knew that the realization that Mick never once wanted that would cut.
"If this is all true," Rip says in a voice that makes Leonard want to punch him in the face, "why did you stop us from killing Mr. Rory before?"
Leonard schools his expression immediately, making sure no hint of his feelings can break through the Captain Cold mask. Why did he stop them? Because he was hopped up on adrenaline and halfway into shock and that was enough to shut up his logical side and give voice to the part of him that's still saying that Mick is his partner and it's Leonard's job to protect Mick as much as it was always Mick's job to protect Leonard. Now that he's better, though - at least, relatively speaking - Leonard knows that's a fantasy. He can't cling to one half of a partnership that the other half has already burned to the ground.
"I stopped you," Leonard drawls (he's probably overdoing it a bit, but that's better than under-doing it), "because I thought you should know who you were killing. If I'd known you'd all react like this, I wouldn't have bothered."
"You don't want to kill Mr. Rory any more than we do," Rip says.
"Don't you ever try to tell me what I want to do," Leonard retorts, raising his right hand to jab his finger in Rip's face-
Then he remembers he doesn't have a right hand anymore, and he certainly doesn't have any right fingers.
The sight of the frostbitten stump of what used to be Leonard's right wrist silences the whole group again. Leonard has the automatic, instinctive urge to mask his weakness, to hide it from the others before they learn how to turn it against him, but he knows there's no point. He's missing a hand now, and he's around this people all the time. Even if he tries to hide it now, he can't hide it forever.
"Mr. Snart," Rip says in a suddenly gentle voice that just makes Leonard want to punch him even more, "let's get your hand dealt with, shall we?"
"What hand?" Leonard retorts, gesturing sarcastically with his right arm. If he can't hide his weakness, he'll at least make sure it looks as little like a weakness as possible. Once he starts embracing it, maybe the others will tone down the cloying pity a little.
"We've all had a very long day," Rip says. "Why don't we table the discussion about Mr. Rory for now and finish it tomorrow?"
"Not like there's much of a discussion to finish," Leonard says. "I know what it means to be outnumbered. If you all want to invite Mick to light you on fire in your sleep, I won't stop you."
The others all share a look. "As I said," Rip says, "we can continue this discussion tomorrow. Mr. Snart?"
Leonard follows Rip out of the brig and back up to the medical bay. "Sit down," Rip says, gesturing at the chair, and Leonard does. When Rip comes over with on of the IV bracelets, though, Leonard pulls his left arm away.
"And what exactly are you doing?"
"Giving you painkillers," Rip says. "Now, put your right arm here."
Leonard looks down at the little table that Rip's pulled out of nowhere. "Why?"
"Just do it," Rip groans, and Leonard tentatively does. It's not as if anything Rip does can make his arm any worse.
Rip adjusts the little device that's sticking out of the table. "Gideon, start the regeneration process."
"What do you mean, regeneration?" Leonard demands. He was expecting Gideon to cut away the frostbitten flesh and neaten up the stump. He wasn't expecting... whatever this is.
"I took genetic samples from each of you at the start of our voyage for this exact eventuality," Rip says, as if that explains anything.
"Why am I only hearing about this now?" Leonard demands.
Rip looks entirely unrepentant. "Because none of you had lost a limb yet."
Which, Leonard supposes, is fair.
Rip turns around to look, and a light starts to shine down from the little device above the table. Except it's not just a light, apparently it's something that can regrow Leonard's bones, because that's exactly what it's doing.
"Ow," Leonard says, glad that Rip hooked him up to the painkillers but not about to admit that. Every time the light scans over his hand, more and more of it regrows, layer after layer, until he has a full right hand again, looking just like the hand he lost.
Rip chuckles a little, and Leonard wonders when the hell this became his life.
"Regeneration process complete," Gideon says cheerfully. "Mr. Snart's new hand should have all the same abilities as his old one. Mr. Snart, I would suggest resting."
"Oh, definitely," Rip agrees. "Regeneration takes a lot out of you. Or so I've heard. I've never actually had to do it myself before."
"Lucky you," Leonard drawls, pulling off the IV bracelet and standing. He flexes his right hand at his side. It seems to respond to his thoughts a fraction of a second slower than his old hand used to, but Leonard might just be imagining that. It's definitely fresh skin, free of the calluses and scars that Leonard got over the years. He wonders if it has the same strength and dexterity as his old hand. He'll have to test it out after he sleeps. Surely someone's got a lock he can pick. Maybe he can talk Rip into setting down the Waverider for a day or two so he can run a little heist.
Leonard abruptly remembers that none of his heists will include Mick anymore, and the appeal of the idea immediately fades.
"Goodnight, Mr. Snart," Rip calls as Leonard leaves the med bay. Leonard considers testing out his new hand by flipping Rip off, but ultimately decides against it.
Leonard's room is a little cold, the way he usually likes it, but now he wants it warmer. "Gideon," he says, "be a dear and heat up my room, would you?"
"How much warmer would you like it?" Gideon asks.
"What temperature is it now?"
"Sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit."
"Let's heat it up to seventy, shall we?" Leonard decides. Almost instantly, the room grows warmer. "That's better."
"Would you like this to be the new default temperature, Mr. Snart?"
"No, but don't bring the temperature back down until I tell you to," Leonard says.
"Understood."
Leonard shucks his clothes off and dumps them in a pile in the corner of his room, then he pulls on a pair of pajama pants, crawls into bed, and pulls the covers up to his chin. He is tired, exhausted, but the second he tells Gideon to turn off the lights, he remembers that Mick is alive and in the brig and probably perfectly capable of escaping and killing Lisa.
And, well, there's no way to sleep with that thought in his head, is there?
Leonard stares up at the ceiling and considers his options. He doesn't know how to use the ship to travel through time on his own, and Gideon will tattle to Rip if he asks her for help, so hijacking the Waverider to bring them back to 2016 so he can warn Lisa isn't an option. Maybe he can talk Rip into making it a team-sanctioned side jaunt, but he doubts it.
So if he can't warn Lisa, then he'll have to take care of the threat before it ever reaches her. In this case, that means getting rid of Chronos.
Getting rid of Mick.
If the others remain as vehemently against the idea as they were before, Leonard will need to figure out a way to do it himself. The easiest thing would probably be to steal a blaster from the armory (the Cold Gun requires to long a sustained shot for it to be undeniably fatal, and Leonard may not have that sort of time) and use it to shoot Mick in the head. One shot between the eyes, and Lisa will be safe.
But as much as Leonard knows it's necessary - as much as he was arguing the point with the others less than an hour ago - he's not sure that he won't hesitate. And if he hesitates, a gun in his hand and the cell doors open... Well, at that point he's basically just asking Mick to escape and shoot the rest of the team on his way out. Leonard will probably be lucky if Mick just shoots him too.
And then, it occurs to Leonard that he has a way of finding out if Mick will kill Lisa.
"Gideon," he says, getting up and crossing to stand in front of the screen above his desk, "you can tell me all about people from the entire timeline, right? Birth dates, death dates, all that jazz?"
"Indeed, Mr. Snart."
"Then pull up the information about Lisa Snart."
There's a pause for half a second. "I am sorry, Mr. Snart, but I cannot do that."
"You just said you could," Leonard retorts.
"I am not permitted to allow you or any other members of the crew access to your own files or the files of those close to you."
"Why the hell not?"
"Captain's orders."
"So Rip gets to plan this whole mission just to save his own family, and we can't even check if ours need saving too," Leonard seethes. "Bullshit. Pull up the file, Gideon."
"I am sorry, but I cannot do that."
"Pull up the file, Gideon!"
"I am sorry-"
"Goddamn it!" Leonard yells, punching the wall hard. He uses his right hand without thinking, but his freshly-regrown nerves are still tender, and the punch hurts more than it should. Leonard does it again.
"Mr. Snart?" a voice in his doorway asks, and Leonard whirls around to see Rip standing there. Suddenly, all Leonard wants is his Cold Gun so he can blast Rip with it, blast him until he shatters-
"Gideon said you seemed upset," Rip says. "I'm sure finding out the truth about Chronos-"
Leonard laughs. It sounds it's dragged out of his throat over shards of ice.
"You think that's what's upsetting me?" he snaps. "No, Rip, I'm upset because Mick threatened to kill my sister, and your stupid computer won't let me check to see if he does."
There's a moment of charged silence, then Rip says, "Gideon, bring up the file on Lisa Snart. Override, Hunter 665."
"Lisa Meredith Snart," Gideon says immediately. "Daughter of Lewis and Laura Snart. Born 19 March 1981. Died" - Leonard holds his breath - "23 September 2072. Cause of death, cardiac arrhythmia in her sleep."
Leonard feels his whole body relax. His baby sister isn't going to be brutally murdered. She's not going to die at the hands of someone she thought she could trust, someone who's only dangerous to her because Leonard screwed up. Lisa is going to live to be ninety-one years old, and she's going to die in her sleep, and Leonard doesn't know if he's ever been so relieved in his life.
"For what it's worth," Rip says quietly, "I'm glad to hear she's alright."
"It ain't worth much," Leonard replies. "Now get out of my room."
Technically, the whole ship belongs to Rip, so Leonard really doesn't have much authority to kick him out of anywhere. Luckily, Rip doesn't mention that. He just nods once and leaves without another word. Leonard waits until the door closes behind him, then he crumples on his bed and buries his face in his hands.
Lisa is going to live to be ninety-one years old. She's going to be okay.
Sleep still feels far-off, but it doesn't feel quite so impossible anymore.
Leonard lifts his head and looks at his hands. He flexes his left hand, then his right. Only now that his hand is back is it really hitting him how reckless and impulsive the decision to freeze it off was. It was stupid, and he's unbelievably lucky that the Waverider was able to fix his mistake.
If only fixing his other mistakes were that easy.
Tomorrow, Leonard decides as he climbs back into bed, he'll make his case for eliminating Mick, but if the others still disagree, he won't fight. If they really think they can reform Mick, he might as well give them the chance to do it.
He didn't go back for Mick before, apparently won't go back for him in the future, but maybe he can reach him now. And as long as he knows Lisa will be safe, it doesn't hurt to try.