Just a quick disclaimer: This fic was inspired by a line in Clair de Lune's "Documenting Bar Brawls", if you guys have a chance and having already you should really check out that fic; it's really funny and very well written!
"Sara?" A loud voice rang through the hall on the other side of the door. "Sara?" It called again, but Sara's head was much to fogged for her to place its owner.
It was a male; she could recognize that much. But was it a member of her team? Or was it him again?
If last night hadn't been what it was then she might have called herself weak, pathetic, might have laughed at herself for being so afraid of a man that she wouldn't even use his name in her own thoughts. But last night was what it was, no matter how much she wishes it wasn't. There are very few things in this world that scare the White Canary; even death doesn't scare her. But after last night she knows that she has every right to fear the man who locked her in this room because she was trained by the league of assassins where she learned that manipulation can be just as useful in a kill as a knife.
So a person who can not only outsmart her, but also drug her and leave her trapped in a room that even she can't get out of despite the year only being 1924, is freaking terrifying.
24 hours earlier
"His name is Victor Altoviti," Rip explained as Gideon displayed a picture of a man who appeared to be in his mid-to late thirties. "Supposedly he knows where Vandal Savage is hiding in this era but our window is short because tomorrow afternoon he is going to drop off the face of the earth." The captain continued in his usually urgent voice.
"Say what?" Mick questioned,
"He means that Altoviti is going off the grid," Kendra cleared up and Rip nodded.
"He won't resurface until his capture eleven years from now and by that time-"
"Any ties he has with Savage will probably be long dead," Sara cut Rip off considering they could all put those pieces together. "We get it, what do we need to do?" She asked and that was when the captain's face turned from confident to uncertain.
"Yes well," he began awkwardly, "Altoviti is known for not cracking no matter the torture and considering we don't have a lot of time we are going to need an alternative approach." He said and each and every member of the team knew that he had this 'alternative approach' already in mind, but for whatever reason was afraid of saying it.
"And what's this alternative approach?" Leave it to Ray to voice the thoughts of everyone else.
"Mr. Altoviti is also known for his reputation with women," Rip said awkwardly, because everyone knew what that meant.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. This guy is in with Vandal Savage, the badest dude in history, and you want to send one of the girl's on a date with him?" Jax questioned but based on his facial expression Rip wasn't exactly proud of this particular plan. But Victor Altoviti is a hard man to locate even when he's not off the grid, and they just don't have the time to try some other alternative.
Quickly, Sara and Kendra exchanged a glance, Kendra's eyes frightened and very unsure whilst Sara's eyes were very sure and confirming of the information that she already knew.
"I'll go," the blonde volunteered, turning the gazes of everyone else to her. "I'll go," she repeated,
"Thank you, Sara." Rip said before he turned his attention to Leonard.
"Mr. Snart, can I trust you to remain in the vicinity and watch her back?" He asked,
"Why me?" Len questioned, not that he was going to say no of course it's just that Rip picked him pretty fast and he's normally not one to comply with quick orders.
"Well you are the least likely to start a fight for no reason," the captain directed his glare at Mick, "get caught in the middle of a fight that has nothing to do with you," gaze fixed on Ray, "or draw attention to yourself." His eyes went to Stein. The other two Rip wouldn't say, but Len knew the reasons. Kendra can't do it because it's 1924 and she'd be a woman going into a bar alone, and that's just asking for trouble considering they're in the middle of the prohibition act and so the patrons of these bars aren't exactly the good guys. Jax could do it but he still has a slight limp after the last mission and without Stein he wouldn't be much help if Sara got into trouble.
"Rip, I don't need a babysitter." Sara spoke up,
"While I don't doubt that, I am not sending you in there without back up." Rip defended his decision.
"Besides I could use some time out of this tin can," Len spoke up and although Sara crossed her arms and set her mouth into a firm line she said nothing, mostly because if she had to have someone watching her tonight she'd rather it be Snart than any of the others.
"Fine," she finally agreed.
"Alright, how do I look?" Sara asked later that evening just before she was about to leave. Kendra had already given her recon outfit a seal of approval but the White Canary still felt a need to ask some of the boy's their opinions, considering the whole point of this outfit was to grab the attention of a man.
"That depends," Mick started, presently he, Ray, and Stein were all doing their own things in the bridge and so it was the three of them who now had to answer Sara's question. "Are you going snap our necks if we call you hot?" He asked, Mick may not always be the brightest candle but he had picked up by now that Sara has a very low tolerance for comments that could be seen as demeaning to women, and that combined with her bloodlust induced a reasonable amount of fear in him.
Sara rolled her eyes, but a part of her did take some pride in being able to elicit this kind of fear from Mick.
"No Mick, you get a pass." She answered with a chuckle,
"In that case, you look hot." The arsonist said and in the background Stein was rolling his eyes in disgust, Sara's not the only one with a low tolerance for treating people as if they were objects.
"Well hot isn't exactly the word I word use but since you asked for an opinion; if you were my daughter I'd ask you to consider changing your Halloween costume." The professor replied and while Mick looked at him as if he were crazy, Sara and Ray began laughing at the old man's way of telling her that her outfit was probably going to get her noticed.
She was dressed as a flapper, wearing a tank top styled white dress with a knee length skirt that was practically made of fringe. The dress was pinched in just slightly at her waist, a request made to Gideon by Sara herself because she'd always hated how most flapper dresses had no waistline, and was cut with a V-neck neckline. Her hair had been curled into a ponytail over her left shoulder with a large white feather clipped into it and she had a pair of white earrings dangling from her ears.
Before Ray could give an opinion Len entered the room to get Sara so that they could leave, and all four of his currently present teammates burst out with varying degrees of laughter. Captain Cold was dressed in a black pinstripe suit, a white shirt underneath, an icy blue tie, and a classic bowler hat. Now the thing that had everyone laughing at this was the fact that he was actually pulling it off. The man who normally walked around in thermal clothes and a parka, even in the middle of summer, actually looked very good in a 1920's suit.
"Yuck it up all you want," he said with a very unamused smirk, "because there are plenty worse things than this, things the three of you will end up wearing sooner or later." He mocked but it did nothing discourage the laughter of the others in the least. After another minute or so of laughter Sara realized that Len had left the room, and she knew that meant that they needed to get going.
"I'll see you guys later," she said, a smile still on her face, as she left the bridge where she found Len leaning impatiently against a wall.
"There you go," Leonard said once he and Sara were inside the bar, cocking his head over to the man they were here to pry information from. They were careful not to draw attention to themselves as they entered, careful to make it look like they didn't know each other. Sara entered first, Len standing behind her but pushing the door open, making it look as though he were just a polite guy holding the door open for a lady.
"Thanks," Sara replied, it'd look too suspicious if she said anything else to him. He watched as she sauntered over to the table where this man sat by himself, making sure not to watch her in a way that made it look like he knew her.
Once she appeared to be all set he went over to the far end of the bar and ordered a drink, careful to keep a watch on Sara from as far away as possible. As he sat there he found himself filled with an unfamiliar and impossible to place sense of hatred. He couldn't help it; he just suddenly felt a burning hatred in his chest. He didn't hate this assignment, in fact he felt as though he would've hated not getting this assignment even more. He didn't hate having to spend the night drinking alone, adding babysitting Mick or any other member of the team to this would've just been an unnecessary distraction. He didn't even hate the nature of this mission in the way he hates it when Lisa takes on these kinds of jobs, although that's probably because he knows Sara can handle any less than honorable men while Lisa's wild streak is likely to land her in becoming the pawn rather than the player. So in the end he decided to tell himself that was the problem; that thanks to his overconfident sister he just has a natural hatred for these kinds of assignments.
"You look like you need to drown your sorrows," the voice of the bartender observed as he handed Len the beer he had ordered.
"Not yet," Len replied before taking a long sip of the beer.
"This seat taken?" Sara asked upon reaching the table, her target for the night looking up at her.
He was an Italian man; tan tinted skin and slicked back black hair. He was wearing a brown suit and a maroon colored tie. All in all if Sara were asked to define the term mobster, she'd bring up a picture of this man.
"Not yet," he replied with an interested smirk, Sara took the cue and sat down. "So do you want to tell me what you're doing in a hole like this all by yourself?" He asked and Sara gave him a shrug.
"I'm just looking for a good time," she replied and Altoviti smiled.
"Well then, you've come to the right table." He said before ordering two drinks that were brought over rather quickly. He took a long sip of his before he watched Sara do the same. "Wait until the buyer drinks first, your parents taught you well." He praised as Sara placed down her drink.
"First time going out alone, can't blame a girl for being too careful." She excused, honestly she was surprised that throughout her entire life this was the first time someone voiced that they noticed this habit of hers. But it's common enough, reasonable enough, that she could get away with using it tonight.
"That I cannot," Altoviti agreed, taking another sip of his drink. "But I can say that it surprises me this is your first time out alone." He said but Sara shrugged again.
"What can I say?" She asked rhetorically, "My friends all had something better to do," she excused and Altoviti frowned.
"That's a shame," he admitted and suddenly Sara felt herself getting a headache. "You know what else is a shame?" He asked knowingly, the fact that she could barely focus her eyes on him only adding to the wave of panic rising inside of her. "You were so focused on me slipping something into your drink, that you didn't even consider the bar tender might already have a separate, already drugged, bottle. White Canary." He leaned over the table to whisper her name, and when he did Sara knew that she didn't have a lot of time.
Instinctively she whirled her head over to the far end of the bar, about to call for Snart, but found that he was already out cold with his head in his folded arms. Despite the pounding in her head Sara stood up, albeit very unsteadily, and barely even registered it when Altoviti seized her arm until he was leading her away into some back room. Her mind wasn't working, and that scared her. During her time in the league she'd learned how to fight hammered, stoned, drugged, as well as with any sort of physical disability. She'd learned how to manipulate her mind when under the influence of any substance so that she could still accomplish her mission, so the fact that her mind felt like it was shutting off scared the hell out of her. It was like she knew where to focus, what to focus on, how to get herself out of there; but her body wouldn't listen. Finally she was able to draw enough focus to force her free arm to move and swing a punch at Altoviti, but he easily blocked it. She didn't care though, she needed to fight through this haze; she needed to escape. So she kept fighting, but soon Altoviti started fighting back. She felt every jab and punch that he landed on her. She felt the blood running into her mouth from her nose, she felt herself giving into the darkness of whatever the hell had been in that drink.
"I'm impressed," she just vaguely heard a voice saying, she knew that it was him solely because he was the only one there. "Most men would've dropped immediately, never mind a lightweight like you." He said and with that and one last burst of intense pain erupting in her temple, no doubt caused by a hard punch, Sara lost all consciousness.
"He's not going to be happy when he wakes up," Len could hear Mick clear as day, but all he could see was the inside of his own eyelids.
"Well hopefully the others will have returned before that time comes." That was Rip's voice, and he sounded just a tad worried.
Deciding that the two probably wouldn't tell him what they were talking about if he asked Len decided to keep his eyes shut in hopes that maybe they would say something to each other if they believed he couldn't hear them.
"Yeah," Mick drawled and when it was followed by the sound of both him and Rip exiting the room Len decided that he just might be better off opening his eyes.
When he did so he found that he was in the med bay of the Waverider, odd considering he has no memory of ever leaving the bar. He remembers ordering a beer, exchanging some small talk with the bartender as a headache set in, and then…
"Crap," he thought to himself when the realization hit him that he had been drugged.
"How long was I out?" He questioned the two men who had stopped in their tracks when he opened his eyes and were now staring nervously at him.
"We're not sure," Rip confessed, "When neither you or Sara responded to your com links Mr. Rory and Mr. Jefferson went to the bar to see if you were still lingering there. They found you sitting unconscious in a corner, you were drugged." He explained as Len sat up, headache still pounding but receding most likely thanks to something from Gideon.
"What about Sara?" He asked, knowing that if she had been drugged then she was bound to be in a bad mood upon waking due to wounded pride. But when Mick and Rip exchanged nervous glances with each other the pit in Len's stomach plunged even deeper, suddenly confronting Sara in a foul mood was the least of his worries. Finally, Mick stepped forward and pulled his hand out from behind his back.
"This was the only trace of her," He said, in his hand he was holding a dust and dirt coated white feather.
For a moment Len just stared at it.
It couldn't be. Lisa had gotten herself in some pretty sticky situations in the past but she never got herself kidnapped, and this is Sara they're talking about. She's so careful, so good at what she does. She doesn't make mistakes, especially mistakes like this.
"Some lingering patrons of the bar said they saw Altoviti lead a stumbling blonde woman into a back storage room last night, then he emerged alone less than fifteen minutes later. Jax searched the room but like Mr. Rory said, all we found was her hairpiece." Rip explained and it took nearly all of his strength not to flinch under the murderous glare Len directed at him.
"The others are back there now, searching the whole place and every place around it." Mick informed his partner; he's not quite as dense as everyone may think, not all the time anyway, and he knows probably better then most that losing Sara is something Len won't handle well.
Neither of the two men breaking this news knew exactly what they expected Len to do, but it didn't really surprise them when he sprung up from the bed and headed straight for his cold gun.
"Mr. Snart, it is unadvisable that you-"
"Put a sock in it Gideon," he spat at the computer as he powered up his gun and marched out of the med bay. "I'm going to make that son of a bitch wish he was never born." He growled darkly under his breath.
Sara's head lolled to the side and she groaned as her eyes began to crack open. Her head was pounding and she could only squeeze her eyes closed again when the light began invading her vision. Slowly she became aware of the aching pain in just about every part of her body. She also became disgustingly aware of the awful taste of something on her tongue, and she spit it out viciously. When she finally blinked her eyes open again and adjusted them to the sour lighting of the room she saw what she had spit out; a rather large clot of blood. She groaned again, realizing that couldn't mean anything good. But she looked the room over before paying any attention to herself. She appeared to be trapped underground judging by the mix of concrete and dirt that made up the walls and floor. She also noted that it was freezing in the room, though she had grown highly tolerant of such temperatures after spending so much time in Nanda Parbat, she still shivered at the feeling of the freezing concrete against her bare leg. She was sitting on the ground, her arms cuffed above her head to the large water valve a pipe that ran vertically along the wall. The cuffs, she noted, felt about three sizes to tight and were digging harshly into her wrists. Her body was battered and bruised and despite her more aware state her head still felt as if it were about to split open. Then, as if to make matters worse, she began to feel waves of nausea. She tried breathing deeply to calm the feeling, but the action only clouded her lungs with dust and caused her to cough violently. The coughing soon turned to dry heaving, which turned to whatever food was in her stomach coming up and staining her dress. She then returned to coughing, and then finally back to breathing.
She all but slammed her head back against the thick water pipe as she struggled for breath. She tried to remember what happened to land her in this predicament, but once she did she wished could forget it. Savage had been expecting them. She didn't know how but frankly it doesn't really matter, all that matters is that they played right into his trap. She's supposed to be better than this, and if she were still in the league she'd be left here to suffer at the hands of her enemies.
But she's not in the league anymore. She's on a team, a team who watches each other's backs and comes to the rescue when things go wrong. So with the tears of horror that had been clouding her eyes beginning to stream down her face she resorted to the only move she felt she had.
"HEEELLPP!" She sobbed out.
"She's not here!" Jax growled; he and the others had searched yet another building and still no signs of Sara.
"I talked to the owners, they didn't see anyone matching Sara or Altoviti's description." Kendra said as she joined the younger man who was currently sitting on an overturned crate.
"Same with the neighbors," Ray announced as he and Stein entered.
"Ok lets… lets think about this." Jax said as he stood up, "We've checked every secret bar and abandoned building around here but we can't check the whole city. Where would a mobster go to hook up with a girl?" He asked,
"Hook up?" Ray asked, "We don't have any proof that's-"
"Do you got a better idea?" Jax snapped; he was way past the point of being on edge. Sara and Kendra both had been like older sisters to him ever since the team started. Kendra was the more responsible one, the one he felt like he could go to with anything and if they were talking about personality she acted like she was the oldest. Sara was more like a middle child, the one who's still battling her own demons and he can't exactly go running to for protection; but through her own senses she'll know when he needs her and she'll be there. But now she's missing, and she needs him.
"An apartment," Kendra offered and everyone snapped their attention to her. "He'd bring her to an apartment."
"I sincerely doubt that a man with ties to Vandal Savage and who knows how many other dangerous criminals would bring a woman he just met back to his apartment." Stein objected but Kendra shook her head.
"Not his apartment, some kind of safe house apartment." She clarified,
"Ok so lets think," Ray began, obviously fighting to keep his own frustration and anger with the situation from overtaking him. "Where would an Italian mobster in 1924, who's about to disappear, take a girl for one last goodtime?" He asked and that was when Stein thought of a better approach.
"We're going about this all wrong," he said and the other three couldn't help but eye him curiously. "We don't need to figure out where he took Sara, and odds are we'll never be able to guess in time. All we need to do is find the one surefire place he's bound to stop before he goes off the grid." He explained and that was all he needed to say, everyone knew exactly where Altoviti would be this morning.
"A little late guys," Len sneered as the search party that was his team knocked then burst into the apartment of Victor Altoviti's mother. "They're not here," he continued but the other four only stared at him in shock.
"Where-?"
"Relax Raymond, the old lady's just fine." Snart assured the understandably concerned man. "She's in the bedroom, spilling her guts to Mick." He said before he pushed past the remaining four members of his team and began walking down the corridor of the building.
"Where are you going?" Jax questioned as he and the others hurried to catch up with Captain Cold.
"To find Sara or put the sick bastard who took her on ice, whichever comes first." He replied almost as coolly as he usually answers a question, but there was a slight hint of anger in his normally disinterested voice. Anger that told the others he was completely serious.
"And how are you going to do that when you don't know where to look?" Kendra demanded but Snart neither stopped nor answered her until she grabbed his shoulder and forced him to turn around. The two stared each other down for a minute before Len gave a sigh, he didn't have time for this.
"Victor was here but he's gone, and he was alone. His mother said he didn't mention anything about a girl but Mick's talking to her; he can be surprisingly patient when there's a sweet old lady in the picture. According to her he was here just two hours ago and he had a suitcase. The last time I remember seeing on the bar clock was 11:32 p.m., and if it's 12:41 now that means Victor came to say goodbye to momma around 10:30. Sara's hairpiece had grease all over it but there's no grease in that back room meaning it was on the floor, and she was gone, before the 4:00 a.m. closing when somebody stepped on the hairpiece while cleaning up. So he took her out of there, stopped home and packed, ditched her somewhere, and came over here between midnight and ten this morning." He ranted and the others were shocked by his deduction skills, to say the least.
"Ok but ten hours is a long time," Jax said
"And if Altoviti has already been gone for two hours then…" Stein trailed off, the reality setting in that their kidnapper was gone and they were most likely never going to find Sara, dead or alive.
"Then stay here if you're so void of hope old man," Len snapped before going on his way again, "I've got one last hunch." He called back over his shoulder.
He got all the way to the lobby of the building before he heard the hurried footsteps behind him.
"Snart! Hey Snart!" Leonard let out a long sigh as Raymond came running up behind him.
"What Raymond?" He demanded,
"I'm going with you," Ray said
"No you're-"
"Yes, I am." Ray insisted, "Look Sara's my friend too, Kendra's up there with Mick and Jax and Stein are flying out to check the rooftops; but I'm coming with you." He finalized and Len sighed again, this time a sigh of acceptance.
"Altoviti wouldn't be stupid enough to unload an unconscious body into his own apartment building," he began to explain his theory.
"You think he took her with him?" Ray asked
"No," Len replied before using his cold gun to blast open a door that led to the basement of the building they were currently in, or the tunnels that were there in place of a basement that is.
Sara had long stopped crying, long stopped screaming for help, and had long numbed out the feeling of her injuries. She still felt the cold of the concrete on her thighs and her back. The rim of her upper lip stung with the feeling of the dry blood from her nose crusting over the cuts she had receives to her lips. Her stomach growled from time to time but she was able to ignore that with practiced ease. Her arms ached more than anything, stretched high above her head with no relief. She had tried breaking the cuffs but no matter how hard she pulled they wouldn't bust. She tried standing up but found that her feet didn't want to listen to her and her legs didn't want to bare her weight. It was like whatever she had been drugged with had robbed her of all her energy, not to mention her head was still a muddled mess of half processed thoughts. She couldn't think clearly, not in the least. Some daydreams flashed through her mind as the hours passed; fantasies where she fought her way out of the bar, or where Snart was never drugged and he came to her rescue. Some where the team came and found her here, and some where she woke up on the Waverider to find that this had all been one bad dream. These daydreams never saw out their endings though, her mind was too clouded. The closest she came to finishing one was the one where Snart got her out of the bar. She had imagined she would've passed out as he carried her over his shoulder out of there and would wake up in the med bay to find him sitting beside her. She had imagined Mick would then come in and tease that his partner never left her side all night, and she would think that was sweet.
That was where she ended it.
That was the only one she ended consciously, because she couldn't let herself imagine something happy as that. The most she could hope for right now was to get out of this room alive.
"Sara?" A loud voice rang through the hall on the other side of the door. "Sara?" It called again, but Sara's head was much to fogged for her to place its owner.
It was a male; she could recognize that much. But was it a member of her team? Or was it him again?
If last night hadn't been what it was then she might have called herself weak, pathetic, might have laughed at herself for being so afraid of a man that she wouldn't even use his name in her own thoughts. But last night was what it was, no matter how much she wishes it wasn't. There are very few things in this world that scare the White Canary; even death doesn't scare her. But after last night she knows that she has every right to fear the man who locked her in this room because she was trained by the league of assassins where she learned that manipulation can be just as useful in a kill as a knife.
So a person who can not only outsmart her, but also drug her and leave her trapped in a room that even she can't get out of despite the year only being 1924, is freaking terrifying.
Therefor it's totally understandable why she didn't respond to the shouting of her name right away, because if Altoviti knew her code name somehow then he just as easily could know her real name.
"Sara?" Another voice, another male.
"Lance! Where in the hell are you?!" The first voice again, screaming now, screaming with anger. Sara picked her head up as she finally recognized it; it was Snart.
"SNART!" She cried out, desperate for it to be him, for it to be real.
"SNART!" The cry came from down the corridor and without so much as a glance to each other Snart and Ray booked it down the hall. "SNART!" The cry came again, it sounded like she was crying; screaming through her tears. But Len didn't want to believe that's what he was hearing. Sara's strong, she wouldn't cry. "SNART!" The wail came again, tears just as evident as they were in the last.
The two men burst through the door where the cries seemed to be coming from, and they found Sara.
"Oh god," Len gasped as he took in the sight of her; bloody, battered, and bruised. She was whimpering like a scared little puppy as he bent down to her, breath repeatedly hitching in her throat as she tried to compose herself. "It's ok," he said as he gently cupped her face with his hand. Screw his reputation and the fact that Raymond was standing right behind him; she needed to know that she was safe. "You're alright, we're going to get you out of here. Alright?" He said to her gently and she nodded. "Alright," he said again before standing and blasting her cuffs with his cold gun until they shattered apart.
He was quick to get back down to her height, and thank god for that because she all but fell forward and grabbed tightly onto him. As he held her he felt her skin, felt how cold she was. It was then that he realized that Gideon must have given him something to curb the drug, but without that help Sara was barley holding on. Her injuries weren't helping her either. So without a second thought Len ripped off his signature parka and guided her into it. Once that was accomplished he zipped her up and took her bridal style into his arms, then stood up and turned to see Raymond still standing there stunned.
"Let's go," he said, effectively snapping Raymond out of his daze.
"Right," Ray said, still completely shocked.
As they ran down the corridor Leonard couldn't help but keep more focus on the blonde in his arms than he had on anything ahead of him. She was fighting to keep her eyes open the crack that they were, and if he weren't so worried about her not waking up he would've told her to give in and go to sleep. She had blood stained all over her face and throat, and he had seen the dried vomit on her dress before he covered it with his coat. The only thing he felt he could do for her until they got back was hold her closer to his chest, and he wasn't sure how much that was actually helping. But they were almost there, almost to the door, when they ran into who was clearly another one of Savage's men.
"Whoa, the boss-" the man started to say with a devilish grin, but he never got the chance to finish. Ray didn't stop running; no way in hell was he going to let these people get their hands on Sara again. He ran right on through and punched the man square in the face as he did; now it was Len's turn to be stunned.
Upon their return Leonard brought Sara straight to the med bay while Rip contacted the rest of the team and told them to come back. Leonard laid Sara down on a medical bed and while Gideon assessed the situation he went and grabbed a washcloth, running it under some warm water while the computer babbled. In the end all he got out of her rant was that she was administering Sara an IV and the same medication he'd had to fight off the drug.
"Mr. Snart I should tell you that Ms. Lance only needs to rest, there is nothing you can do to help her condition." The AI lectured but Leonard wasn't about to listen.
"That's where you're wrong Gideon," he said as he took the damp cloth and began gently wiping the dried blood off Sara's face. He made sure to be extra gentle with what was on her neck, as he didn't want to hurt her. He wiped some blood away from a cut above her eye as well. While he was working on her lips he couldn't help but to be mesmerized by them. They were as cut and bruised as the rest of her but they were still soft, still beautiful, just like the rest of her.
Once she was cleaned up he caressed her face with the warm cloth one more time, taking in how peaceful she looked right now, because lord knows that when she gets back to full strength she is going to be pissed.
The first thing Sara became aware of was the faint prickling sensation in her ears, the second thing she became aware of was that her headache was finally gone. Overjoyed by this second fact she opened her eyes to find that she was staring up at a dark and unfamiliar ceiling. For a moment she panicked, but then she realized that this unfamiliar ceiling wasn't so unfamiliar; it was the ceiling of the med bay. She looked down at herself to see that she was clothed in something blue, something with the right sleeve rolled up in order to accommodate two needles protruding from her arm. Finally it clicked with her that this blue garment was none other than Snart's jacket and the prickling in her ears was the fur of the hood. Just then, before she could question things any further, Captain Cold himself came walking into the dark room with a flashlight. He was clad in his pajamas, so now Sara knew it must be late, and he pulled up a chair along side her. For a moment he was quiet, he just looked at her. Studying her with his flashlight hanging loosely in his left hand and she stared back, wondering what he was doing here and how she had ended up bundled in his parka.
"How are you feeling?" He finally asked, his whispered voice void of his usual tone and instead replaced by sincerity.
"What time is it?" She asked; she wanted to curse upon hearing how weak and frightened her voice sounded.
"A little past two a.m." Len answered in a soothing whisper before he reached out and brushed a strand of hair out of her face.
"Why are you up?" She asked, secretly reveling in the feeling of his knuckles lightly brushing against her skin.
"The others forced me to go to my room, but I asked Gideon to tell me when you woke up." He answered her; she still hadn't answered him but he was being patient, telling her what she wanted to know and opting to ask about her condition again later.
"They forced you?" She asked and he sighed, clearly a little embarrassed by what he was about to tell her.
"I sat in here for awhile," he admitted, "It was either that or go out and murder the friends of the man who took you; and Rip said that they're important to the timeline." He grumbled and Sara smiled a small but genuine smile.
"You're sweet," she told him, he said nothing. "Do you want your jacket back?" She asked as she moved to unzip the coat, only just now remembering it, but Len stopped her.
"No," he whispered, "No that can wait," he said and the two of them were quiet for another minute or two, neither knowing what else to say. "How are you feeling?" Snart tried again and Sara groaned as she plowed her head further back into her pillow.
"Like I was hit by a time ship!" She moaned and Len chuckled.
"You had that drug in your system longer than I did, Gideon said another few hours and you might have…" he trailed off, not wanting and not knowing how to finish that sentence.
"Hey," Sara said, reaching out and grasping his hand. "I'm ok," she assured him and he sighed with a smile before releasing her hand.
"You should get some rest," he advised as he stood and turned to leave. Sara looked after him, longingly, before her mouth opened without the consent of her mind.
"Leonard?" she called out and he stopped where he stood in the doorway and turned back.
"Yeah?" He asked and for a moment she hesitated, for a moment.
"Will you… stay with me?" She asked and at first he looked surprised by her request, but who could blame him? She's the White Canary, she's the girl who actually has been to hell and back; she's not supposed to need comfort.
"Yeah," he agreed, walking back and reclaiming his seat. He grabbed her hand and began moving his thumb gently over her knuckles in a soothing way before she sighed.
"Do you want to go to sleep?" She asked after a minute, not making eye contact with him.
"No, I want to stay with you." He admitted, although he hadn't realized he was actually going to say that out loud.
"I'll scoot over," Sara offered, somehow unfazed by his words, or he thought she was unfazed anyway. In reality she felt as though a swarm of butterflies had just been released inside of her chest, making her heart flutter in a way it hadn't since she was a teenager.
"Yeah that works," Len agreed and so Sara quickly made room for him on the cot. He climbed on and found himself placing one arm around her while she placed her head on his chest as well as one of her hands.
Neither of them said another word that night. Sara fell asleep feeling safer than she had in a long time thanks to Leonard's protective arm holding her close to him while the steady drum of his heartbeat lulled her to sleep. The last thing she registered before sleep completely engulfed her senses was the feeling of his lips placing a soft kiss to the top of her head. The last thing to cross Leonard's mind as he drifted off to sleep was how perfectly Sara seemed to fit against him.
"What are you doing?" Ray asked early the next morning when he found Mick coming from the direction of the med bay, phone in hand and mischievous grin on his face.
"Two words Boy Scout: Black Mail." He replied while showing Ray the picture on his screen.
Ray was too stunned by the image of Sara and Leonard sound asleep in each other's arms to point out to Mick that blackmail is one word.