My first major fandom, back in the day, was for "The X-Files." And one of my favorite episodes is the sixth-season episode "Triangle."
And a while back, not too long after the "Legends of Tomorrow" episode "Destiny," I thought: "What if..."
This may be a bit odd, but it was a real labor of love. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel and Pir8grl for looking it over from different angles. I really appreciate it.
I hope this is something both Legends and X-Files fans can enjoy, although I'll tell you going in that it's mostly Legends (and time-hopping Snart POV). Note: "Triangle" and "The X-Files" are on U.S. Netflix, if you're so inclined. I tried to put lots of Easter eggs in while still making sure it made sense if you've never seen the show or the episode.)
...
"There are no strings on me."
But there are. The ones he's tied himself. The ones other people have tied to him. Lisa. Mick. Sara. Even the other members of this godforsaken team. He cares. He hates it sometimes, but he cares.
And when the Oculus blows, sending the spark that is Leonard Snart hurtling through time and space, those strings remain.
Something takes advantage of them.
He's not sure how long he's been in the water before someone on the luxury liner—the Queen Anne-sees him. Long enough to be chilled clear through and exhausted, though not so exhausted he can't grab on when the life preserver, its white shape clear in the darkness, spins through the night to land a few feet away.
"Oi! Grab hold, mate!"
He does. He winds his arms around the white shape and holds on for dear life. It's unnerving as hell when it, and he, start to rise into the air, as well as dizzying, and he closes his eyes for a moment, trying to settle his stomach.
He has no idea where he is now. When he is now. Who he's going to see, or how he's going to see them.
It's not the first time. He's not even sure how many times it's been, how many times he's landed in. How many times he's seen her,in so many different incarnations. Sometimes the others too, but always…her.
"Hang on, mate!" With a lurch, he and the life preserver crash into and over the ship's railing, and he tumbles onto the deck and immediately scrambles to hands and knees, pausing for a second as the scene reels around him.
"Oi, give it a second there, man." The speaker moves closer. "Huh. That's not a uniform. Name?"
Slowly, things stop spinning. "Michael," he says, grasping for a name. "Michael…Lance."
"Well, there, Mikey, how the 'ell you get out here?" The first rescuer prods him with a toe, and the rescued man—one Leonard Snart—peers up at him, noting the uniform, and the British accent, and the suspicion.
"I don't remember," he says shortly. Pretending amnesia, he's found, is usually better in these cases than trying to make up details when he doesn't have a clear idea when or where he is. "Just my name. I don't remember."
"Huh." A considering silence. The second sailor, silent until now, moves up on his other side.
"Fellows on the other side pulled a bloke out too," he comments. "All the Jerries goin' swimming tonight?
"Pretty sure this 'un's not a Jerry. My sister has a friend…that's an American accent, that is."
"A Yank? But what's he doin' here?"
"That's something fer the captain, I think."
The door to the captain's quarters is closed and locked. From inside, though, comes the familiar sound of a beating being administered. The two sailors look at each other, then at Leonard.
He ignores them, making note of the name on the door plaque. Y. Harburg. Unfamiliar. He half-expected it to be…
"First Mate Hunter!"
And there it is. He turns as the sailors straighten, sighing a little as he sees the bearded face of the Time Master eyeing him from above the neat uniform.
"Hey, Rip," he says with resignation. "Don't suppose you remember me?"
The man's eyes widen at the name, then narrow. One of the sailors snickers, then straightens again as the red-haired man glares at him.
"Report!" Rip's doppelganger barks at him, still watching Snart.
"Yes, sir! We found this 'un off starboard, just floatin'. American. Says he doesn't remember how he got there. And we heard they found another 'un, so we thought…"
The indistinct sound of a raised voice from within the captain's quarters. All four men look at the door. Then the sailors look at each other again. Rip…First Mate Hunter…looks back at Leonard, frowning.
"American," he says thoughtfully, his accent stronger than the crook had remembered. "No friend of the Nazis? Even if your country stays neutral…so far?"
Ah ha. Well, at least that helps pin the timeframe down. He can't resist. "I hate those guys," he quips, shaking his head when the quote doesn't get a reaction. "And where's Raymond when you need him?"
Hunter frowns. "Raymond? Palmer? How do you…?" But he bites the words off with a shake of his head. "Bloody hell. As if we needed more complications." He looks at the sailors. "Back to your posts, boys. I'll take this one. And take care...there's trouble afoot."
The men look all too willing to leave. Rip watches them go, then looks back at Leonard.
"If you're part of this," he says in a low voice, "keep your head down, man. Too many players on the field. Might be a good thing, though, to have a hidden card, so..."
As another man approaches, Hunter jerks his chin at the shadows and Leonard doesn't hesitate, fading into them with alacrity.
What do you know...Hunter actually has some sense here...He frowns, shivering a little in his sodden clothing. Though it'd be nice to know what "this" is...
The two men have a quick, whispered conference, and Hunter steps back, waving the other man toward the captain's door and, with another glance toward Leonard, heads purposefully down the hallway in the opposite direction.
The other man approaches the captain's door, though, and the man in the shadows moves closer to listen as he knocks, opens it and goes through.
"Excuse me, captain," he hears. "Sir, the Germans, sir. They've taken control of the bridge. Steering a course for their homeland."
Shit.
"Not on the watch of captain Yip Harburg, they're not. Lock the prisoner up in here."
Leonard takes another step backward. "Yip Harburg?" he mutters to himself. "Seriously? Makes 'Rip Hunter' sound good."
So great is his indignation over that ridiculous name…and his concern over making sure neither the captain nor the mob of sailors exiting the room see him…that he nearly misses the cheerful male voice still coming from inside the room.
"It's OK! The war's over," it calls. "Let them take you to Germany. They make nice cars!"
But the door closes, cutting the other man off, and Leonard turns away, although he can't help wondering, briefly, if the cheerful man is just mad—or if he could possibly have some sort of reason to assure the captain that the war—World War II, clearly, in its earlier days given the captain and the Rip doppelganger's words-is over.
Another time-lost wanderer? He shrugs uncomfortably. He's not looking for a team-up. All he wants is to find…
But there's another man approaching now, a young man in a uniform that years of reading and documentaries give him an immediate visceral and negative reaction to.
Nazi.
"Hallo? Sind Sie da drinnen?" the newcomer calls as he rattles the door. "Hallo? Ist da jemand?"
Leonard's just trying to decide if the prospect of clean, warm clothing is enough to overcome that visceral reaction when the man actually pulls out a key and unlocks the door, slipping into the dark room.
Moments later, the clear sounds of a fight emerge, over the sound of...music? Impossible to tell who's winning, the Nazi or the man who'd been locked in, but in another moment or two, all is silence. Someone's down.
Leonard hesitates...and then against his better judgment, he goes to check things out
Another man, brown haired and maybe a trifle younger than him, pauses in the middle of taking a jacket off the unconscious man on the floor—the Nazi. The victor, evidently smarter and tougher than he looks or sounds, gives him a thorough once-over.
And Leonard knows that look. Fed. Fuckin' fantastic.
"Hey!" the Fed blurts out. "You're not from here either, are you? Or…" A glance around him. "…uh. Here. 1939."
The crook blinks at him. "No," he fires back, the word startled out of him. "I'm not." Then, muttered, "Damn it." He turns aside and starts casting about the room for a change of clothes, just something dry and not so distinctly out of time.
The next room in the suite seems to be actual quarters. And... ahha... a closet that mostly includes uniforms, but at the back a rather nice tux. He grabs it, turning away to come face to face with the eager Fed once more.
"Are you from 1998 too?" the man asks hopefully, sticking his hand out. "Fox Mulder, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Anyone going to be looking for you? Because this is incredible and all, but I'd like to get home, and the only people who know I was sort of snooping around in the Bermuda Triangle... well, I don't know if anyone's going to listen to them..."
Fox? Whatis it with the names here? The enthusiasm reminds him of Raymond. And damned if he'd forgotten just how exhausting that can be.
"Bit later than that, actually," he says tersely, taking a step back and shutting the door in the man's face. "And no, probably not."
Captain Yip is tall, which is good, but the tux is just a bit too big. A belt helps. He regards his leather jacket with a sigh, but reluctantly drops it on the floor. It's almost certainly going to be back in the next place he lands, anyway. It's always been back before.
Time after time after time.
Yorktown 1781. Andersonville 1864. London 1940. Central City 1957. Nickel City 1977. Gotham 1989. Tōhoku 2011.
He drops in. He finds the familiar faces, caught up in the events of their time. He saves them. He moves on. He never gets more.
They never know who he is, and he wonders, at this point, if he's just superimposing the faces of the familiar, the... the cared for... over those of random strangers in need. There's always a Sara. There's often a Mick. Sometimes a Ray, a Stein, a Jax, even a Rip or Kendra. Twice, a Lisa, and once, memorably, a Barry Allen.
Punishment for his sins? Who knows. But he'd tried to resist once, and it'd only lasted as long as the first strangled scream of a Sara doppelganger as the water closed over her head...
He takes a deep breath and opens the door.
The Fed—Mulder-has taken the time to change into the Nazi uniform, but he straightens, turning the hat in his hands, when Leonard opens the door. And he's apparently completely ready to resume the conversation.
"Later?" he says. "Like, the future? You're from the future? When? Because do I have some questions I'd like to ask you..."
"Not happening," Leonard informs him, heading for the door again. "Could fuck the timeline. You understand."
"Yeah, but..."
"Leave it, Fox." Reaching the door, he pauses and nods toward the hall. "Go on. You stay with me, all they're going to do is figure out something's weird faster than they would already. And there's nothing I can do to help you."
The other man gives him a wounded look, clearly disinclined to let go of this particular bone. But at Leonard's continued glare, he eventually shrugs and steps out into the hallway, walking quickly to the left while tugging the hat onto his head.
There's one nuisance out of the way. Leonard sighs, then prepares to head in the other direction... until he hears the voices.
"He, hast du was gefunden?" the first one calls, coming from his left. "Bleib doch stehen! Hörst du nicht?"
The Fed keeps walking, then breaks into a jog. The voices gain urgency and their owners pick up the pace, running past him in pursuit of the other man. Leonard steps out into the hallway himself, turning to the right and walking briskly away. No one notices him, but the pursuit in the other direction grows louder.
"Umdrehen! Hast du was gefunden? Warten Sie Mal!" Anger, now. "Halt, stehen bleiben! Warten Sie! Maenner, kommt rueber! Wo kann er deen sein."
Nazis...
His steps slow. And he stops.
The other man had been a nuisance. A distraction from what he's probably here to accomplish, the people he's meant to find. But...
Nazis...
"Halt!" The yelling continues. "Mach Schnell! Da rechts! Da rechts! Da rechts!"
I can't believe I'm doing this.
Leonard sighs, turns in his tracks and starts following the Fed and the Nazis, tracking them down the hall, keeping just enough distance for plausible deniability. As if that will matter.
Hallway after hallway, zigging, zagging, and he picks up the pace as the noises get farther ahead of him. He makes a sudden turn, ducks through a curtain…and then, the hallway has widened into a room, a big one, and he slows to a stop to take in the ballroom, full of people and music and, somewhere, annoyingly enthusiastic Feds who are oddly unfazed by the notion of time travel….and persistent Nazis.
He changes his pace to a casual amble as he moves through the crowd, glad for the tux that is such effective camouflage here. And as he moves, he casts about not only for the Fed and his pursuers, but anyone he recognizes, Mick, Raymond, Kendra...
Sara.
She's standing off to the side, on the side of the room away from the stage, apparently solitary and wearing a shimmering ice-blue dress with a considerable amount of cleavage and a white, feathery-looking stole over the top of it. Her blond hair is swept up, and her eyes are cold as she watches the ballroom, especially...
He'd like to keep watching her; hell, he'd like to stare at her forever, but he turns, tracking her gaze.
And there's Stein, the older man in a tux of his own, standing by the wall and nodding his head a little in time to the music. Jax, also in a tux and looking a bit out of place, is standing just behind him, frowning, and on the other side... there's Raymond, craning to see over the crowd to what's going on near the stage.
"Hier ist der mann, den sie vollen!"
The Fed had apparently dodged the Nazis... but instead of keeping his head down, he's been bothering a redheaded woman — and he's been noticed. The main singer points down at him imperiously, and the Germans converge. One fires a gun into the air, and a few women shriek.
Of all the stupid… Leonard glances back at Sara, who's still watching the others. (Raymond has moved to stand between the other two and the hubbub, almost shielding them. And isn't that interesting.)
Oh, he knows that expression of chilly focus. This is a Sara who is pointed at a target. Is this woman part of the League? That's not a bet he'll take. But which one of them is the target, and why, he has no idea.
The Nazis have the Fed—Mulder—and they're dragging him from the room. But the man's still struggling, still yelling, more nerve than sense.
"You're all big men now, but wait until you get into Russia!" he yells as they pull him from the room. "Hope you fellas like the cold!"
That even sounds like something Raymond would say.
He needs time to think. He needs a few minutes. He needs...
The band starts playing "Jeepers Creepers" again, and unbelievably, many of the people in the ballroom resume dancing.
He needs an excuse to do what he'd wanted to do anyway.
He strolls over to her, and she obviously marks his approach but doesn't even look at him until he's right in front of her. And then he holds out a hand.
"May I have this dance?"
...
This will be three chapters and a short epilogue. It's complete and I'll have it all posted within the week.