It all started with a briefcase. The mission was simple enough, track down this Regan guy, grab his briefcase and destroy the launch codes that were inside. Five minutes, tops, and Vandal Savage wouldn't be able to acquire them.
"Mr. Snart, your skills are going to come into play for this mission, Ms. Lance will distract Mr. Regan and you will be able to grab the briefcase" Rip was instructing them. "Covert and quick."
Leonard and Sara were heading towards the café they knew Mr. Regan would be at, the Wave-Rider blending back into the background behind them.
"So how are you going to distract this guy? Wow him with your charming wit?" Leonard drawled out.
"Actually I was just planning on using my body with a low cut shirt and a push up bra to keep him busy, men are so predictable" Sara replied without missing a beat.
Leonard was not sure if she was serious or not. He didn't really care what she did, he didn't have to, she was good enough on her own that he knows her plan will work, no matter what it may be.
"Whatever you see fit Lance, just don't let me get caught" was Leonard's icy reply.
The two got to the café, Sara sat at the booth directly in front of Mr. Regan so she could watch him, and Leonard sat at the booth behind him, within arms grab of the briefcase.
Apparently Sara wasn't joking and when she sat down and took off her coat she really did have a plunging neckline and amazing cleavage, Leonard almost tripped on his way to sit down, gawking at the sight. The Canary gave herself a slight smirk at the idea of driving Leonard nuts. Also their target seemed to notice her attire as well. Sara gave a friendly smile to the man and pretended to look at the menu.
"Do you know what's good here?" Sara asked Mr. Regan across the booth. "I'm just passing through the area and want something good until I get to my next stop" Sara explained trying to sound like she was a little lost.
"Well, where's your next stop?" the man asked.
"About 400 miles that way" Sara said pointing over her shoulder to no direction in particular. "Taking myself on a road trip to celebrate completing graduate school" she added.
"Well I'm partial to the eggs benedict myself, but if you aren't feeling breakfast food, then I would recommend the Buttermilk Chicken, the place is known for it" the man replied with a smile.
"So are you from around here Mr….?" Sara trailed off.
"Regan, Nick Regan" he replied.
The two chatted across the booths for a moment when Nick asked Sara to join him, she happily got up and sat with him. She looked down and saw that Leonard had not grabbed the briefcase yet, what was that guy planning. She glanced around Nick to make sure he was still there and hadn't ditched the mission, he was.
More talking, more wondering why Leonard hadn't grabbed the case. At lease this Nick guy was nice and bought her lunch, but they were running out of time, and she was running out of bullshit to stall.
"Well it was really nice having lunch with you Sara, but I really do have to get going" Nick made a motion to move, and Sara was out of options. She couldn't let the guy get away but she didn't have any more excuses to make him stay.
"Well thanks for lunch Nick, I haven't had pleasant conversation with a guy in a long time" she said as she stood up and grabbed her coat.
Nick stood up and kicked over his brief case, "Ugh clumsy me, I thought I had this tucked away better" he said slightly embarrassed and picked up the object and left the café.
"Why did you do that" Sara said as she hit Leonard in the back of the head
"Ouch, do what" he asked sounding bored and rubbing his head.
"He left with the bounty" she replied.
"No he left with a briefcase, one that looks exactly like this one" Leonard said as he picked up a briefcase from under the table.
"When did you get a briefcase that looked like that?" Sara asked genuinely confused and a little impressed, not that she would let him know that.
"Gideon made it for me base off the images Rip gave us of the guy, then Palmer shrunk in down for me, I just had to use his little laser on this gauntlet to make it full size again" Leonard explained.
"And Ray just gave you that?" Sara asked pointing at the glove.
"Well no I stole it, but it worked out better than bringing Palmer along with us" he replied with a smirk and a stare.
His eyes could give her chills, but she couldn't let him know that.
"So wait, this whole time you could have switched the cases and we could have left, why didn't you let me know?" she asked, she really felt like she was losing her well-honed skills of observation.
"Please" Leonard said with a scoff "I switched those things about 2 and a half minutes after we sat down" he said as they started leaving the café.
"Then why did you let me sit there and chat with the guy with whole time?" Sara asked getting perturbed, they could have wrapped this whole thing up over an hour ago.
"I enjoyed listening to you make small talk, when he asked you what you graduated in I thought you were going to be screwed, but lo and behold you pulled a great line of bull out that you could talk about" Leonard said as they started heading to the rendezvous point.
"Women's Studies was a good one" she said with a smirk.
"Quite" Leonard said as they kept walking.
"I think we have shadows" Sara said as she slightly increased the pace but kept looking straight ahead.
"Two behind, chances are there will be two or three more coming out from an alley or side street" Snart replied feeling the presences as well, finger on the handle of his cold gun.
"I can hold them off if you can make a break for the Wave-Rider" Sara said as they took another turn and heard more foot-steps.
"Nice try blondie but I'm not missing a good fight" Leonard replied.
"Let's do this then" Sara said as she pulled a knife from her coat sleeve and turned quickly, with deadly accuracy she hit her mark on the first of Savage's men who had tracked them.
Snart fired up his cold gun and got another, they had been wrong there were more than 5 men, closer to 10 after the rest of them rushed the alley they had turned down.
Snart was doing his best to provide cover for the assassin while not hitting her, but keeping one hand on the gun and one had on the briefcase was proving to be difficult he had to put the case down, a man charged him and Snart came at him with a series of punches.
Sara graced through the fight like a dance, grab this guy's arm and twist it while kicking the guy behind her in the stomach, then a knee to the face of the first guy followed by a knock-out blow to the second guy's head then onto a third guy. But a fourth guy came at her with a right hook, connecting on her jaw and knocking her back against the building. Another punch connected, Sara struck back at her opponent and hit him but he retaliated with multiple knees to her abdomen and sides, Sara felt and heard the sickening crunches.
Her training kicking in, she could not dwell on the pain and she came back with a vicious blow to the guy's chest knocking him back so she had enough room to kick him right under the chin and knock him out, then onto another opponent, adrenaline suppressing the pain.
Leonard was firing his cold gun at a tall guy with dark hair when one of the men Sara had previously knocked out, they thought, snuck up to Captain Cold's vantage point and stole the brief case. Leonard tried to fire his gun at the guy as he ran off but he found shelter near a garbage can and then was off down another alley. The other men who were still conscience and unfrozen took off after the man with the briefcase in retreat. Sara and Leonard tried to chase them but lost them in the crowd of people once they reached the main street.
"Not good" Leonard said as he holstered his favorite weapon.
"Really not good" Sara replied as she scanned the crowd one more time for the men.
"This mission was simple" Rip started in on them after they explained what happened. "Never mind it took you over two hours to complete a five-minute mission, now the launch codes are in Savages hands!"
"We were out-numbered in the fight, we did what we could, it didn't work now let's try and fix it" Sara said standing up and trying not to grimace in pain.
"The rest of you get ready" Rip said turning to the others on the team, "We are going to the military base and retrieving those launch codes and disarming the weapons Savage has acquired. You two hit the showers, we will fix this mess" Rip said in a bitter tone, he clearly did not want to see Snart and Sara for the rest of this mission. "Gideon, lock down protocol, Mr. Snart and Ms. Lance are hereby grounded."
"Grounded, what does that mean?" Sara questioned, Leonard had been awfully silent this whole time.
"It means you two will not be allowed off this ship until I say" Rip explained as he walked out of the room with the rest of the team in tow.
"Well" Sara said looking at Snart for some kind of reaction.
"Looks like we're stuck together sweetheart, again, at least we aren't dying this time" he replied as he got off the chair he was in and started heading towards his room.
Sara's eyes followed him as he disappeared from sight, that man could really press her buttons some days. Now that her adrenaline was gone her body ached and her breathing was shallow due to the pain. She knew she needed to assess the damage and get herself bandaged up. Sara walked towards her room, she just wanted to wash away this whole mess so she took Rip's advice and hit the showers.
Being a former member of the league of assassins Sara knew her body and knew how to take care of her injuries, it was very important because an injured assassin was a dead assassin. While she was in the shower she checked out her sides and stomach, black and blue bruises were forming and only would continue to get bigger. She felt along her ribs, bruised for sure, possibly fractured or broken, at least 3 maybe 4. Her jaw hurt and a lump was forming where she had taken the punch, she hissed as the water hit a cut above her eye which she didn't know was there. The water swirling down the drain was tainted a slight red from the dried blood it was washing away.
Sara dried off and put on fresh clothes she knew she had to get these ribs wrapped up so they could heal, she headed to the med bay in her shorts and sports bra.
Leonard Snart was in his room making an attempt at reading but was really just pissed that this mission had gone sideways, "Ms. Lance are you sure you don't want me to do that" Gideon's voice could be heard from another room, followed by what sounded like metal crashing. Snart got up to see what the fuss was.
"No Gideon I can do this myself" he heard Sara say as he walked up to the open med bay doors to see the blonde picking up a tray and some instruments, there was gauze, tape, and an ACE bandage on the seat next to her.
"Everything alright in here?" he asked leaning against the door frame and drawing out his words.
"Fine, uhng, just fine" Sara said as she sucked air in through her teeth as her movement caused pain to shoot through her.
"Need some assistance?" he asked taking a step towards her.
"I got this Leonard, I don't need your help" she said with anger eminent in her voice.
"Hey, don't take it out on me that we got benched for the rest of this mission" Leonard said getting defensive.
"I'm not mad about that, I'm mad that you didn't even try to argue with Rip about what happened. You just sat there like you didn't care. Was that what happened, you wanted to get pushed aside; hatch a scheme to steal something again?"
"Rip already made up his mind, there was no use arguing with him. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on" He said raising his voice a little.
"That doesn't sound like you" Sara said with anger as she sat down on the med bay bed.
"Well sometimes it's not worth the fight" Snart said as he grabbed the gauze and was dabbing the cut above Sara's eye. "What would arguing with Rip gotten us really? He would have been all over us at the military base, we will already have to deal with snide comments for the next few weeks. Frankly I'm enjoying my vacation from him right now, and the company is a delight" he said emphasizing the "T" with sarcasm. He put the gauze down and put butterfly strips over the cut.
Snart walked around the assassin so he was behind her, he put his hands around her ribs softly and leaned into her ear "Which ones are broken" he said in a breathy half whisper.
The sensation of his hands combined with the pain she felt from her ribs caused Sara to jump and suck air in, but something overtook her and she put her hands over Leonard's, guiding them to the spots where she needed wrapped. "Gideon said nothing is broken, mostly bruised and some fractures" she said quietly.
Snart put tape running down her sides and then put strips running at angles that wrapped towards the front of her body, he then grabbed the large ACE bandage and started wrapping it around her torso. He stared at her with his icy blue eyes and a smirk as he wrapped the bandage around her chest, their flirtations had been escalating more and more since they started this trip. Sara glared back at him she didn't want him to be enjoying this.
Snart grabbed an ice pack out of the cooler, wrapped a towel around it and pressed it against Sara's swelling jaw, she tilted her head slightly and leaned into the ice pack in his hand, letting out a soft sigh at how good it felt.
"Thank you" she said after a minute, kindness coming back into her voice.
"No problem, just helping the team" he said facetiously.
"In the League I would have done this on my own, and then continued to go to training. There was no rest for your injuries. Just because you're hurt, does not mean you don't fight at 100%." Sara said, it wasn't often that she spoke of her time with the League.
"Never much cared for discomforts" Leonard replied, "If I got injured on the job, I finished it sure, but to hell with starting the next one right away. I do things for me, my time, my way" he finished as he shifted the ice pack in his hand.
"Is that why you didn't care that we got pushed aside today?" Sara asked.
"I already told you, it wasn't like that" he said as he took a step into her. "Rip oversteps his Captain's hat all too often, and he is a stubborn ass, I should know I'm the same way" he said.
"True" Sara replied.
"I don't like being locked up on the ship, but at least I'm not alone, and at least I'm not with someone annoying like Palmer" he said in a light tone. "Come one, you should rest" he said as he helped her off the table.
He helped her to her room and got her in bed. Sara felt better and more relaxed already. Snart walked over to her desk and grab the deck of cards he had left there last time. He sat on the other side of the bed across from her.
"Gin?" he said holding up the deck.
"I wish that was in reference to a bottle and not a deck of cards" Sara replied.
"I might be able to arrange that" Snart said as he began shuffling.