DC Legends of Tomorrow / Popular – Properly Cheered
Len thought they could've skipped the early 2000's
"Alright, boys and girls, we are headed to California, United States, 2000" – Leonard Snart's uncharacteristically snapped to Rip Hunter.
"And where exactly are we headed, oh, captain?" – Captain Cold asked nonchalantly.
"Records show that, for some odd reason, he spent time at a school called..."
"Jacqueline Kennedy High School" – Gideon said plainly.
"What was Vandal Savage doing at a high school, of all places?" – Sara Lance questioned.
"Excellent question, Ms. Lance, and the answer is–"
"He was trying to use his influence to easily acquire funds via two wealthy heiresses that attended that high school" – Snart interrupted, surprising all around him.
"That– How do you know that? There are no records of such a thing!" – Rip exclaimed, blinking at his cool colleague.
"I... May have attended Kennedy High for a bit" – he confessed, adverting his eyes a little as everyone stared at him.
"Oh my God" – Ray Palmer nearly squealed – "Are we going to see teenage Leonard Snart?"
"Not much difference anyway" – Mick Rory gruffly commented – "He's always had that pretty boy face"
"... No difference at all?" – Rip asked slowly.
"Sixteen years worth" – Snart snarled.
"Eh, I can't tell the difference"
"Gideon" – Rip barked – "Get into Kennedy High's records. Pull Leonard–"
"That would be Adam Rothschild Ryan" – Snart interjected – "I was practicing deception" – he explained with an eye roll.
"Very well. What he said, Gideon"
"That's some name for 'deception' training" – Jefferson Jackson commented with a snort.
"Shut it, kid"
"Well, what you know" – Rip said softly, staring at the picture Gideon managed to pull up – "You really haven't changed much"
"I've changed enough" – Snart protested coolly.
"You spent high school with THAT face?" – Ray questioned, shaking his head – "Some guys have all the luck, I was kind of a troll until I got to college"
"What's a 'Glamazon'?" – Kendra Saunders asked as she tried to read the file.
"Yeah, what IS that?" – Sara's face betrayed whatever amusement she was trying to conceal.
"Focus, people" – Rip demanded – "Now, Mr. Snart..."
"Give me strength" – the cool criminal mumbled.
"Do you think you can possibly take over your younger self's life for a day or two?"
"I officially like this mission" – Rory said, as best as he could between his snorts and snickers (not that he was alone in that reaction).
"I hate all of you, and I will freeze you in your sleep" – Snart warned.
"Wow, he looks exactly like 'im!" – Kendra marveled at the sleeping (knocked out) young Leonard Snart aka Adam Rothschild Ryan.
"Rory was not messing around" – Jackson agreed.
"It's quite remarkable how little Mr. Snart has aged in sixteen years" – Dr. Martin Stein commented.
"Alright, everyone" – Rip called them to attention – "Dr. Palmer, Ms. Lance, Mr. Rory and Mr. Snart–"
"Rothschild Ryan" – Jackson playfully corrected, earning a giggle from Kendra.
"They are now ready at the high school" – Rip continued after a brief sigh – "While I do not think this will be particularly difficult or dangerous, they are going to be in close quarters to Savage. Please be at the ready to assist them"
"Okay, so the plan is for Mr. Rory to be the new assistant shop teacher, Ms. Lance the new lunch lady, Mr. Palmer a visiting government official inspecting the school and finally, Mr. Snart has taken his younger self's place" – he looked down at said younger counterpart – "This might be one of the oddest missions I've ever heard of"
"Eh, what's the worst that could happen?" – Jackson said and was met with dead silence.
"Famous last words, Jefferson" – Mr. Stein sighed.
"Looking good, Adam" – Rory said under his breath, but it was enough for the disguised man to shoot him a glare as he passed him by.
God, but the cheerleading outfit was comfortable, if a lot more revealing than he remembered it. Mary Cherry snarled at him from a few seats away, and man, he couldn't believe what a 2000's girl she was. This mission might be blown soon enough if he had to look at the way girls dressed for long, even the boys gave him the hives.
All the classes were making Snart want to scream. He'd mercifully not crossed paths with Rory before, the bigger man's mocking smirk was too much, but he had seen Ray walking around, whistling and pretending to be inspecting every inch of the place, but he had taken the time to poke fun at his colleague–turned–high–schooler. Oh, he was getting his.
Sara he'd see at lunch, and he wasn't looking forward to it.
No one had commented on the slight wrinkles in his face, or the fact he didn't quite move like a teenager, all wild limbs and little respect for other people's personal bubbles. No, Snart had long learned to move with efficiency, quietness and grace, things he started on when he was Adam, but he'd taken a few more years after high school to truly teach himself the proper way to move, as he thought it.
He hadn't seen Savage nor heard Mary Cherry or Nicole speaking about him, but he could faintly recall the girls commenting about the older man who was trying to woo them (in Nicole's case, seduce, and in Mary Cherry's, just manipulate). He'd seen Nicole earlier but she'd given no hint of having already met with Savage, and Snart could not recall when he's heard about the man (before he, himself, vanished from Kennedy High and returned to Central City).
"... is the way it's supposed to look" – Rory finished, motioning to a well made bird house. If Snart didn't know the man could be delicate and crafty when he chose to be, he wouldn't been shocked by the display of his carpentry skills – "Turn to your partner and get to it" – he barked, making a few students shrink under his hard gaze.
"This is gonna be fun" – Harrison John, Snart's partner, remarked tiredly.
"Don't worry" – he bit his tongue before he said 'kid' – "I've got this"
"Are you sure?"
"Most definitely" – he held back on the charm he usually doled out without thought because the last thing he needed was to seduce a teenager.
By the end of the class, the duo had a fairly okay bird house, but most importantly, as he walked to his next class, he saw Mary Cherry giggle as she stared at her phone and quickly texted someone. He even heard her answer in her usual flighty way to a questioning Nicole that it was a man she'd just met.
Well, finally some progress on the Vandal Savage front, and Snart would luckily be able to escape his Adam skin soon enough.
Sara gave him something akin to the most mocking and shit eating grin Snart had ever seen outside of a mirror as he stood in front of her during lunch, and he held back on the urge to scream his frustrations away. Mission or no mission, he was pretty darn sure she'd leap at him and make him pay for it, and he was very attached to all his limbs, thank you very much.
Nicole and Mary were not sitting with Brooke for once, their leader not even in the cafeteria. Snart couldn't recall what, if any, entanglement could possibly be holding her, but, if it had nothing to do with his plans, teenage him would not have taken note of it. Too bad, because at the moment, anything out of the ordinary could be a threat to the mission. Regardless, he would continue as was.
"Hello, ladies" - he greeted with as much cheer as he could muster - "May I?"
"Sure, Alice" - Mary Cherry chirped - "Oh, Nic, I just don't know! Mama would not approve of my meeting with a handsome, if unknown man! He could try to kidnap and do unspeakable things to me!" - Nicole rolled her eyes so far back Snart thought they'd turn all white.
"Mary Cherry, get a grip! He's hot and he can certainly see another hot person and try to get with it! Well, me, anyway, you might get thrown in the back of a van" - the Texan sniffed in offense and turned to Snart.
"What do you think, Alice?"
"About...?"
"Oh! We met this wonderful, handsome older man the other day at the mall, and he's been texting us, asking to meet with us one on one, isn't it wonderful? But mama would not like it if I didn't get a full report on him before I went and saw him! And Nic shouldn't go either, because, what if he's a creepy kidnapper of pretty, blond cheerleaders?"
"Something to consider" - Snart tried to sound young and bright eyed (which was very difficult to pull off) - "After all, the world is full of assholes trying to take advantage of rich young women" - he paused and smirked - "But you two wouldn't be like those dumb bitches who meet a strange man without telling anyone and is never heard from again, right? After all, he could be awesome, and he could be a Buffalo Bill"
"Buffalo who now?" - Mary Cherry questioned with a tiny frown, but Nicole's face cleared.
"We are both rich" - she said, considering it.
"Kidnapping can be a quick and dirty affair, after all"
"I mean, I doubt it's the case... But one can never be too safe" - Nicole said with another eye roll - "God, the world is so messed up you can't even try to have a fling with an older man"
"Eh, there'll always be the next one"
"Too true, Alice"
"You could, though, set up a meeting and watch from afar how he reacts to you guys standing him up" - Snart fished - "If he's trying to take you in or something, it would be easy enough to spot it in his behavior as he waits"
"Hm. That's not as evil as your other plans have been, Alice, but it's good enough. Should be a fun way to spend the afternoon, anyway"
Snart grinned at the girls and made mental plans to squeeze into a surveillance van with his missions partners.
"Well, I certainly didn't expect Vandal Savage's demise to be quite so sudden" - Rip said as the entire group stood in the now empty parking lot of the local mall. Snart was sporting a nasty black eye and trying to look fine with it, and a kind for once Sara was attempting to shut Rory up about it.
"Defeated by a couple of teenage cheerleaders before Kendra swept in for the kill" - Ray added with a snort.
"That Nicole girl would be terrifying if she ever joined the League" - Sara commented - "The other one, though" - she shook her head.
"She's got a nice left hook, though" - Rory poked fun at Snart.
"Shut up"
"Nice work, by the way, Mr. Snart" - Rip complimented - "If not for your efforts, none of this would've been possible"
"I think you should be thanking those two" - he motioned to the knocked out girls near them - "What ARE we going to do with them now?"
"Eh, shouldn't be difficult to provoke some mild memory loss, though Gideon has noticed no particular changes in the time line should they recall what took place here"
"Really?"
"No way to prove what happened, and Adam is completely unaware of these events, so they wouldn't even have that much"
"Mary Cherry was calling Savage a 'creepy buffalo alien'" - Ray pointed out - "Why was she calling him a buffalo?" - Snart sighed.
"Can we just grab- Adam, whatever, and get the hell out of here already?"
"Most certainly, Mr. Snart"
Afterwards, as the three teenagers were left in the parking lot with an estimated time to awaken at a couple of minutes, Snart stood over them and hesitated over his younger self. He finally bent and whispered in his ear.
"You're gonna help save the world one day, kid" - he said, almost gently, almost embarrassed - "You're going to fight alongside heroes"
"You're a hero too, Mr. Snart" - Rip said kindly, a few steps away. The rest of the team watched over him, and Captain Cold turned to the teenagers so they couldn't see his face.
"And you girls? You'll be fine. Just, er, Mary Cherry? Watch out for when the oil prices start to drop in a few decades, and Nicole? Try not to drink and drive, that's never a good idea" - he took a final look at the sleeping trio, knowing they were soon going to start stirring and walked back to the Waverider.
The ship became invisible and quickly made its way out of there just as Adam opened his eyes. He had to wonder if he'd dreamed of himself saying he'd one day help save the world, because, man, what a thing to hallucinate.
"Back to 2016 now?" - Dr. Stein softly asked as the ship flew just over Kennedy High. The group was quiet and pensive, and Rip was drumming his fingers on the table.
"Can't we just take a little vacation first?" - Ray proposed - "I mean, it's not like we don't literally have all the time in the world, and it's not like I'm NOT a billionaire" - they all turned to Rip with varying degrees of excitement showing on their faces, and the man slowly grinned.
"Eh, what the hell? Any requests?"
After a beat, everyone started throwing in ideas, their voices getting louder and louder until Rip started laughing hysterically as the weight of what had just happened, of the future he'd helped prevent, of Savage's final death in such a ridiculous manner as being held down after getting beaten up by two girls with no training to speak of and struck by a surprised Kendra.
In the end, he decided it was only fair to take a week in each place (and time) that was suggested, because hey, he'd forgone orders, stolen a ship and assembled a rogue team to stop Vandal Savage and been dutifully successful at it, the Time Masters would have to just deal with all their vacation time.
They very literally had all the time in the world, and after bonding during the short time they had together, no one was too eager to leave each other behind, so off they went on their down time. When would they return? Only time would tell.
I still really like Popular, and Wentworth Miller as Adam? Damn.