Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for beta reading this!
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''If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where ... is truth?"
Virgina Woolf
Leonard Snart may be sleeping better than he ever has in his life to date, but he's still getting used to waking up next to another person.
Case in point, this morning (or whatever the equivalent is on a ship with an artificially established "day" and "night," anyway), when he struggles up from slumber with a face full of wild blonde hair (some of which appears to have gotten into his mouth) and a numb left arm from the someone who is curled up on it.
A few weeks into this new … whatever it is … he still fights a millisecond of panic as he registers the presence of the warm body in his arms, the fact that someone is this close while he's vulnerable and half-awake and mostly naked and …
Oh.
Sense prevails over flight-or-fight with the memory of how he … they … got that way, and he relaxes. It's a point of pride that Sara has apparently slept through that brief moment of tension; when she first started staying in here, it would have had her surging up from sleep herself, with all the reflexes honed by two stints in the League of Assassins, ready to fight whomever or whatever had caused that reaction in him.
It made for some interesting mornings.
But now … well, it hasn't come without struggles, but, oh, he's liking the advantages of more or less sharing a room. He shifts just a tiny bit so that instead of having a mouthful of hair, he is nuzzling her neck, then starts to kiss his way to the hinge of her jaw.
The low chuckle that greets his actions after a moment or two has become one of his favorite sounds in the world.
"Mm-Hmm..." She stretches against him, tilting her head back just a little. "You can keep doing that."
He obliges, but manages to murmur at the same time, "Just that?"
"Well … work your way up to other things …" He can see the corner of her smile; he leans over just a little further to put his lips on hers...
And they both start as Rip Hunter's voice emits from the ship's comms.
"Ladies and gentleman, we have a … situation … that needs to be looked into while the temporal data remains stable. Please assemble on the bridge as soon as possible." A pause. "Ms. Lance and Mr. Snart, this does include you."
Sara laughs. Leonard groans.
"Down, boy. Duty calls." She does flip over to kiss him, hard, but then moves away and sheds the blankets, sitting up and pulling her unruly hair back from her face. It's a good view, he acknowledges, but he preferred the one he had a few moments ago. "The captain wouldn't be rousting everyone this 'early' if something wasn't going on."
"The captain," he says, as he watches her rise and pad across … their? … room toward the clothing strewn across a chair, "is an …"
"… ass," Rip Hunter mutters to himself as he watches the team crook saunter off into the corridors of the Waverider without even a backward glance or an offer of help.
Not that his help was needed, at any rate. It's the principle of the matter.
On some level, the former Time Master is pleased the once-lost member of the team he'd so laboriously gathered is back among them. Snart's apparent death … after he, himself, had fled with the others … had been a pull on his conscience, especially when he saw the look in Sara's eyes, the blankness on Mr. Rory's face. Someone else had sacrificed himself for this, this … constant tilting at windmills of his … and that's knowledge and a memory he'd add to the rest of his ghosts.
The crook's return had been a miracle.
But apparent death and just as apparent resurrection has not changed the man for the better. Still the same casual contempt for his teammates. Same constant insouciance. Same … disrespect for pretty much everything, really. No matter that Savage is still at large, that the timeline has been shot all to bloody hell, that none of them can check on their families (oh, Miranda, Jonas...) until this fluctuating time stream is resolved, for fear of setting in stone events they can know nothing about due to the goddamned bloody timeline.
Oh, and Sara Lance, the closest thing he has to a true lieutenant, has apparently moved into Snart's room and his bed and they're rather shameless about it, really. God knows the self-satisfied smirk hasn't left Snart's face once since they first emerged, and Sara isn't much better.
He rips his memory anyway from similar shenanigans with Miranda – Rip Hunter, Time Master, has never in his life smirked,not even when getting caught, err, on the holo table with his wife – and, scrubbing his hand across his face, sighs.
The team (minus Snart, because Gideon still thinks it best he refrain from missions that might include combat, although he's getting increasingly antsy about that) is now off in the 1920s, collecting intel on whether Savage has gone to ground there. Rip rather thinks not, but there's still information to be gained, as Savage is known to have local allies.
"Gideon," he says finally, "has anything new stabilized from the time stream?"
The AI's lengthy pause is not unusual. Since the Oculus Wellspring blew, the timeline information is sporadic, trickling back into Gideon's databanks in the tiniest of rivulets … a historic fact here, a confirmed family tree there. Gideon doesn't bother reporting on most of this minutia, and to be honest, given that she just recently provided him with the intel that led them all to 1920s New York City, he's not expecting anything else notable anytime soon.
Instead, his heart plummets … for when Gideon speaks again, the AI's tone is actually troubled.
"Captain," she says, "there's a temporal … oddity … registering in London. In the latter half of 1882."
Rip slowly lowers his hand from his face.
"Gideon," he says slowly, "what did you … never mind. Do you have any idea … any more specific information what it is?"
"I do not, Captain. It …" She pauses. "Actually, yes, it seems to be centered on the British Museum."
That's … good. But still far too close for comfort.
"An artifact, do you think? A book?" Tell me it's not a person …
"Not a person." At least Gideon sounds definite on that. "Given that it appears to be in the Reading Room, it does seem to be a book or manuscript. I will try to confirm that given the other variables."
That's good and bad. Good, because it's not a person to be confronted, given that he no longer has the resources and authority of the Time Masters behind him. Bad, because a book contains, after all, knowledge … perhaps the sort of knowledge that would be a very, very bad thing for the timeline. Lenin, after all, is one of the people who gains a reader's ticket at the BM's Reading Room, although that will be a number of years later.
There's no way, at this time, of knowing how this book got there, the time period it's originally from, or whether it could truly prove dangerous. In a world that still had other Time Masters, it would probably never even cross his radar. In fact, he thinks, given … certain personal facts … this case definitely wouldn't have been given to him, even before his fall. Someone else would have made a run, extracted the book in a Time-Master-approved style that would not damage the existing timeline, taken it back to its proper time or to the Vanishing Point, and that would have been that.
There's no one to do that, now. No one else.
When the others return, he thinks, a side trip will be in order.
"Captain..."
"What now?"
"I believe this volume to be a Time Master ledger. Apparently left behind somehow during our … recent events … when the Master in question departed abruptly for the Vanishing Point."
It would be an offense worthy of expulsion or worse … if there were still Time Masters, and if said Master wasn't likely dead, thanks to...
"I'll be taking the jump ship, Gideon. I just need to make a stop in the fabrication room, and have a word with Mr. Snart."
Leonard Snart is not a fan of visible symbols of weakness, but the occasional wobble that still remains in his step has driven him to procure exactly that. (Gideon continues to assure him that he will, eventually, be back to 100 percent. He declines to call her a liar even as he wonders.)
He's studying the cane he's acquired through the fabrication room (dark, polished mahogany, a bit of a twist at the top—just as he remembers it—exactly the right length) when Hunter storms in, halts to stare at him for a second, then shakes his head.
"Mr. Snart. How convenient. I have to take the jump ship on a bit of a … side trip. Gideon will have the information, but kindly hold down the fort, as it were, during my absence." He looks pained. "This should go without saying, but please don't leave without the others."
Hunter doesn't specify if he means with or without the ship (Snart has, admittedly, sweet-talked Gideon before), but either way, the lack of trust burns.
And as if there's any way in hellhe'd abandon Sara, or Mick, or even the rest of the team.
"By yourself?" he drawls to hide the anger. "Didn't you pretty much read us the riot act about doing that? To always be sure there's another person with you, just in case?"
"Well.Iam a Time Master …"
"Former. And they're sort of gone now anyway..."
Hmm. There's actually a flash of anger in the other man's eyes. Interesting. He presses it, partly curious to see how Hunter will react, and partly just because he can. "What is it you're planning to do, anyway, that you don't want company?"
The younger man's eyes are narrowed, his tone, terse. "Mr. Snart, there is a ledger that once belonged to a Time Master … one of those who undoubtedly fell prey to the cataclysm you yourself created … in the British Museum during the time of Queen Victoria. Can you imagine what it would do to the timeline if someone puzzled out the meaning of its contents? We … the Time Masters … kept cyphers, but there are always those who thrive on unraveling such things … and always those who neglect to keep them anyway."
Snart can imagine, actually. He can even concede this is something Hunter needs to do. But...
"You're pulling a heist and you didn't ask me?" He can't decide if he means his tone to be mock-offended or truly offended.
"It will be easier, simpler, if I just go in there myself and …"
"They're just going to let you walk out of there with this thing?"
"Well, not likely, but …"
"Then why do you think you don't need the thief yourecruited for your little team to go along on this jaunt? What are you trying to pull, captain?"
He's not sure why this suddenly means so much to him.
But it does.
Inwardly, Hunter is seething. Damn the man. Can't he see reason here?
"I've stolen a thing or two in my lifetime, you know," he grits out.
Snart looks unimpressed.
"Right," he drawls. "You were a 'cutpurse.' Ever planned a heist? This is what you brought me along for, right? Not my sparkling personality or my ability to fight or to … blow up … authority figures."
The tone on the last handful of words borders on the insolent, and Hunter nearly bristles with a scathing comeback.
But there's something else in Snart's tone, too, and that gives him the tiniest pause.
Something that's actually a touch … desperate...
"You have to promise to follow orders," he says before he even realizes he's going to. "I mean, really do it. This is going to be tricky. And I know this time, this place. You don't."
Snart blinks as he registers the captain's about-face. He nods once, curtly.
"Gideon? Will you clear Mr. Snart for a non-combat mission?"
The AI's pause draws out perhaps a few moments longer than he would like, but she accedes.
"All right, then. I'll make sure the ship is locked down but will decloak for Ms. Lance and the others. Sara or Mr. Rory can always fly out of here if need be. With any luck, we might even be back before they are." He turns to the fabricator, raises his voice to indicate the change of address again. "Gideon, I'm going to need two sets of Victorian noblemen's garb, appropriate to 1882 and researchers visiting the Reading Room at the British Museum. One to my measurements, one to Mr. Snart's. Oh, and one translator pill for the appropriate accent."
"What about you?" The older man's tone is neutral, with no edge to the words. That's probably the closest he'll ever get to a "thank you."
Well. Snart's not the only one with a past he doesn't always care to talk about. Hunter pulls Victorian London around him like a shroud, lets it color his voice … and seep back into his memories.
"I don't need it … guv'nor."