Sara's tempted to wear a dress that Stein once described as "an incitement to riot." But it doesn't seem quite appropriate.

Leonard certainly admires the White Canary outfit—always has, blatantly at times—but that's not appropriate either. Not for this.

Increasingly cognizant that she's acting like a teenager whining about not having anything to wear on a date (and sucking in a quick, pained breath at the gut-punch that comes every time she thinks of Laurel, whose closet she so often raided in such circumstances), she rests her forehead against the edge of the closet door and sighs.

Laurel would laugh, if she didn't utterly flip out first. She smiles sadly at the thought of explaining it.

"It's not really a date. I'm sort of carrying on a torrid affair with a supervillain. But he's not really a supervillain. Not really. He was a teammate and friend who might have been more before he died a hero …. but that's a few years from happening to this him yet, and he doesn't even know, so I'm taking what I can get while I can get it."

Yeah. That would go over well.

Finally, she falls back on oft-ignored sisterly advice: Be yourself. So, she goes for Sara Lance, not the White Canary or the neophyte Time Master. Tight jeans, a blue top, a few pieces of jewelry. Hidden weapons, of course.

She smiles after a glance in the mirror. She could actually be going on a date, not...whatever this is.

She doesn't really want to talk to any of the others, but she ducks her head into the engine room to inform Jax—who is, along with Stein, the least likely to try to interrogate her—that she's going out and will back by morning. It's not so rare a phenomenon these days, or at least it hadn't been.

Jax gives her a small smile. He may think he knows what she's up to; he's wrong, of course, but it's better than the melancholy look Mick would give her, the wounded-puppy expression from Ray, the exasperation from Rip, the disapproval from Amaya. (Nate tends to wear a rather blank expression around her; she thinks he's a little frightened. Good.)

She's just out of the ship, the Waverider cloaked behind her, alert for any sign she might be followed, when a whisper of sound grabs her attention. She stops. Listens.

Nothing.

She's too eager to get going to mess around with shadows. She puts the Waverider behind her, and heads into the city, smiling to herself.

Behind her, the shadows sigh.


It's a nice hotel. And, damn, if that man hasn't gotten himself a nice corner suite with a gorgeous view of the city.

Not that she sees it for longer than a second before he's kissing her, and she's kissing him back, and, well, they lose a few minutes in that.

When they separate, he's wearing that look again, the one that can't decide if it's smug or shell-shocked. (She's pretty sure she just looks smug.) She grins at him, registering the fact that she's actually seeing Leonard Snart in just a dark blue shirt and jeans...by far the least amount of clothing she's ever seen him in, unless you count, say, barely anything at all.

He looks good. Damned good.

After a moment or two, they seem to mutually realize they're wearing similar foolish grins. She glances away, and noticing him doing the same.

There are papers spread out across the suite's desk and she wanders over to them as she admires the view outside the windows, lifting an eyebrow as she realizes what he's trusting her with. Blueprints.

"Jerk. You actually are planning a heist."

"Man's got to make a living." He follows her over, leaning against the table, his eyes gleaming. He seems to think it's amusing, the ass. "I have a buyer for a certain document in a certain safe-deposit box in a certain neighboring city. I'll be in and out before they know I'm there."

He obviously doesn't think much of it; doesn't even worry about one of the "good guys" seeing his plans. And, frankly, given the things she's had to deal with over the past year, she could care less about a simple bank job.

But.

She's a cop's daughter.

And sometimes plans go...sideways.

He loses the smile at the look on her face, but doesn't break eye contact.

"Just don't hurt anyone," she says, finally. "Not if you don't have to."

He tilts his head a little. In his personal timeline, she knows, he's years from his deal with the Flash. But he's not someone who kills for sport, never has been, nor for pay. In that, at least, he's a step up from her own past.

"OK," he tells her. "I prefer not to, you know. It's not...efficient."

And it's something your father would do, so you'll avoid it if at all possible. She sighs, again, this time at the things she can't say.

"Of course, you don't break into a candy store and steal just one gumball..." he muses.

Snart, you're reusing your lines. Ray'd told her about that one. "Whatever. I don't want to know about it."

"Right."

But it's reminded them both of who they are, why this...all this...is probably a bad idea, and she's suddenly cognizant of all the ways this could go wrong.

She knows him well. The reverse is not really true, no matter how much it seems to be at times. He barely knows her at all. Not really. What the hell are they going to talk about? Their activities thus far haven't, well, had much to do with verbal communication…

But when she looks back at him again, she knows she's not going to leave.

And, oh dear god, the thought of a night with him in an actual bed….

"So," she says lightly, "dinner? I'm starving."

She only sees it because she knows him: The brief moment where he fidgets with the papers he's holding in his hands. And a fidgeting Leonard Snart is a Leonard Snart who's actually nervous.

"Room service?" he offers. "Thai place down the street? They have good take-out."

So that's it. Well, considering, it's probably just as well.

"Aaahhh…don't want to be seen in public with me?" she observes slyly. "Ashamed that you're robbing the cradle?"

His eyes snap. "No," he says shortly, straightening to sit the papers down on the desk. "I've seen what Thawne can do to people. And given that he seems to think he has more of a claim on my time than he does, I'd rather not given him any reason to connect the two of us."

There's not much she can say to that.

"Tom Yum soup," she tells him. "The hotter the better."


Slightly to her surprise, it's much easier to feel her way around certain topics than expected.

They sit on the sofa instead at of the suite's table, eating and actually talking. It feels so like card games back on the Waverider that she has to catch herself from time to time. There are things she can't mention to this Leonard-and there are things (generally suggestive things) she'd never have said to the old one that merely get a grin from this one.

She asks him about his sister. With only a brief hesitation, he answers, if only in relatively general terms. Still, his affection is clear…and then he bounces it back to her.

"And you?" He pauses before taking a bite of Gai Pad King. "Brother? Sister?"

The gut-punch feeling comes on again, abruptly, and for a moment, she can't breathe. But she must have made some sort of noise, because his eyes flicker to her face, then widen.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

She can see him wanting to ask, but he doesn't, which is a relief. Instead, he asks her about her time in the League of Assassins, and though she has to edit a little, it's actually a pretty successful conversational topic.

He nods as though it's a normal, everyday occupation…nothing to be surprised about. Maybe for a world-class jewel thief, it is.

"Merlyn said you were dead," he says abruptly. "For a year."

Yes, and he's the one that put me there. "It's true." She can't resist. "I got better."

He smiles a little, but then his brow furrows as he glances away, clearly trying to restrain questions. She distracts with a question she already knows the answer to.

"How long have you known Mick?"

" 'Mick?' " He looks back, seeming amused by the familiarity in her tone. "Nearly 30 years. How on earth did you get him to work for you?"

"Mmmm. It's not precisely work," she tells him. "More like a…calling."

That gets a snort. "Mick's not a hero."

She lets it go, mostly because, even now, she's pretty sure Mick would say the same thing. (Even though he's wrong.)

Still: "You'd be surprised," she says gently, "who can be a hero."

She holds his skeptical gaze until he looks away, clearly uncomfortable, then she rises and walks over to the corner that serves as the suite's small kitchen to get rid of wreckage of her dinner. That done, she crosses to the windows that look out over the city. It's nighttime now, and she watches the view as he hears him also rise, eventually crossing back to stand just behind her.

He's close enough that she can feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and it takes a good portion of the patience honed in the League and since to wait him out.

"Why?"

She does turn, then, caught off-guard by the question. "Why, what?"

He's looking out over the city himself, the lights reflected in his eyes. "Why…" he muses, then looks down at her. "After the compound. Why?"

Because it was you and I wanted you and it was an opportunity I didn't think I'd ever have again.She searches for truth without too much of it.

"The adrenaline part was true, you know," she finally offers. "Fighting will do that. I found you attractive...yeah, go ahead and smirk; I saw the look on your face too."

He does smirk, a little. It's true, after all.

But this needs more. She closes her eyes, thinks, offers more truth.

"Look, I've lost people, in the past year or so. And you, that day, it just felt like...like...a meeting of minds. More than I've even felt with the people who are technically my teammates." It feels a little like a betrayal, but oh god, it's true.

"I don't think that was minds." His tone is dry. She rolls her eyes at him, smiling a little, but doesn't deny it.

"I just...felt a connection, and acted on it. Tell me you didn't," she challenges him. "Go ahead."

He doesn't. But he's looking away again, failing to meet her eyes, which is just such a Snart tell that…

"I'm not a good person, Sara," he says abruptly. "Don't think I am. I'm not interested in being a hero...not even for you."

Given how often she's heard variations on that theme from him, and how constantly he'd proved his own words wrong, it shouldn't sting. But it does.

"Who asked you to?" She fires back. "And, you know, I could ask the same thing of you. Why?"

He stands for a moment longer, looking out at the city. She can see the sigh that moves through his chest and shoulders, and then he looks at her.

"Guess I feel a connection," he says, quietly, eyes on hers, and, oh, the rawness in them, the want...

He's letting her see it, and she knows it, and it absolutely undoes her.

She goes up on her tiptoes to kiss him, hands going around his shoulders, nails digging into the collar of his shirt and the skin underneath as she pulls his head down to hers.

After a moment or two, though, she can feel him laugh…and he leans down and sweeps her up in his arms like some sort of old-time movie star with an old-time starlet. (She mock-glares at him; he smirks.)

He carries her into the suite's bedroom and kicks the door shut behind them.

And, for just a little while, they manage to forget, completely, about heroes and villains and crooks and assassins and Legion and Legends.


She doesn't really mean to stay overnight, but the suite's king-sized bed is just as comfortable as it looks. And, well, they've worn each other out pretty thoroughly at that point. Just once, she tells herself as she starts to drift off, her head on his chest and his hand combing gently through her hair, she wants…deserves!...to have this.

It's the best she's slept in months. And when she wakes, and rolls over to see sleepy blue eyes regarding her like she's a dream who somehow came true, she discovers that her energy levels have been fully restored.

So, he gives her to know without a word being spoken, have his.