Just to make something very clear: 'Long Way Home' takes place in a continuity in which Flashpoint NEVER HAPPENED, so there are obviously going to be a few changes. One of the major ones is that Cisco's issues with Barry don't happen; the problems they had back in 'Paradox' still happened because even without Flashpoint, Dante still died, but there's no reason for the new ones that began in 'Killer Frost' and carried over to the crossover to happen. Baby Sara still exists (I plan on having JJ as her little brother sometime in the future). The message from Future Barry still exists since it most likely refers to Savitar, but it doesn't mention Barry having changed the timeline, and since Cisco isn't all angry and mistrusting towards Barry, he's going to confront him privately about it and agree that it's something they can deal with later. Also, Caitlin still developed cold powers and the Killer Frost personality, and Alchemy is still giving people powers they had in an alternate timeline or possibly another Earth, but not Flashpoint. Are we clear? I don't need people bugging me because I 'missed' a change caused by Flashpoint.
Also, just a reminder: in 'Long Way Home', Barry and Cisco arrive earlier in 'Medusa' because it's not fair that the crossover in that episode was limited to barely a minute. My altered version of the episode, 'The Earth-1 Factor', is already up, if you haven't read it, yet.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Arrowverse or any other elements of the DC Comics multiverse.
WORD COUNT: 10666 (10251 on MS Word)
Monday, December 5th, 2016
Barry grabbed Oliver and ran with him once more, this time ducking behind the S.T.A.R. Labs sign.
"Wow," Oliver groaned, grimacing at his frost-coated arm, "You really did it this time, Barry."
"Seriously?!"
"Yeah. Yeah, seriously. You come to Star City, you ask for my help, and then inevitably, immediately, we end up up the creek!"
"Yeah, okay, that's fair." The explosions were getting louder. "They're moving in."
"On three, Team Leader."
A thin beam of blue light suddenly burned through the sign in between the two heroes, narrowly missing them both.
"What's that?!"
"That would be heat vision, remember?"
Oliver didn't even bother with One and Two. "Three!"
"Okay!"
Both of them stepped out from behind the sign to face their opponents. Thea, Dig, Mick Rory, Sara, and Leonard Snart advanced on them from the ground while Ray, Kara, and Firestorm hovered above them.
10 hours earlier:
"Alright, so lemme get this right: our, um, time-traveling buddies in a flying time-ship… are supposed to just pop up, right here, right?" Even almost a year after first hearing this, John still could not wrap his head around the fact that Ray and Sara (Back-From-The-Dead Sara) were now part of a team of time-travelling heroes. He'd already been out of the country by the time they'd taken a couple months of shore leave over the summer, so he hadn't even gotten to see their time machine, and Felicity had said in her e-mails that she couldn't send him pictures because even sending him an image of it could be dangerous to the time stream, or something weird like that. So this would be the first time that John would be seeing it.
"Yeah," Felicity responded casually, trying to scan the sky with Cisco's goggles (even though he said that they only worked with his powers), "This is the time and place I gave them, so if they got my message, they should be here…" A bright flash of light drew their attention upwards to a silvery, flying… thing that honestly looked like it belonged on a movie screen. "Right now!"
"You know, I've never done drugs," John said to the group at large as the thing touched down on the asphalt in front of them, "It's because I was always afraid I'd see weird stuff." Never mind that his entire life, at least in the past few years, had been nothing but weird stuff. But at least in Star City, most of the weirdness was humanly possible, something that wouldn't need a ton of computer effects if it was in a movie or on TV.
"Okay, uh, take everybody inside, alright?" Barry – who was the only one, of those out on the tarmac, in costume – asked, "And tell Oliver I'll be right back." He and Cisco, who took the goggles back from Felicity, broke away from the group.
"Where're you going?" Thea asked.
"Well, since we're fighting aliens, I figured we should get one of our own, right?"
John frowned. What in the hell did he mean by that? He was contemplating whether or not he even wanted to ask when, after a brief discussion, Cisco put on the goggles and stuck his fist out into thin air. And John's day continued to get weirder as what he could only describe as a swirly, blue portal appeared in front of him. Barry and Cisco stepped forward and vanished into it. John was glad that the portal-thing disappeared with them, but still: freaky.
"Hi, guys!" Despite all the weirdness, John couldn't help but grin when he saw Sara striding towards them, leading a group of six from the spaceship. Of the other five, John only recognised Ray on sight, which was to be expected, since Oliver had said that Kendra and Carter had left the team and gone back to living in St. Roch.
"Sara!" John gave her a big hug when she reached him. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?!"
"Hi, John!" she replied, echoed by Ray, "I wasn't expecting to see you. Didn't you go back to the military?"
"It's a… long story."
"One of his superiors framed him for treason, Ollie and Lyla broke him out, and now he's a fugitive until we can find a way to clear his name," Thea summarised, "It's actually not that long."
"Oh, God. Is there anything we can do to help?" Ray asked concernedly.
John gave him a sad grin. "One crisis at a time," he told him.
Thea was frowning, slightly. "This is just the Jump Ship, right? Why didn't you bring the Waverider?"
"I parked it in the Temporal Zone," Sara explained (whatever the hell a Temporal Zone was), "I can recall it if we need more firepower."
"So, come on in," Felicity invited them, "Barry and Cisco went to fetch some more help, but everyone else is waiting inside."
"Was that a breach I saw as we were exiting?" the white-haired, bespectacled man asked as they made their way into the warehouse, sitting on a large property just outside Central City, which was apparently owned by S.T.A.R. Labs.
"What's a breach?" the lean, silver-haired man in the leather jacket asked from his spot at Sara's side.
"It's a doorway to a parallel universe," the big, bald, rough-looking guy answered gruffly.
Felicity looked at him oddly. "And where did you learn that?"
"Chronos."
Sara, Ray, and the other members of their team winced and nodded, as if that explained everything.
"You're here!" Caitlin's excited greeting interrupted anyone before they could ask, "It's so good to see you all!" That prompted the other time-travellers to smile and greet those inside the warehouse – which really only consisted of Caitlin, Oliver, Iris West, and some guy named HR.
Two members of the team, however, hung back: Mr. Leather Jacket and the bald guy. However, after hugging Sara, Oliver approached them. "I see you got the team back together." Right. Oliver had said something about taking a trip to New York a couple months back with a historian to fish their time machine out of the ocean… or something. "But where's Dr. Heywood? And Captain Hunter?"
"Rip's still MIA," Leather Jacket Man admitted, "so Sara's acting as Captain for now. And Heywood's babysitting the Waverider with our newest recruit, Amaya. Have you ever heard of a superhero called Vixen?"
"Yeah, we've met. She's operating in Detroit, and even helped us against Damien Darhk once. We really should have thought of calling her, now that I think about it."
"Well, according to what I've heard, apparently that magic necklace that she uses gets passed down from mother to daughter, and our new girl might just be one of her ancestors, considering we picked her up in 1942."
One of these days, John thought, he was going to wake up, and find out that the past four years were all one very bizarre and elaborate dream.
Either way, he shrugged and figured it was about time to introduce himself to the rest of Sara and Ray's crew. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself before," he said, "I'm John, John Diggle."
Leather Jacket Man smirked. "Baby Sara's dad, right? Leonard Snart."
John would admit to freezing for a second before allowing the man to shake his hand. Felicity had told them all, two years ago, about her trip to Central City in which she'd first helped Team Flash, and about the dangerous thief with the ice gun who had come closer to killing Barry than any metahuman he'd encountered by that point. He'd heard about how the man standing before him had kidnapped Caitlin, kidnapped Cisco, tortured Cisco's brother, set free some of the most dangerous metas Team Flash had caught, and killed his own father. But since Oliver and Lyla had broken John out of prison, he had also heard quite a bit from Felicity about how the man had changed, how he'd sacrificed himself to save his team (even if the 'dying' part of the sacrifice hadn't actually stuck), and how he was obviously, utterly head over heels in love with Sara, whether he would admit it out loud or not. Oh, and he had even gained the approval of both Oliver Queen and Quentin Lance, which everyone knew was not easy to get.
Still, he couldn't help saying this: "Just so you know, if you hurt her, they'll never find your body."
Snart simply smirked at that. "Oh, I know. I'm sure Sara's gotten very good at hiding the evidence over the years."
"He said the exact same thing to me when I first met him," Ray added from nearby, "See, I was dating Felicity at the time, and-"
"We got it, Haircut," the bald guy grumbled, "Mick Rory, by the way."
"Oh, and is Cisco going to be back soon?" Snart asked the room in general, "I need a favor from him."
"Don't tell me you need him to make you another Cold Gun," Iris half-joked.
"Yes, actually. Raymond broke mine-"
"To save the White House from getting blown up in the eighties!" Ray protested.
"-and I do, in fact, need a replacement."
John sighed, wondering when the hell this had become his life, and went to properly meet the other two members of Sara and Ray's team.
"So… What's new in Central City? Aside from the alien invaders, I mean?"
Barry and Cisco still hadn't gotten back from their trip to another dimension, so there wasn't much to do besides hang out and catch up. Len eventually found himself wandering over to where Felicity and Caitlin were chatting at the computers that had been set up in the warehouse, ignoring the dark-haired guy dressed like a hipster who seemed to be listening in.
Both women looked up when he approached, but it was Caitlin who answered him. "Well, aside from a new guy in a hood and mask creating new metahumans, we ran into one you may have heard of. Do you remember a man named Sam Scudder?"
Len straightened. Sam Scudder had been part of his crew a few years back, but he'd been more like Lewis than like Len, killing indiscriminately and being less than subtle about spending his take after the job. Len had eventually had enough, and had tried to kill him, but had been interrupted by the Particle Accelerator explosion. Since then, no one had heard from Scudder. He'd vanished without a trace, leaving Len looking over his shoulder for quite some time before figuring that Scudder had just decided to cut and run, even leaving his girlfriend Rosa Dillon behind.
But if Scudder was back, and if he had powers…
"I haven't seen that smug bastard in years. What happened? How is he alive?"
"Well… once he was caught, he told everyone how you'd tried to kill him three years ago, but when the Particle Accelerator blew up, it gave him metahuman powers – specifically, the ability to travel through reflective surfaces. Since he was lying on a mirror when the blast went off, he sort of… fell into it and got stuck in it until someone picked it up and set it upright a few months ago."
Len swore. "Dammit. He started looking for me, didn't he?"
"Yeah. Don't worry; Cisco called Lisa and made sure she stayed out of town until it was taken care of. But Scudder did throw one of your old associates into a mirror and out a second-storey window, then he broke his girlfriend out of Iron Heights. Once she told him you were nowhere to be found, they went back to old habits, using their powers to rob banks."
Right. He'd heard that Rosa had gotten powers, as well, something about making people dizzy, but that she'd been nabbed by the regular police rather easily, compared to the other meta-criminals running around, without even needing the Flash's help. "But you said they're back in prison?"
"Yeah. We set a trap for them by tricking them into thinking you were back in town using voice-changing tech and that hologram we showed you guys, only Cisco and Harry managed to improve it so well that we were able to get it to talk and sound just like you. Iris had a blast playing that role. They were pretty easy to catch once they fell for it, and now both Mirror Master and Top are in Iron Heights where they belong."
Len rolled his eyes. "Do you people come up with cute little nicknames for every meta you encounter?"
A wry smile crossed Caitlin's face. "Sometimes, I think that's Cisco's real goal in life. Although Harry came up with Mirror Master."
"Those are good names, though," the hipster finally spoke up, drawing their attention, "Every supervillain should have a supervillain name."
Len glared at him. "And who the hell are you?"
"That's a very good question," Felicity agreed.
The unknown man smiled. "Oh, sorry. Caitlin, I thought you said nearly everyone in Central City knew my face."
"They do," Caitlin confirmed, "But I think you've got your facial transmogrification device on."
"What? Oh, right. Just a second." The hipster rifled through his jacket pockets before pulling out a long, thin object that looked kind of like a pen. "Here we go."
Len blinked as a bright flash temporarily blinded him. "What the hell?!" At least it didn't knock him out, like Rip's flashing device. Then he blinked again at the sight of Harrison Wells standing before him, wearing the exact same hipster clothes.
"What was that?!" Felicity gasped.
Wells was already grinning like a loon, but then he grinned even more widely. "My apologies. I am the Harrison Wells of Earth-19. You can call me HR. What you just experienced was a slight retinal adjustment. Basically, I made you guys immune to the illusion that allows me to walk out in public on this Earth without getting arrested for the nefarious misdeeds of my Earth-1 counterpart, which nobody even bothered to tell me about until earlier this week." He gave Caitlin a pointed look, getting only a half-apologetic shrug in return.
Len raised an eyebrow. "So you've got a device that makes you look like someone else? That could come in handy."
"You guys don't have that on the Waverider?" Felicity asked.
"Not that I know of, but Rip has been known to keep secrets." A smirk grew across his face. "Although, to be fair, I can imagine what sort of mayhem we could get up to with tech like that, so if Rip does have any, he's probably keeping it out of our hands for that very reason."
Caitlin grimaced. "Yeah, I could totally understand that. From what I've heard, you guys get into enough trouble as it is."
HR just looked confused – evidently, he hadn't been given much of a briefing on Len's team and the rather… colourful personalities that made up its roster – and then shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't quite know what you're talking about. If anyone needs me, I'm going to go give the others the retinal adjustment so they can see me – they are all allowed to know who I am, right?"
At Caitlin's confirming nod, the man beamed and jogged over to the nearest group of people, which consisted of Mick, Jax, John Diggle, and Thea Queen. He basically barged into their conversation – and literally into the middle of their group – and held up his flashing device in front of them all. Mick's startled growl of "What the hell?!" could be heard from across the room, and HR had to back away from the annoyed arsonist very quickly.
Len looked back at the doctor. "Is he really a genius? Because I know Raymond can be an idiot and still know more about nanotech than pretty much anyone on the planet, but this guy…"
"Doesn't know the first thing about science," Caitlin confirmed, a distinct note of annoyance in her voice, "He had a business partner back on his Earth who really is a genius, and that guy solved the cryptogram we sent out as a sort of audition. HR was just the frontman, taking credit for a lot of the work, and got into serious trouble when their secret was exposed. We nearly sent him back to his own Earth, but he literally begged us not to, to let him prove he can be an asset to the team. So now he's strictly a probationary member of Team Flash."
Len glanced back at the guy who was now being interrogated by Oliver Queen while Iris West talked rapidly – probably trying to explain what the hell was going on. "Ten bucks says he doesn't last a month. And speaking of Team Flash, where, exactly, did Barry and Cisco go?"
"Yeah, he wasn't too explicit about that," Felicity added.
Caitlin shrugged. "Apparently, when we were running some tests with a tachyon enhancer last spring, Barry actually ran so fast that he accidentally ended up on another Earth: Earth-38. It's a world where a lot of alien immigrants live on Earth, and Barry met one who acts as a superhero in National City, and takes care of regular crime as well as the less-than-friendly aliens. He helped her take down a couple of villains causing trouble and then she helped him come back here. So he and Cisco are going to recruit her."
"Okay, guys," Queen got everyone's attention, "Barry and Cisco should be back soon."
Len nodded to Caitlin before wandering back over to his team.
"Alright, then. Team Arrow is here," Felicity said, after apparently deciding that going through some sort of attendance list was in order, "Team Legends is here… is that everyone?"
"I think so?" HR asked more than answered.
"Nate and Amaya are back watching the Waverider," Sara explained for anyone who hadn't already heard, "The newbies."
As was apparently the usual, Barry arrived late, though his method of entrance was something Len had never seen before today. Another glowing blue portal (he remembered it being called a 'breach') opened up, and Barry and Cisco jumped out with a pretty blonde girl in tow. The girl was wearing a blue and red outfit that could only be described as a superhero costume, complete with a long, red cape (unless they had some really weird fashion trends in her universe), and had a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. "That was cool," the girl gasped.
"Guys!" Barry greeted them all, "Thanks for coming! Sorry we're late; we had to deal with some nutjobs and their cyborg lackey who were trying to unleash an anti-alien bio-weapon on-"
"Barry, I thought you were bringing an alien," Queen interrupted, eyeing the girl, who, despite her odd choice in clothing, looked perfectly human.
"And yeah, w-uh, we did. Everybody, this is my friend Kara Danvers, or Kara Zor-El of Krypton, or, as she's also known on her Earth, Supergirl."
"What makes her so super?" Jax asked skeptically.
Barry grinned. "Well…"
In response to Jax's question, the girl suddenly levitated into the air and fired bright blue beams from her eyes, burning a symbol into the floor – the same symbol emblazoned in red on her chest – and grinned.
"I'm convinced," Diggle said blankly.
So was Len.
"Best! Teamup! Ever!" Felicity squealed.
"You weren't kidding when you said you had quite the team put together," Kara told Barry as she floated back down, "On my Earth, it's mostly just me and my cousin. And J'onn, and Mon-El, and all the agents from the DEO, although Mon-El actually isn't all that interested in being a hero. Then there's this new vigilante calling himself Guardian, but he's honestly a bit of an amateur, so I really don't know why I even brought him up in the first place. Oh! And you wouldn't believe the guy they've got running around over in Gotham City-"
"Ah, K-Kara?" Barry interrupted her rambling.
"This chick babbles about as well as Raymond or Felicity," Len whispered to Sara, who elbowed him but smirked back in agreement.
"Well, I guess you should know everyone's names. This is Oliver Queen, John Diggle, Thea Queen, Sara Lance, Dr. Ray Palmer, Professor Martin Stein, Jefferson Jackson, Mick Rory, Leonard Snart, Iris West, Dr. Caitlin Snow, and Harrison Wells."
Supergirl blinked. "Okay, one more time?"
Len rolled his eyes as Barry continued pointing at people and naming names, which got even more confusing once he added codenames, other nicknames, and power and skill descriptions into the mix. "Are we going to talk about fighting aliens at any point?" he drawled after a while, "Or are you two just going to spend all day playing name games?"
Barry flushed. "Uh… right. N-no, we're not going to…"
"It's okay," Kara said, "I think I have this. Uh…" She pointed at Queen. "Oliver?"
"Green Arrow," Queen prompted.
"Dig?"
"Spartan."
"Thea?"
Their new alien ally went around, getting each of their real names right and receiving their code names in return, even remembering that Stein and Jax were one superhero together.
"And you're… Snart?"
"Leonard Snart. Cold."
"Captain Cold!" Cisco interjected.
"I reject the 'Captain' part, and if you wanna be on my good side, 'Supergirl', so will you."
After rounding off the roll call (and revealing the interesting fact that Caitlin Snow now somehow had brand new ice powers she couldn't even use), Queen got them back onto the task at hand. Cisco clicked a remote, and the map displayed across a grid of six flat-screens changed into a blurry image of some creepy humanoid figure in a forest. It reminded Len of the alleged pictures of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
Barry began the briefing. "Okay, uh, the- these are the Dominators. We don't know much about them-"
"Except they're really strong," Kara interrupted, drawing everyone's attention to her, "I- I heard a lot of stories about them when I was a kid. They- they came to my planet before I was born, they did experiments on a lot of people, killed a lot more."
"Well, they're not the only ones with superhuman strength, I hear," Thea pointed out, "Caitlin told me that Barry says that you're more powerful than a locomotive?"
"We should use Kara as a stand-in for training," Queen suggested.
"Since when was Robin Hood calling the shots?" Mick piped up through a mouthful of the sandwich he was eating. Len knew his partner had gotten used to taking orders from him, from Rip (to some degree), and from Sara, and trusted the rest of their team when they gave him instructions, but getting him to answer to anyone else would be a challenge – always had been.
"What Mick means to say is that it would be nice to know, given that we have three different teams here, each with their own leader, who's taking point on this whole teamup thing," Len translated.
"Maybe we should take a vote," Raymond suggested, "Choose a leader."
"Barry brought us all together," Queen countered, "It should be him."
Barry gave his friend a look that said: 'Seriously?', but went along with it. "O-Okay, um, cool- well, alright, I guess as, uh, team leader, the first thing to do is, uh, start out by, um… uh…"
"Doing a test run," Queen prompted quietly, but still easily loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Let's do a test run! Yeah, let's do a test run, um…"
"Against Supergirl."
"Against Supergirl! Alright! Test run against Supergirl!"
"Are we just supposed to pretend like we don't hear him?" Sara snarked, pointing at Queen.
"Very inspirational leadership, Barry," Len added sarcastically.
"So, just, uh… suit up! Okay? Look alive! We're training to fight aliens by fighting an alien, so… suit up!"
Everyone shrugged, and went with it. Queen pulled Supergirl aside to talk, the rest of Team Arrow went for a black van parked outside the warehouse, while the Legends started to head back to the Jump Ship, where all their stuff was still stored. Len, however, snagged Cisco by the arm. "I need you to do something for me, Cisco," he said as he dragged the tech geek along, "Raymond broke my Cold Gun on a recent mission. I have most of the parts, so fixing it should be a pretty quick job."
"You broke my Cold Gun?!" Cisco snapped once he got close enough to Raymond.
Len raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me? Your Cold Gun?"
"I'm the one who made it! I made the Flash suit, and I still say it's my suit! The same logic applies here!"
"I beg to differ, but how about we discuss ownership after you fix the damn thing?"
"Alright, fine. So, what, exactly, did Ray do to the gun?"
"He fried the wiring to defuse a bomb that would've blown up the White House in the eighties, along with the President and the Russian leader, which would've turned the Cold War into World War III. For some reason, Gideon couldn't just replicate replacement parts. Our return to the Old West might've gone a bit differently if she had; the standard laser guns issued by the Time Masters just aren't the same."
"For the record, I'm gonna geek out over those laser guns, but that can wait until later. So this'll just be a quick rewiring job, then? Good."
Apparently, when Queen had pulled Supergirl aside for a chat, he had told her to not go easy on them during training. Len was going to find some way to get back at him for that, because she was totally owning them all. Her powers apparently weren't limited to flying and laser vision; she was invulnerable to pretty much anything (fire, ice, lasers, arrows, knives, etc.), was super strong, and had an icy breath capable of blocking Mick's heat gun. Everything they threw at her, she shrugged off as if it were nothing and threw the heroes (and their allies who refused to be called heroes) to the ground.
Len had shown up late to training while waiting for Cisco to finish repairing/rebuilding the Cold Gun, so he wasn't as beat-up as the others, and was one of the first to get back to his feet after the latest round.
"She really is a badass," Thea told her brother, who was struggling to get up beside her.
"Yeah," Sara added, as Len helped her up, "It's kinda hot."
"What?!" Len complained, "Sara!"
"Hey, I'm allowed to look, aren't I? You didn't complain about Queen Anne."
"Because you took every chance you could to remind me that you weren't going to go for it."
"I just said she was hot! I never said I was going to go for her!"
"Let's go again!" Queen ordered, breaking up the argument.
Len, Raymond, and Diggle all fired at her, joined a few seconds later by Mick (who wasn't even bothering to get up off the ground, at this point), and everyone charged.
Len was the one who got the closest, but found himself quickly regretting it as Supergirl lifted him up and tossed him into Diggle, sending them both crashing to the concrete floor in a heap.
Queen was so going to pay for this.
Hours later, Queen had finally decided that that was enough training for the day (so much for Barry being the one in charge), and now everyone was resting. Kara, who, as it turned out, also had super-speed, was running around and getting everyone heating pads and ice packs and whatever else they needed, apologising profusely for beating them so hard.
Len was half-sitting, half-lying against a crate, one hand holding an icepack to his head while the other arm was wrapped around Sara's waist. Caitlin had already checked him over, confirming that he hadn't gotten a concussion, before moving on to the others. He was thinking about something Barry had said when he'd first returned from Earth-38.
"Barry, what was that thing you were talking about earlier?" he asked the speedster, who had already healed from his bruises (lucky, speedy-healing bastard), "Some sort of anti-alien bio-weapon giving you trouble during your visit to Supergirl's Earth?"
Kara basically froze when the word 'bio-weapon' passed his lips. "The Medusa Virus. It's a biological weapon from my home planet, Krypton. My father helped create it after we were nearly invaded before I was born. Now that I think about it, that might have been the Dominators' invasion. My dad designed it to be lethal to anyone besides Kryptonians, but some human scientists got their hands on the formula and redesigned it to also spare humans. When Barry and Cisco came to recruit me, I was in the middle of fighting one of their agents, who was trying to steal an isotope needed to stabilise the virus and spread it over the city. We almost-"
"Yeah, yeah, I don't need to know the whole story. My point is: couldn't we use it against the Dominators? It sounds like it would be a quicker, easier way to go about things without risking all our lives."
"No." Kara shook her head, looking horrified at the idea. "No, there has to be another way. It was bad enough to find out that my father was creating a killer bio-weapon instead of saving lives like he claimed he was doing, but I won't use it."
Len glared at her. This was the sort of reason why Rip had recruited him, Mick, and Sara: because heroes didn't want to do the less-than-honourable things, the things that were sometimes necessary to get the job done and stop the real monsters. "You said the Dominators killed and experimented on a lot of people on your planet. If you can't do what's necessary to stop them from doing it again, then maybe you shouldn't be in this line of work."
Kara glared back. "Heroes don't have to resort to something as… as terrible as an engineered epidemic of death to save people!"
"Well, that's why sometimes the world doesn't just need 'heroes'. Sometimes it needs people who don't let their hang-ups about what's nice and what's not get in the way of getting things done. It's why I'm here."
"Me, too," Mick agreed.
"Guys?!" Felicity suddenly cried when her phone buzzed, interrupting the brewing argument. "Guys, it's Lyla. The President's been abducted by the Dominators! She needs us now!"
Despite the aches and pains, everyone got to their feet.
"Wait a second, we're not all going, are we?" Len asked.
Kara shrugged. "Well, yeah, why not?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because this has 'trap' written all over it, in big, neon letters?!"
"Snart's right," Queen agreed, "If we all walk in there, and spring a trap, we'll all be in trouble. Some of us should stay behind as backup."
"Lyla wants to talk to you, anyway," Felicity added, "You and Barry. Apparently she and the heads of various government agencies are squabbling about whether we should fight back or not."
"Seriously?" Thea wondered, "Aliens are invading, the President's been kidnapped, and someone out there thinks we should just sit on our asses and do nothing?!"
"This is why I hate politics," Len commented to no one in particular.
Queen sighed. "Okay, fine. Barry and I will stay behind. Everyone else, suit up!"
It took Felicity almost no time to locate the signal from a tracer the President had had implanted in him, so they soon found themselves outside an abandoned factory, specifically a building from an old salt mine that went out of business years ago. Len would have made a comment about the cliché, but he kept those thoughts to himself, lest Mick remind him that Len himself had used such places as a base of operations many times. Although Len had tended to use warehouses, not old mining factories, so really…
"Sure we're in the right place?" Raymond asked.
Supergirl, who'd flown there, came down from the sky and landed behind them. "Well, this is the last place the President's tracer gave a signal. Must be nearby." She stared at the building for a second, then nodded confidently. "Yep. He's in there."
"How could you possibly know that?" Len asked. Of course, given that she'd been dozens of feet in the air when Raymond had asked his question, and had answered it, anyway, he had a feeling that she still had other powers she hadn't mentioned yet.
"I can see him," the blonde alien replied, as if it were obvious. After a moment, she got an 'Oh' expression on her face and elaborated: "Oh, I have X-Ray vision."
"Oh." Len knew exactly what Mick was about to say, and wasn't sure if he should smirk or roll his eyes. "You can see everyone's bits with those little peepers, huh?"
Kara's face turned red. "No- no, I-"
"Ignore him," Sara advised her.
"How did you get the name 'Heatwave'?" Kara asked Mick, as if that wasn't a complete non-sequitur.
Mick apparently decided to go with the brutal truth. "I burned my family alive, and I like things on fire."
Sara facepalmed.
"Ah." Kara was staring at him with that look, the one everyone had given Len and Mick when they'd first seen them with their superhero friends. The look that said 'What on Earth is someone like him doing with a bunch of good guys?' "Well, that's a… colorful backstory."
"Well, my shrink thinks so."
"You haven't been to a shrink in years," Len reminded him, "And for the record, everyone, the fire that killed his family was an accident." Sara, Firestorm, and Raymond already knew that, but he didn't want Supergirl or anyone from Team Arrow suddenly deciding that they couldn't trust him, especially not now, of all times.
"By the way," Mick added, "I'm not gonna call you 'Supergirl'. It's stupid."
"Really?" Raymond muttered, "We're going to discuss this now?"
"…You could call me Kara."
Mick shook his head. "That won't work, either."
Firestorm sighed from behind Len, who was rather inclined to think that the act was being done by both Jax and the Professor, not one or the other.
"Well, what are you going to shout if you need my help?"
Mick appeared to think about it very seriously for a couple seconds. "Skirt," he declared decisively.
Thea snorted. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. But I'm not gonna need your help." He turned and started walking towards the factory. The various Legends present just shrugged at Kara before turning to follow him. It took a while for people to get used to his personality.
The inside of the warehouse was dark and creepy, with a wide-open area and ringed with multiple levels of balconies. Everything was covered in dust, grime, and rust, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering in through the broken windows. But that wasn't what brought Len to a halt only a few yards past the door. He was getting that feeling again. The feeling this whole thing was going to end badly. That feeling that had been dubbed the 'Alexa' feeling. "This was a bad idea," he told the others, "Something's not right."
"I don't see anyone else," Kara replied.
"This isn't gonna end well," Len insisted.
Mick stopped and stared at him. "Alexa?" Sara, Firestorm, and Raymond stopped as well. While none of them knew the full story, they had long since learned what Len meant when he invoked 'Alexa', and they trusted his gut when it came to that.
"Look!" Diggle cried, "The President!"
Sure enough, the grey-haired man they recognised from the news as the President of the United States was standing on a nearby platform, his hands bound in front of him. "Get me out of here!" he begged them as soon as he saw them.
Kara rushed forward, but the Legends didn't, and Diggle and Thea slowed when they noticed the others' reluctance.
"Snart's right," Firestorm agreed, "This feels wrong."
The Kara stopped dead in her tracks. "Something's coming," she said in a hushed voice. They could all hear it, some sort of unnatural sound that filled the building, seeming to come from all around them. It was like something you'd hear from a creature straight out of a horror or sci-fi film. On the second floor, a tall, grotesque, somewhat reptilian creature walked into view. Next to it sat a big, strange, metallic device that had something red and glowing in the centre. Everyone with long-range weapons pointed them at the alien. "Release the President!" Supergirl demanded.
"We knew you would come," a creepy voice said. The thing was, it didn't seem to come from the creature. It sounded to Len like it was coming from within his own mind, making his skin crawl.
"Did you guys hear that?" Raymond asked nervously, "'Cause I heard it… in my head."
"Yeah," Sara confirmed, sounding just as disturbed, "We heard it."
"You don't need to harm him to get whatever it is you want from us," Kara continued trying to negotiate, "Release him, and nothing will happen to you."
The alien pointed its arm, encased in some kind of gauntlet, at the President. "He is not who we want." The man had enough time to look at his would-be rescuers in horror before he was vaporised by a beam of green light shot by the alien.
"It's a trap!" Diggle yelled.
"Yeah, I said that already!" Len snapped back. He was already starting to fire his Cold Gun, but then things got worse.
The alien turned and touched the weird device, which spit out something that could only be described as a… cloud of red energy. Len's head suddenly exploded in pain, even worse than what he'd felt while being thrown through the time stream by the Oculus. Everything was pain; he was only dimly aware of his gun falling out of his hand, of his knees hitting the ground, of the others' screams, and of Mick yelling "Supergirl! Do something!" before everything went black.
"What the hell is going on?!" Oliver demanded. They'd just wrapped up a video conference with Lyla, who, with their help, had gotten most of the other agencies on board with 'letting' the heroes and vigilantes fight the aliens, when suddenly an explosion shook S.T.A.R. Labs, where they'd gone to have the conference after their friends had left on the rescue mission.
Cisco was typing like mad on one of his computers, and let out a curse. "Well, we're under attack, but I still don't know what's going on!" He pulled up the security feed onto the lab's main screens. Barry felt his mouth drop open in shock as he saw Firestorm, the Atom, and Supergirl flying around and blasting things, with Cold and Heatwave on the ground doing the same thing. Speedy, Spartan, and White Canary were with them as well.
Oliver let a curse of his own fly before turning on his heel and sprinting for the exit. Barry grabbed him and ran him down to just inside the exit door. Once Oliver had gotten his bearings, the two of them stepped outside.
"Guys?" Barry asked nervously. The eight heroes said nothing, just grouped together and aimed their weapons at him and Oliver. "Can we talk about this?" He caught an arrow that Speedy fired at him.
"Guess not," Oliver hissed through clenched teeth, ducking a shot from the Cold Gun that passed by so closely that it left frost on his arm.
A soon as their friends opened fire (Sara flinging throwing stars), Barry grabbed Oliver and pulled him behind a nearby S.T.A.R. Labs van. "What's wrong with them?!" the speedster cried.
"I don't know!"
"We need to find out!"
They ran out from behind cover, only for a combination of Firestorm, the Atom, and Supergirl's blasts to make the ground under their feet explode. Barry grabbed Oliver and ran with him once more, this time ducking behind the S.T.A.R. Labs sign.
"Wow," Oliver groaned, grimacing at his frost-coated arm, "You really did it this time, Barry."
"Seriously?!"
"Yeah. Yeah, seriously. You come to Star City, you ask for my help, and then inevitably, immediately, we end up up the creek!"
"Yeah, okay, that's fair." The explosions were getting louder. "They're moving in."
"On three, Team Leader."
A beam of blue light suddenly burned through the sign in between the two heroes, narrowly missing them both.
"What's that?!"
"That would be heat vision, remember?"
Oliver didn't even bother with One and Two. "Three!"
"Okay!"
Both of them stepped out from behind the sign to face their opponents. Thea, Dig, Rory, Sara, and Snart advanced on them from the ground while Ray, Kara, and Firestorm hovered above them.
Barry shot forward and slammed into Rory, knocking the pyro off his feet, then ran up to the roof of the S.T.A.R. Labs building, where the three flying heroes followed him. Spinning around, he generated enough energy for not one, but three lightning tosses. Mentally apologising to his friends, he threw one at each of them. The Atom and Firestorm were knocked back, but Supergirl didn't even flinch, responding with another blast of heat vision that threw Barry off the roof and back onto the ground.
Oliver was locked in hand-to-hand combat with Thea, Dig, and Sara. He couldn't help but hold back – this was Thea, Dig, and Sara, after all – but they held no such reservations. It was as if they didn't recognise him. Neither one of them even spoke. He dodged a kick from Thea, ducked under a punch, and, knowing he would be regretting this for a long time, kicked her hard in the gut.
Next, he was forced to dodge twin blasts of heat and cold from Rory and Snart's guns. He fired a net arrow at Snart, catching him around the legs and causing him to fall over.
Then Barry landed on the ground, hard, next to him. The four advanced on the pair of them, when suddenly a dark blur trailing yellow lightning ran by and knocked each one off their feet.
"Wally?" Barry gasped. It was Wally West, Iris's kid brother, the new speedster who'd been told to stay out of the alien crisis because of his inexperience. But Oliver wouldn't deny that he'd just saved their asses.
"Kid Flash," the kid corrected, grinning like a loon.
His moment of triumph was short-lived, however, as a blast of icy blue 'flames' hit him. Snart had been knocked over, but he was not out, and was quickly freeing himself of the net, anyway. Wally, caught unawares, screamed and fell to the ground, ice coating his clothes and leaving his skin badly frostbitten. Barry zipped over to him. "Wally!" he cried, panic seeping through, "Talk to me!" But all he could get out of him was pained whimpers.
While Barry reported Wally's condition to their friends still inside S.T.A.R. Labs, Oliver had other priorities (not that he didn't care about the kid being hurt). "I need an ETA on overriding the mind control!"
The response was immediate. Cisco and Felicity had located a strange signal coming from some nearby salt mines, but they couldn't jam it. Since they both knew that Oliver wouldn't have enough arrows to hold them all off, even though he'd only fired the one so far, Barry gave him directions to a bunker and told him to get Wally there, while the Flash himself apparently had an idea of how to stop the mind control.
Oliver hissed apologies to Wally as he lifted him up in a fireman's carry. The kid's speedster healing factor was probably what was keeping him alive, but he was still in a lot of pain, given that he'd been hit by a weapon specifically designed to hurt speedsters. Oliver took off down the passageway Barry had pointed out, running as fast as he could, because his friends were right behind him.
Once they started shooting, Oliver had no choice but to set Wally down behind cover and start firing back. An explosive arrow helped him put some distance between him and them, but not as much as he'd like. Every so often, he'd find a spot to put Wally down long enough to shoot back.
Until the moment came where he reached for his quiver and his fingers met empty air. Sara was the first to reach him, the two League-trained warriors trading blows back and forth. But Oliver knew she had the advantage in hand-to-hand, and that he could only hold out for so long, even without taking the others into consideration. Whatever Barry's plan was, it had better start working.
Then Sara stumbled back, her forehead covered in a strange red glow. She winced like she had the world's biggest migraine, and blinked. Daring to take his eyes off the assassin for a second, Oliver looked around and noticed that all the mind-controlled heroes except for Supergirl (yes, he was including Snart and Rory as 'heroes') were in view, and all were shaking their heads and looking around in confusion.
"They're back," Oliver reported over the comms, breathing a sigh of relief.
"What the hell was I drinking?" Rory mumbled.
"More like: what the hell did those alien bastards do to us?" Firestorm corrected.
"I knew this had been a bad idea," Snart practically growled, rubbing his temples.
"The Dominators put you all under some sort of mind control," Oliver explained, "You basically tried to kill me and Barry. And-" It suddenly occurred to him that Wally was now the one to be the most concerned about. He knelt down and gently scooped the kid up again. "And he needs medical attention, right now."
Gasps went up when they saw Wally's condition, all eyes going to Snart, who stared at the kid with barely-masked horror for all of a second, before it was smoothly replaced by a blank, emotionless expression. But in that one second, he looked a far cry from the man who had once tortured Cisco's brother for information.
"I'm calling the Waverider," Sara said once she got over her shock, "No offense to Caitlin, but Gideon can heal him up a lot quicker."
Oliver led the group out of the tunnel, noticing that Sara practically had to drag Snart along, as he appeared to still be shaken by what he'd done.
To say Len was upset was an understatement. Hearing the alien's voice inside his head had been bad enough, but to have it take complete control was just… it was the most unsettling violation he could think of. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it was equal to what he'd felt after learning about the Oculus and what the Time Masters were doing with it. Which was worse? Having absolutely no memory or control over your own actions? Or learning that someone had been subtly pulling your strings for who knows how long, and leaving you forever questioning which thoughts and choices had really been your own?
Then there was what had happened to the West kid. What he'd done to the West kid. He was still audibly moaning in pain in Queen's arms, pain that Len had caused. Whether he'd been in control or not, it had been his hand that had fired the Cold Gun, and for what? For trying to be a hero?
A few years ago, Len would have considered that an okay reason, because heroes were the enemy. Heroes were the ones who got in the way of his plans and looked down on him like he wasn't even worthy of the effort. Now, though, it was all too easy to imagine Raymond or Jax, his crew, in that kind of pain. And that thought disturbed him.
And even before all of this, before he started giving a shit for anyone besides himself and Lisa and Mick, he hadn't exactly been one to enjoy causing pain for the sake of pain. When he'd killed, it had pretty much always been quick. On the few occasions he'd tortured someone, he'd always had some sort of goal, something he intended to get out of it, some kind of information that would further his plans. Wally's pain was accomplishing nothing.
It was raining by the time they emerged from the tunnel. Caitlin, Felicity, and the rest of the West family were waiting with a stretcher. Once, Len wouldn't have cared about the furious glare Iris gave him as her brother was put on the stretcher and wheeled inside. Her father visibly restrained her from marching over to him, but he didn't look any less angry as he led his daughter back indoors.
Felicity stayed out with them, covering herself with an umbrella. Mick, who hated the rain, ducked underneath it with her, and after a brief second of surprise, she readjusted it so that it was covering them both more easily. "So, what was it like, being all mind-controlled and stuff?" she asked as Barry zipped over from wherever he'd gone and rejoined the group. She sounded way too cheerful, considering what had just happened.
"I didn't realize he had a mind to be controlled," Jax joked, pointing at Mick. Mick just rolled his eyes.
"So, where's Supergirl?" Thea asked.
"Scanning the city to make sure there aren't any more of the orbs that whammied all of you," Barry replied.
"Okay, so now what?" Diggle questioned.
"We call Lyla," Queen decided, "tell her these Dominators aren't here peacefully."
"I could've told you that before this whole debacle," Len muttered.
Meanwhile, Sara pulled out the remote control she would use to summon the Waverider. Len wouldn't mind getting back onto the ship, even if it meant he'd have to be on board alongside its imminent patient and his understandably pissed-off family.
Sara was giving him a sad look. "We should talk," she whispered. Of course she would want to talk privately about what had just happened. Len was just about to answer when there was suddenly a flash of yellow-white light and a strange sound, and then Sara was just… gone.
"SARA!" he and Queen yelled at the same time.
Then it happened again, only this time Len was able to see two beams of the same light come down out of the sky and make Thea and Diggle vanish.
"EVERYBODY INSIDE!" Barry was yelling, "GO!"
Len dashed away with the rest of them, hearing the sound again behind him. He performed a lightning-fast headcount of the people in front of him (Barry, Felicity, Firestorm, and Mick), then looked over his shoulder. Queen was standing alone. Raymond was missing.
Even as he looked, Len saw Queen vanishing in the same light. A red blur shot towards him, but soon Barry was the only one standing out in the rain, grasping at empty air and staring up at the sky.
"Sara…" Len breathed, not sure what had just happened.
"What the hell was that?!" Jax cried.
"Tell me that wasn't some kinda death ray," Mick demanded, his eyes wide. Len's heart damn near stopped at that suggestion.
"No," Barry insisted, zipping back over to them, "It was a teleporter."
"What, like 'Beam me up, Scotty'?" Felicity asked incredulously.
"Yeah. Which means they're still alive, right?"
"They'd better be," Len growled, "Or else I'll kill every damn alien myself."
Once they were inside, they were met with a veritable barrage of frantic questions. What happened? Why were people missing? What were they all going to do?
A sharp whistle from Caitlin shut them all up. "Okay, someone tell us what the hell just happened!"
"Oliver, John, Thea, Ray, and Sara have just been abducted by the Dominators," Felicity quickly summarised, "So… Any ideas?"
"The Waverider can handle going into space," Mick piped up, "But that's a lot of area to search. We'd need something to narrow it down."
"I thought only Sara had the remote to call your ship back."
"Mick and I both know how to pilot the Jump Ship," Jax interjected, "And Mick can pilot the Waverider. We can just fly back to the Temporal Zone and bring the whole ship back here."
"I could try Vibing their location," Cisco suggested, "But I'll need some sort of personal item belonging to one of them."
"And if that doesn't help?" Len snapped, "Sure, if you can see whether they're okay or not, that's important, but will it tell us exactly where to fly the Waverider?"
"It's a start," Felicity insisted, "We just have to grab the stuff they left in the warehouse. And as for the rest, maybe Curtis can help come up with something."
Len remembered meeting Curtis Holt over the summer, the second techie member of Team Arrow. Adding another geek brain to the mix would probably be a good idea.
"Right. So, we'll go take care of that right now, and get the Waverider here so Gideon can help Wally."
"I'll start making calls," Barry volunteered, "I mean, we could still ask Carter and Kendra for help. And Mari and Lisa."
"I can call Roy," Felicity volunteered, "It might be tricky, what with him being sort of on the run, of course – does it count as 'on the run' if no one's chasing you because they all think you're dead? Anyway, I will call him, because this is a serious emergency. Defcon One, all hands on deck-"
"We got it, Felicity. Let's start dialing."
After Kara was satisfied that there were no more of those mind-control devices in Central City, she flew to meet up with Barry at the main S.T.A.R. Labs building. When she entered the main room, she instantly knew something was wrong. Everyone in the room was looking worried, and not just for the badly-frostbitten boy in the bed in the room off to the side. Leonard Snart was particularly agitated, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.
"What's wrong?" Kara asked the room in general, "What happened?"
Felicity was the one who answered, wringing her hands. "The Dominators abducted Oliver, Ray, Sara, Thea, and John. Just teleported them away. We couldn't do anything to stop them."
"What?! Okay, what's the plan? Tell me there's a plan!"
"Mick and Firestorm are picking up their time ship from the Temporal Zone and bringing their other teammates here with them, Barry and Cisco are making calls to other hero friends – it's all hands on deck, now. And I'm waiting to hear back from our team in Star-" Her phone buzzed, and she looked at the caller ID. "That's them! I gotta take this."
Felicity walked off, talking to someone named Curtis, but Kara stopped listening in favour of checking on everyone else. As Felicity said, Barry was on his phone with someone named Kendra, Cisco was doing the same with a 'Lisa', Iris and an older man were sitting at the bedside of the injured boy, Caitlin was treating the boy's injuries, and HR was mostly getting in Caitlin's way.
That left Snart, who was being ignored by everyone else. It was understandable; the man was giving off a distinct 'stay the hell away' vibe. But Kara figured someone should talk to him, to see if he was okay. "How are you holding up?"
Snart's angry gaze snapped up to her, and the Girl of Steel was actually taken aback by the sheer amount of anger in his eyes. "I'm fine!" he practically growled.
"You don't look fine. Look, everyone's working really hard to bring your friends back. Everything will be okay, I promise." She reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he slapped it away. Kara froze, more surprised by the action than anything else.
"You really are living in a bubble, aren't you? What, you think that hard work and hope are going to make everything go the way you want it? If you want to help, why don't you go do something instead of wasting your time talking to me?!"
Kara could only watch as the man stormed out of the room. "What's his problem?"
"Do you want a list?" Barry came up from behind her, apparently done with his phone call, "Snart's life has been anything but easy. I mean, everyone here has faced some sort of tragedy, but at least we had other people to help us get through it. Snart hasn't really had anyone besides his sister and Mick until he got recruited onto the Legends team, and he's not going to react well to people trying to comfort or coddle him. You can't offer him hope with words; you have to do it with actual proof of progress. The fact that he barely knows you won't help, either. Trust does not come easy for him."
"So… he's always this cynical? Enough to advocate using the Medusa Virus? You saw how nasty that was, how Mon-El almost died from it! How did someone like him and Rory get onto a team of heroes, anyway? They honestly seem like they'd fit in better with the villains."
"Well, to be honest, that is how they started out – seriously, each one has a rap sheet, like, a mile long, and they've both actually tried to kill me at least once – but they aren't the same guys who first stepped onto the Waverider. And even then, Snart's biggest priority is and has always been survival. For himself and for the small group of people that he cares about. He'd be dead by now if it wasn't. It's why he was recruited for the Legends Team; he and Mick and Sara… they're the ones who can make the tough calls, the smart ones, because sometimes we heroes can be idiots, or just don't want to get our hands dirty. Snart just suggested the Medusa Virus as a way to remove the threat to his home as quickly as possible."
Kara bit her lip, wondering if maybe she'd judged the man too harshly.
"You know, I'm pretty sure the last time you were on one of these trains was the time you derailed one just to get the jump on Barry."
Len gave the engineer sitting across from him a withering look before going back to staring out the window. His fingers twitched in irritation, but he forcibly reminded himself that pulling the Cold Gun out at all, much less icing the nerd, would just cause more problems for him. And at the moment, he had enough problems as it was, thank you very much.
His girlfriend had been abducted by aliens. Abducted. By. Aliens. It sounded so surreal, he could almost imagine that it was all some very strange nightmare from which he would soon wake up. But the residual headache from the Dominators' mind control and the bruises he'd woken up with – probably given to him by Queen while defending himself – said otherwise.
So now he was on a train to Star City, where Felicity and Cisco planned to work with Team Arrow's own newbies – including Curtis Holt the tech geek – in hopes of finding Sara and the other four abductees. Cisco was also hoping to get his hands on a personal item to 'Vibe' their location, and apparently the street clothes they'd left in the S.T.A.R. Labs warehouse after changing into their battle gear didn't cut it. Mick had said it would take them a while to bring the Waverider back to 2016, so they couldn't just quickly grab something from Sara or Raymond's rooms. And while Len knew he probably wouldn't be much help in either area, he wanted to get that information as soon as possible, which meant being there when it was discovered.
Plus, since he'd shot that West kid, the kid's cop dad and viciously protective older sister had been furious with him, mind control or no mind control, and he had no intention of staying behind with them. Nor did he need the reminder of the pain his own actions had inflicted on the kid.
He stared out the window, looking up at the night sky, wondering where Sara was, and if she was alright.
"We'll find her," Felicity said softly, "We will." Her voice was gentle, and although it was basically the same thing that Kara said, Len couldn't find it in him to snap at her. Maybe it was because, unlike the alien woman who'd just shown up in their lives today, Felicity had a much greater understanding of what Sara meant to him.
Len sighed. "I hope so. But what state is she going to be in when we do?"
The Sixth of December, 2016
Sara rolled over in bed, stretching. Her bare breasts brushed against warm flesh, the arm draped over her waist pulled her closer, and she smiled.
"Good morning." She opened her eyes to see her lover smiling back at her.
"Morning," she whispered back, kissing him softly, "How long have you been awake for?"
"Not for long. But we really should be getting up soon, if we want to be on time."
Sara groaned, resting her forehead against his. "You know I hate mornings."
"It's eleven-thirty. Half an hour from now, it won't be morning anymore. And we still have a long drive ahead of us. Besides, you've been talking all month about how you can't wait to see your family again, to be there on Laurel's big day…"
"I know, I know." She sighed. "But seriously: five more minutes?"
Len smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "Fine. Five more minutes."
Now I totally want to write a 'behind-the-scenes' look at how Team Flash used the hologram to trap Mirror Master and Top in 'The New Rogues'.
A note on another small change I made that you may not have even noticed: I changed the timing of the episode (between the opening scene and the next) because of real-life sunset/sunrise times. What I mean is that in the episode, it opens on Barry and Ollie fighting the mind-controlled heroes and then jumps back to '10 Hours Later', where Wally is training at S.T.A.R. Labs. The exterior shot of S.T.A.R. Labs clearly shows that sunrise is still a significant amount of time away, suggesting it is rather early in the morning. According to time and date dot com, the sun rose in Calfiornia around 6:45 am on December 5th, and set around 4:45 pm. That's just barely ten hours, so it really should be lighter outside in one of those scenes. So I put the opening fight scene at ten hours after the Legends get there, instead. Is that too OCD of me?
Next week, Len meets the rest of Team Arrow, and Sara's dream world has an extra element that will make it harder for her to leave.
