For Those We Love
Me: not super interested in the Arrowverse or anything DC related anymore
Zach Snyder: releases the Snyder cut*
Me: 😳
Chapter 4:
"What, are you gonna call it the Flashverse? That would be stupid. Tell Grant [Gustin] I said that by the way."
12 seconds later
"Any chance I get to work with Grant, I'll take. He is my favorite person to work with… Don't tell him that! Did-Did you record it? Shit." -Stephen Amell
"I can't- I can't do this without my sister" -Sara Lance
"Yes you can, you are one of the strongest people I have ever met Sara" -Rip Hunter
Barry
"Any sign of Foul Play?" his adoptive father asked. "The case has been cleared as natural causes by the Coroner's Office but I have a gut feeling about this, I really do." Joe West finished.
Standing over some scene evidence and the coroner's report for a Mr. and Mrs. Devoe, Barry just shook his head.
"Sorry Joe. I really can't say this is anything more than an old couple getting a heart attack. There have been reports of couples dying at around the same time as each other for a long time. Probably what happened here." Barry said apologetically. The Devoes were a menace that Barry spent too much time on in the original timeline. He saw it as a necessary evil to have to kill them and pass it off as natural.
"No but my gut is rarely wrong, please Barry, check it again." Joe pleaded. The CSI just sighed before nodding reluctantly. "Fine. Maybe later. Cisco and Cait have something for me at STAR."
The father figure gave his thanks before leaving the younger man alone in the lab. Barry slouched into his chair and sighed. He didn't know if what he did was right, but right now it meant he could operate more freely, not having to deal with a singular big bad for a few months. He had done something similar in Star City, giving a de-edited video to a certain expert hacker that would free up Oliver for the few months, and there would be no ramping up of crime in Star City, at least for a while.
Had he thought a non-violent solution was possible with the Devoes, he would have taken it. At the end of the day the Devoes were too large and dangerous of a threat that would hinder his own efforts to build up the Justice League.
Shaking his head, the CSI took off and sped his way to STAR Labs.
"Barry! There you are. We've got a message from Sara and the Legends." Caitlin said after seeing the man arrive.
Now that was strange. There wasn't supposed to be anything important enough for the Legends to head to this time-space location. Did he change something too important? Normal Speedster Time Travel bypassed the sensors of the Time Masters, which resulted in Timeships being normally unable to sense any time anomalies that come about because of him.
'But I've never time-travelled with the help of John Constantine's magic before too.' He mused.
"Huh. That's weird. What did they say?" he answered.
"Some field a few miles west of here, bringing up the location now. I can give you directions." Cisco answered. Barry just nodded and put-on Cisco's suit. This suit was probably one of Cisco's best and one of Barry's favorite from the early years of his career as a superhero.
"Sure. Thanks Cisco. Did they say it was urgent?" He followed up.
"No. Sara said to just come whenever." Caitlyn replied. "Oh, by the way, Cisco and I have gone through the list you gave us earlier and I've made a shortlist we can go through later. For what it's worth, I think you're right that we could be doing more with STAR Labs."
"Thanks Cait. That means a lot to me. The two of you are some of the smartest people I know, and keeping you cooped up in here just to help me out sometimes is a waste of your talents honestly." He said with a smile. Team Flash had been so much more useful later on, when it wasn't completely focused on helping Barry but being more focused on building on their individual strengths in order to all contribute in a more constructive manner.
"Alright then. It'll be nice to see Sara and the others." Barry said before speeding out of the building.
He slowed down a little to maintaining the speed expectations of Cisco, but it felt nice to just have a relaxing run through the city. Central City was a beautiful place and he loved to take the time to appreciate it.
He slowed down to stop a mugging and helped a woman who was about to get hit by a speeding taxi. It took a minute to make it to the field where he saw Sara Lance there standing in the middle.
He smiled. Sara and he had become really good friends (with benefits too) in the future and he hadn't seen this past version of her yet.
"Hey Sara! What's up?" he said taking off his hood and mask and running towards her. Suddenly he was wrenched into a standstill. Looking down he saw that he was stuck on some sort of… goo.
"Firestorm transmuted the stuff. Not sure what it is but it definitely looks gross." He heard Sara remark to him before the rest of the Legends arrived.
"Uhh Barry. Did you piss off the super-hot trained former assassin or something? What is happening?" Cisco asked through his earpiece.
"Hey Barry! We need to talk." Ray said, starting off jovially before shifting to a more serious tone.
"Uh-huh. And this needed me to be trapped in this… stuff? What is this stuff anyway?" He started. "You know what don't tell me." He finished when Martin seemed to start speaking.
"It'll take you at least 10 minutes with your speed to get out, and it's stopping you from phasing." Jax opined. Barry shifted his feet a little to test it out, seeing that Stein had likely calculated based on his previous speed at the time, rather than his now much faster speed. Still, there was no reason to start a confrontation.
"This is about a pretty big anomaly that we can't find out about, because you programmed Gideon not to. So…" Sara explained as we walked twards him. "Why don't you tell us what it's about."
"Cisco, Cait, I'm turning off comms." Barry said seriously. As his two friends started to object he cut them off by shutting of his earpiece. "First off, how serious is the aberration." He questioned.
"We know it's a real big one. And we know you're giving off huge amounts of temporal radiation, more than all the other sources of temporal radiation on the entire planet right now." Nate explained.
"Alright listen, why don't you let me out of this gooey stuff and we can talk about this stuff in the Waverider." He asked. If he could tell Sara about his experience privately, it might be a better solution than telling the whole team.
"Nope. You see, we've been thinking about this for a while now and it seems to me that the biggest thing that's happened lately is you getting out of the Speedforce." Sara started. "Makes sense that you might be the aberration."
"So you think the aberration is me being out of the Speed Force? And that when I realized you would sense me that I programmed it in Gideon?" Barry finished, guessing what they had assumed. It was a logical guess that explained a lot… and was pretty on point. He was technically a temporal aberration and he did program Gideon to make sure he wasn't pinpointed. "Ok I know this looks bad but I can explain, I promise. Sara, if we could just talk alone for a few minutes-"
"Enough talk. Are we gonna kill him or not." Rory chimed in, to which the rest of the Legends admonished him.
At this point, Barry's hyperfast brain had already figured out the molecular structure of the trap they had sprung on him.
"Huh. Pretty clever. Dense semi-solid particles that would bond to me on a level where I couldn't shift my molecules fast enough to phase." He mused out loud.
"That's-That's right. Either the imposter is a genius too or that really is Mr. Allen." Martin remarked, addressing that last sentence to Sara.
Before she replied Barry spoke again. "You know, if you apply enough energy to it it'll loosen up."
Shifting the molecules in his arms to incredible speeds, he generated 2 bursts of lightning and aimed it at his feet. The grass-looking substance started to melt and before any of the Legends could react Barry was out.
But they were called Legends for a reason, and it only took a few seconds for Martin and Jax to form Firestorm while Ray and Rory started to fire their weapons at the Scarlet Speedster.
"Whoa. Hey guys I haven't even thrown a punch yet what gives?" Barry complained as he ran circles around the team.
Thinking quickly, as the Flash passed him yet again, Citizen Steel punched the ground hard enough for it to imbalance Barry slightly. Had he been taking this fight seriously he would recover but he was distracted enough as it is trying to formulate a plan to end the confrontation with his friends nonviolently.
He careened towards Sara, and seeing that his speed would kill her, he slowed down the speedforce in his body so that when he hit her, they both went tumbling forward, unharmed. Sara landed on top of the speedster, giving her ample time to slap a pair of anti-meta cuffs on him.
"You know, no wonder Ollie dated you." Barry smiled a little. The view was quite nice from his position and he was in no real danger at the moment. "Although you should hesitate to use those things on one of the guys who helped make anti-meta tech."
Sara rolled forward, off Barry, before he sped around again, the cuffs clattered onto the ground.
The Legends readied to fight again when a voice broke the tension.
"That is quite enough."
Turning around to face the interloper the Legends saw a somewhat familiar face.
"Rip?!" Sara exclaimed.
"Ms. Lance." He greeted nonchalantly. "And hello to you all as well." He nodded towards the rest of the team.
"It's quite ironic that you're here harassing Mr. Allen for an aberration when you're the reason time itself broke." He said sarcastically.
"Rip where have you been? I mean we were about to go looking for you after all the dinosaur stuff to see if you knew how to fix things." Firestorm said.
"I have been busy. Trying my best to "fix things" as you'd put it. Although it is great to see all of you again" Rip replied, a smile breaking on his face. "I came from the Vanishing Point."
"The Vanishing Point? The old Time Master HQ? Why were you there?" Sara questioned, still in disbelief.
"Because Ms. Lance, as a place outside of Time it is the perfect place to build the Headquarters for the Time Bureau. And before you ask, I decided that a single team in a single Time Ship might not be enough for the monumental task of fixing the time streams, so I spent a few years recruiting and training people."
"What?" Sara looked furious. "And you decided not to give us a single heads up that you were fine, a single hint of how to find you?"
"Ms. Lance... I know you're mad. Most likely you're all mad. But I ask that you please set aside that anger for the moment and hear me out." Rip pleaded. "It took me some self-control to avoid contacting you, but I knew that I needed time to get the agency off the ground before we reunited. And besides… you're the Legends, you can do just fine without me." He said that last part with a smile.
The team looked at each other, unsure. Amaya and Nate weren't quite so affected but it was easy to see that Sara, Ray, and Firestorm were emotional. Rory's impassive face wasn't so complimentary to the mood of the rest of the team, but Barry could hear his heart quicken a little.
"Rip… it's good to see you. But what were you saying about Barry?" Sara said, wiping a tear from her eye discretely.
"Ah yes. Mr. Allen's… situation." He coughed slightly. "Perhaps we should talk about that inside the Waverider."
Barry felt a little like an outsider or interloper but the Legends greeted Rip personally one-by-one before boarding the time ship, with Sara going last. Their whispered conversation couldn't be heard by anyone else, and Barry wasn't going to eavesdrop.
By the time everyone was on board Rip and Sara locked the door to the Captain's ready room as the two of them and Barry were inside while the rest of the team went to different parts of the ship or watched the trio from the bridge. Gideon had, on Rip's orders and Sara's acquiescence, already set course for the Vanishing Point.
"So… What's this about?" Sara spoke first. "And why does it mean that Barry doesn't get put back into the Speed Force."
The scarlet speedster thought for a moment. It was obvious to him that Rip likely knew he was from the future, so it made sense to come clean to Sara.
"I'm from the future." He said bluntly. "I went back and placed myself in my younger self's body after he got out of the Speed Force."
"Oh, so we aren't learning from any of our past mistakes then?" Sara asked sarcastically. "Saving your mom wasn't enough for you Allen?"
"Not if it means saving the entire multiverse." Barry replied, crossing his arms.
Sara's stunned silence reigned in the room for several moments before Rip chimed in. "That includes you and me as well Ms. Lance."
"So… guess you're not doing it for just yourself then." She gulped. What could destroy the entire multiverse?
"Well he's not doing it entirely for himself." Rip corrected. "Mr. Allen's motivations are likely more personal than you realize, but that's entirely understandable."
"Come on man" Barry groaned.
"What's going to happen? What destroys the multiverse?" she asked, ignoring the comment.
"That's a long story."
"…" Sara's glare could probably pierce metal if she wanted it to.
"Short version of it is that a bunch of aliens show up with big armies and we lose too many people fighting them and then a new big bad shows up and destroys the multiverse while we're mourning our losses." He answered.
"Damn. That all sounds…" Sara struggled to find the words.
"like a lot?" Barry supplied.
"It is. After I decided to start the Time Bureau, the massive anomaly from Mr. Allen's return forced me to look at the timeline. The destruction of the multiverse is something that has disrupted the timeline's normal course and Time itself, already damaged by the… incident, has become even more unstable. That is why I've been building it in the Vanishing Point." Rip explained.
"With an HQ outside of the timestream, it'll give you an easier job of scanning and reacting to the different anomalies and aberrations that pop up." Sara finished, as Rip nodded.
"Listen Sara, I'll be handling stuff in the present as best I can, trying to get us prepared." Barry said. "But I can't handle the time aberrations brought about by my return-"
"So, the Legends are going to have to clean up your mess." Sara interrupted with a small smile. "Ollie told me that you're one of the best guys he knows. And considering the alternative…" She trailed off.
"We'll be there if you need us." She said.
"And I'll come running as soon as you call." Barry replied.
Glad that things were finally resolved with Sara, Barry let out a sigh of relief.
"Now that that's over, I have to ask… When are you guys gonna drop me off?" Barry asked.
The two captains looked at each other before looking back at the speedster. They had taken off while the man was still onboard.
"Well Mr. Allen, looks like you get to be with the Legends when they see the new Vanishing Point. We can have an agent accompany you back to your time when we arrive." Rip answered.
"Speaking of" Sara chimed in while looking out towards the bridge viewscreen.
"We have arrived at the Vanishing Point" Gideon announced. A spinning durasteel complex greeted the sight of the legends, the metal structure looked like a spheroid surrounded by additional metal pylon structures that were attached to the main body with thick struts.
The trio stepped onto the bridge together. "Legends, and Mr. Allen. Welcome to the Time Bureau." The assembled heroes gathered to see the HQ of the new organization that their former leader had built.
"The Time Masters left a hole that we tried to fill by ourselves. A single team alone would never be able to fix all of history alone. That's why I built this." Rip said.
"So… guess you don't need us anymore?" Mick asked while holding a beer.
"Quite the contrary Mr. Rory." Rip started. "I said a single team alone would never be able to do it. But supported by more people and with aid and support from dozens of agents, it might just work."
"So, you expect us to just be part of your little club now?" Sara glared.
"Yes, and no." Rip started to explain. "Every organization needs an A-team doesn't it?" he said with a smile. "The bureau is there to detect anomalies, determine the severity, and then send an appropriate force to react. When the aberrations are too big, the anomalies too serious-"
"Then we get sent in." Ray finished. "Pretty cool. Does that mean we get to boss all the other people around?"
Rip was silent for a few moments, his face filled with regret.
"Yes" he said finally. "If you accept and join me, you will outrank every other agent and have access to everything the bureau has to offer."
"Cold Beer? Food? Slaves?" Mick asked. "Count me in."
"I mean it's not like I'd say no. Count me in." Haywood said.
"I guess I can stay longer. It's a time machine after all" Amaya said with a smile.
"Stein and I are in. That thing looks pretty sick." Jax said, motioning to the HQ.
"Yes I'm sure there would be quite a lot to study." Martin chimed in. "As long as I can go back and see Lily and Clarissa every so often of course."
"I'm in." Ray said before looking to Sara. In fact, they were all looking at her.
"Jury's still out." She said with a short tone before walking off towards the ship entrance. "Gideon get us docked."
The mood was a little tense afterwards, but Barry diffused it with a quick question.
"Does it remind anyone else of that ship from Star Wars?"
"Hey yeah, it definitely does." Ray replied.
"Yeah, the droid one, from Episode 1." Nate said.
"Well, that may be because of a… friend I asked to help with the building of the Time Bureau." Rip explained a little awkwardly.
Sara
"George Lucas?!" Barry exclaimed.
They had managed to dock the ship into the new building's hangar bay. A few of the suited agents gawked at the casually clothed people who came off the time ship. Then they had been approached by a familiar face.
"Phil!" George greeted Rip Hunter, to which the British man replied with a smile and a hug.
"It's good to see you George. How have things been here."
"It's alright. Finished setting up those turbolasers. I gotta tell you that that stuff is awesome. I even got to test fire it. Oh and I designed a new ship for you too, I even had Tim look it over and he tweaked it a little, without telling him it was a real ship of course." The filmmaker replied.
"Hey, it's you guys!" George exclaimed as he noticed the Legends. "Nice to see you again."
The group all greeted him warmly and he even shook hands with Barry who was in quiet awe at meeting the legendary director.
"Anyways, you came back just in time, I was going to head back home. Hey next time I'm here you gotta score us some future stuff alright?" the older man said.
Rip smiled. "Oh I know just the source. It'll be like old times George. Be well." The two men hugged goodbye before the filmmaker went towards a time agent who was charged with bringing the older man to his correct destination.
"You asked George Lucas for help?" Sara asked with a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Yes well… When your former roommate has spent a good part of the last few decades thinking of spaceships and laser fights, you just get the urge to call them and ask them for help in building spaceships and preparing for laser fights." Rip said jokingly. "I visited him to relive some memories of good times without having to worry about time, or dead wives, or the complexities of saving the multiverse. We were… a little inebriated when he offered to help me with the Bureau. I couldn't say no."
"You were roommates with George Lucas?" Barry asked.
"Yes actually. In Film School. Don't ask, it's complicated." The man answered, cutting off the myriad of follow up questions that the speedster had no doubt been about to bombard him with.
"Director Hunter" a stern voice interrupted them.
Approaching the group of heroes was a trio of agents accompanied by a familiar face.
"Agent Sharpe, Eve." He inclined his head to nod at the latter. The brunette was a familiar face to the original members of the Legends, the female Time Master whose timeship had been stranded.
The only other surviving Time Master in the universe returned the nod and gazed over the Legends.
"I see some familiar faces here." She said simply. "The Acheron has been repaired and refitted and I'll be taking some agents out on her first voyage as a… Bureau Timeship." She said that last part with a little hesitance. "I can't quite believe you managed to convince me to go along with this endeavor of yours Hunter, but I'm glad to be part of something bigger again. It wasn't like I was going to go Pirate anyway.
"Time is bigger than all of us Eve. Good Luck. And Legends, Mr. Allen, I'd like to introduce agent Ava Sharpe to you, she's helped organized the construction efforts." Rip said.
"It's- It's nice to meet you all. Director Hunter has spoken a lot about all of you and your exploits." The leggy blonde spoke up before shaking everyone's hand, although Mick just looks at her before she moves on to Ray.
"Please, allow me to show you all around the bureau." She says.
As the Legends + Flash show a little excitement and start to follow the agent as she turns to leave, she speaks up. "You guys go on ahead."
The group knows what's up. She and Rip are left alone in the hangar bay.
"We can speak in my office." Rip says simply before turning and walking towards a set of doors.
"So… you've got an office?"
"Well I am director of a temporal agency that polices the timeline in order to keep the universe safe."
It's spacious but familiar at the same time, some of Rip's old belongings had found their way here and she stands to look at a few knives.
"Sara…" he says from behind her. He called her that when they were alone, so rarely in front of others. It was always "Ms. Lance", which annoyed her a little more than she'd care to admit.
"Why Rip?" her question could have gone unsaid with the obvious tension in the room. "Why'd you leave? The Truth this time." She spins around and looks him in the eye and for a moment their pupils meet, just before he averts his eyes a little.
"I told you-"
"You told me crap. You lied to me, and you're not exactly the best liar anymore."
He smirked. "I doubt that. You just seem to be the one person I can't lie to."
"So you admit that you lied. Now tell me why." She decided to bury that comment for now.
His eyes met hers again, those deep azure orbs felt like they penetrated her soul.
"I killed you." It came out as a whisper and Sara took a step towards him.
"It wasn't yo-"
"I killed you Sara." He said it almost as a whimper. "I remember killing you. When I look into your eyes, when I see your face, I remember. When I see your neck all I can picture is my hands-" He stops, his voice carrying a plethora of pain.
Sara doesn't know what to say.
"How can you look at me like that." He asks, disbelief in his tone.
"Like what?" she asked.
"Like I'm not a murderer, not the man who-"
"Because you aren't. Because Rip Hunter wouldn't hurt me like that."
"But I did! I-"
"Captain Hunter has lied to you so often yet you persist in believing in him" she remembered the words Vandal Savage had once said to her.
She put the knife she had palmed up to his neck. He didn't flinch.
"I did this to you before. Put a knife on your throat and I almost killed you Rip. When I told you about my bloodlust, you kept me on the team. I killed a whole group of people in front of your eyes, and you still trusted me. Why?" she said, before throwing the knife to her side, embedding it in the wall.
"You said once, 'killing isn't easy, especially for a good man'" He replied. "You're a good person Sara. Your humanity wins out."
"You saw me as Sara Lance, not a killing machine, not the monster I thought I was." She finished. "I saw the way Kendra looked at me after she found out, like she was afraid to trust me, even after she got over it, I remembered that look Rip. You never looked at me like I wasn't Sara Lance. How could I not do the same for you?"
Tears welled in the man's eyes.
"When Jax was about to kill you, I stopped him because I knew that somewhere inside there Rip Hunter was alive. That your humanity would win out." She said. "I risked all of time because I wanted to save you Rip."
Silence reigned as the two stared into each other's eyes for the next few moments.
"When I looked at the timeline I saw how I died." He finally said.
"I believe in you Sara, more than anything else in this world I believe in you. I died for that belief and I hope to God that I have the strength to make that decision again if I need to."
"Thank you Rip." She finally broke the tension by embracing him, his arms folding around her reciprocally.
They stayed embraced for the next few moments before separating.
"And don't think I noticed what you did with that agent. First real agent I meet and it's a leggy blonde with a nice ass?" She said with a smile.
Rip's laughter induced Sara's own and in seconds, things between them seemed alright.
"I assure you Sara, that was not my intention. She's just someone who's been working very hard."
They chuckled for a few moments before she said it.
"I'm in."
He smiled widely for the first time since she had seen him. "I should hope so. Not much point in the Legends without their captain."
"Never would have been a team of Legends without you Director" she says, purring out the last word with a little sarcasm.
"Well what else could I call myself?" He asks amused.
"You have centuries of Sci-Fi Pop culture to draw from and you go for a boring "Time Bureau"?" she says. "You're a Time Master, one of the last of your kind, and you have a stunningly sexy travelling companion." She remarks, gesturing to herself at the last part.
"Was never a fan of that show, although I did like that red head and her husband-"
"Fine but you could have picked a much cooler name Rip. Now you're stuck with Director Hunter- ok fine that sounds cool enough, but you're still stuck with Time Bureau." She says as she opens the door.
"I think I was too pre-occupied with who I'd recruit and how the bureau would work first and foremost-" He started as the duo walked out of his office.
"More like busy getting high with George Lucas, which I gotta admit is pretty cool. By the way do you think you could take me with you the next time you get baked with him?" she said, a little hopeful. She would never admit it to anyone, but Leia Organa was a childhood idol for her and Star Wars had been a fun bonding experience for her and Laurel when it came out.
"I'm sure he'd appreciate more company. There's a good store in the far future that has some excellent strains for sale."
"Sounds fun. Now, where are the kids?" she said as she stopped to take a look at the view of the facility from their position.
"I'm sure Mr. Rory has decided to take up shop in the cafeteria taking advantage of the unlimited amount of drinks he can materialize and young agents he can order around, while Mr. Palmer and Professor Stein are likely in the science labs." Rip started.
"And Jax will be in the hangar bay taking a look at those new timeships you're building, while Nate and Amaya will be wherever they can hook up without being seen." Sara finished.
"You know, I didn't think it would come to this all those years ago when I recruited you on that rooftop." He said.
"Me neither." She smiled at him. All was right again in the Legends and no matter what the future threw at them she decided that if she could help it, they wouldn't be split apart again no matter what.
Author's Note:
If you can't tell, I'm a fan of Time Canary (Rip/Sara) and I couldn't help but put a hint of it here. Hated how the Legends writers did him dirty with the season 3 part of his story and his death. He and his relationship with Sara was one of my favorite parts of early Legends. I like AvaLance well enough so we'll see how it goes before I finalize anything with Sara's pairing.
George Lucas being Rip's roommate during his time as amnesiac!Rip is one of my favorite underrated facts and something that doesn't get used too much in Fanfiction so I decided he'll pop up in this story from time to time when we deal with the Legends. (Also I'm a huge Star Wars fan (OT, Prequels, and Legends most of all) and if you can guess who "Tim" is you deserve a prize!)
Barry, while he will be the most important character in this fic, will not be the only POV, nor will the other two members of Karivarry/Super Flarrow. Barry's time travel carries with it some specific and far-reaching consequences that will mean I get to write about other DC/Arrowverse characters too. I'll likely spend a few more chapters on setting up the universe (I'm planning on dealing with the Earth 1/38 divide next chapter!) before going for the more serialized story arcs I've got on my storyboard/outline.
Until the next time I update FTWL. Comments and stuff appreciated.