Written in collaboration with carboncopies on AO3 for pod_together 2019.

Job

Three of their crew walked back into the warehouse, letting the door crash closed behind them. Lenny didn't bother to look up, still studying his blueprints, but Lisa did. Watching Lenny was boring, and new crew meant she might get some entertainment.

"Your flamehead's lost in his lighter again," one of the thugs grunted. Lisa had a vague feeling his name was Alex or Albert, something like that, but she decided Squinty Eye would be easier to remember. It wasn't like they'd stick around long, anyway. They were only here because this job needed a bit more muscle than usual. "How did you meet him anyway?"

Lenny looked up from his blueprints. "You wanna know how I met Mick?"

Squinty Eye looked nervous, but tried to cover it with a shrug. "Why not? There's nothin' to do here anyway, and everyone knows you've been partners a long time. Must have been good for you to keep him around this long, 's all."

"Or no one trusted you with a face that pretty," one of the others muttered. He leered at Lisa. "Girlie's got one even better."

Lisa didn't care enough to be offended, but she saw Len's eyes narrow. He hadn't wanted her here in the first place, he'd told her she should be out there using her degree instead. It was only after convincing him that she should know what running a job involved, and that she'd only be their driver, nothing too dangerous, that he'd even let her come.

"Alright." He pushed the blueprints aside, settling into a lean against the desk. "I met Mick at school."

Lisa laughed. This was her favourite of their fake stories. No one ever saw it coming.

Len tossed her a glare, but she knew he loved it too. People were so gullible sometimes, how could he resist?

"I grew up in the slums, and it was tough there. The streets were bad, and the schools were even worse. If you didn't carry a knife with you at all times, you ain't gonna make it to lunch break."

"Yeah? So what? My school was even worse than that," the one who had leered at her earlier responded. Lisa didn't bother even trying to remember his real name. Creep would do.

Len shot him a withering glance. "You asked for the story, you're getting it. Now shut up."

Creep opened his mouth to argue, but then after a elbow to the ribs from Squinty Eye he subsided into grumbling instead.

"There was one kid at my school worse than all the rest. Nobody touched him. Even the teachers were terrified of him. He did whatever he wanted, and no one in the school could even dream of stopping him. Once, a student tried, and that kid disappeared the next day."

Lisa bit back another laugh. Wouldn't do to ruin the atmosphere now.

"When Mick came to the school, this had been going on for years. Everyone was terrified, and they thought Mick might be tough enough to save them. They sent him to talk to this kid, hoping that Mick would help them, or that they'd fight and take each other out."

Len smiled, a nasty, sharp thing. If Lisa didn't know better, she might have been scared herself. "Instead Mick joined me."

Creep visibly startled. Squinty Eye wasn't looking much better. The third guy, Broken Nose, just looked confused.

"We ruled the school our whole time there, and when Lisa came, she carried on the tradition. Mick and I have stayed together since. Now," he addressed his question to Squinty Eye, but kept his eyes fixed on Creep, "does that answer your question?"

Squinty Eye nodded rapidly. "Yeah, boss. Sorry for asking. None of my business, won't happen again." He pulled the other two away into a corner of the warehouse. Lisa watched him talk and gesture at the other two, and when they all turned to look her way, she grinned maliciously at them. Creep squeaked, and she felt oddly proud.

Slinking over to Lenny, who had gone back to his blueprints, she settled against the desk beside him. "Next time," she whispered, causing him to look up at her, "you should add the bit about the knife fight. You might even make them scream."

They laughed together.

Team Flash

Iris formed her face into her best businesslike expression, summoning up all her journalistic spirit to keep the fear from showing. If it took being kidnapped, yet again, to get an interview with Captain Cold, then she'd take her opportunities where she found them. She couldn't let fear get in the way. "How long have you worked with Heatwave? You started out as more of a solo villain, why did that change?"

Cold smirked at her. "That's a pretty personal question, Miss West."

"You've kidnapped me on my birthday so you can play games with my boyfriend," she said flatly. "I think you owe me something, and I'd like an interview."

"I don't owe you anything," he corrected her. "Your boyfriend is the one who keeps interfering with my jobs." She opened her mouth, ready to argue about thievery not counting as a job and whether the death of one party negates any deals made with that party, until he continued, "But sure, let's have an interview. I'd hate for the birthday girl to get bored.

She closed her mouth. If he was going to actually let her interview him, that was far more important than winning an argument. Besides, she could always keep arguing as a back up plan if he tried to get out of it. "Good," she said instead. "So how long have you worked with Heatwave?"

He leaned back against the wall, his eyes still fixed on her but appearing slightly softer than before. "Mick's been my partner since the start. Grew up down the street from me, out in the bad parts of town. Ran our first job together. There was a man who'd been attacking the local girls, and we didn't need someone like that in our area."

His lip curled up in disgust, and Iris suddenly remembered that he had a sister. How old had Lisa been at the time, she wondered. Old enough to hear stories from younger siblings at school? Old enough to be a target?

"Pigs wouldn't touch it, not in the slums. They don't care if a few gutter brats get killed. So Mick and I planned a job, a big one, and made sure every scrap of evidence led back to that creep's doorstep. Even the cops couldn't ignore that one."

Good, she thought fiercely, and couldn't help but wonder if that was exactly the reaction he wanted.

"Would still be in there, but..." He smirked wickedly. "He was killed in a prison riot after only two months."

She very deliberately did not question that further. She'd been witness to enough of Barry's worries about his dad to know that prisons have riots, sometimes prisoners die in them, and that she would probably never find an answer on whether the implication he's making here is the truth. Still, she filed a note in the back of her mind to research prison riots during time either Leonard Smart or Mick Rory were present. 'Probably' doesn't mean 'definitely', and she wasn't a journalist for nothing.

Mission

"Do you know how I met Mick?"

They'd been in the 16th century on a mission, infiltrating the castle of one of Savage's allies. Sara had been impersonating the lord's fiancée, but he'd become suspicious at her lack of knowledge about her family's supposed lands, and she hadn't been able to bluff fast enough to keep him from figuring out the truth – or at least part of it. Now she and Len were being held down in the dungeons of the castle, and the stone was too thick to get a message out to the team. They'd probably come looking once she missed a check-in, but the next check-in was still two days away, and she wasn't sure they'd have that long. They'd both already been stripped of all their weapons, and considering some of the equipment she could see around her, torture seemed like the next approach.

The nobleman scoffed at Len's words, already moving towards a very ominous looking chest. "Why should I care what you've done in your pathetic little life? Your only job here is to tell me what has happened to the real Lady Angela, so I can go and claim her as my wife."

Len completely ignored him, continuing to drawl out his story. "The first time I met my partner, we were both after the same target. A man who thought he was important, with a big mansion, lots of gold, men at his command... a lot like you."

The noble had arrived at the box, but instead of opening it up, his hands were still resting on top. From what Sara could see, it seemed he was more interested in the story than he wanted to let on. Too bad it wouldn't keep them safe for long.

"I came in to kill him, but he caught me, threw me in the dungeons. Also a lot like you."

The lord turned to him and laughed, the need for mockery apparently overriding his wish not to seem invested in the story. "Is that all you came to tell me? That you are idiot enough to have been captured before? An odd boast to make, but believe me, I will ensure this time is your last."

Len was still ignoring his words, but Len's eyes were fixed directly on the lord's. "I met Mick in that dungeon. He'd come for the same reason I had, for a different bounty. We made a deal. Escape together, kill the man together, and collect both bounties. The escape wasn't hard, his dungeon wasn't well enforced. Yours is better," he let his gaze roam around the room before returning to the lord, who was still frozen in place, "but not by much."

The lord tried to laugh this off, but Sara could see how his fingers were trembling at his sides. "I think you'll find escape is not as easy as you think. Even if you could escape those chains, there is a whole squadron of guards outside who will come as soon as I call. No man could come through them."

Len paused, shrugged, and continued. "We found the man in the dining hall, surrounded by all his guards. Must have been, what, a hundred? Maybe more." Suddenly he grinned, sharp like a knife. "We killed them all."

The lord visibly gulped.

"Every man in that room, every guard, every knight. Not a single one survived."

The lord's legs faltered, leaving him slumped against the wooden chest, still staring at Len.

"On the way out, we ran into another squadron, trying to avenge their master. They died too. Their master only survived long enough to get us through the gates, before we took his head for our bounty."

Even Sara was starting to feel creeped out by this now. She could all too easily imagine herself doing that in the middle of her bloodlust, and knowing what she was capable of, it made it less far-fetched to imagine them doing the same.

Len's teeth glinted in the torchlight in a predatory smirk. "That was the first time I meet Mick. Since then, we've only gotten better."

The lord looked like he might be about to wet his pants now.

With a jingle of chains, one of Len's hands was suddenly free.

That was the final straw for the lord. He fainted, head making a thunking noise as it hit the hard stone floor. Len rolled his eyes, the air of menace fading away as though it had never been.

"You couldn't have waited until after he'd freed us?" Sara snarked, attempting her normal carelessness.

With another rattle of chains, Len's other hand was free, and he began searching the lord's unconscious body for the key. "Next time, I'll let you get us free instead." He stood up, keys in hand. "And you can listen to our dear captain's rant about ruining the timeline."

He came closer to her, and she stood steady, angrily suppressing the urge to flinch away. It wasn't like that was the real story of how he'd met Mick, anyway.

Team

"You think this is bad?" Rory snorted. "This is nothing on how I met Snart."

"You're going to tell us how you guys met?" Somehow, even stripped of his super suit and chained to a wall, Ray managed to keep his enthusiastic outlook. Kendra bit her lip to hold back a smile. That was one of the things she liked best about him.

"We're already trapped in a cell, our weapons taken, and chained to a wall by our ankles," Stein said, pulling his leg to make the chain rattle in irritated emphasis. "However you and Mr Snart met, Mr Rory, it's hard to see how it could be worse than this."

"We're only chained by our ankles." Rory grinned viciously at them. Kendra took an instinctive step backwards, nearly tripping over the chain around her leg. "We could have been chained by both arms, after being beaten by some very unfriendly guards."

"That's how you met Snart?" Kendra blurted out. "How did you escape that?" Almost as soon as she asked she wished she hadn't, as Rory's attention turned to her. She still felt uncomfortable around him and Snart, especially after some of the stories she'd heard from Cisco.

"Snart picked the lock on the chains, got us out into the corridor. One of the guards had been stupid enough to come back to question us by himself." From the look on his face, it was clear that 'question' was the polite way of putting it

"What did you do then?" Kendra asked, too caught up in the story to even think about what she was saying.

"Once we had his codes, we didn't need him anymore," a cool voice came from down the corridor, and Snart came into view, Jax and Sara following behind. Sara was grinning brightly, blood that Kendra suspected wasn't hers running down her face, and Jax was holding one hand close to his chest, his face pained but relieved. "So we left him as our replacement."

"Grey, man, it's good to see you." Jax reached out towards Stein, and in seconds Firestorm was free of their chains, and already turning to release Kendra. While she was watching their flame to make sure it didn't come too close to her leg, from the corner of her eye Kendra saw Sara throw something small to Ray, who fumbled it before catching. She didn't see what Rory and Snart did, but by the time she was free, the others had all gathered outside the cell, weapons and gear back in place.

"Rip's back at the ship, ready for us to get out of here," Sara told them. She smiled gleefully, an awful contrast to the blood still dripping down her face. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready for get out of here."

"Alright, birdie," Rory growled. "Let's get going."

This time, as they took off down the hall and back to the ship, Kendra ended up next to Rory. She found she didn't really mind.

Drunk

"And that's when Lisa kissed the First Lady," Mick concluded. Len muttered something inaudible yet undoubtedly irritated, but his smirk remained intact.

"And that's how you two met." Sara said flatly. She'd noticed the discrepancies between the story Len had told her and the one he'd later told on a mission, and that neither of those had quite matched with what Mick had told Kendra, but when she had cornered them in the kitchen and asked them for the real story of how they had met, she had not expected it to be this wild.

Of course, it could be the booze.

And One

(Central City, 1988)

"What story do you want tonight, golden girl?" Len asked, careful to keep his voice soft. Lewis was probably locked in his bedroom sleeping off the whiskey by now, but it was better safe than sorry. His last black eye was only just starting to fade.

Lisa looked up at him with bright eyes, wriggling her body further under the covers. "Do the best one!"

He feigned looking around the room, picking up a tatty, threadbare book from its place under the bed and reading off the title. "The Princess and the Frog. Is this the best one?"

"No!" Lisa scrunched her nose. "I'm not gonna kiss a frog. I'm gonna kiss someone pretty. And that's not the best one."

"The frog turns into a prince, he might be pretty," Len reminded her, but he put the book down. Lisa deserved better than a frog prince anyway. "Alright. Once upon a time, there were two boys and a little girl, the most magical girl in the world, and they went on adventures together."

"No, that's not where it starts! I want the real one!" Lisa protested. "The one that starts in the library!" Her voice had risen higher in excitement, and for one breathless moment they both instinctively turned towards the door, frozen as they awaited the sound of heavy footsteps and muffled cursing.

Lewis did not appear, and Len let himself breathe again. "Okay, we'll start in the library," he agreed, this time even more careful to keep his voice low. "There was a boy in a library, and he was sad."

Lisa settled back under her blankets, the familiar story already making her eyelids begin to droop. Really, sad wasn't quite the right word for what he'd been feeling, but it had definitely been easier for a four year old to understand than the mix of helplessness, frustration, and loneliness that had left him brushing tears from his eyes that afternoon at the library.

"There was another boy in the library that afternoon, one who lived on a farm with all his brothers and sisters, and all their animals. He was a kind boy who didn't like to see anyone hurting, so he asked the sad boy what was wrong.

'None of your business,' the sad boy said, and he stuck out his tongue." The gesture he'd actually made had been ruder, but this was the one that made Lisa giggle.

"The sad boy thought he would go away after that, and he did." Len stopped there, seeing Lisa's eyes close, but as soon as he stopped speaking they struggled open again.

"That's not the end," she whispered, voice sleepy. "He has to come back."

Len couldn't stop a smile from overcoming his face at that. "Yeah, Lisa. He always comes back. He comes back the next day and sits beside the sad boy. Don't say a thing, just sits with him. The day after, he comes back again, and this time he gives the sad boy half his sandwich."

"Because the sad boy was hungry, because he can't cook anything or it all tastes yucky!" Lisa giggled.

Len shushed her, only half in jest. "Do you want to hear the story or not?"

Lisa nodded, eyes bright with mirth as she solemnly zipped her mouth closed.

"The sad boy didn't have a mother, and his sister's mother had left, leaving the two of them alone. He wasn't a very good cook - fine," he amended at Lisa's spluttered giggling, "he was a really bad cook, but he didn't want his sister to be sick from bad food, so he asked the kind boy to help."

"The kind boy helped him find some books with recipes of nice things to eat, and together they found one that looked like it would be good. Then they went on a quest to find the food." It had been their first job together, almost. Make a plan, get the pieces in place, then carry it out. It had taken nearly a week of stolen moments after school, stealing what ingredients he could and searching through the dumpsters out the back of the corner store for anything he couldn't, but eventually everything had been ready for them.

Sometimes he made that into a story of its own, the whole process of looking for different ingredients, getting to know Mick as they searched the library shelves together, and the one time he was nearly caught with a hoodie full of cans. Tonight, Lisa looked to be already almost asleep, so he kept it short.

"It took them all over town, to wild places and through all kinds of adventures, but finally they had everything they needed. Then came the hardest part of all – making the food. They snuck into the house with everything they'd gathered, recipe in their hands, and got to work. Neither of them had ever made anything by themselves before, but they figured it out, and together they made the meal, and gave it to the sad boy's sister to try."

Lisa's eyes were fully closed now, a soft smile on her face as she drifted off to sleep. "They ate the meal together, and became the very best of friends," Len finished. "The end."

He stood up to leave, and this time Lisa didn't try and stop him. He went downstairs, grabbing the bag he'd left there earlier, and headed to the front door to open it. Mick was waiting. "You're late."

Len closed the door gently behind him, making sure not a sound could be heard. "Lisa wouldn't go to sleep. Wanted a bedtime story."

"Yeah?" Mick sounded interested. "Which one?"

Len smiled. "The best one. The one of how we met."