Destined to Find You

Leonard Snart had been born with a mark, just like everybody else, but his had remained black and white, not just for a few years, but until he was a teenager.

He and his soulmate had one hell of an age gap.

It didn't bother him too much, though. He wasn't exactly in a hurry to settle down, to be in the love-drunk haze he'd seen others experience. So of course, around the time he decided some sort of stability might be nice, some sort of anchor who wouldn't betray him, the tattoo went dark. All the color, the swirling whites and blues, drained from the tiny mark.

It was impossible. Soulmates never died before meeting. How would they become soulmates that way? It couldn't have been someone he'd met without realizing it, either; that first meeting was supposed to be pain mixed with pleasure, some crap about the person you were dying to make way for the person you were supposed to be.

If all that weren't enough, there was that whole thing where soulmates even died together more often than not, some tragic Romeo and Juliet bullshit that never made much sense to Leonard.

So why was his mark saying his other half had already died before they'd even met?

He remained that way though, existing with an impossible tattoo. Existing a bit recklessly, maybe, even for him, fighting with metahumans both alongside and against that goody two-shoes Barry, but existing nonetheless.

He didn't tell anyone. Not on purpose, anyway. Lisa noticed and suggested he see a doctor or something, but what was that gonna do? It wasn't like they could resuscitate his unknown soulmate. Mick found out, too, one night when they were both completely wasted and Leonard let it slip. Mick grabbed Leonard's arm and shoved his jacket sleeve upward so he could see it for himself, and he frowned in confusion until Leonard finally pushed him away.

Mick didn't bring it up after that night, but Leonard caught his partner watching him sometimes. He ignored it and continued with his exciting life of crime.

He was Captain Cold. He didn't need a soulmate. He was just fine on his own.

He didn't need a father, either.

Still, when the color found its place once more in the little bird tattoo, he was relieved. Hopeful.

Maybe he wasn't as broken as he thought.


Sara Lance had been born with a mark, just like everybody else. As far as she knew, there was nothing unusual about her mark. It was already colored in when she was born, and her father liked to tell her that the swirls of blue and white went perfectly with her eyes.

When she was a young teen, she liked to speculate about the person the tattoo stood for. It was pointless, she knew; it was too easy to try to force a connection, to try to force the shape to have some significance just because the person you were with seemed perfect for you.

She liked to imagine she'd meet her other half in winter. What else could a snowflake mean?

But winters came and went, and Sara had yet to meet her soulmate. She knew she was still young, but she didn't care. And if she couldn't be with the right person, she may as well be with the wrong one, and so she found herself on the Queen's Gambit with Oliver Queen, found herself falling down one rabbit hole after another until she landed in the League of Assassins.

The League treated soulmates differently than the rest of the world. Soulmates weren't an ideal; they were a liability. Most who'd found their soulmates kept them a carefully hidden secret. For the ones who didn't hide their other halves, there was only worry and pain.

Nyssa was safe, in this aspect, as dangerous as she was in others. But Sara loved her, and there were times that she wished she could scrub the mark away and just be who she wanted.

But nothing lasts. Nothing she wanted to last, anyway, though some endings were good. Leaving the League was bittersweet, and Nyssa was a large part of all her mixed emotions. It was time, though, needed to be done while it was even a remote possibility.

And then Sara died.

And then Sara came back.

Laurel told her, once she was herself again, that her tattoo had gone black and white while she was dead. It was the first time in years that Sara had thought about her tattoo with anything resembling curiosity rather than frustration.

What had that looked like on her soulmate's arm? Had theirs changed, too? What had their life been like if so, spending a year thinking, what, that she'd died?

That wasn't possible.

It helped, somehow, knowing that despite all she'd been through, that perfect person was still out there, waiting for her, maybe thinking about her, too.

Maybe she wasn't as broken as she thought.


There is supposed to be no doubt about who your soulmate is, once you've met. Of course, when Leonard finally feels that surge, that undeniable indication he's met his destiny, he is just waking up, and he is in the company of a group of strangers.

Some of them he's met already and can immediately discard as possibilities for his soulmate. For instance—

"Stein? What the hell are you doing here?"

He soon finds himself trying to sort through what the hell this Rip guy is talking about while still reeling from the fact that he's finally meeting his other half.

And he doesn't even know who it is.

There is supposed to be no doubt about who your soulmate is, once you've met. And yet Sara finds herself shaking off whatever sleep Rip put her in, feeling the tail end of that feeling, the feeling like maybe she's dying and maybe she's just being born, and she's around multiple people she doesn't know.

She can rule out some of them, obviously. Still, she feels herself asking the wrong questions as she tries to tackle two different versions of her future at once.

By the time they split up to make their decisions, she's still not sure who she's looking for.

Laurel adds that to her list of arguments for Sara joining the team, because of course she confides in her sister, but Laurel is behind her joining even before hearing about her soulmate.

Knowing his soulmate might be in the group certainly contributes to his decision to join the team.

There's something about Sara that makes him wonder pretty quickly whether it's her. The bird alias helps, but then again, there's Hawkgirl, too, though he thinks she's highly unlikely.

He starts a conversation with Sara at the first opportunity, and initially, it doesn't even register what she's said: she was dead for a year.

A year. The amount of time his mark had gone dark.

It has to be her, but he needs to be sure, so when she suggests they go to a bar, he jumps at the opportunity. Besides, he's bored, and he refuses to sit still and be a good little boy for Rip.

She changes for their outing, and her new outfit shows her wrist for the first time since he's met her.

She has a snowflake tattoo, and it's the same color as his bird tattoo.

His canary tattoo.

He finds himself watching on, and then joining in, as his soulmate kicks ass in a bar in the 70s.


Sara isn't sure who her soulmate is at first, but she thinks it's probably Mick or Leonard.

They're the only ones who have enough personality not to bore her to death, besides maybe Kendra, but Kendra has that whole thing going on with Carter.

Reincarnation, soulmates in every lifetime—that's more complicated than she even wants to think about, even before time travel gets mixed in.

She and Mick get along okay, but there's something about Leonard that makes her hope it's him. It's the bar fight that tips the scales from hoping it might be Leonard to thinking it might be Leonard. It's the way they click, working together like partners when they've only just met.

She catches him staring at her afterward, in the temporal zone, and she doesn't think it's just because she punches Rip after Kendra does.

He's not staring at Kendra.

He sneaks glances at Sara while Ray is working on his spiel about destiny, too, and what other reason does he have for the way he words his answer?

"For better or for worse."

If it isn't him, he should use phrasing less connected to two people spending their lives together.

She grabs his wrist as the group makes its way back to tell Rip their choice, instinctively grabbing the spot she knows has his mark. She plans to ask him a few roundabout questions, maybe, she isn't actually sure, but what she ends up saying when he turns around to face her is, "It's you, isn't it?"

"Is what me?" he drawls, but his eyes are drawn to her snowflake, just inches away from his covered mark. He doesn't fight when she pulls up his sleeves. He watches her, though, as she sees his tattoo for the first time.

His canary tattoo.

"It is. It's you."

His face remains impassive, but she sees a rush of emotions through his eyes: pain, hope, fear, relief.

She recognizes them because she feels the same.

She sees herself in her soulmate.