Disclaimer: I do not own LOT or any of its characters.
It's their first job since Mick got back from his time-travelling-hero gig, and he's honestly a little concerned about Mick's mental health, because Mick had hugged him when they first met after his return. Mick had promised it's nothing, had explained that in another timeline Leonard was also on that spaceship and had died. He doesn't remember any of this, doesn't understand the half-assed explanation of "time remnants" and "alternate timelines" and whatever, and he's not sure he wants to either. All he wants is to snag the precious sapphire necklace on display in Star City museum. But he has a feeling things might go sideways, like Alexa.
The first obstacle is a blonde little vigilante, this one is called White Canary, he has done his research. She stands in front of his car and blocks the road. He stops only out of shock because Mick asks him to, instead of turning her into a human candle like he would have before.
Clearly, whatever happens in weird time-travelling ship doesn't stay in weird time-travelling ship, and it's creeping him out how Mick Rory has not only started to talk in technobabble about time travel, but also grown a soft spot.
The blonde smiles at them. "Hey Mick. Hi Leonard."
Leonard gets out of the car to smirk at her. "I will humour you. Let's pretend for a while that you can take me down in a hand to hand combat-"
"She can," Mick supplies unhelpfully, joining them.
Leonard ignores that and continues. "What's to stop me from icing you? You'd make a damn fine ice sculpture."
Sara chuckles. Even when he doesn't remember her, he'll still flirt with her. She looks at him confidently. "You're not going to ice me."
He smirks again. "I won't have to if you don't try to stop me from doing my job."
"Who says I'm trying to stop you?" she asks, rolling her eyes. "I'm just trying to make sure you don't get yourself killed. The cops have the whole place surrounded."
"And how exactly do you know that?"
She hesitates for a moment, before she decides she trusts him- any version of him. "My dad's the captain of the twelfth precinct."
He studies her carefully, trying to understand what her game is, without success. "And yet you expect me to trust you."
"We trust her," Mick chimes in again. "She's a friend."
"We don't have friends," Leonard drawls, knowing better than to buy the words of some goody-two shoes. "So tell your girlfriend to stay out of our business."
At this, Sara loses her cool. "Fine. Go ahead. Get shot." She huffs, and makes a dramatic exit.
Leonard raises an eyebrow at Mick. "What the hell was that about? Is she bipolar?"
Mick cringes, crawling back into the car. "She's not my girlfriend. She was almost yours. But you're probably gonna screw it up now."
Leonard thinks for a moment about that. While he has no intention of being a hero, or dying, pursuing this woman may not be the worst idea in the world.
But after the job. Right now he's focused on the important things. He hears Mick mumble a sarcastic "Back to jail. Awesome", before he hits the gear.
"I should have known when they said I have a visitor, what they meant was stalker," he drawls on the phone from the other side of the glass.
She smiles. "Who were you expecting?"
He holds back from saying The Flash, and instead asks, "What do you want now?"
"How's your leg?" she counters instead of answering.
It's the genuine concern on her face that makes him think for the first time that maybe this other version of him really did have a little something with her. But he's not gonna tell her that, not until he has treaded the waters first. He looks at her with a deadpan face. "Your dad shot me."
That elicits a tiny chuckle from her. "On the bright side, it makes you eligible for bail."
He nods, twisting his lips into his trademark "maybe" gesture. "I'm sure there's a long line of people just dying to bail me out."
"If I do it, do you promise not to kill my dad?"
"Let me think. No," he says it with a sugary smile. "Are you trying to get me out of here so that I owe you and I spare your dad?"
She smiles back just as sweetly. "Well, you may not remember it, but you owe me plenty already. And you're not gonna kill my dad. Not for shooting you in the leg. The bullet barely grazed you. Killing a cop for petty revenge isn't your style."
Leonard stares at her in wonder. He does not know a thing about her, and she knows him so well. How close were they, really? Was he seriously involved with a freaking cop's daughter?
The guard signals that their time is up, and Sara gestures for one more minute, her characteristic charm working on the guard and granting them that. She gives Leonard one last smile. "Well, I guess you'll just wait for Lisa to break you out. Say hi to Mick for me. Goodbye, crook."
He hangs up and watches her leave, deciding that she has a rather alluring bottom.
She comes home one evening to find him in her bedroom, going through her underwear drawer. He waits for her reaction, to see if she is going to punch him. Instead, she just plugs her phone into the charger and leaves the room again, as if this is the most natural thing in the world.
He follows her, like a moth being drawn to a flame, and she hands him a bottle of beer as she herself grabs one. He takes a long sip before he speaks. "I'll bite. So you knew me. You know I can break and enter. Wouldn't surprise you to see me here. But you can't tell me you're not scared at all after that. I'm not the Leonard you knew."
"You're exactly the cold hearted bastard I knew," she says, smiling fondly as she remembers the memory of him pulling a gun on her, before apologizing and basically confessing his feelings for her. Clearly, the guy has no clue how normal men try to woo girls. And clearly, it worked for him, because here she is, head over heels, and so not ready to give up on them. "I saw him put others before him. I know who you are, Len. Deep down."
"That's not me, and I'm not going to change," Leonard states decisively.
She answers by stepping into his personal space and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. "I don't want you to change. Don't ever change."
It's a little too much emotion for him, considering she is just a stranger and yet she's managing to make him feel things that he hasn't felt in a long time. He deflects. "You come home to see a guy has broken in and is going through your undies, and you react by kissing him?"
She rolls her eyes, stepping away and sitting down lazily on her couch. "You're not just some guy. And I'll get back to you later for that when I'm over the whole you dying and me missing you thing."
His smirk is extremely smug. "You miss me?"
"Every day," she confesses honestly, because watching the person you like die tends to make you take chances so that the things you didn't do don't keep you up at nights, and then adds, "Who else is gonna cheat when playing cards? Or give me a hand during bar brawls?"
He's starting to see why he likes her. If that was their thing, then this woman clearly is constructed from his dreams. He wants to know her again. But he doesn't think he can be who she knew. "I'm not a hero. I can't be."
"I don't want you to be a hero," she tells him softly. "I don't want you to die and leave me again."
He points at the clock. "I do have to leave now though. I could stay, but got a big heist to plan, people to rob, places to loot, you know the drill."
She raises her beer bottle in a gesture of salute. "Godspeed."
"You've got to be kidding me," she says in disbelief when she sees him walking towards the bar counter. "Now who's stalking who?"
He takes a seat on a stool, and grins at her. "I seem to remember you mention something about bar brawls being our thing."
She gives him the deadliest glare she can manage. "Not at the bar where I work! I don't wanna get fired. I need this job to make rent."
He considers for a moment about offering her a place in his next heist, but decides against it when he remembers she moonlights as a vigilante. He orders a martini and starts a tab.
"You better pay," she warns him through gritted teeth. "I don't care whose money you pay with."
Okay, yeah, this can actually work out. He sips his drink quietly and watches her as she goes about pouring liquor and flirting with every man and woman that needs a pep talk.
He decides she has an alluring cleavage too.
"You're staring at me, Leonard," she points out.
"Well, the view is spectacular," he answers smoothly.
"You know, the death card is not going to give you a free pass at getting away with everything for much longer," she says as she signs out after her shift and slips on her jacket. It's an oversized black leather jacket of his that she kept for sentimental reasons after the Waverider stint, and she can see the recognition in his eyes when he suddenly goes very still.
She wishes him goodnight, with a smile and another kiss, and he watches her leave, wanting very much to follow, but deciding against it. At least not until he has a conversation with Mick.
When Mick tells him about everything the other him did in the time-travel gig, all he can hear is Barry Allen's annoying voice saying "There's good in you, Snart." This is a nightmare.
On the bright side, it turns out that Sara is ex-League of assassins, and that explains why she doesn't judge who he is.
On the brighter side, Lisa is there to look after Mick when he suddenly gets emotional and starts crying.
He's back at her bar the next day, and she smiles at him like she was expecting him. "Let me guess," she says as she serves his drink, "you're going to ask me to pull a Bonnie and Clyde with you."
It no longer takes him by surprise to see that she knows him too well. He nods. "And let me guess. Your answer is no?"
She rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to turn you in. But I'm not going to rob places either."
He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "What else do you suggest we do on a date, if I had to ask you out?"
She thinks for a moment, before a sneaky grin crawls on her face. "Well, we did have one other thing."
He's not surprised when she takes them back to her apartment and takes out a pack of cards.
He's not surprised when they end up in bed an hour later, either.
She, too, is completely unsurprised. Because every jagged version of her fits perfectly with every jagged version of him, and she has known it all along. Like Rip says, "time wants to happen". Which leads her to the conclusion that they were meant to be. And for the first time in her life, she is happy to believe in destiny.