Chapter Text
Len’s Timer had always read --:--:--:--. When he first got the Mark at five years old the matchmaker had been subjected to a formal investigation. Three subsequent Matchmakers did the ceremony over the next two weeks and the mark remained unchanged. He never developed the typical zeroes that indicated a Missed Match. No, just dashes where numbers should be and a team of very confused doctors.
He wore a cuff at all times, one that his mother helped him pick out, but it didn’t matter. The teachers knew and the kids overheard and Len only got two days of peace before the taunts began.
He learned quickly that a kid couldn’t tease you if their face was pressed into the dirt.
Over the years his reputation followed him. There were always rumors, but nobody dared to ask him about his Timer or anything else.
When their mother died and his father started hitting Lisa, Len dropped out of school and joined the family business.
It helped, but not enough.
On Lisa’s fourteenth birthday Lewis was arrested for the second time and Len was granted custody.
(Raising Lisa was easy--he had been raising her since the day she was born.)
Lisa inevitably got involved in the family business, too, and although Len wanted better for her he was proud of her quick thinking and her attention to detail. She was an asset to his team every time and it was fun spending time with his sister.
Even when she went away to college they would plan a heist together at least once a year.
When the Flash showed up, Len acquired a cold gun. When his gun was destroyed, he kidnapped the engineer and convinced him to build a new one.
“Don’t I get a gun, Lenny?”
Len smiled at the engineer and told him to make a gun for his sister, too.
“Something pretty and toxic,” Lisa added.
Their new guns and the knowledge of the Flash’s secret identity gave them free reign over the city. They could flawlessly pull off heists and the Scarlet Speedster would leave them alone as long as there weren’t any fatalities.
Lewis was the only exception to that rule.
Len went to prison, but not for long. Lisa broke him out and they went about their business.
***
“Stop obsessing over it, Lis.”
Lisa looked up from her wrist with a frown. “It’s almost time, Lenny.”
“Three days, seven hours, nineteen minutes and…” he ticked his head to the side. “Forty-six seconds.”
Len didn’t have a non-stop timer tattooed to his wrist, but he had a brain for counting seconds that was unrivaled.
Lisa just rolled her eyes and went back to watching the tattoo count down.
“Got something fun planned for us. It should be a pretty easy score if we pull it off right.”
“I’m sure we’ll pull it off just fine,” Lisa said, her eyes still glued to her wrist.
“What, you don’t even want to know what we’re stealing?”
She sighed and tore her gaze away from the timer, raising an eyebrow. “What are we stealing, Lenny?”
“Gold.”
Lisa’s grin rivaled his own.
***
The heist went just as planned. They slid into the minivan, Lisa in the driver’s seat, and pulled away with the cops hot on their tail.
Len wasn’t worried. Lisa was an excellent driver, she would lose the cops easily once they got into some traffic. And they still had three hours, forty-three minutes, and...eighteen seconds before she was supposed to come in contact with her soulmate.
Plenty of time to stash the loot and go somewhere to celebrate.
“I want to go somewhere nice, Lenny!” she shouted over the noise from the sirens. “I don’t want to meet my soulmate at some sleazy bar!”
“We can go wherever you want, Sis, as long as you get us away from these badges!”
Lisa laughed and shot him a look. “What? You don’t trust me, Big Bro?”
But just as he was about to respond, Len caught sight of a man standing in the middle of the road. He fist clenched and he shouted, “Lisa! Watch it!”
Then everything went white.
***
Len wasn’t a hero. He didn’t care about saving some unknown future.
But time travel sounded...intriguing. There were a few things in his past that he could stand to change. Things that would not only improve his life, but Lisa’s, too.
Still, he wasn’t planning on accepting the invitation until he noticed the clock on Lisa’s wrist.
Four minutes, fifty-three seconds.
That was hardly enough time to get to a reputable bar.
Lisa had seemed to come to the same conclusion. To an outsider she probably looked like she was paying rapt attention to Rip Hunter’s case for becoming legends. Len could see the way her eyes kept darting down, though, and he knew she was counting the seconds in her head.
Len watched Rip hand a small card to Stein. “If your answer is yes, meet me at this address in thirty-six hours.”
One minute, thirty-seven seconds.
Len found himself eyeing the others, wondering which one of them was destined to be with his baby sister. Lisa had a frown on her face and was carefully staring at her hands. Stein and the new kid--Len hadn’t caught his name--were talking with the two who were apparently reincarnated lovers. The guy with the haircut was listening in. None of them looked like they were going to break off any time soon, which left…
“Sara Lance.” She held out her hand with a smirk. “I’ve heard some interesting things about you, Leonard.”
Twenty-seven seconds.
Len raised an eyebrow and shook her hand. “Pleasure.”
Twenty-one.
“And who is your lovely friend?”
Thirteen.
“Lisa Snart.” Len watched his sister take in a deep breath and then hold out her hand. “Lenny’s sister.”
Sara hummed and licked her lips appreciatively.
Len scowled.
Five. Four. Three.
Her hand inched forward.
Two.
Lisa’s eye twitched.
One.
Their skin touched. Both girls gasped.
Sara raised an eyebrow and turned Lisa’s wrist in hers, examining the timer that was now counting up.
Len left them alone to get acquainted.
***
Two days later, they showed up at the address on Rip’s card.
Being on a time-traveling spaceship was…really cool. Len tried not to let his awe show too much, but inside he was flashing back to the time he dressed up and stood in line to see Return of the Jedi. His inner nerd was definitely excited.
Lisa and Sara were smiling at each other across the console and Len nudged his sister with a roll of his eyes. They had a quick and silent stare-down before Lisa gave in. She patted his shoulder and crossed the room to sit by her new soulmate.
The actual traveling through time was hell. His insides felt like they were being simultaneously compacted and torn apart and his ears were ringing at a frequency that he hadn’t experienced before. When the ship settled and the metal harnesses went up, Len closed his eyes tight and shook his head. He felt a strange sensation swoop over his body, almost like an itch.
He scratched his wrist absentmindedly and frowned.
Rip was talking but Len didn’t pay too much attention until Lisa said, “What, we aren’t invited?”
“I thought we were a team!” Sara said, her voice full of protest.
Len rolled his eyes when Rip fed them a line about not requiring their particular skillset for this mission.
“Meaning you don’t need anyone killed, maimed, or robbed,” he said, tilting his head.
“Precisely.”
The rest of the team, minus the kid, left with Rip.
“Am I the only one on this ship who could really use a drink?” Sara asked, shooting a sly look at Lisa. “I say we go get weird in the 70s.”
Lisa grinned.
“Excellent idea,” Len said.
Sara was grinning now, too. “I have the perfect outfit.”
***
A good old-fashioned bar fight was just what Len needed to get his blood pumping. They could’ve handled the drunken assholes just fine on their own, but when one of the other men joined in with a smashed-up barstool, Len didn’t complain.
Things were going beautifully. He had landed several swings and knocked the wind out of a guy with a punch to the gut. Just as he was about to turn around and kick another guy behind the knees, something strange caught his eye.
Time slowed down as Len focused in on his wrist. The cuff he usually sported had fallen off, and in place of the dashes were actual numbers.
Six seconds.
He barely had time to register the fact that he had a soulmate and that the person was here, probably participating in this bar fight, when a fist came slamming into his face.
***
Len woke to someone slapping his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut with a groan and then snapped them open when he realized where he was.
“What the--” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position.
A hand slowed his movements but didn’t restrain him.
“Easy there, buddy,” came an unfamiliar voice. It was low and gruff and it sent a shiver up Len’s spine.
He sat up carefully, surprised to find the man who had joined in on the fight. He was broadly built, his head completely shaved, and he wore clothes that were fairly nondescript.
Len couldn’t take his eyes off him.
“Mick here scared the rest of those guys off,” Sara said from somewhere to his left.
The man--Mick, apparently--grunted. “Woulda been easier if pretty boy here knew how to duck.”
Len blinked.
Mick grimaced, his hand hovering over Len’s face. “Sorry ’bout that.”
“Lenny,” Lisa’s voice this time. He dragged his eyes away from the man and looked at her. She seemed worried. “Are you okay?”
He glanced down at his wrist.
Ten minutes, thirty-six seconds. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight.
Lisa gasped.
“What?” Sara asked.
“His wrist. Look at his wrist!”
Len could feel them all staring.
“Ten minutes? That was right in the middle of the fight. Do you think--?”
“It was me,” Mick said. “When I punched him. It was me.”
Silence.
“O-kay. We’re just gonna, um--” Lisa began.
“Yeah. We’ll be at the booth.”
Len didn’t respond.
Neither did Mick.
They were quiet for another minute, watching the numbers count up on Len’s wrist, before Mick spoke.
“I never got one.”
Len looked up. “You didn’t?”
“Parents couldn’t afford a Matchmaker. By the time I got older I figured it didn’t really matter.”
Len didn’t know what to say to that. When he was younger he thought that he was too damaged to have a soulmate. Now that he was a little wiser, he thought that the system was flawed. But there had still been that little part of him that believed he was the odd man out for a reason.
And now...he apparently had a soulmate.
In 1975.
Shit.