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“Keep watch outside, they said. We won’t be long, they said,” the White Canary mimicked through chattering teeth. Flexing her gloved fingers, Sara shifted her weight from foot to foot irritably. Her costume was not made for vacationing on glaciers, or wherever the heck they were. In her periphery, she noticed her fellow sentry, Captain Cold, move his hands to the front of his parka.
“Let it never be said that Leonard Snart is incapable of chivalry.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sara scoffed, tucking her balled fists under her arms. “I’ll live. There’s no point in both of us suffering.”
Snart’s ever-present smirk turned suggestive as he offered, “We could share.”
“And, when we have to get outta Dodge ‘cause they pissed off the Abominable Snowman, we could die because we were stupid enough to trap ourselves in a coat.”
“Fair point.”
They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, and Sara began to wonder how a time traveler defined “not long.” When she started bouncing on her toes to keep her blood flowing, Snart once again offered his parka. And it did look so, so warm, but…
“You wear that thing everywhere. At this point, I kinda doubt you have any tolerance left for cold. I’m from Tibet. I’ll be fine.”
“I am C—” He looked at her sideways. “Tibet? Don’t you mean Star City, USA?”
Sara shrugged. “Semantics.”
“How on earth is that—”
Ignoring him, Sara looked up at the cloudless sky pleadingly and bemoaned, “Does it have to be so…freaking…COLD?!”
As if in answer to her distress, a small object fell from the blue and landed improbably in her waiting hands. She blinked down at the off-white, palm-sized disc, then back up at the sky in wonder. In the utter silence of the tundra, her trained ear caught the faintest of sounds, and she tilted her head further back.
Approaching from behind was none other than the Heir to the Demon herself, Nyssa al Ghul.
Sara whirled around, noticing Snart do the same with the tiny portion of her attention not focused on Nyssa. And it really was a very tiny portion. She held up the disc Nyssa must have tossed to her.
“Is this what I think it is?”
“The compatible suit awaits you on your ship,” Nyssa replied in that always-steady tone of hers, as if there was nothing unusual about her showing up out of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere.
Sara bounded the few steps remaining between them and crowed, “You. Are. Amazing,” punctuating each word with a chaste peck on the lips.
“Flatterer.”
Meanwhile, Snart huffed in annoyance as an absolute stranger (to him) received more kisses from Sara in the space of seconds than he had in months as her teammate. Granted, his current tally was zero, but he’d expected that to change eventually.
And then Sara told the other woman that she loved her in a way that sounded not at all platonic. Maybe he’d forgotten to “expect the plan to go off the rails.” Oh, well.
“What is it?” he asked, mostly for the opportunity to interrupt the cozy reunion.
Taking a step back from the other woman, Sara turned halfway towards him and explained, “It attaches to specially-designed materials and lets you adjust for the environment. So, like, arctic mode for situations like this, stealth mode for, well, you know…being stealthy.” She turned the thin disc over in her hand thoughtfully, then tucked it safely in a pocket. “Basically, no more freezing my fingers off.”
Snart, however, refused to accept gifts from strange women as easily Sara. “You’re just going to trust her? Someone put in a lot of effort just to deliver a space heater. Who says it’s not some kind of bug or explosive?”
“It is of the utmost importance to me that Sara retain all her fingers,” offered Nyssa in explanation.
Since he continued to look at her expectantly, Sara laughed, “Leonard, I’m, like, ten thousand percent positive Nyssa’s not here to kill me.”
“And here I thought assassins would be the wary type,” he needled. “She could easily be an imposter.”
“Okay, if it’ll make you feel better…Nys, which broken bone led to our first kiss?”
“It continues to baffle me,” Nyssa growled, “that you let Sarab break your arm simply to secure my attention.”
Sara smiled warmly and pulled her in for a longer kiss, much less innocent than the previous ones. “You’re so cute when you get all huffy.”
“So you’re the real deal,” Snart observed. “How touching.”
Shifting her full attention to Nyssa, Sara questioned, “You know I’m always glad to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“I needed a break from the monotony,” Nyssa deadpanned. “I thought I’d entertain my restlessness with something productive, and I recall being told that women are, quote, suckers for reckless heroics.”
“How altruistic of you. Nyssa, the swashbuckling hero.”
“Swashbuckling?”
“Hey, all that leather and stuff—you’d make a good pirate. A heroic pirate.”
“That's an oxymoron,” Snart pointed out. His objection went unheard.
Nyssa smirked and flirted, “And I already have a little bird to perch on my shoulder.”
Once again, Sara obliterated the space between them. “Mhmm, but this little bird has her sights set on somewhere much more inviting than your shoulder.” The darkening of Nyssa’s eyes was all the response she needed. Despite the heat between them, though, the chill in Sara’s bones refused to be ignored. “Not to sound ungrateful,” she prefaced, “but you couldn’t have brought the new outfit with you?”
“It was far too cumbersome to carry. Besides, where do you suppose you would change, Beloved?”
Sara shrugged and offered slyly, “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind…”
“Neither would I,” Snart interjected.
“How is it that you always manage to find yourself such charming company?” Nyssa asked dryly, opening her arms to a shivering Sara, who folded into them gratefully.
“Don’t mind him," the blonde reassured, shoving her gloves in Nyssa’s front pocket and wriggling her fingers under the hem of Nyssa's undershirt. Bare palms started to slide up the front, until a throat clearing redirected them to more appropriate territory at the small of the brunette’s back. “He’s harmless.”
“I am?” asked Snart in disbelief.
“In comparison,” Sara clarified.
“To what?”
“Me,” Nyssa inferred at the same moment Sara teased, “Elsa?”
“You? Sara, tell me we’re not about to get killed because you seduced Attila the Hun’s daughter.” He frowned. “Wait, did you compare me to a Disney princess?”
“Attila the Hun?” Sara laughed, “Nyssa’s way more dangerous than that.”
Nyssa proceeded to introduce herself. With a petite legend snuggled against her, it was the closest “Heir to the Demon” ever came to sounding at all casual.
After a beat of hesitation, Snart suggested, “Maybe we should revisit who qualifies as trustworthy. Now, back to the princess thi—”
“That’s ironic coming from a reformed supervillain,” Sara pointed out. “I trust Nyssa more than anyone on the Waverider.”
With her face burrowed into Nyssa’s neck, Sara didn’t realize the reason for the prolonged, awkward silence that followed her statement until Nyssa broke it.
“I suggest you reunite your jaw with the remainder of your skull, Mr. Palmer,” she drawled over Sara’s shoulder.
The other Legends had returned. Sans Abominable Snowmen, thankfully.
To everyone’s amusement and no one’s surprise, Ray strolled right up and held out his hand. He then looked down at where Nyssa’s arms disappeared under Sara’s jacket and withdrew the proffered hand but continued to smile graciously.
“So, you’re Nyssa, then? Felicity told me about you. All good things, of course—well, okay, there were some bad things, but,” he babbled, “she liked you. I think. Anyway, I’m Ray Palmer. You know that, obviously. So, uh, welcome to the team!”
“I’m a thief, not a princess!” Snart doggedly insisted.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Nyssa told Ray. “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Palmer.”
“The cold gun is awesome,” Snart emphasized.
“What is Cold on about?” Rip asked.
“She compared me to Elsa!”
“It was a joke, Len.” Sara raised her head, grinned wickedly, and enunciated, “Let it go.”
Later, on the Waverider, Nyssa appraised her Beloved in the new White Canary suit. Externally, it looked the same, and she allowed a bit of regret for how much more conservative it was than the uniform of old. And while on the subject of that uniform…
“I’m sure you’re aware this was neither cheap nor easy to procure, Beloved.”
Sara grinned. “And I’ll show you how supremely appreciative I am as soon as I’m done trying it on.”
“My only request,” Nyssa said, “is that you refrain from handing this one off to your sister quite so readily.”
“Oh, Nys,” Sara replied gently, “I gave the jacket to Laurel because it was the most sentimental thing I owned, not because I didn’t want it anymore. You know that, right?”
Insecurity eased, Nyssa shifted from veiled vulnerability to banter. “Be that as it may, perhaps a thoughtful card would be more appropriate in the future.”
Sara chuckled. There was a brief silence as she tapped the disc on her chest, in the process of cataloguing each mode of the new getup. Then she casually murmured, “You know what’s the one thing that doesn’t change here?”
“Hm?” Nyssa asked absently, glancing up at the suit as it flickered from stealth-mode black to the off-white neoprene of aquatic mode.
“No matter what, I’m always yours. I call it my all-weather mode.”