Work Text:
Washington D.C., 2019
The Time Bureau’s surprise party is exactly the sort of party you’d expect from an organization called the Time Bureau . It’s kind of lame, but well-intentioned, so Behrad appreciates the color-coordinated balloons and streamers and the random suits pinning a shiny little medal to his printed button-down shirt while shaking his hand with vigor. Though Nate’s point about how they were the ones who broke the timeline in the first place is true, he’s with Sara on this one: better to take the win and move on with life.
But he does kind of wish that their last anachronism was something more interesting than Paul Revere and The Beatles. Like Freddie Mercury and the Flash, or something like that-- though, on second thought, he’s had more than enough of Central City after that first crossover.
Still, it feels pretty good to be celebrated for fixing the mistakes they’d scattered across the timeline-- or rather, that the rest of the team had scattered across the timeline, because he wasn’t actually there when that happened, so it wasn’t his fault at all.
Mick loiters by the bar, sulking at the bureaucratic array of mild champagnes and fruity cocktails instead of hard liquor, and Sara drags Ava out from the party to steal a private moment with her girlfriend. While Nate makes light conversation with some of the bureau agents about historical discrepancies, Behrad follows Ray as he very suspiciously sneaks off to the edge of the party, even whistling a tune like cartoon characters do when they’re trying to sneak off unnoticed.
“Hey, man.” Behrad taps Ray on the shoulder and the man jumps out of his skin, which is always funny with Ray because he’s six-foot-two and built like a brick wall, but startles like a tiny little kitten. “What’ve you got there?”
“Nothing!” Ray grimaces, crumpling the paper he was staring at between his hands. It’s futile, though, because there’s a stack of photocopies on the table in front of him, and Behrad reaches over to grab the one on the top.
“Ah. Nora Darhk’s wanted poster.” He observes, then raises one unsurprised eyebrow at his friend, who just looks like a gigantic sad puppy. “Gee, I really wonder how she managed to escape from the Time Bureau.”
“Yeah.” Ray agrees, slowly, like he isn’t sure if he should play along or if he should just give up the pretense. “I mean-- I mean, if I had to guess, I’d probably say that someone must have… given Nora her dead father’s Time Stone. And, furthermore, that someone must have done it in hopes that she would… turn over a new leaf in life.”
“You’re a good guy, Ray Palmer.” Behrad nods solemnly, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “That big heart of yours is one of a kind. Not everyone would have given her a second chance.”
“You would.” Ray offers, wryly.
Behrad shrugs, because honestly? Ray’s probably right-- Nora Darhk is far from innocent, but with a father like that, she never had a real chance at life, and having her rot in a Time Bureau prison just seems inhumane. And it’s not as if he’s got the cleanest track record in terms of freeing trapped women from their personal hells, either, so if it were up to him? Yeah, he’d probably also have given her another chance.
“Oh-- I’m sorry, I should have been more sensitive.” Ray frowns sadly at him all of a sudden. Behrad tilts his head to the side, confused, and Ray clarifies, “You know, since Wally left.” Behrad squints. “And now you two are, uh… Separated? Or are you doing long-distance?”
“Oh, dude, no no no. You’ve got it all wrong. You know that me and Wally were just bros, right?” Ray just frowns harder. “I’m serious, Ray. Don’t look at me like that. I mean, I love the guy-- platonically . And sure, we slept together more than a few times, but there wasn’t anything like that between us.”
“But he kissed you goodbye.” Ray protests. Behrad raises his shoulders in another noncommittal shrug, gesturing vaguely at nothing in particular. “With tongue?”
“Hey, he would have kissed you and Nate goodbye, too, if he thought you’d be into it.” He points out. “The tongue was just a bonus. He’s very talented.”
“Fair point.” Ray concedes. Then, he looks back down towards the stack of wanted posters, Nora’s pale blue eyes staring up at him from the page.
“For what it’s worth, I bet she’s doing great.” Behrad wraps an arm around Ray’s broad shoulders. “I mean, a girl like her? She can take care of herself.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He mutters, still staring down. Behrad rubs at the other man’s shoulder soothingly. “Hey, Behrad, um, I’m beat. I’m gonna head back to the ship, okay? I’ll see you later.”
“Oh, yeah, man.” He retracts his arm and watches Ray fumble through the crowd on his way out. Behrad grabs a glass of apple juice from a passing waiter and takes a slow sip as Ray finally slips around the corner.
He’ll have to keep an eye out on him. Actually, everything feels pretty off these days. He’s not sure if it’s a new development, something that shifted once Wally decided to go off on his own again or if it’s been like this since Aruba and he just hadn’t noticed before, but the whole team is just a little bit different these days. Beyond Ray’s unusual gloom, Mick seems grumpier than he normally is-- though right now, he’s downing flutes of champagne like shots, which is pretty standard-- and Sara’s been antsy about keeping Ava off the whole severed dragon head thing. Nate still hasn’t quite come back from dropping Amaya off in Zambesi, and Behrad can see it in the way his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes like it used to when she was on the ship.
And maybe he’s changed, too, but just hadn’t noticed it.
Now that Mallus isn’t hanging over their heads, and the totems have done their job, and especially now that they’re done fixing anachronisms, maybe something has changed for Behrad, too. He’s sure he’s been acting a little differently since Aruba, actually, because he hasn’t forgotten the not-Mithra severed dragon head that Constantine brought them, and he’s still not sure if he should tell the team about Dragon Girl or if he should keep quiet, because that’s a spoiler for their future and if he tells them he might do something really stupid, like accidentally prevent his own birth or something.
He ends up following Ray back to the ship soon after, because despite the Bureau’s best efforts, this party kind of blows. And even though he can’t stop Ray from being down in the dumps over Nora, he knows that if there’s anything that might improve the older man’s mood, it’s a batch of freshly-baked, gluten-free muffins.
---
An hour later, armed with a platter of gluten-free blueberry muffins, Behrad finds Ray boarding the jumpship, wearing a patterned shirt that would fit well in his own closet, underneath an eccentric vest, paired with a matching braided headband.
“Going somewhere?” He asks, relishing in the way Ray startles again.
“Uh, no! Just some routine maintenance on the jumpship?” Ray lies, badly.
“Right… In that outfit?” Behrad glances pointedly at Ray’s bell-bottoms.
“ Okay , I had Gideon monitor the Time Bureau. Someone over there pulled up reports of unusual activity in Woodstock, 1969.”
“And you think it’s Nora?” Ray nods. “Okay, I’m coming with you.”
“You are?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna help you look for her so we can warn her together. And besides, it’s Woodstock . Of course I’m coming. Just give me a sec to get changed. Want a muffin?”
---
Woodstock, 1969
Behrad loves Woodstock.
Of course, he already knew he would-- how could he not love one of the most pivotal moments in music history? Between the pacifist ideals, the sexual revolution, the copious amounts of weed, and the psychedelic hippie fashion, Behrad was bound to visit this place and time at some point while on the Waverider.
“Man, Wally would have loved Woodstock.” He says, motioning to the colorful crowd around them. “Look around, man, this place is awesome .”
“Are you sure you weren’t in love with Wally?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Behrad rolls his eyes. “I appreciate the concern, though. I really do. Anyway, if Nora’s here , of all places, that’s probably a good sign. I mean, this is probably the least evil place in all of history.” Behrad remarks, waving goodbye to the woman who just gave them a handful of anti-war pamphlets.
“Maybe she’s turning over a new, non-evil leaf, inspired by yours truly.” Ray agrees proudly.
“If anyone could inspire a villain to switch sides, it’d be you.” Behrad raises his hand for Ray to high-five. Then, Behrad leans over into a nearby circle of hippies. One of them offers him a joint and he thanks them, pivoting back to walk with Ray while taking a hit. “And while we’re here, we might as well enjoy the goods and see the sights. Want some?”
“Oh, no thank you. I should focus on finding Nora.” Ray pulls a compass out of his back pocket. “I brought my trusty, old Eagle Scout compass. I thought we could locate the epicenter of the temporal disturbance the old-fashioned way.”
“Ooh, that could be fun.” Behrad shrugs, following Ray’s lead.
---
It’s not fun. They follow the compass away from all the fun stuff and into the woods, and Nora’s not even there . Instead, they find some rainbow sludge on the ground dripping from a corpse dangling above them in the trees, and Behrad pukes out the muffins he worked so hard on.
Ever the boy scout, Ray unearths a bottle of water from who-knows-where and hands it to him as he recovers, blocking the horrific thing from Behrad’s sight with his whole body.
“Saltines?” Ray offers, already holding a packet of crackers out for him. Behrad shakes his head, still too nauseated. “I’m sorry I brought you here. I didn’t think we’d find anything this terrible.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine, I just need a moment.” He takes a deep breath, letting Ray steady him as they head back out of the woods, towards the festivities. “So much for that non-evil leaf.”
“I thought she was better than this.” Ray laments, scanning the crowd for anyone who might be Nora. “This is my fault. I have to stop her.”
“You did what you thought was right. Besides, it doesn’t matter now. Let’s split up, we might have a better chance at finding her.”
If Nora Darhk is still at Woodstock, she’s doing a really good job at blending in with the crowd. There are a lot of short, slender brunettes here, but not a single one of them is the object of Ray’s slightly-misplaced affection. Ray doesn’t seem to be having much luck, either, going by his constant rambles of “Not Nora, not Nora, not Nora,” over comms.
“I appreciate the updates, but your inner dialogue isn’t really helping. No sight of her here, either, dude.”
“Sorry, I’m just-- I’m… I’m nervous, and upset . I mean, how could she be so heartless? Pun not intended.” Right, the corpse in the tree had its heart ripped out, and the rainbow sludge was coming out of the empty cavity. Behrad has to try very hard to think about literally anything else.
“Might have something to do with the evil demon-worshipping cult her dad sent her off to.” He guesses, taking a deep breath.
There’s a beep, signaling that someone else has joined their comm line, and Sara, in her most disappointed captain-voice asks, “ Nora Darhk is here?”
“Oh, hey Captain,” Behrad ignores the question, trying for light-hearted and casual, though he doubts it’ll do much to help them, “What’re you doing at Woodstock?”
“Probably the same thing you are: looking for whatever is messing with history. Huh-- I think I just saw Joan Baez talking to Carlos Santana. Woodstock…” He can almost hear the smile in her voice, and he smiles too. There’s something about this festival that’s just really lovely, and if he thinks about that instead of Nora Darhk and the mess in the woods, he feels a lot better.
“Woodstock turns into a massacre .” Nate reports, joining them on the line.
“Nate! You’re here too?” Ray asks, also definitely smiling. Behrad continues to survey the crowd for any sign of danger before swiveling around to find Ray and Nate high-fiving, then jumping up to bump their chests against each other, and Sara watching them, unimpressed. Ray turns around and sees Behrad, offering him a high-five, which he does, and in the periphery he sees Nate do the same with Sara.
“Okay,” Sara shakes her head, gathering them together. “ What is going on?”
Nate fills them in on what he’s gathered from the altered history books-- there were no real specifics, since all of the witnesses were high and hysterical, but they know that this peaceful festival ended badly, with people literally trampling each other to death in their haste. Ray adds what they discovered in the woods, while Behrad closes his eyes and tries not to get queasy all over again.
“Hey, B, you good?” Behrad feels Nate’s hand on his shoulder, and opens his eyes to his friend’s worried gaze. He raises his own hand to meet Nate’s and offers him a reassuring smile.
“Yeah, I’m good. You know how I get.” Nate nods in understanding. “Anyways, we think Nora might have done it, since she escaped the Time Bureau and all.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Sara shrugs.
“It is?” Ray asks, frowning.
“Yeah, it means we’re in the clear. It’s not our fault the Time Bureau let Nora escape.” Behrad tries very hard to look anywhere but in Ray’s direction.
“Hey guys! Come check this out!” A festival-goer yells, loud enough to interrupt. They turn in his direction, alarmed, but Nate raises a hand to stop them from rushing over in a panic.
“Don’t worry, I left Mick alone here. He’s itching to punch a hippie.”
They follow Nate towards Mick, who’s wearing a colorful striped poncho that suits him surprisingly well. He’s drinking, because of course he is, and staring blankly ahead, frozen in place. Behrad can’t blame him for staring, though, because in the clearing ahead, there’s a unicorn . It’s all-white, and trailing an actual rainbow behind it, surrounded by equally-rainbow butterflies and sparkles, and the point of its horn glows bright, even in the daylight.
Mick, as the first to see the thing, is the first to recover, bumping through them to aim his heat gun in its direction. “It’s not a dragon, but it’ll have to do.”
“Dude, are you serious? It’s literally a sparkly, rainbow unicorn . It’s not like it’s hurting anyone.” Behrad says disapprovingly, and Mick rolls his eyes.
As if in agreement, the unicorn rears up with a loud neigh, spreading sparkles through the air around it. The hippies sigh dreamily at the sight, and Behrad watches with a smile.
“We didn’t screw things up for the better this year. We screwed things up for the more magical.” Nate breathes, a wide grin across his face.
The unicorn is beautiful and majestic as it trots towards a woman who’s bold enough to approach. She reaches her hand out, offering a freshly-picked flower, and smiles kindly as it comes closer. The scene is lovely and everyone watches in awe, and Behrad feels so much better than he has all day.
And then, everything takes a horrible turn, as the unicorn speeds up its pace and gallops toward the woman, spearing her right through the heart with the horn protruding from its forehead. It shakes its head forcefully and the woman’s body flies through the air, landing on the grass with a loud thud . A single pink butterfly flutters out from the wound, and the hippies scream in terror, running away.
For a moment, watching with the rest of the team, he thinks he might be okay-- he’s already thrown up once today, and maybe he’s just too shocked to do it again. Then, the unicorn trots over to the woman’s body and leans its head down to start eating her heart, and whatever was left in Behrad’s stomach quickly ends up on the ground at his feet.
At Ray and Nate’s request, Mick shoots it with a steady stream of fire, but it does nothing, and the older man grumbles his displeasure. In response, the unicorn trots towards them, and Behrad flinches, shutting his eyes and holding up his arms as if that would do anything to protect him.
There’s a soft, shimmering, twinkling noise, and a spray of something sticky across his whole body, and Behrad tentatively opens his eyes, once he’s sure he hasn’t been impaled. He wipes at his face and glances down at his once-white shirt stained in a murky rainbow of glittery goop, like the sludge from the woods.
“I hate glitter.” Mick growls. Behrad would normally disagree, but this? He’s starting to wish he’d gone off to travel the world with Wally. He hears rustling behind him and turns to find Sara, who’d hidden behind him to avoid the unicorn’s sparkly goo.
At his unimpressed raised eyebrow, she shrugs, and just says, “You’re tall.”
“Where’d it go?” Ray asks. He’s right-- the unicorn is just… gone. Which is a good thing, for now, because it’s not running around here, killing them, but also a bad thing, because it could be running around somewhere else, killing other people.
“Okay… we can fix this before the Time Bureau even has to know about it.” Sara sighs. “Ava still thinks of me as the woman who saved the world last year, and I don’t want her to know that there’s a whole new problem with history. You guys go find the unicorn, and I’ll go find Constantine.”
---
After Sara portals back to 2018, they split back into the same pairs they arrived in. Nate and Mick wander among the tents, and Ray and Behrad head back into the woods.
And that’s as much coherent information as Behrad remembers from the rainbow haze that followed. He vaguely recalls thinking his hands were glowing as he and Ray walked through the trees. Then, he thinks he was rolling around in the grass, while Ray clung to a tree, claiming that it was Nora. But beyond that, it’s even less clear than the absolute trips he and Nate have gone on with strong doses of Amaya’s lyoga root tea.
Sara and Constantine both seem unimpressed, judging by the frowns that greet the four of them, once they’re all cleaned and sobered up.
“John!” Ray greets the man, unfazed by every ridiculous thing that’s happened today. “Welcome aboard.”
“Hey, Ray, big man. Glad to see you’re all back from the land of milk and honey.”
“So, explain to me exactly how we got--” Behrad starts, and Mick interrupts, finishing his thought.
“Roofied by a horse.”
“That beast sprays a powerful, mind-altering hallucinogen to disarm its prey. Ah!” Constantine rubs his hands together, staring down at the grimoire on the parlour table before him. “How to expel a magical creature from the mortal realm. Now, the ingredients for this spell aren’t so easy to come by. Don’t suppose any of you lot have the saliva from a nine-fingered man, now do ya?”
“Uh, you could cut off one of my pinkies?” Ray offers, and Behrad smacks his hand down when he raises them. Really, there has to be a limit to the guy’s willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.
“No, Ray, don’t be the Giving Tree.” Nate sighs fondly, then reminds them that Woodstock has a famous nine-fingered musician in attendance, and as Constantine rattles off the rest of the ingredients, Nate has some festival-goer in mind to play the part, and he, Ray, and Mick head out to retrieve them. Except for one.
“Quis virginem.” He scowls, leaning heavily over the grimoire.
“Huh?”
“A virgin.” Constantine translates, and Sara rubs tiredly at her face.
“Okay, well that rules out everyone on the ship.” Behrad sighs, crossing his arms. “Any other ideas?”
“A virgin? At Woodstock?” Ray laughs over comms. “Good luck with that; this is the least celibate place in history.”
“Are you serious?” Nate chimes in, sounding panicked. Faintly, Behrad hears a crowd, and it sounds like he’s running.
“Unfortunately.” Behrad confirms, reading over Constantine’s shoulder at the text. He guesses that it’s because of the same future time-travel-y tech that lets them all understand the languages for any time and place they visit that he can read any of the grimoire’s pages. “Apparently, unicorns love virgins, I guess, so we need one. ASAP.”
“Oh, come to think of it…” Constantine turns, raising his eyebrows wryly. “I do know one virgin.”
“No. Not a chance.” Sara rolls her eyes.
“Dude, really? We can’t sacrifice Gary .” Behrad wrinkles his nose. “I mean, he’s not my favorite person, but that just feels mean.”
“‘Mean’ just so happens to be right in my wheelhouse.” Constantine swaggers up to him. “And if you don’t have the stomach for it, maybe you’ll want to sit this one out, yeah?”
“Actually, that kinda sounds good to me? I’ve puked twice today, and I’m not really interested in going up to three.” He leans to the side to look around the man, at Sara, who shrugs.
“Go ahead. You can hold down the fort for us while John works his magic.” She nods towards Constantine, who nods back, and then she opens a portal back to the bureau in search of Gary Green.
“Hey, wait a second.” Behrad says, as Constantine starts to follow her through. He swivels back around, raising an eyebrow. “Um. About that dragon, back in Aruba… are there more of those out there?”
Constantine’s eyes narrow, and he stuffs his hands in his pockets, adjusting his stance. “I can’t be sure of that. Why? What’s got you so curious about dragons all of a sudden?”
“Nothing.” He lies, as if he hasn’t spent the last several months agonizing about whether or not to tell the team about Mithra. “Just, uh, curious.”
Constantine frowns harder, and opens his mouth as if to question him further, but Sara pokes her head back through the portal just in time. “John, are you coming or not? ‘Cause personally, I’d rather you be the one to ask Gary to be unicorn bait.”
“Alright, alright, hold your horses, love, I’m on my way.” He rolls his eyes. Before he steps through, Constantine gives one final, suspicious glare in Behrad’s direction, and Behrad pretends not to notice. It’s not until the courier portal seals shut that Behrad feels like he can breathe again, and he collapses back onto one of the armchairs, sinking into the cushions as he waits for this mission to be over.
---
Behrad is really glad that he stayed on the ship for the spell, because when the rest of the team gets back, Gary’s topless, covered in blood, and missing a nipple. John’s already halfway through a bottle of beer as he ushers Gary to the medbay, and the poor guy actually seems more proud of his missing nipple than he is upset.
Yeah, Behrad’s glad he missed that one.
He wanders about the ship, avoiding the medbay so he doesn’t have to deal with Gary, who’s showing off his one-nippled chest to anyone who passes by, and finds Ray in the library, fixing a Janis Joplin vinyl onto the antique record player, unusually somber.
“Wow, you’re looking a little glum there, buddy.” He remarks, and this time, Ray doesn’t startle at all. Instead, he just turns and offers a sad little smile in greeting.
“Just, uh, thinking about all the musicians who died after Woodstock.” He gestures to the record sleeve in his hand. “Janis Joplin overdosed in 1970. Sad and alone.”
“That’s terrible, but this is obviously about Nora.” Behrad steps closer, taking the sleeve out of Ray’s hands and setting it down on the table. He wraps one arm gently around Ray’s shoulders, and lets the older man relax into his side. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“When I gave her the Time Stone… our hands touched, and” Ray starts, and he takes his time, trying to find the right words. Eventually, he settles on a simple, “I felt a spark.”
“So what’s stopping you?” He asks, then winces. “I mean, other than her being a fugitive, and all. Sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I guess she and I are doomed.” Ray says. Behrad frowns, stepping away to turn the older man to face him.
“Hey, that’s not like you to give up so easily. Chin up, Ray-ray. It’s not too late for you two.”
“Thanks.” Ray says, but he doesn’t seem convinced, so Behrad just wraps him in a hug.
“Look, I don’t exactly have the best history with relationships.” Behrad admits. “Actually, I think that thing with Jonah Hex was my biggest romantic success so far-- but that’s not the point. The point is, I’m not going to let that stop me from believing that I might find something later on. And you of all people, you’re always seeing the best in everyone. It’s only a matter of time that somebody sees you the same way.”
“You think so?” Ray murmurs against his shoulder.
“I know it.” Behrad promises, before letting Ray go. “Now, I’ve got half a tin of gluten-free muffins left from earlier that aren’t gonna eat themselves, and you know how the rest of the team doesn’t like the texture. Wanna join me?”
“Yeah, that sounds like fun.” Ray smiles, for real this time. “Thanks, B. And, uh, for what it’s worth, you’ll find someone too.”
The way Ray says things like that, he’s got so much faith that Behrad can’t help but believe him. He’s always had lousy luck with romance-- all the girls he’d ever pined after were either entirely unavailable or treated him like dirt, and he’s got a bad habit of crushing on his bros, which makes him extra grateful that his thing with Wally was as casual as it was. And maybe that would have changed, if Wally had stuck around longer; maybe the thing they had would have become something else, or maybe he would have fallen into the same pitfalls he always does, with unrequited feelings for unattainable or uninterested people.
But it doesn’t matter anymore-- life goes on, and with evil unicorns roaming the timeline, he’s got bigger things to worry about than romance.