Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I have called you many things over the years", said the girl entering from the door of the deck on the Waverider "Pyromaniac, brute, simple, criminal, rogue, complex, loyal, even friend" she start approaching the big and bald man that was staring at her with open eyes "but not in a million years could have imagined that the word that I would be using today will be coward. You are fucking coward Mick! How dare you to have done this to her!" she was throwing so many daggers with her eyes that even he looked away when she screamed, "How dare you to not have told Lis that Leo is dead!”. She grab his jacket and continued snarling “And done even dare to say that you haven't had time, because you are in a fucking timeship!”

Go one week ago:

“Happy birthday Lis”

“Ti! Thanks, honey. How are you doing?”

“I don't know, you tell me. Turn around”

Lisa Snart turn around on the stool that she was sitting on and smiled big time.

“Ti!” screamed Lisa getting up and hugging the other girl as hard as she could

“Happy birthday Lis!” said the other girl with a big smile on her lips and kissing the other girl's cheek

Lisa backed away a little but took the other girl by the shoulders “But what about the people that were chasing you?”

“Gone, for good. I have been checking on the people that I have missed all these years and now is your’s and Leo’s turn.”

“I’m happy to accept my turn, but Lenny is on a very long project, I have not heard from him in a very long time. But, you know Lenny, he loves to call me 5 minutes before my birthday is over, so no worries, there is time to catch up with him”

“I am not worried! And now let’s give this birthday girl the shoots that she wants”

“You know me too well”

…..

“The jerk!” Lisa Snart was on her own couch looking at her phone with angry eyes, after almost 24 hours of partying non-stop, she need some rest. Now the time was 00:05 and his brother had not called her. On her birthday. Again “This is the third time that he doesn’t call me! What kind of brother does that?”

“Come on, Lis, we both know that he could be a much worse brother”

“That doesn’t make him any less of a jerk”

“Yeah, you are right. Anyway, something came up and I will need to leave now, but I promise to come back as soon as I can and pass at least all the month with you. You will end up getting bored of me”

“Never” Lisa got up and hug the other girl very hard “I would try to make you stay longer but we both know that there is no point in trying to stop you”

“I have been told. Promise to be back as soon as I can. Don’t get into too much trouble Lis”

She smiled at her “I make no promises”

The other girl smiled too “I know”

The girl, who looked like in her late twenties, left the building and Lisa behind and start walking. She could feel that something was wrong, like really wrong. Lisa was right, Leonard had not called her at least two times more before today, but she knows that it was because he literally was not conscious enough to call her. She picked up her own phone and call the regular phones that he use to communicate with people. The result, as she expected, was nothing in return, so she decided to do a visit to Central City herself.

She stopped in her tracks in a big alley, and click a button. A very little timeship appear in front of her eyes and she entered.

“Captain! I thought that I was not going to see you in a long time”

“Hey Ru, plans change, I need to check if Leo is okay so we are going to Central City right now”

“Do you want me to check the last news of Central City that had Leonard Snart also known as Captain Cold in it?”

“Yes please”

…..

She didn’t like this, not at all honestly, but she was out of options. She had checked every single place that occur to her and had no clue of Leonard or even Mick's whereabouts. It was like he had fucking vanished from this Earth, and had really gotten to her nerves. She thought if any of the bad guys didn't know where he was maybe one of the good ones did. Also, it had come in handy that the asshole at her feet had started to ask about Snart at the same time as her. She started hearing them coming, so it was show time.

“You know, you should upgrade the security system around here. It's a child’s game really”

“Who are you? How did you come in here?” asked Barry Allen, that was surrounded by Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, and Harry Wells.

“As I said, child's game, really. I am no one really I just want to make a trade"

"I asked who are you?" asked again Barry Allen, starting to get annoyed

"Fine, I should have known that this is not Team Flash style. My name is Timebreaker, but everyone calls me Ti, and I am here to make an exchange. I offer you this asshole in exchange of information”. She pointed out at the man that was at her feet next to the chair. He was in a metahuman handcuff and had his mouth covered with tape.

“You capture Scudder all by yourself?” asked Cisco, quite impressed

“Yeah, easy enough. So we have a deal?” asked Timebreaker, offering a hand and looking too smug to Barry’s liking

He look at the hand that this woman was offering and then at the man beside her. She clearly knew how to handle herself and she also seemed to know how to enter their headquarters, but only using it to make a deal. He had a feeling that he could trust this Timebreaker girl but he needed to make sure. “The information that you want, will put Central City in danger?”

“Nah, probably just me” answered her smiling and still with her hand up

Barry took his hand “Deal. What do you want to know?”

“I am looking for Leonard Snart aka Captain Cold” and when she saw the change that made Barry’s face she know that she had been right to have a bad feeling. “He is dead, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he died like a hero saving his friends” answered Barry putting a hand on her shoulder

“More than a hero, he died like a Legend” added Cisco

To that name, and before she could really process all her feelings, Timebreaker perked up “What did you just say?”

Cisco approached the girl, who clearly was going to get very upset about Cold’s death, and put his hand on her shoulder trying to be recomforting too “He did like a Legend”

Timebreaker stood up, brushing the two boys that were trying to comfort her off, and walk to the middle of the room, where all the monitors were hanging, and looked at them “Are you really telling me that one of the people that Rip fucking Hunter recruited to save his fucking family is Leo?”, she put both of her hands on her face make a very exasperated sound “Of course, it had to be a Time fucking Master, they don't how to keep ruining my fucking life”

“Wait, do you know the Legends?” asked Caitlin

“Not personally, but I think it’s time to introduce myself to them”

“It’s not their fault, Snart sacrifice himself to save them”, said Barry

“Look, I don’t care if he died like the fucking Flash, the point is that he is still dead and I am going to fucking fix it”

“But how are you going to save him? You would have to go back in time and that could be-” started Barry that want to avoid past mistakes

“Look, I don’t mean to sound offensive, but, you don’t know shit about time traveling and its consequence. My name is Timebreaker, not because I am a time traveler, which I am actually, it’s because my powers” said her meanwhile his eyes start transforming green, the same green of the Timestream “are also time. I would save him and I promise you that it would not affect your beloved city or any city for that matter”

Caitlin, Barry, and Cisco look between each other trying to think of something to say that would stop Timebreaker from probably trying a rescue mission and end up dead too. Wells, that had not said a word since the beginning of the encounter, approach his hand to Timebreaker and said “They think that they can stop you, but I have seen this fire in your eyes before, you are not stopping until you have safe him or died trying. I also can see that you know what are you talking about so I trust that will not break the time with this. So good luck and I hope to see you soon, Timebreaker”

“Thanks, Harry appreciated”, she start walking. “See you soon, Team Flash, and, by the way, Lis is right, you are much hotter than what people think Cisco.”

She was already in the corridor when she heard “Wait, Lisa Snart has talked to you about me?”

…

It took her a couple of hours but she finally caught an anomaly that the Waverider was intercepting. Meanwhile, that hours she had made some research about the so-called Legends, at least the ones that she supposes were still hanging around the Waverider. An interesting bunch honestly, that combined make a group with very useful skills. She had also tried to figure out where and went Leonard had died but with no luck, the only thing that she knew is that he blow up, but nothing else so for the moment she was stuck. Luckily, she had found the Waverider and she was sure as hell that no one that deleted her credentials. Arrogants ignorants.

"Ru, call Gideon"

"I'm Gideon how can I help you?"

"Gideon this Captain Timebreaker, would you please be a dear and open the doors of the hang to place my ship"

"Right away Captain"

She parked her ship next to the jump ship, that just a little bit smaller than her own ship, and enter the Waverider discreetly. She had to wait until everyone was on board to make her call so she decided to spy a little and see, who the fuck was worth Leo's life. After almost an hour or so that spying on their things, Gideon inform her that every one of the crew was on the ship so it was time.

She called a meeting on behalf of the captain and when she make sure that everyone was there, she entered the room already talking. For good measure, she surrounded herself with her own power, just in case someone (let's call her Sara Lance) try to throw a knife at her. "I have called you many things over the years. Pyromaniac, brute, simple, criminal, rogue, complex, loyal, even friend" she start approaching Mick Rory that was staring at her with open eyes "but not in a million years could have imagined that the word that I would be using today will be coward. You are fucking coward Mick! How dare you have done this to her!" she was throwing so many daggers with her eyes that he even looked away when she screamed, "How dare you to not have told Lis that Leo is dead!”. She grab his jacket and continued snarling “And done even dare to say that you haven't had time, because you are in a fucking timeship!”

The rest of the crew was looking at them. Sara had grabbed her knife, just in case the girl that just appeared randomly on their ship was dangerous but froze the moment that she start talking. She clearly knew Mick and also Leonard so she was not about to throw a knife at her, she didn't seem to deserve it, yet.

Mick grabbed her hands and shove them away from him but stare at her silently with an unreadable face. "How are you here?"

"Guess what? You remember the scary and know-it-all people that were chasing me, they were the fucking Time Masters!

"Why?"

"Doesn't matter, is not why I am here. I am here because I am going to save that jerk and I need information, and probably help. How the fuck did he die?”

Rip perked up at that “He died in the explosion of the Vanishing Point, so you can not save him. Sometimes time wants to happen”

“The infamous Rip fucking Hunter, charmed to meet you” answered, sarcasm dripping off her voice “Look, Time Master-”

“Ex Time Master”

“Whatever, time doesn’t want to happen, because, news flash, I am time and I say, fuck that, I am going to save Leo”

“Didn’t you hear me? He died in the Vanishing Point, at the end of time so you can’t save him, is impossible to go back in time there!”

“Says who? You? The Time Assholes? I would concede that you are right, the time of the Vanishing Point is not in the Timestream that you usually move, but it has its own timestream which I can access with Arcadia”

“Arcadia? That’s impossible! It’s a myth!”

“So am I, Timebreaker, and here I am ready to save Leo’s ass”

“No way! That’s ridiculous”

“Why do you follow this guy?" asked her, clearly in a rhetorical way. She looked Mick in the eyes. “I am still very mad at you for not saying a word to Lis about this, but we both know that no one is going to stop me from at least trying to save Leo, so the real question is are you in or out?”

“We are in”, said a blonde girl to her right, who for the photos, she assumed to be Sara Lance

“Yeah, if there is a way to save Snart we are going to take it!” said a cute black boy next to Sara, that she was pretty sure to be Jax

“Led the way, Boss”

"So you are all in?" asked Timebreaker directly looking at Rip Hunter, she have seen the agreeing acknowledgment of the rest, but he had to say a word yet.

"You are Timebreaker?"

"Yes"

"And you have in your power the lost ship of Arcadia"

"Indeed"

"Well, then I assume that if it's really another Timestream whatever we do there is not going to break the time here so let's save Snart."

"That's the fucking spirit! Okay so, to make a correct plan I will need to know everything about the time and place where he died. To make things easier I will the exact place where he died"

“He died with the Oculus” answered Sara

“Okay, I am not familiar with that room and I am sure as hell that I don't have the plans for that particular room. Nothing to worry about do, I would go and make my own blueprint of the place we can all start work from there. " she breathed heavily and after that, she left the room.

All the anger that she had felt towards Mick and the others had started to fade at seeing them so willingly to help her save Leonard. It was much easier to stay angry than face the fact that, at least for the moment, he was dead. Like really dead. She started walking slower breathing even heavier when a voice startled her.

“Hey, I'm Ray Palmer, nice to meet you. After everything that you said I was wondering, how are you holding up?”

“Peachy”

Ray made a sigh “I’m sorry about Leonard, you clearly cared a lot about him”

“It doesn’t matter”, said her trying to steady her breathing and not cry in front of this Ray guy. “He is going to be back from the dead and I am going to punch him because he had to be a survivor, not a god damn hero”

“Maybe punching him is a little radical" she look at him with a face that said "Really?", but he ignored her and kept talking anyway. "You said that you were going to check the Oculus to have a map to plan the rescue mission, right?”

“Right”

“Well, if you want I can come with you, two brains think more than one”

“And you don’t want me to go alone to the place where Leo died.” She look at him, trying to assess if he was going to be useful or just annoying, but in the end, she assumed that it was going to be both and shrugged and started walking again. “Suit yourself Eagle Scout. Let’s go”

And with this, her plan to save Leonard Snart was already in motion.

Chapter Text

“I never thought that I would come back to this place voluntarily.”

“Well, I am not happy to be here either, if I am being real with you” 

“Show me the way, Ray” 

Timebreaker followed Ray Palmer to the place where the Oculus had been held.

“It looks like a dumpster” pointed Timebreaker 

“Well, it was a pretty big explosion” 

Timebreaker put out some tech and made a round to the perimeter outside the Oculus chamber putting some kind of sensors on the floor. “Well, that’s all set! What do you say if we go and sneak a peek?”

“Sneak a peek?”

“Yeah, maybe there is something worth stealing here that didn’t blow up” 

“We are trying to save Snart and you want to try to steal something?”

“It’s called multitasking”

Ray look at her with widened eyes, he has heard the exact same phrase from Snart in a more or less similar situation. "Snart would be proud of you"  

“Well, what can I say, he has taught me a lot. So, Ray, you want to snoop around or not?” 

“Fine, let’s look around. But I want you to tell me what exactly is this tech that you are using to scan the area” 

“You are on, geek” 

…..

“Mick” 

“Blondie” 

Sara sat next to Mick in their kitchen and handed him another beer bringing also one for herself. He waited for her to say anything because it was clear that something was bothering her, but she just stay silent. 

“What’s wrong Blondie?” 

“This girl” 

“Timebreaker. What’s wrong with her?”

“She…You think that she can do it?” 

“Saving the idiot? If she can’t do it, no one can” 

“But what if no one can? What if we are letting this girl go on a suicide mission?” 

“Look, Blondie, the truth is that she is going to try to save him until he is alive or she is dead. Going with her helps the chances of her not dying and saving Snart, so it’s a win-win situation” 

“You haven’t answered my question. You really think that she can do it?” 

Mick look at Sara pounding his answer, and after a minute, he added “She can fucking do it” 

“I don’t know if I dare to hope to have him back after everything I lost”  

“Don’t hope, just watch” said him getting up and getting two more beers for both of them 

“Hearing you sound so confident about her it’s reassuring and scary at the same time” 

“She is good with her shit." he made a pause and then look at her with a smirk "You are up?” asked pointing at her beer with his own

“I remind you that I destroy your fucking ass in the Old West” 

“I am bored, so bring it on Blondie” 

“You are going down yet again”, said Sara with an easy smile on her lips and feeling calmer, but not daring to think about the future or the past, just trying to live in the moment. 

Mick seeing her internal struggles clink his beer with hers. ”I meant what I said Blondie, don’t hope about it, just wait and watch” 

“For better and for worse, loser” 

And they kept drinking. 

……

“What a bust”, said Timebreaker picking up her scanners from the floor 

“I mean, you should have seen it coming, as you said, the place is a dumpster” 

She stuck her tongue out with disdain. "Well at least I have the plans that I need” 

They returned to Arcadia and she showed him a perfect hologram of all the place where the battle had been held on her screen. The hologram had recomposed the buildings to look the same as before the explosion. He was impressed with the detail that the representation had. 

“It looks exactly as I remembered” 

“Good because I need to be as exact as possible for this to succeed” 

“What now?” 

“Now I would need to talk to the last person that saw him alive. Mick?” 

“Actually, the last person that saw him alive was Sara” 

“Sara” she made a small pause but with an unreadable face “Ru, we need to go back to the Waverider” 

“On it, Captain”,  said the AI

“Ru?”

“It’s short for Rupert” 

“That is actually a very cute nickname.” 

…….

Sara was not drunk but definitely much tipsier than she had planned to be. She need to recognize that Mick had been practicing to take his liquor because it had cost her much more beer to beat him this time. Still, he was snoring on the table beer in hand drunk as fuck. Loser. 

She stood up, stretching her arms, and leave the kitchen. She was aiming to go to her own room went Ray and Timebreaker caught her. She looked at this girl up and down, she had short, straight, black hair that was cut to her chin. She had this green eyes that were intense but also light. She was somewhat taller than her, but much less fit. She looked younger and older than her all at the same time. She remembered how she had talked about Leonard and wondered for a moment what kind of relationship she had with Snart. Seeing the similarities between herself and Timebreaker she questioned if Leonard had a very specific type. She automatically push that thought away and she realized that the girl that she had been staring at had talked to her. 

“Excuse me, what?” 

She smiled at her, a somewhat between an honest and smug smile that remind her of Leonard. “I said, Sara, that the Scout her tells me that you were the last person to see Leo alive” 

“He is not wrong, Mick was there but he was as conscious as he is right now” and she approached both of them and try, very unsuccessfully to whisper “Meaning, not at all” 

“Oh please tell me that you didn’t leave Mick drunk with his gun in the kitchen” 

Sara looked at him with a happy smile and Ray sighed passing a hand to his face “I am going to make sure that he makes it to bed, and also, that he doesn’t burn the kitchen” 

“Good luck with that”, said the two girls at the same time, watching Ray leave for the kitchen. 

“So I was wondering when it will be a good time to talk about the last time that you saw Leo” 

“It will never be a good time to talk about it” 

“Fair enough. When it will be less of a crapy time to talk about it? 

Sara thought for a second. Mick was right, she could see the fire in his eyes, the fire of someone who was not getting anything, not even death, between her and Snart. Maybe he was not wrong in trying to help her achieve that. She was not eager to talk about the last time that she had seen Captain Cold, it still hurt a lot, but she figure that it be better to talk about it meanwhile she was still drunk. “Now it’s fine” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah” 

She waited almost a minute to turn around and say “Follow me then”. She led her into her own ship, the Arcadia, and bring two stools out one at each side of a screen that was in the middle of the room. Seeing the bed at one side of the room, she clearly was at her home and honestly, it had the same vibe that the girl in front of her, dangerous and sweet, all at the same time. 

She touched the screen and a line with two big points appeared in front of her. “This is the timeline of the Timestream of the Vanishing Point. Anyway, this major point here is when the Vanishing Point was created and this one it’s when all of you blew up the Oculus. As you see they have a very uneventful timeline.” She zoomed to the sphere that represented the Vanishing Point exploding becoming some kind of line that went upwards continuously but steady until suddenly it drop flat to the end of the screen “This line that falls straight to the bottom is the exact moment that the Oculus blow up, it represents the minutes that passed from the start of the explosion to all the Vanishing Point doing kaboom. Considering that you are here and not dead I assume that when the kaboom happened all of you were on the ship leaving. Am I correct?” 

“Yeah” 

“Okay perfect”, she took what seemed like a fancy digital pencil and change the settings of the timeline to have even lines that seemed to represent minutes. She drew a line just in front of the start of the fall. “This is the limit of the limit of our window to take him back, it was easy enough to assume, but I just wanted to make sure about it. So, the real question is, where our window to rescue Leo begins.  At this minute I assume that you have already taken off and are on your own way. The Waverider takes approximately two minutes and 30 seconds to take off so” She drew another line. “How much time do you think that took you and Mick to arrive at the Waverider?” 

At times like this, her training in the League could come in pretty handy “Almost three minutes” 

“Perfect, okay know before that I assume that you were with Leonard in this Occulus bullshit. So what were you doing and how much it took you?” At this Sara straightened up a little and also look a little flustered. Interesting, she was tempted to push the subject but decided against it. She was in desperate need to find this information and she didn’t want Sara closing up. “You don’t need to enter in details just a quick showdown with the most accurate time possible.” 

She eased a little at her words but was still on edge “Before grabbing Mick to leave, we” she made a pause, very briefly, like deciding what word to use “talk for almost two minutes.” Timebreaker stayed silent and start drawing lines in the timeline meanwhile Sara was retelling the facts of the battle “Mick and Snart talking probably took a little more than two minutes. Before that Mick took the place of Ray for almost a minute and add 30 more for Rory to knock out Ray. Before that add a hold more minute to Ray to figure out what was the Oculus and us smashing the Time Masters' asses. And that will be it more or less. 

“Okay so, taking consideration that Arcadia is faster than the Waverider to take off and move, that would give us a window of approximately 6 minutes to take Snart out of there safely and make it out alive. I can stop the time for that amount of minutes good enough, we just need two people to grab him and some more roles and we will be done with it. We should try to avoid as much as we can you being one of the retrieving people, thanks the stars that Mick was unconscious because-” 

“No, wait, I need to be one of the two retrieving Leonard” and she sighed “and you are probably right Mick is going too” 

“You are aware that you would need to wait a bit longer for the past you to be able to leave and retrieve him right? It would help us to snatch as many minutes as we can if someone else did it” 

“I..it needs to be me” Sara look with somewhat determination in her voice. She had very present that the other girl was right, but she was not ready for anyone else to see their kiss. She didn’t regret it one bit but it feel so vulnerable for both of them that she want to avoid people watching it. 

“Why?” asked the other girl with curiosity in her voice 

Sara sighed, Timebreaker deserve the truth considering that she was complicating, even more, the plan, and maybe it was an incentive to take her request. “Because I kiss him” 

Timebreaker that had been looking at the screen all this time, look back at Sara and ask with a mix between incredulity and curiosity “And he let you?” 

Sara was taken back, by all the answers that she could have seen coming from the statement, but that was not one of them. "He kissed me back" 

At that answer, something in the eyes of Timebreaker sparkled and narrow a little studying her. Sara waited patiently for her to say something, the league had taught her how to wait. In the end, Timebreaker just sighed and look back at her screen "Fine, you can go with Mick but it will put our window at least one minute down, probably two. 

"It's fine, we got this." 

Timebreaker looked at her with incredulous eyes. "Sure" she sighed again "I already know everything that I need from you, so now the actual planning begins. Thank you for your help, Sara." 

Sara nodded and left aiming for her room. Every minute that pass everything that Mick said made more sense in her head. She really wanted to wait and see but maybe, just maybe, there was a little room for something resembling hope.