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“Well, this certainly complicates things,” Rip observes in an attempt to break the thick silence of the Waverider. No one else has spoken for several long minutes, particularly Leonard Snart. He’s been clammed up and silent for nearly an hour now, and Rip is idly worrying that he might implode from the force of unspoken witty remarks. It’s concerning, and, yes, complicating to the mission.
“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Mick replies after a pointed stare from Leonard. They’re on a wavelength together, and any time Leonard has wanted to speak up, Mick has done so for him. “What do we do to fix it?” Mick asks out of his own curiosity, and hums of agreement trickle around the room. Everyone is dying to know what exactly happened and how to remedy the situation.
“Well, given that one of Savage’s minions managed to rewire a translator device, the only way to fix the situation would be to rewire it again, this time back to normal as opposed to…movie quotes.”
Now, a stream of laughter replaces the soft noises of agreement from before. Kendra is politely trying to hide her snickers behind her palm, as is Stein. Jax is openly giggling, eyes trained on Leonard; Sara is smirking, also staring at Leonard, waiting eagerly for the next quote.
Rip is still intrigued by the thought process behind this particular attack. It’s less the use of a translator beam—a ridiculously futuristic device that essentially gives the holder the point-and-click ability to have his enemy speaking some other language—and more the fact that said language is movie quotes.
“I can’t fathom why they thought movie quotes was an acceptable change—who knows, maybe they hadn’t meant to change it to that at all.” Rip shrugs and tries to give Leonard an apologetic look. “We’ll figure out a way to reverse it, though. It will just take some time. And, until we fix it, Leonard can’t leave the ship—undoubtedly some regular citizen will recognize the quotes and any attempt at being inconspicuous would be blown.”
Leonard groans and drops his head to his hands; when he speaks, it’s muffled:
“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
Sara finds Len tossing a ball around the crates of stuff in a side room again. This time he’s leaning against a stack of boxes as opposed to sitting and sulking on the floor. He’s still sulking this time, but it’s more because every time he opens his mouth, some sort of notable movie quote comes out as opposed to whatever he’d like to actually say. The only saving grace of the situation is that at least whatever quote comes tumbling out is somewhat relevant to the conversation at hand.
“How are you holding up?” Sara asks, still smirking.
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Len drawls; he never takes his eyes off the ball as he tosses and catches it in endless rhythm.
Sara chuckles under her breath. “I’m looking forward to the next time you say something from this decade.” She waits for a response but Len’s lips stay firmly pursed. “Does it physically pain you to not talk? Because if it does, it might just be better to get it over with.”
“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?”
Sara laughs so hard she doubles over, clutching her stomach. “Well, at least we’re into the sixties now,” she gasps between bursts of laughter. When she finally rights herself and stands beside Len, she pats his shoulder. “I wonder if there’s any rhyme or reason to this thing,” she taps at his throat, ignoring his startled flinch, as though his vocal cords have anything to do with the situation other than giving life to this insanity.
In a flat, bored tone, Len calmly states, “take your stinkin’ paws off me, you damned, dirty ape.”
Sara laughs until she cries.
When Stein peaks his head around the door to Len’s room, mouth half open in a no doubt reassuring, wise speech meant to put Snart at ease, Len is actually pretty pleased with what he says.
“A census taker once tried to test me,” he says without looking up from his book. “I ate his live with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
Stein’s mouth snaps shut and he turns sharp on his heel to leave. Len smirks to himself as he turns another page—this whole debacle has its perks, sometimes.
When Len wanders back to his room after another long night spent holding back his ridiculous quotes, Jax is sitting on his bed. Len stops in the doorway and glares, but Jax isn’t put off. If anything, his smile shines brighter in the face of Len’s persistent sour attitude.
“You’ve gotta ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’” Len tries to make his steps toward Jax threatening. “Well, do ya punk?”
Still, Jax only reaction is to laugh, loud and unabashed. “Man, this is so awesome!”
Len very much disagrees.
“It’s not even the fact that it’s movie quotes, you know,” Jax keeps talking though he knows Len won’t contribute much. “The tech behind this whole thing is really interesting.” Jax rises up from the bed and his eyes narrow in on face. “Can you feel it? I mean—after we get this figured out, you’re gonna have to tell me what it was like.”
Len glares. Jax doesn’t seem to notice.
“I wonder if it’s meant to only be really popular ones. Like, if we let this go on long enough, would the quotes get less and less notable?” Jax taps his chin in thought.
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Len barely resists the urge to shove his hand in the kid’s face and push him away. Instead, he turns first and walks toward the bathroom connected to his room. He doesn’t say anything else, but doesn’t hold back a sigh of relief as he listens to Jax’s footsteps and the sound of the bedroom door closing.
People seem to think that they either have the perfect thing to say to help Len.
Or maybe they’re all just taking far too much delight in watching his discomfort.
Probably the latter.
With Mick, it’s obvious. He makes no attempt to help Len out—aside from occasionally communicating the things Len can’t say—and definitely doesn’t try to give him words of wisdom. He clearly takes pleasure in watching Len have no control over his mouth.
“So, m’real interested to see how it goes when Haircut decides it’s his turn to help you out.” Mick teases gruffly. A grin takes up most of his face and only broadens when faced with Len’s put-out glare.
“That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” Len says through gritted teeth.
Mick laughs and slaps a hand against his knee. “I swear, I’m gonna miss this. Thank god Gideon is filmin’ it for posterity. Gotta send this to Lisa the second we get a chance.”
“Go ahead, make my day.”
Mick chortles, this time throwing his head back in rambunctious laughter. “God, she’s gonna love this. Kinda wish we could keep you like this forever.”
The sound of the cold gun charging is high pitched and sharp but Mick only laughs harder.
“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.” Len’s teeth are still clenched tight and his words are almost hard to hear with the way he’s seething. His finger is still curled around the trigger of the cold gun and it’s still fully charged and it’s still aimed at Mick’s head.
Mick is still wearing a shit-eating grin. “Y’not gonna do it, Lenny.”
Len shoots the wall just behind Mick’s head and tells himself he’s not proving Mick right.
Eventually, Rip concedes that fixing this little problem is taking too long and they desperately need Snart’s assistance on a mission. When he announces this, the team dissolves into an equal mix of giggles and nerves. Mostly giggles, but that’s beside the point. What matters is that to stop Savage, Leonard Snart is needed, movie quotes and all.
“Mr. Snart,” Rip turns his attention to the thief just as they’re about to depart the ship. “You will need to stay completely silent during the duration of this mission. Not only is silence and stealth key, but we don’t need to be drawing any unnecessary attention.”
“Snart kinda does that anyway,” Jax notes which earns him a chorus of agreements. “The whole unnecessary attention thing. It’s kind of his thing.”
Rip doesn’t agree aloud, but he bristles unhappily which is close enough.
“All the same,” he reminds as they near their target building, “keep your mouth shut, Snart, please.”
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” Len replies.
Rip groans.
Eventually, as expected, Kendra takes her own shot at having a nice little heart to heart with Len. It’s really getting old, and Len is seriously contemplating installing a much better lock on his bedroom door so that he stops walking in to find various teammates waiting for him. It’s his room, after all.
“You know,” Kendra starts, standing the second Len sees her, “Ray thinks this is kind of adorable.”
Len growls.
“He does. He loves movies, he thinks this is a riot. But he also thinks it’s adorable because it’s you.” She walks up to him, and okay, she’s maybe looking a little menacing. “I don’t know how the two of you managed to fall for each other so hard and how neither of you have made a move yet, but let me tell you this, Leonard Snart.”
She pauses.
“If you hurt him, I will end you.” She pokes his chest, hard.
“I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,” Len retorts, though his face is burning and the blush doesn’t stop till it hits the collar of his shirt.
Kendra smiles. “Good. It might be a bit weird, being his ex-fiancé and all, but I still care about Ray. He’s sensitive. Don’t screw this up.” Her hands shift and pat Len’s shoulders gently, as though to be comforting.
“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Okay, maybe Len would rather not be spewing movie quotes all over the place, but even he chuckles at that one.
Kendra pats his cheek, then, “good luck.” And with that, she’s gone.
Another mission rolls around and yet again, Len is essential to its completion. So, begrudgingly, Rip allows him to tag along. Not without first threatening to duct tape Snart’s mouth shut, a plan that gets squashed by a brief mutiny from the rest of the team, but Rip allows Len to come along all the same.
Mick can’t stop snickering, despite the fact Len hasn’t spoken since this mission began, and Rip is fast losing patience.
“Mr. Rory, if you could be so kind as to refrain from completely blowing our cover, it would be much appreciated,” he hisses as they creep in the shadows. The hallway around them is deserted, as are the rooms beyond surrounding doors, but Rip doesn’t like taking chances. He knows there are ears everywhere.
Len opens his mouth if only to send Mick into another fit of laughter. “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.”
The veins in Rip’s neck bulge with contained rage as Mick does in fact start laughing. It’s not loud, per se, but it is obnoxious and distracting.
Len rolls his eyes and takes a few hurried steps forward. He’s sick of the inching along, and if he has to stick between Mick and Rip any longer, someone is likely to lose a limb. So, he rushes forward still light on his feet and turns the corner sharp, leaving the other two arguing behind him. He follows the sound of other voices, lower and softer than Rip and Mick; these quieter voices are accompanied by a rough whirring noise, one Len knows is likely an engine.
He stops short at the next corner, especially as the voices and whirring get louder. He peeks around the corner and watches Savage rant and rave to some more of his minions. Just beyond them is a large machine, glowing and rumbling and definitely not harmless. Len has no idea what it does, but he knows it can’t be anything good.
When Rip and Mick finally catch up, Len just turns to him and whispers,
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Turns out they do need a bigger boat—or, rather, a bigger Ray. Super-sized ATOM makes another appearance to defeat the crazy machine Savage had been hiding. It’s after the big fight of the week that Ray apparently decides to corner Len and have his own moment with him.
Len knows it’s coming the minute Ray shrinks back to regular size and only has eyes for him. Len knows it’s coming because Sara laughs and Kendra looks far too proud. Len tries to make plans with Mick—they have some time to hit a bar or six, right? Shore leave, and all that? But Ray stops by his room before Len can make his escape.
Len decides if this has to happen, he’s starting off with the first word.
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the word, she walks into mine.”
Ray’s smile only widens. “I’m glad I caught you before you got to bar-hopping. I just wanted to say that your idea was great. It was really quick thinking.”
Len turns away so he can grin to himself in peace. He doesn’t say anything, knowing Ray will take it upon himself to fill the silence.
“I wanted to thank you.” Ray doesn’t move much further into the room, for which Len is grateful. “You know this team wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Len doesn’t know why he’s getting this sort of pep-talk. All he had done was suggest Ray break out the super-sizing technique again (something that was only figured out via an interesting bout of charades and vigorous gestures and nearly a fist fight). He isn’t sure why Ray is so intent on telling Len what a good boy he’s been—well, now Len’s mind has caught a totally different train of thought, one much more interesting than this—but there’s no escaping it.
Len turns to him and hopes a quote that sufficiently sends Ray running will come tumbling out.
“You see? That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you.”
Well, that’s definitely not the kind of line Len had meant to say. It’s also not the way he had intended to let Ray know about his little crush. Len had been pretty content letting his feelings fester, happy to wait until the crush died and his feelings for Ray would fade.
Len shoves past Ray and his shocked face and leaves the ship without Mick.
Things only get worse from there. Ray doesn’t back down even when Len makes it pretty clear he doesn’t want to be in the same room together.
Len can only avoid him for so long, though.
“Leonard?” Ray asks with a timid knock on Len’s bedroom door. “Hey, maybe we should talk?”
“You had me at hello.” Len wants to take the pen in his hand and ram it down his own throat if only so he can no longer spew Hollywood’s best one-liners.
Ray’s smile is more reserved than usual, but no less bright in Len’s opinion. “That’s what we should talk about.” Ray moves and sits on the edge of Len’s bed, while Len stays stock-still at his desk. “Sara has been dropping hints, and Kendra said something the other day that got me thinking….”
“You make me want to be a better man.” Len groans and lets his hand drop to his desk with a bang.
“That’s—wow,” Ray’s face is flushed as red as the t-shirt stretching across his torso. “That’s really sweet.”
Len just groans again. Ray falls silent.
“I guess maybe I shouldn’t be so wooed by anything you say right now, huh? It’s not really you, after all.” Ray looks a little ashamed but no less red. “It’s just this whole mess—you don’t seem like the type to quote rom-coms at me.”
Len turns his head enough to give Ray a look that hopefully conveys ‘you think?’
“I’m just—I’m gonna go.” Ray stands abruptly and makes quick work of exiting Len’s room.
Len feels ever worse than before.
“Alright, what did you do?”
This time, Len chucks the pen he’s been holding right at Sara’s head, and makes his disappointment clear on his face when she catches it easily. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
Sara’s lips quirk in a grin but she isn’t backing down. “Let me guess, you got scared and clammed up and let Ray run off? He hasn’t shut up for hours, you know, Kendra is ready to strangle him.”
Len smiles.
“Pretty sure you aren’t supposed to be happy about your future boyfriend getting strangled by his ex-wife.”
Len wants to say ex-fiancé but what comes out is “loving someone, and being loved means so much to me.”
Sara’s smile turns soft. She comes and rests against Len’s desk, nudges him with her knee. “You’re such a softie, it’s disgusting.”
Len flips her the bird.
“You should talk to him again.”
“I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.”
“You didn’t give him your heart, you barely told him anything. For all he knows, you think of him in a strongly platonic manner that makes you want to change your thieving ways. You need to talk to him.” Sara flicks his forehead for good measure. “Don’t talk to me until you get it figured out. Also, you owe Kendra. She’s probably lost her mind by now.”
Len doesn’t get a chance to confront his feelings about Ray before another mission arises. Again, Len ends up teamed up with Rip and Mick, but Kendra tags along this time too. Her eyes burn like lasers into Len’s back as they sneak down the street in the middle of the night. When he opens his mouth, Len knows that the translator mishap—now over a month in the making—is only partially to blame for the quote.
“Warriors—come out and pla-a-a-ay!” He murmurs with a grin to himself.
“Honestly, Snart, you need to actually talk to Ray. He’s freaking out,” Kendra cuts into what should have been a few moments of silence to appreciate Len’s delightful reference. “He likes you too! I told you that! Just be honest!”
“How’s he supposed to be honest when he can’t say his own fucking name?” Mick grumbles as they avoid another long line of streetlights. “He’s got all of Hollywood in his mouth and that’s ‘bout it.”
Kendra scowls. “Hollywood is better than avoiding him,” she insists. “Besides! Ray loves the quotes! There’s never been a better chance to get into his pants than now!”
Rip groans. “God, I’ve recruited a gaggle of high schoolers.”
“Failure is not an option,” Len adds.
“I don’t know if he’s talking about the mission or his…problem with Mr. Palmer.” Rip eyes Len suspiciously.
“Well, if it’s the whole thing with Ray, failure isn’t even on the board if Snart drops this whole ice queen act.” Kendra crosses her arms and huffs once she’s finished, clearly meaning this conversation is over. Len decides the conversation might be over, but he needs to have the last word.
“Yippie ki-yay, motherfucker.”
Another two weeks pass before Len realizes two things:
First, this little problem of his with the translator isn’t going away any time soon.
Second, watching Ray sulk around the ship is like watching a kicked puppy.
Both are horrific conclusions to come to, but Len also knows there’s only one he can fix easily. So, he decides it’s time to talk to Ray.
He’s not hard to find, holed up in his room with an inordinate amount of vintage cereal and hardly cracking a grin. Len stands in front of the closed door. He stares at the metal and resist the urge to bang his head against the door until he blacks out to avoid this whole thing. Eventually, he raises a hand and knocks.
“Come in.”
Len obeys as the door slides open. He takes three short steps into the room, but Ray isn’t looking his way. Instead, Ray is much more intently focused on some older, dusty books no doubt snagged from Rip’s library.
“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
Ray’s attention snaps to him immediately. “Oh.”
Len holds back rolling his eyes or sighing in exasperation. He waits.
“I—was there something you wanted to say?”
“I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed, and that one day all our labors will be returned to dust…” The words fall from Len’s lips like a damn has broken and he is helpless to stop it, “I am in love with you.”
Ray is kind enough to set aside the vintage cereal and face Len. “I think that’s the first thing you’ve said from this decade.”
Len finally gives in and rolls his eyes. “I am also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”
Ray grins and stands. He walks until he and Len are barely a foot apart. “You really love me?”
“You can’t ask why about love,” Len supplies.
“I guess not,” Ray shrugs. “The heart wants what the heart wants, and all that.”
“It’s you that’s changing me,” Len admits, ducking his head with a blush.
That gets an outright obnoxious burst of laughter from Ray. “Wow, what a catalogue you have there. Fifty Shades of Grey, really?”
Len’s face burns brighter. He scrubs a hand over his face and tries to will the red in his cheeks away, to no avail.
“You know I feel the same way, right?” Ray asks in a soft and curious voice. He reaches up and lets his hand hover near Len’s skin. He can feel the heat of the blush radiating from Len’s face and it warms his own chest.
“Me?” Len starts. “I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all,” Len finally looks up again and meets Ray’s gaze. “I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the way I feel when I’m with you.”
Ray’s eyes widen. “Wow,” he says again. His hand finally moves that miniscule extra distance to cup Len’s face. “I mean, I know it’s from a movie, but, wow.” Ray steps closer, too, until his feet knock against Len’s. “I can’t wait to hear how you feel about me, in your own words.”
Len smirks. He’s kind of terrified of that moment, but he can’t exactly say so. He may be eloquent, but he’s hardly as well put together as tried and true movie lines. He tries not to let that show on his face.
“You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how.” Len angles his head up in a hardly subtle manner.
Ray laughs against his lips before sealing their mouths together in a kiss. His grip on Len’s jawline tightens for a second, then his fingers smooth over Len’s skin. He tilts his head just right and presses harder into the soft, dry kiss. He licks the seam of Len’s lips, then pulls back with an even brighter grin.
“I can’t believe I gave my panties to a geek,” Len says, breathless.
They stand there in the middle of Ray’s room, grinning like idiots at one another until Gideon’s voice startles them out of their trance.
“Mr. Snart, Captain Hunter would like me to inform you the mechanics of the translator have been corrected and you should be alleviated of your recent affliction.”
“Oh, thank fuck!” Len shouts as he throws his arms in the air. “Hallelujah, thank god, holy shit.” Len laughs. “It feels far too good to be able to say whatever the hell I want.” He never wants to shut up, now. He’s had nearly two months of snarky comments building up in his system and they’re dying to get out.
“What do you wanna say?” Ray asks quietly.
Len’s attention returns to him with a look of surprise. He’d nearly forgotten his surroundings with the excitement of not being a slave to Hollywood’s best any longer. Ray looks shy and a little scared, and Len can’t let that carry on.
“To you, Raymond?” Len drawls. “I’d like to say, I love you.” He reaches for Ray’s hands and links their fingers. “I may not be as sharp as witty one-liners, but I can say that I feel strongly about you. For all your sickeningly do-gooder behaviors and freakishly puppy-dog-like excitement, I enjoy your company and I…care about you.” Len hesitates this time when he looks up to meet Ray’s eyes.
“I have no idea what I’m doing, Raymond,” Len admits. “I think you can guess this isn’t my forte. But I want to try, if you do.”
Ray’s smile finally returns to his face and he leans in again. He stops short of his lips being less than an inch from Len’s. He starts to speak, even over Len’s frustrated huff.
“I love you,” Ray begins. “Most ardently. Please do me the honor of accepting my hand.”
Len rolls his eyes. “No more movie quotes, for the sake of my sanity.”
Several years later, Len will swear up and down that the decision to make the theme of the Snart-Palmer wedding “Movie Quotes” is entirely Ray’s idea. It’s a lie, and everyone knows it, but Len will never admit that he’s always enjoyed movie quotes being his and Ray’s ‘thing.’ So, if anyone asks, Len pins the whole debacle of their wedding theme on Ray. He blames Ray for the movie quotes iced into the cake, blames Ray for the fact that all their wedding music comes off the best Hollywood soundtracks. He blames Ray for the fact that half their wedding gifts are movies.
He blames Ray for his tears when, during their vows, Ray is one hundred percent serious and genuine when he says—
“If there’s one thing you’ve taught me, it’s that the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”