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She was too cocky for her own good most of the time. Her painted red lips always twisted into a satisfied smirk whenever she was engaged in combat, her eyes dancing with cold amusement. He found it charming, usually, but he’d known the day was coming when she’d be just a fraction of a second too late.
The only problem was he hadn’t thought he’d care so much.
“You cocky son of a bitch,” Leonard growled, dragging Sara’s deceivingly heavy body into the nearest alleyway. There was blood on his hands and his coat and she was breathing like they’d hit one of her lungs. Each shallow pull of air rattled in her throat and chest, even more so when she laughed, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
“’s not nice… to call yourself names,” she mumbled, eyes fluttering as she tried to keep them open. In their months together he’d watched her take hit after hit without so much as flinching. She’d walked away from some of their battles bloodied and bruised and limping but none of it seemed to phase her.
Sara was like him - she endured.
Leonard grimaced. “Stop bleeding everywhere, would you?”
Her strained chuckle reassured him somewhat, despite how breathless it sounded. It meant that she was still alive and conscious.
More or less.
“Len, where the hell are you?” Mick’s voice crackled over his com, breathless and annoyed. Leonard could hear gunfire in the background.
He glanced down at Sara. “We’re trapped in an alley.”
“We?” Mick echoed back, his voice a touch louder this time. The familiar sound of his flamethrower created static across the line and left Leonard’s ears ringing for a moment.
He grimaced. “Yes, we. I have Sara with me.” He paused to take in her pale skin and trembling hands. “She’s been hit.”
Mick’s reply echoed exactly how Leonard felt. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
“Afraid not,” Leonard said. “She’s lost a lot of blood. I’m about ninety-five percent certain they nicked a lung.”
The line went dead in a burst of static that was most likely the result of Mick firing his weapon. Leonard waited it out in silence as he strained his ears to hear over Sara’s uneven breathing.
“You’ve got three minutes,” the comms distorted Mick’s voice, the line still full of static from all the noise on his end, but it was enough. Leonard nodded to himself, sparing a glance down at Sara. He idly fingered the holster of his ice gun, knowing he couldn’t carry both it and Sara at the same time. Hesitantly he snapped the buckle back into place.
“Ready?” Leonard asked, trying to get his arms situated beneath Sara’s body. Mick was more suited to this type of thing, built for carrying large objects or bodies or whatever the job entailed. He wouldn’t drop her, of that he was certain, but Leonard was also very much aware of how much slower he would be moving with her dead weight in his arms.
The slightest tilt of Sara’s head was enough of an answer for him.
Crouching, Leonard counted to three in his head before he used his legs to lift Sara up and cradle her to his chest. He got to his feet a moment later, unsteady under her unfamiliar weight in his arms. He almost toppled forward with his first half step, scowling at the ground and his feet.
He didn’t have time for this.
Leonard took one slow, deep breath before he adjusted Sara carefully in his arms and tried again. A brisk pace was out of the question, but he took long strides toward their exit, listening carefully for the sound of his partner’s favorite weapon. Leonard was counting down the seconds in his head, very much aware that his three minutes were almost up when he heard the familiar blast and sizzle of Mick’s flamethrower.
The relief he felt was a bit overwhelming.
Mick himself appeared just seconds later with Firestorm hot on his heels. He holstered his weapon efficiently as he walked over to them, holding out his arms for Sara without a word. Leonard surprised himself at his hesitation to hand Sara over, but at Firestorm’s call to ‘hurry the hell up’ he gently passed her over to Mick.
His bloody fingers dropped to the holster of his ice gun, popping the buckle and pulling it from his leg in one slick move.
He grinned. “Let’s go.”