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The reality shift was an absolute, blinding headache. When Sara Lance had wrapped her fingers around the gold frame of the Spear of Destiny in 1916, she didn't just rewrite reality to strip the Legion of Doom of their absolute cosmic power—she fixed a structural error in her own timeline. She brought Leonard Snart back. Not the brainwashed, lethal phantom Eobard Thawne had plucked from the past, but their Snart. The one who had walked into the Oculus, smirked at Mick, and blown himself to pieces for the concept of free choice. Once the dust settled, the Legion was safely locked away, and the temporal distortion grids normalized, the reality of the situation hit the Waverider. Leonard spent his first three days on the ship buried in the lower cargo bay, drinking cheap beer with Mick Rory and running through an intense, fast-paced data sync to catch up on everything he had missed while being dead. But the ship had changed. There were new faces, new tactical coordinates, and a very specific, overly enthusiastic academic who was currently grating on every single one of Leonard's precise, calculated nerves.
The argument officially exploded in the library on a quiet Tuesday evening.Nate Heywood was pacing the floor panels, aggressively waving a leather-bound historical log, his broad shoulders tensed under his favorite knit cardigan. Leonard stood completely relaxed against a terminal desk, his hands casually buried deep in his pockets, his icy blue eyes tracking the historian's dramatic movements with absolute, deadpan exhaustion.
"It’s about operational protocol, Snart!" Nate yelled, his face flushing a bright, immediate red.
"You can't just slide past a historical security grid in 18th-century London without alerting the Bureau or checking the temporal metrics! You’re going to fracture the stream!"
"Save your breath, Dr. Heywood," Leonard drawled smoothly, his slow, rhythmic cadence cutting right through Nate's academic momentum.
"The grid was corrupt, the billionaire was an idiot, and I stole the ledger before the guards even finished their rotation. It’s called tactical elegance. Look it up."
"It's called breaking the law!" Nate stepped directly into Leonard's personal space, his brown eyes wide and breathing heavily as he glared down at the thief.
"We are supposed to be fixing history, not treating it like your personal piggy bank!"
"Then stop getting in my way, Puppy," Leonard countered, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous growl. The room fell into a sudden, high-tension silence. The sharp, volatile friction between them hung heavy in the air, the physical closeness making the atmospheric pressure in the library spike instantly. Nate's chest rose and fell in a ragged, breathless pattern. Leonard didn't move an inch, but as the silence stretched out, his icy stare subconsciously flicked downward, taking a quick, unbidden glance at Nate Heywood’s lips. The smooth curve of the historian's mouth caught his attention for a split, dangerous second before Leonard's precision training kicked in. He mentally controlled himself, snapping his eyes back up to lock onto Nate’s brown ones, his sterile, calculated mask firmly closing back over his features.
Inside Nate’s mind, however, an absolute internal panic was short-circuiting his logic grids. For the past week, Leonard Snart had been completely, sexually confusing him. Nate had spent his entire civilian life operating under the assumption that he was entirely heterosexual—but the way the thief walked into a room, the low vibration of his voice, and the absolute intensity of that predatory, icy gaze was doing terrifying things to his tracking metrics.
Am I bisexual?
Nate thought frantically, his throat going completely dry as his heart hammered against his ribs.
I think I'm bisexual. Oh god, he's a career criminal and he's entirely ruining my baseline.
The heavy library door hissed open with a sharp click, completely shattering the suffocating romantic tension. Sara Lance stepped into the room, holding a digital data pad, a massive, mischievous smirk slowly spreading across her face as she looked back and forth between her broad-shouldered historian and her newly returned rogue.
"Alright, boys, break it up," Sara announced dynamically, leaning her hip against the table.
"We just got a priority alert from Rip. We have a localized containment mission in 1778 Valley Forge." Nate quickly took a step back from Leonard, desperately trying to flush the crimson out of his face as he cleared his throat.
"1778? What’s the objective?"
"We need to save Baron Friedrich von Steuben," Sara explained, her eyes glinting with a wicked, triumphant look.
"He’s crucial for training the Continental Army, but a temporal anomaly has localized around his camp. Now, because of the strict, highly conservative military hierarchy of the era, regular infiltration won't work. Rip ran the variables through Gideon, and he wants the two of you to handle the undercover drop." Leonard let out a low huff of amusement, crossing his arms over his chest.
"And what exactly is the cover story?" Sara's smirk widened into a look of absolute, unadulterated satisfaction.
"Rip also said that he wants the two of you to pretend to be in a gay relationship to access his private quarters." The library fell into a dead, staggering silence. Nate and Leonard both froze completely, their eyes widening in pure shock as they whipped their heads around to look at Sara, then at each other.
"What?!" they yelled at the exact same time, their voices echoing sharply off the metal library walls as the countdown to their very first undercover assignment officially began.
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