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He wakes up, yawning hugely. His bed is warm and comfortable, there’s no alarm blaring; he’s got no worries or cares. He could probably kip off for another few hours, but his body’s starting to wake up. He cracks a lazy eye open.
There’s a floating holographic note about four inches above his face. It reads “Mick Rory, likes fire, defeat Savage & restore timeline”.
Well, that’s helpful.
Sadly, now that he thinks about it, he can’t really remember much more than that, so maybe it is pretty helpful. Of course his name is Mick Rory, of course he likes fire (did you see what happened to – but he’s not thinking about that), but for some reason beyond that point he’s not too clear on the details.
Some little voice in the back of his mind, low and heavy – Kronos, something whispers, but he’s not sure what it means – tells him that he’s a timeline remnant. That must be related to the last part.
Maybe it’s some sort of “to do” list?
Whatever. He gets up, gets dressed. Wanders outside in search of breakfast, because why not?
There’s a really hot guy in the corridor, looking a little sleepy and like he’s not entirely sure which way he’s going.
“Morning,” Mick offers.
The guy blinks at him. “Morning,” he replies cautiously. “Don’t suppose you know…?”
“Mick Rory, likes fire, defeat Savage and restore timeline,” Mick recites. “That’s me.”
The guy looks relieved. “So it’s not just me, then,” he says. “I’m Leonard Snart, thief, defeat Savage and restore timeline. Whatever that means.”
“Thief, huh?” Mick asks, pleased that they’re apparently on the same mission. “I got something you can steal.”
He smacks the guy’s ass and he – Leonard Snart, Christ, what a name – jumps a little, but Mick can tell he’s fighting off a grin. That’s promising. Mick might not have his memories, but it looks like he’ll be getting some tonight and he hasn’t even had breakfast yet. He is good.
“Well, that’s sexy,” a female voice pipes up behind him. He turns around and yowza, she’s really hot, too. Did he lose his memory and end up on some sort of pleasure cruise? Does that happen to people?
He grins at her. “You’re welcome to join in,” he says, arching his eyebrows at her. “You’re something sweet yourself.”
The woman – a blonde, shorter than him or “Leonard Snart”, dressed in some sort of white jumpsuit – gives the offer some serious thought. “No,” she finally says reluctantly. “I think I’m tempted, but every time I think about sex, the images I’m getting are a lot more…” She moves her hands in the familiar hourglass shape before pretending to cup something. “You know, cleavage-y.”
“That’s fair,” Mick says reasonably. Can’t hold it against her; hopefully there’s more girls on this hot person boat. Ship? Submarine? He can’t see windows, so who knows?
She grins at them both. “I’d be happy to watch you two, though.”
“No!” the other man exclaims, then looks taken aback. “Huh,” he says. “Apparently I’m shy. Wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“Fair enough,” the woman says.
“You got a name?” Leonard Snart inquires. “And, I assume, some weird factoid and a mission statement? That’s all Mick Rory here and I woke up with.”
“Yeah,” she said a little begrudgingly. “It’s a bit weird, though. Sara Lance, resurrected former assassin, defeat Savage and restore timeline.”
Both men stare at her, then Leonard Snart cracks a grin. “Lesbian zombies,” he says approvingly. “Apparently that’s a thing in the universe. I feel pretty positive about that.”
Sara Lance’s solemn expression cracks and she giggles, then slaps a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Biting her lip to get control of herself, she says, “Yeah, me too. I feel like that’s a movie I’ve watched or something.”
“Possibly even a porno,” Mick says wistfully.
“I have no idea what you guys are talking about and I’m okay with that,” Leonard Snart announces. “Anyone know where breakfast is?”
A voice pops out of nowhere. “The main galley is straight ahead and down the corridor to your left, Mr. Snart.”
They all jump a little. “Who’re you?” Sara Lance asks, assuming what must be some sort of instinctive fighting stance. Mick notes with approval that both he and Leonard Snart have done the same.
“My name is Gideon,” the voice replies. “I’m the artificial intelligence that runs this ship.”
They think about that for a minute, then Mick’s stomach rumbles and that decides them. As they go, he turns to Leonard Snart and says, “Should I be calling you ‘Mr. Snart’, then?”
The man makes a face. “Please, no.”
“Snart?” Sara Lance suggests.
“That’s a terrible name,” Mick replies. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Leonard Snart drawls.
“Leonard isn’t that great either,” Sara objects. Leonard Snart rolls his eyes at both of them.
“What’s a nickname for Leonard, then?” Mick asks. “Leo?”
“Ugh. Len?”
“Lenny?”
“I don’t care what you call me, as long as you pick something,” Leonard Snart interrupts with a slight pout. Mick decides he’s going to use ‘Lenny’, just for that. “Shall we?”
They eat up and – with Gideon’s instruction – head to the bridge. There’s some other people there with the same affliction as them – a black kid (Jefferson Jackson, Firestorm, defeat Savage and restore timeline) and an old guy (Martin Stein, ditto, ditto). There’s also a worried-looking guy in a long brown suit who introduces himself as Rip Hunter, “Rip”, and says he’s their captain (he apparently has all his memories and did not require a post-it note reminder), plus a girl (Kendra Saunders, she says, with a shaky smile) and a tall man (Ray Palmer), both of whom also have their memories.
“So you three are just fine, huh?” Lenny drawls. “That’s…interesting.”
“If by interesting, you mean suspicious,” Mick adds, stepping up beside him. It feels good standing at each other’s shoulders, natural. They’ve clearly worked together before.
“You are all suffering from timeline distortion,” the captain guy – Mick’s already forgotten his name, fairly deliberately – says with annoyance. “Your memories are impaired because of that. Once we restore you to the timeline, you will regain all of your memories.”
“We should probably get on that, then,” Sara says. “I’d like those back stat, thanks.”
“We are in the process of doing that. Now, given your vulnerable states, it is imperative that you listen very carefully to my instructions and follow them implicitly –”
“Not a chance in hell,” Lenny says immediately. Mick nods. He’s not taking orders from this creep. Maybe Lenny. Lenny’s had some pretty decent leadership instincts so far from what he’s seen, what with the breakfast quest and all that. “How ‘bout you tell us what you think you want us to do and we make up our minds, yeah?”
Rip looks put out, but not surprised. Mick knew he was trying to pull one over on them.
By the time they get introduced to the heat and cold gun later on, Mick feels pretty darn satisfied; according to Rip, he and Lenny are partners of some unspecified variety and look, they’ve got matching themes. He’s also learned that Lenny has an irresistible tendency to make puns about everything. Plus, that five minutes they spent in the hallway earlier made it clear that Lenny is both exceedingly flexible and very interested, so yeah, Mick’s feel pretty confident about tonight.
Best of all, he’s gonna get to use his gun. Heat gun. Sweet.
—————
After what Mick can only describe as an exceedingly fun fighting sequence, something called the “Omega Protocols” are called off as Rip negotiates some sort of temporary truce. So they go off to some house in the middle of nowhere, pick up some random kids and babies so they can go “put them back.”
(Mick’s been hanging out with baby thieves? He’s not sure he’s comfortable with that. Lenny looks about the same way, like he’s smelled something nasty.)
After they drop the teenagers off and put the babies back in the hospital, the day is finally over. Finally! Mick drags Lenny back to the room he woke up in, intent of finally collecting on that promise from earlier.
They’ve just stepped through the door in the room when they’re both hit with an intense wave of dizziness, each staggering to the side. When Mick straightens up, he’s got his memories back. The timeline has been restored.
From the look on Len’s face, it’s the same for him.
They both stare at each other in silence for a minute, all the discomfort and uneasy silence and troubles between them rushing back in.
Then something occurs to Mick and he curses.
“Damnit,” he complains. “I was going to get laid tonight.”
Len stares at him for a second, then cracks a grin. “Could still happen,” he allows. “We could always say the memories came back in a half-hour or so.”
Mick thinks about it. It won’t fix anything, far from it, but seriously, he’s been looking forward to this all day.
“I think we could probably stretch that to an hour,” he decides.
“Sounds like a plan to me.”