Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name

[directed]

Who: Rip Hunter and Leonard Snart
Where: Damon's bar
When: June 30
Rating: PG13 max probably?
Summary: One brainwashed former timeship captain and one memory-wiped antihero walk into a bar...
The Story:

While Rip has avoided certain areas where he might have once been frequently found--the second floor and the roof in particular--he's not actively hiding his presence in the mansion. Though he's got little desire to run into any of the more self-righteous members of his former crew, he refuses to be any more of a prisoner than he already is simply by being in this place.

Which is how he ends up in the fourth floor bar, savoring glass of wished-up well-aged whiskey. Unsurprisingly on his own, Rip keeps an eye on room around him. Obvious reasons aside, the bar still has the popularity and unpredictability that come with being new. It's likely as close as one might get to entertainment in this wretched little place.

And things do take a turn for the interesting indeed. Rip steals another sip, turns his eyes towards the door, and sees a rather familiar face walk in. Now, he could go for the gun tucked away at this side, but--Leonard isn't like Ray, or even Sara.

No, at one point in his life, he'd even been convinced to stand on the same side Rip does now.

"Mr. Snart." He greets the man, turning slightly on his stool to better face him. It's equally a question: yes, Rip is here, and he doesn't intend to leave--so what will Leonard do about it?

Comments

[catchacold]

"Yo." Perhaps not the expected response, but Leonard has never been much one for the expected. On the other hand, Rip is also better than most at knowing what to expect. He also knows a little bit more than everyone else, at least where Leonard's personal history is concerned.

So Leonard doesn't go for his own gun either, instead he simply sits down near him, reaching for his flask, in spite of being at a bar. He holds it out for Rip. "Do you want some? Might as well. It's yours."

Rip has good taste in alcohol, what can he say?

[directed]

A fair enough response, and one that suits Rip well enough in the end. The man sits close by, and while Rip does watch rather closely when Leonard goes for some unseen object, he's relaxed even before he realizes it's a flask.

He's been on the other end of Leonard's ire, and his cold gun before. Rip remembers what it looks like.

"I'm rather set, thanks." Holding up his tumbler, he even takes another sip before setting it back down on the bar. "Although I will say, that's easily the warmest greeting I've gotten from any of you lot since my return."

A touch ironic, considering exactly who he's speaking to.

[catchacold]

After opening the flask and taking a sip, clearly in no hurry to answer, Leonard settles for a slight shrug at first, considering Rip before finally talking again. "I'm not a big joiner."

His team playing has always been very dependent on circumstances and at the moment? The circumstances are confusing, as per usual in Wonderland. "Besides, you don't have an issue with me. Whatever you are after, here or back there, ain't as if I'm about to stand in your way."

He lifts a hand running his index finger across his throat. He's dead. But that's not all there is to that and they've talked about it before, not that long ago. Rip has changed. "For all I know, you're closer to being on my side than you've ever been before."

[directed]

"Not unless it suits your purposes." And that is a trait that Rip can now better appreciate more than ever. Out of all of the Legends, Mick and Leonard both had been the ones to sign on for their own selfish reasons at first, not to make some difference in the world but instead to gain what they could for themselves from history.

At least, that's how it had been at the start. But so much has changed, hasn't it? At the start, there were a great many things Rip wouldn't do, even if it meant getting what he wanted most.

How very foolish he'd been.

Yet he isn't so immediately convinced that Leonard won't stand on the side of the angels if it came down to that. While Rip's aware that there had been one person Leonard died for at the Oculus (and yes, that the man had died; honestly, he brings it up in nearly every conversation), that person remains a Legend.

No matter how the pair of them might try to deny it.

He's not unwilling to hear Leonard out, however. For all he knows, and Rip grins rather easily. "Yes, because you were drawn from the timeline and convinced to join the Legion as well. Sad to say that it hasn't happened--yet. Perhaps soon."

From Rip's perspective, at least. "Not that you'll remember it either way, thanks to the team."

[catchacold]

"Yeah, I ain't sure what to make of that. I've always had a good memory." Numbers, blueprints, all sorts of things that had come in handy, first for Lewis and later on, on a much more successful scale, for Leonard himself. The thought of an erased memory was unsettling for many reasons. He was used to trusting his mind. This was why he'd talked to Rip about it in the first place, before this new development. It didn't really matter, logically, whether he had already experienced what Eobard had told him or not. But the thought of not knowing was unsettling.

"Only so many ways to keep the timeline from collapsing, after the plan failed." Because this much he knew from Eobard. He'd failed. Which also meant... "So, what do you think, Rip? Are you going to influence how things will go from here?"

[directed]

"What else can you trust, if not your own mind?"

Leonard may not spell out those thoughts, but Rip can guess at them all the same. Because of his own insistence on keeping mum about the future, there's every chance Leonard doesn't know about any of the life he lived as Phil, or the fear he'd felt when everyone around him, friend and enemy and torturers insisted he knew something more than he said, that he was a different person completely.

But the point he brings up is an important one. Somehow, with Rip and presumably Leonard both on the side of the Legion, in the end they still somehow manage a final victory. Rip can only presumes that means they equally achieve their goal--they manage to "fix" him somehow, turn him back into the weak-willed puppet he used to be.

"Who's to say, Mr. Snart?" As it stands it does seem rather impossible--but. "Either way, I'm not willing to simply roll over and let it happen. Even if the effort is for naught, I've had more than enough of not doing as I can for some fear of disrupting time."

[catchacold]

"Eh." Leonard lifts his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug, evidently still not inclined to even do so much as to threaten Rip. It seems to be an equal sort of truce of perhaps simple disinterest for the moment. "I was never a huge believer in not doing whatever I wanted."

Which doesn't mean that he doesn't have a code. It just also means that he's always wanted to keep to that code and when he hadn't, it merely had to be adapted. The joy of free will.

"What is your goal anyway? I'm not sure anyone ever really explained your motivations to me. Evil Rip. I'm a bit behind the times, you understand." Literally.

[directed]

He hardly needs glamorous or drawn out reasons to accept it. Leonard admits himself a few seconds later that he would do what he deemed suitable, regardless of what might be said to the contrary. It might make him unreliable as an ally but it equally means that they may not be enemies—at least not just then. Leonard does have his loyalties; he may not care to admit to them, but Rip has seen them evidenced more than once during their time both on the Waverider and in Wonderland.

He takes another slow sip of his drink, then motions to the person behind the bar for another. The brief interaction gives Rip time to consider Leonard's question. On the surface it might be idle curiosity, but Rip has never been one to give out details carelessly. What he reveals serves a purpose, always, even now when the preservation of history doesn't stand as his primary concern.

"It's called the Spear of Destiny." If no one's told him about it, then Rip can fill in those details readily enough. So far, it's nothing Leonard wouldn't be able to learn from the Legends anyway. "It was used to pierce the side of Christ at the crucifixion, and in the process, became imbued with his power.

"With it, the wielder can actually reshape reality itself." To correct mistakes made, that should have never been allowed to happen—but that's telling too much just now. Let Leonard infer it if he can. "And not in the same way that happens when time is altered; that can be undone. Only the Spear can change what it creates. It holds the very power of God."