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There’s a bar in one of the more run-down corners of Central City called Saints & Sinners. The sign is as run-down as the building. The door’s as shabby as the rest of it, but is clearly newer – it keeps having to be replaced when people get thrown out through it. It’s something of a gathering ground for the neighborhood; men and women with a clear criminal bent peaceably sharing space with neighbors and local shop owners, all of whom know that they won’t get cheated or looked down in here.
There are many women. They are left undisturbed by the men, even after a few rounds; the prostitutes kick off their shoes and put their feet up, gossiping with the respectable shop ladies, stay-at-home moms and the occasional journalist that wanders by. No one would risk the wrath of the owners by disturbing them and their drinks are usually on the house.
There’s the usual assortment of tacky wall posters from every era imaginable, but in pride of place at the side of the bar, not far from the TVs for watching sports, is a simple wooden frame surrounding a dark brown handprint. Rumor has it that the first person who tried to deal drugs in this bar after their first warning got their hand cut off and hammered to the wall.
The blonde behind the bar smiles when the story is mentioned to her and refuses to confirm or deny. She dresses all in white, an odd choice for a bartender, but her balance is perfect and she never spills a drop. There’s a sign offering a night’s worth of free drinks to anyone who can outdrink her, with a list of the names of successful former winners beneath it.
That list is empty.
Sometimes the owners come in. They have the closest table to the bar – not the one with the best view of the room, nor the most central, but somewhere with walls on virtually every side and the usual bartender to their right. Sometimes they are dressed down, one all in black and the other in muted greens or tans; other times, they appear in outfits familiar to the eye – a blue parka, a fireman’s jacket, strange weapons strapped to their thighs – but no one in the bar mentions this. Sometimes they are joined by a brunette woman with gold glittering from her neck and ears. Other times it is a young man, also a brunette; he seems twitchy and sometimes moves a little too fast when he drinks from a special mixture the bartender keeps under the bar, just for him.
It’s rude to stare.
This isn’t a place where you want to be rude.
---------------------------
After spending six days in the piece of shit bar that she’s found, way on the outskirts of Central, no one is willing to go up against Sara in a drinking contest any more. They’re all pathetic. She came here because she knew it was a hotspot for the black market, a mob joint, a place where only criminals go because they want to swap information or get hired. If the entire place went up in flames, no one would miss it.
She orders herself another drink, knocking back the last one. She doesn’t know how many she’s had tonight, but it’s not enough. She can’t count them anymore. She’s just counting time, now; counting time until the end.
“Cards or heads?” the man in the stool next to her drawls. She didn’t see him come in or sit down, but then again, she’s not keeping an eye out for him.
Still, that sentence didn’t make much sense even now that she’s listening. “What’s that?” she asks, wondering if it was some new pick-up line.
“You want to play cards or bust heads?” he says. He’s tall, with close-cut hair that’s starting to be peppered with grey and eyes like the sky over Nanda Parbat on a cloudy day, body lean and strong; no immediate weak spots other than the usual – his stance is relaxed but guarded; unlike most of the people here, she couldn’t just reach over and snap his neck, she’d have to take out his legs first, go for the throat, maybe with a knife…
She shakes her head a little to clear it. “What makes you think I want to do either?”
“The way you’re drinking, you’ve either lost someone or someone’s coming after you, and you’ve given in to the inevitable and are just here killing time,” he says as if it’s obvious. “You’re drinking, but it’s not doing it for you, so you’re either going to pass time busting heads in the next bar fight – or, if you like, we can play cards.”
He produces a deck from his jacket.
Sara looks at him dryly. “If you want to have sex, you should just ask,” she says. “I might even say yes. You’ve got pretty eyes.”
“I’ve got a pretty face all around,” the guy says (he’s not wrong). “But no, thank you. Not that you’re not cute, but I’m really not in the mood.”
Sara’s interest sharpens. “You also here to play cards or bust heads, then?” she asks. “Someone coming after you?”
His smile is hard and not particularly sympathetic. “No, for me it’s the other one. What’s your game?”
She tells him and he deals.
Sara fully expects to be bored – she was never really into card games – but the guy has this laser-sharp focus on it that heats her blood, makes her competitive, and he’s good, too. The first time she notices him cheating she ignores it; the third time, she calls him out on it; by the sixth she’s trying her best to cheat him in return. Central City rules, he calls them with a smirk; do what you can, where you can, how you can.
The guy – who introduces himself as Len when she asks after four hours; four hours in which she drinks only two glasses and is amazed – comes back the next night, and the night after that. On the fourth night, she’s not in the mood for cards; he joins her for a drink or two, then throws a chair at someone’s head. Surprised into laughing for what may be the first time in a while, Sara jumps in. Busting heads is also surprisingly cathartic.
She asks him what he’s waiting for.
Len shrugs. “I came here for a reason.” His eyes are distant. “I’m not ready yet,” he says, and he’s not talking entirely to her. “This is as good a place as any for now. I figured I’d see you out first.”
Sara doesn’t question it. He knows she’s counting down the days.
Len’s very good company – she very nearly forgets why she’s there, waiting. Then She comes.
Nyssa.
“My Beloved,” her lover whispers in the dark.
Sara walks into the bar, leaving that voice behind in the dark. She’s not sure if she’s dreaming it, but she knows Nyssa’s found her. She knows Nyssa is coming for her.
She tries to convince Len to leave her alone, but he shakes his head. “I’m waiting for something,” he tells her. “I’m not leaving till I get it.”
When the assassins come, they don’t fit in with the bar at all. That’s the reason she picked it, all scratched-up plastic and deadened faux-wood; there’s nothing natural here for them to blend with.
“Ra’s Al Ghul has ordered your return,” the leader of the three says, just like the first one did.
Sara isn’t going to go back on the say so of some flunky. If Nyssa wants her, she’d better come herself; Starling should have shown her that.
“I’m not going back,” she says, echoing her part in the conversation. Everyone’s playing their part, hewing to the script. She begins to tense her muscles, knowing they will try to attack her, knowing she will defeat them, likely at the cost of the bar. Just like in Starling.
“That is not your decision.”
Len turns on his stool and shoots the leader in the head, then the other two in quick succession. His aim is perfect. Sara hadn’t even realized he was armed.
That was not in the script.
“What’d you do that for?” Sara asks blankly as he drops the gun onto the surface of the bar with a moue of distaste.
“I don’t know how it is in Starling,” he drawls. “But in Central we like to respect it when a lady says ‘no’.” His eyes flit to the side of the bar. “Even when it’s to another lady. Won’t you join us?”
Nyssa steps out from the shadows. Sara’s heart hurts to look at her. She’s so beautiful. Sara reaches for her drink, finishes it off with one long swallow.
“You have found allies once more, my Beloved,” Nyssa says, smiling at her. “They will not be able to help you.”
“I guess they don’t teach ‘no means no’ over in wherever you’re from,” Len drawls, taking no offense. Everyone else in the bar has wisely left by now. “Trust me, whatever you want from Sara here, you’re not going to get it.”
Nyssa stiffens at his words. “One does not leave the League of Assassins,” she says sharply. “I will not grant Ta-er al-Asfer her freedom simply because she is the Beloved. There is only one freedom.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Sara says, as if it will help. She rises slowly to her feet. “I can’t, Nyssa; I’m sorry. I’d rather die. I’ll take that freedom.”
“And then no one gets what they want,” Len says. “This seems poorly planned out and excessively dramatic on both your sides.”
“You’re not helping,” Sara hisses.
“If I ever gave you the impression that I was a helpful sort of person, I really must apologize.” Len leans back against the bar. “Don’t worry, I’ll limit myself to sarcastic comments. Ninja assassins aren’t quite my beat.”
“Then you know that you should stand aside and be quiet if you wish to live,” Nyssa says.
“I know if you do defeat Sara and take her home, you’ll be locking her in a prison,” Len says. He’s not smiling. “It won’t work.”
“You would risk so much for someone you’ve known for so little time?” Nyssa asks, frowning. She’s been watching them, because of course she has.
Len’s eyes are dark and his face twists. “Not for her, actually,” he says to Nyssa. “For you. Trust me, take if from someone who’s been on your side of the equation: if the one you want wants something more than they want you, let them go. Better to lose them fair and square than to grab hold and have them lose themselves just to get away from you.”
“That will not happen,” Nyssa says confidently.
“Then why did Sara here swallow poison tonight upon the sight of you?”
Should’ve remembered Len’s sharp eyes, Sara thinks, and smiles as she falls. Nyssa cries out in pain.
There’s only one freedom from the League. Better to die where no one will ever find her than to live another day a killer for them. That should keep her family safe, back in Starling; that would keep them all safe.
When she wakes up, the poison flushed from her system by familiar herbs that she can still smell, there are flames. Nyssa and Len stand side by side, watching the bar they were in burn.
Nyssa turns and regards her tearfully. “I give you your freedom, my Beloved,” she whispers, giving her one last kiss and fading into the night.
Len’s still staring at the flames. He doesn’t look happy.
“That what you were waiting for?” Sara croaks. “To light a pyre?”
“An effigy.”
“Who are you burning?”
“Myself.”
“What did you do?”
“I left someone behind.”
-----------------------------------------------
Len is a thief, Sara discovers, and he’s not boasting when he says he’s very good.
Most people become criminals because they’re lazy, because they want the one big score that will set them up for life.
Len robs high end jewelry stores, art museum, banks, convenience stores, ATMs, and – in one memorable moment – a hot dog stand. The money piles up and still he keeps working, planning, scheming. She’d think it was a compulsion, but she knows how compulsions go, and the fact that she can reliably draw him away from his work for a game of cards means that this isn’t obsession.
It’s grief.
Len’s a hell of a talker, but he doesn’t actually say anything; Sara has to feel around the subject. She breaks her vow of silence and tells him about the Lazarus Pits; he’s amused but disinterested. Whoever he lost is not dead, then, merely gone.
Len is so cold, so smooth; he smiles so well that for weeks on end she’ll forget how sad he is.
The cold gun makes him happy.
No, that’s not quite true. It delights him, to be sure; Len’s an adrenaline junkie at heart and dressing up to play superhero and supervillain appeals to his sense of the ridiculous as well (indeed, he takes such a pleasure in the sheer absurdity of it that she opts not to bring up her past as the Black Canary until a moment when she wants him to laugh.)
He’s amused, but he’s not happy.
It’s not until he shows up after that first heist, a pyromaniac in tow, that she ever sees him happy.
“Who’s the bird?” the big guy asks.
“Funny you should say that, Mick,” Len drawls. He’s not smiling, but there’s joy in his eyes that’s truer than any of his smiles. “This is Ta-er al-Asfer or, as we English-speakers call her, the Canary. I call her Sara. We're keeping her.”
Mick grunts, nods at her. “You part of the heist?” he asks.
Sara shakes her head. If Len had asked her, she might’ve agreed, but this isn’t a group event. This is a homecoming. She’s not going to get in the way.
Turns out that Mick can drink nearly as much as she can and has a wicked way with cards. He also takes literally none of Len’s shit. Sara warms to him immediately.
An hour before they head out, Len takes Sara by her shoulders. “Sara,” he says very seriously, or as seriously as he can while wearing that absurd parka he’s adopted for his supervillain uniform. “Tonight we’re going after the Flash.”
“Yes…?”
“We’re either going to kill him or he’s going to stop us, and if he does that, then we’re probably going to prison. I’ve already arranged a rescue from prison if we need it, so you don’t need to worry about that,” he says. “But there’s something very important that I need you to do for me.”
“What?” she asks. He knows she’ll do just about anything for him – and the fact that he’s never asked for anything she wasn’t willing to give is why.
“Don’t sleep with my sister.”
Sara agrees, bemused.
(She meets Lisa Snart less than two days later. She regrets her promise immediately. Damnit, Sara, the pretty gene runs in families; why didn’t she remember that?)
They end up buying out Saints and Sinners when the owner gets the idea into his head that it’s going to turn into a supervillain lair, just because it’s their favorite bar, and throws the deed in their face.
Sara points out that now that they have it, they may as well turn it into a supervillain lair. But also a bar, because it would be a shame to miss such a wonderful business opportunity.
Len, absurd man that he is, says he knows someone who can help them with renovations. Lisa starts laughing.
Mick and Sara are confused right up until the Flash shows up and works construction for a while. Sara doesn’t even want to know how that happened. Lisa brings some guy named Cisco, who apparently knows her sister (he improved Laurel’s sonic blasts into a choker, which Sara approves of entirely and puts in an order for – he says he doesn’t make supervillain gear, but Sara’s confident that Lisa can convince him to make an exception or four) and he tinkers around with the TVs until they show a startlingly large number of channels.
Life is good.
Sara vows to herself that she’s not going to do anything to screw with the sweet set-up they have.
Naturally, about a week later, she ends up sleeping with Mick.
One of their heists is on a liquor import business and there’s this brand of tequila Sara’s never even heard of, and Len goes off to fence most of it but she and Mick keep a crate back for themselves, and somehow she wakes up the next morning with a headache and without her clothing.
Oh, she remembers all of last night and she wouldn’t exactly be adverse to trying it again (several more times at least), but Mick’s Mick. More to the point, Mick’s Len’s, and Len’s a possessive bastard. Sara panics quietly for a few minutes. She doesn’t want to lose her comfortable place here, damnit, not for something this stupid.
Mick wakes up and reaches for her.
She slaps his hand.
“What?” he says, sleepy and bemused. “Not a fan of morning sex?”
“Shhhh,” she hisses. “Len’ll hear you.”
“Yeah, he probably will,” Mick says, puzzled. “So?”
“You’re not even a little bit concerned about his reaction?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s adopted you by now; I don’t know what you’re so fidgety about…”
Len wanders in through the door with a bag of cash just as they’re arguing. Still naked, still in bed together. He stops and blinks owlishly at them.
Sara pulls up the covers. “Uh, hi?”
“No, give me a second,” Len says thoughtfully. “I need to process the appropriate reaction here.”
“And the appropriate reaction is?” she asks. He’s not as upset as she would’ve thought.
Len thinks for another second, then nods decisively. He walks straight up to the bed and offers up a palm to Mick. “Congrats, you got laid,” he says, voice deadpan.
Mick high fives him. Sara’s eyebrows arch straight up to her hairline.
Then Len turns to her and offers her a palm. “Congrats,” he says in the exact same tone. “You got laid.”
Without anything better to do, she high fives him too.
“Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going to go count our money to make sure the guy didn’t fleece us. If you’re going to have morning sex, please keep the noise down to a manageable level.”
Len exits, stage left.
Sara’s gaping a little bit, she’ll admit it.
Mick looks at her hopefully. “So…”
“He doesn’t mind?” she says, still puzzled. That is the reaction she would’ve expected from a friend with Len’s sense of humor (she’s definitely done the “I got some yesterday” high five with him before after some very sweet ladies exited her room), but Len and Mick, they’re not friends, that much is obvious to a blind man. “I mean, the two of you…”
Mick laughs. It’s a warm laugh. “Lenny’s a bit picky,” he says fondly. “Just because the stars have the be in the right alignment for him to want to do anything – and trust me, blondie, it’s real good when they do, you should look forward to that – doesn’t mean he expect us to wait around for him.”
Sara blinks. “What do you mean I should look forward to that?” she asks.
Mick gave her a look of surprise. “You don’t want him?” he asks. “I mean, why not?”
Sara considered this. She wasn’t going to lie, she did want Len and had more or less since she’d met, with the ache shifting from pure lust to actual longing long ago, and she’d resigned herself to Len’s attentions being paid in a purely platonic way, but if what Mick was saying was right…and he’d know, being Len’s closest and oldest more-than-a-friend…
She turns, letting the blanket fall, and grins at Mick. “So,” she says mischievously. “Do you think we can keep the noise down?”
Mick grins back. “I’m sure Lenny will forgive us,” he says confidently.
(Len ends up walking in on them during round two, possibly three, and throwing a bucket of water at them in revenge. It’s worth it. A month or two after that, Len suddenly turns to the two of them in the middle of a movie and suggests taking their little ménage elsewhere. Four blissful and exhausting days later, he shuts right back off again, more absorbed in his plans than them. Still, Mick was right; it was totally worth it. She’s definitely sticking around for an encore.)
------------------------------------------
A man from the future grabs Len and Mick from a small-time heist and Sara from a business trip to Siberia to hunt down a type of vodka she’d only had once, in the League, that she was hoping to introduce to Central City – she suspected it might be the answer to their Barry problem – and deposits them all on a rooftop in Starling.
Sara mutters bitterly about needing to make that horrific plane flight again.
She quiets down when the English guy makes his presentation.
For a second there, the Black Canary screams within her, urging her to go out, to fight, to save the world, to live up to being the hero she could have been if she’d wanted to –
But no. She gave up heroism, or rather, she gave it to Laurel. She still shoots Laurel fighting tips by text, now that she’d gotten over her fear of revealing herself and groveled over the boyfriend thing (they’d agreed that Laurel getting to take Sara’s only slightly-used superhero identity was a good trade, with Sara taking on a new color for her new incarnation as a supervillain). She’s not going to risk the life she has now for something so cold and empty as that.
Sara glances at Len and Mick. Len looks intrigued despite himself, but he would, the adrenaline junkie. Mick glances at her and rolls his eyes.
Two votes against one, they choose to stay.
Sara makes the mistake of giving their number out in case of emergency.
Less than an hour later, Jax calls them frantically because apparently everything’s gone to hell in a hand basket over the five months (five months?!) they’ve been gone. The story’s great, if tragic, and with some quick reading, Len and Mick are able to help him and Stein repair the jump ship.
Sara brings her sonic blaster, her quarterstaff and her favorite rocket launcher and does her part for heroism by blowing the Oculus sky high from an appropriate distance. The Time Masters aren’t expecting them and don’t have adequate protections against Mick’s heat or Len’s cold.
They take the jump ship home and wish the others well on their Savage quest.
It fits just right on the roof of Saints.