Most of his wounds are healing pretty well, the burns are the worst of it, and the residual bone-deep pain he can't seem to shake. He's at least reached the point of the healing process where he's getting tired of laying around and might even start getting borderline belligerent about it soon.
Lisa's presence on the Waverider while he's been laid up in medical has been...something. Something else entirely, really. He was never supposed to see her again. Or anyone. He had accepted that it was it, it was the end and that was the way the cookie had to crumble. And now... now he's back and he still has no idea how to feel about it. Even this many days in, it's still surreal and feels fake a lot of the time. It's hard to reconcile. Apparently that happens when you get stuck in the timestream for as long as Leonard had been.
There's a conversation he needs to have, though, without anyone else hovering. So, he barks at his visitors to go but as he tries to follow suit, Leonard snatches Mick's wrist. "Not you. You stay." He has to figure this out, and he can't do that on his own.
Here it came. The moment he didn't want to have, the moment he was doomed to have and still had no idea how to approach, escape or avoid it. He'd been trying since everything had kicked off to keep a step back while he worked out how he felt, what was going on inside him and basically how to cope. He and Leonard didn't do feelings, they weren't like that and Mick had so many things he wanted to say but he couldn't say them to him. Not ever.
He'd rode this recovery thing out by being nearby, talking to him about random shit and drinking. Never once did he approach anything emotionally because he just had no idea how to, he wasn't like that.
Lisa helped, she was the one that was here to feel for Snart, to be there for him. She wasn't any better than they were at emotions but she didn't have the same level of baggage and macho idiocy, he knew she could be there for Leonard and he knew that'd help him along. He was hoping that'd be enough to get Leonard through. He looked down at the hand on his wrist and grunted lightly, almost dismissive like this whole thing wasn't a big deal. In his other hand was a beer he'd been nursing and he slowly drank some down while everyone else started to filter out. When the room was empty, he looked at the wall instead of his friend and lowered his beer.
"You got something to tell me, boss?" Boss. Just gotta make some emotional distance here so he could get through this.
Feelings are messy and complicated at best and the two of them? Well, they just make it all the worse. Neither of them know how to handle emotions, really. Where other people get through issues with words, they sort theirs with fists.
But sometimes, on a rare occasion, that just doesn't work.
He's noticed the distance--and the difference--in Mick. The way he's hanging back unless it's to talk about old times or any random thing that isn't this situation or what led them here. And it isn't so much that Leonard minds it, he prefers it this way, but they had to face the music at some point, didn't they?
There are a few different roads he could take, here, but right now? He needs to figure out what happens after this. Mostly, it's for Lisa's sake, or that's what he tells himself.
He ignores the verbal separation between them--what gave him the right, anyway? to pull him back, and then act like this?--and drops his fingers away from Mick's wrist. "What's the plan, when I'm not confined to the healing powers of bedrest?"
"Dunno. You're the man with the plan. I'm the muscle. I don't do plans, I hate plans." He could never stick to them and his brain didn't work like that. It wasn't that he had no concept of a plan or how to work one, he just found it impossible to express what his plan was to anyone but himself - it seemed right in his head but never executed well cause he didn't make note of everything that could happen like Leonard did.
This situation though, this was different. He didn't have a good plan or even a plan at all. He didn't know what to do.
What was the answer? Go back to the Waverider like old times, him and Leonard? Or try and hit up Central City again, to play that game and pretend everything was like it used to be? Mick couldn't do that. He wasn't that man any more.
Did Leonard know that? Would he accept that? Mick just didn't know. He had no idea how to verbalise it either. That was talking feelings, emotions, the future and everything ahead. And Mick didn't want to. There were no easy answers to offer. "What do you want to do?"
Leonard was the one that died. Surely he got the first say?
"Lisa says she's going wherever we do, and I don't think we're gonna budge her on this one." Which, of course, influences Leonard's decision all the way around. Because they already know the kind of dangers that come attached to that ship, and protecting his baby sister has always been a top priority. Couldn't risk her that way, could he?
That said, he doesn't know where else to go from here. He isn't who he used to be anymore than Mick is. The idea of returning to Central City didn't appeal any more than sticking around the Waverider. "I dunno...maybe it'd be easier if we just go somewhere new, start over." That's the thing he keeps coming back around to when he considers a next step. The three of them, leaving everything behind and never looking back.
Good, whatever plan he had would influence Lisa and Leonard, making anything that went wrong on him. Mick huffed a little and decided that there was no easy answer to this, no solution he could give that would work so he just decided to spitball and see what happened. He walked across the room, pulled himself up onto a nearby table and sat there, sipping his beer.
"Aruba." Mick nodded his head slowly, firm in his belief that all good plans start with Aruba. "I dunno what you two nerds are going to do but I'm going to go to Aruba. Gonna get drunk, enjoy the sunshine, maybe surf - I ain't been surfing since I was young, you know? I'll wipe out but I'll get there again. Just like riding a bike. I'll see the hot girls in their bikinis, maybe flirt a little. Nothing too serious, I ain't rushing into things." Besides, he has a Leonard so it's not like he could really date/flirt/do anything but rubberneck. Honestly, Mick knows this plan is a dumb fantasy but he's rather that than put their life in his hands and make a hard call.
"You two can come if you want but you're paying for your own room and drinks."
Leonard can't help the amused scoff at the suggestion, "You're never giving that one up, are you?" Mick had literally been trying to get to Aruba for something over twenty years now. Little else has seen the neverending focus from the arsonist quite like the idea of Aruba. Leonard is pretty sure that after all of this time, nothing will live up to the fantasy of it in Mick's head now. "And anyway, isn't it more of a vacation spot than a place you settle down in?"
And isn't that a weird concept. Settling down. Like that was something either of them had ever really considered or assumed as an option in their lives at all.
"Could be both. Why can't it be both? I like to think I'll retire on a beach. Just sit around all day in the heat. Sounds real nice." He didn't think he'd make it to retiring age but it was always nice to dream. To imagine that one day he'd just lie around in the sand and not have a single worry. If only that was possible now.
He looked down and eyed his beer, finding it easier to look at that than look at Leonard. "I ain't gonna leave the team. I ain't saying I adore them or nothing but they're my team. I carry those idiots. I'm not going to abandon them." Which he knows is a problem here because he doesn't want to risk Leonard and Lisa either. "You two -- you two can always go on without me, you know?"
"Too hot," he argues, mostly for the sake of it, but also because it's true. One of their pettier back and forths through the years-- let him just say, trying to get a thermostat in an apartment or a hotel room adjusted to something that's fine for both of them sure is a feat.
Somehow, that isn't what he expected. The only visible sign of a reaction is an all too subtle twitch of his fingers, "What?" Now, a frown sketches across his face. "No. I promised her we'd be together, the three of us." He doesn't add it in, but 'Don't make me break my promise.' hangs in the air between them anyway.
But more than that, even, the more he considers it, the more the whole idea of it pisses him off. "Don't try to tell me that you went to all this trouble to get me back just to choose them over me." Later, he'll chalk up the loose lipped way he's going at this to the pain meds, but the truth is that the whole thing is just too much. Everything has been too much, too heavy, too far out of his depths to know how to handle since he woke up, barely lucid, on the ship again.
"What was the point, Mick?" His voice is rising to match the anger bubbling under his skin. "Why bother when you could have left it all alone? I'd accepted the end! It was over! Scattered in the time stream, I was nothing. Not dead, not alive, I had no concept of any of it until you brought me back." He's moved, with some tense difficulty that he's steadfastly ignoring just now, to stand in front of Mick. "So tell me why."
Mick isn't sure how to deal with this, he didn't know how to explain what he did or why he did what he did, he just needed Leonard to be alive. He wanted him with him, he wanted Leonard to always be there but Leonard didn't seem keen on the idea of staying on the Waverider and Lisa was now added to the complication. He didn't want her on the team because of how dangerous it could be. Mick was silent, just letting Leonard get worked up while he took it, not sure what to say.
He didn't want to leave the team, he felt like he belonged with these idiots but Leonard was his partner, he was the one he was supposed to be with.
"I'm not saying I never see your ass again, I'd visit and stuff. It's a time machine. It ain't like we'd never see each other. It's just --"
He cut himself off and looked down, playing with the label on his beer bottle. "I'm not choosing anyone. If I had to, it'd be you and Lisa." But he thought he wouldn't be pressed to pick, he thought he'd have more time, that things would be different and he know by now what he wanted. Different how? He didn't know. He was struggling to reconcile all of this with his life now and all it gave him was a headache. "I had to bring you back. It wasn't an option not to. I had the chance, I took it. Tell me you wouldn't have done the same for me."
Even without a plan, even without knowing where they'd go next, he had to do it.
"I don't want visits, Mick, I want--" Him, a life with him, but like hell he can actually put words to that, so he just shoves Mick's shoulders and takes a few steps back from him instead.
He scrubs a hand down his face, trying to figure out how to process this. He's completely torn in half about what to do. He doesn't want Lisa on the ship, he doesn't want to risk her like that, but the idea of not having Mick around is a little more than he knows how to wrap his head around right now. Him and Lisa? They're what's grounding him in all this back from the dead bullshit that feels too far out his realm to grasp half the time. He hadn't expected the fight, for Mick to want anything less than exactly whatever Leonard suggested.
What does he want? For this to be easy, for Mick to agree and the three of them to start over somewhere new, away from their old lives, away from the Legends. Not that he's at all sure what a new life would look like. What would they do? They aren't the men they used to be. But that doesn't mean they're going to go get nine-to-fives, either, does it? So where did that leave them? He isn't sure, he hasn't gotten that far, but...he had thought they'd work out those details together. "Doesn't sound like I can have what I want, so I don't know, now."
It was a difficult issue and a small, really small and petty, part of him wanted to snap and yell about how Leonard left him first. He was happy to find his way in the world with just Leonard but Leonard wanted more, he aimed higher and when the chips were down, he took a stand and took himself out of the world. Out of Mick's world. It wasn't like he ever wanted to be in this situation - he wanted to steal some shit from time and space and go back home about two years ago now. He wanted what they had before so much then and now it wasn't even an option any more.
He didn't expect to have to make his way through everything alone but he did, he did it and he kept on surviving by himself. And he changed, he realised when he saw Snart last time, they had both changed a lot and while Leonard was exactly in a place to murder him like the one before, he was different from what he experienced and how he'd been. The way he bowed out had to have left an impact.
The dynamic between them was different. He wasn't the boss of Mick any more and Mick wasn't sure who he was any more, not enough to commit to anything right now. "You'd get bored." Mick sighed and looked up, trying not to look away and wuss out. "If we ran away somewhere nice and just relaxed, we'd all get pissed off and want to leave. Let's face it, you ain't fixing to retire here. We need a game plan, we always have a plan, don't we? Right now, we're at a loose end."
And he had to choose, if he really had to, he'd choose Leonard every time. He knew that. He just hated that he had to make that decision. "I dunno, I like what I got here and I feel like I got a purpose, a reason, but..." There was a beat and Mick huffed in frustration. "You know if you want me, you're gonna get me. We both know that, no matter what I say."
"People change." It's a generally known and understood fact of life. He'd said as much to Mick once. He knew, they both knew, even then when he'd stranded Mick on his own, that he had changed. And he only evolved further the more time went, until he became the person that sacrificed everything. If he thinks about the broadstrokes of it all, he just has a really bad habit of leaving. Of leaving Mick behind, in more ways than one.
And now the tables are turned.
Or borderline, at least. The option is on the table. Mick could make that choice for real--them over him, the team, the purpose, the changes. Would he make that choice, in the end? Probably not. Maybe. Doesn't matter, because the option is what makes Leonard's footing so uneven right now. There was a time when it wouldn't have been a choice at all, because neither of them would have debated it at all--each other over all else, it had been the way of things for decades. But it isn't all so simple anymore.
Never was simple to begin with. Nothing with them ever is, truly.
"If we go somewhere, leave everything else behind...how much are you gonna resent it in a year, five, fifteen?" That, of course, isn't the real question. Leonard doesn't care about the decision-- what he really means is how much will Mick resent him, for forcing his hand. Because even if he didn't do it overtly, he knows in the end that's what it is. Mick siding with him for the sake of siding with him or not losing him, is a manipulation all on its own, even if it's ultimately out of his hands.
"Ah. A stalemate! Rip taught me that one, we played a little chess recently. He sucked at it." Mick grinned a bitter grin and raised his beer to Leonard because yes, they were playing this game and they were trapped. Mick had to want to go and do the thing he wasn't sure he wanted to do. And the last time he followed Leonard into one of his brilliant plans, Leonard discovered he no longer needed Mick. Mick knew he was needed here, he knew he would always have something to do, someone to fight for, a purpose in life. With Leonard? Who even knew any more? He wanted to trust him, he wanted to believe they could be together but the evidence was questionable.
Mick had been in a place he liked before, left it for Leonard and got literally tossed aside so Leonard could pursue whatever fancy he had. And Mick, he didn't answer to Leonard any more, he didn't have to tell him yes, he didn't have to do what he wanted but he still wanted to. Out of loyalty. Oh, fuck it, out of love. He loved the annoying bastard.
If he didn't take his side, he lost out on his partner - the person he spent so long trying to get back but how did he even know this would last this time? There was no easy answer and he was done trying to work it out.
"Knowing our history, Snart, how about we ask you that question? You want me now cause you don't have me so say you have me again, how long are you going to want me?" Mick knew that was a cruel blow but it wasn't one he was feeling like ignoring. If he went with him, how was this going to end? What was he really going to benefit? "Cause I dunno if it's resentment, I don't think it is. I know you don't feel that way about me but you also get an itch that you gotta scratch and no one else matters when that happens. Then what happens to me?"
Another time, he might have been more intrigued by that comment, but right now Leonard doesn't care about Rip or chess. He cares about the way none of this is landing where he wants it to. And that's always a problem, isn't it? Because one thing Leonard can't stand is not being in control and not an ounce of this is in his control-- it's in Mick's. The decision is in Mick's hands, and no matter how he wants to look at it or how he might try to frame it, that's the problem.
The assumption--accusation?--that he only wants what he doesn't currently have burns underneath his skin, hot and sticky and untrue. ....Isn't it? Of course it is. That may be part of it, but it's not the whole driving force because there's more to it, there's always more, and there's too many years between them to say it's just boiled down to sandbox behavior. Mick isn't a toy to be fought over or left forgotten on a playground when he's done.
But that's exactly how Leonard's played his hand and made Mick feel, isn't it?
He sinks down onto the bed again, legs hanging over the edge because he refuses to lay down, he's done enough of that lately, thanks, suddenly too exhausted to stand any more. Maybe it's the weight of all of this pushing him down. There hasn't been a time, in more years than fingers he has to count, that Leonard has really felt so much still like that scared kid in juvie that nearly died than he does in this moment. Not that he'd say it or admit as much, but it's there, in the bubble of panic in his chest, the incessant pounding in his head, in the uncertainty that's sinking down and settling deep into his bones.
He can't be here--here on the ship, here in some no name town, any version of here--alive when he knows he shouldn't be and he knew it was the end of his story, and deal with everything that comes attached to knowing it, without Mick. That's the one, absolute truth that he has any solid ground to stand on right now. He can't be left someplace with Lisa and watch Mick leave. He can't be left without his partner and expect that any kind of life thereafter would make any sense. He can't be left.
And there's a bitter irony in it all that leaves a sour taste in his mouth to even think about. But that's what it is, that's what it boils down to it in the end.
He's been quiet for a long time, too long in the wake of Mick's rough-but-necessary questions. He leans over his knees, hands clasped together, "You don't have a reason to believe it, can't blame if you don't, but all I can say is it won't be like that again." His eyes aren't on Mick, but instead the floor between them. Because everything is too much, too heavy to handle, and looking at him as he says what he needs to say? That's beyond his capabilities. "Mick, I--" there's something bitter and hollow that resembles a laugh without a drop of humor in it. Two words have never been harder for a person to say than these are for Leonard Snart.
There's a sigh of reluctance, a sort of defeated moment when Mick realises he's lost. He made good points, he fought his corner well and in many ways, he made his stand but when it came this particular battle? He lost. He knew it the moment he looked at Leonard, properly looked at him, and saw all that defeat and panic. The pain on his face. A familiar feeling Mick knew all too well - after all, no one wants to be left behind.
Mick was silent for a while before he crossed the gap between them and dropped down heavily on the bed next to him, keeping a small distance but not making a giant space. Close enough to touch but never quite touching. Very them. He tilted his head to the side and looked at Leonard for a long while before turning his head and looking at the wall instead. He took a long sip of his beer and contemplated his next words.
"We're idiots."
What else did he say? They seriously were. They were both twisted and falling over each other, not sure what rhythm they had yet. Fighting old battles that Mick let go of way back. "I guess it's all moot, ain't it? I mean I can talk shit, I can throw these things back at you but -- you were always coming back for me. And I'd always come back for you. It's not a direct A to B thing with us, we gotta go all the way to Z and bounce back to B but it's how we do it."
They never just did what they needed to, they just made a mess and tried to cope. They never talked. Maybe it was time to change that but they were old, idiotic boys. Like Lisa always used to say. Why change the habit of a life time?
"I can talk big, I have before, but I'm never really going to do it." He knew that deep down and he hated it a little but Leonard was his partner, he wanted to be with him and there was no denying it. He just wished he could have both - his team and his partner. "It's like that time we tried to rob that bike from the toy store for Lisa and you got your ass caught running after me. Yeah, I could have kept running with the bike and got myself out of dodge, left you to deal with the shit but I didn't. You even told me to go but I still didn't. I threw that box at the security guard and we hauled ass out of there together." Whatever, they got Lisa a Barbie Dream House instead, they were easier to steal and way less heavy. "I never left you behind before, I ain't gonna start now."
Funny how something as simple as someone's presence can help a person relax, even in their most tense of moments. When Mick makes that move to drop down on the bed next to him, Leonard can feel the slightest bit of tightness leave his chest. Not completely, it's not gone, there's still plenty left to panic and worry about, but it's relaxed a little, with something so simple it was almost stupid.
And apparently they're on similar pages, here, because Mick practically echoes that a moment later.
He nods slowly, "Yeah, we are." And always kind of have been, if they were completely honest with themselves.
"Always." He can't stop himself from echoing it, or the intensity that his voice takes when he does. Everything played out so wrong back then, but they can't change it, what's done is done. The tiniest of smirks tugs at one corner of his mouth at that description and he nods. That is about as apt as it gets, really. "We've always made things more complicated than they need to be." And it's a toss up who's the reason more often than not, too. They both complicate things in their own screwed up ways. It was easier when they were younger and things were messy, but not like this, and half of their arguments were won by Lisa begging for ice cream.
"I know," And that's a constant that Leonard has counted on for, pretty much, his whole life. That in the end, no matter what happens, no matter how far he pushes it, Mick will always be there. And in the rare moments he's not, that he'll always find his way back. It's been the most steady thing in his life across nearly three decades, kinda hard to let go of something like that. "That fucking rent-a-cop chasing us down and the real ones meeting up with us outside." He shakes his head a little at the memory.
As much as he knows it's not a dig at him, those last words still sting, not that it shows. Rarely does anything ever. But all the same, Leonard finds himself nodding slowly. "We'll stay." On the ship. Him and Lisa. Too many times through the years, Leonard forced his own schemes and plans, wants and needs, always made Mick fall in line with whatever he was doing to get what he wanted. This time...Mick deserves to get what he wants. Best of both worlds, no dumb, hard decisions that wouldn't make sense in the long run.
"You made it more complicated. You make everything more complicated. You make rules, time stuff and make everything really to the book and sometimes on a heist, it's great. Petty theft? Not so much." Honestly, life was easier when they just stole shit and just tried to survive, before they had any sort of power or purpose. Mick sometimes wished he could go back but he'd already learned the hard way by now that he just can't go backwards. He wants to, he really does, but sometimes he just can't push himself to let go of what he's become and spiral again.
For the first time in a long time, he felt like he had control in his life. The last time he felt so sure and certain of himself, so much like he knew who he was and what he was doing, that was when he became Heatwave. And this sickness he had, this compulsion, it wasn't a problem any more - it was a gimmick.
The pyromania, the fires, the scars and burns. They weren't symptoms or conditions, they weren't something that chased away people he loved and he didn't have to think about who he loved any more. He was a supervillain. It was all one big show and it undercut how he felt, it gave him a twisted form of control where he could use his issues to have a purpose. It gave him an in with Leonard again. He liked what Heatwave gave him. And that was how he felt here with the Legends. He wasn't just some insane thug who made a mess of everything, he was better and he was trying, even if he still made a mess of everything.
Making a mess was clearly policy around here anyway. "You were such a slow runner. I'm shocked the Flash never caught you on that basis." Mick snorted in amusement and bumped his shoulder against Leonard's faintly. "We ain't dumb kids any more, we gotta think before we do stuff but we can't be dumb and overthink. We don't have to agree to do anything forever. We could just ... try it out."
He had no idea how it'd be with Lisa on the waverider, with Leonard back, but Mick was hopeful it could work out. He wanted it to. He couldn't bear to lose anyone else he loved. As long as nothing bad happened, he didn't see why they couldn't just trial it. "You think Lis would be up to being stuck with us idiots? I know she says so now but it won't last." They were dumb boys, after all
He gives a facial shrug at the comment. He can't really argue he does have a pretty consistent tendency to make things more complicated. Usually by overthinking when a situation doesn't actually require overthinking every angle. But hey, it's what he does and how his brain works, what can he do?
"I wasn't that slow." he nudges him back, half-smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. The smirk fades and he pulls his lips into a line at the next bit, though. "I'm not making useless promises I'm not guaranteed to keep. I'm going to overthink things til--" Well, the rest of that sentence is in bad form. Moving on. He nods a little, echoing Mick's comment. "Try it out. See what happens." Going with the flow is hardly Leonard's strong suit, but he can deal when he has to.
"Eh, she'll have Sara and--" he waves his hand a little, what's her name? He's heard it, he knows he has. "the other one, on her side. I'm sure they'll all team up on us."
"You were. You tiny little punk. I'm so glad you had a growth spurt, I was worried I was going to be bossed around by a shortie forever." Mick smirked playfully, unable to resist. Look, Leonard was never that tiny or pathetic but in his head, when he was young and Leonard was in juvie with him, he was to Mick. He had no idea why, when or how but he ended up caring about Leonard more than he ever thought possible but he just did. He had more fist fights in juvie that year than he had in any of his prison spells combined. No one messed with Leonard then.
And it was the same now as it was then. For a while Leonard was good and he knew he was good, he could stand by himself and handle whatever came to him. Now he was strangely more worried about Leonard, perhaps it was the state he was in or the fact he died. All Mick knew was that he was going to have to keep an eye on him.
"The girls against the guys? Huh." Mick considered it for a moment before snorting in amusement. "Well. I gotta say, they'd kick our asses something fierce."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
{People say that time heals all, so why is it getting worse » Mick
Date: 2017-06-04 09:18 pm (UTC)Lisa's presence on the Waverider while he's been laid up in medical has been...something. Something else entirely, really. He was never supposed to see her again. Or anyone. He had accepted that it was it, it was the end and that was the way the cookie had to crumble. And now... now he's back and he still has no idea how to feel about it. Even this many days in, it's still surreal and feels fake a lot of the time. It's hard to reconcile. Apparently that happens when you get stuck in the timestream for as long as Leonard had been.
There's a conversation he needs to have, though, without anyone else hovering. So, he barks at his visitors to go but as he tries to follow suit, Leonard snatches Mick's wrist. "Not you. You stay." He has to figure this out, and he can't do that on his own.
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Date: 2017-06-05 08:53 am (UTC)He'd rode this recovery thing out by being nearby, talking to him about random shit and drinking. Never once did he approach anything emotionally because he just had no idea how to, he wasn't like that.
Lisa helped, she was the one that was here to feel for Snart, to be there for him. She wasn't any better than they were at emotions but she didn't have the same level of baggage and macho idiocy, he knew she could be there for Leonard and he knew that'd help him along. He was hoping that'd be enough to get Leonard through. He looked down at the hand on his wrist and grunted lightly, almost dismissive like this whole thing wasn't a big deal. In his other hand was a beer he'd been nursing and he slowly drank some down while everyone else started to filter out. When the room was empty, he looked at the wall instead of his friend and lowered his beer.
"You got something to tell me, boss?" Boss. Just gotta make some emotional distance here so he could get through this.
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Date: 2017-06-05 01:36 pm (UTC)But sometimes, on a rare occasion, that just doesn't work.
He's noticed the distance--and the difference--in Mick. The way he's hanging back unless it's to talk about old times or any random thing that isn't this situation or what led them here. And it isn't so much that Leonard minds it, he prefers it this way, but they had to face the music at some point, didn't they?
There are a few different roads he could take, here, but right now? He needs to figure out what happens after this. Mostly, it's for Lisa's sake, or that's what he tells himself.
He ignores the verbal separation between them--what gave him the right, anyway? to pull him back, and then act like this?--and drops his fingers away from Mick's wrist. "What's the plan, when I'm not confined to the healing powers of bedrest?"
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Date: 2017-06-05 02:10 pm (UTC)This situation though, this was different. He didn't have a good plan or even a plan at all. He didn't know what to do.
What was the answer? Go back to the Waverider like old times, him and Leonard? Or try and hit up Central City again, to play that game and pretend everything was like it used to be? Mick couldn't do that. He wasn't that man any more.
Did Leonard know that? Would he accept that? Mick just didn't know. He had no idea how to verbalise it either. That was talking feelings, emotions, the future and everything ahead. And Mick didn't want to. There were no easy answers to offer. "What do you want to do?"
Leonard was the one that died. Surely he got the first say?
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Date: 2017-06-05 03:00 pm (UTC)That said, he doesn't know where else to go from here. He isn't who he used to be anymore than Mick is. The idea of returning to Central City didn't appeal any more than sticking around the Waverider. "I dunno...maybe it'd be easier if we just go somewhere new, start over." That's the thing he keeps coming back around to when he considers a next step. The three of them, leaving everything behind and never looking back.
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Date: 2017-06-05 03:22 pm (UTC)"Aruba." Mick nodded his head slowly, firm in his belief that all good plans start with Aruba. "I dunno what you two nerds are going to do but I'm going to go to Aruba. Gonna get drunk, enjoy the sunshine, maybe surf - I ain't been surfing since I was young, you know? I'll wipe out but I'll get there again. Just like riding a bike. I'll see the hot girls in their bikinis, maybe flirt a little. Nothing too serious, I ain't rushing into things." Besides, he has a Leonard so it's not like he could really date/flirt/do anything but rubberneck. Honestly, Mick knows this plan is a dumb fantasy but he's rather that than put their life in his hands and make a hard call.
"You two can come if you want but you're paying for your own room and drinks."
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Date: 2017-06-05 04:08 pm (UTC)And isn't that a weird concept. Settling down. Like that was something either of them had ever really considered or assumed as an option in their lives at all.
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Date: 2017-06-05 05:05 pm (UTC)He looked down and eyed his beer, finding it easier to look at that than look at Leonard. "I ain't gonna leave the team. I ain't saying I adore them or nothing but they're my team. I carry those idiots. I'm not going to abandon them." Which he knows is a problem here because he doesn't want to risk Leonard and Lisa either. "You two -- you two can always go on without me, you know?"
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Date: 2017-06-05 06:08 pm (UTC)Somehow, that isn't what he expected. The only visible sign of a reaction is an all too subtle twitch of his fingers, "What?" Now, a frown sketches across his face. "No. I promised her we'd be together, the three of us." He doesn't add it in, but 'Don't make me break my promise.' hangs in the air between them anyway.
But more than that, even, the more he considers it, the more the whole idea of it pisses him off. "Don't try to tell me that you went to all this trouble to get me back just to choose them over me." Later, he'll chalk up the loose lipped way he's going at this to the pain meds, but the truth is that the whole thing is just too much. Everything has been too much, too heavy, too far out of his depths to know how to handle since he woke up, barely lucid, on the ship again.
"What was the point, Mick?" His voice is rising to match the anger bubbling under his skin. "Why bother when you could have left it all alone? I'd accepted the end! It was over! Scattered in the time stream, I was nothing. Not dead, not alive, I had no concept of any of it until you brought me back." He's moved, with some tense difficulty that he's steadfastly ignoring just now, to stand in front of Mick. "So tell me why."
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Date: 2017-06-05 06:58 pm (UTC)He didn't want to leave the team, he felt like he belonged with these idiots but Leonard was his partner, he was the one he was supposed to be with.
"I'm not saying I never see your ass again, I'd visit and stuff. It's a time machine. It ain't like we'd never see each other. It's just --"
He cut himself off and looked down, playing with the label on his beer bottle. "I'm not choosing anyone. If I had to, it'd be you and Lisa." But he thought he wouldn't be pressed to pick, he thought he'd have more time, that things would be different and he know by now what he wanted. Different how? He didn't know. He was struggling to reconcile all of this with his life now and all it gave him was a headache. "I had to bring you back. It wasn't an option not to. I had the chance, I took it. Tell me you wouldn't have done the same for me."
Even without a plan, even without knowing where they'd go next, he had to do it.
"What do you want from me, Snart?"
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Date: 2017-06-05 09:20 pm (UTC)He scrubs a hand down his face, trying to figure out how to process this. He's completely torn in half about what to do. He doesn't want Lisa on the ship, he doesn't want to risk her like that, but the idea of not having Mick around is a little more than he knows how to wrap his head around right now. Him and Lisa? They're what's grounding him in all this back from the dead bullshit that feels too far out his realm to grasp half the time. He hadn't expected the fight, for Mick to want anything less than exactly whatever Leonard suggested.
What does he want? For this to be easy, for Mick to agree and the three of them to start over somewhere new, away from their old lives, away from the Legends. Not that he's at all sure what a new life would look like. What would they do? They aren't the men they used to be. But that doesn't mean they're going to go get nine-to-fives, either, does it? So where did that leave them? He isn't sure, he hasn't gotten that far, but...he had thought they'd work out those details together. "Doesn't sound like I can have what I want, so I don't know, now."
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Date: 2017-06-07 03:06 pm (UTC)He didn't expect to have to make his way through everything alone but he did, he did it and he kept on surviving by himself. And he changed, he realised when he saw Snart last time, they had both changed a lot and while Leonard was exactly in a place to murder him like the one before, he was different from what he experienced and how he'd been. The way he bowed out had to have left an impact.
The dynamic between them was different. He wasn't the boss of Mick any more and Mick wasn't sure who he was any more, not enough to commit to anything right now. "You'd get bored." Mick sighed and looked up, trying not to look away and wuss out. "If we ran away somewhere nice and just relaxed, we'd all get pissed off and want to leave. Let's face it, you ain't fixing to retire here. We need a game plan, we always have a plan, don't we? Right now, we're at a loose end."
And he had to choose, if he really had to, he'd choose Leonard every time. He knew that. He just hated that he had to make that decision. "I dunno, I like what I got here and I feel like I got a purpose, a reason, but..." There was a beat and Mick huffed in frustration. "You know if you want me, you're gonna get me. We both know that, no matter what I say."
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Date: 2017-06-07 03:47 pm (UTC)It's a generally known and understood fact of life. He'd said as much to Mick once. He knew, they both knew, even then when he'd stranded Mick on his own, that he had changed. And he only evolved further the more time went, until he became the person that sacrificed everything. If he thinks about the broadstrokes of it all, he just has a really bad habit of leaving. Of leaving Mick behind, in more ways than one.
And now the tables are turned.
Or borderline, at least. The option is on the table. Mick could make that choice for real--them over him, the team, the purpose, the changes. Would he make that choice, in the end? Probably not. Maybe. Doesn't matter, because the option is what makes Leonard's footing so uneven right now. There was a time when it wouldn't have been a choice at all, because neither of them would have debated it at all--each other over all else, it had been the way of things for decades. But it isn't all so simple anymore.
Never was simple to begin with. Nothing with them ever is, truly.
"If we go somewhere, leave everything else behind...how much are you gonna resent it in a year, five, fifteen?" That, of course, isn't the real question. Leonard doesn't care about the decision-- what he really means is how much will Mick resent him, for forcing his hand. Because even if he didn't do it overtly, he knows in the end that's what it is. Mick siding with him for the sake of siding with him or not losing him, is a manipulation all on its own, even if it's ultimately out of his hands.
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Date: 2017-06-07 05:55 pm (UTC)Mick had been in a place he liked before, left it for Leonard and got literally tossed aside so Leonard could pursue whatever fancy he had. And Mick, he didn't answer to Leonard any more, he didn't have to tell him yes, he didn't have to do what he wanted but he still wanted to. Out of loyalty. Oh, fuck it, out of love. He loved the annoying bastard.
If he didn't take his side, he lost out on his partner - the person he spent so long trying to get back but how did he even know this would last this time? There was no easy answer and he was done trying to work it out.
"Knowing our history, Snart, how about we ask you that question? You want me now cause you don't have me so say you have me again, how long are you going to want me?" Mick knew that was a cruel blow but it wasn't one he was feeling like ignoring. If he went with him, how was this going to end? What was he really going to benefit? "Cause I dunno if it's resentment, I don't think it is. I know you don't feel that way about me but you also get an itch that you gotta scratch and no one else matters when that happens. Then what happens to me?"
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Date: 2017-06-07 07:42 pm (UTC)The assumption--accusation?--that he only wants what he doesn't currently have burns underneath his skin, hot and sticky and untrue. ....Isn't it? Of course it is. That may be part of it, but it's not the whole driving force because there's more to it, there's always more, and there's too many years between them to say it's just boiled down to sandbox behavior. Mick isn't a toy to be fought over or left forgotten on a playground when he's done.
But that's exactly how Leonard's played his hand and made Mick feel, isn't it?
He sinks down onto the bed again, legs hanging over the edge because he refuses to lay down, he's done enough of that lately, thanks, suddenly too exhausted to stand any more. Maybe it's the weight of all of this pushing him down. There hasn't been a time, in more years than fingers he has to count, that Leonard has really felt so much still like that scared kid in juvie that nearly died than he does in this moment. Not that he'd say it or admit as much, but it's there, in the bubble of panic in his chest, the incessant pounding in his head, in the uncertainty that's sinking down and settling deep into his bones.
He can't be here--here on the ship, here in some no name town, any version of here--alive when he knows he shouldn't be and he knew it was the end of his story, and deal with everything that comes attached to knowing it, without Mick. That's the one, absolute truth that he has any solid ground to stand on right now. He can't be left someplace with Lisa and watch Mick leave. He can't be left without his partner and expect that any kind of life thereafter would make any sense. He can't be left.
And there's a bitter irony in it all that leaves a sour taste in his mouth to even think about. But that's what it is, that's what it boils down to it in the end.
He's been quiet for a long time, too long in the wake of Mick's rough-but-necessary questions. He leans over his knees, hands clasped together, "You don't have a reason to believe it, can't blame if you don't, but all I can say is it won't be like that again." His eyes aren't on Mick, but instead the floor between them. Because everything is too much, too heavy to handle, and looking at him as he says what he needs to say? That's beyond his capabilities. "Mick, I--" there's something bitter and hollow that resembles a laugh without a drop of humor in it. Two words have never been harder for a person to say than these are for Leonard Snart.
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Date: 2017-06-07 08:09 pm (UTC)Mick was silent for a while before he crossed the gap between them and dropped down heavily on the bed next to him, keeping a small distance but not making a giant space. Close enough to touch but never quite touching. Very them. He tilted his head to the side and looked at Leonard for a long while before turning his head and looking at the wall instead. He took a long sip of his beer and contemplated his next words.
"We're idiots."
What else did he say? They seriously were. They were both twisted and falling over each other, not sure what rhythm they had yet. Fighting old battles that Mick let go of way back. "I guess it's all moot, ain't it? I mean I can talk shit, I can throw these things back at you but -- you were always coming back for me. And I'd always come back for you. It's not a direct A to B thing with us, we gotta go all the way to Z and bounce back to B but it's how we do it."
They never just did what they needed to, they just made a mess and tried to cope. They never talked. Maybe it was time to change that but they were old, idiotic boys. Like Lisa always used to say. Why change the habit of a life time?
"I can talk big, I have before, but I'm never really going to do it." He knew that deep down and he hated it a little but Leonard was his partner, he wanted to be with him and there was no denying it. He just wished he could have both - his team and his partner. "It's like that time we tried to rob that bike from the toy store for Lisa and you got your ass caught running after me. Yeah, I could have kept running with the bike and got myself out of dodge, left you to deal with the shit but I didn't. You even told me to go but I still didn't. I threw that box at the security guard and we hauled ass out of there together." Whatever, they got Lisa a Barbie Dream House instead, they were easier to steal and way less heavy. "I never left you behind before, I ain't gonna start now."
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Date: 2017-06-07 10:18 pm (UTC)And apparently they're on similar pages, here, because Mick practically echoes that a moment later.
He nods slowly, "Yeah, we are." And always kind of have been, if they were completely honest with themselves.
"Always." He can't stop himself from echoing it, or the intensity that his voice takes when he does. Everything played out so wrong back then, but they can't change it, what's done is done. The tiniest of smirks tugs at one corner of his mouth at that description and he nods. That is about as apt as it gets, really. "We've always made things more complicated than they need to be." And it's a toss up who's the reason more often than not, too. They both complicate things in their own screwed up ways. It was easier when they were younger and things were messy, but not like this, and half of their arguments were won by Lisa begging for ice cream.
"I know," And that's a constant that Leonard has counted on for, pretty much, his whole life. That in the end, no matter what happens, no matter how far he pushes it, Mick will always be there. And in the rare moments he's not, that he'll always find his way back. It's been the most steady thing in his life across nearly three decades, kinda hard to let go of something like that. "That fucking rent-a-cop chasing us down and the real ones meeting up with us outside." He shakes his head a little at the memory.
As much as he knows it's not a dig at him, those last words still sting, not that it shows. Rarely does anything ever. But all the same, Leonard finds himself nodding slowly. "We'll stay." On the ship. Him and Lisa. Too many times through the years, Leonard forced his own schemes and plans, wants and needs, always made Mick fall in line with whatever he was doing to get what he wanted. This time...Mick deserves to get what he wants. Best of both worlds, no dumb, hard decisions that wouldn't make sense in the long run.
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Date: 2017-06-16 06:08 pm (UTC)For the first time in a long time, he felt like he had control in his life. The last time he felt so sure and certain of himself, so much like he knew who he was and what he was doing, that was when he became Heatwave. And this sickness he had, this compulsion, it wasn't a problem any more - it was a gimmick.
The pyromania, the fires, the scars and burns. They weren't symptoms or conditions, they weren't something that chased away people he loved and he didn't have to think about who he loved any more. He was a supervillain. It was all one big show and it undercut how he felt, it gave him a twisted form of control where he could use his issues to have a purpose. It gave him an in with Leonard again. He liked what Heatwave gave him. And that was how he felt here with the Legends. He wasn't just some insane thug who made a mess of everything, he was better and he was trying, even if he still made a mess of everything.
Making a mess was clearly policy around here anyway. "You were such a slow runner. I'm shocked the Flash never caught you on that basis." Mick snorted in amusement and bumped his shoulder against Leonard's faintly. "We ain't dumb kids any more, we gotta think before we do stuff but we can't be dumb and overthink. We don't have to agree to do anything forever. We could just ... try it out."
He had no idea how it'd be with Lisa on the waverider, with Leonard back, but Mick was hopeful it could work out. He wanted it to. He couldn't bear to lose anyone else he loved. As long as nothing bad happened, he didn't see why they couldn't just trial it. "You think Lis would be up to being stuck with us idiots? I know she says so now but it won't last." They were dumb boys, after all
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Date: 2017-06-17 10:42 pm (UTC)"I wasn't that slow." he nudges him back, half-smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. The smirk fades and he pulls his lips into a line at the next bit, though. "I'm not making useless promises I'm not guaranteed to keep. I'm going to overthink things til--" Well, the rest of that sentence is in bad form. Moving on. He nods a little, echoing Mick's comment. "Try it out. See what happens." Going with the flow is hardly Leonard's strong suit, but he can deal when he has to.
"Eh, she'll have Sara and--" he waves his hand a little, what's her name? He's heard it, he knows he has. "the other one, on her side. I'm sure they'll all team up on us."
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Date: 2017-06-23 03:40 pm (UTC)And it was the same now as it was then. For a while Leonard was good and he knew he was good, he could stand by himself and handle whatever came to him. Now he was strangely more worried about Leonard, perhaps it was the state he was in or the fact he died. All Mick knew was that he was going to have to keep an eye on him.
"The girls against the guys? Huh." Mick considered it for a moment before snorting in amusement. "Well. I gotta say, they'd kick our asses something fierce."