My attempt at writing a "Jaynestown" type story for Mick, or at least, that's what it started out as... It somehow became this. Beta read by the amazing helloyesimhere! And none of them are mine.
Mick stumbled slightly as he made his way onboard the Waverider, trying to ignore the annoying chatter of his too-cheerful teammates. Despite his best efforts and the slight fuzziness from the celebratory drinks, some of their conversation still managed to filter through.
Especially the parts he didn't want to hear: those dealing with his contribution to the success of their mission.
"An inspired move, Mr. Rory," Stein enthused, wisely stopping just short of getting touchy-feely with him. (Palmer, of course, had no such qualms about clapping Mick on the back, and did so with enthusiasm.) "I don't know why I hadn't considered setting a backfire to keep that inferno from reaching the town."
Mick shrugged. "I know how to put out fires." Mainly so he could prevent it from happening too soon to the ones he set. (He hated having to see that beautiful blaze run out of fuel and die out, but standing out there, literally fighting fire with fire, sweating from the heat as he watched his bright flame push back the inferno set by the man they'd travelled back in time to stop, had been one of the most exhilarating things Mick had done in a while.)
Nate dropped down into one of the seats. "I just wish I knew why there are so many rogue time travellers out there causing problems in the past. Why can't we run into sight-seeing time travellers who aren't looking to mess with the timeline?"
"I know, right? I mean, I know it's crazy, but every time we run across a Police Box in England I keep expecting the Doctor to pop out..."
Mick rolled his eyes at Palmer's hope to meet fictional characters. Haircut was such a nerd that it was almost physically painful at times.
Sara called out to the ship's A.I. as she made her way to the captain's chair, "Gideon, check for any news from our last destination. Is there any new damage to the timeline?"
"Damage to the timeline is minimal, Ms. Lance," Gideon assured the Waverider's acting captain. "However, there is one item of interest concerning Mr. Rory."
"And that is...?" Sara eyed Mick warily, clearly wondering what he had done this time. Mick wondered the same thing. For once, nothing the town had to offer was worth walking off with...
"The local papers have named Mr. Rory their town hero."
Sara smiled wickedly. "Pull up that article."
Mick groaned at Sara's grin as she summarized the story for the team. "Hey, Mick, the history books think you did good, too. Look at this. They even put up a statue in your honor."
"Hey, what about the rest of us? We were there, too," Jax said, but he was grinning as he spoke.
"Yeah, well, none of us were literally in the line of fire like Mick was," Sara answered.
"And our alter-ego likely would have done more harm than good if we had attempted to fuse to assist in putting out the blaze," Stein reasoned.
"Yeah, Gray, I know," Jax said. "You did real good, Mick. You really deserve the spotlight today, man."
The rest of the team crowded around, all grinning like idiots, as though they took personal pride in the announcement of Mick's heroism. Mick felt ill.
"That's amazing, Mick! You're a hero. Guess you'll have to update that resume of yours, now, huh?" Ray said, smile impossibly wide. Mick looked away to keep from going blind at the sight of it.
"What resume?" he grunted.
"Oh, uh, what you and Snart said when Captain Hunter brought us all together. Hero wasn't on your resume? Now it can be."
Mick's stomach turned over in a nauseated roll. "I'll be in my bunk."
Getting thoroughly drunk on whatever cheap booze he could find.
Mick thought the ship was still enough that he could sneak away to the jumpship without any witnesses, but Palmer's quietly curious, "Mick?" stopped him in his tracks. Of course Haircut would still be up messing around with his new Atom suit.
"Yeah?" he growled, trying to ignore the way Palmer reminded him of the kid from the Grinch cartoon, all hopeful and questioning and not understanding why the bad guys needed to be so bad. Mick didn't particularly feel like patting his head and sending him away. Who knows, a little disillusionment might even do the scientist some good. "Let's get out of here."
"Where...Where are we going?" Ray asked, confused, both mind and body scrambling to catch up with Mick's intended course of action.
"Ask too many questions, I'll leave you behind." Mick pushed the other man into the jump ship, purposely not mentioning whether he meant leaving him behind on the Waverider, or at their destination.
"A ghost town? I don't get it. What are we doing here?" Ray asked as he exited the jump ship, turning a slow circle while trying to figure out where Mick had taken them.
"Gonna set something right." Mick snapped on his goggles, heat gun raised. "Don't recognize it, do ya? Had more people last time we were here."
Ray's eyes widened in recognition. "That town we saved..."
The town of Serenity had fallen into ruin. The sign over the inn had broken on the one side and now hung precariously over the door, ready to crash down on top of the next person brave enough to enter the building. Windows were boarded up, many broken; bullet holes pockmarked the shuttered storefronts. The roof over the stable had collapsed, with the more intact buildings looking like theirs were ready to fall in as well. The smell of decay and disuse clung to the tattered remains of what had once been a welcoming little town.
Mick wasn't exactly sure how he felt seeing the town in that state. However, it was the perfect site for his demonstration.
"I can't believe it," Ray murmured, gazing around the deserted town in wide-eyed wonder. "I can't believe it was so full of life just a few hours ago by our way of thinking. Kind of hard seeing it like this—Mick, wait, what are you doing?"
"Being myself."
Mick hefted the heat gun, aiming at the nearest building. Flames shot out and engulfed the sheriff's office. Mick swept the gun in an wide arc, blasting the rotted jailhouse and smithy, making sure what remained of the statue in the square got caught in the blaze.
He laughed humorlessly at the sight of the fire leaping from building to building. The dry wood crackled as it burned, a hundred years after he'd saved the town from that exact fate. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to hold it in his hands, surround himself in the flames. He moved closer to the burning square, almost snarling when Ray pulled him back.
He caught a glimpse of the other man's face as he tried batting him away. Ray held on, looking pale and sick in the light of the blaze consuming the town they'd so recently—so long ago—rescued.
Mick blinked, watching Ray instead of the fire, seeing all the emotions chase across his face as Ray witnessed the town burning. He could guess what Palmer was seeing, the people who had fought alongside the team to protect their town. People who were now long dead, whose descendants hadn't even bothered to stay and preserve what they'd fought for. The hero's wide brown eyes reflected the flames back at Mick as though he just realized how wasted their actions of the past had been. How futile.
Kind of fitting, Mick thought, what Rip Hunter had once said—that nothing any of the team did would last.
If Mick were alone, he'd have gotten drunk and shouted in the burning streets. But since he wasn't... Grabbing a stunned Ray by the arm, Mick dragged him across the street to the abandoned saloon.
His boots crunched through the rotted floorboards as he pulled Ray up to the bar, pushing the younger man down on a dust-coated barstool. Smoke seeped in through gaps in the wood, but Mick figured they had some time before the saloon would be in danger from the fire. Producing a bottle of whiskey from inside his coat, he grabbed two of the relics from behind the bar to pour it into. He raised his glass in a toast to the town, ignoring the fact that Ray didn't follow his actions.
"Here's to Serenity. Ain't so serene anymore," Mick downed his drink and tossed the glass behind him, grabbing the bottle and swigging from it instead of pouring out another.
"I ain't a hero, Haircut," Mick said after a long moment, finally addressing the dazed man he'd brought with him. "I ain't even a good guy."
"But you, you've changed so much," Ray answered faintly. "You've grown so much from what you were in the past..."
Mick jabbed a finger in the direction of the saloon doors, where the orange glow of the fire that was destroying the town flickered through the chinks in the wood. "The Time Masters couldn't torture these urges outta me. You think I'm gonna magically change because a bunch of do-gooders wants me to?"
"I'd hoped that you would want to," Ray said quietly.
Mick snorted. "One newspaper story, and you think I'm good. I got tons more stories telling about all the people I killed, houses I burnt down, places I robbed. History don't say I'm good." He leaned back against the bar and sighed, taking another long pull from his whiskey bottle. "That article Sara read, that was one of those...aberrations the Englishman always claimed we were causing. Doesn't tell what I really am."
Mick crossed his arms, waiting for realization to set in, for Dr. Ray Palmer to see clearly the type of man he'd been trying to befriend. Mick was aware that, intellectually, the scientist knew, early on had even called him and Snart out on being criminals, but being here, seeing for himself how unstable Mick Rory truly was...
Mick watched for the moment when Ray's horror over Mick's actions would sink in, waiting for the team Boy Scout to turn his back on Mick Rory and give the arsonist up as a lost cause. Mick had known this moment would come at some point, but he hadn't realized until now just how much he dreaded it. Why did he even care what this team of heroes thought of him, what this man standing there staring, trying to figure him out, thought of him?
He wasn't sure when the idiotically noble genius' opinion of him had begun to matter, but it had, and the thought of losing all that he'd gained bothered him more than he was willing to admit.
Mick could see Palmer studying him, trying to sort through his own thoughts. "You'd have let Serenity burn back in the past? All those people, you'd have let them die?" Ray asked, voice barely audible over the roar of the fire outside.
Mick hesitated, not knowing how he could answer that. Ray nodded, apparently having come to a conclusion.
"I think you're right, Mick," he said slowly. "I think you've just shown me exactly what kind of man you are." To Mick's surprise, the man smiled at him. "The kind who waited 100 years for the town to be abandoned before giving in to the urge to set it on fire. I think you're afraid to be thought of as a hero, because you don't know who you are if you're not a criminal. You tell everyone what you used to be, almost as though you need the reminder yourself. But Mick, I really don't think you've changed who you are, just what you've done with it. Like that fire you set in the past. You used it to save people, not to kill. You gave it a different purpose, but it's still the same thing. You've always had that loyalty to people you trust, right? First with Snart, now the team..."
Mick laughed bitterly, the mention of Snart rankling a bit. Snart, who'd died trying to play the hero. "Yeah. Tell that to your buddy Flash's little friend Caitlyn when you talk to her. Ask her about how I wanted to burn her alive. I'm unstable. Volatile. You science nerds like to use words like that to describe dangerous stuff, right? Been called that a long time. Nothing's changed about me."
Ray studied him carefully. "You know, if you think about it, you can say the same about dynamite, but as long as you respect how dangerous it is, it can be used to do a lot of good, too. All those things that are a part of you, your loyalty, your strength, even that... dangerous edge... you've got. You can take all that and use it for good. You don't need to change who you are, Mick. You never needed to."
Outside the fire roared, demanding their attention. Ray jumped as one of the shops collapsed with a crack, the sound like rifle shot breaking through the strange stillness that had settled over the town. "Um, Mick? You weren't planning on us getting trapped in here while the town burns around us, right?"
Mick smirked, deciding to take pity on the other man. He wasn't sure he'd gotten what he expected when he gave in to the urge to torch the broken town, but for now he did feel a bit better, more at peace. "Nah. I'm good. Let's get out of here."