Contains: eating disorder.
Pull You From The Fire
One-Shot
"Mick has elected to stay."
He tried to go back. Tried to rush back into the stupid building to save his stupid partner.
"Someone needs to be present to destroy the Oculus. Mick has elected himself."
He tried. He ran, even as Rip yelled that there wasn't time.
He heard Sara behind him.
Everything went dark.
He woke up in the med bay and he knew, knew like a punch to the gut that Mick was gone. He'd never been a sentimental person, never would be, but Mick had been by his side for too many years for him to not feel like something was missing.
Sara stood by the door, hair messy and face guilty. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't turn his head. He didn't want the apology. He didn't want her trying to comfort him and saying that it was Mick or both of them. He didn't care. He just…didn't want to cry in front of her.
"Get out," he choked out as he pushed himself up.
"No." She stepped forward and his hands curled into fists. She knew as well as he did that he wouldn't hit her. He'd never raise a damn hand to her. She wasn't afraid of him. She never had been.
She stepped up beside him and he swung his legs over the other side of the bed to avoid her. Skilled as he was, he knew he couldn't slip around her, and he went for his jacket instead. He pulled it around himself like the armor his layers were and hoped his eyes weren't shining when he tossed a glare her way. "Back off."
The shine must have still been there, because the determination bled out of her face and the guilty look got heavier. "He was a hero, Snart," she said softly as he grabbed his gun.
His fingers itched with the angry want to point it at her and make her move, but he kept his arm locked straight and the gun pressed against his thigh. "You think I don't know that?" he snapped and shouldered past her.
She didn't stop him.
He didn't say Mick had been a damn hero since they were fourteen.
He went back to Mick's room instead of his own, staring at the familiar mess and the tools he'd left out for his heat gun, like he'd been planning to work on it when he got back.
He choked out a command for Gideon to keep the door locked and slid down to the floor. Gun forgotten at his side, he cried.
Rip dropped them off in 2016 and he went back to one of their safehouses. The warehouse hadn't changed, just gotten dusty in the time they'd been gone. Mick always used to clean up while he poured over blueprints, tidying up as he shoved plates of food at him. He never tried to be subtle.
Not now, he thought as his breath came fast and he sank down onto a dusty couch. Not again.
He called Lisa, hands shaking, and only managed to get out that Mick was dead before he just couldn't. No more words. No more calm. He hadn't had a proper panic attack in years, but it rushed through him then, taking him over until he couldn't tell up from down. He didn't know anything but gonegonegone.
Barry appeared at his side as tears fell. Distantly, he thought he could hear him telling Cisco to update Lisa, to tell her he was there or that he was fine. He wasn't. He wasn't fine. He couldn't breathe. Mick was dead. Mick was dead. Mick was dead.
Air rushed around him as his vision swam. STAR Labs. People.
Something pinched his arm and everything faded to black.
"Lisa's stuck in Hub City," Barry told him when he woke up. "She's on her way back. She said Rory was your…" Len's breath hitched and Barry bit his lip. "Snart, I'm sorry."
He missed when they looked at him like he was a supervillain instead of a widower.
He hugged Lisa when she got there and let her cry as he forced back his own tears. They had a drink in memory of him and rode out to the plot where Mick's family was buried, her face hidden in his back the whole time.
They carved Michael Rory under Lacey's name on the big stone, messy and vandalized, but Len was the one that bought it in the first place. No other left and Mick had been in jail at the time. He'd done it for Mick and for the people that had welcomed him and Lisa, even if Mick's parents thought he was a bad influence.
He smoothed his hand over the angel at the top and told himself that Mick wasn't hurting anymore. The guilt about his family. His ghosts from his time as Chronos. The darkness that had followed him most of his life. It was all over.
It didn't help.
"You're going back, aren't you?" she asked as they stared at Mick's name in the granite.
He didn't answer. She didn't need him to.
He went back because he had nothing else. The need for revenge churned in him like it was the only thing keeping him going. Plans. Arguments.
Sara's sister had died.
If he'd had it in him, he might have tried to relate to her.
He didn't.
They didn't talk.
He pointed his cold gun at Savage, watched him die, and Ray didn't try to stop him as he shattered the man to pieces, like he understood Len needed it. The Time Masters had been helping Savage. Mick was dead because of all of them.
"Did it help?" Ray asked quietly when nothing was left.
He swallowed thickly and put his gun back into its holster. "Mick's still dead. What do you think?"
Ray nodded, quiet for a minute. "Would you shoot me if I hugged you?"
"Yes."
He packed up Mick's room as his stomach churned. Mementos and machinery and the old Bic lighter he'd stolen off a juvie guard when they were fourteen. It had run out of fluid years ago, but Mick had kept it, shut away in a little lockbox with the few family pictures that had survived the fire.
Jax found him staring at the box, ass on the floor and too numb to cry anymore. He sat next to him without a word, quiet for a long time.
"We're toasting to him on the bridge," he said finally. "You should come down."
He slipped the lighter into his pocket as he stood, but if Jax was uncomfortable with the silence, he didn't say anything. No one did for a while, torn between celebrating Savage's death and mourning Mick's. Rip looked appropriately remorseful, like Mick had proved him wrong. It comforted him a little more than the burn of alcohol down his throat.
Sara was the one that noticed the ring, eyes wide when she saw what finger he'd moved it to. "I thought you said that was from a job," she said as everyone's attention shifted to them.
"It was," he said gruffly as he twisted the platinum ring he'd had Gideon resize as soon as he got back on the Waverider. At least it fit on the right finger again. "Worked just as well as a wedding ring, too."
Stein sucked in a breath. "You two were married?"
He hummed, but he didn't say it had been twelve years. It wasn't any of their business. He didn't want the pity any more than he wanted the understanding looks Rip and Ray were sending him.
Sara averted her eyes like she was guilty for dancing near something that wasn't going to happen. Later, he'd tell her it was fine, that him and Mick had been so on and off over the years that they'd never quite been strictly monogamous, but he wasn't getting into it then.
He downed another shot, reminded himself to not become his father, and turned down the food they offered him.
He packed up the rest of Mick's room alone.
"You're going to leave, aren't you?"
He didn't look up from where he was shoving a shirt into his bag. "What gave you that idea?"
"You're packing up your… Oh, right. Sarcasm."
"Ten points for you."
Ray lingered by the door, torn between crossing his arms and shoving his hands into his pockets. It was more fidgeting than Len did on a normal day and if he'd been a little less numb, he might have found it amusing. "You should stay," Ray said when the silence stretched. "You liked it here. You know you did."
And Mick was dead because he'd dragged him along, Len thought bitterly. No one else seemed to understand that, that Mick would be safe and alive if he hadn't let his inner nerd think time travel sounded like a fun idea. He wished Mick hadn't listened to him. Fuck, he wished.
His hands stilled, fists curled shut around a pair of pants, and Ray stepped into the room. For a smart guy, he had a death wish.
"When I lost Anna-"
"Did I ask for a talk?"
"No, but I get it," Ray continued like a persistent shit that was going to get real cold real soon if he didn't shut up. "I couldn't do anything to save Anna. I tried and I know you did too. Sara said that you tried to run back in-"
He snorted, dark. "She tell you she knocked me out?"
The grimace said yes. "You were going to take his place, weren't you?"
"What would you know about it?"
"Because I would have done the same thing for her," Ray said simply. "But I'm doing good things now and I'm doing it in her memory. You can too." He turned a sad smile towards Len, hand reached out like he wanted to touch his shoulder, but Len stepped out of range and he let his arm drop. "Just think about it."
Len sighed as he left and stared down at his bag.
He stayed and Ray smiled at him like he was proud. He pushed a donut towards Len the next morning as he got his coffee like it was a chocolate glazed olive branch.
Mick flashed across his mind.
He ate it slowly, like lead bits falling into his stomach, and ended up throwing up until his throat ached.
He visited Mick in 2013, a week after the fire and days after the past him had run.
He didn't touch him, just propped his elbows on the edge of the mattress, hands folded, and muttered prayers for a religion that wasn't his. Prayed in his own in clumsy Hebrew. Wondered if any god cared enough about them to let Mick hear him say he was sorry.
"I love you," he murmured as his shoulders shook. They rarely ever said the words, too emotionally stunted to give themselves up to the vulnerability it brought. He wished he'd said it more, that Mick could hear him and understand that he'd always come back. He came back after juvie. He came back after Mick's family died. He came back after Mick burned. He planned to come back after they'd left Mick behind. He'd tried to get back to him when the Oculus blew.
He'd tried.
Mick slept on, lost under the haze of pain meds, and Len leaned forward to kiss him one last time.
Sobbed against his lips and wished it wasn't goodbye.
New people came and he moved his stuff into Mick's old room, like he couldn't handle the thought of anyone else living there.
Nate asked about his ring and about the wife he'd left at home. Jax pulled him aside and he didn't ask again.
Amaya said he had sticky fingers and he muttered about diagnosed kleptomania as his fingers twitched. Figured it was safer that she called him out on that than on the dinners he didn't touch.
He spent his nights at his work table, tinkering with gears and wires. His cold gun got upgraded. He built a new heat gun and shut it away like it would keep him from thinking about Mick burning when the Oculus blew.
It didn't.
He ate an entire cake on his own and threw up every last bit of it.
"Amaya cooked," Jax said when he found Len in the cargo bay. "We're getting real food for once."
He didn't look up from his gun. "Not hungry."
"Are you okay?" Barry asked quietly as he stepped up alongside Len at the party. Everyone moved around them, celebrating a win against honest to God aliens. A year ago, Len would have been excited and tossing a triumphant grin at Mick like he was saying I told you they exist, but there was no Mick to gloat with. There was just Barry and a team he'd felt himself pulling away from for months.
He tightened a grip on the water he was holding. "Fine."
"You don't look so good," Barry continued, "and Lisa said that you can go a bit…off the rails without Mick."
"Other way around."
"I think it goes both ways," Barry said carefully, but when Len walked off, he didn't follow him.
Everyone watched him differently after that, though, and he got the feeling Barry had told the others something. He heard Sara asking Gideon about his health one day and listened as Gideon listed off his stats from before the Oculus blew. Contingency plans, he thought as he remembered the override code that kept Gideon from recording his current status.
It was none of their business, anyway.
He was fine.
"You're killing yourself," Mick's voice said behind him and Len went stiff.
He pushed himself away from the toilet he'd been bent over, wide eyes falling on his partner. His breath caught in his throat. "Mick…" He shook his head sharply and rubbed his clean hand over his face. "I'm losing my mind."
"Not like it's the first time you've hallucinated when you get like this," Mick said as he leaned against the wall. "At least I'm not a hamburger this time."
"Shut up."
"Here's a crazy idea," Mick continued like he hadn't spoken, "eat like a normal person and don't throw it up after." He flinched at the words and Mick's face softened. "You need help."
"I need you to go away."
Mick snorted. "When did that ever work?" he asked, but he was gone in a blink and Len let the bitterness rise in him.
"Apparently now," he muttered and got up to brush his teeth.
Amaya lingered by his side as Gideon sealed up the bullet wound in his arm. "You could have gotten out of the way of that," she said, voice soft. She hadn't mentioned the scars lacing up his arms when they cut the sleeve away. He gave her credit for not asking if any were self-inflicted or simply byproducts of a life that was less than legal.
He didn't know how much of the truth he would have told her anyway.
"Didn't move fast enough."
"You looked dizzy." Her hand touched his wrist, only pulling away when he flinched. "Sorry."
He shrugged her off. "I miscalculated. It's nothing."
She didn't look convinced, but she stood anyway. "I'm going to make something to eat. Come by after Gideon finishes?"
He hummed, noncommittal, and let her leave.
"Got the new girl sweet on you too?" Mick asked. He was standing by Len's feet when he looked over, arms crossed over his chest.
"I'm not dealing with you right now." He tipped his head back onto the chair and closed his eyes.
"Too bad. I told you to be careful."
"I was."
"You got shot," Mick snapped. "Don't give me that crap about screwing up how far you had to move. She was right. You got dizzy."
He groaned and pressed his free hand over his face. "Shut up."
"You think I died so that you could do this shit to yourself?" Mick asked and sighed when Len didn't respond. "How much weight have you lost?"
He dropped his hand, glaring. "A lot less than you did when you blew yourself up."
Mick didn't say anything. He just blinked out of existence again and Len was alone.
He was really starting to hate Chicago.
Rip being with the Legion was bad enough. Len had never cared much for him either way, but the team had and they were hurting. They said they'd get him back, that they had everything under control.
Then, Mick appeared with Rip and Len felt something in him break.
Mick alive.
Mick with the Legion.
No, he thought as cold eyes fell on him. Not Mick. Not even when he was Chronos had Mick's eyes ever looked at cruel. Even at his worst, he'd never…
"You feeling alright, Snart?" Mick asked, mocking, as he ran his eyes up and down Len's form. "You look a little…queasy."
Len clutched his cold gun tighter and shot.
He missed.
"Go away," he snapped when he locked the bathroom door and the hallucination was there.
"You need to calm down."
He didn't. He dropped to his knees, shoved two fingers down his throat, and let his gag reflex do the rest.
"Lenny, it's not me."
He threw up until spots danced across his vision. When they cleared, Mick was gone.
They saved Rip, pulled him back to himself and Len sighed. Finally, something went right. He still didn't like the guy all that much, but it was progress. One less ally for the Legion to use against them.
"They still have Mick," Ray said as they gathered on the bridge.
"It's not Mick," he snapped.
"It is," Rip sighed. "A version of him, at least." He glanced at Sara like he was asking for permission to touch the console. He reached forward when she nodded, typing something in.
Bile crept up Len's throat when he saw the wellspring and Mick's arm shoved inside the Oculus. He swallowed it back when Rip started playing it frame by frame.
Sara took his hand and didn't let him snatch it back. "Rip, get to it. We don't need the visual."
Rip let the projection disappear and shot Len a mildly guilty look. "When it blew-"
"Mick blew," Len cut in. "We know how explosions work."
"Not when it's the Oculus. It merged with him, scattering pieces of Mr. Rory throughout time. Thawne gathered those pieces and put them back together." Len opened his mouth to snap that Mick wasn't that same kind of bastard as the one they'd been facing, but Rip raised his hand. "They didn't find all of him. Thawne thought he had, but when you don't have every part of a person, they're feral."
"Like when they don't have their soul," Sara murmured as her grip on his hand tightened.
"So what?" he scoffed. "Mick doesn't have his soul?"
"Essentially. This Mick has his memories, but he has no feelings about them. He doesn't care," Rip said, distracted as he typed something in. "Like when he makes a joke out of your bulimia."
The bridge went quiet and Sara's hand went slack enough that he could pull his own free.
Sara turned towards him, eyes wide. "Your what?"
Rip coughed, uncomfortable. "I gather that wasn't public knowledge?"
"No," she said without taking her eyes off of Len.
"Though, now, all Mick's Ipecac comments make a lot more sense," Nate mumbled.
"Snart-"
"You're going to trust a guy that had his brain scrambled?" Len snapped. "I'm fine."
"You're too thin," Amaya said.
Jax nodded. "Yeah. And you never eat with us either. Any time you do-"
"-you leave as soon as you're done," Stein finished for him.
"That's why Barry was asking us to keep an eye on you," Ray said. "He said Lisa was worried."
"Happens when your brother has a history of making himself puke," Mick mused to Len's right.
"No one asked you," Len barked before he went stiff. Everybody's eyes were already on him, but they slid over to the empty space he'd turned his head towards.
"Leonard, there's no one there," Sara said carefully.
"It's Mr. Rory, isn't it?" Stein breathed, stunned. "You weren't hallucinating him before. When I caught you-"
She snapped her head towards Stein. "You caught him hallucinating and you didn't say anything?"
"I assumed it was a product of grief."
Nate looked between the empty space and Len, thinking. "But if that's the piece of Mick the Legion doesn't have…"
Rip nodded. "Then, we may have our trump card."
No one said the word bulimia for days, but he could tell they were thinking it. Everybody watched him too closely, hovering and quietly consulting with Gideon about healthy diets. Rip undid the override code he'd done to keep Gideon from recording his current stats and everyone looked at him when she said how much weight he'd lost.
"His clothes have been pretty loose lately," Ray whispered to Sara as Len left the room.
They watched him during meals and started following him around afterwards with a barrage of stupid questions to keep him out of the bathroom.
He punched the wall beside Ray's head one day and scared him off as effectively as he'd scared himself.
Still, Mick was the focus. They used Len as a go-between in conversation as Rip showed him how to use his wedding ring as a link to keep Mick with him. It helped them figure out how to get the remaining piece into the one with the Legion, but it gave Mick the ability to stay on Len's ass.
The team didn't mention bulimia.
Mick did. A lot.
"You need to go back to your therapist," he said, rather than suggest the in-patient treatment he'd been forced into one prison sentence. "Talk to her. Get back on track."
"Your body's running around hurting people," he griped. "How about you focus on that?"
Mick grunted, hands shoved in his pockets. "I can multi-task."
He wondered how insane he looked when he flipped off empty air.
Mick walked onto the Waverider the day before they were supposed to execute the plan and dropped the cold gun the Legion had stolen a month ago. "Not as fun as burning," he mused, "but it works pretty damn good against speedsters."
"You already did it?" Ray sputtered. "But we… There was a plan. We had charts."
"And the kids in the back appreciated the color coding," Mick deadpanned. "I was sick of waiting."
"You could have gotten yourself killed," Sara said, disapproving.
"Again?" Mick quipped, even as Len flinched. "They thought I was on their side still. Thawne didn't look at me twice."
"And the other two?" Rip asked.
"Back where they should be in the timeline," Mick replied. "I put the jump ship back, but she might have a couple dings on the side."
Jax pointed at him in warning. "If you hurt my ship…"
Mick waved him off. "I'm better at flying than parking. It's nothing you can't pop back out." He turned his attention towards Len finally and gave him a little grin. "What? No welcome home?"
"You've been nagging me for months," Len said flatly, but his lips still quirked up in cautious smile. "It's like you never left."
Mick rolled his eyes and kissed him like he didn't care that they usually saved that for when they were alone. Too long, Len thought as he kissed him back and laid his hands on Mick's hips. It had been too long.
Mick wrinkled his nose when he pulled back and Len knew it was because of the overwhelming mint flavor from the mouthwash. He didn't mention it, looking back towards the team instead. "Drop us off in 2017."
Ray's face fell. "You're leaving? You just got back."
"I need a few months with my shrink after all this crap," Mick said plainly and jerked a thumb towards Len, "and he needs to chat with his before he burns a hole through his damn throat."
Len scowled. "Mick-"
"Wanna step on a scale, Lenny?" Mick asked innocently.
Len shut up.
"Give us a bit. We'll see if we wanna come back after," he told the rest of the team.
"We could help," Amaya offered, but Mick shook his head.
"Not with this," he said. "Take care of the aberration crap. We'll take care of this." He turned and gave Len a little shove. "Go pack your shit."
"Bite me."
"Later, darling."
At least, this time, he didn't flip off empty air.
The End