If he were a car, he would be an insurance write off
Time had slid by since Len, the inconsiderate shit, had decided to go hero and get himself killed. The man he'd loved in varying degrees for most of his adult life, who he had followed without question was dead, and they didn't have anything to bury.
Mick had swallowed his pain, but it still remained, sitting in his stomach like a stone; later accompanied by the darkened eyes of someone who had not slept properly for weeks, as every time he closed his eyes he could see that skinny bastard looking grim just before he cold clocked him and everything went black.
As he understood it, the oculus was a time machine and that Len had either travelled somewhere and was raising hell or was distributed throughout time and space. Another thing he understood was that he was willing to pull apart the universe with his bare hands to get him back.
Rip, the person who should have been the most sympathetic to his predicament, wasn't willing to alter time and space. He wasn't willing to do anything. Something about changing the future and paradoxes and fixed points and the end of said universe.
Time travel really gave him a headache.
After unending waiting; in his opinion wasting time and after another blazing argument consisting of threats to Rip's mortality, the heat gun beckoned and flashes of red spread through pockets of the ship as he cackled with glee and thoughts of vengeance.
He awoke on the floor of a cell, remembering nothing, with Sara glaring down at him, arms folded across her chest, full of angry disappointment.
"Do it quick" He groaned, rubbing the back of his head, where he was expecting an injury of some sort.
A vague visual image of walking into Rip's quarters with the heat gun appeared in his head. Sara's lips twitched in amusement
"Not going to kill you Mick."
The door to the cell unlocked and he was ushered down corridors, off the ship and into a field by the silent assassin. He glanced at the surroundings, confused, before the realisation kicked in and his eyes narrowed. Sara sighed at his response.
"We had a vote, it was unanimous. You're too out of control."
Of course he was out of control. He felt like his soul had broken, that there was only half of him left.
"Help me bring him back then" He bellowed, bristling with rage.
"We can't" her voice regretful "It is a fixed point now"
"So, you're going to leave me here."
"You're in Central City, 6 months after Rip picked you up. We erased your record and your reputation. Your life is wiped clean to do with what you want"
They had voted to leave him. All of them had, even Haircut. Appeasing him wasn't going to cut it.
"You think that will help? Where's my gun?" He demanded.
"We're keeping that"
Mick felt his stomach rumble, this changed his mind about being angry, a guy had to have priorities.
"What about seething to eat?"
"Behind the bush to your left."
He sauntered suspiciously around the bush and found a huge black canvas hold-all containing money and possessions like she'd raided his cabin whilst he was out cold.
A neatly cling filmed sandwich like the ones Haircut would have stored in the fridge sat on the top. He grabbed it before gravity did then closed the bag, slinging it over his shoulder and stood still to study the face of someone he'd though of as a friend.
"See you around Micky"
Sara turned and went back to the ship, not looking back as the door closed and the ship rose into the air, leaving him behind.
He stood alone in amongst grass as far as the eye could see. Sunlit green leaves and flowers waving happily in a gentle breeze minding their own business and ignoring his frustration.
He dropped his bag by his feet and roared.
Birds flew from the surrounding trees into the dazzling sunshine and blue sky overhead. It was around midday he assumed, no wonder he was hungry.
Why couldn't they have dropped him in a different city?
He and Len had taken Lisa camping in a field like this. It had rained and he'd spent the whole time sitting in the tent bitching that it was cold whist Len and Lisa played some sort of game outside.
A groan of distress erupted from the back of his throat. He wished he could take that moment back.
That he could have Len back.
That he could have his old life back.
He bit into the sandwich and chewed thoughtfully, his mind calm and ready to consider the options.
Getting Len back was impossible, even Sara had said so and she'd come back from the dead.
He couldn't stay in Central City, not the place where all the memories were.
First task was to find Lisa, to explain to her that her brother wasn't coming back. He made up a last wish, something that he knew Len would have wanted for her, even though he'd never mentioned it out loud. An education, a life without crime. He transferred her the college fund that Len had set up when he was old enough to save money for her, then decided to leave her alone, easier for them both to deal with.
From that moment, he was just another scruffy homeless guy with a fondness for hitting things and setting stuff on fire. All he had to do was forget who he used to be.
Jobs seemed to find him.
Falling in with one crowd after another because he was intimidating and knew his place. He worked security for a few gangs in Gotham. Watching the exits on jobs and backing up kids on club doorways who had no right to be there.
But, as soon as he got a reputation, he was gone. Nothing but a ghost, who sometimes went by the name Rory Calhoun, sometimes by Leonard Wynters, but the latter made him feel guilty, so it didn't last long. Eventually, he had no name at all. A drifter. A rumour.
Keep your mouth shut and watch your back, another one of Len's mantras, if they were ever alone.
He was sure he spotted Lisa once, her belly protruding underneath a coat, holding shopping bags, walking with friends. At least he thought it was her, he could have been mistaken.
Moving on to Metropolis, Mick joined a group of cage fighters and accepted any physical retribution by others as penance for still being alive, a decision that left him with broken bones which would dog him for the rest of his natural life.
When that didn't work, the next step was drinking until he passed out, soaked in booze and pain.
Years drifted by, time he'd spent trying to fill the hole in his soul, as least he was sure that it was years. It sure felt like it. He'd lost track of time as soon as he got off that damn ship and didn't care. It seemed to go on and on, grief never stopping. It had been so long since he'd felt anything different, that it was now a habit he couldn't break.
After one night of heavy drinking, he woke in the waiting room of Midway bus station and by that evening he'd ended up accidentally joining a squad of bounty hunters who could follow orders and handle a gun, but couldn't plan for shit.
The only exception in this misfit fatigue clad group was Victor. When he walked into the dim back room of the bar, the room went silent
A little shorter than Mick, on the more muscular side of average. In his 40's, but he couldn't quite be sure. Ex army turned bounty hunter, with a sly grin that twitched a scar on his top lip.
The feelings hit him 5 days in, like backdraft. He never saw it coming.
They were on a job. Something about a biker known as Razor with a ridiculously huge gambling debt to the casino He was shown a grainy photograph, but not given any more information.
They found the Razor hiding in a dirty bricked window fronted dive bar on the outskirts of town and waited out of sight, under the veil of pink neon from the obscenely large bar sign, using hand signals to communicate over the volume of the rock music coming from inside. Out front a rack of Harley's stood, practically begging to be shoved so they fell like dominoes.
Victor had gone in first whilst he waited outside. A few seconds later, Victor burst backwards through the window with a yell of indignation, the sound of shattered glass echoing down the alley way. A cloud of stale sweat and cigarette smoke overwhelming as he got closer to the carnage and paused at the shards of glass glittering like diamonds on the pavement, reflecting the pink neon, Victor in a heap in the middle.
"Got the drop on me" Victor muttered, throwing a wedge of money at him, before rising off the floor and shaking off the glass like a wet dog. He face suddenly etched with confusion then rage.
Those gravelly words were strangely effective, words that left him too distracted to notice Victor had gone back in. His body was a traitor.
This time Razor went through the windowless frame, then another man joined him in a heap on the pavement. Victor emerged through the front door with a split lip and something long and silver in his hand, beckoning for Mick to leave the premises before they were caught.
Mick shoved the bikes as he went past, they crashed into each other, echoing in the alley. He grinned with pride at the noise.
It turned out Victor was a black belt in some type of martial art, not that Mick listened properly after that night, focusing only on wayward black spikes and trying to squash the overwhelming need to run his fingers through them. He would glance at him whilst he was planning, twisting those goddamn dog tags that he could have died for, around his fingers, every so often Victor would look his way and give him a slow smile that made him want to tell him his name.
If that was Len, he knew their dance. With Victor, he didn't know what to think.
Life he could deal with, moving on, not so much.
The squad decided to take a job in Gotham a few months later. Mick passed, not wanting to go back. Anyway he was to old for that unrequited shit.
Afterwards, there was a crew who looked liked suspiciously like a Captain Boomerang tribute act, all twisted grins and metal teeth. They wanted him to start a fire as a diversion.
On another job, he was suited, booted and forced to shave and was sent out at a debt collector to a family business who couldn't pay. By the time reports of a fire had filtered back to his employers bosses he was long gone.
No attachments, no distractions, but he was no puppet.
He took a job as far away as he possibly could after that. A transport freighter of stolen Playstations or something. Not that he cared.
The boat docked a couple of weeks later in Star City to unload. Dismissed, job over. Payment accepted.
Then weeks of following jobs and money across the country, in a mixture of hitchhiking and chauffeured limousines, depending on the employer.
The latest destination unknown.