"I think that's the last one," Leonard said, placing a cardboard box at Mick Rory's feet.
They were standing in the partially finished basement of Leonard and Sara's home in Central City.
The floors were a dark hardwood and the walls had a fresh coat of dark grey paint, but wooden beams still hung from the exposed ceiling. Pipes and braces stretched to the floor; one pressed against the side of Mick's worn wrap-around couch.
"Thanks," Mick said gruffly, "For all of this."
Mick didn't know how long it had been since he met Leonard Snart — time traveling was funny that way.
Leonard was the first person Mick had truly been able to call family. They supported each other, not just as deadbeat teenagers, but throughout their entire lives.
Although it sounded sappy, Snart knew him better than anyone, the good and the bad. It used to go the same way. Not anymore.
The moment Snart started talking about the red leather-clad speedster who thought he could see the good in Captain Cold, Mick knew everything was going to change.
The man hadn't changed in his entire life, there was no way Mick wouldn't be able to notice even small differences, and they were small at first. Sure, he wasn't going to kill anyone anymore, but that didn't really interfere with their score, so did it really matter?
Accepting the time travel mission the Englishman proposed to them was a surprise, but also, not really. Mick suspected that the prospect of heroism was part of the appeal, but he did believe what Snart told him — that the world of thievery was their oyster when the doors to all of time were opened — was really why he joined.
It was why he joined, but Mick didn't think it was why he stayed.
Over the first few weeks of the mission, their heists became less and less frequent.
Leonard became less concerned with stealing things and more concerned with stealing someone.
Sara Lance.
He thought of their venture to Star City 2046, a place where he could see himself happily living out his life as the leader of a crime mob. He had thought Leonard felt the same way, that is, until that Wilson character showed up and mentioned a certain assassin in white.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Leonard change from an outward appearance displaying a general disinterest with the world to one of cold anger.
All the countless times he chose to stay by the assassin's side instead of his partner's — leaving him in a Soviet gulag with an unconscious Raymond, forcing him to leave Star City 2046, and, on top of the cake, when he stranded him in the middle of nowhere just because Mick had shot his Sara with the heat gun — made his alliance perfectly clear.
Up until now, the changes in Leonard had never affected Mick, but now it was and Mick wasn't happy about it.
But he got over those things.
Eventually.
He liked Sara, he liked that she saw Leonard for more than what he was said to be. He was glad they found each other, but it was…strange…to see Leonard care so deeply for another person.
At the start of the mission, Mick was Leonard's first priority, and he had to admit that it didn't feel good when that changed.
But at the same time, Mick was changing too.
He'd never worked on a team before. Sure, he'd worked with other people, but never a real team.
He liked it.
He liked allying with people for a common interest, one where the goal wasn't just the score and then to dissipate once again, but to actually make a difference.
Mick liked making a difference.
So he didn't mind that Leonard was becoming a different person because Mick was too.
His relationship with Sara gave Mick a sense of hope. If his partner, the man who for so long seemed to not believe in love anymore, could find a love so strong with someone as incredible as Sara Lance, perhaps Mick could have the same.
A while into the mission, they got married. Their wedding was so small that if you blinked, you missed it. Sara hadn't worn a dress, nor had Leonard worn a suit. Really, Sara had demanded that Rip marry them on the Waverider and that had been that.
The only proof of the "wedding" was a photo Jax had insisted on taking. They were all standing together around the holo table, a perfect moment captured until the end of time.
Life was good after that. They were all traveling through time, kicking ass and taking names, and, for the first time in his life, Mick found that he was consistently happy.
But all good things have to end at some point; Mick knew that better than anyone.
When the first mission ended — when the team of Legends defeated Vandal Savage and saved the world for the first time — they got to go home. They got to go back to the present time and visit with their families.
Leonard and Sara returned to 2016 to deliver the news to the people they loved that, in the years they'd been time traveling, they'd gotten married.
Mick went back to Central City, anticipating returning to the life of crime he'd grown up in. He couldn't do it, not after all the good he'd done in the last few years. But that didn't leave him with many other options. Mick felt…lost, which was why he was grateful when Rip Hunter returned to their time.
He had discovered (yet another) body of people who wanted to take over the world. He wanted to enlist the help of his old team, the people who had so valiantly helped him defeat Vandal Savage.
Mick immediately agreed to return to the Waverider, but not all of their captain's original team returned. Leonard and Sara ultimately made the decision to stay in the present time, to figure out how a normal life would suit them.
Leonard and Sara left. They left the mission, left Mick, to go create a life for themselves away from time travel and away from their superhero personas.
Mick managed to be happy for them; he was happy for Leonard, that his life had turned around in such a way.
He went on this new mission with Rip and left his partner behind.
He'd never worked without Leonard before — well, besides the few millennia he spent as Chronus, but he really didn't want to count that. He wasn't sure how to manage himself, and he constantly found himself looking for someone to tell him what to do and not finding anyone.
But even that wasn't so bad. They still came back every now and then to help out their old team, and once or twice a month, Mick would take the jumpship to Leonard's present time and the two would go back to Saints and Sinners.
Sometimes they would trash the place, sometimes they wouldn't. It was different, and it was new, but it was tolerable.
When Mick thought nothing else could possibly change, it did.
He was already supposed to be seeing Snart and Sara that day; the team was going to be visiting them at their house later in the afternoon, but then Leonard contacted Mick, requesting to meet him at Saints and Sinners.
He could tell something was up the second Leonard walked into the bar. It wasn't that something seemed wrong, exactly — Mick had known Leonard long enough to know when something was wrong. Something seemed different, and sometimes that was just as bad. Leonard had never coped well with change. With Sara's aid, he was getting better, but his discomfort still showed.
He sat at the bar next to Mick and didn't waste much time telling him what he needed to say.
"I know you and the team are dropping by later, but I wanted to tell you this before the rest of you hear the news."
Mick couldn't read Leonard's tone. He could think of two things that would spur this type of behavior and he didn't know how he felt about either of them.
"Get on with it then, so we can drink," Mick prompted, unsure of what else to say.
He saw Leonard take a deep breath.
"Sara's pregnant."
"Oh," Mick replied, still at a loss for words.
"It's a girl," he added, almost as an afterthought.
"She's that far along?" Mick asked, raising his eyebrows. Leonard nodded, "Well, congratulations."
Mick didn't see Leonard too much after that day. In fact, he went until their baby was born without a visit with his friend, but he didn't blame him. Sara was scary enough in her normal state. Imagining what she was like pregnant was downright terrifying.
He asked Gideon to let him know when it happened and then he took — although a better word might be hijacked — the jumpship to visit them.
Mick had never been a baby person, and if the parents were anyone else, he would have skipped the visit, but Leonard and Sara were special. Their baby was special.
When he was standing in the hospital room, looking at the baby wrapped in blankets and resting in Sara's arms, he gruffly asked, "What's her name."
"Victoria," Leonard had answered.
"That's good," he replied, because it was. It was the perfect mix of Leonard's regality and Sara's badassery.
"We're gonna call her Rory," Sara had added, "if that's okay with you."
"Yeah, that's okay with me."
They had named their new baby after him. He didn't know why they did it; he could think of a dozen other people that were more worthy of the namesake, but he was honored just the same.
One thing was for sure: anybody who laid a finger on that baby would be burnt to a crisp before they knew it.
After his baby was born, Leonard's visits with Mick became much less frequent, and when they did happen, they normally ended with Leonard saying something like:
"I've got a very hormonal assassin at home and if I leave her with a screaming baby for too long, she might actually kill me."
Leonard used his wife and his baby as an reason to leave, but Mick knew he didn't need the excuse. He wanted to go back.
He didn't prioritize Mick anymore; he had other things going on in his life.
So Mick left them alone.
His distance did not go unnoticed by Leonard and Sara.
"You need to talk to him," she told him one night as she spoon fed Rory mashed peaches.
"I know," he replied, "I just don't know where to look."
Sara raised her eyebrows.
"What?" he asked.
"You'd know where to start looking," she pointed out, "and you'd know who to ask. You just don't want to bother him."
Leonard sighed in surrender.
"He just needs time to cool off. You know Mick. He—"
"He runs hot," she finished, "I remember. But you know, if he doesn't cool down, he burns."
Sara met Leonard's eyes over the high chair, her eyebrows quirked and his eyes glinting.
They both broke when Rory started babbling, drooling peaches down her chin and onto her bib.
"I'm glad that we still get to have these serious conversations even with Rory," Sara said sarcastically, "Seriously though, you need to talk to him."
He knew she was right, so the next time the Waverider docked in the present time, he tracked him down.
"How's the new mission?" Leonard asked after locating Mick at Saints and Sinners. They'd been patronizing that bar since the sign didn't flicker and its floors were still shining. That had been before the missions, before Sara, before Heatwave and Captain Cold, even
"Not bad," Mick replied, "The new recruits are shaping up good."
"New recruits?"
"We gotta replace you and Birdie somehow."
"Who are they?"
"Nate — think Ray but without the suit and twice as clueless — and Amaya. I guess she's some animal-shape-shifter from the '40s. Her granddaughter has the same powers in this time?"
"How're they doing?"
"They're no you guys, but they're doin' okay. Wish we had Blondie to train 'em though."
As they talked, Leonard consciously skirted around the subject of Sara and Rory. He wasn't sure Mick wanted to hear about them.
But as it turns out, he did.
"How's the kid?" Mick asked as the bartender slid another beer to him across the bar.
"She's good," he nodded.
"How old is she now?"
"Seven months a few days ago," he replied, "How long has it been for you?"
"Prob'ly the same. I always ask Gideon to bring me to your present time. I hope I'm not missin' much."
They talked for a while about Rory before switching over to the Flash and the situations he found himself getting into these days. Before long, Mick realized it was time for him to get back to the Waverider.
"Good luck with the kid," Mick said, standing up.
"Good luck with the mission," Leonard replied, holding out a hand for Mick to shake. He did, and when they let go, they took their leave. They headed in different directions towards their new lives, the only thing on their minds being the ones they'd left behind.
That mission came to a close eventually, and after it, there wasn't a new one. Mick drifted for a little while, following the various members of the team. He even went with Ray to Star City for a little while; he managed to work with and eventually befriend the Green Arrow and his team.
But even that came to an end, and Mick was back in Central City with nowhere to go.
He held off on visiting his old partner. It felt…wrong to infiltrate the home he and Sara had created, as if all the bad things they'd worked so hard to vanquish would return with Mick's presence.
It was Leonard who reached out to him, actually. Ray had called to ask how Mick was doing — apparently, Mick may have been, as Ray put it, involved with, Amaya, one of the new recruits on the second mission. She was from the 1940s, and when the mission was completed, she returned to her own time to fulfill her destiny.
Mick was unprepared for how Amaya's departure would affect him. He hadn't been ready for the emptiness he felt now that she was gone.
Leonard gave him a few weeks to recover, but when a month had gone by and there was still no word from him, Leonard decided to track him down.
Mick wasn't at Saints and Sinners this time, but at another somewhat sketchy dive bar.
"Long time no see," Leonard said as he approached Mick at the bar, "What are you doing at this fine establishment at eleven in the morning."
"What do you think, Snart?" Mick replied, not looking up at him.
Leonard knew he wasn't supposed to answer.
"So I heard you've been back for a while," he said, "What's been taking you so long to stop by?"
"Don't wanna mess up your family."
"Well, I don't know why you'd think that's even a possibility, but what's done is done, I suppose."
"Why are you here, Snart?" Mick asked.
"Sara's having the old team over for dinner. I think Kendra might even be making an appearance. You should drop in."
After a brief hesitation, Mick said, "Maybe."
Leonard left after that. He could sense that his presence wasn't exactly wanted by Mick. Maybe he would show up for dinner, maybe he wouldn't, and there wasn't much Leonard could do about it.
Sara was was remaining cautiously optimistic about Mick's attendance to the party. Leonard didn't think he'd show up at all.
Much to his surprise, however, he was one of the first to arrive.
"Am I on time," Mick asked after Leonard opened the front door to see him standing on the doormat.
"Yeah," Leonard replied, trying his best to hide his confusion.
"Here," Mick held out a tall bottle of chardonnay.
"What's this?" Leonard asked, gingerly taking the wine from him.
"Don't you bring fancy wine to stuff like this?"
"Uh, I guess." He looked on the label on the bottle, "You didn't steal this, did you?"
"No."
Leonard wasn't sure whether he believed him or not.
"Everyone's in the living room," he said, stepping back and opening the door wider.
"People here already?"
"Just the Steins, and Kendra."
Mick followed Leonard into the entryway of the house. The walls were covered in picture frames, most of their daughter Rory at different stages of her life. Some had Sara in them and there were even fewer with Leonard, not that this surprised Mick in the slightest. As he followed Leonard down a hallway, he realized that he didn't know his way around Leonard and Sara's house. He didn't really know how he felt about that.
"Mick's here," Leonard said as they entered the living room.
It was a spacious room, decorated with shades of blue and grey. A large dark grey sectional sat in the center, framing a soft rug. It faced a large stone fireplace that was lit and casting a warm orange light upon the room. Tall windows looked into the winter day and let dull white February light inside.
"Mick!" Kendra exclaimed, standing from the couch to hug him.
"Kendra," he grunted, waiting for her to step away.
"Hey Mick."
He turned towards the voice and saw Sara nod familiarly in his direction.
"Sara," he replied.
"How've you been?"
"Not bad."
"Ollie said you and Ray were a big help in Central City," she told him, "He says you're welcome back any time."
Mick tried to ignore the surprise in her voice.
"Where's the kid?" he asked her.
"My mom has her right now," she explained, "She's dropping her off around her bedtime."
Mick nodded. He was unsure of how else to respond.
Over the next half hour, the rest of the team arrived. Mick pretended he hadn't been watching the door. He knew Amaya wasn't coming. He didn't know why he was disappointed.
They all sat in the dining room and ate together, talking about what they were doing with their lives now that they weren't traveling through time anymore.
When they were done, they moved back to the living room with coffee or gin — or in Rip's case, a combination of the two — in tow. He took a long swig from his mug and looked to the ceiling in thought.
"Did this gin at any point belong to me?" he asked, making a point of meeting both Leonard and Sara's eyes.
"It might have," Leonard smirked.
A few minutes later, they heard the front door open.
"That'll be my mom with Rory," Sara said, getting up from the couch to greet them.
"Your daughter's five, right?" Nate asked Leonard, leaning forwards and resting his elbows on his knees.
"She's four, nimrod," Mick found himself saying before Leonard even opened his mouth, "We saved Christmas four years ago."
"Yeah…thanks Mick," Leonard said slowly. He turned to Nate, "She won't turn five until June."
Nate nodded.
A while later, Sara returned downstairs with Rory in tow. It had been a long time since Mick had last seen Rory — too long, he thought to himself. She was four years old now, but the last time he saw her, she couldn't have been more than two and a half.
She had gotten taller — it was clear she'd inherited her father's height. She still had the same big blue eyes she'd had since she was a baby, another genetic gift from her dad. Her short blonde hair was pulled into a high ponytail that sprouted from the top of her head like a fountain. She was wearing a soft penguin-printed nightgown, and a pair of purple fuzzy socks were on her feet.
"Rory wanted to come say goodnight, didn't you?" Sara said, looking at her daughter.
Rory nodded bashfully, tipping her head down to rest her cheek on her mother's shoulder.
Kendra's whole face had lit up when Rory entered the room.
"Good night, Miss Rory," she cooed, "Have a good sleep!"
There was a chorus of "goodnights" from the rest of the room — everyone except Mick, that is.
Rory stretched out her little arms towards Leonard. Sara crossed the living room to where he was sitting on the couch and gave her to him.
Rory wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his neck.
"Ni-night, daddy," she said.
"G'night, Rory," he replied, kissing the top of her head.
She climbed off his lap and let Sara lead her upstairs.
"That was the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life — in all my lives," Kendra said seriously.
Leonard didn't say anything, but Mick could see a hint of a smile on the man's lips.
Not too long later, Sara returned to the living room.
"My mom says hello," she told Leonard as she sat next to him on the couch, "And Rory wants me to make sure you remember to make rainbow waffles with her tomorrow morning. I have no idea what that means, I figured you would."
He nodded.
Sara curled her legs underneath her, one hand stretching over couch cushions to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers running softly over his skin.
After they finished their drinks, they began to leave. Kendra was the first to go, with a long train ride ahead of her back to Coast City. The rest filed out of the house over the next fifteen minutes until the only one left was Mick.
"I guess I should go too," he finally said, after he set his empty beer bottle on the glass coffee table next to several others.
"Where you headed?" Leonard asked.
"Dunno," he replied, "Don't really have anywhere yet."
"Or you could stay here," Sara suggested, looking to Leonard. He nodded in agreement.
"What?" he asked.
"We have a spare room," Sara shrugged, "We'd be happy to have you here until you figure out what you want to do with your life."
And that's how he ended up standing in the partially finished basement of Leonard and Sara's house, surrounded by cardboard boxes and worn, mismatched furniture.
"You sure you'd rather be down here than in the spare room?" Sara asked.
Mick nodded. As grateful as he was for what Sara and Leonard were doing for him, he still needed that separation between himself and the domesticity happening upstairs.
Later that night, while Sara was putting their kid to bed, Leonard broke into his hidden store of whiskey and poured Mick and himself a glass.
"Cheers," Mick said, lifting his glass, "To who we once were."
Leonard lifted his own glass of whiskey.
"To who we've become."