Rip was stomping through the ship towards his study on the way back from the mission. Sara was ambling along cheerfully. As far as she was concerned, the mission had been a success. So what if the man in the brown coat was a little worse for wear? She'd do a little debriefing of the team and they'd be back on course.
Rip stuck his head out of the office before Sara could start. "Ms. Jiwe, would you please tell Khan that my office is not her litterbox?"
Amaya bit back a smile. She didn't think it was worth the trouble to tell him that Khan knew – she just didn't care.
"And while you're at it, could you somehow communicate to Mr. Rory that in the future I would rather have rats in this room than his disgusting, atrocious, crumb-ridden presence?"
Mick grunted and turned his heel on the group.
Sara winced. "Team dismissed. Get some rest," she said as she nixed the idea of continuing team interaction beyond that point. Giving up early had become a useful tactic she'd adopted as a new captain. It saved them the numerous altercations they'd had under previous leadership. She had a sad smile as she turned toward Rip's sanctuary. The man had finally come to terms with losing his wife only to find he'd become a 'mere' co-captain of his beloved vessel. The least she could do was save him from drinking alone.
Amaya followed Mick into the kitchen and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about Rip, Mick. I think he's still reeling from the number the Legion did on him."
Mick shook her hand off. "Down, Vixen. I'm perfectly happy in the 'no friends' zone."
"What?" Amaya asked in an amused tone.
Mick gave her a look. "You've never heard of the friend zone?"
Amaya's head tilted. "Should I have?"
"Ehh," he gave a short grumble, "I was trying to be clever." He gave her one of his signature 'the fuck're you gonna to do about it?' glances.
"Too clever for me, then." Amaya smiled lightly.
"Because I have no friends, get it?"
She was still confused. "I'm your friend, Mick."
"You would befriend a snake, animal girl."
She was unperturbed. "Widely misunderstood creatures."
"I wanna be alone."
"Then why are you in the kitchen?" She smirked.
"It smells good," he growled, " and when am I ever not in the kitchen?"
"Valid point. But if I leave, I'll have to take this pizza with me." She pulled a pizza from the kitchen fabricator. Heat was still rising from the crust.
He gave the slices an appraising glance. It had been a while since he'd had anything like his favorite Central City delivery. If what she was offering was anything like it, it might just be worth it to put up with her presence. At least it wasn't Haircut.
He gave her a shrewd look and took the proffered piece, as expected. He took a bite, holding it with one hand as he slammed a six pack fresh from the fridge on the kitchen table with the other.
His chewing slowed as he actually began to taste what he'd shoved in his mouth. Spices mingled perfectly with vegetables and meat. The crust was perfection, crispy on the bottom and mushy on top. A thick cheese married the two elements perfectly. And it was still hot enough to burn. Just the way he liked it.
She didn't bother hiding her smile and her crossed arms indicated she knew just what he was thinking.
"Fine. You can stay." He said through a mouthful of the works. "But we'll need more pizza than that one tiny pie."
Amaya was shocked to see that although she'd only looked away for a second, the piece he'd taken was already gone. She placed the pie before him and turned to have Gideon make another.
Khan jumped up on the table when Amaya had her back turned. Khan was a stray cat they'd picked up somewhere along their travels. It must have gotten into a dirty part of the ship, because its previously white fur could only currently be described as dingy at best.
Right now, its dirty whiskered face was sniffing Mick's pizza.
"I'll eat you," he told the beast.
The creature was largely unimpressed and stared at him for a moment before using its mouth to take a whole piece and drag it off the table and away.
Mick respected that.
Amaya turned around with another pizza.
"Wow, you're really eating that fast. There is such a thing as savoring your food," Amaya said upon noticing that another piece was missing.
Mick opened his mouth to respond, but closed it when Stein came barging in. His hair was even dirtier than Khan's. "Have you seen – Ah, there she is." He picked up the cat.
Mick noticed the piece of pizza was nowhere in sight. He wondered if she'd hidden it. For some reason that amused him.
Stein began to look and speak to Mick, but apparently thought better of it, maybe alarmed by the half-smile on Mick's face. Instead he addressed Amaya. "Khan got into an experiment Jefferson and I were attempting."
"Oh no, what happened?" Amaya asked. She looked from Stein's dirty face to Khan's.
"We were trying to transmute the dust in the rec room into daggers for Sarah – she keeps losing them inside of people – and well, results were not as expected." He looked down at the cat, distressed. "Oh, darling," he cooed, "We both look better in white, don't we? Let's go get you cleaned up."
Mick almost lost his appetite, but decided it was safe when both the professor and the pussy were gone. He started on another piece of pizza.
Amaya turned the boombox Ray had left in the kitchen on to a soft volume before she helped herself to a beer and a slice and sat next to him.
"Frank Sinatra. My mom loved him."
Amaya's eyes sparkled. "It's so strange to be listening to the music of the future. But I love it."
Mick said nothing, because for him it was music of the past.
They then ate in silence, a feat which was normally impossible on the Waverider and which would normally please Mick to no end. But this time, he felt compelled to break the silence. "This is good pizza. Damn good pizza."
"It was my mother's recipe. I gave it to Gideon and she was able to replicate it."
"How did your mom know how to make pizza if she was from Zimbabwe?"
"Zambesi," Amaya corrected patiently. "The first time I went back to visit her after leaving for the U.S., I found myself incredibly homesick for the States. Especially pizza. I described it to her and she took it upon herself to make it. She must have tried a hundred times before she got it right."
"She was a good cook," Mick complimented.
Amaya suddenly looked sad as she remembered. "I think she thought if she made it perfectly, I'd stay."
"She was a good mom," he said.
"She would have liked you."
"Why?"
Amaya laughed and looked a little reluctant. "She thought a man should have a healthy…enthusiasm for food."
"That's me. Enthusiastic."
They polished off the beer and stowed the rest of the pizza. Mick found himself unwilling to leave the kitchen. The feeing itself wasn't an unusual occurrence, but that reluctance unusually occurred in the middle of the night when no one else was around to bother him or disturb his snacking.
"Uh, thanks," Mick said. "For the pizza."
It wasn't the first time she'd hugged him and while he wasn't as uncomfortable as he'd been before, he still kept himself still as she did it.
For some reason, when she pulled away, she kissed him. Not on the cheek like he'd expected, but the mouth. Maybe it was that unexpectedness that had Mick move towards her lips. Kiss her back.
He could smell the food that was likely on his own breath when she moved her mouth against him, the scent and taste clinging to her lips and tongue. He wasn't sure if it was the grease or the beer that made the kiss an intriguing kind of sloppy. Almost like a dream.
Amaya and Sinatra and kissing. It was too much. He pulled away and couldn't look at her.
"What's wrong, Mick?" she asked. Her face was full of concern.
His mind raced to figure out why she had kissed him and how he could stop it. "You still feel bad about accusing me of killing your friend. Don't. I'd have killed him in a heartbeat a year ago."
He stomped out with a few more beers from the fridge, leaving Amaya stricken and staring after him.
"Mick. Mick!" Amaya went after him. She caught up to him and tried to turn him with a hand on his bicep.
"I'm not going to change, Amaya. I don't want to," he warned as he turned back towards her.
"Don't do that. Don't act like you're some mission. A goal. I like who you are."
"You shouldn't." He glared at her.
"Why?"
"I'm the bad guy. Don't let the time trips fool you. We both know what I am."
"You're–" Amaya stopped herself.
"What?" he dared.
"Desirable." She put her hands on his cheeks and pulled his head down to hers.
He let her move him, but he didn't move as her lips ghosted against his.
She dragged her lips against him again, quick and deep, but he still didn't move. She dropped her arms, went back on her heels, and looked at him.
Mick decided he was done trying to be the good guy. It was exhausting and no one believed it anyway, not even him. Except her. Maybe he could show her just how wrong she was. His face dipped down until it was in close proximity to hers.
One trunk of an arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer. It was a loose hold, one that almost invited resistance.
She went on her toes as if the light pressure of his arm drew her to him with a much greater invisible force. Her hands rested on his chest as she stared at him.
He pulled her in close for a kiss with a hand on the back of her neck. Although he'd wanted it, although she'd kissed him first, Mick was still shocked when her arms wrapped around him and she began to kiss him back.
His arms secured around her as their kiss deepened in the hallway. She backed him against the wall – had she used her necklace to overpower him? – and despite the structure at his back, he held onto her like she was what kept him grounded.
She was thorough as she kissed him and was not content to merely be kissed. Her lips demanded his cooperation and her hands seemed ill-content to remain on one part of his body. Her hips had him panting. Their grinding movements against his made his pants suddenly uncomfortable. Her mouth sucking and nipping and licking at his own had him desperate. Even the smell of her was filling him with a new kind of fire. Hell, he'd probably been hard since the first bite of pizza.
They took turns pushing and sliding each other towards Mick's room, neither letting go, before Mick decided to hell with it and picked her up. The trip was quick after that.
They finally made it and he set her down. He hit the buttons that would secure his room, and both of them ripped off their shirts before the door even completely slid closed.
Later, Mick slipped on pants.
"Leaving so soon?" Amaya asked. She pulled a blanket over her body. She was cold without Mick's warm body against her.
"We need more food," he said.
He quickly came back with the leftover pizza.
Although it was cold, Amaya took another piece. "You know how to live, Mick Rory. It's a rare talent." She licked some of the grease from her fingers and his eyes followed it.
"Hm. It's simple really. A full belly and a beautiful woman." He let his eyes run over her appreciatively. "The only thing missing is a score."
Just then, Ray crash-sized into Mick's room, fumbling with the adjustment from tiny flying thing to running man-child. "You guys! We have to steal the declaration of Independence!" There was half a pause before Ray grinned. "Just kidding. But really, Rip needs you on deck. We have to steal an ancient artifact from a future-museum." He finally looked at Mick's bedfellow and the blanket that provided her only covering. His mouth dropped open.
"Hah hah! Now we're talking." Mick grabbed the gun Amaya hadn't even noticed was near the bed and headed toward the bridge.
Ray was still gaping after him.