Okay, vague summary is vague, but 1) I suck at summaries and 2) I don't want to give anything away. Let's say there's friendship angst between Len and Mick, but Len has to rely on what he knows about Mick to figure out what's going on. I actually think it's kind of funny. It's partially inspired by a text post from Tumblr that I can't seem to find anymore. If anyone can think of a better summary for this, please let me know. It's driving me crazy xD
Leonard Snart isn't a relationship kinda guy, by any definition of the word. He doesn't date, doesn't really do friendships. His forced acquaintance with the crew of the Waverider started off as an unavoidable inconvenience. What it's become is still new to him, so he doesn't have a label for it yet.
He may never.
Aside from his sister, who he considers more like a part of him – the better part – there's only one other relationship in his life that's ever meant anything to him.
His partnership with Mick Rory.
From day one, the team on the Waverider liked to joke that Len and Mick acted like an old married couple.
Len finds that offensive.
In his experience, marriage means less than nothing to most people. Sure, it starts out fun and exciting, filled to the rafters with heart-shaped balloons, love songs, and gushy, sentimental tripe. But marriage eventually becomes a trap – a breeding ground for hate and resentment, that most people don't know how to deal with properly, because how does someone apply logic to the repair of an emotional disaster? The smart ones divorce, go their separate ways and leave nothing behind. But the truly ignorant refuse to admit defeat, and attempt to patch up the cracks via unadvisable solutions.
Namely children.
That's not how Len would even begin to describe him and Mick. What he and Mick have – well, had - was different, rational. It started on a much more stable foundation than marriages often do, with a mature understanding of who the other person is.
They're both criminals. They both knew it. They didn't try to hide it. And knowing that became the basis of everything they did together.
Not a single married couple Len has ever heard of has a thing on him and Mick.
It killed Len to maroon him.
Len's father wouldn't have had that problem. He would have frozen his partner solid, buried him alive, and never looked back.
Hell, he would have left Len's mother alone to rot without a single regret.
But now that Len has Mick back, he's relearning his partner all over again, almost from the ground up. He'd still like to believe that he knows Mick better than anyone, but he's realizing that's not true.
Perhaps it never was.
Maybe Len doesn't know Mick's secrets, but he still can tell when the man's up to something.
It's not in the way he locks himself in his quarters and doesn't come out for days after their last mission - to some Godawful, post-apocalyptic, volcano-pocked and dinosaur-riddled version of Earth, somewhere in the vicinity of the year 3200. Mick's need for isolation is par for the course. After so much time in lockup, crammed in close confines with people 24/7, sometimes it's nice to be alone in your own space, with no one's voice but your own to listen to.
It's not in the shifty-eye glances he gives people when he walks down the hallways. Shady and suspicious were always two of Mick's default expressions.
It's not in the way he gets testy when someone breaks his concentration.
It's not in the fresh burns sprouting up on his arms, or the odd charred odors that come from his quarters with the doors shut. Mick finds fire exciting, but also soothing, and besides, the Waverider is equipped with a wide array of fire retardants on the chance that Mick sets himself ablaze…again.
It's in the little things that happen around the Waverider that don't seem to have anything at all to do with Mick.
Those are the things Len pays attention to.
"Has anybody seen my watch?" Dr. Stein asks, strolling on the bridge, his vacant wrist exposed. "I could have sworn I just had it not a few hours ago."
"How do you know that if your watch is gone?" Ray jests as he hurries off the bridge.
"Very amusing, Mr. Palmer."
"Which one?" Sara asks. "You've got seven."
"Well, not all of them are watches," Stein informs her. "But this one in particular is a rather unique timepiece – Mont Blanc, with a camouflage face, and the numbers inscribed in Arabic. It was a present from a visiting professor, and I'd prefer not to lose it."
"Sorry," Kendra says. "I don't believe I've seen it."
"Nah, man. Me, neither," Jax adds, looking around as if he might find it just lying on the floor.
The room becomes quiet as the four glance over at Len, who's staring at nothing in particular, occupied by the thoughts in his head.
"Mr. Snart?" Dr. Stein interrupts. "Have you seen my watch?"
"Would your watch happen to have a steel strap?" Len asks, adding to his mental list.
"Why, yes," Dr. Stein says, hopefully. "Yes, it does."
"Hmm…interesting," Len remarks.
"Have you seen it?"
"Sorry," Len says. "Haven't come across it." He stands from his chair and heads off the bridge, his mind working. "But you'll be the first to know if I do."
A few days later, Kendra walks onto the bridge with her own wrist exposed. "Has anyone seen my bracelet?"
"The gold snake one?" Sara looks up from her hand of cards. "Didn't we melt that one down?"
"Not that one," Kendra says, taking a seat beside Sara and contemplating her hand. "It's a silver one, with glyph symbols along the sides, and rubies on the clasp."
"No" – Sara pulls a card from her hand and puts it down on the pile between her and Len – "I can't say I've seen that one before."
"Well, I don't usually wear it," Kendra comments. "It belonged to my grandmother. I keep it with me, but the clasp is broken, so it's usually in my pocket."
Both women pause their conversation to look at Len, expecting a reply. He shuffles the cards in his hand, pulling a few out and replacing them before he makes a comment.
"Is it a shiny silver?" Len asks. "Or kind of a brushed, aged silver?"
"It's an antique, but it's shiny," Kendra says.
"And the rubies…" Len lays down his hand. Sara says, "What!?" and tosses hers in disgust. That makes five in a row he's won so far. "Are they real?"
"Of course, they're real."
Len smirks, his expression thoughtful but amused, with a nod of silent confirmation. "Haven't seen it," he says, his nod swiftly becoming a shake of his head. "Sorry."
"Are you sure?" Kendra presses, confused by Len's response.
"Yup," he says, gathering up the cards and preparing to deal a sixth hand. "Pretty sure."
Over the next few days, each member of the crew comes on the bridge, asking about a lost object: Rip's pocket watch, Sara's mother's class ring, Jax's lucky switchblade (which Dr. Stein doesn't seem all too broken up about the boy misplacing), Ray's…well, he wouldn't say what went missing, just that it was in a small, square box in his room and now it's gone, but yes, it was expensive, and yes, it was shiny. The only two people on the Waverider who didn't seem to have any personal items go astray were Len and Mick.
But Mick hadn't left his quarters in days. Gideon confirmed it. (Rip had asked the A.I. on the sly.)
The crew didn't say it outright, but they didn't like those odds.
Len, on the other hand, was beginning to see a trend.
"Len," Sara says, walking up to him with the other members of the crew (minus Mick) trailing behind. Len's been sitting on the control console, facing the door, almost like he was waiting for someone to approach him. "We need to talk."
"Let me guess," he says, crossing his arms over his chest, "something else precious and valuable, something that probably shouldn't have been brought along on this trip through time and space to begin with, has gone inexplicably missing, and you think I know something about it."
"Well," Rip says, "it does seem to be within your scope of expertise."
"Right," Len says, shooting Rip an accusing glare, one that says that the man who's been keeping secrets this whole voyage probably shouldn't be throwing stones inside the glass house he stole. "Why don't we start from the beginning? What all's missing exactly?"
"My jewelry," Kendra complains. "And Ray says some items from sick bay are missing, too."
"Like what?" Len asks, becoming more and more frustrated with these vague answers as things start to make sense. "What items from sick bay? Penicillin? Gauze and rubbing alcohol? Or shiny, silvery things, like scalpels and knives and forceps?"
Kendra's eyes open wide. She doesn't know what Snart is implying, but it sounds to her like he might be saying that they don't just have a thief on board.
They possibly have a killer.
A killer with a vendetta, brainwashed by the Time Masters to lull them into a false sense of security, and then attack them when they lease expect it.
A killer they would take back into their fold, regardless of his crimes, in an attempt to rehabilitate him.
A killer who's guilt may also be a stain upon their own hands.
She takes a step closer to Ray, reflexively grabbing his hand. Ray, despite the confrontation and the intrigue, smiles.
"Why does it matter what items exactly have gone missing?" Dr. Stein asks, oblivious to the danger that Kendra sees. "The point is that things are disappearing all over the ship, and, forgive the implication, but we do have an admitted thief on board."
"Correction," Len says, raising a brow as his collection of thoughts and mental lists start to come together. "There are two…well, three if we want to split hairs" - Len can't help throwing that dig Rip's way - "But as for Mick, watches and jewelry and miscellaneous trinkets aren't really his thing. So why would he…" Len's eyes widen as the pieces finally fit together.
The isolation.
The volcanic planet.
Dinosaur…things apparently (Len hadn't seen them personally, but Gideon had warned the team they were there.)
The multitude of shiny objects gone missing.
Mick always joked about wanting to find one, what he'd do if he had one, that traveling through timelines, and seeing the freaky shit they've seen, this might be his one opportunity to finally get one.
They hadn't been separated long on that mission. Only five minutes at the most. But, in retrospect, five minutes is all Mick would have needed if he saw...if he somehow found out...
Motherfucker!
"Dammit!" Len launches from his seat. He barrels off the bridge and down the hall.
"Dammit what, Snart?" Sara asks, racing after him, with everyone else falling in behind her. "What's going on?"
"A hoard," Len calls back. "Mick's creating a hoard. I don't know how he did it without leaving his room, but he fucking did it…"
"A hoard?" Kendra says. "Why a hoard?"
"How did he get it past Gideon?" Len mutters. "How did he disable the sensors?" Len laughs at the hubris, that they had relied on Gideon to keep them safe, assuming the A.I. was infallible, that there was absolutely no way around its omnipresence. But Mick had found one. He fucking found one. Len doesn't know whether to be proud, or furious, so he opts for a bit of both. "That son-of-a-"
"Get what past Gideon?" Jax asks. "Len? What did Mick do?"
"Urgh!" Len groans, breathing in deep and catching the scent of sulfur in the air. The damn ship had absorbed the odor from the planet. No matter how many times they tried to flush it out, a bit of it still lingered, but this…this was different. Len hadn't noticed it before, but that's because he wasn't looking for it before. "He pulled a Hagrid!"
"Wha-what does that even mean?" Dr. Stein stutters nervously.
Len gets to Mick's quarters and skids to a stop. The doors are shut, the same way they've been for days now. Len takes another sniff. The scent is definitely stronger here. Jesus motherfucking Christ!
"Mick!" Len yells, slamming his fist against Mick's door. "Open up, Mick!" Len knocks and knocks until his knuckles are sore, but the doors don't open. Len puts his ear up to the crack in between, but pulls back quickly.
"What?" Sara asks when she hears Len hiss. "What's wrong with the doors?"
"They're hot!" Len says. He looks at his hand. The skin of his knuckles is bright red with first degree burns.
"Gideon," Rip calls to the ship's A.I. "I need you to perform a manual override on the lock to Mr. Rory's door."
"Yes, sir," Gideon replies. The doors slide open an inch, then stop. They sputter as they try to move, but they don't budge any farther.
"There's something wedged against it," Dr. Stein deduces, peering over the heads in front of him.
"No." Len kicks at the edge of one side to get it to move. "It's…ugh…melted…stuck…"
Len kicks the door on one side while Rip joins in on the other. Together they manage to get the doors open a few feet.
Rip stops before Len does.
"Good…heavens…" he says, taking a step back.
Len stops when he hears the growl, and looks for himself. He had a feeling. He knew what he would see, but nothing in heaven or hell could have properly prepared him for the creature standing in the room, still a juvenile, but nearly the size of a full grown man, with Mick standing in front of it, arms outstretched, trying his best to block the beast from view.
Len turns to the team, staring silently, mouths agape.
"That," Len says in answer to a previous question, waving an arm in Mick's direction. "That's what it means."
"Mr. Rory?" Dr. Stein pulls his glasses off his face, the lenses fogging with the astronomical sudden rise in temperature. "Am I correct in believing that that's…a dragon?"
The team takes a communal step back when the scaly creature - barricaded behind a gnarled stack of chairs, a table, and a warped bed frame, scorched black and nearly unrecognizable - opens its mouth. It spits a single, stunted lick of flame, more smoke than actual fire.
Not lethal…not yet.
"Hey, guys," Mick says, calm and cool regardless of the beast rearing in fear behind him. It lets loose with a hollow clicking noise that passes for a roar. It's intimidating enough to almost make Dr. Stein and Jax fuse, regardless of the risks. "You know, you really should call before you come over." He chuckles, gesturing at the scarred walls and the mangled debris around him. "The place is a bit of a mess."
"Uh…Mr. Snart." Rip pulls Len aside to keep Mick from hearing. "Any suggestions on how we might handle…that?"
Len rolls his eyes. Oh, Captain, my Captain, indeed.
"You get Gideon to turn the ship around," Len suggests. "In the meantime…" Len peeks back around the door just as the dragon turns its head and glares straight at him with poison yellow eyes. He gets the distinct feeling that this monster doesn't particularly like him. "I'm gonna go get my gun."