Snart sat on the floor, back against his bunk and legs stretched before him. There was a mug of coffee at his hip and a glossy magazine on his lap; he looked comfortable enough. Except Mick knew he couldn't be. Not if he'd turned down the bio-gen.

The performance wasn't for Mick's benefit, not exactly. Since he'd got an inch on his old man, and a men's size 10 bruise over his kidneys, Snart's tactic had been to stay low, stay small, until he was ready to make his move.

Mick had always been the opposite - before the fire, before juvie, before everything: a punk, fronting like he was ten feet tall and always running straight for the biggest target in the room. No kid of Joe Rory's could do anything else.

They'd made it work. Covered each other's weak points and watched each other's backs. Until they hadn't.

"Sara came by," Snart drawled, without looking up. "Said you've been running around making nice. I told her Mick Rory doesn't make nice, even when he should." His tone turned speculative. "But he has been known to check for explosives. Anyone ticking?"

"No." And maybe some of them should have been. Mick stuck a scrambler on the panel next to the door; Gideon wouldn't be spying on this conversation. "And you can tell Blondie I wasn't making nice ," he grumbled.

Snark smirked. "I would, but you know how much I hate to say 'I told you so.'"

"About as much as you hate to say 'Stick 'em up, this is a robbery.'"

"One time." Snart flipped to the next page. "Can't beat the classics."

It had been days since he'd last been in this white, anonymous little room, Mick realized. Days and then years. Their safe houses in Central City might have been dark and dirty, the air thick with black smoke more often or not, but he'd fit there. He didn't fit here. Never would.

But he could make here fit with him instead.

He dragged a chair from the wall to the middle of the room and slammed it down next to Snart's feet. "You can tell Sara she owes me," he snapped, and sat while Snart stared in bemusement. "Gold Bullion or matchsticks - I don't care."

"Games night?" The smirk widened into the delighted grin Snart wore whenever someone - usually Mick - was going to be reminded about something for the rest of their goddamn lives. " Adorable. Did you share with the group?"

"Therapy only works if you work with therapy," Mick reminded him.

Snart laughed under his breath. "Dr. Crankshaw. There's a blast from the past. I wonder if he ever found his tooth." Long fingers - thief's fingers - drummed quietly on the magazine. "So no one wants you spaced, even though you gave the ship to time pirates and tried to kill us all? Heroes." He shook his head. " Will they never learn?"

Sure, Snart was half-way disgusted, but he was half-way amused too. Indulgent. And that should have been the biggest warning sign of all: Snart had thawed, and Mick hadn't noticed the ice cracking under them until it was way too late.

"I made a deal with the time pirates to save our lives," he said. "Hunter doesn't care if we live or die. We're history to him. I have nothing to apologize for."

The drumming stopped. "Time. Pirates."

Mick leaned back and crossed his arms. Changed the subject. "Sara thinks you didn't fight. Back in the cell."

"Well, that's hurtful. Admittedly, not as hurtful as you." Snart poked at his bruised cheek and grimaced. "We aren't all trained assassins and bounty hunters. You know me, what do you think?"

"Which you? My partner, or the choir boy who stabbed me in the back?"

Snart turned another page, unperturbed. "You think I went soft, but I'm on the same side as always: mine . I just happen to think we have a better chance on a team full of super-powered choir boys - and girls - than with a bunch of leather-bound losers. It would have been like working with the Mardon brothers."

He shuddered theatrically.

And still didn't look up.

Mick leaned forward and waited silently until the close-cropped head cautiously raised. When it did, he caught Snart's gaze and held it. "Hunter asked me what I'd do to save the team, and I did it. I had a plan to get us out alive. You didn't trust me."

"Couldn't risk it, Mick." Snart blinked and looked back down. His tone hardened, his drawl was heavy with affected boredom as he tried to recover ground. "Not after that little speech you gave. So if you're waiting for an apology from me, you'll be waiting a long time. Whatever anyone else may say."

"Sara, again." Mick said, leaning back. He knew for a fact she had better things to do than interfere, and that meant she had an end goal he wasn't seeing. Yet.

"Turns out she's a romantic, under all those knives. Thinks we should kiss and make up."

"So does the Haircut."

"Pretty sure Raymond didn't leave this." Snart flicked back a few pages, then held the magazine so Mick could see the article he'd been reading. The title read 'Ten Ways to Apologize,' but someone had added 'Without Punching Your Loved Ones in the Face' in purple ink and a neat block print.

Subtle.

Mick kicked without force at the closest ankle. "Hit the bunk."

Snart drew his knees up slowly, guarded again. "Why?"

"Because my neck hurts from looking down and I don't like it when I can't see you."

Snart's already suspicious frown deepened into a scowl, but he hauled himself onto the sleeping pad, trying - and failing - to hide how painful it was to move, and how much more comfortable it was than the floor.

"I don't like it when I can see you," he muttered as he arranged himself cross-legged against the wall. "Which would normally be something of a barrier to any ongoing partnership."

Mick dragged the chair closer to the bed and put his feet up on the mattress. "But?"

"But, I've come to realize that I'll probably just keep walking into the cell anyway. Figuratively speaking." For a moment, Snart looked genuinely angry - at himself, if not Mick.

Yeah, probably at Mick too.

The storm cleared with a shrug. "So there's no point worrying about it," he concluded. "At least if you kill me, I won't die at the hands of someone like Savage. That would be embarrassing ." His expression shifted; the gallows humor drained away. There was a subdued pause, then. "Besides, our association was never about longevity."

"One perfect score," Mick agreed.

That was what they'd promised themselves when they were kids, when neither of them expected to make it to twenty, let alone thirty. Forty had been up there with fairy tales or the Astros winning the World Series.

But here they were, and the only reason either of them was still alive was the clock in Snart's head and the fire in Mick's fists.

"Anyway, it's been great to catch up and all, but I don't suppose you'd like to tell me where's this going?" Snart asked impatiently, breaking through the moment of nostalgia. "Because if you're here to check for explosives, we've already established you don't have anything to worry about, and I'd like to find out which ten men I should be glad I didn't marry."

Mick snatched the magazine away before Snart could reach it, making a mental note to drop by the incinerator later. "I'm here because the score changed," he said. "Then the game. If we're going to be partners again, the rules are changing too."

"I see." Snart waved a hand, shrugged. "Go ahead, give me the revised edition."

"Rule One: I call the shots. Not you, not Hunter. Me."

Mick didn't hate Hunter - genuinely, he didn't. Not anymore. All that had burned out a long time gone. Couldn't say he liked the man, but he had to admire his determination; his sense of purpose was as bright a fire as Mick had ever lit. Thing was, he was dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with firearms and everything to do with justifying the means.

"He'll get us both killed," he said. "And you've drunk enough Kool-aid to let him."

Deprived of the magazine, Snart occupied himself picking at the bed sheets. "It wasn't like you ever had to follow my orders."

"But, somehow, you always get what you want. Or have you forgotten twenty forty-six?"

"Fine. I'll keep all future efforts to make sure you aren't erased from the timeline to a minimum. However, I reserve the right to make suggestions. Particularly if Raymond has been attempting to cook, or we're about to die horribly for some other reason." Snart hesitated, then went on. "Rule Two: you never mention or go near my sister again."

"You're not making the rules," Mick said levelly. "I am."

The picking stopped; for the first time since Mick had walked in the door, Snart met his gaze squarely. "Consider it a rider. And a dealbreaker."

"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't going to hurt her?"

"Speaking as someone who froze his own hand off to escape those neat little restraints of yours, I would have to say 'no.' While I might be willing to bet my life you're back with Team Hapless, hers is off the table."

Snart shouldn't believe him; Mick didn't. "Agreed. Rule Two-"

"Wait, are there going to be many more of these? Should I be making a list?" Snart's drawl was thick and his tone was mocking; his sneer was calculated to aggravate. Trying to find any hair triggers he could still pull.

When he moved from arrogance, through confusion, and finally to frustration, Mick smiled as benevolently as he could.

"We done? Good. Rule Two," he said, ignoring the answering snarl. "I don't care what you say to them, but you don't lie to me. That's it. Two rules."

"Two rules," Snart echoed slowly, lingering resentment fading into a kind of grudging interest as he considered all the moving parts. Specifically, Mick suspected, how to get around them. "And the penalty for breaking a rule?"

"Decided at my discretion."

"I can work with that," he said finally, with no particular inflection.

The fingers were at the sheets again, the lazy pick-pick-pick.

"Why'd you freeze your hand off?"

He hadn't mentioned the hand before, hadn't been planning to. It had grown back, and it wasn't like they hadn't been taking pieces out of each other for years, one way or another. But as far as testing this new arrangement went, the answer would be way more interesting than whether or not their little cage fight had been for real.

"I had to get to you." Snart didn't blink: he'd been ready for it.

And, once, Mick would have assumed he meant 'to stop you,' but now? Now, it was two minutes in and he already regretted not wording Rule Two more tightly. "Why ?" he pressed.

Snart's eyes widened briefly in concern before they narrowed again in concentration; he might have been ready, but there was no Plan B. "The obvious reasons," he threw back, trying for bored nonchalance. "Even you can't be that dense."

It was so strange to have the upper hand, Mick discovered he wasn't even angry at the attempt to distract him. Besides, the hedging was the most familiar note in their relationship in a real long time. "Pretend I am."

"You're really going to make me say it?" Snart looked more than a little alarmed.

And if he hadn't have been quite so intent on his target, Mick might have had the presence of mind to join him - this wasn't the talk he'd been intending to have. Not tonight.

But he'd gone ahead and run straight at the biggest target in the room.

"Blondie pointed out neither of us had learned how to say 'sorry' in thirty years," he said, mentally squaring up. "I'm starting to wonder what else we never got around to."

"Some things go without saying." Snart's eyes flickered to the door.

"Some things don't." Mick slouched to the left, effectively blocking his view. "If that one's too hard, tell me why you didn't finish it when you booted me off the ship?"

Snart threw his hands up in frustration, winced and glowered at Mick like it was his fault.

Okay. Kind of was.

"I lied. I was never going to kill you, but we couldn't have taken them all out and our on-board assassin was about to suggest some permanent solutions. The smart move was to ground you and come back when you cooled off - when I'd talked them around. Then Chronos attacked us." He shook his head. "You always had terrible timing, Mick."

That had been the Time Masters locking them in, making sure Snart could never go back. Just like Haircut's beacon had cemented a two year sabbatical.

The hunger, the madness in the weeks after he'd been marooned, he remembered them clearly, but without anger. Without anything much at all. That last conversation, though, the Time Masters conditioning hadn't touched; it still burned. "You called me a liability."

Something almost stricken flickered in Snart's impassive expression, but his tone chilled. "You let Hunter rile you up and then - I can't stress this enough - there were time pirates where we live. What would you call that?"

They stared at each other for a long moment before Mick pressed, inexorably, one more time. "Why aren't I dead, Lenny?"

If Snart was armed, Mick thought he'd probably be looking down a barrel right now. Fortunately, the cold gun had been left, wrapped neatly in its straps, on the second bunk. Where it couldn't do any harm.

"You're a son of a bitch," Snart snapped, looking a lot like he was regretting the gesture.

"I prefer 'boss.' It's got a ring to it. And that isn't an answer."

"It isn't a lie either, and that's what we agreed." Snart rolled off the bed, to his feet and - probably not entirely coincidentally - towards the gun. "If that's not good enough, you can take your rules and-"

Too fast; he swayed. Mick stood fast, grabbed his shoulder to steady him before he went down. A trip to the med bay would be all this conversation needed.

"We've got a good thing going," Snart wheedled, trying to pull away. "Why mess around with that?"

"Had a good thing going. So you tell me, what's the score worth dying for now?"

"Dammit, Mick." Snart's head dropped, his gaze darted away. Never could tell the truth to someone's face. "I couldn't kill you then, I couldn't do it in the cell, and I doubt I could do it now," he ground out, before bitterly meeting Mick's eyes again. "If that's all you were waiting for before making your play, I'd prefer we move this along to the grand finale."

This time when he tried to twist away, Mick let him. Neither of them did so great when they were trapped. "You know I don't have the patience for a long con."

"I don't know you, not anymore. I wish-" Snart's mouth clamped shut.

It wasn't the admission Mick had wanted, but it was closer than he'd expected.

And not nearly as satisfying as he'd hoped.

"Hell of a thing, isn't it?" He said softly. "Not knowing if your partner has your back. Watching them change on you. It's easy to take a punch, any punk can do that. Hard's when you don't see it coming, when you can't block it. When you bleed on the inside and know, maybe one day, it'll kill you."

"Well, that's almost poetic." Snart's defences had slammed back up and he regarded Mick cooly. "That's what you want? I think we're good, think we're … partners. Never see the hit coming?"

"Doesn't matter what I say, you'll never really be sure. I get my vengeance whether I want it or not. And I get it cold." Mick let his distaste show as he moved away, leaving a clear line to the door. "So tell me, Lenny. You still planning on walking into that cell?"

Mick could almost hear the tick-tick-tick in his head, see the scales dip as their past and future was weighed and measured.

"Yeah," Snart murmured, then huffed with something like a laugh. One that had taken a tour through darker space. "For now," he amended.

"Rule Three," Mick followed quickly. "I say when we're done."

"Well, you'll get no argument from me."

"That was a lie," Mick pointed out, and stepped closer.

"What are you going to do about it?" Snart smiled like he was staring at some priceless, locked up thing; his eyes glinted with avarice and adrenaline, and he didn't back away.

"Use my discretion."

Taaaaaalking in Spaaaaaace ends like it began. With talking. Embrace the theme.

Thank you so much everyone who took the time to comment, it was really appreciated!