Mike stares blankly at the match board, holding his breath and hoping that it'll change, be wrong, something. But no, it doesn't matter how many times he rereads it, it remains the same. Miz vs Ryback. He sighs and squares his shoulders, not liking the prospect of it at all- he has a rough style that is well-known to be the cause of a lot of injuries over the years. The mere thought of his chances at Wrestlemania getting derailed because of Ryback eats at him, but he doesn't have a choice. AJ joins him a moment later and stares at her own match first, then sees what he's staring at. She pales and finds his hand, squeezing slightly, and he smiles down at her, cupping her face. "I'm gonna be ok, sweetheart."
She nods, tugging at his jacket. "You'd better be," she mumbles, leaning up to kiss him. They're still standing there when Paige, and then Mizdow, joins them, but neither say much, giving them a moment while they too peer at the board.
Mizdow's sharp whistle finally distracts Miz and he pulls away from his wife, glaring at his personal assistant. "What, does that match I've been put in amuse you? Don't forget, your meal ticket is going, going, gone if something happens to me." Mizdow quickly schools his expression, staring over Miz's shoulder blankly as he examines him. Nodding in some satisfaction, Miz leans over AJ and kisses her. "Good luck to you tonight."
"Thanks, you too," she hums, watching him go with a worried look on her face. She turns towards Paige and forces a smile. "He'll be ok. Right?"
"Of course," Paige agrees, wrapping an arm around AJ's shoulders. She too knows the stories, all too well since Ricardo himself had been injured by the careless man. "He'll be ok."
Mike is interviewed before the match, gearing himself up for it and the looming Andre the Giant battle royal by listing all of his title wins, just for Mizdow to make some noise and distract him. He glares warningly at him and then orders him to stay backstage and handle his laundry and coffee order. Which means that he has to deal with Ryback on his own, but he suspects it's just as well. With Mizdow out there, his luck usually goes out the window anyway. Not to mention he needs to be able to focus and not get distracted by Mizdow's nonsense.
He doesn't win, per se, but he walks out without serious injury so it's a relief. AJ hugs him as soon as he arrives backstage, smiling up at him. "I knew you'd be ok," she murmurs, searching his face. "It wouldn't be fair if I returned just for you to get injured a week later. And I have a surprise for you." Turning, she taps her foot against the floor. "Mizdow." When his personal assistant appears a moment later, he's holding a perfectly pressed pair of pants and a coffee to-go cup. AJ stares him down until he hands the items over to Miz, not bothering to look either of them in the eye. "You're dismissed."
He gapes as Mizdow does just that, leaving as quietly as he'd arrived. Mike laughs and sips his coffee, sighing appreciatively before turning to AJ. "So that's how it's done, huh? Guess all that was needed to get Mizdow back in line was a woman's touch..."
She smirks up at him and shrugs, tilting her head. "As always." Winking at him, she snags his coffee and takes a long sip before handing it back and turning to skip to the ring, Paige by her side. Their tag match against Cameron and Summer Rae goes much better than Mike's had, thankfully, and they walk out victorious, staring down the Bellas as they go.
"Congrats," Mike murmurs against her lips as she grins. "Now, let's go find Mizdow and get him to drive us back to the hotel, yeah?"
She nods, snagging his hand and walking with him down the hall, Paige following them slowly.
-x
Miz finally gets an opportunity to watch NXT and sees Alex's first match back, defeating CJ Parker just for his emotional, successful moment to get ruined when Kevin Owens comes out and declares his intention to end Alex's in-ring career entirely. Regal responds by putting them in a match the following week. Mike gnaws his lip before finding his phone and tweeting out a sarconic, taunting message towards Alex, aware that if anyone could read through the lines, it'd be Alex. Sure enough, when he replies, they begin to tease each other back and forth, no one able to hit below the belt like either of them when it comes to the other.
"You two are brutal," AJ comments with a smirk, glancing up at him.
"Like you have room to talk," he teases her. "Ms. Tweet Pipebomb." She wrinkles her nose at him and he kisses her. "Hey, I'm gonna go get something. Be back in a little bit."
"Wait, what- Mike-" Another kiss and she huffs, laying back against the hotel bed and watching him leave in confusion. "Hmph..."
He's amused at how annoyed she is with him now, heading for the elevator. He's just pressed it down to the first floor when he hears a familiar voice calling his name. "Hey, bro, wait a minute!" He looks up to find Zack Ryder rushing for the elevator, its door already shutting. He considers letting it close but sighs, reaching out to stop it in time for the broski to fit inside. "Thanks, bro! What're you up to?"
It's Saturday and they're touring through the houseshow cirquits, before Raw is held in Iowa on Monday. "Heading to Walmart, going to buy Morrison's latest movie," he says simply. "You know, Russell Madness," he adds when Zack looks at him, confused.
"Oh right!" he exclaims. "I'm heading to Walmart too, mind if I tag along? May as well support JoMo and buy a copy myself."
"Why not," Mike shrugs, deciding a sale is a sale. "Surprised Ziggler isn't here too." He sneers.
"He's on the other tour, bro. But I am surprised you're not letting Mizdow do this for ya. He is your personal assistant, right?"
"I didn't trust him to handle this. He would've probably gotten the wrong DVD or something." Zack's chuckle seems weak but Miz ignores him, leading the way to his car. They drive in silence, Zack clearly itching to turn the radio on, but he keeps his hands to hiimself thankfully. It's actually easy to find the DVD, easier than finding the actual entertainment section of the store, and they stare at it with some surprise. It's right at the end of the aisle in the NEW RELEASES section, the DVDs on one side and a boxset with the DVD and a toy version of Russell the dog on the other, in clear view of everyone walking past. "Well, damn," Miz mumbles. "Better set up than I've gotten with my movies so far..."
Zack grabs one of the DVDs and reads the back while Mike picks up the boxset, staring in at the small dog toy. He'd known as soon as John had tweeted a picture of it that AJ would love it, so it's an easy decision as for which one to leave with. "Hey, bro, let's go look at the WWE action figures!"
Mike's about to agree when he gets an idea. "Better idea, let's take a picture of us with the DVDs... free advertising for Morrison, right?" He first takes a solo picture of himself with his boxset, then gnabs one of the Walmart associates to take the other, turning his around so the back can be visible since the front was shown in the first picture. After they dig around in the action figure section- no Zack figures, but there are new Ziggler and Miz ones, so they grab one of them as well before leaving- Miz tosses his keys to Zack as soon as they've checked out. "You're driving."
"What?! Are you serious, bro?" Zack demands, almost dropping his shopping bags in an attempt to snag the keys.
"Yeah. I have something to do." It takes work to free the toy dog from its enclosure. First undoing the plastic wrap, then getting inside the box, then figuring out how to get the cardboard out of the box- Mike eventually figures out he needs to open the other side, pull the DVD out, then strong arm the cardboard out, during which he almost clocks Zack hard in the face, eyes wide when Zack gapes at him in shock, trying to stutter out an explanation that will keep them from devolving into a brawl in the car right here, right now- then there's hard plastic wrapped around the dog's neck like a leash to keep it attached to the box and he has nothing sharp to cut it with... Zack thankfully comes to the rescue then, pulling out his own keychain and tossing it over to Mike. "Of course you'd have a swiss army keychain," he mumbles, thankful for it none the less as he searches the tools for one sharp enough to saw through the plastic.
"My dad swears by it and made sure I had one before I went off on my first indy tour," Zack explains with a wide, affectionate grin.
Mike nods absently before wooping loudly as the various attempts finally pay off and the dog is freed, Mike messing with its cape and vest, poking its eyes and tail before grinning over at Zack. "Thanks, man."
"You're welcome, bro."
Mike reaches over and turns the radio on, purposely ignoring Zack's happy grin and slightly terrible singing as they drive the rest of the way to the hotel. Once they arrive at the hotel, they go their separate ways and Mike waves at Zack before heading upstairs to explain himself to AJ. She's reading comics in bed when he arrives but he doesn't say a word as she lays the book down and stares up at him, eyebrows raised as he stands at the edge of the bed, smirking at her. "What did you do?" she finally asks, crawling towards him.
He waits until she stops, kneeling at the foot of the bed to look at him. "I bought this," he explains to her, laying his own action figure down on the bed. She stares at it, tilting her head, before he lays the Russell Madness DVD and box by her. "And this."
She purses her lips, staring at it in confusion. "Where's the toy?"
"You mean this?" He brings the dog out from behind his bag and wriggles it at her as her eyes widen.
"It's sooooo cute!" she squeals, all but tackling him to get at it. He laughs and lets the dog go as she gapes at it, smoothing its cape out and hugging it close. "Morrison is so lucky, getting to act in a movie with such an adorable puppy!" Mike shows her the back of the box, where a small picture of John getting his hair pulled by said dog is in clear sight, and she laughs out loud. "I want to watch this. Now."
Mike grins. "Well, let's see what we can do about that then..."
-x
Come Monday, things are back to same ol' same ol'. So much so that Mike thinks he's reliving Thursday. The only difference is that AJ's match is a one-on-one match against Nikki Bella, and he's decided to give Mizdow another chance. When they're scheduled for a short interview backstage, Mike alerts Mizdow of this. It's pretty simple, really: Either Mizdow helps him to win the Andre the Giant battle royal, as any good personal assistant should, or he's fired. He's preparing for his rematch against Ryback when AJ vs Nikki goes wrong badly. Paige gets sent into the turnbuckle post after arguing with Brie, and this distracts AJ enough that Nikki hits a brutal forearm and then sets her up for the Rack Attack, her body twisting as it takes the same blow that had done her neck absolutely no favors months prior.
Once the women are brought back, Paige disoriented and AJ clearly in pain, Mike changes his mind again and stares at Mizdow. "Stay with my wife," he tells him, teeth gritted. He can't skip his match but he doesn't want to leave her alone and, as much as he distrusts Mizdow, he doubts the man would fall so far as to do anything to harm his wife. "Make sure she's ok." He turns without waiting for Mizdow's reaction and makes his way towards gorilla, making his usual entrance when... the crowd goes insane. He knows immediately and turns, yelling at Mizdow. "What the hell?!" he screams at him, unable to do anything about it right now, the match about to start.
He ends up right about it all- before long, he finds himself out of the ring, staring on blankly as Ryback pins Miz's arms to his side and orders Mizdow to punch him and dammit, Mizdow looks like he's actually about to do it! Anger and disgust warring within him, Mike fights back, elbows free and stands over Mizdow like he's a naughty toddler who needs to be put in timeout. "Put your fist down!" he orders him. "Five... four..." Mizdow eventually caves and sinks into himself, allowing Miz to return to the ring, seething in anger... that only grows worse when Ryback takes advantage of his distraction and anger by defeating him easily. He's still laying there, lost in a sea of pain and humiliation when Mizdow enters the ring and begins fanning him off with one of their capes before moving to help him up. He has him under the arms, just getting him to his feet when Mike takes advantage of Mizdow's distraction and sets him up for the SkullCrushing Finale.
No other move has ever felt so sweet as in that moment, planting Mizdow hard into the mat and standing over him, a crazed look on his face. "I told you to stay with my damn wife!" he screams down at him before storming from the ring, going to do just that- check on her, make sure that Mizdow's disregard for his employer's wishes, his own apparent need to hear the fans' cheers overriding his common sense yet again, hadn't caused AJ any further unneccessary pain. Thankfully she seems ok, if a little sleepy when he arrives, and the trainer stares at him as he settles in next to her on the cot and takes her hand, lightly kissing her knuckles. "What's going on?"
"She's fine, but she will be sore for couple days. Ice, rest, the usual. I'll look in on her in a day or two, but I see no signs of whiplash, or further exacerbation of her neck injuries."
Mike exhales so hard that it jostles her head on his shoulder and he murmurs apologies when she whimpers in her half-doze. "C'mon, sweetheart, let's go back to the hotel. You can get some real sleep then." Paige stays nearby, helping him with the doors when he carries AJ out into the hallway to collect their things.
He doesn't see Mizdow for the rest of the night and that's fine. Firing the worthless man after the battle royal seems more and more welcoming with each passing day.