Chapter Text
The air was thick, making it hard to breathe.
Mick was usually a heavy sleeper, but that night he lay on his side, facing the centre of the room, his left shoulder still pulsing with discomfort. He grimaced slightly, trying to avoid any movement to wake up the man lying beside him.
He would not go to that pile of wires. She would not have the satisfaction.
Wrenching his shoulder back in line in without painkillers was less aggravating that getting an 'I told you so' about defence tactics from the obnoxious AI or his friends.
Would he call them that? Sara maybe. She could handle herself. The rest? He flicked through memories. Maybe they were starting to grow on him. Very slowly.
The room had taken on a muted glow from the whatever was going on outside the window, he really couldn't be bothered to raise his head and suffer pain to take a look. He knew it was probably the same thing that had been out there for the past week. The kid and the old man should have been trying to fix the ship rather than doing their best to take him out.
The vibrations of the ship were something he'd started to associate with going somewhere to cause mayhem of some sort, maybe to set fire to something. He had been feeling compressed without them. Tense and overstrung. Desperate to burn something.
But, right at that moment he was bone tired and resigned to the situation. The option that appealed to him was to lie in bed and eat cake until his arm felt better or they could cause trouble in the past again. Maybe Len would like to join him for a while and complain about cake crumbs.
The glow flickered in the room, sporadically lighting up their collection of possessions. Stolen and otherwise. They didn't need to completely play hero, something in the middle was more their style.
Mick's tired eyes focused on the books. A testament to Len's research and not liking surprises. A floor to ceiling bookcase which was so full that, it should be making the Waverider list slightly to the side. History books mostly. Research for meticulous planning, or not in some cases.
Art, also the odd chemistry and mechanical ones slid in there for good measure, the ones that he preferred to flick through. Just because he relied on physical strength, didn't mean that he didn't like to read.
No fiction though. Unlike the safe houses. Len had always told Lisa that is was important to read, to imagine all possibilities. They'd always had books in untidy piles all over the place. Science fiction mostly. None here though. Their lives didn't need any more of that.
The shadow of the bookcase concealed their modest armoury. Heat and cold guns and a couple of knives. Inanimate objects that had slowly changed purpose from creating anarchy to saving people, much to his annoyance. They had a certain undesirable reputation to maintain, a criminal empire to build.
A dainty gold watch for Lisa lay on a top of a chest of drawers. She would hate to have missed out on a souvenir and Len spoilt his baby sister.
2.30am in 1953. They'd raided a bank vault, out of boredom and opportunity. The pile of safety deposit boxes getting bigger, the room getting colder as Len froze the locks and pocketed jewellery. Mick had watched from the door, heat gun ready to fire at anyone who interfered, ignoring all suggestions to chill out.
Next to the watch was their most recent acquisition. A black stone statue of Hermes, the Greek god of thieves, liberated from a museum in New Greece in 2115. Len liked the challenge of lifting a rare artefact. That one was a bit more of a challenge. Days of asking Gideon questions to get information, planning and keeping secrets.
They'd busted in all Mission Impossible and grabbed the statue. Security had had more firepower than expected. Len took laser fire to the leg, he'd got hit once in the shoulder and twice in the back as he tried to get them both out. Two minutes in the med bay and a completely coincidental attack by a band of time pirates, when he was so doped up he couldn't think straight, let alone move; had seen off any urge to steal anything for a while. They were not getting any younger and he had the scars to prove it.
The glow reflected off a stack of gold frames where they leant up against each other, partially blocking the entrance to the bathroom. Paintings of random people that Len had stolen from a house in 1793, just to get hold of one called 'Love Songs and Matches'; for no reason other than Mick seeing it in a museum once and liking the title.
The painting itself hung on the wall by the door, in pride of place. A boy with a dog and a basket of homemade matches, selling music. By a guy called John Russell circa. 1745-1806, he was told.
Always know what you're stealing. One of Len's obnoxious laws that that been drummed into him over the decades.
In the corner stood Mick's favourite piece. A flame red juke box he'd lifted from a diner in the 70's, just to spite Len when he wouldn't let him set fire to anything on a mission. The dent in the bottom was from loading it into the back of a pick up and speeding away as fast as the piece of shit would go. Len had grudgingly helped of course, then went nuts at deviating from his plan and sulked for a few hours; before returning with a bottle of whisky and an arm full of small black discs.
Mick could practically see Len's ghosted image leaning against the door frame taking a slug from the bottle, calculating what to do next, before he'd dropped the discs on the floor, the action accompanied by a 'what are you going to do about it' smirk.
Smug bastard.
He remembered picking up a disc, reading the title and receiving some unwelcome warm fuzzy memories, before he'd angrily snapped it in half. Then he'd kicked Len out of their cabin until he apologised. Slamming the door in his face had felt real good.
In hindsight, Mick knew that in the heat of the moment, he hadn't really thought his plan through properly and had forgotten take into account that in his opinion, Len, with his many positive qualities could also be cold-blooded, unreasonable and quite unstable. But, at the same time he'd been consumed by a burning desire to win and that for once Len would be to one to concede first. He could still feel the cracked plastic in his fingers.
For days after that, he'd left the room when his partner walked in, avoided any conversations and snarled at his very presence in the universe and time itself. Len responded to this by raising an eyebrow and looking significantly unfazed. It had got extremely irritating.
After a week, he'd punched Boy Scout in the face for asking him whether he wanted cake and by that point, the team didn't want to take him on missions anymore. Something about him being moody and many other associated words, so Sara and Rip had benched him until they made up. Not Len, just him.
Mick felt a roar of anger at the memory, a flood of resentment aimed at Len for causing the problem in the first place and the reminder of the trickle of blood from his knuckles after he attacked the wall for being in the right place at the right time, because his lighter had mysteriously disappeared, so he couldn't burn anything. He extended his foot to kick Len in the shin in revenge, but thought better of it. You don't wake Len up, if you want to stay attached to the mortal coil.
He'd taken refuge in the cargo bay after being benched, stating sharply that he needed to repair a component of the heat gun. Feet on a crate, a bottle of beer next to the gun, chair leant back on two legs, music playing. Perfect.
Except for the later appearance of Len, who'd drifted in and out of his peripheral vision for a while, doing stuff he'd pretended not to notice.
This was until a lighter was smacked down on the crate with a clang, making his chair land on four legs with a jarring jolt. Focused on the unexpected pain, he'd completely ignored Len's looming shadow and the increasingly irritated presence, not bothering to answer with words, just a snarl.
"I thought you might like to indulge me in a little game"
Len's voice had taken on a hypnotic quality, which usually meant he was up to something.
After finishing the beer really slowly, he'd grabbed the lighter. It was heavy. Highly polished silver at an educated guess. It had his name on it, engraved with embossed flames. He'd pulled a wide triumphant smirk that was quickly replaced with one of apathy, with an underlying hint of curiosity as to how the full apology would play out.
Obviously pissed by his blatant lack of enthusiasm, Len had stomped across the room -not waiting for him to follow- come to an abrupt halt next to some metal crates and gestured to a steel drum from which an example of the contents was flamboyantly lifted out with his thumb and forefinger.
Drama queen.
Leaning closer he'd frowned at the name on the record, -Captain and Tenille. Of course it was- and pulled most ignorant and questioning face he could muster, causing Len's mouth to twitch slightly. It was hard to know whether it was a smile or if the whole venture was going to implode into an argument and the game they were playing would be over before it had even started.
"So, what's the game?"
"How long will take them to find the fire" Len drawled.
The words were accompanied by a "what are you going to about it" smirk.
The one that over the years Mick had learnt meant your move. His choice. Walk away and carry on or forgive and forget, until the next time. He'd been really bored sleeping or not sleeping by himself, so felt that the son of a bitch didn't have to work for it, just this once. He'd growled in the tone that Len would understand as 'we're alright', as his partner dropped the little black disc into the drum.
"Light them up"
"Yes, Boss"
With a maniacal grin, he'd flicked it open, igniting the contents of the drum with flourish.
Mick could feel the temperature of his hands raise as he lay in bed, a reminder of holding that small, but powerful object and what he could do with it if he chose to. A heat gun was fun, but sometimes nothing beat a lighter. He had to give Len his dues, he knew how to apologise. He'd had enough practice.
The flames back then were beautiful, but the smell was revolting. They'd bolted through the cargo bay doors and escaped into the darkness of the 70's, returning a few hours later to an icy reception; steaming drunk with a few wallets and a mysterious set of keys.
It had been worth it. They're bad guys, it's what they do.
It had taken three minutes and thirty five seconds for the rest of the team to find and extinguish the fire.
A new record.
The memory left him with a soppy half smile that he wiped off his face as soon as he noticed it.
"I can hear you thinking. Go to sleep." murmured a voice with sleepy affection.
Mick felt cold toes prodding his feet as Len shuffle closer, flinging his arm over his chest. He winced at the impact to his ribs, forgetting it soon after when he felt fingers gently gracing the scars on his right arm and a kiss between his shoulder blades.
"Thinking about my lighter" Mick said gruffly
"What a surprise" A tired drawl
"And the juke box"
In the ensuing silence, Mick noticed the vibrations of the ship. He felt his body relax, turning to glance out the window for signs of movement, then his eyes sparked with annoyance. He hated being ignored.
"I won that argument though" The petulance from earlier returning. "I let you apologise"
"Of course you did. Now, go to sleep" came the murmur again, breath hot on the back of his neck.
The vibration made his spine tingle and Len knew it. The 'I've got what I wanted and there's nothing you can do about it' smirk would no doubt be plastered on his partner's face.
The smile came back, but this time it remained.
They were a team. A package deal. Not one without the other. And they were doing fine.