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Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Gideon, where in the hell is water coming from? Your 22nd century pipes busted now?”
Mick Rory is standing on his desk, attempting to get a better look at the damp spot in the middle of his ceiling. It’s been leaking for two hours.
“We no longer have a ship’s engineer. The most qualified people to fix the leak, in order of relevant skills and experience, are Dr Palmer, Mr West and Ms Tomaz.”
Mick grunts. “Great. Get one of ‘em down here.”
“Unfortunately,” Gideon says brightly, “since none of them is actually the ship’s engineer, they are all occupied with more urgent tasks. I’m sure one of them will be along shortly. In the meantime, may I suggest that you put a bucket down?”
Halfway to forming a sneer, Mick stops.
He gets down from the desk.
He sits down heavily on the bench. Stares at his hands, linking his fingers and flicking his thumbs against each other. One-two-three.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Mick Rory stood on a step ladder in the middle of the safe house, with a broom in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, poking at the ceiling.
Lounging on the sofa at the other side of the mostly-empty warehouse, Len looked up. “Put a bucket down,” he advised, and returned his attention to Uncanny X-Men.
“I’m gonna fix it,” Mick said, and poked again at the yellowing ceiling tile.
The comic book rustled as Len turned a page. “It’ll be a hole in the roof. What did you expect? This isn’t exactly five star accommodation, Mick. Put a bucket down.”
Mick grunted, attempting to keep his balance as he reached an arm up to the ceiling, holding the edge of the ladder with the other. “Weren’t we gonna pull the job and get out of here soon?”
“Waiting on word from Collins. He’s figuring out museum security. What are you doing?”
“Draining it. Then I’ll patch the roof.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Len watching him with a calculating expression.
“We could call someone in,” Len suggested, after a minute. “There’s probably a builder who owes me.”
Mick glared and gestured at him. The broom flew out of his hand. Sighing, he climbed down the ladder to retrieve it. “You want word getting out that we can’t fix our own shit?” he said, climbing back up. “I grew up on a farm. I know how to fix a damn leak. What are you for?”
Len’s lips twitched and he shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just please be careful. I don’t want to have to take you to the hospital under an alias when you fall off the fucking roof.”
Mick glanced at him, carefully refusing to smile at the comment, and then looked back to the ceiling. “There,” he said eventually, with a sudden stab of the screwdriver into the ceiling tile. The drip became a steady stream of water. “Now bucket,” he said, in the tone of one educating a child, and climbed down. He set off to look for one.
Len put down the book and raised his eyebrows at the stream of water splashing onto the floor. “Could you not have had the bucket here to start with?”
Grunting in reply, Mick slammed the bucket down under the leak, then shoved an enormous roll of plastic sheeting under one arm.
“What are you doing now?”
Mick was already half out of the door. “Patching up the roof,” he said.
“Careful!" Len yelled back after him.
“Yeah, I heard you.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Mick is staring at Zari, who is staring at the ceiling.
She glances over at him and gestures vaguely at the leak. “You know I’m not a plumber, right?”
He stares harder at her, a real Mick Rory’s going to lose his shit stare, and waits for the effect to kick in. It doesn’t. “Yeah, well. I ain’t a time traveling hero, neither. But here we are.”
She rolls her eyes at him and returns her attention to the leak. Then she starts towards the door.
“Hey! You gonna fix it or what?”
“Or what. I’m going to look at the pipes above the ceiling,” she says. She looks back at him and smiles humorlessly. “But you’re probably gonna have to wait for Ray. Put a bucket down.”
“Why does everyone think I’ve never thought of that?” he calls after her.
“No one’s going to help you with that attitude, Mick,” she shoots back cheerfully.
Mick growls. But she’s already gone.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Lying awake in the dark at 3 a.m., Mick was listening to it rain inside his safe house.
“I should get back on the roof,” he whispered.
“Not now you shouldn’t,” Len hissed. “It’s 3 in the morning.”
Mick jumped. “Fucking hell. Thought you were out.”
“I would like to be, so can you shut up and go the fuck to sleep?”
For about three minutes, Mick obliged. He tapped his fingers together. One-two-three.
Then the silence became too heavy. “I thought, how different can a warehouse roof be from a barn roof? Turns out, pretty different.”
He made to move out of bed, and a hand dragged him back by his elbow. “I said,” Len repeated, “not now.”
“’s as good a time as any.”
Mick could feel Len glaring at him through the dark. “It is not as good a time as any,” Len said. “It is dark. There are no street lights out in the parking lot. It’s raining. But fine, break your neck if you must. Just don’t expect me to clean up your body in the morning.”
Mick snorted, and scratched Len’s head fondly.
Groaning, Len pulled a pillow over his face.
Mick grinned, pulling Len towards him. “I mean, since we’re awake…”
“I’m asleep,” Len protested weakly.
But he was easily persuaded.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He bangs a fist on the bench.
Reaching across his desk, he grabs a big bowl, empties its snack contents all over the desk, and puts it under the watery menace.
Then he sits on the floor, and leans his head against the leg of his desk. Bashes his head back against it. One-two-three.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
From where he stood on a chair in the middle of the warehouse, he roared, “I’m gonna burn the place to the fucking ground!”
This was the scene with which Len was greeted, returning from an afternoon out at a hockey game with his sister.
“Yeah. Good luck with that,” Len said, gesturing at the inch of water on the floor.
Mick growled in reply.
Len sighed. It was a deep, world-weary, did-I-really-choose-to-spend-my-life-with-Mick-Rory sigh. “Would you let me call someone to come fix it now?”
“Do whatever the hell you want! Just get the fucking drip to stop, for fuck’s sake!” Mick attempted to get down from the chair and storm off dramatically. His plan was foiled by the inch of water, which left him having to splash away.
Len snickered.
Mick looked at him, daring him to say something. Then he deflated, and leant against the wall.
Coming to stand next to him, Len let his fingers brush against Mick’s along the wall, where he was tapping them against it. One-two-three. “‘Sup?” Len asked.
Mick was silent, resting his head back against the wall. Resisting the urge to bash it against the rough surface.
“You wanna burn something that bad, I can find you something,” Len offered, and Mick shook his head. “What is it, then?”
He shrugged. “Wanted to fix the damn roof.”
“Yes, I gathered,” Len said drily. “Why’s it matter?”
Mick shrugged again. “I gotta be -"
He paused.
“Yes…?”
“- Useful,” Mick finished.
Len turned his head to look at him. Mick skilfully ignored him. Years of practice. Len was handling him. “Don’t,” Mick said, but half-heartedly.
He continued to study Mick. “You’re fine.”
Mick was silent for a minute. Then he said, “Who’d really miss me around here if I was gone?”
Len tapped Mick on the shoulder, experimentally. Mick let him into his space, easier than usual.
“Come on, Mick,” Len said, as his arms snaked around Mick from behind.
Mick gave in to a sudden urge to lean back into his partner and close his eyes.
“You don’t have to be useful,” Len said quietly.
Mick didn’t reply.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
In one motion, he stands up, grabs his toolbox from the shelf behind him, and sets off decisively to find the water pipes.
Mick whistled as he mopped the warehouse floor.
Len came in through a side door, and froze at the sight.
“Someone had to clean this mess up,” Mick said cheerfully.
Pointing silently at the ceiling, Len leaned against a pillar.
“Fixed it,” Mick said. He wrung the mop out into the bucket. “Replaced a whole section of roof. Looks good.”
Len watched him for a bit. Then he said, “Just saw Collins. Says we’re good to go at the museum.”
Mick snorted. “So I fix the roof and we’re nearly outta here?”
“Yup.”
With a grin, Len spun on his heel and strode over to the couch. He picked up his guitar and raised a querulous eyebrow at Mick, who scowled. “Sure. I do all the work around here, you just laze around with that thing.”
A smirk was followed by concentration, as Len picked out a simple set of opening notes, then raised a baritone above them. “...And I’ve spent all my money on whiskey and beer…”
Stopping and putting the mop down, Mick came over, leant against the back of the couch and tapped out a rhythm with his foot. One-two-three.
“But now I’m returning with gold in great store, and I never will play the wild rover no more…”
Mick tried to resist the call of the chorus, but found himself echoing a few of the notes under his breath as Len’s singing resounded in the sparse warehouse.
Long fingers strummed out the last chords with a tremulous flourish. Len finished with a self-satisfied smile, eliciting a low rumble of laughter from Mick.
“Good!” Mick concluded.
“What in the Speed Force happened in here?” Wally asks, when he finally arrives, hours later.
Mick raises his eyebrows and doesn’t look up from the page he’s typing. “Fixed it,” he said. He glances down at where there’s rather a lot of water on the floor. “The bucket got full,” he adds apologetically.
“How did you…?” Wally trails off uncertainly.
“I figured, how different can a time ship ceiling be from a farmhouse roof? Turns out, pretty different,” he says cheerfully. “Figured out where everything goes, though, in the end. You should tell Gideon she needs to get one of you to look at the lining of the water pipes.”
“Huh,” Wally says.
Mick sits back in his chair and looks at Wally. “Where you from, kid?”
Wally tilts his head in surprise, but answers him. “Uh, Keystone. You?”
Mick smiles. “Keystone.”
He gestures at the bench, and Wally sits down, eyes still a bit wide and wary. Mick swings back and forth in his chair. “You ever go to a Combines game?” he asks.
Wally’s face lights up, and he sits back on his hands. “All the time! You a fan?”
Mick makes a ‘so-so’ gesture with his hand. “Hockey was more Len’s thing. He rooted for the Stars - you believe that? So much for being a Central City boy,” he mused, mostly to himself.
Wally screws up his eyes at him. “Len?”
Mick smiles, mostly to himself. “Before your time, I guess. Captain Cold.”
“Oh,” Wally says with recognition.
Ray Palmer finds them there, still talking, twenty minutes later.
“Oliver was scary intimidating,” Wally’s saying. “The A.R.G.U.S. agent didn’t know if she should kill him or, like, give him a medal.”
“Robin Hood’s a jerkwad,” Mick says enthusiastically, to Wally’s eyebrow raise of tacit agreement. “You gonna stand there letting in the cold all day, Haircut?”
From the doorway, Ray tilts his head. “I’m pretty sure the ship is maintained at the exact same temperature in the hallways as in the rooms, but I could check, if you like,” he says. “Didn’t you have some kind of emergency?”
“Eh. Fixed it. Who wants a beer?”
He catches Wally and Ray looking at each other, ignores them, stands up and slaps his thighs. “C’mon. New Girl said maybe she’d play me a thing.”
Ray raises his eyebrows helplessly at him.
“You know. On her fiddle.” He picks up his jacket. “I said, you know any Irish tunes? And she says no. So I got Gideon to give her - what do you call it? On her computer.”
“A playlist?” Ray suggests.
He clicks his fingers in Ray’s direction. “Yeah. Gotta see if she’ll play me some.”
“You’ll ask her if she minds you drinking around her, yeah?” Wally says.
“Of course."
Ray and Wally fall into step with him as he strides out towards the kitchen.
It’s much later when Mick Rory returns to his quarters, his jacket slung over his arm, whistling. The lights come on at a low setting.
He smiles thoughtfully as he lowers himself to the floor by the bench.
“Gideon?”
“Yes, Mr Rory?”
He pauses for a minute, staring at the floor. “Can you put on the playlist you made for me?” he asks, at last.
Gideon obliges. He leans his head back against the bench and closes his eyes. His attention fades in and out of the first song that comes on.
“Well, the ship is in the harbor, love, and you know I can’t remain…”
He taps out a rhythm on the floor with his fingertips. One-two-three.
“It’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me - but, my darling, when I think of thee."