Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mick’s fresh out of his first stint in juvie and determined to keep his nose clean. He’s not going back in there again, not for anything. Too loud, too bright, too wrong. He’d had a headache the whole time—three whole years of it. He’s not doing anything that could put him back in that hell. No fighting, no disobeying his new foster father no matter how loudly he yells, and above all, no fire.

This determination holds through seeing the gang of four kids beating up a scrawny-looking kid in a too-big leather jacket. Mick’s not gonna get involved. No. He doesn’t do fights anymore. He never even used to pick fights deliberately—they just happened because he was too stupid or too blunt and pissed people off. He got good at defending himself, but he’s never picked a fight before. Not about to start now.

Metal glints in the dim light, and okay, Mick’s veering off his path now. A fight’s one thing, but he’s about to watch a murder happen if he doesn’t intervene.

The kid in the leather jacket is either too brave for his size, reckless, or suicidal, because the sight of the knife doesn’t make him back down. “Really?” he snaps, in a voice that seems too big for his tiny frame. “You can’t take me four to one, you’ve gotta pull a knife?”

“Mouthy little bitch!” says the kid with the knife. Even Mick, whose comebacks aren’t his strong suit, has to admit it’s a weak reply. Still, the knife’s nothing to play with, so, without thinking, he charges into the fray.

“C’mere,” he says, yanking the leather jacket kid close to him the way he’d scoop a cat. The kid makes about the same noise he’d expect from a scooped cat, too, but sensibly enough, he lashes out at one of his attackers who’s getting a bit too close rather than at Mick.

It doesn’t take long to send the bullies scurrying off with their tails between their legs. Mick’s big and intimidating and he’s honed his fighting skills in juvie, and he’s glad of it now. The leather jacket kid’s not a bad fighter either, though he moves like he’s hurt. When the fight is over, Mick turns to him and looks him up and down. “You okay?”

The kid looks like he’s itching to make a mouthy reply, but he settles for a grouchy, “Fine.” He doesn’t look fine. The way he’s holding himself makes Mick think he’s got broken ribs, plus a dark red bruise on his jaw and an incongruously greenish bruise by his eye. Mick decides not to call him out on it. The kid wants to sell the tough guy act, Mick’s gonna let him.

“Why’d they gang up on you?” He examines his knuckles. Got a little bit bloodied during the fight…damnit, he’s gonna get shouted at for that at home. His foster father knows he’s not supposed to get in fights.

The kid wipes blood away from his split lip. “I picked a fight,” he admits, in a voice like he knows it’s wrong and will still defend whatever backwards reasons he’s got with every inch of his scrawny self.

Mick grunts in acknowledgment. “Got a death wish?”

The kid gives him a long, slow, assessing look, way too adult in his tiny round face. “Guess I’m as much trouble as everyone says,” he mutters.

Mick eyes that days-old shiner. Got a scab on it—whoever hit him was wearing a ring. He knows what that feels like—his old man’s ring used to cut him up like that, too. “Looking for a fight you can win?”

There’s something new in the kid’s eyes at that, a spark of understanding. He gets it now, that Mick’s not the enemy. “Something like that.”

Mick doesn’t bother sticking out his hand. He doesn’t do touch, and he doubts the kid does either. “Mick.”

The kid gets a weird, dark look in his eye, and he’s silent for a stretch. Finally, he says, “Len,” in a way that feels like he’s imparting something big.

Just like that, Mick’s got himself a responsibility. Didn’t really plan on it, but his mother used to tell him, back when he was always bringing home wounded strays, that if he saved a life, that was his responsibility from then on. He figures there are worse responsibilities to have than a punk kid with something to prove.

He figures wrong.

Chapter Text

They keep meeting up. It gets to the point where Mick looks forward to his time with Len as a welcome relief from being at home. He gets the sense Len thinks the same. He does his best to keep the little punk out of fights. Instead, they grab lunch—Len seems partial to a place called the Motorcar—or they go to the park to people-watch or the docks to watch the water.

One day, while people-watching, Len asks an unexpected question. “What makes a man?” he asks. He’s sitting all tucked up, legs to his chest, chin resting on his kneecap. Mick thinks he’s adorable, but he’s not gonna say that. “I mean, when you look at someone, what makes you think they’re a man?”

Mick’s never really thought about that before. He gives it some good thought, watching a couple of guys pass by chatting and a pair of girls who look like they’re trying not to hold hands. He finds he pities them for their hesitance to touch, though he’s not sure the reason for it. “’S the eyes,” he says eventually. “Guys’ll look at you with a challenge in their eyes, like they know they own the place.”

Len’s nose wrinkles up. “What, girls can’t look like that?”

Mick shrugs. “My experience? A woman who looks like that’s got something in her look like she’s trying for it. Not saying women can’t own the place. They’re just always on the defensive to keep it, ‘cause guys are assholes.”

Len laughs at that. “So don’t try so hard, is what you’re saying.”

Mick looks at him sideways. “Never a question with you. Never met a girl damn-fool stupid enough to get in a fight with four guys and a knife.”

Judging by Len’s pleased expression, he shouldn’t have said that. He hopes it doesn’t mean his weird punk responsibility goes off and picks another fight.

“Why d’you care, anyway?” Mick asks, looking back out over the park. He can’t make sense of half the stuff in Len’s brain, and he’s just about given up on trying. The kid thinks too much. It’ll be a problem for him someday. It’s why he needs Mick to balance him out. Mick wagers he thinks the same in reverse. Funny that way, how life has a habit of bringing people together when they need each other.

“Got a baby sister,” Len explains. “Four years old and growing quick. Trying to figure out how to help her grow up into the kinda person nobody’ll fuck with.” He picks up Mick’s speech patterns the longer they’re together. Mick’s noticed it a couple of times and mostly thinks it’s cute. He figures it’s probably unconscious, like the way he used to pick up people’s ways of sitting to look more like he fit in. Never worked, but he’s not gonna tell Len that.

“Gotta get her outta that hell-hole first.”

Len springs to his feet at that, looking like Mick’s smacked him in the face. “What the fuck do you know about it?” he snaps. The cute picked-up mannerisms drop away when he’s spitting mad. Mick kinda likes it, the glimpse of this Len. It comes with the same rush of danger and feeling of proximity to power as watching a blaze.

“Told ya.” Mick shrugs. Len’s anger is formidable, but he’s still just a tiny punk kid. Mick could handle him if he’s rash enough to pick a fight. “Know what they’re like, the fights you can’t win. It’s one thing to look after yourself, I’ve been there. But if you’re trying to look after your little sister too?” He shakes his head. “Get her the hell outta dodge before she gets hurt.”

“She won’t,” Len says coldly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

He already has, Mick realizes, and Mick’s seen the aftermath. Len’s been late to their meetings enough times, wincing and claiming he got in a fight, and Mick’s never pushed it. Now he figures out what he’d have heard if he did. Len’s been starting shit before he leaves the house, trying to burn out his father’s anger so it’s safe to leave his sister at home without him to protect her. Mick’s not sure it works like that, but damn if Len isn’t persistent.

“How long can you keep that up before you start to resent her?”

Now Len’s pissed. “I love my sister!” he snaps. “Which is more than anyone’s ever said about you!”

Mick recoils. He knows Len’s just lashing out, knows that he’s as willing to start fights with words as with fists, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hit where it hurts. “Mighta said the same about you.”

He half-expects to end up with a furious little punk attacking him. He’s not prepared for Len to curl in on himself. “Think I don’t fucking know that?” he snaps. Mick has to appreciate once again the fact that his voice is way larger and more forceful than the tiny frightened body it comes out of. “I’m not worth the fucking space I take up, of course I’m not gonna resent Lisa for knowing she can put me between her and our old man. Not worth any fucking better.”

Well shit. That’s more information in a few sentences than they’ve exchanged for weeks. It puts a whole lot together in Mick’s mind. He’s not sure how to say it yet, so he just drops back onto the park bench and beckons Len down beside him. “C’mere.”

Len stays standing, posture all defensive, but he’s not running or attacking. Mick will take that as a win. “Don’t have to do anything you say.”

Yeah, that just about figures. Mick sighs deep and heavy and raises his eyes to the sky, begging for help from whatever higher power is listening. “Didn’t mean to start shit,” he says, which is the closest he knows how to get to an apology. “Worried about you, is all. Worried about your sister.”

And of course that’s what gets Len to plop down on the bench beside him. They’ve barely talked about her, but Mick already knows he’d do anything for his sister. He almost envies Len having someone to love that much. Then the memory of the fire creeps back into his mind. Would having another kid in the house—a responsibility of his own—have stopped him playing with the lighter?

“You don’t even know her,” Len says, and his voice is weird. He wants to be suspicious, Mick figures—he always wants to be suspicious—but he’s also…well. He’s got some kinda complicated feelings about the fact that Mick actually cares. Mick’s not gonna look too hard at that.

“Don’t have to.” Mick wishes he had a lighter to play with. The aftermath of a confrontation always leaves him buzzing with energy that he doesn’t know how to direct, except into a fire. Fighting with Len is even worse, somehow. “No kid deserves that.”

Len doesn’t have an answer. That’s okay. Mick hadn’t really expected one. The fact that they’re not fighting counts for enough.

Chapter Text

Somewhere around the six-month mark, shortly after Len celebrates his fifteenth birthday, Mick wonders if he’s found a friend. He knows they’re not exactly what most people would think of as a good friendship—more than half their time together is simply spent in silence, enjoying the other’s closeness—but he likes it. It’s not too much for him, and he still feels like those silent times are more of an understanding of Len than anyone else has been allowed.

Mick turns seventeen. It feels like a taunt. He’s one year away from freedom—one year away from being able to get out of the system and do…who knows what. Anything else. Make a home for himself. (Maybe a home for Len and his kid sister, because anything’s better than the hellhole they’re in right now.)

Mick doesn’t realize exactly how true that is. He finds out soon enough.

He gets, now, why Len’s sometimes late to their meetups. That doesn’t mean he has to like it, especially in the Motorcar, where everything’s bright and loud and the lady keeps asking him if he wants anything to drink other than his root beer (he doesn’t). He’s taking her point—that he’d better finish up and move on so a better-paying customer can sit there—when Len stumbles in the door, his face ghastly grey.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically small and weak. “May have gotten a little too mouthy on the way here.”

He’s hurt. Mick knows it like a shock of cold water. Somewhere under the ever-present leather jacket, his little punk is hurt. Without asking, Mick grabs at the leather jacket and tries to push it off.

“Hey, hey, stop pawing at me…” Len bats ineffectively at his hands. Mick pulls the jacket far enough back to see a bloodstain spreading along the right side of Len’s shirt. Len flinches away from his touch. “I told you, I got mouthy and I paid for it. It’s fine, it’s a scratch.”

“It the fuck is not!” Mick’s got memories of juvie in his mind. The smart kids would say it was just a scratch. Anyone else, anyone who let on how much pain they were in…no chance. “You’re getting that looked at.”

“No!” Len scrambles up out of the booth and tries to put some distance between them. Out of the corner of his eye, Mick sees someone behind the counter reach for the phone on the wall. No, no, they can’t call the cops. Mick can’t go back to juvie. “I’m f—” His eyes go hazy. Mick’s up and moving to catch him before he hits the ground.

“Not fine.” He’s noticed before how light Len is—it’s been useful in grabbing him away from fights and also one of Mick’s constant worries about him. Now, it’s a key factor in how fast he goes down, the not-inconsiderable amount of blood he’s lost too much for him. “Gotta get you some help.”

Thankfully, the person on the phone must have the good sense to request an ambulance rather than a cop car, because that’s what shows up. Len is bundled away. Despite Mick’s protests, he’s not allowed to ride along. Once the hubbub dies down and he can think through the overstimulation, he sets off for the hospital on foot.

It takes a little over half an hour to walk to the hospital from the Motorcar. By the time he gets there, the ambulance is still by the emergency room doors, but the EMTs are inside filling out paperwork and chatting with the desk worker. Mick considers asking the desk worker where Len is, but that requires talking and he’s not in the mood for much of that. So, doing his best to project the kind of confidence that says he’s got a right to be there (he’s been told he’s good at this, although he never feels like it), he pushes the door open and braves the emergency room.

The hallway curves around in a U-shape. Ahead and to his right, another desk—maybe the nurses’ station, he figures—fills the middle of the U. To his left and continuing around the outer walls are the doors to patient rooms—some, presumably the empty ones, are open, and some closed. He could just go around looking in all the closed ones, but that’d look creepy. Instead, he braves the nurses’ station. “Hey. A kid was just brought in here, bleeding, probably needed stitches. Called Len.”

The nurse behind the counter peers up at him. She has a face that reminds him a little of the lady at the Motorcar—not so much in the features as in the way it wrinkles up when she sees him. Great. He’ll always look like he’s no good, and the whole rest of the world can’t help but react to that. “Do you know a last name?” she asks with more tact than her expression displays.

“Uh.” Len mentioned it once and Mick barely paid it any mind. “Snapp? No. Snart.”

“And what did you say the first name was again?” The nurse pages through a handful of papers. Mick doesn’t know why she’s checking, unless ‘Len’ isn’t formal enough to count. Then he realizes he doesn’t actually know Len’s full first name.

“Uh…Len?” he tries again. “Probably Leonard?”

The nurse is clearly about to tell him they don’t have records of a Leonard Snart—Mick will worry about what that means later—when the door behind him opens and a familiar voice, albeit somewhat weakened, drawls, “I don’t suppose you can just cut the damn thing off while you’re going?”

Mick whirls around, pushes past the nurse who’s just come out of the room, and barges in on Len, who’s half-obscured by a doctor’s shoulders. Mick guesses from Len’s mildly repulsed expression that the doctor’s placing stitches. Then he catches sight of Mick and goes the same ashy grey as in the diner.

“Len.” Mick has the presence of mind to shut the door behind him. He wants to rush to the bedside and sit down on the side of Len that doesn’t have a doctor, but something in Len’s eyes stops him. He doesn’t just look surprised that Mick came after him; he looks terrified.

“There.” The doctor cuts something and steps back. Mick catches a glimpse of pale skin before Len grabs his blood-soaked leather jacket and pulls it closed around himself. “I still have to bandage your wound,” the doctor says, sounding none-too-patient. Mick thinks of the stuff Len has done in his presence and suspects there’s good reason for the aggravated tone. His little punk is nothing if not uncooperative.

“No, I think we’re done here.” Len hops to his feet. His eyes go a little hazy again and he sinks back down onto the cot. “Or maybe not…”

The doctor bandages the wound and tells Len the nurse will be back shortly to check on him. Of course, Len doesn’t bother waiting. As soon as it’s just the two of them, Len gets to his feet again and beckons Mick toward the door. The arm on his injured side is clamped tight around himself, keeping the leather jacket drawn closed. “Come on. Gotta get scarce before they bring the bill—or a social worker, that’d be worse.”

Mick’s not sure they should just take off, but Len’s reasons are sound. He goes to wrap his arm around his little punk to keep him from falling over again. Len waves him off. Rather than be hurt (though he is), Mick asks, “They won’t catch up with you ‘cause you gave them a fake name?”

Len laughs hollowly. “I wish. No, they have a name they could use to find me, but I don’t think they’ll have much luck even then.”

Mick considers all while they slip past the nurses’ station and out the doors. Only once they’re outside the hospital does he demand, “So you gave me a fake name, then. ‘Cause they didn’t know you as Len.”

That’s clearly the wrong thing to say. Len whirls around, eyes glinting, and snaps, “No! Len is my real name, it’s who I am! The name I had to give them…” He bites down hard on his lower lip. After what looks like a painful internal struggle, he grits out, “It’s fucking Leah, okay? It’s the wrong damn name, but it’s the name I was given.”

Mick’s brow furrows. He can’t make heads or tails of that. Leah? That doesn’t fit even a little bit. “Why’d they give you a girl’s name?”

“Because I fucking am, okay?” Len—and it’s weird that Mick can’t think of him any other way, even knowing otherwise—hugs himself tighter. “Got a girl’s body, girl’s name, girl’s problems, guy’s brain. Len’s how I see me, and you…” He raises his eyes to the sky. For a second, Mick thinks he’s gonna collapse again; then he sees the shine of tears along Len’s lower lashes. “You never knew Leah. You’re the first person to just see me.”

That’s weird as all hell, and Mick’s not about to try to make sense of it. One thing he knows for sure: ‘Leah’ doesn’t compute. The punk kid in front of him is Len. “You say you’re Len? Don’t got any reason not to believe you. Like you said, never saw the other one.” He refrains from clapping his hand on Len’s shoulder, fearing it would cause him too much pain. “You’re my little punk problem, and that’s all I’m gonna worry about.”

Len huffs a laugh that Mick’s gonna pretend doesn’t sound watery. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I’ll settle for that.”

Chapter Text

Mick’s thankful to a higher power he barely believes in the day he turns eighteen and gets out of the foster system. He’d been looking at apartments for months. With the money he’s saved up from some semi-legal part-time work, he can afford a dinky one-bedroom apartment with mold under the kitchen sink and pipes that creak and groan in the night. Still, it’s his, and it gives him and Len a place to retreat to if they need to.

It doesn’t take long for Len to start bringing his kid sister over. It’s the first time Mick ever meets her, and she’s cute. She doesn’t look anything like Len, but Mick figures that’s partly because Len goes out of his way not to look like himself. Like Len, she’s got signs of the home they live in, including a healing gash on her shoulder that, once she’s asleep, Len confides is all his fault.

“I usually provoke him,” he admits, all curled in on himself. Even in the heat of summer with no air conditioning, he won’t take off the leather jacket. It’s left his face bright red and sweaty, but Mick knows better than to tell him to take it off. “I wanted one day of not getting beaten, and he went after her with a beer bottle. Should’ve been me.” With a shaky laugh, he adds, “Maybe it would’ve been like last time, where he almost cut off my tit for me. Would’ve saved me trouble.”

“Shouldn’t be either of you.” Mick’s ready to fight for both of them, but he’s got no chance. They only get away with a couple of days because Lewis fucking Snart can’t be arsed to keep track of his kids. If Mick tried to steal them away for good, he’d get the cops called on him, and he’s not doing that again. “Gonna figure out a way to get you out of this, Lenny. I promise.”

They don’t really expect a way out to get dropped in their laps, but not three days later, Len and Lisa show up at the door at midnight.

“Lewis was arrested.” Len is panting like they ran all the way here. Mick ushers them into the house, shuts the door, and locks it. He only has the one shabby lock so that Len can get in easily—the kid likes to let himself in—but with the two of them there, he regrets not having more security. “We’ve got nowhere to go.”

“Except into foster care.” No wonder they ran here. Mick’s been through the system and it was crap. And for the two of them, the fear that they’d get split up is too real. Len was right to run. “No idea how to feed three of us, but we’ll make it work.”

“I’ll pull my weight,” Len promises. Mick gets a bad feeling about the look in his eye, but he doesn’t say anything about it. It can wait until Lisa is asleep.

“Right.” Mick looks around the apartment. He has a threadbare sofa that he scooped up from the end of someone’s driveway, an equally ratty armchair that he got for ten dollars at a garage sale and had to lug across half the city, and a mattress on the floor in the bedroom. Sleeping options aren’t great, but they’ll make it work. “Well. Welcome home, I guess.”

He ends up with his arms full of Lisa after saying that. Yeah, okay. This whole not-a-parent thing could be worse.

They last a week before it becomes clear that Mick’s minimum wage job can’t keep a roof over their heads, the water and electric on, and feed all three of them. When that happens, Len says he’ll be back in a bit. When he returns, he’s got a wad of cash in his hand, neatly sorted—nothing bigger than twenties, Mick notes, but plenty of those, plus a handful of tens, some fives, and a whole lot of singles.

“Do I wanna ask?” he sighs. Lisa’s at school, so he figures they can be blunt.

Len shrugs and gestures at himself. “Can’t exactly linger where people are gonna be carrying hundreds in cash. Don’t rob anyone desperate-looking, though.” With pride, he adds, “Never get caught, either. Too quick.”

That, unfortunately, Mick believes—unfortunately because it means he won’t take Mick seriously if he tells him to stop. Nah, he’s gonna keep thinking himself uncatchable until he’s proven wrong.

With food taken care of, the next problem is sleeping arrangements. Both Snarts have been sleeping on the sofa, all curled up with each other—inseparable in a place that’s not theirs. It takes them a week to be comfortable enough talking to Mick about a change. Everyone agrees Lisa ought to have the mattress and the bedroom to herself, but it’s more practical for her to sleep on the sofa and the two of them to share the bed. Or so Mick says, anyway, before Len freezes up and snaps, “I’ll stay with Lisa.”

Mick’s not surprised—with how they’ve clung to each other so far, it makes sense they wouldn’t want to be apart at night. He’s about to tease Len that guys should stick together before remembering Len alluding to ‘girl’s body’ and figures Len wouldn’t want to be in a situation where Mick might catch sight of him undressing. Fine by Mick. He always did like his space. “Not gonna fight you on it,” he says neutrally, and takes the sofa.

It takes five months for Len’s pickpocketing to land him in prison. Mick doesn’t even find out about it until he gets a phone call on their questionable landline. When he answers, it cuts in and out, but he hears, “Hey Mick. I might’ve run into a little bit of trouble with an off-duty cop. This is me using my one phone call to tell you I’m fine, but Lisa’s gonna be a little hellion while I’m inside.”

That much Mick could’ve guessed. The Snarts get weird if they’re apart for too long, and Lisa has a tendency to throw tantrums if she’s away from Len for too long. “Where are you?” he asks.. “Gonna bring her to see you.”

“So.” Len clears his throat. “Funny story about that…”

An hour later, Mick pulls his battered old motorcycle up in front of Iron Heights. It’d chilled his blood when Len told him he’d been taken there. Mick knew it—he’d also been held in a juvenile wing at Iron Heights before his trial—but he’d thought they’d have the good sense to do something else with Len. The young offenders and the adults are housed in separate wings, but their mealtimes are combined. Mick had endured a month of hell for that reason, prior to his trial. It’ll be even worse for Len given that somewhere in that building, Lewis fucking Snart is lurking and pissed off.

The guards scrutinize Mick a little too closely, and they only let Lisa in to talk to Len. Mick tells them what a bad idea this is, but they don’t listen. They pay for it when, some fifteen minutes later, a guard drags a screaming Lisa out of the room by her hair.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” Mick growls, but he keeps from bolting to his feet and intervening.

“Keep the little brat away from here in the future,” the guard snaps. “She bit me!”

“Told you to let me in with her,” Mick seethes. He catches Lisa in his arms, scoops her up, and carries her back out to the motorcycle. He doesn’t want to hear any bullshit about how he’s not family and can’t be allowed back. Far as he’s concerned, he goddamn well is family.

“Let me go!” Lisa kicks him when he plops her down on the back of the motorcycle. “I want Lenny!”

“Lisa, Lisa.” Mick holds her still. She’s squirmy and strong for her age, but still tiny and easily pinned. When he holds her still long enough, she goes angrily limp. “Took you in ‘cause I knew you’d wanna see him. You knew you had to behave.”

Lisa sniffles. “I know, and Lenny told me so too, but…” She rubs her hand over her cheek. “I want him back.”

“I know,” Mick agrees. “I do too.”

A week later, while Lisa is in school, Mick visits Iron Heights again. This time, he’s allowed back. He’s made to wait while they fetch Len. The sight that greets him makes his blood boil.

Len’s eye is swollen shut. His jaw is bruised plum-purple, and judging by the way he’s holding himself, he’s got bruises to match it all over his torso. The thin prison uniform makes him look smaller and more exposed than Mick’s ever seen him.

“The hell happened to you?” he asks to disguise how worried Len’s injuries make him feel.

“Might have had a run-in with dear old Dad.” Len grimaces as though talking hurts. It probably does. “He had opinions about the fact that I got myself caught.”

Mick’s not new to wanting to kill Lewis Snart, but it’s never felt quite as urgent as it does now. “And did he pay for that?”

“You mean did the guards take him away for a bit?” Len nods and curls in on himself. "Yeah, they did. Weren’t exactly kind to me either. But then they told me I was gonna get beat up from the first, so…”

“Wait, they said that?” Mick’s not surprised at the sentiment, but most guards have the sense not to make it overt.

Len rolls his eyes. “Said if I was gonna delude myself into thinking I’m a man, they might as well put me in with the real men so I learn the difference. I think they thought I’d beg to get out after the first night.” He squares his jaw. This is somewhat less impressive because of the subsequent wince. “I’m not gonna back down. If this is what it takes to prove I’m a man, so fucking help me I will.”

“You’re gonna get hurt worse than this,” Mick cautions. He can’t bear the thought—his little punk, hurting because of his pride and because Mick can’t be there to protect him. “Keep your head down, keep your mouth shut. You’re gonna do your time and get outta here, and then…”

“And then what?” Len gives him a look all full of challenge.

Mick glances around at the guards. He can’t let Len say anything that’ll get him in more trouble. “And then I guess we go from there.”

Somehow, the look on Len’s face just makes him that much more nervous.

Chapter Text

Mick will never know how he and Lisa manage for a year. As Len said, she’s a little hellion. Her teachers keep calling about her behavior, only for Mick to have to explain why he’s showing up instead of her dad; at home, she rages at him, refuses to eat, refuses to sleep. He can’t get angry at a child, but eventually the yelling makes him shut down completely. He’s not cut out for this childcare crap.

The day he shuts down, he does the only thing he can think of: drags Lisa to the juvie center. Thank fuck Len was transferred after his trial; Mick thought for sure he’d get himself killed at Iron Heights. The juvie center is, if anything, stricter about visitors than Iron Heights, so Mick can’t figure why they let him back. Maybe they just don’t want Lisa alone.

When they finally see him, Len looks like crap. “Just got out of a week in solitary for fighting.” Mick knows enough to know there are times solitary is better, and he gets the distinct impression Len picked this fight to get out of whatever hell was waiting for him in gen pop.

Unfortunately, Lisa has no reason to know that, and she’s furious. “You deserve it,” she spits. “You left me, Lenny! After saying it would be us against the world, always!”

Len does a pretty good job of keeping a level expression. That doesn’t mean Mick can’t tell he’s hurt by her words. “I know, Lisa,” he agrees. “And…there’s no excuse for what got me put in here.” He means getting caught. They’re gonna have to have a hell of a talk about that later. “But it’s not Mick’s fault, it’s mine. Mick is doing his best to look after you, okay? I need you to be nice to him since he’s trying so hard for you.”

“I don’t want Mick, I want you!” Lisa’s voice pitches up.

“I know,” Len agrees, glancing around the room as though frightened of what Lisa’s yelling might bring down on him. He’s not okay in here. “But Mick is trying, okay? If you fight him, they’re going to take you away from him—from both of us—and when I get out, I won’t be able to get you back.”

That shuts Lisa up quick. “Like they were going to do when Dad was arrested?”

Len nods. “Just like that. Now go with Mick, okay? Be nice to him, and I’ll be out before you know it.”

Thankfully, the next week is peaceful. Lisa seems to have taken Len’s words to heart. This is the only reason Mick feels safe returning to the juvie center while she’s in school without fear that he’ll miss a call about bad behavior.

“You’re not okay,” he says the moment Len sits down in front of him.

“Dealt with worse than being thrown in with a bunch of teenage guys.” Len’s feigned nonchalance doesn’t even make it through a sentence. Mick gets it. He’s been in here, which Len seems to have forgotten. (Being back is giving him some kinda feelings he doesn’t want to look at too closely. He can panic later, once he’s sure Len is okay.) “They’re not that smart. They give me trouble, I can make sure I’m nowhere nearby when they run afoul of a guard.”

Of course the too-in-his-head little punk already has control over the other prisoners. Mick shouldn’t have expected any less. But in here, the other prisoners weren’t what made his time hell. “And the guards?”

(Keeping him drugged up on some kinda antipsychotic crap until he felt dead inside. Beating on his cell door as they passed because they knew he hated the noise. Overlooking the fights everyone else started with him because he was big and stupid, of course he brought it on himself. Provoking him into incoherent rage just so they could shut him in solitary, where the lack of stimulation drove him to hurt himself just so he could feel something.)

“Yeah.” Len’s mouth presses into a sullen line. “Does it say too much if I tell you I’d rather stay in gen pop and manipulate the other guys into leaving me alone than be in solitary at the mercy of a guard?”

“Know the feeling,” Mick admits. He’d also been willing to take his chances with the other boys. They’d been cruel because he was different, sure, but he was used to that from his peers. With the guards, they’d been in a position to do whatever they liked, and if he raised a fuss, obviously it was just the prison idiot imagining things again.

“I’ll be out of here soon enough.” Len doesn’t sound like he believes it. Mick wonders if he knows the calming lies he’s used to pulling out don’t work on Mick. “You just look after Lisa. I can handle myself.”

Mick knows better than to say he doesn’t believe him.

Chapter Text

Len gets out about a month after his seventeenth birthday. If Mick thought he had something to prove before, it’s worse now. He comes out of juvie with a chip on his shoulder and the same resolution Mick has: don’t go back into the justice system. Unfortunately, he takes this the exact opposite way from Mick. Rather than being scared straight, he determines that he has to be a better thief.

“Did you lose the whole rest of your marbles in juvie, Snart?” Mick can’t think of anything else to say when he hears Len’s master plan.

“It was the job my dad went down for,” Len says. His eyes are alight with a weird kind of passion. Mick’s not gonna admit it gets his blood stirring like the sight of fire. “I listened to him plan that job, I know every place he went wrong and how to fix it. For as terrible as Lewis’s plans usually are, it’s the perfect heist—the diamonds are too small to have individual ID numbers that will need wiped, but they’ll be worth a fortune to the right buyer. I can have us in and out in nine minutes, every scenario accounted for, backup plans for the backup plans.”

Mick shakes his head. He said he wouldn’t go back, and he damn well meant it. He’s not giving up on that, even for his adorable punk. “No reason. Lisa and I got through on what I make. We can stretch it for you, too. You’re not going back to stealing.”

“There are holes in her shoes!” Len bursts out. “You’re sending her to school with holes in her shoes and she’s getting bloody noses every other day because of the mold under the damn sink! I don’t give a shit if there’s food on the table for me, we do this job for her!” His eyes flash. Mick’s never been scared of him before, but in that moment, he sees where he could be.

“And what about me?” It’s probably the worst thing Mick could have said, but he can’t keep it in anymore. He’s spent a whole year of his life slogging through miserable jobs for himself and Lisa, only to come home to her sulking because Len was gone. He loves the kid, and he gets it, but just once, he wants to be allowed to think of himself. “Juvie was hell for me too, and prison would be worse. You can’t make me go back to that. Made myself better these last few years, can’t ask me to throw that away.”

“I’ll take care of you too!” Len reaches out and clasps Mick’s hands. It’s weird, him seeking touch when he usually avoids it. Even weirder, Mick doesn’t recoil from it. He knows it’s a thing Len does to get people to cooperate—he’s good at using touch as a tool, just like everything else—but this feels genuine. At least partly, anyway. “If we go in, I will not let them catch you. No matter what it takes, you walk out of there with no evidence left behind to link it to you.”

“Don’t believe it,” Mick says flatly. He wants to believe it, but he can’t afford to trust a kid who’s just gotten out of juvie from supposedly uncatchable pickpocketing. “Your planning’s good, but it’s not that good. I’m not gonna live my life on the run for you. You mean a lot to me, Len, but not that much.”

“Then we’ll do a job before the diamonds.” Never let it be said Len gives up easy. He’s the most stubborn, contrary bastard Mick knows. “Low stakes, low risk. That way you can see what dear old Dad taught me.”

“How to get caught?” Mick says, even though he knows it’s cruel.

Len’s mouth sets in a thin, angry line. “I was gonna say how not to be like him, but if you want out, fine. Bet you’ll be able to afford a nicer place without me or Lisa to worry about.”

Oh hell no, Len’s not pulling that on him. Mick couldn’t live with himself if he let the two of them walk out that door into the world that failed him, and that’s failed them too, so far. “Fine,” he growls. “Low-stakes job to prove you can do it? Get planning.”

Len gets three weeks of planning, to be precise. Mick doesn’t help with it very much, and he’s not a fan of the guys Len brings by who do—they look like thugs (though they probably think the same of him). In the end, it’s a team of four who hit a warehouse in Keystone: Mick, the muscle; Bad Tattoo, the driver; Weasel Face, who’s supposed to deal with the security system; and Len. Of course it couldn’t possibly go well for them. After three weeks of planning, they arrive only to find that the security system must have been upgraded while they were making their plans.

“What the hell was that?” Mick bursts out when they tumble through the door of his apartment. Bad Tattoo dropped them off three blocks from the apartment, but they took such a roundabout way home—Len’s idea—that it took half an hour. Mick held his tongue all through it, but now that they’re home, he can’t stay quiet anymore. “You almost got us caught!”

“I got us out of there!” Len snarls. He’s all keyed up and jittery from the stress of the heist. If Mick’s not careful, the high-strung little punk is likely to try to fight him. “They won’t trace it back to us. All they know is that there was a break-in. They have no information that will lead them to us.”

“Coulda done!” Mick whips around and slams his hands on the counter. The other option is grabbing Len and shaking him until he gets it. He’s not gonna let his anger get the best of him. He’s better than that, damnit, so why does Len make him feel like the angry kid he used to be? (Unless he never really changed…) “You coulda got me caught, after every fucking thing I’ve done for you and your brat sister. Thought you actually cared, Len!”

“I’m trying to get you out of this dump!” Len’s keeping his voice down, hissing and snarling but never shouting. Always has to show off his fucking control. “This is no life, Mick. You wanna break your back at shit jobs because your impulsive pyro ass went to juvie rather than school and nobody’ll ever trust you in a job that pays worth beans? Fine! But you are not keeping Lisa in this dump any longer. I’ll do what I have to do to get her out of here.”

Mick doesn’t think. He just swings. It ends with the sickening thump of his knuckles on Len’s cheek. Len actually fucking flinches. Mick can’t help the mean little part of him that thinks Good.

“We’ll be gone in the morning,” Len says coldly, and skulks off to the bedroom he shares with Lisa. Mick is left fuming in the kitchen, a guilty knot in his stomach telling him he was only ever pretending to be better.

Chapter Text

Mick spends a sleepless night on the sofa going over his options. He knows Len wasn’t joking about leaving—the little punk might say things in the heat of the moment, but he’s stubborn enough to follow through. Mick could let him go and, like Len said, keep working jobs he hates because he’ll never be trusted anywhere else. In the process, he’d lose the only attachment he’s managed to form in five fucking years. He could also put himself, body and soul, into Len’s hands and be dragged along on some damn-fool heist that could end with him in prison. He doesn’t like that plan much better, but…Len said he’d take care of him, and he did. He pulled them out of the heist rather than follow it through when they were sure to be caught. That counts for something.

After close to five hours of mulling this over on a loop—same thoughts, same order, swaying back and forth on conclusions—Mick makes up his mind. When Len tiptoes out of the bedroom, already dressed, to grab food for Lisa, Mick greets him with, “I’m in. The diamond thing. I’m in.”

It’s still much too dark to make out Len’s expression, but Mick can see the startled tilt of his head. “You mean it?”

“Yeah,” Mick says, and he does. At least it would be something. The jobs he’s working are eating him up slowly from the inside, with no hope of change. The heist could give him something to live on for real, or it could send him to hell. Either way, it’d get him out of the crushing routine. “When do we do it?”

“Two months,” Len says decisively. “That’s how much time I’ll need to plan it right.”

Two more months of working his terrible jobs. Mick’s pulled through worse. “Two months,” he echoes. “You got it, boss.” It comes out automatically, one of many scripts that save him at his job when his brain goes to static or he wants to mouth off. Then he decides it kinda fits. Huh. Might have to keep that one.

As it turns out, the hardest thing on the first day of planning isn’t scoping out the target; it’s explaining to Lisa why her brother has an impressive bruise on his cheekbone. She’s just a little too old to buy “I opened a cabinet door in the dark and misjudged its proximity to my face.” (Something tells Mick Len’s used that excuse before, with how easily it comes out.)

After two months, Mick expects the heist to go off flawlessly, and it damn well does. They make it back to the apartment high on adrenaline. For lack of any other place to put them, they just stash the diamonds in the back of the closet until their meeting with the fence. Then, still wired on adrenaline, Mick picks Len up and spins him in a circle. He needs to move, to burn off this feeling somehow, and he never stops to wonder if Len doesn’t.

“Well, hey,” Len says, laughing, and holds Mick tight while they spin. “So I made up for that disaster of a first heist?”

“Do you ever stop talking and just enjoy shit?” Mick demands. “That was a damn good plan, Len. Damn good!”

Len grins and lets Mick keep slinging him around. Mick didn’t expect him to be this pliant this long. It’s kinda nice, swinging him around. “So you’d do it again?”

“Don’t go getting greedy,” Mick chides him. “This’ll be a decent payday for awhile. We can make it last.”

And they do, for a long while. Lisa gets the new shoes Len’s been on about, plus two cute dresses, some nice (albeit secondhand) jeans, and a couple of plain shirts. Mick gets himself a new pair of work boots and buys some good food for once, enough to send all of them to bed with the kind of sleepy contentedness that only follows a good meal. Len pinches every penny of his cut hard enough to flatten old Abe Lincoln’s face right off it.

“Saving up for a nicer place,” he explains, “but I might need to supplement a little.”

So he’s back to pickpocketing. Mick feels a headache start to build at this news. “Got a place in mind?” he asks, rather than start in on Len’s pickpocketing again.

“Well, got a location,” Len agrees. “Might be the wrong side of the city for most people. Might be just right for us.”

This is how, a month later, they find themselves moving into an apartment in the queerest neighborhood in Central City. Len seems pleased—course he is. Mick’s not about to ask what he’s hoping to find here, since he’s a little too aloof to be looking for community involvement, but he’ll let him do his thing. Their neighbors seem nice, which is a step up from their last place, so he’s got no reason to complain.

“And now you get a bedroom to yourself,” Len says proudly, showing Mick their new, two-bedroom place. The rest of it’s smaller in comparison, but Mick doesn’t mind now that he has his privacy back.

“Offer’s open again,” he adds. “Could be the guys’ room and let Lisa have a room to herself.”

He can tell Len wants to refuse, but Lisa chooses this moment to widen her eyes and beg, “Please, Lenny? I like having you back, and I don’t ever want you to go again, but…I got used to having my own room, too.”

Mick suddenly regrets asking. He knows Len will refuse Lisa nothing; he can also tell he’s not okay with this. Slowly, Len sighs, “I…suppose it makes sense.”

Setting up the bedrooms is kinda funny, because they still only have the one mattress. Thankfully, they have plenty of blankets, so Mick and Len each make themselves blanket nests. Len clearly positions his as far from Mick’s as possible.

“This is gonna be a thing, isn’t it?” Mick sighs. He doesn’t get it, but it’s not his to get, any more than it’s Len’s job to figure out how Mick’s messed-up head works.

“Yep,” Len says, and that’s pretty clearly all the answer Mick’s gonna get on that.

Late in the night, Mick wakes to warmth against his back. He doesn’t even wake enough for a full question, just makes a confused mumbling noise. Len’s whisper comes back sounding younger and softer than he ever does during the day. “Dreamt of juvie.”

Mick rolls over, slings an arm over Len’s shoulders, and falls back asleep instantly.

The next morning, by the time Mick wakes, Len is gone. They don’t speak of it that day, but the next night after the lights are off, Len snuggles right back up to him. It’s kinda cute, not that Mick will say that. He’s got no problem letting his weird little punk use him for comfort, not if it won’t be awkward later.

Chapter Text

Honestly, if they’d stayed in the dump, their ill-gotten gains probably would’ve lasted longer. There’s only so far penny-pinching can stretch with slightly higher rent to consider, though. It’s not too long after Len turns eighteen—old enough to pull his weight in rent, Mick says—that they plan their next heist. Len spends six weeks on this one, and somehow, in the planning, comes up with, “I could marry you now.”

Mick spits out his coffee. “You could what?”

“It would be, like, backup plan twenty-two, but if one of us is caught without the other, we could get in for conjugals and, you know, have some unsupervised time to plan an escape. Plus, y'know, if either of us ever has to go to the hospital again, we'd have married rights to visits, and all.” Len sounds distracted by something else. He’s gotta be, Mick thinks, because he’s forgetting a crucial component to this plan.

“Did you forget? Guys can’t marry guys. It’s why there’s gotta be safe neighborhoods like this one.”

Len gives him the most exasperated look he’s given Mick that day—maybe this week. “I wouldn’t marry you as Len. I’d have to marry you as Leah.”

“Who’s Leah?” Mick asks before he remembers. Right. Girl body, girl name. “But you’re not Leah. Can’t marry someone you ain’t.”

Len huffs a laugh and bends back down to study the blueprints. “Didn’t think that’s what’d get you hung up about the ‘I’m literally asking you to be my husband’ part of this.”

“Oh.” Right. Mick was gonna follow that up and then got distracted. He turns his brain back to that part and is boggled anew. Len wants to marry him. For a backup-backup plan on a fucking heist. “You wanna get married. On the off chance we need conjugals to break each other out of prison?”

He can’t read Len’s glance at him. “Well, if you don’t want to, we don’t have to. Told you, I’ll do my best to keep you out of prison, and if I’m arrested, I doubt they’ll be able to hold me for long.” His face wrinkles up and he spits, “I’m not going through what I did in juvie ever again.”

“Married’s a big thing, Len, and you’re eighteen,” Mick points out. “Hell, I’m twenty. Got our whole lives ahead of ourselves, and you wanna tie ‘em together for one fucking heist?”

“Oh, I expect there will be more heists. I’m sure as hell not getting a nine-to-five after getting a taste of that kind of adrenaline rush,” Len admits, grinning. And yeah, okay, Mick can see that. The rush of their last heist was…well. Mick’s only ever felt something like that watching a fire. “And it’s not exactly like I’m gonna have prospects. Who’s gonna want a queer-as-hell thief from the wrong side of town?”

Me, Mick almost says immediately, and has to check why that response comes to mind so damn fast. Their new neighborhood has had him wondering, in a kinda careless half-focused way, what exactly he wants in a partner. This question brings those thoughts back in a new light. He’s never seriously considered sharing his life with anyone…except Len, who’s been his since the moment they met.

“Marrying an eighteen-year-old,” he says, rather than answer Len directly. “Thought I couldn’t get any weirder.”

“My age isn’t a factor,” Len sniffs, which is the same thing he’d said when Weasel Face called out his planning on the job-that-wasn’t. Mick doesn’t tell him that it damn well would have been if he’d brought this up two months ago. He’s hung up enough on the fact that he’ll be marrying Leah. No need to dwell on the fact that Len’s barely legal.

The transformation from Len to Leah is slow, weird, and the primary signal that Len wasn’t joking. Mick is bewildered. Lisa, who hasn’t heard about the proposal, is delighted.

“You’re growing your curls!” she exclaims when Len’s hair is long enough to be distinctly curly.

“Yep,” Len says, and barely hides a grimace. Mick thinks he gets it. Without the longer hair, he can kinda pass off his narrow little face as just pretty for a boy; now he’s starting to look a little too soft at the edges to pass the same way.

“Can I play with them again?” Lisa asks hopefully.

Len’s eyes soften. There’s a story there—Mick would bet his cut of the next heist that it’s a Lewis story—but not one he’s likely to ever tell. “Yeah, of course you can.”

Mick only knows what day the wedding is the week before, when Len evaluates himself critically in the mirror and grumbles, “Okay, now I can probably marry you without anyone asking too many questions. Going to the courthouse in a week, yeah?”

Mick can’t say anything but “Yeah, I guess.” His stomach does a weird swooping thing. He puts it down to being hungry and declines to look any closer at it.

A couple days before their ceremony, they head down to get their marriage license. Mick lets Len handle the talking and the paperwork while he stands nearby and tries not to freak out. They’re actually doing this. They’re getting married for heists. He never thought he’d be married, much less for any of the fucking practical reasons Len recited when he asked. Not for the first time, he wonders how he let himself get talked into this.

“Having second thoughts?” Len asks on the way home.

“Nah.” They just had to shell out for the license—no way is Mick changing his mind now. He’ll adjust. Maybe. “Just never figured I’d get married.”

Len laughs and leans into his shoulder. Okay, he could get used to that. “I never did either, but hey, here we are.”

‘Here they are’ indeed. Mick just can’t make any sense of where ‘here’ will lead them.

The day of their wedding (what the hell, Mick thinks again), Mick dresses in his nicest clothes, which aren’t that nice: a clean, new-ish Henley, his best pair of jeans, and his new-ish boots. He’s expecting Len in similar attire. Instead, whoever steps out of the bathroom and calls, “Ready to go?” isn’t Len. It’s a girl in a pretty blue blouse and black skirt, hair loose around a too-pretty face.

“You…what the fuck?” Mick demands.

“I’m still Len!” And oh, yep, that’s his punk’s demanding voice. Len tucks his arms over his chest and curls his shoulders in. “But…you’re gonna have to call me Leah until we’re out of the damn courthouse.”

“Leah,” Mick echoes. He doesn’t like it—sounds weird on his tongue. But ‘Len’ doesn’t fit with…whoever’s in front of him. “All right. You got it.”

They bring Lisa along. She spends the whole walk to the courthouse gushing about how pretty Len is, and how sometimes she wishes she had her sister back even though she loves her brother. Mick can tell it’s working Len up, but he can’t jump in to distract her; he has nothing to say.

This ‘nothing to say’ shock turns out to be even worse at the courthouse. Thankfully, they’re not asked for vows—Mick’s got nothing prepared and couldn't speak if he did. He can barely even get it together enough to say “I do” when prompted. This is all kinds of wrong, in so many ways that he can’t sort out which one is at the root of his overwhelm. The room is quiet, and the light’s not too bad—it’s not physical. It’s…nope, he’s got no idea.

“You may kiss the bride,” says the officiant, which is the first thing Mick’s heard and understood in minutes. He whips his head around to stare. No, no, they didn’t cover having to kiss for their…whatever the hell kind of marriage this is.

“Whoops,” Len says. He doesn’t sound like himself—he’s got his voice pitched a little bit higher, with this soft note to it that Mick’s never heard before. Still, the look he gives Mick is decidedly ‘little punk out of his depth’ when he admits, “I kinda didn’t plan for this part…”

Mick might have just stood there in shocked silence for all eternity if not for Len leaning forward to kiss him. As first kisses go, it’s pretty much par for the course (though given that Mick’s had precisely one other kiss before this one, his judgment might be skewed). Len’s lips are soft and a little dry, and Mick has to keep from chasing his kiss when he leans back. Then he catches sight of Len in his dolled-up girly…costume, Mick doesn’t know what else to call it…and feels like he’s been gut-punched. This isn’t right.

He wants to kiss his little punk.

Mick’s still reeling from that revelation when they walk out of the courtroom, now husband and…wife, which grates to say. Lisa is skipping at their side, chirping, “You’re married now! Do we get cake to celebrate?”

“Well.” Len sneaks a glance at Mick that he has no hope of reading. “I think we might be able to arrange something.”

Ten minutes later, eating cake that Len somehow got for next-to-nothing, Mick wonders why he can’t stop thinking about the kiss.

Chapter Text

Mick doesn’t know what’s worse: the three years they spend without having any reason for their marriage of convenience, which leave him feeling used and weird about it, or the way in which it finally becomes relevant.

Lewis Snart is released from prison shortly after Len’s lackluster twenty-first birthday. (Mick had tried to get him drunk, only for him to lash out and try to start a fight.) Mick first hears of Lewis's freedom when Len comes home with a shiner and the kind of tucked-up stance that means broken ribs.

“My old man’s out, and he wants us to pull a job with him.” It’s the barest mumble as Len slouches to the kitchen for some ice.

“What?” Mick hollers. If Lewis Snart’s out, Mick will see him burn with the same muted, fire-happy delight with which he watched his old man go up in smoke in their burning house. “No way am I taking orders from your old man, Len. Rather watch him burn.”

“Mick.” Len whips around with that cornered look in his eye that he only gets when Mick pushes him on things. He’s trying to act all tough, like he won’t tolerate disobedience, but he just looks scared. “If we do this for him, he won’t try to take Lisa away.”

Of course the bastard threatened Lisa. She’s eleven, and Len doesn’t have legal custody of her—Lewis could take her back whenever he wanted and they’d have no chance. If he’s willing to allow the situation that’s best for Lisa, Mick knows Len won’t spare a thought for himself.

“So we’re doing it?” he grumbles.

Len nods tightly. “Don’t see any other option.”

It’s a terrible plan, and if Mick can tell that, it’s got to be about the worst plan in the history of heists. Len’s impulsive first plan, the one that nearly got them caught, was almost this bad, but no: this one’s definitely worse.

Mick’s not surprised the plan goes south. He just never expected to be the one burned. He sees Len’s look at him, hears Lewis’s, “Leave him, he’s just a dumb kid,” and then sees his partner get half-dragged away, still clutching the loot. Then he’s getting slammed to the ground, and there’s nothing to do but try not to get himself hurt worse.

It’s his first time in adult prison. It’s worse than juvie by far. Mick spends much of it trying to go deep into his head and not pay attention to crap, which is helped immensely by the fact that they restart him on the lithium they’d doped him with in juvie. The sensory issues still get to him when he’s doped up, but he can’t even work up the passion to be angry about the guards or the other prisoners tormenting him.

Len’s there the very first weekend, but Mick almost doesn’t see him. He’s back in his girly costume: blue blouse, high-waisted slacks, noticeable curls. He’s all huddled up at one of the visitor tables, tap-tapping…oh, that ring he got during the Keystone debacle. They’d used it at the wedding for lack of other options.

Mick sits down in the seat opposite. No need to push his luck this early. He tries to muster enough anger to make his “You left me” suitably accusatory. It mostly comes out flat.

“I’m sorry, Mick.” Len reaches across the table to lay his hand over Mick’s. His palm is cool and firm, pleasant against Mick’s warm skin. “This isn’t the place…but I wanted to come back. I did, but…”

“But your father’s an asshole.” Mick can’t even muster his usual passion about Lewis Snart. “How’s he treating you and Lisa?”

“He doesn’t touch Lisa,” Len says dismissively. Mick hears the rest of it loud and clear. He just can’t get himself to care. “Anyway. Not why I’m here. Just letting you know that you don’t have to be alone in here much longer. I can apply for conjugal visits…soon.” Mick doesn’t believe for a second that Len can’t tell him exact number of days, which means it’s longer than either of them will like. “I promise I’m not gonna let that go to waste.”

In here, it’s the closest he can come to saying he has a plan. Mick can deal with that. Every minute in here’s too much for him, but he’s not smart enough for an escape plan that Len doesn’t orchestrate. He’d just get himself stuck in the SHU forever. “Just…come back, between now and then?” he asks. He sounds pathetic, but he can’t be in here alone. “Gonna lose my mind otherwise.”

“Of course I will.” Len looks around the room; then he reaches out and presses his hand against Mick’s cheek. Mick never thought his little punk would be capable of such a tender touch, even in his girly costume. He reaches up and flattens his hand over Len’s, trying to keep it in place. Rather than recoil like Mick thought he would, Len rubs his thumb over Mick’s cheekbone and murmurs, still in that weird too-high voice, “My Mick. I’ll be back for you.”

Mick carries the memory of that touch like a talisman against the despair of the rest of the week. The next Saturday, Len is there; and the Saturday after that, for weeks. Logically, he knows Len’s probably just trying to build up a reputation as the devoted wife (that’s a whole level of weird Mick doesn’t dwell on too long). Still, there’s a deep, vulnerable part of Mick, made more accessible now that the lithium’s calming his anger, that hopes Len is coming back out of real loyalty.

He’s on his best behavior between visits, knowing he’s not gonna get to see Len if he acts out. That doesn’t stop the guards from trying to pin things on him, but he’s good anyway—takes the beatings without fighting back, doesn’t rise to the bait when he’s goaded for being such a fucking stupid oaf, Rory. Being numb from the meds helps. At least the beatings feel like something.

The day of the promised visit, Mick’s shown to a shockingly nice room and made to wait. Then Len is shown in, wearing a slightly-too-big blazer, slacks, and a candy-pink blouse that draws Mick’s attention to the matching gloss on his lips. Oh what the hell. Is he trying to make Mick think of the kiss they’d had at their wedding? (The kiss they’ve never had occasion to duplicate…)

“Mick!” It’s in the affected girly voice. Fake, Mick thinks, which means that the way Len leaps over to hug him is also fake. And then…Len’s gloss-slick lips are on his, and that’s fake too. Mick has to work not to push him off. He knows it’s just for show until the guards shut the door. That’s why he hates it so much.

The door shuts with a click. Len pulls back, draws in a breath, and settles on the bed at Mick’s side. “You know security in this wing is a joke so they don’t have to listen to fucking noises?” he asks bluntly.

Oh. That explains why he was pushing for this to be their escape plan. “Do now,” Mick agrees, then gestures at himself. “But I still won’t be easy to get out.”

“No, not like that,” Len agrees. “So this is the part of the plan that gets fun.” He takes off his blazer and pulls a couple of threads. A slim compact falls out of his pocket and a little makeup brush out of the hem.

Mick goggles. “Ain’t that why they do pat-downs?”

“It sure is. Why else would I pick a blazer with stiff pockets and not much flexibility at the seams? Certainly not for comfort.” Now that the blazer is off, Len reaches up and strips off his shirt. Mick looks away as soon as he registers what’s happening. He’s never seen Len undress before; it’s taboo. He’s not about to break that. Even more astonishing, Len doesn’t snap at him for looking away. He just keeps talking while Mick stares at the wall. “You can’t leave as yourself. You can leave as a guard.”

“You’re gonna get me a uniform and then make me up?” Mick asks incredulously.

Len nods. “And all the security’s on visitors. Guards are treated like heroes around here—as long as you don’t look too suspicious, they’ll let you walk out free. We’ll reunite in the parking lot, drive off into the sunset, and make sure you’re never left behind again.”

'Never left behind again.' Not 'never on a heist again.' “You haven’t told your old man to piss off?” Mick asks before remembering, “Right. He’d take Lisa.”

Len sighs and wilts. He’s back in the slightly ill-fitting blazer, and together with his curled posture, it makes him look like the fourteen-year-old kid Mick first rescued. “Yeah. He’s got us until he’s done with us or until he gets caught, one or the other.”

Mick’s got nothing to say to that. He turns his attention back to his partner, trying to figure out his play. He’s got the blazer pulled around him in such a way that a flash of lacy bra is just visible. Mick hastily averts his eyes, feeling like he’s just seen something filthy—not because of the bra, which he suspects is deliberately provocative, but because he knows the lengths Len goes to hide his tits usually. What he doesn’t see doesn’t exist, at least between the two of them.

“Gonna distract the guard?” he asks, staring once more at the wall. “Dunno if that’s gonna work.”

Len snorts. “Of course it’ll work. The guards get off on their own authority. Whoever’s outside that door’s gonna be all keyed up and curious, and I can play with that." He comes back over and sits down on the bed at Mick’s side. “But they’re not gonna buy it if they don’t hear some noise. Come on. Moan a little or something.”

Mick freezes up. Len wants him to…what, pretend they’re having sex? That’s a notion so unusual he can’t even wrap his brain around it. If he was gonna have sex with anyone, he supposes it’d probably be Len, but…nope, can’t envision it. “Uh?”

“Oh, let me.” Len starts bouncing so that the bed squeaks and making high-pitched, breathy sounds. Mick feels a little zing down into his gut like he’s never experienced before. Huh. That’s. Huh.

Len doesn’t pitch his noises up to a distinct peak. Instead, he makes an aggravated sound and gets up off the bed. When he walks to the door, he lets the blazer slip a little more and knocks. “Officer?” he asks in that weird, breathless, high-pitched voice.

“Yeah?” asks a voice from outside—way too curious for Mick’s liking.

“I can’t find the condoms.” Len shoots a glance over his shoulder around the time Mick wonders why they care about condoms. Oh, right. Luring a guard to open the door. “I think we might be out.”

“You checked the top drawer?” the guard asks.

Len nods at Mick, from which he infers that he ought to open and close the drawer. He does so, but leaves the speaking to Len. “No, they’re not there,” Len relays.

Mick tunes out most of Len’s wheedling with the guard—it’s too weird, listening to his partner use that fake voice. Something must go right, because Len returns to the bed and picks up the compact.

“Once he gets back here, you’ll have forty seconds to get into his uniform and switch places with him. After ten minutes, I’ll come out of the room, leave. You give me two minutes before following, and I’ll make sure the coast is clear for you. I came in a grey car parked as far from the building as I could get—harder for the cameras to see. You’ll need to get in the driver’s seat.”

Mick's gonna be behind the wheel again. He focuses on that part of the plan rather than Len’s quick application of makeup to make his jaw look narrower, his cheeks look thinner, and his eyes look wider. He can only imagine how many times Len practiced it to get good in such short time, because it feels like only a minute later that the guard returns with the condoms and warns them he’s opening the door.

Len’s on his feet and near the door in a second. Mick’s surprised that the guard actually opens the door when there’s a slot to push things through. That’s what the show was for, Mick figures—to get whoever was outside interested in a peek at Len. It pays off. Len needs only five seconds to have the guy on the ground and something jammed in the door to keep it from locking when it shuts. Mick gets to his feet and makes sure the guard is unconscious with a swift blow to the head.

“Good,” Len says, stripping the guard of his uniform. “I hope you know that if this works, we’ll never get to pull a trick like this in Iron Heights again.”

“This was a one-time trick?” Mick rumbles, halfway through putting on the jacket. “Didn’t mention that when it would’ve been relevant.”

“You mean when I married you?” Len laughs. “No, that’s true, but there are enough perks to make up for it. For example, since we're married, they have to let me in to see you if you’re seriously hurt. Well, maybe not here, given the reputation I’ve just gotten myself, but in hospitals and stuff.”

And that matters, Mick knows. Plenty of their queer neighbors haven’t been allowed in to see their partners, even to sit with them as they died. Wouldn’t have been something he’d thought of if not for that. “Yeah, I guess.”

Len plops the guard’s hat on Mick’s head, straightens it, and pushes him out the door. “Now stand to attention and don’t say more than you have to.”

Somehow, Mick manages that for the ten minutes it takes for Len to knock to be let out. He emerges fully clothed but still a little tousled. With a nod at Mick, he takes off down the hallway. What might be two minutes later (Mick’s so twitchy he’s not even sure it’s one), he follows. He needs to put some distance between himself and that room before they find the guard.

Despite the buzzing fear pounding through him, nothing happens until he's clear of the building. It probably helps that they’re leaving well before Len’s allotted time would be up and someone would check for them. He gets to the car without incident, looks around for Len, and is startled to find him in the backseat, huddled down. “No need for them to see us leaving together,” he hisses. “Go, and not too fast.”

They’ve just cleared the gate when chaos erupts. Len pops up from the backseat. To Mick’s shock, he’s back in his familiar long-sleeved shirt and leather jacket. “Now we drive like hell,” he proclaims, eyes alight with the thrill of the chase.

Weird little punk, Mick thinks fondly as they tear away from the prison like bats out of hell. Weird punk, weirder plan. But hey, at least he’s out and away from that hell. He’s never going back.

Chapter Text

After the job that went south, there’s another and another. Mick finally feels like he’s got to be the one to enlighten Len about a piece of wisdom he doesn’t seem to have picked up on his own.

“He’s not gonna stop, you get it?” he asks when they get home from another of Lewis Snart’s interminable fucking meetings. Mick complained plenty about Len’s planning back when it was just them, but at least he knew Len’s plans were good. With Lewis, it’s whole hours wasted on bad plans. “Now that he knows he’s got a hold on you, he’s just gonna keep demanding and demanding.”

“Of course I get it!” Len’s got that twitchy look like he wants to start a fight. Several days after planning with Lewis, he’s gone out and started fights just for the hell of it. Mick’s gotten dragged in one way or another—he’s learning to like the rush of adrenaline that comes with a really good fight—but he never starts them. “What would you have me do, huh? Tell him to piss right off and have him take Lisa with him?”

Mick shrugs. He’s learned not to give in to the anger that starts boiling low in his gut when Len takes that tone. “You know what I did to my dad.”

Len’s head snaps up. Oh, so he knows the significance. That’s one of the things they don’t talk about directly, save that one time when Mick got really fucking drunk on the anniversary of the fire. Unfortunately, even if he knows the significance, nobody’s ever said Len has any tact. “You lit him on fire.”

Mick shakes his head, angry at the insinuation. “Fire was an accident. Got outta hand. But no, I wasn’t gonna run into a burning house to save my old man. Not sorry I let him burn.”

“You’re suggesting I kill him,” Len says flatly. The look in his eyes makes Mick think the idea’s crossed his mind, if only at midnight when his too-clever head won’t shut up. “And then? If I’m caught, that’s it. I’d be locked up for years—couple decades, probably. I’d miss the rest of Lisa’s childhood. I’d miss her whole damn life. And you?” For a second, Mick thinks Len’s gonna go all sentimental on him, say he’d miss Mick if they were apart that long. (He’d like to pretend otherwise, but he’d miss his little punk, too.) “Not gonna sign you up to look after moody teenage Lisa on your own. The two of you barely survived a year.”

That much is true. Mick still thinks the point about Lewis is valid. “So what, you’re gonna keep letting him run your life? What kinda example is that setting for Lisa, to see her big brother give in?”

“Oh, don’t you fucking—” Len gets up in Mick’s face. It’s kinda funny, given how small he is—or would be, if Mick didn’t know how hard he can hit. “What Lisa’s seeing is me doing whatever it takes to keep her. One day she’ll be old enough to understand that!”

“What she’s seeing now is her big brother give into the asshole who’s beaten both of you black and blue,” Mick points out. He knows that’s a sore spot—Len doesn’t talk about what Lewis did to them any more than Mick talks about the punishments his dad used to dole out. Mick probably wouldn’t know anything about it if he hadn’t seen the injuries. “Think that’s not gonna leave a mark?”

Len looks like he’s gonna throw a punch. Mick braces for a fight. Well, it’s what Len’s wanted since they got home. Then, of a sudden, his little punk deflates and turns away. “I’ve got a plan,” he says. His tone’s careful, like he knows he came close to the line. Mick’s not gonna call him on it. “Can’t kill him, but I can orchestrate him being put away for awhile. Unlike me, he’s not nearly clever enough to mastermind a successful escape, and unlike you, he won’t have help from someone who is.”

Mick raises his eyebrows. Regrettably, he believes this. “You’re gonna bait him into getting caught by the cops?”

“Sure,” Len agrees. “Won’t take much work—his plans are so slipshod that I can even make him think he did something wrong himself, rather than an anonymous call getting placed just in time. And you’ve seen the man’s temper. No way he’ll go quietly, and assaulting an officer’s just going to add years onto his sentence.” His smile is wicked. Mick reminds himself once again that Len’s a very dangerous person to piss off. (Sometimes, to be fair, Len needs reminded of that too.)

That’s the last Mick hears of this plan for awhile. If Len’s masterminding something behind the scenes of Lewis’s next plan, Mick can’t tell. He supposes this goes to show what Len already said—that it won’t take much work to get Lewis caught.

The night of the heist, Len lets Lewis take the lead—not a difficult feat when the man’s itching for the glory of it. The only thing he lets Len do is deal with the security system. Mick thinks he triggers a silent alarm in the process, but he’s too far back to tell.

Lewis has the jewels in hand—guy likes rocks, Mick doesn’t get it—when sirens wail outside. It says a lot, he thinks, that Lewis takes this in stride. “Come on, we’ve gotta go,” he says.

Len, who’s closest to the door, grabs the back of Mick’s jacket and tugs him out of the room. Then, in one swift motion, he pulls the door closed and ties it shut with electrical cord. “Sorry, Dad,” he says. “My turn to teach you a lesson.”

While Lewis is spitting curses, Len and Mick shrug on some jackets Len lifted from the security firm that watches this place. They’re both in costume by the time the police arrive. Len launches into a script that, to his credit, doesn’t sound rehearsed. (Mick knows him; he rehearsed it.) The police are too frazzled to complain. They’ve just come from a Santini robbery on the other side of town, one Len heard about from his ever-growing network of weird informants. It’d been Len’s idea to plan their heist for the same night as the Santinis’. Lewis had called it a great idea; Mick gets it now. He wanted the police stretched too thin to have time to question the ‘security guards.’

Lewis is taken away, screaming at them for being traitors. In the chaos, Mick and Len slip away.

“Repeat felony theft offender like Lewis, I estimate fifteen years. Add on another few for assaulting officers as he was taken away…oh, and those poor, dead real security guards…” Len clucks his tongue. He’s got that intense look on his face that makes Mick really glad they’re not enemies. “He’ll be going away for a good long time.”

“Brain of yours is scary,” Mick says. He doesn’t know what else to say.

When they get home, Lisa is up. She’s got a bowl of sugary cereal and a tall glass of chocolate milk, and she’s watching the door like a hawk.

“Breakfast already?” Len asks, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t know it was that late.” It isn’t actually—the clock above the stove says 1:47—but Len knows how to handle the kid. Mick’s just gonna let him do his thing.

“You left me,” Lisa says angrily. “Again.” She slams her cup down hard enough that chocolate milk splatters across the table. Mick growls. She knows better than that.

“Last time, Lise. I promise,” Len soothes, plopping down at her side. She flinches away from being touched. “This’ll be the last time for a long time.”

Mick hears what he’s not saying. They’re not gonna do more heists until Lisa’s grown. He has no idea how that’s gonna work, when they don’t have that much left of their last score, but he’s not gonna question him.

Later, once Lisa’s back in bed, Mick takes it up with him. “How are we gonna keep from stealing for another five years?”

Len grins and takes a little satchel out of his pocket. “I might have lifted the jewels from the officer who took them from Lewis. They’re already gonna know we were phonies when they can’t find us to testify, and if we wait for the hubbub to die down before we try to sell them…”

Of course. Mick shakes his head, chuckling all the while. “Dangerous guy to piss off. Not sure how well your way’s gonna turn out in the end, but I gotta admit you’ve got a way about you.”

Len takes a melodramatic bow. Mick’s happy enough to let him enjoy the moment. After all, he did just set up his abuser to rot in jail for what might turn out to be the rest of his life.

Chapter Text

The tail end of ’99 is a weird time for a couple of reasons: Lisa’s eighteenth is fast approaching, which means she wants to cram as many ‘fun teenage things’ as possible into a few months, and Len, with typical flair, decides to pull a heist.

“Not a heist,” he corrects when Mick accuses him. “I said no heists until Lisa’s eighteen and out of the house, and I’m a man of my word. It’s a scam. Not even a very good one.”

Mick eyes the wad of cash Len’s meticulously counting. “Bringing money home. Seems like the kinda trouble you wanted to avoid, anyway.”

Len snorts. “Please. I’m doing the cops a favor.” At Mick’s dubious look, he hops up on the edge of the counter, settles himself like a cat, and explains. “They’re fake guns, Mick. I’m not running guns, I’m running fake guns. Realistic enough that a first-timer can’t tell the difference, and that’s my target audience. Because frankly, there are so many first-time gun owners looking to defend themselves from chaos that’s not gonna happen, unless some clueless gun owners start it.”

Mick raises an eyebrow. It is, he’ll admit, an elegant plot—and Len’s right, the kinda people who’d buy guns from a seller acting like Len should never get their hands on real ones. But, “You’re sure this…numbers-and-letters thing’s not gonna be a problem?”

Len scoffs. “What, the Y2K glitch? Nah. Anyone who’s got any sense has been reading up on it, they’ve had coders at work on the problem for years. There’s not gonna be a mass blackout and anarchy. It’s gonna be a new year like any other.”

“Except the part where it’s a whole new millennium—lotta changes.” Mick sighs and drags his hand over his face. He doesn’t know whether to feel happy or empty at the thought of Lisa leaving. Looking after her’s been a challenge of its own, especially the last few years as she’s pushed for independence, but there’s a part of him that thinks of her as his kid. (His and Len’s kid, but there’s a mess of complicated shit in there that he doesn’t want to look at.)

Len ducks his head. Mick had expected him to dismiss that with a scoff, saying it’ll be a year like any other, not to look…shy? Maybe even ashamed. “Kinda hoping it will be,” he agrees.

Abruptly, Mick’s blood runs cold. “Are you leaving me in the new year?” he demands. It doesn’t dawn on him until after he speaks that it’s weird to be so invested in their marriage, given how unimportant it’s been these last few years.

“No—what? No!” Len wrinkles his nose. Mick doesn’t know how to read that look, but Len’s tone seems weirdly wounded. “I…” He speaks the last words as a mumble aimed down at their shoes. “I wanna transition for real. New millennium, new me.”

Mick’s brow furrows. “What’s that even look like?”

Len glowers. Mick thinks it’s a fair question. All these years, and the closest he’s come to seeing Len’s body was a peek of lace-covered tit during Len’s bizarre escape attempt. Len’s alluded multiple times to wanting to take a kitchen knife to his own tits, but as far as Mick knows, he’s never gone through with it. Maybe he means getting them off?

“It’s gonna look like me taking testosterone shots and then you taking care of me when I get my tits cut off. It’s not gonna look like you seeing the finished product.”

“Don’t want to anyway,” Mick assures him, wrinkling his nose. He’s learned by now: Len’s body isn’t for looking at. He doesn’t mind Len seeing his—lost all his bashfulness in juvie and prison—but he knows Len will never be as casual about it.

Thankfully, Len is spared having to respond by the door swinging open and Lisa striding in. She’s got new golden-blond highlights in her hair, and she’s holding herself like she’s waiting for a comment.

“Least it’s a new look and not partying,” Mick rumbles, holding out his arms. She grew out of hugs within the first year she stayed with him, and she loathes them now that she considers herself all-but-adult. That doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying.

“That color looks good on you, Lise.” Len hops down off the counter and swiftly tucks the cash into his inside jacket pocket.

To their shared shock, Lisa comes over and gives them both hugs. “You guys are so sweet,” she coos. “It’s almost like you want me to miss you once I’m old enough to take on the world on my own.”

Len’s hand’s suddenly on her wrist. “And do you want a little seed money for that noble endeavor?” he scolds. “Give it.”

Scowling, Lisa hands over a couple of bills from Len’s neatly-arranged wad. Mick winces. Now Len’s gonna go back and rearrange the whole thing, because he’s weird like that. “What gave it away?”

“Two things: don’t go for the inside pocket if you can help it, there’s a little more risk of the mark feeling your hand, and move with the mark. You were all outta sync with me, of course I felt it.”

Lisa skulks away, shamefaced and muttering about Len ruining her fun. Mick watches her go. “Thought you didn’t want her involved.”

“I don’t.” As Mick thought he would, Len immediately starts rearranging bills. “But she’s picked up on what it is we do, and I’d rather she learn from me, where I know the information’s good, than from some amateur thief at school and then get herself caught. I’ve been trying to impress that it’s a last-resort skill only, and that our situation has been decidedly last-resort.”

“And if her idea of ‘last resort’ is different than yours?” Mick narrows his eyes. He knows he’s judging Lisa too harshly—she plays at being demanding and shallow to cover how nervous she is, how desperate to hear she’s doing things right. That doesn’t mean he can keep from buying into her act when she even keeps it up around the house most of the time.

“Well.” Len levels a cool stare at him. So he’s not thrilled with that question—of course he isn’t. “Lisa’s got a good head on her shoulders, and she knows I want better for her than I got for myself. But, if worse comes to worst, I’d break her out as easily as I broke you out.”

“Minus the flashing your tits thing,” Mick says without thinking. He’s not at all surprised when Len takes his bill-rearranging elsewhere, leaving behind a displeased chill in the air.

As Len predicted, New Year’s is wholly uneventful. No planes drop from the sky, no citywide blackouts occur; to Mick’s dismay, not even one ATM or slot machine starts unexpectedly spitting cash. There’s a single report that comes in on their stolen police radio, of some asshole arrested for pulling a gun on his family, who only survived because the gun failed to go off and was found by the police to be a cunning fake. Len taps the radio. “And that is all I needed to hear to know my plan was successful.”

The new millennium is, to Mick’s dismay, not that different. Lisa graduates high school in May—the only one of them to do so. They celebrate by taking her out for a pretty decent dinner and a small shopping spree. Len calls it preparing for college, which gets a look out of Lisa.

“Lenny. We both know there’s not enough money put away to put me through any of the colleges I applied to.”

“We’ll make it work!” Len snaps. When he splays his fingers, Mick’s eyes are drawn to that cheap pinky ring. All this time, Len’s never taken it off. He’s got some kinda feelings about that, but fuck only knows what those feelings are. “I’m not depriving you of a chance at a higher education, better jobs—not having to get by like we did.”

“Lenny.” She huffs. “I’m a good student, but not good enough for scholarships. I’d have to take out loans and be in debt to the government for the rest of my life. Or I can do something practical—get my Class A driver’s license or learn welding or something. A job someone’s gotta do, a job where they’re always looking for people, and that doesn’t cost much to learn. Then I can save up a nice little something—for college down the road, maybe, or for a backpacking trip through Europe. That way you don’t have to worry about me—not by having to provide for me, not by fretting that I’ll get arrested.”

Len makes little irritated noises in his throat. Mick lays a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a practical way forward,” he soothes. “Our kid’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“Not your kid,” Lisa grumbles, but he can tell she’s preening at the praise.

“Fine,” Len sighs. He raises his eyes to the sky as though praying for patience…or to be struck down where he stands, Mick’s not sure which. “Choose the trade that catches your eye, and we’ll see what we can do.”

In the end, Lisa settles on getting her Class A driver’s license and applies to shipping companies. She’s thrilled at the thought of driving stuff cross-country, getting to see the open road and leave Central City for awhile. Len, of course, keeps fretting.

“What if she’s in an accident hundreds of miles from here and there’s no way for us to get to her? What if something happens at a truck stop—so many drivers are men, what if they try to hurt her, she knows how to defend herself but she’s just a kid…”

“Lenny.” Mick grabs him by the shoulders and gives him a little shake. “You knew she’d outgrow us eventually. Turn off your planning brain for five seconds and appreciate where she’s going.” He's worried too, every bit as much as Len, but one of them has to stick up for the kid. She made her choice.

Len buys Lisa two presents, one for her certification as a Class A driver and one for her successful hiring. Mick chips in for both. Makes sense that they wouldn’t give the kid stolen goods; if she gets pulled over, that’s not something she can afford to have on her. For her certification, they give her a glittery wallet in which to keep her nice new license. (Len cautions her to keep her money in several pockets to avoid having it all stolen if her wallet is lifted.) When she’s hired, they gift her an iridescent pocket knife.

“Useful and protective,” Mick rumbles.

Lisa embraces them both, and this time, it feels genuine. “Thank you both so much. I know you’re worried, but thank you for letting me do this.”

“You’re our kid,” Mick says, no matter how much she hates to hear it. “Gotta help you along the path you see yourself headed down. Don’t want you going it alone.”

He doesn’t mean to get that sentimental, but thankfully, the other two don’t call him on it. They just decide they’ve had enough of feelings and turn their attention to celebratory pie, and that’s that for awhile.

Chapter Text

Somewhere in all the new-millennium shenanigans, Mick forgets about Len’s vow—“New millennium, new me.” The changes are so gradual that at first he barely notices. Then Len’s voice starts cracking.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Mick demands when Len’s voice cracks out of its usual register in the middle of heist planning. Len glares at him. The effect is lost because he’s still got a hand clamped to his mouth in shame.

“Second puberty,” Len mutters. He drops his hand away from his mouth. For the first time, Mick notices the wispy peach fuzz coming in around his lips. He looks like the kids in juvie, still growing into their awkward gangly bodies. That makes no sense, but he’s willing to roll with it. If it’s a change in the direction Len wants, who’s he to question it? “It’s gonna be like I’m an awkward teenager again, even though I’m way too fucking old for this.”

It takes Mick a minute, but he finally bursts out laughing. “Oh, this is gonna be funny. Like having my little punk back again—not that you ever really grew outta being my punk.”

“I will kick your ass,” Len growls.

Mick just laughs some more. “Yeah, that’s the one thing I never had doubts about.”

Beginning in late July, Len starts planning a heist to take place in August. Mick doesn’t understand how his brain works; Lisa’s still living with them, albeit well into the process of obtaining her Class A license. If something goes wrong, it’ll come back to haunt her. “Why are you so dead-set on this heist happening in August?” he demands.

Len gets a shifty look and won’t meet Mick’s eye. “Time-sensitive target,” he says, which is a little more than half bullshit. The collection on loan at the Central City Museum is time-sensitive, technically, but it’s not due to be shipped out until October, once Lisa will have her license and might have hit the road.

“Doesn’t leave the museum for awhile, and we both know the weakest point of any time-sensitive target’s the transport.” There. Now Len can’t say Mick’s learned nothing from listening to him plan. “So why do you wanna hit it in the museum, with harder security and more chances to get pinned down?”

The shifty look is getting even weirder. “I like the challenge,” Len says. Honestly, it sounds like he’s not even trying to lie.

“What goes on in your fucking head?” Mick demands. “The fuck’s so important about Aug…oh.” On a suddenly-urgent suspicion, he asks, “Len. When’s the heist?”

Len mumbles the date. He’s said it before while they were planning, but Mick hadn’t given it too much thought then. Now, he can only wonder at how his partner’s fucking complicated thoughts work.

“Len. Why’s the heist on our anniversary?” Mick’s not sure if it’s supposed to be a sweet gesture or a spiteful one. To him, it feels an awful lot like Len’s so sick of pointedly avoiding a word about their anniversary that he’s upgraded to scheduling shit on top of it. That thought stings way more than it should. Their marriage is a sham, has always been a sham; why should their anniversary be any different?

Len’s eyes are now firmly fixed on his boots. Mick’s not sure he’s ever seen him look this ashamed. “It’s our ten-year,” he mutters. “I wanted to do something special.”

Mick stares at him in silence. Len thinks a ten-year anniversary heist is special. This is so very odd, and yet so very Len, that he eventually bursts out laughing. “And they say romance is dead,” he chuckles, at a loss for how else to react.

Len bristles and withdraws. “I can change the fucking date,” he snaps. “You don’t have to mock me. Let’s wait until October, then, if you’re gonna be weird about it.”

“No, no. Not angry,” Mick finally assures him. “Not laughing at you, either. Just…near you.” Len doesn’t look convinced. “Keep the date,” Mick coaxes. “I like it.”

And that’s how, on their anniversary, they make off with a few choice pieces of medieval French jewelry. It’s gonna be hell to fence, but Mick doubts that’s the point. Len wants this to be a bonding experience, weird as that is.

They get back to the apartment after stowing the jewelry in a safe house, changing clothes, and ditching the lockpicks. They need a better safe house than the foreclosed old place they’ve been using, but that can wait. Their apartment's still good, which is all that really matters. Mick's a bit worried they'll wake the neighbors with the way they burst through the door, high on adrenaline.

He scoops Len up and swings him around to burn off some of the excitement. “Damn that was good!”

Swinging Len around turns into slamming him against the door—Mick’s not sure of the interim step. But once they’re there, Mick finds his eyes drawn down to Len’s pink, parted lips. They’ve kissed before, but never by choice. Somehow, right now, the fact that he could lean in and take the first kiss he’s actually wanted is too good to resist. He leans in and kisses his little punk.

It’s not a tender kiss. They’re both too high on adrenaline for that. It’s nippy and greedy with way too much tongue, and Mick can’t get enough. Neither can Len, if the way he’s pawing at Mick is any indication. Mick’s not sure how much he’s allowed to paw in return, but Len’s hands are on his ass now, and that seems like a safe enough bet. So, unthinkingly, he grabs Len’s ass.

Len makes a noise he’s never heard before. It’s not a bad noise; it’s breathless, startled, and way too needy. They break apart. To Mick’s shock, there’s a little bit of a blush on Len’s cheeks. “Uh.” Len’s eyes slide closed and he drops his head back against the door. “Fuck, fuck. I’ve never been this horny in my life.”

Mick’s not sure what to make of that. It’s kind of a funny aspect of ‘like a teenager again’—and this explains why Len’s been spending so long in the shower now—but he’s not exactly the most equipped to deal with it. “Kinda not my thing?” he admits, not sure how else to put it.

“Yeah,” Len agrees, swallowing hard. Mick watches his throat work and thinks about putting bruises all up and down his exposed neck. “Not sure I’d let you do shit about it if it was, but…” He bites his lip. “Fuck, kiss me again.”

That’s no hardship. Mick does, hot and eager, just like before. Len shifts around against the door until he gets Mick’s thigh between his and starts grinding on him. It’s kinda weird, but it’s not bad; Mick’s got nothing against his little punk using him to get off.

It takes awhile of kissing and grinding for Len to shudder his way to stillness. It’s still nowhere near as long as Mick thought it would take, given that Len’s not actually a teenager. In the aftermath, Len slumps back against the door, breathing hard.

“Not exactly the most romantic evening,” he manages, his voice shaky and weird without his characteristic drawl. “Sorry.”

Mick snorts. No, a heist and a makeout session isn’t exactly his idea of romantic, but it’s more than they’ve done for their nine previous anniversaries. “Memorable, at least.”

Len grins. With his flushed cheeks and kiss-pink lips, that wild grin is a sight to see. Something secret and possessive shifts inside Mick, delighted that kiss-drunk, out-of-control Len is a sight just for him. “I’ll take ‘memorable.’ Now c’mon, I should probably get food into you.”

“Now you’re talking,” Mick agrees. He’s not sure if that’s his cue to pretend this never happened, so he decides to just follow Len’s lead.

(It never actually becomes clear what he’s supposed to do. Later on, he just stays quiet.)

Chapter Text

Mick honestly loses track of whatever Len’s doing to his body. He’s starting to look a little different, most noticeably his face shape, but he’s still Mick’s same little punk. Then, one day not long after the best heist they’ve ever pulled, Len sits down with him on the sofa.

“So,” he says. He still sits all tucked up, like he’s got something to hide. Mick doubts that’ll ever change. “I wouldn’t tell you this if I wasn’t going to need your…help.” He sounds like he’s confessing this on pain of death. Mick doesn’t know what goes on in his punk’s weird head, but for him, the thought of needing help has always seemed like torture. (Mick’s not much better in that regard, but he’s practical. Len, on the other hand, takes stubborn pride in being able to do everything alone.) “But a sizable portion of my cut is going toward surgery.”

Mick’s not sure whether to be surprised or worried. “Are you hurt?” he settles on.

“No.” Len gives him a lopsided look. “But I can finally get my tits off. Thing is, I’m not just paying for the surgery, I’m also paying for them to keep quiet about operating on a wanted man, so…not cheap.” Which explains the big heist, Mick realizes in hindsight. “And it’s gonna be hell on me afterward. You’re gonna have to help me.”

Mick’s mind suddenly fills with the image of Len after the surgery, still high on meds, rambling about nothing. That’s gonna be a sight to see. He tries to keep any mischief out of his voice when he assures him, “Oh yeah, I’ll help.”

The place Len has to go for his surgery is shockingly nice. Mick was half-expecting a warehouse draped in tarps, but it’s a nice private practice. Too nice, in fact, for Mick’s taste. He drops Len off and goes to flee the premises for the next couple of hours.

“Mick, wait.” Len catches his hand. When Mick turns to look at him, he looks scared. He’s trying not to show it, of course, but Mick knows him too well not to see it. “Stay with me? I don’t like the idea of being out cold around people I don’t know.”

Yeah, that makes sense. Come to think of it, Mick’s not sure he trusts Len out cold around these people either. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll stay.”

Because they both insist, the doctor allows Mick to gown and glove up and stay in the room while Len goes under. Mick’s actually impressed by the nurse who says as he comes in, “Talk to him. Hearing your voice will mean more than any of ours.”

Seeing Len on the table is weird. His little punk looks so much smaller and more vulnerable, and Mick knows he made the right call not to leave. “Hey,” he mutters, sitting beside Len and taking his hand. “Think they’re gonna make you count?”

“Like fuck I would.” Len’s eyes are darting between Mick's face and the IV, where the doctor's just inserted a syringe. Mick cradles his cheek and coaxes him to look up at him. No sense fretting about the IV, even if they are pushing meds. Worry won't keep him awake. “I count on my terms, no one else’s.”

Mick resists the urge to look at the doctor’s reaction. He’s gotta think they’re a couple of weirdos, and he wouldn’t be exactly wrong. “You’re a weird little punk. I ever tell you that?”

“Only about a…” Len’s eyes flutter and he forces them open again. “A hundred times since…since we…” His mouth drops slightly open and his eyes slide shut. There’s what might be the barest fight before he goes completely still.

“I’ll be right here,” Mick says before he’s beckoned out of the room.

Mick’s allowed into the observation room, which isn’t actually that comforting. He can’t watch as they operate on Len—it’s too much for him—so he looks around for something to read. He’s not good with words, but he can’t have fire in here. Reading is the next-best distraction.

It takes long enough that he painstakingly peruses a magazine, finishes it, and stares with glazed eyes at the back cover for fuck-knows-how-long. Then he’s told that Len is being taken to…some jumble of letters he can’t be arsed to remember…while he wakes up. Mick's allowed to tag along.

When they get where they’re going, he sees Len still out cold. His bed’s on an incline, not flat, probably because of the thing around his chest. Drains, the nurse informs him. He’s not sure what they’re draining, but he’s not the one who has to be sure. He’s just the guy who has to sit with his partner until he wakes.

Len wakes with a groan and the cutest little mumbled, “Mick?”

“I’m here,” Mick says. He slips his hand into Len’s and waits for an answering squeeze. There isn’t one, which makes him worry. What did they do to his punk? “How’re you feeling?”

Len makes a little grumbling noise. “Can’t move. Awake in here, but can’t move.” That’s worrisome. Mick’s about to yell for the doctor when Len manages to peek his eyes open. “Hey,” he says, all soft and slurred and clearly out of his mind on drugs. “Hey Mick, y’know something?”

“What?” Mick’s not sure if it’s going to be a drugged confession about their relationship or a shitty pun. In hindsight, he should have trusted his instincts.

With a drugged grin and a sleepy laugh, Len says, “That was a weight off my chest.”

“I’m gonna put itching powder in your soap,” Mick threatens. He wouldn’t actually, but it’s a fun threat. (He’s spent years amassing weird threats to pull out when he’s sick of Len’s puns.)

“You wouldn’t,” Len corrects sleepily. “You love me too much.”

Mick freezes. That’s…oh hell. That’s a word they just don’t use. (Never mind that it’s a word that’s crossed his mind occasionally, late at night with Len snoring at his side. Never mind that it’s a word that’s come to his lips a few times, always bitten back for fear of scaring Len off.)

“S okay,” Len mumbles, shifting slightly in bed. His hand tightens on Mick’s fingers. It’s more of a relief than Mick expected. “I love you too.”

He’s drugged, Mick reminds himself. He doesn’t mean it.

The next couple of weeks are hell for them both. Len’s range of motion in his arms is severely restricted—he can’t lift very much, or reach down far enough to pull up his blankets when he kicks them off, or give himself a sponge bath (because apparently he can’t shower with the drains). Mick has to do most everything for him, which makes both of them uncomfortable. Mick’s not a very good caretaker, and Len sure as hell hates being cared for.

“There’s a whole second damn week of this!” he bursts out, after a week of mutual discomfort.

“Trust me,” Mick grumbles. “I’m aware. Now take your pain meds, you’re even more unbearable when you’re hurting.”

Len clamps his lips shut, looking like a stubborn toddler. Mick gives an almighty sigh. “Are we gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?”

“Fuck off,” Len grumbles. At least he takes his meds without further complaint. Mick figures he's gotta put up a fuss to keep up his image, or something. Whatever the reason, he'll take the sudden cooperation.

Len getting his drains taken out is met with mutual joy. Better yet, the doctor says he’s healing just fine, and that while he still has lift restrictions, he can start taking care of himself as he’s able. Of course, Len being Len, this means he pushes for independence right away. Mick can’t let the little punk out of his sight for fear that he’ll try lifting something too heavy or lifting his arms too far above his shoulders.

“Gonna be awful damn happy once all this is over,” he says after having stopped Len from getting out a heavy skillet. (Not like he can cook for himself on the best of days, honestly.)

“That makes two of us,” Len agrees. Then, looking down at himself, he says, “But it was worth it.”

Mick doesn’t understand why, but he’s not about to tell Len otherwise. If he’s happy like this, Mick’s gonna let him be happy.

Chapter Text

They have a stretch of damn good years. Admittedly, they’re in and out of prison a couple of times, but never for long. Len’s even more of a force when they’re both inside, when he’s got nothing but time to plan. He even breaks them out of solitary, one memorable time—a story that goes down in Rogue history (and that Lisa gets awful sick of them telling).

And then, out of nowhere—after so long they thought sure they’d become unconquerable—things change. First it’s the particle accelerator explosion, and them having to deal with the first few meta competitors on the streets. Then it’s the Flash, that damned red nuisance, forcing them to up their game. (Mick’s not all mad about that, though. It’d been too long since Len had a challenge to rise to—he's been so sure his position at the top was guaranteed, and the security was nice but it bored him to tears. But Len with a new challenge? Well, that’s hot as hell.) And then, once they’re finally back in their rightful place as the menaces of Central City…

Well, then comes the one thing that can still strike fear into Len’s heart.

It’s a pretty standard heist, all things considered. They’re just in it for the adrenaline rush, not the money—the two of them, and Lisa, who only comes along once in awhile. (She’s the only one of them whose name doesn’t crop up on a dozen most-wanted lists. They like to make sure it stays that way.) Mick’s in the lead, brandishing the heat gun. It’s how they do—he’s the most imposing, so he goes first to clear away any witnesses. It also means he doesn’t see what’s happening to his partner and Lisa until it’s too late.

First sign of danger is a shout. Mick wheels around, gun in hand, and sees Len unconscious in some goon’s arms. Lisa’s already facing them, gun in hand, completely unaware of the man standing behind her. A blow to the back of her head, and she’s out cold.

Mick’s got a choice: go after his partner, who’s being loaded into a van, or defend Lisa. It’s the guy standing over Lisa who makes the decision for him. No way is he ever, ever leaving her alone with Lewis goddamn Snart.

“Should have roasted you a long time ago,” Mick snarls, brandishing the heat gun. Well, there’s always a chance to make up for lost time. (Unless there isn’t.)

Without so much as a blink, Lewis points a gun at Lisa’s head. He keeps staring at Mick with those weird, flat, emotionless eyes of his. Mick’s absolutely sure he’d do it, too—kill his own daughter for no other reason than to make sure he doesn’t go out alone.

“You’re sick,” Mick spits.

Lewis arches an eyebrow. It’s a look eerily reminiscent of Len—and that’s a thought Mick doesn’t like at all, with how terrified Len is of being anything like his father. “Maybe,” he concedes, and even that sounds a lot like Len. “But I’m about to be a very rich man.”

Mick tightens his hold on the heat gun even though he’d never fire. Not with Lisa at risk. Never with Lisa at risk.

Lewis nods at something behind Mick. “Well?” he asks, and again, Mick can see a shadow of Len in his face. “Might as well get what you came for. Never let it be said that I keep other criminals from their rightfully-stolen scores.”

Mick’s not gonna fight him, not when resistance might mean a bullet in Lisa’s head. He grabs the cash with shaking hands. It feels too light and wrong in his hands, but he can’t focus on that right now. He just runs without looking back.

He doesn’t see either Len or Lisa for a week. When Lisa comes home, the side of her neck is bloody and her face is set in a scowl. Mick knows better than to run up to a Snart without warning, but he’s doing a little bit of a jog as he approaches her.

“Lise, are you okay?”

“No thanks to you, asshole!” She swings the gold gun up and glares at him down the length of it. “You left me with my father? He put a bomb in my head, Mick!” Her voice is reaching the pitch that means she’s terrified and trying not to show it.

Mick doesn’t want to make himself sound like some kind of hero, because he sure as hell isn’t. Someone like—oh, like the little goody-two-shoes Flash—would have found a way to keep Lewis from shooting Lisa in the head, got her to safety, and gotten Len back. Mick took too little prompting to abandon both of them, and he’s been too scared to go looking, this last week. He’s no hero. But he can’t have her thinking that he would just leave her, either. “He was gonna shoot you in the head if I didn’t leave,” he mumbles.

Lisa drops the gun to her side and curls in on herself. Her eyes slip out of focus—yeah, Mick knows that look. Lost in her head, just like her brother. She makes the softest, shuddery sound low in her throat. Next second, she’s curled on her knees, holding herself.

Mick’s not good with comfort, but like hell he can leave her this way. “Lise. Lise, I’m so sorry.” Moving slowly, he kneels at her side and pulls her into his arms. He pretends not to see the glitter of tears on her cheeks.

Lisa makes a noise that he’ll pretend isn’t a sob. “I had to go to the Flash for help. He promised he’d make sure Lenny was safe, and then…” Her voice breaks. Mick rocks her back and forth, buying time for her to put herself back together. “He took him to jail, Mick. For…for killing our father, even knowing what he did to us…to me.”

Mick’s gonna have words with the little red menace, if his idea of justice is putting someone in prison for killing their abuser. (Mick’s been that person. Maybe it’s a little bit personal, that what happened to him is happening to Len.) “We’re gonna get him out, Lise,” he promises. “Whatever it takes.”

It takes two months and the careful relay of messages in and out of Iron Heights, but they get Len out. When they do, he runs to Lisa and gives Mick the cold shoulder. Mick has a suspicion he knows what that’s about. Nothing comes of it until they get home, but the moment they’re in the door, Len wheels on him.

“You left my sister to get a bomb put in her neck?”

“Lewis had a gun to her head,” Mick mutters. “Woulda killed her if I’d tried anything. I did the only thing I could do.”

“And never once looked for us!” Len snarls. He crowds into Mick’s space, trying to make himself seem bigger and more intimidating. And…damn, he is, but Mick also sees the desperate little punk he first pulled away from that fight. “Knowing what you know, you didn’t look for us! Never mind me, you should have been looking out for her!”

“Got scared,” Mick mutters. “Of what he’d do to you. To her.”

“You think I wasn’t?” Len pulls away. Mick doesn’t get why until he sees the near-imperceptible shake of Len’s shoulders. “I killed him,” he mutters. “I killed him, so why don’t I feel like we’re free?”

He doesn’t want an answer, any more than Mick did when he had to grapple with the same feelings, all the way back in juvie. That’s good, because Mick has none to give. Instead, he does what he can: steps forward, takes Len in his arms, and holds him through his shockingly weak struggles. “It’s okay,” Mick murmurs. “You did what you had to.”

“I know,” Len agrees. He balls his hands in Mick’s shirt and buries his face in his shoulder. Mick pretends not to notice how his shirt feels suddenly wet. “I just felt so alone.”

Mick’s heart breaks for him. His poor, scared punk. “Not anymore,” he promises. (He can’t say Len never was, because Len’s right: Mick didn’t even look for him.) “I’ve gotcha. You’re not alone anymore.”

It’s not enough, but Mick hopes it’s the start of giving his punk the support he needs.

Chapter Text

“Hey Mick?”

They’re curled up on the couch. Mick’s got his reading glasses on and is industriously click-clacking on an old typewriter Piper fixed up for him. He’d started with a plan to write the kind of romance that might sell—hot, independent woman, equally hot, intriguing man—but what’s coming out is a lot queerer than that. He supposes it’ll find its market. It’s a brave new rainbow world out there. (Mick’s not entirely sure he’s got a place in it. He’d felt more at home with the angry queers of the ‘90s; these new, happy, rainbow kids get exactly the sort of life he’d wish for them, but not one he knows how to share.)

“Yeah?” He looks down at Len, who’s sprawled on his back, legs contorted against the arm of the couch. He’s got the cold gun laying on his chest, but he’s not cleaning it anymore. Instead, his fingers are on his ring, twisting it back and forth.

“I’ve been thinking.” Len looks up at him, oddly wide-eyed. Once again, Mick sees his little punk in this much older and more dangerous man.

“Always a dangerous pastime.”

Len narrows his eyes. “Maybe. But, y’know. It’s a thing, now, that we could…renew our vows. That I could marry you as me, not as Leah.”

Mick hits a wrong key on the typewriter. “You could…we could…what?” He gapes down at Len, who’s gone back to watching that old silver ring like he’s hypnotized.

“Feels like our marriage has never been real. I know you felt that way too. And I don’t want it to be like that anymore.” When Len looks up again, his eyes are burning with emotion. Mick can’t read even a little bit of it, but he doesn’t need to. All that matters is that it’s there—that this isn’t a joke or a contingency plan. “I wanna renew our vows, as me, this time. I want you to have the real me, not the…” He waves his hand. “Convenient one. If you’ll have me.”

Mick’s chest feels tight, like it’s gonna burst. He wonders fleetingly if Len’s proposed him into a heart attack. He’s too old for surprises like this. “You wanna remarry me? You’re…you’re joking, right, or this is a plan? Why would you wanna remarry me?”

Len sits up and swings his legs around. The cold gun falls into his lap and he knocks it aside onto the couch cushion. That’s new—Mick’s never seen him treat it with such disregard. “Why would I—Mick, I would be lucky to remarry you. You’re the only guy I’d ever wanna marry. You’ve been by my side since we were both angry punk kids and it was just us against the world. That’s how I want it to be—us against the world—forever.”

Mick’s eyes sting. He looks away, breathing around a lump in his throat. He’s gonna cry. Damnit, he doesn’t wanna cry, but he’s imagined Len saying something like that for decades. It’s awful late for him to say it now, but the way he’s talking makes Mick think he’s wanted to say it for a long time. “Yeah,” he manages, a little too breathy. Len’s gonna know he’s crying. “Yeah, I want that.”

“Then, yeah.” Len reaches over for Mick’s hand and holds it tight. Their fingers interlace and Mick squeezes desperately. He’s got his little punk now, in every way. He’s not gonna let him go. “I’ll, um. I’ll look into setting that up—someplace we can be honest with each other. Confess our love and mean it, you know.”

They end up getting married in the backyard of one of the safe houses. That sounds like the least romantic place, but it’s actually pretty nice: Mark and Axel work in the garden as a sort of people-free therapy, and it’s impressive. Under Mark’s care, the flowers are all about three times as big as they should be. On the day of the wedding, Axel daubs glitter on the roses and enlists Mark’s help to make a massive sunflower canopy. Len is sneezing within two minutes of entering the yard, but he pops some allergy meds and is more or less fine by the time the ceremony starts.

“I can’t believe I get to see you two old losers married twice!” Lisa chirps. She’s all dolled up in a white-and-gold maid of honor dress, and looks better than the two of them put together. Mick knows she just wanted the excuse to dress up.

Mick jerks his thumb at Len. “Yeah, well, I’m marrying both of him.”

“Don’t say that.” Len shudders. “It sounds like I have a twin I don’t know about.”

Mick doesn’t know the officiant, but he relates to the guy instantly when he opens with, “Dearly departed…no, sorry, beloved.” It’s probably bad manners to burst out laughing in the middle of his own wedding ceremony. Mick does anyway, big booming laughs that make the other Rogues burst out laughing too. After a moment, the officiant chuckles and shakes his head.

“Every time. Dearly beloved…”

When it’s time for the vows, Mick freezes again, just like when they got married the first time. Looking across to Len, who looks like himself this time in a suit and tie, his heart feels overwhelmingly full. He’s just got no words to tell his partner—his punk—any of it.

“You’ve always been mine,” he manages. This is stuff he wants to say, has always wanted to say, so why is his heart pounding in his throat like this? “Ever since you were a punk kid. Haven’t always known how to tell you, but I loved you ever since then.”

Len gives a shaky laugh and looks down at the grass under their feet. “See, I had a whole thing prepared,” he says softly. “About how you’re the best guy I’ve ever known, how you’ve protected me all this time, and how much I wanna show that to you, now that we can. But you just come in with a couple simple words and cut right to the heart of it, and all the rest is fluff.”

Mick holds out his hands. Len takes them, squeezes tight, and looks up at his face. Not his eyes—even in the middle of a tender moment, Len’s considerate of him.

“I’m yours.” Mick’s never heard Len sound so sure of anything—and he’s heard his self-assured boss talk a lot. “Always have been. As long as you’ve loved me, I’ve loved you. Just…never had the words.”

“Well then.” The officiant sounds like he’s beaming. “That’s all there is to say. You may kiss your husband.”

Len shuffles forward. He’s got the same crooked smile he had at the end of their first wedding, when he said he hadn’t planned this far. It looks a lot different now, on his older, no-longer-girly face. Mick meets him with a smile of his own. “Didn’t think this far ahead?” he teases.

“Oh, shut up,” Len grumbles. He grabs Mick’s face and pulls him into a kiss. Somewhere to one side, the Rogues break out in applause and wolf-whistles. Mick tunes them out. He’s kissing his punk, finally, properly. Everything else can wait.