Title: Having a Ball
Fandom: DC's Legends of Tomorrow
Length: 1100
Content Notes: drinking, angst, innuendo
Summary: Stuck at a ball in 18th century France there is nothing to do for the moment than drink alone.

Drinking alone when the opportunity presented itself had become a new part of this whole mad ride. And he was feeling out of place here more than he had on their last ventures into the past. The stiff, brown brocade frock was confining his movements and the people dancing in their fancy clothes and with their hilariously painted faces around him were off putting, like a scary parade of otherworldly, ugly clowns. He’d never liked clowns.

He felt like burning down the house, literally.

Someone sat down on the chair beside him, while he was watching the card game going on at the table to his right. He tensed. Today he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He rarely was. Mick knew that Len had not kept him around for his wit. He had no idea what Len had kept him around for. But he’d liked the bastard. Most of the time. And despite everything Snart had liked him. Most of the time.

Someone needed to tell Lisa.

Someone really should.

But, he was sitting here in good knows when fucking France, not understanding a word that was said without the translation pills and no idea why Rip had even let him out of the Waverider. He was no use here.

A round shaped glass was pushed in front of him.

He sniffed and turned.

“You looked uncomfortable.” He did a double take, then just raised his eyebrows, not even beginning to put his thoughts into words. “I wasn’t in the mood to play the frilly dress princess,” Sara explained. Although even Mick wouldn’t have asked the question. Sara was a picture, sitting there in her white breeches and a similarly white waistcoat silk stockings accentuating the curve of her calfs, her blond mane pulled back into a ponytail. Her face was hidden behind a black domino. Her lips were painted, but she had forgone the white tinged make-up. In comparison to everyone else in the room, she was a real looker.

“You don’t look like the White Canary. So I suppose you’re not here to kick some ass. But then you’re not looking like a guy in a bar either, blondie.”

She shrugged and threw a look around the room carelessly. “Close enough.” Then her smile grew impish. “You’re the one standing out like a sore thumb. No wig, sir?” He knew people were staring at him from behind their stupidly colorful fans.

“Don’t start.” He finally pulled the glass closer and sniffed at it. It wasn’t the kind of cheap scotch he preferred.

“It’s like brandy,” she explained. “Closest I could come to the usual poison.”

He took a sip. “Close enough,” he said. He wasn’t drinking for the taste anyway. And if fancy French brandy was the closest thing to cheap scotch around here then he was numb enough to not care.

She toasted him before taking a deep drag out of her own glass. “Better?”

Behind him incredibly silly wide dresses rustled and women giggled and chattered in French. The alcohol made it easier, but didn’t really make it better. Every step of the way he was asking himself what Snart would have thought about any of it. “Look at these silly people,” he would have said with a derisive snarl. “Assholes,” he would have answered.

But it was only him and blondie. Only him and blondie.

“Laurel would laugh at me if she could see me.”

The sister. He knocked back the whole glass and earned another round of strange looks. This wasn’t a saloon, but he could see he wasn’t the only one drinking hard. He considered crashing the frail glass down hard enough to splinter or push it at Sara and send her for another round. Even he knew that wouldn’t end well. But right now Mick was in the mood for a fight. But that was the trouble with the bird. She was always in the mood for a little fist fight too and she could take him. Easily.

He looked around the room. Perhaps he should start a fight with someone else.

“She knew how much I detested history. Never had much patience for the past.”

Who the hell had?

His own monsters lurked in the past too.

A woman looked their way, fanning herself. Her hair was a ridiculous tower of powder and what not, but her eyes were real enough. “You might get lucky tonight.” He nodded at Sara and at the woman - girl more like it. Hard to tell age when everyone looked like a stuffed doll with dead complexion. “Forget about your sister.” That was what she needed to do anyway.

Sara stared at her gloved hand holding the glass and then cocked her head, not watching the woman, but watching him. Her lips settled into a thin line, relaxed again. She was getting better at controlling the monster.

“We can both use the distraction.”

“Distraction?”

“Distraction.”

“No,” he said, thinking about where he could get more shots or whatever passed for them here.

“Forget Len,” she hissed. “Forget the rage.”

The glass cracked in his hand and the pain - searing white and hot like precious, tempting fire - makes it all stop for a blissful moment.

“You’re not a monster, Mick,” Sara said and the slight lisps in her voice added: “I don’t want to be a monster.”

“No?”

“No,” she said. “You are just an idiot like me. Someone who has someone’s stupid heroics to live up to.”

They sat there in silence until the burning need for alcohol made him stand, swipe away the shards like they meant nothing.

The girl across the room was chattering with friends. Her eyes were glued to Sara’s face, or the mask that hid it. They probably didn’t know what to make of what they were seeing. “I bet you can have her in the alley if you give her one of those.”

“I bet I can get her in a bed without it, before the evening is over.”

Mick laughed and held out his hand: the one that is bleeding.“On.”

“If I win I get to wipe the floor with you in the training room.”

Looked like he was getting his fight either way. “On.”

She smiled over and the girl giggled with her chattering friends.

Sara jumped up, a sudden energetic spring in her step. “Come on.”

“Come on?” He had been about to go and snatch a bottle of the vile fancy stuff.

“Distraction, Mick.” She winked. “Her friends are watching you too. I’m sure we can both get lucky.”

He’d still rather punch something. Or set something on fire. But why not? Keep an eye on Sara. Not that it mattered. Like Snart she could very well take care of herself.

Distraction. No thoughts. Sounded fine.