Sandstorm {Discontinued}{Rewritten}

24. Football Therapy and Accidental Spying

After an hour of goofing off with Kendra and Sara, the hawk warrior seemed much more at ease. Deserey eventually excused herself to use the rest room. On her way back, she ran into Rip, who seemed a bit perplexed. Dez approached him, frowning worriedly, because she wasn’t sure she had enough energy for another pep talk. “You good?” she asked.

“Hm?” Rip said, like he hadn’t heard her. And when she repeated the question he nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. Fine. I just seemed to have misplaced the keys to the jump ship…”

“Maybe you need a mother’s touch,” Deserey joked. “Where did you see them last? I’ll help you look.”

“Well, I was talking to Dr. Palmer and Mr. Snart on the bridge and…” Rip trailed off, making an agitated face as he hissed, “Bullocks.”

Deserey felt her mouth twitch upwards, and she covered it with her hand to hand the forming smirk. “Len stole them didn’t he?”

“Afraid so,” Rip sighed. He looked up at the ceiling, hands on his hips in frustration. “Gideon, would you inform Mr. Snart that I would like to speak with him immediately?” There it was again. That dad voice that he shared with Deserey's ex husband…

“I’m afraid that Mr. Snart and Mr. Rory are no longer aboard the Waverider, Captain,” the AI informed.

Rip cursed again and shot Dez a slightly irritated look when she chuckled. She shrugged. “Sorry,” she said. “But in all fairness, they did say they were going to rob history blind before even stepping foot on the ship.”

Rip sighed. “I suppose you’re right…” His next words were directed at the ship’s AI, “Notify me the moment they arrive back on the ship.”

Gideon didn’t respond, but Deserey figured she’d probably understood her orders. Dez and Rip began walking down the hall, the captain looked rather miffed at the two thieves while Deserey silently wondered what had prompted their little side adventure. Boredom? They had been flying for at least an hour, and Deserey was starting to get a bit stir crazy herself.

“Hey, how long do we have until we reach Russia?” she asked, giving Rip a side ways glance.

“Four hours now,” he told her, shoving his hands in his trench coat’s pocket. It was something it did quite a bit, but Deserey never had enough nerve to ask about it. She guessed it was a nervous tick of some kind, though she wasn’t sure what he was so nervous about. Saving his family? Stopping Savage? Leading a team when he’d been a lone wolf before? It was hard to pin point a singular thing.

“Blegh,” Deserey groaned childishly, running her hand through her hair. (She’d made sure to keep it tied back after her shouting march with Mick the night before.) “Why can’t we just time jump there?”

“Because,” Rip said, using that dad voice again, “you and the others needed some time to collect yourselves, as was made evident by the argument after the Pentagon and your little spat with Mr. Rory not five minutes after I sent you all off.”

Deserey scoffed. “That was just…” She stopped, realizing she couldn’t really defend herself. It had been very childish and unprofessional. Mick had just been standing up for his friend, and she’d treated both him and Leonard like crap. She really was a bitch, wasn’t she?

“And by the way,” Rip said, his voice taking on a sort of teasing tone Dez didn’t know he had, “if you’ve got a problem with the ship’s doors you could have just told me about it. You didn’t have to go shouting about.”

Deserey covered her face with her hands, laughing in embarrassment. She was pretty sure her cheeks had heated up, but she wasn’t really worried about blushing in front of the captain, oddly enough. “So bad…” Dez muttered into her fingers, finding the appropriate words to finish her sentence from earlier.