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Axel gave one big, long, indulgent stretch, up on his tiptoes, reaching for the sky, before dropping back to Earth and into his familiar, irreverent slouch. He slid down the banister and alighted, Spiderman-style, on the hallway carpet. He sprang up and wandered into the kitchen.
The house was quiet. It always was at this time of day. Contrary to popular belief perpetuated by the boy himself, Axel was an early riser. He didn't need sleep: sleep was for the weak. That and the old fogeys he lived with who badly needed their beauty sleep (not that it ever did them any favours. Seriously, Len should be model-hot by now for all the mid-TV naps he took). No, Axel woke up early. He was full of beans! He had energy for days! He had youthful pep and an appetite for chaos on his side, that, most distinctly, manifested in the intrinsic need to steal the others' cereal too early to get caught in the act.
It was this rarely enjoyed moment of solitude - he thrived under attention, both the positive and predominantly negative that came with the gig - that stopped him, affronted, when he stepped into the kitchen-- and was no longer alone.
"Uh. Hi?"
Lisa deigned to look up from her dainty cup. "Oh. Hello, Axel."
Axel took in Lisa in her fancy jammies - short and silky nighty and lacy dressing gown atop it-- and that was not the only thing atop.
"Lis'. What're you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm having my morning coffee, obviously."
Axel's lip twitched; he could respect the commitment to the bit. "Okay, but like..." He couldn't keep it in. He pointed to what - or rather who - Lisa was sat on. "What about him?"
Lisa made an innocently curious "Hmm?" before following Axel's accusing finger to--
Now, the Rogues had a ramshackle approach to furniture; the house was positively patchwork with a chair acquired here, a sofa scavenged there. So much of their swag had looked more at home in the thrift than in their actual house. Nothing - nothing matched. Even the cutlery hadn't come from a set. But they made do. That being said, that did not excuse Lisa Snart sitting on Roscoe bloody Dillon's shirtless back in the middle of the kitchen this early in the morning where poor, innocent, unsuspecting degenerates could find them.
It was only now that Roscoe chose to acknowledge Axel. He paused in his pushups, turning his head to barely catch the eye of the Rogues' youngest, offering him only a reserved "Hmm." before resuming his workout. Axel gaped, unable to tear his attention from the display.
Lisa couldn't help but notice. She sat there and smirked and sipped her coffee.
Roscoe was less impressed by their audience, not that he could complain: they had chosen the very public kitchen for this little arrangement. Nevertheless, he stopped, turned his head to glare at Axel's plaid, flannel knees and demand, "Can we help you?"
Axel shut his mouth and gulped. Then, not one to be put in his place, Axel flexed his skinny arms. The results were negligible. Nevertheless, he sniffed. He raised his chin, gave Roscoe (and by happy extension, Lisa) a once-over and declared, boldly, "I bet I could do that."
"What?" came the shared scoff of the Rogues' Bonnie and Clyde, but Axel was already getting on his hands and knees on the kitchen floor, ready to absolutely pants his elders and really, hadn't that been his true intention this whole time?
Axel planted his hands shoulder-width apart and pushed himself up on his toes into a plank. He ignored the immediate strain he felt in his muscles at simply holding the position for mere seconds but Axel was not about to be shown up without a fight.
Slowly, carefully, Axel lowered himself to the floor until his chest could've kissed it, arms trembling all the while. "One," he announced, voice already strained. He pushed himself back up and instantly dropped back down, unable to fight gravity. "Two." He struggled back up, dropped maybe an inch on trembling arms, barely managed to force out, "Thr--" before collapsing in a heap on the floor.
Now, Roscoe and Lisa were not good people, at least by the Flashes' standards, but they did offer him a mite of grace by not laughing - at least not out loud. When Axel rolled onto his back, Lisa was watching him with a knowing, amused little smirk. Axel pouted.
"What're you smiling at?"
Lisa gave a coy shrug of one shoulder. "My baby can't be beaten," she said, smoothing a hand between Roscoe's shoulders and proceeding to lounge across her lover in a way that would put Catwoman to shame.
"I mean, sure, he beat the poor, one-armed kid. Bid deal, yo." That got him a Look from both Roscoe and Lisa that made it a lot harder to resist laughing at his admittedly cheap shot, but still he smothered it like a champ.
Lisa shook her heard with a wry eye roll, then she looked from her beau to the boy on the floor watching him workout beneath her. She scooted up Roscoe's back - Roscoe did not even slow in his pushups, much to Axel's chagrin - and whispered something in his ear. Now Roscoe did pause, apparently in thought, before making a noise of affirmation. Lisa immediately rounded on Axel, who flinched, the instinctive urge to raise his hands in surrender surging.
It needn't, for the attention of Lisa came with an irresistible proposition: "You want a go?"
Axel blinked. "Huh?"
In response, Lisa just patted Roscoe's lower back beside her. Axel gaped.
"You're kidding."
Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Yes, because I'm notoriously the funny one of our little group."
Axel's lip twitched. "Won't we- I mean I," he corrected quickly, "be too heavy for him?"
"Oh, he doesn't mind the challenge, do you, baby?"
"Oh, I would hardly call it a challenge..."
Now, Axel knew bait, but that wasn't about to stop him: sometimes that just meant you had to bite. Which is why that was all it took to get Axel off the floor and planting his ass confidently on Roscoe's back. He dared to open his scrunched up eyes, just in case he did send them all crashing to the floor, but thankfully the wrath of Lisa and Roscoe combined had no cause to target him, as there was just a brief pause while Roscoe adjusted his hands to accommodate the extra weight, before he resumed his apparently effortless up, down, up, down, up, down like he and Lisa weren't there at all.
Axel gawked. "Dude, you're a tank. Are you using your psionics?"
Up, down, up, down-- "No."
"Oh that's just not fair."
"Enjoy this while you can," Lisa said conspiratorially, "this is the one and only time I'll share him."
"Oh, well, in that case--"
Neither Lisa or Roscoe were ready for what came next, for the legacy Trickster inhaled deep and bellowed to the entire house. "Oi, get in here!"
It was then that Lashawn and Owen appeared in the kitchen - on foot, not wishing to trigger the unfortunate side effect of Lashawn's teleporting in such close quarters. They must've already been on their way to breakfast, for their heads peered around the kitchen door with cautious curiosity not a moment past Axel's shout of summons. Lashawn's eyes went wide as she took in the sight, and politely pursed her lips to hide a smile. Owen's smile - half conscious, fully bemused - was not so shy.
"I see you three are having fun."
"Owen! Boo! Check us out!"
"'Us'?" queried a perturbed Roscoe.
"Hey, man, do you think you could hold all of us?"
"I am not a circus act, Axel."
"You so are now, strongman. Hey-- What if we made it a competition? See how many of us you can hold against the next - or, hell - the strongest Rogue. Who outta all of us is the stronge-- MICK!" Axel hollered at the house, even as Owen pouted at being overlooked.
"What are you up to?" Lisa asked as someone made the stairs creak at speed from their hurried steps down to their level.
Axel grinned. "Making this a real party. Hey, Mick!"
"What's happened, what's wrong, where's the fire?" Mick asked, panicked, halfway into a henley over his vest.
"Chill, Mick."
"I'd rather not - what's going on?"
"Can you do a pushup?" Axel asked, far too eager.
"Yeah..." Mick said warily. "Just...just one, or...?" It was then that he noticed Roscoe. "Hey, man."
"Hello, Mick."
Mick glanced at Lashawn and Owen who were eying him hopefully. And it was then he put the pieces together. "Why've I got a bad feeling about this?" he said, even as he got down on his hands and knees on the kitchen floor, to raucous cheers from the young ones. Owen took an immediate seat on Mick's back, while Lashawn hesitated, voicing concern that their combined weight might hurt Heat Wave, but with a casual reassurance from Mick mixed with Axel's enthusiastic chant of "Do! It! Do! It! Do! It!" she relented and took the space beside Owen to cheers from him and the Trickster. And with that, Mick copied Roscoe and began to do pushups, quietly counting under his breath.
"The hell's going on in here?"
"Hi Lenny."
Len stood in the doorway, scratching his stomach under his hockey shirt, and staring with alarm at the scene that stood between him and his breakfast. "I really don't wanna know."
Axel pointed at Mick. "Dude, get on!"
Len blanched. "You've gotta be kidding me."
Roscoe paused and deigned to raise his eyes to the sink if not his comrade. "Shall I take that as a lack of faith in your partner in crime that you don't think I can be beaten?"
Len flushed. "Oi, shove over, we're showing him!" and sat down hard on Mick's back.
"Hey, now we're uneven," Owen pointed out. "We need more--"
He needn't. Axel was already shouting the whole house down, until Mark, James, and Evan all found themselves spread across the two human benches on the kitchen floor. Now both Roscoe and Mick had ceased their workouts, instead fighting every urge to be the first to collapse under the weight of their teams.
"It's a good thing you decided to do this before we all had a big breakfast, huh?" James pointed out from his perch on Mick's shoulder, having been kicked off Roscoe with the stipulation that there be only one Trickster per team - and no doubt the world was safer for it. "It'd would be terrible to have to play this game on a full stomach - all that extra weight and all."
"If you want to swap places," Mick managed, "you're welcome t--" And then the man collapsed to the floor. Roscoe's team let out raucous cheers, jumping to their feet and freeing the Top from his place at the bottom of the pile.
The other team half rolled, half climbed off of Mick - to their shame it was only Lashawn who actually checked if Mick was okay, but when she helped him up he was laughing his usual wheezy laugh.
Axel grinned at the good-natured chaos he had caused. Lisa even bumped her shoulder affectionately against his as she passed her way to the table to join the others on Roscoe's lap.
Axel hopped up onto the kitchen counter. "What's for breakfast?"
"Nothing you can steal off us," said Len as Mick tied his apron. Axel spluttered.
"Wha-- That's not me!"
Okay, so maybe if no one could top the Top, maybe being tricked by the Trickster was kinda a given.
Eh, you win some, you lose some. Rumbled or not, this morning had so been worth it.