Why would Mick betray the team?

Question

In episode 7 when Mick found out why he was recruited he decides to betray the team and made a deal with the pirates.

So why did Mick make a deal with the time pirates to betray the whole team, rather than just to get home and stop being a hero?

Answer 1

Part of it is because, in Snart's own words:

Snart: Mick runs hot. He always has.

^{Legends of Tomorrow Season 1 Episode 7: "Marooned"}

Mick isn't known for his sound decision-making skills; there's a reason Snart is the brains of their partnership. When he makes this decision, Mick is angry and hurt, so he lashes out.

However, there's another, more direct reason:

Because Mick doesn't care about the team

At the time he was recruited by Rip Hunter, Mick Rory is not a team player; he makes this point to Ray in "Fail-Safe":

Ray: We're supposed to be a team.

Mick: The only team I'm on is mine and Snart's.

^{Legends of Tomorrow Season 1 Episode 5: "Fail-Safe"}

Ultimately, Mick doesn't care about Savage and is on the team for entirely selfish reasons, having been convinced by Snart to join with the promise of rich opportunities for theft:

Mick: I have no desire to save the world. Especially 100 years after I'm dead.

Snart: He said across time, Mick. What about the years before? Before fingerprints and surveillance cameras and DNA analysis. Why did we become criminals? Because we hate working and we love money. We could steal the Mona Lisa straight off da Vinci's easel, snatch the Hope Diamond before it was discovered. This is everything we got into thieving for in the first place. More than everything.

Mick: You want me in, I'm in. But I'm not gonna be anyone's hero.

^{Legends of Tomorrow Season 1 Episode 1: "Pilot, Part 1"}

However, by this point it's become clear to him that his "partner" is more interested in Rip's cause than in his. Mick has no loyalty left to anyone on the Waverider, and has no interest in their mission.

Why, exactly, should he care what happens to the rest of them?

So why not cut a more charitable deal?

Why go through the effort? The deal he makes is the simplest way to get what he wants, and has the added bonus of sticking it to the people who belittled and (in his mind) betrayed him. Remember what he says about becoming Chronos:

Chronos: You think I was hunting you [Snart] and your friends because the Time Masters made me? They barely had to ask.

^{Legends of Tomorrow Season 1 Episode 9: "Left Behind"}

Revenge is a powerful motivator.

So why did he pick that moment to betray them?

Emotion and bad timing.

Rip's outburst comes when Mick is in an unstable emotional state, something Sara comments on to Snart:

Sara: I've seen enough to know that Mick's in a dark place.

^{Legends of Tomorrow Season 1 Episode 7: "Marooned"}

Rip made Mick mad; under normal circumstances, he probably could have shrugged this off. But he was already mad at Snart, and he's been questioning whether he really wants to be on the Waverider at all.

Rip's comment was just the spark Mick needed to get mad enough to do something foolish.