Trigger warnings: suicide attempt, thoughts of suicide, self deprecating thoughts, thoughts of self harm, internalized ableism, mental illness, mentions of torture and trauma, mentions of child murder, mentions of gang violence/war, mentions of gun violence, brief mentions of police brutality.

{~}

It was a blissful feeling, the sweet release of death. Even more liberating was having a choice in how it ended. When it ended. For Deserey, the decision was easy. Life's toll had, not for the first time, become too much. There's a pool that floods her mind and seeps into her veins; it flows through her blood stream, rides in her nerves, cuts to the bone, and drives straight through to the heart. Fills her lungs, her mind, her soul. It consumes her. All of her. It washes away every piece of her that matters. In seconds. And she drowns.

The same flood that had been plaguing her head since stepping away from her parents, the curse that she'd been carrying with her, inside, since she was a teenager (or even before, she couldn't put a date on when it started, really). Things that should have been easy, fun even, had become tedious work. Getting up for her job was a constant struggle; she simply couldn't find the motivation to get out of bed. Talking to her ex-husband (as of two months ago), or even hugging her kids sucked all the energy out of her.

What sort of heartless monster couldn't even smile at their child's dance recital?

Everything she did, every movement she made was simply exhausting. Life, living, had become exhausting. It had always been exhausting, but this time she couldn't find an excuse to keep going. This time, she really had to end it all. She'd been this way for years, and she had lost so many good friends because of it. It wasn't really that they were bad friends or that they didn't care. They were amazing. They had always been there for her, always comforted her, always talked her out of doing something she'd regret. One of them had even bought an entire fucking apartment building for her, not just an apartment, no, no the building (and she'd recently cut ties with him, too, which sucked for many reasons, not the least of which is: he was often her financial aid ).

It was Deserey who was the problem. They deserved better than the mess of a person she'd become. They deserved better than this. That was why Deserey pushed them all away. She shoved and kicked and bit and scratched until one day every single one of them disappeared without a word. Until the current of the mind flood caused them to drift so far apart they would never see the other again.

Because if they stayed they'd drown too. Deserey would pull them into her mind flood, and she would rather die than do that to the people she loved. She would rather die.

Deserey was over it all. The pain, the constant numbness throughout her body, the flood that never left her head. She was tired of fighting herself to stay afloat. She couldn't give them what they wanted, what they needed ─ a happy, healthy mother and loving, loyal wife. She was too broken for a normal life, and after what had happened during that Particle Accelerator explosion... No. No, she wasn't going to risk becoming like one of those freaks made by Hugo Strange. Never again. She'd been lucky so far, but she'd pushed her luck far enough. She wouldn't be one of them. She wouldn't.

She'd die first.

She would die first.

Deserey had tried before, many, many times, especially when the Accelerator had first cursed her (she wasn't risking the safety of her kids; she wasn't taking the chance of snapping and hurting someone because she was mentally ill), but each time someone had stopped her and sent her to a mental hospital (the hospitals never helped. The shrinks did nothing, and all it did was trigger unwanted memories, memories of that place, the place that had turned her into a freak before: Indian Hill).

This time, though, she was sure that nothing would stop her. She made sure of it. After he died ─ no, after he was murdered, Deserey had reached her limit. Too much loss. Too much pain. She couldn't take it anymore.

He was a homeless kid Dez had met when she was visiting her friend (the one who bought her apartment building, because he was a rich asshole). She'd always felt so close to the kid, both coming from similar backgrounds. But her friend ─ her brother was more like, considering they spent the better half of their lives sharing the same living space ─ lead a dangerous life, and he was the one who got to take him in and raise him like a son. Dez wanted to, god damn she wanted to, but her brother had more to offer than she did. Rich asshole.

So, he lived with her brother. He was sucked into that dangerous life he led, and...

It was bound to get someone hurt in the end. That was why Dez cut him out of her life. She wasn't risking his life leaking into hers and hurting her kids next. It was bad enough he brought him into it. That kid deserved better than this shit.

Two months ago was when it happened. Deserey went to Gotham City to help her friend/brother (she was still too pissed off to so much as think his name, or the kid's name for that matter; it just hurt too much). A mad man (Deserey didn't dare to think his name either, lest it summon him like the devil that he was) had been running loose; the kid went after him. He didn't come back.

They told him to stay put, to keep his head down, that the mad man they were dealing with was dangerous and just that, mad, but the kid was stubborn and eager to prove himself, like any fifteen year old would be in his situation.

And now he was dead.

It wasn't her fault, she knew that. There are people to blame for the kid's death, but she isn't one of them. Still. Deserey was well past her limit when it came to losing people. She was tired of them leaving, of needing to push them away, of them going insane and skipping off to murder people; most of all she was tired of them dying. She was tired of being helpless to save them. She was tired of feeling like a shitty ass person for that. Tired of mad scientists experimenting on her and others like her.

She was tired of being useless and selfish.

It was time to go. That was the only way to make it stop. That was the only way to end the pain and protect everyone from anything that might bleed into her world from her brother's; the only way to save her family from herself in the event she turned into a raging, homicidal monster. Only way to erase the problem before it ever started.

It was the only way to make everything stop. The only way she could think of, anyway.

She would finally be free, from grief and pain and suffering and trauma, all of it. Everything. Her family would be safe from her "meta" powers and they would be unburdened from her incessant whining and useless fuckery.

Deserey tossed the makeshift noose she had made from her scarves over the ceiling fan before tying one end to the bed to hold it steady. She climbed onto the step stool she'd placed at the center of the room and placed the noose around her neck. Taking a deep breath, she moved one of her feet to the edge of the stool.

"You don't want to do that."

Deserey yelped. She slipped off the stool, and the scarves shifted up her neck, squeezing her throat, closing off the air flow. She gasped, as her lungs screamed, begging her for oxygen. Her vision blurred, and her mind swirled. The flood inside her was raging, a hurricane along the beachside ready to destroy all in its path. Her throat tightened. Muscles tensed. It took forever, and it hurt worse than anything she'd ever experienced before and then she had a chance to start second guessing herself... For a second, she panics.

This is it. This. Is. It. I'm going to die. How stupid am I? Fuck, fuck, fuck─

But then someone was wrapping their hands around her waist, attempting to hold her up. She heard a sharp snip!, and she fell to the floor. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes, flickering and blurring with city lights leaking in through the window. Her body ached. She felt like she was going to throw up. Deserey coughed and gagged, the flood in her lungs spilling over and leaking out through her eyes. It wasn't more than a few seconds, but it felt much longer. An hour experienced in under a minute. Four minutes. That's how long it was supposed to take, and she couldn't even make it through one.

Fuck.

There was a shadow of a man in front of her, worried blue-green eyes staring into her weary brown ones. Skinny and blonde and British from the sound of his accent. "Sorry, Miss Dunet," he muttered. "But I need your help, and unfortunately, I can't get that if you're dead..." He took something from his pocket. She moved to run, fearing the worst, but before Deserey could get very far, a white light flashed in her face.

She fell unconscious.

{~}

There was a pounding in Deserey's head. Had she been drinking? Jesus fucking Christ.

She sat up, clutching her head, and took in her surroundings. A rooftop. Eight others. She didn't know any of them. What the hell had happened? How did she end up here with so many strangers? The fuck happened to that man in her apartment? More importantly, how was she supposed to get back home? It looked as if they were now in a completely different city from Central. Cab fares were not a cheap thing, neither were trains or planes. Besides, Deserey wasn't sure she had any cash on her at the moment. She'd been expecting to be dead by now.

Of course she could still accomplish that goal by jumping off the roof, thus rendering worrying about cab fares redundant... But still.

"Agh," someone groaned. He was a muscular man with a buzz cut and a mean snarl. Deserey thought he looked familiar, but she couldn't place where she'd seen him before. Not that she was too concerned with trying to place his face. She knew too many people to count. They might have crossed paths before on the streets for all she knew. His clothes looked as rough as he did. He wore a gray shirt, red suspenders to hold up his pants, and a burned up jacket. "What a headache."

Deserey sighed, as the daunting realization finally hit her. Fully and completely. She wasn't dead. She wasn't dead. The British guy in her apartment had been real, not just a figment of her imagination or something. He had stopped her. Four minutes was far too long to get the job done. She should have done something faster so she couldn't change her mind. So she couldn't be saved. A gun maybe, though she had never touched one before. How did that man even get inside her apartment? Who was he to stop her? He didn't know her. He didn't understand that she had to fucking die. It was the only thing that made sense. The only way to make everything right, which won't happen now because─

"Fuck. I'm still alive..."

Deserey glared down at her hands, willing them to disappear, willing herself into nonexistence, while at the same time breathing in the cold, sharp night time air. Just to be sure she was, in fact, alive. To swallow the rising waters inside her and flush them away, even for a moment. It was disappointing and relieving all at once. She wasn't sure if she should be happy about her survival or not. She was supposed to be dead. She didn't want to become a monster. She wasn't a monster. She wasn't that sick. But she needed to get out of the way. She needed it all to stop.

But at the same time, she didn't want to die. She was just selfish that way. Deserey was selfish for wanting to stay alive.

"What?"

Next to her was a nerdy man with dark hair and dazzling eyes. He didn't say anything, but she got the feeling he was one of those annoying optimist types. Probably one of those people who said things like, "You have so much to live for, why would you want to kill yourself?" or "Just smile a little, you'll feel better!" This man had most likely never experienced an ounce of self-doubt in his life; he would never be able to understand why she wanted to take her own life. So, she figured it would be best if she didn't tell him anything...

Or maybe she just wanted him to be a bad guy because he looked a little like him (her friend/brother who put her nephew, because he basically was, in danger). She was pissed at him, and so she was pissed at this guy because he looked like his long lost twin. Well, actually he looked closer to that one boy from Smallville she dated for that whole month she went by Lana ─ what was his name Carl? Camden? Chandler? It started with a C, she knew that much. Dez was terrible with names.

Anyway, it was that boy who looked like her friend, and this guy looked like Smallville Boy, and she was mad at this guy for it.

Bitchy? Yes. But that was just another reason Deserey didn't deserve a life, wasn't it?

This man was wearing a bulky red and blue super suit, a great big metal get-up that she likened to that of Ant Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Deserey snorted at the sight.

"Nothing," she grumbled at the brown eyed man. "And isn't it a little early for Halloween costumes?"

"Huh?" He glanced over himself before turning back to her with the biggest, ear to ear grin Deserey had ever seen in her life. "Oh! This isn't a Halloween costume. It's the Atom Suit. I'm," he gave a light chuckle here, a sort of huff of air with a brief head turn, "kind of a superhero."

Deserey nodded slowly, pushing her dark curls away from her face as the wind had her hair slapping into her cheeks. "Sure, why the hell not?" It sounded like he was boasting a little, but Deserey thought he was trying to be modest about it. In a way. Like. He probably wasn't someone who wanted gold metals or anything, but he very clearly wanted to be acknowledged for being 'kind of a superhero.' It was tempting to pat him on his head and say, "Good boy!"

Fucking just like Smallville Boy... Same energy as a golden retriever.

"Stein?"

Yet another man (seriously, how many guys were there?). He looked familiar as well, with his expression so cold, so calculating, like he thought he could outsmart everyone on that roof in a matter of seconds. This man, like the man in the suspenders, also had a buzz cut. But while Suspender Guy's cut added to his aggressive exterior, Ice Man's made him look smooth, calm (and maybe just a little dangerous but a different flavor of dangerous than the other one).

He wore a blue parka and a pair of jeans. Simple enough. Normal enough, considering it was January and there was still some snow filtering down from the sky, left over from December. But then there were also these swimming goggles hanging around his neck, which seemed like an odd add on, but Dez once knew a guy who dressed in a scarecrow mask (even called himself Scarecrow) and carried around a sickle, so it was odd, yes, but it wasn't, like, the worst thing she'd ever seen someone put on.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

He was addressing an old man (Deserey guessed he must have been Stein). He was by far the oldest person on that roof. His hair was a series of gray and white. He wore a red shirt, tweed jacket, khakis, and black glasses. The look reminded Deserey of one of her college professors (before she'd dropped out that is, and before he was arrested and subsequently fired for murdering his students who failed his tests)(that's what Deserey got for trying to go to school in Gotham fucking City).

"I'm as ignorant as you are for once, Mr. Snart," the old man, Stein, said.

Deserey grunted. The name had struck a distant memory in her mind, and she realized why Ice Man and Suspender Guy looked so familiar. She had seen them on the news multiple times, usually fighting that stupid speedster guy. The Blur or Streak or some crap. They were thieves, hardcore criminals, hell-bent on robbing Central City blind ─ Captain Cold and Heat Wave, aka Leonard Snart and Mick Rory.

They were tame compared to Gotham criminals, but one of them derailed a train once, and their guns set shit on fire and turned fuckers into ice sculptures respectively (super original concept; she had never seen that one done before). That was all she really remembered.

"What the hell am I doing on a roof with Mr. Freeze and Firefly 2.0?" Deserey yelled at no one in particular.

It wasn't so much that she was worried about them or frightened or whatever. She'd been friends with criminals before, back when she was homeless; more often than not those people were more trustworthy than the police, especially in Gotham where cops could be bribed with a penny. The thing was this: these two have been known to kill people. Deserey had kids. And if she wasn't going to die tonight, she ran the risk of one or both of them following her home; and the next time her kids came to stay at her house...

Her brother's world might start leaking into hers if she hung around the pair too long, that's what she's getting at. Her kids didn't need to be part of their uncle's world.

"What did you call me?" Heat Wave snapped.

"Sorry, do you two prefer to be called the Miser Brothers?"

He growled and took a step towards her. She tilted her head back to glare up at him. Deserey was not a short woman, but this man still towered over her. What must he have been? Six, seven feet tall? If he swung at her, she'd be ready to take the hit, but he'd still likely knock her on her ass. Thankfully, before anything could happen Cold was holding his arm out to stop his partner in crime. "Easy," he told him. Deserey was surprised when Heat Wave backed off. He was still glaring at her, though.

"Where are we?" one of the other women asked. She might have been trying to avoid a fight too; she might have been directing their attention back to their more pressing issues. Hard to say.

She was gorgeous, Deserey had to take notice. A blonde woman with enough moxie to rule the world. Same calluses as Dez's friend/brother. So, like, she was probably an assassin or something. Meh, whatever. She was wearing a thick fur coat, black pants, and leather boots, which was a bit odd? Again, it was January, so it was cold, but not, like, that cold. Chilly at best. She must have been picked up from some place colder than where they were or else she was yet another ice based villain (which, please God, no!).

Or maybe Dez was just more accustomed to ugly climate, because she grew up in New Jersey.

Either way.

A fifth man shrugged. Or kid, more like, no more than twenty. He was the youngest out of everyone on the roof and one of the two fellow persons of color; he wore a gray shirt and green jacket along with jeans and sneakers. His body was ripped with muscles. Deserey guessed he must have worked out a lot. Maybe he played a lot of sports or had a job where he had to use his upper body strength a lot.

"Why don't you ask the dude who knocked us out and kidnapped us? British dude with a flashy thing? Ring any bells?"

"Actually yeah," Deserey said. "He stopped me from ─"

She faltered. It may not be the best idea to tell them she'd been about to kill herself before she'd been kidnapped. In her experience confessing to a suicide attempt usually led to one of two things: one) they would exploit it and use it to manipulate her or two) they would look at her like she was insane, dangerous, something that needed to be fixed or locked up (but she didn't, she wasn't that sick).

So Deserey settled for saying this, "He stopped me from doing something stupid."

Next to Sporty Dude were more dorks in costumes ─ a man and a woman. The man had short sandy hair, and the woman had long curly, brown hair. They wore matching leather suits, and they were holding matching helmets in the shape of hawk heads. Deserey figured that meant they were one of three things: a) siblings, b) best friends, or c) fuck buddies. Maybe "super" heroes like the Atom standing beside Dez.

"Who was that?" the woman asked.

Despite the dumb attire, Deserey couldn't help but compare herself to the other women. Blondie had an air about her, radiating a confidence that Deserey could never have. She appeared as though nothing could get to her. She was invincible. Deserey was just the opposite. She'd cry, even at the smallest insults. One implication that she couldn't do something, and she'd give up or get pissed off and leave. Her emotions were a constant roller coaster, and she constantly worried about what other people thought of her. Hawk Girl didn't seem as confident as Blondie, but she still seemed tough. She was undoubtedly​ the kind of person who knew what she wanted and went for it.

Even their looks were far better than hers. Blondie's skin was several shades lighter than hers, a breathtaking, pale glow. Her blue eyes sparkled with intensity. The light from the stars made her hair look extra shiny.

Deserey's skin was a dark brown. Not ugly, but she didn't glow. Her eyes didn't shine. And her frame wasn't as thin as Blondie's. Well. Blondie wasn't skinny, not like a twig, more like she was fit. Cut. Like she lifted weights in her free time or something. She looked good. Not Dez. She had too many curves, too many scars on her wrists.

Ugh.

Hawk Girl's skin was darker than Blondie's, but still lighter than Deserey's. Her eyes were dark brown, like Deserey's but somehow they still shone brighter. Her hair was a mix of blonde and brown, but it still looked good. Hot even. She was the skinniest of the three of them, and she managed to make even that moronic costume look glamorous.

Deserey looked down at her own clothes, realizing just how plain she was in comparison. She was wearing an ugly, oversized sweatshirt and baggy running pants. She'd been planning to be dead by now. Dressing up didn't seem like a thing that would be important, but now she sort of wished she'd put on something prettier. Hawk Girl's curls were more defined than Deserey's. Looser. Dez's were kinkier. The other woman's was like a princess, twisting elegantly in beautiful patterns, leaving room for her bangs to be straightened.

Deserey's hair was less curly and more frizzy. Often it was a chaotic, untamable mess, but she refused, fucking refused, to straighten it. Fucking fight her, god damn it!

A man walked out from the shadows, revealing himself to everyone on the roof and bringing Deserey out of her lustful daydream. He had blonde hair and a scruffy beard; he wore a long brown trench coat. The man spoke with a British accent. The same one as before. She'd only seen him for a second back at her place, but Deserey knew this was the same man who had stopped her from killing herself. She couldn't forget those eyes. That voice.

"The name's Rip Hunter," he said. "I'm from east London." Deserey raised an eyebrow at him. Rip Hunter? It was an odd name, but then again she once knew a man who decided to call himself "The Penguin" (also the aforementioned "Scarecrow," as well as several other weirdos with self-made titles) so maybe it wasn't the strangest name out there?

Rip paused for a moment, considering another thought. "Oh," he said as if he'd almost forgotten. "And the future."

Huh. Well, that was a new one...

"Nice to meet you, Rip," Heat Wave snarled. He reached for his belt, where his notorious Heat Gun hung at his side. No doubt he was planning to torch the groups' kidnapper and call it a night. Deserey wasn't sure if she should feel inclined to let him or what. She wasn't sure if she had enough mental energy to care about anything anymore.

But she wasn't a heartless monster. She wasn't that sick! She wasn't!

"Uh, while you were incapacitated, I may have tampered with your weapons," Rip informed him.

"Good." Deserey wasn't sure why she said anything. She should have kept her mouth shut, but she'd never been good at doing things she was supposed to do, especially when she was pissed off. "I'm in no mood for murderous psychopaths."

Not like the ones from Arkham...

Heat Wave was the closest thing Central City had to those monsters... Well, maybe not the closest thing. There were others, people with abilities just like the freaks created by Hugo Strange, other "meta" humans, and in a sense Deserey herself was one of those monsters (she'd never been sentenced to Arkham, but she was fucked up by Hugo Strange in Indian Hill below the asylum/prison)...

But Mick Rory shared the same temperament as Strange's monsters, so Deserey was lumping him into the same category with them, anyway.

Like.

Maybe he wasn't a "meta" human monster/freak/whatever, but he could fit in at Arkham the same way Ed Nygma or Jerome Valeska could. He was mentally unstable, and he killed people for fun. Enough said.

He was just like Firefly. Maybe worse?

Anyway. She wanted to go out her own way; she didn't need to get caught up in the crossfire of some criminal/serial arsonist that got off on burning people alive. Plus, again, there was the safety of her children to consider. Talking shit to this guy and his partner was just plain fucking stupid on Dez's part.

Apparently, Heat Wave thought she was a moron too, because he made a growling noise and sent a glare her way. Deserey did her best not to shrink away, but the guy was known for being pretty dangerous and unpredictable.

Like Jerome. Like that other mad man who murdered her nephew.

Again, if she wanted to avoid getting brutally murdered and keep her kids away from the world of criminals, then getting on this guy's bad side may not have been the best course of action. But growing up, Dez often found herself in situations where her voice was her only means of self defense. Getting snippy was just a knee jerk reaction to potential threats at this point.

Oh well. At least, his gun was fucked up so he couldn't burn her to ashes. Not with the gun, anyway.

"I've assembled you all," Rip continued, ignoring Deserey and Heat Wave, "because I need your help." He began walking across the rooftop, pacing in front of each of the men and women in turn. "The future of the world is in peril because of a man by the name of Vandal Savage."

Rip stopped walking when he had reached the other side of the roof. He stood with his back to the men and women. Very melodramatic. So much so that Deserey would have assumed he were a Gothamite had he not just said he was from London; she had to do a double take of her surroundings to make sure she wasn't in Gotham (it wasn't, this city's buildings had a similar structure, but Gotham's had more of a nitty gritty, gothic aesthetic while this city was edgy, dark academia; Gotham was black, this city was emerald; Gotham was hell let out of the gates, this city was a pitstop to purgatory).

Hawk Girl frowned at her male counterpart.

"That can't be," Mr. Hawk said. "We destroyed him."

"Yeah," Hawk Girl nodded in agreement. "The Green Arrow and Flash helped us do it."

"Who?" Deserey asked. She felt kind of stupid asking the question. Everyone else seemed to have at least a vague idea of who she was talking about, but Deserey was at a complete loss.

Rip glanced at her for a brief moment. "A vigilante and a metahuman hero." He turned back around to face the two hawk people, a knowing look upon his face. "And therein lay the problem: unless you or Mr. Hall delivers the death blow, Savage can be restored from but a single cell."

Deserey was still stuck on the "Flash" and "Green Arrow" part. She's seen violent people come back from the dead before, claim immortality and godhood, this wasn't new to her. It certainly wasn't interesting enough to hold her attention. Plus, she didn't know this Savage guy from Adam. He wasn't all that interesting to her; if anything he was boring and unoriginal─ a replication of something that had already been done a million times over. But heroes? Those were few and far between for Deserey.

"Oh, wait, hold up. Is Arrow that you have failed this city guy? Because actually I might have met him once or twice."

"Um, technically, yes..." Atom said. "But─"

"Can I have his autograph, actually? My friend-not friend-kind of brother, hates him because, you know, the murder thing, and he's all rule number one: I will not kill! And, like, okay, cool, whatever, but, my dude, you are putting people in intensive care! The line ain't that far from there! But anyway, I think it would piss him off real bad if it looked like I was supportin' ya boy there."

A wildly different attitude from a few minutes ago, yes, but that was Deserey's psyche in a nutshell. It didn't make sense. She didn't make sense. Sue her.

Atom stared at her. "Uh..."

"He doesn't kill people anymore," Blondie said.

"Mm. Prolly for the best. Murder ain't great. Although there are things worse than death so..."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Heat Wave demanded. Deserey wasn't sure who he was talking to: her or this Rip guy. Maybe both, because they sure both sounded like they'd just escaped from Arkham (but, again, Deserey had never been sentenced to Arkham Asylum; she wasn't that sick).

"Vandal is immortal," the hawk man, Mr. Hall apparently, explained. Like he just hung around all kinds of godlike people every day. "Kendra and I reincarnate." He gestured at the woman in the Hawk costume.

Blondie nodded slowly in understanding. "Yeah," she said, "I've done that."

"So, has my friend's butler and, like, half of Gotham. Is everyone on this roof batshit crazy?" Deserey muttered. It was all too much. Too much like that place. Indian Hill. Like those people. Like every batty person who wound up in Gotham City. Her veins froze over. She didn't like the sound of any of this. Not at all.

(See? Change of attitude again. Bad psyche.)

She wasn't with them. She wasn't one of them. She wasn't that sick.

Heat Wave grunted. He was getting very impatient by the looks of it. Deserey wondered if she'd make it, should she attempt to jump to the next rooftop the way Silena Kyle used to back in the day. If she managed it, she'd get away from the lunatics, if not... Well, she'd been planning to die that night anyway.

"What the hell does this Randal guy got to do with us?"

"Vandal," Rip corrected. He walked back to where he stood at the beginning of their little meeting. "In the future, he will employ the evil he's perfected over his long life, and the power he has amassed throughout history, to finally..." There was a heavy sigh here before he continued, "conquer the world."

Deserey stared at him, unblinking. The story seemed a little far-fetched. How could one person single-handedly take over the world? And immortality? Even with all the "meta" human freaks running around (thanks to Harrison Fucking Wells, apparently) it was hard to believe. But. Then again, Deserey, as mentioned before, had met a man claiming to be immortal before. That man was delusional, of course, but still. The idea was there. Maybe this Vandal Savage idiot was also crazy as fuck. It didn't matter. Because however powerful he thought he might have been, no one could take over the fucking world ... Right?

Granted, there was that time Jerimeah Valeska had blown up Gotham's bridges and the city descended into chaos and war amongst the gangs; they even got cut off from the rest of the country for a time... But that was a city. This Rip guy was talking about the entire fucking world. Not even the Valeska Twins could pull that off. Probably not even that mad man (her nephew's murderer) who thought he was the combined consciousness of both brothers.

"I've been tasked with assembling an elite team to stop him," Rip told them.

"How?" Blondie asked.

Rip moved his arm across the skyline to emphasize his point and make it seem much more appealing than it actually was all in one go. Deserey had seen this before too. Everyone who had ever stepped foot in Gotham City had seen that move. It was a favorite of politicians, gangsters, crime lords, and billionaires alike. This man, this Rip Hunter, was desperate to be listened to, desperate to be heard. And very, very melodramatic. If she wasn't able to hear the English accent she would have assumed he'd been lying about being from London. All his mannerisms screamed Gothamite.

"To travel through time. To capture Savage, before he grows into the monster he becomes."

Monster.

That word strikes a cord within her. The flood was thrashing, rising within her once more; threatening to overtake her.

Deserey couldn't stop herself from laughing at his words. It hurt, but it helped her break the surface, take in the oxygen she needed to survive the flood in her head. At least for a few minutes.

Everyone turned to her, frowning. And she frowned back. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't. Not that crazy.

"Time travel?" she asked. "Really?"

"Yes," Rip said. He seemed a little offended by her reaction. "That's what I said."

"...Right," she nodded. "And you said you were tasked to form a team? By who?"

"We're called the Time Masters," Rip said. "We watch over the timeline and see that nothing disrupts it." Every word he spoke sounded fabricated, scripted, false. Call her paranoid, but Deserey was going to keep asking questions until she got the whole story. She'd been through too many instances where shit went south, and fast, because someone thought it was a good idea to withhold information from everyone else.

"Ah, so that explains the name. You're a rip off of Doctor Who."

The comment got a smirk from Snart. Cold. Whatever. She wasn't sure what to call these people.

"So why'd you pick us?" She gestured around at everyone on the roof. "This doesn't exactly look like the most functional team ─ a team with a pair of good for nothing criminals, just by the way."

"Watch it, Sandy," Mick hissed.

"Sandy?" she frowned.

Blondie gestured at the bag hanging over Deserey's shoulder. There were a few specs of sand pouring out, as the bag was tilted sideways. Deserey fixed it so that it was upright and shrugged the arsonist's comment off.

"Whatever," she said.

The bag had been a gift from him, her friend-not friend-brother. He was the one who convinced her to take it, to keep it with her just in case. Not sure what he thought she'd end up doing with it... Well, not entirely true. She knows he wants her to be like him, but she has always had responsibilities. Plus, she was a Black, trans, bisexual woman living in poverty. She didn't have the privilege to be a fucking vigilante/super hero/whatever the fuck (like, she's done a few small things here and there, mostly to help him, but not enough to be noticed by the general public, really; she couldn't risk it). Best case scenario, she'd be arrested for trying, worst case, she, or even worse her kids, would wind up dead or messed up via the hands of the police force or some other nutjob.

Besides that, she just didn't have the resources. She didn't get paid enough money to keep up with the whole schtick.

But she kept the bag for him, if not just so he'd shut the fuck up about it.

They hadn't talked in two months. Not since they'd buried her nephew, not since she told him to get bent and stay out of her life for good. She didn't know why she still kept the stupid bag after that, why she neglected to throw it out. What's more, she didn't understand why Rip had taken the time and effort to take it along and sling it over her shoulder for her when taking her from her home.

But again, whatever. Men were wired different, she supposed.

"She has a point," Cold said. "Hero ain't exactly on the resume. So, I think you've got the wrong guy, Rip."

His attitude sort of reminded Dez of Selina Kyle. She used to be friends with her, too, when they were kids, but they hadn't spoken in... Damn. Dez wasn't even sure when the last she'd seen Selina was.

Heat Wave nodded in agreement. The two started to walk away from the others, no doubt to find a way off this god damn roof.

"And I'm no better," Deserey said. "I'm nobody. I'm not a hero. I'm not a villain. I'm just a normal person trying to...escape. And since I'm currently still alive, I have to pay bills, and I have to work to do that. There's also my kids to consider. My kids who probably hate me..."

Rip sighed, and ─ in a desperate attempt to make the two men stay and to convince everyone else ─ he said, "I know it's difficult for you to fathom," and this got the crooks to stop in their tracks and the others to look at him curiously. So, he continued, "but where ─ when," he corrected, "I'm from, the year 2166, you ─ and everyone on this roof ─ aren't just considered heroes..." Rip paused for a moment, letting the melodrama and anticipation build up inside the men and women, especially Atom, as he had the largest hero complex of all it seemed.

"You're legends," Rip told them finally.

Deserey knitted her brows together, taking in the British man's words. She glanced at the others on the roof. "Well, I'm not feeling very legendary. Y'all feelin' legendary?"

Atom shrugged, "I could get behind that."

Deserey scoffed. "Yeah well..." She looked down at that stupid bag she promised her friend-not friend-brother she'd keep. He'd given it to her after the Accelerator debacle. She'd gone back to Gotham, just for an hour, distraught (that was the same night they met her nephew; the kid was trying to lift the tires off her friend-not friend-brother's car). She didn't know what to do with herself. She thought he would get it, she really did. But instead he just shoved a bag of sand at her and told her to try it out. He said it was a good thing, a blessing in disguise.

Like maybe he thought they could turn those stupid comic characters they'd made up as kids into a reality. Hell, he had already taken her Crusader guy and ran with it. And he made up a whole other bird themed character, too, and gave that persona, first, to his older (also adopted) son. And then, when Deserey's first nephew was tired of it and made up his own fucking persona, he gave that bird persona to her second nephew. And then, and then, not even a month after her second nephew was gone her brother gives the persona to another fucking kid.

Like. The fuck?

Deserey thought it was bullshit. All the bag did was bring back the worst memories, and again she cannot fucking afford to be a superhero. It is not cheap. Like, he didn't have that problem because he had money. But Deserey doesn't.

Anyway, what Hugo Strange had done to her... No. She didn't trust herself for starters. Not with this. She wasn't going to be turned in to a fucking monster by some ass wipe in a lab coat. Not again. Fuck that. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't a monster.

She wasn't that sick.

"I've tried to be a legend before. Didn't exactly work out so..."

Stein hesitated. "Well, I hate to nitpick, but don't legends have to be dead?"

Sporty Dude huffed bitterly. "Yeah, see, that's a deal breaker for me. So, I'll pass."

"But even if we're not legends we'd still be dead," Blondie pointed out. "It's a hundred-something years in the future."

"Then, why should we give a damn?" Heat Wave growled.

"Because," Rip said, "if you don't this is what's in store for your world hundred-fifty years from now."

He took a small remote from his jacket pocket and raised it into the air, before pressing a button. In an instant, the once clear sky lit up with a gruesome scene. It looked like something the mad man (her nephew's murderer) could have cooked up, despite her earlier misgivings about it being possible ─ pure chaos and madness.

The fire erupted from buildings, seemingly out of nowhere. The ground was in ruins, rubble and decay spreading out for miles. Dead bodies littered the scene, blood seeping out of their mouths and ears. Through all the chaos and destruction, Deserey still somehow managed to recognize the city. It was her home ─ Central City.

Rip took the image down a second after putting it up, but it still lingered in Deserey's mind.

It changed something inside her.

But she wasn't like them. She wasn't crazy. Wasn't a monster.

She shoved her hands in her pockets, hoping no one noticed how badly they were trembling. She'd never seen anything like that before, not even when Gotham had been in the midst of war with itself.

The others had deep frowns embedded on their faces, but they didn't seem nearly as affected by the scene as she was, as if they were used to seeing destruction and violence. Like. Okay. Deserey knew what that looked like, sure. She grew up in Gotham for fuck's sake. But she wasn't a monster. She wasn't numb to seeing other people hurt. She was still effected, because of fucking course she was.

She wasn't that sick.

Deserey wondered what exactly caused a person to 'get used to it,' anyhow. How many times would you have to experience it, before you simply didn't care all that much anymore? How sick did you have to be before you stopped giving a shit about other people's well being? Deserey could never be that sick. She wouldn't let herself get that bad. She would die first.

Rip turned to the group again, a serious expression on his face. "I could have chosen anyone, from any time. But I chose you nine, because each of you, as individuals, are destined for greatness." He paused again, eyeing each of them in turn. "I sure hope you won't let me ─ or the world ─ down."

The group exchanged a few looks with one another, each silently questioning whether or not they should help this so-called time traveler. Rip walked over to Stein, passing him a piece of paper.

"If your answer is yes," he told everyone. "Meet me at this address in thirty-six hours."