The Legends had defeated Savage. They'd decided to fuck it and throw caution into the wind, jumping right to 2166 at the height of Savage 's power. They'd fought giant robots and saved some refugees. At some point, Deserey thought she was going to save Miranda and Jonas, but it was too late in the end. Rip’s family was lost forever.

In the process they had lost Leonard, the ex villain sacrificing himself to blow up the Time Masters in the Vanishing Point and destroy their machine called the Oculus. Thanks to him the Legends’ fates were once again their own. Their younger selves were safely back in the timeline, and all was seemingly well. Or at least as well as they could be given the circumstances. Sara's sister had also been killed sometime while the Legends were off fighting Savage in the past and future.

Carter and Kendra no longer had to look over their shoulders with Savage gone, and so they decided to part ways with their teammates, eager to see what trouble they could get up to on their own.

“I give it three months, tops,” Mick grunted at the rest of them.

Kendra elected to ignore the comment, and said, “Look, I just wanted to say, thank you. To all of you.”

Ray shrugged her praise off. “No thanks necessary. That's what teams are for. And who knows? Maybe you guys will rejoin the Legends someday.”

That got a round of hugs started. Deserey wasn't much of a hugger herself; the only people she ever hugged were her kids. Maybe her (ex) husband on a day she was feeling flirty enough. But that's it. Deserey didn't do hugs.

But she figured she could make an exception to the rule just this once. She let the hawks hug her goodbye.

As she pulled away from their embrace, Carter got an odd look, a sort of frown like he was trying hard to remember something difficult. “1942,” he said suddenly.

“What about it?” Deserey asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I can't remember exactly… something happens to you all there. I think I was there in a past life,” Carter told the Legends. “The memories are hazy… but I think you, uh…”

“Bite the bullet?” Ray guessed. “So, if we just don't time jump back to 1942 we'll be safe right?”

Deserey shrugged. It seemed like a safe enough bet to her anyway. Not that she had an overwhelming desire to go to 1942 anyway. World War II was without a doubt one of the nastiest times in history, everyone knew that. Events from that time still impacted today's world. Deserey would do everything in her power to avoid that particular period of time even without prompting from an apparent death sentence.

Everyone else was nodding along with their agreement as well, but Carter still looked skeptical. Dez couldn't blame him all that much. The Legends weren't exactly known to have plans that actually, well, worked.

“Be safe,” Kendra told them. “See you guys around.”

And with those final words, Hawkman and Hawkgirl sprouted their identical wings from their backs and soared into the air. The rest of the Legends watched them go; Mick followed them with his intense gaze. “Every time they do that I get hungry for chicken…”

“Hm.” Dez smirked and leaned an arm on his shoulder. “I could eat, actually.”

{~}

Six months later, the Legends are still goin’ at it. Traveling through time. Fixing aberrations (events that have changed history). Saving people. Sometimes they're messy about it; sometimes they don't follow Rip's rules the way that they prolly should do, but all in all they get the job done.

Dez thinks that's what's important here. They get the job done. ‘Cause they do. They do. They get the job done; so the screw ups really shouldn't matter. That much. Rip is just being dramatic when he lectures them.

Take their latest mission for example. Some assassins are hired to kill the king of France in 1637, armed to the teeth with weapons that are way, way, way beyond their years. Rip is sorta bein' a stickler for the rules.

It's all ‘wear these horribly uncomfortable old timey clothes for an undisclosed amount of time’ and ‘no you can't use your powers just because it will make things easier.’ and ‘Deserey please refrain from making provocative jokes at Mr. Rory! I don't care if he likes it and you're both bored! It's inappropriate!’

Like. Jeesh. Let'a gal have some fun, ya know?

But yeah.

They're all gathered around the yard, hidden by the bright green shrubs, wearing these ridiculously feathery hats and itchy blouses and tight ass leather boots. Deserey has her hair all braided up in a modern style, she don't even care, and she's wearin’ male clothes ‘cause they're a lot more comfortable. Fuck it.

Mick is next to her grumbling like a child, “I look like an idiot.”

And Martin is over on the other side of her, his black rimmed glasses he normally has are gone. It's the aesthetic, ya know? ‘Cause glasses were invented in 1286, but like Martin's are too modern. So. Dez hopes he can still see alright, anyway. Apparently, disabilities aren't nearly as important as the timeline.

Anyway, Martin's still grinnin’ like a total goofball, clearly enjoying himself more than everyone else, and he goes, “I rather like the style of le Mousquetaires de la garde.”

“You would,” Mick grunts.

“Can we concentrate, please?” Rip snaps. “King Louis XIII is scheduled to meet an untimely end at the hand of Cardinal Richelieu's men at any moment.”

Deserey hums to herself and leans against the stone wall behind her as Ray’s voice chimes in her ear through her com, ‘Roger that. I have eyes on the King.’

“Whatever you do, do not let him out of your sight.” Rip has his hands on his hips, face dead serious as always. He always gets super uptight like this when they're on missions; even more so uptight than usual.

Ray's voice chimes in again, sounding a bit put out this time. ‘But if today's when he's supposed to…You know…with the queen, I…’

This time it's Martin who speaks up on behalf of history. He's speaking with his hands, and gettin’ all excited about it and everything. “Raymond, without that consummation there will be no Louis coutures, no Sun King, and no golden age of France.”

“Which means by extension no Madame Curie, no Louis Pasteur,” Rip adds.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, history will be totally screwed, but I don't have to be there for the actual... you know, consummation, do I?’

Deserey smirks at this. She can't help it, okay? She just can't. It's kinda funny, sometimes, how squeamish Ray can be ‘bout these type'a things.  “Not into voyeurism, Ray?”

‘Uh…no? I mean, is anybody?’

“Depends on who we're watchin’ honestly,” Dez shrugs.

Mick grunts in agreement, “And what they're doing.”

Rip shots the pair of them a harsh look. “What do I keep telling you two?”

“Don't paint flowers on the helmet sitting on that shelf in the parlour?” Dez says.

“No drinking on the job,” Mick says.

Rip narrows his eyes at them warningly. Mick shrugs it off, and Dez grins back at him with mock sweetness. When Rip turns away from them, Deserey shouts after him, “Love you!”

The captain, naturally, ignores this and gets right back to business. “Sara,” he says into his com, “I need to know the queen is secure.”

Sara doesn't answer. Deserey isn't worried. Sometimes, she goes MIA if she's, ya know, gettin’ busy. And ya know what? Good for her. She deserves to have some fun after everything she's been through. The captain doesn't seem to think along the same lines, though, and he's still try’n’a get a response.

Deserey just sighs and turns her gaze to the balcony across the yard. It's beautiful scenery. Vines climbing up the painted stone wall, flowers dotting it here and there. With the sun shining in the background, birds chirping in the distance.

And then a black shape cut across the image. Then another. And another. And two more. They dash across the balcony, washing away the tranquility with a single stroke.

Deserey stands up right, ready for action in seconds. She goes, “Found the assassins.”

Everyone else is alert, too. Martin follows her gaze to the balcony and says, “I'd wager those aren't just swords on their hips.”

Rip says, “That would explain the aberration.”

“Nah, they're just happy to see us,” Dez shrugs.

Rip, in response to this, gives her the most exasperated look Dez has ever seen in her entire life. He says nothing, just lets out the heaviest sigh. Then, it's back to business.

Deserey loses sight of the others in the fight that ensues after that. The Legends scatter in every direction. Deserey tosses her hat off to the side and charges towards the balcony. The muscles in her legs tighten, feet pounding on cobblestone.

And then the dirt turns to sand and spreads over the yard, covers the stone in beige dunes. Those dunes shift towards the sky, shooting Dez up into the air. Off the ground and soaring over the balcony. Then, she's falling again, her feet touching down on the parapet.

The assassins in front of her swivel around, reaching for the weapons at their sides, but Deserey moves faster. Much faster. Sand shoots up from the bag on her hip. The grains encase her clenched fists, morphing, shifting. In a matter of seconds, the sand hardens into compacted constructs: boxing gloves.

Deserey leaps off the wall, her sand gauntlets colliding with the nose of the closest assassin. Before the next one can finish drawing his sword, Dez whirls around and subdues him with a punch to the jaw. She lets the sand gauntlets crumble away and bends down, checks ‘em over real quick, hookin’ their futuristic weapons to her belt before movin’ on.

Dez jogs along the length of the balcony. She's not sure where the others are or what they're doing, exactly, but she does hear Ray via the coms goin’ ‘Sorry to spoil the mood!’ So. It's safe to say the king made him.

Another assassin rounds the corner from somewhere inside the house and halts feet away from Deserey. With one swift flick of her wrist, a blast of sand shoots up from the dunes that are still gathered under the balcony. The assassin is knocked backwards, tumbling over the side of the railing with a cry that sounds suspiciously like the Wilhelm Scream.

The dunes below catch him, bury him up to his neck before compacting into makeshift restraints. He's not goin’ anywhere any time soon. Not until Dez lets the construct go or someone digs him outta it.

Deserey leans over the side of the balcony, wiggling her fingers at the assassin as he shouts French curses up at her. The sand carries the future tech up to her.

Through the coms, Mick is shouting, ‘Where the hell is Sara?!’

And a couple'a minutes later Rip is goin’ ‘Everyone back to the ship!’

And Jax goes, ‘That’s easier said than done.’ and then ‘Gray, meet me on the North Side of the house.’

‘It’s actually a chateau,’ Martin corrects. ‘What’s your plan?’

‘You’ll see!’

‘Oh, you've got to be kidding me…’

Dez just has time to wonder what the hell's goin’ on when Firestorm is seen zipping through the sky above, blasting assassins off their feet as they go along. Ray comes flyin’ in after them, wearin' his Atom suit and sending blue beams towards the ground to take out the assassins.

She's not surprised to hear Rip's annoyed voice in the coms, ‘Oh, bloody hell…’

Dez laughs into her fist at the captain’s expense. She throws her hand out, and a wave of sand lifts her off her feet. Dez forms an arc and goes sliding back to ground level, coming to a stop directly in front of Rip and his disapproving expression.

She goes, “What?”

Rip only offers her another scathing look as Ray and Firestorm land on either side of Dez, both with great big grins on their faces.

“That was the last assassin!”

“And what did we say about using powers and future tech, Dr. Palmer?” Rip snaps, turning from Ray to Dez. “Ms Dunet? Professor? Jax? Hm?”

Ray frowns, and he makes a small gesture at the assassin Deserey had trapped in her sand earlier (he's still spouting French curses). “Well, yeah, but they started it.”

Mick rounds the corner, his gruff voice piping in, “Don't look at me, I left my gun on the ship like a good little boy scout.”

“What's going on?! Who are you people?!”

The frantic voice of the king draws the Legends’ attention. He's bolting down the stairs, hustlin’ it over to the team. His eyes are wide and terrified. Deserey feels a little bad for him. Strange things like this are normal for her, but she knows it isn't for most other people, especially royal people from the 1800s. Seeing weirdness, like this, for the first time can be a bit… much.

Still. No one bothers to answer the king. It's a lot to explain, and it's better for the timeline if he doesn't know too much about the future, or so Rip keeps stressing to the rest of them, anyway.  That's why they have their ‘no powers, no tech’ rule, but whatever. It's fine. The job is done. History is preserved, and if the king tells anyone about this scene here they'll probably just think he was on some hallucinogenic or pissed off some gods or some shit. It's fine.

It's fine.

Sara comes trotting down the stairs a moment after the king. Her yellow dress is on backwards now, and the navy jacket is falling off her one shoulder. Aiming a brief curtsy in the king’s direction, she says, “I believe the queen is waiting for you in her bedroom.”

Dez snickers when Jax says, “And I bet she's all warmed up for you.”

Sara's sharp ex-assassin eyes fall on the youngest of the Legends, and she says, “Shut your mouth Jax, or I'll cut your eyes out and feed ‘em to you.” And then she turns on Deserey. “You too, Dez.”

This, of course, just made Dez laugh even more, as Jax and Sara began swatting at each other like children. The Legends are already walking off, heading back for the Waverider when Rip sighs.

“I believe our work here is done…”

{~}

“Put another successful mission down in the books.” Ray grins as everyone boards the Waverider. “Where are we off to next?”

“Gideon and I have calculated a 96% likelihood of another aberration in Bhopal, 1912,” Martin puts in.

Mick grunts in protest. “Why can't it be Aruba, 2016?”

“For real,” Jax agrees. “We've been going non-stop for the past six months.”

Deserey stops in the hallway, and points at the younger man. “That reminds me. I need t’call my kids. It's been a minute. Be back.”

She turns around, changing course for her bedroom instead of the bridge where everyone else is heading. Over the past six months Dez has renovated her room, adding all the personality into that she's able. She's actually thinkin’ about redecorating again soon, maybe, but as it is it's filled with hand crafted trinkets and pictures she's painted herself. She's still deciding on the overall theme though.

First thing, Dez discards her outfit for the mission and changes into jeans and a gray sweatshirt with a shell and sea turtle depicted on the front and the words ‘Shell Yeah!’. The future tech from the mission is just tossed off to the side, sliding under her bed.

She changes within a few seconds and then roots through her belongings to find what she's lookin’ for: a hand-held device no bigger than a cellphone with a wide screen across the face and two buttons on either side. See, it's a bit tricky to contact family when she's living outside the timeline; so Ray and Martin helped her with this little project (and by that she means they built it for her).

It's a communication device that has coverage via the temporal vortex. The communicator’s signal reaches out across the timestream, so long as the other person has the other communicator, which Dez’s kids have with them back in 2016.

Dez presses the call button and heads for the bridge with the others. It doesn't take but a minute; after spending so long on this ship she's started learning all the shortcuts.

The team is still goin’ on about the mission when she finds them. Sara is saying, “Nobody wants to address the fact that Cardinal Richelieu's men were armed with laser guns?”

Deserey's communicator comes to life with her kids’ faces just as the word ‘laser guns’ leave Sara's lips. Daren’s eyes light up at the sound of it. “Whoa, cool! Laser guns! Can I have one?”

Next to Daren, Anita rolls her eyes and smiles at her mother. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Legends.”

“Hi, babies,” Dez says and blows kisses to them through the screen.

Sara clicks her tongue and points a finger gun at the kids before moving to the center of the bridge and leaning on the brand new console.

“Hello, Dunet children,” Martin greets politely before turning back to Sara. “Clearly those guns were provided to them by a time pirate or some-such.”

With Ray waving like an energetic maniac behind him, Jax flashes a peace sign at Anita and Daren and then says, “Ah, Grey's right. We need to find out who so—”

“You can get another chance of destroying the very history that you're supposed to be protecting?” Rip cuts in. He's scowling at the team in disapproval, his voice taking on The Parent Tone as it so often does when he's speaking to them.

“Ah, I knew I forgot something… The part where Rip tells us everything that we did wrong!” Ray says with a sigh.

“Yeah, hold on, kiddos, Mama's gotta get chewed out by the captain,” Deserey tells Anita and Daren, which has the pair of them snickering into their hands.

“As in seducing the Queen of France just before she's supposed to conceive the country's greatest hope for the future?” Rip is scolding Sara, his voice overlapping with Dez’s.

Sara leans forward to point a smug finger at the captain, “She seduced me.”

This information gets Anita and Daren to giggle twice as much. Hey, they're middle schoolers. They can't be expected to be mature about sex.

“All wrong,” Rip continues over the kids’ giggling, which diminishes the seriousness of his rant a great deal, by the way. “As in violating our policy of not using super powers in front of people?” He shoots a glare at Jax, Ray, and Dez here.

“They had laser guns.” Jax makes a face back at the captain.

“Oh, yeah, you never answered. Can I have one, Ma?” Daren's voice pipes up from the communicator.

“Uh, maybe for your birthday,” Dez tells him.

He is not getting a laser gun for his birthday.

“At least I didn't screw up this time.” Mick is fiddling with something in his pocket, Rip narrows his eyes back at him in disbelief.

The captain marches over to the resident arsonist, snatches something out of his hands and goes, “Ahem.” He flicks his hand, revealing the golden chain of a necklace that Mick had apparently stolen at some point during the mission. No one is surprised, really. Mick is a thief after all.

He shrugs, “Stealing's not screwing up.”

“Cool, so, I'm talking to my kids, everybody get the hell out,” Dez says.

Rip starts to say, “Deserey —”

“Nope,” she cuts him off. “No more lectures. And you didn't say hi to my kids, by the way.”

“Well, neither did Mr. Rory.”

“Good point.” Mick walks over to Dez and snatches the communicator from Dez’s hands, though he is holding it upside down. “S’up, squirts?”

The kids wave back, and Mick belches before tossing the communicator at Rip before walking out of the room. “Yes, fine, hello, children,” Rip says, passing the communicator back to Deserey. “Happy?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Dez grins at him. When Rip turns to follow the rest of the team out of the room, she calls after him, “Love you!”

He hums and looks back briefly. “I imagine if that were true you'd actually listen to me.” And then he's gone.

Jax leans over Dez's shoulder on the way out and waves to the kids. “Later, guys. Oh, and good luck at the game tomorrow, Nita!”

“Thank you!” Anita turns to her mother with a worried expression as soon as all the Legends have left the room. “You're going to make it aren't you?”

“Of course, I'll be there.” Deserey walks over to parlour and steals one of Rip’s reclining chairs so she can sit comfortably while she talks to her kids. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, baby girl.”

Anita smiles a little at that, but she still looks a bit worried. Deserey's kids aren't t dumb; they understand that sometimes (well more often than not really) stuff goes wrong on the Legends' missions. Sometimes people get lost in random time periods, like when Ray, Sara, and Kendra were marooned in the 60s. Anita and Daren have even snuck their way into a few Legend missions over the last six months.

They know how their missions end up going.

But Deserey also understands that Anita’s soccer game is very important to her, especially since it's for the state championship. Dez means it when she says she's makin’ it to that game. She's not in the business of disappointing her children. Believe her. She's makin' it to that game.

“I have a time ship. There is absolutely no way I could miss it.”

“What if something happens to the ship?”

“I will still find a way to be there. I promise.”

She talks with her kids for another thirty minutes, listening to them intently as they tell her about their days. Daren has an idea for a new engineering project that Deserey doesn't very much understand herself, but he's very excited about the idea and she's proud of him for getting creative. Anita's test scores for the math test she had last week came back; she's, unsurprisingly passed with flying colors.

And then in an extraordinarily Legend like fashion, the ship jolts violently. Deserey falls to the floor and drops the communicator. She hears her kids calling for her and scrambles to find the communicator. If it's not one thing it's another. Jesus.

The kids start asking questions one after another the second Dez's fingers touch the communicator.

“Is everything okay?”

“What's going on?”

“Are you crashing?”

“If you land in Ancient China again can you bring egg rolls home for dinner?”

Deserey gets to her feet and stares out the big window at the front of the Waverider. The green sea is still swirling outside the ship, and they're still flying steady through the time vortex. The jolt is just one and done, it seems. Still. It's weird. It's weird. The Waverider never jolts. Not like this. Not unless they're time jumping or crashing or something’s damaged it.

Something’s up.

Deserey frowns and turns back to the communicator. “Look, kiddos, I'mma call ya back, okay? I'll bring home the egg rolls.”

Anita starts to say, “Mom—”

“I'll make it to the game, I promise.”

In the next few minutes, the other Legends arrive back on the bridge, each now changed into their own comfortable attire. Rip explains the jolt: a time quake, he calls it. Caused by huge aberrations. Then he shows them all just what that aberration is. And, and —

“Wow…somebody nuked New York…” Jax is leaning heavily on the console as everyone gathers around to see the screens.

“Yup.” Sara stands from her own leaning position and paces the length of the room. Arms crossed. Deeply serious expression. “I think we can all agree who that someone is.”

“Nazis…” Mick growls. “I hate Nazis.”

“Literally everyone should.” Dez pats the console in front of him and pulls a face. This is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.

“They were aided by some time traveling ally, obviously.” Rip continues to stare at the screen in dismay.

“Wait, does that mean that the Allied Forces lost the war?” As a Jewish man Martin looks the most offended by this idea.

“In which case why aren't we speaking German right now?” Jax asks.

“Because we're in the temporal zone,” Ray guesses.

"And because it takes time for the consequences of an aberration─ even one as cataclysmic as this one─ to ripple through time," Rip adds. It's something he always reminds them. Time is like cement, it takes a minute to settle and harden.

“So, how much time do we have to stop it?” Sara asks.

Rip doesn't answer the question. Instead, he spins around, waving his hands over his head and pointing dramatically at the floor. “Isn't traveling to that particular time line precisely what we were told not to do?”

Well." Sara comes up on his right side and leans over the console to look him in the eyes. "What's the alternative? We let New York blow up?'

"It's not like there are Time Masters left to stop it," Ray puts in.

"Miss Lance is right," Martin adds. "We are history's last line of defense."

Jax nods. "I like the sound of that."

"I'd rather die than speak German," Mick agrees.

And at this point, Dez figures she might as well add her two cents as well. Everyone else is, and Deserey has never been one to keep quiet. "It's not like we haven't done anything dangerous before. Ray fought a twenty foot robot for God's sake!” She tosses her arm out towards the Atom for emphasis.

Rip sighs and goes over to the other side of the room for a moment. He runs his hands over his face. This team. They will all be the death of him, Dez is sure that's what he's thinkin’ right now.

He turns around again, arms swinging as he speaks. "Best case scenario, let's assume that Mr. Hall is wrong and we all end up not dying in 1942. What if in endeavoring to save New York, we make things worse?"

Martin speaks with some fire in his voice. Again, he’s a Jewish man. He is bound to take this attack from the Nazis personally, even more so than the rest of them. "What could be worse than a genocidal fascist nuclear-armed super power?"

Unfortunately, Rip has no rebuttal for this one and all he can do is stare helplessly back at the Professor and shrug.

"Relax, Captain," Sara slaps him lightly on the arm before strutting away. "We got this."

{~}

It’s maybe half an hour later when Ray and Martin present the team with their oh so brilliant plan. Apparently, the Nazis got to Albert Einstein of all people and forced him to build an A-Bomb, which is how they managed to destroy New York. Go figure. The idea is to kidnap the mad scientist (sorry physicist) before the Nazis get the chance.

Deserey isn't all that wild about men of science (besides the few friends she has like Ray and Martin), but that might be because of the sheer amount of them that tried experimenting on her when she was a teenager. Yeah. That very well might have somethin' to do with it.

But it doesn't matter what Dez thinks, because the Legends are in 1942, New York, and they are on their way to abduct a man history regards as one of the greatest scientists of all time. Fun stuff. Can't get shit like this back home, Dez'll tell ya that much.

She runs her hand through the water of a fountain as they pass, smirking to herself. “Welcome to Gotham.”

“I thought Gotham was in New Jersey?” Ray tilts his head in her direction, looking totally confused.

“Ah, yes. But New York is also nicknamed Gotham,” Dez tells him.

“Really?” He frowns, mulling that information over. “That seems…confusing.”

Martin cuts in, getting them both back on track, asking, “How do we find Einstein in a city of seven million people?”

"Well," Ray grins, "we just look for the physicist with the crazy white hair." At Martin's aghast look, he promptly adds, "Uh, the other one." Which is not better in Martin's opinion, Dez thinks, ‘cause he’s frowning. Scowling, really.

"Daw, we only give ya shit 'cause we love ya, Marty," Dez tells him, batting her eyes at him as she comes up on his one side. She blows kisses at him, too, for good measure.

"Would it kill you people to love me a little less?" Martin grumbles.

"According to Gideon, there's a cocktail party in Columbia this evening," Rip informs.

"Cocktail party?" Mick perks up. "Means booze. Where is it?"

"...Columbia. I just said─ why does no one ever listen to me?" Rip whines.

"Want the truth?" Dez says. "Ya just don't have that pizzazz—” She does jazz hands here. “ —that'll hold the attention of six people with really short attention spans. You need t’use a little more flair, ya know? Get us all excited and pumped up for the missions.”

Rip doesn't get to retort, before attention is brought over to Sara when Ray asks, “Hey, where are you going?”

Sara stops mid step, turns and stares back at Ray. “I have a grandfather in the FBI. Thought I'd check in, in case we need backup.” Something sounds a bit off with her voice, in Dez’s opinion, but she can't pinpoint what exactly.

“Oh. Good plan.”

Ray waits until she takes off and then starts to follow her, only to be stopped himself when Rip jumps in. “Oi! Where do you think you're going?”

“Follow Sara,” Ray says. “In case she needs backup.” He takes a small case from his pocket, the one he keeps the Atom suit tucked away in.

“She's a reformed assassin, Ray, pretty sure she can handle herself,” Dez says.

Ray just shrugs in response and runs off after Sara. Dez rolls her eyes, and Rip sighs, goin’ “Oh, God…”

{~}

The Columbia building is packed with people (mostly old white men). Everyone is mingling, while the band plays classical music and butlers walk around carrying trays of champagne. Crystal chandeliers hang above, casting a soft golden light over the room and party goers.

Deserey lets out a string of curses as her ankle twists and she trips into Rip for the fifth or sixth time since leaving the Waverider. “That's it! Fuck these shoes.” She uses the captain to balance her weight as she struggles to unbuckle the death traps from her feet. Despite the thick heels for ankle support, Deserey still can't find balance in the damned things.

Removing the shoes is made into even more of a hassle thanks to the bright orange skirt of the cocktail dress she's wearing. Which. Okay, she will admit the dress is gorgeous, especially with the lace shoulders, and she does look hot as hell in it, but she ain't used to wearing shit like this. So, the skirt keeps gettin' in the way, and she keeps steppin’ on it, and the shoes are fuckin’ awful.

Once Dez is able to wiggle her feet out of the miniature prisons, she discards them in a nearby plant pot, receiving the weirdest looks from the boys. She stares back at them. “What? Did one of you want to wear ‘em or somethin’?”

“I don't believe we have the same shoe size,” Martin says.

Rip doesn't say anything, opting to snatch a champagne glass off the tray a passing butler is holding. He gulps down half the glass the second he starts drinking.

Mick glances around the place with a sorta vague interest. “Never been to a nerd party before…”

“Me neither,” Dez says. “Unless you count those couple'a business gala thingies I was dragged to…”

“You mean physics symposium?” Martin corrects them.

“Nerd party,” Dez and Mick say simultaneously.

“Keep your eyes open,” Rip orders. He's finished his glass of champagne and started on another one, Dez notices. “We're sure to be in the company of German spies.”

At this, Deserey gets serious. She eyes the crowd, taking in the details, watching their movements, their body language, listening to the words they speak (or what she can make out of them anyway).

There's a group pacing around on the other side of the room. Soldiers, guards. They're American uniforms, but they're just a bit off, as any self respecting army brat will notice immediately. Deserey had spent a great deal of time memorizing details of every army badge she could as a kid. These guys aren't American soldiers.

“That's him! The greatest mind the world has ever known.”

Martin's excited chatter brings Dez's attention over to one corner where an ugly white haired man is feeling up some women who have gotta be half his age. At first, the women seem offended and smack his hands away, but then, then, for reasons Deserey cannot fathom, they get all giggly and seem kinda into him? Like. Dafuq?

Deserey eyes Einstein from across the room. This guy is the greatest mind the world has ever known? “Seems like a bit of a stretch to me.” She puts one hand on her hip, totally unimpressed. “I'm pretty sure my brother has a higher IQ than him, actually, so yeah. ‘The greatest mind the world has ever known’ is definitely reachin’ a bit, Marty, sorry.”

Mick chuckles as he watches the old man flirt with twenty year old women. “I like him. He's a pig.”

Deserey clicks her tongue and gives Mick a dubious look, the same one Martin is giving both of them, in fact. “You would like ‘im wouldn't ya?” She snaps over in the direction of the guys she'd been watching earlier. “Spies. Over there.”

“Notice their uniforms,” Rip says, picking up on the same detail Dez has. “The stitching on the labels, it's exquisite.”

“You mean to say fake?” Martin asks.

“Mhm,” Rip hums through another sip of champagne.

The team decides that they need to move, now, and fast, before the German spies can get to Einstein. Martin, Mick, and Dez move forward; Martin goes, “Let me do the talking. I speak physicist.” Which of course goes super well (please note the sarcasm).

Einstein decides within seconds that he doesn't like or trust them when Martin says, “My colleagues and I were just having a rather spirited debate about your theory of relativity. Perhaps, you can help us settle it?” ‘Cause clearly the ladies aren't that into physics after all. ‘Cause both young women are scoffing and walking away the second they think they're all gonna start ramblin’ on about science and whatnot.

“I was this close to getting them both to come back to my room,” Einstein growls. He pinches his fingers together to illustrate his point, his thick German accent bleeding through with each word.

“What about your wife?” Martin asks. He seems genuinely baffled by the idea of a husband being unfaithful. Which makes sense given the intense fercity at which he loves his own wife Clarissa.

Einstein huffs, his whisker-like beard ruffling with agitation. “The one who died or the one who divorced me thirty years ago?”

Deserey taps her chin pretending to think really hard about that question. “Hm. Not sure. Which one was your first-cousin?”

Einstein only gives her a hateful expression at this one, to which she returns with one of her own. Things only escalate further when the Legends start dragging him off towards the exit and he starts screaming, “HeLp!! I’M bEiNg KiDnApPeD!!”

“It might not look like it, but we are the good guys,” Martin tells him.

Einstein huffs and goes, “Why should I believe that you are really physicists?”

“Because for every action —” Martin swings his arm, and with one swift punch to the nose Einstein is out cold, falling back into Mick’s arms. “—there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Dez clicks her tongue and goes, “Well, I ain't gonna carry ‘im.” And she stalks off out of the room, leaving hundreds of spectators behind wondering what the hell is goin' on. She spots Rip grabbing for another champagne glass on the way out.

{~}

Welp. That plan sucked ass, Dez thinks to herself as she slouches in the recliner in the parlour. Turns out, Einstein is a moron, and the Germans have a backup person to kidnap for information on Atomic bombs: Mileva Maric, Einstein’s (ex) wife (that's the one who divorced him thirty years ago, not the first-cousin one who died, to be clear).

In a truly Legend like fashion, they failed to fix things the first time around, and now they're goin' on round two. Apparently, since the Germans couldn't get their hands on Einstein himself, they decided to take Maric instead, and since all the focus was on Einstein no one was there to protect her.

“If I had to guess, I'd say she was with Damien Darhk,” Ray says. He, Martin, Rip, Sara, and Dez are all gathered in the parlour talkin' over their next move.

Martin frowns and says, “Damien Darhk, as in…”

“The man who murdered your sister…” Rip finishes.

All eyes settle on Sara here. Dez is more than a little worried. She's never fought the guy herself, but she does know that anyone who gets kicked out of a literal league of assassins for being too brutal is not someone to mess with. Sure, Sara can hold her own when she's focused enough, but Dez worries her grief may cloud her judgment.

“How is he even alive in 1942?” Martin asks.

“Thanks to the Lazarus Pit, he hardly ages,” Ray explains. Then he gives Sara an accusing look. “Sara's kind of an expert on Damien Darhk.”

Sara glares back at him. “Drop it, Ray.”

Ray does not drop it, in fact. Instead, he says, “I'm sorry, but while you were all saving Einstein Sara was off on her own little side mission to kill Laurel's killer in the past.”

Sara’s glare intensifies, and Dez finds herself recoiling in her seat just in case things start to get ugly. “And I suppose you never thought about saving your fiance?”

“Yeah, of course I did, but I never did it, because it's against the rules.”

“What rules? We're not Time Masters. There are no rules.”

“Well, if there were, there'd certainly be one about lying to your team!”

“Listen to yourself!” Sara throws her hands up in the air, taking a step closer. “Look, we get it. You're perfect. Always the Boy Scout, aren't you, Raymond?”

With the use of his full name Deserey worries someone will have to step in to break them up soon. Especially after Ray shoots back with, “Well, I could say the same about you being an assassin.”

Sara huffs and steps even closer to Ray, everyone else tense as they watch the childish argument ensue. “Well, if we're being honest, let me get something off my chest. You think you're such a big hero, Ray? Without that fancy suit you're nothing but a self-righteous rich guy.”

Dez thinks this is a bit too far. Ray works hard to do what he does, and it means a lot to him. To stomp all over that is just down right murderous. Then again Sara is known to be the deadliest of assassins for a reason, she supposes…

Ray looks a bit put out, now, but he still says, “Maybe you're right, but without my suit there's no way of finding Einstein's ex-wife or Damien Darhk for that matter.”

“Sorry, what are you saying?” Rip asks, feeling safe enough to jump back into the conversation now.

“That anyone who spends a lot of time around uranium, in this case Damien Darhk, picks up trace amount of radiation, which my suit can track.”

“And lead us straight to the Nazis nuclear bomb!” Martin realizes.

“Thought it was Atomic?” Dez corrects, earning a careless shrug from the professor.

{~}

The Legends are at The Garrett Shipyard in record time, all suited up in their superhero getups (which they hardly get to use anymore;since boarding the time ship they've become a bit redundant; but everyone will look for any excuse to wear them).

For some fuckin' reason they bring Einstein. Dez doesn't know why. It's a stupid decision in her opinion, but whatever. She ain't the captain.

The fight goes to shit fast. Both sides squabble with neither makin' much leeway. Then Sara sees Darhk and abandons the mission to pursue him. She ignores Rip when he tries ordering her to fall back. Mick gets shot at some point. The Nazis get away with the A-Bomb, but at least they manage to get Maric away from them.

Real fast the Legends rush back to the ship and Rip takes the whole ass ship underwater. ‘Cause he figures that Darhk and the Nazis are gonna attack from the Atlantic.

“I'm piloting us on a collision course with the torpedo,” Rip tells the Legends.

Oh Jesus fucking Christ.

“Now with any luck it will hit us before New York City.”

“How is that lucky?” Mick barks. He's still pretty hurt. It's hard telling how he might be affected if the ship gets jostled around too much. Plus, ya know, gettin' hit with a bomb is just shitty in general.

“Can the Waverider even handle the blast?” Sara asks. Also a valid question. ‘Cause if not, they'll all pretty much be screwed.

“Honestly, I have absolutely no idea…” Rip confesses.

Dez grits her teeth and grips the safety harness tightly between her fingers. “If I die and miss Anita’s game…”

She lets the threat hang in the air, not really sure how to finish it, if she's being honest. She's just kinda pissed. It's so inconvenient when your time ship is destroyed by an Atomic Bomb. Makes it much harder to get around.

“Well, I'm sorry Ms. Dunet but I can't be sure,” Rip says. “Which is why I'm doing this…”

Before anyone can ask any questions, Rip takes a tablet in hands and pushes a button. That's the last thing Deserey sees aboard the Waverider. That's the last time she sees the ship or anyone on her team for a while, actually.

There's a flash of light and, for a second everything goes dark. That's all there is for a solid minute. Just darkness and shadows. Darkness and shadows and darkness and shadows and —

— and then, and then, she's falling. Hurtling towards the ground at death defying speeds. The wind whistles in her ears; her braids fling back into her face, obscuring her vision. Her arms flail, blindly searching for the sand bag at her hip but unable to find it.

Then, all at once, she stops falling. With a grunt, she hits something solid. It's green and clear all at once; transparent so she can see the familiar skyscrapers below. She recognizes the scenery even from this height. Her old childhood home. Gotham City. But from the look of the construction, this isn't 2016. Some time in the 30s, she'd guess from just eyeballin’ it, but she needs t’see the date on the newspaper or something to be sure.

Whatever Rip had done threw her — and presumably the others as well — back in time.

Fuckin’ lovely.

Deserey gets a closer look at what's caught her. She's being suspended in the air, still thirty some odd feet above the ground, sitting in the palm of a giant, glowing, neon hand. Yup. A giant green transparent hand.

What the —?

Deserey moves her gaze, following the appendage where the arm should attach to a body. Instead, it's just a long, green line that leads to…a ring. On a finger. On another hand. But this hand is normal sized and belongs to a man with pale skin. Blonde hair and blue eyes behind a violet mask.

He's dressed horrendously in a thick dark purple cape, ugly green pants, and a blinding red shirt depicting an old lantern lamp on the chest. The man is hovering a few feet in front of her, the ring on his finger glowing with a faint green light; the glowing hand that's caught Deserey is coming out from the ring, she realizes. The ring created the glowing hand.

“Fear not, Gotham citizen!” the unfortunately dressed man shouts (and even by Gotham standards his voice comes out campy and silly, especially with his odd word choice). “The Green Lantern will always save the day!”

---

Yup. So, this is the last chapter. I figured I should probably go ahead and finish this story since it's been sitting for a few years and I'm technically rewriting it via Flash/Batman crossover type thing.

Hope y'all enjoyed! Sorry if this last chapter was a bit rushed but yeah I pretty much mentally checked out of this story a while ago, but I do still love and miss Dezzie and the Arrowverse. Hence the rewrite. Feel free to read if you want. Or don't. Your choice. I just write for fun not for fame lmao

But if you've managed to stick around until now thank you so much for giving my lil fic a shot. Dez and the Legends really helped me through a lot at the time I started writing this fic so it means a lot to me even now a few years later. The legends of tomorrow is still low key my go to comfort show haha

So. Yeah. Thanks for coming with me on this journey. I'm sure we lost some readers along the way as people stopped using Wattpad or lost interest and what not. But new readers are always welcome too. And even though I decided to change things and rewrite this story this version will remain up. It will always be here to help those who are struggling with depression and the likes feel seen and heard as that was the main goal with this fic when I started it.

Someday I might write some one shots to fill in the blanks of what I skipped or au versions of things that happened. Who knows.

Hopefully I'll see y'all in the next one, if not best wishes on your reading/writing journeys and life in general.

Love ya 🫶🤟😘

~ Elsie