DESEREY THRIVES IN

chaos. She has for as long as she can remember.

Since she was in grade school and pushed Zane Boris off the monkey bars for talking trash about the girl in their class with greasy hair. Since middle school, too, when she put the fear of God into a boy named Cato Draven for picking on her best friend Jonathan (who, incidentally, turned out to be a whole other brand of chaotic, but whatever). Since the day of her wedding and a Man-Bat went and carried away her groom.

Deserey would go so far as to say she has always thrived on chaos. It's all she's ever known. She gets anxious when there's nothing chaotic goin' on.

Which means, when Central City, her home as of a week ago, explodes, she's ready for it. She's ready to leap into action.

It means, when the Mardon Brothers', two men who killed someone and robbed a bank earlier that day, plane goes down, Dez hops in her car and floors it in the direction of the crash. Without a second thought. She just goes.

It takes maybe ten minutes to find the bulk of it. In a ditch just a few miles out from the barn. Bolts and parts scattered in every which direction.

Dez stomps on the brake pedal and flings herself back into the pouring rain. Sprints for the wreckage. And thank God she decided to heed her dad's advice and wear boots, because there is so much mud. Everywhere. Just mud, mud, mud. It slows her down, but she manages to get to where she needs to be.

Deserey scans the scene, running her eyes over the scattered plane parts and squinting against the rain still pelting down on her. There's a lump feet away, next to where the steering mechanism had fallen. The only indication the lump is a man is the shallow, ragged breath that comes and goes all too slow. Barely audible over the pounding of water droplets. He's buried under what appears to be the whole ass plane. Jesus Christ.

Dez squats next to him, and mostly to see how responsive this guy is, she goes, "Hey, bud. How's life?"

All she gets in return is the death stare. Whether that's because he's being stubborn or because he physically can't speak due to injuries is unclear. But, hey, he's conscious so that's something.

"You know where you at?"

He still don't say nothin' to her, just sorta stares back at her with contempt. So, she sorta thinks he understands her and all that, he's just bein' an ass. She thinks. Dez ain't no doctor, though.

When she shines the light of her phone into his eyes he flinches away from it. So, he's got a concussion prolly. At the very least. One of his arms is twisted at an awkward angle too. Dez guesses this brother must have gotten the bulk of it when the plane went down.

Whichever brother this is.

She's not totally sure which Mardon is in front of her right now, but he's not the one that shot at her and the older two detectives. This one's got shorter hair and more distinguished facial hair. Dez thinks he might be the older one; she wants to say his name is Mark...?

Anyway, Mardon, whichever one this is, is glaring up at her from under the plane wreckage. There's mud, and blood, and rain all splattered over his face. Some piece of the plane, maybe the door or the roof, Dez isn't too sure, is laying flat on top of him. She's gonna have a time gettin' this mother fucker outta here, she'll tell ya that much.

"Color me crazy, but weren't there supposed to be two of you?" Deserey quirks her brow at the Mardon brother in front of her. The one under the plane who might be older brother Mark. With the possible concussion and at least a broken arm but probably a lot more shattered bones and likely ruptured spleens or something really bad like that, too. He looks pale as fuck on top of it all.

"Hey don't get sick, now, ya hear me? 'Cause I can't gettcha on your side right now. You'd prolly drown in it, kay? Hey." Dez shakes him a little when he starts nodding off. "Where's your brother at, huh?"

A crack! rings through the air. At first, Dez thinks lightning (it is storming after all), but then something whooshes by her ear and lodges itself in the mud next to her knee. Dez glances back behind her, where a long shadow is being cast across the ground via her car's headlights. A dark figure steps forward. Stumbles more like.

And there he is.

The second brother. The one with the longer, shaggier blonde hair, drenched and plastered to his face and dyed brown from the rain. Clothes torn and bloody and muddy.

There's a gun in his hand.

His hand is shaking, and his arm keeps swaying back and forth. He's seeing double, she's thinking. Also, he might have a concussion at least, what with how profusely his head is bleeding. Though, with the twitchy movements, she won't be surprised to learn about a fair amount of nerve damage as well. Then again, that could also be from the shock of this situation, hard to say. Not everyone is used to chaos the way that Dez is, she remembers. Anyway, this Mardon Brother probably has a few broken ribs too, if the way he's clutching his side is any indication.

Dez turns back to the brother who's probably Mark. "Nevermind, found 'im."

"Hey!" The brother with the gun, who's most likely Clyde, fires off a round, only managing to hit a clump of mud to the far left, thankfully. "Stay the hell away from him!"

Dez stands and takes a step back, keeping her hands up. Fuckin' idiots with guns, she swears. "You want him to stay under there, huh?" And okay, shouting back at the guy with a firearm in his possession is not the smartest course of action, she will admit. But, come on. Bro's bro could be dying over here.

"You're one of those cops," Mardon, the one with the gun who's probably Clyde, says. The gun is still swaying from side to side. That makes Dez nervous. The only thing more dangerous than a man who knows how to use a gun is a man who doesn't or can't.

"Well, the actual job title is criminal behavioral analyst, but yeah," Dez nods. "Let's not get hung up on the semantics."

Deserey makes no move towards the brother under the debris. He's gotten the worst of it. He needs medical attention. They both do but Mark especially. Fuckin' around with some asshole with a gun ain't gonna get nobody no where. It's just wasting time.

"You only want to get him and take the both of us to Iron Heights!" Clyde screams.

Well. He's not totally wrong.

"As per the usual turn of events when someone does something illegal." Dez glances between the two brothers. Between the barrel of the gun and the gasping man under the metal plane.

Helluva first day. Jesus fuckin' Christ.

"Look, I wanna take ya in, but I wanna take you in alive. This bullshit here's not gonna save your brother." Dez nods at his gun, his gun that he still can't aim right. "He's gonna die if we don't get him out of that mess and into a hospital."

Mardon with the gun, Clyde, glares at her, and then, just for a split second, he actually manages to get the gun aimed right at her face. She's not scared of being shot, not exactly. But she is wondering how her kids would handle it. Their mother being shot and killed a week after moving to a brand new city, a brand new state. The irony is that they moved here to be safer. Ha!

Dez is fully expecting him to pull the trigger; she's expecting to be killed right then and there. And this guy, he'd do it. She can see it in his eyes. He'd already killed one person today, 'cause it was him, wasn't it, this guy right here in front of her, that shot that man this morning. He's the one who pulled the trigger, not the other brother trapped under the plane. So, he's already killed someone once today; he has no qualms about killing someone else.

But then, but then, the other brother, the one under the plane, he speaks up. It's quiet, and Dez just barely hears it over the rain drumming on the hood of her car behind her and slapping against the metal plane door he's wedged under, over the sirens whaling in the city that's still miles and miles away from where they are now. But she hears it. The weakened rasp coming from the lump under the various plane parts.

"Clyde..."

The man with the gun snaps his head around to face the rubble. Eyes wide, mouth agape. For a split second, he's just a little brother, terrified and confused, and his older brother (Dez thinks, because he just looks at him that way) is in no position to get him out of the mess this time. This time he's the one who has to get his brother out, and he's not sure how to do that just yet.

But at least Deserey has confirmation on their names now, and she also knows Mark can speak. That's good. She thinks he'll probably make it.

"We need to get this thing off him," Dez says when the younger Mardon glances back in her general direction. "You good t'do that?"

Clyde nods, but he stumbles when he puts the gun in his back pocket and makes his way over. They lift on the count of three. Feet sliding and squelching in the mud. Fingers slipping off the metal. The rain continues pelting down and obscuring Deserey's vision; her drenched hair keeps sliding in her eyes, too. The muscles in her arms protest against lifting so much weight, never mind her now definitely dislocated shoulder ripping further from its socket; her legs buckle under her.

Clyde cries out from the strain on his ribs and drops it, which leaves Dez holding a twelve thousand something pound hunk a'scrap by herself.

She lowers it back to the ground as gently as she can. Not that they moved it much. 'Cause again it's twelve thousand, some odd pounds. It's still pouring, and the metal slips from her hands and slams back to the ground. One of the edges are sharp, and as it slides over her palm, she can feel the skin tear.

Great, fuckin' fantastic, Deserey grumbles to herself. Now I'll need a tetanus shot. But honestly? Realistically, two people were never going to be able to lift this mother fucker, especially since one of them is injured.

Mark screams when it crushes his probably already broken legs. Dez winces at the sound.

"Can't see anything with this stupid fucking rain," Clyde starts complaining. "Wish it would stop."

And then, and then, get this, right, it does. The storm stops the second he says the word. Rain, thunder, lightning and all. Just stop like that.

Clyde's eyes go wide, and his head snaps up towards the sky. "Did I just...?"

"Mhm. Yup." Dez doesn't mean to sound so impatient. It's just that this isn't even remotely the weirdest thing she's seen in her life. It's not even the tip of the iceberg. But she's aware that not every city is as insane as Gotham is; so, most people, when they suddenly acquire super powers, that tends to give 'em a bit of pause.

But Dez? She's squared off against a woman who could get houseplants to enact her will on a whim. And that same woman can mind control people using spours and pheromones and who knows what else. She can literally kill someone with a kiss.

So yeah. The ability to control weather is as dry as dust in her opinion...

Clyde is staring at his hands, though, mouth slightly agape, and Deserey already has a few guesses of what he'll say before he says it. "I'm a fuckin' God," is what eventually comes out.

Deserey clasps her hands like she's giving a prayer and she goes, "O'mine own most wondrous and pow'rful l'rd, alloweth's moveth this the horror so that I may receiveth on with mine own life, prithee and thanketh thee."

He's staring at her now. She stares back. And then, from out of nowhere, there's a gust of wind that throws her to the ground. It takes leaves and debris with it, and Deserey swings her arms over her face to protect herself from cuts. She can hear it whistling in her ears: WHOOOSH!!

And her curls are flinging in every which direction, and it's hard to see, but she hears the plane part that's been pinning Mark go soaring. It crashes, Dez thinks, on the other side of the clearing, and it sounds like it hits with enough force to be crushed.

And then the wind dies, just like the storm before. It's there and gone in the span of three seconds. And when Deserey sits up, the Mardon Brothers have disappeared, too.

Jesus Christ.

That's when the emergency vehicles reach the scene; West and Chyre are right behind them. The two detectives get a statement from Dez as one of the EMT's sets her shoulder right and wraps up the cut on her hand. Neither of them believe her when she tells them the Mardons are alive, that they just vanished, literally gone with the wind.

The Brothers are declared dead officially. Everyone ignores Deserey when she tries to tell them otherwise, which really pisses her off. That's one thing Dez will not tolerate: being ignored.

The only reason she decides to let it go, is because West gets an alarming call. They'll find out the truth about the Mardons someday anyway. Annoying as it is to be brushed off. The Mardons will come back, she knows they will. They'll come back and threaten the city with a tornado or a flood or something to that effect.

But yeah.

Joe gets a frantic call from his daughter. He steps away, but Dez can still hear him from across the clearing, "What happened to Barry??"

{~}

CHAOS IS SOMETHING

DARRYL has gotten used to havin' in his life.

Since meeting this girl with a spray paint can at eighteen and a man with crocodile scales instead of skin tried eating him on their first date. Since marrying that girl and having their honeymoon interrupted via mobsters overtaking the cruise ship her brother got them on. Since having kids with that woman and moving to a whole other state to prove a point about the anti-death penalty in New Jersey.

Since meeting Deserey, Darryl has gotten used to chaotic things happening around him. So, when the Dunets move to another city and it explodes a week after his first thought is, 'Well, that's odd, it ain't even Tuesday.'

There's a science laboratory at the epicenter of it all. Place called STAR. Run by some guy named Harrison Wells. Darryl's been seeing the name come up every two seconds as he scrolls through the channels on the television. Guess he built a machine, the Particle Accelerator, which from Darryl's understanding is supposed to help make the world turn a little bit better somehow.

He's never got the whole science deal. Whenever his science-smart friends start talkin' he usually just lets them go on and nods along.

Anyway, the Accelerator was supposed to be turned on tonight. Only there's a storm, which apparently causes some malfunctions? The machine blows up. He doesn't know where in the city STAR Labs is located, but he sees the blast from his house. The sky lights up, turning blood red. It's sick looking.

The house shakes, and the single picture on the wall (the only one either he or Dez have bothered to dig out and hang up so far) rattles in its place. Darryl makes for the stairs, intending to check on his kids, but they're already coming down.

He half expects them to be scared out of their minds, but then again Anita and Daren have gotten as used to the chaos and craziness as their parents have. So here's this ten year old girl and this almost nine year old boy, just sitting on the landing halfway up the stairs, dead serious and yawning from getting woken up.

They're not crying or screaming or anything like any other child would be in these types of situations. And when Anita does say something, it's directed at Daren, and she goes, "Told ya. Only here for a week, and something has already happened. Pay up." And she elbows her brother in the ribs.

Daren sighs and makes his way into the kitchen and over to the counter where the candy dishes with his and Anita's names on it are sitting. He takes three pieces out of his dish and drops them into Anita's.

Darryl's kids are like this. They make bets about things using candy as the currency. A strange coping mechanism, maybe, but it works for them, so he doesn't say anything about it.

"S'Mom home?" Daren asks when he comes back into the living room.

"No," Darryl tells him quietly. "Not yet."

"Oh."

Daren looks down at his feet, and Anita takes his hand in hers to comfort him. Now they look like average kids, scared and worried because their mother is who knows where out in a storm and the world has just exploded.

"But she's on her way," Darryl assures the kids. "She's fine. She'll be home soon."

His kids aren't dumb. He knows they can see right through him; they both know he's just making something up that sounds nice. 'Cause Dad's the one with the nice answers that make you feel better. Mom's the one who tells it how it is.

In Darryl's defense, he doesn't think that children should have to worry about whether or not their parents are coming home alive. That's one of the main reasons he agreed to move all the way to Missouri when Dez first came to him with the idea. That's why he makes his responses sound nice, even if the truth might be a little... less nice.

"Can we stay up and wait for her?" Anita asks.

"Yeah," Darryl says. "Sure. Let's wait up."

He puts on a kid friendly movie for them and lets them have their candy dishes in the living room. It's enough to distract them; it's nice enough that they don't worry too much about their mother, even if they do know Darryl does phrase things nicely specifically so that they don't worry. Even if they do know things are probably worse than he's saying.

'Cause the truth is he doesn't know where his wife is. Out there, he thinks, helping people who've been caught in the chaos. 'Cause that's what she does. Without hesitation. Just by instinct, Dez goes to help people when she sees them in trouble.

It's one of the reasons Darryl fell in love with her: the fierce compassion she had for people. But it's also the main reason he spends so much time stressing over her wellbeing.

'Cause he doesn't actually know if she's able to come home with everything going on out there. If she's safe or if she's been hurt and needs help herself. And he can't even go look for her, 'cause he's here, and the kids are here, and someone has to stay with them. Someone has to make sure they stay safe.

Darryl doesn't mind. Obviously he doesn't. He loves his kids, and he would give his life to protect them. Dez is the love of his life. He wants her to be happy, even if that means she feels the need to throw herself in front of bullets to protect strangers.

He just wishes he knows where Dez is right now. He wishes he knew for sure where she is, what she's getting herself into. At least back in Gotham he knew she wasn't fighting alone. She had people besides Darryl, back there, people who could get her out of trouble when needed, when Darryl couldn't.

Here everything is still new. Here, it's just Dez and Darryl, and he wants to at least keep it that way. He doesn't want to have been wrong about this place. He wants it to be nicer, better, the way they thought it would be.

Darryl doesn't want to have to worry about his family anymore. He wants to know for sure that they'll be okay, without needing to leave work early because his kids' school is being held hostage by a guy dressed as a character from a children's book. Or waking up to frantic phone calls from his father-in-law telling him his wife has been abducted by a delusional man with a knife.

Speaking of panicked phone calls...

Two phones start goin' off at the same time. One's Dez's, the red burner she keeps for emergencies. The other is Darryl's. His parents. Her father. News of the explosion must've gotten around to back home already; of course their folks will be worried.

Darryl answers both phones, puts them both on speaker, and slips into the other room to console the frantic parents of his and his wife's. They all have the same questions, so he responds to all three of them at once.

'Yes, the kids and I are fine.' 'No, we weren't outside during the explosion, we're safe and sound inside our house.' 'Dez is out being Dez.' 'Of course she's being careful.' 'Yes, I'll keep you on the phone until she gets back.' 'No, she's not hurt as far as I know.' and 'No, you don't have to come down here, everyone is fine I promise.'

That last one is added especially for Dez's dad, who Darryl knows for a fact will show up at the front door with a shotgun in hand within the next hour or so if he thought any of the Dunets were in significant trouble. He knows because the old man has done so before. More than once.

Which, the sentiment is nice, but Darryl doesn't want him to waste a trip.

They keep him on the phone for another hour and a half; the kids take over after that, practically ripping the phones from Darryl's hands in an endeavor to talk to their grandparents. Daren chatters on to Darryl's parents, while Anita talks Dez's dad's ear off. After a while they switch phones.

And another thirty minutes of waiting around (by now it's two in the morning)(three in the morning back in Jersey), and Dez is finally, finally home. She doesn't immediately come inside. The neighbors next door arrive at the same time, and through the window Darryl can see her talking to them.

What's shocking, is Dez actually hugs the daughter? 'Cause Deserey isn't that big on hugs. She only hugs Anita, Daren, and Darryl himself. Maybe sometimes her dad and her brother on very rare occasions. That's it.

Darryl has never seen her hug anyone else before. But it does look like the girl is crying? Which means something happened to someone important to the Wests. It makes sense for Dez to comfort her. But it must be something big, because Deserey doesn't just hug people she just met. It's gotta be a life threatening situation.

Darryl already has the front door open for her when she parts ways with the Wests. They kiss, and then she says, "The neighbor's kid was struck by lightning. It was a direct hit. I was at the hospital with them. He's not waking up. Looks like a coma probably."

"Damn," is the only thing Darryl can think to say. "Barry?"

Dez nods. "Yeah. You met him?"

"This morning. Or maybe yesterday morning now? He stopped by Joe's for a change of clothes. Said something about a late train...then, he tripped going down the stairs, 'cause he forgot to tie his shoes..."

Dez winces. "He's havin' a time."

"Yeah," Darryl agrees.

There's a moment where no one says anything at all, a moment of silent empathy and compassion where the news settles over the room and all present. Even the kids are quiet, even Dez and Darryl's parents on the other ends of the phones.

And then the moment ends, and there's nothing left to say on the matter of Barry, so Darryl moves on for now.

"Our parents called," Darryl informs Dez.

"Oh yeah. Was thinkin' they would have."

She takes the phones from the kids, talkin' with their parents for another hour or so before finally hanging up. Then, it's hugging Anita and Daren and kissing the side of their heads. By now most of the chaos around the city has settled down, at least for the Dunets standards it's settled down. There's nothing else to do, so the family ends up heading back upstairs for bed.

"Can we sleep in tomorrow?" Anita asks with a yawn.

Darryl shrugs when Deserey looks over at him. "It is Saturday. Plus, if they're sleeping in, it means we get to, too."

"Mm. Good thinking. Okay, you can sleep in an extra hour or two or three," Dez tells the kids. "Or four. I wouldn't mind sleeping in four hours later..."

And they do. Cause that's what happens when your family is used to chaotic things happening around them. You sleep an extra four hours.

{~}

EDDIE HAS NEVER

EXPERIENCED anything quite as chaotic as the shock after the Particle Accelerator explosion, but he's getting used to it.

He gets used to filling in shifts for other detectives, like Joe West for example, because their loved ones were injured or worse and they have to miss work to be with them at the hospital or else they're out on bereavement.

He gets used to staying at the station all night, drowning himself in mountains of paperwork and taking up ten different cases because of the short staff. He gets used to most of those cases being pretty weird and seemingly unexplainable, because his new partner in crime fighting has a penitent for what Eddie has now dubbed "Crazy Cases."

He learns 'getting used to it' is a necessity with a partner like Deserey. She's something of a wild card.

That he learns almost immediately.

One minute she's perfectly calm, professional, no nonsense, 'let's figure out if this corpse is the result of a homicide or an accident' and the next she's going seventy miles an hour in a forty lane because she sees a cute dog up ahead and she wants to see if it'll let her pet it.

With all the chaos the city has been experiencing, all the detectives and beat cops missing work, Captain Singh has had a time trying to figure out the whole partner situation. People have been switching partners left and right in order to cover shifts, but now, nine months later, it's finally settled.

Eddie still remembers the morning Deserey was officially introduced as his new partner, clear as day. Mostly because it was so weird.

He reached out to shake her hand, and she grabbed his wrist, turning it over so his palm is face up. He stared back at her, completely lost. The Captain seemed a little confused, too, but Deserey just shrugged it off.

"Sorry," she'd said. "Was checkin' for joy-buzzers."

"Uh, no worries," Eddie replied, as she flipped his hand over again and actually shook it this time. "I don't care for joy-buzzers either."

Mostly he had added that last part to be nice, so she didn't feel too awkward about the situation, but the more time he's spent with her throughout these last nine months, the more he realizes that Deserey Dunet does not know the meaning of the word 'awkward.'

This woman is unapologetically flamboyant, for lack of a better word.

But Eddie is getting used to that.

It's like this morning. Barry Allen surprises everyone by walking into the precinct after a nine month coma, and everyone is greeting him and welcoming him back. Then, a beat cop interrupts with, "Detective West, we've got a 5.15 in progress at Gold City Bank, two dead."

Joe nods, as the officer adds, "Storms really picking up on the South Side. I'd grab your rain gear."

Detectives Chyre and West say their final words to Barry and head for the exit, snatching their coats on their way out. Meanwhile, Deserey, who's been propping her feet on her desk and leaning back in her chair, clicking a pen, sits up straight with a sudden wild look in her eyes.

Eddie knows she's going to drag him into trouble before she says anything, but he lets her speak anyway, "Doth mine own eyes and ears deceiveth me 'r hast mine own l'rd finally hath returned?"

Yes, it's a weird statement; no, he doesn't know what she's talking about. Why doesn't he ask what the hell the Shakespeare speak is all about? Because now she's jumping to her feet with the energy of a toddler and dragging him out the door, saying, "Let's go find out!"

"Uh, glad to see you, Allen," Eddie manages to throw out in Barry's general direction as they pass him. "Glad you're back!"

"Thanks, Eddie."

{~}

"...The windows blew in. It was like a hurricane!"

That's the statement of the witness Eddie is talking to. He and the other detectives had gone down to Gold City Bank, only to drag a boat load of witnesses back to the precinct with them. So far, they've all had stories like this. About freak weather storms accompanying the robbery.

He tries to be as sympathetic as possible, but it's just...what they're saying. It's impossible. Isn't it?

The best he can do is nod along and say, "We're going to have a sketch artist work with you, if you feel up to it."

Because regardless of how insane their statement may seem, there's still been a crime here, and this person can still help identify their perp. Once Eddie secures the witness with the sketch artist, he makes his way over to where Deserey is scanning the scene with Joe and Fred.

"Third robbery in a month where a freak storm precedes it," Deserey notes. "I doth believeth mine own l'rd hast arriv'd."

Eddie decides to ignore the Shakespeare, and instead he says, "This is starting to sound like one of your Crazy Cases."

"Yup," Chyre agrees. "Or one of those 'Wide World of Weird' cases Barry's obsessed with."

"I like crazy, reminds me of home," Deserey says.

"He's not obsessed," Joe says at the same time.

"Guess you haven't read his blog," Eddie mutters.

Joe shoots him a look, and, maybe it's because he's dating the man's daughter, but Eddie can't help shrinking back under his gaze.

Chyre, thankfully, moves the conversation back to their case, and Eddie breathes a sigh of relief when he asks, "The security cameras at the bank?"

"Apparently, it all shorted out," Eddie answers.

Joe gestures around the room; maybe he's still annoyed on behalf of his recently recovered foster son, or maybe it's Eddie's imagination, but he sounds a little irked. "We've got a bunch of witnesses here. They all have cell phones."

Then, Deserey is spinning on her heels dramatically and going, "Wh'rev'r thou art mine own beautifully damn'd god I shall findeth thee! And I shalt throweth thee into the pits of Tartarus myself!"

Joe and Fred turn to Eddie as she marches off, both of the elder detectives sporting identically raised eyebrows. Eddie can only shrug back at them, because to be honest he is completely lost as well.

"I think maybe she's quoting a movie or something?"

Eddie finds Deserey talking to another witness. Joe and Fred look like they're experiencing whiplash, because this woman was just bouncing off the walls and speaking like she's from Victorian England. Now, she's sitting with the witness side by side, quietly listening to whatever they're saying.

Eddie, however, he's getting used to Deserey's flip floppy personality. The way she excitedly runs off to the strangest of cases and then turns around and looks at the witness with the biggest doe eyes, like she actually understands the harrowing experience they've had here today.

"It sounds nuts..." the witness is muttering.

Deserey keeps her voice low when she says, "That's okay. I'm used to nuts."

"The sky went black, and then- boom! Outside was inside. Man, it was like there was a thunderstorm inside the bank..."

Eddie watches Deserey nodding along to the man's story. From her expression, it does look like she believes him, as insane as the story is. That's the thing about Deserey, Eddie thinks. She's gotten used to working with people who believe crazy things, so she's used to making people feel heard and understood.

Even if they are working a Crazy Case.

Eddie, Joe, and Fred set up the video from the witness's phone on the computer. It's something of a blurry image. There's snow. Snow, snow, in October. A figure, the suspect, crosses over the screen, but the video isn't clear enough to get a good picture of his face.

But. They do manage to get a good look at the perps vehicle.

"Vukuvich," Joe calls out to the uniformed officer. "Suspect is driving a black Mustang."

"Partial plate: six-kilo-Charlie-three," Fred adds. "Put out an APB."

"Copy that." Vukuvich gives a curt nod and hurries off to do as instructed.

Eddie sighs as he starts the video over again. Since the Particle Accelerator exploded, Central City has really been descending into chaos.

It's fine.

He's getting used to it.