It's just past noon, after the fight between Dez and that kid with the fire obsession, after her talk with the woman claiming to be her from the future. Everyone is quiet now. At least, they are for about point three seconds, before they start getting antsy again. Even after the adults told them they were safe and that they could go home soon, they're still anxious. Of course they are. They still don't have any real answers. No one has bothered to tell them what's happening, who it is trying to kill them, why they're trying to kill them; they never even bothered to tell the kids where their "safe haven" is or who their alleged protectors are. 

So, yeah. They're still worried. 

"Where are we?" The blonde girl, Sara, Dez found out after a ten minute argument of everyone fighting over whether or not they could even trust each other. It was Ray who got everyone to at least share their first names. Dez tells them her name is Deserey. Just to test it out. She kind of likes it… 

Anyway, Sara is looking out the window, biting her fingernails. 

"I want to know what we're actually doing here," Leonard says. He's leaning on the wall next to the door. The door that's locked. The door that he tried to get open with his lock pick… before that parka wearing man had taken it off him. 

Mick had also tried prying the door open with a crowbar, but he got caught by the man in the burned jacket. The man shoved him back in the room and threatened to beat him with the crow bar. He'd been cursing that man under his breath since.  

Martin, who's been studying some "future" tech thing laying around on the desk in the opposite corner, looks up. "The rest of us are just as ignorant as you are. We don't have the answer to that." 

"Why don't we just ask those people that came after us?" Jefferson (who goes by Jax) says. Everyone stares at him. "Guy in a Vader suite? Chick with a flashy gun thing? Ring any bells?" 

"No, we all saw them… But… Um, we're in here and they're out there, plus they kind of want to kill all of us so…" Ray tilts his head to the side like he's thinking maybe we're better off staying here.

 "Who were they anyway?" Dez wonders.

"Their name's are Chronos and Pilgrim."

Everyone jumps as this kid swings the door open. The boy is a bit younger than the rest of them. While they're all teenagers, this kid seems to be around ten, but he looks like he can cause some trouble. He's blonde and is wearing a leather jacket. As he steps into the room, he places his hands on his hips, like he's trying very hard to look dramatic.  

He tosses Leonard his lock pic back to him. How he managed to lift it off the guy in the parka is anyone's guess. Dez thinks she heard someone mention him being a professional thief or something. 

Leonard narrows his eyes at the new boy. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

 "I'm trying out a new name. Call me Rip Hunter. I live here. My mum's the one who runs the orphanage. Oh, and you're in the future, the year 2141 to be exact." 

"I knew it!" Martin cheers. 

"That's so cool!" Ray grins. Then, he frowns. "Wait, but why?" 

"Because your future selves are all in a spot of trouble," Rip tells them. "Apparently, they've all banded together to stop some bloke named Savage from taking over the world and in doing so they've pissed off the Time Masters, who have issued an order for their ─ your ─ deaths." 

This takes a minute to settle among the teenagers. Dez feels her head dipping into the water. Icy and bitter. Great. Fucking great. Some part of her is thinking jokes on you, I want to die. And then there's Sara in the back, crying into her hands, muttering something about her family. It tugs at her heart for a multitude of reasons that she doesn't even want to begin unpacking. Fuck this shit. Jesus. 

She shoots up, a good several feet taller than the ten year old boy from the future. "Screw that. I'm not going to sit here and wait while these people gamble with our lives. I mean, if they win, fine, whatever, but if they lose…" 

"We're all gathered here in one easy to kill group," Leonard finishes for her. "We're sitting ducks here." 

"Yeah, you don't seem like the brightest lot, actually…" Rip comments. 

Mick glances up from the match he's been burning and staring at this whole time; Dez thought he wasn't paying attention, just staring at the fire all zoned out like he's thinking, ooh pretty flame! But apparently he's paying more attention than she thought, because when he looks up he says, "Did he just call us stupid?" 

"Good for you, Rory, maybe you're not nearly as thick as my adult self thinks." Rip says. 

Mick stares at him for a minute, and it looks like he's thinking very hard about something. "Yup. He's calling us stupid." Then, he goes back to the mini flame in his hand. 

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Sara sniffles. She moves towards Rip, desperation clear as day in her eyes. "Please, you have to help us. My family, my sister, my dad ─" 

"Won't even remember you exist, I'm afraid," Rip says. "You see, you've all been pulled from the timeline. None of your loved ones will remember you, until you go back… Well, assuming you get put back before the new timeline solidifies. It does take time, but if your adult selves take too long to return you to your proper times then it'll be like you were never born. The Pilgrim and Chronos will succeed in their mission anyway." 

"Who's fucking genius idea was it to take us out of the time line then?" Dez snaps. What the fuck is wrong with their adult selves? Assuming this kid can even be trusted to tell the truth. He's young, but Dez has met kids half her age who can cause a lot of damage. It's not much of a stretch to assume this kid is more dangerous than he looks. 

"Like I said, not the brightest lot," Rip shrugs. 

"We have to go back! Please! Can you help us get back home?" Sara begs. She steps forward. She looks like she might start crying, a long way away from becoming that blonde woman Dez is starting to suspect as Sara's adult self. She wonders, silently, what sort of absolute hell this girl must have to go through in order to become that. 

Rip steps further into the room. He's eyeing each of them in turn. Dez thinks he's putting on quite the show, and it's pissing her off. She hates the dramatics. Just say what you have to say or get lost. That's her line of thinking. But then again she lives in Gotham, the city without any chill whatsoever. Dramatics gets old fast there. 

"Perhaps." Rip stops dead center of the room so that everyone has to look directly at him. Dez feels he has a very punchable air about him. "But there will be no sense in putting you back into the timeline if Chronos and Pilgrim are still pursuing you." 

"And you think we can stop them?"

Jax almost laughs. He sounds annoyed and angry and scared. But mostly pissed off. Dez relates. "How are we supposed to do that? We're just a bunch of kids! Not some superheroes from comic books! I'm supposed to be at a game next Friday for a shot at a scholarship! I can't believe I got kidnapped by, who did you say? Oh, yeah, myself! I mean…" He shakes his head in disbelief. Dez wishes she related to that too, but sadly Gotham is a weird, weird, weird city. Anything can happen. "And my mom… She'll be all alone if I disappear." 

Martin takes a step forward to put his two cents in as well. He looks at Rip, frowning. "Forgive me, Mr. Hunter, but Jefferson raises a good point. How are teenagers going to fight people with weapons from centuries in the future?" 

"Your adult selves have superpowers and weapons of equal value to theirs, but you have something better." 

He pauses for a moment. More dramatics. Maybe he expects one of them to try to guess what he's thinking, but everyone stays quiet. He goes on, 

"A team. Even if you haven't been formed yet, even if your plans are all rubbish and you're a touch unorthodox. Certain things can never change. It was not by chance that you all came together tonight, nor was it a coincidence that your adult counterparts decided to leave you all in the same room. You are a team, destined for greatness, protectors of history, and the world, regardless of where in your own personal timelines you all are currently… time is rather subjective, after all."

Ray nods. "I could get behind that." He's grinning, like he's imagining himself with a cape or something stupid like that. Maybe some tights and a ugly cow lick hair due too. "Heroes." 

Leonard is scowling. "Pass."

Ray looks offended. Dez wonders if they'll fight. "What would you rather be a stone cold villain?"

"Not looking to put 'hero' on the job resume, if I'm honest." 

"Me neither." That's Mick. He doesn't look up from his match when he speaks this time. "Think I already started my villain origin story anyway" 

Ray frowns at him. "I'm sure it's not that bad" 

"I burned my parents alive" 

"...oh" 

Jesus fucking Christ. Dez would say this guy belongs in Arkham, but she wouldn't even wish such a fate on her own worst enemy. Still. He needs major help. 

"You lot won't be anything if you cease to exist, mind you," Rip chimes in again. "So, regardless of how you feel about it, you're still in the same situation as everyone else in this room. If you don't want to save the world, I'm certain that you'll at least want to save yourselves." 

"That's a really good point," Ray says. Even Leonard nods like, yeah that's true enough I guess. 

Dez takes another look at the kid in the center of the room. His pockets are bulging the way Silena's usually are, so she figures he's stolen more than a few things from his mother. It's weird. No one in Gotham does things to be nice. It's always blackmail. Always. "So why help us out, huh? What's in it for you?"

Rip hesitates, and, just for a second, he looks like a normal, nervous ten year old boy. "I am the one who starts this team, I think. The Time Masters won't come for me because I'm one of them─" 

"Convenient," Leonard huffs. 

"But it hardly seems fair to let the rest of you suffer by their hands."

Dez narrows her eyes. It's still weird. Nobody she knows is nice for the sake of being nice. It's weird. 

Then Rip is grinning. "Plus I like to cause a spot of trouble every now and again." 

Dez grunts. Okay, fair enough. "Knew a guy who liked chaos, once. He ended up in an asylum… And then six feet under." 

Rip just shrugs as if he's thinking what can you do? 

"I'm assuming if you went to all the trouble of picking the lock, you have a plan?" Leonard says. He sounds like he's getting bored of the conversation. Or annoyed. It's hard to tell which, but either way he wants everyone to shut up. That much is obvious. 

"Something of the sort, yes," Rip says. "If you all would be willing to follow me, that is. It'll be dangerous. More so for all of us rather than our adult counterparts, as we do not yet possess the abilities and strengths they do." 

Dez shrugs. She's always been suicidal anyway. "Better than sitting around here waiting to be erased from existence." 

"Anything to get home," Sara says. 

Jax nods. "Yeah what she said."

Martin adjusts the glasses on the bridge of his nose before giving his vote. "I for one would like to see more of this future world before we return to our respective timelines." 

"Yeah!" Ray grins. "Oh! And maybe we'll get to see what kind of superpowers we'll get when we get older!" 

Leonard rolls his eyes. He and Mick share a look, where the boy arsonist shrugs and Leonard sighs, "Fine. I guess we're in too. For now." 

"So this team of ours…" Sara seems much stronger now that they've banded together, a little more like the adult version she'll become already. She must be very determined to get home. Dez wonders what it's like to have a family that actually cares about her, a family that she actually cares about. Everyone else has a family or someone to get back to, except maybe Mick, but even he has Leonard. Dez doesn't have anyone who will miss her. She's not sure it will matter if she doesn't get back to Gotham. But for everyone else… Yeah. It matters to them. So she's with them. Even if she's going back to a shitty place, at least everyone else will be happy. 

Anyway, Sara is determined to go home, and she's made stronger, emotionally, by the idea of this team they'll start up someday. And she says, 

"You happen to catch what it's called?" 

Rip gives her a soft, mischievous grin that only ten year olds can really possess.

"I believe you've been calling yourselves… Legends." 

✧ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ's ɴᴏᴛᴇ✧

This part is au to what happens in interlude ten (if anyone remembers that) because I've decided to scrap that idea. What happens in this interlude works better for the story and should now be considered canon for this fic.

Also sorry for switching up the tenses here. I've been trying out some new writing styles and what not.

I am also going to rewrite the Gotham part for this as I low key hate it and need to figure out what I'm going to do with it before I write anymore for it. Also I will be editing previous chapters both to fix continuity errors and to add slightly more Gotham references since this is also somewhat a crossover now? But tbh not a lot will change and Gotham stuff will be explained in story so you can still read it as just a LoT fic if you want?

In the mean time I hope you enjoyed this!

✧ᴛʜᴀᴛ's ᴀʟʟ ғᴏʀ ɴᴏᴡ, ᴛᴏᴏᴅʟᴇs✧