Author's Note: I have a little writers block on my other stories, I know what I want to happen just not how it's going to get there and I got in spired to do this. My inspiration for this is from nirejseki "Nature vs. Nuture" and I recommend you check it out. P.O.V. will vary and all ships will be determined later. I don't own the show or any of the characters except for the OC I made up named KC Baxter. Also, in episode 1 Hawkgirl and Hawkman had their masks on while on the rooftop. This story is a multi-chapter AU and I used many of the lines from the show in this chapter.
Jax's P.O.V.
What happened? Oh right. A British guy knocked me and Stein out. Wait, where are? I try opening my eyes and see Stein and 7 others lying on a rooftop. The British guy is nowhere in sight.
Heatwave groaned "My head."
"Stein?" says Caption Cold "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm as ignorant as you for once." Stein says sitting up.
"Where are we?" a blonde girl asks looking pissed.
"Why don't you ask the dude who knocked us out and kidnapped us. You know, British dude with a flash thing ring any bells?" I ask.
"The names Rip Hunter," says the British guy, drawing everyone's attention. "I am from East London. Oh, and the future."
"Nice to meet you Rip." Says Heatwave reaching for his gun as he stands.
"Ah, while you were, uh, incapacitated. I may have, uh, tampered with your weapons and given everyone with powers a sedative to temporally shut down them." Rip says nervously.
"Then it's a good thing sedatives don't work on me." The short, blue-eyed, redhead in her late teens/early 20s, wearing dark red lipstick, a red leather jacket and high heels said before her smile dropped. Her eyes turned yellow and black veins appeared on her face, neck and arms, and she grew fangs. In seconds she moved in front of Rip and used one hand to lift him 4 feet off the ground.
"Whoa!" Rip says clearly surprised and scared, "I assembled you all here because I need your help to save the world! Now please put me down, Ms. Baxter!"
The girl just growled and shouted "How do you know my name?!" tightening her grip.
"Red, put him down, I want answers from him and that can't happen if you kill him. Besides if he's lying about being from the future you can kill him," Cold said walking towards them with Heatwave.
Red growled and threw Rip to the ground. He got to his feet fast, "Talk!" Red shouted her eyes flaring with rage.
"Your name is KC Baxter, a world class thief. You discovered your powers when you were 6 - your 6th birthday to be more precise. On that same day your parents betrayed you and you had to kill someone." Rip paused letting it sink in.
6! A 6 year old got powers and killed someone.
"It was the first time you had to kill and it was in self-defense. You almost died. You been a member of the Rogues since you were 12. They gave you the nickname Ghost because when you would steal, your victims wouldn't realize something was missing until you were gone. As far as the Flash and his friends know you're a meta-human." Rip turns from a shocked KC to Cold, "Leonard Snart, aka Captain Cold, a world class thief, you are the leader of the Rogues. You have an IQ of 192 and an eidetic memory,"
Wait what?!
"That all you got?" Leonard said bored, giving off the vibe he already knew this information.
"When you were 12, on your first day of juvie, you were almost killed by a schiv in a fight against 6 older boys. All the guards turned a blind eye because your dad was a badge turned con and they thought it was poetic justice. The only reason you lived was because Mick Rory, aka Heatwave, world class thief and member of the Rogues, saved your life. Isn't that how the 2 of you met?" Rip pointed back and forth between Cold and Heatwave and turned from the pissed off Snart to Rory. "When you were 8, your house caught on fire and the firemen were only able to save you. Your parents and brothers died in the fire. You got your heat gun after you helped Cold and his younger sister Lisa Snart, aka Golden Glider, kidnap Cisco Ramon. You forced him to repair Snart's cold gun, make your heat gun and make Lisa's gold gun by using Ramon's kidnapped brother Dante as leverage. In addition, Cold got the Flash's secret identity out of Cisco. I would have invited Lisa but her track record on your …uh … jobs… seemed kind of flaky." He finished before turning to the blonde girl, "Sara Lance, aka the Canary, the original Canary to be exact. As a child you had a pet canary and you used that as a genesis for your name when you joined the League of Assassins. You were found and trained by the League on the 2nd year when the world believed you were dead. You were released from the League after 4 years, after you attempted to commit suicide with cobra venom to get out. You rejoined to get the League to help the Arrow and his allies against Slade. Last year you were killed, but several months ago your sister, who became the Black Canary after you died, brought you back to life using the League's magic pit." Rip turned to the guy in the metal suit, "Ray Palmer, aka the Atom, is the inventor of the Atom suit which allows him to shrink to the size of an atom." Rip turns to me and Stein, "Jefferson Jackson and Professor Martin Stein are meta-humans who can combine to form a nuclear powered superhero called Firestorm." He turns to the 2 people wearing hawk helmets/masks, "Kendra Sanders, aka Hawkgirl, and Carter Hall, aka Hawkman, have reincarnated for over 4,000 years and are the only people capable of killing the immortal Vandal Savage. Who, by the way, can regrow himself from a single atom if one of you 2 doesn't deliver the death blow. This is why he is still alive and is the reason I was tasked with forming a team to travel through time and space to stop him from becoming a director who will destroy the world." Rip let out a huff and waited a second for everyone's shock to pass before asking, "So are you all in?"
"Sorry Rip but you've got the wrong guy. Hero ain't on my resume." Cold says being the first to break the silence.
"Or ours." Heatwave says standing next to an angry Snart and a growling KC, whose eyes have returned to normal and no longer has fangs or black veins.
"This may be hard for you all to believe, but in the future, you're not heroes, you're legends." Rip says.
"Legends - I can get behind that," Ray says.
"I hate to knit pick but doesn't a legend require you to be dead." Stein says.
"Yeah, that's a deal breaker for me." I say. Does this dude seriously think I'm going to leave my mom to die? She's a widow for god sake. Rip talked for 5 more minutes and showed them a hologram of the year 2166. To say everyone had weird looks on their faces would be an understatement.
When Stein and I got home I couldn't believe this crazy old man actually wants to do this.
"Jefferson, it's imperative for us to remain together for our powers to work." Stein said trying to convince me to come on the crazy mission.
"If you haven't noticed, I'm still getting used to the whole powers thing." Jax shot back. What's up with this old man?
"Do you have any idea what an extraordinary opportunity we've been given?"
"Yeah to get murdered by an immortal psychopath! No thanks."
Seriously, would he just listen?
"Look, I'm a 20 year old mechanic. The world is better off without me trying to save it."
"I don't understand your decision. But, I respect it." Greg said walking to the table. "Perhaps I can persuade Mr. Hunter that he needs my knowledge as a physicist, not my abilities as Firestorm." He poured 2 drinks. "I propose a toast." He handed me one of the glasses and raised his own. "To my grand and solo adventure in saving the world."
"Knock yourself out." I say before downing my glass.
"You took the words right out of my mouth." Greg said. What? The world started spinning and everything went dark.
KC's P.O.V.
"I can't believe your thinking of hooking up with the Englishman," Mickey said as he finished fixing the cold and heat guns. Len was flipping through a magazine on the couch and I was doodling and drinking a beer. "We're thieves, crooks, criminals. I have no desire to save the world, especially a hundred years after I'm dead."
"He said across time Mick, what about the years before." Len replied.
What are you getting at?
"Before fingerprints and surveillance, security cameras and DNA analysis. Why did we become criminals?" Len asked.
"Because we hate working, we love money-" Mick starts.
"And it's fun to take from the world that has done nothing but screw us over." I finished what we summarize bluntly.
"We could steal the Mona Lisa straight off Da Vinci's easel, snatch the Hope Diamond before it's discovered." Len listed.
"We could start the Chicago fire," Mick looked excited at that, "go to Wild West, steal a dinosaur and ride it down Times Square." I continue excitedly before taking a drink.
"Exactly, this is everything we got into thieving for in the first place. More than everything."
"I can get behind a few of those, but I'm not going to be anyone's hero." Mick says before I hand him a beer.
"I'm in to and I'm putting that dinosaur thing on my bucket list." I pause momentarily, "Now that we have that out of the way, maybe we should talk about the reincarnating elephant in the room." I say and turn to Mick for help, hopefully this conversation goes well.
Its times like this I wish we're better at feelings than drinking.
"What are you getting at Red?" Len asks obviously not wanting to have this conversation.
"Lenny," Mick starts awkwardly.
Damn he's even worst at feelings than I am, why did I look to him for help again?
"2 people show up and say they reincarnate. After what happened with your mother..."
"There is nothing to talk about. Just because my mother was a psycho junkie who believed in soulmates and that she was reincarnated and would again."
"And now two people show up and can apparently reincarnate." Mick interrupts bluntly.
"It doesn't mean anything and I'm fine." Len said clearly irritated.
"Len, that Kendra girl said she didn't remember any of her past lives. We couldn't see her face. How many people do you think have the power to reincarnate?" I ask. "Lenny we just don't want you to get hurt. You've been hurt more than enough in your life already."
"Red, Mick," he looks at us with understanding. "I get it, you're worried. But I'm fine. I doubt this Kendra woman was my mother in a past life. Even if she was, I doubt she'll remember anything from her life as Carolyn Snart. You guys know she was drunk all the time." Len said sadly, clearly remembering his childhood.
I know his dad beat him and Lisa and used Lisa as leverage to get Len to keep his mouth shut and help on jobs. His mom was either drunk or high and never somber because she blamed herself for some old boyfriend's death who she said was her soulmate. Then she got in abusive relationship to punish herself for it. Carolyn would always go on about how she would reincarnate and meet him in the next life. She sometimes hit Len or worst and once tried to smother Lisa in her crib - even Lisa doesn't know that. Their mother committed suicide when Len was 14 and Lisa was 4. But they won't tell me any more than that. He has enough pain already, she shouldn't be able to cause him more.
"And besides you guys will be with me and if she is my mother and for whatever reason it becomes too much for me, Rip says we can leave the mission whenever we want. And that's what we'll do."
Yeah right, if he left a mission unfinished he wouldn't be able to live with the failure.
"Okay." Mick says while giving me a look that says we'll talk in private.
"Okay, should we tell Lisa about the whole reincarnation and possible mother thing?" I ask.
"No, we'll tell her about the mission, but we leave out the reincarnation thing. Okay?"
"You got it boss." I say and Mick nods. Len gets up to grab a beer.
"We're seriously going to go along with this." I shout whisper to Mick. "Seriously, Mickey, his family are the people who are able to hurt him the most. If she is his mother this could hurt him more than he thinks."
"I know, we both know there's no talking him out of it. That's why if it's his mother we're going to make sure he doesn't get hurt. We'll make sure they're never alone together and keep her from getting to close to him. Agreed?"
He's right.
I nod to Mick, "Now let's have drinks and call Lisa." I say loud enough for Len to hear.
