"Clear!" one of Rick's soldiers called out after surveying the destroyed room. Desks laid broken, papers strewn all over the floor like fresh snow, creatures they had never seen the likes of were in pieces and their corpses resembling broken crystals.

Flag looked at his squad members before barking out his next command, clutching his gun as if he expected more of the creatures to jump him. "Everyone move out."

The squad, aching and sweating, moved slowly through the broken glass doors, hoping to catch their breaths before the next fight. Lin, however... Lin was a ball of chaotic energy as she buzzed around the crew, dancing, jumping, singing. If they didn't think her odd before they certainly did now.

As soon as all of them were on the walkway, Flag's soldiers began shooting at blobs around them. The squad dove for cover as yellow and orange sparks rained down on them. Creatures fell from other walkways but where one fell two took its place. Deadshot joined in on the fight, using the guns on his arms to place some well-aimed shots at blobs that got too close before he turned around and slammed Chato into the wall.

Lin gasped and slapped a hand on Deadshot's shoulder, "Deaddie," she whined, "you can't do that! That's mean!"

"Where've you been, homie?" Deadshot taunted the tattooed man after pulling off his mask, face set into a glare.

"This ain't my fight!" Chato argued loudly and aggressively, face matching Deadshot's glare. He moved his face closer to Deadshot's.

Deadshot moved his closer, pointing a finger in Chato's face as he taunted the man. "You know what?" he asked, "you don't stand for shit. You ain't about shit!"Captain Boomerang crawled by the man's feet, making Deadshot jump and curse.

"Don't touch me, man." Chato warned.

"Don't touch you?" Deadshot continued his taunting, bringing his fingers up to tap the other man's head repeatedly. "What you gonna do, huh?"

Chato growled, trying to push Deadshot's fingers off his head, trying to stay calm through the other man's taunts. "Don't touch me!" he repeated loudly in warning, his last warning.

Deadshot kept on tapping him, taunting and pushing him. "I'm touching you, I'm touching you," the dark-skinned man said, following Chato's every move even as the fight went on behind them.

At this point Lin was fed up with them both. "Boys, boys," she called to then while shooting the head off one of the blobs that was rushing at Flag's guard. "We don't have time for this."

They both glanced at her but quickly went back to their fighting as if she hadn't even spoken. Glass sprayed all over them like rain but they ignored it in favor of taunting the other into giving up. Deadshot went back to tapping Chato's head even as the other man kept pushing away his hands.

"Do something!" Deadshot smirked and slapped the man on the head roughly. He was enjoying this.

Chato was close to boiling at this point, the final line crossed and boundaries long since broken. The man wanted a fight so he might as well get one. "Don't touch me!" Chato screamed, pushing Deadshot away from him. "Don't fucking touch me, man. This ain't my fucking fight!"

"It sure as hell is. Do something!" Deadshot shot back at Chato before ducking as a stray bullet soared over his head. Lin gave them both a sheepish glance before going back to fighting.

Chato got all up in Deadshot's face, neck strained as he looked up at the other man. "You wanna see something?"

"Yeah, I wanna see!" Floyd responded aggressively, moving closer to Chato.

"You wanna see something?" Chato repeated, practically bellowing the words at the other man as they struggled to be heard over the other's shouting and mocking.

"Yes! I wanna see something!" Deadshot replied as if it was obvious, moving his head sideways.

Chato pushed Deadshot away from him with a loud growl. Deadshot fell limply to the ground in surprise. The fire wielding man took a few steps forward before unleashing just a tiny bit of the power he held inside of him. The fire fell over the creatures like a thick blanket or a feracious ocean that relentlessly attacked them until they were nothing more than burnt crisps.

All of the squad except for Lin jumped to the floor as soon as Chato demonstrated his power born of anger and repressed rage. She walked up to him, placing a tender hand on his hot arm.

"It's okay, Chato," she whispered so that none of the others heard. Not that they would hear her over the sounds the creatures' whimpers of pain before they succumbed to the fire, or the sound of the fire itself that was deafening as it roared around them. "You've proved your point, the stars are happy and so am I."

The two steady streams of fire were magnificent and terrifying. To think he had hidden all that from them, what if he had decided to use it on Deadshot instead of the creatures? Slowly the rest of the squad carefully came out of hiding when Chato didn't turn the fire on them, instead focusing on ridding them of the creatures.

By the time Chato stopped his demonstration he was panting softly and everyone stared at him and his fire with a sweet mixture of awe and fear.

The former gangster looked back at the man that provoked him, chest heaving and a tired look on his face. "I was just trying to get you there," Deadshot told the man earnestly. "Phil Jackson. We good, right?" he held his hands up in front of him as if Chato would do the same to him as he did the creatures.

Lin smiled at them, arm looped in Chato's. "Ain't mama glad her boys are getting along again," she giggled, patting Chato's arm softly. If her calling herself mama wasn't the strangest thing then her declaring Deadshot as one of her 'boys' was.

Harley jumped on Chato's side and kissed him on the cheek, happily telling him, "I knew you'd come through," in that sweet accent and voice that had men weak at the knees, but even that couldn't break the stare down between him and Deadshot.

"That shit crazy," the man who never misses declared with a soft scoff. Chato didn't reply but looked around him uncomfortably, eyes unfocused as if stuck in a memory, reliving what once was.

---

One of Flag's remaining men blew a hole in the building they were going to. They were so close to the target now but Flag still refused to tell them who it was.

The hole led into a stairway and after a few of Flag's men and himself passed through the small hole someone called out "clear" after making sure none of the blobs were lurking around.

Lin made sure she was next to go through, pushing and pulling others away from it. Several of them let out a series of sharp "hey"'s but she paid them no mind. She was a queen afterall and queens don't enter holes last, nor first.

Slowly the group made their way up the dirty, broken stairs and Lin was out of breath after the first step. Dust rose from the steps as they forced their way up, making several of the squad members let out sneezes that they desperately wanted to hide.

"Ya know the secret to not sneeze is to bite your tongue, right?" Lin told them after one of the guards sneezed for what must have been the fifth time since they started the journey. "Something 'bout not wanting to bite off the tongue."

"When did you get so smart?" Deadshot sarcastically shot back at her from his place two stairs up.

Lin scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest as she petulantly glared at the man. "I'll have you know I'm very smart! Jay tells me I am and he'd never lie to me."

"Whatever you say, crazy."

The gang was all quiet after that, no one daring to break the thick coat of tense, uncomfortable silence that had fallen over them. It was suffocating and unbearable and yet no one broke it, instead letting it fester and grow until the mood of the gang soured.

It was only several stairs later that Harley broke it by miserably saying, "I gotta work on my cardio," and leant over the railing to look down.

Her eyes went blank but a small smile grew on her painted lips at whatever memory she was reliving. Harley was oblivious to the rest of the gang moving past her, none bothering to check up on her even as her eyes remained fastened on something far below them and far away. The only one who even seemed to realise what was happening was Lin, who placed a soft kiss on her girlfriend's cheek and a tender squeeze on Harley's shoulder.

Lin kept on walking, knowing exactly where Harley's mind had wandered. She was tempted to think back on it but the consequences of her losing herself in the memory of her beloved was far more disastrous than one trip down memory lane was for Harley, who by the way was in the process of breaking up with the two of them.

It was only when Linnie heard the soft cocking of a gun and the whispered "Oh, relax. It's only me," from Deadshot and the frightened gasp from Harley that she realised Harley had awoken from her memory, and wasn't pleased at all. Her hands came down to grip the railing hard as another wave of pain hit her fragile heart, even if her love for the Joker would always trump anything else, she still loved Harley in her own way. Maybe the best way to lose Harley was to another who could love her in ways Lin and Joker never would.

"Have you ever been in love?" Lin heard Harley ask Deadshot, and Lin had to physically hold a hand to her chest to try and elevate the pain that gripped her heart when flashes of toxic green hair, pale skin with black tattoos and that wild smile popped back into her head, not that they ever left.

"Nah, never," Deadshot responded and Lin scoffed through her pain.

Harley shared the same feelings and scoffed at Deadshot. "Bullshit," she told him with that heartbroken tone still clear in her voice, as clear as the bitter tears in her eyes and the heavy feeling in her chest.

"You don't kill as many people as I've killed and still sleep like a kitten if you feel shit like love," he responded with that shit-eating grin he always wore. Lin wanted to scream out her frustrations at the lie. She's killed more than him, Joker more so than her and they both still loved each other more than anyone would ever understand.

"Another textbook sociopath," Harley remarked and Lin took that as her cue to leave.

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