The Universe's Mixer

(backdated to before Damon heals Enigma)

Once Dinah heard from Hank that the gas masks were ready, she sent out a message to everyone that could possibly be help with this current situation. There were the new recruits and those who had helped out in the past. She didn't know how many would show up or how the meeting would go. She had hoped that she would have had more time to introduce the new recruits to each other and to start building up the trust between the team before the next crisis, but life never did work that way, did it?

Truth be told, she wouldn't have minded just having a few quiet nights with Dean as well.

On the other hand, this was the only life she could picture for herself. She'd taken her time off and it had never felt right. Saving people, helping people-that was what she was meant to do. She didn't live for the potential disasters, but she couldn't picture herself doing anything but trying to avert them.

She had brought along the gas mask that Enigma had loaned her for the reverse engineering. She wanted to return it as soon as possible anyway and it also give her an excuse to get Dean the chance to look the young woman over. Dinah had no problem with getting a second opinion as to how much of the tip about the plan could be believed.

She gave Dean's hand a squeeze as she waited in the lobby of Stark Tower for the redhead in question to grant them permission to visit. Whatever came of this and the meeting, they would handle it together. That in itself was a reassurance.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, doing it's best to mark the end of the day and usher in the coming night, the sky filled with beautiful oranges and reds and purples that danced together and reflected off the fluffy white clouds that dotted the scene here and there. Sunsets in the City were all picturesque, but this one seemed to be moreso than most. As if the City had brought in a classical earth painter to create the perfection.

However, instead of lasting the usual amount of time that a sunset should last, it seemed to hang in time. Frozen. Unmoving and unchanging. No more stars showed past the edges than there had been at the start, the moon did not get up, and the colors of the display did not shift even a little bit.

For six hours, the sun remained setting but not progressing. Then, as if nothing had happened, the dance finished, and night was upon the City and it's people.

Wash hadn't even really noticed that so much time had passed. For some reason The City had been giving him a stipend and he had been using it with nearly blind obedience. He was being rather unsocial, not traveling too far from where his apartment landed the next day for fear of crossing paths with a tall Amazonian woman. The one that was his former wife, that was. Knowing The le se City it wouldn't at all be unusual if it decided to drag an actual woman from the amazon here. Oh, to see the mud fights between her and Zoe. Might due his broken heart well.

Yes, Wash was becoming quite the hermit. That's not to say that he was depressed. Scratch that, he was hopelessly depressed. He'd finally showered, at least. After that odd encounter with the curious, pixie-like woman he figured it would do him well. He'd even showered more times after that, it had felt so good! If showers helped mend broken hearts he'd have at least 75% of his heart fixed up quicker than Kaylee could get a dead engine to start again! But as showers had yet to develop that particular ability he settled himself into a drab routine.

Wake up.
Maybe shower.
Go to closest cafe.
Flirt mercilessly with first elderly female server he saw. Either get free coffee/breakfast or get evil eyed and cold coffee.
Go to closest grocery store. Exchange naughty jokes with young, pimpled bagger (one at every grocery store).
Go home.
Eat.
Read paper.
Stare at crack in wall for an hour or two while sighing pitifully.
Eat.
Go up to roof of apartment via fire escape ladder and watch sunset, sighing pitifully.

His fun-filled day was no different today. He even took a shower! But after an hour of watching the sunset, things seemed a might odd. Mainly that he'd spent an HOUR watching a sunset. He narrowed his eyes at the edge of stars that remained around the brilliant final minutes of the day that had turned into a brilliant hour. It was enough oddity to shake his apathetic, depressed state for a bit. If anything mattered to him, it was the sky.

Addled, he climbed back down the latter and rode the creaky elevator to the ground floor. A yellowed clock read 9pm. With hunched shoulders he felt a drive to investigate. Investigate what? Well he wasn't sure. But anything that distracted him from his drowning in self-despair routine was enough reason to act. Even if the 'acting' part was just him staring at the sky and pointing dumbly saying, "What?" while donning his brightly colored pajama bottoms and A-line undershirt in the middle of the street.

Tact, he had not.