Author's Note: So, right away: I love Season 2. But, unfortunately, it's hard to reconcile a plot that is still ongoing and all these extra characters with a plot I also have in mind which would include even more extra characters. So assume that this is happening instead of Season 2. Aaaalternate Uuuuuniverse!

1: Strange Things (Are Happening to Me)

It was a perfectly normal morning in Central City; a sentence so rare that it was abnormal in and of itself. As Barry Allen walked into work that morning with a cup of "Jitters" coffee in each hand, one for himself and one for Joe West, he reflected on how… completely unremarkable the past 24 hours had been. Well, "Flash Day" hadn't totally gone off without a hitch: there was this new villain in town, "The Folded Man" as Caitlin had insisted on dubbing him. Cisco had decided to let her have it despite thinking it was "the absolute worst". Regardless, he'd attempted to crash the festivities and, while Barry hadn't been able to apprehend him, he'd at least sent him packing. Apparently he could somehow displace himself into the fourth dimension. So that would be fun to deal with. The team would be tackling him together, though. The encounter had finally shaken Barry out of his "lone cowboy" funk he'd been feeling ever since Ronnie's passing.

At least The Folded Man had nothing to do with the Particle Accelerator. Every time Barry encountered a meta that wasn't involved in the incident that gave him his powers he felt less like that one moment, that one man defined his entire existence. Eobard Thawne, Barry tried to remind himself, was dead. Gone. Never coming back. His father was out of prison. Everything should be great! Still, Barry felt a strange tingling in the back of his mind that, if anything, things were about to get stranger.

As Barry entered the precinct he saw Joe sitting on the edge of someone's desk and talking to, without question, the biggest nerd he had ever seen. Not in the scope of his nerdom although he was wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, a suit, and a bowtie and his hair was parted perfectly to the left. It was the actual, physical size of the nerd. Joe was a tall man, but he had to look up to talk to the other man. And this guy was hunching. As Joe was talking, the guy was scribbling in a small notepad with a pencil. Or maybe it just seemed small in his giant hands. Joe stopped talking when he saw Barry coming close.

"Barry," he said as he looked around the man, "This is Clark Kent. He's a reporter from the Daily Planet in Metropolis. Clark, this is Barry Allen, our Forensic Scientist." Clark Kent, apparently, turned to Barry and smiled as Barry handed Joe his coffee.

"Metropolis?" Barry asked with a quirked eyebrow. "As in, East Coast, other end of the country Metropolis?" he smirked. "Must have been quite the commute." Clark went to hold out his hand for Barry to shake… and in the process dropped his notepad.

"Oh my goodness," Clark muttered as he bent down to pick it up, "I'm such a klutz." Barry bent down to get it for Clark at the same time and the pair collided and sprawled onto the floor on their rear ends. It was like Barry bonked into a brick wall and only a momentary lapse in maintaining his secret identity kept him from spilling coffee everywhere. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry!" Clark said as he helped Barry up. "Really, really sorry about that." Then he held out his hand and Barry finally shook it. "What I was going to say was that the Daily Planet is a national Newspaper and my boss thinks our readers would be interested in the nation's first metropolitan metahuman task force and how metahumans affect other parts of the judicial process." Barry wiggled his fingers when he was finished shaking Clark's hand. The guy had a really good grip. "So I'll be in town for a couple of days, talking to members of Officer West's task force and others in the precinct, such as yourself."

"Oh," Barry said when everything was explained, "Well, that sounds great. Maybe another time though, I've got some stuff to take care of this morning." While this was true, Barry would probably be done with that work in… five minutes? Mostly he just didn't want to answer any questions right now because he hadn't worked out how to word answers in such a way as to reveal too much… Flash-based information. Clark nodded and held up his hands.

"I completely understand. I'd hate to impede the motions of the wheels of justice, after all." Barry and Joe exchanged incredulous looks and Joe even mouthed "Wheels of Justice?" behind Clark's back. As if realizing how corny he just sounded, Clark cleared his throat and started to leave. "It was nice meeting you, Detective," he said as he shook Joe's hand, "And you too, Barry." He reached into his breast pocket like Barry figured he'd probably seen it done in the movies and handed him a business card. "Let me know when you're free for that interview." Then he walked out as the pair of them stared incredulously.

"Well…" Joe said awkwardly, "He seems…"

"Corny?" Barry asked.

"I was going to say chipper," Joe said, "But yeah, corny works. After all, I was talking to him for a good ten minutes before you showed up." Joe turned to Barry as his adopted son sipped his coffee. "Can you believe that he introduced himself to me with a 'How d'you do?'" Something about that nearly made Barry shoot coffee out of his nose.

SFSFSFSF

Iris West let out a small groan as she opened the browser on her work computer and saw, splashed right on the front page of the Central City Picture News website, a Superman story. It seemed like this Superman was everywhere in the past few months. Iris didn't see anything wrong with him, although she wasn't entirely sure she bought the whole "alien" story, and he seemed like a real hero but she was just irritated by how much everyone seemed to adore him. While he was parading around through the sky, everyone had seemingly forgotten, or had never really known about, Eddie Thawne. The lie was that he'd died in the line of duty but only a handful of people knew the truth. He'd killed himself to stop Eobard Thawne from being born and saved countless lives, namely Barry's. Eddie had sacrificed himself to save the world and nobody would know because of the new shiny super-toy. Now she couldn't even start work without seeing that stupid red–

"Excuse me," said a voice that broke Iris out of her stewing, "Iris West?" Iris looked up and let out a startled yelp that made the bespectacled giant to whom the voice belonged jump back. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry!" he quickly apologized, "I-I didn't mean to startle you." He quickly held out his hand. "I'm Clark Kent, with the Daily Planet." Iris smiled awkwardly and shook his hand.

"I think I've read a few of your articles," she said politely, "You're a pretty good writer, Mr. Kent. So what are you doing so far from home?" Kent seemed to blush at what was in all honesty a fairly mild compliment.

"Well gee, thanks!" he said appreciatively. "I'm in town to research an article about Central City's police task force for Metahumans." That was a surprise to Iris. She figured that if anything, he'd be here to try to uncover something about The Flash.

"So your boss has you looking for a story, huh?" she asked with a wry smile. Clark shook his head.

"My boss has me looking for the truth." Normally that sort of statement would sound trite or insincere, but there was something incredibly earnest in the way Clark spoke. "Are you related to Detective Joe West?" Clark asked.

"As a matter of fact, I am." she said with a healthy bit of journalistic suspicion.

"I'm sorry, that probably sounded suspicious," could Clark read her mind? "He mentioned you when I interviewed him this morning, but a good reporter always double-checks his sources." Iris just chuckled and shook her head.

"That sounds like my dad." she said. "Well, Clark, if there's anything you need while you're in town, come by and let me know. One reporter to another." Clark smiled and gave her a nod.

"I'll keep that in mind." he said. After a small pause he added "Can I take you up on that? I… don't have any friends or anything who live in Central City and I'll be here a couple days." Iris raised an eyebrow and Clark raised his hand defensively. "Oh, n-no! I wasn't asking if I could, I mean that would be presuming too much. Could you recommend me a hotel or anything?" Iris burst out laughing and nodded as she scribbled an address on a sticky note.

"There's a Hotel 52 that's just off the highway," she explained as she handed him the sticky note, "I've heard good things about it." Clark took the sticky note and tipped an invisible cap at her.

"I'll be seeing you around, Ms. West." Clark said before he turned and left. Iris found herself mentally studying Clark's face after he was gone. She chewed on her pen and turned back to her monitor. Not that she found Clark attractive. Which wasn't to say he was unattractive, but she didn't have that sort of thought process these days. His face looked familiar, like Iris had seen it before. If she could just think of him with a different haircut… maybe without glasses?

SFSFSFSF

"So wait," Cisco said in Barry's ear as Barry made his rounds through Central City on patrol, "Let me get this straight. So Buddy Holly shows up at your job and is talking about how he doesn't want to "interrupt the wheels of justice?"" Barry chuckled as he turned a corner with a streak of lightning behind him.

"Yeah, that's the long and short of it." Barry said with a grin. He could practically hear Cisco's giant grin through the communicator.

"Ohhhhh my God, I cannot wait to talk to this guy."

"If we could stay on task," Caitlin cut in, "We just got a spike in metahuman energy at the… hockey stadium, of all things." Cisco clapped suddenly.

"That's where the Central City Combines are playing tonight!" he said urgently. "Barry, do not let this guy mess up my fantasy team!"

"You do not play fantasy hockey!" Barry said while struggling and failing to keep in a laugh.

"You don't know my hobbies!" Cisco said defensively.

"Focus, please, oh my goodness!" Caitlin groaned in exasperation.

"Don't worry, guys," Barry said as he put on a burst of speed, "I'll put this guy on ice." Cisco laughed and Caitlin groaned. When he got to the stadium he was greeted by shrieks of civilians and just general pandamonium. Once he saw what was on the ice and attacking the players he was… confused was putting it mildly. "Uhhhhhh…"

"Talk to me, Barry," Cisco urged, "What are we looking at here?" Barry charged onto the ice and plucked players away from the… the…

"Imagine someone paved a new street," Barry explained as he set the players down on the sidelines, "And then that street came to life and caught fire" It was an enormous humanoid mass made of burning asphalt, as far as Barry could tell, with orange glowing eyes and a mouth; all bad signs but at least it was melting the ice under its feet. "Any ideas?"

"I'm thinkin' Tar Pit." Cisco said automatically. "But as for how to stop this guy… well, you could always see if punching works. Just for the litmus test." Barry shrugged and charged forward as he pulled back his fist .

"Barry, wait!" Caitlin's cry was just a few seconds too short as Barry found his arm sunk into the elbow in "Tar Pit"'s abdomen. Barry stared at his arm and tried to pull it out but it was like his arm was trapped in quicksand. Or really thick oatmeal. "I was trying to say that if this guy is made of burning asphalt then hitting him with your hands is probably not the smartest idea." Tar Pit chuckled while he loomed over Barry and it made him extremely uncomfortable.

"Noted." Barry muttered as he started to vibrate his arm. He could see one of Tar Pit's huge arms swinging towards him and managed to pull away and zip across the rink at the last moment. "Okay, so I can't hit this guy with my fists and… and…" Barry's head was starting to swim. He blinked his head and tried to clear it but he felt like he was in a fog.

"Talk to me Barry," Cisco said with a slight tint of worry in his voice, "What's wrong?" Barry kept trying to clear his head as he spoke.

"The guy emits some kind of… chemical. Getting too close messed with my head." He balled up his fists as Tar Pit started to lumber towards him. "Maybe I could try to suck him up into a whirlwind?"

"Too many people," Caitlin reminded him, "And I think our problems are about to get bigger. We've got another metahuman energy signature headed towards the stadium. It's huge and moving fast. Maybe as fast as–" whatever Caitlin was going to compare this meta's speed to, she was cut off by the sound of rending metal as a blue-red streak punched its way through the roof and came down between Barry and Tar Pit with enough force to crack the ice. His back was to Barry and his short red cape that came down to about the middle of his back was fluttering slightly.

"Don't worry," he said in a deep, reassuring voice as he began to stride towards Tar Pit, "I'll handle this." The yellow 'S' on the back of his cape shimmered in the stadium's lights. Tar Pit roared and swung a fist at him, a fist that was frozen solid with a breath. "No body inside there," he muttered, "So you must be an astral projection or something." Tar Pit roared again and the man drew back his fist. "This won't put a stop to you, unfortunately, but it should put you out of people's hair for a while." Then he threw a punch that hit Tar Pit in the stomach. Unlike when Barry had punched Tar Pit, when he made contact, there was an explosion like a sonic boom and suddenly… Tar Pit wasn't there anymore. There was a stunned silence for half a second before the crowd roared into cheers. The man turned to face Barry and walked towards him again. The blue suit, the red trunks and boots, the black shield with the red S and the yellow border.

"Well," Flash said, putting on his voice, "You're quite a ways away from Metropolis." he held out his hand for the other man to shake. "Can't say I'm not glad for the assistance, of course."

"Always willing to help another hero." Superman said as he took The Flash's hand in his and shook it firmly. The crowd roared loudly and Barry could feel everyone in the stadium pulling out their phones and taking pictures without ever taking his eyes away from Superman. "Especially one who's served as… something of an inspiration."

"Did I just hear that right?" Cisco muttered out of the corner of his mouth as if he was pretending to speak conspiratorially. Superman gave a playful smile.

"Tell your friend that yes, he did." The Flash's eyes widened slightly.

"Okay," Cisco said, "I'm a little scared right now."

"You don't need to be." Superman assured them. "In fact, Flash… I need you and your team's help."