Author's Note: OMG I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG! Finally I'm back with part #3! When I wrote Melted Icicles, I was not expecting it to turn into this. But considering the AMAZING reaction I got from Frozen Training, I'm kind of glad that it did!
Caitlin rested her cheek against her palm and let the skin squish up to almost cover her eye. Cisco gave her a look. "What's with you?"
"What do you mean, what's with me?" Caitlin straightened, dropping her hand. Her arms found their place in the slightly defensive reflex position, crossed over the front of her blouse.
"You've been... kinda weird lately." Cisco shrugged.
"Thank you for that. It was very insightful." Caitlin unhooked one arm to pick up her mug, resting on the white wood of the table in front of her. It was still her favorite, probably more so now, even with the ugly gray sealed cracks spiderwebbing their way across it's surface. There was a tiny chip in the handle, a piece of the mug that Barry and Caitlin hadn't been able to find after it shattered. She smiled a little, remembering.
"Like that." Cisco's voice startled her. She had nearly forgotten he was there.
"Like what?"
"You get this faraway look in your eyes, and this peaceful smile comes on your face. But it's not just peaceful. It's kinda sad, too. And what's the deal with the mug? It looks like it's gonna break if you were to poke it."
Caitlin shook her head, placing the mug down on the table again. Her other hand starting drumming an unknown pattern on the armrest of her chair. "It broke, and Barry glued it back together. That's all." Sometimes, Cisco didn't need to know everything about her life. Some things Caitlin kept to herself.
Cisco shrugged, and came around the other side of the desk, flicking mug as he went. Caitlin changed the subject to keep the silence from becoming awkward. "Speaking of Barry; have you heard from him today? I know he's been pretty out of sorts with this new meta performing the common villain's favorite pastime."
"What, terrorizing the city just to hear the puny mortals scream?" Cisco smirked. She nodded, smiling also. "The last I heard of him, he was going to check out the latest burn site, to see if the Flame-On was still there."
"...Flame-On?" Caitlin asked, leaning back in her seat and giving her friend and odd look.
"Yeah. The meta. Flame-On." Cisco clarified. "I'll see if I can ping his suit to get a location. Maybe he's found something we can use for a lead?" He typed a few keys, then paused. "It says he's at STAR Labs."
"Where?"
"In the Cortex." Cisco peered around him, like Barry might be hiding in the trashcan in his feet.
"Well he's obviously not." Caitlin rolled her eyes. "I think that we would see him."
"Oh!" Cisco's gaze fell on the mannequin that usually displayed Barry's flash suit for everyone to see. It was there now. "It's just because he's not wearing his suit."
For such smart individuals, Caitlin thought, We can be very small brained at times.
Cisco frowned. "If he's going to find a meta, why isn't he wearing his suit?"
"How should I know?" Caitlin wasn't going to even start to try and understand the inner workings on Central City's resident hero's brain. "Did you see him before he left? Maybe he was going as a CSI, instead of the Flash."
"Well, no, he called me." Cisco kept frowning. "He said, 'Hi, Cisco, I'm going to check out the last burn scene to see if our meta is there. Don't bother to look for me.' "
Now it was Caitlin's turn to frown. "Really? He said that?"
"He did put a very heavy accent on the look for me part." Cisco added.
"You mean... more like he wanted us to look for him?" A pit started to harden in the bottom her stomach, turning her limbs to lead. "Oh no. What if he's in trouble?"
"Like, kidnapped by a meta trouble?" Cisco looked nervous. "Don't you think we would know, somehow?"
"What? You think you would have vibed or something?"
"No, not exactly." The keys started to click again as he hit them, harder this time. "Call him. I'm going to try and find Flame-On."
Caitlin yanked out her phone and pressed the first contact "Barry A." She held it to her ear, ignoring how it shook. It rang... and rang... and rang... then, "Barry? Barry, can you hear me?"
"I'm sorry." A soft voice responded. A feminine voice. "Mr. Allen cannot come to the phone right now."
Caitlin choked on her gasp. "Who are you? Where is Barry? What have you done to him?"
"Done to him?" The voice sounded offended. "Why, I'd never dream of hurting Barry."
Cisco gripped Caitlin's arm. "Put it on speakerphone, and keep him talking. I can ping Barry's cell."
Caitlin pressed the button with a shaking fingertip. "Just... let him go, ok? I don't know what you want, but tell us, we'll figure something out- just- just don't hurt him."
Cisco was typing frantically on his keys. "Keep her talking..." He muttered, fingers a blur.
"What I want? Wow, that's a tough-y. Here I thought I'd actually have to do some damage. Makes my life easier." The voice sounded overly peppy now, too happy, too sweet. It made Caitlin sick.
"Why did you kidnap Barry?" Caitlin voice cracked at his name, and she squeezed the armrest of her chair hard.
"Oh, Caitlin. I know he's the Flash." The voice crooned. "I know you're Caitlin Snow. I know that Cisco Ramon is next to you, tracking the cellphone I'm using at this very moment. Go ahead. Track me. Find me. You'll never win. Never."
Cisco waved at her frantically. "Caitlin, I've got a location. Let's get out of here."
Before she followed Cisco and his tablet, Caitlin leaned closer to her phone. "We're going to find you. And we will lock you in the pipeline for eternity, no matter what you say. Just let me warn you: Hurt a hair on Barry's body, and I promise it will be the last thing you ever do."
She hung up before the other woman had time to answer.
This-Is-So-A-Line-Breaker-(So-Don't-Crush-It's-Dreams-By-Saying-It's-Not)
When they arrived at the library, both Cisco and Caitlin came to the conclusion that their meta was not the usual, unoriginal bad guy. They also realized that she was so much smarter.
A public library was a whole heck of a lot harder to break into then a broken down, empty warehouse. For one, there were people, so there would be no breaking down doors, or taking out strange, loudly beeping tech to scan for the meta's special heat signature.
Instead, they had to sneak in, and Cisco had to switch off his device when the librarian came over with a tight smile a request to please quiet down. Cisco gave her a desperate look.
"You didn't make it with a sound button?" Caitlin asked hopefully.
Cisco shook his head, and rubbed the back of his neck. "It has a headphone slot, but no volume."
Caitlin resisted the urge to whack her head against the wall. "Ok, let's go back outside, and just, I don't know, memorize the location. Then we go back in and find Barry, without having to turn on the device."
They filled quickly outside, and Cisco flipped the on switch for his tracker. It flickered to life, and the annoying beep started up with it. Cisco studied the screen. "That's weird. He's not actually in the library." He glanced at the ground. "He's under it."
Caitlin peered over his shoulder, trying to read the device and figure out what Cisco was seeing. There was a blob on the blurry map, but when Cisco slid his finger it shifted, showing a blinking red dot underneath the lump. "Wait, so that's the library?" Caitlin pointed at the blob.
"Yeah. And that's Barry." Cisco said unnecessarily, pointing at the red dot.
"I got that." She glanced around, canvasing the walls and grounds of the library with her eyes. "So if they're underground... where do we go next?"
Cisco tilted his head, squinting at his device. "I think... there." He pointed his finger, and Caitlin peered foreword.
Hooked unto the side of the building, there was a metal grate. "Really?" She muttered. "A heating vent?"
15 minutes of sweltering climbing behind Cisco later, they found their exit. Cisco pushed on the grate on the other side of the vent, and it popped out. He lunged, just barely managing to catching it, and handed it back to her.
Before Caitlin jumped down from their tunnel, she reached for her wrists, and gently pulled off the cuffs. Cisco glanced back at her, a worried look on his face. "Cisco, we're going to be fighting a meta that can burst into flames. We're going to need my powers."
She didn't give him a chance to say anything, just slipped off her heels, and jumped to the floor below.
It was a relatively short drop, but made more noise then Caitlin would have liked. Cisco came down soon after her, and they crept over to the cover of a supply box.
Already, Caitlin could feel the cold seeping through her blood. Her powers, if possible, had been getting stronger lately, and she had had to keep her cuffs on 24/7 in case of, well, anything going wrong. That being said, her "training" sessions with Barry were paying off, and she wasn't going to go icing everything she touched. Hopefully.
"So, I've been thinking." Cisco whispered, much too loudly, in her ear. "You need a superhero name."
"Really?" She breathed back, shooting him an incredulous look. "Now?"
"Well, yeah." Cisco frowned. "Why, you wanna wait until some idiot names you something stupid like... Ice-Master? Actually, that's not terrible, but I could come up with better."
"Can we please talk about this later?" Caitlin hissed. "We kind of have to be quiet."
"Ok, ok, we'll talk later." Cisco huffed, and pressed into Caitlin's back. "What can you see?"
"Not much." Caitlin murmured, peering out a little farther.
Cisco took that moment to put more pressure on her back, and the force sent both of them tumbling over and into a metal barrel. It fell over with a clang, and rolled a few feet before bumping to a stop next to a wooden carton.
The sound was agonizingly loud, and Caitlin didn't dare breath, much less move (not that she really would have been able to with Cisco smushing her). They waited for a few long, tense moments, but nothing happened. No meta human came out of nowhere and blasted them into fiery bits. They didn't even hear Barry call out for help.
When Cisco finally moved off of her back, Caitlin sat up, patting her curls to get all of the basement floor grim off of them. "Are you sure we're in the right place?"
He reached for his tracked, but paused. "It's going to be loud."
"No louder then that just was, I hope." Caitlin said it response.
The beeping was like a ringtone in a church, and Cisco hurriedly searched the screen, trying to figure out where they were in relationship to Barry. "It looks like..." He muttered, fingers moving the visual around. "We need to go left."
Caitlin glanced over in that direction. "Into the wall?"
Cisco looked over too, then back at his device. "Huh. That's strange." He switched it off, and, mercifully, the beeping stopped.
They moved closer to the wall, and Cisco pulled a flashlight out of his pocket. "Since when do you carry around a flashlight?" Caitlin asked bemusedly.
"Since we started doing things like this." Cisco shrugged, and shined the faint beam over the wall.
"So what are we looking for?" Caitlin reached out her hand and pressed in a few places, like she had seen people in the movies do over and over again. "A trap door? A secret panel?"
Cisco got a contemplative look on his face. "I've got a better idea." Out of nowhere, he yelled, "Boo!" in her ear.
She jolted reflexively, and her ice powers surged. The wall was a frozen block before she could blink. "Cisco!" Caitlin scolded. "What was that for?"
"Ok, just saying, that was awesome." Cisco breathed, awe-inspired. He reached for a pipe, lying behind him, and slammed it into the wall. It shattered immediately, and Caitlin shrieked.
"Well, that's one way to solve it." She muttered, and stepped carefully over the frozen shards of concrete.
And there was Barry. He was tied to a chair, classic kidnapping style, obviously unconscious. She ran over, not thinking, not hearing Cisco's yells to wait, and the room exploded.
Unoriginal-Line-Breaker-Unoriginal-Line-Breaker-Unoriginal-Line-Breaker
When Caitlin opened her eyes, the rubble had settled. She couldn't see Cisco, but Barry was moaning in the chair beside her. She tried to move, and found she was pinned to the ground by rubble up to her waist.
"Cait?" Barry groaned, eyes blinking open to stare blearily at her. "What're you doing here?"
"Cisco and I are here to rescue you." Caitlin told him, proud of herself. "The wall exploded though, when I tried to untie you. I'm not sure what happened."
"I think that the meta set up a trap." Barry shaking his head a little to clear out the fog. "I don't know.. I didn't really hear what she was saying."
Caitlin pulled at her legs again, but only succeeded in sending a shooting pain down the left one. She hissed, and stopped moving, considering her options. She was stuck. Barry was stuck. They had no idea where Cisco was or if he was even conscious... or alive. The thought ran her blood colder then it already was, so she shook it out of her head.
Speaking of cold though: They did have one advantage. Even if Barry couldn't, for whatever reason, access his speed (if he could he would have already fazed through the cuffs and apprehended the meta), they did have her powers. Not only could it get them out of here, but it was something Flame-On didn't know about yet.
Caitlin felt her hands grow cold, and Barry shifted in his chair. "Caitlin..? What are you doing? Just, calm down, we'll be fine, you don't need to-"
She froze the entire area around them with one sweep of her hand. The rocks turned to solid ice, like the wall had just moments earlier. Copying Cisco's example, Caitlin picked up a not frozen piece of rubble (probably part of the floor) and began to pick away at her encasement.
It shattered very quickly, and soon Caitlin was getting carefully to her knees to go and untie Barry. He fell foreword a little when he was released, so she caught him by the shoulders, checking his face for injuries. "Are you ok? Can you stand?"
"Yeah, I think so." He said, touching her own cheek. "Are you?"
She glanced down at her left leg. It was bleeding, but she wasn't sure how bad it was. Caitlin tilted her head in consideration, then laid a hand on the gash. It froze. "Oh my gosh!" Barry choked, staring at her leg. "What did you do?"
"I can't feel it." Caitlin murmured wonderingly.
"That's what happens when you give yourself frost bite!" Barry cried, falling foreword in his haste to get to her.
She caught him before he fell, and straightened to a standing position. The pain was gone. "No, I actually can't feel it. No cold, no pain, nothing. I think it's part of my powers."
He stared at her in slight concern, but let it drop. She wasn't sure how long that silence would last, though, so she changed the subject. "Do you think Cisco can hear us?"
Barry shrugged, and yelled. "Cisco! CISCO!"
They waited in silence for a few beats. "CISCO!" Caitlin tried.
Instead of hearing their friend call in response, the rubble around them began to shift. A hole burst from the top, filling the area with light. Caitlin blinked a few times, and moved protectively in front of Barry, hands raised.
It was Flame-On. She had long, white blond hair, and it seemed to be on fire as it floated impossibly around her head. Her eyes looked like coals; red, dark, and evil, and her clothes were smoldering.
"What do you want with us?" Caitlin called, willing her voice to stop trembling. Her hands billowed icy smoke.
Flame-On gave her an odd look. "He's the Flash, and you're his partner. What do you think I want? Obviously, without the Flash, there will be no one to stop someone like me from doing whatever the heck I want."
She took a step towards them, and Caitlin moved back, tripping over a brick. Barry, now standing, caught her around the waist and pressed her to his side. "Come on, Caitlin, really. Don't you feel that need sometimes? To release, and just freeze everything and everyone around you? Except, in my case, I just want to burn everything."
A fireball sizzled toward them, and Caitlin put her hands up, blocking the fire. It steamed on impact with her ice, but dissolved. "I don't want to hurt you, but you've left me no choice." Caitlin growled, thrusting her hands out.
What happened next was a blur. She saw strands of her hair, white as her last name, and, at some points, didn't even feel like she was in her own body. Everything was tinged blue and frosty, and when she blinked, Flame-On's flames were gone.
Barry grabbed her from approaching the meta, pulling her into his arms. "Cait, it's over. It's all done, you don't have to do anything else. You're ok."
She looked at him blankly, still frozen and empty inside. He reached down and stroked her cold face. "Come back to me, Caitlin. I know you're still in there." He leaned down and pressed his lips gently to hers.
Warmth spread through Caitlin's body, spreading out like a blooming flower over her chest and down to her toes.
She collapsed.
The-Fight-Is-Over-So-It's-Back-To-STAR-Labs-For-Our-Intrepid-Heroes
When Caitlin woke up, she was in a STAR Labs medical bed. It was dim in the room, actually darker then she had ever seen it, but she vaguely made out Barry's hunched form in the chair beside her.
"Barry?" Her voice was raw, so she cleared it and repeated herself.
The second time, he lifted his head up. "Hey, Caitlin." Barry had dark rings under his eyes, and looked tired and worried. A little of the weight lifted from his face when he saw her smile. "How do you feel?"
"Stiff." Caitlin said, stretching out her limbs, and sitting up in bed. "What time is it?"
"I don't know." Barry rubbed his face and clicked the glow-in-the-dark setting on his phone. It's pale, greenish light lit up his face for a moment, then quickly turned back to black. "3:40."
She yawned in response, and he smiled. Caitlin leaned foreword and peered at his face. There were bruises littered over the cheekbones and his temple. "Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry, I wasn't able to do a check up." She made to stand, but Barry pressed back on her shoulders.
"Hey, it's good, I'm fine. Cisco ran a few checks, but I'm ok. You just relax, ok?" He ran his fingers lightly down her hair.
"Since we're here..." Caitlin trailed off, took a deep breath, continued. "I figured we should talk. About us." Barry didn't say anything, so she took that as a cue to continue. "I know that we... talked after my episode. I told you I loved you and you- you- reciprocated. But nothing's come out of it since. I was just wondering if-"
"I still love you?" Barry whispered. "Yeah. I do."
She nodded, a smile trying fight its way to her lips. Barry leaned down and kissed her. "Thank you for saving my life today."
Now Caitlin smiled, and leaned back against her pillows. "I was pretty awesome today, wasn't I?"
"Yeah." Barry grinned. "You were a hero."
Author's Note: I hope it was worth the wait :) I know I enjoyed it.
READ FOR A QUESTION PLEASE!: I'm thinking of a fourth one, maybe where Cisco coins Caitlin a name. LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS WHAT YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE! I will, obviously, give you full credit.