Cisco beamed at the nickname he had just coined, which, if he could say so himself, was rather catchy. 'Reverse, you get it, because he.."
Caitlin rolled her eyes at her friend, cutting him off "Meh". Trust Cisco to find the time for such things when they were in the middle of such a big mess, and although she appreciated his efforts to make things a little light hearted, she couldn't help but notice that Barry didn't seem amused.
Professor Wells smiled to himself 'I actually quite like it' he muttered
'See!' Cisco exclaimed, "Someone appreciates these things. You know, it's a lot harder to please you all nowadays. The critics are getting tougher eh?" He looked over at Barry standing next to him "Eh?" he repeated, nudging his friend.
Barry snapped out of his thoughts, of which he had too many and turned to Cisco "Cisco, what can you do for my suit"
"Oh" Cisco was caught off guard by the seriousness of Barry's tone "Well, it seems to be ok for now, you might be able to add a few tens of miles onto your speed and it should hold up. Depends on how fast you think you can go. Maybe I'll reconstruct a new polymer, something a little more heat stable …" he went off into thought.
The following few hours saw Barry push himself to his limits, driven by the thought of his mothers death, and by more recent taunting from the Reverse Flash himself. He had acted like he knew Barry. Why did Barry not remember him? It made no sense.
Either the man was a lunatic, or Barry was missing something very big. To be honest, he wouldn't know which one he'd bet on if he had to guess.
"Barry!" a female voice pierced through his thoughts.
"Barry, slow down, the suit isn't holding up well" Caitlin called from the other side of the screen at STAR labs.
She pressed down firmly on the telecom "Barry! Listen to me, your suit is over heating, Cisco needs to have a look, please slow down"
When the blur on the treadmill in front of her refused to slow down, she threw the pen she was holding down on the desk with a loud sound, making Cisco jump in his seat.
Within a few seconds, Caitlin was standing next to the blur. "BARRY!" she shouted.
He heard her this time, looking over at her, he skipped a step on the treadmill and went flying back into the wall from the force of being propelled backwards.
"Barry" she continued, with a flick of the head to dislodge hair stuck on her lips "I know you really want to catch this guy, but you're no use to anyone as a fast runner in a red suit on fire"
"Sounds pretty badass" Cisco interjected from the intercom.
Caitlin turned to give Cisco a deathstare, which he received well, letting go of the intercom button.
Barry stood up and shook himself off "Caitlin, you don't understand"
"Barry," she said, for what felt like the hundredth time that day "We know, we know how bad you want to catch this guy, but if that's your main priority right now, ours is to make sure you don't kill yourself before you even get a chance at him"
"Caitlin, all you want is for me to slow down, you don't get it, there is no time. You haven't seen him Caitlin, he's fast, so much faster than me. It's like he's been at this for years" he looked at her, eyes ablaze "You know what I don't have Caitlin? Years. I don't have years. I have hours. Days at most. Who's to say he hasn't already gone. And he's threatened Iris, he could do anything, and you expect me to slow down?"
"Barry" she said, add another time to the count she thought "Sometimes, we have to just accept if there are things we can't do. You may feel invincible, because you've got these powers, you're fast, you heal, but there are some things even you can't fix. And that's not to say you shouldn't try, but don't expect yourself to be able to.." she was cut off abruptly by Barry who crossed the distance between them in a millisecond.
"I'm sorry but now is just not the time for this. This is the only thing important to me right now. I am going to find him, and I am going to spend every second getting better and faster for when I do"
Caitlin sighed "Barry," she said, yet again, but this time, she spoke only to a gust of wind and air left in Barry's wake as he joined Cisco in the main lab.
Caitlin packed her bag up, sticking the last of her belongings into the side pockets. Phone, check, scarf, check, coat, check. She lifted her bag as picked up Barry's physical files along with her. If she was going to do a bit of bedtime reading before she passed out from what felt like an insanely long day, she might as well do something that was productive for Barry. She could find a way to boost his metabolism. Maybe check over the best way to get his white fibres to generate rapid energy bursts, she would even look into his responses to adrenaline and model a programme to predict how Barry would best react to a combination of substances to boost his speed, even if only temporarily.
Maybe get him to go to some kind of fighting class while they were at it. It's not like he had developed any actual tactical skill with his morphing.
Oliver would have been good for that sort of thing. But she had tried reaching out to Felicity after Barry and Cisco had left, and for some reason, she hadn't been able to get through to her.
She had thought better of leaving her an email. What would even be the subject for this sort of message. 'Reverse Flash is back. Need to make Barry into a fighter, please send Oliver'. No, it was absurd.
In all her thoughts, she had reached the parking lot before she had even noticed where she was. Cisco and Barry had left a couple of hours before, getting some training in an open space. She had let them go, even to just let Barry cool down a bit. He had been a bit sour at her, although she completely understood it was more frustration at the Reverse Flash, but some air would be good for him. She just hoped he wouldn't burn himself out.
The lights in the lot flickered on at her movement. She was just by her car now, the night sky darkening even further into a black abyss. Where was Professor Wells? She just realised she hadn't seen him since earlier in the day. She shrugged off her confusion, and dropped her keys in the process. As she bent down to pick them up, she saw 2 sets of heavy black boots in her peripheral vision.
She straightened as quickly as she could and took in a deep breath.
Oh, God. She thought. This day was just about to get a whole lot longer.
It was Captain Cold. Damn her for only remembering Cisco's stupid nickname. Accompanied this time by what looked like a henchman. He fit the criteria. Tall, like Captain Cold, but broader, and he wielded a similar looking gun, radiating a hot red light in contrast to the cold blue from the Captain.
She wasn't exactly short, but they made her feel it. Speaking of heights she shot a glance down at her shoes. Heels. So running was out of the option. She made a mental note to dress to work in more action wear, that is, if she ever came to work again.
"Well, look who it is, where's your bigger gun now miss science?" Captain Cold mused at her.
Her heart started hammering so quickly she was surprised she was still upright. She reached into her bag "Here are the files, that's what you're here for right? Take it all, take it just please don't shoot" She fumbled around for her cell phone, pretending to be shaking so she couldn't grab a hold of the file. Speed dial 2 was Barry. She caught her phone, hoping someone would pick up, and quickly.
"Get your hands out of your bag" Captain Cold ordered.
"They're just here, the files!" She almost had it, as she pressed the number, she saw the henchman raise his gun at her and she ducked, falling to the ground.
"You heard what he said," he shouted, shooting a white-hot blaze from the gun straight at her car window, which shattered right above her head.
As glass rained down on Caitlin, she knelt frozen on the ground. What the hell was that thing? Was it another one of Ciscos playthings. She was going to murder him.
The captain turned to the man "We need her alive, for now, lets not try to burn the place down" as he turned slowly back to Caitlin "my friend here has a bit of a temper"
"I've noticed" Caitlin replied, surprised at the strength of her own voice.
Captain Cold raised his eyebrows at her. She hated how confident he looked and before she could think of anything else to do she screamed "FLASH!" in surprise, staring behind the two men.
They both turned around and Caitlin still knelt in surprise at how her trick had worked. Maybe this superhero villain thing wasn't as hard as it looked. Not wasting another second, she kicked her shoes off, dropped her bag, she didn't need the weight, and went sprinting in the other direction, back towards the lab.
It was a good thing she did cross country as a teenager, she knew she was fast. Her feet hurt a little on the cold cement of the lot and she knew she had grazed herself on the glass when they stung. She didn't want to look back, but she forced herself to, and almost slowed down with the shock of the two men standing exactly where they had when they had found her.
Why weren't they running after her?
She made it to the door, slammed her hand on the lock and kept running, but she cringed when she heard the door shatter behind her.
That would be the freeze gun this time.
"Oh my God, Oh my God' she chanted, as she ran barefoot through the hallway. They were somewhere behind her, and they weren't running, she noticed, because they knew they could catch her in a second.
She made it to the lab, then stopped. What if she had led them exactly where they wanted to go? So she bit her lip and started to lock the lab down from the outside. It's not like she could run away from them in there anyway, she might as well secure the place.
With a half a second to think, she decided to take the stairs to her left, and she heard their footsteps in the hallway behind her. She didn't know where she was even going, she just wanted space between her and them. She groaned when she realised her bloody feet were leaving a clear track for her location. She sprinted down the steps and came to the secondary lab below theirs. Low-tech stuff in here. No guns, just wastes of old technology.
She yelped as the floor turned to frosty temperatures below her feet and turned to see both men standing at the end of the hall.
Before she could take the door on her right she saw the freeze gun turn it to ice.
Turning slowly, she saw them close in on her. She jumped towards the shelves against the wall and grabbed the closest thing she could find, an old tech microscope, and threw it across the room. It hit Captain Cold on the shoulder, making him stumble. They were so close to her now.
Before she could grab her next weapon, she felt the henchman's hand on her hair as he yanked her head , Caitlin gasped from the pull "you just don't listen do you?" he whispered in her ear, as he drove her head in to the wall.
Pain exploded across her forehead before she saw dark.
Barry carried himself home, his entire body shook with exhaustion. Maybe Caitlin had been right telling him to not push himself too hard. As he lowered himself to bed, he checked his phone. Dead battery.
He flung it across the room, swearing he fell asleep before it landed on the carpet with a dull thud.
Caitlin woke up to darkness. And before she could put 2 and 2 together, someone opened 2 doors, letting light flood in from the outside.
So she was in the back of a van.
Captain Cold hopped in and dragged her out roughly by the arm. She didn't bother resisting through the pain in her head.
They tied her mouth up, to stop her from screaming, which she only then realised had been an option. Looking around though, she saw a vast warehouse. No one would hear her, she didn't know why they bothered. It was cold, even through her coat.
The henchman tied her hands behind her next, tying the cord so tight she was sure she would lose circulation as they cut into her wrists.
She was in trouble. But did anyone even know?
That question was answered soon when the captain yanked a camera out of a bag to his side.
"Smile miss science, you're going to be on TV"
Barry was done arguing his point to people. Joe had given him the same lo-down as Caitlin had. He knew they were looking out for him, but he wasn't a child. He didn't need this. He just needed them to help him or at least get out of his way.
"Joe, I am going to go after him"
Joe looked at Barry, exasperated, and turned at the sound of Eddie walking into the room.
"Any news on the case down on Tryer Lane? Barry have you run the samples yet? Chief wants a list of suspects, something about a city benefactors cousin involved, he wants the case in good progress sooner rather than later"
Barry forced his mind to shoot back to the case he had been working on. "Yeah, running the samples now, should have results in 41 minutes" he checked his watch "will send it down to tech to check with the database as soon as I can"
This was exhausting. Even having to act like he cared.
Joe cleared his throat, loudly. It was a sign to let Barry know their conversation hadn't ended. He hadn't thought it had anyway.
He turned to Joe, and saw Joe flick his eyes towards the TV behind him.
"Hello Central City" Barry recognised that voice, and he turned to see Captain Cold on the screen. Before he could process what was happening, he saw Caitlin, held by a man as she struggled behind them.
"Citizens, you can continue with your days as you were, this message does not concern you"
He turned back towards Caitlin, and looked back towards the camera again, grinning this time "No the person I have business with will know who they are. Remember last time we met? Well, I sure hope you didn't think I was gone? Silly how slow your mind can be sometimes"
"This one" he pointed at Caitlin "was so happy to come with us today", Caitlin's face soured behind him, and Barry saw the man holding her shake her harshly. A hot feeling made its way into Barry's chest.
"I have some unfinished business with you" the captain continued.
Barry felt his heart stagger. What was going on? Why did they have Caitlin. She looked so scared.
"Now, Come out Come out wherever you are Flash, or this woman dies"
Barry saw Caitlin gasp behind the Captain, before she screen went black.
It took him a second to realise he wasn't breathing.
Joe looked over at him, shocked and concerned. Barry heard Eddie behind him go "That does not sound good, I'm calling in my team"
Barry only just made a note of Joe chastising Eddie for thinking about this as an opportunity to catch the Flash when a woman's life was at risk, but Barry didn't care, it took most of his effort to not run in front of Eddie. As soon as it was clear, he sprinted to STAR labs, the sound of Caitlin's scared voice echoing in his mind.
"CISCO!" Barry shouted, as he ran into the lab.
Cisco sat at his desk, typing fast, looking the most worried Barry had ever seen him.
"Cisco, what is going on" Barry's voice shook. From anger or fear, he wasn't sure.
Cisco looked up at Barry, a strained look on his face "I pulled up the camera footage from yesterday for the lab" Barry watched in silence as Cisco continued, "It's not good Barry, but judging from your face, you've seen the telecast they broadcasted"
Barry ran over to the desk and watched in horror at footage of Caitlin running barefoot through the labs labyrinth of corridors. When he saw the man that had been holding Caitlin in the video slam her head into the wall, anger exploded in him. His hands started to shake at super speed, turning into a blur. She fell limply to the floor and the man threw her roughly over his shoulder. It was then that Barry realised he was angry, he turned around, trying to take deep breaths, but ended up unleashing his frustration by running full force, punching the wall behind him, leaving a crater in its place.
He needed time to process this, but he didn't have any.
He was pretty sure he had just broken some bones, but they would heal quickly enough.
"Cisco, how did we let them get to her" he said, still turned towards the wall. He couldn't rein his anger in. This wasn't ok. They couldn't have Caitlin. They couldn't hurt her.
Cisco just shook his head, dumbstruck.
"They want the Flash" Barry quietly said, looking up at Cisco from where he had buried his hand in the wall "We'll give them the Flash"