As his head cleared and his ears stopped ringing, Cisco could hear Barry saying, "Caitlin, he's - Caitlin, breathe, he's focusing - " Barry tapped his cheek with gloved fingers. "Hey, man, hey, bro, you with me?"

"Yep," he said, staggering to his feet. "Lemme at him." He grabbed the wall for support. Given that it was the same wall that had just knocked him silly, maybe it wasn't the most trustworthy piece of masonry but hey, beggars and choosers, right?

He blinked a few times, focusing. "Hey, where'd our guy go?" He tried to vibe and yelped, pressing a hand to his pounding head.

"S'okay, man, he's down and out."

"Wha - I missed it?"

"Your boom took him, like you thought it would." Barry hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the rather large, dark heap in the entryway of the warehouse. "Hey, is your earpiece in? Caitlin's yelling at you."

Yeah, probably she was. "I think it got knocked out," he said. "Should be somewhere around here." He looked down as something crunched under his foot and said, "Awwwww. Damn. And that was it." His tech. Fuck. This was not his best night ever.

"She says bring you back ASAP."

"It's cool, man, drop our meta at the station first." He shifted his shoulders and caught his breath. Okay. Ooookay. Something was definitely uncool somewhere on his right side. Like a rib. Ouch. Yikes. And his right knee didn't even want an ounce of weight on it.

"She says you first and I'm not fighting with her, okay?"

"Careful with the right side," he said as Barry picked him up. He squeezed his eyes closed as the wind rushed around him for a split second.

Caitlin looked furious, but her fingers were gentle. "I told you to watch out for the recoil," she fussed at him as she checked his ribs. "I told you! Of all people, you should know Newton's third law."

"I know Newton's third law, damn, Caitlin. I just threw the boom harder than I meant. Adrenaline."

She confirmed that one rib on his right side was cracked and his right knee, while bashed all to hell, was not. "And I'm driving you home and staying with you tonight," she announced once she'd taped up both and wrapped his knee in an ice pack. "I want to monitor you for signs of a concussion."

"Great," he said. "May I please put my suit away now?"

"Barry can do it."

He gave her a scandalized look. "Have you seen the way Barry puts his own suit away? I'm like this close to taking back custody every damn time, I tell you. Come on. I'm putting away a super suit, not running a half marathon, 'kay?"

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. But only because you'll fuss and pout if I don't."

"Wait, pot? Is that you calling me black?"

She tossed his jacket on the bed next to him. He suspected that if it weren't for the rib, she'd've chucked it at his chest. "And easy on the knee."

Even with his injuries, it didn't take long to put his suit back on its mannequin and check it over for rips and tears. Of which there were none, because his work was just that good. But he did it anyway, every time. (Seriously, Barry had super-freaking-speed. He could do it right in a second instead of badly in a split second.)

Still, his head hurt and his knee throbbed and he was taking shallow breaths to hold off the jabs from his rib. Damn. This was the worst beating he'd taken yet, in nearly a month of playing sidekick. And it didn't help matters that he'd basically done it to himself. Not that he was going to present anything but a smiling face to the others.

What, this? Psssh. Do your worst, bad guys. I can take it.

He could totally take it. Yeah.

He hobbled back toward Caitlin's lab, planning on giving Barry shit for the way he'd just chucked the cowl on the mannequin head all crooked. Through the glass, he could see them. Barry was talking to Caitlin as she cleaned up, leaning over with his elbows braced on her counter, looking scrunch-faced serious.

Cisco couldn't see Caitlin's face but her shoulders were knotted tight.

He caught a few words over the clatter of her putting things away. " - told you this would happen - wouldn't be able to handle it."

"Give it time," Barry said, more audible. "It's early days."

She shook her head. "I don't know."

What.

The hell.

If she noticed how quiet he was on the way home she probably attributed it to his aching everything. Which didn't help his mood. The silent treatment was no good if the other person didn't know they were getting it.

And yes, okay, he knew the silent treatment was a totally childish reaction. But come on.

Caitlin had backed him up. When he'd floated the idea past the two of them, it had been Barry who'd been startled and hesitant, while she'd said immediately, "Of course you do. Of course you want to go out in the field. It makes perfect sense."

That had surprised him. Given how Caitlin was basically the queen of doubt and restraint and let's think this through and don't do anything rash.

Surprised but happy.

When he'd waffled to her, privately, she'd said, "You can do this, Cisco, and you should."

Why would she do and say all that if she'd never believed Vibe could hack it?

Maybe she'd thought he would lose interest. Like a little kid. Or he'd quit on his own.

Sometimes he wanted to. Sometimes being out there, even with his best bro next to him and his other best friend in his ear, he wanted to be back behind the safe walls of Star Labs, running the mikes, secure in the knowledge that he at least was going to get through the evening intact. That it would be someone else taking the punches or the high winds or the body checks, worrying that his shaky new powers wouldn't be enough, getting low-key (and occasionally high-key) annoyed when the Flash had to save him.

He kept suiting up and going out, partly because he was actually doing it, he was coming back mostly not beaten to a pulp and he and Barry were pulling wins out more and more often as they figured out how to make speed and vibration work together. But there was always a little piece of him that went out just because he knew Caitlin believed in him.

On his worst days, it was mostly because Caitlin believed in him.

Except, obviously, she didn't.

She definitely noticed he wasn't talking to her by the time they got to his place, because she said, "Are you okay?"

"Oh, peachy."

"Are you in pain?"

"Gee, why would you think that?" he asked her, dropping onto the couch and squirming into a more comfortable position. When she started to push cushions behind his back, he snapped, "I've got it."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but stalked off to the kitchen. He settled the cushions into place, wincing from more than his rib. He didn't like himself when he was like this, but the mean just seemed to jump out of his mouth.

His microwave beeped, and a few minutes later she came in with a steaming mug. In spite of the scowl on her face, she put the mug of hot chocolate down on the side table gently, without spilling it. There were even a whole bunch of marshmallows, gently melting into the chocolate. He felt himself softening up like the marshmallows.

She held out her hand. "Pain pills. Take them."

Sweet relief. But - "I'm good," he said, slurping up some marshmallow foam. "I'm okay. I don't need it."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Then get up and tango with me."

He narrowed his eyes back at her. "Well, if it'll make you happy," he muttered, scooping the pills out of her hand and swallowing them with the help of the hot chocolate.

She watched, arms crossed. "You should be elevating that knee," she said, grabbing an extra cushion and starting to shift things around on his coffee table.

"God, would you leave off?"

She froze, then dropped the cushion on top of a socket wrench set. "If you don't elevate it soon, then it's going to be more swollen and - "

"And you're treating me like a little kid that fell off the monkey bars. Okay? I know I have to elevate it."

She looked at him for a moment, her face pale. "You know, Cisco, I don't know what bug crawled up your butt tonight, but you can extract it yourself. I'll be in the kitchen, catching up on my journal articles, because I don't have to put up with this."

"You could leave," he yelled after her.

"Concussion," she yelled back over her shoulder, and one of his rarely-used kitchen chairs screeched against the linoleum as she flung herself into it.

Well, fine then.

He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, flicking through his Netflix queue with a scowl. He ran through the whole queue twice and still couldn't find anything that he wanted to see right now, in his current mood. Not even TNG appealed.

He should kick her out.

His place, right? His place, his rules. He could have whoever he wanted come over to watch him for signs of brain injury.

Maybe he could call Barry. Of course, then Barry would want to know why he was kicking Caitlin, who was an actual-factual doctor, out of his house. Then he would have to tell them both what he'd heard and ugh.

He looked at the ceiling. After a long moment, he sighed.

He was being a dick.

Yeah, he had a good reason, but this passive aggressive shit was for kids, and he was a grown-ass adult, and how the hell would Caitlin know what she'd done wrong if he didn't tell her?

Just. Shit.

He thought for a while, parsing out what to say, and swung his foot off the coffee table, wincing as he tried to bend his knee enough to set it on the floor. He was focusing on that hard enough that he didn't hear her come back in the room until she said, "What are you doing?

He looked up. "Going in there to talk to you."

She put her nose in the air. "I'm not interested unless it's an apology." She went to the chair where she'd stuck her purse and started rooting around in it.

"Partially," he said, and she looked up, blinking.

"Okay … "

"So, I was kind of a prick right now, and I'm sorry for that."

She crossed her arms. "Accepted."

"But I wasn't being a prick just for funsies. I'm, um." He swallowed. "I'm really pissed off at you right now."

"What? Why?"

"For Chrissake, Caitlin, why would you tell me that you supported me and you believed in me if you really didn't?"

Her arms dropped, and her jaw did too. "What?"

"Don't play dumb okay? I heard what you said to Barry tonight."

"What I said to Barry?"

"Yeah, you know. In the cortex. After."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why don't you remind me?"

"Uh, you said that you told him I wouldn't be able to handle it? And then he was all like, be patient, he'll get it."

She blinked and said slowly, "You heard us say that."

"Yeah."

"All of those words. In that order."

"Yeah." He paused. "I mean. Most of those words. Definitely that order."

She shook her head. "No. You missed some of them."

"Which ones?"

"What I said to Barry was, 'I told you this would happen. I told you that I wouldn't be able to handle it.'"

He gaped at her. She looked coolly back.

"I? I mean - you?"

She nodded.

"That you couldn't handle - you mean, running the mikes and the maps? It was a two-person job, yeah, but I think I automated enough that - "

"Not that!"

"What else is there to handle?"

"What's there to handle? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. What's so hard about watching you walk into danger every time you go out on patrol and knowing I'm too far away to do any good if - " Her voice cracked.

Cisco went cold and still, his stomach flipping like a pancake.

Oh my god, he was such a dick.

"I've been waiting for something like that to happen, and tonight it did, and it was even worse than I thought it would be."

She wiped her eyes, and he found out he could move again. "Caitlin," he said, trying to get up. "Caitlin, come on, it's okay, I'm okay - "

"Don't get up," she said.

"Well, come here then."

She sat on the couch next to him, on his good side, and he put his arm around her. Her spine was stiff. "What happened when I got my bell rung tonight?" he asked.

She stared at nothing for a minute. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, like she was trying to keep her chin from trembling. "Your biometric system went offline for a moment, I think from impact - "

"Wait, it did?"

"Just briefly. You can double-check it tomorrow. We've got everything recorded as usual. But at first, I didn't realize it was a tech failure. I thought you - " She swallowed. "I overreacted," she said. "Poor Barry had to check on you and then talk me down. We'd talked about it before. I told him i didn't know if I could keep it together, listening to you get badly hurt. Or worse."

He smoothed her hair and rubbed her shoulder. "I swear I'm okay," he said in a low voice. "God, I had no idea you were - " Terrified. Obsessing over the possibilities. "Thinking like this."

"What good would it do if you knew? Would you stop?"

"No," he said, and the way he said it even took him by surprise. No, he wouldn't stop, because as pants-shittingly scary as it was sometimes, he loved it, too. He understood why Barry took such pride in being the Flash, because Vibe was his, and him, and he was having an effect on Central City, for the better.

No way would he stop.

"I wouldn't want you to, either," she said. "I'll get used to it."

He smoothed her hair again. "You're not this bad when Barry gets all banged up." She worried, sure, but she didn't freak out like this.

"I care about Barry very much, but he's not you."

He blinked once or twice, his mouth opening without words to fill it. Before he could work out some kind of response (any response, god, Cisco!), she pulled away from him, scowling.

"And why would you think I didn't believe in you?"

He looked away. "I don't - I don't know. It made sense, I guess."

"How could it make sense that I lied to you? That I pretended to support you? Have I ever done anything like that?"

"No," he muttered. He poked at the marshmallows on top of his hot chocolate. They'd all dissolved into ooze, and the drink itself was lukewarm. "I didn't really think that far. I guess I figured that - well, newsflash. I don't exactly have the easiest time believing in myself, so …"

"So it made sense," she said. "That I wouldn't either."

"And you didn't fight me on the idea of going out as Vibe on a regular basis."

She gave an incredulous laugh. "Was I supposed to?"

"It's kind of your thing," he said. "Barry and I come up with the wackadoo plans and you poke holes in them and then we all patch them up and then it works. But when I floated the idea, you were all in."

She tilted her head. "I poke holes in your ideas because they're impulsive and half-cocked. But that's in areas like science, and gadgets, and applications of Barry's speed, where you're overflowing with confidence. Arrogance, some might say."

He looked at her sidelong. "Might some?"

"Yes. But you're not arrogant about your own powers. How long did it take you to even admit you had them?"

"And it wasn't my choice to do that," he contributed. He might be cool with Harry now, but the Earth-2 scientist outing him against his will was still a sore spot.

"Exactly. And then for the longest time after, you refused to use them except in dire need. You floating that idea at all told me that you'd thought about it extensively, and you'd come to the conclusion that not only could you do it, you should."

He gaped at her. Sometimes he forgot that Caitlin had known him exactly as long as he'd known her.

She shifted. "I didn't know you still had doubts. About yourself. You've been doing so well."

"Well, you know, sometimes. Like when my own powers knock me on my ass."

"Oh, please. Like we weren't front and center for Barry's whole learning curve, and all his pratfalls. I learned how to patch drywall. Me. Drywall!"

"I know, I've still got the pictures."

"You said you deleted those."

"You believed me?"

"Clearly that was a lapse in judgement," she sniffed, and got serious again. "You don't need to be perfect. Or doubt free. Or to compare yourself to Barry. You're an excellent Vibe, Cisco, just the way you are."

"And you don't - " He paused. "I was gonna say, you don't need to worry. But - "

"That's not accurate," she agreed. "But I believe in you. And I believe in Barry. And - " She smiled suddenly, startling him. "As long as you can get back to my lab, I believe in me, too."

He smiled back at her. "C'mere."

"What?"

"Cuddles are therapeutic."

She looked at him sidelong.

"Really! I read it. It's a thing." He held out his good arm, and she hesitated only a moment before scooting over again. He wrapped the arm around her shoulders as she eased herself against his side. "Aw yeah," he said. "I can feel those endorphins kicking in."

She snorted a little and relaxed against him. "More like the pain pills."

"I'm okay," he said. "I'm going to be okay. I'll get banged up, just like Barry does, and you'll put me back together."

"I know," she said. "I'll get used to it."

He nudged her. "You know what the solution is, right?"

"What's that?"

"Get your own sweet superpowers so we can all go out there as a team."

She snorted. "Not likely." She looked at the quiet Netflix screen. "What are we watching?"

He picked up the remote from the arm of the couch and tapped a few buttons. "The Get Down," he decided. "I've been meaning to start it. This seems like the right time."

"Hmmm," she said.

"Don't you give me hmmmm. One episode. I watched Downton Abbey with you."

"You said you liked it."

"I said it was okay."

"You got blocked from the show's Twitter."

"My girl Edith got done dirty for six seasons. That's some bullshit right there." He waved the remote. "But my point is, I watched your mayonnaise be rich and repressed, you can watch some brown folk invent hip hop."

"Fine," she said. "But I don't know anything about hip-hop except what you've taught me so I'm making you explain things."

"Fair enough."

She poked him in the thigh. "And elevate that knee again. I'm not listening to you whine about how swollen it is tomorrow."

He smiled to himself as he followed orders, then hit play and settled back against the cushions with her warm against his side. His various injuries didn't hurt so much anymore. Maybe there was something to that endorphins thing.

FINIS