Sparks Fly

By: Riley

Summary – Love can be unexpected when two people from completely different backgrounds share the most important thing they have in common. Not to mention things they don't have in common. From the minute Barry and Cadence met sparks flew and they were thrown together in a search for the one thing they both had desperately been looking for. Barry/OC.

A/N: Despite having the same characters (and when I originally wrote it) this story doesn't fall within Flash Fire or Crossfire. You DO NOT have to read either of those stories to understand what's going on here. If you want to, go for it, maybe even leave a review *shameless self plug*. But you don't have to. I just wanted to make that clear before there was any confusion.

.:1:.

Barry skidded to a stop with enough speed that smoke poured out from the bottom of the shoes built into his suit. He took the time to wave the gray cloud away before turning to his companion with a bright smile, pulling off his hood.

Cadence rolled her head towards him a half smile on her face. Dressed in her suit, goggles down around her neck, she crossed her arms as she waited.

"And that's number five," Barry declared. He dusted off his hands triumphantly. "Five in the last thirty minutes. What was your score again?" He laughed as Cadence held up her hand, which was then covered in flames shaped in what looked like a rude gesture.

"We're keeping score now?" She asked.

"You were the one who wondered how many robberies, carjacking, muggings, and other overall hi-jinks Central City can get up to." He rubbed his hands together before mimicking her stance. "I'm just keeping track."

"And lucky for you, slowpoke, I've been keeping track of the time," Cadence replied. She mimed tapping her wrist. "We have to get back or else Captain Singh will start to get suspicious. I mean, a lunch break's a lunch break but you know how he gets when he's so busy he doesn't get a chance to eat his Big Belly Burger."

Barry grimaced. "All too well," he agreed. "Race you back to the precinct." He started to pull his hood back on.

"How is that even—"Cadence was cut off by the gust of wind that Barry left behind. Rolling her eyes she pulled her hair out of her face, replaced her goggles back up over her eyes, and teleported, leaving a trail of smoke behind.

Barry raced back to STAR Labs—after making a quick pit stop—and was sitting calmly in the chair in his office when Cadence arrived, brushing leaves and twigs out of her hair. Barry smirked to himself as he focused his gaze on his computer screen.

"Did you trip me?" She demanded.

"When would I have had the time?" He tried to look as innocent as possible but knew he was failing.

"When would I have had the time?" Cadence repeated in a nasally voice. "That's crap and you know it, Barry. That excuse went out the window the second you became the fastest man alive."

"The fastest man alive who made a pit stop for Chinese," Barry corrected her. He turned away from his computer screen and motioned to the boxes sitting on the far end of his work bench. "You're welcome."

"I'll thank you for that, but not for tripping me, Tholly," Cadence replied.

Barry tried not to smile at the nickname she used for him and tried not to blush all the same. She had suggested that she wouldn't call him 'Bare' like everyone else considering it would inadvertently make her think of him naked. Then again she always made offhand comments like that to him, Cisco, and Caitlin as her mouth didn't particularly hold a filter.

Or as she also explained it, being in residency while trying to become a pediatrician 'nakedness didn't embarrass her' so it appeared teasing other people and purposefully paying attention to jokes that could be made out of otherwise harmless comments.

Cadence's eyes shifted over to the white take-put boxes that continuously let off steam as the seconds passed. Reaching forward she picked up the box nearest to her and popped it open. "You're lucky I like Chinese or else I would've set your pants on fire."

Barry laughed, turning away from his computer screen and used his feet to propel himself along the ground towards the food. He picked up a box and a pair of chopsticks, twirling them around his finger. "So you've been here for a little while, do you prefer to work with the CCPD or in residency?"

Cadence's nose wrinkled as she thought. "Well it's either being consistently called 'Candace' by Captain Singh' or being on my feet for hours on end and the one minute I stop to get something to eat I get told I'm not working hard enough." She shrugged. "But I like working here better; I get to hang out with my friends all day."

Barry smiled and busied himself with his food.

When first meeting her a couple months before she had gotten his attention by setting up a decoy fire at the outskirts of Central City, in a forest. When he had gone to figure out the cause of the fire and it had disappeared as quickly as it came, he was just as surprised to find her waiting for him, saying she had set up the fire to meet him. Since then nothing had been normal since Cadence arrived.

Not only had she been a fire metahuman since she was eight, something he, Caitlin, and Cisco didn't find out the reason for it until later, but she had a past with Harrison Wells the others hadn't expected. First thought to be a friend of her family, it was later revealed she was his and Tess Morgan's daughter, having been adopted at birth by her parents Kent and Maya.

Since they met the two had become fast friends, bonding over their metahuman abilities and how isolated it made them feel amongst the company of their peers. Having to keep a secret that big from so many people in their lives had been hard, but being able to tell each other, finding they had a lot of experiences with it in common. They fought together against a multitude of metahumans, coming close to saving Bette—or as Cisco nicknamed Plastique—from General Eiling but failed.

But it was found later that she hadn't in fact perished in her explosion and had joined the Suicide Squad and another group called the Assassination Bureau who both tried to take over Central City via the capturing of Barry to lure Harrison Wells into their clutches. It had almost worked, until Cadence, who had been working with the Assassination Bureau, figured out that Breathtaker, the leader of the organization, and Mindboggler, another member, had mind controlled her into befriending Barry and tried to lure him to them.

In the moment Barry was disgusted with how easily she had betrayed him and the rest of their friends at STAR Labs. It wasn't until she had concocted a plan that helped them and Team Arrow—who had been caught up in the attack while getting Team Flash's help to figure out the components of a weaponized boomerang—break out of their constraints and defeated the Suicide Squad and the Assassination Bureau before they could destroy the city. Now they were back to facing metahumans amongst Barry's quest to find and take down the Man in Yellow for killing his mother.

"It's a pretty good perk," Barry insisted. "Especially to have someone around to make up an excuse in case something comes up."

"Poor you, for the first hours of your new life no one knew anything about your powers," Cadence teased.

"You know, you really don't have to be so bitter that I'm faster than you." Barry started to take another bite of food. As soon as he put it into his mouth he noticed the mischievous expression that suddenly came onto Cadence's face.

Too late.

Barry placed the food in his mouth the second she increased the heat within it, immediately burning his tongue. Barry's eyes bulged and he spat the mouthful back into his takeout box. He ran his tongue over his teeth, grimacing at the fuzzy sensation, trying to ignore Cadence's laughter.

"Who's the fast one now?" She teased.

"That's not funny," Barry mumbled, holding his tongue out.

"Fine." She then crossed her arms, gently nudging his with her foot. "But I'm still stronger than you."

"Considering you've had your powers for sixteen years, that's not an argument I can win."

"Score!" Cadence cheered, punching her fists into the air.

Barry laughed again, setting his food down so he could wait for it to cool. He motioned to the plastic packages that sat by the other cartons filled with rice and vegetables. "You can take an extra fortune cookie to Brady if you want. I'm sure he'll get a kick out of it."

"Why?" Cadence looked at him suspiciously. "Do they blow up in your face or something?"

"No, but that'd be a great selling point. Fill them with confetti and there'd be more of them sold for holidays and birthdays and maybe even gender reveal parties. Major lucrative opportunities."

Now the two were openly laughing. "You're such a dork, Barry. But I'll be sure to mention to Brady that his favorite superhero gave him a fortune cookie."

Barry nodded, continuing to try and quell his laughter. "You don't need to be so jealous that your own son likes me better than you."

The fire metahuman's eyebrows lifted as she let out a single, "ha!"

'It's okay that he does. Most of the city does anyway."

Cadence laughed loudly. "This coming from the guy that seems to have an attack of the jealousies whenever Eddie comes near him." The correct phrasing would have actually been 'an envy attack' but he chose not to correct her. She reached out her hand and poked him in the cheek. "And who gets extremely self conscious when he starts to use his science jargon whenever he gets excited about something."

Barry reached up and batted her hand away. "I don't get self conscious about it," he defended himself. "I just get tired of people looking at me with a blank expression."

"Well you shouldn't, because it's cute," Cadence said. "And you using your scientific jargon makes you, you. And there's only one Barry Allen."

Barry nodded, feeling his stomach start to twist at the complement, his palms filled with sweat, and he nervously rubbed them on the legs of his jeans. Barry opened his mouth to reply then stopped when he noticed the time.

"Oh, I've got to get back to work!" He started to push himself back to his desk, and then stopped midway through his journey. He grimaced at his mistake. "Not that I'm trying to get away from you or anything, or that it's more important. I mean it is, but—"

He had to be clear about that sort of thing. He couldn't have her thinking that he wasn't into her—or other women for that matter. Being with someone he could completely be himself about, someone he didn't have to keep his secret from wouldn't be so bad would it?

"Don't worry, Barry, I get your point. I've got to get going, too." Cadence wiggled her fingers in the air. "Not every day you get a chance to go digging through someone's brain. Literally." She noticed the expression on Barry's face and quickly added, "Strictly due to work. I'm not into mad scientist experiments like Cisco."

"Just as long as you don't get the mad scientist hair," Barry joked back. "Cause Cisco's already halfway there."

"I've noticed. Don't tell him I told you that, though. He'll stop sharing his candy with me. I'll see you later, Barry." Cadence waved and made sure to grab her share of food before leaving his office.

Barry smiled and watched her leave. He went to take another bite of food and immediately spit it out when it burned his tongue once more. I hate it when she does that, he thought.

And the fact that the fire metahuman had such a high body temperature that she nearly constantly wore looser; shorter clothing that consistently drew his eye didn't help matters much either.

A/N: Let me know what you guys think; I think my favorite part of writing Barry and Cadence is their friendship in particular so I started off with tat. As I've said before this is a re-write of Sparks Fly (though once the first one is deleted this story will take on that title).

My biggest issue with the last version of it was that it was slowly starting to become more about their metahuman duties rather than the romance aspect of the story, the latter of which I wanted the story to be about in the first place.

So some things of this re-write stay the same (such as with parts of this chapter) while other plots have been moved to Crossfire and its upcoming sequel. I'm still taking into consideration suggestions that you guys have given me the last time I wrote the story.