Welcome to the sequel you didn't ask for, but the angst you hopefully want.
If you haven't heard, this is the second of three fics in a series, of which "Calamity Will Strike" is the first. It would certainly help to read Calamity before this one, though I suppose you can feed on much of the drama without it. This is direct continuation, so characters and themes and such will be carrying through.
As with the first, this is entirely Caitlin's POV. The same warnings apply, though perhaps not as intense as in Calamity: still, Flash-typical violence, blood, and injury will appear throughout. More squick warnings will follow, dependent on the chapter!
Enjoy!
I think someone was following me last night.
The text arrived on Caitlin's phone at precisely 1:43 on a Tuesday, vibrating on the table so loudly Caitlin jumped in her seat.
"What's that?" Barry said, shrugging up the cowl of his suit, glancing down at Caitlin's phone as he passed.
Caitlin clicked off the screen, not before catching the name attached to the text. "Nothing. Don't worry about it."
"Someone's got a secret boyfriend." Cisco appeared out of the medical bay where he'd been changing—unlike Barry, he didn't have the luxury of putting on his "suit" in the middle of the cortex, in plain view, at the speed of a blink. "You know, Barry, I don't know how you stand this every day."
Caitlin lifted a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. While Cisco's "suit" wasn't nearly as ostentatious as Barry's, the way he fidgeted in it made him look even more like a fish out of water. The heavy pants and yellow-and-black leather jacket were more form-hugging than any of his t-shirts and jeans, sure—but they were designed to be at least as impact-resistant as Barry's. With his Vibe glasses on his face and his hair drawn back into a bun, he might have been a completely different person.
Which, now that Caitlin thought about it, was largely the point of a secret identity.
"You look great," Caitlin managed, stopping her giggles for Cisco's sake. "Don't you think he looks great, Barry?"
"What?" Barry looked around, lost. "Oh, uh, yeah. Great. Like a real superhero."
Cisco scoffed. "Well, not yet," he said. "I think to be a superhero you've got to be able to control your superpowers."
"That's what we're working on now," Barry reminded him with an enthusiastic clap to the shoulder. "Are you ready?"
If he hadn't been wearing his glasses, Caitlin was sure she would've seen Cisco's hesitation. "You'll be great," she said.
"And you'll be here if things go south, isn't that right?" Cisco said wryly.
"I didn't get my MD for nothing," Caitlin teased. She crossed her arms. "Remember, this meta has the ability to manipulate the wind. Or…" Caitlin frowned. "Or the air. Wind or the air. You're going to have to—"
"Be careful?" Barry said. "Do you ever get tired of saying that?"
"What do you think?" Caitlin teased right back. "All I'm saying is we don't know the full extent of her abilities. We don't know exactly what we're up against."
"Perfect training for Cisco," Cisco grumbled, tightening up his ponytail. "Let's send the guy with unstable powers into a volatile situation."
"Hey, don't discount your friendly local speedster who is going to be helping you," Barry said. "We'll be fine."
A twinge of nervousness spiked in Caitlin's chest. "You're sure you're up to this?"
Yes, in their superhero getup and with their usual banter, everything might have been standard procedure. However, the truth lay deeper. The fact that this was their first major mission in a month. Their first major mission since the lasting effects of Cisco's concussion had faded. The first major mission since Barry's legs had been fully functional again.
Since the warehouse incident.
All three of them had done remarkably well in terms of healing after the ordeal, but the memory of it was enough to give Caitlin pause.
But not enough to stop her.
"We'll be back in a flash," Barry said with a wink, prompting a groan from both Cisco and Caitlin.
"We'll work on the taglines. Let's go." Cisco planted his hands on his hips and made a face at Barry. "Ugh. This is so undignified."
Then Barry, with the hint of a smirk, scooped him up and flashed him away.
It was odd, Caitlin mused, having two superheroes on the team to keep track of. She wasn't always alone at the comms, not with Wells and Iris as permanent fixtures of the team, but she still felt Cisco's absence acutely whenever he went off to train with Barry. He'd been doing it more and more lately—ever since accidentally creating a wave of energy while trapped in the warehouse. The power had been unexpected, but Cisco, in true Cisco fashion, had insisted he learn how to use that power for good.
Speaking of the warehouse incident—
Caitlin returned to her phone, swiping open the new message, the contact name glaring up at her. Rose.
I think someone was following me last night.
Chewing on her lip, Caitlin considered her reply.
Are you sure? she typed. Need backup?
She fiddled with the computer mouse while she waited for a response. The comms were turned low, almost a low drone, but she watched Barry's vital signs closely. For her own sanity, she would have to convince Cisco to add monitors to his own suit soon. As predicted, he'd shied away from that particular element of the design, claiming that his vitals were his own business, thank you very much.
Caitlin's attention was divided again by the buzz of her phone.
No, came Canton's response. Probably paranoid. It was late. They were men. Likely nothing.
If you're sure, Caitlin shot back. How are you doing? Need to come to STAR?
Are you kidding? Canton's text came quick. I'll show my face there if I want to die. Been lying low. Thorn's quiet.
Caitlin allowed herself a tiny moment of relief. Good. Knew you wouldn't need the serum for long.
The conversation ended there. Caitlin waited a minute more for another text to come through, but it seemed that Rose was through with chatting. If she was hard to read in person, she was even more so through text.
And she was probably right, Caitlin mused, about showing her face at STAR. It hadn't taken long for the others to discover that Caitlin had let one of their former kidnappers free from the pipeline—but it had taken longer for them to make peace with Caitlin's reasoning. When she first told Joe, she was sure the vein in his temple was going to leap straight out of his skin.
"Are you kidding me?" he'd steamed, as Barry and Cisco made themselves as small and silent as possible in their hospital beds behind Caitlin. "We spend hours looking for this woman, interrogating her…the woman who assisted in your kidnapping and torture…an uncontrolled metahuman…and you let her go without consulting us?"
"I can make my own decisions, Joe," Caitlin had said, stolidly standing her ground. "She just needed direction. Yes, I believe that. Yes, I am aware of what she did. Yes, I have a way to keep tabs on her."
Thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly, Barry, Cisco, and Iris had been slightly more forgiving. They certainly hadn't been happy with Caitlin's decision—hell, she toed the line herself from day to day—but even Barry, who had spent the most time alone with Jason in that warehouse and was therefore least forgiving, grudgingly agreed that it had been a morally-influenced choice and that it was officially a matter of the past.
A blinking light on the computer monitor drew Caitlin's attention back to the present. On the digital display of Barry's suit, a spot on his left side flashed red. Caitlin scrambled for the comm volume and turned it up.
"Barry? Cisco? What's going on?"
A grunt from Barry answered her. "We're fine."
"This girl packs a punch—wind-punch—"
"She can solidify the air."
"Heads up!"
Another grunt, then a strangled sound.
"Barry!"
Then silence from both comms.
"Cisco?" Caitlin said. "What's going on?"
But Cisco didn't answer. Panicked, Caitlin looked to the monitors and saw that Barry's heartrate was skyrocketing and his oxygen levels plummeting. Frantically she began typing, trying to access security cameras, cellphone videos, anything, her mind five places at once. There wasn't even static on the other end of the comm line—something that might have indicated technical malfunction—just dead silence.
No, not dead.
Barry's heart rate was now falling, and while he was still alive, he clearly wasn't breathing anymore. While there was no way of tracking what was happening to Cisco, the lack of response suggested that he was undergoing the same thing. Caitlin punched a few more buttons, lacking much of Cisco's expertise and technical finesse, but desperate.
She was just reaching for her phone to call Joe when a boom echoed through the comms and Cisco's line erupted into white noise, static.
"Cisco!" Caitlin stood involuntarily, clutching the edge of the desk with enough force to turn her knuckles white. Faintly over Barry's comm she heard a wheezing, gasping, coughing. Barry's oxygen levels began to rise, prompting a sigh of relief from Caitlin.
"Cait?" Cisco's voice was faint, coming through Barry's comm line. Cisco's own line was still thick with static, so Caitlin shut it off. "Are you there?"
"Of course," Caitlin said. "What's going on? What happened to your comm?"
"I may have…accidentally fried it," Cisco panted, his voice gaining volume. "Barry's out like a light…but I think he's okay."
"What happened out there?" Caitlin said. "I lost you for a minute."
"Turns out this wind girl…" Cisco gasped in more air. "…can cut off air to isolated areas. He started suffocating us. But…turns out stress really is what sets off my powers. And nothing like…being suffocated…to induce stress."
A horrible hacking cough accompanied the end of the sentence. "Are you okay? Do you need backup?"
"Just catching my breath," Cisco said. "My energy blast knocked out the meta. Can't tell if it knocked out Barry too, or if he passed out from lack of oxygen."
"Okay," Caitlin said. "Well, I'm glad you're alright. I'll send Joe to your location to help with the meta."
"No need," Cisco said. "I hear sirens close. I'll get Barry out of the open. Once he's conscious we'll head back."
"Be safe," Caitlin said, somewhat unnecessarily. "I'll be waiting."
"Aye-aye, Captain."
Confident that the two of them had it handled, Caitlin clicked off the comms again and cleared the computer screens of Barry's monitoring system. Once she had gotten rid of the anxiety-inducing images, she checked her phone again. A text from Joe had already arrived.
Is Barry downtown?
Yes, she responded. Meta subdued. Barry's fine.
She tossed her phone back on the table and began gathering her hair up in a ponytail, as she'd been prone to do during extended periods of anxious solitude lately. Her arm was still stiff from the beating it had taken at the hands of both Jason and Thorn, just enough to serve as a reminder.
As she waited for Barry and Cisco to return, she considered Cisco's powers. She remembered vividly what it had been like in the warehouse—adrenaline, stress, didn't even begin to cover what had triggered Cisco's energy blast. She winced at the memory of Jason viciously pummeling her with the tire iron, the certainty of death in both of their eyes. Cisco's yelling. The pulse of energy from the core of his being that knocked everyone in the room flat.
Over the past month, since recovering from his concussion, he'd tested the theory that stress was the trigger for his offensive powers—a theory that Wells had all but volunteered to assist with—producing varied results. In Caitlin's opinion, Cisco's definition of "training" was nothing short of crazy, even if he did occasionally yield results. By locking himself in the trunk of a car, for example.
Lord knew how he had ever convinced her that he was ready to go out on training missions with Barry.
As if on cue, footsteps sounded in the hall just beyond the cortex. She readied herself for Barry and Cisco's arrival and planted her hands on her hips, so they would know right off the bat that she was unhappy. Her trademark disappointed stare was usually sufficient to get them to settle down enough for treatment, at least.
"I hope you two have learned your lesson," she called. "Are you alright?"
A voice answered, a voice like gravel:
"I could ask you the same question. It seems that you haven't learned your lesson."
It wasn't Barry and Cisco who appeared in the doorway of the cortex. It wasn't even Joe or Iris or Wells.
The man who stepped into the room wore army greens and a wicked smirk.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," General Eiling said, and his grin widened.
I'm actually incredibly pumped about this fic/series, and I hope a couple of you will stick around, at least. In any case, the journey has been wonderful fun for me, and I'm excited to share it. If you're keen, I would love to hear your thoughts below! My normal posting schedule is Wednesday and Sunday, and that stays fairly consistent, so I'll see you very soon!
Till next time,
Penn