Barry doesn't challenge Cisco's masculinity, oh no. Cisco could handle that; he's been arguing against traditional concepts of masculinity for years.
No, Barry hits him where it hurts: he challenges Cisco's technology.
And his drones are his babies.
No one gets to hurt Cisco's babies.
So when Dr. Wells gives him permission to bring it, Cisco grins and sets alpha on Barry's heels, watching with burgeoning pride as one of the targets finally makes contact. He feels bad, too, of course – it's not a simulation, there is a real person under that red suit and he kind of wants to keep him in one piece, too – but he recovers quickly when Barry does, pushing himself to his feet. They're far enough away that Cisco can't see him favoring his right shoulder; instead, he sics alpha on him for all its worth because if Barry wants a fight then Barry will get it.
Dr. Wells, sounding mildly concerned, asks, "Why isn't he running away?"
Cisco has a theory, and his theories are usually but not always correct, and he thinks, If I'm wrong, this could go very, very badly.
He doesn't have time to give voice to his convictions or concerns because alpha launches another rocket straight for Barry and he can't retract it.
All he can say is, "Barry, run away."
Then alpha goes up in flames.
The replay footage is the only way they can actually see it happen. At normal speed, there's a red blur, and then the footage cuts out as alpha explodes. Slowing it down to one hundredth of normal speed, they can finally watch it play out properly: Barry leaps for the rocket, spins it hard with his momentum, and lets it sail straight back at alpha.
And then, boom.
Direct hit.
Cisco is so impressed he can't actually find it in himself to be upset that Barry destroyed his drone because super speed is cool but catching rockets in mid-air is a whole new level of coolness.
"Dude, that was awesome," he tells Barry, who's already munching away happily at a Big Belly Burger. In quick succession, he puts away six more, scarcely slowing to smile at Cisco, satisfied.
As soon as Barry has eaten his fill – and that is a lot of burgers, but until Caitlin perfects the glucose medication, they don't have many other options – Dr. Wells is on him. "Very impressive, Mr. Allen. Your reaction to stimuli at super-speed continues to improve."
"It's still not enough," Barry says, getting up.
You just caught a rocket. In mid-air.
"It will be," Dr. Wells assures. The certainty in his voice is calming: Cisco tends to enjoy the chaos of science, but he likes clarity, too, a foundation to build his simulations and rationalizations on. He can't create new universes without order; unpredictability just leads to ultimate catastrophic failure and disintegration.
Looking at Barry, he can't help but feel cold at what catastrophic failure could imply.
"You keep working like you are, you stay focused like you are, and you will be ready the next time your man in the yellow suit comes around," Dr. Wells says, and Cisco likes the simplicity and congruity of the solution.
Keep training. Push your limits. Get stronger.
Faster.
And then, because he can't resist it and the-man-in-the-yellow-suit is a mouthful, Cisco says, "I think you mean the Reverse-Flash." He grins, but Caitlin and Barry are looking at him like he's lost it, so he frowns. "What? He said it, not me." Then, excited because oh he is so good at this, he adds, "And he's right. Yellow suit, red lightning, evil . . . the reverse of Barry."
He can't believe he hasn't thought of it sooner (although Opposite Flash was moving in the right direction). It's so clear to him: they're not opposites, they're reversed, opposing forces that were still ultimately the same essence.
Opposite implied fundamental differences; reverse implied the exact same blueprint, switched, two speedsters, mirror images of each other.
Caitlin says, "Meh."
But Dr. Wells smiles and says, "Actually, I kind of like it."
Chalk one up for Cisco.
"All right, I'm still ready for another round," Barry says, and he sounds like it, even though Cisco catches him favoring his right shoulder a little.
He's a speedster; he heals quickly. Cisco isn't worried.
"How many drones do you have left?" Barry asks, and Cisco grins.
"Two. And they have lasers."
Caitlin and Dr. Wells veto the lasers, but beta and gamma can still kick ass on their own.
Cisco pushes Barry, hard and fast, keeping beta close. It's built for stamina and speed, and as the chase evolves into a flat out endurance test, beta's hits miss but it stays on him. He darts to the side and, cheetah-like, beta follows, correctional blasts of air helping to keep it stabilized. Of course, each sharp turn requires a momentary lapse, which Barry exploits, running in squares, forcing beta to move sharper and sharper corners to have a chance at hitting him.
There's a brief moment where Cisco can see his drone going up in flames, picturing the Rocket-Snatch perfectly, but then Barry's on the ground, and they can't see or hear what's happening but beta angles to fire at him and Cisco hits the emergency off switch so fast beta drops from mid-air, landing on the dirt scant inches away.
"You okay?" he asks, using their megaphone, feeling dread in his stomach when Barry doesn't get back to his feet immediately.
And then he's up, obviously favoring his left leg, limping back towards them.
"Yeah," he calls, once he's within shouting distance, and he sounds tired and his voice is scratchy but he's still moving under his own power and Cisco considers that a victory. "Nice work out there," he adds breathlessly once he's in reach, and Caitlin hurries forward to put an arm underneath his shoulders and help him limp to a chair.
"What happened?" she asks, already focusing on his left leg and Cisco feels guilt welling up in his throat when he sees how his leg is trembling.
"I tripped," Barry answers, hissing softly when she touches his foot.
"Guess it's a good thing we weren't using lasers," she responds. "Cisco, there's ice in the freezer—"
"On it."
Cisco's not fast like he is, so he misses something, because when he's back Dr. Wells and Barry are arguing.
Barry says, "It's just a sprain."
Dr. Wells replies, "We need you alive, Barry, and if you can't keep up with it then we're going to have to try again another day."
Barry tries to stand up, to say, "I'm fine," but Caitlin pushes him back onto the seat with a firm hand.
She applies the ice to his ankle while Cisco pretends not to exist – his favorite pastime when other people are arguing; he's learned how to stage ping pong matches between Barry and himself mentally for kicks. Cisco's actually winning this one, too, as he sifts absentmindedly through beta's database, confirming perfect health, and then Barry says, "I'm ready."
He's on his feet and looks ready to fight.
Dr. Wells levels him with a calm, cool glare, and Cisco thinks stronger men have folded underneath that look, but Barry just straightens his shoulders and sets off at a slow march towards the horizon. "Hit me with your best shot, Cisco," he says, without turning back, and Cisco wonders if he shouldn't be more worried about how blasé Barry is about the whole "almost getting killed by a drone" thing.
So he reels beta's enthusiasm in and sets it back on a chase, firing almost as soon as it can while Barry runs, accelerating to almost four hundred miles an hour in a matter of seconds. Beta's fast, reaching maximum speeds of six hundred, and Cisco pushes a little, forcing Barry to push harder, too. He can't see him, now, only a red blur in the distance, beta has a live feed but they're moving too fast for Cisco to really see what's happening, trusting beta's heat sensors more than anything to find their mark.
So it catches him by surprise when there's a sudden boom, beta going up in flames.
Cisco is crowing with unexpected delight, shouting over the megaphone, "Way to go, Barry!"
Barry thrusts both arms high into the air, their unspoken 'hit me again' signal, and Cisco draws in a deep breath and launches gamma.
Gamma flies low and fast, and he can see almost at once that it's going to be a problem as Barry abruptly changes direction and gamma falls into a compensatory arc, slicing its distance and wobble in half.
Cisco doesn't even have to push gamma; it's already built for maximum speed, sleek, mean, capable of functioning as a single large missile under the right circumstances.
He scales it back a notch when he notices just how close their two paths are, red and black streaks chasing each other across the horizon.
There's an instant when gamma cuts abruptly into Barry's path, arcing around to accelerate in the slingshot, and then Barry's blasted off his feet, landing half a dozen yards away as Cisco powers down gamma.
He's definitely hurting when he limps back this time, arms and legs covered in abrasions, face burned on one half.
"That was impressive, Mr. Allen," Dr. Wells says, and Barry grunts, falling into a chair and breathing heavily through his mouth. "Everything all right?"
"Yeah," he says, gasping, face going paler by the second. "I just – my chest – hurts."
"Let me see," Caitlin says, voice calm and patient, but Cisco can see the frisson of tension underneath the surface, amplified when Caitlin carefully peels his shirt off.
There's a horrible looking bruise across part of his torso, and Cisco can see it happening in his mind's eye, the drone cutting down and smashing into his chest, knocking him clean off his feet.
Caitlin's got a stethoscope and she's listening for scant seconds before saying, "Get me the crash cart."
Cisco hates that they even have one, that it's at all necessary, and he's panicking over what could be wrong as he scrambles inside the van and emerges with a bulky first aid kit box.
Barry's on the ground, chest rising and falling unevenly, and Caitlin says, "I'm sorry."
Then she stabs a needle in his chest and Barry chokes, and Cisco is in pain just listening to him, but Caitlin pulls on the syringe and then Barry's drawing in a heaving breath again, some of the color returning to his face as he pants.
"Pneumothorax," she explains, helping Barry sit up a little, his eyes closed, his face still a little more blue than Cisco likes but improving.
"That's enough for today," Dr. Wells says, and Barry's shaking his head but Cisco's already calling gamma home. It comes easily, tamely, settling back into its container with mechanical precision, and Cisco lays a hand on its top for a moment, contemplating its destructive capacity, how it doesn't even have a dent despite the high-speed collision, and then he's shutting it inside the case and helping Caitlin get Barry on his feet.
Dr. Wells and he close up shop as the rain steadily increases, Caitlin taking Barry back to Star Labs.
Feeling a mixture of guilt and confusion, Cisco doesn't speak as he locks everything down in the outdoor trailer for protection, making his way to Star Labs as soon as Dr. Wells gives him a patient smile and a, "Go. I can take it from here."
He jogs to get out of the rain, or at least, that's what he tells himself, because it's not raining that hard and he doesn't need to run, except he does, and then he's pushing open the lab doors and hurrying down the halls.
Caitlin already has Barry on an IV and an oxygen mask, but he still looks unfocused as Cisco steps into the room. "Hey," he says, walking up to Barry. "How you feeling?"
"Kind of sore," Barry admits gruffly, barely audible through the mask.
"I don't care how fast you are," Caitlin says, and Cisco can hear the concern through her annoyance, "we're not using drones for training sessions again."
"Caitlin," Barry begins.
But Cisco interjects, saying seriously, "She's right. I can't have you blowing up any more of my babies."
And I can't have you getting blown up by them, either.
He doesn't know when the shift happened – when Barry's well-meaning drive to push himself hard turned into a borderline suicidal desire to overextend himself – but he can see that they need to approach it differently, can't feed it with more and more and more.
It's all about strategy, Cisco thinks.
The Reverse-Flash is still human, even if he is a meta-human capable of running much, much faster. He has weaknesses – they just need to find and exploit them.
Cisco wouldn't mind siccing gamma on him, even though he knows gamma wouldn't be able to limp home afterward.
It would be a much better sacrifice than Barry, who got the shit kicked out of him until Firestorm intervened, and why Firestorm intervened is still a mystery to Cisco, but he knows one thing for sure: they have to think broader, train smarter.
"We're gonna catch him," he tells Barry, and Barry's gaze meets him, glassy but still perceptive, still listening. "The Reverse-Flash."
"How many people is he going to kill before we do?" Barry asks quietly.
"Not you," Cisco says firmly. Giving his good leg a gentle shake, he adds, "Just take it easy, Barry. We'll figure it out."
Barry won't look at him, and Caitlin's busy setting up the portable x-ray, so Cisco claps his hands together and says, "I am going to go get ice cream. What do you two like?"
"Chocolate," Caitlin replies.
"Strawberry."
Sixteen tubs of Neapolitan ice cream don't do much for defeating their Reverse-Flash, but it sure makes Cisco feel better as Barry, Caitlin, and he polish them off while Caitlin and Cisco argue about cooler names for the Reverse-Flash.
Barry doesn't join in, but he's smiling, and definitely eating his face share of ice cream, and Cisco considers it a win.
Maybe he knocked out two of his babies, but, at least, Cisco's babies didn't knock him out.
Permanently.
"Where'd all the ice cream come from?" Dr. Wells asks, staring at the empty tubs already on the floor.
"I had a craving," Cisco says, which isn't untrue, as he pops a spoonful in his mouth.
"Uh huh." Dr. Wells looks like he's going to ignore it for a moment before grabbing a spoon and saying simply, "I do like strawberry."
"See? Told you I'm not crazy," Barry says with a smirk.
And Cisco smiles because it's good to see that smirk, Barry's unshakable confidence a fundamental truth he can build even more theories upon.
They're going to catch the Reverse-Flash.
One pint of strawberry ice cream at a time.