Note: I just wanted to say that I genuinely appreciate all of you who read/review/follow/favorite my stories. All of you are a huge reason of why I write, and it makes my day to see those e-mails telling me people legitimately enjoy my work. I hope I'll be able to make more writing that's worth your time.
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One thing that Cisco came to realize was that there were very few things that could successfully distract Caitlin. She never broached the subject, and he never prodded, but he suspected her nigh-unbreakable concentration stemmed from years of being hounded for her brainiac status in her school days. Cisco assumed everyone who contended with jerks in school found their own way of dealing with the steady wave of negativity, and he surmised that Caitlin simply ignored them out of existence. (He used an electromagnetic disc launcher to force Troy Wickman to back off. One disc to his pants, one to his car. The memory of Troy's look of pure, unrelenting regret coupled with the knowledge that it cost him somewhere around 500 dollars to retrieve his former pants amused Cisco regularly) That being the case, there were elements of the universe which had the rare ability to shatter her iron willpower. The first was food, particularly when she was exceptionally hungry. One late night, before the Particle Accelerator explosion, Cisco made a chicken parmesan sandwich only to have Caitlin snatch it out of his hands and wharf it down like a starved wolverine. Cisco, out of sheer bewilderment, questioned what had just occurred, though he concluded silence was his best option when Caitlin hadn't given him even a courtesy response. He considered attempting to retrieve his sandwich, as he was morally obligated to it by the Rules of Sandwich Making, but the conception of interfering with Caitlin's ravenous devouring of what was formerly his sandwich would be taking a greater risk than covering himself in barbecue sauce and giving the finger to a pack of tigers.
There was food, and, apparently, something else.
"Barry? You okay there, buddy? Talk to me." Vital signs indicated that Barry was slowly acclimating to the real world again. The team was tracking a presently unidentified meta-human with the power to alter the chemical dosage of other human beings. Barry tracked him down to a jewelry store at the Central City Mall as the meta-human had used his powers to convince security to disable the cameras and let him through to do as he pleased. Frightened by the sudden appearance of The Flash and the unbridled beatdown that would doubtlessly ensue, the meta-human used his powers to force Barry's mind to go to sleep.
The most immediate concern was that Barry no longer had his suit, and, for whatever bizarre reason, he didn't have a shirt. Both had been taken by the kleptomaniac to be pawned off in a game of Three-card Monte, no doubt. As soon as Cisco tapped into the Mall's security system and found Barry minus his gear, Caitlin had gone into "that mode", as Cisco called it. Her eyes would go wide, her bottom lip would occasionally quiver, and calling her attention to something of importance would be a borderline impossible task. It was very rare that Caitlin was sent into "that mode", but this was clearly a "that mode" moment. He quietly laughed. Despite his lackadaisical attitude to life in general, he never allowed his ladies-man status to get in the way of his objectives.
Well, there was Rachel Roth in 7th grade English, Kori Anders in AP Chemistry, and he nearly failed Computer Science I because of Barbara Gordon's Earth-shattering good looks. But that was before, and this was in the present with the new, laser-focused Cisco.
"I'm making fun of Caitlin for being distracted while I myself am presently distracted by Caitlin being distracted." Cisco returned his focus to getting Barry up and out. It was Friday morning, so the mall would be swarmed soon enough.
"Yeah. Hey. Ow." Barry shook his head and rubbed his eyes as he refocused his energy to standing up.
"Glad to have you back. Now, zoom on out of there and get back here now." Barry, fueled by his fear of being identified or, worse, arrested, made his final preparations to escape the mall. His journey was impeded, however, as his superpowers informed him that this was a quest he would have to take alone.
"Guys, I think that meta-human did something to me because my powers are on the fritz." Cisco's biggest fears were verified.
"Sorry, Barry, but you're gonna have to tactical espionage your way out of there. Don't worry, Caitlin and I are gonna guide you out of there. Right, Caitlin?" Cisco looked over at his partner in crime-fighting to find her fixated on her computer screen. In a case of pure coincidence, Caitlin's screen displayed a camera which gave a surprisingly high-resolution view of a shirtless Barry.
"Just as I predicted." Cisco mentally said in his best supervillain voice.
"You guys can," Barry paused. "See me?" Barry wondered aloud, a modicum of self-consciousness in his voice.
Barry had the hots for Caitlin, too? Excellent! He would have to form a plan to mess with Barry later. Now, his focus was on Caitlin.
"Uhh, hey, Team Flash to Caitlin?" He waved his hand in front of her face. "Doctor Snow, do you copy?"
Caitlin's sense of direction had been damaged. After several unsuccessful attempts to locate the human being three feet to her left, she met Cisco's gaze. "Oh, yes, Barry. We will get you out of there. We will keep close watch over you. Do not worry about that." Awkward innuendos. Cisco detected blood in the water. Now, the factitious, good-nature ribbing could truly begin.
"Something wrong, Caitlin?" Cisco gave his best "concerned friend" voice. "Seems like something is bothering you."
Caitlin's eyes popped open and she gave Cisco a look that pierced his very soul. "I'm fine, Cisco." She may as well have said: "Please understand, Cisco, I desire Barry with every atom of my being! His soul contains a purity rivaled only by the stars of the night sky and my heart aches each solitary, interminable moment we are apart! Oh, but how I wish I could discover a conduit for my feelings!"
He arched his eyebrow and gave a small smirk. "Are you sure? You seem a bit," He paused to give the next word particular aplomb. "Distracted."
"No, I'm fine. I am not distracted," Her rapid fire delivery and tone of voice betrayed her words. "And even if I was, which I am not, how many times have I found you absorbed by video games which you feel compelled to play while we're doing more important things?"
"Oh, you are so done." Cisco was going to get a lot of mileage out of this."First, I often have money on matches, so it IS important; Second, I never play while we're hunting meta-humans." Both of those things were true, to varying degrees.
"Guys! I need you to be my eyes. Not literally. But just focus, please." The two may have temporarily concluded their argument to assist Barry, but Cisco would continue his war.
"Right. Barry, Caitlin and I will cycle through the security cameras. Make your way to southeast exit. I'll look ahead for security and Caitlin will keep an eye on you."
"Buh, wait," Caitlin immediately objected to Cisco's hastily assembled plan. "I think may-"
"Yeah. I mean, I can keep an eye on my surroundings, you guys should probably look around and not at me." Barry was rather forward about not being seen in his current state. Almost unusually so, Cisco thought.
"No time to think, you need to move right now because you are gonna have several securities guards on you in a few moments. Caitlin, keep an eye on him." A small but necessary lie.
Barry hustled for the exit, beginning a crouch-walk after escaping the store. While Barry primarily used his superpowers to stand against criminals, he was unusually fast for an untrained CSI, as Caitlin noticed.
"You know, Barry, you seem a bit," She paused as Cisco noted her mouth's refusal to decide whether it was going to close or speak. "Fast. Well, I mean, you are fast. And I mean that completely in reference to your superpowers. It's just that, even without them, you're still fast even while snooping around. And I don't mean to imply you snoop around, because you don't, it's just that this scenario specifically calls for snooping around. Which you are rather capable of doing." Cisco knew that, when especially flustered, Caitlin's grasp of socially acceptable behaviors and the English language were the first casualties, but this was a whole new level of awkwardness.
There was no sign of any approaching guards, so Cisco clicked a few keys on his terminal to test Barry's reaction. It would be prudent to see what kind of effect Caitlin's awkward compliments had on his performance. A perfunctory appraisal of the screen allowed Cisco to detect that Barry had a rather unsubtle grin which threatened to fly off his face in spite of the danger.
"Oh, yeah," Cisco noted that Caitlin's roundabout compliment clearly had an effect on his focus. "Well, I always believed that it's about the hero, not the powers, so I figured I must be prepared for when my powers go haywire if I am truly to be the hero of Central City." He continued his journey to the exit as both he and Caitlin attempted, fruitlessly, to regain their composure.
"Wow, Barry. That's, uh," She sucked her lips into her mouth as her face burned a bright red. "Heroic. Must've entailed a lot of training."
While his primary objective was determining whether or not Caitlin and Barry did actually have the hots for one another, Cisco also had to make sure that Barry escaped alive. Barry was rapidly closing in on his escape route, but freedom would have to be delayed as two rather large, rather angry looking security guards were on a collision course with Barry's current location. "Barry, you got two very big, very scary looking dudes with nightsticks coming your way at 12 O'Clock. Duck in front of the Macy's entrance." Barry shuffled towards the closed off entrance, faith completely placed in Cisco's hands. He found himself in a bit of a bind. If he remained here, it was possible they would back off, or they would spot him and put an end to his career as a CSI.
"I'm gonna knock them out." Barry relayed this bizarre piece of information to Cisco and Caitlin as the two shared a look of worry as the security guards drew ever closer.
"Uh, Barry, no offense or anything, but these dudes look like they were in the army and you aren't exactly the Green Arr-" Just as Cisco was completing his warning, Barry sprung out as the two security guards reached his hiding spot. Inside of five seconds, he swiftly kneed the one on the left in the stomach and laid him on the floor with a body slam before unleashing a thunderous right cross, sending his partner flying away. Cisco and Caitlin shared a look, this one conveying pure disbelief in favor of anxiety. Barry Allen had swiftly taken down two NFL linebackers without the assistance of superpowers.
"Okay, I was wrong. You're not Green Arrow; you just went James Bond on those guys," If she wasn't before, Cisco knew Caitlin was full-on smitten. She shifted her had around the room in an effort to find something else to focus on other than Barry's extremely impressive display of physicality. "Alright, dude, perfect timing. Your cabbie is right outside."
"Dude, a cab? C'mon," He was clearly pleased with himself. Cisco suspected he knew, on some level, the effect that he was having on Caitlin's behavior. It made him more confident, more brash. "I'm a freaking superhero. Could you at least get me an Uber next time?"
Cisco looked over at Caitlin, who was obviously incapable of relaxing her nerves in spite of the danger no longer posing a threat to Barry. "An Uber from the Central City Mall to STAR Labs is like thirty dollars. You think Doctor Wells would accept that? Besides, cab drivers are fine with shirtless dudes needing rides from the mall in the middle of the morning." Cisco knew that was true. Caitlin took out her microphone and earpiece.
"Please tell me we have a STAR Labs t-shirt around here somewhere." She implored Cisco. With no costume and no powers, it was probable that Barry would have to walk around shirtless for the remainder of the long, long day. Perfect.
"I think we have one," He put a hand on her shoulder to assure her. "Don't worry. I will find it." A bit of relief washed over her face.
"So I can immediately hurl it into the incinerator."
Barry and Caitlin both had a severe case of the hots for each other, and it was up to Cisco to make it happen. This was gonna get ugly.