Sorry, I've been meaning to write this for a while but exams are starting and this month has been stressful. Enjoy!
I own nothing except Alyssa, so don't touch her or sue me.
"No no no" Cisco yelled.
"What?!" Caitlin looked up from where she was tending to Barry's latest injuries. Stopping a bank robbery he had not managed to brake in time and slammed into a wall, which resulted in bruising and a dislocated shoulder. Again.
"Someone is sending a virus to the S.T.A.R Labs computers." Cisco said, typing furiously. "I'm trying to stop it but they are very good."
The next hour was filled with furious typing and muttered Spanish curses.
Barry looked over at Cisco. The young engineer was glaring at the computer, though he had finally stopped typing. "What's up?"
Cisco sighed. "I saved most of the files and data, including the ones about you and the other metahumans. At the moment though, all other files have been deleted, I can't get on, and I have a feeling that once I can the dam thing is going to be really slow." He rubbed his forehead and stood casting one last scowl at the computer. "I need coffee."
"Why don't we go to Jitter's?" Barry asked. "It's near lunch time anyway, and you look like you could use a break." Cisco shrugged and agreed.
"So how good are they? The person who sent the virus." Barry asked as they drove in Cisco's small car to Jitter's.
"Very good. Felicity-level good. The only reason I saved so much is because I got to it right was it was being sent and even then it's causing trouble." Barry raised an eyebrow. If Cisco was saying that, the person was talented. They finished their drive in silence. Neither expected what they found when they arrived at Jitter's.
"Felicity?" Barry asked, walking up to the blond girl who was just ordering. "What on earth are you doing here?"
"Barry!" Felicity grinned and hugged both him and Cisco. "It's great to see you both? How are you?"
"Dr. Rathaway!"
The boys whipped around. A man was standing by one of the tables, embracing a shorter woman tightly. A woman with brown hair, sunglasses inside, and the name Rathaway.
"That's Hartley's sister!" Cisco hissed, watching as the woman greeted the man quietly and sat down, quickly engaging in conversation.
"You know Hartley?"
"I could ask the same." Barry muttered. "How do you know him?"
Felicity bit her lip. "You'd better order." She said as a woman, probably new as Barry didn't recognize her, gave the blond two travel coffees and two muffins. The boys ordered the same and turned to Felicity. "I know Hartley because I know his sister. Alyssa's really nice, well, she's nice until someone hurts Hartley. They're very close."
"Hartley's a dick, to put it nicely." Cisco said bluntly, not taking his eyes off Alyssa.
"Oh he is." Felicity agreed. "But he loves Alyssa, as do I. So he tries to be civil."
"Wait a second." Barry said, picking up the coffees and motioning for Cisco to get the muffins. "You and Alyssa?"
Felicity blushed slightly, than turned over her wrist so that Barry could see the blue mark.
"Wow."
"Yep. Come on." She walked towards her soulmate and the boys followed.
"But why did you leave?" The man asked plaintively. "You helped me, I know you were helping others, and there aren't that many therapists who are as good as you Dr. Rathaway."
Alyssa smiled sadly. Jake had been on of her first patients, a veteran with PTSD and a psychosomatic pain in his arm. He told her he got a dull ach there now and then, but ha had actually been shot and was otherwise fine. He had left her about a year after coming, and greeted her every time he came across her in town.
"A recent development interferes with my ability to help." She said gently. "Believe me, I wish I could have stayed." He was starting to get edgy now, she could tell.
"Well, I'll be going then." Jake stood, shaking her hand. "And congratulations by the way. You deserve it." He nodded towards her blue soul mark and left, whistling cheerfully.
Alyssa smiled warmly. Even with the sunglasses Barry thought it made her face brighten, giving her a very different look from the one she'd had last night.
"I got your coffee." Felicity grinned, setting the mug and lemon poppy seed muffin in front of Alyssa and sitting next to her. "And I brought friends." She turned to Barry and Cisco, who were standing a bit uncomfortably. "Sit down!" They sat.
"Alyssa Rathaway." Alyssa said, eyeing the two young men. Friends of Felicity's, she knew the names of everyone Felicity knew in Central City and all of them were connected to S.T.A.R Labs in some way.
"Barry Allen."
"Cisco Ramon."
Alyssa's eyes sharpened. "So you're Cisco." Then there was that smirk Barry had seen. "Pleased to meet you."
Cisco sipped his coffee. Random, and pretty, women telling him that was not something that happened often. Meaning never. Alyssa seemed to sense this, because her smirk turned warmer and she said "My brother spoke highly of you, when he wasn't commenting on how unprofessional he thought your clothes were."
"Hartley? Spoke well of me? Are we talking about the same person?" Cisco was shocked.
"Yes." Alyssa replied simply. She tilted her head in a slightly quizzical fashion. "You rigged his hearing aids." Cisco fidgeted uncomfortably. "I'm not mad, it was clever and I would have done the same in your shoes, though be assured had the circumstances been anything else I would be much less accepting." She finished her muffin. "Why don't you finish all your coffee and come to our apartment? Hartley has an apology to give, and I want you to understand him better." She gave a fond but exasperated smile. "My twin isn't nice, I can't argue with that, but he's not an evil person. He does regret what he tried to do to your speedy friend."
Barry and Cisco glanced at each other, than nodded. "Can I ask you one question first?" Barry asked, picking at his chocolate muffin. "Why do you wear sunglasses?"
Alyssa's smile turned sad in an instant. "Because I cannot meet someone's eyes without inducing terror."
The boys were quiet after that. They finished their coffee quickly and together the four left Jitter's. Felicity and Alyssa got on a motorcycle while Cisco and Barry followed the girls in their car to an apartment building in the nice part of town.
Cisco noted the relief he felt when they left Alyssa's presence and the jump in his nerves when he stood near her again. "Your abilities don't just work from eye contact do they?"
Her smile was bitter. "Hartley was right, you are clever. My presence is enough to make people anxious. Hartley's presence nullifies it, lucky for you." She walked up the stairs.
The twins' apartment was on the top floor, it a red-carpeted hallway. Felicity once joked that it was the same shade as dried blood, so that you could have a killing here and no one would notice. Alyssa unlocked the door, survived the empty room, and glared.
"Hartley!" Something crashed in the kitchen and she stalked towards it.
"Damn she can yell." Barry muttered as they slowly followed her in. Felicity peered around the room, then jumped when Hartley darted out and sat in his chair.
"You do not pull off innocent well." She said, staring at him. His lips tilted in his familiar slight smile, one reserved for Felicity and his sister.
"I certainly hope you can bake, Felicity." He replied dryly. "Otherwise you'll be stuck without forgiveness anytime you do something she finds stupid."
"You can be so stupid." Alyssa said, reentering the room with a raspberry muffin in her mouth and another in her hands. "But you're forgiven. This time." She pointed at him threateningly. Hartley held up his hands in the universal 'I surrender.'
"Well we can see who wears the pants in this family." Cisco muttered.
Hartley heard and looked up. For a moment his eyes met Cisco's, and the room seemed to still. Alyssa beckoned Felicity forward and the two women leaned against the wall near the tiny kitchen, Barry subconsciously took a few steps to the side, and two long-time rival met each others gaze unflinchingly.
Hartley broke the silence first. "I'm sorry."
Barry and Cisco blinked. Alyssa had said her brother had an apology to give, but this was unexpected. Hartley continued slowly. "For giving you a concussion. Not for repaying you for messing with my hearing aids." The two engineers almost smiled at that. Hartley's gaze shifted to Barry. "And I apologize for trying to kill you Flash."
"How did you-"
"I researched everyone who was still associated with S.T.A.R. Labs." Alyssa interrupted. "It wasn't a great leap. And I'm good at recognizing voices."
Cisco sat down gingerly on the sofa, still meeting Hartley's eyes. "I'll take that apology-you're still a dick though."
Alyssa and Felicity laughed, Barry grinned, and Hartley half-smiled. It was a smile, Cisco belatedly realized that he had seen Hartley wear when he was pleased with something on the accelerator, or once at the labs, he had caught Hartley watching him with that same half-smile. He shook away the memory. "What are you working on?"
"Armbands for Alyssa." Hartley handed him one. They were made of a light metal and had leather padding on the insides, cylinders around it. He could see where one might put a syringe, and where a smooth button was that could release said syringe into her hand. Their where three of these large cylinders, and three smaller ones that faced towards the wearer. "The smaller ones were sticking; I had to fix it and made some alterations while I was at it."
Cisco saw where a thin flap of leather might be lifted. It was well concealed, and on the inside where thin lock picks. He grinned. "Nice."
Alyssa pulled them out of his hands and sat at their table by the window. Swiftly she removed syringes from her case and slid them into the correct cylinders. She then took a small computer chip and slid it in with the lock picks.
"What's that?" Felicity whispered.
"Everything we have on people we hate." Alyssa replied softly. She looked at her brother and Cisco. "Those two need this. I want my brother happy and he admired Cisco, I saw that in his rants though it would be like pulling teeth to get him to admit it." She smiled, her brother was as stubborn as she was and even less likely to admit it. Then she looked out the window. "Oh no."
"What?" Hartley and Felicity spoke at the same time, each picking up on Alyssa fear.
"Eiling."
A psychosomatic injury/illness is caused by a mental factor such as stress, internal conflict, or past trauma. John Watson's limp in the latest Sherlock is an example.