I'm giving a hint as to what the pairing will be at the end of the chapter. And before any of you ask, it's not a super heroine, guy or anyone from England.
Chris couldn't help but hide a grin as he subtly gave Barry tips on things Wells certainly wasn't going to teach him. After all, if he was right and Wells was a time traveler that was stuck, he would be more interested in Barry going fast enough to break the time barrier than the little things that made life interesting.
The blast zone Barry left with his super speed was starting to inch into a smaller radius.
Chris couldn't count the number of times he had to re-shelve books before he figured out how to minimize that. On the plus side, he learned the Library's filing system very quickly and could usually find what he needed within an hour or so, compared to the several hours that Flynn had to spend looking something up. And that was without super speed on his side.
Wells seemed to take his teleport ability for granted, not seeing it as very important considering Chris didn't really give off the air of someone who knew how to fight, much less be of use.
And really, outside of cleaning the place, none of them took Chris seriously. They thought of him as furniture, for some strange reason, just because he wasn't that interested in discussing physics with them.
Honestly, people could be idiots sometimes.
"So you're the one who told Barry he can make copies of himself if he goes fast enough."
Joe was giving Chris an odd look.
"Not my fault if they think my only power is to teleport."
Or that he let them believe he had gained his from the accelerator and not a freak accident involving lightning.
He wasn't afraid of lightning, though there was an interesting incident in which he gave his minders (Judson and Charlene) a near heart attack by attempting to race up a bolt of lightning. He had a bad case of lingering static shock for two whole weeks, and a broken leg that took three days to heal when he realized no, he couldn't RUN up lightning, but outside that the most he got was a mild shock in his feet.
He would always claim he was loopy on the medicine they gave him because he had a nasty cold (being muggles they couldn't procure a bottle of Pepper-Up potion), but the truth was that he did it to simply see if he could.
Even if the answer was no.
Especially if the answer was likely to be no.
Joe gave him a look, before Chris subtly took out his phone and tapped the area where the camera was twice. He got the hint after a few seconds. As Chris left for a hot beverage (away from Jitters) Joe decided to question the odd janitor.
"So who are you really?"
"A bored librarian who was told to enjoy my youth and decided to stick around because the temporal waves have been going haywire since I stepped foot in the city," deadpanned Chris. Sometimes the best defense was to throw people for a loop with the truth.
Joe gave him an unimpressed look.
"Or I could be a miracle child who survived lightning and had horrific scars until I came to Central City and got accelerated healing because of that stupid machine blowing up and decided to enjoy it."
That Joe seemed to believe.
"Besides, no one ever pays attention to the help, especially if they go out of their way to be uninteresting. I think the only reason Cisco even remembered my name after the first week was because I pranked that ass of a protege Wells kept before he almost busted him."
"Wells had a protege?"
"Some young hot shot called Hartley. Always acted so smug because he was a genius and I was a lowly janitor. Major asshole."
Chris always tuned him out when Hartley went on a roll explaining his superiority to a lowly janitor for several reasons.
He was independently wealthy, had a much better job that gave him more influence and respect than Hartley would ever manage in his lifetime (not that he could after outing himself to his parents), and he didn't feel the need to lower himself to a child who felt he had bragging rights because his ego demanded others pandered to him.
Besides, Chris usually imagined Cal kicking the pompous brat's ass whenever he got too annoying. It always seemed to cheer him up.
Joe eyed him oddly.
"You're a speedster like Barry."
"I got my powers years before the accident, but I find it funny to watch him learn the hard way. Besides, if the other speedster who murdered Nora Allen found out I had the same powers, he might just kill Barry and try to force me into playing Barry's part."
Barry had a support system. He had a well respected job, was surrounded by cops most of the time and had people who would most certainly ask questions that the bad guys rarely wanted answered if anything happened to him.
Chris had almost none outside of Judson and Charlene, and they were in New York. He was also younger, had a low-paying job and had never gone to college.
To put it bluntly, Chris was a much more tempting target for a rogue speedster who had lost a good chunk of his powers than Barry was. Especially since he had far more experience beyond just going faster, even if no one knew that at the moment.
Chris frowned into his tea.
"Besides... the yellow speedster is technically Barry's problem, and I can't see him being happy with someone else dealing with that man before he gets a confession."
"So you have any ideas who it is?"
"Again, not my problem unless he does something that makes him more trouble than it's worth to ignore his existence. If Barry figures it out and decides to do something, that's his prerogative. I plan to just enjoy the show and give out enough hints on how to actually learn to use the really fun stuff."
Like lightning. Or the afterimage trick that made people doubt which one was real. Or any number of little tricks he had learned since he had never really been concerned with speed.
Why care about how fast you were on the ground when with a little effort and the right equipment you could fly wherever you wanted? Not to mention going Between solved the issue of distance nicely, even if it was very cold.
And he had only traveled through time once using speed. Honestly the ripple effect and backlash wasn't worth doing it unless absolutely necessary. Not to mention the fact that Charlene had grounded him for a full month from using his speed to do anything when she found out.
He stole one artifact from that idiot Savage once before the man even got there, and had to listen to a complete bitchfest because of the ripples it caused.
And that was before the Time Masters tried to cow him into leaving the time line alone.
Honestly, if they hadn't show up to complain and tell him off for a minor disturbance in the time line that set Vandal Savage back a few years at most, he never would have figured out that the whole lot of them were working to help the immortal.
Well, that and he went looking into who they were to tell him off, leading him to discover that little tidbit.
Never underestimate a Doctor Who fan with the world's largest library and access to unlimited internet that could speed read.
If the Doctor couldn't hide his presence in history on his favorite planet, how did a bunch of old geezers with dubious motives expect to pull it off?
Chris looked at Captain Cold and Heat Wave, aka Leonard Snart and Mick Rory.
"Am I supposed to be impressed that you kidnapped me as a hostage?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Cisco, he could understand, but kidnapping him? It didn't really add up, especially with a calculated planner like Snart.
Snart looked at Chris and a subtle sort of communication passed between them. That and a look of recognition.
"I thought I remembered you. You're the Librarian," said Snart.
"And you're one of the people I prefer to hire to steal from idiots who are too busy looking for me to show up and not a thief who isn't afraid to freeze them out permanently."
Charlene wasn't aware of this (or she pretended not to notice) but whenever there was a scheduling issue...or more often than not an issue with an overly mothering/fan girl being present with the people who were after an artifact/book... Chris had the unusual habit of outsourcing.
Personally he blamed reading the Evil Overlord List and getting ideas. Why risk losing what he was after when he could act as a distraction and get an actual thief to steal it for him with a bit of gold?
It was a ploy that no one saw coming, because the ones he usually worked with rarely recognized him until after they handed it over.
And Chris paid very well, considering what he was hiring them for.
Snart untied Chris, to Mick's confusion.
"We're just letting him go?"
"No. If I know him, he's mostly working for them out of boredom or some other ploy. And he has access to even more interesting toys than the guns," said Snart.
He had an oddly amicable relationship with Snart. He had several safe houses set up as drop off points, and he kept them well stocked with enough medicine to keep a small clinic operating for at least a month.
Sometimes the people he hired to steal for him were injured, and letting them help themselves to his medical supplies was a small price to pay for 'good service' as it were.
After the number of times Chris went with him and anyone they scrounged up for a retrieval mission, Snart practically considered him part of his crew. An odd one, to be fair, but still someone he'd trust to deal with the...unusual...heists he thought might involve magic.
Mick looked confused but more than eager to set things on fire.
Chris had a rather impish expression.
"So is he really as big a pyro as the rumors claim?" he asked Snart.
"I gave him that gun for a reason," deadpanned Snart.
"Give me five seconds to give him some alcohol and candy he's going to really love," said Chris, grinning evilly.
He disappeared and returned with an amber-colored liquid in an obvious liquor bottle and a box labeled "Pepper Imps". He handed them to Mick.
"That right there is something called Firewhiskey. If consumed in the right amount of time, it can literally give someone fire breath for ten full seconds. Drinking too much does tend to set people who drink it on fire, though it doesn't cause burns outside of a mild tingling sensation. And those are Pepper Imps. Eating those allow you to breath small bursts of fire to scare people."
Mick gave the bottle a renewed interest.
"And these are fireworks banned in the US for potentially causing too much fire damage from wayward sparks, but are perfectly legal to own in China. Feel free to launch them at the Flash, he needs to learn how to dodge at high speeds properly," said Chris far too cheerfully.
Mick had a wicked smirk on his face.
"I can see why you like him now!"
"That and he pays well for small jobs," said Snart.
He didn't ask questions about how Snart did things or why he needed certain items that usually weren't used in the job. All he asked was that innocent casualties were kept to a bare minimum and he made sure to include an incentive to make sure it stayed that way.
Besides, Chris was rarely, if ever, stingy with the gold or unmarked bills he paid with.
"So how did the infamous Librarian end up as a janitor?"
"Eh, I think Wells is a displaced time traveler and someone in the city is his ancestor. Or his descendant, but I'm pretty sure his ancestor. The ripples kept coming from the labs, and no one ever really looks at the janitor except when expensive things go missing."
Case in point, Cisco's hot and cold guns.
"Time travel, huh?" said Mick, already trying out the strange liquor. He was already experiencing a stronger kick than normal alcohol, and there were little wisps of fire coming out.
"I've seen stranger," admitted Snart. "And how do you know it's his ancestor?"
"Time displacement follows certain rules. The future is malleable, but the more you meddle in the past the more the present is effected. But it's mostly because if it was someone from the past, then the time ripples would have dealt with the issue by erasing the descendant within a few months. Considering the amount I've been feeling, it's far more likely someone from the future got stuck and can't find their way back," admitted Chris.
Snart believed him. He had seen far too many things working for Chris to not at least give him some leniency with the impossible. Well that and his explanation did make a basic sort of sense.
If someone was removed from the past, then the present descendant wouldn't be born, never mind the rest of that line. So removing the anomaly would preserve time until the ancestor was taken back. But the future was different. If they weren't born, then there was no reason to remove anyone so long as the one ancestor remained. Take them out, and you took the entire line out to the one who got stuck.
Or as Chris liked to call it, the Paradox-Effect.
Chris pretended to be tied up when Barry arrived. Snart knew he was mostly humoring them so Flash and his merry band of so-called geniuses didn't suspect he knew Snart on a professional level.
Though really, Snart mainly respected him because the first time he met Chris, the sixteen-year-old had literally pick pocketed him after shaking his hand, and it had taken ten full minutes for Snart to realize it.
It wasn't that hard for Snart to respect a fellow thief who was at least professional and listened to him. Even if it was a bit awkward watching his sister hug the teen to death when she realized how adorably cutthroat Chris was while they were working together.
She really needed a new hobby...or a boyfriend he wouldn't automatically attempt to kill for getting near his sister. He was almost tempted to set her up with Chris, if he could get away with it. She liked him enough and the age difference wasn't too bad...
