New metahuman! I like this one! WARNING, once again, not upping to M because this is very, very mild, but there is a distinct sexual reference in this one - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Caitlin shook him awake gently. Barry nuzzled into the pillow more, tried to shrug off the annoying hand.
"Barry," Caitlin said.
"Mngh."
"I need you to sit up, Bar."
Barry pushed farther under the blankets.
"Oh, for God's sake, Barry." Caitlin pulled the blankets back and Barry whined, opened his eyes and blinked at Caitlin. She had turned the light back on.
"Whaaat?" he said, reaching for the blanket again.
"I need to take the stitches out," she said, "unless you'd like to keep them."
"Uhgg." Barry sat up a bit, turned so Caitlin could get at the wound. She unwrapped it carefully.
"You might not want to look," Caitlin said. Barry turned his head to the other side.
She started pulling the stitches out. They came away easily, nice and clean. He didn't feel the thread as much this time, but his arm was still very sore. Even if the skin had healed together, not everything inside his arm was completely fixed yet.
"No infection this time?" he asked nervously.
"No," Caitlin said, "It all looks good. Give it a day and you'll be right back to normal."
Barry glanced over when Caitlin had finished. His skin was all pink and glassy looking around the wound, which was a sharp line on his skin. He moved his arm a little experimentally. Now that the stitches were gone it was a bit easier.
"Thanks," he said, and then he disappeared under the blankets again. Caitlin sighed.
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Barry was back to running normally, everything finally healed. He was sitting in Star labs while Wells and Cisco showed him a string of robberies that had popped up, with some very odd characteristics.
It looked a lot like the guy who could make people angry, the one that had Barry almost killing Eddie and fighting Oliver. They were looking at surveillance footage from the last robbery, a gas station.
"There's the guy," Cisco said, pointing to a man in a black sweatshirt, the hood pulled up.
"Now watch, the register," Wells said. Barry and Caitlin watched the screen as the customer paying and the employee seemed to be getting into a fight. Then suddenly the employee had his hands wrapped around the person's throat, lunging over the table and crashing onto the floor on top of him. A couple people in the store, backed away, one man tried to help. The man in the black sweatshirt turned and looked, but didn't move.
"Now it gets interesting," Cisco said.
It looked like the guy was trying to apologize.
"What is he doing?" Caitlin asked.
"Oh, it gets better."
As a couple of people helped the injured man to his feet the employee sunk to his knees. Barry watched in increasing confusion. It practically looked like he was begging with the guy. Then, all of a sudden, one of the onlookers punched him in the face, and then proceeded to tackle him to the ground. A lady in the background began hysterically crying, and another man ran from the scene at full burst.
"Now, the guy in the hoodie," Cisco said, pointing. It was only at this point that he went up to the cash register, and calmly took all the money in it and put it into a bag.
"Whoa," Barry said.
"It's the fourth robbery like this in two weeks," Cisco said, "unfortunately, no image of his face."
"So what's his power?" Barry said, standing back up straight. He looked from Wells to Cisco.
"We think he can cause people's emotions to change rapidly between anger and fear," Wells said.
"Problem is, this doesn't usually come up on a police scanner until the guy is gone. He disappears pretty well. No one's really paying attention to him," Cisco said, "luckily, since I'm the resident genius," Caitlin snorted, "I came up with an algorithm that might be able to help."
"How does it work?" Barry asked.
"Well," Cisco said, typing something in to the computer, "It doesn't look like the guy has to make eye contact, like the other meta, in order to use his power, so I was wondering if he maybe doesn't have total control over it, since he was waiting around in the store for a while before hitting the guy at the register. So I set up a program looking for unusual arrests."
"Unfortunatly, that didn't come up with anything concrete," Wells said.
"So I widened it," Cisco continued, "to include hospital visits, deaths, change in housing, and what came up –"
He pressed a button and the name of an apartment building appeared.
"Two suicides, a homicide, four arrests, and seven admittances to the psychiatric ward of a hospital."
"Whoa," Caitlin said.
"All within the last two weeks," Wells said, "and all the people living in one residence."
"So we know where he lives," Barry said, "That's great, but how do we know who he is?"
"That's where we got stuck," Wells said.
"I'm thinking go door to door," Cisco said, "pretend to sell phones or something – wait until someone makes one of us want to kill the other."
"Did you miss the suicide and homicide part of that report?" Caitlin asked.
"Well, then there's that," Cisco said.
"Can you bring up a floorplan of the building?" Barry asked.
"Yeah, just one sec."
A 3-D model came up.
"Alright, now which rooms were the people from those reports in."
"Uhh…" Cisco looked up the data and synchronized it. Several rooms on the model lit up.
"Bingo," Wells said.
"Zoom in," Barry said. Cisco enlarged the image of the model.
There was a cluster around room 212, the rooms above, below, and to the sides of it being one ones affected. All of the reports seem to have come from that area, and the only one untouched in the very center of it was room 212.
"Cisco, who lives in room 212?" Wells asked.
"Uhmm… David Johnson," he said, "Thirty-two, lives alone, works at the steel plant just outside the city."
"Looks like our guy," Wells said.
"Do we have a containment chamber that will hold him?" Barry asked.
"The chambers should be good already," Cisco said, "but we can run some tests – stick him in the middle of the particle accelerator if we have to, where he'll be out of range."
"Alright," Barry said, and a second later he was in the suit, "let's go get him."
"Hold on," Caitlin said, "how are we going to protect you from being affected."
Barry shrugged, looked at Cisco. "You said you think it takes some time, right? So I just won't give him time. Get the chamber open, and I'll be back in ten seconds."
Cisco looked at Wells, he shrugged.
"The effects ware off within a few hours," Wells said, "so there isn't any risk of permanent damage."
"Easy," Barry said, "Get the chamber open, tell me when you're ready."
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About five minutes later David Johnson was safely locked away. Caitlin, Wells, and Cisco stayed out of range, just in case, but as Barry went up to the main room, he felt fine. In fact, he felt good. He caught another meta, and it was one of the easiest catches yet. He had just grabbed the guy and ran. Done. Just like that. He walked into the room.
"How do you feel?" Caitlin asked, immediately going up to him, dragging him over for tests. He was already out of the Flash suit, back in normal clothes.
He smiled. "Fine," he said.
"Alright, let me take a blood sample," Caitlin said. Barry sat down at the bed.
"Well, that was an easy one," Cisco said, "that almost seems anticlimactic."
"You should call him Fight or Flight," Barry said, eyes popping wide, "oh, that's a good one, fight or flight, you know – the anger or fear thing."
"I like it," Cisco said, "but he's not much of a villain."
"No, that was way too easy," Barry said, "not exciting at all. You should find another one for me – that one was awesome, I mean the look on his face when he was in a cell, it was great."
Caitlin was giving him an odd look but he was just smiling, almost bouncing.
"You still feeling OK?" Caitlin asked.
"Yeah, I feel great," Barry said, "It's been a great day, actually. We caught a guy at the station and closed a case, and I was even on time today. And then I got to come here and we caught another meta, and Joe's making spaghetti. I love spaghetti, I'll probably have to eat a lot of it, though, huh, I wonder how much, hey Cisco how much spaghetti do I have to eat for that run I just did, probably a lot, huh, I love spaghetti – ooh but fried chicken's my favorite – Joe makes the best fried chicken – not as good as Mary's, but don't tell him I said that, he'd be upset. I hate making him upset, he's so serious too much, especially now, and –"
"Barry," Caitlin said slowly. "Are you sure you're feeling OK?"
Wells, Cisco, and Caitlin were all staring at him. He was grinning, tapping his foot, looking at all of them.
"Yeah," he said, "I feel great. We got a meta. Whooohoo!"
"OK," Caitlin said, "I'm just gonna test this." She shot a look at the other two.
"Barry," Wells said.
"Yeah?" he said. He was still grinning.
"Do you remember anything weird happening when you were with Johnson."
"Nope," he said, "all according to plan – right in, right out."
"Nothing weird at all?" Wells repeated.
"Nope," he said, then his eyes widened suddenly, "do you have any cream soda? I really want cream soda all of a sudden. That's so weird. I love cream soda."
"So it makes him act like he's drunk?" Cisco said, turning to Wells.
Well's just grimaced.
"Oooh, or lemonade, I really love lemonade."
"And obsess over food," Cisco added.
"One time I spilled lemonade in the car," Barry said. His expression changed suddenly, going somber. "Joe got really mad. It made a mess."
"Yeah, there's something not right here," Caitlin said from her station across the room.
"No kidding," Cisco said.
"Barry?" Wells said carefully. Cisco looked over to find him now completely silent. Barry was looking at the floor, his eyes lost but darting, like he was thinking about something. He was gripping his hands together. He had an almost worried expression on his face.
"He was really mad," Barry said, almost in a whisper. He looked up at Wells.
"I'm sure it was OK, Barry," Wells said.
Barry shook his head. "I think I left the TV on," Barry said, all in the same quiet voice. "He hates it when I leave the TV on. I'm pretty sure I left it on. Oh, God, I know I left it on, I have to go."
Barry stood up but Cisco quickly got in his way just as both he and Wells quickly repeated "no" several times.
"It's alright, buddy, I'm sure you didn't leave it on," Cisco said.
"I think I did," Barry said. He was looking intently at Cisco, his whole face screwed up. "He's going to be mad. Do you think he'll kick me out? I can get another apartment, but I like living there. He'll probably stop talking to me. Maybe he'll tell the captain."
"Barry, I really don't think he'd tell the captain that you left the TV on," Cisco said.
"Get out of my way," Barry said. His expression was changing again.
"Whoa, let's just stay calm," Cisco said, suddenly backing away a little bit. "Barry, hey, calm, remember, really calm."
Barry started walking towards him. "You always get in the way," he said, "why are you always in the way, Cisco?"
"Barry –" Wells said.
Barry suddenly turned, "And you – I'm so sick of you, the great Doctor Wells, but you let the particle accelerator blow up – you could have saved them! Hartley told you, but you wouldn't listen? Do you have any idea how many people could still be alive!"
"I do, Barry, but I really think you should try and ca-"
"Why does everyone keep telling me to calm down!" Barry yelled. He spun around again. "I'm perfectly calm," he said, "I'm absolutely," he kicked a chair out of his way, "completely," knocked a stack of papers off a table, "calm." Smashed a fist down on a tablet, breaking it to pieces.
"OK, Barry, you're calm, we've got it," Wells said. Caitlin was just staring now. "Do you know how to reverse it?" he asked quickly. "I don't think you can reverse it," Caitlin said.
"Great," Cisco said, his voice a little bit higher than usual.
"Barry?" Wells said.
Barry was staring at his hand. He started to shake. Caitlin and Cisco approached cautiously. Wells moved around him.
"Everything alright, Barry?" Wells asked.
Barry made a sobbing noise. Cisco and Caitlin exchanged a look. Then Barry snapped up, holding out his hand at Wells, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes.
"I – I cut myself," he said. There was glass in his hand from the tablet, blood already smearing across. "I-i-it hurts," he said, sniffing. He was shaking badly now, gripping his wrist with his good hand.
"Let me see, Barry," Caitlin said, taking his hand gently. Barry followed her over to a bed. She turned a head and whispered at Cisco, "Get the restraints." Cisco was gone in a second.
Barry was shaking and sniffling on the bed, holding his hand.
"Let me see," Caitlin said. Barry let her take his hand but when she reached with a pair of tweezers he jerked it away.
"D-don't touch," he said, his eyes blowing wide with fear.
"I've just got to get the glass out," Caitlin said carefully. She took his hand again, carefully pried out a couple pieces. Barry cried out, tears running down his face.
"It hurts, Caitlin," he said.
"I know, almost done," she said.
Hi eyes widened. "Are you – are you go-going to…"
Caitlin looked at him, "Oh, Barry, we can wait a little bit for that." She looked at where Cisco had the restraints, carefully coming up to them.
"Oh, OK," Barry said. He leaned back. "good – good, thanks. I hate that. I really hate the disinfectant. But – later, OK." He started to relax. Caitlin rubbed his arm. "That's nice," he said. He closed his eyes, was lying entirely back on the bed. Caitlin put down his hand, gestured to Cisco. She tied one end to the bed, started carefully wrapping the other around one arm.
"Mhhmm, what's that?" Barry asked. His voice was drowsy, almost sing-song like.
"Just something to keep you safe," Caitlin said. She pushed back his hair one more time and he murmured something. Cisco got the other one on his arm, and then they strapped two to his legs. Caitlin breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, Caitlin," Barry said. He was smiling again now, but his eyes were still closed.
"Yeah, Barry?"
"I really liked it when you gave me that massage."
Caitlin's face flushed and Cisco looked up at her abruptly.
"Yeah, you were hurt," Caitlin mumbled, ignoring the look she was getting.
"It was really nice."
Cisco started to snicker.
"Ahuh," Caitlin said. She tightened the one on his arm, checked the others.
"You're always so nice, Caitlin."
Cisco burst out laughing and Caitlin shot him a look, but Cisco was shaking his head, and then he was pointing.
"Well that's interesting," Wells said.
Caitlin looked down.
There was a quite distinct bulge in his jeans.
Caitlin's face turned bright red faster than she thought possible, and she gave out something like a yelp. She spun, grabbed a sweatshirt, and dropped it on him. Barry didn't seem to notice. He still had his eyes closed, smiling. Cisco was still laughing hysterically.
Alright, Caitlin had enough. She pulled out the disinfectant and poured it over Barry's hand.
Barry yelped, and then that turned into desperate jerks of his arm, trying to pull away.
"Caitlin," Barry said, and now his voice had taken on a completely different tone, absolutely panicked. He was hyperventilating in a second, and then he was thrashing around, trying to pull away.
"Nonononononono," Barry yelled, his voice escalating, going shrill and sharp, "Stop – don't – don't please, I don't want stitches, please, please don't – it's going to hurt, it's going to hurt!" He was sobbing hysterically, still pulling against the restraints.
Caitlin felt horrible, a swarm of guilt back. She had hurt him just to get over her own embarrassment and now she felt absolutely awful at the result. She felt like absolute trash, and she quickly took Barry's good hand in hers, rubbing his shoulder again.
"It's OK, Barry, no stitches, I'm not doing anything. You're OK."
"No," he said, and he flinched away from her, pulled away. "Stop, I don't want it – don't do it, please – please let me go, let me go!"
Caitlin looked helplessly at Wells. Cisco was grimacing now, all laughter gone. Wells just shook his head. "We just have to let him wait it out."
Barry was hyperventilating fast, and then suddenly he went limp. For a split second Caitlin absolutely panicked, and then she saw the rise and fall of his breath and realized what happened.
"He made himself pass out," she said, "he was breathing so hard, he actually passed out."
"Panic attacks," Wells said, "It's not exactly uncommon."
Caitlin just sat there. "What do we do?" she asked.
"Let him ride it out," Wells said, "there doesn't seem to be much else we can do."
Caitlin looked back at Barry. She had a bad feeling she was not going to enjoy the next couple hours.
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Barry rubbed his head. "Ooohh, what happened," he said. He pushed both fists against his head, elbows on his knees. The world was spinning.
"You got whammied," Cisco said, handing him a water bottle, "Again."
"Why does everything hurt?" he asked, taking it. Even his throat felt raw.
"Well, this time it was a little different."
The memories were coming back to him. Barry squinted.
"What do you remember?" Caitlin asked.
Barry pressed a hand into his head again. "Um… I got the guy… we locked him up. Then I came up here. And then… something about lemonade?"
"Yeah, so the guy can do a lot more than make you angry or afraid," Cisco said.
"More like every emotion," Caitlin said.
Barry frowned. "I was happy," he said, "giddy, happy – and then… I was afraid I left the TV on?"
"Yeah," Cisco said, "Then you almost killed us."
"Uh," Barry said, trying to remember. It was coming back in pieces as the pain in his head cleared. "I yelled at Wells, didn't I? Did I…" He looked down at his hand. The bandage was gone. "Did I hit something?"
"A tablet," Cisco said, "My favorite one, too."
"Just a tablet?" Barry said, looking at his hand, "All I remember was it hurt a lot, like agonizing."
"Yeah, you cried like a baby," Cisco said flatly.
Barry's face heated up, "I did?"
"Sobbing," Cisco said, "then you got ah… you got really happy." Cisco smirked around the lollipop in his mouth.
Barry just frowned, confused, and that was when Caitlin chose to leave the room. "I don't… did I fall asleep?"
"Oh, no," Cisco said.
Then the memory came back to him, all at once. Barry's face went bright red.
Cisco laughed again and Barry buried his face in his hands and groaned.
"Oh it was good," Cisco said. "Don't worry, Caitlin poured disinfectant on your hand and that pretty much ended that right there."
Barry's expression changed again. "That, I remember," he said. Blind panic. He shuddered. He closed his eyes. "Do I even want to know what happened the rest of the night?"
"Well, we learned about your hatred for reality TV, got a very detailed description of a past girlfriend, witnessed another couple panic attacks, and I'm pretty sure you threatened to kill me at least twice."
Barry groaned.
"You also got really depressive at one point," Cisco said, and he frowned, "like really, really depressive."
Barry thought for a little bit and then suddenly his face went pale. He looked up at Cisco, his features twisted. "Did I…" he paused, his voice dropping, "did I try and kill myself?"
"Let's just say it was a good think you were restrained," Cisco said.
"Oh, man," Barry said. He ran his hands through his hair. The words were coming back to him, what he said, but the worst part was the feeling, because he remembered it. He remembered the absolute despair, the worthlessness, he had felt. He tried to push it out of his memory all together. He never wanted to recall it again.
"Yeah. You kind of traumatized Caitlin."
"Oh, God."
"On the bright side, you also complimented her a lot," Cisco said, "and you're really funny when you're jealous. Adrian Brown?"
Barry pushed his face into his hands again. "Uh," he said.
Cisco laughed. "Yeah, I mean the girl, and valedictorian, man, that's rough."
"I do anything else horribly embarrassing that I should know about?" Barry asked.
"Lots of sobbing," Cisco said, thinking, "hysterically sobbing."
"Great."
"Screaming too. Honestly, I really didn't think you knew that many swears. Oh, and second grade lunch –"
"Oh, God, I didn't," Barry groaned.
"Yeah, I didn't know your face could get that red."
"Why did I tell you the story if I was embarrassed?" he asked. It came back to him them.
"I don't know, but you kept talking." He vaguely remembered being extremely embarrassed, and then feeling the need to explain why, the embarrassment eating up inside of him. He really wished right now he hadn't.
"Besides that though, you were just extremely bipolar. Lots of happy, then upset, and back again."
Barry stood up, still rubbing his head, "I'm gonna go home. What time is it anyway?"
"Almost twelve," Cisco said. "I think Wells is upstairs."
"Alright, if you see him tell him bye, and also I'm sorry. A lot."
Cisco laughed, "OK, see ya."
He ran into Caitlin grabbing her coat on the way out.
"Hey," he said. His face went red again and he scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry about… everything."
She flushed. "It's not your fault," she said, walking ahead of him, "although I really think I'm good with childhood stories for a very long time."
Barry laughed. "Yeah, sorry. I don't remember everything, but most of its coming back."
Barry walked with Caitlin down to the door, but she stopped when they reached the stairs out. She took in a breath, looked out at the parking lot, hesitating. It was dark out, only a couple of lights. She bit her lip.
Barry looked at her, then looked out and back. "Did you… want me to, walk you to your car?" he asked.
Her head snapped up at him. "Um, well, I mean if you don't mind…"
"Yeah, no problem," he said, and they started walking out. Barry watched as Caitlin's eyes flicked around the parking lot, but she seemed to relax a little bit with him there. Caitlin unlocked the car and he waited while she got in.
"So, I'll see you tomorrow," he said.
"Yeah, see you tomorrow," she said, "thanks."
"No problem," he said, "And sorry… again."
But she smiled at him. "It's fine, Barry."
Barry smiled back, and then he was gone in a gust of wind, and Caitlin started her car to go home.
So i don't know how good this chapter actually was but it was really fun to write - going to get back to main plot in the next chapter - might just be time for Barry to comfort Caitlin a little bit ;) Oh, and please review i love you all thank you :)))
SIDE NOTE - so this is not terribly relevant, but i just wanted to point out that when Cisco says Barry was bipolar, he was using it in the colloquial sense, and it does not entirely coincide with my views or my language, however, i can see Cisco, completely meaning well, to say this, so i put it in. I just wanted to clarify, this does not show bipolar disorder at all, nor does it depict bipolar behavior (bipolar disorder is characterized by reoccuring periods of depression followed by periods of mania, which is basically intense, often reckless joy and enthusiasm. It usually occurs in periods that last weeks or months, but can be much quicker. Not, however, anything like what is depicted in this fic) I realize a lot of people are probably wondering why i would even bother to write this down here, but mental illnesses are very often misunderstood, and it does bother some people a lot when people misuse terms, ie oh my god i'm so depressed, you're so OCD, oh my god, she's bipolar - this can be kind of hurtful to people who do have these illnesses when it's a serious factor in their life, and then people make fun of it, or downgrade the seriousness. So yes, i know the difference, and no this is not bipolar behavior. I don't personally feel offended with the kind of language used above, or most similar expressions, unless it's used in a specific hurtful way. However, i also don't have bipolar disorder, and i wanted to make perfectly clear that i did not intend at all to downgrade or misinterpret the seriousness of this disease, for anyone who has a family member, friend, or themselves personally, and know's how awful it can be. Sorry for rant, i know it's not exactly a huge issue in this type of context, but I felt the need to clarify. If you made it through that whole thing, then thank you for reading and acknowledging my thoughts :) Have a nice day, happy reading :)
