Once Floron is safely locked away in the pipeline, Wally returns the Flash suit to its rightful position in the display case. His phone buzzes—a text from Jesse.
You busy?
He responds with, I don't have to be.
"Anyone special?" Barry asks, seeing his grin.
"Kind of. I met a girl earlier today."
"Nice!" Cisco says. "You know, Barry has, like, a million girls after him all the time. Must be something about the speed force."
Barry shakes his head at Cisco. "That's not even close to true." Turning back to Wally, he asks, "What's her name?"
"Jesse."
The smiles drop off Barry's and Cisco's faces. Wells, who has been writing equations on one of the clear boards, drops the marker and spins to face Wally.
"What did she look like?" he demands, expressionless.
Wally, startled by everyone's reactions, says, "Um, brunette, short, really hot…"
Wells stalks across the Cortex toward Wally. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small photograph. "Like this?" Sure enough, it's Jesse.
"Yeah… why do you have a picture of her?"
Behind him, Barry and Cisco look at each other with identical 'he's doomed' faces. They both bite their lips to resist laughter and turn back to watch Wells and Wally.
"She's my daughter. She ran away; she's been gone for weeks. How do you know Jesse?"
"She's your daughter?" Wally's eyes go unbelievably wide. "Oh, no, I am in so much trouble."
"No, I don't care about that." Wells waves a hand dismissively. "I just care that she's safe. Where is she? You have her number? How did you meet her?"
"It was at a street race. She came up to me after I won, we talked, we had coffee. I don't know where she is right now. She was still at Jitters when I left. Do you want me to call her?"
His phone buzzes with another text. If you're still at S.T.A.R. Labs, I'm right outside. And a moment later: Say hi to Dad.
"That's her?" Wells doesn't wait for a response. He snatches the phone from Wally's hand and reads the messages. "Oh, God, Jesse's here." He hands back the phone and starts out of the room, and then pauses and turns back to Wally, deathly serious. "We'll talk about you dating my daughter later."
All three men let the ominous quiet linger for a moment before Wally turns to Barry and Cisco.
"Stop looking so happy. How much trouble am I in?"
"It depends." Cisco leans forward and rests his elbows on the top of the monitor in front of him. "Did you kiss her?"
"No."
"Aw, man, you went on a date with Jesse and you didn't even kiss her?" Cisco shakes his head. "The one time you could have gotten away with it, because Harry will be so relieved she's back, and you missed your chance."
"You'll be fine. This Wells isn't a speedster from the future, so he most likely won't kill you painfully," Barry says.
"Yeah, you're pretty fast now, so you can probably get away before he can try," Cisco confirms.
Neither of them is exactly reassuring.
"Thanks, guys. Do you have my suit done yet, Cisco?"
"Now that you mention it." Cisco glances over his shoulder as Wells reenters with Jesse in tow. "I'll show you in a minute."
"Hi, Wally," Jesse says cheerfully.
Wally shoots a quick glance at Wells, who's smiling at his daughter, and says guardedly, "Hi. Nice seeing you again."
"Are you back for good, or just until you get the chance to run away again?" Barry asks.
"I'm here for a while, at least. Dad told me what's going on. I'd like to help you get Caitlin back."
At the mention of Caitlin, the mood in the room shifts. Everyone respects a brief moment of silence.
"Right," Cisco finally says. "I have a bit of a plan, but it mostly relies on you being able to give speed to others, Wally."
He shakes his head. "I still don't know how. It works sometimes, but it's so inconsistent."
"Try it again," Barry suggests. He holds out his hand to Wally.
Wally does, but still, nothing happens.
"Try me," Cisco says. When everyone looks at him, he shrugs. "I want to try superspeed."
"You don't know what the effects might be if you've never tapped into the speed force before—" Wells stops when Wally tries it anyway. "Why does nobody ever listen to me?" he mutters under his breath.
It doesn't work with Cisco either, but when the two of them make contact, Cisco vibes for a moment.
And it's Jesse in his vibe, racing around the lab with superspeed and laughing.
He snaps out of it. "Nothing. But try Jesse."
"No," Wells says.
"It's gonna work, Harry, I vibed it."
"And did you vibe what comes next?"
Jesse, ignoring her father, pushes past him and approaches Wally.
"Jesse," Wells says warningly.
"I'm eighteen, Dad, you don't control me." She turns to face him and crosses her arms. "Do we need to go through this again? Besides, I've been kidnapped and nearly killed by Zoom. Nothing will happen that's more dangerous than that."
She holds out a hand to Wally.
Wally looks back and forth between her and Wells, clearly conflicted.
Wells, frustrated, nods and waves a hand at Wally. "Do it, West."
"Okay." Wally takes Jesse's hand and focuses, like Barry was saying before, on the speed force and the lightning he knows he has within him.
And he focuses on Jesse, on how pretty and funny she is, how his heart rate spikes when he's around her.
White lightning travels from his hand to hers.
"Woah," Jesse breathes. She breaks into a run and blurs around the Cortex, laughing gleefully. Her lightning, like Wally's, is white.
Barry watches her, impressed, and still maybe a little jealous. Wells watches her as well, concerned, but no bad effects appear forthcoming.
She skids to a stop near Barry's suit and gestures to it. "Can I get one?"
"No. You don't need a suit," Wells says immediately.
Jesse glares at him. "Come on, Dad."
"The speed won't last long enough," he says by way of explanation. "When West transferred some of the speed force to Allen, it only lasted for a moment."
Jesse starts running again. She does a few laps around the Cortex before the speed does indeed run out and she's demoted to a normal pace.
"Speaking of suits, I have got to show you what I made for you," Cisco tells Wally.
"Sure."
Cisco runs into his workroom—normal speed—and comes out with a mass of silver-blue leather.
Wally takes it, speeds out of the room to change, and returns.
It's similar to Barry's, except molded more precisely to Wally's measurements, and it's a pale blue-grey. The lightning bolt on the chest is white, with a darker blue background. Wally runs around the Cortex wearing it, nothing more than a blur of blue and white.
"Meet the Blue Streak," Cisco says. "Man, I impress myself more every day. Wait—you need a name now!"
Wally stops near Barry's suit, and the contrast between the blue and the red is striking. Cisco clearly knows how to design superhero costumes.
"Taillights," Wally says.
"Taillights," Cisco repeats. "Nice."
"Barry, let me try again." Wally thinks he's got it down now.
But again, despite repeating exactly what he did with Jesse, he can't recharge Barry's speed.
Then Jesse steps up next to him and takes his hand.
And now the lightning crackles from him to Barry.
"It's Jesse," Wally says.
"Yeah, 'cause you like her," Cisco says. "It must have something to do with your dopamine or serotonin levels, so whenever you're around Jesse…" He trails off when he sees Wells glaring at him and Wally in turn. "Sorry, Wally…"
"But I also managed to start a car with speed force," Wally says.
"Well, you're happy when you're around cars too," Barry points out.
"Which means it produces the same results." Wells nods. Everyone looks at him, waiting for some comment about Jesse and Wally. He sighs. "Wally, come here."
Approaching him, Wally considers that earlier today, he fought a metahuman who could grow plants from nothing.
Wells is definitely scarier.
He leans close to Wally and whispers in his ear. "I don't care how fast you can run. If you hurt her, well…"
Wally can't see it, but everyone else sees Wells's small smile.
"They can't arrest a man who's already dead."
Wells pulls back and claps Wally on the shoulder, still smiling. "Let's stop Zoom. What's your plan, Cisco?"
Cisco grins. "How many more of those tachyon devices do you think we can make?"
A/N: There'll be 11 chapters total. The last two will be posted at various times before the new episode officially airs (7 pm CST).
Fair warning: there won't be any satisfactory answer to who the man in the iron mask is, because there's no theory I believe in particularly more than any other. It'll be more or less handwaved away.
