Caitlin quickly shut herself off from her emotions as Barry picked her up and flashed them to the cortex. She was furious that she had opened the shell around her heart to the brown haired and green eyed speedster. She forced herself to remember how he had thrown her away time and time again, brushing her growing powers aside. He was the reason she ran to Savitar the way she did, why she followed him like a faithful puppy. Future Barry had seen her. Her. Not her powers or her smarts, but the whole package.
Even the stunt Barry had just pulled with the god forsaken power nullifying cuffs was pure bullshit. The Barry she had known in the past wouldn't have done something that outlandish. He would have trusted her and coaxed the truth out of her. Savitar may have intimidated her, and except for the one time the team wiped Barry's memories, he had never laid a hand on her in anger. There had been plenty of touches, little caresses and long looks that spoke of more than just a hollow partnership. That version of Barry, for all his hatred and pain, was more like the Barry she had fallen in love with than the man who held her in his arms now.
The moment her feet touched the floor of the cortex, Caitlin hastily put nearly the entire length of the room between them. She knew Barry could cross it in the blink of an eye if he wanted, so she called on her powers to drop the air temperature around her, just to be safe. Everyone in the room looked at her strangely, but projecting her Frost persona she cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms.
"What's going on Cisco?" Her voice echoed with her power. The other meta nodded minutely and plunged into his explanation of what was going on.
"Top and Mirror Master somehow made it out of their holding cells at Iron Heights. They are on a spree hitting jewelry stores and pawn shops downtown." Cisco replied tracing their path on the monitor in front of him.
"That's impossible." Barry shook his head. "A.R.G.U.S. gave Iron Heights the tech to build that cell to keep Mirror Master in."
Caitlin rolled her eyes as she listened to the others try and figure out a way to stop the two villains. Again, she knew how to save the day, but she also knew the others wouldn't like it. It meant getting a little blood on their hands. Frost's time with the Green Arrow taught her many things, one of the most important being that sometimes, blood needed to be spilled in order to stop someone. Yes, that may make her a killer, but not a murderer. That was why she dropped Killer from her vigilante name. It wasn't what drove her and gave her pleasure, it was just a job that someone had to do. Joe had killed people before, but since he was a cop, that made it ok. With Caitlin being a civilian, everyone assumed murder. A bloodlust. A want to kill. All of it was a lie.
As she was pondering her situation, she was building beautiful sculptures in her hands. Roses, snowflakes, organic shapes. Each time the figure was complete, sparkling in it's cold beauty, she would crush it in her hands. Shards of ice would rain down, making a tinkling sound as they hit the floor. That's who she was, a creator and destroyer, light and dark. The only one willing to do what needed to be done, to not worry about the darkness taking over her heart. The darkness was part of her, part of what made her so powerful.
"Ok, can she stop doing that? 'Cause it's freaking me out." Joe's voice pierced the fog in Caitlin, making her look up. They were all staring at her, but only Cisco didn't seem surprised. Wally and Joe looked uncomfortable and irritated. Harrison was impassive. Jay had returned to his other Earth. Barry. Barry looked concerned and confused. Good. Let them keep their distance. She was here to protect the city and patch Barry up, nothing more.
"Something bothering you Joe?" Frost asked lifting her palm. Sitting in her hand was a beautiful Iris, perfect in every detail. Smirking darkly she closed her fingers, shattering the sculpture. She enjoyed watching them flinch as she opened her hand and let the pieces fall to the floor. With a shrug she turned and called over her shoulder,
"I'm going to go suit up. Time for Frost to make an appearance in Central City."
"What the hell was that about?" Joe asked the room once Caitlin had left. Barry had been watching her the entire time, seeing her become more cold and detached with every moment. His heart had dropped into his stomach as he watched her make and then destroy over and over, her crystalline eyes glittering. Was there still a little of Killer Frost in her?
"Nothing." Cisco said smoothly, turning his chair back around to the console in front of him.
"I don't know man, that was really creepy." Wally added suspiciously.
"I said it was nothing, Kid Flash." Cisco didn't even look up from this typing at the keyboard. Barry found it odd that Cisco would be so much like Caitlin. What happened to them when he was gone? Neither one of them have really opened up and told him what he had missed. Now he was beginning to wonder if there was any way to fix them and bring Team Flash back.
"Cisco -" Harrison began only to stop when the long haired meta looked up.
"She is fine." Cisco's voice was steel, eyes somber. "You remember her as the gentle Caitlin Snow, M.D. The others remember her as the cold Killer Frost. You forget that she's both."
A chord in Barry vibrated, making him realize his mistake from earlier. He had treated her like a stranger, a villain, not as a friend and partner. He had betrayed her almost in the same manner she had done to him. He could see now that it would take time to get her to open up, just like it had the first time he was struck by the lightning.
"So how do we stop Mirror Master and Top?" Barry flashed into his suit, Wally doing the same. The clicking of heels drew his attention and the world around Barry froze. Caitlin Snow was gone and in her place was a woman cold as ice, dressed in navy and sapphire. Cisco was right, her outfit was exactly like Thea Queen's Speedy, down to the hood and facemask. The temperature in the room also dropped.
"I have an idea on how to stop Mirror Master, but you aren't going to like it." Her voice thrummed with power, sounding like ice shattering. Barry's normally superquick mind was moving sluggishly as he watched Frost cross the room and move to stand beside Cisco. Cisco had pulled on his Vibe jacket and was pulling on his gloves, goggles already over his eyes. They moved in sync, and Barry wondered how long they had been working together without him.
"What's the plan?" Wally asked and Barry was broken out of his paralysis.
"Vibe and I will wait in one of the city's courtyards while you two herd Mirror Master and Top our way." Frost spoke calmly as Vibe adjusted his gloves and visor. "Once there I will create a distraction while Vibe blasts Top, knocking her out. Then once Mirror Master steps into one of his glass portals, I freeze and shatter it, trapping him with no way out."
"We've been able to determine that Mirror Master needs to be able to see another portal once he has crossed the other side in order to jump back into our world. If we shatter the substrate he is in, he will be trapped in that dimension with no way out." Vibe added, and Harrison nodded thoughtfully.
"That could work."
Barry felt unsettled, feeling that this was something wrong.
"Doesn't that seem a little harsh?" Cisco couldn't believe what he was hearing. Then again, with it coming from Wally, he wasn't surprised.
"Why should it?" Frost asked with a shrug. "If we keep putting these people behind bars, eventually they get out and cause more damage than if they were taken care of. Permanently."
"I think the time you've spent with Savitar and the Green Arrow has made you lose your mind." Joe replied glancing at Barry, as if seeking confirmation.
"Joe's right; we aren't killers." Cisco sighed and shook his head as Barry moved to stand in front of them, the always tall man who acted as their leader. The one who always tried to do the right thing, the humane thing. Living this battle alone for the last year taught Cisco that sometimes you had to pay the price for being a good guy. There were a handful of times in the past year that his vibes were too strong in dealing with metas. Their internal organs would rupture, causing instant death. It was regrettable, but not worth having his conscience weighted by guilt, especially after Caitlin came home and told him about her experiences in Star City.
"You may not be Flash, but we are." Caitlin said evenly, but Cisco knew it was taking everything she had in her to keep up the charade of Frost. The darkness no longer had control over her, but he knew one of her coping mechanisms was to adopt the persona of the woman she had been for a brief time.
"We?" Barry looked back and forth between the two before glancing at Joe who nodded. The CCPD officer knew of Vibe's victims, but also knew that they were accidents.
"Cisco?" Barry sounded wounded and betrayed. It hurt him t hear his friend like that, but he also knew he would do it again to protect the city.
"Yeah Barry, me." Taking a deep breath he looked his friend in the eye. "We had to do something. With you gone we were dealing with the aftermath. The Speed Force breach re-released the dark matter particles that were left over from the first accelerator explosion. More metas popped up. We had our hands full and mistakes were made."
The meta alarms sounded again, shattering the moment. Barry looked around before turning his attention back to his two friends. He gave a sigh and pulled his cowl up over his head.
"Let's take care of these two and then I think we all need to sit down and have a talk. There seems to be a lot I need to catch up on."
Unexpected turn huh? Caitlin and Cisco having to do less than honorable things to protect their cities. They have more in common with Oliver than you would think.
After going back and re-reading I realized there was a lot of stuff that they would need to work though as a team to get back to some level of what they used to be. I was reminded of all the hurt and pain Caitlin must be going through when I watched ReactOutLoud's scenes reaction crack of episode 3x23. There are a ton of unresolved issues between Caitlin and Barry, and now that they are bound in this story, it will make things even more interesting.
As always, let me know what you think.