Chapter Twelve: Welcome to the Madhouse
Almost half an hour later, she was sat across from the man in the red suit on the rooftop, listening to his explanation.
"Okay. Okay." Michela took a deep breath. And then another. "Wait no, what the actual hell, Mr. Red?"
"I told you you'd think it was crazy!" he exclaimed as he hopped up from where he was sitting and began to pace, "I barely believe it myself and I actually met future me. Do you know how weird that was?"
"I'm sure," the woman drawled, "How can someone run fast enough to go back in time? That's just, no."
"Wait a second." He stopped in front of her and squatted so that his disbelieving expression was at eye level. "Out of all of that, you have a problem with me being able to run fast enough to travel through time?"
"It would be stupid to assume there couldn't be a metahuman who could time travel." She crossed her arms, scrunching her nose. "But you?"
"Why is it so hard to believe I could be that metahuman? It's not that ridiculous," he pouted at her, before he sobered up a second after, "And obviously I can or will at some point."
An uneasy silence fell over them for a moment, the man looking to the envelope clutched tightly in his hand. She pursed her lips when she glanced at it.
"So I guess we've gotten to the bit where future you heavily implied I'm going to die?"
"You're not going to die," Mr. Red insisted in a rush, letting himself shift from squatting to kneeling before her, grasping her upper arms gently, "You're not."
"Yeah, I'd rather that not happen, too," she said with a nod, "So you can bet I'm staying as far away from Harrison Wells as I can."
The man grimaced. When she'd explained what the other him had told her and showed him the message, all of the blood had drained out of his face. They'd been dancing around what the warning concerning a certain disgraced scientist meant. It was still baffling that the man could have a hand in her supposed death, but she wouldn't be taking her chances. He'd already messed with so many lives, maybe it wasn't that much of a leap.
"Hey," she started up again, settling her fidgeting hands in her lap, "Future you said something else."
"Yeah?" he prompted.
"To give you a chance, to tell you what that message I left you a couple weeks ago was about."
His features pinched with worry as he was quick to say, "You know you don't have to if you don't want to."
A wobbly smile touched her lips as a tightness pulled within her chest.
"You sound like me," she observed, trying to keep her tone light, "And maybe I don't want to, but I should. I think if future you hadn't said something, I might have taken the out you just gave me and done something I would have regretted."
"Like what?" Mr. Red asked, his voice tentative.
She glanced away before saying, "Like shut you out."
"Shut me out?" He looked bewildered. And just a bit hurt.
"I've told you before. I don't do friends. People get close and then I remember how much I can't tell them." She broke eye contact with him to look down at her hands. "So I shut them out so that I don't have to."
"Is that what you want to do to me?"
"I don't know. But I'm so tired of thinking that everyone will leave. It still hurts even when I do it to them first." Michela forced her head back up so she could meet his patient gaze once more. "If I die, I don't want that to be how I leave things."
Almost as if he was using his superspeed, he reeled her in for a fast, tight hug.
"I don't want that for you either," he told her, his words muffled in her hair, "And you're not going to die."
"So you keep saying." She smiled into his shoulder before sighing. "In the spirit of not losing my nerve, you ready for me to tell you?"
"I guess?" he answered, before pulling back and snatching one of her hands up in one of his, "Just, whatever it is, it's not gonna send me running. I'll still be here."
"Okay. Okay then." The short haired woman took a fortifying breath and squeezed his hand. "My dad's Mick Rory."
"Mick Rory?" Mr. Red echoed oddly, his facial features slack with shock, "As in, Heatwave - the guy I just fought - Mick Rory? For real?"
"For real. I always thought my mom was the undisputed winner of the worst parent of the year award, but finding out from the news that I never even knew who my dad really was puts him back in the running." With a hollow chuckle, she turned her head up to the sky. "Can you believe that I actually legally changed my last name to match his, and it wasn't even his real name?"
"Michela…"
"I still care about the jerk, though. He's a terrible father, but he's mine."
"Oh god, I sent your dad to prison," she heard him murmur, his voice soft with horror which drew her gaze back to his face.
"Hey, don't be sorry for stopping the bad guys. Even if the bad guys turned out to be my family."
That got a grimace in response.
"How can you not hate me?" He stared at her helplessly. "I - I sent your dad to prison."
"Any of those cops could have shot him dead and been within their rights to do it. Prison is better than dead." It was a struggle to keep looking right at him, but she pressed on. "How can you stand to talk to me when you know who my dad is?"
"I told you." The guilt in his expression gave way to resolve. "Heatwave being your dad doesn't change anything. I'm here."
The urge to doubt was there but she swallowed it down and instead said, "Thank you." A beat passed. "If you have more questions I'll answer them later, but for now I think I need food and a change of topic. Anything other than my dad or time travel."
"How about I grab some Big Belly Burger and you tell me how your internship has been?" he offered.
"Sounds good," the brunette responded, a lot of the night's tension finally starting ease away and shoved some cash at him with a huffed laugh, "I have to catch you up on a lot of stuff."
"Looking forward to hearing about it." He took the money as he went to stand. "I'll be back!"
Once he was gone in one of his signature whooshes, she sat there underneath the night sky and her heavy thoughts, as she waited on him and the food.
Slowly but surely, Mr. Red settled back into the places in Michela's life she'd been starting to cut him out of. It was a little surreal, catching up on new jobs and numbers from cute girls with his future self's warning as well as the truth about her father looming over them. She wondered if she was insane for still wanting to invite his crazy back into her life and apartment. Then again, she couldn't completely blame the business with her father and uncle. That would have been bound to blow up in her face with or without the superhero's influence.
Texts and phone calls kept flooding in from her aunt, but she kept ignoring them. There was no pretending that the other woman hadn't been in on everything, she was too close with Uncle Allen - Uncle Leonard? Uncle Cold? - for her to be ignorant. The younger woman had always prided herself on not being nosy about her family's business, but this was bigger and more complicated than anything could have suspected they were keeping from her. It had been weeks and she still didn't quite know what her emotions were doing concerning all of that. Unless someone decided to ambush her at home or work, she'd be content to continue avoiding them for as long as she could get away with it.
Though, the thought of them catching the superhero while he was visiting was a nightmare inducing. If a battle broke out, her apartment was definitely not surviving that.
Bette, at least, had eased off her hovering now that she and the speedster were talking again. Michela still had no idea how to convince the redhead she was not personally responsible for fixing her issues for her. It was hard to tell if that was a lost cause considering the other woman's overprotective nature.
A text pulled her from that train of thought.
-Can i ask u 4 sumthin- she read at a glance.
-Whatever it is, no- she typed back without looking away from the donated clothes she was digging through and sorting.
-No rly-
-You no really-
-It's a bad sign when you actually ask-
-Last time you asked for help, I found out I was gonna die-
-You-
-Will-
-Not-
-Die-
-And future me things dont count-
-Says you-
-NEway-
-Its about the prison-
Michela had to stop sorting and take a long breath through her nose before she was composed enough to hit the "Call" button. Half of a ringtone played out before the call connected.
"Hey!"
"It's probably too much to hope that you're gonna tell me the prison's been magically blown up," she grumbled out, "So what's up with it?"
"We sort of, kind of have new prisoners who don't deserve to be there?" he answered her, his voice going a bit high at the end.
"Uh-huh," came her deadpan.
"I tried to talk to the others about letting them go, or at least improving the Pipeline conditions, but-"
"I don't need the reasons," she cut him off with a sigh, "I know it's probably not your fault and I don't need to hear things that will end in me throwing my phone across the room. Just tell me what you wanted so we can fix the situation."
"I- Thank you. I'm gonna try and stage an escape for them, and hopefully get out of Central City."
A swell of pride overtook her at that even as she gave an exasperated chuckle.
"By out of Central City, do you mean by way of Keystone?"
"I'm not asking you to take them in like you did with Bette and Tony," he was quick to reassure her as, "But I do want to give them your contact information, if you're okay with it? I just think having someone like you to talk to might help them."
"You could always tell them to look up my facebook," she suggested wryly as her smile morphed into a smirk.
Through choked laughter, Mr. Red huffed out, "I am not telling them to look up your facebook. I can't believe you told me that the first time we met."
"To be fair, I was delirious with pain and it wasn't like I could write my number on your glove or something with the pen I didn't have. I improvised," Michela sniffed.
"So does that mean you're okay with me giving them a way to get in contact with you?"
"Yeah, sure, that's fine." Wedging the phone between her shoulder and ear, she resumed her work with the clothes. "You sure it's still a no on facebook, though? We could make a secret group for all of us. Call it 'The Metahuman League' and everything."
The woman could hear him sigh hard and visualized him putting his face in his hand, which had her trying to stifle her snickers.
"No Michela," he finally responded, "Just no."
"Fine, fine. Just make sure they get out safely, okay? And if you think they might need a bug out bag just in case, let me know so you can swing by and pick up an extra one from the apartment," she told him as she tossed a coat into the winter wear bin.
"You having bug out bags should worry me, but all things considered, it's probably good thing you do."
She nodded to herself at that. It used to be that she only had one for herself at her uncle's insistence. The week Bette had moved in, she'd put together another and repeated the process for Tony when he showed up. Some days she wondered about making one up for Mr. Red, but usually got caught up with what his would actually contain. What did a superhero like him need in a bug out bag? Did he even need one?
"Anyway," she said, taking her phone back in hand, "I'm at work, and I think I need to get going before I get scolded by someone."
"Oh, yeah, sorry, I'll let you get back to work. Thanks again Michela."
"Talk later Mr. Red. Bye."
"Bye."
Then he hung up. Tucking her phone away, she caught Francine shooting her an amused look. Biting her lip, she threw an apologetic smile over her shoulder and got back to what she was supposed to be doing.
It was a typical lazy evening in lounging on the couches with Bette and Tony after dinner when all three of them heard the sound of someone knocking at the door. Each of her roommates went on high alert, gazes darting to the door then to her. Michela's stomach churned at the thought of who it was. There was a short list of people who would come to her place that weren't already present. Mr. Red was already out because after a stern reminder the last time he forgot, he knew that he was always supposed to text first before he came over. Anyone else wasn't particularly welcome at the moment.
"You don't have to stick around for whatever this is," she reassured them hurriedly as she stood to face the door, "I'll take care of it."
There was an instant defiant flare in the redhead woman's expression. However, it was the man who spoke up first.
"I'm good," he told her, throwing an arm over the back of the couch and lounging exaggeratedly across.
Her other roommate decided to follow his lead, silently lifting her chin as she tucked herself further into the corner of the opposite couch they'd just been sharing. She found herself caught between rolling her eyes and smiling.
"If you change your minds, I promise to only judge you a little when you ditch."
She heard the knock come again as well as muffled voices through the door. However, when she put her eye to the peephole, she didn't recognize the person on the other side. The woman with short, bushy hair pulled back into a ponytail was arguing with someone just out of line of sight. Michela stepped back with a frown. Salespeople? Jehova's Witnesses? Just as she prepared to crack the door to demand why they had come so late, two consecutive whooshes sounded behind her, and then she heard a pair of shouts from down the hall.
Heading in that direction, she saw two more people in her apartment than there had originally been. The ex bomb specialist and metal metahuman were both staring at the newcomers with wide eyes, bodies tensed and ready to act.
"Will wonders never cease," an annoyingly familiar voice lilted from the man with his back to her standing next to the woman who just been on the other side of the door, "The roommates are real, and nary a cat to behold."
The tension headache that had begun at the knocking ramped up at those words. She knew exactly who that was.
"Hart," she growled at him through clenched teeth as she walked to where they could be face to face, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Michela, so good to see you," Hartley Rathaway demurred, intent eyes peering at her from under the bill of the cap he was wearing, "Interesting that you're not even commenting on how my companion and I just appeared in your apartment."
"It's not hard to guess the how. So again, I'm asking you, what are you doing here?" she demanded, continuing to move so that she was standing between her ex and Bette and Tony.
His expression seemed to harden. He reached into his pocket to pull out a scrap of paper that he then held out to her. Narrowing her eyes at him, she reached out to take it. Turning it over in her hand, she saw her own phone number written there. Her gaze snapped to his.
"I'd love to hear the story behind why the Flash gave us your number and said to call if we wanted to talk to another metahuman." The smile on his face didn't reach his eyes. "That's sure to be even more interesting."
AN: A little shorter and dialogue heavy, but yay for the update. Just in time for S3 mid break season. Sorry it's been a while, school, work, and some other writing projects got the best of me. I'll be on break from school and work soon, so hopefully I'll have more time for writing then.
Alternative Chapter Titles: "It's a Small World," "The Metahuman League," "1-800-Metahuman Hotline"