Secret Identities

Barry stared at Brian in shock. The kid was frozen as he stared back at him with wide eyes. Barry knew it was pointless to hope maybe Brian hadn't seen. It was written all over the kid's face.

"Brian," Barry said cautiously, putting his hands out.

"How did you do that?" Brian squeaked.

"Brian, I—"

"You're a metahuman!" Brian ejected loudly.

"Shh!" Barry said urgently, looking toward the door, hoping no one was passing by who could have overheard him, "Brian, please, you can't tell any—"

"Oh, my God!" Brian said suddenly, his eyes widening further, "You're the—!"

"Brian, please keep your voice down," Barry begged desperately.

Brian covered his mouth and gave him an apologetic look before continuing on in a whisper.

"You're the Flash!" he whispered frantically, his lowered voice not concealing his excitement, "I can't believe this! Grant West is the Flash!"

Barry had to fight the urge to laugh. Brian almost had it right.

"I'd appreciate it if you kept this a secret," Barry said nervously.

Brian didn't respond, though. He gawked at Barry like he was some sort of alien.

"I can't believe the Flash is in high school!" he said incredulously, "I thought he was older."

"Brian, did you hear what I said about keeping this a secret?" Barry asked urgently.

"You saved my life!" Brian said, smacking his forehead at the realization, "Last week, it was you who pushed me out of the way of that truck!"

"Brian," Barry said seriously.

"I can't believe this!" Brian said excitedly, "I can't believe that all this time, the Flash has been my lab partner!"

"Brian, listen to me!" Barry snapped desperately, "You can't tell anyone! Understand? I need you to tell me you understand that. Tell me you'll keep this a secret!"

Brian gawked at him.

"Why would you want to keep this a secret?!" he asked incredulously, "Do you realize how famous you are?!"

Barry shook his head at him.

"I don't do it for the fame," he said seriously.

"Then why do you do it?" Brian asked curiously, "What made you wake up one day and decide to be a superhero?!"

Barry gave Brian a confused look.

"To help people," he said obviously, "What else am I supposed to do with these powers?"

"I don't know," Brian said slowly, "I just know that if I were going to be a superhero, I'd want a little more… recognition for it."

Brian leaned forward excitedly then.

"So, I have to ask you some questions," he said quickly, a huge grin on his face, "I've been going crazy wondering for the longest time just how fast the Flash really is."

Barry sighed.

"Before I tell you any more," he said seriously, "I need your absolute promise that you're going to keep my secret, Brian."

"Yeah, of course," Brian said quickly, giving an impatient wave of his hand.

"I mean it," Barry said, giving him a pleading look, "You're agreeing to not tell people my identity, but I know how tempting it's going to be for you to tell other people that you know the Flash, even if you don't disclose my name. I can't have you doing that either."

Brian's face fell slightly, and Barry knew that he had been right. The kid had to be itching to tell his peers that he knew the Flash's secret identity.

"It's dangerous, Brian," Barry said seriously, "I have a lot of enemies who might try to use you to get to me if they ever found out that you knew."

"How do you handle all of this?" Brian asked, his excitement not as vibrant now, "You're just a kid. How do you balance a dangerous life as the Flash with your normal high school life?"

"I get by just fine," Barry assured him, "Peter Parker was in high school when he became Spiderman."

"Yeah, but that's a comic book," Brian pointed out, "This is real life."

"True," Barry sighed, "It all seems so glamorous and fun when you read about it in a comic, but in real life…it can be terrifying sometimes, to be honest. Which is why I need you to promise to keep my secret, for both our safety."

Brian sighed and nodded reluctantly.

"Okay," he said, "I won't tell anyone. But you have to answer all of my questions. I have a lot of them."

Barry laughed lightly.

"I'll answer whatever I can," he agreed.

He wasn't going to tell the kid everything, but the small questions, he could answer.

"Okay," Brian said enthusiastically, "So, Captain Cold. What's his deal?"

Barry laughed and started answering Brian's questions, and like Brian had said, he had a lot of them.

When Barry finally left the school, he raced to the CCPD as fast as he could, a small sample of the pseudoephedrine he had found in hand. He wasted no time knocking on the captain's door, entering as soon as Singh responded.

"Barry," Singh said in surprise, "I wasn't expecting you today. You're supposed to be giving me your report tomorrow."

"I think I found something," Barry said excitedly, placing the small evidence bag on the captain's desk.

Singh raised his eyebrows and picked it up, looking at the small amount of white powder inside the bag.

"What is this, Allen?" he asked seriously, "Cocaine?"

Barry shook his head quickly.

"It's pseudoephedrine," he told him, "At least, that's what it was labeled as. I'm going to analyze it in my lab to verify it, but I have no reason to believe that it's not."

Singh raised his eyebrows at him.

"What's pseudo...?"

"Pseudoephedrine," Barry finished for him, "It's a nasal decongestant."

Singh gave him a confused look.

"I don't follow, Allen," he said, "How exactly does someone with sinus issues help us with the case?"

"Because pseudoephedrine is also a stimulant," Barry explained quickly, "What you're holding right there is at least four doses of it, and that's only a tiny sample of the stock I took it from. The person I took this from had to have had at least a hundred grams of the stuff, which is way over the legal limit of ten grams a month."

"I don't get it," Singh said, still frowning, "What does this have to do with vertigo?"

"Pseudoephedrine is regulated because it can be used to cook methamphetamine," Barry told him quickly, "It's used by people in the drug industry for its stimulating effects, and my theory is that it's an ingredient in vertigo."

The captain raised his eyebrows then and leaned forward in his chair.

"Where did you get this from, Allen?" he asked urgently, "Who was in possession of it?"

"Charles Agnew," Barry replied immediately, "He's a teacher at the school. I don't know much about him, but I know he's new there, has only been there a year. And guess where he transferred from."

"Starling," Singh said quietly.

Barry nodded.

"It's the perfect cover," he said quickly, "He has unlimited access to his clients—high school students—and he obviously knows chemistry because he cooks the vertigo. What better cover than to pose as a high school chemistry teacher?"

Singh sighed.

"What you're saying makes sense, Allen, it does," he said, "But it's not exactly a smoking gun either. There could be a lot of reasons why this Charles Agnew would have that much pseudoephedrine in his possession. It doesn't necessarily make him a vertigo supplier."

Barry shook his head stubbornly.

"There's no other reason that I can think of," he insisted, "Pseudoephedrine isn't used in any type of chemistry that I know of. It's considered more of a drug than it is a chemical. At least run a background check on the guy."

"I will," Singh assured him seriously, "And I'll let you know what I find. Good work, Allen."

Barry smiled at him and then left the small office, still buzzing with excitement. He may have just solved this entire case.

"Where have you been lately?" Cisco asked when Barry entered STAR Labs an hour late.

"What do you mean?" he asked, "I've been here almost every day this week."

"Yeah, but you've been late every day," Cisco said, crossing his arms.

"I'm always late," Barry said with a shrug, "You know that."

"No, you're occasionally late," Cisco corrected, "Not always. Not every day."

"Sorry," Barry said sincerely, "I've been working late the last two weeks. I'm working on a big case, and it's taking up a lot of my time."

"Do you want help?" Cisco asked then, deflating a bit.

Barry shook his head.

"No, I've got it now, I think," he said happily, "Besides, I can't come running to you guys every time I have a difficult case. I have to do my job on my own sometimes."

"Alright then," Cisco laughed, "If I were you, I'd get your ass in the treadmill room then. Dr. Wells is not happy with how little progress you've been making with your speed. He thinks you've been too distracted lately."

Barry laughed.

"Sometimes I think Wells wants me to get faster more than I do," he joked, "Which is weird, considering how originally, he didn't want me to 'go out and play hero' in the first place."

Cisco laughed, too.

"That's before he knew how badass you were," he chuckled, "Seriously, though, I'd get in there and start running before Dr. Wells comes back. He's already going to tear you a new one for being late."

Barry laughed and started walking towards the treadmill room. He stopped, though, when his phone started to ring.

"I have to answer this," he said seriously to Cisco, "It's Singh. It's probably about my case. He was going to run a background check for me."

"Since when does the captain of the CCPD run background checks on his own?" Cisco asked curiously.

Barry didn't respond, though, as he answered his phone.

"Did you find anything?" he asked excitedly.

"I ran the entire check as soon as you left," Singh told him.

"You ran the entire check already?!" Barry asked incredulously, "How'd you do it so quickly?"

Normally background checks took a couple days to process, so Barry was shocked to be getting a call from Singh so soon.

"It didn't take very long," the captain told him, "Because there was nothing to find."

"He's clean?" Barry asked, feeling somewhat disappointed.

"No," Singh said seriously, "There's definitely something fishy going on here. Allen, when I say there's nothing to find, I mean there's nothing. I can't find any records for a Charles Agnew before 2007. It's as if—"

"As if he didn't exist," Barry finished for him, "He changed his name."

"That appears to be the case," Singh confirmed, "I think you're definitely onto something here, Allen. I want you to dig into this and get to the bottom of it."

"I will," Barry said firmly, "Thank you, sir."

After Barry hung up the phone, he turned back to Cisco, who had been listening to Barry's half of the conversation with curiosity.

"Okay, maybe I will take up your offer to help," Barry said, walking over to the desk, "I need you to run a check for me. Get me everything you can find on Charles Agnew."

Cisco nodded and excitedly started typing on his computer. He was always eager to help with Barry's cases. Even though he worked with the Flash on a day-to-day basis, it was always exciting for him to help with police cases occasionally.

"What exactly am I looking for?" Cisco asked him, "What did this guy supposedly do?"

"We suspect he's part of a big drug operation in Central City," Barry explained, "But we don't know anything about him, so I'll take whatever you can find."

"Here," Cisco said, pushing his chair back from the computer, so Barry could get closer to it, "That didn't take long. There wasn't much to find. He has no criminal record, but I found several articles about different teaching seminars he's went to. He even won an award for some of his chemistry theories back in 2009. It looks like he's a teacher at East Central City High now."

Barry perused the articles quickly, reading all of them at super speed.

"Nothing before 2007," he muttered to himself, before he noticed something, "Wait a second."

He scrolled through all the articles again.

"Look at this," he said, pointing at the screen, "What do all of these articles have in common?"

Cisco looked at the screen, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Um…" he said, "They all talk about what a great teacher he is?"

Barry snorted.

"Trust me, he's not a great teacher," he muttered, "But look at the dates on the articles. They were all published on the same day."

"What?" Cisco asked, looking closer at the computer.

"It's as if they were all deliberately planted there," Barry concluded, "They're fake."

"Woah," Cisco said, scrolling through the articles, "I didn't notice that at first. Good eye."

Barry grinned at him.

"CSI, remember?" he said, "Attention to detail is the most important part of my job."

Barry stepped away from the computer then and pulled out his phone, texting Joe.

"Sorry," he said quickly, "But this is huge. I'm going to have to take a raincheck on training today. I have to talk to Joe about this. He's working this case, too. We're going to have to put our heads together and see if we can find out who this guy really is."

"Alright," Cisco said understandingly, "But you get to be the one to explain that to Dr. Wells."

Barry groaned in frustration.

"I don't get it," he said, throwing his laptop to the side on the couch next to him, "If Agnew changed his name, it should be in the public records, but they're sealed."

"You really can't find anything?" Eddie asked desperately.

He had insisted on helping with the case. Joe was his partner, after all. Barry agreed to let him in on it on the one condition that Eddie wasn't allowed to make fun of him for his undercover assignment. Eddie had still gotten a few lighthearted jabs in, but at this point they were all too preoccupied with the case to joke around much.

Barry shook his head at Eddie.

"I just don't get it," he said in frustration, "Even if the records are sealed, I should still be able to hack my way into them. I'm no expert hacker, but I should at least be able to hack this. It's not exactly like hacking into the Pentagon."

"What's the problem, exactly?" Joe asked in confusion.

"It's as if the records don't even exist," Barry explained, "They're not just sealed. It's as if they were completely deleted."

Joe and Eddie frowned at him.

"Have you been able to find anything else?" Eddie asked hopefully.

Barry shook his head.

"No," he said stiffly, "And Cisco didn't find anything using the STAR Labs software either. It's like this guy just appeared out of thin air."

They were interrupted then by a pounding at their front door.

"I'll get it," Iris said, standing up from the couch.

She was bored anyways, seeing as there wasn't much help she could offer in their work assignment, even with her reporting skills. They knew way more about the case than she did.

Iris walked over to the door and opened it. She was surprised to find four men standing on their doorstep, all of them wearing police uniforms.

"Is this the residence of Grant West?" one of them asked seriously.

Barry, who had heard the man speak, stood up from the couch and approached the door curiously.

"I'm Grant West," he said to them, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he took in their SCPD uniforms.

What were officers from Starling doing at his doorstep?

"Mr. West, we're going to need you to come with us," the officer said seriously, stepping forward.

"What?" Barry asked in confusion as the man turned him around and clasped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists behind his back.

"What is this about?!" Joe demanded, approaching the officers in their doorway.

"Your foster son is under arrest for suspected possession and distribution of vertigo," the officer answered, "He's going to have to come with us to the police station in Starling for questioning."

"He's not going anywhere," Joe said angrily, "Under what grounds are you arresting him?"

"We have evidence that suggests Grant is involved in the cooking of illegal drugs," the officer answered, "Because he's a minor, you're permitted to come along as his legal guardian, but he is still going to have to come to the station with us for questioning."

Barry didn't resist as the officer then pushed him forward. He walked numbly down the front path of Joe's house, completely dumbstruck as the officer deposited him into the back of a cop car.