Author's Note: 3. More. EPISODESSSS!
Omg y'all this is the episode where Caitlin and Barry team up- I remember watching this one and FREAKING OUT because it had been so long (according to ReactOutLoud, 29 episodes) since they'd had their last one-on-one scene :P
And people wonder why I'm not inspired to write this story...
Okay, granted, if Caitlin and Barry were cannonically a couple this wouldn't even be a story, but whatever XD
(ok lowkey tho... the original, cannon opening scene for this episode with Iris being so excited about her reporting was actually really cute XD She's got her moments. They're rare, but she's got them :)
Cecile's baby shower had gone well... for Cecile and Joe, anyway. Cisco had spent most of his time moping by the window, and though Barry had gone to give him a some comfort he still looked downhearted. Iris, on the other hand, had approached Caitlin and asked her not to pull another live-risking stint again. Caitlin had been this close to telling her everything that was really going on, but she'd held back.
And then, of course, there was still the problem of DeVoe. Caitlin, Cisco and Harry had started working on the issue in the late afternoon, and before they knew it they were pulling an all-nighter. At least, by the time the Team filtered back into STAR Labs the next morning, they had some news.
"So, last night, Harry, Cisco and I spent all night running all the different algorithms we could think of involving the satellite tech that DeVoe stole," Caitlin began.
"We think DeVoe plans to position each of his five satellites in different calculated points around the globe," Cisco added.
"And when the quantum computers in each satellite link up..."
"He'll use that network to basically emit a series of Dark Matter bursts."
"He'll reboot the prefrontal cortex of every man, woman and child on this Earth," Caitlin finished.
"Well, we need to nip this in the bud," Joe said. "We can't let him launch those satellites."
Iris looked blank. "Yeah, but... how are we supposed to find him? I mean, we haven't been able to register DeVoe's pocket dimension breach energy for days."
"And with Null's gravitational powers, he can launch these satellites from any place, any time," Caitlin added.
Barry had drifted away from the desks to look at the little satellites-surrounding-the-planet animation Harry had concocted at some point during their more delirious 3am moments the night before. "Yeah, he can," he breathed, but there was something in his voice that sounded more curious than hopeless.
Joe seemed to catch that note, too. "What're you thinking, Baer?"
"I think we shoot them down," Barry said with a shrug that belied the huge idea he'd just dumped on them.
"One small problem," Iris spoke up. "DeVoe has Killgore's powers."
"He can manipulate any tech-based weapon we fire at him," Joe agreed.
"So, we don't use tech," Barry concluded. "We use... some kind of organic matter weapon."
"Like a..." Harry trailed off. "Like a, um..."
Caitlin felt her heart sink. Harry had done pretty well last night keeping his wits about him, but there was definitely something lacking in the giant brain they'd all gotten so used to.
"You know what?" Iris said, before Harry could get too embarrassed about his inability to come up with an idea. "Let's split up, and see what we can find."
The Team nodded, and Caitlin walked off to her lab, Barry following behind her. "Missed you last night," he said with a faint smile.
"Sorry," Caitlin replied, wincing. "Sometimes science calls, you know?"
"You guys did great work," Barry assured her. "Thank you for sacrificing your sleep cycle for the sake of stopping DeVoe."
Caitlin giggled, pecking him on the lips. "Anytime."
He jogged off to go take his own angle on the organic matter issue, and Caitlin sat down at her desk. She was tired, sure, but they really had needed the extra time an all-nighter allowed. Besides, it had given her a change to put her mind to some more alternatives for getting Killer Frost back, and coming up with ideas always made her hopeful.
A couple hours later, Joe wandered into her lab. "Hey, Caitlin?" he asked. "Do you have any Ibuprofen? Reading up on all this organic matter has given me an organic migraine."
Smiling a little, Caitlin reached for the probably-overused bottle of pills resting on her desk and tossed them to her father-in-law.
"Thanks," Joe said, before he actually looked at her for the first time. Caitlin smiled pleasantly at him, two acupuncture needles sticking out of her face. "You have a little.. uh..."
"Acupuncture," Caitlin explained, reaching for a cotton pad to take out the needle. "Ever since I found out I still have a cryogenic anomaly in my DNA, I've been trying every medical avenue I can think of to get Killer Frost to emerge."
"You really do miss her, don't you?" Joe asked softly.
"Yeah," Caitlin said with a shrug. "Killer Frost was apart of me, and just as I was starting to accept her, she was taken away." She let out a sigh. "I'm running out of ideas."
Joe took a few steps forward. "Well, I know it's not exactly the same, but I've had my fair share of missing persons cases."
"What do you do when you hit a wall?"
"I try to attack it from a different direction," Joe responded simply. "If that helps."
She smiled up him, nodding contemplatively, and he thanked her for the pills and walked out of her lab.
Caitlin turned slowly back to her computer, her thoughts racing. She might just have a solution that could solve both her and the Team's problems. A moment later, she leapt to her feet and called the Team back in again.
"We've been attacking this from the wrong direction," she began once everyone had gathered. "We know we need a tech-free projectile to stop DeVoe's satellites, and we've been looking for an object. But what we need... is a person. Amunet."
Everyone's eyebrows went up. Barry let out a laugh, and Joe stared at her. "Amunet Black," he repeated, incredulous.
"I know she's no the ideal choice, but Amunet's psychically powered alnico shards are not only deadly powerful, they're completely immune to DeVoe's Killgore powers," Caitlin insisted.
"Not idea?" Barry repeated, unfortunately only grasping on to the first thing she'd said. "I mean, she kidnapped you. She tried to sell me into meta-slavery!"
"And she ruined your bachelorette party!" Iris added unhappily.
Barry sent her an odd look, not feeling like that was really the worst of the things Amunet had done that Iris could have mentioned.
"Yeah, we can't partner up with Amunet," Joe agreed firmly. "She's a criminal."
Caitlin spread her hands. "Snart's a criminal. So's Killer Frost. We work with them."
"Even if we forgive Amunet for everything she's done," Barry said as Caitlin walked around her desk, looking at him imploringly. "What makes you say she'd be willing to help us?"
"I've seen a different side of her," Caitlin replied. "She's helped me before, and I believe she'll do it again."
Joe, Iris and Barry looked around at each other, but Caitlin felt a smile pulling at her lips. She knew she'd convinced them.
Now all that was left to do was find Amunet and convince her in the same way.
Flash!
"Alright," Barry said as he faced Caitlin in his Flash suit. "You ready?"
She looked at him, surprised. "Just like that? You're letting me tag along without putting up any fight at all?"
Barry pulled a face at her, knowing his was only partially teasing. "Hey, I meant what I said," he told her. "I'm not going to hold you back, but I'm not going to let you go at it alone, either. That goes for everything, not just finding Killer Frost."
"Duly noted," Caitlin said with a smile, and then offered him her arm. "Shall we?"
In moments, he had flashed her to Amunet's hideout, the dim, underground area that Caitlin had spent so much time in as Frost when she'd been working for the crime lady.
Barry stopped them in front of a boxing ring, where two women wearing tank tops and large gloves were sparring. "This isn't what I expected Amunet's hideout to look like," Barry admitted as he glanced around.
"I might have made a few changes," a voice from behind them said, and Caitlin and Barry spun around to find Norvock, everyone's favorite snake-eye, coming around the corner with two gun-wielding muscle men.
The men raised said guns and cocked them, but before they could fire Barry had run forward and grabbed both the weapons. "Really boys?" he asked, unimpressed, as he dropped the guns to the ground at his feet.
"You trying to get us killed?" Norvok asked his men. "That's the Flash, you morons. And Caitlin may look like a librarian, but she's a cold hearted beast."
Caitlin raised an eyebrow at the description of her fashion, and decided to mostly ignore him. "Where's Amunet?" she asked instead.
"Really?" Norvok asked, waving his bodyguards away and walking closer to the two of them. "No... 'hello Norvok. How you been?' You're not even gonna introduce me to your new boss?"
"Oh, I'm not her boss," Barry said quickly. "I'm her-"
Caitlin sent him a glance, telling him very plainly with her gaze that she did not want Norvok knowing she was married to the Flash.
"Friend," Barry finished lamely, and offered up an awkward grin.
"Well isn't that sweet," Norvok grunted.
"Norvok," Caitlin grit out, taking a threatening step forward. This may have been her "librarian" side, but she had picked a few things up from Killer Frost over the past few months. "Where's Amunet?"
"No one's heard a peep from her in months," Norvok responded finally. "For all I know... the witch is dead." He clacked his teeth together and smirked as Caitlin sent a frustrated glance at her husband.
If they couldn't find Amunet... Caitlin wasn't sure what plan they had left.
Flash!
"So, Amunet's gone?" Iris recapped after Barry and Caitlin returned to STAR Labs with the bad news.
"Well, apparently after her deal with Warden Wolfe took a nosedive, she's been out of the Meta trafficking business."
"Caitlin," Joe asked, looking over at her. "Do you know any personal details that can help track her down?"
Caitlin considered. She didn't know a ton about Amunet's private life; the woman had never been the most open and, besides, she had spent most of her time with Killer Frost, who didn't really take the time to ask personal questions.
"I don't know," she murmured. "Amunet's always been kind of a private person. Unpredictable, rash... kind of fly by the seat of your pants..." She trailed off, the word 'fly' bringing her back to one detail she remembered Amunet telling her when they'd sort-of-bonded while she was being held captive. "You know, when she kidnapped me at Christmas she said she used to be a flight attendant! I think she was on an airplane the night the Particle Accelerator exploded."
"Okay, that we can work with," Iris declared. She fiddled with her computer for a second. "Yeah, looks like there were 35 flights in the air in Central City the night of the Particle Accelerator Explosion."
"Cisco, can you access the flight manifests?" Joe requested.
"Yes I can," Cisco replied. "And I can take the crews credentials, cross reference them-"
"In the facial recognition?" Barry finished.
Cisco looked up at him, disgruntled. "Can you not read my mind?"
Barry shrugged apologetically.
A few seconds later, a headshot of a familiar-looking flight attendant popped up on a wall monitor. "Her real name is Leslie Jocoy," Caitlin read off, wrinkling her nose.
"Maybe she's operating under her name, not her pseudonym," Barry suggested.
"Well, she didn't have a criminal record until the Particle Accelerator, so it's not a bad plan," Iris put in.
Joe was frowning down at his phone. "CCPD has several prior work addresses for Leslie Jocoy."
"Alright, let's pay them all a visit," Barry said, nodding.
They split up into groups and went on the search, and Joe and Caitlin ended up hunting down one lead together. Joe was quick to bring up Caitlin's ulterior motive for suggesting they hunt down Amunet, which she had been kind of hoping no one would notice, and to plead with her to upfront with the Team. She didn't fully agree to that, but what he said was true. She wanted to find Amunet to help stop DeVoe, of course. But she also wanted her help to get Killer Frost back. Amunet had helped her before, and Caitlin was crossing her all her fingers that she'd be able to again.
Joe and Caitlin lucked out. In a back area of the rundown store where Amunet used to work, there was a whole hidden casino. And at the head of it all was Amunet herself.
It didn't take Joe long to scare everyone out with his badge, and soon it was just the two of them and Amunet left in the room. She looked up at Caitlin, displeasure written all over her expression.
"Leslie," Caitlin greeted, trying not to smirk at the knowledge of Amunet's real name.
Amunet took a sip from her glass of alcohol. "Caity," she replied. "Leave it to your crafty little brain to figure out my dark secret." Her seemingly-friendly smile dropped off her face. "What're you doing here?"
"Calling your bluff," Caitlin said, deciding to try some casino-themed lingo, considering the location. "I knew you were still alive."
"No one could kill me," Amunet agreed. Still smiling slightly, she turned around and lifted a large canvas bucket onto the table. It hit the wood with a distinct clink of metal, and Caitlin immediately knew what was inside.
Joe seemed to catch on, too. "Flash," he said, touching his hand to the com at his ear.
Barry was there in a second and Amunet jumped, startled. "Oh!" she cried. "Flash. You really do stop all the crime in the city, don't you?"
She hovered a hand over the bucket and her skin was immediately coated with metal shards. Caitlin moved to take cover and Joe raised his gun, but Amunet fired at Barry. He dodged easily, and then leveled Amunet with a stare. "I'm not here to fight," he said. "We need your help."
Flash!
Once they filled Amunet in on DeVoe's plans, she agreed to come back to STAR Labs with them. The next few minutes were filled with her eagerly exclaiming over all the various features in the Cortex, then her forcing Barry to take off his mask because she had already figured out his identity, before she finally broke the news to them that she couldn't do the job without her special stash of alnico shards.
Unfortunately, those alnico shards had been stolen from her storage warehouse recently. Barry decided they should go have a look at the crime scene to see if there were any clues about who had broken in, and while he was getting his CSI kit Caitlin brought Amunet into her lab to talk to her alone.
"I didn't just bring you here to ask you to help us stop DeVoe," Caitlin admitted.
"An ulterior motive," Amunet murmured. "How furtive. After all... why go to all the hassle of procuring me when Killer Frost could quite easily just ice-blast those satellites down."
Amunet was definitely more intuitive than she looked; Caitlin would give her that. "Killer Frost is gone," she said. "Remember last year, when I came to you because Killer Frost was taking over? You fixed me with your splicer. I need to use that splicer again."
Amunet tsked softly, walking over to her. "Caity..." she murmured. "One of the reasons I was so willing to help you and your friends with your professor situations is because it also benefits me. But giving you my splicer... not as beneficial."
Caitlin took a breath. She had hoped it wouldn't have to come to this, but she was willing to do quite a lot to get Frost back, at this point. "What if I make you a deal?" she offered. "You give me the splicer, Killer Frost and I will do you one favor."
"Oh... that is a tempting offer," Amunet murmured, looking eager. "But unfortunately... my splicer was stashed right alongside my additional shards."
"Okay," Caitlin said, nodding determinedly. "Wherever we find your shards, we should also find your splicer."
She and Amunet shook on the deal, and a moment later Barry had arrived to take them to the scene of the crime. That scene turned out to be an abandoned train yard.
"This is where you kept your stash?" Caitlin said incredulously, bending to open up Barry's CSI kit. It had been awhile since she had worked alongside him like this, and it was nice to be back in action.
"Well, I got something," Barry reported. "Some sort of substance on the locks. Looks like they applied it to break the door open."
They put a sample into a tube to see how it reacted, and Caitlin peered at the results. "Hemotoxic venom," she said as the liquid in the vial turned yellowish-green.
Amunet's face, which had been lit up as she watched them work, turned stormy. She stalked away from them, growling almost-inarticulate curses about a certain someone under her breath.
"I take it she knows who did this?" Barry asked, glancing over at Caitlin.
She sighed, realizing they had gone full circle. "So do you. Norvok."
Flash!
Not only were they back to square one, but Amunet was furious and Caitlin was antsy.
"The satellites aren't picking up any traces of your alnico metal anywhere in the city," Iris said with a sigh.
"Norvok may be a moron," Amunet growled. "But he's not stupid enough to keep the stash out in the open."
Barry flashed in at that moment. "Did you find anything?" Joe asked hopefully.
"No," he said, looking annoyed. "Norvok and the box weren't in the ring anymore."
"Of course not," Amunet cried. "Because you and your gang of heroes tipped him off that something was up!"
Barry pointed to himself incredulously and Caitlin strode over to Iris. "Have you expanded the satellites to beyond Central City?"
Iris raised an eyebrow at her. "Yeah."
"What about trying facial recognition."
"Yes, of course-"
"And what about a geological scan of the metas signature like last time or- or having Cisco run another algorithm to check the electromagnetic fields in the city-"
Iris cut her off, looking annoyed. "Yes, Caitlin. I've done all that. I've run all the tests.
"We're doing everything we can," Barry said, looking at her steadily. "Alright? We're gonna find Norvok and the shards."
For once, his confidence did nothing to reassure her. She turned and started pacing towards the exit, but Joe's voice stopped her. "Caitlin," he said. "Is this about her stolen shards? Or her tech?"
Caitlin gave him a panicked look, but the cat was out of the bag."What?" Barry's gaze swiveled to her and his eyebrows furrowed. "What tech?"
"Amunet has splicer technology that she used to split Killer Frost last year," Caitlin admitted finally, her voice dull. "I was hoping to use it again to get Killer Frost to come out, but it was hidden with her metal shards in the storage container."
"Why- why wouldn't you tell us that?" Barry asked, and she could hear the unspoken me replacing the 'us' as clearly as she could read the betrayal on his face.
Caitlin broke his gaze, unable to look at him. "Because I made Amunet a deal. If she helped me, Killer Frost would do another job for her."
She glanced up in time to see Barry's lips purse. Joe spoke again. "But that splicer tech your only hope-"
"Yes it is, Joe!" Caitlin cried, her voice wobbling a little as her eyes welled up. "I have tried everything I can think of to get Killer Frost to appear, and that was my last shot." She shook her head. "So now she's gone for good, and it looks like I'm never getting my baby back, either!"
Knowing she had just dropped two giant bombs on her Team, Caitlin strode out of the room and left Barry to deal with the fallout.
Flash!
After Caitlin stormed out, Joe turned to Barry sharply. "What does she mean, 'she's never getting her baby back'? What's wrong with my grandchild?"
Barry swallowed, sticking his hands into his pockets. "Caitlin needs Killer Frost's presence for our baby to keep growing," he explained, as simply as possible. "Without her... it's in a sort of stasis. We're not sure exactly why or how, but it started right after Caitlin lost her powers and it's the only thing that makes sense."
"I can't believe this," Iris breathed. "She's been keeping this from us, too?"
"She didn't want to burden you," Barry said with a shrug. "And you know what? Fine. She didn't tell us about the splicer, and maybe she only wanted Amunet here so that she could fix her powers. But the fact of the matter still stands that Amunet is going to be able to help us. And if she can help Caitlin and our child in the process..." he shrugged again. "I'm glad we asked her for help."
In truth, Amunet ended up being just what Caitlin and the Team needed.
When Caitlin heard footsteps outside of the pipeline, she thought it was Barry. Instead, Amunet came creeping around the corner, her excessively spidery eyelashes fluttering as she blinked at Caitlin hesitantly. "I... didn't know you were pregnant," she began.
"Yeah," Caitlin said, letting out a small sigh.
"Who's the... lucky man?"
She knew who Barry's identity was now; Caitlin figured she might as well tell her the whole truth. "Barry," she said, smiling a little.
"Let me get this straight," Amunet said, sitting gingerly down on the ledge Caitlin was on but staying a few feet away. "You're married to the Flash? How could you have not told me this?"
Caitlin raised an eyebrow in her direction and Amunet shrugged. "Okay, yes, stupid question."
"What're you doing here, Amunet?" Caitlin asked, letting out a breath.
"Oh Caity..." Amunet murmured, scootching a bit closer. "I hate to see you so torn up like this! So I'm going to tell you something that'll cheer you up: That splicer... did not cure you."
Caitlin blinked, looking at her uncomprehendingly. "What?"
"Well, you-" another inch closer. "You'd come to me so broken, so needy... and so I put that piece of tech on your head and... nothing! It did not work on you."
"So you decided to lie to me rather than tell me that?"
"Mhm," Amunet chirped. "But just because the splicer didn't technically work doesn't mean that the results were not the same."
"How?" Caitlin gaped. "That doesn't make any sense..." She trailed off suddenly, a thought occurring. "It was a placebo," she realized softly.
"You see?" Amunet murmured. "It's been inside you the entire time."
A moment later she'd realized just where Norvok her new arch-nemesis was hiding, and Team Flash had rushed off. After Barry got poison blown in his face by Norvok's eye-snake, Joe stopped the shard's getaway car by blowing out its wheels with his gun, and Caitlin created a giant chandelier of ice to land on the gunmen's heads, Caitlin and Joe released the shards and Amunet used them to create a metallic mask around Norvok's face and eye-snake.
Joe and Caitlin raced towards Amunet and Norvok and Barry got to his feet, having phased through the poison before it could reach his heart. "Amunet!" he yelled as the crime lady raised her shard-encrusted fist and prepared to kill Norvok with it. "Don't kill him."
"He's more than earned it," Amunet said, lip wrinkling.
"It's not about him, it's about it," Barry panted, still out of breath from the poison that had just been in his system. He caught sight of his wife closing in on them and knew that she was their only hope. "Caitlin-"
"Amunet," Caitlin said urgently, picking up the slack. "There is a good part of you- I truly believe that."
There was a tense moment where Amunet just glared at Norvok as he clutched at his face, trying to wrench the metal mask off.
"Fine," she relented finally, and pulled the metal away from Norvok's face. He inhaled raspily, snake-eye thrashing in the air. Amunet wrinkled her nose. "But the snake has got to go," she decided, and promptly sliced it off of his face.
Caitlin grimaced as the chopped snake came flying off of Norvok's eye and landed, still squirming, at her feet. Norvok let out a howl of pain and got to his feet, stumbling for the exit.
"Like Norvok," Amunet segwayed. "I must be on my way."
She turned, and was about to head out, when Barry stopped her. "N-n-n-no! Hey! If you leave there is no way we can stop DeVoe's satellite."
Amunet paused, wincing.
"She was never gonna help us," Joe grumbled. "She just wanted her metal."
That, surprisingly, made Amunet turn. "Oh! Truthfully, I did consider it. I did. But a... a good player knows when to fold and the professor certainly has a better hand, so..." She shrugged. "Don't try to stop me."
"There nowhere you can go where DeVoe's satellites won't reach you," Caitlin said, her voice hard. She knew that self-preservation could very well be the one thing that would reach Amunet, and she was willing to play to that. "If you leave now, you'll be mind-melted just like the rest of us."
Amunet let out a deep sigh, a crease forming between her eyebrows. "Good point," she admitted, and began to spin her fingers over her palm. In a few moments, a ball of metal shards had formed, and she passed it carefully to Caitlin. "Filled with shrapnel and bound with my metahuman genetics. Pull a shard, throw it... it will deliver one savage concussive blow. You only get one shot." She looked at Caitlin deliberately. "I know you won't waste it."
Smiling a little, Caitlin nodded.
"Go save the world, my darling," Amunet whispered, and then she was off.
Flash!
"Guys, I'm sorry I got so worked up with Amunet around," Caitlin said once everyone had reconvened in the Cortex. She had since filled Harry and Cisco in on what was going on with her baby, and they had been just as shocked and dismayed as Joe and Iris. "And... I'm also sorry for not telling you guys everything that was going on at first."
"It's okay," Iris said.
"Amunet still gave us the bomb," Barry said with a shrug. "And I think it's our best bet at stopping DeVoe."
"We just need to figure out how to fire it," Caitlin agreed, glad that everyone was being so chill.
Granted, she couldn't imagine anyone being too harsh on a woman who's unborn child was currently in a state of stasis while still inside of her.
The topic was changed to what Cisco and Harry had found out that afternoon. "I put myself in DeVoe's shoes," Harry said. "I though, well, if I was a genius moving around in a floating chair, how would I feel. All my actions would be driven by the one thing I care most about."
"So, if you're not acting..." Barry realized.
"If I'm not acting, I don't have the one thing I care most about," Harry finished, looking around at them all. "My wife."
Author's Note: Guyyys omg I'm so sorry there were a ton of scenes near the top that I probably could have condensed into recap-mode... I couldn't remember exactly how this episode went and didn't want to miss the part where Caitlin got upset and admitted that she didn't know how to get Frost back because I wanted her to tell her team about the baby then.
Not the most exciting episode to rewrite... isn't that so funny, though? The ones with the least amount of Snowbarry are the most fun to do. The episodes with Snowbarry don't need all that much work, because it already, you know... has Snowbarry. XD
