Caitlin had spent the night at Peter's new place he moved into, now that he has the money to afford it. Which was a habit that was becoming frequent to the point Caitlin can't remember the last time she slept at her place.
It was hard to resist the temptation of waking up in the morning curled up against Peter's side, his arm around her back and sleep still masking his face. It was that he was just too darn cute when he was drowsy in Caitlin's eyes.
Today, however, Caitlin woke up to an empty bed and the sound of flipping and grunts coming from downstairs. The sound was a bit worrying, thinking at first some criminal learned Peter's identity and they were fighting, but since there were no crashes or cries of pain that meant that there wasn't a Spider-Man battle going on.
She threw on Peter's long sweater that was draped over his desk chair and walked downstairs, yawning while rubbing her eyes.
Normally, Caitlin was the kind of person that could easily get out at 5 am, but she and Peter had stayed up rather late last night...let's just say talking, and she was looking forward to sleeping in a little.
"Peter?" Caitlin murmured blearily, stepping off the last step and shivering a little as her bare foot hit the tile.
"Good morning!" Peter called back with a huge grin on his face, sliding the last plates of breakfast down onto the kitchen island.
The entire room was covering with pink and white and red decorations, complete with some heart shaped balloons tied to the couch to where Caitlin blinked a few times to make sure she wasn't seeing things.
Was there a holiday that she had forgotten about? Their anniversary?
"Good morning...seem to be in a pretty good mood for someone who is up at six in the morning." Caitlin informs him. Usually, Peter's the type of guy who wouldn't get up until at least noon if he needed to.
"Yes I am!" Peter said brightly when he eyed her in concern. "Sorry, was I too loud? I did make breakfast. We got pancakes and waffles and May's perfect french toast recipe, and I picked up some of those caramel lattes that you love so much from Jitters, and I might've asked May to come by and make sure I didn't burn the place. Picked the lattes up while I went swinging around to get the morning cleared of any crimes."
"Peter Parker, what has gotten into you?" Caitlin wonders, her entire chest feeling warm with pleasure as she stared around his pretty, decorated apartment and her over energized boyfriend.
"I just realized that I finally have the chance to do things like this. You being my first real girlfriend ever since high school. Even then, I was still bad." Peter mumbled that last bit, as an adorably happy smile comes back on his face. "Also...Happy Valentine's Day."
"C'mere," Caitlin said, and he walked over to her. She kissed him gently, arms around his waist, before pulling back and staring lovingly at him. "I love you."
"I love you, too," Peter said, kissing her again. Then he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "So...do you actually want some of this?"
"Heck yeah." Caitlin responded as her stomach growled. "I can never pass up May's french toast." She says as they sit down to eat.
-
When the two of them arrived at STAR Labs, both stuffed and about an hour later, they found it looking rather similar to Peter's living room.
"Wowww..." Barry murmured, staring around at the heavily decorated Speed Lab. "What a transformation. Again!"
"So, this is HR's contribution to the team?" Jesse asked, eyebrows raised as she walked in beside Wally. "Being Martha Stewart?"
Feeling the need to defend her friend's actions, Caitlin shrugged. "Guys, he's just trying to do something nice."
HR himself came skipping into the Speed Lab, firing a cupid bow towards Peter, who caught it with ease without looking.
"I'm not really too good at this kind of thing," HR admitted with a grin, dancing around in a circle. "Maybe I need to take some lessons from that guy in the green elf suit!"
Barry snorted with laughter. "Green Arrow," he corrected. "What is all this?" He asks, gesturing around the speed labs.
"Friend's day!" HR said grandly. "Ba-dah!"
Peter raised his eyebrow. "What? Friend's Day?" He asks, no idea what he's talking about.
"Oh, right, right," HR clarified. "It's my Earth's equivalent of Valentines Day. I just-just thought that after our success with the gorillas we should celebrate the loooooove."
Wally covered his mouth with his hand, snickering.
"Was all this...necessary?" Joe asks with a raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, Joe!" HR exclaimed. "Speaking of- where is your lady friend? 'Cause I would like to-"
"No, you wouldn't like to do anything," Joe said firmly, giving him a look. "She's at work, which is where I should be going." He turned and fled the room.
As HR continued undaunted. "Look what I have, ladies and gentlemen! Your own personal friends-day cards."
He bowed low in front of Caitlin. "Ms. Snow..."
"Thank you, HR," Caitlin said with a wide smile, opening her card.
This was impossibly cute. 'Some may say you have a heart of ice, but Caitlin, I think you're rather nice'.
"Spider-Man!" HR said to Peter, saluting. "Co-Leader of the ship."
Peter opens his card and sees what HR wrote for him. 'If I need a friend to cry, I know you'll swing on by.'
HR was certainly a unique spirit, and is probably running on more caffeine than is logically healthy.
He gave everyone else their cards and then bolted out of the room. "I forgot the coffee!"
Caitlin looks at at what he wrote in peters card and laughs at how true that is.
"He surely summed you up in a sentence." Caitlin says while chuckling.
"You know, HR is right about one thing." Peter tells Caitlin.
"What's that?" She asks.
"That was a pretty big win for the team," Peter said with a shrug. "Defeating those gorillas...we're changing the future, one headline at a time."
Caitlin smiled, wrapping her hands around his neck. "I don't know what the future's going to bring," she said softly. "So I wanted to ask you. Peter Parker?"
"Yes?" Peter answered with a quizzical look.
"Will you be my friend?" Caitlin asks him.
"Always and forever." Peter promises with a chuckled, hugging her tightly while reaching behind her to grab a donut.
"You two are so sweet, I'm gonna get cavities soon." Cisco warns them.
"Oh, Cisco, when you find someone, we will allow you to do to us what we're doing to you." Peter promises him.
"Yeah, right." Cisco scoffs, believing he doesn't have a chance of getting someone.
"Cisco, there is someone out there for you. Someone who's beautiful, intelligent who's gonna challenge you to be your best version of yourself." Caitlin tells him. "In fact, she could be right around the corner."
Suddenly, a breach opens and Gypsy appears.
"Why is she here? Is it like Bettlejuce?" Peter asks when Gypsy sends a vibe blast his way and hits Peter when Harry comes out and shoots her.
"Who the hell is this?" Harry asks, and they remember that they never met.
-
Grodd had used Gypsy to open a breach instead of Cisco, and now he and the Gorillas were in Central City.
They hadn't changed the headlines after all.
"This is a giant gorilla with an army of gorillas, he can't just walk down main street without being seen." Peter states since they can't find any sign of them at all.
"He's probably figured out a way to scramble our satellites." Cisco tells him. "We're talking about a genius super ape here."
"And a master strategist who successfully fooled us on my earth." Harry reminds him.
"We Wellses, we don't fool easy, do we, hard hat?" HR asks.
"Don't call me hard hat." Harry tells him.
"We have to find him before he hurts somebody else." Barry states.
"We'll find him, man. There's only so many places you can hide an army." Peter says.
"Every time I think we've beat him, he comes back stronger, smarter, and more dangerous." Barry replies to him.
"You've summed up my relationship with doc Ock, you know." Peter informs him.
"We just have to come up with a different way of beating him." Iris says as if that's easy.
"What we need to do is get ahead of him for once." Barry states.
"We can. You've seen the future. You know there's an attack coming. If we just figure out where that attack happens, we can launch a preemptive strike against Grodd." Harry tells him.
"Stop the attack befor it begins." Peter adds on.
"And fortunately, we have someone who can foresee future events." Harry says looking at Cisco.
"Before they happen." HR adds.
"Okay, there's one problem. I can only vibe what Barry saw, and a ticker on the side of a bus stop doesn't give us a whole lot of info." Cisco tells them.
"What if we widen the scope of your vibe? Then you can see more of the future." Caitlin suggests.
"I can do that. Just need to borrow you Vibe gear." Harry promises.
"Harry, that's my only pair." Cisco says referring to the glasses.
"I'll be careful." Harry promises.
"We're gonna need all the help we can get. Can you talk to Joe, see if he can rally the CCPD?" Barry asks Iris and she leaves to do so.
"I'll give Miles a call, tell him it's hero time." Peter says and goes off to get him.
"What about Gypsy? She's a powerful meta." Caitlin says.
"Can you convince her to help?" Barry asks Cisco.
"Bro, she won't say no to me." Cisco promises.
-
"SWAT's ready to roll whenever y'all are. We find Grodd yet?" Joe asked as he burst through the doors to the bunker.
"We're about to." Barry reported, striding over to Cisco, Harry, Peter and Caitlin, who were preparing Cisco to location-vibe. "Cisco, you ready?"
"Harry... if this thing- if it fries my brain..." Cisco said nervously, strapped to a chair in the middle of the room.
"It's an improvement." Harry shot back.
"What's that, Rocky?" Peter asks.
"Yeah." Harry smirked at him.
Cisco laughed nervously. "Ha. Yeah, I'm ready."
"Word of warning," Harry said. "Vibing. It's like...surfing a monster wave. You need to stay above the temporal flow, otherwise your consciousness can get sucked under."
He demonstrated dramatically with his hands, and Caitlin eyed him nervously. "And then what happened?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know," he said happily. "Guess we'll find out."
"Wait... what?" Cisco asked, straining at his wrist-bonds, but Harry had already pressed the activation button. Cisco went rigid.
"Where are you, Ramon?" Harry asked, squinting at him. "What do you see?"
"I'm at an intersection." Cisco reported. "State and Oak Hill. I think this is where it goes down."
"That's a block away from the bridge," Joe reported. "That leads right into the heart of town. But if those gorillas get over that bridge..."
"They'll overrun in the city in no time," Peter finished.
"Not if we stop them first." Barry said firmly.
-
Joe got the CCPD ready and Peter brought in Miles knowing they're gonna need everyone they can get.
"Grodd' s army could be here any second, all right?" Joe warns the cops.
"There's no sign of them." Wally states.
"You sure this is the right place?" Joe asks.
"It's the place Cisco divined." Peter reminds him.
"Was it the right time?" Jesse asks.
"We're too early." Barry realizes.
"No, Flash." Joe says and they all look at him. "Too late." Grodd corrects him.
"Wha-What's happening?" Miles asks.
"Grodd's here, he's taken over Joe's mind." Peter informs him.
"I remember, this human is important to you. Now..." Joe raises his gun to his own head. "He's all mine."
"No! Do not hurt him. I'm the one you want!" Barry pleads to him.
"I warned you, Flash. And now I'm here on First Earth to make good on my promise. And when I'm finished, this city and all the puny humans will die." Joe says before shooting his head.
Barry works at super speed and was able to save Joe from the bullet.
"I don't get it. How is he attacking detective Joe West a part of Grodd's plan?" Wally asks.
"It wasn't." Barry tells them.
"Then what was it?" Miles asks.
"A distraction." Peter tells them since his senses don't work with Grodd around, meaning he could do anything he wishes.
-
Thy go back to Star labs where Caitlin patches up the scratch Joe received from the bullet as it grazed him.
"That damn gorilla almost got me this time." Joe states.
"Shouldn't even have a scar." Caitlin promises him.
"Do you remember anything from when Grodd was controlling you?" Harry asks.
"Not really. Just some flashes." Joe says.
"Flashes of what?" Peter asks.
"Like these images places I've never seen before. It was like I was seeing what he was seeing." Joe explains.
"Gypsy said the same thing." Cisco tells them.
"A couple of years ago on my Earth, there was a neuroscientist that was able to achieve memory recovery using transcranial magnetic simulators on brain damaged patients." Harry tells them.
"We use that here but more as a depression treatment." May tells him from across the room, watching over Frost who is still unconscious for some reason.
"Well, in this experiment, one neuroscientist focused all the energy on the occipital cortex of the patients, allowing them to achieve almost full memory recollection." Harry explains.
"So, you're saying the looking into minds move Grodd goes can go both ways?" Peter asks him.
"Could be." Harry tells him.
"Maybe we could use Grodd's memories that he left behind in Joe to figure out what his plan is." Caitlin says.
"We'd just have to make some TCM simulators." Cisco says. "All it takes is some magnets. Throw together some magnets, make a helmet out of 'em." Cisco finishes,
"Hold on. Y'all want to put a bunch of magnets against my skull to look into the mind of a psychotic murdererous ape?" Joe clarifies to them.
"Yeah." Harry confirms.
"Fine." Joe says, seeing no other way.
-
They strapped Joe up to a headset and began fiddling around him.
"So, all you need to do is concentrate on your memories of Grodd, okay?" Harry instructed.
"Yeah," Joe said, sighing a bit. "That won't be a problem." He promises.
"Alright-" Harry started, before another voice interrupted.
"Hey, Dead Man." Jesse said, striding into the Bunker with an angry look in her eyes.
Caitlin and Peter exchanged glances and winced. They weren't quite sure what the title "Dead Man" was supposed to imply, but paired with the expression on Jesse's face, it wasn't anything good.
"Seriously?" Jesse continued, stopping on the upper platform and giving her dad a look. "You told Wally you were dying?"
Caitlin's eyes widened. "Dying?" she murmured, concerned.
Harry winced awkwardly. "I didn't say I was- I said I didn't- I didn't know how much time I had left," he clarified. "None of us-"
"What is wrong with you?" Jesse demanded.
Another awkward glance was exchanged between the couple.
Caitlin resisted the urge to back away slowly and leave the family drama to a quiet, unwatched room.
"Is there seriously nothing you won't say to get me to stay by your side?" Jesse continued. At this point, she didn't even seem angry. Just disappointed. Harry started to speak, but she cut him off. "Look, whatever. I'm moving here. Whether you like it or not."
With that, she spun on her heel and left the room.
Harry let out a deep sigh and turned back to Joe. "Anyway, all you have to do is concentrate on your memories of Grodd," he repeated flatly. "Ready?"
"Waiting on you, Dead Man." Peter said with a faint smirk.
Harry mumbled something unintelligible in weak retaliation.
"Hey-" Joe said, catching Caitlin's attention. "If I start to Grodd out at any point, turn the power off. Immediately."
"Of course." Caitlin said quickly, giving him a reassuring smile.
Harry started up the machine, and, almost immediately, Joe's expression went blank.
"Joe?" Barry asked, waving a hand in front of his face.
Joe didn't answer, or even flinch. He reached down and picked up the pencil and clipboard with a paper that had been lying on his lap and began to draw.
Caitlin tilted her head as a very clear face came into view. "I didn't know he could draw." she said idly.
"Well, that's the thing, anybody can actually draw." Cisco answered. "It's just that some have more developed visual cortex to manual ability. And right now these magnets are taking that part of his brain and lighting it up."
Joe put a few finishing touches on his drawing before his arm went limp and the lights on the magnet died.
Peter reached for the clipboard and squinted at it. "Well, it worked. But now we have a new problem. We have to figure out who this guys is supposed to be."
"So we ran our John Doe image through every database." Caitlin started.
"And it was tough," Cisco cut in. "This guy's a ghost. We've been calling him Jason Borne." He smirked at the reference, and Caitlin shook her head fondly.
"But then HR noticed something." Peter continued.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Well, at first it was a real brain-twister." HR said. "Then I remembered a quote from a renowned poet from my Earth, Alfred Yankovic."
"Are you talking about Weird Al?" Iris asked, nose scrunching.
"Why, because of that hair?" HR asks.
"Get to the point already. If you have one." Harry rolled his eyes.
"I can, hard head. It's hishair. Standard. Military. Cut."
Caitlin picked up the thread before Harry could start acting on the murderously-annoyed look on his face.
"So, we ran the image through the department of defense database, and, as Cisco would say: Yahtzee!" Caitlin tells them.
Cisco nodded, looking proud. "You're right. I would say that."
They fist-bumped, and Peter grinned at the two.
"You're just too cute, you know that?" Peter murmured to Caitlin and she flushed, smiling.
The picture matching up to a photo and Barry nodded over at the newest member of their team. "Nice work, HR," he murmured.
"I know." HR said happily, spinning his drumstick.
"DOD has him listed as Air-force General Mathew McNally." Iris read.
"General Mathew McNally," Cisco spoke up. "And I'll give you one guess, just guess what he's in charge of."
The smile that had been on Peter's face just a second ago faded away. "I know you're going to say military weapons but I really hope you're not going to say military weapons..."
"Air Force, Baer." Joe said flatly. "Nuclear Missiles."
"That's worse." Peter responds.
"McNally has the highest clearance; he can have a rocket in the air in less then 10 minutes," Caitlin reported.
"So are the satellites back to functional?" Barry asked Cisco.
"We ran a full diagnostic." Harry assured him. "Any nuclear weapon that's authorized to fire...an alarm will sound."
An alarm sounded.
"Ugh," Peter groaned, reaching up to rub his face knowing they jinxed it.
"Does it sound like that?" HR asked blankly. "That's an alarm."
"Yeah, it's that alarm HR," Harry growled, coming around the side of the desk to stand next to Cisco and Caitlin. "Oookay. Short range, ballistic missile, authorized to fire from Fort Reynolds."
Joe's eyes went wide. "How much time do we have?"
Cisco shook his head. "Minutes."
"Grodd..." Caitlin breathed, shaking her head sadly. "What have you done?"
Iris strode over to the computer monitors, eyebrows scrunched with worry. "Can you stop it from here?"
"Military weapons are basically analogue, I mean, they still use floppy disks." Cisco reported.
Barry shook his head. Too much discussion, too little time.
"We're going after it," he said decisively about him and Peter.
Wally and Jesse exchanged looks and started after him, but Barry stopped and turned to them.
"Guys, no. I appreciate, but I need you to stay here, okay? If we can't stop it...we need you to get everyone to safety, okay?" Peter asks of them.
Peter leaned down and kissed Caitlin's cheek, and then ran out of the room.
-
It only took Barry a few seconds to get them to the missile launch. He skidded over the frosted grass, nervously eyeing the launchers, which were turning towards the sky. General Mathew McNally was lying unconscious on the ground, eyes shut.
"Alright, we're with the missile," Barry said, forcing himself to stay focused.
"Okay, to access the keypad, remove the panel at the base of the missile vehicle." Harry instructed. He was standing in front of the missile launcher schematics, his hands behind his head.
Barry found the panel and Peter mused his fingers to yank it open, then vibrated the lock off to reveal a keypad. "Alright, that's done. What's next?"
"Well, the good news is, this missile has a built in, five-digit kill code." Caitlin told them.
"Great!" Peter gasped. "What is it?" He asks
"That's the bad news. We don't know." Caitlin breaks to him.
"For real?" Barry resisted the urge to bang his forehead against the missile. "Well then, what are we supposed to do?"
"You have to try every combination, Barry," Harry said. "It's okay; with this type of launcher you won't set off the nuke."
"The simulators are predicting that hundreds of thousands will die." Iris told them.
Peter takes a quick second to register what Iris just said.
"It's a nuclear missile, Iris! Of course hundreds are gonna die!" Peter informs her, as if they needed that explained to them.
Barry shut his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. This was probably the most tedious and also most important thing he had ever had to do. Thousands of lives were counting on him.
He started to type at super speed.
-
"Five digits, how many combos is that?" May asked Caitlin, leaning anxiously over the desk.
Caitlin winced, unsure.
HR frowned. "I'm guessing it's about..."
"Precisely 90,000," Harry growled. "Which you would know if you weren't a moron and you were an actual genius."
Caitlin scanned her readings, biting her lip. "Two missiles are locked on target."
-
"Guys, we need something else; this isn't working!" Barry cried desperately.
Cisco spun back to the group in the Cortex. "Plan B? Anyone?"
Silence greeted him and Peter comes up with an idea.
"Back up." Peter warns Barry and the two of them step back and Peter shoots the vehicle with a taser web and starts frying its systems.
At first, nothing seems to change and Peter sees there's not enough voltage and he ups the voltage.
"WORK!" Peter growled, panic filling him up like fizz from a shaken soda can as he ups the voltage of his taser web.
-
"How much time does he have?" Cisco asked.
"Fifteen seconds," Caitlin breathed. There was a possibility that she and the rest of the group at Star Labs would be able to make it out with the help of Wally and Jesse. But everyone else in Central City...Caitlin shuddered, and bit her lip harder.
"Six missiles are locked on target." Cisco said softly and walked over and took her hand.
Caitlin tasted blood.
-
Just when it seemed all hope seemed lost, the systems were fried and the missiles shut down.
"It worked." Barry breathed, staring at the vehicle disbelief. "It worked! We did it! WE DID IT!" He said, whooping and letting out an excited laugh and pulls Peter into a hug.
"We did it! Oh thank God." Peter cheers happy hugging the speedster back.
-
Unfortunately, the fight wasn't over.
"I found them," Cisco reported as his Gorilla-Tracker started to beep. "They're right outside the city."
"They're right outside the city." Cisco tells them.
"Headed to State and Oak Hill. Fast." Caitlin said.
"Alright, so what do we do?" Jesse asks.
"Barry." Wally had come foreword, Jesse close by his side. "I know we are Speedsters, but we are way outnumbered here."
"Yeah, I mean, he's right. How are the three of us going to take on all those gorillas?" Jesse echoed.
Peter shook his head slowly. "There's five of us." He said as Miles comes in ready to fight.
"This is my city, if I can protect it, I'm gonna." Miles promises.
"Spoken like a true Spider-Man." Barry nods with a smile.
"As much as I hate these gorillas- especially Grodd- if you kill him the others might stand down, but you might not be able to come back from this Barry. You know that, right?" Joe said softly to Barry.
"I know." Barry breathed. "But there's another way. It's not gonna come to that. Cisco, I'm gonna need your help."
Cisco nodded, face pale, and the six heroes headed for the door.
-
On Gypsy's earth, she was talking to the head of the Collector's who's also the head of the Collectors, Doctor Steven Strange.
"Tracked her down on Earth-2. Breach has been taken care of." Gypsy assures him.
Strange turns to face her. "You did good work, Gypsy." He assures her before opening a portal back to the sanctum and vanishes.
When he left, a breach opens and Cisco appears.
"Risky move coming to a earth where inter-dimensional travel is punishable by death." Gypsy tells him. "Especially when I'm the one who's supposed to uphold that law."
"I need to talk to you." Cisco tells her.
"I don't do long distance relationships." Gypsy warns him.
"Don't get me wrong; this is something I'd love to talk about in more detail, especially if distance I you only hesitation." Cisco states and gets back to the problem at hand. :But I'm here to talk to you about Grodd."
"Okay, I see you don't take no as an answer."
"Gypsy, please. He's gonna destroy my city. And he's gonna hurt the people I love."
"I told you before, that's not my problem. Look, just go back to Earth-1 before someone sees you and o have to do something that I don't want to."
"You know, you told me I could do things with my powers I'd never even imagined, and you're right, 'cause I'm not just vibing people anymore. I'm giving what they feel. And you know what I'm getting from you, right here, right now? You're more than this. You're like me. You want to do something good. Look we need something to stop Grodd, and I'm gonna need your help getting it. Be the hero I know you want to be."
-
Back on Earth-1, Peter, Miles, Wally, Jesse and Barry flashed themselves to State and Oak Hill. It was dead empty, no people in the streets.
"Wells," Barry asked. "How long do we have?"
"Two minutes, Barry," HR reported.
"Two minutes?!" Harry asked in disbelief, glaring at him. "Ten seconds! Can you not even tell time?!"
"Can the two of you fight later?" Peter asks them, even though it's more Harry fighting than HR.
"Sooo..." Wally said casually. "Got any pointers on how the five of us are going to save everyone and stop a few hundred gorillas?"
Barry sighed. "Go for the legs?" he suggested. "Just try not to get caught. Trust me...they won't let go."
"That's a speedster tip; spiders hit their backs hard." Peter tells Miles. "But yeah, don't get caught." He warns him.
With that less-then-reassuring thought in mind, the three speedsters and two spiders prepared themselves as a huge army of armored gorillas came storming down the empty street.
Wally and Jesse exchanged glances and nodded, running off at the same moment and flashing around and in between the gorilla army.
Miles went invisible and ran at them as Peter just webs something and starts swinging at the gorillas.
Grodd broke into a run, heading straight for Barry.
It seemed it was time for their rematch with no help.
Barry ran up to meet Grodd, only to be roughly knocked aside by his shield. Barry crashed into a car and rolled to his front, groaning.
-
"Well that was not the start we're looking for," HR commented dryly. Both Iris and Caitlin glared angrily at him, and he started to explain before finding Harry to be shaking his head at him and shutting up.
"How long to they have to last?" Iris asked, leaning over the monitors, her fists tight around the side of the desk.
"Hopefully not much longer." Caitlin murmured nervously.
-
It wasn't long before the gorillas managed to land a hit on first Wally and then Jesse. They flew out of the crowd, landing with sickening thuds and rolling to a stop on opposite sides of the street.
Peter didn't exactly last long like he believed he wouldn't have. Miles, being invisible, he was able to stay in a bit longer until the gorillas started searching for his mind and swatted him like a fly.
"You're city will fall, Flash." Grodd growled as Barry struggled to stand. "There's only one way to end this. You kill me...But you won't do that. All you care about is mercy."
"Yeah, you're right!" Barry said, finally forcing himself up. "Except I'm not the only one who wants to stop you."
Grodd leaned foreword, preparing to attack, when a blaze of bluish vibe-light caught his attention.
Cisco and Gypsy, hopped out of the breach together, following by a tan, gigantic gorilla.
Solovar.
He roared so loudly Barry's ears rang, and Grodd's head swiveled to face him.
"Solovar!" Grodd grumbled as the gorillas behind him shifted and grunted.
"I challenge you, Grodd!" Solovar cried.
"And you will fall again!" Grodd roared, and the two gorillas dove at each other.
The fight was messy and intense, but it didn't take too long for Solovar to come out triumphant.
As he stepped over Grodd's unconscious body, beating his chest and roaring, all the other gorillas dropped to their knees in worship.
Then Solovar turned, and picked up his spear. "Goodbye, Grodd."
"Stop!" Barry cried, startling forward. Solovar turned to him, dropping his spear. "Death isn't the way," Barry continued.
"He betrayed me!" Solovar tells him
"I know, so leave him here, where he's from!" Peter said as he joined the speedster while clutching his most-likely-broken ribs. "We won't let him go back to Gorilla City ever again. Just spare his life like we spared yours." He asks of the gorilla.
Solovar's head swung back and forth between Grodd and the heroes, but at their words, he stopped and nodded.
Barry and Peter nodded back, and Solovar stepped away from Grodd.
"Send us home," Solovar commanded. "All of us!"
-
All of the gorillas had been returned to Earth-2, and Grodd was safe, and everyone safe from him as Peter said, at Argus.
Frost eventually woke up as it seemed she was being held in a coma by Grodd and she along with Harry went back to their Earth.
Caitlin was relieved as some small part of her still remembered the soft, gentle, giant gorilla she had known so many years ago, and Peter could easily tell.
"Whatever goodness Grodd had is long gone," she said softly, trying to convince him... and herself. "For all I care Lyla can throw him in the same cage as King Shark."
Peter nodded a little, not seeming convinced. Detachment wasn't a usual emotion in Caitlin Snow, and now was no exception.
Gypsy had gone home and everyone at STAR Labs had dispersed.
Peter and Caitlin were heading back to his apartment, ready to finish up the tiny remainder of Valentines Day snuggling on the couch, watching Letters To Juliet.
"You doing okay?" Peter asked as the movie got to the scene of Charlie and Sophie lying out on the grass and watching the stars.
Caitlin snuggled closer to Peter's chest, feeling sleepy from his warmth and the empty glass of wine on the table in front of her.
"I'm okay." Caitlin murmured. "I'm glad all of this is over, though."
"Grodd will be okay, you know." Peter said softly, even though he doesn't personally care what happened to him, the guys been through a lot. "I bet we can even arrange something with ARGUS if you want to go visit him in captivity."
Caitlin shook her head. "I don't...don't think I could do that, Peter. Not only would it probably break protocol, but Grodd doesn't deserve kindness. I mean, he tried to kill you, me, and Barry, and tried to destroy Central City. I mean, he almost fired a nuclear weapon, and almost succeeded it getting it to hit the city and kill everyone! How are you supposed to feel empathy for someone that does something that awful..."
She broke off abruptly, her lower lip wobbling. Peter wrapped her tighter in his arms and kissed the top of her head.
"Feeling empathy is one of the most amazing and beautiful things about you that I love, Caitlin Snow." Peter whispered in her ear. "And it's what keeps you such a strong and amazing person even though everything we've faced. It's nothing to be ashamed of." He states to her.
Caitlin nodded wearily, shutting her eyes. "Maybe...maybe I'll go and visit him sometime," she mumbled into his shirt. "Right now, I think we should go to bed."
Peter smiled softly and kissed her hair again, swinging her up into his arms. "That sounds just fine to me."