YEARS AGO:
Mary and Richard boarded the airplane to head to their location. With everything that Harrison Wells is doing to the Particle Accelerator, he is going to hurt a lot of people. And with the information that Hartley has confirmed when Wells fired him,
"This is something bigger than anything we could have imagined," Richard commented as he looked over the computer.
However, Mary wasn't focused on that as she looked around and noticed that only a few people were on board. This wasn't exactly a private plane, and this was just a normal commercial flight. Yet there was at least a handful of people on board.
"Something's wrong," Mary commented.
"What?" Richard asked as he looked around. "Oh."
"How did you not notice?" Mary rolled her eyes at her husband.
"Well, what do we do?" Richard wonders.
"You get to the back," Mary tells her husband and undid her seatbelt. "Lock yourself in the bathroom."
"I hate being tech support." Richard sighed, knowing his wife was better at fighting than him. "Don't take too long."
"Ha-ha," Mary replied with a sigh.
Richard made his way to the bathroom and left Mary as she stood up with a sigh. Looking around, she noticed a few of the men grabbed some pocket knives out of their pants. While they were doing that, Mary pulled off a band from her arm and tied her hair into a ponytail.
"How did you guys get those knives past security?" Mary asked them.
One of them ran down the stalls and tried to attack her with a swing. But luckily Mary was one step ahead and knew that this was coming as it's always their first move. Rising a foot with her heels, she kicked one of them in the chest which caused them to wince and fall backward.
Mary sighed as she took off her shoe with blood and then tossed them aside. That was something she knew would get in her way going forward and was happy she was at least wearing socks inside them.
One came up to her from behind and grabbed onto her shoulders. But Mary was quick and quickly kicked him in the knee and head-butted him which ended up sending him backward.
One of the others grabbed Mary, causing her to act fast and elbow him in the face. Another swung his knife to try and go for her shoulder. But Mary grabbed him by his palm and neck, slamming him into the upper head compartment.
"Who sent you?" Mary asked him.
But she wasn't given any time to listen for answers as someone came up and tried to do some ninja kick that she quickly blocked it. When she did so, she punched him in the face then raise her foot and kick another from her back. Reaching up to the man she just hit, she stole his knife and tossed it across the room embedding it into his chest.
Mary looked around and saw that was the last of them and sighed as she looked over to the bathroom. "Okay, we're alone."
Richard then opened the door and looked around to see the attackers. "So, who were they?"
"No idea, but someone wasn't getting their money's worth." Mary sighed as she looked around and noticed a flight attendant walking down the walkway with a trolly.
That seemed to be a bit off for Mary, which only confirmed it when she pulled out a gun, causing her to try and pull Richard out of the way. But she wasn't fast enough as the attendant ended up shooting him in the back.
"Richard!" Mary cried as they made it to the other half of the plane and found cover. She quickly placed him down in one of the seats and saw his wound. "Okay, you need to stay awake and stay still."
"Mary..." Richard groaned as he could barely stay still with the wound. "Run."
Mary knew he was trying to protect her, even if it was the last thing she did. But she didn't want to leave her husband to get shot. "I won't leave you."
"Peter...he'll need someone." Richard reminded her. "You need to run."
Mary didn't even register her son, as she likes to keep her mind focused on the mission. And right now, her mission was to keep the two of them alive. But thinking of her son now and the idea that he would be out there on his own now made herm think.
But the attendant came back, and Mary had to jump down one of the rows to not get shot. She then strolled down as Mary grabbed one of the guns from the man she stabbed and shot her in the face. She tried to shoot again but the gun was already out of bullets.
As soon as she did, Mary noticed his face starting to glitch out and sighed. She knew exactly who this was. "Dmitri."
The attendant then reached up and ripped off a facemask that unveiled a white mask underneath it. "Miss me, Parker?"
"Not in the slightest!" Mary cried as she kicked the Master of Disguise in the chest and leaped to her feet. "How's your nose by the way?"
That seemed to tick him off further as Dmitri Smerdyakov took his gun and tried to shoot her again. But in his anger, he missed Mary and ended up shooting a chair. They were ready to go when an explosion goes off, ending up taking a portion of the plane with it. The explosion ended up causing a gust of wind to enter the plane and blow everything everywhere and blinding him.
While he was distracted, Mary managed to get up and shoot him. But that didn't seem to slow him down just as the plane started to go for a nosedive due to no pilot. That sent Mary slamming into the ceiling and dropping her gun in the process.
The emergency door was blown off its hinges and it seems even the gunshot wasn't going to slow him down. Dmitri just took his parachute and took for the door. Escaping in time for his parachute to save him, he left the two of them to crash and burn.
Mary managed to crawl her way to the ground as she saw her husband had passed on and started to tear up. Looking at the broken door, she looked over at her deceased husband as she closed her eyes and knew what she needed to do.
PRESENT DAY:
"The Goblin knows his identity." The Watcher narrated. "Peter has now learned Goblin's identity. It's now a fight to the death to who can outsmart the other."
The Watcher looked down as Peter was pacing back and forth after everyone had gathered and met up at Joe's place. It was the only place that Peter knew for certain he hasn't been often enough for Goblin to target. He even asked for May to come with him so that they could come up with a plan.
"The Goblin somehow knew my identity." Peter started a different side meeting to the one Barry was having. "If he knows who I am, then it goes without saying..."
"He knows where you hang out, everyone you've constantly been in contact with." Bobby guessed what he was saying. "Great."
"That means everywhere that we have gone to is no longer safe either," Peter added on. "And everyone."
"So, what do we do?" May was worried to know.
"We need to keep everyone safe," Peter stated as he looked at everyone he knew. "Goblin will probably limit himself to the city, so Ava and Lana aren't in any danger."
"But everyone here is," Bobby added. "Crystal, MJ, me."
"Even possibly Harry." Peter groaned as he knew this wasn't going to be a problem.
"So, what are we going to do?" May repeated her question.
Peter started to think of that himself as Goblin didn't leave that many options. He's going to attack them one way or another. The only thing he could do was the one thing he really didn't want to do.
"I've got to tell them the truth." Peter finally decided.
"You're going to tell them you're Spider-Man?" Bobby was shocked.
"Well, I was already considering telling MJ," Peter confessed. "But now they're in danger, Goblin could target them, and they couldn't defend themselves."
"Can you trust Harry though?" Bobby wonders. "I mean, he is the son of the Goblin."
"And he already knows who I am," Peter replied, knowing if Harry learns who he is, it won't necessarily be a problem.
While they were talking in the dining room talking, Barry's friends were waiting for him in the living room.
"Where's Barry?" Eddie asks them all.
"He should be here any second. I sent him out for..." Joe was explaining when Barry came in with boxes of pizza.
"Pizza! From Coast City." Barry tells them and they all dive in while Caitlin is just sitting on the stairs. "Supposedly the best in the West." He tells them as they spread the boxes out on the table. "Dig in."
"Why did I not think of this before?" Cisco questions while taking a slice.
"Cait, you not eating?" Barry asks her while taking a slice from the boxes.
"I'm not hungry," Caitlin tells him and he's okay with that seeing she's still trying to figure everything out.
"Okay, six months of investigating Harrison Wells has led us nowhere, so we're going back to the beginning to see what we can find out," Joe tells the team.
"What does that mean?" Caitlin wonders.
"Starling City, baby!" Cisco reached over and clinked beer bottles with Joe.
"Joe and Cisco are going to Starling City," Barry explained, tilting his head back to look at Caitlin, who was standing behind the couch he was on.
"Starling City? What for?" Caitlin wrinkled her nose, confused.
"To investigate the car accident that Dr. Wells was in with Tess Morgan 15 years ago," Joe said.
"I don't understand; why?"
Barry reached over to Eddie for another slice of pizza. "Dr. McGee said that after Well's accident he became like a complete stranger. A different person entirely."
"Because the love of his life died?" Caitlin suggested. She was angry, though not exactly sure why, or at who. All of this was just so sudden and confusing, and nobody else but her seemed to have any problem excepting it. Even Cisco, who had found out at the same time as she did. "You of all people can understand how grief can change a person."
Barry looked like he wanted to protest, but Joe beat him to it. "Caitlin. We believe that Dr. Wells is the Reverse Flash and that he killed Barry's mother. He may have done the same thing to Tess Morgan." Caitlin broke eye contact. "We have to learn everything we can about that night. See where it leads us."
"Uh..." Cisco broke in, eyes round with pleading innocence. "Can you cover for me with Dr. Wells?"
"You mean lie?" Suddenly, everyone in the room got very interested in anything that wasn't her. She placed her hands on her hips, even more upset.
"Yeeeeah?" Cisco squeaked.
Caitlin shook her head and turned toward the door. She felt dizzy, suddenly, and like the entire world was falling around her shoulders. "I need some air."
"Caitlin!" Barry called after her, but she was already out the door.
"Doesn't look like Caitlin's with us." Joe noticed.
"No, she's with us. Let me talk to her." Barry tells them.
"You do that." Joe guessed of anyone; Barry could get her to understand.
"What do you want us to do here?" Eddie wonders.
"Go about business as usual while we're gone," Joe tells them.
"Copy that," Eddie says as he goes to toss his drink out.
"I would wish you good luck, but I'm also worried about what you might find," Barry tells his stepfather.
"Scared is a good thing," Joe tells him. "Scared keeps us alive."
Later on in the day, Joe and Cisco left for Starling, and Eddie and Barry were back at work trying to figure out something new that was going on. Seems that someone was being framed (possibly) for stealing jewelry from the same place that Bobby and Peter fought to protect, and they think there's a meta who can mind control people out there.
Peter went out to try and confess the truth to MJ that he was Spider-Man. Not really knowing how to break it to her without jeopardizing everything, he decided to just go with whatever he thought he could muster together. There was no real way that he could just break to her that he was Spider-Man without looking completely insane.
"No priors, no arrests, not even a speeding ticket. And everyone who knows this woman, coworkers, neighbors, say that she's the kindest, nicest, most honest woman they've ever met." Eddie tells Barry, trying to figure out what's happening.
"So, unless she woke up this morning and out of nowhere decided to become a criminal, it must be a metahuman. Possibly able to control minds." Barry replies and Eddie wonders if that's possible.
"Is that even possible?" Eddie wonders but both know that after everything, that's not a real question. "Never mind."
Back with Peter and Mary Jane, the two of them were taking a stroll through the city and made it back to the park. The place where they had their almost first official date. He felt maybe this could help ease the bombshell he is about to drop.
"Okay, so what is going on with you, Tiger?" Mary Jane asks as she and Peter stop in the middle of the path. "I mean, you asked me to hang out on a Saturday, take me on a walk and you look like you're waiting for something to happen."
"Yeah." Peter sighed as he decided to finally go with it. "It's...MJ, there's something I need to tell you."
"Okay." MJ decided to shrug and listen to him. "What's up?"
Peter knew that this was going to be soul-crushing for her to learn that he has been lying to her for years. "A lot of terrible things have happened in my life. I...I just didn't know how I was going to tell you this. The last time I told someone, a lot of bad stuff happened. But now, I am worried that something bad is coming and you need to know. MJ, I..."
"Am Spider-Man?" Mary Jane asks him, feeling that's what he was going to tell her.
Peter was frozen in shock when he heard her just bluntly ask him what he was building up towards. "What? You knew!?"
"Oh, that is such a relief!" Mary Jane cried in relief as she sighed and turned and took a few steps back. "It was killing me keeping it a secret!"
"You knew?!" Peter repeated in shock. "For how long?"
"Peter, we're neighbors." Mary Jane broke to him. "It was pretty obvious."
"How long?" Peter wonders.
"Basically, ever since we met." Mary Jane admitted, thinking back to when they met. "You were sick, then when we officially met, you ran off during the school dance."
Peter thought about it and saw that was suspicious. "Okay, but when did you learn I was Spider-Man?"
"Well, I had my suspicions when I watched you run in and out of your house in the middle of the night." Mary Jane admitted. "But the biggest part was when you started to go by Spider-Man after you and I talked about it."
Peter really should have considered that, but to be fair, that was a while ago. "Okay, fair."
"So... what happened? Why have you only decided now to tell me?" Mary Jane wonders, feeling something must have changed.
"The Green Goblin." Peter decided since she already knew he was Spider-Man, then he could just explain everything to her. "He learned who I am. And if he knows who I am..."
"Then he's going to target everyone you know and love." Mary Jane started to understand what he was saying. "So... what now?"
At STAR Labs, Caitlin was working on her computer when Barry heads in and hands Caitlin some coffee. The two of them needed to have a conversation about Wells and everything from last night
"Hey, can we talk about what went down last night?" Barry asks he hopes to help her see that there is something wrong.
"There's nothing we need to talk about," Caitlin states to him and starts walking away.
"Come on, Caitlin, look, I know after everything dr. Wells has done for all of us, it's hard to wrap our heads around this." Barry tries talking to her. "But I need you to see the truth."
"The truth? The truth is that Dr. Wells saved your life multiple times."
"I know, but if I'm, right about this..."
"If, Barry, IF. And before I can believe anything about all of this, I'm gonna need to see some proof." Caitlin states when Wells strolled in before they could continue.
"Proof?" Wells asks them and they try to stay cool. "Proof of what?"
"We might have another metahuman on our hands." Barry decided to go with it as an excuse. "People committing crimes, doing things completely out of their character."
"Ah. We are always happy to help, Barry, as you know." Wells tells Barry and looks around for Cisco. "Have you heard from Cisco? He hasn't arrived."
"He has to help his brother, Dante. He might need a few days off." Caitlin explains as Wells rolled off and Barry's phone went off.
"I've gotta go. We do need to talk about this," Barry says to Caitlin and zoomed for the exit after changing.
Eddie starts following the man as he seems to have made Eddie and the two ended up fighting with the man ending up getting away. But Barry managed to get there and see the man running.
"You can't outrun me!" Barry informed him.
The man then turned around and smiled at the hero. "I won't have to."
Before Barry could react, the man walked past and touched a pedestrian, and immediately morphed into them. Barry was shocked and tried to chase the man but guessed he must have morphed again as they saw there was no sign of him anywhere.
"Well, that was new." Barry sighed.
When he made it to STAR Labs and fill them in on what they saw. Even though he himself is trying to put together what it was he saw. It was the weirdest thing even by their standards.
"A shapeshifter?" Caitlin questions, even them this was new territory.
"Yeah, I literally saw a grown man, like...morph into a teenage girl," Barry states to them still getting his mind over what he witnessed.
"Fascinating," Wells said as he looked at the screens. Today's physicists have always regarded programmable matter as nothing other than a theory, but I guess your shapeshifter proves it can be done."
"So, wait, he-she or...whatever can actually transform into anyone they touch?" Barry clarifies hoping he couldn't copy powers.
"So, if you are touched while you're the Flash, and he transforms into you guys, we run the risk of him exposing who is under the mask," Caitlin explains to Barry.
"That sounds like something you would want to avoid." Mary Jane said, immediately getting their attention to the doorway where they saw Peter and MJ.
"Yeah, I told her everything," Peter said as he gestured to MJ.
"Not really, I already knew." Mary Jane admitted. "He wasn't subtle about it."
"Why am I not surprised?" Barry asked with a chuckle.
"This place is sick." Mary Jane said as she was looking around the cortex.
"So, how do we find someone who can transform into anyone?" Caitlin wonders, already over MJ knowing Peter and Barry's superhero identities.
"Well, just like any problem, we just have to start from the beginning," Wells said, getting a few ideas. "In this case, that would mean finding the first person the shapeshifter morphed into when they discovered their powers."
"That would be at least under a year." Mary Jane commented. "What if this person already made a living by stealing other people's identities?"
"These powers of our always do have a sense of irony inside them." Peter was sorry to admit she has a point.
"So it's possible our metahuman has been copying others before the accelerator." Wells sees that's an interesting idea to look into. "Question remains...where do we start?"
"Easy." Mary Jane said with a smile and held out her phone. "Ever heard of a conspiracy theorist?"
The heroes looked into the idea Mary Jane had and looked through conspiracy theories about cloning, duplicates, etc.
In the rabbit hole, they found a whole lot of useless information until they finally came across something they thought could be useful.
"Wait. Here's something." Caitlin said as she showed what she found. "Conspirators believe that there is a spy who has the capability to disguise themselves as anyone."
"Any ideas on a name?" Wells wonders.
"One conspiracy says his name is...Dmitri Smerdyakov."
"Dmitri Smerdyakov?" Peter immediately recognized the name. "Oh god."
"What?" Barry wonders. "You know him?"
"No, but my parents did," Peter confessed. "They had a file on this guy in my dad's bag at home."
Barry then sped off and immediately returned with the bag. Peter took it from him and pulled the file for Dmitri Smerdyakov out and opened it.
"Dmitri Smerdyakov," Peter said as he showed them his photo of a man with a white mask on, holding a mask like on Mission Impossible.
"Wow. Someone was an 80s fan." Mary Jane admitted with a chuckle.
"So he's some sort of mercenary?" Wells asks as he was curious about the man.
"Mercenary, saboteur, murderer, whatever you want him to be," Peter explained as he handed it to Barry. "Master of disguises, capable of mimicking anyone. From their body to their voices."
"Great. And that was before becoming a metahuman." Caitlin sighed at that and looked over the file.
"Well, we'll put out a search for Dmitri Smerdyakov. See if we can locate anything that can help us lead us to where he is." Wells offered and got to work on it.
"Thanks, Dr. Wells," Barry said as he started to walk away.
"Always happy to help, Barry," Wells says as Caitlin eyed him, questioning how he could question his motives.
In Staring City, Joe and Cisco went to the police station and meet up with detective Quentin Lance. He heard they were looking into the crash and gives them the case on the crash 15 years ago, and it's not as big as Joe could've hoped.
"This is all you have?" He asks Lance.
"Well, It was a pretty cut and dry case, Detective. Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan are out on a Sunday drive, tires blow, Wells loses control, and sadly Tess dies on the scene." Lance recaps what they were able to discover themselves. "So, what are you two hoping to find?"
"We're not exactly sure what we're looking for yet," Joe confessed to him.
"You come all the way from Central City, you don't know what you're looking for?" Lance questions not seeing exactly what they're doing.
"Just following a hunch," Joe explains to him.
"Any chance you could take us here?" Cisco asks if they could be taken to the site when a woman comes up to them.
Laurel Lance.
"Captain, I need those witness statements for the Joshua Brown trial," Laurel tells Lance.
"Well, I'll have them to you at the end of the day," Quentin replies to her.
"Sorry, Detective West, disco Ramon, this is A.D.A. Laurel Lance." Quentin introduces them to her.
"You work at STAR Labs with Barry Allen, right?" Laurel asks Cisco.
"Yeah, I know him," Cisco confirms and she asks to talk to him alone.
"How do you know Barry?" Cisco asks as Laurel leads him into a back room. "You guys friends or something?"
But then he starts to get worried when she closed the door and strolled over, realizing there were no windows and one door.
"Not exactly the case. He helped my friends with a case last year I was a part of. John Diggle, Felicity Smoak, and Oliver Queen." Laurel explains and Cisco's shocked to hear she knows all of them.
"Three people who have absolutely nothing in common." Cisco clarifies what she said about team Arrow.
"Cisco, I know Peter's Spider-Man, I know Barry's the Flash, and Oliver's the Arrow," Laurel tells him and is shocked to hear that.
"How do you know all of that?" Cisco asks her.
"Because I'm the Black Canary," Laurel whispers to him and is shocked to hear that.
"Wait, why are you telling me this?" Cisco asks not seeing why she's telling him.
"Because I need some technical expertise." She explains and shows him a device that looked like a boa staff. " I've been using my sister's sonic device. I was hoping you could modify it."
"I might have a few ideas," Cisco said as he picked it up.
Dmitri Smerdyakov was currently in his lair and morphed into his form with a white face. Due to the particle accelerator, his mask merged with the skin, making it a permanent placement on his face.
"The job is done," Dmitri tells the person on the other end. "What else have you got for me?"
Then he listened to what the person on the other end had to say.
"A CSI?" Dmitri was surprised to hear the job. "You're the one paying. Wanna waste your money, I'm all for it. What are the specifics?"
Later that day back in Central City, after telling Mary Jane who he was, Peter and she decided it would be best if Harry also knew. It was best that he found out through them rather than having Goblin come flying in and telling him.
As for Caitlin, she found herself in front of Well's front door, her fist raised, ready to knock. She needed to talk to him about everything. But if she was wrong, then this could mean she blew everything and
Her finger was trembling as she raised it. She realized that her whole body was shaking, with anticipation, nerves, or even fear. Then she pressed the button.
In that short moment, before Wells answered the door, Caitlin thought about a lot of things. She thought about Ronnie, and how Wells had come up with a device that had saved his life. She thought about how Wells had saved Barry's life and brought one of the most important people into her world. She thought about all the other people her boss had saved: Metas, civilians... her.
The door began to open, and then Caitlin had been flashed away. She gasped, feeling the speed of electricity buzz around her, and pressed her face briefly into Barry's shoulder.
As soon as he had put her down, however, she pulled away and stared at him angrily. "Wha- are you spying on me now?!"
Barry had the grace to look ashamed, but he kept her gaze. "Caitlin, what were you doing at Wells' house?"
She ran her fingers through her hair, now windblown. "I was going to talk to him and get some answers of my own."
Barry whipped around to face her, and she drew back. His face was angrier than she had ever seen it. "You can't! You cannot talk to him."
Feeling guilty, then feeling mad about feeling guilty, Caitlin snapped back. "Oh, so I'm just supposed to stand by and watch you all ruin this man's life?! Or my life?"
As her voice cracked, all the fight seemed to just drain out of Barry. His eyebrows scrunched together. "What're you talking about your life?"
"Those 9 months that you were in a coma... were the worst of my life." She felt tears spring into her eyes, but she tried desperately to hold them back, at least until she was done talking. "I lost my reputation, my fiancé, and through all of that, Harrison Wells stood by my side. He told me everything was gonna be ok. If Dr. Wells is the man you say he is, everything I've done since the minute I stepped through STAR Labs has been a lie."
She had to stop because she had started to cry. Barry placed his palm on her cheek, and she leaned into his touch, something she hadn't felt in what felt like a long time. "Caitlin..." He murmured. "If I am right about all of this, and you tell him what's been going on, I'll never be able to get my dad out of prison."
"Barry..." Caitlin sighed.
"If not for me, just- just do it for him," Barry begged of her, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Or for Peter. Please."
Her lips twisted into something that resembled a smile at that. "I can't believe you're pulling the dad and brother card at once."
He shrugged helplessly. Then he kissed her passionately but gently, enfolding her in his arms so all she could breathe in was him. Her Barry Allen.
Harry let Peter and Mary Jane inside his new home as his current home was under surveillance. He was being watched over by both a squad outside with one of the butlers that would watch over him after his mother's death.
"Surprised that you guys wanted to see me after everything," Harry admitted, remembering the Goblin attacking them.
"I'm getting used to being under attack with everything going on in this city." Mary Jane admitted.
"And we figured there's something that you should know your father knows." Peter knew that this would be for the best.
"For the record...it took him months to tell me." Mary Jane tells Harry in a sarcastic tone. "Even though I already knew."
"I get it." Peter was getting sick of her constantly reminding him. "And we think that it would be better you hear it from us."
"Hear what?" Harry wonders.
"I'm...I'm Spider-Man," Peter explained as he opened his shirt to show off the suit.
Harry was shocked and looked closer at the suit as Peter showed the full thing. Proving to him that this wasn't a trick or any sort of trap.
"That's amazing." Harry had to admit. "Why tell me?"
"We figured it'd be best to hear it from us rather than hear it from your father," Peter explained to him. "And because we think you're a trustworthy person."
"Really? My father is trying to kill you." Harry reminded him.
"Yeah, that's something we're trying to deal with." Peter sighed.
Back with Barry, he was walking down the stairs of Joe's house. He was supposed to meet up with everyone at STAR Labs to try and find Dmitri. After his talk with Caitlin last night, he also wanted to try and have another talk with her about that. Making his way out, he was shocked that when he reached the doorway, he found Joe West waiting for him.
"Joe?" Barry was surprised to see him back. "When did you get back?"
"Just got back," Joe explains.
"What did you and Cisco find?" Barry asked before getting an idea. "Wait, hold on."
But as he turned around to take out his phone to call the others, he was hit in the back of the head by Dmitri. He quickly got to work as he opened Barry's eyelids to make eye contact with him.
This was how his powers worked. Once he made eye contact with anyone, he could morph his form to match those of anyone. Barry was knocked out long enough that Dmitri could tie him up, tape his mouth shut, and steal his phone and wallet.
Hearing a ring on the doorbell, Dmitri made his way downstairs where the door opened up and Caitlin walked in. "Barry, it's me."
"Hello... you." Dmitri realizes he should have locked that door.
His gaze wandered up and down her body, and for a moment Caitlin felt extremely self-conscious.
"I think I've figured out a way to stop our shape-shifter from morphing into other people." Caitlin decided to leave it for now.
"Oh really?" Dmitri was shocked to hear.
"What if I create a serum that could terminate the polymerization reaction, and essentially force the cells to revert to their original form, stopping him from being able to control his power?" Caitlin asked as she shrugged and tilted her head, waiting for his response.
Dmitri was still looking at her oddly as he grabbed a jacket. "You can... do that?"
"Yeah, I think so," Caitlin said as she moved towards the door, and Barry followed closely behind.
"Okay." Barry guessed.
Caitlin frowned and noticed something was wrong. He was acting super weird, and it was starting to make her nervous. Was he mad at her because she had almost told Wells about what they were doing?
"What's wrong with you?" Caitlin asked him.
"Uh, nothing." His gaze shifted, and Caitlin sighed quietly.
"Look." It was hard to know what to say when she didn't know what was wrong, but she would do her best. "About last night: I can't imagine how hard this must be for you. I know how desperate you are to solve your mom's murder. But let's just bury the hatchet and go back to STAR Labs," She laid a hand on his arm and he glanced down at it like it was foreign to him. "And let's figure out how to stop this Chameleon."
"Chameleon?" Barry blinked.
"Bad nickname?" Caitlin wonders, testing out the nickname.
"No, I kinda like it," Dmitri admitted that it fitted his persona.
Caitlin smiled as she saw things were somewhat normal for now. "Okay, good, me too."
They walked to her car, and Caitlin drove Barry to STAR Labs. He probably would have offered just to take her there, but her car was already at his house, and it would have been kind of a pain to go back later to get it.
She walked into her lab and began to work on the serum. Dmitri had wandered off after a weird batch of muttering, but he soon entered her workspace. It almost looked like he was searching for something and she wondered what it was. She'd give him a hand after she finished up with the serum to take care of the Chameleon.
"Hey." She greeted, taking the nearly complete vial of meta-stopping potion in her hand. "Good to go. Just need to give it a little spin."
Dmitri turned around to face her, a strange smile on his face, and she looked at him expectantly. "Oh!" He realized what she was saying and moved aside. "Right."
She shook her head fondly and placed the vial in the spinner.
Dmitri leaned on the table, worried if this would actually work on him. "So this, uh, serum that you're making: Is it a temporary fix, or will it take away his power permanently?"
"Not permanently," Caitlin confirmed, working the machine in front of her. "Just long enough so that we can stop him."
Dmitri was starting to worry about this. "How long is it going to take?"
"Not long. We just need-" She picked up her finished vials and turned to find Barry's face centimeters from her own. "What're you doing?" She glanced nervously around the lab, waiting for someone to come in and discover them.
Practically running to the other side of the room, trying to stop the feeling of how much she wanted to kiss him, Caitlin set her stuff down on the table.
Dmitri followed her, deciding to have a little fun this time. It's been a long time since he's laid back since he got these powers. Why not get some pleasure out of being someone else once in a while?
"Something I think I should have done," He grabbed her elbow and spun her dramatically into his arms. "A long time ago."
His lips descended on hers, and her eyes bugged out. Not so much because of the kiss; they had done that before plenty of times, even here at STAR Labs. No, it was more because of what his hands were doing.
They had talked about taking their relationship to a... more intimate level and had decided that they would wait until they were completely ready. Caitlin wasn't sure if that meant after they got married, or something else, but she was perfectly fine with the decision.
But now, Dmitri's hands were slipping placed where they had never gone before; up her shirt, past her waistline, and she needed to know why.
She placed her hands on his shoulders and removed her mouth from his. "Barry- I-"
He cut her off with his mouth, and she lost all resistance. He kissed her until she felt like she was melting, her legs left all trembly, and her insides tight as bowstrings. She wasn't sure how far he actually would have gone when a beeping from the elevator camera interrupted them.
Caitlin ripped her mouth from Dmitri and glanced over. "Oh my gosh..." She wobbled over to the screen and saw that it was Bobby, MJ, and Peter in the elevator. "Look who's here."
"Yes. Them." Dmitri said, recognizing one of them from his files.
The three of them entered the room and saw the two of them, noticing that they were acting a little off. Caitlin was acting a bit jumpy and kept constantly looking at Barry.
"What's...going on here?" Peter wonders what they walked into.
"What?" Caitlin asks. "Nothing. I didn't do anything. We didn't do anything."
Mary Jane seemed to notice what was going on and caught on with a smile. "I think we interrupted adult time."
"Adult time?" Peter asked his girlfriend. "Really?"
"What do you call it?" Mary Jane asks.
"I call it changing the subject," Peter stated as he looked at them. "So... avoiding that conversation, what's going on?"
"I'm working on a serum that could help us catch Chameleon," Caitlin explained as she looked at her labs.
"Chameleon?" Bobby asked his cousin. "Guess it's better than Everyman."
"Told you," Caitlin tells her cousin as she came up with Chameleon while Everyman was Bobby's idea.
"Hey, Peter," Dmitri gestured for Peter to step aside with him. "Hey."
"Hi." Peter wondered what was up with Barry. "What's up?"
"I was just wondering...have you found anything about your parents' death?" Dmitri asks Peter, trying to get the information.
"Not really." Peter guessed with the talk of Dmitri and his parents brought this up. "I mean, I came across some information that..."
But then Peter stopped talking when his senses went off. Deciding to go on instinct, Peter followed his senses and punched Barry in the face. That action caused everyone to jump at the action and gasp as Barry was sent flying into the wall.
"What the what?!" Bobby asked as he morphed into his ice form, thinking Peter might be Chameleon. "What was that?"
"Relax." Peter sighed as he rubbed his knuckles. "Caitlin? That serum of yours done?"
Caitlin decided to just go with it and tossed the serum towards Peter as he caught it. Injecting it inside of his brother's neck, he watched as he immediately started to morph from some people familiar to them, and others they'd never met before.
"Found our snake," Peter said as he spun the needle and placed it down. "Meet Dmitri."
"It seems Mr. Smerdyakov has taken the persona of Mr. Allen to gain access to our labs." Wells guessed as he strolled his way inside. "Peter, why don't we get our guest here to the pipeline before he has time to get away?"
"I have to go!" Caitlin started to worry about what this guy did to Barry and raced off back to Joe's place.
Peter then went to pick up Dmitri when the unexpected happened. He watched as he morphed for the last time before his true face and revealed it to be someone close to home.
Richard Parker.
Peter was shocked as he looked at the sight of his father (kinda) lying unconscious. But it was only for a brief second before he transformed again, showing another familiar face.
Mary Parker.
Peter almost fainted right then and there at the sight. He knew Richard and Mary. They only had a file on him, Peter never knew that they ever had contact with the man.
Caitlin raced through Joe and Barry's shared house, frantically calling his name. After her startling revelation back at STAR Labs, she had been feeling slightly sick with dread. What if Barry was dead? Or hurt so badly that he couldn't leave wherever he was being held captive?
"Barry!" She yelled, her 'what ifs' becoming more and more awful as she ripped open the closet door.
And there he was, simply unconscious, with duct tape across his mouth and binding his wrists. Relief coursed through her, then anger at making her worry so much, and she slapped him across the face.
Barry sat up with a gasp, and Caitlin ripped the tape off of his lips. "For real? Why did you slap me?"
"Because you were unconscious!" She snapped, unbinding his wrists.
"Smelling salts works just as well." He muttered.
She fisted her fingers into his button-down shirt and slammed her mouth into his, needing to get the taste of Hannibal out of her mouth, and also because he was alive, again, and perfectly fine.
He pulled away first, his eyes deadly serious. "Caitlin, wait, Dmitri, he was here."
"Yes." She started to smile because it was all so ridiculous when you looked back on it. "He seemed to have taken a liking to me right away."
"What did he do?!" Barry's face went dark, like an extinguished candle, and Caitlin quickly laid her hand on his arm.
"It's alright!" She soothed. "He just kissed me. And, you know, um..."
"I'm going to kill him," Barry growled as he crawled his way to his feet. "Nobody gets to do that."
"But you?" Caitlin asked with a playful smile.
Barry crossed his arms and frowned. "Yes?"
"Okay, Mr. Protective," Caitlin smirked, pressing her lips briefly to his again. "But you don't need to worry. I'm pretty sure that Peter broke his jaw."
"That's a start." Barry supposed.
Dmitri woke up and found himself inside a pipeline cage. The doors were closed but Peter kept the main doors open so that they could talk. Deciding to go for a last-ditch effort, he turned into Barry with a grin.
"Gotta say, Buddy. Quite the right hook." Dmitri said as he gestured to the doors. "Gonna let me out of here?"
"Nah," Peter stated with a rhetorical shrug. "I'm good."
Dmitri then tried it again and turned into Mary Jane. "What do you say, cutie?"
"Richard and Mary Parker," Peter said.
"What about them?" Dmitri wonders as he turned into his normal form.
"What happened to them?" Peter asks him.
"Why do you care?" Dmitri asks when he saw the look in his eyes. He's seen that look a dozen times when he took the personas of a million people. "Your parents. Oh! It all makes sense!" He then clapped his hands and walked around. "And here I thought they were infertile."
"What happened to them?" Peter demanded from him.
"The truth?" Dmitri asks him. "They had a target on their heads. My guess? They pissed off the wrong people or discovered something they shouldn't have." He then dropped and laid down on the back. 'It wasn't anything personal."
"It was personal to me!" Peter cried in anger to the assassin. He was able to forgive Flint for Ben's death as it was an accident. He was desperate to save his daughter. Dmitri did it for the money that came with it. "You took my parents!"
"Hey, if you wanna be mad at someone, be mad at whoever blew that plane," Dmitri stated to Peter, remembering that day. "Your mother was kicking my ass, then a bomb went off that took the plane down. Want someone to blame? Blame whoever put that hit out on them."
Peter growled as he smashed the button, trying his best not to break the screen, then walked away. In the process, he found Mary Jane was right around the corner and seemed to be waiting for him.
"You okay?" Mary Jane wonders.
"I'm fine." Peter sighed as he looked to the doors. "My mom wasn't a fighter. Hated violence. Yet she kept that guy back?"
"Everyone's got their secrets." Mary Jane shrugged and the two walked off.
Once there they're shown the body that Cisco and Joe discovered at Starlight City. Seems that they found a body near the site where Harrison and Tess had their accident.
"This isn't possible," Caitlin says as she sees the results say that this body belongs to Harrison Wells.
"Caitlin, we ran the DNA test twice. It's a perfect match." Cisco tells her while looking at the computers.
"This body is the real Harrison Wells." Joe states while looking at the body.
"If this is the real Dr. Wells, who have we been working with this whole time?" Peter wonders, seeing this is bigger than any of them could've thought.
"Dr. McGee said that Wells became a completely different person after his accident," Barry asks, remembering what she said at the beginning of all of this. "What if it was because he did is a different person?"
But then that bought the biggest question to light: Who is Harrison Wells?
The four of them head back to STAR Labs to check on something, Cisco is looking over schematics of the labs. Barry and Caitlin were just feeding the prisoners while Harry was having a look around STAR Labs.
"You know, my dad once worried STAR Labs would tear down his business?" Harry asked them.
"Really?" Mary Jane was shocked to hear. "That's just funny."
"Yeah, nothing like lighting the mood after hearing about a dead man walking," Bobby stated.
"I have a giant teleporting dog. I've seen weirder." Crystal tells them.
"You have a what?" Peter asked her in shock.
Peter had informed all of his friends about the fact Wells might be the enemy of his brother. Who he also informed them about, since they already knew he was Spider-Man.
"What are you doing?" Caitlin asked as she walked over to Cisco.
"After the accelerator exploded, I built a 3D model of STAR Labs so I could pinpoint exactly what caused it to malfunction," Cisco tells the two of them.
"And you never ran this test?" Barry asks Cisco who assures him he did.
"I just never had any reason to look outside the pipeline or around the cortex." Cisco states and he finds something. "It's a big building. Lots of places for Wells to hide something."
But then the computer stopped and showed an unknown sector unaccounted for.
"What is that?" Barry wonders.
"That shouldn't be there," Cisco added in confusion.
They all raced out of the Cortex, and Cisco began to scan the walls with apparently the same machine he and Joe had used when they found Wells' body.
"I'm picking up more activity around her," Cisco said, stopping in front of a panel of the wall. "Tachyons."
Barry walked and placed his hands over the section of wall, and it opened up with a hiss. Caitlin's eyes bulged out of her head, and they all walked inside. MJ, Crystal, Peter, Harry, and Bobby were just as shocked by what they were seeing.
The wall shut behind them, and they were left in almost total darkness. Then a stand in the wall lit up.
Inside was the Reverse Flash's suit.
This confirmed to them that Dr. Wells was indeed the Reverse Flash. As they continued around the room, Peter walked over to some weird pedestal in the room and touched it. The newspaper then came up and caused Peter to freeze in shock.
"Hey. Guys?" Peter called them over.
When they looked, the entire group was shocked to see that there was a newspaper from the future.
'FLASH VANISHED IN CRISIS'
'SPIDER-MAN NOT SEEN SINCE THE BATTLE'
BY MARY JANE WATSON-PARKER
But the part that got Harry's attention was the side headline lower down:
OsCorp and STARK Industries merge complete thanks to CEO Harry Osborn
Attilan peace negotiations set to be renewed
"What the hell?" Cisco was the first to speak.
"Sometimes, the strangest of things become our destiny." The Watcher said as he saw they had a sneak peek at their destinies. "But not everything is set in stone."
Numan Acar as Dmitri Smerdyakov