Caitlin was visiting Earth-66 for two whole weeks.
It had been a year since the defeat of the Rag Doll, a year since she and Barry Allen's reformed time remnant had decided what they were on Infantino Street, a year since Caitlin had had to go back home to Earth-1. Savitar had visited her before since then, at least four times—two of those times without Team Flash realizing it. Both Team Flashes, really, led a very busy life.
That was probably why this was only Caitlin's second time visiting him.
Team Flash-66 was on a roll. After roughly 360 days without the brunette bioengineer to guide them, they had taken to the hero life with their own snazzy routine.
This Earth's Wally West, blossoming engineer, slight Tachophobiac, and medical-assistant-in-training, handled S.T.A.R. Labs' machinery. He had made the old engineering wing his own, with a surround-sound stereo system because he couldn't work—or do his medicinal homework—without music. He also currently taught Professor Stein the language of millennials against the latter's will. And when an argument broke out, there was no heart more stubborn and determined for peace than the youngest among them.
Professor Martin Stein was the strategist, the brain, the scientist stiff and strict at his post behind the Cortex's white, winding desk. Stein directed their star player from home base and challenged everyone to think before they acted. He had several PhDs, a wit drier than cornbread, and he was in the market for a new pair of spectacles. Of course, he hadn't found the time to send for a new pair between teaching at his own University and guiding this team of young, underground boy heroes. Someone had to be here to provide logical solutions and proper grammar.
Police officer Eddie Thawne often used his job to give the group inside information on Central City's baddies. When he wasn't on the field with his men, he was in the Cortex helping his other, far more colorful colleagues. Eddie was Wally's best friend, and the only person who cared whether the coffee machine in the corner of the lobby upstairs was properly supplied every morning. He was teaching Stein and Wally how to work the Cortex's computers—the same kind had been donated to the CCPD—and provided backup to a very reluctant speedster with a cop car and a firearm whenever necessary.
Caitlin was considered the team's justice consultant. Cisco had coined the term for her, albeit a little bitterly. Because she lived primarily in an entirely different universe, her job consisted of long-distance, interdimensional calls for advice. But when she was physically able to be there—just for a visit, just for old time's sake, just because she felt like it—she took her old place at its head, comms device hooked firmly in her ear, fingers ready to research whatever was needed in this particular case.
And then there was the team leader himself.
A dark, blunt copy of another Earth's cheery savior: blessed with super speed, cursed with a bloody past and zero filter. Savitar—the former 'god of Speed'—was quickly becoming Earth-66's favorite citizen, despite a strict policy not to show his face for the cameras or get chummy with his victims/grateful public. Unlike Barry Allen, he didn't have a secret identity. His identity was the flash-footed vigilante. When he was out of costume, he was virtually invisible to the community. He currently made money by inventing equipment for Stein's school, though Wally was on the verge of convincing him to try working where the boy himself was interning—Mercury Labs. For now, though, it was enough to be both the anonymous gadget supplier to Hudson University and the black-clad rescuer of Central City.
On her third day of the two-week stay at S.T.A.R. Labs-66, the Record began.
It was one of those unplanned things Caitlin would have hated if it had come from anywhere other than that building. The alternate version of a facility that had come to be home, always holding people she couldn't go without.
This Earth did love Savitar—they had taken to calling him the Shadow, though he still insisted he had neither a superhero title or a civilian name. But when his fans got the idea into their heads, there was no ripping it from them. The public is fickle. And it was hard not to love him, even when they couldn't see his face. From suicide attempts at the top of skyscrapers to a child who'd been separated from their mother in the downtown rush, Savitar was always there to help, silent and antisocial though he was.
This speedster had more time and even more energy than his Earth-1 counterpart by now. Barry had to devote himself to both his wife, his job at the CCPD, and being the Flash—all in one day. But Savitar had only to invent (usually when he couldn't sleep) and rescue. The sole exception was Friday nights. The team had demanded they make it a tradition to, every Friday, go out for coffee or, rarely, bowling. It was a sort of exercise in friendship and reality, one Caitlin deeply approved of, provided Savitar didn't flake out on them. Old habits of broody solitude die hard.
"I must admit, he's come a long way," Stein remarked that evening in the Cortex, watching the news on one of the mounted screens after a successful mission. Eddie and Wally were both still at work, and Caitlin was glad of the company.
"…proves yet another fatality-free victory for Central City's Shadow," the reporter, Sandra Peterson, was saying perkily into the camera. "We've just received word that the culprit was delivered directly to Iron Heights. Whether or not the jeweler will press charges for the damage is currently unknown, but highly unlikely. Meanwhile, the city's crime rate continues to build as experts—"
Caitlin reached for the remote, turning it off. "Something tells me he'd get even farther if people would stop calling him the Shadow," she chuckled, turning back to her work on the dais.
"It is a little macabre."
She bounced her eyebrows in agreement. "Even for us."
When she glanced up again, Stein was reaching for his coat. "It's been a pleasure working with you, Miss Snow, as always," he explained, "but I'm afraid I'm already late for a dinner reservation."
"Don't stay out too late." Caitlin pointed at him in mock sternness, holding in a grin. The image of Stein and his wife, Clarissa, talking until the wee hours at some expensive restaurant was a warming one.
"I make no such promise." Stein shot her a tart little smile and made his exit.
Left in the empty Cortex with only the steady hum of the computers to distract her, Caitlin spent the next twenty minutes writing notes and checking that one of her beakers wasn't overheating above its burner. Having her own little medical lab on two Earths was fun, but it did grow tedious. For example, she kept reaching for a container that would have been on her left on Earth-1, but was located almost loftily on her right here. It was a little like trying to grab something while looking in a mirror, having to re-familiarize yourself with directions that should have already matched.
The silence was interrupted by a rush of papers flying down by the desk. FWOOSH! The 'Shadow' had entered the building.
Savitar was in civilian clothing now, but his hair was still a little sweaty from his suit's hood. He was carrying a mostly-eaten burrito, and when he spied Caitlin up on the dais with her head low over her research, the burrito was left unfinished on the desk. He didn't use his speed to reach her.
"Slacker," he accused, handing her the sheets of notes his entrance had knocked away. She set them down, and he took that free hand in his, almost before she had fully let go of the paper.
"Slacker?" she repeated, confused. Her eyes were still on the test tube and its heater.
"Stein did all the work back there." Savitar reached for her other hand, discontent with just one and hoping it would pull her attention away from the equipment. There was almost nothing Caitlin liked better than hard work, and nothing harder for him to compete with in this dimension. "While you were playing with your chemistry set."
"I," Caitlin sniffed, ignoring his searching fingers to tug her goggles off, "was working on an acid repellant. Remember Lisa Snart's gun polish? You'll need it next time you're out there with a meta like today's. As soon as this is done, we can add it to your suit."
Letting out a tiny huff through his nose, Savitar leaned over and took the test tube from its holder. He pointedly raised it to her eyeline and vibrated it, so that it was at last the right temperature in more than half the time. Smirking, he handed it to her.
"Thank you." She popped the k in thank, reminiscent of Cisco. "So technically, this doesn't count as slacking."
His assistance reached the opposite of its goal as she now released his hand and moved to start mixing things.
Savitar lost patience and zoomed at lightspeed around the table, stirring, heating, checking and following her notes until her concoction was complete. All in the time it took for her to bat her eyes. When he stopped moving long enough for her to realize what he'd done, he locked eyes with her and reached up to put it on the highest shelf against the wall.
"You know, that's counterproductive," Caitlin muttered, mouth twitching as though fighting hard not to smile at him. "I can't install it if I can't reach it."
"You were moving a little slow for me." He snatched her hand again, holding it tight.
Any physical contact, from any one of the team, was an object of greed and caution with their leader. Though with a group of mostly men, that contact was limited. When Caitlin was here, Savitar didn't have to worry about making up for the touch-starved ages he'd once spent trapped in the Speed Force. She was very thoughtful about treating his symptoms, making sure he got enough in the right ways, like a gardener looking after her crops in a drought. A doctor to the last, providing for her favorite patient.
"I'm serious about the repellant," she informed him, letting him lead her down to the main level. "When was the last time your costume got an upgrade? The more metas you fight, the more defenses you'll need, and we should be—"
"Cait, I'm fine," Savitar glanced at her over his shoulder as he went back for the burrito. "It's been a long time since anybody landed a punch."
She inhaled to respond, and he said it aloud with her, knowing her answer and exactly how she'd say it:
"You're not invincible."
"I'm close," he added to the end as she glared in mock indignation at him. "I don't need an upgrade. If I did," he swallowed the last of his dinner, "I'd've built one already."
She wouldn't be beaten easily. Caitlin was currently in the lead when it came to the SaviSnow Argument Scoreboard. "Pride comes before a fall, Savitar. There's nothing wrong with being prepared, that's all I'm saying."
Tossing his burrito's wrapper into the trash beside the doorway, Savitar's eyes traced hers. "Worried about me, Doctor Snow?"
Then her nose wrinkled, like it always did when he used that tone, and she squinted at him. At first it seemed she'd scold him for refusing to take this seriously, but instead there was treasured merriment making her face look rosier. She lifted a shoulder.
"Who, me? Worried about a god? You should be so lucky," she teased back.
Barry's left green eye and Savitar's right milky blue continued darting between hers.
"And…if I was," she added, "someone around here has to."
He barely let her finish before kissing her. "Don't," he ordered firmly. "I can handle a little acid."
Caitlin, shaking her head, took advantage of the resulting floating sensation to drop into one of the wheeled chairs nearby. "One of these days, you're gonna run into someone like Merkel again. I just want to make sure there's nothing stopping you from—stopping them. When the time comes."
Though his jaw worked at the sound of the Rag Doll's name, Savitar's tone was casual as he insisted, "Then I'll keep my eyes open for any clowns with acid powers. Until then," he reached into the paper bag on the desk for a second—or maybe forty-seventh—burrito, "save your science project."
"You really think you're that good," Caitlin huffed, disbelieving. Some pieces of Barry were the same everywhere.
Savitar didn't let go of her hand while he downed his food in half a second. He didn't answer, but his smirking, chewing mouth was all the reply she needed.
"Fine." Caitlin pulled her hand from his and marched to the glass demonstration board across the room. She popped the cap off the white marker and wrote her name, and then Savitar's, side by side and underlined. "Then this is what we'll do."
Savitar, eyeing the hand he'd lost and glancing only once at the board, made no sound of either confusion or exasperation. He seemed uninterested, which she supposed was better than some other, ruder reactions he'd used in the past.
Caitlin pointed the marker at him. "From now until I go back home, we mark who wins each mission."
"Who wins, huh?" Savitar swallowed the next burrito, gaze twinkling.
"That's right. If you get through a meta attack unscathed, you get a point." She drew one tally mark beneath his name. "Like today. But if you don't—if they do 'land a punch'—I get a point. By the time I leave, whichever one of us has the most marks decides whether or not we upgrade your Flash suit."
"Flash suit?"
Caitlin just kept herself from rolling her eyes. "Your Savitar suit."
He watched her cap the marker and erase any other writings or markings on the board. "What do I get if I win?"
"I just told you, whichever—"
"No," he interrupted, "that's your terms. Your prize, not mine. If I win…" He flashed over to her, took the marker, and drew a line connecting the last letter in her name to the first in his. "You stay another week."
Caitlin shifted her weight to the other foot, biting her lip. "Savitar, I have work."
"One whole week."
"And the team—everyone's expecting me back when—"
"Seven days." When she wagged her head hopelessly at him, another, smaller smile escaping her, Savitar put the marker down and positively towered over her, relishing the height difference. He liked to faux intimidate. "You're not scared you'll lose, are you, Cait?"
That did the trick. It shouldn't have been so easy, so juvenile, but he wasn't complaining. The frosty glint was in her eyes and his fingers twitched to take hers from the mere sight of it. "All right, Mr. Allen," she said, eyebrows raising like a menacing high school principal. "You're on."
Savitar grinned down at her, feeling the old Barry light swirl and dance within him. Boyish, laughing, young. Only Caitlin was able to coax it out, and it never seemed to matter what she was saying or doing to make it appear. Years of darkness and loneliness and revenge should've blotted it out, but again—no complaints. The warmth was all too welcome.