Mutant Earth

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Chapter 4: Future Ideas.

Kal was taking a break from his chores, looking over the pictures they had from Karry Universe. He was staring wistfully at the one of himself and Clark together, Clark in his superhero outfit. "El?" Kal called to the dog running around the field. His ears perked up and he ran towards his master. "What do you think?" Kal held up a picture. "Think I would look good in red and blue?" El barked, wagging his tail. "Of course, he looks good. I will look good as well." Kal pet his dog's head.

El barked again. "What about you?" Kal asked, finding a picture of Krypto in his outfit. "Want to follow in daddy's footsteps?" El barked again and jumped up into the air, floating at eye level with Kal, licking his face. "I'll take that as a yes. Me and you will make a complete team," the boy said.

"Kal?" a voice called and Kal recognized Chloe's voice. "You can work a little faster than this! We get this done, and we can go out to dinner. I know your favorite restaurant…" Chloe appeared where Kal and El were. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Kal said quickly, trying to hide the pictures, and El barked landing on the floor, looking shifty.

"Oh nothing?" Oliver appeared and Kal jumped, not having noticed Oliver come from a different direction – he took the pictures from Kal hands, stared at them a moment before showing them to Chloe. "The pictures you got on that other world? Well… I assume this man is you?" Oliver pointed at the man in the superhero outfit.

"Kal…?" Chloe said, taking the images from Oliver now. "Why are you sitting here looking at photos? You know you have chores to be done. You can look at these later… and I am starting to sound like Kara." Kal smirked at that, but stopped when he noticed Chloe's look. "Kal?"

"Okay, well… I… I want to make an outfit," Kal confessed. "I want to help Kara and Barry." The two looked at him. "My powers are at full strength now. I can go out and help. Beat down the bad guys – I can be Superman!" Kal stood tall, with his hands on his sides in a powerful stance.

"More like Superboy," Chloe said, not impressed and causing Kal to drop his stance and sigh.

"Hey…" Kal said despondently at Kara's own nickname for him, but he liked being referred to as a 'man'. He wanted to be like his counterpart. "I can be Superman, and El can be Superdog." El barked appreciatively at this.

"I'll believe the dog part," Chloe stated, making El bark more enthusiastically. "But Kal, you know how Kara is. Her job is to protect you – she will never agree to this. She won't put you in danger." Kal sighed, knowing this to be true. "And you know, you could learn a lot just being with them. Take up a superhero role when you're older."

"But I can do it now," Kal turned to Oliver. "Please."

"Why are you looking at me?" Oliver asked confused.

"You're a hero," Kal said. "And you don't even have powers."

"I'm a vigilante and you want to see the scars I have?" Oliver stated with a smirk.

"My point being, I won't get scars," Kal said, pointing at Oliver as though that proved his whole point.

"There are things in this world that can hurt you, though," Chloe said, "You remember Molten Man?" Kal sighed at this, and Chloe saw the sad look on his face. "Okay, here's the thing. We'll make you a costume, but you have to listen to Kara. If she says 'no way', you back down without trial. Don't do anything on your own because if you get hurt, Kara will first kill Oliver and then probably me. You have to be the one to convince her."

"Okay," Kal said excited now, and ran towards the house with El following his master.

"Why would Kara kill me first?" Oliver asked, turning to Chloe. "I did nothing. I didn't try to convince him at all – in fact, I discouraged it."

"She likes me," Chloe pointed out.

"She likes me," Oliver countered.

"No, she tolerates you," Chloe said, a hand on her boyfriend's shoulder now and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "There's a difference." Chloe went to follow Kal, calling out about needing to do chores.

Oliver stood, staring at his retreating girlfriend. "Wait, she only tolerates me?" Oliver asked himself, and then shrugged. "Guess I was pretty hard on her at first..." He remembered when Barry had introduced him to Lady Power, and Oliver's less-than warm welcome, until he met her best friend, anyway.

-Mutant Earth-

At STAR, Cisco was busy at work on his collar for Black Siren, which had been dubbed the 'dog collar' despite Cisco attempt to call it the Siren Call. Harry was working with him. Barry had been sitting at Harry's workstation, waiting, when he found a file on the desk titled 'STARs Revival' which caught his eye. He started looking through it.

"Harry… what is this?" Barry said, holding up the file.

Harry turned around, seeing what Barry was holding. "That's mine," Harry said quickly, going for it, but Barry held it off. "It was on my desk. You shouldn't have looked at it."

"Unless you forgot, I own this place," Barry said stonily. "Although you have seemed to have forgotten, considering what's in here." All eyes were on the two, not sure what was going on between them. None of them had seen that file before, or what was in it.

"Allen…" Harry took Barry's arm and led him out of the Cortex and to a sub lab he tended to use. "This isn't something to overreact to," Harry finally said, going for the file again, but Barry kept hold of it. "I was only considering option for this lab to make money."

"Yeah, I see that," Barry said, opening the file. "You were thinking of reopening it."

"That wasn't a viable option," Harry said wearily. "It can't be a lab anymore. I mean, it could happen with the right connections in the right places that we just don't have. Without those connections, it would take months, maybe even years to reopen this place as a lab. We can get the hazard label placed here remove pretty easily though, since there is no danger to being in this building – no radiation or anything from the explosion. But, the mistrust with the public is too great."

"So, you looked at other things? STAR Labs Museum?" Barry said. "You want to open the labs as a museum?"

"To Central City's own past with the labs and for our local hero The Flash, yes," Harry said, "and even to Lady Power. We could even include the Green Arrow in it, should Mr. Queen be willing. People would love it." Barry looked at the drawings Harry had laid out of the lab in the file as a museum. The museum would even have a gift shop.

"There's one thing," Barry said. "The pipeline, our mutant jail. Our headquarters. You got rid of them?"

"No," Harry said, unsure whether Barry was keen on this idea or not. "I moved them." Harry took out another paper from the file Barry still held. "I noticed this world's STAR owned a very large warehouse. We can move the Power-Flash Headquarters there. Make a lab out of one side, put in a medical facility for Caitlin, and a jail out of the rest. Mr. Ramone and I can take care of that."

"You planned this behind my back," Barry said.

"You had no interest in doing anything with this lab, Allen." Harry pointed out. "You seem to have forgotten it now you're in Smallville."

"I come back to help you guys constantly," Barry pointed out, a familiarity to this sudden debate.

"Do you know how this place still makes money?" Harry now tried, Barry didn't say anything this time. "No, I didn't think so. We make money from working with Central's police department thanks to Cisco, and we get money in from copyrighted material STAR owns, which should go right into your pocket too. It's enough to keep the Labs afloat, but not enough, and certainly not forever. If we do this Cisco and Caitlin can get a good paycheck. Jesse and I can finally make a life in this world and even you could get more money than working chores on a farm." Harry sighed, his voice had risen though this rant but now he spoke more softly once more. "Yes, I am sorry I planned this without you. I was going to get everything into place before sharing with you the plans so they looked good enough you couldn't refuse... The truth is, I cannot do this without you anyway."

Barry raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you can't, can you?" Barry mumbled. "You seem to be doing a good job so far."

"You own STAR and I do not have the money to buy you out," Harry said. "All my finance was lost when my world was destroyed, remember? Besides that, while I am pretending to be your Harrison Wells' twins, if I took complete control of the labs or museum no one would trust it. But fresh-faced Barry Allen… people will give you a chance."

"I don't want to leave the farm," Barry said simply.

"I'm not asking you to. I am asking you to be owner and a figure head. Show your face every once in a while. Make a speech or two for the public," Harry said. "Besides that, the operation would be up to me. Mr. Ramone and Dr. Snow would be helpful too, having been here during the explosion, they could replay the events." Harry sighed again, knowing he had over-stepped his bounds when he had planned all of this without Barry's permission but knowing Barry had to hear this. "Please, just think this over. Getting more money in would only benefit everyone. You would obviously get a healthy share you could use to help support the farm or expand it, or take Kara and Kal on a nice vacation or something else. Think of it, Allen."

Barry didn't say anything. He gave the file back to Harry and left, going right back into the Cortex where everyone seemed to be hanging around, wondering what was going on between Harry and Barry. Barry went to where Kara was though. "You okay?" Kara asked.

"Yeah," Barry said, thoughtfully. "I've just got some thinking to do." He sighed. "You remember when that jerk-Barry was here? The one from the other universe whose world almost destroyed us?"

"Yeah," Kara said with a nod. "I remember how you two hated each other."

"Well, he made mention to reopening STAR. That disgusted me," Barry said looking around. "This place that destroyed so much, hurt so many people. How could he even think that?"

"But Karry…" Kara started. She knew a Barry who had re-opened STAR Labs for the benefit of all, including that Barry, but her Barry didn't know about that – his only trip to that universe had been long before Kara Danvers and Barry Allen had reopened the labs. He had not seen the penthouse or the fancy new headquarters they had made for their Justice League. She wondered if he had travelled back in the timeline of that universe for that to happen. She changed tact though, quick as a flash. "Are you changing your mind?" She was a little worried. She would never leave her farm and she didn't want Barry to leave her either.

"No," Barry said, shaking his head. "STAR Labs is dead. It will never be a lab again as long as I own it, but if I could make some extra money from this place. Either using Harry's plan or another…"

"Another?" Kara asked, curiously wondering if this other plan had something to do with phone calls Barry had been getting recently.

"I have a very large offer on the table from Wayne Industries," Barry admitted, making Kara raise an eyebrow. "He's offering me millions for the labs. I've been saying no because, well it's our headquarters, but in Smallville we work out of a barn. Maybe we don't need all this." Kara looked around. No one had been listening to them. That was good. They didn't need to hear this. Kara in fact got closer to Barry so they could lower their voices some more. "What do you think?"

"Well, it's a lot of money," Kara said.

"It could settle us for life," Barry pointed out.

"True,' Kara said nodding.

"It could give Kal a good college fund. Give us some leeway with the farm. Set up for kids," Barry said. "If you want." Kara giggled, remembering Kal begging her in the other universe to have kids with Barry after seeing baby Nora and Alura.

"We do make cute kids," Kara said, making Barry raise an eyebrow. "Well our counterparts did."

"They're parents?!" Barry said, shocked. Kara hadn't told him what had happened in that universe, and the pictures were back on the farm, so Barry hadn't a clue yet. "You need to tell me everything." Barry had a desire to go back there and see the kids with his own eyes. He did want to see the other Barry eventually. "But later… now."

"Pros and cons," Kara said. "We went over the pros. Now cons. This place would be gone. We would need a new Central Power-Flash headquarters. Cisco and Caitlin would be out of a job – they would need to find something else, and we would lose having them all the time. Maybe even lose them for good. Harry would need something too, and the two idiots over there in their comas would need to be in an actual hospital where they cannot be taken care of as well as here. There are a lot of pros and cons to both options."

"I have a lot of thinking to do," Barry sighed.

"Whatever you decide, I support you," Kara said, kissing Barry who kissed her back. Neither noticed Iris looking at them.

That was when a scream was heard. "What was that?" Barry asked, jumping to his feet.

"Um, Black Siren is attacking the labs," Cisco called, showing the security footage from outside. Black Siren was giving her all this time. "The collar isn't done! She couldn't have picked a worst time…"

"These are done though," Barry said, snatching up the ear plugs he'd been working on before, and giving a pair to Kara, who put them in and then they were back in their outfits with a twist of their rings. "Let's show this Siren not to attack us on home ground." Kara smirked and the pair were out.

Post Chapter Note: This was a fun chapter. Only two more left.

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