Guest - you're right. Also, Reed Richards wasn't a bad guy. But in an ALTERED dimension, he became an enemy. You do understand the concept of an ALTERED timeline, right? People acting a different way than they would not occur in a previous outcome? I was showing how one difference (Barry not being struck by lightning) has a bigger effect on everyone, not just the people they care about. You know..."What if?" There are a hundred versions of Flash Thompson, some end up good and some stay bad. And I was planning to put in Brock but thought that'd be too obvious considering I used him in the original timeline. So, I decided to change it to the only other person who had the Venom Symbiote. And that's where Eugene came in.
Or as Thawne would put it:
"Break the sound barrier, and there's a sonic boom, you broke the time barrier, Flash. Time boom. Ripples of discretion radiated from that point of impact, shifting everything just slightly, but enough." - Professor Zoom, Flashpoint paradox
"A little history. Let's go back four years, on Earth-88..." The Watcher looked down on the said planet where Oliver Queen was supposed to be getting rescued by the fishermen from Lian Yu.
"Oliver Queen, the Arrow, Vigilante, Green Arrow, the Specter, hero of the multiverse. Call him what you will. I call him an amazing man. But in another universe, what if that day that led him here never happened?"
Oliver walked towards the fishermen and dropped to his knees before he pulled back the hood to reveal his face to them. Only then for the universe to rewind and take them back to the day the yacht sank.
"One. Two. Three." Sara counted down to the lightning strike. "It's getting closer."
"Not very scientific." Oliver commented as he walked across the room and got some liquor for them.
"And what would you know about science?" Sara asked as he came back.
"Oh, I know a lot about science. About biology." Oliver comments snarky, and the rest if it went down without any damage to the ship of any kind.
"Wanna know what changed? What altered time to get rid of such an amazing hero like Oliver Queen? Of course, you do...because only one man was responsible for it all, and only one man could change it." The Watcher said as he brought the shot to now be back in Starling City in the Glades.
Rebecca Merlyn was on her way home, walking as it was just a short distance from her clinic, when she seems to have taken a bad turn as a man came out with a gun and demanded her purse.
"Hey!" Someone cried, getting the muggers attention when Guiding Light, back in her early days, came leaping down and shot a lightning bolt at the criminal. "Ma'am. Run."
Rebecca nodded in confirmation and she took off. "Thank you." She said to the girl before continuing to run off.
"No problem, ma'am." Harley said as she looked back to the criminal. "As for you..." she then raised a finger and shot a quick spark of electricity at him, causing the mugger to cry in agony.
"One life. One moment. One choice. Can either create or destroy the destiny of another. In this case, Harley Cooper became a hero, so Oliver Queen would never need to. In this world...the time of the Green Arrow would never come to pass."
Back to the current time, Johnny was flying though the sky, cheering as he was chasing some motorcyclist who robbed a bank.
"I've got eyes on the jacket." Johnny promised.
"Johnny, it's Joker. Like the card." Sue reminded her brother. "I've got eyes on the King."
"Don't you play cards, Johnny?" Jennifer asked.
"I'm sorry, who's Johnny? It's the Human Torch." Johnny stated as he flew faster and blasted the ground, blocking the Jack's path and making him turn, keeping him on track.
Peter was running across the rooftops and following the one with long hair and was up in a ponytail, guessing it was a girl.
"Stay focused, we can't let these Royal Flushed gang get away." Peter told them as he leaped and shot s giant web at the end of the street and made him turn down the corner.
Sue also did the same with hers, which was the Queen, all that was left was the Ace that was being taken care of by Jennifer. Who was also down the road.
All of the cards came together just as She-Hulk did her super clap that shook the cycles, causing them to crash into one another.
"Oh, look at that." Peter mocked as he swung down and Johnny landed next to him. "We got a full house."
"Seems like we do." Johnny agreed before groaning. "I need to get better at puns."
"Trust me, they're harder than I make them look." Peter assured him as Sue made it over.
"Now what?" Sue wondered, this being their first non-metahuman case.
"Now we tie them up and leave them for the cops." Peter said as he started to do just that and left them a little note attached.
"Whoo! Catching these regular criminals trying to be the next big thing sure honestly a lot easier than taking care of the bigger ones." Johnny commented as the four of them walked into the cortex of Star labs.
"Yeah, well, it seems the metahumans are taking a break after the reveal of the Fantastic Five." Harrison congratulated them all.
"I still don't remember agreeing to that name." Jennifer commented.
"You know what we need? We need a photo." Cisco told them all as he raced to find his phone.
"What?" Sue asked.
"Cisco, we went over this. Superheroes don't reveal their identities." Peter reminded him.
"Oh, come on." Cisco complained as he came back with his phone. "Please! Just one photo, and it'll just be for us. To document everything."
"Who knows?" Wells shrugged. "Maybe one day, people of the future will wonder how the Fantastic Five came to be.
"Fine." Peter gave in. "But in order to have the full story, we should all be in it."
"Wait, first can I put on some makeup?" Caitlin asked of them.
"Cait, in 100 years, nobody's gonna care for your makeup." Ben informed her as he got up and walked over.
"You know, if we're gonna keep adding in characters like lighting girl, Medusa and Crystal, and Spider-Woman, we should think of a new name since there's more than 5 of us."
"Fine. But keep the initials. Those F's were difficult to put on." Cisco said as they all walked over to the area of the cortex that was clear enough.
Sue then started to use her powers to place a forcefield over the phone and took the photo.
"That's cool." Sharon commented.
"Sweet!" Cisco cheered as he took it and looked over the photo. "Hey, who's up for a drink? We should celebrate the first ever public appearance of the FF."
"Nah, sorry, I gotta meet with Fury, get these guys' flight plan for finding the HYDRA base." Sharon apologized.
"And I gotta to explain to her boss why we haven't turned over a HYDRA assassin." Peter stated as he left with his cousin.
"And I gotta get to the kids and relieve May." Sue said and got going.
Cisco then looked and saw everyone left but Caitlin. "What'd ya say? Drinks?"
"I think I'll pass." Caitlin said as she picked up a tablet. "But I did find something interesting." She then showed there was an algorithm going for Ronnie and all the sightings of metahumans.
Cisco saw he was outed and sighed. "I know what you're gonna say..."
"Cisco, Ronnie's gone. I've moved on. The particle accelerator killed him, there's no bringing him back." Caitlin broke to him.
"Did you though?" Cisco asked her. "I mean, I'm not an expert of moving on, but I'm pretty sure to move on, you actually have to move on."
Caitlin was left speechless and realized she never really moved on and Cisco left her to think about that and walked out, patting her shoulder in the process.
That night, Sue just put Valeria down for bed and was walking down to see if Franklin was in bed when she ran into Peter.
"Hey." Sue greeted.
"Hey, just got off the phone with Fury." Peter informed her as he waved his cell in his hand. "We're all set for out attack on the HYDRA headquarters. Should be a quick bust and go with our conjoined powers."
"Great. Franklin's should be all set for school tomorrow, so he can at least have a sense of normalcy." Sue said with a smile, scratching her arm in nervousness, no idea that Franklin is peaking through his door and watching them.
"Good." Peter said as he leaned on his heel. "Good night."
"Goodnight. See you when you get back." Sue said as she and Peter broke off and went to their bedrooms.
The next day, Peter took his team of heroes to go and take on the HYDRA base and left Harley, Sue, Medusa, and Crystal to look after the city with their friends.
"Wow. The place already smells better without the stench of all the men." Harley commented jokingly, getting a laugh from Sue, but they looked and saw that Caitlin was staring out into space.
"Cait?" Sue called out, still getting nothing. She then reached into her light and snapped her fingers, finally snapping Caitlin out of her thought.
"Sorry, what?" Caitlin asked.
"You doing okay? We've never seen you this quiet before." Sue wondered.
"I'm fine." Caitlin promised them. But before they could get back to their lives, Caitlin jumped back and crossed her arms. "Cisco said I don't have a life."
Susan looked around, as if waiting for someone else to help her out. "Cait, I've known you for a few weeks, and outside this building, I haven't seen you do much. And McGee's funeral doesn't count."
"I do have a life!" Caitlin defended herself. "I cook, and I eat, and I read, and I help you guys."
"Cait, that's not the same as having a life." Harley informed her. "Honestly, girl, you need to get a man."
"Yeah, well, the last man I had died in the particle accelerator." Caitlin informed her when before they could get into this any further, the alarms went off. "There's a couple trapped in a car."
"We're on it." The two said as they eyed their suits.
The couple was trapped in a car that was turned upside down. Not to mention near a cut power-line which was causing a fire to ebonite due to the gas leak.
Guiding Light was able to come in fast using her powers to travel at lightning speed quickly as Invisible Girl came in quickly after with her forcefield to carry her.
"Okay, I'll handle the electrical grid, you get them out." Harley tells Sue the plan and she nods in confirmation.
"On it." Sue said as she ran over and saw the two were trapped. "Okay, stand back." She warned the couple inside.
Harley then ran over and grabbed the broken wire with her bare hands, keeping the current from spreading to the gasoline that spilt.
"I've got it!" Harley promised Sue who started using her forcefield to expand the door and break it off.
"Hey, we're gonna get you out of here." Sue promised the couple and used the same technique to expand the crushed console on them and looked to see Harley was struggling to keep the line close and she slipped, causing the line to fall into the gas.
Before anyone could react, the line ignited and headed to the car, when Sue reacted by creating a forcefield around them, causing the car to be shielded inside the shield.
As the fire spreader and stopped by the firefighters, Sue opened a small hole in it for her to carry the two injured people.
"Thank you." The man told Sue as they were handed then to the ambulance.
"All in a day's work." Harley tells them with a wave and smile.
The next day, Sharon was in for a strange crime scene as she and Barry were brought in to a crime scene where someone was broken out of their cell by a woman who could disappear on command.
"Gotta say, I thought after last night and the whole team of heroes, this city couldn't get any stranger." Barry commented as he and Sharon were working.
"Yeah, and the cameras were all shut down, meaning we're dealing with some sort of expert." Sharon commented. "Clay Parker, according to the data log, vanished right out of his cell."
"So, some sort of mutant or metahuman like the heroes?" Barry wondered as Sharon noticed some sort of particular residual that she took a collection of from the outside, the halls, and even saw there was a few traces in the cell.
"Likely." Sharon shrugged, guessing that would be the only explanation. "I'm gonna run this to a few colleagues who might have some ideas."
"Great, because I'm at a lost." Barry added. "These new powered people are a change of pace I can't keep up with."
The particles that Sharon brought the team back at STAR Labs left them in just amount of shock as they saw the particles moving around at light speed.
"These are the fastest as I've seen cells move." Caitlin commented. "I've never seen anything like it."
"So Clay Parker is a metahuman." Harley confirmed for herself.
"Hehe." Cisco chuckled a little, getting their attention.
"What?" Sue asked.
"Sorry, it's funny." Cisco apologized. "His names Parker, is he related to Peter?"
"My last names Carter, and I'm still related to Peter." Sharon reminded him.
"Wait." Tess said as she zoomed in on the residue. "This does contain Clay Parker DNA, but there's DNA sample of a woman here."
"Run it through the SHIELD database, see if there's a match." Sharon ordered and Cisco did just that.
"Got it." Cisco called as he pulled up the file on a Shawna Baez. "Looks like she has a history of petty crimes, and this girl likes to party, apparently. Long list of disorderly conducts at local bars."
"So, find her, we find our Clay Parker." Harley said.
"We just need to learn how these particles work." Harrison added.
Back in his headquarters, Reed groaned as he watched the footage of Venom being defeated by the heroes.
"I didn't calculate the possibility of Guiding Light retuning and saving them." Reed commented.
"This won't be a problem, will it?" Max asked Reed.
"No, project Star is ready for deployment." Reed said as they turned to their creation.
The girl then stated to wake up and looked robotic. She looked down at her restraints and pulled her hands free in seconds.
"She's ready." Reed confirmed with a grin. "Time to startup Phase 2."
Later on, Susan was standing outside the school and was waiting for Franklin to come out and was happy to see him.
"Hey, honey." Sue said as she put on a smile and kneeled down to her son. "How was school?"
"It was good." Franklin said, acting a little nervous.
"Everything alright, dear?" Sue wondered as she reached to comb some of his hair down.
"I'm just wondering..." Franklin muttered, but it was loud enough for Sue to hear.
"Wondering what?" Sue asked, hoping her son would get to the point of this.
"Is Peter going to be our new daddy?" Franklin asked, shocking Sue at how he came to that conclusion.
"Uh...let's discuss this at home." Sue compromised, blushing a little at the question and got to get him to May's and help the others track down Clay and Shawna.
Sue came back in to STAR Labs, looking a little flustered after what Franklin said and couldn't even stop thinking of the idea. Looking back, she sees why Franklin would think that. Them moving into a nice man's home, he's been sweet and kind to the kids, and they have shared a few glances to one another.
"So, I was analyzing the particulates that Clay and Shawna left behind, and we learned something." Caitlin said as she showed the cells to Harley and Cisco took over.
"When Clay's cells came into contact with Shawna's, they adopted her properties." Cisco explained.
"So she can theoretically teleport others with her." Harley understood what they were saying. Then she looked over and saw she was blushing. "What's up with you?"
"Hm?" Sue asked, breaking out of her bubble.
"What's up with you?" Cisco wondered, taking a drink of his slushie.
"Uh, picking up Franklin, he asked me something that put me off a little." Sue explained as she scratched her arm, a little nervous of them asking of what.
"What of?" Caitlin asked. Should've seen that coming.
"He...asked if Peter was going to be his new dad." Sue groaned out, causing Cisco to burst out laughing.
"Ah! That's funny!" Cisco cried out, calming down after a minute. "Sorry, that's just funny. I love kids."
"Maybe because you are a bit of a child." Bette commented as she looked over his toys and candy.
"You hurt me." Cisco replied.
"That wasn't my intention, but okay." Bette shrugged when their alerts went off.
"Armed robbery in progress. Male and female suspects." Harley added as she looked over the screen.
"Bonnie and Clyde are at it again." Cisco commented.
The two heroes started to wander off and Harley grinned at her friend in crime fighting.
"We're gonna continue this talk later." Harley promised.
"Not looking forward to it." Sue stated.
The two of them quickly arrived at the scene, Sue taking down Parker with a punch at the back of the head whilst Harley went for Shawna, who was placing two giant bags of money in the back of a car.
"Oh, I've heard of you." Shawna commented on Harley. "The Streak, right?"
Harley sighed as she knew her name wasn't exactly easy to remember, but it is unique. "Guiding Light. Now let's drop the money."
"Make me." Shawna dared as she disappeared and reappeared near an Invisible Girl. "What's wrong? Can't catch up?"
Then Sue created a forcefield around her, trying to keep her in place. "Don't need to keep up."
That's when she tried to escape and realized she actually couldn't escape. She tried her best, but she couldn't escape the forcefield.
"What? Too fast?" Sue asked as she turned off the forcefield for a second as Harley shocked her with a spark and took her down with ease.
"These metas." Harley sighed and nodding her head negatively. "Thinking they can just use their powers and defeat us, who've been using their powers for a while."
"Yeah, it's a pain, but easy on us." Sue supposed, happy that these rookies think they can defeats them.
Later on, the team went out to celebrate their victory as Susan went to get her kids to bed. Valeria going down easily as it seems she had a fun day messing up May's kitchen and making cookies with Franklin when they got back and were in a desperate need for a bath.
Tucking Franklin in, Sue saw this was probably the best time to talk about his questions.
"So, honey, what was that you were asking?" Sue asked as she sat on the bed.
"I was just wondering...is Peter gonna be our new daddy?" Franklin repeated his question.
Sue smiled and cupped her son's cheek. "I don't think so, honey."
"Are you sure?" Franklin wondered.
Sue then started to laugh a small bit at her son but knows that Peter wasn't interested in her. "I think so." She confirmed and pecked his head, not knowing her son was planning on repeating this question to Peter when he got back. "Good night."
"Night." Franklin said and tucked himself in further.
At the bar, Cisco, Bette, Sharon, and Harley were hanging when Caitlin walked in with Medusa and Crystal.
"Hey, guys." Caitlin greeted them and took a seat.
"Hey. Wondering if you were gonna make it." Sharon stated.
"Hey, I can have fun." Caitlin defended.
"Not as long as I've known you." Cisco joked.
Caitlin eyed him down and knew she had to prove it. "Okay, then I'm gonna start a tab." She dared as she got up and walked to talk to someone about that.
"She serious about that?" Bette asked.
"I think she is." Cisco was shocked to say.
Caitlin went over to the bar when she accidentally bumped into someone, spooking the two of them.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" Caitlin apologize to a familiar face.
"No, it's my bad, I wasn't looking." The face of Barry Allen apologizes to her. "I was here to meet a friend, Sharon."
"Oh, you're Barry." Caitlin remembered his name being mentioned when they planned to meet up here. "Yeah, Sharon's my friend. We're over there." She gestured to their table. "I was just gonna start a tab."
"Oh, I was on that myself, getting drinks for everyone." Barry added with a blush. "A bit of my way of getting along right others."
"Trust me, from what Sharon told us about you, you will get along with my friend Cisco in no time." Caitlin stated, causing Barry to laugh and blush.
As they interacted, the Watcher stood in a dark corner, keeping himself out of the light of the universe in order to stay anonymous to them all.
"Some people were destined to always make their ways to one another. And these two individuals, Barry Allen, and Caitlin Snow, they've almost always been destined for one another." The Watcher stated as he saw Barry sit down next to Caitlin and constantly getting along with her, even making her laugh. After that, he looked out into the multiverse and saw the many different branches of this universe and where the roads could have, and had, lead down.
On one Earth without Peter Parker, or any alterations to their history, Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow found each other when he was brought into her care after being struck by lightning. A while later, they began to start dating, which as the years go on turned to marriage, and kids. This story, you are quite familiar with, it being the original branch of the timeline.
"Almost on every branch of reality, without Peter Parker, Caitlin Snow and Barry Allen always find their way to one another."
He then showed another timeline where Peter Parker was still dating his high school sweetheart Sophia Sanduval. On this earth, Sophia and Peter met in high school and she revealed to be a mutant who had the ability to talk to animals. Which actually turned to be very helpful to stop crimes. Turns out that rats are big tattletales.
"Or in other timelines where the Web-Slinger is already seeing someone, or history has a different path for the hero."
Back on another universe, Emma Frost was standing in the middle of the room with the Reverse Flash caught in the forcefield, only she realized it was a hologram and outed Harrison Wells as the real Man in Yellow.
Emma and Peter used to go to the same high school, and she had a bit of a small crush on him, and she just thought he never noticed her. But it turned out he just never had the courage to talk to her, she being one of the more popular kids and him being a dork.
Or where he meets a sassy super heroine named Anna Marie and the two become a couple and a crime fighting team alongside the Flash who is indeed dating Caitlin.
Another was when he found another powerful individual known as Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, who was able to save a dozen lives from the accelerator, even those of Barry Allen from being struck. Peter met and thanked Storm with a cup of coffee, which turned into dinner and beyond. Even then, Caitlin and Barry still found their way to one another.
Or in another life where STAR Labs never saw the light of day, but Peter was at a fundraiser with his boss and talking to a woman, Virginia "Pepper" Potts.
In this reality, Tony Stark died, leaving Virginia all of his assets and the company. They had a drink together and hit it off, and even ended up using their superhero personas to fight EXTREMIS.
Spider-Man and Rescue.
Other realities that turned our better in the end when Peter Parker and his girlfriend, private eye Jessica Jones got together. The two have known each other since he lived in New York but haven't seen each other for years since he moved to Central City.
But when Jessica learned where Peter had moved to, she decided to go and create a name for herself as Private Rye Jones in Central City.
With her powers, it was a fairly easy gig.
In the process, she decided to make her own superhero identity Jewel. Finding out Peter's identity was easy, considering she was there when he was bitten by the spider.
And later on, she easily deduced there was something up with Harrison Wells, and then discovered he never was the real Harrison Wells when she discovered the body of the real one. The accelerator was then shut down after that and an investigation put underway, giving Jessica a lot more credibility.
Even in some worlds, he had a bigger impact than he ever expected considering that he was standing over the defeated Sinister Six, the Accelerator never exploded, and he was passionately kissing his girlfriend Mary Bromfield: Shazam.
"In every reality, in every branch, in all timelines, when the stars align just right, when all hope seems lost for the two of them, Barry and Caitlin will always find a way to one another. Even in this reality, Peter Parker isn't destined for Caitlin Snow. Someone else is destined for the Web-Crawler. But who he will ends up with in this life; it is up to him and the choices in his life."