Shout out to my co-authors, Brightburn1985 and thomasmarieamell. Go check out some of their work.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash

Overtime, Barry and Caitlin developed a working relationship. They managed to take down The Mist easily enough.

A mob family had been poisoned, but the way they died wasn't natural to how a poisonous gas should have acted. They were all at the table together, therefore, they should have been affected at the same time.

Instead, it seemed as if the gas was targeting each person one by one as a few managed to get some distance, and one even managed to fire two shots trying to break the glass.

Barry voiced his concerns to Joe that this may be meta-related and brought this to the STAR Labs gang.

They deduced this meta's abilities must be related to gas, whether it was only poisonous gas or all gaseous forms was a mystery. As well as how he controlled it.

But another problem was brought up by Joe. They couldn't very well execute every super criminal they encountered. Sure, some might deserve it, but they shouldn't kill ones that are just robbing banks simply because they currently have no place to contain them.

A suggestion was made. The particle accelerator. There were cavities in the walls that could work as makeshift prisons. With a few adjustments as well as making sure each cell would be designed to counteract a specific meta's abilities, it would be perfect.

Caitlin's hands clenched at the mention of the accelerator. Barry immediately noticed it, and decided to take pity on her. Despite their animosity towards each other, they were teammates. He wouldn't force her to do something she didn't want to.

"Actually Dr. Wells, I could use Caitlin's help at CCPD in identifying the toxic gas that was used," Barry came up on the spot.

Caitlin immediately agreed. "Let's go," She may hate Barry, but she dreaded going back down in that hole again. Barry was the lesser of two evils in this scenario.

"You're welcome," Barry whispered to her as they left.

"I didn't need you to save me, I could have weaseled my way out of that somehow," Caitlin whispered back.

"Well you owe me one Ms. Frosty. I didn't have to save you. I could have left you to go down to the Pipeline by yourself, but I decided to take pity on you and offer a way out," Barry said.

"I don't owe you anything Fleet Feet. I didn't ask, want, or need your charity. Not all of us are damsels in distress that are waiting for our knight in shining armour," Caitlin glared at him.

"Well, then call me your speedster in red spandex," Barry cheekily retorted.

"I think I'll call you the bottomless hole of problems whose trying to avoid them by pretending to be a superhero," Caitlin said sarcastically.

That was their conversation the entire way to the police station. They attracted looks from Barry's co-workers, but they mostly ignored them. They had more pressing issues to address.

While waiting for the results to come back, there was an awkward silence between them. They hadn't really been alone together simply because they wanted to. There was always a reason for them to be together, whether it was because it was forced, or they were arguing and neither had noticed the others had already left the room.

Breaking the silence, Barry decided to ask some questions that's been on his mind for awhile. Caitlin's cold exterior left little room for him to ask for anything personal, but having her yell at him was better than this deafening silence.

"Can I ask you a question that you don't have to answer?" Barry asked her.

"My least favourite type of question," Caitlin grumbled at him. "Shoot,"

"Ronnie, what was he like?" Barry hesitantly asked. He may be stepping past his boundaries, but he felt he needed to get to the root of the problem of why they didn't seem to get along.

"Ronnie was beyond words. People compared us to fire and ice. I was cold even before I met you, but Ronnie managed to melt my barriers. He got me to try things out of my comfort zones. He made me a different person in the best way possible," Caitlin answered.

"He sounds like a great guy. Too bad he got stuck with you," Barry teased her.

Caitlin just glared at him. "We loved each other. We were happy. But then a particle accelerator came along and ripped that all away, and I got left with you in my medbay,"

"I didn't mean any offense," Barry apologized.

"Well you did," Caitlin scowled.

Luckily the results were in before anymore silence could be made. And they were very confused at what they found.

The gas had evaporated in the victim's lungs so there wasn't anything they could find. They would need a fresh sample. But what made both of them scratch their heads was the fact there were two distinct strands of DNA. One obviously being the victim's, but they had no idea where the second one came from.

They tried to find a match, but there weren't any records they could find. It's as if this DNA came from a ghost.

They tried to think of ways of how this could be possible, but it was Barry's assumption that clinched it. "What if this meta doesn't control the gas? What if he becomes it?"

That seemed as feasible as any. It was at that moment they got a police report. Another toxic gas attack, this time at the mall.

Barry ran as fast as he could, but by the time he got there, it was too late. The woman was already dead. Speeding up his body so the rest of the world remained still to his perspective, Barry took a look around.

Then he noticed something. A door was slightly open with a green cloud slowly crawling away unnoticed.

Finding his target, Barry ran before anyone noticed. Just as he assumed, the gas took the form of a human being. He was right. He couldn't wait to rub it in Caitlin's face.

But then came a complication. He had no idea what to do now that he found him. Since he becomes the gas, he couldn't touch him or get near him, lest he be poisoned as well. But maybe if he can grab him before that happens, this would all be over.

That didn't happen as when Barry tried to grab him, the bald man reverted to his gaseous state and began filling Barry's respiratory system with his toxins.

Barry managed to get out of there in time with enough energy to make it to STAR Labs where he was left gasping for air.

Cisco and Wells carried him to a bed, trying to ease his discomfort until Caitlin arrived. When she did, they took this opportunity to get a sample of this new meta. Sure Barry was possibly dying, but now that Caitlin was here it would all be fine.

"Cut me open. Get the gas out of me," Barry begged her.

"Can I just take a moment here to relish the fact that you are begging me to literally cut open your chest?" Caitlin smirked at him.

Barry couldn't reply any longer because his oxygen was running out. It didn't help that he burned through most of it to get here.

"Okay, first I'm going to administer you something that should keep you unconscious until the surgery is over," Caitlin grabbed a large needle, filling it with the drug.

"Should?" Cisco voiced his concerns.

"Better than won't" Caitlin shrugged her shoulders before she stabbed Barry in the chest with the comically large needle. To be honest, it didn't need to be so big, but it got the job done.

Barry woke up a few hours later with the sample he provided already being analyzed. They had a few hours to wait before they could do anything, so Barry was left to heal.

To pass the time, Barry decided to strike up a conversation with Caitlin again. She really wasn't all bad when she wasn't screaming at him. "Ronnie was a great man," he said.

"The best," Caitlin agreed. "Which is why it's so hard for me to go back down there. I didn't even think about it when I went down there last time. I just focused on the fact you were there and I wanted to torture you a little,"

"What if I was there with you again?" Barry offered.

Caitlin initially wanted to refuse. But the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to comfort her that Barry would be there to support her in this dark time.

Once down there, Caitlin took a good hard look at the metal door in front of her. The one that separated her from her fiance that night. "He saved so many people that night, and no one will ever know what he did," she mumbled to herself.

"I will. He was a hero," Barry spoke up behind her.

"I didn't want him to be a hero. I wanted him to be my husband," Caitlin softly cried.

Barry opened his arms in an offer of comfort, which Caitlin took as she embraced him and began to sob into his chest.

They soon found who the meta was. Kyle Nimbus. But his records claimed he was dead which is why his file didn't appear when they put his DNA through the records.

Based on his targets, the mob boss testifying against him, and the judge sentencing him to death, they were able to determine who was his next target. The leading officer of his arrest. Detective Joe West.

They rushed to find him, and it was almost too late, but Barry injected Joe with the cure he had on hand.

There was no easy way to defeat Nimbus. The only thing they could think of was to exhaust him. It couldn't be easy maintaining his gaseous state as gas was the least stable form of matter. Sooner or later he would need to reform back into his solid, and once he did, that was when Barry would strike.

Barry managed to grab his attention and just let Nimbus chase him through the street, tiring him out in the process. When Nimbus stopped to take a breather, Barry didn't waste his chance. Barry charged at Kyle and effectively rendered him unconscious.

This was as good of a time to test their new prison. Placing Nimbus in a cell that was locked with an airtight door and charged enough that would keep him from escaping through the vents.

Overall, it was a good day. A new meta had been stopped, and best of all, Barry and Caitlin were beginning their first steps towards becoming something that could pose as friends. There would be complications, but they would get there.

That development ended as soon as the cold gun was revealed into existence.

Felicity Smoak was visiting to see Barry. How he was friends with such a nice person, Caitlin will never know.

During that time, the cold gun designed to stop Barry in the event that he would misuse his powers was stolen and wound up in the hands of Leonard Snart, or as Cisco dubbed him, Captain Cold.

When Barry questioned where the device came from, it was revealed that Cisco was the one to create it.

"The cold gun was developed here, by STAR Labs," Dr. Wells told him.

"No, Caitlin and Dr. Wells didn't have anything to do with making the gun, I did. I made it." Cisco told Barry.

"Why would you make this?" Barry asked.

"Because speed and cold are opposites. The faster an object moves, the hotter it is. The slower it is, the colder it gets. When there is absolutely no movement at all, it's called absolute zero. I made it to stop you." Cisco tries to explain.

"Why?" Barry demands once again.

"I didn't really know you when I first made it. What if you turned out to be another one of those psychos…?" Cisco trailed off.

"But I didn't, did I?" Barry shouted. "I can understand why you made the gun Cisco, but what I don't understand is why you didn't tell me about it? I thought we were friends? I thought you trusted me?"

"We are friends and I do trust you, I just didn't think you needed to know," Cisco said.

"If I had known about this beforehand, I could have better prepared. Instead, someone died today," Barry reminded him of what happened.

"Yeah, and I have to live with that," Cisco pointed out.

"No Cisco, we all do," Barry corrected him.

"Don't blame Cisco entirely, it was my idea to create the gun. Cisco was just the engineer," Caitlin told him.

Barry paused before turning to face her. "Why am I not surprised? Of course you came up with the idea for a cold gun. I thought what he said sounded familiar, but I bet you never told him what gave you the idea for it did you?"

Caitlin shook her head in slight fear, "Barry no,"

"You never told him that what gave you the idea was because you are a meta yourself, with ice powers no less. That's what gave you the idea because you knew you could stop me if you wanted to. Just another thing to add to your arsenal, huh Ms. Frosty?" Barry sneered at her.

"You're a meta, Caitlin? Why didn't you tell me? How come Barry knows it while I don't? I thought you were my best friend." Cisco asked, feeling hurt and betrayed by the fact that Caitlin didn't let him in on a secret.

"I wasn't ready Cisco. I mean, look at all the metas we've encountered so far, I didn't want to risk anything," Caitlin said, tears begin to well up in her eyes. "Barry, how could you? That wasn't your secret to tell!" Her eyes filled with rage, but you could still see the pain behind her glare.

"Well apparently we're all keeping secrets that should have been brought into the light sooner," Barry says with cold eyes.

With that, he flashes out of the building. What followed were a series of actions brought on by lack of trust between them. Barry's relationship was strained at best between the people at STAR. He became reckless and wasn't willing to listen to the others.

Snart managed to make off with the cold gun, but at least they got back the diamond. Things weren't okay, but they were getting better. At least between Barry and Cisco.

The next few metas weren't particularly momentous. Bette Sans Souci was the first meta they had encountered that didn't have terrible intentions with their powers. If anything, she was looking for ways to get rid of her powers as they were highly destructive. To turn everything you touch into a bomb about to explode would be inconvenient to anyone.

Cisco seemed to take a liking to her, which only made it more depressing when she was killed by General Eiling. A man who was looking to exploit her powers, but killed her when it became apparent that she wouldn't be controlled.

The next was a man named Tony Woodward. Barry's childhood bully. He could encase his entire body with metal, making him impenetrable to practically all attacks. Caitlin gave him a pretty hard time for that. The man who used to torture him obtained powers as well, and is using them to torture him again.

It wasn't too funny after they found Barry sprawled on the floor with multiple broken bones and blood dripping on the floor. Caitlin really wanted to poke some fun at him, but she knew this was a sensitive matter. She had been trying to be nicer to Barry. Spending time with him constantly, it was time for her to bury the hatchet. The team needed them to at least get along well enough to function.

Barry was staring off in the distance, he was sitting in the Cortex when Caitlin decided to walk in and saw him. He looked bothered and stressed. Normally Caitlin would've ignored him but she decided that if they are going to be at least work friends, she have to be nice with him.

"What's bothering you?" Caitlin asked, snapping Barry out of his stupor.

Barry just looked at her in suspicion. "Since when have you taken an interest in what's happening in my life?"

"Well excuse me for trying to at least have a civil conversation with someone I am forced to interact with on a daily basis," Caitlin rolled her eyes at him. "Contrary to what you may think of me, I don't like arguing until my throat is sore, Fleet Feet. So tell me what's bothering you or I'm gonna leave,"

"Okay, I'm sorry," Barry raised his hands in surrender. "It's this new meta, Tony Woodward,"

"Your childhood nemesis, yes I'm aware," Caitlin said.

"I hate him, even more than I hate you if you can believe it," Barry confessed.

"Oh, I can believe it," Caitlin empathizes. She still thought of the terrible times of high school with Lexi LaRoche. She'd hate for her to be a meta as well, but the last she heard, Lexi had moved to Gotham.

"Even after all this time, I'm useless against him. I couldn't do anything against him as a kid, and even as an adult with superpowers, I still get my ass handed to me by the same guy who would shove me into lockers at school," Barry said.

"Well, that sucks," Caitlin lamented.

"Yeah, it does," Barry agreed. "I know we've got this plan to take him down with a supersonic punch, but I don't know if I'm up to it,"

"Well, if you get even the slightest part wrong, you run the risk of breaking every bone in your body, leaving you vulnerable to another beating but this time you won't be able to run away," Caitlin told him. "So I'm all for that,"

"Gee, glad you're so concerned about my well-being," Barry narrowed his eyes at her. "You're supposed to be my doctor. You're supposed to suggest I avoid breaking my body and risk killing myself,"

"You're a hero now Barry, being a hero means getting your bones broken every now and then. Besides, this is probably the only plan we'll come up with that has even a chance of succeeding," Caitlin says.

"You could help me take him down in the field," Barry suggests. "With your powers, you'd be able to freeze him and then we'd be able to take him in and put him in the Pipeline. Metal doesn't do so well in the cold,"

"That would be if I could get him to stay still long enough to let the ice encase him," Caitlin says. "That thing I did with your shoulder before is the most I'm able to accomplish with my powers and you brushed that off pretty easily,"

"That's too bad, you should look into advancing your powers," Barry says.

"You don't think I haven't? Shooting ice from my hands is a little more complicated than running really fast. Not everyone is going to have an innate sense of using their powers like you Barry,"

"Why do you have to take everything I say as an insult Ms. Frosty? Sometimes, I just want to have a normal conversation as well,"

"Well you didn't seem too interested in having a conversation when I walked in," Caitlin pointed out.

"How was I to know that you were willing to even have a conversation at all? God, you are so irritating," Barry said.

"Well you are the most conceited person I have ever met Bartholomew," Caitlin fired back. "Not everything revolves around you,"

"I can't believe I ever thought you would be willing to have an actual conversation with me," Barry said.

"I can't believe I ever thought I could actually have a conversation with you without it turning out to be another screaming match!" Caitlin yelled.

"I'm leaving," Barry announced and started to walk out of the Cortex.

"You better be Allen!"

That night, Tony kidnapped Iris and brought her back to their high school as a way of remembering their roots. He wanted Iris to start writing in her blog about him instead of the Streak.

The Streak was the name Iris had given to Barry when she was unknowingly writing about him to spread awareness that he was actually existent and not just something crazy people talk about.

Barry confronted Tony as the Streak, and at first, it seemed that Barry still couldn't do anything. Tony's defenses were just too great for Barry to effectively take him down.

Tony knocked Barry to the ground, but before he could land the finishing blow, Barry got out of there just in the knick of time. Barry ran for miles away from the school.

5.3 miles away from the school. The exact distance required for Barry to achieve a sonic boom and be able to actually do some damage to Woodward.

Still, Barry needed to be able to be traveling at least Mach 1.1, faster than he's ever gone before.

Somehow, against all odds, Barry managed to do it. A supersonic punch that actually managed to break through Woodward's powers. Barry broke his hand in the process though, and Woodward still managed to get back up, but luckily Iris knocked him out with a left hook before anything else could happen.

Barry confronted his high school bully as both the Streak and Barry Allen, just to be able to see his expression of being taken down by him. Somehow Tony still managed to recognize him. Which just made Barry's victory all the sweeter.

"All I want to know is, which childhood nemesis are we going to take down next? Mine or Caitlin's? I vote mine," Cisco asked.

Barry and Caitlin didn't take him seriously at all and just laughed him off. "Guys I'm serious about this," Cisco called out.

Barry was running on a treadmill, but not at superspeed. He was running at his usual pace.

"Wow, he's slow, even for a normal person," Cisco commented.

Earlier tonight, Barry confronted a new meta. Someone who was able to siphon electricity. And be able to steal Barry's powers.

They didn't even know if it was temporary or not, but they were hopeful since Barry's DNA was still mutated. He's just not able to access his powers for some reason.

Barry's just looking at the mannequin that was wearing the suit. The Flash suit. Barry recently had a conversation with Iris, and what he said inspired her to change the name of the Streak into the Flash. And with the amount of views it had, it seemed to be catching on.

The suit right now was just a reminder of what Barry had lost. He loves being the Flash. To be able to run at high speeds, to let the world fade away when he runs.

Caitlin walks up to him, seeing him in a sense of pity.

Barry notices her this time and decides to strike up a conversation himself. "You think I'll ever get to wear it again?"

"I don't know. I hope so," Caitlin says.

"I didn't have my powers for very long, but now that it's gone, it feels like a part of me is gone too," Barry tells her.

"With or without your speed Barry, you're still you." Caitlin tries to comfort him.

"But I'm not. I'm not the best version of me. I love being the Flash. I love everything about it. The feeling of running at hundreds of miles per hour. Wind and power rushing past my face. The ability to help people. I'm not sure I can live without it anymore, Caitlin." Barry confesses to her.

Caitlin could never be able to understand what he was going through. She'd hate to lose her powers as well. Despite what little she could do with them, she loved her powers. She didn't want to think about them being gone. She didn't even remember what it felt like to not have powers anymore.

Caitlin didn't know what she wanted to say, she just wanted him to know that no matter what, she would stand by him. "Barry…" but was cut off by Cisco. This was the first conversation face to face she had with Barry that didn't result in yelling even though it was cut short. Miracles do happen.

Their meta was in the building. Farooq Gibran. He somehow managed to siphon the power in the entire city causing a city wide blackout. He'd come for revenge for his friends who had died the night of the explosion and had given him powers.

Unlike others, Gibran's powers needed to be constantly fed. He needed to feed off electricity so his powers would remain stable. He was an electricity vampire.

They didn't have anyway to combat him. With Barry's powers still gone, and Caitlin's abilities still in their early stages of development, they were all in danger. But they had an impromptu plan that might work. If they could get the backup generator on, they'd be able to electrocute Barry just like the lightning bolt did on that fateful night. His cells were still fully charged and ripe with power. He just couldn't get his powers to work properly. A large electrical blast might do the trick to get his powers running again.

Of course, the required amount of electricity was more than they administer to those in the electric chair. It might kill him, but their options were running low.

Dr. Wells went off to try to find some way to distract him, and Cisco went off to get the generator running. That left Caitlin to prep the treadmill to handle the amount of electricity with Barry.

There were a few close calls that they thought they would be caught. But they managed to get everything ready. All they needed to do was turn it on and shock Barry into his powers.

But Caitlin hesitated.

Despite the constant annoyance, Caitlin had started to care for Barry. She didn't want to do him any harm beyond the necessary.

"Caitlin just do it!" Barry yelled at her.

"I can't!" Caitlin shouted back.

"Why not? I thought you would jump at the chance to have me electrocuted?" Barry questioned her.

"Because I run the risk of killing you with this!" Caitlin shouts.

"So? When has hurting me ever stopped you? If you don't do this, we're all dead either way," Barry tells her.

Caitlin makes her way to the treadmill and places her hand on Barry's. "I already lost someone I cared about in this building, don't make me go through that again,"

"You care about me?" Barry asked her.

"Despite all odds Barry, I do. That doesn't mean if we make it out of this alive I'm going to start being nice to you. In fact if you tell anyone about this I will deny it and claim that you are the one that cares about me," Caitlin says.

"I care about you too," Barry says to her. "That's why I can't let you or Cisco or Dr. Wells get hurt when there's something that I could do about it,"

Barry just sighed and looked down. "Someone once told me that the lightning, it didn't just strike me, it chose me. That I could be a symbol of hope. Right now I don't know if I believe that, but it doesn't matter what I believe. What do you believe in?"

Caitlin stares into his eyes, and in a spur of the moment, she kisses him. Barry's eyes widened in shock, and the kiss was over in a second. "You should have just led with that," Caitlin mumbled to him.

She runs over to the switch and flips it on and watches in despair and terror, and a little bit of hope, as the electricity surges through the treadmill and into Barry.

The force knocks him back and he falls to the ground.

Caitlin rushes to his side. "Did it work?" she asks.

Barry tries to feel the power of his speed, and for a second he does. He lifts his hand and sees that it's vibrating. He tries to focus on that, but it soon leaves him.

Barry just shakes his head. He doesn't have his powers.

They'd managed to take down Farooq Gibran. Seeing Dr. Wells in a state of danger sparked Barry's powers back to life. When Farooq tried to do the same as he did before and take Barry's powers away, the results were different this time.

Barry's powers had gotten more powerful. It was more than Gibran could safely handle. "It's like he choked on you," Caitlin tells him.

Later that night when all but Barry and Caitlin had left STAR Labs, Barry decided to confront Caitlin about what had happened.

"So, you kissed me," Barry blurts out.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Caitlin groans.

"Why'd you do it?" Barry asks.

"It was a spur of the moment decision. I thought we were all going to die, it didn't mean anything," Caitlin says.

"Oh,"

"It didn't mean anything. Did it?" Caitlin asks.

"No, no," Barry denies. "I didn't feel anything about that kiss,"

"You didn't feel anything?" Caitlin questions.

"I mean, it was nice. A little awkward but nice all the same." Barry tells her.

"Yeah, yeah, it was nice," Caitlin nods in agreement. "We never talk about this again,"

"Agreed," Barry immediately replies.

"No one ever finds out, it'll be like it never happened at all," Caitlin goes on.

"We go right back to hating each other, nothing changes." Barry says. "Shake on it?" he offers his hand.

Caitlin takes his hand in agreement. "I loathe you Fleet Feet,"

"You are despicable Ms. Frosty," Barry fires right back.

I hoped you all liked that.

What? You all thought I was going to keep with one chapter per episode? No way. That's just too much to write and not enough content that's actually relevant to the story. I'm gonna be skimming or completely skipping some episodes depending on how I feel they connect with the story. If some plots are just too important, they will be included. Everything else you're supposed to infer it's happened. You just didn't read that it did.

Leave me your reviews. Tell me what you thought. Am I going too fast? Am I going too slow? Is there something specific you'd like to see? You're all welcome to ask.