Hey all you people. As a note, I think most of the stuff I've written for season 4 is boring, which is why I don't like it. But you be the judge. Deacon isn't all that different from the show, but he leads to something bigger in the end. My co-authors Brightburn1985 and ThomasMarieAmell2.0 try to help out as much as they can.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash
In the morning, Barry was overseeing the name change Caitlin had suggested to the company. He agreed with her. STAR was so much more than a lab now. Which is why they were going to be holding a press conference in the next few days about the company's rebranding as STAR Facilities. Or STAR FACS. It was a work in progress.
Other than that, Barry had to catch up on everything going on with the company in his absence. He was glad to see everything was running smoothly, but Barry liked to check so there would be no surprises in the future.
Not to mention his job as a CSI, but luckily Julian was covering for him there. He could have left that job ages ago, but he enjoyed the field work too much to leave it behind. Something he wouldn't be able to do as CEO.
And for the meta, supposed time traveler, Abra Kadabra Barry had brought in, something had happened. He was being prepped for transport to ARGUS when they found Abra hanging from his ceiling. Apparent suicide.
Perhaps his ramblings hadn't been without meaning. Wally had mentioned that Abra had let slip about a 'him'. Someone the sorcerer had feared. That there was no escape from.
That got Barry nervous, but that was a problem for another day. Nothing to concern himself with at the moment. At the moment, there was something much scarier he would be dealing with.
His wedding.
As soon as morning came the day following his return, Caitlin bombarded him with her wedding binder. Ideas as to what kind of wedding they would have. Big ceremony or small get together? Band or DJ? What location should they have it? Church, meadow, forest, beach, etc,. Flowers, centrepieces, colours for the dresses. Who would be invited? It was exhausting and Barry was expected to pay attention whilst Caitlin dragged on about wedding dresses that all looked the same? It was torture.
Still, he felt guilty since this was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. So Barry decided to just get it over with and look through the first folder Caitlin had for their wedding. That's right, first folder. Caitlin wasn't even close to finishing.
"Hey," Caitlin greeted him from behind in her bathrobe and kissed his ear. "Morning."
"Good morning. Grab some food. We've got plenty," Barry gestured to the wide array of food on the table he prepared.
"You're spoiling me," Caitlin complained, but grabbed some toast and eggs.
"Nothing but the best for my love." Barry smiled but his eyes never left the wedding details.
"Really getting into this wedding?" Caitlin bit into her toast.
"Have to appreciate the attention to detail. You haven't left a thing out."
"I've been planning my wedding since I was 8. Of course it's going to be detailed."
"Really? That's so normal. Who are you?" Barry jokes.
"I'm a girl. I'm allowed to fantasize about my wedding like every other girl." Caitlin rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't expect you to understand being a guy."
"You're right, I don't. The only thing I'm particularly interested in is the Vegas-style all you can eat buffet you've ordered. Several of them if I'm reading this right."
"Typical guy, thinking with his stomach. It's not like we can't afford it. And the rest of us have to eat something. There are going to be at least two speedsters attending this wedding with you and Wally. Four if Jesse and Jay arrive. That's not even mentioning Kara and her appetite, as well as whoever she's bringing, if she does at all."
"It's going to be a slaughter." Barry nodded his head.
"Which is why we're ordering enough food to feed several small countries." Caitlin said. "And since I brought it up, what do you think of my charity benefit?"
"I think it's wonderful. It's going to help so many people. One of the good things about being a billionaire's fiancee. You get to throw money at the big problems and make a big difference."
"Now I'm just a gold digger?" Caitlin raised an eyebrow. A stern expression on her face, but Barry could see right through it.
"Come on, you know I never even wanted all this money. I figured, make the most of something, and we are." Barry rolled his eyes at her attempt at getting a rise out of him.
Caitlin's facade cracked as she let out a small laugh. "Yes, as you like to remind all of us. Given billions of dollars and you're the victim. Poor baby."
"And I am going to use that money to spoil my bride-to-be, and our insanely expensive wedding. Like oh my god! What exactly was your original budget?"
"It's not that much." Caitlin waved it off.
"For us. For others, this is their life savings. And then there's our honeymoon."
"To be fair, most of the money had to go to all the extra food. I can't help it that your metabolism requires such gluttony."
Barry took a breath as if he were about to say something, but let it go. "Alright." Barry decided to just suck it up and accept this wedding would be requiring many zeros.
"That's a good husband." Caitlin smiled and patted his cheek.
"I'm not a dog." Barry cried out against his treatment.
Joe was heartbroken that another one of his children was leaving him, but he'd agreed to let Wally travel to Coast City. Both of his children would be able to look out for each other. That thought was the only thing easing his mind at the moment.
"Is this leave because of me?" Barry couldn't help but ask. "And don't think about lying."
"I will admit you had some part in this decision, but ultimately this is my decision." Wally said. "Central City is yours. You are their hero, and I am never going to be anything but a sidekick if I stay by your side. I can't grow here."
"I get that. I understand. After the Reverse Flash revealed he'd manipulated so much of my life, I honestly didn't know who I was anymore. I was learning under him for so long, it was difficult when he was gone. It was both terrifying and a learning experience. I was alone. I had to rely on myself, and that's not necessarily a bad thing." Barry nodded his head. "It's time to get your feet wet. Jump in with both feet and see what happens."
"Thanks for understanding. And I'll come back sometimes. Teach an old dog some new tricks." Wally jests.
"I look forward to the day. Can't wait to see how you turn out when you come dashing back." Barry laughed.
"Dashing?" Wally seems humoured at the word. "Dashing… dash." he developed a thoughtful expression.
Barry raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "Did I give you some ideas?"
"You just might have. Thanks. I'll see you around." Wally saluted his mentor and ran in a burst of lightning.
"What did I say?" Barry asked himself in confusion.
Barry shrugged and decided to leave it. If it were important, Wally would tell him. If not, it wasn't worth overthinking.
"The Flash has finally returned." The woman commented, seeing the distinctive yellow trail of lightning.
"Good," the man in the chair states, "it's finally time to play the game. Who should we go with first? Preferably something he's never encountered before."
"A mix and match?" she suggested, pulling up an image of a person.
"Too soon. This is to be our introduction. We must be subtle. Nothing that can tip our hand unknowingly." he thought for a moment. An idea coming to mind. "I have the perfect candidate. Something beneficial for the both of us."
The man typed something into the holographic computer. The screen shows a command being sent.
"That is a wonderful idea my dear." She praised him.
"It's your move now Flash."
Barry walked into a crime scene. A faulty elevator apparently and a person had died within.
"Hey everybody. Finally made it," Barry said with a cheery attitude.
"Mr. Allen, it's nice to see that after all this time things never seem to change with your tardy behaviour. You're late again." Captain Singh proclaimed.
"Sorry Captain. Just getting back into the swing of things." Barry apologized.
Singh gestured to the crime scene, silently telling him to get on with it.
"We're under a lot of pressure to solve this one. Guy in the elevator is a pretty important figure so tell us what you got."
"I'm not tech smart enough to decrypt the code in the elevator, but what I can tell you is just by looking at the elevator, it didn't just fall. Look at the impressions on the floor, and the ceiling. It shook him up and down, bashing him against the metal walls until he died." Barry informed them. "I have no idea what could cause the elevator to do that."
"So this was a cyber attack? I'll get our techs looking into it." Singh said.
"Make way! Make way! Tech consultant coming through." A familiar voice said. "See the badge? I'm official."
Cisco flashed his badge to an officer who nodded and let him through. "You guys hired Cisco?" Barry asked.
"He's the best around, and he offered to help when he could. So I called him." Joe told him.
"Alright, what do you need me to-Oh my god! Why would you show that to me in the morning? I just had breakfast." Cisco exclaimed once he caught sight of the bloody elevator compartment. Instinctively looking away and putting a hand to his face to block his view.
"Can you just take a look at what went wrong?" Singh asked, exasperated.
"Yes sir." Cisco nodded his head. He pulled out a tablet and hooked it up with the elevator to see what he could find. "Huh, that shouldn't be there."
"What do you see?" Barry asked.
"There's some code in here. Probably left over from the attack. I can probably track whoever it is from this, but it'll take some time." Cisco looked at the strange code on his tablet.
"Well get on with it. The sooner the better."
"So what have you been up to when you were gone?" Cisco asked. "I know it's none of my business, but you were gone for a long time. I'm curious. Where does the Flash vacation?"
"Just travelling with no where specific. Went all over the world. Looking to find peace with myself. My morals. What kind of life I'm living. But I kept busy too. Did some tinkering, came up with the idea of a computer software. It's going to be a simulator."
"What kind of simulator?" Cisco asked, his interest piqued.
"It runs through scenarios. Makes judgement calls. We input data, it analyzes the information, and depending on the scenario, gives us suggestions on our next course of action. I thought it might be useful." Barry explained.
"You're making… an AI?" Cisco asked. "What are you calling it?"
"I was thinking of naming it the Generalized Interactive Directive. And it's not an AI per se. Right now it's just a simulator. It doesn't really think. It's more like a really specific google search." Barry explained. "It's my own pet project I've been doing. What do you think?"
"Sounds interesting. Wait what did you call it again?"
"Generalized Interactive Directive. Or G.I.D. for short if you want."
"G.I.D.? Gideon? You made Gideon? The holographic woman we found in the Time Vault?" Cisco exclaimed.
Barry paused to think. "Huh, I guess I did. At least an early version of her. Nowhere near as advanced to what we saw. But it's a start."
"I honestly don't know what to think. I know we were told you were going to create her, but now that it's happening, it seems surreal. Especially when you know the end result."
"Well, obviously I'm not going to live over a hundred years from now to see that version of Gideon be created, but we got the foundations. In a couple years, if I get someone to be the voice of Gideon, you could have a basic conversation with Gideon."
"That's awesome man. Hold it, how basic are we talking about?"
"She'll be a talking computer, listing information she's found. No personality, so to speak. At least, not yet."
Cisco looked at Barry for a second before Cisco sighed. "Okay, I've been holding this back for obvious reasons, but I think it's time. How are you? How are you doing?"
Barry sighed. He knew this was coming, but he hoped it wouldn't be for some time. "I'm still not okay." Barry shook his head. "I'm not okay, and I might never be okay again. I've changed. Lately, I've been having nightmares, and not just about Malcolm, but about everything I've encountered, both this job and the other. Some are worse than others. But I'm here, I'm willing to keep fighting the good fight. Because it's the right thing to do. It's worth it."
"Yeah, but none of us want you to put yourself through this if it's making you miserable. Caitlin and I can step up, and I'm sure more people will be willing to help."
"It's not making me miserable Cisco. It just doesn't make me happy. Not anymore." Barry corrected him. "When I first started being the Flash, I loved it. Now, it's just a job to do."
"Well then, it's a good thing you have Caitlin to keep you happy." Cisco commented. "By the way, I made you a new suit. This one is going to be decked out with everything I can possibly think of to help you."
"I'm a lucky man," Barry agreed.
"And just so you remember, you're my friend, one of my best friends. But Caitlin and I have known each other forever, she's practically my sister. If you wrong her, we're going to have some words."
"That's cute. It's never going to happen, and even if it does, you'd never be able to kick my ass. But like I said, it's never going to happen." Barry lightly chuckled at that. "Thanks Cisco. I needed to laugh today." Barry patted his friend on the back before they entered STAR Labs.
"I mean it! I can totally kick your ass!" Cisco shouted.
"That's a nice thought, Cisco. Keep up the positive attitude."
Cisco was looking at his screen, trying to discern the unknown code he'd found when there was another alert.
"Runaway car." Caitlin reported. "Should we handle that?"
Cisco shrugged and listened to the police. "Seems like the police have it under hand. Doesn't sound like something we need to get involved in."
"Then again, it is a pretty slow day," Caitlin pointed out. "Could at least call Barry."
"Sure," Cisco immediately agreed. Cisco rang him up.
"Hey Cisco. You got anything for me?" Barry answered the call, almost too fast.
"Nothing about the code, but we got a runaway car if you want to get out."
"Thank you, I've been looking over blood samples all day and there is nothing in there for me to find. Give me the details." Barry sighed in relief to have a reason to leave. The sound of rushing wind over the phone indicating Barry had switched to his comms and was running off.
Cisco gave the details of where the runaway car was heading. A straight path it seemed. Barry found the car easily enough and grabbed the driver out of his seat and deposited him in the back of a police cruiser.
Barry noticed something strange though. "Hey guys? The car's still moving, as in, it's not slowing down. If anything it's speeding up,"
"Well get it. Or dismantle it or something. Without a driver controlling it, it's going to hit something." Caitlin shouted.
Barry looked around and saw a part of the city was under construction. Raiding its supply of tools, Barry ran to catch back up to the defective car and circled it whilst pushing it back and forth to avoid crashing into anything. Loosening some bolts, setting away parts of the car, and soon all that was left was nothing but a metal board with seats. "I should have been a mechanic," Barry commented as he ran from the scene and returned the tools he'd borrowed.
Barry arrived at STAR Labs with a concerned look on his face. "What happened? It was like that car had a mind of its own."
"Somehow, someone was able to control that car remotely. Not sure how though. There'd have to be some kind of chip on the car to override and give manual control." Cisco said.
"We could search through the wreckage, but chances are the thing's gone when I dismantled it." Barry groaned in frustration.
"Could this be related to the elevator incident this morning?" Cisco asked. "Cyber attacks. Both people were reasonably well off. Not as good as you, of course. You're like the richest person in Central, but they made billions. Tim Kwon, the guy in the car, and Kurt Weaver. Both are pretty famous computer programmers."
"Could that be related? Maybe they know each other?" Caitlin asked.
"I'll text Joe about this. It's suspicious, but nothing we can follow. It's not like we can put a tail on every computer programmer in the city." Barry pulled out his phone to pass the message.
"Umm, they definitely knew each other." Cisco spoke up.
"What are you talking about?" Caitlin asked.
"Check what I found out. Weaver and Kwon were partners once with two others. Built a malware they called Kilg. Sold it for a couple billions. The other two might be targets."
"Or maybe one of them is the unsub. Either way, we should look into them. Who are they?" Barry demanded.
"Ramsey Deacon and Sheila Agnani. Not sure about Deacon, but Agnani is living it up in a mansion in the outskirts of Central. I'll try to find more about Deacon."
"I'll head back to CCPD, fill Joe in. Keep working on it."
"I can look into any enemies they may have. Grievances filed against all four of them." Caitlin said.
"Kwon was just released from custody. He's not being charged with anything, but I have a feeling he knows more than he's letting on. If he knows anything about the person who targeted him, he'll do something about it. Maybe try to warn the others." Barry informed the team. "Anything?"
"I'm not seeing anything connecting the two of them besides Kilgore. Either this was planned, or they were random picks." Caitlin said. "And I'm not sure how Kilgore relates to this."
"Keep an eye on Kwon. If whoever targeted him really wants him dead, they'll try again. And the killer might reveal themselves in the process."
"And how are we doing with finding Deacon?" Cisco asked.
"I've tasked Julian with finding a current address for him. His lack of information either worries me, or makes me suspicious." Barry told them.
"You really think he might be the one doing this?" Caitlin asked.
"We know he's got the tech smart to pull this off. I'm not saying he is, but he is definitely involved in this one way or the other."
"Hey, remember earlier when I said the four of them sold Kilgore to a tech company?" Cisco asked. "Well turns out only three of them were involved in the transaction. I'll give you three guesses who was left out, and the first two don't count."
"Deacon." Barry realized. "His friends cut him out of the profits and left him with nothing. Smells like a motive to me."
"I will admit it's looking more and more like it is, but why after all this time? It's been a couple years. Has he really been preparing for this day since?" Caitlin spoke.
"I'm going to say yes since a couple million dollars were transferred from Weaver's account to an unknown party. In segments to avoid detection. This was an hour ago from a man who's been dead since this morning. Looks like Deacon hacked his account and got what was stolen from him." Cisco informed them.
"Keep an eye on Kwon. Deacon will try again, and when he does we'll be there." Barry commanded.
"We're using him as bait?" Caitlin asked.
"As known bait. Kwon has to know his past has come back to haunt him. He'll try to warn Agnani. With two of them at the same place, Deacon can't resist. We're going to try to stop Deacon-"
"Kilgore! That's what we're calling him." Cisco interrupted.
"-before it gets to that, but it still stands that Deacon, Kilgore, is going to try to kill Kwon again. We need to be ready before he strikes."
"Well that time is now since the satellite has tracked Kwon at Agnani's residence. Looks like you were right, he did go to warn her." Cisco reported.
"Of course, that's what people do when they feel others are in danger. Especially when they know who's in trouble." Barry said. "I'm gonna head over there, lie in wait. I'll keep comms open and make sure to tell Joe where I am."
Barry ran all the way to the address of Sheila Agnani. There was another car in the driveway. Most likely Tim Kwon's. Barry would have swept the perimeter to make sure there was nobody else, but the door was open and the electronic lock appeared to be broken.
"Guys, I'm going inside. I'm afraid Deacon has already beat us here." Barry whispered.
To remain out of sight, Barry vibrated his body to the point of invisibility. He'd experimented with his powers a lot while he was away and picked up this trick. The point of a speed mirage is that by running in two places back and forth, it gives off the illusion of there being two of him with the space between them showing no indication of him being there at all.
Just another thing he had to thank for the Reverse Flash for showing him. Barry took it a step further that if the space between the two images made him invisible, he could do the same by staying in one place. It was slightly more difficult if he was moving, so he had to take it slow when entering the house.
Entering the house, Barry looked around, taking it all in so as not to miss anything. It sounded like there were some people up ahead. Barry stepped forward, careful to keep up his illusion.
As Barry got close, he could start to make out what they were saying. There seemed to be three distinct voices which just proved Barry's suspicions that Deacon was already here.
"… didn't mean to leave you out." a male voice said. Probably Kwon.
"We don't have a reason to be sorry. If we left it up to you, Kilgore would never have left our parent's garage. You had your chance and you blew it. You have no one to blame but yourself. All this could have been yours." That had to be Agnani.
"Kilgore was my idea. You stole it from me! Went behind my back. And now it's time for my compensation." And that was Deacon.
"This is just about the money? You didn't have to kill Weaver for that. He was our friend. If you asked, we could have lent you some bucks. No need to get so extreme."
"He was your friend. And this is so much more than the money now." Deacon replied.
Barry strained to hear. So far, he didn't really have reason to interfere. It seemed they were somewhat successfully talking him down. At least until the police were to show.
At least until he heard, "What's going on with your eyes?"
The sound of a body collapsing hit Barry's ears and he sprung into action. The body of Sheila Agnani was on the floor. The device on her hip glowed purple, and with a look at Deacon so were his. A technopath? That was new.
Ignoring the meta for now, Barry kneeled down to check on Agnani. The device she had was something diabetics used to keep themselves stable. Deacon must have shut it off the moment he got here.
"The Flash? A little too late. She'll go into ketoacidosis and by then I'll be far away." Deacon bragged.
"There isn't anything I can't unlock. The world is run on numbers, 1's and 0's, and I control it all. With a few lines, I can break into any bank, any safe. People believe in privacy? I own privacy. There's nothing anyone can hide from me."
Agnani started to seize on the floor and Kwon was too cowed to do anything. Barry was forced to bring Agnani to a hospital for an insulin shot. Barry hoped, but Deacon had disappeared by the time he'd arrived. Kwon was gone as well. Barry could only imagine what Deacon was going to do to him.
"I lost him." Barry announced when he returned to STAR.
"You saved Agnani though, and we'll get Kwon back too. He couldn't have gotten far." Caitlin consoled him.
"The problem is, we have no idea how. Deacon's a meta, a technopath. He can hack anything with so much as a cord. He's the invisible man."
"That could prove troublesome. But that would explain that code I found. It was like a mixture of technology and biology if that even makes a lick of sense," Cisco said.
"That makes perfect sense, because this man, he's the master key. The living embodiment of an override password. With just a thought and a push of a button, Deacon has the world in his fingertips. Everything mechanical under his thrall. Think about it, state secrets. Nuclear missiles. He could probably start a war if he wants to." Barry started panicking. "We need to find this guy before he gets any big ideas aside from revenge."
"Well, you won't have to look far. Check out what was just posted online." Cisco said, pulling up the monitor.
The screen showed a scared Kwon tied to a chair. Kwon was talking about how he and his two friends had betrayed Deacon and sold his idea of Kilg, leaving Deacon with nothing to his name.
"Where are they?" Barry asked.
"What's that in the background?" Caitlin asked.
Cisco zoomed in to see it was some kind of logo. "An old steel factory. It was shut down after the black hole appeared over the city. Here's the address."
Barry looked on the screen to see where it was before donning his new hero uniform again and running to the address. When he arrived, he phased Kwon out of his bindings. Barry deposited Kwon at a nearby exit and pushed him out. He still needed to deal with Deacon.
"Well that was no fun. Then again, I'm not really in the way for torture. I was just going to leave him here after I'd drained his accounts for my money." Deacon revealed.
"Listen, you don't have to do this. Your old partners," Barry tried to use his words carefully, "they were selfish, but they didn't mean you any harm. You didn't have to kill them."
Deacon shook his head. "I'm not sure why, but I do. For so long, I thought I'd put this behind me. And then my powers came and I knew fate had come knocking on my door for a shot of redemption."
"So now you've gotten even. All of them are broke. One of them's dead and another's in the hospital. What are you going to do now?" Barry asked.
Deacon shrugged. "Not sure. With my powers I could literally do anything I want. But I think I'm gonna look into legal crime."
"What's that?" Barry couldn't help but ask.
"The stock market." Deacon revealed with a smirk. "You know, before I let all this go, I have to say, I've always been a huge Flash fan. And I can smell the tech in that suit of yours."
Deacon's eyes glowed purple, and a faint outline of the colour seemed to be emanating from Barry's suit as well.
Back at the Cortex, Caitlin looked at Cisco with a worried look. "Exactly how much tech did you put in that suit?"
"So much," Cisco whispered.
At this point, Barry no longer had control of himself. The tech in the suit forced him to move in certain ways that didn't feel natural at all.
"This is like having my own life size action figure, only better." Deacon smirked as he controlled the Flash like a puppet. Dancing, running around at superspeed, Barry struggled to escape from the suit's control.
"Can't you just turn it off?" Caitlin asked.
"Of course I could turn it off, but I'd need the suit to do it all." Cisco defended himself.
Barry was now stuck doing the most cliche action when someone else has control over another's body. He was hitting himself in the face.
"Stop hitting yourself. Quit hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself?" Deacon teased at each self-inflicted injury.
"Can we actually do anything? Can you send me there to help out?" Caitlin demanded.
"Yeah!" Cisco exclaimed. "Just get in uniform and I will breach you there."
Cisco grabbed his goggles. Caitlin just transformed herself. There was no time to worry about aesthetics right now.
Caitlin stepped through the breach and appeared in the factory where her fiancee was currently being controlled like a puppet.
Not giving a chance to react, Caitlin shot out a blast of ice. Three blasts to be precise. Two from her hands and one from her mouth. The guy didn't deserve mercy.
Her ice covered him from head to toe. The moving eyes underneath told them he was still alive. But of course, he couldn't help having one last trick against them.
There was beeping coming from Barry's suit. Multiple things happened at once. "Floatation device activated." Cisco's voice sounded.
"Cisco, you're the voice of the suit?" Caitlin asked.
"Hey, my voice is calming."
"Never mind that. What is happening?" Barry asked as his suit began blowing up like a balloon.
"I put a life raft in the suit just in case you were in danger of drowning." Cisco said.
"I can run on water. What use do I have for that?" Barry shouted.
"Wouldn't tanks have been better to store air so he could breathe down there?" Caitlin pointed out.
"I didn't have anywhere to put those."
"Caitlin, get Deacon into the Pipeline first. I can deal with whatever he did to me. It's like he set the suit to a random function."
"Alright. But here's an obvious idea. Phase out of the suit." Caitlin grabbed the ice statue of Deacon and hopped through the breach Cisco made for her.
Barry would have slapped himself if he didn't think that would cause the suit to do something. Barry vibrated himself, but to his dismay, he was still trapped inside the suit.
"It's not working." Barry was beginning to freak out.
"Okay, that's probably the face lock I installed." Cisco said. Cisco could feel the pointed out looks he was receiving. "I didn't want a villain to unmask Barry if he ever got knocked out. Which has happened a few times at this point."
"Self-destruct mode activated." The suit said.
"What possible use of self destruction could you have? I thought all your suits were your babies?" Caitlin asked in defiance.
"I didn't want anybody stealing the suit and leaking anything about it. Not to mention we just faced a Barry lookalike last year. If he'd stolen the suit, we could just…"
"Murder him? That is so idiotic I can't even…" Caitlin trailed off. "As soon as we get Barry out of your death trap, you are making an entire new suit with the barest essentials. No negotiations."
"Fine, fine. I feel a little scared for Francisco Jr. for when he has you as a mom." Cisco tried to mumble that last bit to himself. But Caitlin still heard.
"There isn't going to be a Francisco Jr. if Barry doesn't get out alive. And I am not talking about my future kids." Caitlin glared at him.
"So you've agreed to my demands. Where are we on the best man, because you still haven't gotten back to me on that." Cisco lightly teased her, but his brain was shutting down in panic at her little threat.
"Not the time!" Caitlin shouted.
"Guys! It's beeping faster!" Barry yelled out.
"Alright! Alright!." Cisco said, typing at the keyboard as fast as he can, but stopping a few seconds later. "I've got nothing. You're just going to have to run here so I can shut off the countdown and then cut you out of the suit."
"Cisco!" The couple shouted at him.
"Get over here so we can get you out of that suit before something else happens." Cisco reported. "And please try to avoid jostling the suit as much as you can. The slightest thing might set it off."
Barry ran as fast as he could, phasing through buildings to save time and to avoid setting the suit off at the smallest impact. Cisco was able to stop the countdown by cutting the correct wire and they cut Barry out of the suit, carefully avoiding hitting any active explosives. Cisco profusely apologized, but in his defence, he never thought a technopath would take advantage of the Flash through the suit. Not to mention there had never been a technopath until today.
Still, Cisco promised to make a new suit with only the bare tech essentials. Comms and body monitors.
They had Deacon in lockup. There was something going on with that man, and they were determined to find out what. The money Deacon stole was sent to an unknown account. They need to find out who it belongs to.
Joe was accompanying Barry on his way to interview Deacon. Joe was trained for this, Barry was not.
But when they arrived, the door opened to reveal an empty interrogation room. "Who authorized the prisoner's release?" Joe shouted.
"Where did he go?" Barry mumbled to himself. He grabbed the file hanging on the door to read what happened to Deacon. "Everything seems to be in order. I don't recognize the name on the sign off sheet though."
Joe parsed through it as well. "Guy was here for all of two minutes before being released. Theft of over a billion dollars, murder, two cases of attempted murder, kidnapping, and someone let him walk. Who has that kind of authority?"
"I can get Cisco on the case." Barry snapped a photo of the file, sending it to Cisco to check out. Barry then dialled Cisco. "Hey Cisco. Listen, someone's authorized Deacon's release and we're not entirely sure who. The paperwork is in order, but it's highly suspicious. Can you find whose authority allowed this? Thanks." Barry hung up.
"So what do we do with Deacon?" Barry asked Joe.
"What can we do? Until something happens, Deacon has been legally released. He's a free citizen. We have no just cause to pursue him." Joe shook his head. He wanted to make the guy answer for what he'd done just as much as the next guy, but to do so would be working too much outside the law.
Barry sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that."
"Hey, cheer up. We know the guy now. If something happens, we will know. In the meantime, focus on what's really important. Your wedding. Still got lots of planning to do. Lots of decisions to make."
Barry scoffed. "You're telling me. Caitlin and I have been scoping the avenues, deciding on a date. I've tried more suits than I can count. I've seen napkin arrangements I didn't even know were possible. I must have tasted over a hundred different samples of cake that pretty much all tasted the same to me. I don't know how much more I can take."
"You don't think you're jumping into this whole marriage thing too fast are you?" Joe had a worried expression on his face. "You haven't even been dating for a full year yet."
"No. Caitlin and I have known each other for years. Everybody says we've practically been married since we've met. Now it's just writing it down on a piece of paper." Barry shook his head. "I love her, Joe. I'm just sorry it's taken so long for us to realize that. I think I loved her the moment I saw her. And now I just want that woman to be my wife as soon as possible."
"Well I have to say, everybody saw this coming but not this soon. But I can see you're happy, so in my eyes I couldn't wish for more." Joe clapped him on the back before gaining a serious expression. "She's not pregnant is she?"
"No! Joe! That's not- how could you think that? We haven't even broached the topic of kids aside from some light ribbing from Cisco. We figured it was something to talk about in the far off future once we were settled as a married couple." Barry exclaimed.
"Well, if and when you do decide to give me a grandchild, remember. They're going to be calling me pop pop." Joe said with a smile.
Barry smiled and nodded his head. "Sure thing."
That was terrible. One of my longer chapters but not my best work.
I tried to focus on other things, talk about the wedding, Wally leaving, even the buildup to Devoe, but I didn't manage to make it in here. Next week we'll see what happened to Deacon. And there was a mention to the beginning of Gideon, so there's that.
I'll see you all next week. Hope to see you all there.