Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s not even thinking about the article. It’s one more fight, that’s all, another race through the streets of Central City chasing his mother’s murderer. Chasing the man who tricked his daughter and betrayed his friends and has hands bloodstained, red as  Barry’s suit.  The date, April 24th, doesn’t register, not at first. All that matters is the jar of his ankles on pavement, the rush of lightning in his veins, the desperate need to make certain no one else dies today, to save the people he loves that he can save.  He just needs to be a little faster, and so he runs.

It’s only as he follows the red blaze of light through the midnight darkness of the city, across Adams Ave and down 16th street, with his family shouting in his ears that he considers.

It’s only  when the lightning encompasses everything that he realizes.

He doesn’t recognize the void around him as the Speedforce at first-- it doesn’t take on the facsimile of bedroom or graveyard, and the storms are held at bay. The only lightning his his own, and the light he follows. More importantly, it doesn’t hurt. There is no pressure on his eyes or ribs, and his feet aren’t slowed to a stop. He runs through nothing, but the red light is gone and there is nothing to chase.

This does not mean he is alone.

Barry sees the figure, wreathed in a living halo of golden flame, running parallel, and then matching speed as if it is the most natural thing in the world for both their bodies.  With that, in the empty space lit only by their lightning, it is as if everything is totally still.

“It’s you,” they both say together as they realize through straining legs and lungs.

Barry Allen meets his gaze and gives a smile that Barry knows too well, the one that hides sorrow and resignation in acceptance.

“It’s time, I guess,” that new Barry says, his voice cutting through the distant roar. “ Thawne found out who I am. He’s going back.”

“To try to kill us,” Barry says. “And you’re going to stop him.”

“Yes,” the other Barry says, his nod firm and familiar.  The certainty of that pairs with the thing that hangs unspoken between them-- what happens next? “I’ll close the loop.”

Barry breathes in lightning. “Before you --go,” he says, and he has to say it, now, before the trail of red returns. “Mom.” How can he not warn this version of himself that will race off, never knowing? But how can he say it, and let another version of his carry the guilt on his heart?

The other Barry smiles at him. “She and Dad are happy,” he says, responding to Barry’s worry with an answer he didn’t realize he’d wanted. “They promised, they’ll help Iris. They’ll look after the twins, if I---when-- I don’t come back.”

“The twins,” Barry echoes, thinking of the news Iris mentioned just that morning. Could, in all the things that never matched up between the life he was meant to have and the path Thawne set him on, that one thing be a constant? No. it’s so much more than one thing. He thinks of Iris, her smile, and how it spans everything. Everything.

They run, both Barries, following a route instinct shows their feet. And then there it is, the red lightning, a trail that will haunt them both for however long they have. The other Barry’s footfalls change, almost imperceptibly, as he shifts his course.

“I saw you,” Barry says, words tripping over themselves to be heard before-- before. “I thought it was me. Fading. How are we both here? The timelines…”

He asks for his own sake as much as out of concern for this version of himself that by rights shouldn’t exist, broken when Eobard’s knife struck home. And again as much out of wanting one more mystery to solve, one final puzzle to unravel.

“What do you think makes the multiverse?” the Barry following Thawne’s sparks asks, and his voice echoes until it surrounds them both like the lightning. Barry understands in that moment, everything the Speedforce never could translate.

“It’s the choices. The ones that shatter everything. The ones that build it back.”

And he is gone.  Barry can feel the moment in his own heart, his own child’s voice crying out-- and he runs.  The circle has almost closed, as it always needed to be. There is one more thing that has to happen.

Barry runs, and fills his heartbeat and the air around him with names, the living and the dead. Iris. Cisco and Caitlin, Harrison, Tess,  Mom and Dad. Cecile, Joe, Wally. Jenna, Bart and Nora, the twins who may be them or their own. Mom, Dad,  Bette. Eddie. Ralph.  Dante. Martin. Ray, Kendra, Oliver. Iris, Iris, Iris.  This sets fate into motion. This has already done so.

He runs, and each pulse of his feet on what must be solid ground sings out love .

He has felt The Lightning before, the crackle in his eyes and the static in his fingertips. He has felt its fire in his lungs and blood, but now as he runs he feels the warmth of the golden electricity, wrapping itself around him and then into him. It traces his veins. It mingles with the air in his lungs. It becomes his heart.

The circle will close and it will spiral, a thousand versions where different choices that spawn from this one mean a thousand versions of him will find their way back, and that is enough.

Barry breathes out and the Lightning flashes around him, blind but seeing now everything.

The hand that reaches out through the dark--so close-- is golden and white and fragmented.  He pushes and his feet meet air, flying through a winter storm that roars with everything he has held.

The skylight shatters into a million pieces at his touch, and the Lightning strikes.  

Chapter Text

One moment, everything had been normal. Well, it was a new normal, but it had been good. One moment, she had been there, fierce, unstoppable, ready to make that man pay for the fear, the hurt, for everything he had put her through, put Caity through, put this fragmenting group of people through. People that she cared about, the warmth of that foreign feeling somehow comforting.

One moment she had held ice in her hands, frostflowers as thick as gloves on her palms and fingertips, ready to bring this nightmare to an end before anyone else could get hurt. Caity’s protective rage was finally free, wound together carefully with her own, bright and sharp.

And then suddenly she found herself frozen, pinned back under a glacier that swept too fast over her, sealing her in. Fear choked her. Without the ice, Caitlin was vulnerable. That was the point of Frost, to shield, to protect, to be everything Caitlin couldn’t be alone.

The two of them had always been connected by emotions, and now she was blind, deaf, cut off from everything but what Caitlin felt. Fear, shock, grief, fear, fear, fear. Frost waited for the blow, for DeVoe to strike, the way he’d killed the others. The metahumans at the prison, Dominic, too fast to stop. She wondered if death counted as an emotion. Would she feel it? Or would she only taste the echo, the shadows, and then simply cease.

She waited, her own fear catching hold of Caitlin’s and amplifying it, a mirror throwing light. But oblivion never came.

Chapter Text

Barry stumbled into STAR Labs, his legs aching from the run. He needed some stability, something familiar, after all the blurring memories. After the grief. Caitlin and Cisco and the computers and lights of the cortex, anything.

Caitlin sat at one of the desks, frowning at her monitor. A mug of coffee cooled beside her. With the rush of air, she looked up.
“I’m--”, Barry cut himself off. Back didn’t really fit, did it? He wasn’t sure where in this timeline he had broken through, and too much was muddled in his mind to figure it out yet.
Caitlin turned in her seat to look at him, slow. “Barry,” she said.
Time seemed to freeze as Barry took in everything around him, his brain speeding up to process all the things that didn’t add up, that didn’t fit, that weren’t right.

There were police files on Caitlin’s desktop, a mess of them alongside uncapped hi-liters, and rings from myriad coffee mugs. It was a far cry from her usual tidiness. The glass board was wheeled back against one wall, photos of criminals stuck to it, some faces more familiar than others, some he could not place at all. Beneath the papers that still rustled with the breeze of arrival, he could see the places where an eraser had not gotten all of the marker off. The markings were long straight lines and filled in circles, not the complex calculations or Lord of the Rings family trees that usually cluttered every available writing surface. The satellite feed that usually lit up a screen near the slot in the wall for his suit was blank. And Cisco’s desk…

Cisco’s desk was like a lit beacon of Things That Were Wrong. The Star Trek mug had been replaced by a plain green one, and an unfamiliar leather portfolio case was aligned neatly with the side of the desk. A few thin coils of wire were arranged around a few small tools, but there were no blueprints, no pens going dry, no pencils loose. There were no bolts or washers scattered across the surface, and the computer was off, with a thin layer of dust. A suit jacket was arranged over the back of a straight backed chair.

“What are you doing here?” Caitlin finished. Barry blinked.
“I-- came to see… you?” he asked, then corrected. “How you were doing.” He had not missed that Caitlin’s eyes, while dry, were red-rimmed.
“How do you think we’re doing?” she asked, her voice suddenly the harsh snap of cracking ice. She held the silence for a moment and then sighed, softening. “I--know it’s been a hard summer. Did you find anything?”

“Anything?” Barry echoed, looking back to the desk that should have been Cisco’s. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to lose his memory of previous timelines, for a little more clarity here. “What, uh, am I looking...for?”

“What do you mean, what are you looking for?” a voice that was far more angry than it was familiar rang out, beating its owner through the doorway. “ How could you possibly not remember?”

Barry stared at the man facing him. A pair of dark-paned goggles had been pushed up above his eyes, mussing short, styled hair. Barry recognized him, but seeing him here, in Cisco’s goggles, was startling.
“Dante? Dante … Ramon? What are you doing here?” he asked, his words too fast to pull back. All he could think of was the teacup in Jay’s hand, precarious.
“What am I doing here?” Dante repeated. “Some friend you are. But then, you’ve already shown that. I’m here trying to do your job for you, since you won’t.”
“Dante,” Caitlin said, face pinched.
“What?” he snapped. “Someone has to actually keep this city safe. He let them kill my baby brother, and I’m not going to let them get away with it.”
Barry stumbled, feeling as though another bolt of lightning had just struck him, his whole body numb. He could see the teacup, shattering.
“Cisco’s…” Barry managed to say, the pit in his heart that had torn open when Zoom killed his father bursting.
Dante advanced, and Barry noticed for the first time that his palms were wrapped in layers of bandages, his fingertips creased and callused and burned like he’d been working with hot wire. He saw it coming, clearly telegraphed, but could not move as Dante gripped the air in one hand, twisting, and gripped Barry’s shoulder with the other, holding back the hiss of pain. His eyes blazed golden, and he released Barry with a shove so hard Barry hit the doorframe behind him.

“Dante!” Caitlin leaped to her feet, but Dante ignored her, taking a step towards Barry. “What,” he asked, his voice dangerously soft, “ did you do?”

Chapter Text

“I’m going to save the world,” Ramsey says with Barry’s voice, thick black liquid dripping from his mouth like ink. Or blood. Cisco shudders, waiting for the hand through his heart. Fear consumes him, but what else is new? He’s been afraid for a third of his life. He’s still here. He does not have his powers, but that does not make him powerless.
Still, he can’t respond, his brain too busy telling the fear signals Ramsey’s infecting the city with to shut up.
“I’m going to save the people of this city,” Ramsey says again, taking a slow step forward. Barry’s red boot gleams against the darkness.
“Someone like you can’t save them,” Cisco says, and the pipeline throws his voice back around them, an endless echo.
“Oh, and your friend here can?” Ramsey makes Barry lift his arm, gesturing. “No. We both know that’s not true, not really. And not at all soon, unless you let me save him. No, Mr. Ramon, I’m the only one who--”
“You know what happened to the last guy who said he’d save the world from all disease and poverty and problems?” Cisco asks. If he was going to die here, he was not going to die listening to another villain’s monologue. Once had been enough. Even without powers, the memories remain. And anyways, he need tso buy them more time. If Allegra could just get into position… “he tried to kill my friends. They’re alive” mostly, anyways, “ and he isn’t.”

The laugh is cold, not at all like Barry’s. “You cannot kill me. Not while I am this.”
Cisco swallows. What was it Barry had said, about making the hard choices? If ever there was one… his heart protested.

“I don’t have to,” he says. “You--you have no idea what you’re up against.”

“Oh, I do, Vibe.” Barry’s face twists into a smirk under Ramsy’s direction. “I know exactly what I’m up against. Now go on. Lock the door again. I know the pipeline’s on. I’m not entirely stupid. I’ll take STAR Labs, or I’ll take the city. I’m going to save the world, and you, one way or another, are going to help.”

Chapter Text

“Cisco?” Iris asks standing in the doorway. “Do you… do you have a second?”
Cisco nods, putting the little screwdriver down. “Sure. What’s up?” he freezes. “Is something up? Did something happen?”

“No, no, I… just… wanted to know if you…” she stops. “ The cure. You’re taking it, aren’t you?”

Cisco lets out a sigh. “I… yeah. Don’t try to talk me out of it, Iris. I’m… tired. These powers, they’re not like Barry’s, or Ralph’s. Thawne...I think as long as I have these powers, I’m never going to be free of his plans. I don’t want that to be my life.”

Iris nods. “I’m.. I didn’t know you felt that way,” she offers.
“Yeah, neither did I, at first. I had, uh, time to think. In Antarctica. A lot of time, actually. So… This is what I want.”

“Did...you take it yet?” Iris askes, and Cisco can hear the hope in her voice, and doesn’t know what it means.

“No,” he admits. “Why?”

“...you can say no,” Iris says softly, holding out the jacket. “But you can… you can See other timelines. I just… have to know. If she’s out there somewhere. If she’s happy. Please.”

Cisco takes the jacket, and through the blue light, he can see a girl running, wild and free and alive. Nora’s racing down a street he can’t recognize, trailed by purple and gold lightning, and her eyes blaze scarlet.

Chapter Text

The salt of the sea-spray stung in the wounds along Joe’s broken leg even without him trying to move. It was useless to try, but he had to. He’d heard Mardon on the phone. Iris would be on that shore, and he could feel the swell of the water below them. Even a small wave would be enough, if a madman and a killer could direct it, to sweep someone out to sea. But the wave Mardon was summoning was anything but small.

“You watching, West?” Mardon asked. “I’m going to destroy everything you love.”

Joe couldn’t answer, his eyes trained on the city beach. He hadn’t seen her. Maybe Eddie and Barry had found out what Mardon wanted from her, maybe they’d stopped her from making the last mistake of her life. He didn’t know. The wave rose higher, cutting off his view.

“Don’t close your eyes, Joe,” Mardon said, cold. “I want you to see your world end.”

Joe strained, hoping for just a glimpse of yellow lightning that meant a Miracle was coming.
For a moment, above the water’s crest, he thought he could see something--a wall, shimmering, flecked with sparks. Something almost like hope blazed.

The barrier vanished, the lightning-glimmer fizzled out, and the water crashed down on Central city.

Chapter Text

“Joe?” Cecile asked. “ What is it? I can feel… something wrong, from over here.” She moved to the couch, deliberately not naming the emotions that had flooded her senses.

Joe held the photo album on his lap, fingers ghosting over the glossy pages. Jenna was curled up asleep beside him on the couch. Wordlessly, Cecile sank down next to them, smoothing their toddler’s curls. Tiny Barry and Iris beamed up from the open page, Barry clutching a trophy.

“It was the first time he smiled in a year and a half,” Joe said. “The school science fair. He’s liked planets and stuff before, but… he came home--came here--after, saying he knew what he was going to do when he--when he grew up.”

Cecile nodded, slowly. “I remember when Singh first hired him. Two bachelor degrees, a master’s, by twenty-four… we were all impressed. “

“He was devoted,” Joe said, still staring at the photo. “I can’t help but think...All of this is my fault.”

Cecile drew back. “Now you sound like him,” she said. “You and I both know who’s fault all of this is.” She waved a hand as if to encompass not just the livingroom, still draped in black, but the whole of Central City. “There’s one man responsible, and it’s not you, Joseph West.”

“I know,” Joe looked up at her for a moment and hung his head again. “I just.. I also know that if I’d believed him, this wouldn’t have happened. None of it. If I’d just listened to him. He was a witness, and not all the evidence added up. If I’d listened to him and not my gut, he’d have… done something else with his life. Worked for Mercury, for NASA, he wouldn’t have been in that damn lab the night of-- he would have gotten to just be Barry. Not the Flash.”

Cecile leaned her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes, sorting the emotions like strands of colored lights. “You don’t really believe that,” she said. She knew, though. The lies people told themselves could hurt as much as truth.

The silence, like the grief, ate at them.

“I wish I did,” Joe said, his voice heavy. “Maybe if it was I could have saved him.”

Chapter Text

Ever since Martin had urged him not to be afraid of his powers, Cisco had been trying, really. He still hadn’t told anyone about his visions-- they didn’t need to know about what Dr. Wells--what Eobard Thawne--had said. And He didn’t want them to look at him like he was made of glass, or worse, like he were a ticking time bomb. But he tried. Once he was comfortable with them, he reasoned, he could talk about it to Caitlin and Barry. He tried to hold on to the flickers of Blue long enough to see the details, to see them clearly.

Once, he tried so hard that when he opened his eyes, a blue shimmer was still clenched in his fist, looking like the tear between the worlds that writhed in the basement. He’d panicked and dropped it, and it had vanished.

He got better at holding the visions, if not at controlling it. The blue appeared at random; when he brushed past Caitlin in the hall, when he cleaned Barry’s suit or bought a can of soda at the store or a pastry from Jitters. Sometimes he saw things that could have happened yesterday, or just down the block-- the barista at Jitters smiling at a karaoke night was one like that, or seeing Barry on one of his runs zip past a playground and take the moment to fix all the screws in a hastily constructed swingset that looked suspect.

Other visions were of places he did not recognize at all, like the time he’d tried to hold the vision that had come when he’d gone to the craft store to get more needles for the sewing machine so he could finish Sara’s suit. He’d seen a blue haze, and then a gleaming room with windows looking out into space.

Another time he’d almost choked on a nutella donut and saw a redhaired woman with a fryingpan and platemail repeatedly braining a man with a face made of ice.
Maybe that one had been a weird dream, though.

But there were visions of Oliver Queen with a Goatee, and Barry with blond hair, and all kinds of things that didn’t fit--unfamiliar skylines, STAR Labs signage on buildings that were bustling with people…

Once, holed up in his workspace he’d had a vision, a vibe, of kids walking down a sidewalk, bouncing a soccerball. In the vibe, a hole in reality tore open in front of them, and on instinct Cisco had reached for the power he hoped he had, trying to somehow stitch everything back together.

When his eyes were forced open again, he saw a soccer ball rolling under the desk. So that was, uh, something. He’d tried to forget that one, and that the children had looked like they might have come from his mother’s family photo album.

Idly, he wondered if he might be able to figure out the connection between his powers and the rips through space--the breaches. Obviously he could--there was clearly some connection, so really it was a question of how quickly, and how best to try. Touching the rift was probably a no-go, if only because if it didn’t work he could die, and also Caitlin would get to give an “I told you so.”

Cisco kept after it for a few more weeks, helping Barry hunt for the metas Zoom kept sending to kill them all, telling Lisa the price for saving her life was that she please leave the state, if not the whole continent, tinkering with pet projects. He’d finished with the Boot, and Joe and Singh had asked for several for the CCPD, but Cisco wasn’t sure how many random cops he wanted to trust with a weapon that could theoretically also be used against Barry, or Martin and Jax, or himself--not that his powers were particularly noticeable. His friends still didn’t know, and Cisco wasn’t about to tell them.

He fiddled with one of the shields he’d worked on last winter, trying to upgrade it to protect better against heat and fire damage, and maybe throw in some kind of low-grade energy disrupter to work against projectiles, too. He reached for his torch to test one of the spots that looked a little weaker than the other, but as the flame kicked on, the orange glow turned blue, and then grew in his vision until blue fire was all he could see.
“Help!” a voice coughed through smoke, and Cisco stepped towards it without thinking. As soon as he did, he choked, lungs protesting that the smoke in the vibe was really there, in his airway. Cisco could feel his hand still on the shield as he moved, half blind, towards the voice.

“This way!” he shouted to the kid--and ok, maybe that was why some people thought he, nearly 24, was a kid. The kid--the young man--looked around frantically until he saw him, his jacket singed in multiple places. Cisco’s mind screamed that they needed to go back now. Twisting his head, he could see a halo of blue, and through it his own lab space, bright with white overhead lighting.

“There’s someone else in here,” the young man coughed, and Cisco’s heart clenched at the thought of leaving someone behind, but the blue was fading.
“There’s no time, hurry,” he said. He pushed the soot stained kid in first and gripped the edges of the blue--the breach--willing it to stay open. To the left, he saw a shape, a person in black, moving through the smoke, a metal circle around his head. “ hey, over here!” Cisco shouted.
The man lifted a hand, and a wave of dark rose up from the ground. Cisco stumbled backwards, and the breach sealed behind him, leaving him in his workroom with the faintest wisps of smoke, and a frantic rescuee.

“I have to get back there,” he said. “What--who are you? How did you do that? What’s that thing--”
Cisco recognized the stream of questions, speaking fluent geek as well as ‘oh that’s going to be PTSD if we get to the ‘p’ part’

“I’m Cisco,” he said when he could get a word in edgewise. “I don’t know how I did it, you’re welcome, that’s a temperature shield, you’re at STAR Labs and I do not know how to get you home but you’re not the only one my friends are trying to do that for so how about we work on that and you can tell me what that guy was doing with tiny robots and also maybe who you are?”

“Tadashi. Tadashi Hamada, from SFIT? I’ve never heard of STAR Labs, is that in the east bay? Did you--was that a portal? A real one?”

“We’re both standing in my workroom so let's go with yeah, a real one. What’s SFIT? And again, the man with the robots.”

Tadashi ran a hand through his short black hair. “My brother made them. God, he’s got to be freaking out-- I--oh.” he sat with a thump on the floor. “ my professor. He was stealing them. He-- he had a suit, heat resistant, like he knew…” Tadashi started to cough, hacking up gross black saliva.
“Oooh,” Cisco said, flopping next to him. “Yikes. Mentors turning out to be the worst is also something I know about, it’s rough. Here, why don’t we get you some nice clean air, and I guess I have to explain some things to my friends.”

Chapter Text

Everything explodes, and Cisco hits the far wall, only aware of screaming before everything goes dark.

He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “ You don’t have to give a speech.”

Cisco nods, taking a deep breath. The air is cold and clear, and he smiles. “Just excited,” he assures her. There’s no need to tell her about the sudden worst case scenario his mind threw up in front of his eyes.

Just ahead of them, Cisco sees Dr. Harrison Wells raise a hand, and the crowd cheers. “ Thank you,” his boss and mentor says, beaming. “Tonight, the future begins.” another cheer. Cisco can hardly make out the faces of the crowd, with all the lights. He wonders if Rathaway tried to show up. Dr. Wells continues. “ The work my team and I will do here will change our understanding of physics. We'll bring about advancements in power, advancements in medicine, and trust me, that future will be here faster than you think.” the crowd goes wild, pushing and shoving against each other in excitement. Cisco swells with pride when Dr. Wells gestures at him and Dr. Snow and the others on the stage when he says “ my team.”

They go inside, champagne offered all around, the mood light and infectious enough to drive all his worries from his heart. Just nerves. Everything is fine.

And it is, until it isn’t. The clock ticks past the 45 minute mark since the button was pushed, and the same alarm from his weird waking nightmare blares. He’d heard it before, in drills. As Ronnie Raymond races to the pipeline, Cisco follows at a run, his heart in his throat.

“If I’m not back in two minutes,” Ronnie says, and Cisco clutches the radio so hard it indents his palm.

“Wait,” he says, grabbing for Ronnies sleeve, unsure how to say that he saw this in a dream, standing on the podium. The older engineer shakes him off. “There’s no time to wait.”

Cisco’s watch beeps. He hits the button and the door seals, and over the radio he hears Ronnie’s frantic half-curses. “I can’t stop it. I think I can send it up, but I don’t know if there’s time, I’m trying.”

“Ronnie!” Dr. Snow grabs the radio from Cisco’s numb hands. “No, you have to--”

Everything shatters, the sealed door not quite enough as the accelerator explodes outwards.

*
He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “ You don’t have to give a speech.”

Cisco’s heart stutters. How-- how is this happening? He just died. He just died and felt the whole lab--the city--die with him. That’s what’ll happen, if the accelerator…

The crowd jostles with anticipation. Cisco takes a step forward, touching Dr. Well’s sleeve. “ Dr. Wells, I have to talk to you, right now. It’s urgent.”

“Cisco,” Dr Wells turned away from the crowd, the way he always made time for Cisco’s questions or concerns. It had always made Cisco feel secure, like he was valued at STAR Labs. “Of course. After the launch.”

“It has to be now, I think Hartley Rathaway was right.”
“You do?” Wells asked, his brow knitting. “I checked everything myself, as did you and Mr. Raymond, Dr. Snow, and the rest. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“No, it’s not, I-- I can’t explain it, but I think--”
“Relax, Cisco,” Wells said. “Everything’s going to be exactly as planned.” He turns back to the crowd.
“Thank you. Tonight, the future begins.”
Cisco tenses as soon as Dr. Wells hits the launch button, but no alarms blare. While the others toast, sipping champagne and munching on small cakes, Cisco checks the numbers again. Again. Everything looks exactly like it had before, in all the tests, in all the simulations.

“Here,” Ronnie says at his elbow, offering him a glass. “You’ve put as much work into this as the rest of us. Celebrate.”
Cisco’s mouth goes dry, but he takes the glass. Ronnie’s smiling. “Here, come talk with us.” He pulls Cisco away from the work station to where Dr. Wells is telling a joke. The Champagne in his untouched glass rises into the air as the clock hits 45 minutes, and the alarm blares. Ronnie tenses. Cisco grabs his arm.
“No,” he says, fast. Ronnie looks at him, puzzled. “It’s an emergency.”
Cisco looks at Wells. “Hartley was right, wasn’t he?”
Well’s face goes ashen at Cisco’s words, but he recovers his voice. “I think Mr. Rathaway wanted to be right. He must have tried to sabotage something. Hopefully nothing major. Mr. Raymond, if you’ll go check?”

Cisco’s feet burn as he follows them at a run.
The accelerator explodes before the elevator doors open.

He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to give a speech.”

Cisco throws up.
Dr. Snow jumps backwards a little. “Are you sick?” she asks. “You should sit.” She takes his arm, moving him to a chair at the back of the stage.
“No, I just--I need to talk to Dr. Wells.”
“I’m sure he’ll understand why you’re not standing next to him. Have some ginger ale to settle your stomach.”

A heartbeat after Dr. Wells starts his speech, Cisco realizes this is a good excuse. He can find Hartley, stop him this time. He hops down off the back of the platform, swiping his badge to get inside. Hartley must have kept one, somehow, or stolen one. He makes his way down to the accelerator, knowing he’ll have to be fast. “ Hartley!” he shouts. “Stop!” the sabotage will have had to be today, just now. They all checked with Dr. Wells first thing this morning. There’s no answer.
His watch beeps. No Hartley, and no time. He has to get out now or he’ll be inside when they turn it on…and he left the door open.

He’s running for the doorway when the lights go out, and he doesn’t have time to call himself an idiot.
*
He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to give a speech.”

Cisco shoves her off him. “Dr. Wells,” he says, not bothering to whisper. “ Dr. Wells, something’s wrong with the accelerator. It’s going to explode.”
The mic catches his words, and the crowd’s excitement turns to panic.
“ Cisco,” Dr. Wells says, and the disappointment on his face makes something curdle within Cisco’s gut. “I didn’t think you would betray me, too.” He signals, and security hauls Cisco away by both arms as Dr. Wells assures the crowd that there’s no danger, merely a disgruntled ex-employee trying to sow discontent. Cisco feels his coworkers staring at him as he’s dragged to the security fence.
“You’re fired,” one says simply.
Cisco protests. “Please, you have to listen to me. It’s going to--” but they’re already walking away. He stands at the edge of the chain link as the rain begins to fall, then turns. Maybe he can just get far enough away. He scrambles to call his mother-- the family house is far enough from the city center, he’s pretty sure, but his apartment isn’t.
She doesn’t answer, but that’s not new, and he’s more shaken than he is proud. He goes anyways.
It’s not far enough. Cisco sees the city lights go out and feels the wave coming, and thinks that Dr. Snow must have opened the door.

*
He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to give a speech.”

Cisco gives a nervous laugh, bone weary. This time, instead of sitting through the speeches, desperate to do something else, anything else, he watches the crowd. He knows the speeches by heart, anyways. A man grabs a woman’s back, shoving her hard, and Cisco throws himself off the side of the stage after him, even though her companion is already trying to follow. For all he’s tall, the guy’s slow. Cisco gets past him easily, but when his hand brushes the stranger’s jacket, he staggers, a wave of nausea and exhaustion slamming into him with-- memory? It’s not deja vu, it’s not remembering, but it feels like both. He stares at the guy, mugger forgotten, until Barry Allen says “he’s getting away” and jostles past. Allen. How does he know that name? How does he know that face? He’s never known either before. Has he been in this loop long enough to forget? But… no…
He can see the man next to him. He can see Dr. Wells in front of them, standing tall and proud in some kind of yellow suit, wreathed in light like the energy Cisco knows is coming to bring the city to its knees.

And then he blinks and it’s all gone, the man in the lightning, and the mugger with the bag.
“Thanks for trying,” the beautiful woman who’d been robbed says, reaching him.
“You should get as far from here as you can, Iris,” Cisco says hoarsely, and doesn’t wait to hear her ask how he knows her name. He has to talk to Dr. Wells, and this time he doesn’t open with the danger to the city.
“I’m in a timeloop,” he says, though he’s said it before and Dr. Wells has always shrugged it off. “I saw something, the guy in the crowd. I knew his name and I know I’ve never met Barry Allen before. I need help, Dr. Wells.”
“Did you say Barry Allen?” Dr. Wells frowned. “He’s.. here?”
“Not anymore, he ran off,” Cisco said. “How do you know him?”
“That’s not important, Cisco. Of course he ran. Good. You’re not in a timeloop, I know it must… seem that way--”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“Did I? Of course. He’s trying to fix it.”
“Who-- fix what? The accelerator?”
“Just sit tight. Everything will be fine.” Dr. Wells smiles.

Nothing is, of course.

*
He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to give a speech.”
Cisco wants to cry. He goes back down to the accelerator, ripping out anything he can find, trying to cut the connection to power. There’s too much. It’s sabotage proof. But someone must have sabotaged it, right?
*
He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to give a speech.”

He tackles Wells off the side of the stage.
The accelerator still turns on. The city ignites.
*

He blinks, and stumbles a little. Dr. Snow catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to give a speech.”

Cisco can’t watch it happen. Not again. As they go inside, he grabs Ronnie by the shoulder.
“What’s up, Cisco?” Ronnie asks, beaming.
“What’s something I would only know If I was in a timeloop and trying to prove it to you?” Cisco asks fast.
Ronnie frowns. “Are you saying you’re in a timeloop?”
“Yes. and you’re going to die, everyone in this building is. Please.” He waits to be brushed off, as Ronnie spots Dr. Snow. Ronnie hesitates.
“Look, now’s not a good time for a prank…”
“It’s not. I swear. The accelerator’s going to blow up.”
“No, we just checked it.” Ronnie says. “I’ll.. we can’t cancel, not now. Let me talk to Dr. Wells.”
Of course no one will listen. Cisco tries Dr. Snow next, and she follows him to the workstation before pointing out that she’s an MD and a biochemist, not a programmer. Still, there’s that same hesitation.
The alarms blare. Ronnie kisses Dr. Snow and runs, grabbing Cisco by the arm. “You have to seal the door if I’m not out.”
“We can do it faster together,” Cisco argues.
He can’t lock the door again.
Even with four hands, it’s not enough. Caitlin screams over the radio as she closes the door. Cisco wonders when she became Caitlin in his mind.
“Rockwell,” Ronnie says. “Next time. Call me that, and I’ll believe you.” To Caitlin, over the radio, he says he loves her.
Cisco has the name in his tongue as the world turns white.

*
He blinks, and stumbles a little. Caitlin catches him. “Don’t be nervous,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to give a speech.”

Cisco holds onto her longer than he needed to to regain his balance. He replays it all in his mind. The door has to seal. They have to act fast. Was the conversation too much of a delay? If he can just get it started before the alarms, will that be enough? Wells is almost done with his speech by the time Cisco’s finally finished with the math in his brain, and the math in his heart. Ronnie’s taking the mic, Caitlin with him. Cisco waits, mentally planning, and as soon as the crowd has finished the chant and the rain has started to fall, he gets to Ronnie.
“Rockwell,” he says, and Ronnie’s eyes go sharp.
“What happens?” he asks, and Caitlin makes a concerned noise.
“It’s a timeloop password,” Ronnie says in answer to her raised eyebrow. “You know.”
She nods in approval. “If you say so. But if this is a prank, I will make last April fools look tame.” It’s enough to put fear in any Star Labs employee’s heart, any who hasn’t been through this night for weeks.

“The accelerator’s going to blow up. It takes out the building, the city. 40 minutes from now, a little less. Dr. Wells won’t believe us. “ Cisco says it all fast.

“We won’t be able to stop it,” Ronnie says. “But we could vent it. Up. not out…”
“You’d have to go inside,” Caitlin protests.
“Someone does,” Cisco says. “And the door has to close. 3 and a half minutes after the alarms start, or it won’t matter.”
“We can’t go in while it’s running now, either,” Ronnie says.
Cisco nods, miserable. He made that mistake before. He won’t again. The cycle’s meant to stop after an hour, and that’s going to be too late. The override they’ve all checked a dozen times in the days before these two hours hasn’t existed in the loops Cisco’s walked.
The Alarms blare, and their window opens.
“I’ll go in and set it to vent,” Ronnie says, kissing Caitlin. “If I’m not back in two minutes,” he says, knowing it’s not the first time he’s been longer and unable to finish.
Cisco takes the radio and takes off into the tunnel. “Two minutes,” he calls back.
His fingers bleed. He sets the vents. He hears the door seal, and the voices of his friends on the radio. It’s going to work this time. The city will be ok.

The pipelinefills with blue light.
*
Cisco blinks, and stumbles. Caitlin catches his arm.

Chapter Text

Barry knelt on the nothing that was the floor of the speedforce. It felt like the rug stained with his mother’s blood. It felt like the rocky cliff that was all that remained of a destroyed continent.
“Why?” he asked.
Why what? Was the only answer, with a voice he hated to hear was his own, reverberating in his mind, and yet foreign.
“Why did you do all this? How did fixing one thing do all this damage?”
Your mother’s life is a big thing
“Not big enough to make a good woman become a bloodthirsty monster.”
She grieves a dead son.
“Not enough to make all of Europe destroy each other.”
Is that not Europe’s nature?
“It’s not Diana’s. And she’s older than my mother, and she never even met my mother in-- in this timeline, or that timeline, whatever. There’s no connection. Not with Bruce either. Or that dead king.
Brion. Supplies the voice. There is no connection. Do you see how many suffer when you cannot be satisfied?
“That’s not fair.”
It is not. I am not.
“Eobard Thawne killed her, she was never supposed to die then.”
For the you that is, she was.
“Then why let us travel in time at all? If time is really supposed to happen, if it really matters that much, then it should--it should make things happen. No matter who tries to change it, it should just fill in the gaps, not--not this. This isn’t power, it’s--petty.”
I am not Time. Go and yell at it.
“You’re the one that makes the rules.”
I am not. I am just here. And you are just here. And this is the way that time will be, unless you change it back.
“So millions of people die. My friends get tortured, and I can’t do anything.”
Neither can you do nothing. That is why you chose yourself.

Chapter Text

Eobard Thawne woke, the computer disguised as a clock radio on his nightstand eeking out the first few bars of an aria from Gianni Schicchi before he flicked red lightning, a mere handful of sparks, at it and silenced it for good. Or rather, the next 11 hours and 59 minutes. But who was counting?

Oh, at first he had been. 14 and a half years counted off one aching day at a time. The loss of his speed, the loss of the ability--the curse--to slow down the world around him--had made it both a nightmare and mildly bearable.

He settled into the wheelchair he hardly needed anymore, using only to keep up his image. Of course, since this day had begun several months ago, he hadn't strictly needed it, either. But there was something delightful about the look of shock on people's faces when he stood, and moved, and slaughtered them.

Simon Stagg often made his list. Sometimes that annoying detective West that had haunted the hospital and then STAR Lab's Halls. Iris West got in the way about half the time. Sometimes, though, he switched it up. It was pathetic, how easily Hartley Rathaway was swayed by a tearfully voiced apology-- You were right, you were right and I was blinded. Or, I'm so sorry. I betrayed you. Let me make it right. Or, I've already called Tina McGee, and told her everything you said was true. Turn on the news, you'll see. I just need to see you. The script varied. Rathaway's actions didn't, often. He always came back, so desperate for praise, for genuine kindness, for someone who had wronged him to admit it and be the one to beg pardon. He never saw the knife--metaphorically speaking, of course. He didn't have his full speed yet, but he had enough lightning to stop a heart.

He'd visited Henry Allen in prison a few times, ostensibly to give an update, and marveled at what could be smuggled inside prison walls with the help of a bulky metal wheelchair.

The days stretched out, impossibly long, and for the first time in nearly a decade and a half, that seemed to be a gift.

It didn't take much work to know how to fix this timeloop. Every morning, he woke to the same song from his randomized collection of opera music, and wondered if today would be the day he decided to let Barry Allen live.

It never was.

Chapter Text

Cisco leaned his head against Caitlin's shoulder. "So, yeah. Gave up my powers and I'm still having the dreams of timelines that changed when I did have my powers. At least it's mostly bad first dates now, but you know. once in a while it's a murder one."

Barry's face fell, and he stood to pace before Iris dragged him back into a sitting position. "We all heard Caitlin. You need to give your leg at least 30 minutes of rest so the bone heals without breaking the next time you run."

"Might be more, now," Barry said, running his hand over his face. "It's been, uh, a while since I ate."

"Barry--"
"I wasn't forgetting! I was literally about to get lunch, before..."

"Before," Iris agreed. "I'm sorry, Cisco. Why didn't you tell us about the dreams?"

"Uh, for the same reason Caitlin didn't mention the weird PTSD flashbacks she was having to, uh, the whole thing with Savitar," Cisco said.

"I never used to see her memories, before," Caitlin said, echoing an earlier statement. "But now I close my eyes and I just see all of you, dying--"

Iris leaned forward to touch the tip on her shoe to Caitlin's, across the floor. "Probably doesn't help, but... I've never actually died, so..."

Barry bit his lip. "Let's keep that streak going."
"God, remember when she wanted to call you the Streak?" Cisco asked. laughter cut through the tension.
"Hey," Iris said, " I didn't know it was you at the time. If you'd trusted me enough to tell me I would have given you a way better name from the start."
"I should have. I let Joe get inside my head, about keeping you safe, and for what?"
"Don't," Caitlin said warningly. "Nope. No more spirals. We don't need that."
Cisco stood, examining the walls of the pipeline cell, trying to peer through the darkness around them.
"How long do you think we have?"
"30 minutes until Barry can run," she said. "25 would be pushing it, but... we might have to push it."
Barry nodded, solemn. None of them mentioned that the cell dampened his powers, anyway, slowing his healing to a trickle.
None of them voiced the real question: what would happen if 25 minutes wasn't long enough?

Chapter Text

In the mist of the backwoods, Cisco twisted, reaching out with his power to try to sense his pursuer. He heard the humming before he saw the dagger, glowing the hot orange of burning debris, and ducked under its trajectory. Cisco counted the seconds off in his head-- for the plan to work, to trick Cicada, the timing had to be perfect. The dagger wedged into a tree, stuck fast, and Cisco slammed his hands down towards the soil to make a breach.

A hand caught him from behind, yanking him away from the blue portal by the hair and bearing down. Cisco stumbled, the breach fading only feet in front of him.
"Neat trick," Cicada's voice was a clicking creak through the mask he wore. "Now let me show you mine."

The dagger flew from the tree to Cicada's hand as easily as if it had been lodged in a stick of melting butter, not the heart of a craggy-barked giant. Cisco's heart beat too quickly in his chest as he writhed--he would not die here, he would not, but he would if he didn't act now. He threw one hand behind him, aiming a blast at where Cicada's face had to be. Instead, the edge of Cicada's satellite-forged blade cut deep into the flesh of his palm, blood in its wake. Cisco screamed, the grey in his vision half from fog, half from pain.
"You shouldn't have fought. No one else has to die tonight, Vibe."
"Yeah, well, I'm O for 3 for dying, and I'd as soon skip try four." Cisco shot back, pulling his wounded hand close to his body, trying to stop the bleeding. Caitlin was going to freak out.

Cicada hoisted him easily off his feet and slammed him downwards, driving the wind from his lungs, and the grey that had filled the edges of his sight turned to darkness entirely.

He blinked his eyes open to more darkness, this time the artificial dark of a closed structure, roof and walls. Cisco swallowed hard, feeling the unpleasant familiarity of rope around his wrists and ankles.

"Tried to trick me into thinking I'd beaten you. It was a good plan." the casualness-- the talking-- made Cicada seem creepier than his silence from weeks prior. "But I don't need you dead, yet. You get to live, for now."
"Oh?" Cisco panted for breath, trying to get a breach to form in his good hand. "Why's that?"
"You worked for STAR Labs."
"I'm not building you shit," Cisco wheezed, struggling against his bonds.
"Not you. I don't need you for that." Cicada said, and Cisco felt renewed pain in his cut hand. "But your friend will. Snow. She'll do anything I ask to get you back. And then.." the creaking laugh rose goosebumps on Cisco's exposed arm. "Then you both die, and all the other freaks with you."

Chapter Text

Joe hated working cases where he knew the people involved. A case where he recognized the victim from passing in the street or a grocery store line was bad enough. But when he’d responded to a call for multiple homicides at a friend’s house, his heart had clenched tightly.

“What do we know?” he asked as he took in the dim scene. Glass everywhere. A shattered lamp. Blood spatter.

The M.E. spoke quickly, his voice detached and practiced.

“Mrs. Allen was killed here. Single stab wound to the chest. We’re still looking for the knife, but the killer may have taken it with them. My guess is a kitchen knife, but we won’t know for sure till I can do a proper autopsy.”

Joe nodded, motioning for the covering to be replaced. He did not want to look at Nora’s face.

“Mr. Allen—“
“Doctor. Doctor Henry Allen,” Joe corrected.

“Doctor Allen likely died first. Closer to the front door—no sign of forced entry, though—blow to the back of the head and a broken neck. We’re hoping for some DNA, but…no obvious defensive wounds. When we get them to the morgue, I’ll see what I can find.” He seemed finished, and Joe frowned, even as he nodded again, not looking at Henry’s glassy eyes.

“What about their son? He’s 11.”

“West, you know these people or something?”

“My daughter’s best friends with Barry. The kid. Is he…?”

“Shit, West, I’m sorry. He’s…yeah. Upstairs. Fishtank’s a mess, too. Put up a hell of a fight for a kid. Look, we’ll get someone else on this, if it’s too much.”

“No,” Joe closed his eyes. What was he going to tell Iris? “No. I’m going to find whoever did this.”

The ME nodded, solemn. He did not tell Joe how the child had died. There would be time for that, all too soon. For now, a moment to grieve.

Across the city, a bolt of crimson lightning flickered, faltered, and died out.

Chapter Text

Cisco Ramon did not exactly regret giving up his powers. It had been an escape. A way to sever the tie, at last, between himself and Eobard Thawne. He didn’t need them to be a hero, though they had made commuting easier. Not that he’d donned a costume in a decade plus. There were others, better suited to that. The field was too dangerous for someone who’d used up more lives than a cat. There were better ways to help the world.

He did not miss the migraines and seizures and random moments when the world turned blue because his new coffee cup had been shelved at the Jitters by a barista who was secretly a metahuman who wanted to ruin the company for naming a coffee after Zoom. Not that he could blame her, but an online petition or an email to team Flash would have been better than drugging several gallons of coffee with mindcontrol-nonsense. So. He did not regret giving up his powers.

At least, not for the first 20 years.
He’d been at work, not the Ramon Industries office, but his labspace, working on a new prototype, when he got the call. A phonecall, not a blue-stained warning, to tell him. To tell him…
“Cisco, it’s –” Caitlin’s voice cracked on the words, and he knew before she could finish what she meant. That was the voice that only came out of his wife when tears would not. When Barry had vanished in the fight against Thawne, the last one they’d ever have. When her mother’s cancer had returned. When Martin and Clarissa Stein had elected to stay in a distant, safer future, and not returned. When Kendra Saunders had been killed.

Cisco took a steadying breath, fumbling in his desk. He had a mini-breachmaker in there, he needed to–
“Iris?” he asked. “ Wally?”
Caitlin’s voice broke. “Godspeed. Nora and Lia tried to fight Godspeed.”
The artificial breach bloomed to life, taking him to his family’s side. Caitlin, her eyes puffy and red rimmed, threw herself at him, clinging for comfort. Cisco’s mind raced, rejecting what he saw, then trying to argue, to blame. If he’d had his powers, he could have fought the speedster. He should have. He’d left it to Wally, to the police, instead of–it should have been me. I never should have left, if I’d kept fighting– he knew that later, he’d be able to tell himself it wasn’t fair, that if was grief speaking so plain in his mind. For now, the thoughts rang, so loud he was sure Caitlin could hear them as he wept, holding her tight.
Their daughter’s corpse lay still, and no amount of regret would bring her back.

Chapter Text

There is no such thing as cold in Science, only the absence of heat.

Caitlin shivered. She wondered idly if it was just her, or if summer was truly fading now, and winter stretching ice-clawed finger into autumn. She was always cold, but today seemed worse than before, and there was no reason for it. The sun outside was high and the leaves were not falling yet; she did not watch the news or speak to anyone she knew beyond shopkeepers in passing. What could have triggered this sudden increase? Maybe nothing.

Again a chill ran through her, curling up in her belly like a coiled snake.

As she often did on days like this one, the worst days, she knelt, almost reverently, and opened the lowest drawer of her cheap dresser.

The blanket wasn’t large, or heavy, or particularly soft, but she wrapped it around herself all the same, and tried to imagine that the strands of it, a clumsy attempt at crocheting—were warmer than they were. She’d been successful in the past, but today or tonight it wasn’t enough. The cold seemed to pierce through the lacy holes that Ronnie had insisted were part of the pattern. He had laughed, and she had, too, and kept it even though he promised to get his mother’s help on the next one, for their wedding. As far as she knew, that blanket still lay unfinished in some taped up box in the Raymonds’s attic.

She tried to draw the warmth in, of his laughter, the feel of his skin on hers, a kiss, an embrace, a shoulder nudging hers in a quiet moment. Fingers that laced together and held. Anything. She closed her eyes tight, blocking out the dark, ugly room, but instead of his warmth, she felt the too-quick pulse and cold sparking of Hunter’s hand, claws and leather instead of Ronnie’s gentle warmth and callus laced palm. She tried to call him the memory of his laugh, genuine and deep, but all her brain cloud find and keep playing was the incredulous, awkward arrogance that underlay Julian’s laugh. When she reached for that final half hour of hope—of joy—she found she couldn’t. What had the air smelled like, before it filled with debris and lightning and shattering glass? What had the world sounded like? Ronnie’s face in the half-memory was a mass of flame, lightning, storm, the dark eyes of Zoom.

She yelped, eyes snapping opening in revulsion and then squeezing tighter, fingers caught tight in the tangle of yarn. No. No, that wasn’t him. Ronnie Raymond. His favorite food was pizza: cheese, pancetta, good crust. Without good crust, it wasn’t pizza, just toppings and sadness. He had calluses on his hands, and a few faint freckles, and hated waiting for the bus or episodes of—of—his shows, and his smile was wide and his eyes were—they were blue. Weren’t they?

She felt the tears only as they froze, solid and heavy on her cheeks, the tip of her nose.

You have to remember, you have to remember him.

There is no such thing as cold in Science, only the absence of heat. She was a scientist. And she was so cold and alone.

Chapter Text

He’d seen several, by now. Their faces were both foreign and familiar, and he wasn’t sure if that comforted him or not. There was a time when he’d wanted nothing to do with them, and that time was still ongoing.

It seemed that every version of Cisco Ramon he’d seen in vibes, or felt along the tangled web of vibrations, like a spider waiting for supper, was either boring–no accomplishments past seventh grade science fair– or evil, a killer, a con artist who preyed on those with no place to go, a lacky. The living ones, anyways. Plenty from both categories filled graves, shallow or otherwise.

He had seen some of them die. Had felt their hearts stop or shred as his own once had.

He wondered how many of them had felt his death, years ago.
How many of them had grieved for him, the way he could not help but pity them.
Even without his powers, he was still haunted by his own nightmares, and the memories of Reverb’s face.

How many other Ciscos out there would spare a thought for him, now, as he felt the hand vibrations of the latest (last) in a long line of evil speedsters, and had no way to stop them.

Chapter Text

4 Caitlin and Cisco. "Hey. Are you... ok?"

Two alerts popped up on Caitlin’s work computer, one reassuring, the other less so. Far less so, really. Breach detected sang the first, a cheerful chirp programmed to mimic the Tardis noise, at Cisco’s request-- it played for his signature only. Cisco was home again, and that made Caitlin smile despite the other window’s message: pipeline cell 16 activated. That wasn’t right. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the pipeline at all, and as the seconds ragged she realized that Barry hadn’t rushed up, Cisco hadn’t breached directly here. They’d be here by now, if they’d put someone in a cell, so why….

She took off, checking the medbay and finding it empty and bolted faster. Frost whispered in her mind that it would be faster to ice everything over and skate, but Caitlin refused to spend even the second handing over control would take. Something was not right, she could feel it in her marrow.

She hit the pipeline door, relieved to see it still up. A cell--16-- was still locked into place. Cisco was inside. After being… gone-slash-missing for most of a week Cisco was back. They’d thought he’d just gone on one of his trips, soul searching with his powers back, but he hadn’t called even once.

“Cisco, Cisco-- hey--” Caitlin pitched her voice low in case whoever had put him in an activated cell was nearby--but urgency bled through. “Are you ok?”

Cisco turned to look at her, smudges from lack of sleep under his eyes. Still, he beamed at her. “Caitlin. Thank God. I was worried no one was here. I’m-- been better.”
That he admitted it scared her as much as his absence had.

“What happened?” she asked, moving forward. If anyone tried to stop her from getting Cisco out of that box, Frost would teach them a thing or twelve. “Are you hurt? Here, let me get you out of there.”

She reached for the control panel, worry gnawing at her brain. Only a member of Team Flash should have been able to activate the blockers in the cells--it was tied to their DNA and frequencies. No one else should have been able to lock Cisco down in a way he couldn’t just breach out…

“No!” Cisco yelped as her fingers brushed the buttons. “Caitlin, don’t!”
The force of his voice stayed her hand, though for one perilous moment she swayed, remembering another moment in this vestibule, another door sealed shut. No. She was not going to be helpless this time.
“What’s happening?” she asked, feeling the cold tingle along her spine and scalp as Frost worried, too.
“You can’t turn off the dampeners. It’s the only thing blocking the signal.”
“What signal?” it was Caitlin’s turn to yelp.
Cisco winced, reaching up to finger comb hair that looked to have lost a battle. He stopped, tapping at a spot she couldn’t see for the shadows, below one ear.
“Caitlin, I need you to go up to my workshop. Locker 203. It’s, uh, the thing we built to help Lisa Snart.”
Caitlin rocked on her heels. So much had happened in the last 4 years, it took her a moment to remember the last time they’d seen Cisco’s one-time-abductor. “The--oh, oh-- no.” She felt ill. The signal. “The thing you made to get the bomb out of her neck?”
Cisco winced again, and Caitlin sees more clearly now. The bruising around his eyes was from a fist, not exhaustion. Two of his fingers seem to hover apart from the rest, curled slightly, and her years of serving as medic told her they were broken.
“It, uh, turns out Amanda Waller really doesn’t like being told ‘no.’”

Chapter Text

Cisco Ramon woke up, looked at his hands, and swore.

It was not the first time. He had woken the day after Crisis, looked at his hands, and sworn then, too.

Apparently the entire multiverse being reset and also helpfully reset him, at least to the him he’d been a year and a half before that. Before the cure that had only done half of what he wanted. It had turned out that being free of his visions and the ability to manipulate the vibrations of the world around him hadn’t freed him of his ability to have nightmares about That One Timeline Where He’d Been Murdered. Or The Other One Where He’d Been Killed. Or The Other Nine Where He’d Been Murdered AND Had a Shitty First Date... Or any of the other timelines he already remembered. Just like he now remembered a whole lot more than should have fit in his brain. It was, officially, way too much.

He’d made every excuse he could think of to stay away from STAR and Central City. Maybe, just maybe if he distanced himself, he could avoid everything that always happened, every year right around May. And then this year, this one year he was actually ready for All That, the disasters just skipped May and happened the rest of the year instead. Of course. Every time he looked around the Cortext, he saw something that didn’t add up, something that didn’t match, and it hurt. His vision was tinted blue more than it wasn’t, and he woke screaming three nights out of four. He had to get out of Central City. He had to go somewhere where nothing was familiar, where he could breathe without feeling like everything had twisted 30 degrees left and five more directly upwards in a cyclone of Not Quite Right.

So he’d tried. The Roadtrip to a hundred towns he’d never set foot in. Atlantis.
It felt like running away. Like he was abandoning everything. So he’d decided, lying awake trying to blink away images of Ronnie and Hartley Rathaway feeding sunflower seeds to the lab mice and a Harrison Wells with gentle eyes that suddenly burned red, that he’d have to take another direction. Leave Central City, but… not the Hero thing. He’d tried the other way before, and even before it hadn’t stuck, it hadn’t worked.

ARGUS had been delighted when Cisco had asked if they were interested in some extra assistance. It had been good, solid work, too. Finding fugitives, closing off breaches between new earths and this one to keep things more or less secure -- no more Zooms breaking through, Thank You So Much. That had lasted a week.

Then they’d drugged the water at an intel briefing, and he’d woken inside a tall cylinder that wouldn’t break no matter how he’d tried. It was for his own good, they’d said. For the world’s own good. He was simply too powerful to be allowed to roam freely. Cisco’d had the sinking feeling that they couldn’t even hear him telling them exactly how much bullshit that was.

He had a worse feeling that they had listened when he’d screamed that they shouldn’t treat him like some kind of supervillain prisoner. They’d started treating him like an experiment, instead. Like Grodd. Like Firestorm. Like Bette.

His ears had bled from the sound pumped into the tube, the vibrations trapped with nowhere for him to channel them. That hadn’t stopped him from trying to shield himself, trying to still them into silence. It hadn’t done much good. He’d seen, out of the corner of his eye, the agents in their black uniforms and the scientists in white coats, writing things down, and he’d gritted his teeth and tried to make the whole damn tube explode.
He’d knocked himself out instead, and when he woke, it was hours later, in total darkness and blissful silence.

And then the visions poured themselves through his mind, flickering just a little at a time, a thousand timelines clamoring to be heard. He couldn’t focus, and his head ached too fiercely. For the first time in what felt like years, he gave up, curling on the hard floor, and let the visions wash over him without trying to figure out what they meant.

He could have told them that the booms he threw, the vibrational blasts that could slow a speedster or shatter glass, didn’t come from his hands, that it was just redirecting the sound and energy waves around him. But the scientists didn’t ask, and ignored him when he tried. They’d pinned his arm under their scanners and when that wasn’t enough, they’d brought out the scalpels.

Whoever was in charge--it couldn’t have been Lyla, Cisco refused to believe Lyla would permit this--won the “not quite as sadistic as you could have been” award, though, because at least they hadn’t made him stay awake through the surgery. He’d woken with stitches up his palms and gauze wrapped snugly around his fingers. He looked at his hands again, and swore, swallowing nausea.

Somewhere beyond his tube, a door opened, and closed again. His shoulders slumped as he let go of hope for a rescue.

Chapter Text

Cisco didn’t call. Caitlin checked her phone absently, over and over, until Frost told her she was acting like a middleschooler waiting for her crush to text back. She felt herself flushing and flipped her phone over, putting a stack of papers over it for good measure. A minute later she checked it again.
“Caity.”
“I just, he moved, that’s--you call to let everyone know you arrived safe,” Caitlin defended.
“Did he call while he was on the road trip? Or in Antarctica?”
Caitlin chewed her lip. “ Not much but--- but service was bad, and he was really busy…”
Frost sighed.
~
Cisco didn’t call. Caitlin checked her email, her spam folder, answered every single telemarketer and robo-call just in case.
“Caitlin?” Iris asked. “Everything ok?”
“Uh, no, yeah, I mean…” She trailed off. “Oh, I have the results. On that test, for your article. It looks like--” she scrambled for the printouts. “ whoever’s doing this isn’t a metahuman. They must be using tech, to make it seem like--”
“Thanks,” Iris took the papers, glancing at them. “But you know that’s not what I meant. Contrary to what some people think, our lives don’t have to be just work.”
Caitlin gave an elegant shrug. “I just… it’s been a week since he left and that’s… it’s just weird.”
“Did you call?”
“Him?” Caitlin asked. “I… he didn’t answer. I didn’t want to keep leaving messages. It was … it was late…”
“I meant, did you call all the times you left,” Iris said gently.
Caitlin shrank inwardly. “No,” she admitted.
“Just give him time.”

~
Cisco didn’t call. Caitlin stared at the article, frowning as she read the comments. It was the usual internet noise: an argument over a tiny detail blown out of proportion , a metaphobe stirring up trouble, fans of Iris praising the writing, and of the Flash cheering the effort.
“This isn’t right,” she said softly, scanning usernames and icons.
“Uh, what?” Barry asked, sprawled on the couch with the remains of a 3 foot sandwich. “Iris did her fact checking, and she was there for most of it. What do you think she got wrong?”
“Not that,” Caitlin shook her head, turning the tablet so Barry could see.
“Caitlin. You’ve gotta learn not to read the comments.”
“No, this,” She gave an angry sigh, flicking a finger to scroll back to the headline. “Flash defeats E-vile in Tech Team-up.”
Barry frowned. “Uh. That… is what you were calling him, right?”
Caitlin stood, pacing. “ something’s wrong, see for yourself.”
Barry took the tablet and speed-read through the comments. “I… ok, I must still have that concussion. What is it? No one’s being mean about the name….”
“I know! That’s the problem! It’s a terrible name, and cisco hasn’t so much as left a comment about it! Something isn’t right.”
Barry scuffed a shoe along the floor. “Caitlin, he made his choice. He doesn’t have to be part of this mess--and I can’t blame him… I miss him too, but-”
“No! No buts! He’d never let me live this down. I want you to take me to his new apartment, now.”
“If he wanted to see us, he wouldn;t have left,” Barry said, stopping her before she could interrupt. “ he asked for space. Let’s just… give it to him. Ok?”
“Ok,” Caitlin said, but her heart wasn’t in it.
~
Cisco didn’t call, and Caitlin was sick of it. On the one occasion Barry had visited ARGUS to see if Ramsey was in any state to have a trial, he hadn’t even seen Cisco. If the engineer was avoiding them, Caitlin decided, he’d have to tell that to her face. She’d left, but she’d always said she was leaving for good, she hadn’t made it seem like--like-- well.
She made up her mind.
Getting to ARGUS on her own was less than convenient, but not impossible. She told the team she was off duty for a weekend, entrusting Allegra with the massive first aid kit, and took off.

They were surprised to see her.
“Is Cisc-- is Agent Ramon available?” she asked the agent at the security desk, signing her in. It felt foreign, being so formal.
“No.” The agent did not elaborate, exchanging a glance with the Agent who’d met her at the door. “What’s the nature of this visit?”
“Oh, I’m here to check on Ramsey. Er, Dr. Rosso.”
“Oh, Bloodwork. We could have sent over the latest files, saved you a trip. Flash drop you off, Dr. Snow?”
“Uh, No,” she said. “I’d like to see Dr. Rosso.”
“There’s no change since the last check in, you know.”
“I know.” She’d read the scant report. “I just need to double check a, a new theory.”
“Hmm. I hope you’ll let us in on that,” the agent sighed. “Fine. Visitor pass.” He handed the laminated card over it, and the first man nodded.
“Well, follow me, and do not wander.”
Caitlin nodded, feeling like a chastised kindergartener. She sent a quick text: I’m here, when’s your lunch break? I need to see you.
There wasn’t even a ‘read’ indication.
~
Ramsey had not changed. There was no light in his eyes as he smiled at her, dripping darkness in his containment cell, and asked how her friends had fared. She’d tried to ignore the parts of her old friend she could almost still see, going through her mental checklist. The files had been accurate. His condition was… stable, for now. Leaving containment would speed up the progression, until he was… well, until Ramsey wasn’t anymore. The thought hurt.

“I’ve seen enough,” she told her ARGUS escort, blinking back tears. How was this her life? So many people gone, her heart full of open graves. She didn’t wait for the agent to lead the way back through the doors into the main hallway, trying to get the sight of Ramsey out of her mind.

“Wait, Dr. Snow,” the agent called out, and she froze in the doorway. She’d pushed open one of two doors, forgetting the one that led to the exit. She stepped back, releasing the door and letting it swing shut in her face again.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice thick. “I… I wasn’t thinking. Just turned around.”

It was a lie, of course. She worried the agent would be able to tell, that he’d see in the way her eyes went blue in anger, what she’d seen. But he merely walked with her back to the front hall. Caitlin swallowed bile, clamping down on Frost screaming in her mind. There were too many agents, with too many weapons. They’d be on her in a second if she tried to do anything without a plan.

But she couldn’t get the image out of her mind. The container, the tiny prison cell smaller than a Pipeline box, labeled Subject 2, and Cisco standing in it, one bloody, bandaged hand pressed flat against the glass.

Chapter Text

Caitlin reached into her purse, past the envelope with her train’s return ticket, past her phone. The portable breachmaker Cisco had designed was cool to the touch, or maybe that was just Frost’s anxiety leaking out into the world. The devices hadn’t been super reliable the last few months after Crisis, something about ‘calibrating to the ripples of reality’ but Caitlin hoped this one had two solid trips in it. Three if she was unlucky. She had to be the pragmatic one, the calm one, but all she wanted to do was bury her face in her elbow and scream.

She couldn’t get the awful image out of her mind. Cisco, his hands pressed against the glass of that tiny tube of a cage, bleeding through the bandages, looking like he’d lost all hope of sunrise. How long had that been happening? From the start? Had Lyla known? Barry didn’t, Caitlin knew. He was preoccupied, careless, more than a touch self important, but he wouldn’t knowingly leave a friend to--Caitlin wanted to throw up.

Instead she kept her mouth sealed tight as she swiftly walked down the block, pulling up her coat collar, then another, turning into a blind alley after brushing through a knot of people. Only then did she activate the breachmaker.

It wasn’t stable, but it was enough. Caitlin stumbled through it a foot and a half off the ground, jarring her ankles, shoving her own pain down and away where she could deal with it later, or never, whichever was easier. Cisco’s abandoned workspace at STAR Labs had a thin film of dust over everything--papers, tools, a chipped blue mug he’d gotten his first year. Dr. Wells had given them to everyone. Caitlin had shattered hers the day she’d gone home from the hospital alone. Caitlin’s fingers found the lightswitch automatically, a plan percolating. It was not her best plan, but the bar here at STAR was low.

First she threw the half empty first aid kit into her purse, and followed it up with a flashbang from Cisco’s top left drawer. The taser that had lived in her purse since her third kidnapping was resituated to be much nearer to the top. Her fingers closed over a heavy metal wrench, and icy frost slipped from her hands, displacing the dust. Caitlin wiped it off and added it to her bag.

She hit the intercom button, unsure if anyone was even here. “If anyone’s here, someone get the medbay ready. Not for me.” Then she went for her own workspace, tugging on her suit. She almost sent a text when there was no general sounds of panic from upstairs, but froze. ARGUS had had her phone. What if they were monitoring her communications? She didn’t want them to have a second more of a heads up than they were going to get--she couldn’t afford it, not with the stunt she was about to pull.

She scribbled a note instead and jammed it onto the mannequin that usually held her costume. The silver star on her breast gleamed.
“Hold on, Cisco,” she said, a prayer in her heart. She grabbed one final thing from his desk, then activated the breacher. The wobbly blue-white light was noticeably weaker than before, flickery and making an opening that wavered like a candle about to snuff out. Caitlin leaped through without hesitation.

It didn’t deposit her exactly where she had wanted, but at least no alarms sounded right away. Caitlin took a moment to get her bearings, and her heart sank along with her plan.

There were rows and rows of the tall tubes, smaller than the pipeline cells but just as many. Maybe more. Most were empty, the clear sides offering captives no privacy. Some--only a few- were not.

She’d… known. Logically. Of course she had. She’d known about sending people that the pipeline shouldn’t hold, that Iron Heights couldn’t hold, to ARGUS. Only the really dangerous ones, the murderers who enjoyed hurting others, she justified to herself. That didn’t matter. It wasn’t about who she’d let Barry take here, it was that here existed. Aside from Ramsey, she’d never checked on them, and why would she? She’d just blindly trusted all of the promises offered her. Again.
She shook her head--there was no time for this, not when any second now some sensor was going to realize she was here. A cry died in her mouth as she stared at a cell, the redhaired woman looking out of it in hesitant recognition. Caitlin knew then, this was not going to be a rescue.

“I’ll be back,” she said fast and quiet, unsure if her words could be heard, if they would be trusted. Then she ran down the row, spotting Cisco’s cell. Caitlin only barely stopped herself from running straight into it, skidding to a halt and searching frantically for some kind of release that wasn’t the keypad.
“Cisco!” she hissed, already feeling other eyes on her.
Cisco, half tucked into a ball on the floor, looked up, and his eyes lit.
“Caitlin?” she thought he said, his lips moving but no sound getting through the barrier. Caitlin nodded, pressing one hand back against the glass while the other reached into her purse.
Just like what they’d told her Killer Frost had done, back on Earth two. Ice bled from her fingers, and for a moment Cisco left his hands where they were, a look like relief on his face before he saw the wrench and pulled away to cover his head.

Whatever the tube had been made of, it had resisted any escape attempts from the inside, it had resisted the strength of her hands, but it shattered like silence.

The alarms blared, and the sharp clatter of boots undercutting the shrill alarm. Cisco’s hands clapped over his ears as Caitlin grabbed him, pulling him through the wreckage. The glass cut at his bare feet.
She looked up and forward to see men and women in ARGUS’s black uniforms, silvery metal buttons and clasps and the ends of guns gleaming like eyes watching.
She hissed just loud enough to be heard under the alarm that kept blaring to Cisco “Can you open a breach? Not yet, but can you?”
She felt him nod behind her.

“Dr. Snow. I told you not to wander.” The guard who’d showed her Ramsey, who’d lied to her about Cisco, had the utter gall to sound disappointed. Caitlin glared back, feeling silver leak into her eyes. Good. She hoped it scared them--and it did, from the way feet shifted. “You’ve destroyed ARGUS property. Let go of the asset, and we’ll consider letting you live.”
“Cait--” Cisco's voice hitched. Caitlin shook her head, bitter.
She raised both hands, and then flicked her fingers forwards in a move that had taken practice. Ice plugs squashed into the muzzles of the weapons pointed at her, white frost covering the glowing stripes on the sides. Tasters, high powered energy weapons. They wanted Cisco alive so they could keep hurting him. She had no doubt that despite their threats, they’d prefer the same fate for her. She wasn’t going to give them that chance.. Ice covered the floor, leaving a wide berth around her, thick enough to grip the guards’ heavy boots.

Someone fired, the energy gun half exploding in their hands. Caitlin brought up a shield of ice anyways, deflecting any damage.
“I will give every one of you frostbite in your lungs,” she snapped.

“Get the director,” someone said into a walkie talkie. “Now. Rescue attempt in progress.”
“Oh, this isn’t a rescue,” Caitlin said, backing down her pathway of clear floor. “This is a prison break.” She held up the device she’d snatched off Cisco’s desk and hit the button.
Around her, the lights and hum of machinery and alarms died in a wave as the EMP blast took out everything.

Everything including the dampeners on the cells. Some of them shattered instantly. Down the way, a bright spark of purple exploded. Around them, metal crunched and groaned, giving way.
“This is an act of good faith,” she shouted, not to the guards but the captives. “Second chances all around. Use it to kill anyone and you end up right back in a cage.”
“How about maiming?” a voice she didn’t know came from the dark.
“Anyone who hurt you here is fair game,” she said, giving them something. “But getting out is a better choice. Cisco, can you get a breach?”
“I can try,” he said, his voice still shaking. Blue light flickered through the darkness.
“Everybody, go.” Caitlin said, hoping the Agents were still stuck. “Argus, if you follow, I promise you on my husband’s grave you will regret it.”
She kept a hand on Cisco’s shoulder as a half dozen captives ran or hobbled for the portal, seeing their faces only briefly in the dim light. A short figure, a streak of red hair. She filled in names, people she had worried for, people she had grieved. Little Frankie. Bette San Souci. Eddie Thawne. Her heart was a knot of adrenaline, now, with no room for tears or anything else. That would be a Caitlin-in-ten-minutes problem.
“Now you,” Cisco told her, straining. There were others, Caitlin knew, taking their chances in this hell-basement. That would be a problem in the future, too.
“Us,” she said, pulling him after her.

She landed hard on the floor of STAR labs, pulling herself upright with a groan. Her hand was covered in blood, Cisco’s hand bandages in tatters like the skin of his palms from where the vibrational energy had torn him as he’d torn the world.
“Welcome home,” she said, taking his hands gently and sending the healing of her ice into them.