Spidey & Speedy - Central City Rush

Chapter 3 - They Flutter Behind You, Your Possible Pasts

"Half an hour, huh?" I ask Caitlin and Cisco. "So, how'd I survive? Don't tell me - I hit the black hole, and then I just miraculously reappeared on the ground and said something like, 'Praise Jesus!'"

"Didn't know you were religious," Cisco says wryly. I think, like me, he's trying to keep his brave face on.

"Neither did I."

"Actually," Caitlin says, looking more serious, "you wouldn't believe who saved your bacon even if we told you."

"Try me."

Caitlin wrings her hands - it's a nervous habit of hers. "You ever heard of the web-slinging vigilante of New York?"

"New York? As in, Fake Gotham New York?" I crack a smile at the thought - of the two enormous East Coast cities laying claim to being called "Gotham," New York is at the distinct disadvantage of having not been built and/or named first.

"They call him 'Spider-Man,'" says Cisco, "and for whatever reason, he was in town today, so he went and helped you out."

"How?"

"He caught you before you hit the ground," says Caitlin. "Thank God, too. That was...I don't think I could have handled that, seeing two people die in less than five minutes." She shudders, then pauses to think. "Wait a minute...Cisco, didn't you take a picture of the guy?"

"'Cause I knew you'd wanna see it," Cisco says to me, producing his phone from his pocket and showing me the picture in question. It's a bit hard to tell, but there does appear to be a red and blue human-shaped blur swinging over a street covered in broken glass.

"He looks like he's going towards CCU," Caitlin muses as she peers at the screen over Cisco's shoulder.

"Hmm," I say. "Is that significant?"

"Could be," she says, rubbing the bridge of her nose and the space between her eyebrows. "I heard that there was some group of visitors from New York this weekend."

"Visitors?" Cisco repeats. "You don't mean...?"

I frown deeply at the screen. "If what you're saying is true, are you trying to suggest Spider-Man's a kid? A high school kid?"

"We weren't the first insufferable genii to go through high school," Caitlin says - I wonder if she's deliberately going for the Latin plural to underline her point. "And we certainly wouldn't be the last."

Cisco crosses over to one of the Apple desktop screens and fires it up. Within seconds, he's able to start working some hacker magic. He's no Felicity Smoak, but he's the best we've got. I do have to give him his props - IT isn't my forte, not at all. I prefer real-world science to cyber-science - but don't tell Cisco that. And especially not Felicity.

"So, it looks like you were right," he says after glancing at an internet window. "There are a bunch of high school tour groups at CCU today - but only one from New York. Midtown Science High School."

"Are you seriously gonna-" I begin.

"Hey, relax," Cisco says, opening another window and typing in some code. "Without Spider-Man, your ass would be grass. You'd be squished all over the street outside right about now."

"Thanks for that lovely image," Caitlin groans.

Cisco ignores her disgust. "The least we can do is show him our gratitude."

"True, but..." I'm torn about this. Like me, Spider-Man wears a mask in public. If we were to breach his privacy like that, even if it was being done for good instead of evil, would he still appreciate any gesture on our part?

And when Cisco does inevitably get his hands on the list of visiting students from Midtown Science, who's to say which of them is Spider-Man, anyway? Even after eliminating all the girls, there are twenty or more boys to choose from.

"Okay," Cisco says, sitting back with his hands folded behind his head, like a Latino version of Sora from Kingdom Hearts. "Place your bets."

Caitlin and I exchange glances, then turn to look at the screen properly. This list of names doesn't yield much - only a small color photo of each boy, presumably from his school ID; a column of boxes marked "M," likely for "male;" and their names, laid out in alphabetical order of last name, comma, first initial. For example - "Grayson, R." Or "Parker, P." Or "Thompson, E."

"Where do you think we should start?" Caitlin asks me.

I step aside with a theatrical flourish. "I defer to you on this one."

"Come on, let's think about narrowing it down further," Cisco says. "Spider-Man's built kinda like you, Barry - tall, thin. Not as tall as you, but still." He scans several photos, one after the other, then eliminates a few who look like they'd be too athletic or overweight. "Thompson, E." is one of these lost candidates.

Now we're down to eight possibilities. But with no further details about them, it's harder for Cisco to cut any more out of the running. "Let me see if I can get into, like, their records out east," he says, cracking his knuckles. "Man, the one time a superhero shows up and it's not the Arrow...where's Felicity when you-" Before he can finish his sentence, though, he stops short, looking up like a dog that's been spooked.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I dunno," he says, looking around from side to side. "I just thought I heard something."

"Actually, you're right."

We all turn around - and I can't speak for Caitlin or Cisco, but I can safely say that there's now a leaden pit in my stomach. "This...this isn't possible," I say to the intruder, a bald man in a blue coat and tinted square goggles. "You're locked up downstairs, i-in the accelerator..."

"Why would I be down there when I can be up here to take you little whiz-kids out?" says Leonard Snart as he fires up his signature frigid weapon. "But first, I'd like you to riddle me this...where's that wheelchair-bound boss of yours?"