NO HERO · BARRY ALLEN | ✘

Fifteen: Suspicion

Cisco drives the van like a madman to Jitters and after picking up Caitlin, we drive to the alley behind the coffee shop. Ronnie helps Barry up. And he's covered in pins. Everywhere.

"Get in!" The two get in and for just a second, the man in uniform stares at me, uncomprehending. But I know he's got my face memorized.

Back at STAR Labs, Caitlin continues working on removing the pins from Barry's body, whose accelerated healing is a little bit faster than the process.

And Stein appears.

~*~

"I'm still inside Ronald," he concludes as they measure his and Ronnie's brainwaves.

"There has to be a better way to rephrase that," Cisco mutters. Barry squeezes my hand while holding back a smile.

"Beta, alpha, beta delta- all your brainwaves are perfectly in sync. The chances of that happening are next to impossible."

"Impossible's just another Tuesday for us, remember?" Barry reminds with a hint of a smirk.

"Yeah, but this is like some Twilight Zone- level stuff, and I say that knowing full-well that we have a guy locked up in our basement who can turn himself into poison gas."

"And whose fault is that to set the difficulty on the dummy to the gas-guy?"

"It was an accident, woman. I mean.. The Mist was the original dummy prototype but I guess I forgot to change the difficulty level."

"Wait really? A poison gas guy?" Ronnie lifts his head up slightly.

"Dude, that was like, week three."

"I almost died, Cisco."

"You're putting salt on the wound."

"Wait, what dummy prototype?" Barry cuts in, dropping his hand.

Stein takes off the headset and stands abruptly. "Look, if this 'Eiling' is as dangerous as you say then I need to warn Clarissa."

"I promise I can get Clarissa out of this city in time, but we need you to stay here. Professor, I need you to trust us."

"Very well." Stein leaves the room without saying anything else and Cisco follows.

"Hey. Are you okay?" Barry asks Ronnie, who also takes off the headset.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's not the STAR Labs I knew."

"Ronnie, this isn't the world that you knew."

"Tell me about it," he says quietly, gazing at Caitlin.

Barry nods in agreement. Then he turns to me with a coy smile. "I never took you out on a proper date, did I?"

"No, but we can talk about where we can eat later. Right now, I have something awesome to show you." I whip out Carnwennan from my back pocket and slide it out of its sheath. "Cisco and Dr. Wells made this for me. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Yeah, it is. Why'd they make it?" He brushes his finger over the cheek of the knife.

"To protect me in case you're ever away on Flash duty, you know," I say, but my voice wavers the slightest bit. "It helps neutralize a metahuman's powers or something while 'cauterizing' their wound so they won't exactly die but they'll be pretty hurt if I stab them hard enough, hahaha."

Barry says nothing and continues examining it.

"Barry, what's wrong?"

"The dagger.. it just proves that know matter how hard I try, I still won't be able to save you."

"Barry... it's just for emergencies. I'm not gonna use it left and right."

"But that's just it, Evie. Emergencies. What if I'm not there and you have to resort to using it, and it doesn't save you?"

"If you don't think I can handle myself-"

"No, I didn't mean that. I want to be there for you. I wasn't there for my mom when I could have been, I can't not be there for you."

There's nothing else I can say to him, so I lean on his arm and take his hand again in reply. He half-smiles and kisses me quickly.

"Hey! No stealing."

~*~

Mason catches Iris while she's walking to my desk with an article in her hand. "Oh hey. HEY! You said you knew some of the leftover scientist at STAR Labs. What about a Caitlin Snow, MD? You know her?"

"Yeah, Evie and I do, why?"

Girl, why are you bringing me into this? I open my mouth to speak when Mason stops me YET AGAIN. "There was an incident at a local coffee shop. She was there."

"That's Jitters, I used to work there."

"Is there anything you can't do?" Mason says in a slightly sarcastic tone.

She scoffs and grabs the paper from him.

"Witnesses swear they saw soldiers shooting the place up so I contacted the army's media relations division and asked, 'Are soldiers permitted to operate like that on US soil?' You know what they told me? 'Whaaaa....'"

"That's weird, Caitlin didn't mention anything the last time I saw her."

"Really? When and where was that?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's an explanation for all of this."

Mason raises his eyebrows. That wasn't an answer, Iris. He walks away somewhat triumphantly.

"Did you ask Caitlin about this as well?"

"I'm not super close to the people at STAR Labs, I mean, Barry knows them better."

"So did you ask them?"

"I... did," I lie. "But they refuse to answer anything."

"Well, what did you ask?"

"I um asked them if they were suspicious of Dr. Wells for any reason and they completely shut me down." I can't handle all of this lying.

"Oh. Well, let's look at the guy Caitlin was with. I swear I've seen him from somewhere..."She scrolls quickly down her blog articles and clicks.

There he is, a picture of Ronnie and Stein as the Burning Man, or FIRESTORM. Whatever the hell they're called.

"Did you know about this?" she asks, turning to me with nothing but curiosity in her eyes.

"I... didn't."

lol just kidding, this one was the shortest chapter.