chapter twenty-seven;
snip
"Death by apitoxin," Dr. Wells pulled up crime scene photos from the recent death in Central City. Adley was sat cross-legged on her desk, her phone in her hands. She looked up, dark strands of hair falling in her face.
"Honeybee venom?" She asked, her head cocked slightly. "What? I like bees," she stated defensively after getting some off looks from her co-workers.
"Of course you like bees," Cisco teased, "But me? Y'all, I don't do bees. Ain't nobody got time for bees."
"This isn't normal beehavior," Adley clicked her fingers at her own pun, "Sorry."
Dr. Wells ignored her and Cisco, moving on, "But when a honeybee stings, the stingers are literally torn from their abdomen, and they die."
Barry nodded, "But there were no stingers in the body and no dead bees in the car."
"A honeybee can only deposit 1 milligram of apitoxin when it releases its stinger," Caitlin informed the team.
"And yet, Ms. Kang was found with enough venom in her system to kill a herd of elephants," Dr. Wells observed. "It appears not only is a meta-human controlling these bees but also increasing their toxicity."
"Bees communicate by releasing pheromones," Barry pondered, "Maybe this meta's controlling them through secretion?"
"Oh my God, metahuman goals," groaned Adley, "Love bees."
"Anyone want to join me, the normal person, in getting a bee suit?" Cisco asked.
Barry smirked cockily, "I'm pretty sure I can outrun a bee."
Then a new voice came from the entryway, "Just don't run into a lake." Adley turned to see Felicity, the cute bubbly blonde from Starling City. "Bees will wait for you to come up for air and then they'll sting you. Discovery Channel. Turns out there's a lot to discover."
"Felicity!" Adley smiled wide.
"Adley my young breathing emotion," Felicity greeted, hugging the her.
"Felicity, what are you doing here?" Were Barry's first words.
"Can you guys come outside for a sec?" She jabbed her thumb behind them, and the team followed her outside to the front of the facility.
"What exactly are we waiting for, Ms. Smoak?" Everyone hummed in agreement with Wells, and Felicity scanned the sky for a moment before replying upon the sight of a small black speck.
"Up there." She pointed.
"Is that a bird?" Caitlin asked, eyes squinted at the sun.
"It's a plane."
Felicity grinned, "It's my boyfriend," she breathed as he landed in the ground, his suit cracking the pavement beneath him.
"Hi." He took his helmet off, "I'm Ray."
"So he seems a little tall for you," Barry trailed off, looking at Ray getting his vitals checked through thick glass.
Felicity gasped, "Barry Allen, are you jealous?"
Barry shook his head. "No, I'm not jealous. I have a girlfriend. I just I really wish you would've called before flying in."
"Oh, no, he flew," Felicity stuttered, "I drove."
"I'm serious, all right?" Barry sighed, running a hand through his hair, "Now is not the best time."
"Why? What's going on?" Barry was unable to answer before Ray and the others emerged from the side room.
"Ah, well, my ears popped, so that's something," Ray joked, wildly opening his jaw. Adley frowned, noticing Barry's obvious discomfort, and immediately gravitating toward him.
"You alright, babe?" She asked him, resting a head on his shoulder and nuzzling against his neck. His arm subconsciously snaked around her waist, pulling her closer. He nodded.
"Glad to see you two finally worked out your kinks." Felicity smirked.
Adley bit her lip before letting the joke slip, "You don't even know."
Adley was out to coffee with Felicity when it happened. Barry had just left, his job as the hero of Central City often whisking him away from her, so at this point she was used to it. Her and Felicity were enjoying when she felt the first sting, one on her leg, and she looked down to see a small bump swelling beneath her black jeans. She froze mid-sentence, her words falling short and silent.
"We need to go," She said through a strained breath, feeling several other stings up her arms.
"What? Is it Barry?" Felicity seemed particularly worried about Barry, and not quite as worried as the girl directly in front of her in equal amounts of pain.
"Appreciate the concern." Her teeth began to grind against one another to prevent pained gasps from slipping through. She stood, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, and stiffly walking towards to door to prevent a limp. Felicity noticed her slight wince, the blonde immediately taking two giant steps to reach her friend, wrapping an arm around her.
"Where do we go? How do we get to your apartment?" Felicity asked, now panicking herself, gaze flitting among buildings trying to assess her surroundings. That was when she noticed Adley had keeled over beside her, hand gripping her stomach. "Oh God, what's going on?" She lifted her head, a hollow look in her eyes, face slackened. "What is it?"
"Can you take me to the lab?" Adley asked numbly, their eyes unmet.
"Adley," Felicity insisted. "What's going on?"
Adley's mouth twisted in a rage unlike any other, "He's dead," she snapped, "Barry's dead."
Felicity said nothing else, for once keeping her mouth shut. Adley almost wished she would talk, to fill the space so that she couldn't herself thinking.
"They haven't called me." Adley flicked through the notifications in her phone. "Why haven't they called me? I'm his girlfriend, for Christ's sake, and I feel every ounce of his pain and they haven't called me."
"I'm sure they're busy, Adley," Felicity muttered from the driver's seat, knowing the brunette was sweaty dynamite right now.
"They should never be too busy for me!" Adley roared, her anger rattling Felicity's head and the dice hanging from her rear-view mirror.
"Adley, calm down," Felicity tried to soothe her friend, a hand reaching towards her, but it never met a body as Adley leapt from the car as it slowed in the parking lot of S.T.A.R. Labs.
"Why didn't anybody tell me?" Adley shouted, once again shocking the people around her with her raw, seemingly untamable rage.
Cisco's eyes were wide, "Adley, we we-"
"That's bullshit!" She shouted, her hands gripping the shoulders of Cisco's shirt, balled cotton in her fists. " You should've called me, first thing."
"Why is it so im-" He was again cut off.
"My boyfriend is dead! What about that doesn't seem important?"
Cisco froze, eyes relaxing at something over her shoulder. "What?"
Adley bit her lip, obvious tears forming in her eyes as she turned to see Barry. "No, how did this happen?" She asked.
"Adley, let go of Cisco," he said softly, "C'mere."
She let out a sob, "I'm so glad I didn't have to say goodbye," she cried, turning and nuzzling her head into Barry's chest, his arms immediately wrapping around her in a tight embrace.
"He's so good with her," Felicity whispered to Cisco, "She would've killed us both."
"They're two parts to a whole." This was Wells, who had been smirking throughout the entire exchange, knowing that the connection between Barry and Adley was now officially broken, and that Adley wouldn't want it to be rebuilt. The future would remain intact.
"I can't believe you're making me go out to dinner," Adley sighed, "You died today. Technically I felt death today."
"I don't want to be a fifth wheel, especially when I don't have to be," Barry smiled, seeing the shadows of her changing against the wall. "What are you gonna wear?"
"Is it fancy?"
"I mean, Ray's paying. So probably," Barry answered.
"Okay," Adley let out a heavy breath, before beginning her search through her closet. She emerged moments later, a top and skirt two-piece donning her toned body. Barry's jaw fell, eyes brushing over every bit of visible skin before returning to her eyes. "So I look good. Nice. We're gonna be so hot. Dream couple."
Barry laughed as she checked herself out in the mirror. "You look really nice."
"Call me somethin' sweet to get me by," she teased, winking at him.
"Oh, shut up," he pecked her on the lips. "I don't understand why I don't just run you there."
"One, you died today," She listed on her fingers, "Take a break for one second and two, because look at these curls. You don't fuck with these."
Barry's lips quirked. "Well..."
Adley's eyebrows furrowed. "Die, Wonderboy."
"Already did, and you didn't seem to enjoy it much." She frowned.
"I hate you." She grabbed her keys from the dish on her front table, waving them in front of his face. "You wanna drive?"
"God," Barry breathed, "Yes. Yes, I do want to drive."
Ray was a bit... extravagant. That's the only word Adley could think of at the sight of the restaurant he had made a reservation.
"Barry, I'm going to end up slurping," Adley stated as Barry gripped her hand.
"You'll be fine, baby." He gave her hand a squeeze, kissing her temple before opening the door for her.
"Chivalry's not dead," she winked, him laughing as they entered together. "You think they have a kid's menu?" She gulped, eyes moving from one chandelier to another, to another. They were everywhere, you see, but the place was still dark.
"Hey, guys." They turned to see Iris and Eddie standing beside Ray and Felicity, awkward greetings silenced by the server.
"Bienvenue chez Massimo Restaurant." Barry looked down to Adley, expecting her to show off and begin speaking her fluent french, but she stayed silent, smiling politely. Polite for Adley was odd. "Mr. Palmer, your table is ready." They followed him to a wide, empty room. Turns out Adley was right, Ray was very extravagant.
The whole meal went almost seamlessly, except for the face that Adley had to sit through four courses. Four courses of food that tasted like a walk through a department store of human psyches.
"Barry, I'm going to go to the bathroom," Adley said quietly halfway through the salad. Barry looked to her expectantly, but she averted her gaze, eyes falling to the floor.
Barry knew this of course, that she did in fact care about what people thought about her, when she already cared about them a lot to begin with. It was like when Hartley continuously made comments about how she wasn't bright, not being able to get food down in front of her friends just added to the embarrassment.
He looked to Felicity immediately, who nodded upon eye contact, standing up to follow the firestorm. "It's a girl thing," was her excuse, before dashing off in the direction of the bathrooms. There she found Adley, leaning over the counter by the sink, her head in her hands and chest heaving. "Oh, Adley."
"How pathetic am I? I can't even go out to dinner," she choked out.
"What's wrong?" Felicity asked, bringing the tumbling girl into her arms.
"It tastes like a funeral," she squeaked, "How fucked is that?"
"In what sense?"
"It's bitter. Why did it have to be spinach?" Felicity made a mental note in her head, sadness equals spinach.
Felicity and Adley concocted a plan for Barry to finish her salad, and to blame it on her childish personality. But there was no plan to explain Barry's sudden need to leave the table at the mention of Wells.
Nobody even expected an excuse from Adley when she rose to follow him, knowing they never truly left each other's side.
"We're so dysfunctional," she almost laughed, allowing him to rest his head against her shoulder once again, his breaths falling against her skin in a way that sent goosebumps down her arms, a smile breaking across her face at the chill rolling down her spine at his touch. "But you know I love it."
He sighed, "I do."
a/n: happy wednesday everybody!
we're getting to the end of season one, are you guys ready? as the writer of this story, the person who will be directing season two, ill say that you aren't.
that's your warning. oops.
see you saturday, and have a merry christmas if that's how you swing.
make sure to comment, vote and follow to encourage the growth of wanderess! thank you, love you all. xoxo, maggie.