I wake up in the morning to see Barry still sleeping soundly as we laid there under the covers of the bed. As much as I wanted to stay here, in my boyfriend's arms, cuddling, but we both had to get to work. "Bar, you gotta get up." I say as I shake him slightly. Barry's eyes flutter open and he looks down at me. "Morning." he says huskily and I smile at him. "Hey. Don't you have somewhere to be?" I ask him and he groans as he buries his head in the nape of my neck. "Can't we stay here for a few minutes?" he complains and I roll my eyes. "No. You have to find out who this new Speedster is at your job, and I have to go to rehearsal." I say and he pulls me in closer to his body to try and change my mind. I give in to him and decide to cuddle with him for a few minutes. After a few minutes of cuddling, I took a quick shower and got dressed in a black crop top with high waisted blue jeans and a long pink cardigan. I do my make up and put my hair in a half bun and straighten the other half. After I was finished getting ready, I look over to Barry as he was putting on his coat. "Ready to go?" he asks me and I nod as I slip into a pair of flats. "Breakfast." I call out as I walk out of the room and into the kitchen. "There's no time." he says as he follows me.
"We would've had time if you weren't so lazy." I say and he rolls his eyes.
He speeds around the kitchen making bagels with cream cheese for the both of us. "That's not gonna fill you up." I say and he smiles. "I'll get something after I check out the scene." he says and I nod as I eat my bagel, then, after finishing my bagel, he speeds me over to the restaurant. "I'll see you later." he says and I nod as I stand on my tip toes and kiss him.
*~*~
It was finally the evening, and we were all at S.T.A.R. Labs to talk about this Speedster. I was in the Cortex as I left Barry and Cisco to talk about the new Speedster and as they walk in, Cisco complains about losing 60 bucks to that Speedster. "Maybe it's another one of Zoom's henchmen somehow?" Barry asks and I look at him with furrowed brows. "How? The breaches are closed. Zoom couldn't send anyone if he tried." I say and Cisco nods. "The only other way to become a speedster's from the particle accelerator explosion." Barry says as he walks over to me. "Ok, but then why only make yourself known now? You see what I'm saying." Cisco says. "He's right. We would've had to see them in action before." I say looking at Barry. "I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm just saying, that's the only other way to become a speedster." Barry says as he wraps his arm around me. "Actually, there's another way." Caitlin says and I look at her confusingly. "What do you mean?" I ask her, she then stands up and we follow her to the back of the medbay. She opens a containment storage and grabs something, "It's called Velocity-Nine." she says. "Ooh, it's a sexy-ass name. What is it?" Cisco asks her and she turns to us. "It's a speed drug. Jay took it when you were on Earth-2 to save the city from a meta-human." she says and I widen my eyes.
"What? How could you not tell me this?" Barry asks her as we follow her back to the Cortex.
"I promised Jay I wouldn't." Caitlin says.
"Jay? What do you... Why?"
"Because Jay knew how dangerous this drug is. I should know, Barry. Snow and I worked on it together." Harry says as he stands in the middle of the Cortex.
"Guys, I've been busting my butt out there, pushing myself to the limit, trying to get better, trying to be faster, and you're telling me that there's been something this whole time that could've helped me? This could've helped me take down Zoom."
"Or kill you!" I say and Barry looks at me. "You're not listening to them! They said that this drug is dangerous!"
"Tori, it could've helped me save Earth-2 Richard. Save Jay." Barry says, still not understanding.
"Jay was sick. The drug he took to regain his speed was also causing him cellular degeneration. It was killing him." Caitlin says, but Barry just looks away. "I tried to help. I tried to find a cure. But in all my experiments, the effects were just temporary. The V-Nine was deadly."
Caitlin turns to look at Jay's helmet as I heard the sadness in her voice as she talked about this. "Why not tell me this? Why keep me in the dark?" Barry asks and I look at him. "Because, probably, knowing you, you would want to do it, no matter what the risk is, to take it because you want to take Zoom down." I say and I suddenly hear Cisco gasp as if he vibed something. "Are you ok?" Caitlin asks Cisco. "Did you vibe?" Harry asks him and I turn towards Cisco. "Uh..." Cisco couldn't answer because of the alarm coming on. "Meta-human." he says dashing over to the computer. "Yeah. Social media app for the win. Bad Flash is back." he says and I raise a brow. "Bad Flash?" I ask him and he looks at me. "I know. I'm losing my touch. I'll come up with a better name later." he says and I turn towards Barry. "Be careful." I say to him and he nods as he kisses me briefly, then speeds out. We watch on the monitor between the speedster and Barry. "He's coming up on Fifth and Everett. You can use the alley to cut him off." Cisco tells him. As we watch the monitor, we see Barry get knocked back and the speedster stops, then takes off.
Barry speeds back into the Cortex, changes into his regular clothes, and looks at us, "Yeah, um, our speedster's not a guy." he says and I widen my eyes. "The speedster's a girl! Not that I'm complaining though." I say and Barry nods as Cisco scoffs. "A lady speedster. It only took us two years, but we finally got one. A lady speedster." Cisco says as Barry makes his way to the medbay. "Hey, here's a question for you. Purely scientific. Was she good looking?" he asks Barry and I look at Cisco with furrowed eyes. "Doesn't sound scientific." I say as I smack his arm and Joe chuckles. "Yeah, I was a little busy getting my ass handed to me, so I didn't really notice." Barry says and I look at him. "You better be saying the truth or you're sleeping on the couch." I say and he looks at me with a smile. "I'm telling the truth, Tori." he says and I smile at him in return. "Right, right, right. But, you know, next time, for science?" Cisco says and I smack him upside the head. "Don't ask my boyfriend to checkout other girls!" I tell him and he rubs his head. "Ok, yeah. Next time she punches me in the face, I'll be sure to get her number." Barry says sarcastically. "There you go." Cisco says and I roll my eyes.
"But the question remains,..." Joe says and I look at him.
"Who is she?" I ask and Joe nods.
"I have no idea." Barry says as he starts to walk out.
"We could run her through the facial recognition." Harry says.
"She had a mask on."
"What was her suit like?"
"Hey." I say turning to Cisco.
"Hey, it's a valid question." he says.
"It is, actually. How was her suit constructed?" Harry asks.
I turn to look at Barry as he sighs, "I, uh... It was good. It was very good. It was like mine. It was made by somebody who understands the needs of a speedster." Barry says. "So that would be someone with access to tech and a lab." Joe says and I see Caitlin's eyes realize something. "Oh, no, I'm having a very bad thought." she says and I look at her confusingly. Caitlin walks over to the computer and types in something. A picture of a woman named Eliza Harmon who works at Mercury Labs pops up. "When I designed V-Nine, I was having trouble reformatting the extracellular matrix. So, I called a colleague of mine at Mercury Labs for some assistance. Eliza Harmon." Caitlin says to us. "She knows how to make this speed drug?" Barry asks Caitlin as he raises a brow. "No. I followed the protocols of information compartmentalization. I only gave her three of the eight components necessary for V-Nine's structure." Caitlin says and we all look at her. "Ok, so she didn't have the full recipe?" Barry asks Caitlin. "Unless she reverse engineered her own V-Nine." Harry says as he takes a sip of his coffee. "Eliza's a genius. But that's way out of character for her." Caitlin says as she grabs her coat. As the others kept talking, I noticed Barry walking up to the computer looking at the monitor. But I notice his hand reach out for the V-Nine. As Joe and Caitlin leave to talk to Eliza, I look at Barry as he looks at Harry. "Great. I'm gonna go train." he says and walks away.
I was about to go confront him, when Harry suddenly grabs my arm. "I know you wanna talk some sense into him, but getting mad at him isn't the option." Harry says and I look at him. "So, what do you propose we do?" I ask Harry. "Tell him together." he says and I sigh and nod in agreement.
*~*~
After a while, I stood in front of the speed cannon and leaned against the railing. I see Barry walk in and he looks at me with wide eyes. "Tori, what are you doing down here?" he asks me and I shrug and sigh. "Needed a place to think. Thought this was good enough. Whatcha got there, Bar?" I ask him as I look down at his hand and see the V-Nine. "Nothing. Babe, go back upstairs." he says and I shake my head. "Barry, I'm not stupid. I may not be a scientist like you, or Caitlin, or Harry, or Cisco, but I know when your acting stupid. I know you took the V-Nine." I say to him and he looks away from me. "No, I haven't." he says and I walk up to him. "So you're telling me, that what I saw in your hand wasn't the V-Nine?" I ask him and he shakes his head. "Barry, don't make me use my telepathy to know that you have it." I say to him and he looks down. "I took it, but I haven't taken it." he says and he looks at me again. "Good." Harry says from the door. "Tell me why I shouldn't." Barry says and I look into his green eyes. "Figure it out." Harry says and Barry sighs in frustration and turns to Harry. "If the game is really rigged, why can't I level the playing field? I mean, if everybody else is cheating, how can..." Barry fades off and walks away from me a few feet. "I want to be fast enough to stop Zoom and any speedster that tries to hurt my friends." Barry says, then he turns to me. "Especially you, Tori. Shouldn't I use everything in my power to do that?" he asks.
"This isn't the way to do that, Barry." I say to him.
"You wanna take a shortcut? Is that right? You wanna take a shortcut?" Harry says walking in. "Remember this, you lose a chunk of your humanity every time you compromise your values." Barry chuckles.
"I'm sorry. That's really good coming from you." Barry says.
"So, don't be like me. Be better. Be like Jay." Harry says and he walks away.
"Barry, you're better than everyone we've faced. You have great judgement, and I love you for that. But if you take this, then I know that things have changed since coming back from Earth-2." I say and he looks at me. "I know you wanna be fast. I know you want to protect Caitlin, Cisco, Iris, Joe... Me. But taking this speed drug... Isn't the way to protect us."
I walk up to him and kiss his cheek, then I walk out. I walk back into the Cortex and I turn to see Barry walk in behind me. "Hey, any luck locating our speedster, since Eliza checked out?" Barry asks as he wraps his arm around me and kisses my temple making me smile at him. "Um, I'm still working on it, but..." Cisco was cut off by sparks coming from the lights, and I turn to see Barry put his mask on. A blur of lightning zips past us, and next thing I new, Barry wasn't next to me. "Barry!" I yell out and I look at the others. "Hey! Cisco! Joe! Tori! Hey, she's got me in the pipeline!" Barry yells out and I run to my suit as Joe pulls his gun out only for the blur to knock Joe back and come in front of me. "Not so fast, girlie." she says and I glare at her. "How ironic of you to say." I say and she chuckles. She bends down to pick up the gun and points it at Harry, who was about to grab it. I kick the gun out of her hand and elbow her in the gut. I run to my suit only to hear a gun shot and a piercing pain in my leg. "Tori!" Cisco says worriedly as I wince in pain,"What do you want?" Harry asks her as she points the gun at Harry. "Where's the V-Nine, Caity? I need a fix." she says and I widen my eyes realizing it was Eliza. "Eliza, is that you?" Caitlin asks as she slowly walks up to her. "Eliza's not here right now. My name is Trajectory." she says and I glare at her. "Oh, why do the crazy one's always name themselves?" Cisco says and I look up at him. "Really? Your more focused on that?" I ask him telepathically
"Look, Eliza, Velocity-Nine is very dangerous, ok? It made a friend of mine very sick. And he already had the Speed Force in him." Caitlin says "Look, your cellular--"
"Enough." Eliza says turning to look at Caitlin. "You are boring me to death. Hand over the V."
"I'm a physician. I took an oath. I can't give you anything that will hurt you." Caitlin says to Eliza and from the corner of my eye, I can see Cisco make his way slowly to the computer to free Barry.
"Right. So either hand over the V or the cat guy gets it." Eliza says as she points the gun at Cisco.
She shoots at Cisco, but he ducks behind the podium with Jay's helmet. I hear Cisco gasp, signaling that he had vibed. "Hey, move, now." Eliza says and I turn to look at her, and Cisco moves. I wince in pain as I turn over and look at the others. "Look, all the flask are gone. There's nothing left." Caitlin tells her and Eliza sighs. "Hey, I was really hoping you wouldn't make me do one of those "I have to kill you each, one by one, until you give me what I want." Oh, well." she says and Eliza suddenly grabs Jesse. "Wait." Harry says and I look at him as I look back at Jesse. "Wait." Harry says again as Eliza looks at him and points the gun to Jesse's head. "You want V-Nine, we'll make it for you." Harry says and I look at him wide eyed. "Dad, you can't." Jesse says and Eliza pushes the gun into Jesse's head. "We have all the ingredients." Caitlin tells Eliza and she looks at both Harry and Caitlin. "I'm not a patient person, so better move fast." Eliza says to them and she pushes Jesse to the ground as she continues to point the gun at Jesse. "Jesse listen to me." I tell Jesse and she looks at me. "Your dad and Caitlin are gonna do their best to get the V-Nine done soon. Alright? Try to stay calm." I tell her and she nods.