#does this count as an oc? yes. His name is Barry.

[hermanubis]

Coiled.

[mega-catmuncher]

None of Our Business

Chapter 01

Pairing: College!Matt Murdock x fem!reader

Summary: You are a winner. Always have been and always will be. In your final year at Colombia you're aiming to earn an internship from an esteemed law firm which will ensure the success of your career post law school. Someone however, is making life difficult and his name is Matt Murdock. For some reason he's always in your business, everywhere you turn he's there and while you never expected it maybe he's just what you need.

Word count:3.4k

Warnings: swearing, people acting absolutely unhinged and ‼️T/W Frat Bros‼️ (Future SMUT I promise 🤞🏻😮‍💨)

a/n: academic rivals mixed with work/office rivals. Matt and reader are somehow smart enough to be in law school but not smart enough to realise they like each other. Also ALOT of these background characters are OC’s and the only people mentioned from the daredevil series is Foggy(nelson) and Jack (Matts Dad)

(not gonna lie that summary was a lil corny 💀please forgive me 🙏🏻)

You’ve always been the best at what you do. You uphold yourself to a high standard and its gotten you all the way to your final year studying law at Columbia. It feels surreal at times wondering if you deserve this but you remember how hard you have worked and how proud you will be once you’ve become the best lawyer in New York.

Tonight you’ve got a shift at the local bar and restaurant Barry’s. You’re the star waitress and have earned some regulars who tip very well every time you’re on. Tonight though you are really considering quitting. It’s not only one of the busiest nights due to the Columbia Lions winning last nights football game and their victory party being hosted by Barry’s but you are also responsible for the new trainee who is truly testing your patience. “Foggy, you cannot stay at a table for over 30 minutes after giving them their food. Being overly friendly will not get you tips it will get you fired” you sigh in frustration and you can see he feels bad for upsetting you “sorry” he whispers. Before you can apologise he’s left to get the drinks for the next table. You feel bad but food service can have you dealing with the worst kinds of people and you don’t want Foggy to get discouraged from a little criticism.

You’ve just shown foggy how to lock up and its nearing half three in the morning. After an 8 hour shift with no breaks you are ready to drop. Pulling out of the parking lot you see Foggy at the bus stop. “You know the first bus doesn’t come until six thirty, you can’t wait here for three hours” you tell him from your car. “ Don’t worry about it! I’ll be alright, I’m just too tired to walk” you wouldn’t let Foggy stay there even if you believed him. “Do you live on campus?” you ask. “Yes, but please you really don’t have to driv-”Foggy doesn’t get to the end of his sentence before you’re unlocking your passengers side door and beckoning him into the car. “I know I was hard on you tonight but I promise I’m not an asshole …I’m sorry” judging from Foggy’s smile you think he’s accepted your apology. “ It’s okay..you know you’re not as scary as you look” foggy immediately regrets saying that as you give him a very unimpressed look. “I mean you never smile in lectures and you just always seemed very…cold..from a distance! But getting to know you better tonight you’re cool. I mean I only know so much since Matt does talk-” “it’s okay Foggy I understand what you’re trying to say”.

-

Waking up Monday morning you regret signing up for an oral presentation workshop. However, you’ve made matters worse by not putting on an alarm and expecting your roommate Lisa to wake you up. Late and rushing you find yourself in not your finest of moments running across campus in yesterday’s mascara and underwear.

In your flurry to get to the workshop you trip over something and find yourself on top of someone. “I am so sorry, are you alright?” you ask frantically. “I don’t think you trip over blind men often so it’s fine” that voice belongs to Matthew Murdock a man who has a talent for getting on your nerves. Why? Because like you Matt is smart but unlike you it comes naturally for him and he takes every chance to throw it in your face. Between having the last word in mock trials to countering your points in class just because he feels like it. “If I didn’t know any better I would think you tripped me on purpose Matt” “ Well you’re still on top of me so I don’t think there’s any hard feelings”. Your rush to get off Matt, help him up and collect your things. “What are you in such a rush for?” Matt asks “ Professor Loc's speech workshop, I’m so late it’s pointless”you say dreading the effect this is going to have on your attendance record. “Don’t worry it’s been cancelled, I was on my way there but I got the email before I walked in” Matt says. Looking through your bag and finding your phone you see the late notification that the class has in fact been cancelled. “Shit I wasted my morning for that” you’re about to turn away until you hear chanting. Very loud chanting.

“ What is going o-” Matt is interrupted by Kevin the star quarterback and frat senior letting out a loud battle roar and running across campus naked being cheered on by freshmen, senior frat members and several other people fascinated by the display. “If I were to tell you exactly what is going on you would regret asking” and in a split second you notice Kevin’s path has changed and he is now running for you and Matt. “Walk with me and don’t ask questions” you grab Matt and begin walking towards the parking lot. “I expect better of you than to rob a blind man y/n”. “I’m not robbing you I’m saving us from embarrassment, unless you want to be between me and a naked Kevin I suggest you keep walking”. Matt suddenly quickens his pace and unfortunately so does Kevin. In a quick span of events you evade Kevins line of sight and pull Matt into a random shed near the library. “Janitors store room, we’ll have to wait out here until the crowd and Kevin have passed” you tell Matt out of breath.

After waiting for 10 minutes Kevin and the group are still chanting near you and Matt. “You might as well test me for our next exam” Matt says. You're dissatisfied with the situation but seeing an opportunity to outsmart Matt Murdock you won’t pass up on. Flipping through your notes you hear Matt huff a laugh “You can’t test me without your notes?”. Although Matt is amused you are not “I need to make sure you don’t try and finesse your way into giving me a bullshit answer that’s only half right” “woah y/n didn’t know I could get you riled up so easily.. did seeing Kevin naked get you excited?” Frustrated with Matts teasing you decide you’ve had enough. “Actually it did.. I have to confess Matt I’m really excited right now” you say trying to sound convincing. “….really?” Matt says genuinely confused. “Yes..and oh I need help to release some of this tension” Matt is slightly bewildered but also intrigued. “Y/N I didn’t expect..” “Matty c’mere I wanna show you something” as Matt approaches you pull the leaf blower from the shelf and turn it on to his lips. Sucking half of his face into the leaf blower is funny for a few seconds until you release it and he seems genuinely mad. “Y/N what the hell!?” Matt yells. You giggle about to say something until you hear the crowd is no longer chanting near you and Matt. “I think we can go back now Matt”

-

There was something special about today. You didn’t know why but you had a feeling that today something was going to happen that would change the trajectory of your life forever. Minus the pigeon shit that just fell on your coat you expected good things to come your way today.

“ I bought you coffee!!” Your roommate Lisa pops out from the crowd surrounding the campus cafe. “I felt bad about the other morning, you know how forgetful I can be” Lisa says reminding you about the drama surrounding last Monday. In between then you’ve had some time off to prepare for your final year, you bought a whiteboard and you scheduled study sessions with Foggy whenever the both of you weren’t working. “It’s okay, it’s my fault I’ve got to really get my shit together. It’s my final year and I’m lagging because my brain knows I’m at the finish line” you’re a little disappointed in yourself for not being motivated but that’s going to change now that the fall semester has begun and you can officially put your plan in place to get back on track.

Dropping Lisa off at her class you go across the way to the building where your lecture is being held. You sit beside Chris who, although doesn’t seem to listen in lectures he still manages to get great marks and have good notes. In comparison to the mess on your paper at the end of lectures over the years you've benefited more from listening through and copying Chris’s notes after. “How have you been doing? You look good” you’re slightly taken aback by Chris’s compliment. Although he flirts a lot he never teases and often times you think about bitting the bullet and asking him out. That’s if you ever get the time to. “ I’ve been good working, studying and working some more” you laugh feeling a bit pathetic that this has probably been your answer through the whole of your law degree. “ There’s a reason why you're so smart, Besides I heard you’ve organised a study group and didn’t invite me.I’m hurt” he puts his hand over his heart acting wounded. If it were anyone else you would roll your eyes but when Chris’s voice cracks at the word hurt added with the sly grin he has on his face has got you silently begging to to be alone with him. “The group is open, if you want to come just let me know and we’ll make a time to meet up”. Feeling proud of yourself for finding a way to get Chris's contact. Ripping a piece of paper off his notebook he quickly writes something. “ Here’s my number text me and I’ll make sure I bring my notes just for you”. You feel yourself about to sport an embarrassingly big smile until you hear a stick tapping near the doors.

“Murdock! There’s a seat here” you whip your head to Chris and see he’s pointing to the seat next to you. This is not what you had in mind when you thought of your positive mantra of today being a good day. Matt greets Chris and they reach across you to hug. If you were being honest being crushed between Chris and Matt wasn’t that bad, you were blissfully daydreaming away until you felt someone flick your ear. “After sucking my face off you could at the very least talk to me” Matt says grinning mischeviously. Chris is taken aback at the insinuation that you and Matthew Murdock are somehow involved and you are seething that out of all times he decides to start with you in front of Chris. Before you have time to clear any confusion your professor begins the class.

By the end your eyes are drooping from exhaustion and you feel close to calling a cab to get back to your apartment to avoid walking 20 minutes. "Hey sleeping beauty, class is dismissed" Chris tries to nudge you awake. Suddenly becoming alert you give him a tired smile and gather your things. "Do you want to take my notes home?, I won't need them back anytime soon" Chris says. Before you can respond Matt interrupts the seemingly tender moment. " I see my dig about notes the other day hasn't motivated you to aim higher". You are so close to chocking Matt the only thing stopping you is the scandal of assaulting a blind man in public. Ignoring Matt you thank Chris and take his notes with you. On your way out of class you can see a crowd forming around the bulletin board. "They're only offering two places!" "Highest score on the next exam?!". You're near the board to find out what all the commotion is about when you see plastered on the board the opportunity you've been waiting for.

The internship to Cheraus & Pels one of the best law firms in all of New York. You can feel the sweat on the palm of your hand reading over the details then, you feel a presence near. "Too bad they're offering two spots. There's no challenge now". You wish you could formulate a good response but all you can do is focus on the letters on the paper in front of you. "Are you okay? you seem like you're coming down with the flu" Matt goes to put his hand to your forehead but before he can you swat his arm away. "Matt, I have never been more serious about something in my life and the fact that you're treating this like any other thing is absurd to me" you feel bad afterwards for being difficult with Matt in front of everyone but the stress of how real everything is starting feel is getting to you. "Despite how nonchalant I can be, I have sacrificed a lot to even be in this building. Yes y/n, I am taking this very seriously but if I stressed myself out as much as you do I 'd be ill before I even put pen to paper". After hearing what he had just said you came to the sad conclusion that Matt Murdock was right.

-

Over the next few weeks you had been seeing less of Lisa and Chris and even Matt. You've closed yourself off from the world and against Matts advice you were stressing yourself out. Going only between classes and your apartment to take breaks from preparing for the upcoming exam to eat and sleep. You even gave Barry notice that you would be taking the month off just so that work wouldn't get in the way of studying. What you didn't know was how worried everyone was. Lisa called your mom who then spent an hour on the phone threatening you with a visit. Chris had texted you a few times but you didn't want to distract yourself. Foggy even told Matt about you taking the month off. Which became the last straw. At 9:30pm on a Friday night you heard a knock at the apartment door, you expected that Lisa would get it since she knew you were busy. After a while you realised Lisa wasn't home and whoever it was, was still waiting. Looking through the peephole you get a wave of aggravation seeing Matt at your doorstep.

"I am so busy right now Matt its not even funny" you say opening the door. Matt looks very unamused and goes as far as to walk right past you and let himself in. "y/n this is an intervention, I understand you want that internship as bad as anyone. Trust me I've been doing overtime in the library. That doesn't justify you working yourself so hard".You're about to lose your shit. How dare Matt come into your home uninvited and tell you how you should be living. You're about to yell at him when you realise you're so tired you don't even have the energy. Matt knows something isn't right when he hears a thud and he knows something is definitely not right when you haven't said anything. Checking that you're still breathing Matt carries your fast asleep self to your bed and lays beside you. He doesn't know why but he stays the night. He tells himself its because Lisa isn't home and he doesn't want to leave you in the apartment alone overnight but deep down Matt cares about you and wants to make sure you're alright.

Over the years Matt has grown a sort of affection for you. He's not in love. He just cares, you both work hard but he admires your drive and passion. Because for him, you challenge him to do better and that means a lot. In your first year Matt was having trouble accessing braille translations of archived case documents and while you weren't happy about it you took the time to read out those case documents for him. Once, Matt had come down with mono he missed a week of classes. He didn't want to ask for your help but he didn't have to. You told him to meet you at the library where you proceeded to catch him up on everything he had missed. These moments compiled with all those other times you've helped Matt out over the years makes him want to be the one to help you out this time. At least he though he was helping. He's not so sure now that you've woken up in the afternoon and realised you've missed six and a half hours of study time. "I don't know who you think you are to waltz into my house and control my life. What the fuck was the intervention for?! an addiction to studying. I have never heard something so stupid in my life". Any other time Matt would give you some cool response to one up your little tantrum but right now among all the yelling your eyes are red and he can hear your stomach grumbling. "If I took you for some lunch would you stop yelling at me. Would you stop talking altogether actually?" . You're contemplating committing homicide in this very moment but through the exhaustion, anger and hunger you can see Matt is concerned and while you don't owe him anything you definitely don't think it's fair to let him worry about you. You've also just come to the realisation it wasn't fair to let everyone else in your life worry. "Sorry, let me get dressed and then we can go" Shocked Matt doesn't mention your change in demeanour and lets you direct him to the couch to wait. While you have the time to yourself you send off some quick texts to Lisa, your mom and Chris letting them all know you're alright and there's no need to worry.

-

Lunch with Matt wasn't as bad as you'd thought it would be and spending time with Matt outside of school proved to be surprisingly beneficial to your mental wellbeing. You had been taking a walk in the park chuckling at some stupid law pun Matt had made when you snapped back to reality. The date of your exam was in three days and you felt so underprepared. Noticing your sudden silence Matt nudges your shoulder. "I didn't think my comedy would kill the mood, If you didn't like that one I've got a whole notes app filled with them" Matt says. "Its not that, I'm just thinking about the exam. After tomorrow we've only got a couple more days". You remove your arm from Matts and go to sit at the bench to clear your mind and figure out what your going to do about everything. "y/n I don't want you to get upset with me but Im going to make you an offer that hopefully you can't refuse" Matt goes on to ask you something you would have surely lost your balance from the shock if your weren't already sitting down. "You can stay at my place until the exam is over. You seemed to have slept better with me at the house and as much as you would hate to admit it we work really well together. My best grades are from when I study with you. "

You feel your resolve melting and as much as you want to keep your regular bitch attitude with Matt he's doing something really nice. Most of all he doesn't need to do any of this. He didn't need to spend the night or come to the apartment to check up on you, he didn't need to get you lunch or take a walk around the park with you and most of all Matt didn't need to worry, but he did. Or does... you don't know but what you do know is Matt is right. In a way things have always worked better when you've done them with Matt. Group projects, study sessions and even those dreaded mock trials. If you were any less oblivious you would realise Matt challenges you in a way you like. In a way that drives you to be better and in times like this it means everything. " I can't believe I'm saying yes but I will move in with you for three nights and four days" you don't know why but you're smiling. "Its settled then, let's shake on it roomie" "shut the fuck up".

[saiilorstars]

Rise Up

Ch.7: At Odds

Previous Story: It Had To Be You || Current Masterlist

Pairings: Barry Allen x OFC

Chapter Summary: Belén and Barry come to odds with their plans to fight against Zoom for the first time.

Pronunciation of OC: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog​ @maaaaarveeeeel​

[If you’d like to be part of this OC’s taglist, let me know!]

"Just let me go. Let me disappear," Dr. Light pleaded from her prison pod. She probably sounded like a broken record but it didn't matter to her. Ever since the team decided to try to reason with her, all she kept saying was to be freed so she could hide from Zoom. Unfortunately for her, they weren't having it.

"You would spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, never knowing when Zoom is coming," Barry meant to serve as a reminder but all Dr. Light did was shrug. "Okay, how were you supposed to contact him after you killed me?"

"I was supposed to get something... something I could only get if you were dead... and then throw it through the breach as proof," Light explained.

"And then what?"

"Then he'd come for me. Confirm the kill and bring me home," Light exasperatedly sighed. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because I want to find him."

"You really don't," Light said with widened, alarmed eyes.

"He's gonna keep coming for me. He's gonna keep kidnapping people like you, forcing them to do what he wants," Barry shook his head. "I have to stop him before more people die."

"You can't stop Zoom. Okay, everyone on my Earth knows that Zoom wants the Flash from another world," Light shook her head fiercely. "You're not getting away. He has plans."

"Among those is the Siphoner?" Belén walked into the pipeline, throwing Barry a look for his secret meeting with the metahuman.

"It's only a matter of time until she comes," Light warned quietly, her voice indicating she was as much afraid of Datura as she was of Zoom.

"Well too late," Belén crossed her arms, "She's already here." Her revelation seemed to freeze Light in her spot. Fear accumulated in her eyes, making the other two metas almost feel sorry for her.

"You have to let me go!" Light pounded a fist against the pod. "If Datura is here it means Zoom knows I failed. She's going to siphon me or kill me!"

"Then help us take them down before they do any more harm," Barry still tried to reason with her, hoping that her fear would somehow help her see they were her only option now.

But Light refused. "Whatever you're planning, it's not going to work. Because if you somehow manage to escape Zoom's speed, you won't escape Datura's touch. A lot of us have tried and they're dead."

"We'll see," Barry meant it as a challenge.

~ 0 ~

"Zoom wants Doctor Light to send him your new emblem…" Caitlin repeated after hearing the story. It actually made sense in the villain's perspective, but since none of them were villains it just sounded plain crazy.

"Yes. We need it for bait," Barry glanced momentarily at his suit sitting on the display. "If we can get Doctor Light to take my emblem, throw it through the breach, then Zoom will come to collect my body, and we can trap him."

Cisco wasn't happy with that idea. "You know it took a lot of work to make that emblem, right?"

"Am I the only one who remembers that she tried to kill Linda just to escape Zoom?" Caitlin decided to input in case they truly had forgotten that crucial detail.

"Linda sure hasn't," Belén snorted.

"Look, I know we can get her to help us," Barry could almost promise it was the case. "She's rational, she'll see it's the only way."

"Before I left Earth-2, I worked on a serum to dampen Zoom's speed. All we would need is for Ramon to develop a weapon to deliver it," Harry shared.

"Oh, great, that could be this year's cold gun," Belén shot Cisco a warning look that he shouldn't even try it. "Maybe another criminal can get it, and then we'd have Sergeant Slow."

"I would never let that happen. Sergeant Slow is a terrible name," Cisco flatly responded with.

"Are we forgetting how much more powerful than Barry Zoom seems to be?" Caitlin looked at them incredulously. "I mean, if Barry can catch bullets, what's to say Zoom can't catch whatever you shoot at him?"

"Surprise... the element of surprise," Harry laid it out for them. "All we would do is rig a projectile to fire as Zoom crosses into the breach. He can't stop what he can't see coming."

"That's great," Barry was relieved to see that someone was at least following through with the idea.

"Thanks."

Caitlin shook her head. "Joe, voice of reason here?"

"We need a plan," Joe agreed on some level. "That's as good as any. As long as he can deliver."

"Don't underestimate me, Detective," Harry pointed and walked out of the cortex to get started on the task ahead.

Barry's phone went off and when he checked it he saw Patty's name on the ID. "Oh, Patty needs us back at the station," he told Joe.

Joe nodded. "I'll meet you there, all right?"

Barry agreed and took a head start with Belén.

~0~

"Hey," Iris stopped by Belén's desk at work. She put down a coffee for Belén and then took a seat at the edge of Belén's desk. "I didn't know you'd be coming in today."

"Yeah well, since my endeavors to get stronger, I've been neglecting my work," Belén reached for the cup of coffee. "I can't afford to get fired."

Linda came by rather nervously, and Belén knew once again what the reason was for her detour. "Hey. Have you had any word from The Flash about the meta-human that attacked us? Or the other one that got to me? Look at me, I have to keep count on who kidnaps me."

"Linda, I promise you that you'll be safe," Belén sighed. She knew it would take Linda a good amount of time before she could feel normal again, what with Dr. Light and Datura kidnapping her...

"Still...I'd just feel better if I could talk to, um...the Azalea? Or the Flash?"

"Linda, I don't think that's a good idea…"

"It's not that I don't believe you!" Linda exclaimed. "I just...I want answers, Belén. Why does that woman look like me? Knowing there's a metahuman with my face on who likes to nearly kill people makes it really hard for me to concentrate on field goals and doping scandals. And then I've got that new plant meta to think about? I don't want to sit around being told not to worry my pretty little head about it."

Belén acknowledged Linda's feelings and sighed. "I get that. Believe me, I do."

"Then tell the Azalea and Flash that I want to talk to them. I bet you can get the message across to the Flash. Please," Linda said, then added, "Iris says he'll listen to you no matter what because of that crush."

Had it not been because they were in public, Belén would have smacked Iris again for that. It definitely didn't help that Iris was smirking.

"I will...try my best," Belén forced herself to say in one go. Soon as Linda was gone though, she hit Iris on the arm. "I'm going to kill you for ever telling that to Linda."

"Sorry," Iris honestly apologized. "When I did that, I didn't know it was Barry. So really, this is your fault."

"Oh, yeah, my bad!" Belén playfully rolled her eyes.

~0~

After getting word of Dr. Light making a run for it, the group gathered at STAR Labs to figure out what exactly enabled her to do it.

"Doctor Light managed to hack into the lights of her cell. The whole building runs on fiber optics that operate on pulses of light, so she turned off the dampeners and used her powers," Cisco reviewed what he learned from the mechanics.

"And made herself invisible?" Belén glanced at the full costume Light had left behind for them. "That's possible?"

"Apparently," Cisco mumbled.

"I told you how dangerous she was," Harry was beyond mad with them. It wasn't like he had warned them about Light - oh wait, he had. "You should have listened to me and sedated her."

"I thought we would be able to convince her that helping us was the only way she'd free herself from Zoom," Barry argued.

"Well, you thought wrong!"

"Yeah. Okay, look, Doctor Light is gone, so instead of assigning blame, let's try to figure out what we're gonna do next," Joe cut in before they went any further.

"Do you think she's gonna try and take Linda again?" Belén worried over her friend who, at the moment, probably didn't know much.

"I had Iris bring Linda to the house, just in case, to keep an eye on her," Barry informed her to ease her concerns. "How are we doing with the speed-dampener?" he asked the others.

"I think we isolated the composite…" Caitlin began, still sounding unsure with this plan.

"And we're modifying the dart the Arrow used to take down Wells," Cisco added.

Harry was growing close to hitting something if they kept using that line. "He's not Wells. I'm Wells!"

"Whatever, Harry," Cisco sarcastically retorted in a louder voice.

"Okay, but we don't even really know if this thing works?" Joe asked just to be sure he was hearing all this craziness.

"Until we try it, no. This will be a field test, so can we end this scintillating staff meeting and get back to work?" Harry motioned he would at least continue with work while everyone else continued to talk.

"Or how about I say what everybody's thinking?" Joe challenged. "Maybe it's a good thing that Doctor Light is gone. Maybe it's the universe stopping us from doing something really stupid."

Caitlin made an agreeing gesture, and honestly Belén was close to doing the same. They had learned the hard way they couldn't just come up with any old, fast plan against Zoom.

"No. No," Barry said loudly. "Keep going. I'm gonna figure out another way to get Zoom."

"A-are you sure?" Belén had to ask, stopping him before he could leave. "Couldn't we come up with something we could all agree with?"

"We don't have the time," Barry sounded rhetorical. Did no one understand they couldn't have the luxury to sit down like a group and discuss their options? Options that were already little to begin with?

When Barry actually left the room, Belén released a sigh. "We can't just go through without calculating. I'm not the cop, I shouldn't have to tell him this."

"I've got you," Joe promised and went after Barry.

~0~

Later that day, Belén stopped by her childhood home to pick up one of the last boxes she meant to take to her new apartment. As she walked in, she found her mother working at the living room, unbeknownst to Belén it was with the papers Veronica had taken from the precinct earlier in the day.

"Mom, hey," Belén greeted and shut the door.

"Hi," Veronica seemed entranced with whatever she was reading at the moment.

"Where's Axel?" Belén searched for her nephew in the quiet room.

"Oh, out in the garden. What did you need?"

"Just coming to make another trip," Belén left her bag at the side table and walked up behind the couch. "What's all that?" she pointed to the mess of papers on the coffee table.

"Information on some old metahuman cases."

Belén raised an eyebrow at her mother, now noticing there were several manila folders spread around the coffee table. "Why are you looking at old meta cases?"

"Because there's some things not adding up, that's why," Veronica said so matter-of-factly one could believe it was just a casual thing she was doing.

"What?" frowned Belén. "What do you mean?"

Veronica sighed as she raised her gaze from her work. "There are several metas that the cops never found but the Flash and the Azalea did yet there are no arrest papers anywhere. Am I to assume the precinct just let it go?"

"Well, what does it matter? The metas were caught-"

"-what matters is that they were not brought to justice in the correct way," Veronica closed the file on her lap. "Does the CCPD let these super heroes take justice into their own hands? We are the cops. These metahumans should be in Iron Heights. And do you know the most significant thing I've discovered in all these cases?"

"Humor me," sighed Belén, figuring she wouldn't win this argument.

"Every single case has been handled by Joe West, with your boyfriend's signature right along the papers."

"Well...I would deem that normal since Barry is the only CSI at that precinct," Belén tried to be casual, and perhaps a tad sarcastic just to make it sound like she wasn't nervous. "I'd be surprised if he hadn't signed anything."

"These cases all have odd details, Belén. If it's not the fact there's no arrests, it's the fact that Joe's overseeing is everywhere on these cases. Does he only do meta cases that involve the Flash and the Azalea?"

"What?" Belén nervously laughed. "I don't know how case selection works. Do you choose your own case or-"

Veronica raised a hand to stop Belén from going further. "I'm beginning to think there's some secrets at this precinct. I'll have to keep digging."

"But Mom-"

Veronica got up from the couch and headed for the kitchen. "Are you staying for dinner? I'll get Axel and we cant try this new recipe I found online..."

Belén didn't listen to her mother in the end. She just kept wondering how complicated this would all get if her mother didn't stay away from meta cases. It could land Veronica into dangerous trouble with the newest metas in the city...as well as causing more conflicts between her and Barry and the Wests.

~0~

When Barry returned home the last thing he was expecting was to have the entire house smelling of a mixture of meals. He spotted Iris standing by the dining room that was filled with said mixture of meals.

"Are you guys having a dinner party?" for a moment he thought maybe he'd missed one of Iris' planned sleepovers.

"You would think," Iris crossed her arms and waited for Linda to return from the kitchen. Seconds later, Linda came by holding yet another pot of food.

"I know, I know. It's just, sometimes cooking helps me to relax," she profusely apologized to them both. She knew she was running them dangerously close to nothing in the pantries. "Have you heard anything about Doctor Light? Or that Datura? Am I still in danger?"

"We're not really sure…" Barry felt bad lying to her but they couldn't tell her much.

"Come on. I'm going crazy here, Barry."

"Yeah, she is," Iris nodded to the table full of meals.

Linda gasped when the oven timer went off. "That's the cake! Hope you're hungry."

"She's not kidding," Iris leaned off the table and started making way for the couch. "There's enough food in there to feed an army."

"She must be terrified," Barry misread the situation.

"Uh, more like furious. Someone nearly died because of this metahuman who so happens to look like her. And then she was used as bait in front of the entire city? I mean, trust me. If Linda had Doctor Light's powers right now…"

Barry suddenly raised his head with an incoming idea.

"What?" Iris recognized that as his thinking face.

"I just, uh, Linda and Light...they're identical. So identical that Light even thought she could fool Zoom. Now we have Light's suit." Barry stopped when Iris said nothing. "You don't even have to say anything, I know. It's a terrible idea."

"Well…" Iris tilted her head. "No, not really. We make Zoom think that Linda is Doctor Light and use her to draw him out."

"It's too dangerous, right?"

Iris would have said yes, but this was something neither could decide. "Let Linda decide. I mean, she's desperate to catch the person with her face who's terrorizing people, and she deserves the chance to help us."

"Okay," Barry smiled and started to tell her how it would work for Linda to help them.

~ 0 ~

Deciding to show up to Linda as the Flash, Linda was given the chance to try and help them set a trap for Zoom. Linda didn't think twice before agreeing to help. The idea was for her to pretend to be Dr. Light and have a fake fight with Barry where she would 'win' and hand over his suit's emblem as proof of his defeat.

"Where are they?" Belén walked into the training room where Linda would shortly be out to practice. She wasn't happy and that was evident as soon as someone saw her face. "I cannot believe - oh hell no." She had stopped beside a couple of cardboard cut outs near Cisco who was on top of a small scaffold. "Cisco, why is there a cut out of me?"

Cisco looked over the rail and grinned. "They're practice targets. Don't worry though, yours aren't the target."

"I was a bit more creeped out on the part where my friend keeps cardboard cut outs of me," Belén crossed her arms.

"It's important to have hobbies," Cisco turned over another cut out he was in the process of hanging. It turned out to be himself holding a camera while striking an odd pose of him sticking his tongue out.

Belén blinked emotionlessly for a second. "I fear for your future wife," she shared and walked away. She spotted Barry with Iris from a distance, the former donning his red suit, and so Belén made a direct beeline for them. "What is going on here!?" she asked them soon as they could hear. "Linda is doing what now!?"

"It's okay-" Iris began when Belén cut her off with a sarcastic 'really'.

"Having our friend who has no powers put herself on the line is not okay in my book!" Belén then glanced at Barry. "And was it really smart of you to show up like that?" she gestured to his appearance. "You outed yourself...ish."

"We don't have time to think of something else," he shrugged. "Besides, it can work, Bells."

"That's my friend," Belén said quietly. "I have known her for years. I can't even think about it if something happened to her because she got caught up in this."

"Hey," Barry took her into a hug, "I won't let that happen. I promise." Belén relaxed a bit but she still wasn't entirely on board with this idea. She felt like Barry was rushing into this without all the connections being made.

"This is ridiculous," they heard Linda coming in. Caitlin walked beside her in the costume that gave her the image of Dr. Light.

"Linda," Belén pulled away from Barry, blinking as she studied the new appearance of their friend.

"Belén, hey," Linda was relieved to see she'd been contacted. While she was comfortable with Iris, she had known Belén far longer and truly trusted her.

"You look...just like Doctor Light," Belén looked Linda over.

"I feel ridiculous," Linda admitted and hugged herself.

"You're fine," Caitlin assured and held out a pair of black gloves. Linda took them rather confused and looked at them for some explanation. "And with these gloves that Cisco rigged up, you'll be able to do what Light does."

"Oh...great," Linda said nervously as she began to put the gloves on.

"I'm gonna go make sure everything's been set up," Caitlin said and headed for the elevated platform where they would be monitoring Linda's practice session. Iris followed behind her, and soon enough went Barry as well.

"Linda, I'm sorry," Belén felt the need to apologize to her friend. However, Linda didn't understand only took a double-take at her in response. "I didn't know that...Flash, was going to pull this. Rest assured I would not have let him."

"What? No!" Linda exclaimed. "I'm glad Iris took me to him. Though I'm a bit surprised that Iris knows him too?" Belén's eyes widened for a moment but Linda, thankfully, went ahead and made her own assumption. "I guess that comes as a perk when you're the daughter's cop, hm?"

"Yes!" Belén didn't think twice in confirming. "Exactly."

Linda smiled and started walking with her towards the platform. She fixed the gloves on her hands and thought to ask whether or not these were pretty safe.

"They should be," Belén glanced at Cisco on the platform. "Right?"

"Totally," Cisco said without thinking.

"Ish," Harry said instead, freezing both women below.

"What?" Belén raised both her eyebrows.

"Well, come on, it's gotta be believable," Cisco tried to reason with them, "so they really do fire and explode things."

"Hm…"

"And you-" Cisco then pointed at Barry, "-are going to have to let her hit you with those blasts when she gets the hang of it."

"Please don't kill him," Belén then mumbled to Linda.

"Okay, the suit can absorb the blasts," Cisco said for her comfort, and probably Barry who wasn't looking so excited either.

"For real or 'ish'?" Belén crossed her arms. "Because let me tell you the difference between those two."

"Okay, you know what? I like to think I can see the bright side of things, okay?" Cisco got snappish with her as well. "Positivity, people," he clapped his hands and went back to work.

Barry gestured to Linda to follow him down the room where Cisco and Joe had set up several cardboard cut outs of themselves. "So just hit the ones of me. Okay?"

Linda nodded. "Got it. Great." She took several steps towards the cutouts, mumbling to herself to get prepared. "Doctor Light…" she took a deep breath and thrust a hand forwards to shoot. Soon as she did, however, she felt the gloves sort of take control and shot relentlessly. "Oh! Oh!" she stumbled back on her feet while the gloves continued shooting. Barry caught her from behind and thankfully put an end to the glove fiasco.

"Uh, you know what? I'm just gonna adjust those a little!" Cisco snatched a nearby screwdriver from the platform and rushed towards Linda who more than terrified now.

"Just...okay, so, um, do the opposite of that, and we'll have it," Barry gave a light pat on Linda's arm, figuring she was probably a little discouraged now.

Later, when Cisco promised that the gloves would not malfunction, they gave it another try. Linda led the way slowly searching for the right cut outs to shoot at. She nearly shot a couple of the 'civilians' but she did manage to shoot some of the right ones.

"Yes!" Linda cheered excitedly after shooting the first right cut out of the Flash. "I did it!" she turned back to her friends. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah!" Barry was equally happy to see her beginning to get the hang of it. The two went to do a high-five but Linda's glove accidentally went off and fired straight at the platform. Poor Cisco was blasted backwards to the floor.

"Oh my God!" Linda gasped. Cisco rolled to his side then sat right up, looking pretty annoyed. "Sorry?"

"She's gonna kill you," Belén quietly said to Barry, meaning all kindness for her friend. "And when she does...I'm going to kill you."

"C'mon…" Barry tried to be optimistic, but everyone else seemed to agree with Belén's perspectives.

After dispatching Linda with Iris, the group met back in the cortex to discuss the day.

"Okay, no offense to Linda, but there is no way she can pull this off," Caitlin honestly didn't mean to sound rude.

"Well, maybe if she didn't scream every time she fired," Cisco shook his head.

"Okay, Linda had a rocky start, but she can pull this off," Barry continued firm, apparently, despite everyone going against it. "I know she can. All right, did you find someplace near breach where we don't have to worry about civilians getting in the way?"

Against his better judgement, Cisco answered him. "Yeah, there's a place by the docks that's usually deserted at night."

"Awesome. Cait, how are we doing with the speed-dampener?"

"My tests indicate that it should work," Caitlin answered rather doubtfully as well.

"It will work," Harry was the only one who seemed to share Barry's persistence in the plan. "I'll tune up Ramon's gloves, make sure they work better."

"Okay great," Barry nodded as the other man started to leave.

"Wait, so we're actually going through with this?" Belén's eyes flickered from one person to the next.

"Yeah, we're doing this," Barry said, confused.

"Uuum…" Belén trailed off waiting to see if he would make the connection but apparently she hadn't been too clear. "We can't! Linda is not ready for this - hell, I don't even think we're ready for whatever plan you have in that big head of yours!"

"Bells, we don't have the time-"

"We need to have the time," Belén snapped. "I went up against Datura on a whim and I got my ass handed to me! Now my friend is going to be out there, risking her life to help us. The least you can do is be truly calculating and have a right plan."

Barry was giving her an incredulous stare for her sudden outburst. He couldn't believe she actually was doing that. Yes, she did make some sense but he made sense too. They didn't have the luxury of time. "We have this-"

"No, we don't," Belén shook her head frantically. "And I'm a little worried, honestly, that you're so hellbent on getting Zoom against everything. I...I can't go through with it." She decided that upon seeing that Barry wasn't exactly going to back down anytime soon. Waving her hands, she signaled she was sticking to her decision and leaving the place.

One would think that would be enough to put Barry straight, but he proved to be severely persistent. Now Joe thought enough was enough, and decided to add onto Belén's thoughts. However he would do it privately.

"I can't believe we're still on this, Barry," Joe gave a deep sigh and crossed his arms once Caitlin and Cisco had left them the cortex.

"Belén will get over it, but this is our only chance to get Zoom," Barry said truthfully. He thought that perhaps Belén was a bit too close to Linda and that's why she wasn't seeing what he was: the perfect chance to get Zoom.

"You saw what happened in there. Linda's not ready," Joe hoped to open his eyes.

"She is," Barry argued. "She's ready enough."

"Why are you pushing this!?"

Barry couldn't believe he was actually going to have this conversation. "What... why do you think? I want to get him!"

"Get who, exactly?"

"Is that a real question?"

"You tell me. I'm... I'm not sure this is even about Zoom, honestly," Joe admitted. "I'm starting to feel like you're still chasing the Reverse Flash."

"Reverse Flash is dead," Barry flatly said, finding no relevance in this.

"Yeah, but after all he did to you, you weren't the one that stopped him."

"We all worked together-"

"Yeah, and Eddie got him in the end," Joe reminded. "I mean, did that make you feel cheated, like you didn't get your revenge, and stopping Zoom is the next best thing?" Barry remained silent and for a moment couldn't look Joe in the eyes. "Belén is right. If you're gonna ask people like Linda to risk their lives, you better be sure of exactly why they're doing it. Otherwise, call it off."

With those words, he left Barry to think.

~ 0 ~

Belén thought nothing would help her distract herself than by working. So, she had thought to continue with her unpacking . And she did that...until she felt her arms would fall off for trying to put together a side table. Thanking the heavens that she had brought along one of her couches already, she plopped down and grabbed her laptop to hopefully continue an article she was meant to turn in by the end of the week. Trying to write proved difficult after spending a good thirty minutes coming up with about three sentences. Her attention, however, was drawn to the jiggling of her door's knob.

Thinking it was perhaps a burglar, Belén stopped her writing and began preparing for a fight.

"Auntie Belén!" Axel, instead, came running in after Veronica opened the door.

For a moment, Belén just stared at her incoming mother, ignoring Axel clutching her waist.

"Hey there, sweetie," Veronica closed the door like nothing and walked in.

"H-how did you get in?" Belén gave a pat to Axel's back. Seeing he was acknowledged, the boy rushed to his grandmother to retrieve his tablet so he could watch his shows.

"Oh, yes, well, Mark stopped by to give me his set," Veronica held up a different key in her hand. "I thought I'd bring it back for you."

"Okay…" Belén still wasn't very comfortable with her mother's presence.

"What's wrong?" Veronica noticed her daughter's odd behavior, despite their earlier disagreement she was pretty sure it wasn't related to her this time.

"Nothing…" Belén answered slowly and took the key from Veronica's hand. "Did...did you need anything?" she took a seat on the couch and grabbed her laptop again.

"I thought we should talk...about earlier…" Veronica took a seat across her daughter, setting her purse beside. Axel silently sat across on the same couch, delving into his tablet.

"Oh, you mean where you went ballistic on me?" Belén stared hard at her screen. "Yeah, no, I totally forgot about that."

Veronica may have thought it was sarcasm but in truth Belén had forgotten about it due to Barry and the Dr. Light situation. "Well I haven't, and I really don't want this to cause another problem between us."

"Well it's a little difficult when you're investigating my boyfriend's adoptive father."

"Not going to argue there," Veronica admitted. "But...Belén I'm a cop. I can't let things go where I don't see logic."

"Mom," Belén sighed. She pursed her lips together, struggling to keep it together all of a sudden. "I accept your apology, I do...but can we not do this right now? I just...I had a day...and I don't want to do anything tonight."

"Belén, what's wrong?" Veronica asked again, this time hoping she would get an answer.

Belén closed her laptop once she realized she would not be writing that night. "Barry and I may have had a disagreement."

"About…?"

"Stuff," Belén left it at that.

"Well that 'stuff' seems to be making your eyes, uh…" Veronica gestured to her own, "...kind of reddish…"

"It's normal stuff," Belén shrugged. "I don't like arguing with him but I had to say something."

"Good for you," Veronica said instantly, showing right approval. "Never swallow down your words for a man, sweetie."

There, Belén found amusement. "Yeah," she gave a slight nod of her head. "Well, I spoke my big mouth...and now I'm here."

Veronica took a moment to look at her daughter, and try to feel the pain Belén felt. With a sigh, she got up from her couch and moved to sit with Belén. "I told you my thoughts and on that man-"

"Yeah, believe me, we both got the idea," Belén sniffled a bit.

"But, if there was one thing that was left clear to me, was that this was something mutual. It's not everyday that a mother is shouted at that her daughter is loved by someone-"

Belén chuckled. "Yeah, believe it or not...he's sort of done that before with our old neighbor Mrs. Andrews."

"Really?" Veronica laughed for a moment. "Maybe you two share big mouths after all."

"Mom," Belén playfully rolled her eyes.

"Anyways, I can't seem to understand what you would argue about so suddenly," Veronica admitted. "You don't want to explain?"

It was then that Belén gave her mother a look that Veronica had never seen before. It entailed a mixture of guilt and concern to such a level that for a moment Veronica wondered what this argument was really about.

"It's private," Belén finally said, looking away from her mother.

"Really?" Veronica began to show her doubt and suspicions.

"Yes, um, it's just things between us, you know? Sometimes it's too intimate to tell someone…"

"Mm…" Veronica hummed and raised her head momentarily, apparently thinking, "...so, there isn't anything you want to tell me, then?"

"Mom, I'd really rather not," Belén meant that honestly. She didn't want to think what her mother would say if she discovered that her daughter had been moonlighting as the Azalea, and that her boyfriend was doing the same thing.

"Is 'secrets' something that Barry showed you how to keep?" Veronica got up, confusing Belén as she went on. "Because if he did, then I'm pretty sure he learned that from his pseudo-father Joe West."

"Mom…"

Veronica had crossed to the other couch to retrieve her purse. "If that's the matter then I'll have to take back everything I said about him."

"Mom, what are you-"

"I insist that Joe is covering something up with these meta cases," Veronica said, not raising her voice since Axel was still on the other couch. He was so in-tuned to his tablet he didn't notice their growing disagreements. "No one in this precinct bothered to check where these metahumans were initially being kept in prior to the metahuman compartment being built at Iron Heights. Every metahuman case that was handled was done so by Joe West and Barry Allen and that-"

"Mom-"

"I like knowing where I work, and who I work with. Now you and I can both see that there is something going on in that precinct that no one else has figured out. So I'm going to ask you, Belén, do you know something that I should know? Could this argument you and Barry had possibly be linked to these metahumans?"

Belén looked down for a moment. She knew that lying to her mother about this should have been easy considering this was something important. It was something that could put her mother in danger. But, Belén found it difficult to lie straight to her mother's face. Because right now, all Belén wanted was to tell her mother all her problems she was having. She wanted to tell her mother that someone was targeting her for something dangerous; someone wanted to hurt her. That the same someone had already sent her to get shot, had already fought her and won. Belén wanted to share that her boyfriend was also being targeted for a clear death and she was just scared he might get hurt, or killed.

I need my Mom, she came to the conclusion. That'd been the first time she thought about her mother like that...perhaps because it was the first time Veronica had been available as a mother to Belén...

But Belén couldn't do anything. Because telling Veronica everything would put her in the cross-fires of Zoom and Datura.

"There is nothing I have to say," Belén forced herself to say in one go. She surprisingly held her tears together as she then requested that Veronica leave.

Extremely upset with her daughter lying, Veronica took Axel and hurried out the door. Belén was right behind them and was there to quickly close the door.

"I'm sorry," Belén whispered, closing her eyes as they began to spill tears.

~0~

Heeding some of Joe's words, Barry decided to reveal himself to Linda in order to help both of them out. Linda was already discouraged of her villainous abilities, and seeing the Flash was an actual friend did make her a little more comfortable. It also did help explain some of the oddities surrounding STAR Labs and the Flash. So, she agreed to help him out once more. Dressed as Dr. Light, she took on the role as the Flash's current enemy.

"I'm here to kill you, Flash," she stood tall and mighty across the Flash. "I am loyal to Zoom, so get ready to fry."

Soon as she said those words she knew it was a bad pun.

She shot a ray of light towards Barry but hit a couple of a stockage from the docks instead. Barry whipped a head back and decided to just go with it.

"Ow!" he let himself fall to the ground.

"Gotcha," Linda smirked, although she struggled to stay with a serious face.

"Yeah, you did, real good," Barry pushed himself up.

"Bring it," Linda motioned with a gloved hand.

Barry sped towards her and when Linda shot, she actually managed to get him. Struggling, Barry got past her only to be shot yet again on the back. This time, his fall to the ground was not fake. Linda turned around putting on her best evil smirk.

"Told you, Zoom always wins." She walked towards Barry who had kept himself down. She bent down to take his emblem and found time to whisper to him. "You're okay, right?"

Barry cracked open an eye and whispered back. "Yeah, yeah. I had to make it look good."

Linda straightened up with the emblem in her hand. "Here it is, Zoom, I did what you wanted." She headed to where the open breech was in midair. "Now bring me home." She chucked the emblem into the breech and nervously waited for Zoom to appear.

Wells and Joe waited as well, but hidden in place with weapons hoping to deter Zoom's speed. Barry had to remain 'dead' on the ground but he was more than ready to jump at the chance when Zoom appeared. Everything was in place. Everything.

However, nothing happened. Minutes passed and everything remained silent. It added onto the fear already placed over several of the group.

"Hey, stop fidgeting," Linda hissed when she caught Barry slowly attempting to move his leg.

"Sorry, it's been an hour. I landed in a ridiculous position, and my foot fell asleep," the speedster argued quietly and returned to being 'dead'.

From STAR Labs, Caitlin and Cisco were carefully checking over any security feed from the docks they could find in case Zoom appeared from another unknown breech. "He's probably just waiting to see if you're really dead. Any minute now, he's gonna strike," Cisco said as a means of encouragement.

"No," Barry decided it was just not happening tonight. He sat up with a deep sigh.

"Sorry, I probably screwed up somehow," Linda hung her head, feeling like she had failed them all.

Barry got on his feet and moved over to give her an honest thank you. "No, Linda, you did great. Thank you for helping me."

Linda knew he was disappointed and smiled sadly. She wished there was more that she could do for him. Her thoughts were interrupted by Joe and Harry coming out of hiding and the latter loudly kicking anything in his way.

"So Wells ain't taking this well," Joe sarcastically remarked as he met with Barry.

"Mm-hmm…" Barry watched Harry turn in a different direction of the docks, storming and kicking things still.

"How about you?" Joe noticed how unusually quiet Barry was despite the loss of the night.

"Yeah, it just sucks, you know," Barry shrugged, thinking of the entire day's course. "You were right a little bit about this not being just about Zoom... about it being about the Reverse Flash. But not for the reason that you think, not because I didn't beat him." With a sigh, he explained the bit of an old video Joe had yet to know about, that everyone save Belén knew. "It's... Wells... he said something to me on that video before he confessed to my mom's murder. He said that even if he was dead, that he still won because I wasn't happy, that I'd never really be happy."

Joe frowned. It was truly unbelievable how Wells could still manage to screw with them even from beyond the grave. "How the hell would he know?"

Barry shrugged again, thinking logically. "He knew me. He knows future me."

Joe rolled his eyes. "Fine. But that's future you. This is the you here and now."

"I still think that Wells is right. Ever since I went back to that night and I didn't save her... I didn't save my mom, I just... there's just been this void in me. You know, I just feel like that is always gonna be there. For better or worse, Wells...he knew me."

"Better than I know you?" Joe would have laughed had it not been a serious matter. "He may have stalked you for 15 years, but I raised you. Look, Wells said what he said to you to mess with you... to get in your head one last time. If you listen to him, you let him win."

"I know," Barry sighed. And he thought that Wells was already beginning to win. Because of his rushed persistence with this plan, he had gotten into a big argument with Belén. God knows how he would be paying for that one.

"I don't want that. You're responsible for your own happiness, Barry," Joe sincerely hoped Barry would finally begin to listen again. "Forget about Wells. Think hard about what you want and what makes you happy. Go out and get it. Simple as that. All right?"

Barry smiled a bit, giving a small nod of his head. "Yeah."

~ 0 ~

Belén had just finished setting up a small rectangular pot holder for her new Azaleas up on the kitchen window when someone knocked on her door. She dumped the trash then hurried to go open. Her heart skipped a beat when she found Barry standing on the other side. Her first thought was his lack of knowledge of today's events, and for now it seemed like the best.

"You were right," Barry decided to open with that. Perhaps hearing he was admitting she had had a point would soften her up into talking with him.

"Please tell me Linda is okay?" Belén asked in fear. Her first assumption was that his plan went wrong and it got Linda into some serious pain.

"She's fine," Barry promised her. "Zoom...didn't show."

"Oh…" Belén knew that despite her feelings on the matter she didn't like to see Barry so upset either. It was important to him, for good intentions after all. She opened the door more and gestured for Barry to come in. "I'm sorry about that," she honestly said. A good part of her was happy that Zoom didn't show up to terrorize them all, because she knew they were not prepared to fight him yet.

"Thanks," Barry watched her close the door. Sheepishly, Belén crossed the living room, or at least intended to. Barry reached out for her arm and stopped her. "Bells, I'm really sorry. You were right about it all. I knew you were right from the start but I just...I wanted to catch Zoom already."

"Yeah, I think we all saw that," Belén said, mildly playful. "And I get it, believe me I do. I want nothing more than to get Datura...but I just don't like the fact you were willing to go into it all rushed and...fast. This time, we need to be slow and calculating. If Datura was difficult to manage, just imagine what Zoom is like."

"I know," Barry accepted it. "But I have to admit that...it wasn't entirely all about Zoom."

"Then…?" Belén smiled a little as she tried to understand what he meant. "...what was it about?"

"You remember the video Wells left behind as part of his will? Our Wells, I mean."

"Yeah, what about it?"

"He said that I wouldn't ever be happy no matter what. And...and it got to me more than it should have…" Barry ran a hand through his hair, still frustrated it did get to him so much, to this point actually.

"I can't believe you're still giving this dead man the time of the day," Belén said first and sighed. "His words are nothing. They should have gone through one ear-" she pointed to one of his ears, "-and out the other." She then pointed to his other ear. "Ever heard of selective attention? I use it all the time."

Barry smiled knowing this was her playfulness coming out to get them back on track. "Yeah," he nodded.

"You should have said something," Belén touched his arm. "Instead of making a scene in front of our friends, I would have had a very different conversation with you somewhere else."

"Believe me if I'd realized earlier I would have." Barry reached an arm around her waist and brought her closer to him and rested his forehead against hers. "I hate arguing with you, Bells, so much."

"Me too," Belén whispered. "I don't like it. It just feels wrong, you know? If that makes sense?"

"Yeah, it does. I don't like knowing that I upset the person that makes me the happiest." Barry gave her a moment to smile before kissing her. And this time, he meant to kiss her in a way that would show her he was truly happy with her despite everything that surrounded them. He walked her up against the nearest wall and kissed her.

Belén let herself be encased in his arms and kissed back until she had to breath, but even then she barely wanted to let go. Barry dragged his lips from hers and set a one kiss on her cheek, then another lower on her jawline, and last on the side of her neck. Afterwards, he nuzzled his nose against her neck, relishing from their moment. This is what made him happy - she made him happy.

"Can we just rest for a while?" his soft tone made it hard for Belén to understand the first time.

She turned her head to the side and met his eyes. "What?"

"The Zoom problem, the Datura problem...I just need one moment of peace...with you," Barry repeated, hoping he made sense without sounding...weird.

Belén brought a hand to rest on his cheek, and just a few seconds after Barry placed his hand over it. "Okay. Let's do that."

She gently pulled him into the hallway and brought him into her bedroom. She wished she could have finished fixing it earlier, but what was done was done. At least she'd gotten the bed. It was an odd thought to just lay down together without doing anything. Usually, they had some movie times or at the very lest were joking with each other about something. Tonight, there was no television. There was no movie. There were no jokes.

And yet, things seemed more...intimate.

Barry was the one to rest his head next to Belén's neck. He eventually scooted closer to her and nuzzled his nose against her neck. Belén moved her arm so that it would rest over his back and she could run her fingers up and down.

It was peaceful.

"We should do this more often," Belén's voice was soft and quiet, perfect for the moment.

"Mhm," Barry had nestled his head closer to the crook of Belén's neck. He didn't want to move anytime soon.

So they continued to lay together, doing nothing except be together. But, like all good things, it had to come to an end. Half an hour later, both of their phones started vibrating. At first, neither of them wanted to move. Neither wanted to break the nice, peaceful bubble.

But the phones kept vibrating.

"I'm sorry," Belén kissed Barry's hair and sat up so she could answer her phone. Iris was on the other end of the line, and once she was able to speak she said it all in one fast ramble.

Zoom had Linda.

~ 0 ~

STAR Labs' computers were all simultaneously ringing in alarms, indicating there was a new visitor in the area.

"He's on the roof!" Harry shouted soon as he got word from the computer.

"He has Linda," Belén rushed to the desk to see through the security cameras where oh where was Linda. "Is Datura with him!?"

While the question couldn't be answered at once, they had a clear view of Zoom. He had chosen to dangle poor Linda over the roof's edge just as Barry got there. Proving to be the ultimate villain, Zoom dropped Linda like she was a pair of socks. Barry sped down to the ground and, using his whirlwind trick, softened Linda's fall into his arms.

"You need to get out of here, okay?" Barry set her down on her feet.

Linda was beyond terrified. "No, you can't fight that thing. It's a monster! I don't know who's worse, him or that crazy lady!"

"Just go!"

Linda looked up at the roof and thinking that Zoom would come for her again as bait, she ran off as fast as she could.

"What is that thing?" Belén was disgusted by Zoom's appearance despite it being only through a computer screen. She had yet to see the full figure of the speedster but now wished she hadn't. "He cannot be human."

Zoom was pitch black, from head to toe. There was an eerie spark around his figure. One could even say his suit didn't have gloves for hands but instead for claws.

"He is human," Harry was also staring in disgust but in a different tone. "Or was, at least."

"How the hell is Barry supposed to defeat that?" Cisco was thinking of the odds in their favor and they were not looking good.

"Why is he running away?" Harry scowled after they all saw Barry speeding away from Zoom. It looked like even Zoom was a bit confused on it too.

"He's not," Belén shook her head. "He wouldn't. I think we can all agree he's not scared."

A delirious laugh came from Cisco, prompting everyone to look at him. "Ooh, he's gonna thunderbolt him!"

"What?" Harry was left thinking.

"Jay taught him how to throw lightning," Caitlin explained.

Barry returned with a thunder bolt that he threw directly at Zoom. They were all stunned, and horrified, to see Zoom literally grab said thunderbolt and throw it right back at Barry, causing the red speedster to crash against a wall.

"Did he just…?" Belén gaped and glanced at the others just to make sure she hadn't seen things. Even Barry was in disbelief.

"Did you guys see that?" he asked through the comms.

"Uh, see him catch a bolt of lightning with his demonic claws?" Cisco met everyone's looks. "Yeah, saw that."

"Jay was right. He cannot do this alone," Caitlin shook her head.

In their shock, they hadn't even seen Harry go into the side room and come back with his trusty, big gun. "He's not alone," he was busy inputting the syringe into it.

"Barry, maybe this a strategical point where you just run," Belén spoke into the comm. hoping he would listen to her.

"No," Barry, unsurprisingly responded. He had gotten back on his feet and pulled out another syringe carrying the speed-dampener liquid. "I'm gonna see if Wells' speed-dampening serum works."

"Yes, but maybe this is the 'rushed, uncalculating' thing we were talking about earlier?"

Although Barry didn't turn off the communication system, it was almost like he did. He ignored the worries of his girlfriend in an attempt to finally put Zoom down.

"How is Barry gonna match Zoom's speed?" Belén sighed, looking to one of her smarter friends for some reassurance this wouldn't end so bad.

"He's not," Cisco smirked once he had made the realization. "He's gonna take it out of the equation altogether."

Caitlin exchanged a look with Belén, neither one of them in the know. "What are you talking about?" Caitlin then asked.

"Terminal velocity. The highest velocity attainable by a falling object."

"You mean...falling through...the air…?" Belén waved her finger above her head.

"Yeah, freefall fight. Their drag force equals the downward force of gravity, making the net force zero, making…"

"Equal velocities," Caitlin joined Cisco in the end.

"That is genius!" Cisco repeated.

"Is it really?" Belén bit her lip nervously and stared at the computer screen like a hawk.

Following through with Cisco's theory, the two speedsters had made it into the air and as they fell, they tried attacking one another. However, Zoom was the one to put Barry to the ground. Zoom picked him right up and delivered a series of punches that disoriented Barry. The last blow, the strongest of all, was given through the back - through the spine. Barry wasn't sure what he was hearing anymore, nor what he was seeing (it was all mostly blurry) but he was sure he had felt that cracking of bones.

"Never forget, I am the fastest man alive," Zoom declared without a scratch on him to show evidence he'd been in a fight.

"He's killing him!" Belén shouted frantically and turned around, making a run to go and help.

"Woah!" Cisco quickly jumped from his chair to block her way. "You can't go out there! He'll kill you too!"

"Someone has to help him!" Belén tried pushing her way but Cisco kept her there despite her fight. "Cisco!"

"Guys!" Caitlin's loud call made them both stop. They rapidly returned to the desk to see what Caitlin wanted them for. Zoom had injected the speed-dampener into Barry's bloodstream and hadn't stopped there.

"Where did he go!?" Belén slammed a hand on the desk once they lost sight of Zoom and Barry. Even Harry, who'd gone out to help Barry, was struck with confusion.

"I-I don't know," Cisco seemed unable to think of something to help them.

"FIND HIM!" Belén cried. She would've done it herself but she didn't know how the system worked.

Zoom had gone to CC Picture News to make a show of his 'triumph'. In one hand he held an unconscious Barry and addressed the entire staff. "Look at your hero."

Iris nearly had a heart attack. Behind her, cameras started going up and active.

"This man is no god. He is nothing!" Zoom left them with that knowledge and next made a stop at the precinct. "The days of The Flash protecting this city are over."

All of the cops in the area formed a line with aimed guns at the speedster.

"Put him down!" Joe was the one to shout at Zoom.

"Now what will you do without your precious hero?"

"Shoot that thing, now!" Singh gave the order.

All the cops fired until their guns finished their ammo but in the end, Zoom merely dropped all of the bullets to the ground from his palm. "Nice try."

He then sped off again.

~ 0 ~

"I should have gone out there," Belén repeated for the tenth time since Zoom had gone off their radar.

"And then what? Get yourself killed? I don't think so," Cisco remained adamant that he had done the right thing in keeping her inside the place. He was sure that Barry would agree with him.

"But then we wouldn't be in this-" Belén gasped when Zoom sped right into the cortex. "Barry!"

"Harrison Wells, you thought you could defeat me with this?" Zoom lifted Barry's body like it was some rag doll in his possession.

"I made a mistake," Harry admitted truthfully.

"Yes, a costly one."

"Let him go! Let him go right now!" Belén yelled frantically and threw a hand forwards, releasing a vine.

Zoom dropped Barry and sped up to her. Belén gasped with the ugly sight in front of her face, though a good part of it stemmed from fear.

"You are not my fight," he said just a second before Cisco shot a third syringe of the speed-dampener.

Belén stumbled backwards, yelping when Zoom dropped to his knees. Still, he managed to speed out of the place before they could capture him. Soon as he did, Belén ran for Barry's body on the floor.

~ 0 ~

As soon as Joe arrived at STAR Labs after the Zoom fiasco, he went directly for blame. If he thought Harry was suspicious before, now he firmly believed that Harry was at fault for all of it.

"This is all you! If Barry dies, you die!" Joe jabbed a finger on Harry every time he said a word.

"Enough!" Belén walked into the cortex in a hurry with Cisco. Their shouts had carried over down the hallway and, fearing a fight, Belén and Cisco left the workroom to come and stop the two men. "Joe, I get you're angry, believe me I am too, but Harry's got nothing to do with it. Barry wanted to go through with the plan in the end. No one forced him."

Still, Joe cast a menacing glare at Harry who looked more or less unaffected.

Cisco debated whether or not to bring in the mysterious topic he'd learned from Harry, but seeing that Joe was inches away from punching Harry, he decided to go with it. "Who's Jesse?"

It was easy to see that Harry was shocked to know that Cisco had knowledge of the name. "How do... Jesse's my daughter. Zoom has her." Cisco seemed to then be making the connections from his earlier vibe. Harry rushed up to him. "You've...you did vibe me-"

"Yes-"

"What did you see?"

"I saw your daughter. She was with Zoom," as Cisco explained, the others shared mutual surprise - and a bit of understanding - looks.

"But she's alive?" Harry needed to hear proper confirmation that his daughter was still breathing.

"Yes," Cisco said, and he admitted that he did feel a bit of sympathy for Harry. If he was grumpy all the time and had short patience it had to be because he was constantly worrying over his daughter being kidnapped by Zoom.

"Zoom sent you here like the others? You kill The Flash, and you get your daughter back?" demanded Joe, still un-inclined to see Harry in any other light.

"I don't...think he did…" Belén barely got the chance to say when Harry answered and explained his reasons.

"The only way I get my daughter back is I capture Zoom. Do you understand?" Harry tapped the side of his head sarcastically. "You love Barry. I love my daughter. And none of these children are safe as long as Zoom is here. I tried on my Earth to capture him. I failed. I thought I could bring him down here with Barry's help. I was wrong."

"Where are you-" Joe didn't finish on account of Harry storming out of the cortex.

~ 0 ~

When Barry finally came to, he felt his entire body aching in pain. He felt something tight around his neck and took a couple of seconds to realize it was a neckbrace.

"Can you hear me, Barry?" he heard a familiar voice beside him. He found Belén sitting beside his bed, looking so concerned over him. "I've been calling you for a couple of minutes now. Can you hear me?"

"Sorry…" Barry looked around as much as he could and saw it was broad daylight through the windows.

Belén followed his gaze and sighed. "You were out-cold for the entire night. Cait said it was normal, for you anyways…"

"How bad is it?" Barry could see a couple of bruises on his arms and he was sure there were more to discover once he could get rid of the neck brace. But even now, his body still hurt to the point he'd rather not move.

"Well, Caitlin said if you didn't heal fast it would be truly bad," Belén felt relief knowing this situation wouldn't last long for him.

"And...Linda?"

"She's fine. She told Iris and me that she was going to stay with some friends out in Coast City," Belén sighed. "I think after everything that's happened to her it's the best thing she can do."

"...Zoom?"

Belén's eyes lowered. "Um...let's...let's give that some time." When she looked at him again she had plastered a fake, cheery expression for him. "Caitlin says that in a couple of days you'll be able to try and walk and run again." She touched one of his legs with a small smile. "But you're gonna have to be patient. And don't worry, I have a lot of movies we can watch. Maybe we can try to just rest together again?"

Barry smiled, though tired, because the way in which she had asked made her look adorable. He needed that right now. "I'd like that."

Belén's smile widened. She ran her hand up and down his leg. "But you'll be patient, okay?"

Before Barry could answer, he thought of something. He realized that in all this time he hadn't felt her touch. Her fingers running down his leg...he didn't feel it. Thinking perhaps it was just the medication that was affecting his mind, he tried sitting up to check for himself.

"N-n-n-n-n-n-no, you have to stay put!" Belén assumed he would try to get back in the running game before he could.

"No, Bells, I...I didn't feel your hand…"

"What-"

"I can't feel my legs!" Barry frantically yelled, leading Belén to call for their friends.

~ 0 ~

"It's about time you showed up," Wells heard soon as he put one foot into the alleyway he'd been appointed to.

Datura's heels clicked against the cement underneath but she still walked in a graceful manner to meet with Wells. "I was doing my errands." Her sarcasm was met with rolling eyes. "C'mon, you can at least say you like where we're meeting," she gestured to the alley, "It's where I made my first Earth 1 kill a few days ago. What was her name?"

Harry dismissed her smugness and went straight to business. "The hell did you want me for? Can I expect Zoom to make another appearance?"

Datura smirked, almost laughing since she knew exactly what happened. "He really knows how to make an entrance, doesn't he? But that's not why I'm here now. I need you to retrieve something for me," Datura said, losing her sarcasm when it came to her brewing idea.

Of course that idea, whilst unknown to Harry, was one that would require him to further betray the STAR Labs team. "What do you need?" he finally asked.

"It's simple. I need Belén's suit tracker." Datura raised her head the moment Harry's eyes widened. She was already tall, but this was one of her ways to feel in control. And unfortunately for Harry, she was in control.

"Why do you need that!?"

Datura's red lips curled into an evil smirk. "That's for you and the others to find out later - soon, if all my errands go well."

"I...I can't do that-" Harry attempted to argue but Datura raised a finger to stop him.

"Don't say no to me. No one says no to me," she said darkly, bringing one gloved hand to the air. Electricity crackled around it for a few seconds before it was fired at the dumpster just behind Harry. The man jumped to the side to avoid getting hit then wildly blinked at her. She, however, remained completely at ease. "It's not a difficult mission, Wells. All you have to do is take the damn device and bring it to me. I'd let you keep it but I don't trust you not to hand it back to the others."

"What do you need it for!?" Harry still demanded some type of answer from her.

"For an idea, I've said this already," she playfully rolled her eyes.

"I can't take that from her suit!"

"Well, I'd ask you to take it from Barry's suit but he's on another level. I'll take care of him when the time comes." Her resurfaced evil smile gave Harry the chills.

"I thought he was all Zoom's..."

"He is, but it doesn't mean I can't have my own fun. Besides," Datura put her hands behind her back as she took a couple steps forwards, "He's not my target. He's really just a bonus for me - to get to Belén, I need him on the side. And to do that, I need Belén's suit tracker. It's really a whole-" she made hand gestures in the air, "-cycle thing that only I understand, but..." she drew in a deep breath and put on a sweet smile, "...it's all good. I get it. So-" she came to stand right in front of Harry, her sweet smile gone and replaced with seriousness, "-get me the suit tracker by tonight or I'll get it myself and I won't care who gets in my way."

Harry honestly felt like shooting her right there and then...but he was out of weapons...and he was short one daughter. "Fine."

[percywinchester27]

About a boy (Part-14)

Word count: 3.8K

Warning: Feels, mentions of physical abuse, child-trafficking, kidnapping, child-violence, bullying and character death

Characters: Dean, Cas, Gabriel, Benny, Michael, Will, OCs and… Sam?

Summary: Dean Winchester has a secret. A secret that could really land him in trouble. He never expected to connect with anyone when he walked into the ‘Blue Stone Orphanage for Boys,’ but even then, the walls he has put up are slowly coming down. Now, a series of strange events are threatening to expose him. When everything starts falling apart around him, will he still be able to save the one person that matters the most?

A/N: We are almost to the end guys, hold on tight! :)

Much thanks to the awesome @thing-you-do-with-that-thing​ and @deanssweetheart23​​​​​​​​​ for beta reading this story <3 You guys rock!

About a boy masterlist

Dean sat in the empty waiting room with his head against the wall. It had been the longest night of his life, and he had carried his little brother out of a burning house before on another night. So that was saying something. Bobby had disappeared in the early hours of the morning, mentioning something about getting Dean his stuff back from the Orphanage. He was still in the dirty, blood-crusted clothes from yesterday. In fact, he was so grimy that the hospital staff refused to let him anywhere near Will. He was reduced to waiting in the corner. 

Both Benny and Gabriel had returned back to the orphanage. All the kids were being transferred to some new temp facility in the city, and his friends would have to go with them. One night had brought them all so close that Dean was shocked to realise it was all over now. He would go back to his old life, and they would go back to theirs.

The look on his face must have been something, because Benny gave him an understanding smile and Gabriel a tired wink. In fact, as they left, Benny even put his arms around him. Dean was so surprised, he barely even returned the hug.

“Thanks,” Benny had whispered, before waving his hand and walking out of the waiting room with Gabe. 

Sitting by himself, Dean had wondered what the ‘thanks’ had been about. Benny had done as much as Dean when it came to the events of previous night. Without him, Dean would have probably died there along with the others. So maybe it wasn’t about that. Dean’s thoughts were muddled though. He was tired and numb from the cold, and Bobby wasn’t back with his clothes yet. Even sleep wouldn’t come to him.

“Can’t sleep, huh? Me neither.”

Cas was slowly walking towards him, his hand bent at the elbow and wrapped in a thick cast. 

“Cas!” Dean made to get up, but Cas gestured to stay put, and plopped down next to him.

“Turns out it was more than just the wrist,” Cas said. He was wearing a hospital gown. The sort that ties at the back and it looked funny on him. Any other time, Dean would have laughed at him.

“Are you okay?” 

Cas shrugged. “Dislocated shoulder, two concussions and yeah a broken wrist. If I forget who you are tomorrow, you’ll know why.”

“You’d be lucky if you did forget me. It would be like none of this ever happened.”

With his free arm, Cas smacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t you say that, Dean. Don’t you ever say that I’d want to forget you. This is all because of you!”

“Exactly my point!” Dean threw up his hands. “If it weren’t for me, Barry would be alive.” There; he had said it. “I failed him.”

“Are you even listening to yourself?” Cas asked angrily. “If it weren’t for you, not only Barry, but even Will would be dead.” he flinched at having said that out loud. “And countless others. Don’t you see, Dean? You put a stop to all of this!”

“I didn’t do anything special. You all were there, you all helped last night,” Dean finally burst. “I had been a self centered jackass for most of my time at the orphanage. All I cared for was about finding my brother. If I had started looking into this sooner, maybe we could have saved Barry.”

“Dean, don’t you see that this could have never been possible without you?” Cas sputtered, exasperated, “If it had been just me, Benny and Gabe, we could have never managed this. You brought something with you that this place had never known.”

Dean remembered Benny’s whispered thank you again. “What?” 

“Hope!” Cas exhaled. “You brought hope and life and adventure into our lives. Not only did you figure it was Michael, you actually brought the police down on the place. I overheard the nurses talking. They saved a few more kids from the holding cells, and uprooted a massive network of child trafficking.”

Dean gulped, trying to comprehend. His brain, however, was too tired to grasp the full picture.

“What about you, Cas?” Dean asked. “Where will you go?”

Cas shrugged and gave Dean an encouraging smile. “I’m just a few months short of 17. A year after that and I’ll be free. Out of the circuit for good.”

Dean wanted to complain again about how unfair it was that he got to go back to the comfort of his own bed while his friend had to deal with uncertainty.

“Don’t worry about me,” Cas reassured him. “We made the national news, apparently. They’ll have to take good care of us now. Besides, it's just one year anyway.”

“What about Michael and the others?”

A shadow fell over Cas’s face and Dean immediately regretted asking the question. 

“Michael’s already in custody. He’s not 18 yet, just a few months short, so they’re holding him at the juvie. About the others, everyone suspected is being questioned. We’ll know when they’ll know, I suppose.”

“I’m so sorry about this, Cas,” Dean said sincerely. “I know he was your family, and he did save your life tonight.”

Cas just shook his head. “I don’t know how to feel about any of this yet, with time maybe I’ll understand, but don’t feel sorry for me. Especially not you, because you taught me what family really means!”

“I did?”

“Yeah,” Cas said, his eyes fierce. “Look at all that you were doing to find your brother. Hell, look at what you did for Will. He’s alive because of you. That’s what family does. Good for each other.”

Cas had just called Will his family. But was he? The thought was like a stab in Dean’s chest.

“Maybe one day, years from now, we’ll be able to look back on today and make sense of things.”

“Maybe,” Dean agreed. Everything hurt right now. It hurt to think about Barry. A small selfish part within him was thankful that Will was safe. He was angry and sad and bone tired, but also relieved and in awe of the magnanimity of the situation. Had they really managed to take down the Stynes? Cas’s words hinted at a vague future where they weren’t kids in an orphanage anymore. But they were still friends. A future where they could laugh about the past, when Dean used to kick Cas’s bunk from underneath because he just wouldn’t stop moving. Or when they used to walk back from school together and take bets about what would be served for dinner. That future seemed far away. However, the quiet confidence in Cas’s voice made Dean look forward to it.

Dean leaned against his friend. And together they sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts as the sun steadily rose higher and higher.

***********************************

“Kid? Hey, kid?” 

Dean jerked awake to see a nurse standing over him looking annoyed.

Dean blinked up at him groggily. He had fallen asleep in one of those chairs after a shower and change of fresh clothes. He could see through the blinders that the sky outside was dark and the lights inside were extra bright. Had he slept here the whole day? That explained the stiff back and the horrible pain in his shoulders.

“Your name’s Dean?” The nurse asked.

“Yeah.”

“That kid in 205 is asking for you.”

Dean jumped out of the chair. “Will’s awake?”

The nurse gave him a look that seemed to question his mental ability. “Yeah. You’re going, right?”

“Yes, yes.”

Dean dashed across the waiting hall and into the room.

Will was sitting up right, looking small in the huge bed. His lashes were wet and a steady stream of tears were making their way down his cheeks. He saw Dean and broke down in huge sobs. Before Dean realised that he was doing it, he had his arms around Will. 

“D-Dean…”he sniffed. “Barry.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, running his palm up and down Will’s side. “I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.” Sorry that I couldn’t save Barry. Sorry that you lost your best friend. Sorry that I can’t ease your pain. Sorry for everything.

Will held on, quietly crying into Dean’s shoulder, blubbering about how Barry was dead even before they had reached the barnhouse. Dean didn’t know how to feel about that. Those bastards had cut him open even then, knowing that he was dead, out of pure greed. But that also meant that he had passed away from the head trauma. There was nothing that they could have really done to save him.

He tried to console Will to the best of his abilities. “Think about when all this is over, you’ll be at a new school, and you’ll have a family. They’ll be here by the end of the week for you.”

Will’s fingers just clutched at his shirt. “I’m just glad you’re here right now, I didn’t know if you were going to be; but you are!”

“Of course I’m there!” Dean said. He silenced the small voice in the back of his head that seemed to ask, ‘for how long?’

It seemed to Dean that he held on to Will for a long time, till the wracks subsided into soft snores. He gently laid down Will’s head onto the pillow, then slowly backed out of the room. When he turned, he saw Bobby standing by the door, a peculiar look in his eyes.

“Got you dinner,” he said.

Once outside, Dean took the food from him gratefully. Now that he was paying attention to it, his stomach seemed shrunk because of hunger. Bobby had never been the sort to monitor Dean’s meals, or rush after him with cookies and milk in the morning. Food was just food. There was always some of it at the house. If Dean was hungry, he knew enough to look for it in the kitchen.

He pulled out the burger from the paper bag and dove into it. He hadn’t eaten a damn thing in over twenty four hours, unless the glucose that they put into him after the blood donation counted.

“How’re you doing, kid?” Bobby asked, eyes slightly narrowed.

Dean shrugged, trying to lick the remnants of the burger from his fingers. Good thing there was another one in the bag.

Bobby cleared his throat. “You know, Jody and I are really proud of you. We were worried out of our minds, but proud.”

Why did Bobby have to do that? He knew that both of them sucked at all this heart to heart stuff, and now Dean felt like something was stuck in his throat. But Bobby was clearly leading somewhere with this. So he waited.

Strangely, Bobby completely changed the track, “You’re really close to that kid in there, aren’t you?”

Dean wanted to roll his eyes. Sometimes Bobby really had a knack for stating the obvious. Dean had thrown a fit when Bobby had asked him to come back to the motel with him, absolutely refusing to leave. Even the police had to take his statement there.

“Yeah, we’re close,” Dean said, then realised that his knack was probably ‘understatements.’ The feeling of something being stuck in his throat wasn’t going away. And now the corners of his eyes were beginning to sting. 

“Bobby,” Dean said thickly. “I’ve never really asked for anything from you.”

Bobby grinned. “Yeah, you’ve been a good kid.”

Dean didn’t return the smile. He looked down at his feet, then said, “What I’m going to ask now is much, much bigger than what you signed up for when you took me in. It is impulsive and crazy on so many levels. And I know if I didn’t ask… didn’t beg, the ‘what if’ would kill me.”

He felt Bobby’s hand land on his shoulder, and Dean looked up into his blue eyes. “You know you only have to ask, son.”

**********************************

“Look, what I have for you!” Dean announced stepping into room no. 205. 

Will was sitting propped up against the bed, nibbling at a piece of apple, staring absently out of the window. He jerked upright at Dean’s voice, eyes expectant. One side of his mouth quirked up a little. 

It was a small thing, but this was the first time something even resembling a smile had crossed his face.

It had been three days now since Will had regained his consciousness. He had been fully made aware of everything that had happened. In return, Will had told the police his side of the story, and while doing so, he had steadfastly held on to Dean’s hand under the rug, like he was drawing his strength from it. That had only reinforced Dean’s resolve regarding what he was about to do… about to ask.

“Here,” he said, pulling out the packed bowl. “Chicken soup. You love that stuff, don’t you?”

They used to make a disgusting, watered down version of it at the Orphanage every once in a while. Will's mood was always exceptional on those days. He would whistle and smile more.

Dean could use that smile today.

Will’s eyes widened. “You remembered!” he said, staring at the steaming bowl with wide eyes.

Dean ruffled Will’s hair, then settled the bowl before him on the tiny  table. “Course I did.”

He watched as Will scarfed down the soup. The past days had been hard for him. The incision was deep, and though the doctor never actually cut the kidney out, there were complications that required complete bed rest. Will had suspected that something was wrong the moment Andy had dragged him out of the Orphanage. He had yelled and called out but there was no one to listen to him, help him. The image kept Dean awake at night… he had woken up in cold sweat imagining Will crying out for him.

At least, it was short lived. Andy had sedated him before they had reached the warehouse. Even the thought of Andy made Dean want to punch something. Jody told him that they were doing everything to indict him in as many cases as they could. He was spending the rest of his life in prison just like Stynes and everyone involved. Dean hoped it was in the worst prison in Texas.

“Dean?” 

He looked up to see Will staring at him with those big hazel eyes. 

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” It was quiet, heartfelt.

Dean shrugged. “It’s nothing. The diner is right around the corner.”

“Dean.” Will said again, with more gravity to his voice. “Thank you for saving my life. The doctor told me what you did. He said, if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have died thrice over.”

“He didn’t say that!” Dean gasped.

Will smirked, “No, he didn’t say that last part, but you get the gist.” Will wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Hey!” Dean said. “You weren’t going to die. I would have never let that happen. Besides, you aren’t getting rid of me that easily.”

“It’s just till the end of the week. You’ll get rid of me then,” Will muttered, looking at his lap. “The Kensingtons will be here by Sunday.”

“Will,” Dean said. His heart was pounding against his ribcage, or in his throat. He didn’t know which of the two it was. In fact, his whole body felt out of sync.

“Will,” he said again. “Do you… do you want to come live with me?”

Will visibly caught his breath. “What?”

“I-I know it won’t be anything like living with the Kesingtons in New York. The house in Sioux Falls is old and the floorboards creak like zombies are walking around at night, but the backyard is huge, and there’s so many cars there. I could teach you how to jack them. The summers are the worst, but when it rains, the mud smells so good...” Dean knew he was rambling, but now that he was talking, he just couldn’t stop.

“... The school is just your usual rundown place. It’s not anything special, like that Fancy school for gifted children in Manhattan, but it is much, much better than the last one. They have an advanced program there-”

“How?” Will cut him short. “How’s that possible?” 

“I’ve talked to Bobby. He is okay with adopting you, too. You’re almost twelve, so legally you can choose to terminate the Kensingtons adoption since it isn’t completely through yet. It’ll be tricky, but Jody said it was possible…”

Bobby had been weirdly okay with it. Dean had been sure that he’d have to argue with Bobby over this, but Bobby had listened to him and agreed without a condition. The only question he had asked: “What about Sam?”

Dean gulped. “What about him?”

“You know what I think about your hunt for Sam,” Bobby said. “And you’ve never listened to me. So are you going to stop looking for him now?”

“Yes,” Dean said slowly. “I am going to stop looking for him, but I’m not giving up on him. Now that all the files from the orphanage have been seized as evidence, the PD will look at them with a fresh set of eyes. And even if they don’t find Sam’s file, we can always file a fresh missing complaint or even ask them to reopen the old one. Maybe all the trails haven’t gone cold.”

He let out a deep breath. “You were right all along, Bobby. I was using Sam as an excuse, as a mirage, something to hold on to when things got rough. But in reality, he is just a kid I don’t know anything about. Everything that’s happened made me realise one thing. I was so hung up on Sam that I ignored everything else. Any of these kids could have been someone’s Sam. It doesn’t mean that they are less important. There’s just no one looking out for them.”

Bobby’s eyes crinkled at the edges and he unexpectedly smiled. “You grew up too soon, Dean. I was just worried that you were somehow replacing Sam with Will. That you were in denial and overcompensating. Because that wouldn’t have been fair to him. Now I know that’s clearly not the case.” Bobby cleared his throat, then said, “Does he know?”

Dean shook his head. “I had to know if you were up for it first. I know it’s a lot to ask…”

“Oh don’t go showing gratitude now, you idjit!” Bobby scoffed. “If you’re that grateful, pitch into the housework, and clean that damn room of yours. I ain’t shoving this poor kid in there with your clothes hanging off the rack.”

Dean was so relieved that his laugh came out as a gurgled cough.

“I don’t know if I’m being selfish here,” Dean admitted. “I mean he has a shot at a great life with those uber rich people from upstate NY. What if I’m ruining his life because I want him with me?”

“First of all,” Bobby said, “You’re not gonna be forcing him. It’s Will’s choice where he wants to go. Second of all, money can’t make someone’s life! It can bring him opportunities, but that’s about that. What he makes out of them is his own doing. He was doing plenty well at school even in that dastardly boy’s home. And lastly, you’ll love him enough to last him more than one lifetime. I don’t think the pretty rich folks can give him that. It’s all that he needs right now. Love and family.”

Dean nodded, glad that he had Bobby in his life.

“Don’t worry about it, Dean. He’ll be just fine. And if Sam shows up,” he said, that peculiar look back in his eyes. “We’ll have a place for him, too.”

Now, Will asked the same question. “What about your brother? What happens if you get Sam back?” His voice was quivering.

“Nothing happens,” Dean said, placing a hand over Will’s. “The police will keep looking for him, just like they’d keep looking for any other missing person, and I’ll stay with you.”

“I-I don’t understand.” Will had gone completely still. “You had been so obsessed with finding him all this time, and now suddenly you’re all okay? And what? You want Bobby to adopt me? I- I can’t fill in for your brother.”

Dean tightened his grip. “Don’t you see it, Will? You aren’t filling my expectations of Sam. In fact, if I actually ever find him, he’ll have a tough time living up to you. No kid can be as smart and kind as you are. I’m scared that I won’t even think of him as a brother the way I think of you!”

“Brother?” Will’s eyes that had gone round were starting to fill up now. 

Seriously, for an olympiad winning kid, Will could be really dense sometimes.

Dean lowered himself slightly so he was at Will’s level. “When I saw them put you on that gurney back at the warehouse and load you into that ambulance, I realised I would rather have you than an idea of Sam. You’ve been more of a brother to me than Sam ever has been. So, what do you say, bud?”

Will just stared mutely.

Dean stared back resolutely. “It’s not a huge house like the Kensingtons but Bobby and Jody are good people. They’ll look after you well and there’s always going to be me. I promise I’ll never let anything bad happen to you ever again. With the wedding in the fall, there’ll be even less room and you’ll probably have to share the bedroom with me-”

“Yes!” Will exhaled, like he had broken free of something invisible that was strangling him. “Yes, I want to come with you. God, yes.”

“Really?” Dean couldn’t believe his ears.

Will did not reassure him again. He dove right at Dean. “I can’t believe this is really happening,” he whispered. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Dean held on to Will, who was shivering in his arms. 

“Then that’s all I need to know,” Dean said. Maybe it was wrong to feel this way after everything they had been through, all that they had lost, but Dean felt complete. Whole. Like things were going to end well after all. He tried not to dream of all the little scenarios. How they could work on the cars together or play games on the crappy console he had stashed in his room. But try as he may, each scene just spread itself out in his mind. Will smiling, eating a proper breakfast on a proper dining table and aceing classes in school. Dean was already proud.

“Will,” he said, heart full of joy. “You’re stuck with me.”

*******************************

A/N 2: ONE more chapter to go! (Plus epilogue) What do you guys think is going to happen? I am excited!!!

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[thescatterbrainedwriter]

Movie Night

Wanting to spend more time with Emily but having no real reason, he settles on a movie night to explore the different ways they differ between Earths

Word count: 5,400

Pairing: cannon x oc

Warning: fluff everywhere

**Note: at this point in time, no one on team Flash know Estrata’s real name. Estrata = Emily. Also, Emily is my own creation. I just like sticking her in random things 😅 Enjoy! 🥔🎨

——

It was a mostly quiet day in Central City, Emily had been wandering around S.T.A.R Labs and gotten bored so she had resorted to tinkering in Cisco’s lab on a device of her own making when her earpiece chimed alerting her to an incoming call. “Hello~” she greeted in a semi-singsongy voice, “you’ve reached the interstellar traveler, how might I help thee?”

“Uh, hi,” the greeting choked out. “It’s Harrison.”

Emily smiled. “Hey Harry, to what do I owe this pleasure?” She giggled to herself when she heard him clear his throat.

“Well, uh, it’s been a few weeks since your— your last visit to, uh, to Earth 2,” he fumbled, “and, well, Jessie. Well, not really Jessie, but yes I suppose her too. Anyway, Jessie and me, I— we, were wondering—“

“Harry,” she interrupted, “Haaarryyyy,”

“What?” He asked abruptly having been pulled from his train of disorganized thoughts. Emily chuckled going back to concentrate on her project. “Breathe, take a second, compile your thoughts and then speak. Take all the time you need, I’m not going anywhere.” She heard him exhale, then inhale, and paused for a few seconds before starting again. “Seeing as it’s been a while since you were last here, I was wondering if you would be interested in a movie night. Here. With me.” She paused still tinkering as she pondered the proposition. “Well, I can’t remember the last time I had a movie night,” she said after thinking it over. “Sounds like fun, sure!” She swore she could hear a smile cross his face upon hearing her answer.

“Uh, great! That’s great, uhmm...” he paused and she heard shuffling on the other end. “H—how about tomorrow. Night. Tomorrow night at say 7?”

“Sure, sounds good to me,” she said. “I’ll make sure to let everyone know I’ll be unavailable for the evening.”

“Ok, good. Good. I’ll see you then, then.”

“Hey wait,” she called before he could hang up. “Should I bring anything? Like a snack or drinks?”

“No no, I have that covered. Just bring yourself.”

“Aaaand the dress code?”

“What do you mean ‘dress code’?” He asked confused. “Should I wear something comfy or is this a fancy affair?” she asked with an amused smile.

“Oh, oh that,” he said in realization.

“Yes, that,” she replied with a giggle.

“Comfortable should be fine.”

“Alright, oversized shirt and maybe pants then. Got it.” She smiled to herself mentally planning out her night. “See you tomorrow night.”

“Yes, yes. Tomorrow night.” Harrison confirmed to himself. “See you tomorrow night.” Harrison hung up leaving Emily smiling to herself and continued tinkering well into the late afternoon.

————

The next day went smooth though was disappointing given no leads in finding a way to stop Cicada leaving everyone rather frustrated. As 7 drew near Emily started getting antsy with anticipation and nervousness.

“Are you ok?” Cisco asked noticing her knee near constantly bouncing as she stared at the clock.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Why?” She asked pulled from her concentration.

“Your knee has been bouncing nonstop for the past half hour, that’s why.” Her knee stopped as she stared like a deer in headlights trying to think if an excuse. “Uhhhhh yeah. No, I do that sometimes when I’ve been sitting too long, that’s all. My mom does the same, family trait who knew?”

“I call malarky on that,” Cisco dismissed. “You’re impatient for something.”

“Mmmmnnooooooo.....?”

“Yeeaaahhhhh,” Frost chimes in. “You’re avoiding eye contact and drawing out words. And I can clearly see your veins pulsing in your neck with your raised heart rate and accompanying blood pressure.” Emily stayed silent drawing a blank on what to say next, panic flared for a moment as Barry, Iris and Ralph eyed her waiting for an answer before she decided to give up the ruse. “Alright fine. I have....a movie date. Well, not really a date, least I don’t *think* it’s a date, but I won’t be here tonight.”

“Oooohhhhhh,” Nora teased. “Is it Harry again?” Emily blushed diverting her gaze to the nearby wall. “......Maybe....” she muttered.

“Well this is getting kinda serious,” Cisco joined in. “This is what, second date this month not including calls?”

“Most of those calls were from Jessie,” Emily defended. “Only a few were initiated by me with the sole purpose of checking in on things. Harry kinda just, took over from the background. And she came with us to coffee and karaoke so that doesn’t count as a date. Besides, pretty sure she’ll be there for the movies too.”

“And where are the movies taking place?” Ralph asked skeptically. She drew another blank as she realized they never discussed location. “Uhhhhh actually I....didn’t..... hmmm. Didn’t catch that part, so I have no idea.” Ralph smirked throwing a glance over at Barry. “No location means it’s probably at his place,” he said. Emily swore her heart stopped dead with that realization, why didn’t she realize that was a possibility? “Ah, right,” she choked out. “Makes sense now that I think about it.”

“Don’t worry,” Barry reassured. “Harry’s a responsible guy. You’ll be fine.”

“Make sure you both behave though,” Cisco added cheekily. Emily made a face and Iris smacked his shoulder. “Be nice,” she scolded. “Anyway, what time was this Movie Night supposed to happen?”

“Seven tonight,” Emily said looking back at the clock before realizing how late it was already. “Crap! It’s already 6:30! I gotta go get ready!” She jumped up and hurried to the doorway out of the Cortex. “Get ready how?” Ralph asked teasingly.

“You’re crazy if you think I’m telling you any more about tonight,” she said wrinkling her nose.

“I’ve been called worse,” Ralph replied with a sly grin. Emily rolled her eyes before disappearing around the corner toward her accommodations to change. She had the perfect oversized forest green long-sleeved shirt and a pair of worn out jeans in mind wasting no time to get them on. Once she was sure she had everything she needed she made her way back to the cortex to find Cisco for a breach. On her way she received a message from Harry; coordinates and what looked like the numbers to a house address. Her heart skipped a beat again but she gathered her resolve. “Hey Cisco,” she called. “Think you could breach me to these coords on Earth 2?”

“Yeah sure,” he replied. “Anything for my boy Harry,” he smirked.

“I am turning my relay off when I get there just so you know,” she said hitting his shoulder. “I don’t need you asking thousands of questions and pestering me.” Cisco smiled cheekily raising an eyebrow. “Really, that’s it,” Emily defended. “No other reason. Nothing.”

“Mhmm.” Cisco hummed.

“I’m serious!” Emily said flustered. “I mean it.”

“Just be safe, alright,” he teased. Emily smacked the back of his head having had enough. “Hey hey,” he said swatting her hand away. “Who’s the one you need to get you there?” She sighed. “I’m sorry, alright? Just, please stop.” Cisco smirked. “Ok alright. I guess I’ve tortured you enough.” She breathed a sigh of relief as he opened a breach to the coordinates she was sent. “I’ll tell him you said hi at least,” she said with a smile before stepping through. He smiled back and waved as the breach closed leaving her on Earth 2 for the night.

Taking a breath she looked around to figure out where she was. *Uugh, this reminds me of going over someone’s house for the first time back in high school,* she thought to herself suddenly very nervous. Despite the time she was surprised how much light there was still hanging in the sky. Gaining her bearings she realized this house was very similar to the one Harrison Wells on Earth 1 originally had, though it leaned heavily toward 1920’s aesthetics. Double checking the address number she confirmed she was in the right place and tentatively approached the door. Pausing she stared at the large double metal doors, hand hanging in the air poised to knock but unable to do so. Taking a breath she knocked three times, too late to turn back now and cancel plans. Just enough time passed to let her wonder why in the world she was so nervous when the doors opened. To her surprise is was Jessie. “Oh, hey Es,” she greeted with a smile.

“Hey Jessie.” Emily replied forcing a smile.

“My dad is in the kitchen making popcorn. Come on in,” Jessie said stepping aside. Emily smiled walking into the spacious foyer and looked around as she took her shoes off. “He’s been buzzing around almost all day getting ready. ‘What do you normally eat for movie snacks?’, ‘what should we watch?’, ‘would a sweater vest be too much?’, ‘do you think she wants water or something sugary to drink?’, ‘is wine inappropriate?’. Just, questions all day.” She laughed. “I can’t remember the last time he was so, so...”

“Nervous?” Emily asked.

“Happily excited,” Jessie corrected. “Kinda reminds me of when you ask your crush out and they unexpectedly say yes or something.” Emily pursed her lips at the chosen comparison and glanced over. “Anyway, I hope he doesn’t get too much out of hand tonight,” she said pulling on a jacket and shoes.

“Wait, you’re not staying?” Emily asked nervously.

“Nope, I have plans with friends tonight so you two have the whole house to yourselves,” she smiled. Emily’s heart skipped a beat and she was sure her eyes would pop out of her head. Just as she was to respond Harry came out of the kitchen and smiled seeing her. “Ah, good, you found it ok,” he said happily as he strode over. “You sure you don’t want to stay Jessie?”

“No, no I’m sure. You two have fun though,” she smiled again a little wider. “Later, dad. Bye, Es.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Emily before leaving out the two doors behind her. Emily took a shaky breath staring at the door. *It’s just movies,* she assured herself. *Just movies, just movies...*

“So, I was going to pick out a movie,” Harry said heading toward the living room. “But I realized I have no idea what you like. So I decided to wait until you got here.” He placed the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table as Emily turned around rather stiffly and started toward him. “Harry, I can guarantee I haven’t seen any of your movies before.”

“R-right, different Earths,” he said mid realization.

“Technically, different multiverse altogether, but yeah. Different Earths,” she smiled sitting on the couch and crossing her legs. “Cisco says hi by the way. You really should touch base with him more often.”

“Ah, right. I’ve been meaning to do that. Anyway, pick a genre. I doubt you want to watch documentaries or scientific history.”

“Actually, my Earth had a few really fascinating nature documentaries. I loved the one about the deep dark oceans but I though the one about the animals was amazing. I never realized there were so many bugs in just the amazon.” Harry smiled as she trailed off. “Sooooo, documentary then?”

“Hmmmm, how ‘bout Science Fiction? Got anything about aliens?” she asked moving from the couch to kneel next to him. He shifted so she could better see the list of movies though she could tell the close proximity made him nervous. She smiled to herself as she leaned over the table and propped her head up with a hand. Harry cleared his throat. “Uh, I don’t. I don’t think we have, that kind of, o-of movie. I don’t think we have that one. No.”

“Lemme see,” she said scooting a bit closer. “What’s this one about?” she asked pointing to a video disk.

“Eyuh, that’s, uh. That’s, actually let me see,” he picked it up and looked it over. “I think this is an alien movie. Must be one of Jessies.” Emily took it from him and read the summary. “Looks like, alien sharks fight back against scientists who want to study them. They’re highly intelligent and even more deadly. Huh.” She held the disk in front of her face so only her eyes could be seen. “Aliens and animals, sounds like a winner to me.”

Harry smiled an awkward smile. “Are you sure? We have, uhm,” he rifled through the different disks and pulled out a random one. “A garden that holds dark secrets- no wait, not that one. A documentary on Howard Crane.” Emily raised an eyebrow. “No? Ok then how about— a trio of adventurers trying to find a lost city?”

“You mean like Indiana Jones and Nathan Drake?” she asked reaching for the disk. “Kinda like that one too.”

“I....don’t know who those people are,” he responded rather lost. “But sure, I guess?”

“Oh wait! Is that a dragon??” She reached for yet another resorting to just laying over the coffee table to better access the disks. “Dragons are so cool, they’re my mom’s go to fantasy creature. She’s even tried writing some dragon related stories.” She turned and showed him the disk. “I like this one too.”

He smiled again. “Ok, so three winners. What one should we put in first.” Emily sat back on her knees and thought for a minute. “Alien sharks first. That way if it’s bad, we have two others to watch instead.”

“What if they’re all bad?” Harry asked.

“How can they be all bad, you still have them?”

“Good point. Alien sharks it is,” he said and snatched the disk away from her to put it on. Emily hopped back up to the couch and settled in again. Harry sat next to her and started the movie when he remember the drinks. “Oh, I almost forgot about refreshments!” He went to move but Emily stopped him. “I got it,” she said getting up. “They on the table?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure what kind of, uh, soda you liked so I got a few different ones.” Emily came back with a glass bottle for two different kinds, one looked like a cola and the other a kind of orangette. “Which do you prefer?” she asked holding up the two. He paused and she could tell he had to stop himself from saying something else when he pointed to the cola looking one. “Th-that, uh that one. Please.” She raised and eyebrow amused before handing him the drink and plopping down again. He reached for the popcorn but she floated it over to them with a smile. “I told you, I got it.” He smiled nervously taking the bowl and started the movie.

Popcorn orbited her head and would stop every time she hyper focused on the movie. Harry thought it was funny whenever this happened because she would always lean forward a little, sometimes she would reflexively grab his nearby knee and make him jump. He eventually found himself paying more attention to her than the movie, not that alien sharks were in his interests in the first place. When the movie ended she made a face. “What’s that for?” He asked sitting up.

“Kinda.....kinda fell flat at the end,” she lamented.

“How so?” He asked turning to face her.

“Super intelligent alien sharks, super intelligent scientists, intellectual stand off, and they just agree to part ways after most of the scientists are eaten? What?!” Emily complained while gesturing wildly accidentally flinging some of her orbiting popcorn. “It’s so dumb!”

Harry chuckled. “It’s alien sharks, what were you expecting?”

“I dunno!” She slumped in her seat and sighed. “Well anyway, good thing we watched that one first.” She spun to face him crossing her legs and holding up the other two disks. “So, which one next?”

“You seemed pretty excited about the dragon one so how about that?”

Emily smiled wide, Harry thought he could even see a glow, before saying ok and float-rolling herself over to the player to pop out the other disk. Harry grabbed the now mostly empty bowl to make more popcorn and grab more sodas. She was still fidgeting with the player when he returned bringing a smirk to his face and a chuckle from his mouth. “Do you need help?” He asked observing her upside down position.

“No no, I think... Ah ha! I got it!” She declared switching out the movies and flipping herself right side up again. “Whoa, dizzy.” Harry was sat on the couch again with a fresh bowl of popcorn still piping hot and two more bottles of soda. He held one out for her as she floated back over and plopped on the couch again. “Thank you,” she said with a smile before popping the top off.

“Ready?”

“Yesss!”

Harry smiled and pressed play, hand already digging into the popcorn and Emily nestled further into the cushions sipping her soda. They were both pretty fixated on this one, though Emily found herself observing Harry a few times. Many times throughout the movie he would stop chewing his snack, have his hand in limbo mid bite or sip while totally engrossed in the movie. She found it amusing as he didn’t seem like the fantasy type and he had a tendency to leave his mouth hanging open. She even noted a little sparkle in his eyes whenever the dragon came on screen. Smiling she leaned on him a little and went back to enjoying the movie. When the movie ended they both sat quietly for a moment. “Wow, dragons are awesome,” Harry commented.

“Right?!” Emily asked enthusiastically turning her head to face him. “Can you imagine if they were able to exist?”

“I don’t think it’s scientifically or even biologically possible,” Harry responded dampening the mood a bit.

“Well, large reptiles have existed before,” Emily mused. “So, theoretically they could exist. Maybe not on a huge scale but given enough large mammals like cows, sheep, goats, to more exotic things like Elephants and hippos, a small community of large sized dragons could live.”

Harry smiled listening to her rattle on. “And by large size you mean?”

“Maybe nothing much bigger than a bus, possibly a little smaller.”

“Sounds reasonable, but how would you be able to explain their fire breath?”

“Many popular theories have it as a chemical reaction, kind of like some species of insect. And there’s the spitting cobra that can spit quite a few feet away. Scale that up a lot and voila! Dragon breath!”

Harry chucked rather impressed. “Seems you’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“Not really, not just me anyway,” she replied with a stretch. “That’s mostly stuff I’ve read others come up with or have seen in movies or read in books. Like this one movie, a big bad aggressive male dragon took over a city and toward the end of it you get a really good shot of his mouth open before he breathes fire. Looked like gasoline to be honest.” Her arms hung lazily behind her over the couch back as she looked at him with a smile, eyes becoming a bit heavy with impending sleep. Harry stared for a moment before clearing his throat and standing up. “So, next movie then?” Emily nodded before jumping up. “Oh wait! I have to pee. What door is the bathroom?”

Harry laughed being caught off guard. “Down the hall, second door to your left. Light switch to the right.” Emily nodded before hurrying off down the dark hall sliding to a stop in front of the door. Harry smiled again as he switched the movies and then went to get a glass of water. As he was walking back Emily crashed into his back sending the glass flying out of his hand and threatened to spill everywhere. Reaching her arms around him in a half hug she caught the glass and water mid air with a field having subconsciously pressed herself into his back. “Did I catch it?” She asked peering around him. Harry was frozen, not only from the surprise impact and impending glass shattering sound that never came but the petite frame currently right up against him. “Y-yeah, yeah. You, uh. You got it. Got it all actually.” he assured fighting to speak.

Sliding out from behind him she put the water back in the cup and held it gingerly as she turned around to return it. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t see you in the dark.” He leaned against the nearby counter and waved dismissively. “No, no, no, it’s...it’s fine.” He reached for the glass keeping his eyes turned away and hurried toward the couch cup in hand. Emily cocked her head to the side pausing for a second before following and taking her seat.

The further into the movie they got the more sleepy Emily became, and the more she found herself leaning on Harry. He didn’t seem to mind, rather shifting position subtly to make his shoulder a bit more comfortable. After probably the 70th yawn, Emily couldn’t keep her eyes open and quickly found herself sound asleep.

——

Early the next morning Harry stirred awake. Groggily he looked around having heard someone in the kitchen. *Probably Estrata,* he thought as he stretched with a deep sigh. As his brain continued to wake he realized there was a weight on his side, and something rather warm. Lifting an arm so he could focus on what it was he realized it was Emily; sleeping soundly with one arm draped around his waist and her head on his chest. Instantly his grogginess left him as soon as it registered what the weight was. Due to his stretching Emily stirred, breathing a deep sigh she snuggled into him a little more causing his heart to skip. He smiled once the mild panic subsided and leaned his head back, closed his eyes and attempted to fall asleep again when he heard footsteps. Lifting his head he was greeted by Jessie, who was looking rather amused at the scene. “Morning, dad,” she smirked.

“Jessie!” he near yelped. “I— we— it’s not—“

“Long night?”

“Yes. But not, like that— we found three movies. Did you buy an alien shark movie?”

“What? No, stop deflecting.”

“I’m not!”

The voices and squirming from Harry caused Emily to stir again. Another deep sigh and a stretch, Emily started to wake up. Rubbing her eyes she squinted one open and saw Jessie standing near by. “Oh, hey Jessie,” she said mid yawn. “You have fun.....last night....?”

“Yeah, yeah I did,” she smirked again. “Looks like you two did as well.”

“Hmmm...?” Emily turned to see what she thought was a pillow was in fact Harry. He smiled with an embarrassed chuckle and Emily instantly shook off her drowsiness shoving herself away in surprise and landed at the other end if the couch. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry. Woah too fast...”

“Wow, you are really warm,” Harry commented sitting up a little.

“Thank my mom,” Emily replied trying to stop her head spinning. “She does the same thing, we turn into space heaters in the winter. Oof...”

“Now, if you two are done cuddling, I made breakfast.” Jessie teased leaving the room. Emily and Harry just looked at each other heavy with embarrassment and laughed nervously. “Should weee.....?” she asked pointing toward the kitchen.

“Yeah, yup,” Harry agreed quickly standing. He ran his fingers through his hair as he shuffled out leaving Emily on the couch. She groaned rubbing her face before getting up and following him, how would she possibly write this off? She paused nervously in the doorway before taking her seat, Harry and her looking at each other sheepishly.

“Soooo, what did you guys watch last night?” Jessie asked placing a few plates on the table.

“Alien sharks,” Harry replied eating the pancakes Jessie had served.

“Giant dragon,” Emily added.

“Treasure explorers,” Harry continued.

“Stay up late?” Jessie asked attempting to get a conversation going.

“Mhmm, kinda,” Emily said picking up a glass of water. “Somewhere around 2 I think.”

Sighing frustratedly Jessie suddenly had an idea. “Sooooo, you guys kiss yet?” She asked sitting up straight and donning a sly smirk. Emily choked on her drink at the unexpected question spraying water all over the floor next to her coughing loudly. “Jessie!” Harry scolded setting his silverware down with a clank.

“What, I was just asking!” Jessie replied trying to sound innocent. “You guys were cuddling and make eyes at each other all the time so I had to know.”

“Aaaugh, my sinuses. They burn!” Emily whined. “I’ll be right back, excuse me,” she said making her way to the bathroom while Harry continued to glare at Jessie. Disappearing into the bathroom to get the rest of the water out of her sinuses and dry herself off, she took the opportunity to take a deep breath and calm her nerves. *Most definitely wasn’t expecting this rout to play out,* she said to herself. A few more breaths and she was just about to leave the room when her earpiece chimed for an incoming call. Letting out a surprised yelp she paused before answering. “Hello?”

“Heeeeey~” the voice on the other end crooned. “How was movie night?”

Emily sighed in relieved recognition. “Hey Cisco, movie night was alright. Found a total of three movies to watch. You would have liked the treasure hunter one, it was kinda like Indiana Jones. Least I think it was, fell asleep toward the beginning of it.”

“Ah, classic Indiana,” he agreed. “I didn’t realize harry was into that.”

“He really likes dragons too,” Emily informed with a smile. “His eyes would light up every time it came on screen.”

“Staring into his eyes were you?”

“It, was an observation, Cisco,” she defended.

“Riiiiigght,” he replied in disbelief.

“Why did you call me?” Emily asked annoyed.

“Need your help with a meta,” he replied matter-of-factly. “So give Harry a goodbye kiss and come back soon as possible, alright?”

“Ugh, shut up,” Emily responded still annoyed. “I’ll be there in a few.” She hung up and exited the bathroom before abruptly stopping having nearly collided with someone. “Wha— proximity,” she said in surprise before looking up. “Oh, Harry, hey.”

“Are you, alright?” He asked a bit concerned.

“Yeah, why?”

“I heard you yelp and got worried.”

“Oh, yeah, no I’m ok. That was just Cisco,” she responded dismissively. “They, need my help. Back home— back at the lab on Earth 1, for a meta.”

“Ah, I see,” Harry lamented.

“Mhmm,” Emily responded still looking at him and he looked back puzzled. “I uh, I kinda....need you to— to open a breach. Back to, the, lab....”

“Oh, OH! Oh right,” Harry recognized.

“Mhmm, yup,” Emily nodded.

“I’ll go, get a....jacket.....” Harry said before walking briskly away.

“Probably a, good idea...” Emily trailed behind him before placing her face in her palm and muttering ‘ugh God’ under her breath. Harry disappeared around a corner to pause, closing his eyes he huffed tilting his head back. He pursed his lips replaying the last minute and kicked himself before grabbing a jacket and meeting her back in the kitchen. Emily was in the middle of saying goodbye to Jessie, who was trying in vain to get her to stay, when he appeared again. She turned to face him with a smile. “Ready?”

“Yup,” he responded kissing Jessie goodbye. “I’ll be back.”

“Uh, ok,” Jessie responded half waving farewell as the both left. She smiled when she noticed Harry placed his arm around Emily ushering her out.

They both sat in relative silence as they rode to Earth 2’s S.T.A.R. Labs and it continued on their way to the breach room. They stood awkwardly in the elevator as it descended, Emily trying to muster up the nerve to say something, anything, but was unable to. She could tell by how the silence was hanging thick around them that Harry wanted to say something too but was also unable to. I may just be reading things wrong, she thought. Maybe he’s just uncomfortable, he did take his wife’s passing hard. Ugh, what did I do? What do I do? She was so distracted she didn’t notice when the elevator stopped and opened.

“Estrata,” Harry called.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry. Was lost in thought,” she said snapping to attention. “Coming.” She briskly walked by him and toward the breach room avoiding eye contact and keeping her head down. Harry followed her curiously noting her change in behavior and took larger steps to keep up with her. Once he caught up with her, he found her standing on the opposite side of the breach platform and the operating terminal. She seemed tense, distracted and overall set on getting back. He wanted to ask what was wrong but didn’t know what to say and so did the only thing he could think of walking over to the terminal. “It’ll take a minute to open a breach,” he stated starting the process. Emily nodded as her mind began to wander and she stared off into space. Harry kept glancing at her wondering about her behavior and hoping she would at least look at him. She didn’t move much until the breach was created and stabilized opting to stare aimlessly ahead of her.

“Hey,” Harry called as she made her way toward the swirling portal. “Everything alright with you?” Emily turned making eye contact for the first time since they left his house. She forced a smile and nodded. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”

“Nooo, no you’re not,” he challenged. “You’re tense, avoiding eye contact, unusually quiet. What’s bothering you?” He slowly walked toward her until he was a few feet away from her holding eye contact the entire time. She looked up, eyes softening and she looked like she wanted to say something but shook her head instead. “Nothing, really. Just....thinking. That’s all.”

He squinted clearly not believing her answer completely but nodded deciding not to press further. “Ok.” He turned and walked back to the platform, Emily fought the desire to explain herself but turned away believing it better to just leave. What would she say anyway? “Hey, Estrata,” Harry called again from the top of the platform stairs causing her to face him once more. “I uh, I really enjoyed your company last night.” He smiled down at her. “We should do that again. Soon.”

Emily returned the smile and nodded. “Next time though, call me Emily.”

Harry’s face dropped in disbelief at the reveal of her name. She smiled a little wider placing her pointer finger to her lips with a wink before leaving through the breach. When it closed, Harry was left standing alone in bewilderment for a while before smiling and sauntering out the room.

As soon as she arrived back on Earth 1, Emily headed up to the cortex. “Hey, I’m back. What’s up?”

“Heeeyyy, welcome back,” Cisco said turning his chair around.

“So how did it go?” Frost asked.

“C’mon Frost, a lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” Ralph cut in. “Wait, did you? Kiss I mean.”

“If I did, I can’t say,” Emily teased. “Isn’t that the rule?”

“You totally did, didn’t you!” Ralph near accused. Emily just smiled innocently making a zipper motion over her mouth and then pretended to throw the key. He smirked with a sigh knowing full well this was a mystery he wouldn’t solve. “So,” Emily turned toward Cisco, “what are we dealing with on this lovely day?”

Barry walked into the room before he could respond. “We have a potential hit on some of Cicadas activities. We could use you for support should things go really off the rails.”

“I have full confidence in your abilities,” Emily replied. “But I am honored that you think I can help.”

“You obviously have strengths that can come in handy, even if we don’t make use of them often you are a valued member of the team.”

“Alright alright, you’re gonna make me emotional,” Emily said brushing off the compliments and making everyone chuckle. “Lets get this lead investigated so we can worry about other things, yeah?” Everyone murmured agreement and she smiled, she finally felt she belonged and cared deeply for everyone. As much as she wanted to find Cicada though, couldn’t wait for the next movie night. Until next time, she thought to herself before returning to the team. Next time.

————————••••••••————————

~Fin~

[nostalgic-pancakes]

Room 73- Chapter 3/8

The ghost is spoken to, but we also see more character trauma. (at least Virgil and Logan are having an okay time)

Pairings: Implied Thomas/OC, implied sibling-y c!Terrence and c!Valerie, sibling-y Analogical, Creativitwins and Moceit, platonic DLAMPR (soon to have a T in it!), and Romantic husbands Remile! (Also married parents but they don’t have names yet)

Read on AO3!

Word count: 2217

Warnings: References to shifty parenting, unhealthy relationships with food, depression, and of course, the general angst that comes with being yanno... dead for about a century with implications of period-typical sexism and the fallout that death has on your loved ones. Stay safe!

Other notes: Hi! I know this is sooner than usual (and also a bit shorter than usual) but I really wanted to get this out early, because there's two other things I'm working on! A c!Thomas-centric number+1 with friends and side interactions, and a Cartoon Therapy oneshot collection (with only cartoon therapy characters! no sides!) that has found family, Dot and Larry VS the internet, and everyone punting mitchell in the face because he deserves it. You can vote for which one you'd like to see posted FIRST on here! 

Now, sorry for that wall of text- here’s the chapter!

——————————————————————————–

Thomas didn’t have anything even remotely resembling a clue as to how he just did that. He hasn’t been able to so much as move for decades, now. Almost a century!

(The only reason he still knows the time is because classrooms date the boards. Everett is 96, Val 95, Terrence 87. )

But somehow, somehow these highschool kids around Thomas’s (? do ghost years count?) age managed to hear him hiss, and now he can talk to them.

In the words of that one kid here in the fifties who was usually half seas over, “ fucking shit!”

The one with the glasses (Logan? Or was it Nico? Naw, Logan.) is still tapping on the funny small glowing box. A phone, or something. (It looks too small to be a telephone, and it has no wires, but the future is pretty crazy!) and the other one, Janus is looking at the space that he inhabits like it’s on fire. Whatever else is happening today is happening, but the corner that Thomas lives in is definitely not on fire, that’s for sure.

Janus begins to step forward a bit, towards Thomas (!!!), and attempts to touch him. His hand goes through, like most things do (bar the occasional stray acid droplet, but they don’t burn anymore) and he pulls it back slowly.

Logan clears his throat, looking up from his ‘phone’ and at Thomas.

“Hello.” he says cautiously, not daring to hope. But Thomas can’t get the words out anymore, it’s like the single work took too much out of him to say it back. So he tries hissing in the morse code that Daddy taught him and (and he taught Val, because she’s amazing, woman or not) hoping, hoping they’d figure it out.

.... .. (hi)

Janus looks confused, but Logan lights up immediately, tapping frantically on his ‘phone’, until it shows something with morse code translations written on it.

“Could you possibly repeat that?” asks Logan, and he’s beaming, and that face is now one of the nicest faces he’s seen since he died. So Thomas tries again. It saps a little energy out of him, but not enough to really be an issue. Not like talking.

“Hello there, uh… do you have a name?”

- .... --- -- .- ... (Thomas)

“Thomas. That’s a nice name. Is it alright if we ask what year you ar- were from?” That question was unexpected, but one Thomas was willing to answer.

.---- ----. ..--- --... (1927)

“Nineteen twenty-seven”. Huh. Wasn’t this part of town a boy’s military school at some point back then?” asks Logan, and Thomas hisses again to signify the yes. He was a student there, under Pop’s behest, while Val stayed home to get ready for being married, even though she was all of eight years old and barely old enough to start her midwife training with basic first aid.

He wonders if she ever got to join the Red Cross like she’d dreamed to do. He hopes so.

Logan’s still asking questions, but Thomas is getting tired again, and the extra clarity letting him reminisce about his family is not helping at all. He makes a series of somewhat weaker clicks, trying to convey he’s tired, and Janus seems to pick up on it, patting Logan on the shoulder and motioning at the door for them to leave, citing a ‘Virgil and Patton’ (brothers?) as a reason to go soon, anyways. Logan huffs a bit, though clearly as a jest, and they say their goodbyes, probaby, based on their hand movements, but by now, Thomas has faded enough to lose a bit of track.

…

“Hey, Val.”

'___'

“Yeah, this is a gravestone. Didn’t expect you to reply. Well, I was always the talkative one before,a dn I can do it again.”

'___'

“So uh, Hey! It’s me again, Terrence, coming with the daisies as usual. I can’t believe that it’s me doing this, ya doof. It was supposed to be you, Val.”

'___'

“Yeah, I guess I should go back soon. Everett’s cold isn’t getting better, nor worse. I wonder what you’d do.”

'___'

“Yes, love you too. I hope you, Barry and Linda are doing alright up there. We’ll… probably see you soon anyways.”

'___'

“Hey- tell Thomas we said hello, and that we still miss him. All the time. Eighty years should be long enough, but it really isn’t, is it?”

(Tommy isn’t here.) …

“Okay, so you’re saying that the ghost, a literal ass ghost--”

“Language!” chirped Patton. It was starting to become routine. “Sorry Pat but okay, so a ghost talked to you over morse code??!!” Exclaimed Virgil, his tone getting more and more excited by the syllable.

“Yes, I literally just said that Virgil.” huffs Logan, pressing his knuckles to his temple. He loves his twin, but times like this really test his (already dwindling) patience with shenanigans.

“Okay, so what did he tell you??” asks Virgil, looking almost starry-eyes with the sheer level of excitement. It’s been a while since Virgil was this excited about something.

Logan clears his throat and taps Janus’s shoulder, taking him away from something he was talking about with Patton, which was involving hushed voices of some sort. Janus extracts the notebook from one of the many, many button-up pockets in his cloak (Patton is good at economical design, whie Janus handles the drama), after scrambling around for a few seconds trying to locate first the book, then the page, handing it to him very quickly before jumping right back into his conversation with Patton. Logan is mildly perturbed by this action, but tries to ‘roll with it’, as Roman would say if he took the bus.

“His name is Thomas, or at least we’re relatively sure that he’s a he, and he died in nineteen-twenty-seven. He was a student here back when the plot of land that is now Haley-Dove lower and upper secondary was a boy’s military school. He began to exhaust himself around here, so we dropped the questions.” Virgil nods, perusing the notes, scribbly as they are that Logan’s made as if they were a short story written by an author he really respects, like Leigh Bardugo, possibly. It makes Logan oddly happy to think about it that way. Virgil’s eyes keep widening over the course of his reading, to levels that are almost comical. Janus and Patton’s conversation has gotten a bit louder, but not enough to hear, still. At the moment, he can’t really bring himself to care. In the end, the bus stops before Virgil can finish reading, so Logan gives him the navy-covered notebook to keep for now and return for dinner, with the instruction to add in his own commentary and ideas on a different page.

Patton and Janus leave the bus last out of everyone, looking rather perturbed and avoiding each other’s gaze, though they’re still clutching each other’s hands tightly. Logan will likely ask what happened on Monday. For now, Amma is at the bus stop, waving at them. She’s the only Indian woman on the stop, so, decently easy to see. Amma picks up Logan’s bag, even though he’s insisted for years that he’s “adjusted accordingly for years, and does not require any assistance!”. Amma usually just retaliates that he shouldn’t need to get used to something with a rather strange expression, but he’s digressing now.

(She started saying it after middle school, and everything that happened there.)

“Hi!” she exclaims, while taking Logan’s bag. Virgil just has his laptop bag and notebook, with his headphones around his neck. They both smile the same.

“Hey, Amma. How’re you doing?” Practiced. Synced. It works every time, as Amma’s grin gets even wider, causing Virgil to start stimming with his ring and Logan to start flapping his own hands.

“Sooo- how’s your day? I see Logan’s notebook with you, V!”

“It’s for a…” Virgil looks at Logan, quietly betraying the fact that he has no clue what to say. Logan indicates to the lizard along the cobblestone path, and his twin’s expression changes into dawning comprehension, as he quickly finishes his sentence.

“It’s for a report on Lizards, Amma, that I’m doing with Remus. You know, Roman’s brother?” she nods, and then smirks.

“Oh, you mean the boy you have a cruuuuuusssshhhh on?” she teases, and Virgil goes red immediately, batting her hand away from his hair, where she was ruffling it.

Wait- how did Virgil have a crush on Roman? They had been friends for all of two weeks, and did not display any crush-like symptoms such as reddening of face, gushing about the crush for hours or purposely trying to get into more situations with the crush, or even doing simple things like taking an obnoxiously long time on singular texts. To his relief, Virgil shakes his head.

“No, it’s not a crush. He’s a good friend, but no.” he says, a bit more seriously, but not dismissively. To Logan, because Logan can hear those things, he says “Not yet.” Logan does not bring it up yet, because it feels like Virgil might need some process time for that, and besides, they share a room. Logan can grill him later, when Virgil is willing to be teased lightly. Or well, he hopes he’s light enough.

…

Mom and Dad are fighting again.

It’s not like the walls are soundproof, no matter what they seem to think. The argument is pretty typical. Small issue begins with civil conversation, becomes slight aggression as two very different people are unable to see eye to eye, and then someone in the middle of a bout of particularly aggressive mood makes an attack on personality, and then it’s all ‘fuck off’’s and crying.

Yeah. it’s a thing. But Remus and Roman know what to do- it’s the fight law. Headphones on, loud playlist on, door shut and internet in full use to avoid the fact that their parents are incapable of shutting the fuck up. This is fine.

Actually no, that’s what Roman says, but Remus knows it isn’t. Roman’s just too scared of conflict by now to bring it up. And who’s fault might that be, huh? (okay, so maybe Remus is a bit resentful.)

Whatever. It’s not like they’ll stop if he and Roman tell them. They’ve tried before.

The problem is that they’re good people. And parents. They definitely try to be the best parents possible. But Remus (unlike Roman) has never had the illusion that his parents are gods, only to have that slowly broken down over time to see his parents as people. They’ve always been people to him- people who try their hardest, but also fall flat in other areas, areas that also happen to be important.

But he should probably make his way to the kitchen to make some fruit salad. Roman probably isn’t going to eat anything else tonight, with how he seems to be doing. Otherwise, those stomach acids are going to gargle and gurgle till they consume his stomach whole! (it doesn’t feel fun to imagine that, so he stops)

(he’s so angry that those idiots thought it was a fucking joke. It’s something he and Virgil agree on, for sure.)

And if Remus tears the granola packet wrapper a little too harshly? Well, it’s not like anyone’s going to hear it at this rate.

…

Patton and Janus aren’t talking to each other, which is probably the one thing he never expected from them.

But they aren’t, and it’s becoming more concerning by the hour. They’re still hanging out together, currently working on one of their sewing projects- embroidering a hoodie in protection sigils as a paid commission for the witch’s girl, and they seem okay in each other’s presence, but they aren’t talking to each other. Just making overly meaningful eye contact, and looking away as quickly as they met eyes.

Patton in particular seems to be pretty upset, as a marked difference from his usual demeanor. He’s pricking his fingers left and right, something that never usually happens, choosing to hand stitch rather than go ahead with the sewing machine that he got for christmas, which was being used by Janus for the moment. In fact, Emile was about to get him some bandaids when he overheard them speak to each other for the first time since they got back.

“Pat, you can’t keep it in forever. You can't. It’ll kill you.”

Patton isn’t replying.

“It almost killed me, Pat please, please just… say something.” Patton does say something after that, but Emile can’t hear it, and he doesn’t feel like it’s something he’s meant to hear anyway. Janus lightens up after that, and Patton starts talking again, monosyllabically and softly, but Janus seems so relieved, that that must be a good thing.

Emile goes, heart heavy, and decides to speak with Remy about the best ways to show that they’re there for Janus and Patton. They’ve only been living with him for a few months, but they feel like their kids, and Emile (and definitely Remy- he’s the ultimate parent-friend) wants the best for them, and for them to be happy. They didn’t deserve the lot they got.

Hopefully, he and Remy can prove that yes, some things are

[lovemychoices]

Always Be My Driver - A RoD Rom-Com [Colt x MC/Logan x MC]. CH 6

Book : RIDE OR DIE

PAIRING : Colt x MC/ Logan x MC

SUMMARY: Emma and Colt have been childhood best friends since forever, they were both inseparable. In middle school they became something more but when Colt had to move with his mom away from LA all the way to Miami, things started to change between them. A small misunderstanding leads to the end of their relationship. 6 years later they meet again at the most unlikely place. Will Emma and Colt be able to mend what has been broken between them? Or will it continue to crash and burn?

Characters except my OCs belong to Pixelberry, I am just borrowing them

Word count : 2207

Chapter Summary: Colt and Emma spend the day together.

A/N : short chapter & Excuse my grammatical mistakes. Does the more function on mobile even work?

Warning : I’m rating this PG18 cause there will probably be PG18 stuff that’s going to happen in future chapters. So if you read this series you acknowledge that you are above 18.

Catch up with the series HERE

[[MORE]]

“Get up it’s almost noon!” Mona belts, opening the curtains of the loft letting the bright sunlight hit Emma’s face.

“No! Leave me alone.. I want to wallow in sorrow from the comforts of my bed.” Emma whined, covering her face with a pillow. It was the day after Logan told her they should go on a break. Code for we should break up.

“God, this is the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen.. And I’ve been to prison.” Mona mumbles and plops herself on the bed next to Emma. “Look, technically you’re on a break which could be good thing.”

Emma turns on her side to face Mona. “How can this be a good thing?”

“Because now you actually have some space and time to think about what you actually want.” She grinned, Emma just stares at her with a blank expression, making Mona roll her eyes. “Look ever since Colt showed up you’ve been caught between your feelings for him and Logan.” Emma is about to say something but Mona raises her hand and shushes her. “Before you deny anything please remember who you’re talking to.”

“Does it even matter now? Colt’s spending the whole week with some pretty girl who is so into him and he’s probably into her too. He even took her to our favorite ice cream parlor!”

Mona snorts. "Didn't take you for a quitter?"

“I’m not a quitter.” She protests then gets out of bed, pacing back and forth on the hardwood floors making a creek sound. “It’s just.. I don’t know where Colt stands in regards to what his feelings are for me. I mean one night he tells me how bad he wants to kiss and the next night he acts like he couldn’t care less.”

An alarm on Emma’s phone goes off and she heads to the nightstand to check the notifications. Shit I totally forgot about this. A few months ago Emma’s favorite cousin called her up and told her she was getting married during the summer in San Francisco, when she asked about the RSVP Emma told her that she would be going with a plus one. The plan was that Logan and her were going to drive together Friday morning in time for the rehearsal dinner but that was before they broke up.

“Em? Is everything alright?” Mona quirks an eyebrow.

Emma snaps out of her thoughts. “Yea, Totally. So, Mona any chance you want to attend a wedding in San Francisco this weekend with me?”

Mona snorts out a laugh. “No thanks I have other plans, you’re not the only one with a love life you know.”

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend?”

“I don’t but that doesn’t mean I don’t go on dates. Also if you’re thinking about dragging Ximena or Toby along you won’t have any luck there either.”

Emma heaves out a frustrated sigh and plops herself back on the bed. “So now I need to drive 5 hours alone and attend a wedding alone like some loser.”

“You know there is someone else you could ask who would go with you.” Mona gives Emma a knowing look. “You know someone handsome with dark hair, likes to brood by himself, drives a really cool white sport bike.”

Emma scoffs. “Yeah.. Except you forgot that someone happens to be occupied the whole week with some petite brunette named Jean.”

“Haha… You know you’re cute when your jealous? But I think that Colt would turn down a date with 100 pretty brunette’s named Jean just so he could be with you.” Mona gives a sincere smile which rarely happens. “I need to head out for a job. Just do me a favour, take a shower before you start to reek."

"Fine!" She answers, throwing her hand up in the air before heanding for the bathroom.

Half an hour later…

After a long cold shower, Emma walks out from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body and her damp hair when she hears a soft knock on the door. I thought Mona left already? She opens the door and to her surprise, sees Colt standing on the other side. "Can I come in?" He asked with a serious expression on his face.

She gives him a skeptical look before eventually nodding and motions for him to enter the room.

"What do you want?" She said in a flat tone with her arms crossed.

His eyes wandered from her face down her chest then back to her face again. "I uh.. Your car’s park in the garage but didn't see you all day, thought maybe I’d check up on you. I wanted to see if you were okay?”

Emma scoffs. "Suddenly you care so much?"

"Why wouldn't I? I'll always care about you Emma, you know that right? If something is bothering you, you can always talk to me." He replies and she could see how sincere he was. Great now I feel bad for being a jerk. "I had some stuff going on, I wasn't really in the mood to do anything this morning."

"Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?" A sudden loud growling sound comes out Emma’s direction. Her face turns pink, she wraps her arms around her stomach. “Have you eaten anything since this morning?”

“Obviously not.”

“Get dressed, we’re going out to grab something to eat. I’m driving.” He smiles and whirls on his heels towards the door, stopping at the threshold, looking over his shoulder. “Wear something appropriate, no dresses or skirts.”

A little while later…

Emma heads down to the garage to meet Colt, she sees him leaning against his motorcycle arms folded. A grin appears on his face as he watches her saunter over. “Took you long enough.”

“Yeah well, you don’t get to look like this without putting in any effort.”

Colt rolls his eyes. “Here, this is for you.” He says and hands her a black coloured helmet, she raises her eyebrow at him. “What’s this for? Aren’t we taking a car?”

Colt scoff. “At this hour? You know how bad the traffic is in LA right?” Emma bites her lower lip, she’d hate to admit it but she’s never ridden on a motorcycle before. “You haven’t ridden one of these before have you?” Emma shakes her head as a reply that she’s never rode a motorcycle.

Colt snorts out a laugh. “Emma.. Emma… Emma.. you’re really missing out. So what do you say?” He gestures at the helmet on his hand giving her a challenging look. “Or are you too chicken?”

Did he just call me a chicken? “Alright fine!” She forcefully grabs the helmet out from Colts hand. “And don’t think for one second that you’re slowling down on this thing. I want full speed or no speed at all.”

“Yes ma’am” he gives an exaggerated salute before hopping on to his bike, Emma sitting behind him. Colt starts revving the throttle of his bike while waiting for the garage door to open. “Hold on tight sweetheart, we’re going on one hell of a ride.”

****************************************

A little while later after maneuvering through the bustling city traffic of LA, the two finally reach a familiar spot.

Emma hopped off the bike and opens up her helmet, slowly taking in the sight. A low shrug escaped her and Colt notices. “What not fancy enough for you?”

“No it’s not that, it’s just that I haven’t been here in like almost forever.”

“Well same here, I hope their hotdogs are still as good though. Common all that riding around worked up an appetite.” The two stopped at a nearby food cart and Colt orders a couple of hotdogs after that they continue walking towards the pier. They lean against the wooden rail and enjoy every bite of their food while silently taking in the view of the ocean.

“So.. where’s Jean?” She tries not to grimace as she said the name. “Aren’t you like supposed to be her personal tour guide around LA or something?”

Colt thought back to the night before after the movies and during his time with Jean at the ice cream shop.

“Omg.. This is literally the best handmade ice cream I’ve tasted so far!” Jean beams as she takes another scoop and stuffed it in her mouth. Colt chuckled. “What did I tell ya, Barry beats any big ice cream franchise by a 100 miles. I used to come here a lot with Emma when we were kids.”

Jean gave Colt knowing look when he mentions her name and clears her throat “So how long have you been in love with her?”

Colt slightly chokes on his ice cream. “What do you mean how long have I been in love with her? I’m not in love with..” “Colt it’s fine, I saw the way you looked at her when we were at the movies and the way your face lights up everytime you say her name. Which by the way is a very rare thing to happen for Colt Kaneko.” She grinned and it made Colt slightly blush. “So what’s the scoop? Pun intended.”

Colt snort then heaves a sigh, running his hand through his hair. “You want the whole story?” She nodded excitedly. “Alright where do I begin.” Colt told Jean everything from how they were when they were kids to their first kiss and when they broke up. “Did the two of you ever talk about it? The whole time you were here?”

“Why should we it’s in the past we’ve both moved on, she dating Logan.” He grimaced as he mentioned the name. “Does she know you still have feelings for her?.”

“Like I said she has a boyfriend. I go back to MIT in Boston after the summer ends, what’s the point?”

“So you should still tell her how you feel. What she decides after that is up to her but she at least deserves to know the truth. It’s okay to make yourself feel vulnerable sometimes Colt, when it’s with the right person.”

Colt let her words sink in for a moment. “I’ll think about it but no promises.”

“That’s good enough for me.” She chuckled. “Hey so about this week you don’t have to like be my tour guide or anything. I actually made plans with someone else.”

“Ouch!” He exaggeratedly pressed his hands to his chest. “Did I just get ditched? You hurt me Jean, you know that?”

Jean chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“She had other plans. We’re cool.” He answers and take one last bite of his hotdog. “I’d better get you back to the garage before pretty boy finds you missing and gets all worried.”

Emma shrugs. “I don’t think there is anything to worry about.” Colt gives her a questioning look. “Is everything okay?”

“We sort of broke up, last night. It was sort of my fault. I don’t really want to talk about it.” Only because it involved you.

Colt rubbed the back of his head. “Well good riddance.”

“Colt!”

“What? I’m just saying Em, you’re too good for him. You deserve better. I know I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it again.” He said with a sincere look on his face. “You deserve to be with someone who can give you a family and that house in the suburbs with the white picket fence. Just like you always wanted when we were kids.”

He remembered? “Colt, that’s not who I am anymore.” She replies but her expression was unconvincing. Of course that was what she still wanted, the garage was only a temporary arrangement for her to pay for her college expenses. But she never really talked to Logan about what comes after she’s done with college, does he plan on being a car thief for the rest of his life? “How do you even remember all of that? It’s been years.”

“I remember everything about you Emma Park. You’re not really an easy person to forget.” He smiled at her and it felt warm and genuine. “Okay Mr. Flatterer, what's going on with you today?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s.. It’s nothing just forget about it.” She waves him off and takes one last bite of her hotdog. Maybe since he is in such a good mood, this might be the right time to ask him. “So uh.. I need a small favor from you.” He raised an eyebrow at her giving a curious look. “There’s this thing coming up this weekend. You know my cousin Amanda?”

“The one who used to babysit us when we were kids?”

“Yup the very same, well she’s getting married this weekend and I RSVP six months ago that I would be going with a plus one but then the whole thing with Logan happened so now I don’t have a plus one and that sucks because…”

“Sure I’ll go as your plus one.” He answers before she could finish her whole speech. “But I didn’t even finish talking yet.”

“Well wasn’t that what you’re going to ask me?” He raised his eyebrows and she nodded. “So you’ll do it? Just like that?”

“Sure, as long as you promise to introduce me to all the pretty hot bridesmaid that will be attending.” He grinned and Emma rolled her eyes. “Do we have a deal?”

Emma thought for a moment does she really want to see other girls fond over Colt during their time there? “It’s a deal.”

********************************************

Rod - @liamzigmichael4ever @client-327 @brightpinkpeppercorn @lovehugsandcandy @lilyofchoices @rideorparadise @zaffrenotes @queenkaneko @mskaneko @pintsizedelle @flowerpowell @desiree-0816 @emceesynonymroll @kinkykingliam @jlpplays1 @annekebbphotography @thecordoniandiaries @cora-nova @rainbowsinthestorm @princess-geek @choicesbyjade @leelee10898 @herladyshipxx @emichelle @kimmiedoo5 @dawn-1994 @choicesarehard

[talatomaz]

fresh start | team flash x fem!reader | part vi

a/n: this takes place between season 2 episode 5 and episode 6 and this story is mostly canon with a few things changed

warnings: none

word count: 2.9k

masterlist | request list | request rules

pt.i | pt.ii | pt.iii | pt.iv | pt.v | pt.vi | pt.vii | pt.viii | pt.ix

i do not give you permission to repost or translate my fics on any platform - likes/reblogs are okay and are much appreciated

“Are you sure?”

You waved your hand and the guns, that the robbers were currently about to use to shoot at you, flew towards you. With the men disarmed, Barry ran around them and cuffed them.

“Yeah, I’ve doing a lot of thinking and I think it’s the right decision for me.”

After handing the cuffed robbers to Joe and Patty, Barry ran you both back to S.T.A.R Labs.

“Really?”

“Yes, Barry, really.”

“But I’m gonna miss you,” Cisco said, pouting.

“Cisco, I’m not leaving you. I’m still working at S.T.A.R Labs, but I’m just also going to be a detective too.”

“Does my Dad know?” Iris asked, as Barry took off his mask whilst you did the same.

“Yeah, I spoke to him the other day and then when I spoke to Captain Singh, he vouched for me. Which he didn’t have to do because Singh decided to instantly rehire me but I thanked him anyway.”

“But I’m going to miss you.” Cisco repeated, making you all laugh.

After an in-depth discussion with the team about ARGUS, you came to the realisation that since some ARGUS agents were still morally ethical, you wanted to exemplify the work that they do by going back to being a detective. Except this time, you were going to become a field cop rather than someone who dealt with reports and information.

Though you initially had some reserves about going out in the field, the most notable being you changing the future in some way or someone recognising you, you realised that the future was going to change no matter what and you couldn’t stop that. But what you could do is help Barry and the others change it for the better.

And what better way to do that than by being a cop on Joe’s meta-human task force and a meta-human protecting the city?

“Cisco’s right, though, y/n. It’s going to be weird not having you here all the time.”

“Don’t worry, Cait. I’ll still be here more often than you think. I’ll just be wearing a badge most of the time. And I’m not going to let it interfere with the work that we do here. I mean, Barry disappears half of the time and it’s all good.”

“True, I can always just run us both back here and we both get dressed super quick anyways, so it’s not a hassle.”

“So, when do you start, y/n?”

“Today.”

You all turned to the entrance of the cortex where Joe stood.

“Hey, sweetie.” Joe kissed Iris’s forehead.

“Today?” Barry asked.

“Yeah, Singh can’t wait to have you back and quite frankly, neither can I. I’ve been saying for months that you’ve needed to come back.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

“So, you ready to go? Obviously after you take off all that,” Joe gestured to your Meson outfit.

You went into the med bay and not even five minutes later, you came out dressed in a black pantsuit, your wavy hair flowing just past your shoulders.

“Damn, y/n, looking good.” Iris commented as you smirked.

“Thanks, Iris.”

“That was quick, even by my standards.” Barry said.

“Guess you got competition then, Flash.” You said jokingly.

“You ready to go, y/n?” Joe asked.

“I think you mean Detective Davis, Joe.” Caitlin corrected.

You laughed, “I’ll see you guys later. Call if you need me.”

***

“Glad to have you back, Detective Davis.”

“Come on, Patty. We’ve gotten close these past few months, you can call me y/n.” You said, shaking her hand.

“Then, I’m glad to have you back, y/n.” She responded and you smiled.

“So, have the robbers from this morning been processed?” She looked at you confused. “Oh, Joe told me about them earlier.”

She nodded, convinced, “Yeah, they’ve just been transferred to Iron Heights.”

“Okay, so-“

You were interrupted by a breaking news alert on the TV screen and everyone turned their attention to the screen.

“It appears that a meta has broken into an abandoned industrial factory and has stolen some equipment…”

You turned from the TV to Patty and Joe.

“Let’s go,” Joe said, you and Patty followed him out of the police department.

***

“So I’ve just spoken to a couple of witnesses who all said that they saw a man, mid 20s, leaving the scene, driving a red pick-up, but they have no idea what he stole.” Patty said, walking up to you and Joe.

“Yeah, I mean, this factory only stores drills and other tools that you could easily get off any construction site.” You replied, confused.

“I spoke to a guy who used to work here and he told me that the place was officially shut down for unsafe conditions.”

“Unofficially?” You and Patty asked.

“Some guy was trying to manufacture some type of drill that was so high tech, that it could cut through almost anything. That could be quite valuable.”

“Did he say what type?”

“Uh,” Joe looked at his notes, “a 15. amp hammer drill.”

“Damn, that shit can cut through almost anything. And there’s also something that might indicate what the meta’s powers are.”

You showed Patty and Joe to the security system.

“Initially, it was thought that the meta hacked into the system to unlock all the doors, which, at first glance, makes sense. I’m running a check to see if the system was hacked.”

“But you don’t think it was?” Patty asked.

“No, I don’t. I know code, and there’s no record of a line of code anywhere. I’d have to check to be sure, but I think the electrics were manipulated.”

“Meaning what? A meta who can control electricity?”

“Not necessarily, Joe. Everything else was in intact. I think the meta can manipulate controls or at least override them. Basically he can turn things on and off. And lucky for us, his powers seem to be channelled through his hands.”

“You got a print?”

“Yeah, when I get back, I’m going to run it through AFIS and see if we have any hits.”

“Damn, y/n, I forgot how good you were.” Joe stated.

After collecting some more evidence, the three of you went back to the station and you handed some of the samples to Barry for him to analyse.

Then you went to your computer and ran the print through the data systems and whilst you waited, you were talking to Patty about her and Barry.

“So, is it going well between you two then?” You asked, leaning against your desk.

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, one of our first dates was quite memorable.”

“Oh, because he couldn’t see?”

She furrowed her brows.

“Oh, Barry told me when I was at S.T.A.R Labs last week.”

“What do you even do at S.T.A.R Labs? Barry is almost always there.”

“I help Cisco and Caitlin with a lot of tech that they have and we’re all good friends which is probably why Barry’s there a lot.”

She nodded, “So are you seeing anyone?”

You shook your head, “No, I’ve had a few flings here and there but I’m not with anyone right now. Besides-”

You stopped talking when your screen bleeped.

“Looks like we got a match.” You sat in your chair and showed Patty your screen. “Guy’s name is Oscar Cartwright.”

“Yeah, he was arrested for breaking and entering, robbery, and looks like he has a background in construction. Must be how he knew which tools to steal.” Patty suggested.

You printed off the file so you could show it to Joe, “Come on, let’s go.”

After you briefed Joe, he told you and Patty to check out his most recent address but when you got there, it was empty.

It looked as if it hadn’t been used in a while; the only indication that someone was staying there was the unmade bed and discarded clothes around the room. Then you both realised there was a basement and when you went down here, you found blueprints to a building.

As you were about to gain more intel by checking it out further, the laptop, containing the blueprints, began to overheat and exploded in front of the two of you.

“He must have known we were coming and used his powers to destroy any traces he left behind.” Patty said, coming back into the basement after calling CSU.

“Yeah, do you want to stay here whilst I try and figure out what was on the laptop?”

“Yeah, sure, just call if you find something.”

As you walked back up the stairs, you passed Joe,

“Hey, Joe. I’m gonna take this to S.T.A.R Labs to see if Cisco and I can recover what was on here since it looked important.”

“Okay, hopefully it can lead us to this Cartwright guy.”

***

“Getting anywhere?” Caitlin and Iris walked into the cortex and looked at you and Cisco.

“I think so. We’ll most likely be able to recover the data within the next hour.” You responded, as you continued typing.

“Hopefully.” Cisco interrupted. “This meta basically fried the mainframe and we had to reconstruct the circuitry which took ages.”

“We’re glad to have you back though, y/n.” Caitlin said, and you turned around and laughed.

“Cait, I’ve only been gone a day.”

“It feels like longer though.” She said.

“Well, I’ve missed you guys too.”

“So this meta, what exactly are his powers?” Iris asked.

“As best I can tell, he’s able to take control of systems by overcharging the system and-”

“OverCharge.” Cisco interrupted.

“What?” You, Caitlin and Iris looked at Cisco.

He turned around to face the three of you, “OverCharge.” He repeated, “That’s his name.”

You started laughing at the coincidence and it was Cisco’s turn to be confused. “OverCharge. OC. The meta’s name is Oscar Cartwright. I swear these names write themselves.”

You guys had a little mini catchup and after around an hour, you and Cisco were able to recover some of the data and in perfect timing, Barry walked in.

“Anything?”

“I’m just pulling up the blueprints now,” You continued typing and looked through the files, trying to find the right one.

Then you were interrupted by an alert on S.T.A.R Labs police scanner.

“Guys, there’s a runaway train.” Caitlin said so you and Cisco hacked into the subway’s mainframe.

“Shit, this isn’t an accident. I’m giving the command for the train to slow down, but nothing is responding.” You explained.

“It looks like there’s some sort of glitch somewhere that’s not allowing it to respond to commands.”

“Could it be the same meta?” Iris asked.

“Potentially, but Barry, we can’t stop the train from here so you gotta go.” Cisco said, so Barry suited up and ran off.

“I don’t know what OverCharge’s endgame is here. He steals a high tech drill, has blueprints and is now controlling a train? I don’t understand.”

“I think I do. I just managed to access some of the damaged data and he has blueprints to Central City Airport.” Cisco said, displaying the blueprints on the large screen so you could all get a better look.

“Dammit,” you pulled out your phone, called Joe and explained the situation.

“Joe, take Patty. Barry’s going to try and stop the train but I think it’s a distraction. Oscar’s breaking into Central City Airport. If I can, I’ll meet you there. Bye.”

You disconnected the call.

“What would he be stealing though?”

“I think I can answer that.”

Harry Wells walked into the cortex and on another screen, pulled up images of diamonds.

“This was being stored in their private security room.”

“Diamonds?” Cisco asked.

“Very valuable diamonds. Even back on my Earth, they were worth quite a lot. Like $57 million worth.”

You quickly messaged Joe the update so he knew where to look for OverCharge and then you diverted your attention back to the runaway train.

“Holy Shit. Barry, you cannot stop that train!”

“What? Why? I’m just in front of it.”

“Barry, y/n’s right. That train is 23 miles from approaching an unsustainable curve radius.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Barry said over the comms.

“We’ve got a major cant issue.”

“There’s no ‘can’t’ when it comes to the Flash.” Iris said.

“No, West, ‘cant’ is the name of the height difference between the outside and inside rails on a track curve.” Harry explained.

“The tilt creates a down-thrust to counter sideways force.” Cisco continued.

“And at the current speed of the train, the ‘cant’ can’t work.” You said.

“The train will derail.” Caitlin finished.

“So what do I do?”

Barry shouted over the comms and you quickly ran into the med bay and got changed into your suit whilst Harry explained what the Flash should do.

“You have approximately 7 minutes before that train reaches the curve. You need to phase onto the train and gain access of the controls.”

“Scratch that.”

You ran out of the med bay and back to the centre of the cortex, now dressed in your Meson suit.

“Barry, run back to S.T.A.R Labs now!” You said as you grabbed your mask.

“Why?”

“We don’t have time. Just do it!”

In, well, a flash, Barry was beside you. You picked up your laptop and grabbed his arm.

“Take me to the train now.”

“But-”

“Now!”

He picked you up and ran you to the station where you could hear the incoming train.

“You have to phase us both on there, Barry. I’ll be able to connect my laptop to the controls and gain access and manually slow the train down before we reach the curve.”

“But, y/n-”

“Trust me, I got this.”

You heard the sounds of the train getting closer and with your arm wrapped around Barry’s, he phased you both onto the train. It was a weird feeling. It was like pins and needles all over your entire body.

The moment you both were on the train, the Flash began to calm people down and you ran to the front of the carriage and used your powers to open the locked door.

As expected, the control system was fried, so you plugged your laptop into the train’s software and after 2 minutes, you were able to regain control of the train and managed to slow the train down.

But, to your surprise, it ended up gaining even more speed due to the sudden change.

You ran out of the control room and hacked into the P.A system, “Guys, I want you all to remain calm. The Flash is going to get you all off of here so could you all try and activate your emergency doors by pulling the cable just above the door.”

Barry came up beside you. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to stop this train but just in case, I need you to get everyone off of here.”

“Meson, it’s not safe.”

“I know and that’s why I need you to do this, Flash.”

Then you shouted to the rest of the people in your carriage, “Guys, can you all move onto the next carriage, please?”

They all obeyed and you told Barry to follow them.

“The moment I disconnect this carriage, the rest of the train will come to a stop, allowing everyone to get to safety.”

“Meson, what about you?”

“I’ll have 3 minutes to stop this carriage.”

“What happens if you don’t?” He asked.

“I will. I promise. Go do your job, Flash.”

You quickly disconnected the carriages and ran back to the control room and began typing.

“Y/n, you’re 7 miles from the curve and you’re approaching fast.” Cisco shouted over the comms.

“You gotta hurry, y/n. You only have a few minutes.” Caitlin said, worry clearly in her voice.

“A few minutes is all I need.”

You continued hacking into the system and was able to override all the systems, except the one that led to the train gaining even more speed and you knew there was only one more option.

“Y/n, you have 30 seconds!” Iris shouted over comms.

You shut your laptop and as you heard the screech of the train tracks, you ran to the centre of the carriage.

“15 seconds!” Cisco warned.

With all your energy, you used your powers to channel through the tracks so you could slow it down. The train came to a halt, just mere metres from the curve radius. You exhaled a deep breath in relief.

“Y/N!” Everyone shouted over comms.

“MESON, YOU GOOD?!” Barry yelled.

“I’m good, guys. The train’s stopped.” You heard everyone let out a relieved sigh.

After stopping the train and helping everyone off the other carriages, Barry ran you back to S.T.A.R Labs where you both got changed and then met Patty and Joe at Central City Airport, just in time to catch Cartwright red-handed. Now OverCharge was sitting in the meta-human wing in Iron Heights amongst the other meta-human criminals.

***

The following morning, before going to CCPD, you went to S.T.A.R Labs to meet Caitlin, Cisco and everyone else.

“You were amazing yesterday, y/n.” Caitlin said when you walked into the cortex.

“She’s right. You killed it.” Cisco stated.

“And it looks like the rest of Central City feels the same way.” Barry walked in with Joe and Iris and switched on the news.

“Ever since the heroic save by Meson yesterday, there has been an outcry of support for her.”

The news cut to a few interviews from people who were on the train.

“She was amazing. She was so calm and was willing to sacrifice herself for all of us.”

“I think Meson is inspiring. I’m so glad we finally have a female superhero.”

“I love her. She’s definitely my role model.”

The screen then cut back to the news reporter.

“There you have it. Move over, Flash, looks like Central City has a new superhero.”

<- Previous Part Next Part ->

[rubywolf12]

Chrysanthemums and Bullets (A Barry x Oc Story) Part 2

A/N: So sorry this took so long to post. My cat has been sick and for some reason I don’t have the motivation to do anything. I am on mobile so I don’t know how to make a masterlist but I hope you like this chapter. It has a lot more Barry in it.

Word Count: 1,024

Trigger Warnings: None that I can think of? Mention of sexual activity? It is about the hit though, so nothing too bad.

———

Scarlett sighs as she sat in the passenger seat. Watching people walking their dogs, couples holding hands, kids running around. She wished that she could be like them. Normal.

The car suddenly pulled to a stop. Scarlett looked at Amanda.

“We’re here!” Amanda said with a grin on her face.

“Yippe!” Scarlett said in an emotionless tone while doing jazz hands.

“Oh, don’t give me that face. You should be happy! You’re in LA!” Amanda said getting out of the car.

“Yeah! To do a job! This isn’t some vacation! I don’t even know these people!” Scarlett said getting out of the car. She had a light pink blouse and some jean shorts on. She was wearing sneakers.

“Well, I know them. So you better smile. I don’t understand why you wore that. You should represent your job.”

“At least I am wearing makeup to not show the zero fucks I give. Plus if I am partnering with them, they already know what I do.” Scarlett said rolling her eyes.

Amanda shrugs and walks over to the door. She knocked on the brown door and waits.

“Who is it?”

“Amanda. Amanda Baker.”

The two woman could hear the locks on the door unlocking. The man peaks in and smiles wildly.

“Amanda! So nice to see you again!” The man goes to hug the blonde woman.

“Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me.” Amanda said with a serious tone as she pushes pass him.

Scarlett blinks and looks at the man and Amanda. She follows Amanda.

“Oh come on! You are still mad about our last hit together!?” The man said.

“YES! You were supposed to have my back! Now I have a gross scar on my leg! Now I have to save your ass because your hitman decided to shoot a gang!” Amanda screams in frustration.

“You didn’t have to come. So you must’ve missed me.” The man said. You can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Fuck you, Fuches!” Amanda screamed and slapped him in the face, “My hit woman and I are just here to fix your problem. So don’t make me regret it.”

Fuches chuckles and nods.

“Um... Not to say anything but... did you two have something going on? Other than work. You just look like a married couple...” Scarlett said shyly.

“What!? Absolutely not! Scarlett, I thought you know people’s body language and my body language says “Fuck this idiot!”” Amanda yelled. She was absolutely shocked about Scarlett ever think that.

“Sorry... I am assuming he is not my partner in crime?” Scarlett asked.

“No, my name is Fuches. Barry is doing a hit. He should be done by now.”

...

...

“Fuck this job! Fuck you Fuches!”

“Ahhh, there he is.” Fuches says while smirking.

‘Everyone seems to hate this guy.’ Scarlett thought.

“Barry, listen to me. Listen to me! You have another hit!” Fuches said while grabbing Barry’s shoulders.

“What!? This was supposed to be the last one!” Barry yelled.

“Yeah, well Goran wanted on more and I said yes. Don’t worry you won’t be working alone! You’ll have help!” Fuches shakes Barry slightly.

“No! I am not- Wait did you say help?” Barry asked looking confused.

Fuches steps aside and said “Barry, meet Amanda and Scarlett. Amanda is an old friend of mine and”

“I am NOT an old friend!” Amanda huffs.

Fuches rolls his eyes and said “As I was saying... This is Scarlett. Your new partner.”

Scarlett blinks as she looks up from her phone. “Oh. Sorry. I just caught a Bulbasaur.” She said shyly as she puts her phone away, “Anyways, nice to meet you. My name is Scarlett O’Neil. You must be Barry Berkman. I hope you will have my back.” She smiles at Barry and holds out her hand for him to shake.

Barry looks at Scarlett’s hand and then at her face. The first thing he notices is her big brown eyes. That held so many emotions that he couldn’t name all of them. Then he looked at her lips. They were bright red because of her lipstick. It is like her signature look.

“Ummm.... My eyes are up here.”

Barry looks up and blushes. “Oh sorry.”

Scarlett laughs and said “Don’t worry. I am just messing with you.”

Barry chuckles and shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you too.” He said.

———

“So, what’s the story about this guy?” Scarlett says sitting down on the porch.

“Well, this guy has been one night standing a lot of woman.” Fuches says.

“So? So many guys do one night stands. Why would someone hire a hitman to kill him?” Barry says clearly not wanting to be here.

“Here’s the thing. He has been videotaped and saving the videos to his laptop without the women’s consent. One of the woman found it when he was still asleep and well... that’s why you two are involved.” Amanda said.

“Okay. So I am guessing you want me to seduce the guy? Why do I need a knife? Seems pretty useless if I am not the one killing him.” Scarlett asked.

“See that’s the thing. The woman who wanted this done wanted to just give him a scare. So he doesn’t even see the bullet coming.” Fuches explained.

“So basically she seduces the guy. They go home and makeout. She pulls a knife on him like this is some Lifetime movie. He gets scared and I take him out before he can even fight back.” Barry said.

“Basically yeah.” Amanda said.

“Okay.” Barry said.

“Oh. One more thing. I know I usually don’t need this but... Can you please come to the bar with me?” She looks at Barry, “It’s just... I know some guys will want to get all touchy and it really distracts me from the plan. So if you can just make sure nobody does anything. That would be appreciated.”

Barry blinks and looks her in the eyes. He smiles, “Yeah. I have no problem with that.”

Scarlett smiles and nods as if saying thank you.

Barry knew she was telling the truth but he saw something in her eyes. Gratefulness. They are going to get along well.

[water-writings]

11/11/11

I was tagged by @demidemonwrites and @ezwriting. Thanks you guys and sorry this took so long to write! 

I know I will be breaking the rules to some extent, but I will be answering both their sets of 11 questions here. I don’t have exactly 11 people to tag, let alone 22 at the moment haha. Sorry!

Demidemonwrites’ questions!

1) Least favorite writing trope?

I’m going to be honest, I’m not entire sure. I’ve never thought of this before. I actually went through a couple forums where people are telling their least favorite tropes to see if anything struck with me. Honestly, I couldn’t find anything. Maybe I haven’t read a lot to know what I don’t like or if I’m just not that picky. I guess if things are written well I’ll be down with anything. 

I guess if I had to pick one, it would have to be “the good guy is actually the villain” trope. With Frozen I remember when I first sat down in the theater and thinking “Haha what if Hans was the villain” and then BOOM I was right. There was some other movie I watched where I called one of the good guys being the villain, but I can’t remember what it was.

2) Which of your characters are underdeveloped but you want to develope more?

My current new character for My Hero Academia, Yuriko Umeda. She’s the first character since my Marvel character, Tracey Madison, that I’m super excited to work on and write for!

3) Do you prefer writing stories or worldbuilding?

I prefer writing stories. I’ve mostly written fanfiction and gone off of worlds from fandoms. But I have recently been practicing worldbuilding by attempting to add onto the already existing worlds. I have an original story in the works, but I haven’t touched it in nearly four years. It’s there, but I’m struggling with it. Maybe one day I’ll finally figure it out. But yes, I like writing stories more so than worldbuilding at the moment. 

4) Where do you do most of your writing? (In bed, at a desk, ect...)

Literally anywhere. I write on my computer and on my phone on Google Docs so writing is portable for me. I do tend to write more on my bed or on a couch. I guess somewhere where I’m comfy.

5) If you have multiple ocs, what do you do to keep all their info organized?

Hahahaha I don’t. I’m pretty sure there have been times where I created a character in my head, came back to them months or even years later and forgot what their name was. I used to write a list of characters I created (even ones that I didn’t have stories for) back in high school, but now I don’t. I guess I just remember characters I really like. If I write for them I remember them of course, but if they are characters I have in my head and create a story for them then I tend to remember those characters. Although, I probably should start keeping them organized somehow.

6) Do you write your ideas down or are they mostly in your head?

Both. I tend to come up with ideas in my head (as everyone does haha) and when I have time I write them down on my notes section of my google doc for the story. But I also have ideas written down and in my head. Small ideas come to mind every now and then that I forget about that pop back up or they are minor details that I’ll write in as I write the story. 

7) What is your character(s) favorite food?

Yuriko’s favorite food is omu rice.

Tracey’s is Hawaiin pizza. 

Barry’s would be fried rice.

Aria’s is cookies.

Wes likes pretzels. Crunchy or soft he loves them.

Lyra’s is meatloaf. 

I haven’t thought of Barry’s, Wes’, or Lyra’s before but those popped in my head. It might change, not sure haha.

There are probably other characters that I can’t think of at the moment or characters that I haven’t written for in forever that I just omitted from this list. These are my recent projects. 

8) Out of all your character, which has the best story arc?

I guess Tracey? She’s the character who I actually write a complete story for instead of abandoning it. To this day I’m not sure how I did it, but I did. I have four stories completed in the series with her in it. The second one I liked, but looking back on it there’s some stuff I’d like to change in it. But I also think with that story I was able to develop her character more after that. 

9) Do you prefer heroes, villains, or anti-heroes?

D. All of the above. I like characters who are well written. Even if its a villain I will like their character. 

10) What character have you had the longest?

My longest character would be from my very first fanfic ever, but I don’t want people looking into that one hahaha! Out of my recent characters its definitely Tracey and Barry.

11) Favorite villian trope?

This was another thing that I’ve never thought about before and once again I looked into lists of villain tropes. I think I like bad just to be bad. One of my favorite villains is Joker and he’s evil just because. Another trope (if you count it as a trope or personality) is crazy. Harley Quinn, Junko Enoshima, and Himiko Toga are happy crazy and I don’t know why, but I love characters like that. 

Ezwriting’s questions!

1. Do you listen to anything while you write? Music, television, white noise, etc.

I tend to have something on in the background, whether it’s music, TV, or YouTube. I just like to have background noise. I do like to use music to picture scenes for stories. There’s been times where I’m listening to a song randomly one day and I just picture a new scene that has that song playing as background music and I just add it to a story. 

2. Can you describe your favorite character? Either yours or a beloved favorite from a book or any other media – I’d just love to hear about them.

Tracey and Barry are my MCU OCs. They are the Madison twins and they’ve been with me since I was a freshman in college. So about six years or so. That may have given away my age who knows lol. 

Barry worked with SHIELD and was picked up right out of high school. Tracey didn’t know what he did until the Battle of New York where she basically interrogated him on his uniform. Tracey is a hacker. She majored in Computer Science (even though I know absolutely nothing about it) and she has been playing with computers since she was a kid. She had an interest in them. 

Pepper was a friend of their mom’s so that’s how they met Tony and then the Avengers through Tony. Everything just falls into place or goes down hill from there! 

I’ve worked so much on them that they have become my favorites. But at this point, I’m taking a hard hiatus on them and focusing on other characters.

3. When you write, do you have any particular requirements before you can start? (Have to be a specific somewhere, need music, etc.)

Nope! If I end up writing, I’m lucky. I have the worst attention span and lack of inspiration at times that the moment I sit down and try and write I end up watching the most random videos on YouTube or scroll through Tumblr. It’s bad haha. 

4. Do you prefer to be hot or cool when writing? Do you snuggle up with blankets or have fans running, or are you somewhere in - between?

I’m in between. It depends on the day. Like right now I’m fine sitting on my couch in some comfy shorts and a shirt and write. But some times my legs might get cold and I’ll lay a blanket on them. But that’s usually if it’s cold out. I’m in between.

5. What kind of writing ‘quirks’ do you have?

None. I literally sit and write. I usually have background noises I mentioned in the first question (sometimes, very rarely, will I write in silence). I might have a cup of tea or a snack, but other than those I don’t think I have any writing quirks. 

6. What is your favorite book or book series?

Harry Potter, Peter and the Star Catchers, and The Truth About Forever. 

7. Is there anyone who inspires your writing?

@pen-in-hand @apocalyvse They’re writing is amazing!!

8. What first got you started in writing?

I honestly can’t even remember. I think it was this anime that’s my favorite called D Gray Man. A friend got me into it late 8th grade early freshman year of high school and I loved it. I was also a major major dork back then (probably still am but not as much) and had a crush on one of the characters that I wanted to create my own to add into the story. I think one of my friends told me about ff.net and I picked up a notebook and pen and started writing. 

I do remember a couple times in elementary school where I had to write short stories. One I think I still have in my junk somewhere that was about a dog wanting to be a sled dog and the other was I had to write how the Oregon Trail was made. That one I don’t have, but I think I remember I wrote about how a girl ran into a goblin in a forest and had some competition with him over something. She ended up using this basket she had and used it to create the trail. 

Elementary school Mel was wild. I don’t even know how I remember that Oregon Trail one. Star Kid pick up my story and make a prequel to Trail to Oregon.

9. What would you suggest to new writers?

Just write. Even if you think it’s bad, just write and post it. Someone is going to love it. You are also your worst critic. I look back at my first fanfic and CRINGE when I think about it. But I have reviews on it. I also look back on it and realize that I have improved so much since then. You improve as you write and you can only go up. If you enjoy it, keep writing. 

10. Do you prefer to write first, second or third person?

Third person for sure!

11. How do deadlines affect your writing? Do they hinder or help you?

I don’t set deadlines for myself. Unless I’m writing something for a holiday or as a present to someone. I don’t do deadlines, but I think it would either help or hinder me. It would help me sit down and write, but I also think - knowing me - that I’d procrastinate and then rush to meet the deadline. Rushing would then result in my worst work I think. Maybe. But I just don’t do deadlines. I post when I want to.

My questions

1. Do you write fanfictions or original stories and did you ever write fanfiction? 

2. Did you ever write your stories in the middle of class instead of paying attention? 

3. How many notebooks do you have filled with your writing? 

4. What’s your favorite way to write? Notebook, Word Doc, Google Docs?

5. Do you write by yourself or do you need people writing with you? 

6. Have you ever cowritten with someone? 

7. Who do you bounce ideas off of? 

8. Have you ever taken an experience from your life and written it into a story? 

9. Favorite type of music to listen to while you write. 

10. Have you ever had anyone give you “advice” that hurt you and prevented you from writing for a while? 

11. Have you ever had fans of your writing pester to write a certain way? 

I tag @pen-in-hand @apocalyvse @starsandstormyseas @loopally @morganwriteblr @writing-and-nutmeg @luciandra-writing @nightwingshero @scouthearted @invernessie41 @odpadkywriter @alalawrites

I did 12 instead of 11 since I had two sets of questions haha!

[pastelbatfandoms]

Get to know my character

I am using My Character From My ‘The Flash’ Fan Fic ‘Wells of Hearts’

01. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded? It’s My middle name so no there’s no Symbolism there lol 02. What is one of your character’s biggest insecurities? Are they able to hide it easily or can others easily exploit this weakness? Her powers and trying not to use them after what happened with The Rogues and later when she joins back up with Reverse Flash. Also her love for Eobard which he has been able to use more times then she can count.  03. What would be their favorite physical trait about themselves? Her long Reddish Brown hair and Dynamic Eyes.  04. What are their favorite traits about their lover? (one psychological and one physical) Harry-His Intelligence and she also likes his Moodiness,she thinks it’s hot. When it’s not directed at her of course.

 Eobard-His Intelligence and The fact that he’s a Time Traveler she can learn alot from him and he’s a surprisingly Patient teacher. 

 HR-His Writing Skills and the fact that he can make her laugh and gives good advice. 

Physically-Have you seen them?! I mean Harry and HR are Doppelgangers of each other so of course there both Handsome. 

But Harry has a more Mature look about him whereas HR’s is more Carefree and Cool. Eobard as both Harrison and himself exudes a Charm and Dark Charisma that is very Sexy. Plus that Smile and those looks!

05. Are they sexually confident or more of the shy type? Confident 06. Do they have any hobbies that their lover finds unusual, odd, or otherwise annoying? No,I mean they have some pretty unusual quirks themselves,So I don’t think they’d notice.  07. Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)? No 08. What is, perhaps, their biggest flaw? Are they aware of this or oblivious to it? I mean Her Emotions are probably one of them but she is learning to control them,with help. 09. Do they have a favorite season? What about a favorite holiday? Her favorite Holiday is Christmas and by association Winter. Since that is when HR gave her their first Kiss underneath the mistletoe. Yes She notices the ironic parallel between liking Christmas and The Reverse Flash.

10. Is your character more feminine or masculine? Feminine but she can still kick ass! 11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage? um being Influenced to do so lol Also Eobard dying on her...again. 12. Is there some particular talent, skill, or attribute that they simply could not give up? Well Renee has given up her Powers before or dampened them. So I don’t think that would be one of them... 13. What are your character’s sleeping habits? Heavy or light sleeper? Blanket stealer? One that always rolls onto the floor? Pushes their lover onto the floor? Sleep talker or walker? She’s a heavy sleeper unless she’s had a Nightmare,she’s more of a Cuddler unless it’s too hot.  14. Do they live alone or with family? How do they feel about their family/roommates? Joe adopted her around the same time he Adopted Barry,so they,including Iris,all grew up together. She Moved out after College on her own until She met Eobard Thawne then in the guise of Harrison Wells and moved in with him,much later she moved in with Both Harry and HR,after HR Died She Married Harry and moved to be with him on Earth 2.  15. Is there a certain person in this world that they cannot stand? The very mention of this person’s name makes them tremble with anger or fear. Sometimes Eobard. But despite everything she still loves him. Not many others though,no. Maybe Savitar. 16. Is your character the athletic type or more of a couch potato? What are some sports/games that they like? 17. Does your character have dreams of getting married and/or having children? She is Married,as for Children. Maybe someday,she is now a Step Mom to Jessie. 18. What kind of home would they want to live in? Where would they place this abode? Anywhere she can be happy. But preferably someplace Nice and Clean.  19. Would your character be the kind to get into fights? (physical or verbal) Would they be a good fighter or cave in rather easily? Depends on who she’s fighting with. But she’s pretty headstrong and Stubborn like Harry (which is probably why they got into so many rows when they first met.) So she tends to not back down from a fight and can hold her own,she also does not let things go easily.  20. Does your character like animals? What are some of their favorite animals? Would they want pets? What about mythological creatures? 21. What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear? That Eobard has been Manipulating her this entire time and truly doesn’t love her,despite his countless words to the contrary,maybe someday he’ll take her to the past and show her...Also losing Harry like she lost HR.  22. What kind of tattoos, piercings, birthmarks, freckles, and other such unique physical features do they have? Her Eyes that look like an incoming storm when she’s angry and has her powers,also the white streak she gets in her hair once she’s changed into Obsidian Storm.  23. What is your character like when it comes to school? What subjects are they good/bad at? Do they get in trouble a lot or are well behaved? She’s well past School but when she was in College she took Journalism,Fashion and Graphic Design. Afterwards of which She was introduced to Harrison Well and joined Star Labs becoming there Costume Designer and Specializing in Facial Recognition.  24. In their own words, how would your character describe what their lover is like? Just go to these links to See My Headcanons for Eobard and Harry on that. I will be doing one for HR soon.  25. Is there something traumatic from your character’s past that greatly affects them even to this day? Knowing that Eobard killed Barry’s Mother while Barry and herself where in the house still upsets her besides the fact that her Father died in the fire that started in the house and Her Mother died in a Car Accident A month before. Renee was also in the car but was saved by a Mysterious Figure that she thought had been her Father but later learned it wasn’t.  26. What is their lover like sexually? How do they feel about their lover’s quirks, needs, etc? Again see the links above. 27. If your character was going to get arrested, what would be the most likely reason for it? um doing what Villains do. lol She is not innately a Villain but she given the right Push,like Joining The Rogues after Eobard died or Joining The Legion of Doom to BE with Eobard,she can be.  28. If your character became a celebrity, what would they be famous for? Fashion Design 29. What is one of the most courageous things your character has ever done for a loved one? Almost Dying.  30. When it comes to the arts (music, film, theater, etc), what does your character like? Pop Art,Action Movies,Oldies,Anything Fun or Classy looking.  31. Would your character be the kind capable of killing? Would they enjoy killing or only use it when necessary or, perhaps, refuse to kill no matter what? If she was Obsidian Storm yes. To protect those she loved,and only if she felt she had to.  32. If your character’s lover offered to take them out on a dream date, what would they want to do? Eobard-A Fancy Restaurant all over the world. Harry-A Romantic Dinner at Home. HR-A Coffee Shop then maybe Big Belly Burger afterwards.  33. If your character wanted to be alone, where would they go? The Woods or Eobard Thawne’s Time Vault. which has become less and less of a Secret now.  34. Does your character have favorite foods? (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, snacks, etc) Big Belly Burger of course! lol Coffee,Salads,Italian Food.  35. Is your character afraid of death? If they got to choose how to die, how would they want to go? Not Anymore. She would like to die with a loved one or risking her life for someone.  36. Does your character have any medical conditions? Are they serious or minor? Do they affect their day to day life? No 37. What are some of your character’s pet peeves? What are some things that annoy them or disgust them? Being Lied to. Fickleness,being Elitists,Judgmental. 38. What kind of weather does your character like? Cloudy skies, rainy days, sunshine, etc? Anything that can make a Thunderstorm. 39. When people look at your character, is there some assumption they might make about them just by appearance? Is that assumption correct? That they’re Naive or too forgiving. They might be right about the latter.  40. Does your OC have any guilty pleasures they enjoy? Hobbies, past times, music, etc that they wouldn’t want known by others? Wouldn’t want known? um no she has no secrets of her own,anymore. 41. Does your character’s family affect your character in any way? They can be a bit too brusque in there handling of certain situations or a bit too selfish at times. But Renee knows it’s only out of love and protectiveness. Especially Joe and Barry. 42. Is there anything in your character’s past that they regret, haunts them, or they wish they could change? Turning her back on Team Flash to join The Rogues. Currently,lying to them about working with Eobard again.  43. Does your character have a switch that changes aspects of their personality whether they are around friends, family, etc. Is there someone who gets to see their true self? 44. Is there a particular event that would emotionally devastate your character? I think she’s already been through most of them. But of course if something ever happened to Harry,Joe or Team Flash... 45. Is your character the kind to hide their true emotions or do they wear their heart on their sleeve? heart on their sleeve.

46. What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover? She loves going behind and planting a kiss on their cheek with her arms around there neck. As Harrison, Eobard loves this unless he’s in Reverse Flash mode,cause then it’s business time. Same goes for Harry,when he’s working. HR on the other hand doesn’t mind at all! 47. Is your character outgoing? Would they be the leader of the friend group, or the quiet one that gets dragged along? A bit of both,depends on her mood. 48. Is there anything in particular that would ignite your character’s jealousy? Or does your character not get envious? Her Men being Flirted with or doing the flirting...EoWells.... 49. What is something that your character has nightmares about? Are these frequent? Do they heavily affect your character’s mood? She used to have Nightmares after finding out Harrison was Reverse Flash and again after he died,turns out those weren’t dreams.  50. If your character confessed love to their crush, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc, what would they say? Thawne would Smirk and respond back in kind,he of course already knew it,you were destined he was just waiting on you. Harry would be surprised at first but give him awhile and he would warm up to it. HR would love it,he’d be giddy and respond with a kiss.