Cisco Ramon is the official meta-human (namegenerator) wrote in multifariousic, @ 2015-07-25 02:01:00 |
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To say the past few days had been trying on Caitlin’s nerves would have been a massive understatement. She understood why the Avengers didn’t want to let them at their computers, but Caitlin sure as hell didn’t like it. She also didn’t like being saddled with a babysitter of types. It wasn’t so bad when it was Felicity, but the rest of the time she kept having to bite her tongue. The discovery of STAR labs had only helped a little. All of their work and equipment was now available to them. It didn’t help them with Barry, however, as his suit was no longer programmed to communicate with them. But at least it offered her a change of clothes, since she kept a few spare outfits at the lab. Apparently Barry was coming back, or he was back, but they still weren’t allowed to see him, as he had to be debriefed. They had been put into a smaller waiting room, and told to have a seat and wait. As soon as Barry was done, he could come to them. Caitlin hadn’t sat. Instead she was slowly packing back and forth beside a board room meeting table that took up the center space in the room. Her patience was growing thin, and there was really nothing she could do about it. Except wait more. “Do you think the whole ‘it won’t take too long’ bit was true, or were they just trying to shut me up?” She was betting it was the latter. Cisco felt like he was slowly losing his mind. He felt unproductive, useless, and frustrated...and that was just if he ignored the rest; the impromptu relocation, the fact that he was now evidently fictional, and the stress that came with having no contact with Barry while he was on a mission were all weighing just as heavily on him. He quickly decided that he didn’t like Stuart and being with Felicity was only marginally better under the circumstance, and the fact that he was in a laboratory surrounded by cool gadgets he wasn’t allowed to touch, never mind take apart and explore was maddening. So, when it was finally announced that Barry was back, there had been a massive wave of relief. ...which had quickly been replaced with more frustration at the idea of having to wait that much longer while he and Caitlin were ushered into a waiting room while Barry was debriefed. The way she was pacing was making him even more anxious, but he supposed he didn’t really have room to complain given that he was barely sitting still himself, for the way his leg was shaking as his foot tapped incessantly on the tile floor. “Probably both,” Cisco admitted, frowning, in response to her question. His fingers drummed on the table at which he sat; Cisco’s patience wasn’t just thin. It was spent. He got to his feet and pushed the chair in with annoyed force. “This is ridiculous,” he snapped finally. “Hey, HAL--” he called out, interrupted by the voice of the AI correcting him with, ‘JARVIS, sir,’ “--whatever, how much longer? We’ve been waiting for days.” Before the system could respond, the doorknob turned and Cisco whirled to face it anxiously as the door pushed open. Barry was more than a little annoyed that no one managed to contact him about Caitlin and Cisco’s arrival. A part of him understood it, he was on a mission and the knowledge that his friends had arrived would cloud his head and, in turn, his judgement, but the other part of him didn’t really care. It was Cisco and Caitlin, they were his team. Tony had the Avengers, even Lydia had all of her friends from Beacon Hills, but Cisco and Caitlin were the first people to show up that were from Barry’s home. That was, if they were his Cisco and Caitlin; he wasn’t stupid enough to assume that they had to be. Barry knew how this worked, but if they were from the same world, and experienced what he experienced, it meant that everybody that he left behind before New York wasn’t dead. It was something that he had always assumed, in the back of his head, despite how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise. The moment that Barry was pulled out of was a detrimental one, and he had even resorted to watching his own show in the hopes that maybe he could be convinced that everybody survived. It didn’t help. He had been debriefed, made his statement for JARVIS and covered all of his bases, and when he was finally led to the room that his friends were waiting in Barry reached out for the door handle, and stopped. His heart was racing, and he was angry with himself for getting his hopes up; he wanted so badly for them to be the Caitlin and Cisco he knew. In retrospect, he probably should have at least changed; the suit was a mess and he was looking a little worse for the wear, but that was the last thing on his mind when he finally worked up the courage to turn the handle and push the door wide open. Knowing that they were there was one thing, but seeing them hit Barry a lot harder than he thought it would, and he was left there standing in the doorway with a look of dumb shock on his face and the wind knocked out of him. It felt like minutes had passed although it had probably only been seconds, but there was obvious recognition in their eyes and in the end that was all that mattered to Barry. He closed the space between him and Cisco, showing no hesitance as he pulled his friend into a tight embrace, and a moment later he was reaching out to grab Caitlin by the shoulder in order to hug her as well. “I can’t believe that you’re both here,” was the first thing that he had managed to say, and when he finally parted from them he took a step back and looked between them with hopeful optimism. “You’re both from the same place, right? As me? ...Eddie?” He suddenly looked nervous, his gaze switching between the two of them. “...Wells? It’s all the same?” He wanted to tack on ‘as the show’ at the end of his sentence but he refrained, unsure of how much they knew since their arrival. “Do you know yet?” She had spun to look at the door, waiting to see who had would come through the same time as Cisco. But her mind only had time to register that it was, in fact, Barry coming through the door before he was suddenly hugging Cisco, and then pulling her in as well. There was nothing she could do about keeping up with The Flash. But the sense of relief, and reassurance was immediate, and she returned his hug with enthusiasm. “We can’t believe you’re here. I was starting to think they were just lying to us.” Since arriving, Caitlin had wanted to find out as much information as she could, about this so called show that they were apparently part of, and the Avengers who Barry was now working with. So when he started to question what they had experienced, she was aware of what he meant, even if Eddie was still alive in their time. That had been a blow that was hard to accept, but apparently very much reality. “I believe we’re from the same place.” she replied, “But...maybe not the same time. You, the Arrow and FIRESTORM had already taken down the Reverse Flash. But, we’re both from before you tried to time travel. I was supposed to wake up to marry Ronnie. We woke up here instead.” she explained, a sad smile on her face. Which did not stick around long. Caitlin took step back, examining both Barry and the suit in one swoop, her concern coming flooding back. “Are you okay? They wouldn’t tell us what you were doing.” She was immediately annoyed all over again that all three of them were here, instead of STAR Labs, where she could check him overly properly. “What happened to you?” Seeing Barry walk through the door after spending days in the dark on his well-being beyond “his vitals are still good,” was incredibly relieving and when the other man crossed the room, Cisco met him halfway, returning the hug in earnest and opening one of his arms to include Caitlin when Barry seemed to. As he stepped back and Caitlin responded to Barry’s question, Cisco’s eyes were already moving over the suit, looking for any damages that might extend to their friend himself. “What she said,” he breathed, clapping a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “I was starting to think they were lying to us, too,” he confessed. His eyes moved back and forth between the two of them as Caitlin was finally able to step back and look Barry over, too. Cisco’s hand moved to a particularly ugly ding on the suit. “STAR Labs is here...I’ll fix this tonight,” he offered. “What were you doing? Not gonna lie, I was losing my mind in that frakking lab full of a bunch of cool toys I couldn’t touch having to be babysat by Felicity and the biggest prick I’ve met since I got here.” “What? Nothing- oh,” Barry’s eyes moved down to his own suit when he saw Caitlin studying it, but he seemed much more concerned with the fact that she had admitted that she was supposed to be waking up on her wedding morning. “No, it’s nothing, we were in Russia, there was this rebel group and we had to get into the complex and I can get through the wall without a door - it doesn’t matter, I’m fine, you’re from your wedding?” He frowned sympathetically before he reached out and gently squeezed Caitlin’s arm. “I’m sorry, Caitlin. ...So you weren’t there? Neither of you? For…” he didn’t want to have to repeat himself; mentioning Eddie once was enough for him. “I know that they’ve been keeping you in the dark, I’m sorry. I didn’t even know that you guys were here, if I knew I would have told them to just let you in, I would have been able to convince them that you were safe. It’s for security though, there are different versions of people…” Barry trailed off, because although he understood why no one gave Caitlin and Cisco free reign, he didn’t particularly agree with it either. His head perked in Cisco’s direction when he mentioned STAR Labs, his face falling in surprise once more. “Wait, STAR Labs came with you? Seriously?” It made everything better and worse all at the same time; Tony was always able to help Barry with his suit but he didn’t have the enthusiasm for it that Cisco did. However, having STAR Labs in the area was going to test his loyalty to the tower, and Barry wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to exactly handle that. He had his team back after integrating himself with a different team, but it was something that they would have to deal with in the future, not now. “Take the suit, it’s the only one that I have here… Tony has been taking care of it but it’s not the same. He’ll be able to give you guys clearance, by the way, you won’t have to deal with that again - oh, you met Stuart.” Barry couldn’t help but smile. “He’s not that bad once you get to know him, he’s a pretty decent guy. He’s actually a pretty great guy, although he’d never let you tell him that. Uh, who else?” He looked between the two of them, his hands planting themselves on his waist. “You said you know Felicity is here… Sara is here, the Canary, before Laurel, her sister. Oliver’s sister is here.” He paused for a few seconds. “My grandson. Which was a fun discovery. This place is ruthless, I’m sorry. I should have been here when you arrived.” Cailin shook her head, reaching to his hand on her arm to give it a reassuring squeeze. The truth was, she had been too overwhelmed with arriving here, and then finding Barry was off on some mission without them at his back to really allow herself to accept the fact that she may have just lost Ronnie, again. That would have to be dealt with later, probably when both of them were gone. Right now it was just easier to focus on Barry. “We would have been a distraction for you if they’d let you know. We know that, even if we didn’t like it. Making sure you were focused was more important.” They might have been annoyed with the whole setup, but it would have been worse if Barry had become distracted and hurt. “Are you sure you’re okay? Because I have no problem invading Doctor Barton’s space.” Even if it was probably no where near as well as equipped as their facility. There were two surprises there. One, Oliver’s sister. She hadn’t realized that Thea Queen was here. Not that they had ever met, but still. It was the mention of a grandson that caused her to stare blankly for a moment. Of course, she already knew this was possible. Thawne had come from the future, and had been a descendant of Eddie. But to hear that Barry had a grandson here….was still weird. “Grandson? ...did he say who his Grandmother was?” Her thoughts were immediately jumping to Iris, but she didn’t want to assume. “It wasn’t like you could have known that we were going to show up here. As long as they don’t try locking us out next time.” “No, man, we get it. Just because it sucked doesn’t mean we didn’t understand. Trust me, we had apologies issued up and down between Steve and Pepper, but it just sucked watching other people doing our jobs and not being able to step in and do it...you know…right,” he said, the ghost of a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “And yeah, Caitlin went out for coffee — they don’t have Jitters here, or Big Belly Burger, so basically this place blows — and she found it by accident, so it’s here. All of our stuff, the lab; everything,” he said. Cisco listened to Barry list off people and he looked surprised at the mention of Thea Queen, because he hadn’t seen her, but he grinned a little at the mention of The Canary. “Yeah, oh, I met the Canary. Sara. I met Sara, I mean. It. was. awesome.” The grin immediately fell away with surprise at the mention of a grandson and he, too, immediately thought of Iris, but Cisco forgot his brain-to-mouth filter and blurted out the question that Caitlin hadn’t asked. “Is Iris his grandma? Did he say? I can’t even...like, process that, wow, that’s awesome. ...wait,” he said, shoving a pointed first finger at Barry’s chest, the grin returning to his features. “Tell me he’s a speedster. Oh man, tell me he’s also a speedster.” “I know, I know, I just don’t like the idea of you being here and me not knowing.” He said it flatly in a way that he usually did when he knew he was being unreasonable. Barry knew exactly why he couldn’t have been told of their arrival earlier than now, he knew that the reasoning behind it was logical. But he still hated it. His passing mention of Bart seemed a lot more important to Cisco and Caitlin than it was to him, and he should have probably assumed that would be the case; he forgot how shocking it was that Bart was his grandson when he first realized that it was the case. The follow up question, however, left Barry with a light tint of pink on his cheeks and his lips parted in silence as he tried to come up with a response. “Um… I don’t know,” he finally answered when Cisco asked if Iris was Bart’s grandmother. “I uh - he doesn’t remember anything and I never looked it up, I didn’t think that I should… and he’s from a different world, anyway, so it might not even be the same as it would be if he was from where we’re from, you know, it’s not - you know…” Having Cisco and Caitlin return was like going back in time where Barry’s thoughts were consumed of only two things, and those things were Wells and Iris. Things were different now, and he briefly wondered if either of them had even met Lydia. He didn’t know how to approach that situation. “Yes,” he finally continued, rolling his eyes a little at Cisco despite the grin on his own face. “He’s a speedster. Actually,” his tone turned a little more serious, his arms folding across his chest. “He’s faster than me. A lot faster, twice the speed of light faster. And I’m fine, Caitlin.” He finally moved to easing her concerns with a softer smile. “Seriously, it was a lot of physical labor, that’s all. I’m not hurt. It was more boring, than anything else.’ The look she shot Cisco was not nearly enough to describe how much she kind of wanted to throw something at him. Tact. Sometimes it was lacking among them. But she’d be lying if she said she didn’t really want to know that answer. She’d just sort of hoped taking a more subtle approach would have worked. “No one introduced themselves as your grandson, or even another speedster. I think we listed off everyone we’ve met so far...except Lyda. We’ve met Lydia as well. She said she was a friend of yours. But anyway…” Twice the speed of light. You could practically see something light up behind Caitlin’s eyes as she was thinking of the possibilities, and how this speedster’s genetics might compare to Barry. “Even Wells wasn’t that fast.” Wells, Thawne, whatever. “Okay, okay, you’re fine.” she still would have felt better if she’d been able to look him over. At least if she’d been monitoring him, she would have known exactly what it was he had gone through. “I’m just glad you’re back, and safe. And I bet Stuart is thrilled he doesn’t have to deal with us anymore.” In response to the look he caught in the corner of his eye from Caitlin, Cisco at least had the grace to give an expression that looked caught between apologetic and sheepish; something that very clearly stated…whoops? His own eyebrows shot up with interest at the mention of just how fast this grandson was. “Holy sh...wow,” he replied, blinking rapidly. “Oh, yeah, Lydia. Uh, also...a couple of people blankposted at me, that’s apparently a thing here? One of them, this girl Kira, replied when I pointed it out, but the other guy, not so much. Like everybody here is super hot, that’s a thing I couldn’t help noticing, especially the women. Sorry Caitlin,” he said, the apology mostly for the casual objectification that was implied to have included her considering he’d pointed out that she was the hot one and therefore should’ve posted when they arrived. “Can we...like, go? Do you wanna go? We can head to STAR and get my — our — suit fixed up like new,” he offered, shifting his focus because he didn’t necessarily want to continue this conversation in a room he already knew was being monitored by artificial intelligence. Maybe it was paranoia, but a larger part of it was just that he was sick of being in Avengers Tower. Barry tried to keep himself composed but his jaw tightened at the casual mention of Wells and his speed; he knew that it was different for them. The simple mention of the fact that Wells was a speedster made Barry’s blood boil, he couldn’t even refer to him by his real name because Thawne was associated with Eddie. And Eddie was dead because Barry wasn’t fast enough. He didn’t like thinking about it. So he just didn’t; he pushed it away every time it tried to creep up on him. It was his turn to look surprised when Caitlin mentioned Lydia so casually, mostly because she used the word ‘friend’ which led Barry to believe that Lydia didn’t tell them that they were dating, let alone living together. He assumed that it was because she didn’t want to cause any more stress than what was necessary; if he thought any deeper than that he would just come up with stupid conclusions. “I’m surprised Bart hasn’t said hello, he’s sociable. To say the least.” Barry spoke more to himself than to them, a little concerned that Bart hadn’t even bothered, but he pulled himself back to push past it. “Everybody is attractive here, yeah, you get used to it, honestly. And Lydia isn’t my friend, she’s my girlfriend, I moved in with her a little bit ago actually.” He sounded as dismissive as he could, pushing on again before the fact could be seriously dwelled on. Or, at least, that was his intention. “We should go to STAR Labs. I’m seriously, I’ve been dying to have you look at the suit again, it’s been way too long, and we need to get on the same frequency again so we can get communication back up. New York is bigger than Central was, but we can make it work. We can get everything moving again, make sure that we’re helping people… it’s harder for me to monitor everything here. I’ve just been doing a sort of cold recon.” Barry allowed himself to give a sheepish grin. “It’s good to see you guys here. Really good. ...I wasn’t really sure if - “ he paused, smile fading. “I didn’t know if you guys had made it. Or if I’d see you again. I’ve been here for a couple of months now.” Ignoring the hot women comment with another pointed look, Caitlin had to agree with Cisco on one thing. She was more than ready to get out of this place, and back into familiar grounds. So much so, that as she reached for her sweater, which had been tossed over a chair, she didn’t manage to get anything out about Lydia after Barry’s attempt at a casual information bomb. Her mouth opened and closed several times at that, because there were so many questions. But then he was trying to move on from there. “I’m all for getting out of here.” She had more questions, like did he really want to get the suit back with STAR Labs, when he had been working with the Avengers? Wouldn’t that mess things up on some level? But these were questions to ask later, when they were out of the building. With that AI present, she was pretty confident that everything they said and did was being monitored. Caitlin pulled on her sweater, and took a few steps toward the door. “Lets go then. But don’t think we don’t, or at least I don’t have questions about Lydia. You’re not getting off the hook that easily.” She locked eyes with Barry for a moment, being sure he was very aware it wasn’t something she was going to drop so quickly, before looking to Cisco. “That explains why she was so interested in us when we arrived, and why she kept checking in.” Cisco gave a facial shrug in response to Barry’s grandson — Bart’s — neglect toward them. “Maybe he didn’t know us all that well. Or, you know, at all? Since, yeah...alternate...did you know we have Wikia pages? Arrow Wikia, we’re on wikias, we’re fandom, man,” he rambled before catching himself. “You know that...already. Yeah, you probably know that, never mind,” he decided aloud, shaking his head and starting toward the door since Barry seemed good with heading back to their own lab. At the clarification on Lydia, Cisco stopped mid-step and turned back to look at Barry, eyes a little wider with surprise and his mouth formed as if just about to ask “What now?” but lingering, instead, on a silent wh as he looked back at Caitlin to actually take his cue from her, for a change. “No, no, I have questions too. So many,” he replied with a nod, tacking his response onto Caitlin’s point and keeping to himself the fact that most of his questions...he’d ask when Caitlin wasn’t actually around. For reasons. He nodded, though, as he started toward the door again and pulled it open for Caitlin, looking back at her. “Yeaahhh, good point, that makes sense.” His eyes moved to Barry. “Let’s roll?” Barry actually winced when Caitlin insisted that she would have questions about Lydia, because he knew that usually meant uncomfortable and yet necessary questions to familiarize his best friends with his personal life. It was going to be a process, limiting the history to something that was a little bit more PG than the truth, but Barry was never one to really kiss and tell. Cisco, however, would be the one that would make that difficult. Barry already knew. “Alright, I’ll fill you guys in. It’s not that serious though, knowing the story, it just kind of happened and now we just kind of… live… together - you know what, I think that we should go. I think that we should go right now, come on- ow-” he promptly ran into the doorknob as he tried to back and wiggle his way between the two of them toward the door. “And we’ll talk about that later, if we get the time. Let me just text her so she knows that I landed safe, but, yeah, STAR Labs, that’s - totally cool, let’s go there. Right now.” Barry opened the door and walked out, but before he could even make it down the hall he turned and looked back in the room at his friends sheepishly. “...I don’t know where it is,” he remembered aloud, “so uh… let’s go to STAR Labs. And - you go first.” |