(no subject)

[captaincaveman]

Early in the morning, Barry was already at work at CCPD, Claire would be greeted with a knock at her door. Wells, in his classic black attire and black baseball cap to hide his face was standing at her door. He wasn't wearing his glasses and had the collar of his jacket popped to help conceal his face. In one hand he was holding a Jitters carton with two to-go cups of coffee.

Assuming she opened the door, the very first thing he did was raise his free hand in a show of surrender and say, "It's me, Harrison--or Harry, not... you know..."

Comments

[infinite1ups]

She didn't pull away, deciding she'd rather let Harry have the extra reassurance that she was fine. It was also a little reassurance for herself, though. Calling her dad really would have made her feel better, and knowing that Harry was himself was the next best thing.

"I'll be fine," Claire told Harry one last time, then gave his hand a squeeze before calmly returning to the Cortex with Cisco. It would look like she was actually taking her own advice and taking it easy.

As soon as they were out of earshot, though, the relaxed demeanor melted away and she looked to Cisco with a worried frown. She had her back to the window, her voice low.

"Keep an eye on them," she warned first, then continued, "Caitlin stopped me, asked me if I was sure, so I had to double-check. My phone's a paperweight in here; that's Harry. I'm assuming Caitlin is herself too, but if not... she has that dart, and if she's not the Meta, then we're all in some deep shit."

[namesthevillains]

Harry seemed to accept that and tried to get some sleep. Caitlin busied herself with cleaning up in the lab.

"It's a good thing she did. God, I almost killed Harry!" Though his voice was quiet, it was stricken. "What the Hell is happening?"

After a moment, Caitlin joined them in the Cortex and the watch started sounding again from its spot on the console, not far from Caitlin. Her brown eyes darted to the noisy device, then to them like a deer in headlights.

"Wait, is that why you thought Harry was--?" She asked, backing away from the console.

[infinite1ups]

Claire turned as the watch started going off again, and she tried to read Caitlin's expression. Was that fear at being found out, or was she worried about a possible threat, the same as herself and Cisco? Again, she didn't know the other woman well enough to know. Even with Harry it had been tricky - she needed to check her phone to be certain, while she didn't have a test like that she could pull with Caitlin.

"We're just trying to figure out the real nature of the malfunction," she said smoothly, trying not to raise the alarm any higher than it already had been. "Could be something wonky with the sensor? Like when dust gets in your smoke detector." It was just the kind of semi-rational, though probably incorrect, argument a layperson like Claire would make in a troubleshooting discussion.

There was, of course, the possibility that someone was impersonating Cisco. If a Meta was impersonating him, the watch might not follow its programming to ignore his presence, because, well... it wasn't him. She was making sure not to turn her back completely on either of them.

[namesthevillains]

Caitlin's eyes brimmed with tears as she kept backing up until her back bumped the heavy concrete wall. Once she was far enough away, the alert stopped going off.

"Caitlin..." Cisco started walking towards her, but he froze, hand outstretched. His features glossed over. He might look oddly catatonic to Claire. Something she wouldn't recognise just yet, but he was having a Vibe. The vision showed him fighting Killer Frost in the street. Claire was at his side with a large spear of ice in her thigh and he was trying to shield them from further attacks, calling for Caitlin to stop. When he came out of the Vibe, he staggered.

"How long have you known?" He asked and she rolled her sleeves up to show them the delicate black bracelets with glowing blue lights she wore on both wrists. Meta dampeners.

"A couple months." Cait answered. "You can't tell anyone. I-I'm suppressing the power. But once it gets out of control, I'll... I'll leave. Cisco, Claire... please." She begged, in tears. "The dampeners are holding her back for now. I know you don't know me very well, Claire, but please, don't tell anyone."

[infinite1ups]

She'd known folks with precognitive abilities, but outside of Angela, whose precognitions came in dreams, she hadn't seen anything like what Cisco was displaying. Clearly something was happening, but she couldn't say what. She only knew that Cisco was a Meta and that he called himself Vibe, not what his powers entailed.

It was clear, though, from the watch and everything else that played out in front of her, that she was at least partially right. Caitlin was the meta, but for all intents and purposes, she appeared to be herself.

Which posed a problem. Claire had essentially promised Barry that she wouldn't lie to him. She told the truth about Thawne and almost lost him, hiding this could put him back into a position where he couldn't trust her. Or, would he understand that she'd been put in a difficult spot? After all, Harry hadn't mentioned Claire's regeneration and it hadn't been a big deal.

This also wasn't quite the same level of severity as Eobard Thawne, she reasoned. Maybe it'd be okay. Something Caitlin said had caught her attention, though.

"Her? What do you mean by that?"

[namesthevillains]

"Killer Frost." Cisco answered Claire without missing a beat and Caitlin looked ashamed. "Back on Earth-2 we met our doppelgängers, both were evil Metas working for Zoom, an evil Speedster who took over the world there and kidnapped Harry's daughter, Jesse to make him steal Barry's speed. Caitlin's doppelgänger was Killer Frost. In most cases, Metas don't change the person, but Killer Frost is a dissociative identity." Cisco explained.

"You just Vibed something." Caitlin said and Cisco shook his head.

"Nah." He lied. "I was just startled, that's all." He wasn't telling her he saw them fighting Killer Frost in the future. That would only make her panic more.

"But we don't know for sure that Caitlin will turn into Killer Frost here on our Earth. You could just get cool ice powers and still be you. You know?" He tried to reassure her. "After all, I have the same powers as Reverb but I'm not working for an evil jackhole even if my powers came from Thawne. You guys were the ones who told me that just because Thawne gave me this, it didn't make me evil." Claire, there's a lot of tension around powers here.

"Keep an eye on Harry. I'm gonna take the watch to the lab so we can program you out of it for now." Cisco said and nodded for Claire to follow him.

[infinite1ups]

Mostly, Claire was relieved that there didn't seem to be any immediate danger for now. Caitlin wasn't going to use that dart on Harry, and they weren't going to have to call Barry to come speeding over to save them from some unknown, intruding Meta.

The thought of having to hide something from Barry was troubling, but maybe Cisco would have some guidance on how to handle it. She was his girlfriend, but he was his best friend and had known him longer - she could trust his judgment. It helped that it wasn't her secret to tell, much like her regeneration hadn't been Harry's to tell, or Leonard's, for that matter. Maybe Barry would understand. Given that Cisco was already aware of this alter-ego, it might not be that much of a surprise when the truth came out.

"Sorry if I freaked you out with the dramatics," Claire offered with a smile. "Cisco and I didn't know what to make of the detector going off and I think we both immediately jumped to the worst case scenario." Then she followed Cisco as he motioned for her.

"That could've been a lot worse," she said, chuckling quietly. "I'm so glad I hesitated."

[namesthevillains]

"No, I can see how that might have looked." Cait admitted shakily. "I'm just glad Harry didn't get hurt because of me."

Cisco lead her into the curved concrete hallway, down past the concealed Time Vault, to the elevator. "Yeah, that could have been a disaster. ...it still can be a disaster." He admitted. They weren't headed to the lab. Instead he took them down to the Breach Room. When the elevator doors opened he brought her into another circular room, smaller than the Cortex but with a much higher ceiling. There was a platform in the centre back of the room but around the room were a few consoles and computers.

"I haven't done this without Harry before, so it might not work." Cisco admitted. "One of my powers, is I get Vibes. Visions of the future. Harry's been helping me build tech to control them. We figured out how to bring people into my Vibes so they could see them too. But usually he monitors them from outside. Just in case." As he spoke, he located two pairs or neural stimulator headsets. They were thin headbands with little electrode pads that settled over parts of the forehead and temples. He also pulled his Vibe glasses out of his pocket and turned them on. They glowed a bright cobalt blue. He put on his glasses and one of the headbands, holding the other out to Claire.

"I'm gonna take you into my Vibe. I, uh... I lied to Cait." He admitted. "But you were in my Vibe, so I wanna know what you think we should do."

[infinite1ups]

She listened intently as she followed Cisco deeper through the STAR Labs facility, taking note of the various places they passed. This was a lot more advanced than The Company had been, from what she could recall of the building that had operated as Primatech Paper as a front. Her dad might have a field day learning about all this stuff. So much for his retirement.

"Oh, you're precog," Claire said, chipper as he explained that part of his powers. "I know a few people who could get visions like that, but it works slightly different for them."

The admission of his lie took her by surprise, though. He had seemed a little shifty, but she still didn't know him well enough to telegraph this kind of thing. There was always going to be that part of her now that wondered if she was too trusting, knowing there were doppelgangers and being reminded how easy it could be for a shapeshifter to be lurking about. Thawne had said she was naive to trust him. But he'd also said she was like Barry because of that same willingness to trust and forgive - which in her eyes was a compliment.

"Alright, we can try." She didn't hesitate when he handed over the headband, putting it on her head the same way he had his own. There were evolved humans who could share visions, so it wasn't that much of a stretch of the imagination, though it maybe it seemed a bit stranger coming from a machine. The combination of tech and abilities was something to get used to - people like her generally just used their powers as is, unless it was something designed to be used with an object, like clairsentience or some of those weird melting and exploding abilities. "Ready when you are."

[namesthevillains]

"It didn't start out as precog. Harry says I tap into multidimensional energies and harness them. We had to stimulate my fear response to get the Vibes of the future to work right. I used to just Vibe current events. That's what the glasses do. But now that I've been doing it a while, the future Vibes just come naturally." When he rambled like this, he almost sounded like Harry.

"I don't just see this Earth, either. I can Vibe other Earths, which can be a headache. Literally. Like, nosebleeds, migraines, the whole package." Ciaco walked over to a console and with a few keystrokes, activated something. It brought up their neural readings, but they wouldn't actually feel anything on their end. "This is gonna get freaky. So just hold on, okay? I'm gonna take your hand, then you're gonna feel like you're falling. It'll be kinda like we're in a storm, just don't let go of my hand, okay?"

Cisco took her hand and the world around them stuttered out of view. They were jerked into the dark, but when things came back into view they were hued blue. They were standing in the street watching themselves face off against Caitlin, though her long brown hair was white and her brown eyes were ice blue. She was hurling ice shards at them and Cisco was blocking them with Vibe blasts from his palms that shattered the ice. He called her name and begged her to stop. That this wasn't her. Beside him, Claire was down with a shard of ice sticking out of her leg. He knelt down beside her and helped her pull it out so it could heal. The distraction left him open and Frost hit him in the shoulder with an icy blast.

The vision ended, they were stuttered back out of the vision with a lurch into the Breach Room and Cisco gasped.

"That's Killer Frost." He explained. "But Caitlin would never become that willingly. She's not a bad person. She's a really good person, actually. If I tell her about this, she'll want to leave so she doesn't put us in danger. What do I do?"

[infinite1ups]

The rambling brought about more questions, but she decided to save them until after Cisco shared his vision with her. Then, she figured, she could ask everything at once and they could hash things out.

Claire took his hand, bracing herself as she felt the odd sensation of being pulled out of reality. It really did feel like falling, once her vision cleared, that blue haze gave things an eerie tone. Almost like a spooky movie.

She watched with alarm at the scene playing out. Caitlin looked drastically different, and was attacking them. Her ice powers were sort of like Tracy Strauss, though Claire couldn't recall Tracy ever hurling icicles at anyone. Cisco was defending them the best he could, helping her with the large shard of ice in her leg. She almost wanted to shout, to tell him not to help her, but then Cisco was hit and they were being dragged out of the vision. The Breach Room came into view and she nearly stumbled a bit, quickly catching her balance. She let go of his hand and frowned.

"Yeah, it was Caitlin who convinced me to confirm that it was really Harry in the med lab. I trust her." It was a little shaky in the moments before she revealed her... Meta-ness to them, but that show of trust had earned some trust in return. "Okay, first question. Your visions - your Vibes, do they always come true? Does they happen exactly as you see them, or can things be changed before it happens?"

Angela said her precognitive dreams always came true. When Peter painted the future, he said the pictures he painted were accurate. The context around things could be different, or things could be changed after the fact (the painting of her dad shot through the eye still haunted her, even though her blood had healed him), but the predictions happened. Except, as far as she could recall, for when Isaac Mendez painted New York exploding. The explosion had still happened, but Nathan flew Peter away from the city, saving everyone.

She had at least one more question before she tried to come up with some kind of plan. It'd be easier to let Cisco answer first, though. Usually her dad was the one with the plans. He'd get as much information as possible before acting, so that was what she intended to do.

[namesthevillains]

Cisco was rubbing his shoulder where the ice blast hit,more out of reflex than pain. It gave him the heebie-jeebies. But when Claire seemed to wobble, he quickly reached for her to help balance her.

"Yea and no." He answered truthfully. "Now that we know what's happening... Eobard Thawne told us once that the future is malleable. So, now that we know, we can stop it. I once Vibed Earth-2 being split in half by a powerful energy and destroyed. I kept Vibing it. Over and over. Turns out Zoom was planning to use a Mercury Labs tool to act like a pulsar and have him and Barry power it to destroy the Multiverse. But last minute, Barry created a time remnant--a clone of himself--and used it to phase the entire device and its energy, so the only thing it would destroy was itself and him. He saved the Multiverse." There were other examples, but that painted a pretty vivid picture. "Now that we know, we can change it." But they would happen as shown if they let them. He just didn't know what course of action to take here to stop this one because that was Caitlin.

[infinite1ups]

Eobard had told her she could change things, too. She pushed that conversation out of her mind. Cisco didn't know of her (former) connection to Thawne, and now was not the time to mention it.

Claire nodded, content with that explanation even if the thought of Barry being destroyed - even a clone of himself - unnerved her. It did ring with the same brand of self-sacrifice as her, though. No wonder Harry got so exasperated about it.

"That's what I was hoping to hear. I'm a big believer in a changeable future. So, second question. If you can get Vibes from other Earths, how do you differentiate them? How do you know this is happening to us-us? Could it be a different Earth, or a different timeline?"

She knew there could be other versions of herself, given how much Peter and Hiro had muddled with timelines. Thinking about the evil version of herself still made her feel a little sick.

[namesthevillains]

"Firstly, architecture. I know that street we were on. And if you've been to another Earth... well, at least Earth-2, things look different. The buildings are futuristic, even though they're on the same timeline as we are. It's incredible! Maybe Harry will agree to let us take you sometime." But he needed to control his nerd self. "Second, my Vibes are proximity based. I used to have to touch something to Vibe, but I've gotten stronger. And can Vibe from a slight proximity. I was reaching for Cait. You and Harry were the only other two in the area. Harry was too far and plus Reverb and Killer Frost on Earth-2 are dead. So, unless you're from another Earth. That was a Vibe from good old Earth-1."

He really did like her attempt to debunk the Vibe though. Believe him, he'd love for it to be a false alarm. "I've never Vibed off a different timeline. But my Vibes can be from a different timeline if we change the one we're on so that they don't happen. But Dr. Stein one of the Legends, they do time travel stuff, said that Time wants to happen the way it predicts. So if we want to change it, we have to find out what pushes Killer Frost to take over and stop it."

Cisco took off his Vibe glasses and the neural band, tossing both onto a chair, dropped himself into a different chair, then put his face in his hands. "I hate these powers." It tore him apart. "I hate them so much." He sounded a little broken.

[infinite1ups]

Claire was grateful for the explanation, and in a way that didn't make her feel dumb for asking. Too many people in her past had been like that. But how could she make informed decisions unless she was informed? Fortunately, no one around her now seemed to be like that. Not even Eobard Thawne - though she could see how that might have been a product of his manipulative tendencies.

Maybe there was some tragedy in how she wouldn't realize he was being so genuine with her. At least probably not until it was too late.

She followed Cisco over to the chairs, gently moving the equipment out of the way and removing her headband before taking the empty seat beside him. A hand reached out to give his forearm a light, affectionate squeeze. "Hey, I know it sucks to be the chosen one sometimes. Remember you don't have to do it alone. I'm here to help."

It was difficult, since she'd only just met Caitlin. Human nature could be predictable, though. Most people didn't go off the deep end completely out of nowhere. So, she considered what she knew already: Caitlin was a brilliant doctor who the team depended on for her expertise, she was terrified of becoming evil to the point where she'd isolate herself to avoid it.

Ironically, Claire thought, that might push Cait even closer to the darkness. Which gave her something to work with.

"Whatever Caitlin says, we can't let her leave. She needs us as much as we need her. And, we can't let you lose hope. We need you, too." She especially needed him now, thrown into the dynamics of this team she was still getting to know. "Do you think there's any reason Caitlin could get angry or resentful? Maybe feeling underappreciated? Overworked? And is there any history of mental illness that we know of? I'm not trying to accuse, those are just reasons why people tend to flip."

Oh Claire, wrong wording.

[namesthevillains]

They were a team of scientists. The pursuit of knowledge would never be treated like a burden. Harry was the only one who might get snappy at a question, but only with someone he didn't like. Or if he was just irritated with Cisco, and if that was the case, anything would make him snap at the other man. But with Harry, Cisco had thick skin, because he knew he antagonised the other on purpose.

Cisco and Barry were the physically affectionate ones of the team. The huggers, the shoulder touchers when someone was upset, the pat on the back kind of people. So her touch helped. He ran his hands back, combing his fingers though his hair with a deep breath, he looked back up at her.

But then things went a little south. "Chosen one." He sounded pained. "Thawne said that. That he gave me this gift to make me extraordinary." There was so much pain and venom in his words. "He said I'd thank him for it. Do you know how I got my powers? Thawne shoved his hand into my chest. He crushed my heart in his fist. He killed me. Barry reset the timeline, but I can still feel it. I still have nightmares of it. I shouldn't remember, but these powers make sure that I do." There were tears in his eyes. Yet another person hurt by Thawne so deeply, Claire.

He roughly wiped the tears from his eyes and tried to focus. Caitlin was their main concern right now, not his barely bottled emotions. He patted her hand as if to say he was okay now.

"I agree. Caitlin has been through a lot. She's never been the best at sharing her emotions and recently Zoom... he really broke her. She... long story short, when the particle accelerator exploded, she lost her fiancee, he came back, then he sacrificed himself to save Central City. Then Jay showed up on our Earth and Cait fell in love, then Zoom killed Jay in front of her, but it turns out Jay was a time remnant of Zoom so he was just playing us, then Zoom kidnapped her. She was pretty messed up after that, but we were helping her. And she's going to therapy. But angry or resentful? No. Not at us. Her mom, maybe, but they don't talk. She's a workaholic who is the epitome of ice queen. And Cait is only overworked when we don't force her to go home. She gets that from her mom."

He just gently ignored that Claire said they needed him too. In his eyes, he wasn't the one about to go off the deep end. He could have his own mental breakdown later. "She did take some time off last week to go see her mom. That was weird. But now that I think about it, it might be because of all this Killer Frost stuff. Her mom is a biomedical engineer. She was probably visiting to see if Dr. Tannhauser could do something about her Meta gene."

Cisco frowned as he thought for a moment. "We're dealing with this guy called Dr. Alchemy right now. He's somehow turning ordinary people into Metas. We keep finding these... husks of the people left behind. She's been stressing out a lot over that."

The actual worst wording. Poor Cisco! <3

[infinite1ups]

She saw then, with horrifying clarity, how deliberate a choice it had been for Thawne to point out the more constructive uses of being able to phase through solid matter. A chill ran down her spine, and she inwardly winced at her poor choice of words - not that she could have known that specific phrasing would be triggering.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, trying to keep herself from getting too emotional. It was yet another stark reminder of exactly what kind of man she'd almost gotten herself mixed up with. How stupid she'd been.

As Cisco explained what had happened and what Caitlin was going through now, it gave her a jolt. She had already gathered that it took some tenacity and nerve to work in an environment like this, but that laundry list of issues would affect anyone, no matter how tough.

She wasn't forgetting Cisco. He'd need to deal with some of those issues too. Maybe that was something she could get Barry's help with. He'd want to help his best friend.

"When you say 'do something about her Meta gene', do you mean like, get rid of it? Is that possible?" Being an evolved human, to her knowledge, was irreversible. At least outside of evolved humans who had the ability to siphon powers from others. Arthur Petrelli had stolen all of Peter's abilities until Sylar helped get them back a few years later.

The one good thing Sylar had done. Okay... and he did save her from being sucked into a vortex that one time.

"That's a lot for one person, especially someone who tends to bottle things up like you say she does. Is there anything we can do to lighten her load? I'm here to help in any way I can." If that meant being an extra pair of hands around STAR Labs, she was ready to jump in and get to work.

They're all a mess!

[namesthevillains]

"It's... it's okay. You didn't know." He said steadily. He didn't feel nearly as steady as his voice sounded, but they were all carrying a lit around right now.

"I don't know. Theoretically, it could be. I mean... we saw it with Barry. When Harry was working for Zoom, he managed to steal some of Barry's speed and it showed up as chromosomal damage. After that, Zoom made Barry trade the rest of his speed for Wally West's life, his foster brother, using Harry's device. It made him human again. No Speed Force in him at all, no healing, nothing. But Harry designed it specifically for speedsters. It worked by siphoning his power when he ran. Harry also... broke it. He hated himself for making it in the first place." He shuddered to think what might happen to Barry if Thawne found out about it.

"I don't know. That's why I want to keep this secret for her, but also, with that Vibe, I'm worried about her. I know Barry won't treat her any differently if he finds out. I doubt Harry will either, but she'll feel betrayed if I tell them. She can't walk around with this weight all by herself either, though. It's too much. I did it once. It sucks. For now, maybe we just let he know we're here for her. You'll be doing Labs with her, right? She might open up with you now that you know."

[infinite1ups]

Claire didn't think altering a person's DNA was a great idea, but then she also wasn't an expert by any means. Maybe Dr. Suresh would be able to offer some insight. She made a mental note to talk to her dad about filling Mohinder in on Meta-humans. "I know someone who might be able to help, another geneticist. He's an expert in evolved human stuff. And my dad worked with people like me for years. I know that's not Meta-humans, but it's made him very good at helping people who've suddenly found themselves with powers and aren't coping with it well."

That meant Cisco as well, though she didn't say so. She was glad her dad was coming to visit soon.

She did have another issue. One she thought Cisco could help with, actually. Bringing it up was tricky, but it was something she felt she needed to ask.

"So... do you think Barry would be upset with us for keeping it from him? I mean, he wasn't upset that I didn't tell him about my healing right away, so I imagine it's kind of the same thing. But you're his best friend, you know him much better than I do." Barry has been understandably upset about the Thawne reveal, and she thought Cisco might be just as upset if she spilled those beans right now. As much as Claire longed to come clean, this wasn't the time. They had to focus on helping Caitlin.

She just hoped Cisco would be able to forgive her and trust her, like Barry had. The big difference being, she told Barry right away. But she meant it when she said she had no intent of even talking to Thawne, much less continuing to work with him.

"I'll be coming back for more blood tests, yeah. Once that toxin is out of my system, we can start running whatever other tests she might want to try." She paused, then brightened, "Hey... I know it's cliché, but a girls' night can do wonders. You think she'd be into that?"

[namesthevillains]

"Cait would love to nerd out with another geneticist." They were all nerds here, Claire. Hell, Cisco was currently wearing a graphic tee that said 'keep calm and live long and prosper' with a Vulcan hand clipart on it.

"Barry? No. He's the most understanding guy you'll ever meet. There's only like one thing that sets him off." Claire can guess what that one thing is. "He'll understand. When Harry spilled the beans about my powers, he wasn't mad. He was more worried about me than anything, because I hated myself for having them. I was so afraid that because they came from Thawne that I'd go Dark Side. But he and Cait assured me that that wasn't true." No, he would put money on the fact that Barry would understand. "And if he does get mad, he can be mad at me and Caitlin for pressuring you." Cisco said with finality.

"It's hard to get Caitlin out on a girl's night, but she usually has fun once you can get her to party. That might be a great idea, actually!"

[infinite1ups]

Claire loved her new nerd family just as fast as she'd fallen for Barry. Which was good, because she knew she couldn't really have one without the other. It was a huge relief that they all seemed to like her, too.

For now. That might change when she told the truth. She knew exactly what Cisco was referring to, the one thing that would set Barry off. For now she held on to hope that if he could forgive her, the others would too. Harry didn't seem to hold it against her much, especially now that she'd promised to stay away from Thawne.

"So, we have a game plan. I'll try to get Caitlin to open up a little while we're doing labs. Maybe a girly movie night is better than partying? I can talk to her about it. And while I'm doing that, we find ways to help her out here. I know you said she's a workaholic, but we can try to convince her that it'll be more productive if she lets us carry some of that load."

Now, with a plan, Claire was feeling far more confident. She shot Cisco a grin, nudging him playfully. "We got this. We're gonna keep Killer Frost defrosted."

Yeah, she did take it to heart when Barry told her to own her puns.

"If not a girls night, maybe a STAR Labs team thing. What if y'all came to my place for dinner one night?"

[namesthevillains]

The pun made a bright grin explode across Cisco's face. "Hey, girl. Puns are my jam. We're either gonna be the best of friends or rivals." He laughed.

"Dinner? You sure you want us all there? I mean, you've met Oscar the Grouch sleeping off his injuries in medical, right? He's certainly not the life of any party." Look, it would be more fun to take shots at Harry if he were here to get pissed off at Cisco for it, but he'd have to just settle for being a brat behind the genius' back.

[infinite1ups]

"Of course I want you all there. Heck, Harry's already been to my place twice. Once when I met him after that crash, and then again today." Today, when he'd been attacked yet again.

"Okay, for Harry's safety, maybe I could bring team dinner to the lab. Doesn't matter where, as long as we're together."

That... was unbelievably cheesy, Barry would probably be proud. She was sticking with it.

"I think it'd be good for all of us, but it could also be important to remind Caitlin we're all here for her. Being a Meta doesn't change that, and it doesn't have to change who she is as a person."

[namesthevillains]

"Oh, you poor thing. I'm sorry." Said like a sweet old lady offering condolences. "No one deserves to have that emotionally stunted genius in their place once, let alone twice." He teased. "But no, really, thanks for saving him. Twice. I may tease, but we'd miss him if something happened. He's... he's family. Me, Barry, and Cait have pretty broken families, so we collect our little nest of people and hold them close."

He waved off her concern. "Hey, I could always Breach Harry there. That's another facet of my power. I use multidimensional energy to make breaches in space, like little wormholes. It's how I picked up you and Harry." He gestured over at the open space where they'd been standing earlier for the Vibe. He held out his hand and closed it into a fist. At the end of his fist, a turbulent mass of energy started forming. It looked like a violent, churning ball of water. It extended outward from his fist into the open space until it was big enough for a person to fit through. Then it stabilised so that it had something of an eye to it. "I can create Breaches to other Earths, too. If I've never been there before, it takes some practise." He let the Breach close after a moment and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. It was a strain to do without his Vibe Glasses on.

"Tell her that, for sure. So she can hear it from someone who she knows isn't biased."

[infinite1ups]

"My family is pretty solid now even though we're spread out, but here I've just acquired more family." She was adopting all of them. It was almost scary how quickly she was growing fond of everyone, how fast she was really building herself a new life.

In some ways, it felt a bit like a house of cards, but she was ready to fight for it. She'd never had so much to lose before.

Claire watched, entranced, as Cisco displayed his breaching power. Yeah, that certainly explained how they'd gotten to the lab. "Whoa, that's so cool. I met a guy who could open up a vortex at will, it sucked in everything around it, including people. I almost went into one, but I was saved. I didn't want to find out what was on the other side. Pretty sure no one ever found out and was able to survive."

She leaned back in her chair, more relaxed now, and fixed another smile on Cisco. "I will. I'll try to make sure it's natural conversation, so she doesn't get suspicious. If it looks like some kind of intervention, it could backfire. We don't want to accidentally cause the thing we're trying to prevent."