Bravery Requires Fear

16. Two Months Ago

A/N: Okay tbh this is probably gonna seem like pretty much filler but I don't feel like I've developed them enough yet ( which is actually important for later on in the story it's supposed to feel underdeveloped for a reason) and a lot of chapters will have like long flashbacks in them it'll seem really annoying rn but it's important for later on plus you get to see more of their relationship develop!!
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It was warm and sunny, he just got off of work and was going to swing by the grocery store before heading back to their apartment. He got a call from Bryce about halfway there though, something was happening at a bank downtown and Elaine wasn't picking up so the job was all his.

This was going to be easy.

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Not easy, so not easy, boy did he underestimate a bank heist. There were six metas and they could all multiply their bodies so it made it damn near impossible to catch them all. The thing that saved him in the end, after hours and hours of going over it with Christina and Bryce, was the fact that the more they replicated, the more they tired out. As soon as they were near passing out, the copies had to come back in and that was how he could catch them. the idiots tried robbing another bank that same day so it made it easy for him to find them.

Now he just had to go to the grocery store and head back to the apartment to see why Elaine wasn't picking up. She brought him food earlier so he was pretty sure she was fine. She'd been taking naps a lot more lately though so he just assumed she was sleeping.

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It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be her day off so she could work on some case files at home. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

She wasn't supposed to have seen those pictures, her dad was supposed to be in jail, not in fucking handcuffs in the precinct. She didn't tell Barry she was stopping by, she was just bringing him lunch, she didn't expect to see her father being escorted in handcuffs into the precinct. She wasn't supposed to see him there, he wasn't supposed to be there, he was supposed to be in jail. He wasn't supposed to catch her eye as he walked in, he wasn't supposed to lick his lips like that. He absolutely was not supposed to fucking smile at her the same way he did when she was younger. It wasn't supposed to happen like that.

She gave the bag of food to an intern walking by and told them to bring it up to the C.S.I. lab and then ditched, she hopped on her motorcycle and got the hell out of there before she threw up.

The second she looked at that face she was right back in that house, in that small little house three states over afraid and vulnerable beneath a much larger man who was supposed to protect her. He was her father, he wasn't supposed to be causing this much pain.

She saw him being led in handcuffs and her mind instantly flipped and she just barely had time to give that kid the instructions before she took off. She still didn't know how she made it home safe, the whole ride there was a blur, all she could feel were those hands. Those stupid fucking hands reaching everywhere. One glimpse of him, one second of fucking eye contact, and it sent her into such a stupor that she barely had enough sense to lock the door behind her before she was on her hands and knees hyperventilating in the entryway. It didn't matter that she was safe where she was at in her home, her and Barry's home, because ever since that moment she saw her father walking in she was transported back to that house when she was twelve and scared.

Twelve and scared. Thirteen and vulnerable. Fourteen and fragile. Fifteen and fucked. Sixteen and she might as well have been dead.

She was clawing at her skin then, arms, legs, chest, everywhere. She had to get him off, get his stupid fucking body off her her, she had to get the sweat and cum washed off her skin but the shower wasn't working, the shower never worked. The only thing that worked was blood, blood left a stain and it stayed for days at a time sometimes and it was the only thing that made her feel somewhat safe. It was stupid, she knew, trading one form of tragedy for another but it worked and that was all that mattered.