Sparks Fly {the flash}

one

Barry

I absent mindedly stared down at the dirty, beat-up Converse adorning my feet, contemplating the idea of buying a new pair and abandoning the ones that I'd had for the past three years. These shoes had been with me through so much, and I was keeping them for more sentimental reasons at the moment instead of practical ones. By all means, I probably should have gotten rid of them about two years ago when I first became The Flash because of how many holes I had run into the soles. But I just couldn't bring myself to part with them just yet. Even though they had a few holes and were practically falling apart, I felt like they were really a part of me, a part that I wasn't willing to let go of no matter how strange it was. The only reason I was stuck on this thought was because it had been a rather slow day at the precinct so far, and no one really needed any CSI help up until now, and it was already two in the afternoon. Cisco and Caitlin hadn't called me with any crime updates recently that would get me out of my confines, and it was starting to drive me insane. I hated sitting around like this because it made me feel completely useless, and all I wanted to do was get out and do something. If I didn't find something productive to do soon, I was going to lose my mind.

For the past week, absolutely nothing of interest had been going on in Central City. Since it was starting to get colder, crime was decreasing due to more people wanting to stay inside instead of be outside in the cold wind and rain. We hadn't come across any meta-humans for a few days, and the only thing I had to keep myself busy lately was catching petty criminals, both as The Flash and as a forensic scientist. It was as boring as it sounded, and, even though it probably wasn't the healthiest thing to do, I was praying that some big, bad meta would come out of the shadows just so that I would have something to keep up with for a little while. I hated having nothing interesting to do, so that's the first place that I went to in the event of having almost nothing to do with my time. I didn't think that it was too much to ask for, but someone else apparently thought otherwise.

To be honest, the only marginally interesting thing that had happened in the past couple of weeks was finding out that I was getting a new addition in my CSU. I didn't know much about her other than the fact that she was coming in from Starling Metro and that she'd been working in the field for about as long as I had. Singh didn't give me her name or any indication about what she looked like, so I was really at a loss at the moment. I didn't want to try and pry information from him since I knew that he was stressed enough with all of the crime that was going on in the city, so I decided to just sit on all of my inquiries until I met the girl later today. I was a little nervous, to be honest, but it was only because I had no idea what she was like or if we would have a good working relationship. I told myself repeatedly to stay positive, and I was trying my hardest to not be negative and think that this wouldn't turn out very well.

The sound of shoes against the tiled floor brought me out of my thought bubble. When I looked up, I saw Joe casually strolling into my workspace with his hands in his pockets and a small smile on his face. I chuckled at him, glad to have some kind of company for the first time in the past few hours. "Hey, Joe." I greeted, turning my chair towards him. "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

He shrugged casually. "I just figured that I'd come by and see if your new partner in crime-solving had shown up yet."

I shook my head. "Nope. I haven't gotten any indication on when she's supposed to get here other than it's supposed to be some time today."

"How do you feel about Singh assigning you a partner?" He asked, sitting on the edge of my desk like usual.

I shrugged honestly. "I don't know. I guess that it'll make things easier around here, you know?"

"You mean it'll make things easier to have someone finish your work while you're..." He made a running motion with his body, causing me to laugh with a nod.