What Brings Us Together (A Ralph Dibny/ The Flash Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Six: Favorite Outfit Kind of Day

I woke up feeling better than I had felt in...well...in six months. 

I pulled out my favorite red collared dress and my favorite brown boots, because today was a favorite outfit kind of day. Why? Because Barry Allen is back.

I feel like so much weight has been lifted off of my shoulders now that he's back, and I can just relax and actually enjoy my life. So even though I was walking to a crime scene, which should be a rather morbid affair, I had a skip in my step.  I even met Barry half way there.

"Hey." He greeted, two cups of coffee in his hand. He handed me one.

"Hi! Thank you." I took it from him gratefully.

"You're welcome. You're wearing your favorite outfit." He said.

"It's a favorite outfit kind of day," I replied, voicing my thoughts, "Seriously Barry, you have no idea the amount of pressure it takes off of me now that you're back."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that." He told me. I shrugged.

"It wasn't your fault. You saved Central City. But, I'm definitely not complaining now that your back." He chuckled. "Oh my gosh, I almost forgot. You'll never guess who I ran into the other day."

"Who would that be?"

"Ralph Dibny." His whole demeanor darkened. Barry hated Ralph Dibny. After all, he was the one who turned him in for planting evidence. 

"How was that?" He asked dryly.

"The usual. He called me princess, and I had just spilled coffee on myself and my shirt was white, so you can imagine how that went. Realistically...I was probably way meaner to him then I should've been." I suddenly started to feel guilty. 

"He deserves it." He replied. I shrugged.

"Well, anyway, he was the reason I spilled my coffee in the first place because I ran into him, and then he gave me his and just left without another word. Like he didn't wait for me to thank him or order another one or anything, he just handed me his coffee and left. That's weird, right?"

"Dibny doing something semi-nice? Yeah, that's crazy." I nodded.

"I should've said thank you."

"Don't feel guilty, Laura. Do you remember how many sexual harassment reports you made against that guy?" I nodded. "He's not a good guy, Laura, so don't feel bad."

"Well yeah, but just because he's not a good guy doesn't mean that I neglect my manners." Our conversation didn't go any further because we had arrived at the luxury apartment building that would be acting as today's crime scene. We walked through the door to find Joe and Captain Singh. 

"Hey, hi." Barry greeted.

"Mr. Allen. Six months and five minutes late."  Barry laughed, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry Captain Singh. Thank you again for granting me that extended sabbatical. But I'm back, I'm ready to work, and what can I say? It's a beautiful day." The old woman, who was a witness, gave him a disgusted look. "Sorry..."

"What are we looking at here?" I asked.

"Well, I hope you had a light breakfast."

"No, I had a good spread actually." Barry answered. "Pancakes, sausage, fruity cereal." We stopped in front of the elevator to find it crushed, sparking and full of what used to be a human.

"Whoa...he's..." I trailed off.

"Everywhere." Barry finished for me.

"As far as we can tell it dropped him...a hundred stories?" Joe told us.

"Were you able to ID the vic?" Singh asked.

"Yeah. Kurt Weaver. Worth billions. Capital B."

"What do you two think?" 

"You see the impacts on the ceiling?" I asked, both to Joe and Captain Singh, as well as Barry. He nodded.

"And the repeated lateral stress fissures on the frame." He added.

"That suggest that this guy didn't just drop he was...shaken." I explained.

"To death." Barry threw in.

"Excuse me, coming through. CCPD Tech Consultant. That's right." I turned around to see Cisco flashing his badge. "Look at the badge, that means it's official."

"He's aware that badge is plastic, right?" Singh asked.

"I don't think it matters.' I told him.

"Fellas, lady, so sorry I'm late, the curls were not cooperating this morning. Laura, you're wearing your favorite outfit." 

"It's a favorite outfit kind of day." Barry and I said together.He then caught sight of the elevator. 

"Oh, my gosh, why would you show me that!?"

"We think this is because of some weird technical glitch, and you're out weird tech expert." Joe answered.

"This completely ruins Siracha for me." He muttered.

"And now for me too, thank you for that comparison." I told him. He plugged a device into the control panel inside the elevator.

"Yoink." He looked at his little hand-held screen. "That shouldn't be there."

"What is it?" Barry questioned.

"It's encrypted code." He showed us the screen. I furrowed my eyebrows. "This wasn't a glitch. This was a hacker."

"Which means this wasn't an accident. This was murder." I concluded. "I am so sorry, that sounded way more like a line from a crime TV show then I anticipated."

~~~

Barry and I went with Cisco back to STAR Labs so that he could try to crack the encryption.

"The Cortex's quantum algorithm should decrypt this code in no time. That should help us ID our new hacker," Cisco explained, "But while we wait, I got a little welcome back gift for you. Come, Come, walk with ya boy. Gather 'round class." He walked over to the suit mannequin, pulling the tarp off of Barry's new suit...that we'd all already seen. "Ka-Blam!" 

"I mean, that was a cool reveal and everything, but I've seen that suit. I've actually already worn it."

"Yeah, we already know you gave Barry's suit a nice little fancy makeover." Wally said bitterly.

"Yeah, but you don't know what you don't know, and underneath all this red beautiful I've built in self-repairing armor, nano-liquid circuitry, full-spectrum scanning, and a whole bunch of other big words-"

"Nice, very nice. And what does my suit have? Spandex." I said, looking at Wally, who pointed at me in agreement.

"And among them," Cisco said, shooting us both pointed looks, "Your very own personal made HUD. This thing is loaded with maps, schematics, delivery menus. You know that Tai place you love so much?"

"Yeah, love the Pad See Ew." Barry confirmed. 

"You know how we Pad See Do." They high-fived.

"Dude, this is awesome! What else does it do?" I walked over to Wally, sitting on the desk.

"All I'm saying is, if you can program Thai food menus into Barry's suit, the least you could do is give me some form of armor, protection, anything. Is that too much to ask?" I called, crossing my legs.

"Well, lucky you, I even wrote you an instruction manual."

"Yay..." Barry said.

"Come on. We're not cavemen."

"A whole instruction manual-" I started.

"Alright, Laura, I get the point. Give me your suit, I'll see what I can do about some fortification."

"Thank you!" I said finally, taking my suit out of my bag and handing it to him. "Barry, we gotta get back, I'll wait for you outside. See ya, Wally." He gave me a two-fingered salute. "Thank you, Cisco! Great work on Barry's suit, BT-Dubs."

"I know!"