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

Chapter Twelve: Is There Something Wrong With Me?

The elevator came to a stop on the bottom floor of CCPD, and Barry and I were met with a wall of reporters and camera flashes. Barry managed to find Joe in the crowd and grabbed my wrist, pulling me through the sea of people to him.

"What is going on?" I whispered, leaning over Barry when we got to him.

"Mayor Bellows is on his reelection campaign. " He replied.

"Detective Joe West. Keep up the good work. What do you say Joe?' All of the reporters and camera men turned to him.

"I'll do that." He said, offering them an awkward thumbs up.

"And that's why he's not a politician."

"I hate that." Joe mumbled.

"Well, have you thought about running against him?" I asked jokingly.

"Yeah, can't you picture yourself shaking hands and kissing babies?" We both laughed.

"What? Ain't nobody talkin' about babies. You said you had a lead on this whole Meta Bus situation."

"Yeah, come on."

We headed back up to our Lab and Barry pulled the map up, revealing the crime board we had started, taht currently had Kilgore and Hazard on it.

"You took the photos down from your mother's case." Joe noted.

"Yeah, well, the case was solved. This one isn't."

"We've got these two, Kilgore and Hazard, but that still leaves us with ten meta-humans that we don't know." I explained.

"How hard can it be to track down ten bus passengers?"

"Well, according to the Department of Transpertation, over 900 people rode that bus that day." Barry told him.

"What about the bus driver?"

"You see, that's where things get interesting. The bus driver is dead, cause of which, drowning in his own bathtub. Totally not sketchy in the slightest." I said sarcastically.

"Harry said it was all connected, I think he's right. I mean, the Samuroid pushing you guys to bring me back, me not coming out in the place you thought I would, the bus being at the exact right place to be hit by dark matter..."

"Way too many coincidences to be accidental."

"It was planned." Joe concluded.

"Yeah. By somebody smart."

"We're pretty smart."

"Well, I think so."

"Ok, let's look closer into the bus driver's death, it may give us a lead." He suggested.

"Let's have Iris pull up to autopsy report from the coroner's office." I said.

"Sounds good." Barry smiled, furrowing his eyebrows at Joe. "What?"

"I don't know. This morning, you're like..." Barry trailed off.

"Glowing." I finished.

"Yeah, exactly."

"What do you mean, 'glowing'?" Joe asked, mocking Barry's hand motions.

"I just mean like, you got, like a warmth about you. Like a Lite-Brite."

"Light-Brite?" I asked, questioning his example.

"There's no warmth, no glow, and I ain't no dang Lite-Brite. You're wasting time. STAR Labs."

"Glowing and irritable."

"He's on his period!" I exclaimed. Barry furrowed his eyebrows. "Don't look at me like that, it's a thing. Manstration, if you will."