Collateral Damage (snowbarry)

The Suit

Caitlin sits in Cisco's workshop. It's darker than her lab, so she likes to go hide in there when she's lonely. It reminds her of when she used to come in here to see Cisco and Ronnie hard at it working on some new project together, arguing like brothers. She can almost hear them bickering. She lets one tear fall down her cheek and quickly wipes it away, mad at herself for not paying more attention. She does not want to cry. The sound of the electric wheel chair lifts her from her trance and she looks to the door to see Wells smiling softly at her. 

She returns the smile, only just, and he wheels closer to her. She sits on the edge of his arm rest facing him, both of her legs dangling off to one side of the chair. He leans to the other side of the chair to give her more room. She looks at him for a moment, holding back any threatening tears. He reaches out for her hands and looks up at her. 

"Ronnie is not just a number to me, and I need you to know that. I mourn the loss of him, but more than that I mourn the loss of your smile. He made you happy and that is something that I have missed seeing these last nine months." Wells whispers, knowing his normal voice rarely ever comes out comforting. 

Caitlin looks down at him, a soft smile threatening the corners of her lips. Her eyes are watering, but he knows she won't let any tears fall. He has always respected her for that, but wished she felt more comfortable expressing her emotions to those close to her. One day he won't be there, and she'll need someone. 

Cisco walks into the room and takes in the scene. He smiles, glad that he let Dr. Wells go after her instead of himself. She needs Wells more right now. He backs away to give the two some privacy, hoping that maybe Caitlin will finally open up to someone about Ronnie. He walks into his other workshop, yes he has two. He had to have one that Ronnie couldn't mess with his stuff in. He does as Caitlin suggested, he looks through his toys, hoping to find something that might help them with these meta humans. 

He rounds the corner and sees just the thing. A grin covers his entire face as he begins making some necessary adjustments to the the solution to their problems. Cisco always has superheroes on the brain. 

************************************************************

An hour later...

"I thought I heard you messing around in here." Caitlin mumbles as she walks into Cisco's private workshop. She approaches him and looks at him thinking a little too hard. "Cisco, don't hurt yourself hon, what're you doing?"

Cisco looks up with a crazed look on his face. "I have finished!" He exclaims, screwdriver in hand held in the air. 

Caitlin looks around him at the object he was working on and the tiniest of smiles forms on her lips, and this time, it reaches her eyes. 

They both take off running to the cortex. Cisco gets to work figuring out Barry's phone number because no one thought to get super speed man's (no that won't work) number when he was here. He reads it off as Caitlin hurriedly types it into her phone, placing it on speaker, and moving next to Cisco. 

"Hello?" Barry's voice could be heard through the speaker. 

"Barry!" Caitlin and Cisco both yell. 

"Who is this?" He asks, sounding a little annoyed at the aggressive greeting from the two. 

Caitlin takes it off speaker and pushes the phone to her ear. "Barry, it's Caitlin, get to S.T.A.R. Labs now. We have an idea." 

Before she has a chance to hang up, a gust of wind knocks her off balance causing her to grab onto the control panel. She looks up and sees a curious Barry in front of her. 

"Come, come. Follow me!" Cisco announces as he marches, yes literally marches, out of the cortex toward his private workshop. 

Barry turns toward Caitlin with a confused look. She looks back at him, giving him a full-face smile, and dammit if it wasn't the most reassuring smile Barry's ever seen. He couldn't wait to see what they had to show him.

Barry races ahead of her to follow Cisco. 

"Well damn" she mutters as she follows behind them at a normal human pace. 

She walks into the room to see Cisco already explaining away. Barry still looked confused. 

"How is this supposed to help me stop meta humans?" Barry asked because, as usual, Cisco was elaborating on all the wrong things. 

Cisco goes into more detail on how the suit is basically a superhero suit and will make it easier for him to run without lighting on fire, will conceal his identity, and most importantly, will allow S.T.A.R. Labs to stay in touch and make sure he stays safe. 

Barry looks the suit up and down and allows a grin to spread on his face. He was a good guy. Honestly. Caitlin could tell from his outburst earlier that he truly did want to help people. She did too, just maybe not as passionately as he did. But that smile on his face was contagious and it made her just as excited to get the suit up and running...literally. 

Barry walks into the cortex wearing the new red suit with a lightning bolt across the chest. Cisco takes the lightning bolt off the chest and over to the computer to connect the communication systems so they can talk to him while he's out running. Barry walks over to Caitlin who is making sure the sensors in the suit are working properly to send them information on his vitals. 

"I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't know about your fiance." Barry explains. 

"Shouldn't make assumptions about people." Caitlin responds, not too seriously, but enough that he gets the point. 

"I guess I'm not one to talk. I was treating you for nine months while you were in a coma. I made a lot of assumptions about you." She says, trying to lighten the mood. She turns her head a little, just enough to look at him from the side of her eye, and smirks just enough to let him know she's joking. 

He chuckles and shakes his head, asking her how all of this works. 

"That's a question for R2 over there. He's the tech genius." She points to Cisco who's eyes keep getting wider the closer he gets to getting done. She hopes its soon or his eyes might honestly fall out of their sockets. 

"Boom baby!" Barry jumps from the sudden outburst from Cisco, but Caitlin is well used to his antics and is just relieved to see his eyeballs still in place. 

Cisco walks up and reconnects the lightning bolt to Barry's chest. He gives it one final supportive tap and watches as Barry pulls his cowl over his face. Cisco steps back and admires his work, giving Barry one final nod as the speedster suddenly disappears from the room. The accompanying gust of air blows Caitlin's and Cisco's hair behind them, and when Cisco looks in front of him to see that the lollipop he was holding had now rotated toward him in his hand, his only response is "awesome..."

A/N:

I'm not going to go this much in detail for every bad guy, like I mentioned earlier. This is just to help set the tone for how this will all work. Also because I don't want to have to remember all the bad guys and the details behind catching them. We're only focusing on big story points where they're concerned. Other than that, it's day to day STAR Labs stuff. Obviously I'm going to veer from the details of the show for the purpose of Snowbarry, but I will also veer for the purpose of other character relationships I have in mind and just pure forgetting how the show went. It's loosely based, not directly.

Are there any specific Snowbarry scenes in season one you definitely want included, expanded upon, or potential moments you saw that you think I should include? Let me know!

Thoughts so far?

Peace and Love! -Ali