Collateral Damage (snowbarry)

Case for Innocence

Barry gets to S.T.A.R. Labs early the next morning. Caitlin is sitting in her lab seemingly hard at work. He walks up to her, noticing her playing solitaire on her computer. He lets out a light laugh. This startles her and causes her to turn around. He puts his hand on her shoulder after setting her coffee down. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." He says, smiling at her.

"Thanks." She says, looking at the coffee.

"Um, Cisco and Joe are out of town for the next day or two. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to do a movie night or something while they're gone." He asks hopefully.

"Uh maybe. I don't really know if I'm up for it." She says, giving him a flat look.

"Okay, well...uh let me know if you decide you want to. I can get pizza. And that chocolate cake you like. I can invite Eddie and Iris if you don't want it to just be us." He rambles.

"I'll think about it, Barry." Caitlin says dryly.

He nods and turns around to exit the cortex. He gets a call from Joe about a robbery. He takes one last look at Caitlin who is eyeing the coffee, and he runs off to CCPD.

Caitlin decides she's being completely unproductive, and now that she knows she pretty much has the lab to herself today, with Cisco being gone and all, she decides to start her counter argument against Joe and Barry. She starts looking up everything she can about Simon Stagg's murder. Then Barry's mom's murder. What they've found about the Reverse Flash, which is a lot more than Cisco and her have let on to Barry. They knew he'd just get worked up. Then she looks up everything about Wells up to the point she met him. By end of the day, she has a solid file set up to give to them next time they try to bring it up.

Barry walks in and immediately starts pacing. Caitlin looks at the clock and realizes it's nighttime. She didn't realize she took that long. She walks out into the cortex.

"Barry, what's wrong?"

"Eddie, he." He starts, sighing and looking down. "The robbery this morning. The woman said she didn't do it. She had an alibi, but there was a video of her doing it. Apparently, it's a meta that can shift to look like anyone. So, we looked up similar cases and tracked it to a guy named Hannibal Bates. We went to go find him, but he got away."

"Okay?" Caitlin says, wrapping her head around everything he just said. "So, we'll find him."

"He killed two cops." Barry explains. Caitlin walks up and puts her hand on his arm. "On camera. While he looked like Eddie."

Caitlin gasps, suddenly realizing why Barry was so stressed. "Any idea how he's doing it?" She asks.

"No. Not yet. But we have to figure this out. We can't let Eddie go down for this."

"We won't Bar." She says, walking to the control desk. She tries to pull up a picture of Hannibal Bates only to discover that there isn't one. Then she tries to find out where he was the night of the explosion. Nothing.

"No info? Yeah, we already tried." Barry says.

"Tried what?" Wells asks, wheeling into the room.

Barry explains the situation to Wells.

"Maybe he is able to alter the outer appearance only. Or affect the perception of those who look at him." Wells guesses.

"No. We found DNA at the crime scene of some of his robberies, and they all match the person he was impersonating." Barry explains.

Wells' eyes widen in confusion and he rubs his nose between his glasses.

"Look, I'm gonna go try to talk to Eddie. Call me when you guys have something." Barry says, running out.