Author’s Note 1: If you know who I based my OC on (from the comics and because of her first name) then you are awesome. Also, I would like to say that I thought about this story, and her, before they announced that she was going to be on the show. She is loosely based on that character and I have changed a lot. Lastly, PLEASE READ AUTHOR NOTE 2 AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER. Enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 2: Discovering Heroics

9 months after lightning struck

Cynthia is walking around STAR Labs and is just about to enter the cortex when she hears something, so she stops and listens. What she hears is the song Poker Face by Lady Gaga playing: She smiles at this, knowing that Cisco is the one who put it on, and that he most likely did it for her and Barry. Suddenly, the song turns off and Cynthia hears a lot of commotion. She gets even more curious when she thinks she hears Barry’s voice. She hurries around the corner and sees Barry get up off the bed and hears him ask what happened.

“Bartholomew Allen!” Cynthia says loudly and sternly. Everyone in the room turns to her. She strides over till she is right in front of him. “Don’t you ever do that to me again. Do you know how worried I was, not to mention Joe and Iris?” Cynthia states, her anger and frustration clear in her voice. Barry stands there gaping for a few seconds before Cynthia throws her arms around him in a hug. When he hugs her back, Cynthia feels a weight lift from her shoulders. The relief courses through her body, making her feel lighter than she has in months sheepishly.

“I’m sorry Cindy,” Barry apologizes sheepishly: It almost sounds like a question. Cynthia steps back, ending their hug. “So, what happened?” Barry asks again.

“You were struck by lightning dude,” Cisco answers.

Barry turns to a full-length mirror and examines his reflection before asking, “Lightning gave me abs?” Caitlin comes up in front of Barry and starts gently pressing on his chest and shoulders.

Cynthia notices Barry tense up at this as Caitlin says, “Your muscles should be atrophied Barry, but instead they’re in a chronic and unexplained state of cellular regeneration.” Cynthia moves over and stands next to Cisco.

“Come here, have a seat,” Cisco directs Barry to sit on a stool. “You were in a coma,” Cisco reveals as Barry moves to the stool indicated and sits.

Barry’s face shows his shock as he wonders, “For how long?”

“Nine months,” a voice replies. They all turn to see Dr. Wells entering the room. Barry stands up and moves to join him. “Welcome back Mr. Allen,” Wells welcomes him. Barry and Wells go for a stroll through STAR Labs so that Wells can explain what happened in more detail. They make it back to the cortex as Wells tells his patient that Cynthia gave her permission to move him to STAR Labs, and that she, plus Joe and Iris had been a constant presence.

“Iris?” Barry inquires.

“Iris, yes. She came to see you quite often,” the doctor comments.

“She talks a lot.” Caitlin remarks in a sort of annoyed and amused way when Cynthia, Cisco and Caitlin come up and join the conversation.

“And she’s hot,” Cisco adds smiling and seems a little star struck.

“She’s like my sister! Please, try not to make those kinds of comments when I’m here,” Cynthia states.

“I need to go,” Barry declares from out of the blue and starts to leave.

“No, you can’t,” Caitlin disagrees, which makes Barry stop and turn around.

“Caitlin’s right. Now that you’re awake, we need to do more tests. You’re still going through changes, there’s so much that we don’t know,” Wells tells Barry.

“I’m fine, really. I feel normal. Thank you for saving my life,” Barry reasons and leaves the room.

“Really?” Caitlin exclaims.

“Barry this is not smart,” Cynthia yells frustrated with him.

Barry’s head pops out from around the corner, “Can I keep the sweatshirt?” Barry indicates his STAR Labs sweatshirt that he’s wearing.

“Yes, you can keep the sweatshirt,” Wells allows. Barry nods in thanks to Wells and leaves. Caitlin and Wells go to another part of the room and start working on their own projects.

“I should probably go too. I need to go home and do some stuff around my apartment,” Cynthia tells Cisco. Cisco nods his head and then grabs her hand.

“When are you going to tell your brother about us?” Cisco asks.

Cynthia smiles, “He just woke up Cisco. I think he needs a little time to adjust before he finds out his little sister has a boyfriend.” She steps closer to him and wraps her arms around his neck.

“I just don’t want to hide us, that’s all,” he explains.

“I don’t either, but let’s just wait a little while longer,” Cynthia proposes. She goes to kiss him on the cheek, but he intercepts it and their lips connect. Cynthia will never get over the tingling feeling she gets every single time they kiss. It’s like nothing she’s ever experienced before. If this isn’t love, she doesn’t think there is such a thing. However, she isn’t ready to say those words yet. Since they’re at STAR Labs they keep the good-bye brief.

Cynthia pulls away and whispers, “I’ll see you later.” Cisco again nods and walks away to work on a project. Cynthia leaves STAR Labs and gets into her small, used car. Driving to the station doesn’t take very long since it’s just before rush hour. She takes the elevator and, after saying hello to a few people, goes to her office. She grabs a couple of reports from her printer and makes a couple of notes on her notepad. When she leaves her office a short time later, she sees Barry going through the door into the hallway in a rush. Cynthia finds this strange so she quickly drops off her reports and heads in the direction Barry went. When she gets outside Cynthia’s in an alley at the side of the police station. She looks around and spots Barry just in time to see him run away faster than should be humanly possible: She calls out his name and starts after him. Eventually, she catches up and sees that Barry has run up into a laundry truck.

As she’s helping Barry out of the truck Cynthia wonders, “How did you do that?”

Barry shrugs his shoulders and breathlessly says, “I don’t know.”

“Come on, were going back to STAR Labs and figure this out,” Cynthia says, confident that Cisco and the others will be able to at least make some sense of what happened. The siblings go to Cynthia’s car and drive straight to STAR Labs. After telling everyone there what had happened, they all decide that an experiment is in order: They go to Ferris Air, a place where they test airplanes, because it has long runways that have periodic measurements. Cynthia helps set up the tent and all the equipment while Barry goes inside the trailer they brought and change into an outfit Cisco thought to bring along.

“You don’t really believe he can run that fast do you?” Caitlin asks skeptically.

“I believe anything is possible, and in a little bit so will you,” Wells tells her.

Cisco walks over to the trailer and shouts, “How’s it fit?” Barry comes out of the trailer in a red outfit that is clearly too small for him.

“It’s a little snug,” Barry comments sarcastically.

“Well at least you’ll be moving so fast no one will see you,” Cisco offers. Cynthia laughs and takes out her phone: She takes a picture of Barry before he can protest.

“Why are you here again?” Barry questions, teasing Cynthia.

“Moral support,” Cynthia returns in the same teasing tone. Cisco walks with Barry further from the trailer, and closer to the runway, and starts telling Barry about what they are going to do.

After Cisco comes back to where everything is set up on a table, Caitlin goes over to make sure her equipment, which is attached to Barry, is all set up. Cynthia watches them and notices that again Barry straightens up a little while talking to Caitlin. Caitlin finishes with Barry and comes over behind the table with the others stands next to Cynthia. Barry gets into position in the starting blocks that they brought like the runners do during the Olympics while everyone else does last minute things and double checks the equipment. Wells is next to the table as he puts on his sunglasses and cautions Barry to restrain himself for the first test so they will have a base line to refer to, and Cisco is closer to Barry with a speed gun. Barry nods and is suddenly gone, leaving a breeze behind that is so strong that Cisco and the rest fall, and all their equipment flies back.

Caitlin’s face shows her shock, and when Cisco announces how far Barry has run in just a few seconds she mumbles, “It’s not possible,” as she shakes her head. Cynthia knows that anything is possible, and that Barry’s speed isn’t the only impossible thing that’s happened recently.

A few months ago, Cynthia was waiting in a long line at Jitters. Finally, there is only one person in front of her.

            “I’ll have a medium decaf coffee and…” the man in front of her started. By that time Cynthia had lost her patience. Discreetly, with her hands at her sides, Cynthia started to clench her hands in frustration.

            The man in front of her put his hand to his forehead and painfully said, “You know what, that’s it.” He paid for his drink and left. The whole thing seemed weird to Cynthia but she brushed it off and got her coffee. Unfortunately, she needed to go into the office, so she went straight to the police station from Jitters. She had been in her office, slowly making headway with the paperwork when Detective Campbell came in.

            “Have you finished my report yet?” He asked in a very angry and rude tone.

            “I am working on it right now Detective Campbell, so no, I haven’t,” Cynthia replied as nicely as she could.

            “Well hurry up, I don’t have all day,” he remarked snidely, turned around and started to walk out of her office. Cynthia was so fed up with his attitude that she raised her arm and imitated the Darth Vader choke. Campbell abruptly stopped and almost fell as he grabbed his head. She dropped her arm and looked at her hand with confusion.

            “You know what, you take your time with that report,. I think I might be getting sick,” Campbell stated, clearly in pain. He slowly walked out of her office without looking back. Cynthia looked at her hand again. Did she do that?

            All this flashes through Cynthia’s head in a few seconds, the next thing she knows Barry has crashed into some barrels and is holding his clearly broken wrist. Instead of going to the hospital, they all rush back to STAR Labs so that Caitlin could treat him. The few hour’s wait feels more like an aeon, but Cynthia makes good use of her time by checking in at work and sending off a couple of emails from her phone. When Caitlin is finally done, they all gather around Barry as he’s shown an x-ray of his broken wrist.

“It looks like you had a distal radius fracture,” she explains.

“Had?” Barry questions her choice of words. Caitlin swipes on the iPad and shows him a different x-ray: This one has a healed wrist on it.

“It’s healed. In three hours,” Caitlin tells him as she shakes her head incredulously.

“How is that possible?” Barry questions.

“We don’t know,” Caitlin answers him.

“Yet,” Cynthia adds, confident that Caitlin and the rest can figure it out.

Cisco picks up Barry’s damaged helmet and grins as he tells Barry, “You got to learn how to stop.” Wells wheels over to Barry who is still sitting on the hospital bed.

“What happened out there today? You were moving pretty well, and then something caused you to lose focus,” Wells wonders.

“I started remembering something,” Barry starts and then takes a deep breath. “When I was eleven my…our mother was murdered,” Barry confesses, gesturing to Cynthia when he changes the word. Cynthia looks down at her feet, nervous about looking at anyone in the room.

She remembers it like it was yesterday, she will always remember it. She woke up because she had heard a strange noise coming from downstairs. She was scared and curious about what was causing the noise. She got out of bed and went over to Barry’s room where she shook him awake and they watched as the water in Barry’s fishbowl started floating. They went down the stairs together. What they saw when they got downstairs was impossible: It looked like lightning was inside the house, and it was circling their mother. They both shouted for their mom and she told them to run. Inside the lightning there was a man.

“The cops thought I was just in shock or covering for my dad,” Barry finished his story as Cynthia was brought back from her memory.

“And I was so in shock that I didn’t say anything. I’m so sorry for that,” Cynthia expresses, feeling guilty.

“Hey, I know you’re sorry, but even if you had said something it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Dad still would have gone to prison,” Barry comforts Cynthia.

He turns back to Wells, “What if the person who killed our mother was like me?”

“I can tell you for certain Barry that you are one of a kind,” Wells assures him.

Barry nods skeptically and gets up off the bed, “I have to go,” he says, his voice full of melancholy, and leaves. Cynthia takes a deep breath and glances at Cisco. He is looking at her with a concerned look on his face. Cynthia discreetly shakes her head to tell him that she doesn’t want to talk about it right now. She hadn’t told him about what happened that night yet.

“I have to go too. I have a lot of work to catch up on,” Cynthia announces. She says her goodbyes and leave STAR Labs. She goes to work and puts in some more time: She is still working when Joe comes into her office some time later.

“Barry and Iris have been involved in some sort of accident,” Joe informs her in a rush. Cynthia turns off her computer and jumps up, eyes wide with concern and goes with Joe. They arrive at the scene soon after and immediately go over to Iris and Barry.

“Are you guys alright?” Joe inquires.

“We’re fine dad,” Iris replies.

“What were you thinking?” Joe starts to yell.

“Joe, I need to talk to you,” Barry interrupts, sounding urgent.

“Not now,” Joe dismisses him.

“Yes now,” Barry insists. They walk a couple of paces away and start talking.

Cynthia moves over and stands next to Iris. “Are you sure you’re alright Iris?” Cynthia asks, concerned.

“Yeah,” she says with a deep sigh, “Barry was able to move us out of the way in time.” Cynthia nods as she eavesdrops on Barry and Joe’s conversation. She is surprised to hear Barry tell Joe that Clyde Mardon is alive and has the power to control the weather. When things get heated between them, Iris and Cynthia intervene and separate them.

“We need to go back to STAR Labs,” Barry mutters to her. Cynthia looks at him, surprised, but nods and drives them there. Barry storms into the control room. “I wasn’t the only one affected by the particle accelerator explosion was I?” Barry demands. Caitlin, Cisco, and Dr. Wells all look at each other.

“We don’t know for sure,” Caitlin hedges.

“You said there was no residual danger. That the city was safe. But that’s not true, so what really happened that night?” Cynthia questions curiously. Wells takes the lead and starts explaining what happened when the particle accelerator exploded and all the possible effects it could have.

“Those are all theoretical,” Barry points out.

“And how theoretical are you?” Wells retorts.

“We’ve been trying to figure out who was affected and find these metahumans,” Cisco states.

“Metahumans?” Cynthia repeats.

“That’s what we’re calling them,” Caitlin confirms.

“I met one today. He’s a bank robber and he can control the weather,” Barry informs everyone.

“This just keeps getting cooler,” Cisco remarks with a grin.

“No this isn’t cool, a man died!” Barry states firmly, almost yelling. “Mardon must have gotten his powers the same way I did, and he’s still out there. We have to stop him,” Barry demands and starts to leave to take care of it.

“Barry, that is a job for the police,” Wells reasons.

“I work for the police,” Barry stresses.

“As a forensic scientist. Let the police take care of it,” Wells demands.

“You did this, you need to do something to help clean this up,” Barry exclaims.

“Barry, what matters is you. Inside, you could be the key to many scientific breakthroughs. Don’t go and mess that up by trying to play hero,” Wells yells. Barry shakes his head and storms out of the room. Cynthia watches him and then turns back to the others.

“Our father was a doctor; our adoptive father is a cop and we both work for the police. I think wanting to help people is in our blood,” Cynthia claims and leaves to go find Barry. She finds him sitting on the ground outside. “Are you alright?” She asks as she approaches her brother, but he doesn’t say anything, instead he sits there looking like he’s in deep thought. “You know that you can’t just demand that someone help you with something that dangerous,” Cynthia tells him emphatically.

“Yeah, I know,” Barry finally speaks. Cynthia sits down next to him and puts her arm over his shoulders, pulling him to her slightly. “What do you think I should do?” Barry asks gloomily.

“I’m not sure. It’s not an easy situation,” Cynthia answers.

“I need to be alone for a while,” Barry says before he gets up and speeds away. Cynthia takes a deep breath and continues to sit there for a few minutes, looking back over the last few hours and how much things, especially Barry have changed. Finally, she decides to go home and get some sleep. The next morning Cynthia is in her office at work and Barry walks in. “I have an idea. Will you help me?” Barry proposes.

Cynthia smiles at him, “You know I will.” Barry tells her his plan and then they set it into motion: They gather what they need and return to STAR Labs where they put the boxes on the table in front of them: Cisco and Caitlin come around the table.

“I’ve done some research and there has been a sharp increase in unsolved cases and missing persons in the past nine months. Your metahumans have been busy,” Barry tells them. Cisco and Caitlin glance at each other.

“Now I’m not blaming you, I know you didn’t want this to happen, I know you all lost something,” Barry continues. He glances at Caitlin and Cynthia knows that she must have told Barry about how the particle accelerator explosion killed her fiancée. “But I need to catch Mardon and anyone else out there like him, but I can’t do it alone,” Barry finishes.

“Well, you know I’m in,” Cynthia smiles.

Cisco breaks into a smile as well and says, “If we’re going to do this, I have something that might help.” Cisco leads them to another room and turns a suited mannequin around to face them. The red suit covers the entire body, except for the face which has a small air mask attached to it. “Something I’ve been playing with. It’s supposed to replace the outfits firefighters typically wear. I thought if STAR Labs did something nice for the community, people wouldn’t be so mad at Dr. Wells because of the explosion,” Cisco explains.

“How is it going to help Barry though?” Cynthia asks, moving closer to the suit.

“It’s made of a polymer so it’s heat and abrasion resistant, and the aerodynamic design should help you maintain control while traveling at high velocities. Plus, it has built-in sensors so we can track your vitals, and there is a two-way headset so that we all can stay in contact with each other,” Cisco informs them.

“Cool,” Cynthia comments, impressed.

“Good. Now, how do we track Mardon?” Barry wonders.

Caitlin steps forward with an iPad in her hand, “I’ve just re-tasked STAR Labs satellites to track meteorological abnormalities in Central City.” She looks down at her iPad when they hear a pinging noise coming from it, “We just got a ping,” she says excitedly. She does some fast tapping on the screen before announcing, “I tracked it to a farm just west of the city.” Barry looks at Cynthia, remembering the information he’d given Joe the day his life changed, then at the suit. Before he puts the suit on Cynthia takes off the air mask, thinking that Barry will probably not need it, and the suit looks better without it. Barry uses his metahuman speed to get into the suit and darts out of the building.

Before he gets to the farm Mardon starts to make a strong, gusting winds which are strong enough to remove roof tiles and quickly turn into tornado force winds.

“Joe’s here,” Barry announces as he gets to the farm. The tornado causes the farm to start to break apart and the metal roof to break off. Barry grabs the metal roof and makes sure it lands safely on the ground.

“Barry, Barry, can you hear me?!” Cisco yells into the microphone.

“Yeah, loud and clear,” Barry confirms.

“You have to stop Mardon and the storm. It’s turning into an F5 tornado,” Caitlin warns him. Cynthia doesn’t know much about weather, but she knows that’s bad.

“It’s also headed for the city,” Cynthia states, watching the progress of the storm on one of the screens in front of her.

“Guys, how do I stop it?” Barry asks. The three of them look at each other as if the other person might have the answer.

“What if I unravel it?” Barry proposes.

“How are you going to do that?” Cynthia wonders.

“I’ll run around it in the opposite direction,” Barry explains.

“You’d have to clock 700 mph,” Cisco calculates.

“Your body might not be able to handle those speeds Barry,” Caitlin cautions.

“I have to try,” Barry says determinedly and starts to run in the opposite direction of the tornado is.

“The suit’s holding up,” Cisco says gleefully.

“But he’s not,” Caitlin panics.

“He can do it. I know he can,” Cynthia states, confident in her assessment. In the next second, Barry gets knocked off his feet by Mardon.

“He’s too strong,” Barry cries. Cisco, Caitlin, and Cynthia look at each other in confusion, not knowing what to say.

“You can do this Barry,” someone says. The three of them look over and see Dr. Wells at the third microphone. “You’re right, I am responsible for this. I hurt so many, and when I saw you, all I saw was another potential victim, but you can do this Barry. You can stop this. Now run Barry, run,” Wells yells as he tells Barry to run. Barry, who is inspired by what Wells said, starts again to run clockwise. On the screen, they watch as Barry, amazingly, slowly unravels the tornado. The tornado is gone, but Mardon is still a threat.

Barry turns at the sound of Mardon’s surprised voice, “I didn’t think there was anyone else like me.”

“I’m not like you. I’m not a murderer,” Barry replies. They watch and listen as Mardon gets ready to shoot Barry when, from a different direction, another gun goes off. Cynthia knows it must be Joe killing Mardon.

“Barry?” Cynthia calls, and doesn’t get a response.

“Barry!?” Caitlin tries.

“It’s over,” Barry responds. Cynthia breathes a sigh of relief and smiles as she looks up at Cisco, who has a similar expression on his face. Cynthia glances over at Caitlin and sees her smiling for probably the first time since the particle accelerator explosion. It isn’t long until Barry walks back into the cortex where Cynthia and Cisco are ready and waiting.

“Hey Barry, there’s something I need to tell you,” Cynthia starts.

Barry suspiciously stares at her, “Ok what is it?” Cynthia’s sweating a little, even though she knows Barry won’t make a big deal out of her news.

“Cisco and I are dating,” Cynthia states nervously, gesturing to Cisco when she says his name. Barry looks from Cynthia to Cisco a couple of times and smiles widely.

“That’s great,” Barry responds excitedly.

Cynthia smiles and gives Barry a hug. “Thanks,” she says to him.

“As long as you’re happy,” he whispers as they pull apart. Barry gives Cisco one of those quick one armed man hugs and then tells them that he’s going to take off: He just came in just to check in with everybody. Cisco grabs Cynthia’s hand and pulls her into his arms.

Cynthia puts her arms around Cisco’s neck. “I told you we had nothing to worry about,” he tells her.

Cynthia laughs a little, “Right, you did tell me.” They kiss briefly and decide to go out for dinner. Cynthia decides to keep her powers to herself, just for now.

Author’s Note 2: If you like this chapter/story please comment, follow, like, etc. Also, I have a question. Do you want me to do every episode fully or just give you parts each episode or skip some episodes? I have notes for each episode but it is up to you. Thanks to my beta tj6james6. I don’t own anything.

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