Chapter Text
After Zoom was taken care of the Flash Team doesn't have much to occupy their time. Well, Barry at least. The Rogues have been keeping a low profile with Snart off with the Legends. Barry suspected that Lisa had them pulling most of their heists in Star City. It's nothing Oliver can't handle, though. No new metas have made an appearance in awhile and things were getting a bit... well... boring. Barry still loved this city and couldn't picture himself living anywhere else, but the lull in criminal activity was really getting to the young hero.
Barry was currently pacing in circles around the cortex, slightly under super speed and it was starting to wear into the tile. Caitlin marched out of her section of the lab and waved gloved hands in Barry's face to stop him in his tracks. Apparently it was starting to wear into her as well.
"For the love of Central City, please stop pacing! You're making me dizzy and it's getting hard to focus!" Caitlin had been asked to help with a new biotechnology for Mercury Labs and since she wasn't busy fixing Barry after all his run ins she happily accepted the challenge, even if it made her a bit shrill when her stress levels got too high. But Barry would never mention that to her.
Instead he gave a hesitant smile and backed away with his hands up in defense. "Sorry, sorry! Leaving now!" He retreated farther into the lab, knowing better than to push Caitlin's buttons when she was in a mood.
He came across Cisco in his section of the lab, slumped over in deep concentration over some tech. 'Hm...' Barry thought mischievously to himself as he lightly tiptoed behind Cisco; getting directly behind him, he took a deep breath, ready to jump scare the pants off his friend when suddenly...
"Ah ah ah!" Cisco whipped around in his chair and stuck the pointy end of a screwdriver against Barry's nose. "Not so fast, mano." He said, a small smirk creeping at the corner of his mouth, no doubt proud of his pun.
"H-how did you...?! I was so quiet!" Barry exclaimed, looking around incredulously for any reflective material he may have missed, but there's nothing. When he looked back Cisco had his arms folded and his chest puffed out in haughty pride.
"I vibed it." He said, eyes closed with a smug smile on his face. When he opened them Barry's face was a mixture of confusion and excitement.
"Wait, wait, wait, I have so many questions." He said waving his hands around and sliding over a chair, straddling it directly in front of Cisco.
The techie was way too proud of himself and enjoying this limelight a bit too much. Not to mention the extra attention from his best friend, who has the most adorably geeky smile on his face and the softest hazel eyes he's ever seen... He swallowed hard at the strange thought and the slight burning in his cheeks. Since when did Barry Allen make him think those things? He pushed the thought aside in his head and said "shoot, cowboy" keeping that playful smirk on his face.
"Ok so when exactly did you vibe that? I haven't seen you much today and I don't remember seeing you playing with your goggles."
Cisco scoffed at that, "um, first of all I don't play with my goggles that help me see all points in time and sometimes interdimensional events." He said defensively.
At that Barry cocked his head to the side and raised a brow, "so vibing forward in time to see Deadpool before the release date isn't 'playing'?" He said flatly.
Cisco let out a small groan, "There was so much hype! I couldn't help myself! Also you're welcome for not giving away any spoilers." He said shaking a finger in Barry's direction. Barry just shook his head and chuckled at his friend.
"Anyway... I vibed yesterday when we were testing out my sonic blasts and you decided it was a good time to play tag. When you tapped me on the shoulder I was already amped from trying my new powers and pretty scared cause I didn't want to accidentally hurt you... So when you tapped me I vibed the moment before you scared me." He finished quickly, glossing over the obvious concern and softness in his previous statement.
"Huh," Barry said, thinking it over. "Well then why didn't you say anything about it?"
"Didn't want to mess with the timeline," Cisco shrugged, "plus I looked pretty cool thwarting your attempt at a jump scare." He said with a grin on.
Barry's brow furrowed, "but wouldn't your thwarting mess with the timeline if I never actually scare you?"
Cisco waved his hand dismissively, "Nah, nothing so little as a jump scare could cause that much damage." He said as he turned back to his work.
"I'm not so sure, man. You've heard how Rip goes on whenever the Legends make a pit stop." Barry warned.
Cisco just waved away the notion. Barry sighed and stood up, moving across the table from Cisco to get a look at what he's working on.
"Handcuffs?" He asked, noticing the three bins of high tech cuffs sitting next to Cisco that he never noticed before. "Someone's got a colorful nightlife." He joked.
Cisco blushed a little to himself, keeping his head down. "Wouldn't you like to know," he quipped before taking in a sharp breath, shocked at the words that fell out of his mouth.
'Yeah, I would,' Barry thought to himself, the slightest bit of jealousy creeping up... Hold on, where did that come from?
He never cared about what Cisco did behind closed doors, mostly because he assumed it involved lots of Netflix binges and movie critiques. Sometimes Barry had the pleasure of joining in on those sessions, watching his friend's eyes light up at awesome sci-fi graphics or his chuckling at ridiculous plot holes in B-movies. Barry always left Cisco's apartment those nights feeling happier, lighter and always with an itch to stay a little longer.
But this jealousy, stemming from the implications of the handcuffs, this was new... and confusing. He pushed away those thoughts for now as best as he could.
"Nah, these are for the CCPD." Cisco said, thankfully interrupting Barry's intense, frantic train of thought. "I fashioned them with power dampeners that should be universal to any meta. These" he said excitedly, sliding over a bin of cuffs, each pair with a tiny gun attached to them, "can be fired from a distance of almost 100 yards! Joe might need to work on his aim, Friday Night Lights style." He tried to joke, not really understanding football culture.
"This'll help out the officers a lot," he continued, "in case we can't be notified in time or, you know, you wanna take a break or something." He said, tapping Barry's fidgeting hands with the handle of his screwdriver. "You look like you could use one, antsy. Don't want you firing off lightning bolts with all that bottled up stress. Even heroes need a vacation once in awhile, you know."
Barry clasped his hands together to stop their squirming. "Yeah, maybe I should." He considered, "things are slow here anyway. I've got all this energy to burn now that Zoom isn't here to focus on." He said, half-true, conveniently leaving out the part that his current fidgeting is due to those strange feelings he just experienced and not from a lack of super evil in his life.
He really needed to extract himself from this situation pronto; he stood up and shoved his shaky hands in his pockets, "I'll think on it. I'm gonna go for a run and get these jitters out of my system." He said making his way to the door. "Those cuffs look great by the way. Singh will be happy for them." He said on his way out, blushing slightly at the mention of them and stealing a glance back at his friend who was... no?... blushing too? Nah, he was imagining things now. Had to be.
~
Cisco couldn't help but notice the slight burning in his cheeks from his friend's praise. He smiled to himself and turned back to his work, thinking through the conversation they just had.
'"Wouldn't you like to know"... What the hell was that? Where did that come from? Was that just me trying to make a ridiculous joke and failing epicly or did I mean it? Did I want Barry to know? Know what exactly? There wasn't anything to know! Was there? Oh God, this is getting out of hand.' He shook his head and tried to refocus back on the task at hand, then...
"BAH!" came a loud yell behind him and two hands on his shoulders. He shrieked a squeaky '¡Dios mío!' and then his eyes unfocused and he vibed something he'd never seen before... Something that made his heart skip a beat and his mouth suddenly dry.
He came back to the present and whipped around to see Barry in their suit, laughing with a huge smile on his face and two thumbs up, "Timeline restored!" He said triumphantly before zipping out in a streak of lightning with a laugh trailing behind him.
Cisco clutched his still rapidly beating heart and said "guess so..." to himself. He sat stunned for a moment, not sure what to do or think.
He made a mental note to buy bug spray. It seemed they would be needing it.