Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cisco breathes.

The flashbacks have gotten better. Much better. He’s been doing exercises, letting Cindy and Iris and Barry gently rest their palms against his heart for a few seconds. It helps, but only because they know his boundaries. Know the wild look in his eyes that he gets when he’s panicked. As soon as they see that look they step away. All of them do different things afterward-Cindy just holds him, a warm, comforting rock, Iris cups his chin and asks if she can kiss him and reacts accordingly to whatever his answer is, and Barry pulls him into a tight, close hug.

Cisco breathes.

Being with three people has gotten better. On the bad days, when dysphoria hits like a punch to the gut and he needs to limit his sensory world and the suicidal urges crowd in his head and he just needs a shoulder to cry on, they’re all there for him. He sits with Cindy on the dysphoria days because he knows she understands, with Barry on the sensory days because Barry’s hair is soft and perfect for stimming with when there’s nothing better, and with Iris on the mental illness days because while they’ve all been there before she’s the one who knows how to make him feel real and grounded and present no matter what.

Cisco breathes.

STAR Labs’ floor is squeaky clean underneath his socks, the shoes that go with his Vibe costume sitting discarded a few feet away. Distantly, he can hear Caitlin and… Tina, he’s pretty sure that Tina got here at some point, talking to each other. He feels numb, the blood that’s drying on his gloves a harsh reminder of the events that lead up to this. Led up to sitting here, on the floor of STAR Labs outside of the medbay, with Cindy beside him and Iris down with Barry in the Pipeline.

Cisco breathes.

The gaping wound that was in his leg and the other one in his upper arm and the third shallow one in his chest have all been tended to already. Caitlin were going to move onto their other patient second, having called Tina-for some reason, she wasn’t a medical doctor, Cisco didn’t know why she was here-at some point during the stitching process. Cisco hugs himself tightly and rocks a little. He can smell rubbing alcohol coming from somewhere and he vaguely remembers Barry accidentally cutting his hand when he slipped.

Cisco breathes.

Wally’s at home with the twins, probably keeping them occupied with a movie or something, and Cisco tries to think about that instead. About how important they are to him. But that turns out to be a mistake and his heart clenches painfully as he hunches over.

Cisco tries to breathe and finds that he can’t.

“Cindy-” He chokes, still-gloved fingers reaching up to tangle in his hair. “Cindy, I-I can’t breathe-I can’t breathe-”

Cindy presses against him, warm and comforting. “Breathe,” she murmurs. “You can breathe. It’s okay. You can breathe, I promise. You’re safe. We’re safe. All of us.”

“Barry slipped,” Cisco mumbles. “Barry slipped and cut his hand and we got hurt and your father might be dead and-and-” He can’t make himself say it. Can’t even think about what’s happening in the medbay. “What if he dies?” He says instead, voice hoarse and rasping in his throat. “What if something goes wrong and Caitlin can’t do anything and he dies?”

“You haven’t seen him like I have.” Cindy pressed her forehead against Cisco’s temple. “I understand how that sounds, considering how much better you know him, but… He’s resilient. Hardy. My stepmother put him through a lot. He’ll be okay.”

“He has to be. He needs to be.” Cisco pulls on his hair. The stinging sensation grounds him. “He has to be okay and your father has to be alive and it all has to be okay, Cindy. It has to be.”

Caitlin sticks her head out of the medbay, hair still mostly covered even if several strands have slipped out. She looks exhausted. “Cisco, come in here. I think you can calm him down.”

Cisco scrambles to his feet, biting back a hiss of pain. Caitlin’s pain meds had helped a lot, but not entirely, and the wounds on his arm and leg had been big. Cindy helps him limp just inside the door and then stepped back.

He respects her wishes to stay as far away from one of the people who had hurt her as possible, just like she respects his wishes to want to save him.

Cisco sits down heavily in the chair next to one of the hospital beds. For a moment he breathes through the pain, or at least tries to.

A hand grips his, tightly, and he automatically squeezes back. He steels himself and looks at the damage.

There are a matching pair of burns on either side of Dante’s head, right at his temples. He went still as soon as Cisco came in, all noises of distress gone and all signs of tension vanished. His eyes are glowing red, but it’s much fainter now than it was before. A blanket covers the rest of his body, so Cisco can’t really see what’s beneath it, but he knows from how hard he and Cindy fought back that it can’t be anything good. The red, black, and white armor is in the corner. Cisco wants to destroy it.

“This is gonna be okay,” he whispers. “We’re gonna be okay.” The back of his throat burns with tears. “Don’t worry, alright?”

Dante doesn’t say anything.

Cisco remembers the last time the two of them spoke to each other. Remembers feeding the ducks with the seeds Dante had awkwardly brought because he knew that you weren’t supposed to feed ducks things like bread because of how it affected things like their health and algae growth. Cisco had sat with him on a park bench, feeding the birds and complaining to Dante that he felt like an old white woman. Dante had shown him how to get the ducks to eat out of his hand, calling it payback for when Cisco had shown Dante how to make a little circuit with some batteries, wire, and a lightbulb.

They had made plans to go to a bar the next week.

Dante had died three days later.

Now Cisco knew that hadn’t really been what had happened.

Now Dante was back.

Dante’s eyes never once leave Cisco’s face as he reaches over with the stump of his wrist that had formerly been his other hand, touching it gently to Cisco’s arm. The wound that caused it is years old, it must be, but Cisco’s pretty sure it’s his fault that some of the incision scars are bleeding again.

Cisco breathes.

Chapter Text

Barry hugs Cisco tightly when he comes out of the episode, face burning with shame when he realizes how it must have felt for Cisco to come home only for Barry to leave him immediately. Cisco promises him that he knows it’s not Barry’s fault. That it’s never Barry’s fault.

Cindy disappears for a few days only to reappear in their house with the promise that her father is alive. Hurt but healing. The power vacuum on Earth-19 will be filled shortly, she’s sure of it. Someone named Edward is already vying for the spot, but if Quell has anything to say about it somebody else will get the throne.

She whispers about her home’s politics into his ear as a distraction. A way for them both to feel like they’re doing something worthwhile. When Cindy’s voice gives out as she battles tears and just barely manages to win, Cisco’s there for her, holding her in his arms and kissing her gently, softly, slowly. Trusting her with every breath.

Dante lives in the Pipeline now.

Cisco goes down to visit him every day, promising that he’ll make him the perfect prosthetic hand and bringing him food and sitting and watching him and then just talking so the silence doesn’t get unbearable.

His brother still hasn’t said a single word since his rescue.

Caitlin says that since he won’t let her take an MRI, they can’t be sure if Dante’s mutism is neurological or psychological. It’s not physical, or at least she’s pretty sure it’s not.

Cisco doesn’t really care if Dante ever speaks again. Not really. He starts learning sign language in earnest in the hopes that he can teach it to him or help Dante learn alongside him, but Dante’s too inattentive to learn another language. He communicates with gestures and small sounds and symbols. They don’t look like Barry’s symbols do. Cindy says that they’re a language, one native to her Earth. She’s fluent in it. Learned it as a part of the Collecting program.

She translates for them.

The cell that they’ve outfitted for Dante is right next to the one that they use for Barry when he slips while inside STAR Labs and needs to go somewhere where he can’t hurt himself on accident.

Which means that the next time Barry slips while in STAR Labs, Dante’s there to see it.

The door to his cell is permanently open, and for a split second when Dante hurls himself out of the cell at Barry, Cisco can’t help but wonder if that was a costly mistake.

Iris screams as an already-slipped Barry gets pulled out of her hands and half-carried, half-dragged into Dante’s cell. She moves to follow but Cisco’s arm shoots out to stop her. He’ll handle Dante. He knows he can do it. And he knows that no matter how much he loves Iris, she can’t do this.

Barry squirms in Dante’s arms. “Red, red, red, it was all red. Don’t touch me! Iris, baby, come on, wake up! Wake up! Please Mr. West I promise my Dad didn’t do those things. No, no, no, my Dad would never hurt me, I swear he would never ever hurt me just like he didn't hurt my Mom, please listen to me-”

It’s a bad slip, Cisco realizes. Not just the bad kind of slipping, but a nightmarish version of one of those.

Dante sits Barry down in one corner of the cell and then moves to the other corner, watching him with dark brown eyes that shine a dull bloody red. Barry starts scrabbling his fingers on the walls, trying to write with something that isn’t there, and Dante hands one of his pens over to him.

Barry accepts it eagerly. “I put you in that position. You’re by my side? You already have. The speedforce is with us,” he recites. Cisco’s gut twists and Iris squeezes his hand tightly. She remembers when Barry said that. Remembers that he truly believed he had the power of a god on his side. Remembers when he crashed down from it. And after all, wasn’t the speedforce the one who did this to him? “Turbine, stop! You’re about a second and a half from a world of hurt.”

“Barry?” Cisco calls softly, and Barry looks at him, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“There’s no other option here, Darryl. We protect the city first, no matter what it costs us,” he whispers. “Stand down.”

Stand down. Even if Dante decides to start hurting the man he loves, Cisco’s supposed to stand down. He loves Dante too, so much his bones ache with it, but he loves Barry in a hundred thousand indescribable ways. It’s a choice that’s impossible for him to make. Choosing between two members of his family. Two important people.

He moves forward agonizingly slowly. “Barry, keep your eyes on me. Dante, look at me.”

Dante looks, eyes narrowed and head tilted. Like a cat about to pounce. Cisco prays he’s not about to strike at Barry.

“Dante,” Cisco says softly, “I know that what that woman did to you was awful.” As he speaks, he reaches out and feels the vibrations that swirl in his older brother’s veins. “I know how badly she hurt you, and I’m sorry you had to go through that. But you can’t hurt Barry. Do you understand me?” He tries to stop his voice from shaking. “You can’t hurt Barry. I love him.”

Dante’s mouth stretches wide into his new version of a smile when Cisco says the word ‘love’. For a moment Cisco’s afraid.

Then he realizes that Dante’s eyes are telling him good job.

Telling him I approve.

Dante’s never met Barry, not really. Doesn’t even know him. And right now, what he’s doing… It’s not meant to cause pain. He’s trying to take care of him. Keep Barry safe. Maybe he thinks Barry’s like him, someone who’s been dealt an arguably bad hand by the universe. But Barry’s trying to make the best of it. Maybe Dante can be the same way.

Cisco realizes at the same second as Iris does that Dante’s not going to hurt Barry.

It’s the same with the kids, really, when they get introduced to the man Don is named for.

Cisco tentatively introduces Dante to them as their uncle. They’re too young to question why they’ve never met him before. At first Cisco’s afraid of it going badly and clings to Cindy’s hand so hard his knuckles go white. But Dante doesn’t hurt them.

Instead, Dante falls asleep clinging to them at the back of his Pipeline cell. Not hurting them, never hurting them, but not making it easy for Cisco and Cindy to extricate them from his arms when it’s time for them to go home.

Cindy kisses his cheek when he gets in the car after making sure the twins were safely buckled in the back. “Aren’t you glad we didn’t ask Rita to watch them?” She teases before her voice goes serious. “This was good for him.”

Cisco knows she’s right. He saw Dante’s tears when Don excitedly told him that “I know you, Daddy named me after you! Isn’t that cool?”

They excitedly tell Barry and Iris about their cool big Uncle Dante who wouldn’t stop hugging them and let them draw on the walls of STAR Labs when the two of them get back from their romantic evening. Barry and Iris laugh and give them kisses and look at Cisco who nods back, just once, and hugs Cindy from behind. This is okay. Dante’s going to be a permanent fixture in their lives. All of their lives. That’s okay.

Dante writes sheet music and then runs circles around Cisco when Cisco lets him go home to their parents (who Cisco told immediately about Dante-he refused to let his family live in the dark about their middle son, the second child they had thought they’d lost) and to the piano that’s at their house. He’s rusty and the music doesn’t sound very good and he can only play with one hand since Cisco’s still working on building a refined-enough prosthetic for the other one, but he plays it anyways with wild abandon before returning to Cisco’s side, body language practically screaming thank you, thank you, thank you.

Cisco breathes.