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“See you tomorrow,” Caitlin called to Claire as they split off to make their ways home. After leaving Team Flash after that whole thing with Savitar, Caitlin managed to take back control of herself. Really, it was more shared control, with ‘Killer Frost’, although she now prefered just ‘Frost’, since she didn’t really like killing . Caitlin was in control most of the time, though Frost would take over sometimes, mostly in emergencies (getting mugged, it is Hell’s Kitchen, after all) or once when Caitlin almost burned herself making pancakes. They would write notes to each other to see, though, and they could easily be considered friends.
Caitlin had also found her way to another earth. She thought it would be a good way to find herself again, and it was. She’d gotten a job as a night-shift doctor, and even made a friend, Claire Temple. She did miss her friends on Earth 1, but she needed this. She needed to get away for awhile. Maybe not forever, but she liked it on this earth. She liked that nobody knew about her other half. Her much colder half.
Caitlin opened the door to her flat, dropping her keys on the side table by the door. She kicked off her shoes and sighed. The sun hadn’t started to rise yet, meaning the flat was pitch black. She flicked on the lights and made her way to her kitchen. Her fridge was luckily not empty and she had leftover chinese takeout that hadn’t gone bad yet.
She heated up the leftovers in her microwave and settled into her couch to eat, turning the TV on. When she was done, she decided to take out her trash, or it’d end up staying in her apartment for days, and she really didn’t need that smell.
The elevator down to the ground floor was slow, and it was cold when Caitlin got outside. She lugged the trash to the side of the building, where there were two dumpsters for the inhabitants of the building. The first was practically overflowing, so Caitlin went to the next. She threw the trash in and almost yelped when she heard a pained grunt from within the dumpster.
Caitlin peered into the dumpster warily. Laying inside the half full bin was a man dressed mostly in red and black. It sort of reminded her of Barry’s suit, just more heavily armoured. He seemed perfectly fine, save for two bullet wounds in the red regions of the suit just above the man’s hip. It didn’t take much for Caitlin to recognize him as the vigilante ‘Daredevil’.
She also knew that nobody knew his identity. Having worked with heroes with secret identities, she knew taking him to a hospital would be a pretty bad idea. With a sigh (which sort of sounded long-suffering) she began to reach for the man to check if he had any neck or back wounds. When she was close to touching him, he jerked away with groan.
“Hey,” Caitlin said calmly, “I’m just trying to help.”
Daredevil must have believed her, but he grunted out “No hospital,” somewhat frantically.
“Don’t worry, I’m gonna take you up to my flat,” she said, reaching to him again. He didn’t respond, and she realized that he’d passed out. That sucked. She’d have to get him up to her apartment without any help.
He didn’t have any neck injuries, and his back seemed fine, so she started to sit him up. The bullets had gone all the way through, but luckily the man wasn’t bleeding enough to have hit any major arteries. It was hard, and she almost wanted to let Frost take over. She was better with heavy lifting than Caitlin was. But Caitlin was the doctor of the two, so she didn’t. She managed to get him out of the dumpster, and he jerked awake again.
“Claire,” he muttered, feeling around his sides. For a second, Caitlin was worried he was about to pull a weapon on her, but he just pulled out a burner phone. “Call Claire.”
The phone was shoved in Caitlin’s direction. At least he thought she was trustworthy. The phone was on and the name Claire was clearly displayed. Caitlin looked to Daredevil for confirmation, but he’d passed out again. Shit. He was bleeding out onto the pavement now. He’d said to call this Claire person. Maybe they were his doctor or something. Or a friend at least? There were only two other contacts in the burner, a ‘Foggy’ and a ‘Melvin P.”
After a few seconds of debating, Caitlin hit call. As the phone was ringing, she dropped down and pulled off her sweater, using it it put pressure on the bullet wounds. The phone rang twice before someone picked up.
“Ma- Daredevil?” a woman, Claire, said, somewhat worried.
“Ah, no,” Caitlin said. Without even having to see this ‘Claire’ person, Caitlin knew the atmosphere had shifted.
“Who are you?” Claire said angrily.
“I, um, I found Daredevil in my dumpster. He’s been shot twice. I’m a doctor, but he said to call you,” Caitlin said.
“Where are you?” Caitlin heard movement through the phone. Without much hesitation, Caitlin prattled off her address. If whoever this was could help her save Daredevil’s life, it didn’t matter if she knew where Caitlin lived.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Claire said.
She made it in seven minutes. Caitlin heard someone running into the alley, and was scared for a moment that it was whoever had done this to Daredevil. It wasn’t.
“Claire?” Caitlin said incredulously.
“Caitlin?” That was certainly a plot twist. The Claire that Daredevil knew was Caitlin’s friend Claire. The friend that went out for coffee with her or talked to her during uneventful moments at the hospital. The friend that made Caitlin feel welcome in this new, and quite frankly scary city.
The two were gaping at each other, but a small grunt from Daredevil snapped them out of it.
“Shit,” Claire said upon seeing the state he was in, “Let’s get him to your apartment.”
…
“Thank you,” Claire said. Caitlin and her had patched Daredevil up, and he was now sleeping on the small couch that was in Caitlin’s guest-room-turned-office.
“For what?” Caitlin asked. She set a mug of coffee down in front of Claire, who was sitting at her kitchen table.
“Not calling an ambulance, helping stitch up a vigilante, all of it,” Claire said.
“It’s… it’s no problem,” Caitlin said. She made a split second decision and added, “I have experience with superheroes and vigilantes.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
Claire must have sensed that Caitlin wasn’t going to expand on that. “Still, thank you,” she said, “Not many people would have done what you did tonight.”
“You would have, apparently,” Caitlin said. Claire smiled a little.
“I found him in a dumpster the first time I met him, too,” she said, “Patched him up. We’re friends now, I guess.”
“You guess?” the two women startled slightly. Daredevil was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, leaning on the doorframe.
“You should be lying down,” both women said at the same time.
“There are people coming,” Daredevil said.
“What?” Caitlin said.
“They’re about to break down the-” he was cut off by a loud crash as someone broke down the door. Sure enough, about six men came in, immediately going for Daredevil. He was sort of holding his own, but his wounds were making it hard. Two of the men came for Caitlin and Claire. Caitlin stepped in front of Claire protectively.
“What are you doing?” Claire hissed. One of the men threw a punch at Caitlin’s head. It never landed. Instead, the man went flying backwards, and an icicle pinned him to the wall.
“What the hell?” Claire said. Caitlin now had white hair and glowing eyes. Oh yeah, and ice powers.
Soon enough, all the men were either frozen, unconscious, or had fled the building. Daredevil was at Claire’s side to make sure she was alright, and Caitlin (was it still Caitlin?) was standing across from them, arms crossed.
“Who are you?” Caitlin asked. Her voice sounded different.
“My name is-”
“I know who you are,” she cut off Claire, “You’re Caitlin’s friend, Claire. I meant who’s he?”
“Daredevil,” the man in question said. His breathing was laboured and he sounded like he was in pain.
“I guess I should let Caitlin come back to make sure you’re alright, huh?” Before Claire or Daredevil could respond, Caitlin was stumbling slightly. She caught herself on the kitchen counter and soon her hair was back to its original brown-amber colour and her eyes stopped glowing.
“What just happened,” Daredevil asked, “Why is it so cold in here?”
“Oh god,” Caitlin muttered to herself, “I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” Claire said, “You helped Daredevil. Saved my life.”
“What happened?” Daredevil asked again. Sometimes it was hard for Claire to remember that he was blind.
“Caitlin just, um, her hair went white and her eyes glowed and she helped you fight those guys with, uh,” Claire tried to explain. Caitlin sighed.
“I have a sort of, alter ego, I guess. She’s called Killer Frost, or just Frost,” Caitlin explained, “She takes control sometimes, mostly when I’m in danger. She has ice powers.” She sat down at her kitchen table, putting her head in her hands, “Nobody here was supposed to find out.” She sounded so… defeated.
“Hey,” Daredevil said softly. When Caitlin looked up, he wasn’t wearing his mask. Her eyes widened. “My name’s Matt,” he said, “Thank you for risking your secret to help.”
“I, um… you’re welcome.”
Caitlin woke up for her shift the next night with two friends from this earth (instead of just one), three new numbers in her phone (Matt, Foggy, Karen), and the promise of a discount or something like that if she ever needed legal help.