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Cisco doesn’t hate feeding the prisoners. He and Caitlin trade off most days, but it’s always an interesting experience. Yes, he does almost get murdered a couple of times a week, but he enjoys the social interaction and learning more about each metahuman. So far, he’s found out that the Weather Wizard likes Thai food, the Mist is an asshole, Peek-a-Boo likes to play with his emotions, Everyman has deep-seated identity issues, Deathbolt is vegan and is weirdly silent, and Prism (who actually prefers to be called Rainbow Raider) is hilarious when his own powers are rebounded back against him.
For this reason, when he returns to work after three days of helping Abuela after her hip replacement, he is excited to hear that there’s a new one down in the cells. She’s yet to be named, not horribly hostile, and (according to Caitlin) is in the process of recovering from an alcohol problem.
He has the food orders—Thai for WW, Mexican for Peek-a-Boo and Deathbolt, chicken soup for the Mist (he has a cold) and Big Belly Burger for Rainbow Raider and Everyman. The new one didn’t specify what she wanted, and so he settled for a chicken sandwich and fries. He hopes that’s okay.
The pipeline has to be the weirdest prison he’s ever seen. Granted, he has only seen one other prison, but it is still bizarre that he can swipe his fingers a few times and move all of the cells into a straight line parallel to the platform at the end of the catwalk. He wishes they would just keep the cells lined up like that; it would be easier, and it’s not like they can’t hear every word the others are saying due to the echoing, cavernous space that is the pipeline. Caitlin thinks the space will prevent them from colluding with each other and help them keep their privacy, and Cisco lets her carry on thinking that she’s right because it’s not that hard to move the cells around.
The regulars are fairly quiet today. Shawna puts in a request for She’s the Man for their next movie night, and Cisco cringes. He will not be reduced to showing chick flicks during Cinema Cisco every week.
He saves the newcomer for last, wanting to take his time to get to know her. At first, he can’t see much. She is crouched in the corner, hugging her knees. Her long, light brown hair flows in waves over her face.
“Hi,” he says, and she looks up at him. His first thought is that she is absolutely perfect. Her eyes are this gorgeous shade of greenish, greyish hazel. His second thought is that she looks like she’s just been through the wars. Her face is milky white and damp with sweat, and there is a hollowness to her cheeks that he is not comfortable with. Should have ordered a milkshake, too, he thinks to himself.
“Hey,” she says quietly. She waves; her hand shakes.
“I brought you lunch. I hope you like chicken.”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
He opens the cell door cautiously. He’s seen the video footage: her from the back, her hands turning into gigantic swords as she ducks down an alley. According to Barry, they found her in the alley trying to stop the bleeding of a man she stabbed. There’s some remorse there, and he thinks they can work with that.
She doesn’t move, and he sets the tray down in front of her. He points to a small cup with pills in it.
“Caitlin says that these should help with. . . things.”
“Thank her for me, please.”
“I will. What’s your name?”
“I call myself the Black Canary.”
“Like the girl in Star City?”
A ghost of a smile coupled with a haunted look crosses her features. “Something like that.”
“And what’s your real name?”
“Does it matter?”
He shakes his head. “I guess not. I’m Cisco.”He holds out a hand, hoping that she won’t stab him. She’s not shown any inclination to use her powers, and they haven’t put in any safeguards because they’d have to see her powers in action to understand how to dampen them.
She has a surprisingly firm handshake. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. Hey, did they show you how things work in here?”
“You mean that I press this wall and the toilet and sink pop out of the floor? And the shower comes out of that wall? I’m still a little skeptical as to how you managed that. We’re in suspended boxes.”
“Oh, that? It took me forever to work out. It’s a new plastic compound with nanotechnology that has very specific conditions for solidity. It has to be exposed to the air, which it isn’t when it’s stored in the floor and the walls. When the air hits, it triggers a computer program which is designed to trigger the nanobots into building what you need. Oh, and if you press this tile,” he tells her, pointing to one of the squashy blue rectangles, “your screen comes up. We have movie nights sometimes.”
She blinks at him. “You really are all nerds here, aren’t you?”
Over the next several days, she sweats out the physical pieces of her addiction. It’s horrible to watch, and Cisco has a hard time forcing himself to eat after he brings her meals. She tries to eat, but nothing much will stay down. She reaches the one week mark before she begins eating properly, and he finds out that she likes spicy food and Earl Grey tea.
It is Friday, and he distributes cards with various movie titles on them today; Cinema Cisco is tonight, and the inmates get a chance to vote for a movie.
“What’s this?” The Black Canary asks, and Cisco reminds himself that she hasn’t been here very long.
“Movie night. Think it over. Caitlin will collect the votes at dinner and I’ll count them up. Also, what’s your favorite movie snack?”
She blinks. “I’m not sure if this is prison or Club Med.”
“More like Club Metahuman.”
The Black Canary groans. “I’m not that picky. I like sour stuff. Just don’t get anything with hazelnuts in it; I’m allergic.”
“Just hazelnuts?”
“Yep. Nothing else.”
“You’ve never tasted Nutella?”
“Once. It didn’t end well.”
“You poor, poor thing,” Cisco says sincerely, taking note of her allergy on his tablet.
Caitlin delivers the cards—ballots?—after she gives the prisoners their dinner. Cisco sifts through them. He’s given them a choice of The Avengers, She’s the Man, Braveheart or Penguins of Madagascar. They have all—every last one of them except Peek-a-Boo—chosen Penguins of Madagascar.
He loads up the cart with their candies of choice, some sodas, folding chairs and his tablet before he manhandles Caitlin, Ronnie, and Barry down to the pipeline. His version of manhandling is more like a guilt trip about how they are keeping people in cages downstairs, but it works and they accompany him.
Cisco immediately sets up his folding chair next to the Black Canary’s cell, and Ronnie raises an eyebrow at him.
“New favorite?”
“She’s the only one who hasn’t tried to kill me yet,” Cisco says defensively. He swipes his fingers across his tablet and a screen slides down in front of the doorway into STAR Labs proper for and his colleagues to watch. The prisoners all have their own individual screens.
He passes out drinks and snacks as the previews play, and is happily munching his Sour Patch Kids/popcorn mixture when he discovers that the Black Canary can be terrifying.
The Weather Wizard always talks during movies. It is the annoying, remark-per-half-second type of commentary that can drive a person to drink, but there is nothing that they can do about it without excluding him from movie nights, which just feels wrong somehow.
“Come on! Dave? He couldn’t have come up with something better? ‘Daaaave,’” mocks the Weather Wizard.
“If you don’t shut up this second, I can’t be held responsible for what I’ll do to you. They can’t get me to use my powers, so they—and you—have no idea what I am capable of. Do you really want to take that chance, Mark? Because I’m more than willing to show you what I got.”
Mark is silent for a few moments. Finally, he says, “Far be it from me to come between a girl and her penguins.”
The Black Canary sits back in her cell and pops a Lemonhead into her mouth, and Cisco exchanges a look with Barry. It is the type of silent look men exchange with one another that says that was hot without ever having to bother with words.
The rest of the movie passes in relative quiet, and Cisco notices that everyone takes the time to say goodnight to the Black Canary individually. She might be his new favorite, but she’s everybody else’s favorite, too.
Cisco cannot believe that the Black Canary has been with them for three months. She’s almost like a part of the team; sometimes, he’ll go down to the pipeline just to ask her what she thinks about a new strategy to help catch bad guys. She always gives advice freely, ignoring the shouts of the others that she’s a traitor.
Some days are easier than others for her, and Cisco notices when she has a bad day. It’s hard to miss, because she’s a lot more active on those days: he’s had a punching bag installed in her cell for the bad days.
Today is a very, very bad day. It didn’t start out that way, but Caitlin says that when she told the Black Canary the date, it became a bad day. She didn’t eat breakfast or lunch and has been wailing on the punching bag for two solid hours.
“She’s going to hurt herself,” Caitlin worries. She’s enlarged the security camera window devoted to the Black Canary’s cell, and she and Cisco have been watching it on and off all day. Ronnie and Barry went to Central City to help the Arrow, and so it is just the two of them at the lab.
“Should I bring her some water?”
“You can try. Be careful, Cisco. I know she hasn’t done anything yet, but there’s something going on.”
Cisco rolls his eyes. Canary would never hurt him. "I'll gird my loins," he says sarcastically and heads downstairs to see what bee is in the Canary’s bonnet.
“Make it stop,” whines Shawna. “I’m trying to take a nap.”
“She’s startling me. I can’t sketch when I’m jumpy,” the Rainbow Raider agrees, and Cisco rolls his eyes.
“You poor things.”
He approaches the Canary’s cell with caution, finding her still punching the bag, although her slugs are weak and sloppy. He’s never seen her form this bad before, and as he gets closer, he realizes that her skin is waxy-looking, clammy and pale. She looks practically dead.
“Hey, give it a rest. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Can’t stop,” she gasps, and her voice is weak.
Something is very, very wrong. He doesn’t think about his safety before he opens the door to her cell. He makes it inside just in time to hold her hair back when she leans over and vomits on the floor.
It seems to take her forever to finish, and each heave makes him feel horrible.“It’s going to be okay,” he tells her, and she stumbles into his arm. She’s almost dead weight. “Whoa,” he says. “What hurts?”
“Everything,” she groans, but she’s clutching her stomach on the right side.
He presses his hand to her forehead. “Shit. You’re burning up.”
“’S fine,” she says, swatting at him.
“No, it’s not. You’re really sick, Canary.” He sets her down gently on the floor of her cell, as far as he can get from the puddle of sick. Cisco sprints to the intercom and presses the button for the cortex. “Caitlin, get a gurney down here now. There’s something wrong with Canary. She’s burning up and clutching her stomach.”
Cisco retreats through the doorway and uses his tablet to maneuver Canary’s cell all the way forward. The others are asking what’s going on and making some snide remarks about special treatment, but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he picks up her, wraps her arms around his neck, and tries to soothe her. Tears are leaking out of the corner of her eyes and she’s biting her lip so hard that he can see blood.
"It’s okay. Let it out,” he tells her.
She shakes her head. “No. Not what Sara would do.”
“You don’t have to be Sara,” he tells her, and a sob breaks out of her chest. He sees Caitlin and the gurney clattering down the hall towards them, and so he takes them through the door and seals it behind him.
Gently, he lays her down on the gurney. She grabs onto his hand. “Don’t leave,” she orders, her voice firm except for the tiniest hint of vulnerability.
“I’m not going anywhere, Canary.”
“Laurel,” she corrects him, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his eyebrows have migrated into his hairline. He never thought he’d get a name out of her, and now he has. It’s beautiful, just like her.
“Cisco!”
Caitlin’s shout breaks him out of his thoughts. “Yes?”
“How long has she been like this?”
“She was still punching the bag when I got down there, but she looked horrible.”
“Hey,” Laurel protests.
“Laurel, how long have you been hurting?”
“It started hurting after you came by, but I thought. . . It’s Sara’s birthday. I thought I was just…”
“Your body trying to figure out a way to feel emotional pain,” Caitlin finishes, her mouth set in a thin line. “You should have told me. This isn’t psychosomatic. I think your appendix is about to burst.”
“Great,” Laurel says. “You’ll have to check me into the hospital under a fake name. I told my dad and my friends not to look for me, but I don’t think they listened. I’m probably on the missing persons list.”
“Laurel,” Caitlin says delicately as she wheels the gurney into the elevator, “I don’t think we have time to go to the hospital.” She pulls Laurel’s shirt up and presses on her abdomen.
Laurel screams and arches off the bed, and Cisco can feel his eyes filling with sympathetic tears.
“What the hell, Caitlin?”
“I’m sorry! But I’m right. We’re going to have to do an emergency appendectomy upstairs.”
“Oh my God. She’s going to go all Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman on me, isn’t she?”
“You’re going to be fine,” Cisco says, stroking her hair back even as he exchanges a horrified look with Caitlin.
The elevator doors open and they wheel her into the cortex, then into the med bay. She and Cisco expertly lift Laurel onto the table, and Cisco starts an IV while Caitlin gathers other supplies. All of the time spent caring for Barry while he was in the coma is coming in extremely handy.
“Sorry,” he says as he slips the needle into the back of her hand.
“Hey, just don’t tell Shawna and we’ll be fine. She’d have a field day if she found out you ‘poked’ me.” Laurel smiles a little. “She kind of ships us.”
“Deal,” Cisco says, trying not to let on that he’s got a warm, glowing feeling in his chest all of a sudden. He thinks it’s adorable that Laurel is picking up on his geeky vocabulary. Last month, he introduced her to fanfiction, and she’s kind of crazy about it now.
Laurel suddenly stiffens. “There aren’t painkillers in that, are there?”
“Just fluids,” he says, and she relaxes.
“I don’t want any painkillers. I didn’t decide to be sober at first, but I like it. No painkillers. Tylenol or something, but nothing heavy duty.”
“Laurel, I’m about to cut into your abdomen and slice out an organ that’s attached to your intestines. You’re going to need painkillers.” Caitlin has wheeled a cart of supplies up to the table.
Laurel shakes her head. “I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”
Caitlin mumbles something about the crazy ones, and Laurel and Cisco both laugh.
“I don’t have general anesthesia here, but there’s no time to get you to a hospital. I’m going to give you epidural spinal anesthetic and then hang up some sterile dressings. You’ll be awake, but you won’t feel anything besides some pressure. I can give you a sedative, too.”
“No sedatives. The minimum,” Laurel says firmly. “I mean it.”
Caitlin’s eyes widen, but she nods and gets to work. She sends Cisco off for more supplies while she helps Laurel strip down to her bra and underwear and thoroughly cleans Laurel from just below her bra line to where her underwear begin.
She’s in too much pain to be embarrassed when Cisco comes back into the room. His eyes widen a little, and she can feel a slight smile tugging at her lips. It’s good to know she’s still got it after all of these months behind bars. Caitlin is putting stickers on her chest, a cannula in her nostrils, and her hair in a cap.
“You must have been a Girl Scout to keep all of this around,” she tells Caitlin, who is helping her sit up. She groans loudly; sitting is agony.
“Eight years,” Caitlin says proudly.
“Six,” Laurel replies, and they share a smile.
"Cisco, get over here. I need you to hold her in this position. Don’t let her move a millimeter. I mean it.”
Cisco doesn’t hesitate, climbing up onto the table with Laurel. She’s sitting Indian-style, and he mirrors her position. He grabs her shoulders tightly, and she instinctively wraps her arms around his. Her skin is soft, and this is the closest he’s ever been to her eyes.
“This is going to be cold,” Caitlin says as she disinfects a spot on Laurel’s spine. She shivers, and Cisco tells himself to look at her face.
“Okay. Laurel, don’t move,” Caitlin warns.
Cisco catches a glimpse of the needle she’s about to stick into Laurel’s spine, and it’s all he can do not to react. He stares instead into Laurel’s eyes, watching as her mouth opens in surprise.
“It’s okay,” he tells her. “It’s going to be okay.”
Her eyes are full of tears, but she doesn’t move as Caitlin slowly presses millimeter by millimeter of sharp metal into her back. Her nails dig into his shoulders.
“You’re doing great,” he tells her.
“Have you ever seen anyone do this badly?”
“No,” he admits, “but you’re still doing great.”
“All done,” Caitlin says. “You should start to feel numb here in a few minutes.”
Cisco climbs off the table and helps Laurel lie down before he busies himself helping Caitlin. They hang sterile drapes so Laurel won’t have to see them digging around in her insides, the thought of which makes Cisco’s stomach turn a little.
They both scrub in the biohazard sink, and he is thankful yet again for the intense and multidisciplinary training STAR Labs provided for employees before starting work. He knows how to maintain a sterile field, and he and Caitlin don sterile gowns, gloves and caps as if it is just another day of training.
“Can you feel this?” Caitlin asks this question repeatedly as she pokes Laurel in various places.
“No. I’m not even sure that you’re doing anything. Is she messing with me?” Laurel turns to Cisco.
“No. You’re just numb.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess.”
“Okay, Laurel. We’re going to get started. Let us know if you feel anything, even if it’s just a change in temperature.”
“Okay.” Laurel is obviously trying to relax, but Cisco sees through it easily.
“Hey,” he says, looking into her eyes and giving he his best comforting smile. He pretends that he doesn’t hear her heartrate monitor pick up, filing that information away to think about later. “Just think about the story you’re going to have.”
“Nope,” she says. “Shawna gets wind of this and she’ll start writing fanfiction.”
Caitlin picks up the scalpel and gives him a look that says to keep Laurel talking. He turns back to Laurel, not wanting to watch Caitlin make the incision. “What’s our couple name going to be?”
Laurel lets out a shallow breath. “Oh, God. This could be horrible.”
“Lisco? Caurel?”
“No. Those are horrible. We’re just going to have to be Laurel-slash-Cisco.”
“Not Cisco-slash-Laurel?”
“We’ll see.”
“Hold this,” Caitlin breaks in, showing him where to place a retractor. He does, grateful that his hands are so steady after years of dealing with delicate mechanical pieces.
“That is so weird,” Laurel comments. “Pressure, no pain.”
“I’ll bet. So, you’re Laurel. Do we get a last name?”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Why don’t you want us to know who you are?”
“You guys know me better than a lot of people do,” she tells them. “My last name doesn’t change anything.”
They are distracted from the conversation when Laurel develops a surprise bleed. It takes a little while to find it, but what is more stressful is trying to act like it’s not a big deal.
“What’s your blood type?” Caitlin asks as casually as she can manage.
“A-positive,” Laurel replies, her speech slurred slightly. Cisco notices that her eyelids are starting to flutter.
“Stay awake,” he tells her. “Sleeping through surgery is for chumps.”
“I’m no chump,” she replies with a small smile, and he grins. Caitlin has found the source of the bleed and is cauterizing it, but Laurel’s eyes close and her head slumps to the side.
“Laurel? Laurel, stay with me. Caitlin?”
“She’s lost a lot of blood, but she should be okay. She’ll need a transfusion right after this. I’m going to close. You’re O-positive, right? Would you grab a transfusion kit?” Cisco nods and does as she asks, setting everything up and scarfing down a tiny piece of one of Barry’s protein bars while he waits for Caitlin to finish closing the wound and cleaning up. He donates blood pretty regularly, but he’s prone to passing out if he hasn’t eaten.
Laurel is still incredibly pale, and he watches the heartrate monitor’s screen to reassure himself that she really is okay. He can’t imagine this place without her, and he doesn’t really want to.
“You ready?” Caitlin has removed the sterile drapes and cleaned everything up. She’s just finished washing her hands again.
Cisco nods. “Do your worst, Mrs. Cullen.”
“You are horrible. I was bored! It was a long plane ride.”
Soon enough, Cisco is a little over a pint lighter and Laurel is regaining a tiny bit of color. He is sitting by her bedside, holding her hand and sucking on a lollipop when Barry and Ronnie run into the lab.
“Whoa. What’s the hurry?”
“We fucked up,” Ronnie and Barry chorus together.
“What?”
Cisco’s voice draws their attention to Laurel, who is still and silent in the bed.
“What happened?” Barry pulls his hood back, running a hand through his hair.
Cisco has rarely seen Barry so worked up.
“Cisco went down to see Canary and found her burning up, vomiting, and clutching her right side.”
“Oh, no,” Barry says. “Appendicitis? Why isn’t she at the hospital? Why do you look so pale?” He turns to Cisco.
“It was pretty bad,” Caitlin admits. “There was no time for the hospital. We performed the surgery here. She lost a bit more blood than I’d like, so Cisco donated some.”
“But you don’t have general anesthesia here.”
“Spinal anesthesia,” Cisco breaks in. “She’s a trooper.”
“She was awake?” Ronnie pulls Caitlin into a hug. “Paging Doctor Badass.”
Barry puts his head in his hands. “Well, this makes things even worse.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know how the Arrow needed help with something? This was that something.” He types something into one of the computers, and they gather around the monitor to see security footage of the Arrow and the Flash taking on a woman with long brown hair and swords for hands. The fight seems to carry on for forever, and the woman traps Barry against a corner, pinning him to the wall through his shoulder. In seconds, three arrows are sticking out of the woman’s torso, and she falls to the ground. “You mean. . .”
“We had the wrong person. For three months. And if that’s not bad enough, there’s this.” Ronnie produces a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, and unfolds it.
Cisco stares down at the smiling woman in the picture. She is wearing a business suit and looks so happy and alive and whole that it stings. Dinah Laurel Lance. Missing. Call 1-247-809-5309.
“Oliver had those hanging everywhere around his club. She’s a friend of his.”
“Why wouldn’t she say anything? Why wouldn’t she make us test her blood to prove that she’s not a metahuman? It doesn’t make any sense.” Caitlin’s words say what they’ve all been thinking.
“I don’t know,” Barry says, defeated.
Nobody leaves that night. They sit around her bedside, Cisco holding her hand, and consume six pots of coffee.
She awakens early the next morning. Her eyes open and she immediately tries to snap into a sitting position, only to let out an agonized moan of pain.
Cisco pushes her shoulders back. “Easy, easy. Hey,” he says, looking into her eyes, which are slowly losing their panic.
“Hey,” she says.
He presses a hand to her forehead and frowns. “You still have a fever.”
“I’m fine, Cisco. I’ll be down there regaling Shawna with our epic love story before you know it,” she teases, and Barry nearly chokes on his coffee. The sputtering noise alerts her to the fact that the others are in the room, and she reaches for Cisco’s hand. He takes it and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
“It’s okay,” he says.
She nods, but looks at the others with wary eyes. “Party in the med bay?”
Barry stands up and slowly approaches her. He pulls up a stool on her other side, and Cisco can tell that she doesn’t trust him from the way that she inches a little closer to his side of the bed.
“Canar—Laurel,” he corrects himself. “I am so sorry.”
“For what?”
“Why didn’t you tell us you were innocent?”
Laurel’s heartrate speeds up, and her breathing becomes quick and shallow. Cisco doesn’t think; he climbs onto the bed with her and wraps and arm around her shoulders, stroking her hair with his other hand.
“Laurel, whatever it is, it’s going to be okay. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m here. We’re here for you.”
Slowly, her heartrate returns to normal and she’s breathing deeply again. He eyes shift to the others and a faint blush rises in her cheeks.
“I—it’s complicated,” she bites out, leaning her head against Cisco’s shoulder. Her eyes are heavy, and he knows she’s got to be in a lot of pain. Caitlin is obviously on the same wavelength, because she brings over a syringe.
“Sobriety,” Laurel says coldly. “I meant it.”
“It’s Tylenol, Laurel. It’s okay.” Caitlin shows her the bottle, and Laurel relaxes.
“Okay.”
Caitlin slips the needle into her IV line, and Laurel relaxes a little against Cisco.
“We just want to understand why you let us do that to you,” Barry says softly. “My dad is in prison for killing my mom. He didn’t do it, but he is. And now I’ve done the same thing to you.”
Laurel’s brow creases, and she shakes her head. “I’m so sorry. That’s not how the legal system is supposed to work,” she tells him. “I used to be a lawyer. I would know. But I chose to stay here.”
“Why?”
Laurel sighs and lets out a deep, rattling breath. Cisco rubs her arm, and he realizes how cozy they must look right now. He doesn’t care; she needs him.
“My boyfriend died in the earthquake in the Glades,” she says quietly. “I became an alcoholic. I did what I could to get away from the pain. I got better. I got into AA, went to meetings, started doing some good as an Assistant DA. And then I saw Sara, my sister and the first Canary, fall off of a rooftop after somebody shot her with three arrows.” The collective gasp of the room’s inhabitants seems to suck the air out of the space.
“I trained for six months, tried to be like her, and then the Arrow told me that I would never hold a candle to her memory and that I shamed her by trying. So I got low, and I got drunk, and I moved to Central City to try to do some good here. I was patrolling when I heard screams, and I saw her stab the man in the alley. She ran away, and I was trying to stop the bleeding when you found me. And when you said that you’d lock me up, I knew that it was good news,” she says, turning her glance to Barry. “I couldn’t keep spiraling if I couldn’t go anywhere. And I obviously wasn’t doing the city any good or I would have been able to stop her.”
Barry opens his mouth to protest, but Laurel keeps talking. “And I figured that whenever I wanted out, I’d ask for a blood test. But then I met Cisco and Caitlin, and there were movie nights and horrible seventies music and arts and crafts. And I got to know that I was never going to hurt anyone and that nobody was ever going to hurt me. I kind of belonged, and it was. . . It was really nice.”
“Laurel,” Cisco breathes, and pulls her completely into his arms. “That didn’t—that doesn’t have to change.”
She pulls back and blinks. “It doesn’t?”
“It kind of has to change,” Barry breaks in. “You’re not staying in a cell. But you can definitely be part of the team.”
“I think Central City could use the Black Canary,” Robbie remarks.
“Me, too,” Caitlin agrees. “In four to six weeks, when you’ve recovered fully."
Eight weeks later, Cisco waits eagerly at the station for Laurel to get off of the latest train from Star City. He has missed her; she’s spent the last three weeks in Star City proving to her family and friends that she’s alive and well, and a lot has happened in those three weeks.
The first night after she left, he had a nightmare. Usually, his nightmares feature the imposter Doctor Wells and his own death, but this time, it was Laurel’s heart that Wells crushed right in front of him. He woke up screaming, and his bedroom was shaking. The pictures fell off the walls, the mirror attached to his dresser shattered, and he looked down to see that his hands were vibrating. It was two in the morning, but he’d still called and told Barry and Caitlin to meet him at the lab. They’d taken samples of his skin cells, his blood, and his saliva under the microscope. His cells were vibrating
Since the discovery, he’s been working with Barry and Caitlin and Dr. Stein to figure out the extent of his powers. Doctor Stein thinks that his abilities are nearly limitless—he might be able to create sonic booms just by vibrating molecules in the air. So far, he’s learned to control it enough to shatter glass and to create small shockwaves. There’s so much more to learn, but even his excitement about his newfound powers cannot compare to his need to see Laurel. The steady stream of cat memes and text messages they’ve been exchanging have done nothing to ease the ache of her absence.
She alights on the platform and he finds himself running to her, scooping her up in his arms and spinning her around in a circle.
“Cisco,” she laughs, “I missed you, too.”
“I have superpowers,” he blurts out.
“What?”
He promises to show her, and she asks if they can go straight to STAR Labs. She’s missed being there, and he gives her a bit of a funny look before he takes her hand and leads her out to his car.
Laurel is mobbed with hugs when she arrives.
“So, did you tell her yet?” Barry rocks back on his heels and rubs his palms together.
“Superpowers, huh? He hasn’t told me anything else.”
“Would you like some tea?” Cisco is grinning madly, and Laurel gives him a funny look.
“Uh, sure.”
He pours some water from the tap into a mug, holds it between his hands, and stares at it. It takes a few seconds, but steam starts rising from the cup. He puts a teabag and a packet of sweetener in it before handing it to her.
“Careful. It’s hot.”
The warmth of the mug against her hands attests to that.
“How?”
“I. . . Well, I sort of have vibration powers.”
“Explain.”
“I had a nightmare. I woke up, the house was shaking, we ran some tests. The nightmare was the worst one I’ve had in. . . well, ever, and we think that it made my body display the way it changed when the dark matter hit it during the particle accelerator explosion.”
“But you just heated a cup of water.”
“Heat is really just about how fast the molecules are moving in something,” he tells her. “I speed them up for hot, slow them down for cold.”
Laurel grins. “That’s awesome. I’m happy for you, Cisco. Does this mean that you’ll be out on the streets with Barry and me?”
“I’ve still got some training to do,” he says, “but eventually, yes.”
“In the meantime,” she says, reaching into her purse. “Oliver gave me one of Sara’s old sonic devices. I was hoping that you could. . . modify it for me.”
She places the device in his palm, and he rolls it over.
“Yeah. I think I have a few ideas.”
He has the modified version ready for her within days. It’s a stylish choker, beautiful and elegant, and it goes with the costume they’ve been designing together. She still wears Sara’s jacket, but everything else is a lighter, more breathable yet still protective material that can withstand Barry’s speed if he needs to get her out of somewhere.
“I call it ‘The Canary Cry,’” he tells her.
“I love it,” she tells him earnestly.
The first time he goes out on patrol with Laurel and Barry, Cisco is equal parts nervous and excited. His shoulder still stings from where Caitlin punched him, jokingly saying that she doesn’t think she can hold down the fort with just Ronnie for company. His suit is kickass, but even it cannot protect him from the wrath of Caitlin. He styles himself as Vibe, and although he knows his hand-to-hand skills aren’t great, he’s got powers and more than enough weapons at his disposal, all of which he’s designed.
Their first call is a bank robbery in the middle of the night, and they arrive just as the bad guys are leaving. There are three of them and they are all dressed in black. Barry chases after the one with the last load of money while Laurel and Cisco run after the two who are trying to escape from the back. They hop into a van with no license plate and start peeling out of the place.
“Canary Cry,” Cisco gasps.
“They’re too far away!”
“Just do it!”
She does, and he concentrates on the soundwaves, amplifying them and aiming them at the car’s windows. They shatter inward, and the van swerves and hits a dumpster hard. Vibe and the Black Canary exchange a look, and then they are sprinting towards the vehicle. Cisco can make out two figures crawling, one after the other, out of the driver’s side door. Their faces and arms are crosshatched with glass cuts. Laurel is faster than he is, and she runs ahead to cut them off.
“Let’s get out of here!”
“How about not?” Laurel blocks their way, her staff fully extended, her wig shining in the moonlight and blowing in the breeze like she’s some sort of supermodel. Cisco has to remind himself that they are working and that he hasn’t even asked her out on a date yet.
“What are you gonna do about it, Blondie?”
She lets out a sigh. “Why is it that all they ever comment on is my hair?”
“I don’t know,” Cisco replies. “I’d be more likely to comment on how hot you look kicking them into the middle of next week.”
Cisco’s not sure, but he thinks she winks at him before she—as predicted—opens up a can of whoop-ass. Her staff becomes a blur as she takes on one of the crooks, but Cisco is distracted when the other one tries to run past him. He sends a shockwave, but his aim is still not the best. It clips the guy’s shoulder, and he staggers but keeps running. Sighing, Cisco knows he’ll have to go big or go home, and he’s not ready to go home yet.
“Sorry, Central City Department of Road Maintenance,” he mumbles, and focuses on vibrating the pavement in front of the guy’s feet. Cisco closes his hand, and the asphalt crumbles like a saltine cracker. He’s hit a water line, and a small geyser springs out of the broken street, soaking the front of the bad guy’s clothes.
“Going somewhere?”
The man in black turns around, disbelief heavy in his eyes. “What kind of freak are you?”
“I don’t like to box myself into a specific sub-type, but I guess I’ll be whatever type it takes to get you to stop.” He focuses on the pavement under the guy’s shoes, shaking it just enough that he can’t keep his balance. The guy falls over on his back just as cracks are starting to appear. By that time, Cisco has gotten close enough to jump the guy, who only manages to get in one punch—a wild, stinging haymaker that connects just beneath Cisco’s shades on his left cheek—before Cisco has rolled him over and zip-tied his hands behind his back. He drags the guy into a sitting position and props him up against the brick wall of the alley.
“People aren’t going to put up with this for long. They’ll find you and—”
Cisco sighs, pulls a silver bottle out of one of the pockets of his utility belt, and sprays the guy in the face with a fine, clear mist. “Goodnight.”
The guy’s head slumps to his chest, and he is instantly asleep.
“What was that?”
Cisco is sliding the bottle back into his belt when Laurel approaches him. Beyond her, he can see a prone form. It looks like she was a little less gentle.
“What was what?”
Laurel holds up her hand like she’s spraying hairspray, makes a sssshhh noise and then mimes falling asleep.
“Oh, that? I’m thinking of calling it Thug Spray.”
“I want some.”
Cisco stands up and looks at the pile of tenderized, unmoving goon behind her in the alley. “I’d say you did a good job by yourself, but sure.” He presses his finger to his com link. “Barry?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we get a cleanup on aisle four?”
Speaking of cleanups, the guy managed to hit him a little harder than Cisco had originally anticipated. As soon as they are through patrolling for the night, Laurel insists that he go get checked out by Caitlin, and he begrudgingly agrees. They have to go back to the cortex anyway to change out of their suits and back into street clothes.
“What happened to you?”
“It’s not that bad!”
“Do you have a medical degree? Get on the bed.”
Cisco gives her a mocking salute, but gets on the bed. He pulls off his shades—which stick behind his ears so they don’t fly off when he’s fighting people—and winces at the way he has to peel them away from his swollen left cheek.
“He did really well,” Laurel puts in. “That’s the only blow that anyone managed to land on him all night. Much better than my first time,” she remarks, and they all wince at the memory. She had a concussion and a sprained wrist because both she and Barry were a little slow on the uptake with the whole teamwork thing.
“But look at his face! I’m doing an x-ray. You could have a hairline fracture to your zygomatic bone.”
“There was no crunching, Caitlin. I’m fine.”
“Just shut up and let mommy help you,” Barry teases, dodging the pack of gauze that Caitlin throws at him. “Seriously, though. We’re working on hand-to-hand. Maybe we should go to Star City and train with Oliv-”
“Or not,” Laurel cuts in. “I’m pretty sure that I can train Cisco, or we could bring Ted in to do a little refresher course.”
“Ted?”
“The guy who trained me,” she says. “He’s still getting his strength all the way back after almost dying in the attacks on the Glades, but he knows what he’s doing. Just not Oliver, please.”
Barry gives her a strange look, but agrees.
She quickly changes the subject to Thug Spray and how it should be standard issue for all of them, and Cisco beams when she regales Caitlin and Ronnie with the highlights of the skirmish in the alley. There had been no cameras there, but she assures everyone that Cisco was “badass.”
Later, after they have determined that his face is just bruised, Laurel offers to drive him home. He doesn’t object; she is really proud of her new Saab, and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it’s a mom-car. They pull up outside his building and he gets ready to get out, but Laurel grabs his arm.
“You really did great tonight, Cisco.”
He looks into her eyes and he knows that she means it, and that’s enough to make him not care that smiling this hard hurts his face.
“Thanks, Laurel.” He pauses for a second, hand still on the door handle. “Hey, why were you so opposed to me meeting Oliver? I’ve met him before. I mean, we’re not besties or anything, but we don’t hate each other.”
“I just. . .” Laurel puts the car in park, pulls the emergency brake, and takes off her seatbelt. Cisco doesn’t know how to read minds, but he’s pretty sure that her body language is coded to warn that they are about to have a Serious Talk.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
She turns to look at him, and he finds himself mirroring her movements.
“I just thought it would be awkward for my new boyfriend to learn to fight from my ex-boyfriend. Too much history.”
“I guess that makes sens—Laurel, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“That guy might have hit you harder than we thought.” And then she is grabbing him by his jacket and pulling him towards her, and their mouths are pressed against each other and her lips are the softest, smoothest, most delightful things that have ever touched his.
They come in to the lab the next day—a Saturday—because it is their turn to lead arts and crafts for the prisoners. Laurel has insisted on becoming an active part of the planning committee, which fits in nicely with their new relationship because Cisco is the planning committee. Laurel picks Cisco up from his apartment, and he can’t help but smile when he sees the Saab. He really likes that car.
The ride is awkward but in a good way—hand brushing and giddy smiles and thinking about beginnings fills up the time between when they pull away from the curb by his place to the moment that they park in front of STAR Labs. Cisco has a large bag from a craft supply store in his arms, and Laurel carries their coffee.
“How am I supposed to teach this? I’ve never done it before.”
Cisco loads a cart with his bag of supplies and gives Laurel an indulgent smile.
“You, Laurel Lance, golden girl of Star City, have never done macramé? How? Weren’t you a Girl Scout?”
“Yeah, but my dad was our troop leader. We learned to change tires and use pressure points to incapacitate an assailant.”
“Damn, girl.”
“It’s not funny!”
“It’s kind of funny,” he tells her as they get in the elevator. He shudders, remembering the last time they were here, and tentatively reaches out to grab her hand.
“I’m going to look like an idiot. And they already hate me because I’m not one of them anymore.”
“You were never one of them,” he tells her softly, and drops her hand as the doors open. “Don’t worry. I was a junior counsellor at Camp Twin Ridges for four years. You’ll be able to add ‘mistress of macramé’ to your resume after this.”
It doesn’t take them long to get set up. He distributes the craft supplies to the prisoners, and (as usual) the Mist is the only one who tries to kill him. Cisco is wearing a gas mask, but the tendrils of green fog still snake around his neck. Luckily, he’s figured out that he can use his vibration powers to turn the Mist solid again by pushing the guy’s molecules close together. The Mist doesn’t seem too upset about this, however, and has him in a chokehold with his regular old arms of metaphorical steel.
Laurel pulls her favorite gun—a Ruger 380 Auto with a custom grip and a nice, smooth trigger pull—and aims it at the Mist’s head.
“Do you really want to be an asshole and ruin arts and crafts for everyone else? You know that Rainbow Raider is gonna make you pay for it if you do. Oh, yes. I’m talking about the singing.”
Even as Cisco’s airflow is restricted and he feels his neck bruising, his mind still says Damn, girl and his eyes notice the smooth curve of her cocked hip.
The Mist releases Cisco’s throat and pushes him out of the cell. Cisco manages to press the button to seal the cell as he stumbles to a stop, making a face at the Mist. For once, could that guy just chill?
“Hey. Are you okay?” She slides the Ruger into her waistband and places her hands on either side of his face. Her fingers are cool, lightly brushing his hair back so she can see his neck. She strokes the bruise on his cheek tenderly. Her touch is soft and light, and it’s driving him crazy. A brief flash of pressing his lips against hers, covering her body with his against the wall, and kissing her until she can’t remember her name enters his head, and he is so close to acting on it when she says his name again.
“Cisco?”
“Um, yeah. Thanks.”
She nods, her eyes still concerned, but he just gives her a smile and starts unwrapping hemp from a spool for them to use. All of the prisoners have their own little goody bags—hemp, beads, those little yarn cutters without exposed blades—but he didn’t know if Laurel would want a necklace or a bracelet so he decided to just put theirs together down in the pipeline.
“Necklace or bracelet?”
“Bracelet,” she says and he cuts off the right amount of hemp for her. She picks some shiny white beads to go with it, and he goes for a necklace with green beads.
“Does anyone need help?”
“Please. I’m pretty sure we’ve all done this before,” Shawna says, having taken off her shoes and anchored the beginnings of a friendship bracelet to her right pinkie toe. She watches Laurel try to figure out the knotting process and chuckles. “What, did you never go to summer camp?”
“Shut up,” Laurel grumbles, but doesn’t protest as Cisco starts to guide her fingers. “Wait,” she says, “this is just a half-hitch knot.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t know you knew knots.”
“Cisco, I know all sorts of knots.”
Shawna lets out an odd noise, but they ignore her as Cisco tries to teach Laurel how to thread the beads on without messing everything up.
“Just tug that—gently.”
“I’m never going to get the hang of this.”
“It’s like riding a bike,” Cisco says, covering her hands with his again.
“But it’s not easy if you’ve never done it before.”
“It’s your first time. Take it slow.”
“I don’t want to take it slow. I want to get there.”
“You’ll get there. It’s all about the journey.”
Shawna drops the strands of her bracelet. “Are you hearing this?” she yells loudly.
“Still no proof,” Mark replies, halfway into a keychain with a giant blue bead in the middle.
“We need evidence,” Rainbow Raider concurs. He’s not knotting the string he was given like the others are; instead, he is stringing his beads onto a single piece of twine like a child making a macaroni necklace.
“Oh, come on,” Shawna sulks.
Cisco and Laurel ignore her, working in silence for a little while. They occasionally pause, asking if anyone needs help, before returning to work when they are met with silence.
“That’s it. Just take it inch by inch.”
“This is agony.”
“This is an exercise in patience.”
Laurel lets out a sigh, but slowly begins repeating the motions on her own. Cisco pulls his hands back and returns to his own work.
“You never really talk about developing your powers. I thought you’d be more excited,” she remarks as she tries to keep going.
"I was—I am—it’s just kind of weird, you know? You resign yourself to being the plucky sidekick-slash-tech-guy, and then suddenly you’re rising up, back on the street…”
“I think I’m the one who did my time and took my chances,” Laurel says wryly.
“I love you,” Cisco blurts out. “I mean, I love the way that you get my song references and beat up criminals.”
“Smooth,” the Weather Wizard calls.
“Less commentary, more macramé,” Cisco shoots back.
“And I think that I managed to screw this up already,” Laurel says, holding up a tangle of hemp and beads.
“How. . . ?”
“Talent,” she replies, tugging at random strings.
“No. Stop. You’re going to make it worse. Gently. Let me show you.” Cisco takes the mess from her and she leans over, her chin almost on his shoulder, to see what he’s doing.
“You need to find where it’s all knotted up. Trace it back—find out what creates all of that tension.”
“Okay. I think it’s there.”
“Good. Then find the end, and work it—gently—back through those loops. That’s it. You’re doing well.”
“Like this?”
“Like that. And now, you just pull the right place, and all of that,” he helps her pluck a particular piece of hemp, “unravels.”
“Oh.”
He looks into her eyes, noting that her pupils are dilated. Their faces are inches away from each other, and he can’t take it anymore. She has—figuratively and slightly literally—been tying him up in knots for the last hour. He leans back and presses his lips against hers hungrily. As he nips at her bottom lip, she drops her project. He turns around and slowly presses her against the floor, scattering beads everywhere. She snakes her arms around his neck and up into his hair, pulling him down towards her. He has a brief moment of what do I do with my hands?
Laurel solves his problem, flipping them over to where she’s straddling him and he has two macramé projects digging into his spine. Cautiously, she licks his lips and he allows her warm tongue into his mouth as his hands reach up under her shirt, ghosting over the soft skin of her sides. His head goes foggy and a warm heaviness settles in the pit of his stomach. A part of him knows the has a boner in the middle of an arts and crafts program in their top-secret prison, but that part is quickly pushed aside by the fact that Laurel Lance is pressing her pelvis to his in just the right spot and her tongue is currently battling his for dominance. His hands climb higher. They both realize that they need air. That one tiny breath is enough to allow the sound of the outside world in again, and the first thing they hear is a loud, joyful squeal.
Laurel rolls off of him and they both sit up and turn around to see Shawna standing up in her cell, friendship bracelet still attached to her toe, and raising her hands up in the air triumphantly.
“Pay up, you sons of bitches—Blackvibe lives!”
Answering groans and a few weak protests meet Shawna’s declaration, but she doesn’t appear to hear them as she does a bouncy little victory dance.
Hot all over and breathing heavily, Cisco turns to Laurel. “Blackvibe?”
“Black Canary and Vibe, duh,” Shawna breaks in.
“Blackvibe,” Laurel repeats thoughtfully.
Cisco leans in to capture her lips again. “I’d ship it.”