Chapter Text
There was a deep rumble all around. It startled you awake. You were underwater. You swam to the surface, panic flooding your system. When your head breached the surface you looked around. You didn’t recognize anything around you. Vague flashes of memory crossed your mind. The sound of an alarm, the way people's faces fell to fear, the air crashing into your body.
You sat on the beach, breathing hard. You looked down at your clothes, they were destroyed, just bits of tattered fabric clinging close to your body.
A red blur surrounded by lightning sped across your vision. It instantly caught your attention because not only had you never seen anything like it but it had turned around and was now coming closer. It became clear that the red blur was a person. He stopped in front of you.
“Hey, are you alright? You look confused?” The man asked. His voice was soft and kind, like all he wanted to do was help.
“I… I’m fine… I think. Where am I?”
“Central City,” He cocked his head as if the question was foolish. “Are you sure you’re ok?” He stepped closer. His voice remained calm. You were too lost in thought to hear him, all of your memories flooding back.
Your friend from college had asked you to come. He said it had to be this weekend, the Particle Accelerator was set to debut.
"You know that's not really my thing." You told him over the phone.
"Yeah, but it would mean the world to me and Caitlin. We've been working on it for forever." Ronnie said. He was using a voice you knew was accompanied by puppy-dog eyes.
"Fine, I'll be there," You said playfully. You couldn't say no to that tone. "But we have to do things other than that while I'm in town!"
"You got it." Ronnie laughed.
You stood in the crowd watching Dr. Harrison Wells give a speech about the Particle Accelerator. You weren't fully paying attention. Not until you heard alarms, something had gone wrong.
You ran out of the building, too focused on getting away to think about where you were going. You found yourself at the waterfront. There was nowhere left to go. You turned back to S.T.A.R. Labs. Your friends were still in there. Tears flooded your eyes as an explosion went off. You could see the shock wave coming from the lab. You braced for impact then-
You were broken out of thought by the man in red touching your shoulder. You looked up at his masked face, he was clearly worried.
“I think I should see a doctor…” you mumbled. He nodded his head and picked you up. He ran you to a familiar-looking lab to an even more familiar face.
“Oh my god! [Y/N]!” Caitlin ran up to you, wrapping her arms around you. “It’s so good to see you!” She said releasing you from her grasp.
“You know him?” The masked man asked.
“Yeah, this is [Y/N]. He was…” She trailed off, her voice quickly sombering.
“I was Ronnie’s old roommate.” You said. “Caitlin it’s good to see you too but I’m really confused. I remember being here for the Particle Accelerator but not much after that. What happened?” Caitlin and the masked man shared a look and the man took off his mask. They sat you down and explained what happened with the Particle Accelerator. It had been 10 months since the explosion. Caitlin had insisted on doing tests on you to ensure you were alright and the man, Barry Allen, had run off to get you a change of clothes. He brought you a pair of boxers, sweatpants, and a S.T.A.R labs shirt. You were also introduced to the two other people working at S.T.A.R. Labs, Cisco and Dr. Wells. They brought you to a makeshift hospital room.
“Thank you for doing these tests… I’m so sorry about Ronnie.” You said after being told about his death.
“Thank you.” Catilin said looking at the test results. “Well, you seem healthy but there are some inconsistencies. Your eyes are very different, they are almost an unnatural shade of blue and you’re going through fluids about as fast as Barry does.”
“Do you remember the night of the Particle Accelerator explosion?” Barry asked.
“Not really. I know I was here, Ronnie had asked me to come see it. I remember the alarms and I went running out of the building. Then I woke up in the water 10 months later.” you answered.
“I’m going to pull up security cam footage to see if we can find out what happened.” Cisco said walking out of the room.
“Can we go back to the test results? You said I was going through fluids as fast as Mr. Allen, what does that mean?”
“The Particle Accelerator changed a lot of people. It’s why I’m in a wheelchair,” Dr Wells said gesturing to himself. “And why Barry is The Flash.”
“Because of the explosion, Barry became a meta-human. It gave him superspeed and increased metabolism.” Caitlin said.
“There is a high probability that the explosion turned you into a meta-human as well.” Dr. Wells continued.
“Are you saying there is a real possibility that I have superpowers?” You asked.
“It’s a possibility.” Caitlin replied.
“Guys I found the security footage!” Cisco yelled. He played the video on the screens on the walls of the cortex. You walked over to watch what happened. You saw yourself running and stopping at the waterfront. You turned around to look at the lab and that’s when it exploded. You braised yourself for the blast but it still sent you flying into the water. After that, the video cut off into static.
“Ok, so I fell in the water no big deal, that doesn’t mean I’m a meta-human.”
“You were blasted into the water by a shockwave of unknown elements and survived underwater for 10 months. I don’t think there’s any way you aren’t a meta.” Cisco comments.
“Well if I am a meta why don’t I have any powers?”
“You most likely do have powers you just don’t know what they are yet.” Dr. Wells said.
“If you want, we can help you figure out what you can do.” Barry suggested.
“I’d love to stay and learn but I don’t live in Central City, I’m from Chicago. Before I make any big decisions I’m going to call my landlord to see if I even still have an apartment.”
“Oh right, you were staying with us for the week. I totally forgot.” Caitlin said. She looked embarrassed that she had forgotten. You didn’t blame her, a lot had happened in the past few months. “Go make your call, we can wait and you can stay with me if you need.” She continued.
“Thank you, Cait. I might need to take you up on that offer.” You said walking into the hallway to call your landlord and employer to see if you had a house or a job. There was a quiet moment as you walked away.
“Is anyone going to comment on the fact that this is the second meta in a row that didn’t try to immediately kill us.” Cisco said, a combination of surprise and joy in his tone.
“I’m just glad I found him. I was just running around trying to find something to do and I saw him looking pretty confused.” Barry sighed.
“I’m glad you found him too… I honestly thought he was dead.” Caitlin looked off into the corridor where you were standing. “It’s weird to see him again.”
“It’s like seeing a ghost.” Wells said, almost speaking from experience. Everyone simply gave curt nods, not exactly knowing what he was referring to but all having theories. That didn’t matter now, you were walking back into the cortex with a disappointed look on your face.
“Well, my boss and landlord knew that I was in Central City when the Particle Accelerator exploded. When I didn’t come home they assumed I was dead so I no longer have a job or a place to live.” You were ashamed to admit it. It wasn’t your fault but you still felt bad. Caitlin instantly pulled you into a hug.
“If there’s anything we can do…” Barry started but was cut off by Dr. Wells.
“No, this is my fault, I should be the one to fix it. I have ruined enough lives. I will provide you with a place to stay and food until you can find a job.”
“Are you sure Dr. Wells? You don’t need to do that.”
“It’s the least I can do.” He nodded.
“Well thank you, sir.”
“Does this mean you’re staying for a while?” Barry asked, almost pleading.
“I guess it does.” You answered.
“It will take a few days for me to find a suitable place for you to stay, would it be a trouble for you to stay with someone else for a bit?” Dr wells asked.
“You can stay with me,” Caitlin cut in. “Your stuff is still at my apartment, I didn’t have the heart to get rid of it.”
“I’d really like that.” You said with a soft smile.
“I’ll go start looking, you try and learn about your powers.” Dr. Wells instructed. With that, he rolled out of the cortex.
“I am definitely down for trying to find out what you can do,” Cisco said, clearly very excited. “You fell into water so your powers would most likely be water-related so let's start there. There are some of the obvious; controlling water, breathing underwater, turning into a fish hybrid.”
“Pretty sure we can cross that last one off the list, he walked out of the water soaking wet and looking fully human.” Barry cut in.
“Still there are a lot of things we can try!” Cisco said, clearly not discouraged.
“I would like to know if you can breathe underwater,” Caitlin said. “It would help explain how you survived underwater for so long.” Barry nodded at this and ran away. In a second he was back with a large bucket of water. There were a plethora of puddles behind him. He turned back to look at them and smiled sheepishly.
“I’ll clean that up.” He said.
“So what? Do I just dunk my head in and try to breathe?” Caitlin shrugged and you plunged your face into the bucket. Once your head was submerged you took a deep breath. You expected water to fill your nose but instead, it was just air. You opened your eyes, you could see clear as day.
“I can breathe!” You shouted, still underwater. It was a garbled bubbly mess and when you realised no one understood you, you lifted your head out of the bucket. “I can breathe!” you repeated with the same excitement. Caitlin nodded and jotted something down on a clipboard she was holding.
“Awesome! Now can you try moving the water with your mind?” Cisco asked.
“I can try.” You stretched out your arm and focused on the bucket of water, trying to move it with your mind but nothing happened. You spent several minutes on this but when it seemed like it would never work you shook your head.
“I don’t think I can move it magically.”
“I wonder if you can heal yourself or others with water. Like some waterbenders could in Avatar: The Last Airbender.” Barry suggested.
“That’s an interesting idea but it would require both [Y/N] and someone else getting hurt.” Caitlin said.
“I don’t mind if it will help me learn what I can do.” You said.
“And I heal fast, even if he can’t it wouldn’t be that big a deal for me.” Barry continued.
“Alright, if you are both alright with it.” Caitlin sighed. She walked away to retrieve a small scalpel. “Barry, you first.” She placed the knife against his outstretched forearm and lightly scraped him. It was inconsistent and hesitant, only sometimes deep enough that it drew blood. It was clear that Caitlin didn’t like hurting her friend even for the sake of an experiment. When she let go you grabbed his hand and placed it in the bucket of water. You grabbed some of the water in your hand and ran it over the scratch. It cleaned the blood but it didn’t seem to do any magic healing.
“I'm sorry, it’s not working.” You said. “Let’s bandage you up then we can see if I can heal myself.” Barry nodded his head, still smiling brightly. After patching Barry up Caitlin made a similar cut on your own arm. This time, however, as soon as you touched the water the wound was gone.
“Looks like you can heal yourself.” Cisco said. “Too bad you can’t heal others, that would be good for a superhero team.”
“I don’t think I’m the superhero type.” You said.
“Oh come on, you are the third meta who doesn’t want to use your powers for evil. Why wouldn’t you want to be a superhero?” Cisco countered.
“I don’t know it just doesn’t seem like my powers are suited for it. And besides, not everyone wants to be like The Flash or Starling City's Hood.”
“He likes to be called The Arrow now actually.” Barry cut in.
“Regardless, I just don’t know if it’s for me.” You continued. Barry placed a hand on your shoulder.
“You don’t have to be a superhero if you don’t want to. We just want to help you understand and control your powers.” Barry said. He was trying to comfort you, smiling brightly at you. You smiled back. “It’s getting pretty late why don’t we call it a day?” Barry suggested.
“That’s probably smart,” Caitlin said. “[Y/N] you could come back to my place and get settled, we can come back to all of this tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. I can’t wait to eat, I’m starving.” You said.
“Why don’t we all have dinner together at my place? It would be less suspicious if I ordered 10 pizzas for 6 people rather than 3.” Barry suggested.
“I’d be down for that. Caitlin? [Y/N]?” Cisco said grabbing his coat off one of the desk chairs.
“[Y/N] you go, I should actually clean up my apartment a bit before you stay over.” Caitlin said nervously.
“I’d love to have dinner with y’all but Cait if you're worried about your house being a bit messy I promise I don’t care.”
“Really, it’s fine. I’ve needed an excuse to clean and I clean better alone.” You shrugged it off and went your separate ways.
Caitlin went back home to her apartment. She hadn’t cleaned it in 10 months, not since the Particle Accelerator exploded. She couldn’t bring herself to do anything but work after Ronnie died. You staying over, even if it was only for a short time, gave her a spark to start caring for herself a bit more.
You walked into Barry’s house nervously. At the sound of the door, a man from inside the house turned around and started speaking.
“Hey Bar, hey Cisco, I ordered pizza like you asked but…” The man paused looking at you. “Barry who is this?” He asked, clearly suspicious.
“Joe this is [Y/N], [Y/N] this is my dad Joe West. [Y/N] got hurt after the Particle Accelerator explosion and we only just found him. He was in a coma underwater for 10 months…” Barry babbled trying to explain.
“[Y/N] is the meta of the week, but he’s cool.” Cisco cut in.
“You aren’t going to try and kill us?” Joe asked.
“No sir.” You answered, a hint of fear lacing your voice.
“Then it’s nice to meet you.” Joe said with a smile and an outreached hand. You shook it and smiled.
“Where’s Iris?” Barry asked.
“She’s out with Eddie,” Joe said rolling his eyes. “Speaking of missing parties, where is Caitlin? This feels like something she wouldn’t want to miss out on.”
“She’s back at her apartment cleaning. I’m staying with her until I can get settled again. We’re old friends.”
“That only makes me more confused. If she’s an old friend of yours why isn’t she here with us?” Joe questioned.
“Knowing Cait, she probably hasn’t cleaned her apartment since the Particle Accelerator explosion. My guess is after Ronnie died she fell into a pretty deep depression and this is just an excuse so she can spend some time to herself thinking.”
“Well you hit the nail on the head with the depression,” Cisco said. “After his death, she basically only worked. It was only when Barry came out of his coma that she started acting more like her old self.” There was a collective nod of understanding.
“Well let’s just hope things get better for her,” Joe said. “Now please, eat. I didn’t get these pizzas just to sit there.” The rest of the night was filled with good food and new friends. You ended up drinking a lot of water that night before going over to Caitlin’s house. You assumed you were just thirsty after not drinking water for months. Walking into Caitlin’s house was like a fever dream. It was exactly the same as it was when you last saw it. You didn’t focus on it too much, only externally noting how clean it was. Caitlin had set up a place for you to sleep on her couch just like last time and the two of you went to bed.
You woke up in the middle of the night extremely parched. You walked into Caitlin’s kitchen to get some water but when you went to reach for a glass you were missing your hand. Seeing your lack of hand you let out a scream. It clearly woke up Caitlin as she quickly ran into the kitchen. She saw your lack of hand and yelled too.
“Where did your hand go?!”
“I don’t know! I just wanted some water and it’s just gone!” She stepped closer taking your arm in her hands.
“It’s like an amputation. It looks like it’s been gone for years.”
“Well, it hasn’t! I had it when I went to bed! Where did it go?”
“I don’t know. Let's get you to S.T.A.R. labs. I’ll do some tests and try and see what’s going on.” Caitlin tried to sound calm but she was clearly panicked. Getting to the lab was easy, figuring out what was wrong and how to fix it was hard. Caitlin had called Barry, Cisco, and Dr. Wells but it would be a bit before they showed up. Barry was there first, to no one’s surprise. When he saw your missing hand he grabbed the bucket of water from earlier and dumped it on you. Just as you were about to yell at him, you felt better. You looked down at your hands and they were back.
“How did you know that would work?” Caitlin asked.
“I didn’t, I was just hoping for the best.”
“It makes sense, with your healing factor…” Caitlin mumbled.
“But why did my hand disappear in the first place?”
“You were dehydrated.” Dr. Wells said rolling into the lab. “Your body runs on water differently than ours do. Your body needs water to keep itself stable. Without water, you lose yourself.” He explained.
“Is there a way to make it so I don’t lose my hands any time I need water?”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Cisco asked walking in.
“We found out [Y/N] needs more water than the average person. He was dehydrated and his hand disappeared.” Barry explained.
“Well, that’s not good.” Cisco mumbled.
“No, it’s not. What can we do so I don’t wake up without hands every night?” you asked.
“I might be able to make you something that monitors your water levels and takes the water in the air and gives it to you when you need it. You would still need to drink more water than a normal person but you wouldn’t wake up missing parts of yourself.” Cisco suggested.
“That sounds good.” You said.
“We can start on it tomorrow, for now, we all need rest.” Dr. Wells said. No one had any counterarguments so you all went home again. The next morning Dr. Wells and Cisco went to work on the device. You spent time with Caitlin. You got the chance to catch up and you got to do a bit of job hunting. Before the Particle Accelerator explosion, you were a psychology professor. You went on a long quest but no one in Central City seemed to need a teacher or a psychologist. At the end of the day, you got back to S.T.A.R. labs and the boys had finished the device. They fashioned it into a watch so it wasn’t too weird to wear. It did exactly what they said it would. It turned water from the air and condensed it so you could absorb it when you needed. Over the next few months, you did odd jobs and helped Team Flash when you could. You mostly worked at Jitters so you saw them pretty often. You were not a proper superhero but your knowledge of people came in handy sometimes. At one point Cisco insisted on coming up with a code name for you if you did become a super but you shot him down saying if you were going to be a super you wouldn’t want a secret identity. Eventually, you started looking into other meta’s, becoming an expert on meta-humans and meta-human psychology. You helped metas and people affected by the Particle Accelerator explosion learn how to accept the changes that the explosion caused. It was a good life. Sometimes helping your superhero friends but mostly helping the people of Central City learn and adapt to a world post meta-humans.