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As a kid, Cisco had dreamed of being a superhero, but never like this.
He could feel the power in him growing, could feel it creeping through his veins and dancing along his nerves. He sometimes wondered if this was how the speed force felt to Barry--but he doubted it. Where Barry felt all the good his powers could do, all Cisco could feel was destruction. Physical, metaphysical, emotional, psychological. Barry was confident that Cisco would never become Reverb, and Cisco wanted to feel reassured by that, but Barry just couldn't feel this, how easy it would be, how simple it was to justify using his powers for profit, or revenge, or for plain shits and giggles.
The headaches that used to accompany his vibes had disappeared months ago.
Sometimes he saw Harry watching him out of the corner of his eye, and he wondered what the older man was thinking. Was he looking for traces of Cisco's doppelganger? Was he seeing anything? Did he have information about Cisco's powers that he was terrified to share with him?
Cisco wanted to tell him, “You're right. You should be afraid. If you know anything about what I can do, you should keep it secret from me and guard it with your life.”
He could just barely feel the rumblings beneath his feet, tremors and shudders, cars and buses roaring down streets, construction workers jackhammering away a few blocks from the lab, tectonic plates shifting and grinding against each other far far below him, miles away, and somehow Cisco knew that one day, he would be able to reach out and bend those vibrations to his will; slow them down or speed them up or shatter them into a million pieces
(without breaking a sweat)
like the dozens of versions of himself echoing in the back of his mind. It was there, just beyond his fingertips, and his reach was growing every day. It was all he could do not to stretch out, test his power.
At night, sleep came fitfully. Nightmares plagued him, dreams of dreams of dreams. He thought of the sleeping pills in his bathroom, thought of medicating himself into at least a single night's rest--but he needed the terror and the exhaustion.
He didn't know what he would do with himself otherwise.
---
Iris, with her brilliant mind and sharp observations, would have made an amazing detective.
Their hangout sessions had dwindled in the face of everything, understandably, but Iris always seemed to know when to show up in the cortex with his usual large cup of hazelnut coffee. With how busy they’d been with the breaches and Zoom, the coffee “dates” became regulated to we-have-to-talk situations only.
When he walked into the cortex one day to find Iris sitting at the computers, two styrofoam cups emblazoned with the Jitters logo sitting on the console, he sighed, preparing himself for a talking-to.
“I'm fine,” he greeted, even while dropping into the empty seat next to her, picking up the cup and burning his tongue on the coffee.
“Cisco, you're exhausted,” Iris said, taking a sip from her own cup. “I'm worried about you.”
“I'll be fine,” Cisco told her. “I'm just focused on Zoom, we all are.”
Iris nodded. “You're right, we are. But I don't think that's it.”
Cisco started down at the cup in his hands, pensive and quiet. This wasn’t really a conversation he wanted to have, but stopping Iris when she was determined was like stopping a speeding 18-wheeler with your body.
“Why didn't you want anyone to know about your powers?” And there it was. Iris always knew what questions to ask.
“I don't know,” he lied, his eyes still not meeting hers. Iris sat back, sipping her coffee, and he could feel the weight of her stare on him. He sighed. “I'm not like Barry.”
When he finally looked up, she was frowning. “What do you mean?”
“Barry's a hero,” Cisco said, throwing up his hands in frustration. “He's fast and, and good, and his powers help people. And I'm starting to--to see other versions of myself, other worlds and other timelines.” He looked up at her, heart pounding and stomach squirming. “And I don't think I'm capable of being good.”
“Bullshit,” Iris said when he was finished. Startled, he sat back in his chair as she continued. “You're one of the best people I've ever met. Who cares what some other versions of you decided to do? You're the Cisco of this world and this timeline and you get to decide what that means.”
“What if I make the wrong decision?” he asked her, voice wavering.
“I won't lie to you, it could happen,” she told him solemnly, then smiled. “But I don't think it will. The Cisco who helped Barry become a hero? The Cisco who used his powers to help people even though he was terrified of them? The Cisco who’s smart and funny and selfless? He's made some amazing decisions so far and I don't have any reason to believe that's gonna stop any time soon.”
“Maybe,” Cisco conceded, cheeks hot.
“Definitely,” Iris said, smiling around the rim of her cup before taking another sip. “Now come on, it's been forever since I've had any good gossip. What's new?”
Cisco settled in his chair, unaware that he'd gotten so tense, and launched into a story about the massive fight the new barista at Jitters had had with her ex in front of the entire shop.
---
Harry, it turned out, was just as observant as Iris, possibly more so, but he was also far less gentle about it. Cisco had known this about him, had experienced it first hand, but somehow it still didn't quite prepare him for it.
“He never made it to college.”
Cisco jumped, nearly spearing his screwdriver through the circuitry he'd been working on in the process, and turned to find Harry standing in the doorway of his work room. He was leaning against the door frame, one leg crossed in front of the other in an attempt to appear casual, but the way his arms were folded tensely in front of him betrayed him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cisco grumbled. Maybe if he was an asshole, Harry would give up and try again later. It could happen.
“When we went back to my Earth, I did some research,” Harry continued, stepping further into the room, much to Cisco's annoyance. “Your doppelganger, Reverb. He never made it to college.”
Cisco frowned, the pieces not adding up the way Harry seemed to think they should. “So? I only went myself thanks to a scholarship.”
“So,” Harry drawled, as if speaking to a child. “His grades were just as good as yours, he was just as clever and brilliant. But no one cared--and as a result, he had none of the opportunities you did. The Cisco Ramon of my world grew up bitter and angry and full of unrealized potential. It's no wonder that when Zoom found him, he was all too happy to join up.”
“What's your point?” Cisco asked him.
“Reverb was put on that path long before my particle accelerator gave him his abilities,” Harry told him, voice uncharacteristically soft. “The life he lived, he built himself, he made that choice. You weren't him then and you aren't him now--and there’s no reason to believe that's going to change.”
With that, Harry spun on his heel and walked back out, leaving Cisco cross-armed and confused behind him.
(later that night, he looked up that college scholarship that he didn’t remember applying to and had seemed to come out of nowhere, and saw that it had actually been set up by Harrison Wells himself, in ‘loving memory’ of his beloved wife, Tess)
(sleep didn’t come easily for him those days, but that night, it didn’t come at all)
---
The thing was, Cisco knew he wasn't evil.
They all meant well, with their encouraging speeches and their belief in him. And sometimes, it helped. But deep down, he always knew that he really would never be anything like his doppelganger; like Harry said, Reverb had chosen his path long before his powers developed. That Cisco was evil, this one was not, and that's how it was.
But ‘not evil’ wasn't the same as ‘good’.
And that was the part that scared him.