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On Earth-20, there is no Flash.
Cisco is sort of weirded out by that, when he gets there. It’s an accident, a vibe gone weird, and he’s going to get himself back home as soon as he gets his glasses fixed, but still. He’s there, and there is no Flash.
Barry’s there, working at STAR Labs – which has about thirty people still working for it, even though the particle accelerator malfunctioned in this universe too – and apparently this happens with a lot of Cisco Ramons in the multiverse. Which, he sort of knew, like, he dreamt about this sometimes, other hims walking through portals. Reverb said there were more of them, and he wasn’t wrong. Turns out in every reality where the particle accelerator goes wrong, Cisco gets powers. He just… well, the Flash is sort of important. He’s got that speed force Jedi connection thing going on, which is apparently also multi-universal.
So it’s weird, that there’s no Flash at all.
“I mean, there’s Jesse Quick and Impulse,” this Barry, who is apparently a physicist, says while they’re tinkering with his glasses. Worst part about this universe, in Cisco’s humble opinion, is that Caitlin doesn’t even live in Central City. She and Ronnie are living the dream in Opal City, running a non-profit that helps metahuman kids get off the street. There are even more metahumans here, and Caitlin has her ice powers, so it’s a worthwhile goal. It’s just kind of lonely without her here. “Dr. Wells’s daughter and her boyfriend. They were apparently on a romantic drive when the lightning struck his car.”
Cisco knows, but he doesn’t ask, if Impulse’s name is Wally West. He’s not gonna invade the kid’s privacy like that. He ain’t Barry.
“Got a Captain Cold here?” he asks, mostly joking. But Barry goes absolutely red, like, tomato-red, like, only-white-people-ever-get-this-red red. “I’ll take that as a yes, oh my god. What’s wrong? Is he a supervillain here? I mean, he’s a supervillain on Earth-1, or he was, he’s sort of… weird, these days. Got brainwashed after he died, I’m not even joking, like, it was a whole – thing.” Cisco waves his arm, and Barry looks like he’s swallowing down about ten thousand things he wants to say.
“He’s… not a supervillain.” Cisco can hear the emphasis on that particular word, and he frowns at Barry. This Barry, like the one on Earth-2, wears a ring. It isn’t gold like that Barry’s, though, it’s so light a silver it’s almost white. Cisco, when he first saw it (after meeting Eddie, who was married to Iris), had been uncomfortably sure that it was platinum. He’s fiddling with the ring now, and the blush painting his face has only barely receded to acceptable-levels. “He’s… Detective Leonard Allen. A hero,” Barry finishes.
Cisco very nearly says something he’ll totally regret later. Because this isn’t his world, has a whole set of superheroes he hasn’t even heard of – some, like Supergirl, exist on other Earths and have popped by for a visit, but that Green Lantern guy is seriously weird. The rules that apply on his earth don’t matter here.
“So you married a superhero, huh,” Cisco says instead, and Barry visibly relaxes. “Though don’t the police dislike vigilante types? I mean, I’m not judging, man, I’m a vigilante.”
Barry shakes his head, the smallest smile taking the finally-disappeared blush’s place.
“No, actually, he runs the metahuman unit at CCPD. They call themselves the Rogues, but that’s just Len being an asshole. I named them, technically,” Barry explains. Which… sounds really familiar to their universe, actually. And everyone’s personality seems pretty much the same here. Hartley’s even a dick, too, with the weird flute he carries around to mind-control people because he’s actually clever about his metahuman abilities. “He said it was cute.”
Cisco goes over that in his head again, and he has to ask. He has to.
“So, you’re saying Captain Cold is a metahuman in this world. No cold gun, just… powers?”
“He has a gun issued by the CCPD, but… cold gun? He can create a cold field. Not like Caitlin Snow, he doesn’t absorb the energy himself, but it’s similar in execution. There was an accident with liquid nitrogen the day the accelerator malfunctioned. He almost died, but instead he got superpowers. He almost got fired when they found out what he could do, but the new anti-discrimination laws are pretty helpful regarding metahumans. His sister helped write them, actually. Golden Glider. She has a weird gun, though.”
At least some things aren’t so different, Cisco thinks. Even if Lisa isn’t a mechanical engineer-turned thief, and Snart isn’t a kind-of-supervillain. And Barry is married to Captain Cold. Who… isn’t he more than twice Barry’s age? That’s some serious cradle robbing right there.
But Cisco isn’t going to judge. In this universe he calls himself Harmonic, and he’s pretty sure he actually dated Hartley sometime in the past. Talk about trippy, right there.
Like, that crush? Lasted about two seconds on his earth before he got a hold of himself and reminded himself that he was better than that. Maybe his Barry had a crush on Cold, too, even if he’s with Iris now. There was definitely a vibe there, that whole redemption-attempt that kind of worked and kind of didn’t (but then again, brainwashed-after-death is apparently a thing these days).
“Yeah, I made the guns in my universe.”
Barry frowns, then opens his mouth, and Cisco raises a hand. He can see where this is going.
“Yes, I did say supervillain, and yes, I’m a superhero. They held my brother hostage and made me recreate them after we destroyed them the first time. Fun times!”
Barry tilts his head, so much a bobble-head in any universe it’s actually kind of funny. This time Cisco can’t really get a read on what he wants to say, though, so he just waits. He can take recriminations from this Barry, who seems to be a lot lighter than his own. Probably because this Barry didn’t lose his mom when he was eleven, because this universe doesn’t have Time Masters who screw with everyone and everything in their path.
Which… might explain ‘Captain Cold is a detective,’ actually.
“STAR Labs makes weapons in your universe?” is what he goes with. Cisco shrugs.
“Not really. Wells – Eobard Thawne – was actually pretty pissed I’d made the cold gun, which makes sense since he was a speedster too. They’re weak to cold.”
This Barry apparently understands fits of irrationality and paranoia, because he doesn’t say anything else. He talks to Gideon, which, Cisco wonders if he should copy its code and bring it back, since the Barry Allen of his universe is nowhere near creating it. But then again, that Gideon was being controlled by Eobard Thawne. It could have lied to get them to trust the information it gave them.
They have a nice conversation. Cisco is never telling his Barry how nice Nora Allen of Earth-20 is, bringing sandwiches to her son’s new friend from another universe and talking about selling a house. She drops unsubtle hints about grandchildren, too, which, wow, Cold as a dad is… not something Cisco can even imagine. Especially if that whole changed-name thing is like, an indication that something went wrong with his father here.
The idea that that abuse is also multi-universal leaves a sick feeling in Cisco’s stomach. He doesn’t ask.
He gets home, of course, escorted by Jesse Quick, who runs back home without saying hi, and everyone is glad he’s back. Hugs all around, that sort of stuff.
“So, was it bad?” Caitlin asks when everyone has filed away, sure of his general okay-ness and all. He sighs, shrugging.
“I was a supervillain with a weird name, but I didn’t even meet myself. It was mostly weird, not creepily gold like Earth-2. Sort of… more blue, maybe.” He considers not telling her the most interesting fact about Earth-20, but he’s a gossip, he’ll admit it. “Oh, and Captain Cold was a metahuman detective married to non-Flash Barry.”
Caitlin blinks, and Cisco will never get used to almost-white eyes, even if they don’t glow anymore.
“I guess it was bound to be true on some earth,” she says. “At least nobody died this time.”
They’ve both watched people who look just like them die. Cisco still feels like that shouldn’t be their measure of a successful trip to an alternate reality.
Well, this is their normal these days. He can live with it.