Episode 3 - Things You Can't Outrun

"It doesn't matter if you're the slowest kid in gym class or the fastest man alive. Every one of us is running. Being alive means running... running from something, running to something or someone. And no matter how fast you are, there's some things you can't outrun. Some things always manage to catch up to you." Barry said as he ran back to STAR Labs from his afternoon jog, like 100 mph or so, not that quick. Today was slow which honestly, even for someone like him, is a good thing once in a while.

A little while later Barry and Iris were coming out of the cinema. "Regular movie scale, that was a seven or an eight. Zombie movie scale, it was, like, a four, tops." Barry told Iris.

"There's a zombie movie scale?" Iris asks, baffled. She looked at Barry with shock written all over her face.

"Did you know that zombies exist in nature? There's a species of fungi that infects ants, causing the ants to attack plants that can release spores which in turn infect new hosts. I'm going full nerd again, aren't I?" Barry sighed looking at Iris who was trying to hide a smile, he knew she didn't mind though, it's just a running joke that they have always had.

"Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's okay though. You are still the cutest nerd that I know." Iris compliments. "Anyways, I'm a lot more interested in the amazing as of late." She finishes.

"You mean 'cause of this "streak" thing?" Barry asked, he knew Iris wasn't meant to know, and he was trying to keep it that way but if she continued to research about his alter ego, not only might she find out about who he really is but she will also be at risk of putting herself in lots of danger.

"He's out there. People are talking about him." Iris retorts.

"How do you even know he's a he? Maybe it's her." Barry argues.

"It's a man, okay? You know I am really intuitive about this kind of stuff. Someone even posted a picture after being yanked from a car accident. It's a red blur leaving the scene. Here, what do you see?" Iris asks, showing him her phone just as it starts to ring.

"I see your boyfriend's calling." Barry smirks.

"Oh, I should probably get this. I'm crashing at his place tonight, and he's supposed to leave a key for me somewhere." Iris tells him, placing her phone by her ear. "Hey, babe." She greets him.

"What's up?" He asks her.

"Not much, just hanging out with Barry. You off yet?" She asks him.

Barry's phone starts to ring and he picks it up. "Hello." He greets the caller on the other end.

"Code 237 on Waid Boulevard." Cisco's voice came through the speaker on his phone.

"Public indecency?" Barry stated, confused.

"Wait, I think I meant a 239." Cisco corrected himself.

"Dog leash violation?" Barry asked, Cisco really didn't know the police codes, did he?

"Bad man with a gun in a getaway car. Go." Caitlin shouted at him, correcting both of Cisco's previous mistakes.

"You don't have a mat. Do you have a planter?" Someone asked the onder of a shop down on the high street when they suddenly heard Police Sirens wailing and gunshots go off. "He's got a gun. Look out!" They shouted pointing at the man being chased by the police.

"Where'd he go?" The officers said as they noticed the car stop and the man no longer in the vehicle following a bright flash of light. He goes to turn to his partner to ask him when he sees the gunman sitting, confused about what had happened, in the back seat of the cruiser with his hands in cuffs. "What the…" He starts to say, but Barry doesn't hear the rest of it as he speeds back to Iris's side just as she finishes up the phone call.

"Key's in the mailbox. I'll see you later." Eddie says bye to Iris and she hangs up the phone. "Eddie says hi." She tells him.

"Nice of him." Barry replies. "You wanna grab a bite? I'm feeling a little famished." He asks.

"After the Mongolian barbecue we had before the movie and the extra large popcorn you had at the movie? How are you not fat?"

"I've been jogging." Barry answers, giving her a basic explanation of what is actually happening.

"Oh, okay." Iris replies, shrugging her shoulders and they both walk off. As they have a lovely night on the other end of the city a family of mobsters were sitting around a table in a lovely restaurant that they had booked out so they could have a serious meeting.

"Why so public a meeting, uncle?" One of them laughed as they sat down by the table.

"We're dining out to show our enemies we're not afraid. Relax, nephew. We've replaced the windows with bulletproof glass." His uncle tells him. "Close it up. Come. Have a drink." He says while bringing their enemies to their seats. "Our own drivers are ripping us off. Someone is paying them to steal from us. None of you will sleep until we find out who. And then those thieves…" He stops talking and starts to cough. "Those thieves…" He tries to continue but only to cough once more.

Behind him a tall man, his head bare and shining in the light, walked forward, seeming unaffected by whatever was affecting the others. "Will draw their last breath." The man says, smiling as the coughing continues to expel from the others. The nephew tries to shoot a plea for help before, he too, falls to the ground, his body limp and lifeless. The man smirks looking at all the dead bodies laying on the ground and then he leaves, never been seen by a soul.

Back at the precinct Captain Singh is talking to the cops from earlier. "Where'd you cut him off?" Singh asks them.

"So we cut him off at eighth." One of them started. "I mean, the perp was in the backseat of the cruiser before he even knew what happened."

"Congratulations, Paulson, on that arrest last night. Hell of a job." Joe shouts at them walking into his office, Barry by his side.

"You come by later, Joe. I'll give you a driving lesson, okay?" He replies.

"Wasn't even him last night. It was me," Barry whispers to Joe.

"I figured. I just didn't realize you were helping people for glory." Joe tells him.

"It's not like I want a museum built in my name." Barry answers. "Keeping what I can do a secret from Iris and everyone, it's harder than I thought."

"I know, but it is safer that way. Besides, you and you got work to do." Joe told him, hiding him up to his lab.

"The evidence from my mom's case." Barry explained flicking through the files in the boxes.

"I had it brought up from storage." Joe replied, leaning on the table beside him.

"I've been through this box 1,000 times." Barry sighed, his eyes dropping and no longer looking at the book of files.

"Before, your story about what really happened that night... the lightning storm, the man in the middle of it... I thought that was a kid trying to protect his father from prison. But now that I know it's true, we're gonna go through every scrap of evidence until we find something that helps us." Joe says confidently trying to lift Barry's spirit.

"It took the jury 52 minutes to come back with a verdict of guilty." Barry replied, his tone full of misery.

"They moved too fast, which is why we got to take our time." Joe started to say before Eddie popped his head around the door and looked at them with a stern face.

"Barry, Joe, we got multiple homicides." He informed him. Later when the 3 are at the crime scene they all look at the bodies on the floor, their eyes open and filled with fear but no longer seeing anything anymore, empty. "Do you know the Darbinyan crime family?" Eddie asks them, looking at the limp figures on the ground.

"Bay? Ah. Anything?" Joe asks, turning to Barry to see what he thought of it all.

"Signs of histotoxic hypoxia. The cells in their bodies were unable to utilize oxygen. It's consistent with exposure to poison gas." Barry informs them.

"What kind of poison?" Eddie asks.

I'll need to take a lung sample, to see if I can narrow it down." Barry answers, still kneeling down beside the figures.

"The only other exit was bolted from the inside. They were trapped. I was thinking someone pumped gas in from the outside, but witnesses say the street was empty. So it was from the inside. That means there should be a canister or a container left behind." Eddie told them. "The gas just didn't come in by itself." Barry and Joe shared the same look, obviously thinking the same thing.

"Unless it had a mind of its own." Joe said looking at Barry, he then turned to look at Eddie. "Eddie, would you mind canvassing again? Somebody had to have seen something suspicious." Once he left he looked back at Barry who was now standing up and looking at where each person had fallen. "Okay, explain." Joe said.

"The boss collapsed by the table. This guy made it 10 feet away." He said, indicating to one of the figures lying on the ground. Then he pointed to other bodies, noticing the weird poisonings of them. "That guy had a chance to move off and fire three shots into the window trying to break the glass. But they all started in the same spot, which means they should have all been affected by the gas at the same time, but instead, it's as if…"

"They were attacked one by one." Joe finished his sentence for him. "My gut feeling, if we're gonna solve this one, you and I are gonna need... Backup."

A wee while later Joe and Barry were standing in the Cortex of STAR Labs with Cisco, Caitlin, Dr Wells and the figure from last time he fought a meta-human. "Yeah. Fascinating, a meta-human that can manipulate poison gas." Joe sarcastically replied. Cisco looked embarrassed, Caitlin and Dr Wells exchanged looks and shrugged and the figure looked confused, as if they didn't know what sarcasm was and that Joe was expressing it.

"Is it just poisonous gas, or can he control all aerated substances? And how is he able to formulate the connection? Is it physiological or psychological?" Cailtin asked.

"This individual can create a mental nexus using gaseous substances." The figure answered, looking at Caitlin then back at the group.

"You mean connect with glasses on a molecular level?" Cisco asked. The figure rolled their eyes and confirmed what he said. "That is ridiculously cool." He continued.

Barry looked at Joe's shocked face, he clearly didn't fully understand what was going on. "They get really excited about this stuff." He whispered to Joe, and by the way his face went out of its shocked expression then he understood what Barry was saying.

"The only thing I'm excited about is putting criminals behind bars. Except Iron Heights isn't exactly equipped to handle metahumans." Joe deadpanned.

"Then I guess it's fortunate the ones you've encountered so far are no longer with us." Dr Wells said.

"Well, unless we're planning on executing every super criminal we stop, you geniuses are gonna have to come up with someplace else to hold them." Joe snarked back. They may be bad people but they deserved the same chances everyone else got, they did not deserve to die, no matter how much damage and chaos they have caused overall. Cisco seemed intrigued by the idea and his face lit up with a smile.

"A metahuman prison. Sweet." Cisco says, joy spread over his face, he got excited for the weirdest things.

"Until we figure out a way to remove their powers." The figure finished before turning to look at Barry and Joe. "I have seen the way you look at me, so before we continue on with this conversation I would find it appropriate if you asked your questions so that your accusing eyes were no longer looking at me but rather trying to find out a solution to the task at hand." Joe and Barry exchanged looks before Barry decided to look properly at them.

"Who even are you, I mean you have helped and clearly they are fine with you here." Barry says pointing at Cisco, Dr Wells and Caitlin. "How am I meant to trust you when I don't even know who you are." He looked at the others. "Do they know?" He asked, worry flooding through his voice.

"Yes Bartholomew, I do know about your habit of speeding through the city and saving people. I have helped both sides of your ego as well, on multiple occasions, sometimes without you knowing. And no, Bartholomew, before you ask, there is no need to worry at all. After all, I am not here to bring any harm to any being but rather to help keep this civilization alive and well with the new abilities that some shall show. Also to answer your prior question to who I am, my name is Lady CyAmze Macanese, but you may call me Maz as you wish, I never did like to be called a name that sounded commanding, no matter what my status might be."

"Fine, but make sure you tell no one, Macanese, especially not Iris." Barry replies then points to Joe. "He doesn't believe that she will ever be ready to find out about my activities, wants to keep her safe, helicopter parent, trust me. Also Atchaco Cornwall, I want to keep her safe and well. She means everything to me and I couldn't bear it if anything happened to her, you understand." Macanese smirked. "What's so funny about what I just said, I'm being completely serious here, this is not something to laugh about." Macanese's face fell back to it's monotone demeanor.

"I am not laughing or taking the mity of anything, Bartholomew." She answered. "Also you have no need to worry, I shall not tell any of them about your alter ego, a fellow companion in this job shall never out another with that person asking for that to happen first." Barry smiled. Macanese looked back to the other. "You may continue with what we need to talk about, we have sorted this problem out."

Cisco smiled at Macanese then turned to face the others. "There is one place here that might hold them." Cisco started, his eyes finding their way to the door of the Cortex.

"You can't be serious. I mean, we haven't been down there since... it's cordoned off." Caitlin tried to retort but the look on Cisco's face shows that whatever he was thinking, there was no other better alternative to try and find something that could hold these meta-humans.

"Cisco is right. It could be modified to act as a makeshift prison." Dr Wells said, clearly understanding what he was talking about.

"What could?" Barry asked, his eyes falling on each one of the scientists, in turn they tried to dievert Barry's gaze somewhere else.

"The particle accelerator." Dr Wells replied. Barry froze in shock, they couldn't really be thinking that the same thing that gave them their powers could also be the same thing that can negate the powers, but at the same time he knew it could. Joe looked amazed, to be fair he didn't understand everything they were talking about, didn't fully understand while everyone had negative thoughts about the particle accelerator. Macanese looked like she was about to fall over at any moment, her eyes flashing from red to black, as if her cybernetics were failing. Cisco had a monotone expression shown on his face, he understood that it was one of the only ways. And Caitlin… well she looked like she had seen a ghost.

Inside her mind she was being pulled into a flashback, she was back before everything went sideways. Dr Wells was standing in the middle of the cortex. Caitlin and Cisco were in the room along with a few other scientists. "Tonight, the future begins. The work my team and I will do here will change our understanding of physics, will bring about advancements in power, advancements in medicine. And trust me, that future will be here faster than you think." He announced to them all, only for Cisco to look up at him.

"Dr. Wells, we just got the latest weather report. A big thunderstorm is rolling in." He told him, Dr Wells looked boredly at him.

"We're not launching a space shuttle. We'll be fine." He reassured them.

"Tahiti?" A man said as he walked into the Cortex and over to Caitlin.

"I know it's a long flight, Ronnie, but we can binge watch Orange Is The New Black." Caitlin reassured him.

"Oh, okay." Ronnie replied. "But what about Italy? Pizza and wine and more pizza." He finished.

"Yes, but Italy doesn't have mai tais, and a honeymoon isn't a honeymoon without nai tais." Caitlin playfully argued.

"Dr. Wells, the accelerator is primed and ready for particle injection." Cisco said, a smile on his face, and it made sense, they all had been waiting for this moment for ages.

"Well, I feel I should say something profound like "one small step for man," but all I can think of to say is, I feel like I've waited for this day for centuries." He turned around to the bigger monitors on the wall as the particles were inserted into the accelerator, and machinery started to make a low humming sound, singling that the accelerator was up and running, that their dreams had come true. And a smile crept across his lips, he felt powerful.

"That's it? You'd think there'd be, like, a loud bang." Cisco said, a hint of disappointment in his voice. Dr Wells turned around and looked at him sternly.

"If there was a loud bang, we'd all be in big trouble. Take it from the guy who helped build it." Ronnie answered, Dr Wells nodded in agreement and picked up one of the empty glasses on the table and the others did the same. "Ladies and gentlemen, we did it." Ronnie said and smiles found their way to the faces of all of them. And they all cheer in joy. "Mai tais it is." Ronnie whispers to Caitlin.

Dr Wells opens the champagne and the Scientists start talking amongst themselves. Then suddenly the champagne rises slightly out of their glasses before splashing back in it. They go to talk again when an alarm rings through the building and an explosion echoes through the halls. By the looks that the scientists give each other then the explosion was not a good thing. And the room falls into silence. "Was that…" Cisco asks, breaking the silence.

"A loud bang." Dr Wells replied, dread filling his voice and everyone looked at each other in shock. No one knew what to do or say for some few moments. Caitlin looked like she was about to fall down when another voice, another Dr Wells, the one from her time, filled in her mind. "Caitlin. Caitlin. Did you hear me?" Dr Wells said, bringing Caitlin out of the flashback of terrible memories, the one moment that rewrote history and changed the course of events for all of Central City. "We're going down to the accelerator ring." He told her. Caitlin looked down at him, she was going to follow him despite not wanting to.

"Actually, Dr. Wells, I could use Caitlin's help identifying the poison gas." Barry said, to which Caitlin smiled, Barry knew how to make someone not feel uncomfortable.

"Okay. If that's okay with you?" Dr Wells said looking at Caitlin, she wordlessly nodded and then Barry and Caitlin left the room to go to the Precinct, the others going down to the accelerator.

"Welcome to the CCPD." Barry said to Caitlin. She smiled as she looked around the building.

"So this is your day job." She asked as they headed towards the stairwell. Barry nods in agreement as a cop walks past them holding a would-be criminal in his arms, his face a mess and filled with anger.

"I'm gonna rip out your hearts and eat 'em for lunch." He bellows at them as the cop drags him to the holding cells. Caitlin looks at him with a face of disappointment before looking back at Barry, with one eyebrow raised.

"Delightful." She says sarcastically as they go up the stairs, only to be stopped by people shouting down below.

"Lab rat, I need prints off this gun pronto." Someone says, holding up a gun in a bag, Barry sighs as he walks downstairs and takes the bag from him. He is about to go back upstairs when the Captain walks out of his office.

"Allen! Where the hell is the fiber analysis on the Orloff case?" He asks.

"Upstairs. It's all finished. I can just run up and bring it down." He singles upstairs. "With you, that could be three days from now." He sighs. "I'll go with you." He looks at Caitlin standing beside him. "Who are you?" He questions her.

"Dr. Caitlin Snow, Barry's personal physician." She replies smoothly and with seriousness in her voice. He shrugs as they walk up stairs, Barry going first. He speeds round his lab and walks outside the door again and hands it to the Captain, who had no idea that he had sped around the room.

"The fiber analysis for the Orloff case, like you asked for, sir." He says as the Captain takes it in his hands and smiles, he looks into the lab and looks back at Barry.

"Clean up your lab. It's a mess." He remarks before heading back down to his office. Barry rolls his eyes and looks at Caitlin.

Later, back at the West family home Barry is sitting on the couch while watching a video on his computer. It was off the interview with his dad after the murder of his mother, one the though, and still do think, was his father's doing. "The lightning was in the house." Video Henry said. "I told my son to run, he disappeared, and that's when I saw the blood." He continued, his face showing that he was telling no lies, despite the cop interviewing him not believing a word he said, all of them thinking that he was just another crazy man on a killing spree.

"Your prints were on the murder weapon." The interview was retorted. Henry looked defeated but he wasn't going to speak like that.

"I needed to stabilize the knife. I'm a doctor. I was trying to save her. I didn't kill my wife. Joe, tell them. You know me. Our kids are friends. You tell them, Joe." He shouted into the camera, pleading for them to see the truth.

"Do I even want to know what you were looking at?" Joe asked Barry, coming to stand beside him, who had now turned it off so that Joe couldn't see what he was really looking at.

"It's just work." He tries to put him off what it was. "Some old cases weren't filed properly." He was about to go back to his work when Joe came walking into the room.

"Detective." Eddie says formally to his partner.

"What are you doing here?" Joe asked him.

"Joe, I thought you were at the morgue." He asks, surprised that Joe happened to be home earlier than he was going to be. I decided to bring some work home.

"Why are you here?" He asks, Eddie has no reason that he knows of for being here.

"Yes, well, I've been looking for you. I thought maybe we could go back to the crime scene, recanvass, see if we missed anything. Always work the case, right? That's what you taught me." Eddie says, hiding his true intentions of being there.

"Wow, you've been listening." He chuckles. "Okay, let's hit it."

"Do you mind if I use your bathroom?" He asks.

"It's the first door on the right." He replies. "I'll be in the car. Bye, baby." He then leaves and closes the door.

"Bye, dad." She replies. She looks back up at Eddie and he looks annoyed.

"Okay, this has got to stop. I came here to surprise my girlfriend, and now I'm going to a crime scene with her dad... not exactly the afternoon I was planning on." He complains looking at Iris with displeasure in his eyes, which makes Iris feel guilty for what she has done.

"I know, I know, it's just... it's not the right time to tell him." Iris tells him.

"When is Iris?" Eddie asks in confusion.

"I know my dad. He'll kill us." Iris reminds him, trying to persuade him why they cannot tell Joe until they know that he will be okay with it.

"Right now, you're killing us." He tells her before storming outside to the car.

At STAR Labs Cisco, Macanese and Dr Wells were examining the accelerator to see what adjustments would need to be made to make it into a makeshift prison for meta-humans. "The copper in the tube is arranged to form cavities, and we can use those cavities as containment cells. Of course, we'll have to design them to counteract meta-human abilities, but... might just work." Cisco tells them.

"First, we have to decouple the main injection system on the gantry level. I'll be right back." Dr Wells tells them.

"Why don't I do that?" Cisco asks, trying to be helpful.

"I need to exercise." The wheelchair bound man replies looking at his non functional legs. Then he leaves the room. Suddenly Cisco feels buzzy and Macanese steady him so he doesn't fall to the ground, but he is out of it now and has been pulled into a flashback just after the accelerator malfunctioned.

"There's an anomaly in the core chamber but the ring's structural integrity is holding." Flashback Cisco says.

"It started a chain reaction. The system is collapsing. We need to shut it down." One of the scientists told them.

"We can't ramp down the accelerator from here. We need to do it manually. Go. I'll come with you." Ronnie reels them

"Ronnie, no." Caitlin tries to say, she understands why he has to do it and what could happen if he doesn't, but the pain of knowing that he might not coke back from this is what sticks the fear and commanding voice to try and tell him to stay. But Ronnie saw right through the adrenaline fuelled side of Caitlin and shocked his head, telling her that he isn't staying, that he is going to do the right thing.

"I'm the lead engineer. I know how to operate the shutdown valve." He reminds her.

"It's not safe." She tells him.

"Cait, I have to go." He says, and not even waiting for an answer he and Cisco run down to the accelerator ring. "Okay, you stay here." He tells Cisco. "We've only got a few minutes before this thing blows, and if I'm not back in time, you need to initiate a lockdown."

"No way. I am not closing this door. I won't be able to open it again." He argues.

"Cisco, if you don't seal off the blast, everyone in this building will die, including Caitlin. Okay, now promise me. Set your watch. Two minutes." He replies.

"You're coming back." Cisco says, trying to be optimistic and showing no fear to Ronnie. Suddenly another voice fills his head, a soft, sweat and kind voice, that of a woman. He looks around and sees no one but then he suddenly feels himself be released from the flashback and looks directly into the eyes of Lady Macanese.

"Cisco. Cisco, we're ready to go." Macanese's voice says to him. He looks up at her face and then slowly stands up, no longer needing the supporting frame of Macanese's metallic body.

"Must be hard, coming back down here." Dr Wells says coming up to him. "A lot happened that night. If you feel the need to talk…" He was going to finish but Cisco silenced him.

"I was just thinking, we need to nail those voltage calculations. One fault, and the helium blowback could damage the mountings." He tells him. Dr Wells nods as they all leave the accelerator and try and forget the terrible memories that it brings.

in Barry's lab at CCPD, he was talking to Caitlin. "Can I ask you something that you don't have to answer?" Barry asks, looking at Caitlin. She turns around faking a smile and looks at him.

"My least favorite kind of question. Shoot." She replies.

"Ronnie. What was he like? You just never talk about him that much." Barry questions.

"We met when we were working on the particle accelerator." Caitlin started to say. "He was a structural engineer. He liked to joke that he was basically a very high-priced plumber. We were very different. You might have noticed I can be a bit... Guarded. Ronnie knew how to make me laugh. He used to say we were like fire and ice. He wasn't supposed to be there that night. He was just there for me. If he hadn't…" She tried to finish what he was saying but she couldn't find the strength to talk about something so painful for her and Barry understood that so he didn't force her to continue. Instead he kept the conversation going by looking at the lab results that had just been printed.

"This says that there was no residue of gas in the tissue, poisonous or otherwise. It must have evaporated. We'll need to get a fresh sample. Wait, this can't be right. This says that there are two distinct strands of DNA inside the tissue. How did someone else's DNA get inside the victim's lungs?" He asked, Caitlin looked at the results herself but she had no words to say, she had no idea either.

At a mall on the other side of town a woman was walking to the elevator, on the phone to someone as another person followed quickly behind. The woman was completely oblivious to their presence. "Well, my docket was clear, so I stopped by the mall to pick up your homecoming dress." She stopped talking for a moment as the person on the other end replied. "I am a great mom." She chuckled, the woman was so innocent looking as she walked into the elevator, the man in tow. "I'll see you for dinner, sweetie."

Back at CCPD, Barry got the results for the chemical test but he was left shocked."There's no DNA match in the database. I don't understand. Why would a chemical attack leave behind another person's DNA inside the victim?" Barry asks himself.

"What if the meta-human we're looking for doesn't control gas? What if he becomes it?" Caitlin suggests. Barry looks up at her, a fearful look in both of their eyes. Why couldn't Central City just be normal like everywhere else.

Back at the mall the woman places her bags more securely on her shoulder before going to reach the elevator button, but is stopped by a man coming into the elevator and the doors closing. He looks menacingly. "Judge Howard. It's nice to see you again."

"You died." She gasped. "This, this shouldn't be possible."

"You say that like it was an accident." He replies with no emotion in his voice. "You remember the last thing you said to me in the courtroom? May God have mercy on your soul." He said with impasses on the word your to show her that it was now her turn.

"All available units, we have a report of a toxic gas attack in the central city shopping mall." The dispatcher sounds through the speakers in the room.

"Barry, don't. We don't know enough about what we're facing yet. It's not safe." Caitlin tells him. Barry looks at her with a sad face, how was she not letting him go when he was the only person with a chance of being able to confront him and make it out of there alive afterwards. No one else had the advantage that he had, nor the commanding skills that lay underneath.

"Caitlin, I have to go." Barry said walking over to the door of the lab going into the locker and putting his jacket and shoes in. He looks back at Caitlin who looks sad but nods for him to leave anyway. Barry smiles and runs off.

"I patched into the mall's security system. According to witnesses, the gas attack was in the main elevator in the north wing." Cisco informed him as Barry ran to the mall, through his head piece.

"Which one is the north wing?" Barry asked them.

"The one with The Big Belly Burger." Dr Wells answered him. He looked at Cisco's shocked face, he looked surprised at his statement. "I eat." He retorted. Cisco gave him the stink eye before looking back at the monitors. Dr Wells rolled his eyes and went back to whatever he was looking at.

Meanwhile back at the mall Barry was staring the meta-human in the eyes and looked at him with disappointment. "Back up. Please, keep back." The meta said nervously. His figure was tall and menacing. A face filled with no regrets, no mercy, only pain and suffering, yet he seemed to talk like a small child who had just seen a monster lurking under their bed and it was both terrifying and confusing.

"Why did you kill that woman?" Barry asked the man.

"She deserved to die." He said out of breath. "Now go run away. I still have one more name on my list. Don't make me add you to it." When Barry doesn't move the man goes to punch him and misses due to Barry bending down away from the punch. Barry runs at him but he goes right through him, as if he wasn't made of solid matter. Barry looks at him and suddenly he transforms into gas as Macanese runs into the hallways. The gas heads towards Barry and goes into his lungs and he suddenly starts gasping for air, Macanese wastes no time and comes out of her trance and picks him up, running him to STAR Labs.

Back at STAR Labs Dr Wells is shouting into the comms. "Barry. Barry, can you hear me?" He shouts.

"His vitals are weak, but he's alive, Dr. Wells. I'm sure he's fine." Caitlin tried to reassure him only for moments later to be corrected as Macanese runs in with Barry's limp and weak form in her hands. She walks him over to one of the medical beds and lays him down.

"I can't breathe." Barry manages to wheeze out. Macanese looks down at him with pity and guilt, she couldn't get to him on time and now he might die because of it.

"He needs oxygen. Get the crash cart!" Dr Wells orders as everyone comes around his body, his lungs still fighting for air.

"Barry! Barry." Caitlin says, trying to get his attention. He turns around to face her.

"Cut me open. The poison's still in me." He tells her, more concerned about being able to use the games to reverse engineer it rather than for his own health, that was always a good thing about him, but also deadly.

"He brought us a sample. Caitlin, we need to do a pulmonary biopsy, extract an active portion of that gas." Dr Wells commands her.

"I can't give you any anesthetic. Your metabolism will burn right through it." Caitlin sighs. Barry looks at her sternly, he didn't seem to care about that at this moment.

"I heal quick, remember?" He reminds her, knowing full well that even with his abilities it will still hurt for him to do. "Do it." He says with no hesitation.

"Cisco, give me the syringe." Caitlin orders, holding her hand out to resolve the instrument. "This is gonna hurt a lot." She warns.

"It's a small needle." Cisco replies, holding up a syringe with a huge tip. He stares at it like it will be stabbing into him instead of Barry. "You probably won't even feel it." He tries to reassure, knowing deep down that it will hurt a lot. Caitlin takes it from his hand and stares at it too.

"You're definitely going to feel it." She says and then promptly stabs it into his chest. Barry gasps sharply and his eyes roll into the back of his head and he passes out. He comes to with the sound of a heart monitor beeping steadily behind him. He slowly opens his eyes and looks up at them. He looks to his side and sees Macanese looking out of one of the windows. Her hair tied back behind her head rather than streaming down her back. She doesn't look over at him to see how he is doing. He reaches an arm out and the others realize that he has now woken up.

"The Streak lives." Cisco exclaims, and even then Macanese doesn't turn around. It's like she is scared of something, or believes that they have done something wrong.

"You'd be dead if your lung cells didn't regenerate so quickly." Caitlin says in a monotone voice, only hints of pity showing through.

"My chest feels like that one time I had a cigarette." He notices, everyone looked at him in shock. "Yeah, teen me lived for danger." He finishes.

"This isn't funny. You could've…" Caitlin starts to say, but she doesn't need to finish her sentence, all of them know what she was going to say anyway.

"I didn't." Barry interrupts her. He looks back at Macanese, her gaze never tore from the window. "Now I'm going to talk to Macanese, I want to know what's wrong and I would like to do it in private, so if you could leave then that would be great." They all nod at him and leave the room. Once they get out of Barry's line of sight he walks over to them and places a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Maz. I noticed that you seem down in the dumps. So you care to tell me what's wrong or do I have to guess?" She looks down at him with no emotion.

"It's my fault that you nearly died today. I wasn't quick enough. I wasn't thinking straight and it nearly cost your life. I couldn't do anything correctly before, and I can't do anything correctly now." She looks at him. "And you are the one that had to pay the price for it."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone freezes from fear at one point or another. It is unavoidable. It is a natural reflex that the body does, whether it be made of skin and bone or cybernetics and circuits, they both have the same job and therefore do the same thing. So you never did anything wrong. So don't say that to yourself." Macanese sighed and looks at him sadly.

"I know you're just trying to cheer my damped spirits, but there is no need to be this kind. I don't deserve you kindness and hospitality so you don't have to give it." Barry places a hand around her shoulder and she just breaks down in tears. "I don't know what to do, Bartholomew, I have tried so hard to try and help for so many years. Before and after our accidents. But I have failed too many times. And I don't know how to replay and fix the mistakes I have made." Barry looks at her in fear. Macanese, a 7 foot tall cybernetically enhanced meta-human speedster, had broken down in tears, and fear, and tear, and worry, and it made Barry wonder if he was doing the right thing. Then he noticed something and stared at her blankly.

"You said before our accidents you always tried to help me." She nodded. "Before my accident did I even know you?" Again she nodded. "But I didn't know many people before my accident. Not many wanted to hang out with the murderer's son, not that my father was one, it was a misunderstanding in the polices behalf, a misunderstanding which they have not fixed." He stopped talking for a moment. "You said you had been trying to help me for years." She shrugged. "Atchaco was the only person that had been trying to help me for ages, no one else seemed interested. The case was closed, and for them, that was that." Macanese shrugged again, as if Barry had forgotten to connect some dots. Then it hit him. "You're Atacho Cornwall, aren't you Lady Macanese." She smiled, then laughed.

"You finally found out just how much I had changed. I'm sorry I didn't hang out with you as much, or tell you what had really happened to me, but honestly I was just nervous that you would reject who I was, despite the fact that we both became meta-humans. But something inside me sparked and I realized that it was now time to tell you who I really was. Though it wasn't going to be this oon. Now don't we have something we are meant to be doing, oh I don't know, stopping this new meta-human?"

"Now that we have a sample, we'll get to work analyzing it, figure out the makeup of the poison, maybe get a clue as to his human identity. Or at least a way to stop him from turning into a mist. The Mist. Okay, that's his name. End of discussion." Cisco says, holding up a tube with the gas in it that had previously been in Barry's lungs.

"I have to get to the station." Barry said walking backwards to get outside of the room.

"You should be resting." Cailtin reminds him. Barry just shrugs his shoulders and continues to walk out.

"I have to talk to Joe." He says before speeding off the precinct. In the background sirens wail as he walks up the Steps and into the building. Then he wastes no time in going up to Joe. "Joe. I had him. The meta-human. We were wrong. He's not controlling airborne toxins. He can literally transform himself into poison gas." He informs him.

"That's new." Joe replies looking at his work. He looks at the information that pops up on his computer. "The victim was a judge. We're going through some of her old cases to see if there's a connection."

"It's too late." Barry intergetiged. "I should have been faster."

"Focus on the job. Don't think about that right now." Joe says.

"You don't want to know what I'm thinking about." Barry sighs. "My dad has spent 14 years in a 6x8-foot cell for a crime he didn't commit. I couldn't save my mom, but I can save him."

"Didn't I promise you that we would get your father out of prison together?" Joe reminds him.

"I don't need your help, Joe. I could be in and out of there with him before anyone even sees me." He tells him, clearly not thinking about what he is saying.

"Okay. You break him out of there. Then what? He's on the run for the rest of his life. And something tells me he's not as fast as you are."

"You don't know what it's like there." Barry tries to argue.

"You think I don't understand what you're feeling? I have been a cop for almost as long as you've been alive. So you should know, putting on that suit does not make everybody safe. For every person you save, there's gonna be somebody you can't. And the hardest thing you're gonna have to face is not some monster out there with powers. It's gonna be that feeling of uselessness when you can't do anything. Or the guilt that weighs on you when you make a mistake. Some things, Barry, you can't fight. Some things you just have to live with."

At CC Jitters, Iris is sitting at one of the tables on the phone to someone. "Yes, I'm writing this down. Red streak at the mall during the gas attack. Thank you for calling." She looks at Eddie who had only arrived a few minutes earlier. "Never fails." She tells him. "Tip lines bring out the potheads and the crazies. Did they get a good look at the Streak's face?" She asks him, going into job mode.

"Not you too." Eddie sighs. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"We need to talk. I thought about what you said, and…" Iris begins to say.

"I know what you're gonna say. I understand. I'm your dad's partner." Eddie buts in.

"No, no, no, you don't understand. I have never really had a serious boyfriend. Between dad and Barry and work, my life has been full. And I really like you, but I thought that if I told my dad about us, then it would make this real, and suddenly, it's something that I could lose or screw up. I wanted it to be real. Eddie." He smiles at her, understanding what she is trying to say to him.

Back at STAR Labs Caitlin and Barry are standing by the door to the accelerator ring, too scared to go back in after what had happened had scared them for life with painful memories they wish that they could just erase. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, leaving like that." Caitlin tells Barry.

"It's okay. I get it. You had to go." Barry says, understanding Caitlin's situation.

"It's just... that's the last thing that Ronnie said to me that night." She replies, tears building up in her eyes.

"My mother died 14 years ago." Barry began. "I used to think that the further away I got from it, the less it would hurt. But some days, the pain, it's worse than the day that it happened. Some things you can't fight. For so long, I've been terrified of going into that hole. What if I went with you?" Barry asks her, Caitlin looks into his welcoming eyes as they get closer to the control panel. They share a glance but before Caitlin could walk in she is pulled back into another painful memory of that night, the one they all want to forget.

"Where's Ronnie?" Caitlin asks Cisco through the walkie talkie that both of them were holding."Cisco, where is he?" She said again, this time louder to show how much that she really wanted and needed to know.

"He's still inside." He replies, his voice full of despair and sadness.

"What? Open the door." Caitlin ordered her worry and adrenaline too high to realize that it wasn't possible, Cisco having to tell her as such.

"I can't. We're in lockdown mode." He replies sadly, he wanted to open the door and drag Ronnie to safety just as much as Caitlin did and it hurt him to understand that it couldn't happen. If he was to open the door then way more than Ronnie was going to die. It was a sad fact, no matter what they did, or tried to do to change the course of action, Ronnie was going to die.

"Cisco, we have to get him out of there or he'll die." Caitlin yelled, by the look on both Cisco and Caitlins face they knew that either way, no matter what they do to interfere, he was going to die, either it be just him, or all of Central City. "Cisco, can you hear me?" She says after he doesn't reply then she hears the radio be connected to someone else and she realizes what is happening. "Ronnie, it's me." She tells him. She suddenly hears Ronnie's heavy breathing and electricity crackling in the background behind him.

"Caitlin." He groans, clearly in pain both physically and mentally. "Is Cisco there?" He says for what he has to say, he needs to say to both of them.

"Yeah, Ronnie, I'm here." He replies. "I'm listening."

"I adjusted the magnets to redirect the beam to try and vent the system so the blast goes up and not out." He tells them.

"I'll need to reset the particle parameters to compensate." Caitlin replied.

"Cisco's doing it." Eddie tells her. Caitlin nods not that anyone can see it then she moves onto matters that were closer to her mind than they should have in this situation.

"There has to be another way out of there. You have to find it." Caitlin pleeds.

"Cait, the chain reaction, I can't reverse it. The doors need to stay shut to protect you." He tells her, he teen waits for her reply but there is none. "Are you still there?" He wonders.

"I'm here." Caitlin squeaks, her eyes filling with tears.

"Caitlin, whatever happens…" He goes to say but he is cut off.

"Ronnie." Caitlin says as an explosion echoes through the halls of the huge building. She looks around the room, scared and worried. Praying that Ronnie is going to be okay, even though, deep down, she knows that the chances of him making it out alive are so slim that they are practically non-existent. "Ronnie!" She screams, already knowing that there is going to be no answer to her shouts.

"He saved so many lives that day." Caitlin said, bringing herself out of her own trance. "And no one will ever know what he did." She looks at Barry, standing there, already knowing what she is talking about.

"I do." He replies. "He was a hero."

"I didn't want him to be a hero." Caitlin admits. "I wanted him to be my husband."

"Barry, Caitlin, you down there?" Cisco's voice echoes through the halls as it comes out of the comm system. "You got to come look at this." He waits for a few minutes and then Caitlin and Barry walk into the room and over to Cisco. "Hey, check this out. It's a 3D molecular model of the gas we retrieved from your lungs." He points to Barry.

"We have identified the toxin." Macanese says looking at the chart of information before turning it around so the others can see for themselves.

"Hydrogen cyanide?" Barry questioned, he knew some things about it but not much.

"What's interesting is what's mixed in with the cyanide…" Cisco said.

"A sedative. Of course." Barry exclaimed. Now he knows where he has heard that word being thrown around. "The night of the explosion, find out if anyone was executed."

"Why?" Cisco ssks.

"That sedative is given to criminals on death row before they go to the gas chamber and breathe in hydrogen cyanide." Barry informs them.

"That's right." Macanese conforms as her eyes glow brighter, singling that she is going onto the internet, possibly the CCPD database. "There was someone executed. Kyle Nimbus." She projects the screen that she is looking at onto the computer monitors.

"That's him." Barry says, recognizing the face that had almost ended his life.

"He was a hit man for the Darbinyan crime family." Cisco said, looking at his criminal history. "They turned on him and testified. Judge Theresa Howard was the judge at his trial. She sentenced him to death."

"He must have been affected by the explosion while he was being gassed." Caitlin says, the others nodding.

"Records indicate the execution was completed." Dr Wells says, looking at the screen too.

"That's why there wasn't a match." Barry understands. "The DNA database only has records of the living." They nodded in agreement and then he realized something. "He said there was one more person on his list. Check the arrest record. Who caught him? That could be his next attack." He asks. Suddenly Macanese looks at him sadly, and Barry knows right there what he is going to say but he can't bring himself to say it.

"Bartholomew, the lead detective…" Macanese says, also unable to finish the sentence, nor did she want to. But by the look on everyone's faces, they too knew who it was, Joe.

At Iron Heights Joe comes walking through the doors into the waiting area for the visiting rooms at the Prison. "Here to see Henry Allen." He says to the guard on duty.

"Sign here." He says flatly. "Personal effects here." Joe quickly does what is asked and walks into the visiting area, where Henry is sitting in one of the seats, and he smiles.

Back at STAR Labs Barry is sitting in the Cortex with the others when he decides to call Eddie after not being able to get through to Joe and find out where he is so that he can keep him safe. "Eddie." Barry says hurriedly.

"Barry, what's up?" Eddie asks.

"Hey, do you know where Joe went? He's not picking up his cell." Barry questions.

"Uh, not sure." Eddie lies.

"Eddie, it's really important I speak to him." Barry pressures him and it seems to be enough. "I need to know where he went."

"He went to Iron Heights to see your dad." Eddie replies. Barry then quickly hangs up the phone as Caitlin walks up to him and hands him something.

"Barry. I reverse-engineered an antidote to the toxin. I hope you won't need it." She tells him, Barry also hoping that he won't need it either, it hurts a lot.

Back at Iron Heights Joe walks over to the booth where Henry is sat. "What are you doing here?" Henry asks as Joe sits down opposite him and picks up the plastic phone allowing them to speak to each other, to him it felt inhumane. "Is Barry all right?" He wonders, concerned that the reason that Joe was here was because something had happened to Barry… again.

"He's fine." Joe reassured him. Then to what do I owe this visit? I know I should have come to see you sooner. You just weren't up for a little chitchat with a man who murdered his wife in front of his own son? Except now I know you didn't kill your wife.

"Barry, I pulled up the specs on Iron Heights Prison. It's maximum security, but I think I can talk you through breaking in there." Cisco reassures him.

"Don't bother. I've been figuring out how to break into that place since I was 11." Barry says as he and Macanese superspeed into the prison.

"Some new evidence has come to light." Joe tells Henry. "I can't go into detail. It's just…" He stops talking, trying to look for a better way to rephrase what he was going to say so that it will make more sense to him. "Look, the important thing is, I'm reopening the case. I'm gonna find out who really killed Nora, and I promise you, Henry, I'm going to get you out of here." He tells him, unaware of the poisonous gas entering his lungs before his breath starts to stick in his throat." I am so sorry." He chokes.

"It doesn't matter that you didn't believe in me…" Henry tells him, also unaware of what is really happening. "Because you always believed in my son." He finishes. He looks up for a moment and sees another man come into the room seemingly out of nowhere.

"Nimbus." Joe gasps. "You're supposed to be dead."

"Same to you." Kyle Nimbus replies as more of the gas enters into Joe's respiratory system.

"Joe? Joe!" Henry says, trying to get his attention through the glass. "Help! Guards! Somebody help!" He screams as Barry and Macanese finally make it into the room. Henry points to Kyle with a skinny finger. "Go get him."

"So you've come to finish what the gas chamber couldn't?" Kyle teeses.

"You're going somewhere you can't hurt anyone ever again." Barry warns him.

"Wrong." He says before coming at Barry who dodges out of the way of his oncoming attack and slides over to Joe's body. He wastes no time in inserting the needle into Joe's neck and giving him the antitoxin for the gas.

"He used the antidote on Joe." Macanese says into her ear piece as she continues to fight Kyle as Barry momentarily stays by Joe's side.

"You need to stay away from him, Barry." Dr Wells tells him. "Do not breathe him in." Barry slowly stands up to go help Macanese.

"I'm not sure how that helps me, guys." He says as he dodges another attack that Kyle threw their way.

"You can't fight him, Barry." Dr Wells says, soon understanding that they weren't the best choice of words. "Just keep him coming at you. That should sap his strength. Gas is the least stable form of matter. This meta-human will not be able to stay in his mist form for long. His particles will need to reform." He informs him.

Barry closes his eyes and thinks for a moment before lunging at the meta, who, as he expected reverted to his mist form. Macanese then lunged for him the moment he reverted back to his normal form and got a hit on him. The meta grunts before spinning around trying to hit her and reverting to his form whenever he knew he was about to be hit. It was hard to do and took some time but they both finally beat him and he fell to the ground unconscious. Barry looks around, out of breath as Macanese walks over to him and helps him sit down on the ground. "Bartholomew. Bartholomew." She says happily. "We won." Barry smiles and let's the darkness take him away.

A few hours later Barry is sleeping on a cheap plastic chair in a hospital room, Joe is looking at his sleeping frame but can't find the heart to move him even though his body looks like that if he was going to sleep in the pose any longer then it was going to hurt a lot when he finally woke up. He was about to do something when Barry began to stir and woke up looking directly at Joe.

"It's been a while since I watched you sleep." Joe chuckles from his hospital bed as Barry wakes up after falling asleep on the plastic chairs that stay in the rooms.

"Rescuing you is exhausting." He replied. They both chuckle at that and look at each other, sharing a bond only a father and son share.

"I really miss the ability to be able to ground you." He said.

"Sorry I went and grew up." Barry joked. "I could have got my dad out of Iron Heights tonight." He replied, now becoming serious.

"I know." Joe replied.

"But you were right. That's not the way." He told him, finally understanding. He would try anything to get his father out of prison but he won't do anything illegal as that will just defeat the purpose of what he is doing.

"Daddy." Iris says running into the room.

"Oh. Baby, I'm fine. Don't worry. I'll let you guys talk." Then Eddie comes walking into the room and Joe looks confused. "Partner." He says. "You two arrive at the same time?" He questions.

"Dad, we have something that we need to tell you." Iris starts. "Dad, the thing is…" She tries to finish but Joe stops her from finishing her sentence.

"You two are dating. I know." Joe replies.

"You do?" Iris wonders.

"I'm a detective, remember?" He reminds them. "And both of you are lousy liars."

"So you're not mad?" Iris hopes.

"Oh, I'm mad." Joe replies, the anger and frustration showing through in his tone. "And if the doctor hadn't confiscated my gun, we'd be having an entirely different conversation." Joe warns.

"Well, I should let you two talk." Eddie replies, nervously walking out of the room. "And I'll just be outside looking into the witness protection program." He jokes, trying to lighten the damp mood before leaving the room.

"I'm sorry. Iris, this is going to be complicated." Joe says.

"You know I don't like complicated things." Iris asks him. Joe smiles showing that he does.

"Do you like him?" He asks.

"Yeah, I do." Iris replies, seriously.

"Then I will do my damnedest not to shoot him." He tells her.

"That is all I ask." Iris answers.

At STAR Laboratories, Barry and the others are standing outside the newly made pipeline as Kyle shouts from inside the cell. "Will it hold?" Barry asks.

"The barrier is powered by an 8.3 Tesla superconducting electromagnet, which is about 100,000 times the strength of earth's magnetic field." Cisco tells them. The others look at him confused.

"In other words, yes it will hold." Macanese tells them and the confused looks disappear from their faces. They sigh as Kyle growls and bangs on the door, pleading to be let out, not that he will. "Hmm. He's mad." She says. They all just look at her and shrug their shoulders. "Well, good night." She says before turning and walking away.

"So we're just supposed to get used to working above a makeshift prison housing evil people with superpowers." Joe asked.

"You'd be surprised what you can get used to." Dr Wells replied as he wheeled away, followed by the rest. Caitlin was about to go up when Cisco stopped her.

"Caitlin." He said but didn't get her attention. "Caitlin." He said again and this time she turned around and looked at him. "Could I talk to you for a second? Sure." He asked.

"What's up?" She questioned.

"It's about the night that Ronnie died. I…" Cisco started to say.

"Look, Cisco, I'm okay." Caitlin butted in. "I thought coming down here would undo me, but thinking about what Ronnie did to protect us... It just made me love him more. Come on. I need ice cream or a drink. Let's see which one we hit first."

"Joe's gonna be okay." Macanese reassures him, sitting down beside him.

"You know, lately I've been thinking about mom. A lot." He sighs and leans into Macanese's body, the metal nature of it not affecting Barry at all, or at least he didn't mention it. "I miss her."

"Did I ever tell you about the time you learned to walk?" She asked, kind of already knowing that answer.

"A couple times." Barry chuckles. Macanese smiles and continues her story anyway, they both knew that Barry did not mind hearing it again, they both knew that it helped him cope.

"Everyone was walking before you. All the little babies running around the neighborhood, not you. But your mom was never worried. She just said, "he'll walk when he has someplace to go." and sure enough, the first time you took a few steps, you moved so quick, you didn't just walk, you started... To run. And you ran to your mom, Bartholomew. Right into her arms. You had someplace to go."

"I thought being the fastest man alive would make my life easier... that I could outrun anything. Turns out, no one can outrun pain. Life is tragic. But it's also precious... And sweet... And extraordinary. And the only way I know to honor my mom's life is to keep running." Barry tells Macanese.

Later that night Dr Wells is in the cortex by the monitors. He is smiling to himself and his eyes become distant as he feels himself be pulled into a memory. He is standing in the cortex, just after the allerctorator exploded and Cisco's voice fills the room. "Dr. Wells. Dr. Wells, Ronnie did it. He vented the system. S.T.A.R. Labs should hold." He told him through the intercom system.

"Good man. I'm on my way down." He walks down to the pipeline to go and see how much damage had been done. He suddenly hears lightning crackle and it makes him smile, like something from this was good. "See you soon, Barry, and good luck Lady Macanese." He says to no one in particular, walking off. Then the flashback just ends with him grinning to himself.