Day One

Barry Allen took a deep breath as he arrived at the designated 'starting line' that Cisco had laid out for him: an old billboard advertising for Keystone City, sitting in the middle of an abandoned lot by the waterfront. It was a good spot to start. Low chance of being spotted, even lower chance of someone getting hurt if the test went wrong.

It was a perfect morning for a run. The clear blue sky and cool breeze would appeal to anyone looking to out for a jog. Barry had seen several of them on his way over, and it always struck him how different he was from them. They were in slow motion compared to him, almost standing still. That thought used to amuse him, but he couldn't help but think that that's how Zoom saw Barry.

Flash pushed that thought down. It wasn't the time for negativity…in fact if everything went well there would be cause for celebration.

"Okay, you guys, I'm here, you got my location?" Flash called out. His suit's inbuilt com-systems transmitted his question back to Star Labs, several dozen miles away. Normally there was no need for that test when he was in the city limits, but best not tempt fate at the moment.

"You good? You don't need to, like, stretch or somethin'?" The voice of Cisco Ramon, STAR Lab's resident tech genius, came over the coms clear as they always did.

"No, I'm good, I'm good." Flash responded. Truthfully, he was a little nervous. He had tested his speed before, of course, but they hadn't ever experimented with the source of his powers like this before. It had the potential to go very wrong.

"Let's take this tachyon enhancer for a test drive."

"All right." Flash grinned at Cisco's enthusiasm and hooked the tachyon enhancer onto his suit. The four pronged device stuck to his chest, the circle in the center framing the stylized yellow lightning bolt that had become the symbol of the Flash.

The machine went to work immediately, lighting up with a brilliant blue glow that radiated off his suit, flooding him with energy. It was somewhat comparable to the time he had drunk ten Red Bulls in a row to study for midterms.

Flash couldn't help but grin at the feeling. "Oh yeah. I feel that." He called out, already feeling angsty to start running.

"That is the tachyon device powering up the Speed Force in your cells like a quick-charge battery." Caitlin's voice came over the coms, sounding just as enthusiastic as Cisco did, which was saying something. "How do you feel?"

"Different." Oh, that did not cover it at all.

"Let's see how long it takes for you to get back here. On my count." Cisco ordered. Flash turned towards Central City and crouched, eager to be off.

"Three, two, one. Go!"

Flash couldn't help but grin. The Speed Force roared to life inside him and he took off as fast as he dared, leaving a trail of lightning and a knocked over billboard in his wake.

"Daaang. This thing got you cruisin'." Cisco muttered in admiration.

"How fast does he normally go?" Iris asked in curiosity.

"Not this fast."

"Not even close. Are his vitals okay?"

"Yeah… they're perfect." Caitlin exclaimed in disbelief.

"Cool. It's like having a pit stop attached to your chest." Iris mused.

The voices settled as Flash darted around the city; the city blurring around him to the point Flash couldn't even make out shapes, just colors and sounds. Despite that, he had barely worked up a sweat, much less near comatose as such an effort would have left him the day before.

He could do it. He could go even faster than this. The Speed Force running through him begged him to.

"Guys, I can go faster." Flash panted, already picking up the pace. His feet didn't even feel like they were on the ground anymore, he felt almost like he was flying.

There wasn't even a moment of hesitation from the other end.

"Do it."

With that, Barry put everything he had into pushing his limit, putting even his previous tachyon-enhanced speed to shame. People didn't even get a chance to register he had been there until he was already a mile away.

He was so absorbed in the feeling of exhilaration that he didn't feel a sort of resistance, like trying to move in water, before he burst through it, breaking something fundamental. The resistance gave way, and a cacophony of familiar light and sound washed over him.

Before he had time to process it, the sights and sounds shut off, and Flash was back on the street. He slowed down a touch, wondering what the hell had just happened, when he heard a scream. Looking up he could barely make out something falling from the top of a building.

No, not something. Someone. Before he even consciously thought of it, Flash dashed towards the building with all the tachyon-enhanced speed he could muster.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kara Danvers walked into Cat Grant's office at CatCo, obnoxiously expensive latte in hand as always, diligently waiting to give her boss her morning drink. As usual, Cat Grant walked out of her private elevator, but today she had a large pink box in her arms.

Kara followed her boss into her plush office, drink in hand, as the older blonde set the box down on her desk and opened it with a flourish, revealing a group of artisanal cupcakes.

"Aren't they exquisite?" Ms. Grant breathed. Kara nodded dutifully.

"Yes, they look very yummy." She wasn't lying either. Her enhanced senses included both smell and taste, and right now her mouth was watering just looking at them. She was somewhat tempted to grab one, but given how much those cupcakes cost, Ms. Grant was as likely to give her one as she was likely to give Kara a raise.

Ms. Grant turned to her with an unidentifiable gleam in her eyes. "I can see it in your eyes, Kerah, that you want one." She said knowingly. "But you're too scared. So instead, you gaze longingly from a safe distance, wishing that you had one all of your own."

This was…odd. Ms. Grant's tone was one that Kara recognized; the same one Alex took with her when Kara wasn't recognizing something obvious.

"Well, let me tell you, cupcakes like these don't last." Ms. Grant continued, walking behind her desk and taking a seat. "They get snatched up and devoured. And if you don't act fast, so will he."

Well, apparently Ms. Grant had less patience than Alex. Kara's cheeks flushed slightly as she quickly tried to deny what she had been implying, but Ms. Grant wasn't done.

"Kerah, if you haven't caught on by now, I am trying to make a parallel between this box of cupcakes and your nonexistent love life." She finished bluntly.

"I'm not that comfortable talking about this with you…" Kara said firmly, turning to exit.

Ms. Grant rolled her eyes and sighed.

"But if I did," Kara turned around, ", what am I supposed to do? James said he needs time to think." She spread her arms hopelessly. "But, what is that? Time for him to talk himself out of it?"

"If you want James you are going to have to make a power move. Make yourself unavailable, make him jealous." Ms. Grant stared at her for a moment, and then added, "If you must, read my 1998 guide to finding love entitled The Lighthouse Technique. Shine your light, and let him come to you. And before you know it, he'll be docked in your port."

Kara decided to ignore that hopefully unintended sexual metaphor and instead focus on the message at hand: that Ms. Grant wanted her to manipulate James.

"It's not my best work, but it did get me a spot on Oprah." Cat Grant, as humble as ever, muttered.

"So the best way to go after James is…not go after him at all?" Kara questioned. It was the central plot to more than a few rom-coms but it seemed ethically dubious at best.

Ms. Grant plucked a cupcake from her box. "Mhm. Precisely. Try less. Shine more."

Maybe it wasn't the best idea taking relationship advice from someone whose longest lasting relationship ended in an explosive divorce…but it might get her one of those cupcakes. Kara reached for one, but Ms. Grant caught her wrist and pinned her with an icy glance.

"These are mine." She said firmly. Despite being near invincible, Kara quickly nodded and backed away quickly, trying to shake the odd conversation out of her head.

The next few hours of work flew by quickly and normally, as they normally did, up until a certain someone stepped out of the elevator. Siobhan Smythe was the closest thing that Kara had to an arch nemesis, even before she had…accidently gotten her fired from CatCo. And at the moment the pretty brunette looked out for blood.

Winn, CatCo's resident tech genius and formerly Siobhan's boyfriend, tried to detain her, but the girl pushed him into the wall with superhuman strength.

"Kerah, call security. I haven't seen eyes that crazy since I had fondue with Ramona Singer." Ms. Grant said dismissively, still tapping away at her phone.

Kara got up and walked over to Siobhan, blocking her from Ms. Grant's office. The girl had unknown powers for some unknown reason, but that wasn't going to stop Kara from protecting her boss, even as a civilian.

"Siobhan, I'm sorry, but you can't be here." Kara warned. Siobhan's eyes snapped onto her, and even though they weren't bloodshot, there was no mistaking the madness that danced around her pupils.

"You ruined my life, Kara Danvers." Siobhan growled. Then she opened her mouth and screeched. The sound alone would have brought Kara and everyone else around to their knees, but it was the wall of force that was truly concerning. Caught completely unprepared for the attack, it slammed into her with the force of a truck, propelling her out the window.

The world was still spinning from that sonic attack, and Kara's ears would not stop ringing. She vaguely recognized the fact that wind was rushing by, and the fact that she was falling headfirst towards the ground, but her powers wouldn't come to her.

She didn't even have enough time to consider what to do before something suddenly slammed into her, and then a familiar feeling of weightlessness overtook her, almost similar to flying. But she was mostly sure that she didn't have an unfamiliar pair of arms cradling her when she was flying under her own power.

In the blink of an eye, the city was gone, and she pitched forward, suddenly on her feet again. She shook her head, still reeling but aware that there was someone right next to her, and that her torso felt really warm.

"You're on fire!" The man who had presumably rescued her shouted. He rushed forward to put out the fire with his hands but shrunk back when he seemed to realize that would require putting his hands all over her chest. Huh. Point to the mysterious man.

"Huh…nope…I'm…." He spluttered, backing up from her, concern still evident on what she could see of his face. Kara finally caught her breath and began patting out the fire herself, only annoyed that this was another pair of perfectly good clothes ruined. And she really needed them after her evil self had burnt all her clothes…

"You don't seem that bothered by the fact that you're on fire." The man noted.

"I didn't need you to save me." Kara replied shortly. To her indignation, the man chuckled in disbelief.

"You just fell from a skyscraper." He pointed up to illustrate his point. "So if I hadn't been there, you would have gone splat."

Kara took a moment to examine her would-be savior. He was fairly tall, and was built like a runner, lean but strong. It was quite a deviation from the more muscular men and aliens at the DEO. Of course, the most noticeable thing about him was the red leather suit he was clothed in. It covered all of his body, everything except his eyes and lower face, and had a lightning bolt emblem on the chest, almost similar to the House of El symbol on hers, which was surrounded by a bulky futuristic looking device.

But the examination of this strange new alien would have to wait for later. She had a more immediate problem to deal with. "I have to get back to the city." She said to herself.

"Okay…" He trailed off as she walked away and exploded off into the sky, shedding her civilian clothes behind her. It didn't occur to her until she was already far up in the sky that she had just revealed her identity to a strange man she knew nothing about.

"What the what…" she heard him mutter with her super-hearing. "That's a new one. I thought I was the impossible."

Then, as she turned her eyes towards National City, she heard the sound of crackling electricity. Looking down, she saw a red steak working its way across the landscape, rivalling herself in speed. It had to be the man in the red suit. But how was he able to keep up with her? Was he Kryptonian? No, if he was then he would be flying.

She had to investigate this. She flew to the ground to confront this red streak. The moment she touched down he appeared in front of her, his entire body vibrating with power, and his eyes scrutinized her with an odd intensity that might have made her blush if it was under different circumstances.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Barry Allen was very confused. It had seemed simple: save the person falling, put them on the ground, race back to STAR Labs. Only he had overshot by several dozen miles, and rushed in the country.

Except there was no country around Central City. So he had stopped and put the woman down, accidently almost getting a face full of pepper spray when he realized she was on fire, but the woman wasn't the least bit thankful. The blonde just muttered in a confusing way and then flew up into the freaking sky. After dropping all her clothes on him for some reason.

There was no meta that Barry knew could do that, other than Weather Wizard, and any family member of that guy was more likely to try and kill him than just fly away. So he took off after her, hoping to talk to her when she landed, which was sooner than he had expected.

The woman that floated down from the sky was…different from the one that he had rescued. The blonde had been pretty before, in a slightly mousy secretary way, but now…

The sun shined through a tumble of blonde hair and cool blue eyes gazed down at him as she touched down. Her skirt, knee-high boots and cape matched his own suit, but the blue shirt emblazoned with the stylized S on it wasn't one that he recognized. Of course, he couldn't focus much on the symbol at the moment, because he didn't feel the need to piss off a meta of unknown power and strength by staring at her chest.

More than that, she was…beautiful. Worryingly so. Barry wasn't exactly graceful when communicating with beautiful women, and right now he needed to get information and hopefully not look like an idiot.

Briefly tapping into the Speed Force, Barry took a few milliseconds to recompose himself before he stared down the girl, focusing more on the powers than on her appearance.

"How did you do that?" He questioned. She looked at him like he was an idiot- a look too often got from women.

"I'm Supergirl." From her tone, she clearly thought he should know who she was.

"You're who now?" Supergirl? She looked to be at least his own age, and he was…well maybe not a man according to his friends, but at least his superhero name was pretty cool, if he did say so himself.

The woman- Supergirl- looked just as confused as him. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and why was he noticing that?

"Sorry, I was just a little…" she put her hands up to her ears, cringing "Disoriented from the scream."

The Scream? Barry hadn't heard of that meta before.

"How did you save me?" The girl questioned him, ironically asking him essentially the same question she hadn't answered.

Did she not know who the Flash was? Was there someone else running around in a red suit at super speed?

"Well, I…" he started. "You fell out a window and I caught you and ran you all the way out here." He managed to get out, waving his hands around. "Which I did not mean to do but I've been working on my speed and…"

He looked around in confusion. He felt totally lost right now.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Supergirl felt totally lost right now. Who was this guy? How had he never heard of Supergirl? And what in the sweet name of Rao was he talking about?

"Guess I'm faster than I thought…" The man concluded, still looking around like he hadn't ever been out in the country before. Time to try again.

"Yes…but I…" Supergirl exhaled in exasperation, making sure to not actually freeze the mysterious man. "Who are you?"

Now he was looking at her in disbelief. His face twitched into a grin a few times, like she had told him a joke he wasn't sure whether to laugh at or not.

"I'm the Flash." He grinned, looking at her in total confusion.

"The who now?" Supergirl liked to think her memory was fairly good, and she couldn't recall anyone ever mentioning a 'Flash'. Was he an alien? Was the machine on his chest giving him super speed somehow?

The Flash looked baffled. "The Fl…Wait, do you not know who I am?"

"Should I?"

"What about the Green Arrow?"

Wasn't that the vigilante who stole from the rich to give to the poor? Probably not what he meant anyway. Supergirl shook her head.

"Black Canary?"

Were canaries black? She had never seen one. Again, no.

"Firestorm? Adam? Zoom?"

Supergirl shrugged. "Sorry."

The Flash turned away and seemed to come to a realization. "Oh, boy." He muttered. "Not as sorry as I am."

Before she could ask if that was a threat, the Flash began to pull of his hood…cowl…thing. Supergirl idly realized that she had to tell Winn his theory that all superheroes were weirdly attractive was true. The Flash definitely was handsome…

The Flash looked at her solemnly and Supergirl suddenly realized she was staring.

"Hey, I'm Barry Allen. I'm the fastest man alive." The Flash- Barry- gave a halfhearted chuckle that quickly died. "Also think I'm on the wrong Earth. I'm gonna need your help."

Supergirl shook herself out of her stupor and took a moment to fully process what he was saying.

"We need to talk about this back at CatCo." She decided. The fly over would also give her time to think over what he was saying. "By the way, where are my clothes?"

Barry looked surprised. "Uh…your clothes?" Now that she could see his face she could see how embarrassed he was. "I left them behind…but when I run things tend to get knocked around and/or getting caught on fire, so I wouldn't count on getting them back."

Supergirl sighed. She had few other clothing options until she could get a chance to go shopping. Stupid dimension hopper…

"Fine, we'll have to stop by my apartment on the way back. Let's go." With that, Supergirl backed up and took off towards National City, the Flash following beneath her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The detour by Supergirl-Kara's-apartment was thankfully brief. Barry didn't really enjoy going to other people's houses as a general rule, especially when there was a pretty girl changing in the room next to him, even if it was at super speed. Luckily Barry had been able to obtain a change of clothes from Kara's neighbor, who was throwing out all her ex-husband's things.

When Supergirl had re-emerged as Kara Danvers, the two took off for CatCo and sequestered themselves in Kara's 'hidden office', where Barry immediately took over the computer to research this new dimension.

However, despite the fact that Kara had revealed her secret identity to him and even showed him where she lived, she still didn't seem to fully trust him. Or believe him, rather.

"So what do you mean by you're from another Earth, I mean, how many other Earths are there other than this one? You know, we're Earth. I don't understand…" She asked in confusion.

In his furious typing spree, Barry had somewhat ignored her in favor of results, and now was squinting in frustration at the computer. He'd feel guilty for his rudeness later, at the moment the more immediate problem needed to be addressed.

"You guys have Central City, but you don't have STAR Labs. No Cisco Ramon, no Harrison Wells, no Caitlin Snow. Nobody who's gonna be able to help me get back home." Barry concluded.

Kara turned to him, probably not understanding what he was saying and about to question him, when the door burst open and two men came in.

The two men couldn't look any more opposite. There was a tall bald black man who had biceps that would have made Tony Woodward jealous, and his companion was a shorter white guy who looked like he spent a lot of time at a computer. Both of their eyes lingered on Barry for a moment, assessing him, before settling on Kara.

"Hey, are you alright?" The short guy asked.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." Kara dismissed. "What happened to Siobhan?"

"Oh, well, after she went all Mariah Carey on you, she just split." He replied sardonically. Of that, only one thing stuck out to Barry.

"Oh, so we both have Mariah Carey." He commented to Kara. "That's…something."

"Who're you?" The tall black guy asked.

"Hey, sorry, I'm Barry Allen." Barry stepped forward to shake the guy's hand, which he accepted, but the man maintained a skeptical expression.

"James Olson." He said back.

"And this is Winn." Kara pointed to the other guy, who also looked distrusting.

"Uh, you guys..." Kara chuckled awkwardly and clasped her hands together. "I'm not quite sure how to tell you this. Well, I do know who to tell you, I just…"

Maybe she was this world's version of Felicity Smoak? Barry amused himself with that thought for a moment, but noticed that both James and Winn didn't seem amused.

"Uh, Barry…is from another universe." Kara concluded, putting up her arms like Barry was on display. There was a very palpable awkwardness in the air, and Barry was trying to come up with an explanation to convince them-

"Cool!" Winn exclaimed. The man's entire previous hesitance washed away. "Whoa! So the, the theory of the multiverse, that's true?" He directed the question at Barry, looking almost hungry.

"Oh, yeah. Big time." Barry replied.

"I still can't believe it, and I'm from another planet." Kara said.

Barry's head swiveled over towards her. "What?" Was that common here? Were aliens here like metahumans on his Earth? And what're the odds an alien race would evolve to look exactly like humans?

"Oh yeah. She's an alien." Winn confirmed, pointing at Kara in case the who of the problem was the part he was having trouble grasping.

"You're an alien?" Barry asked Kara directly.

"Yeah." Kara grinned.

"So, do you have, like, other aliens on this Earth?"

"What do you mean by 'this Earth'?" James cut in.

"Ah…" Barry's brain stalled for a moment. "Hold on."

Barry ran over to a nearby whiteboard that was conveniently present and began to draw circles, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Winn and Kara both looked excited whereas James looked….annoyed? Ah, but the show must go on.

"All right, so, imagine there are multiple versions of Earth. Um, one where Nazis won World War II, one where Kennedy was never assassinated…"

Winn raised a hand. "Oh, yeah. One where all of us are evil?"

Barry grimaced. "Been there. It sucks."

Turning back to the whiteboard, Barry continued. "So all of these Earths occupy the same place in space, but they vibrate at a different frequency so they can't see one another."

Winn popped up next to him next to the white board. "Yeah, but if you can go fast enough, then it's possible to open, like, a breach and then travel between worlds."

That was quite a coincidental word choice. Barry nodded. "Yeah."

"But how could you travel that fast?" James questioned skeptically.

Barry set down his marker and grinned. Time for a little showing off. In the blink of an eye, he was off. Before any of them had time to register his absence (except maybe Kara), he was back, and they each had an ice cream in their hand.

"Yes!" Kara yelled, grinning at him like Christmas had come early. The sudden Speed Force usage must have messed with his head, because for a moment Barry's brain would not start.

"Uh, so, I was struck by lightning the same night a particle accelerator exploded, and I became a superhero." Barry explained as succinctly as he could with the limited brain power he had, which took a further dive when Kara smiled at him again, taking a lick of her ice cream.

"So you're a superhero, too?" James stammered, still not looking completely put at ease.

"Yup." Barry confirmed.

James shifted uncomfortably. "That's cool, I guess." He turned away from Barry and sulkily ate his ice cream, causing Barry to squint at him, looking between him and Kara. Were they…?

Winn raised his hand. "So you can just like, bop back and forth between universes?"

Barry winced. "Uh, no actually. This happened by accident. I have traveled through time before by accident-""-That's cool-"Winn cut in. "-but I've never jumped parallel dimensions without meaning to. So until I can figure this out, I'm stuck here."

"Well, don't worry. Don't worry at all because we're gonna help you." Kara patted Barry on the shoulder, making him wince at her unintentionally painful grip.

Kara saw the look on his face and released him. "I'm sorry."

"Um, it's okay." Barry muttered. Apparently whatever was affecting his head was affecting his other organs too, because suddenly he felt butterflies in his stomach. That reminded him…

"First things first: food. I have to consume about 10,000 calories a day." He winced in embarrassment. If he didn't have powers that sort of diet would be embarrassing. It still sort of was.

"Oh, yeah. You've definitely met the right girl." Winn said, pointing to Kara. The phrasing was slightly awkward, and Barry's eyebrows shot up. James shot Winn a betrayed look that Barry barely caught.

Kara bit her lip and grinned, looking over at Barry mischievously. "Do you like donuts?" she asked.

Barry smirked at the woman in return. "Who doesn't like donuts?"

Kara nodded enthusiastically, her smile only growing. "I know a place."

"Alright." Barry pointed to the door. Kara took the lead and exited. "Yeah. See you." Barry shot a grin over his shoulder as he picked up his coat and followed Kara out of the office.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kara led Barry through the upper floor of CatCo with a grin on her face, as if she hadn't just been shoved out of a window here just an hour ago. "Just one more thing I've got to get and then we can…"

"Kerah, you're alive." Ms. Grant's voice cut through Kara's promise with her normal sharp tone.

"Ms. Grant! Don't worry, I was rescued…"

"Stop stating the obvious. You're in the middle of breaking news and I want you to act like it. And yes," Ms. Grant heaved a sigh, "yes, another one of my ex-employees went all revenge-y. But…" She swiveled her computer around to show her a familiar image of Catco. But this time there was a red blur racing up to meet a smaller dot. It was a clear, clean shot of the Flash saving her.

"There's a new superhero in National City." Kara and Barry exchanged looks as James and Winn rushed in. "This is huge. Direct competition for Supergirl." Ms. Grant continued.

That was not good. Kara didn't know how long Barry would be around, but if he was here for a long time then it would be best if he weren't pitted against her- or rather Supergirl- in the media. "He doesn't have to be competition." She protested.

"Would you prefer a sidekick?"

"No, not a sidekick." Barry cut in. Kara shot him a warning look, but he didn't heed it. "More like an equal." He said, giving a teasing glance to Kara. "Or an ally. Even a partner, maybe."

Ms. Grant stared Barry down with a withering gaze.

Barry cleared his throat. "Speaking was the wrong choice, I see that now."

Ms. Grant stared him down for a moment, and then moved her gaze over all four of them. "All four of you standing there doing nothing, you look like the attractive yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show." She mused aloud.

"Who are you?" And her focus was once again on Barry, and her voice carried a not-so-subtle hint that if he didn't have a good excuse that he would be thrown out of the room by force.

"Um, he's my cousin." Kara offered quickly, at the same time that James and Winn chorused that Barry was their cousin.

Before the awkwardness had a chance to set in, Barry cut in. "No. My name's Barry Allen. I'm not actually anybody's cousin. Uh, we're just good friends."

"Yeah," Kara jumped in, "It feels like we're family sometimes."

Ms. Grant made no show to pretend that she believed them as all four chuckled nervously. "Well, I need a clear picture of this speedster. James, that's on you. And Kerah, there are a lot of people who want to know what happened. Speak to no one, you're mine. I will let you know when you should reveal this exclusive information."

Once again Ms. Grant sighed. "Now, I have to name this hero. I was thinking 'the Whoosh' or 'the Red Streak or 'the Blur'…" Ms. Grant's eyes went blank as they normally did when she was thinking as the four of them exchanged glances at the names.

"…The Blur." Ms. Grant said with the tone of someone who had just come to a decision.

"What about the Flash?" Barry spoke up again, a smile working its way onto his face. Kara felt dizzy for a moment, likely an aftereffect of the sonic attack. She would have to get one of the DEO doctors to check her later.

"I'm just saying," Barry continued, "I think that's a pretty cool superhero name. Right?"

"The Flash?" Ms. Grant said disapprovingly. "Sounds like someone whose only superpower is jumping out of an alley in a trench coat." Despite herself, Kara snorted, and Barry shot her a betrayed look.

"No," Ms. Grant concluded, "I want mystery; I want intrigue, so I want the Blur. Boys, be gone. Girl, stay." She ordered. James, Winn and Barry all shambled out of the office, shooting concerned looks over their shoulders.

Kara adjusted her glasses nervously and approached Ms. Grant's desk, not sure why she wanted her to stay.

"It's very clear that James is not happy seeing you with another man." Ms. Grant said with a hint of begrudging admiration in her voice.

A bubble of laugher filled Kara's throat. "What? No, I am not with another…" she trailed off as she realized that no one else was in earshot. "Really?" she asked nervously.

"Lighthouse. Keep it up. Though you might have wanted to choose someone a tad more…attractive than Mr. Allen." Ms. Grant said.

"Uh, well, I don't think that's quite fair, I think Barry is fairly attractive, maybe he's not James, but…well, I mean, okay there are different kinds of attractiveness, and Barry is pretty high up there..." Kara likely would have continued rambling had she not realized what on Rao she was saying to her boss of all people.

Ms. Grant raised a single eyebrow, her expression blank. Carefully blank. Studiously blank. "Good luck, Kerah." Ms. Grant returned to her work, a clear dismissal.

Kara took a few steps towards the door, hesitated, and then continued out.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Barry was having an odd dream, which was an odd realization to come to, because even though he realized it, he didn't wake up, nor did he gain control as one is supposed to when they are lucid dreaming.

He stood in someplace he didn't recognize, but that might be because it was constantly changing. Every inch of space was made of something one moment and something completely different the next. It was chaos incarnate, and he was caught in the middle of it.

Despite all that, he wasn't afraid. He felt safe here. This was a place where anything good could and would happen…if he wanted it to. He had felt this place before. When the only limit to where and when he could go was dependent on his own speed.

"..arr…om...l..er…ind..s."

Barry turned his head to the side, trying to listen to the voice.

". ...closer... ."

He was so close, but he couldn't hear it yet. Barry raced towards the sound, but he couldn't hear it any clearer. Who was it, what were they trying to say?

"I need your help." Barry jolted awake when he heard Kara burst in the door.

"Anything you need." James was right at her side immediately, with Winn ready to help as well.

Kara looked distressed. "I was…actually talking to Barry." She gave James a look of apology, and then turned her gaze to Barry, who found himself on his feet.

"Yeah. Yeah, what can I do?"

"Well, I have this villain. Her name is Livewire, and she's basically like living electricity."

That was familiar territory for him. "That's cool. We have a rogue like that. We call him Blackout." Barry grinned at the memory, but saw that no one else was amused, and his smile fell. "Doesn't feel relevant all of a sudden." He muttered.

"Right. So she just broke out of this prison and…"

James sat down on the sofa with a long-suffering sigh. Barry internally winced, realizing that his presence was likely not helping the man with…whatever it was he had with Kara. Which Barry did not want to interfere with. At all. Because he had just met both of them, and had no reason to do so.

"Anyway, all she wants out of life is to kill Ms. Grant, and with Siobhan still out there, I don't think that I can protect her by myself." Kara hesitated and flashed Barry a nervous smile. "National City needs the Flash."

Barry wanted to accept immediately, but held back. He really needed to get back to Central City as soon as possible, ever second he wasted here was a moment Zoom might attack his friends back at STAR Labs. He didn't have time to deal with other world's villains.

But how to tell that to Kara's pleading face?

"Kara, I…" he started.

"And once they're both back in custody, I promise that we will do everything in our power to get you back home. What do you say?" She leaned forward in anticipation and stuck out her hand. "Partners?"

That was a pretty good deal. Barry smiled back at her and shook her hand. "Partners."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the space of a few seconds, Flash had scouted out the entire area of the Department of Extra-Normal Operations. It was like Oliver's cave had been extended to the space of a few square miles. Every inch of the facility held revolutionary technology that would have made Cisco blush in envy. A few laps later to burn the layout into his mind, he reappeared in front of Supergirl and Winn.

"Okay, this place is amazing, all right?" Flash said enthusiastically, making Supergirl and Winn laugh. Then something even more interesting caught his eye. "Is that a spaceship?"

"That's actually my spaceship." Supergirl said proudly.

"I love this Earth." Flash decided. This was the fulfillment of so many of his old nerd fantasies. "Hey, Winn, can I get a picture with this bad boy?"

"Oh, yeah sure." Winn exclaimed, pulling out his phone quickly, only to wither when Supergirl gave him a look. "Uh…that's probably not a good idea, dude." Winn rescinded nervously.

"Agreed."

Flash glanced up at the new voice. It was a pretty woman with dark hair, dressed in dark soldier's garb, who carried herself with all the bearing of a military general. She also had a battalion of armed men pointing their weapons at Flash. "Who is this masked man? Alien?"

Supergirl crossed her arms and stepped in front of Flash protectively. "Metahuman." She declared. The other woman clearly did not know what that meant, but pushed forward regardless.

"Well, we have protocol for visitors at the DEO, Supergirl." The woman said crossly.

"Guy, it's fine, he's here to help us find Livewire." Supergirl defended.

There was a pause, and then the woman waved the men off, making them lower their weapons. "We do need all the help we can get." She admitted. "So what do I call you? Speedy?"

Well, he wasn't going to be in this dimension that long hopefully…Barry pulled down his cowl and stepped forward. "Barry Allen." He introduced.

"Lucy Lane. I hope you're bringing more to the table than just quick reflexes."

Oh, that was a challenge if he'd ever heard one. Barry smirked back at Lucy. "As it just so happens, catching criminals is both my night and day job. I'm a CSI. If you have a crime lab here, I'm sure I can be of assistance."

"Yeah, my sister's lab's right over there." Supergirl offered, pointing to the mentioned space.

"Wait, you have a sister?" Barry asked, following the blonde woman. "Where is she at?" The question was clearly not a good one, as Supergirl's face fell.

"I wish I knew."

Sensing that it was time for a change of topic, Barry decided to ask something that had been bothering him all day. "So, you can fly, and you're fast, but what else can you do?" He may be a scientist, but he couldn't really think of a scientific explanation for her.

Supergirl lost her worried look for a moment as her brow crinkled in thought. "Well, my physical strength matches my speed for the most part, and I also can use heat vision and freeze breath. Oh, and I'm pretty much invulnerable."

Had Barry been drinking something at the moment he would have spit it out. Had she been a metahuman Barry would have been tempted to say she was almost unfairly powerful, but maybe that was the average on this Earth. One thing did stick out to him though…

"If you're invulnerable, how did you get your ears pierced? Did you have to see an alien piercing place?" Kara's hand went to her ears in surprise.

"Well, technically yes. I got them back on Krypton, before it…before I came here." Supergirl switched what she was going to say in the middle of her sentence, but Barry didn't push. They were still essentially strangers, and it wasn't his place.

Maybe it was time to change topics again…but then Barry caught sight of the high-tech computer that Supergirl was ushering him towards, and all thoughts that weren't playing with this universes' toys fled from his mind.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Supergirl knew she was smart. Going from Krypton to Earth was essentially like going to live in the Stone Age, so she hadn't gotten very invested in Earth's science. It was like seeing people bang rocks together.

But if you heard Barry talk about it, it was one of the most exciting and mystifying things there was. She didn't understand half of the words that he said, but apparently the DEO's computers were more advanced than those that he had worked with. Winn seemed just as excited, only more on the subject of having someone being just as enthusiastic about technology as him.

Within the span of an hour, Barry had set up an algorithm to find Livewire, the intricacies of which she didn't understand, just in time for James to show up. Her heart beat slightly faster as she grinned over at the man, who seemed slightly off.

"We found Livewire!" she announced.

"That's great news!" James smiled back, his face relaxing.

"Actually it was Barry." Winn admitted.

"Of course it was…" James mumbled. Kara shot him a look, but he didn't notice.

"Livewire's ability to absorb the electrical energy in the air surrounding her gave me an idea. So I wrote an algorithm to monitor variations in meter usage around the city, and it all leads to that warehouse. I see bad guys love their abandoned warehouses on your Earth too, huh?" Barry explained/babbled.

"I'll authorize a drop team." Lucy decided.

"No." Supergirl interrupted. "She's too dangerous. Let's go." She wasn't going to let anyone without powers risk their life for someone who wanted to kill her.

Barry shot up beside her, ready for action. "All right, what's the plan?"

"Catch the bad girl; bring her back here so she can't hurt anyone. 85% chance of punching." Supergirl listed. There was no time to waste coming up with a detailed plan of action. She had to get there before Livewire got out and hurt anyone.

Barry looked at her with a frown. "Okay…" He said. "That I get. But like, what's the plan? Maybe we can overload her somehow." He posed, turning to Lucy for support, and Supergirl felt a surge of irritation.

"Yeah, what about the Industrial Capacitator you were gonna trap her in last time?" Winn supported.

"No, it went busto." Supergirl shot down.

"Well, the Dynamic Duo will build you a new one." Winn and Barry high-fived while grinning like idiots.

"No." Supergirl said firmly. "If we wait, we lose her. If we lose her, God knows what kind of damage she could do, or who she could hurt. I defeated her once before. I can do it again. With your help." She turned to Barry, hoping he wouldn't change his mind.

Barry seemed slightly off put, but nodded. "I'm right behind you."

Both Supergirl and Barry took off through the DEO towards the warehouse, Supergirl barely catching Winn say "Have I told you how much I like that guy?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Flash raced underneath Supergirl through the countryside towards the warehouse. He had taken the time to memorize the layout of National City so that he wouldn't have to ask directions and could focus on his speed, though he was much slower now that he didn't have the tachyon device attached to him. It was too vital to him returning to his Earth to risk it in a fight.

By the time Supergirl had landed, Flash had circled the perimeter and met up with her.

"For the record, I got here first." Supergirl remarked, a playful grin on her face.

"Yeah, for the record, I went around the block to check the perimeter. So technically, I let you get here first." Flash shot back. Supergirl chuckled and rolled her eyes at him.

Barry let his grin die as he looked around the warehouse. It was dark and dank, with small pockets of light creeping out from the walls. "You sure this is the right place?" he asked.

"Hope so."

As if on cue, the sole working light lit up in a fireworks display of cackling electricity, solidifying to turn into a white haired woman with dark leather clothing. Her vacant expression was a sign of madness that Flash was sadly well acquainted with.

"Long time, cape and skirt." Livewire said tauntingly. "Didn't think you could take me solo so you brought a date? How sweet."

Flash waved Supergirl away. "I got this." He said confidently. Flash disappeared in a blur of lightning, circling Livewire at his top speed, confusing the supervillainess and superheroine alike. If he could shoot Livewire up with enough lightning hopefully it would overload her like it had overloaded Blackout.

In an instant, Flash was back beside Supergirl, and he shot all the lightning he could muster at the deranged white-haired woman. It slammed into her, a look of shock (no pun intended) appearing on her face. Flash grinned as she shuddered, but then the lightning twisted, turning blue and sinking into her skin as Livewire straightened and cackled.

"Thanks for the charge." Livewire's smile twisted into a snarl as she built up a charge and slammed it into him, briefly suspending him in the air and sucking the Speed Force out of him. Barry couldn't let her steal his powers like Blackout did; if he did then Supergirl would be alone with a crazed maniac.

Flash tapped into the Speed Force for a brief moment, sending a shudder of energy along their connection, and immediately cut it off. Livewire flinched back, breaking the connection and sending Flash plummeting to the ground, briefly stunned.

Flash flinched as a high pitched screeching that suddenly pierced the air.

"I brought a friend too." Livewire announced. "Meet Silver Banshee."

Flash pushed himself to his feet. Supergirl needed his help, now more than ever. She may be invulnerable, but two-on-one was not good in any situation.

Barry caught a glimpse of this Silver Banshee. She was a human covered in skull-like black and white makeup, clothed in a tight black suit. Like her companion, she did not look completely stable, but didn't appear as manic.

"All my life I thought I was cursed." Silver Banshee said bitterly. "But now I see I was cursed for the better."

"You don't have to do this." Supergirl warned. "I want to help you."

"Funny, she said the same thing to me once." Livewire sneered. "Here's what I say to that." Silver Banshee opened her mouth and screeched. Flash heard Supergirl slam into the wall and struggled to stand up despite his spinning head.

"Once you two are dead I can finally give that little blonde moppet, Kara Danvers, the death she deserves." Silver Banshee announced. Great, so the two supervillains hated both sides of Supergirl, they just didn't know it. Flash pushed himself up, ready to fight.

"Maybe Kara Danvers is tougher than you give her credit for." Supergirl growled. She then took a deep breath and blew, a torrent of ice and hale emerging from her mouth, encasing Silver Banshee. Flash immediately began moving his arms in circles, sending a whirlwind of air to complement Supergirl's freeze breath, knocking Livewire to the ground as well.

Even so, they didn't have a plan. Silver Banshee was an unknown, and they didn't know how to trap Livewire. "We're not going to win this today!" He called to Supergirl. His partner nodded and quit her freeze breath.

Supergirl took off into the sky and Flash took off from the warehouse. They needed to re-group and re-plan. But Supergirl was flying not towards the DEO, but towards CatCo.

Barry quickly changed into his civilian clothes, storing away his Flash suit for later, and slowly made his way up to the top floor, where he hoped Kara would be waiting.

On the way up, shoved to the back of the elevator, Barry considered his actions in the fight. He was off his game, and he didn't know why. Kara knew more about Livewire than he did, yet he had given her a power boost, showing off one of his strongest abilities in the process. Why did he do that?

A creeping suspicion filled the back of his mind, and he immediately railed against what it was whispering to him. That what he did seemed a lot like showing off. More specifically, it seemed a lot like he was doing it to impress someone.

Barry shook his head as he walked out of the elevator and spotted Kara out on the balcony. It was too soon after Patty, and he was still too confused about Iris, and Kara had her own issues with James. He couldn't get too mixed up in this.

He couldn't. But Barry wasn't sure if it was for his sake, or hers.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kara gazed out at National City from her favorite balcony, her sensitive ears picking up footsteps approaching. It was too light for James, and too solid for Winn. Barry. She turned and saw him approach her, dressed in his casual civilian clothes. It didn't look quite as good as his costume did…

"Hey. How are you doing?" Barry asked in concern. Kara turned away from him, blushing slightly, and focused on the question. How was she doing?

"Well, aside from my eardrums ringing like church bells, I'm okay." Kara said. Barry shot her a disbelieving look.

"Are you sure?" He asked. "You don't seem okay."

Kara looked at Barry's earnest face and broke down. "I'm sorry I made you rush in against Livewire without a plan." She apologized. "I didn't know she was gonna have a cohort."

Barry turned and looked down at the city with her. "That's the thing about being a superhero. You have to somehow be prepared for the unexpected." Kara threw him a glance. Underneath a thick layer of pure nerd, there was a sense of raw pain that hadn't quite healed over. She could sympathize with that.

"Something happened to me a few weeks ago." Kara confessed. "I was exposed to this substance that made me crazy and I did a lot of horrible things."

Sympathy flashed across Barry's face. "That's rough."

"And when I was helping people as Supergirl, I was…I was so happy. And now that the people don't want me to help them, I feel lost. And I'm in such a hurry to prove myself again, I'm making stupid mistakes. Like today."

"This is gonna sound ironic coming from me, but you need to slow down. Just keep doing your good work. Don't worry about the rest. The public will forgive you, I promise."

Kara almost scoffed. How often was it that one of the most powerful people on the planet was corrupted, lost the trust of the public, and then gained it again? "How can you be so sure?"

Barry smiled at her. "Because the same thing happened to me. I got whammied by a meta from my Earth, and all of the negativity in me just rose to the surface."

"Whammied?" Kara asked, curious about the unfamiliar term. It sounded slightly too whimsical to be nefarious.

"Yup." Barry nodded. "They even ended up giving me the key to the city." What he was saying sounded almost sounded too good to be true.

"So what finally fixed things?" Kara asked hungrily. Barry tilted his head and thought for a moment. Finally he shrugged.

"Time." He said sagely. That was not the answer that Kara wanted. It was too cliché, and besides, it had been several weeks already. Barry could apparently see the frustration in her face, because he continued.

"When you're used to fixing things with…" Barry took a moment to consider his words. "…brute strength, or in my case, amazing speed, it's hard to accept that there are things out of our control."

There was a moment of silence.

"It's humbling, right?" He asked. Kara nodded, staring off into the distance. "And believe me, when you stop trying to force the solution, it'll happen on its own." Kara shifted uncomfortably as it occurred to her it was the opposite advice that Ms. Grant had given her, though on a different matter.

"I'm really sorry you're locked out of your world, but…I'm still glad you're here." Kara admitted, looking over at the speedster and patting him on the shoulder. Barry smiled back at her, and for a moment Kara felt an odd swooshing in her stomach that filled her with dread.

"M-me too." She got out, smiling back at him.

They enjoyed a few moments more of comfortable silence before Barry broke it reluctantly. "We should probably head back to the DEO if we want to prepare against Livewire and Silver Banshee." He said.

Kara nodded and moved away from Barry with an odd feeling of relief. "Let's suit up."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Barry fiddled with the Allen Earpieces, as he had mentally dubbed them, explaining what he was doing to Supergirl the whole time. "So back on my Earth, we fought a villain who used sound waves as a weapon, he called himself Pied Piper."

"That is a cool name." She remarked.

"You've got some pretty decently named villains too, considering you don't have a comic geek to name them for you."

"I'm sure Winn wouldn't be opposed if we gave him the opportunity." The two chuckled, and then got back to business.

"So, I whipped up these bad boys. Err, sorry I keep saying 'bad boys'." He apologized sheepishly.

"Are they earbuds?" Supergirl asked, picking one up, thankfully ignoring his choice of words.

"Yeah, it'll protect us from Silver Banshee's yell-y voice." Hopefully at least. Barry was no slouch, but he also wasn't on Cisco's level, so there was a slight chance they might explode. Before he had a chance to tell her that, Lucy walked over.

"James just called. Livewire and Silver Banshee kidnapped Cat." She announced grimly. Continuing her steak of oddly coincidental verbal cues, the computers began to crackle and Livewire's visage appeared on every screen.

"Hello, Red and Blue." Livewire sneered. "Come to National City Park now if you don't want Cat's blood all over your hands…or all over the street." She laughed maniacally.

"You don't have to do this Barry. This is my fight." Supergirl warned him. Barry frowned, knowing that he technically didn't have to. He had supplied her with the Allen Earbuds, she could fight effectively. But that wasn't what a hero did.

"One for all and all for…" He quickly glanced at Supergirl desperately. "You guys have Three Musketeers here, right?"

Supergirl nodded grimly. "All for one." She finished.

The two of them sped out of the DEO, heading for National City Park.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Supergirl landed in National Park to find people running around in panic, as was the usual. Hopefully Silver Banshee and Livewire would be humane enough to not attack civilians, but she kept an eye out just in case.

"Hey, Sparky!" Flash called out. "Hi, Shrieky." He said mockingly.

Supergirl gave him a momentary glance. Barry was a lot more confident when he was the Flash, almost to the point of being cocky.

"What do you say we step away from the nice lady and settle this like women?" Flash continued. Everyone within earshot stopped and stared at him, making the superhero shift uncomfortably. "What? There's more of you guys here than me." He defended.

Supergirl rolled her eyes, a slight smile on her face, and turned back to the two supervillainesses.

"Kill them both." Livewire commanded. Silver Banshee stepped forward and screeched, and the sound waves washed over Supergirl without effect, though people several dozen feet away clutched their heads in pain. Silver Banshee's powers were getting stronger.

Silver Banshee looked in surprise at Supergirl and Flash in utter surprise that her attack didn't affect them.

"Told you it would work." Flash grinned at her. Supergirl grinned back and decided to take a page from his taunting handbook and took a step forward.

"What? You lose your voice?" She mocked.

"What are you waiting for?" Silver Banshee screeched at Livewire.

"Watch who you yell at!" Livewire grumbled, charging up and shooting two streams at the duo. Flash immediately moved in to action, dashing in between the two and punching them away. Livewire dispersed into the electrical system and Flash took off after her.

Supergirl flew over to Cat Grant, who was still chained to the park bench. "What took you so long?" Cat asked crossly.

"Are you kidding?" Supergirl asked disbelievingly, leaning down to rip the handcuffs off of her, just in time to take a hard punch from Silver Banshee, somehow strong enough to propel her back several feet and make her jaw sting.

Supergirl slammed her hands into the ground, ripping up a chunk of concrete and hurling it at Silver Banshee, who destroyed it with another sonic screech. Livewire appeared in a flash of light, still uncaught. She directed her gaze up at a passing helicopter. "I hate helicopters!" The woman hissed, throwing a lightning bolt at the helicopter.

Supergirl shot up into the sky, intercepting the burst of energy just before it could reach the helicopter. It was far more painful than normal, fueled by Flash's power and Livewire's own, and after only a few seconds Kara's control gaze out, sending her plummeting to the Earth, right in front of a group of terrified civilians.

"She's hurt."

"She saved the helicopter."

"She saved us!"

"She saved all of us!"

Supergirl groaned as she tried to push herself up, put her muscles weren't responding to her orders. She could barely focus just on the pain coursing through her, but she did hear all of the comments of the amazed crowd. Then she heard what sounded like a rush of hurried footsteps. She focused her bleary vision as much as she could, and found a crowd of people surrounding her protectively.

"Leave her alone!" One woman pleaded.

"Yesterday you people were ready to string her up. Now you're willing to die for her?" Livewire sneered.

The woman who had spoken up took another step forward. "She was willing to die for us."

"What do you say we thin the herd?" Livewire shot back. She shot her lightning down at the ground, propelling herself off the ground. She couldn't let this happen, she couldn't let herself live at the cost of someone else's death, not again.

"No…" She croaked. "Don't. Please, please."

At that moment, something unexpected happened. A hose of water slammed into Livewire, making her explode into a storm of electricity, flopping to the ground and taking out Silver Banshee with her. The crowd began cheering and Supergirl looked up to see the firemen shutting down their hose.

A thick blonde fireman walked over to Supergirl and offered his hand. "It was our turn to help you." Supergirl took the man's hand and stood up to a chorus of applause.

Flash appeared in a bolt of lightning, looking around in panic for any enemies, only to find that there were none.

"Are you okay?" He asked her immediately.

Supergirl looked at him and then around at the cheering crowd. "Never better, Flash."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kara looked proudly up at the news report giving a glowing review of Supergirl's efforts to sacrifice herself for National City. As the newscaster ended his report, Winn began clapping quietly, so as not to attract attention.

"Hey, so what happened to Siobhan and Leslie? Did they get locked up at the DEO?" He asked.

"Nope." Kara responded. "Thanks to Barry, the National City Police Department has a way to lock up metahumans."

Kara could see James roll his eyes out of the corner of her eyes, but she ignored the uncomfortable stirring in her chest and pushed on.

"And like you told Supergirl, our enemies deserve a fair trial." She said to James, smiling nervously.

James forced a smile back at her. "Well, I'm always good for advice." The three of them sat in awkward silence for a moment until Winn suddenly straightened up all of a sudden, which he only did in one person's presence.

"Ms. Grant!" Kara exclaimed. "If it's all right with you, Barry is leaving town and I was going to see him off." She declared/asked. To her surprise, Ms. Grant barely glanced up from her tablet.

"Okay. Tell Mr. Allen to have a good time zipping around in his red outfit." Ms. Grant said dismissively, still poking away at her phone.

Kara blinked in surprise until her brain re-booted. "Wait, you knew he was the Flash?"

Ms. Grant rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Barry shows up, the Flash shows up, his insistence on that silly name, and he was so unfailingly charming and nice that he either had to be a superhero or a Mormon."

Ms. Grant took a step closer and made direct uncomfortable eye contact with Kara. "Kerah, I can spot the extraordinary pretending to be a nobody in my midst just like that." She snapped her fingers to prove her point. "Now, my eyebrow waxing with Arabella at 9 am tomorrow morning is not going to book itself. Feel how good it feels to dial."

With that, Ms. Grant walked off, leaving the trio to their usual post-Cat Grant stunned silence.

"I'm going to go help Barry." Kara told them.

Winn gave her a sad smile. "Tell him I hope he makes it home. It would kind of suck if he just ended up bumping around from universe to universe."

James laughed. "Yeah. Wish him luck for us." It seemed to pain him a great deal to say, but he got it out, and Kara decided to leave before it got too awkward.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You really think this is going to work?" Supergirl asked him Barry dubiously.

"Well, watching Livewire and Banshee work together reminded me of something that we tried on my Earth once." He gave her a challenging look. "You and I join forces. Literally. We combine your speed with my speed. If you throw me forward at your fastest, then…"

Barry grinned at Supergirl. "I might just break the dimensional barrier and get back home."

A similar smile worked its way onto Supergirl's face. "What do you mean, like a race?"

"It's only a race if you can keep up, Girl of Steel."

Kara chuckled as if he had told a truly idiotic joke, and Barry felt an uncomfortably familiar swooping in his stomach. "Just you watch, Scarlet Speedster." She retorted.

Barry chuckled as they stood side-by-side, ready to run. The moment was comfortable and natural. It could have lasted an eternity and Barry wouldn't have minded.

"I'm going to miss you, Barry Allen." Supergirl admitted. Barry looked back at her earnest grin and smirked back in return.

"I'm really going to miss you, Kara Danvers. Or Kara Zor-El." He teased. "Which is your alien name. Because you're an alien, which I think is very cool."

Kara laughed again, and Barry swallowed hard. Before he left he had to set things right. "I think James Olsen thinks so too." He said gently. His words seemed to catch her off guard, and her smile fell.

"What makes you say that?" Kara stammered.

"You remember when I told you to take things slow? That's good advice for a superhero, but its lousy advice for two people who really like each other. Maybe it's time to speed things up." He advised.

Kara nodded and seemed to take an unconscious step forward. "Maybe…" she muttered. Suddenly Barry's heart rate picked up. Was she going to…?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kara's heart rate picked up as Barry seemed to unconsciously take a step towards her. Was he going to…?

They both stared at each other for a moment, and in that moment, Kara was honest with herself. She was going to miss him more than just as her new speedster hero friend. There was potential there…but he had to go. And she wanted to be with James anyway.

Right?

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Barry looked down at Kara with his heart hammering. He recognized this feeling; he had felt it for so long being around Iris and later being with Patty. He had just forced himself to be distracted with Livewire and Silver Banshee, but in that moment he knew that he was attracted to the blonde alien.

But he couldn't act. He had always had something of a chance, no matter how slim, with the other women in his life. Kara was…out of his league, an alien, and they lived in separate universes to boot.

Almost against his will, Barry took another step forward, bridging the small distance that covered them. If he was never going to see her again…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kara took an infinitesimally small step towards Barry. If she was never going to see him again…

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

For a moment, Kara and Barry stared at one another, faces only an inch away from each other, their breath intermingling.

But then something pulled them both back. Barry looked down and could have sworn he saw Iris looking back at him, and Kara had to check her vision to make sure it wasn't actually James standing in front of her.

The two pulled back from one another, faces flushed with embarrassment and shame. They mutually decided to put that moment out of their minds and get down to business.

"Um, let's do this." Barry stammered. He powered up his tachyon device and put it on his chest, feeling the familiar electricity of the Speed Force coming to life inside him, drowning out the…whatever it was he had been feeling.

He chanced a look over at Kara, and she smiled back at him sickly. Both of them took their stances and got ready to run.

"On your marks…" Flash said, trying to inject as much enthusiastic anticipation into his voice as he could, but couldn't keep a croak out of his tone.

"Get set…" Kara continued, not looking at the speedster.

"GO!" They both shouted. They took off with a veritable windstorm of force behind them. It only took a few moments for both of them to reach their top speed, with Flash just slightly behind Supergirl. She looked over at Flash and grabbed his arm, shoving him with all her considerable force.

Flash felt a brief resistance in the air when she threw him forward, and pushed directly through it. This time, the pulsating blue portal that appeared was not unexpected, and he sped right into it, disappearing from Supergirl's Earth.

Supergirl slowed down and stared at the spot where the Flash had disappeared. "Goodbye Barry." She muttered. She gave one last lingering look, then turned away and shot into the sky.

This had helped her understand one thing at least. She needed to talk to James.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Barry was running through the breach, deciding to follow the same follow advice he had when he was time travelling. He focused on Iris, on Cisco, on Caitlin, all of his friends and family. He could almost feel himself coming closer and closer to Earth 1…

And then he bounced back. He slammed into the dimensional barrier, but it was like running into a wall of rubber. The inside of the breach went insane, writhing around him in a chaotic dance of energy. Earth 1 sped away from him, and Barry was falling along infinite dimensions.

Then suddenly Barry was back on solid ground. He looked around, ready to fight if he was dropped into a hostile situation, but he instead found himself in what appeared to be a spacious sitting room. A cheery fire crackled in a stone fireplace, throwing dancing shadows over the interior of the room. A tawny cat sleeping in the light opened a single eye, regarded Barry without interest, and went back to sleep.

"Hello, Flash! Or should I say, Barry Allen?" Barry spun around to find himself face to face with a man of average height and a scholarly air around him. "I see you heeded my call." The man continued, taking a seat in what appeared to be a Laz-Z-Boy.

Barry didn't lower his guard. Why hadn't he been able to reach his Earth? Who was this man?

"How do you know who I am?" Barry asked instead. "And what do you mean 'heeded your call'?"

Another man walked into the room and Barry couldn't help but stare, because the man looked like a carbon copy of John Cleese in a tuxedo. The Cleese-lookalike ignored Barry completely and handed the mysterious man a cup of coffee, then disappeared without a trace.

The man took a sip and sighed in contentment. "Well, to answer your questions in order of importance…I am Robert Johansson, but you can call be Bob. Or, more accurately, I am a replicant of the original Bob. As for the second, my call out to you in Earth-38, adapted from my FTL com system, is why you ended up here rather than back at your Earth."

Barry furrowed his brow and cautiously pulled down his cowl. Bob's voice was the same one that he had head in his dream back at CatCo. The one that had said…to find him.

"Why did you bring me here?" Barry asked. Bob tutted and took another sip of his coffee.

"Always going too fast, Barry. I thought you'd learned your lesson." Bob grinned, but his smile died when Barry didn't crack a smile. He needed to get home; a full day had already passed. He couldn't spend any more time fooling around in other dimensions.

Bob sighed, and suddenly the man seemed far older than his youthful appearance would suggest. "I contacted you to give you a choice about your Earth, Barry."

Barry shifted uncomfortably. "You're not going to try and convince me to help you take over the world, are you?" He joked hesitantly.

Bob laughed. "See, I knew you had a sense of humor, Barry! But no, I have no interest in your Earth, but in you. On one hand, you can return to your Earth and try to fight Zoom. On the other hand…you can return to Earth-38, and change your fate."

Barry's brow furrowed slightly. "Change my fate?"

Bob placed his coffee to the side and steepled his fingers. "Yes, Barry, your fate. Even though you can change time to your desires, your universe will fight to change things back to the way it wants things. As opposed to what you might think, Barry, the more powerful one is, the less choice they have. Your fate was dictated from the moment that lightning struck your body in the original timeline, before Thawne interfered."

"Wait, like God? There's a God?" Barry spluttered. He was mostly agnostic on the subject of deities, but the man in front of him was claiming that there was a deity that ruled his life.

Bob waved a hand dismissively. "Think of it more like universal tendencies rather than a proper God, if you so choose. You, Barry, are destined to lose people. Destined to suffer immensely to defeat your enemies. But it isn't just pain that is being affected. You are destined to be with Iris West, and to never be happy with anyone else."

Barry blinked in surprise. "But… I do have feelings for Iris. It's not some outside force making me do it, I've always loved her."

"Yes, you've loved her even before she became your adoptive sister. An eleven year old child deciding that no one else would compare to the eleven year old girl that lived in his house." Bob said disapprovingly.

Barry flushed slightly. "We…we're not really siblings." He mumbled.

"No, technically you're not. But you were everything but related by blood, and even when you dated through high school and college, even with Patty, you would have thrown away your relationship with these women for any chance to be with Iris."

"That doesn't mean that there's some other force at play forcing me to feel for her." Barry protested.

"No, I suppose it doesn't. It just doesn't show a tremendous amount of emotional maturity." Bob held up a hand to stop Barry from speaking. "Didn't it strike you as odd, though, that even on Earth-2 you and Iris had the same feelings for one another? In every world that deviates from your Earth, every timeline and multiverse variant of it, Iris West and Barry Allen will be drawn to each other, even if there's no reason. That's not true love, hell it's not love as anyone would recognize in it. There's no free will about it, you never had a chance."

At some point Bob had stood up and walked nose to nose with Barry. Even though he was the one with superpowers, Barry took a step back from the man. Bob took a deep breath and backed off, retreating to his Laz-Z-Boy.

"I'm sorry. I tend to get upset over these…personal interferences that your reality and so many others exert. But, if that doesn't convince you, just know that you will not be able to beat Zoom as is, not as you are right now." Bob warned.

"What? But I have the tachyon enhancer and that makes me at least as fast as Zoom, right?" Suddenly the room seemed to sway beneath Barry. Could he honestly not beat Zoom, even after everything he had done?

"Technically, with the tachyon enhancer, you're faster than Zoom. But you're only as fast as that as long as it's attached to your chest, shooting you up with Speed Force juice. Do you want to depend on that against your mortal enemy?" Bob raised an eyebrow and spread his hands, a frank look on his face. "I wouldn't."

"Well, I can just have Harry make it smaller, so he can't rip it off, or notice it for that matter." Barry protested.

"Are you really going to be satisfied with relying of a fragile machine based steroid? Why would you do that, when you can train with it and become even faster than Thawne and Zoom combined?"

Barry paused. "You wouldn't suggest that unless you had a way for me to actually do it before facing Zoom, right?"

Bob grinned. "Indeed. You see, if you were to return to your Earth right now, only a second would have passed, despite having spent close to twelve hours on Earth-38."

"How is that possible? When we went to Earth-2 things were happening in real time…err, at the same speed, right? Why is Supergirl's Earth different?"

"Because the more out of sync the universes are, the more different they are. But speedsters like you can change their 'vibrations', as you described it, just by travelling. If you were to go back to your Earth, the ripple that would send out would bring yours and Supergirl's Earths closer together, which would make their time dilation shorter. At the moment, it's about 43,200:1. Meaning, if you were to return to Earth-38, you could spend a year training up your speed, and not even an hour would pass on your Earth."

Barry sunk down into an identical Laz-Z-Boy that materialized beneath him and thought. It was a risk, using the tachyon enhancer as a crutch. Plus, the jolt that it gave him seemed to make him more reckless than he normally would be. Possibly more emotional as well, which he did not need when battling his greatest enemy.

Despite the more immediate matter, what Bob had said about Iris was really getting to him. It didn't change his feelings, but it was unsettling to think his fate had been decided for him.

"If I were to return to my Earth," Barry began, "could I beat Zoom?" Bob seemed to have some sort of phenomenal cosmic power and appeared to like Barry, so maybe he could use that to make a more educated choice.

But Bob waggled a finger at him, a teasing smile on his face. "Ah-ah-ah, Barry. That would be a spoiler."

Barry's face fell. "However, I can tell you something important." Bob continued. Barry looked at him with hopeful eyes.

"If you are to return to your universe, this conversation and your little adventure on Earth-38 will disappear from your mind." Bob said bluntly.

Barry gaped at the man. "What? Why would you do that?"

"I didn't say I would be the one to do it." Bob said crossly. "Your universe won't be happy its star player had been interfered with, possibly messing up its plans for you. So your time with Supergirl would be suppressed, likely to the point that only a very dangerous situation could bring them out again, and even then it's unlikely that you will still feel what you felt. This conversation between you and me would fade completely."

Barry rubbed his face in his hands. It was a hard choice. Either one had the potential to go very wrong.

"What do you think I should do?" Barry asked Bob desperately. Bob looked at him with pity.

"I would advise…flip a coin."

"…What?"

Bob shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not sure which one you should choose at all, though I do have my biases. I'm not omnipotent. By going back to Earth-38, you shed all control your universe had on you, and I become unable to predict your future. And I can't tell you what would happen if you went back to your Earth so…"

A coin materialized in Bob's hand and he flicked it to Barry. Barry caught the coin and stared at it. On one side was a 1, on the other was a 38.

Barry stared at the coin, thinking. He was so focused that he missed the twisted flash of impatience on Bob's face, and the shadows around the room flaring.

He took a deep breath…

And flipped the coin.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Note: This chapter was edited 7/31/17

Well, this is a new and exciting venture for me. I only have experience writing teenagers for the most part, so writing adults is pretty interesting, as well as hopefully writing some romance, which, as you can see, will play a role here.

I just binge-watched the Flash and Supergirl, and found myself rooting for a Barry and Kara relationship. Unfortunately, the show's universes and Melissa Benoist (Supergirl) seem to disagree, and they generally make some good points, that being Kara and Barry are very similar and are interested in different people, so during their first meeting there's no romantic spark, and romantic relationships generally need that.

As it is, Kara and Barry are just attracted to one another, because I believe that 'love at first sight' and 'soulmates' are utter bullshit. As such, if they're going to be together it won't be a straight forward affair, which will be further complicated by James and Mon-El.

Despite the fact that the pairing is what made me want to write this, it's also an interesting opportunity for other things, so it won't just be about the relationship.

Don't expect the same length or level of detail from later chapters if I choose to write them. The dialogue and descriptions are lifted directly from watching the episode World's Finest, so as I further deviate from canon the quality might go down. You have been warned.

Btw, if anyone could give me tips from writing form a woman's point of view, that would be great. This is one of my first times doing it, and I'd like to not portray Kara's view inaccurately.

Other than that, PLEASE REVIEW! I would love comments that don't involve killing myself, as they inspire me to write more and better.