He Was Confused

By: Rhuben

Summary – Captain David Singh had seen a lot of indescribable things in his line of work, but he never once thought he would see Barry Allen and Ralph Dibny working together. Willingly. Metahumans were one thing, but this was another sight all together.

Note: Requested by Mememe

"One of them doesn't talk, and the other is very…let's just say he's very charismatic," Captain Singh was told was told as soon as he rolled up onto the crime scene. He had barely set foot out of his covert car when he was approached by his fellow officer.

Leaning against the door of his car, Captain Singh sighed through his nose. Gaze sweeping over the crime scene – splinters and blanks of wood and chunks of decorated clay littered the asphalt, Styrofoam blocks wiggled in the breeze. In the center of it all, half a shipping case. Standing by it was a blond-haired man, red in the face, throwing his hands into the air as he yelled at a silent, wide-eyed, squatter black haired man.

"This will be interesting," Captain Singh said. "Thanks for the heads up. Go help the others inventory everything else here and tell Sanderson to keep an eye out for anyone from the media that we will not be answering questions – but they are welcome to stay at the command post until we are ready."

"Sure thing, Captain."

Captain Singh slammed the car door shut and straightened his tie. Clearing his throat, he stalked towards the two security personnel, steeling himself as he did so. "Hey, hey, hey!" He talked over the blond man. "What's done is done. It's not going to help anything, right?"

"Freaking back off man, all right? We needed this job," the blond said. "This stupid jerk can't do anything right!" The silent man's eyes widened, eyebrows lifting in a "Who me?" kind of way.

Captain Singh made a face when spittle landed on the curves of his cheek and his nose. Blinking, he lifted the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his face. "Mind if I ask you to take a few deep breaths, sir?" he asked. "Can we do that?" He pulled is eyebrows towards each other and watched in mild amusement as the man made a show of breathing in deeply, bending backwards on each inhale and forwards on each exhale. His friend silently watched him. "Great. Great. Just keep doing that."

Oy. Captain Singh turned away from the two men and lifted a hand to massage his temple. "Joe," Captain Singh, said stepping over to his colleague. He used his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose. Rob's yoga breathing be damned. These two security guards were clearly going to test his patience today. "Were you able to get much out of him?"

"Just that they had tried to move it themselves, went to get a bigger dolly, and came back to find it smashed," Joe replied. "Oh, and of course insisting they had nothing to do with it and needing us to tell their boss they didn't do it." He chuckled through his nose, mouth twisting slightly to one side. "Considering I'm sure this is a meta, I might just take them up on the offer."

"And why would you do that?" Captain Singh asked.

"Different times," Joe replied. "I've seen Barry and Iris struggle with minimum wage for a while." He shrugged his shoulders. "It's not as easy to live today. These guys might really need their jobs."

"I would say this is the weirdest thing I've ever seen on the job, but that would be a lie," Captain Singh commented, shaking his head back and forth. He pointed with his chin towards the armored security truck – how ironic that they had the unit available to help protectively transport said stolen item. "This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen on the job."

Ralph Dibny and Barry Allen. Together. Drinking coffee. And—

"Just delivering your drink of choice, Detective West," Ralph called out to Joe, lifting the second of two coffee cups in a salute.

Captain Singh turned towards Joe, who was frozen, wide-eyed, pen tip poised against the filled sheet of his notepad. "Joe?" he asked. "This doesn't surprise you?" Joe sighed, repeatedly clicking his pen. "We'll get back to the fact that they should not be on our crime scene but—"

"Ralph's a private investigator now."

"Yes, I'm aware of that." Joe gave Captain Singh an odd look. He crossed his arms over his chest. "There are a few ex-cops I prefer to keep tabs on." He shook a finger in Ralph and Barry's direction. "And it's a good thing I am. Although I must wonder if I'm losing my touch, because I really didn't see this coming."

Ralph and Barry were practically mortal enemies. In fact, Ralph had no issue stating so upon his termination from the CCPD. And Barry wasn't as fond of Ralph either, choosing more to pretend like the guy never existed. That was the least of the differences between the two of them: one never stopped talking, and the other never started. Until they were alone with Captain Singh talking his ears off.

"Allen had no right—"

"Dibny had no right—"

"Listen to me, Captain, this rookie is still learning, ok? He doesn't know the ins and outs of actual crime scene work yet."

"Captain, I know enough not to plant false evidence."

"That's a serious accusation," Captain Singh had said, trying to speak over the two of them. He threw his hands into the air when Barry turned in his chair to face Ralph. He prodded his finger into Ralph's shoulder.

"Yes! It is serious," Barry had declared. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Putting away a very dangerous man," Ralph had retorted, making a show of brushing off the spot Barry had touched him. He had then adjusted his shirt collar, smoothed down his tie. "A very dangerous man is going to prison."

"At what cost? Nothing indicates that it was him; he's innocent."

"But, he isn't. He isn't innocent, Allen!"

"Then let us determine when, how, why, all of that. Ok? With the M.E.'s office, that's what I'm supposed to do, ok? But you're making our jobs difficult. You're not taking the right steps. He will face justice."

"You mean like your dad has, Allen?"

Barry had then fallen into stunned silence.

Captain Singh bowed his head and repeatedly hit his forehead on the smooth top of his desk. "Oh my god." He buried his face in his hands for a moment before lifting his head. "Dibny, I recommend that you cease trying to explain. Contact your union representative, sooner rather than later, and prepare for an Internal Affairs investigation."

"You can't be serious," Ralph had stared at him in shock. "I get a psycho off the streets and you're going to strip me of my title."

"I'm warning you," Captain Singh had said, "don't say another word. Not without your union rep present." He pressed his lips together. "This is out of my hands, Dibny. I'm sorry." He had then stood up and held his hand out towards his detective. "I need your gun and your badge. You can turn it in yourself or I can take it from you."

"Thanks a lot, rookie," Ralph had snarled and ripped his police badge off of the waistband of his pants. He had slapped it down onto Captain Singh's desk instead of placing it in his boss's outreached hand. "You have no idea what you've just done. I won't forget this."

Clearly, something had changed between Ralph and Barry. Not fully of course, Captain Singh could see the trace amounts of annoyance on Barry's face. Barry wasn't one who could ever truly keep the emotion from his face. It was why Captain Singh thought he was a great addition to the CCPD, an even greater addition to those at the crime scenes. He could connect with the victim's families in ways he had never seen even the most trained officers manage to be able to.

People didn't like talking to cops, but they liked talking to him.

But Ralph never liked talking to Barry. So—

"What the heck happened?" Captain Singh asked. He grabbed onto the sleeve of joe's coat, pulling his co-worker closer towards him. "Why are these two…" One hand on his hip, he pointed back and forth between the two former Central City Police Department's finest. "How are these two…" He put his free hand over his mouth. None of this made sense. Even the most difficult cases could be cracked, days, months, years, later, but this? It was impossible.

"Getting along?" Joe asked. "People grow up, Captain. They change. They put their differences aside." He cleared his throat. "Kind of." Captain Singh turned his attention away from Ralph and Barry – who were doing a pretty shoddy job at being inconspicuous – and on to Joe. "It's weird, but it works." He sniffed. "From what I've seen. I'll go talk to them."

Captain Singh moved to step in front of him, lowering his voice. "In all honesty, Joe," he said, "Barry's always been in tune with this metahuman stuff. Without Julian Albert around, and now without Allen, we don't have anyone that really studies these kinds of things."

The CCPD could barely hold positions on the Anti-Metahuman Task Force, let alone taking any position metahuman related at the CCPD. The Academy was expanding their curriculum. They now included courses involving the steps in attempting to diffuse situations with metahumans, the proper steps to assess the metahuman to determine the best way to arrest them, and preliminary training on S.T.A.R. Labs official metahuman defense weaponry supplied by Cisco Ramon, himself. Many courses he helped add to the curriculum, sat in on, and a few he guest lectured with his experience in the field.

The job had changed many times over the years, but not as drastically as this.

"Captain?" Joe's eyebrows angled towards each other. "You do have Cisco."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Ramon isn't around at the moment." Captain Singh cleared his throat. He slid his hands into his pants pockets and tilted his head back and slightly to the side in Barry and Ralph's direction. "It won't hurt to rule anything out. If anyone asks, they're here on my orders. If anyone asks further, send them directly to me."

"You got it," Joe replied. He adjusted the navy newsboy hat on his head, slowly making his way over to Barry and Ralph.

Captain Singh chuckled to himself. "Dibny and Allen," he said quietly, "now I've seen everything." He stepped out of the way of the two security guards who were carrying a vase across the area. "Be careful, boys. We want to make sure the museum gets that in one piece."

"Yes, sir!" The blond tried to execute a salute, and the brunet's eyes widened in fear. He fumbled to keep hold of the vase. "Sorry, sorry, I've got it. Have a nice day, officer."

Captain Singh barely took a few steps before he froze, shoulders lifting up towards his ears when he heard a loud smash. Not the sound of breaking glass. But, almost. Slowly, Captain Singh turned around to face the guards and the smashed vase between them. Upon his rotation, he briefly gazed upon Ralph and Barry who stared at each other out of the corner of their eyes, stock still.

Almost like they were guilt.

One thing was for sure: strange occurrences still happened whenever Barry Allen was around.

A/N: This takes place before "He Was Right" but could be considered a companion piece all the same.

Mememe requested a one-shot where Captain SIngh finds out that Barry and Ralph are now working together. I thought this was a great opportunity to see the fall out between the two of them, if only a little bit, from Captain Singh's point of view.

Thanks for reading.

-Rhuben