Peter and Caitlin spent the next couple of days packing up and moving everything out of her apartment and into Peter's place.

Which was a pain, especially when you're the only person in the relationship with super strength.

"My back is killing me." Peter complains as the two of them made it to Star labs after they've dropped Frankie off at school together.

"Sorry you had to do most of the heavy lifting." Caitlin apologizes feeling guilty for the injured hero.

"Why does Crystal have so many heavy things?" Peter asks as he completely forgot about Crystal being part of the deal moving in with each other.

"She's a complicated woman." Caitlin says.

"You know we have to tell the team about her sooner or later, right?" Peter reminds her. "I'm okay with keeping her a secret as long as you need, but they need to know."

"I know..." Caitlin assures him as the doors open and they get off just to see Cisco and some big scary guy walking into the elevator.

The two of them look completely confused and they walk to the cortex to see exactly what they found out.

"Why is the scariest person I've ever seen roaming our halls?" she asked, walking into the Cortex with her eyebrows raised.

"Cisco," Barry and Joe replied as one.

Nodding in understanding, Caitlin an Peter turned their attention to Harry, who had started speaking. "I've got the coroner's report here for the death of the bus driver, but it doesn't seem like there's any signs of foul play."

"Aside from him being the only one who could have told us who was on that bus," Joe commented.

"Now for his personal effects;" Harry frowned in concentration. "Credit cards, cash, receipts..."

"Wait, go back," Barry said, his eyes catching something on the screen they hadn't.

Harry scrolled back to the previous display, which was a card that read Ralph Dipney, Private Investigator with a fingerprint in the center. Next to that was written: I owe you 5 for the ride. 10/10/17.

"Ralph Dipney," Barry muttered.

"I'll be darned," Joe agreed.

"Who is Ralph Dipney?" Peter asked.

"He used to be a cop." Joe responded.

"Dirty cop," Barry added. "He got kicked off the force."

"Why'd he get kicked out?" May asked.

"It's a long story." Joe murmured.

Harry quickly pulled up a profile and Barry turned to the screen, his lips scrunching. "That's him."

"The IOU is dated the same day that I came out of the Speed Force," he noted.

"You think Dipney was on the bus that day?" Caitlin asked. "Maybe he's a metahuman now?"

Barry's lips pinched again unhappily. "Let's pay him a visit."

-

Ralph Dipney had very much been on the bus that was hit by Dark Matter. He now had the disgusting, weird, but very scientifically interesting ability to stretch.

The ability, unfortunately, was one that he had absolutely no control over. After being dangled off the building by a few guys that didn't like him all that much, Ralph's legs had stretched so long that he landed on his back in an alleyway, five stories lower. That was where Joe and Barry had found him, his legs a pile of stretch around him and decidedly in shock.

Those aforementioned legs were still just as long as they had been in the alleyway, and were now stretched almost halfway to the Star Labs elevator, where they led to the Cortex and the medical bed.

Barry and managed to round up Ralph and bring him back to Star Labs, where Peter and Caitlin were now trying desperately to calm him down.

"What happened to me?!" Ralph demanded, completely flipping out.

"Breath," Peter commanded as he and Caitlin made matching inhale-exhale motions with their hands.

"I am breathing," Ralph wheezed, eyes still locked on his ridiculously long legs.

"Clearly this guy is a meta," May muttered looking over the information she received from her scans and hands it to Harry who is shocked.

"This is interesting," Harry commented, seeming the only one calm with the whole thing. "It seems the Dark Matter has polymerized Dipney's cells."

"What the heck is Dark Matter and why is it my cells?!" Ralph cried out in fear and shock.

"You're saying the walls of every cell in his body have elasticized?" Caitlin asked, her face now looking intrigued.

"I'm saying they've formed an unbreakable bond at the atomic level. Now you can stretch these cells and stretch these cells and stretch these cells." Harry says with a chuckle at the end.

"Like silly putty!" Caitlin proclaimed, eyes wide with amazement.

Ralph gave her a horrified look. "I'm silly putty?"

"No," Peter and Caitlin assured him together.

Harry, however, shrugged. "Kinda."

"I'm silly putty?!" Ralph grit out.

"Ralph!" Joe interjected before things could escalate more. "Who were the guys on the roof?"

"Is that really the issue right now?" Ralph asked, gesticulating widely at his legs that stretch all the way to the elevator. "LOOK AT ME!" He reached up, grabbed Barry's coat collar, and yanked him down. "Allen, you and your Star Labs nerds better put me back together-"

"We're trying to help you!" Barry yelled, obviously infuriated at being grabbed like that.

"Yeah ri-"

"Would you shut up-"

"Okay!" Caitlin yelled, pulled Barry away from Ralph before a fight could break out and she stood in between them. "We can do this later; I just need a sample of blo-AH!"

She had grasped Ralph's arm, prepared to pull it until she could stick a needle into it, maybe a little less gently then she should have. Instead of making him lean over in bed, his entire arm stretched until it was a limp string in her hands.

Sick with disgust, Caitlin abruptly dropped his arm, then accidentally stepped on it. When Ralph yelled in pain she stumbled back, put her hand on a depressor for a gas spray, and fell into Peter's arms.

The spray hit Ralph and his entire face twisted...Then he sneezed.

Ralph's face became liquid goo, oozing into his hands. "OOH..." Ralph groaned, voice coming out weird and muffled, but his lips, which were lying in his hand, somehow still moving. "Is that my face?!"

Joe turned around and vomited. "Four years seeing this stuff, I finally puked."

"Almost fifteen years after seeing this and I'm able to say I'm disgusted." Peter agrees with him.

"You gotta fix him, Caitlin, May, anyone," Joe pleaded as they all stood around the Cortex, talking about Ralph's...situation. "My stomach can't take much more."

"I think I could stabilize his cells if I had a sample of his DNA from prior to when he was exposed to the Dark Matter on the bus," Caitlin told them.

Barry turned around from where he had been putting up Ralph's picture on the white board. He frowned. "Why? So he can go out and start hurting people like our other friends here? I think we should lock him up in the Pipeline."

"He hasn't done anything." Caitlin defends

"Yet," Barry said. "Trust me. I know this guy. He's a bad guy."

"Barry..." Caitlin responded, her voice trailing off awkwardly. "Me and May took an oath to help people. We're doctors. We can't just leave him in there like spaghetti."

Barry didn't seem to be listening. He had turned and picked up a marker, and, in bold black letters, wrote VILLAINS at the top of the white board.

"Villains?" Peter asks, not exactly happy with that.

"Yeah," Barry said. "Every person that was on that bus is now a thousand times more dangerous than they were before. Dipney included."

"What if he's changed?" Caitlin protested.

"People don't change," Barry said, rolling his eyes.

Caitlin shook her head. "I did," she said bluntly. "When I became Killer Frost, you guys still believed in me. When Frankie became Magenta, we believed in her."

"You're both good people." Barry told her softly. "He's...not."

Caitlin let out a long sigh, and Iris took her cue. "Barry, how about you and I go to Ralph's office and look for some DNA for Caitlin, alright?"

Telling from her tone that she wouldn't take no for an answer, Barry rolled his eyes and huffed like a petulant child, and the two of them left the others in the Cortex alone as Joe left to see what he can find on Ralph about who those guys were.

-

Iris and Barry had been ambushed when they went back to get the DNA from Ralph's office. Iris came back and told Caitlin the whole story, ending with, "And that's what it feels like to vibrate through solid matter."

Caitlin whistled softly. "I'm just glad you two weren't hurt."

"No thanks to your little buddy in there," Barry said grumpily.

"He's not my buddy, he's my patient," Caitlin shot back, patience beginning to wear thin.

"Caitlin, I just don't understand why you're defending him."

She spun around, her eyes blazing and the truth finally spilling out. "Because I know what it's like to suddenly find yourself with extraordinary powers and be totally freaked out by it! And so do you, for that matter. And so does Peter, but that was different circumstances. You and I both woke up in this lab once knowing our lives would never be the same. So how about you give the guy a little sympathy?"

Barry's head dropped, and Caitlin knew she had finally gotten him to listen to her side of the argument.

It was about then that Joe walked in, with the information that Ralph.

"I pulled the records on Ralph's phone. There were fifteen phone calls between him and the Mayor's office." Joe tells them.

"What is Mayor Bellows doing talking to a private detective?" May wonders as Barry goes to talk to him and Peter follows.

"Oh, look, it's my good buddy Barry Allen." Ralph says as they see his legs and arms stretched out like that one scene in Fan4stic with mr. Fantastic.

"Someone just blew up your office." Barry tells him.

"Sweet. Insurance claim." Ralph says as happy as can be.

"My fiancée and I almost died." Barry informs him.

"You landed West's daughter? Wow. Everything's coming up Allen." Ralph tells him, sounding a little out of it.

"Yeah, Caitlin and May have him on a few painkillers so he's a bit loopy." Peter explains to Barry who understands.

"Who's trying to kill you, Dibny?" Barry asks him.

"Do you know how many people I have pissed off in the last five years?" Ralph asks him. "Angry husbands. Angry wives. Not exactly dealing with high society taking photos of cheating spouses."

"Then why are you talking to the Mayor?" Peter asks the man.

"Who says I am?" Ralph asks back.

"Your phone records." Barry and Peter say at once.

"Did-did you get a warrant for that?" Ralph asks Barry. "'Cause I know you're all by the book."

"What's your business with Mayor Bellows?" Barry asks him.

"Nothing. Just calling to tell him what a swell job I think he's doing." Ralph tells him.

"You did that fifteen times?" Peter questions him.

"Twelve of those were butt dials." Ralph obviously lies.

"Whatever. Maybe we'll go talk to the Mayor ourselves. He's a huge fan of Joe's." Barry tells him.

"Yeah, you go do that. I'm gonna stay here and stretch my legs." Ralph says as Barry leaves and Caitlin returns.

"I farted. I'm not sure everything's still where it's supposed to be down there." Ralph confesses to them.

"Drink this." Caitlin says holding out a vial out to him.

"What is it?" Ralph asks her. "I don't just drink stuff. My body is a temple."

"Clearly." Caitlin mocks as Peter chuckles under his breath. "Drink it."

"I wanna know what it is." Ralph tells her.

"It's 17% alcohol." Caitlin tries.

"You should have lead with that, sister." Ralph says as he takes it with his only good limb and drinks it. "Ugh! What was that?"

"It's a seeum of sulfur, zinc oxide, and steric acid to cross-link your polymerized cells." Caitlin explains to him.

"In English." Ralph responds.

"It's a drink to make you less like silly puddy." Peter tries helping him and his limbs quickly return to normal length as he knocks a few things over.

"You did it. I'm cured." Ralph cheers.

"Well, not cured. All we did was introduce a stabilizing enzyme to reset your body to default shape through vulcanization." Caitlin explains and he's at a lost.

"You still stretch, except you will be able to return to normal instead of becoming silly puddy again." Peter translates to him.

"Why couldn't you just lead with that?" Ralph asks as he stands up.

"So now you just think the shape you want to be and just be it." Caitlin says and they watch as Ralph thins himself out.

"I'm back. I look like a Hemsworth." Ralph says happy about himself.

"You're vitals are fantastic," Caitlin reported to Ralph.

Ralph smiled coyly at her, looking pleased. It was about then that Joe and Barry came in.

"Blackmailing the mayor?" Barry said, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Classic Barry Allen; enters the room and accuses wildly," Ralph shot back.

"We know about the photos, Ralph. Bellows told us everything," Joe said, face drawn.

"Hey. I'm not the one who told him to step out on his wife," Ralph said with a shrug.

"That's your defense?!" Barry demanded. "It's his fault that you're extorting him."

"Isn't that a little easy for you to say?" Ralph responded, undoing the armband Caitlin had given him to check his blood pressure and all but throwing it at her. "Your fancy lab, your good job, and your hot girlfriend? People like me are just trying to get from one bill to the next. And I wouldn't have to be living like that if you hadn't cost me my job!"

"You got yourself fired!" Barry shouted angrily. "You tampered with evidence! You framed that guy."

"Because he was guilty!" Ralph roared. "And he was gonna get away with killing his wife and then you let him go. I was a good cop. I was a good detective! I lost everything." His voice suddenly lowered in pitch, down to a low tone. "The mayor's got plenty of money. He can spare a little. Consider it the pension youcost me."

Barry shook his head. "Good people don't destroy lives and call it noble," he said, his voice even. "You were dirty then. You're dirty now. Live with that."

Ralph's jaw tightened and he started to stride around Barry, towards the exit. Barry grabbed his upper arm. "You're not going anywhere."

"Get off me," Ralph growled, swinging around and trying to punch Barry in the face.

Barry ducked, popped back up, and punched Ralph in the nose.

Ralph's entire face bent and formed around Barry's fist, so for a second his hand was stuck inside the mass of skin.

Peter winced, stomach turning in disgust as did Caitlin's and Joe closes his eyes, not wanting to throw up again.

Finally, Barry wrenched his hand out, looking furious.

Ralph shook his head, returning it back to it's correct shape, and gave Barry a hurt look. "Thanks for ruining my life twice, Allen." He says before strolling out.

-

Peter and Caitlin were the only ones who were left in the labs as Barry, Joe and Iris left as Cisco is running around as Gypsy's father is still hunting him and they just returned home for the night and started to unpack as Frankie is in he room with homework.

"Should we be concerned about Cisco or Ralph?" Caitlin finally asks him as she goes through a box of her things.

"I wouldn't be too concerned." Peter assures her when he gets a call from Barry and hears that the Mayor's men just tried to kill him and Joe. "On second thought, be very concerned."

-

Ralph decided that he was done blackmailing the Mayor, but instead of appreciating the offer, the Mayor shot him.

Of course, Bellows didn't know about Ralph's new stretchy ability. Ralph's face stretch back, the bullet not penetrating him at all, and he shot it out of one nostril into his hand.

"Bullet booger," Ralph winced. "Super gross."

Before Bellows could shoot again, the Flash and Spider-Man arrived. Barry sped towards the Mayor and grabbed the gun out of his hand, moving Ralph at the same time.

"Mr. Mayor," Barry said, vibrating his voice and swinging the gun around one finger. "It's over."

It was about at that moment that a breach opened and Breacher leaped out. He nailed Barry and Ralph with two breaches, one from either hand, and they tumbled backward.

"Die, Plastiod!" Breacher bellowed. "Die! You will not infest this world as you did mine, Plastiod!"

He stalked toward Barry and Ralph, who were struggling to get up off the ground.

"Plastoid? What?" Ralph blinked in confusion. "Is he talking to me?"

"Breacher," Peter said calmly walking towards him. "Stop-"

Breacher didn't listen, just blasted them with another vibe. "He dies!"

The Mayor took that opportunity to grab the gun and take off running towards the door. He ran into Joe, and shoved him in. "Get moving, Joe!"

"FLASH!" Joe yelled, getting Barry's attention as he was hustled off and gunpoint.

Concentration lost, Barry was easily knocked back by another vibe-blast. Ralph eyed Breacher nervously. "Look," he babbled. "You don't have to do this!"

"Yes I do," Breacher growled, and lifted his hands. Just as Ralph thought it was all over, Cisco appeared in front of him in his Vibe outfit.

"Leave him alone," he commanded, in full Vibe regalia. "This guy didn't invade your planet, he didn't do anything wrong! He's like this 'cause of me and my Team. So if you've got a problem with him and his powers, then you deal with me."

Even though he was shaking with nerves, Cisco held his ground until, slowly, Breacher lowered his arms.

The sound of a helicopter made them all look up. Barry lurched to his feet, hurrying over to Cisco and staring upward. "The Mayor took Joe," he muttered, horror evident in his voice. "I can't run fast enough right now. I'll never have enough speed to just off. Can you breach me up there?"

Cisco shook his head. "No way. The event horizon would tear that helicopter apart."

"I've got an idea." Peter says as he shoots several webs and holds onto the underbelly of the helicopter and holds on as long as he can. "I can't hold this for long, so figure out a plan." He warns them.

"Okay," Barry breathed. Suddenly, he turned to Ralph. "You can get me up there."

Ralph blinked. "Me? How?"

"You can stretch, Ralph!" Barry cried, loosing patience.

"Are you crazy? I can't do that!" Ralph protested.

"I'm loosing balance here, guys!" Peter warns them as he goes flying and uses his strength to hold himself onto the side of the building to keep the helicopter where it is.

"Yes you can. Alright? I know that you have it inside of you to help someone other than yourself. I know you, Ralph."

Ralph squinted. "How could you possibly know me?"

Sighing in resignation, Barry pulled off his cowl.

"Dude, are you kidding me?" Ralph scoffed. "You're the Flash?! Everyone else gets struck by lightning and dies, and you get superpowers?!"

"Your assistants a speedster?" Breacher asks Cisco and Peter is confused by what he's talking about.

"I liked the Flash. Now I have to hate the Flash." Ralph states.

"Ralph!" Barry interrupted, grabbing his shoulder. "Focus. I need you to do this. Joe needs you to do this, please. Show me I was wrong about you. You said you were a good cop? Be one. Right now."

Face darkening in consideration for a painful few seconds, Ralph finally turned around and flung his arm skyward in the same direction as the webs that are holding the helicopter as his arm is big enough for Barry to climb and isn't sticky like Peter's webs.

It stretched, and kept stretching until it had grasped onto the bottom off the helicopter. "Hold on, Ralph!" Barry encouraged, before pulling on his cowl and racing up Ralph's elongated arm.

He found himself in the helicopter, in firm possession of the Mayor's gun, seated next to Joe.

Joe turned to him.

"Cecil's pregnant." He says and that makes Barry's eyes go wide.