⊱ ──────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ──────── ⊰

𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
juliet st. james: part time csi,
part time superhero, full time
worried girlfriend

⊱ ──────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ──────── ⊰

BARRY WAS GETTING better physically day by day. Mentally . . . not so much.

He didn't even have to say anything about it — Juliet could already tell. Even though he was able to stand on his feet now and most of his injuries had healed, the fact that he couldn't run, nonetheless walk without help . . . she could see that Zoom had really gotten the better of him.

Juliet hated seeing him like that. Seeing Barry hurt, whether it be physical injuries or mental injuries, always caused her to get tunnel vision and focus only on him. For the sake of herself, and most definitely the city, that couldn't be particularly good. They were down one superhero, and with Zoom on the loose, Juliet had to be on high alert.

Also, she was itching to know why her powers flickered out that night in the cortex with Zoom. It could've been her emotions getting the best of her, but she wasn't so sure that was it. The way she felt her powers not working felt exactly like it did at Flash and Scarlet Day with Atom Smasher. There was so much more to it. If her powers kept failing her against Zoom, that would be detrimental. More so than it already was.

They had Thawne's old wheelchair in the cortex for Barry, and Juliet stood by it as she watched Joe assist Barry in walking with the cane they had let Professor Stein use. Every day, they had been doing little test runs to see how much progress Barry had been making with healing.

"All right, I got you," Joe reassured him.

Barry paused and handed his cane to Joe. Joe gingerly let go of him, and Barry took a few tentative steps forwards. He looked stiff, which was definitely understandable. However, he then doubled over, his body clearly not being able to handle it. Juliet held out her hand a little by her side and focused on him, connecting her mind to his body. She made him freeze where he was and then slowly moved him to stand upright. Barry caught her eyes, and Juliet gave him a tiny smile in response.

"Thanks, J," Barry said quietly, and she let her concentration go as Joe caught onto him and helped him into the wheelchair. "I can't do it right now, all right?"

"Yes you can, Barry," Joe insisted. "We've been making so much progress."

"Yep, six whole steps. Someone get me a Bozo button."

"Hey, give yourself some credit," Cisco stated, gently hitting him on the shoulder. "You just broke your back."

"Yeah, a normal person would've been paralyzed the rest of his life," Iris added.

"How long until I'm fully healed?" Barry asked.

"The initial MRI I took a week ago showed a complete dislocation at the T12-L1 interspace of the thoracolumbar junction," Caitlin answered, and all of them turned to look at the screens on the wall that showed Barry's spine. "But this is the MRI I took this morning." Juliet raised her eyebrows — his spine was almost completely back to what it was. "It's remarkable, but you're almost completely healed."

"I'm still having trouble breathing."

"You sure that's not from Juliet?" Cisco questioned with a smirk, making Juliet roll her eyes.

"Cisco," Caitlin scolded. "Barry, that's totally normal with a spinal injury. It should clear up soon."

Juliet then noticed Barry staring at his suit on the mannequin and frowned. She reached up, putting her hand on top of his head and threading her fingers through his hair comfortingly. Barry let out a sigh, a mix of content and sadness, and leaned his head into her side.

"You'll be back in that suit in no time, baby," Juliet promised.

"What are we gonna do about Zoom?" Barry inquired.

"No sign of him since Cisco nailed him with that tranq dart," Joe replied.

"And I haven't vibed since then," Cisco agreed.

"Maybe Zoom's not coming back," Iris suggested.

"I highly doubt that," Harry cut in. "Which is why I'm gonna go do something about it."

Juliet dropped her hand from Barry's head and turned around to see him now standing in the cortex. Barry frowned and spun around his wheelchair, letting his head fall back against her arm, wanting nothing more than physical affection from her right now.

"What do you mean, go do something about it?" Caitlin asked.

"I need access to your breach room and your speed cannon," Harry revealed.

"Why is that?" Barry questioned.

"Because, Barry, it's time to go home."

Juliet blinked. Go home? After all that, he was just . . . leaving?

Joe stared at him incredulously. "So you show up on our Earth, you screw everything up, and now you want to go home? Sounds very familiar."

"Again, that wasn't me," Harry protested. "I need to go take care of Zoom once and for all before anyone else gets killed."

Juliet crossed her arms, which made Barry's head readjust to her side again. "And you're going to do that how?"

"I'll think of something."

"Huh. That's promising."

Harry looked at Cisco. "Ramon, if you'll escort me to the speed cannon."

"No, no, you can't go through the breach," Caitlin interjected.

"Yeah, he can," Cisco argued. "Jay taught us how to send people."

"That's not what I mean. Look, if you can figure out how to stop Zoom on your Earth, you can figure out how to do it here. We need you to stay here until we defeat Zoom, Dr. Wells."

Harry stepped closer to her. "What I need, Dr. Snow, is to return home. And I'm going to do that with or without your assistance."

And with that, he left.

"What are you doing?" Cisco demanded to Caitlin. "If Harry wants to go . . . bye."

"Look, like it or not, Cisco, we need his help," Caitlin responded.

"I'm not sure another plan from Wells is what we need," Joe admitted.

"Yeah, I mean, the last bright idea he had nearly got Barry killed and seriously injured Jules," Iris said.

"I know, but Jay's gone, and Dr. Wells knows Zoom better than anyone, so until Barry is back on his feet again and we find out why Juliet's powers keep flickering out, we need to keep Wells around in case Zoom returns," Caitlin voiced.

"Caitlin, if he doesn't want to be here, then we're better off without him," Barry told her. "Let him go."

"I can't do that. Not yet."

Suddenly, beeping sounded throughout the cortex. Juliet immediately straightened up, ready to leave.

Cisco ran around to the computers. "Oh, snap, Metahuman attack." The panic then washed away. "Nope, nope, my bad, that is just an alert for me."

Iris raised an eyebrow as Cisco turned off the alert. "For what?"

"Oh, it's just a reminder. I have a date in an hour, so . . ."

"Oh, with who?"

"With the lovely Kendra Saunders, the barista at Jitters," Cisco continued. "Oh, she makes a mean latte. I think we're gonna go out for dinner and a movie, and then, I don't know, maybe some breakfast."

Juliet immediately let out of a laugh. However, she reached her hand up to her mouth to quickly muffle the sound, even if the attempt was futile.

Barry squinted in confusion, trying to play it like he was confused. "Wait, breakfast? Why — why breakfast? I don't . . ."

Iris put her chin in her hand and nodded in agreement. "Yeah."

Cisco glanced in between them. "'Cause, you know, you go home . . ."

"Cisco," Joe stated.

"And—"

"He's messing with you."

Barry waved him off. "Go."

"Bye," Juliet called after him, a wide smile on her face. "They grow up so fast, don't they?"

Barry looked up at her. "Do you still have those cookies that you made?"

"I do." Juliet leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "We can go home."

And neither of them seemed to mind calling Juliet's apartment home. Barry was spending most of time there, anyways.

ϟ ···················· ϟ ···················· ϟ

LEAVING BARRY WAS hard enough when he was in his state. However, considering the CCPD was already down one CSI because of his major injury, Juliet automatically had to be there. She had told Barry that she was just a call away. All he had to do was say the word and she would be there.

Anyways, this crime scene was . . . weird. Don't get her wrong, she's seen a lot of weird shit ever since Metahumans became a thing, but something about this one didn't seem right. It almost identically matched a case that she had seen last week. Currently, she was bent down next to the ground, picking up some hairs with a pair of tweezers. She raised them up to her eyes, squinting at them. They definitely weren't human hairs.

"Jules," Joe began, and she placed the hairs into an envelope before looking in his direction. "What'd you find?"

"Non-human hairs are all over the street," Juliet answered as she stood up fully. "I can't tell what they're from exactly. I'll have to go back to my lab and run it against the databases." She closed the envelope securely before walking over to the body covered by a yellow sheet. "The victim's name is Dr. Jeffrey Shore, a biochemistry engineer at Vaughan Pharmaceuticals. That makes two lab techs killed in the past two weeks."

"That ain't a coincidence."

"Yeah, tell me about it. And like the last tech, he had just stolen a serum from the storage cooler."

Joe took off his sunglasses. "Really? What kind of serum?"

"Cortexin," Juliet replied. "It's used to treat encephalopathy, which is a blood disease in the brain. The serum's missing, but his colleagues found him here dead a couple of minutes later."

"He didn't get far."

"Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head."

Joe stared down at the victim's head — or lack thereof — when Juliet pulled the yellow sheet back. "Ugh, and apparently a lot of it."

"That's not the only thing, though," Juliet admitted.

She dropped the sheet and pointed upwards. On the warning sign for vehicles on the building was a huge blood splatter.

Joe stared at it. "Is that his blood?"

"It's the point of impact," Juliet confirmed. "Whatever did this has to have absolute strength, because I'm assuming Shore got thrown like a football."

Joe patted her shoulder. "Run those tests, see if you can find anything else, and get back to me. Especially if you think these cases are linked."

"Will do."

"And I'll tell Barry you said hi."

Juliet sighed. "Let me know if he's okay, will you? He seemed . . . down, this morning. Like, more than usual."

"You'll be the first to know," Joe approved. He squeezed her shoulder gently. "See you later."

Juliet looked around the crime scene a little more before heading back to her lab. She immediately ran the tests on the hairs she had found, and while she was waiting, she looked more into the two cases. Turns out, they were linked. However, as Juliet read more into what happened, the more she got uneasy. If she was thinking what she was thinking . . .

The results from the hairs only confirmed it. They were gorilla hairs.

Grodd.

"Shit," Juliet whispered. "Shit, shit, shit—"

Juliet immediately teleported into the cortex. She glanced around in panic, but the one person she was looking for wasn't there.

"Joe," Juliet breathed out. She met eyes with her boyfriend, who looked confused. "Joe, where's Joe—"

"In the pipeline," Barry responded slowly. "J, what—"

"I'll be right back! Love you!"

She then teleported all the way downstairs. Sure enough, Joe was down there while Iris was getting in the elevator. Juliet ran up to Joe, her eyes wide with panic.

"They're linked," Juliet let out, talking fast. "The two cases, they're linked. The other scientist stole a large quantity of a racetam drug that's used typically to treat vertigo. These serums, the one for blood disorders in the brain and one with vertigo, they're nootropic drugs that enhance intelligence—"

Joe put his hands on her shoulders. "Juliet, breathe."

"The hairs were from a gorilla, Joe." She stared at him seriously. "Grodd."

Joe blinked at her. "Upstairs?"

She nodded. Immediately, Juliet teleported the two of them upstairs, right outside of the cortex.

"Did Caitlin come through here?" Cisco was saying.

Barry shook his head. "No."

"She just hit me in the face and ran away."

"I know why," Juliet interrupted urgently, walking into the cortex and trying to catch her breath. "Grodd."

Cisco stared at her. "What?"

"Grodd's back," Joe added.

"Caitlin. That must be why she was acting like that. She was being mind-controlled."

Juliet scoffed. "I fucking hate this. This stupid God damn gorilla is back again, even though we absolutely proved mind control is my thing!"

He then pulled up the security camera footage. Caitlin was walking out of the building, and right after it came that stupid gorilla. Juliet clenched her jaw and immediately teleported outside to where they were.

However, she was too late. Maybe Grodd had sensed her coming or something, because there was absolutely no trace of them. Juliet sighed in annoyance and rubbed her forehead as the others, much slower than her, came through the door. Well, this wasn't good.

They had all gone back into the cortex, and sensing the urgency of the situation from Cisco, Harry had come back. Juliet was slightly sitting on the arm of Barry's wheelchair, and in return, he had an arm around her hips, keeping her close. She hadn't gotten the chance to talk to him yet. Before Harry had come, Joe had pulled her aside and told her about what Barry had said to him. He thought that Zoom destroyed him and that Central City now saw he was powerless.

"I'm continually amazed by the similarity between our two worlds," Harry revealed, peering over Cisco's shoulders and he looked through footage of the sewers in the city to try and find Caitlin.

"You got talking gorillas on your Earth, too?" Joe inquired.

"Oh, yeah."

"Remind me never to go there."

"Ramon, why would this Grodd abduct Dr. Snow?" Harry asked.

"I don't know," Cisco mumbled. "It doesn't make any sense. She was always so nice to him."

"He mind-controlled two lab technicians to steal chemicals that enhance intelligence," Joe insisted. "He wants her for something."

"Well, looks like he left his bachelor pad in the sewers."

"Grodd's a big-ass gorilla. He can't just waltz through downtown in the middle of the day without anybody noticing."

"Right, and if there's been sightings, then we might be able to approximate his location," Harry agreed.

"I can call CCPD," Joe offered. "They can access the tip hotline, send over files of Grodd's recent attacks."

"Good."

Cisco stood up. "We gotta get her back."

"We will," Harry promised.

Juliet then turned her attention to Barry. He was staring down at his lap, his eyebrows knit together in thought.

"Hey," Juliet called, taking his chin in her hand and moving it so he was looking at it. "You're thinking too loud. Stop. There is absolutely nothing you could've done in this situation."

Barry's eyes softened when he looked at her, pain hiding behind the green. "I — I still don't have my speed, and I don't want you to go face Grodd by yourself. Not that you can't do it alone, I just—"

"Baby." Juliet stared at him strongly. "We'll come up with something, okay?" She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "I promise."

Barry hummed against her lips. "My brain's a mess right now."

"I know," Juliet responded. She brushed some hair away from his forehead. "You wanna talk about it?"

"I don't even know where to start."

"How about this," Juliet began. "You process your thoughts, and then you come and find me. How does that sound?"

Barry sighed, yet nodded nonetheless. "Sounds good." He leaned forwards and kissed her again, just because he could. "I love you. A lot."

"I love you too, forever lover." She stood up from the wheelchair. "See you when you're ready."

Juliet sent him a small smile before walking out of the cortex, leaving Barry behind as he went towards the treadmill room. She went towards the elevator lobby. The doors opened as she neared them, and she gasped at the sight she was met with.

Joe, Iris, and Henry.

"Henry," Juliet whispered, her eyes widening. "Oh my God."

Henry laughed at her as he pulled her into a tight hug. "Hi, Jules. Always good to see you."

"What are you doing here?" She pulled away to look up at him. "I thought you were hopping across the country."

"I am — I was. But Iris called, saying something about nobody being able to get through to my son, including you."

Juliet nodded in agreement. "He is incredibly stubborn. Oh, Henry, he's going to be so happy. Here, he's in the treadmill room."

The three took Henry into the cortex. Henry peered through the door to the treadmill room, only to see Barry running. He was running well, and little sparks of yellow lightning started to surround his body, but he wasn't fully there yet. Barry let out a breath of disappointment and turned off the treadmill.

"Keep that chin down, slugger," Henry called.

Barry turned to him, and everything about him seemed to relax. "Dad."

He immediately got off the treadmill and hugged Henry. Juliet smiled softly at the two of them. She turned to Iris and lifted up a hand. Iris instantly obliged, slapping her hand against Juliet's in a high-five.

"That was a hell of an idea you had, bringing Henry here," Joe told her.

"Well, he may not have his mother, but he's got two amazing fathers," Iris stated. "Seemed like he needed both."

Juliet nodded. "True."

Joe wrapped his arm around Iris, who in turn wrapped her arm around Juliet. Together, the three of them left father and son alone.

Juliet had detached herself from Iris and Joe and went downstairs to see how Cisco and Harry were doing. She sighed, tightening her ponytail as she walked through the hallway. This whole situation was just fucked.

"Oh, JJ," Cisco let out, peeking out of his workshop. "Perfect. Just the person I wanted to see. I want to run an idea by you."

"What idea?" Juliet questioned.

It was quickly answered. Because right after Cisco stepped out Harrison Wells wearing the yellow suit of the Reverse Flash. For a split second, Juliet's veins filled with fear an anger, and she lifted up her hand. How could he be here right now?

"Nope, none of that," Cisco protested, grabbing her hand and forcing it down. "It's just Harry."

Juliet breathed out a sigh of relief. "Jesus fuck, that was terrifying. My God."

Cisco smiled innocently and raised his hands. "Believable, isn't it?"

"Right. Let's go tell Barry, but I think he'll also have a heart attack."

Juliet, Cisco, and Harry went back upstairs. Harry stayed out in the hallway while Juliet and Cisco went into the cortex. In one of the medbays were Barry and Henry, talking quietly amongst themselves.

"Hey guys," Cisco voiced, and they looked at him. "I think we've found them."

Barry got up, his eyes alight with hope. "Yeah?"

Cisco typed for a moment before pulling up what Harry found on the computer. "Grodd has to be in one of these three bell towers. The only reason we couldn't find him on any cameras underneath the city before is 'cause he upgraded from a bachelor pad to a penthouse, like a baller."

"Okay, so we know where he is. We still don't know how to get her. Is J going alone?"

Juliet cleared her throat. "Not quite. I'm not going at all."

"We got a plan for you two," Cisco added.

"What's the plan?" Barry inquired.

Harry stepped forwards into the line of sight. "We use me."

At once, Barry's eyes widened. He suddenly got a burst of super speed, one without lightning, as he ran towards Harry. Barry immediately pushed Harry against the wall and slotted his forearm against his throat. Juliet blinked.

Okay. Well, that was attractive.

"That's Harry!" Cisco shouted. "That's the other Wells!"

"Barry," Harry breathed out.

"I told you he was going to have a heart attack," Juliet said. She walked calmly up to him and put a hand on Barry's shoulder. "Babe, let him go."

Barry backed up, wrapping an arm around Juliet's waist as Harry pulled down the hood of the suit. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"We found another suit in the Time Vault," Cisco explained.

"I thought he was dead," Henry admitted.

"Oh, no, he is," Juliet answered. "This is Earth-Two Harrison Wells."

"Earth-Two?"

"Long story."

"If we can get Harry to convince Grodd that he's Wells, that he's his father, maybe we can convince him to let Caitlin go," Cisco continued. "This way, Juliet doesn't have to risk going under mind control because Grodd will automatically see her as an enemy."

Juliet looked right at Harry. "I'll be ready if you need me. If anything goes wrong, I'll be there."

Harry gave her a tense nod. This plan had to work — for Caitlin.

〖   ϟ   〗

uh okay so I actually hate this but there's no way it's getting any better so here you go enjoy <3