Archive of Our Own ^beta

Caitlin makes her way down to the labs with a tray full of blood samples. Her short heels clicking against the concrete and the sound rebounding off the walls. She may have dressed up a little today because the new lab tech is extremely hot, but nobody would ever get her to say that out loud. Ever. Caitlin Snow prides herself on being extremely professional and work-oriented, but she is still a woman with needs. 

“Hi Barry,” she calls out in an overly chipper tone that sounds fake even to her.

Barry waves a hand but keeps his face close to the microscope, leaving Caitlin to only see the back of his head. Therefore she can’t see his face warm with a pink tint.

“How are you today?” Caitlin presses.

“I’m good. Just analyzing some things here and there.”

“I have more for you to analyze and I also have to get some of your blood. Metahuman screening of the new employees. You know how it is,” she says with a downtrodden expression on her face.

Barry looks up from his scope, his eyes guarded, smile tight and muscles tense. Caitlin tilts her head, long brown curls falling to one side.

“Are you afraid of needles, Barry?”

Shaking his head quickly, Barry forces himself to relax. “Terrified, but it would really do my ego some good if you didn’t tell anybody about that.”

Caitlin tosses a wink over her shoulder as she grabbed the tube, needle, and alcohol swab. He lets his eyes wander down her body appreciatively. 

“Hey, Barry,” Caitlin teases with her face showing her amusement. “My face is up here.”

“Sorry. That was not one of my smoothest moments,” Barry mumbles before taking a seat on a nearby stool.

Caitlin turns around with her supplies. Her plump lip caught between her teeth as she approaches him with the needle. “I know this is going to suck, but I’m going to try and do this quickly.”

“I know a thing or two about quick,” Barry blurts out. Caitlin snorts while Barry flinches. “Can-can we pretend I didn’t say that? Because I meant I run quick not the other kind of quick. I’m good in that area. Everyone is very satisfied in that area when it comes to me.”

“It’s okay,” Caitlin laughs and shaking her head, “my best friend doesn’t have a brain to mouth filter. It’s equally adorable on both of you.”

Barry playfully rolls his eyes, offering up his arm, “Just hurry up and poke me. It might hurt less than this.”

She quickly sticks him with the needle, watching the blood gush into the tube instead of looking at him. Her cheeks, neck and ears burn as she blushes under his gaze. 

Clearly her throat, Caitlin asks, “So how do you tell if somebody is a metahuman or not?”

“Umm, besides some of the obvious physical symptoms there’s something in their blood. We’re not sure what it is, but it bonds to the red blood cells. Like with the herpes virus, how the virus hides in the cell until agitated. This is kind of like that, but they’re constantly agitated and pretty soon it looks more like the red blood cell is the virus and the mutation is the host. It looks pretty cool most of the time.”

Caitlin nods while taking out the tube, “That seems cool. I don’t get to look at the cells and structures and lots of things of metahumans.” She puts a cotton ball and tap over the needle before pulling it out. “People would think that because I work at S.T.A.R Labs in this fancy position where I study the human anatomy and it’s difficulties and how to fix them, I could see them, work with them, try to understand them. Instead me, with my bioengineering degree, my M.D., my background in neurosurgery and my computer skills, though those are lacking compared to my best friend, but still. You would think with all this education and experience I would be working with them, but nope. I am collecting blood to bring to the new lab tech.”

Pressing the swab deeper into his skin, Barry looks at her with an astounded look. “I don’t think we can be friends anymore. I was really hoping we could be friends, maybe more… Like best friends… or more than that… Okay ignore that last part. How do you have all those degrees and skills and you’re what, under thirty?”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“How? Because from what I know, and granted most of it is from watching Grey’s Anatomy, it is three years of prerequisites, four years of med school, an intern year, five years of residence and then a fellowship. Thirteen or so years of medical training and you also have a bioengineering degree. How?”

“I skipped a couple grades… and double majored.”

“A couple?” Barry looks taken aback. “Yeah we can’t be friends. See my main charm is that I’m smart and geeky. That’s how the world sees me. If I stand next to you, you with all your smart hotness…”

“You think I’m hot?” Caitlin giggles, schoolgirl, hiding her mouth behind her hand, giggles.

“If you have a husband or a boyfriend the answer is no. I don’t have a lot going for me looks wise, but my face and lack of broken bones definitely is one. If, by some stroke of unbelievable luck on my part, you are single, yes you are very hot. Very, very hot, but there’s obviously more to you as your long list of accomplishments would suggest. I wouldn’t mind taking you and your brain and all of you to dinner,” Barry babbled with lots of arm movement and flushing. 

Caitlin’s shock face causes Barry to laugh. His hand rubbing the back of his neck and his face scrunched in up on one side as he laughs. Caitlin shakes her head while offering him a bright smile.

“Of course. Dinner would be nice. I just got one question. Did you ask me because I put on the fancy dress and shaved my legs and because I mentioned I’m extremely smart?”

“I found you attractive even when wore jeans and a sweatshirt last week,” Barry mumbles as he shifts awkwardly. 

“Okay,” she breathes out.

“Okay. Do you want to meet up right after work? I get off at eight.”

“That’s perfect.”

Barry and Caitlin had been dating for about a month when he slips. Up until that point he had made sure that he been careful and measured with his movements while still appearing carefree. He never let it get out of control, well of course until it wasn’t.

Caitlin is perched on one of the stools in the labs, carefree and swinging her legs. “So I was thinking tonight we can go to the karaoke bar. I know I can’t sing, but there’s alcohol so I might not sound that bad to everyone there. That or we can get coffee at Jitters. I love the coffee there. Oh and the hot chocolate. Also I think tonight is their game night. It’s a nerdy heaven.”

“I think my babbling combined with Felicity’s is rubbing off on you,” Barry teases before landing a kiss on her cheek. “As much as I want to hear you sing, it’s not every night Jitters does a geek oriented game night.”

“That is true,” Caitlin teases and smiles up at him, very much the lovesick teen she never had the chance to be. She wraps her arms around his neck and legs around his hips.

Barry leans closer to her, his breath fanning across her face, “The babble is cuter on me though.”

Caitlin laughs as she brings his lips to hers. Their kiss quickly goes from sweet to hungry. Barry drops his hands to her waist, pulling her and the stool closer to his growing erection. Caitlin nips at his bottom lip which causes him to groan. Her hand leisurely moves toward his belt, gently brushing against his hardening length. Barry pulls back to start nipping at her neck while Caitlin becomes bolder. Her long fingers giving him a firm squeeze through his pants that causes him to vibrate. Not the sexual, I’m so ready for this I’m shaking to get going, vibrating. It was actual vibrating.

Barry is too far gone in the pleasure from the simple gesture that he doesn’t notice, but Caitlin sure does. She gasps loudly and jumps away from his hands. Panicking, Caitlin leaves his arms, knocking over the stool in her rush.

“Barry, what the hell was that?!” Caitlin yells as she palpates where his hands were.

Her eyes widen as she looks over to Barry where his hands are vibrating at such a speed they are just blurs.

“Caitlin, I can explain,” Barry rushes quickly. Hoping that if he explains quickly enough she wouldn’t run out of the room in terror and call the cops.

She takes a tentative step forward, hands outreach. In a gentle tone, like she was coaxing a scared animal, Caitlin tries to calm him, “Barry, just calm down. We just need to get your hands to stop flashing around. Okay just take a few deep breathes and calm down. As soon as you calm down we can talk all you want.”

Barry’s air whooshes out of his lungs as he takes her in. His heart ready to burst at her kind eyes and hesitant smile. With a few calming breaths, he forces his hands to stop moving. He closes his eyes to center himself before opening them on her again. Barry tries to match her expression, but there is still a small sliver of doubt that she will run.

“So… Where do we begin?” Caitlin starts.

Barry shoves his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, “Where do you want me to start?”

“Maybe if I just list what I think I know you can take it from there.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Caitlin nods her head and starts ticking the things off on her fingers. “Metahuman with weird vibrating powers. We didn’t catch it on the blood tests because you ran the tests, which is really smart. We have been on several dates in the last four weeks and you decided to hide this from me. Which I can totally understand because the majority of the world has a thing against metahumans. I never understood that, but it’s a thing. Okay. I think I’m done. At least for right now because my brain is kind of making that weird static noise that TVs makes when there’s no services. You know what I’m talking about. With the colorful, vertical bars and stuff.”

Barry wants to laugh, but he is scared that any sudden movement or sound will terrify her. Instead he swallows thickly and lets his mouth take over. “Yes I am a metahuman, but my ‘powers’ aren’t weird vibrating. I’m really fast. I can run fast and do other things really quickly. I also have to eat about ten thousand calories a day to live. I was a CI before I became a metahuman so when I found the open in my once upon a time dream workplace, I took it. It just fit and everything fell into place. 

“The reason I haven’t told you isn’t because I want to deceive you or use you. I didn’t tell you because like you said being who I am is despised. I was afraid because I really like you. I was afraid that you were going to turn tail and run as soon as you found out. And I really like you Caitlin. From the first moment I saw you I really liked you, even if you didn’t smile all that often.”

Caitlin is standing in front of him, arms crossed and head nodding. Her face is carefully blank as she processes everything. Her breathing equal and controlled so she can keep her wits. Barry wants to keep talking but she looks like she can’t take anymore information. So he rocks back and forth on the ball of his feet to channel that balled up energy into something.

“Can… Can I see it?” Caitlin asks before immediately screw her face up, “By it I mean the super speed and not anything dirty. God you and Felicity really have been rubbing off on me.”

Barry chuckles in relief. The breathy, could be a sigh, air leaving his lungs in an rush, chuckle of relief that makes Caitlin smile brightly at him. His returning smile is just as bright and he takes a step forward carefully.

“So this doesn’t freak you out?”

Caitlin shakes her head, biting her lips to keep from smiling like a lunatic. “It’s pretty cool. My boyfriend’s a metahuman.”

“This isn’t like shock talking, is it? You’re not going to start screaming in the middle of a hallway, are you?”

“No,” Caitlin moves forward to cup his elbow. Her eyes swimming brightly. “I never understood why metahumans were despised. It’s not your fault that something happened. All these people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when a particle accelerator exploded. And I honestly think the only reason people hate metahumans is because for some unknown reason most of them seem to be bad. Most, not all, though.”

“I could kiss you,” Barry mutters. “I could marry you, honestly.”

A fierce blush takes over her face and she looks down while stepping closer into his space. Her finger tips flirting with the collar of his shirt as she looks up at him through her eyelashes. Her lips stretched into a sly smile.

“Maybe one day, but first let’s focus on wether you are going to listen to me sing terribly off key or if I’m going to kick your ass at trivia,” she hops on the tip of her toes to gently press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “We can figure the rest out as it comes.”