章 3: Chapter 3 - Barry Allen
Over the course of a week Nathan found himself in a rhythm as he rushed from one place to another. As he helped the trio rebuild the S.T.A.R Labs as much as possible he started to finally find some peace.
Even though, the worry that someone out there might be looking for him constantly eat at his thoughts, the fact that nothing showed on even after days of searching brought him some peace. And to this, no matter how strange, Nathan started to feel at home, even as he knew he shouldn't.
That day Dr. Wells had called all of them to the lab and as Nathan entered he found the reason why.
There lying on a hospital bed, strapped with glucose and other machines lay a man in deep sleep. He wasn't sure but Nathan had a feeling that something wasn't right with the man as the EKG seemed to show a flat-line.
"Who is this?" Cisco asked before he could open his mouth and Nathan noticed the man standing behind the person lying on the bed.
"This here is Mr. Allen, who is unfortunately in comma due to the particle accelerator incident. And this is here Detective Joe West."
Nathan greeted the man alongside Cisco and Caitlin, and the man replied with a rudimentary nod before looking back at Dr. Wells.
"Dr. Wells said that you could help Barry because you know about his condition." The man named Joe West said as he took a look at them. Nathan couldn't help feel lost at that and take a look back at Harrison Wells.
"I know that this might be a bit confusing for you, but we are the only chance Mr. Allen has at getting better, so I need you to believe in me, we can do this."
Caitlin seemed hesitant as she looked at the patient but soon relaxed after one look at Dr. Wells. "What do you need us to do?"
It only took less than two hours to set it all up. Hooking Mr. Allen to a few more dextrose solution mixed with some compounds as he seemed to burn right through them, which was wierd for a seemingly dead person. However what was even weirder was his inhuman metabolism and his cellular activity indicating his superhuman regenerative capabilities.
"So let me get this straight," Cisco stood in the lab with a hand around his chest and took a look back at Barry before turning to look at the Doctor in white coat and asked, "What you are saying is that, this guy over here is as fit as a fiddle."
Caitlin nodded in confirmation showing the tablet that seemed to record someone's vitals. "In fact Mr. Allen is scary healthy, but his condition is rather weird."
"Weird; I don't think I understand that word properly after everything that's been going on in the Central City lately." The smart engineer snorted and left the lab heading back to his workshop.
"So, any idea when he might wake up?" Nathan asked leaning on the glass wall only for Caitlin to shake her head.
"His case is rather strange and I can't make any predictions without sufficient knowledge."
He nodded his head and left the lab, heading to Cisco's workshop where the man tasked him to compile a list of reports of strange sightings across the city.
"Weird ~" Nathan let out a whistle sifting through the pile of newspapers.
"What's weird?" Cisco lifted his head from the work-table where an assortment of devices lay in scramble as he were building some new tech devices.
"Man, you are not gonna believe this." Nathan made exaggerated movement with his head before passing a printed out report to Cisco who let out a 'eh' and started to look through them.
"Yup, definitely weird, but not for long."
"What do you mean?"
"See this," he pointed at a device that looked like a telescope with batteries strapped around it, "With this, we can track dark matter activity anywhere in central city, awesome right."
Nathan's eyes twinkled in delight at the sight of this piece of tech and he praised Cisco for his genius, to which the quirky engineer just laughed playfully. He hesitated for a moment and then asked, "Hey, about the search, did you find anything?"
The atmosphere suffered a sudden shift when Nathan asked the question. Cisco sighed and sat back on his chair. "I tried my best, looked through every piece of data, from hospitals to schools, but I couldn't find you anywhere, it's like you never existed in the first place. I am sorry, man."
Nathan nodded indistinctly at that. He hadn't expected anything from the start so it didn't matter, but he still felt a twinge of disappointment. It was clear from Cisco's tone that the man was genuinely feeling sorry as the two had grown closer this past week. He looked at the man and patted his shoulder, "Don't worry about, I am sure you did everything."
He turned to leave but just as he neared the door, he looked back and asked, "Hey, you wanna grab a lunch later."
"Would love to." Nathan smiled at the response, yeah there was no need worry. Strangely enough he didn't feel any excessive sense of urgency or sorrow at having lost his memories and possibly his home.
Once in the lab, he found Caitlin, who as scheduled started to perform tests on him.
"Hey I asked Cisco about lunch just now, want to come with us."
"I have some work to finish, Nathan."
"I would like you to."
"Sigh" The Doctor in white coat sighed as she held his blood filled test tube. To her, Nathan was like a young kid even though he didn't behave like one. And it was obvious to her that he was trying to cheer her up. She let out another sigh but acquiesced, "When?"
"Great! In an hour."
For the past week both Caitlin and Wells had been researching on him and his ability to unconsciously absorb energy. According to them, his cells seemed bottomless as they absorbed the energy, but after sometime they died, which Dr. Wells assumed was due to seperating them from his body. However what was really confusing was how despite constantly absorbing energy his cells showed no sing of them. It was like his body was a bottomless pit where everything that went inside disappeared.
Having a bit of eighth grade syndrome, Nathan had secretly tried to control this energy but all he had managed to do until now was to catch a glimpse of an ocean tide ebb and flow before he was assaulted by an intense headache.
He would've given up the thought had he not found something else after that encounter. It was actually Barry Allen, their resident patient to thank for.
Two days back when he was looking over the man in comma he had tried to take a closer look. Since the doctors had claimed that Mr. Allen lacked a heartbeat despite being alive, his curiosity was bursting through the roof. He pressed his hand against the man's chest to check if the claim were true, and he didn't know wether it was intentional or not but he had felt a raging torrent or engery coursing through the man's body. It was like a thunderstorm ravaging the night sky with bolts of lightning.
After that Nathan had tried to stay away from the man as much as possible but his curiosity was coming stronger than ever and he knew that he wasn't going to rest until he found the reason behind this change.
...
Three weeks after the incident at S.T.A.R Labs. Nathan typed away at the keyboard going through documentations regarding S.T.A.R Labs satellite. It was fascinating how much technology the satellite seemed to hold and now equipped with the probe that Cisco designed it was basically a high tech dark matter detection camera designed to overlook the entirety of Central City.
The sound of footsteps echoing in the corridor had him looking right at the door where a young woman wearing form fitting clothing and thick red coat entered the room.
"Good morning," greeted the visitor, Iris West. Nathan greeted back and the woman went to check on the only patient.
Iris West was a frequent visitor to S.T.A.R Labs so, Nathan had gotten to know her quite a bit. He learned that both Barry Allen and Iris West had grown together after the death of his mother and that it was Joe West, the strict looking detective who raised them on their own. Basically, the two were sort of like siblings.
Nathan sighed at the thought of family and focused back on his work.
Sometime later Iris came back and the two exchanged some words.
"Any improvement on his condition?" It wasn't her first time asking this, neither him listening, so he answered the same as ever, "I can assure you Ms West, Barry is perfectly fine as he is, and we are trying our best. You can talk to Caitlin if you want to know more though."
"It's fine," Iris waved her hand and looked down for a moment and then said, "I really appreciate your help, I know that you will do your best in helping Barry, I just want to say, thankyou."
"It's what we are meant to do, please don't let it bother you." As always Nathan acted like good samarthan, though he knew his feeling were contrary.
Right after Iris left, Nathan too departed from there and took a taxi to a neat little restuarant.
For the past two weeks, he had been going out and trying to socialize with people, which was a lot harder than he expected. Apparently Nathan was a dry conversationalist as he didn't know how make good jokes. Good thing, he was pretty good at what he knew and understood though, so the label hadn't stuck.
Just a week prior he had made friends with a girl named Rachel who lived just downtown and went to work at "Eaters". She had informed him that they had an open post and he wasted no time in agreeing to meet her boss.
While living with Cisco was okay for the time being, he didn't want to come off as leaching off of someone so the opportunity to work was a welcome one.
Once at the Eaters he entered through the front door finding the place empty except for a two people who quietly went about their work while sipping on coffee.
"Can't you come a little bit earlier?" It was a short girl with shoulder length blonde hair and hazel brown eyes. She was wearing a waiters uniform while cleaning the tables.
"Can't do, ma'am." He replied in a joking manner and walked through the backdoor. Once he changed fully he picked a broom to help with cleaning.
"I thought you were desperate to land this job, so what's keeping you this busy?" The lady asked all while rubbing at the table surface.
Nathan laughed a little and looked around himself, then in a hushed tone he said, "Would you believe me if I tell you that I work for the mafia?"
Rachel looked right back at him and two entered a staring contest for a brief moment before she broke off; resuming cleaning she said, "If you don't want to say it, that's fine too, not like I care."
Nathan only let out a laugh and went about his business. It was approaching afternoon and this place was soon going to crawl with hungry humans and noise.
As his shift ended right in the evening, and sky was showing a shade of red, he said his goodbyes to Rachel and went back to the lab. Caitlin had already left and so had Dr. Wells, only Cisco remained in the Cortex where he seemed to be working on something.
"How was the first day, any fun?" The engineer didn't lift his head even as he asked Nathan. The latter chuckled at the question as he remembered Cisco advising against it.
"Pretty fun, actually."
"O'yeah."
"What are you working on?" Nathan asked as he moved behind Cisco and taking a look at the computer screen showing graphs and analysis regarding something.
"Just trying to find out where the weird part came in to the Central City."
"Had any luck?"
"Barely, but," The man paused and a new window was casted on the screen, this time it was a compiled report of all the unusual incidents happening all around the city, "Look at this."
From what Nathan could see, it showed how there have been bizzare incidents happening all over the city and start was just three days after the particle accelerator explosion. Some were criminal activities, while others just people reporting that they had seen, what they thought was a magical being.
"Someone shot electricity, and someone else poison gass? Cool." Nathan mumbled as he read the report, not entirely convinced of the claims that the report spoke of.
"I don't believe these either and this is why, I have the probe focused on the centeral city right now. If something supernatural is going on in the city, I doubt it can hide for long." Cisco had an enthusiastic and energetic bearing as he focused back on the computer. Every time Nathan saw this, he was reminded how much the man loved doing science.
"Shouldn't we share this with Caitlin and Dr. Wells?"
"Yes, I plan on getting a few more details before I show it to them tomorrow."
Nathan nodded at that and then started his own work; after two more hours the two went back to Cisco's house.
...
Authors Note: I thought long and hard about where to fit Barry in and this is what I came up with. Dr. Wells bringing Barry straight to S.T.A.R Labs without alerting Caitlin and Cisco seemed well within the existing possibilities. Caitlin still isn't ready to talk yet but she will come around. Cisco returning back to his cheerful mood seemed plausible so here you go. Maybe this entire scenario wouldn't have worked as fast as it did, but I contribute this to Nathan, as him existing there influenced certain possibilities.
His powers still remain unknown for the most part, especially to Caitlin and Cisco as the two still have no idea about Meta-humans, yet. Wells being Wells, I can assure you has already started his Reverse-planning with regards to Nathan, though he still hasn't found about his powers yet.
Nathan knows that Barry is unusual thanks to his energy sense which let him perceive the speed force in Barry's body. In Season 4, it was mentioned that each lightning bolt had roughly a billion joules worth of energy. So while Barry might not be as strong as that Barry he would still have hundreds of millions of joules worth of energy, and believe me, that's a lot, probably enough to below a building or half the S.T.A.R Labs whole; the reason why Nathan found it scary.
By this point Cisco is finally developing something to help him find about the Meta-humans, as we know the three of them were aware of them even during season one episode one.
At last, if you like this series drop a kudos or comment or whatever is possible on whichever platform you are reading from, and make sure to bookmark it. I would really appreciate your response as it helps motivate me.
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