The STAR Labs doors let me through without an access alert.
That was the first thing I noticed. Cisco hadn't locked me out. He could have. He'd had eight hours. He hadn't.
I took the elevator up. My reflection in the chrome wall had bruising across the throat I hadn't seen in the mirror — a dark purple collar where Thawne's hand had been. I pulled the jacket collar up. It didn't help.
The cortex was already full.
Barry. Joe. Eddie. Cisco. Caitlin. Ronnie, hanging back near the glass. The whole room turned when the elevator opened.
No one spoke.
I walked to the center. Didn't sit. Sitting felt like a concession I couldn't afford.
"Ask what you want to ask," I said.
Barry stepped forward first. Arms crossed. Not hostile — just closed.
"Powers," he said. "This whole time."
Not a question. Same tone he'd used last night.
I nodded once.
"I woke up from the coma with something I didn't understand. Took months to figure out what it was. Months more to control it enough to be useful."
"And you didn't tell us."
"No."
"Why."
I met his eyes. "Because the last person with powers you met spent a year at your kitchen table pretending to be your mentor. Because Barry Allen gets lightning and becomes a hero, and the guy in a coma bed down the hall wakes up with something weird and gets put in a cell under Iron Heights while you wait to see if he's dangerous. I wasn't sure which version of me you'd meet first. The one you trusted, or the one you locked up."
Joe made a noise in the back of his throat. Not agreement. Not disagreement. The noise a cop makes when he files something away to come back to.
Cisco spoke next.
"What can you do."
Short. Flat. His arms were crossed too, but tighter. Like he was holding something in.
I gave them what I'd decided in the kitchen.
"I can phase through solid matter. Short distances. Not long ones. Not at speed."
Cisco's jaw worked.
"I can make fire. A meter out. Not much more. Enough to deter, not destroy."
Barry didn't blink.
"And I can harden my body under stress. It's limited. Minutes at a time. Costs me afterward." I gestured at my ribs. "As you can see."
"Three powers," Cisco said.
"Three."
"You sure that's the count."
He was looking right at me when he said it. His voice had a thing in it I'd never heard before. Not anger. Not accusation. Test.
I held the look. "I've told you what I used last night."
Not a lie. Not the whole truth. Exact middle.
Cisco's mouth tightened. He didn't push. Not yet.
Caitlin spoke. Her voice was lower than usual, the way it got when she was trying very hard not to make it do something else.
"When we were together." She paused. "Did you—"
"No."
"Let me finish."
I shut up.
"Did you use anything. On me. That I didn't know about."
The room went very still.
"No." I said it clean. Meant it. "What was between us was me. All of it. The person you were with was a man with a secret. Not a man running a con."
She watched my face for a long beat. I don't know what she was looking for. She didn't share whether she found it.
She nodded once. Short. Looked at the floor.
Didn't walk out this time.
Eddie hadn't said anything yet. He moved now. Came around from Joe's side of the room and stood in front of me.
He held out his hand.
"I don't know what else is going on here," he said. "I don't know what you are. But I know I was about to die and you got between me and him and I'm standing here. So. Thank you."
I took the hand. Shook it.
His grip was firm. Nothing performed about it.
Joe made the noise again. Different pitch this time.
I let Eddie's hand go. Looked at the room.
"I know none of you owe me trust. I'm not asking for it. I'm asking for time. You decide what you want me to be to this team. I'll abide by it."
Barry unfolded his arms.
"I don't know what to—"
The lights dimmed.
Not off. Dimmed. The cortex monitors flickered and came back with three of them showing the same thing: the city sky.
Something was wrong with it.
The sky above Central City was turning.
Not cloud. Not weather. Turning. A slow rotation in a patch of air maybe a half-mile up, like someone was stirring the atmosphere with a spoon.
Cisco was already at his station, hands flying.
"Tell me that's lens flare," Barry said.
"It's not lens flare."
"Tell me that's not what I think it is."
Cisco's face went the color of paper.
"Guys." His voice cracked a little. "Guys, something's tearing."
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― DECREE ―
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