Barry chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck as he tried to think of something—anything—that didn't sound insane. Patty just sat there across the table, watching him with those bright, curious eyes that somehow made it even harder to lie.
"Well…" he started, dragging out the word like it might buy him time. "It's not really a movie. It's more like… a book. Yeah. A book Cisco read." He glanced at Cisco, who just blinked at him slowly like really, dude? but didn't say anything.
Patty tilted her head. "A book about time travel?"
"Right." Barry nodded, way too eagerly. "It's got this scientist guy who builds a time machine to stop bad guys from doing… bad stuff in the future. Very sciencey. Very complicated." He made a vague wavy motion with his hand, like that explained anything.
Patty raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying a word of it. "So complicated you couldn't even tell me the name of it?"
Barry looked down at his coffee like it held the answers to the universe. "It's in German," he muttered.
"German."
"Yeah. Very underground." He looked up, giving her his best awkward smile. "You probably wouldn't have heard of it."
Cisco facepalmed silently behind his cup.
Patty leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, a half-smile on her lips. She wasn't mad. Just amused. "You're a terrible liar, Barry Allen."
"I know," he sighed, slumping a little. "I really, really am."
There was a long pause. Just the ambient sound of the café—the clink of mugs, the low hum of conversation, the hiss of the espresso machine. Patty looked at him for a beat longer, then reached for her coffee and took a sip, her expression unreadable.
Barry looked down at the table, tapping his fingers against the wood. He didn't know why he couldn't just tell her the truth. Maybe it was to protect her. Maybe it was because everything in his life was so insane right now and Patty was… normal. Bright. Easy to talk to. She made him feel like he wasn't constantly on the edge of the world falling apart.
He sighed. "I guess I just don't wanna scare you off."
Patty blinked. That wasn't what she expected him to say. "Scare me?"
Barry gave a small shrug. "I mean, look, I know I'm weird. I show up late, I disappear all the time, I give you half-answers to basic questions. You deserve better than that." He looked up at her, more serious now. "But I still… I still want to be around you."
Patty's expression softened. "Barry—"
"I know I mess up. A lot," he cut in gently. "But I want to try something with you. Not with the lies. Just… with you. And maybe dinner. If you'd still want that."
There it was. The air felt heavier, like the moment stretched long, just hanging between them. Even Cisco, who had been fidgeting with a sugar packet, froze.
Patty blinked again, then slowly smiled. It wasn't teasing this time. It was warm. Real.
"You're asking me on a date?"
Barry scratched his neck again. "Technically… yeah. I think I just did."
Patty looked at him for a second longer, then nodded once, slowly. "Okay."
Barry blinked. "Okay?"
"Okay," she repeated, sipping her coffee. "But if you stand me up, I will arrest you."
Barry laughed, the tension melting from his shoulders like someone had flipped a switch. "Fair."
Patty grinned, then stood up, brushing imaginary crumbs off her jacket. "I'll text you. You better pick a place that has real food, Allen. No science fiction cafés."
He stood too, a little dazed. "Yeah. No time travel theme. Got it."
She walked away with a casual wave, her ponytail swinging behind her. Barry watched her go, his smile lingering even after she vanished into the crowd.
Cisco leaned forward across the table. "Dude."
Barry turned to him, still grinning. "What?"
"That was the worst cover story I've ever heard."
"Yeah, well…" Barry picked up his coffee. "It still worked."
Cisco shook his head, half-laughing. "You're lucky you're cute."
Barry raised an eyebrow. "Are you calling me cute, Ramon?"
"I said lucky, man. Get over yourself."
They both laughed, the kind of laugh that helped them forget, even for a second, that the city was breaking and that Zoom was still out there.
Outside, the sun dipped behind the skyline. Lights blinked on across the street. Somewhere in the distance, a ripple of distorted space flickered and died.
For now, the world was quiet.
And Barry Allen had a date.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft hiss as Barry and Cisco stepped back into STAR Labs. The lighting was dimmer than usual, most of the overheads off except for the soft glow of the central console and a few flickering monitors. The quiet hum of machines filled the space, underscored by the distant, familiar beep of Caitlin's diagnostics running in the med bay.
Barry slowed as he stepped into the main room—and then he saw them.
Jay Garrick was standing beside Caitlin near the medical terminal, casually leaning on the edge of the console while Caitlin showed him something on the screen. She was smiling—soft, warm—and Jay was smiling back. Not smug or flirty. Just calm. Comfortable.
Barry's jaw tightened just a bit.
He didn't say anything. Didn't move. Just stood there, watching for maybe a second too long.
Cisco, right behind him, looked between the two and whispered, "Uh oh."
Barry blinked, as if snapping out of it, and forced a small smile. "I'm good," he said, too quickly.
"Right," Cisco said, dragging the word out. "And I'm Batman."
Without waiting for a reply, he peeled off and made a beeline toward Caitlin and Jay like nothing was weird. "Jay!" Cisco said, grinning. "Still rocking that whole old-school hero vibe, huh?" He clapped Jay on the shoulder a little harder than necessary.
Jay turned, caught off guard, but laughed anyway. "Cisco. Good to see you."
"Sure is," Cisco replied, eyes flicking between him and Caitlin. "You two were getting pretty cozy over here. Making up science puns or just awkwardly flirting in front of very sensitive lab equipment?"
Caitlin rolled her eyes. "We were analyzing rift readings. You know, that thing we're supposed to be stopping?"
"Mm-hmm." Cisco nodded. "Sure."
Barry didn't join them. He quietly peeled off, his footsteps echoing slightly as he made his way across the lab floor toward the back corner—where another familiar figure was hunched over the second-tier console.
HR Wells. Straw hat off, glasses slightly askew, a stylus clutched between his fingers as he scrolled through layers of data like a man on the edge of a caffeine overdose. His lips were moving, muttering to himself.
"Fractal distortion… no, no, no… metas don't come from banana-shaped breaches, they come from—ugh, why is everything redacted?"
Barry stepped up beside him. "You talking to yourself or are you expecting applause?"
HR jumped, nearly dropping his stylus. "Agh! Barry!" He placed a hand over his chest like he'd seen a ghost. "Could you please wear a bell or something?"
Barry gave a faint smirk. "What are you looking at?"
"Trying to reverse-ping residual energy signatures from the breach sites," HR said, straightening up. "It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack if the haystack was set on fire and launched into a black hole."
Barry glanced at the screen. Dozens of digital graphs and waveforms flickered across it, all with time stamps and locations—every one of them a different rift. He frowned. "You think any metas are still leaking through?"
HR gave a half-shrug, half-sigh. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably. Zoom's patterns aren't random, but they're chaotic enough that we're always playing catch-up. If we could just triangulate where his base rift is—"
"We'd have a shot," Barry finished.
HR looked at him. "You okay, by the way? You look like you just saw your crush holding hands with Superman."
Barry blinked. "What?"
"Never mind," HR said quickly. "You want in on this? We could use your speed to check the last three breach sites for fresh energy traces. It might help us pin down a pattern."
Barry nodded. "Yeah. Let's do that."
He stepped around the console, hands resting on the edge as he scanned the map HR had pulled up. As the two of them dug into the data, a soft laughter floated over from behind them—Caitlin's. It was light, real. Barry didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
But his jaw tightened just a little more.
'I can just end this facade now.'
Barry thought.