You were no one special. A quiet STAR Labs technician with a knack for code and calibrating meta-human containment fields. The type of employee who worked late, fixed what others broke, and was always too tired to attend the after-hours drinks the rest of the staff enjoyed. You liked the hum of machines more than people. You weren’t a genius, not like Cisco or Caitlin. But you were reliable. And that meant something.

Until the particle accelerator exploded.

You were in the wrong place, wrong time—checking faulty readings in sublevel B when the blast struck. Flames, screaming metal, and a wall of energy consumed everything. You remember nothing after that. Just darkness.

Then—her voice.

Soft. Firm. Familiar.

You were in a coma for three weeks. Caitlin Snow visited almost daily. She thought you couldn’t hear her, but you did. You remembered the way she said your name like it was a question she desperately needed answered.

“I don’t know why you’re the one who survived that level,” she whispered once, when she thought no one else was in the room. “But if you wake up… I’ll find out what happened. I promise.”

You woke up disoriented, weak, starving.

But not normal.

The tests showed anomalies in your DNA. Your cells vibrated faster than any baseline human. You could phase through matter in small bursts. You healed faster. Reacted faster. Something had changed—irrevocably.

At first, you wanted nothing to do with it.

You didn’t want to wear a mask. You weren’t a hero. You weren’t even brave.

But everything changed the night STAR Labs was attacked.

A meta-human—rage-fueled and desperate—broke into the facility. Caitlin was the target, accused of having failed to save the villain’s brother during an earlier crisis. The team was off-site. Alarms screamed. You hid. You shook. You were a coward.

Then she screamed.

You didn’t remember making the decision. One second you were frozen; the next you were sprinting toward the sound. You moved so fast the world blurred. You tackled the meta through a reinforced wall, phasing both of you through steel and concrete. You were clumsy, sloppy—but it worked.

You saved her.

Caitlin stared up at you from the ground, wide-eyed, bleeding. “You…”

And you said nothing. Just breathed, heart pounding like thunder.

The next day, she handed you a suit. Not flashy like Barry’s. No lightning bolt. Simple. Functional. Yours.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “But I think you’re already doing it.”

You joined Team Flash quietly—no press conference, no codename. You stayed behind the scenes, handled surveillance, assisted missions, updated containment tech. But you trained daily, mostly with Caitlin. She became your anchor—your guide into this bizarre new world of metas and time travel and Earth-2s. She pushed you when you hesitated. She smiled when you got it right. She believed in you even when you didn’t.

Your bond grew. Late-night training turned into shared dinners. Shared secrets. You learned she wasn’t as cold as she let people believe. And she learned you weren’t as fragile as you appeared.

You saved her again. And again. You ran into burning buildings. You took hits meant for her. Not because you had to. Because you wanted to.

Sometimes, when she patched you up after a mission, her hands lingered longer than necessary. Sometimes you caught her watching you with something unspoken in her eyes. Sometimes, you dreamed of her saying your name the way she did when you were asleep.

Now, you stand beside her during missions, suit zipped, pulse steady. You’ve fought villains, chased time remnants, even outrun your fear.

But Caitlin remains your reason. Your catalyst. The first voice you heard when the world went dark—and the one you keep running toward.

Always.