Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Barry's back for real. Back where he belongs and where he always should have been.

But not everything else is the same. He found out too soon how much has changed.

Cisco snaps at him and Barry figures out why. Dante's dead, and it's his fault. Cisco is one of the most important people to him, and Barry let him down.

He tries to justify it. He hadn't known that Cisco's brother would die. There would have been no way to predict it. Barry had made a mistake creating Flashpoint, but he'd done everything he could to fix it. He'd walked away from the life he'd always wanted with his parents for his family. Wasn't that enough? What else could he give?

He wonders if it'll ever be enough for Cisco to forgive him. And he can't justify the decision he'd made not to save Dante. He'd learned his lesson not to mess with time travel, but seeing Cisco's face, he forgets it all.

That night, he asks Iris about what exactly happened. She cries again as she tells him how Dante's car had been thrown so hard they couldn't make out a body in the remains and how she'd gone to the funeral to hold Cisco while he cried at the empty grave. He doesn't want to believe it.

Barry needs to find out more. He runs to the police station and looks at the case records, making sure to knock some of Julian's stuff off the desk. He's the best CSI and surely he would have known what had really happened to the body. But why wouldn't he have told Cisco?

He looks at his notes. His handwriting is scribbled and crossed out, but he can identify what it says.

"No body- car was empty during impact."

Attached are pictures of the wreck. Barry pushes down bile and looks at the other attachments. He finds DNA from the wheel that confirms Dante was there and another set of markings. The second set, said to be found around the passenger seat, are marked with annotations in Barry's own handwriting.

"Prints are unusable, gloves."

Someone else was there. Huh.

Attached is a piece of evidence he identifies as a post-it note like he uses in his office, but it's preserved like it was found on the scene. He puts it under a light and reads.

"You can't tell the family."

He would have wondered if his other version had been threatened by someone. But he recognizes the handwriting. It's his own.

So he was there when Dante died? Or when Dante didn't die?

Cisco visits and Barry forgets that he works there too now. Barry notices again how Cisco's hair is unwashed and his eyes are drooping.

"What are you working on?" Cisco asks, and Barry's glad to even hear him speak.

"Um," he says, clearing off the files.

"You're looking at Dante's case again? Look, Joe and Julian both told me to forget it, that it was just a drunk driving incident, nothing complicated. And you found the person who hit him, even if she was drunk enough to swear there wasn't anyone behind the wheel of his car. Barry, it's over now. There's nothing to do."

"Cisco," Barry says, "It's my fault."

"Yeah, you didn't get there fast enough. I didn't Vibe it coming either. That doesn't make either of us guilty."

"No, it's worse. I- there's something I should have told you."

"Go on," Cisco says, watching him through sad eyes.

"After my dad died, I went back in time. Not just a day. I ended up in this whole alternate timeline where I saved my mom and you were a billionaire and didn't know me and Wally was the Flash."

"How are you here?"

"I undid it. I had Thawne, but I came back to be here. Because it's where I belong."

"And this has to do with Dante how?"

"He wasn't supposed to die. In the original timeline, he was okay."

Cisco turns away. Barry knows better than to speak to him even when he hears his sobbing.

"Go back for him."

"I can't, Cisco. I learned my lesson."

"You had a choice! You choose to jeopardize everything on this world for some paradise that you didn't even stay in! I want my brother back!"

Cisco chokes after his outburst. "Please, Barry. I just want my brother back. It doesn't have to change anything."

"I can't take that risk."

Cisco glares. "Then I don't think I could be around you anymore. I think I'm done talking to the man who let my brother die, unless there's anything else you aren't telling me."

Barry thinks about the note in his own scrawl and the empty car.

"No. I'm sorry, Cisco."

He knows an apology can't be good enough.

Chapter Text

Cisco wakes up at his desk in the precinct after another night of not showering and wonders how he'll look at Barry today. He's overslept from the nap he finally managed to take after five, and apparently none of the policemen woke him up.

He sighs as he checks his phone.

Iris has tried to call him a total of seven times and Caitlin has sent a dozen texts.

"Have you seen Barry?" Caitlin and Iris had both asked.

'Barry this, Barry, Barry, hey Cisco, can you check on Barry? Is he doing okay after killing your brother? Who cares about how you are but how's Barry?'

He sighs and vibes himself to the labs, not inclined to get into any car.

"Sorry, I overslept," he tells Caitlin. She hugs him for longer than necessary.

"We thought you might have disappeared too, and we couldn't find you at your place and nobody knew where you were."

"I, um, I got your texts. What happened?"

"Nobody knows," Iris says from across the room. "He's just not around. Are you sure he didn't say anything to you?"

"I might have said something to him. He told me that he screwed up time and that's why my brother's dead and I told him I couldn't talk to him."

"If he ran away because he was scared of you being mad, then he's a coward," Caitlin tells him. "Are you sure he didn't say anything to you about it?"

"He just said that he couldn't do anything to save Dante."

Cisco concentrates and tries to Vibe his non-friend. All he gets is a vague image of lightning and Dante's face.

"Did you get anything?" Iris asks.

"I don't know. I can't tell if I imagined it."

Iris looks distraught. Cisco wishes he had something to say to make it better. He just hopes she doesn't lose Barry like he lost Dante.

He vibes again, and tries to concentrate harder. This time, he hears a voice he's sure he didn't imagine but can't understand it being real.

"What the hell, Barry?" Dante's voice comes through clear.

Cisco bites his tongue so he doesn't yell his brother's name.

"I'm not getting anything," he lies. Iris looks at him strangely.

H.R. bumbles in.

"Hey fellas! And layyyyydies."

Cisco restrains himself from saying something rude as Iris responds with an uncalled-for amount of kindness.

"Well, I know BA is MIA but you might want to know that a situation has arose..."

"What?"

"Someone just blew up hostages in the local grocery store."

"What?" Cisco yells.

"It just happened like a minute ago-"

Cisco vibes a portal to the store- or what's left of it. It's wrecked, the whole ceiling caved in and someone's corpse half-trapped in the rubble.

Cisco groans and runs forward, trying to drag anyone alive out. He can save maybe nine of the forty trapped people before the rest of the building falls.

"No!" he yells, pushing at the rubble. He screams again when he sees a woman's torso with one leg shattered and the other totally gone.

"Sir," someone calls to him. "Have you seen my sister?"

Cisco turns to the young woman and shakes his head solemnly. She sobs and walks away.

There's nothing else to do except get back to the labs and collapse.

Cisco rejects HR's offered burger until Caitlin and Iris both stare at him.

"It's okay, you know," Iris tries to tell him. "Barry can't save everyone either."

"I'm not Barry!" Cisco snaps.

"There's nothing you could have done. You didn't know."

Cisco swears. "I'm going home for the day."

Caitlin objects, ready to invite him to stay with her again, but Cisco is gone. He collapses on his couch.

His best friend is gone after killing his brother, he just failed to save a bunch of people, and he's alone.

He stands up after a nap sometime in the evening and walks to his bed. He sees something on his blanket.

"Cisco, if I don't come back, it's not your fault. This is my decision. Love, Barry," the note reads.

Cisco is more awake. Barry's really gone. He vibes back to the precinct to look at what Barry was looking at last night.

The Dante case files are easy enough for him to access. He looks through Barry's indecipherable notes and can make out a few words.

"No body."

He vibes to Caitlin's apartment and she welcomes him, glad to see him okay. He tells her that Barry's gone after his brother and cries. She hugs him on the couch until he sobs to sleep.

Chapter Text

Cisco wakes up at the precinct. He swears he can remember Vibing to Caitlin's last night, but he must have just passed out. He realizes that he's late for Star Labs again when he checks his phone and sees more messages from Caitlin and Iris. He realizes on closer inspection that they're the same ones he'd woken up to yesterday. He reasons that he must have just never answered them.

He vibes to the labs and Caitlin hugs him.

"We thought you might have disappeared too," she says. "And we couldn't find you at your place and nobody knew where you were."

'Huh,' Cisco thinks. He must not have slept over at Caitlin's after all.

"It's Barry. He just isn't around. Did he say anything to you?" Iris says from across the room.

Cisco blinks. So they still haven't found him?

"Not since two nights ago," he answers.

Cisco tries to Vibe him and gets a still image of Barry riding shotgun in a car. That wouldn't be much to go on, but he recognizes the car. It's Dante's.

He squints.

"Did you get anything?" Iris asks eagerly.

"He's in a car or something, I think."

He thinks again and hears Barry's voice.

"We don't have much time, Dante."

"No," Cisco tells Iris. "I got something, but I don't think it's real. I must be imagining things."

She nods.

"Hey, fellas! And layyyyyydies,"
HR says, removing his hat and bowing.

"Good morning, H.R," Iris greets him kindly.

"Well, I know B.A. is MIA, but you might want to know that a situation has arose...."

"What?" Iris asks.

"Someone just blew up hostages in the local grocery store."

"Again?" Cisco yells. Iris stares.

"Has this happened before?" she asks, but Cisco's already through the portal. He's not making the same mistake twice.

This time, he gets fifteen people out before the rest of it falls. A young woman comes up to him and asks about her sister. Cisco thinks she's awfully familiar as she cries.

He collapses back at the labs. H.R. tries to offer him a burger. He shakes his head.

"It's okay, you know," Iris tries to tell him. "Barry can't save everyone either."

"I'm not Barry!" Cisco snaps. "There are people dead!"

"Cisco, he's only been gone for a few hours and you've already saved fifteen people that would be dead if you didn't exist," Caitlin reminds him.

"A few hours?" Cisco asks. "Hasn't he been gone since Tuesday morning?"

"It is Tuesday," Caitlin tells him. "We just found out that he wasn't around this morning. Are you feeling okay?"

"Sorry, I should go work on something."

He doesn't know what he has to work on. He finished his most recent prototype two nights ago. Or really the previous night.

So Cisco works on something to use the speedforce to look back in time. He's not going to time travel, because that's dangerous, thank you very much, but it won't hurt to see. He only works for a few minutes before he falls asleep and Caitlin tells him to stay in her apartment again. He's sure of the overly air-conditioned environment around him when he goes to sleep at four in the afternoon.

Chapter Text

Cisco wakes up at the precinct again and isn't even surprised. Sure enough, texts from Iris and Caitlin wait on his phone again asking if he knows where Barry is.

He vibes to the labs and accepts Caitlin's hug, but disappears to the grocery store before H.R. bursts in.

He gets inside the building as the explosion goes off.

"No!" he yells as someone's cart hits him and knocks him backwards. He starts dragging living and dead people out until Caitlin tells him that there's nothing else to do.

He collapses on the bench next to Iris. Caitlin looks him over and yelps.

She takes out some shrapnel he hadn't even noticed and scrubs the injury with more force than necessary.

"Oww, Caitlin!"

"What were you thinking?"

"I saved four people," Cisco says, not meeting Caitlin's eyes.

Cisco sighs. That's worse than the times he only showed up after H.R. told him.

"It's okay, you know," Iris says to them. "Barry can't save everyone either."

Cisco doesn't respond this time. He vibes to his workroom and starts rebuilding the prototype he'd been working on. He knows he can't get very far, not with it being erased every day, but he can try.

Cisco wonders if he should even be doing anything different than the first day. He argues that he isn't really altering the timeline, he's just living different ones daily. It's unlikely that the problem will resolve itself, and he can't think of anything to do except keep living it and try to contact Barry.

Chapter Text

Cisco's leg is healed the next time he wakes up at the precinct. This time, he doesn't even check his phone, since he knows what's waiting. He leaves it behind and vibes to the grocery store. The explosion hasn't gone off yet, and he sees a man who must be planting it.

"Hey!" he calls. The man turns around and makes eye contact. Cisco is ready to stop him from activating the bomb, but a knife zooms at Cisco's head.

He ducks and sends a vibrational blast at the man who'd thrown it. Another blade misses his neck and he yells.

He dodges it and vibes a portal to the other side of the room. He goes through quickly and blasts the man again.

Cisco's opponent falls, and Cisco lets his guard down. He turns his back and runs to where the bomb might be going off, since he wasn't sure if the man had succeeded at planting it.

A knife goes through Cisco's neck and he collapses, feeling it sear through his flesh as he dies.

He wakes up at the precinct and tries to stop this new villain again, dubbing him "Cutthroat" for his knife throwing.

Chapter Text

After the equivalent of a few more weeks of the same day- in some of which Cisco himself dies, in all of which a civilian is blown up, he finally manages to save everyone.

He vibes into the store as soon as he wakes up and drags Cutthroat back through the portal to a cell in Star Labs. Then he goes back through and safely launches the explosive into the air.

He's back hugging Caitlin before H.R. even announces the situation.

He smirks. "I believe it's already been dealt with."

He can try to figure out why he's looping again now that he's averted the immediate crisis.

It must have been something Barry had done, of course it would be. Barry still has a habit of messing with the timeline based on his every whim, although hopefully this would be his last extreme excursion into the past.

Although, would it really count as his last if he does more later but goes back earlier?

Cisco tries not to hold that thought in case it melts his brain. He reasons that even if his brain broke from an existential crisis, he'd still wake up the next morning. Well, he'd have no shortage of time to think about it.

He vibes the car crash. He never wanted to see it in that much detail as the driver hits Dante's car. He looks again and sees that Dante's body isn't there, and neither is Barry. Barry must be around, or he wouldn't have vibed this. Cisco looks around and sees the telltale lightning. The last thing he sees of the vision is Barry carrying Dante in his arms.

Cisco's hands clench as he opens his eyes back in his workroom. He remembers Barry's notes about the crash and empty car and wonders if Barry had changed it, if Dante was supposed to die but Barry stopped it, or if Barry was supposed to go back and save him, thus making future Barry find out that Dante had been saved and save him.

Cisco works on a time travel gadget that might break him out of the loop. He knows he won't finish it that day, but he needs something to keep his hands busy.

Chapter Text

Cisco has tried everything- vibing into the future, into the past, even into a different universe. Every time he tries to escape, he just wakes up back at the precinct. He's started telling Caitlin and Iris about the situation and ignoring their shock. It doesn't really matter. They won't have any clue the next day.

Every day he stops Cutthroat's bombing. He knows it probably won't last, but he can't bring himself to let anyone die when he could have saved them, even if it's temporary.

He gets another Vibe of Barry and Dante. They're surrounded by lightning and they must be in the speedforce. He starts working on a plan, traveling to another universe to ask Harry for help.

Chapter Text

"Good morning," he tells Harry, Vibing over after his daily arrest of Cutthroat and Caitlin's hug. "I've been living this day over and over for months and I need your help to get me out of it."

"What?"

"You've heard it before," Cisco complains impatiently. "A few months ago, Barry time travelled to save my brother, who was apparently never dead in the first place, and I've just been waking up the same day Groundhog Day style. I've got a plan to get out of the time loop, but I can't do it alone. Harry, I need you to work on the physics stuff with me."

Harry makes him explain more of what's happening before he starts. He's very intrigued that Cisco has vibed to his universe to ask him for help multiple times and it resets there too.

He throws down some calculations at a few minutes before midnight.

"Memorize these and show them to me tomorrow."

"Wow, and you won't even have to do all the work for these again! Because you'll be a different - do you get it? No?"

Harry is not amused as Cisco shuts his eyes and wakes up in the precinct.

He sighs and wishes that he could at least wake up in his own bed and earlier so he wouldn't have to rush to fight Cutthroat.

Chapter Text

After a few weeks of Harry insisting that he has to double-check his calculations, even though his versions from the previous days had all checked them too, they're almost ready.

"I suppose if I see this version of you again, that'll mean it worked," Cisco says.

Harry nods. "Although, I imagine I could get a lot of work done..."

Cisco groans and goes to find someone who can help.

"Jessie, I need your help with something," he calls to the woman.

He points to the figure showing how fast she has to go.

"Can you do that? Just around the labs?"

Jessie smiles and starts running, streaking back and forth and stopping abruptly at corners to turn. Those stops are what's going to generate the force Cisco needs to escape the loop.

Jessie brakes and pivots at the maximum velocity before time gets wonky and Cisco vibes, letting the speedforce sweep him away.

He's floating in the lightning, bolts of red and yellow surrounding him. He can taste the electricity and feel zapping. Each bolt is fluid yet still, not changing except in slow motion, but swirling around him. He can hear a vague static crackling noise and someone talking.

He squints through the three-dimensional lightning display around him and sees his friend. He wades forward through the rippling bolts, pushing them out of his way as he mentally narrows his vision to focus ahead.

"Barry!" he calls. "Dante!"

His voice sounds strange and far away, even to him. Barry and Dante look up. He reaches out both his hands and falls back to Earth.

Jessie stops and rests, seeing him on the ground. Cisco's body is still tingling from the speedforce, and his arms are warm where he'd reached for his family.

"I saw them," he tells Jessie. "I was so close."

She smiles. "I'll be ready to try again tomorrow."

Chapter Text

The next day he rushes through imprisoning Cutthroat, not even saying a word to him. He hugs Caitlin. Iris gets called into work, which hadn't happened any day before that. He doesn't think much of it and is ready to get Jessie to try again until he hears that he'd been called to deal with a report on a metahuman who could generate knives from his hands.

Cutthroat is gone from his cell and Cisco swears. He hadn't done anything differently, but something had changed.

Cisco vibes him from the cell wall he'd touched and gets a vision. Cutthroat has gone back to the grocery store. It's still closed from the fight in it earlier, so there's nobody except a few police officers and employees around. And Cutthroat stands with a knife pressed to someone's throat.

"Vibe," he says when Cisco portals in. "I've been expecting you."

"Okay, I know I always say I like to meet the fans, but you're more like stalker-territory, dude," Cisco says.

Cutthroat smiles. "Well, I've met with you every day for, ooh, 100 days now, counting the times you didn't see me. I know everything about you, Mr. Ramon."

"Um," Cisco responds. "Please tell me you aren't my great-great grandson or something."

"No, I'm from the future. But I'm the opposite. I was sent to kill you and your brother, and the Flash. Luckily, two of those happened for me. Now all I have to do is just change the timeline a little bit more, and then-"

Cisco is getting a vibe, one of the ones that comes on unprompted like when he'd first got his powers. He sees Barry and Dante in the speedforce again, hands extended toward him. He ignores Cutthroat's words, but he does respond to the knives thrown at him. One finds its mark in his thigh and he vibes a portal and collapses backwards through it.

He's floating in the speedforce again. This time it's more restless, shifting around him as he tries to push forward.

"Barry!" he yells, voice sounding muffled even to himself. "Dante!"

He sees their heads swimming in front of him and reaches out. Two hands from two people grab his own. He steps backwards with them and lands on the other side of the portal.

"Flash," Cutthroat says. "I'm a little surprised to see you here."

Barry dodges the knife thrown at his face and dumps the man back at the labs in a few seconds. Then he's back, standing with Cisco and Dante in the trashed grocery store.

Dante tries to say something to Cisco, an apology for how he'd treated him, or a promise to do better, but Cisco hugs him. Dante wraps his arms around his brother and rocks back and forth in place.

They're both crying when they pull away.

"Thank you," Cisco whispers. "Thank you for coming back."

"I got a second chance," Dante says. "I'm going to use it well. Thank you, Barry."

Cisco turns to Barry. Barry does the same awkward trying to think of something to say to apologize as Dante had. Cisco hugs him too, shoulder buried in his now-friend's neck.

"I've missed you so much."

"I missed you too," Barry says. "I'm sorry I made a selfish decision and I'm sorry I made your brother die. It was wrong and an abuse of my powers, and it won't happen again. I'm sorry I left without any warning for however long it was and you had to save me and-"

"I'm sorry too," Cisco says, eyes lowered.

"What for? You haven't-"

Cisco leans up and kisses him. Barry sees it happen in slow motion, aware that Cisco's giving him every chance to back out. He doesn't. He sets his hand in Cisco's hair and pulls him closer. Cisco's hand finds Barry's waist.

Cisco's injured leg gives out and Barry holds him up, almost knocking their skulls together. He becomes aware of the knife in his thigh again as Barry picks him up and runs to Caitlin's lab, setting him down on the medical bed. A whoosh later, Dante sits next to him on the chair and Barry is holding his hand from the other side.

Caitlin and Iris run in a few seconds later. Caitlin hugs Barry and greets Dante quickly before infecting Cisco with something and yanking the knife out.

Iris hugs Barry too, kissing his cheek. H.R. appears and yells something about B.A.

Caitlin bandages his leg and then turns to Dante.

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, but didn't you die in a car crash? Because I went to your funeral."

"It's, hmm, complicated," Dante says. "I legally did, we'll have to sort that out later."

"Oh! You should call Mom and Dad!" Cisco said, and Dante agrees. He steps out of the room and everyone except Barry follows. He stays, looking into Cisco's eyes.

"Hey," he says. "So are we friends again?"

Cisco smirks when he thinks of an appropriate response.

"In the wise, wise words of our queen Lady Gaga, 'I don't wanna be friends,'" Cisco says, taking Barry's other hand too.

Barry smiles, recalling one of his favorite songs.

"Fair enough," he says, leaning down to kiss his not-friend again.