"Practice," had been Cisco’s response.
"Insomnia?"
"No, engineering school. And lately I just…” He didn’t know why he kept talking after that, but he did. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation. “It feels like everywhere I go, there's something huge to think about." The part where he was already oversharing aside, Cisco had still been hesitant to say that his three favorite sleeping places - S.T.A.R. Labs, Caitlin’s couch, and his own apartment - just reminded him of Flashpoint this and Barry Allen that.
Kara had been hesitant but brave enough to say, "Well… my corner of National City is pretty quiet."
"You do have a badass apartment. In, like, an unconventional but cozy way," Cisco had commented without thinking. It made Kara smile.
"Yeah, my, uh, landlord took pity on me for working for Cat Grant. Anyway, Alex - my sister - adopted sister - says my couch is pretty cozy."
Cisco remembered freezing in whatever he was doing, just trying to process what he'd heard. Maybe he had heard wrong or she meant something other than what it sounded. Kara remembered catching his sudden halt and the frantically looking anywhere but him.
Kara ended up stumbling over her words and saying something like, "I mean, if you ever need a place to crash that isn't dragged down with emotional baggage - I mean, stresses you you - or something. It doesn't even have to be at night, or maybe if you just wanna hang out, that'd be cool, too."
At some point Kara must have stopped talking or Cisco must have interrupted because he asked, "Are you inviting me to sleep on your couch?" He didn’t sound teasing or all that weirded out. Maybe a little baffled. He was a little baffled.
"Whell, I mean… yeah…?" They looked at each other for a moment, completely unable to read the others expression. "I mean we've only known each other for a few days, but you clearly have the trust of a ton of really cool people and if you tried anything it's not like I can't kick your ass."
"You could totally kick my ass," Cisco stated.
He appeared to be contemplating something, but his tone of voice had made Kara wonder. She had smiled a little and teased, "Was that an invitation?"
His eyes had gotten so huge. When he saw Kara's smile, he laughed and started, "Well--"
Cisco couldn't remember what he was going to say before he got interrupted, and Kara never got to hear it, but Cisco assured her that it was definitely flirty and absolutely smoother than a fresh jar o JIF (because Skippy was for people with low PBJ standards).
1)
Cisco took Kara home after it was all over. He didn't really have to go through the portal with her (when it came to aiming at dimensions, he didn't miss) but he did anyway. Just to make absolutely sure he wasn't dropping her off in some world where chickens didn't exist or something.
And maybe to check out a rumor about her couch.
"That is still cool," Kara said after they slid into her living room.
For a minute or two Kara chatted with him a bit. She ducked into her room for half a second to change, she checked that time had basically passed at the same rate while she was gone, and she cheered that the pot stickers in her fridge were still good. By the time she confirmed that he like pot stickers, he was holding his goggles in his hands, rolling them around. He felt like he should probably go, but it felt weird to stand around in his goggles for extended periods of time. And not just because they were literally built to mess with his brain.
He distracted himself for a bit by looking out the windows at the night-time view of National City - a city he'd never actually stepped foot in beyond Kara's apartment - instead of looking around at Kara's stuff like a creeper. It was a peaceful city. Or at least it was at the moment. Probably helped that the streets weren't more statistically likely than not to have an evil speedster stalking them at Mach 2. It didn't have the good speedsters either, but that was okay.
It really was pretty quiet.
Then Kara was holding out a Tupperware box and asking, "Want one?" around the pot sticker that was already in her mouth. He was a bit taken aback at first, which gave Kara time to wave the box under his face. "Fresh from my heat vision," she said temptingly.
Somewhere between there and two minutes from then, they both ended up sitting on Kara's couch eating pot stickers and the dregs of her ice cream. Something about world saving and ripping holes in space taking a lot of energy. ("Actually the interdimensional ones don't take a lot of energy to make, it's just a matter of pushing it, kinda like a pencil through paper. The intradimensional ones though--" "Do you want to sit down or not." "Y'know, it has been a long couple of days…") Cisco tried to hide the part where his eyelids were drooping.
"So what do these do, exactly?" Kara asked, looking at the inside of his goggles. Cisco had put them down to hold the ice cream and Kara needed something else to hold now the the Tupperware container was empty.
"Basically they wake up the parts of my brain that make my powers activate," he said.
"Which parts are those?"
"Pretty much anywhere associated with adrenaline."
Her face was concerned when she looked back at him. "That sounds exhausting."
Cisco shrugged and focused on digging a peanut butter cup out of the corner of the carton. "It's not as bad as it sounds. It doesn't really make me feel scared or anything. Adrenaline is supposed to make you super focused, right?"
"Sure."
"But my powers, when they're kicked on all the way, are basically the opposite of focusing on one thing. It's kind of like seeing everything. So really the adrenaline just makes it easier to focus on what's in front of me instead of… well, everything else."
Kara turned back to the goggles. She didn't look any more satisifed. "Still sounds exhausting." She leaned back on the couch cushions with him. "I'm not sure Kryptonians have adrenaline, exactly, but we have some sort of equivalent and after super crazy fights I always need a nap and a half."
"Crazy like fighting an alien invasion in another dimension?"
"That is a new kind of crazy, I'll admit," she said, laughing. Cisco laughed, too.
They were quiet for a few moments. Cisco couldn't help but watch as she scraped another scoop of icecream. In all fairness, the carton was sitting in his lap. Somehow he missed the part where she actually ate the ice cream, though. One moment, she was clearly fishing for the last peanut butter cups and the next she had an empty spoon and he had to jerk his eyes open when she said, "Geeze, you are dead on your feet. And you're not even standing!"
"I'm good!" He insisted, blinking exhaustion out of his eyes. "I'm fine."
Except next thing he knew she was standing with the empty carton and he didn't remember her taking it. She plucked his spoon out of his other hand. "Uh-huh," she agreed sarcastically.
As she walked to the kitchen to put everything away, she called back over her shoulder, "So how comfy is my couch?"
She kind of wondered if he would ever really take her up that offer to sleep at her place. He just seemed so tired, and not just from fighting off aliens. When she'd admitted to Caitlin what she'd offered to Cisco and Caitlin came to her again later she just couldn't refuse. If she could give someone a space to feel safe - safe enough to get some quality shut-eye - then she was going to do it. And Cisco was so nice. He complimented her, and asked her - the girl of steel - how she was doing, and even let her have the last potsticker, even though she'd clearly eaten more than he had.
If getting him to eat was part of her heroic plan get him to stay somewhere a world away from his problems and get some sleep, then… well, it was a heroic plan, and, if the way he'd immediately slumped back into the cushions was any indication, her plan was working and she was a hero.
She yawned. She was a super hero, because she had also not rested in days.
It took her a moment to realize he hadn't responded yet. "Cisco?"
When she turned around her worries flew out the window. Cisco had fallen sideways onto the couch, eyes closed and breathing peacefully.
She quietly fist pumped and whispered a victory "Yesss" to herself. And if she was smiling as she used her flight to sneak over the floorboards, her speed to take off his shoes, and her strength to every so gently set his feet on her couch then…
Well, she was a hero. Heroes got to smile at their victories.
They also got celebratory twelve hours of sleep.
♤○♡○◇○♧
Caitlin resisted the urge to shake her head at Barry. She did not succeed.
Barry paced back and forth in front of where Cisco’s portal had dissappeared. He kept wringing his hands and glancing back and and forth between his shoes and the empty air.
She imagined he was picturing a million ways something must have gone wrong. The portal lead to a death - trap world, someone in Kara's world had taken Cisco, Cisco decided he never wanted to come back.
Well, the last one maybe wasn't entirely out of the realm of reality, and Caitlin and Kara's plan risked doing exactly the opposite of alleviating that possibility. If Caitlin was right, though, then this would be less of a deepening fissure for Barry and Cisco’s relationship, and more of a healing breath of air. Fresh air was something sorely needed for their group, which only seemed to know how to suffocate each other lately.
Barry was still antsy around absolutely everyone since… well, since the Killer Frost incident. As Caitlin packed her things, she couldn't help but spot the number of times Barry turned towards her in his pacing, opened his mouth to speak, and then backtracked on himseld before he could say something. Luckily, Caitlin had the experience with him that she didn't need to hear him say it.
"Why isn't he back yet?" He wanted to ask. "Do you think he's okay? Maybe I should try and run over there myself."
Caitlin heard him say the last one in nauseating HD in her minds ear. Barry couldn't exactly aim where he ran between worlds. They were pretty sure he only made it back the first time because his body sought out its natural frequency.
Barry paced. Opened his mouth. Shook his head and looked away.
She couldn't take it anymore. "Cisco is fine, Barry," she said.
He finally stopped pacing and turned to her. Out of context, the look on his face suggested something more like his best friend was dying and he was waiting outside of the surgery, not that Cisco was walking a girl home. (Though, given recent circumstances, the image their friendship dying on an operating table made her stomach sour. She understood both sides, of course, and she knew with clear certainty that Cisco’s dissent was justified. That didn't mean this wasn't painful to watch.) "How can you know that?" He asked.
"Because I talked with Kara," she finally told him, "and if we're both the geniuses we think we are, then Cisco is spending the night at Kara's place."
Barry’s jaw dropped so hard Caitlin could have sworn she heard it click.
"Not like that," she said sternly. "Even Kara noticed that Cisco’s been feeling suffocated lately. She agreed to give him her couch as a place to crash."
Barry floundered. "Why- wha… What's wrong with his apartment? Did I leave something there when I left? I can go--"
"Barry, in a world where the person you're avoiding is capable of being just about anywhere, or any when, without warning - anywhere in the known universe - where would be the only place to go?"
Barry sighed big and sad. He nodded and rolled his neck. "Another universe," he said like an admission.
More gently - but not entirely gently because some shard of her was still cold - she said, "You have all the time in the world, Barry. Let Cisco have some space."
Barry's eyebrows were going to collect dust if they stayed scrunched much longer. "You think… you think it'll help?" He didn’t specify what it would help, but she had a feeling he wasn't sure what to specify. Help them learn to accept their new dynamic? Help them heal? Help them understand each other again?
"I'm a doctor, Barry," she assured him. "Healing's what I do. Now are you gonna help me pack, or are you going to keep pacing until I have to freeze the floor to stop the friction you're building up?"
"I'm gonna help pack."
"Good. I didn't want to have to sick Iris on you."
"You wouldn't dare."
"You willing to make that bet?"
♤○♡○◇○♧
When Cisco woke up, it was to a letter on the coffee table that read:
Had to go to work. Don't you dare leave without saying goodbye. I'm also going grocery shopping so feel free to clean out my fridge. If I'm super (lol) late, check channel 52.
-Kara
P.S. There's a box of clean men's clothes by the bathroom (don't ask) please use my shower
It took him a moment to remember who Kara was. It took him a moment to realize he wasn't on his own couch. He'd opened his eyes and saw bricks and just didn't question it. The curtains were pulled shut, so the room was dim, but bright daylight reached around where it could. Somewhere in his groggy brain he realized just how many windows Kara's apartment had. It made sense, considering she got her powers from sunlight.
Part of him asked himself if he missed his own ware - house, pop-tech apartment. Then he thought about breakfast.
Then he rolled over, shoved his face in a soft throw pillow and prayed that his brain would shut the hell up and let him forget for a few more hours.
It did.
