Chapter 14: The Aftermath

Barry had just made it to S.T.A.R. Labs carrying Andrew.

"Oh my god what happened to Andrew!?!" Caitlin asked concerningly.

"He got impaled with some kind of broken piece of metal. He said he couldn't feel his legs, I think the metal bar went through his spine!" Barry replied quickly.

"Put him on the bed, Now!!" Caitlin demanded.

"Why isn't he healing?" Cisco asked from the side, his voice tinged with guilt because he could knew the weapons he built were the cause of Andrew's injury.

"He's unconscious from losing too much blood, his body's natural healing is the only thing keeping him alive right now, but even that is slowed due to the effect of the ice attack. He won't be able to heal fully until he is awake and can absorb some electricity. The metal piece is also keeping him from healing the wound. I need to prep him for surgery and remove the metal!!" Caitlin said quickly as she took off his suit.

"How did the metal even go through his suit it was made of a metal composite?" Cisco asked.

Wells then interjected. "It seems the blast from Mr. Snart's gun froze the metal in the suit until it was brittle enough to be pierced." Wells explained.

"If that's the case, then this is worse than I thought. Some shrapnel from his suit could be inside the wound it may have fragmented and punctured some internal organs!" Caitlin explained.

Caitlin then began to rush about and give quick orders to Team Flash with input from Wells to try to stabilize Andrew's condition.

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(Ten Hours Later S.T.A.R. Labs)

*groans*

"Oh my back, urgh, my back" I said, chuckling slightly from the unintentional reference, which only made me wince in pain.

I then started to absorb the electricity from my immediate surroundings which were the monitors in the Cortex. My body started to heal rapidly and after about 30 seconds, I was fully healed. There wasn't even a scar.

*Exhale*

"That feels much better. Now where is everyone?" I questioned aloud.

Evidently my absorbing of the electricity gave off a sort of power surge and lights had dimmed all throughout S.T.A.R. Labs and they all knew what that meant.

Caitlin came rushing in wearing a doctor's lab coat.

"Andrew! You're awake! Are you feeling okay?" Caitlin asked as she started to examine my body.

"I feel fine. All healed up, see." I said gesturing to my bare chest.

Caitlin heaved a huge sigh of relief.

"Thank god. When Barry brought you here you were in such bad condition that I feared the worst. Thankfully, your healing is even better than Barry's. As soon as I removed the piece of metal, the wound began to heal instantly. It probably is what made sure you weren't in any lethal danger. I had to put you into a medically induced coma for a few hours to fasten the healing process. After that, all we needed to do was monitor your condition until you woke up and could heal yourself the rest of the way." Caitlin explained while she was still unknowingly feeling me up.

"Well that's great news.... By the way Caitlin, are you done fondling me yet?" I said and then asked teasingly.

"Oh, s-sorry." Caitlin said as her face was beet red.

"Don't worry about it, I didnt actually mind having a beautiful girl feeling me up" I said with a wink.

"Eh hem. Right. Anyways I will have to conduct a few more tests to make sure you're 100% after that you'll be free to do whatever." Caitlin said quickly while hiding another slight blush.

"That's no problem, now what happened? And where is everyone?" I questioned.

Caitlin stiffened at my questions before turning toward me. "Well Cisco is in his workshop, Barry went to check in at work, and Dr. Wells is--"

"Right here Mr. Anderson. it is good to see you up and about. You gave us quite a scare. Dr. Snow here hardly left your side." Wells said as he entered the Cortex and Caitlin hid another blush by looking at her tablet going over my results and getting the tests ready for my physical assessment.

"Hello Dr. Wells. I'm sorry for worrying you all. I didn't expect that I would have to deal with some guys with some very special weapons. Where did they even get them?" I said and asked at the end despite knowing where they came from.

"I built the guns." Cisco said as he walked in.

"You did? Why?" I asked feigning ignorance.

"I built the cold gun because speed and cold are opposites. Temperature is measured by how quickly the atoms of something are occillating. The faster something is the hotter it is, when something is cold, its slower at the atomic level. When there's no movement at all its called Absolute Zero. I built a compact cryo engine that could achieve absolute zero. I built it to stop Barry. I built it before I knew who Barry was, and was worried that he might've been some sort of psycho. As for the Dark Gun, that was something I was tinkering with to stop you." Cisco said as he explained the Cold Gun to me.

"The other gun was to stop me?" I asked genuinely surprised.

"I built a gun that could secrete a substance that could absorb all visible light, causing the black color. If light can't bounce off of an object and hit your eye then you can't see it. The substance seemed to react from exposure to oxygen and became gaseous, essentially creating a cloud of darkness. I originally had the Cold Gun that would've stopped you both as water should've had an effect on your electricity, as well as Barry's lightning, but I found that you were unaffected by water. I believed that to be related to your Earth Powers, that they counteracted the Interaction of electricity and water somehow. I believed the gun would be able to incapacitate you long enough to take you down, after all, you can't fight what you can't see." Cisco continued.

I didn't say anything and was surprised because I didn't expect Cisco to create a weapon specifically for me as I felt our first meeting had been very amicable.

"But my inventions not only caused you to almost die, but helped to cause the deaths of five people and injured many others." Cisco finished as he had his head down in shame.

"Wait, five people died?!?" I asked shocked as that didn't happen in the show.

"It seems Mr. Snart and his cohort made good use of their weapons and three people were found frozen to death, and two from an injury similar to yours wherein they couldn't see and either fell on something sharp or were trampled to death." Wells jumped in and said.

"I understand why Cisco did what he did and I agree." I said which shocked everyone in the room.

"Wait you're not mad?" Caitlin exclaimed.

"I'm not. I wouldn't do anything different in his shoes. He didn't know the kind of people Barry and I were and at that point had only encountered a Metahuman that had used their powers for evil before. I can't fault him for that. So no, I'm not mad." I said much to the astonishment of the three in the room.

"Now, while i may not be mad, I am sad. So many people lost their lives due to these weapons, and I'm sure Cisco feels bad enough about what happened without me having to add to his guilt. I do wish you had told me about the weapons. I could have planned for them in the worst case scenario where someone stole the guns like what happened, but what's done is done. All you can do now is to try and make up for your mistake." I finished.

'I had already known how to deal with the Cold Gun as I knew it was still made of metal components and I could easily take it from Snart using my powers. The Dark Gun on the other hand, I didn't know anything about it and combined with being attacked with Snart's gun, made it hard to take that guy out' I thought to myself.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. When I thought I'd cost you your ability to walk, the guilt almost overwhelmed me." Cisco said.

I walked over and gave him a hug that he stiffened at, but then returned.

"Its all good bro. I'm all healed up, and you will learn from this incident and make better choices moving forward." I said as I released him from the hug.

"Thanks man, I just wish Barry felt the same way." Cisco said.

"Give it time. All you can do is make sure that he knows that you are his friend and that you'll be there for him no matter what." I said then went back to Caitlin to finish the tests as Cisco turned to leave, but before he did, he looked back and said with a sly grin.

"By the way, Felicity actually asked about you a few times as well, seemed pretty worried to." Cisco said teasingly.

I simply smirked and nodded and continued being tested by Caitlin.