We sat around talking while waiting for Barry to finish his work. "What is the point of this Particle accelerator anyway?" Iris asked.

"Dr. Harrison Wells work in quantum mechanics is light years ahead of anything they're doing at CERN" Barry began.

"You are doing that thing where your not speaking English" Iris crossed her arms.

"Umm.." Barry grabbed a dry erase marker and drew a small dot on the whiteboard, "This is everything we've ever learned, leading up to this moment"

"Does that include twerking?" I giggled.

"This is everything we can learn from the particle accelerator" Barry drew a large circle around the small dot.

"It's basically the gateway to the future" I simplified it.

"Well, I believe it's a nuisance" 3 men walked in. "Especially since it's keeping my CSI from doing his job"

"Right" Barry jumped right back into his work.

"Who are you?" One of the men asked.

"Right, Sorry," I said, "I'm Avery Lance"

"Avery Lance? As in Quentin Lance?" The second guy asked. "That guy is a legend"

"Captain David Singh" "Detective Fred Chyre" "Detective Joe West, I'm Barry's foster father and Iris' father"

"Oh" Did not expect to be meeting him my first day here.

"Ha!" Barry exclaimed as his test finished. "I have a theory that the Mardon brothers are hiding out on a farm. The cow manure had traces of a chemical only used in feed, which is only used in 4 different farms in the city, bet you'd find a really sweet Shelby parked at one of them"

"Hiding at a farm does fit their MO. The hid in one when they pulled off the Washington Capital Bank heist" I said.

"You know their MO?" Joe asked.

"My dad had me go over every single notorious criminal's MO when I got accepted into the Academy," I said, "Our family is BIG on Justice"

"Well, since Barry doesn't really have much more to do" Iris began, "Can you let him join me and his new girlyfriend attend the accelerator opening?"

"Fine, but I expect you to be back tomorrow and finishing up all your other cases," Singh said. I smiled as Barry grabbed his jacket and took my hand.

"Thank you" Iris gave her dad a kiss on the cheek.

"Nice meeting you guys!" I waved back as we left the lab.

~

We arrived at STAR labs with an hour to spare, we checked out a few video clips of what it will be like inside the particle accelerator before making our way to the stage to watch Harrison Wells speech before the accelerator officially turns on.

"So, How was Starling City?" Iris asked.

"It was nice" Barry smiled.

"Did you find evidence of the impossible? Or did you just go to piss off my dad?" Iris asked. Would he tell her about The Arrow?

"I found evidence of steroids" Barry nodded. Huh...

"How did you two meet?" Iris asked.

"I was working a case for Ollie-Oliver, and He came to do some CSI work for us, and we just sort of hit it off" I shrugged.

"I didn't know you and Oliver Queen kept in touch after the..." Iris stopped herself, "Sorry"

"It's fine, the gambit is long behind me," I said. "But yea, Oliver and I are close, you don' fall into hell and climb out together just to forget each other"

"Hey, did your sister call about how the trial went?" Barry quickly changed the subject.

"Yea, they won," I said.

"Your family really is made out of Justice," Iris said.

"Yep, justice courses through my veins" I smiled.

We stood in front of the stage, Barry smiling while holding my hand. "Thank you all for joining us tonight" Harrison Wells stepped up to the mic, "My name is Harrison Wells. Tonight, the future begins. The work my team and I will do here will change our understanding of Physics, will bring about advancements in power, advancements in medicine, and trust me, that future will be here faster than you think."

Everyone began clapping and cheering. "One final step into the future" I whisper up to Barry, he smiled at me.

I saw a guy walking towards us, and then Iris whipping around as he ran off with her bag. "NO! Hey, my laptop. It's got my dissertation in there!" Iris exclaimed. Barry took off running, me not too far behind, but I had heels on and was running slower than him, but faster than Iris.

Barry was only a few feet behind the kid, and I was attempting to pull out my badge, while I didn't have jurisdiction in Central City, I sure as hell knew this kid wouldn't realize it.

We turned a corner and I saw Barry get knocked over by the kid, landing on the ground and slowly getting up to try and talk the kid into giving Iris' bag over. I slowed down, waiting to see when the kid whacked him across the face and attempted to run again. "Barry!" I ran down to his side, seeing an officer stopping the kid. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine" Barry muttered.

~

We were sitting in the precinct shortly after giving our statements, Barry had a small bloody nose and a bruise, but other than that he was fine. "I'm sorry you didn't get to see the particle accelerator turn on," I said.

"Don't be, it was fun just to see Harrison Wells" Barry smiled.

"What's with that guy? So what he caught a mugger" Iris said, sitting down with us.

"He's a transfer from Keystone. Started a few weeks ago, Eddie Thawne" Barry explained.

"Oh, so that's detective pretty boy" Barry and I gave her a look, "That's what my dad calls him, says he actually keeps score of his arrests. He is pretty though"

"Keeping score is such a rookie thing to do," I said, "We had one like that at SCPD, my dad got fed up with it a day in"

"What did he do?" Barry asked.

"He didn't do anything, then everyone started dropping hints it was getting annoying and he stopped. But he ended up dying in the undertaking" I said.

"That manmade earthquake?" Iris asked.

"Yea.."

"Pretty bird, it's time" Tommy whispered.

"NO" I sobbed, "Not yet, please, not yet"

"It's time" He whispered again. "I can't feel my legs, and it's getting harder to breath"

"Just a little longer, Tommy" I laid my head down, "Do you-do you remember your prom? When you and Oliver snuck me in"

"Yea, we got into so... so much trouble," Tommy said. "You were dressed in that black dress, the one your mom bought you for your birthday"

"You danced with me, even though all the other girls wanted to dance with you" I sniffled, "And when we were busted, you drove me home"

"You were way better than any of the girls at that dance" He smiled.

"Tommy!? Avery!?!" Oliver came running in, seeing us. "Oh my god"

"I'm not going to make it, Oliver" Tommy whispered. Oliver joined me beside him.

"You'll be fine, Tommy" Oliver was tearing up. "We'll all be fine"

"Protect them, Oliver... protect our pretty birds"

"Avery?" Barry asked I jumped, looking back to see Captain Singh and Detective Thawne.

"Sorry," I said.

"Detective Thawne, this is Barry's... Friend, Detective Avery Lance from Starling City" Singh said.

"Your father is the Quentin Lance?" Eddie asked.

"Yep," I said.

"That's awesome! He's one of the greatest detectives on the West coast" Eddie said, "I admire his work, especially the Queen case, he caught Moira Queen just before her plan to destroy half a city took place"

"My father didn't catch Moira Queen, she confessed on live television, and I was the one to arrest her," I said.

"Oh," Eddie said.

"Um... Why don't we go watch the particle accelerator from my lab?" Barry took my hand and pulled me to the stairs. "Are you okay?"

"Yea, I'm perfectly fine..."

Use a mask they said... It'll help they said...