1. Caitlin Snow
Cisco puts on a blazer, and Caitlin knows something’s up.
Cisco Ramon puts on a blazer for two reasons: he has a job interview, or there’s a girl. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a job interview in Starling city, so there’s definitely a girl.
Which girl is kind of a mystery, though. Cisco normally broadcasts his attractions like siren wails, to the point where Caitlin can’t avoid knowing who they are. He’s not talking about this one, though – until. Well.
They arrive at Arrow HQ and there’s Laurel Lance in tight black leather and a mask.
“Hi Laurel!” Cisco says, his voice just a note or two higher than normal.
She smiles, all crimson lipstick and dimples as she peels off her mask, “hey, Cisco.”
“How’s the uh – canary cry?” he points at some tech around her neck that has his handywork all over it. Caitlin remembers that trip Cisco and Detective West took over to Starling the month before and Cisco coming back all of a flutter and ah – okay. Okay.
“Good,” she unclips it, “great, actually – really great. I think it may need a little fine tuning though – can I – ”
“Oh – sure – totally,” Cisco nods, all barely contained enthusiasm, “you wanna discuss it?”
“Let me take a shower, then I’ll be right with you.”
“Sure – great – awesome – ”
Laurel pats his shoulder as she passes him, “nice blazer, by the way.”
Cisco all but starts vibrating, and Caitlin remembers that hot barista who once told Cisco she liked his t-shirt, and Caitlin thinks oh no, because Cisco spent the next six months telling anyone who would listen that he was going to marry said hot barrista. Then he’d pretended not to be shattered when she turned out to have a boyfriend, and Caitlin had had to look into his big sad puppy eyes every day for the rest of that year and it had been awful.
She follows Laurel to the showers on the pretence of looking for the bathroom. Which is an admittedly impulsive and potentially inappropriate thing to do. And she’s not fond, as a general rule, of having to be this direct, especially not to someone like Laurel Lance, who looks like the sort of woman who was once the sort of teenage girl who made Caitlin’s life at school an absolute misery. She’s so gorgeous it’s not hard to see why Cisco has a thing for her. But also – it’s not hard to know how that thing is going to end.
Caitlin swallows her instinctive, schoolgirl fears, reminds herself that she’s a grown up, damn it, and makes herself stand in the bathroom doorway as Laurel changes.
“Don’t be too nice to him.”
“I’m sorry?” Laurel is in the process of removing her gauntlets. All those buckles must take like half an hour to get in and out of, and Caitlin finds herself distractedly thinking about how Cisco would never have designed anything so impractical and maybe they should have a word with Felicity about getting Cisco on board for all future Team Arrow costume changes, because surely it’ll just make everyone’s lives way easier. But also. Not the point.
“Cisco. Don’t be too nice.” Caitlin folds her arms in an attempt to stop herself twitching all over the place.
Laurel frowns at her, like she has no idea what Caitlin’s talking about. Out from under the platinum wig her hair is a more human shade of ashy blond, and under that crimson lipstick her mouth has a tired twist to it, her big eyes flinty and maybe a little sad.
Caitlin knows that look. This woman has deep, oozing wellsprings of loss and pain stamped into her psyche like thumb prints.
“He falls super hard, super fast, for women like you,” Caitlin presses on before she can lose her nerve. “Just – don’t be too nice. Not unless you mean it.” And we both know you won’t mean it stays unspoken but Caitlin sees it sting Laurel nonetheless; sees her shoulders tense, her eyebrows arch.
But if Laurel is truly offended, she doesn’t say anything. She only nods, curtly, and then goes back to removing her canary uniform, like Caitlin isn’t even there. Caitlin leaves.
What had Felicity said about Laurel? Not much. She was Oliver’s ex, she was the first Black Canary’s sister. Felicity seemed to like her, but Caitlin couldn’t get a read on her, at all. Not that Caitlin was unfamiliar with being the sort of person who was so walled off and shut down that other people found her off-putting.
She just had to hope her words had had an impact.
***
When they talk about the canary cry, Laurel starts talking about her sister – and her eyes get big and sad and soft and Cisco spends the next half an hour desperately trying to make her laugh. She does, in the end, and Cisco thinks it’s the best sound he’s heard all night. Then he accidentally says that out loud, and her face flushes, and they both hastily go back to talking about schematics and sonic sounds and also the technicalities of beating muggers and rapists into bloody pulp on a regular basis.
2. Felicity Smoak
“Wow so Cisco thinks you hung the moon,” Felicity has propped her feet on her desk next to her shoes, stabbing dim sum with chopsticks and ignoring the grease she’s getting on her dress. It’s four in the morning, she hasn’t been to bed in eighteen hours, she is past the point of caring.
The Star Labs crew have only just gone home, escorted back to the train station by Diggle. Laurel is lying on the matts, trying to rouse the energy necessary to sit up and start taking off her black canary suit. She really needs to think about a redesign that’s easier to remove. Something with like, one zip. No buckles. Definitely no laces. Damn Roy for making laces look cool.
She glances over at where Felicity is eyeing her from the desk.
“Can I have one of those dumplings?”
“Can you move? Cause I can’t, so if you want one you gotta crawl over here and get it.”
Laurel groans, then rolls gingerly onto her feet, working her stiffening joints.
“Cisco likes you.”
“Uh huh.”
“You kinda like that he likes you, huh?” Felicity waggles her eyebrows and Laurel laughs, and takes one of her dim sum and then lays back down on the floor. It’s entirely too late at night to be vertical for any longer than is totally necessary right now.
“He’s sweet.”
“Yeah, he is,” Felicity nudges her with a toe.
Laurel blinks up at her. “You’re not about to warn me off, are you? Cause Caitlin already did that.”
“Caitlin?” Felicity’s eyebrows rise.
“She told me not to be too nice. Unless I could mean it.”
“Huh,” Felicity is chewing, thoughtfully, “well. They’re best friends. And they’ve been through a lot. She’s protective, I guess.”
“I thought maybe she was jealous.”
“Oh – no – Caitlin has a fiancé. I mean, kind of. It’s a long story. She just worries about Cisco a lot,” Felicity shrugs, “big sister thing, I think.”
Laurel nods, slowly – and Felicity watches her for a moment – the tired lines around Laurel’s eyes, the downward curve of her mouth – all stuff that hasn’t really gone away since Sara’s death.
“Cisco is a nice guy, though,” she offers, casually. “You know. He’s sweet and he’s funny.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Laurel murmurs, not opening her eyes.
“He’s definitely single.”
“I got that too.”
“And he’s super smart – like genius levels of smart. And he doesn’t really know it, which is kind of nice, like – he’s not arrogant about it or anything, he’s just really into what he does.”
Laurel doesn’t say anything, and okay, maybe Felicity’s reaching. But it’s not totally absurd, right? Laurel and Cisco? Why not? Laurel could use someone who would just be super, ridiculously nice to her, and Cisco would be, wouldn’t he?
“Maybe he’s not your usual type, though,” she goes on, leaning back in her chair.
Laurel opens one eye. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
“Smart woman.” Felicity nudges her again, and Laurel smiles.
3. Barry Allen
Because Cisco has her number now – got it when he made the canary cry, so he could let her know when it was ready if he couldn’t fix it up before he left – he decides to take his heart in his hands and text her something innocent.
“Like what?” Barry asks, over his shoulder, being unhelpful when Cisco asks his advice.
“I don’t know. Like ‘hi’. Would that be weird? If I just texted to say hi?”
“It… might a little weird,” Barry frowns, “why don’t you just ask her how the device is? Has she used it since you adjusted it last? Ask her how it’s going.”
“Good idea.”
Laurel says the device is fine – conversation over.
“I gotta think of something funny!” Cisco puts his phone to his forehead, on the off chance that this might somehow help. “Barry, come on, you’re funny!”
“So are you! I don’t know – girls like cat videos. Send her a cat video.”
“What? No. I need to be cleverer than that,” Cisco chews his lip, “no – a canary video! A funny one. There have to be funny ones.”
Barry snorts, shaking his head. “I haven’t seen you like this since that hot barista chick.”
Cisco waves a hand. “Jennifer was a crush. I’m in love, okay? I’m in love with a superhero and it’s awesome and she’s awesome.”
Barry laughs again, watches Cisco as he clicks through youtube on his phone.
Can he blame Cisco? No, he can’t, really. Laurel’s kind of gorgeous and seems nice enough; she’s Oliver and Felicity’s friend which also says pretty solid things about the kind of person she is. It’s just funny seeing Cisco in this state over someone who’s really part of this world – the private, important world they occupy with Caitlin and the rest of the team. Maybe that’s why Cisco’s so stuck on her – maybe the prospect of a woman who could really share that, this, makes him happy. And Barry can’t really begrudge him it, for all Caitlin keeps making worried eyebrows and shaking her head in exasperated disbelief. She doesn’t believe Laurel is the kind person who would ever really be with Cisco, of course.
But Barry can’t help but allow himself a spark of optimism on Cisco’s behalf, if only a very faint one.
In the end Cisco sends Laurel a clip of a budgie annoying a cockatiel by trying to ride on its back – in response he gets a laughing emoji, which he spends the next half an hour mooning over.
***
“Who keeps texting you?” Felicity nudges Laurel, as Laurel checks her phone for the third time in the last fifteen minutes – she is not, unlike Felicity, any kind of tech junkie; normally her phone stays silent and in her pocket when she’s working.
“Oh – I mean…” Laurel shrugs, absorbed in replying to something. Felicity cranes her neck.
“…is that Cisco?”
Laurel shrugs again, just a little self-consciously. “He sends me videos and stuff. Funny stuff. You know. It’s nice.”
Felicity allows herself a smirk. “Yeah it is.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“You totally like that he has a thing for you, though.”
“You hush, Felicity Smoak.”
Felicity hushes, with a grin, although she makes a mental note to find an excuse to leave Laurel and Cisco alone together the next time they’re in the same city.
4. Oliver Queen
“Hey!” Cisco has opened his big mouth and stepped in front of Oliver before he’s quite registered what he’s doing, “shut up!”
“Cisco,” Laurel’s voice sounds a low, warning note, but the thing is that there’s no way to really take back telling the Arrow to shut up.
“No,” Cisco puffs up his chest and takes advantage of the fact that Oliver seems to have been momentarily surprised into silence in order to keep talking before he loses his nerve, “no, he can’t talk to you like that, you’re the Black Canary, you’re freaking awesome, you go out there and risk your life just as much as he does and I don’t care who he is, he doesn’t get to say stuff like that to you, in public, like it’s not – completely disrespectful!”
Laurel visibly swallows down something akin to genuine emotion, and glances swiftly away from Oliver.
“It’s not okay, man!” Cisco bounces forward on his toes, just a little, glare fixed on Oliver, “it’s not okay!”
And Oliver realises that this is it, this is really happening; all 5 feet 9 inches and 180lbs of this labtech, replete with Star Wars t-shirt and Scooby Doo sneakers, is genuinely squaring up to him right now.
Brave. Especially given that Cisco has just watched Oliver put arrows in a lot of very dangerous men. Poor kid looks absolutely terrified. But also his jaw is set and his fists are clenched and – literally everyone is waiting to see what Oliver’s going to do.
Barry with his eyebrows raised, Caitlin looking like she wants to run over and drag Cisco out of his way, Digg so carefully neutral that Oliver can tell he agrees with Cisco, Felicity quietly avoiding making eye contact with him.
Laurel with her arms folded, her gaze downcast, her cheeks flushed, biting her lip.
Shit.
“Okay,” he deliberately lowers his voice, makes himself take a breath, “okay, you’re right, I’m sorry – Laurel, I’m sorry.”
Laurel nods, briefly, “thank you.”
She turns and heads for the showers and that seems to be the end of it, though Cisco narrows his eyes at Oliver every time he looks at him for the rest of the night.
“What was that?” He asks Felicity, later, when they’re alone, because Felicity always knows about these things.
“That was you yelling at Laurel about her mistakes, in front of everyone, like an asshole,” Felicity quips and ouch, okay, yeah, he deserves that. “No – less likean asshole more – just – as an actual asshole. It was an asshole thing to do.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
Felicity purses her lips at him (he tries not to be distracted by it). “Do you? Cause I’m kinda with Cisco on this one, Oliver – it’s not very nice of you, the way you talk to her about this stuff.”
“I’m scared for her.”
“So be scared in a way that makes you less of a dick.” She prods him. “Okay, mister? Cisco’s right – she’s out there risking just as much as you are, she deserves a little respect.”
Oliver rubs the back of his neck, uncomfortably, watching as Felicity begins to gather her things. “But what – what was that with Cisco?”
“He likes her.”
“Are they – ”
“I don’t think so. They’re friends.”
“Since when?” Oliver blinks.
“He made the canary cry for her – you know that, right? I think they’ve stayed in contact. I mean. He worships her, so.”
Oliver frowns. “He just… doesn’t seem like her type.”
Felicity puts her hands on her hips, head tilted. “Cisco thinks she’s worthy of the mask. All he wanted in return for the canary cry was a selfie with her. He practically asked for her autograph the first time they met. You really can’t work out why Laurel would find that attractive right now?”
Oliver exhales, softly, because yeah, yeah, he totally can.
***
“Does he – talk to you like that… all the time?” Cisco is leaning on the wall outside the bathroom while Laurel changes, calling through the door.
“Sometimes.”
“Oh my god.”
“It’s not a big deal, Cisco. I’ve dealt with way worse than him. I’m a big girl.”
“Seriously, though.”
“He’s just worried about me. And when he’s worried, Oliver’s an asshole. It’s kind of his thing.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” He hears her laugh, softly, and taps the door. “Why do you put up with it? With him? Come to Star Labs, hang out with us, you can kick all the bad guy butt you want.”
“My life’s here,” there’s a click as the door opens, and Laurel puts her head out, to smile at him, “besides, Oliver and I go a long way back – and I’ve yelled worse things at him in the past. I know him, I know us. He’ll get over himself eventually.”
“How far back do you go?” Cisco tries really hard to sound as casual as possible.
“Pretty far.”
“Like…?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Oh, okay.” Cisco swallows – so they definitely used to date. Okay. Great. His competition is Oliver Queen. That’s her type. Which is not intimidating at all.
Laurel smiles at him again, which immediately turns his insides to jell-o, then disappears back inside the bathroom. Cisco stays where he is, trying not to picture her getting changed.
“I just – you deserve better, that’s all.” It’s easier to say it without having to look at her, makes him feel like less of a total dork. “Way better. He’s a jerk. He’s like, a stone cold badass, and stuff – but he’s a jerk. And for the record, you’re way cooler than he is.”
There’s a click – she puts her head out the bathroom door again, leans across and kisses his cheek so that he feels the smudge of that dark crimson lipstick and gets enveloped in this cloud of whatever the hell it is she wears that makes her smell so damn good (wow, wow, holy wow), before his brain even has time to process that the goddamn Black Canary is kissing him. It’s over before he can blink or register let alone savour it, and she’s disappeared back inside the bathroom as he stands out in the hall clutching his cheek and quietly swearing never to wash his face again.
Cisco holds his breath for a heartbeat, then another, then – fuck it.
“Do you… wanna go and get something to eat? Or something?”
“Sure – where?”
Just like that? Seriously?
Cisco exhales, “uh… I don’t know, this is your city, you probably know better places than me…”
“You like Korean food?”
He likes anything she wants him to. “Sure!”
“Okay, I know a place. Hang on a moment.”
5. Quentin Lance
The building explodes with that Cisco Ramon kid still inside it and Laurel goes barrelling into the wreckage after him because of course she does. Black leather and platinum wig and a mask and now she thinks she’s fucking invincible.
“Cisco!”
“Laurel!” Quentin heaves a deep breath, prays his medication is working properly today and wades in after her, “Laurel, it’s not safe!”
She’s scrambling and volting ahead of him – jesus, when did she learn parkour? – when another voice comes from somewhere in the smoking ruins.
“…Laurel?”
“Cisco!” Laurel disappears over the top of a concrete boulder the size of a bungalow and by the time Quentin has managed to make his way around it, Laurel is hunched over a crumpled figure in a mess of twisted iron, wood and dust.
The kid doesn’t look great. Laurel has him by the shoulder, helping him into a sitting position as he moans and coughs – she cups his jaw in her hands to make him look at her.
“Cisco – Cisco – are you okay?”
“No,” he’s covered in dust and bloody, “no, my arm – my arm’s – it’s not meant to bend that way, right? That’s not good – that’s not good – ”
“We’re gonna fix you right up,” Laurel pulls him into a brief, gentle hug. He sags against her, his temple on her shoulder. From this angle, Quentin can see a pretty nasty cut to his head, too. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”
“My knight in shining black leather,” Cisco wheezes, smiling shakily, and Laurel tightens her grip on him.
“I don’t know if moving him is a great idea, Laurel,” Quentin looks around, “this whole area is unstable and he probably needs a stretcher – ”
“No, I’m getting him out of here,” Laurel glares up at him, Cisco’s head tucked under her chin, his blood smeared across her jaw.
“Laurel – ”
“I’m not leaving him behind. This isn’t happening again.”
Shit. “Laurel, this isn’t the earthquake.”
Laurel doesn’t answer for a moment – her hand creeps down Cisco’s forearm until she’s holding his hand. “If you don’t want to be here, you can go. Go get help, whatever, I’m not leaving Cisco.”
“You okay?” Cisco sits up with a jerk to look into her face. His teeth are chattering. Quentin can recognise the distractible, hysterical edge of shock about the poor kid, dripping off him like blood.
“This coming from the guy who was just blown up.”
“You don’t seem okay,” he mumbles, rubbing one dusty eye as he scans Laurel’s face.
“I lost someone like this once before.”
“Oh, man.”
“I’ll tell you about it sometime, okay?”
“Another sad story?”
“I guess.”
“You have a lot of those,” Cisco sighs and lays his head back on her shoulder.
“Well, you’re not gonna be one of them, okay?”
“Okay.”
Quentin is a sucker, because he helps Laurel get Cisco on his feet and walk him out of the wreckage and back to Arrow HQ. Cisco keeps his eyes on Laurel the whole damn time. How he knows who Laurel really is, Quentin doesn’t want know.
“I would like some very serious grown up painkillers now please,” Cisco says, from between clenched teeth, as he’s put on a table and that little, twitchy woman – Dr. Snow – goes frisking about the room with bandages and drugs and a suturing kit.
“Very serious painkillers, coming right up,” she promises.
Laurel hasn’t let go of Cisco’s hand.
“You’re gonna stay here right?” Cisco asks her, earnestly, and Laurel nods.
“Sure, sweetie.”
He grins, hazily, like a kid, as a syringe of something is stuck in his good arm. “Sweetie.”
Laurel takes off her wig and her mask and perches on the edge of the table next to him. She pushes his hair out of his eyes for him and makes him look at her, only her, while Caitlin stitches up his head wound.
“Kid likes you,” Quentin remarks, gruffly, once Cisco has passed out.
“I like him too,” Laurel still has one hand crushed in Cisco’s, shows no signs of trying to disentangle their fingers. “He’s kind. We could use a little more that.”
Quentin can’t disagree.
***
Cisco wakes up with the dreamy, dopey feeling that comes with serious grown up pain-killers still being in his system – he suspects that there’s a really nasty-ass headache waiting to spring on him eventually, and elects to enjoy the precious moments spent without its company for the time being.
Laurel is asleep in the chair next to his bed.
And there’s Caitlin, peering at him from across the lab. “Hey,” she murmurs, as she comes closer, “you feeling okay? Need anything?”
Cisco shakes his head.
“She’s been here the whole time,” Caitlin jerks her head at Laurel, with a small smile. “Think she likes you.”
“Yeah,” Cisco’s face feels sort of funny from the drugs, or he’d smile too. “I think she does.”
When he wakes up again, a while later, with the nasty-ass headache in full swing, Laurel has disappeared – but she reappears shortly, with what is apparently Oliver Queen’s special island tea, and an iPad.
“I have Netflix,” she says, offering the iPad to him, “if you wanna watch something?”
“Okay,” he says, though his head is still pounding and he can’t really hold the iPad up at all, what with the bones in his left arm being kinda pulverised.
Then Laurel does this awesome thing and climbs up onto the bed next to him to hold the iPad, and he’s totally touching her with, like, most of his body and it’s amazing – god, she still smells so good.
“If I were smoother, I’d find a way to put my arm round you right now,” he tells her, because the painkillers aren’t totally out of his system and he’s feeling stupid and bold.
“Your arm is in like seven layers of plaster.”
“Still.”
Laurel laughs, and then sinks down next to him and slips an arm around his shoulders instead. “Close enough?”
Oh hells yeah. “Mmhm,” he agrees, and lets his head rest against her shoulder.
She wraps a blanket around them both, and they watch Community and Brooklyn Nine Nine and anything else easy and funny, and when Cisco falls asleep he does so with the smell of her perfume dulling the edge of his headache.
6. Iris West
The point at which Iris realises what’s happening is the one at which Laurel and Cisco start talking to each other in Spanish and totally forget that anyone else is at the table during dinner.
Laurel’s Spanish obviously isn’t fluent – she speaks in a stagger-start, stumbling sort of way and Cisco keeps laughing and repeating himself for her benefit – but neither of them utter a word of English for the next hour.
Iris waits until she and Barry are heading home before she smacks him in the arm. “You promised no more secrets!”
“What?” Barry grips his shoulder, protectively; she’s tiny but she’s got one hell of a punch on her, always has done, “what am I supposedly keeping from you?”
“Uh, only that Cisco’s dating the Black Canary.”
“What? No,” Barry shakes his head, firmly, “no, believe me, if they were dating, we’d all know about it – Cisco would be singing about it from the rooftops.”
“Were you at the same table as us during dinner? They’re together.”
“Cisco would have said something!”
“He did say something! He said many things! In Spanish! All evening!”
Barry blinks, “what?”
“She’s learning another language for him,” Iris arches an eyebrow, “that’s not something you do platonically, Barry. They’re together.”
“No, seriously, Cisco would definitely have made it clear if this were some kind of double date,” Barry shakes his head again, “I know he likes her – but I mean – she’s Laurel Lance, she’s Oliver Queen’s ex –”
“So she can’t be interested in a nerdy tech guy who cares more about his comic book collection than his abs?” Iris prods him, “Barry, Cisco’s a cutiepie and he’s super sweet to her and with her dating history I’d guess him not being some big bad vigilante type might be majorly in his favour. If they’re not together yet, I give it a week before we find them making out in the lab or something. It’s happening.”
Barry considers for a moment, then shrugs. “Good for Cisco.”
Iris snorts. “I know, right? How gorgeous is Laurel?”
“Maybe you should be dating her.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t turn her down, that’s all I’m saying.”
***
Laurel kisses Cisco over ice cream, round the corner from where they’ve finished dinner with Barry and Iris. He tastes like the good wine they had with dinner and like the strawberry ice cream they’re sharing – he smells nice.
And after he smiles at her like she’s a miracle, in a world where he knows people who can teleport or run at the speed of sound.
She breathes him in, his arm newly free of its cast, so that he can put his hand on her knee; his big, affectionate grin as he offers her the last of the ice cream. And she kisses him again, just because she can, and really, that’s the miracle, right there.