Starling City.
The basement of Felicity's villa doubled as the Birds of Prey's command center—banks of monitors, tangled cables zip-tied to the underside of a steel desk, a single overhead light that hummed at a frequency Felicity swore she'd fix and never did. The room smelled like energy drinks and the faint chemical sweetness of new electronics.
Felicity, Laurel Lance, and Selina Kyle sat clustered around the main screen in matching cooling pajamas—Felicity's mint green, Laurel's pale blue, Selina's black, naturally. The email was already open.
One line: Jack Kadere has appeared in Central City!
Nobody spoke for a while.
Laurel broke the silence first.
"This could be a trap." She leaned back in her chair, arms folded. "The Huntress has been looking for a chance to kill Frank ever since we put him away. I heard he applied for medical parole—if she thinks he might get out, she'd want to move fast. Dangling Jack's name to pull us out of the city would clear her path."
Selina snorted. "Even Batman's crawled back to Gotham, and Jack's been gone for how long without a single whisper? If he really surfaced, he'd come here first. Felicity's his girlfriend—officially, anyway." She waved a hand at the screen. "Central City? Doesn't track."
Felicity's jaw tightened. She kept her voice flat, deliberately casual. "You both know how he is. He was never going to be devoted to one woman. And after this long..." She trailed off, then forced the rest out. "He's probably found someone new by now."
"So what? You two never actually broke up," Selina said.
"What difference does a label make?" Felicity shot back, an edge creeping in. "Even when he wasn't missing, he spent every day with the Huntress. And let's not pretend he hasn't put his hands on both of you."
"Why are you dragging me into this? I didn't say anything." Laurel held her palms up, retreating fast.
"You're the one he's gotten the furthest with," Selina said, redirecting without a shred of hesitation.
Laurel's face flushed. They'd been working together long enough—living under the same roof for convenience—that nobody's history with Jack Kadere was exactly a secret anymore. But hearing it stated so plainly still stung, especially since Selina wasn't wrong. She changed the subject with the subtlety of a fire alarm.
"Can you trace the sender?"
"They knew what they were doing," Felicity said, already turning back to the keyboard. "The email was scrubbed clean after sending. All I can confirm is it originated from Central City."
"Then check what the Huntress is up to right now. If she's behind this, there'll be something off."
"On it."
Felicity's fingers rattled across the keys. Twenty minutes later, she had a full picture of the Huntress's recent movements—still in Starling City, running down street-level criminals. Nothing unusual.
"Doesn't look like her."
"Doesn't rule out that she had someone else send it," Laurel said.
Selina stood, stretching her arms overhead until her shoulders popped. "Forget the guessing game. Felicity, just go to Central City yourself. Have a look around. If it's a trap, you hang back and run support remotely. If it's real..." She let the implication hang.
Felicity stared at the single line of text on the screen for another long moment, then nodded.
"Okay."
---
Night settled over Central City.
Jack Kadere checked the time and turned to Laurie. "I'm heading out. Not sure when I'll be back—sleep in my room tonight."
Laurie opened her mouth, hesitated, but before she could respond, red lightning crackled through the room and he was gone.
Lilah and Valentina's departure hadn't left a dent in Jack's routine. After they'd gone, he'd pulled Laurie aside to experiment with transferring the Speed Force to her—if that was even possible. He had no framework for it, no precedent to work from, and hours of trial had yielded nothing. Somewhere in the middle of that dead end, he'd remembered to switch his phone back on, and Caitlin Snow's number had lit up almost immediately.
Barry Allen wanted to see him.
Jack had nothing better to do, so he agreed.
---
The meeting place was Jitters, the coffee shop where Iris West worked part-time. The shop was still open—warm amber light spilling across the sidewalk, the smell of over-roasted beans and vanilla syrup thick inside. A few customers lingered at scattered tables, laptops open, earbuds in. Behind the counter, Iris moved between the espresso machine and a tray of ceramic mugs, her dark hair pulled into a high ponytail.
Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow sat in the far corner, two cups between them. Barry's hadn't been touched.
"Barry, relax." Caitlin kept her voice low, both hands wrapped around her mug. "He's actually... not that hard to talk to. And you both have the Speed Force, so you already have something in common. Just—don't overthink it."
Barry opened his mouth to reply, but a blur of motion cut through the edge of his vision. Between one blink and the next, a man was sitting beside Caitlin, settled into the booth like he'd always been there.
"Jack?" Caitlin flinched, then caught herself.
Jack Kadere surveyed the table—two cups, neither his. "No coffee for me?"
"I didn't know when you'd show up. Or what you drink." Caitlin was already pushing herself out of the booth. "What do you want? I'll grab it."
"Whatever you're having is fine."
He watched her walk to the counter, then turned his attention to Barry Allen. The easy amusement dropped half a degree. "So. What do you want to ask?"
Barry met his eyes. Up close, under the warm café lighting, Jack looked completely relaxed—legs stretched under the table, one arm draped along the back of the booth. No tension anywhere. Barry swallowed.
"When I was a kid, my mother—"
"Stop." Jack held up a finger. "I could recite your mother's story in my sleep at this point. You don't need to set the scene every time. Short version: I didn't kill her. Believe it or don't."
Barry's expression hardened. "Why should I believe you? I saw someone with the exact same speed. The exact same lightning."
Jack tilted his head, a faint smile still hanging at the corner of his mouth—and then the Speed Force ignited.
Barry's chair scraped back. He thought Jack was attacking, his body coiling to react—but the red streak didn't come at him. It tore through the coffee shop, past the oblivious customers who felt nothing but a faint breeze ruffling napkins, and vanished out the door.
So fast.
Barry pushed his own perception as far as it would stretch. He could track the red lightning—barely. Afterimages smeared across his retinas like tracer rounds.
"He's at least twice as fast as me," Barry thought, pulse hammering in his throat. "No—three times."
Before the thought finished, Jack was back. Same seat. Same posture. Not a hair out of place, not even breathing hard.
"Open your hand," Jack said.
Barry blinked. "What?"
"Open your hand. I brought you something."
Barry placed his hand on the table, palm up, more out of confusion than compliance. Jack dropped a small wad of fabric into it—dark, silky, still warm.
Barry looked down. Black lace. Unmistakably women's underwear.
He recoiled, arm jerking back. "What the—"
"Those are Iris's." Jack's grin spread wide, sharp and entertained. "I figured, since you're too chickenshit to tell her how you feel while she's dating some other guy, the least I could do was give you a consolation prize. Do whatever you want with them."
Barry's face went from pale to dark red in under a second. His gaze snapped involuntarily to Iris behind the counter—oblivious, laughing at something a coworker said, completely unaware that her underwear was now crumpled in Barry Allen's fist.
The fury hit a beat later. Barry's chair shrieked against the tile as he launched to his feet, the Speed Force crackling to life around him in jagged yellow arcs, and he threw himself at Jack Kadere across the table.