Chapter 26 : Return of the Dead — Part 2
Mercury Labs emerged from the morning fog like a monument to ambition.
We'd tracked three Firestorm appearances in the past thirty-six hours—each one closer to this facility, each one more unstable than the last. The radiation signature was increasing in intensity. Whatever process was happening inside Ronnie's transformed body, it was accelerating.
"Security's been alerted to expect us," Barry reported, consulting his phone. "Dr. McGee is... not happy about the situation, but she's cooperating."
"McGee?" I asked.
"Tina McGee. Runs Mercury Labs. She and Wells have history." Barry's expression suggested complicated history. "But she understands the stakes."
The facility's interior was all white corridors and classified doors, the aesthetic of serious science with serious budgets. Security escorts led us to a restricted wing—Stein's old research area, untouched since the accelerator explosion.
"We haven't had anyone in here for two years." The escort, a nervous young woman with a Mercury Labs badge, unlocked the final door. "Dr. Stein's work was too sensitive to assign to anyone else, and frankly, nobody understood it well enough to continue."
The laboratory was frozen in time. Papers scattered across desks. Equipment humming on standby power. A whiteboard covered in equations that meant nothing to me but made Cisco whistle low.
"Quantum fusion matrices. Transmutation theory. The math alone is..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Stein was working on something massive."
"He was working on becoming something massive." Caitlin's voice was quiet. "Firestorm wasn't an accident. It was his life's work. The accelerator just... finished it wrong."
The Firestorm matrix. Two consciousnesses merged into one body, nuclear fusion providing nearly limitless power. In the hands of stable individuals who chose the merger, it was one of the most powerful abilities in the Arrowverse.
In the hands of two people forced together by accident, it was a bomb waiting to detonate.
[SCANNING ENVIRONMENT] [RESIDUAL NUCLEAR SIGNATURE: ELEVATED] [PROBABILITY OF TARGET APPEARANCE: HIGH]
The system's assessment matched my instincts. Firestorm would come here. Soon.
"Set up the containment equipment," Barry ordered. "If he shows, we need to be ready to—"
The wall exploded inward.
Fire and debris filled the laboratory in a instant of chaos. I grabbed Caitlin and dove behind a heavy workstation, enhanced strength letting me move faster than human reflex should allow.
Through the smoke and flame, a figure emerged.
Ronnie Raymond—or what had been Ronnie Raymond—hovered three feet off the ground. Fire wreathed his body in constantly shifting patterns, some flames burning white-hot, others flickering with the sickly green of nuclear radiation. His eyes... his eyes were wrong. Shifting. As if two different people looked out from the same skull.
"Cait..."
The word came from Ronnie's mouth, but the voice broke mid-syllable, replaced by something older, more academic.
"GET AWAY FROM US!"
Fire erupted in all directions. Barry moved in a blur of lightning, evacuating Cisco through a side door. I kept Caitlin pressed against the floor, my body between her and the flames.
"Ronnie!" She fought against my hold. "Ronnie, it's me! It's Caitlin!"
The flames dimmed. Just for a moment. Ronnie's face surfaced through the chaos—confused, desperate, reaching toward something he could barely remember.
"Cait... I can't... he won't let me..."
Then the other voice returned, older and more frightened: "We have to go. We have to go before we hurt someone. GET BACK!"
The fire surged. Firestorm launched through the hole in the wall, disappearing into the sky before anyone could respond.
The laboratory burned around us.
We evacuated Mercury Labs without serious injuries.
Barry's speed had saved Cisco from the worst of the blast. My enhanced durability—courtesy of Tank's strength and Ironhide's pain resistance—had protected Caitlin from the heat and debris.
But the emotional damage was worse than any physical wound.
"He knew me." Caitlin sat on the tailgate of an emergency response vehicle, a shock blanket draped over her shoulders that she didn't seem to notice. "Harry, he knew me. He said my name."
"I heard."
"Then the other voice—Stein's voice—took over. Like they're fighting for control." Her hands twisted in her lap. "God, what is he going through? Two years of that, two minds in one body, no idea what's happening to him..."
I didn't have words that would help. Just presence.
"We'll figure out how to separate them," I said. "Cisco's already working on it."
"What if we can't? What if they're fused permanently? What if the man I loved is gone and there's just... that thing wearing his face?"
"Then we'll deal with that too." I sat beside her, close enough that our shoulders touched. "But we haven't reached that point. Don't assume the worst."
"I'm a scientist. Assuming the worst is how I prepare for outcomes."
"You're also human. And humans are allowed to hope."
She leaned against me. The gesture felt natural despite everything—the trust of someone who'd grown accustomed to having me nearby.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For being here. I know this can't be easy."
It's not. Every moment of comfort I give you might be speeding you toward leaving me for him.
"Easy doesn't matter." I put my arm around her shoulders. "You matter. This matters. The rest can wait."
The next forty-eight hours blurred into research and desperate planning.
Cisco threw himself into the quantum splicer concept—a device theoretically capable of separating merged consciousness without killing either host. The science was theoretical at best, but theoretical was better than nothing.
Barry coordinated with CCPD to minimize panic from the Firestorm sightings. Joe West's detective instincts were valuable here—managing public perception, controlling information flow, preventing the kind of mass hysteria that could make everything worse.
Caitlin worked on biological stabilization protocols. Her medical expertise translated surprisingly well to meta-physiology—she understood the human body's limits in ways that complemented Cisco's technical approach.
I helped where I could.
Security analysis identified patterns in Firestorm's appearances. Supply runs kept everyone fed when they forgot to eat. Coffee appeared on desks at regular intervals—a small gesture that earned grateful nods and occasional exhausted smiles.
[SUPPORT ACTIVITIES: LOGGED] [NO PP GAIN — NON-COMBAT OPERATIONS]
The system's assessment was accurate but irrelevant. This wasn't about power points.
On the third night, I found Caitlin alone in the medical bay, staring at brain scans she'd pulled from Stein's old records.
"You should sleep," I said from the doorway.
"Can't." She didn't look up. "Every time I close my eyes, I see him burning. Hear him calling my name and then... then losing himself to whatever's inside his head."
I crossed the room and stood beside her. The scans showed normal human brain activity—baseline data from before the accident that was useless for understanding what Ronnie had become.
"Cisco's making progress on the splicer."
"I know. I reviewed his latest calculations. Theoretically sound, but the margin for error is..." She shook her head. "If we get it wrong, we kill both of them."
"We won't get it wrong."
"You can't know that."
"No." I turned her chair to face me, kneeling so our eyes were level. "But I know you. I know Cisco. I know that when you put your minds to something, you don't accept failure."
"This isn't a lab experiment. This is Ronnie's life."
"Which is exactly why you'll succeed." I took her hands in mine. "Because you love him. Because losing him once nearly destroyed you, and you won't let it happen again."
The words caught in my throat slightly. You love him. Acknowledging the truth that hung between us. The truth that might end everything we'd built.
Caitlin's eyes glistened. "Harry..."
"Don't." I squeezed her hands. "Not now. Right now, focus on the science. Save Ronnie. The rest of it—you and me, what happens after—that can wait until he's safe."
"I don't know if I can..."
"You can." I kissed her forehead. "You're the strongest person I know."
She laughed weakly. "You're the only person who thinks that."
"Then everyone else is wrong."
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