Arrow/The Flash, "The Other Side of Lonely" Chapter Three, Laurel/Cisco, rated M

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Fandoms: Arrow, The Flash
Title: The Other Side of Lonely: Chapter 3
Characters/Pairings: Laurel Lance, Cisco Ramon, Cisco/Laurel (BlackVibe), other characters mentioned
Rating: M (eventually)
Genre: Action/Romance
Warnings/Spoilers: Loosely based on the season 1 finale of The Flash, and the season 3 finale of Arrow. Adult situations in future chapters.

Notes: Finished for wipbigbang  2022. Loosely based on canon from the end of Season 1 of The Flash and the end of Season 3 of Arrow.

Links: AO3 | FFnet

Summary: Fighting alone on the streets of Starling City, the Black Canary could use a little help from a friend. Enter: Cisco Ramon.

Previous Chapter

Chapter Three

Cisco was finishing up the dinner that Laurel made him when she bolted up from her table, tightly grasping a pile of loose papers. “Got you!” she whispered to herself, which caused Cisco to wander over to her and look at what she was working on. He licked the spoon free of pasta sauce as she pushed aside other stacks of papers and laid out the only ones she was concerned with.

She stared down at a mishmash of notes, court reports, and witness testimony, and a few other papers were deeds to warehouses on the dock and storage lockers. She pulled out her laptop and fired up Google Earth. She typed in the coordinates and smacked her finger on the spot near an abandoned warehouse and now defunct landfill. A few meters over, there were docks to a port for shipping goods by sea.

“There, that’s where they are. I’ve finally found them,” she said triumphantly, but Cisco was confused at the full picture here.

“Okay, back up, who have you found? Care to fill me in here?” Cisco asked her, and though he could piece together some of the evidence that she had spread out on her table, he needed a little more information if he was going to share in her excitement.

She met his stare, and he could see the rage in her eyes under her mask. Laurel was already on a mission, and Cisco started to understand the toils of her working alone. She wasn’t used to explaining her investigations to anyone. He supposed all her theories and solutions were whirling around in her head like a tornado, and when she headed out into the night to be the Black Canary, she would bring order to the chaos of her thoughts.

“Thomas Helheim,” she said, her words boiling with vitriol. “One of the ones that got away from me. He was accused of child trafficking of immigrants and migrants, even refugees. He had a slimy lawyer get him off a few technicalities, and I lost that case. I failed to bring justice to many children who had no families or were lost, and they fell through the cracks of the system.”

Cisco nodded as he understood. Truthfully, he was only slightly familiar with the case. He also knew that Laurel Lance had been quite involved in the lengthy case and that she had suffered a career blow when she lost, and the villain got off scot-free. It was no wonder she held a grudge, and now, when she served under the mantle of Black Canary, she would take more liberties to get that justice that she still deserved.

“So, now you’re saying that he’s active again? What did you find on him exactly?” Cisco said, licking his spoon clean. The lovely meal she had made for him was gone, and now he was energized to get into this case.

She nodded and continued, “There’s no concrete evidence that would suggest he’s at it again, but I studied him for months – I knew this case in and out. I could profile his motives in my sleep, and I’ve begun to see patterns of his crop up again in unrelated reports.

“Children are going missing again – mostly preteen females. These children are orphans and foster kids, which doesn’t match the migrants and refugees he used to target, but the age range and looks of these kids would be more than to entice him.”

Cisco nodded as he absorbed all her intel. “So where are you tracing these missing kids? Do you have leads on where they are disappearing?”

Laurel hummed in affirmation. “They all go missing from different places in Starling City, but I’m following cameras, witness reports, and other random hearsay on the streets that have pinpointed them to being spotted at one specific location.”

“Random hearsay on the street?” Cisco raised a single eyebrow in curiosity.

Laurel shot him a small smile and rolled her eyes. “Well, maybe Black Canary initiated a few interrogations that were vital to the investigation.”

“And I’m sure she was very thorough,” Cisco chuckled.

“Always,” Laurel said, raising her head with pride. She flipped her blond hair behind her shoulder and scanned the papers on her desk again. She rubbed a gloved finger to her chin. “I must act quickly. These docks have a lot of shipments sitting here ready to be unloaded, and soon the dock will be empty when the goods are dispersed. I’m sure he’ll use that as a cover to ship those kids to another location, most likely to another country.”

Cisco could see that she was bouncing with readiness to hit the streets, so he stepped in and held out his hands. “I know you’re anxious to get started but let me do one thing first before you go. I can stay here and monitor you, and we can communicate in case you need any extra intel from me.”

Laurel nodded and she began removing the device that produced her Canary Cry. She knew exactly what he wanted, and Cisco felt touched that she would know his intentions so perfectly.

Their fingers brushed together for a moment as he took the device, and suddenly his head felt heavy, like a rush of water was drowning him. He gasped, and he felt submerged in an unfamiliar scene – a cramped place with scared, whimpering voices and a smile full of teeth and confidence. He was looking up as if he was Laurel, her vision blurry and her body immobile beyond her control. She groaned as the smiling man continued to talk, and it felt like the more he spoke, the more her nerves filled with cement.

He coughed as he stepped back, flung from the vision like an unwanted guest. He gripped Laurel’s device with shaky hands. Laurel noticed that Cisco was acting strangely. She peered at him with worry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice softer than usual.

“Uh, change of plans,” Cisco said, wiping the sweat that had beaded on his brow. “I’m going to go mobile with my tech. I have a feeling that you’ll need me as a backup.”

Laurel frowned, but she didn’t look annoyed that he’d join her on her hunt. If anything, she looked slightly relieved that she’d have a partner out in the field. She didn’t push him for more information on why he’d suddenly freaked out when he took the Canary Cry device, and he wasn’t going to offer any explanation.

How could explain these weird premonitions he’d have when encountering people? It was erratic and unpredictable, and sometimes he couldn’t make sense of the wash of images and sounds he encountered in that space.

However, he did trust that the premonitions were solid by experience, so he wasn’t going to ignore that gut feeling that Laurel would be in danger.

Finally, she sighed. “It’s your call. I’ll be fine out there, but it makes more sense if you’re closer to your tech. Maybe I’ll need you for a quick pick up and get away.”

Cisco hid his trepidation with a joke. He smiled and bowed to her in a flourish. “As you wish, milady.”

Laurel snorted in laughter, and she reached out her hand and patted his shoulder before gathering her weapons and getting ready. Quickly, Cisco moved to make the modifications to her tech and wired them up to his matrix of machines and devices, and after keying in a few commands, he set a new program in her Canara Cry device and handed it back to her.

“All set,” he said with a cheeky grin.

Laurel tilted her head and peered at him suspiciously. “What did you do?”

“Minor adjustment, but it’s a supercharged feature that will come in handy. Trust me,” he said with a wink. Laurel still eyed him with suspicion, but she trusted him enough to put the device back around her neck and lead him out to his van after he scooped up all his stuff.

While dragging everything back to his van, he swore under his breath and wished he’d left the tech in the vehicle in the first place. If only these visions he’d been having would appear to him in a timelier manner.

.