"I am not going to patch you up just because you're keeping me captive in my own home."

Boo let her shirt fall back down, fixing it to have the white button up peak out again. "I was actually hoping you'd do it out of the goodness of your own heart, but sure go with the mean reason." She rolled her eyes. With a shrug, she flopped back down on the couch, facing Caitlin.

A few moments passed by, a staring competition enacting between them, which Caitlin promptly won. Neither of them saying a word, writhing in the awkward silence. Boo reached for the cheese on the coffee table only to be stopped by the sound of the other brunette's voice, "Touch my cheese again and you're getting another bruise."

"For someone who's being held captive, you sure are mean." She replied to the scolding mark.

"I thought I wasn't being held captive?" Caitlin scoffed back, only to be replied by a huff and the sight of Boo taking a big bite of cheese.

Silence passed through them again. The sound of quiet breathing and nibbling on cheese echoed throughout the apartment. Boo sighed, her eyes fluttering closed like they'd done before and then snapping them open. A moment passed and then she spoke, "Would you like to hear my story? It'll involve my identity if that helps."

Caitlin rolled her eyes, peering down at the unnamed stranger. "I guess I need some entertainment if we're just gonna sit here 'till someone come checks on me."

Boo suddenly sat up, a grin on her face. She looked giddy, like she was excited to tell her story to the woman she was supposedly not holding hostage.

With a deep breath, Boo shuffled towards the edge of the seat, getting as close to Caitlin as she could on two separate couches. "So, my names Maxine Rivera. You can search me up on whatever old system you guys are running on right now, I'm not gonna pop up. I mean, I shouldn't pop up for the next.." a pause, "Oh shit! I was born!" Max laughed as if the fact that she'd been born was something new to her.

Caitlin glared at her not captor, about to speak but deciding against it. She knew time travel existed and if this was indeed the supposed speedster that saved Barry down at the docks then she should be able to harness it easily.

"Anyways! Even though I've been born, Maxine Rivera isn't going to exist for another twelve or so years." With a deep breath, Max leaned back into the couch, staying silent for a minute. Contemplating her next words, choosing them carefully. "I was born a couple months ago, in Delaware." She made a face at the name of the city, "Delaware, what a boring place honestly. Anyhow, my mother, or my birth mother I should say, was what you would call low-class. In plain words we lived in the ghetto.

"Fun fact, did you know that the word ghetto originated during pre-World War II? Jews lived in separate parts of towns and people would call it the ghetto." Caitlin rolled her eyes and reached for her glass of wine.

She gazed hard at the speedster in front of her, she felt relaxed strangely enough. Likely because she was still at home, still had her plate of cheap cheese, still had her cheap wine, still laying on her couch. The only anomaly happening was that a girl from the future was holding her not captive. Caitlin looked her up and down, it suddenly hitting her that Max was gorgeous. Not the kind of pretty you'd see on the street, but the kind you'd see on billboards. You'd see her at only a glance and think about her for weeks, it scared her. This kind of beauty could end and start wars, raise and crush empires, could seduce a priest (which really wasn't that hard to do but ya know, semantics).

Regardless of her beauty, her storytelling had come to a halt. Max sat there, obviously conflicted about something. From the fun fact, Caitlin would guess she was avoiding whatever part of the story came next. "I'm listening." Caitlin lightly spoke up, hoping to encourage her to either move on or tell her whatever deep dark secret she was holding.

Max seemed to come out of a spell then, looking back at Caitlin and any sign of tension was gone, simply replaced by a large grin. "Yeah, yeah stop hassling me." Once again, she sat up. Caitlin noticed that Max couldn't keep still, every few seconds she'd shift in some way. Go from laying back to sitting up, shift her body weight from the left to the center to the right, scratch an itch on her neck, twist the numerous rings adorned on both her hands, and more.

"So, some stuff happened," Avoiding the big bad topic then, Caitlin mindlessly thought. "and I ended up with a very loving family. Looking back now, they only wanted me because at the age of 11 I had an IQ of 160. Which, if you didn't know, the estimated IQ of Einstein was 160. So, not to brag but definitely to brag, kind of a genius." Max looked expectedly at Caitlin, gauging for any kind of reaction but none came.

A huge grin plastered on Caitlin's face seconds before she took a small sip from her wine and looked Max in the eyes.

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" She asked.

Max paused, "Yes?"

"I've worked with the most genius minds America has to offer. My mother is a genius, my father," a small break in her voice," was a genius. I'm a 'genius' myself." She put up air quotes when she said the word genius.

"I'm a different kind of genius." Max stated plainly. "I'm a genius because I have the speedforce in my system."

Caitlin laughed at that, Barry was a speedster and he was smart. Not really a genius but definitely above the average intelligence, so what if she was a speedster. Didn't make her any smarter than her or Barry or Cisco or anyone for that matter. She could run fast, so what.

Max didn't seem as amused as Caitlin, staring blankly at the brunette. "I don't see what's funny about that, unless you don't understand of course." Caitlin perked up at that.

Don't understand? What was there to understand? This entitled, self-centered, egoistic girl from the future who thought just because she could (maybe) run at Mach 5 meant that she was a genius. Not only that, but a better genius than all the other geniuses in the world.

Caitlin didn't say another word, simply sipping from her wine. Waiting to see how this played out.

With another gulp of air, Max shifted once again. This time, shifting the couch she was sitting on. Caitlin's living room was set up so that all the couches had a view of the T.V on the adjacent wall. You could see the other couches, but you'd have to shift your body against the direction of the cushion.

Max lifted the seat below her and scooched, so she was in front of the T.V facing Caitlin. This forced them to fully face each other, eye to eye. She crossed one foot over the other legs knee, she leaned back and sat up straight at the same time.

"A reminder, good friend."

"Captive you mean?"

"Shut up and listen." Max curtly replied before lowering her voice back into a gentle tone. "A reminder, that I was born this year."

"The reverse flash, if you know who that is, was born much later than you were, and we still beat him."

"Why do you keep comparing me to villains?" A small hint of a pout on her lips.

"Because you've literally got me captive in my own home, does that scream nice guy to you?"

Max's pout went away, replaced by her pressing her lips together. She leaned back and raised her right hand to the nape of her neck, scratching lightly as she looked sheepishly towards the floor. "Okay, I admit this wasn't the smartest or particularly 'nicest' option but I had no other choice!"

"We're reasonable people, you could've just walked up to one of us and said 'Oh hey! I'm a time traveler and I need your help.'" Caitlin huffed, taking another sip of her wine.

At that, Max raised an eyebrow and lowered her hand. The quiet awkwardness she exhibited moments before fleeting away, "That's bullshit and you know it! You think I don't know about Hunter Zoloman! Or should I say Jay Garrick, which do you prefer?"

Caitlin froze for a second, her wine glass at her lips but she was no longer drinking from it.

There was a new layer of tension on the room, a few minutes ago you couldn't cut the tension in the room with a knife. Now it was a chainsaw.

Max, sensing her mistake shriveled back into her seat, making herself seem smaller than she actually was. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for." Max didn't know too much about Caitlin's involvement with Hunter, but she knew that they had been connected in a way the others weren't. From her meticulous research to the many times Nora took her to the Flash museum, she had a basic knowledge of the Flash team and their respective backstories.

A moment went by, then another. Then Caitlin put down her wine glass and cleared her throat, she wasn't looking at Max anymore. Instead, keeping her eyeline down to where the floor met with her coffee table. Then before Max could say anything else she spoke up. "No, no. You're right, I didn't think about how we'd initially react to someone new."

She had been validated but Max felt wrong, a bit guilty for bringing up someone else's past when she herself didn't like bringing up hers. Slowly, she brought her voice up again. "I'm sorry. I'll finish my story."

Caitlin said nothing, just a simple nod and Max took that as a sign to continue. "So, I got adopted, moved to Amsterdam. I graduated a few years later and everyone seemed to like that. So, I kept doing it. I pushed myself to become the smartest and most academically successful person anyone knew, which, as you may know, really dampens your social life."

Caitlin gave an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes, "This is what you wanted to tell me? How bad your social life was not how you got here?" She bluntly let out.

The other woman's eyes widened slightly, a flash of something ran through her that Caitlin couldn't quite put her finger on because it was gone milliseconds after it was there.

"Sorry," Max cleared her throat and once again, scratched the nape of her neck with her right hand. "I usually get distracted with details. I left Amsterdam for Central City at 18 and right before my 21st birthday I met Nora." At the mention of the younger flash's name, Max let down her hand and sat up in her seat. A fresh grin plastered on her lips, she let her gaze move down to the edge of the coffee table closest towards Caitlin.

"Well, you know Nora, she's reckless. She can afford to be reckless now, but when I met her she still hadn't discovered her powers yet. We met outside my apartment complex; she was being held at gunpoint in an alley. And, logically speaking, when you're being held at gunpoint without any way to escape or fight back, you should be compliant. Not shouting at your gunman, but not Nora. Dumb, reckless, Nora."

A light had blossomed on Max's face, her smug grin had turned into a wide smile. She stopped fiddling and fidgeting with everything, no longer shifting from one side of the seat to the other. Still wasn't looking at Caitlin which gave her the opportunity to look clearly at the mysterious speedster. Caitlin didn't know if she believed her or not but, she could tell that Max definitely had an attachment to Nora, healthy or not.

Max stayed silent for a couple beats, still smiling. Caitlin cleared her throat and Max popped her head up, seemingly forgetting where she was. "Oh, yeah. I had a small amount of speedforce in my system. Definitely not as much as any other speedster you've met, but enough to save Nora. I wasn't interested in the whole hero business though, I wanted to focus on my life and not have anything weighing me down. But, when a person is about to die in front of you, you have to do something. So, I used my powers, saved Nora, and then promptly fell asleep. Nora hunted me down for weeks. Oh my god, I remember everywhere I looked, there she was. Begging me to give 'the hero life' a chance. She practically stalked me, I decided it had gone too far when she hunted me down at my sister's house. I let her speak her case and, honestly, she appealed to my ego. Now here we are."

Caitlin groaned and covered her eyes with her hand. "You still haven't told me why you're here, in my apartment, bothering me!"

With a chuckle, Max continued. "Oh sorry, I had some business to take care of in 2023 but, I got lost in the way."

"That's why! Oh my god, you told me your whole life story because you got lost! Why interfere with our fight with Cicada then? You're 'smart' you couldn't have just patched yourself up and moved on?" Caitlin was slowly raising her voice, to which Max responded equally.

"What was I supposed to do?! Let Nora die? Let her father die? Oh Jesus, Nora would be heartbroken! I saved you guys and you're mad? What kind of BS is that? And! If you bothered to think reasonably and not go around accusing people, Cicada's dagger doesn't take away my powers but it's still a powerful object. There's so much dark matter and crazy stuff in that thing, it doesn't matter if it takes away your speed or not, it's gonna give you a funky bruise."

Caitlin processed the other's words, giving some thought to the possibility that she actually could not heal herself. She supposed Max was right but she was never going to tell her that. "How about we just call Nora?"

"NORA!" Max shouted.

"Not that way dumbass."

(A/N) Hehe.. sorry. It's been I don't know how long since my last update, I've just lost interest in this show. But, I'm still immensely into this OC so I decided to continue, sorry for taking so long. I would love suggestion or prompts because I have like no idea where to take this next. If any of you wanna talk in my DM's I'd be more than happy to! Happy Eid by the way!