Berni had settled into her new life in the weeks following her visit with her Father. The two had begun exchanging letters that came to be the thing she most looked forward to every week, not that it had much competition given that the rest of her daily routine involved being treated like a charity case by Iris, girls' days out, unsolicited womanly advice, and outfit shopping to fill the days before Thawne came home and turned up the affection with Iris and the "Daddy's little Princess" talk directed at Berni. Luckily for Berni, it was objectively cringe-worthy, so her reaction didn't give away that she remembered what Thawne had done to her. She'd taken up running in the morning and evening in an attempt to avoid seeing him in the mornings and evenings as well as to try and jumpstart her powers, she felt self-conscious going out in public in the tight workout pants and sports bra, but she didn't know if it would be too uncharacteristic to try and cover up, so she just let the world see her midriff. Iris had told her it was a bad idea to go out alone at night dressed like that, especially in a city without their own superhero. That was something about womanhood Berni hadn't thought about, always having to be on-guard, but perhaps the sense of danger was what she needed to get the powers to kick in at last.
She'd chosen Central City Park as a place to run as it had some heavy forest that cast shade around, covering up the body she was still insecure about showing off, and it was usually pretty empty outside of mid-day. On this particular night, Berni got there a little later than usual as the suburbs she lived in nestled next to the city had begun putting up decorations to celebrate Halloween, which was only a week away. Barry had never been into the spooky stuff, but it was always nice and quaint to see the decorations, the happy families coming together to complete a project, the excitement for the big night. She only remembered a few Halloweens as Barry before her family was broken apart. She took in and appreciated all of the decked-out houses on each street and waved to the families still outside, then watched the wives glare at the Husbands for staring at her outfit a little too intently before entering the forest in the pitch-black of night.
Berni could run the path with her eyes closed, which she was more-or-less doing since she was usually out of the woods before the sun was all the way down. She'd been used to running without being able to perceive her surroundings back when she was a superhero, sometimes The Flash reached speeds so high even her super-perception struggled to keep up with everything. She confidently planted her foot with each step, hearing the flat, maintained dirt of the pathway under her, knowing that the fallen leaves and overgrown wild surrounding would notify her of if she went off coarse. But what she wasn't expecting was the tall, burly man leaping from behind one of the tall, thick oak trees, wrapping his arms around her, and dragging her off of the path as she kicked and struggled. She went for a pressure point on his neck, thanks Batman, but he shoved her to the ground. So she stood and stomped on his foot, then delivered an uppercut, thanks Hal. Then she jumped on his back and put him in a headlock, leveraging his size to make him lean into it, thanks Diana. But he sprung back into one of the oak trees, dislodging her and knocking her to the ground, he turned and delivered a kick as the bright yellow beams of flashlights weaved through the trees.
"Help!" Berni pushed to shout despite the wind being knocked out of her.
"That ain't help" the guy said in a thick accent that sounded Russian. "Over here!" He yelled. "Get the van ready!" The flashlights began to converge on Berni and her attacker as 4 other equally scary men surrounded her as they pulled her up by the ponytail. She tried to keep up to avoid the pain of being dragged by her hair. As she slowly regained her composure, she looked to the man walking alongside her, holding up his flashlight so that her captor could see where he was going, Berni snatched the flashlight from his hand and hit the man carrying her in the shin as hard as she could, making him topple. She hit him in the head, knocking him unconscious as the remaining four men surrounded her, pulling knives from their holsters and closing in, then she felt it ---
The lightning running through her, the men lunging forward, moving at what seemed like super slow-motion. Berni couldn't help but chuckle as she moved at speeds the attackers couldn't register, snatching the knives from their hands, except for the one closest to her, she stood up the first attacked that had pulled her by the hair and stood him in the way, the blade would only hit him in the shoulder, nothing drastic. She zipped through them, delivering blows to their bodies and heads enough to knock them unconscious before finding the zipties in one of their supply bags, tying their hands, dropping them in front of the Central City Police Station, she wrote a note describing what happened then contemplated for a moment before deciding it would be just too good resist, adding a signature to the bottom, "The Flash." She was confident that in the dark none of them would be able to identify her, and even if they could, the odds that these big bad traffickers would admit to a tiny jogger with bangs beating them senseless was very small.
Berni remembered the mention of the van and went for a quick wardrobe change. She didn't have access to the materials or STAR Labs' facilities to make something up to the standard she had before, but she shouldn't have to move too quickly for this, there was little risk of burning up a plain outfit. She snuck back into her room, found a red t-shirt, red track pants, some red tennis shoes, a ski mask, and some old ski goggles, enough to conceal her identity, and added a touch of spraypaint to announce her other identity. In the estimated 247 seconds it took her to drop them off, make it back home, and change, she was worried the van would have left, but she saw it there, still in the parking lot, she smirked, bursting forward toward the van, jumping through the passenger window using the shattering glass for dramatic effect. The driver, a scrawny, younger guy, panicked, fumbling toward the glovebox. without using her speed at all, she slapped his hand, pointed at him as if scolding a child. He placed his hands back on the wheel and pouted at her pleadingly.
"Run." Berni said in her deepest voice, but it still sounded like a young woman mocking a bigger man. She left the van and stood in the parking lot, awaiting the van driver's escape. Then trailed him, using rooftops to keep an eye on him before he arrived back at their headquarters, an abandoned warehouse, and sprinting inside as if Michael Myers was after him. Berni missed the sight of a terrified criminal. She ran in, where the trafficker was being berated by his superiors. Berni surveyed the area before noticing a catwalk above them and decided to riff on an old war story one of her friends used to tell, she appeared on the catwalk, clearing her throat to draw their attention. As they looked up, she went back to her growly voice and crossed her arms.
"Gentlemen, you have eaten well." One of the men in suits below fired his gun at her, she caught the bullet and dropped it. It was thrilling and a relief that she was already fast enough to catch a bullet, that could have been bad. The men reacted by doing it again. Berni decided to stop quoting Batman and went back to her regular voice as she started to let the stopped bullets fall from her hands to the floor below. "Can anyone help me out, I'm trying to remember the definition of 'insanity?'"
"Who is this!?" One screamed in his thick accent.
"I'm The Flash." Berni said, suddenly appearing behind the man before disappearing with him, dropping him zip tied in the lot, then flipping the breakers to turn off the lights. She returned to the men panicking and picked them off one-by-one. She called it into CCPD using one of their phones. She explored the warehouse they'd set up shop in and found several other women they'd grabbed off of the streets. Iris was right, this city was dangerous for women at night. But luckily for Central City, they had a superhero now. They all thanked her before filing out of the building as the police arrived. Berni took that as her cue to exit as she zipped back home and changed into her running gear, put her hair back up, then strode inside.
"You were out late." EO said, a knowing grin obvious.
"I was looking at decorations, lot of really cool stuff this year!"
"Maybe we could decorate then!" Iris said, in her pajamas standing on the staircase.
"You know what, how about we have family-themed costumes? I think Berni still has that Princess costume. I could be a valiant knight and you, my dear, can be the beautiful Queen." EO said as he stood up and approached Iris, sweeping her off of her feet.
"I can buy Berni being a pretty Princess and you being a valiant Knight, but you lost me at me being a beautiful queen." Iris chuckled, motioning her hands at her removed make-up, her casual pajamas.
"Nonsense. Berni, isn't Iris beautiful?" EO said. Iris lightly slapped him on the chest, a playful gesture telling her not to rope their Daughter into their flirtation.
"She's the most beautiful woman in the world. Don't know what you could have possibly done to deserve her." Berni said, attempting to play it off teasing, but worried she couldn't hide the contempt. EO glared, then chuckled.
"There's that bratty Princess attitude! I love it! This is going to be fun, huh!" EO shouted. Berni knew that his dorkiness was a mocking jab at the man Berni used to be. He opened his arms, to maintain cover, Berni smiled and walked forward to join the couple in a family hug before they returned to their individual bedrooms. Berni put in her earbuds, terrified of hearing any noise coming from the bedroom EO and Iris shared, and started to scroll local news sites on her phone, looking to see if anyone had begun to report on The Flash's debut yet.
