Chapter 42 – "Saiyans and Secrets"
The morning sun bled into the windows of STAR Labs, warm and golden, casting long shadows across the quiet Cortex. The hum of the computers was the only sound—until the door creaked open and Dante trudged in.
He wasn't running today.
He wasn't smirking.
He looked like someone had dragged him through a black hole.
Wearing a dark hoodie and torn jeans, his usual swagger was replaced with sleep-deprived annoyance. His hair was messier than usual, and his eyes—normally sharp and alert—were half-lidded and red-rimmed with exhaustion.
Caitlin looked up from her screen and immediately frowned. "What happened to you? You look like you fought five King Sharks in one night."
Dante dropped into a chair with a dramatic sigh. "No King Shark."
He closed his eyes. "Anime."
Before Caitlin could respond, Barry zipped in and leaned casually against the console, a smug grin stretching across his face. "He watched the first season of Dragon Ball last night."
Caitlin blinked. "Seriously?"
Dante's head tilted up, glaring at Barry like a man betrayed. "What do you even like about that guy? He screams. He gets stronger. He changes hair color. He fights."
He threw his hands in the air, exasperated. "I mean come on. That's the whole plot! Screaming, glowing hair, punching!"
Barry raised a brow. "Yeah, weird. It's not like you do the exact same thing or anything."
Caitlin bit her lip, clearly holding in a laugh.
Dante squinted at him. "What?"
Barry shrugged. "You know… rage mode, power-up, glowing eyes, mysterious past, reality-breaking punches. Totally not Goku vibes."
Dante stood slowly. "No, man. I'm like this all the time, okay? This isn't an arc. This is permanent damage."
He blinked hard, trying to stay awake. "And this stunting is broken. I need coffee."
He walked past the counter and straight into the Cortex… where he grabbed the actual coffee pot and began drinking directly from it.
"Dude!" Cisco's voice rang from behind the monitors. "You're gonna burn your face off!"
Dante didn't respond. He just sipped the scalding coffee like it was chilled water, wandering across the Cortex like a zombie.
Caitlin watched, stunned. "Is he okay?"
Barry just shook his head. "Nope."
Then Jay Garrick walked in through the side hallway, looking fresh and composed in his signature jacket and old-school hero vibe. His presence always had a calming effect on the room.
Until Dante saw him.
The moment Jay opened his mouth to speak to the group, Dante's gaze slowly turned toward him. His eyes narrowed—not glowing, not intense—just… observant. Calculating.
Jay didn't notice.
Not yet.
"Morning," Jay said to the team. "We've got a bit of an update on one of the breaches—looks like we've got energy signatures matching Zoom's activity pattern about six blocks from Keystone."
"Another one?" Barry said with a sigh.
"We'll check it out," Caitlin replied, already turning to her tablet.
But Dante kept staring.
Then, softly, like a whisper slicing through the white noise of the Cortex—
"You're hiding something."
Jay stopped mid-sentence.
Everyone turned to Dante.
He was standing in the middle of the room, still holding the coffee pot, eyes half-lidded like he was about to fall asleep again.
Barry tilted his head. "What?"
Dante yawned. "I can feel it. You've been avoiding eye contact. You use too many deflections in your answers. You lie like a soldier, not a scientist."
Jay frowned.
Caitlin looked between them. "Dante…"
Dante's voice was calm. Soft. But it carried weight.
"Tell them, Jay. Today. Tomorrow. Whenever. Doesn't matter."
He took another long sip of coffee.
"Or I'll rip the truth out of your lungs."
The room fell silent.
Jay's jaw tightened.
Cisco's voice cut the silence. "Okay! Well, that escalated from Starbucks hangout to murderous therapy session real quick."
Dante set the coffee pot down gently, with the kind of restraint that somehow made the moment even more threatening. Then he looked at Jay again.
"No pressure," he said. "But there's only so much I tolerate before I stop being polite."
Jay didn't respond immediately.
Instead, he looked around the room. At Barry. At Caitlin. At Cisco and Ronnie. At the team who had taken him in.
He sighed.
"All right," Jay said slowly. "Maybe it is time you knew the full story."
Barry stepped forward. "Wait—what do you mean?"
Jay ran a hand through his hair, pausing a moment to collect his thoughts. "Back on Earth-2… Zoom wasn't always the monster he is now. He was something else once. Someone I knew. I've been trying to stop him for years, but… I didn't tell you everything about why I came here."
Caitlin folded her arms. "So what are you hiding?"
Jay met her eyes. "The truth about who Zoom really is. And why I couldn't stop him back home."
Dante yawned again, walking to the corner of the room and dropping into the chair like a cat folding into itself. "There you go. See? That wasn't so hard."
Ronnie leaned toward Cisco and whispered, "Is this what it's like having a psychic demon in the group?"
Cisco whispered back, "No. This is worse. He's coffee-fueled now."
---
Later That Day
Barry and Jay left to inspect the breach downtown.
Dante remained behind, laying across the couch with a wet cloth over his eyes. Caitlin sat across from him with a laptop.
"So," she said gently, "Dragon Ball?"
He groaned. "Never again. You know how long those fights take?"
She smiled. "Yeah. It's kind of the point."
He peeked out from under the cloth. "I like my fights with actual stakes. And blood. Not twenty minutes of posing."
Caitlin chuckled. "Well, welcome to fandom. Get used to disappointment."
Dante smirked. "I prefer real monsters."
"You are one," she said.
He didn't deny it.
---
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