Chapter Text
When particularly violent criminals needed to get their fingerprints taken, they called in Barry Allen. It wasn’t even really his job. He just had a way with criminals that the officers weren’t above taking advantage of. It was universally accepted.
No one wants to hurt Barry Allen.
The first time it happens it’s only because the officer in charge of fingerprinting is sick. Allen wasn’t particularly busy, having gotten all the major bits of evidence processed, so it only made sense to ask the young CSI. The criminal was Bob Levesque, arrested for assault. He was drunk, and angry, and fighting anyone trying to question him. But then, suddenly Barry walked in (late, obviously), introduced himself, laughed lightly, and suddenly Levesque sat down and let his fingerprints be taken. Perplexed, Officer Chyre let Barry continue to chatter with the criminal. Levesque was absolutely placid. He admitted that they guy he’d attacked had been the man his wife had cheated on him with and that he didn’t regret it at all. Barry just nodded agreeably and let him know that it was still a crime, even if he had what he considered justified motives. Levesque nodded solemnly and started telling Barry about his wife and all the horrible thing she had done, and Barry just listened. It was bizarre. He was like a therapist that didn’t do anything but listen, and yet the criminal was soothed and didn’t fight his processing anymore. When Chyre finally had to pull the man out, Levesque smiled at Barry, then at him, and happily went along to prison. Chyre pulled the man away dumbfounded, and by lunchtime the entire precinct knew.
They all would have thought it was a one time thing, but not two weeks later, a prisoner recently released from Iron Heights drove up to the precinct in a stolen Maserati and asked to speak to Barry Allen. His name was Lorenzo Furlan, and his last arrest was for the theft of an automobile as well. Barry came down from his lab to eerie silence, and walked into the questioning room.
“I was told you’re a good listener, kid.”
Barry spent two hours talking to Furlan, who told Barry his whole life story and asked him to check on his kids for him (apparently they wanted nothing to do with their father anymore, but he did legitimately care and want to know what they were doing). After they were done talking, Barry called in an officer to arrest Furlan and Furlan went back to prison, with promises that Barry would visit every once in awhile and give him updates any time his children hit major milestones. (As it turned out, two months later Furlan’s oldest daughter got engaged, and Barry sent her a letter that her father wrote for her. Barry never looked at the contents, but whatever Furlan said caused his daughter to start visiting him again, for the first time in years.)
Suddenly, just about every criminal who turned themselves in wanted to talk to Barry. Officers started calling Barry in to fingerprint suspects who were being difficult. He was an instant sedative. On one rather spectacular occasion a criminal being dragged through the station saw him and shouted at him.
“Hey! Hey! It’s Doc’s kid! Bart or somethin’. Can I talk ta’ him?”
Tom O’Leary (arrested for possession of an illegal firearm) had apparently been fixed up by Henry Allen a couple times in Iron Heights, and recognized Barry immediately from a picture Henry had with him at all times. Once he was taken away - much calmer, and with a joke about how “you’re just like Doc, except not that kinda doctor,” being dragged out as Barry tried to explain that, no he really wasn’t, he didn’t have a doctorate of any kind - O’Leary spread word through the prison that the CSI with the great listening skills was Doc’s kid.
It continued for months. Barry knew a couple of the small time criminals by name, whose crimes had smaller sentences, and repeated offenses. Some of the reformed criminals would come in when they knew the crime rate was lower just to see if they could talk with Barry for a bit. He became the CCPD’s mascot in the eyes of the criminal community.
Then, Barry got struck by lightning.