After being rescued, Valerie idolized the young hero and, being a scientific genius, devoted her life to studying the Speed Force and, in particular, Bart.

Inertia escaped and Bart, after aiding Las Vegas in recouping from the power loss of the cannon firing, returned to the penthouse to find Valerie.

Mota arrives at the penthouse, to try to convince Valerie of his love for her and desire to become human again, but is once again rebuffed by his daughter and thwarted by Bart Allen, being trapped in an electromagnet.

[4] Despite this, Valerie loses her job anyway, being seen more as a liability than as an asset, implying in a conversation with Bart that her fall of grace greatly depended by her having a relationship with an active, accident-prone metahuman.

Her loss of employment, the strain of having a relationship with a metahuman of convoluted origins whose biological and chronological ages don't match and her growing feelings of isolation and inadequacy lead Valerie to carelessly vent her troubles and feelings, including the concern about Bart's secret identity, to her best friends: a thing Bart discovered during a double date, when Valerie's best friend, Brenda, rebuffed him with a barrage of sexual innuendos about his speed-related abilities.

But Bart, having been forewarned by his grandmother Iris West, about a battle awaiting him in the near future, with only few chances to win, and stay alive, spurned her coldly, hoping to spare her the pain of his highly probable death.