"NOW WHO'S THE VILLAIN, FLASH?! NOW WHO'S THE VILLAIN?!" Eobard roared from inside his cage. His rage palpable and igniting Barry's own, making him turn to face the man who'd caused him so much pain.
"I AM!" Barry screamed back, approaching Eobard. "I'm the villain! I did all this! The timeline is screwed because of me, Wally is hurt because of me, Savitar is getting more and more dangerous because of me! The whole world is going to hell, and it's all! My! Fault! There, are you happy now!?" Barry demanded of Eobard, now face to face with him. Eobard cracked a smile.
"Oh, yes. Finally, I see you, Barry Allen, The Flash himself, broken and defeated. And the best part is, I didn't even do a thing. You did this to yourself. This should be the greatest day of my life."
"Should be? Why's that?" Barry asked. Eobard faltered for a moment but quickly put a grin on his face.
"Because I know what you're gonna do next. You're gonna do what all hero's do and save the day. Only in this case, saving the day means fixing the timeline, and that means letting your mother die." Eobard taunted. Barry's eyes went wide.
"How did you know about that?" Barry asked.
"I'm a genius, remember? I know more about the speed force and time travel than you ever will. Break the sound barrier and there's a sonic boom. You broke the time barrier, Flash, time boom. Ripples of distortion, radiating out from that point of impact, shifting everything just a tiny bit, but enough. For that to happen, you'd have to do something drastic, so that meant you saved someone you weren't supposed to. You could handle your father's death, it would take its toll but you would pull through. But your mom? That would break you. Why else would you stop me from doing just that?" Eobard explained. Barry recoiled.
"Why?" Barry whispered, haunted by the knowledge that he was right.
"Come again?"
"Why do you have to do this? Why do you have to torture me? All this, because you couldn't be me?!" Barry asked, almost hysteric.
"Because I win, Flash. I always win." Eobard said smugly. Barry crouched and held his face, each new revelation breaking him more and more.
"Why is it… that you winning means I have to lose…" Barry asked aloud. Now it was Eobard's turn to sigh.
"Because that's how it has to be, Barry. Those are the roles we have to play." Eobard answered, his voice almost as hollow as Barry's.
"What do you mean?" Barry asked.
"I told you before that I was obsessed with you. Do you remember?"
"Yeah, you said you spent years figuring out how I got my powers."
"I did, yes. Do you remember what I told you after?"
"You… travelled through time…"
"Correct again. I didn't just spend all that time trying to get your powers, I wanted to know how you became a hero. Because that's what I wanted to be."
"What?" Eobard smiled, devoid of any happiness.
"Shocker, isn't it. So many hero's from my time, so many legends, but none were as loved as you were. I wanted that. When I got my powers, your powers, I had that. I was thrilled, I brought The Flash to the future and I thought I could be better than you, do better than you. Make The Flash even more loved. But one day, I ran fast enough to travel through time and I saw the truth."
"You saw that you would become my enemy." Barry remembered.
"Your greatest enemy. Smarter than Grodd, more dangerous than Zoom, more relentless than Godspeed-"
"Who?" Barry asked, but Eobard shook his head.
"Spoilers, Barry. But that's what happened to me. I saw spoilers for my own life and was horrified. I wanted to be The Flash, to be a hero, not a villain, not-"
"The Reverse…" Barry realized. Eobard nodded.
"The Reverse…" He confirmed. Barry was silent, the truth far greater and far worse than he could have imagined.
"You don't have to be this. You can change your fate." Barry began but Eobard just laughed. A small, lifeless, sad laugh.
"You think I didn't try? From the moment I learned what I was supposed to be, I was determined to change my fate. But the more good I did, the more bad I did. Or rather, the more bad happened around me. If I saved someone, a bridge would collapse. If I put out a fire, there would be a flash flood. And I couldn't stop either because bad things would still happen. Evil meta-humans would still attack and I would still be there and I couldn't just not do anything. Not what I wanted, anyway… So I did what fate decided I had to do. I was never going to be The Flash, but his Reverse." Eobard finished, sinking into his bed.
"Why are you telling me this? Why now?" Barry asked.
" Who knows? Maybe it's because I'm tired, Barry. Maybe it's because vulnerability begets vulnerability. Maybe it's because we're not that different, you and I. You know what it's like to have fate tell you that you can never have what you want most. No matter what you do, no matter what you can do, you're stuck with your lot in life. Yours is to suffer loss but be a hero and loved, mine is to win but be a villain and hated."
"I'm sorry." Barry said.
"What was that?"
"I'm sorry that this is what happened to you. It happened because of me and that means it's my fault. I'm sorry." Barry apologized. Eobard only stared at Barry before breaking out into laughter. But unlike before, it was filled with mirth.
"Barry Allen, here you are, facing the man who killed you mother, the man who's destiny it is to be your worst enemy in life, and you apologize to him. Ever the hero."
"You had some moments yourself."
"What are you talking about?"
"You said when you first got your powers, you used them for good. To save people and be a hero."
"And look how well that worked out for me."
"But then you ran a little too fast and got stuck here. Well, not here, but in my past, your future."
"Dr. McGee said something along those lines."
"And you do some real good. You help save a lot of people."
"What do you mean?"
"Sorry, Eobard. Spoilers."
"Heh, well maybe that will be how I tell fate to go screw itself."
"Let me know how that works."
"So now what, Barry? Here we are, two speedsters trapped in a timeline that's not supposed to exist, and we're having a nice chat."
"I have to fix this. I have to go back and… let her go…" Barry lamented.
"For what it's worth, I am sorry."
"That doesn't make it right."
"I know, and so do you. While, we're still in this unique moment of not hating each other, I'll give you a bit of advice. Your friend, Ray Palmer, his nano-tech is very useful when it comes to storing our suits."
"Heh, Cisco's been wondering how you did that."
"Ah yes, Mr. Ramon. He really is quite clever." Eobard mused, remembering his meeting with Cisco.
"Well, any other pieces of advice you wanna give me before I do this?" Barry asked.
"A warning, actually. What you're about to do is virtually unprecedented. You're changing the timeline on a drastic scale yet again. That could very well mean that the world you go back to could be different from the one you know."
"What do you mean?"
"Relationships could change, people that only existed in this timeline could exist in that one, you could even, theoretically, merge another universe with this one."
"Like Earth-2?"
"Or 3, or 4, or 5, etc… Or maybe nothing like that happens. Maybe the world goes back to the way it was before."
"I doubt it. Things aren't that easy."
"Fate rarely is. You know what you have to do now." Barry nodded.
"Yeah."
"Run, Barry, run."
(A/N. Well, I hope I did pretty good for my first Flash fic. Please leave a review if you liked it. Really looking forward to season 3!)