This is a short character study ficlet in reaction to "Invasion!" as I finally get caught back up on the Flash. I think Barry is a lot angrier with himself than he shows visibly. He does have a bit of a hero complex, after all.
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters or themes displayed belong to me, and I'm not making any money off of this fic. The title is a line taken from the song Polarize by twenty one pilots and is not my own writing.
"Domingo en Fuego (I Think I Lost My Halo)"
For all the talk Oliver, Diggle and everyone else throws around about forgiving himself, Barry goes home after defeating the Dominators with an awfully heavy heart.
Maybe it shouldn't bother him, their decision to forgive his gravest mistake – no, Barry knows it shouldn't bother him. This is what he's been trying so hard to win: the trust of his friends.
So why, now that he has it, does he feel like he got it by cheating?
The answer comes that night. He's lying on Cisco's couch at two-something in the morning when the thought jolts him from his half asleep state.
He doesn't deserve it. Barry doesn't deserve their forgiveness.
At least, he doesn't yet. He has a long ways to go before he can make up for killing somebody's brother, for erasing somebody's daughter from existence, for completely altering the course of somebody's life. After all, that was the entire idea behind wanting to turn himself in to the Dominators, wasn't it? To save them all. To pay for what he's taken. Because he has, at the end of the day, taken things from others that weren't his to take, and the sense of justice he holds so dear simply doesn't stand for that.
He wants to make up for what he's done. Iris always calls him sweet when he feels bad over little things, like his tone of voice to a loved one after he's had a bad day. But here is the bitter to the sweet: this time, there is absolutely nothing he can do to right his wrongs. And this wrong is so much more intense than anything he's ever done.
It's unforgivable.
Barry doesn't sleep that night. He stays awake, staring at the ceiling fan as it twirls in the dark, his heart sitting like a stone in the center of his gut.
The next morning, Barry sees tangible evidence of this idea in the face of his best friend.
Cisco has a certain look in his eyes as he shuffles bleary-eyed out of his bedroom. It's a look of remorse, of grief, of suffering. Barry sits at the kitchen table with a full cup of coffee that's gone cold clenched tight between his hands. When Cisco sees him, he smiles – a genuine smile, the kind he hasn't directed toward Barry in a long time. His pain fades into background noise as he starts his day.
That familiar smile should be a relief to Barry. It isn't. He doesn't smile back.
"You alright?" Cisco asks. "You look like you haven't slept."
"Adrenaline," says Barry. It's a weak excuse. He's actually exhausted. He's sure he must look like hell. "I'm fine."
Cisco looks him up and down, calculates, and gives a single nod.
"If you're sure. You can go back to sleep if you want to, you know? Not like you have a day job anymore, and Central can survive without the Flash for one morning."
Survive without him? Sure. But for all the lives he's destroyed, he's got a lot of ground to make up for in the saving department.
Barry knocks back the cold coffee and shakes his head. He's not supposed to have caffeine but Caitlin doesn't have to know.
"There's still a lot of work to do."
Caitlin hugs them both when they enter the cortex, congratulating them on yesterday's well-fought battle. She is friendly and kind, the same Doctor Caitlin Snow she's always been.
As if he hasn't given her the powers of Killer Frost. As if Flashpoint isn't actively destroying her life. As if everything is back to the way it used to be.
Barry hugs her back. Hot saltwater burns in his eyes and he blinks it away. With his face hidden over her shoulder, she never knows.
Barry doesn't know what higher power he has on his side, that his friends have chosen to forgive him for Flashpoint.
He also doesn't know why he never feels like himself anymore, why this heavy guilt is still breaking his back, or how to be okay again.
The one thing Barry does know: things are going to get worse before they get better.
They always do.