It's been a while since I've posted any fic, but it feels great to have a one-shot to share, finally! This is partially inspired by a Flash comic panel I've seen shared around a lot, with a liberal dose of hurt/comfort as a lead-up. Hope you enjoy!
Warnings for some descriptions of injury and mentions of medical procedures, though nothing super graphic.
"Coming to you live from uptown Central City, where the Piper Street apartment complex has just collapsed following an unidentified metahuman attack—"
"—residents of the apartment complex who could not make it out on their own report being carried to safety by the Flash just moments before the ensuing collapse—"
"—casualties unknown at this time. The red streak himself is nowhere to be seen—"
"—went back in for her, he went back for my daughter, but it fell, oh, God—"
"—crews on the scene—"
"—breaking, you saw it here first, folks—Flash, under the rubble, shielding six-year-old Grace Parsons with his own body—"
"—is he alive—"
"—Grace Parks is being treated for minor injuries but is expected to make a full recovery—"
"—miracle, folks, simply a miracle—"
"Barry, get out of there." Cisco's voiced was laced with the usual worry, even despite the regularity of the phrase. Burning buildings, collapses—none of this was unfamiliar territory. Iris hesitated to call it routine, because crumbling apartment buildings should never be routine, but it wasn't out of the ordinary like, say, a breach in the space-time continuum. "The structural integrity of that building is not going to hold much longer. It's going to come down any second."
"There's a girl," Barry's voice was staticky. With the interference created by a collapsing building, it was no wonder.
"Well, get her out," Iris said. "And fast."
"She's trapped under a—hey, it's okay, I'm here, everything's going to be okay, alright—guys, her leg's stuck under one of the beams that fell."
Iris shifted her weight, chancing a look up at the other two in the cortex. Caitlin had that look she got when she was too stressed to speak: almost calm, were it not for the extreme tightness in her lips. Cisco's eyes betrayed his fear more than anything, but he remained in constant motion, as though that was key to his problem-solving.
"Can't you…move it?" Iris offered, unhelpfully.
A grunt answered her. "It's too heavy, it's…no, it's alright, you're going to be okay. I'm going to get you out of here. What's your name? Grace? Okay, Grace, here we go. Count with me. One, two, three…"
His groan turned into a drawn-out yell. Something thudded, and he tapered off into panting.
"Barry—"
"It's off," he replied. "That's it, Grace, let's—"
The feed cut off with static so loud it physically startled Iris. She involuntarily clutched her heart, and Cisco turned the volume down a few clicks.
"Barry?" he said. No response. "Hey, Barry—"
"What do you think…"
"Barry!"
"Hey, guys," Caitlin said, small, tentative. "Look at this."
She was staring at her phone, pale as a sheet. She turned it to accommodate Cisco and Iris, and Iris' gut twisted. It was a live news feed, aerial footage, of the apartment building Barry had been working to evacuate. Or, what had once been an apartment building.
"The Piper Street apartment complex has juts collapsed following an unidentified metahuman attack—"
"Do you think…"
"Barry." Cisco renewed his shouting into the mic. "Answer me, bud. I've gotta hear your voice. Where are you?"
"The line's dead, Cisco," Caitlin said.
"And the suit's tracker is still at the building site," Iris said, pointing out the evidence they all should've seen sooner. "We've got to go. Now."
Cisco and Caitlin kept their distance from the scene, initially—Cisco was in half his Vibe getup, having opened the breach to transport them to the scene, and Caitlin was never comfortable with news cameras after the Killer Frost incident—but Iris barreled forward through the crowd. It was silly, she soon realized, for Caitlin and Cisco to avoid attention. Nobody would've given it anyway.
Everyone was turned toward the scene of the collapsed building, a pile of cement and rebar and broken glass. From the looks of it, many onlookers were previous residents of the complex. All were in various states of disheveled: some bruised or bleeding, others simply wide-eyed, many wearing either one shoe or none at all. All of their pale faces flashed red from the parked fire trucks at the scene.
"What's going on?" Iris asked the closest onlooker breathlessly, motioning at the heavy lifting vehicles that were beginning to haul away large chunks of concrete.
"There's a girl trapped under there," said the man. "The Flash went in after her. Saw 'im with my own two eyes."
"Did he make it out?"
"Gee, I didn't see nothin'," said the man. "What are the odds of anyone surviving that, though?" While he wasn't malicious about it, the air of detachment in the statement reminded Iris of someone commenting on a reality television program. How much do you want to bet they're both dead under there?
"I think they've found someone!" another random voice cut through the crowd, and there was a ripple effect as people instinctively drew closer, muttered the words to one another like a mantra. Iris craned her neck, also sensing the heightened activity in the rescue workers. The lingering dust in the air clouded her vision, made her eyes burn.
A crunch, a shout. Iris saw the red suit an instant before the rest of the crowd did. The street erupted into a cheer. The jubilation went on for precious few seconds. As a huge beam was shifted out from over the crumpled form, the realities took hold. Barry wasn't moving. And there was no sign of the little girl.
Iris' knees went weak. The rescue workers had faster reactions than her; two of them surged forward, crouched down, dragged the limp body from the stones.
Then, another shriek of relief from the closest onlookers.
The little girl, pale and crying, was lifted from the rubble. She clung to the rescue worker's neck, shaking, alive.
"The Flash was shielding her!" cried the man next to Iris, the same one who had been in a betting mood just seconds earlier. "Did you see that? Curled around her like a—"
Iris didn't have a chance to hear what metaphor he chose. Cisco and Caitlin brushed past her, parting the sea of civilians by sheer force of movement, and she was swept up into their wake. Grimly determined, they burst past the police line, past the TV crews, past the waiting ambulance. Suited-up Cisco took the lead, Central City's hero every bit as much as Barry, his stride authoritative and commanding.
"We'll take it from here," he told the workers nearest him in an uncharacteristically low voice.
Iris scrambled over to Barry with Caitlin. A worker was busy fitting him with an oxygen mask. To Iris' immense relief, Barry's eyes were cracked open, confusedly searching, obviously dazed.
"Don't worry, we're going to take care of him," Caitlin said, shouldering past the equally confused worker and sliding a hand under Barry's shoulders. It was amazing how direct she could be in a crisis, Iris mused, supporting Barry's other shoulder and dragging him upward.
Vibe opened a breach; Caitlin and Iris hauled Barry through; the four of them blinked away from the scene so fast it was as if they'd never even been there.
"Down on the table. Easy does it. There we go."
Iris followed Caitlin's instructions as carefully as she dared, maneuvering Barry's dead weight on to the exam table, straightening his legs.
The instant Cisco removed his Vibe goggles, the stiff, commanding persona disappeared, and he was once again the rattled best friend. He took his station at Barry's arm and patted it. "Hey, man, you with us?"
Barry's groggy gaze found him. "Yeah, think so."
Cisco broke into a shaky smile. "So, you've just had a building dropped on you. How do you feel?"
"Spectacular," Barry croaked. He was cut off from further comment by Caitlin tearing off his cowl and fitting him with her own oxygen mask.
"Does anything feel broken?" she asked, while simultaneously shining her penlight into his eyes. Iris didn't need the light to tell that he was definitely concussed. "Can you move your legs?"
It was always the worst case scenario, ever since the Zoom incident. And judging by the way he'd been hunched over that girl, tons and tons of metal pressing down—
Barry's face scrunched as he agonizingly bent one knee, then the other. He groaned as he let them drop back to the table, but he bent each of his arms up as well to prove his mobility. At least, what limited amount he had.
Iris thought she caught the words "impossible" and "lucky" from Caitlin's mouth as she methodically began undoing Barry's gloves, unzipping the front of his suit.
Again, Iris felt herself treading water. Cisco had control of the space at the scene of the collapse, and Caitlin had it now, in her element, assessing injuries with a precise eye. Iris, as always in these situations, didn't feel as though she had control over anything. So, she did the only thing she could think to do: she reached for Barry's hand and gave it a light squeeze.
His unfocused gaze, slowly gaining more awareness, found hers. They held the moment for as long as they could, until Caitlin began peeling off the sleeve of the suit and Barry squeezed his eyes shut against the world again.
"I'm going to roll you onto your stomach, okay?" Caitlin said. "Your suit's fairly shredded, and you're bleeding pretty badly. I think there's debris lodged in your back."
"Awesome," Cisco supplied for Barry. All of the blood had left his face.
Firmly, but not unkindly, Caitlin rolled Barry over and pried the rest of the suit off of his torso. She was right, of course: amid the layer of dirt and grime that had settled over Barry's entire body, blood leaked out of a dozen wounds on his back. Shards of glass poked out of a few, and Iris fought the urge to gag. It looked like a window had shattered across his spine—which, of course, it probably had.
Tweezers already in hand, Caitlin felt around for one piece near Barry's shoulder blade. "I'm going to have to pull these out, Barry," she said, having learned over time to narrate her actions. Whether or not it helped with the pain itself, it at least seemed to help Barry in identifying the source of it. "Some of these are..." She moved lower, frowning at the soft flesh beneath Barry's ribs. "...they're buried pretty deep, and I'm afraid some may have splintered into smaller pieces under your skin. They're going to require a minor surgical procedure—"
Barry moaned, and Iris whipped her head toward Caitlin. "Surgery? Isn't that the kind of thing that local anesthetic is for?"
"Minor surgery. We can't use anesthetic," Caitlin said, her face drawn and tight and deliberately blind toward much of the world. "You know that."
"I don't want to," Barry said, shaking his head, half-delirious, the fingers on one arm clenching and unclenching on the sheets. Based on the look of it, Iris was pretty sure the other arm was broken. "Please. Don't. Not now, please."
He tried to move, to get up off the table, but he collapsed back with a whimper of pain. Iris flinched, and a flash of pain similarly crossed Caitlin's face. "The quicker we get it over with, the better. If he heals over the glass, it will require a much more extensive procedure" the doctor said, looking to Iris and Cisco as if looking for confirmation that she was making the right call. Of course, neither one of them could give it. Slightly softer, she placed a few gloved fingers on the back of Barry's neck. "I'm going to start now, Barry, okay?"
The muffled whine was not quite an answer, but Caitlin took it as one. A deep breath was all the readiness she allowed herself.
She pried the pieces from his upper back first, and quickly, so Iris and Cisco could plant their hands on Barry's shoulders and hold him down while he thrashed, screamed, begged, sobbed.
Iris found him in one of the bathrooms in the deepest part of STAR. After Caitlin finished her procedures, he'd gotten up, dazed and unsteady, and limped away against all advice to rest. That was when Caitlin had started crying, in her own quiet way, masked beneath the guise of cleaning up the area, washing her hands, washing the medical instruments. Cisco wordlessly stepped in to help her, similarly shell-shocked.
Iris had kept her distance as long as she dared. When she'd called her dad, reassuring him that Barry was alive; when she'd changed into different clothes to rid herself of the dirt and dust and blood from the rubble; when she'd run out of things with which to distract herself, then she finally decided to search the building for Barry.
This bathroom was hardly used, given its location so deep in the building, and Iris might have missed it had she not seen the light spilling out of its open door. She approached quietly, her muscles involuntarily tensing like they did whenever she was entering a potentially dangerous situation.
Barry was facing away from her, and even though he was in front of a mirror, he didn't see her—his head was bowed over the sink, his working hand planted on the side and shoulders hunched. The way his spine curved reminded Iris of how he'd looked when he'd been uncovered from the rubble. Arched over the little girl, bracing against whatever might bear down on them both, getting crushed beneath the weight of a building. A loose shirt covered the damage: the stitches, the layers of gauze, the deep red bruises, the cast that encased his shattered arm.
In the ten seconds Iris waited in the doorway, he didn't move an inch, not even when she gave a light knock. It was only when she stepped into the room itself, her heels too loud on the tile, that Barry stirred. She knew better than to touch him, especially not without warning, especially not now. The physical wounds on his back were one thing, but she knew from hard past experience that they were only part of the unconscious touch aversion in situations like these.
"Barry?" she whispered, venturing to break the ice that way instead.
At this, he lifted his head and met her eyes in the mirror.
The lower lids of his eyes were pink, and his whole face sagged. He met her gaze with desolation, misery, a pleading look that said, I don't want to do this anymore.
Without a word, Iris moved forward. She reached out a hand tentatively. He allowed her to place it on his shoulder, her touch light. His face didn't crumple, exactly, but it wilted deeper into defeat. His breath shuddered under her palm, and she softened.
"Do you feel like you can make it up the stairs?" Iris asked in a low voice.
His eyes drooped closed, but he nodded. Her grip dropped to his waist, and she slowly guided him away.
After a long, pained trip up the stairs, they finally made it to the cortex. They hobbled across the room, toward the recovery bay and the waiting bed. Caitlin, still betraying signs of her own breakdown, met Iris' eyes with alarm, but Iris shook her head. Caitlin relaxed and kept her distance, forlorn but understanding.
Getting Barry onto the bed was more challenging, and involved a fair amount of wincing from both parties involved. But, miraculously, they finally managed it. Barry sank into the flimsy mattress, face-down to prevent further agitation to his back, and Iris settled into a chair as close as she could get to the bed. Under normal circumstances, she would've liked to crawl onto the cot beside him, provide emotional support through physical closeness. She'd managed it in the past, even in spite of how tiny these STAR cots were. Right now, though, it didn't feel like the proper course of action. It was an instinct she felt in her bones.
Instead, she leaned forward and took one of Barry's hands in one of her own. With the other, she combed hair away from his glistening brow. His disorientation was fading into near catalepsy. Iris prayed he would go to sleep peacefully, and stay that way, until morning healed most of the wounds and catapulted him back into vivacity. He blinked at her, and she offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
"I don't want this," he said, and Iris' attempt at a smile took a decided hit. Her breath hitched, and it took her a moment to regain speech.
"I know," Iris said. "You've been through so much. I can't imagine."
"Don't want any of it," Barry repeated, mumbling now.
"Try going to sleep," Iris said. "I'm right here. You'll feel better in the morning, okay?"
He exhaled sharply, but closed his eyes. Iris traced light circles on his palm, the spot she'd been told would ease anxiety. There was no way to know for certain if it worked, but she kept it up until Barry's breathing evened out, and long after.
It was not actually evening when Barry passed out, so it was not actually morning when he woke. Iris knew that, because when she blinked awake at 5:43 in the morning, still resting her head awkwardly on the cot, Barry was nowhere to be seen. This fact alone made her sit up straight, heart thumping.
Upon a cautious venture into the cortex, Iris found that she was alone. The lights had been dimmed, and the last person to leave had done a fine job of making sure everything else had been given a rest. Even the computers were off—and they were perpetually kept active.
Instead of calling Caitlin or Cisco, as she likely should've done, Iris pulled out her phone and immediately called Barry. The Flash suit—albeit ruined—was still in the lab, meaning he hadn't taken it wherever he'd gone. And while that wasn't unusual for a day at work, it was also too early for him to be at work.
He picked up on the fourth ring, just when Iris was beginning to wonder if he'd left his phone behind as well.
"Iris."
"Hey," she replied. All at once she was very aware that she had no idea what she intended to say. "I just woke up. Are you alright?"
"Taking a break." Barry's voice sizzled, popped, through the phone line. "Might be a couple days. Don't worry."
He hung up before Iris could confirm that she was worrying, despite anything he said to the contrary. She held the phone up to her ear still, listening to the dead air.
It was only later that she'd see the international charges tacked on to her phone bill, a twenty-second call at 5:45 in the morning.
"…crews are still on-site following last week's Piper Street apartment complex collapse. Residents remain shaken, left without a home following what appears to be a freak metahuman attack, but many are thankful for their lives. The Flash is still missing, following an evacuation by Vibe. Vibe has since ignored our requests for comment.
"With us tonight we have a very special guest in the studio. Six-year-old Grace Parks was shielded from the falling building by the Flash, and she has a message for him tonight. Grace?"
As promised, it was four days before Barry showed back up at the apartment, his sudden presence one morning scaring Iris so badly that she nearly toppled down the stairs. He offered her a sheepish smile, and it was all the signal she needed to envelop him in a hug. She knew that all of his wounds were healed after such a relatively long amount of time, but she still exercised more restraint than usual.
She knew better than to ask about his time away. So did Caitlin and Cisco, when they saw him back in STAR Labs. They greeted him as usual, Cisco offering a soft "Good to see you, bud." Nobody mentioned anything when an alarm came and Barry made no move for the Flash suit, leaving Cisco to handle the threat alone.
After the meta had been safely locked away, Barry sat alone for a long while in the recovery bay, elbows up on the cot, face buried in his hands.
"I can't do it," he'd said when Iris had sat beside him. Even under her light questioning, he hadn't said a word more, and eventually she'd let him be.
That evening in the apartment, Iris kept the evening news on low while Barry made dinner. It was part of her nightly routine, practically required given her choice of profession. Tonight, she tuned out most of the national news, the breaking stories, in favor of listening to Barry putter about the kitchen. Steam whistled from a pot, a knife thunked against a cutting board, a can opener ground dully against metal.
The latter part of the newscast, near the end of the broadcast, was what caught her attention. Not because of what they were saying, but by what they were showing. Images of the ruined apartment building, the few piles of rubble that still remained.
Throwing a glance over her shoulder to ensure that Barry was busy, she turned up the volume a few clicks.
"…still missing, following an evacuation by Vibe. Vibe has since ignored our request for comment. With us tonight we have a very special guest in the studio. Six-year-old Grace Parks was shielded from the falling building by the Flash, and she has a message for him tonight. Grace?"
Grace Parks, round-faced and pink-cheeked and so vibrantly alive that only a six-year-old could be, faced the camera. She wore an earnest expression as she studied the camera lens, no doubt never having anticipated appearing on the news.
"I just wanna say," she began in her squeaky voice, "that Flash told me I was gonna be okay and now I'm okay. And I hope he's okay, too. I miss him." She glanced furtively off to the side, as if looking for confirmation that she was doing well. When she turned back, the corners of her mouth were downturned slightly. "Flash, if you're listening, I miss you. Thank you for saving me. You're my hero. And I wanted to say that. Thank you."
The feed cut back to the two news anchors, one of which was nodding sympathetically. "No doubt we all feel the same as little Grace—"
Some sixth sense caused Iris to angle her face back, and she was shocked to find Barry standing behind the couch, fixated on the TV. She quickly punched the mute button on the remote.
"Sorry, babe," she said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"It's alright," Barry said quietly. He lingered on the TV a moment longer, then leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "Dinner's ready."
Once, when they were kids, Iris had accidentally knocked over Barry's Lego Star Destroyer and sent hundreds of tiny pieces skittering across the floor. Through her tears, she'd apologized over and over, feeling she'd destroyed something precious, something that could never be put back together. But it can, Barry had told her. Staring at the seemingly infinite number of broken parts peppering the bedroom floor, Iris had asked How? And Barry had smiled reassuringly: One block at a time.
Iris panicked when she strolled into the empty cortex one afternoon and found the Flash suit gone and Barry's comms offline. A frantic call to Cisco revealed that No, he's not with me. No, I don't know where he is. Caitlin and I are at Jitters. Be there soon.
His definition of soon had evolved dramatically since learning to create intradimensional breaches, so he and Caitlin were there within a minute. By that time, Iris had flicked on the news, desperately in need of something to do.
"Okay, I need something of his that I can vibe on," Cisco said immediately, falling into stride as soon as he entered the room.
"His vitals all look fine," Caitlin chimed in. "Elevated heartrate, but…"
"He could just be out on a jog; he does that sometimes…"
"Guys," Iris cut in. "Look."
Cisco and Caitlin crowded beside her to look at the screen where the news was playing. It was again an aerial shot, the same shot of the ruined apartment complex, which had aired half a dozen times the past week This time, though, instead of footage of cleaning crews clearing concrete away, concrete was stacking up.
"—building it from the ground up. This is something we've never seen before, folks. Onlookers are gathering at the scene now—"
"He's re-building the apartment complex," Cisco said. "I can't freaking believe it—"
"How does he even know how to do that?" Caitlin asked.
"Really amazing," the newscaster continued. The camera cut to her, on the ground, the building stacking up behind her. "As you can see, a small crowd is beginning to form, many residents of the previous building…I think I speak for everyone when I say I can't believe my eyes…"
"We should go," Cisco said absently, fingers tangling in his own hair. "I mean, what if—"
"What if what?" Iris said. "He's not fighting a metahuman; he's playing architect and construction worker all at once. I don't think there's much we could do to help there."
So they watched, too dumbstruck to move, as the building took shape on the screen in front of them. The newscaster kept talking, but she couldn't add much—she was background noise to the impossibility behind her. Bricks stacked, glass gleamed, paint glistened. It wasn't clear how long they watched, but nobody moved. Not the news crew, not the onlookers, not the group in STAR Labs.
Then, all at once, it was complete. Barry skidded down the wheelchair ramp at the front of the building, clearly trying to catch his breath.
"And here he is, folks, the Flash himself."
The newscaster turned to look back at him. Barry saw the cameras, gave a tight smile, and tensed imperceptibly in the way Iris had come to learn meant he was preparing to run away.
But before he could, a small figure broke through the crowd to come face to face with him, unafraid of the sheer lightning power before her, unafraid of that masked face above her.
It was impossible to hear the conversation through the cameras, but Iris saw Barry's mouth form the word Grace as he knelt down in front of the girl.
Thank you, she mouthed back, then dove forward for a tight embrace. Barry returned the hug easily, perhaps clinging just as tightly. Life support. Iris recognized it as such. Even as she watched, Barry's mouth moved again, and though his face was partially obscured, she could have sworn he said No, thank you.
He appeared to let Grace dictate the length of the hug, for it was only when she pulled away that he made any move to stand. He stood straight now, even-keeled, strong. His customary salute at the crowd left the onlookers applauding, but he was gone before he could hear any of it.
When he slid into the cortex, his face was flushed, and sweat was flung from his hair when he ripped off the cowl.
"That was a lot of running," he said, collapsing into a wheeled chair and subsequently spinning out halfway across the room. "Sorry I turned off the comms. I had a lot of information in my brain. Couldn't really be distracted."
"Dare I ask…how?" Cisco said, gesturing at the still-running news report.
"I found the original building plans for the apartments, then speed-read a couple books on construction." He paused at the wall of bewildered expressions. "Okay, I read thirty-two books on construction. Is that crazy?"
"A little bit, yeah," Cisco squeaked. "I mean…dude."
"The information doesn't stay retained for long," Barry said. "Most of it's already gone. But I think it worked out. I made a few improvements."
"The wheelchair ramp was a nice touch," said Caitlin absently, distracted now by his vitals chart.
Barry shrugged, winced. Iris moved closer and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "How are you doing?" she asked, unsure of how far to press, how lightly to tread. His shoulders still tensed in exhaustion; she wasn't sure he'd ever pushed himself that far before.
But he looked up at her, and while that heaviness lingered as it often did, the brightness was back in his eyes. It was a fever brightness, a gleam born out of something so incredibly damaging. Yet something that he, as ever, illogically pursued.
Time slowed as he looked at her, and she thought that this must be what it was like for him when he tapped into that lightning power. He snaked one of his hands up to hold hers, and she understood.
"I'm gonna need a few minutes and a few calorie bars," Barry said, grinning at her before turning back to the rest of the group. "Then tell me where I can go next."
Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment below! (I'm going to try to be better about responding to them.) In addition to feedback, I'm always open for prompts, suggestions, hopes and dreams.
Till next time,
Penn