It's just some kid.
That's Terrence's first thought. His second is: This is somebody's kid. It makes the sight of Central City's finest breathing shallowly from the exposed basement a visceral sight. He isn't a myth or an abstraction. The Flash is a person, a young one at that. From a firefighter's perspective, it's more than the bright red suit that catches Terri's eye: there's water sloughing off in buckets towards the basement, threatening to flood.
"Hey, Lilah, gonna need you for a minute," Terri calls to his partner.
Twenty-nine, athletic, and just shy of five-four, Delilah gets in the harness. Terri can handle her weight, but he shouts for his buddies and Dan and Norton come running. Together, the three-man party lowers Lilah into the pit. Her feet splash down and the weight on the line ceases. With trained vigilance, Terri keeps a firm grip on the line. There's a jungle gym of collapsed granite pieces strewn across the floor like toys in a sandbox; nobody can say exactly what might lurk amid them. Every now and then you find that one residence with a previously unknown pet alligator.
Luckily, nothing serpentine lunges from the shadowy water. Lilah gets next to The Flash, dislodging an overlying boulder from his chest with efficient care. Terri sees The Flash's head turn towards her, eyes glowing golden. His breathing is deeper, but harsher; Terri can see panic setting in as Lilah lowers her voice, talking to him in a softer, civilian tone that Terri can't hear. She surreptitiously gets a rope around The Flash's waist, talking continuously, and The Flash twitches like he wants to stand but can't manage it. Lilah gets him there, gets him on his feet and Terri fishes, reeling her back in slowly, encouraging the now tied-down Flash to do the same. He could break the bond if he wanted to - rumor has it he can run through concrete walls as if they aren't there, so a standard rescue cable shouldn't be a challenge - but he's visibly struggling to stay conscious, breathing raggedly.
The standard paramedic training Terri has indicates at least one of his ribs might be broken, might have punctured a lung, coughing up fluid, but at midnight from a distance it's hard to say what the dark deleterious water - filling the basement like a bathtub - hides. They haul him in with as much care as they can spare, more concerned about getting him out of the water tomb than out painlessly. They don't have the luxury of stairs anymore - whole damn building came down as the fire blazed through it - but they do have ropes and a good old-fashioned pulley system.
Forty-two seconds, they've got him and Lilah on the ground, the latter unhooking the former from his harness. He convulses once, starting to struggle a little more as sinking eyelids flare, clinging to consciousness. "Easy, buddy," Terri advises as Lilah's supportive grip turns stabilizing, restraining on his shoulder. "You're gonna be fine."
It's a good thing Dan and Nort already have a leg each: The Flash twists suddenly, a full-body movement that makes Terri think of those nature documentaries with cheetahs bursting out of the gates. Pinned by three people, he fails to gain traction, unable to run. Like several an alligator they've unearthed, he thrashes and fights, panic switch flipped. The commotion draws a couple other firefighters - Gene, Sam - but Terri pays them no mind. Lilah, Dan, and Norton have The Flash effectively trapped between them. The fight doesn't last long; inside eight seconds, The Flash gives up and goes limp. Gene and Sam bring a backboard over; Terri crouches and gets a mask over The Flash's face. He twitches away, a last ounce of resistance flaring those eyes a dim orange before he looks right at Terri.
They get The Flash on the board, strapped down for his own safety, and carry him like soldiers across the grassy lawn. Despite the late hour, there are plenty of eyewitnesses on the streets - fires tend to draw crowds - but none of them interferes. Maybe they can't see the red suit; maybe they're simply too shocked to register what they're seeing. Terri knows the feeling; too many fires do not have happy endings.
They transfer him onto a gurney, passing the torch over to the EMTs. Quiescent, The Flash doesn't fight them; he could break free, but it'd be costly, too costly in his current state. Dan and Nort back off; Lilah does the same. Terri experiences a strange reluctance to leave the kid even though he knows he's in good hands. His gut tells him to call somebody about the kid, but there's no way to know who The Flash goes home to. The admonishment to say Take care of him feels flat and patronizing, but it sticks in his throat, keeping him from saying anything else.
In the end, he just takes one of those red gloved hands, clasps it firmly, and lets him go.
They work around the mask.
Jenny doesn't ask why, doesn't question the ethics of it: she just works, proceeding according to plan as the ambulance bulldozers down the dark streets. With Luna's assistance, they assess and stabilize him. The way The Flash's head lolls concerns Jenny enough to get a neck brace on him. He's placid until they succeed; as soon as the foam collar gets snug, his back arches clear off the gurney. She's glad they kept him strapped down; he'd be out of the van in a heartbeat if they hadn't.
Luna finds words: "You're okay, Flash." The phrase replays in Jenny's head: You're okay, Flash as they take measurements; You're okay, Flash as he coughs up blood and they put him on his side; You're okay, Flash as they pull up to the ambulance entrance and unload.
Their charge changes hands, and Jenny watches the paramedics wheel him away, half-wondering if anyone can hold him down for long enough to help. Godspeed, she thinks, retreating to the van.
Everything here moves fast.
Even so, it must seem slow to The Flash. The team - led by Andrea, assisted by Caleb, Sarah, and Morgan - proceeds with a fine-tuned familiarity that allows them to set aside their own personal shock at the sight of the red mask and work. They transfer him to a private room and exchange a brief look. Then Dr. Andrea Lott says, "His identity does not leave this building."
Morgan tenses anticipatorily, and the hitherto unresponsive Flash jerks when Andrea slips a hand around the cowl. It takes Caleb pinning him down by the shoulders to give Andrea a chance to slide the mask off.
Twenty-eight herself, Morgan's first thought is, He's young.
Her next thought is that he's very pale, eyes glassy with more than pain - shock is setting in. Morgan moves with trained precision to get the rest of the suit off with Caleb's help, leaving just his modesty intact. Even that, Morgan thinks, is a questionable claim: patients tend to dislike the exposure necessary for medical efficiency. They don't let him shiver long; a shock blanket appears and Caleb fans it out over The Flash. Working efficiently, Andrea and Sarah categorize the worst offenders, an oxygen mask and IV line quickly set up, a pulse monitor clipped into place.
Sarah moves on Andrea's command to debrief other staff members. The Flash seems to have given up the fight completely by the time they wheel him out of the room. He keeps his eyes shut, his chest rising and falling with obvious difficulty, and only flinches when they lift him up onto the x-ray table. It's hard to abandon him even for the minute it takes to snap pictures, afraid that he'll bolt, but Morgan needn't worry: he doesn't even try.
The results tell a short story: one of his cervical vertebrae is cracked; two ribs are fractured. To everyone's relief, neither lung is perforated. The blood, they confirm, is from biting the inside of his cheek. There's some bad bruising on his back from a not insubstantial fall - the debriefing consisted of fell at least twelve feet to the basement level, possibly farther - but it's the way he strains a little to sit up that shows just how human he is, bested by his own body, unrestrained.
They adjust the collar and wrap his chest to minimize discomfort. He'll be out of commission for a few weeks, but if he doesn't push himself, he'll be fine. They get him set up properly in his own room and run through a general physical, logging his blood type under a John Doe and getting basic readings from him.
Even the simplest measurements astonish. His heartrate climbs past the machine's limits, exceeding four-hundred-beats-per-minute. They treat for tachycardia, but the meds don't have a measurable effect. Aware that he'll go into cardiac arrest if they don't get his heartrate down, they sedate him. It takes a lot to slow him down, more than Morgan would dare give a non-metamorphosed human; his heartrate slows to a chest-heaving two-ninety. Eyes resting at half-mast, he blinks sluggishly at the ceiling and shivers. His fall is subtle but precipitous: his temperature crashes from a feverish 103 degrees Fahrenheit to a hypothermic 94.8. They feed him a warmed saline solution through the line and stack more blankets on him, removing the sedative from the queue. It's touch-and-go: one moment his skin is hot to the touch, the next icy, and still his expression doesn't change.
They run more tests for toxicity, for underlying causes, but find nothing to explain the extraordinary vital markers. Daring to presume his entry state was mostly normal and not a skewed baseline triggered by shock, they stand by, watching his heartrate flicker above three-twenty, three-forty, three-sixty, until it tips four-hundred and passes the limits of the machine. His temperature rebounds to 98.3 within ten minutes; his expression relaxes, going slack, eyes just barely open.
They have no contact list, no calling card to identify him, but they do have DNA tests. It would be easy to secure a sample and send it off for evaluation. Perhaps it is even the moral thing to do: no matter how well-liked The Flash is, he's still a vigilante. But doctor-patient confidentiality provides a nice guise of redacted innocence; they needn't turn him in unless he possesses a direct threat to someone else. Docile and in pain, he possesses only a threat to his own health, should they set him free.
Ten minutes, an hour later, there's trouble: word-of-mouth reveals that a cop is at the receptionist's desk demanding to see The Flash. Morgan feels a protective and irrational urge to lock the door to The Flash's room, but it's not her judgment to make.
Unexpectedly, The Flash breathes, "Let him ... let him in."
Morgan stares; Andrea straightens her shoulders and sends Caleb out to relay the order. In less than a minute, the ruse of privacy is over: the cop is admitted and led back to the room by Caleb. But instead of cuffing The Flash, the cop steps forward and embraces him.
Morgan feels a mixture of shock without surprise at the gesture: it's both the opposite of what she thought would happen and exactly what she expected. The cop talks softly and Morgan doesn't strain to hear him, cognizant of The Flash rasping out the same response, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay. With his forehead to The Flash's, tears running down the latter's face, the image is strikingly paternal. If The Flash had a contact list, Morgan realizes, this is the person he would call. A formerly gloved hand grips the cop's elbow tightly, begging him not to leave.
Sarah and Caleb walk; Andrea and Morgan alone linger. Then Andrea looks at her and Morgan bows her head in the slightest nod.
With one last glance at the cop and the vigilante, Morgan departs.
It takes a few minutes to clear his presence with the doctor, but eventually she gives them the room.
Joe can't speak for a long moment, overcome with gratitude and pity. "I'm sorry," he says, but Barry squeezes his elbow.
"Don't be," he rasps.
"Singh knows," he reminds, "this won't go public."
Barry squeezes his elbow again wordlessly. "It's okay." He doesn't sit up, and Joe can see how tired he is, drop-dead exhausted. "I'm tired," he admits out loud, eyelids fluttering, eyes bloodshot. "Can I sleep?"
It hurts that he has to ask, that he forced himself to stay awake because he couldn't dare be unaware, and still they unmasked him; fury and anguish war for dominance in Joe's mind, but he finds he has no strength nor time for either. All his focus rests on Barry. Aware that he has a broken neck - a cracked neck, as if Joe's stomach hadn't plunged through the floor at the diagnosis, even though the latter meant recovery was a real option - Joe cups his face in one hand and assures, "I've got you."
Barry sighs and closes his eyes, out-like-that, and Joe strokes his cheek for a moment longer before stepping back to grab a chair. Before Barry can notice his absence, he sits down and takes Barry's right hand in both of his and squeezes it gently. He gets no response but Barry's steady, even breathing. It makes him think of the coma-days, back when there was no recovery date in sight, when there wasn't even a solid chance he would ever wake up again, and every passing day diminished the likelihood of success. But Barry woke up, and he has to hope that he will do so again.
He has to hope.
As promised, word never gets out.
Even though it's his least favorite place in the world, Barry stays in the hospital to recover; there's simply no easy way to get him home without drawing undue attention. To his relief, he heals fast: within a day, he's well enough to stand. From that moment on, no one even tries to stop him from leaving. He is simply there and gone one moment, leaving only a breeze and a few startled staffers behind him.
He does take another day to rest, grateful that it's the weekend - no one expects him at work - and equally grateful to be in his own home. Joe leaves him with Iris at his apartment with stern orders to call if anything happens. Barry salutes and sinks into the sheets, out almost instantly. Sitting beside him, Iris works while he sleeps, there for him, like his city is there, like his dreams are there, sprawled out as they are, big grassy fields where he can bury the stress of the last two days, unbounded and free.
There comes a time for repayment: the fire The Flash puts out to save the lives of six trapped fighters; the car crash casualties curbed for evaluation by incoming EMTs; the mugging-gone-wrong victim ferried to the hospital, faster than the fleetest ambulance, arriving in time to save her life.
Maybe no one knows where the lines are and who dares to cross them, but they know one thing:
Central City looks after The Flash, and The Flash looks after Central City.