He knew he was innocent.
He also knew from past experience that the truth did not always matter in the court of law.
Most of the times, the guilty got the sentences their actions had earned them,
but he was also painfully aware that innocents - too many - were convicted on false grounds.
He had lost his father that way, with his mother murdered by the hand of a third party that to him remained unknown.
It wasn't through a lack of trying on his part, though.
Bartholomew had worked days and nights to find the truth that could get his father's conviction overturned. No such luck.
To make matters worse, his father, his kindhearted and innocent father, had died in prison.
Nobody had believed in Henry Allen, nobody except for Barry.
He couldn't imagine the pain his father must have felt, to be surrounded by people who thought him to be a merciless wife-killer.
And now, it would seem, the law was done with him as well.
His father had spent the last 16 years in Iron Heights penitentiary.
The evidence against him had been circumstantial, yet had led to a conviction.
Nobody had been interested to listen to Barry's story of what had really happened that night, thinking he was only trying to cover for his father, and the evidence against Barry now was damning.
So what hope did he have to be found innocent on his upcoming trial? It appeared to him his only way out of it was to tell the court about his night job as the Red Streak. He would be cleared of all charges, for sure.
After all, he wasn't planning on ending up like his old man. He wouldn't back down. Not now, not ever.
The lives of his friends and family, though, would always be in danger if it became common knowledge that Barry Allen and The Flash was one and the same person. More so than unusual, anyway. So the question still remained;
Would he be willing to compromise their safety for the sake of his freedom? Was his reputation more important to him?
The opinion of strangers mattered very little. They didn't know him, so why care?
No matter how long he thought about it, the answer was clear as day to him. He knew what he had to do.
.
.
Nothing had prepared him for the seemingly dead body lying on his carpet, though.
If the man hadn't been on the phone just now, rudely hanging up on him, Barry would've thought DeVoe to have been stabbed to death for real. Before he had time to think of what he was going to do, he could hear knocking at the door.
" Allen! CCPD. Open up!" The deep voice ordered him. CCPD? What were they doing here? The frantic knocking changed into a loud banging.
Oh, this was bad. He could just imagine how it all would appear to his colleagues were they to see him.
His first instinct was to run. He couldn't stay at his loft, not with the police there, not with him standing over the abandoned cadaver of DeVoe.
Before giving him the choice to open the door on his own accord, they were breaking it off its hinges.
Small threads of lightning crackled in the air around him, his inner being begging him to make a run for it. Run far away like he'd always done.
Barry's gaze settled on the photograph of him and Iris, the picture taken the day before they had finally said their "I do's".
They both grinned happily at him, blissfully unaware of the future event that would force them apart.
Try as he might, he couldn't leave Iris for a life on the run. He couldn't do that to her.
He actually had to say the words out loud to convince himself to stay, the sound of his voice a whispered breath; "Don't run."
In that same moment, the front door finally gave in to the pressure and broke into two uneven parts.
Several armed men in police uniforms ran inside, spreading out to to search through the apartment.
It was ironic that it was Barry's own boss at CCPD that arrested him.
Singh had barely been taken two steps inside, as he had asked Barry to keep his hands where he could see them, before he noticed the body.
The very bloody, very immobile body with a bloodstained knife lying next to it.
Walking around the counter, David Singh stopped to stare, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Turning around, he walked over to Barry, drawing out the heavy handcuffs while placing one of the man's arms behind his back.
"Barry Allen," he said, the regret in his voice evident, as the handcuffs was fastened around Barry's wrists.
"You're under arrest for the murder of Clifford DeVoe."
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So, here he was now, sitting in an interview room at the wrong end of the table.
He had been through a lot during these last three years, and despite of it all he could have never foreseen this.
It didn't feel right, and had it not been for the exasperated expression in his boss' face, Barry would've thought it all to be a very bizarre dream.
"Okay, Allen," Singh said for the third time that night, his patience running thin. "Why don't you go over your story again for me."
'Oh, I don't know, why don't you go and have your ears checked,' the younger man thought to himself, though wisely kept his mouth shut.
Sing tried to plead with him, to get him to speak to his defense other than just the obvious 'I'm innocent' line that nobody else on the force seemed willing to believe.
While the officers standing guard didn't voice their opinion, the poorly concealed contempt in their eyes spoke volume. He was on his own.
"Please, Allen." Those two words didn't matter. He couldn't tell his boss the truth, and he din't feel like lying to the man either. "Barry."
Oh, that one hurt. Singh had never called him by his first name before, so why did he have to do it now with a worried expression over his face? It was so not fair.
"Well, what do you want me to say," Barry asked dejectedly. "I've little to hope for at this point."
The interview/interrogation didn't last for more than ten minutes after that, and Chief Singh saw no other alternative than to book him.
Fingerprints and mugshot already taken care of, Barry found himself behind a locked door with thick steel bars.
The cell wasn't much bigger than the interview room had been,containing nothing but bare walls and a bench, but at least he didn't need to share it.
In fact, he was the only guy in the section.
"Fuck," he cursed to himself, holding his head between his hands. There really was no way out of this mess, was there?
.
Being a CSI, his arrest was a big deal, more so than the case of a "dirty cop caught" should've been.
His cell was the only place he could run from the judging looks he got from people who barely even knew his name.
Traitor. Murderer. No good scumbag. Like father like son!
The unspoken accusations in their eyes hurled at him, and what really killed him was that his friends wouldn't talk to him.
He had tried to get in touch with Team Flash after his arrest, but to no avail.
When they'd heard his voice on the other line, they'd hung up. If Barry would've thought anyone to be willing to believe his story, it would be them.
It seemed he had just been full of himself. Even Singh had wanted to listen, so why wouldn't his friends, if he even could call them that anymore.
Friends wouldn't abandon each other.
He was thankful the darkness of the night shielded his face from the surveillance camera installed outside of his cell, as wet tears stained his cheeks.
With the first day of his trial coming up the following morning, last thing he wanted was to have his meltdown recorded.
The night seemed to drag on forever out of spite.
It felt surreal, being escorted out of his cell that morning, dressed up in a nice suit with a matching necktie.
The light color of the suit had probably been chosen to enhance his youthful appearance and make him seem less sinister. With a murder charge looming over his head, Barry needed all the help he could get.
Entering the courtroom, he pointedly kept his gaze straight ahead, never acknowledging the presence of his wife or father-in-law, despite knowing they were there.
So was his friends, of course, although Barry strongly suspected they were there to support Iris and Joe, not him.
Which was fine, in all fairness he couldn't blame them. It was common knowledge that he had 'bothered' DeVoe just a few weeks before his death, so it wasn't that much of a stretch to believe he'd lost his temper and stabbed the man.
On the other hand, his friends should know better, so Barry decided then and there that he'd be angry with them for just a while longer.
He had done nothing wrong, it wasn't he who should apologize.
He was done with that bullshit. He was done with being the bigger man.
It wasn't as hard to listen to the prosecutor making his case as Barry had first thought.
At least in the beginning, it was rather easy to keep up appearances...
.
"He used a wedding gift as a murder weapon." The theatrical pause costing them five seconds was very much necessary to get the point across.
That is what attorneys did after all. They were actors on a stage. "That is a special kind of evil". Oh, he was good, all right.
If there had been anybody among the jury on his side before, the prosecutor had turned them against him by that choice of wording.
They all thought him to be a cold-hearted man. An unfeeling monster.
Hiding his trembling hands under the table, Barry couldn't keep his gaze focused on the prosecutor any longer.
With downcast eyes, the blank expression on his face shielded his sadness away from prying eyes.
Without meaning to it seemed to prove the prosecutor's point; not even the idea of choosing a wedding gift to commit a murder fazed him.
He was apparently that unmoved. Not for the first time that morning, Barry wished his father to be alive.
His father had been the only person in his life so far that had known how this felt like.
How it felt like to be abandoned and resented by friends and strangers alike.
Slandered and vilified. How it felt like to be utterly alone. He wanted, no, needed support from someone who understood.
Had Barry been alone in the room, he was sure he would've cried. There were too many hard stares on him for that, though.
Too many judging eyes. He felt like he couldn't breathe.
Barely able to pay attention to what was being said, he kept trying to get his breathing under control.
If he was going down today, he wasn't going to do so with tears and snot in his face. His pride wouldn't allow it.
His expression staying the same for the whole ordeal right up to the point where Cecile was trying to emphasize his personality's good qualities such as being 'considerate' (upstanding being her exact word) and let's not forget 'dependable'.
Dependability is a nice quality to have indeed, and what better way to assure you of a person's dependability than having them walk out on their own trial. No, that honestly did happen.
As Murphy's law would have it, right in that moment where Cecile finally got her chance to speak on Barry's behalf, his cellphone was buzzing, alerting him of a new meta wreaking havoc upon the city.
While he did tell the judge honestly that somebody needed him before walking out of the courtroom, he was positive that wouldn't be earning him any points.
Not every day a defendant would show so little interest in his own trial that he'd actually walk out when they'd reached the ending statements. Actually, Barry thought he might be the first in Central City's history to have done that.
If only he could've told them the reason why. It wouldn't have made things better for anybody, but a whole lot easier.
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The End
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AN: This is the draft of the first chapter I'm currently writing (thus unposted) on my AO3 account "TaligenWeno".
Didn't plan on posting this story here, but I changed my mind.
Will keep it as a one-shot on this site, though the story will have about 2-3 chapters on AO3. Possibly a longer 1st chapter too. Only time will tell.