"What."
The image of Nora Allen smiled serenely at him. You'd think that after close to a hundred thousand years of doing this, Barry would see the Speed Force as something other than his mother.
"You're going back in time." she reiterated, in a far, far more cheerful tone than Barry is comfortable with.
"But-"
"I know sweetheart, I know." Barry groans and buries his face into his hands.
"How. Why."
You see, it's like this: Barry is immortal. And ageless.
Not by choice, obviously. But speedsters are long-lived, and Barry is the most powerful speedster in the multiverse, the champion of the Speed Force. He can be killed – but he can't die. It was only after almost everyone he knew and loved died while he stayed the same did he have a major freak out and started angsting about it.
These days, he's long over it. Of course, he'll feel the occasional pang of hurt whenever something reminds him of Iris, Joe, Wally, Cisco, Caitlin, etc., but there's nothing he can do about it, so he just continues living. It's not a complete hell, being a constant in an ever-changing world. It's not like he's the only one.
Oliver and Kara are in the same boat. Oliver's path to ageless immortality was decidedly involuntary in an entirely different way, involving some combination of the Lazarus Pit, space voodoo, and the Helmet of Fate. When he found out, he coped considerably better, because watching everyone around him die was a familiar concept and Oliver was always better at detaching himself from a situation than any other hero had ever known. As for Kara – Kryptonian. Enough said.
Kara ditched Earth-38 somewhere around her second century and aside from occasional visits to Kal and J'onn and M'gann. Said she preferred things on Earth-1 more. Barry speculates she just liked Big Belly Burger, which hostilely took over all food production on the planet during Barry's third century.
In any case, Barry, Oliver, and Kara have been immortal bros for over one hundred thousand years, and like all immortals in fiction, have had their morality take a sharp downward plummet. They've filled their time doing all sorts of things, things that they're younger, more innocent selves (for a given value of innocent, in Oliver's case) would have disapproved of.
Barry, of course, began sciencing. With occasional dips into business, because S.T.A.R. Labs now rules the world. One would expect unethical forays into the unknown would potentially yield catastrophic consequences, but besides the occasional explosion and mass outbreak, Barry's negative impact on the world is relatively negligible.
Kara becomes a media goddess and just with a swipe of her hand can cause civilizations to fall. Barry and Oliver would know – she's done it more times than they can count. Kara's ability to draw out and twist the truth is unrivalled and unparalleled, and she is terrifying in ways Supergirl never has and never will be. She makes Cat Grant look like a cute, itsy bitsy kitten that could hardly harm a fly.
Oliver is the worst, but that's only to be expected – he's always had looser morals than most superheroes. He starts a few justice-driven orders a la League of Assassins style, which have merged to become a super-secret-Illuminati-esque Society that has endured for ten thousand years. The ever-rotating leadership is under the belief that they are the true rulers of the world. Oliver doesn't have the heart to tell them otherwise, mainly because he's also starting businesses and turning them into mega-corporations and playing politics, because watching those blood suckers scramble about never gets old.
Occasionally the Legends pop in, all of whom all three consciously avoid because those assholes screw up time more than Barry ever has, and they know better than they did when the Legends were contemporaries and not distant memories. But other than that, life is swell as it can be for three eternally living former superheroes.
Until now, apparently.
"The multiverse is ending."
"So? Everything dies."
"Yes, and that's why you're going back. Or going forward, so to say."
"You're not making sense. "
"When the multiverse ends, it is reborn. And everything repeats. This has been happening, ad infinitum, and will continue happen. This time, however, your spirit is immortal. So is Oliver and Kara's. So, to stabilize this universe, you and they will be going forward to a specific set point in the timeline and merge with your past selves. You'll have all your knowledge and abilities – mental, physical and metaphysical."
"That makes no sense."
"It's not supposed to. Just accept it and move on."
Cue obligatory moan.
Barry returns from the Speed Force and gives the 411 to Oliver and Kara.
Then the world ends.
Oliver Queen is the first to wake up.
He wakes up in a hospital bed, in a primitive time, with a nurse jotting down some notes beside him. A quick inquiry later, and he learns it is just a week after he was rescued from Lian Yu. Today, his mother will arrive to pick him up and drive him back to the Queens' old mansion.
Oliver smiles.
About a month later, Starling City is in chaos. And not the violent kind.
A week after Oliver's reunion with his family, Malcolm Merlyn is dead. Arrow through the heart. Rather than mourning that, people are in an uproar when a cache of documents and recordings are unearthed and reveal Merlyn's plan to level the Glades. Tommy Merlyn is left aghast at his father's evil plans, promptly disavows him, and dedicates Merlyn Global to genuine humanitarian efforts. Rather than public derision, Moira Queen is held in a sympathetic light when it's revealed that Malcolm murdered her husband Robert and coerced her into helping him by threatening her daughter Thea and her new husband, Walter Steele.
Malcolm is not the only one to suffer disgrace. The Bolt administration collapses after anonymous sources send in evidence of corruption to the media. Of course, everyone already knew the local government was filled with crooks, but the proof is even more overwhelming than what people initially believed. It isn't long before the resignations start piling up.
Throughout the entire city, scandal after scandal arises, affecting the government, the police, the numerous business headquartered here – all in all, Starling City's elite.
Justin Claybourne is found murdered in his home. An investigation points to his bastard son Simon Morrison being the culprit. When the police came to arrest him, he broke into hysterical laughter, admitting to the crime, citing his father's decision to disown him. At the court proceedings, he is declared insane and promptly interred into a mental asylum.
Once-revered Alderman Sebastian Blood is taken into custody after new evidence is uncovered regarding the death of his father. Upon questioning his aunt, they find that she claims to be his mother and that he killed his father. An investigation is immediately launched.
The former Vice-President of Stellemoore International, Isabel Rochev, is indicted on embezzling charges and is arrested. A raid on her home unearths a shrine to the deceased Robert Queen, complete with disturbing imagery involving desecration of the other members of the Queen family.
Slade Wilson is plotting. Just a month ago, Oliver Queen was revealed to be alive, and the Mirakuru had taken hold. After slaughtering an entire ASIS facility and abandoning his son Joe, Slade ditched Australia, and was now working as mercenary-for-hire, while spending his free time studying his enemy and his enemy's past.
Or at least he was, until one Oliver Queen snuck up on him and jammed a needle filled with the Mirakuru cure into his neck.
Benefits of living over a hundred thousand years, and spending most of it as Barry Allen's best friend.
Nanda Parbat is in chaos. And this time, it is the violent kind.
A member of the League was murdered. Evidence indicates it was at the hands of local persona non-grata, Talia al Ghul. Talia hears of this hearsay, and returns home to plead her case.
Cue H.I.V.E.
Oliver stares at the wreckage, filled with smoldering bodies, including the deceased Ra's al Ghul, slayed in tandem with his former rival, Damien Darhk. Talia's broken, and lifeless body is some ways away.
Beside him are Nyssa, Sara, and Maseo, who are all watching with wide eyes. Andy Diggle is off to the side, knocked out and sufficiently restrained with rope.
"Well that's done." Oliver states jovially. "Let's head on home, guys." he beckons them.
Quentin and Laurel Lance were initially bitter at the returning Oliver, until he showed up one day with Sara and told them that she had been hiding away from home and forced him not to tell them where she was. Oliver promptly disagreed, and after some plotting, forcibly brought her back, and with her new girlfriend too. After that, their anger turned elsewhere. He then invited them for brunch at the Queen mansion, to celebrate both Sara's return and Laurel's ascension to Star(ling) City's district attorney. The grateful Lances happily, if confusingly, accepted.
Felicity Smoak would've continued to languish in Queen Consolidated's I.T. department for the near future, had Oliver Queen not promptly promoted her to run their Applied Sciences division, which was now being moved to Coast City. She'd be moving there within a month to overlook construction and applications.
John Diggle woke up to his thought-to-be-dead brother, unconscious and tied up, on his doorstep, complete with a note detailing what Andy had been up to for the last two years. He calls over his sister-in-law Carly, instructing her to leave her son behind with a sitter, for a much-needed talk.
Thea Queen is forced into rehab by her newly-returned brother. Initially resentful, she changes her tune when she meets Sin and (more tellingly) Roy Harper there.
A.R.G.U.S. is shut down after the death of Amanda Waller and an expose of her less-than-ethical actions hit the desk of the President, with the presiding threat of releasing the information to the public. Lyla Michaels is relieved of her duty, moves to Star(ling) City, and runs in to her ex-husband John Diggle, who asks for her help in sorting out his newly-revived brother.
They're re-married about a month later.
Helena Bertinelli is briefly sated when her father's empire falls apart in a single night at the hands of a mysterious hooded vigilante. She changes her tune when evidence falls into the lap SCPD revealing her hand in the murders of several of her father's enforcers.
The Triad and the Bratva are both forced to leave Star(ling) City. It isn't exactly clear why, but it may have to do with the sudden uprising of gang politics in their home countries.
The mysterious hooded vigilante murders the infamous drug dealer known as the Count, and a bunch of other criminals, such as enforcer Ricardo Diaz, hacktivist Cayden James, hitman Mr. Blank, serial killer Barton Mathis, and the Clock King. He is lauded as a hero and decried as a villain. It seems he doesn't care.
Maseo Yamashiro is reunited with his wife Tatsu and forced to go to counseling for his suicidal behavior.
Anna Loring becomes the new Mayor of Star(ling) City and renames it Star City. Her first major project is a revitalization of Star City's transit system, including the reopening of the subway. Her husband Ray Palmer continues his work on the A.T.O.M. suit and gets an anonymous donation from Queen Consolidated to aid his research.
Oliver Queen elects to continue the education he had neglected prior to the sinking of the Queen's Gambit, double majoring in political science and business with a minor in English. He spends his free time mending bridges with his family and his friends, specifically Laurel and Tommy.
They mysterious hooded vigilante continues patrolling the streets at night. Eventually, the media names him 'Green Arrow' and he becomes a folk hero to the less-privileged citizens of Star City. The mysterious hooded vigilante still cares nothing for his reputation, though he does take a shine to the name and the free food.
Barry Allen sits up.
Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow start frantically moving about, trying to get him to calm down…
…except he's not freaking out.
Harrison Wells, a.k.a. Eobard Thawne, blinks at the scene.
Interesting.
About a month later, Harribard no longer finds Barry's unperturbed demeanor interesting. It may be because Wellsothawne is dead.
Harrison Wells is exposed to the public as a sick figure who murdered Nora Allen, framed her husband for it, and spent the following years stalking Barry Allen, until he intentionally exploded his own project to see the effects the dark matter would have on the populace of Central City. They would have lynched him alive, if he hadn't died in a boating accident with college professor Clifford DeVoe, whose wife Marlize commits suicide soon afterwards. Oddly, no one questions why DeVoe was on the boat to begin with (or why Wells even owned a boat, considering that he was a notorious workaholic), but both are soon forgotten in the wake of Central City's social upheaval.
Professor Martin Stein is found alive, along with the head engineer of the Particle Accelerator, Ronnie Raymond, after being unfused by the mysterious speeding vigilante. Martin reunites with his wife Clarissa, Ronnie marries his fiancée Caitlin, and the two couples go honeymooning in Italy. Afterwards, both Ronnie and Caitlin join the reborn S.T.A.R. Labs.
Cisco Ramon becomes a top scientist at the newly reopened S.T.A.R. Labs. After discovering he can control the vibrational energy between worlds, he starts an entirely new field of study, and recruits many new young, eager minds to aid him. Among them is graduate student Tracy Brand.
Leonard Snart, Lisa Snart, and Mick Rory are captured by the mysterious speeding vigilante and interred at Iron Heights. There, they are forcibly recruited into a secret black ops force by the federal government. After many years of service, they are eventually released and use the money from their severance pay to start a legitimate security company.
Lewis Snart breaks out while they're still serving, only to be killed by the Green Arrow as a favor to the mysterious speeding vigilante. His children visit his grave and vandalize it. They make a yearly tradition out of it.
The newly reborn S.T.A.R. Labs starts cranking out anti-metahuman technology in record time, and one of their first achievements is the establishment of the metahuman wing in Iron Heights. The Mardon brothers are the first inmates, placed on death row after trying to destroy Central City.
Shawna Baez serves a few years before being released due to good behavior. She later joins the Snarts and Rory in their new security company. Her ex-boyfriend appears at one point to win her back. She promptly tips off the police, who arrest him.
Hartley Rathaway does a hostile takeover of his family's company after amassing a fortune on his sonic technology. He later forms a partnership with Mercury Labs, and together they compete with the newly reborn S.T.A.R. Labs for many years, accelerating scientific and technologic advancement to new heights.
Jesse James escapes from his cell at Iron Heights thanks to the work of his bastard son, Axel Walker. They are promptly captured by the mysterious speeding vigilante and now share a cell together in the metahuman wing. Everyone is annoyed by their terrible, out-of-tune, singing.
The evil speedster Zoom shows up at one point. The mysterious speeding vigilante quickly defeats him, drains him of his speed, and exposes his true identity as Jay Garrick / Hunter Zolomon to the public of Earth-2. He dies in prison a year later due his overdosing of the Velocity drug. His metahuman army is quickly rounded up by the mysterious speeding vigilante of Earth-1 and either executed or imprisoned soon afterwards.
After Harrison Wells is exposed, Henry Allen is released from Iron Heights and given massive financial compensation for his wrongful imprisonment. He reunites with his son Barry, and spends a few months in the countryside finding himself before returning to Central City and starting a business by opening a new bar.
Joe West learns of his ex-wife's Francine's impending death and of his son, Wally. He quickly takes a long leave of absence to join them. After Francine's death, he returns to Central City and rejoins the force, with Wally now living with him.
Iris West becomes an investigative journalist and joins CCPN. She and Eddie Thawne date for a time, eventually getting engaged. However, the relationship falls apart due to differing life goals, and they break up, with Eddie moving to Coast City for a promotion. Iris later starts dating her best friend, Barry Allen.
Barry Allen inherits S.T.A.R. Labs upon the death of Harrison Wells and reopens it, becoming the head scientist (wrangler), after quitting his job as a CSI at the CCPD. In the meantime, he also continues his education, getting doctorates in both Chemistry and Physics. He begins a relationship with his best friend Iris West.
The mysterious speeding vigilante is renamed 'The Flash' and becomes Central City's mascot. The mysterious speeding vigilante is flattered, until they rename the city's football team after him.
Kara Danvers, a.k.a. Kara Zor-El wakes up.
She smiles.
Supergirl makes her debut later that night.
The Fort Rozz escapees are soon confronted by a pissed off Superman, and cleaned out in record time. Indigo's physical form is destroyed, all the prisoners are either killed or carted off to the D.E.O. to be imprisoned. Kara makes weekly visits to her Aunt Astra, who grows an appreciation for her niece's favorite donuts.
Lillian Luthor's anti-alien actions are exposed to the world at large and she joins her son Lex Luthor in prison. Hank Henshaw, a.k.a. Cyborg Superman, dies in the ensuing firefight to take her in. Jeremiah Danvers reunites with his wife. They renew their vows in a small ceremony in Midvale.
Samantha Arias begins having strange dreams of alternate version of herself named Reign – which promptly end after she drinks water from a well in one of those dreams at the advice of a mysterious looking apparition that bears a resemblance to Supergirl. Life goes blissfully on for her and her daughter, Ruby, and the rest of the world never learns just what kind of bullet they dodged there.
Cat Grant promotes James Olsen to head of CatCo. and takes a leave of absence to "find herself." She becomes the White House's press secretary and reunites with her firstborn son.
Winn Schott Jr. quits CatCo. and joins the D.E.O. as their tech specialist. James Olsen becomes also joins the D.E.O. as a part-time agent and uses his knew ownership of CatCo. to manipulate the media from less savory depictions of aliens.
Alex Danvers comes to the realization that she is gay and starts dating. Her first relationship with Maggie Sawyer starts off amicably, until they are forced to break it off due to Alex wanting children.
J'onn J'onzz exposes himself as a Martian and becomes National City's second superhero, the Martian Manhunter. On a trip to Mars, he rescues and reunites with his father, and the two reside peacefully together on Earth.
Lena Luthor takes over L-Corp. They become the Earth-38 equivalent of S.T.A.R. Labs and buy out all their competitors, among them a man named Morgan Edge. Lena flounces her success in her mother's face, and then rubs salt in the wound by announcing her support for the alien population on Earth – particularly, Supergirl.
Mon-El's ship finally leaves the Well of Stars and arrives to Earth with little fanfare. Kara then throws it into the future, because she no longer has conventional morality and knows Irma can straighten him out better than she can.
Kara visits Argo.
A week later, the Daughters of Juru are exposed, arrested, tried, and executed.
Alura uses her connection with her A.I. to keep contact with her daughter and sister. Astra promises to visit once her sentence is complete. She also promises to bring donuts with her.
Kara rises from her lowly position of personal assistant to the top reporter of CatCo. She meets Lena Luthor, they become best friends, and plot to (metaphorically) take over the world. It is terrifying.
Supergirl continues saving the world, and life goes on.
Epilogue:
"Nazis?" Oliver asks as the Earth-Xers barge into the church.
Barry and Kara sigh.
"Nazis."
Had this sitting on my hard drive for a while. I figure I'd finish it and post it.
It's nothing serious – just a crackstastic take on your normal peggy sue story. As far as pairings go, Barry/Iris is confirmed. I left it to vague as to whether Oliver ended up with Laurel or Felicity deliberately, though truthfully, my headcanon is that he ended up with Laurel. Karamel is a no go; make no mistake, Kara still loves Mon-El, but it's been millenia since he died and she's moved on. And since she doesn't want to deal with the Daxamite Invasion, she just decided to cut the middleman and send him to the future.
And they all lived happily ever after.