You wanna break somebody, don't you?
Standing in the blue-lit basement, Barry throws a punch at the bag. It doesn't flinch, doesn't stand down like he wants it to. In a calmer state of mind, he retrofitted the punching bag to hold up to high-impact, heavy-impact blows, but now, its indifference infuriates him. He lays into it, cursing the naïve version of himself that thought it would be a good idea to make it unbreakable.
You want it to shatter. You want it to hurt.
With a thunderous crack, his fist sinks into the bag hard enough to make the whole thing shiver. Finally. He winds his arm back, aiming for a clean blow and gets another teeth-ringing boom for his efforts. Emboldened, he throws himself back into the game, his movements slowing down as his body speeds up and the rest of the world comes to a standstill.
Outsiders call him a speedster, but in his own field of view, everything slows down. With backbreaking effort, he protects and serves the city, and they marvel at how little breath it costs him, but they don't see what happens in those Speed-hours, straining in anaerobic silence to get the job done before it kills him. They don't see the way he tortures himself reconstructing buildings brick-by-brick, refusing to take a real-time breath until it's done.
You give them every second, every waking moment, every iota of life you have, and the world is still fucking broken.
He rages in silence, breathing heavily but refusing to slow down. He doesn't know why he feels this stupid compulsion, day-in-and-day-out, to throw himself into the flames in the hope of saving somebody. Sanity regards him dismally, reminding him that everybody dies someday and he can't play God.
You're no God. You bleed too much.
Before disappearing into the darkness, he caught a glimpse of his face in the sunset-orange window, a deep black gash cutting across his left eye. Cable's invisible whip hit him hard, making contact the instant he slowed down. She'd known he was coming; she'd tapped into their wires. She'd felt his lightning approach and responded accordingly. He was an easy target, a lab rat rushing headlong into danger, and he was fast but even he couldn't outrun a direct, perfectly timed hit.
Staggered, he clung with dying animal ferocity to coherence, desperately trying to ignore the sudden sharp barbed-wire pain splitting him open from hip to brow. Fortuitously, the wound didn't bleed; even more fortuitously, the recoil from the blow was so powerful it knocked Cable out and off her feet. With admirable heroism, he trapped a howl deep in his chest and Flashed her back to STAR Labs, dumping her in the Cortex and disappearing in another burst of yellow lightning without pausing for breath.
He yanked the comms, Flashed back into untraceable civilian gear, and disappeared into the CCPD basement to break his knuckles on the speedster-proof bag nobody knew about.
But even now, his knuckles won't break. The Speed-enhanced bone and sinew hold up, no matter how hard he hits the bag. His arms tremble, sore and hot with pain, but he doesn't stop.
You gotta mean it. You gotta commit to hurting them, or they will break you in half before you can take a breath.
He thinks about Zoom and the way his back arched like a fucking tree snapping in half. One moment there was sensation, and then he was a ragdoll collapsing to the pavement, his legs just gone. He'd been too out of it to appreciate the damage, to respect the magnitude of the blow.
Aching to replicate it now, he slams his fists into the bag, over and over, waiting to hear the crack, to feel that earth-shattering arm slash across his spine. It's stuck on a loop, the way Zoom cut him down. Heat flares up in his lower back, and he knows he needs to sit back, to cool it, but the thought only makes a terrible laugh bubble up in his chest.
You can't keep anybody alive, can you? Turned Snart into a fucking hero and he died.
He slams his fists into the bag over and over and over, trying to make it understand his damage, to make it tear and bend and break in ways it isn't supposed to, because if he has to endure then so does it.
It's inanimate. It will never suffer. That's your job.
He crushes the rational voice, crushes the anguish into the smallest space he possibly can. There was a time he would have vocalized nearly any hurt. Nowadays, he knows that he can crush his responses in his chest, confining them to a broken pile of glass until the world is duly saved and he can find a place so far away no one hears him finally scream.
He doesn't make noise in front of them anymore because he cares about their feelings. He knows it hurts them, and he cares, about his family, about his friends, about strangers on the streets. He is going to literally care to death and it finally, finally splits a seam in the indestructible bag as he punches it so hard it rattles on its chain, cracking with thunder.
You're not going to win. All you're going to do is keep breaking and pretending that you're a hero for suffering.
There is no rest, he thinks, shaking, sweating and straining for breath as his fists finally slow down – speed up – collapsing on his knees in front of the bag.
Hanging his head, he reaches out and hugs the bag, entire body sore. There are a hundred aches he does not voice, wounds without visible scars, phantom pains, 'phantom,' like they aren't real, if it's in the mind how can it be real pain? His forehead presses against the bag; his breath comes quickly, raggedly, and he could not rise if the roof overhead collapsed. He's not sure how it hasn't, yet. It only makes his chest tight.
Look at you. What are you even doing?
Trying, he thinks, arms sinking, bruised knuckles settling on the stone floor. Tears trickle hotly down the right side of his face; they burn unshed in his left eye.
He's trying to save his friends, but Cisco died, Eddie died, Ronnie died, Caitlin died, Oliver died, they all died in Vandal's attack, hell, Dr. Wells died to him the day he found out he killed Barry's mother. He's trying to save his family, but Joe died, Wally died, Dad died, Mom died, again and again and again. He's even trying to save other metas, but Danton died, Bette died, Tony died, Farooq died, Hannibal died.
But he isn't blameless.
You've killed.
Al Rothstein. Ed Slick.
He clenches his fingers, recalling the indifference, the shock of indifference that it was over, that easily. He ended two lives without batting an eyelash. When push came to shove, he let his own doppelganger die.
And in due course, he became a monster capable of killing Iris, the love of his life, over and over and over and over, ad infinitum—
You didn't need to kill DeVoe to show them you were a monster. You're already a monster.
Gasping for breath, he doesn't move, eyes shut but still leaking tears. He just – he just wants to help, dammit, and he can't even do that. From day fucking one he couldn't do it, because he let that man die, he didn't rescue him, he could've Flashed into the fog and stopped him from crashing, somehow, he could have, somehow, he had this power and he couldn't protect people, what kind of hero was he?
And even when he helped, even when he did his job, there were casualties, metas locked up carelessly, gleefully, for days-weeks-months on end, like he'd never even heard of due process, of justice. Even when he wasn't wearing the blood-red suit, when he was Barry fucking Allen, there were still casualties. He ran his sterile little scans, bagged up evidence like it didn't belong to a human being, it was a cadaver now, what a clean word, cadaver – he put the puzzle pieces and typed up the reports, and he helped put dozens of people in cold little cages for the rest of their lives.
Had he eaten before Flashing down here, he knows he would throw up. As it stands, he shifts so he can wrap his arms around his knees, hugging them to his chest and groaning softly.
He misses his stupid little cage, misses getting up, getting food, getting time out in the cold sunlight and getting to play cards with the other inmates, before getting to go the fuck to sleep because he wasn't a citywide vigilante, no, he was just Barry Allen. He misses the guards and the chores, the stuff he hated (the strip searches, the showers, the hole), the stuff he never thought he'd think twice about (Sesame Street, gym time, flipping through old books for the sheer sensory change). He even misses carving out another notch on the wall, recording his days, his ability to survive.
He misses everything that wasn't this, this trapped-rat-straining-for-breath-far-below-anyone-who-could-hear-him.
You didn't even make it a month.
He tries to pull himself away from prison, to recall that he's free, he's free. He wasn't almost sold off in a metahuman trafficking scheme. He was fine. If he starts anguishing over the almosts, he'll never make it to tomorrow. His ledger is already too long, his real suffering a mile long. He doesn't get to grieve over almost. He doesn't get to feel anything but neutrally pleased it didn't happen, everything associated with it wasn't real.
The fear was. The fury was.
The fear is. The fury is.
Growling, low and animalistic, The Flash resurfaces and shoves himself to his feet. Barry looks around the small, dark, blue-lit room, at the punching bag beaten to within an inch of its life, and lets apathy seep into him. It doesn't matter that the abrasion slicing him from brow to hip still hurts like hell; it'll heal. He can't see out of his left eye, but he doesn't need to.
It'll heal.
Disappearing into the void, back up the stairwell, back to the land of the living, he passes no one and vanishes into the streets. It's dark, and late, and the open air is suffocating, huge in scope and overwhelming in complexity. He feels the panic rising again, more trapped than ever, no matter where you go you can never get away from this. He halts, so suddenly he nearly trips, retreating from the main street until his back hits an alley wall, aching to sink into it.
He can't – he can't do this, he can't do this –
He doesn't remember fumbling his phone out of his pocket or sending off the text, but he shakily replaces it in his pocket before a response can come in. He sinks to the pavement, the dirty, grimy street that people piss in, and tucks his arms over his head like he can protect himself that way, too small to see in the midnight-blue.
There is something kinetic between them, something extraordinary between them, because he doesn't tell her where he is, but she finds him. He doesn't move, can't bear to move, and she crouches next to him, asking urgently what's wrong, are you okay?, and he just shakes his head. He doesn't make a sound, can't make a sound, not around her, don't hurt them, but when she wraps her arms around him he can't suppress the silent sob that hiccups in his chest.
Reaching up to hold her elbow, he doesn't say anything, breathing shakily, aching for reprieve that isn't coming because it's never gonna stop.
Fisting a hand in his hair, he falls apart, right there in the alley, right where anyone could see him, but he's not The Flash, not without the suit, just his scars. Savitar was scarred, too, and he feels something awful form in his stomach at the thought that he might ever remind her of him.
How could you not? You are Savitar.
It burns in his blood, the thought that he will become a monster if he shows his scars, that if he ever gets hurt and doesn't heal again he won't ever be truly Barry again. It hurts. It hurts a lot, and he tries to stay hidden, to crush the emotion down, but he can't, releasing his grip and daring to lift his head a little. She releases him so he can unfold, and he slowly obliges, slowly turning his head to look at her.
He wants to say something, something – reassuring, normal, I'm not a monster, I'm still Barry, it'll heal – but when he looks at her, he doesn't see the fear, the horror, the repulsion he anticipates.
There's only softness in her eyes, affection and worry, and he feels something strangling him release him.
She cups the right side of his face, conscious of the tenderness on the left side where the lash arches across it, and leans forward, resting her forehead against his. He closes his eyes, so relieved it hurts.
"I'm sorry you're hurting," she murmurs, on behalf of everything, it seems. He doesn't open his eyes, breathing shallowly, scarcely daring to believe she's even real anymore. How can someone as good as Iris still exist?
In spite of you. In spite of Savitar.
He grimaces and pulls back. Heart in his throat, he looks at her, only half of his vision online. "Iris," he breathes, and can't find any other words, because Iris is all there is.
She encourages him to stand, and he does, feeling heavier and clumsier than usual. She steadies him with a hand on his waist. "Let's go home," she suggests, tucking under his arm, settling an arm around his waist.
He could run them, but he is alone when he runs, as alone as any human being can be in a universe unto themselves. So he nods, and turns his head to press a kiss to her temple first, lingering.
Home is a long walk home, but it's less cold with her at his side. It's more jarring with every step than it would be if he simply Flashed, but he almost welcomes the pain, the acknowledgment that he is sore and tired.
You're not invincible. Or inexhaustible.
Their new apartment is smaller and warmer for it. Barry loves it for how different it is from their old loft.
He sees himself in the bathroom mirror and halts, arrested by the sight. His left eye is bloodshot and red, but the angry black mark is serrated and huge, like an animal sliced him open from eye to hip. The scar disappears under the shirt, plain, pedestrian, unassuming, but he can feel the mark.
Iris gets her shoes off before turning to face him. He looks down reflexively, but she simply steps forward, taking his hand and squeezing it gently. "Hey. Look at me." He looks up, meeting her gaze, even though fully a fifth of his field of view is gone.
You don't need it.
"It's gonna be okay," she promises.
He nods once, a tear slipping down his right cheek. She reaches up and brushes it away. "Even though it's not okay now," she adds softly, and he has to swallow and look away, or he won't be able to contain the sheer anguish raging in his chest, an animal uncaged, an animal dying to be freed.
You don't deserve to be saved.
Looking right at her, visibly scarred but still full of affection for her, and his life, and everything in spite of it all – he dares to defy the terrible little voice in his head.
Yes, I do.
She slides her arms around his waist, and they hold each other there for a long time, his chin on her head, and it is not enough, and still everything he needs.