Chapter 18: Run

Barry sprinted off northwards, running, he needed the time and space. Bruce was a good friend, but sometimes he could be overbearing and right now Barry needed to be alone. He thought about what Deathstroke had said, and he suspected he knew what he was getting at, but how that could've happened he did not know. He would have felt it if Thawne had left the Speedforce, he'd set it up in such a way that the man's prison would alert him to that fact. But then Thawne had come back from the dead before, multiple times, so who knew what the fuck was going on.

When he got to the right point, the portal opened and he ran through it. He ignored the visions that always came when he did this, and kept going, ignoring the voices and the sounds of screams and a man whimpering in the darkness. Eventually he came to where the prison was. A dull and grey place with all the light gone, he stopped before the cell and stared at the man.

Eobard Thawne, had blonde hair, green eyes and was muscular. He had killed Barry's mother fifteen years ago and framed his father for it. Slowly but surely Barry had managed to find enough evidence to get his father freed, though Thawne had almost ruined that. That had been the first time they had fought, and Barry had required help from Hal to handle him. The second time had been during a fight with the League of Doom, and that time Barry had beaten Thawne up considerably and thrown him into Iron Heights. And then there'd been the third time, and that had been when Wally had gone missing, or just before it. And now here they were.

"Barry Allen. A pleasure and a surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Thawne drawled.

"Where is she, Thawne?" Barry demanded.

"Who?" Thawne asked sounding confused.

"Don't play games with me!" Barry snapped. "Where is she?"

"I truly don't know who you're talking about, Barry." Thawne replied.

The fact that the man used his name angered him, they were not friends, they were not family, they were enemies, and if he could Barry would ensure Thawne never left the Speedforce ever again, but right now he needed answers. "I know you know who I'm talking about Thawne. Now, where is she?"

Something changed in Thawne's temperament then, he went from being amused to being concerned. "You mean to tell me that Iris West Allen is gone?"

"Don't act surprised. You did this. Now where is my wife?" Barry demanded.

"I do not know, and I didn't take her. I haven't left this cell in, what, three years?" Thawne said, a mocking smile coming to bear on his features. "So, I couldn't have taken Iris."

Barry wanted to scream at Thawne to stop lying, but one look at his scarred face told Barry that the man was not lying. "If not you, then who? She was taken before I could get there."

Thawne stepped closer to the bars then and for a moment Barry could've convinced himself that this was them back in CCPD working together. "You're sure she was taken by a speedster?"

"Yes. There's no other explanation for how she could've been gone from the scene before I got there." Barry said, though he had a voice in the back of his head whispering that that wasn't the case.

"So, your first thought was to come to me, even though you would have known had I escaped." Thawne said sounding both impressed and not at the same time.

"Now that I think about it, it doesn't sound like something you'd do. At least not this version of you." Barry conceded.

"Indeed." Thawne said. "But who told you to look for me?"

Barry took off his mask and asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, come on Barry, you know as well as I do that I couldn't leave this prison without you knowing about it. that would've been the first thing you thought about when you saw that Iris had been kidnapped. SO, someone had to have told you to come looking for me, no?" Thawne said.

No matter how much he wanted to deny that, Barry had to acknowledge that Thawne had a point. "Deathstroke." Was what he said reluctantly.

"Of course." Thawne said. "He wouldn't have said it in as many words, but he would have known that I would be your first thought despite your own common sense."

Barry raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Deathstroke is a mercenary but he was a soldier first. He was a very good one as well, there was one timeline I visited once, where he had become a General that saved the world from the Islamists in World War 3. He's smart and he's capable, he would know what buttons to press. But that's neither here nor there." Thawne said as he began pacing the length of his cell.

Something struck Barry then, and he wondered why in his rush to believe Thawne was responsible he'd not thought of this. "He could have lied. He went out of his way to convince us that Lord didn't kidnap Iris, but he knew Iris was meeting with Dr McGee."

"Iris met with Dr McGee?" Thawne asked.

"Yes, why?" Barry replied suspiciously.

"Then it has begun." Thawne murmured.

"What has?" Barry demanded.

"In the future I come from, there are rumours and stories of a great attempt by the US government to destroy Superman and the Justice League. They failed, because the League worked together after a great period of strife to bring down the US President of the time. And everything that started this was the kidnapping of two journalists associated with the Justice League. Lois Lane and Iris West. They were kidnapped because they learned of a government funded plot to create metahumans who could replace the Justice League and would do everything the US government wanted. Both were tortured before eventually being rescued. In that world, Lex Luthor became the new President and officially named the Justice League as the World Police Force, meant to keep the peace and it worked. But, now, if Iris has been kidnapped, then perhaps the process for all of this has begun." Thawne replied.

Lois is dead though. Barry thought. He didn't say that out loud though, instead he merely asked Thawne one question. "In your world, how did we discover that Lois and Iris had been kidnapped?"

Thawne took a deep breath and then said. "You found out that Wally West hadn't been missing but was in fact working for Lord." Barry looked at the man and was about to ask why Wally would work for Lord when he remembered a conversation he'd had with Clark many years ago, the first time they'd dealt with Lord.

"He can control people's minds you know. He tried to do it with me, but thankfully didn't manage. But with someone less experienced, I'd shudder to think about what he'd make them do."

Barry remembered how Wally had been before he'd disappeared, confused, angry, lost and most of all tired, so very tired. Clark had described feeling like that ever so briefly when facing Lord. And that was when the dominoes fell into place. "I've got to go." He put his mask back on and began running, running and running, hoping against hope that he wasn't too late, and cursing his own stupidity.