Bernadette Henrietta Allen was born on March fourteenth, nineteen eighty-nine to two loving parents; Henry and Nora Allen. She had a pretty good childhood, though she was bullied a little bit, and got into too many fights in Nora's opinion.
When she was eleven years old, tragedy struck, and Nora was killed by something impossible. Barri heard something downstairs and had gone to investigate. What she saw would haunt her nightmares for years to come. Nora was kneeling on the ground, screaming for Henry as yellow and red lightning circled her.
"Mom!" Barri had cried, reaching towards her mother. Her father appeared next to her, gripping her shoulders tightly as he turned her away from the sight before them.
"Barri, run!" He ordered before releasing her to try to make his way towards Nora.
"Mom!" Barri cried again, tears stinging her hazel-green eyes. In a blink, the yellow lightning was zooming towards her and she found herself outside. Looking around, she noticed that she was few miles away and just started running, brown hair billowing behind her.
When Barri reached her house, cops were swarming the place. As she made her way up the steps, Joe West, her best friend's father, was leading Henry away in handcuffs. "Dad? What's going on? Where are you taking him? Dad!"
"Barri, do not go inside that house, do you hear me? Don't go in the house!" Her father shouted as he was loaded into the back of a police car. Completely ignoring what her father had said, Barri rushed into the house to see two cops standing over a body covered in tarp. Falling to her knees next to the body, she pulled back the tarp and saw her mother's lifeless eyes staring into her.
"Mom?" She whispered. "Mom, wake up!" A hand on her shoulder made Barri look up. Standing behind her was Detective David Singh. He reached past her to put the tarp back over Nora's face, and pulled Barri into his chest, making sure her face was turned away from the gruesome scene.
He consoled her as much as he could before Child Services showed up to take her away. Joe was attempting to get custody of her, but the CPS agent didn't seem to be budging because Iris' mother, Francine, who Barri thought was dead, showed up with a kid named Wallace and a death omen looming over her head. Joe has too much on his plate, and the woman knew it. David offered to take her in, able and willing to foster the young Allen for a time.
That night she went home with David, prepared to one day go to another home sooner or later.
It never happened.
Thirteen-year-old Barri was sitting at the kitchen island doing some homework, her brown hair pulled up into a bun on the top of her head, chewing on her pencil eraser in concentration. She heard the door open and shut quietly and knew David was home from work. "Bare?" He called out.
"Kitchen!" She called back, scribbling out some equations on her paper. He stepped into the kitchen, suit jacket and vest already off and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He pressed a quick kiss to her head in greeting before looking down at the papers in front of her.
"Homework?" She nodded.
"Yep, and I'm almost done." He sat down next to her, and Barri frowned, moving the papers and books away from her. "David? What's wrong?"
"You remember when I started fostering you, it was only supposed to be temporary?" He started. Barri's frown deepened. Was Joe taking her now? Did David not want her anymore? "I was thinking that we make things more permanent." He placed a small packet of papers in front of her and Barri stared at them intently, heart pounding in her chest. David didn't want her to leave; he wanted to adopt her. Studying the papers, a bit more, she noticed that next to David's neat signature was Henry's messy scrawl. Her father knew and was okay with it. Those thoughts made her chest tighten. He truly believed he was never getting out. "Bare, honey, remember this is your choice. If you want me to just stay your foster parent, that's fine. I won't be upset," David continued, miss-reading her silence as a no.
"Yes," she said quickly, surprising herself. David blinked, clearly just as shocked, before a smile broke out across his face.
"Okay. Okay," he took a deep breath, running a hand through his dark hair. "I'll have this processed as soon as I can. What do you want to do for dinner tonight?"
"Can we go to that Chinese place on Fifth?" Barri questioned. "As a celebration?" She tacked on.
"Sure, baby. Go grab your coat." Barri wasn't sure when the last time she smiled so brightly than when she was grinning at David across a small table, a large bowl of shrimp lo mein in between them.
Seventeen-year-old Barri Allen Singh was finishing up her final paper in English for the year when she decided what she wanted to do with her life. Her paper was on DNA Analysis and how it helped police officers and detectives either prove someone's innocence, or if they were guilty.
Barri wanted to do that; she thought for the longest time she'd become a detective like David so that she could catch criminals who do murder their wives and was fully prepared to go into the police academy after college. That's when she realized, she didn't want to be the one to make the arrests. She wanted to be the one that gathered and tested evidence.
Bernadette Henrietta Allen Singh wanted to be a Crime Scene Investigator. She shut her book forcefully, the echoing crack caused David to jump out of the nap he had been taking on the couch. "What happened? Are you alright?" He questioned, sitting up and looking around for threats, his hand automatically reaching for the gun strapped under the coffee table that he didn't know she knew about.
"Sorry, dad, that was me," Barri apologized, smiling guiltily at the man. A smile broke out across David's face, like always, when she called him 'dad'. " I don't think I want to be a detective anymore," she blurted out. David blinked.
Oh," he paused. "When did you change your mind?"
"Two seconds ago," she grinned, handing him her finished essay. He read through it and glanced up at her.
"You want to be a CSI?" Barri nodded. "Alright, we can look at some schools tomorrow. Start looking at scholarship opportunities and grants. I'm sure there are some for children of police officers."
"I'm also going to talk to some of the advisors. I want to see what I have to do to graduate early."
Barri and David spent the next several weeks talking with people, taking road trips to colleges, and more nights than not David had come home to find Barri passed out on the couch, a book on her chest. She worked herself to the point of exhaustion, but it was worth it. She graduated at seventeen, the whole police force celebrating with them at the station. Iris had shown up, giving her old best friend a big hug, congratulating her. "So, where are you going to go for college?"
"I'm thinking Perdue. I got a full-ride scholarship for there," Barri explained. Iris nodded, smiling brightly at Barri, brown eyes gleaming.
"You're going to have to come home and visit all the time! And I'll come visit you!" Tears started pooling in Iris' dark eyes before she wrapped Barri back up into her arms. "I'm going to miss you!" Barri hugged back, her own green eyes misting over.
"I'm going to miss you, too."
After two months, Barri was all signed up for classes at Perdue and was getting situated in her dorm room. David had gone all out, and she's in a room by herself with a suite mate she shared a bathroom with.
David had her wrapped up in a tight hug as they were saying their goodbyes. "If you need anything, call me. I don't care what time it is, or if it's boy troubles. Anything goes. I love you." Barri's grip around his waist tightened.
"I love you, too, dad."
As she was waiving goodbye, they both pretended that they didn't see the tears staining each other's cheeks.
"Can I come in, Captain Singh?" A voice sounded through the office. David looked up to see Barri standing there. The twenty-two-year-old looked a bit different. She looked a bit thinner, a little taller, and her hair was shorter, but it was still his baby girl. David stood up, side-stepping his new desk to wrap Barri up in his arms.
"I thought you weren't coming home until next month," he commented as they pulled away from each other. "After Graduation?" Barri reached into her bag and pulled something out, handing it to him with a smile. David opened it, and grinned.
"You graduated early? With a 4.0? Bare, I'm so proud of you!"
"Top of my class," she announced proudly. "Not quite sure how, though. I was late a lot." David sighed. Of course, she was. "I can't believe you didn't tell me about the promotion. I had to find out through Miller," Barri complained.
"Why are you talking to Miller?" Mason Miller was a still wet-behind-the-ears Officer with only a couple years under his belt. David was surprised Barri even knew who he was.
"He's the only one I could bully into keeping me updated on things I probably shouldn't know about," Barri shrugged with an easy smile. David rolled his eyes. He'd have to have a talk with Miller about what he could and could not tell his daughter.
"I wanted to surprise you," he defended.
"Well, job well done."
"Bernadette," he warned in a low tone. Barri raises her hands in defeat, the smile never leaving her face.
"I'm not mad, dad," she started, the grin growing. "Just disappointed."
"Get out."
"I'll be back here in a couple weeks for my first day," she chirped. David furrowed his eyebrows.
"First day?"
"When Miller told me, a month ago, might I add, that you were getting promoted to Captain I submitted an application for the Forensic Assistant position. Had an interview with Captain Hayes before he retired," she explained. David squinted at his daughter before moving to his computer to look up new hires. Staring back at him was the name Bernadette Allen. "I decided to apply under my original last name. I figured that you wouldn't want people thinking that you'll play favorites. Not that you ever would! Everyone already here knows you're a hard-ass."
"You are aware you just called your boss a hard-ass, right?" Barri paused.
"Technically, I called my dad a hard-ass. You aren't my boss yet."
"And yet you can still get in to trouble. Are you going home to drop off your things?" Barri bit her lip.
"Actually, dad, I found an apartment to live in. It's cheap and in a decent neighborhood." David sighed again.
"Do you have furniture yet?"
"Nope," she said cheerfully.
"You didn't think this through very well, did you?"
"Nope!"
Later that night, she and David went shopping for some furniture for her new place.
Almost a year after, Barri had just turned twenty-three when he dropped the big news; David had met someone that he wanted to bring home to meet her. "His name is Rob," he explained over dinner one night. "We've been seeing each other for a few months, but I wanted to make sure it was serious before I introduced him to you."
"When can I meet him? We could make dinner this weekend?"
"You seem excited."
"Dad, does he make you happy?"
"Yes," David answered honestly.
"Then that's all that matters. I'm sure I'll love him."
Barri met Rob that Saturday. He was funny and cute and made David laugh, which was all that mattered to her, like she told David earlier. "You are so much prettier than David described," Rob commented when David got up to get more wine for the three of them. Barri blushed, disagreeing in her head. She was too lanky and thin; all limbs and no curves.
When David came back, the three of them talked for about another hour before Barri excused herself, citing that it was time for her to head out, shooting her father a wink.
"Bernadette," David growled, narrowing his eyes at her.
"It was nice meeting you, Rob, and we should definitely do this again soon. Bye, dad, love you." She kissed David's cheek quickly and hurried out the door, enjoying the sound of Rob laughing at her dad's expense.
That Monday, Barri found herself standing in front of a guard at Iron Heights. "Personal effects in here," the man said in a monotone voice. Barri shakily puts her phone and wallet in the tub placed in front of her, and then was led down a hallway towards a room with with a row of windows and chairs. She's led to one and is told to wait a couple minutes.
Barri is fidgeting in her seat when the door on the other side of the room opens up, and Henry Allen is led in, chains attached to his wrists and waist. The sight makes Barri tear up, but she forced it down. Henry sat down across from her, studying her face as if he hasn't seen in her years, which Barri belatedly realized was true. She hadn't seen her father since she left for college. "Barri," Henry breathed into the phone that the two just picked up at the same time, placing his hand on the glass between them. "Look at you! You're all grown." Barri reached forward, placing her own palm on the glass.
"I'm sorry it's been so long," she apologized. "I graduated last year with a 4.0 GPA at the top of my class. I'm also a Forensics Assistant. I'm working my way up, dad," she sniffed, the tears coming back. "I'm one step closer to proving you didn't murder mom."
"Bernadette Henrietta Allen Singh, you better not be where I think you are!" David raged over the phone. Barri cringed.
"That depends, where do you think I am?"
"Don't play that shit with me right now, Bernadette. Are you in Starling City?"
"Yes," Barri sighed.
"Bare," Rob's voice now flowed through the speakers making her perk up a bit. "You know we don't care when you go hunt the impossible in your spare time, but you have to tell us when you're leaving. David and I got worried when we went by your apartment earlier and your neighbor said you left the night before with a bag packed. We worry, honey." Fuck, he was good at guilt tripping.
Barri apologized numerous times, David yelled a little bit more, ordering her on the next train home. She agreed, saying that she'd be home soon. As she was waiting for her train, something hit the back of her head sending her into darkness.
Barri came to with a headache and a blonde with glasses leaning over her with a worried expression marring her face. "Wha'?" Barri slurred, trying to sit up.
"Save him, please," the blonde pleaded. Felicity, Barri's mind supplied weakly, remembering the blonde when she was investigating the break-in at Queen Consolidated. She sat up and saw Oliver Queen lying on a metal table next to her in the Arrow suit. Holy shit. Oliver Queen is the Arrow. Fuck. Okay, breathe, Barri.
"Allen!" The man next to Felicity snapped, getting her attention back on track.
"Right, what's wrong with him?" She questioned, sliding off the table. "Also, where's my phone?" She continued, patting her pockets.
"Focus, kid," the man growled.
"Dig," Felicity warned. "Look, save him and we'll let you go."
"You guys are really bad kidnappers," Barri grumbled, grabbing a penlight and shinning it in Queen's eyes, checking pupil reaction. "What was he given?"
"We don't know," Felicity answered, wringing her hands nervously. After a couple of minutes, Barri concluded that he was dying and needed something to thin his blood; she of course tries rat poison, much to Felicity and Dig's -John Diggle, apparently- dismay.
After twenty-four hours and a near strangulation, Barri was finally on her way home. She stared into a compact mirror she had in her bag and checked to make sure the foundation she applied to the marks around her neck were covered. David would've been on a war path to Starling if he ever found out.
She glanced at her phone, grimacing at all the missed calls and unread text messages she had. David and Rob and Iris were most likely going to kill her when she got back to Central. She sighed loudly, letting her head fall against the headrest behind her. Her phone beeped signaling another text and she almost ignored it but decided to see who it was.
Unknown Number: Thank you for saving my life. I owe you dinner.
Barri grinned, knowing exactly who it was and saving the number in her phone as Robin Hood.
If you're ever in Central give me a call. Be careful out there.
She didn't receive a text back, but she was still smiling when she got greeted by her angry father at the train station.
A few miles away, a man stood in a white room with braille-like markings on the walls watching a girl with brown hair and green eyes embracing a man at a train station. He glanced at a podium, the words The Flash Missing: Vanishes in Crisis splashed across the page in bold, capitalized lettering above a picture of Bernadette Allen in her signature red costume, the article written by Iris West. The date, twenty twenty-four.
The man grinned. "Soon, Barri Allen. Soon."