A/N: Here comes chapter two. Before I begin, let me just say that S.T.A.R. Labs has all the features from the canon Flash TV show, including the cortex, speed lab, prison cells, etc. Also, this scene with Barry I have right now takes place in the speed lab. Just wanna let you know.

Response to reviews:

Bl4ckHunter: Thanks, that means a lot coming from an author such as yourself.

Pretty much, wasn't entirely intended that way but I guess you can see it that way. Daredevil season 3 and that fanfic story I mentioned were my main inspiration for this story.

Yep, he grew up with her.

Thanks man. I love to hear that.

spiderman1fan: Thanks. Yeah, pretty much doing that. I might use that suit, I'm not sure, Barry isn't really going to be the upbeat person he is from canon in this story. So I probably won't use it but I might use the season 2 suit.

Central City

1935 Hours

S.T.A.R. Labs

In one of the larger lab-like areas, Barry had begun setting up some stuff. He had accessed his money and assets, which were passed down to him from his father's inheritance. Getting resources and equipment for what he needed to do was relatively easy when you were the son of one the top five richest people on the planet. Throughout the entire lab area, there were pieces of equipment, for working out and exercising, and tech, for help with what Barry was planning and his mission. Barry was standing in front of a large and big punching bag. He was dressed in black track pants and he had white bandage-like material wrapped around his hands. Barry had pulled off and gotten rid of his shirt, revealing the scars and injuries on his back and chest. Had he gotten those injuries after he had gotten his speed, they would've been long gone and healed by his enhanced healing factor. However, Barry had gotten all his scars from before he had gotten his speed. Plus, there was only so much injury and pain his body could heal, even with his speed.

Barry continued throwing his punches and kicks at the punching bag. He has been working out like this since 6 pm. Barry had been able to set up everything very quickly with his speed. However, as Barry worked out, he didn't use his speed and forced himself to his "human" limits. Barry threw a curve-directional punch at the bag with his right hand before retracing his arm back into his sparring-like stance. He then threw two punches at the bag with his left hand, his fists clenching and unclenching repeatedly. All of Barry's punches, kicks, and strikes were at human speed and power. Barry had trained for twelve years to be able to fight on his own. He wasn't going to throw it all away just because he had super speed and could run fast. Barry continued his training as he skipped backwards, drops of sweat separating from his body with the force of his skip. He threw two roundhouse kicks to the punching back before dropping his leg to the ground. He then threw a powerful sidekick, the back of his foot striking the bag with a loud thud. The chains holding the heavy bag rattled, threatening to drop it.

As Barry continued his training, he began to recall certain memories from his life, from his childhood.

Flashback

"Mommy! Mommy look! Look, Mommy!"

A four-year-old Barry Allen ran hurriedly in his denim shorts and short-sleeved, red t-shirt. He held a certain thing that he had made on his own. The child stopped by the end of the driveway of his house. He looked up to see his mother and his father staring at each other. His father had a look of sorrow, sadness, and realization on his face. His mother had tears starting to form in her eyes. There was a black SUV with several packed bags in the trunk of the car. The two parents then turned away from each other. Barry's mother got down to her knees as her tear-filled eyes met with his small, brown eyes. Barry's father was facing away from the two, tears of his own forming as he tried to control his emotion. Neither him nor Barry's mother wanted the poor child to know what was about to happen.

"Look what I made for you," Barry said as the four-year-old lifted a certain necklace to his mother. "For your birthday."

The necklace consisted of a thin, black-like rope with several dark brown, wooden beads on it. Each bead had a letter on it as all the beads together spelled out a message:

I Love You Mommy

The back of the beads, which were glued and stuck together in a firm position, spelled another message:

From Barry

Tears poured out of the eyes of Barry's mother as her cheeks became soaked. She quickly wiped the tears away, putting on a smile for her child.

"Thank you, honey," Nora said. "This is so sweet."

"Why are you crying, Mommy?" the little boy asked.

Nora wiped the tears from her face away even harder as she pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around him tightly. She lightly rested her head on his shoulder as her child wrapped his arms around her.

"I love you, my beautiful boy," Nora said, her voice nearly on the verge of breaking. "I always will."

"I love you too, Mommy." Barry said happily, smiling in his mother's embrace.

The two slowly slipped away from their embrace as Nora took the necklace into her hand. Henry, Barry's father, then turned around, forcefully wiping his tears as he looked down at his child.

"Okay, slugger," Henry said, his tone a mix of firmness and slight sadness. "Let's go inside."

Without saying anything further, Henry took Barry's hand in his as Nora got up on her feet. Henry and Nora looked at one another, tears slowly starting to fill their eyes as sadness masked their faces. Nora mouthed the next few words she said, not wanting to have to arouse suspicion from a young Barry.

"I love you."

The words came in a mix of mouthing and a bare whisper. Henry didn't say anything, he turned his head down and walked back into the house. Barry followed him, the four-year-old child held his father's hand as the two of them entered the house. Henry shut the door behind them. Nora turned her head away, the tears in her clouds accumulating as they clouded her vision for a partial second. She wiped them away as she got inside her car, forcefully shutting the door and putting her seat belt on. Nora then looked at the necklace Barry had made for her, holding it in her hand. The tears returned to her eyes once more, this time she didn't wipe them away. She began to start the car and get it ready to go.

Inside the house, Henry was sitting on the couch. He struggled to hold back his tears as he rested his head on his hands. A four-year-old Barry could only watch as his father sobbed, tears pouring from his eyes at a sped-up rate.

"Daddy," Barry said. "Where's Mommy going?"

"She's-" Henry tried to say between his sobs. "She's leaving…B-Barry. S-she's going to work."

"But it's Saturday." Barry whined.

"S-she's going, Barry."

Henry couldn't say anymore. His son, Barry, may have been intellectually gifted and smarter than most elementary and middle school students even at his age. However, at heart, he was what he was: a four-year-old boy who couldn't understand the world around. Barry quickly turned and ran out of the house, opening and exiting through the door. Henry didn't stop him, he couldn't. He was mourning his own pain.

Barry ran to the end of the driveway where he saw his mother inside the black SUV. The car was staring as it prepared to go.

"Mommy!" Barry yelled as he began chasing after the car.

The poor boy was all but too late, the car had already started driving by the time he was running. Barry ran on the road, which was empty and clear save for himself and the car his mother was in. He ran as fast as he could, his arms swinging in the air and his legs pushing off the ground as he propelled himself forward. A four-year-old boy could only run so fast, especially as compared to the speed of a car. Inside that said car, Nora Allen continued driving, slowly picking up the speed of the car as it increased on the speedometer. She looked at the rear-view mirror that hung from the ceiling of the car. In it she saw the one thing that broke her heart and would keep it broken for years to come. She saw it: her four-year-old child running after her, screaming for her to come back. Her child who she was abandoning.

Tears poured from Nora's eyes as she sobbed and cried. With her left hand, she held the steering wheel, driving as she sobbed. With her other hand, she held the necklace Barry had made for her, gripping it tightly. Nora accelerated the car as the sight of Barry running disappeared from her rear-view mirror. She cried as she drove, knowing she had committed what she had done. She had committed the one crime she could never atone for: she had left her child. Her little boy.

The memory fueled Barry with rage as he stepped back and threw a turning sidekick, forgetting to pull his strike back in any way. The back of his foot struck the center of the punching bag. The kick broke the chains holding the bag loose as several pounds of striking force sent the back flying a few feet away. Barry landed his foot on the ground as he stood still, breathing heavily. Sweat covered his scarred body and his exhausted face. That memory was the last and only thing he truly had from his mother. A memory and he didn't even know if it was real. That was the last time he had seen his mother. When Barry was older, his father had told him she had passed away in a car crash. That was the only thing Henry ever said about Barry's mother. There was nothing else, no pictures, no knowledge of what she looked like, was like, or anything.

Barry hated it. He always had. He calmed himself after several seconds as he looked over to the rest of his workout equipment. Boxing time was over, now it was time for his physical conditioning, which began now.

Barry landed on another higher level on the salmon ladder as the loud sound of the metal bar landing on the metal curves echoed through the lab. He continued climbing up the levels of the salmon ladder as he eventually leveled back down on the ladder. Barry did the exercise over five times, scaling the ladder up and down through the ten levels that were on it. After he was done working on the salmon ladder, he set the metal bar at a level where he could do some pull-ups. As he continued his workout without his speed, Barry managed to do some one hundred and eleven pull-ups. Later, he managed to do fifty-three while having three fifty-pound weights chain-tied to his waist. It was hard and he had been pushing his limits, which he had to.

Another workout Barry did was bench-pressing. As he laid on the bench for his workout, Barry heaved in deep and heavy breaths as he pushed the bar up into the air, stretching his arms outward. He slowly let the bar down before pushing it back up, heaving his breaths. On the left side of the bar, there were two fifty-pound metal plates and on the right side, there were two more fifty-pound weights, putting two hundred pounds of weight. The metal bar on its own was five pounds, making the overall weight two hundred and five pounds. As Barry finished his twenty-fifth lift of the bar, he threw it to the side as it landed on the ground with a loud thud, thankfully leaving no dent or scratch behind. Barry got onto his feet, sweat drenching his body as he huffed, exhaustion was clear in his breath. Yet, determination was glass-clear in his eyes.

Later, Barry found himself pushing weights with a specific piece of equipment. The equipment piece had two metal rods sticking upwards. The rods were meant to hold and push the metal plate at the bottom, which would hold weights. There were two one-hundred-pound weights and two fifty-pound weights stacked on the metal plate. Barry tightly held the metal rods, bending his body over as he slowly pushed it across the lab with all his strength. As he reached the other side, Barry pushed the equipment piece as it fell over, the metal weights falling to the ground. Barry stood tall as he let out a roar that echoed through the entire floor of the facility.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

2145 Hours

"Hey, how are you? I'm Cisco, Cisco Ramon," Cisco Ramon said as he held out his hand towards the woman in front of him.

The woman shook his hand as she gave a light smile. "Caitlin Snow."

"Nice to meet you," Cisco smiled as the pair dropped hands. "Are you that Snow?"

"Yeah. The family who raised Barry Allen? That's us."

"Cool."

Cisco, internally speaking, was getting cheered up and jittery. However, due to circumstances, his face didn't show or reflect his excitement as much as it would have on a normal day. Cisco scoffed at the thought. A normal day. That was anything but today. The day where Cisco found himself being encased in a layer of rock before emerging out with the ability to blast anything and open portals. Cisco's life was already stressful and hard enough as it was, now he had powers to deal with, new faces, and living inside a white-layered, prison-like room. However, Cisco was grateful that there was someone he could talk to.

"So what is it with you?" Cisco asked, the question seeming blank and out-of-nowhere.

Caitlin bit her lower lip. She knew exactly what Cisco was referring to. "When I came out of that rock, I froze everything in my whole apartment. I didn't know how. I wasn't even trying to, I just did it and when I did, my hair turned white."

"So basically you're Elsa from Frozen?" Cisco quipped.

Cailtin chuckled as she played along in her and Cisco's new 'game'. "The secret's out. You won't tell, will you?"

Cisco raised his hands in a fake surrender. "Spare me, my queen."

The two of them both chuckled, letting out some laughs as they smiled at one another. Talking to each other felt good and relieving. Especially after being chased by that black-ops, army group and being brought to some sort of government facility.

"What about you?" Caitlin asked. "What's your curse?"

Cisco sighed. "I can send blasts of vibrational frequencies mixed with energy and I can open portals."

Caitlin frowned upon noticing some of the vocabulary he used. "Are you a scientist or something?"

"Sorta. I work in IT for Allen Enterprises but I'm also a big physics nerd. What about you?"

"Biology and chemistry, PhD. I work at Mercury Labs."

Cisco smiled, visibly impressed. "PhD? Well dang. Doesn't that make you smarter than you-know-who?"

Caitlin gave a light smile as she stared off into a distance, recalling a certain friend from her childhood. "Barry was always the smarter one. When we were kids, we had contests to see who was smarter. Barry usually won but sometimes I did too. I never realized that he held himself back. He let me win so I could have the feeling of joy and pure victory. Barry was like that, he cared about people, especially the ones closest to him.

Cisco nodded, taking Caitlin's words into account. "You were Barry's only friend, weren't you?"

"I was. Barry never liked being around a lot of people or in crowds. He cared about others but he always did it from a distance. My family took him in three years after his father died, he had been growing up at an orphanage until then. After his father died, Barry became so…different. He used to make jokes, smile, he smiled so much…" Caitlin could feel herself being lost in her childhood memories. "He was interactive with his teachers, with me. Then, it all just stopped. He became closed-off, the jokes stopped, the smile was gone and…I don't know, I just don't see the old him anymore."

"It's hard," Cisco said. "He grew up with only his father, who died, and God knows what happened to his mom."

Caitlin sighed deeply, feeling the pressure and stress building up inside her. Cisco immediately noticed.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Cisco asked as Caitlin remained silent at first. "You can talk to me."

Caitlin's eyes met his. "It's just…I did everything I could for Barry. I wanted to be there for him and even after everything he went through, he was there for me. In some ways, it was like we only had each other…I tried, I did, I tried to understand what he was going through and I did, for the most part. But even after everything, I just…I kept holding out hope that one day, maybe one day, I would see the smile of that little boy on his face again. Not the look of despair and heartbreak I saw on him for years."

Cisco paused, unsure of what to say as Caitlin continued.

"You know the one thing I kept hoping for the last twelve years?" Caitlin asked rhetorically. "Ever since Barry left, part of me always wanted him to come back. But another part of me didn't, because I knew that there was nothing left in Central City for him. Nothing but pain and suffering."

Caitlin stopped speaking, not wanting to go further in the topic. Cisco's face was masked with sorrow as he took a few moments to process. For his whole life, Henry Allen and his son, Barry, had been his idols. He looked up to them and wanted to be like Barry, who he was only two years older than. For the last twelve years, the dorky, upbeat, and nerdy side of Cisco kept hoping that the famous Barry Allen would return. However, after hearing what Caitlin had said, maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Maybe, for his own sake, Barry Allen shouldn't come back to Central City.

Night

2316 Hours

Night had dawned upon Central City hours ago. The streets were covered in darkness for the most part. Lights on the sidewalk and from the buildings. The streets were less crowded than they were in the evening and the afternoon. Rain poured heavily from the skies as it drenched the city streets. A rather strong hurricane was occurring down south by Louisiana and as result, a thunderstorm with heavy rain, ten-mile-per-hour winds, thunder, and lightning was passing by the city.

Inside Allen Tower, the headquarters of Allen Industries, the CEO of the company stood behind the glass wall at the very top floor, which contained the penthouse. He looked down at the city seeing the rain pouring on the streets. The CEO took a small sip of whiskey from the glass he held in his hand. He didn't drink too much particularly, just enough to dip his lips in. The businessman set the glass down on his table as he turned around to face a certain black-haired man in his thirties. The man was wearing dark grey jeans, a black t-shirt, and a brown leather jacket. He had a slight beard showing on his face.

"You know," Grant Ward began. "When you came to me saying you could rebuild Hydra. I thought you were just trying to bullshit me."

Gideon Malick sighed as he took a sip of his whiskey. "Do mind your language, Mr. Ward."

Ward ignored his request. "See, what'd I'd like to know is this. How does one of the heads of Hydra end up being the CEO of Allen Industries? And also, why would I work with you?"

"Well, in that specific order," Malick said as he set his glass down again. "Henry Allen died almost exactly twenty years ago, on that fateful night on November 10th. Tomorrow marks what would've been his 55th birthday, had he lived. When Dr. Allen died, this city and this company descended into chaos.

As the President of the company, I was able to take control and remain in-charge until Henry's next of kin was old enough to take over the business."

"Barry Allen." Ward said as Malick nodded.

"Yes, Mr. Ward, Barry Allen. Henry's one and only son. Many people, myself included, expected Barry to take over. He was intellectually gifted to the greatest degree. When I was one of the Councilmen on the Council of S.H.I.E.L.D., I had discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D. had a list of the top twenty smartest individuals on the planet. Men, women, children, anyone. Among the top three people at the very top of the list were Tony Stark, Barry Allen, and Hank Pym. Your former teammates, Jemma Simmons and Leopold Fitz were in the top five."

"Can't say I'm too surprised," Ward mused. "But what exactly is your point here?"

"Patience, Mr. Ward. As I was saying, many expected Barry to take over when he was of age. Then, the day after he graduated from Harvard, at sixteen years old, he disappeared. No trace of him and no one has seen or heard of him ever since. With Barry's disappearance and his eventual, legal death declaration, I continued to reign over this company.

After the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the disassembling of Hydra, I've been looking for someone to lead the remnants of Hydra that haven't been taken down by S.H.I.E.L.D. I believe that person is you, Grant."

"Oh I'm flattered," Ward said dryly. "But I've already got my own team for Hydra and we're pretty well-staffed and well supplied."

Malick sighed. "Mr. Ward, there is much about Hydra that you do not know. Much that I can teach and show you. I can provide you with much-needed resources and together, not only can we restore Hydra to its former glory, we can surpass and overcome S.H.I.E.L.D."

Ward paused for a fraction of a moment, processing what Malick had said to him. He was ready to open his mouth to speak when Malick cut him off.

"From what I hear," Malick said. "You've hired a certain mercenary. A man of special skills and talent. We both know who this man is…and we both know he's here, right now."

"I'll admit, for an old man way out of his prime, I'm impressed."

As Ward rose to his feet, a certain man walked into the room, dressed in full black clothing. The man wore black sneaker shoes, black pants, a thin, black, long-sleeve t-shirt and a rough dark grey/black jacket. The man was five feet and nine inches tall, though with his shoes, he was one and a half inches taller. He had light brown, short, curly hair and had the posture of a man on high alert. Everything about this man, as of the moment, spelled out mercenary.

"So this is the man you've associated yourself with," Malick said, standing tall on his feet. "I thought you were but a myth but I've heard the stories, nothing is impossible."

"I'm as real as anything can be." the man said.

"Well," Malick said. "If we are going to work together, trust my advice and trust my plan. As I have quite the events set in motion."

"Maybe this can work," Ward said. "But you have to tell both of us everything, and I mean everything, about Hydra."

"And I will," Malick assured before turning to the man. "It is wise to introduce yourself, even if it's unnecessary."

The man sighed. "Floyd Lawton. But they call me Deadshot."

A/N: Well, isn't that a nice surprise? I was originally going to introduce Lawton later in the story around chapter ten or so but I didn't see any point in holding off his introduction to be honest.

For Lawton/Deadshot in this story, he will be portrayed by actor Ryan Phillipe. I don't have anything against Will Smith (who portrayed him in the DCEU) or the actor who played Deadshot in the Arrowverse (I don't know what his name is). However, I just really liked the idea of having Ryan as Deadshot. He actually played a sniper protagonist in a Netflix series called Shooter, a great TV show which I find criminally and insanely underrated. I highly recommend it, it's seriously underrated.

My version of Lawton is going to be very different from him in the comics, Arrowverse, and the DCEU. He's still going to be the badass, I-can-and-never-will-miss-shot sniper he is. But I'm gonna try and add some more character to him and make him a cooler and more enjoyable villain.

I know these first two chapters aren't as action-packed. A lot of my stories have been focused on action. I'm trying to make this pure story and pure plot. This story will be slower paced as compared to my other stories. The action will be abundant in this story but it won't be the center of everything.