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Run and Repeat

"Fascinating," Thawne mused to himself as he studied the scanner he had reverse-engineered from Gideon's stolen systems. He had taken readings based on the cameras he'd set up in Barry Allen's apartment, but when faced with something as unexpected as Barry manifesting his speed at least a year before he was ready to activate the particle accelerator, a hands-on approach was definitely required.

He didn't know how this had happened, but somehow Barry Allen had gained his speed before the particle accelerator explosion, and judging by the surge of tachyons that still filled this apartment, he was prepared to guess that time travel was involved. Based on the fact that he was still here, Thawne was willing to guess that whatever had happened had nothing to do with him directly, but that just left him with the baffling question of what had happened.

Fortunately, at this stage of operations the particle accelerator project could be left to essentially manage itself for a few days so long as he could provide a suitable excuse for his absence. Ramon, Raymond and Rathaway may not have the expertise of the engineers of his home era, but they were exceptionally skilled by the standards of their time; if they couldn't keep up the pace without him to supervise them for a few days then he'd wasted a lot of time and effort in recruiting them.

As for his own projects, Thawne was pleased to confirm that his theory had been correct. While the brief burst of speed Allen had displayed in this apartment wouldn't have been enough his purposes under normal circumstances, the tachyons infused with the Speed Force energies was enough to give them a very significant boost.

So long as he could confirm where Allen was and what he was up to at the moment, he might be able to use the residual energy here to at least temporarily restart his own connection to the Speed Force. He would still need to trigger the particle accelerator explosion to make the restoration permanent, but once he had enough speed to confront Allen on a reasonably even footing, Thawne could find out what had happened to his future foe and work out what his next move should be…


As he raced through the streets of Starling City, a helmet his only true disguise from the public, Oliver wondered why he was taking such an insane story seriously.

His encounter with that strange idol back on Lian Yu was enough to assure him that there was more to the world than the traditional and eccentric criminals he'd encountered since he returned to Starling City, but magic could at least be explained as something people had studied for years. The idea that Allen was telling the truth about what he was capable of…

If he believed that young man, in just over a year, the world would be faced with a significant upheaval of everything they knew about science and the world they were living in. When Oliver came home, he had thought that he could just deal with his father's assigned mission using the skills he'd learned while away. The idea that there might be more threats out there than just corrupt officials and well-armed criminals…

Oliver brought the bike to a halt when he found himself on a bridge over the road, allowing him to look over the city as he thought.

Even as a part of him tried to remember that he had no reason to trust Allen's words, at the same time there was no reason for that young man to have told such an outrageous lie if he wasn't telling the truth. Allen had already demonstrated the scale of his speed; if their strange visitor had actually wanted to hurt him and Diggle, Oliver had to concede that it would have been easy enough for Allen to take him apart if their visitor had been there to hurt them.

Besides, as much as Oliver didn't like to consider the possibility that his mother could be involved in something like what Allen was implying, it fit in with everything he and Diggle had found so far. His father had to have known something about whatever was going on in Starling to have acquired the list in the first place, so his mother basically inheriting his father's place in whatever conspiracy had put it together made a twisted sense.

How she and Malcolm Merlyn had come up with the idea of the Glades with something as audacious as an earthquake machine was another matter, but he couldn't ignore the fact that he'd already had suspicions about his mother's motives. He could tell himself that she'd only done any of this because her partner- he wasn't ready to think of Malcolm Merlyn as being that ruthless- had probably threatened Thea to ensure her cooperation, but there were only so many atrocities a person could justify before an excuse like that stopped being enough.

Oliver still wasn't sure if he was ready to believe Barry Allen's full story, but with everything he'd said, on top of his mother's earlier comment about the dangers of asking questions, there were enough anomalies in this situation that Oliver knew he needed to find out more about what his new associate had to tell them.


Diggle wasn't sure if Allen was telling the truth or if it he was a really weird nutcase (something about the guy made Diggle discount the idea that he was just lying to them), but either way the man at least didn't seem to be particularly dangerous even if his story was implausible. After Oliver had walked out of the lair, Diggle had eventually decided that the best way to deal with this situation was to treat Allen as a friend until he had a better reason to think otherwise. With that in mind, he had taken Allen up to the bar to get him another drink, only to raise his eyebrows at Allen's exaggerated depression as he placed the bottle in his hands.

"What?" the bodyguard asked.

"Just… annoying side-effect of my speed," Allen explained with a wistful smile as he studied the glass in his hand. "My metabolism's so fast that I literally can't get drunk."

"You can't?"

"I basically recover from it too fast for the alcohol to have any effect on me," Allen affirmed. "Caitlin and Cisco were able to create a drink that could at least give me a brief buzz, but when I say 'brief' I mean that it only lasted for a minute at most."

"Caitlin and Cisco?"

"My… my team in the future," Allen explained, looking up with a wistful sigh. "Caitlin's a doctor and Cisco's an engineer; we've pulled off a few interesting breakthroughs since I started working as the Flash…"

"You got your own team?"

"Yeah," Allen nodded, before he smiled at Diggle. "It's… well, I don't want to say too much, but they've been helpful. I do the fieldwork and actually fight the metas, but Caitlin helps me work out how their abilities work, Cisco helps me create devices that can negate their powers if I can't just overwhelm them with my speed, and we're led by an older scientist who helps us pool it all together…"

"And now you're worried you'll lose that?" Diggle asked. "By changing things?"

"I don't know how this will affect my own history, but… well, when I realised where I was, how could I call myself a hero if I let the Undertaking happen?" the young man said, his expression more grim than anything Diggle had seen from their strange new ally. "Oliver suggested that it's like the lightning chose me to be something better than he was; I can't live up to that kind of faith if I let this happen, no matter what it might cost me."

"Oliver said that?" Diggle looked at the young man with a smile. "And you really were struck by lightning?"

"And a bunch of chemicals and the energy of the particle accelerator explosion, but yeah."

"Huh," Diggle mused. "Y'know, I had a cousin who was hit by lightning once; he just developed-"

"A stutter," Allen finished, smiling at Diggle as he finished the sentence. "Yeah, I know; you said the same thing a few months ago."

"Which is… what, a year and a half in the future for me?"

"Pretty much."

"And here I was thinking working for a modern-day Robin Hood would be the weirdest thing I'd ever find in my life," Diggle shook his head, smiling slightly at the incredulity of this situation before he looked at Barry with new curiosity. "So… what do you know about this 'Undertaking'?"

"It's complicated and I'd prefer to tell you and Oliver at once, because I'd like to deal with all your questions in one go."

"Fair enough," Diggle acknowledged. He was about to say something more when the door to the club opened and Tommy Merlyn walked in, looking at Diggle and Allen in surprise.

"Uh… Mr Diggle?" the younger Merlyn said, looking at the two in surprise. "What are you doing here… and who's that?"

"Barry Allen," Allen said, looking at Merlyn with a quizzical expression that set off a few warning bells in Diggle's mind; if this young man was a friend of Oliver's in the future, why wouldn't he already know who Tommy Merlyn was? "I'm-"

"Barry's the nephew of an old army buddy of mine," Diggle explained, hoping that his impulsive lie would pass muster. "He just stopped by town on personal business; I offered to put him up for his time in Starling."

"And… you're talking about stuff here?" Tommy looked at them, clearly seeing the holes in the story. "At this time of night?"

"My train was delayed, so I got here later than Digg expected," Allen smiled (Diggle just stopped himself starting at hearing his nickname from someone he'd just met; Allen was likely used to referring to his future self that way). "It's a bit late for me to just check into a hotel, so we're… working out my plans while I'm here."

"And you had to do that here?"

"I was dealing with some things downstairs and thought they'd find it easier to talk things out up here," Oliver's voice cut in. Looking over, Diggle smiled in relief as he saw his friend walk into the club from the lower level, still wearing the same casual clothing he'd left the base in earlier. "Sorry if they disturbed you."

"Disturbed me?" Tommy smiled in a manner that made it clear to Diggle he was trying to seem more in-control than he was. "Nah, it's all fine; just surprised to see a new face here at this time of night."

"Sorry to bother you," Allen smiled apologetically at her. "So… sorry, don't take this the wrong way, but who are you?"

"Tommy Merlyn; manager and co-owner," Tommy nodded at the time-traveller with a curious gaze. "Oliver never mentioned me?"

"I'm just here visiting Digg; who owns this place… well, it hasn't really come up," Allen shrugged. "Don't take it personally, OK?"

"Sure," Tommy said, nodding at Allen with a suspicious expression for a moment before he turned away. "Just need to check my office; I think I left some paperwork here."

"Let me know if you need anything," Oliver smiled at his friend. "Mr Diggle and I will sort something out for Mr Allen; any hotels particularly changed over the last few years that I should know about?"

As the two old friends spoke about some of their past experiences in the city's hotels, Diggle wondered if he should be concerned about the way Allen kept looking at Merlyn as though he wasn't sure what to say to the man.

He didn't think it was anything bad, but there was definitely something about Tommy Merlyn that was putting Barry Allen on edge…