The Pain of Barry Allen
"How did you become Savitar?" -Barry Allen, the Flash of the Arrowverse.
Bruce Wayne's car pulls up to the rusty gate of Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne gets out of the car, opening the gate all the way before getting back in and driving up the road to Wayne Manor looking abandoned with its overgrown vines covering the Manor and its overgrown and unkempt lawns.
Bruce pulls up to the door shaking Barry awake who looks around tiredly registering that there at Wayne Manor. Once inside Bruce and Barry head to the dirty kitchen with dishes in the sink and on the counter. Barry sits down at the table where he did last time. Bruce offers to make him something to eat. Barry just nods.
Bruce makes his special spaghetti like he did last time and offers Barry a large cup of coffee with 32 cubes of sugar to help keep Barry's calorie count and energy levels up. Bruce also noticed that since getting his powers and memories back Barry went from being overly happy, immature, and annoying to dark, brooding, and silent.
Bruce was worried about the trauma, the scars, and the constant death of them the battle had on the young Barry. Bruce knew full well what trauma could do to a person or turn them into. As they ate their spaghetti Bruce also noticed Barry tended to feel the left side of his face as if feeling for a scar that wasn't there.
Bruce could tell Barry was deep in thought about the battle, Bruce watched Barry eat and scribble notes, timing, and rearranging the order of events during the fight trying desperately to find the right sequence of events to allow them to win. Bruce let out a sigh. Bruce realized in that moment Barry was obsessed with winning the battle and keeping them alive. Bruce also looked Barry in the eyes and saw he was willing to go back in time as many times as it took to win.
This reminded Bruce of a movie he once saw called GroundHog Day about a man reliving the same day over and over except in Barry's case he was going to relive that horrible battle over and over for a lifetime. Bruce didn't even want to think about the horror and trauma that could do to a person let alone seeing his two friends die over and over again.
"Hey Bruce, I was thinking if I go back in time when Kara first lands in Russia and bring her to you warning you about the Kryptonians-"
"No, that will reset the timeline and create another…Flashpoint." Bruce cut him off and told him.
"Flashpoint?" Barry gave him a confused look. Then thought about it for a second. "Oh I get it." Barry told Bruce.
"You'll screw everything up and shatter history like a ranked amateur." Bruce scolded him.
"Yeah but-"
"You'll be making the same mistake the older Barry made." Bruce warned him.
Barry gave Bruce a horrified look then lowered his head darkly balling up his fist in anger at the thought of the older Barry. Bruce remembered how his Barry treated the other Barry like an older brother one admired him but now just mentioning the other Barry caused his face to contort in a dark rage.
Something clearly happened during the battle after he and Supergirl died, Bruce thought. Bruce would wager that the older Barry realized their world's doom was inevitable and went back in time to undo what he changed thus saving this world by making sure it never happens.
Realizing what that would mean Bruce imagined that his Barry would not take that well and try to stop the older Barry from erasing their timeline. Yet, here they are after the older Barry reset the timeline, still existing and on a one way road to destruction. Bruce let out a heavy sigh.
"I'm really sorry for the pain you have felt Barry. Seeing me, Kara, and our world die at the hands of the Kryptonains…" Bruce said in an empathetic voice.
"Bruce…" Barry looked up at him with a crushed and defeated look of a man in agonizing pain of what's to come.
Bruce can see the loneliness, the pain, and the loss in Barry's eyes. He lived more then anyone can dream. A dream of never ending war and death. Bruce could see Barry spending a lifetime trying different ways to win the battle but the result always ended in Zod's victory no matter how close he got to winning.
Bruce could see Barry taking breaks and resting in the Speed Force growing older as the years went by as he kept running back in time trying to win the battle and further back in time just to eat and go back into the Speed Force, rest and then try again.
Bruce saw no matter how fast or strong Barry got the result would be the same. He would keep going back in time reliving the battle fighting side by side with him and Supergirl until they died over and over again because, for this Barry who dreamed of being a superhero with his god like powers it was the most defining moment of his life even though they are doomed to fail. Bruce saw that Barry could not let go and move on from his pain…his loss. Bruce understood that very well.
He too could not move on from the death of his parents. That pain is what made him who he is today. Bruce didn't know who he was without it and for Barry, Bruce assumed the same would be for him. In that moment Bruce saw himself in Barry and it pained his heart. Bruce looked around his dirty kitchen then back at Barry. Bruce didn't want this for Barry. He didn't want him to grow old, bitter, rageful, and most importantly alone like him.
"I'm sad for you Barry." Bruce told him. Barry gave Bruce a confused look.
"Having losses like that in your life and the power you possess to run back in time to fix it. Who wouldn't try to save their friends and their world." Bruce paused for a moment. Barry stared intently at Bruce.
"I understand that completely, but the thing is Barry there are consequences to time travel." Bruce warns. Barry had a dark and uncaring look as if he heard all this before and didn't want to hear it again. Still, for Barry's sake Bruce persisted.
"I have heard all of this before from the other Barry-"
"Not from me you haven't." Bruce scolded Barry who was struck silent in shock at Bruce's tone toward him.
"I don't want you to make the same mistakes the older Barry made. Let me show you something." Bruce said, looking around the table for a glass cup. Barry let out an annoyed sigh putting his hands on the table.
"Please, not the spaghetti analogy again." Barry groaned.
"Humor me kid." Bruce asked, holding up a small white glass cup. Barry lets out a sigh and nods.
"This coffee cup, think of it as the space-time continuum where if you go back in time like the older Barry did it breaks." Bruce explained sitting the cup down then takes a butter knife and chips a piece of it off. Now you can reset the timeline, try to fix it, but no matter how hard you try it wont be exactly how it was." Bruce explained putting the chip piece back in its spot only to fall back out away from the cup.
When Barry saw that he was reminded of being in the chrono bowl watching all those other worlds collide and destroy one another across the very fabric of reality. The multiverse space-time continuum. Barry saw the cup as the space-time continuum and that chipped piece that had been broken and fallen away separate from the cup as their timeline.
"Look Bruce, I have learned all this stuff that I didn't know before okay, I'm not going to make the same mistakes-"
"Mistakes." Bruce finished Barry's sentence. Barry just stared at Bruce giving him an annoyed look.
"Barry what you just said right there is the paradox of time travel and also the paradox of life. I mean if I only knew then what I know now, this is how you end up with alternate versions of yourself or even evil future versions of yourself." Bruce explained.
Barry just went pale remembering the Dark Flash who killed him in the Speed Force when he went after the older Barry, his alternate future timeline self and this Future self, the Dark Flash.
"Why then have these powers if I can't go back to fix what is broken?" Barry said in a dark distorted voice with the bangs of his hair hanging in front of his face.
"You're not a god Barry. You're just a man." Bruce reminded him. Barry just stares at Bruce and nods his head like a man who knows he is defeated in this debate. In that moment Bruce saw a man alone, in pain, and overcome by the fear of failure.
"Barry, you're a man gifted with extraordinary abilities. The question you need to ask yourself is "what kind of hero are you going to be?" Bruce posed the question. Barry didn't know what to say.
"Are you just going to take a doover everytime you make a mistake or are you going to live with them and move forward?" Bruce empathized and encouraged the ladder part of his question. Barry sat there silent and in deep thought…
"Get some rest Barry, we will go rescue Kara in a few hours." Bruce tells him then grabs their dishes, putting them in the sink before heading up stairs. Bruce stops at the stairs looking over at Barry.
"Barry, these scars we have make us who we are. We're not meant to go back and fix them." Bruce warned him. Barry sat there in silence with his head lowered and his hair covering his face.
"Don't let your tragedies define you." Bruce pleaded before leaving the room.
Barry sat for a bit before super speeding down to the batcave from the well entrance outside of Wayne Manor across the lawn. Once down there Barry flipped the switch turning on the power to the batcave. From there he super speeded to the batmobile and removed its covering viewing the car he saw as a kid on the news.
Barry then ran over to the batcomputer removing its covering then turned on the computer monitors. Then, his blue lighting could be seen streaking around the batcave till he found a chamber that was like a walk-in closet housing a bunch of batsuits. Barry found a bulk set of the one Bruce would later give him and just grabbed the body suit, boots, gloves, and cowl heading over to the work desk.
Barry did what he did before, making cuts and modifications to the suit to make it more flexible and giving him more breathing room in between the legs. Barry made his lighting symbol decal from the paper only this time as he was about to grab the red spray can and the yellow and black tape he stopped remembering the older Barry in his Flash suit and colors.
Barry balled up his fist. He hated the older Barry for creating this world and bringing all this about, he hated him for not even trying as much and as hard as him to save his world. He hated Barry most of all for abandoning him after he died for him against the Dark Flash and most of all for trying to erase him and his timeline like it was all one big mistake he had to learn from.
No, Barry thought to himself, he would not be anything like Barry or sport his colors. Barry looked on the shelf grabbing the navy blue spray paint instead of red for the body suit. Then white spray paint for the lighting bolt along with white duct tape and redid his flash suit in those colors, lopping off the bat ears and breaking the ear pieces off his head phones gluing them on to be the lighting emblems the flash had on either side of his cowl.
Once Barry was done and letting his suit dry he ran over to the bat computer looking up different names for speedsters in mythology. Barry wanted to be called something different then the Flash. He saw names like Hermes, God of Speed but thought that was silly, then he thought about Zoom which sounded better then being called The Flash but for some reason it didn't sit well with him. Then he sees the name Savitar, the God of Motion.
Barry smiled, liking the sound of that but pushed it from his mind. He saw the time and ran over to the batmobile hopping in the passenger seat leaning back and slushing in the seat quickly falling asleep after setting his alarm. In his heart Barry told himself he would be different then the Future Flash and the Dark Flash.
Bruce was right, he wasn't a god, he was just a man in pain, but God feels no pain. All Barry would have to do is become one. He would recreate himself as a god of speed…then maybe once he was strong enough and fast enough he could save them Barry thought before drifting to sleep.
Barry woke up hours later to a loud rumbling sound Barry woke up startled seeing the batwing descend from the ceiling. Barry super speeds into his costume to the staircase he was before seeing the Batwing descend in place. Barry never got tired of seeing that. Then he heard loud echoing steps.
"I'll help you save Supergirl then will go from there." Batman told Barry, looking down at him. Barry super speeds next to Batman with a wicked smile. Batman turns his whole body to face him. Batman notes the color change in Barry's costume.
"And what do we have here?" Batman asked in a dark rough voice.
"What can I say, I outgrew red." Barry smiled wickedly, holding out his hand turning sideways.
"Now let's go save Kara." Barry said, holding his cowl in his right hand. Batman just smiled as they loaded up and the batwing broke through the waterfall flying toward Russia to Supergirl.