Summary: His name is Barry Allen, and for all he knows, he's the Fastest Man Alive. A pure soul who only desires to help. And so... he does.
Disclaimer: The Flash and all affiliated characters here are property of DC Comics, and I do not own them.
Disclaimer 2: Yes, I did obviously took inspiration from a terrible CW show for some stuff, but hey, the ideas on that first season were great!
Chapter 12: F1
S.T.A.R. Labs., Central City, Missouri, United States.
"Ready, Barry?" asked Dr. Caitlin Snow.
"Ready, let me know if there's anything unusual, Dr. Snow."
"I've told you several times that you can just call me Caitlin, Barry."
"I know, but it's hard!"
"Barry, I'll give you the starting signal," intervened Professor Wells, owner of one of the brightest minds of the last 50 years, as Cisco looked at him with admiration, not paying much attention to the data on the screen in front of him. "Remove the barriers."
"Yes, sir," obeyed Cisco Ramon, the youngest engineer at S.T.A.R. Labs in twenty years. He focused again, pressed a button, and the walls in front of Barry Allen lowered and disappeared underground.
He felt his feet firmly on the supports. Brief golden sparks flew from his toes onto the track, to which he still wasn't accustomed. He felt a tingling in his eyes, still unable to fully understand or accept the idea that it was electricity.
"Three, two…" counted Professor Wells. Barry paid attention to each letter. When he was halfway through the 'N' in 'ONE', Barry started running, just as he had been instructed. He returned shortly after Professor Wells finished saying the letter 'E', finding himself in the middle of a dust cloud that he had caused himself.
"Phew, ok! How did it go?"
Dr. Snow smiled as if the answer were obvious. Cisco stared at him with his mouth open. Professor Wells approached Barry in his wheelchair after finishing the countdown.
"I'd say very well, Mr. Allen."
"The camera we put in your hood still doesn't allow us to capture everything you saw in great detail." Cisco checked his computer and projected the images onto a holographic projector in the center of the room where only the four of them could enter. "You made it to Missouri River. Wait, no. I know that area, but it's on the other side of the river, on Keystone City, wow! Then you went back… A few cars there, a store, Ivo Labs! I think that's CCU… Hold up. Barry, is that a cat in a tree?"
"Did you really save a kitty from a tree? Couldn't you do something less cliché?" asked Dr. Snow, amused.
"I couldn't leave it there!"
"Barry, what's that in your hand?" Cisco asked, pointing at what Barry had tried, unsuccessfully, to hide behind his back.
Embarrassed, he showed them a chocolate strawberry stick.
"Did you steal that?"
"What? No, of course not! I got hungry at the store and left the money on the counter."
"Mr. Allen, is that a thwarted robbery I see?" asked Professor Wells, pointing to one of the images that the camera, built by Cisco, which took a hundred photos per second, could barely capture.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I saw that guy in the alley following a boy with a comic strip peeking out of his pocket. I took the knife from the guy, left him a block from CCPD, gave the boy a chocolate strawberry stick, put the boy's phone back in his pocket, and then came here."
"Wait, did you buy another stick?"
"Actually, I bought three. Don't look at me like that, I burn a lot of calories," Barry defended himself, somewhat offended. "But the other one got stuck to the cat's tail while it was running, and I really, really hope its owner removes it before the little one eats it and hurts its stomach."
"Well, your speed is as expected, Mr. Allen," Professor Wells intervened. "You don't seem exhausted from yesterday's race, and we've already confirmed your speed range with the new shoes. Although, I would still like to do some tests after a sleepless night."
"I don't think Barry will like that," muttered Cisco.
"Any sore muscles, Barry?" asked Dr. Snow, disregarding her boss's comment, too.
"None, doc…, Caitlin. In any case, that was the last test, right?"
"That's right. You can call it a day, Mr. Allen," said Professor Wells, focused again on his computer. "And remember. No word to Dr. Dhawan."
"Yes, sir, I know." He was a bit tired of the same warning, every time he left the lab.
"Go be a hero, Barry," said Dr. Snow, more empathetic.
"Run, Flash!" exclaimed Cisco, slapping his back before he started to run.
He left behind the only three people he trusted, the only ones who knew his secret and had given him the identity he now possessed. However, he couldn't even reveal all his secrets to them. He didn't dare tell them that he had sped up a bit when passing by Iris West's house, his childhood crush, so the camera wouldn't capture her. Iris, who had returned from Gotham a few weeks ago, was there in the front yard with her boyfriend, some business guy named Malcolm Thawne, who had the courage Barry lacked, and had dared to confess his feelings, unlike him.
Instead, Barry was dating Dr. Meena Dhawan, a young scientist at S.T.A.R. Labs Newton's Practical Application Department, a kind, charming and strong woman whose trust and feelings he felt he was betraying. Not only because she didn't know his secret identity, nor because of his work with Professor Wells in an underground secret lab at S.T.A.R.
It was because, deep down, he still had feelings for Iris.
Barry Allen thought about this as he left S.T.A.R. Labs and headed downtown like a golden streak.
He had always liked to run, but nothing compared to this. The wind didn't hit his face; instead, it ran behind him, striving to catch up. Everything felt different around him, yet at the same time, it was normal. He knew he was moving faster than anyone, and he had thought the world would move slowly around him. Initially, he suspected that, although he'd move superfast to the world, he would perceive each second as a whole year himself.
And indeed, everything was slower around him, but he didn't perceive it as an eternity or anything like that. His mind worked so fast that when he accelerated and ran, it wasn't tedious. He just acted without dwelling too long on things, and then things got done. It wasn't about the speed of his legs, but the speed of his brain. That's why, at first, when he wasn't used to his mental speed, he had crashed into so many trees, so many times. And he still did.
How had it come to this? Well, just under a year ago, he was struck by lightning while working in his laboratory. It was literally a stormy night when all common sense told him to stay home, but of course, he had to go out to work. He was such a fool! He had an important research project he wanted to solve immediately, and he couldn't wait until the next day, when the sun would come out, like any normal, patient, and intelligent person would have done.
So, he was struck by lightning, which smashed him into a bunch of formulas and chemicals of all kinds that somehow gave him the speed of that lightning bolt. He was in a hospital bed for six months, and when he woke up, Professor Wells was waiting for him. Without asking too many questions, he secretly took him to a secret research facility hidden from most of S.T.A.R. Labs staff, so that his only trusted employees, an engineer and a doctor, could examine him.
After a while, Barry realized that he could use that gift as his hero, that fantastic man the world knew as Superman. After a few weeks of tough discussion of pros and cons, his three coworkers understood his intentions, and in exchange for being able to continue their research on him, they promised to help him in his fight against crime. They gave him a red suit made of polyester, Teflon, and latex, which somehow remained in perfect condition when he ran. He wore a belt, golden bracelets and some special red shoes, as well as a pair of little metal wings on his hood, as an homage to both the Greek god Hermes, as well as the mythical agent hero of World War II, of whom legend said he could run faster than anyone on Earth.
Barry took his hero name from that legendary hero. Sometimes he would be Barry Allen, a forensic detective for the Central City Police Department. Other times he would be the fastest man alive: The Flash!
Alright. What could he do now? He had thought about trying to go to another country other than Mexico or Canada. In reality, he barely got far from his hometown. He still didn't dare; he didn't want to stray too far from his memories, not even for a couple of minutes. Professor Wells had advised him to refrain from going too far without a test first, but it wasn't as if The Flash, an American hero, couldn't help people who didn't live in America. Not when he possessed the skills he did.
Thinking about it, he ran to Iron Heights Prison, north of Keystone City, to make sure the criminals he had arrested during those months were still there. Especially that strange and anonymous man, The Turtle, who became the first villain in what, according to Cisco, would be a long story of rogues. Yes. His first supervillain had been a man who moved slowly and managed to make others do so too with a special gun. The Flash defeated him by making him stumble in slow motion. He wasn't sure if he wanted history to remember that event.
In any case, as usual, he didn't enter the high-security prison. Not because he couldn't, or out of respect. He simply would never dare to enter as a hero when there was an inmate special to him inside. On the nearby cliffs to the prison, Barry imagined what he would become if he entered and took an innocent person out of there, just because they were important to him. Didn't that make him similar to any criminal?
No. If he was going to get Henry Allen out of prison, it would be through the legal process, as it should be.
"Barry?" someone whispered in his ear, interrupting his thoughts.
"Cisco?" he asked into the communicator that the engineer had placed behind one of the golden wings on his hood.
"Not so loud, the Professor doesn't know about this…" his friend whispered again.
"What's going on?"
"Well, you see, I started hacking some radio signals here and there… you know, routine stuff."
"Uh-huh…?"
"I know Professor Wells told you not to leave the country much, but…"
"Cisco, what's going on?"
"Aliens, Barry!" Cisco exclaimed, in a villainous and ominous whisper.
"What? Are you talking about Superman?"
"If I were talking about Superman, I'd be screaming like a schoolgirl; no, I'm not talking about him. Aliens are landing everywhere, Barry! Oslo, Yokohama, London… The media says they're just meteorites, but I intercepted a government signal talking to some… Team 7 or something?"
"Cisco, wait, tell me what you mean by… You said Aliens, right?
"Yes, aliens."
"Really?"
"Really."
"And you mean I should…?"
"People are in danger, Barry."
Cisco didn't finish saying his name when Barry had already started running. In his chest, the golden lightning bolt that he had chosen as his symbol emitted intense electrical flashes. Aliens? It didn't matter who the attacker was. If people were in danger, he couldn't do anything less than go save them. That's was what Superman did, right? What he did four years ago when everyone found out they weren't alone in the universe, and that the people from beyond the stars weren't so different when it came to war and conquest.
He asked Cisco for instructions as he headed to the first city his friend had mentioned. He ran pass the frontier with the state of Illinois. He ran through all of the eastern states. He crossed Gotham City without even blinking, despite the horrible things he saw. He was about to reach the easternmost point of Maine, next to the Atlantic Ocean. Professor Wells had told him that, theoretically, with enough speed…
"Run, Barry!" Cisco said in his ear.
The Flash quickened his pace. Barry let out a cry and jumped into the sea. For a moment, everything slowed down… the birds flapping in the sky with their wings almost frozen; the sea waves seemed motionless. He had to keep running, without stopping, without thinking. He didn't have time to wonder if he would sink into the sea. He had to run.
Slowly, his scarlet boot touched the water. Barry could see a jet sprout from the tip of his toe upwards. He focused. His mind sped up and the world became as fast as him. Not understanding how, he was already running on the water.
"Cisco!"
"Barry?"
"I'm running on water!"
"I know, I'm seeing it on the map, you're already in the Atlantic, it's awesome!"
"Yeah… Where's Oslo?"
"Uh, turn left thirteen degrees and… no, ten, sorry. No, too far. You're moving too fast for calculations, Barry, you're almost under Greenland!"
"Then I'll ask when I get to Europe!"
He didn't ask, but he followed the signs on the highways. European Union stuff, it was useful! For the first time in his life, he was in Europe. Spain. He had to turn quite a bit to the left, cross the sea again, reach England, cross again…
The journey wasn't so bad anyway. Three kids were throwing bricks from a van at a sushi store, so Barry stopped them, put the bricks back in the van, and dragged the vehicle to the nearest correctional facility, with the three kids inside. In Switzerland (which he shouldn't even have touched, but geography was clearly not his strong suit), he saved a girl from falling off the balcony of her house and gave her a stuffed animal that he bought at a store that was opening. Barry didn't have time to calculate the exchange rate from dollars to euros, so he just left a hefty sum on the counter. He stopped, turned 90 degrees left, and ran.
He stumbled on his way to Denmark, about to reach the water. He almost broke his neck against a rock, but he pulled a stunt somehow and managed to keep running. It was like being in a dream. He was running from the United States to Norway and it had been… twenty minutes? Half an hour?
"Five minutes, Barry," Cisco said when he asked.
"Five minutes? Are you serious?"
...
Nordmarka, Oslo, Norway.
After two more minutes, he arrived in Oslo, at the forest Cisco had notified him about. He was really, really tired, but of course, he had just run who knows how many hundreds of miles without any rest.
"What do I do?" he asked Cisco. There were some people nearby, but not many. Barry hid behind a tree to catch his breath.
"The meteorite entered the atmosphere. I wasn't wrong. The military is sure they've identified life signs inside the rocks. They're aliens, Barry. They're above you now."
"Above?" Barry looked at the sky, searching for the meteorite. He noticed an orange light among the clouds, and knew it was it. "Oh my goodness, it's serious. A meteorite is falling, and it's going to destroy everything with that speed. A real meteorite with a real alien inside. Hm? Oh.
"Barry?"
Cisco?"
"What happened?" Barry noticed the fear and anxiety in Cisco's voice.
"I have no idea how to stop something like that."
He could believe he was a hero all he wanted, but perhaps Cisco and him had flown a little too close to the sun. Yes, there were people in danger, but had he ever stopped to think about what he would do to help them? Run and that was it? Run and punch the rock from the tallest treetop? And what good would that do if he was just going to break his hand?
"I don't know… let me think. At that speed, there must be something… My God."
"I know. We're idiots."
"No, look! Up in the sky!"
Barry's soul almost fell to the ground. At least his mouth did. Among the clouds, in front of the meteorite falling at full speed, there was a man in a cape floating. A man dressed in blue, ready to stop the meteorite with his hands.
"Oh."
"Barry, the satellite is showing me the big guy in blue. Am I delusional?"
"Now you hacked a satellite?"
"Barry!"
"Yes, it's Superman alright!"
He thought fast. Very fast, as fast as he could with a mind electrified by a lightning bolt that struck him at an impossible angle through the window and bathed in chemicals that no one would dare to smell up close. He was The Flash, the fastest man alive. That's what they called him the guys at Central City Picture News, but it was of no use to stop a meteorite.
However, Superman could. He was the hero who saved them all from the Kryptonian threat. He was the guy who had inspired others to dress in tights in the first place. Could he trust him? No, he shouldn't even ask that, the answer was an obvious yes. There were more people like him in the world, and if all those heroes had the goal of helping people in danger, then he would trust them.
That's what heroes did, right? It wasn't about defeating slow supervillains or catching car thieves while running from the police. It wasn't about stopping meteorites if you didn't have the ability. It was about saving people.
The Flash ran at full speed through the forest, amid the schoolgirl screams Cisco had promised, directly injected into his ear. He saw a couple and pulled them out of the forest. He returned and took a puppy, its young owner, and their whole family, who had gone out for a picnic. He left them at the nearest police station, and returned again. Another couple getting close. A pair of patrol guards. Then a very bearded man who had gone to the forest to smoke —Barry took the opportunity to throw all his cigarettes into a mud puddle, who would even go to the forest to smoke—. Then two cats. None of the cats needed chocolate-covered strawberry sticks.
He heard an impressive sonic impact in his head, surely caused by Superman stopping the meteorite. Barry knew he would succeed, but just in case the alien did any extra damage, he made sure to get everyone out of the forest. The next thing was to go somewhere else. There were a lot of people to help. He just had to run.