Chapter Text
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The moment came quietly. No thunderclap, no burst of light.
Barry Allen stood alone in the Speed Lab, the hum of tech around him steady and oblivious to the weight of his decision. Screens blinked. Lightning crackled beneath his skin. His heart felt like it had already stopped, waiting for the world to catch up.
“Jay took Wally’s place,” he whispered to no one. “Again. Because of me. Always because of me.”
He was tired.
Not in the I-haven’t-slept-in-days way. Not even in the I-just-ran-through-time-again way. No, this was bone-deep. Cosmic. He was tired of trying to fix everything only to break it in a new shape. A cracked mug glued too many times. Eventually, even glue can’t hold back fate.
Savitar. Flashpoint. Eobard. The lives lost. The family shattered.
He looked at Gideon’s screen and pulled up a map of the timeline—fractured, forked, bleeding into itself. Glitches flickered. Entire universes blinking in and out of relevance. He stared at his name.
“Barry Allen – Primary Constant.”
But he wasn’t a constant.
He was the problem.
So he made the call.
---
“You’re going to do what?” the Speed Force, wearing his mother’s face, asked calmly.
Barry’s hands trembled, but his voice didn’t. “Erase myself. Not just from now. From all of it. Let me be the sacrifice. Let the world have peace.”
The Speed Force blinked at him, face unreadable.
“You are the lightning.”
“No,” Barry whispered. “I was just the spark.”
---
He ran.
Not into time. Not through dimensions.
He ran into oblivion.
And the Speed Force opened its arms.
---
March 14 – STAR Labs, Earth-1 (The New One)
Something was wrong.
Cisco sat at his console, fingers hovering over the keys, brows furrowed. Wally was joking with Jesse near the Cortex. Julian complained from the med bay. Iris was humming a song she couldn't remember learning. It was all normal.
But Cisco couldn’t breathe.
His chest hurt like someone had pressed a hand through it and squeezed. His eyes welled up and he hadn’t spoken yet today. Not really. No one noticed.
Except—
“Cisco?” Jesse asked gently.
He shook his head.
“I’m fine,” he lied.
He wasn’t. And he didn’t know why.
---
In the hidden archives of STAR Labs, a file appeared.
One word: “Barry.”
No one opened it. No one remembered writing it.
But on March 14, the air felt wrong.
Like it was grieving.
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Speed Force
He walked.
Alone.
The Speed Force wrapped around him like a mother who had lost her child. It was warm. But it wasn’t comforting. It felt... sorry.
Barry didn't talk. There was no one to talk to. Just echoes. He sometimes screamed into the storm. The storm didn’t scream back. Sometimes it showed him visions:
Joe, smiling at a child who wasn’t him.
Iris kissing Eddie under golden streetlights.
Ronnie holding Caitlin’s hand during a calm dinner.
Cisco and Dante laughing on a rooftop.
Wally and Jesse running, lightning streaks in perfect harmony.
And Barry, always, watching.
Never part of it.
Never remembered.
---
“You miss them,” the Speed Force said.
Barry laughed—hoarse, cracked, something inhuman. “Every version of them.”
“You made this world.”
“I broke every one before it. This one... they deserve.”
“You suffer.”
“Good.”
The Speed Force paused. The storm above crackled silently.
“We remember you.”
Barry nodded.
“Someone has to.”
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