Runnin' Home to You

Chapter 3

         

"You thought you could defeat me, with this?" Zoom taunted as he pulled off the Flash's cowl, revealing a bloody and semi-unconscious Barry Allen.

Harry stood there, face seeming calm and collected but his eyes told just the opposite. "I made a mistake," He confessed.

Zoom growled at the Harrison Wells doppelganger. "Yes...," Zoom confirmed while turning to Barry, "...a costly one." Barry was once again awake, but only because the pain of Zoom stabbing him was too great to fall unconscious. Suddenly, Barry's body was dumped on the floor like a bag of trash, and nothing stopped Barry's mind from slipping away to somewhere more comfortable.

"Barry! Stay with me Barry, stay with me," Caitlin pleaded to her unconscious friend, and Barry wanted to stay, but he was too weak; the Flash couldn't hold on, so he let go...

-----------------------------------------------------

Barry's eyelids flew open, and he found himself in a hallway with four people who were waiting outside a door. The speedster walked around them to find they were the same four people he has been seeing with the two men. He felt a familiar air being around them, even if this was a dream. Barry took him their features carefully.

One woman, three men; all of them with anxious and worried expressions, two more so than the other two. Barry looked down the end of the hallway facing the group's backs and found it led to the exact same living space he remembered, except a bit newer.

"How do you think it's going?" The guy with short, spiked up brown hair asked. Barry turned his attention back to the group, who were now talking amongst themselves.

"I don't know. JARVIS, how's everything going in there?" The blond build guy asked the air. Barry looked all around him, trying to find who the man was asking, when a British voice said, "Everything is going smoothly. The baby has safely arrived, now they are checking his health."

The man with blond hair draped around his neck and shoulders curiously asked, "His?"

"Yes, sir. The baby appears to be a boy," This 'JARVIS' spoke with a hint of pride.

The spiky brown-haired guy smirked at the woman with short hair, "Looks like you owe me ten bucks, Romanoff." The woman shook her head at the man and gave a small smirk back. "Shut up, Barton."

Barry chuckled fondly at them as if that small exchange wasn't new to him. Barry then frowned a realized that maybe it wasn't.

It could just be reminding me of Cisco and Caitlin. He assured himself. That's when a voice in the back of his head questioned, "You really think that's the reason?"

The speedster bit his lip and looked down, knowing that voice was right. This made him curious as to what was happening on the other side of the door. He probably shouldn't do it, as he didn't know what to expect of this particular memory. He didn't know how to explain it properly, but the young hero had the sense that this was a special memory, it was not the others where he was fascinated by what was happening and seeing it vividly, even though he felt a little intrusive watching another person's memories (At least, that's what Barry hopes they are). No, this one was special; this one made Barry nervous yet excited for whatever he would find out.

So, he did what his instincts told him to do; he walked to the door and attempted to avoid running into the familiar people in the hallway when he remembered he was invisible in his memories, he could go through everyone in the hallway and no one would be the wiser.

I'm such an idiot sometimes...He thought before taking a deep breath and walking through the woman leaning against the wall that he also walked through. Once on the other side, he was in awe. In front of him was a huge infirmary with a laboratory section far off to the right. Technology was everywhere with double-sided screens and fancy monitors showing data and the results of various tests. It reminded him greatly of the Cortex in S.T.A.R. Labs.