Chapter Text
It all started with my mom’s murder.
Even that day. I was standing over her grave, thinking about what-ifs when the rogues attacked the Flash Museum. I and my rogues were… we had a weird relationship. Sometimes I wondered if Snart saw it all as a game. I wondered if he saw me as a friend who he could shoot without worrying about killing. But that day they did try it. Harder than ever before. And then he arrived.
Thawne was a psychopath. I think for all he pretended to know about the Speedforce and time travel and my life, he was just a man that lived in the shadow he created for me. We shouldn’t even know each other! I shouldn’t have anything to do with his time or his life. In his mind, he turned it all personal, though. I don’t even understand why, to be honest. He could’ve become the Flash of his time and be better, learning from my mistakes.
He should’ve known I wasn’t alone.
My team, my friends. Thawne never understood teamwork.
But he knew a thing about manipulation, and I knew this. Still, I listened when he taunted me about that day, about how slow I was, and how I failed.
I don’t exactly remember what I was thinking when I started running, I didn’t even remember running, I was ready to blame it all on him because he hated me and my world had changed and the world was ending and he finally got what he wanted and there was no Flash.
I’m ashamed of myself because instead of thinking that something was wrong, the moment I saw my mom alive I just thought hey, everything’s good.
For two days I lived the happy illusion of being with my mom, of her watching me grow up and become a CSI and being proud of me. But then I remembered Iris.
Seeing her with another man, with a child, was the waking up call I needed to realize things weren’t good at all. I mean, yeah, I had my mom. But what about my life? Could I just forget all about it and remade it here?
And then it got all worse when I saw their headlines and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard anything about the war in those two days.
My friends… The team didn’t exist. They were breaking the world they so fiercely protected.
I went to the only man I knew would know how to fix it.
Except it wasn’t the same man and he broke three of my fingers before he decided to listen to me.
If Bruce thinks losing both his parents is bad, he couldn't imagine what losing him did to his parents. Thomas was like him… kind of. More violent, drinking real alcohol, running a casino instead of saving his city, but hey, he did know he had to stop the Joker before she destroyed it. With no city, there wouldn’t be a casino and he wouldn’t have money to drink. I guess.
I didn’t see his mom, but I didn’t really want to. I wouldn’t tell him either unless he explicitly asked me about it and, knowing Bruce, he would be more curious about the alternate Earth than his life.
After a few burns and a change of clothes, Thomas agreed to help find the biggest weapon on Earth. Cyborg looked bigger and more metallic, and he also worked for the president, assembling his own suicide squad to go against both the Amazons and the Atlanteans.
What we found in the secret compound broke my heart, and I was so glad for a moment that there was no alternate Bruce to see it. My Bruce would be murderous if he saw it. Thomas eyed me suspiciously, but he didn’t ask, which was good, because I wasn’t ready to out his dead son.
Of course, nothing goes as planned when I do the planning, and Superman flew away after killing several soldiers. I thought Cyborg would cry when Batman agreed to help even without Superman. Later I was the one nearly crying when he showed me the video.
Zoom was there. I could stop it and get everything back to normal.
Except, he said it was my fault.
How can’t I remember going back in time and changing things?
Saving her?
How could that be the reason for all this?
My mom was only special to me because she was my mom. She shouldn’t be the turning point in whether the world ends or not. This had much more on it and I didn’t understand it.
I thought I was going to die. Thawne was all smiles, he kept talking and talking about how I failed even more then, how selfish, how dumb. I saw it when the bomb exploded.
Then Zoom was dead and the Speedforce was all mine to work with and Thomas proved how more broken than Bruce he was. He saved me. He might have saved the world.
I’m not sure what happens to him once I go and change things back. What happens to this Earth that either way is doomed. To my mom who I’ve only seen for two days before leaving her with no explanation nor a simple goodbye. Not even a kiss, a hug.
Such a fool.
But it was too late, again. So, I ran.
“I still remember everything. My whole other life,” Flash explained. “Every birthday cake my mother ever baked me, my room, everything… Perhaps some kind of temporal after effect?”
“Or perhaps,” Bruce muttered, not looking up from the belt he was fixing. “It was a gift.”
Flash took the letter from his pocket and glanced at it before placing it in front of Bruce.
“Yeah,” he said. “A gift.”
Bruce took the letter for inspection. Flash could see his shoulders tensed up.
“This is my father’s handwriting,” he said, then opened it and read it.
Flash took a few steps away and inspected the cave, relieved at the usual stuff his Bat kept. The big coin, the big card, the big t-rex… Thomas only had normal-size cards splattered with blood, a gun, and his family’s photo (besides all the medical slash torture equipment). However, he couldn’t help but noticed a few differences too, like the lack of a second chair near the main monitor, or the single cup of coffee, plain black, forgotten nearby.
Odd.
Flash himself gifted the pair with a matching set of superman and batman mugs as a joke. Later, Clark told him that Bruce secretly loved them, and they used them every day and every night. Of course, if the speedster ever said that to Bruce he would lose a leg, and Clark would probably have a chunk of green K through the chest.
“Thank you,” Bruce called. And Flash will pretend there was no emotion in the bat’s voice. That’d be odder. “You’re a good messenger.”
Flash smirked, then took a second look around and went for it.
“So…” he started, Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Where’s big blue?”
“Superman?” Bruce’s brow furrowed in confusion as if Barry should know where the Kryptonian spent his time. “With his wife, back in Metropolis. Why?”
Flash could only stare.
Shit.