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The first thing that Barry noticed was his fixation on time. It wasn’t bad, necessarily- wasn’t all consuming, didn’t really impede his everyday progress, wasn’t that noticeable to the people around him. But that was just it- time wasn’t that noticeable to the people around him. They didn’t watch clocks like he did, fixate on intervals of 15 like he did, didn’t take such a great interest in what made up an hour, a minute, a second. Even before the lightning- before he could make things slow down, could stretch out one second into a hundred, could squeeze a hundred miles into the span of a intake of breath or a flutter of an eyelash, Barry fixated on the way time flowed. On the way it was manipulated. On clocks and numbers, on counting and multiples, on time.
Still, for a while Barry didn’t think much of the distinction. He noticed, and then he… stopped noticing. His mom was dead, his dad was in jail, and Barry had bigger problems. Besides, clocks were easy. Look at them rarely, stare at them until the time was right, look away. Build a schedule. Follow the clocks. School was excellent in that regard, if no other-- there was a plan, there was a routine, there was movement according to set intervals of 30- and 45- and 60-. And so Barry thrived on time, relished it, when that was all there was for him to rely on.
---
The kids at school were fine.
The school itself was not.
Everything was loud, in a way that Barry was unaccustomed to. Shrill bells, shriller voices. Yelling and talking and breathing and being. And the way they’d brush up against him- clothes and skin too much against his own, the feeling of an old wad of gum under a desk, inconsistent classroom temperatures. The squeak of a marker on a whiteboard. A teacher who forgot to adjust the volume before they played a video. Barry was a smart kid- a genius kid, could store information in his mind and pull it back out whenever he needed to, did research in his spare time and understood things quickly.
But in school, with the people and the pressures and the input, Barry couldn’t focus. Couldn’t sit still. And so he slogged through middle school, a smart kid but a bad student, with a dad in jail and a mom whose ashes had been scattered to the winds.
“You know, Barry, I wish you’d try harder.” Mr. Glimmons had said, once. “You have enormous potential, you just never bother to use it.”
(but Barry was trying, was going to class even when he didn’t want to and sitting through it when it felt like he’d burn up if he stayed still, when all he wanted to do was run away, as fast and as far as he could. But he just nodded, looked away.)
---
And that, for Barry, was a theme-- teachers liked him but couldn’t understand him, wanted him to do well and didn’t get why he couldn’t. He was too smart, they’d say, to end up a high school dropout in a dead end job, or in prison like his father. Barry pretended he couldn’t hear them.
And sitting still-- that was Barry’s biggest problem of all. His hands shook when he was anxious, tapped rhythms into wood and fluttered at his sides, drummed into his wrists and shook against each other. His legs tapped and scurried under desks, unless he folded them up under him, curled and confined between a hard plastic chair and a hard wooden desk. The pressure of wood against his skin was nice- calming, and sometimes he’d just sit like that, not moving, wondering if that was what teachers really wanted. Because when he unfurled his limbs, shook himself out to the wind, Barry moved. Escape wasn’t an option, not really, but it was an inspiration, an idea that got Barry out of classrooms with the too-loud lunch bell and around the field, over the jungle gym, through the swingsets. When he was feeling daring he’d duck out to the parking lot, dash between cars, duck down to hide from teachers and marvel at his own brilliance. He was quiet, he was fast, and there were so many places to hide.
---
(Once, a 12-year-old Barry had been weaving between cars, giddy on freedom, and had seen an adult winding their way through the neat rows. Barry, ever the opportunist, had rolled under a nearby car, balled up on his side, choking on his glee. They’d never see him, he knew, not as the walked up, shoes clicking on the pavement. Opened the car door. And in that movement, Barry knew he had to move- had to get out from underneath, had to run away. But he couldn’t let the woman see him, so he lay, paralyzed with indecision, as the car rumbled to life above him. And he lay, curled on his side, gasping and trembling, as the car pulled out of the space, mechanically and emotionlessly unaware of the stowaway beneath. A pipe caught on his side, dragged the skin, and still Barry did not move. It pulled forward, readjusted the angle, and he watched with a horrified certainty as a tire rolled up to him. Closer and closer, unstoppable. He was helpless, terrified, immobile. He could not run, and the tire got closer. It bumped his knee, crushed him against the asphalt-- and retreated. It drove off, the driver oblivious to the waif of a boy huddled in the parking spot, sides and knees and shoulders scraped to hell. He laid there, paralyzed, for what felt like hours. He could not move. And then, alone, Barry rolled over. Trembling, he stood up, his blood a dark stain on the pavement behind him. He could not breathe. He could not think. And, an eternity later, he sprinted home.
He didn’t come back for three days.)
---
Barry knew his frantic movements, his compulsory stillness, his unpredictable oscillation between those two extremes- he knew that was unusual. He could watch the people around him, measure their behaviors against his own and note where he found his lacking. And, in an absent way, it bothered him. This difference- one more thing separating him from his classmates, on top of the imprisoned dad and the dead mom and his general twitchiness. How he shied away from the people around him, how he flinched at loud noises, how he, without fail, ditched assemblies and school plays and anything in auditoriums. But they were just superficial- these differences- and they did not define him, so they did not absorb him. He was Barry Allen, and he had bigger problems.
---
He’s thirteen when he realizes that maybe he doesn’t really need friends. He hasn’t had any for a while, anyway-- not since the trial. No one wants their kid hanging out with the son of a murderer. An alleged murderer. A framed-- no. Barry wouldn’t go there, not again, not when he couldn’t prove it. Enough people had looked at him like he was crazy, like he was ignorant, like he was naive. Barry understood what was going on- understood what it mean to come home to a missing father, a loaded gun, a mother with three gunshots who had been dead for hours, a bullet in her lung, a bullet through her arm, and a bullet in her brain. A mother who had inked out his father’s name in the floor with her own blood, who had cookies still in the oven that were burnt to a crisp. Barry hadn’t been able to tell which was worse- the thick smell of char or the sharp tang of iron. He hadn’t cared.
He had run- had turned around and sprinted back to school, had thrown up four times on the way and again when he arrived, couldn’t stop running. Had looked anywhere but the teacher as he begged for a phone, had gasped and choked his story to 911, had fallen as he had wrenched his arm out of the teacher’s well-meant embrace, hadn’t gotten back up. He was Barry Allen, and he wasn’t a stranger to violence.
But neither was he a friend.
And yet he was friends to nothing else, either, and so 13-year-old Barry had been left in the world with no guiding people and no guiding principles. He wasn’t a zealot or an idealist, a leader or a follower, a goth or a jock or girl-crazy. He was just Barry- a little lonely, a little bitter, a little twitchy. He didn’t need people, he decided, didn’t understand them and didn’t want to, felt isolated in his vast superiority and his great ignorance. He was not like them, and couldn’t be. He told himself he wouldn’t want to be, either, not for anything.
He was pretty sure he was lying.
---
Barry Allen first heard the word ‘autistic’ on the second-to-last day of eighth grade. He had heard variations before, of course, as one is wont to do in middle school, but it was the first time it had been used honestly. There’s a girl- Cassie, Barry thinks, but he hasn’t seen her often enough to be sure- sitting with her friend, a girl with a bushy ponytail and wide smile who Barry’s never talked to but often seen around, and Cassie’s rocking, rhythmically, back and forth. She doesn’t talk- she never talks- but her friend is still murmuring to her softly, under her breath, and Barry’s not close enough to catch anything but the hint of ‘if you’re autistic, anyway, because…’, but it’s enough to make him curious. Cassie was new to the school- she came second semester of eighth grade, and Barry had thought fleetingly and rarely of how odd that was- but Barry had still kept an eye on her, sort of, whenever he saw her around. She moved like he did, sometimes. Had thoughts like he did, almost, just a greater difficulty articulating them. There had been more than one occasion where Barry, feeling jaded and alien, had thought at least I’m not as weird as she is. And there had been at least once, silently and shamefully, where Barry had looked at her and thought at least there’s someone like me.
So when Barry had gotten back to the house that night- the house that wasn’t his, where he was staying with people who weren’t his, who were trying to give him a life he didn’t want- he looked up ‘autism’. He found a few sites- Wikipedia first, and then others, solidarity forums and parent discussion boards and charities and symptoms list and diagnostic criteria and quizzes. He scrolled through links, scribbled down lists in margins, pretended this wasn’t, for him, a big deal. That this wasn’t his- because it wasn’t. Because Barry was 14, with decent grades and a quick mind and he had things to do and places to be and no one to talk to. This didn’t matter, because even if it did it couldn’t change anything.
---
Barry started highschool that fall. It was jittery and foreign in the way that new things were- he hated it, and for while that meant that he hated himself. He couldn’t stand any of it- the classes that ended at weird times (8:26, 9:31, 10:37,) or the bigger hallways with bigger people, the way they’d all walk right against him, the way he couldn’t get away. The way they smelled, and the way they sounded- if he could run fast enough or far enough, if could get through the hallways a second faster or get home a minute earlier- then things might be alright. But he couldn’t. So they weren’t. He talked less, and read more. Barry spent hours each night curled around a cell phone or a library book or the computer he had checked out from the school library, googling how things worked, writing down lists and storing information. He wanted to learn- needed something to fill the gap in his mind, to run over and over again when he needed something to think about, when he couldn’t sit still. When Barry was stressed, which was often, he’d list Supreme Court cases by year, then alphabetically. He’d run through the names of famous judges when he had extra time on tests, would drill himself on the compositions of cells while running home. He liked learning, in a way that Barry liked so little else. And he liked his fixations- liked his expertise, revelled in the feeling of able to call up information as soon as it was needed, liked that he knew more things than the other students, than some of the teachers.
Knowledge was- if not power, it was freedom. If not freedom, it was an escape. And Barry had always been running from something.
---
Barry didn’t do homework, but he still did well. He’d overhear kids talking about spending four hours reviewing on a test, or three writing an essay, or staying up past midnight just to finish their assignments, and he’d wonder what they were doing wrong. He did homework for 15 minutes once a week, and he still got good enough grades (all A’s, but barely- two 89.5-somethings that teachers were kind enough to round up. He’d work on it; Barry did not trust other people’s kindness.) He’d write essays over the span of a night or two, stay up until three writing, not bother revising, and walk off with the grades he needed. He was smart but lazy. He did well. He could do better. He didn’t see the point in trying.
(“You know, Barry, I wish you’d try harder.” a teacher had said, once, and it had made him so angry. How could he try when he couldn't focus? Couldn’t listen? Couldn’t sit still? If he wasn’t trying- if everything he was working so hard for wasn’t all he could do-- Barry didn’t know what that meant. If that was what not trying felt like, Barry didn’t think he’d ever try to do anything at all.)
---
He visited his dad in jail, sometimes. He’d sit right across from him, three feet and several lifetimes away, and Barry wouldn’t meet his eyes. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t explain why.
“You ashamed of your old man?” Barry’s dad had asked, only half joking.
Barry made sure to look at him after that. He had to.
---
Barry is in 10th grade when he takes Biology. The course is taught by Mr. Delgado, and it’s the first class Barry has ever loved. Mr. Delgado’s class is strict, and it’s rigorous, and half his classmates hate it, but for Barry everything suddenly makes sense. He stays after class to ask questions, to discuss theories, to borrow textbooks and advanced worksheets. Mr. Delgado is happy to teach him- lends Barry his own copies of compiled journals and directs him to library databases and helps him with the advanced problems. Barry stays late to help organize the supply cabinet, and while he does Mr. Delgado lectures him about cell compositions and evolutions and developments in medical technologies. Barry works his ass off, for the first time in his life, and when he walks home on the last day of finals before Winter Break he could not be prouder of the ‘B’ on the report card in his pocket.
---
Barry starts seeing biology everywhere. He’ll walk past a tree on the way to school and think about the synthesis of sunlight, about how incredible it is that this tree is, like him, alive. He looks at bugs on the sidewalk and wonders why they evolved the way they did- what happened, billions of years go, to pave the way for mammals to rule so entirely. Why aren’t the ants as smart as he is? And then he realizes they don’t have to be, and spends the afternoon asking Mr. Delgado about what constitutes evolutionary success. He sees the implications of biology everywhere- in the plants and animals he passes, in the people around him. It’s all consuming, and he understands it, deeply and fundamentally, and that knowledge is power. He spends the next semester living half out of the biology classroom and half from the science office, and although he can’t really talk to any of the other teachers (too big, too tall, too powerful, too human,) he still thrives off the energy. He talks to Mr. Delgado, though- and as the year shifts towards spring and the seniors careen towards graduation, he begins to confide in him. Their conversations become less of Barry listening, awestruck and terrified, and transition into more of a dialogue. Barry tells Mr. Delgado about his foster home, about the new band posters he got for his room, about the cool bug he saw on the way to school. He talks about what kind of phone he’d like, if he could afford one, and he talks about the court cases that have for so long piqued his interest. He tells Mr. Delgado almost everything, but circles around the topic he’s most wanted to bring up.
His dad.
Finally, one afternoon in late May, when Barry knows the end of the year is fast approaching, that if he has something he wants to say he has to say it soon, he tells Mr. Delgado, “I’m the son of an alleged murderer and the person he purportedly killed. But I knows he’s innocent. And you have to believe me.”
And Mr. Delgado looks at Barry for a moment. Barry looks away- he’s never been good at eye contact, not during conversations, not during moments like this. But Mr. Delgado just says, “Okay,” and accepts it. It’s a few minutes later when he asks Barry, who has at that point moved on to sterilizing the lab goggles, “Why don’t other people believe that?”
And no one has ever asked Barry that before. And so he pauses, keeps starting and stopping, and Mr. Delgado gives him time. Lets him speak. And finally, Barry tells him. Tells him about the evidence, and why he thinks it’s faked. Talks about lack of motive. Alibis. The too-quick investigation, the too-brutal sentence. The biased jury. The hush-hush nature of the trial. The reliance on circumstantial evidence. The bits they had but never used- the fingerprints on the gun, the weird scents, the odd bullet holes, the fact that it’s his dad. And his dad wouldn’t kill his mom, not for anything.
And Mr. Delgado looks at him, again, searching, and then invites Barry Allen- sixteen, sullen, brilliant, lonely, curious, hopeful- to take Forensic Sciences with him next year. And Barry, shocked and pleased, overcome with gratitude, agrees. And it changes his life.
---
Forensic Science is three days a week for one semester. It’s taught by Mr. Delgado 6th period and a different teacher 5th. Barry changes his entire schedule to fit it in, and from the first day of class he knows it was worth it. Mr. Delgado is glad to see him- puts him in the front for because it helps his pay attention, puts him by the door so he can leave if he has too, ties a bungee cord between the chair legs for him to kick so that Barry can sit still. He didn’t need to have worried- Barry is absorbed, entirely and completely. He asks questions, he does research, he memorizes names and facts and materials and how to use them. Barry is in his element, and this interest blows all of his other passions out of the water. He bikes to school every day because it’s faster than running, gets him to school faster, lets him stay a few minutes longer in the afternoons before leaving to see his dad. He talks to his father about everything he’s learning, talks about how he can use it to help.
It’s all Barry talks about anymore- Forensics- and it’s all he ever wants to. He got into AP Gov this year, too, and he draws on that- on the court cases he memorized back in middle school, on the delighted pleasure he had found in listing judges and decisions. He loves the class, but hates politicians. But he can still use it- still likes it, still brings up ethics and politics and systems of government with Mr. Delgado after school, tries to figure what he thinks about anything and everything. Mr. Delgado is remarkably evasive when it comes to his personal opinions, but he asks good questions and helps guide Barry to good answers. Barry’s still lonely, in an abstract sort of way, but he’s beginning to realize that loneliness and happiness are not mutually exclusive. He watches the kids who sit together at lunches and talk during passing periods, but he no longer feels that frenetic need to be them, doesn’t feel hopeless and useless at the prospect of being left out.
Barry is the peculiar sort of person who does not need people to be happy.
(And if he still wants them, in that same sort of hollow yearning he’s felt since his mom died, since his dad went to jail, since middle school and his realization that he, maybe, wasn’t quite that sort of human? Well, he’s getting there. And besides, wishing for the impossible is a waste of time.)
---
Barry hasn’t thought about autism in a long time- not intentionally, anyway, hasn’t tortured himself with online quizzes and fake diagnoses since he realized that even if he is something different, it doesn’t matter all that much. Assessments are expensive, and he gets good grades. It would be pointless. But he still does a double take when, scrolling through social media Thanksgiving Break of his junior year, he comes across the term ‘other planet syndrome’.
It’s a cheesy cartoon of an alien, posted by someone he’s following who he didn’t know was autistic, and underneath it reads, Asperger’s is sometimes referred to as Other Planet Syndrome because of the tendency of mild autistics to feel as if they are living on a planet of aliens, who, while fundamentally similar, operate under vastly different social cues.
And it triggers something in him- some sort of moment of yes, that’s it, that what I feel. And Barry has felt alien for so long- felt isolated and curious and different and alone- and he can’t help but click through, find #autism and then when that’s flooded with memes find #actuallyautistic, and at that point he can’t breathe. All of these Barry things- these twitches and fidgets, these wincing at loud noises and shuddering at contact, the aversion to eye contact and the inability to make friends and everything he’s been pretending isn’t an issue- it crushes him. It sweeps him off his feet and hurls him back to the ground, dashes him against rocks and bombards him with shrapnel. It hurts- oh god, how it hurts- as he reads reflection after reflection of what he hates most about himself, about the little things he’s been hiding for years, about the little ‘quirks’ and behaviours that he’d always felt had separated him, just barely, from normal. It’s a convoluted narrative- built from so many people, so many stories, so many actions and words and behaviours- and he should hate it. Should hate the way it calls him out, the ways it draws him in, the way it points at the everybody else around him and screams ‘you will never be like them.’
But Barry doesn’t hate it. And he can’t. Because the message- through all of that, through the pitfalls and the triumphs layed out startlingly clear, black-on-white-on-phone- is this:
You are not alone.
---
Barry still stays after school. Forensics is 6th period, so it’s second nature to linger in the classroom, offer to help shelve supplies or grade quizzes. Barry wants to ask Mr. Delgado about everything- about Barry, and why he is how he is, and about Mr. Delgado, too- how the man is what he is. Barry has grown to love the classroom, and the teacher, and the science wing in general. Barry has isolated himself, but he has also found a home- in the mildewy supply closets and the musty shelves, the hard plastic desks and wooden tables. Barry is happy rarely, but when he is, he is happy genuinely.
“You’ve come a long way from the ratty sophomore who first showed up in my fourth period biology class.” Mr. Delgado tells him one afternoon, as Barry is throwing the last of his homework into his backpack. Barry looks backs, quizzical, and Mr. Delgado continues, “I’m glad, Barry. You seem happier.”
And Barry think about that for a handful of seconds, thinks about the surly, lonely 15-year-old that had first walked into Biology, sitting down in a class he didn’t think he’d like with a teacher he was sure he wouldn’t.
“Yeah, Mr. Delgado.” Barry says, and smiles. “I guess I am.”
---
The college paranoia that has been ever present since junior year started ramps up with the beginning of the second semester. Barry was lucky enough- worked hard enough- to scrape by with all A’s last semester, but his attention span limited the number of APs he took. It’s concerning, in a way it shouldn’t be. AP Government, English Language, and Spanish Literature are fine, but Barry can’t help but feel like they pale in comparison to the schedules of some of his peers. He’s worried about college- he doesn’t have a lot of money, and he doesn’t have a lot of direction. Barry picks up an after school job shelving produce and condoms at the convenience store down the road from school, making a little less than eight dollars an hour. He knows it isn’t really enough, not for anything important, but it’s the first thing in his life that’s really his, and he loves it.
The job is hard, at first, to balance. To get used to. The people around him are always strangers- strangers who expect him to like them and look at them and understand them. It’s hard, sometimes, but Barry knows it’s necessary. As much as he hates these tiny interactions, he uses them- memorizes how people talk and stand, how they ask for things, why they do it. Barry catalogues people by their kindness, by the volume and tone of their voice and their appearance and what they need from him. He gets pretty good at predicting who to approach and who to avoid, by memorizing these little shifts in posture and voice and appearance. It’s an art, and it’s one Barry has the distinctly unpleasant feeling that he’s more than a little late to learn. His mantra becomes they will not remember you, and he repeats this under his breath, over and over. His boss tells him to stop, and Barry tries. Especially when she’s looking.
---
Barry has also taken to cataloguing his happiness. He’s recently had the startling and unpleasant realization that, for most of his life, he had been unhappy. And Barry could accept this- a dead mom, an incarcerated dad, a distant home life and a chronic difficulty with people all contributed to the distinctly angry, fervently miserable cocktail that had been him in middle school and early high school. This wasn’t unique- Barry still sometimes biked past his middle school, took in the early teenage angst and prideful misery of its self- absorbed students, an unavoidable attitude for 11 to 15-year-olds. But Barry, in all of his 17 years and infinite wisdom, felt superior to them in a way he hadn’t before. He watched the snotty pre-teen girls clump together on the grass, saw the scrawny boys run and shove and fall all over each other, saw these young people so entirely surrounded by people who were interested in their petty sixth grade problems, and did not envy them. Did not wish to be like them, did not crave their friendships or acceptance. Barry was young, but he was older than he had been.
And he was happier, too- took pride in his work and his growth, in his grades and his efforts. He still flinched when the bell rang, still ditched assemblies and curled up in balls on chairs, still sprinted around the soccer field at lunchtime, then later sprinted home. He still fluttered his hands, but he did that when he was happy, now, too- that hadn’t happened before. And he still sometimes wished that he could be more like the people around him, caught up in his imagined uniqueness, in how peculiar and wonderful he imagined himself to be. He was naive enough to fancy himself a rare sort of beautifully tragic, a soul set apart by his insight and removal. But he was young enough to get away with this extraordinary arrogance-- he wore it well, and while it might soon transition into unbearable smugness it was, for now, undeniably charming.
And so, blessed by the virtues of youth and self acceptance, of ignorance and incredible knowledge, of wisdom and crippling stupidity, Barry found himself, for the first time, a sort of curiously likeable. His peers had never known him, but now they wanted to. He was not popular, but he was no longer alone.
(“This kid is amazing!” a senior boy had yelled once, gesturing at Barry. “Ask him something about biology. He knows, like everything.” A smaller girl, trailing behind him, had added, “or, like, about the supreme court! He’s freaky-smart about crime and stuff.” A junior behind Barry had added, “Wicked!” in a way that was either flattering or sarcastic. Barry didn’t care. He felt known.)
---
Barry visited his dad weekly. He’d bike over after school on Wednesdays- he worked Monday and Tuesday, used Thursday for homework, helped Mr. Delgado Friday afternoons. But Wednesdays were for a thirty minute bike ride, a never-changing waiting room, the dull drone of fluorescent lights and questionable stains on ratty upholstery. It was for signing the same form, time and time again, because of protocol, it was pretending he didn’t recognize the guards who stood behind his father. It was the worn, nicked plastic of the corded telephone, weight familiar in his hand. It was the warm cadence of his father’s voice, each time a little older, each time a little prouder. It was a hand pressed up against cool glass, where hundreds of hands had rested before, where hundreds would after. It was small talk- how was school and what did you learn and where are you going- and it was bigger talk, too, sometimes- will you ever get out of here, your mother would be proud, what are you doing after high school, I love you.
It was hard, still, talking to his father over a phone, behind a partition.
It was love, so it was easy, and Barry wouldn’t trade it for the world.
---
Barry had been looking forward to the SAT with an almost morbid sense of curiosity. While he was an acceptable student; good attendance, respectful, a little vacant, he had always been an excellent standardized test taker, and here he felt the pressure to perform. College, Barry knew already, was going to be a mess. He had to do Forensics- he had to, with every fiber of being and beat of his heart, with each drum of his fingers and tap of his foot. He was good at it, and he loved it, and it was important.
But it was also expensive. Barry knew that as soon as senior year wrapped up he’d be living on his own, both out of his own preference and from deference to his foster parents. They had provided for him well since he was eleven, but more from a sense of duty than any real emotional connection. They were good samaritans, and Barry needed caretakers, and they had done a fine job. He would miss them. He was not sure he loved them.
But questions of love aside, he knew that they would not and could not pay for his college education. He could get a nominal amount, probably, from the state, and he earned some money at his job (he worked weekends too, now, at a clothing store with better wages and stricter bosses. Barry did not enjoy it, but he accepted it.)
But Barry also knew that, for him, the path to college was a scholarship. And while he could probably get some points for being a kid with a dad in jail who found his dead mother and spent seven years in a foster home, Barry knew that for him the best path to a scholarship was the SAT.
And so he had studied, with a single minded focus he had applied only to court cases and biology and forensics. He worked his ass off, in between jobs and school and visiting his father, between fragile exploits into self discovery and frequent voyages into self indulgence. He studied, and he practiced, and he sat almost (but not quite) still for four hours and he took the test.
And he was proud.
---
It was at this point in his life- when his father was proud of him, when he was happy with himself, when he was doing well in school and talked to people, occasionally, and was making some money and was, generally, genuinely happy- that everything went to shit.
A lightning bolt.
Bright lights.
Excruciating pain.
One second, that stretched out to two and three and four and five and snapped back to one.
(Barry had always been fascinated by time.)
---
Speed. He can run fast, and run far, and he’s twitchier and lonelier and more alien than he’s ever been.
(Barry has always been good at running away.)
---
That entire summer goes by in a blur. (Literally.) Barry has so much to do- he’ll be an adult in a few months, and he’ll have college applications to worry about and things to decide and money to make, but before all of that comes the enormous, fuck-Barry-over shitstorm that accompanies getting struck by magic lightning.
(Or getting struck by normal lightening activating his magic biology? Barry’s not sure, yet- he’ll keep looking into it.)
Over the course of a split-second Barry went from Barry Allen, Almost Normal, to Barry Allen, Seriously Fucking Weird. He’s not sure what this means, or how it works- does he slow time down? Does he get better at perceiving it? Does he become a member of a different, faster reality? A slower one? Does it matter?- but he knows that he’s changed, completely and irreversibly. It’s like puberty, if puberty happened in a day and gave you magic superpowers and completely fucked you over. (Well, it’s one for three.)
Barry’s changed. And Barry hates change, has always hated it-- he thrives on routine, on normalcy and predictability, and this has completely fucked him over. And there’s nothing he can do about it, and no one to blame.
So Barry shakes his hands and feet, and hums to himself and pays attention to clocks.
(He also develops a fear of thunderstorms.)
---
One day, after almost a solid week of laying around feeling alien and miserable, Barry decides to make a list of all the cool things about his new ‘ability.’ It reads as such:
I can get to my dad a lot faster
I can get away from things quickly
It’s kind of like being invisible
It gives me something new to learn about
I know for a fact I’m the coolest kid at my school
I’m kind of like Superman
(except for the flying and laser eyes and hella ripped bod)
Okay I’m kind of like a really fast Robin
Barry decides he’s not unhappy with it. And he’s interested in the last point, especially. He has a power, now- he’s metahuman, kind of, like the superheroes that show up now and again on news reports and late night television. He can see them, now, and maybe do some of what they can do. It’s the first thing that sets him apart from other people that he’s ever been happy about.
---
It’s a summer of experimentation, and not in the fun gay way. Rather, its Barry waking up early every morning, seeing how far he can run and still come back before breakfast. It’s trying to run up walls (awesome) and run on water (awesomer) and run faster than light (he can’t do it, but it’s still cool.) Barry can go faster than sound, though- his first sonic boom merits a rare splurge on ice cream and a commemorative photo. He’s starting to find that happiness again, but this time it’s instilled with a confidence that had been previously lacking. Barry’s capable, suddenly, in a way no one else is, and that thought instills in him enough courage to attempt things he never would have before. He asks a girl out on a date, not looking at her face, and smiles when she says yes. They break up, if they were ever really dating, two weeks later, but Barry’s still amazed that he was even able to ask.
He considers telling his dad about all of this, whatever ‘this’ is, but eventually decides against it. He’s braver, sure, but he’s not brave, and it’s not like his dad can do anything to protect him from it. Barry will tell him eventually, but just… not yet. This thing, this power, is still uniquely and entirely Barry’s. He kind of wants to keep it that way.
---
It’s a week before school starts that Barry saves his first life. It’s a middle aged woman, wearing a respectable, if well worn, shirt and blouse, and she’s texting on a cell phone and walking into the street. Barry sees her take that first step onto the asphalt, and then a second, and then a third, and then he registers the truck that’s maybe three seconds away.
Barry doesn’t think.
He moves.
His pent up energy- saved up from years of foot tapping and hand shaking, not sitting still and not paying attention- rises up within him, and Barry runs. He’s at her side in less than a second, scoops her up with strength he wasn’t quite sure he possessed, and rockets her to safety. He lays her on the sidewalk, gently, and she’s wide eyed with anger and confusion, gratitude and fear. When she asks, “Who are you?” it’s half accusatory and half in wonder, and Barry hardly thinks before ducking his head and saying, “a friendly face.”
He’s gone in a second, ducking behind a crowd of bystanders, lurking close enough to overhear when one asks her, “Who was that?”
“I don’t know,” the woman replies, shaken. “He was here, and then gone in a flash.”
---
Senior year starts with less fanfare than Barry had expected, but still more than he had hoped. The seniors indulge in a day of running through hallways, chanting and laughing, and Barry hides in the bathroom with his hands over his ears and speeds from one class to another. He almost gets caught by teachers who know he wasn’t in his seat a second ago and the sophomores vaping in the background when he materializes there, but he’s able to diffuse suspicion and resolves to be more careful.
It’s hard, though, when he has these fantastic powers and no real outlet for how to use them. He’s picked up extra shifts at work- he’s kept the gig at the clothing place, but dropped the convenience store after he was passed over for a promotion and then had to sell a package of condoms to his English teacher. Now he works at a golf course, and he makes decent pay and has plenty of room to run. No one knows how he gets everything done so quickly. His manger kind of thinks he stole a golf cart.
Barry’s schedule is more rigorous this year, too. He actually spends time doing homework- so called ‘senioritis’ picks off his classmates as the semester progresses, but Barry’s doing a concurrent enrollment course at the local college in Criminal Justice and can’t afford to let that grade slip. He passed Forensics last year with flying colors, and Mr. Delgado makes him a teacher’s assistant. It’s nice to be relied on, but it cuts further into his already limited spare time.
Barry still visits his dad as often as he can, but it’s moved to Saturday afternoons. He can get there quickly, which is awesome, but he knows it’s suspicious if he’s there too often, especially since his bike broke down the last week of summer and he still hasn’t gotten around to fixing it. Barry doesn’t have a car, either; too expensive, and he can move faster naturally, anyway. And so frequent visits to his dad, held almost ten miles away, are implausible so long as Barry wants to keep his secret a secret.
Barry isn’t sure he does, though, not from his dad. He considers telling him, often, and he almost does, especially after he saved that woman. But Barry still has this lingering sense of guilt that he hasn’t done enough, hasn’t saved enough, hasn’t worked hard enough, and he doesn’t want to tell his dad until he’s sure his dad can be proud.
---
Barry can’t stop thinking about that day on the street. The danger, the way he had reacted, her breathless gratitude. He has other things to think about, but he’s no longer sure that they’re bigger things. College looms, and he should be focused on that, but he instead begins to occupy the precious little of his free time pondering how many 17-year-olds have saved a life. How he could save more.
Barry’s not sure if it’s his responsibility, exactly, and he wouldn’t go anywhere near the word destiny. But it feels like a calling- it feels like a gift, and Barry wants to use it. He feels grounded, when he’s running, when time slows down and bends around him, when he breaks free of its syrupy hold. It’s intoxicating, and it’s quickly become the only sensation the Barry can bring himself to embrace completely and without reserve. It’s not the too stiff drag of cloth and tags, it’s not the disgustingly slippery slide of jackets, it’s not the sweaty pucker or skin brushing skin, it’s not the rough shove of a stranger’s backpack. It’s the freedom to avoid everything, to get through hallways without touching, to feel the wind and the sun and the rain to the exact degree of his liking. It calms something in Barry, something he hadn’t realized grated until it was gone.
He starts twitching and tapping less. All of his kinetic energy goes towards those glorious and infrequent burst of speed, and his limbs are undeniably heavy in the interim. Barry has become something more than human, and he cannot forget it.
For the first time, he watches the other high schoolers clumped in posses around the schoolyard, decadent in their beauty, carefree in their standing, eternal in youth, and thinks, I bet they wish they could be more like me.
---
By Thanksgiving, Barry is burning out. He’s always hungry, and there’s a pervasive lethargy that’s been hanging over his head since August. Moving is taxing, and he’s losing the energy for even the simplest of tasks. He knows he should stop running, should conserve what little spark he has left, but he can’t help it. He craves the clarity that comes with the extension of time, thrives off the feeling of control that comes with the knowledge that he is safe in the hands of himself. Barry is suffering, but he is helpless to it, an addict to the intensity of a run and the stillness that comes after.
But it’s becoming too much, and his father is starting to notice. Barry’s grades are slipping, too- just enough to be cause for concern, but not enough to motivate Barry to change. He’s in a constant state of panic, right in the edge of some sort of episode he knows he doesn’t want to experience but doesn’t know how to prevent. He’s been losing weight dangerously quickly- he burns up while running, and freezes when he stops. But he can’t ask for more food, all of sudden, and he’s not even sure if that’s his issue. His body has changed, and Barry has not changed with it.
“I’m worried about you, son. Are you eating enough? Are people hurting you?” His dad asks, voice dropping low to finish the sentence. He’s worried, Barry can tell, but Barry’s not sure how to comfort him.
“I think so, dad. I’m just stressed, I guessed. Finals, you know?” And Barry smiles, looks away (because he’s gotten better at meeting people’s eyes, he has, but it’s still hard, sometimes. To look at people when it matters.)
And Barry can tell his father doesn’t believe him, can infer the skepticism from the raise of an eyebrow and the way his father’s hand comes to tap on the glass.
“Okay, kid. But if you need anything at all, I’m here for you. I’ll listen. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.” Barry nods, mute, and taps his fingers on his leg in an erratic pattern. Thinks about breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Starts to put back the phone.
“And Barry?” His dad asks, phone an inch from the receiver. Barry brings it back up to his ear, slowly. He does everything slowly, these days. His dad looks at him, long and searching, before continuing.
“Don’t be afraid to be happy.”
---
Barry thinks about getting better constantly. He uses the break from school to run farther than he ever has before, going to increasingly exotic locales in search of somewhere where he’ll finally be able to think. He pushes himself harder and harder, and he can feel his foster parents’ worry suffocating the house, a blanket wrapped too tight, an itchy sweater Barry can’t take off. He knows they want what’s best for him, but he’s not sure what that is, or how to get it. He keeps pushing himself, looking for something, but he’s not sure what. His phone pings occasionally with texts from friends, asking for him to get together. He tries to answer them, but just stares at the screen for hourse, not sure what to say.
Barry doesn’t want to see them. He doesn’t know why. He likes being alone.
(He remembers, back in ninth grade, thinking that he didn’t need people. That he was the peculiarly unique specimen who thrived unattached. The thought saddens him, in a way it hadn’t before. He thinks about feeling alien, about ‘other planet syndrome,’ about what it is like to be separated, involuntarily, permanently, from the people around him.)
(It is a problem Barry is not sure how to fix.)
---
It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and Barry used all of the morning and all of his energy to get to some seaside town in southern California. It’s a hot day, and Barry sits on the beach, stares at the waves. He’s wondering why things don’t seem slow to him all the time, why the kids galloping across the sand don’t look like they’re running through molasses the way they do when Barry moves. He isn’t sure why or how he can turn that perspective on or off, and he’s absently thinking about how he might like to find out. The thought is absent because everything with Barry is absent, now-- he can’t concentrate on anything, can’t shake his body into its normal state of rightness. He is permanently uncomfortable. Barry hasn’t decided whether or not he’ll accept it.
And it’s in that moment of viscous self reflection, thick and fluid, that he hears the scream. There’s a parking lot maybe a quarter mile from where he’s sitting- less than a millisecond away- and a car (why is it always a car?) is about to hit a little girl, too preoccupied with applying sunblock to notice the danger. Her parents are too far away; just barely, they’ll reach her a moment too late, and the car is going three seconds too fast to stop in time. The driver is a teenager. The girl is maybe four.
Barry can stop this. He’s a blink away. He stands up in less than a heartbeat, takes one step towards the lot, and then another. And then another. But time isn’t slowing down the way it should- the car is still moving, the parents are still screaming, the teenager is still clamping down on the break, the little girl is looking up. Barry should be a hundredth of a second away.
Barry cannot move fast enough.
(He runs, faster than a person should be able to, but not a quarter as fast as he can. He sees the car make contact. He sees her fall, and in that moment he’s twelve again, balled up under a car, a torn up shoulder and a torn up side, choking on the scent of blood and exhaust, watching the tire get closer and knowing there's nothing he can do to make it stop.)
(The tire stopped for him.)
(It does not stop for her.)
---
Barry cannot move. He cannot think. He cannot run, not again, not today, so he finds a quarter on the sidewalk and uses it for what has to be last payphone in the state of California, calls his foster parents and lets them know he’ll be staying with a friend. Then he checks out a room in the cheapest, shittiest motel in walking distance, pays with his emergency PayPal, and lays on top of the suspiciously stained duvet for three hours. He thinks about everything- the lightning, the powers, this last semester. His hunger, his weakness, his movement, his addiction. Everything he could have done differently.
Barry gets up, just past seven pm, and walks to an all-you-can-eat joint three blocks over. He pays $12 for entry, and he can’t remember exactly where he got the money, but soon he’s sitting down in a scuffed plastic chair in the corner, staring at a glass of water that’s not half as sweaty as most of the room’s other occupants. Barry drags himself up, shuffles over to the nearest line, grabs a plate. He eats some of everything, doesn’t limit himself to ‘normal’, doesn’t care who’s watching. He drinks water that’s not laced with artificial flavorings. He stays for three hours, then meanders back to his room.
Barry sleeps for twelve hours.
When he wakes up, he has made a decision. Barry has a responsibility, with these powers, with his gifts. A responsibility to the world, and a responsibility to himself. He will not punish himself for that he cannot change. He will learn from that he did not change. He will do everything he can to become everything he can be. He is Barry Allen. He is a stranger to weakness, an enemy of helplessness, an old friend to fear.
He is Barry Allen, and he can be better.
---
“Hi, Dad. There’s something I need to tell you.”
---
Barry celebrates his 18th birthday alone. It’s the best one he’s ever had. He wakes up early, eats a big breakfast (he does that, now, and he loves it, revels in the feeling of fullness and power and potential,) checks up around town. Dashes to the prison, waves to his father, gets out quick. Prints out an essay he’s proud of and turns it in, gets back a test with a 95%. After school, he checks around again. Sees a car, sees a man too absorbed in his work to notice and a driver too absorbed in their phone to stop. He’s there in an instant, and a millisecond later the man is safe. When Barry drops him back on the sidewalk, already gearing up to run away, a woman says, “Stop!”
Barry turns around, and it’s her. The first one he helped- the middle aged woman who had walked out into the street. He had not seen her since; seeing her now is deeply disconcerting. Barry knows he needs to leave.
“You’re that guy. The here one second, gone the next guy. You saved my life. Last week you saved my son’s. Thank you.”
And Barry remembers the kid who must have been her son- an elementary schooler who had fallen off the roof of a building he wasn’t supposed to be on, with this woman’s same hair and dark brown eyes. Barry had caught him just in time. He hadn’t seen her in the crowd, but he is not surprised she knew it was him.
“You’re welcome, ma’am. Just helping out.”
“Yes, I remember. A friendly face. Hey, kid?” And Barry knows he need to leave, knows that this is dangerous, that the man he’d saved is staring at them from the spot he’d reassumed at the curb. But Barry can’t help it- this woman means something to him, and this seems an appropriate day to acknowledge it.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Be careful. Things can be dangerous for superheroes like you.” And- Barry’s never been called a superhero before. A regular hero, once, by a little kid whose kitten he’d rescued, but never for something like this. He doesn’t know if it fits.
“I’m not a superhero.” And Barry ducks his head, dashes behind the nearest building, curious if she’ll follow up.
“Of course you aren’t!” She says loudly, and her voice is wam. “You need a name!” And Barry smiles, starts walking away, as he hears her murmur to the man, “That kid, I tell you. Here one second, gone in a flash. Like lightning.”
And, well, isn’t that appropriate?
---
It’s May of his senior year, and things for Barry have pretty much worked out. His grades are good- he’s top of his class in the Criminal Justice course, and he’ll get college credit for it. When he combines that with the AP credit he’s gotten for Gov, Lang, Spanish Lit, and this year’s Chem, Bio, and Calc BC, Barry’s almost got a full year of credits. He’s moving out right after graduation, to an abandoned warehouse-type structure he got for cheap near the edge of town. His foster parents have already helped him start moving his stuff. It’s closer to his dad, and while Barry can get to the prison in a second anyway he likes the sentimentality. He got a promotion at the golf course, got a raise at the clothing store, and is going to pick up another gig for the summer, but he’s not sure what it will be yet. College degrees are expensive.
Barry did get some scholarship, money, though- he’d written essays, turned in resumes, submitted scores, and applied for aid, which had taken care of a solid chunk of his tuition. His foster parents had contributed, too- Barry hadn’t been expecting that much, and had been overwhelmed by their generosity. The next three years (hopefully) were still going to be hellish, but Barry felt pretty confident he could get through it. His ‘night job,’ as Barry referred to it, had picked up too. Barry had been making the gradual transition from stopping accidents to stopping criminals, and while it was still terrifying he was at least getting a better hang of it. His fingers still tapped and fidgeted, his mind still moved too fast for his body, his body still moved too fast for everything else. But Barry was happy, and Barry was comfortable, and things were looking up.
---
The suit is a happy accident. Barry knows that most of his friends won’t stay friends for long after graduation, and he’s alright with that, but he still feels it’s appropriate to do one last hurrah before they separate for good. They’re all adults, now, and so after going to PetSmart to buy a fish for the hell of it someone convinces them it’s a good idea to go to comic con. Barry follows them around, laughing and ridiculing, until he sees a cosplayer wearing nothing but a pair of leggings, a tank top, and a giant printout of a blurry picture.
“Who are you dressed as?” Barry asks, curious, and is blown away when they reply,
“That fast guy! You know, the kind of local kind of superhero? He doesn’t have a name or a cool costume, but he does cool things. Do you like it?” And Barry just kind of nods, speechless, and after a hasty goodbye to his friends wanders off in search of the cosplay contest. Barry knows he hasn’t really established himself an image, but he feels suddenly like he should. “That fast guy” is pretty vague.
And so Barry finds someone to make him a costume. And it’s hard, finding someone talented enough who he can trust enough to get it done, but he finally finds someone in Ira West, the mother of the girl who bought the goldfish. Barry feels kind of weird about it, but he looks a lot cooler.
(Like, a lot cooler. He spends two and half hours taking selfies he’ll never be able to upload anywhere, but it’s worth it.)
---
(Barry’s stuck on what to call himself until it’s almost graduation. He’s walking through the park, completely civilian, and he sees a mom teaching her son chess at a table by the swingsets. “Things aren’t always about speed, Rafe. Not every move has to be made in a flash.” And Barry recognizes her voice, remembers the shade of her hair and the back of her head. It’s fitting, in a way that’s almost disgustingly poetic. Flash.)
---
Barry tells his father all about the suit and the name and the lady, tells him about the people he’s saved and his ideas for how to save more. It’s a big deal, but it’s not as big as the moment when he shows his dad his college acceptance letter, pressing it up against the glass for his dad to read, wide eyed and exhilarated.
“That’s fantastic, Barry! I’m so proud of you. That’s amazing, kiddo. I can’t believe my boy is already going to college.” And it’s bittersweet, because ‘going to college’ should mean ‘moving out,’ but Barry hasn’t lived with his dad since he was eleven. And it’s bittersweet because it should mean the looming promise of impending separation, but Barry will end up seeing his dad more often than ever. And it’s bittersweet because when Barry says, “Dad, I’m majoring in Forensics and Criminal Justice,” his dad bursts into tears. His dad, for once, is the one to look away from Barry.
“You’re not doing this just for me, right?” Barry’s dad asks, choking on an emotion, but Barry can’t begin to guess which one.
“No, dad. I’m not. I love you.”
“I love you too, Barry. And I am so incredibly proud.”
---
When summer starts, Barry has saved twenty one lives.
When summer ends, he has saved one hundred and eight.
---
On the last day of summer, Barry runs back to a dilapidated beach in southern California. He still does not know what happened to the little girl, and he does not know how to ask. He’s not sure he wants to find out.
But he goes to the beach, and he looks out at the waves, and he thinks about how much faster he came here now than the last time. Thinks of the how he’s been taking care of himself, and how he’s been taking care of other people. Barry shakes his hands and taps his feet, lists the names of judges and cases, of types of acceptable evidence. He thinks about the scar on his shoulder and the phantom scrape on his side, about cars and the way they move and the way they hurt. He thinks about his dad, and his mom, and what he can remember of the two of them together. And Barry thinks about what it means to be happy.
Barry is a little alone. A little lonely. But he loves himself, for his confidence and abilities, for his mind and his body, for his wit and his humor. Summer is ending. Barry has changed so much over the past seven years, and he is okay with that. He’s looking forward to changing a little more.
---
Three years later, Barry has save one thousand four hundred and seventeen people from everything from car accidents to tripping into fountains. He has a little bit of a reputation, most of a degree in Forensics, a good relationship with his dad, three pretty stable jobs. He’s happy, and he’s confident, and he’s likeable and funny in way that comes with self acceptance. He still twitches and fidgets, still struggles with eye contact and social cues, still doesn’t really have friends. When he gets his degree, Barry has decided he’ll let himself be screened for autism. He’d like to know.
But he’s happy, the way he is.
And when honest-to-god Batman comes knocking (or, well, breaking and entering,) Barry thinks he maybe found a way to be a little happier.