Chapter Text
Barry has always been a constant in Oliver’s life. Whether it was in this universe or the next, Barry was always there.
Except when he wasn’t.
Barry smirked at Oliver across the hall, his lacrosse jacket heavy on his shoulders. The elder just raised an eyebrow but returned the smirk, walking over to wrap an arm around the younger’s shoulder. Tommy just chortled at the sight before separating the two in favor of standing in between them.
The three in this world were best friends. Tommy and Oliver had grown up together as always, and Barry had been added to the gang in middle school. All three of them knew it was true friendship when Barry had poured a water bottle on Oliver’s head for the elder asking him to do Tommy’s and Oliver’s lab in science class.
Oliver had been dating Laurel at the time. Barry had been dating Iris. But the two had come together, had did it once when they were drunk. Did it again when they were sober.
It had become their dirty secret.
One that Barry would take to the grave.
(How ironic.)
Barry packed quickly, shoving his clothes into a suitcase as Joe walked in on him. His father sat him down, asked him if this was what he really wanted to which Barry nodded immediately. Joe had sighed, knowing how Barry felt for Oliver before telling him to be careful.
And now, standing in front of it all, Barry was questioning his decisions. Actually, he had been questioning his decisions the second he stepped onto the Queen’s Gambit, but he stayed, regardless of the echoing in his brain telling him that something was wrong. He always had a sixth sense for telling trouble, but when Oliver smiles at him, Barry ignores the tiny voice in his head. What was the worst that could happen?
If he makes it out of this alive, remind Barry to always listen to his sixth sense.
There was a storm –
Barry and Oliver had been cuddling on the bed, limbs tangled together as Barry jumped at the sound of lightning near them.
“Oliver, that one was close –”
“Relax, babe, relax,” the elder mumbled soothingly into the soft skin of the younger’s neck. “Remember eighth grade science? No one gets struck by lightning; it’s not very scientific if it does happen.”
“And what would you of all people know about science? Mr. ‘Would-you-do-mine-and-my-best-friend’s-lab-so-we-don’t-get-screwed-over-by-Halloway’?”
“I know photosynthesis. Biology. Sexual education is a personal forte of mine.”
Barry just laughed at that, smacking Oliver’s arm as the elder pressed him against the mattress, “You’re an idiot – oh god, I’m in love with an absolute idiot.”
“But I’m your idiot,” Oliver just smirked as he pressed his lips against Barry’s, the younger humming before kissing back.
“Yeah,” he smiles cheekily, “At least you admit you’re an idiot, though.”
The clap of lightning causes Barry to jump once more, memories flashing to the man in yellow as Oliver quickly kisses down the younger’s jawline, in an attempt to calm the other down.
“Babe, calm down, we’re gonna be fine –”
“That one was too close, Oliver, I’m scared –”
“I got you, Bear, you’re gonna be fine,” Oliver holds Barry closer, pulling him into his arms, pressing a kiss against the younger’s forehead.
Barry hums nervously when the ship rocks sharply, the two of them being flung across the room. The younger of the two hits his head on the wood drawers as Oliver crash lands on to a coffee table, breaking it with his weight.
“Oliver –” Barry mutters, dizzy, lifting a hand to his head, pausing at the sight of blood.
“Barry –”
A hull of the ship rips off from where Barry is struggling to get away from before the storm is pulling him away. He grips onto the metal foot of the bed, screaming. Oliver’s reaching his hand to the younger before the wind swallows the younger whole – Oliver lets go to try and follow Barry, struggling to stay afloat when he looks around frantically.
“Bear! Barry, c’mon, where are you?!” the elder shouts, the roaring of the storm deafening in his ears.
The younger is nowhere to be found.
(When the elder reunites with his father and another crew member, his father is quick to kill the other survivor and then, himself. A fighting chance.)
(A chance that he’d do anything to give to Barry.)
Barry was never a great swimmer.
But he was good enough, and it mattered when it needed to. The scientist was quickly able to swim to the other side of the wreckage but lost sight of Oliver, almost drowning.
His father, not Joe – but Henry, had used to take him surfing. He didn’t really remember it all, but he remembered enough.
He found a huge piece of driftwood, using it to keep himself afloat.
He had been at sea for days now. But that was before he was found, skin burnt from the sun and near dying from dehydration. At first, he thought the ship he saw was a mirage, but the ship took him aboard. He was locked in a cell, and there was where he finally had it in him to mourn.
He’d never see Oliver again. The elder had still be on the ship when it went down. The thought makes him want to throw up and he does, in a bucket in his cell.
(He goes to sleep, crying, thinking about how he’ll never see Iris and say sorry for their last argument; he’ll never see his dad again and say sorry for not visiting him enough; he’ll never see Joe and apologize for not listening about the Queen’s Gambit; he’ll never see Tommy and laugh at one of his dumb jokes; he’ll never see Thea and effectively break his promise to her about taking her out for a movie and milkshakes; and he’ll never see Oliver and be able to hug him one last time.)
(He never gets to say goodbye.)
Unlike a lot of things, in this story: Barry doesn’t get his happy ending.
Ever.
He’s taken in by Amazo, brainwashed into working for them for a year. It feel as if time hasn’t truly passed, but Barry knows it has. He celebrates his birthday, alone and shivering. He does manage to escape them, later, when Amazo gets attacked by a torpedo. He hears people saying they spotted a man who Barry’s brain warps into Oliver, but he doesn’t stay long enough to find out. He doesn’t want Oliver to see him like this, coldhearted and cruel. He gets stranded on Lian Yu as he is once again alone.
His entire life was spent alone, so the loneliness is all he knows, now. He has to kill to survive. The first time he kills a person who threatens his life, he cries and cries.
(What will everyone think of him? Now, that he’s a murderer?)
(What a joke.)
He’s found later, by a woman who calls herself the “Heir to the Demon”; she admits later, that her name is Nyssa al Ghul. And she helps him, takes him in, and nurses him back to health after being on the brink of death. He hadn’t eaten anything in days. When he’s finally conscious enough to talk, they become friends. It isn’t until Nyssa tells him that she’s a part of a group called the League of Assassins, that Barry has to remember that his life is not normal in any sense of the term.
She asks if he will join, and he thinks of Oliver, dead and gone. He looks at her right in the eye and nods.
“Yes.”
He lands on Nanda Parbat in no time and starts training. He swears his allegiance to Nyssa’s father and is told to choose a new name. It is here that Barry pauses, thinks back to the storm, thinks back to the man in yellow, thinks back to the lightning that has been a constant throughout his entire existence.
He opts to go by the name “Sūrat l-Raʿd”. The Thunder. Because it was the thunder that took everything away from him, the storm that swept up the wreckage after.
If he couldn’t have his happiness, he’d be damn certain to never feel anything ever again.
The training had been rigorous. But learning Arabic made his brain hurt. He had only ever known a high school level of French – a fact that his cousin often teased him about – but this was a whole new problem entirely.
Nyssa taught him easily, though. She had become his teacher, in a lot of things. She was his mentor.
She taught him not to shove his feelings aside, but to use them instead to strengthen himself.
Sūrat l-Raʿd trained every night, every day, every minute. He took his anger and his grief and used it to fuel his every move. He became a tempest, a storm. He had no emotions or feelings left, having used all of them up to get stronger. He took lives as if they were ants and he were a boot.
(He thinks back to when Joe had tried to teach him and Iris boxing. Thinks that Joe would be infinitely disappointed with him now.)
(He can’t find it in him to care about that.)
He grew faster. Notorious for his fast hits – constantly attacking. A perfect storm. He was as vicious and vindictive as the storm that had taken Oliver away from him.
And there was no going back.
Barry Allen is long dead.
(Sūrat l-Raʿd would try not to enjoy the look of blood staining his lips, wild eyes, and ripped skin as much as he does but why the hell shouldn’t he? If he were ever a good person, it was too long ago to remember.)
(The only time he rejoices in humanity is when it’s lying at his feet.)