Chapter Text
Even with his powers dampened, Barry could probably have found a way to escape if he was on his own.
He wasn’t entirely sure where he was. They had managed to knock him out and presumably keep him unconscious for a while while they brought him to what seemed to be a tower in a castle.
How much more cliché could they get.
They were still keeping the door locked and bolted and probably guarded, and wanted him blindfolded on the brief occasions they had taken him out the room previously, but Barry was content complying for now. He had a plan.
Or rather, he knew he didn’t need a plan yet.
All he had to do was stall and try and fish for what information he could, and he could do that easily. They wanted their Cosmic Treadmill repaired, they needed him to fix it, they didn’t need to know Barry could have built three from scratch in the time it had taken him take half of theirs to pieces under the guise of trying to assess where the problem was.
And whether their modifications were possible.
None of them were speedsters. Unless Thaddeus Thawne had inherited more than he was admitting from Eobard, but Barry doubted it.
If he even was truly Eobard’s descendant. Frankly, Barry struggled to imagine Eobard having a child, though he supposed Eobard had been good with the children in the Flash Museum, and they seemed to enjoy his company, and Eobard had been a teacher once. Before he had changed his career path to stalking Barry.
It wasn’t impossible Barry’s other grandson, Bart’s clone he’d only briefly met in the Speed Force, was with them. That could explain the toddler currently sitting on Barry’s hip, if he understood Wally’s version of events well enough.
It wasn’t impossible they were planning on using Barry himself.
He wouldn’t be opposed to running them to the Cretaceous and testing that theory Tyrannosaurus was a scavenger rather than a hunter.
They had two stasis pods with them. Ones like the Fraction had used to power their ships using organic conduits including Barry’s grand-nephew as batteries.
The stasis pods were occupied. Occupied and the future source of their time machine, if Earth-Gov got their way.
There were other means of time travel developed by their time. They didn’t need to do this.
This was sheer cruelty.
The door to his prison opened and Barry turned his attention to Josh, to the boy he had been permitted to keep with him, under the correct impression Barry would not allow any harm to come to a child.
Iris had lost Josh once already, before Barry had been dragged from the Speed Force. Barry would be bringing him back to her.
“Well?” the soldier demanded; his lack of remaining patience clear.
“I think I have a solution,” Barry said. “It will take time, and I’ll need to study the pods again.”
“You’re meant to be the fastest man alive,” the soldier ground out.
“And you won’t let me run,” Barry tapped the clunky dampener around his neck.
That certainly wasn’t something they had brought from the 30th century.
“The exact workings of your pods aren’t a technology I’m familiar with,” Barry said. “I’m a chemist, not a mechanic, and you’re from almost a thousand years into my future. I was born in a different millennium to you, you can’t expect two brief studies to be enough.”
The soldier threw the blindfold at him with contempt and Barry picked it up and fastened it over his eyes, still holding Josh on his hip.
He allowed the soldier to escort him down the stairs, taking care on each one as he walked blindly down.
They passed through three bolted doors before the blindfold was removed.
The stasis pods glowed in front of him.
“I need one open,” Barry said. “I need to know the inside workings.”
“That isn’t possible,” the soldier said.
“I can’t access my powers,” Barry said. “I have children to consider. We both know whichever you choose won’t allow any harm to come to the other. All I need is a few moments.”
“Give me the boy,” the soldier said.
Barry hesitated.
“You want it open, give me the boy.”
He nodded.
“Everything will be fine,” Barry promised, kissing Josh’s forehead and allowing them to take him.
The soldier nodded and one of the pods was opened.
“Be fast,” he said as Josh’s eyes started to well up.
Barry could do fast. All he really needed was to know how long it would take for them to wake up.
He busied himself, making it look as if he were doing something, and tried to keep track of the time.
Blue eyes so like his own fluttered open.
“Dad,” Dawn said in a hushed whisper, her voice still so weak.
“Mama’s coming,” Barry promised just as quietly, so certain it was true. “They won’t open Don’s.”
Dawn nodded and Barry allowed himself to be pulled back.
He clenched his fists as they once again sealed away his daughter.
“I assume you have what you need,” the soldier said, waiting for Barry’s confirmation before returning Josh to him.
“I’ll need to study them some more,” Barry said.
“I’ll have a new one sent to your room,” the soldier said and dread started to pool.
He had assumed they weren’t planning on letting him go at the end of this.
And if he had one, he had no reason to be brought down here.
“That would be helpful,” Barry lied, allowing the blindfold to be tied back around his head and them to escort him back up to his cell.
It hadn’t taken Dawn long to wake, but she’d sounded weak. He didn’t know how long she had been in stasis, but he could at least assume it happened at the moment she had been presumably killed- murdered by Thawne and the Dominators alongside her brother- and both she and Don were potentially hurt.
Barry could remove his dampener. But they would know and he might not have the time Dawn and Don needed, and he didn’t know if he could carry all three of them at once. Maybe he could drag Dawn and Don behind him, like Wally with Irey and Jai, but if he wouldn’t if they were hurt.
Iris would come. That much Barry was certain of. How long, or who with, he wasn’t sure, but she would come.
She would come, and she would certainly want the opportunity to help him deal with these people who had hurt their children.