Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Central Municipal Office, RY 6

The Primary Municipal Office in Central City(also known as the Head Office, Central Municipal Office and Officio Municipalis Primaris) is the kind of building that in previous eras, would be called a castle town or royal palace rather than a singular building, and even in this era, looms over everything else in Central City with its sprawling, sky-scraping bulk.

Barry knew full well when they named the place that the proper translation of “Primary Municipal Office” is actually “Officium Municipale Primarium”, and that “Officio Municipalis Primaris” is utter gibberish no matter how you look at it, especially given that “primaris” isn’t actually a word.

However, they also know that Superman(ahem, High Councillor Superman ) has never heard of Warhammer 40k and doesn't actually speak Latin, and Barry, for lack of any better options, has decided to channel the Adeptus Administratum in everything they do.

Superman has somehow also never read 1984, and in fact banned and criminalized its sale and ownership along with that of all other “seditious and politically outdated” books via the Seditious Materials Act once he got really going, so Barry was free to finagle their own office into being called Room 101.

Yes, it’s petty, but being petty is pretty much the only way they can entertain themself without doing anything too blatantly treasonous, and anyone who gets the reference but doesn't have clearance will avoid poking around in their office. (Especially since rooms are listed on maps by their official technical codes, rather than with purpose-based labels.)

Barry also made sure to fill the area around their office with small Department of Peace storage rooms, which by the official protocol for assignment of technical room codes are given a technical room code identical to that of their department’s code with the addition of a lowercase letter in sequence. 

Incidentally, the reason their office is called Room 101 is because the Department of Peace has the department code 101, and department heads’ offices have room codes identical to their department’s code, with the addition of "Room" on the labeling.

The end result is an ominous “Room 101” at the center of the building(listed in bright red, of course, to mark the fact that it’s an area restricted to personnel of clearance level Alpha without accompaniment), with a hallway leading up to it lined with five rooms of equal size on either side, labeled only as “101a” through “101j”.

If anyone asks why the layout is like that, or why the hallway and storage rooms are just as restricted as their office, Barry cites the need to ensure that their personal archives of high-clearance paperwork remain secure, and that they need to have supplies of food and office supplies and a place to sleep close on hand for maximum efficiency.

(And yes, they've made it an official policy that everyone who needs to see them in person must be “referred to Room 101” instead of “sent to see the Head Secretary of the Council”, which is officially due to how many titles they hold.)

The end result is that people don’t usually bother them or go anywhere near their office unless they've scheduled a meeting with them, the Insurgency stays far, far away from their office, and Barry has to deal with Yellow Lantern(Barry refuses to call him Hal, except to his face- this is not the Hal he fell in love with) admiring his ability to inspire terror in the innocent.

This elaborate sham, incidentally, isn’t just a matter of pettiness. It’s also the only reason they were able to hide an entire child from the Regime, even with their 17-hour-day scheduled precisely down to the minute.

In another loop(in a better world), Wally would have been born live with his father watching and grown up a normal(ish) child in the public eye, instead of hatching from a carefully-hidden egg and being hidden from Hal, the Regime, the Insurgency and quite literally everyone besides Barry himself.

All Barry could do was set up their bed in room 101b with a few extra blankets and then block their usual seven and a half hours of "sleep"(he’s fine with only about an hour and a half of sleep, but there’s no reason to tell anyone that) for labor and initial egg care, before moving onto reviewing ballpoint pen manufacturing standards at 7:31. Anything more would have tipped people off to what he was doing.

Barry’s not entirely sure why pregnant speedsters are equipped to shift to an external third trimester of gestation(AKA laying an egg) if stressed, alone and lacking in resources, but it’s the only reason hiding Wally and their pregnancy was even an option, and he’s grateful for that.

After all, if Superman knew about Wally, Wally would have grown up being forcefed Regime propaganda and having all of his dreams and will to dissent crushed, maybe even used as a tool to keep Barry in line or strip them of some of their authority- all while Barry could do nothing but smile and watch and hope their smile didn’t crack badly enough for anyone else to see.

Barry had been utterly terrified when they realized that they were already pregnant by Yellow Lantern when they looped in, and that the Regime had progressed to the point where there was no stopping it, just finding a way to avoid as much harm and collateral damage as possible.

They could have killed Superman, then and there. They could have done that so easily, and even now, sometimes the urge to end this charade and end the problem at the source rises up and threatens to crack their carefully calculated mask of willing subservience and true belief in the Regime. (Or maybe just his humanity.)

But that wouldn’t actually solve anything. Killing Superman would only force Barry into the role of Dictator 2.0, except without any actual control or long-term authority- and likely escalating everything into a cycle of eternal bloody revolution ending at best in their deposition and life imprisonment and at worst in their equally bloody murder.

They would be hated by the Insurgency for being more of the same, hated by the other Leaguers for being so willing to kill someone they knew and loved, hated by the public for the shameless power-grab and escalation of violence, hated by everyone on the planet for something they didn’t want to do in the first place.

No, the only way to change things, to turn the world back onto a path of freedom and hope instead of tyranny and fear, was by being patient and subtle, making sure that all of the dominoes are in place when the time comes to overthrow the Regime.

To the Insurgency and Regime alike, the Flash is nothing more than a bureaucratic toady, utterly loyal to the institution they serve and the cause of the Regime, their only protests being ones of budget, efficiency and logistics rather than of morals.

No one sees the greater picture, except Barry and Wally. That’s how they like it.

They don’t see the way the overly convoluted and publically-accessible plans to revamp cities and the schedules and timetables listed alongside them coincidentally leave Insurgency bases untouched for as long as possible and with warning of when the inspection crews will come around.

They don’t see the way that the Department of Transportation’s policies, especially their lax uniform policy and their use of temporary local couriers to meet surges in demand, are intentionally designed so that it’s extremely easy to impersonate a DepTran courier and get away with it.

They don’t see the way that Barry’s revamp of power infrastructure not only means that electricity is stably and freely available, generated relative to demand, safe to use and environmentally friendly, but that it’s oh-so-easy to steal electricity from the grid for a hidden base illegally and have no one notice, and just as easy to mess with the power distribution in an area without long-term or obvious damage.

(After all, the same systems that let workers safely and quickly shut down the electricity in a limited area to make repairs or do maintenance also mean that anyone who knows the proper codes and which buttons to press can cut the power to a very specific area ranging from an entire city block to one room in a building.)

This is not the kind of game he’s used to playing. His baseline self could not pull off anything close to what he’s done, no matter how determined he was. 

Barry, looping Barry, has been alive for millennia, and they've learned a lot of things in that time. Even if they didn’t have a Blue Lantern ring helping him out(spark, Blue’s probably the only thing keeping him sane and his plans from unraveling due to a slipup), they're easily able to keep everything on course, courtesy of knowing when to fold it and when subtlety and patience is necessary, as well as what will happen why.

<Superman is on his way to your office to discuss the treaty with Atlantis. Be ready to greet him.> Blue informs him. <I know you have the final draft ready, but it would probably be a good idea to review it, at least to look like you’re reviewing it.>

Barry doesn’t thank Blue for the warning. It’s a ring AI, and even if Blue Lantern rings are more…people-ish…than Green Lantern rings and it uses first-person pronouns and let them name it, everyone thinks that the ring on their finger is the same Flash ring they've always used and not a Blue Lantern ring in disguise, and there were be questions raised if Superman heard them talking to someone that’s not supposed to be there.

(Also, Green Lantern Ring 2814.1 is currently hidden in a drawer in the cabinet under their desk, sulking about Hal abandoning it for a Sinestro Corps ring and trying to convince Barry to wield it, and they really don’t want Superman finding it.)

Barry quickly shuffles a print copy of the final draft of the Regime-Atlantis treaty onto their desk, makes sure their computer’s screen is suitably full of emails, paperwork and technical documents and starts flipping through the absolute doorstopper of a document. (It’s not quite as bad as some documents- it fits in a single 3-inch binder.)

Superman arrives a few moments later, walking into Barry’s office like he owns the place(which he doesn’t. Not in any sense of the word), at a pace that seems glacially slow until Barry remembers to shift himself back down to match Kryptonian speed. 

“Flash, do you have the treaty finalized?” Superman asks. At least he remembered to call them Flash this time- only people Barry trusts get to use their name, though they tell everyone it's purely professionalism. (Which, nowadays, is pretty much just Wally and Blue.)

Barry gestures to the blue binder marked with a little fish sticker on their desk. “It’s right here.” (The stickers are officially for easy visual identification of documents on specific topics. Unofficially, they’re cute and fun, and Barry never made regulations on which stickers you can use for official documents, other than the type of adhesives used, where they can be disposed of and adherence to the Subversive Imagery Act.)

Superman leans down, grabs the binder off Barry’s desk and begins to flip through it. (Without asking. Again.)

It’s not worth getting mad about, Barry reminds himself. In his mind, you invited him to take it, and contradicting him would be a bad idea.

Barry reviews and replies to a few more emails while Superman’s sitting there reading through the treaty- they have other things to do, and other people and departments that need their input, while Superman is wasting Barry’s time.

Superman almost never reads the entirety of the documents Barry gives him, and Barry can rely on the fact that he’ll probably start skimming after the first dozen or so pages and give up completely after a few hundred pages if the document is dry enough. (They've gotten very good at making documents very dry and lengthy while not resorting to blatant padding or lorem ipsum over the centuries.)

Sure enough, Superman only gets halfway through the treaty before his eyes glaze over completely and he shuts the binder. (Without folding the pages over, dammit. Barry’s just glad that this isn’t the copy they're going to deliver to Aquaman and that regulation printing paper doesn’t crimp easily.)

“You’ve outdone yourself once again, Flash. This is everything I asked for and more.” Superman hums admiringly, and Barry ducks his head and paints a happy grin on their face at the praise.

Non-looping Flash looked up to Superman as the first superhero and a close friend and hung onto his every word of praise, and while Barry toned it down as much as they could get away with as they “matured”, “re-evaluated his priorities” and “gained real-world experience”, they still have to pretend that he doesn’t hate Superman’s entitled smugness and everything he stands for.

(They've found that it helps when they focuse on the fact that the time and effort they've put into his work isn’t going completely unappreciated, rather than who’s doing the appreciation and why, or when they focuses on something else tangentially related that makes them want to smile. Like the fact that it’s almost over, and the final pieces are finally falling into place.)

“I’ll deliver the treaty in person to Poseidonis for signature and ratification on the 15th.” Barry continues. “I’ve already plotted it out on my schedule for this week, and it shouldn’t take more than five minutes to exchange diplomatic pleasantries and get everything signed.”

Of course, that definitely won’t happen. If he timed everything correctly(and he’s 95% sure he did), the Justice League from Earth-One should be arriving on the 15th, and he’ll get a chance to introduce himself to the alternate Aquaman instead.

This time, they'll make sure Billy isn’t accompanying them. As much as they care about Billy(their little brother, in lightning if not blood), and knows that he can be turned away from the Regime with enough effort and sympathy(he's already most of the way there), Barry doesn’t want too many variables in the mix and Aquaman has always had a short temper, especially faced with injustice and threats to Atlantis.

With Billy present, it will probably turn into a fight, and Barry might have to reveal more than they want to in order to shut it down before anyone can get seriously hurt.

Alone, they can control the flow of the conversation, reinforce their image of a beleaguered paper-pusher married to their job who’s lost all sight of their original ideals, and most importantly, one that’s frustrated with their superiors and workload and could potentially be an asset.

(Alone, they don’t have to wear more than a perfunctory service smile, don’t have to make it look like they're really happy with what they're doing rather than acting the part for a paycheck.)

Superman nods in acknowledgement, and finally steps back out of Barry’s office, cape swishing as he strides out the door. (Which he remembered to close this time.)

Barry carefully doesn't breathe a sigh of relief when Superman leaves, and instead take a sip of their lemon tea. (Not coffee. Coffee, and pretty much everything else caffeinated, does horrible, horrible things to speedsters. Herbal tea they can down by the barrel with no consequences other than needing to go to the bathroom.)

Now, they've got two more minutes of managing their inbox and then it’s on to drafting and issuing the latest manufacturing recalls for one minute and thirty seconds before it’s time for this morning’s ten-minute exercise period.

(Lightning, they can’t wait to be able to run. Speedsters are not built for 24/7 desk jobs, and Barry can only dream of being able to get away with having more than two ten-minute exercise breaks a day, what with with Superman pushing ever more duties onto his eternally-willing and hyper-efficient Head Secretary and insisting they have to be the one to do it instead of letting the perfectly qualified department heads do what they were hired and paid to do.)

<It will only take 3.5 more minutes, Superman is currently in Brazil for the press conference you scheduled and scripted for him yesterday, and the Justice League arrives tomorrow.> Blue reminds them. <Have hope. Everything will turn out okay.>

“You say that, and yet…” Barry half-heartedly gestures to the door, and the hallway that leads outside. “I’m at the heart of a dystopia, and the only thing keeping it from collapsing.”

<You’re the only thing keeping society from collapsing into bloody anarchy and the trains and cargo drones running on time until you’re free to change it for the better.> Blue corrects. <The people love you, and all you have done for them- even those that hate the Regime with their whole hearts must acknowledge the fact that you’ve legitimately made the world a better place to live in.>

<No one outside the most isolated rural or disaster zones has gone hungry in years. Power and water have been freely accessible to everyone for just as long, if occasionally unreliable in some areas. Medical care is available easily with minimal stress or hassle. Clothing sizes are consistently standardized across countries and brands. Gay and polyamorous marriage and adoption is legal everywhere. Poverty doesn't exist anymore. I can list many, many more. You have done immense and inarguable good, and even the Insurgency can see that.> 

“...They’d still kill me in a heartbeat.” Barry mutters. “Lightning, I’m a terrible Blue Lantern. Can’t even muster hope for myself.”

<If you were unworthy of wielding the Blue Light of Hope, I would have found someone else.> Blue says sternly. <Hope can be dimmed, hope can be stifled, but the embers will always burn into a flame. Hope springs eternal, and it cannot be crushed forever. There will always be a spark.>

There’s a pause, as Blue reviews their records. <Also, only 13% of the Insurgency would be willing to kill you, as compared to 88% willing to kill Superman, and 22% of the Insurgency unwilling or unable to kill anyone at all.>

“That’s still 13%." Barry points out. "13% is a lot on a demographic scale.”

<I’m also including the independent Insurgency cells unaffiliated with the Batman-led “main” insurgency. Less than 1% of Batman Insurgency members would be willing to kill you, it’s mostly the bigots, maniacs, terrorists, cults, criminals and other assorted people who have an objection to any authority or belief other than their own, and thought that the world before the Regime was just as much of a dystopia.>

“Ah. You’re manipulating the statistics again.” Barry huffs. “Should have known. Still, how many of those fringe cells are there, if they’re 13% of the Insurgency?”

<Thousands, especially if you include people in prison.> Blue replies. <Revolution is a very human concept, second only to bigotry. Not all reasons to oppose evil are good or admirable.>

“And we can’t convince them otherwise, because they’ve already committed themself to the cause, and the sunk cost fallacy goes double when you’ve blown up a public building in broad daylight and been deemed an enemy of the state.” Barry pinches their nose. “They're actively hurting their own cause, and the only thing it gets them is a shiny target painted on everyone associated with them to point the military at."

<Indeed. On a brighter note, I’ve answered the emails that don’t actually need your personal attention.> Blue chimes. <You only need to answer two.>

Barry sighs, glances at the clock on his desk and gets back to work. (Time to run an entire government by himself, while the rest of the Council does their best to make his job unexpectedly harder with zero warning and no plans for how they're going to fix the messes they make!)

His job was so much easier when he wasn't simultaneously the Head Secretary of the Council, the Head of all but six General Departments, the Minister of every single General Department and the Director of all but three of the General Agencies, on top of all of the ceremonial titles with no real official duties, powers or responsibilities.

Unfortunately, his underlings are consistently getting arrested, resigning or dying faster than he can find, screen and appoint candidates, and he needs the High Councillor's permission to appoint new Clearance Beta officials. (That was a provision Superman insisted on as he was reviewing Barry’s first drafts of the new Regime government, and it has dogged him ever since.)

It doesn't help that Superman seems to think that Barry's handling it just fine, when in reality he's just lowered the clearance of quite a few types of documents that would otherwise be inaccessible to the people that needed to see them and installed workarounds and policies(both official and unofficial) that allow lower-clearance staff to collectively act in place of high-level officials that don’t exist with occasional rubberstamping and review from Barry.

At this point, he could quit or even just go uncontactable for two weeks and the entire planet would break down in chaos. (And it would be entirely Superman’s fault.)

He’s seriously considered quitting early(and faking his death, in order to get away with quitting) quite a few times, especially shortly after Wally was born, but ultimately Blue talked him out of it every single time.

But he’s committed himself to one plan and for now, he has to stick with it. Even if that plan involves five years full of constant tedium interspersed with the occasional trainwreck of a bad decision from his superiors or extremely traumatizing atrocity he had to sign off on and smile through.

Chapter Text

The Borders of Room 101b, [SLIPSPACE]

If Wally was human, he’d probably still be a small helpless child right now. As it is, he’s a speedster, and speedsters just age faster, especially when they’re raised in an eldritch hell dimension outside of space and time, so he looks about fifteen or sixteen.

Yes, really. Slipspace is a place where reality is governed by Collective Unconscious and Speed Force alone, and reality warps its metaphors to his thoughts, speed and stride, and every human he brings in there inevitably calls it an eldritch hell dimension.

(Barry refuses to let anyone, Wally especially, call slipspace the Warp, on the grounds that they do not want to deal with Khorne and Nurgle when they already have so much other stuff to do, even if Slaanesh is unlikely to show up.)

Slipspace is not somewhere humans can go- not just that they can't get there on their own, but that the essential nature of reality in slipspace is inherently hostile to creatures of the Life Force, and the best they can hope for without a speedster protecting them is becoming a creature of dream and thought instead of flesh and blood.

Slipspace is somewhere Wally has always been able to go, from the moment Barry started carrying him inside as a newborn hatchling to hide him from surprise meetings with Regime superiors or simply to be able to sing to and teach him without the risk of being overheard.

Realspace is not somewhere Wally can go, at least not without sticking to the shadows of forgotten places no one really goes and being ready to bolt at the sound of movement.

After all, if anyone other than Barry(or his Insurgency contacts) saw him, he'd be reported to the Regime, and everything would be over for him. There would be nothing Barry could do to save him if he was discovered- at least that wouldn’t ruin all of their other plans.

(It's not a guarantee that he’ll be reported, especially now that he looks old enough to be working as a part-time DepTran courier and out in public alone, but there's always the risk.)

The door to room 101b opens, and Wally quickly ducks into slipspace, color and light blurring into streaks and angles warping to impossible degrees as he slips through the membrane and into the Near Reaches of slipspace.

Barry walks into the room, more a vaguely humanoid form of crackling blue lightning than anything else(at least while they're still in realspace- Wally probably looks much the same to them at the moment), and looks up at Wally.

“It’s just me, kiddo.” they murmur. “Good instincts, though.”

Wally steps back into realspace, and lets Barry guide both of them onto the small(for a speedster family nest- it’s still pretty big) cot that fills half of the tiny bedroom. 

Barry’s asleep as soon as they've settled Wally on top of their chest and the blankets on top of them both.

They'll probably wake up in about fifteen minutes- adult speedsters aren’t meant to sleep in one continuous stretch every night, instead of taking short but frequent naps, and the best they can usually do is six fifteen-minute naps spaced across seven and a half hours of scheduled sleep period, doing other things in the time between.

Tomorrow, the dominoes are finally all lined up and Wally’s going on a mission to tap a couple rows.

Until then, Wally’s content to nuzzle into Barry’s neck and lull himself to sleep with the thrumming of their heartbeat and the warmth of his mother's skin.

Chapter Text

The Tree of Lights, [SLIPSPACE]

Wally’s always known four versions of Metropolis, ever since he was little.

The first and obvious(to everyone else) is the realspace version everyone else knows, rebuilt from the ruins of the old into the ideal of a Regime city, all black metal spires with red-tinted windows, telescreens bedecking every public and sometimes private surface, playing an endless bevy of propaganda news, propaganda ads and the occasional bit of real news in eerie synchrony.

That's not the only version he knows, though, even though he's only five years old and was born after High Councillor Superman ascended.

Really, Wally doesn't know the realspace version of Metropolis much at all, compared to the slipspace reflections of Metropolis.

Metropolis-Under-The-Regime, black-and-red spires impossibly tall and looming and the only light the humming glare of telescreens. 

Metropolis-When-It-Fell, the wind howling dust through the splintered frames of collapsed buildings, only death and silence hanging in the air.

Metropolis-As-It-Was, birds chirping and sun shining brightly over silver-and-blue skyscrapers and sprawling parkland, green and light and full of life.

None of them are realspace Metropolis, none of them are each other. That doesn’t matter.

To Wally, all four versions of the city are all equally real- connected by a maze of pathways through present, past and future that span ideologies and metaphors as much as they span space and time.

And that means that he can get himself, and anything(and anyone) he yanks through with him from Point A to Point Z without ever crossing through Points C through Y in the material Metropolis. It’s an invaluable advantage, and probably one of the main reasons the Insurgency is still so successful.

“You ready?” Barry asks. Their face would look calm and blank to any other observer, though Wally knows that they're actually too terrified and worried to manage a realistic smile rather than a blank mask of neutrality.

“I am.” Wally breathes for a moment, clenching one gloved hand in the other. “You’ll save me if I fail, right?”

Barry pauses for a moment. Their face is still blank, the way they've trained themself to do- the difference between life and execution for treason is often the ability to go blank instead of visibly being sad or uncomfortable or angry- but now it’s even blanker, jaw instinctively squeezing shut to hide the way their secondary teeth are coming down.

“...The most I can promise you for sure is that dying won’t hurt.” Barry whispers. “I can’t promise any more. Not without risking breaking that promise.”

That’s always been the most Barry’s been able to promise him- Barry doesn’t lie, not to him. There has to be at least one person they don't lie to, or they'd lose track of what’s lie and what’s truth. What they say they believe and what they really believe, what really happened and what’s revisionist propaganda.

(Blue apparently doesn’t count, because a Lantern Ring, regardless of color, lives to serve and protect its wielder and Corps, and you can’t trust a purposed mechanical intelligence to interpret things that are already subjective in the same way as an organic intelligence(especially a specific person), or have the same priorities.)

Wally nods, and steps through the membrane. Colors and angles writhe, streak and warp, the wood of Barry’s desk replaced by an empty void that still holds its contents, the mahogany paneling covering the walls replaced by a sheen of red over drywall, insulation and wires, each layer existing in superposition.

(Why? Well, the Life Force is not allowed in slipspace, not without permission from the Speed Force. There are no living creatures in slipspace, nor any dead ones, and wood often counts as a dead creature if it was logged recently enough.)

Wally’s off like a shot as soon as he’s got his bearings, the horizon streaking blue behind him as it narrows to a glittering black-and-red point in the distance.

Metropolis-Under-The-Regime isn’t nearly as dangerous as realspace Metropolis, at least to a speedster, and whatever happens there doesn’t affect anything in realspace, or even have long-term consequences in slipspace without a corresponding change in realspace.

Wally still needs to be careful- unlike realspace, the Regime has endless legions of Faceless Goons rather than a limited rotation of actual people in uniform, and anyone in civilian clothing has a 50/50 chance of being a Secret Service agent, assuming you’re in an area where there actually are civilians.

It doesn’t help that Metropolis-Under-The-Regime is a large and established Near Realm, and Realms have their own Laws and Paradigms that you have to work with as long as you’re inside, and that you have to cooperate with if you want to get anything done without having to overpower the Realm first, much like you have to cooperate with the laws of physics if you want to get anything done in realspace.

Wally can’t just snap his fingers and have guards disappear, he has to find a way to distract, evade or incapacitate them that’s consistent with the basic Laws and relevant Paradigms of Metropolis-Under-The-Regime. 

(It’s a good thing that those Laws and Paradigms operate primarily under action movie and spy thriller logic and tropes, and are quite easy to twist to your advantage if you play along.)

Still, despite the danger, Metropolis-Under-The-Regime is still relatively safe if you know what you’re doing, and it’s effectively replaced the Near Reaches corresponding to realspace Metropolis, so it’s the only way in or out of the city by slipspace. 

(Well, the only way that’s safe for passengers. There are other paths, but even paper doesn’t survive a journey through the Lightning Trails, and the other methods are dangerous even to speedsters.)

Wally takes a deep breath, wraps his Official DepTran Courier jacket tighter around himself and steps over the city limits of Metropolis-Under-The-Regime.

It’s raining in Metropolis tonight, water running in slick sheets down the sides of spires and spilling into the streets, droplets of water clinging to the glass of the telescreens, somehow without distorting the image of Superman being broadcasted across every screen.

The press conference on the telescreens is apparently about “Something in Brazil”, according to the banner across the bottom third of the image, but everything Superman is saying on the topic just sounds like ducks quacking with the intonation and rhythm of a solemn speech- making promises and proclamations that are in the end nothing more than meaningless mouth noises.

Wally makes his way through the streets, visually indistinguishable from every other DepTran courier in Metropolis-Under-The-Regime.

Standard-issue red cotton scarf covering his mouth, standard-issue bike helmet covering his hair, standard-issue sun-filter goggles covering his eyes- the three combining to conceal his identity without drawing attention.

Standard-issue black-and-white jacket blazoned with the crimson DepTran logo, standard-issue black summer undersuit, standard-issue black gloves, standard-issue faux leather riding boots- all designed to keep couriers simultaneously identifiable and homogenous, while maximizing the efficiency of both the manufacturing of the gear and the couriers who wear it.

(You’d be surprised how much more efficient couriers are when they have clothing appropriate for the weather and for extended exercise, durable shoes that fit and are easy to run in, and motor safety equipment built into the standard uniform so they can swap from running to riding a bicycle or driving a motorcycle without needing to swap equipment too.)

He can’t go too fast, but couriers have way more leeway to be running on the streets than the average citizen. (Well, as long as they keep running and look like they have a destination in mind. It would actually be more suspicious if he stopped running, since Paradigm-native Official DepTran Couriers would never stop or slow down unless they’ve reached their destination or are passing through a checkpoint.)

Still, he has to be careful. There are no average citizens on the street in Metropolis-Under-The-Regime, just O’Briens and Plainclothes Officers pretending to be average citizens(which would probably be more effective if the O'Briens didn't all claim to have the same name), various types of Faceless Goon patrol, and occasionally Dissidents being chased down by the Department of Law Enforcement or Official DepTran Couriers carrying packages or messages.

Buildings are another story- there’s usually hordes of interchangeable Ordinary Citizens filling appropriate roles for the purpose of the building, as well as a handful of Hidden Subversives with more distinguishing features.

Despite the booming populations of the numerous buildings, there’s still no one on the street, since there’s no overlap between the populations of individual buildings, and none of the populace needs or wants to do anything that isn’t part of their assigned role, unless they’re a Dissident or Hidden Subversive.

Apartment Residents never leave their apartments unless they’ve been ordered out, Office Drones never leave their cubicles, even to take lunch breaks, Factory Workers are always on-shift, Shop Customers will never actually take anything home and so on.

It’s a depressing dystopian mirror of an already dystopian society, the platonic ideal of a Regime city without all of the complications and flaws imposed by reality. 

Suddenly, an alarm blares in the distance, air raid sirens screaming like a banshee and lighting up the night with strobing red lights. The telescreens flicker and abruptly swap from Superman’s conference to a Wanted poster for Batman.

“Breaking News: The known terrorist leader known as Batman has been located in District Twelve. He is considered armed, subversive and dangerous. The Department of Law Enforcement is moving in to neutralize the threat.” a bland woman’s voice narrates. “Do not panic and remain in place. The Department of Law Enforcement will be enforcing a curfew until the threat is eliminated.”

Wally was expecting this to happen- events in Metropolis-Under-The-Regime mirror events in realspace Metropolis, though with some abstraction(especially for minor events).

An alternate-universe Batman(and Joker, not that anyone would assume it’s the actual Joker rather than a devoted member of the Joker Clan) showing up is definitely an event major enough to get an accurate mirror in Metropolis-Under-The-Regime.

Even with the advantages of being a second-generation born speedster in a slipspace Near Realm, it’s still going to be tricky to get Batman out of there.

Not impossible, though. In fact, it would probably be easier if it was impossible, seeing as how no one expects the impossible to actually happen and impossibility is a matter of one’s frame of reference.

“Time to get to work.” Wally whispers, steps blurring like lightning as he darts towards the gate to District Twelve.

Chapter Text

Metropolis-Under-The-Regime, [SLIPSPACE]

The gate between District Twelve and District Eleven in Metropolis-Under-The-Regime is much bigger and more imposing than it is in realspace. 

In realspace, the district gates are pretty much just decoration on the gates to an ordinary two-meter-high chain-link fence, and the checkpoint in front of them is pretty much just a section of street with a cheap tent booth manned by a single low-level Department of Transportation clerk on either side, with a pair of bored Municipal Guards standing by in case anyone gets rowdy.

In Metropolis-Under-The-Regime, however, it’s a massive three-story cathedral-style gate made of thick steel, set into a concrete wall that stretches up nearly to the tops of the tallest buildings in Metropolis, with a dedicated gatehouse staffed by dozens of highly-armed Faceless Goons and surrounded by a fenced-off clear zone with dozens of security cameras pointed at it.

Still, there’s ways around it, even during a lockdown. It takes knowledge, audacity and skill, but it’s actually not that hard if you know your angle and what you’re doing.

Wally’s intimately familiar with Metropolis-Under-The-Regime, courtesy of having extensively pored over the realspace Department of Urban Planning files on Metropolis, having extensive experience navigating the place on his own, and having Barry take him on tours through it once he was old enough to pass for a junior intern.

After all, Metropolis-Under-The-Regime is much safer for Barry and anyone they bring in with them, thanks to the Flash being established as the head honcho of literally everything.

Most visitors have to deal with evading or bluffing routine patrols, O’Briens and checkpoints on a regular basis- Wally included. Barry doesn’t have to deal with that. 

As long as they keep up the vaguest of pretences that they're on official business, everyone scrambles to follow his every order to the letter before they can ask it. 

The Faceless Goons don’t demand to see their papers, they ask them nervously for orders. The O’Briens are nowhere to be found, unless they order them to report in. They can walk straight through a checkpoint during a lockdown and the gates would be opening before they had a chance to order them open. 

Barry can’t help him now, though. They're busy in realspace, and since the goal of Wally’s jaunt into Metropolis-Under-The-Regime is to rescue Batman and bring him to a meeting with his Insurgency counterpart, Wally can’t do anything that even hints that he’s closer to Flash than simply working for the Department of Transportation.

Wally has a plan, though. The gates have to open fully if the Regime is going to get land vehicles or a full squadron of troops through, and all Wally needs is to get close enough to run through while they’re open, while staying far enough away that he’s not noticed while he’s waiting.

He’s a speedster- he can easily run fast enough that human eyes fail to register the fact that anything moved past them, especially over a short distance of clear pavement. (Even if he isn’t anywhere as fast as Barry, not yet at least.)

It’ll only work on his way in, but there’s other ways to get out of District Twelve, even with a human passenger, that the inhabitants of Metropolis-Under-The-Regime would never expect. 

Most notably, inhabitants of Metropolis-Under-The-Regime are completely unaware of the other Metropolises and would vehemently deny that they existed even if they were made aware, so leaving without being followed is as easy as finding a crossover point and knowing how to use it.

Happily, there’s an easily accessible crossover to Metropolis-As-It-Was in the form of the statue of Superman standing on top of the world placed in the intersection of 18-12 Street and 16-12 Street, leading to the statue of Superman lifting up the world in Central Park Plaza.

Just as happily, there’s a nook in the alley between two apartment buildings just south of the gate between Districts Eleven and Twelve, which is out of view of security cameras, within spitting distance of the gate, and has a decorative wall hiding anyone tucked behind it from being seen by anyone on the street or the guards in the gatehouse.

There’s a similar nook on both sides of every single interdistrict gate, not just Gate 11-12. Almost all of them exist in realspace as well but aren't nearly as necessary or useful, since realspace doesn’t follow video game stealth logic and the district gates can be bypassed by climbing any part of the fence. 

(Contrary to popular belief, the interdistrict fences aren’t electrified, just topped with anti-traction barricades that can be surmounted if you know how and are reasonably fit and tall, and it’s actually quite easy to climb a chain-link fence.)

The gates finally start to grind open with a loud mechanical rumbling that can probably be heard throughout half of both districts.

Wally eyes their slow opening, and the convoy of Municipal Guard goons and vehicles lining up in front of it, then drops into a runner’s stance and bolts for the gates as fast as he can.

The thin layer of rainwater covering the pavement under his feet splashes in his wake, unnoticed over the much louder rumbling of the gates and the existing downpour.

Fast as lightning, he flashes through the gates and down the streets, stopping and ducking into a side alley just short of where the Municipal Guard stationed in District Twelve are pouring out of their vehicles to surround their targets.

Said targets are a shadowy, yellow-eyed figure vaguely reminiscent of a humanoid bat in gray-plated armor, and a prone and beaten man in clown makeup and a tacky purple suit- reflections of how the realspace Municipal Guard see the pair.

“Hands up, Bat-freak! Do it or you’re dead!” one of the Municipal Guard shouts, mirroring the shouts of a dozen realspace counterparts, as Batman slowly raises his hands.

He's not actually surrendering. Wally’s worked with his own Batman enough to know that no version of him would go anywhere without a few tricks literally up his sleeve, concealed in his gloves and wrist bracers and ready to slip into his palm and activate.

He doesn’t know what exactly this Batman has in there, but Wally's pretty sure that he’s going to use something that can easily non-lethally incapacitate a large crowd that his own suit can filter out. It's the only thing that would make sense tactically.

The hard part is going to be getting Batman from realspace into slipspace, without anyone in realspace noticing him. It's not the end of the world if he gets noticed, but it’ll be inconvenient and people will start asking questions.

Granted, Batman probably also has smoke bombs on him, so all Wally has to do is wait for him to take out the guards and toss the smoke, then run in, duck into realspace and pull them both back into slipspace.

The Joker is another factor entirely, but Barry will deal with the Joker later and it apparently doesn't matter if he escapes for a bit.

Sure enough, the telltale whine of a sonic disruptor(just his luck) echoes through the night, shortly followed by a cloud of smoke filling the air(somehow unaffected by the rain in slipspace) as the Faceless Goons gasp and clutch their ears in agony. 

Unfortunately, the sonic disruptor also affects Wally, and even if he instinctively turned off his ability to feel pain, that doesn’t save him from its other effects.

You see, the sonic disruptor was originally a contingency measure for Reverse Flash that Barry and Batman designed together, in case Eobard decided to go after the Bats. 

(Well, at least it’s that way most of the time. When you add time and universe travel to the equation, things get messy, and cause and effect start to contemplate divorce.)

In addition to the painfully ear-piercing shrieking that disables and unbalances humans, it also harmlessly and temporarily paralyzes- “disrupts”- a speedster with oscillating ultrasonic soundwaves of a very specific frequency.

The sonic disruptor then turned out to be almost as useful against humans as it is against speedsters, so Batman added it to his basic toolkit. 

Wally knows he can vibrate out of the effect by shifting his vibrational frequency, but he’s never practiced and the disruptor apparently bloodily prevents any failures, so that’s a no-go if he doesn’t want to explode. 

He can also still talk, because the disruptor doesn’t affect his vocal plates or mind, but that doesn’t help him because the effect in slipspace is a mirror of the effect in realspace, Batman can’t hear him while he’s in slipspace, and all that would happen if he tried to say anything is that the Faceless Goons in slipspace would notice him while he’s paralyzed and unable to run or fight back.

Thankfully, Wally’s in a side alley where he’s unlikely to be immediately noticed, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s stuck until the disruptor turns off, and that means he can’t grab Batman.

…Actually, he could just wait for Batman to leave and then pick him up once he’s escaped on his own, couldn’t he? The goal is to get Batman safely to Insurgency headquarters, and it doesn’t really matter how Wally gets him there as long as he’s not captured.

Lightning, he’s an idiot. He forgot he was dealing with Batman, not an ordinary civilian Insurgent in trouble. 

Batman disappears into the smoke, though Wally can still faintly feel the motion of him grappling up onto a nearby roof, even with the sonic disruptor still active.

Blessedly, the sound of the disruptor fades soon after. Wally shakes out his still somewhat-numb limbs, and runs after the shadowy figure of Batman, cape silhouetted like an oversized bat in the glare of the telescreens.

Getting up onto the roof of the building is as easy as running up the side. Wally’s boots skid over the glass of the telescreens and the rain-slick metal siding, but it’s easy enough to keep moving upwards.

Once he’s at the top, he grabs the roof gutter and does a backflip onto the roof tiles, just because he can. It’s not something he can pull off in realspace, but Metropolis-Under-The-Regime makes this sort of overdramatic trick surprisingly easy.

Batman is crouched on the edge of the roof, looking over at where the Faceless Goons are hauling the Joker into the back of a Municipal Guard van. He can’t see or hear Wally, not while he’s in slipspace, and so his slipspace reflection ignores him entirely.

Wally grins, checks his footing(don’t want to fall off the building!) and steps through the membrane into realspace Metropolis.

“I’m in a nightmare…” Batman whispers, still not having noticed Wally. 

Seeing as how there’s no visible or audible trace of Wally entering or leaving slipspace, and he basically just appeared out of thin air while standing still from Batman’s perspective, that’s reasonable. It also means he’s probably going to freak out when he notices Wally.

“Uh, no, this is realspace.” Wally chimes in, keeping his hands held out loosely by his sides and his stance relaxed. “Not a nightmare.”

Batman whirls on Wally and stands up, a batarang quickly slipped into his hand. “Who are you?” he demands.

“You can call me Slip. I’m with the Insurgency.” Wally gestures at the Municipal Guard patrolling the street below. “We need to get you out of here, pronto. The Regime’s going to be trawling the entire city for you.”

Batman’s eyes narrow. Some people apparently get freaked out by the articulated lenses, but Wally’s used to seeing the same thing on Barry’s costume and his own Batman. “And why would I trust you?”

“Because I’m your best way out of here.” Wally answers immediately. “District Twelve is probably on lockdown even in realspace. You don’t know this city, you don’t know where’s safe or how to get past the patrols and you don’t know the ways out.”

Batman pauses, impassive. Wally huffs and gestures to the helicopters approaching in the distance. “We don’t have much time. Just trust me and don’t freak out, okay?”

With that warning, Wally grabs Batman and pulls them both into slipspace, mentally whispering a plea to the Speed Force to let him take a creature of the Life Force through.

Batman blinks and steps back. “Where did you take me?!”

“This is Metropolis-Under-The-Regime, the slipspace reflection of Metropolis, where everyone follows a template and routine and only dissidents have individuality.” Wally answers. “It’s also the safest way to get out of Metropolis without being traced.”

“How is this the safest way to get out?” Batman demands. He’s at least smart enough to know that if Wally brought him here, Wally’s his best way out, and his only source of information.

“Well, from here it’s a quick jaunt to Metropolis-As-It-Was, and then a hop, skip and jump to the Central Municipal Office and from there to Deep Gotham and the Heart of the Insurgency, which reflects realspace Insurgency headquarters.” Wally explains. “We’ll cover several dozen miles in a couple minutes at most, without anyone in realspace being able to trace or follow us.”

Batman visibly considers that for a moment. “I suppose I don’t have any better ideas. What do I need to do?”

“Well, first you need to understand that this isn’t realspace. Slipspace follows its own dream-logic rules, and the laws of physics aren’t compatible with creatures of the Life Force.” Wally gestures to himself. “The only reason you’re alive right now without being connected to the Deep Change or Collective Unconscious is because you’re standing next to someone who is.” 

“I can only protect you so much, so if we get seperated we only have a few minutes before your metaphysical visa’s expired. Best case if that happens, you stop being alive instead of being a dream. Worst case, you just cease to exist.”

Batman considers that for a moment. “How close do I need to stay?”

“As long as I can see you, it should be fine.” Wally points to the statue of Superman standing on top of the world a few buildings down. “That statue is a crossover point to Metropolis-As-It-Was, so we won’t need to spend long in Metropolis-Under-The-Regime. We just need to be touching the statue at the same time, and that’s as easy as jumping on top of it.”

“How are you going to get there?” Batman asks. “I have a grappling gun, but you don’t.”

Wally waves a hand. “I’ll just get a running start and jump once you’ve gone. In here, the laws of physics are subordinate to the Rule of Cool, especially for me.”

Batman nods, and with a single swift movement and a faint “ka-chunk!”, he’s zipping off towards the statue.

Wally follows him, running off the edge of the roof and ramping off it to soar through the air, sparks and Speed buoying his flight and keeping him on course.

Wally latches onto Superman’s elbow and drops onto the top of the globe, careful to keep himself from slipping on the rain-slick bronze.

He glances over at where Batman’s hanging from a grapple line wrapped around Superman’s other arm, one hand pressed to the globe, then grins behind his scarf as he pushes on reality.

They both fall from the statue onto lush green grass, landing softened by a little exertion of power on Wally’s part, but still somewhat uncomfortable.

“Sorry for the rough ride- it would have been easier if we were standing on ground level, but that would have been too risky.” Wally gestures to the sprawling expanse of parkland and carefully maintained paved paths. “Welcome to Metropolis-As-It-Was, where life goes on as if the atomic bomb never went off and killed all eleven million original residents, and everything is peaceful.”

Batman’s eyes widen nigh-imperceptibly. “...Atomic bomb. How did that happen?”

“The Joker, apparently. Never got many fine details, but Superman’s wife and unborn child were killed by one of the Joker’s tricks, with the trigger for the bomb linked to her heartbeat, and that’s how we got the Regime.” Wally huffs. “Either way, it’s on all of the propaganda, and everyone knows the story.”

Batman thinks that over for a moment. “...Before I was brought here, I was attempting to stop the Joker from detonating an atomic bomb in the heart of Metropolis. Right here, in fact.”

“Neat coincidence, probably not actually a coincidence, but either way we need to get moving.” Wally gestures to the westward path out of Central Park Plaza. “That path leads towards the train station, and then we just need to book two tickets to Central City to get to the Central Municipal Office.”

“Why not book tickets to Gotham?” Batman asks. “That seems like it would be faster.”

“Because Metropolis-As-It-Was is connected to Sunlit Gotham, not Deep Gotham, and Sunlit Gotham is much more dangerous than the Central Municipal Office. If I was alone, I could go through the Wild Reaches, but since you’re here, we need to navigate through the natural connections.”

Batman hums. “Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

Metropolis-As-It-Was, [SLIPSPACE]

The trip to the train station is utterly ordinary, and not really worthy of spending much time describing. It helps that Wally’s easily able to shorten the journey to a few seconds long without too much effort, given how it’s a straight path, he has a destination in mind and there’s nothing particularly interesting there.

The train station itself is a throwback to an earlier era(and probably a mix of several), a brick building with a shingled roof and white-framed round windows, complete with an actual functional belltower.

A gaggle of pedestrians, much more colorful and individualistic than the ones in Metropolis-Under-The-Regime, surrounds the station, some reading newspapers on the green-painted metal park benches and some standing and watching the rail line.

Wally walks up to the ticket booth, Batman trailing behind him, and waves to the portly, mustachioed man manning the ticket booth. “Two to Central City, please!”

The ticket master grins brightly, and starts fiddling around with his ticket register- an old, cartoonish thing with a bunch of levers, oversized buttons and hand pedals. “Two to Central City, coming right up!”

There’s a loud ding! and a few crunching noises, and two tickets are spat out of the bottom of the register. The ticket master dumps them into Wally’s outstretched hand, with a jubilant cry of “Here you go!”

Batman looks impassive, but Wally can tell he’s visibly confused by the entire thing. “That’s it?”

Wally snorts, and hands Batman his ticket. “Yes, it is. Welcome to Metropolis-As-It-Was, which is really more of a caricature of an ideal place that was destroyed five years ago, running on kid’s show and video game logic. There’s the trappings of an economy, but they don’t actually make you pay for anything.”

Batman stares blankly for a moment. “I…suppose this is a dream world. Of course the rules would be different from reality.”

“Metropolis-Under-The-Regime has just as much nonsensical abstraction. You just missed it because we barely spent any time there.” Wally waves a hand. “Some Realms are more realistic than others. Metropolis-Under-The Regime is still pretty cartoony compared to the Central Municipal Office, but it’s not as ridiculous as Metropolis-As-It-Was- the people there actually pay attention to context.”

“...Context like the fact that a wanted criminal is wandering the streets in the outfit he wears on the Wanted posters?” Batman points out.

Wally sucks in a deep breath. Spark. “...I didn’t think of that at all. The train’s going to arrive any second now, and I’m not sure how willing you are to take off your cowl in front of a strange teenager, so I guess there’s only one solution.”

“...What solution?” Batman’s hands twitch towards his utility belt.

“Simple. We board the train, then get out the access hatch, cling to the roof and jump off just before it reaches the station.” Wally is met with an incredulous stare. “...Why are you looking at me like that?”

Batman continues to stare incredulously at Wally. “...Because that’s a stupid plan likely to get both of us killed?”

“In realspace, maybe. It’s crazy enough to work and narratively interesting, and that’s really all that matters in slipspace.” Wally huffs. “Dream logic, remember?”

Before Batman can start to argue, the bell starts to ring, chiming loudly across the city to announce the arrival of the train, as it pulls into the station with a screech of brakes and a whistle of wind.

The train in question is a modern Regime-standard subway train, the exterior sleek and chromed with tinted windows and sliding double doors on each segment. 

(Outgoing trains in Metropolis-As-It-Was always conform to their destination, no matter how much it clashes with Metropolis-As-It-Was, so Wally’s seen and ridden on all sorts of trains, and things that really aren’t, such as horse-pulled carriages and undead skeleton snakes.)

“Here we go. Follow me- we’ll be safe while we’re on the train and still on the Tracks rather than in a Realm proper.” Wally walks over to car 3-B(which he knows has a roof access hatch, but is far enough away from the ends of the train that there’s minimal risk of falling off) and swipes his ticket through the card scanner on the side of the door.

In a realspace train, the card scanner would be scanning your citizen ID card(which, incidentally, is part of the reason why Wally has never ridden a realspace train, due to lacking a legal identity), not a paper ticket, but due to the weird intersection of the Paradigms of Metropolis-As-It-Was and the Central Municipal Office, the ticket works just fine.

The door slides open with a faint whooshing noise, and Wally steps through, glancing back to make sure Batman’s following.

Batman steps into the train behind Wally without bothering to scan his ticket- something that you definitely couldn’t get away with on an actual Regime subway without triggering an alert or needing to disable the sensors in the doorway(well, assuming that anyone bothered to fix those sensors after the last time something fried them), but that the slipspace train has absolutely no problem with.

The train is entirely deserted, but that’s normal for an inter-Realm train leading to the Central Municipal Office. (No one commutes in or out of Central, after all, though some of the workers do commute back and forth from the Municipal Office to the Municipal Perimeter.)

Wally scans the rows of booths(both seats and dividers made of red plastic sheets screwed to stainless steel frames- cheap to make and repair, easy to install and easy to clean), searching for the booth that has the roof access hatch above it. 

“Hatch’s over there, but it’ll take a while for the train to get anywhere near the station, so we’re free to talk.” Wally informs Batman, as he takes a seat just under the hatch, sprawling out a bit. “I know you have questions. Ask away.”

Chapter Text

The Trainyard, [SLIPSPACE]

Bruce is used to the occasional inexplicable occurrence, given his line of work. 

When you’ve been a superhero for long enough, your reaction to things that would make most people scream and run or question their senses tends to become something along the lines of more “Oh, come on!” or “Seriously? Again?!”

Being inexplicably transported into an alternate Earth(whether truly a parallel universe or simply a possible future or altered present has yet to be determined), while not truly routine or even expected, is something he made contingency measures for long ago.

Said alternate Earth being a totalitarian dystopia was unpleasant, but one of the first possibilities he planned for when drafting his contingencies on alternate universes. (Along with universes where the Justice League was evil.)

What he was not expecting was to be promptly pulled into a series of extradimensional dream realms(as far as he can tell) by a random metahuman teenager working for the “Insurgency”.

Despite having no choice to play along(given Slip’s demonstrated power and his lack of contingency measures), Bruce still doesn’t trust Slip.

He’d be a fool to trust someone who effectively kidnapped him into a dimension apparently actively hostile to his existence and has so far offered only piecemeal explanations that raise more questions than answers.

Granted, as far as he can tell, the lack of information seems to be mostly a matter of the impracticality of explaining things in detail while actively on the move and not willful deception. 

The fact that Slip sat him down and explicitly offered to answer his questions as soon as they reasonably could, instead of continuing to be evasive, is a very good sign. 

(Of course, Bruce has no way to verify those facts, at least at the moment. It’s still a sign of good intentions.)

“How long is a while?” he starts. He needs to know how much time they have to talk, so he can prioritize his lines of questioning. (Of which he has many.)

“Theoretically? As long as I want.” Slip sighs. “In practice, I can only stretch time and the narrative so much, so any truly in-depth explanations will need to wait for when we’re back in realspace.” 

…Bruce probably should have expected that sort of answer, given the nature of slipspace so far. It’s still annoying.

“What’s the Insurgency?” he starts, deciding to start with the questions most immediately relevant.

“Well, five years ago, Superman took control of the planet and started the Regime. Batman- this universe’s Batman- objected to that, and Superman declared him a criminal and ordered him and his allies hunted down and “brought to justice”.” Slip snorts derisively, making air quotes around their last words.

“Anyway, Supes failed at that immensely, and his crackdowns on subversives and everything associated with them only made more people join the newly formed Insurgency.” Slip gestures to Bruce. “Our Batman- let’s call him Insurgency Batman, or InBat for short- still leads the Insurgency, which is why there was such a prompt and violent reaction to you.”

Bruce considers that for a moment. Leading a resistance movement against a Superman gone insane is exactly the sort of behavior he’d expect from himself in certain contexts. 

The implications of Slip’s phrasing, though… “You knew I was from an alternate universe the whole time, didn’t you?”

Slip huffs, leaning back in their seat. “That was the entire point of my mission. InBat has some sort of contingency he won’t let me know the precise details of, but in order to use it, he has to bring over versions of the Justice League founders who are evil or dead in our universe. Dunno why.”

Bruce is pretty sure he knows which contingency his alternate self is trying to activate, given his need for the biometrics of the Justice League founders and Superman’s status as a villainous totalitarian despot. 

He can’t be sure, given that this is an alternate universe, but assuming his alternate counterpart built the same contingencies at the same times, he’d likely be trying to unlock the seal on the kryptonite-emitter laser disabler. (KELD for short.)

“Hm.” Bruce redirects the topic to his next question. “What is slipspace?” 

“Slipspace is the place just a little left of the between of reality, a layer of reality where only the Deep Change and Collective Unconscious have power, and where dreams, metaphors and ideas are the foundation of reality.” Slip recites, sounding like a tour guide reciting the same spiel for the thousandth time. “Feel free to call it an eldritch hell dimension. Everyone inevitably ends up calling it that.”

Interesting. “Why is it so hostile to creatures of the Life Force?”

“Since the Life Force has no sway here, a child of the Change or a conduit of the Unconscious has to petition their patron to allow a fragment of the Life Force inside.” Slip gestures to themself. “I’m fine, since I’m a child of the Deep Change, but a human or any other creature of the Life Force will find that the laws of reality are incompatible with life as they know it without protection from a sponsor.”

“And what is the Deep Change?” The Collective Unconscious is known to him, if only as a basic concept(and one with dozens of conflicting interpretations of mostly-dubious reliability), but Bruce has never heard of the Deep Change before.

“The Deep Change is the motion of the universe, the spark that pushes the river of time forward, the weaving force of fate that people know as karma, coincidence and destiny.” Slip explains. “It’s the force that says that what comes up must come down, that history moves in cycles, that guides lightning to strike and planets in their orbits.”

Bruce stares for a moment, unsure how to parse whatever poetically metaphysical nonsense just came out of Slip’s mouth.

Slip huffs, crossing their arms. “Look, that’s legitimately the best explanation I can give you. Trust me, a detailed explanation would be even more incomprehensibly theological. Even I don’t understand everything about it, and I’ve been learning about it my whole life.”

“Your whole life?” Bruce asks. “Even before the Regime?”

Slip snorts. “How old do you think I am?”

“Fifteen to sixteen. Possibly younger or older, considering that I can’t see your face clearly.” Bruce replies promptly. 

“Nope. Five, at least by the standards of the realspace calendar.” Slip leans back in their seat, and gestures lazily with one arm to the nondescript grassy landscape outside the window of the train. “Time doesn’t pass the same way in slipspace as it does in realspace. Regimented time is an imposition of the Dimensional Superstructure, and the Dimensional Superstructure has no power here.”

“Dimensional Superstructure?” Bruce asks, despite knowing the answer will probably be unhelpful.

“The laws of physics, three-dimensional geometry and causality, basically. The thing that says that if a glass of water falls onto a wooden floor, the water will spill and rot the floorboards even if no one’s there to see it, and that the inside of a house has to fit into the outside of the house precisely.” Slip flaps a hand dismissively. “Never saw the point myself, but that’s how realspace works, so…”

“You never saw the point of… the laws of physics?!” Bruce can’t keep a note of incredulity from leaking into his voice.

“As my mother used to say all the time- if the laws of physics are holding you back, remember that laws are there to be broken.” Slip folds their hands in their lap. “Also, it’s not illegal if you don’t get caught, and you’re too fast to get caught.”

Bruce doesn’t really know how to react to that, and settles on a half-hearted “Laws are not meant to be broken.” 

“If it’s possible to do, someone will do it. The only reason to write a law is because you want people not to do something they already want and are able to do by punishing people who break the law.” Slip huffs. “If no one is ever going to break the law, there’s no reason to make it a law with a punishment rather than an unspoken common sense assumption or moral imperative.”

“That…you still need guidelines!” Bruce protests. “Otherwise, it would be chaos.”

“And those are called regulations, not laws.” Slip corrects. “Sure, there’s laws and agencies dedicated to making sure people don’t break regulations, but regulations are inherently just guidelines and the laws about breaking them are completely separate documents and policies.”

“What about laws against murder?” Bruce points out. “You need laws against those.”

“There’s already moral imperatives against killing- no one expects someone to kill, and we all react in horror when we find out about a murder.” Slip leans forward in their seat, gesticulating as they speak. “The reason we need a law against murder is because murders are still committed despite those laws, and we need a legal recourse for when the law is inevitably broken anyway. There cannot be a law against a crime that no one expects to ever be committed.”

“I think the two of us have different definitions of “law”, and that what I consider a law you consider a moral imperative enshrined in law.” Bruce decides. “It probably comes from how different the circumstances of our childhoods were.”

Slip exhales sharply and looks down at their hands. “Yeah. I mean, we didn’t even grow up with the same laws of physics. And you had a mother, a father and a butler, not just a mother, and you grew up being legally a person.”

Bruce blinks, deciding to shelve his questioning of how much Slip knows about his background in favor of a more pressing question without an obvious answer.  “...Why would you not be legally a person?”

“Mom hid me from everyone, even before I was born. No one knew I existed, except Mom.” Slip bounces their foot on the floor as they continue. “Legal documentation would have meant revealing me to the Regime, even before the Universal Identity Documents Initiative and the Biometrics Registry.”

“Why’d she hide you?” Bruce asks. No one would go to the extremely risky effort of hiding a child from the government if they didn’t have a very good reason.

“Well, I’m a child of the Deep Change, and someone with power like mine is a massive advantage for whoever I’m working for, and an equally massive threat to their opponents. There’s no way the Regime would leave me alone if they knew about me.” Slip fiddles with the sleeves of their jacket. “The Department of Transportation is only so much of a shield, but it’s the best cover Mom was able to give me.”

Bruce had noticed the crimson “DepTran” printed on the back and right lapel of Slip’s jacket before, but he’d put it mostly out of mind. There were any number of explanations and possible meanings, and it was unimportant at the time.

It’s still unimportant, even with the revelation that DepTran is short for Department of Transportation. Especially since he can see that Slip is beginning to become distressed by this line of inquiry.

Time to change the subject, back to something actually relevant. “More importantly, I need to know the Regime’s composition.”

“Oh, I can give you much more than that. There’s all sorts of secrets to be found in slipspace, or simply by eavesdropping while effectively invisible.” Slip tilts their head to the side, then starts to tick names off on their fingers. 

“Wonder Woman and Superman are really close, both emotionally and in commitment to the Regime’s ideals- they’re dating but keeping it on the down-low.”

“Yellow Lantern and Shazam are loyal for now, but that’s because they’ve managed to convince themselves that they’re doing good and the sacrifices are worth it. They still have their doubts.”

“Atlantis and Aquaman are nominally independent, and while Aquaman is pretty committed nowadays, he’s only loyal to Superman out of the knowledge that Atlantis has more to lose than it stands to gain from opposing him.”

“Cyborg and Raven are loyal to Superman, though Raven’s not loyal to Superman as much as the darkness he’s spreading, and has ambitions of overthrowing him at her father’s side once Trigon emerges. Cyborg, on the other hand, would torture someone on Superman’s orders without so much as a flare of conscience.”

“Black Adam’s in this for himself and sees himself as an equal rather than a servant to Superman, same as Sinestro. Pretty standard evil overlord stuff.”

“Killer Frost, like the other re-educated villains, is utterly loyal to Superman as long as she gets to expand her collection of ice statues.”

“Hawkgirl is loyal to the Regime and its ideals, courtesy of some re-education, but if it was obvious the Regime was going to fall, she’d run, maybe even turn on Superman for murdering her husband.”

Slip hesitates for a moment. “And…Nightwing is happy to serve Superman, seeing your no-kill philosophy as having held him back the whole time, and grateful for the opportunity to enact justice on the unworthy with brutal efficiency.”

“What?!” Bruce gasps. Dick would never…except it seems he did.

“...Uh, Nightwing the Second. Nightwing the First got demoted, Klingon-style. Should have clarified.” Slip holds up his hands. “I know that’s not really better, but yeah. Demon brat lived up to his name by murdering his brother, apparently, and that’s all InBat was willing to tell me.”

Bruce clenches his fists, taking deep breaths to regulate himself no matter how much he wants to scream and punch something.

The thought of Damian murdering Dick and taking the name for himself is nearly unthinkable, but unfortunately, he can see how it could have happened.

Damian has always been temperamental, violent and arrogant, and prone to petulant tantrums when something he feels should be rightfully his is denied to him.

(It’s only reasonable, having been raised in the League of Assassins with Talia al Ghul as his mother and Ra’s al Ghul as his grandfather, and Bruce has never quite figured out how to ensure he adjusts.)

Likely the initial incident was a minor fight that eventually escalated to lethality. 

Bruce has a hard time believing that Damian would intentionally and premeditatedly murder one of his brothers. (Even as a dozen incidents come to mind…)

“Uh, Batman, I don’t think it’s a good idea to-” Slip starts.

They’re promptly cut off by an ear-splitting metallic squeal- the familiar sound of a speeding train’s emergency brakes- and the rumbling sound of stone cracking.

Abruptly, the train jolts, tears off its tracks and tumbles into the dark maw of the earth below.

Bruce is tossed free of his seat by the violent motion, the sight of Slip reaching out to grab him the last thing he sees before the side of his head slams into the divider.

Chapter Text

The Black Spiral, [SLIPSPACE]

Wally resists the urge to swear as the train derails and falls into a yawning abyss. 

He probably shouldn’t have talked about Nightwing in front of Batman while they were in slipspace, but he didn’t think the revelation would end up being this bad- Black Spirals normally steer way clear of speedsters, even small, undeveloped juveniles like Wally.

Regardless of how much of an idiot he was, Batman’s definitely the Spiral’s chosen prey. Even if it hadn’t knocked him out, it would be obvious just from context.

Wally grabbed onto Batman as soon as the train started to derail, and clung as tightly to him as he could, friction-gluing his gloves and sleeves to the chestplate of Batman’s suit and his gloves and sleeves to his skin, the tightest grip a speedster can manage.

After all, a speedster’s presence is the only thing that gives Batman any chance at all of getting out of the Spiral, and it’s smart enough to know that and try to seperate them.

As the train dissipates into smoke and ash, leaving just the two of them falling into darkness, Wally eyes the sky as it slowly fades from a welcoming blue to foreboding darkness.

The darkness of the abyss is currently just darkness, but once they pass the point where there’s no light from the surface, that’s when they’ll truly be in the Black Spiral’s belly.

Black Spirals are not the sort of predator that would be possible in realspace. Everything about it, from its appearance to its proportions to its method of feeding is one that is only possible in a reality that’s more mutable dream than anything concretely physical.

The best explanation of exactly what it is, at least in a way that humans can understand, is that it’s a sapient and predatory Near Realm that feeds on negative emotions, nightmares, sanity and the very underpinnings of one’s self.

The Black Spiral’s feeding process is slow and grueling, and also incredibly effective, especially on someone who isn’t expecting it.

Once it’s swallowed its prey, it needs to push them to their breaking point to properly digest them, and it does that by tormenting them with various scenes, documents and artifacts taken out of their proper order and context, while they’re already emotional.

(The only good thing about being inside one is that its interior is filled with a thin web of the Life Force, stolen from its previous victims and just barely enough to keep living prey alive until it’s done with them.)

Lightning, Wally wishes Barry was here. This isn’t even a fully-grown Black Spiral, and Barry’s a full speedster matriarch- the Black Spiral would probably run away from him.

They’re suspended in darkness and freefall for a moment as the light is finally consumed, then they strike ground- a thin ledge of cold but undeniably solid stone.

(A ledge that will crumble away once the Spiral’s done showing Batman a scene or two, and then drop him onto another one a few seconds’ fall below, one that’s just a little narrower and more precarious. The Black Spiral just wants to give its victims the fleeting illusion of safety and stability.)

Batman twitches and abruptly surges to his feet, slightly unbalanced by Wally still clinging to him. Wally carefully shifts his grip so that he’s not completely wrapped around Batman, instead having his hands locked around one of Batman’s wrists.

“Don’t believe anything you see down here! The Spiral lies!” Wally shouts, but his voice doesn’t carry over the sudden howling of the wind.

The darkness shimmers with red for a moment, then hazy-edged but still crystal-clear images of a gray-walled asylum where a boy in a padded red suit with gray gauntlets and a black cape is sneaking up behind a man in a black-and-blue bodysuit- the first Nightwing- who has his attention focused on several men in orange prison jumpsuits.

Batman inhales sharply. “Damian…don’t…” he murmurs, voice quickly swallowed by the darkness.

The boy in red tosses the escrima baton in his hand at Nightwing, shouting something that makes Nightwing turn towards him- just in time for the baton to strike the side of his temple and send him toppling onto the ground, the back of his neck striking a chunk of rubble.

The sound of Nightwing’s neck cracking echoes around them, the only sound that can be heard. Batman cringes at the sound, drawing in on himself.

“The Spiral’s lying to you!” Wally shouts, but Batman still can’t hear him.

Okay, time for Plan B. (Not that he really had a Plan A.)

Wally takes a deep breath, gathers lightning and hope in his hands like Barry taught him to, forms it into a spear(really more of a sharp-tipped lightning rod), lets go of Batman and runs towards the end of the ledge and rams the tip of the spear into the wall of the “cave”(actually the Spiral’s belly).

The wind howls like a beast in agony as the spear lodges several inches deep into the weirdly fleshy wall, a deep rumbling echoing through the cavern.

“Yeah, you don’t like that, do you?” Wally shouts. “Let us go- let us both go, or Mom will do a lot worse than this to you!”

There’s a glittering of yellow sparks in the darkness that resolve into an image of Barry in costume, paralyzed and strapped down to a table with thick leather straps as Harley Quinn waves puppets in their face.

Wally snorts. “Well, you’re not Harley Quinn, are you?”

The image flickers, from Barry on the table to the violently dismembered corpse and limbs of a thickly-built man in a Hawaiian shirt falling out of the sky as beams of green and yellow clash in the background.

“And I’m not that guy, either.” Wally rolls his eyes, and jabs the spear a bit deeper. “Face it, Spiral. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”

Abruptly, the ledge crumbles and breaks underneath them, Batman running towards Wally but not quite making it there before he’s falling into the abyss.

“Well played.” Wally acknowledges, then he yanks the spear out of the wall of the cave, jumps down into the abyss and reaches out with both his free hand and his power.

His hand clasps Batman’s, and then they’re both falling together yet again, Wally’s hand wrapped tightly around Batman’s wrist. 

Wally closes his eyes and jabs his spear into the darkness, not bothering to wait for them to reach ground again- assuming they ever will.

The wind howls as the spear catches on the darkness and sticks there. 

“You’re still not good enough. What are you, three centuries old? Four? Five?” Wally snorts. “You can let us go, or I can rip our way out by force. You can feel the hope poisoning you, can’t you?”

The flickers of yellow in the darkness take a while to decide on a form, eventually deciding on an image of the Insurgency’s headquarters, as a teenage girl with blond hair in a ponytail walks into the back door.

“Yes, we want to go there.” Wally confirms. “Good choice.”

With that, the wind begins to blow from under them, carrying them upwards until they reach a ledge next to the mouth of a tunnel, and then gently dropping them onto it.

“...Did you just threaten an eldritch hell dimension into helping us?” Batman asks, tone faintly incredulous.

“Yep.” Wally gestures to the mouth of the tunnel with the tip of his spear. “We should get going before this idiot gets the bright idea of changing its mind.”

Wally doesn’t dismiss the spear until they’re through the Spiral’s part of the tunnel, and fully inside the maintenance pathways of the Heart of the Insurgency.

“Alright, we’re basically here. You okay, Batman?” Wally can’t really tell how Batman’s feeling with the cowl and his typical lack of visible reactions, especially since he’s human.

“...I will be fine.” Batman grits out.

“Great. It’s almost over, and we have a bit of downtime after we get to the base.” Wally gestures to the hallway. “Which is pretty much just around the corner.”

Batman nods, and follows Wally in silence until they reach the designated crossover point, and Wally pulls them both through the membrane and into the realspace Insurgency headquarters.

Chapter Text

Central Municipal Office, RY 6

Barry’s meal breaks are two minutes and thirty seconds long, enough time for them to collect a pre-prepared multi-course meal and two bottles of soda from the Department of Transportation breakroom, eat it all in room 101a(their dining room) and have about a minute and ten seconds left over to do what they want.

Usually, that means running around the main hallway of the Department of Peace(which they intentionally designed as a set of connected rectangular loops), and sometimes, checking in on Wally(a regular necessity when they were younger, now an occasional indulgence on both their parts).

Why did Barry willingly choose to schedule everything they do down to the second? Several reasons.

One, Superman and Yellow Lantern(the usual pair of annoyances) usually don’t read the entirety of their schedule, and just skim the top-level task groups to see if they've scheduled any meetings with them, since the nested layers of lower-level tasks are just too much for them to parse.

Two, if someone is scheduling their meals, bathroom breaks and personal hygiene down to the second and sleeps for half an hour less than the average, you usually don’t expect them to have any free time to be planning a coup or fomenting rebellion.

Three, it keeps people out of their office when they're not expecting them, and that was a godsend when Wally was little and they couldn’t risk Superman barging in while they were feeding or calming a baby that’s not supposed to exist or be in their office.

Four, no one will notice them fudging the exact times it takes them to do things a little, especially since things run longer or shorter than expected all the time and no one other than them knows exactly how fast they can go, so they actually have more free time than you’d expect.

It's still way less free time than they want, and evidently way less than the Speed Force wants, given how itchy their lightning-claim is whenever they're not running.

The pink, feathery lightning scars covering most of their body aren't usually something they consciously pay attention to, seeing as how they don't come with the usual complications and itchiness of burn scars due to being the physical mark of the metaphysical claim of the Speed Force, rather than truly a healed-over injury.

Normally, they only really think about them when other people draw attention to them, when the Speed Force is trying to tell them something, or when their thoughts wander there when they're bored or looking in the mirror. It’s just a normal part of their body, and something that every speedster has.

(Even born speedsters, like Wally, are born with a few raised red lightning-feather “birthmarks” tracing their neck and collarbones, that spread and pinken as they age the same way a claimed speedster’s scars spread and pinken as their connection to the Speed Force grows.)

Nowadays, their lightning-claim is constantly in the back of their mind, seeing as the itchiness only really goes away when they run, and they have only limited opportunities to leave their office.

Moisturizing lotion helps a little, but most of the itching is the Speed Force poking them and trying to yank them away from their work rather than the fact that their lightning-claim is suddenly behaving more like actual burn scars than a set of mostly-cosmetic-but-soul-deep markings.

They want to run, but they can’t. Not for more than a few moments snatched here and there, and it’s killing them. (Eventually literally, if they let it drag on for long enough. Speedsters need to run the same way humans need vitamins.)

<Your lunch break will be over in a minute and ten seconds, but I decided to inform you early since your next task is reviewing the reports from the Department of Law Enforcement in preparation for Execution Day.> Blue informs him. 

Oh. Right. That . 

Barry knows full well that having all executions happen on pre-scheduled “holiday” dates four times a year offers most prisoners anywhere from a few days to a few months to be rescued or escape and helps cement the Regime’s tyranny(both in the sense of “authority” and in the sense of “cruelty”) in the public mind, but they still have to sign off on everything.

Sign off on every single death, one by one. 

They always read the entire file, even though all they have to do is rubberstamp it and they can’t really get away with not signing the execution orders.

No matter how much they don’t want to, they have to. 

They know for sure that Iris forgives them. They tracked down her ghost in the Shadowlands just to ask, and she’d actually been more angry that they didn’t trust her to handle the consequences of her own actions than that Barry might as well have killed her with their own hands.

(It still doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead, and that they can’t ever truly make amends to someone who isn’t looping and will cease to exist, if only as that particular version of themself, by the end of the loop.)

Barry darts off into a soundproofed side closet in the basement of the Central City Primary Municipal Office before they can collapse completely from the reminder.

They don’t bother to change out of their costume before they nestle under the blankets piled up in the tiny room, and lets the tears they've been holding back finally fall.

The nice thing about being a speedster is that crying doesn’t make their breathing stutter or their nose clog, just their lungs cycle faster to keep their airways clear, the same way they cycle faster when they're tired or running.

The annoying thing about being a speedster is that their emotional tears don’t go into their sinuses like they would for a human(speedster sinuses are a complex network of one-way respiratory passageways, and the tears would either never come out again or drip into their lungs), and instead the entire volume pours down their face, leaving them dehydrated and soaked.

They have a minute and ten seconds to speed through all of their grief, guilt and regret for everything they've done and get themself into a state where they can do paperwork without soaking everything into illegibility with tears. 

That’s kind of hard when their core feels like it’s trying to rip itself out of their body, and their lightning-claim feels like it was dusted in itching powder, but that’s just their usual nowadays. 

They can do it, no matter how much he wants to run out to Metropolis harbor and swim deeper into the sea until they're too tired to swim or hold their breath, no matter how loud the buzzing in the back of their head gets or how fuzzy their limbs feel.

It’s only when Barry tries to pull the blankets tighter around themself and their hand flickers through the cloth without actually managing to catch hold that they realize they have a major problem. 

They know, instinctively and by experience, what decoherence feels like, and the multifarious Very Bad Things that will happen if they fully decohere. 

Normally, it would be quickly solved by cuddling up to one of their lightning rods- but that requirement’s kind of a problem, because there's no good options for who to go to.

Iris is dead and Eobard doesn’t exist, so they're definitely not options.

Wally is in another dimension at the moment, and on top of potentially compromising all of their plans, there's a good chance trying to ground themself solely on another speedster will only end up destabilizing both of them. (Especially given how young Wally is, in comparison to Barry.)

Hal is willingly working for Superman, has already committed several murders in person, and would turn Barry in in a heartbeat.

Hal is also the only one of Barry's lightning rods that's alive, accessible and human, and Barry needs to ground themself if they're going to stay alive and physical.

Without really thinking about the consequences, Barry runs out of the building, following the frantic tugging of their lightning-bond with Hal through the streets, down the interstate and up the fire escape of a familiar apartment building until they're shoving themself through Hal's window and into his lap.

A desperate keen pours from their lips, limbs flickering as they nuzzle into Hal's chest, legs splayed over Hal’s couch and arms wrapped around Hal's body. (Hal hasn’t bothered to replace his couch. It’s the same one as before, the one they'd cuddle up on together and watch movies on.)

"IneedyouIneedyouIneedyoupleasehelpithurtsHalplease-" they babble, clutching Hal's jacket tightly with shaking, still-flickering fingers.

Hal is their only lifeline, and even if he's barely realized Barry's here, his presence is solid and firm and alive, and every second spent near him makes Barry feel less like they're going to fall apart with a stiff breeze.

"Barry…?" Hal asks, voice drawn out to a near-shriek despite Barry’s best efforts to slow down to a human pace. “Why…”

“I. Need. You.” Barry chokes out, trying their best to enunciate slowly enough that Hal can hear him.

“...You need me?” Hal blinks. “I…I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me outside of professional duties?”

Barry tries to take a deep breath, and utterly fails to do more than slow down their lungs’ cycling slightly. “Need is not want. You can hate the taste of water and still need to drink it to live.”

Hal blinks. “I…explain, please?”

“I can’t trust you to…” Barry speeds up, thinking over their next words before slowing back down. “-keep a hold of yourself and not be a loose cannon. Not while Sinestro’s in your life, egging on all your bad decisions. I don’t want to be here.”

“I still need you. No matter how much I’d rather we just do our jobs and forget what we could have had-” At that, Hal flinches. “-I can’t live without you. Electricity only exists when it can flow to ground. Lightning only strikes when it can complete the circuit. You’re my lightning rod.”

Barry pulls away from Hal(ignoring the twinge in his bones) and waves their hand through the air, letting it flicker in and out of existence with a crackle of cerulean sparks. “This is what happens when a speedster goes without their lightning rod for too long. I almost died.”

“So it’s just…medical issues.” Barry can hear the heartbreak in Hal’s voice and see the tears in the corners of his eyes, even as he starts to shout. “I…I’m just a burden to you. Just an onerous chore, is it? Is that it?!”

“No-  I… want to want to be with you.” Barry murmurs, looking away from Hal(when did he start calling Hal Hal and not Yellow Lantern?). “I want that, no matter how bad an idea it is.”

What do they say to justify this, without revealing their real reasoning? What can they say, that justifies why they're staying away from someone they love? What can they say, to justify leaving the father of their child out of the loop?

“It’s just…you’re my only lightning rod now. If you die, I’d have a few weeks at most to sort out my affairs before I follow you.” Barry says, somewhat lamely. “If no one knows we’re connected, no one will go after you to hurt me, and nothing you do can reflect on me. Both of us are safer that way.”

Hal pauses, eyes raking Barry over even as he fiddles with the zipper of his jacket. “...You’re scared of me, not for me.”

Barry abruptly remembers that all Yellow Lanterns can sense fear in detail without training- unlike Green Lanterns, who need to either be a member of already-empathic species or spend an extensive period of time cultivating the ability to consciously interpret empathic information as anything more than a general hunch as to how confident, fatigued and determined someone is.

Due to his inexperience and incompatible personality, Hal shouldn’t be able to summon the right frame of mind to get any more detail on the nature of Barry’s fear than “old, strong and lingering”, but the target and cause are a lot easier to determine, especially if they’re focused on the Lantern themself.

(It also helps when the person they’re examining is in physical contact with them. and Barry’s currently half-sprawled across Hal’s lap.)

Spark. This was a very bad idea.

<The only thing that matters is the successful and timely completion of the delivery.> Blue reminds him, quoting Barry’s own philosophy(well, one particular variant he designed for the Department of Transportation). <The shortest route is not always the safest route, but you must still take the shortest route.>

<On a less philosophical note, even if Hal reacts badly and tries to turn you in, you can easily run and initiate the rest of your plans before Hal can react, Wally appears to be a largely unrelated actor to everyone else and is already in the field, and there are few long-term consequences even in this loop alone.>

<Even if you end up dying, the Speed Force will bring you back. Even if you end up captured, you can easily escape through slipspace. Even if you are somehow prevented from doing either, Wally will still be able to act on his own.>

“...yeah, you’re right.” Barry murmurs, answering both Hal and Blue. “Just…it’s not you, it’s Superman.”

Hal blinks. “...What does Clark have to do with this?”

Barry takes a deep breath, fingers twitching. The tatters of their lightning-bond with Iris twinge with pain. (Why didn't he stop it? They could have, so easily, but...)

“Everything.” they spit, not bothering to keep the venom out of their voice. “You don’t question him, because you look up to him. You don’t question if we’re really doing the right thing, because he says we are. You don’t check on me, because he says I’m fine.”

Hal flinches and pulls away at Barry’s words. “You- what?!”

“Let me rephrase what I said earlier.” Barry hisses. “I don’t trust you because you’re Superman’s lapdog and there’s a good chance the little I’ve said already will end up with me executed for treason, when you go running to tell him about my doubts.”

“I…no, I’m not going to do that!” Hal protests frantically. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

Barry’s dimly aware that they're crying again, but they can’t afford to dwell too much on it, even as their voice chokes with emotion. “Even if that’s true, I can’t afford to love you, Hal. I’ve already accepted that us being together will only get both of us hurt.”

“It won’t! God, Barry, just have a little hope!” Hal reaches out and rests his hand on Barry’s shoulder. Barry finds themself leaning into the touch, despite their better instincts. “There’s no guarantee it won’t work out.”

“Oh, you don’t know how much hope I have.” Barry mutters darkly, then continues louder and more firmly. “Hal. Superman doesn’t tolerate dissent, and he won’t care how invaluable I am if I question him. He’ll just kill me. Maybe not even through any official processes.”

“...Clark wouldn’t do that!” Hal protests, but Barry can see on his face that he doesn’t entirely believe what he’s saying.

“I’m sure J’onn thought the same thing.” Barry fires back. “Then Clark set him on fire.”

“That was to protect Diana!” Hal points out, somewhat desperately. “He would have killed her! “

“If I know anything about J’onn, it’s that what he did was a bluff or holding tactic that he miscalculated the reaction to. If he had actually planned to kill her, he’d just have strangled her or punched her head off without turning into a parasitic amoeba first.” Barry sighs. “J’onn was probably just trying to get Clark to seriously consider the ramifications and costs of his actions and underestimated how far Clark had fallen.”

“Okay, but he was still attacking her, and it was a reasonable assumption!” Despite how firm his words are, Hal’s not looking at Barry, and there’s still a little bit of a shake to his voice.

“Maybe it was. I can’t fly, I was just standing on the ground half a mile away. ” Barry placates, then changes the topic. “Still, do you know how many people are executed each Execution Day?”

“...Uh, no.” Hal blinks. “I always knew it was a lot, but I don’t watch the footage.”

“Nowadays, the usual average is about two hundred per district. In the spring of RY 3, when the Seditious Materials Act came out, we had to make Execution Day last for five days just to handle the average of eighty-five hundred thousand people per district.” Barry rattles off. “There are only about three hundred journalists worldwide that survived Section 38 of the Seditious Materials Act. Almost all current-day journalists and news reporters have never worked in a journalistic role before.”

“Okay, but that’s just journalists. Obviously a profession so prone to subversive activity would need to be purged.” Hal parrots, apparently unable to justify an actual argument that’s not just regurgitated propaganda.

“In Regime Year One, the Earth’s population was 7.856 billion. It was on track to reach eight billion by Regime Year Three.” Barry continues. “Do you know what the Earth’s current population is, as of the last census in May?”

“Uh, no? What is it?” 

“7.359 billion.” Barry smiles grimly. “That’s right. The Earth’s population is 6.3% less than it was before Superman took power, even including births during that time period.”

“It’s only 6.3%.” Hal desperately points out.

“That’s still 497 million people. For comparison, the population of the entire United States in RY 1 was 331.5 million. 1% is a lot on demographic scales- 1% of 7 billion is 70 million. 0.5% of 7 billion is 35 million. In RY1, Yemen, the 41st most populous country at the time, had 36.1 million people. 35 million deaths is enough to wipe pre-Regime Australia off the map and still have nine million people left to go.”

Hal sits there, stunned in shock. There’s no way he can deny the facts, or even accuse Barry of being wrong, not when he knows that Barry probably helped compile those facts as Head of the Department of Peace, and their memory is nearly perfect.

Barry considers invoking Godwin’s Law while they're at it, but ultimately decides that sort of comparison is a little too extreme. (Even if Superman did kill a full order of magnitude more people, he’s nowhere near that nasty ideologically.)

“Now, if you don’t mind, I have to leave, because Execution Day is next week, and I have to sign off on all of the paperwork for killing another hundred thousand people or so. Due to this delay, I might not even have time to read all of the files, since I’m six minutes behind.” Barry finishes, pulling away from Hal. “Who knows, I might even have to sign my own execution order.”

With that, Barry darts away, back out the window, and speeds back into their office.

“Well. That could have gone worse.” they mutter to themself, as they sink into their desk chair, steels themself and starts clicking through the files they've been sent.

<Agreed.> Blue chimes in. <I’m pretty sure you’ve convinced him, at least somewhat, and he’s unlikely to go to Superman now.>

“Let me know if the DepLE shows up anywhere near the Head Office.” At least their lightning-claim stopped itching.

Chapter Text

Hal's Apartment, RY 6

Hal’s known Barry for a while, even before the Justice League formed. (Okay, so “before the Justice League formed” might be a bit of a misleading exaggeration- their first meeting wasn’t long before the Justice League officially formed, only a few months before Superman came recruiting his fellow heroes, and they only met a couple more times before that.)

A series of coincidences had led Hal to Central City at the same time and place the Flash was fighting Gorilla Grodd, just in time to try and help out, get tossed into a hot dog stand, get rescued by Barry, and spend the next two weeks explaining the second-degree burns on his arm.

(Thankfully, there hadn’t been any lasting consequences beyond Barry’s initial dim view of Hal’s competence, so both of them could safely laugh about it.)

By the time the Justice League had formed, Hal had already had a few more gradually less coincidental meet-ups with Barry, and even managed to save Barry(and Captain Cold) from an accidental Cold Gun explosion.

(Hal had been utterly surprised when Barry, instead of arresting Captain Cold there and then, had asked him if he was okay and what happened, asked how his sister was doing, offered a few suggestions to try and keep the Cold Gun from exploding again and only then actually brought Captain Cold to the police station, and the fact that Captain Cold actually reciprocated, albeit with much grumbling and many snide comments.)

Barry in those days was nothing like the Barry of now. They were still a wide-eyed idealist believing in the good of humanity(Hal was too, frankly), not having yet been worn down by the practicalities and realities of actually implementing their plans into a desk jockey who schedules their bathroom breaks, refuses to call anyone by their names for the sake of “professionalism” and never leaves his office unless they can help it.

They were the sort of person who would drag Hal into zany schemes and then throw themself under the bus when the Trinity found out, chat with their villains about their grocery shopping woes and attempt to make an ice cream sandwich out of whole grain bread and peach yogurt cups(and fail fifteen consecutive times).

When Metropolis was destroyed, they cried on Hal’s shoulder for hours, then finally fell asleep in Hal’s arms. 

(At that point they’d been friends with benefits for years, and Hal was used to Barry falling asleep tucked against him, just usually with less clothing, so Hal thought nothing of why Barry felt comfortable enough to do that at the time. Now, when Barry’s unwilling to be near him for any reason unless they're currently dying, those memories sting.)

Hal can actually relatively easily pinpoint the exact point in time where things started to change. Barry’d spent a while drafting a whole bunch of plans about five years back, after the first of Clark’s law enforcement schemes started to bear fruit in Gotham, and by the end of the month the only thing they cared about anymore was spreadsheets.

Hal wasn’t part of Barry’s life anymore, after that point. He didn’t have any official position that would necessitate their meeting, and Barry’s stance on fraternization between coworkers had suddenly done a 180 into “get out of my office, it is thoroughly inappropriate for you to sleep with a fellow Councillor, and you don’t have a scheduled appointment” from their previous “Oh hell yeah! Mind the scars, they’re sensitive.”

His only real point of contact for how Barry was doing was Clark, who had reason to make multiple meetings on a regular basis as the leader of the Justice League and later High Councillor of the Regime. 

Clark said Barry was fine, and Hal took him at his word, because there was no reason to think that Superman of all people would lie about how a close friend was doing, he never even saw Barry anymore and they were still plinking along on his reports just fine, so obviously they had to have been okay, right?

Hal didn’t know how wrong he was until Barry crashed in his lap, looking more like a blurry, glitching image on a laggy Zoom call than a solid flesh-and-blood person and vehemently declaring how they didn’t want anything to do with Hal, just needed the presence of a lightning rod(whatever that meant) to stay alive.

Barry was not fine. Barry hated Clark. Barry was scared of Clark, and Hal by extension- called him “Superman’s lapdog”. Barry was convinced Clark would kill them for the slightest misstep or dissenting thought. 

It would have been easy to dismiss all of that as the ravings of a madman lost in the depths of paranoia, if not for the knowledge that Barry was truly, deeply terrified in a way that hard evidence had proved, not just paranoid fears.

(Paranoia, he sees all the time from the other Yellow Lanterns. Sinestro says it’s perfectly natural, and Hal should try to be more paranoid in order to be less dependent on other’s fear for his constructs. Hal doesn’t want that, but he was always a better Green Lantern than Yellow Lantern, even after the Green Lantern Corps turned their backs on him.)

And the thing is, Barry had hard evidence- deaths on a global, demographic scale, enough that wiping out entire countries wouldn’t be enough to produce the same level of loss of life. Those statistics they would have reason to know, had already known by heart.

It made Hal realize that he had doubts himself. How does he know he’s doing the right thing? 

Definitely not because he had hard evidence of that- he hadn’t looked at the crime statistics in a while, and the news was always too depressing for him, when it wasn’t stuff that someone else could fill him in on later. 

Definitely not because he’s seen the good he’s done personally- most of the good in the world is from Barry’s overhauls to make Clark’s changes stick, now that he thinks about it. (Sure, it took overthrowing national leaders and replacing the entire economy, but the system works, and poverty and inequality is a thing of the past.)

Hal’s missions are to subdue, interrogate and eliminate insurgents, villains, terrorists and other subversives, whether alone or in cells, and he’s good at that. Clark tells him he’s doing good, Diana does too, but…how much can he trust them?

And that’s the core of Barry’s argument- how much can he actually trust Clark? Hal’s answer has always been “with my life”, but is that really the right answer?

<Alert: Raven and Cyborg have reported interference from an unknown human Green Lantern in their interrogation of Deathstroke in Coast City District Nineteen. > Hal’s ring informs him. <According to their vitals hookups, they are currently unresponsive and incapacitated, but alive.>

Hal’s heart leaps into his throat- the Insurgency is definitely up to something, if they’re sending superpowered agents up against the Regime’s own powered agents, and he never did find out where his old ring went.

“Lead me to thei-Raven and Cyborg's current location, by the fastest possible air route.” he orders his ring. “Alert me if any other major, violent Insurgency activity is flagged in Coast City.”

There’s a familiar, incredibly aggravating chime. <Query: define parameters for “major” and “violent”?> 

Hal sighs and grits his teeth. “Forget that. Just lead me to Raven and Cyborg’s current location.”

Yellow Lantern rings are a hell of a lot stupider than Green Lantern rings, which Sinestro says is unavoidable given that the inhabitants of Qward couldn't fully reverse-engineer the technology the Guardians used to make the Green Lantern rings, and it was probably a miracle that they have AIs at all. 

Hal still got used to his ring being able to comprehend anything that required basic intelligence. His Green Lantern ring still needed clarification from time to time, but at least it wasn’t constantly going “Linguistic parsing error: please repeat and/or rephrase command” whenever he uses slang or asking for clarification and parameters on things a two-year-old would be able to figure out from context, like “they” referring to the people it just mentioned.

At least he still gets to fly. He might have to watch his energy reserves now to stay in the air, but it’s much easier to refuel on fear in an emergency than jet fuel, and he still flies the same way.

Chapter Text

Five Years Ago

Metropolis, RY 1

Most people don’t usually think of super-hearing first when they list off Superman’s powers- the super strength, flight and invincibility usually come first, with heat vision and super speed coming in a close second.

Even Clark doesn’t really think of it much- it’s not something he consciously uses, any more than a human consciously uses their own sense of hearing, and it takes only a fraction of his attention to switch his attention from his immediate surroundings to an explosion miles away or pick through the babble of all humanity’s voices to find one he knows well.

(Lois has asked how he’s not constantly deafened and distracted by being able to hear everything going on in Hong Kong from Metropolis. Clark’s pretty sure his brain just has some way to filter it out- he hears it, sometimes, but it’s a low murmur at most, and it takes conscious attention to pinpoint details beyond a general loudness trend.)

Right now, his super hearing is the only thing he’s paying attention to. He knows Lois’s heartbeat just as well as he knows his own, and he’s just become familiar with his child’s heartbeat. 

And he can’t find them. No matter where he turns his attention, he can’t find them. Not Lois, not his child. Two heartbeats in one, nowhere to be found.

His head is pounding. His vision swims with yellowish-green. His thoughts swim, but they’re still focused on his goal- save Lois.

He’s in the mesosphere now, where sound barely exists. It’s part of the standard process of dealing with Doomsday, to haul him out into deep space and hope he won’t end up in an inhabited planet’s gravity well.

He should go down, try and search for Lois. But at this point, all that would do is make Doomsday fall back to Earth. He can see the smile on the monster’s face already. What does he do?

A voice cuts through the haze- Bruce’s voice over Justice League comms, firm, seemingly calm and with a slight edge that indicates real terror. “Superman! Superman, stop! Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real!”

…This isn’t real. So if Doomsday’s not real, what is?

He listens, and he finds two heartbeats in one- slow, sluggish, struggling, asphyxiating. Almost dead, and with only a few seconds left to live. Already too slow for consciousness.

He hasn’t been carrying Doomsday, he’s been carrying Lois. Doomsday can survive in space. Humans can’t. And Lois is human.

One moment, Lois is barely clinging to life, heart sluggishly beating. The next, nothing. Just silence, and the breath escaping lifeless lungs.

There’s a moment of silence, and then a moment of flame. Clark looks down, and watches Metropolis burn.

All of his hopes that didn’t die with Lois go with it, among the echoes of screams.

Clark doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting in the ruins of Metropolis, cradling Lois’s body to his chest like that would solve anything or bring her back to life.

The silence isn’t completely deafening- he can hear the quiet murmur of worried chatter in a dozen languages, the wails, denials and sobs of the bereaved, the groan of twisted metal slowly collapsing under its own weight.

It’s still maddening, to have nothing but silence and grief where there was once a thriving, bustling City of Tomorrow, and to know that everyone is dead because of him.

Lois is dead. Jimmy is dead. Both of those he knows for sure, having seen their corpses.

All of his other coworkers are probably dead- the Daily Planet is only meters away from ground zero, and he can’t find their heartbeats.

He doesn’t know how many other people he knows are dead, but no one in the city center would have survived a nuke going off. Those in the suburbs might have a chance, but the fallout will still poison them.

There’s blood on his cheek, from the still-bloody incision on Lois’s chest. It took Clark a while to put even that together, and his thoughts are still disjointed and swimming through haze.

“Clark?” Diana asks. Clark didn’t hear her footsteps, or maybe he did and just dismissed them as background noise.

Still, when he turns to look, she’s there, looking just as regal and unruffled as ever. Clark can still hear the way her heart is racing from fear and worry.

“Diana. I-I killed them-” he starts, unconsciously nestling Lois’s limp, cool face into his shoulder.

“No.” Diana interrupts, voice sharp as steel, and thrumming with fiery rage. “No, you are not responsible for this. That… madman … orchestrated this whole thing.”

She’s right, Clark realizes. This isn’t really his fault. 

None of this was his fault. Everything is the Joker’s fault. 

Everything wrong in the world is the fault of madmen and maniacs who believe they can get away with anything- because no one bothers to truly stop them.

Clark’s not going to make the same mistakes again.

It’s time to end this. Starting with the Joker.

Chapter Text

Four Years Ago

Central City Primary Municipal Office, RY 2

Clark is the one who first finds Barry after Wally is born, still fatigued from recent childbirth, curled up under their desk and clutching their stomach even as guards swarm around and blood pours from Batarang-shaped gashes in their abdomen.

He doesn't know that Barry let Batman into Regime headquarters intentionally. He doesn't know that Wally's egg is safe and sound, already hardened and hidden. He doesn't know that Barry was the one who inflicted the wounds, not Bruce. He doesn't know that Bruce isn't even in the same wing or Department of the building.

He doesn't know a lot of things, so all he sees is one of his closest friends bleeding out in their own office while a known terrorist is in the building, eyes wide with (feigned) shock and terror.

"…I can't feel him." Barry rambles. "I can't feel my baby. He's not there. I can't feel him."

Clark inhales sharply, head tilting slightly to try and locate a second heartbeat, then gasps in horror as he notices the lack of a subtle hum of an unborn core that's been present for several months.

"Don't tell Hal…" Barry pleads. "I'll give him his baby when they're born…"

Clark pauses, face stricken with horror. His nostrils twitch, and he flinches at the combined scent of blood, viscera and amniotic fluid. "Barry…I'm not sure they're still there…"

Barry flinches, tucks their face into his hands and starts crying. "I-I knew…th-this would…would happen." they stutter out between tear-choked breaths. "He…he knew I was vul-vulnerable…I hid it to protect…but he knew…"

"Don't tell Hal." Barry looks up at Clark, utter defeat in their eyes, then flops listlessly on the carpet. "He…it'll break him. I'll be fine…in a little bit. Just need…to lie down. For a little bit. Not forever."

Clark's expression turns worried, and Barry lets themself slip into a healing coma, with one last whisper of "…though that might be nice".

(They don't see the second person to find them, nor hear the whispered conversation Clark has with them. A shame, because everything could have been over much earlier if they had only waited a few more minutes and said no, I don't want it, I'll be fine without it.)

Three Years Ago

Central City Primary Municipal Office, RY 3

Superman is utterly furious. Barry can tell by the way that his steps shake the walls and ceiling ever-so-slightly and the door leading down from the roof access on the fourteenth floor has been ripped off its hinges and tossed violently downwards through five floors and a staircase until it reached the basement of the Department of Employment.

Wally’s safe, tucked into a small nexus of stabilized slipspace where he can play to his heart’s content. Barry made sure of that as soon as Blue alerted him to Superman’s approach.

Barry opens the door to their office, so it doesn’t get destroyed too, then sits back in thier chair and goes back to revising the standards for the manufacture and composition of fruit juice and related fruit extracts.

In an ideal world, the Director of the Food Inspection Agency should handle that, but for some reason Superman rejected all of their proposed candidates and decided Barry was handling it fine and should just have the position.

Barry’s lucky that Superman can’t read Barry’s emotions from their heartbeat, or really much more than that they still have a heartbeat. It’s possible for a speedster to easily pick out subtle differences in coreflux, but a Kryptonian just hears the same buzzing warble regardless of emotional state.

Superman steps through the open door, a tight ball of wadded-up paper in his hand that used to be a newspaper. He slams it down on Barry’s desk, heedless of the way the metal cracks and bends under the blow. 

“Flash, explain why you haven’t dealt with this already.” Superman growls, something dark and vicious in his eyes.

Barry saves their work, shuts his laptop and takes a deep breath. “Can you please explain what ‘this’ is?” he hazards.

“This blatant slander.” Superman grits out. “This isn’t journalism. This is a madwoman’s hit piece.”

Barry reaches forward and grabs the ball of newspaper, straightening it out as best as they can. 

It’s rumpled and somewhat torn, but they're able to recognize the print edition of the Central City Picture News, as well as the front-page article- The Cost of Superman’s Peace- by Iris West.

(Barry told her publishing that would be a mistake. They told her. And surprise surprise, Superman is not only outraged, but demanding that his oh-so-loyal second-in-command do something about it.)

There are so many things they want to say right now, and all of them are blatantly treasonous, profane, or both.

“Well.” Barry stalls. “This is certainly…not the best look for the One Earth Regime’s peacekeeping efforts. I’m unsure whether this is actually a crime, though? It’s not like she’s trying to target you personally, just the Regime.”

Barry was expecting Superman to storm away, or shout and argue, or destroy his desk more. It’s always what he’s done, and he’s never done more than smash up replaceable furniture.

They were not expecting Superman to grab them by the wrists and haul them out of his seat into the air, which is why they didn’t manage to dodge, or at least dial down his pain receptors.

It’s a rather painful position, even if he wasn’t squeezing hard enough to splinter speedster arm bone. (The distinction is necessary- speedster bone is quite a bit denser than human bone while still having just as much tensile strength, and arms are much easier to break than legs since speedster arm bones are pneumatized and hollow and speedster leg bones are solid and filled with malleable shock-absorbing connective tissue.)

Superman glares down at him, eyes red and burning with unreleased heat. “This is a direct attack on me! This is a direct attack on everything both of us have worked for! IF IT’S NOT A CRIME, IT’S ONLY THAT WAY BECAUSE SOMEONE HAD A VESTED INTEREST IN GETTING AWAY WITH LIES AND SLANDER!”

Involuntarily, Barry gasps in pain, nictitating membranes squeezing shut unnoticed behind their mask’s lenses. They can feel the bones in their wrists crunching together like broken matchsticks, and their arms trying to pull their way out of their sockets.

Lightning crackles under their skin, begging to be released. It’s hard to hold a speedster, even with tactile telekinesis reinforcing your grip, and it would be oh-so-easy to slip away, to disappear or slide apart in Superman’s grip.

Barry shoves the instinct down, just like they always do. It’s second nature at this point, a routine cultivated by millennia of resisting the urge to let all that is Barry Allen go, let the lightning fly free and bend the world until it takes the shape they want, careless of others’ desires.

(Yet, somehow, it feels too easy to push it down- like something's chaining them down. It's probably just the weight of their crimes and complicity.)

“S-Clark…you’re…you’re hurting me…” Barry gasps out, letting their pain and fear edge into their voice. It’s harder than it should be, after so long hiding every trace of fear and doubt even from themself.

When Superman finally releases his grip, he doesn’t bother to set Barry down gently, just drops them, pulls his hands back to his chest and stares in horror as Barry collapses in a heap on the floor in front of his desk and clutches their broken wrists to his chest.

“I’m sorry. Oh god, I’m so sorry.” Superman apologizes desperately, faint dots of green dancing in his eyes as he scans Barry with his X-ray vision. “Flash, I’m so sorry. I…I didn’t mean to hurt you. I…I’m mad at her, not you, okay? Really, it’s her fault.”

A hot wave of outrage surges inside them, quickly tamped down by cold rationality. They can't save Iris. She's already doomed.

“...You’re lucky I can heal. You did that to a normal human, you’d have crippled them for life.” Barry whispers, hiding an edge of bitterness behind a twinge of fear and pain. “Just…just leave. Send me an email with details. I’ll be fine in a few hours. Lightning, my schedule is going to be a wreck.”

Superman nods and darts out of the room as fast as he can, leaving the door open behind him with one last call of "I'll get you something to make up for this!". Barry doesn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief until they're absolutely sure Superman is outside the Head Office.

They can't fight Superman, after all. (Okay, maybe, they can. But it wouldn't be right.)

<The damage is quite severe, and someone else will likely need to re-align the shards of bone if your wrists are to heal properly.> Blue warns them. <Your healing factor can only do so much unassisted.>

“Of course.” Barry sighs. “How much can it do alone?”

<You will likely still be able to use your hands, but movement will remain quite painful and you will lose most of your range of motion.> Blue informs them. <I strongly recommend seeking medical care from somewhere. You need not put Iris at further risk- there are many qualified doctors working for you, or for the Insurgency. If need be, you might be able to ask for help in slipspace.>

“I’m going to Billy. The Wisdom of Solomon is close enough to a medical degree, and…well, he’s pack.” Barry takes a deep breath. “I don’t want anyone who isn’t to see me like this. Call it paranoia, call it instinct, I just… don’t want that.”

<You do not have to justify yourself to me. I am here to serve you.> Blue reminds him. <Locating Billy Batson.>

Two Years Ago

Central City Primary Municipal Office, RY 4

Billy was horrified the first time Barry called him over to patch them up, without Superman finding out that they couldn’t heal as well as they said they could.

That long, tortuous three hours spent poring over a computer model of Barry’s bone structure and gluing the fragments of their wrist and forearm bones back into place, wincing and apologizing at Barry’s every pained churr and flinch, was only the beginning.

Superman was apparently emboldened by the lack of consequences, and a month later, Billy was called into Barry’s office to set their broken leg.

Barry was quietly shell-shocked for the entire visit, tears dripping down their face, accompanied by soft, incoherent whimpers. Billy never found out exactly what happened, only that Superman had made them kill someone close to them, never explaining more than “He made me kill her” and “sorry, I’ve been bottling this up for days”.

It’s been a year and a half or so since that first incident, and Billy’s pretty sure that something's up, even when he's not realigning every bone in Barry's body.

Sometimes he hears faint chirping or childlike singing echoing through the room while he’s tending to Barry, accompanied by the feeling of being watched by a presence just outside the skin of reality.

Barry seems to know the source, but refuses to tell him what it is or even acknowledge that it’s there, and Billy doesn’t press or acknowledge that he notices it either.

(He also has the distinct feeling that there’s several good reasons for the Central Municipal Office to be haunted or cursed, and that Barry’s presence and sanity is the only thing keeping the interior somewhat sensible- meaninglessly symbolic floor numbers, alien geometries and all.)

This time, it’s a broken arm. Nothing out of the ordinary, just re-aligning the fragments as efficiently as possible. Easy, and quick, unlike a fractured pelvis or spine. He’s basically done already.

This time, Billy’s going to ask the question he’s always wanted to ask, but never mustered the courage to ask- “Why do you let him hurt you?” 

Barry blinks and pulls back slightly at the words. “I…don’t?” they respond, only confusion in their tone.

Billy huffs. “You’re fast enough to dodge. Pretty sure you’re strong enough to break free if you really wanted to. You’re letting him hurt you- maybe it was surprise and shock the first few times, but at this point you know full well he’s going to grab you and break a bone or two, and then apologize, leave, and buy you snacks later.”

"He's stopped giving me gifts…” Barry mutters, not meeting Billy’s gaze.

“Barry, that makes it worse.” Billy turns and meets Barry’s eyes. “Look, we’re practically brothers, by lightning and mutual agreement if not by blood or law. Just…tell me why you let him hurt you.”

“It can’t just be because you don’t have the legal authority to fight back- you could give yourself the legal authority if you tried. Gods know you’re three quarters of our government now.” Billy glances momentarily up at the intangible presence he can just barely feel watching them from outside the skin of reality. “You just aren’t trying.”

“...If he hurts me, then he isn’t hurting someone else, and it’s business as usual.” Barry whispers. “If I fight back, then he’ll get suspicious. He’ll start looking for a reason why I’ve suddenly changed. He’ll find that reason, and best case scenario, it’s a harmless one barely grounded in reality.”

Worst case scenario, he pegs one of those secrets you definitely have and that I’ve been carefully not asking about, Billy carefully does not complete. Like the presence that you carefully don’t acknowledge or explain.

“Mmm. Well, I’m pretty sure your arm’s healed enough that you can go and run three-quarters of our government now.” Billy pauses. “That’s a professional opinion as Head of the Department of Health Services, by the way. I still can’t believe you actually promoted me.”

Barry chuckles darkly. “Billy, the only qualifications needed to be appointed to Head of a Department are basic literacy and having both my and Superman’s approval. Nepotism and cronyism is the only way to get anyone appointed as Head of a Department.”

“It was one joke.” Billy says flatly. “One time.”

“And you’re competent, so who cares?” With that, Barry gets up, shakes out their arm and runs out of the room in a blur of red. Maybe it's just how fast they're moving, but Billy swears he can see chains trailing in their wake.

One Year Ago

High Lunar Orbit, RY 5

Clark knows his teammates’ heartbeats well. The new additions, not so much, but his original team, he could find anywhere.

Barry’s heartbeat is easy to pick out in a group- too fast to make out individual beats, sounding more like the electronically-filtered buzzing of a ball of bees than a humanoid’s heartbeat. Sometimes it blends into background noise, but Clark can usually find them eventually if he tries hard enough. 

Their heartrate is always perfectly steady, whether due to some quirk of their enhanced biology or simply a perceptual illusion due to how fast it beats. Clark can still read them easily- Barry wears his heart on his sleeve, and his gestures and facial expressions are rarely subtle.

(Recently, they've been a little harder to read, but Clark supposes it's only natural. They lost their child after what the Insurgency did to them, after all, and paperwork can't fill that gap. Clark still lets them try.)

Arthur’s heartbeat is slow, steady and languid, valves and muscles designed to operate in the depths of the ocean and survive staggering pressures, freezing cold and poorly-oxygenated water. 

His heartrate changes little, apparently in order to maintain a stable metabolic rate. Clark’s always found him hard to read- his expression stays just as stern and unchanging as his heartbeat.

It’s harder to describe the others’ heartbeats. Even a doctor would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between Diana, Bruce or Hal’s heartbeat and that of any other fit adult human of the same sex and age.

Clark can still tell the difference, as easily as a human could tell apart two dogs of the same breed and coat color. The subtle differences in sound and the contextual clues of breathing, voice and footsteps are easy for him to pick out.

Which is why it’s so maddening that he can’t find Bruce anywhere. He knows Bruce is still alive, seeing as how he deals with the Insurgency he founded and the activation of his many contingencies on a daily basis.

But he can’t find Bruce’s heartbeat- not when he’s looking for it, at least.

Sometimes he hears it for a moment, echoing impossibly close, before it disappears. It most often happens inside the Central Municipal Office, but sometimes he’ll be flying over a stretch of lonely, uninhabited archipelago and hear Bruce’s heartbeat coming from the rocks below.

Bruce is everywhere, a reminder of his failures and his regrets. (If only it was Lois who haunted him.)

"High Councilor Superman! We have a problem!" comes Raven's shout, piercing into his conscious awareness.

Shaking himself from his thoughts. Clark is at her side within the minute, landing on the balcony of the top-floor luxury apartment she'd claimed as her own. He can hear Raven's breathing and heartbeat inside- unnaturally quiet as they are due to her shadow-demon blood, she still has audible vitals.

"What is it?" he asks, striding through the door to her kitchen, where Raven is waiting next to a counter piled high with a circle of candles and chalk.

"The binding is loosening." she informs him. "I'm trying my best, but I can't get a meeting with them and something is causing it to unravel faster than before."

"Will it be a problem?" he asks, trying his best to filter out the dripping of that one leaky pipe that Raven can't find or fix no matter what she does.

Raven pauses for a moment, eyes growing distant and dark for a second, before she blinks and shakes her head. "I don't think so. They're naturally loyal to you, and losing their child broke them a little inside."

Clark sighs, trying his best not to think about the dozens of human babies he can hear crying nearby- others' children, not his or Barry's, but the sound still striking a chord in his heart. "Should we tell Hal?"

Raven shakes her head. "The baby is long since miscarried, and telling him this long after the fact would only hurt him unnecessarily. If you wanted to tell him, you should have done it three years ago."

"I didn't mean the baby; I mean the binding." Clark corrects, trying his best not to show how worried he is. (Was his decision really for the best? What has he done to one of his oldest friends? God, how much has he hurt Barry-) "Barry's been under the binding for five years, and if it's becoming unstable, who knows what that could do to their mental health?"

Raven pauses, fingernails tapping on the countertop. "I think it would be best not to tell him. People are afraid of even the most harmless-looking magic, nevermind dark magic, and when people think of a magical soul binding, they usually think "mind control", not "mental-health aid to keep a grieving friend from spiraling". Hal is still a Green Lantern at heart. He'll shoot first and ask questions never as soon as the first sentence is out of your mouth. "

Clark sighs. "If only…" He can't finish his sentence. If only what? If only the Joker hadn't gone crazy and killed Clark's family? If only the Insurgency hadn't injured Barry badly enough that they miscarried before getting to tell Hal? (No, it was you who crushed their bones and left them to cry and talk to ghosts.)

Raven smiles ominously. "It's okay. You're helping them. They just need to focus on what they have, not what they've lost. Both of you are doing so well."