The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive (Male Reader Insert)

5.3 Team Under Siege

The team was back at S.T.A.R. Labs. Oliver and Y/N followed Barry-1 into the secret time vault located in the facility. They found the scarlet speedster staring at a projection of a newspaper article. The headline read "Flash Missing Vanishes in Crisis" and was paired with an image of the Flash running. Both L/N and Queen took in the room and its futuristic design and tech.

Barry-1: I didn't think about it, Oliver. I didn't think about the future. I was so focused on the past, I didn't think about it until now. I changed so much.

Oliver: What is this?

Barry-1: This is an article from the future. It's a story about me vanishing.

Y/N looked at the article. The author was labeled as one Julie Greer.

Barry-1: It used to be written by Iris West-Allen. But now, I don't know. Something's changed with Iris. Something's changed with our future. God, what did I do?

Oliver: Barry, this is a weird looking newspaper article. It doesn't mean anything. You need to stop beating yourself up over this.

Barry-1: I'm sorry, but how can you say that? I'm responsible for all of this.

Oliver: Maybe. Maybe not. 

Y/N: Oliver's right. You can't blame yourself for everything. You said it yourself, you were so focused on the past that you didn't think about the future. Trust me, I've been there. It takes you places and it closes you off. Right now, you need to focus on the present, what you can change and do. I know I'm new to this whole time travel thing, but if what you told me is true, then the future is still somewhat flexible. It isn't set in stone. This article may very well change in one day because of the actions you choose to take take now, here in the present. 

Oliver: Barry, you made a choice. You wanted to see your parents alive again. Do you honestly know anyone that, if they were in your shoes, wouldn't do the exact same thing? I would do the exact same thing.

Y/N: I'm sure I would as well.

Oliver: Barry, after the Gambit went down, it was me, my father, and a crewmember on a life raft. Lost at sea. Enough food and water for one person, maybe. My father took a gun, shot the crewmember, told me to survive, and then turned the gun on himself. He shot himself in the head. He sacrificed himself so that I could live. Nothing I could do. No choice. Slade Wilson drove a sword right through my mother's heart, in front of my sister and I. I was there. I was helpless on the ground. I was powerless to stop it. No choice. Do you not think that I wouldn't give anything to go back and to make things different?

Y/N sighed, bringing up painful memories of his own.

Y/N: The night of the car crash that took my parents, I remember seeing a black figure pass the car in a flash of light. My father lost control of the vehicle. The next thing I know, our family car is flipping through the air. My parents and myself were hurled upside down with the vehicle. And I remember, as the car came crashing down, seeing the look on my mother's face as she turned around to reach out to me. To protect me. When I awoke, I found myself hanging upside down, cuts and bruises over my body and waist still strapped in the seatbelt. And there, sticking out of my mother's arm, less than two feet from my face, was a thick shard of glass. If she hadn't put her hand up, I would be dead as well. After that night, I drowned myself in mystery, science, and anomalies, not just to find the one responsible for the incident. I did it because I was scared to face reality. I was scared to accept my parents' deaths. To come to terms with the fact that I would never see them again. The idea that in one moment, less than a minute, my entire world was destroyed. You think I wouldn't do what you did? That I wouldn't go back just to tell my parents one last time how much I loved them if given the chance?