skinny love | barry allen

51

"I knew that this was happening." Wally sat up quick, "Why didn't you tell me before?"

Barry trails off, "Because-"

"Because why?" Wally pressed.

Barry sighs, "All right, fine, Wally, it, look- in that timeline, you were fighting The Rival."

"Edward Clariss?" Iris recalled.

"Edward Clariss, yeah." Barry nodded slow, "You couldn't stop him- there was no Star Labs- there was no team to help you."

"It was just you, Iris and Zee-" Barry rubs the back of his neck, "The three of you were a superhero crime-fighting trio."

Iris asks, "Why didn't you tell us this before?"

"You didn't want to know about your Flashpoint lives." Barry looked at Wally, "But- look, listen to me, you got hurt, all right? You got hurt bad."

"So what? That's that me, it's not this me." Wally shot back, "And I want to be a speedster. I- I want to be a flash-"

Joe denied, "No, no, no, you don't."

"Yes, I do." Wally looks at him.

"You're not hearing what he's saying." Joe pointed out, "He's telling us it's not safe."

"Who cares what Barry's saying?" Wally got up, gesturing, "How do we even know he's telling the truth?"

"Because he's the only one who lived in that timeline, Wally." I leaned back against the arm of the couch, "This isn't because of the Particle Accelerator, it's because of Dr. Alchemy- what's happening to Frankie Kane is happening to you-"

Wally looks at me, "You don't know that-"

"We know a lot more than you." I shot back at him, "Wally, I'm sorry- I know how much you want powers, but- this is- dangerous- I mean- Alchemy killed Clariss-"

"Why don't we just say what this is really about?" Wally looked at Joe, "You're okay with Barry having powers; you're okay with Barry running into danger, fighting all these metas- he can screw up over and over again, you're okay with all of it because he's Barry."

Wally continued to call Joe out, "But, you won't give me the same amount of leeway because at the end of the day, you just don't trust me."

"You know that's not true, Wally." Barry began.

"I don't need you fighting my dad's battles for him." Wally cut him off, "Say it, Joe- you don't trust me, do you?"

Joe trails off, "Wally-"

"That's what I thought." Wally said with a huff, before grabbing his bag and leaving the house.

-

"Killed by a shadow?" Caitlin held her coffee mug as we stared at the screen, "That's a new one."

Cisco looks between us, "Maybe that's what killed Edward Clariss."

"Not likely." I looked at him, my hands on my sides, "Clariss was a meta-human- the victim isn't."

Caitlin asks, "Do we know if this shadow meta is from the particle accelerator explosion or from Dr. Alchemy?"

"Not yet, no." Barry was stood next to me, "We actually haven't found any evidence to process. "

HR looks back, "If only we had a way, Francisco, to see what happened."

Cisco nods at him and looks between us, "Where was the crime scene located?-"

"In Chubbuck, right?-" I looked at Barry.