Barry paces across the cortex, waiting impatiently for Joe to return with info on the Vipers. Oliver tried to intervene with his nervous walking but Barry only pushed him away.
The news was all still very fresh to him. It was hard to handle— and quite frankly, he couldn't handle it. He thought that he had only been collateral damage in some senseless gang violence. But he was targeted, sought after. It only enriched the preexisting anger that had been sitting inside Barry for months.
He had this burning, this itching to do something about it. It was making him restless. He was fully willing and committed to doing something rash, no matter the cost. He knew that he had to singlehandedly take down the Vipers and the fight began now. He needed something to take that first step.
"Just got off of the phone with Singh," Joe begins, phone in hand. "He said that most they know about the Vipers is that they're ran by a Philip Hernandez."
Oliver slides into the computer chair and begins a search algorithm under his name. He specifically searches for a possible mugshot, previous crimes, and any known associates. Everyone in the room gives him odd stares. "What?"
"Nothing," Iris shrugs her shoulders. "Just never thought you'd know how to do that."
Oliver rolls his eyes. "I did the whole vigilante thing for a while without Felicity. I can work a computer."
"Well?" Barry asks with annoyance. "What did you find?"
Oliver sighs. "Previously cited for assault, possession of drugs, and illegal weapon sales. Released on bail."
"Any way of finding him or finding out where he is?" Iris asks as she moves to stand behind Oliver to read what was on the screen.
"We have the guy who shot our other CSI in custody now," Joe responds. "I can head back to the precinct and get some answers."
Iris looks at Joe before pointing her thumb towards Oliver. "Or we could just get him to do it?" Oliver turns around in his chair and looks at Joe and shrugs his shoulders.
"Absolutely not." Joe responds with adamancy.
"I'll do it." Barry cuts in. "Let me do it."
"I don't think that's such a great idea," Oliver advises. "You're too emotional right now."
"I've questioned people before, Ollie." He places a hand on Oliver's shoulder and smiles assuringly. "I'll be fine." He races out before anyone can protest, causing an immediate panic throughout the room.
Barry wasn't going to take no for an answer, so he simply didn't allow anyone an opportunity to stop him.
"He took his suit," Iris says worriedly. She immediately leans down towards the computer to pull up the tracking system in Barry's suit. They watch as the dot that signals Barry's location is no longer going towards the precinct but away from it.
"He's not questioning him as a CSI-" Oliver says in a panic, immediately getting up out of his seat and running towards the case where his suit was stored.
Joe points to Oliver and speaks with a sharp and urgent tone. "You better get to him before he does something stupid."
Seeing how Barry was before speeding out of here to grab the man out of custody, Oliver had very little hope that Barry had yet to do something he would long regret.
••
"Tell me where I can find Hernandez." Barry vibrates the frequency of his voice. He has the man pinned against the wall of the building. The man just laughs in his face. Barry presses him against the wall harder.
"You really think that I can take you seriously, red?" The man jokes sarcastically. "You run around in florescent spandex. You set your victims in the back of cop cars and run off. You are too much of a coward to do shit."
Barry begins to quickly vibrate his hand, he presents it to the man. "You see this?" He tells him with vigor. The man brings his attention to his hand. Barry then impales his finger into the man's torso, only pushing it in deeper as his screams get louder. "If I move my hand just a few feet north, your heart stops beating.
Now tell me where Hernandez is."
"What kind of beef does a guy like you have with Hernandez?" The man continues, his words coming out in a gasping manner. He tries to break from Barry's grasp but it only causes more pain. "Shouldn't you be hunting those freak meta-humans?"
"He had my friend shot!" Barry yells, referring to himself indirectly. He removes his finger from the gash he made in the man's torso, then bringing his vibrating hand to the man's chest. His fingers sat only a few millimeters away from his skin. "Now tell me where I can find him before I kill you here and now."
The man laughed, not responding to the question Barry's asked. As he began to inch his hand closer to the skin, a familiar, gruff voice called out to him from behind. "Flash! Don't do it."
"He won't talk!" Barry yells back.
Oliver begins to walk towards him. "He definitely won't talk if you kill him!"
"Listen to your friend here, Flash." The man jokes.
Oliver draws back his bow and aims it at the man's leg. He stands a few feet behind Barry. "Shut up. I don't want to hurt you. You tell us where we can find Hernandez and you'll be in a police car scratch free."
"He'll have me killed if I say," The man begins. For the first time since Barry had arrived, fear had been inflicted upon this man. Oliver has that presence among criminals. He established that presence by doing the things that Barry was too soft to do.
Barry tightens his chokehold on the man. "You'll be dead anyways if you don't talk now," Barry tells him angrily, bringing his hand back to the man's chest.
"Rather be you than him." Barry reacts immediately, taking his hand and penetrating the skin right underneath his rib cage by about two inches before he feels a sharp pain in his wrist. An arrow had impaled the middle of his wrist— it was green. He let the man go to rip the arrow from the skin, screaming in his own pain.
The man fell, immediately grabbing for the wound where blood had been gashing out from. Oliver took notice and kneeled on the ground to attend to him. "Damn it, Flash!"
"He's going to bleed out-" Oliver continued. "Take him to the hospital now!"
"But-"
"Now!" His voice got stern and his eyes started intently into Barry's. Something about the way that Oliver looked at Barry was enough to convince him—not only was there a sense of urgency but a look of fear that burned into Barry's soul. He couldn't refuse.
He sped him to the nearest hospital, telling the nurses he had found him with a stab wound. They nodded, immediately putting him on a gurney and wheeling him to the operating room. One of the nurses turned around and looked at him. "Who do we need to contact when we have an update on his condition?"
"Just contact the police department. They'll know what to do with him."
The nurse smiles at the man in the red cowl, a sense of pride gleaming in her eyes. "Central City is lucky to have a hero like you."
Barry awkwardly smiles and nods in acknowledgment before running off back to the site of the crime. He knew that he crossed a line. He knew that brute force never should've been a resort. But there was something satisfying about inflicting that pain on the man. It felt as if months of yearning and aching for the day that he could relinquish the pain he felt, had finally come to fruition. The look of pain, the scream of agony, the feeling of standing over him in victory— it enriched him. It was a darkness manifesting that had been knocking on the door of his soul for far too long.
But in the midst of that bout satisfaction, he craved more. Not just another person to administer his own pain on but to go a step further. It was important that he made damn sure that not a single criminal had another chance to ruin someone's life.
Barry returns to the site where Oliver was, standing a few feet from where he stood. "What the hell, Ollie?" He yells furiously. "You fucking shot me!"
"You were going to kill that guy!"
"He deserves it!" Barry's tone becomes almost sinister.
Oliver groans. "Who made you judge and jury over who lives and dies?"
"He willingly works for a crime lord who terrorizes my city." Barry tells him. "Hernandez had me shot! He had me shot, Oliver."
"You were never turning him in were you?" Oliver asks. "You were going to kill him even if he talked."
"I had to, Oliver!" Barry cries. "I had to."
"Do you know what it's like to kill someone, Barry?" Oliver walks closer to him, his face is only inches away from his. "Do you know what it's like to have someone else's blood on your hands? Do you know what it's like to watch someone take their last breath because you took their ability to breathe away?"
"The answer is no, you don't." Oliver's tone becomes desperate. "And the last thing that I want for you is to have to carry that feeling for the rest of your life."
"These guys aren't random meta-humans, Oliver!" Barry yells. "They're just genuinely bad people who have nothing better to do with their lives than to hurt and terrorize others. What else am I supposed to do?"
"I can find this organization and exterminate the threat in seconds!"
Oliver takes a deep breath. "Take it from someone who carries the burdens of the people I've killed— it is not the answer. It's something I have to deal with for the rest of my fucking life."
"You are better than that!"
"Stop trying to tell me who I am!" Barry screams, rage engulfing his demeanor and his tone of voice. "I am not the same person I was before I got shot!" He continues to speak loudly as he inches closer to Oliver. "I've had this itching, this burning void in my chest ever since I woke up. It's like a darkness invaded and took over my soul and is never leaving."
He takes a deep breath. "I can't take it anymore! I have to do something about it. This is the only way."
"Do you think that I don't understand?" Oliver began. "For five years I was overcome by that darkness. Five years, Barry. I came home and I tried to play judge, jury, and executioner. It felt good. But the void was never filled. It was always there."
"You're going to face the same realization if you don't stop what you're doing."
"Thanks for caring about me." Barry tells him with forced empathy. His voice becomes stern as he continues. "But this is my fight. Mine." He points his index finger and presses it onto Oliver's chest. "And if you get in my way again, you're not going to like what happens."
Oliver swallows as he tries to hold in the cries that want to leave his system. "Please stop this. I'm begging you." Barry begins to walk off. "Barry-" Oliver is interrupted by a rush of wind. He was gone. He angrily throws his leg over the seat, forcefully pulling his helmet over his head. He revs up his engine, speeding away from the location he so desperately needed to leave.
There was no stopping this vendetta of his. His state of mind had become filled with such darkness that he couldn't even see a light through his own eyes. All of those days where he had been laying around, just hoping for the day that he would be able to walk and run again— his mind was on one thing and one thing only. And that was revenge. That was reforming his own definition of justice that justified the anger he was feeling.
The need for vengeance was intoxicating him. It slowly began to flow through his bloodstream as the rage built up. As it soiled his blood-- it only worsened his line of sight. He was only a shell of who he was sober. Oliver remembered this feeling all too well. He spent five years, practically alone, racking his brain full of thoughts about the day he would finally return home. It was the most trying five years of his life. Through everything, he had lost a sense of his humanity in the midst of the new plethora of darkness. So once he returned home, there was nothing but his mission. His fight. His vendetta. He was ruthless in succeeding. But in doing so, he continued to chip away at his humanity.
Barry began to put the pieces back together for him. He brought a light back into his life that he had lost all those years ago. He represented hope. He represented bliss. He was his guiding light. Now, he sees who he once was in a silhouette of the man he fell in love with.
He so desperately wanted to be the light in Barry's darkness. He wanted to mimic the influence that Barry had and continued to have in his life— he didn't want this overwhelming grief and anger to burn the small flicker of hope he had left. He wanted to light it once again. But the window of opportunity was slowly fading. Barry was on his island. He was going through his hell, his crucible. He wanted no guidance from anyone. There was nothing Oliver could do but watch as he threw away his humanity and doomed himself to the same life Oliver once lived.
He storms back into the cortex of S.T.A.R Labs, violently thrusting his bow into the case where he stored that and his suit while he wasn't using it. He walks over to the desk where a computer sat and slammed his fist onto the wood top, letting out a groan as he did so. He hears footsteps come rushing in.
"What the hell happened?" Iris asks sharply.
"He almost fucking killed a guy because of his association to Hernandez!" Oliver yells, his eyebrows raise with his tone. "And I tried, I tried so hard to get through to him but he wouldn't-" he slams the desk with his fist again. "He wouldn't fucking listen."
Iris walks quickly towards him and places her hands over Oliver's fists. She stares at him with soft and kind assuring eyes. "We will figure this out—"
"Will we, Iris?" Oliver takes his hands out from underneath her's. "What if he fucking kills someone? What if he goes on a killing spree? He's going to deal with that for the rest of his life!"
"Oliver, he won't—"
"But he will! What if I'm not there to stop him? What if something happens in the field that sends him over the edge? This is out of our control." He places his palms over his temples in stress. He throws them to his sides before spouting loudly, "And the blood is going to be all over our fucking hands as well. Because we couldn't stop him."
Iris grabs his wrist. "You need to go out in the hallway and take a breather. Screaming at me is not going to do shit."
He takes his quiver off his back and throws it on the ground as he walks out of the cortex. He enters the hall and balances himself among the wall. He allows his open hands to clench into fists before forcing them against the wall multiple times. "Goddamnit!" He yells, his voice echoes for what feels like hours.
He feels a calming hand on his shoulder and a soft voice calling out his name. As he removes himself from the trance of his internal thoughts, he turns his head to see Laurel staring at him with concerning eyes. In a sense, seeing her calm his anger down. Her presence automatically knocked down a wall and began to allow vulnerability to seep through his hard surface. "I can't save him. I don't know how to reach him."
"Ollie," Laurel begins soothingly. "He just found out someone had him shot. Everything he's gone through in the last few months all traces back to one person. He's in ten different kinds of pain.
Just because you can't reach him now doesn't mean you won't later."
He lets out a stifled cry. "It's like he's walking across the street and a truck is barreling towards him. And I'm ten feet ahead of him, watching helplessly as he gets hit." He takes a deep breath and exhales shakily as tears begin to fall down his cheeks. "He's about to make a mistake that will haunt him for the rest of his life."
"And damnit," He beats his fist against the wall once more. "I know that mistake feels like. I've felt it ten too many times. And the guilt, the regret— that hurts far worse. But there's nothing I can do."
Laurel takes his hands into hers and pulls them into her chest. She looks up at him with as much assurance as she can siphon. "Fight for him." She tells him strongly. "You aren't fighting for his love anymore. You are fighting for his soul. Don't let him think you've given up on him."
"I know, Ollie, that you went through hell on that island and it made you into something you weren't proud of," she tightens her grip on his hands as tears begin to form in her eyelids. "But you had nobody! You were alone. You didn't have me, you didn't have Thea, your parents. But once you came back and you had us, John, Felicity, and Barry— you changed." She smiles. "So be there for him. Don't give him the avenue to be as lonely as you were until you came back to us."
Oliver leans his head down towards Laurel's and rests his forehead on top of her head, keeping his hands snug in hers. "I don't know what I'd do with you, Laurel Lance."
"We can be sentimental when you go save the love of your life," Laurel responds, lifting his head up by the chin with her fingers. "Go, find him!"
Oliver smiles, kissing her forehead before running back to the cortex in hopes that Iris found a location for Barry. His feelings of hopelessness had turned to a sense of urgency, as if Barry's humanity was dangling on a ticking time bomb. His rage was climbing higher and higher, and Oliver feared what actions he would take once that anger reached its peak. He knew, based on experience, what would happen once that anger reached its peak.
He was racing for Barry's soul. And it was one of the most important races that he'd ever run. One of the most important missions that he had ever sought out.
"We have a hit on Hernandez," Iris tells Oliver urgently as he enters the cortex. He quickly grabs his quiver and bow off the ground. "He's at a warehouse off of 39th."
"And Barry?" Oliver asks worriedly.
Iris shakes her head. "He turned off his tracker. Just get there and settle this before he can."
Oliver nods. He begins to spring faster than he ever has, trying to get to where his bike is parked. He usually can control his heart rate in high stress situations like this but he can feel it thumping against his chest. The anxiety and fear coursing through him is unlike anything he has ever dealt with. It isn't a fear of death. It isn't fearing the death of someone he loves. It's worry. It's a worry rooted in love and compassion for someone. It's an uneasiness, knowing that the man he wants to spend his life with is so caught up in his emotions that he is willing to give his life away.
The thought and the idea torments his mind as he rides through Central City, in a trek that feels as if it has lasted for hours. He isn't even thinking about the fact that he is about to take on Hernandez and his men alone. He's thinking about one thing and one thing only— and that is Barry's soul.
He pulls up to the warehouse, seeing Hernandez and about ten of his men are circled up, going through packs of drugs that they had just traded. It was an open area, so Oliver had to be very stealthy about where he parked and how he approached the area.
He scoped out possible entrance points before coming to the conclusion that the best shot that he had at Hernandez would've been if he came from the south end, running directly towards where he stood.
So he did. Shooting five arrows and knocking out half of his men before even taking two steps. He immediately was being shot at. The bullets weren't even close as the men could hardly see him. Once he was clearly in their line of vision, it was already too late. He had gotten off enough arrows for all of his men to be lying on the ground, grasping at their legs in pain.
He charged Hernandez, tackling him immediately to the ground. He was dealing with his own rage, his own anger that had been cooped up inside of him. He had been so consumed by Barry's recovery that he hadn't even considered the rage he felt towards the man who tried to take Barry from him. It all came out the second he had Hernandez pinned to the ground.
He threw two too many punches before pointing an arrow directly at his face and angrily interrogating him. "Why did you target Barry Allen?" He didn't answer. "Tell me!"
"I have no clue who that is!" He yells, a smug grin forming on his face.
He shoots an arrow, purposefully missing his head in hopes to intimidate him. "He was the CSI your men tried to kill two months ago!"
"Oh, him?" Hernandez laughs mockingly. "He was getting too close to finding us. Plus, he was an easy target."
"You son of a bitch!" Oliver gets on one knee and pins him to the ground with his elbow. He takes an arrow and allows the tip to touch the skin of Hernandez' neck. It isn't penetrating the skin yet if he were to even move a millimeter, it would cut him and cause for him to bleed to death. "I want to kill you. I really do— but you deserve worse than a quick death."
"You're going to prison for a long time—" He is interrupted by a rushing wind forcing him off of Hernandez. He then finds himself about a hundred feet from where they were and the last person he want to be there, kneeling where he had just been. "No!"
Barry had taken all of Hernandez henchmen to CCPD, leaving just him, Hernandez and Oliver at the scene.
Barry intimidatingly kneels over Hernandez. "Do you know who I am?" With no answer, Barry forcefully punches him in the face before taking his mask off. "Do you fucking know who I am?"
"Oh my God-" Fear has completely taken over him as he comes to realization of what he had done.
Barry grabs his shirt and pulls him up. He pushes him up against the wall of the warehouse, not letting go of his shirt as he continues. "You almost took everything from me! You almost took me from my father. My best friends. The love of my life!"
"Do you fucking understand what you've done?" Barry cries, tears streaming down his face. He takes his hand and begins to vibrate it. He keeps it at his side before slowly bringing it up upwards. He relishes in every millisecond it takes for his hand to be level with his head. He allows for every emotion to process and sit with him. He watches as fear and panic consume Hernandez'. The sight presents a satisfying canvas of a face that pleases Barry. He begins to beg, plead for mercy. But Barry was unmoving.
Oliver watched in horror as this all unfolds. He knew what was surging through Barry's veins. He knew the sight Barry was taking in. He couldn't stop him. He tried to call out for Barry's name but Barry couldn't hear him. He was subconsciously tuning him out. He was so caught up in his own actions that he couldn't hear Oliver's pleads.
"I cannot let you do it to anyone else." Barry feels his hand move and vibrate amongst the frequency of the matter around him. It nears the mans chest and the closer it gets the tighter Barry's chest becomes. Every nanosecond that passes, an ounce of his sanity leaves. Ever millimeter that his hand travels, he feels his humanity feel further and further away. The tip of his finger penetrates through the skin above his heart. He feels his hand slowly rip through arteries, muscles, tendons, the cracking of the rib cage— until he feels the membrane of the heart.
He can feel it beating, pumping. But as his fingers crush through the chambers, he feels it stop. He hears the man's breathing catch. Suddenly Baery's entire arm rested in the man's chest. As his body stopped moving, so did Barry. He stood there for a second in shock before slowly pulling his arm out.
The man fell to the ground and he watched as the life left his eyes and the blood stopped moving through his body.
He was gone.