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Despite all the losses in his life, Barry had never truly learned how to deal with grief. He had always been better at running from it anyway. Years ago, that metaphor had become literal. He knew that running wasn’t healthy and, in his case, it could be dangerous, but it was a vice he had never truly been able to kick. So, here he was, freshly into the new year, feeling the numbness he had become acquainted with all too well. How had it already been three years?
The images came back to him often, Oliver laying on the ground, Sara at his side, tears streaming down each of their faces. Oliver telling him to keep fighting before waking up in a brand new universe.
He remembers what it felt like to run across continents trying to find his friend and the guilt of not finding a trace of him. He remembers not being able to look Felicity in the eye for a year. Barry would never forget meeting Tommy and Moira and realizing why Oliver was so adamant about not being mad at him for Flashpoint. Now, he sat on his couch, looking at the mask he had made the green-hooded vigilante eight years ago. It still shocked him to know that, at some point, Oliver had sat down and written him into his will. He couldn’t help but think that it was after he had made the deal with the Monitor to trade his life for him and Kara. To this day, the anger would attack him randomly, early in the morning, in the middle of the night, whenever it felt like it. How could Oliver not have told him? If he had, maybe they could’ve found another way, a cosmic loophole, something.
“Hiya, Flash!”
In the blink of an eye, he had been joined on the couch by a familiar figure with dark curly hair who was sporting a simple, dark gray suit with a red handkerchief in the jacket pocket.
“Music Meister?”
The man raised an eyebrow, “Did Cisco come up with that? If so, it’s definitely not his best. Man, it’s been a while! Well, for you, anyway. For me,” he checked a non-existent watch on his wrist, “I was singing and dancing with you and Supergirl yesterday. The fourth dimension sure is strange.”
It was then that Barry noticed time was seemingly standing still and it wasn’t his own doing. “Why are you here?”
He looked at the speedster incredulously, “I go where I’m needed when people have lessons to learn. I thought we established that last time, Bartholomew, did we not?”
Barry sighed, “I guess? So, why are you here?”
The Music Meister laughed, “You can’t be serious!” He then looked at the other man’s facial expression. “Oh god. He stood up, “Things are gonna be a little different this time around. Sadly, there’s no fun musical numbers and I won’t be there, but I’m sure you can figure it out.
“Wait, what?! Hold on-”
The Music Meister then snapped his fingers and sparks of blue light came from his hand and fingers.
Suddenly, Barry was standing in the Hall of Justice, wearing his suit.
“Oh, no chance of dying this time, by the way. I guess you could say I’ve matured. Have fun!”
Then, Barry was alone again. He was left wondering why the Music Meister had made a whole scene just to teleport him to the outskirts of Central City. Then he turned around, expecting to see Oliver’s suit and the eternal flame. The flame was there except, instead of forming an arrowhead, it formed a lightning bolt. His eyes then trailed upward and were met by his own suit. “Oh…”
Turns out, he had traveled a little further than downtown. Barry was typically a quick thinker, but now he was drawing a blank. He remembered how this worked, no getting home until he “learned his lesson.” He didn’t know what to do, given the fact he was apparently dead in this universe.
“Who are you?”
His body went stiff as he raised his arms in surrender, recognizing that modulated voice anywhere. His arrival must have triggered the silent alarm. It was good to know this earth had at least one thing in common with his own.
Barry turned around and all the air in his lungs disappeared. Hearing the Green Arrow’s voice was one thing, seeing Oliver Queen alive and well was something else entirely. He didn’t really care that an arrow was notched and aimed directly at his chest. “Ollie?”
“Who are you?” he asked again, his weapon not moving. Anyone who had been awarded the luxury of seeing Oliver without all of his walls up would be able to detect the emotion in his voice. Barry had always counted himself as one of the lucky few, having saved the man within the first few days of knowing him had its perks.
He slowly moved his hands and removed his mask, revealing his face. “Oliver, it’s me. It’s Barry.”
Then, Barry saw something he never thought he would. The Emerald Archer’s aim faltered as his hands seemed to shake with uncertainty. He lowered his bow and pressed a button on his suit before lowering his hood. “How is this possible?” he asked in his normal tone.
The change hit him like a ton of bricks, “Um, well, I-” He took a breath, “A being of the fifth dimension sent me here.”
“What?” he asked, his face showing his obvious confusion.
Barry sighed, smirking a bit. Before Crisis, he’d sometimes feel bad about dragging Oliver into things like this. The man shoots a bow and arrow and ended up getting abducted by aliens for Christ’s sake. “I’m not from this earth.”
“Right…” The man’s resting scowl turned into a frown. He was disappointed.
“I’m sorry my answer couldn’t be something else, Oliver,” he said genuinely.
“I’m sorry, too.”
“What for?”
“On this earth, we lost you,” Oliver said, vaguely gesturing to the suit behind him, “and on your earth, you lost me.”
“How’d you know?”
He chuckled a bit, looking at the floor and shaking his head, “You’re not hard to read, Barry, never have been.”
Then the two just stood there for a few moments in an awkward silence as neither knew what else to say.
Oliver spoke up, “Give me a few minutes…” He walked off, leaving Barry alone again. He took the chance to look around. The technology was almost identical to that of his own earth. Then he came to the table that filled the middle of the main room. Much like the one he knew there were emblems for the Supers, Green Arrow, Batwoman, Martian Manhunter, Black Lightning, White Canary, and himself. The only one he didn’t recognize was a circle with a line on the top and bottom, all of which were green. Maybe one day he’d learn who it belonged to on his earth.
“Alright, I’ll meet you at O’Shaughnessy’s,” Oliver said, reappearing in his civilian clothes before heading to his motorcycle.
Of course, he was there in an instant. He leaned against the outside wall, now changed and recalled the last time he was here with him after they had defeated Deegan and apparently, destiny itself. Barry had always trusted his instincts, even when everyone told him not to, and part of the guilt he clung to came from not prying Oliver more when he felt like he wasn’t telling him something that night. Again, maybe if he had, they could’ve worked together, like the partners they were supposed to be, and have found a loophole. Barry had the power to rewrite history without so much as breaking a sweat and yet, Oliver never came to him.
“How long have you been waiting on me?” Oliver asked as he descended from his motorcycle, pulling Barry out of his head.
He looked at the watch on his wrist, “Twenty minutes.”
“You’ve gotten faster.”
He shrugged and smirked a bit, “The world restarting gave the Speedforce some upgrades.”
As they entered together, they took a seat at the same stools they always had. It was the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week so, apart from a few stragglers and the bartender, the two were on their own. Oliver was the one to order the beers.
“It’s at times like these I wish I could get drunk,” Barry mused, eyes focused on the wall of alcohol behind the bar.
That earned a smile, something very few could muster from Oliver Queen these days. Then, the expression turned back to neutral. “I know you’re angry at me and I can understand why, but given the fact you ended up here tells me that your version of me had no regrets when it came to doing what he did for you and Kara.”
That caught his attention. “Ollie, you didn’t tell me. I could’ve done something or at least tried to do something. You had kids, William and Mia, they needed you. Felicity needed you, your city, your team, they all still needed you…” He was cut off by the bartender bringing them their drinks. He looked away, eyes beginning to sting as he fought back tears.
Oliver took a sip out of his bottle and cleared his throat, “Barry… this is the universe where I told you about my deal with Novu, where you did what you could to save me. It ended up with me being the reason another family had to bury an empty casket.” He sighed and took a longer drink this time. “If I had the chance to change it, I would. Hell, Kara tried, but the universe wouldn’t allow it. For some godforsaken reason, in this version of things, you had to stay dead. Now, I carry the guilt of knowing that if I had kept my mouth shut, things would’ve been different.”
“Oliver…”
The man shook his head, “I’m happy with the life I have now. It’s a life that I never thought I’d get the chance to have. I’m mostly retired, I get to wake up next to my beautiful wife, I get to go to William’s science fairs, and I get to drop Mia off at daycare. You were one of the first to convince me that I could ever have that. If there was a way to repay you, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Oliver. It was my fate, my burden to carry.”
He sighed, “Barry, I owe you everything and it’s obvious that your Oliver never told you that either and I’m sorry that he- or I didn’t.”
The speedster looked at him, slightly confused.
Another sip, another sigh, “Did I ever tell you about Tommy? My best friend, Tommy Merlyn?”
Barry thought it best not to reveal that he had met Tommy, a Tommy who had never died, at Oliver’s funeral. They had seen each other at holiday gatherings, but even in a new universe with new memories, they weren’t close. So, he simply shook his head.
“When I was just starting out, back when I was the vigilante you’d write blog posts about,” he started with a little twitch of his lips, the Undertaking happened in the Glades, Laurel was trapped in one of the buildings and he went in after her without a second thought.”
He paused, going stiff, “The building came down and I went in to get him out and it was too late, he died in front of me, because of me… That guilt, I couldn’t get rid of it, I couldn’t shove it down like everything else I had gone through. I ran away and when I came back to Starling, I kept intentionally getting into fights I knew I wouldn’t win. One of which happened the day we met. I didn’t think I was going to wake up, but then you pumped me full of rat poison and just like that, my mission wasn’t finished.”
He finished his bottle before continuing, “That night, when you called me and met me on that rooftop, when I called you a guardian angel, it’s because I knew that you had already been one for me and that you were perfectly capable of being one for your city and as it turns out… you were one for the freaking multiverse too. Barry, you saw good in me and believed in me when no one else did. I never thought I was meant for a life filled with great things. I never thought I deserved it, but even in your final moments, you tried to convince me otherwise. Without you, I would’ve never become a hero that Tommy would be proud of.”
When Oliver quit talking, Barry was quick to wipe his tears away. “Is-Is that why you left me your mask?” he asked softly.
He nodded, “The night I put it on was the night I knew I could be something better than the Hood.”
“When did you decide to put me in your will?”
“The night we fought Reverse Flash… the first time.”
“That was years ago..”
“I was in the midst of working for the League of Assassins and you complimented my change in wardrobe. No one else deserved it.”
“The black was definitely a choice, Ollie.” That earned an eye roll.
He put his beer down and stood up and opened his arms, “Come on…”
Barry’s eyebrows furrowed, “What?” Then his brain caught up, “Wait a second,” he started as he got up. “Oliver Queen, are-are you offering me a hug?” he asked dramatically, putting a hand on his chest. “You’ve gone soft!”
“Shut up or you lose your chance.”
Barry hugged him tightly and Oliver did the same.
“Thank you, Barry.”
“Thank you, Oliver.”
After another moment, they both pulled away. Barry pulled his wallet out of his pocket, taking cash out and leaving it on the bar.
Then, just like that, he was back in his loft, sitting on his couch, Music Meister in front of him. “Figure it out, Flash?”
Barry nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I think I did…”
“Good!” he said, getting up. “Well, my work here is done.” He pointed at Barry, “Next time you feel like moping, call Supergirl and we can get the trifecta together again!” The being turned on his heel and vanished.
Barry let out a breath as he was left alone again. His eyes fell on the infamous green mask, his guilt and grief now a little easier to carry.