The night crackled with electricity.
Barry Allen sprinted through the rain-slicked streets of Central City, his sneakers splashing through puddles as he clutched his messenger bag against his chest. He was late—again. Joe was going to kill him. They had a case, evidence to process, and here he was running from the train station because he'd stayed too long at Star Labs watching the particle accelerator launch.
It had been incredible. Watching Dr. Harrison Wells make history, seeing that massive machine hum to life, feeling the excitement ripple through the crowd—Barry couldn't help himself. This was *science*, real groundbreaking science, and he'd been there to witness it.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Probably Joe. Definitely Joe.
Barry skidded around a corner onto Maynard Street, his lab looming ahead. Just a few more blocks. He could make it. He could—
The sky *screamed*.
Barry's head snapped up. The clouds above had turned a sickly yellow-green, churning like something alive and angry. Lightning arced between them in patterns that looked almost... organized. Artificial.
"No," Barry breathed, slowing to a stop in the middle of the empty street. "No, no, no—the particle accelerator—"
The explosion lit up the night sky like a second sun.
The shockwave hit a heartbeat later—a wall of force and sound that shattered windows and set off every car alarm on the block. Barry threw his arms up instinctively, but the wave passed through him, leaving his skin tingling and his ears ringing.
Then came the lightning.
It didn't fall from the sky so much as *reach* for him—a massive tendril of golden-white energy that seemed to seek him out specifically. Barry had one moment to register the impossible sight of electricity bending mid-air, targeting him like a living thing, before—
CRACK.
The bolt struck him dead center in the chest.
Pain. Unimaginable, absolute, *infinite* pain. Every nerve in his body fired at once. His heart stopped, then hammered so fast it blurred into a continuous vibration. His eyes went white as electricity poured through him, into him, *became* him.
Barry's scream caught in his throat as his body seized. He could feel himself falling, but the fall seemed to stretch on forever, time dilating around him in ways that made no sense. He could see individual raindrops suspended in the air, could track the patterns of electricity still dancing across his skin, could feel—
—*everything*—
The ground never came.
Instead, there was light—blinding, all-consuming, *wrong*. Not the golden-white of lightning but something else, something blue and hungry that tore at the fabric of reality itself. Barry felt himself being pulled, stretched, unmade and remade in the space between seconds.
He wanted to scream but had no mouth. Wanted to reach out but had no hands. He was energy and matter and something in between, caught in a current that dragged him through layers of existence he didn't have words for.
Then, darkness.
And then—
---
**Somewhere else. Sometime else.**
Barry's body materialized six feet above rocky ground and dropped like a stone.
He hit hard, rolling across sun-baked earth and sharp stones. His messenger bag went flying. His body, still wreathed in crackling energy, spasmed and convulsed as the electricity finally dissipated into the ground around him.
The last thing Barry registered before unconsciousness claimed him was the sound of shouting in a language he didn't understand, and the distinctive *pop-pop-pop* of automatic weapons fire echoing off canyon walls.
Then nothing.
---
**Somewhere in the desert, a convoy burned.**
Tony Stark came to with the taste of blood in his mouth and the sound of screaming in his ears.
His body ached. His chest *hurt*, a deep throbbing pain that suggested something very wrong had happened to his ribs. His head was ringing from the explosion—explosions, plural—and when he tried to sit up, rough hands shoved him back down.
Shouting. More gunfire. The acrid smell of burning rubber and flesh.
Tony's vision swam as he was dragged across hot sand. He caught glimpses: bodies in desert fatigues, Humvees torn apart like tin cans, and—
What the hell?
Through the haze of pain and confusion, Tony saw something impossible.
A body—a *boy*, couldn't be more than twenty-five—lying motionless on the ground twenty feet away. But he hadn't been there before. Tony was certain of it. One moment, empty desert. The next, a kid in civilian clothes surrounded by scorch marks on the ground, like he'd fallen from the sky.
Or appeared out of thin air.
The boy's body was... vibrating. Not moving, but vibrating, so fast it created a faint blur around his edges.
Tony tried to focus, tried to understand what he was seeing, but then his captors were dragging him into a vehicle and the world went dark again.
When he woke up next, it was to fluorescent lights and the steady beep of a car battery, and Yinsen's lined face hovering over him explaining why there was a device sticking out of his chest.
"You've been asleep for two days," Yinsen said quietly. "They patched you up, but the shrapnel... it's working its way toward your heart. The magnet keeps it at bay."
Tony's hand went to his chest, feeling the crude device, the wires, the wrongness of it all.
"There's... there was someone else," Tony managed, his throat dry. "A kid. He just... appeared."
Yinsen's expression flickered—something between concern and resignation. He glanced toward the corner of their cave prison.
Tony turned his head.
The boy from the desert was there, lying on a rough blanket in the corner. Still unconscious. Still vibrating, though more subtly now—a constant tremor that seemed to emanate from his very cells.
"They brought him in after you," Yinsen said. "They don't know what to do with him. Neither do I." He paused. "But Mr. Stark... whatever he is, whatever happened to him... I don't think he's going to survive much longer if that doesn't stop."
Tony stared at the impossible boy in the corner, at the way reality seemed to ripple around him.
And despite everything—despite being captured, despite the shrapnel working toward his heart, despite facing imminent death—Tony Stark's mind began to work.
"Get me his things," Tony said. "And find me some tools."
—
Tony didn't get his tools.
Instead, he got the business end of an AK-47 shoved in his face and rough hands dragging him upright. His chest screamed in protest, the car battery swinging awkwardly from its harness as two armed men hauled him toward the cave entrance.
"Wait—" Tony tried, but one of the guards barked something in Urdu and shoved him forward.
Yinsen was already being pushed ahead of him, hands raised placatingly. The older man glanced back, his expression carefully neutral but his eyes conveying a clear message: *Don't antagonize them.*
Right. Because Tony Stark was known for his restraint and diplomacy.
They emerged from the cave into harsh sunlight that made Tony's eyes water. He squinted, taking in his surroundings for the first time while conscious: rocky canyon walls, scattered vehicles, armed men lounging around cooking fires, and—
"Jesus Christ," Tony breathed.
Weapons. Stark Industries weapons. *Everywhere.*
Missile launchers. Crates stamped with his company's logo. A partially disassembled Jericho guidance system leaning against a rock like some kind of macabre art installation. The same weapons he'd been demonstrating to the military just days ago, now in the hands of terrorists in what appeared to be the asshole of Afghanistan.
"Mr. Stark."
The voice was calm, almost pleasant. Tony turned to find a man approaching—tall, lean, with a neatly trimmed beard and dark eyes that held disturbing intelligence. He wore traditional Afghan clothing but carried himself like someone used to command.
"Welcome," the man continued in accented but clear English. "I am Raza. I trust you are recovering from your... unfortunate incident."
"Unfortunate?" Tony's laugh came out harsh. "That's one word for it. Kidnapping, torture, and unlawful imprisonment are a few others."
Raza smiled, unbothered. "You misunderstand, Mr. Stark. You are my guest. An honored guest." He gestured to the scattered weapons. "As you can see, we are great admirers of your work."
"Yeah, I can see that." Tony's jaw clenched. "Where the hell did you get all this?"
"The same place you sold it." Raza's smile widened. "Through proper channels. Business transactions. Surely you don't object to your weapons reaching their intended destinations?"
Tony's stomach turned. How many intermediaries? How many palms greased? How many of his weapons had ended up in the wrong hands while he'd been busy playing genius billionaire playboy philanthropist?
Raza began speaking rapidly in Urdu, and Yinsen stepped closer to Tony, translating in a low voice.
"He says you are the most famous mass murderer in the history of America," Yinsen murmured. "That it is a great honor to have you here. He wants you to understand that you are alive for a reason."
"Let me guess," Tony said dryly. "He wants me to make him a nice fruit basket?"
Raza continued, gesturing expansively at the canyon, at his men, at the weapons.
"He wants you to build the Jericho missile for him," Yinsen translated. "The one you demonstrated. He has heard it can destroy entire battalions with a single launch. He wants this power."
Tony barked out a laugh. "Yeah, that's not happening."
Yinsen's hand gripped his arm—warning. "Mr. Stark—"
"You refuse?" Raza's English returned, his tone still pleasant but with an edge now. He nodded to one of his men, who grabbed Yinsen and forced him to his knees.
"Wait—" Tony started.
A gun pressed against Yinsen's temple.
"You refuse?" Raza repeated, watching Tony's face carefully.
The canyon fell silent except for the pop of cooking fires and the whisper of wind through the rocks. Tony's mind raced. His chest throbbed. The car battery swung against his ribs.
"No," Tony said slowly. "I don't refuse."
Raza smiled and gestured. The gun withdrew. Yinsen was hauled back to his feet, breathing hard.
"Excellent. You will have everything you need. Tools. Materials. Time." Raza stepped closer. "But understand, Mr. Stark—you will build this weapon, or you and your new friend will die. And it will not be quick."
"What new friend?" Tony frowned.
"The boy who fell from the sky." Raza's expression flickered with something that might have been uncertainty. "The one who... vibrates. Your government's new weapon, perhaps? Some experiment?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't lie," Raza snapped. "We saw him appear. One moment, nothing. The next, he was there, surrounded by lightning and scorch marks. What is he?"
Tony's mind whirred. They thought the kid was *his*—some kind of government project that had somehow been deployed during the attack.
"He's classified," Tony said, thinking fast. "Above my pay grade. But if you want the Jericho, I'll need him functional. Whatever he is, he's tied to the guidance systems. Some kind of... quantum processor."
It was complete bullshit, but Raza didn't need to know that.
The terrorist leader studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Then you will fix him too. You have one month, Mr. Stark. Build me the Jericho, or I will start returning you to your family in pieces."
He turned and walked away, leaving Tony and Yinsen surrounded by armed guards.
"Come," one of them said in broken English, gesturing back toward the cave. "Make list. What you need."
---
Back in the cave, Tony immediately began scribbling on a piece of paper—a long list of tools, materials, and components. Some for the Jericho (or what Raza *thought* was a Jericho), but most for something else entirely.
"That's quite a list," Yinsen observed quietly.
"Well, if I'm going to build them the crown jewel of Stark Industries, I need the crown jewels of materials." Tony glanced at the unconscious form in the corner. "But first..."
They approached the boy together. Up close, Tony could see he was young—mid-twenties at most, with a lean build and dark hair. His clothes were civilian: jeans, a button-up shirt, sneakers. All wrong for Afghanistan, all wrong for a battlefield.
And he'd stopped vibrating, though his chest still rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths.
"Help me check his pockets," Tony said.
Yinsen hesitated. "Mr. Stark, perhaps we should—"
"He just appeared out of nowhere, Yinsen. I need to know what we're dealing with."
Together, they carefully searched the unconscious man. A wallet. Keys. A smartphone that was completely dead—and not any model Tony recognized, the design all wrong. A messenger bag that had been thrown in the corner with their belongings, containing notebooks filled with chemical formulas and case numbers, evidence bags, a digital camera.
Tony flipped open the wallet. Driver's license, credit cards, cash, and—
"Barry Allen," Tony read aloud. "Twenty-five. Address in..." He squinted at the license. "Central City?"
"I don't know any Central City," Yinsen said, looking over Tony's shoulder.
"Neither do I." Tony pulled out the other cards. "Central City Police Department. Crime Scene Investigator. Forensic Scientist." He held up the ID badge—professional quality, holographic security features, completely legitimate-looking. "What the hell is a CSI doing in the middle of an Afghan desert?"
"And how did he simply... appear?" Yinsen added quietly.
Tony stared at the ID photo—the kid's friendly smile, his open expression. Everything about Barry Allen screamed *normal civilian*, except for the impossible circumstances of his arrival.
"I don't know," Tony admitted. "But I'm going to find out." He looked at the boy's chest, at the rapid breathing, at the faint tremors that still occasionally rippled across his skin. "And I'm going to keep him alive while I do it."
Yinsen was quiet for a moment. "Why?"
"Because whatever that asshole Raza thinks, this kid isn't a weapon." Tony met Yinsen's eyes. "He's just some forensics guy who got caught up in something way over his head. Sound familiar?"
Yinsen's mouth quirked in a humorless smile. "Indeed."
"So." Tony turned back to his list, adding new items with quick, decisive strokes. "We're going to build what we need to survive. And we're going to figure out what the hell is wrong with Barry Allen from Central City that doesn't exist."
"And then?"
"And then we're getting the hell out of here."
In the corner, Barry Allen's fingers twitched, and for just a moment, electricity crackled across his skin like captured lightning.
—
The cave quickly transformed into a workshop from hell.
Missiles—dozens of them—were stacked against the walls like cordwood. Stark Industries logos glinted in the dim light from the fluorescent bulbs their captors had provided. The irony wasn't lost on Tony: he was going to dismantle his own weapons to save his life.
And apparently, to save the life of a kid who'd fallen out of nowhere.
"Carefully," Tony instructed as Yinsen approached one of the larger missiles with a wrench. "These things are designed to level buildings. One wrong move and we become a very brief, very bright statistic."
"Comforting," Yinsen muttered, but his hands were steady as he began loosening the access panel.
Tony was already elbow-deep in his third missile, having worked through the night. His hands moved with practiced precision, bypassing safety mechanisms and disarming triggers that would have made a bomb squad technician sweat. But Tony had designed these things. He knew every circuit, every failsafe, every shortcut.
"There," he breathed, carefully extracting a cylindrical component from the missile's core. It was about the size of a soda can, wrapped in protective shielding and covered in warning labels. "This is what we need."
Yinsen paused in his work. "What is it?"
Tony held it up to the light. "This is a palladium-encased power core. It's what keeps these missiles running until detonation—stores energy, regulates the guidance systems, maintains stability." He turned it over in his hands. "My father built the first arc reactor back in the day. Massive thing, powers the Stark Industries headquarters. Always said it was just a prototype, that the technology could go smaller, more efficient. He never cracked it."
"But you did?" Yinsen asked.
"Not until now." Tony set the core down carefully on their makeshift workbench—a sheet of metal balanced on cinder blocks. "I didn't have the motivation. Turns out impending death is a great catalyst for innovation."
He glanced at the car battery hanging from his chest, feeling its weight with every breath. The crude electromagnet Yinsen had rigged up was keeping him alive, but it was a leash. He couldn't move more than a few feet from the battery without the shrapnel sliding closer to his heart.
"The palladium," Tony continued, "is the key. It's stable enough to contain the kind of energy output we need, but rare enough that you don't just have it lying around." He gestured at the missiles. "Lucky for us, Raza just handed us a fortune in refined palladium."
"How much do you need?"
Tony did the math in his head. "For what I'm planning? A lot. We need to crack open at least... twenty of these. Maybe more."
Yinsen's eyes widened. "Twenty?"
"Two arc reactors, Yinsen. One for me—" Tony tapped his chest, "—so I can stop lugging around a car battery like some kind of automotive vampire. And one for him."
They both looked at Barry, still unconscious in the corner. His breathing had stabilized somewhat, but every few minutes, his body would give an involuntary shudder, and static electricity would crackle across his skin. Once, his arm had started vibrating so fast it had blurred, and then suddenly stopped.
"You think an arc reactor will help him?" Yinsen asked quietly.
"I think whatever happened to that kid, his body is trying to process energy it can't handle. He's not just vibrating—he's oscillating at a cellular level. That takes power. A *lot* of power." Tony pulled out one of the notebooks from Barry's bag, flipping through pages of chemical formulas and case notes. "He's a scientist. Smart kid. He was studying something, working on something, and then... what? Lightning strike? Energy surge? Something hit him hard enough to scramble him at a molecular level."
"And you believe the arc reactor will stabilize him?"
Tony was quiet for a moment. "Honestly? I have no idea. But right now, his body is tearing itself apart trying to regulate energy it doesn't understand. The arc reactor can provide a steady, controlled power source—let his system sync to something external instead of burning itself out from the inside."
He picked up another missile, already mapping out the disassembly sequence in his mind. "Or it does nothing and he dies anyway. But at least we tried."
"You barely know him," Yinsen observed. "Why risk the materials? The time? We have limited resources, and you need to build the Jericho to keep Raza satisfied."
"First of all, I'm not building them shit except what I need to get us out of here." Tony pulled out a screwdriver. "Second, you said it yourself—we're both dead anyway. Me from shrapnel, him from whatever the hell is happening to his molecules. Might as well go out swinging."
"And third?"
Tony was quiet for a long moment, staring at the Stark Industries logo on the missile in his hands. "Third... I spent years building weapons. Told myself it was for defense, for protection, for making the world safer. And now I'm sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, surrounded by terrorists using my own weapons, with a chunk of my own shrapnel working its way toward my heart."
He set the missile down and met Yinsen's eyes. "So maybe, just this once, I can build something that actually saves a life instead of taking one."
Yinsen studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Then we had better get to work."
---
**Three Days Later**
The pile of disassembled missiles had grown into a graveyard of casings and components. Tony's hands were raw, his back ached, and he was pretty sure he'd inhaled enough missile propellant to give him cancer in about fifteen years—if he lived that long.
But spread across the workbench was a collection of palladium cores that made his engineer's heart sing.
"Is it enough?" Yinsen asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. Their guards had been watching them nervously, seeing the Stark Industries arsenal being systematically dismantled, but Raza had ordered them not to interfere. As far as the terrorist leader knew, Tony was extracting the components he needed for the Jericho.
Tony did a quick calculation. "It's enough. Barely. I'll have to be precise with the fabrication, but..." He nodded. "Yeah. We can do this."
He picked up one of the cores, turning it over in his hands. "First, we build mine. I need to be mobile to do the rest of the work. Then we tackle his."
"How long?"
"For mine? Two weeks if we're lucky. For his..." Tony glanced at Barry. "I'm not even sure what we're building yet. The reactor for me is straightforward—it's just a miniaturized version of what my dad made, tuned to power an electromagnet. But for him, we need something that can interface with whatever the hell is happening to his body. That's going to take some experimenting."
"We may not have time for experimenting," Yinsen said quietly.
Tony knew he was right. Raza was already getting impatient, sending his men to check on their progress daily. They'd bought time by showing him early "Jericho components"—actually pieces of something else entirely—but eventually, the terrorist would want results.
"Then we work fast," Tony said. "And we get creative."
He moved to Barry's side, kneeling down beside the unconscious young man. Up close, Tony could see the toll the vibrations were taking—dark circles under his eyes, a sheen of sweat on his pale skin, the way his muscles occasionally spasmed.
"Hang on, kid," Tony muttered. "I'm about to do some highly experimental science on you without consent, which is definitely not FDA approved. But hey, neither am I."
He stood, rolling up his sleeves. "Yinsen, let's start fabricating. We've got two arc reactors to build, and I'd really like to not die before I finish."
Behind them, one of the guards shouted something in Urdu.
"They want to know why you're kneeling by the weapon," Yinsen translated.
Tony turned, giving the guard his most winning smile. "Just running diagnostics. Very technical. You wouldn't understand."
The guard glared but said nothing.
Tony turned back to his work, to the palladium cores and the impossible task ahead. Two arc reactors. One to keep his heart beating. One to keep Barry Allen's molecules from vibrating themselves into oblivion.
No pressure.
"Let's get to work," he said.
And in the corner, unnoticed by anyone, Barry Allen's eyes moved rapidly beneath his closed lids, lost in dreams of lightning and impossible worlds.
—
Barry was running.
He'd been running for what felt like hours—or maybe seconds, time was strange here—through a landscape that existed somewhere between memory and dream. The street beneath his feet looked like Central City, but wrong. The buildings shifted and changed with each blink. The sky rippled like water.
And there was lightning everywhere. Golden-white streaks that carved through the air, forming patterns that seemed almost like language, almost like thought itself.
"Barry."
He skidded to a stop.
She stood in the middle of the street, backlit by lightning that didn't cast shadows. Brown hair, warm eyes, a gentle smile that made his chest ache with recognition and wrongness in equal measure.
"Mom?"
But even as the word left his lips, Barry knew it wasn't true. The resemblance was there—painfully, achingly there—but this wasn't Nora Allen. His mother had died when he was eleven, murdered in their living room by something impossible, something his father went to prison for.
This was something else wearing her face.
"Not quite," the woman said, her voice echoing strangely, as if multiple voices spoke in harmony. "But close enough. I am the Speed Force, Barry Allen. And I wear this face because it brings you comfort. Because you need comfort for what comes next."
Barry's hands clenched into fists. "Where am I? What happened? The lightning—the particle accelerator—"
"Was a trap," the Speed Force said gently. "Though not the way you think."
She gestured, and the street around them dissolved into imagery—the particle accelerator, sleek and powerful, humming to life. Barry saw himself in the crowd, saw Dr. Harrison Wells at the podium, saw the moment everything went wrong.
"The explosion was orchestrated," the Speed Force continued. "Carefully, precisely planned to give you access to me. To connect you to the energy that flows through all motion, all speed, all kinetic force in your universe."
"Wells?" Barry breathed. "Dr. Wells did this? But why would he—"
"Because Harrison Wells is dead, Barry." The image shifted, showing a car crash in the rain, a man in a wheelchair pulling himself from the wreckage, and then—horror—another man appearing in a flash of lightning, placing his hand on Wells's chest. "He died years ago. The man you know as Harrison Wells is named Eobard Thawne."
The name meant nothing to Barry, but the Speed Force's expression darkened.
"Eobard Thawne," she said, "is the man who murdered your mother."
The world went silent except for the crackle of lightning.
"What?" Barry's voice was barely a whisper.
The imagery changed again, and Barry wanted to look away but couldn't. His living room. His mother. And a figure in yellow, moving so fast it was just a blur of malevolent speed, vibrating its hand through Nora Allen's chest while young Barry watched from upstairs.
"No," Barry choked out. "That's—Dad didn't—"
"Your father is innocent," the Speed Force said firmly. "He was framed by a time traveler from the future. Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, your greatest enemy—or he will be, someday. He came back through time to kill you as a child, to erase you before you could become the hero who would one day defeat him."
Barry's legs gave out. He sank to his knees on the impossible street, lightning crackling around him. "This is insane. This is—"
"True," the Speed Force finished. "All of it. But something went wrong with his plan. When he came back to kill you, I protected you. The temporal backlash stranded him in your time, stripped him of much of his speed. So he adapted. He killed the real Harrison Wells, took his place, and spent years orchestrating the particle accelerator explosion—all to recreate the accident that would give you your powers."
"Why?" Barry looked up at her, at his mother's face that wasn't his mother. "If he wanted to kill me, why give me powers?"
"Because he needs you." The Speed Force's expression was sad. "Without access to sufficient speed, he cannot return to his own time. But if he can create the Flash—if he can make you fast enough, powerful enough—he can use your connection to me to charge his own speed and escape back to his future."
Barry's mind reeled. Time travel. Speedsters. His mother's murder solved by a impossible man from the future wearing his mentor's face. It was too much. It was—
"I saved you," the Speed Force said quietly. "When the lightning struck, when Thawne's trap closed around you, I felt your pain, your fear. You called out for your mother, and I answered. I pulled you away."
"Away to where? This is still Central City—"
"Look closer."
Barry forced himself to focus. The buildings around them solidified, became real. But they weren't right. The architecture was different. The street signs showed names he didn't recognize. And there, on a newspaper stand that materialized beside him, the headline read: "STARK INDUSTRIES STOCK SOARS AFTER JERICHO DEMONSTRATION."
"This isn't Central City," Barry said slowly.
"No. This isn't even your Earth." The Speed Force moved closer, kneeling beside him. "I brought you to another reality entirely—one separated from your multiverse. A place where Eobard Thawne cannot follow. Where you are safe."
"But everyone I know—Iris, Joe, my dad in prison—"
"Are beyond your reach right now," the Speed Force said gently. "I'm sorry, Barry. I saved your life, but the cost was steep. Bridging realities, especially to one this isolated, required nearly all my stored energy. I am vast, but not infinite. Not anymore."
Barry stared at the ground, at lightning that danced across his fingers. "Can I go back?"
"Eventually. Yes." The Speed Force placed a hand on his shoulder—it felt like warmth and motion and potential energy all at once. "But it will take time. I need to regenerate the power necessary to create another bridge. Months, perhaps. Maybe longer."
"How long have I been here?"
"In the physical world? A few days. But here, with me, time is fluid. Mutable. We can use that." She smiled, and for a moment, she really did look like his mother. "I can teach you, Barry Allen. I can show you what you are, what you can become. You have access to the Speed Force now—the energy that powers all speedsters across all realities. But raw power without control is just destruction waiting to happen."
Barry flexed his hands, watching electricity arc between his fingers. "I was vibrating. Before I woke up here. My body was—"
"Your cells are accelerating. Your molecules are learning to move at speeds that would tear apart a normal human." The Speed Force stood, pulling him up with her. "Without training, you'll burn yourself out. Possibly explode. Definitely die. But with training..."
She gestured, and the street transformed into a massive open space—endless plains of pure energy, lightning forming highways through an infinite sky.
"With training, you can learn to run faster than sound. Faster than light. Faster than thought itself. You can vibrate through solid matter, generate lightning, perceive time in ways no human ever has. You can become the Flash."
"The Flash?"
"The name you'll take. The symbol you'll become." She smiled. "But first, you have to learn to run without falling on your face. And given where you are—trapped in a cave with a genius inventor and terrorists who'd love to weaponize you—you're going to need every advantage I can give you."
Barry looked around at the impossible landscape, then back at the face of his mother that wasn't his mother. "You said time works differently here. How long do I have?"
"In this space? As long as you need. I can keep your body stable in the physical world for a few more days while we train your mind, your instincts, your connection to the Speed Force itself." She held out her hand. "When you wake up, you'll be in an unfamiliar world with unfamiliar dangers. But you won't be helpless."
Barry thought of his father in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Thought of Iris and Joe, probably thinking he was dead. Thought of Eobard Thawne wearing Harrison Wells's face, orchestrating everything.
Then he thought of Tony Stark—because he recognized that name from the newspaper, from the headlines—trapped in a cave, waiting to die.
"Okay," Barry said, taking her hand. "Teach me."
The Speed Force's smile widened, and suddenly they were moving—racing across plains of pure energy while lightning sang around them.
"First lesson," she called over the rush of speed. "Stop thinking of running as something your legs do. Start thinking of it as something the universe does. You're not moving through space, Barry Allen. Space is moving through you."
Barry ran, and the Speed Force ran beside him, wearing his dead mother's face and teaching him how to become a hero in a world that wasn't his own.
Behind them, in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan, Tony Stark worked on an arc reactor that would save two lives.
And neither of them knew it yet, but the collision of their worlds was about to change everything.
---
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