Barry closed his eyes and groaned softly as he massaged at his temples. Of course this fucking happened. Of course Cisco had to open his fucking mouth and put him on the spot to tell everyone about Flashpoint and now everyone was pissed except Kara, who wasn't affected at all, and, shockingly enough, Oliver.
"Hey," Barry said suddenly as everyone babbled nonsensically and whined, "Could you all shut the fuck up for five seconds?" That brought the room to a screeching, silent halt. You could have heard a pin drop. So much better. "Thank you." Barry sighed and ran a hand through his hair before looking at Cisco. "First off, fuck you."
"Excuse me?!" Cisco objected, eyes bugging out of his head, clearly offended.
"You fucking heard me," Barry continued, "You really think this was the best time to do this? When we have to worry about an alien goddamn invasion, you decide now is the best time to be a fucking child?" Cisco started to say something but Barry cut him off. "Nope. Nuh uh. Shut your face, Ramon. Everyone shits on Barry Allen all the goddamn time, not today. I get it, Dante's dead and you're upset. Here's my question: Why?" Cisco stared at him, aghast.
"Barry–" Caitlin started to say before Barry waved her off.
"No, seriously. Why? You didn't even like Dante. You're just projecting the fact that you had a shitty relationship with your brother onto me because he died and you never got to make nice. Well guess what? In the timeline where Dante wasn't dead? You still didn't fucking get along. So don't blame me for the fact that you have a shitty relationship with your family in every reality."
"Barry," Felicity tried to get in awkwardly, "I think that's a little out of line." Barry rolled his eyes and idly pointed at her with clear disdain.
"Just what I absolutely need, a lesson on tact from the girl who nuked a city." Then he turned his focus back to everyone. "Okay, look. You guys wanna know what happened? Fine. Fucking super duper." He looked apologetically at Kara. "I'd ask you to cover your ears but we both know that wouldn't do anything." Kara shrugged and Barry resumed. "So as some of you know, my mother was murdered in front of me when I was a child and my father went to prison for her murder. The first time I tried to go back in time to save her, I stopped myself, meaning that I saw her murdered twice. Yeah, I know, time travel's weird. But wait! It gets better!" The others shifted uncomfortably and looked at their feet. "So I finally learned to let go of my mother's death and cope with her loss and guess what happens? My father gets murdered, not two hours later!" Barry fumed for a few seconds before looking out at them like a professor giving a lecture and waiting for a response. "So if any of you had the power to save someone you loved from getting murdered, wouldn't you take it? Or am I just an asshole? Anyone?"
"Yeah," Oliver admitted in a shock to Barry, "I gotta go with Barry here. We all make choices and those all affect people. We make mistakes and then we try to fix them. That's all we can do." That made Barry let out a bark of furious laughter.
"Oh," he continued with manic energy, "You wanna talk about fixing mistakes?! In the alternate timeline I created where I saved my parents' lives, everything was bad or lame for everyone else. Ronnie, I'm pretty sure, was still dead. Cisco was some rich asshole, Caitlin was an eye doctor or some fucking whatever, Ollie was dead and his dad was Arrow–"
"Wait, what?"
"Joe was an alcoholic and Iris and I barely knew each other! But hey, Wally was The Flash, I didn't have to do anything! I had my parents back! I could've just told you all to fuck off! Except I didn't! I tried to fix my mistakes, again! You know what that involved? That involved setting Eobard Thawne free and begging him to kill my mother." Barry paused for a moment and wiped tears from his eyes, the memory still fresh in his mind. "He made me get on my hands and knees and beg him to kill her."
"Barry…" Caitlin whispered sympathetically. She went to put a hand on her shoulder and he shoved her away.
"Don't fuckin' act like you care," he muttered, "Last week you were the one who blurted out about me killing Dante and how I ruin everyone's lives. Yes, Dante's dead and I'm sorry, but then guess what happens? Jay Goddamn Garrick, the Flash of Earth-3–"
"Wait, I thought he was Earth-2…"
"Seriously, Ollie?!" Barry asked exasperatedly, "Do you ever read my Christmas Cards?" Barry let out an exasperated breath and threw up his hands. "Whatever, whatever. What was I talking about?"
"The.. the Flash of Earth-3…" Dig muttered, very confused.
"Oh, right!" Barry acknowledged with a sardonic grin, "So he stopped me from going back and time and saving your stupid brother because, apparently, every time I go back in time, I'll screw something up in the timestream. So I could save Dante, but I'd kill Cisco. Or John wouldn't have any children. Or Felicity'd still be in a wheelchair, I dunno. And John, I'm sorry, but until Fuckface Ramon over here," Barry paused to flip Cisco off, "Opened his stupid fucking face," Flipped him off again, "You didn't even know you ever had a daughter, so why does it fucking matter? Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, you people act like I did all this shit to you deliberately. So I'm sorry about your dead brothers and super powers and different gendered babies but not a goddamn one of you had to kill their own mother. So kiss my timeline-fucking ass."
"I did that without time travel." Mick muttered.
"Shut the fuck up, Mick," Sara grumbled with a roll of her eyes.
"So do you guys wanna go back to shitting on Barry Allen," Barry asked, "Or are we gonna deal with this goddamn alien invasion?"
"Alien Invasion," was the awkward, muttered unison. The others got ready to start fighting Kara and Barry pulled on his gloves and started to pull up his cowl while Kara walked up to him.
"Just so y'know," she muttered out of the corner of her mouth, "Iris's heart rate and perspiration levels spiked while you were going on your whole little rant there. And that's not all my super-senses picked up but that's as much as I feel comfortable mentioning out loud." Then she flew off to start beating up everyone else and Barry looked over his shoulder to see Iris looking back at him with fucking bedroom eyes. Barry grinned and pulled up his cowl. Fuck yeah. Day one of "Barry Allen officially stops putting up with the universe's bullshit" was off to a great start.