Author's Notes: Hello, everybody! I haven't updated my ffnet page in a while, so these fics are long overdue. I hope you enjoy them! (If you want to stay up to date with my stories, I always upload them to AO3 first.)

Four officers, point-guarding. All armed, locked and loaded.

Helplessness and anger flood Barry. I'm not faster than a speeding bullet, he thinks. Gaze flicking from corner to corner, he assesses the odds. Precious seconds are wasted on errant breath as officer one calls in for reinforcements. We've got the Green Arrow. Barry waits, letting the officers see his rigidity and wonder.

The Green Arrow is not the man who backs down from an uneven fight. If anything, the idea of one fires him up.

In a distant corner of his mind dedicated to debating the lunacy of his lifestyle, Barry thinks he should stand down. Oliver tells him to. It's the right thing to do. But it doesn't feel like the right thing to do. And if there is one thing that has kept Barry alive during a crisis, it's the trust he places in his instincts. He kneels slowly, hands upraised but not intertwined. Officer one steps towards him, evidently confident that his partners will back him up.

Barry eases his hands behind his back submissively, luring the man closer. The officer takes one more step, tense but not paying attention. Without missing a beat, Barry bursts into motion, lunging forward in a tackling maneuver that breaks the officer's gun hand underneath the crush of his body as they crash to the pavement. The three remaining officers fire warning shots, unwilling to injure their comrade as Barry and he grapple. With a ruthless chokehold, Barry hauls the wheezing man upright, backing away, keeping his eyes on the three men still pointing guns at him.

"Guns. Down."

His voice, pitched lower than he's ever heard it, makes two of the three officers sway back half a step. The third fires right at his left eye, missing by scant centimeters. The officer in his arms wheezes, "Fire, fire." Barry tightens his grip, cutting off his words, and the other officers hesitate before obliging. A bullet grazes the officer's right knee in a futile attempt to reach Barry's before Barry throws the man at his partners, forcing one man to refocus his attention entirely on the deadweight collapsing against him.

With the lack of hesitation instilled into fighting bulls, he charges the third officer, Mr. Trigger Happy. A piercing pain splits his right shoulder, cutting through the front. Barely flinching from the impact, he takes the gun, twists the officer's hand mercifully out of its grip, and levels the barrel right at the man's forehead.

There's a whoosh, a blur of yellow light, and then he's standing in an empty alleyway, still cocking the stolen gun at an invisible adversary. Sirens ring in the distance. Undoubtedly, reinforcements will arrive and comb the city to bring the man in the green hood to justice.

Barry's heart pounds, adrenaline from the fight finding no outlet in the unprepossessing street. "I had that," he snaps, suddenly furious as he turns on his own partners.

"You had that," Oliver repeats caustically. "You had that."

Suddenly annoyed, Barry points the gun at him. "You seem awfully high and mighty without your bow," he says menacingly, "but how fast are you, Ollie?"

"Enough." Kara's voice is low like thunder and just as forceful. Barry doesn't lower the gun, but another surge of air, much stronger, simultaneously throws him off his feet and wrests the weapon free in a single inexorable movement. He crashes to the dirt, ears ringing, mouth salivating for the fight that isn't coming, for the fight he cannot win.

Two supers against one ordinary man.

Planting a hand on the pavement, he leverages himself upright. His right shoulder oozes blood. His breath comes in caustic pants.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Oliver asks, goading him. He's not trying to, the little voice whispers. Barry snaps its neck and lunges back to his feet with predatorial ease. "What if this isn't something we can fix, Barry? If you go around assaulting the police – do you want to go back to prison?"

Barry's mouth twists in annoyance. "It wasn't so bad," he says dryly. His jaw aches with phantom pain. His shoulder throbs in real time. "I can take it."

He feels the shift in the air as Kara moves and longs suddenly, aggressively for his bow. Instead of attempting to stop her, he lets himself roll with the impact. It's gentle – she's not trying to hurt you – but something about it, the way that she has to treat him like a child when rebuking him, only kindles the fire hotter. He's back on his feet and ten feet away from them, viper-furious.

"Keep 'em coming," he taunts. "I can do this all day."

Oliver Flashes, and it's a mistake, because he has almost no control over his speed. Barry crouches and flips him over his shoulder, allowing his momentum to carry Oliver halfway down the alley before tumbling to a rest. "You don't even know how to use it," he says, half-chiding, half-despairing, because he can't stand to be this helpless.

Iron arms lock around him, pinning his own to his side, and he stares into Kara's unyielding face as his breath comes in abbreviated gasps. "You need to calm down," she says, echoing a time long ago without realizing it. Barry tenses every muscle in his body, resisting the steely grip that she has on him, but there is no escaping it. The effort makes him tremble. "All right? We're not going to fight each other."

He scowls, glancing at Oliver – standing imperviously behind his right shoulder, unarmed but very dangerous – before redirecting his attention to the arms locked around him. The grip makes the ache in his shoulder relentless. It'll heal soon, he thinks. But it won't, and coldness sweeps his chest as the error of his ways hits him full force.

The strength melts out of him, shame coloring his face as he averts his gaze. Kara doesn't let go immediately, letting him know that he is on her terms. A single trembling heartbeat passes, and then she releases him. He buckles, and his knees hit the pavement suddenly. Breath coming in wet gasps, he reaches up for his shoulder with a shaking hand, but he doesn't dare touch it, lowering his fingers just before they make contact. He draws in a shallow breath.

Aloud, he rasps, "I'm sorry." He pushes against the pavement, trying to raise himself, but finds the strength and fire that propelled him are gone. "I – I don't know why I did that."

You wanted to hurt them, the little voice chimes in unflinchingly.

"I'm sorry," he repeats breathlessly.

The distant sirens fade as the police hunt the wrong trail. Eventually, Barry knows, they'll find him. If he stays here – shaken and bleeding and too tired abruptly to fight at all – he will be recaptured and sentenced to prison in short time. The phantom ache in his jaw won't be phantom anymore. More ashamed than he has ever been, he pleads, "Forgive me."

Kara doesn't hesitate this time. She steps forward and hooks an arm under his shoulders, pulling him upright. He grits his teeth against the throb of pain that bursts in his shoulder, leaning on her more than he wants to. He can't stand on his own, and so he has no choice but to lean into her. She must feel his weakness, but she doesn't let her guard down: the relaxed, happy Kara he knows isn't the one holding him up with an iron will.

Oliver approaches them at a normal walk. In a voice flattened with resignation, he assesses, "There's no exit wound."

Barry flinches involuntarily. Fuck. "Take it out," he orders dully. "You can do it fast, at least."

A strange softness enters Oliver's voice as he replies, "We'll do it back at the Arrow Cave."

Leaning into Kara so heavily he should slump to the ground, Barry grits out, "I – heal fast, Ollie, it'll – get stuck, you'll have to cut it out, please just –" Deflating, he reaches up with a numb hand, scrabbling uselessly at his own shoulder. "I can take it," he repeats, in a different voice – more scared, more sobered, more resigned.

He waits for the pain to erupt anew, for Oliver to act without a moment's hesitation – do it quick, don't count to three – but Oliver stands nearby impassively. Desperate, Barry pants out, "Please, Oliver."

Oliver looks at him for a long moment, and then at Kara. "You know where—"

"I know where to go," she agrees quietly.

Oliver nods. "Race you," he says, without eagerness, and disappears in a blur of orange light.

Alone with Kara, Barry feels the horrifying burn of tears in his eyes. What kind of Arrow are you? he chides himself.

Kara adjusts her grip minutely around his shoulders, locking it in, and then lunges upward with indescribable power, taking flight. He wants to enjoy it, but the pain is setting in, and the cold air tearing at his shoulder doesn't help. He can't help but think that it's not like this when he runs: the Speed Force is gentle and soft, and he barely if ever feels it as anything more than buoyancy and strength. Supergirl, made of steel – or, at least, something like it – doesn't flinch at the force of the real world unshielded, but Barry does.

They land in front of a familiar place. Barry's vision has already grayed out, and he hears voices speaking at a great distance, their speakers less than ten feet away. His feet move but only sluggishly, dragging across the clean tile, droplets of blood speckling it. Pollock, he thinks, and almost laughs, but he has no strength for laughter and no desire to find it. He moves obediently, silently, into his own sort of Hell, aware that only pain awaits in the glassy, clean vault they call the Cortex.

Except – the Arrow Cave doesn't have a Cortex, not like STAR Labs. There are more people here, too, and he feels suddenly self-conscious as he leans against Kara. She's talking – he can feel the vibrations – but her words come in broken, indecipherable excerpts. There's more chatter – a lot more chatter – and Barry wishes more than ever to slow the world down and process his surroundings rather than being helplessly subjected to them.

Kara gets him up on a steel table. We really need to invest in cots, he thinks, but he's slept on these tables before, countless nights, and is scarcely worse for the wear. He sits upright, one hand creeping numbly towards the wound. She encourages him to lie back, but the thought gives him vertigo. He shakes his head slowly, rejecting the request.

He breathes in and out slowly, bracing himself for the inevitable agony. They'll have to cut the wound open – it's burning, but he knows that it must be half-closed by now – and the thought makes bile rise in his throat. Clenching his free hand around the steel edge of the table, he waits for the tearing, nauseating, unbearable pain.

People talk to him, but he tunes them out, needing space and quiet to blanket himself from reality. Again, less gently, a firm hand encourages him to lie down. Dreading the inevitable, he allows it. It makes sense – hunched inward, a bullet in his collar is virtually irretrievable – but he hates the vulnerability of having his torso exposed. It always means pain. It always means pain.

He sinks into a dull place that he knows all too well and feels cold and wary but non-resistant as someone stabs him right next to the wound. The expectant pain is mild, almost irreconcilable with what he knows, and he feels frustration and nausea welling inside of him. Don't waste your time, he thinks, but he has no voice, and he can only lie there as coldness infuses his skin, numbing it. It won't last.

It shouldn't even be palpable, Barry thinks, in a dull, still-functioning corner of his mind. The animal side is too tense to realize that the pain is retreating – surely, he knows, it will come back forcefully. He feels another, sharper stabbing pain and lurches, nearly falling off the table, before hands intercede. Two hands. One person. Oliver. With inhuman ease and no words, Oliver sets him back onto the table.

Another, milder stabbing sensation, and more of the uncomfortable coldness. This time, the cold lingers and sinks deep into the muscles, paralyzing them, numbing them. It's impossible – painkillers don't work on me – but he feels some of the ache receding, some of the heaviness lifting from his chest. If the sharper instrument – a scalpel, he knows – comes into play, he doesn't notice it.

He wavers, half-awake, half-dead to the world. Eyes closed, he forces them open periodically, a dull panic roaring through him each time when he realizes what is happening, what will happen. Pain. Pain, pain, pain.

There is no pain, and the hands holding him down are relentless, and the only noise he makes is a single aborted whine, entreating what he dares not ask. Please.

He hears them talking, words here and there – bullet, deep, how is – but it doesn't make sense to him. He lets himself drift with the current of his own faltering consciousness, only tuning in periodically. Someone stitches up the skin – he feels the steady but unpleasant tug of a needle on skin – and he wants to tell them not to bother. I heal fast.

It's the mantra that carries him through the operation, and he feels the weight of the hands holding him down loosen but not release. Too exhausted to move – the stress alone is core-rattling; the anticipation is almost too terrible to name – he lies on the table, waiting for the surge of pain to come. He doesn't feel it. Fuzzily, he lifts a hand in front of his own face, like he is afraid that he has somehow drifted into unreality, and sees the bruised knuckles. Bruised. That's not right, either.

Slowly, he struggles upright, aware of the same steely arm from before settling around his back, stabilizing him. Someone speaks to him and shines a light in his eyes, but he stares impassively at it, shadowed by the lights and the ambience of the noisy room. He lets his own gaze drift around, taking in the other occupants – just two; Kara at his side, Oliver nearby, arms folded across his chest protectively – before looking back at the light. It swishes back and forth again. It's still fuzzy.

Is any of this real?

It's hard to believe it's a dream – no matter how realistic the pain is, it's never felt so raw – but he can't accept it at face value. Something is deeply awry. His mind chatters in two incompatible directions: My name is Barry … Jonas Queen. I grew up in Starling City … in Central City. My father's yacht sank in the middle of the North China Sea during a typhoon. My father died with a hand through his heart. My mother, my mother was killed by … by Slade … Slade Zolomon...

His gaze drifts to his bare shoulder, a thick piece of gaze over it, concealing stitches and pain beneath. The pain is mild – hardly the knuckle-whitening, spine-shaking spasms he expects for the next … hour, give or take; pain in his world is as intense as it is temporary. His brow furrows. "I'm losing my mind," he says softly, voice sandpaper thin, as he reaches up to feel the bandage, needing it to be real.

They allow it, but when he tries to peel back the gauze Oliver intercedes once again. "Leave it."

Barry looks at him, hazy-eyed and flushed, and nods once in understanding. He lowers his hand. He exhales. "I don't … I don't understand."

For a small eternity, no one speaks. At last, Kara replies quietly, like his ears were damaged and a loud sound will shatter him: "Speed-healing … isn't a problem for you right now, Barry."

He looks at Oliver, a strange panic overtaking him at the realization that he is not a speedster anymore. His breath, already shallow, quickens. On the verge of hyperventilating, he tries to Flash to his feet, to make the world pause for even a second, but nothing changes. Trapped in the present, he can only stare with vacant panic at the man across from him.

Oliver carefully sets a hand on Barry's, and lightning melts across the contact, sinking into Barry's skin like liquid warmth. The tension in his shoulders relaxes. His unsteady breath evens out. Exhaustion that he has not felt in the better part of five years swamps him, and he all but crumples into Kara.

Darkness alone follows, washing across his consciousness like a midnight tide.

When Barry awakes, the room is not empty. He can hear voices conversing nearby. He tries to open his eyes but finds them heavy and uncooperative. You've faced worse, he braces himself, opening his eyes to slits. He gazes blankly at the stark black ceiling overhead. It should be a white sheet, metallic, unfeeling. His arm throbs with residual pain; his mouth tastes sour. Something is amiss.

He tries to dismiss the feeling and focus on the immediate present instead. Someone had the courtesy to put a pillow under his head and a blanket over him. He sheds the blanket and rises slowly to a seated position. Stretching carefully, he looks at the room's occupants, now silent, as they gaze back at him. A new kind of panic sweeps over him. He forces his voice to cooperate and asks in a deep, sleep-husked voice, "How long was I out?"

Kara glances towards a wall reflexively, but there's no clock on it. Oliver chimes in quietly, "Four hours, give or take." They're so quiet. Almost funereal. It makes him uneasy.

He leverages himself off the bed and onto unsteady feet. They hold. Small mercies. His shirt is nearby, lying across the back of a chair; he grabs it and tugs it gingerly over his head, wincing at the pain.

Four hours, give or take, he thinks, wondering why it still hurts so much.

"What'd I miss?" he prompts mechanically, struggling to shake off the cloud of sleep.

"Not much," Kara replies. "Apparently, we missed a dinner date."

"A what?" His mind is too fuzzy for this. He needs – he needs something, but caffeine won't touch him; the thought drains some of the waning strength from his shoulders.

"Kate Kane," Oliver replies simply. "Her escort tried to intercept us – apparently his welcoming party was meant to get caught – but our successful evasion of Star City's finest threw him off our trail. Took longer, but she's waiting in the Cortex."

Cortex, Barry thinks, and it conjures up a different image than the one he knows lies outside their little alcove, half-operating theatre, half-recovery room. "Who is she?" he asks, lifting an arrowhead and twisting it over in his hand.

"Someone important enough to compromise our secrecy," Oliver replies stoically.

"Sounds important," Barry echoes hollowly, setting the arrowhead aside. He looks at Oliver and Kara with baleful eyes. "I'm sorry."

"You've said that already," Kara reminds quietly.

In a deep, sonorous tone, Oliver adds, "You're forgiven."

Barry nods, grateful beyond words. He reaches up to gingerly rub his shoulder. "We shouldn't keep our guest waiting."

"No," Oliver agrees. "We shouldn't."

And so Barry puts on the mantle – the proper mantle, the stoic Flash mantle – and follows them into the labs. There is already conversation, irreverent, even joyful, as Curtis regales Ms. Kane about something. His conversation dies off, and Kane watches them with a cool, implacable expression.

"I wish I'd known sooner where you'd been hiding all these years, Oliver. It would have made life simpler."

Barry glances towards Oliver, reflexively awaiting for his response, but Oliver doesn't speak. He looks at Barry intently, and after a beat, sluggish and confused, Barry catches on. "What do you want from us, Ms. Kane?" he asks, authoritative and unjudgmental.

The animal urge to fight never arises, even when Kate smiles wolfishly and replies.

"I'm glad you asked."

When the fires burn down and the city finds brittle peace again, Barry knocks on Oliver's door.

It takes thirty seconds for him to respond. Barry isn't surprised; it's almost three in the morning. Wearing a day outfit with a calculating expression, Oliver regards him not with sleepy eyes but alert, thoughtful ones. He steps back, permitting Barry to step inside his space. Full of restless energy, Barry looks at Oliver for a long moment, assessing the man – two supers against one unarmed man. He seems vulnerable. He seems powerful.

He seems a little tired around the edges, and Barry thinks about all the words he could exchange, all the things he wants to, needs to say. Instead, he steps forward, sinks onto the couch, and looks over at Oliver. Oliver promptly – at human speeds, and the world seems right again – retrieves a pair of beers from the fridge. He settles heavily beside Barry, lounging languidly, like a jaguar. Ready to pounce. They clink bottles silently, and he says, "The more time I spend with you and Kara, the less sure I am that I didn't drown in the boat."

Barry draws a deep mouthful of alcohol that won't touch him, can't touch him. Thoughtfully, he admits, "If this is your weird coma dream, I'm flattered to be in it."

Huffing once in amusement, Oliver directs at the barren fireplace, "You were literally in a coma."

"And it literally sucked," Barry agrees, nodding before taking another swill from his bottle. "Don't recommend it."

Oliver nurses his own bottle silently for a moment. At last, he asks, "What was it like?"

Barry sets his empty bottle on the floor and sets his Flash boots gently on the coffee table. "A lot like being the Green Arrow for a day," he says. "I spent a lot of time wondering … waiting for it to feel less real, but all the pieces were there. Everything seemed … normal. Awake. But I wasn't who I was supposed to be."

"Who were you?"

Barry's lips twitch in a smile. "Batman."

Oliver huffs. "Of course you were."

"I met the Vigilante," he adds conspiratorially. "You, but – for some reason you never took off your mask. And I never asked you to. It didn't seem right. We weren't supposed to know each other, in that universe. Not on a personal level." Leaning back into the couch, Barry adds simply, "I … I almost didn't want to wake up. I had an incredible life. It didn't feel like a dream. But it was." Softly, fearfully, he admits, "I worry sometimes that all of this – that I'm still in a coma, and I'm going to wake up and realize that I never had super speed, and I would never have a friendship with you or Kara Zor El, the Girl of Steel – it would make more sense, honestly."

"It would," Oliver agrees carefully. "I guess that's just where you have to trust me when I say it is real."

Nodding – having argued at the ceiling more nights than he can count about the very same dilemma – Barry agrees, "I'm inclined to believe you." A small smile graces his lips. "And even if this is some sort of coma dream … I'm grateful for you, Ollie. For what you've done for me, and … for everything. For this world we're trying to save together. Even if it isn't real."

"For however long it lasts," Oliver says simply, "I'll always be there for you."

And Barry believes him.

"What's it like to be bulletproof?"

Kara laughs, picking off another fresh-off-the-rack donut from her box. "Kind of amazing," she admits, holding out the open box to him as they sit on the rooftop. "What's it like to be friends with the Speed Force?"

Barry makes a noncommittal noise, stuffing a cinnamon-coated donut into his mouth. "Friends is a strong word," he admits, swallowing. "We're more like … playful rivals. It wants one thing, I want another, we meet in the middle and occasionally fight about the outcome."

"What do you fight about?"

Barry sighs, dusting off his fingers at superspeed. "Living life versus running through it."

"That's a good fight," Kara says, reaching over to nick another cinnamon-coated donut from the box. "You should leave the street fighting to Oliver Queen."

Barry huffs. He's grateful that there is no resentment in her words – no resentment in Oliver, either; just acceptance of the facts and the ability to move past an episode in their lives. "He's a tough guy."

"Big softy," Kara says sagely.

Barry almost chokes on a donut, laughing. Thumping his chest with a hand, he adds, "What do you—"

"Big softy," Kara repeats with a knowing smile. "He's got a good heart, underneath all the growling."

"You … have failed … this city," Barry declares in a menacing undertone. Then, with a nod, he adds, "I can see it."

"I can see it in you, too," Kara adds, voice going serious.

Barry looks down at the nearly empty box, fiddling with the edge for a moment. "I … I wish I had a heart as golden as yours, Kara."

"We've all got iron in our veins," Kara says philosophically. "I'm not immune. I get angry, too. It doesn't mean we're less human. Well." A lazy smile uncurls on her face. "It means that I'm more human, because, being raised by humans has made me a lot more … receptive to that."

"I still forget that you're an alien sometimes."

Kara smirks, shutting the empty box of donuts and in one swift motion crushing its remains into a tiny pocket square, tucking it away. "Is that a challenge?"

Barry grins. "Is it?"

Kara climbs smoothly to her feet, and then she hovers a little, invitingly. Setting back down on the ground, she wraps an arm around his shoulders, hard as steel yet gentler than conceivable, and takes off.

With Speed Force in his veins, all he notices is pure, unadulterated, breathtaking joy as they fly.