They all turned to him as he started to explain.

"When we got there, we were waiting for confirmation that an enemy base was working in the forests. We got word and had orders to infiltrate the enemy base and grab a secure hard drive. It was why we had the extended deployment. Without it we would've had to stay longer. They had told us that they needed just us two—"

FLASHBACK - AFGHAN FOREST.

Barry and Kara were silently walking along the narrow pathway. Barry in front and Kara watching his six. In their ear they heard General Lane, 'Sitrep?'

'Nothing yet sir.' Barry sighed.

They began walking forward when, all of a sudden, their coms began to crackle. 'General?' Barry said.

Shortly after Kara said, 'Sam? Ya there?'

When she got no answer they moved a bit back and once they thought they were far back enough, Barry said 'General Lane, come in.'

'Allen. What's wrong?'

'There's a slight interference with the comms. We'll be dark until we find the base.' Barry replied.

'No. Fall back. We can't have you go into the unknown with no one on the receiving end.' Lane said as soon as he heard Barry's comment.

'But Gener-' Barry began before being interrupted by Lane.

'Sergeant Bartholomew Henry Allen. I will NOT explain to my superiors and to your wife and Kara's fiancée and both of your family and friends that you were killed in a mission with no back up. Also it is borderline stupid.'

'Sir-' He was interrupted again but not by Lane. By Kara.

'Sir, with all due respect you sent us in this op. It's the main reason why we came and without it the whole thing is blown. You said yourself, you need the best. We can give that to you.'

She heard silence and continued speaking, 'While you two were shouting at each other I walked father up. There's a small warehouse just 1/2 a mile up from here. There's a couple of jeeps parked outside filled to the brink with ammo and guns. There's an insurgent which I could see had a few RPG's in the back and one guard by the door with a customised M191. I think the warehouse is about 12x15 meters squared from the angle I was looking. It could hold the hard drive with a medium sized army inside or it could be a distraction. Either way it's the only lead we have at the moment.'

'Okay, but let us find the schematics for the warehouse. First activate the cameras we placed in your vests. We may not be able to talk to you but we need to see.' Lane caved.

'Copy.' They said.

'Hold tight and whatever you do, DO NOT let your guards down.'

'Yes sir.' Barry replied.

They activated their cameras and stuck to the shadows beneath the trees. After a few minutes they saw 2 more jeeps move into the direction of the warehouse.

'Do we follow it?' Barry asked.

'I don't know. Should we ask Sam?' Kara said.

Barry nodded and said, 'General?'

'Copy.'

'We see two enemy vehicles move towards the warehouse. What's are course of action. Stay or follow.' Barry asked.

'Check it out. But do not, under ANY circumstances, engage the enemy.'

'Yes, Sir.' Barry said, slightly terrified.

Kara had asked, 'what if they see us? Should we abort or return fire?'

'If it is absolutely inevitable, then; only then, you engage.'

'Copy that, Sir. Over and out' she replied.

They moved forward, still sticking to the shadows to not draw attention.

They had walked for about 10 minutes when they heard voices. They sat down behind a large boulder and listened in. A deep voice came from behind them and started,

'Boss says we have to make sure no one comes. Apparently there's been some do-gooders snoopin' about.' A feminine voice came after him and replied.

'Dan, calm down. Even if there was an army comin down at us, they would never get passed.'

'True...'

'We have motion sensors in the building so no one will get in without being blown up or after 100 rounds unload into them. We're covered.'

'Ye-' just as she was about to reply, Barry's foot had slipped and broken a twig, before they could lift themselves up off the boulder the man from before had shouted, 'CONTACT! CONTACT!'

Barry gave Kara an apologetic look but she just looked at him sympathetically before steeling her face and lifting her gun.

She said, 'you go after the hard drive, I'll cover you.' He just nodded as she lifted off of the ground and began firing. 'Go! RUN BARRY RUN!' (Sorry not sorry). On hearing that he crawled pass Kara, shot a few of the enemies before making a run for the warehouse.

Barry had ran like his life depended on it. And it did. His AND Kara's. He clipped his assault rifle to his vest, pulled out his pistol and began shooting whoever he saw in his way.

Kara shot all of those in her view before reloading.

She heard small footsteps come near. It was either a small child, or an extremely light opponent. It was the second.

As soon as she moved from the rock a boot knocked her gun out of her hands. 'Well well well. What do we have here?' They woman smirked. Kara didn't reply she pulled out a switchblade and pounced at her.

Barry had reached the back of the warehouse. With a badge he had swiped off of one of the body's he'd dropped, he entered. There was containers and crates filled with weapons. He saw movement ahead so he dropped down behind a huge crate.

'Where's the drive?'

'We left it plugged into one of the devices in the computing hub.'

Barry looked around to see if he could find this hub, that's when he saw two doors at his 12. He waited for the boots to subside before moving.

Kara and her opponent were evenly matched. For every punch she threw, Kara countered. The last punch Kara gave dazed her so she used this to her advantage by pulling one of the first moves Oliver thought her. She grabbed her wrist, twisting it and throwing her on the ground. And for good measure, and possibly her own appeal, she kicked her in the face. She was about to touch her comms to ask Barry how he was doing but quickly realised that they don't work. Kara reloaded her gun and ran to the warehouse.

Barry had entered the room and luckily there was no one there. He searched for a computer or laptop or anything that was connected to the hard drive in the gigantic room. He moved past the 5th server block before seeing a laptop plugged into it he ran towards it and instead of disconnecting the drive from the laptop he took them both. He stuffed the laptop between his body and vest. He was about to go out the back door when he heard some footsteps behind him.

Kara stopped at the back of the warehouse. She looked through the door and saw Barry walk into a room. She tip toed into the warehouse and ducked behind a crate. She looked right and there was a small group of people heading towards the doors Barry went through, she then looked left and saw another group of people heading for the door. She counted at least 8 hostiles heading towards the door. Kara took a deep breath, added a suppresser onto her sidearm, held it in her right hand and pulled out a knife she 'borrowed' from Sara. Kara knew the odds weren't in her favour, she would rather die trying than let herself or Barry be kidnapped and tortured. Although she was not a very religious person, she wished someone was looking out for her, as a act of hope she tapped her forehead, middle of her chest, right shoulder then left. She took one more breath, steeled her face, rose from the crates and threw her knife. Kara silently thanked Sara for teaching her that too. All the hostiles took more attention to Kara now, rather than Barry. She ran forward and shot two in the chest then throwing another knife into ones jugular.

Only 5 left.

Kara ran towards a group of two, narrowly avoiding their bullets, lunging her last knife into ones throat and turning to roundhouse kick the other in the face.

3 left.

While recovering from that, Kara was about to turn when she felt some hands picking her up from behind, then throwing her onto the ground. She couldn't even move from the position she was forced into. She was kicked and punched until she felt the familiar shape of her switch knife in the back of her pants. She had managed to move her hand far enough back to pull it out and slash the oncoming foot. The man yelled in pain, and as the other were distracted she pushed onto her knees and stabbed them all.

Kara limped to the room she saw Barry go into and opened the doors. She heard the sound of something unplugging in the distance and began jogging towards it.

Barry heard the footsteps become faster. He grabbed the closest thing he could find and it was his grenade. As he saw the figure moves forward he pulled the pin.

Kara saw Barry hold something in his hands but she wasn't sure what it was. She kept going until she saw him and what he was holding. That's when his stopped dead in her tracks.

Barry threw the grenade but immediately regretted it once he figured out the figure was a bruised and bloodied Kara Danvers. 'DOWN!' He yelled, hating himself for not checking who it was first.

When Kara heard his shout she quickly dove to the left, but it was too late. The explosion sent shrapnel flying and some of it got caught in her right side.

Barry raced over to her and saw blood seeping through her uniform. 'God, Kara in so sorry.' He sobbed.

'Hey, it's okay. You didn't know.' She whispered. 'You need to go.'

'No!'

'You have to get that to Sam.'

'I'm not leaving you.'

'Barry. Please. Don't make me pout.'

Barry laughed at that comment. 'I'm pretty sure I'm immune to that.'

'Wanna bet.' Barry was about to say something but Kara started to cough violently. 'G-get t-that t-to S-Sam.'

'No. One, I'm your best friend. Sorta your brother. Two, I'm your partner and I will never leave your side, either we get out together or we die together.'

'What about Iris? She's waiting for you to come home.'

'Mon-el's waiting for you.' He pointed out.

'He hates me.'

'If he does he's an idiot. But still, you have Alex, Winn, Lena, Eliza, J'onn, everyone from National, Star and Central City. You have Oliver and Sara too. You have people waiting fo you. Kara, you have to survive or everyone will die trying to avenge you.'

Kara smiled slightly with blood staining her lips. 'So dramatic.' Kara's eyes began to close and her smile faltering.

'No. No Kara. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.' Barry sobbed. 'It should've been me. It should've been me.'

END OF FLASHBACK

Kara looked down as everyone stared at Barry, in what only could be described as shock, more than anything else.

"I am sorry, Kara." Barry said with tears brimming the surface of his eyes.

"I know you are, you big idiot. If I wasn't so sure that Caitlin would push me back down if I stood up, I would give you a hug." Kara smiled. "So I am giving that pleasure to your wife." And that's what Iris did. She wrapped her arms around her husband as he cried on her shoulder.

"Barr. It's okay. You're a soldier. You make mistakes. God knows how many me and Lyla made when we were in the Army. It's natural." Dig said.

"Johnny's right. What's done is done. All you need to do is move forward. Be happy you haven't lost soldiers on your order." Lyla assured Barry.

"See, now stop crying and come and give me a hug." Kara laughed. Barry smiles and removed himself from Iris' grasp, he moved towards Kara and engulfed her in a strong hug.

"Not too hard Barry. I still need to tend to her wound.' Caitlin said. Barry nodded and gave Kara a kiss on the cheek before going back to Iris.

Oliver made his way to Kara's left side and unconsciously held her hand as she winced whenever Caitlin applied any sort of pressure. But she squeezed the hardest when Caitlin added some rubbing alcohol onto it. He was sure that Kara would've broken his hand is she had superhuman strength. He just stared at her, admiring her strong heart, her toothy smile, her optimism even in the worst kind of situation. He loved everything about her. But he couldn't tell her. He didn't want to force her or overwhelm her. He wanted her to be comfortable. He would wait till he knew it was the right time before telling her. But first he had to get used to it himself. He couldn't believe it. He loves Kara Danvers.

He loves her.

And he loves loving her.