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thebubblesareevil · 1 year

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Slowing down and Speeding up...

Part 1

The next night, as he prepared for sleep, Barry planned. He had a list of questions and was determined to get them answered. So he kissed his wife and laid down to sleep, determined. He would get answers out of Danny even if it killed him!... Though ideally it wouldn't... hopefully.

Barry laid there for what felt like hours trying to sleep, trying his best not to fidget too much and disturb Iris. Slowly, ever so slowly, Barry began to doze off when...

BEEP...BEEP...BEEP!

Barry jumped out of bed at the sound of his communicator. Grabbing the device he read the message. He sighed as he gave Iris a quick peck on the cheek, telling her to go back to sleep, knowing neither of them would be getting any rest as her own phone began blaring.

Questions would have to wait, for now he had work to do.

--------

Three days and an Alien invasion later, Barry collapsed into his bed. Iris chuckled at her husbands antics.

"Is the big, strong, superhero tired?" She asked, sitting next to him as she gently rubbed his back.

"Hngh" came the muffled reply. Iris chuckled.

"I know, I know, it's been a long few days. That doesn't change the fact that even speedsters need to brush their teeth." Barry groaned. "And no superspeed! As tired as you are you're more than likely to crash into the wall." Slowly Barry dragged himself from the sweet comfort of his pillow to brush his teeth.

Once done, he blearily trudged back to the bed, collapsing once more. Iris chuckled before draping the covers over his prone form. She turned off the lights before joining him in bed.

Barry barely processed anything as she ran her fingers through his hair before wrapping an arm around him.

"You did such a good job sweetie, you saved so many lives, and I'm proud of you." Barry barely managed a smile as she kissed him. "Now get some sleep, you've earned it."

"Yr suu prrft, I lrve u Rs." Barry mumbled as he drifted off to sleep, as his wife giggled.

"I love you too."

---------

When Barry's eyes flew open, he was almost as tired as when he shut them. He was surrounded by a tunnel of rushing light, his first instinct was to run of course, before his last dream came to mind. He took deep calming breaths as he let go of his tight grip on the speed force. Exhaustion flowed through him, but (at the risk of sounding like a certain bat) he had questions that needed to be answered, so he walked.

And Walked...

And Walked......

And-

"What are you doing?"

Barry's eyes flew open, though when they closed he couldn't say, only for him to jump back from Danny's face that was a mere 2 inches from his own. The teen burst out laughing.

"Where the heck did you come from!?!" This only seemed to make the teen laugh more.

"Dude, you've been walking around with your eyes closed for about an hour!" Barry turned red from embarrassment. Doing his best to salvage the situation Barry cleared his throat.

"Yes, well, it's been a long week. That's not important! I have some questions for you!" Danny tilted his head to the side while pointing a single clawed finger at his chest. "Yes you!" He shouted. Danny grinned.

"Okay, shoot! What do you want to know?" Barry was nearly taken by surprise but quickly recovered.

"Okay, first things first, why are we here?" Danny looked at him like he was crazy.

"You went right for the difficult questions, huh. I mean I'd like to say we all have a purpose, although I learned that sometimes that purpose is to help someone else's purpose. I mean... there's no real set answer I don't think, however-" Barry just stared at him blankly before shaking his head.

"I meant in the Speed Force! I mean if you happen to know the meaning of life we can talk about that later, but for now I just want to know why we are in the Speed Force." he interrupted, too tired to run in circles. "I've talked to other speedsters about this dream before and none of them have ever been here, so why are we here?"

"Oh! Well that's a much easier question!" Danny gave him a fanged grin. "I'm here because I was wandering around the Infinite Realms and stumbled upon this little piece of heaven. As I've said before, prime napping real estate, or anything really. You and Speedy Gonzales are the only other people I've ever run into here, and he never really bothers me anyway." he shrugged at Barry's look of shock and annoyance.

"As for you, that's a whole other can of worms. After the last time we ran into each other, I asked around some of the older circles of ghosts. It was actually one of the Observants that had the answer, or at least a vague explanation." Danny put his hands behind his head as he got himself comfortable, floating mid-air. Barry was not jealous, thank-you-very-much.

"And?" He pushed.

"And for some reason you've got a stronger connection with the speed force than the others. Something about how you generate energy when you run. They wouldn't explain more than that, they're pretty annoying like that." he shrugged. "Sorry if it's not the answer you were looking for." Barry sighed.

"It was less than I'd like, and more than I expected. Okay, next question. Who is that other guy? Why was he after me?" The half-ghost cringed with a hiss.

"I was afraid you would ask that... he's kinda complicated." Danny sat cross-legged as well as crossing his arms. "So from what I can tell is he's kinda your grim reaper." Barry jolted in shock.

"He's what?!?!"

"Hey, calm down, no need to freak out!" Danny replied trying his best to calm the panicking speedster.

"You just told me the grim reaper is after me and you want me to calm down?!?!?" he shouted.

"He's not after you, for Ancient's sake! Sit Down!" he commanded and to his own surprise, Barry sat down.

"He is the grim reaper of speedsters, but the only reason he was chasing you is because you were running around in the Speed Force. That's how you mess with things that shouldn't be messed with, and it's his unending job to stop/punish people who mess with those things."

"And exactly would I be messing with?" He asked, doing his best to calm down.

"Space-Time. Now next question, I came here to get my homework done. I may have more time here but it's not infinite." Barry took a deep breath, nodding.

"Okay, well I guess the biggest question I have is about you." Danny raised his eyebrow, curious. "You said you died, can I ask how?" Danny froze, possibly literally as Barry started to feel a chill in the air.

"That's...That's not really something you should ask ghosts. It's considered extremely insensitive and rude, honestly most ghosts would attack you for asking something like that." Barry nodded.

"Hey, it's okay, you don't have to answer if you don't want to." Danny took a deep breath and nodded.

"My sister thinks I need to talk about it, she's probably right as usual."

"If you want to talk about it, you can do so at your own pace. No pressure." Danny smiled softly.

"Thanks, I might take you up on it sometime. Now it's my turn to ask a question." Barry grinned.

"Fair is fair, hit me."

"Why are you so tired? You haven't been here in about a week so I gotta admit I'm curious about what you've been up to." Danny shrugged. Barry laughed.

"My Earth got hit by an alien invasion, the whole league was fighting them back for the last three days. We managed to stop the invasion and Superman (Danny snorted) managed to broker a peace treaty to prevent future conflict." Danny was grinning through the whole explanation. "What's with that face?" Danny chuckled (no it wasn't creepy, calm down Barry)

"So let me get this straight. You have ALIENS, ALIENS in your world, and they invaded." His grin got bigger, showing off his jagged teeth, as Barry nodded. "We are going to unpack the fact that you have a guy on your team that calls himself Superman later. Right now I need you to tell me EVERYTHING! What did they look like? Were they green? Did they fly? Were they able to breath oxygen or did they use gas masks? Why did they invade? What planet were they from?!?!" Barry was honestly impressed by how much the ghost was vibrating as he shot off question after question. Barry cleared his throat.

"Well, I'm gonna be honest I don't have all the answers about those particular aliens. I was more concerned with stopping the invasion more that anything." Danny visibly deflated as he started to droop from where he was floating. "But! I have a teammate that's from Mars." The ghost immediately perked up, his form glowing brighter than before.

"SERIOUSLY?!?!?!" He shrieked. Barry chuckled, happy to see him excited about something normal.

"Oh yeah, Superman is actually from the planet Krypton and Hawk man and Hawk woman are both from Thanagar. Hell if you wanna reach a bit, Green Lantern may be from Earth but he's a space cop." Danny could light up a room with how much he was glowing at this point.

"Tell me all about the Martian! You can tell me about the others later, but you gotta tell me about the Martian."

"Okay, okay, but not for long. You already said you needed to do homework." Danny groaned but conceded, giving Barry his full attention. "Okay so in the League he goes by the name Martian Manhunter, but his real name is J'onn J'onzz. He was pulled from his planet in the middle of a war...on accident. The poor scientist had a heart attack when he saw J'onn show up outta nowhere. He kept himself hidden for years to keep the government off his back, but when the world needed him he joined the league." He grinned.

"He's a pretty chill dude, honestly, once you get passed the telepathy. I won't tell you everything about him, cus superhero bro code and all that, but he is in fact green, he can shapeshift, as well as density shift through most solid objects, oh and he can fly too." He finished with a yawn. Danny practically squealed in excitement.

"That's so awesome! I'm so jealous, I wi-" Danny froze looking around, much to Barry's confusion. "I very much would love it if I could meet him." Barry squinted at the strange pause but shook his head, too tired to question it. Danny however started to give him a smug look.

"You look like you're about to collapse." Barry yawned.

"You're not wrong." he remarked.

"Why don't you lay down and get some sleep? I've gotta do my homework anyway."

"But...I am asleep?"

"You might be asleep physically, but mentally you are talking to me. I'm guessing this is honestly a weird astral projecting kind of thing. Trust me, lay down, take a nap. You'll thank me for it later." Barry sighed, too tired to argue as he laid down on the, surprisingly comfy, ground.

Danny floated close by, the soft scratched of pencil against paper lulling him to sleep.

-----

Barry woke with a start, jumping from the ground, startling the floating teen. He quickly looked around surveying the area.

"Feel better?" He looked at the teen in surprise, because yes he did, he felt much more awake.

"How long was I asleep?" Danny shrugged.

"I don't know, maybe 20-30"

"Not bad for a 30 min nap." He said as he stretched.

"Yeah, no, sorry. You slept for 20-30 HOURS. Minimum." Barry froze.

"What?"

"Oh yeah, I actually just got back from school. You must have been really tired!" Danny grinned.

"How? Why am I still here? Why am I not home?!?" Barry began to shake as Danny raced up to the speedster.

"Hey, Barry, I need you to calm down. Time works differently, remember? Everything is okay." Danny grabbed hold of Barry's arm only to be thrown of as lightning started to surround him. "Barry, if you don't calm down Zippy is gonna come after you again. I need you to BREATHE!" It was too late, Barry could see him.

The black speedster.

He was coming for him.

Barry backed away from Danny and ran, he ran as fast as he possibly could he ran until-

-----

Barry jumped out of bed, running for his life and straight into a wall.

Iris jumped out of bed at the crash, racing over to her husband's side.

"Are you alright!?!" She asked as Barry groaned.

"Yeah, all good. Can't say the same for the wall." Iris turned to look at the cracked wall with a sigh.

"Barry, I love you. This is the third time this month. We have got to put some kind of cushioning on this wall if we wanna keep it."

Barry sighed, taking in his surroundings.

He felt better rested than he had in years. He grinned.

"You're probably right, I'll get right on that. But first, breakfast!" He smiled at his beautiful wife.