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reylo-love-theme · 4 years

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Specific personal reasons why Ben dying really hurt

Disclaimer: i know people have had many dif reactions to this movie and for those of you that liked it good for you. this is my personal opinion on my own blog so please don't attack or debate me in the comments just go make your own post please if you feel that. I respect you all and I'm just trying to cope.

This post is for people who are in a similar situation as me and want a place to relate or their thoughts turned into words.

1. I'm a childhood abuse victim myself and 2019 was a terrible year full of my trying to deal with my past and my cptsd and my toxic shame. I barely made it.

Ben Solo was a reminder that it's not too late to save yourself and that people you love do care for you. I literally leaned solely on reylo fanfiction during my darkest times for this aspect of hurt/comfort and redemption and recovery.

2. I had never went to watch a movie of my own free will (see number 1). Doing this was terrifying since I had to overcome so many triggers. I chose to watch TROS so that it would end my year on a happy note with a postive message of hope, love and recovery.

3. The only reason that I shipped Reylo was because I had investigated very throughly and had become certain they would get a happy ending.

I have a tendency of relying on fictional characters for the support I do not have in real life so I needed to choose who I love very carefully or else when I loose them I'm actually in terrible pain.

The worst thing was that I wasn't prepared for it. (Preparing and being nihilist had given me depression and I literally pulled myself out of that thought process for this hope of Ben living. It seemed so close to happening and I got stabbed in the stomach and left in a puddle of blood)

Now, I'm struggling really hard not to blame myself for falling for false hope again (I had made that mistake once and swore off hope for like 11 years) (even though I know that being so cynical is terrible for my health)

4.I stepped on Reylo in 2018/2019 fully and spent a whole year looking forward to this movie. It brought me so much joy and I tamped out my inner cynic that said "putting your hope in something you love will only let you down".

I told myself that even with all that has happened in 2019, making it to December and watching the movie would be symbolic for me (a way of saying "look world, I made it.")

5. The message the movie sends me is just.... I really can't. I don't understand why it couldn't be a happy ending for Ben who literally redeemed himself. For me personally, I don't consider a kiss and a smile and then death a happy ending. What does that mean for me? A person who related so heavily to this broken struggling character. Does it mean that all my pain was worth nothing in the end? That those who I love will never love me back or remember me or even care that I was abused and my trauma made me a literal walking self-defence mechanism? That the only ending the general population accepts as morally correct is for "bad" abuse victims to die?

And the message of Ben dying for someone he loves (while not a bad trope) is toxic because of the way it is shown. Even with the emoting on Rey's behalf, it's not enough to justify someone dying for that. (There just isn't enough romance or support from Rey (unlike TLJ)) It seemed like an unbalenced love (because of the way Rey just kept on rejecting him and hurting him without really trying to help (until the end where literally he sacrificed himself, would someone who loved you do that?)

And the additional message that Ben's family would help a random stranger but not the person that literally needed them and still loved them after all the abandoment he went through. My family literally turned a blind eye (or just blamed me as a weakling for reacting to it) to my abuse and that is what happens to Ben. Even at his death, not one single member of his family (Han was just a memory) was there to mourn him or even help him (Leia's disappearance thing I'm so confused on what the heck happened, why the heck did Maz smile if Ben just literally died and his mom died trying to save him.)

And no one bothered to be on his side, he literally had to redeem himself the whole way. That isn't a good message to people who need help. It's literally saying that you are the only one who can save yourself (not a bad message by itself but the strength of the message comes from the fact that others can stand by you as you save yourself not BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL OR WILL HELP YOU)

Anakin sidelineing him for Rey was just salt in the wound.

As someone who's pain was literally ignored and laughed at by the whole family, this was immensely rage inducing.

And what about rey and her character development? I also had related to her for being abandoned by her parents and left to fend for herself. She was a nobody who was strong on her own. She didn't need to be related to a strong lineage. Additonally, ending up all alone on the same kind of desert she started at is not a good message. ( I get the nostalgia thing but they could have literally used any other character, Rey wasn't a good choice for that scene) First off, she wanted to get off jakku. She wanted a family. Ben told her she wasn't alone. Next, she needed to realize that being a nobody didn't mean she was worthless ( a strong and powerful message to ordinary girls) (not find out oops i was from a loving family all along!!!) That isn't good plot when she literally spend two movies recovering from her parents abandonment (it makes it seem like ohhh they loved you and this was the only best

thing they could do!! XOXO (this is a common victim blaming trick abuse apologizers use to silence victims pain)) it would have made sense if she found this out earlier but to do this to an already developed character arc is just sucky. Her turning dark influenced by palp is not as good a message as her turning dark influenced by her past and her overcoming it anyway. For star wars, a theme has always been hope, love and redemption and I feel like the theme was picked up but not carried through in one character, instead spread throughout everyone but leaving a sense of unsatisfactory ending since no one really ended their arc. (In my opinion, you can have a different one)

6. Ben dying. That is just cruel and sadistic..there were already so many "surprise they are alive illogically!" Moments that JJ could literally have pulled one for Ben a final time and no one would have batted an eye. It would have suited the style of the movie. It was such a bad shock for me. The movie already baited my heart several times with Ben nearly dying and I cheered internally when he came back. I held out my hope till the very end of the credits and this movie just made of fool of me. I was ready to gloss over any and all flaws and buy merch if only Ben had been loved and lived.

7. The way it affected me. (Warning this might be upsetting to read so skip if you don't want to hear about mental health right now)

I was in so much shock as I stumbled out of the theater that I literallt thought I was going to be okay. I couldn't feel anything and I felt sick and empty. (That's not a reaction a star wars movie should give or any "hopeful" movie)(this is coming from someone who has watched the sacrifical death trope many times and cried (it was a good hurt))

This wasn't because there was literally no resolution or purpose to the death. It seemed like a cliche trope failure of redemption=death. But with the added on "no mourning, superfical loss". (It would have been more acceptably had it been a side character, bad writing can excuse it, but for a main half of the protagonist this is just sick)

I wandered home mechanically on Friday and then as soon as I thought back to the scene where Ben smiled and died I broke down crying. And I lost all my appetite and felt nauseous for an entire two days. I barely ate two meals during that time because I was so distraught and my mental health crashed completely back into my worse cptsd symptoms and nightmares and insomnia and waking up to panic attacks. I wasn't functioning, I kept trying to pull myself together but my only postive coping mechanism(reading reylo fanfiction) was gone. In fact I felt betrayed that my coping mechanism would actually be the cause of my pain.

I completely felt like those two days were actually traumatizing and as someone who has actually experienced traumatic events I'm using the word in a serious way. Anything can hurt you badly enough if you put enough of your heart and vulnerability into it.

Now it's Monday I'm just trying to recover enough to go outside again but I feel really tired. I'm trying to salvage my christmas and my life as a big middle finger to whoever decided that abuse and mental health could be used as convenient plot points and just discarded and laughed at.

#cptsd #reylo #tros spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #the rise of skywalker #ben solo #ben solo deserved better #rey deserves better #rey #kylo ren

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hozukitofu · 5 years

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Minato, some points

Hello and welcome to Words for Namikaze Minato, our beloved Yondaime Hokage, sensei and elite killing machine:

It baffles me sometimes that he suggested or recommended (I'm sorry for not being up to date with canon to ascertain this) Kakashi into ANBU, you know, the local not-so-secret ninja killing squad. Kakashi has PTSD. He fought in a war. He was made a victim of a teammate's cruel suicide. He watched another got crushed under a rock. He lost an eye, got a Sharingan implant AND THEN gained his Mangekyou. All under a week (in that range somewhere). Any more killing would just destroy the child. He's a child soldier. Any child or human or anything vaguely breathing in him will be gone if he continues killing. Which is conveniently when Minato told him to join the kill squad, which obviously is the best choice and ONLY choice for him, like taking a rest for a year or seeking therapy or talking about his trauma is forbidden and must not be mentioned. He ruined that child, directly or indirectly, by recommending him into ANBU

Also did he like, teach his genin squad anything? I saw them go on missions together and the infamous Bell Test, but did he...like, train the brats? Do they know jackshit about war? Do they know how to fend for themselves? I understand that wars excuse a lot of morally ambiguous acts, and turning children into child soldiers for the state is one among many - so if the state, Konoha, said 'Let the children fight and be puppets for the adults', how come there was no,,,Crash Course 101: Survival Guide for Dummies in A Literal War. Or did I miss out on that in canon - I wouldn't know, I barely glimpsed at the manga

Minor detail, but did he comfort his genin team after the onslaught of trauma or the beloved saying of - 'Well genin are children and they've been in a war and Good Shinobi must suppress their feelings' - because the saying is stupid and they are babies and honestly, I'm 19, I'm young, but if a 13 year old under my tutelage had something distressing happened to them, I would have the human decency to comfort them and check up on them, so that they don't self-destruct and rot away in their confusion. But hey, what do I know, I'm only a kid

I get that he has a responsibility to the village and the village comes first, which I absolutely get, because he's in charge and the safety of everyone relies on him. But in taking that job, he would, at some point, have to make the call between his family and the state, in which case there is pain either way. I don't know how well the Nart fandom us with Agamemnon, but he chose the state over his family and ultimately failed as a father. Minato, though he saved the village from being smashed to smithereens, left his wife and unborn child to the protection of others leading up to the Konoha Nine Tail Smash and Scream episode, sealed a literal demon inside a baby, and then died protecting that baby and consequently the village. Now it's actually just sad because he failed BOTH his son in not protecting him enough and leaving him orphaned and left the village without a leader in the tumult of a Literal Demon Rampage

I just don't think shoving a demon made wholly of chakra into your unborn son was the best choice he could have made but once again, I actually don't know how that all works. Maybe I'm reaching, but he is intelligent. The role of a leader is to protect the safety of the vulnerable citizens in the state, and pregnant women who house chakra demon along with unborn infants are, shockingly, very vulnerable. Protection for Kushina should have been made tighter. Hell, why does Kushina need protection, isn't she a sealing master, can't she help with the protection effort too? Notwithstanding that, Minato should have been checking regularly on the time bomb that is Kushina about to deliver his spawn and the seals that jail the Nine Tail in. If he's not protecting then he should be maintaining. Or researching ways to store the demon outside of a human host. There are seals for everything. You telling me, smart and ruthless fighter with a high scores in the Academy, along with a surviving member of a deadly sealing village, could not come up with an alternative that wasn't Hey let's put the demon into our unborn child? It's just, he's supposedly a genius. Don't geniuses have contingency plans for basically everything? Why is he planning on the spot and willingly throwing his child to the fray? Shouldn't his paternal instincts and love stronger than the village safety? Sealing the kyuubi into Naruto is more for the village than his son and it makes me upset how when he is dying, he prioritises the village before his little crying blonde son, who, reasonably, should be protected by the village and shouldn't have to protect the village at literally hours into the world

New Road to Ninja! Minato just makes me furious, honestly. Maybe I'm too liberal. Maybe I'm too soft. But raising a hand against your child as a discipline method is just inhumane. Okay, Naruto is being an angry, typically rebellious teen. We've all been there. Teenage years are fraught with parents wanting to tear their hair out because their wayward spawns are so infuriating. And they won't goddamn listen. I get it. I have younger cousins and a brother. I was myself, an angry and stupid teenager. Still am. But that does not excuse, under any circumstances, violence against your child. You, the parent, the idol, the caretaker, the guardian, the everything your child look up to, you have just betrayed that trust by raising your hand and striking your child. It does not matter how hard or not you've struck them, it's the ideology and belief that this is the only way to get them to listen and no other method works. It angers me. It angers me that Minato, who is gentle and understanding and kind and sweet, would hit his visibly angry for no reason and confused son, who ought to be a beloved piece of himself and should be reasoned with. Naruto is angry, yes, and reckless, and could have endangered the mission, but he is with sense and explanations will eventually make it through his head. The utter betrayal a child feels when struck by their parents is inexplicable. The child has only you and you have betrayed their unwavering belief in you as an adult. Any reasonable adult would not just hit any child on the street, so why would their own child make any difference to a stranger? Kinship and blood should not be a leeway to excusing violence against your ward. That is illegal and gross and utterly disappointing. Naruto does not respect Minato anymore than he wasn't when he was hit. Minato's disciplinary methods were just edging towards him establishing superiority over his son and staking a claim on the fact that he is his son and he can do whatever it is imaginable to get him to listen, which is just ew and ineffective. Minato's words are what got through to Naruto, which then rendered the slap across the face, hard, pointless and just plain violent. Naruto listened, and talking to him would have been achievable if, you know, Minato regard him as an equal and use his words, which he didn't. When a parent strike their child, they demean their ward and it is a behaviour I can't accept no matter what the reason behind it is

I also understand that he is a fictional character and his actions are entirely up to how Kishi dictated. I do want to put it out there that I love and admire him, as a shinobi and a leader, but probably not as a parent and teacher, not after I've given out these points. Of course, they are only my own rambling thoughts and nobody is under any obligation to listen fully to what I say. You can argue and debate against it, of course, but I don't believe this will attract much traction, just keep it critical and respectful!

#minato namikaze #naruto #kishimoto #Some Rants #i just have a lot of feelings about this subject matter

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backtothestart02 · 7 years

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He is Home to Me

SPOILERS!!!!!

A/N: I’m putting most of this under the cut because it is based not only off of the 3x19 promo but also that HUGE Savitar spoiler that was floating around a couple weeks ago. Enter at your own risk.

*Many thanks to @valeriemperez for being the most epic beta ever & beta’ing this whole thing (12 pgs, 5,000+ words) in less than an hour and a half. QUEEN.

NOTE: I did do a bunch more grammatical edits after posting here & tumblr doesn't want to repost a whole 'nother 5,000 words lol, so if you want to see the BEST version of this, I highly recommend reading it on AO3 - and on FFnet when I upload it there. :)

Synopsis: Based off 3x19 promo (& spoilers) - Barry comes back from 2024 with confirmation of who Savitar really is. It’s so crushing he can’t face the team, especially not Iris.

(#2) A/N: This fic is inspired by the theory that has been floating around for months, and the bombshell a jerk reporter dropped, that Barry is likely Savitar (or at least he looks like him). So this fic is about Barry coming back from 2024 with this knowledge, telling the team, and the fall out from all that. Obviously this was written BEFORE 3x19 aired, so any details of what actually happened while Barry was in 2024 are based entirely on what the promo gave us or any spoilers we already had. Minor references to the Killer Frost subplot.

The speed force hummed around him in the familiar blurring colors of blue and white. He was desperate to get out of 2024, to get back home to a place where he could breathe again, though he worried there wouldn’t be a difference. Because now he knew things. Things he wouldn’t be able to hide, or else how could he help his team then? He couldn’t lie to them. But he also didn’t know what good telling the truth would do. It would make matters worse. It would leave them stranded.

Before Barry could make any concrete decision on how to proceed, his mind refocused, and he was there in STAR Labs in front of younger, more hopeful versions of the people he’d just left behind. And of course, the one person that hadn’t been there at all.

“Barry!” He heard Cisco shout, and then felt everyone crowding around him in his weariness as he slowly came to a grip with the new reality - or the old one?

Looking on, everyone could see their hero looked tired, like he’d just lived through a nightmare and wasn’t quite grasping that he was awake now – and safe.

“Barry?” Iris ventured, slowly coming towards him.

She was almost to him when his head snapped up, his eyes wide with horror. The expression alone was enough to make her stop, but then the concern on his face twisted into an agony she’d never seen there before.

“Stay away from me, Iris,” he said, not cold or cruel but almost desperate.

Her brows furrowed, and Joe took a step toward them.

“Bear.”

Barry’s gaze switched to his, and he swallowed hard.

“What did you see?” he asked.

Barry turned away from him and started to pace, running his hand through his hair, trying to put into words everything he’d seen and felt, what the world had become without Iris West and who the cause of her demise truly was.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

“I saw all of us.” He lifted his head to look at Joe. “I saw you.” He turned to look at Cisco. “And you.” He didn’t dare look at Wally, was still too shaken up by the sight of him in a wheelchair. “Wally too, and…” He took a breath. “I saw myself.”

“Did you find out who Savitar is?” Joe asked.

The words hit him as hard as the answer had the moment he’d realized it – or been told. It was hard to remember which had really happened now. Savitar’s true identity had blinded him so much he’d nearly passed out in a back alley of 2024 Central City. Then he’d had to fend off metahumans. And then…

“Yes,” he said quietly, breaking the silence after as much of a delay as he could get away with.

Instinctively, everyone moved a little bit closer.

“Who…wh-who is he?” Iris asked. Joe came beside her and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close.

Barry couldn’t look at her for a while. He was glad she had Joe, but he hated that she was the one to ask. He could already see everyone recoiling from him in his mind as soon as he gave them the answer they all thought they wanted.

“Is it someone we know?” Cisco asked, probably able to tell the identity was going to crush them all, but maybe that gradual questioning was easier than a blunt answer.

“Yes,” Barry said, a tear trickling down his cheek.

Iris broke free of her father’s hold and went to Barry before he could stop her.

“Oh my god, Barry, who is it?”

He flinched and tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him. Then she placed her hands on his face and forced to look at him.

“Tell me,” she pleaded on a soft whisper. “The sooner we all know the sooner we can stop him.”

His breath hitched. He knew he couldn’t put off the inevitable for a moment longer. He was ready for the fear and hatred, ready to be disowned and turned against. How could anyone believe in him once they knew? How could anyone not feel betrayed, not feel like they’d been wasting their time on someone they believed to be good and a hero? Not Joe, not even Iris would stand by him now.

After all, how did one defeat a future version of one’s self.

“It’s me.”

Iris’s brows furrowed.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.”

“It’s me, Iris. A future version of me comes back in time and kills you.”

The initial horror in his eyes faded to instantly be replaced by confusion and firm denial.

“No,” she said. “No, there’s no way.”

She turned to the others to get back up, but they had already started to create some distance between themselves and their hero. Even her dad…

“Iris.”

The word was firm, and when she turned to look at Joe, she saw at the no-nonsense look in his eyes. He held his hand out to her, but there was no warmth there. It was a command. He didn’t trust she was safe even now, standing so close to her one day would-be killer.

She scoffed. “Dad.”

“Iris, he’s right.”

She turned around to look at her Barry, the man she loved more than anything. He was inching away again and she knew in a moment he’d be away from all of them, unable to look them in the eye.

“If I’m capable of…of hurting you in the future.” He shook his head. “Who knows what I’m capable of now?”

“Bar—”

Her bottom lip trembled and tears filled her eyes. But Joe cut off any further interaction by catching her off guard and pulling her to his side. By the time she’d pushed herself away again, upset beyond belief by her father’s severe behavior, Barry was gone, leaving all of them only with the heavy bombshell he’d brought back from the future.

The god of speed, the man responsible for so much death and destruction, was their Barry in the future. A hero turned into the most powerful evil villain any of them had encountered.

What do we do now? hung in the air, but nobody moved, and nobody said a word.

…

Barry was glad for the darkness at the waterfront. He was glad for the sole light drawn from the full moon and the soft lapping of waves against the pier.

Perhaps glad wasn’t the right word, but he did feel a sense of relief.

There was no one around to judge him or be afraid of him. No sense of impending disaster. With any luck his future self wouldn’t show up to taunt him about his fate. It was already eating him up inside, already driving him mad with hatred and despair.

How could he ever be capable of killing Iris? The woman who mattered to him more than anyone else in the world. How could he?

Every day since the moment he met her he’d wanted nothing more than to make her laugh and smile and feel loved. He fed off her light and relished in it. Her smile dazzled him. Her joy made him giddy. And whenever she was hurt, when he found her crying, no matter how rare it was, it absolutely destroyed him.

How could he be the cause of bringing her pain? Of ending her life?

What had happened that would twist him to the point that the one core part of him changed so drastically? What made him into a villain?

His eyes filled with tears. He did nothing to stop them from flooding down his face. The wind whipped around him, drying his skin and then making his eyes burn. His hair tossed about and he realized then how careless he was being.

Just because it was the middle of the night didn’t mean people couldn’t still be out. If someone were to walk by, see him with his cowl down, and realize…

Not that it mattered, he thought sullenly.

The Flash was a fraud, a demon in disguise. The inevitability of him becoming a villain was set in stone as clearly as Caitlin’s had been.

What hero had he even been to her? He’d barely wasted any time convincing the team after he found out what happened that he still needed to go into the future. Caitlin would still be Killer Frost when he returned. She would still need to be found, according to the headlines broadcasted a month from now.

All that had mattered was finding out other clues about the future, most importantly Savitar’s identity.

Well, he found it.

Even Killer Frost wasn’t the monster he would turn out to be.

He inched closer to the water and looked down into it, wondered how cold it was and how hard it would be to breathe if you were to be pushed under.

Or go willingly.

…

Back at STAR Labs, Iris struggled to hold onto her sanity as she fought to convince the team - most importantly her father - that their Barry, 2017 Barry, wasn’t a threat.

“Can’t you see he’s a danger, Iris? He kills you!”

“Dad. He’s Barry. Our Barry.”

“Yeah, and ‘our Barry’ becomes so twisted that he comes back and murders you, the woman he supposedly loves.”

“Something must have happened,” she’d protested. There was no point trying to convince him that Barry loved her. Anyone could see that he did. “Barry would never do this. You know he wouldn’t.”

Joe said nothing, only shook his head.

“He’s like a son to you,” she cried out, in disbelief that he would turn on Barry so quickly and that not even she could persuade him otherwise. “You know him!”

His shoulders sunk in on themselves, and Joe heaved a heavy sigh, “I thought I did.”

Iris spun around to Cisco…Wally…Julian…HR in the hopes of getting back up, but they all turned away from her. Wally shook his head, part disgust, part sadness that she could be so blinded by her love as to not see what was right in front of her. Julian was at a loss. Months earlier he probably could’ve gotten right on board with hating Barry – “I knew there was something off about him. All along he was the one we should’ve been afraid of,” he might have said. Now he looked conflicted, but not enough to back her up.

“He’s your best friend, Cisco,” Iris spat, positive if anyone would believe Barry wasn’t as evil as he’d just told them all he’d be, it would be Cisco.

But Cisco sighed and looked at her just as sadly, when he had the courage to look at her at all.

“I don’t know, Iris. Barry is the only one that went to the future and found out who Savitar was. He has no reason to lie to us. And why would he deliberately tell us it was himself, of all people?” He sank into himself a little too. “It has to be true.”

Her eyes moved to H.R., her one last hope, but all he did was shake his head and glue his eyes to the floor. There was no knowing what he thought, but he sure wasn’t going to help defend Barry to her father.

And so, Iris left STAR Labs and returned home to hers and Barry’s loft, the one place she felt safe and warm and not crazy.

There was no denying that Barry’s announcement had hit them all hard. She hadn’t let herself think about it too much because she was so appalled by everyone’s instant wariness and fear of Barry, who’d looked absolutely crushed by what he’d had to reveal.

As time passed and she sat alone on the windowsill where he’d proposed, the possibility that her Barry might be the one to… Well, it did weight on her. It made her sick to her stomach, and it broke her heart. But as much as it did all those things, she knew for Barry it must be ten times worse than everyone’s fear and anger and shock combined.

Here he had been so desperately trying to save her, using whatever means necessary, to the point that he almost lost what made Barry, Barry, and the Flash, the Flash - only to find out that he was the cause of it.

No.

She refused to believe that. It wasn’t him. There had to be some sort of explanation. Wells wasn’t Wells and Zoom hadn’t been Jay. There was no way Savitar, the man fated to kill her in less than a month was the love of her life; her heroic, heart of gold Barry Allen.

Her Barry Allen would never hurt her, but her Barry Allen was hurting, consumed with guilt and drowning in the sadness and rage of what he believed he would one day become. He feared even now he was a threat to her life.

Iris lifted her phone to her ear, hand shaking. She swallowed hard and listened to the repeated rings. The possibility he would answer was slim, she knew, but that hadn’t stopped her from needing to call him.

All she wanted to do was hold him, to tell him it wasn’t him, that there had to be something they didn’t know, something he hadn’t seen. A future version of himself coming back in time to murder the woman he loved? Not a single part of it made sense.

But her Barry refused to pick up his phone. She didn’t know where he was or what he was doing.

All she knew was that she needed to be with him. She needed to remind him there was always another way, that she wasn’t afraid of him, and that they would face this together, whatever evil existed behind that face that wasn’t her Barry would be defeated.

But how could she do any of that if she didn’t even know where he was?

“Hey, Barry,” she sighed into the phone. “I know you’re hurting and you’re afraid. You’re scared of what you think you might do to me. But I need you to know you’re not that person. You’re not Savitar. I love you. I’m not afraid of you. You make me feel safe. Just…” Her breath caught in her throat, and she knew she was near tears. “Please come home.”

She ended the call and cradled the phone in her lap.

“Come home to me, Barry,” she whispered, gazing out into the night, the city stretching out before her.

Her eyes searched the scene for any sign of a flash of red, any reassurance that he was coming home to her. Maybe he had gotten her message and just couldn’t bring himself to respond. Maybe he would phase through their front door and just stand there. And then she’d go to him and he’d fall into her and she’d hold him close and he’d let her be the rock he needed even though his news had shaken her just as much.

She just wanted him home.

But there was no sign of him. Only sparse city lights and the deep darkness on the horizon.

…

At 3 a.m. Iris strode into the cortex at STAR Labs to find Cisco’s head starting to bob and his body slouch over as he fought to stay awake. Her clicking heels must’ve been enough to jolt him fully awake though because as soon as she was before him, he snapped to attention and looked at him with wide eyes, quickly slurping up the rest of his cherry slushie.

“Find Barry,” she demanded, her eyes full of fire, leaving no room for discussion.

Very slowly Cisco set his empty slushie cup down.

“I know you can find him,” she informed him. “You have a tracker on his suit and you can track him by the lightning in his system, the same way King Shark tracked him down.” She placed her hands on his desk and leaned towards him, successfully coming across with just enough intimidation to make Cisco nervous. “So, don’t tell me you can’t find him, because I know for a fact that you can.”

Silence hung between them, but Cisco knew he couldn’t let it last much longer. He was already risking his own personal health and well-being by not doing what she said immediately.

“How do you know I was here?” he finally said cautiously.

Iris’s nails dug into her hips where her hands were currently propped due to her impatience, but apparently, the question was warranted because she didn’t immediately strangle him. He doubted though that she hadn’t considered it.

“You weren’t at your apartment,” she said, informing him loud and clear that she’d checked there first. Cisco closed his eyes as she revealed the next piece of news that he knew would solidify his doom. “And there was a note on the door,” she said. “For Barry.”

He opened his eyes slowly, wincing.

“Something tell me it’s not a forgery,” she seethed.

“So…I may have…offered him a place to stay if he didn’t feel comfortable going home to you.”

“But you came here because you’re afraid of him.”

He sighed and hung his head.

“Iris—”

“Or is that not why you came here?” She frowned and suddenly looked around his desk, saw the research flowing over and then the face recognition program glowing on his computer when she rounded the corner to see exactly what he was working on. She sighed.

“I came here to keep looking for Caitlin,” he muttered under his breath. “Obviously, Barry isn’t going to be doing that any time soon.”

Iris’s eyes flashed to his sunken form, annoyed and infuriated but also feeling a sense of guilt and an extreme degree of compassion, because in the fall out of Barry’s revelation from 2024, neither Killer Frost nor Caitlin Snow’s name had been mentioned.

Everyone must have just left after I did, Iris thought, lamenting.

But then another thought occurred to her and her eyes widened in relief.

“You don’t believe he’s evil,” she said, half a gasp in every word he said.

“He’s not evil yet,” Cisco clarified, not looking at her, miraculously letting it slide that she’d completely ignored his comment about Caitlin.

“And the future can be changed,” Iris said excitedly.

“…yes,” he said reluctantly.

“Just like my death can be prevented, so can Barry’s future self not turn evil. We can keep Savitar from ever existing.”

Cisco looked up at her then.

“Well, aren’t you just chipper all of a sudden.”

Iris reined in the hope that had flowered in her and came to sit down beside him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“You need Barry to find Caitlin, right?”

He hesitated and then nodded. “Right.”

“And you don’t believe Barry is evil. You don’t believe our Barry is evil.”

Hesitation again, but followed by another nod.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

Her smile spread. “Then please, Cisco.” She squeezed his arm encouragingly. “Find our Barry.”

He turned to look at her, searched her pleading eyes. Tears were starting to well up, despite her recent surge of positivity.

“Help me bring him home.”

…

They found him exactly where Cisco’s tech had said they would, on the waterfront. He was standing on the edge of a pier looking down into the dark gentle waves. Cisco and Iris shared a look and then Iris squeezed his hand.

“Don’t worry, Cisco. I’ve got this.”

Reluctantly he let her walk away from him, words he couldn’t form on the tip of his tongue.

She turned to look back at him one more time before proceeding.

“It’s okay,” she said, able to squeeze out one tremulous reassuring smile that she hoped would convince him.

Cisco nodded and took a step back, gesturing to the car they’d come in.

“I’ll just be… If you need anything or if something hap—”

“It won’t,” she cut him off, then forced herself to relax so his uneasiness wouldn’t rise up again. She didn’t want him to doubt helping her find Barry. “But thank you.”

She turned back to the waterfront before Cisco could try to dissuade her – since she knew that was still a possibility – and was pleased to find Barry where he’d been before.

He hadn’t spotted them and run off. He hadn’t done the unthinkable and dived into the water with no intention of resurfacing. He just stood there staring, and as she got closer she could see his shoulders shaking.

Any nerves she had dissolved when she saw him lift his hand up to wipe something off his face. Tears. He was crying.

Iris slipped out of her heels and left them on the grass when she reached the edge of the park. She didn’t want any sound to make him run off. She wanted there to be a peace in her arrival, not tension. Granted even a slow approach was bound to surprise him, but she couldn’t help that. With any luck, he’d let her talk to him, and maybe that could lead to him coming home.

One foot halfway on the pier and the wooden board groaned underneath her. She stifled a curse. Of course, she should have remembered how old this pier was. Her father had forbidden her and Barry from ever going on it because of how someone had fallen through it the summer before Barry came to live with them. That part had of course been fixed, but the rest of it hadn’t been and so it was forbidden.

That didn’t stop the two of them from sneaking out to it when school field trips were in the vicinity though.

She reminisced for a few achingly long moments in the memories that felt like a lifetime ago.

But the nostalgia came to an abrupt halt because Barry turned to look at her, eyes wide and stance tense. Neither moved for the space of an agonizingly long ten seconds, and then Barry broke the silence.

“Iris?” he gasped in a whisper, as if speaking in a normal tone would somehow stir a sense of danger. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. His voice wasn’t hard. It was just incredulous.

He wiped as his tears again when he saw how she was staring.

“I came to bring you home,” she said, her voice breaking.

Barry’s feet shifted, making Iris almost lunge towards him, because he was sooo very close to the edge.

But he seemed completely unaware of how close he’d gotten. It wasn’t intentional. She supposed she should be grateful for that.

He shook his head, looking at her sadly.

“I’m not coming home, Iris. Not now.” He glanced down at the water, and she knew what he was seriously considering. “Maybe not ever.”

“No, Barry.” She closed the distance between them – old rickety wooden boards be damned! – and stopped right in front of him. “That won’t solve anything, and you know it.”

His eyes searched hers desperately, tears filling them again.

“Won’t it? If I die, Savitar will never exist. Everything he’s done and is planning to do will never have happened.”

“No,” she said again. “No, just – stop.”

She took his hands in hers and held firm even when he tried to wriggle away.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” he wondered, eventually abandoning the struggle. “In the future, I kill you.”

“You don’t kill me. Savitar does.” She looked up at him and cupped his face in her hands tightly. “And he won’t even do that because we’re going to stop it from happening. And not by killing yourself either.”

He curled his fingers around her hands on his face.

“But I’m Savitar,” he said. “Don’t you get that? Don’t you see how serious that is? How can you possibly trust me or even…even love me when you know what I’m capable of?”

Tears started to fall down both of their faces.

“It’s not you!” she insisted. “You don’t know that!”

“Iris—” His breath hitched.

“It could be another Barry from another earth. There are an infinite number of those, remember? Or it could be some face-changing technology, like what HR has from Earth 19! There could be a million explanations for why Savitar looks like you or why people say that it was you. He’s from the future so of course he would know everything about you. And how could you have thrown yourself into the speed force? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Barry struggled for a moment to come up with an answer.

“Maybe he lied about that part,” he said eventually.

“Maybe he lied about everything!” Iris sobbed.

She pulled him nearer, forced his head down to her level so she could press her forehead against his tightly and keep him from running. She needed to feel close to him. She needed him all around her. She needed him to not die, especially if he’d been deceived.

“Can’t you even consider that?” She sniffled, clutching then at his emblem. “You’re the Flash. You’re not a monster. And you’re my Barry Allen. You’re mine.”

His arms came around her and she sighed in relief, nestling into his embrace. The coldness of the suit became invisible because all she could feel was the heat of his body and his breath in her hair. All she could hear was his heart racing and their breaths so close together. This was home. This was everything. She refused to believe this was the end.

And when she lifted her head, his lips descended on hers, seeking refuge and forgiveness and love. She gave it all to him, and she was so very glad he’d initiated. She was so much shorter without her shoes, so would’ve been near impossible to kiss him if he wasn’t ready to let her love him.

But he had kissed her. He was still kissing her. And they were crying into their kisses, wanting nothing but this moment, wanting only to be safe and in love and to be out of this crazy, horrible situation.

Iris wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down further, deepening the kiss, tangling her tongue with his, feeling the thrill of his touch ripple down her spine and all over her body.

Finally in need of air, they parted a while later, but Barry didn’t pull away. He let his forehead rest against hers again and let himself breathe.

“You’re not evil, Barry,” she said quietly. “You’re good, and you’re mine. You belong to me.”

His arms closed even more snugly around her.

“Please come home,” she begged, a hitch to her voice, tears ready to make another appearance.

Barry let out a deep sigh and lifted his head. Then he lazily tucked some wild, dark strands of hair behind her ear, kissed the side of her face and stayed there for a while.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he murmured, nearly collapsing into her.

She clung to him tightly, holding onto him with all her strength, not wanting to be anywhere else in the world in that moment. Only ever wanting to be by his side as his partner, his rock, his solid ground forever.

“Then don’t be,” she whispered back. “Come home with me, and you’ll never be alone again.”

For all his doubts, for all the certainty of her death he must’ve seen in all the futures he’d been to, Barry let her words wash over him and decided at least tonight he would believe them.

He didn’t say anything else, but he nodded against her and let her steer him toward the end of the dock.

The relief she felt was unimaginable, and she could not have been more grateful that Cisco had stuck around because Barry was in no condition to race them home.

Iris sat in the back of the car and Cisco helped her get Barry inside. There the scarlet speedster lay across the back seat and passed out with his head in her lap, completely depleted of all energy but open at least for tonight to let someone keep him safe.

When Cisco arrived in front of their building, he turned back to look at his passengers and found Iris tenderly playing with Barry’s wind-tossed locks. Barry was still a goner, but he woke enough to assist in some way when Iris and Cisco needed to get him to the elevator.

Barry seemed to not even really register Cisco as anything other than a being helping him get to where his feet could not. When they reached the loft, his friends miraculously got him upstairs to the bedroom where they deposited him on the bed. Iris meant to go with Cisco to the door to thank him again and discuss in some form what life would be like for Team Flash going forward, but Barry sensed her moving away and started moaning and panicking, unaware of anything but the fact that she was leaving him.

“Irisss?” he slurred, rustling about on top of the sheets.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” she soothed, coming to clasp his hand, which soothed him instantly. “I’m here.”

She looked over her shoulder to where Cisco was standing. The heartbreaking and wondering look on his face assured her like nothing could have.

“It’s okay, Iris.” Her lips parted to protested, but he shook his head to silence her. “We can talk tomorrow.”

She swallowed, unsure if that would suffice.

“He needs you,” Cisco said, gesturing to where Barry still held her hands tightly.

She sighed shakily as she followed his gaze.

“I know.”

“And you were right.”

Iris looked back again, her brows furrowed.

“He’s not Savitar,” he said. “He’s Barry. Our Barry. And we’re going to stop this.”

She felt the huge weight lift off her chest, and she almost wanted to laugh. She nodded, a small smile breaking through, a thank you in her eyes.

Cisco smiled back.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Iris.” He glanced over at Barry and then back to her. “Maybe I’ll see both of you.”

Iris only smiled in farewell. Then she turned back to Barry as soon as Cisco had left the room. She slid out of her heels for the second time that night and managed to strip down and slip on one of Barry’s old t-shirts before he started to panic at her absence again.

Then she helped undress him and tucked him under the blankets. As quickly as possible, because he seemed to be unaware of her coming and going, she got herself underneath the covers and snuggled into his body, intertwining their legs and pressing herself close enough to feel his breath on her forehead and his heartbeat against her ear.

“I love you, Barry,” she whispered, not really caring if he wasn’t awake. He would hear it somehow, and she needed to say it.

Barry didn’t say anything in response, but she felt him wrap his arms more tightly around her, and that was more than enough.

He was her Barry. He was hers. And nothing was going to take him away from her. Nothing was going to take her away from him. Not some twisted evil version of himself, not an unseen villain entirely. They were going to fight whoever was against them, and they were going to win.

Barry wasn’t a monster. He was a wounded soul fighting to survive.

And in her arms, in their home…he would.

*Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

#westallen #westallenedit #fanfiction #backtothestart02 fanfiction #angst #spoilers #this one hurts #but it's really good I promise #I love how it turned out #the flash 319

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