Zero hour

The procedure

The seemingly never-ending silence following the bombshell revelation got finally broken by Cisco, "at least, so far, it's not that bad."

His comment earned him a side glance from his doctor friend standing next to him, "really, Cisco?"

Vibe shrugged in answer, "I'm just saying, there's no sign of the end of the world around. If the timeline got changed before we even set foot on this Earth, we should've seen the consequences before making it to the lab."

"It's not the apocalypse... just yet," completed Barry, sighing and finally deciding to push his good hand on the ground to get back on his shaky feet while supporting himself against the wall, "trust me, when I went to Flashpoint, it took sometimes before things started going bad. Everything ran smoothly for a couple of months. Plus, considering how we don't know anything or anyone on this Earth, except Jay, a lot of terrible things can happen and we wouldn't be able to notice it for a very long time," he pointed out.

True. And true. There was no arguing that.

"I just have one other question; why? " Inquired Cisco, "if his wife never died, why do Daniel and his wife want with speedsters? Why do they need you and Jay for? I mean, why bother capturing Jay and finding a way to control him if all if there was no reason anymore to change the timeline? More than that, why experiment on you too?"

Finally facing his friends and grabbing a bar with his one good hand, Barry lowered his head and shook it slightly, "I wish I knew; they're not chatty about their world domination plan...or whatever else it might be. I have a gut feeling that Polly is the more unstable one and the one we should be scared."

Letting go of his grip, Barry's hand went behind his neck and touched his hot skin's neck, "I'm sorry I dragged you all into this."

"Don't be sorry; you didn't force us to come, remember?" Reminded Caitlin in a faint attempt at reassuring her friend, an effort that failed badly.

"Let's get out of here and fix this mess as much as we can. We might not be able to put everything back together, but we can still put as much back together as we can," added the doctor when none of the boys chose to answer her first comment.

Barry deeply exhaled and didn't say anything, which caused Caitlin's deep to furrowed as her instincts were telling her that something was up and, it wasn't just the fact that they failed on their first objective.

"Barry, what aren't you telling us?"

What was the hero supposed to answer? That he was going to go through some sort of procedure of unknown consequences tomorrow? It's not like his two best friends didn't already have enough reasons to be anxious at the moment, no need to put more on their plate right now, it was better to worry and suffer in silence in a true Barry Allen fashion.

"Nothing to worry about," he quickly dismissed it, too quickly. That and the way he went completely silent and turned his back on his friend took all the doubts away from Caitlin and Cisco. For sure, something wasn't right. But, after sharing a meaningful glance, they decided against pushing it. At least, not right now. Tomorrow, maybe. They knew the Flash well enough to know when he wasn't in a sharing mood. Except, they didn't really get any time to push the issue the following morning as Barry got harshly taken and dragged away from them by the usual two heavily armed men.

If there was one time to get away, it was now or possibly never. Barry knew that but still didn't offer any resistance as he got taken out of his prison. Without saying a word, the speedster just let himself got grabbed under his armpits and pull out with his feet dragging behind his still form.

Overconfident that their prisoner was tainted, none of the two men anticipated the sudden change of energy in the young man dressed in red who suddenly jumped on his feet. Taking advantage of the way the movement freed halfway his unarmed arm Barry strongly and swiftly elbowed the man on his left right in the stomach. Suppressing a shout of pain from his broken shoulder caused by the sharp movement by the opposite side of his body, Barry quickly moved out of the grasp of the first man who stumbled a couple of steps back and shifted his whole-body weight to support himself on his right leg completely. With the adrenaline and the desperation pumping freely through his veins, the hero turned around almost as fast as any none-speedster running champion could've done to throw a left kick at the guard placed on his other side.