A New Beginning for@greenhood

[chosenbylightning]

Barry was sure that the two scientists at STAR Labs meant well. They'd taken care of him for the past nine months while he'd been comatose. But when the impossible began to happen, when he began to vibrate at crazy speeds, Barry turned to the only person he knew who could help.

Oliver Queen. The Arrow of Starling City.

What he didn't expect was to run all the way there in record time.

His shoes might be smoking just a tad as he skids to a halt outside of Verdant.

Okay, no. His shoes are on fire. "Crap, crap! Oliver? Felicity?"

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[greenhood]

Felicity had been seeing something weird on whatever scans of the city she was running. 'Slight seismic activity' she called it. More than that, it was coming closer and fast. Even more than that, it was heading straight towards them. And then it stopped. Right above them. And so Ollie went. And found Barry Allen dancing around like his feet were on... Okay, so his feet really were on fire. Or at least they were steaming.

"What in the hell is going on? Barry?"

Not that they were best friends or anything, but he'd expected at least a call before Barry made the trip here. Or during the trip here. Not to create...

"Wait, you were the source of the tremors?"

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He's dizzy from the force of the run and Barry puts out a hand to steady himself on the wall. "I didn't know where else to go. What to do." He had run more than six hundred miles and he wasn't even winded.

"Ollie. I need your help. I don't know what's happening to me." He should have stayed at STAR Labs, but right now Barry needed someone he could trust to help him sort out what was happening to him. "I just ran here. From Central City."

[greenhood]

Oliver first one eyebrow and then the other. Ollie. He couldn't remember the last time anyone other than his sister had called him that. But there are also Barry's words. Ran. From Central City. It was hours away by train or car. He had decent stamina from his time on the island, but he couldn't imagine running that distance.

"The first thing you're going to do is calm down." He puts a hand on Barry's shoulder. If Barry's not going to do it, it's clear he needs to be the voice of reason.

Maybe he should be more surprised than he is, but he's seen things over the last six years.

"Calm down and tell me what happened before you headed here."

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He probably shouldn't be that familiar. Oliver can be kinda scary. (Okay, he is scary as hell but Barry is also pretty rattled.) But the touch helps cut down on the babbling and he draws in a long, slow breath. Calm. He can do this.

"The last thing I remember was being at CCPD after I left here. Captain Singh was pissed, I was lucky I didn't get fired. There was a storm," his brows furrow, eyes going distant for a moment. "Lightning. I think it hit me." A hand drifts to his chest. "God it hurt. I woke up at STAR Labs. The people there, they said I had been in a coma for nine months."

Nine months. Nope. Nope he's not going to think about that right now because if he does Barry is going to freak out a little harder than he already is.

"I ran Oliver and I found myself across the city in literally a couple of seconds." He holds up a shaking hand that's a lot closer to vibrating than trembling. "I don't know what's happening to me."

"I need your help."

[greenhood]

Help? He dealt with mostly mundane things. Only once had he dealt with something that someone would call supernatural and he was more than happy to put that part of his life behind him. Except that this wasn't some evil maniac trying to bring about the apocalypse. This was Barry Allen, the kid whose only fault was having a thing for Felicity. He rubbed at his face as he thought.

"This is a little out of my wheelhouse, Barry. I'm not a scientist. I can't just fix whatever's happened to you." He took a breath. "But you were in a coma. Felicity mentioned it." And he wasn't going to think about the implications of Barry being back and in Starling City. With Felicity. He'd just had the talk with Felicity and here Barry was. Maybe the universe was giving him some kind of sign. Friendship with benefits was his wheelhouse. Relationships were as out there as trying to figure out what was going on with Barry.

"Are you sure you shouldn't go back to STAR Labs and have them run tests or something?"

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And cue Barry doing his level best to not look crestfallen at the dismissal. For the record? He's not that good at it. "I need to understand it Oliver. I need to figure out what happened and right now you and Felicity and Diggle, you're the people I can trust with this."

"Please. I just need a little time and maybe the lab to sort things out." Not that he didn't trust the people that had looked after him for so long, but right now what Barry needed was familiar.

[greenhood]

Oliver had to fight to run a hand along his face at the puppy dog look Barry was giving him. He hadn't kicked anything. And he hadn't refused Barry. Not exactly. He just didn't have the expertise that Barry clearly needed. If he wanted to hit things, Oliver could teach him that. If he wanted to survive in the wilderness or use a sniper rifle or a bow.

"I just don't know how I can help you," he clarified. "But of course you can use the lab. I'm not going to turn you away just because you've changed a little. I just don't know any of the science that would help figure out what happened and you seem to be doing all right keeping yourself from doing everything fast. I'd guess not running from here to the other end of the city is just practice."

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Barry needed support. He needed someone who could help him figure this out more than he needed a scientific point of view. And if there was anyone he could trust with this, it was Oliver. "Thank you. I.. I need time to process this and I need to do it with someone I trust. Not that I didn't trust STAR Labs but this is big. Really big." And frankly it's a little frightening.

[greenhood]

Oliver put his hand on Barry's shoulder and squeezed. He understood probably better than most what it was to wake up and find yourself in dramatically different circumstances than you'd been in before going to sleep. He'd woken up on Lian Yu and been shot at. Barry woke up with speed. Really, was it so different?

"Come on. Felicity'll be happy to see you. She visited while you were...asleep." Better that then in a coma. Also better not to think about what her reaction was going to be. He didn't like feeling jealous and he didn't exactly have a right to feel jealous, but he felt it nonetheless. It was an uncomfortable feeling that he tried to ignore. It was also one that he hadn't had to ignore in a while.

"And maybe on the way down, you can tell me how you managed to get hit with lightning while you were inside." Because when Felicity told him where Barry had been found, inside the precinct, it had made no sense and it still made none.

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He can't help but brighten at the mention of Felicity's name. They had become friends when he'd come to Starling, sharing a love of science, all things technical and a tendency to babble when they got nervous. "Yeah? That'd be nice. She's.. she's pretty awesome."

The chiding and slightly worried tone draws a laugh. "It's an old building, I noticed that the skylight was leaking and went to close it and.. yeah. Lighting struck, arced through the chain and slammed me into a shelf of chemicals."

He snorts, rubbing at his neck. "I guess I got lucky. Not everybody was that night."

[greenhood]

He was not going to be jealous. There was no reason to be jealous. He just had a vague hope that Felicity wouldn't light up the way Barry was, but that was probably a vain hope. The two of them had more in common than he had with either of them. With anyone except for maybe Dig.

But he would face the reaction when confronted with it and pretend it didn't bother him and in the meantime, he would find out what had happened in Central City. It sounded like there was more than simply an explosion that had killed people in the lab.

"What happened?" he asked as he led them through the club.

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Felicity was a dear friend, someone Barry will always greet with a hug and a smile, but he's also pretty sure that they'd never quite manage to make it work. Besides. When he met Oliver (first meetings notwithstanding) Barry knew he was gone. Hung up on the man he'd come to admire and care for probably more than Oliver would care for him.

"STAR Labs. They were testing the new particle accelerator and it went critical. Huge explosion that must have thrown out all kinds of dark matter.." he trails off. Dark matter. Oh god. "It must have been lightning from the explosion that hit me."

[greenhood]

"Dark matter," Oliver repeated. Wonderful. He wasn't a great scientific mind, but even he could tell that anything called 'dark matter' was bound to have unfortunate side effects. Like Barry's sudden burst of speed. That was only one person. When he considered who else might be affected, it was a bit mind boggling. But that was a problem for another day. First there was Barry.

"All right. So whatever's going on with you, is it stable? Controllable? Or are you going to be gone in the next minute because suddenly the speed kicked in again?"

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"I don't think so. It only seems to happen when I run so if I just, you know, walk?" A hopeful smile. "Last thing I want is to sneeze and wake up in Argentina or something." See? He can find some humor in this, put on that brave face for Oliver.

"I can't explain it, but it feels like this," a vague gesture at himself, "that it happened for a reason."

[greenhood]

To be honest, Oliver was a little skeptical of that. If fate had a play in the universe, he didn't want to think what that meant for him. That some guiding hand wanted him to suffer and even if that suffering had turned him into the man he was, what did that mean for the people who'd been hurt along the way?

"I'd hope you'd only risk that if you sleepwalk." His face was deadpan, but that might have just been a joke from Oliver Queen. Who knew Barry was catching?

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Barry stops in his tracks. Starts to speak. Stops.

Did Oliver Queen just crack a joke?

His laugh is bright and easy, bubbling up as he falls back into step with him. "Yeah, well no issues there. I don't think I'll feel like sleeping anytime soon and if I did sleepwalk, I'm sure STAR had their hands full."

[greenhood]

Oliver made a mental note to talk to Felicity and see what she could dig up on STAR Las. It'd be better to focus on work instead of the ruin that had been their date. And maybe he wouldn't have to worry about the two of them and Barry's odd sense of humor would liven things up a little.

"I think we can find a spare cot for you to use." Because Barry would find out sooner or later that Oliver was currently living in their base of operations. Having no home, no job, and no money made it hard to find a place to live. He was pretty sure Thea was living with Roy for the moment.

But he had a plan and that plan was to regain his company. Somehow.

[chosenbylightning]

"Thanks." As much as Barry wanted to trust the people at STAR Labs - maybe he'd even meet Harrison Wells! - he trusted Oliver. He trusted Felicity. They'd help him figure out how to deal with whatever was happening to it and the longer term implications.

He can't help but linger near the line of dummies with the gear Ollie and Roy used. "Hey, maybe I could help? I mean, superspeed might come in handy?"

[greenhood]

Oliver eyed him dubiously. "You're almost literally running ahead of yourself, aren't you? First we need to figure out what you can do and how well you can control it. You'll only get yourself killed if you run headlong into trouble and can't get yourself out of it." Never mind that having someone as fast as Barry might be useful. He wasn't putting someone in the field until he was sure of them.

"If you can beat me even with your powers, then we'll see. But let's not worry about that tonight, okay?"

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"You have met me right?" Barry's grin is easy as he teases. His entire life he's run headlong into a situation, for better or worse. (Usually worse). "Tomorrow then? I'll.. I'll have to call Joe and Iris. Let them know that I'm here. That I'm okay."

He feels guilty for leaving like he had, but Ollie was the one person he thought he could trust with this, the one person who could help him get his head around these new powers.

[greenhood]

"They're family?" Oliver asked, although clearly the answer was yes. "If you can run that fast, then maybe you should go back and see them in person. If you've been in a coma all this time, they really should know that you're okay without it being over the phone."

He knew he would have given anything to be able to talk to Thea or to his mother during those five years he was gone and Barry'd only been in a coma for a few months.

"Go and you can always come back when they know you're safe."

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Barry instantly feels guilty and it shows easily in his expression as he scrubs his hands through his hair. "Okay. I.. I'll head home and come back when I can."

As much as he doesn't want to go, Barry knows that he has to. He owes Joe and Iris that and so much more. "Okay. I'll try and come back tomorrow once I figure out how to tell them I'm running between Central and Starling. Literally." Because not telling the two people closest to him about his new powers doesn't even cross Barry's mind.

[greenhood]

"Good. And in the meantime, I'll tell everyone here what's going on and we'll try to figure out a way to find out what's going on." Maybe he'd see if Felicity could hack into Star Labs and figure out just what they'd been doing that had caused this. Not to mention coming up with some kind of training routine to make sure that his powers were under control.

It would help to find a doctor they could trust. He could do first aid and some limited combat medical, like Diggle, but he couldn't do anything more advanced and they definitely needed advanced.

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"Okay. I'll.. I'll be back when I can."

And like that, in a rush of wind and lightning Barry is gone, speeding his way back home. The reunion with Joe and Iris is tearful and heartfelt and Oliver was right. He needed to see them. He can't explain going back to Starling or his powers just yet, but it's enough that they know he's okay.

Barry trusts Oliver with whatever comes next.

Provided he can keep his completely stupid crush on the vigilante under wraps.