The fluorescent lights flicker above, casting a pale, artificial sheen over the lab’s cluttered counters and humming equipment. Everything here smells faintly of antiseptic and soldered wires—a strange blend of clinical and lived-in. Your workstation is a familiar mess of open files, tangled cables, and half-drunk coffee cups, but today it feels distant, like you’re just going through the motions.

Your fingers move across the keyboard, more out of habit than focus. Data streams across the monitor in green and gold pulses, but your mind drifts elsewhere—trailing behind time, caught in the silence that stretches longer than it should.

Barry is late.

And not the "Oops-I-got-caught-up-saving-Central-City" kind of late. No text, no blur of wind, no flash of red streaking past the glass. Just absence.

You glance at the wall clock. Each second ticks by with a cold finality, and every click adds weight to the quiet worry pressing against your chest. Barry’s never late when it’s about you. Not really. Not unless something’s too wrong.

Your thoughts turn to last night. That flicker in his eyes, like a spark trying to catch in the rain. He’d smiled—his trademark Barry Allen smile—but it hadn’t reached his eyes. You’d caught the way he flexed his fingers like they ached, the way he didn’t meet your gaze too long, the subtle shift when you reached for his hand and he didn’t quite grip back.

He’d said he was tired. Said he just needed to “recharge” for a bit. But Barry doesn’t burn out like normal people. Not unless he’s pushing too hard again, trying to outrun something he can’t even name.

You exhale, rubbing your hands together for warmth, though the lab isn’t particularly cold. It’s just the kind of chill that creeps in when you’re waiting for someone who might not be okay.

Then the door opens.

Your heart jumps. The familiar creak of the hinges is like a snapped tension wire. You turn too quickly, and there he is—Barry, standing just inside the doorway, breathing a little heavier than normal, hair tousled from wind and sweat. His t-shirt clings to his chest under the unzipped jacket, and the way he leans on the frame for a second tells you everything.

“Hi,” he says, too brightly, with a smile that tries to be casual and only lands halfway. “Sorry I’m late. Got… uh… sidetracked.”

He gestures vaguely—probably at the speedforce, or some crisis, or maybe just the weight of being him.