Damage Control - Barry Allen/Reader
Summary: Your husband thinks that having super healing abilities means that he needs to throw himself in front of danger to protect you, and you can't keep watching it happen.
Pairing: Barry Allen/gn!reader
Tags and warnings: angst -> comfort, wound description, setting bones description, couples arguing, reader and Barry are married, reader is also a JL member with undescribed powers, mentions of wanting children
Author’s Note: My last angst -> comfort from my poll, finally! This one took some pondering on how I wanted it to shake out, and ultimately I think I'm happy with how it turned out so I am releasing it into the wild. Thank you to everyone who participated in my poll!
Strangled groans of blinding pain echoed through the hospital bay, not muffled at all despite the frayed bottom lip twisting underneath forceful teeth. Calcium grinding against rock hard collagen, jagged edges of bones fighting to align next to each other as they were forced back in place. Feeling the unbearable itch of tears prickling in your waterline, you stormed out of the room with a snarl on your face. You couldn’t endure this scene for the millionth time.
Desperate howls reverberated off of faded linoleum floors reviving memories of last week’s argument, which overwhelmed your mind beyond words.
You remembered that day you were so frustrated that you felt like crying.
“Barry.” You had turned, voice deadly serious. Your tone was low, almost hollow and without phonation. “I can’t have this argument again.”
The two of you in opposition, yet again standing against each other in a space where you had spent so many previous hours entangled together. Snuggled up on the couch watching a show, nestled against his chest drifting into a sleepy bliss as he read aloud from some novel, saddled upon his lower back as he stretched out on the floor nearly drooling from the peppermint balm you rubbed into his sore muscles. There was less and less of that these days, and more of the fighting. Especially after work.
Becoming a crime fighting vigilante was never on your life’s bucket list, but you were encumbered with some pretty useful powers and too much guilt to not put them to good use. Sooner than you had anticipated, you fell into the comfortable rhythm of having an alternate life. These days, you were more in tune with your powers and your limitations than you had ever been before, and yet, here you were, going around again with Barry.
“I’m not trying to argue.” Barry replied.
Your eyes narrowed. By his pitiful expression, he was either desperately trying to convince you of his submission or hurting more than he was letting on. Your fury stoked, the rage licking up your insides, as you watched him try not to writhe as he took a seat on your couch.
Immediately after speaking, he could sense your disapproval at this statement.
“We’ve gone over this, honey.” Barry said, holding his hands up in hopeful surrender. “It’s just logic, alright. It makes sense.”
Instantly, he realized that he shouldn’t have said anything at all, watching your eyes squeeze shut with irritation and your eyebrows wrinkling sky high.
“No, it doesn’t, Barr.” Exasperation seeped from you. “It does not make sense that you feel the need to throw yourself in front of every bullet, punch, knife, whatever with reckless abandon!”
“If that knife clipped you in the ribs, you would be on bed rest for at least two weeks.” Barry argued, despite his best intentions to stay neutral. To make his point, he pulled his palm away from his torso. The gauze bloomed crimson without his applied pressure. “It’s gonna sting me for an hour, and then I’ll be perfectly fine.”
You let out an exhale of frustration, feeling your breath vent out hot.
“What if it hadn’t clipped me at all?” You retorted. “What if you gave me the chance to dodge it? Toss it to the side with the rest of the rubble? Then neither of us would be on bed rest for any length of time!”
You watched Barry wince as he sat up to converse with you.
“I’m not trying to doubt your abilities, sweetheart.” Barry assured with an earnestness that bit at you. “But on the other hand, what if it did more than just cut you? What if it severed an artery and you bled out in my arms? That’s not something I can live with.”
“What if it did way more than cut you, Barry?!” You returned. Your hands were mindlessly carding through your hair in frustration. “You heal fast, but you’re not invincible. That’s not something that I should have to live with, either.”
You wrapped your arms tensely to tie them down, chest heaving with emotion. Swapping hands to hold the dressing to his rib cage, Barry extended his fingers out to you, clearly wincing from the stretch. You fixated your stare on his outstretched palm, before casting it down to your feet with a shake of your head.
“Baby, I’m not trying to disregard your emotions.” He said, his voice slipping into that softness reserved only for you. “But I stood at that altar and vowed that to the best of my abilities, I would always protect you. If that means hurting for an hour, couple days, couple weeks-” he sighed. “It’s no contest.”
Despite the magnetic pull that beckoned you to him, possessed you to gravitate towards him and press your face into the angle of his neck where the skin there was extra soft and smelled just like him, you gathered your strength and turned away. This was a boundary worth protecting.
“No, it just results in us both hurting.” You muttered.
You had spent that night alone in bed. Your mind mulling about how Barry always insisted that if you two were to sleep apart, you’d take the big bed so that you could still be comfortable. Even with a stab wound extending from his flank to the edge of his rib cage, he maintained that he’d take the couch. Which is exactly where he spent the night, memorizing patterns in the popcorn ceiling as his mind worked over how to make it up to you in the morning.
You both did more thinking than sleeping that night.
You tried to shake the memory out of your head, tossing slightly like you were trying to Etch-a-Sketch erase all of the fights, all of the injuries, and most importantly, the last hour of your life, out of your mind. How desperately you wanted to see that scene fade out of existence into a blank slate.
Nevertheless, it lingered. The recollection of the blade coming towards you and the calm drive you maintained, poised to knock the blow aside. Then the blur of fire-engine red. A sight that used to bring a sentimental swell of emotion in your lower belly, which was now replaced with tense panic. You couldn’t erase the sound of flesh tearing, a wound being ripped up your husband’s back. You couldn’t erase that the first emotion that came to your mind was anger rather than concern for your husband’s well being.
And you were having a hard time erasing the desperate look on his face as they set the bones in his arm, which had crunched against the pavement as he fell on an outstretched palm, and the way he had rolled limply to your feet.
Whether he’d be perfectly fine by dinner time or not, you didn’t deserve to witness that.
So, as you left the hospital bay, you came to the hopeless decision to pack up some of your things in a suitcase and stay with your parents for a while. You left with no note and tried not to imagine his face as he crossed the threshold of your shared home to your subtle but persistent absence. A lone toothbrush in the holder he had painted on your date at the Pottery Cafe in preparation for your upcoming move-in together. No keys strewn by the microwave. The pile of clothes that draped over the chair in your bedroom noticeably gone.
You drove on to your parents, putting on a podcast to try and immerse yourself in something that wasn’t your own guilt.
It was almost 11:00 PM, and there you were, tucked back into your childhood twin bed with an ache in your heart. Your misery was feasted upon by the teenage heartthrobs trapped in posters that still remained tacked to the walls. The desk that you studied for your SAT on still stood in the corner. You grimaced as you turned on the bedside lamp to plug in your phone charger and call it a night.
Just as you leaned over to fish for the outlet, your screen illuminated and your stomach did an involuntary dive of guilt when his contact appeared upon your lock screen - which was a shared photo of the both of you, of course. Regardless, you couldn’t resist opening his messages.
If your stomach had done a dive of guilt at the thought of him texting, your heart did a full plunge in shame after reading his messages. You squeezed your eyes shut, letting tears burn at your waterline and your throat clench up with welled emotion. You hated being stuck at this crossroads: torn in half between running home as quickly as you could to throw yourself in the arms of your lover and standing your ground by maintaining your absence for the preservation of your husband’s life. As you swallowed the strangled fist of sorrow back down your throat, you flipped the phone over and turned off the table lamp to retire for the night.
A stray beam of sunlight cracked open your eyelids, which ended the streak of slumber you had managed last night. Other than the two hour interlude, during which the tears finally overtook your resolve and you bawled into your pillow.
And for the next couple of days, you didn’t do much but oscillate between panic and deep despair. Sitting on the porch of your childhood home, you looked out onto the lawn where you skinned your knees and got grass stains in your overalls that your mother never really could get out. You thought about your own children, perfect hybrids of you and Barry, running through the sprinkler across that lawn. Something that the two of you had spent nights imagining, you wondered if that was even a possibility anymore.
Your brain churned the whole time you were away from Barry, ruminating on thoughts like a cow chewing cud. You spat out what little you could verbalize onto a legal pad one night in an attempt of therapeutic journaling, but tore off the page and tucked it under a log in the fireplace the next morning. The League hadn’t bothered you. Whether Barry had told them you had moved out or your services simply weren’t needed, you couldn’t say.
You knew that you would have to go back, which was a thought that troubled you for the first day or two of your stay, but something that became more akin to a goal as the days trickled on. Barry called - twice a day. Once just before he’d be leaving for the forensics lab in the morning, and the other at varying hours of the night, presumably whenever he had dragged himself home. It all went to voicemail. He even tried your parents' ancient home phone once, and you tried not to eavesdrop as your mother gently told him: “sorry hon, she’s not available right now.”
One morning, you finally felt that you had reached the limit of the mental clarity that you were able to achieve, with a strong drive to return to your home and to your husband. You saw your parents off with thanks, and drove home with the intention of resolving this dilemma that had been tormenting you. You and Barry had fought numerous earth-ending threats. You weren’t going to let a dispute ruin your marriage. You felt your anxiety surge as you pulled into your parking spot but worked to quell it to a dull roar.
You plunged your key into the lock, knowing that Barry wouldn’t be home, but still the confirmation of such once you stepped into your living quarters soothed your nerves. As you unzipped your luggage, you pulled out a pair of comfortable clothes and changed for the night. You moved to continue unpacking the suitcase, yet something nagged within you to keep it packed, just in case. You ignored that thought and returned your belongings to their place.
You made a fairly easy dinner so your hands had something to do. You ate some, but couldn’t taste it. Settling into the couch, you stared at the blank television screen for minutes or hours, knowing that even if you turned something on, your mind would be preoccupied.
You felt your fate seal as the deadbolt to your front door turned.
It was clear that Barry hadn’t been expecting you, from the way he slunk through the door with his shoulders slumped. He tossed his jacket over the closet door hook with a grunt. When Barry came home to you, he entered with reverence on his face at your presence, sweeping you into a snug embrace no matter how tiresome the day had been. It seemed that your husband had been feeling as defeated as you had in the last couple of days.
As you stretched your wrist to turn on the side table lamp, Barry caught sight of your movement and finally noticed your presence. A million emotions crossed his face at once: initial delight, then regret, frustration, sorrow in succession.
“You’re home.” He said. His voice was husky with fatigue.
Once you turned on the table lamp, you saw that he had been neglecting his stubble, now a faint blanket of prickly blonde hairs covering his chin and cheeks. You recognized the tiredness in his eyes from gazing at your own in the mirror. His work shirt was wrinkled, clearly having abandoned the ironing in your absence.
“I’m home.” You replied. You waited a beat, before swallowing. “It’s time to talk.”
Barry crossed the threshold of your living room entirely too slow for anyone that knew him, taking a seat on the couch just kitty-cornered from your perch. He folded his hands, leaning over with his elbows on his knees. You let your eyes drift along his strong fingers and over the peak of his knuckles before turning back to his worried gaze.
“Okay.” Barry said, with just a whiff of exasperation, although maybe fear. “Let’s talk.”
You studied his face, patiently waiting for his reluctant eye contact before continuing.
“I’ve decided to put in my letter of resignation with the Justice League.” You announced.
You observed more reels of emotion warp over Barry’s face at this, watching his bottom lip quiver with indecision as his mouth fought his brain over what to say.
“What?” He questioned, his tone incredulous. “You can’t resign from the League.”
“Of course I can.” You replied, much too calm for Barry’s comfort.
“Is this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?” Barry asked. You could see him restrain his hand from circling the skin on your knee. “Because if you’re truly done, I mean… you more than deserve that retirement. But honey, we were just talking about how you’ve been hitting your groove-”
“I choose you, Barry.” You cut him off. “I choose you over the League.”
You watched his light blonde eyebrows furrow as he squeezed into an expression that revealed the turmoil brewing in his mind.
“You don’t have to choose me or the League, baby, you HAVE me-” He started, building a ramble again, before you interrupted his momentum.
“But, I do, Barry.” You countered.
Despite the moments of silence following your statement, Barry didn’t attempt to interrupt. His pale baby blues scanned you, fully immersed in this moment with you in desperate anticipation of your next statement.
“I almost lost you the other day, Barr.” You continued. “And before you try to argue with me that you were fine, remember that I saw the way you laid limply at my feet. So while I do still have you, Barr, I can’t stand to lose you. And if that means that I’m not there for that situation to occur - for that drive that you have to protect me to take over - then the choice is simple. I choose you. I choose our marriage.”
Even after you laid it all out on the table, Barry observed you in silence, stunned by the extent of your sacrifice. He searched your face for insincerity or indecision, but found none. He wanted to blurt out that there was a way for you to make it both work - that you could have him and have the League in perfect harmony - but he knew deep down that you were right. Barry Allen, your husband, and The Flash, your team mate, could not coexist.
Without response, and still in that languid manner that chilled you more than anything, Barry reached out to wrap his arms around you. His slow movements gave you more than enough time to evade him, but you sunk into the embrace, feeling his warmth and listening to the always fast clip of his heartbeat. He curled into the side of your neck, holding his lips to your pulse as his thumb stroked a path along your cheek.
And you didn’t speak another word about it. Not that night, nor the morning after, nor the several days that followed. You drafted your resignation letter in preparation for the weekend’s Justice League meeting where you would make the announcement.
Even though it sent an uncomfortable pang through your chest to think that you would never be going on another mission, never recruited for another global emergency, you knew that your end game was growing old with Barry. That thought urged you to continue writing up your departure letter even when the computer keys felt like hot coals. This was the way for your marriage to continue in harmony, even if the choice felt entirely wrong.
The morning of the Justice League meeting, you woke up to the smell of french toast wafting through the bedroom. While you had been savoring waking in your lover’s embrace over the last couple of days, you found yourself in the sheets alone. His absence spurred you to get out of bed and waddle to the kitchen for investigation.
Over the years, you couldn’t count how many times you watched a shirtless Barry make you breakfast, but the sight only ever got sweeter. Faint red scratch marks still adorned his traps from last night’s activities and his cowlick was adorably mussed from the pillow. Your eyes trailed his lean lower back muscles to where they disappeared under the waistband of his boxer briefs, stepping forward to discover for yourself. At the sound of worn floorboards creaking under your feet, Barry turned around, regarding you with a lazy smile.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” He said, his voice gravelly from sleep.
Gaze ripped from where it was trained on his musculature, you finally noticed the vase of fresh tulips on the table. A smile formed on your lips. Barry was always a ‘flowers guy’, and you loved it.
“French toast and tulips?” You teased. “How lucky am I?”
“Not as lucky as me.” Barry replied, pressing a kiss to your hairline.
As he turned back to the stove, your hands wrapped him, roaming the expanse of his back. You closed your eyes, relishing the feeling of his bare skin under your palms. You leaned against him and stayed like that a while, enjoying the warmth of his chest against your cheek as he leisurely flipped toast in a sizzling pan. A soft pair of lips on your forehead broke you out of your peaceful moment.
“Breakfast is ready, angel.” Barry murmured. “Go sit at the table and I’ll fix you a plate.”
As you tucked your legs underneath yourself in your chair at the dining table, you thought about how good it had been to be present again in your relationship with Barry. Back in your chair at the dining table. Sleeping on your side of your shared bed. You took the buzz that the thought brought to your chest and held onto it to drown out what you’d sacrificed for it. A dreadful anticipation of your announcement this evening.
Barry set a plate in front of you with endearing yet unrealistic Barry-sized portions, as usual. You always chided him for giving you too much and he’d reply that he didn’t want you to be hungry. Besides, he was always good for finishing your meal when you tapped out.
He took his spot at the table across from you, handing you a knife and fork before settling into his dining chair. As he picked at his plate, you watched his thumb rub down a worn groove in the dining table that had endured nearly the entirety of your relationship. You could sense his reserved anxiety through the motion.
“These are wonderful, baby. Thank you.” You said, causing his eyes to glance up at you from the table.
It was hard for Barry Allen not to smile when he looked at you, so he always gave in on the impulse. His soft eyes with slightly blown pupils darting shyly from your face shortly after. But, you could still sense something internally gnawing him, fraying him ever slightly. You placed your hand over his, squeezing with gentleness. He set down his cutlery.
“I wanted to talk to you about something.” He said.
You internally grimaced, having so enjoyed your last couple of days free of domestic dispute, but the look your husband was sporting convinced you that this was of importance to him. So you nodded, urging him to go on.
“I- um. I had a meeting with Batman and Martian- J’onn, a couple days ago.” He announced.
“Okay.” You replied with caution. Certainly Barry hadn’t gone behind your back to spring the news of your departure. Right?
“I made some arrangements with them.” He said. At this, he flipped your hands, so his palm was covering yours. “For the League, going forward.”
You looked at him, electing silence.
“From now on, I’m going to be stepping back from the League.” He said. “Wally’s going to take my place on the team. I’m going to focus on local crime here in Central City.”
At this announcement, your gaze sharpened. This time, you weren’t electing silence, you were truly speechless.
“Any missions I do go on for the League going forward will be missions you’re not scheduled for.” He affirmed. He pressed a kiss to the back of your hand. “Honey, I need you, but the world deserves you. I won’t go back on my vows, but I can’t in good conscience be the reason that you resign from the Justice League.”
You reached a shaking hand out to cradle Barry’s cheek, which he leaned into instantly.
“Barry, I can’t ask you to do that.” You sputtered, barely stringing the sentence together.
“That’s okay, because you aren’t.” He replied. “I’m doing it willingly. I choose you. I choose our marriage.”
His thumb brushed over your wedding band and you stood from the table, climbing into his lap and molding yourself into his arms. As you rested your head against his sternum, you tried to ingrain the touch of his palm sweeping against your back into your memory.
“Are you sure about this?” You whispered to him.
He pulled away, leaning so that he could gaze at you with unrivaled fondness.
“So sure.” He replied, matching your tone. “And if that doesn’t work out, we’ll try something else, and we’ll make it work. We are worth that.”
As you sunk back into his chest, you let your eyelids flutter shut, falling into the rhythm of Barry’s breathing. There was a gentle release of a coil constricting your heart at the thought of not having to submit your resignation letter, and more importantly, at the thought of a future where you and Barry could protect the earth, while not at the expense of the other. As you opened your eyes, looking over Barry’s shoulder at the vase of blush pink tulips, you felt solace in the bleeding, unwavering commitment that you and Barry had made to each other and the promise of holding each other close until olden, gray days.
The Earth would always be worth protecting, but your marriage would always be worth protecting, too.
Lightning Divider by: enchanthings
Text messages written by me with: chattales app
You do not have permission to copy, edit, or repost my original work.
