Barry and Y/N made their way to back to S.T.A.R. Labs, both hoping that maybe they would find an answer there.
They walked into the Cortex and saw the terrified expressions of everyone as they saw the bomb detonate on the screens. Joe, Cait, and Julian were all there...frozen; Harry was most likely down in his workstation while Wally had recently gone on a trip to Blue Valley, he was completely unaware of what was happening, Y/N envied his freedom from this situation.
"Okay, let's start brainstorming," Barry said grabbing a marker and heading over to one of the many glass boards in the room. Y/N sat down in a chair next to him.
"Umm...speed force?" Y/N suggested resting her head in one of her hands.
Barry shook his head, "Cisco couldn't Vibe a portal open, which probably means that we can't run one to the speed force open either," Barry explained.
Y/N sighed as Barry crossed out the idea, "What about running back in time?" Barry questioned.
"No," Y/N quickly said, denying what Barry suggested. "If we go back, you'd only want to go back mere minutes before it happened to avoid damage to the space-time continuum, if we did that we'd run into our past selves and that creates a whole other set of issues on top of the ones that we have right now," she explained.
Again, Barry crossed out the idea, several hours later and several ideas later the two speedsters still had no answers.
"What if we evacuate everyone?" Barry asked. "We run them away from the problem."
"What you're suggesting would have us run all of Central City out of the blast zone. That's a lot of running and searching and we still might miss someone," Y/N explained. "It won't work, we don't have that kind of time," she added. "How long has it been?" Y/N asked as she wiped a sheen of sweat from her forehead.
"Nearly 24 hours," Barry answered as he made his way over to Y/N, he kneeled down in front of her, laying his head in her lap. "I don't know what to do," he choked out. Y/N continued to run her fingers through his hair, slowly massaging his head.
Y/N lifted his chin, bringing his eyes up to hers, "You and I are going to figure this out."
Barry nodded, he slowly and groggily stood up, pulling Y/N up with him, he wrapped his arms around her snug, "What next?" he asked.
Y/N pulled her head out of his chest, "What about Caitlin and Julian, do you think that they would be of any help?"
Barry shrugged, "I hope so," he said walking over to them, Barry put his hand on Julian's shoulder and Y/N did the same to Caitlin, bringing them both into Flash-time as Cisco would call it.
"What the- what is this?" Julian said as he noticed what was happening around him, Caitlin appeared to be in a silent sort of shock.
"You're in Flash-time or super speed stasis. The bomb detonated, Barry and I are both moving so fast that we have brought time to a near stop," Y/N explained through heavy breaths.
"How long have you two been like this?" Caitlin worriedly asked.
"Just over 24 hours," Barry answered wiping his forehead.
Julian was shocked by the answer, "Excuse me? 24 hours? Do you even know what type of exhaustion that this is putting your bodies through, you can't keep doing this to yourselves, this is deadly."
Barry was about to say something back when collapsed onto the floor, his breathing rushed. He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.
"This is not safe, if you two keep doing this to yourselves you could run your bodies into a state of over-exhaustion which could lead to death," Caitlin said. "And if you two are dead then the bomb goes off, and then what have we accomplished."
Barry then let go of his grip on Julian's shoulder, the constant reminder of the risks didn't exactly make him happy, Y/N soon did the same to Caitlin.
"Well, that was a dead end," Barry sighed as he leaned against the desk in the Cortex. Y/N put a hand on his torso.
"Are you okay?"
Barry nodded his head, "Just got a little dizzy for a second," he said running his hand up and down her arm. "I'm okay...are you?" he asked, he noticed that she was practically falling asleep in his arms earlier.
"Just tired," Y/N replied, "This is a lot of running."
"I know," he said leaning his head against hers, his hand still running up and down her arm. He then slowly brought himself back to reality, "Let's go find Harry, he's our best bet at figuring this thing out."
"What about Joe," Barry said, stopping Y/N in her tracks.
"What about him?" she shrugged as she stood next to him.
"He worked with Central City's bomb squad for a few years when I was a kid, maybe he can help us figure this out," Barry explained.
"Barry, Joe worked to disarm bombs, ones that hadn't already detonated, he can't help us."
"Should we go find Harry?" Barry said motioning towards the door.
Y/N nodded as the two slowly made their way down the hallway, leaning against each other for support, that was until Barry collapsed against the wall.
"Barry," Y/N said as she ran to him, putting her hands on both sides of his face. "Look at me, you gotta keep fighting, we are going to figure this out, you just have to hang on."
Barry then put his hands on both sides of her face, "I can't do this, I can't save us or this city...for once I can't fix this, we can't fix this..." he cried.
"Barr...we have to try," Y/N said fighting the tears as she saw Barry breaking down in front of her. "We don't get to give up, there is an entire city of people out there depending on us to fix this, to protect them, this is our job...we have to try."
"Do you honestly think that we can do this?" Barry asked.
"I don't know, but I have faith that we will figure this out," Y/N answered as she swept his tears away. "Now let's go find Harry."
They walked into his workstation only to see him watching the footage from the warehouse district, he too had been watching as the bomb detonated. Barry walked over to him and brought in him into 'Flash-time'.
"What is happening right now?" Harry asked as he noticed the state of both Barry and Y/N.
"Welcome to Flash-time," Y/N sarcastically greeted.
"Are we in super speed stasis right now?" Harry asked. "Because if so that kinda cool, but also what happened to you two?" he asked noticing the state of exhaustion that they were both in.
"We've been running for hours on end, the second that we stop running that bomb goes off and all of Central City goes with it," Barry said wiping sweat from his brow.
Harry nodded as he listened, "And now you need my help to stop the bomb," Harry guessed.
"We need to figure this out, I'm not sure how much longer Barry and I can hold out," Y/N replied.
"Okay, what have you two considered?"
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Several hours later Y/N and Barry were completely exhausted, both of them struggling to keep going. Harry had gone over hundreds of ideas, hundreds of formulas, but still nothing. Harry stood in front of the two were barely standing, leaning against each other, Y/N's head against Barry's shoulder, and his head rested on top of hers.
"I think I might have something," Harry said as he snapped out of his thinking trance, he rushed over to one of his tables in his workstation and began looking for something.
"What might something be?" Y/N asked as she observed his hurried state.
"A device," Harry replied as he continued to search. "It's a piece of stolen tech from Earth 19, it was originally developed to see alternate timelines, but it could be easily modified to see the future of those timelines, help us weigh our options. I've never used it because we shouldn't know our own futures, it's a dangerous thing...got it," he exclaimed as he held up the device.
Y/N and Barry both perked up as he starting working with the device, "No," he said as he continued to push buttons and fiddle with it. "This can't be right..."
"What is it?" Barry asked.
"Every timeline, every reality, everything that we try...it doesn't work. The speed force, vibing it away, the evacuation, everything that we've thought of...none of it will work. We need a new idea, something we haven't already thought of."
Barry and Y/N turned to each other, both feeling defeated, both feeling helplessly useless...
All three of them looked at the screens, the explosion of the bomb was spreading. "We're slowing down," Y/N said.
"As we slow down time speeds up," Barry added. "We're running out of time..."
"What did Cisco call this, the stasis that we are in?" Harry asked the two heroes.
"He called it Flash-time," Barry answered.
"Flash-time," Harry repeated several times. "That's it! Flash-time," he exclaimed. "We need another Flash, you two are keeping us all in Flash-time, but another Flash could go back in time and fix all of this," Harry explained.
"And it's like it never happened?" Y/N asked.
Harry shook his head, "For the people that you brought into this stasis, they will remember what happened. However, you two will continue to remain in this state of exhaustion, even after this is fixed, you are the causal factors of stopping time, thus making you exempt from this 'reset' if you will, not forever, but for a short while."
"And since it's not one of us going back in time there is a minimal risk to the timeline," Y/N added.
Barry nodded, "And how are we supposed to find another Flash exactly?" he questioned.
"Jay," Y/N chimed in, "Jay Garrick, Earth 3 that's not that far away, he's fast enough to help us."
"How are we supposed to get to him if both of us have to be here to maintain stasis?" Barry asked.
"No," Harry interjected. "One of you should be able to hold out just long enough for the other to get Jay and have him fix this," he explained. "However, even after he fixes this it will take some time for the timeline to reset to its new version, both of you will be stuck in Flash-time for that period, you won't be able to get out."
"We have to do it," Barry said. "We don't have a choice, we have to do whatever it takes to save this city, no matter how miserable it makes us."