Central City, West Side apartments.
The curtains were drawn, and the lights were off.
Joe West pushed open the door and set a bag of takeout on the table. He looked at Barry, who sat on the edge of the bed with his head down, saying nothing.
"Singh approved a week off for you." Joe pulled over a chair and sat down. "Nervous exhaustion caused by overwork. He didn't ask many questions."
Barry didn't look up. His hands were tightly knotted together.
"Eat something." Joe pushed the takeout containers toward him.
"I can't." Barry's voice was dry and heavily nasal.
Joe fell silent for a few seconds, then stood.
"Stay home. Without my permission or Doctor Yang's approval, you don't take one step out of this room." Joe reached the door and glanced back at him. "That's not a suggestion, Barry. That's an order."
The door closed.
The room sank back into dead silence.
Barry stood and went into the bathroom. He turned on the faucet, cupped some cold water, and splashed it over his face. Raising his head, he looked at himself in the mirror.
A blinding flash of red suddenly swept across his vision.
Roy's rainbow prism, Oliver's face as he lay in a pool of blood, and his own fist, wrapped in red lightning, slamming toward his teammate's skull.
Barry's breathing quickened, his pupils contracting sharply. He stumbled back a step and hit the wall.
For the first time, he clearly realized that there was no fundamental difference between him and the metahuman criminals locked in the underground pipeline at S.T.A.R. Labs.
They all hurt people. The only difference was that he had been lucky enough to wear the mantle of a hero.
One loss of control was all it would take to turn him into a