Title: Trapped
Author: an-alternate-world
Rating: T
Characters/Pairing: Barry Allen, Eddie Thawne, Caitlin Snow, implied Eddie Thawne/Iris West
Word Count: 3,273
Summary: When The Flash attempts to save Detective Thawne's life, Eddie refuses because he thinks The Flash will kill him. His procrastination gets them both trapped after an explosion.
Warnings/Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with The Flash, The CW, DC Comics or anything else related to the universe.

Anonymous on Tumblr prompted a fic with: pretty please write a thallen fic where barry as the flash and eddie are stuck in a small room for an extended period of time. and its just after barry was affected by the meta human so eddie's all like, flash bad?! and IDENTITY ISSUES?! WHO IS FLASH. KISSES?

He stirs awake slowly, his head throbbing with pain that seems to echo endlessly around his skull and reverberate down his neck, his spine, and spread throughout his body. There's something heavy crushing his right arm, pinning him down. When he tries to move, a screech fills the silence as agony rips through him. He's pretty sure his leg has to be broken and he sinks into the hard jut of rubble beneath his back in an attempt to get his thoughts together.

Wait.

Rubble?

He squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them again, attempting to remove the dust and grit coating his vision and making it difficult to see where he is or assess a way out. As he peers around him, staring at the chunks of concrete, pieces of how he ended up in this mess begin to return.

"Detective Thawne, we have to go!" he yelled, his voice warped through vibrating his vocal cords. He couldn't afford to be identified, not with Eddie inching further and further away from him. He watched Eddie's back flatten against the opposite wall of the basement garage and felt his frustration increase.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Eddie shouted, his blue eyes wide and wild as he looked around, presumably for an escape from someone he was convinced was willing to kill him – and could probably run far enough into the middle of nowhere that they'd never find the body.

It was difficult for Barry not to lose his patience, grab Eddie into his arms, and haul his flailing, refusing ass out of here.

He'd succeeded in getting everyone else out of the garage, mostly because no one else had mounted such an enormous protest. It wasn't like Eddie didn't have good reason to be afraid – he'd tried to kill him barely two weeks ago in a fit of rage – but by Barry's estimations, the bomb rigged to the building was set to go off in less than a minute and he didn't really want to be here when it did.

"You can arrest me later," he bargained, holding out his hands to Eddie in a fit of desperation. "Let me save your life now."

"I'd rather die!"

Barry rolled his eyes at Eddie's melodramatics, wishing he could call him out on it. Eddie would prefer to die, leave Iris behind, than have his life saved? Seriously? He was pretty sure Eddie would never express such sentiments if he was being held up by a bank robber or if Joe was with him.

"Detective, please jus-"

And then the world exploded.

He's trapped where he was thrown after the bomb had exploded. The hurt has him trapped almost as well as the collapsed concrete and bars of steel littered around him. He tries to move again, hopeful that his body has recovered, concerned when it dawns on him that Eddie would be caught up in this mess – and Eddie didn't have metahuman survival abilities – but a searing pain rips through him and leaves his eyes watering, his spine slumping to the ground because it's just too hard to move and he's not strong enough to get the concrete off his arm.

He has no doubt there are already rescue crews descending on their location. He's been involved with the post-explosion recovery teams before as they determine the extent of the blast damage and possible points of entry. He also knows that the police knew about the bomb threat Barry had arrived as The Flash to haul people out of the garage. He's fairly certain he got everyone out except for Eddie so it wouldn't surprise him to learn that a team of people were already searching for heat signatures and analysing structural stability for rescue ops.

The problem, Barry realises belatedly, is he's not Barry right now. He's The Flash.

The Flash can't have a rescue team find him and pull him out. The Flash can't have his hood pulled down and his identity exposed. The Flash can't have his injuries catalogued and assessed which then creates a flurry of questions when he heals in a few hours.

The Flash can't be exposed with Eddie so close. It would ruin everything.

A muffled groan sounds somewhere to his left and he attempts to tilt his head to catch sight of Eddie. The detective – his colleague under normal circumstances – stumbles to his feet looking relatively unscathed considering the injuries Barry has sustained. Concrete dust is smeared across his face, his navy suit is more of a ghostly grey now, and his hair looks like a dusty halo, but he doesn't appear to have any limbs hanging at odd angles or a crack through his skull. Barry tries to pretend he's not envious because he knows that if Eddie had suffered what appears to have been inflicted on him, his colleague would be dead.

And he's not sure how he'd be able to help Iris if that happened.

Eddie looks around him, as if expecting the concrete to crash down on him, and Barry grimaces as he sucks up his pride – Flash suit or no Flash suit – and decides to concede he needs help.

"Detective," he pleads, his vibrating cords sounding shakier than usual as he speaks. He thinks it's just because of the pain that is uncontrollably rippling him.

Eddie squints through the dust until his eyes maybe catch on the red of his suit. "Shit," the detective mutters, carefully clambering over rubble to get closer. Up close, Barry can see Eddie has a few scratches and scrapes on his face and hands, a few tears to the fabric of his clothes, but he appears to be unharmed. Small mercies, he supposes humourlessly.

Eddie stares at him for a long moment, a heartbeat too long when Barry worries that maybe his mask has torn and exposed his face. He immediately starts making his face shake back and forth to distort his appearance, causing Eddie's brows to furrow and distracts him from gazing at him oddly.

"Uh... Your arm is under that boulder, right?"

"Yes." He tries to wiggle his fingers but he can't feel them anymore. A bubble of panic rises from his belly to his chest. If he starts to develop a crush injury, he's screwed. He probably wouldn't die from the build-up of toxins being released back into his bloodstream but he can't afford to lose his arm.

"Okay, okay… Um…" Eddie's fingers move to his neck and unknot his tie. He kneels by Barry's side, a determined expression on his face. It's interesting to Barry to see the transformation from rattled Eddie to controlled Detective Thawne. "This is gonna hurt," Eddie says before tying the strip of fabric tightly around Blaine's upper thigh. If it wasn't for the way he's forced to grit his teeth and scrunch his eyes together, an agonising whine flowing over his tongue, he might almost think that Eddie's hand on the inside of his leg was…erotic or something. "Sorry. I'm sorry. Your… Your leg is… It's been pierced by a piece of steel. I needed to slow the bleeding."

Barry cringes, understanding now why he couldn't move. He was probably stuck by the steel that had penetrated into his flesh. God only knows how deep it is. He can imagine his body attempting to heal around the steel and hopes it doesn't just accept the steel that's there and never properly work again. He figures that a hero with super speed who can't walk – and maybe doesn't have an arm – is pretty much useless in the business of saving people.

Eddie touches a hand to his chest, his expression distant, before he flits away muttering to himself. If Barry was more capable of moving, he'd check that his hood was still in place but even raising his good arm seems to hurt like hell right now.

Eddie returns with another steel bar, his lips set in a grim line. "I'm going to try to get this under the boulder to jimmy it off like a see-saw," Eddie explains, crouching by Barry's hip and easing the length of metal along Barry's arm. He tries not to focus on how much such a simple, relatively gentle, gesture causes him to want to scream.

Eddie gives him a countdown he isn't sure he wants to hear. His eyes clench shut when Eddie hits one and levers the steel against the boulder. It takes a couple of attempts – leaving Barry increasingly aware of just how much pain he is and wondering if Eddie is trying to get even with him – when it finally dislodges enough to roll over a small mountain of other debris and Barry's arm gains the opportunity to start healing properly.

Now he just has to worry about his leg.

"Thank you, Detective," he says, struggling with distorting his voice and face as exhaustion sinks into his skin. He wonders if it matters that Eddie finds out who he is. It isn't like he could run to Joe to tell him that Barry was a metahuman alien and have Joe freak out. Eddie could tell Iris but what would that achieve? Telling Iris that her stepbrother was The Flash would probably just make Eddie look like a raving lunatic. Eddie would probably be less likely to continue pursuing The Flash if he knew it was someone like Barry under the mask.

But were they risks he was willing to take right now?

No. Not yet. Perhaps in a year or two, when he can prove to Eddie he's not a menace to society or a danger to Detective Pretty Boy's golden hair, but for now, he's still trying to figure out how to get out of this confounded mess before a rescue team descends on them.

Another wave of fatigue smacks into him, his body probably draining of energy faster because of how much is being consumed by trying to heal. He supposes he's meant to consume a hell of a lot of food to make up for it but it's sort of impossible right now. He exhales slowly, his eyes fluttering shut because some rest while his body repairs itself sounds so good and-

"Hey." A hand shakes his shoulder and pain ripples down his spine. "Hey, stay with me."

He struggles to get his eyes open, feeling a little like snapping at whoever is disturbing him – but it's hard to keep his thoughts aligned and to make sense of anything. Blue eyes framed by a lot of white dust stare at him in the minimal light, a firm hand squeezing his shoulder in an attempt to keep him grounded. It almost seems funny to him, to be grounded, when he's skewered to it.

"I- You need to…to move my leg so-"

"It's a penetrating wound. You're meant to leave the object in until-"

"I can't…heal with it in," he interrupts, his eyes lapsing closed again. If he doesn't die from this, Caitlin will probably kill him for getting himself in danger and making terrible medical calls without much knowledge to back him up. "Trust me…"

His shoulder is shaken again, a voice is saying something, but it's effort to stay awake. Too much effort. Too mu…

He stirs awake slowly, listening to something whooshing to his left and beeping to his right. He moans softly when he attempts to shift his body and feels the hurt all over, but it's more of a dull ache that has settled deep into his bones than the agonising stabbing deep into his muscles that he'd been experiencing before.

He hears heels hurriedly clicking across the floor and attempts to brace himself.

"Barry?"

He tilts his head towards Caitlin's voice, his eyes opening a fraction to see her concerned brown eyes gazing at him. She tucks her tablet under her arm and reaches out a tentative hand to touch his hair, her palm warm against his cheek.

"Hurts," he whispers, his mouth dry and parts of his body pounding dully with leftover pain. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. It almost looks fond compared to the grumpy expression she usually wore after he was injured.

"Your right arm was crushed by a twenty pound hunk of concrete which shattered most of the bones in it," she explains, one edge of her lips turning down as her thumb drags over his temple. "Your leg was pierced by a piece of steel half an inch thick which tore through your femoral artery. If your body wasn't capable of speed-healing so the wound clotted relatively quickly, you wouldn't be alive right now."

He tries to smile, even though he still feels weak and tired. At least he was right when he'd dimly thought that Eddie would have died if he'd suffered the same injuries. He'd been in worse shape than he'd expected. "Shit," he mutters and she shakes her head again, her lips pressing together.

"You've got to stop putting yourself in dangerous situations, Barry," she admonishes gently, curling her nails through his hair.

His eyes slip closed at the soothing action before he focuses on the explosion and the detail that Eddie had been there with him. His heart skips a beat which is picked up by one of the monitors. It throws a fit that draws Caitlin's hand away from him so she can silence its incessant and shrill beeping.

"How did I get here?" he whispers, knowing she's still beside him even if it's difficult to keep his eyes open to see her. "What happened to Eddie?"

"We're not actually sure how you got here," Caitlin admits and Barry attempts to get his eyes open to see her worried and bewildered expression. "Eddie went to the hospital and they found a couple of cracked ribs and scrapes, but he was mostly fine. He gave a statement to Joe that The Flash had been there with him, which scared Joe until he discovered you were already here. "

Barry frowns, trying to recall anything that might offer a clue but his memory is a blank, a big fat lump of utter blackness. He supposes it's because he was unconscious but it's not reassuring to know he'd ended up at STAR Labs with no known method of transportation. Was it a friendly metahuman? Someone who knew him, his secret, and his connection to STAR Labs?

"Get some more rest. Your body is still recovering from the trauma," Caitlin says, her fingers brushing against his hair briefly before her heels click across the floor when she retreats from the room.

He wants to continue puzzling over what happened, how he got here, a bit longer but he's too tired to stay awake.

Joe manages to convince Singh he has the flu and that's why he takes a week off work. He spends most of it resting and taking it easy after Caitlin threatens to tie him down if he doesn't. She also convinces Cisco to put his suit in one of the metahuman vaults so he can't get to it, which wouldn't stop him from saving people except he'd be recognised and the suit stops his clothes catching on fire. So he's forced to stop saving people for a week and sleep, eat and watch TV.

He probably needed the extra time though, because despite all the injuries he'd sustained healing within a day – and not even a scar to suggest he'd been hurt in the first place – he still feels tired and weak. Caitlin said it was because he lost so much blood and used so much energy to heal so he needs to increase his calorie intake, and he eats plenty of Cisco's bars for a snack, but it's definitely not as easy to walk from one side of his apartment to the other as it should be. His leg seems to wobble a little beneath him. His hand doesn't quite hold things properly. He hasn't told Caitlin yet.

On Saturday afternoon, when he's entirely bored of the latest baseball game on TV, a knock on the door rouses him from lounging on the couch. He shuffles to open it with the assistance of holding onto the walls and freezes, hand on the handle, eyes widening.

"Eddie?"

Eddie's blue eyes scan him down and up. He tries not to feel too self-conscious. "I see you weren't wrong when you said you wouldn't heal with the steel stuck in your leg," Eddie says, the casual tone not concealing the anger that sparkles in the depth of Eddie's eyes.

He goes to say something automatically but the words get stuck in his throat. He glances down his corridor before opening the door wider and ushering Eddie inside. He doesn't need anyone in his apartment block hearing this.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says calmly, trying to disguise his faint limp as much as possible as he returns to the couch and look nonchalantly at the television. "I've had the flu."

"Cut the crap, Allen." Eddie sinks into the arm chair and stares at him like he's some sort of alien creature. Maybe he is. He's not a human anymore. "Whatever you do to your voice as The Flash faded when I began to lose you. You think I can't recognise the voice of the twelfth's youngest CSI who happens to be the stepson of my partner?"

Shit.

"Don't tell Iris," he pleads, running his hands through his hair as he realises he's totally, totally screwed. "Joe didn't want me telling her and-"

"Joe knows?" Eddie's hands clench in his lap, his brows drawing together as his jaw sets in a stiff line. "Jesus Christ. Does Singh know?"

"No." Barry scrubs a hand over his face as he tries to think quickly about containing this issue before it rages out of control. "No, Singh has no idea. Joe found out when he shot Clyde Mardon and my hood was down."

"When he shot-" Eddie shakes his head in disbelief, muttering something like, "Well now I understand why Mardon died."

"Don't tell Iris," Barry repeats, attempting to steer Eddie back to the main concern at hand. He can't do anything about stopping Eddie from finding out but he needs to shield Iris. He reaches for Eddie's knee. "Please. She'll end up in more danger than she-"

Eddie flinches from the hand that stretches towards him, putting an extra few feet between them when he stands and moves to the other side of the arm chair. "Yes, she'll be in danger because you're out of control."

"I didn't mean to attack you! It was-"

"It was because you have feelings for Iris," Eddie interrupts, gazing at him steadily, daring him to deny it. He opens his mouth but falters because he knows he can't say anything. He knows that the attack he'd inflicted on anything when he'd been infected by rage had, in large part, been fuelled by his jealousy of Eddie. The worst part was that harming Eddie had made Iris not want him around as The Flash anymore when they were already distanced as Barry-and-Iris.

And he missed her.

"Eddie…"

"I'll keep your secret, Allen," Eddie snaps, his eyes flicking over Barry's body with a hint of disgust in his features, "but only because I care about Iris' safety."

Barry wants to chase after Eddie – and he could since Eddie knows he has super speed now – but he stays where he is as his colleague leaves his apartment. His hands are trembling and his heart is racing and he's pretty sure he's going to be sick.

~FIN~