The Trial as a Flashpoint #2

Barry didn't know it, but his whole world was crumbling around him.

Hal Jordan, who had been Green Lantern for almost as long as Barry had been The Flash, quit the intergalactic corps created by the Guardians of the Universe at the same time Barry endured his trial for the murder of Eobard Thawne.

It still kills me to think about it now, but I was at my own crossroads, having just made the difficult decision to relinquish the persona of Kid Flash, at the same time that Dick Grayson gave up being Robin, after he realized that he was no longer the Boy Wonder. We walked away from the Teen Titans, the only real home either of us had known in the last few years leading up to the Crisis.

For me, the walk took an eternity.

I still can't explain how it'd reached that point, how I had become so selfish, rejecting the one person who had defined my whole life, whom I'd modeled my superheroic career around, who had actually given me my powers!

At that point in my life, however, that's exactly how much regard I had for Barry, for the life he'd helped me create. It didn't hurt that I had Dick to legitimize my decision, the friend who could most identify with my thought process.

I only wish I had been a little more thoughtful, a little more grateful, that I hadn't so easily and so completely abandoned Barry.

Hindsight informs so much of what I know now, how Barry not only couldn't rely on me, but not even Hal, when he could have used both of us, not just for emotional support, but for so many more things, the fact that the Rogues chose that moment to plague him as they hadn't for half a decade, for starters, coming together as a unit as they had never done before, a united front that attacked him from every angle...

He was completely on his own. He'd lost his wife, and now he'd lost the favor of the public, and was facing the loss of his very freedom, the thing he'd fought for since before he became The Flash, a pioneer of forensic science in the guise of Barry Allen.

His private life was ruined, and his costumed identity became isolated, because of me, because of Hal, because that's the way the world works. You're surrounded by friends until you need them.