Time in a Bottle: CHAPTER ONE
“The only thing that remains the SAME in ANY dimension is the SPEED OF LIGHT."
Mark Grayson X The Flash/Gerrik! Reader
Prologue | Chapter One (here)
w/c: 4.0k
series c/w: Small age gap (Mark 20/Reader 25). Reader is a college educated cis woman from the 1930/40s.
a/n: Time in a Bottle is a slow burn, mostly episodic, request driven story. Also, the amount of research I did into early baseball for three lines is absurd
Mark genuinely didn’t even know why he was here.
Not that he wanted to be.
Surely there were other heroes in… wherever the hell they were in Germany.
But no.
Just him.
Well, him and the others Robot had either guilt-tripped or blackmailed into coming.
Luckily for Mark, it had only been guilt.
For Immortal and Bulletproof, flying beside him now, Mark suspected it had been both.
“Okay,” Mark called over the wind as they cut through low clouds. He tried to cross his arms. Immediately remembered that would absolutely kill his momentum as he awkwardly uncrossed them. “Remind me why we need to be here again?”
Immortal didn’t look at him. “An alt-right nationalist group has been growing in numbers.”
“Oh. Cool. Hate that already.”
“They’ve taken control of an abandoned facility,” Immortal continued evenly. “One that previously housed nuclear research and early ballistic weapons development.”
Bulletproof frowned. “That part wasn’t in Robot’s briefing.”
“No. It was not.”
Mark squinted at him as he tried to joke with the serious man. “What? Were you the reason it was abandoned or something?”
“Yes.”
Mark waited for something more than just the simple answer, but got nothing.
Bulletproof slowly turned his head. “You’re kidding.”
“I am not.”
Guess Immortal was guilt tripped as well, Mark thought.
The mountains came into view ahead of them. Tall, white, and unforgiving. And carved into the rock like a wound sat the facility.
Even from this distance, Mark could see fresh construction layered over old concrete.
Old bones with new teeth.
“You gonna elaborate? At all?” Mark tried to prod.
Immortal’s gaze never left the structure.
“This is a tomb,” he said simply. “And it’s being desecrated.”
“So that’s the actual reason you came back for this.” Bulletproof muttered.
Immortal didn’t answer. He simply started walking through the snow as flakes began to fall harder, dusting his shoulders.
Mark sighed and cracked his knuckles.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Let’s go ruin some fascists’ day.”
Getting into the compound was easy.
So easy Mark almost felt insulted.
Immortal didn’t hesitate. He walked straight to the first reinforced door and pulled it out, hinges screaming as they tore free from concrete.
Alarms blared instantly. Red lights strobed across the snow.
Men in black tactical gear poured out of the doorways, rifles raised.
The world quickly became fists and ringing gunshots. Mark plowed into the nearest cluster, sending bodies flying into construction floodlights and parked vehicles.
Someone tried to shout orders, he assumed. But Mark spun and drove the shouting man into a snowbank hard enough to leave a person-shaped crater.
To his left, Bulletproof simply walked forward, shrugging off gunfire with an annoyed expression.
“Seriously?” he muttered, grabbing a rifle out of a man’s hands, and tearing it apart like cardboard.
Immortal moved differently.
Efficient and downright terrifying.
No wasted no energy. He disarmed, he broke bones, and some men Mark swore would see double for the rest of their lives based on how hard Immortal hit them.
Mark hovered, scanning the wreckage.
“That can’t be it.”
And just his luck. It wasn’t.
The ground shook from below their feet.
Immortal froze.
Over the compound intercom, frantic shouting erupted.
German.
Immortal’s head snapped toward the main structure.
“What?” Mark demanded. “What are they saying?”
Immortal didn’t answer right away.
And for the first time since Mark had known him, something cracked through the hero’s composure.
Fear.
“They’re reactivating the reactor.”
Bulletproof stared at him. “What?”
“They must’ve rebuilt it,” Immortal said, voice tight.
Mark’s stomach dropped as another tremor tore through the ground. The lights that illuminated them flickered violently.
“Well?” Mark barked. “Let’s go!”
They tore into the facility.
Inside was chaos.
Mechanics scrambling. Armed men retreating. Sirens wailing.
The deeper they went, the hotter the air became.
Then they reached the chamber.
The reactor stood at the center, newer steel bolted around something much older if the rust was any indication.
And it was already humming. Sparks spat from exposed wiring.
Then something worse happened.
Lightning arced across the room, snapping against walls and ceiling like it was alive.
The reactor began to scream.
The sound bent the air. High and piercing.
“Shut it down!” Bulletproof yelled.
“I’m trying!” Immortal snapped, sprinting toward the control array.
And then the world split open.
A crack tore through the air above the reactor.
A portal.
But not the sickly green of Angstrom’s.
This was pure white light.
The lightning stopped lashing randomly.
It bent and spiraled upward.
Mark stared. “What the hell—”
Something shot out of the rift.
It moved impossibly fast, like a comet breaking atmosphere.
Immortal looked up.
And it slammed into him.
The impact launched him across the chamber, through steel scaffolding and into the far wall hard enough to crater reinforced concrete.
The rift snapped shut.
The lightning vanished.
The reactor powered down instantly.
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Mark blinked.
“…What.”
Bulletproof was already moving.
They rushed to the crater.
Immortal lay half-buried in twisted steel.
He wasn’t alone.
There was someone in his arms.
A woman.
Red suit torn. Boots scorched.
A metal helmet on the floor beside her.
Immortal stared down at her like he’d seen a ghost.
His hands were shaking.
“…No,” he whispered to himself.
Mark looked between them.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ
You woke to the warm crackle of a radio.
Soft and familiar.
The voices blurred together at first. Static, then the low murmur of a crowd. A bat cracked. The announcer’s cadence rolled smooth and bright.
“…and that makes it two outs here at Ebbets Field, folks, Dodgers trailing the Yankees—”
Baseball.
The sound wrapped around you like sunlight through curtains. For a moment, you didn’t move. You just listened.
Your body felt heavy.
Numb in a way.
You pushed yourself upright slowly, palms pressing into the mattress. Your thoughts stumbled over one another, sluggish and out of order.
The last thing you remembered was light.
Heat clawing up your spine as the reactor screamed.
You had been certain you would be vaporized.
Or worse.
Instead, you were sitting in a bed.
In clothes you didn’t recognize.
Your breath caught in your throat.
This wasn’t the barracks.
It wasn’t the medical tent, either.
Not the one you occasionally woke in after fainting spells from skipped meals and too much running on too little rest.
There were no canvas walls.
No cots.
No antiseptic sting in the air.
This room, instead, smelled like linens and lavender.
The sheets were crisp. The walls solid. A nightstand sat beside you with a glass of water and a small lamp. The radio crackled again.
“…as DiMaggio steps up to the plate—”
Your head snapped toward it.
DiMaggio?
You swallowed thickly as you looked down at your hands, turning them over slowly.
No burns.
No blisters.
No tremor of sickness.
You flexed your fingers experimentally.
Alive and whole.
Your stomach dropped.
You slipped your legs over the side of the bed, bare feet meeting polished floor.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The announcer’s voice continued, cheerful, unbothered.
“Game five of the World Series—”
You froze and listened closer.
DiMaggio flew out. Nearly got into a scuffle with Wyatt.
You remembered this game. You remembered the Subway Series.
It was part of the 1941 World Series after all.
Your heartbeat thundered in your ears.
That was four years ago.
Four years before the mission.
Four years before…
The door clicked open.
You were on your feet before it finished swinging inward.
“Miss Garrick?”
A woman in a nurse’s uniform stepped inside, with a bright smile and a tray in her hands.
“You’re awake,” she said carefully.
“Where am I?” you asked.
Your voice sounded rough and unrecognizable to your own ears. Like you’d slept years without water.
“You’ve been through quite an ordeal,” she replied, stepping further into the room. “You need to rest.”
“Where am I?” you repeated.
She didn’t answer that.
Instead, she sat down the tray, containing a fresh glass of water and something small you didn’t recognize, and moved to adjust the radio volume.
Your eyes narrowed.
“Forgive me, ma’am. But what year is it?” you asked.
“1945. You’ve experienced a great deal of trauma,” she said gently. “Disorientation is common.”
Your stomach twisted.
Captured.
That was the only explanation.
If you hadn’t died, you must’ve been pulled from the blast.
They would want to study you. They would want to experiment on you.
Your jaw tightened.
“You won’t get anything from me,” you said quietly.
The nurse blinked. “I’m sorry?”
You stepped back, muscles coiling with tension.
“This is some trick,” you continued, scanning the corners of the room. You see it now. Everything was staged around you. “If you think I won’t recognize it—”
This wasn’t just a room. It was a set.
The nurse took a cautious step forward. “Miss Garrick—”
You moved.
Where you planned to run, you didn’t know. All you knew is you couldn’t stay here.
The nurse’s eyes widened.
The door behind her burst open.
Armed men in black tactical gear flooded in. Some even appeared behind you somehow.
You didn’t recognize the insignia of the green star.
But that didn’t matter.
“Easy!” one of them barked. “Don’t—”
You bolted.
You were at the door before the first finger tightened on a trigger. The hallway stretched long and sterile, fluorescent lights.
Everything felt wrong. So viscerally wrong.
Wrong architecture. Wrong air. Wrong everything.
So you ran.
The world slowed around you. Voices stretched into slow, distorted echoes.
You dodged grasping hands, slipped between bodies, disarmed two men without breaking stride.
Alarms erupted as red lights strobed.
You burst through double doors at the end of the hallway which only led and a larger chamber. Reinforced walls, thick observation glass, metal railings.
Containment.
Your chest tightened as you quickened your pace. The world stopping around you.
The air howled in protest as you slammed through the far exit in a blast of splintering metal and screaming hinges—
—And ran straight into someone standing impossibly solid in your path.
It felt like running into a mountain.
Strong hands caught your shoulders.
You looked up.
“Arthur?”
The name left you on a breath, half relief, half disbelief.
You stepped back immediately, scanning him the way you had a hundred times before and after a mission. It was instinct to do so.
No visible injuries.
He looked the same.
But—
You frowned.
“What on Earth are you wearing?”
He wasn’t in his usual uniform. No white suit with the blue shield across his chest. No belt. No cape snapping in the wind.
Instead, he wore something sleek. Skin-tight blue fabric broken by sharp white and yellow lines that traced down his torso and arms.
It looked… Wrong.
His mouth twitched faintly. “A lot has happened, old friend.”
You blinked. “Old friend?”
You took another step back. Arthur didn’t call you that.
He called you ‘Garrick’. Sometimes ‘Miss Garrick’ when he was feeling particularly formal. Occasionally ‘Zippy’ when you annoyed him.
But not ‘Old friend’. Never that.
“You look the same as usual,” you said slowly. “Healthy.”
He did. But there was something in his eyes. Something heavier.
Behind him, boots pounded down the corridor. Men in tactical uniforms skidded to a halt, weapons raised but hesitant in a way you weren’t used to.
You glanced between them and Arthur.
“Are these yours?” you asked sharply.
“They are not here to harm you,” he said.
“That’s not what it looked like.”
One of the soldiers shifted. “Sir, should we—”
Arthur lifted a hand without looking back and they froze.
“Arthur,” you said carefully, “what happened?”
Silence stretched.
Too long.
He held your gaze.
“We all thought you’d died. Time moved on like you were.”
You waited for clarification. More details. Anything.
But more didn’t come.
So you asked, “How much time?”
He hesitated, but with a cross of your arms, he sighed out. “Over seventy years.”
A laugh escaped you, thin and breathless.
“That isn’t funny, O’Sullivan.”
“I am not joking.”
Your stomach dropped.
The vortex. The light. Being pulled toward it.
You looked down at your hands again.
Whole. Unburned. Unchanged.
“You haven’t aged,” you whispered.
“Neither have you.”
You swallowed as you felt bile pool in your mouth as your chest felt compressed.
“But the war?” you asked, because that was what mattered. “Did we—”
“We won,” Arthur said quietly.
You closed your eyes.
A breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding left you in a shudder.
“That’s… that’s good,” you murmured.
Arthur’s expression shifted, grief flickering across features that rarely betrayed it.
Footsteps approached from farther down the hall, slower than the rushed pace of the soldiers. These were measured and unhurried
“Can’t say I didn’t expect you to get farther than this,” a voice drawled, dry as old paper, “but it’s a pleasant surprise you didn’t.”
You shifted instantly, stepping to the side so you could see around Arthur’s shoulder.
An older man with a scarred face walked toward you through the corridor’s flashing red light.
He wore a crisp suit. And, pinned neatly to his lapel, a small American flag.
You would’ve likely been on edge despite your friend’s presence if not for that.
You straightened slightly. He was Government, then. But that didn’t mean completely safe.
The man stopped several feet away from you.
“Well,” he said. “You’re awake and raring to go.”
Your chin lifted. “I should hope so.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Name’s Cecil Stedman.”
The name meant nothing to you.
“Director of the Global Defense Agency.”
You blinked. “The what?”
“Long story short,” he said, folding his hands behind his back, “we handle things that governments can’t. Or won’t. Aliens. Superhumans. End-of-the-world scenarios.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly. That was your whole campaign during the war, that after the fighting ended you’d all remain a team and help the people of your nation.
“And I fall into which category?”
Arthur answered before Stedman could.
“Hero.”
Stedman tilted his head faintly but didn’t contradict it.
“You’ve been gone a long time, Miss Garrick,” he said. “Long enough that the world you knew doesn’t exist anymore.”
Your jaw tightened.
“Yeah, I gathered.”
His gaze flicked briefly to Arthur.
“You disappeared in 1945 during a reactor event in Germany. Historical records list you as killed in action.”
A strange feeling moved through your chest at that.
Killed.
You had never imagined your story ending that way despite all the danger you’d put yourself in.
“You didn’t,” Stedman continued. “Instead, you appear in the middle of a reactivated facility nearly eight decades later.”
Stedman’s expression didn’t change as he continued on, waving away the soldiers as they left you and the two men alone in the room.
“We had a containment scenario prepared,” he said. “The radio. The room. A familiar year. We didn’t know what state you’d wake up in.”
Your stomach turned cold.
“So it was a trick.”
“It was an attempt to prevent panic.”
“Did a piss poor job.”
“I see that now.”
Stedman studied your reaction carefully.
“You’re not a prisoner,” he added. “You’re not an experiment.”
“Then why the soldiers?”
“Because,” he said evenly, “you were shot out of a dimensional anomaly. Forgive me for wanting a few precautions.”
You opened your mouth and stopped with a huff.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
Arthur’s voice was softer now. “He feared you might not be… yourself.”
Your eyes snapped up. “And am I?”
Arthur held your gaze. “Yes.”
Stedman watched that exchange closely.
“There’s also the matter of the lightning. Whatever you connected to in 1945,” he said, “it came back with you.”
Silence fell between you all.
“I only meant to stop the blast,” you murmured.
Arthur’s voice was steady beside you. “You did.”
Stedman‘s gaze didn’t waver.
“And now,” he said, “we need to figure out exactly what you’ve become.”
The silence stretched just a little too long.
You lifted your chin. “You’re not putting me back in that box.”
Stedman didn’t blink. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“I’m sure it was close enough.”
Arthur stepped slightly in front of you, blocking your line of sight of the Director.
“She will not be imprisoned,” he said, voice carrying the weight of centuries. “If she agrees to testing, it will be voluntary.”
Stedman’s jaw worked once.
“You’re asking me to let a temporal anomaly with unknown energy output walk out of my facility.”
“I am,” Arthur replied calmly.
You glanced between them.
“I will not be studied like some captured weapon,” you said. “If I agree to your medical tests, it is on one condition.”
Stedman gestured faintly. “Name it.”
“I leave when I wish to leave.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek.
“That’s not how this works.”
“Then it won’t work at all.”
The air in the hallway felt charged, as though a storm were deciding whether to break.
Arthur looked at you as he places a hand on your shoulder.
“You need answers,” he said quietly. “As much as they do.”
You hated that he was right.
You didn’t understand what had happened in that reactor chamber.
You didn’t understand how seventy-nine years had slipped past you like a misplaced second.
And ignorance was one of the greatest dangers.
“I will not be detained,” you repeated, more measured this time.
“You’ll undergo a full medical evaluation. Bloodwork. Imaging. Energy output analysis. If at any point you decide you’re done, you walk.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly. “No sedation.”
“No sedation.”
“No restraints.”
Stedman hesitated. Arthur’s jaw ticked as he glared down at the Director.
Stedman sighed. “No restraints.”
You studied him carefully.
“And I leave when I say I leave.”
A beat.
“You leave,” he confirmed.
Relief didn’t come.
Only cautious acceptance.
“Then I’ll cooperate.”
Stedman nodded once, brisk and efficient. “Good. Let’s move before you change your mind.”
The medical wing was colder.
Sterile white walls. Glass partitions. Equipment that hummed with a pitch you’d never heard before. Screens flickered with complex readouts that meant nothing to you.
You didn’t like how easily they moved around you. How prepared they were.
Arthur stayed at your side as technicians approached. They were careful. Reverent, almost, in a way.
Blood was drawn.
Scans were taken.
Electrodes placed along your temples and chest.
After what felt like hours, the final scan completed with a soft chime.
Stedman studied the data tablet handed to him. “Well,” he said slowly, “that’s concerning.”
You stiffened.
Arthur’s voice sharpened. “Explain.”
Stedman glanced up.
“Her cells aren’t just energized. They’re… it’s like they’re drawing from a consistent external source.”
Your stomach dipped. “External?”
He met your gaze directly.
“So you see,” he continued smoothly, “why I can’t simply let you disappear into the general population.”
You folded your arms.
“Please, I’ve lived as a civilian before. I can do it again.”
Stedman’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“I’m sure you think so.”
Stedman sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Here’s the compromise,” he said. “You’re free to leave. Explore. Adjust. We won’t lock you down.”
You waited.
“But,” he continued, “you’ll have a tail.”
Your eyes sharpened. “A what?”
“Observers,” he clarified. “You won’t see them. You won’t hear them. But they’ll be there.”
“I don’t like that.”
“I don’t expect you to. But that’s what you’ll get.”
You thought about the scenario you were in.
The unfamiliar world beyond the reinforced windows. The knowledge that everyone you’d ever known, except Arthur, thought you were long dead.
You were alone in a future that didn’t belong to you.
If invisible shadows were the cost of walking freely in it…
You exhaled.
“Fine,” you said at last. “But if they interfere—”
“They won’t,” Stedman said.
Then you nodded once.
“Then I’m going for a walk.”
Stedman gestured toward the exit.
“Welcome to the twenty-first century, Miss Garrick.”
You moved toward the doors. A man with glasses and an apologetic smile waited on the other side who immediately fell into step with you.
And somewhere, unseen but heard, something unseen began to follow.
It wasn’t freedom.
“Miss Garrick,” he said warmly. “Donald Ferguson. I’ll be your… liaison.”
“Babysitter,” you corrected.
His smile tightened just a fraction. “Guide.”
You glanced past him. Through the glass walls of the facility, the skyline stretched farther than any city you’d ever seen. Buildings of steel and glass that seem to pierce the clouds. Bright, glowing billboards that flashed moving images brighter than any cinema reel you’d ever seen.
You swallowed.
It felt like stepping onto another planet.
Ferguson walked beside you as the doors opened to the outside world.
“Things have changed,” he offered gently.
“That’s one word for it.”
You stepped onto the sidewalk.
You turned in a slow circle. Looking at the loud, colorful, and crowded world around you.
“I thought this might help,” he said carefully, “to ease you into things.”
“And how many of your agents are easing me?” you asked without looking at him.
A beat.
“Standard amount.”
You smiled faintly.
“So. More than five.”
You let him lead you through the city. At one point, you stopped in front of a storefront window.
Televisions, you assumed.
Rows and rows of them, tin and humongous, each broadcasting a different image.
You stared at your reflection among the moving pictures.
Seventy-nine years.
Gone.
“You’re adjusting remarkably well,” Ferguson said.
You didn’t answer.
Partly because anything you were going to say immediately lodged in your throat.
And partly because you heard it.
A scream.
Your head snapped toward the sound.
If Mister Ferguson heard, he didn’t react.
But you did.
“Miss Garrick?”
You were already moving. The world slowed. The city stretched into clean, perfect lines.
You turned the corner in a breath and found the source immediately.
A delivery truck had jumped the curb. The driver slumped over the wheel. The vehicle was seconds from crushing a woman and her child frozen in the crosswalk.
You didn’t think. You’d learned that hesitation, even when moving as fast as you did, served nothing.
Instead, you placed a secure hand at the back of the woman’s head, and carried her to a safe distance away.
Doubling back to pick up the child securely in your arms and going back to place him next to his mother once more.
Time slowly grew faster, back into its rightful pace.
People around you stared.
Weird bricks were raised, small glowing rectangles pointed directly at you.
That was new.
You stepped back slowly.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
“I’m sorry for frightening you, ma’am,” you apologized faintly.
And then you were gone again. Not far. Just quickly up the fire escapes to the rooftop above, heart pounding.
You exhaled.
Seventy-nine years hadn’t changed that part of you.
A voice behind you made you turn.
“…Okay. That was actually really cool.”
You blinked.
A boy in a suit, not unlike Arthur’s, hovered a few feet away, hands raised in a universal surrenderinggesture.
“I handled it,” you said automatically.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “You did. Fast too.”
He looked impressed, if that’s smile said anything.
“Donald’s freaking out, by the way,” he added casually. “Pretty sure he called Cecil about it.”
You glanced toward the skyline.
“I needed to leave. I didn’t mean to upset him.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
He drifted closer, studying you with open curiosity.
“So,” he said, “you always do stuff like that? Even before?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Lab accident.”
“Basic, but cool, I guess.”
You narrowed your eyes slightly.
“You’re very nonchalant about this.”
He shrugged. “I feel like I fight aliens every other day. Not much surprises me anymore.”
You stared at him.
He grinned.
There was something disarming about him.
Not naïve. More so earnest.
Below, emergency crews arrived. Ferguson stood on the sidewalk, looking upward with a resigned expression.
The boy followed your gaze.
“You should probably get back down before he has a heart attack.”
You took a slow breath.
The city buzzed beneath you.
Alive. Chaotic. And fast.
Though, you supposed, you could learn to grow used to it.
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