A/N: Hello, all! This was a fun AU for me to put together. (my apologies for it not being up sooner, but ffnet wouldn't let me! *huffs*) I wrote this fic for the westallen secret santa event hosted by westallenfun on tumblr. My recipient was for Onthecyberseas. I hope you enjoy!

*Many thanks to sendtherain for beta'ing all three chaps for me within 24 hours of her speedily running around to pack up for vacation. This girl is the BEST!

*I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

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Chapter 1 -

Barry Allen. Iris wrinkled her nose in disgust at the very sound of his name as it bounced around in her mind. The singer. The popstar. The guy that had bailed on his first date with her best friend.

"Something came up," Linda had said with a woeful sigh.

Given that it was three days later and he hadn't so much as deigned to call and apologize, Iris had taken matters into her own annoyed hands. She stomped over to the karaoke bar he sometimes frequented – the height of his singing career at the time – and grilled the bartender for the location of his likely humble abode.

The bartender that night looked fifteen, not twenty-one, but Iris was not one to focus on the legalities of that situation in the moment, even if her dad was a cop. Still, on that note, she was glad a pretty brunette had intervened, quickly informing her she knew this Barry Allen – he was a friend of hers – and asking what exactly the problem was.

"I'll tell you what the problem is," Iris barked. "Your 'friend' bailed on my best friend two seconds after picking her up for a date three days ago. He hasn't so much as called her to apologize, or – or sent her flowers, which is what he should be doing. She was excited for that date."

A slightly shorter guy with dark flowing locks approached from behind the woman, looking concerned, but Iris only spared him a single glance before returning her fiery gaze to the brunette in front of her.

"Are…" She looked over to the new arrival before looking back at Iris. "Are you talking about Linda?"

Well, that took her off guard.

Iris' shoulders slumped slightly, a myriad of questions racing through her mind.

"You…you guys know Linda?"

"Yeah, she's great—"

"We don't know her know her," the woman clarified, cutting off her friend. "She's the first person that got Barry to do a repeat performance up onstage after praising him the first time." She lowered her voice slightly, suddenly unable to maintain eye contact. "It wasn't one of my brightest moments. I don't remember much, but apparently I was incredibly drunk and he took pity on me when I declared I was doing karaoke." She cleared her throat.

"Which is why she's great," the man beside her said amidst her brief embarrassment.

Iris glanced between the two, sifting through the information she'd been given and wondering why Linda hadn't told her this particular story.

"I have a date tonight!" she'd declared the night of said date.

Iris' jaw had dropped. "With who?" she demanded, though she couldn't help but smile.

"Just…a guy…at a bar…that I casually gave my phone number to via an app," she said nonchalantly, but she was clearly gushing.

"That's sooo not like you, Lin." She lowered her voice. "Picking up a guy at a bar?"

"I know, I know, but I have a really good feeling about him, Iris. I think he's one of the good ones."

Iris had been happy for her, truly, but all that had gone up in smoke when moments after he met her at their workplace, and Linda had dashed off to her desk to get her jacket, Barry had quite lamely – and obviously – made up an excuse to leave on her return.

"Good to meet you, Iris," he'd said by way of goodbye.

She'd glared and not said a single word, her best friend fighting not to look disappointed beside her.

"I really have to go," he said regrettably, then turned to Linda. "I'm so sorry."

"It's all right," her best friend said far too brightly. "Things come up. I understand."

"Right."

"Maybe another time," Linda had started to say, but he'd turned to leave before she could get all the words out, and he'd never contacted her again.

"If she's so great," Iris said, the memory of what drove her fury coursing through her veins as she crossed her arms tightly beneath her breasts. "Why did he ditch her two minutes after he picked her up for their date?" she seethed.

"I…" the man began.

"She didn't tell you?" the woman asked, confused.

"No!" Iris threw her hands up in the air. "How could she have told me what she didn't know herself? She hasn't heard from him since he stormed out of CCPN three days ago saying something came up! The lying ass," she muttered under her breath.

"Storming seems a little…un-Barry-like," the man said in response.

"Yeah, I don't think—"

"Okay, fine, he didn't storm," Iris allowed in a huff. "He walked normally." Her brows furrowed, remembering. "He actually…stumbled a little, I think."

"Now that sounds like Barry," the man said, smiling brightly as he took a bite of a piece of red licorice he'd either pulled from his pocket or been holding in his hand the whole time.

"Definitely," the woman muttered, laughing slightly under her breath.

"Forget the stumbling," Iris brushed that aside, realizing she was getting nowhere with these two. She ignored their frowns when she said so. "Tell me where he is. I need to talk to him. He is going to be apologizing to my best friend, and at the very least he is going to take her on one date. She deserves that much. Or at least flowers. He can afford flowers, right? He can't be that broke. Or-" A possibility dawned on her, and she felt guilty for the first time. "He's not…he's not broke, is he?" she lowered her voice. "Is that why he bailed on her? And why he never called her after that? He was too embarrassed to admit it?"

The two in front of her shared another look, which she was already tiring of.

"No, that's not why…"

Her feeling of guilt evaporated.

"Then tell me where he is. I demand an explanation. Linda does too, because she deserve—"

The woman suddenly grasped her wrist in her hand. Iris fought the urge to pull away.

"Hey, I know you're upset, but-"

This time Iris did pull away.

The woman sighed. "I just don't think he can tell you anything that he didn't already tell her."

Iris' brows furrowed in confusion. "Huh?"

"It's true," the man piped up, bouncing up on his toes as he took another bite of his snack. "Barry called her up two days ago and told her what happened. He said she understood but was disappointed. He wanted to make it up to her somehow, but we pointed out to him that pursuing her would be unfair to both him and her, so he settled for sending her a bouquet of flowers. We never found out if she accepted them or not, and he never heard from her again."

Iris was more confused than ever. She couldn't remember seeing flowers on Linda's desk ever in the past three days. She hadn't noticed any when she stopped by her apartment one night for a detox after work either. Was it possible Barry Allen had sent flowers and her best friend had just been so upset by the whole ordeal that she threw them out immediately and didn't even bother telling her?

Why wouldn't she tell her? She pouted, feeling slightly betrayed now.

"So, I…I don't…"

"Maybe you should ask Linda what he said?"

"No." She shook her head. "If you guys are telling the truth-"

"We are!" They both declared simultaneously.

She blinked, briefly silenced.

"Then your friend must've really broken her heart if she didn't feel like she could tell me, her best friend." She sighed and shook her head, tugging her purse strap higher up over her shoulder. "I don't want to know anymore." She took a breath and looked at them before turning to leave. "But Barry Allen is no friend of mine."

She filtered out their protests as she left the bar. She didn't even know them, and she didn't know Barry Allen, but she did know that his excuse must've been really shitty if Linda couldn't tell her what was up. That was all she needed to know. Barry Allen was a scumbag, a real asshole. She wished him nothing but misery and failure in his life. And whatever happened, he better not fall in love.

Three years later, looking over a set-in-stone assignment on her desk, she knew the universe had heard her bitter wish and immediately thrown it in the trash. Barry Allen might not be in love – as far as was public knowledge – but he was no longer just occasionally singing karaoke in halfway decent bars. He was rising to stardom, and her boss had made it clear that an exclusive with him would spruce up the entertainment page of Central City Picture News, maybe draw in younger readers.

"We're not a gossip rag," she'd shot back two seconds after she asked to speak with him privately and shut the door behind her. He didn't bother to offer her the vacant chair on the opposite side of his desk. She never took it. She was only ever in his office when his assignments irritated her, which was often.

"This could be your big break, Iris," he said with a sigh, circling his desk to sit in his chair.

"I don't care!"

He raised an eyebrow, and with some effort she reined herself in.

"There will be other stories," she said. "And I'm sure there are several reporters here that would love to do a piece on him."

"But I don't want anyone else to write it. I want you."

"Why?" she demanded.

"You're not biased."

She scoffed.

"You're not biased in the way a lot of young people are. You don't think he's the best thing since sliced bread."

"He's scum."

Her boss waited.

"That's bias, right?" she pointed out.

"Do this for me, and I'll consider letting you branch out with your stories."

"What do you mean 'branch out'?"

"I mean, you choose the next five stories you want to write. If I like the outcome, I'll promote you to investigative reporter."

She wished she'd been near the chair to sit down in it. Her mind was racing. She'd been writing puny little stories, small-time crimes or large-scale crimes that she wasn't allowed to look into. She wanted to make a mark in the world, and she wanted to do it as a reporter. She'd been at CCPN four years and never achieved the level of success she wanted. Who knew when an opportunity like this might come again?

Finally, she looked up at her boss, taking a couple steps towards where he sat.

"All I have to do is interview the scumbag?"

He smiled serenely.

"All you have to do is interview the scumbag."

Hesitantly, she smiled and then nodded.

"Do try to be somewhat objective though, Miss West," he said before she reached the door.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, her brows furrowing as her hand came to rest on the door handle.

"This can't be a revenge piece to get back at him for whatever he supposedly did to you."

"It's not me he did-"

He held up his hand to silence her, and she stopped.

"I want an honest piece. Can you do that?"

Gradually, she allowed the tiniest of smiles to slip through.

"I can certainly try."

A week later, a date and time finally arranged, Iris sat in a nearly empty studio, nothing but white walls and light wood floor, and some stereo equipment that she guessed belonged in the soundproof room down the hall.

There was not a sound in the place. The security guy for the building happened to be walking by when she arrived and let her in once she told him who she was and why she was there.

He smiled genuinely.

"I heard you were coming. Just head on up. Fifth floor. He should be here soon."

She forced a smile, quietly said her thanks and headed for the elevator.

The large floor-to-ceiling windows mesmerized her when she'd first walked in, but now she wanted to throw a rock through them and scuff the floor from one side to the next with her pretty new heels.

Linda was so, so lucky she never got so far as one date with him. She would've been nothing but disappointed and probably would've dumped him within a week of knowing him.

No girl could wait this long for a date to arrive. No call, no text, no doubt in her mind now that he had no one special in his life.

Barry Allen was two hours late. And counting.