Iris plays idly with Barry's fingers while he dozes.
Ostensibly, he's awake, enjoying her company in their renewed engagement, but she likes that he's actually asleep, just aware enough to respond to her requests but not so that he feels restless. She prefers him quiescent; his high-energy lifestyle can be exhausting. They both need time to unwind at the end of the day. She loves unwinding with him.
She also loves the way he cuddles her. His long pianist's hands are Speed-soft, responsive. She is very gentle, capturing his index finger in a loose fist and rubbing her thumb across it. He trusts her, and she only wants to wake him if there is a need to be woken. With a deep sigh, he sinks farther into sleep.
She lists, eyelids sliding shut briefly before reopening. Her head on his chest enables her to feel every Speed-saturated breath, a rumbling purr-like sound that swells and troughs underneath her. It's immeasurably soothing – and healing, as she learned the week she caught the flu and, with scarcely conscious adamancy, latched onto him. He stayed quiet then, too, even though she knows how anxious he must have been to get back out in the field. While he couldn't cure her, his warmth and sleepy snores were effective balms to the aches and pains, softening the sharpness of sickness.
She's not sick now, but she basks in it. It's the reason Barry has aged ten years in the past three, but it's also the reason why he is firm and unbroken beneath her. He still looks like Barry, and even with the six pack – an undeniable plus – he's still her geeky, sunshiny dork. She wouldn't trade him for Apollo himself.
He shuffles like he might wake up and she unconsciously holds her breath, but he just rolls onto his side and she lets him. He's heavier and longer and all around bigger than she, but even in his sleep he's careful, too, and does not crush her. She relaxes in his grip, leaning up to kiss the side of his jaw. He sighs but does not stir.
With inexhaustible pleasure, she nuzzles his shoulder, breathing him in. She came to within a breath of losing this, losing him, forever. When his eyes closed, she thought she had. But she thought, Take my hand, Barry, and leaned down to kiss him, to hold him back from the cosmic forces that wanted to claim him. And they surrendered.
Barry's chest rises and falls at long intervals, one of the few processes that hasn't changed with Speed. His heart still races, but in sleep, he drifts towards almost fully human. There is a lightning under his skin that remains an unceasing reminder that he is not, but she has seen his human heart stop, and has seen his human heart prevail, and knows that come hell or high water, he will struggle on with human vulnerability and Speed strength.
There are things she will never forget, the first day in the hospital, the first day he woke up, the first time she saw him run and knew it was him underneath the red armor. She loves the things she's forgotten, too, like the number of kisses they've had since they started. Even if she was counting those, she doesn't think she could get tired of them.
Once, it would have been a fantasy fulfilled to kiss The Flash. He was irresistible, all sweetness and lightning, a lethal combination of compassion and strength. He could literally annihilate her, and yet he approached with cautious reverence, head bowed and hands relaxed at his sides. He didn't come in peace; he came in fondness, in inexplicable curiosity, in quiet awe of her, as if she was the impossible.
At the time she had been bewildered in the best way by his behavior, thrilled to have such a visceral effect on him. Now she knows why he responded to her immediately: underneath the mask, looking at her with unceasing affection, Barry ached and longed and dared not to break the trust she had for him by revealing his identity. It couldn't last – they were too infatuated to remain forever behind a wall – but she liked it when it did. She liked seeing that side of him, and knowing it was part of Barry only enhanced her love for him.
The truth is, Barry kisses better than The Flash ever could, because The Flash was an idea and Barry is the human who melts underneath her, who holds onto her no matter what challengers arise, who loves her, and loves her, and loves her, every day of his life.
He snuffles a little and she rests a quieting hand on his hip. His own grip tightens around her and she feels the kiss he presses against her forehead, all sleepy apology. I fell asleep, his waking hands apologize, grazing her back slowly.
She shuffles and looks at those soft, barely-open golden eyes and kisses him just to watch them close again, to close her own, to feel the peace of being with him. Don't apologize, she tells him, sliding back down to rest her head on his shoulder, a hand rising to the back of his neck and scratching lightly. He relaxes and exhales deep, drifting off without a word.
She trusts him to because she knows in the end he will always come home.
We're home, she thinks, and cannot repress a small, teary smile. Gliding back down from his neck, she picks up his hand once more, intertwining their fingers and letting him feel the ring he put on it. He stills, soft anticipation, and she brushes a thumb rhythmically across it. I'm not leaving you, she tries to insist with every fiber of her being.
And even asleep, she knows he hears her, because his answer in every carrying sleeping breath is the same: I'm not leaving you.
Settling out, she lets go of his hand and holds onto him, and follows him into sleep.