Authors Note: Hello Friends. Hope you are all well. Hope you enjoy the story. Barry and Iris are OTP. I just wish to do the comics and show justice. Any and all comments or critiques are most appreciated.
I own none of the characters (besides Alyssa, Alyssa's all mine)
The thing about Iris West was that she measured her life in moments. Her first kiss. Senior prom( she was in the running for queen, she lost to Rebecca Cho). The first newspaper article she had ever written. The day her mom left. The day she met Barry Allen.
Of course some of these moments were more substantial than others.
She and Barry had always been different. Opposites, you could say; from the first awkwardly mumbled hello. Barry was shy, gangly and the epitome of awkward.
"Whatcha reading?" she said, her illuminate smile permanently plastered. She had spotted him sitting under a sycamore tree, book perched in his lap, hair dangling in his face haphazardly. He was one of those people that mouthed the words when they read, which Iris found particularly interesting.
"Um…It's Tom Sawyer." He had said, smoothing his hair back. He wasn't used to attention. Especially not from people like Iris West.
Even in primary school Iris West was a big deal
"What's it about?"
He had just cracked the spine of the novel. Barely gotten the feel of the plot yet.
"From what I can tell it's about a boy who likes to go adventures." He doggy eared the corner of the page and sat up against the back of the tree, turning to face her a bit more.
"We should be friends." She blurted suddenly, she wasn't one to blurt, she wasn't one for suddenness either. But Barry Allen was…she wasn't quite sure yet, but she knew whatever he was it had to be good. Interesting in the least.
She had seen Barry around, almost always carrying a book. He had this mysterious, quite energy that surrounded him. She had seen him trading pokemon cards. She had seen him drinking water from the fountain. She had seen him helping Chase Worthington with his spelling homework. She didn't know Barry Allen. But she wanted to.
"What about them." He gestured to Alyssa and some of the others. Alyssa and Iris had been joined at the hip since Pre School; where one went the other followed. It was just the way it was.
"I think Alyssa would like you." As Iris said this, Alyssa looked over and offered them a small wave.
"But we're…me and you, we're not the same." Even in third grade Barry had begun to see the importance, the difference in certain social hierarchies
She squinted at him. As if he was a puzzle, a code she couldn't quite decode.
"I don't really think it matters. Alyssa's not really like me either." She could count a million little differences between her and Alyssa, but they still worked well together
He fidgeted awkwardly, playing with the hem of his white t shirt. What if this was all some ploy, what if Iris and the other kids were playing a joke on him? The kids at his last school had done this to him before.
"Come on. We don't need to be best friends forever. Maybe just friends for a while?"
As she posed her question she extended her pinky to him.
"What are you doing." He looked at her pinky in confusion.
"It's a pinky promise 'bear. It's how you make a promise real."
He didn't really get it. But he didn't comment. If eating lunch with Iris meant that he didn't have to eat alone, then that was fine by him.
"So, friends for a while?"
He reached outward and looped her pinky around his cautiously.
"Friends for a while."
Iris West measured her life in moments, and though these moments varied in happiness, sadness, intensity. There was one moment that would remain unchanged by feeling. Meeting Barry would forever tether her to a sense of safety. After all, Barry Allen was family.