Title: "Comfort"
Author: Annie M
Series: Flash (2014)
Rating: T (13+)
Characters: Barry Allen, Iris West, West/Allen
Honourable Mentions: Cisco Ramon, Harry Wells, Caitlin Snow, Jessie Quick, Jay Garrick
Part: 1/1 (Complete)
Date: September 23rd 2018
Summary: Barry can't help thinking about the night before.
Post Episode 4.15 (Enter Flash-time)
Notes: It's been a while since I've written any fanfiction, and this is my first offering in The Flash universe. Feedback would be appreciated.
All spellings used within are British. I've edited and spellchecked as much as I can, so I apologise for any errors I've failed to spot. Hopefully, any that remain won't ruin your reading pleasure.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. No infringement intended to DC Comics, CWTV, Warner Bros etc.
(c) Annie M, 23rd September 2018.
~~/\~/\~~
Barry woke slowly, becoming aware and welcoming of the comforting weight of Iris' body draped across his own, their limbs entwined and one of her arms draped across his chest and neck. It was still dark out but starlight peaked through the drapes and cast their sheets into rumpled layers of silver and cream across their bodies.
He had no recollection of how they'd gone from laying on the narrow medical cot at Star Labs and into their own bed in their apartment. Cisco must have breached them home. Easing the pressure under his arm where his wife lay in slumber Barry shifted slightly checking the clock on the nightstand. It was just past four in the morning.
Iris moaned sleepily against his chest, snuggling closer to his body and turning her head against him a few times before settling back into her original position. Barry's extended period in Flash-time had drained him completely, and not even forcing down two energy bars (he'd had no appetite, but Caitlin had insisted) had helped him to recover any significant energy.
Central City would have to do without The Flash for a few more hoursBarry surmised. Its citizens would soon be waking up (if they hadn't already seen it on the news the previous night) to Iris' blog report, 'Escaping Armageddon–Speedsters Save Central City'. Veronica Dale and her eco-terrorist group, Eden Core, had been nanoseconds from achieving their aim of destroying themselves, as sacrificial martyrs, and the city in a nuclear firestorm that would have seen from Keystone and felt as far away as Star City.
Barry shuddered. Reliving the moment he'd realised the nuclear device had been detonated sent him from standing still and directly into a speed race like no other. He, Jessie and Jay had all pushed themselves beyond anything either had ever endured, at such speeds before, in order to stave off the nuclear device's certain detonation.
Everything they'd attempted—breaching it to a dead earth, freezing it discharging their combined lightning strikes, calculating theories and trying to apply complex equations—had all ended in failure, bringing their mutual obliteration ever closer.
One by one the effort of going so fast for so long had defeated them. Jay had been the first to tire, his age getting the better of him. Jessie had lasted a little longer, but when Barry realised there was little more she could do he ordered her to save herself, use the speed she had left and get home to Earth 2. His own strength and speed flagging, Barry used every bit of it to get back to Star Labs, feverishly attempting to calculate mass versus density over expanding pressure and gasses. One horseshit hail-Mary theory after another. It was useless. He was out of ideas and almost out of time.
There was nothing left for him except a final moment with Iris, and she was still oblivious in the Cortex. He would run to her, confess his abject failure, tell her that their deaths were imminent, and hope that she could somehow forgive him for failing them all before they met their end.
But they didn't die. His tearful confession had only made Iris comfort him and offer him hope where there should be no room for any. In Flash-time, where Caitlin and Cisco and Harry had flagged, Iris had found new energy and impetus, suggesting he use the quark-sphere, coated with his DNA, to draw the speed-force out, letting the strikes of its otherworldly lightning absorb the catastrophic energy of the nuclear blast. Kissing her desperately and leaving the wet tracks of his tears on her cheeks he turned and ran. Moving with as much pace as he had left into and through the speed-force, grabbing the sphere and allowing its deadly force to chase him … . Disaster had been averted.
How many times had he told her? It was never enough, and very few people would understand it even if he explained it, but for that alone she would always be his lightning rod. She was that voice in the dark that tethered him to hope, light, joy and love. Hers was the touch that at once calmed him and ignited a passion and deep sensuality he'd never felt or feel with anyone else. He was so totally hers, and she was his. She was his.
Barry sighed in relief at the thought, smiling as he acknowledged its truth. Pulling Iris' body gently further over his own he palmed the invitingly soft globes of her backside, his penis immediately becoming half hard beneath her. Iris slept on, but gently ground her hips against Barry's thigh, her body intuitively synching to her husband's libido.
He wouldn't wake her. This was enough right now, not that he could physically manage much more than the gentle stroking he was already indulging in.
After everything that could have been last night, this was fine, just this; here together, her scent, peaches and cinnamon, filling his nostrils, the touch of her soft skin against his own, the comforting weight of Iris draped all across his body. This was enough. More than enough. This was everything.