I suppose this is AU, maybe... I dunno... please tell me what any of your thoughts are though.
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The sky on that day, it had been a beautiful fuchsia, the clouds a pale salmon, the thick jagged bolts of lighting flashing through the sky... electric blue. Stars fell from the sky and the horizon had been on fire, the city was burning.
I hadn't thought the world would end like that, under a blanket of dangerous beauty. But there it was, spread out in front of me, undeniable, impossible to ignore... the end. The air had been so clogged with smoke from the burning buildings, cars,... people, that it had felt as if my lungs had caught flame themselves. But I had stayed on that roof, and watched the city burn, listened to the screams and the sirens. The journalistic part of me just had to bare witness to this event. If this was the end, I had too see it.
My dad had told me to stay inside, he had said he was coming, and he had told me to wait. I waited. I waited because that's who I am... weak Iris. The one who has to be protected. Dad was always protecting me from things and if he couldn't, he would send Barry.
Above me the clouds began to grow a deeper shade of fuchsia and pale blue light danced between accumulated clouds and thunder bombed like a canon and shook the building.
Dad had said he was coming a day ago. I understood what his absents meant just as I understood what the clouds gathered above me meant. The air sparked and I could feel my hair lift off my head. One the news, before the power failed completely, scientists had said this unusual case lightening was attracted to the electrolytes in the human body. It's hunting us, this lightening. It was wiping us out. I remember thinking in that moment that my grandmother us to say how Thunderstorms were an imitation of God's wrath. I wasn't too sure about that. But in that moment as I stared down the cloud of destruction, I believed her.
At that point I had seen so many bad things happen. I was... ready. I can't explain it. Maybe I should even be ashamed that I was so eager to give up? I'm not sure. But I had witnessed people (in those short three days) be turned to ash, people murdering each other of food, people being trampled in the streets, and hanging themselves in their cubicles, so many people were dying and no one had any answers.
I suppose I should be ashamed, because I was ready, because I was sure my dad wasn't coming and everyone was dying. But I'm not ashamed. It didn't happen anyway.
Right before the lightening cloud could open up on me, arms were wrapped around me and wind was cutting into my face. The building exploded, but I wasn't anywhere near it. I heard it though, as Barry and I roughly skidded across concrete a few blocks over.
I should have seen it coming. After all, if dad couldn't come... Barry would.
The landing had been rough, painful. My arms ate pavement and my head cracked painfully against a curb.
"Iris... Are you alright, Iris?" Barry had urged, picking me up off the ground.
The world had still been on fire around us, by it had just been a blurr of orange to me. Blood had filled my mouth. I tried focusing on Barry and not the pain zig zagging up my spine.
He wasn't in his suit. The Flash suit. His neck had been wrapped in bloody gauze and blue electricity ran between the pours of his skin. It was only when he touched my face with a bandaged hand did I notice that he was severely wounded and did I snap out of my daze.
"Are you-" He cut himself off, eyes darting upwards, frustration and worry pulling at his lips. He grabbed me without another word, putting his arms underneath my legs and lifting me off my feet. He wobbled at first before he took off.
FL
STAR Labs was safe enough, I guess that's why he took me there.
"Barry! I told you not to go anywhere!" That was the first thing out of Caitlin's mouth, until she noticed me. "Oh, that's were you went." Understand loosened the frown on her face.
Barry sat me down on the floor.
"She was convinced you tried time travel again, I told her you weren't that stupid, man." Cisco quickly made his way into the room. "She was just so convinced. Oh, hi, Iris."
"So, you're the Flash, Barry?" I had turned to him. I hadn't felt anything then, numb.
FL
But that was a year ago.
The electrical storms are rare now, but stars still fall from the sky. At night, they are beautiful sparkling lights zooming across a night inky sky, but when there is light, they're just flaming rocks of death and destruction. Its their job to destroy anything left after the electrical storms.
We walk, Barry and I, across the wasteland of sand and skeletal remains of things that once were. The sand and dirt grinds against my soles and seeps into my boots and socks, slicing into my feet with every movement. Its painful, but I'm not going to complain. The sun sits against the side of our faces, seeping in through the tares in out clothing.
Underneath the thin scruff wrapped around my head, I lick my dry lips and taste blood.
"How much further?" I asked. I don't have enough energy, nor desire to turn around and face Barry. He hesitates, and his clothing shifts.
"Not much further... I can still carry you, Iris..." Hesitance cloaks his tired voice.
"Right..." I scoffed. "I'm fine with walking, Barry." He couldn't carry me. He still had speed, not as much as he use too. The lightening had done something to him, slowed him down, made him weak... sick. They didn't have any answers. Cisco and Caitlin, I mean. No one had any answers anymore.
"This is dangerous." He says. "Why... why did you want to come?"
I was sick of sitting in that dark underground lab. I was sick of people doing things around me and for me. I was sick of everyone trying to fix things and not expecting me to help. But most of all...
"I just wanted too!" I snap shortly. I'm always short with him. Barry's quiet, not taking the bait for an argument, as usual. "Why can't I do anything?"
"Its dangerous out here now..." Barry gives me the same answer as always. I literally had to throw a fit to get him to let me leave the lab, threaten to leave on my own, just to go with him today. I wasn't stupid enough to actually do that. "For women..." he goes on to clarify.
"Cisco takes Caitlin out to trade all of the time." I stop and turn to him.
He's staring at me when I turn around. He's different now, looking I mean. I suppose we all are. He's thinner, hair longer, and he was growing a rather slowly lengthening beard. He wore a thin sand colored shirt and a jacket, enough to cover his skin, but not enough to give him issue in the heat. He wears this ridiculous wide rimmed hat on his head now, that always casts a shadow over his face. His neck his scarred deep and the skin on his face glows and sparks blue at certain times of day.
His thinner frame was likely because of the lack of food and water, he already has to eat so much. There's never enough food to go around anymore.
"Exactly, Cisco takes Caitlin," he said.
"And you can't take me?" I narrow my eyes at him. "You, Mr. Flash! You were a freaking superhero!" I say bitterly, hands lifting up into the air.
He takes a deep breath. Things are so strained between us, sometimes we don't even speak. "Will you ever get over that?"
Get over it? My eyes narrow even more. "I'm over it, Barry!" I said through clenched teeth. "But what I'm not over is you still believing you have to protect me and thinking you understand exactly how to do that! I'm tired of you keeping secrets from me!"
He frowns at me.
"Yeah," I nearly spit out. "When were you going to tell me that a new gang had moved in close to the lab? When they came pounding on the door demanding our stuff and 'women'? I guess I would have figured it out when Caitlin and I were dragged off to their camp and-"
"Its not going to happen, I won't allow it too. You're well aware of that." He said, voice solid, face stone. "Iris..."
"Right," I cut him off. I had only found out by eavesdropping on one of their top-secret meetings while I was suppose to be fast asleep. "Just..." I cross my arms, "enough with the secrets, Barry. I get it, I'm not as smart as you guys. I don't understand half of the crap you three are talking about half the time but... I'm not a child."
"Of course not," he quickly agreed, "and I'm sorry." He glanced towards the sky and the gathering clouds. "We have to find shelter."
I didn't feel as if he was really sorry. He would do it again, keep things from me. He was just appeasing me, because a storm was coming and he didn't want to argue. Fine. I'll find shelter with him then I'm gone.
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