The first thing he notices about her is the scent of strawberry. Maybe it's her lip gloss, maybe it's her perfume (although which eight-year-old would wear perfume?), maybe it's her shampoo, maybe it's just her. But it's kindergarten, and she sits across him with a smile. She introduces herself, and she announces that her favorite food is strawberry.
As he gets to know her better, he learns just how much she loves strawberries. She puts them on top of her pancakes and waffles and into her oatmeal, she blends them into smoothies, she eats them for desert. Her lunches are usually strawberry jam sandwiches. She has strawberry lip gloss, shampoo and conditioner with strawberry extract, and when she's older she starts wearing perfume with a hint of strawberry.
When he's eleven, he moves in to the Wests' home after his mother was killed. The very first day, when she comes down stairs and sees him on the couch, she goes to him. When he lies across her lap, sobbing, he smells strawberry. It calms him down some, but it doesn't completely remove the pain in him, gnawing and aching.
She doesn't know it, but the next day, he goes to her closet, takes one of her shirts, and keeps it under his bed. The very first day, when the man in yellow haunts his dreams, he takes it out, although it barely erases his panic. As he spends more time with his new family, the nightmares begin to wane. When the yellow speedster races through his sleeping mind and jars him awake, he reaches under his bed and pulls out her shirt. It gets easier and easier for him to fall asleep, until one day he finds that he doesn't need it at all.
He meets Linda Park at a bar, and their relationship is off to a good start. When he makes out with her, he smells the distinct scent of raspberry. It's similar enough to strawberry that his heart leaps, and he starts vibrating involuntary. He breaks up with her soon after.
He meets Patty Spivot at a crime scene, and asks her out. Their relationship is going well, until she discovers who he is. To protect her, he pushes her away —like he's pushed everyone else away.
The first time they admit their feelings for each other, and he kisses her and tells her that he's the Flash, before he runs back in time to prevent a tsunami from destroying Central City, he tastes strawberry. It stays on his lips and in his mind for months, even when she doesn't remember because he fucks up the timeline, even when she denies her feelings and it crushes him so fucking much.
The second time he kisses her, before he runs back in time to save his parents, he smells strawberry, the delicate sweet scent that is her.
But in Flashpoint, she doesn't know him because he's fucked the timeline. Again. When he goes to Jitters to ask her out, he's shocked when he doesn't smell strawberry: he smells watermelon. Watermelon was what one of his exes in high school smelled like, someone he'd rather forget. And that makes him miss her, the real her, the original her.
The third time he kisses her, and he doesn't fuck up the timeline this time, he's overwhelmed with strawberry. And that makes him so happy, because his Iris is back.
And the last thing he smells, as he races to her, too slow despite his speed, as Savitar stabs her and lets her fall, as he catches her, as she lies in his arms, bleeding from the large, gaping wound in her chest, as she says, "I love you, Barry.", over the metallic stench of blood, is strawberry.
