Barry/Caitlin, 1126 words, pg-rated
written for an anon i got on tumblr, prompt: "can you write a snowbarry fic about felicity coming to central city? like idk i know this is a really weird and vague prompt but you're cool so do whatever you want to do with that."
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Not the Right Color On You;
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She can see it same as anyone; it's plain to see.
Iris called her smart and pretty and totally into Barry, Eddie particularly taken with the short little skirts and Felicity's easy charm; Joe liked her, shook his head fondly every time Felicity and Barry finished each other's sentences. Cisco would never get over Felicity's awesome hacker skills. Even Harrison looked at her in awe, like somehow he knew every detail of what the future had in store for Miss Smoak and he couldn't wait for it to arrive. But she's sure that's her imagination.
"Don't be jealous," Harrison teased, as if the traitorous thoughts gave her a green hue easily recognizable to a sharp mind like his. "You're my favorite." He winked, and drove off in his wheelchair, leaving her behind wondering how she'd become that person. She never envied other people's abilities, each person came into this life with their own sets of talents and employed them to their hearts' content; she could've become a surgeon, or a professor, or a researcher at a prestigious university. But Dr Wells found her and promised her a future worth striving for, so she'd set any other career path aside and devoted herself to realizing his vision. And despite the cost, despite the loss she suffered, that's still a world she believed in. She just had to look at Barry and she believed that future attainable.
"You shouldn't be jealous," Cisco commented a few days later, Felicity's stay extended well beyond her initial intent, but they faced a meta-human Barry won't catch without her unique skillset. "Even I couldn't crack this encryption."
She thinks it must be a highly commendable and particular skill of these two men in her life to make this about work, rather than what she's made it into, something she's far more ashamed of because it betrays a part of her she thought immutable.
Because it's been plain for everyone to see since Felicity's first visit. Barry likes Felicity. It's obvious in the way he turns mouthy and incoherent, a trait he actually shares with Felicity, and his usual lack of filter becomes an all-out catastrophe. Barry shows off his speed, in brought daylight no less, and goes out of his way spilling all of S.T.A.R. labs' secrets. The fact that Felicity works for the Arrow, who turned out to be none other than former playboy millionaire Oliver Queen, was only a mild reassurance at the time.
It's in the way he looks at her, too, like he knows, he knows, how they're perfect for each other because they think alike, they both see the world in much brighter colors than some of them, not quite so cynical about the whole idea of heroes and saving the world. And that's where she fears her jealousy truly lies, in that she envies Felicity her personality; even she can catch the humor in 'E = MC Hammer', but where she'll hide her laughter in a careful curl of the lips, Felicity proves far less guarded. In a lot of ways she envies Barry the same thing, his openness even when faced with trauma, he wears his heart on his sleeve whereas she, well, she prefers to lock that up tight, all of it, happy and sad alike. It's simply how she is.
It's who Barry and Felicity decidedly aren't.
"You're not jealous, are you?" Barry eventually asks, and even though she doesn't need anyone pointing it out any more than they already have, at least Barry has the decency not to presuppose anything.
"No," she answers concisely, returning to the blood slides under the microscope.
"Doctor Snow."
A smile curls at a corner of her mouth, quickly chasing away any malcontent. Her jealousy hasn't kept her up at night, not with Barry's body pressed warm and clingy against hers at night, his nose nuzzled in her hair and a hand clasping and unclasping over her hip, as if he's continually checking to see if she's still there.
Because Barry loves her.
It's in the way his head tilts to the side now and he slides a step closer, the way he plays with the vowels in her name, intimately familiar with every single one, the way he addresses her with 'doctor' in the first place.
She doesn't care what people say about her behind her back, though she knows she has Iris' and Joe's blessing, Eddie's quiet admiration, Harrison's and Cisco's respect well outside of the parameters of her relationship with Barry. And that's more than enough.
"I'm not–" She glances up from her microscope, Barry lounged hip cocked against the table, arms crossed over his chest, and that pair of green eyes that never miss a beat, that see right through her. Yes, she's jealous Felicity can be around Barry in a way that she doesn't know how to be around anyone, but that hasn't made her bitter. "Look, you like her."
"Not like that."
She raises an eyebrow. "Not anymore, you mean."
"I stand corrected." Barry raises his hands in surrender. "Not anymore."
"Then I'm not jealous." She smiles and swivels her chair around to face her boyfriend. "I trust you."
Barry beams that ridiculously bright smile and whisks a kiss from her lips before she can react, a little whoosh ruffling her heart, like her hair suffers every time Barry speeds off.
"You're my number one girl."
She rolls her eyes, but can't help the smile, an involuntary side effect of loving Barry Allen. "Go back to work," she hushes, before watching him stroll back to where he came from. She often wonders if she has tells, things that are plain to see – Harrison might quote her anger at Barry every time he does something reckless, but most of what she feels rages on inside, hidden, not plain to see at all. But that's just how she is.
"You should see the way he looks at you."
She looks up from her microscope to find none other than Felicity Smoak standing in the doorway.
"You're lucky."
And she smiles. "I know."
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fin