The New Plan A
Disclaimer: Don't own The Flash or Arrow.
Author's note: AU for the ending of Crisis on Earth-X because nobody was really satisfied with that double wedding.
As Kara and her sister vanished into the breach, Oliver and Felicity turned to Barry and Iris, who were standing shoulder to shoulder and holding hands.
"Look, guys, I'm sorry about your wedding," Felicity said with a sympathetic wince.
Barry and Iris shared a glance and a small smile. Sensing a secret, Oliver probed, "You know, for a couple whose wedding was interrupted by Nazis, you two seem surprisingly calm about not being married."
This time, Barry's grin covered his whole face. He glanced down at Iris, a question in his eyes, and she nodded at him, her lips curved up in a Mona Lisa smile.
"Wanna hear a secret?" Barry asked, turning to Felicity and Oliver.
"Um, pretty much always," Felicity said.
"We're already married," Barry said, looking back down at Iris with those dopey doe eyes he always got for her. Iris nudged her face against his arm in an affectionate gesture.
"What?" Felicity demanded. "What you mean you're already married? When? How?"
Iris looked back at their friends, resting her head against Barry's shoulder.
"Well," she starts, "when I woke up on Thursday, I had this feeling…"
Barry woke to light starting to pour in through the bedroom window and Iris's serene smile above him. Her head was propped up on one hand. The fingers of her other hand were resting on his chest, massaging his sternum gently. He felt a content as a cat lying in a sunbeam.
"Hi," he said softly, his eyes crinkling with a smile and his fingers catching hers so he could draw them to his lips. When he was done, she leaned down to kiss him softly. He sighed happily at her attentions.
"Hey, Barry," she said.
"Hmm?" he replied, his eyes lingering over the graceful slopes of her shoulders and the way her satin nightgown clung to the curve of her waist.
"Marry me."
He found himself laughing. "I intend to," he said. "Only two days to go."
"No," she said, shifting to lay atop him more fully. His arms came around her automatically. "I mean, marry me today."
Barry's brow furrow. "But-"
"Look, I know I was panicking before with that funeral and that church, but I still can't shake this feeling that something is going to go wrong with the wedding."
"Iris, nothing is going to go-"
"Barry," she interrupted him, sending him a skeptical look. "When in the history of you and me has something not gone wrong?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again because he didn't really have a rebuttal.
"See?" She sat up atop him, her thighs bracketing his hips and her hands braced on his chest. "I'm not saying we call off the big wedding. Everybody's coming and I want to stand up in front of all our family and friends and tell them how much I love you. But if- if something does go wrong, I don't want that to be it. If we get married now, then even if there's a problem, it won't matter, because we'll still be married. "
He opened his mouth again, but she placed a hand over his lips.
"Every instinct in my body is telling me to marry you today, Barry. I don't want to spend even one more day not being your wife."
His eyes softened. He drew her hands way from his mouth. Then, "Okay."
"Really?" she asked, her eyes glowing.
"Yeah," he said, running a hand along her jaw to her chin. "Let's do it. We can go the courthouse and get Joe and Cecile to be our witnesses."
"Really?" Iris asked again, bouncing atop him happily. He started laughing and rolled her under him.
"Really. If this makes you happy, I want to do it. And lord knows I've been waiting long enough to be your husband."
She urged him down for a kiss with a hand on the back of his neck.
At 9 a.m. sharp, Barry was in his best gray suit and a fine blue tie and Iris in a white lace dress that hit her just above the knees. ("I may have picked this up yesterday," she told him with a sly grin.) Cecile gave Iris a silver necklace with a single sapphire that had belonged to her mother for her something borrowed, old and blue. Joe clapped Barry on the back. ("You cannot tell Cisco that we did this without him," Barry told him fervently.)
Barry talked a court clerk they'd known in high school in to squeezing them in, and then they were in front of the magistrate, grinning stupidly and Barry's eyes tearing up a little as he looked down at beautiful, wonderful Iris, bouncing on her toes and about to become his wife.
"Please join hands," the magistrate told them.
Not even ten minutes later, they were Mr. and Mrs. Allen when the magistrate grinned and told Barry, "You may kiss your bride."
Barry cupped her face in his hands, nudged his nose against hers for a second, and then gave her a kiss so tender that she started crying, too. He drew away and wiped her tears away with his thumbs as Joe and Cecile clapped and cheered.
Barry was struck with a feeling of surreality as Joe dragged them both into a hug and they all signed the marriage license.
They walked out of the courthouse together. Joe and Cecile gave them both another hug, made them promise to come to dinner and then hurried off to work.
Barry was left alone with his wife. He gazed down at her, awed, and ran a careful hand through the curls of her hair.
"Can you take me home?" she asked him. "I need to change before I go in to CCPN."
He nodded, but didn't move. With their honeymoon coming up, neither of them could afford to take more days off work. The thought of separating from her for even a few hours made his heart ache.
She seemed to catch his mood. She gripped his shoulders, leaned against him and smiled, showing all her perfect white teeth.
"Hey, Barry," she said, a private smile on her face.
"Yeah?"
"I'm Mrs. West-Allen."
Even as his lips stretched to match her smile, Barry felt something in his heart settle, as though a vital piece of the universe had just fallen into place.
Iris, dressed in a soft pink skirt and cream blouse, practically floated in to work twenty minutes later. Linda noticed her immediately, eyes suspicious as she took in Iris' odd demeanor.
"You've got a secret," Linda accused her.
Iris' grin grew. "I'm just happy," she said vaguely.
"Yeah," Linda said, her tone clearly disbelieving as she looked Iris up and down for some clue. "OK."
Felicity was staring, eyes wide and mouth open, as Iris finished the story and Barry leaned down to kiss the top of his wife's head. Oliver had a small, pleased grin on his face.
"So you just… You just… went and got married? No big to-do or anything?" Felicity demanded.
Barry shrugged. "Yup. We figured the only thing that mattered was that we were husband and wife. I gotta say, it's made this whole thing more bearable." He frowned suddenly. "You cannot tell Cisco we told you before him. He's already going to be furious that his best man title was preempted."
Oliver gave a little chuckle. "We know how to keep a secret," he promised.
"We should do that," Felicity said suddenly, looking up at Oliver.
"What?" he asked.
"We should get married. I mean, like, right now. I mean, if Barry and Iris will be our witnesses? Will you do that? Will you be our witnesses?" she said, glancing at them as they stared at her, their mouths slightly open in twin expressions of shock. Before they could answer, she looked back up at Oliver. "Will you marry me?"
He had this sort of confused, tentatively hopeful look on his face.
"But you said you don't believe in marriage," he said cautiously.
"I was scared," Felicity said, one hand gripping his forearm. "I was scared of what happened last time, of losing you. But they're right," she said. She glanced quickly at Barry and Iris. "All that matters is that we're husband and wife. All that matters is that it's you and me."
Oliver smiled, relieved. "Yeah. Yes, OK," he said, taking both her hands in his. "Right here, right now."
"We need an officiant," Iris reminded them.
"Dig's ordained," Oliver noted.
They all looked at Barry expectantly.
"Oh, he's not going to like this," Barry said with a sigh. He glanced around to see if anyone was looking, and then he was gone.
Oliver took advantage of the short wait to kiss Felicity, his hands gripping her waist and hers curling against the nape of his neck.
Iris looked away to give them some privacy and started digging around in her pockets for a penny. She didn't have time to rustle up something borrowed or blue, but a penny in the shoe would be an acceptable substitute.