Prompt: celebrity/fan au
xXx
"Barry. Uh, Barry, you might want to look over there, to the left of the screen. Bottom corner."
"Not now, Cisco," Barry hisses, absentmindedly waving a hand in his face to shush him. "I'm busy."
"Yeah, but—"
"Look, there she is!" he claps his hands together, and his face lights up in excitement. "Oh my God, she looks so beautiful. I mean, not that she doesn't always look beautiful, but look at that dress, Cisco! How can someone be so pretty and so talented all at once? If she doesn't win tonight I swear I—"
"Dude. I get that you're completely smitten with this actress and all and honestly I can see why, but you need to shut up and listen to me right now because Snart and his evil buddies are literally right there."
Cisco stomps over to the TV in frustration and jabs a finger towards the bottom corner, towards a group of people standing in the crowd, looking fairly conspicuous with their bulky jackets and the weapons peeking out from underneath.
Barry squints at the screen, and sure enough, it's them. He throws his hands up in exasperation. Of all the times they could have chosen to show up again, they picked now? Seriously?
"You have got to be kidding me. How the hell did they even get through security? That place has to have security, right?"
"My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that they all have very dangerous weapons that I'm sure can be used as a pretty effective means of manipulation. Or convincing, or whatever. But anyway—why are you still here? What are you waiting for?"
"Right," Barry sighs, throwing one last mournful glance towards the TV, where Iris West, his favorite actress (and probably the biggest crush he's ever had) is still being interviewed, and a second later he's blasting out the door.
By the time he gets there, Cold is holding open a bag, goading the well-dressed and accessorized celebrities to give up their expensive trinkets, as well as any money they have on them, and Rory and is waving his gun around menacingly, keeping everyone scared and subdued, and the other Snart, Lisa, is pointing her gun at some of the nominees.
"Why don't I just turn you all into gold instead? Then it won't matter who goes home with one of those glittery little statues tonight—you'll all be awards yourselves," she laughs, delighted at own joke. Barry rolls his eyes. It was bad enough having one Snart who was obsessed with making bad puns—now he has to put up with two.
He rounds them all up and drops them off one by one in some remote and far-away place, somewhere he's sure they won't be finding their way back from any time soon. He doesn't have the time or the energy to deal with them properly right now.
He stops back at the Awards Ceremony to make sure everything is under control one last time, to return the bag of money and jewelry that had been collected and stolen, and to make sure no one is hurt. And also to get a glimpse of a certain celebrity firsthand, if he's being honest. Everyone seems fine, just shaken up—and then he spots her. She's standing all alone, looking fairly rattled but otherwise unharmed, and for once she's not being swarmed by paparazzi and reporters. An idea suddenly strikes him—one he's not entirely proud of, but this is his only chance. He's so, so close…he can't just pass this opportunity up.
So he glances left and right before he sweeps her off her feet and carries her to the rooftop of a nearby building before she even has time to look surprised, and then he deposits her across from him, keeping a good distance between them, all in the time it takes her to blink.
"Barry? Are you there?" Cisco's voice fills his ear as soon as he stops moving.
"Yeah, Cisco. Everything's okay. They're all taken care of. I, uh, I gotta go."
Before Cisco can even respond, he turns off his earpiece. He doesn't want his friend to overhear this conversation—the teasing would be relentless if he did. It's already enough he'll be embarrassing himself beyond belief; he doesn't need the constant reminder from someone else. He glances towards his flustered guest, sucking in a deep breath.
She's even more beautiful in person, if that's even possible. He honestly didn't think that could ever be possible, because he's seen everything she's been in, and he's watched every interview, and she's always so fucking beautiful but now she's standing here across from him, in the flesh, and he's honestly trying hard not to pass out. W-o-w.
"Oh my God. You're…you're…I…" she stutters, shaking her head in amazement.
Her eyes are huge as she looks him up and down, mouth hanging open in a startled little 'o' of surprise, and he mistakes the expression on her face for fear. He holds up his hands and takes a tentative step toward her, desperate to show her that he means no harm.
"Hi. Um, I'm sorry to bring you here, but I promise I'll have you back in no time, before the ceremony starts and stuff, it's just—I'm a huge fan of your work. Like, your acting is amazing and all of the charity work you do is amazing and you're amazing and—" he cuts himself off before he can start to ramble further—because he could honestly ramble all day—and takes a deep breath to steady himself. Except it's really hard to be calm about anything when he's standing less than ten feet away from Iris fucking West.
"Uh, what I'm trying to say is…can I have your autograph?" he asks nervously, silently cringing the second the request leaves his mouth. She regards him with wide eyes for a moment before bursting out into laughter, and at first he's so embarrassed he considers running away right then and there and not looking back, putting as much distance as he possibly can between them. But he's a big enough adult to admit to himself that he's willing to sacrifice his dignity for this. He really wants that autograph.
She wipes at her eyes and grins at him, and his stomach clenches with dread and anticipation, afraid of what she might say, or that she'll make fun of him.
"I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, I promise," she says, and Barry is hit with relief that's almost immediately replaced with confusion. She hastens to explain. "It's just…I was actually about to ask you the same thing."
"Oh," he blinks, taken aback. "Um. Really? Why?"
She laughs again, only this time it's more out of disbelief than anything. "'Why?'Are you serious? You're a real-life superhero. You've saved so many people. I've been following everything in the news since the moment you popped up and started making this city a safer place, you know, I even have a blog about y—I mean, forget I just said that last part. But yeah, you're like…an inspiration."
Her eyes light up when she talks about him the same way his do when he's gushing about her, and he honestly can't even believe that this is real, that this is happening right now. His inspiration thinks he's inspirational? His face is starting to hurt from how big he's smiling.
"Oh, wow, thanks. That means a lot, to hear you say that." And it does—he can't remember the last time he's felt so touched. "I guess we could do a trade off then? Uh, do you have a pen?"
She bites her lip and rummages through her little purse for a moment, coming up empty. "Nope," she says, making a little popping noise on the 'p'. "Do you?"
He raises an eyebrow at her, gesturing to himself, to his skin-tight suit. "Does it really look like I have anywhere to put a pen in this thing?"
She grins sheepishly at him. "Okay, sorry. Stupid question. So I'm guessing no paper either, then…?"
He shakes his head no, but then he remembers that he has the convenient little advantage of super-speed, and a city is full of people with pens and paper. He raises a finger as the idea occurs to him. "Wait right here," he says, as though there's anywhere she could go in the first place. He's back two seconds later, and he hands her the pen he's just plucked from an innocent reporter's hand, silently vowing to return it later as he rips the piece of paper he's found in half and gives her a piece.
He watches her scribble something down and nearly faints when she brings it up to her lips to kiss it, winking it him as she hands it back over, along with the pen.
"Your turn," she quips, and he can't stop smiling as he reads her note—'Thank you for everything you do for this city! Much love, Iris West'— and the red mark from her lipstick underneath it. In fact his mind is so clouded with excitement and giddiness, hung up on that little phrase 'much love', that he's honestly not paying much attention when he writes down his name on his piece of paper. And then he's so distracted by her smile that he doesn't even look at it before he hands it over to her, doesn't realize that when he wrote down his name he wrote down his name.
She squints at the paper, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion. She looks up at him, then down at the paper again, then back at him. "Um. Who's Barry Allen…?"
She watches as his eyes go wide in horror, as he realizes his slip-up much too late, and comprehension slowly dawns in her expression.
"Oh. Oh."
"Oh my God….Oooooh my Goood…I can't believe I really just….Oh my God, please don't…fuck, please don't tell anyone," he groans, dragging a hand down his face.
"Relax, I won't. I promise," she soothes, placating, as she tucks the piece of paper safely away in her purse. He thinks she sounds sincere, and it must be something in her eyes, too, because he trusts her. "But can I just…" she trails off, squinting at him, trying to get a better look at his face. She starts to take small steps toward him, tilting her head at him in curiosity.
Finally, she gets close enough that there's barely any space left in between them, and he lets her, heart beating so fast he's afraid it might explode. She reaches a hand up and he realizes what she's doing, and he could very easily move away in time, but he doesn't even try. He lets her push his cowl and his mask back and get a good look at his face. She already knows his name, so he figures it doesn't really make a difference anyway. He ignores the voice in his head—one that sounds unsurprisingly like Caitlin—that's scolding him for being so irresponsible.
"You're cute, Barry."
She grins at him, and he feels his face redden, feels the words get caught in his throat as he struggles to come up with some clever response, as he wishes he could breathe long enough to tell her how gorgeous she looks too, but his mind is sort of short-circuiting and his thoughts are sort of slipping through his fingers because Iris West, literal movie-star and model material Iris West, thinks that he's cute. The most beautiful girl in the world thinks that he, Barry Allen, is acceptably attractive. How has he not passed out yet, again?
"You know, we're allowed to bring a plus one to the after-party tonight. Technically, I still don't have a plus one," she muses, filling in the silence as Barry struggles to process what she's just told him. And then he's so caught up in trying to wrap his head around the fact that the Iris West, who must have about million different people willing to lay down at her feet,doesn't have a plus one, that he doesn't really catch her drift. When he doesn't answer right away, she decides she's got no other choice but to spell it out for him. "I mean, if you're free, and you're interested, would you…maybe want to come with me? You know, be my plus one?"
"Interested?" Barry echoes, not daring to believe it. "I'm…yeah, I'm interested. In going with you. With you, holy shit. Wow, I…wow," he breathes, dumbstruck.
Iris nods and grins at him in satisfaction. "Good. I should probably be getting back now, but before I do…"
She stands on her tip-toes to reach his face and plant a kiss on his cheek, grinning at him as she pulls away. He brings a gloved hand up to the spot where her lips touched, pressing his fingers against his cheek and feeling the spot burn pleasantly as a goofy smile spreads across his face. The second after he drops her back off at the ceremony, he races home to find something acceptable to wear later, his heart pounding away in his chest, his cheek still burning underneath her lipstick. He clutches the little piece of paper with her autograph tightly in his hand, careful not to let it slip away. The smile never leaves his face.