Saving the World
"What are you doing?" Iris looks up at the sound of the door opening, followed immediately by Barry's question.
"Oh, Eddie's working through the night on a sting operation, and it makes him more comfortable if I spend the night over here." She rolls her eyes. "I'm fine alone, but he always gives me a big speech about how much danger I'd be in, and then I feel bad because he looks so cute when he's worried." She grins.
"No, I mean…what are you working on?" Barry clarifies, and she sees his eyes travel over the mound of magazine clippings she has strewn around her on the floor.
"Oh," Iris laughs, "my editor wants a piece on prominent citizens who might be The Flash, and since I'm the only one who's seen him, I got the assignment. It's silly, just a fluff piece. I mean, no famous people in Central City even fit his physical description. In that sense, he looks more like you than any of them."
Barry chuckles, and she looks up. "Don't laugh," she says. "You'd be a great superhero." She clicks return to start a new line of notes on her laptop screen, missing the blush that settles across Barry's face.
A great superhero. Yeah, right, Barry thinks to himself as he goes to the kitchen to get a drink. A great superhero would have figured out how to balance his life, how not to worry his father, how to keep from lying to his best friend, how to reassure Joe that he's always careful.
Too often, though, The Flash feels a lot like the Barry Allen whose sneaker-clad feet had moved into the West house without ever really feeling like he'd left the house where his mother had breathed her last. It's not like in the comics, where problems always get sorted by the last frame, and a triumphant metahuman gains the praise of an entire city. It's much more like being a perpetual teenager, stuck between freedom and responsibility.
Even the idea of a date, which should be fantastic, is fraught with doubts. What if she doesn't really like him? What if she does? That's almost worse, in a way. It means more stomach-clenching deception and hiding half of his life from another woman he values.
Still, it could be worse. He has a free evening, and Iris is over. He can't stay depressed for long, not when she's across the room.
These days, Joe doubts every decision he makes. There was a time, once, when he was self-assured. Too self-assured. It's the luxury of the young to think they know what they're doing. Hindisght isn't so kind.
It's with the deepest reluctance that he partners with Ramon, not because he doubts the young scientist's sincerity or his ability. It's that he can't bear to hurt Barry any more than he already has. He was supposed to be the one constant in a little boy's turmoil, the one person who could always be counted on. Instead, he'd created oceans more pain for someone who'd never deserved any of what had happened to him. That's how he sees it, anyway, and no amount of trust and forgiveness can erase what he perceives to be the lion's share of blame that belongs to him.
But his world is changed. There are metahumans around him, and nothing he'd believed before feels certain. Solving Nora Allen's murder isn't just about bringing peace to his surrogate son, though the idea of doing that is enough to make him work for a lifetime. It's also about saving the world, or something like that.
Happy The Flash is Back Day!