A/N: I really liked that "King Shark," as an episode, was a little bit unusual for The Flash in the sense that instead of showing Joe and Iris comforting Barry and snapping him out of his funk, the emphasis was on Barry's own self-determination and some very sensible advice from Diggle. I also liked that we saw Joe focusing on both sons when they needed his attention and not being willing to enable any kind of dysfunctional behavior. What all this means is that I have more leeway than usual to add in scenes that I'm pretty convinced probably belong between the lines of the episode, but for once, I'm glad they went a slightly less expected direction in the ep itself. I'm also going to do something I've never done before, which is to give you Wally's perspective. That's not something I plan to keep doing, but he was such an important part of this ep that I want to include him, especially since the script itself gave us huge amounts of Barry's POV already.
Also, thank you for the positive feedback on the flashback chapter. You're all aces, and I love you. I'll try to keep updates coming so that we can get through this mini-hiatus as quickly and painlessly as possible. Personally, I can't wait to get back to Earth-2 one of these days, but I'm sure whatever is ahead will be terrific.
The Kids
"Give me a hug." Iris is standing in the doorway of Barry's police lab.
"What?" He blinks, putting down the case file he's working on. He looks tired.
"I said, give me a hug. You haven't hugged me in over a week. It feels weird." She puts her hands on her hips, staring him down.
"Iris, I—"
"If it's no big deal, come and hug me. If it is a big deal, tell me why. I'm over this bizarre atmosphere. Between you and Dad and Wally and all this Earth-2 stuff, I need at least one normal thing in my life."
Barry stands up and pulls a chair over to face his. "All right. You want to talk? Let's talk." Iris can tell that he's a little bit annoyed; she doesn't care. She can deal with irritation as long as the air gets cleared.
She takes her seat and looks into her best friend's face. "Is this still about Earth-2, Barry?"
He nods, and to her surprise, his eyes immediately fill with tears. Even for someone as open as he usually is, it's unusual. She figures that her intuition was correct, her inference that if she gave Barry a time to talk, he would let his guard down with her.
"Iris, I didn't tell you before. On Earth-2, I—had to act like Barry for a while, the other one, I mean. I didn't realize he was married to the other Iris until she pulled me into a hallway and started making out with me." He blushes, and Iris really wants to laugh, but she wouldn't let herself for a million dollars. Still, the mental picture is priceless.
He goes on. "I went home with her. We had a house and a life, and—we were happy. I mean, it wasn't my life. I was borrowing it. But it felt so good. It was only a few hours, though, before I was at the hospital with you—I mean, not you, the other one—watching her father die. I held her, Iris. She believed I was her husband. I didn't know what to do, but I couldn't tell her. When she finally found out, there wasn't any time. We just had to escape as fast as we could. I never really got to say I was sorry for stealing that moment—when she should have been with her husband and for—taking her kisses. I didn't mean to."
Iris puts out a hand and places it on top of Barry's where it rests on his knee. "Tell me about the other Barry."
Her surrogate brother smiles then, for the first time in quite a while. "He was—kind of like me before the particle accelerator, I guess. But he was a good man, Iris. He was brave. Even in that couple of days, he did things that he'd never done before. All the rest of us were used to it, but he just did it because he loved his wife and because it was the right thing to do. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. He gave me the courage to escape from Zoom. He doesn't have my powers, but he's a bigger hero than I am."
Iris shakes her head. "I doubt that, Barry. But tell me more about Iris." She hopes that talking about his own doppleganger has calmed him down enough to get to the bottom of things.
He looks her in the eyes. "I can't. She was—too much like you." So much for being open and relaxed, she thinks.
"Then let me tell you something," Iris says firmly. "If the other Iris was anything like me, then she's thankful you were there for her, and she understands. Because nobody anything like me could ever hate you."
"Barry, the reason she believed you were her husband, that she took you into that hallway to kiss you and that she trusted you to comfort her—it's all because of who you are, the man you are inside. She felt safe with you because you're just as kind and decent and loving and brave as that other guy with your name. I don't care what you say. I know it's true. You made everybody believe you were him because the person you both are—the hero—isn't something you can fake; it's just something you are."
Barry has tears running down his face, and Iris just sits and waits, with her hand in his. Finally, she says softly, "Barry, I'm not the Iris from Earth-2. I'm the girl who grew up in the next room from yours. I'm your best friend. Nothing's changed. I just want you back."
Barry wipes his sleeve across his eyes and nods. "You're right. I'm just—glad to be home."
He gets up, pulling Iris along with him, and they move in for a hug at the exact same moment. She holds on tightly, wiling every ounce of her love to seep out of her and into him.
"I love you," she says.
"I love you too."
She drives home, imagining what it would be like to be married to Barry. Speaking of weird. She shakes her head and turns on her car radio. It's just too bizarre to think about. Still, a little part of her is jealous of the Earth-2 Iris, who, for a few hours, got to find out exactly what it would be like.
It's ridiculous, Wally figures, to act like a jealous kid when you're old enough to be out on your own, to not even need your brand-new family if you don't want them. There's no reason you should feel threatened by the good-looking, smart, successful foster brother who lives in your dad's house. It's not like any of it matters.
Except, it does matter, and you find yourself frustrated and acting ten years younger than your age and feeling like an idiot because if your dad already thought the other guy was better than you, well, now he's going to think it even more. So you stuff it down and smile and try to act like it doesn't matter, figuring that maybe you'll leave again and make them miss you. Only, you're not sure they would.
And you don't really want to go. You don't want to leave the city with the house where it's always family night and there's always homemade food and somebody around to talk to you. It means something to have somebody to talk to, more than it ever has before, more than it did when your beautiful mother was around to make sure you were ok.
It's stupid to love people you barely know, Wally thinks. But you can't stop the feelings that won't shut up in your head now that you know the dad you've always wondered about. You'd have an easier time with it if he was a bad guy or a jerk, but he's kind and he's strong and he's loving and he's solid, like somebody you can lean on. He's the kind of dad you've always wanted, the kind everybody wants. So you let him hug you, and you hug back, and you feel safe, but then you despise yourself for feeling that way when you think about Mr. Perfect sitting off the the side, probably judging you, probably making you look bad by comparison.
That's why, when you sit down to have coffee with your new dad, you test him. You give him a chance to give all the credit for your work to the other guy, but he won't do it, and you start to hope that maybe you've been wrong all along. You hear the whole story about a kid without a mom, and maybe you even start to feel some empathy for Mr. Perfect. You don't know it, but you're getting a bona fide Joe West peptalk, and there aren't very many people in the world, let alone Central City, who can keep feeling bad after one of those.
"Thanks, Dad." You get a real hug this time. A long one, not just for a casual hello or goodbye, and you hug back and feel like a kid coming home. Maybe it's not that bad to act like a kid sometimes, not when you have somebody good to hug you tight and call you his son.
Maybe you're not sure yet, but having a brother isn't sounding like such a bad thing either. Even if he does have stupidly perfect teeth.
Joe is glad to find his son still up when he gets home from his extra shift at the CCPD. He's glad they've talked about Earth-2 and proud of Barry for uniting the Star Labs team toward a common goal, but he has different things to discuss, things closer to his family and his heart.
"Hey, Bear, can we talk for a minute?"
"Ok." The kid doesn't seem as tortured as he was, but he still has a tired look around his eyes, and it's not like him to sit alone, staring at the walls and not doing anything. Joe knows he wasn't wrong to admit to Wally that he's been overprotective, but it's hard not to be when he sees the lost look that still fills Barry's face sometimes.
Joe grabs two Cokes from the fridge and comes into the living room. "I wanted to let you know I talked to Wally." He hands over one of the cans and sits in the chair that faces the couch where his son is. "I told him you're not perfect."
Barry smiles wryly. "No joke."
"I told him something else, too," Joe says. "I told him you're my son, that as far as I'm concerned, I have three kids, and you're all equal." Barry nods, and Joe sees tears in his eyes. He cries easily these days, ever since Earth-2 and Jay Garrick.
The cop gently pulls on his son's arm so that his shirt cuff falls below the watch that's securely fastened around his wrist. "Barry, if you ever doubt what you mean to me or Iris, you just look at this and remember why I gave it to you."
His son nods. "Thank you—for talking to Wally. I promise I'll try harder to be a good brother to him."
Joe shakes his head. "Bear, what you've been through lately would put anybody off his game. All you need to do is to treat Wally the way you usually treat everybody. If you stop trying so hard and just let it happen, it will. I promise. I know both of you too well to doubt it."
Barry nods in the middle of a yawn, and Joe gets up. "Let's go to bed, Son."
He hugs the kid for about the millionth time in his life, but Barry holds on a little longer than usual. "Thanks for being my dad, Joe,"
The cop goes to his room and goes through his nighttime routine, but he's thinking about what he said to his other son, about the love and the pride he feels whenever he thinks about who Barry is versus who he might have become. He's watched an angry, hurting kid become a man who admits when he's wrong and loves with his whole self. It gives Joe hope—he got through to Barry Allen; it may take time, but he'll get through to Wally West too.
