(Author's Note: I know I said I needed a break, and I do, but this tiny little chapter has been finished and sitting there for the past few days, and I couldn't bring myself to make it any longer. But I figured you'd appreciate more of the story, however short and Snowbarry-less it might be. More will come. Thank you all for the kind words! Enjoy this little snippet. ~Doverstar)
For as long as he could remember, Iris had always known more than he did.
Maybe that didn't apply to everything. She didn't know more about science, or shaving, or Star Wars. She didn't know what it felt like to have the Speed Force crackling and fizzing like a bucket of embers with every beat of the heart. She didn't know anything about forensics.
But in social situations, or matters of the heart, or in others' emotions—especially other when those emotions came from other women—Iris knew more. He could usually count on her to tell him if a girl had been hitting on him in high school (he never noticed), or to tell him when to stop asking Joe about his calculus homework when he was ten (Joe hated math).
He wasn't exactly an insensitive person. If anything, he was too emotionally involved in life sometimes. But Iris, their whole lives, had always had him beat when it came to reading the room.
So he was surprised, naturally, to discover that he—and even Cisco—had picked up on something she hadn't.
Barry sat on the couch in the apartment, the AC blasting, the TV playing on mute. Cisco had sent him an audio file of Wally's message from the Waverider, and the Flash had been hunkered down at home on his night off, trying to gather any information he could.
"Listen, there's something—with the Speed Force. Something dangerous. Ray scanned—so we don't know why it's—. But you gotta watch out for it."
Barry's foot thumped the carpet in the low light, his leg bouncing up and down, up and down. Ray scanned what? Scanned Wally? Whatever this was, did it have to do with a speedster's chemical makeup—and if it did, why couldn't Ray Palmer, of all people, understand the problem? It seemed that the more often he heard Wally's warning, the less sense it made. It was like repeating an average word over and over again until it sounded foreign and colorless aloud.
Iris set a deep red mug of fresh coffee down on the side table, curling up on the couch with him. "Still can't figure it out?"
Barry rubbed his eyes, sighing hard through his nose. "I must've listened to this thing a dozen times and—nothing."
"Maybe you need to look at it at a different angle." Iris leaned down, trying to catch his gaze. "Or…maybe take a break?"
Hand running only halfway through his hair, her fiancé shook his head.
"Well, I know this much." Iris smirked at him, pushing his coffee into his hands. "Nobody understands anything better at four in the morning."
Barry didn't respond, offering her a lukewarm smile and downing the coffee in one fluid, supersped motion. He watched commercials flicker their way in and out of the television screen, not really seeing any of it. Why did things have to get so complicated? Every time something in his life was finally safe, finally real and good, even deserved, something crazy came swinging in to knock it down.
And no matter how good things had been for him lately, Barry reminded himself, things hadn't been as easy for one of his closest friends. And he hadn't even properly acknowledged it until yesterday.
"Unless," Iris added quietly, "there's something else bothering you?"
Barry met her eyes. "It's Caitlin."
"Caitlin?" Iris' eyebrows drew together, head rearing in surprise.
"She's…" Barry gestured aimlessly with a hand, struggling to find the right word. "Having a hard time. Adjusting."
"For how long?"
"I don't know. Months? Maybe ever since she got back." Barry stood, suddenly unable to keep still. "Cisco tried to get her to talk about it, I tried, and—she's just…" He shook his head, staring out the nearest window, at the corner of the coffee table, at the toe of Iris' slippers. "Why does everything have to change, Iris?"
Iris let her arm drape over the back of the couch, scooting closer. "What do you mean?"
"I mean…" Barry rolled his eyes. "Caitlin, she's always been there. She and Cisco, they're like…a staple of Team Flash. You know? And suddenly she's—she's all tangled up in another Earth. She's not happy."
"Barry, you don't have to solve everyone's—"
"No, I know. I know." Barry spoke quickly, trying to get his point across before he lost his train of thought. The time of night, the stress from the Speed Force issue, it threatened to steal his focus every other second. Was this how Caitlin had been feeling? Worried and pulled away half the time? "But it's not just Caitlin. I mean, we were finally okay. The whole team is back together, we've even got Harry with us. No meta has even come close to the kind of thing we've faced in the past few years, and we're—we're getting married, Iris."
She grinned then, and it was the same grin she'd given him when they were twelve and he'd helped her pass her geometry test. The same grin she'd worn when he told her that deep red prom dress was perfect, even though he hadn't been the one taking her. The same grin that had sprung up when he'd survived getting struck by lightning, the same one she'd had on when his father had been freed from prison.
"Everything's lining up. I don't know, I just thought—" Barry felt his own slight, small smile drifting off. "I thought we'd get a break. I came this close to losing you with Savitar. We almost lost Caitlin on Earth-66. And now this thing with Wally, warning us about the Speed Force?" He shook his head slowly, working his jaw. "And Caitlin, hurting all this time and not letting anybody get close. Just feels like—"
"—like everything's still lining up," Iris finished for him, somberly, "but in all the wrong ways."
Barry exhaled, pacing lightly from one end of the rug to the next. McSnurtle the turtle was shifting in his bowl on the counter, and Barry's eyes flicked from their pet to the light fixture above the dining room to the buildings outside across the street. Nothing held him down for long.
"What if this is it?" he fretted. "What if…this is the next big storm, the next big thing that tries to take away everything I have?"
Iris watched him, brow still knitted in concern, large round eyes sleepy and locked on her best friend as he jittered and turned on his heels. She'd always been a good listener.
Finally, he sat down hard beside her again. "I can't let something else change, Iris. I can't lose one more thing. Not now, not after everything we've already been through."
His fiancé wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in for one of those Family West hugs. Firm, intentional, full of compassion. It still made his heart take off running, having her that close, just as it had when they were kids together.
"Barry," Iris said calmly, tightening her grip on his shoulders as she pulled back to look at him, "You can't control this. You can't always make sure everything's perfect, Flash or no Flash. Look how long it took for things to get to where they are! Look how long it took for us to get to where we are. Nothing stays the same forever."
She let a hand drop to squeeze his, and he let the small motion anchor him.
"All you can do is make the most of what you've got. Worry about right now, babe. And right now…" She stood, pulling him up with her. "You need some sleep."
Barry watched her carry their coffee mugs to the sink. He couldn't lose Iris, and he couldn't lose Caitlin. He couldn't lose any of them, and it seemed that every new threat tried to pry them out of his grip.
He recognized her advice as Joe's. How many times had Joe told the two of them to worry about today, not tomorrow, not the next day? As a kid, it had been much easier. As a kid, he'd had a father wrongfully convicted, sure, but it had still been a lighter load to bear than the sort he carried as an adult. He hadn't had super speed. He hadn't had murderous time remnants and an arch foe from the future manipulating his life choices.
How could he only pour his anxiety into each current, everyday moment? He seemed to have gathered enough of it to water the rest of the year, never mind the next few months.
And no matter how hard he tried to focus on what he had, no matter how many good things had happened lately to occupy his thoughts, he knew those worries would be knocking on the edges of his mind. He didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
(Author's Note: Told you it was tiny. And Iris/Barry interaction? Who am I right now? Well, it was in the pre-write I created eons ago, so I followed that. If I didn't have the pre-write, I would probably not be updating at all. Writer's block + zero pre-write = no direction and no story! So here it is. Please don't hate me for the length and lack of Dr. Snow. I'm pushing through and this is what it looks like! You guys are amazing. You don't have to review if you don't want to, but you know it makes my day! Love you, Jell-O Squares. More to come. ~Doverstar)