Super short chapter, sorry!

Protective Sister

Iris was happy for Barry. She really was. It was nice to see his smile return, nice to see him taking interest in things again. Dating someone had provided him with a welcome distraction from all the darkness in his life, and he seemed a lot happier for it. Even the nightmares were becoming less frequent.

Iris just wished that Becky Cooper wasn't the reason for it. The two of them had hit it off on their first date, which Barry had animatedly recounted to Iris in excitement. Iris had listened and smiled, but she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in her gut that Becky was not going to be good for Barry.

She was glad to see that she had been wrong and that Barry was now so happy, having Becky as his girlfriend. She was his first real girlfriend, actually. Barry had had little flirtations here and there with different girls, but none of them had ever turned into a relationship. Until now.

And yeah, maybe Iris was a little jealous over the whole thing, but that was only because she felt like she was losing her best friend. It kind of hurt to know that she hadn't been enough to help Barry out of the darkness, that Becky had brought about this change in him and not her.

Regardless of the reason for it, though, Iris was just happy that Barry was starting to come back.

"I don't understand the point of flair," Barry said, frowning at his laptop, "Is that all that The Facebook is for?"

"It's just Facebook, Barry," Iris laughed as she sat down on the couch next to him, "There's no 'the'."

Barry frowned at her.

"Are you sure?" he asked, "I thought there was a 'the' before it."

Iris laughed and shook her head.

"Which goes to show how little you know about Facebook," she laughed, "What are you doing, anyways?"

"I'm setting up an account," he told her.

"Why?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" he asked, "You've been trying to get me to sign up for it for months, ever since it was made public."

"Exactly," she said, "So, why did you suddenly decide to do it now?"

"Becky wanted me to create an account," he said with a shrug, "She said something about making us 'Facebook official', whatever that means."

Iris stared at him.

"Are you serious, Barry?" she asked in frustration.

"What?" he asked confusedly, "What's wrong with that?"

"I've been bullying you for months to create an account, and Becky asks you once and then you decide to do it?!"

"Hey," Barry laughed, "I still think it's stupid. I don't get the point of Facebook at all. Everyone has a Myspace account already."

"Whether you think it's stupid or not," Iris persisted, "It's still frustrating that you ignored me for months and then listened to Becky just like that."

"Well, she said we're technically not official until we're Facebook official," Barry explained, "I don't understand any of this, but then again, I've never really dated anyone before, so I'm taking her word for it."

Iris sighed in frustration.

"Besides," Barry reasoned, "You bully me into doing plenty of other things already. I'm about to watch this stupid movie with you right now, aren't I?"

"It's not stupid," Iris said indignantly, "I think it's going to be really good."

"It's on Disney Channel, Iris," Barry deadpanned.

"That doesn't mean that it's not going to be good," she countered.

"What's this movie called again?" Barry sighed as she turned the TV on.

"High School Musical," she answered excitedly.

Barry groaned.

"I'll watch it with you on one condition," he said seriously, "None of the guys at school can find out about it."

"Deal," Iris laughed.

Barry was surprised when the movie turned out to be not that bad. He would never admit it, but he actually sort of liked musicals, not that he considered himself particularly musically inclined. He had never even been in choir before, let alone a musical. The movie night would have actually been somewhat enjoyable had Iris not spent half the movie drooling over the actor in it. Barry didn't remember the actor's name. Zac something? It didn't matter. He was just a one-hit wonder. Give it ten years, and no one would remember his name.

…..

Iris's blood boiled as she sat on the couch next to her father, hardly seeing the TV screen.

"Okay, what's wrong?" Joe sighed, pausing their movie.

Iris looked at him.

"What?" she asked.

"You've had a scowl on your face all night," he said teasingly.

Just then, a high pitched giggle drifted down the stairs to where they were sitting.

"That," Iris spat, "That's what's wrong. I can't even hear the movie."

"I can hear the movie just fine, Iris," Joe said with a knowing smile.

"It's almost nine o'clock," Iris said, pointing at the clock on their living room wall, "Why is she even still here?"

"It's not that late, Iris," Joe chuckled.

Another giggle sounded from upstairs, and Iris ground her teeth at the sound.

"First she joins us for dinner, and now she's going to hang out at our house all night?" Iris said irritably, "She's been up there for hours, in Barry's room, with the door closed. Isn't that against the rules?"

Joe chuckled.

""What exactly do you think he's doing?" he asked in amusement.

"He's a teenage boy," Iris said seriously, "And as his guardian, aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye on him?"

"It's Barry, Iris," Joe said, shaking his head, "I don't think I need to be too concerned."

Iris's hands clenched into fists. She had half a mind to tell her dad about how Barry had been sucking face with Becky at Jake Preston's party, but she couldn't. She didn't exactly want to bring the whole party thing up again when her dad had finally started to forget about it.

"Besides," her dad continued, "They're just doing homework."

"Homework," Iris scoffed, "You know for a detective, you're pretty clueless."

"I'm more perceptive than you think, Iris," Joe said, giving her a knowing smile.

Iris couldn't help but feel like there was some sort of double meaning to her dad's words.

…..

Barry was used to getting stared at by his peers, but today it felt…excessive. As he walked down the hall on his way to lunch, people whispered and even went so far as to point at him. Barry was dumbstruck. He had no idea what was going on. Some people were laughing. Others were looking at him with fearful expressions on their faces. He just had no idea why.

He was almost to the lunch room when he ran headlong into Iris.

"Barry," she said, her eyes widening in an expression that almost looked like fear.

She was quick to rearrange her facial features, though, and soon, a smile was plastered to her face.

"Want to get lunch off campus today?" she asked cheerfully, "It's two for one day at Bravo's."

"Iris, what's going on?" Barry asked quietly.

Iris's smile faltered slightly.

"Nothing," she said quickly, "I just didn't feel like eating cafeteria food today."

Barry gave her a scrutinizing look for a moment before sighing and walking past her to get to the cafeteria.

"Barry, don't go in there," Iris said desperately.

He turned back around and looked at her.

"Why?" Barry demanded.

"Let's just get lunch somewhere else today," Iris suggested, her eyes watering.

She looked like she was about to burst into tears. With a twisting feeling in his gut, Barry pushed open the door to the cafeteria.

"Barry, don't," Iris pleaded, but it was too late.

He was already walking through the doors. When Barry walked into the cafeteria, he froze in his tracks, standing by the door in shock. He hardly even noticed all the eyes staring at him. He hardly heard all the whispers echoing through the lunch room.

All he could see were the posters plastered all over the cafeteria walls.

Barry's own face stared back at him from what seemed like every surface in the room. It was a blown up photo copy of his Iron Heights visitor badge, and written under his ID photo, in large red letters:

BARRY ALLEN

MURDERER IN TRAINING