Prompt from Majelic. Follow up to chapter 30. Barry and Iris interacting with their kids. The kids' reactions to Daddy being so fast and learning to use their own speed.
"Dawn!" Iris yelled. "Don!"
"Yes, Mommy?" The twins answered in sync.
"C'mere, munchkins." Barry called. He heard four feet pounding on the ground, then silence, then silence, and their children appeared on their bed. Dawn and Don laid between their parents.
Iris looked at her husband and nodded. They would have to go through with their plan. The friends had always known that if they had kids, it was a very high possibility that they would be metahumans like their father, and now the children were showing signs of their "special talents."
Barry barely saw the confusion on their faces before they faded away, replaced by excitement. The twins knew exactly why their parents had called them into their bedroom. It was their fifth birthday. The day they promised to take them to STAR Labs and tell them what Daddy really did when he wasn't at work or at home.
What the little ones didn't know was that they would also be beginning their own speed training. Barry and Iris had been trying to put it off for as long as they could, but they knew if they ignored it any longer the kids would be noticed by others, and they couldn't put their little babies in that kind of danger.
"STAR Labs!" Don shouted.
"When do we go?" Dawn bounced up and down on the bed excitedly.
"Yeah!" Her brother agreed.
"The lab won't be ready for us for a few more hours, kiddos." Iris fixed her 'I know something you don't know' look.
"And I think we're going to start with breakfast." Barry said stepping out of bed. He went into the kitchen to make his kids' favorite breakfast. French toast. He was always so relieved that his kids liked mostly the same things.
He could hear the kids squealing and jumping around in his room. When he finished making breakfast, he stood in the doorway to his bedroom watching his little family with the biggest smile on his face. It took a while for anyone to notice him because he was being very quiet.
"Go get Daddy." Iris whispered to the little ones. They turned as one and tackled Barry to the ground.
"Ok, kiddos, let's go eat." Barry stood up and immediately he had a kid wrapped around each foot. "Iris, thank you for not having triplets. I wouldn't have enough legs."
Iris just rolled her eyes and smiled at her husband.
Barry couldn't help but think how much accidental time travel had improved his life. Instead of being a mopey mess, he was married to his best friend and had two beautiful, speedy children.
He pried Don off his leg and got him to sit down at the table before doing the same with Dawn. Iris had just barely sat down and the kids were finished eating. She looked over at Barry.
He leaned down to whisper in his wife's ear. "Honey, they didn't even use super speed to do that."
"They still got that from you though." She teased.
"I have a video of you eating a pan of brownies in kindergarten that would prove otherwise." He smirked, and she slapped his arm.
This website hates my line breaks for some reason.
The kids were in the car blind folded. Barry was driving the four of them to the zoo, and the kids had guessed where they were going after about three turns, but their parents had thought it would be a fun thing to do. The kids were five years old, being blind folded was fun. They were currently pretending to be blind hitch hikers and were regularly poking each other's face to 'make sure they were still there.'
Iris kept looking back at them unsure of whether to stop it or not. She didn't want them fighting on their birthday and getting in trouble, but she also didn't want to stop their fun.
"Let it go, honey, they usually don't have fight over invading each other's personal space. Besides they're too excited to be too grumpy, and they know what will be cancelled if they fight." Barry raised his voice a little louder on the last part. It was an empty threat, they needed to take the kids to STAR Labs, but they didn't know that it was a necessity.
Still, they didn't stop.
Finally they arrived at the zoo. Barry and Iris each pulled a blindfold off a child's eyes. In front of the zoo sign was Grandpa Joe and all of their friends from school.
The kids ran to greet their friends. "Mommy, Daddy, can we go see the fast cats?" Don called.
"Cheetahs, Don." Dawn corrected her brother.
"Yep." They replied leading the kids in that direction while stifling laughter.
Just another line break.
"Are we going to the lab now?" Don asked excitedly.
Iris turned to the backseat of the car and smiled, effectively answering his question. Barry was glad his kids seemed to have infinite energy. They would be purposely and knowingly practicing their speed for the first time today, and Iris and Barry had been trying to feed their kids as much as they could, whenever they could today.
They arrived at the lab and Iris nodded at him to go. He sped off leaving the kids to wonder where he had gone. Iris led them inside and to the main room of the lab where Barry stood in his Flash suit. Iris had continued her blog even until now spreading the word of her husband's action, no matter how many times he tried to get her to stop, so the kids knew all about the masked hero.
"Flash!" They said together.
"Daddy works with the Flash?" Dawn asked.
Barry knelt down to his kids' level and played a short game of peek-a-boo. It ended with his kids staring at him in amazement.
"Daddy is the Flash." Don answered his sister's earlier question.
"Can we watch you run, daddy?" Dawn gave her father unnecessary puppy dog eyes.
"Of course, Princess, but then it'll be your turn." Barry winked at them and took off on the treadmill. The kids were focused so intently on watching the blur on the treadmill that they didn't even catch what their father had told them about them getting a turn.
"Wow." Don dragged out the word as he pressed his face to the glass separating the two rooms.
Barry slowed down and stepped off the treadmill. He and Iris walked over to two objects covered in sheets and pulled the covers off. There were two smaller treadmills that Cisco had made to automatically adjust to the little one's speed as they had been unable to estimate the speed the children were able to run, and Barry was unwilling to watch his children fly off high speed treadmills.
"I want you two to get on those ones and run as fast as you can." Barry said hugging his children tightly.
They ran at a normal person's speed to the treadmills.
"Fast as you can, sweeties." Iris encouraged and then they took off. Tears filled the proud parents' eyes as they watched their children run.
"Now you're the reason all three of us run." Barry said in his wife's ear.
"What do you mean?" She looked at him, puzzled.
"They only sped up when you told them they could, Iris."
Iris pecked her husband on the lips, then the two of them turned back to watching their babies run.