Finally a chapter for you guys! Life and canon are kicking me around at the moment. Don't panic, I am back to writing and maybe we'll get these two together again! Hope you enjoy a lovely father/daughter angst chapter. Thanks for reading as always. And again and again thank you for the lovely comments and support! (guest Brenda, looking at you and several others!) I love you guys!

Chapter 11

When Joe headed into the kitchen the next morning, he was startled as Iris spoke from the far corner where she had been leaning against the fridge.

"How long have you known?"

Joe wasn't a cop for nothing. He recognized danger when he saw it. And Iris looked dangerous. She was leaned up against the fridge, unnaturally still. Her voice had been almost deadly soft. The look she leveled at him would have scared almost anyone else. Joe swallowed but returned it.

"Known, what, baby?" The last thing he needed to do was confess to knowing the wrong thing. At this point, he had a lot of secrets.

Iris pushed away from the fridge and walked up to the table. Joe stood his ground on the other side. "How long have you known Barry is The Flash?"

Joe stared at her for a moment. Damn. He'd been hoping it was about Barry's feelings. "Did he tell you?"

She glared at him. "I figured it out. Your daughter is smart, Dad."

He nodded. "Yes. Yes she is."

"So?" They looked at each other a moment. She slowed her speech down for the question this time. "How long have you known?"

He breathed out a huge breath, preparing for battle. "Almost the beginning."

It was like putting a match in gasoline. "You've known that long, and you wouldn't tell me?" Her voice was already up several decibels and threatening to climb higher.

Joe put up his hands in a peacemaking gesture, but it looked more like she had pulled a gun on him. "I was trying to keep you safe."

"I don't believe you." She spat the words at him. "I think you can't let go. I think you think I'm still five and you get to decide everything about my life. This is just like when I wanted to join the academy. I think you have a problem, dad!" Her voice rose to a yell as she pointed an accusing finger.

"Yeah, I've got a problem!" Joe's voice now matched hers. "I've got a problem with maniacs with crazy powers running the streets! I have a problem with the danger that is constantly surrounding my family! I have a problem every time I let him go out, but I let him do it! This is not about me having a problem controlling your life, this is about me wanting you to be able to live it!" His voice had easily reached hers in decibel level. He stopped to calm himself down, turning away for a moment and breathing heavily. When he turned back, she continued to stare him down on the other side of the table.

"I don't think me knowing is suddenly going to put me in more danger than I have already been in, Dad." She was still looking very angry, but her voice was calmer.

Joe pulled out a chair and wearily sat down in it. "Baby, the first time I knew anything about this is when Barry caught a roof about to crush me and Eddie, then unwound a tornado. I had to shoot a bank robber before he killed Barry. The whole thing was pretty terrifying, and that was after we just got him back from a coma I never thought he'd wake up from. Everything I knew about him and the guys he was up against was dangerous. They don't fit into my rules of reality, but the body count sure is real. I wasn't going to put my daughter in the middle of it. I had no idea you'd start a blog and invite danger in the front door." He gave her a look. "But I probably should have known you would." He muttered, trying to get a laugh out of her. She refused to engage.

"Does Eddie know?" The possibility left her nauseous.

Joe shook his head quickly, trying to put her at ease. "No, he was unconscious at the time." He waved a hand carelessly, like it was no big deal. By now he'd seen much worse.

"I still think you should have told me." Her look was mutinous. She was looking very much like she had when she was a teenager. "You don't get to tell me 'no more secrets' and then keep the biggest one. You even told me flat out there was no Streak! You have been lying to me for months, and so has Barry!"

Much as he wanted to lay into Barry for not giving him a heads up on this, Joe still jumped in to defend him. "Barry wanted to tell you. He was really pushing for it at the beginning. He told me the best way to get you to stop your blog was to tell you the truth. Then after a while, he stopped pushing for it."

Iris's eyes narrowed. Against her will, she asked. "Why?"

Joe looked up at her from his chair. "I think, he realized how dangerous what he does really is. I think he realized that he still had people he could lose. He doesn't have much of a choice with me, I'm a cop and I'm in this too. I've lost count of the number of times he has saved my butt. But you were not in it automatically. There was no reason to include you and put you at risk. People have been dying, Iris. After his mom, Barry never is going to put you at risk if he can help it. And neither am I."

Iris felt the tiniest bit of softening and fought it. "I'm still mad at you. I don't feel like I can trust you or Barry anymore. You said no more secrets, and then you lied over and over."

Joe looked away. She had a point. "Iris, if you had known who the Streak was when Tony came to Jitters and asked you about him, do you think you could have lied convincingly enough? Keeping you in the dark gave you an edge against anyone asking you once you put your name on that blog." Iris glared at him, annoyed that he too had a legitimate point.

Joe sighed. "Okay, I will apologize for lying to you and keeping secrets. But I will never apologize for trying to keep you safe. That's my job as your dad for as long as I'm alive."

"Are you saying you would still keep something from me if you deemed it correct?" Her tone was incredulous.

Joe gave her a look of complete honesty. "I am saying, I seriously doubt I'll ever have a secret bigger than this. I am saying that if you know about this, you can handle anything. I'm saying it might be hard or dangerous, and I will still do everything I can to protect you both. I still wish you didn't know. But I will also do my best not to lie to you again."

Iris finally relented and sat down at the table across from her father. "Dad, thank you, but that's not good enough." His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I'm sorry, but I don't think you realize how big this is." He waited for her to continue. "You guys have been keeping this from me for months. I have been basically cut out of a huge part of both of your lives. You have lied and kept big secrets. Believe me, it pushes us apart. If you don't see that as a problem, if you don't understand how much this hurts me, and if you can only 'do your best' not to lie to me again, then…well…our relationship is never going to recover or be the same. We have to be able to trust each other, isn't that what you always told me?" She swallowed hard and waited for his reaction.

Joe looked like she'd hit him. He looked up at the ceiling a moment, swallowing too. His voice was shaky when he finally spoke again. "All I have ever tried to do is keep you two kids safe in a very dangerous world."

She leaned forward a bit. "I know, Dad. But it's gone too far. Is keeping me safe worth sacrificing our entire relationship? I don't want that." She put her hand farther out on the table, reaching towards him. "We're both adults now. We can handle more than you think. You have to let go."

There was a moment's pause. Then Joe's hand came to rest on top of hers. "I never really thought about it like that. I'm sorry. I really am. I love you. I don't want to push you away. I…just want you to always be safe." Iris gave him a gentle smile. One thing she loved about her father, he was always the first to admit when he was wrong.

"I love you dad. You have to stop worrying about us."

Joe's eyes were suspiciously bright. "You should know me better than that by now, baby." She nodded, remembering her similar words a few nights ago. They both stood up from the table and hugged. He leaned back and looked her in the eye. "So, are we okay?"

Iris stepped back, crossing her arms. "It's not that simple. I still feel like I can't trust you guys. How do I know when you're telling me everything? Once trust is broken it doesn't just fix in a minute. I just can't believe you've kept this from me for so long."

Joe nodded. "I see. How about a peace offering?"

"Like what?"

He stood up and grabbed his keys. "Get your coat, I'll show you. No more secrets."

It was a good thing that both of them were off work today. Iris sat in the passenger seat as Joe drove across town. She wasn't quite sure where they were headed. The silence was slightly uncomfortable, as father and daughter tried to establish a new normal.

Joe seemed to be deep in thought as he drove, so it was a bit startling when he suddenly started talking.

"If it makes you feel any better, Barry didn't tell me what he was up to at first either."

Iris looked at him. "He didn't?"

"Nope. I'd already seen what he could do, but he didn't tell me he was out to be a one-man savior of the city. I figured it out pretty early on, but I do kinda wonder if he ever would have actually told me."

Iris stared out the window. It was ridiculous, but it did make her feel a bit better. She had been picturing the two of them as plotting against her; when actually Joe had just found out much sooner simply by being in the right place at the right time and working at the same place as Barry. If her father had been an insurance salesman he might not have put it together either.

"Probably not." She gave him a lopsided grin. "I'm sure he knew how you'd react."

Joe laughed. "Yeah. And I did. I wanted him to just put it away and be normal. It would be safer that way. But the other metahumans, some of them are really nasty. They are nothing that a regular police force can handle. So it falls to Barry. And even though I still worry about him, he has proven he can handle a lot more than I thought he could."

Thoughts of Tony and the brick wall man floated across her mind. She ignored a twinge of worry. "Yeah, he can." She wondered what he was doing now. She wondered what he'd done after she'd left him on the roof yesterday. She wondered if he was okay. She pushed the thoughts away. No. She didn't wonder. She was still angry. But a tiny part of her wished that she were still with Barry in his apartment, listening to his heartbeat and escaping the world.

She broke out of her thoughts and looked around. That was when she realized where they were headed. "Why are we going to S.T.A.R. Labs?

Joe gave her a quick look. "I told you, no more secrets."

From the early morning hours until mid-afternoon, Central City's citizens suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of a serious amount of good deeds. A wandering toddler was swept from the middle of the road and placed in his startled mother's arms. A man about to be attacked by a dog suddenly found himself a block away. A girl falling from a tree was delivered safely on the ground. A texting teenager stepped into traffic. When he looked up, his phone was in his coat pocket and he was across the street. The grand finale was a family being held hostage in their home suddenly placed into an arriving ambulance, complete with shock blankets for all, while the gunman was cuffed into another arriving police car.

Then, unseen by any except a few startled motorists, a blur headed out of Central City and down the highway.