A Day with Your Double

"Wow, you actually have a pretty decent setup here," E2 Barry said, nodding his approval as he looked around the room, picking a few things up to observe them briefly as he walked through the lab.

"Why the tone of surprise?" Barry asked laughingly, watching the other Barry walk around the lab. If Barry really thought about it, his earth 2 double could be just a hint condescending sometimes.

"No reason," E2 Barry said, "I guess I just expected your lab to be really different from mine. I just know we have different tastes in different things. I mean, look at these clothes."

E2 Barry gestured down to the button-down shirt and jeans he was wearing. Barry just laughed.

"Well, I didn't really care for those bowties much either," he said jokingly.

"Okay, okay," E2 Barry said, laughing and putting his hands up, "To each their own, I guess. At least there is one thing we seem to have similar taste in though."

"And that would be?" Barry asked.

"Our taste in women," E2 Barry said with a surveying look on his face. Barry's eyes widened.

"Well, I uh…I don't…she's…what do you mean?" he finally managed to ask.

"Don't give me that," E2 Barry said, "I see the way you look at your Iris. You think I don't recognize my own facial expressions?"

Barry laughed nervously.

"Well, it doesn't really matter how I feel. She doesn't feel the same way."

"I beg to differ," E2 Barry countered instantly, "I've also noticed the way she looks at you."

Barry's eyebrows furrowed as he looked at his earth 2 self questioningly.

"Your Iris looks at you with the same facial expressions my wife has when she looks at me," E2 Barry observed, "Trust me. She's in love with you."

Barry snorted.

"Okay, if you say so," he said with a hint of sarcasm.

"I do say so, and let me tell you, Mr. Allen," E2 Barry said firmly, "I'm usually right about everything. Just ask my wife. She hates it."

"Well, I'm not going to hold my breath," Barry said to him, "I've already made it clear to Iris how I feel about her. I'm not going to go get my hopes up that her feelings may have changed. I've been rejected enough. I don't think I can take any more or put Iris in that position again. It's not fair to either of us."

"Hey, I'm just telling you what I see," E2 Barry said, "What you do with that information is up to you."

Barry just nodded at him, and then turned to the stack of papers on his desk.

"Well, I'm glad you decided to come to work with me," he said, "I always wished I had two of me here, so I could get this all done faster. My speed only helps me so much."

"Glad I could be of assistance," E2 Barry said with a smile. He grabbed one of the files and opened it to read it, sitting down at the desk, already making himself at home in the earth 1 lab. Barry grinned and grabbed his own stack of files. When Barry started to speed read through them, E2 Barry couldn't help but stare. Barry paused what he was doing and looked back over at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," E2 Barry said dismissively, shaking his head, "I just wish I could do that. It seems like it would really come in handy."

"Yeah, well not as much as you would think," Barry said with a laugh, "When I speed read it, I can't remember the information for long. If it worked that way, I would have learned all the languages by now and memorized the entire encyclopedia or something."

E2 Barry laughed.

"Now that would be something," he said. He gave Barry a surveying look that made Barry somewhat uncomfortable for some reason.

"What?" Barry asked again.

"I was just wondering about your powers," E2 Barry said with a shrug, "You haven't really told me much about how they work. As a scientist I'm extremely curious about them, but I didn't want to make you uncomfortable by asking."

"What did you want to know?" Barry asked him with a small smile.

"How fast can you go?" E2 Barry asked immediately. Barry scratched the back of his neck.

"I'm somewhere around mach 3," Barry said unsurely, "We don't always measure it, but from what we've recorded, that's about as fast as I can go. We're working on it though."

E2 Barry laughed.

"You make it sound as if that's not impressive," he said, shaking his head in amusement.

"Well, compared to Zoom, it isn't," Barry said bitterly, "Wells is working on a tachyon enhancement device for me though. It should help me boost my speed."

"Tachyons?" E2 Barry said, "Really? That's amazing technology! Do you think Dr. Wells will let me work on it with him? Maybe I could help him with it!"

"Sure, you can ask him," Barry said with a laugh, "Just to warn you though. He doesn't really work well with others. I tried to work on something with him not that long ago, and he blew up at me at one point. Said I was trying to turn him into some kind of mentor or something."

"I'm sure I can get through to him," E2 Barry said insistently, "I've always dreamed of working on a project with him."

"What's more interesting to you? The tachyons or Wells?" Barry asked with amusement.

"It's hard to say," E2 Barry said excitedly, clasping his hands together.

"Well, I'd appreciate it if you kept your cool around Wells for me," Barry said gently, "It's a little hard for me to look him in the eye when my Earth 2 double is practically drooling over him all the time."

"I do not drool over him," E2 Barry said in a dignified voice, "I may have expressed a bit of…excitement when I first met him, but—"

"Excitement?" Barry said incredulously, "You started telling him about how you laminated his thesis on string phenomenology."

"Okay," E2 Barry admitted, "But until you've read that thesis, you can't judge me for it."

Barry rolled his eyes at his E2 self. Did he seem this dorky to everyone else on his earth?

…..

"You don't have to go to work today?" E2 Iris asked her double. Iris shook her head with a smile.

"One of the best things about being a reporter, you can take your work home with you."

Iris sat down with a fresh cup of coffee at the dining room table. She opened her laptop but didn't really look at it as her doppelganger sat down next to her.

"Anything I can do to help?" E2 Iris asked. Iris shook her head with a smile.

"No, that's okay. I've been stumped on this article for a while now. I don't think I'll be able to work on it much today anyways."

"Well, I'm probably not the best person to help you with that anyways," E2 Iris laughed, "I'm terrible with writing. Barry's always been better at that stuff. He's published a couple books on applying criminology to forensics."

"Wow, so I guess Barry's the writer on your earth then, huh?" Iris said, shaking her head with a thoughtful smile.

On earth 2, she was the cop, Barry was the writer and the cook, and her father was the singer. It's funny because on this earth, her dad is a terrible singer. Barry had always been the one with an amazing voice. They didn't get to hear his singing voice very often though. He only really sang on rare occasions, usually when he thought no one was listening. Whenever Iris got to hear him sing, it was like the world had stopped and she would pause to listen, wishing she could hear him sing forever. He always stopped way too soon.

"Yeah, well, he had to put his PhD to good use somehow," E2 Iris said with a smile, snapping Iris from her reverie.

"You're always smiling when you talk about him," Iris observed.

"So are you," E2 Iris said with a knowing look.

"What do you mean?"

"You get this fond grin on your face every time you talk about your Barry," E2 Iris said, turning the tables on her observation.

"Well, he's my best friend," Iris said dismissively, "Of course I'm fond of him."

Thankfully E2 Iris didn't press her. The conversation reminded Iris of the conversation they were having the day before though.

"So, you never answered my question I asked you yesterday," Iris said nervously. When E2 Iris looked at her questioningly, she elaborated, "I asked you when you knew…that you and Barry were more than friends."

"Oh," E2 Iris said. She smiled as she thought about it. "It's hard to say. There wasn't really an exact moment, you know? It sort of just slowly snuck up on us over the years. We had always been so close, best friends for life we always used to say. I think in middle school, we both had little crushes on each other, but we never really acted on them. We both were too afraid of losing our best friend."

Iris listened intently, her mind thinking back to how close she and Barry had always been. They were probably even closer, seeing as they both grew up in the same house. She wondered if that played a part in why things turned out differently between them here than they did on Earth 2. She would contemplate on that idea later though. Right now she was listening fixedly on every word her doppelganger had to say.

"He was always so shy," E2 Iris continued with a grin on her face, "By the time we reached high school, it was obvious that we had feelings for each other, but he was too shy to ever act on them. Between the two of us, I was always the bold one, and my Barry has always been a bit more reserved and unassuming.

"Everyone knew we were going to end up together, even our parents, but Barry never really stepped up and asked me out. Our sophomore year, I had to drop about a million hints before he even asked me to go to homecoming with him, and even after that we weren't officially a couple."

"So how did you eventually end up dating?" Iris asked, amused by the story. Although her Barry had always been a little more on the reserved side, he wasn't that shy. When he was in high school, he had asked girls out, and he had a few girlfriends over the years, especially when he went to college.

"That's where it gets funny," E2 Iris said with a small laugh, "I was growing more and more frustrated that he wasn't getting the hint. I knew that he liked me, and so did everyone else apparently. Most people just assumed we were already dating, which is why it was really funny when we were voted cutest couple for our class that year."

Iris laughed.

"You two were cutest couple?"

"Yeah," E2 Iris said, "And we were for the remaining two years after that. Except, for those two years we were actually dating then. Barry finally got the courage to ask me out after that happened, and I remember hitting him, yelling at him and asking why it took him so long. He was so adorable when he was stuttering his apology to me but grinning at the same time."

Iris couldn't help but mirror the other woman's smile. It was such a sweet story, and the whole thing seemed to play out easily in her head like a movie. She could see it now, how easily she could have fallen for Barry if the circumstances had been different and she hadn't been so blind at the time. Maybe if she had just opened her eyes a little earlier and seen what was right in front of her, she and Barry could have been high school sweethearts on both earths.

"It's funny how my dad acted towards Barry after we started dating," E2 Iris went on, "He said he always knew we would end up together, but once we finally did, it was like he started looking for reasons to say that Barry wasn't good enough for me."

"Why would he think that?" Iris asked.

"Oh, that's just the way he was," E2 Iris said dismissively, "It wasn't Barry's fault. When it came to my dad, no guy was ever going to be enough for his daughter."

Iris couldn't help but notice the tears that seemed to well up in her double's eyes.

"S-sorry," she said, sniffing, "I just really miss him. It's been a little tough, being here and seeing my dad every day, knowing it's not really my dad."

"I can't even imagine what that must be like," Iris said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, "I know Barry struggled with that too. He said it was really hard not to get emotionally sucked in when it came to interacting with your loved ones' doubles on another earth."

"Yeah," E2 Iris said, wiping her eyes, "I'm sure it was just as hard for him to talk to his mom when he was there as it is for me with my dad now."

Iris's eyes grew wide.

"Barry talked to his mom?" she asked, surprised.

"He did," E2 Iris told her, "He called her on the phone. I didn't understand why he started crying at the time. Now, being here, I more than understand it."

"He didn't tell us that," Iris said thoughtfully, wondering why he would have kept that to himself. It probably significantly added to reason why he was so down after he had gotten back. Earth 2 had really messed him up for a while, and Iris was starting to fully understand why. It made her wonder if there was anything else that Barry hadn't told them about earth 2.

…..

"Oh, come on," E2 Barry said in exasperation when he looked over to see Barry eating yet another calorie bar, "You cannot seriously still be hungry. We just had lunch!"

"Hmm?" Barry said absently, looking up from the report he had been reading while he chewed. "Oh, I'm not even hungry," he said, "I just eat out of habit now. I don't really even think about it anymore. I just do it."

"It looks exhausting," E2 Barry observed, watching Barry take the last bite of the bar.

"Oh, trust me it is," Barry said only half-laughing, "It's not easy choking down this much food every day. I get a lot of stomach aches, and the food bills take a huge chunk out of my paycheck too."

"I don't know how you even still get any enjoyment out of food anymore to be honest," E2 Barry said, thinking of just how much food he had seen Barry eat already today, and it was only just past noon. Barry laughed but nodded slightly. He wasn't exactly wrong. Food was more a hassle for him now than it was a pleasure.

"If you stopped running, would you be able to eat less?" E2 Barry asked curiously.

"Maybe slightly," Barry answered as he considered it, "But I burn a crazy amount of calories just at rest too. Even when I'm asleep, I'm excessively burning calories. Some nights I have to keep two full cartons of juice next to my bed just to drink throughout the night. Otherwise I wake up dizzy and weak in the morning from low blood sugar."

"Wow, that really sucks," E2 Barry said sympathetically. Barry simply shrugged with a small smile.

"It's a small price to pay," he said, "considering all I can do."

Just then Barry's phone started beeping. Great. It was Cisco's metahuman alert app.

"I've gotta go," Barry said, looking down at his phone in alarm. Before E2 Barry could even respond, Barry had disappeared into thin air.

And then of course, just after Barry left, Captain Singh walked into the lab to find E2 Barry by himself.

"Nice glasses, Allen," he said flatly after glancing up from his paperwork to look at him. He looked back down at the papers in his hands.

"Singh," E2 Barry said in shock. He stood up from his desk and backed away from the man, "What are you doing here?"

The captain looked up from his paperwork in confusion.

"Last I checked this lab still belongs to the CCPD," the captain said irritably, "And I'm its captain after all."

"Captain," E2 Barry muttered to himself. Dave Singh was a criminal on his earth. Guess this is how the rest of them felt when he told them Leonard Snart was the mayor on Earth 2.

"Right, sorry, captain," E2 Barry said quickly to Singh, "What can I do for you?"

"Just wondering where you were at in that fiber analysis from that robbery last week," Singh said impatiently.

"Robbery…?"

Singh sighed.

"The Henderson file."

"Oh right!" E2 Barry said quickly, "I think he—I finished that this morning."

He grabbed the file off Barry's desk and handed it to the captain.

"Here you are, sir," he said with a nervous smile. Singh surveyed him suspiciously.

"That's it?" he asked, "That's all you're going to say? Here you are, sir?"

E2 Barry shifted nervously, not sure what else Barry's boss wanted from him exactly.

"You're not going to go into some long-winded explanation?" Singh asked him sternly, "You're not going to try to explain every minute detail to me?"

"Um, did you want me to?" E2 Barry asked quietly, wringing his hands. He didn't know anything about the case. Barry had barely mentioned anything to him about it.

"No," Singh said, tucking the file into the rest of his stack, "No, I did not."

He gave E2 Barry another surveying look.

"You feeling okay, Allen?" he asked suspiciously.

"I feel fine, sir," E2 Barry said nervously.

"Not bottle sick or anything?" Singh demanded.

"What?" E2 Barry asked, his eyes going wide, "No. No, nothing like that, sir. I'm just a little out of sorts is all. I lost my contacts this morning," he invented, "and then I—"

"I don't care to hear all the details, Allen," Singh said impatiently, waving a hand dismissively, "Just get back to work. We're being overrun with cases right now. We can't afford to have our CSI feeling 'out of sorts'."

"Yes, sir," E2 Barry said with a nod. Jeez, and he thought that his boss on his earth could be a real hard ass. Less than five minutes with the guy, and E2 Barry could tell that this earth's Singh was a real piece of work. Barry really had his hands full with this guy.

Captain Singh gave him one last suspicious glance before turning and leaving the lab. The kid was really acting strange. He was so quiet. And what was with the glasses? He had never seen Allen wear them before and he had never mentioned that he had contacts. Then again, why would he?

The kid was probably just tired like the rest of them. Singh hadn't been kidding when he said they were starting to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases coming in right now. So far, the young CSI had managed to keep up pretty well, but he could only do that for so long. Barry would only be able to handle so much before it became too much for him.

Captain Singh was pretty exhausted himself. Being the captain, the high crime rates were affecting him as much as anyone else, if not more. The stress was starting to get to him. Singh decided to take the elevator to get downstairs. It wasn't because he was tired or lazy. He just knew that it would be closer to his office, and he would be able to slip into his office unseen easier from the elevator than from the stairs.

Even the captain had to avoid his own employees sometimes. The last thing he needed was some rookie detective coming up to him asking him a million silly questions about a ridiculously simple case. When the elevator doors opened, Singh was ready to slip into his office as quickly and sneakily as possible. He was caught off guard though when he nearly ran right into Barry Allen.

Great. The last person he needed to run into. The young CSI was probably going to talk and talk until Singh started to lose his…mind. Wait. Allen?! Didn't he just see him upstairs?

Barry didn't even look at the captain though. He walked right past him and made his way over to Joe's desk to talk to him. Singh gaped at him. Did he just run down the stairs or something? He did look kind of winded as if he had just been running. Where did his glasses go though? Is that even what he was wearing two seconds ago?! Singh literally scratched his head as he stared at the young forensic scientist who was now talking to Joe at his desk. After a moment or two, Allen made his way over to the stairs and quickly climbed up them to disappear back into his lab.

Singh didn't get it. Something wasn't right here. He gave his head a small shake. He must have been imagining things. Maybe he was just working too hard and the stress was finally starting to get to him. On that thought, captain dismissed the whole thing, and he took care to finally slip into the solitude that was his office without being detected. He really needed a vacation.

…..

Don't worry! I'll be bringing the two "couples" back together in the next chapter. Maybe a little E2 Westallen PDA coming up next ;)