Chapter Text
“You’re asking us to trust you with our investigation, Captain, but you don’t seem willing to extend the same courtesy to us,” Mason said in a threatening harsh tone, and it was weirdly something Barry expected Iris to say. He figured when people spent too much time together, they ended up sharing those same quirks.
Iris’ home was suddenly full of people and if Barry was being completely honest, he was feeling slightly useless among the bunch of journalists negotiating information with Captain Singh and Patty Spivot.
Iris hadn’t been too happy about their presence when Barry re-entered her bathroom with a pair of yoga pants, panties, a bra that looked mostly comfortable (even though his lack of experience in picking bras could have lead to the wrong choice), a t-shirt, and the news that it was actually Singh and Patty at her door and not the rest of the Uncovered, though they arrived shortly after.
The nerve was actually all Iris had muttered, but Barry could tell who it was about and he could tell that opening her home for someone that didn’t really like her was making Iris anxious.
Barry was now sharing one of the armchairs she had on her living-room with Iris and he grabbed one of her cold hands in both of his, hoping to warm it up and calm her down.
“We want to receive the information before you do a public announcement and we want access to the interrogatory Eddie is conducting on Brown right now and we want to know exactly how you are planning on catching Laura Smith, since she abandoned the car I tracked, and senator Elm, since you guys have virtually nothing on him.”
The sharpness in Iris’s voice surprised Barry and suddenly all the talk around the precinct about her being scary started to make sense.
She was always soft with Barry though and he realised how much he appreciated that.
“Fine. Fine,” Singh conceded, a tired look on his eyes, “but you can only publish it after authorisation or you could potentially compromise the investigation.”
Linda parted her lips and her face suggested she would say something nasty, probably along the lines of how they wouldn’t even have an investigation if it weren’t for the team, or perhaps about how a man under Singh’s supervision had committed this crime so he wasn’t exactly in place to determinate what could or couldn’t compromise anything, but Mason spoke before she could;
“All right.”
“We have information about several properties around the state on senator Elm’s name and on his immediate family,” Linda offered, “but we have nothing on Smith.”
“That’s why I spent two days following her; she’s a ghost, no records of anything, no properties, not even the car is in her name. All we found was her school records and her bar exam,” Scott concluded.
“Right, right” the captain sighed, “can you send me those records on senator Elm? I’m not so sure we got evidence for anything yet…”
Iris jumped to her feet and left towards the kitchen without a word, without as much as a look at him or any other form of silence communication. Barry was about to go after her, worried about when everything that happened that day would actually dawn on her, when Linda asked quietly;
“Let me? I wanna talk to her.”
“Yeah, ok,” Barry conceded.
Iris was sipping on a glass of water, trying to calm herself down, her back to the kitchen door when she heard it being opened. She figured it was Barry, that he would come after her, so the voice she identified instead was a bit of a surprise;
“That girl has got some nerves! I mean, after everything she told us after last time, she’s just there sitting on your living-room like nothing has ever happened?”
Just hearing someone share a bit of her anger was enough comfort to make the water slide down her previous constricted throat more smoothly.
“Thank you!” she said in return, spinning around to face Linda.
Linda had this weirdly unreadable expression on her face as she carefully stepped in Iris’ direction until she stopped briskly and gave Iris a tight hug.
Linda definitely wasn’t a touchy person. Iris was always thankful for her, for how they always seemed to have each other's back on the team and otherwise, she was greatly supportive and their writing styles were somewhat complementary, she was a great friend. But the fact that she was hugging Iris was truly a testament as to how shaken up she must have looked. Or maybe as to how scared Linda must have been when finding out about the shooting. Or perhaps both.
“And she’s totally eyeing your boyfriend,” Linda added, letting Iris go.
“Thank you! I knew I wasn’t projecting!”
Linda smiled a little sly as Iris realised she had just confessed her relationship with Barry to her. Not that them sharing a seat wasn’t enough of a clue, but it wasn’t verbal confirmation.
Linda didn’t seem completely satisfied though, she insisted;
“So he is your boyfriend? I can’t believe you had sex and you didn’t tell me!” she said with a little punch on Iris’s arm.
“I was going to tell you, but too much has happened in too little time.”
And Iris smiled despite herself. This thing with Barry seemed too much when she would stop and try to analyse it, but she was pretty sure the day would have been so much worse without him to ground her. Which ironically was the scary part in the first place. But Iris had decided to focus on all the good she could get, so she was trying her best not to be petrified by it.
Linda was still studying her face and as Iris didn’t offer any additional information she asked;
“Yesterday?”
“Yep.”
“Today?”
“Yep.”
“Look at that smile! You look like someone just ate you right.”
She hadn’t even noticed she was smiling so Iris shook her head and instructed her;
“Shut up.”
But she joined Linda in her laughter and a bit of the weight pressing down on her chest dissipated with it.
“So, what do you think about Mason’s sudden pleasant agreement?” Iris asked her.
Iris wanted to talk about Barry, but not now; not with everyone standing in her living room, not without deciding all she was feeling first.
“It’s obvious bullshit,” Linda told her, and they agreed there so Iris added;
“Hopefully it won’t be too much shit for me to clean up afterwards.”
“Well, even if this whole thing blows up in our faces, you’ve got someone on the inside now and you’re fucking him so I’d say there are pretty good odds of him spilling the beans.”
Iris rolled her eye at the comment. She knew it was a joke but she was actually fearing that Barry could get in trouble because of her.
“I have known Singh since I was five. He’s friends with my dad, he got my brother an internship last summer, so I would still rather he wouldn’t hate me. Or fire Barry because of me.”
“You’ve got good puppy eyes, you’ll be fine,” Linda said with a wink.
“How’s your article?” Iris asked. She was hoping Linda would say they found some undeniable proof on senator Elm and all the money he was undoubtedly laundering but instead she answered;
“It’s coming along. Scott is being an ass like he always is, saying I’m being too nice, that I need to be more assertive. I just can’t put something on an affirmative if I don’t have proof about it.”
“Screw him.”
And after telling Iris no, thank you I would rather not to, Linda proceeded to tell her how she had found some interesting documentation about the rehab clinic Elm was building, saying loads of public money went into it already and that there were just two guys working in the construction, which meant it was surely one of the embezzlement outlets.
“There was an article about the beginning of the construction,” Linda told her, “we can do a follow-up. Like write about the basic this many months, this much money, and nothing has been done kind of shit. But I feel like we’re working on probability and guess here.”
And that was good, Iris supposed, something concrete to put on their article, but…
“If Brown would just slip Elm’s name, we would be done.”
“What about you?” Linda asked after agreeing with her.
“I have the article about Casey’s death practically written in my head. Barry found Brown on the metro’s security footage so there’s the proof we needed, but we can’t know exactly what Casey found out, you know, and I still have to actually sit down and write it.”
“I can help you,” Linda offered;
“We should publish that for tomorrow,” she added, verbalising Iris’s idea.
“Yeah, and then follow up with the whole Elm thing on Sunday.”
Linda nodded as the door to the kitchen opened. Barry this time. He stuck his head in and said with a tentative voice;
“Hey, can I come in?”
And Iris liked that he asked. She hadn’t met many guys in life who would ask instead of assume, instead of just taking, and it was a small big, big, thing. So she smiled at him and said in soft voice that surprised herself;
“Yeah, come in.”
After he had permission, Barry stepped to her side, and one of his hands traveled down her arm, grabbing a little, his long finger splaying out, and then intertwining on her own. Iris noticed she was already leaning into him as he apologised for interrupting Linda and her, saying he was feeling out of place in the living room and asking her if she was ok.
“Yeah,” she said, because that was Barry’s effect on her. She couldn’t help the little smile; “we should be writing though, I feel like this whole CCPD thing is stalling us.”
Linda watched them with attentive eyes and after a little smile of her own, she said;
“Mason was already red when we left, so I gotta a feeling his anger is on the rise, I should go manage that.”
Once they were alone, Barry pulled Iris closer and she suspected he must have been feeling uneasy himself so after breathing a bit into his chest she checked;
“Are you ok?”
He nodded, brushing her hair behind her ears and Iris liked the way he did that, telling her;
“I wish there was something concrete I could do, you know, but I’m just here waiting.”
“Well, for the record, I’m glad you’re here waiting.”
She cradled his face in her hands and marvelled on how easy he was: his lids fluttered shut in a matter of seconds and his lips were already parted in the expectation of a kiss, when her phone beeped, breaking the moment right when their noses touched. Iris pulled away a little, disappointed in whoever was messaging her as Barry questioned;
“Who is it?”
“Eddie.” Iris was impressed with him, since he finally recognised she was right, finally on her team again; “Brown dropped senator Elm’s name.”
And Barry smiled brightly at her, confirmation that they could share whatever they would conquer, as Patty opened the door to inform them;
“Hey, guys, we have legal evidence on Elms. David is gonna ask for a request for provisional arrest, so we should go after him today.”
And it made sense for Barry to go with them. Iris wanted for him to be the one looking for evidence in Elm’s office and home, and at the same time, she wanted him there, safe and within arm’s reach.
He kissed her forehead before leaving, promising her;
“I’ll keep you updated.”
“Be careful, please.”
Iris let out another annoyed puff. Barry knew she was getting worked up over it but getting her to turn off the TV was proving to be more challenging than he was expecting.
“Are you gonna help me?” he asked her, not only because he wanted to distract her from the news of senator Elm’s trial, now live on CCPN’s channel, but also because he genuinely needed help if he was ever going to finish setting their dinner table up.
“Ugh! I can’t believe this!” Iris said in complete disregard for his question; “I can only hope the people see the truth behind this”, she added on a forceful deep voice, mimicking Elm’s tone.
“I hope they see it too, you asshole!”, she continued, talking to the TV; “I hope they see the corrupted asshole you are! Blaming Smith —”
“She was the head of the operation, Iris. You are the one who figured that out.” Barry argued. And who would have thought, who would have guessed or intuited (Iris apparently) that it wasn’t the lawyer covering her client’s tracks, it was actually a guy using his position of power to help out an unsuspected crime lord.
Iris hated whenever he called Smith a “crime lord”, which was half of the fun in calling her so, but at the moment Iris was already too upset to be mocked.
“I know, I know!” she said; “I can’t believe she got away though!”
And there was a year already, Brown’s trial was already behind them and now Elm’s was the one being judged and Barry liked to remind Iris it was still a victory. Two guilty people behind bars, that she gave Casey’s family some comfort, that they gave Casey herself some justice by catching her killer...but every now and again, Iris liked to torture herself about the fact that Smith got away, no trace of her left on the face of the Earth.
Barry stepped into the living room area, pulling Iris up from the sofa, holding her by the hands and blocking her view of the TV. After a soft kiss on the tip of her nose, he begged her;
“Babe, you’ve got to let go.”
“Never!” she informed him and then followed it by an indignant Hey! when he turned the TV off.
“Stop torturing yourself and come help me put this table together,” he instructed her.
They had just moved into their new house. It wasn’t big, but it was theirs - well partially theirs, since they had about 15 years of paying for it scheduled, so technically not fully theirs.
But it was theirs. They had picked it together and painted it together (well, he had done most of the actual painting and Iris had distracted him a whole lot by being cute), and they were in the process of choosing the furniture and Barry was surprisingly enjoying it, and how it was nice to share it all, and how it felt like home, more than anywhere else he had ever lived in, even his parent’s house, even her old apartment, which they shared for a while before deciding to make everything official.
“I told you we should have asked for my dad and Wally’s help,” Iris told him, and yeah she did say that several times when the box with all the parts of their dinner table arrived and he informed her he would open it on Saturday. Perhaps she had been so insistent because putting the bar together had already been a nightmare, resulting in a heated discussion while she held a philips’ head threateningly. But Barry was not about to admit to Joe he couldn’t handle it.
“Your dad already thinks I’m not husband-material,” he argued and it wasn’t completely true, Joe had warmed up to him a little during the last year, but still, Barry could tell that whenever Joe looked at him he didn’t see the guy he would ever pick for his daughter.
Barry understood partially everybody’s resistance. They all thought it was rushed, and it may have seemed like that, looking in from outside. They hadn’t been a couple all that long when he and Iris decided to move in together in the first place. It took a month for his former apartment to be ready after the fire and, by then, Barry was so used to getting home and having Iris there that he lasted about another month until he confessed to Iris he wanted to permanently live together.
He noticed in those two first months that sometimes she would shield herself off. She would be fine and sweet and tender and affectionate, and suddenly she would get stiff like she was purposely watching herself to not act instinctively around him..
Then he told her he was in love with her, and that he wanted to move in together and be with her for all his life and she cried and nodded her agreement. And when they were in bed that day, she asked him if he was scared. Of them. She added that he was braver than her if he really wasn’t. That’s when Barry understood all the times Iris would close off, and he tried promising her she could always trust he loved her, loves her, would love her, and from there, things got easier.
It wasn’t so easy for their parents to understand though; why they would move in together when they were dating for two months, why they would get engaged if they had only been together for 6 months, why they would buy a house together before getting married, but he figured by now they were accepting it. They were accepting that they were in each other’s lives, and in all of their lives, for good, no turning back. But still, Joe did not need any additional ammunition on Barry;
“If I suddenly can’t put a table together —”
“You can’t put a table together,” Iris pointed out with a laugh, grabbing the instructions that might as well be written in another language, and Barry was thankful for the sound even if it was at his expense.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t need to know that. At least wait till we’re actually married to tell him.”
Two months to go now and he was proud to admit he was doing a countdown.
Iris kept telling Barry that nothing would really actually change excepted for the fact that he would finally, finally wear a ring as well (she really hated that she got to wear a ring while he didn’t) and he knew there was some truth to it, but he was still excited to be her husband, for her to actually be his wife. And he knew she was as well, she just liked being though.
“And how many days do I have to wait?” she questioned mockingly.
“53,” Barry answered her promptly and Iris shook her head but instructed;
“And then you better never take that damn ring off.”
He pulled her close, sliding his hands down her spine to rest them on her butt. He smiled before giving her a kiss.
Like he ever would.