Chapter Text
After high school Barry and Iris decided to go the same college so that they could be closer together and close to home. Central City University was a great college and it suited both of their majors equally. Barry quickly and easily decided to pursue a forensic science major, something that he wanted to do his whole life, but it took some time for Iris to choose her major in journalism. Barry was the one who helped her out actually, he was the one who knew her better than she knew herself so he knew what she would like.
The two friends were halfway through their freshman year and they were both experiencing college very differently. If Barry wasn’t in his dorm he was either in the on campus café or the library. He spent most of his time studying or hanging out with his new science nerd friends and doing experiments. In high school, no one shared the same interest as him in science and now he has dozens of people who will have in depth conversations with him about it.
Iris on the hand was the opposite. She was a social butterfly and had made friends with practically everyone she met, which means she got invited to all of the parties. She still studied and kept up on all of her classes, but she basically just wanted to have fun, especially her freshmen year. When she gets time away from all of the partying and studying, she makes sure that she spends some quality time with Barry. Due to their hectic schedules and different friend groups, they only get to see each other face to face once or twice a week. They usually hang out in each others dorm rooms, go out for food, or walk around the city when they want to leave campus. Iris and Barry always look forward to these days because they miss seeing each other every minute of every day.
Iris walked across campus to one of the dorm buildings and knocked on Barry’s door. She always gets jealous when she goes over to Barry’s dorm because all of the science majors have their own building and the dorms are WAY better than the others. Each dorm has their own kitchen, huge closet space, and not cramped at all, and it's only a freshman dorm.
Barry’s new friend Cisco opened the door and knew it was her right away. “Hey Iris!” he greeted.
“Hey Cisco. Is Barry here?” she asked.
“He went to the bathroom a couple of seconds ago, but he’ll be back soon.” He said, opening the door wider to let her in. “You can’t wait here if you want, I was just on my way out.”
“Ok. Thanks Cisco.”
“Anytime.” He said and closed the door behind him.
Iris sat on Barry’s bed and waited for him to get back. She spotted a picture of the two of them hanging from one of his notebooks and pulled it out. It was a picture from Christmas a few years ago when Barry laughed so hard that Grandma Esther’s egg nog came out of his nose. In the picture, Iris and Barry were watching her Uncle Carlos seductively dance to "Santa Baby" after he had just a little too much of Grandma Esther's spiked egg nog. It was one of her favorite pictures in the whole wide world and she couldn’t stop laughing while looking at it. She heard the door handles jiggle and quickly stuffed the picture into her purse to have for herself.
“Cisco open the door I forgot my key.” He said knocking on the door. She decided to stay silent and tried to hold back a giggle. “Cisco cmon. Iris is going to be here any minute.” He groaned.
Iris opened the door super wide and almost scared Barry half to death. “Well looks like you got here a little too late.”
“Iris.” He said giving her a hug. “Hey. When did you even get here.” He asked, walking into the room and closing the door.
“Like two seconds ago. Cisco let me in, but he said he had to go somewhere.”
She plopped onto the bed and sprawled out all of her limbs. “So what are we doing today.”
“I was just hoping that we could hang out here and watch a movie, maybe have a good talk about life, could really use some right now.” He said sitting next to her on his tiny twin size bed.
“Sure, what’s going on. “ she turned so that she was laying on her stomach and placed her elbow on his lap.
“Well…ummm…you know what? You go first. Anything big happening in your life.” He said, not really knowing how to approach his situation, especially with Iris.
“Well there is nothing really going on in my life right now, it’s the same as usual.” She said with a sigh. “Now, what is up with you?” she asked.
Barry’s face went bright red and he rubbed the back of his neck, giving the signal to Iris that he was nervous.
“Barry cmon, it’s me, your best friend remember?” Iris said.
“Well…there’s this girl in my Biochemistry class.” He said slowly.
“Oh my God who is it? Do I know her? Have you talked to her yet?” she tried to say enthusiastically.
“I don’t know if you know her, her name is Becky Cooper, and no I haven’t talked to her yet.”
Iris sat up and smacked his chest with the back of her hand. “Well what are you waiting for?”
“Ow.” He yelled, holding onto his chest. “I just don’t know how.” He sighed. ”And what if she doesn’t like me back like all the other girls in high school?”
“Barry.” She said seriously. “You have got to stop putting yourself down all the time. You are an amazing guy and anybody who can’t see that is clearly out of their mind.”
“You’re just saying that cause you’re my best friend.” He said looking down.
She placed his chin between her index finger and thumb to push his head up to meet hers. “I’m saying it because it’s true. Ok?”
“Ok.”
“So what you’re going to do is go up to her the next time you see her, compliment her, and ask her out on a simple date to that café you always go to. Easy.”
“It’s not that easy.” He scuffed.
“Yes it is. Just be yourself.” She said poking him. “And if she says no I can come over and we can eat ice cream and watch episodes of your nerd shows.”
“They’re not ‘nerd shows’ and sounds like a plan. Thanks Iris.” He said wrapping his arm around her.
“No problem babe.” She said snuggling into him.
Barry got out his laptop and opened to Netflix to watch Iris’s favorite movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He personally hated that movie, thought it was too boring and felt way too long, but she enjoyed it so he did whatever made her happy.
When Barry graduated high school, he knew that he had to stop pining over Iris. She was never going to see him the same way, so what was the point? He needed to move on from her once and for all. He liked Becky and he could see them actually working out and maybe even lasting a long time. The feelings for Iris are still there, but in the last couple of months he has pushed them down so far so he could forget about ever liking her. Although, if Iris someday miraculously wants to be with him, he would go for her in a heartbeat, but he also really likes Becky too.
Iris decided to leave around midnight and grabbed all of her stuff to go. Before leaving she turned around to Barry and said. “Just be yourself. Don’t be too nervous. The worse she can say is no. Text me with all of the details tomorrow.”
“Wait I have to do it tomorrow?” he whined.
“Time is money Bartholomew. Time is money.” She winked and walked out of the door without another word.