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[ Saturday 9 a.m. ]
“Wait a minute, wait one damn minute!” Iris shouts, flustered and confused, replaying Cisco’s explanation over and over in her head, attempting at making some sense of it but still coming up short, “I have…”
She couldn’t even bring herself to say it, the words stuck on the tip of her tongue, incapable of making their way out, her mind still running laps around the consequences of this entire situation.
“Barry’s speed, Iris,” Cisco avers, still quaffing his drink, playing this off as a no-big-deal thing, “you have Barry’s speed.”
Iris opens her eyes wide, stares him down until the drink he’s holding makes its way to the table, his hand slowly and clumsily pulling away from it, realizing that it’d be in his best interest to give her his undivided attention.
He gives her a small, half-hearted grin but when she doesn’t smile back, it quickly fades and he slyly rolls his chair backwards, deciding it’d be smart to be as far away from her as possible.
“I know that,” she says, her voice beginning to fulminate, walking over to him, baby steps, but nonetheless catching up to his rolling chair, causing the squeaks from the wheels to intensify, “what I want to know is why the hell I have his speed!”
Barry looks on, watching the exchange, going back and forth between interrupting this conversation or watching them hash it out.
He hadn’t told them it was a temporary thing quite yet, though the speedforce informed him something like this was bound to happen, but it’d only last for a few hours, at max a day. Iris afterall did enter the speedforce and this was one of the repercussions of that action. Then again, so did Cisco, but he’d hold off saying anything about that for a long long time.
When Iris gets a little too close to Cisco, trapping him between herself and the wall, he runs over to her with the fastest human speed he could muster, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her a few feet away from the scientist, much to her protest and rage. But even with all her complaining and anger and swatting at his hands, she was still tiny and soft and easily movable, which just made him laugh.
“Glad you decided to join the conversation!” she huffs when he finally sets her down.
Cisco lets out a breath he’d been holding and comes to a stand, feet shaky and unsteady, before walking towards Barry, cautious to avoid her gaze.
“ Iris ,” Barry coos, rubbing her arms up and down, doing his best to placate her tensions, “you’ll be okay, I promise. This won’t last longer than a day.”
“How do you know that?” Cisco inquires.
“Speedforce,” Barry responds with a smirk before shifting his attention back to Iris, “but given that you have super speed for a while, might as well have a little fun with it, yeah?”
She feels her anger subside, his face far too adorable and innocent to do anything but smile at. He seals the deal when he leans in to touch his lips to hers, smiling bashfully into the kiss before pulling back.
He hears Cisco scoff in the background.
Iris leans forward just a bit to chase after his lips, but he’s too far away and Cisco’s protests are too loud to ignore. Instead, her eyes flutter open and she gives him a shy smile. “I guess it could be fun.”
“Great!” Cisco shouts, coming between them and taking Iris by the hand, “let’s see what we’re workin’ with!”
[ Saturday 1 p.m. ]
“You’re a terrible speedster.”
Cisco rolls his eyes as she loses her balance once again, colliding butt first with the ground. Barry immediately rushes to her side and crouches beside her, hand on the small of her back, other hand gently caressing her face. She groans when he helps her up, still in serious pain from the fall.
“Iris,” Cisco says when the couple turns to him, “you literally just have to run. Like that’s it.”
“Okay I don’t see you trying this,” she grumbles, grimacing at the impact of the fall.
“You’re letting me down,” he shakes his head, ignoring her comment, “you can shoot a gun, down 10 cups of coffee in one sitting, protect me from a zombie and go undercover to interview an evil sociopath, but you can’t run ? Come on now.”
Iris mumbles a curse word, giving him her best death glare before shimming out of Barry’s hold to walk in front of him.
Barry’s eyes follow her before dipping down, unashamedly enjoying the view.
“How about,” she says, speed-walking towards Cisco, pain from the fall already subsiding, “instead of being such an insensitive ass, you actually help me?”
“Nope. You don’t need my help! You can do this, you’re just too wrapped in your head. So please, push your thoughts aside before you run into another one of our tables. I’m down to like five, thanks to you.”
Before Iris gets a chance to respond, Barry catches up to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, almost protectively. “Cisco’s right. You can do this; don’t let your fears get the best of you.”
“Iris,” Cisco adds, “you’ve chased me down in heels on multiple occasions. Learning how to use super-speed to run can’t be harder than that.”
That’s true, she thinks, remembering the time her and Cisco were running away from Wells, while she was wearing stilettos and a blue-laced dress, when they accidently spilled vodka on his notes, a little too tipsy from their night out. Or the time she dragged Cisco back when he called shotgun, only to beat him to the car in her black-heeled boots. Or that time Beyonce was fueling her anger when a guy was unsolicitedly hitting on her in the club, pouring the drink down his shirt and darting through the club - with 6 inch heels on - in attempts at finding Barry.
“Come on,” Barry says, moving to stand in front of her, both hands gripping her arms, “I know you can do this. We’ll just take it slow and steady. You’re already doing so much better than you were a few hours ago.”
“Yeah you only fell twice in the past hour, compared to your 15 the previous one. Be proud.”
She suppresses the urge to speed over to Cisco and whisk him and his sarcastic remarks back to STAR Labs. Instead, she lets out an exasperated sigh and merely nods her head, ready to attempt this once more.
“Just control it,” Barry says, eyes still on her, “you can do it, I promise. If anyone can learn, it’s you.”
Iris leans up to kiss him again - just for good luck, she reminds herself, though really she took every excuse she could find to kiss him in public - and she pulls away, ready to line up again.
“Okay Iris,” Cisco says, getting in position, “try not to fall this time.”
“Cisco!!” Barry smacks his shoulder, “a little more supportive!”
“Right, right,” Cisco sighs, smirking, “try to run a long distance without tripping this time.”
Iris wasn’t paying them any attention, focus already on the path in front of her. As soon as she took her stance, her mind was already miles away and she didn’t wait for Cisco to cue her to start. Instead, she took off, leaving both guys stunned and watching after her.
She ran laps around Central City, doing her best to keep both legs in front of her - right then left then right then left, she kept reminding herself, as if she were learning to walk all over again - using her arms to balance her body, keeping a tight posture, not swaying from side to side from the force of her speed.
Back at training ground, Cisco monitors her speed, mumbling this isn’t possible under his breath while Barry looks on, pride in his eyes, smile radiating as he stares at his girlfriend’s path, watching her run in a zigzag before promptly greeting them again, halting herself to a stop, papers from their table blowing everywhere.
“How was that?” she asks, a little breathless, but smug expression nonetheless.
Barry and Cisco stare at each other before turning back to her.
“I think you might be a better speedster than Barry,” Cisco answers, still in awe.
Barry looks on with pure admiration and giddiness. Iris West was something else.
[ Saturday 5 p.m. ]
“What kind of bucolic shit is this?!” she asks, not believing her eyes, the monitor displaying a line of what appeared to be about 100 robot sheep, each behind the other. A man was walking behind them appearing to be dressed as a shepherd, beard long and white, dress beige and baggy with a brown cardigan over it, sandals covering his feet, cane in hand.
“At least your article is guaranteed to make the front page when the news breaks,” Cisco says, eyes fixed on the screen.
“A metahuman that’s a shepherd?” Iris repeats again with absolute disbelief, “that’s gotta be a first.”
“I mean technically he’s not a shepherd. He’s an evil meta who uses robotic clones of harmless animals to invade cities and claim them as his own…”
They both turn to Barry, expressions impassive and dazed and he doesn’t know whether to keep explaining this or to shut up, so he settles for a smile and an awkward thumbs up.
“So lemme get this straight,” Iris sighs, turning to Cisco, “Central City is being attacked by a herder who has built a robot army of sheep to take over the city?”
“Appears so.”
“Well,” she blinks a few times, “this is highly problematic.”
“You kinda have to stop him, Iris,” Barry whispers.
She freezes. This definitely wasn’t on her bucket list of things to do today. She’d already grabbed enough coffee to last her all day, went to speed shopping, buying enough clothes to last her all year, closed three of her stories by sneaking into her sources’ houses and reading over the files they had and writing the articles, gotten Barry and Cisco ice cream and food, and all she wanted to do next was relax and spend the rest of the day in peace. She preferred her mundane life to having powers, that was for sure.
“Why can’t we just wait till tomorrow to when you get your speed back?!”
“Because,” Cisco interrupts, “the milk that those sheep produce is highly acidic and caustic, so if it makes contact with any human, it will literally burn through their skin. And considering this dude seems to be a bit of an attention seeker given his outfit and parade of helpers, I’m guessing it won’t be long till someone gets hurt.”
“Oh dear,” the journalist replies, panic in her voice.
Barry quickly catches on to her fear and tugs her towards him, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Hey, look at me,” he says, lifting her chin up, “you’ve got this. You’ve improved so much today. All you have to do is take him down. His cane is what’s controlling their movements so if you turn it off, all the animals get shut down.”
“Barry,” Iris sighs, trembling, “I’m not good enough. There’s no way I can do this.”
“No no, don’t say that. You’ve been doing wonders today. You reached speeds I hadn’t achieved for months within the first three hours. You even ran up a building. Iris, you’ll be fine, I promise.”
“You’ll guide me through it?”
“Of course,” his voice is soft and comforting, “I’ll be with you through it all.”
[ Saturday 5:09 p.m. ]
“This is definitely not going as planned!” she panics, seeing the sheep encircling her, feet planted firmly on the ground, not knowing where to move or how to escape them.
“Iris listen to me!” Barry talks to her through the earpiece, “you can run away from the-”
“Yeah and then what?!” she screams, “wait for them to corner me again? There’s no way I can get close to him Bear! He has a bottle of that magic milk and everytime I get near him, he just squirts it everywhere!”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to get close!” he reassures her, voice steady, “all you have to do is run circles around him, keeping your distance. And when you’ve generated enough speed, toss the lightning!”
“Barry I can-”
“Yes you can!! You can do this! Iris I’m right here with you. Just focus on me okay? Keep me close. You can do this!”
She takes a deep breath, playing his words over again.
Barry and Cisco watch her via the monitor, see the determination spark in her eyes as she picks up speed, quickly navigating around the blockade of sheep and running within 5 feet of the supervillain.
“Barry, look,” Cisco signals to the numbers on his screen, “she’s going even faster than before! That’s my girl!”
“Okay, keep going...,” he says, more to Iris than to Cisco, “...come on. You can do this Iris, I know you’re strong and fast enough for it.”
Just then they see light explode and the meta falls back, the sharp edge of her lighting hitting him square in the chest, zapping him backwards. She doesn’t even have to grab the cane; it catches fire from the source of electricity and before they can process what’s happening, all the sheep suddenly fall, leaving nothing and no one but Iris standing.
When Cisco recovers from what he just watched, he screams, “LIGHTNING TOSS ON POINT, IRIS!”
Barry laughs, proudly staring at her. Before they know it, she’s rounded up all the sheep and the villain is locked away in the jail cell.
“I’m never doing this ever again,” she says as soon as she arrives.
Barry doesn’t bother responding; he rushes over to her, picks her up and spins her around, hugging her tightly, peppering kisses on her neck.
She lets herself laugh and makes eye contact with Cisco, whose hair is frazzled from the wind caused by her arrival, but has a very pleased and smug look on his face and she can’t help but smirk back, proud of herself as much as she knew her boys were proud of her.
[ Saturday 9 p.m. ]
“So,” Barry says, lifting the covers and joining her in bed, “what was it like being The Flash for a day?”
“Fun and terrifying,” she laughs, snuggling close to him when he comes to lay down.
“I’m really proud of you though. You did great.”
“Yeah I guess. I’m just glad this whole trial thing is almost over.”
“Really?” Barry questions, looking down to meet her eyes.
“Really,” she says, setting her head on his chest, “I admire you so much for doing this. But I prefer being human.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Before she knows it, he wiggles out of her embrace, only to pin her on the mattress underneath him, lips coming to meet hers. She lets out a moan as his tongue slips into her mouth and she captures his bottom lip between her own, sucking on it enough to elicit a groan from him as well.
“You know,” he pants into her lips, “you can vibrate.”
“I can vibrate,” she smiles, letting her lips trail to his earlobe to nibble on the sensitive area.
“So…what do you say we keep the fun going a little longer than?”
“I can do that...”
In one swift move, she flips them over, pinning him underneath her this time before straddling him, both hands coming to rest on his chest.
“...but under one condition.”
“What’s that?” he whispers, voice shaky and deep, hands coming to grip her waist.
“I control the pace tonight,” she says, before stripping away all his clothes and leaning down to crash her lips to his.