Work Text:
Reporting was hard.
Kara had just gotten back from work on a Friday evening; another terrible day of Snapper either ignoring her or going out of his way to make sure she knew that he thought she didn’t belong there. He had given her an assignment early that morning, due on his desk on Monday, and she had done her best to do the bulk of the work at the office, but she had ended up taking the assignment with her home to work on right away, in the hopes that she could finish it tonight and have a free weekend.
Her plan seemed doomed from the start, however, when she opened her laptop on her desk at home and was immediately aware of everything that she could be doing in her apartment that was more fun than writing some boring article. She tried her best to stay focused.
An hour later, the words on Kara’s screen began to blur together and stopped making sense. What was a sentence? What were words? With a huff, she minimized the window and grabbed her phone, opening her text thread with Clark.
Reporting is boring, she wrote to him. This is your fault. You should have told me reporting was boring.
She tossed her phone back down onto the desk and contemplated wasting a little time on Facebook (Snapper already hated her, it wasn’t like giving him one more thing to hate about her was going to make a difference) when her phone chimed with a new message.
Hey, what do you think drew me to it? Clark had written back. Who would think the bulletproof superhero who flies and shoots lasers would be working a grunt desk job?
A few moments later, another message. Keep your head up. Every now and then, the job will surprise you. It’s important work, even when it doesn’t seem like it.
The words were meant to be encouraging, and Kara was sure that one day she would realize he was right, but at the moment they only served to make her more restless. She desperately needed a distraction.
Her eyes fell on the little device that Barry had given her, the one his friend Cisco had made that could enable her to pop over to Earth 1. Maybe Barry could take her mind off of things? Just a quick visit to catch up and she could be right back home to finish her article.
The device was in her hand before she even finished the thought.
She had seen the inside of STAR labs only once before, during a similar visit after Barry gave her the breach-maker thing. His whole team had been there to meet her and it had almost been like a party. That night, the lab was nearly empty save for a single person at one of the side desks. Iris, Kara remembered. Barry had excitedly introduced her as his best friend in the entire world.
She startled when Kara came through the breach, then relaxed as she clearly recognized her.
“Hi,” she said, smiling. “Kara, right?”
Kara smiled back, suddenly feeling awkward. Why had she come here so late without letting anyone know beforehand? “Uh, yeah. Sorry for just dropping in.”
“It’s totally okay,” Iris told her. “Is everything alright? I think Barry is hanging out with my dad, but I could get him here in like, two seconds.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” Kara protested, resisting the urge to play with her sleeves just to give her hands something to do. “I’m really just coming to say hi. What, um. What are you writing?” Whatever it was, it apparently involved about 15 folders full of paper and the biggest cup of coffee she’d ever seen in her life.
“An article about one of the metas Barry put away,” Iris told her, pausing in her furious typing. “It’s kicking my ass trying to find sources that I can actually quote that aren’t, you know, the literal source.”
“Oh, right, you’re a reporter for the paper here,” Kara said, suddenly remembering one of Barry’s many, many tangents about his friend. “I just started a reporter gig back home.”
“Really?” Iris asked, closing her laptop cover. “How’s it going so far?”
Kara rolled her eyes. “Terribly. No one takes me seriously and I get the worst assignments,” she grumbled. “Last week they had me writing an article about a new parking lot.”
“If they only knew who they had in their midst,” Iris said with a grin.
“Right?!”
Iris looked toward the entrance, clearly checking to see if anyone was coming. “Hey, you wanna grab dinner? I’m starving and Cisco is in his workshop in case any alerts come up. My treat?”
Kara beamed at her. “I’d love to.” She bounced a little as Iris stood up and pulled her coat off the back of her chair. “I gotta warn you, though, I have a major appetite.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we all have a lot of experience with that around here,” Iris said, smiling. “You should ask Cisco about his special protein bars. Last night he said he was working on a chocolate peanut butter flavor. Barry almost started crying.”
They walked out of the cortex together, Kara trying not to skip along the way.
After a short drive, they ended up at a cozy little Japanese place.
“Barry and I used to come here all the time after he got off work,” Iris explained. “Fight about who had the worse day.” She shrugged. “He always beat me. Angry customers don’t really hold a candle to active crime scenes and pissy cops.”
“Yeah that’s hard to beat,” Kara agreed before shoving another salmon roll into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed before continuing. “My sister and I have those fights sometimes. Being a superhero usually bags me the win.”
Iris laughed, her whole face lighting up with it. “I can imagine.”
“I just wish being a reporter came as easily as being a superhero,” Kara said. “I always loved to write, so I thought it would be exciting, you know? Hitting the streets and exposing crooked politicians. Instead it’s all new parking lots and--hey, here’s a story about a cop who bought a kid an ice cream cone one time.”
“It can be demoralizing,” Iris told her. She reached over and placed her hand on Kara’s. “But I can tell you’re dedicated. You wouldn’t be worrying so much about this if you weren’t. You’re gonna get there and you’re gonna be amazing.”
Kara’s face grew warm. “If I’m half as amazing as you, then I’ll consider myself lucky,” she said, then realized how that sounded. “Uh, at journalism, I mean.”
There was a moment in which neither of them moved, and Iris’s hand was still on hers. Kara almost wanted to blurt out how beautiful Iris looked in the restaurant’s lighting. But before anyone could say anything, the waiter appeared out of thin air to ask them if they needed anything else.
They paid the check and left, Kara’s cheeks still burning.
The labs were as quiet as they’d left them. Iris sat back down at the desk and Kara pulled over a rolling chair. It turned out, Iris had a lot of fun stories about her first few months of journalism and Kara listened intently.
“So then I turn around and there’s Mason Bridge looking like someone just punched him in the face,” Iris told her. “He asks me what the hell that was, and I respond, ‘Gumption.’ You could have knocked him on his ass with a feather, he was so shocked.”
They laughed together, and Kara reached out to steady herself on the arm of Iris’s chair to keep from falling over.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning shaped vaguely like Barry Allen raced into the cortex, revealing the man himself, grinning, in the middle of the room.
When his eyes fell on Kara, they lit up. “Oh, hey,” he breathed. “How long have you been here?”
“A while,” Kara replied. “Iris was nice enough to take me out to dinner. Your Earth’s sushi is top-notch.”
He slowly turned to Iris, an odd twinkle in his eye. “Sushi? The place on Grand?”
“Yes,” Iris told him bluntly, crossing her arms. “We had a great time. You might have been invited if you hadn’t taken off.”
Barry shrugged. “Next time, maybe.” He looked pointedly at Iris. “So what did you two talk about? No embarrassing stories, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Iris said. “I told her about that time in third grade with Katie Macaw.”
Barry’s jaw dropped, and his lifted his hand to his chest in horror. “You did not.”
“She didn’t, actually,” Kara told him. “I just got this journalism gig and I’m having a really rough start. Iris was helping me keep my mind off of it and giving me some very good advice.”
Iris smiled at her brilliantly and Kara’s heart skipped a beat.
Kara was about to continue when she yawned suddenly, derailing her train of thought.
“Oh, man,” Kara groaned through the yawn, glancing at her phone for the time. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I should be heading back.”
“It was good to see you again, Kara,” Barry told her as she hugged him and then Iris goodbye. He glanced at Iris before continuing. “Don’t be a stranger. You should come by more often.”
“Dinner, all three of us,” Kara said, grinning. “Next time, Iris is gonna tell me all about Katie.” Before Barry could protest, she opened the breach and stepped through back to her own world.
Her laptop was right where she left it, still open. She sat back down at it and got back to work, her troubles forgotten for a little while.
---
Friday night was family dinner night at the Wests’ and that night it was a full house. It was as pleasant as ever, good food and good laughs, but Iris could tell immediately that Barry’s heart wasn’t in it.
She was already keeping an eye on him, so when he snuck out to the backyard during drinks, she followed behind him. He held a beer in his hand, looking up at the sky as if searching for something.
“Hey,” she said softly, breaking his concentration. He turned his head to her. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good, I’m glad we have a little peace and quiet for a while. I just…”
Iris reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it softly. “You think it’s temporary.”
“It always is. I just wish we could figure out what was about to happen so we could prepare for it,” Barry told her. “We put out the fires as they come up, but it would be nice to figure out the source before people start getting hurt.”
Iris leaned her arms against the bannister and sighed. “Maybe Kara could help?”
There was a beat in which Barry looked at her, grinning, and said nothing.
“Oh stop,” Iris hissed, slapping him halfheartedly on the arm. “She’s a superhero and a journalist. There are multiple reasons why she could come help.”
Barry shrugged. “Yeah, like you think she’s cute and you wanna kiss her.”
Iris’s jaw dropped and she slapped at him again, harder. “I do not. It’s just nice to have a female friend.”
“Uh huh,” Barry replied, sounding unconvinced. “Look, maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve seen you with friends and I’ve seen you with a crush. There’s a difference.”
“Whatever.”
“You know,” Barry said, “your extremely adorable crush aside, having Kara around for a little while might not be a bad idea. Maybe I’ll call her over.”
“None of my ideas are bad ideas,” Iris chided him, and he rolled his eyes at her. “Come on, let’s go back in before they start looking for us.”
They headed back inside to the warmth of the house.
---
The next day, Iris headed back to the labs to finish her article to find Barry already there with Kara in full costume.
“Hey, Kara,” Iris greeted, narrowing her eyes at a very suddenly innocent-looking Barry.
“Hey,” Kara replied, grinning brilliantly. “Barry said you guys needed help with your new big bad.”
Barry shrugged. “Well, the lack of one, anyway. There’s always one waiting in the wings. I thought it might be nice to try to get a one-up on the next one for once.”
“Planning ahead,” Kara said. “I like it.”
Barry smirked. “Well, it was Iris’s idea,” he told her. “And it was her idea to bring you along. I’m gonna go canvas the city, let me know if you guys find anything!” With that, he was gone before Iris could speak a single word of protest.
Kara frowned. “I thought you guys already had leads. I’m a little overdressed for research,” she told Iris, sheepish. “But I always liked the information gathering parts more, anyway. Just tell me where you want me.”
Iris had been gathering general intel on criminal activity in the city but nothing had surfaced that seemed like a concrete threat. She handed off some folders to Kara and the two got to work.
After a good two hours of putting pieces together and tracking leads through the internet and the lab’s satellites, Iris finally found something substantial.
“Oh, here we go,” she announced, getting Kara’s attention. “Big criminal syndicate from New York has been spotted running weapons in Central City recently.”
Kara frowned. “That’s definitely terrible, but sounds more up the police’s alley.”
“It would be if these weren’t the kind of weapons that could level entire city blocks,” Iris told her grimly. “There’s a government agency here that monitors metahuman and other-worldly threats, and we have access to their database. Even they don’t know where these weapons came from.”
“We have something like that on my Earth, too,” Kara told her, then stood abruptly. “So what next?”
“Next, we gather more information,” Iris said, pulling up the entire ARGUS file and scanning the contents. “Their base of operation is supposedly in a warehouse that’s not far from here. You could probably fly us over.”
“Wait, you wanna just go storming in?” Kara asked her.
Iris shook her head. “No, definitely not. But we need more information before we even decide if this is a Team Flash problem or a Joe West problem. We try not to stray too far into non-meta criminal activity.” She glanced at her watch. “It should be dark out, so it’ll be easy for us to sneak around and take some pictures without being noticed. And if we are noticed, well…” She smiled. “You could get us out in two seconds.”
“I guess you’re right,” Kara said, still looking unsure. “Okay, you lead the way.”
Iris wasn’t incredibly familiar with the neighborhood that the warehouse was in; she’d driven through it once or twice but it wasn’t really the kind of place that someone would go to hang out. Kara had offered to fly them there, but their main goal was to avoid being noticed. A woman in a cape flying around was sure to attract some attention.
She parked a few blocks away from the place and made sure her windows were closed and her doors were locked before Kara picked her up and ran the two of them closer to the building.
It was eerily quiet. Iris expected at least some lookouts or some kind of noise coming from the place, but there was nothing.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Kara whispered to her. “Seems kind of dead even for a criminal hideout.”
“This is the address in the ARGUS database,” Iris explained. She looked around for some kind of clue and spotted a window high above them. “Think you can look inside and see what’s happening?”
Kara nodded and flew up slowly and quietly, peering through the window. When she came back down, she looked almost disappointed.
“Nothing,” she reported. “Lights are all dark, no movement. So unless you’ve got some night-vision metas running around…”
“They’re not here,” Iris finished. She sighed in frustration. “I’m sorry for dragging you out here.”
Kara smiled at her. “It wasn’t all bad,” she said. “I like spending time with you.”
“Next time,” Iris told her, “Dinner. Movies. Dancing and alcohol. Not stalking fake criminal syndicates in the bad side of town.”
“You wanna dance with me?” Kara asked, and if Iris looked closely, her cheeks visibly pink even in the terrible light.
Iris smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Well, yeah. Maybe.”
Kara stepped closer to her, close enough that Iris could feel the warmth radiating from her.
“Do you wanna dance with me?” Kara whispered.
Iris looked around. “Now?” she asked. “There’s no music. And the view could use some work.”
Kara grinned and wrapped her arms around Iris’s waist, and suddenly, they were airborne. Iris cried out in shock and threw her arms around Kara’s neck--not that she needed to be worried about falling, as Kara’s arms were like steel around her waist.
Where Barry’s stops were always abrupt and jarring, Kara had clearly mastered the slow deceleration, and they slowed to a halt high above the city.
“How’s this?” Kara asked, eyes twinkling and a grin on her face.
It was beautiful. The sun had set hours ago, so the city was lit for miles, from the busy downtown to the quiet outskirts she grew up in. She was used to the view from the Jitters roof, but that was far from the highest point in the city.
No, the highest points was here, in the arms of a beautiful, strong, amazing woman.
“Is this okay?” Kara breathed into her ear. Iris was still speechless, but nodded, placing her feet on Kara’s and holding on just a little tighter. “Then, shall we dance?”
They began to sway, Kara humming something unfamiliar but melodic, and Iris relaxed in her arms. They danced like that for a few minutes, until Iris finally lifted her head from Kara’s shoulder.
The moonlight was reflecting from her eyes, making them sparkle in a way that made Iris’s heart skip a beat. She meant to say something like ‘thank you’ or ‘you look beautiful’ or something equally eloquent and charming, but instead she found herself leaning in and pressing her lips against Kara’s.
She half expected Kara to pull away but instead she pressed in further, her mouth opening beneath Iris’s, and they stayed like that for what seemed like forever. When they finally pulled apart, it wasn’t too far, their foreheads still pressed together as they caught their breath.
“So,” Kara said. “Next time?”
“Next time,” Iris whispered, and pulled her back in.