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Barry is six years old when he asks his mom about soulmates.
He's just had his first day at school, already made friends – Caitlin and Cisco who love science and superheroes just as much as him, and Iris whose dad is a police officer and who has the prettiest eyes Barry has ever seen. Barry's already decided he's going to marry her one day.
When he tells his mom, she only smiles at him. “So you think she's your soulmate?”
Barry wrinkles his nose. “What's a soulmate?”
His mom laughs a little and ruffles his hair. “You would know that if she was your soulmate,” she teases. “It's hard to explain what a soulmate is, honey.” She taps a finger on her chin thoughtfully. “When you meet them, you just know. You will feel a pull towards them, you'll want to spend all your time around them, you'll love them unconditionally but you won't know why, you won't feel complete without them. Soulmates protect each other. And...” She stops to take Barry's wrist with gentle fingers, stroking over the small birthmark there. Barry's always liked it – it looks cool, almost like a star. “This.” She taps a finger on the mark and smiles.
Barry looks up at her with a frown. “Does my mark tell me where my soulmate is?”
His mother laughs. “No, Barry. Your soulmate has the exact same one on their wrist.”
Barry sucks his lower lip into his mouth. He'd always thought it was unique, that no one else had one like him, had always bragged to everyone he met about it. But now there's someone else out there who also has a star-shaped mole on her wri-- “Wait.” Barry narrows his eyes. “You didn't say her. You said their.”
His mother smiles softly. “What if it's a boy?”
That gives Barry more to think about than he actually wants.
Barry is eleven years old when his entire world crumbles to pieces.
His mother is killed. His father is being arrested. And no, Barry doesn't blame him for that, he saw what happened with his own eyes, that man killing an innocent for no reason, right in front of Barry's eyes. What he does blame his dad for is not doing anything.
The words his mom said years ago – soulmates protect each other – resonate deep within Barry. His father just stood there and watched helplessly as the stranger walked away, not reacting to his wife's screams or Barry's cries.
As Barry gets into the squad car of Iris's dad – “Call me Joe, son,” he offers while looking at him with pity in his eyes – he vows, right then and there, to never become like his dad, to always, always protect his soulmate, no matter how impossible it might seem.
It's an easy decision to make, Barry thinks, and he has every intention on keeping his promise.
Barry is twenty-five years old when he meets Eddie Thawne.
There's something about Eddie that Barry immediately dislikes. He's rich, good-looking, an easy flirt, successful – Barry knows all about Eddie's type, how smug and arrogant and in love with themselves guys like that are, how they ruin other people's lives, ruined Barry's life in the past, just because they can.
Barry hates Eddie Thawne.
That is, until he has an actual conversation with him.
They're assigned to work a case together – one of Barry's High School bullies wreaking havoc on the city – and Barry finds out that Eddie's resourceful, Eddie's compassionate, Eddie's been through the same, Eddie takes the time to teach him how to box. At the end of the day, Barry guesses, he might not be as bad of a man as he initially thought.
After the first real contact, Barry finds himself seeking Eddie's company more and more often. Eddie offers more boxing lessons, which Barry says yes to without thinking twice. He doesn't even try to ignore the obvious tension between them, tries to focus on getting to know Eddie, becoming friends with him. It's been ages since he's made a new friend.
His old friends, however, seem to think there's more going on.
“So,” Iris says one day at Jitters, putting his coffee on the table and grinning mischievously. “When are you gonna ask out the pretty detective?”
Barry almost chokes on the sip he just took. “ Excuse me ? You mean Eddie?”
Iris keeps smiling, cocking her head and leaning on the table with her elbows.
“Nothing is going o-- I mean, of course not, we're barely frien-- Iris ,” Barry ends with a whine, letting his forehead fall on his crossed arms. Her hand is on his shoulder immediately, rubbing and squeezing it in comfort.
“It's fine, Bar. It's not like we all don't know already.”
Barry looks up, horrified. “ What ?”
Iris shrugs. “It's obvious you have a huge crush on him. The only person who doesn't know is him. That's why you need to make the first move.”
“But-- Iris--”
“Barry,” she quickly interrupted, giving him a sad smile. “You haven't been in a relationship since High School . And I know-- I know you want to wait till you met your-- But Barry, you obviously like him, why not go on a date and just see where this goes? You deserve to be happy, even if it's not with your soulmate.”
Barry ponders on it as he watches Iris get back to work.
The next time he sees Eddie he splutters out incoherent phrases, mumbling something about dinner, and to his surprise Eddie says yes, smiles at him beautifully, ducks his head and suggests “tonight?”.
Barry doesn't think he's ever had such an amazing first date – he's instantly comfortable with Eddie, with being close, with touching him casually. His body seems to gravitate towards Eddie of its own volition; he moves his chair a little closer during dinner, grabs the hand Eddie has on the tabletop, leans closer when Eddie talks. It's inexplicable, this pull Barry feels towards him, like they're two opposite poles of a magnet.
Everything feels right with Eddie; it feels right to hold his hand as they stroll through the park after dinner because they don't want to say goodnight yet, it feels right when Eddie suddenly stops and pulls him into a soft kiss, it feels so right when Barry grabs his wrist and shyly asks “Can I?” and Eddie nods, wide-eyed and breathless, and Barry tugs his sleeve down.
And there it is.
The star-shaped mark.