Chapter Text
When the news broke to him, Barry was sitting at a table next to the school’s basketball court, speed-reading through his pre-calculus homework. His AP physics books were stacked next to him on the bench and papers fluttered in between them and under his elbow. Notes from class, exercises to explain how to find the domains of two functions and a diagram of the central nervous system were drawn over the several sheets, little arrows pointing here and there with even smaller scribbles written underneath. Nothing could tear his attention away from the paragraph explaining how to draw up graphs but the small-ish Latino kid with the shoulder-length straight black hair and a I’m Aware t-shirt dropping his butt down loudly on the metal grid bench. It made him jump up a little, actually.
“Guess one of us is finally getting what he wished for!” The boy exclaimed, throwing his book bag behind him on the table and spreading his legs out before him. He pulled a lollipop from the pocket of his zip-up and placed it on the inside of his cheek like was his usual habit. Barry dropped his face in his hands trying to get his breathing back to an even pace. He rubbed his eyes, a sting radiating through them as lit up on the back of his eyelids. How long had he been staring at that?
“Hey, Cisco” came muffled through his hands, “what’s up?” Barry crossed his arms on top of his notes and dropped his head on them. Cisco turned towards him, drawing a quarter circle in the air with his leg as he lifted it over the bench and raising his arms above his black strands momentarily. Excited as always, the voice inside Barry’s head remarked, and a smile made his lips curl upwards toward his eyes.
“Barry, how can you sit here so calmly? Why aren’t you snatching up Iris?” Cisco asked, his eyes wide and hands moving between them in uncontrolled motions. Barry’s eyebrows drew together and the smile turned into a thin streak of bunched up skin.
“Because she’s probably off somewhere with Eddie? She said they were meeting up after class and she would give him a ride home. Which reminds me, can you give me a lift?” The boy replied, lifting up his head and focusing the question marks in his eyes on his friend.
Barry and Cisco’s friendship had started sophomore year when they found themselves sitting side by side in their physics class with Mr Klein. Their passion for science parted ways in how Barry became more interested in the natural side of science, advancing to AP biology, chemistry and physics classes while Cisco kept his interest mainly in the physics and engineering part of the curriculum. Wood shop, computer lab, industrial technology and the engineering after-school club were his forte. But that year spent next to each other had forged a close bond, and you could say they had become the closest of friends. They had spent more summer afternoons building tiny explosives on digitally steered soapbox cars than they could remember. Cisco knew about how Barry’s mother was killed in a freak accident and how his father had gone to jail for it. That that was the reason he was living with Iris West, the school’s homecoming queen and general social butterfly of the yearbook club. He also knew that Barry had had a crush on her since kindergarten, and that it killed him to see her with Eddie Thawne, the track-team pretty boy who transferred their sophomore year from Keystone City High and had started dating Iris within a month of his arrival. The teachers loved him, he was the star of the track-team and though Joe, Iris’s father shared Barry’s concern in exactly how much time he was spending with his daughter up in her room –doors closed or not-, he was a genuinely nice guy.
Being kind of a nerdy student, Barry didn’t catch much attention from the other kids at Central City High School anymore, the initial awkwardness from his teachers about him being the son of a beloved-doctor-turned-brutal-killer, and though Iris still hung out with him, her best friend, a lot and attracted enough attention for both of them, his social life was very quiet. Sometimes, a few jocks would still mock him spending his lunch break or study halls actually studying or doing homework, but Eddie had stood up for him a couple of times. He would still sometimes break free from his track-pack walking by and have a chat with Barry. They usually talked about Iris, and Barry hated to admit this, but Eddie seemed to be a good guy. The only one who could rival his popularity, niceness, looks and attitude was Ronnie Raymond, the son of CEO Edward Raymond of the Central City Gazette. Which is why what happened next wasn’t anything Barry would have ever expected to hear.
“Dude, how can you not know yet? Practically the whole school does! I bet Iris is going to walk up within the next minute and tell you her-“
“Barry!” As if Cisco had precognitive abilities, the shout echoed over the nearly empty courtyard to their table, causing both to turn their heads. From the other end of the basketball field, a tall, slender but strong-built, beautiful young woman walked up to them. Her long black hair, straight as a ruler today, fell past her shoulders and part of it rested on the binder clutched between her arm and chest. The polka-dotted white blouse she wore was tucked neatly into her navy-coloured high waisted, knee-length skirt, a brown one inch belt perfectly harmonizing with her coffee-bean skin tone and contrasting the white and navy of her clothes. The barely enforced heels of her white ballerinas made a stomping sound as she put her weight into every step towards the boys. With a heavy thud, she banged her binder, and after that her bag, unto the table next to Barry’s open pre-calc book, causing the pages to flutter about.
I guess studying is over, Barry’s inner voice said, and his mouth fell slightly open to mimic the shape of his wide eyes following Iris’s hands bracing her waist. Her lips pressed together in a thin line and her eyes, oh her eyes were pin-point beads of chocolate brown mixed with fury red right now. Her nostrils were flared, and Barry was quick to close all books and spread them over loose sheets of paper to keep them from flying away.
“Don’t ever talk to that bastard again, do you hear me?” Iris cried, bending down slightly to be more at eye-level with her friend. Her chest heaved up and down, and if Barry had been any closer to it, he probably would have heard her heart beat in a velocity close to his own. She poked her finger towards his nose before letting herself drop down on the bench. Her arms flew into the air and Barry scooted a little closer to Cisco, the energy the young woman radiated being a bit too overwhelming even for him.
“What happened?” he was afraid to ask, but knew there was no way around it. He gripped the underside of the table, bracing himself for an earful. “I’ll tell you what happened!” Iris exclaimed, jumping up again and sitting herself down to face the cowered up boys. “He’s a jerk!
Last night he asked me to meet him after school, so I did, thinking he would finally ask me to the homecoming dance in three weeks. You know, it’s not like I don’t have to buy a dress or make an appointment to do my hair or anything – A girl needs some notice! So I go to his locker after Spanish class, thinking I’ll give him the chance to ask me then because Dana set up a yearbook meeting for after school. There I am, leaning on the locker next to his, waiting for him to finally ask and you know what he said, Barry?” She stared at her best friend, his brown eyes opened wide and the corners of his mouth turned way down. He shook his head slightly and said, not a worry in his voice “no idea”. The girl slammed her open hand on the table.
“He said he can’t see me anymore for a while, because his coach told him I was a distraction. A distraction, Barry. Me! Can you believe it?!” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Barry’s mouth fell into an o shape and his eyebrows seemed to want to crawl into the hairline of his luscious brown poof. “Whaaaat?” he unnecessarily elongated to show his surprise. Though of course a preposterous claim because their being together hadn’t impacted Eddie’s ability to break the state record for competition track time last semester, Barry was a bit joyful at the thought of Iris not being with him anymore. Maybe she would consider seeing him in a different light now? If he played his cards right?
“Yeah, I know right? Ridiculous. I told him so, I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t budge at all!” Iris shook her head and balled both hands into fists. “But you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care about what his coach says. If he thinks we can’t be together because it will get in the way of his oh-so-important High School track-career, fine! I’m not gonna stand in his way! See if I care!” Her hands shot into the air and waved around. Barry imagined the three witches in Macbeth doing similar gestures when Macbeth entered their cave in the second act. Immediately he scratched the back of his head wondering why he could even remember that part of the play. Shakespeare was definitely not one of his preferred authors.
“But I am going to this stupid homecoming and I will show him. Every day from now on I will show him just what he missing out on and what a fool he was to break up with me. He will be miserable, and he’ll come crawling back to me, and then we’ll see who’s right here!” With that, Iris pushed herself up into a stand, shouldered her purse and clutched her binder against her chest. She exhaled sharply and turned to look at Barry.
“Now, are you coming home with me, or are you staying?” She asked, the anger still slightly visible on her face, staring down at Barry. The boy shot into motion, clumsily assembling all his papers together and stacking his books on top of each other. Cisco still sat, a bit shocked from the scene that just played out in front of him, at the table, his eyes moving slowly away from Iris’s gorgeous face to Barry being all thumbs in collecting his things.
“Yeah, yes, I’m coming with you, give me a sec. Cisco, I’ll talk to you later?” Barry called out to his friend as he almost fell over the bench he was trying to step across, wrestling with the books and sheets of paper in his arms. Iris grabbed his backpack and walked ahead of him in the direction of the parking lot with it. Cisco simply nodded, his mouth still open from amazement at Iris, not being able to close it until both Barry and her were in their car and the engine started loudly.