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She doesn’t try to make pancakes anymore, even though she remembers the voice of Nora-the best of both her and Barry talking about mom’s pancakes. Maybe her daughter would actually approve of this change in the timeline.
He’d come downstairs to see her sitting blank eyed in the wreckage of their kitchen. She’d heard his voice calling to her, and wonders when the last time was that he’d said her name without a slight tinge of panic. Dimly she’s aware that it’s no one’s fault–the logical rational side of her that has adjusted as well as she can to being the wife of the fastest man alive who has far too many arch enemies for how sweet his smile is and optimistically hopeful his approach to life has always been.
It’d been weeks after she’d returned, or maybe only a few days–she’s been having trouble with her time lately. Marrying a speedster makes time seem amorphous, and she has started to refer to the blocks of her days as events labeled by crisis and villains. He’d come down the stairs energetically as always, dimly she’d recognized his light steps that he always started the day with cheerfully wishing her a good morning, asking her how she slept and rambling about whatever thing he has planned for the day. She knows when he realizes something isn’t right because the way he says Iris immediately changes and she would know that crackle of electricity anywhere and she knows he’s surveying the wreckage of the kitchen silent taking in what probably is a pretty pathetic sight.
Glass of wine in hand she’s sitting with her legs splayed out before her, a mess of mixing bowls, spatulas, measuring spoons littered across their usually neat kitchen. The floor, her clothes, her hair covered in a snowfall layer of flour. There’s a shattered plate thrown far away from her, decorating the burnt black pancakes like abstract art. She should take a picture, get it hung and see if a museum will hang it–she’d call it, “what a fucking mess my life it is”.
Iris?
She knows she should respond, she should reassure him with a smile and tell him that it’s alright and that she’ll be okay and that it’s nothing–because she’s Iris West-Allen, his lightning rod, his home. But she hadn’t been his home. She takes a sip of what she’s calling her breakfast wine so that the tears don’t slip down her cheeks. She’s too busy staring at her feet in an attempt to not look in his eyes, but she sees his pale hands come to rest on the brown expanse of her leg and the familiar way he runs it up and down calms her. It’s a habit of his, to run his fingers over her almost absentmindedly as if to remind himself that he did in fact get the girl, and that she is really in fact there. It’s those moments she knows that he’s trying to memorize what she feels like, to reassure himself she’s alive. He gives her quiet space, until she finally lifts her eyes to meet his and she sees in his face openness, patience, and he does that quirk with his mouth that she recognizes is his way of asking her, you okay?
“I thought I’d try making pancakes today.” she said, her own voice sounding separate from her body. He makes no sound but instead rests his hand on her leg, and she knows that he’s listening, soft concern and quiet comfort seeping from his fingers into her skin. “I failed.”
She can’t help the strangled laugh that comes from her lips. “I thought, I could reclaim some of the time we lost, redo it. Take back what they stole from us, from me.”
The words, the emotions, they’re ugly–and now she’s afraid to look him in the eye. He’s always been so insistent in her goodness, in her perfection–she’s afraid to show him her ugly sides, to see the love in his eyes diminish when he realizes she isn’t all those things he’s sure she is. “I can’t even make my husband pancakes.”
Would you have been happier with her? Do you want me to be more like her? Am I no longer enough for you with all these broken pieces, was she a better version then me? Was that why it took you so long to realize it wasn’t me? Is–that the version of me that you want me to be?
These are all the phantom questions that have haunted the spaces in between them since she has returned, wisps in the air that she has been too afraid to make real. She knows that this is unfair of her to think it, he had been as much a victim as she had but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s feeling these things.
“You know, I love that you can’t make pancakes.” His voice is low, soft and musing. “I love that you still try, I may not exactly love eating them–but I love that you try. You don’t need to learn how to make pancakes–that’s what I’m here for. What about waffles? Why don’t we ever make waffles?”
Laughter leaves her lips in a soft exhale, his rambling continuing–comforting because even if the world is ending Barry Allen will go off on tangents. It’s those moments that remind her of the before, before 9 month coma’s and villains of the week; before funerals every year and goodbyes and distance and shattering and mirror shards. Instead it’s textbooks and papers spread out over the dining table, late night brownies and mint-chip ice cream in the living room, it’s walking down school halls together as she listens to whatever new science thing he has learned. It’s knowing that she understands him and he understands her and in spite of everything they will be standing at the end of it all together because she is Iris and he is Barry and they were so entangled in each other that she knows it’d be impossible to separate where she begins and he ends.
“I don’t know what to do.” It’s not what she had thought she would say but it slices through his words and leaves silence in the emptiness. She’s too scared to look in his eyes, “I don’t know what to say. How to feel. I’m angry.”
She feels him flinching, knowing the guilt that he still holds and hasn’t worked through and shakes her head as she looks at his face, his eyes now avoiding hers. “Not at you, at least not fully at you. It’s anger because I don’t know how I got here, how we got here. I’m angry at myself that I’m angry at you–you were hurt too. I’m angry because I don’t know who to blame, I know that there’s no one to blame and that it’d be easier to blame someone–something.”
Tears are sliding down her cheeks now and she hates it. Subconsciously her legs withdraw to her chest, her arms wrapped around them as she tries to make herself small–protecting herself from she doesn’t know what but she feels vulnerable, “What if I hadn’t gone on my own that night Barry? What if I hadn’t trusted her? And now there’s marks and traces of her everywhere, my clothes, this kitchen, our home–I let her in, I let her hurt you.”
His arms envelope her and his legs wrap around her enclosing her in a protective barrier from the world, and she sinks into his warmth and protection. He mutters soft nothings into her hair and he lets her talk, her guilt, anger, frustration cascades from her with the force of a torrential storm and he holds her, anchoring her in his warmth and his familiarity. Butterfly kisses on her temple, his hands writing words of encouragement along her bare skin, he lets her break down into little pieces. Only when she’s talked herself out, exhausted and sniffling and breathing slowly and sleepily from within the shelter of his body framing hers does he say anything,
“It’s okay. These feelings-your feelings, share them with me Iris. I won’t hate you, I don’t think less of you. It’s not your fault, none of this mess is your fault." He drops a softs kiss the skin of her neck, cautious, tender and gentle. "And I’ll keep telling you until you believe it too.”
She just sniffs, already uncomfortable with all the emotions that she has shared, awkward in her vulnerability, “I’m sorry that I ruined your shirt with my snot.”
His chuckle rumbles deep within his chest, “That’s what washing machines are for.”
“I’m not okay yet.”
“That’s alright, neither am I.” His cheek rests warm against her forehead, and she finds reassurance in it.
“We’ll figure it out.” She says firmly, her hand reaching for his and rubbing where his wedding band sits cool against warm skin.
“Together.” He adds firmly, the sincere promise in his voice reassuring her.
“Together.” She agrees. It’s not perfect, it’s not magically healed. She knows there will be more breakdowns, more fights, more anger on the road to being okay again but-she also knows that it’s a start. That’s good enough for now.
In the long silence after their emotions have subsided into synchronized breathing, while she’s still curled up in his warmth and solidness she feels brave enough to break the silence, “What do you want for breakfast?”
He’s quiet and she shifts to look at his face, curious. His green eyes study her face, as a slow fond smile lights up his face. That slow, happy, boyish smile that she knows he’s only ever given to her, the one that she possessively clutches in her heart because its hers and hers alone and he fondly leans in to kiss her quickly, “I think I’ll have my favorite Iris West-Allen breakfast special.”
She raises an eyebrow at him the teasing smile in his eyes causing her own mouth to widen in response and she knows what he’s gonna say feeling honey warm love radiating from her heart to briefly encompass her body in a quiet surety that they may not be completely okay yet, but that they would be.
“Iris West-Allen, could you make me a banana?”