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She finds him in the Time Vault.
He's tucked into the corner, head between his knees, arms over his head. Wordlessly, she turns the lights off and sits close, but not too close. That will upset him further. She daren't try and touch him: she's learnt not to do that.
First, shortly after his mother had died. A month or so later, when he'd really, truly processed it all, processed that she was really gone, and she wasn't coming back. He'd been crying, and she'd laid a gentle hand on his back, and then he'd been screaming.
There'd been a few instances throughout school. Sometimes bullies, sometimes the result of just being overwhelmed and swamped with homework, sometimes nothing at all. They were almost always the same. He freezes, like his brain has just pressed pause and refuses to process or make a decision about anything, until all of a sudden it's too much, and the tears come, and he digs his nails into his arms until he bleeds, and you can't touch him or everything will only get worse.
She'd been surprised when it hadn't happened like the others had happened after his father died. He'd been in shock, simply acting on instinct, monotonous and unfeeling, and then Flashpoint had happened, and he'd internalised everything instead of letting it out. She'd made him call out of work the day after.
He's shaking. Every single muscle in his body is tensed. She sits and she waits, talking quietly about her day, humming the tune to his favourite song. After a while, his knuckles aren't bone-white squeezing his arms anymore. She goes and fetches his headphones, the shitty wired earbuds that hardly work properly anymore but that he refuses to throw out, and slowly his arm outstretches to take them and he puts them in his ears. Nothing plays through them, he doesn't connect them to his phone and the headphone jack on the other end lies discarded on the floor next to him as he curls back up into the corner, but the soft silicone on the buds seems to work just fine on its own at blocking out the electrical humming of the room.
She sits there next to him in the dark until she loses track of time. He isn't shaking anymore, his muscles less tensed. Gingerly, she places a hand on his knee, and he flinches only a little but otherwise doesn't react. His arm stretches out again, laying his hand flat on the floor, palm out. She takes it with her own, like she knows he wants, and he squeezes lightly.
It's nowhere near as long until he unfurls himself slowly, peeling himself away from the corner he'd wedged himself into. He shuffles towards her and buries his face in her shoulder, clinging to her clothes. She rests her cheek on top of his head, arm around his shoulders, and they have to switch which hands they're holding because of their positioning. They stay for a little while longer, until he becomes restless, and she helps him stand. He still keeps himself tucked into her shoulder, like he's hiding.
Cisco and Caitlin understand when they leave without word. They walk home, partly because he barely has enough energy to be walking as it is, let alone running, and also partly because they'd run here in the first place, and therefore have no other mode of transportation. Besides, the cold fresh air in his lungs seems to help. He keeps close to her the whole way home, hands locked and arms twisted together, and he either doesn't notice the funny looks they get or he simply can't bring himself to care.
She gives him his cosiest pyjamas, newly cleaned, and she lays out the weighted blanket on their bed with some difficulty while he changes. He's straight under it when he's done, and she fetches him a glass of water to leave on his nightstand before she climbs in next to him.
Barry is almost already asleep by the time she settles down next to him, but he finds her arm, latches on and doesn't let go.
Iris doesn't mind. She only smiles, and kisses his forehead.