Chapter Text
She picked up a fry. “I’m not saying it’s a problem, or anything.”
“I didn’t say you said it was a problem,” Caitlin replied, staring at the rat in its cage and then tapping out a few notes on her tablet. Much easier, she’d said, than paper. Paper tended to get lost in this lab.
Iris picked up another fry. “It’s just a little rude, is all,” she said. “It was a family dinner. And I don’t exactly consider girlfriends of one month to be family.”
Caitlin watched the rat sniff the piece of cheese she dropped in its cage. “You invited me and Cisco,” she pointed out. “To your family dinner.”
“Okay, well, Flash family. You know, the team. A dinner for us. And then she comes waltzing in, smiling and holding a freaking green bean casserole when I very specifically told everyone that I would make all of the main food and they could bring desserts if they wanted to-”
“Iris,” Caitlin warned, cutting her eyes over to her friend.
Iris took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Sorry. I know that she was just trying to be nice. But I wanted to make a dinner for all of us, you know? A kind of reward for all of the good things we’ve done this month.”
Caitlin nodded, peering back at her subject. “Barry invited her, though,” Caitlin pointed out. “And he is The Flash. Shouldn’t he get a say in who comes to his reward dinner?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek and stared down at her fingernails. “It was just embarrassing,” Iris lied. “I hadn’t even made a place for her, because Barry didn’t let me know she was coming. So it looked like I didn’t want her there.”
“Patty did not think that,” Caitlin said. “She knew that Barry didn’t tell you. And she was very apologetic about imposing. You should be more mad at Barry than you are at Patty. She was just a guest. He was the one that didn’t tell you she was coming.”
Iris sighed. Part of the reason that she enjoyed venting to Caitlin was that Caitlin was very good at being impartial while still being on her side. “I know. But having Patty there,” she said, her anger mostly defeated, “we couldn’t talk about anything about the Flash. Other than his public saves and his appearances and my articles. If that’s how it’s going to be whenever she’s around, that’s just awkward.”
Caitlin paused, and Iris saw her bite her lip. She could tell that her friend was trying to make it seem like she was very pointedly studying her rat, but… “What is it?” Iris asked. “What do you know that you’re not telling me? No lies, remember? You promised.”
Caitlin set down her tablet and walked over to Iris slowly, grabbing a few of her french fries when she finally got there. “He’s thinking about telling her,” Caitlin said quietly, and Iris’s heart sped up and she blinked rapidly and she wondered if the tingling in her fingers (like there was electricity running all over her skin) was normal.
“What?”
She looked at Caitlin, and Caitlin looked back, her eyes soft and her eyebrows pushed together. “He thinks it would be a good thing, to have her on the team, and he thinks she’s proven herself-”
“So he wants to tell her?” Iris asked. She hated that her voice shook. And her hands. And her entire body. “After just three months of knowing her?”
“Iris,” Caitlin said, reaching out, but she backed up. Away from her friend. Into a chair.
He was going to tell her. Tell Patty. His girlfriend of one month. Her dad’s partner of three.
“It’s fine,” she lied again. “It’s his decision. He… he can tell whoever he wants. Whenever he wants. That’s what he’s always done, right?”
No pretenses about lying through his teeth to keep Patty safe. He was just going to tell her. Because he trusted her. Because he cared about her. Because, apparently, she was worthy.
Iris swallowed, but there was a lump in her throat that didn’t want to fall.
Barry whooshed in, scattering both Iris and Caitlin’s hair around their head. The rat scurried away, hiding behind it’s wheel, and Iris knew how it felt. “Hey Caitlin,” he said. “Wassup, Iris… Oh, thank god. You have food. Do you mind if I have a bite?”
He grabbed a few of her fries and then eyed her uneaten sandwich hungrily. “Have at it,” Iris said. “I have to go, anyway.”
Caitlin was still staring at her like she was afraid Iris would break, but Iris ignored her. She shoved her phone and her wallet into her purse and avoided looking in Barry’s general direction.
She was still shaking.
“Thanks for everything, Cait,” Iris said, trying to infuse as much life into her voice as possible and failing miserably. “I’ll see you on Thursday for our wine night.”
She felt a hand tighten around her arm as she tried to walk out, and she paused, her eyes straight ahead. She could tell it was him from the size of his hand and from the jolt of electricity that leapt into her heart. She just couldn’t look at him. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
She laughed, breathy and oh so close to tears. “Yeah,” she said, not even turning to him. “Yeah, I just gotta run. My lunch break officially ended five minutes ago and I don’t want to be even more late than I am.”
“I can run you back,” he offered. “You’ll be there in no time.”
Iris smiled at the door. “It’s fine. I drove. It would seem weird to come back without my car.”
She wrenched her arm from his grip and held herself together until she made it out of the building and into her vehicle in the STAR Labs parking lot.