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Barry shifts uncomfortable on Iris’ sofa. It’s a loveseat. Her living room didn’t exactly had the space necessary for a regular couch and the two purple-ish armchairs Iris “had to have”, and now they are sharing the small space, her legs half over his legs and half over the arm of the sofa, and Iris watches the movie as Barry watches her, in her pyjamas (and they are short too, which means he’s got soft, peachy smelling skin touching him all over), laughing at something one of the characters just said and twisting and rubbing her legs together and Barry can’t think straight. He can’t even breath properly around her theses days, and the sudden lack of the super-speed hasn’t been helping either: he needs much more time to scold his face and control his body now.
Ever since she told him, like she was talking about the weather, that she had cancelled her date with the editor because “it didn’t feel right, and it’s not about Eddie, it’s just… Scott isn’t who I want”, Barry had a renewed hope that he was who she wanted, cause God, he wants her.
He’s staring at Iris for far too long, he knows that, and he knows Iris has noticed it too when she turns slightly to face him, with her faux-innocent face on and asks;
“What?”
And he thinks she feels it too. She has to, right? Cause it is like having all this electricity flickering between them and he knows for a fact that is caused by her presence, he does not feel it there whenever she is not, so she must feel it too.
He swallows dry and questions;
“What?”
Iris smiles like she knows something he doesn’t and probes him again;
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
She sits up, her legs still over his but now she’s much closer, her face inches from his, and it’s like a thousand fireflies are buzzing into his lungs, stealing all the oxygen that actually makes in, and all the hair of his body is prickling on his skin and she makes him tingle and it’s so not fair.
“Like you’ve never seen me before”, she whispers and he can feel her warm breathing in his cheek but he keeps facing forward. If he looks into her eyes right now they will pull him into their warm abysm and he’ll do something incredibly stupid, like kiss her.
He jumps into his feet and chances a glance in her direction and he’s either imagining things or Iris looks disappointed.
He can’t explain why he’s resisting it so much, maybe he’s scared that once again he’s reading her wrong. Maybe he’s afraid that after imagining it all so many times, in so many different ways, reality will be somewhat of a let down. Not that Iris could ever be a let down, but maybe he’ll be a let down.
And if he is being completely honest he was sort of hoping he could use a few tricks with her — Flash tricks — that would be an added bonus of being with Iris, of finally being with someone who knew who he was: he could let go, he could try whatever she would want him to. Except now he was back being regular-Barry and regular-Barry could never keep up with Iris West.
“Don’t do that, Barry”, she says sharply, jumping on her feet after him.
“I’m not doing anything”, he replies and it’s such a big lie and she obviously can see right through that, but he can’t help it. Can’t help the self doubt, can’t help to feel that maybe a small part of her is disappointed by the fact that he doesn’t have his powers anymore, that maybe she wanted him cause he was the Flash but he’s not anymore.
But she seems to want him now. Unless he’s reading too much into it. Again. And again.
“You keep pulling away!”, she shouts at him and he’s surprised by her anger.
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“So what are you doing? You’re making me confused on purpose?”
“What? Iris, no!”
He doesn’t understand what he could have done to make her confuse. It’s not like it takes much to know that he wants her.
“Then why, Barry? It seems like you are flirting with me then I try to flirt back and you pretend like you don’t see it —”
Wait, what? When was she ever flirting with him? How could he have missed that?
“When were you — when?”
“It’s nice for them?”, she says between her teeth and she’s suddenly very pink, and he knows that takes a lot, he can’t even remember the last time he’s seen Iris blush furiously like that, but her words make no sense to him.
“What’s nice for them, who’s them?”
She rolls her eyes before answering him, like she thinks he’s being purposely obtuse.
“You asked me what did I think our married doppelgängers were doing and I said fucking. I thought that was pretty clear, that it wouldn’t take much to understand that I thought that maybe we should be fucking, and you turn and say that that is nice for them.”
Oh, god! He actually is completely obtuse.
“Iris”, he says, because he can’t think of what else to say and her name seems to always be the answer to the moments when he can’t think of what to say.
“And then when I told you I cancelled my date, that Scott didn’t feel right, and you said that I would find someone else one day.”
“I — I didn’t — I”
She sits down again only to jump back on her feet and Barry wants to run, like suddenly he has all this energy back on his body but Iris keeps him in place as she paces around and then looks into his eyes and says;
“All those years and I didn’t know what I was feeling. I hated Becky and then Julie and then all the other girls and I had no idea why. But you knew, and you didn’t say anything”, she punches him in the shoulders causing him to step back. He still struggling to control his body all over again and the low cut of her red pyjamas is definitively not helping.
“Why didn’t you?”, she continues; “If you did then I would have figured it out and this wouldn’t be such a big mess in the first place.”
“I was afraid you would never feel the same way”, he offers, and he knows he has spend all his life cowering in fear but he thought she understood as to why that was.
“But then you knew I had a crush on the Flash, I mean, how could you not know, and you still kept all these secrets from me.”
“You had a crush on the Flash, not on me”, he justifies, cause can’t she see that he’s not the Flash anymore? That he’s back at being just Barry?
“No!”, she says; “You were the one who acted different. You could have told me when you first woke up, you could have told me when I first met the Flash, when I told you that you were the reason I was doing all of that, instead you waited, you waited until I had already given my word to someone else.”
“Iris.”
“You are the Flash, Barry”, and she punches him again and all he wants is to grab her and kiss her but he can’t have her having all this expectations.
Right now he needs her to stop believing he’ll get his powers back because that’s what she keeps telling him and if that’s the reason for all of this then he needs for it to not be.
“Not anymore.”
“You are. The reasons I had crush on the Flash were always the same reasons to why I love you. That stuff nobody can take away from you, your kindness, and your trust on the good in people, your need to help others, to make lives better, that doesn’t come and go with your speed, that was always there.”
He takes a deep breath and realises they are mirroring each other in the up and down of their chests and Iris is in front of him, looking all vulnerable and perfect.
“I just wish you would realise you don’t have to hide anything from me”, she says, her voice suddenly small.
“I’m not hiding.”
“Then why are you pulling away?”
And she can’t possibly blame this all on him, so he justifies;
“I don’t know how you feel, Iris.”
“Yes, you do. You know me.”
But that isn’t acceptable logic, that is like him expecting her to notice something their whole lives, so he says;
“Well, you know me too.”
“No”, she shakes her head; “you were trying to hide it, I’m not trying to hide it, it’s not the same.”
“What are you trying then?”
“I’m trying to get you to kiss me.”
And suddenly Barry reminds of that time when they were teenagers, and Iris went through a phase that all she ever watched were romantic comedies, and of how she would always yell at the TV, to the main love interest, “kiss her, stupid!”.
He could see teenage-Iris yelling that at him now, so he can’t help the smile as he pulls her to him by the hand, holding her close, feeling her warmth and she’s in the tip of her toes, he looks down to check it and he can’t explain why that fills him with this indescribable satisfaction and Iris rolls her eyes at him, pulling his bottom lip between hers and it’s a lot like pleasantly getting hit by lighting, and he should know exactly how that feels like.