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Barry tried to sneak into home without being seen, that was the plan, slink in slyly and quietly but Iris is waiting for him, siting on the porch, clutching the landline phone on one hand and her cellphone on the other and that’s his confirmation that it was her calling insensately on the cell he couldn’t bring himself to reach.
The second she lays eyes on Barry she drops both phones on the ground and runs towards him with the exact look he was trying to avoid on her eyes. She stops abruptly right in front of Barry and Iris’ hands reach for his face, changing her mind half way through it and Barry figures he must look even worse than he imagined if Iris is avoiding touching it. She drops her hands back down and informs him;
“I’m gonna kill Tony Woodward.”
And that’s exactly why Barry didn’t want her to see him, he knew she would get all worried and worked up about it, but they do live together so obviously the second that Barry didn’t arrived on his regular time schedule from his AP Physics class on that Wednesday Iris would be worriedly waiting for him.
Barry tries to mumble for her to leave Tony alone but to stand up holding his weight plus the weight of his backpack is all the effort he can manage so he allows Iris to grab his bag and pull him into the house.
Iris sits Barry down on one of the chairs on the dining room table and proceeds to work out most of her frustration disinfecting the cuts on his face so she has Barry flinching away from her soaked up cotton-balls until she just asks;
“Will you stand still?”
“Will you stop taking it out on my bloody face?”
And he can see her expression disarming and her touch softening, but when she talks her voice still sharp;
“I’m gonna kick his ass!”
“Iris —”, Barry starts, about to tell her he doesn’t want her fighting his battles for him but Iris doesn’t allow him any further, she interrupts him, questioning offended;
“What? You don’t think I can take him?”
And that’s so not the point, of course he thinks Iris can take him, Barry has been on the receiving end of her sucker punch and there was never any question that Joe raised her to be though so she is though, cause daddy said so, more than capable to fight the stupid bullies whenever necessary.
The point is it’s not her bully, the point is she would hit but she could end up getting hit as well, who could guarantee they understood Tony Woodward’s logic anyway? The point is Barry does not want Iris taking a punch for him.
“I think you can take him I just don’t want you getting into trouble because of me.”
“I won’t.”
And then, when Barry doesn’t argue anymore, cause he can see Iris is in the peak of her stubbornness and he’ll most likely talk in vain, she adds;
“I won’t. Tony would never admit he got his ass kicked by a girl.”
After that the discussion dies down and Iris grows quiet, concentrating on cleaning his face, her pretty face twisting and her forehead wrinkling in worry and Barry focus on her eyes and her lips and the fact that he can look at her from under his eyelashes when she’s standing up in front of him, holding him by the chin, and he focus on how it’s been a while since he could last feel her warm breathing on his cheeks.
When she’s done with the curative on his forehead Iris fingers flutter to his hair and Barry’s stomach fills with butterflies and his lungs fill with this electricity and something, something that feels like warm water and he forgets all about the pain and the reason they are there and everything else that is not the smell of her, and her warm finger pads cradling his face.
That is until her hands wander down to his jaw line, and his shoulders and then his ribs and Barry can’t help but to flinch in pain.
Suddenly something shatters between them and if a second before he was convinced that it wasn’t possible for him to be feeling all he was feeling looking at her on his own, that if this electric current in him seemed to close in her she must have been feeling it too, now he is sure he was imagining it as she instructs;
“Come on, t-shirt up.”
“Iris, no,” he complains but she’s already grabbing the hem of it and letting out a gasp that actually scares Barry.
He stands up and walks to the downstairs bathroom to check it out on the mirror and concludes Iris is making it sound worse than it actually is, but she’s right behind him, saying;
“Why didn’t you tell me he broke your ribs? It’s all purple! Barr!”
It takes about 15 minutes for him to convince her he doesn’t need to go to the emergency room but after that he gets to be pushed down the sofa and enjoy her warm hands pressing delicately the cold compress on his torso and her pretty face watching him attentively as she does so, her knees curled up on his side.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” Barry tries to assure her; “besides, even if it is there’s nothing anyone can do besides waiting for it to heal.”
“I don’t care, I’m killing Tony Woodward.”
Iris shakes her head and Barry figures she must have been planning on how exactly she is taking Tony Woodward limbs off of his body and he can’t help the question out of his lips;
“You know he’s into you, right?”
“Who?”, she asks, and her face is genuinely questioningly.
“Tony,” Barry explains.
“No, he is not!”
And he’s relieved to see the disgust in her eyes.
Not that Barry ever really thought she would be interest in Tony Woodward but it’s nice to have confirmation anyway.
Tony’s crush on Iris is pretty blatant to Barry, maybe because he loves her himself so he’s hyper-aware of the other boys that like her too, maybe it’s some sort of territorial instinct, so maybe it’s not as obvious as he thought it was cause Iris is usually pretty observant.
Though she could be completely blind when things were about her and the reactions she warrants out of people, so Barry drops it. He knows she’ll mull over it eventually and now he doesn’t want to think about the asshole.
He doesn’t want to think about anything that are not Iris’ fingers traveling on his stomach while she bites her bottom lip in worry, or the way both of her lips feel when she presses a kiss on his forehead and then other one on his cheek, cradling his face between her hands, making Barry warm all over, and the way she sits beside him for the rest of the afternoon, holding his hand in one of hers, fingers dancing in between his as he doesn’t pay attention on whatever is showing on TV, and with how often Iris’ eyes travel up and down on him Barry thinks she’s probably not watching much TV either.