Chapter Text
Barry was finally getting adventurous, Iris could tell. Or rather she could feel, feel how he was allowing his hands to wander. Under her t-shirt. Finally. They had been kissing the whole afternoon, like many afternoons before, so it was about time.
Iris enjoyed spending the afternoons together.
When they were kids they used to spend them playing. Then they stopped. It was this weird thing when they went from doing everything together to not doing everything together. Then they started high school and there was a while when they didn’t exactly talk to each other.
They were neighbours. Their parents were friends. Her mom and dad would still invite the Allens for dinner every now and again, and they would still go to the Allens for the occasional pizza ever since they built a wooden oven in their backyard. Iris would still get a ride to school with Nora every other day, and her mom would drive them the others, and they rode the bus together in the evenings.
Then, when they turned 16, Iris got a used Honda for her birthday and she would drive Barry to school and drive him back, but they weren’t friends.
They talked, it wasn’t like she pretended Barry Allen had seceded to exist, but they didn’t talk. It wasn’t like Iris could explain what had happened, they hadn’t ever had an out, and it wasn’t that she thought Barry had turned into a boring person, it just was.
For a while she suspected she had done something wrong, that he had taken something she had done the wrong way, but the more she thought about it the more senseless that seemed.
Still, despite going to school in the same car, they didn’t walk around together at school, mostly they would act like they didn’t know each other, mainly because their friends were not exactly the same (she long suspected Barry didn’t exactly like any of her friends).
He was in the science club or whatever that was called, since freshman year, and Iris was in no club. The principal called Iris into her office the first week of the sophomore year suggesting (actually demanding, but she pretended like she was suggesting) that Iris should be more involved, so she joined the school paper, dragging Linda — who was already on the Lacrosse Team, so she didn’t need to “join in the school” — with her.
Besides, Barry didn’t take her AP English class, and Iris didn’t take any of his AP science ones, except for Biology during their junior year, and when they both refused to dissect the frog, Miss Roberts paired them up with each other, saying they had to write a 10,ooo words essay instead. And then, three days into the assignment, they had found something way more fun than playing hide and seek, or whatever game they used to play when they were kids.
Kissing.
Iris had never kissed before. She was the last girl in her group of friends to, or at least from what the girls had told her she was. The other girls had no problem talking about it either, recounting their kisses from the weekends in detail on Monday mornings, but Iris didn’t like to talk about it.
She enjoyed kissing though.
At the moment, she was thoroughly enjoying Barry’s lips on hers, wet and swollen, and the way he softly sucked her bottom one, dragging his teeth on it, and she was enjoying the way his lips and his cheeks looked so pink, and the way his green eyes were blown up dark and the way his breathing felt on her skin, humid and warm. And his hands, finally wandering up her belly until almost finding her bra and then he pulled away. Chicken.
“What?” she asked as he sat up from his previous laying-on-top-of-her position, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Barry said, wiping the spit from his lips with the back of his hand, “nothing, there’s nothing wrong.”
He was too much of a gentlemen, that was what was wrong.
He apologised the first time he kissed her! Like she hadn’t kissed him back. And the first time that one kiss turned into a whole lot of kissed, on the cheeks and the jaw line and the neck (she really like his neck, she like following his freckles around with her lips), Iris had to pin him down on the couch because he was so nervous that he wouldn’t stop fidgeting.
Sometimes she wondered if he actually wanted that, wanted her, if he liked what they were doing. He seemed to — or at least she had learned (with a surprised gasp the first time) to tell that his body did — but he was always so resistant.
Iris rolled her eyes at him and, since he wasn’t going to, she pulled her t-shirt off.
It was a new bra, she bought it so Barry would see it. She had taken Francine questioning her as to why exactly she needed a purple lacy bra, and Iris had sworn to her that it was only because she thought it was pretty, and she hated lying to her mom, especially when it seemed to be in vain; it had been a week already and Barry seemed nowhere closer to taking a good peek at it, so she had to take matters into her own hands.
His eyes widened with surprise and he looked away, focusing on the TV, which streamed loud in the background.
Iris liked making out with the TV on so she wouldn’t have to listen to the sounds Barry got out of her. Though she didn’t mind one bit hearing the sounds she got out of him, or the way they vibrated on his throat and belly.
But at the moment Barry wouldn’t face her. He could be so exasperating sometimes.
“Barry,” she called and he looked back at her, eyes traveling down her body slowly, swallowing hard. Iris was at the point of grabbing his hands and placing them over her boobs but then he travelled the pad of his fingers lightly down her arm and then up her belly, reaching her bra this time and this was better. Much better.
She reached for the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it up, in a I showed you mine now you show me yours sort of deal, and Iris decided she liked his goosebumps, feeling them on his skin, under her fingers, on his arms. And she liked his skin on her skin, and pushing her fingers down his ribs, finding the spot right between two of them where Barry was soft and she could press in, and when she pulled him back down on top of her, holy shit, she found she liked kissing while his belly rubbed on hers, stealing her breath away.
Barry watched as Iris crossed the food court, Linda by her side. He couldn’t help the smile on his lips.
He liked to watch Iris moving and then remember the way she moved under him, and then on top of him, circularly, less than 24 hours before. In her purple lacy bra, and Barry could see her nipples through it, round and dark, and perfect, like the whole rest of her. And that hadn’t been a feverish dream.
She had her hair in a braid today, she had explained how to braid it to him before, one afternoon that, after spending way too long with her head over his pillow the braid had come half undone, and he watched as she braided it back before leaving him.
It was named after a country, the braid was, Barry was sure, and whenever they were kissing, Barry appreciated how it kept the hair away from his mouth, or their mouths, and today he appreciated how it kept her hair out of her face so he could see her cheeks and her lips fully as she smiled at something Linda said, bending her head down slightly. Cheeks and lips that would have been covered by a curtain of her hair had she wore it down.
Iris had the most incredible smile. It wasn’t something Barry could fully explain, he thought no one would ever be able to fully explain since it very probably defied the laws of physic, slowing down time.
It was all her smile’s fault, really.
Barry was about 12 when he noticed he liked making Iris smile more than anything else in the world and then he knew she had him and that her smile would most definitely be his undoing.
Why are you looking at Iris like that?
He could still hear Emma outing the words, he could still feel them echoing through him and see her puzzled face. Emma didn’t like him very much, even clueless 12 years-old Barry could tell. She would always drag Iris out in some corner to tell her girl-stuff, code for Barry-can’t-hear-it, and then one day, she caught Barry staring at Iris’s smile and she pointed it out, and his heart sank so low down that Barry could feel it reaching his stomach and making him sick.
He couldn’t help looking though.
“What are you looking at?”
This time it was Cisco, and he didn’t have the same accusatory look in his eyes, but Barry still blushed as he focused down on his food again, promising himself he wouldn’t look at her anymore. A promise that lasted about as long as ten-seconds and a nothing as an answer to Cisco.
“Right,” he said, “nothing that goes by the name of Iris West.”
Barry shushed him. Cisco could be loud sometimes. Even though she was really far away and the room was noisy and busy, Barry really didn’t want Iris hearing and chancing a glance at him. He still remembered how embarrassment crept up her cheeks that day years ago. In all the years Barry had known her, he saw Iris blushing three times, and that was one of them, and it was his fault and it made things worse; she couldn’t really bring herself to face him after Emma’s question.
The last thing he wanted at the moment was for her to feel that exposed again.
“Dude, you have to do something about it! It’s not healthy to keep it all inside, you know?”
Barry rolled his eyes at him. Cisco didn’t know. Barry hadn’t told anyone yet. They hadn’t talked about it themselves.
Iris would come over, they would do some of their homework, or none of their homework, or all their homework sometimes, and they would talk about stuff, like about some boring book Iris absolutely thought Barry should read and that he hadn’t picked up yet (though he liked having something of hers sitting on his desk, and he liked how she had drawn a little heart besides her name on the back of the cover), about some new band he had found over the weekend, about nothing, about everything, except about what they were doing.
They just somehow always seemed to end up laying against some flat surface, the couch, or his bed, or the ground, kissing, and stuff.
Like the stuff from yesterday, which was most brilliant stuff.
Who knew skin felt so good? Iris had perfect skin, soft, and smooth and warm. And she got no spots on her pretty face, like Barry did. But she did have a little bit of freckles on her nose. You would have to look very close to see them, and Barry had forgotten about them in all that time they seemed to avoid getting too close to each other, but now he could see them again. He could kiss the bridge of her nose and appreciate them in a whole different way than before.
But he didn’t exactly want to tell Cisco he had done something about it (even though he was still not quite sure how they had reached that point where his lips on hers was suddenly something that happened, that was acceptable and recurrent). Barry was afraid that if he talked about it out loud, it would disappear, kinda like the reverse of I do believe in fairies.
“You ride to school with her everyday, you seem able to speak to her at biology class, it’s not that difficult, just come up to her and say, Iris —”
“Shut up!” Barry interrupted before Cisco could finish it, looking around to see if there was someone at their table paying them any mind, and there didn’t seem to be, so Barry concluded, hoping that that would conclude the topic of conversation as well;
“Somethings are better left to the imagination.”
That was a lie. Not in his wildest dream, literal dreams, and Barry had many of those about Iris, or daydreams, he was always good on those too, he could have properly imagined how she would feel under his hands, how she would taste under his lips. The little gasps and chokes she would let out every now and again, and how Barry would enjoy cataloguing those, trying the same thing again, checking if it got the same effect, like behind her right ear, she liked when he sucked there, and she also liked when he licked her collarbones, but she would always giggle if he licked her nose instead. Her laugh was good too. It was such a great sound.
He chanced another glance at her, and this time her eyes met his, and she graced him with a smile, not for any reason other than that her eyes met his, and he smiled too, unable to control his lips and get them to behave, as she looked away. Barry checked Cisco, way too occupied with his hot dog to notice anything.
Reality was so much better than anything his brain could ever come up with, than any fantasy he could possibly have, but Cisco didn’t need to know that Barry knew that anyway.
Iris was still tingling when she walked through the front door. 5:45. Right on time.
She had about fifteen minutes until her mom came back from the paper. Which meant she had another 15 minutes of thinking about Barry and about kissing him, about how he had made a habit out of leaving a cute note on her locker everyday, about how this time, he was the one to take her t-shirt off, after taking his own t-shirt off, and how he let his hands up her inner thighs, (they were clothed and denim wasn’t the best fabric to allow much feeling through it, but still. Maybe she should wear shorts for the next time, even though the weather wasn’t really looking like shorts. Maybe if she wore a skirt with tights, that would be the best make out and weather appropriate option).
Or she would have her 15 minutes if Wally wasn’t on the sofa, watching something loud, and questioning her;
“Where were you?”
“Nowhere,” Iris told him.
“Nowhere meaning Barry Allen’s?”
“No,” she said, and having a baby brother was so annoying sometimes; “nowhere meaning none of you business.”
She gave up going to her bedroom and locking herself up there and daydreaming to very loud music until her mom arrived, to sit by his side instead, reaching for the remote and searching for something to watch, and when Wally didn’t complain Iris knew there was something wrong.
She turned to face him and he was looking at her instead of the TV and when he spoke, he did in an uncharacteristic soft voice;
“Do you know people at school are talking about you?”
“What?” she asked in confusion; “freshmen are talking about me?”
“About you and Barry,” Wally told her; “they are saying you are… you know…”
“No, I don’t know! What are they saying?”
But there was suddenly a cold spreading through her. She told no one about the little detour their studying sessions had taken, and she hadn’t exactly asked for Barry not to, she just assumed he wouldn’t. It wasn’t like she was hiding it, but it also wasn’t like he suddenly started talking to her at school either, or having lunch at her table, so she assumed he didn’t want for people to know.
She guessed she didn’t want people to know. Mostly because she didn’t like talking about that stuff, and it was no one’s business.
“Well, Julie Brown in my english class, she asked if you and Barry are, you know…”
“I know what, Wally? Come on! Spill it out.”
“If you and Barry are fucking.”
So much for being a gentleman now. It wasn’t just telling people, it was straight up lying about it too.
Somehow the Barry who couldn’t even look at her shirtless and the Barry who went around saying they were fucking wouldn’t meet in her head, but Iris should have learned all those years ago that the Barry she thought she knew wasn’t the real Barry.
The real Barry was the one who decided he would stop having lunch at her table in the first place. The one who made her cry because he would always have an excuse to not do stuff together anymore, and just because he was delicate when he was holding her, just because when he kissed her, he seemed so reverent about it, just because when they were alone he was sweet and kind and perfect, it didn’t mean he actually was those things.
As Iris didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything, this horrible sickness taking over her, making it hard to breath in a completely different way than Barry had left her breathless just a few minutes ago, Wally continued;
“She does the Chemistry Lab Club thing with Barry, and she said people already knew and she wanted to make sure.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you weren’t fucking him and then I told Mrs. Black she was copying my work. Bitch.”
She could feel the stupid tears filling her eyes. How could Barry do something like this? Even if they didn’t talk much, or ever, about what they were doing, she still expected that the least he could do was not lie and brag about it to the nerds in his stupid club, who would then spread it out to the rest of the school.
“Are you?” Wally asked.
“Am I what?”
“Are you and Barry, you know…”
And that was when she knew it was really terrible. If Wally wasn’t sure enough she wasn’t, it was really bad.
“No, we are not!”
Wally shot her an incredulous look, and when Iris didn’t justify any further, he added;
“When we were little, Barry came to play here but now you go there because I’m here and at the Allen’s, there’s no one else home.”
“We’re studying,” Iris justified.
“Yeah, anatomy studying,” Wally said, jiggling his eyebrows up and down, and if it were a different situation, if she hadn’t been completely betrayed, then she would have found humour in his comment, as it was all her concentration was going into not being sick in the middle of the living room rug.
Wally seemingly noticed her face, but before he had time to comment on anything she said;
“I don’t feel very well — I — my bedroom”
And after she did lock her bedroom door, so she could allow for her tears to fall.