Chapter Text
Not this again.
She desperately needed to find a new apartment, one where her neighbors upstairs didn’t do horrendous things in their bathroom that made all the water leak into her apartment.
Specifically her bedroom, because someone obviously decided to stack these units in an architecturally incoherent way, where her upstairs neighbor’s bathroom aligned with her bedroom, effectively soaking her bed every single time something happened.
And it’s not like the landlord was of any help. Not like he’d take the time to get good plumbing, not like he even answered his phone when Iris called him five times in a row (which may or may not have happened on a couple occasions) so here she was, drenched as a result, because she happened to be lying on her bed at the same time the roof almost collapsed and soaked her bed, along with every inch her.
“Iris….”
She looks over to her bedroom door to see Barry standing there, suppressing a laugh she knows he won’t be able to hold in much longer, and she resists the urge to throw a wet pillow at him. Instead, she glares.
“I know.”
Iris was trying to save up the money to move, this shoddy apartment complex not cutting it anymore.
To be honest, it hadn’t been cutting it for the past few months, but she was always too busy to go apartment hunting, and everything in Central City was getting so much more expensive. Her job at CCPN was still relatively new, so the money she’d been earning was enough to buy her bear necessities, give a little back to the community, and deposit whatever was left in her savings. A few hundred dollars left over a month was good, but it wasn’t enough, not for a move to a better apartment that would undoubtedly cost her more than what she was paying now.
That was part of the reservation.
The other part, as much as she hated to admit it, probably for ego reasons, but also for fear reasons, was because of the pretty neighbor who lived right across from her.
The pretty neighbor with the green eyes and long eyelashes who was obnoxiously tall and sweet and kind. The same one who she’d grown so close to, often times falling asleep in his apartment or him in hers after they’d cooked each other dinner or watched a movie or did something together without really being together.
Barry Allen was an unexpected perk that greeted her at a time when everything was up in flames.
“Let me get you some towels,” he says, making his way out of her room and towards the drawer where she kept the towels.
He said it like it’s the most casual thing, like this thing between them is completely normal, the fact that he has a key to her place, the fact that he comes in to check on her without even asking if she needs it, the fact that just now, he was carrying with him a bag filled with takeout because he just got off work and sometimes he liked surprising her with little quirks that made her day better.
When she left her dad’s house after living with him for a year after graduate school, it was all new. She didn’t expect to come back to Central City, instead wanting to take some time off to travel the world, 18 years in school much too long for her liking.
But then her mom passed away unexpectedly and both her brother and her dad were in bad shape to live alone, without her.
Iris coped better than they did, though in reality, she was just better at hiding it, better at being the support instead of needing the support, better at listening instead of talking. That was that, the way it would always be.
So she stayed for a year, until things were settled, and then she moved out. Still in Central City though because she couldn’t go too far without the concern for her family overwhelming her.
Also because she was beginning to move up in her career, little by little.
Two months after she moved out, she got a job offer at CCPN.
And the first person she told was her the pretty boy with the green eyes who lived across the hallway.
It wasn’t intentional. But she did scream when she found out the news and he - apparently - was so taken back that he nearly broke her door down.
Are you okay?!!? He’d asked her that when she’d hurriedly let him inside, his concern igniting her concern because oh god why was her neighbor pounding on her door, trying to break it down.
She shared the news with him and he pulled her into a hug, one that gave her a surge of unexpected warmth and intimacy from a stranger of all people, and then invited her over for ice cream, and it’s been 8 months since that night, and ice cream was still their go-to dessert of choice.
She was a mint ice cream kind of girl.
Turned out he liked what she liked.
The same way that she liked her coffee strong and her desserts extra sweet.
The same way she liked her hugs extra tight and warm.
Barry Allen fit her the same way peanut butter molded to its jelly.
“Okay,” Barry pants, coming back into the room. “You may have a problem.”
“A problem?” She raises her eyebrows, already fed up with the current water situation to have anymore problems on her plate.
“Well,” he pulls out a towel from behind him, “this is also wet…”
She groans. “Don’t tell me.”
“Iri-”
“Nope! Don’t tell me,” she emphasizes, “because if you tell me the bathroom is flooded, I will cry.”
She pulls at the wet shirt sticking to her body, standing in hopes of finding some clothes.
But instead of getting too far, he comes to stand in front of her, wrapping her into a hug, and she fights it at first, but soon after relaxes at the warmth of his body.
“I’m wet,” she whines, her voice muffled.
“‘s okay,” he responds, rubbing her back gently, the same way he did sometimes when she’s having a bad day or when he doesn’t want to leave or doesn’t want her to leave, and yeah...it’s their special hug.
They worked like that.
Always completed each other in places that were seemingly incomplete, always made each other a little better and a little kinder...and…
...well, he made her a little softer too.
Because Barry was the one to open her up, on a night where she’d shut the rest of the world off, on a night where the bottle was the only thing she was still gripping onto, on a night where the pain of her mother’s death all but consumed her.
She wasn’t sure how he managed his way inside her place; maybe she’d accidently left it open or maybe he picked the lock, but he found her on the ground, body pressed against the wall, knees hugged to her chest, and he held her for hours on end without saying a word.
That was awhile back.
This was now. He was holding her with the same tenderness as he always did, had her wrapped up in his arms like he wouldn’t let anything hurt her, and his chin was on her head and Iris could feel the pads of his fingers rub gently along her back.
“Stay with me tonight,” he whispers into her hair.
She mumbles out an okay that gets muffled by his shirt, but she doesn’t have the energy to say it louder. Her apartment was a hell-hole, one that definitely wasn’t going to get fixed anytime soon, and Iris already knew apartment hunting just got added to a laundry list of things she had to do.
“Stop doing that.” Barry pulls himself from the tight press of her body, but keeps his hands firm against her back. “I know you’re already making a list of everything you have to do now. But push that off a little.”
She fights the tears.
“Stay with me,” he repeats, now rubbing his hands along her back. He closes the distance between them again, pressing a close-lipped kiss to her forehead.
Iris relaxes at the gesture. She lets the tension sink away from her body and trusts that he’ll hold her through it. Before her anxiety flares, before she can think about the accommodations she has to make now, before she has to hear another lecture from her dad about moving back in and living with him.
“Of all the apartments, this is the one I was fated with,” she sighs.
“Mhm.” Barry nods and brings his hands to her chin, grips it firmly between his thumb and index finger, and locks eyes with her.
And he looks so soft compared to her. She just wants to sink into his embrace, to stall the rest of her worries forever and stay wrapped up in him.
“If you didn’t move into this apartment, you would’ve never met me,” he smiles, “and that would’ve been the biggest disservice the universe would suffer.”
She laughs. The hyperbole helps, though she’s sure the biggest disservice to the universe is already crowned to a much bigger global disaster, the furthest thing away from two people not meeting each other, but she swallows it. Instead, she wills her eyes to dry the tears away.
“I think I have to stay the night with you,” Iris says.
“Are we both pretending I didn’t just offer that solution?”
“Mhm,” she grins.
“Really now?”
“It was my idea. I’m the genius.”
And Barry laughs with her as he pulls her back into his chest, ignoring the wet shirt, ignoring her cold body. He just holds her close for a few more seconds, enjoying the feel of her body against his and the smell of her hair and how it tickles his nose, ignoring the fact that he just kind of sort of asked her to move in with him, albeit intentionally, and his nerves are on high because he thinks maybe if she moves in, she doesn’t have to ever leave, maybe he’ll finally admit that he’s in love with her, been in love with her since the first night he met her, but her breathing brings him back to reality, and she’s keeping him calm, keeping him grounded so the thoughts don’t carry him away, like she always does.
“Thank god you have a functioning apartment.” Iris pulls Barry’s shirt down over her body as she enters his living room. He catches a glimpse of her belly button right before she gives the shirt a final tug and he has to look away, otherwise he might fall flat on the floor.
Barry’s already prepared the basics: a blanket, four pillows, a movie and a giant bowl of popcorn to complement all her favorite sweets. Everything was awaiting her entrance, including him.
But what he didn’t prepare for was how beautiful she looked wearing his shirt and his boxers.
The remote falls haphazardly out of his hand. “H..hi,” he stutters out.
Iris grins as she walks over to the couch. She pulls the blanket up and plops down, before draping it over herself. Barry does all he can not to stare.
He’s seen her in similar states before. This isn’t the first time she’s stayed at his place or worn his clothes, and this isn’t the first time they’ve had movie night together while cuddling and eventually falling asleep on the couch.
But tonight felt different. Tonight, he was starting to imagine preposterous things like doing this every night with her, except maying kissing her and maybe cuddling naked and making waking up in her arms, with her legs tangled with his and her head on his chest.
Barry’s been kicking himself for the last eight months really for not telling her.
The first four of those months, he was struggling with falling out of love with the girl he thought he would marry. Though, if he was being honest with himself, he’d been out of love with her for a while. Meeting Iris just made him realize how much that reality was staring him in the face.
He knew, no matter how much he tried and how much he wanted to be with her, it wouldn’t work. Especially when he was falling in love with someone else.
When they broke up, Iris spent the entire day with him. He still remembers it vividly. The break up happened Friday night. He told Iris Saturday morning and the two of them did everything that day. She bought him chocolate and ice cream and took him on a bike ride across Central City, only to make pit stop to get more ice cream cones and cookies and coffee for her because she loved her caffeine. And she accidently got whipped cream on her nose, whipped cream that Barry couldn’t stop laughing it, but she didn’t lick it away because she knew it made him happy and he ended up wiping some on his nose just so they’d match.
After then, he’s been falling for her harder and harder every day.
But somewhere along the way, he became scared of losing her. They had a good system, they were best friends, each other’s supports, each other’s emergency contacts, and he was afraid if he risked saying anything, he’d ruin the most special thing he’d created, this friendship with her.
No one could take it away from him. Not like how others took away his mom and then his dad. Iris was his, and he promised he wouldn’t do anything to risk that, which definitely meant not taking it away himself.
“So,” her voice breaks him from his thoughts, “what movie are we watching?”
Barry doesn’t answer.
Instead, her turns his body and faces her.
She gives him a cautious look.
“Everything is going to be okay, Iris,” he reassures her. Though in part, he’s reassuring himself, that everything is going to be okay, Barry, if he so chooses to tell her how he feels, which he definitely thinks he might. Barry Allen has no control when it comes to her.
She smiles and gives a little nod. “I hope.”
“It will. And I’ll help, with whatever you need.”
“Okay,” Iris confirms. She moves the popcorn bowl from in between them and sets it on the table momentarily, as she repositions her body so that her side is pressed against his. Iris takes his arm and drapes it around her shoulder, as she reaches for the bowl again and sets it jointly on their laps.
“My hero,” she tells sincerely, her eyes big and brown and soft.
He smiles back.
Barry leans into her after reaching for the remote again.
As the movie plays in the background, he has to actively shun out his thoughts from distracting the current moment. Because as much as he wants to just kiss her right here right now, he knows she’s had a hard day, and he doesn’t want to add to it.
So he holds her a little closer and settles for pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
And when he feels her fall asleep in his arms, he promises himself, he’ll tell her before she finds a new apartment. He’ll tell her he loves her. He’ll tell her everything and hope that..maybe...just maybe, she feels the same way.