Chapter Text
“Iris.”
Groaning, the woman in question shifted, trying to block out the noise. Sleep. She was trying to sleep.
“I know, honey, but you have to get up,” a feminine voice chided. “From the looks of it, you’ve missed work, and they need to know whatever happened.”
Iris squeezed her eyes shut even further. Work. No, no, not now. No work. Only sleep.
“Yes, work, Iris. Yes work. No sleep. Come on, sweetie, you can do it.”
Iris frowned. Wait, she hadn’t spoken aloud. Which meant—oh, wait, only one person could—
Her eyes flew open to find Cecile leaning over her, her expression full of concern. “H-hi,” Iris greeted, her voice still husky from sleep.
Cecile’s hand slipped behind Iris’s shoulder. “Hi, honey,” she said quickly, before forging ahead with her usual energy. “Now, what happened? When we came home, we were definitely not expecting—” She seemed to reconsider her train of thought, and gave her head a little shake. “Well, whatever it is, sweetie, you’ve got to get up. I’m sure you’ll want to let work know what’s going on.”
Iris blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light, before suddenly rising to an erect position. All at once, she was assaulted by memories of what had happened earlier that day. Barry showing up. Her harsh words. The brick corner where she’d settled down for a cry. Ending up here—and work. That’s right, she’d bailed without calling. Oh, no, Bridge was going to have her hide—
Iris fished out her phone and started to dial the number. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Cecile stand back up with an expression of understanding, before leaving the room, presumably to talk to Iris’s father. That’s right—she’d probably been able to pick up much of what had occurred just from Iris’s jumbled memories. Iris gave her head a quick shake. Sometimes, she still couldn’t get used to Cecile’s newfound abilities. Then again, what with Nora’s own powers and the new… unconventional babysitters Iris had enlisted, she was one to talk.
After finishing the call, which went… alright, all things considered, Iris took the time, the first since she’d woken up, to really collect herself. Here she was. She was on the couch of her dad’s living room, her purse and jacket in a crumpled heap by the door, an abused-looking box of tissues on the floor by where her head had been during her impromptu nap. Iris sighed, running her hand through her hair. This was fine. Just great.
Realizing she could stand to have something to eat, Iris rose and headed towards the kitchen in a lethargic shuffle. When she entered the room, both Joe and Cecile’s voices immediately stopped, their heads turning to watch her. Iris ignored them and searched the cupboards. Surely her father still kept a box of her favorite Rice Krispies somewhere…
“They’re in the top cabinet to the left of the fridge,” Cecile blurted. Iris snapped her head around, a reproachful look crossing her features. Cecile took a small step backwards, her hands up. “Sorry. Don’t mind me. Just… go on, do whatever it is you’re doing.”
Iris snorted softly and followed Cecile’s directions to the Rice Krispies. “It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend you don’t know what I’m thinking,” she smirked.
“Well, I mean, I don’t know everything you’re thinking—I mean, I hear your thoughts, but only the surface of what crosses your mind, I can’t dig through your memories to find any context for it—” Joe cleared his throat, and Cecile deflated slightly, before fixing Joe with a glare. “Oh, shush, I’m trying to make her feel less violated,” she whispered much too loudly.
“Really, it’s okay,” Iris sighed, trudging to a chair with her cereal, milk, and bowl in hand. “You can’t exactly help it.”
An uncomfortable silence fell upon the kitchen. Iris picked up the cereal box and began to pour, trying not to think about the fact that Cecile would know whatever she thought about. It had been only recently that they’d found out Cecile’s abilities, while pregnancy-induced, were in fact permanent. Joe certainly hadn’t been thrilled about that fact, even though he’d tried to hide it. But it was true—Cecile couldn’t exactly help it. This was just the first time that Iris had been around her in an emotionally vulnerable state. The first time it felt violating, like Cecile herself had said.
Unbidden, Iris’s mind flashed to the new information she’d discovered about Caitlin. About Killer Frost. The icy anti-hero was a separate personality, not really Caitlin herself… and it wasn’t like Caitlin was really able to help it, either. Iris glanced furtively at Cecile, to find that the other woman was looking back, probably having heard every word. Iris gave her an apologetic half-smile and turned back to take a bite out of her cereal.
All these powers she suddenly found herself surrounded by… Iris would be lying if she claimed it wasn’t overwhelming. Heck, that was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. But when she thought of her baby, flashing about her home, all yellow and purple and giggles and windswept hair… Iris smiled. Nora’s abilities certainly complicated things, but Iris found she couldn’t really imagine her daughter anymore without them. They were simply one of the things that made her her—her wonderful, weird self.
The sound of chair legs dragging against the linoleum floor roused Iris from her reverie, and she peered to her right to find her dad sitting in the seat next to her, Cecile soon following suit to Iris’s left. Joe cleared his throat. “Alright, Iris, we’ve been trying to be cool—” Iris raised an eyebrow, to which Joe laughed. “Honest, baby girl. But I think I speak for parents everywhere when I say that I’m not sure I can go much longer without knowing what happened.” He laced his fingers together and placed his elbows on the table, leaning almost imperceptibly in Iris’s direction. Iris took a quick glance in Cecile’s direction, and found that she was waiting to hear whatever Iris had to say, too, her expression devoid of judgement.
Iris rolled her shoulders back and took another bite of cereal. She knew she’d have to talk about it eventually. And—that was probably why her subconscious had chosen to come here in the first place, right?
She swallowed and looked down in her lap. “Barry happened,” she started simply, lifting her chin to make eye contact with Joe. He nodded, a gesture that Iris knew meant he understood, but was waiting to hear more. She lowered her gaze.
“Today he… he actually showed up at my apartment.” Joe raised an eyebrow, and Iris gave a weak chuckle in response. “Yeah, I know, I know, that’s exactly what I’d been wanting. But I guess… it was just so out of the blue. He just appeared out of thin air and all I could think when I looked at him was, why now? Why not before? After weeks of just… nothing.” Iris frowned. “It feels so awful, so stupid in retrospect. I got so mad at him, when I should have been glad he was finally there.”
Joe shifted so he could more readily turn and face her, his expression resolute. “Iris, he shut you out. Of course you had reason to feel that way.” She nodded, her fingers toying with the handle of her cereal spoon. She hadn’t quite let herself take that line of thought—perhaps she really did deserve the chance to let Barry know how his silence had made her feel.
“But you’re also right.” Iris glanced at him. “That’s your baby daddy who showed up at your door. Sure, he might have needed some telling off, but honey—” Joe placed a steady hand on her shoulder, his voice lowering to almost a whisper— “Do you really want to miss that chance? Do you want your baby to miss that chance? The ability to grow up with two parents, instead of one?”
Iris gulped before averting her eyes, recognizing in Joe’s tone what he hadn’t said—what he hadn’t needed to say. She hadn’t had a mother for years, and Wally hadn’t had his father. They’d all turned out fine; perhaps it had even been for the better. But the specter of what could have been, especially when she’d found her mother had been alive after all… Iris could never know what she’d missed. And Joe knew. In a way, he was apologizing still, even now.
Iris lifted a hand to rub her eyes and was greeted with a wetness that could only mean more tears. Cecile rose from the chair next to her, before coming back with the box of tissues. Iris nodded her thanks and took one.
As Iris mulled it over, she found her resolve firming. Barry deserved another chance. “I’m going to go talk to him,” she expressed out loud, wiping at her eyes with short, fast strokes. “Thanks, guys, you’re the best.”
“Aww, baby, you know we’ll always be there for you,” Cecile said, pulling her stepdaughter into a tight hug.
“Don’t I know it,” Iris laughed, before sniffling and having to reach for another tissue.
Joe rose and started towards the entryway of the kitchen, Cecile following not far behind. “Alright, as much as we’d love to stay, we were only planning on a short stop–over on our way to picking up baby Jenna. Are you going to stay here, or?”
“You could even stay for dinner,” Cecile offered.
Very tempting, Iris thought. However… “I should probably go at some point,” she signed. “I need to get back to Nora, and should probably take the time to run some errands… but thank you. Really. For everything.”
Joe paused. “You know you’re welcome any time, right?”
Iris smiled. “I do.”
And, with a some final encouraging smiles, the couple was gone, leaving Iris with the house to herself.
Iris stood and stretched her arms out in a sweeping motion, before clearing her place. She wasn’t that hungry anymore, really. Iris sniffled. And she needed another tissue.
Reaching into the tissue box, Iris found that there didn’t appear to be any fresh ones left that were easily accessible. Frowning, she sank into a chair and started to pull out the crumpled, mascara-stained tissues that appeared to be crammed inside. She’d truly used a lot of this box back on that sidewalk. In fact—
Iris froze. It had been nagging her, somewhere in the back of her mind. Where had the tissues come from? Turning back to the box, she began pulling out the used tissues more rapidly, flinging them to the side. She certainly didn’t leave the house with a box of tissues, and these things didn’t exactly appear out of thin air—
Iris’s fingers clenched for another tissue, only to find the paper thicker than she’d expected. Scrambling to get a good grip, she pulled her hand out of the box to find herself clutching some pieces of notebook paper, folded in quarters. Her heart skipped a beat. Barry. He must have left her the box, so quickly she hadn’t noticed. Which would mean this was his note.
Iris unfolded the papers and read.
Dear Iris,
I know this can’t fix everything, but I hope you can believe me when I say that I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry for pushing you away. I wasn’t thinking about how you’d feel. I didn’t think to realize that keeping you out would hurt you more than letting you in, and you were right to point that out. I made a horrible first try at being a father. Because I didn’t try. And that’s the worst kind of father, the kind you don’t deserve, the kind Nora should never have to put up with. For that, I owe you an apology. However, I think I also owe you an explanation.
While none of what I’m about to tell you really excuses my behavior, I think it might help you understand why I reacted the way you did when you first found me again. I might have hinted briefly that I remembered you from that night at the club. I know you’re rightfully upset with me because I left before the morning. Truth be told, I don’t remember much of that night either—you can thank one of Cisco’s concoctions for that—but when I saw you in the morning, beautiful even when lying asleep, your hair splayed everywhere, I remembered how you made me feel. I liked you, Iris. And that scared me.
The last time I liked someone–and even dared to love them—happened around two years ago. You might even remember her, since she served on the metahuman task force—I don’t know your father all that well, but I know he was part of the team at one point. Her name was Patty, detective Patty Spivot. I started running into her a lot, both in and out of the mask, and before I really knew it, we had started dating. She wasn’t blind, so, like you, she eventually figured out my secret. For a while, things were going great. I felt better than I’d even felt with her. She joined Team Flash, and her investigative expertise and presence on the metahuman task force helped us solve cases faster. She also helped me give more plausible excuses—believe me, I could come up with some truly terrible lies. All in all, she was a wonderful asset to the team, and I loved her all the more for it. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t originally planned to tell her.
Then, Savitar began appearing around the city. I’m not sure how much the CCPN knows about Savitar, but long story short, Savitar was from the future and had a personal vendetta against me. He knew everything about me—my strengths, my weaknesses, my battle strategies, my next move—and who I loved. And he wanted to destroy me—not just physically, but emotionally. Savitar wanted to crush my soul. Soon after we first identified him as a major threat, I made a jump into the future and ended up watching, helplessly, as he killed Patty. I saw myself try and fail to save her. We realized that this was his final, grand master plan to destroy me, but even after a couple of attempts to change the future, I’d run forward in time only to watch it happen all over again. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the only way I could save Patty was to convince Savitar that I didn’t love her as much as I did, so I broke up with her about six months before she was supposed to die. In retrospect, I think by then, Savitar had already won. He’d already taken her from me. And Savitar knew how heartbroken being without her made me feel, so he just became all the more determined to kill her.
When the time came around that Patty was slated to die, the team and I started trying anything and everything we could think of to change the circumstances of her death and keep her safe. While she was still angry at me for breaking up with her, in those last, panicked days, I realized that I needed to make the most of the time we had. I let her back in. And, as Savitar told me afterwards, our time together during those days gave him all the information he needed to ensure her death.
In the end, there was nothing we could do. It was just like I’d seen from afar, so many times, except this time, I was living it. He was too fast, too ruthless. And although I was just a tiny fraction of a second too late, that gap made all the difference. She died in my arms.
Afterwards, I was so heartbroken I almost went off the deep end. There was a lot of stuff involving the Speed Force that’s hard to explain, but basically, I agreed to be its prisoner for a while, and while I eventually was brought back physically, it took Team Flash days to get my mind back, too. I almost quit the team altogether. Eventually, the Thinker forced my hand—I’m almost grateful for him, because otherwise, I don’t know what I’d have done with myself. But every person close to me, especially everyone who knew… they were no longer a friend. They were a liability. Savitar shook me, so deeply, that I guess I forgot how to love someone without being afraid for their lives at every waking moment.
So that takes me to you, I guess. That morning, I realized that what I saw in you… that was perhaps the biggest liability of all. So I pushed myself away. Again. Cisco and Caitlin keep telling me to stop doing that, and you helped me figure out what I think I’ve known all along—that they’re right. I have to let you decide for yourself. Maybe, now that you’re more aware of some of the horrible things that happen to people who get close to me, you’ll decide not to get involved in my shitty life, and that’s fine. It’s probably the smart choice. But I promise that from now on, if you choose to still stick around, I won’t try to make you leave. You and Nora are absolute joys, and I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.
Again, I truly apologize for how I’ve been acting. I hope this clears things up at least somewhat.
Barry
As Iris’s eyes took in the last sentence, she lowered the paper, hands shaking. A cold, cruel darkness seemed to close around her heart. Barry—what he’d gone through was so much worse than Iris had imagined. She pulled out the first page and read the note again. And again. And again, until, before Iris knew it, she was sobbing harder than she had in years.
Finally, Iris checked the clock and realized it was past time to relieve Cisco and Caitlin of babysitting duty. Rising a bit shakily, she gathered her belongings, making certain to keep the note close, and set out for her apartment.
She had a lot to say to Barry when they next met.