Work Text
“May I join you?”Iris glanced up at the strong Central City accent, hailing from one of the rougher parts of town. She wasn’t expecting it from the sharp dresser with the piercing blue eyes that made her want to melt.“Oh,” she said.Every day for the past two months, Iris West had visited her best friend, lying comatose in a bed in Central City General Hospital.And every Friday, when she retreated to the cafe opposite the hospital to mope afterwards, he had been there. Eyes she could stare at for days. Ass to die for, she’d noticed more than once, when he’d left the hospital before her. Gorgeous salt-and-pepper hair (her father could complain about her attraction to dangerous older men all he wanted - she was only looking).He hadn’t missed a single Friday afternoon yet.Weirdly, he often came in wearing a hat and glasses, but he’d lose them when he relaxed - or when he saw her. They’d progressed to mutual smiles, the occasional mumbled “hi,” but not yet to a real conversation.He raised an eyebrow, and she realised she'd been staring at him. “I won’t be offended if you say no,” he added. “I just thought that, since we keep seeing each other around here...” His shoulders raised in a little shrug.Iris gestured at the seat across the little table from hers. “Please.”“You’re too kind.” He braced himself as he sat, and Iris caught sight of his hand, with its long, beautiful fingers, splayed across the fake wooden tabletop.At least it was nothing like the tables in the hospital, all identical gray plastic. That was why she kept escaping to this cafe across the street. It was like they designed the place to be depressing, Iris had told her dad, on one of those long, dreadful nights soon after Barry’s accident. They had been huddled together in a dark corner of a waiting room, staring at yet another hospital-gray table. Iris, suddenly shaking mad, wanted to pick the thing up and throw it across the room. Dad had just nodded morosely in agreement.The cafe opposite wasn’t that much better - drab and uninspiring, full of doctors and nurses on their breaks. It even still smelled like a hospital. But at least it wasn’t there.The cute guy was staring down at his paper coffee cup, but he kept sneaking little glances up at her. Right. Better say... something. “Although you should know that I don’t have a habit of inviting strange men to sit with me.”Was that too much? She wasn’t really in the habit of flirting with people she’d just met, either.But he was giving her that (still devastatingly cute) half-smile of his.“Of course. I could be anyone. The worst sort of person, really.”Iris chuckled. “You could. But I’ve been watching you get coffee for weeks now. You seem pretty safe.”He raised his eyebrows higher, but just smiled.Iris went back to her book, sneaking the odd glances at him where he sat across from her. He was staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought.Guessing that his regular visits were about the hospital too, Iris didn’t bother him. She knew what it was like to lose yourself in a place like this.Another week passed.Barry’s condition didn’t change.“You gotta have hope,” her dad had said to her, that morning. But hope was cruel, Iris thought, as she held Barry’s hand. Hope wasn’t giving her back her best friend - it was just making his absent presence hurt all the more.She let go of his hand to open the book on her lap. “So, Barr. I brought sci-fi. Maybe that’ll be interesting enough to wake you up, huh?” She coughed, and began to read. “The time traveler (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.” She closed the book to get a look at the cover. “Well, this is an exciting start. What is this - Pride and Prejudice? Nope, The Time Machine, apparently. Great.” Sighing, she picked up where she'd left off.She read to Barry’s unmoving body until it got too depressing to carry on. And then she retreated to the cafe, hands warm around her steaming cup.She was lost so deep in thought that she didn’t notice the gorgeous man approaching her table again, until he was right there. How was he always here?His smile was unsure but warm. “May I join you? Again?”Smiling back, she indicated the chair in front of her. “Of course.” After a moment of silence, Iris blurted out, “You know, if we’re going to keep meeting like this, we should probably know what to call each other.” She held out her hand. “Iris West.”He gave her a surprised head tilt. “Leonard Wynters.”God, he had the cutest drawl. “Good to meet you, Leonard.”He grinned, but didn’t correct her to any shorter version of his name. “You too.” Noticing the book she’d discarded beside her, he nodded at it. “Criminal psychology? Interesting field.”Iris sighed, tapping a finger on it. “Yeah.” “Hmm? You’re not enjoying it?”She shrugged. “I am, but—well, it’s complicated.”She’d had another argument with her dad just this morning.
I didn’t ban you from the police academy just for you to go study criminology, Iris.
You didn’t ban me from anything, Dad! You whined and threatened and shut me out, till I gave up!
“Let’s just say I’m thinking of switching to another class,” she clarified. “Sociology, maybe. Or journalism.”“Journalism? A noble profession.” He leaned back in his seat, watching her. “So, Miss West—”She smiled. “Please. Iris.”“Iris, then. What brings you back here every week?”She nodded towards the neon sign of the hospital building opposite. “I’ve got this friend…” She tried and failed to ignore the familiar clenching in her chest at the thought of Barry, lying lifeless as ever in his room upstairs, his heart still arresting every few days. “He’s my best friend.”Leonard tilted his head. “He’s sick?”“Coma.” She expected the pitying look that usually crossed people’s faces when she told them about Barry, but it never came. Instead, he raised a curious eyebrow, clearly waiting for more of the story. Iris focused on her coffee cup. “Remember a couple of months ago, the particle accelerator explosion?”“How could I forget. Quite the lightning storm in Central City that night.”“Yeah. A bolt of it hit Barry. He was alone in his lab.” At Leonard’s slight frown, she added, “He’s a scientist.”“Huh. Don’t think I saw that one on the news. They were buzzing all over the casualties like locusts.”Iris grinned. “But journalism’s a noble profession, huh?”A wry head tilt. “Heh. Well. Not always.”She sighed, tracing the handle of her cup. “I’m just really afraid he’ll never…” She glanced up at Leonard. “You know?”He nodded, his eyes full of a genuine empathy that didn’t seem too comfortable there.She shook her head, suddenly aware of him. “God, sorry - here I am going on about me. What about you? Is there a reason I see you here all the time too?” As soon as she asked it, she started running through all the reasons someone could be regularly coming to a cafe opposite a hospital. None of them good.But Leonard didn’t seem to have taken offence. He leaned back in his chair, looking at her as though trying to figure something out. “I have a best friend too,” he said at last, his eyes flickering left. “Got caught in a fire.”Iris caught herself before she could say oh, god. She nodded silently instead. “And he’s in the hospital? How’s he doing?”He shook his head. “Not the hospital. I can’t afford that. A… clinic. Close by.” He raised a tired eyebrow at her. “So that the less-competent doctors can shove patients at the ER if they give up on them.”She nodded, not commenting on the hint that Leonard was paying his friend’s medical bills.“And he’s doing okay, I think,” he went on. “He was in a coma for a while too—they put him in a medical coma. Didn’t know they did that. Apparently burns across one-third of your body are… painful.”Iris nodded again, not sure what else to do. Empathy wouldn’t help, not really, with that hopelessness. It was threaded through everything about him - the way he was holding himself, his eyes. He must really love that friend, she thought, even as she saw something wrong. Something the fire had... damaged, between the two of them. “But he’s getting better?”“He’s awake. Gotta be a good sign, right?” There was a tremor in his voice.“I’m sure it is,” she said, aiming for reassuring. “Does it help, coming to see him?”He huffed quietly and took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t see him. Well, he doesn’t see me.” He caught her eye, explained, “When he was in the coma I sat with him all the time, but… Now I just sneak in, check his records, try to catch a glimpse of him.” He smirked self-deprecatingly at her. “Then I indulge in self-pity over coffee for an hour or so.”She grinned back. She couldn’t help it - he was charming. She found herself asking, “Do you blame yourself?”“No, I absolutely blame him.” He frowned at the table. “I just don’t think I help.” He didn’t explain with what, and she didn’t ask. “And yet, here I am - every Friday for the past six months. What can I say? I just like routine.”But his gaze drifted to the ceiling again, and that hopeless look behind his eyes reminded Iris of her dad, of herself, since Barry’s accident.Then he seemed to snap back to the present moment. “What about you? Looks like you’re here a lot. This constant visiting help? Or is it keeping you from…”She shot him a wry smile. “Moving on?” She shrugged. “There are people telling me I should focus on my life. It’s not like I can help him by being here.”Leonard reached out a tentative hand and laid it on her arm. “He’s asleep, Iris. I’m pretty sure it’s not for him.”He had such a lovely smile. Iris wanted to see it again. She forced herself to brighten her tone. “So, I told you about my best friend. Tell me about yours. Is he a good friend?”He barked a laugh. “The worst.”“Is he at least a good… person?” Iris tried.That had him practically spitting out his coffee, but he was looking more animated than she’d ever seen him. “No, he’s an asshole. He never met a person he didn’t hate. If you’re lucky, he just hates you, and doesn’t actively try to burn you alive. I stay just enough on his good side that I’ve gotten away unscathed. Well, mostly.”She blinked. “This is your best friend?”“Oh yeah.”“I’d like to meet some of your enemies.”Leonard chuckled, and his soft smile made her heart beat like it hadn’t since… Since she’d last seen Barry - awake and alive and babbling on about science with a spark in his eyes.But Leonard's tired, hopeless look was quickly back. He touched her upper arm again. “We do what we need to for the people who matter. Don’t let anyone tell you to move on, or any other shit like that, if it keeps you from what you need to do for him.” He stood up, toasting her with the last of his coffee and throwing it back. “Same time next week?”She met his eyes with a grateful nod. “I’ll be here.”And so they went on, Friday after Friday, pretending these were chance meetings. That they weren’t seeking each other out across the crowded cafe, an oasis just past the bleak deserts of Iris’s hospital, of Leonard’s clinic. And Iris found that, strangely enough, there was no one she could talk to more about Barry than this man who had never met him.At first, it seemed like she was getting to know him pretty well too. She knew how he felt about his best friend, and that he had a sister who - though he didn’t say it out loud - he’d do anything for. Even, one long night after Barry had gone into yet another episode of cardiac arrest, hearing a bit about his childhood.(He’d been having a vulnerable night too, his friend apparently struggling with an infection back at the clinic, and Leonard had been sitting with him till late while he slept. It was making him think too much, he said. “I went into the family business,” he almost whispered, as they were curled up side-by-side on the old couch in the corner of the cafe. “Some days I’m just fucking sick of it,” he had hissed, with a sudden intensity that made her want to pull away and draw closer and touch him, all at once.“So do something else,” she said, her voice a whisper in sympathy with his. She wanted to tell him about her dad and how painful it could be to be forbidden from doing what your idol did. But she held back, hearing something in his voice that said this wasn’t really about business.He’d just shaken his head, eyes dark with sadness, though he’d smiled gratefully at her.)But when she stopped and thought about it, she realised that she didn’t really know any more about him than when they first met. It was like she knew the things that mattered, but almost nothing else. She asked him what he did for work, and he sidestepped the question with a wave and the brief answer, “I told you about the… family business. I run my own company.” And then he wouldn’t say any more, steering the conversation towards less specific things.And then, one day, he slumped into the chair in front of her and said, “Mick’s being moved tomorrow. I won’t be back.”“Oh...” He wasn’t looking at her. “Well,” she said with false brightness, “I hope the next place is nicer to visit than the clinic was.”“Won’t be visiting him there,” Len said after a quiet moment. He still wasn’t looking at her.“Oh,” she said again. She forced a note of cheer into her voice. “Well, I won’t be coming here much longer either. Barry had another heart attack last night. STAR Labs think they can help him. They’re taking him away.” “Oh,” he echoed. “That’s good then.”“Yeah. It’s good for your friend too.”“Yeah.”She thought about giving him her number.She wondered if he was thinking about doing the same.They sat in silence for a while. Then he got up, hugged her abruptly, and left without a word.For a brief moment she wanted to call him back. Ask if she could see him again. But there was a reason he was walking away. He’d said once that they came from different worlds, and maybe he’d meant it. Maybe this was only ever about these Friday afternoons. Just two lonely people comforting each other while their friends were sick.Ignoring the pain that threatened to squeeze her chest till she couldn’t breathe, she didn’t say anything. She just watched him walk away, admiring that gorgeous ass and wondering if she’d ever see him again.(She would, but not for nearly a year. He would be firing his cold gun across a Central City street, flanked by… his best friend. Iris would be standing under an umbrella at Eddie’s side, too tightly rooted to the spot to get out her reporter’s notebook, glaring in his direction and plotting his death.He was wearing goggles, but there was no mistaking that voice.“‘I run my own company’? Oh, you asshole,” she hissed.Over the sound of the streams crossing, Eddie and her dad didn’t hear her. And, busy as he was, Leonard didn’t seem to have noticed her at all.)Eight months after that, she finally had a lead.“Where are we going, Iris?” Barry complained, as they jostled past crowds of people on the streets of Central’s nightclub district.“It’s just up here!” she yelled back.Back home, Barry had been loudly worrying about the bar where Iris was headed, for her investigation into some of the smaller crime Families of Central. It wasn’t in the safest part of town, he was complaining. “Yes,” she said, pulling on a pair of sensible shoes. “That’s why Family contacts hang out there. If you’re that worried, you can come with me and shut up. Or you can carrying on bellyaching alone at home.” She grinned and ruffled his hair while he scowled at her. “Take your pick, Barry Allen.”He came with her.As soon as they stepped in off the street into the bar, crowded even for a Saturday night, Iris was scanning the place for her source. It took a few minutes, but then her gaze caught on the back of a blue coat - with a very fluffy hood.Iris was working on approaching him carefully. Professionally.Maybe she should have warned Barry first.“Captain Cold?” Barry squeaked, even before the man himself whirled around, eyes narrowed.“Hello, Leonard,” Iris purred.To his credit, Leonard only took a brief moment to recover, a smirk slowly widening across his face. “Well, if it isn’t Iris and…” Leonard’s eyes flickered over to Barry, then back to Iris. “Her best friend,” he finished, in a voice that suggested he was putting two and two together rather accurately.Barry’s scowl was adorable, even if he wasn’t exactly fading into the background like he’d promised to. As he started to splutter, she patted his arm. “Shh, Barry. I told you I was here to meet a source.” She grinned apologetically at Leonard. “He never was very good at undercover work.”Barry pointed. “Are we going to pretend that he and I don’t each know who the other is?”Leonard, who was leaning against the bar, a shit-eating grin decorating his face, cocked his head at Iris. “More to the point, are we going to pretend we don’t each know who the other is? Iris North... Should have clocked there wasn't a journalist with that name.”“Oh, you can talk, Leonard Wynters,” she almost snarled, surprising herself with her vehemence. Why did she care if he had lied about his name?He rolled his eyes, his smirk turning almost indulgent. “Fine. Let’s do this somewhere else, though, shall we?” He nodded at the nearby back exit of the bar.They traipsed out into the alley, all three of them.Where Leonard raised a finger in the air. “Before you do something stupid like flashing me out of here to CCPD, Barry…” He turned to Iris. “I assume I’m protected by all the usual journalistic codes for sources?”She kicked the gravel with the heel of her sensible work shoe, avoiding his eyes. It suddenly hurt to see him again, playing it up in full Captain Cold mode. “Of course. You’ve got anonymity. He won’t do anything.” She shot a pleading look at Barry, who just huffed and rolled his eyes.“Which,” Leonard went on, “does rather raise the question of why you brought him at all.”Iris glanced up at Barry, the realisation of what she’d done suddenly dawning on her. Why had she brought him along? She looked back at Leonard, feeling a scowl crossing her face. “You lied.”“It’s what he does,” Barry chimed in. He’d taken up a defensive posture against the wall, clearly having given up on figuring any of this out.But Leonard was frowning like he remembered it differently. “I didn’t lie about anything that matters.”She scoffed. “Friend in a clinic?”He gave a quick little shrug. “You’ve met Heat Wave. He really was caught in a bad fire. There’s an underground doctor’s clinic right near the hospital - does off-records work for the mob, for criminals. It’s just a couple of blocks from that cafe.”She folded her arms, tapping her foot. “So it really was a coincidence that we met there?”His eyes softened. “And I really was glad you were there.”“Your name?”He smirked. “Please. I give that alias to everyone.” She scoffed again, and he added softly, “The important stuff was all true, you know.” There was a hint of sadness, maybe even longing, suppressed beneath his smirk. “Haven’t you ever heard of an honest thief, Iris?”“Huh?” said Barry, who was back to looking deeply confused.Iris aimed a glower at the thief. “You’re a criminal, Leonard.”“Technically, so is he.” He nodded in Barry’s direction. “So are we going to do the interview, or was that entirely a ruse?”She kept it short. Before she turned to go, she saw his smug grin fading, replaced by that soft look that he’d always given her. Later, she wondered if she had imagined that a little of it was aimed at Barry, too.“He’s your friend?”Over coffee at Jitters a week later, Iris nodded at Barry. “I think he really is. Or - was.” She sulked at her latte. “Doesn’t matter now, though.”But Barry was gazing at her, his eyebrows knotting together in that cute way they did, when he was really thinking about something. “Did he help?” he asked softly.She frowned at him. “With…?”He bumped her shoulder. “With me, silly. Being… you know.”Iris paused.They didn’t talk about it. Iris, Joe, Barry - they all pretended those nine months hadn’t happened. That they hadn’t been hell for her. For Barry’s sake, maybe. No point in making him feel guilty, when it was far from his fault. And anyway, he was back, and it was fine. But it hadn’t been. And those Friday afternoon rendezvous had been the only thing that got her through some of those weeks. They’d been - he’d been the bright spot she didn’t know she needed.She ran her finger through latte foam and licked it thoughtfully, while Barry tutted at the habit and she ignored him. “Yeah. He really did.”“Well… good.” He was looking at her with a glint of something in his eye. “But - just friends, right?”She ducked her head, pretending her shoelace had come loose, and didn’t answer.“Because,” he went on, tripping over his words, “I wouldn’t, you know…”She looked up. “…Yes?”He buried his face in his coffee. “I-wouldn’t-want-to-come-between-him-and-you,” he rushed out.She blinked at him. They were doing a great job of not talking about how they felt about each other. The fragile status quo made silence the safest thing to keep, for the moment.Then she recovered, and snorted.“What?”“Oh, Barry Allen. You’re too cute. You have noticed how he looks at you, too, right?”At his blank look, she tried, “How he flirts with you?”Still nothing. “Oh, come on!" Hooting with laughter, she threw an arm around him.“Oh god. You’re serious,” he said into her shoulder.She patted him reassuringly on the back. “If it helps, I think he was into both of us in that bar last week.” She didn’t hide the way she looked at him when she said, “Both of us together.”He peeked up, and there was that cute, shy smile she liked so much. “Oh...” he said.But his uncomfortable demeanour around the whole subject of them was quickly back, and she moved on, sighing. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve been trying to find him again, all week. He’s gone off the grid.”Barry’s face fell. “Of course he has.” He caught sight of her face and added, “Maybe he’ll reach out to you when he’s ready.”Iris paused. “I hope so,” she said, without much hope.(But he wouldn’t. Within the next few weeks, he would be sent to Iron Heights, break out, and head off to the Waverider, all without a word to her. Not even a warning about Mardon and the Trickster.)And then… things happened.Zoom happened. Flashpoint happened - though she didn’t remember that, and she was almost grateful she didn’t.And the Dominator invasion happened.(“Iris,” Barry had said, pulling her aside, his eyes full of hurt. “There’s something you should know.”)This time, the seedy bar was quieter.“I can’t believe you dragged me along to another meeting with a source in the rough part of town,” Barry complained, his eyes darting around the bar as he sat on his bar stool and nursed a beer, probably for appearances’ sake.Iris rolled her eyes. “It’s like you never go anywhere but the nice parts of town.”“Why would I?”She snorted and stole a sip of his drink.The footsteps behind her were oddly familiar. But she didn’t turn around.“Well,” said an even more familiar drawl. “If it isn’t Iris West and her best friend. Again.”Iris nearly fell off her stool as she whirled around, wide-eyed. Barry just stared at the ghost lounging against the bar next to him.“You’re supposed to be dead,” Iris said, her heart beating out of her chest with hope. If the damn multiverse could just give her one more chance… It owed her.Barry was apparently more interested in technicalities. “Boyfriend, actually - and why are we talking about this when there are much more important questions?”No, Iris thought. Ghosts didn’t smirk like that. Before she knew it, she was standing up. Leonard oofed when she threw her arms around him.And slowly, his own arms came up to wrap around her.She held back a sob and just squeezed him tighter.Barry tolerated this about as well as Leonard, for a moment. Then he sighed and said, “Iris, when you’re done hugging my dead nemesis, we could do with some answers. And you’re the journalist around here.”In the end, the rapid-fire question-and-answer session was between Leonard and Barry. There were puns involved.Iris didn’t take her eyes off Leonard, or her hand off his arm. And every time he looked at her, with open longing, she could see that something had changed. Maybe a lot of things.But not the things that mattered.“So, you’re going off with the Legends again?” Barry was asking. She’d barely heard the details of how he survived - no, was resurrected - but it seemed to involve the time stream and the last time Barry broke it.“I am,” he said, staring at the beer he’d acquired sometime during the conversation. “Can’t leave my best friend.”Iris smiled.He turned that longing, hopeful look on her again. “But I could... visit.”Iris smiled wider and tightened her hand on his arm. “Do you want to go somewhere quieter to talk about that?”Leonard looked at Barry, and then back to Iris. “Boyfriend,” he said.“Yup,” she said.“Hi, I’m still here,” Barry said.She slapped him on the arm. “He means you too, silly.”Leonard’s eyes softened as he glanced back at Barry. “That I do,” he said.“Oh,” Barry said. And smiled.Chuckling, Leonard glanced around the quiet bar. They were in Mason's - one of the few LGBT+ bars in Central. Her anonymous source had chosen the meeting place, Iris remembered. “There’s something I never got to do with you, Iris. And I’ve thought about nothing else for about three years.” He glanced at Barry. “With your permission, of course.”“Uh… Sure?” said Barry, who clearly didn’t see where this was going.Leonard leaned in and kissed her. His lips were soft and warm, for someone who went by the moniker of Captain Cold. They were full of longing and feeling and want that had gone unfulfilled for too long.Three years of imagining couldn’t match how good he was at that, in the flesh.As he pulled away, she met his gaze. It held a challenge and a levity and a depth that all reminded her of when she had first met him. Before all of this... Flash stuff had got in the way. When they were just Leonard and Iris.She wondered if they could get back there - and with Barry too. Because, while she’d been standing there contemplating, Leonard had leaned in to kiss Iris’s shocked boyfriend. And, from the looks of things, only partly to shut him up.Barry was totally into it. And wow, was that hot.She laid a hand on both their backs. “Home,” she said. “We’ve got talking to do.”“Oh yeah,” Barry said, in an oddly dreamy voice. “Definitely gotta do more talking.”She laughed and gave him a push of encouragement towards the back alley, where he could flash them away without prying eyes.Leonard led the way, smirking like the cat who got both the milk and the cream.Barry tilted his head. “You’re right,” he told Iris. “He does have a great ass.”Just ahead of them, Leonard looked back and grinned.