Coldwestallenwave, non-power au (:
No powers means no Flash means no Reverse Flash means (at least in my happy little corner of the alternate world) Nora Allen never dies and Henry is never falsely imprisoned.
This of course means Barry doesn’t grow up with Joe and Iris. Instead he and Iris spend their entire childhood and adolescence still technically joined at the hip but not living under the same roof being raised by the same man, and it helps Iris clue into her feelings about Barry waaaayy earlier.
Barry and Iris start “dating” in the sixth grade, and remarkably don’t break up until their senior year of high school. They both agree they need space to grow and learn more about themselves away from each other, and it’s awkward as hell their entire senior year. Iris goes to prom with the star of the basketball team and doesn’t have a date at all, yet they both spend the whole night watching each other across the dance floor when they think the other isn’t looking.
Iris and Barry both go to CCU, Iris for journalism, Barry for nursing (he admires doctors, he really does, but he’s seen the job drive his father prematurely grey and anyway, nursing feels a lot more like treating the patient than just the disease, and all Barry’s ever wanted to do is help people)
Their sophomore year of college, after an excruciatingly long time of being “just friends” – being apart – Barry and Iris finally get back together. The time apart was good for them. It let Iris figure out who she is outside of “Detective West’s Kid” and “The Girl Dating Dr. Allen’s Son” and it let Barry explore his sexuality more and come to the point where he’s finally comfortable identifying as bi/ace. But on the other hand, my God does it feel good to be with each other again.
After Barry finishes school and gets his official nursing license, he and Iris move out of their parents’ homes and get a shitty apartment together in a shitty part of town, all they can afford with loan debts and Iris still in grad school getting her masters, but it’s home and they love it.
Barry proposes over a carton of Chinese takeout with a white sapphire that puts him out $250, which is simultaneously nothing and a fucking lot. Iris says yes before he has two words of the speech he spent three weeks planning out of his mouth, which is probably for the best, because he’s crying like a baby anyway. They both are.
Iris gets an internship at CCPN, which is where she gets the incredibly stupid idea to edge out the competition and earn a full time position by getting the exclusive story on a couple of big time thieves moving on mob territory in Central, which brings us to…
Len and Mick, whose backstories haven’t much changed much, except they’re married and have been since they just so happened to be on a job in Massachusetts in 2004, not that Len actively planned for it to work out that way, but that’s basically canon already, right?
Iris’ investigation takes her into incredibly dangerous territory she’s definitely lying to Barry about being in. Halfway through photographing evidence, a couple of goons from the Santini catch her in the act and point guns at her, and Iris is sure she’s done for, except the gunfire that follows doesn’t come from the Santinis and, surprisingly enough, isn’t directed at her.
That’s how Len and Iris are officially introduced, with bodies cooling at their feet and Iris five seconds away from a panic attack, but keeping it together better than Len ever expected from a civilian, and damn if that doesn’t impress him even more than her deep brown eyes and they way her clothes fit her like a second skin – and who flashes that much leg trespassing on a mob warehouse, anyway?
Len takes Iris out to a greasy, hole-in-the-wall diner to get her settled and avoid her going into shock while he calls Mick in to deal with the bodies at the warehouse. Iris is shaken but matches Len’s bravado about “people go missing all the time” and “certain things have a way of happening” and Len knows there’s no way he’s going to throw the young, aspiring journalist off her story, and he really doesn’t want to kill her. Something about the set of her jaw reminds him of someone he used to care about, and the faint smells of harissa and lamb.
Which is how Len starts acting as Iris’ inside source. He’s prickly about what information he will and won’t give her, and sometimes she pokes her nose where it doesn’t belong even after Len’s thrown her a bone he thought for sure would keep her out of things. They argue something fierce when that happens, but nothing like the night Iris ends up tied to a chair staring down the barrel of a Darbinyan’s gun and she’s more sure that she’s ever been that this is how she’s going to die.
Until Len shows up with some new gun she’s never seen before – a prototype he stole from STAR Labs, the same place that launched the wildly successful particle accelerator, Iris will learn later – that freezes every mobster solid like ice. He hits them with the hilt of the weapon on his way over for good measure, then he’s untying Iris from her chair, and Iris can’t even think to be nauseous over how gruesome and brutal Len was, how close she came to dying, because Len’s grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her to her feet, pushing her up against a chain link wall and yelling at her to never be so stupid again, and then he’s kissing her and… oh!
Iris doesn’t mean to kiss back, doesn’t even realize she is kissing back until her engagement ring catches on one of the clasps on Len’s leather jacket that she’s always thought he looked so good in – always though thinking as much was innocent, harmless – and she’s shoving Len back with a horrified gasp and fingers that fly so fast to her lips there’s no way Len doesn’t see the rock on her finger, even in the low, flickering lights of the warehouse.
Iris goes home that night sick with guilt. Len dropped her off a block away from her building, citing lingering concerns for her safety, but Iris isn’t so convinced it’s not because Len hoping to find something to say over the twenty minute car ride to make things right between them. When Iris puts her hand on the handle to get out, Len finally breaks the silence festering between them by croaking out a shaky admission of “I’m married” that only makes things worse.
Barry’s cooking breakfast on their crappy stove that only has one working burner when she gets home, just back from a shift at the hospital probably. He does that, cooks Iris breakfast when he has to work nights so they can spend at least some time together, and Iris feels like shit. Barry’s brow furrows, worried and surprised to see her just getting home instead of being in bed asleep, and Iris breaks down into a fit of tears before she can even slide the deadbolt in place. She tells Barry everything, and he cries too, and the eggs burn, and it’s not a good day.
Len meets back up with Mick at the warehouse to clean up the defrosting mobster pieces and keep the CCPD off their trail. Mick knows something’s off with Len from the moment he catches sight of him. Mick knows about Iris, knows her having such a close brush with death probably rattled Len a lot more than he was expecting, thinks he’s probably trying to wall up whatever clusterfuck of emotions are swirling behind his eyes like he always does when people get too close, like they both do, part of the reason they’ve been off about as much as they’ve been on over the last twenty-some odd years. He doesn’t expect Len to say, quiet but icy as Mick’s ever heard him, “I fucked up.” Partly because Len’s never one to admit his mistakes. But also because Mick’s pretty sure he made it clear – or as clear as he can without them ever really talking about it, because Mick can’t do talking, can’t get past the lump in his throat and the unshakable fear ever time he tries that promises he’ll say something wrong and fuck everything up – that making a move on Iris West was definitely on the table.
Mick and Iris meet for the first time a week later. There’s a huge power struggle between the Santini’s and the Darbinyan’s happening that’s sure to leave both sides gutted (which he and Len had nothing to do with, if anyone asks) and Mick can see how much Len’s itching to slip Iris some insider information. Idiot’s go the file all put together and everything. He’s just too chicken shit to make a move, won’t say what exactly happened the last time he tried – if he even did try – but it can’t be half as bad a Len’s building it up to be. He just the kind of guy that deals a lot of his own lashes, so to speak.
Mick corners Iris as she’s walking home through the park. It’s after dark and Mick knows going in it’s gonna give her a hell of a scare, but he can’t see another way to get to her, and she’s the one walking alone at night in a neighborhood like this like she’s got no reason to be afraid. He barely gets his hand around Iris’ wrist before she comes up with pepper spray from her purse and she gets him good in the jaw anyway, and even before she goes still enough to get a good look at her, Mick gets every bit of what Len sees.
Mick finally gets why Len’s so prickly when he sees the rock on Iris’ finger, when his introduction is met with her stammered apology that’s both contrite and lanced with an edge of genuine terror her never wanted to make a wildfire like her feel. Mick passes the envelope off, tells her no hard feelings, and leaves as quickly as he came before her soft lips and fierce spirit manage to drag him into whatever hell they’ve got Len burning in.
Iris wars over what to do with the information for an impressive two hours before running with the story. She’s not even surprised at her own behavior, unfair as it might be to Barry. This isn’t about her feelings. It’s about her career. Somehow, the pages still smell like Len – sandalwood and wintergreen and orange blossom – and Iris tries to pretend it doesn’t make her heart skip a beat.
Mick acts as Iris’ informant from then on. She tells Barry after she publishes her first article using Len’s information delivered through Mick, and Barry understands her obligation to her career, respects it even. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t start tagging along to info drops that turn more and more into strange, almost social outings the longer the arrangement goes on. After almost six months of Len running Iris intel through Mick, Barry and Iris meet Mick at a sketchy bar downtown and order hot wings and cheap beer and Iris doesn’t even realize until she and Barry get home that no information had even been exchanged – the meeting (or was it a date?) hadn’t even been set up under the pretext of doing as much.
The first time Iris sees Len again after the kissing incident comes when she runs into Mick dragging his listless body up the stairwell in her apartment building and Iris doesn’t even ask how or when Mick found out where she lives. She knows Mick knows Barry’s a nurse, and that’s the only thought she can process, the only thought that screams at her as she rushes forward to prop Len up on his other side and help Mick haul him up the last two flights of stairs. She doesn’t think about how the pit falls out of her stomach at the thought of losing Len, or that she’s bringing the man she had an affair with – if not physically, at least emotionally, Iris is a big enough girl to admit that much – to her fiancé to beg with him if she has to to save his life, or that the man who’s helping her do it is Len’s husband who she realizes, as she notices the cut on the the side of his cheek for the fist time, she’s just as worried about.
Iris’ cry for help is so chilling, haunting, it wakes Barry up in a cold sweat. He’s still in his underwear when he stumbles into the main room of their apartment and sees her and Mick carry in a man who’s either already dead or on his way fast. It registers with Barry that this has to be Len – Leonard Snart – criminal kingpin, subject of Iris’ past indiscretion. But the desperate look in Mick and Iris’ eyes alike keeps from even breaking stride. Barry’s wide away, directing Mick to lay Len down on the couch, rivers of blood and all, and yelling at Iris to get him his first aid kit and clean set of towels.
The fact that Len’s still breathing after Barry pulls two slugs out of him and stitches up close to a dozen knife wounds is a miracle. Mick sits vigil on the floor by Len’s head waiting for him to wake up and Iris stands as far away as she can manage in an apartment their size while still keeping an eye on Len, too. Eyes that look worried, but also incredibly guilty and self-loathing, and Barry feels every ounce of hurt and uncertainty leave him in one heavy breath. He presses along Iris’ side and holds her tight and whispers a soft “okay” in her hair that he follows up with a soft, delicate kiss, and Iris sags against him, buries her head in his shoulder, and cries, but this time, it’s with relief.
Len isn’t fit to go anywhere for a few days, and it sounds like it should be a disaster, but they adapt to it quickly, almost naturally. They give Len the bed as soon as he’s mobile and Mick stays with him, unwilling to leave his side, not that Iris or Barry blame him. Iris and Barry buy a shitty air mattress to lay out in the main room that always deflates by morning, but it’s not like either of them were repeatedly shot and stabbed, so they make it work. Barry comes back from grocery shopping with Mick one afternoon to see Iris curled up against Len’s side in the bedroom, both fast asleep, and it doesn’t make jealously well up in Barry’s throat like the thought it would. Barry and Mick cook supper together and Mick’s hands trail over Barry’s finger on the knife, against the small of his back as the navigate the tight space. They eat soup together around the same rickety table Barry proposed at nearly three years ago, and it feels oddly right.
