If you’re still taking asks for this…5+ headcanons for an AU where Iris gets powers from the accelerator? Not speed, but some other powers—which ones she gets is up to you!
Definitely still taking asks! It's one of my favourite ask games, you could send these in entirely unprompted and I'd still be excited to run on with an idea.
Iris was in the police station when the accelerator went off. Given s1 mostly relies on event that should have resulted in death + dark matter = powers, something needs to happen in that police station that triggers some powers.
Well, the building got struck by lightning. You know what else lightning's good at?
So Joe gets back to C.C.P.D. after watching his partner get shot and finds out his workplace is on fire and both his kids are being rushed to the hospital because Iris impulsively ran back in when Barry didn't come out and found out it's very easy to get stuck in a burning building when you're trying to drag your best friend's unconscious body through it.
Iris doesn't have a nine month coma mostly due to I'm not putting Joe through both his kids in one at the same time but her name does end up in a newspaper prompting Francine to come back to Central early.
Her mother's not dead, she's got a little brother, her best friend is in a coma, Iris needs a distraction. And there are these weird things starting to happen around Central, the kind of things Barry would be right on investigating, Iris can keep on top of it for him. Take over the blogging. And it turns out Barry was right, she does love this journalism thing
Weird stuff is happening to her too though. Candles keep lightning themselves and fireplaces get hotter when she's near them even though most of the time Iris didn't even realise they were lit and her toaster is even worse than normal and her cooking keeps burning and she accidentally forgot her oven gloves taking out a really on fire lasagna from the oven but her hands were fine and it's just weird. It's really weird and she does not want to think about it.
Barry doesn't tell Iris about his powers when he wakes up. He does take his mask off when Iris is in front of him, very panicked, having just knocked Tony Woodward out and accidentally burnt him with fire she conjured from nowhere.
She's pissed, obviously, but bringing Iris in early is really going to help this new Team Flash figure out what's going on, and Iris gets on really well with Caitlin. She did when Barry was in his coma too (Cisco's pretty sure Iris beat him to be the first person to get Caitlin to smile after Ronnie), but now they're hanging out all the time and getting even closer, they just really get on.
You may have figured out where this is going.
Iris does not become a superhero. She prefers the journalism and controlling fire, she can help Barry out with burning buildings, things like that, but she can leave the using powers for heroics to Barry (and, later, Cisco and Wally too), Iris has her own skills she can use to help people. She might not even hide she's a metahuman- maybe writing about them while being one puts a different perspective on how Central reacts to this new scary thing that has happened.
Fire powers have one huge advantage though. Caitlin gets some ice powers in s3 still (or at the end of s2 maybe). Caitlin and Frost- the powers come from their shared body, they both use them. And as Hunter Zoloman so unfortunately finds out, Caitlin's kiss is slightly more lethal than it used to be. That is, unless you happen to have fire powers that cancel out the ice powers.
Which is great, because as soon as they get Caitlin back from this bad situation involving her not-dead dad and this Savitar guy and his cult and whatever he wants, Iris plans on kissing her so much.
Thank you!
[5+ headcanons for an AU]
