(The Flash) Frozen Flashpoint: Chapter 3 – A New Normal

Chapter 3 – A New Normal

Barry couldn’t wipe the smile off his face as he held Caitlin Snow, his girlfriend, in his arms. His face was buried in her silk-like brunette hair. His arms, draped over his jacket that she wore around her shoulders, held her tightly, her cheek resting on his chest.

By the little bump on her cheek he could feel through his shirt, Barry guessed she was smiling as well.

After a couple more minutes, Barry felt Caitlin shivering again, which was odd considering that between the jacket and the body warmth they were sharing, she should feel warm.

Nonetheless, Barry pulled back from the hug. Caitlin raised a confused expression and asked teasingly, “Already tired of hugging your girlfriend, Mr. Allen?”

Barry gave her his goofy grin and stood up, extending a hand to her as he said, “Never. But what kind of boyfriend would I be if I let you catch a cold, Dr. Snow?”

Caitlin looked a little worried that he noticed before she covered it with a giggle and took his hand.

Once she was on her feet, Caitlin looked at Barry tenderly and said wistfully, “I wish it could be just the two of us for five more minutes.”

Barry shook his head with a chuckle before answering, “Cait, five minutes? I want at least five more months with you alone. But there are people waiting for us inside, and we all should really get to bed soon.”

Caitlin had to laugh at the sincerity Barry used when he said five months. But she nodded her head. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m dead on my feet. I think I need to go back to my apartment soon. Tomorrow is a workday, after all.”

Barry raised his eyebrows mischievously. “I’m sure your boss will understand if you’re late tomorrow.”

Caitlin returned an amused smile as she asked, “What makes you say that?”

Barry shrugged, or his shoulders were vibrating from repressed laughter. He wasn’t sure, but he responded, “I assure you, Dr. Snow, he is very invested in this situation.”

Caitlin raised a teasing eyebrow and replied with a sassy, “I think I should complain to HR. I’m not sure my boyfriend will appreciate my boss being so intrusive.”

Barry couldn’t hold it in anymore and just burst out laughing. Caitlin soon followed him.

Not surprisingly, it was Caitlin who recovered first. She slapped Barry’s chest playfully and said in a light tone, “Okay, that was fun, but we need to go back inside now.”

Barry just gave her his brightest smile and responded, “Yeah, like always, you’re right.”

Caitlin pushed him toward the door and affirmed firmly, “And don’t you forget it, mister.”

Both of them entered the house with smiles on their faces. The smiles stayed in place as they turned from the entrance hallway into the living room and saw Harry and Jessie there too.

Harry was bantering with Cisco, as usual, while Jessie stood next to her father and talked with Wally, both of them smiling with a slight blush on their faces.

Caitlin was the first to interrupt the scene when she called out, “Harry, Jessie, when did you two get here?”

Caitlin drew everyone’s attention to them, including Iris. Barry could see her narrowing her eyes at the both of them from the corner of his eye. She probably noticed Caitlin disappearing after him and guessed she went to talk with him. Barry would admit that he was standing closer to Caitlin than he usually did, but he couldn’t help himself after avoiding her for over a week. And Iris was a reporter; she was observant and would reach her own conclusion. Barry wasn’t sure what she would do once she did.

Jessie was the first of the two to respond to Caitlin’s question, “Oh, we came just a couple of minutes ago. Cisco opened a breach for us.”

That made a lot of sense. If they had arrived through the entrance door, he and Caitlin should have seen them. But then again, they were quite… occupied at the time.

Harry added in his usual deep and gruff voice, “We would have been here earlier if Ramon had just listened to me.”

Cisco didn’t wait a moment before retorting, “I listened to you and then told you to take the van and drive.”

Harry scoffed and countered, “And deal with the traffic?”

Cisco looked outraged and replied with a shriek, “It’s the middle of the night! What traffic?!”

Barry tuned out the usual banter of the two and focused on Wally and Jessie. They both smiled, and Jessie looked at him before asking, “So, Barry, are we still on for training tomorrow afternoon?”

Oh, right. With all the excitement, Barry had forgotten about it.

During the plan to get his speed back that backfired and stuck him inside the Speedforce, Jessie was hit by one of the recoiled dark matter waves and got her own meta power: speed. Yep, there was one more speedster in play. At least this one wouldn’t try to kill Barry, which was already more than he could say about all the others he knew.

Barry’s smile only grew brighter as he replied, “Sure, Jess. After all, that’s why you and your dad stayed here.”

Jessie blushed very strongly, giving a quick glance sideways toward the dark-skinned young man with her, and replied quietly, “Well, that’s not the only reason.”

Barry smirked when he saw a new opportunity to tease his new brother, but Wally cut that off with a change of subject as he commented, “You look happy, Barry.”

Barry automatically reached for Caitlin’s hand, and she didn’t hesitate to grab it. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed. Jessie was about to say something, probably to tease them, when another voice spoke loudly instead.

Jessie apparently wasn’t the only one who saw the handholding and made assumptions because just before the genius girl could let out a sound, Iris’s voice boomed loudly around the living room, demanding, “What’s going on here?”

Barry and Caitlin turned around to stare at the angry face of Iris West. Everyone in the room stopped to look at her, even Cisco and Harry.

Caitlin looked honestly confused as she began, “I don’t understand, Iris. We were just—”

Iris pointed at her in fury and said loudly, “I don’t want to hear from you.” She moved her finger to Barry and used the same tone, “I’m speaking to him.”

Barry gave her a flat look and used a matching tone to reply, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Iris, but—”

“Not sure?!” Iris shrieked. “I thought you loved me! I’ve been waiting for you here for the past hour so we could talk, and you come in with her, smiling and holding hands. Why?”

Barry shrugged and said casually, not wanting to create a bigger scene but not exactly trying to discharge the situation, “I just did what feels natural to do with my girlfriend.”

Barry noticed Cisco’s and Harry’s wide eyes, Wally’s small smile, and Jessie’s smug smirk. But Iris looked even more furious than before, and she demanded even louder, “What about me?”

Barry retorted emotionlessly, “What about you?”

Iris looked at him incredulously and answered, “I thought you loved me!”

Barry narrowed his eyes. Caitlin seemed to notice he would repeat the same words he told her a few minutes ago and tried to calm things down. “Barry, calm down. We are all adults here, so let’s talk calmly about it.”

Iris glared at the brunette and spat angrily, “Stay out of it.”

Barry felt anger breaking through when she spoke to Caitlin like that, and he decided to draw out his remark to something far more bitter. “So you’re saying you knew how I felt and you still paraded all your different boyfriends in front of me for all those years?”

Iris was obviously taken aback by Barry attacking her now. She shook her head and tried to explain herself, “I thought you only had a crush on me that would pass with time, but when I saw you kept hanging on me, I knew it meant more.”

“You mean after Eddie died. I thought you were blaming me for this. What happened?” Barry asked without any emotion, which surprised him. He expected to feel bitter, but he found himself just not caring anymore what Iris thought of him.

Iris’s complexion started to pale, but she retorted, “I was hurt. I needed an outlet. And…”

“And you chose me. So why the change of heart?” Barry cut her off dryly.

Iris narrowed her eyes as she answered, “You hid a big part of your life from me for an entire year. And I found out only because Eddie was kidnapped by someone who wanted to kill you. So yes, I was already angry with you, and it was easy to pile Eddie’s death on you too.”

Barry was a second from snapping at Iris, but then he felt Caitlin’s soft hands gripping his arm. He took a deep breath before saying calmly, “Look, Iris, I’m sorry about hiding the Flash from you, but it wasn’t only my decision. Joe and Eddie made the same choice, so you don’t get to pin everything on me. And you think I don’t feel guilty about Eddie? About Ronnie? Of course I do, and that’s why I’m doing my best to honor the heroes who gave their lives to protect this city.”

For some odd reason, that caused Iris to smile happily before she said with confidence, “That’s exactly my point. You never gave up on being a hero. I saw this and I understood that you would never give it up, like you never gave me up. That’s how I know you still love me.”

This time, Barry could feel his entire body heating up like the lightning that usually accompanied his speed was now burning him from the inside. His body was probably actually heating because Caitlin gave him a concerned look and tried to call to him softly, “Barry…”

Instead of calming down, this time he did snap. “Like you know what is best for me?!”

Iris took a step back from the anger in his voice. Her smile was replaced by a frown, and she shot back automatically, “What are you talking about?”

Barry glared at Iris and answered in a sharp and bitter tone, “I know the plan to lock me away in the pipeline was yours.”

Iris’s eyes widened. Apparently, she didn’t expect him to even know it. She looked around the room, her eyes lingering on Wally more than the others until they landed on Caitlin next to him. Her cheeks began heating and she glared at the biochemist, hissing to Barry, “Whatever the ice-bitch told you…”

A moment later, Caitlin yelped and he felt her grip leave his arm while Iris too jumped a step back. That was when Barry noticed that in his anger, lightning had actually begun surrounding his body.

But he was beyond getting calm now and spoke in quiet fury, “Don’t speak about Caitlin like that. All she did was tell me what happened when my entire team chose to betray me. But apparently, it wasn’t the entire team, was it?”

Iris’s face managed to go paler and still red with anger at the same time. She gave Caitlin another glare, but Barry took a step to hide her from the reporter’s view. Iris looked determined at Barry and said, “Barry, you’ve got to see it was for the best of everyone. You were emotionally unstable after your dad and sending you to fight Zoom like that…”

“Was still the best thing we had! And your solution for an emotionally unstable man was to lock him away, isolate him, knowing all his friends are going to face a mass murderer?!” Barry shot back at her.

Iris clenched her fists and replied with venom in her voice, “I stand behind my decision. If everyone would just follow my plan…”

“Then all of you would be dead! Or did you already forget that when I got there, Zoom had Joe by the throat about to kill him?” Barry returned with his own venom. “If Wally was even a moment too late in letting me go, Joe would have died. I wonder if you would have pinned that on me too.”

Iris gritted her teeth and said through them, “If everyone had listened to me, I would have come with…”

By now, Barry was calm enough to at least not have lightning randomly bursting around him. He took a step closer to Iris and screamed with frustration, “And why do you think you have any right to boss around my team?! My friends?!”

Iris came back at him, screaming now as well. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?! You and Dad are on the team; I should be too.”

Barry waved his arms around the people in the room before yelling at Iris, “You have no qualifications for it! Joe is a detective. Cisco is a master engineer and has his own powers now. Jessie is the smartest teen and has powers like mine too. Harry is a genius who can think of any plan I don’t see and more. Caitlin is medically trained and has a lot more skills than that. And then there’s me. Not only do I have the credit of being the Flash, but I was also a CSI before it.” Then he pointed at Iris and kept the same loud tone while speaking. “You are just a reporter. A new one. You have no experience in crime or science. You don’t have a place on the team, far less leading it and bossing people around making stupid plans.”

Iris looked shocked at his words, looking around the room for support that wasn’t coming. When her eyes caught sight of Caitlin behind him, she glared at Barry again and shouted, “So you’re choosing her over me? Over the girl who knew you since we were kids and opened her home to you?”

Barry could feel the lightning trying to escape again, but this time he managed to hold it back as he screamed, “Do I choose the woman who supported me during the last two years no matter what, even when she knew how stupid I was being? The woman caring enough to keep taking care of a comatose stranger for nine months? The woman smart enough to create cures for things never heard of before in a day? The woman strong enough to keep going on after everything she went through? Over what? A selfish woman who admitted to knowing how I felt and instead of talking to me decided to show off one relationship after another in the hope I would give up, and when there was no other option, settle for me? You bet I do!”

Barry was sure that his last statement echoed through the entire house. Iris’s face was paler than ever before, but her eyes were narrow and her lips pursed thin before she opened her mouth.

But before she could scream anything at him, a voice came from the top of the stairs. “What the hell’s going on down here?”

Joe came into the living room a moment later in his pajamas and slightly blurry-eyed. It was obvious the shouting had woken him up. His eyes kept scanning the people in the room until a moment later, they began jumping from Barry to Iris, guessing correctly that they were the stars of this show.

Iris was the first to shake off the surprise and headed off to tell the detective her side.

Barry was about to follow her when he felt someone grabbing his arm very tightly. He looked to his right to see Caitlin using both her hands to pull him back, a stern look on her face and a firm tone in her voice as she said, “I think that’s enough for today, Barry. It’s time to go.” She stole a glance toward Joe and Iris before adding, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay here. You can stay at my place tonight.”

Barry took a deep breath. Now looking at Caitlin’s eyes, he felt much calmer than when he was staring down Iris during their fight. He nodded slowly and began following Caitlin as she led him out the entrance door of the house.

Just as they stepped onto the porch, the door opened again. After them came out Cisco, Wally, and Jessie.

Barry and Caitlin were already close thanks to her hanging on his arm to keep him calm, so when Cisco ran forward, he managed to embrace both of them for a moment before stepping back with a grin on his face and saying, “It’s awesome, you guys! I always thought you two would be great together.” Then he narrowed his eyes at Barry. “You better treat my sis good, Allen, or I will breach you to an Earth you will never come back from.”

Barry could feel the color leaving his face before he nodded quickly, Caitlin giggling at his side.

Wally then stepped forward and slapped Barry playfully on the back. “I’m glad to see you’re happy, Barry. After everything, you deserve it.”

Barry smiled at the young man and spoke, “Thanks, Wally. You know you can be a part of the team too. We can use your skills and mind. Think about it. After all, it will have other advantages, you know.” Barry’s glance toward Jessie didn’t go unnoticed by the two teens, and they blushed deep red.

Jessie kept smiling as she went and hugged Caitlin. Caitlin returned the hug with her free hand. When Jessie stepped back, she looked at them both before saying genuinely, “I’m really happy for both of you. My dad too, but you know him.” She finished with an affectionate head shake.

Caitlin nodded with a small smile but then spoke gently, “I’m sorry, guys. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Right now, we need to get back to my place.”

Jessie and Wally nodded in understanding while Cisco asked, “You rode with me, Caitlin. How are you going to get back?”

Barry smirked. He called on the Speedforce and saw the entire world start to move slower. He picked Caitlin up bridal style, turned toward the road, and began running.

He knew that what Cisco would see would be an orange lightning streak disappearing down the road instead of both of his friends. And he could already hear his voice muttering, “Of course, that’s how.”

A moment later, Barry was phasing through Caitlin’s entrance door and putting her gently on the floor of her apartment.

Once the world returned to regular speed, Caitlin screamed and almost fell on her ass, but Barry caught her.

She glared at him and said shakily, “A warning next time, please.”

Barry smiled goofily at her and said, “Sorry.”

Once Caitlin steadied herself, she began walking toward the only bedroom. Barry was about to follow, but then Caitlin called over her shoulder, “Oh, for that, you’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight, mister.”

Barry’s eyes widened, and he asked with a small, shaky chuckle, “You’re kidding, right?” When no answer came, he tried again, “Cait?”

With only silence greeting him, Barry looked at the couch behind him and muttered, “Oh man.”