open rp } { mistletoe shenanigans!

[iluvroadrunner6]

1. Comment with your character, to this post.
2. Specify which of MINE you want, or I will surprise you.
3. We will have a thread of holiday kiss shenanigans. Mistletoe may or may not be actually involved.

Comments

[supertardiness]

[Iris West dies, and everything falls apart.

In a lot of ways, Iris' death is a climax, rather than a starting point, the confluence of events that Barry hadn't seen coming, forever blinded to the deceptions of the people closest to him. He keeps on running, away from the truth, away from his problems, and thinks that Cisco and Caitlin are right there beside him, but what he doesn't see is the way that Cisco falters and falls behind.

He doesn't see the hunger to make things right, things that Barry had gotten wrong, so very wrong. He doesn't see the betrayal until it's too late, Savitar is back, and Iris is lying dead in his arms, the love of his life, still and broken, and there's nothing he could do to fix it. He can't break the timeline again, not unless he wants to bring the Dominators back again, and he doesn't know what the consequences will be.

As desperate as he is to save Iris, he has to prove he learned his lesson. But time travel is apparently the issue he can never win on - if he does go back to fix the errors of the past, unthinking of the future, then he gets blamed for the consequences that come with it. If he lets the chips fall where they may, its snide remarks about how it's only okay when it's Barry's loss. It's only okay when it's Barry's life that needs to be fixed. He lost his girlfriend but Joe lost a daughter and Wally lost a sister, and when they find out that Barry knew, he knew that Iris was going to die, that was the moment when he lost them for good. Joe made it clear that he never wanted to see him again, and Wally believed he could do what Barry couldn't. He hasn't seen Wally since. But in a way, that doesn't really matter.

When Iris died, so did Barry Allen.

He doesn't know the details of the last time anyone saw Cisco, he was too consumed by his grief and loss to confront his best friend beyond a single obsessive thought (are we even now, Cisco? is it finally fair?). Caitlin was the one who stopped Cisco, unleashed everything she had to keep him from making things worse with Savitar, and in the end she lost herself just as much as Barry did.

(Who would have though that the fight Cisco vibed wasn't Killer Frost vs. Vibe? No one could have seen that it was Caitlin Snow vs. Reverb.)

It's been a while since Barry has seen Caitlin - seen anyone, really - but he does his best to try and work through it. He spends some time on the Waverider, bonding with Amaya over their mutual losses, and tries to accept her advice with how to work through it. He lingers in the Arrowcave for a bit, just needing to be the junior hero for a little while, the wisecracking sidekick, and the comfort of being around Oliver, who wouldn't press him to talk, but would be there if he wanted to. He even visited Kara for a little while, where she absolutely made him talk but by the time he made it to Earth-38, he was ready to grieve, truly grieve, and take steps away from Iris. He'd always love her, and he knew that, but when he makes his way back to Central City, he's ready to move on.

It's almost a year and a half after Iris' death when Barry finally returns, and Christmas cheer has spread through the city, almost as though nothing ever happened. He avoids the police station if he can help it, respecting Joe's wishes as best he can, and simply moving back into the apartment he had given Iris for Christmas two years earlier. It's hard, being there without her, but the ghosts aren't lingering quite so much. Rain is hitting the windows in big, wet blotches, and it's all too clear a reminder of a time where he had been his happiest.

A few minutes later, he notices how the fat, wet raindrops are turning into fat, fluffy snowflakes and he frowns. It's certainly not cold enough for snow, and while it seems to stick to his window, it doesn't seem to be snowing anywhere else. Two seconds later, it clicks, and he blows back through the door, up to the roof of his apartment building, and when he sees her standing near the edge, wafts of cold air meeting with the wet rain and forming flakes that float down towards the ground.

It makes him smile, for the first time in what feels like a long time.]

I thought it was only supposed to rain this year.