#cuddle huddle

Barry and Iris has been...acting odd ever since Caitlin and Barry had returned from her self-made exile and the latter from the Speed Force.

Well, more specifically once Caitlin had told the team about how she joined with Amunet Black to keep ‘Killer Frost’ under control, but also learn from that control.

Caitlin wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Barry sure, he had just gotten back from his possibly traumatic experience in the Force and a short lived complete mental breakdown-so it was understandable he would be a little off.

But it was him and Iris both acting weird. Like, the same kind of weird. Quite honestly, seemingly aimed at Caitlin herself. It was as if their odd behaviour started after she told the team about Amunet and how she learned about her powers being dampened by Amunet’s technology that gave Caitlin constant heat and warmth.

“Heat?”

She remembered Barry asking.

“Yes. Once my powers started growing, my body stopped producing it’s own heat, so my ability to freeze things would allow me to have heat from those things. Otherwise I would be too cold.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Iris had asked.

Caitlin had felt sheepish, shrugging as her hands fidgeted with each other,

“Honestly, I didn’t even realize. It was also why I was so scared of my powers. I just felt this craving to freeze everything and I didn’t know why. I was scared and angry because I didn’t know, and it was so overwhelming I-I just lashed out.”

Her hands had dropped by her sides at that last sentence, her gaze forlorn and stuck to the polished floors of the STAR Labs cortex.

Suddenly, there was a hand on her shoulder and Cisco’s voice was at her right, talking about how it was okay now and all that mattered was that she was back.

“So, how did Amunet help?” Iris, ever the journalist.

“When I first met her, she had found me through the fact that high-energy technology kept getting frozen instead of being in the hands of bad people. So she offered help if I worked for her.

Her better offer were these bracelets, kind of like Cisco’s, but only to slightly dampen the ‘cravings’ and obviously allow me to look normal. No white hair, blue lips, or glowing eyes.”

Cisco frowned, a crease forming between his eyes.

“Better offer? What was the worse offer?”

“Well. Uhm.”

There was a pause.

“Before the bracelets, she offered me, uh, people. First the ones she didn’t like, and then the ones she thought would like me, that I might like. Like, for company. I guess....”

There was another pause.

Caitlin’s eyes were squinted with her teeth gnawing at the top of her bottom lip, clearly nervous but also trying to piece together if her explanation was coherent.

“Of course I didn’t take up her up on the first offer. So then after that she offered the bracelets.”

Suddenly, an alarm had started blaring and the conversation ended. Later on, Cisco asked a little more about it, just in terms of how she felt, but other than that, it wasn’t brought up again.

However, over the years, Caitlin has learned bits and pieces about Iris, but not all, since they were never close. One thing about Iris was that she had a particular expression that signaled that the gears in her mind were grinding away at something. Right before the alarm started blaring, Iris had that particular look, one that flicked between Caitlin and Barry.

She hadn’t known what that gaze meant then, but today, she would find out.

—————

ok ok ok ok so I know I said I would finish this, but I’m going to have to break it up, it’s longer than I thought it would be!

I personally don’t really like the whole spilt personality thing (they did not explain it well), so I went with Caitlin needed to absorb heat like in the comics. Plus as you can probably guess, it’s something that’s needed for this fic to work anyway.

Let me know what you think please! (Likes don’t tell me anything!!!!)