#eoiris

When the villain attempts to manipulate the heroine.

Eobard hates Barry, right? But he doesn't seem to have anything against Iris. So what if Barry died, not for Eobard but because he was killed by another villain, and Eobard tried to go on with his life? Hardly, because he was supposed to be Barry's reverse and without Barry he feels empty, even when he should have been happy that Barry was finally gone.

Eventually, he meets Iris again. But she isn't the Iris he knew. She is depressed- because after Barry's death she felt like she didn't belong in the team, and even when Cisco, Caitlin and Eddie tried to help her she refused (she ocasionally called Joe but grew apart from her team).* And although Iris at first doesn't trust Eobard because he was Barry's enemy, after meeting him again and again without wanting to, she gets attached. Not because she wants to, but because he is the only one that doesn't expect anything from her. He doesn't expect her to heal, or to be strong, or to keep going with her life despite what she lost.

And without them realizing, Eobard also gets attached to Iris, maybe because she is the only one apart from him who knew The Flash in a personal level. And after some time, they start dating. Iris becomes someone important to Eobard, to the point that Eobard decides to rewrite the timeline again to bring back Barry. He doesn't care about Iris forgeting what they had, he just wants to give her back the person she loved. And a part of him also wants to bring Barry back because with Iris he knew a part of Barry that he didn't know when Barry was still alive.

When he travels back in time, he saves Barry because he wants to, not because he expects the team to be grateful. But what he doesn't expect is accidentally meeting Iris again and again, and Iris being the only one of The Flash's team to realize he changed. And what he expects even less is Iris making him and Barry meet again, and Barry also believing he changed.

Eventually they asked him to join Team Flash again -they only decided to do it when they watched Eobard help people without having ulterior motives- and he became a hero too. And when he least expected it, his friendship-bond with Iris and Barry turned into something else. Love.

(Also, are you comfortable with nsfw asks?)

OH BOY--

Iris started out as Eobard's ideal woman because of her role as Barry's wife, but he's also quite a fan of her work...he's always treasured his copy of Barry's biography, even if he's seen to it that it's become badly outdated. The intimacy and insight she revealed in that work played a large role in his infatuation with both her and Barry.

Iris is one of the few 'mere mortals' that Eobard finds worth the trouble of slowing down for. He usually finds matching his pace to a more mundane frame of reference tedious in the extreme, but Iris' lively (if, in his case, often combative) personality is more than fascinating enough to make up for it.

Unfortunately for Iris, there's nothing sexier to this poor deranged rat of a man than the demonstrable ability to kill him. He thought it was hot when she was just brandishing a gun in his face.

If Iris let him, Eobard would lavish her with gifts. And not just any old gifts...he would raid ancient Babylon and Atlantis, burglarize the crown jewels of a hundred kingdoms, bring her gowns from every era and lay them at her feet. Iris, however, would take to such offerings very poorly and he knows it.

Eobard reacts oddly well to praise, and Iris discovers and exploits this very quickly. She knows that a few murmured words of praise can quickly reduce him to an eager mess, and she exploits it...especially when she's tired of hearing him talk. The man never shuts up.

Cuddling! Iris likes physical affection, and it's a good thing, too--once he's allowed to hold her, Eobard quickly shows a tendency to cling to her like a drowning man finding a life raft. He likes to hold her so tight that she has to remind him that one of them actually needs to breathe and isn't just doing it out of habit.

My favorite part of the obligatory ‘couples pic that looks wrong’ is that unlike past iterations they did not just photoshop Tom Cavanagh’s head onto a previous picture of Grant Gustin and Candice Patton, oh no.

They took a brand new picture!

Tom Cavanagh is wearing something we’ve seen him wear before (and also you can tell by the neck and hands), and I don’t think I’m reading into it too much to say that Candice Patton looks like she’s trying not to laugh.

I’ve been low key shipping Eobard/Iris since season 1

And I never thought the CW would have the balls to go there. So I’m going to enjoy every minute of this