Friday morning arrived with news that shook Central City.
Barry woke at 6:00 AM to multiple notifications on his phone. News alerts. Text messages. Social media going crazy.
*BREAKING: Queen's Gambit Missing in North China Sea*
*DEVELOPING: Search and Rescue Operation for Queen Family Yacht*
*Robert Queen, Oliver Queen Presumed Lost at Sea*
It happened. Exactly as Barry knew it would. Exactly as he'd prepared for.
He grabbed his burner laptop and logged into his brokerage accounts through the VPN. Queen Consolidated was already down 8% in pre-market trading. The news had broken at 5:17 AM Eastern Time. Wall Street was reacting fast.
Barry's short positions from yesterday were already profitable. He'd queued the trades to execute at market open, betting that Queen Consolidated would drop.
Now it was dropping faster than he'd even calculated.
The market opened at 9:30 AM. Barry watched from his apartment, coffee going cold on the table beside him.
Queen Consolidated opened at $44.12, down from yesterday's close of $48.15. An immediate 8.3% drop.
Then it kept falling.
Sell orders flooded in. Panic selling. Institutional investors dumping positions. Retail traders following the herd.
$43.00. $42.50. $42.00.
By 10:00 AM, the stock was at $40.87. Down 15% in thirty minutes.
Barry covered his short positions at $40.50, locking in profits. His $9,747 had become $17,319 in less than twenty-four hours. A 77.7% return.
He immediately reinvested everything into purchasing Queen Consolidated shares at the reduced price. Long-term play now. The stock would recover over the next five years as the company stabilized. And when Oliver Queen returned from the dead, it would spike hard.
Barry closed his laptop and sat back, processing what he'd just done. Made almost $8,000 from a tragedy. Profited from the presumed deaths of two people.
His phone rang. Iris.
Barry answered. "Hey."
"Did you see the news?" Iris's voice was thick with emotion. Like she'd been crying.
"Yeah. Just now. It's terrible."
"I interviewed him, Barry. Oliver Queen. Six months ago for a piece on young billionaires and philanthropy. He was actually nice. Funny. Said he wanted to make a difference with his money." She sniffled. "And now he's just gone."
"I'm sorry." Barry meant it. Even knowing Oliver would eventually return didn't make the pain less real for Iris right now.
"My article about Queen Consolidated is going to run today. The timing feels awful. Like I'm profiting from tragedy."
"You wrote it before this happened. It's not exploitative."
"Still feels wrong." There was a long pause.
"Can I come over? I don't want to be alone right now."
Barry hesitated. He had work to do. Research to process. Equipment deliveries to track. But Iris needed him. Needed support.
And despite everything, despite the calculations and plans and moral compromises, he still cared about her. Still wanted to be there when she was hurting.
"Yeah," he said. "Come over. I'll make breakfast.
"Thanks Barry. I'll be there in thirty minutes."
She hung up.
Barry stood and went to his kitchen, pushing aside the laptop and research notes scattered across his dining table. Made space for something normal. Something human.
Iris arrived at 7:38 AM, eyes red from crying. Barry let her in and she immediately hugged him, burying her face in his chest.
"This feels stupid," she mumbled into his shirt. "I barely knew him. But it just makes everything feel so fragile."
"It's not stupid." Barry held her, one hand rubbing her back gently. "Death reminds us that things can change instantly. It's okay to be affected by that."
Iris pulled back and looked up at him. "When did you get so wise?"
"I'm not wise. Just observant."
She smiled weakly. "You're different lately. More... present somehow. Like you're actually thinking about things instead of just going through motions."
Because he was. Because he'd stopped being ordinary Barry Allen who processed evidence and hoped life would eventually improve. He'd become someone with purpose. Direction. Plans that extended years into the future.
But he couldn't tell Iris that. So instead, he just smiled and said, "Maybe I'm finally growing up."
"About time." Iris wiped her eyes. "You promised breakfast?"
They ate together at his small dining table. Scrambled eggs and toast. Nothing fancy. But it felt grounded.
A moment of normal human connection in a life that was rapidly becoming anything but normal.
Iris talked about her article. About how the editors wanted her to update it with information about the yacht disaster. How she wasn't sure she wanted to. How it felt like turning tragedy into content.
Barry listened and offered thoughts when appropriate. His enhanced emotional intelligence let him read exactly what Iris needed.
Not solutions. Just presence. Someone who cared and understood.
After breakfast, they sat on his couch. Iris leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. They didn't talk much. Just sat there while morning news coverage played on his laptop, repeating the same information over and over.
"I should go," Iris finally said around 10:00 AM. "Let you get back to your mysterious project."
"It's not mysterious. Just boring tech stuff."
"Uh huh." She stood and grabbed her jacket.
"Thanks for this, Barry. For being here."
"Always."
Iris paused at the door, looking back at him. Something shifted in her expression. A decision being made. She walked back over and kissed him.
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