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"We're not going by original series colors anymore, Iris," Cisco says, well whines, when Iris grabs at the gold uniform shirt in the pile. "These are for The Next Generation."
Iris shakes her head and takes the shirt anyway. "I don't care. Gold is my color and I'm sticking with it."
It's movie night and they're officially graduating from the roller-coaster ride that is the original series run of films and transitioning into The Next Generation's turn at the wheel. So Cisco decided to celebrate by buying more star trek shirts for him and his significant others to wear while they watch. Now Cisco wishes he had thought to grab more than one of each color.
"But," Cisco tries to say as Iris shrugs herself into the golden yellow shirt without a second thought toward his mounting frustration at the action.
"Just let her wear the shirt, Cisco," Barry chuckles from hi side of the bedroom where he’s putting the DVD into the player. "It's not a big deal."
What an incredibly rude thing to say.
"This is an absolute mutiny and I'm breaking up with both of you effective immediately." Cisco grabs the two remaining shirts from their place on the chair in the far corner of the room and starts stomping toward the door with as much force as he can muster, only to feel a familiar rush of air and static electricity envelop his body for a literal two seconds before the sensation starts receding.
When the feeling fades entirely, Cisco looks down to see that he's dressed in the blue uniform shirt and then up to see that Barry is standing in front of him proudly sporting its red counterpart. And doing so very well Cisco has to admit to himself. But not aloud, he won’t give Barry or Iris the satisfaction.
"This is completely wrong and I hope you're happy with yourselves," Cisco grumbles and puts his hands on his hips for good measure. He definitely doesn't appreciate it when Iris starts to giggle at him. She does it from behind her hands which makes it worse honestly because Iris only ever laughs at him like that when she thinks he's being cute. Not what Cisco's going for right now. Intimidating isn't supposed make his girlfriend laugh at him.
"Cisco..." Barry begins slowly, putting on his best Forgive-Me-Babe face. He walks closer to Cisco and moves behind him placing his head on Cisco's shoulder.
"Uh-uh. No way. Get your puppy dog eyes away from me." With a little more force than necessary, Cisco pushes Barry's head away and slides a few inches to the left just to hammer the point home.
He's not happy about this.
And Iris is the first between her and Barry to really pick up on it.
"Oh Cisco, come here," she says indicating to the space next to her on the right side of the bed. He hesitates for a moment then lets his shoulders sag and makes his way over to the bed, sliding onto it with an exaggerated sigh.
"This is really important to you isn't it?" she asks. Her eyes have this glimmer of sympathy that makes Cisco forgo the reflexive sarcastic response that claws at his chest.
"Okay objectively? No it's not that important they're just shirts."
"But," Iris coaxes him with that tone that makes him just want to melt. He settles for resting his head against her shoulder. She kisses the top of his head.
"But I had it organized in my head to where it made sense and now it doesn't."
"The colors mean something different for this series right?" Barry asks moving away from the door to stand next to Cisco.
Cisco holds back a scoff because really? Barry should know this by now. Especially since they started this whole Star Trek escapade before they were even a thing and way before all of them were a thing. But Cisco indulges him when that crease in Barry's brow pops up.
"Yeah they–" Cisco has to fight through a wad of his own hair to finish his sentence with "–do," which he says to nothing but the empty space in front of him.
He blinks against the gust of wind that assaults him and Iris when Barry speeds back into the room carrying the laptop that Cisco modified to handle Barry's incessant need to scroll through pages at the speed of sound. Sure the computers at S.T.A.R. Labs can handle that because Cisco had to soup them up too, but that laptop couldn't even function properly with the browser and Microsoft Excel open at the same time. It was crying out for help.
Barry has the computer balanced on his arm with a page open that he's skimming over as he stumbles toward the empty space next to Iris on the left side of the bed.
"Operations, science, command," he mumbles to himself and slides next to Iris while a grin settles on his face.
"Got it!" Barry announces as shuts the laptop hard enough to make Cisco cringe in sympathy.
"Got what?" Iris asks when Cisco doesn't.
A wider grin spreads across Barry's face that he sends Cisco's way with a giddy sort of excitement.
"Okay so we can change shirts if you want us to it's fine but hear me out first." Barry stares at Cisco waiting for the go ahead to continue.
"I'm listening."
And Barry's off. "Alright so, last time we had me in blue because I'm a forensic scientist, you in red because you're an engineer, and Iris is gold because she's in charge."
"If you wanna make it overly simple, yeah that works," Cisco mumbles.
Iris starts rubbing circles on his thigh to calm him down.
"Well this time we can have Iris in gold since gold uses the umbrella classification of operations which includes engineering, security, tactical, and communications and journalism has to count as some type of communication right?"
Iris laughs at the way Cisco's face scrunches in consideration for a moment.
"Keep going," Cisco says, reluctantly curious.
Barry nods. "And then you in science blue because while you are an engineer, a really good one by the way, you don't limit yourself to that field and half the stuff you do for Team Flash is some form of biology slash experimental science. Figuring out what makes our powers tick isn't engineering but it still counts as science so that works."
"Barely, but you have my attention so don't stop now," Cisco replies and leans on Iris a bit more to get comfortable. She shifts to accommodate his change it position and within a matter of seconds they're tangled up in some botched attempt at spooning with Barry watching them work out where to put their limbs.
"What about your shirt, Bear?" Iris points out after Barry stays silent for a while causing his face to flush.
"Honestly, that's where the argument kind of starts to fall apart," Barry says, rubbing the back of his neck, blushing darker under Cisco's scrutiny. Iris shakes her head and smiles putting a hand on Barry's chest.
"You can just say you want to be the captain this time, it's okay. We won't judge."
"No it's not that," Barry protests. "It's just well, yeah, last time we gave you the gold captain shirt because Cisco and I agreed that you keep us both in line and take charge when both of us have no clue what to do so it made sense that you be the captain. Especially since you were the one that managed to get all three of us together in the first place."
Cisco lays there for a while, considering everything Barry has said before sighing into a fond smile.
"Your argument's fine Barry," he says to get his boyfriend's attention. "Besides, red suits you. Keep the shirt."
"What?"
"He's right" Iris says. "Red is definitely your color, Captain Allen."
Barry's face is almost the color of his shirt now and his hand might as well be glued to the back of his neck. "Can we just start the movie now?"
Cisco and Iris look at each other with matching mischievous expressions.
"I don't know sir, can we?" Iris says.
"Why don't you tell us," Cisco follows up with a smirk. "You are the captain after all."
Giggles bubble up from both of them when Barry lets his head fall forward in embarrassment.
"I've changed my mind, Iris give Cisco the gold shirt please."
"Is that an order, Captain?"
Barry groans as Iris does not, in fact, give Cisco the shirt, and at this point Cisco’s happy to let her have the gold shirt; it’s much more fun to see how long he and Iris can embarrass Barry anyway.