Reflections

Iris's mind was racing.

It had been a day. That, in itself, took some getting used to - she was in the middle of the highway again, just as flustered, just as subject to the cool air settling against her bare skin. The ground was coarse underfoot, so she tried to keep on the painted lines, and kept an eye out for gas stations and rest stops as the day wore on.

She was alone. All she had on her mind was a wish to get back to Central City, in case that would make it easier for her to be found; it was where she'd ended up here after all. She didn't have the scientific ability to use any of the things she'd seen in Star City.

And there was no guarantee any of it would even work. It might just have been a distraction by Eva, something to keep her busy.

Which was the other problem.

Eva, apparently, had created the mirror duplicate of Iris that was walking around the real world, passing it off as her - and, apparently, had also expected her to spend an alarming amount of time naked. That in itself suggested she might even be the cause of what had happened to Iris's clothes.

And Eva had left her here, despite having worked out a way to leave. Because Eva wanted to kill her husband, and either didn't want Iris in the way, or wanted her as **** material for the Flash.

There were a lot of reasons to dislike her. Not the least of which being that she was why Iris was currently stark naked, hugging her breasts, feeling the wind between her bare thighs, and in the middle of nowhere.

Iris swallowed.

And yet.

Eva had been trapped in the mirror dimension for almost six years at this point. Her husband had known, apparently, and left her trapped - and used the opportunity to take the reins of her company, the one that bore her name, and use it for increasingly dubious ends.

Isolation, and the disorienting effects of this place, would torment anyone. Years of it, fixated on nothing but wanting out, and bitterness, it would affect anyone. Drive, a willingness to cross lines, and perhaps a disconnect with one's own feelings. How was she not meant to feel sympathetic for someone like that?

And Eva had kept her company, in the long nights when she'd needed it. That had felt genuine, and more mutual than Iris had wanted to admit to.

Eva hadn't needed to ever even say hi to her. The mirror dimension was big enough to lose anyone in, and the existence of other doubles suggested that there were indeed more people lost here.

What was she meant to read into that except for loneliness?

The betrayal hurt, but it hurt all the more because she understood it. She'd gotten to know Eva, seen her, and it didn't feel like it was all an act. Attraction, desperation, fear, sadness, there was so much in her. And when Eva said she was going to get her out of there, Iris believed her.

She made her way into another convenience store, face warming as she settled down for another night between aisles that felt like they ought to be packed.

Still, she hoped Eva would be finished soon, or that Barry would find her.

Eva's mind was racing. The air had a tang to it unlike the mirror dimension, and the world felt so much more lived-in. She felt the alien sensation of clothing on her skin - rather than modesty's sake, it was necessity, the suit helping her to acclimatize after years inside the mirror.

She'd made three doubles. Iris, Kamilla and Singh. The three people were safe and sound - she hadn't sought out to hurt anyone - though Kamilla's double had given her life to get the pieces Eva needed to escape the mirror.

They were obedient to a fault, her creations.

Or so she'd thought. The duplicate Iris's hesitation indicated there was something more to them, that they were true echoes of the original; still, loyalty had seen her go out regardless. The Flash had found her after the better part of two days, well-past crossing the borders of Central City nude.

That was... an oddly enticing thought. Eva wetted her lips, then faltered, not sure why she'd had that reaction.

Still, it didn't matter. Her husband was dead, and once her control of the company was assured - dotting a few i's and crossing a few t's - she could exchange Iris's double for the real one. Iris could go back to her life, and Eva...

She wasn't sure what. At first she'd expected to simply unmake her creations, but that felt wrong. Children of the mirror were more real than she'd imagined.

Though, either way, she was content to be sure that at least one Iris never wore anything ever again.

There had been... other realizations though, other less-pleasant discoveries from poring over old data. While the Flash had been distracted, Eva had thought a lot of things over.

Travel to and from the mirror dimension was easy for her, now that she had the key. Getting Iris back was child's play.

But there were... more things to consider. The children of the mirror, the reflections of living people, when given tangible form. They were real, not just puppets.

And they deserved life. Deserved a chance. If she saw them created, she could populate a whole world. She just had to decide, this world, or the desolate mirrorscape?

"West-Allen?"

Iris yelped, for the first time in a long, long time hearing a stranger's voice - a man's, too, not Eva's. She turned around, hastily trying to cover herself up.

Captain Singh. Of all the dumb luck, she'd had to find another of Eva's prisoners.

She was back in Central City, at long last; she didn't know how much Eva had done in the real world, unable to view it apparently without Eva's help, but if Eva was lying, if she needed to await rescue, this felt like the best place for it.

As such, she was stood on the side of an empty street, as naked as she'd been for the last few days, an arm over her breasts and a hand firmly pressed between her legs, eyes wide, undeniably mortified at being caught like this.

"Captain Singh!" Iris said, voice coming out high.

He seemed more bewildered than anything to see her. Her eyes darted around, and she awkwardly, painfully slowly crab-walked sideways to try and get nearer to a bench.

"Do you know where we are?" Singh said. He looked her up and down. "Er. Taking advantage of the empty city I see?"

"It's not like that!" Iris squeaked.

She crouched as soon as she reached the bench, frantic face sticking up over the top to look at Singh - the slats in the bench weren't hugely comforting, so she kept her arms in front of herself as best she could while still keeping her balance.

The feeling of the air against her skin was something she wasn't sure she'd ever get used to, but at the same time, she was distracted by a whole other kind of embarrassment just then.

Wait, did he really think she'd just been using this place to...

"It's another dimension," Iris said. "We were taken here so that someone could replace us with duplicates, to help her escape this place. She just... also took my clothes."

Singh raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Is it any crazier than what happens every year in Central City?" Iris said.

"The duplicating scientist is not the weird part," Singh said.

Iris's face burned.

"I have a jacket!" Iris said. "I hope that's still here anyway. McCulloch Technologies. It's where I came through, and where Eva was."

"Eva?" Singh said.

"The one responsible," Iris said. "She's out now. She says she won't keep us all here, and... I think I believe her. I just want to be sure."

Her voice went softer for a moment. Singh continued to stare, mostly in disbelief.

"Turn around!" Iris said.

"Going to make following you to McCulloch trickier," Singh said.

Iris bit her lip.

"Give me a second," she said.

She watched him turn his back, before cautiously stepping out from behind the bench.

Was she meant to cover her butt? Was that even a thing? Walking around with her hands blindly reaching back felt more comedic than practical. She just swallowed.

"Can I have your jacket?" Iris said.

"What? Oh, um, sure," Singh said.

He took it off, then took a few things out the pockets beore handing it out behind him. Gratefully, Iris took it, tying it around her waist and letting the back slide down over her butt. It didn't remotely hide her core, but she was trying to face away now - and kept her arms crossed regardless.

"Okay, you can look," Iris said.

She carefully stared away from him, both not wanting to see his reaction, and wanting to try and deny how obviously revealing her outfit was. A borrowed jacket tied around her waist, the dark skin of her back and legs otherwise completely exposed.

Iris swallowed, and slowly started to walk.

Hopefully she wouldn't wear through her clothes quite as fast without Eva being here. She had a feeling.

Assuming Eva hadn't taken it. Still, if Eva did let her out, she wanted to at least try to find something to wear.

She did her best to focus on just what she could see, ignoring the sound of footsteps behind her. As much as she'd wanted to meet someone else, doing so while naked had not been on her list of plans.

And now her husband's boss had seen her completely naked. Iris bit her lip, trying not to focus on that particular fact.

Only for her to make the mistake of passing too near a reflective window. Apparently Eva was still taking the time to watch her - there was hardly any denying that she enjoyed Iris's nudity. All at once, a hand reached out from the glass and snatched at the trailing fabric of Singh's coat.

"Hey! That's mine!" Singh said.

It was snatched through into the window, and into another world; there was no sign of where it had gone, but it was suddenly hard not to feel watched by every reflective surface around her.

Iris quickly dropped a hand back to hide her core, flushing.

"That would be Eva," Iris murmured. Singh paused.

"Okay, maybe that wasn't just an excuse," he admitted.