Summary: Barry and Caitlin attend a ball held in Caitlin's honor, and they go for a few whirls on the dance floor.

Rating: T for innuendo

Words: ~2,200

Notes (12 April 2018): I've been feeling down lately for a number of reasons, and I wanted to cheer myself up by writing a bit of fluff. Steamy fluff, as it turned out. I jotted this down in one go and hardly edited, so I hope you'll forgive any mistakes.

In this fic, Barry and Iris were never together, and Caitlin and KF are assumed to be the same person.

I've been listening to a lot of The Beatles again recently. This one was inspired by the song "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You". Give it a listen :)

Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash or any of the Beatles songs.

I'm Happy Just to Dance with You

Dr. Caitlin Snow was the kind of woman that made men insecure and women uneasy. Despite the way she hardly ever drew attention to herself, people could not help but pay attention to her and form opinions about her.

A number of men in Barry's table now, for example, would grudgingly concede that she was intelligent—perhaps even more than they were—but right afterwards, they would criticize her cold objectivity and the level-headedness with which she faced any problem. For some reason, this was a hindrance instead of an asset. "It's eerie as hell," his tablemate and acquaintance, Smithson, a professor of immunology from Central City University, grumbled under his breath. He looked pale and sickly, a man with a career receding as quickly as his hairline. "It's unnatural."

Barry refrained from commenting that that same cold objectivity and level-headedness had saved his life many times over, but he couldn't resist quipping that had she been a man, those same qualities would have been natural.

The women were no better. To them, Dr. Caitlin Snow was intelligent, but unfeeling. She lacked warmth, they said. "Did you hear that acceptance speech she made tonight?" Smithson's wife said. She'd been talking to him all night, forcing her opinions down his throat. "Hardly any emotion. She may have cracked the meta-human genetic code, but she can't manage to crack a smile for a ball held in her honor."

Barry snorted. Were these people really the top academics in the city? How could they form conclusions so quickly based on a single sample of Caitlin's behavior? Because, in his experience, Caitlin was far from unfeeling. He'd spent almost four years cataloguing every single micro-emotion that flitted across her face, every single gesture that she made, every twist of her mouth and twinkle in her eye, and he still didn't know enough about her. He knew that she felt so much that, if she allowed her feelings to overtake her, she wouldn't be in control of herself. So she tamped her feelings down while they were mere waves lapping on the shore, before they gathered force in a swelling tsunami.

Right now, Caitlin was scared. She might be objective and level-headed when it came to taking a meta down, or even being kidnapped, but stage fright utterly defeated her. She didn't look like it, but she was terrified. She kept fidgeting with the skirt of her midnight-blue gown, either bunching her hand in it or smoothening down the wrinkles, and she kept clearing her throat throughout her speech. They were small movements that went unnoticed by the untrained eye, but he was an expert in all things Caitlin, and so he knew that she was doing her best to hold her terror at bay.

"I don't know why they thought to give her an award," someone else on the table commented idly. Barry remembered that he taught a special course on the philosophy of science, a topic so obscure that he never had more than ten students a semester. "She was part of the original explosion that created metas in the first place, so she just basically cleaned up the mess."

Smithson scoffed. "If I were given an award for every mistake I corrected, I'd be inclined to make more of them."

"Exactly my point."

Barry couldn't take any more of this. "Is it just me," he said, tone deceptively mild, "or does it sound like you're jealous?"

A chorus of defensive remarks. Barry continued, with false cheer, "Well, I for one am happy that someone took initiative to do what she's doing. Crime rates have decreased by twelve percent since Dr. Snow opened her metahuman rehabilitation facility, a statistic that, by the way, not even The Flash can rival, and the metas she's rehabilitated have been working in different sectors of the city—creating renewable energy and solving dangerous factory conditions, to name a few. I don't think any of us can be as productive when we're cleaning up our employer's messes."

Smithson's wife scoffed. "Not you too, Allen. You should know better than to defend her."

It was a thorny issue in the scientific community, the work that Caitlin was doing, but Barry didn't expect that some people would be so small-minded. Then again, he was sitting with the professors who, like himself, taught electives in the university on a part-time basis—Forensic Science, in his case—so their opinions were hardly representative of the majority. "It's exactly because I know her well that I'm defending her," he said. "Oh, look, they've opened the dance floor. I think I'll ask her to dance. Excuse me."

. . .

Barry quickly passed Iris's table—the media table—and briefly noted Cisco's absence at the CCPD table, where he was supposed to be seated. The event organizer obviously hadn't consulted anyone for the seating arrangement. In any case, Cisco might not have been good company tonight—he had to leave early to make it in time for In-Laws Day with Cynthia.

He finally approached Caitlin's table at the very front of the room. She was still fidgeting with her dress, especially since most of her tablemates were already on the dance floor. She'd danced one round with the mayor, which was understandable since she was the guest of honor, but right afterwards she scrambled back to her seat, looking as if she didn't want to dance again.

He tapped her shoulder and said genially, "May I have this dance?"

Caitlin whipped around to look at him, and her gaze turned accusatory. In his mental catalogue of Caitlin's expressions, this would fall under mock-anger. Had she been really angry with him, she wouldn't even look at him.

He gave her his most charming smile, but she continued to glare at him.

"This is all your fault."

"What's my fault?"

"You made dancing look too easy when you were teaching me," she said. "And I'm used to your toes healing fast. Barry, I stepped on the mayor's feet three times. With my stilettoes. And imagining people naked while making my speech didn't help at all—"

"Admittedly I had an ulterior motive for telling you to imagine the audience naked," he said, grinning and taking her hand in his.

She huffed and got to her feet reluctantly. "What, you thought me imagining you naked was a good way for me to concentrate on my speech?"

"I thought it'd be a good incentive."

"It was a good distraction. You're never teaching me to do anything ever again. From now on, I'm going to rely on YouTube."

"But YouTube isn't as fun," Barry said, sliding his hands to her waist. She lightly placed hers on his broad shoulders, and instinctively, he leaned down and touched his lips to the shell of her ear. "It doesn't have any… practical demonstrations."

There was a tiny hitch in her breath that made him smug. "Don't tell me, Professor Allen, that you plan on seducing me right here, in the middle of the dance floor."

"I think I have the right to seduce my fiancée anytime," he replied with a cheeky smile. "And don't call me that. You know what it does to me."

"What, Professor Allen?" she said. Her smile turned coy, but when she looked up at him, her dark eyes were twinkling. It was an expression she reserved for him alone. In fact, she had a host of expressions that she reserved for him alone. The rest of the world could think her cold and unfeeling if it meant he could have that look all to himself. "What else will I call the man who insists on giving me practical demonstrations?"

His hand tightened on her waist, and suddenly his pants seemed too tight. It didn't help that Caitlin looked absolutely stunning tonight, wearing a midnight-blue gown that revealed a hint of cleavage and clung to her curves like second skin. There was also a maddening slit on the side that stopped mid-thigh, and every time she stepped forward with her right leg, he glimpsed a length of creamy skin under the dark gown. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into a dark corner and kiss her senseless, but tonight was her night, and he didn't want to whisk her away from her own party prematurely.

So, instead, he shifted tactics.

"You did great tonight, though," he said softly. "I don't think anyone noticed you were nervous."

She sighed. "You think so?" she murmured, her expression vulnerable. She leaned closer to him and rested her head on his chest. "It would've been better if you were beside me."

"I know," he said. "Believe me, I'd rather be with you than my jerk colleagues."

She laughed. "You could've avoided that if you were my plus-one."

"Yeah, Cait, but…"

"I know, I know," she said, with a wave of her hand. "It's dangerous for us to be seen together too often, because you're not very good at keeping your identity a secret—"

"Hey—"

"—so if someone found out who The Flash was and my connection to him, I could be held hostage or something. Even if, might I add, I'm completely capable of taking care of myself now."

She was referring to her powers as Killer Frost, but they both knew it would take a while before she got them under control, and Barry wasn't taking any chances until she did. He sighed into her hair. "You know my condition."

"I do. I wish my powers didn't take so long to master."

"You're making a lot of progress, you know. You can concentrate the frost now in any area you focus on. You're really starting to have control over it."

"Yeah, well," she muttered, her eyes flashing white briefly, "I'd want to concentrate the frost on the eyes of Smithson's wife. She kept looking at you like she wanted to undress you."

The longer he knew Caitlin, the more he was surprised by her, and nothing surprised him as much as the fact that she had a mild possessive streak. She looked so cross and adorable that he teased, "Are you jealous, Caitlin?"

"A little," she said, running her hands slowly down his chest, leaving him shivering in the wake of her touch. "A lot of women were looking at you tonight, you know."

"Well, I'm a pretty decent-looking professor-slash-forensic scientist with a secret identity as a superhero and an abundance of charm. Of course women would look at me."

Caitlin gave him a dry look. Her hands were still moving up and down his chest in a feather-light touch. "I contest the abundance of charm."

"If not for charm, how else would I have gotten the guest of honor and the most beautiful woman in the room to dance with me?"

"It's the suit," she said idly. "It should be criminal for you to wear a suit."

Barry grinned. Caitlin had a weakness for suits, and since he only wore them on rare occasions, he absolutely relished the look on her face when he did. That expression was one of his favorites. She would never admit it, always playing demure with him, but that look in her eyes was unmistakable.

"It's just as criminal for you to be in this dress," he said. He pressed her closer to him. He wasn't aware how many dances they've had, or how many times she'd stepped on his foot—he only knew that he didn't want to let go of her just yet. He added playfully, "When we get home, Dr. Snow, I'm going to rid you of this offending garment."

"I'm going to have to return the favor," she said, fingering the knot of his tie, which she'd just deftly done hours ago. He could still feel the burn of her cool fingers around his neck. "Although… maybe I should leave your tie on."

Barry struggled to take a breath. "Why, Dr. Snow," he finally managed after a few gulps, while she played with the hairs at the nape of his neck, "I think you're the one seducing me now in the middle of the dance floor."

"Me? Seduce?" she said, her red lips quirking into a smile that sent the heat down. "More like persuade, Professor Allen."

"Use that on me again and you don't have to do much persuading," he said, his voice strangled.

"That's the idea."

"Cait, it's your ball—"

"Yes, and my part in it is done. We all know that the mayor is holding this 'special ball' in order to ingratiate himself to academics and the feminists in time for the next election."

"Still, I don't think—"

"Barry," she said, her voice a silky whisper in his ear. "Put those powers of yours to some use and get us out of here."

There was no mistaking that look on her face, and Barry didn't need to be told twice.

He swept her to the edge of the dance floor, flashed them out of there, and, upon getting home, put his powers to very good use indeed.