128Disclaimer: I don't own The Flash. That's why I'm writing this.
Reciprocal altruism: A social interaction in which an individual makes sacrifices for another in expectation of similar benefits in return.
Caitlin Snow spent the course of her Biotech class moving her eyes in a triangular fashion. First, she gazed at the clock. 15 minutes of class left. Then, she drifted to the professor lecturing about the difference between cow DNA and chicken DNA.
Focus, Caitlin, she berated herself, you need to pass this class.
And she did need to pass this class, which was why she was so nervous. Today was the day she was going to lose all dignity and beg a college professor to tweak her grades. How low she had come.
She wrung her hands over and over. Tapped her toe on the sole of her shoes. Counted how many times the professor said "DNA". Anything to keep her eyes from moving to the last point of her triangle.
Ronnie Raymond, the ex-love of her life. Sitting right in front of her, probably on purpose.
Every once in a while he'd rub the back of his neck or stretch a certain way causing the back of his shirt to ride up just a smidge and Caitlin… well, Caitlin didn't know how to feel.
Part of her really wanted to kiss him. Part of her wanted to stand in front of him and cry her heart out. But most of her just really wanted to throw a book at his beautiful dumb back muscles.
At least he helped her with learning anatomy. She knew every part of him from where she was seated. Staring at the back of his skull, down to his trapezius, rhomboid major, and levator scapulae muscles... she wondered what went wrong.
Why couldn't she go back to the days where she could just look at him without feeling like a stalker?
Oh, that's right. It was because science was more important than Caitlin. Stein was more important than Caitlin. His college research project, F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M., was more important than Caitlin.
Caitlin could safely say that in Ronnie's opinion, everything was more important than her.
Which was probably why he had no problem breaking up with her.
Okay, so maybe all of her wanted to hit him.
She was still working it out.
Her eyes moved once more, back to the clock. The triangle had restarted its cycle.
0 minutes of class. Show time.
"Wonderful explanation, Mr. Rathaway. All right students," Professor Stein exclaimed clapping his hands together. "Be prepared for a lab tomorrow. We will be extracting, isolating, and comparing DNA, so don't be late."
The room was vacant aside from a few stragglers, as students began clearing out. Caitlin wished they would pack up and leave already.
Taking a deep breath and gathering as much courage as possible she walked up to the scholarly man's desk. "Professor Stein, is there anything I can do that will help bring my grade up?" Caitlin resisted falling on her knees and grasping her two hands together, pleading.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Snow, but the grades are exam based only. I can recommend tutors, but your exam grades reflect only on you. Asking me to help change your grade is not the right solution for your 68%. If your grade continues in this spiraling fashion, I will not think twice about removing you. This is a high level course and I do not tolerate idle workers."
How she wished there was nobody in the room to hear that statement. She didn't want to turn around and check.
"I understand, sir. Thank you." Red faced in embarrassment, she forced out the words in a rush and exited the room as quickly as possible.
She'd look into tutors. You know, if she had money. If her parents found out about her grade, she would never hear the end of it. She worked so hard, earning scholarship money, working long hour shifts, and here she was throwing all of it away because of a Biotech class.
Why was she in this class anyway? Caitlin had never once gotten anything lower than an A. B's in her mind were unthinkable and now, she was facing a D.
She loved biology in high school and even asked for a science kit for Christmas. Working in labs was fun and entertaining and scientists were her "One Direction." She even had posters on the walls of her childhood bedroom of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and Aristotle to prove it. Granted, Aristotle did put atomic matter research off for decades, but he made up for it through his creation of the "ladder of life".
Right now, she felt like the scum at the bottom of the depressing ladder.
The minute she entered the class, she had a bad feeling. After dropping out of a previous biology class, Caitlin made a name for herself amongst the science department, and not a good one. It didn't help that the class she dropped out of was taught by the most influential person in the science world today.
Oh, and did she mention that the class she was in now was taught by Professor Stein. The man that sent her boyfriend, sorry, ex-boyfriend, Ronnie, away on missions "for science". The man that pretty much broke up the one real relationship that she ever had.
Yeah, this class was just dandy.
"It sucks that his class is exam based only," a voice behind her said, "You'd think that in a Biology class, the labs would be graded as well."
The voice had just come out of Stein's room. The voice had heard her entire conversation with the professor. Well, actually the voice didn't hear anything, but the person attached to the voice did…
Caitlin turned around to see who the mystery person was and... great, it was Barry Allen.
A running speedster on the track team and an intelligent scholar in the classroom, Barry was every woman's dream. And what made him more adorable and goddamn sexy (their words, not hers), was his unattainability due to his longstanding crush, or more likely, infatuation with Iris West, the journalism beauty queen.
He was like Peter Parker from the Spiderman reboot, a cute geek that was not nerdy… at all. Caitlin always preferred the original actual nerd Parker. It was unfair to be intellectual and physically attractive. Choose one or the other and leave room for the rest of the world. Especially for people like Caitlin, struggling to get by on both sides of the spectrum.
Caitlin almost groaned out-loud; this superhero-athletic-nerd boy had just heard her entire conversation with Stein.
"What do you want, Allen?" She continued to walk, not waiting for a reply.
"Um... how are you?"
"Look, I'm really not in the mood to socialize, so unless you want to help me bang my head against a bunch of biology books and hope that I gain some brain cells from that, I don't want to talk to you."
"I get it. That class is hard, but I think I can help you."
"You're not into those study drugs or cheating are you?" I mean, there had to be some explanation as to how he managed to be so good at track and his classes at the same time.
"What? No!" Barry said, appalled. "I'll tutor you," he clarified.
"What's in it for you?"
Barry pretended to think, but Caitlin knew he already had an answer. "I say we form a mutualistic relationship, Snow."
"How so, Allen?"
"Reciprocal altruism."
"Come again?"
"You see, it's a biology term about the behavior of an organism where it temporarily reduces its fitness to help another organism, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time. It's incredibly selfish, but it helps them both survive."
"I know what it means, but what's your point?"
"Pretend to be my girlfriend and I'll help you pass your Biotech class," Barry said, stopping in front of Caitlin to prevent her from walking any farther. Caitlin abruptly halted her step in order to prevent from crashing into the hopeless romantic.
There were a few, okay a lot, of question marks that flew around in her head, amongst other choice curse words, but the first word that came out of her mouth was, "Why?"
"So Iris will see that I am a dependable boyfriend and she'll fall in love with me."
Caitlin stared at him, she should have just walked away. Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay, so it sounded a lot better in my head."
Caitlin scrunched her eyebrows, it was now time for those choice curse words. "Are you crazy? You do realize that I'm not popular, right? In fact, being with me will probably bring your social standing down."
She meant to rant about how stupid he was; she did not intend to start hating on herself. It was true nonetheless.
"My social standing?" Barry sounded confused.
"You know, your popular smart jock guy… standing."
Barry raised his eyebrows.
"You know what, never mind. I'm not doing it. It's manipulative and complicated and—"
"Come on, Cait!"
"Don't call me that and I am not going to help you manipulate a poor girl into a relationship!"
"Please?" he went on ignoring her protest.
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"No. Why don't you get one of your fangirls to do it for you?"
"My fangirls?"
"Yeah, the 'Allenites', the 'Barraholics', and my personal favorite the 'Barrometers'."
"You're joking right?"
"You are really behind on the times. Seriously, you need to check out the internet more often."
"I have fans?"
"You don't have lamps," when Barry looked at Caitlin with a blank face she continued, "It's a joke."
"Um," Barry stuttered.
"Shouldn't you be excited to have a bunch of girls talking about your abs and your hair? I mean, I hate it since I have to deal with your description constantly going on and on in my apartment and social media and— I swear if I have to hear one more time about how amazing red looks on you, or how your brown eyes twinkle with flecks of green or—" Caitlin trailed off looking at Barry's stunned face. "Are you okay?"
"I didn't know—"
"That you were popular? Surprise, surprise, if you're on the track team, you're pretty much guaranteed popularity."
"I've never been popular before."
Caitlin gave him a questioning look so Barry continued, "Iris was my only friend from elementary school through high school. Surprise, surprise, nobody wants to be friends with the weird kid with a science lab in the garage."
Caitlin decided that now was not a good time to mention her lab in the basement.
"The only reason I joined track and am moderately good at it is because I spent most of my life running from the bullies."
Caitlin was speechless, she honestly never knew that.
"And so now I want to impress Iris."
Oh, great. He's at it again.
"To quote Hamlet Act 2 Scene 3 Line 92... 'No'." Caitlin firmly stated.
"You're failing Biotech—"
"I'm not failing," Caitlin muttered under her breath.
"Right, a D is not a fail."
"I fail to see how you're convincing me to help you."
"We'll just hold hands and pretend like we care about each other and then Iris will see that I'm a good boyfriend and then we'll be together and you can pass your class," Barry said, taking a long breath after that long sentence. "Hey, wait up!" He shouted, panting as he ran behind the brunette. He grabbed her hand and turned her around. "What if I told you that Ronnie would be pretty jealous to see you with another person, aka me? You know, since I'm so popular."
Caitlin rolled her eyes. "He broke up with me and it doesn't even matter anyway, I'm over him."
Barry said softly, "I see the way you look at him."
"Oh, so now you've been stalking me? Is Iris not enough for you?" Caitlin shot back nastily.
"Please, Caitlin. I know he's not over you. I know how it feels to love someone and know them so well, but never be able to be with them. I know how it feels to laugh and smile as friends, when you so badly just want to hold their hands and tell them about your undying love. So please, Caitlin. Please help me. I've been in love with Iris for years."
Everyone, even anti-social Caitlin, knew about Barry's love for Iris... except Iris.
Ugh, love stories were always her guilty pleasure. Curse her romantic heart.
Caitlin sighed. "Fine. We'll hold hands, we'll giggle, we'll hug, but only when Iris is around. Any other time, we don't speak to each other unless you are helping me study which we will do at the library at a set time. We will not visit each other, nor will we call each other. And we definitely won't—"
"Wait, I think I might need to write all of these rules down."
"This isn't funny, Allen."
"Yes, yes. You're right." Barry took both her hands and looked into her eyes. "Thank you."
"Whatever. Ready to go, Boyfriend?" Caitlin asked, standing in front of the classroom holding her books to her chest.
Barry opened the door for her and grinned. "After you, Girlfriend."
Little did Caitlin and Barry know that reciprocal altruism, nature's form of evolution, would prove to be more than just a survival tactic for the two of them.
Author's Note: Please review! I'd love to know what you guys think so far!