Chapter Text
Fourteen cycles in, she finally tried it on.
“Man, I look good,” she said, admiring the fact that she was ready to feel good about herself. “Let’s do this.”
She psyched herself up by shooting finger-guns at her image in the mirror, and left to join Taako and Lucretia in the hot tub.
Except it had been a setup all along - they were nowhere to be found, and they’d left Barold for her to discover on her own time.
And there he was; shirtless, lounging, and quietly humming to himself. Something classical, she could tell, and he was completely oblivious to his surroundings.
His glasses had been set near a canister of sparkling water he had finished way too quickly, and his widow’s peak and freckles were covered in droplets of water.
She found herself captivated by the way his arms looked as they hugged the frame of the hot tub. They were surprisingly well-toned, for as soft as he appeared to be. Everyone on the ship reset every year - so clearly it wasn’t a decade or more of Barry carrying teammates and supplies - he had always just been built that way.
She stood there, suddenly incredibly aware of her own body and curves, and tugged on the bath towel she had picked out.
He was so, so pretty, she thought.
Unable to hit the high notes in the song he was humming, he choked on his own air, lowered his chin and cleared his throat. When he successfully felt better, he noticed her watching him out of the corner of his vision.
His face immediately flushed, and his arms fell into the water, as if to anchor himself during the situation.
“It’s too early in the day to drown,” she immediately joked, noticing his attempt to hide from her using the water. “Do you need someone to save you?”
Barry sank down even more, trying not to be embarrassed by her teasing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he insisted, the water almost past his lips. “I’m perfectly capable of swimming. Of course. How are you this afternoon?”
“Oh, I’m spicy,” she said, looking down and gracefully bopping to no music while throwing her bath towel onto the non-existent poolside beds she wished they had acquired for this especially tropical cycle. “How are you, Bear?”
He could feel his ears burn at the mere mention of this new nickname she had assigned him. This was only the second attempt; the first had been in the lab almost a month earlier, when he grazed her hand while handing her something, and she had thanked him. “I appreciate it, Bear,” she had said, and something within him was alight after that.
Now, she was climbing into the hot tub, adjacent to him. Her incredibly well-toned body was not doing him the pleasure of staying out of his line of sight, no matter how hard he tried.
“Hey,” he tried, “is that the bikini? It’s only been a few years or something,” he remarked, as he tried to not make it weird.
“WHOA!” she exclaimed, full of joy. “Holy shit, yes! This is the bikini!! That’s amazing!!” She held up her hand to him, and they high-fived like the good teammates and partners that they were. “Holy shit, thank you so much! That is so cool of you!! How did you remember after all this time??”
Of course he remembered. Every detail of her was etched into every fiber of his being; down to the wrinkles of her knuckles, how good she looked in hot pink even though she despised that color, and how her hair had a right-sweeping cowlick that got crazier the second day after she washed it. The grin on her face made the back of his neck tingle. He had stopped trying to understand how to control that years ago.
“I guess I just did. And that’s great, Lup,” he assured. “You look really great in it. And uh-“
He didn't know how to address the situation head on, but he knew he wanted to at least try.
“What’s the hesitation for, Bear?”
That nickname, again. His eyes locked with hers.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked. “Because that’s all that matters.”
Her eyes suddenly welled up, to her surprise. They both looked away from each other to give each other space.
Even after all this time - even with all this love and understanding - there was so much space between them.
She really, really didn’t want that anymore.
Fuck it.
She moved across the water to embrace him. Before he could register what was happening, his arms were open for her, ready to close the distance. Once she was there, he held her steadfast, and she choked out a tiny sob.
His right hand gently rubbed at the nape of her neck, and he buried his chin into the side of her face. Her legs drifted off to the side of him, and she wiped her tears away.
“Thanks,” she muffled into his shoulder.
She readjusted to give a slight bit of distance, but couldn’t find it within herself to meet his line of sight just yet.
“Always,” he reassured, his eyes shifting left and right to look at both of hers. She caught on right away.
He sincerely combed his fingers through her hair, and in response she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and neck.
“It’s such a shame how absolutely banging I look in this,” she said, laughing through a bad almost-sob that caught in her throat.
"You were seriously meant to wear it,” he offered.
“It’s…’s really cool of you to say that,” she said, noticing the way the water rippled around his elbows, and then stared up into his hazel eyes.
The air around them got thicker.
“Wanna see me without it?” she asked.