Work Text:
Lup takes off her shoes as soon as she and Barry reach the knoll behind the observatory. Usually it’s crowded with people enjoying the sunshine, but everyone’s at the recital today. They have it all to themselves.
Lup lets out a little breath of delight as her toes sink into the vividly green grass. Barry chuckles, and Lup turns to grin at him. They’re still holding hands, and letting go feels like an impossibility. Barry’s hand is warm and solid in hers. She’s touched his hand before - of course she has, she’s known the man for fifty years - but never like this. Never when it meant what it means now.
Lup’s feet start moving of their own accord, perhaps a relic of a time when she would’ve run away from a thought like that. This time, though, when she starts moving she takes Barry with her, further out into the field, a sea of green under a dimming cherry sky. When they’re out of the glow of the observatory lights, Lup collapses on the grass, her dress crumpling beneath her in what she assumes to be artful disarray.
Barry drops down beside her, closer than he’s ever sat before, and Lup catches the smell of his cologne. It’s a familiar, comforting scent, grown dear after so much time spent in the lab together, heads bent over one problem or another. The original bottle had run dry after the first year, but Barry had spent months replicating the cologne. Lup knows that he wouldn’t have bothered if she hadn’t mentioned in passing that she missed the scent.
There are so many silly things like that littering their history - little intimacies that meant nothing and everything at the same time. Every cycle, Barry wears one pair of jeans until they have holes because he once caught Lup appreciating his butt in them. For her part, Lup finds herself touching her hair - braiding it, running her fingers through the ends - because sometimes she catches Barry watching the motions of her hands as she does. He used to blush and look away when she caught him staring, which made Lup feel giddy and strangely powerful. When she’s found him staring lately, though, he’s been more likely to smile sheepishly and tell her that she looks beautiful. This makes Lup giddy too; it also makes her want to cradle his face and kiss him soundly and ask him to touch her hair himself.
“So, um,” Barry says haltingly, looking down at their joined hands with what Lup diagnoses as joyous disbelief. “Should I start?”
“I think you just did,” Lup replies, squeezing his hand gently.
“Right,” Barry laughs, looking up at Lup. “So, here’s the thing. Well, a couple of things, eventually. But the most important one is - Lup, I love you.” Barry pauses here, like he wants to make sure his words sink in. “I have for a long time. And I think you know that, and I’m sorry it took me this long to tell you.”
Lup beams at him. Barry’s hand is trembling slightly in hers, so Lup brings it up to her mouth and firmly kisses his knuckles. “Things happen when they’re supposed to, I figure. I fell in love with you awhile back, and I didn’t say anything either. We found our way, though, didn’t we?”
“We did,” Barry agrees.
“Oh, and I kinda buried the lede there, but I love you. So much. Like, the most.”
“I know,” Barry says, grinning at her so that his nose scrunches up and disturbs his glasses. He’s so cute, Lup thinks. “Well, I mean, I thought I knew, but it’s wonderful to hear it.”
“Why did you wait to tell me?” Lup asks.
Barry chuckles. “At first I was sure that you thought I was just some nerd - ”
“Aw, but you’re my nerd!” Lup cuts in, and Barry laughs loudly.
“Thank you, Lup. But then I was sure that you didn’t feel the same way about me. And later, even when I thought you did, I was just... scared, I guess. Of upsetting the status quo.” He shrugs and shakes his head like he’s clearing cobwebs. “What about you? Why did you wait?”
Lup is quiet for a moment before she answers. She plays with Barry’s hand, tracing his fingers and the lines on his palm. “I was scared too, I think. I love you so much that I was scared of losing what made me feel that way in the first place, you know? Like if I took a breath that was too deep the spell would break.”
“We’re not as fragile as that, are we?” Barry asks. He runs his hand up Lup’s arm and rests it at the juncture of her neck, his thumb tracing soft circles against her throat.
“No,” Lup says, shaking her head, “no. We’re not."
“Every moment isn't going to be like this one," Barry says slowly. He looks around at the painted sky, smeared with clouds, and at the soft shadows their bodies are casting on the grass. His eyes drift back to Lup, and his brows are knit together in thought. "Nothing is perfect all the time. But I can honestly say that there will never come a time when yours isn't the first face I want to see in the morning and last one I want to see at night.” Then, Barry intones with the certainty of a man who has been blindingly, unerringly in love for fifty years: "I’m going to love you forever, Lup."
“I feel like I already have,” Lup admits, and the smile Barry gives her makes her heart skip a beat.
Lup reaches up and plucks Barry’s glasses off his face, placing them on the grass. “Not to be too forward or anything, but I can’t overstate how much I’d like to smooch you right now, Barry.”
“I’m, uh, a little nervous,” Barry says with a sharp laugh. “I want it to be good.” He tugs on his ear lightly; it’s a nervous tic that he’s had as long as Lup’s known him, and the mundane familiarity of it makes her smile.
Things are changing for them, but so much will remain the same: Barry’s pragmatism, his brilliant scientist’s mind, the way he always agrees to Lup’s outrageous experiments but obsessively ensures her safety; Lup’s thirst for adventure, her bravery and her dramatic flair, the notes she leaves inside the pocket of Barry’s lab coat just to let him know that she’s thinking about him. Those things won’t change, and that’s what makes this possible - sitting here, holding Barry’s hand, waiting impatiently for their first kiss.
“It’s just a kiss,” Lup says, letting go of Barry’s hand. She puts her hand on his cheek instead, gently stroking with her thumb.
“It’s a kiss fifty years in the making,” Barry counters, but he smiles and reaches up to tuck the long ends of Lup’s bangs behind her ear. His fingers linger in her hair, lightly brushing through the remains of her curly updo.
Lup laughs and leans in closer. “I’m just, like, so done with not being able to kiss you, Barold.”
Barry keeps smiling at her, his soft face thrown into relief under the setting sun, and Lup wishes silently for a million more moments just like this one. She kisses Barry then, because they’ve waited long enough. He breathes in sharply when their lips meet, and his hand leaves her hair briefly, like he’s not sure what to do with it.
Barry’s lips are soft, and his skin against Lup’s palm is warm from emotion and the last kind rays of the sun. When he kisses her back, it’s with the same care and thought that he puts into so many things, and the deliberate way he slips his tongue into Lup’s mouth makes her stomach flutter.
Lup pulls away first, unexpectedly out of breath. Her heart feels enormous, full to bursting with love. She doesn’t mean to start laughing, but the sound bubbles up from inside her anyway. Kissing Barry was like letting out a breath that she’d been holding for decades, and it feels wonderful. Barry must feel the same, because he doesn’t question her reaction; he just starts laughing too, his head dropping to her shoulder and his breath tickling her neck pleasantly.
“So,” Lup asks, scratching her nails through the short hair on the back of Barry’s head, “was it worth the wait?”
Barry picks his head up. “Absolutely,” he replies, his eyes bright and his face slightly flushed. He’s looking at Lup with such deep devotion that she can’t help but kiss him again.