Chapter Text
Hal releases his vacuum construct with an aggrieved sigh. He passes the vacuum bag to Barry, who superheats the outside to melt the offending plastic chunks into a single, manageable ball. The fumes wafting over them when he dumps the ball into a glowing green toxic waste barrel are probably causing brain damage, but it’s the best solution they have at the moment for a shitty, glittery, situation.
Around them, the One Central City Boulevard observation deck is a pink and red shiny disaster, with glitter crusting the carpet, and walls, and forming bizarre pink and red constellations over the night sky peaking through the wide windows. It looks like a bomb full of Valentine's cheer blew up in here, which is basically what happened. And while this is way more manageable than the city-wide crop dusting Calendar Man intended, Hal would be happy to never see glitter again, not even the fun kind.
Granted, the room looks loads better than it had an hour ago, when the responding CCPD officers had been loath to even step inside. Barry had borrowed the CSI’s imaging device so they could look at the mess via 3D render, the only way to avoid random pieces of glitter appearing in the lab, the evidence locker, and basically forever tainting the CCPD building. It’s for the best; Barry would never agree that the only reasonable solution is to burn his workplace to the ground.
Barry vibrates his whole body in a spray of glitter, like a wet dog shaking itself out. He carefully steps off Hal’s construct dust pan so Hal can compact that glitter too, and picks his way over to Hal who’s floating safely outside of the splash zone. The overhead lights glint off bits of glitter stuck to his suit’s ass as he turns to survey the damage, and Hal can’t even enjoy it because he’s so over the razzle-dazzle.
“Do you think we could popularize holiday slime instead? At least I could come up with a chemical counter for it. This… It’s not magnetic, resistant to vacuuming and air currents, and in too many bits to pick them all up individually. Thank goodness we stopped it before it got into the river or the water supply.”
“How romantic. You, and Calendar Man.” He creates a construct rose and presents it to Barry. “’Roses are red, violets are blue. My love is a slug trail coated in goo.’”
Barry accepts the rose graciously. “And what about the glitter? What does that say?”
Hal puts a hand over his heart as if reciting a poem to a paramour who’s trying not to laugh. “‘Your love is craft store bedbugs; just when you think it’s gone, you find a reminder hidden deep within the furniture, or wake up itchy and regretting your life choices.’”
“I’m never going to be able to look at Joan Garrick’s holiday cards the same way again.“ Barry chuckles. “Still more romantic than ‘sorry I’m late.’”
“That one grows on you. I’d know.”
Hal certainly hadn’t minded a couple hours ago, when Barry rushed down the final stairs to meet Hal in the CCPD lobby. He’d been busy studying the windswept hair and charming flush, the familiar greeting warm and welcome and the only appropriate start to date night. He’d only spent 20 minutes chatting with Susan at the front desk about Valentine’s plans, and she wished them a good night with an exaggerated wink.
Barry had offered to try and get off work this year, but Hal had shut that down. “That’s like guaranteeing a supervillain attack, or a coup in Sector 2345,” Hal had said. Of course, that same logic applied to their evening, and this year Calendar Man had been their agent of chaos.
It’s particularly frustrating, because Hal is fantastic at Valentine’s Day. After all, it’s the perfect holiday for him: a single day for all the biggest, most romantic grand gestures, full of bombast and excess where he thrives.
He’s flexed those romantic muscles for Barry a couple years so far: trips to uninhabited tropical islands, picnics on the moon, private dining rooms flying west for a perpetual sunset.
But while Barry had repeated that he doesn’t need the extravagant dates or the other rom com-mandated signifiers of the holiday, every year in February Hal starts getting that itch like he should be doing something . It’s just one day, right? So what if it makes him break out in a cold sweat? According to Barry, so long as that sweat is a little higher in temperature each year, Hal’s doing great. Lately it’s been edging towards lukewarm, which still isn’t ideal, even if his Lantern uniform makes sweat stains entirely at his own discretion.
And maybe he’d been kind of looking forward to things this year. But the reservation started twenty minutes ago, and between finishing here, going through decontamination protocols, and everything else, there’s no way they’re going to make it.
At least he’d gotten to throw someone a date. The observation deck was a Central City romantic destination, according to his chat with Susan, and the couple dozen couples caught in the Calendar Man double booking supported that. Barry, of course, had whisked them all out of harm’s way before the action started, but that still left them without a venue. So Hal had whipped up a second observation deck on the roof. He can see the glow from the support struts through the window.
Maybe adding the fountain, and the garlands, and floral arrangements had been a bit extra. But he could hardly let Barry do all the work; he’d already rescued the tables and chairs and strewn them with petals from Calendar Man’s exploding bouquets. They’d run them through about ten different scans with Hal’s ring, first. It wouldn’t do to rescue the civilians and then dose them with laughing gas, or whatever equivalent Calendar Man deemed thematically appropriate.
It was some of his best work. Even if the sight of the woman dropping to one knee and proposing to her boyfriend really hadn’t helped Hal’s lukewarm sweat situation.
“That’s an impressive construct,” Barry had commented when they’d finished setting up. He’d run the entire hundred floors with a new batch of utensils, since half of the originals had been lost in the transfer. “I didn’t know you could make something that big.”
“If that’s a comment on the size of my sidecar constructs, I plead the fifth,” Hal replied, even as he maybe stood up a little straighter, and floated a little higher. “And when there isn’t some monster trying to break the construct apart with its fists, I can make bigger constructs with less effort. You can keep all your smart ass comments about why I’m just figuring that out now to yourself.”
“Smart ass? Me? Wouldn’t dream of it.”
And with Barry’s smile, it had been that much easier to hold the construct in the back of his mind even as they started their ineffective cleanup efforts.
Barry reappears after another attempt at cleaning, looking from his completely bedazzled green lint roller, to the still thoroughly bedazzled room. “Maybe we should have consulted with the cleanup crew. I was sure we could finish this before—“ Barry cuts himself off, then disappears in another burst of cleaning.
Hal’s brain catches up, and he stops Barry with a construct stop sign. “Finish before what?”
Barry shifts from foot to foot, the nervous motion all the more obvious for the sparkles glinting over his entire body. “The Green Parrot Lounge. The flier fell out of your jacket pocket when I was pulling mine from the closet, and when we started heading downtown…”
“Oh.” His cheeks burn. Why is this conversation so much more embarrassing than actually walking Barry to the lounge? That had been the plan for the suit jacket he’d stashed in his pocket dimension so he didn’t give the game away when he’d picked up Barry after his shift. It’s not like it’s a surprise .
Barry stands next to him, staring out the window to give Hal a little space. “It’s a really sweet gesture. Especially since you still don’t like jazz.”
Hal laughs. Jazz is way more embarrassing than any of his feelings. “It’s not my fault it hasn’t gotten any better. Even I’ve managed to do that , so it can’t be that hard.”
And okay, he had been looking forward to seeing Barry’s face light up when he recognized the club, of watching his face through the horrible noise, and pulling him onto the dance floor. Especially after he’d returned from his flight this morning to find an insulated mug of coffee, a perfect temperature and heaped with cream and sugar just the way he liked it, and a heart shaped box of Choco Bites, his favorite candy from childhood that’s only available in New Zealand, now. It’s just one in a string of thoughtful moments – stopping by Ferris when he had a long day of paperwork, leaving him messages for long missions in space, squeezing his hand after a rough fight – spread throughout this year, and every year they’ve been together. This was supposed to be Hal’s day to show he’s just as invested.
“You have. We both have,” Barry says immediately, like it’s so obvious even he doesn’t have to think twice. He pushes back his cowl, and brings his hands up to Hal’s face, running his fingers up Hal’s cheekbone to card their way through his hair. Hal lets his mask dissolve.
“You got glitter under your mask. It’s not even yellow.”
“It’s because I’m weak to romance.”
“I know it’s been your working hypothesis, but maybe it’s time to reevaluate that. Not right now, though. How about a dance? Since I know you would have gotten us onto the dance floor at the Lounge, and we’ve got the second best view in all of Central.”
Hal doesn’t follow Barry’s hand indicating the view out the observation deck’s wide window, instead keeping his eyes firmly on Barry. “No, definitely the best view.” One that gets even better at the flush that plays across Barry’s ears. “So, can I have this dance?”
They keep it simple, mostly. He’s taught Barry a little since that first disastrous date where Barry’s feet had been on Hal’s toes more than the floor. Really, the trick is knowing that Barry always needs time to loosen up and forget that dancing isn’t something to think about. They’re alone, with the door blocked with caution tape, so Hal shimmies and spins Barry around until they’re both flushed and laughing.
“So what do you think?” Hal asks when they’ve switched to something a little slower, swaying back and forth in each other’s arms. “Do we reserve a table up here next year?”
“I don't know. It’d be a really different atmosphere surrounded by other couples. I don’t know how well they’d take us slow dancing in the middle of dinner service.”
“We also wouldn’t be surrounded by glitter. Maybe think about that first.”
Barry’s eyes get a faraway expression, actually giving Hal’s joking suggestion serious thought. “Maybe not on Valentine’s Day. We can visit during the day and point out the rooftops where we fought Weather Wizard, or ate through a stack of pizzas that first time we teamed up in Central. Or we could do something else entirely. Go on a spontaneous adventure. As much as I appreciate the holiday as an excuse for big gestures and extravagant dates, it’s the moments like these, when you turn something ordinary, or mundane, or, you’re right, downright annoying, into something like this.”
Barry’s sparking, little jolts of lightning jumping stray flecks of glitter in the air. God, he’s stunning like this, powerful and relaxed and beaming up at Hal with an unabashed grin. A very kissable grin. Hal leans in to do just that, and some of that electricity jumps to his nose.
Barry’s eyes go wide as Hal reels back. “Oh! Sorry!”
Well that won’t do. Hal tightens his arms around him, and lowers his voice to a husky whisper. “Did you feel that too?”
Barry laughs, his whole body shaking in Hal’s arms. Hal’s about to try for that kiss again when Barry tenses.
“That’s it! Can you make me a balloon construct?”
Hal has no idea what Barry’s thinking, but he doesn’t have to; he knows that tone, the salvation of so many hopeless fights, and makes the construct with barely a thought.
Barry disappears and the room lights up in a flurry of lightning and movement. He reappears a moment later, the balloon covered in glitter and the grinning ear to ear.
“Static electricity! A couple rounds, and we should be good to go!” He lets go of the balloon and wraps his arms around Hal’s neck, beaming. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You’d have been fine.” The glimpse of Barry’s eureka face is almost worth this glittery nightmare. “So, successful Valentine’s Day then?
Barry’s head tilts up, the tip of his nose brushing Hal’s. “Not yet. It’s no jazz club, but I got you something too.”
Hal mirrors the motion, closes half the distance again. Barry’s inhale is a chill breeze against Hal’s lips, and he licks them in anticipation. “What is it?”
Barry’s lips brush the shell of Hal’s ear as he says, “I took off tomorrow.”
The words run electric through Hal’s bloodstream. He doesn’t need the couple seconds Barry lets that hang in the air before zipping off again to know what that means. A fantastic Valentine's Day, that’s what.