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Barry still remembers the first time they met.
It had been in first grade, back when having the twenty-four crayon box made you the coolest kid in school, and Barry’s mom had gotten him the box of the prettiest crayons she could find. Barry had been in love with them from the moment Nora Allen had put them in his hands, and although he’d been more than willing to share them with the other kids, there was one crayon that he would never let slip out of his sights in fear that it could go missing.
The red crayon.
Barry still remembered with explicit clarity how strongly he felt for the crayon. It definitely makes him laugh nowadays.
He remembers that one day clearly—that one day he had lost sight of it when he took his glasses off to clean them—and how desperate he had felt when he couldn’t find it. His blue eyes had searched the total expanse of the table he had been sitting at, and had been absolutely crushed when he couldn’t find it immediately. Tears had been rolling down his cheeks when the teacher had walked over to him, trying her best to calm down the fussy child between her arms.
Barry never reacted that way, which made everything all that much difficult for the woman, but somehow, his little red crayon was far more important than anything else in his life. He wanted it back, and he wanted it back right that instant because then his box would not be complete, and how could his box be missing his absolute favorite crayon?
Miss Prince had told him that they’d find his crayon, so as long as Barry remained calm. It hadn’t done much but make him cry harder, making some of the most empathetic kids cry around him to cry as well. The problem was getting out of hand, and the poor first grade teacher wasn’t sure what to do anymore.
Until, of course, Harold Jordan had popped out from under the table, where he had been drawing.
With Barry’s red crayon.
Which of course had turned into an even bigger mess, because Barry really wanted to hurt Hal after the boy had taken his precious red crayon. How could he dare? How could Jordan just take his crayon without a single word? Barry had been so worried.
A fight had broken out between the two kids, and being that Barry sucked at fighting, he ended up pinned to the ground under Hal’s laughing body. Miss Prince had been trying her best to keep the two apart, but had not gained the upper hand until James “Bucky” Barnes had waddled angrily into the room, pulling Jordan off the blonde and chastising his friend for getting into fights he couldn’t finish.
(If he had given Hal the stink eye, Jordan thought nothing of it, and had actually taunted the older boy by poking his tongue out at him.)
Barry and Hal ended up at the principal’s office, a place that Allen hardly ever visited, and for some reason, the two of them became friends right after. Nora and Jessica had laughed about it when they were both called into the office, but that hadn’t saved either of them from being scolded over their behaviors—Hal for stealing the crayon, and Barry for acting like the world was ending.
And the rest, as people say, was history.
Barry and Hal have been friends for a little over a decade, but somewhere along the way, things had changed for Barry. He had spent the best part of the past year trying to deny everything to any and all of his friends, but none of them really believed him when he said he didn’t feel anything more for Hal than just friendship.
Bucky and Iris were definitely the two most invested in the whole affair, pushing Barry to say something to Jordan before it was too late. Allen had shut down all of their ideas, day in and day out, but that didn’t mean the two of them wouldn’t continue to try.
“Invite him.”
Barry groans, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow, where his arms where crossed over the table.
It’s the argument of the week, and his friends don’t seem to want to give up. Bucky and Iris had been the ones to start it, but Peggy and Steve hadn’t really cared about hurting his feelings when they both joined in. Later, Peggy and Iris had banded up together and had convinced both Natasha and Dinah to come harass him as well—Barry was tired, he still had to turn in a Very Important Chemistry Paper, and he really didn’t want to be reminded of how terrible his situation was.
“If you don’t invite him, he’ll slip right through your fingers,” Natasha comments idly, looking at her nails, acting uninterested—Barry knows otherwise “You know he’s skipping to the military with Rhodey the first chance he gets.”
Steve munches on his sandwich, making a noise of agreement, and Barry wants to kick him out of his house then and there. Steve is usually on his side, damn it, why does this have to be the exception?
“I heard from Ollie he’s thinking about inviting someone,” Dinah pipes up, smiling sweetly at Barry and making his skin crawl—Dinah can be mean and scary when she's trying to make a point “I wouldn’t go around denying my feelings any longer if I was you, Barry.”
“See!” Bucky bristles, pointing at Dinah as if trying to make an example “Listen to the women! Why aren’t you listening to the women?”
“You don’t even like him,” Peggy offers next to Barry, and now Barry remembers why Peggy is always his favorite “I mean, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be enthusiastic, but your enthusiasm is a little weird.”
Barnes shoots Peggy a dirty look, and she mumbles back a ‘just saying’, shrugging her shoulders in that elegant way of hers that Barry has grown to love over the years. He shuffles closer to her, and sighs contentedly when her hands fall on his hair, slender fingers carding through blond tresses—yep, definitely his favorite.
“Bucky doesn’t have to like him,” Iris shoots from across the table from them and Barry whines low in his throat, shifting even closer in Peggy’s personal space “Barry’s the one who has to ask him out.”
“I say we should leave him be and see what happens,” Steve has finally finished his sandwich—or Natasha stole it from him, Barry isn’t quite sure “He won’t ask the guy to prom, lose the only opportunity he had and then we’ll see who was right.”
Barry hopes Natasha did still his sandwich.
“Is it Harass Barry Allen Day?” another voice comes from the garden door, and Barry picks his head up to see Sam step out into the yard, take-out boxes and bags hanging from his arms “Because if so, I want in on it—ask the goddamn guy out, or so help me god Allen, you are not getting any of this food.”
Barry tries not to growl and lowers himself down so Peggy can continue petting him. Sam comes to sit down next to Bucky, who whines at Wilson until the other puts out all of the take-out cartons. There’s a flurry of movement above Barry’s head when everyone lunges for their preferred foods—Peggy, the angel, doesn’t move and simply asks Dinah to pass her whatever she wants—and Allen stretches his arm so he can reach the doggy-bag he’s a 100% sure is supposed to be his.
Peggy slaps his hand away, munching away at her own food while still petting his hair. When he turns to look up at her, she shakes her head, solemnly.
“No food for you if you don’t ask Hal to prom.”
Barry decides he has no favorites anymore.
//
It’s the day before prom night, and Iris is being meaner than usual.
“I can’t believe you didn’t ask him to prom,” she’s lying on his bed, staring up at the star-shaped stickers on his ceiling—the ones Hal had gotten up there when they were both twelve, and Hal had fallen in love with the stars “I can’t believe you’re just letting him leave.”
Barry’s shoulders tense from his place in his desk, but he tries to ignore his best friend’s cutting tone in favor of filling out the college application he’s been procrastinating for weeks.
“That’s because he’s an idiot,” Bucky tells her from his place on the floor, and reaches over with his foot to poke Barry’s side—Allen just swats his friend away and pokes his tongue out at him “Even Stevie asked Stark out and that’s a feat in and on itself.”
Steve makes some sort of sound from his place leaning against the bookshelf in Barry’s room and promptly throws a book at Bucky’s face—it’s a paperback, so Barry doesn’t worry too much.
“I take offense in being set as an example,” Steve huffs out, turning back towards his book while he dodged the one Bucky threw back at him “Tony and I have been going out for months.”
Peggy sighs softly, curled up against Iris’s side so she can eye Steve suspiciously.
“You are a perfectly good example of how terrible boys are at getting their shit together,” she says, matter-of-factly, and rolls her eyes when Steve has the audacity to look offended “It took me the double amount of months you have been dating to convince you to stop being an idiot and actually ask Stark out—you are a perfectly good example.”
Barry thinks Steve doesn’t throw the book at Peggy if only because he loves her too much and she’s a little bit scary.
“But really, Barry,” Peggy’s voice has gone softer, a little sad around the edges “I don’t want you to lose the opportunity you have because you’re scared. You and Hal have been friends for a decade, and—“
“Which is what I’m afraid of, Pegs,” Barry interrupts her, turning around in his chair to face her “We’ve been friends for so long and he hasn’t ever seemed interested—why do I think I have a chance with him?”
His four friends turn to look at each other, worry etched in their faces, and Barry officially doesn’t understand anything.
“Now that’s just sad,” Bucky says, looking at Steve “Were you ever that pathetic?”
Steve shakes his head, before he reconsiders and winces a little, “Maybe.”
“You know, I take offense to that,” Barry tells Barnes, turning again to kick his friend’s leg on the floor “I’m not pathetic—I’m being realistic.”
“How can you not even notice?” Iris pipes up, leaning on her elbows to stare at him straight on.
Barry stares at her for a long time, a question forming in his mouth and dying quickly when his phone rings next to his bed. Peggy stretches lazily over Iris, reaching over to take the device on her hands and presumably throw it at him, before the display catches her attention. The brunette woman stares at the phone for a few minutes, lips curling up into a smile, before she actually tosses the device over to Barry.
“It looks like it’s our lucky day.”
Hal Superstar
Barry stares at the phone for a while, Hal’s grinning face looking up at him from its place in the screen. A smile takes over his face when Steve throws the book at his thighs, yelling at him to pick the call, and Barry brings a finger up to his lips to silence all of the consequent screams that come after Steve’s first offense.
“I think I recall changing the name back to Harold,” Barry’s greets with a grin on his lips, and Iris’s giggle in the back “With a capital H.”
“Well, Harold is a stupid name,” Hal answers back, and Barry can make out the sound of Oliver’s voice agreeing with him on the other side “And I am a superstar.”
Barry rolls his eyes, knowing well that Hal can’t see him.
“You’re an idiot, that’s what you are,” he teases, turning away from his friends so he can have at least that much privacy “What’s up? Anything important happening?”
“Yeah,” Hal’s voice is soft, but Barry can hear the smile on his best friend’s lips—he can actually picture it clearly “I wanted to know what tie color you were wearing to prom.”
Which leaves Barry confused. He makes a weird sound in the back of his throat, and can distantly hear Peggy’s whisper asking Iris if she heard anything.
“What?”
“I said,” Hal repeats, stressing the words “What color is your tie going to be tomorrow night?”
It doesn’t do much but further Barry’s confusion, and the blonde leans back on his chair to stare at a patch of sticker-stars overhead, where Hal had drawn the Capricorn constellation back when he first put them up. He gets lost in the pattern for a bit, but Bucky pokes him in the side with his foot again, and he gets brought back to life.
“Uh, I was thinking red,” he says, unsure “But Steve told me Tony is wearing red and had vetoed everyone else from wearing that color so, I’m not sure anymore—why?”
“So we can match, duh.”
And there goes Barry’s sanity.
“Match?” the word tumbles out of his mouth before he can stop himself “Since when are we going to prom together?”
The sound that Iris makes is probably not human, but Barry is too busy still reeling to actually wince away from the sound.
The line goes silent for a bit, some shuffling on the other side of the phone that has Barry’s stomach doing flips in his belly, and then Hal’s voice comes back to his ear—softly, a little bit broken, and really embarrassed.
“Guys,” he’s talking to the boys on the other side, Barry is sure “I forgot to ask Barry to prom.”
After that, Hal’s side of the call goes crazy, and Barry can’t distinguish whose voice is coming from who. He catches Tony’s enraged voice coming in Spanish from somewhere, and Clint’s laughter in the background, but he’s not sure if the one who’s screaming bloody murder at Hal is Rhodey or Oliver. He decides he doesn’t want to know, pulls the phone away from his ear, and turns back to his room, his friends’ eyes on him, expecting something to happen.
“Hal was going to ask me to prom,” he says, “He was going to but he forgot.”
And then his room goes crazy as well.
//
“So, you forgot to ask me to prom?”
They’ve decided on navy blue. Not because any of them have a particular inclination for navy blue, but because green and red are awful complimentary colors, and Tony had vetoed anyone else wearing red anyway. Hal had begged him to wear green, of course, but Barry had refused, and Dinah ended up choosing navy blue for the two of them.
They didn’t look half bad, and the pictures at the entrance looked amazing.
“Ah,” Hal laughs nervously, turning away from Barry’s inquiring face in shame “That—yeah, I did. I forgot. I was meaning to, but I forgot.”
They’re swaying to the music in the middle of the dancefloor, other couples softly murmuring around them—and Bucky and Sam bickering in the distance, holding unto each other. Hal’s hand on his waist, Barry’s arm looped around his neck, and—yeah, they look pretty good together in navy blue, he’s decided.
“And,” Barry begins again, looks up to search for Hal’s brown eyes “You were meaning to because…”
Hal’s nervous laughter is back again, and he turns to look at Bucky and Sam a little ways from them. Sam is a good dancer, but Bucky’s always has had two left feet—Hal seems personally worried that their dance might end in disaster, but Barry couldn’t care less.
“Harold,” he threatens, bringing his looped arm down so he can take Hal’s face and turn it towards him again—the blush there is actually endearing, and he’s glad he’s not the only one who’s nervous “C’mon, we’ve been best friends for over a decade,” he’s repeating his friends’ words now, he hates himself “You can tell me anything.”
“I love you.”
It’s quick, painless, and Barry has absolutely no time to react, so he just stands there dumbfounded instead, staring at the man that he has known for so long, and has just recently started falling in love with. Hal’s eyes are wide, and his face is vulnerable—like Barry will just take his heart and smash it against the dancefloor right here and right now.
Barry would never do that.
“I love you so much, god—I think I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve, and you let me put sticker-stars in your ceiling because my mom wouldn’t let me put them on mine,” Hal lets out, doesn’t give Barry time to say anything “And honestly, I’ve been beating myself for years about when to tell you, or how to tell you, or if I even wanted to tell you, but I never could. God, Bar, Barry, Barry, my Barry,” his voice is a little bit desperate, the hold he has on Barry’s waist tightening a little, but there’s a small smile on his lips “I thought you weren’t interested, and then everyone was telling me you were interested and I just—“
Barry can’t take it anymore. He pulls Hal forward with a hand in the nape of his neck and kisses him right then and there in the dancefloor. He doesn’t care if he can hear someone whooping in the background, or Tony’s hollering from the table they had been occupying before they stood up to dance—all he can think about if how Hal’s been in love with him since the sixth grade and Barry had never come close to realizing this. He thinks about the stars in his ceiling that shine dimly after so many years of being up there and he thinks maybe he didn’t fall in love with Hal so recently.
Maybe he’s been in love with Hal since they were twelve, when he has put up all of those stars and explained every single constellation to him. Maybe he’s been in love with Hal since they were fourteen, when Hal had helped Bucky fight that bully in Barry’s History class. Maybe he’s been in love with Hal since they were fifteen, when Hal had told him he was going to leave the city with Rhodes, and join the Air Force like his father before him.
Maybe he had been in love with Hal all along and he never noticed.
God, how could he never notice?
They’ve stopped dancing when they come back for air, and Barry leans his forehead against Hal’s collarbone, laughing softly and a little hysterically. He can still hear Tony hollering at them back at the table their group of friends had claimed, and Professor Wayne’s stern voice too close for comfort, telling them to please break apart because they’re in public, and he really didn’t expect this from Allen at all.
Barry doesn’t care. Barry thinks about the stars in his ceiling and realizes that he’s probably been in love with Hal ever since that little bastard had stolen his goddamn red crayon, all gangly limbs and roguish smile.
“I love you, too, Harold.”