Work Text:
I am Going to Love You
It was a warm summer night when Lucy took her husband to the beach for a midnight swim—if she could get him to swim with her, that is. He hated the beach even more after they got kidnapped on it. She had to remind him that he also proposed on the beach to even get him here. But if she couldn’t get him to swim with her, it didn’t matter; they could look at the starlit midnight sky together and it would still be perfect.
“What shapes do you see in the stars?” she asked him when they settled down on the beach towel. She was really curious; she had a hunch he would see something practical. A spaceship? Shooting stars? Both would suit his protective nature, but she said nothing and just let him answer the question.
“I see a heart,” was his admittedly surprising, cheesy answer, and she immediately focused on finding it in the stars.
“Where?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Right here next to me,” he said smoothly, looking right at her in the dark. “It’s a beautiful heart that belongs to my wife.”
Lucy let out a surprised ‘oh’, and her blush was obscured by the dark, but it couldn't hide her smile. “You’re cheating,” she informed him. “You’re supposed to look at the stars,” she said in a fake, pouty voice.
“I’d rather look at you,” he stated, and pressed a kiss to her lips.
“You’re such a sap,” she said, but it was clearly an affectionate statement. She placed her hand on his chest and decided to test the waters (pun intended) to get him into the water for a swim. “Not that this isn’t already perfect,” she stated carefully, keeping her tone light. “But I was wondering if you would maybe go for a swim with me?” She gave him a shy smile. “I know it’s late,” she added quickly, “and you are not a beach person, but I just thought it would be nice… in those romantic movies they always go for a night swim and the night is warm, so the sea might be warm too…”
She stopped her rambling and gave him such a hopeful look that it made him let out a tortured sigh. This, of course, instantly concerned her.
“What is it?” she asked in a quick, frantic voice. “Am I a nagging, boring wife that makes you do things you don’t want to do? Because you don’t have to…”
He held up a hand. “Lucy, it’s not you,” he reassured her in a soft voice. “I just can’t go swimming.”
“What do you mean?” she asked immediately. “Is it because of your time in the military?” she guessed. “Is it too traumatic for you?” The hand on his chest moved in soft, soothing circles.
“No,” he said, and she breathed a little easier knowing she hadn’t suggested something traumatizing for her husband after all. “My shoulder just hurts and I don’t know what I did to it, so I can’t swim.” He cast his gaze down at the sand.
Lucy instantly sat up, switching on the lantern she had, of course, brought, and moving to inspect the ailing shoulder. “What? Can you move it? How much does it hurt on a scale of 1 to 10?”
“Lucy, I’m fine,” he grumbled, but his heart was melting. His wife was concerned for him; he had a wife who worried about him, and she was nothing if not thorough in her interrogation of his symptoms. He fell even more in love with her as he listened to her go through all the things he did in the last 48 hours, trying to figure out exactly how he injured his shoulder.
After a while, she finally stopped and let out a worried sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were so excited about going to the beach,” he said, and of course, he made it sound so reasonable. “I didn’t want to ruin it,” he admitted in a guilt-ridden tone.
"Dearest husband," her tone was completely innocent as she massaged his shoulder with a gentle, loving touch only a lifelong partner could give. "I am your wife," she stated simply. "I love you. If you are in pain, you must tell me. You didn’t ruin anything.”
Her eyes were full of concern. It was a concern that he both loved and hated seeing; he loved that she worried for him, but he also never wanted her to worry about anything, least of all him. It was all one big contradiction. His emotions were often confusing lately. He knew he loved Lucy with the exact same certainty with which he knew his own name, but that knowledge still opened up a box of entirely new, terrifying feelings—a box that had been firmly under lock and key before he met her.
“You say that now, but the aches are only going to get worse as we age, and you are going to be married to a grumpy old man who is constantly grumbling about it. And do not say I am not going to be a grumpy old man,” he warned her with a breathy, self-deprecating laugh, accompanied by a shake of his head. “I was the Grumpy Cop and one day I am going to be a grumpy old man and my wife is going to get tired of me—”
"If you get even more grumpy in your old age," Lucy said simply, interrupting him, and he was surprised to see there was a soft smile on her face. "Then I am just going to have to try harder to make you smile."
And apparently, her words were true, seeing as they were eradicating the grumpy expression from his face even now. He felt his own lips starting to stretch into a small, almost instinctive smile just from that one sentence of hers. But even as her words warmed his soul, the fear of getting older still reared its ugly head.
Her hands continued to massage his shoulder, and it was so relaxing and comforting that it gave him the courage to ask the question he was most afraid to hear the answer to.
“What are you going to do when my body falls apart?” he asked, finally looking at her. His eyes held a look of desperation so profound it broke her heart, but she also saw hope in them even as they glistened with unshed tears.
“I,” she started slowly, pausing to emphasize her words, “am going to love you,” she finished, placing one hand on his heart while the other one was still massaging his aching shoulder with a touch so gentle it made him want to moan in relief.
The ache was already easing, and he wasn’t even surprised. How could anything still hurt when she was the one always taking the pain away? She always took it away in whatever form he felt it, be it physical or emotional; no pain stood a chance against her.
“Lucy,” he uttered her name like a prayer. It seemed all other words in his vocabulary vanished from his head at that moment, leaving him incapable of saying anything other than the name of the woman he loved more than words could ever express. He didn’t mind though; her name was his favorite word to utter anyway.
Her expression turned impossibly soft. “Let’s go home, my grumpy husband,” she whispered in a voice so affectionate that he could swear it made the summer night even warmer, but this was the kind of warmth he didn't mind, in fact, he wanted it forever. Her eyes shone so brightly that he could see the sun shining even in the pitch-black darkness. He hoped to keep seeing that spark in her eyes always.
She took his hand, and he let her lead him toward their home. Everything that used to be just his was now theirs. It was their journey, their home, their marriage, and the thought of sharing it all with Lucy brought him so much peace that he found himself excited at the possibility of spending the rest of his life feeling exactly like this—completely fulfilled and happy. Even at the beach.