Work Text:
They're sitting on the sofa in Barbara's apartment. Futon. Futon-sofa. . .thing. The fabric is green and the wood matches the rest of Barbara's apartment, cozy and natural. Diana hates it. The cushion is too squashy and every time Diana sits down on it she's terrified that she'll break the frame and it doesn't have anything going for it except that it's just the right size for two people. Or, more accurately: Diana and Barbara and Barbara's everlasting stack of journal articles, the ones she reads "just for fun" while she's drinking her morning coffee or late at night when she's not in the mood to watch TV.
When it's the three of them, Diana has to sit close to Barbara, and they're starting to mend things between them enough that the closeness feels comfortable. Barbara doesn't curl in on herself anymore, careful to make sure that their hips never touch. She sits with her knees propped up on the coffee table, lets the one closest to Diana practically fall into her lap as she balances her latest article on her thighs.
Diana's stopped bringing work to do. She never does it, anyway. She's content to just sit. She reads over Barbara's shoulder sometimes, passes her the highlighter that she keeps on the end table when she needs it. It's just - nice.
She doesn't think about Steve as much as she used to, these days.
He'll always be there, an ache buried deep in in her heart that she can't quite shake. But it doesn't hurt quite as much as it did before. Whenever she thinks about it she can almost picture Steve's grin, the way he'd bounce on his heels before saying I told you so.
That's not relevant, to her situation with Barbara. Except that, of course, it is.
"Why don't women here take other women as lovers?" she asks.
Barbara does this - thing. A sort of cough, and both of her hands spasm and she nearly tears the paper she's reading clean in half. "I, um. Why do you, uh, why do you ask?"
Diana shrugs. Casual. Everyone these days is so worried about seeming casual. She's trying, but it's a lot harder than it looks. "Where I'm from, in my culture, it was commonplace and I just - you don't see it very often. Do women here not like it?"
Barbara's blushing. Her face is red up to her ears, and she's looking at Diana with wide eyes, like she's - Diana's not even sure. She's never seen Barbara quite this flustered before and she tries to ignore the flicker of worry that blooms in her chest. Barbara loves her, she knows it.
Barbara's mouth opens and closes, as though she's testing out a few words before she settles on the right one. "I, uh, why? Why do you, um. Why do you ask?"
"I just was thinking about it," Diana says. She pauses, watches Barbara's expression and considers her words. Too casual, not direct enough. Then, "I like you very much."
Barbara's hand comes up to her hair, starts to fiddle with it the way that she does when she's nervous before she catches herself, sets her hand back down on her lap. "Oh," she says.
"What do you think about it?"
Barbara's quiet for a long time. When she speaks, her voice is flat in a way that Diana's never heard before: "I think you'd better go."
"Barbara, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -"
She shakes her head. "Please, Diana."
Diana leaves.
+
Barbara avoids her at work the next day.
It's not difficult. Their jobs rarely ever intersect - most of their contact is intentional, little excuses here and there to see each other. Diana misses it. Her work is interesting but hardly ever challenging, and the pace of it when Barbara's absent is harder to strike. She finishes her work for the week by eleven in the morning.
She thinks of finding Barbara, maybe buying her a coffee and apologizing a second time. Instead, she stops a bank robbery in progress, rescues four cats stuck in trees and carries an elderly woman's groceries home from the store.
Diana skips lunch.
It's not that she has too much work to do. But lunch, lately, is synonymous with a walk with Barbara and it's just not the same alone. They bring sandwiches and eat them together. Barbara talks about recent acquisitions, makes Diana giggle with her terrible geology jokes. She misses that the most.
It just seems so - silly. They worked so hard, to make things right. All of the awkward conversations, the sideways glances. It took weeks. The summer spent working through their feelings about everything that happened, the endless late night talks that seemed like they weren't going anywhere until one day they both looked up and they were friends again. They'd fixed it. Diana refuses to believe that whatever friendship they rebuilt was fragile enough to be undone like this.
Barbara finds Diana in her office at the end of the day.
Diana is so nervous that she feels it in her body - like something is squeezing, right at the base of her throat. She can hardly bring herself to speak; she wants to badly to get this right. "Hey," she says.
"Hi," Barbara says. She waves, a nervous gesture with her elbow pressed tight to her side. It's cute. Diana bites down on her lower lip, wills herself to not tell Barbara how cute she is.
Barbara makes sure the door is shut behind her, turns the lock for good measure.
Something holding Diana back seems to snap with the click of the lock. She can't help herself: "Look, last night if I made you uncomfortable I'm so sorry, I just thought -"
Barbara closes her eyes, lifts her hand. "Sorry. Sorry, I, um. I have it memorized, I just, uh. I need to get this out."
"Of course."
Barbara takes a breath. She's looking at her hands, at Diana's books, everywhere but Diana. It's awful. It reminds her of the way things were before and Diana can hardly sit still with how badly she wants to fix it. "I like you, too. Very much. Too much, I think sometimes. I like you so much sometimes that I feel like my heart can't fit it all in, you're so -" her voice hitches. She blinks, and two bright tears slip down her cheeks. Diana shoves her hands into her pockets to keep herself from reaching out; feels the pocket lining tear with the force of it. "And I freaked out last night because never in a million, billion years did I ever think you'd like me back and for a moment it sounded like maybe you did and I just - didn't know what to do. And it's okay if you don't, if you're just - bi-curious, or whatever I understand it was just a lot to process and I needed a bit of time."
"Bi-curious?"
Barbara's gaze flicks to the ceiling. "Yeah, it's like - you know, you're not bisexual but you kind of think you might be or you want to experiment, or, um. Whatever."
She notes the word, bisexual. Makes a note to look it up later. She doesn't know words, doesn't understand why this makes Barbara so nervous. All Diana knows is that she loves her. She loves her the way that she loves everyone, loves this whole world, but also in a very unique and specific Barbara sort of way and she doesn't know how to fit all of that into words. Words feel too inadequate.
(Diana had said she'd never love again, and she'd meant it. She doesn't know if she'll ever find another love quite like that. But there are - other kinds of love. Steve was grand and exciting, high emotions and heroic acts.
Barbara isn't any of those things, but that doesn't mean Diana loves her any less. Barbara is little things. Remembering Diana's coffee order, leaving little notes tucked into her desk drawer. Barbara is cooking dinner together in her apartment kitchen, working so close that they're practically on top of each other. She's the kind of love that makes Diana sit through a stupid action movie because it's romantic sitting in the dark elbow to elbow and watching Barbara be amazed. It's listening patiently while Diana criticizes every stunt, smiling with her eyes when Diana says nobody holds a broadsword like that, clearly it was made of plastic for the third time that night.)
She sees the way Barbara's hands are shaking, the red flush to her cheeks and she holds herself back, says, "I'd just really like to kiss you right now. If that's alright."
Barbara looks over her shoulder at the window in Diana's office door, wide-eyed. "Really? Really you actually - you're not making fun of me?"
"No, I'm not making fun of you I - Barbara, you're wonderful," Diana says. "But I don't want to just be your friend anymore. It's not enough for me."
"Oh," Barbara says. "Oh, that's - yeah. Awesome."
Diana allows herself one step forward. "Yeah."
She watches Barbara notice that she's moved closer. The catch in her breath, the way her pupils dilate and her tongue flicks out to touch her bottom lip and Diana is so -
"Wait," Barbara says. "I mean - oh my god, this is just - I want to kiss you, yes. Of course, who could ever not want to kiss you, wow. Okay. Okay, but also like. When women take each other as -" she falters. She starts, her tongue poised against her front teeth but the word dies on her tongue.
"Lovers," Diana adds, trying to be helpful. Barbara's eyes squeeze shut at the word and, if it's possible, her face goes even redder.
"Yes, yeah, um. That. It, uh - people don't like it. Other people. Not the women." She pauses for breath, then, "Other people don't like it when women kiss other women but maybe if we go back to my place, we could, uh. Kiss. There. If you still want to."
Diana's chest feels like it's going to burst open. There are so many emotions, all at once, getting tangled together until they're all knotted up inside of her. Anger because women kissing each other is beautiful and natural and she wants to fight whatever monster would ever make them feel otherwise. Relief and gratitude because Barbara's here. She's here and they're talking again and that feels like the most precious thing in the world right now. Concern and caring and an almost overwhelming desire to pick Barbara up, to hold her and kiss her over and over again. She breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth. "I would like that," she says. "If you want to."
+
Diana is good at waiting. Time feels different when she's lived as long as she has and she's picked up on the routines of this world but she's never quite understood them. For people to live such short lives already and then insist on dividing them into little slices, an hour here and twenty five minutes there.
The entire walk to Barbara's apartment, she's so impatient that she feels like she's going to jump out of her own skin.
She looks up at the sky while Barbara unlocks the street-level door to her walk-up, tries to focus on the night air on her skin and the shapes of the constellations. She worries at the hole on the inside of her pocket all the way up the stairs, flicks at the torn edges of the satiny fabric and makes a point of really thinking about the texture of it and not picking Barbara up, one-handed, and kissing her until neither of them can breathe.
She's focusing so hard on not being impatient that she almost misses it when they finally get to Barbara's apartment. Barbara finishes unlocking the door with shaky hands, mumbles be cool to herself under her breath and then winces because Diana notices. Diana always notices.
Then they're inside Barbara's apartment, almost exactly where they were the night before.
"So," Diana says.
Barbara looks so - soft. It took such a long time before Diana saw her as soft again, after everything that happened. She's so happy that they mended things. Happy that they're here, that she can step forward into the edge of Barbara's personal space and have Barbara's cheeks go warm with anticipation. "So," she says.
"Now may I kiss you?" Diana asks.
Barbara nods in the affirmative. "Yeah. Yes. Totally, if you, um -"
Diana steps near enough to put her arm around Barbara's waist. They're so close. She pauses there, just for a moment. Gives herself time. Barbara's breath is hot against her mouth. This is one of Diana's favourite kinds of moments. The millisecond before the kiss, the place where time seems to stop with the inevitability of what's about to happen.
There's a tug at Diana's shoulders as Barbara's hands fist into the front of her shirt, both hands pulling her forward. Barbara isn't strong anymore, not physically. She couldn't pull Diana in if Diana didn't want to be pulled, but there's something about the lightness of it - more of a request than an order - that makes Diana want to comply.
They meet in a kiss so slow, so sweet, that Diana can hardly breathe. Barbara's mouth is impossibly soft, impossibly warm. She kisses with an irresistible openness. Diana could rest in this kiss for days. Could kiss Barbara for hours, for weeks, and she's not sure that she'd ever tire of her. She kisses Barbara until she feels her start to gasp, her breathing heavy against Diana's mouth.
When she pulls back, Barbara's glasses are completely fogged.
Her mouth is pink from kissing, and Diana has to hold herself back when Barbara twists it into a wry smile, takes her glasses off so that they can look at each other. "Oh," she says.
"In a good way, or in a bad way?"
Barbara tosses her glasses onto the futon, the gentlest possible form of reckless abandon. "Very good," she says.
"Good," Diana replies. She's smiling. She feels like she won't be able to stop smiling.
Then Barbara pulls on her shirt again. She rises up on her tiptoes and kisses Diana's smile into something even better.