Caitlin doesn't like pet names.
Maybe it's dumb, but she always got a little twitchy when Ronnie called her "honey" or "baby" or "cupcake," particularly in public. She would sometimes permit it in private. Maybe. Depending. But generally he was allowed to call her Cait and that was it, okay?
After Cisco kissed her during the credits of a cheesy sci-fi movie, and she astonished herself by kissing him back (and back, and back, oh, the lips on that man), he started trying with the pet names.
"Hey, sweetness," he would say, to get her attention in the lab.
"Nope," she growled, too aware of Barry sniggering into his headset.
"Mi alma," during lunch.
She was a little slower in answering that because mmm. Cisco speaking Spanish. But - "No."
"Mi reina." Cisco had noticed the slower answer.
"No!"
He went through several, and she'd threatened to shave his head in his sleep if he didn't stop (a hollow threat, they both knew), when he figured one out.
She'd made the coffee run one morning and brought him a chocolate croissant. He kissed her cheek and said, "Thanks, nopalita."
She smiled at him and turned away to check her stats on a screen across the room.
"What does that mean?" Barry asked him quietly, behind her back.
Cisco's mouth curled up at the corners. "Nopales are prickly pears."
"You're calling her a cactus?"
Cisco said, "Spiky and tough on the outside, sweet and juicy on the inside, and every so often these flowers that just blow your mind - yeah. It seemed to work."
Barry went pink. "And she knows what it means?"
Caitlin said from behind him, "Of course I know what my boyfriend is calling me, Barry, don't be ridiculous."
He went pinker. "And you're okay with that?"
She shrugged. "Clearly." She walked around the table, kissed Cisco on the mouth, and called him something in French that made the engineer turn beet red and grin like an idiot.
Barry wasn't stupid enough to ask for a translation.
FINIS