Work Text:
KARA
The movie ends, the credits roll out, and the lights come on. The moment they meet eyes they devolve into a fresh bout of giggles, crossing arms as they stumble out of the theater.
“Thank you for coming with me, even if the movie was ridiculous,” Lena says. She stands close, the tips of their shoes touching, tugging on Kara’s shirt and obviously aiming for a hug.
Kara opens up her arms and Lena burrows herself into her warmth, nose nuzzling Kara’s shoulder.
“I wish I could nap on you,” she says.
Her voice is warm and intimate, and her words send a thrilling happiness through Kara’s legs and down to her toes. She wriggles them in her shoes, resists the urge to twirl in the middle of the street with Lena in her arms.
“You could,” she says.
“I’m meeting with Japan in less than two hours. I have to go back to the office to prepare.”
“If I fly you to your office, It saves you the car ride. Fifteen minute office couch nap.”
Lena sighs, brings one hand up to cup Kara’s shoulder. “You’re my hero.”
*
They don’t actually go to sleep, either one of them. The only thing Kara’s focused on, really, is holding Lena softly enough that she doesn’t hurt her but snug enough that Lena is comfortable and doesn't feel like she’s going to slip off the couch at any moment.
Fifteen minutes later, Lena pulls her face out of its hiding spot and rests her chin on Kara’s chest instead.
“You’re my favorite,” she says, all sleepy and smiley. She looks so cute, looking at Kara like this, saying all these things. Sometimes Kara feels like she has to close her eyes or else she’ll do something too fond and too big to fit in.
“What if I never went home and just followed you everywhere?”
“Well then I might not be your favorite anymore,” Kara says.
Lena chuckles. She touches the dimple of Kara’s smile with the tip of her finger. “Your lips only lift on one side when you’re tired. It’s cute.”
Kara doesn’t really have anything to say, when Lena compliments her like this. She just stays quiet and waits. For what, exactly, she doesn’t know.
Lena shifts closer, all warmth, and hovers. Kara waits, and as she does, as the intimacy of their closeness stretches out indefinitely, she finally figures out what she’s been waiting for.
Then Lena sits up to stretch, and Kara keeps waiting.
*
When Kara cares a little bit more than usual about something (and she usually cares a lot about a lot of things) it becomes a constant loop in her head. Sometimes a scream, sometimes a whisper, sometimes a picture or a silent movie.
Lena’s name is a song. Lena, Lena, Lena, it goes, interrupting Andrea’s lecture. Lena, Lena, Lena, it goes, squawking with the pigeons in the park. Lena, Lena, Lena , it goes, joining the rhythm her fingers make on the keyboard.
Kara startles at the sound of a throat being cleared.
“Lena! How long have you been standing there?”
Lena lifts a curious, sharp brow, smirking from across Kara’s desk at CatCo. Her hair is parted down the middle, lips painted a pretty pink.
“Not that long. Distracted?” she asks.
Kara worries, for a moment, that maybe she had been unknowingly singing Lena’s name out loud like a lunatic. She studies Lena’s expression, long and hard but sneaky, to try and suss her out. You’re being silly, you’re not that far gone, she thinks to herself, and smiles brightly.
“Yeah, it’s just this article, it’s… It’s a lot.”
Lena’s eyes are soft and interested. “I want to hear all about it, but let’s do it over at the tower so I can test some new equipment for your suit while I listen.”
“And have lunch. So you can test some new equipment and have lunch, which is the point of a lunch break.”
Lena rolls her eyes. “God forbid I go one day without feeding you. Come on, let’s go.”
*
Lena’s hands. Lena’s hands all over Kara’s body, on her arms, her shoulders, in her hair, moving and touching and prodding. Lena’s hands on her, and Kara’s supposed to talk, she’s supposed to talk about this topic that she had been so impassioned about just minutes before, but she can’t think while Lena’s long fingers are squeezing her wrist, her steely Kryptonian wrist which suddenly seems so delightfully delicate with Lena’s fingers wrapped around it.
“How does that feel?” Lena asks, adjusting the anti-kryptonite cuff, tugging it this way and that until she’s satisfied then squeezing it so it’s snug around Kara’s wrist. She looks up through her lashes at Kara, waiting for an answer.
“Good,” Kara says. She’s stuck on a lash that’s fallen on Lena’s cheek, right in front of her, like a secret, like hovering higher up in the sky than the rest of the world and witnessing the first snowfall.
“Sure? What about this wrist?”
Lena reaches for Kara’s other arm, nudging closer, the top of her head just under Kara’s nose. Her hair smells like coconut. Kara never was a big fan of coconut until just now. Lena’s too close when she looks up, so she puts a hand on Kara’s shoulder to keep her balance and smiles shyly, stepping back.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re brilliant,” Kara says. It comes out too earnest, too telling. Lena only laughs and squeezes Kara’s wrists one more time before she steps back.
Kara is seized by the urge to reach out and stop her and let her know just how much she means it, just how brilliant she is. Someone should be telling her. Lena should know. All her life she’s been told that she wasn’t enough when she is more than. She is brilliant in every way.
This is bad, Kara thinks, taking a sickly bite of her potstickers as her stomach churns. This is so, so bad.
Her molars click as she chews. Lena, Lena, they go.
*
Later, when they all gather at the tower to brainstorm strategies to bring down Veronica’s latest alien trade, Kara only hears the plan in bits and pieces. Her brain is full of chatter, and she can’t stop thinking about cuddling on L-Corp’s couch, and how Lena had looked at her, and what would’ve happened if Kara lent in and kissed her.
“Kara! Are you even listening?”
Everyone in the tower looks at her, their amusement palpable. They’ve all been waiting for something, anything, to deviate from Alex's lecture for a while now. It seems that that thing is Kara.
“You’re being weird. And you’re doing that thing with your jaw,” Alex continues.
Kara’s spine straightens indignantly. “I’m not being weird. Weird is subjective. I think you’re weird.”
“You keep looking at Lena. Did you guys fight again or something?”
“I’m not looking at Lena!” Kara widens her eyes at Alex. “I’m just looking. People look when they think. I’m just thinking!”
“Okay,” Alex drawls. “Can you think or look or whatever is it that you’re doing later, after I’m done with this very important briefing which Supergirl plays a very important role in?”
Kara nods and waits for Alex to turn back around. She leans in towards Nia. “Did you know this meeting was very important?”
Nia snickers. “More like very i'm-boring.”
Alex swivels. Kara squints up at the ceiling, pretending to be in deep thought. She catches Lena hiding a smile behind her palm.
LENA
You’ve got to love the Danvers Sisters, no matter how much they derail the topic of conversation. This time it’s not the both of them doing the derailing though. Alex is almost too invested in planning this operation to infiltrate Veronica’s alien auction, given the fact that she’ll be on her honeymoon when the infiltration occurs.
Kara, though, is not taking this seriously at all, if only to counteract her sibling. It’s nice to see this side of her, goofy and unrestrained, even in her suit.
During moments like these, Lena comes close to believing that she might actually be seeing the full scope of her, that she is trusted with the whole of her. Moments like the day before, when they cuddled on L-Corp’s couch, Lena even believes that Kara loves her back, or is at least open to it. And although Lena always follows her instincts, she stopped herself from kissing Kara, because when it comes to her, Lena doesn’t trust her perceptions. Kara is surprise personified, a birthday party and and a nuclear bomb, confetti and fireworks.
Like right now. The last thing Lena expects is for Kara to take her hand and ask, in front of everyone in the tower: “Will you go on a date with me?”
Lena blinks, probably way too many times in a row. She can hear her eyeballs making a squishing sound, wonders if Kara can hear it, is always aware of what Kara can see or hear or feel from her. When she answers she really doesn’t know what the hell she’s saying.
“Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“Yeah why wouldn’t I be?” Kara asks, swinging their arms lightly. “I’ve been doing Supergirl stuff just fine the past few weeks.”
That’s true, but it’s mostly because they’ve been careful about starting her small. Cats stuck in trees, blowing out fires, flying ambulances past traffic.
It’s why Alex is having such a hard time planning this mission. J’onn and M’gann are needed on Mars, and minus Alex and Kelly, who are going to be away on their honeymoon, it leaves them with Brainy, who is hopeless at undercover stuff and blending in in general, Nia, who they're incredibly stressed about sending in on her own, and Kara, who they can’t stop worrying about despite her appearing to be back to her usual self- except for the bags under her eyes, her frequent night time patrols, her restless hands, and her absolute refusal to talk about the phantom zone.
“Nia is like my little sister,” Kara says. “We have absolutely no chemistry together. No one’s gonna buy it.”
Oh. Lena stands taller and crosses her arms over her chest. Kara isn’t asking her out on a date. She’s asking her on a pretend date. For the undercover mission.
Lena lifts a sharp brow, the corners of her lips follow in a teasing smile. The thrill of flirting with Kara is dampened in the wake of her disappointment, but she feels it nonetheless.
“And we do?” she asks.
“I mean, yes! We’ve been best friends for years. I can touch you without it being awkward.”
Kara demonstrates, and Lena softens and blushes and steps closer.
Kara grins. “See? Not awkward at all.”
*
Kara’s wearing a tux. Lena can’t stop touching her tie, tugging it, dreaming of pulling her in for a kiss. She slides her heels under the hem of Kara’s pants and steals from her plate and giggles at her jokes and it feels like it’s just the two of them, like Kara dressed up for her, like they’re on a date, but then Brainy’s voice comes out of their earpiece or she glimpses Veronica’s sinfully red dress and she remembers that they’re at a masquerade, that they’re acting, and it takes her out of it.
Then Kara does something completely adorable and a little hot and she gets sucked right back in.
“It’s time to be sneaky I think,” Kara whispers. She has a beautiful gleam in her eyes, fingers drumming the surface of the table nervously. Lena stills them with her own.
“Let’s go.”
Their hands fit comfortably as they leave the room and head off to snoop around the building. Oddly, Lena finds herself thinking of James. His fingers were twice as thick as hers, and they couldn’t join hands without some awkward fumbling. With Kara, though, it’s easy.
“We need to stop this before the bidding ends,” Kara says.
The event is a silent auction, and although the items seem to be normal, they both shiver knowing what is hidden in the subtext.
“Go ahead and scan for a lead lined safe. Remember there are cameras everywhere. Don’t take off your masks or use your powers.”
The two of them share a befuddled look as Alex’s voice filters through the comms in their ears. She’s supposed to be in Barbados.
“She made Brainy plug her in,” Nia’s voice follows.
They roll their eyes, now, smiling in quiet amusement at their synchrony.
“I don’t know how Kelly can stand you,” Kara says, x-raying through each door they pass.
“You wish you had a Kelly,” Alex snipes back.
The hallway is eerily quiet, the bustle of the event they had left growing dimmer and dimmer the longer they weave through the maze of the building. Their hands grow sweaty with nerves so Lena lets go, instead latching onto Kara’s arm and cuddling close.
“Nervous?” Kara asks, squeezing her briefly closer.
“Just feel like something’s gonna go wrong—”
Before Lena can finish the sentiment, Kara interrupts, proving her instincts right.
“Crap, someone’s coming. A guard. What should I do? Lena, what do I do?”
Lena’s boorish when she pushes Kara and sends her careening against the door behind them, but gentle when she tilts Kara’s chin up for a hasty kiss. Her mouth doesn’t even land on Kara’s at first, more on her cheek, their masks bumping awkwardly; but they shift and adjust and then Lena’s kissing her.
Slowly, Kara starts to kiss Lena back. They should be going fast and hard, heated, to fool the guard into believing they’ve been making out for some time- but it’s slow and soft, brimming with years of affection. A shiver overtakes Lena as Kara’s fingers trail over the lobe of her ear and play with the heart shaped diamond earrings she’d put on for the event. Kara’s other hand runs down Lena’s back, holding her closer, and Lena shivers again, opening her mouth just the slightest bit in encouragement.
Alex’s hesitant voice comes out of their earpiece. “Um, guys?”
Lena pulls back, breathing heavily. She wonders whether Kara can feel the warmth of her cheek under her palm, if she can hear Lena’s vessels dilating as blood rushes to the surface. She tucks Kara’s errant curls away and takes her for one last kiss, this one somehow more surprising than the one before, and then she turns back to make sure the guard is gone and asks Kara to break the lock.
*
Kara Danvers is an enigma. Just when Lena is sure that she has undone her to the very last layer, that she has spent a more than adequate time learning her, that after years on years of unpeeling she has finally hit the core of her, she’ll find another layer hiding just underneath, one more thing to be surprised by.
Once they have their foolproof evidence secured, Supergirl arrives at the scene. They watch Veronica get escorted into a police car and shake the chief officer’s hand as she thanks them profusely. Then Kara takes Lena’s hand and asks if she’d like to go home with her.
The blue of Kara’s suit is cold but her hand is warm. Lena was attempting not to stare as Kara became Supergirl and now she is reeling at her boldness and attempting not to stare too hard at her lips. Did the suit help? Would Kara have been so bold without it? Is she Supergirl now or merely Kara Danvers with one less layer to remove? Or is it one more?
Does it really matter?
(It does. It does.)
KARA
Kara is feeling a lot. She has a lot of feelings, most of them left unsaid, most of them fighting against the lock of the cupboard she has attempted to stuff them in. Lena is on her lap, which is not presumptuous, because Kara had invited her over after they made out against some wall in some hallway in some building with Alex in their ears.
Kara lifts her fingers to her ear now, to double check that she took off the ear piece. Lena shifts on top of her, smoothly parting Kara’s lips to keep kissing her open mouthed and a little messy, in a hot way and not in a washing machine kind of way. She’s such a good kisser. When was the last time Kara kissed a human and enjoyed it so much? She can’t manage to really think about it right now, with Lena in her lap.
Lena pulls back. It’s very hard not to get mesmerized and stricken dumb by the proximity of her unbelievably bright, gorgeous eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Lena asks.
“Nothing.”
Lena lifts a single brow.
“It’s just been a while. I don’t wanna break your nose,” Kara says.
Lena smiles, all softness and loose, wavy hands. She starts to lean back in. “I think it can handle a little beating.”
“Don’t even joke about that. You’re precious to me.”
Kara’s hands move lower down Lena’s back. This whole day has been a series of one brave move after the other, and she’s not about to stop now.
“Then show me. I want you to show me, with your mouth.”
Kara shivers, just a little. “Okay.”
She doesn’t move.
“You won’t break it,” Lena says.
There’s laughter in her voice, and really there shouldn’t be anything funny about this, but Kara can see where there would be humor in it. She loosens up a bit, studying Lena’s expression as Lena leans in and gently nuzzles their noses.
“Now you do it.”
Kara whines, and Lena laughs, tugging at her hair. Kara goes in slowly, cautiously, going faintly cross eyed with focus. She boops the tip of Lena’s nose.
“See?” Lena says softly, hand burrowing completely into Kara’s hair. Kara does it again, this time nuzzling in for a kiss. Her fear melts away with every chaste caress until there is nothing chaste about it.
*
Kara wakes up alone. She’s naked. She looks for evidence of the night before in the room- a dip in the mattress, strewn pieces of clothing, a sticky note, a text. She finds nothing.
After the phantom zone, It’s been hard to differentiate between reality and what she had made up to pass the time, to keep breathing, to resist dying. She knows the night before happened, can distinctly recall Lena’s tongue in her mouth, her own tongue somewhere else. Simultaneously, she worries that she had made it all up in her head.
Lena doesn’t help. When they see each other in the tower, she doesn’t say anything, so Kara doesn’t either. She’s afraid that the night before will ruin them, that Kara ruined them. It was her, after all, who asked Lena over. It was her who insisted that she stay the night. It was Lena who left before the next morning.
It’s because of the phantom zone, this fear that grips her so intensely. It’s because of her planet’s death, because of all the people she’s lost.
It’s because she’s afraid of losing Lena.
No matter who Kara is or what planet she comes from or what she’s been through, Lena is precious to her, so precious. And if Kara has to keep that under wraps, so what? She can do it. She can do it forever.
She fiddles with the rubiks cube Nia left behind, letting her mind be calmed by the easy math, until everyone but the two of them clears out of the tower. She breaches the silence casually.
“Alex had a one night stand once.”
Lena startles out of her work. She looks around the empty tower perplexedly, seemingly not having realized that they’re alone. It’s not cute. It’s not. Kara is perfectly capable of not thinking it so cute that she wants to curl around Lena and coo.
“Did she?” Lena asks.
“Yeah. It was at Barry’s wedding, on Earth-1. I guess… I guess last night was my first one night stand.”
A beat of silence. Lena’s fingers pause their tinkering. “I guess so.”
Kara can’t quite read her tone of voice, or her expression. Not that Lena can meet her eyes long enough for her to do so.
“Let’s have dinner,” she says, deciding to once more be brave. It seems like that’s all she does anymore, decide to be brave. For a second there she had thought that maybe Lena could be brave enough for the both of them.
It was selfish of her. She is Supergirl, and Lena is Lena, and they’re best friends, and that is that.
That’s that.
“It’s late,” Lena says, without looking up from her work. “And I need to finish this.”
“Please, Lena? I don’t want things to change. I… I love you.”
Lena puts down her tools. Kara can see her swallow, can see all the mean, clinically precise words rattling in her brain, just barely held back by the skin of her teeth.
“You can yell at me if you want,” Kara says. Her lips twist with the lie- she doesn’t want Lena to ever yell at her again, not after that heart wrenching day in the fortress. “You can be mean and you can, you can say anything you want. Just don’t-” Kara stops, takes a steadying breath. “Just don’t push me away.”
Lena swallows again. She looks up, finally, her eyes lined with tears. “I love you too.”
Kara speeds across the room, halts just before colliding with Lena, and opens up her arms. Lena sinks. Kara’s relieved tears stain her neck.
LENA
They’re mostly back to normal now, as evidenced by the return of movie night. Every week, no matter how busy their schedules are, they run to the movie theater and watch something, anything- a blockbuster, a B list horror movie, a rerun. And then Kara will hug her goodbye, and Lena will tingle from head to toe, because Kara is everything she’s ever wanted. She’s big and warm and cuddly and kind, and she’s Kara . There will never be another Kara, she only has one quantifiable lifetime, and she’s spending it here, with Lena, hugging her on this dark curb. Sometimes if Lena thinks about it for too long she gets hot and stuffy and like there isn’t enough air to breathe.
That might be why she left Kara’s bed that night in a hurry. She started panicking- that Kara was too good and too kind for her, that Lena might hurt her, that Kara might be keeping something else from her, something big and terrifying, because Lena is big and terrifying no matter how much she tries to make herself small. She tried to stay, busied herself with quietly folding Kara’s clothes and cleaning around the apartment, but then the fear became something else. She was afraid that Kara would wake up- not Supergirl or any in between versions, but just Kara -and she would not want the same things she wanted the night before. It became harder and harder to breathe and she had to leave.
It wasn’t a one night stand. The sex meant something, Kara touched her like it meant something, only to turn around and prove to her exactly low little it meant. Lena never experienced such a thing, for the person she had sex with to cry in her arms for reasons completely unrelated to how good it was (and it was really good). Actually, Lena has no idea why Kara was crying, or proclaiming her love, while at the same time denying the most intimate night they’ve shared with each other of its sentimentality.
Lena was silly to ever think that she deserved Kara, even if it was only for a couple hours. It was silly for her to believe that she wasn’t damaged beyond repair. It was silly, so silly, for her to believe that this was a thing they were both waiting to happen.
*
Sometimes, when they’re especially tired, they have movie night in Kara’s apartment instead of the theater.
Lena doesn’t realize that it's her first time there since they slept together until Kara opens the door. The air is instantly thick with the realization, and she’s afraid Kara might make a joke of it to disperse the tension so she practically dashes in and gets herself comfortable.
They scroll through a list of the year’s Oscar nominated movies and pick one at random. Kara throws an arm over the back of the couch, crowding close so she can munch from the popcorn bowl in Lena’s hands. Lena tentatively fits herself into the crook of Kara’s arm, relaxing into their familiarity.
She lingers after the movie ends, out of habit alone. Kara is talking about the symbolism she caught in the movie, how they use stairs to represent different social classes, because Kara notices things like that, can see past layer after layer of a person or a thing or a situation, while here Lena is, unable to breach just one.
She starts gathering her stuff, though, soon enough. Kara stays quiet throughout, engaging her in soft conversation while she tidies around the apartment, and it's only when Lena heads to the door that she speaks up.
“Will you stay the night? Just to sleep.”
She’s bent over the coffee table, still puttering around, appearing casual where her voice is anything but. If there’s one thing Lena has managed to learn about her, it’s that her vulnerability always comes in the face of distraction. She will pretend to be engaged in her meal, or people watching, anything to avoid the eyes of the person she’s allowing to momentarily see her. As if the moment wasn’t more precious than anything else, as if Lena wasn’t already drowning in her.
Kara carries the empty bowl to the sink stiffly. “Nevermind. Forget I asked.”
Lena adjusts the tote bag over her shoulder. She bites the insides of her cheeks. She should leave. Kara’s made it easy to leave.
“I would love to. If you’d have me.”
Kara hugs her right there, in the open door way. It must last five minutes, that hug. She smells like vanilla and gardenias from the perfume Lena bought for her, just because. Just because she was on her mind, just because she wants to give her anything and everything if it means Kara would smile.
Kara pulls her further into the apartment, the front door closing with a decisive click.
*
She brushes her teeth and dawdles in the bathroom, because suddenly Kara’s bed is an intimidating place. She had backpacked through Europe alone at 18. She constantly walks into rooms full of the most intimidating people, she stares down men twice her size with ease. And now here she is, scared of a bed she’s slept in countless times before.
Maybe it’s not the bed. Maybe it’s the idea of laying in it and not kissing Kara.
The lights are already out when she leaves the bathroom, only the window painting the wooden planks of Kara’s floor in the pale yellowish white of the streetlights.
Lena slips into bed. The sound of her skin against the sheets is stark in the quiet of the room. She stares at the ceiling and Kara stares at her until she concedes to the silent request and gives her back to Kara, smothering her smile into the pillow as Kara spoons her, linking one of their hands across her stomach.
It’s warm and intimate and their so-called one night stand is a tangible and heavy weight they're both trying to ignore. Lena feels too safe in Kara’s arms to break the tension, wants so desperately to be loved by her in any way that she doesn’t dare change it.
“Stay tomorrow okay?” Kara whispers. “I'll make pancakes.”
Lena squeezes her hand in affirmation.
“Tell me,” Kara insists. “Promise me you’ll stay.”
She sounds wrong. Lena dislodges Kara’s relentless grip with some effort, turning around to face her. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know.” Kara looks away. “The other morning. I didn’t know whether I made you up.”
Lena’s heart sinks. She holds Kara so close it might be possible for them to become one. “I promise.”
*
Kara doesn’t give her a chance to choose to stay. She’s already up, slathering pancakes with strawberry syrup and filling the space with the aroma of coffee. She greets Lena with a grin, blasts one of the coffee mugs with laser vision and brings it to her. “Don’t rush,” she says, tracing one of Lena’s brows, no doubt ruffled and messy from sleep. Lena watches her walk away. Her heart beats twice as fast and she knows Kara can hear it.
That night meant something. Kara touched her like it meant something. Then she woke up alone.
Kara doesn’t like to be alone, does she? Even now, her eyes flick to Lena every now and then, making sure she is still there. And before the phantom zone, it was the same, wasn’t it? They were both the same. Both pulling themselves away, both simultaneously terrified of being left behind.
If Kara had been the one to leave, Lena would have been angry. She would’ve spit venom, hid behind the clench of her jaw. But Kara is soft and gentle to the people she loves. Kara hides differently.
Lena watches her so intently that Kara grows clumsy and pink with it. If Lena sits here long enough, if Kara lets her look long enough, maybe she’ll find everything she’s looking for, or only the most trivial of those things, or maybe she’ll find nothing at all. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, continuing to look is the point.
*
Lena leaves for the tower. She sits at her desk, and she tries to work on the program she’s developing for the team, but her mind is somewhere else entirely. Her mind is on Kara, swimming in affection, swimming in desire, swimming in intention.
She fights against it. She’s not the type of person that gets arrested by their emotions, and it never bodes well on the rare occasion that she does. It’s only when she’s done with the day’s work that she finds she can’t make herself go home, not when there is somewhere else she’d rather be, not when there is something she needs to say.
She decides to walk, hoping that maybe the fresh air will clear her mind. A part of her hopes that the walk will prolong the journey long enough for her to lose her nerve, but she remains determined, even when the sky turns gloomy and it rains.
Kara squeaks when she opens her front door to see Lena, soaked and shivering. She reaches out to pull Lena in, exclaiming that she’ll get sick, but Lena bats her away, huffing as cold water travels down her spine. “Don’t invite me in,” she says.
“What?”
“Don’t invite me in. Just… let me…” Lena huffs again, stands outside Kara’s door in her cold clothes and chattering teeth and tries to find the words. Kara fills the doorway, comfortable in a soft sweater. The space behind her radiates with the warmth of her apartment, all blues and greens and browns. If Lena goes in, she’ll chicken out. She’ll change into Kara’s clothes, sink into Kara’s plush couch, cozy up in Kara’s arms, and she’ll let it be enough, because she’s scared, terrified, and Kara is security and safety and shelter and all those words.
“Lena, are you crying? I can’t tell. Did something happen?”
“No.”
Lena wipes her cheeks, where there are indeed tears mixing with the rain, because she’s crying. Crying, right now, is easier than talking. But Kara is freaking out, so Lena goes on with it.
“It meant something to me. That night, after Veronica’s auction, it meant everything to me. I don’t just want it to be a one night stand. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. I want dates, and a relationship, and to be yours, if you’ll have me.”
Kara grips the door frame. She looks like she might cry too.
“I thought I’d ruined everything. I thought you didn’t want me.”
“I always want you, Kara.”
Kara reaches for her and this time Lena lets herself be pulled into a hug. Kara’s unfairly warm, unfairly snug, smells unfairly good.
“I’ve wanted you every single day since I met you,” Lena whispers, barren and vulnerable and crying because of it but unable to stop with Kara’s arms wrapped tightly around her.
Lena wants to be crushed by her. She wants to be broken down and molded again, only to end up the exact same, because that is how Kara wants her- just as she is.
“Let’s get you warm, okay? Then we can talk.”
Lena unclenches her jaw and nods. She walks into Kara’s apartment, which might at this point constitute her second home. She changes into Kara’s warm clothes, snuggles under her thick blankets, smiles at the mug on the coffee table, the one Lena got her for her birthday because Kara had put forth a fifteen dollar limit. Baby Yoda smiles back at her around the frog in its mouth.
Kara tugs on her hand and Lena shuffles closer. They sit close and intimate but not touching, leaving space for a serious conversation. “Why did you leave that night?” Kara asks softly.
“I don’t know.”
Kara’s lips twist. Lena runs her fingers along the shapes knitted into the blanket.
“I got overwhelmed. I ran.”
“Was it something I did?” Kara asks.
“No. No, you were perfect.”
Kara looks skeptical. Lena deflates and forces herself to be honest.
“When I Imagined us happening, I just saw it going… slow. A date. Then another date. Having discussions, making sure we’re both on the same page- which I guess now that I think about it doesn’t sound that romantic. Anyways… that’s not what happened. And it’s not your fault. I kissed you, and I was… yeah. I just got overwhelmed. I didn’t know how you felt and I got scared that I’d ruin everything but I ruined it anyways.”
“Okay.” Kara faces Lena with an adorably determined expression. “So let’s have a discussion.”
Despite them being her own words, Lena throws her head back and groans a little. Kara giggles, already up and in search of throw pillows for the both of them to clutch. Throw pillows can only mean one thing: Lena’s going to cry before the night is over. Again.
“I thought it’s what you wanted!”
“It is,” Lena says, still groaning.
“Okay, so I’ll start.” Kara settles in, crisscross applesauce, a soft green pillow in her hands, a devastatingly earnest expression on her face. “I wasn’t planning on it being a one night stand. I never wanted it to be a one night stand. I only said it ‘cus I didn’t want to lose you. I thought maybe you were put off by my feelings for you, or it made the sex weird or something, I don’t know.”
“It wasn’t bad.”
Kara’s lips quirk. “No?”
“No. You know it wasn’t.”
Kara shuffles closer. Lena lets Kara’s teasing nature wash over her. The talk doesn’t have to be dramatic. It’s not the end of the world. Kara likes her, and she likes Kara.
“Will you run again?” Kara asks.
Lena considers the question seriously, pouts a little because she doesn’t want to lie.
“I can’t promise that I’ll never ever run—”
Kara chuckles fondly. “Thankfully, I’m somewhat of a professional at chasing you.”
A slither of bashfulness creeps onto Lena’s cheeks “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s just, this won’t work unless we’re both honest with each other. I know that’s rich, coming from me, but…”
“Yeah. I agree. I might need you to be patient with me, at first. To help me out a little.”
“I can do that. It’s not like I’m perfect, you know. You’ll find it’s very hard to tolerate me sometimes.”
It’s a joke, but Lena’s suddenly struck by the gravity of their conversation and doesn’t laugh.
“So we’re doing this? Seriously?”
Kara tugs on Lena’s thighs, urging her onto her lap.
“We’re doing this.”
Before Lena can anxiously ask to clarify what ‘this’ is, Kara’s big palms are moving up Lena’s thighs, and she’s leaning in for an experimental eskimo kiss, and what comes after is certain enough.
Lena still asks afterwards, in the interest of being open and honest and all that. Kara laughs into her naked shoulder, and Lena finds she might not need Kara to crush her and put her back together to know she loves her.
Being held this softly… it just might suffice.