Chapter Text
She needs to see Lena, that’s her first thought as soon as the events of the night dawn on her. There's no more time to lose, she'll tell Lena how she feels about her, and hopefully, her feelings will be reciprocated.
Now that she's been to other earths she's convinced that what she saw in all those Lenas' eyes was love —a love that she has seen in her own Lena; before and during their fight—. Love that goes beyond friendship or any other relation that can be considered fraternal. Kara still doesn't know why it took her so long to see something that was in front of her eyes but she won't keep questioning it when there are things far more important she should be doing now. Six minutes have passed since she last checked the digital clock on her night table.
Kara should wait, at least until the morning, right?
It’s too late and Lena’s heartbeat is constant and low, she’s asleep, and with her already horrible sleeping habits she’d hate to wake her up. But what if tomorrow morning she goes into Noonan’s for a coffee and meets the love of her life on the queue? Or as a new intern on the elevator? Rao, what if she falls in love with Jess tomorrow morning?
Her thoughts are starting to take the paranoid and quasi psychotic route so she sets up eight alarms on her phone with one minute between them for 5:30 am. She’ll be on Lena’s doorstep as soon as she wakes up, no intruders in her way, not even if they are nice assistants or handsome engineers.
Just three more hours and Lena will know she’s in love with her.
Kara rolls on the bed and ends up in a starfish position, she lets out a sigh hard enough that the lamp dances on her night table. There are some menial cracks on the ceiling that Kara for the love of Rao can't remember if they are of her authorship.
It takes her thirty-four minutes, —four more than she thought she could last— to be in the sky. She flies on autopilot; she knows the route to Lena's place better than her own.
Lena barely gets sleep most nights, so it is not like Kara's little disturbance will kill her, right? Besides, keeping secrets almost destroyed them once; Kara waited to tell Lena about her identity, putting excuse after excuse to delay it, she won't do the same this time. She knows it's not the same, that Lena won't hate her or get mad at her for loving her too much, it will be awkward at most if she turns out to be rejected but they’ll find their path as they always do. Still, she's not risking it, not this time, not with her.
Kara lands on Lena's balcony, the one that leads to her bedroom, and tries to absorb the impact as much as possible to not startle her. She doesn't need to think through too much about what her next step will be, there's light inside and Lena's rhythmic steps on the wooden floor, and then faster than she could have anticipated the glass doors disappear to leave Lena in their place, disheveled from bed and with a racing heart that matches Kara’s, perhaps that's the reason she didn't realize Lena was awake.
Kara doesn’t speak, doesn’t even move or blink, she’s not sure she would be able to do it if she tried now. Once again, she's saved by the bell when Lena takes a step forward.
“What are you doing here?” Lena asks with a frown and slightly worried eyes, runs her look up and down Kara with an even more confused expression. “and why are you in your pajamas?”
Oh, with everything going on in her head it seems like she had forgotten to change to her suit, Alex will be furious if she appears on the morning news.
"That's because, uh, there's something I need to tell you."
“At almost four in the morning?”
Kara nods repeatedly and she’s sure she looks like a shake head toy. "Well, yeah?"
Lena crosses her arms and she starts to chant in her head 'don't look at her boobs, don't look at her boobs, damn it! I looked at her boobs.'
"Has anything to do with an interdimensional being?"
Pause-
"What? Do you know about him?"
"How about we have dinner while we talk?"
"But you said it's almost four."
Lena shrugs with one shoulder. "Early breakfast, then?" She offers her hand, a silent reassurance, an unspoken 'hey, we're okay’ and she visibly relaxes when Kara takes it. It's good to know she's not the only one nervous here.
Touch has always been a funny thing for Kara, out of all of her senses, with or without glasses is the same or more like, it’s never the same. Sometimes it is too much, not painful, but too much and she wants to just jump out of her skin, and sometimes it is this numbness that settles on her as if there was something between her and the universe, impeding her to be connected to it. Like now, she can’t exactly feel Lena’s hand on hers, she can imagine the strength put on the hold by the strain on her hand, she may not feel it in her body but she does feel it in her heart.
They walk to the kitchen where Lena starts rummaging through cabinets and pulls ingredients out of the fridge to prepare pancakes and benedict eggs, Kara helps setting up the table handing Lena whatever she needs.
She tries to casually prompt the conversation while toasting bread.
“So… about that interdimensional thingy.”
Lena doesn’t stop her job of stirring the pancake dough mix.
“Oh yes, Mr. Mxyzptlk, what a curious… man, I think.”
“How can you say his name so fluently?”
Lena’s smile is coy and has one of her trademarked lifted eyebrows when she says; “I speak many languages, I have an agile tongue.” Now, that couldn’t be any other thing than flirting. “But anyway, he was here. It was a very short but enlightening visit.”
Kara gulps, “How so?”
“For starters, I met a fifth-dimensional being which therefore proves the existence of a fifth dimension. Then I learned you were engaged to him or something like that and he gave me some VHS tapes,” Lena puts the first batch of pancakes on the table. ''He left shortly after that."
"I wa-wasn’t, it’s a long story” Lena tilts her head and gives her a deadpan look. “that I’ll tell you later. Did you watch them?" Kara gingerly questions.
"No, he told me what they were about but I figured that if you haven't mentioned them it is for a reason and I'm not entitled to know each and every one of your thoughts and actions, contrary to what I used to think.”
“But you’re in them.” she presses as if actively looking for Lena’s anger and all she gets is the woman patiently sipping her coffee.
“Really? It feels more like hearing rumors about me.”
“Do you want to see them? Maybe it would feel different then.”
Lena leans back against her seat, cup still in hand. "I don't know, wouldn't it be like picking into a freshly scarred wound?"
It's dangerous territory, that’s for sure, however, Kara knows that even if the wire they walk on looks strained and shaky, it will endure their weight. They have already talked and screamed and cried their reasons and feelings out. What is this in comparison to the backstabs and the lies?
Still, she can't help but wonder if once Lena is faced with these alternate realities, it all comes back? What if they go back to square one, what if she hates her again? No, no hate.
I never hated you, I never will. I can't.
"I want you to know it all, no more hiding. Remember?"
Lena gives her a tiny smile, barely a twitch of her lips, and nods. They finish their breakfast without saying anything else but at some point between Lena’s second cup of coffee and Kara’s third serve of pancakes they hold hands across the table and it is with intertwined fingers that they move onto the couch.
Kara tries to forget that the last time they shared a couch, Lena was in the middle of a make out session with her sister and focuses instead on the woman’s current fight to open the cardboard box sitting on her lap. It’s turning out to be a titanic task but Lena seems adamant to do it one-handed. She succeeds and rummages through the contents of the box.
“‘The one where Lena knows since the beginning'.” Lena reads aloud. “This sounds promising."
Kara smiles, tight-lipped, that’s the reality she was the most tempted to choose, where she had years to her side as partners, where they changed the world for the best, a Luthor and a Super together before all of Kara’s deepest fears became true.
Lena seems to be digesting everything well, better than expected actually, she watches with rapt attention lives that could have been but weren't. She's taking it so well, even making some remarks and comments as if they were at movie night, and Kara almost allows herself to relax until they get to the tape that shows her as Metallo.
Lena stops holding her hand and instead starts to play with the hem of her robe nervously, Kara can hear the sound of silk tearing. Impressive, given its resistance.
“Why did you let me hurt you?” Lena sobs, incapable of containing her emotion. She looks up at Kara, teary-eyed and with a trembling lip. The image is devastating. "Why didn't you stop me?"
On the screen, she's on the floor, telling Lena that she won't fight her, if Kara had had the chance to see herself back then she'd have realized her feelings for the woman sitting next to her so much sooner. Kara would have let Lena kill her before laying a finger on her, she would have been one of her sidekicks if that were what it took to be by her side. Hopefully, her reality will be less tragic than that.
"I couldn't stand the idea of hurting you, especially when it was partially my fault that they did that to you."
Lena sniffs soundly and wipes her running nose with her sleeve.
“You realize how stupid that sounds, right?”
“I never claimed to be smart.” Kara murmurs on Lena’s hair and pushes her closer to her body.
“Says miss ‘I knew advanced calculus by four’.”
She hums, only half aware of her surroundings, the smell of Lena's shampoo is clouding her mind and leaving her in a sedative state.
“I’m not smart with feelings, that’s why this took me so long.” her lips brush Lena's temple, and the woman shivers.
“Telling me you were Supergirl or about the tapes?”
“That too but no.” Kara says just loud enough for Lena to listen and she pulls her into a full embrace and onto her lap to emphasize her next words. “I meant to hold you close to me and now I don’t plan to let you go.”
Lena buries her face in the crook of her neck, hands indecisive of where to go end up circling Kara's neck and pressing closer to her.
“Good, I don’t want you to stop.”
They both know they are about to kiss, they expect it, maybe they have expected it for longer than the other can even fathom, for longer they know and now, with the sun rising behind National City's buildings, it finally happens.
Remember the numbness Kara talked about? Well, this kiss and every touch after that, Kara feels it with and in every fiber of her being.
It's a brush of lips, merely a breeze, at first. It's field reconnaissance and the discovery, Kara maps Lena's back with her fingers and Lena traces the contours of her face with such reverence that she may start crying but then Lena's tongue is in her mouth and her own hands are finding his way through the fabric and she feels hot, so hot that she could suffer spontaneous combustion. There's nothing innocent in their touches, each one seems focused on trying to provoke something primal, and for a second Kara wonders… Why did it take her so long to do it when she feels like this ? and is Lena feeling the same? she hopes so.
Lena must feel her mind slowly sliding away because there's a sudden distance between them, she doesn't like it one bit.
"There’s something wrong?"
Kara shakes her head, the sight of Lena with messy hair and rumpled clothes, plus the knowledge of knowing herself the cause of it, steals her breath. She shakes her head again, this time to try and get some clarity. "Isn't this… too much too soon?"
"Oh, you're right. Sorry."
Lena blushes then extricates herself from Kara and returns to her side of the couch, even further apart than they initially had been.
"No no no, come back here, baby." She places Lena back on her lap and strokes the naked skin of her hip with her thumb. Big green worried eyes are staring at her, Kara is having none of it. "Hugs and kisses are fine." to emphasize her point she kisses the woman, short and heated, Lena relaxes in her arms. "I meant the, you know, heavier stuff. Is that okay?"
Lena chuckles, and honestly, it's music to her ears.
"More than.” Lena intertwines their hands again and tucks a rebel hair strand behind Kara's ear. "And just so you know, we don't have to have sex now or never for that matter if that's not what you want."
But that's the thing; Kara wants. She so wants.
Kara is not as innocent as most make her seem or think her to be, she knows the workings of sex, has had it, and wanted it. Just because she doesn't vocalize her desires doesn't mean they don't exist.
"I do, I really do but this is so new, I don't want to rush into things."
Lena's eyes lose some of their mirth.
"Are you afraid you could regret it?"
Kara lifts a hand and with her index smooths the crinkle on Lena's forehead.
"I regret many things… but not you. Never you."
"Despite all the pain I've caused you?"
She looks at the sky, to a point she doesn't need to locate; her eyes instantly find it with muscular memory.
"Pain. The best things in my life have been surrounded by a lot of it, and you're no exception." Kara can feel Lena's complete attention boring one side of her head. "Besides, I'm not free of guilt in this so I'll ask you the same question. After all the pain, do you regret me?
Lena swallows, looking for words that have chosen this moment to fail her. She shakes her head to scare away the tears stinging behind her, she smiles through it. “You are worth everything.”
Kara leans in for one more kiss, there's no particular reason for it and she doesn't need it.
*
*
*
"Just let me grab a jacket real quick!”
"Kara, we're going to be late."
Lena comes in strutting behind her and leans against the doorframe.
Kara rolls her eyes fondly. "I'll just fly us there."
"On a bus?" Lena teases her as she steps back into the apartment, looking around her eyes to fall to the magazine in her hands. “Hey, what’s that?”
“Nothing, just an old Catco number.” she answers, absentmindedly, running her finger over the cover that shows her and Lena together but it’s not really them .
A Nobel Match: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor Announce Engagement.
At least not here.
"Everything ok?"
"Yeah, more than."