Work Text:
Kara has only been awake for about ten seconds when a voice from behind her says, “You don’t have to come today.”
She rubs the sleep from her eyes, turning on the bed to lie on her other side so that she’s facing Lena, who only turns when Kara tugs at her hip. She stares at Kara for a minute, half of her face smushed into her pillow, the other creased with sleep, before speaking again.
“You don’t have to be ready yet. You don’t have to be ready for as long as you like.”
“I want to be ready, though,” Kara says sleepily. She taps her fingers against Lena’s collarbone, not quite looking at her. Lena grabs them with both of her hands.
“But you don’t have to be,” Lena says again earnestly, ducking so that she can look Kara in the eye as she presses each of Kara’s fingertips to her lips, and suddenly, they’re not talking about tonight anymore. Kara laughs, more awake now and tingling all over, and Lena smiles, satisfied.
“No,” Kara agrees, nodding. She moves closer to Lena under the blanket, the hair on the crown of her head tickling Lena’s chin, her mouth pressed to the bare skin where her fingers had been previously. Lena jolts, then shakes with suppressed laughter, wrapping her arms around Kara tightly.
Under the sunlight filtering in through the curtains and in Lena’s embrace, Kara is beautifully warm and comfortable. It’s in the safety of the private darkness she’s found where Lena’s shoulder and neck meet that she says, again, “I want to be, though.” Lena hums, the sound vibrating through her entire body, and Kara feels it acutely in all the places they’re touching. “I want, therefore I am.”
Lena bursts into startled laughter; this time, Kara can feel it everywhere, gliding through her bones like sunlight and echoing deep in her chest, and then she’s laughing, too. “You really do have a way with words,” Lena says.
“Hey!” Kara complains, pulling back so she can look at Lena, “I know words!” Lena nods solemnly, but her eyes are brimming with amusement, pale grey in the morning light. “I do! I know words like ‘pancakes’, and ‘coffee’ …”
Lena rolls her eyes. “Yes, quite the linguistic expert,” she says, but she’s already getting out of bed, and Kara jumps up to start the coffee.
-
Kara gets to the DEO a little late that morning, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what she and Lena had been doing in Lena’s kitchen while their coffee was cooling. At least, that’s what Kara tells a snickering Alex as they make their way to the round table.
“Well, we’re in luck, ‘cause it looks like today’s going to be a quiet one,” Winn says as they approach, checking the alerts he has set up on his monitor.
“And I will take care of anything that comes up,” J’onn adds. “I’m sorry I can’t join you all tonight.” He smiles apologetically at Kara. Kara smiles back.
“That’s okay,” she says. “You can go another time. Lena says the view of Mars is really great.”
“He can go with M’gann,” Alex adds casually, not quite hiding her grin.
Kara gasps dramatically, her hand over her mouth. “Oh, like a date!”
“Exactly like a date.”
J’onn shoots them an unamused look. “Perhaps it is a good thing we aren’t coming today.”
This time, Alex joins Kara when she gasps, and the two of them clutch at their hearts, groaning piteously, sprawling across the table. “Ouch,” she moans theatrically. They stare up at J’onn plaintively. He shakes his head in exasperation.
“Maybe I will take her,” he mutters begrudgingly, after a moment, before looking down and smiling in that rare, soft way that transforms his face completely; suddenly he looks younger, and not as though he’s suffered all the things a person can suffer in the three hundred and twenty years he’s been alive. Alex shares a secret beaming smile with Kara. “I think she’ll like that,” he adds, looking up.
“Yeah,” Kara says, and there isn’t even a trace of resentment in her voice when she does, “I think so, too.”
-
Lena does everything properly.
She arrives at Kara’s door exactly on the hour, immaculately dressed and holding a bouquet of white flowers, her driver waiting for them downstairs.
Kara does not do everything properly.
She startles so violently when Lena knocks that she accidentally rips one of the dresses she’d been deciding between for the last hour.
“So, not that one,” Kara mumbles to herself, frantically slipping the other on and speeding across her apartment. She smooths her hair down and takes a deep breath before opening the door.
Kara hears the breath Lena takes only vaguely, because her blood is suddenly pounding loudly in her head, and the words are a little muffled in her ears when Lena says, “You look absolutely lovely, Kara.” Her lips, red as her dress, curl around Kara’s name, and Kara shivers.
“Thanks,” she says absentmindedly, before shaking her head a little to clear it. “Thank you! Uhm, wow, you look incredible.” Lena smiles, teeth shining in the dim light of the hallway. “Oh geez, please come in. I’m sorry, I’m all over the place.”
“That’s all right,” Lena reassures her, stepping inside. She offers Kara the bouquet.
“Thank you,” Kara says gratefully. She cradles the flowers in her hands and goes to put them in a vase. Lena follows her further into the apartment. “I recognize the plumerias, but these are new.”
“They’re calla lilies,” Lena tells her. “They reminded me of you.” Kara smiles. “They’re very resilient, so I think they may survive even you.” Kara’s jaw promptly drops.
“Wow.” Lena laughs. “I am perfectly responsible,” Kara insists.
“Oh? Then those aren’t the ripped remains of a dress on your bed?”
“I―” Kara grins sharp and sudden. “Any particular reason you were looking at my bed?
The smirk slips off Lena’s face. The tips of her ears turn red first, then her face and neck and the skin exposed by her neckline. “Are you ready to leave?” she asks politely after a long moment, as if to buy herself some time.
“Sure! Let me just―” Kara flashes around her apartment, throwing things in her clutch as she goes. A split second later, she stops right in front of Lena, smiling brightly, inches from her.
Lena blinks once, slowly. Then her lips turn up at the corners, and she kisses Kara, so that Kara can feel her smiling when their mouths touch. She pulls away and turns, walking back towards the front door. Kara stares after her, wide-eyed and unblinking, and she only moves to shake her head and follow after Lena when the door opens and Lena looks back at her expectantly, framed in the doorway and wrapped in the light of the hallway behind her, still smiling.
On the ride to the venue, they sit with the middle seat between them. Kara drums her fingers against her thigh. Her dress is made up of some kind of synthetic material, and the sound like scraping plastic in her ears isn’t especially comforting.
From the corner of her eye, Kara notices Lena placing her hand, palm-up, on the empty seat. Kara simply breathes for a minute, before placing her hand on top of Lena’s, tapping her index finger only, now, and then not at all. Another minute passes, and Lena’s fingers wrap around hers.
“You don’t have to be ready,” Lena says without turning away from where she’s looking out her window. Then: “Nothing has to be different.”
Lena is definitely talking about two different things now; Kara’s response to the first is still the same as it was this morning, but she’d needed the reminder for the second.
Parts of this are new: the kisses, the cuddling in bed, but none of the rest of it is, not the flowers, or even the hand-holding. They’re friends, first and foremost, have been for over two years, and tonight is hardly different from any other night they’ve gone to one of Lena’s parties together.
Except that it is different, because Lena asked Kara to go with her, is asking to be a part of Kara’s night, and for Kara to be a part of hers. And Lena has just reminded Kara that she can have everything they had before and more.
Kara lets herself relax, her muscles unwinding one by one, and she unbuckles her seat belt to move into the seat beside Lena, replacing their clasped hands in her lap.
“Eliza took me and Alex to visit the National City Observatory once,” Kara tells her, like an offering, “when it was still open to the public. It was outdated, even then, but it was really nice of them.”
Lena exhales slowly, something like a sigh, and she finally turns to look at Kara. “Lionel took me,” she says in return. “After he passed away, I would come up to visit myself when I missed him. I was devastated when it closed down.”
Kara takes a deep breath. “And here we are.”
-
The entire room falls silent once Lena steps up to the podium, glass of champagne in hand. The journalists in the crowd raise their recorders in unison, and Kara thanks the stars that she’s not working tonight, unlike James, who’s already started snapping pictures of the crowd and Lena.
Lena begins to thank the sponsors and the people who have donated their time and money to make this night possible.
“Have you looked at any of the exhibits yet?” Winn whispers excitedly. “They’re awesome – a ton of the discoveries being showcased are brand new, stuff that L-Corp hasn’t made public until today.”
“Come on, Winn,” Alex says before Kara can answer. “You think she’s had any time to look at the exhibits?”
“Danvers and Lena came in together,” Maggie interjects over Kara’s spluttering, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, “and Lena’s only just arrived. Speaking of, is Lyra coming?”
“She wasn’t feeling it today,” Winn answers. “I think she’s going to come with her brother another time.”
“Nice that she has someone to come with,” Maggie says quietly.
“A question I’ve been asked a lot in the months and years leading up to today,” Lena’s saying, “is ‘why?’ Why restore the old National City Observatory. Why here?”
“Clark?” Winn murmurs, so lowly that Kara almost doesn’t hear; she appreciates the effort. James shakes his head behind Kara, the strap of his camera shifting against his collar loudly in Kara’s ears. She appreciates that, too, and the creaking of what she thinks are the bones in Alex’s hands clenching. But tonight, Kara’s heart is impervious.
She reaches back to place a hand on top of Alex’s, and it unfurls slowly underneath hers. She takes her hand back.
“Why now?” Lena continues, looking around, “and my answer to that is this – because this is important, now more than ever, and especially in a city like this one. This restoration has been in development for years, and began long before I even came to National City. It started as a personal venture, but has become so much more since then. It is about perpetuating and conserving our history and our culture.”
Lena pauses before continuing. “Little more than a year ago, Supergirl and I released a dense cloud of lead across the globe.”
A low murmur starts up in the crowd: Lena has just included herself among the people who stopped the invasion of Earth last year. Lena lets the talk peter out before resuming her speech.
“It was necessary, then, and while it hasn’t caused any real lasting harm, the lead has seriously set us back in other ways. My fellow astronomers and space enthusiasts, in particular, will join me in expressing the frustrations we’ve experienced recently, especially when looking out beyond our own solar system. The lead has been more than a little bit irritating.” Some of the people in the crowd laugh. Lena smiles, relieved. “To counteract this,” she says, “L-Corp has designed a new line of imaging technology which can look into space, even through lead.” The crowd applauds; Maggie and James whoop, and Winn cheers loudly. Lena grins at them, only a little embarrassed.
After the applause dies down, Lena speaks again. “I’m loathe to name this building after myself, but the restoration committee insisted,” she says, narrowing her eyes playfully at select individuals in the crowd, who raise their glasses to her, smiling, “and if my name is to be remembered for anything, I certainly hope it is for this.
“So, when you walk through the exhibits and take a look through the telescopes around the Lena Luthor Science Explorarium tonight, I urge you to remember that it is not just planets and stars you are observing, but the birthplaces of your fellow citizens that you are exploring. These are the thousands of years-old images and traces of homes still out there, and stars long gone. Space is much wider, even, than you or I know,” Lena says, raising her glass, and the crowd applauds and cheers. Lena catches Kara’s eye and winks when Kara raises her glass to her, grinning.
“Winning shot, don’t you think?” James asks from beside Kara. He shows her the display on his camera, which is previewing a photo of Lena speaking to the crowd, a smile framing her lips, her eyes seeming to dance in the light, backlit by a sprawling canvas of stars.
“Definitely,” Kara agrees.
-
“Oh my god,” Winn says.
James goes to share an exasperated look with Kara, but she’s just as star-struck.
“Oh my god,” Winn says again.
“What is it?” James asks.
“Lena released the designs for their new telescopes for public use!”
“And L-Corp has totally revolutionized satellite communication,” Kara adds, still looking up at the design details on the wall.
“What?” Winn says sharply, whipping around. “So now they―”
“―can ignore all kinds of interference now, including lead,” Kara finishes, nodding, recognizing elements of the design for the transmat portal Lena built last year. “She really put a lot of thought into this, I think this could lead to something really big.”
“Thank you,” a voice says from behind them.
Kara spins around. “Lena! You’re back!”
“I’m sorry I was gone for so long,” Lena apologizes. “I had to speak to all the investors.”
“Don’t worry about it, these two have been completely occupied,” James reassures her, grinning slyly.
Lena laughs. “I hope you got some good pictures.”
“I’ll show them to you later,” James whispers as Winn turns toward them. “Great speech, by the way.”
“Thank you, James,” Lena says, smiling at him.
“Lena, you’re going to help me implement all of this at the DEO, right?” Winn asks, apparently not having heard them. “This one’s always off doing Supergirl things,” he adds, jabbing a thumb at Kara.
Kara sticks her tongue out at him. “No way, Lena’s going to be too busy hanging out with me,” Kara says, before batting her eyelashes at Lena. She ignores the click of James’s camera.
Lena lasts two seconds. “Well, it’s hard to argue with that,” she says, shrugging.
Winn groans loudly as James doubles over with laughter, using Winn’s shoulder to support himself.
“You guys are literally the worst,” he grumbles.
-
The exhibits in the Explorarium go on and on without end. Kara feels like she’s been walking forever, as if she’s really walked the length of the Milky Way by the time she finds a room that’s completely deserted. After exactly ten minutes, Lena walks up silently behind her.
“I’m sorry,” she says in the quiet, “this is not quite the date I promised.”
“It’s fine,” Kara protests, turning. “It’s lovely, and I wanted to be here.”
“Still, it’s not bouquets and candle-lit dinners, or a stroll through the park …”
Kara smiles wide, amused, affection simmering in her chest. “Is that what you wanted our first date to be like?”
Lena, to Kara’s surprise and increasing delight, blushes furiously, folding her arms across her chest. “I may have thought about it on occasion,” she admits after a beat.
“Oh, you’ve thought about it on occasion?” Kara teases gently. Lena pouts, playing with one of the golden hoops hanging from her ear and looking away. Kara turns around fully, away from the digital map of known galaxies she’d been looking at, and approaches her slowly; Lena backs away just as slowly, moving in tandem with Kara, like a dance, until her back connects with the wall at the far end of the room. Kara reaches out to stroke Lena’s cheek, her index finger dragging at the corner of Lena’s downturned lips. “But we’ve already done all that,” Kara says, voice low and soft, her eyes following the path of her fingers. “You gave me the bouquets, and the dinners on private rooftop patios which―wow, and I thought an office full of flowers was extravagant.”
She smiles, looks up, and Lena is already staring back at her so fondly, eyes filled with tenderness and green like jade in the light of the Andromeda Galaxy on the wall above her, that Kara just has to kiss her, leans in right there and then, one hand braced on the wall behind Lena, the other still cupping her cheek. Lena’s lips are soft and full against hers, and when Kara traps one between her own, it tastes like the lipstick Lena’s wearing, sharp like bitter fruit.
Kara pulls away after a long moment and, without a word, she spins playfully on the spot, grabbing Lena’s hand to twirl her once slowly under her arm as Lena laughs and laughs breathlessly in the silence. She pulls Lena toward her by their still-connected hands, and Kara falls back against the wall with a soft thump, Lena still laughing in her arms. Their foreheads connect, and little puffs of air slip from Lena’s mouth, warm and sweet against Kara’s. She’s still a little winded from the kiss when she says, “You forgot the stroll through the park.”
Kara’s shoulder blades dig a little uncomfortably into the wall behind her. She hums, playing with the fabric at Lena’s waist. Her dress is made up of a smooth, rich wine red fabric tonight, and Kara had wanted to touch it from the moment she’d first caught sight of Lena at her door. It’s nothing like Kara’s dress; Lena’s is soft and silky, and it feels nice and cool between Kara’s fingers.
Kara draws herself up to her full height, head lowered and leaning in close, and says, her voice purposefully deep and smooth in the way she knows Lena likes, “Will you walk with me, Ms. Luthor?” The effect is ruined a little by Lena’s heels―which are significantly taller than her own and bring her almost level with Kara―and the wide smile threatening to bloom across Kara’s face. As it is, Lena laughs, charmed, gripping Kara by the arms and burying her face in Kara’s neck, her cheeks flushed and warm against the skin there.
“Yes,” Lena replies in a grand voice, but she doesn’t move, not until after she’s bestowed a fleeting kiss like fire upon Kara’s neck. Then, she loops her hand through Kara’s proffered arm with a flourish, and they set off, back towards the party, walking through the expansive galleries and exhibits, the rooms echoing with their laughter.
During an extended moment of quiet, Kara says, “This is perfect.”
Lips quirking, Lena repeats, “This is perfect.”
They don’t separate when they reach the rest of the gathering.
-
“Oh my gods, this is perfect,” Kara says. Lena laughs uproariously.
“Remind me to thank Jess, she’s responsible for all of this,” she says. “She’s around somewhere, keeping everything in order.”
“Remind me to thank Jess,” Kara retorts. She falls into appreciative silence, standing before the spread of food in front of her, taking it all in.
“Kara!” Alex shouts, and only then does Kara stir, ripping her gaze away from a plate of crab cakes she’d been eyeing and turning to look in the direction of her voice. Alex and Maggie are rushing towards them. “We’ve been looking all over for you!”
“I told you they were busy,” Maggie murmurs from the corner of her mouth, shooting Lena a toothy grin. Lena has the good grace to blush, smiling sheepishly.
“What, what is it?” Kara asks, casting a longing look at the table of food she’d been contemplating, “What’s the emergency?”
Alex shoves a porcelain spoon under her nose in response. “This is heavenly,” she says, and the serious look on her face might suggest the matter at hand is of the utmost importance, “you have to try it.”
“It’s a brigadeiro,” Maggie explains to Lena, rolling her eyes, “a really fancy brigadeiro.”
“Maggie says she can make these, like, whenever,” Alex says, watching Kara chew with a hawk-like expression on her face.
“This is amazing,” Kara says to Alex, who nods vigorously. “This is perfect,” she whispers, turning to Lena and Maggie, eyes wide and earnest.
Maggie joins Lena in her laughter.
-
At the end of the night, after all the other guests have gone, and only James, Winn, Maggie, Alex, Lena, and Kara remain, they run through the hallways and the cavernous exhibits, stars and worlds blurring past them, giggling on champagne and the unique sense of childish mischief that accompanies being alone in a building at night after it’s closed.
They bypass the elevators and climb up the stairs slowly; it’s an awful idea, really, but then Maggie and Alex turn it into a competition, as if tonight is just another one of their game nights, and Kara forgets that she can fly―forgets that these are people she can fly in front of―because the Thanagarian champagne Maggie gave her is making her feel all lightheaded and floaty, and suddenly it’s not so awful. They’re all laughing and falling over each other, and Winn nearly falls down the stairs twice, before finally, finally, they arrive at the top and step into the observatory room. All together, squishing in side-by-side, they take the steps up to the raised dais in front of the telescope that extends from the Lena Luthor Science Explorarium’s domed roof.
Kara looks at the people all around her: at James, who grins at her alongside Winn; at Alex, all but supporting Maggie―who manages to cast Kara a lopsided thumbs-up―with the entire left side of her body while holding Kara’s left hand with her right. Kara turns to Lena, standing at her side, her hand resting reassuringly at the small of Kara’s back as she smiles, soft and silent and not at all expectant. They all stand there, on the cramped little platform, and wait.
It's in this moment that Kara is reminded, once again: you don’t have to be ready. But Kara wants to be – really, really wants to be, and so it’s here, with her friends and family on all sides, that she finally takes her glasses off.
Kara sways forward to place her eye against the telescope’s eyepiece. The cold metal kisses her skin like ice, and Kara grips the hand in hers as tightly as she’s allowed, leaning into the warmth of her friends and the hand at her back.
And there, in the blackness of space, like it’s been waiting for her all this time, shining red in Rao’s light, is Krypton.