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Kara doesn’t know what she’s going to say to Lena or how exactly she’s going to bring it up. She also doesn’t know how to explain why the entire situation is making her insides feel warm and fluttery. But she tries not to dwell on it too much as she stands in line to pick up doughnuts from their favourite place downtown before heading to meet Lena after work.
Tuesday nights have become their nights, where Lena promises to be off work early and Kara tells J’onn not to call her in for Supergirl stuff unless it’s a real emergency, and the two of them watch cheesy romantic comedies and make fun of how unrealistic they are whilst consuming their body weights in Chinese food and doughnuts.
Kara looks forward to Tuesdays more than any other day of the week.
But today she’s nervous because she knows she has to talk to Lena about what happened this morning and every time she thinks about it, the butterflies in her stomach are back.
Lena had been having problems with her phone and weird codes had been popping up all the time, so she’d asked Winn to take a look at it for her, in case someone had planted a virus or a bug on it. Winn had managed to remove the problem pretty easily, but in doing so he’d had to remotely scan each file on it individually, and whilst doing that he’d found a folder, labelled with a single pink heart emoji which was full of candid pictures of Kara that Lena had taken.
Kara eating pancakes with her hair up and her pyjamas on from a Sunday morning a few months back when Lena had stayed over, staring adoringly at her plate. Kara grinning at the TV from a couple of weeks ago, her eyes wet with tears of laughter at whichever comedy they’d been watching. Kara bending down to pet a cat on the street whilst they walked to work together last week, her smile soft.
Winn had cleared his throat awkwardly and left Kara to scroll through the rest, and Kara was glad because she knows she wouldn’t have been able to explain the blush on her cheeks to anyone.
If she had looked back, she’d have seen the knowing smile on his face as he glanced back at her before leaving the room.
Kara’s spent the rest of the day thinking about the pictures, about if the pictures mean something, how to bring it up with Lena, or if she should bring it up with Lena at all.
Kara knows she’s had a crush on Lena since… forever. But she has no idea if Lena feels the same. And she doesn’t want to hope that the pictures mean something, but she inevitably hopes that they do anyway. Because having a crush on your best friend is kind of painful sometimes, and it would really be the best thing ever if said best friend felt the same way.
“Are you alright?” Lena asks, because Kara hasn’t been paying attention to the movie at all, and Lena knows this for a fact because neither has she; she’s been watching Kara instead, like always.
She’d known something was up the moment Kara met her after work, but so far, Lena hasn’t been able to get her to tell her what it is.
Lena really can’t concentrate on anything, knowing that Kara isn’t herself.
“I’m fine!” Kara says loudly, and both she and Lena are taken aback by how weird her voice sounds.
Kara clears her throat and smiles awkwardly. “I mean, I’m fine,” she says again, a little more normally.
Lena narrows her eyebrows and tilts her head to the side questiongly.
“No. Don’t. Don’t you do that. Don’t you do that thing with your eyes that you always do that makes me tell you things. It’s not fair. Lena, stop. I’m serious,” Kara babbles, covering her face with her hands.
Lena wants to laugh, because Kara’s adorable, but if she laughs then Kara wins and Lena hates losing.
Or that’s what she tells herself anyway. When it comes to Kara, the reality is very different.
Kara’s still hiding behind her hands and Lena figures it can’t hurt to allow herself a smile.
So she smiles. At Kara. Because of Kara.
Lena takes her phone out of her pocket and quickly snaps a picture of her, her head thrown back, her hands hiding her face. She almost wishes the lens and the lighting was better because she’s sure there’s sugar from the doughnuts in the corners of Kara’s mouth and she really wants to capture everything about this moment.
Something in her chest clenches as Lena saves the picture to an album that’s already full of pictures of Kara. That same something that she’s felt and continuously pushed away so many times over the last few months.
“Can I look yet? Is it safe? Are you still making that face?” Kara asks from behind her hands.
Lena laughs. “I’ll stop making this face when you tell me why you’re acting so weird.”
Kara sighs dramatically. “Ughhhhh, you’re serious aren’t you? I’m not gonna get away with this, am I?”
“Nope. So you might as well just tell me, Supergirl.”
Kara removes her hands from her face and smiles warmly at Lena. Her eyes are nervous though, and Lena can’t help but feel a twist of anxiety in her stomach at the sight of them.
Kara still has no idea how she’s going to bring it up. And Lena’s smile is so soft and it’s really distracting and Kara almost wants to tell her to stop, but she can’t because there isn’t a force of nature on any planet that could ever make Kara ask Lena to stop smiling.
Kara takes a deep breath and just decides to go for it.
“Lena, why do you have an entire album on your phone full of pictures of me?”
Kara blinks, because Rao she hadn’t expected it to come out like that and then she panics because Lena looks visibly uncomfortable and it’s wrong because it’s never uncomfortable between them, it never has been, and Kara almost wants to do something really dramatic like call Barry Allen over to run them back in time so that she can take it back.
“It’s not a bad thing! Rao that came out all wrong and I know you’re thinking that I think it’s a bad thing, but it’s not, I swear! The pictures are lovely and I’m super flattered that you’d want to take pictures of me but I’m also just a little confused as to why you’d want to take pictures of me. And then also I noticed that the album has little pink emoji heart as its title and I hate myself for thinking about that so much but I can’t help it because if I was gonna have an album full of pictures of you then I’d probably use the same emoji for it and I kind of hate myself for not taking pictures of you, Lena because I think you’re really beautiful and if I was ever gonna take pictures of anyone, I’d take them of you.” Kara’s face feels so hot and she realises she hasn’t really taken a breath since she started her sentence. “And um, I’m gonna stop talking now,” she finishes, pushing her glasses up her nose.
Lena’s looking at her weirdly, apprehensively, but there’s a ghost of a smile on her face and something inside Kara relaxes the tiniest bit at the sight of it because if Lena’s smiling then that must mean that Kara hasn’t completely ruined things.
She hopes she hasn’t ruined things. She really hopes she hasn’t ruined things. Because Kara would rather live the rest of her life with a painful crush on her best friend than live for even 10 seconds without her best friend at all.
Lena reaches up and tucks some of her hair behind her ear and Kara’s eyes can’t help but follow her every movement.
There’s a light blush on Lena’s cheeks and suddenly Kara’s favourite colour in the world is pink.
“I think I have some explaining to do,” Lena says with a tentative smile, and she tucks the same piece of hair behind her ear again, and then she does it again and Kara wants to reach out and take her hand because she can tell Lena’s nervous and she hates knowing that Lena is nervous.
“You don’t have to explain anything, Lena. I just wanted you to know that I don’t mind about the pictures, and I know I went a really long way around that and I’m not sure if I actually got to the point but yeah, I don’t mind. And if the pictures don’t mean anything then that’s okay and we can just forget that this conversation ever happened and go back to the way things were before I opened my mouth and-
“Kara,” Lena says, and Kara realises she’s doing that thing again where her mouth runs away from her brain and just starts saying things.
“I’m gonna stop talking now. Go ahead,” Kara says, and then she pretends to zip her mouth closed and Lena laughs and Kara just smiles awkwardly in response but her brain keeps saying I love you I love you I love you and it feels so loud that she starts to worry that Lena can actually hear it.
“This really isn’t how I wanted you to find out about this. I guess I never really thought that you ever would find out about this actually and for someone with an IQ of 167 it’s pretty stupid of me to not even think about putting that folder of pictures of you somewhere else before giving my phone to Winn,” Lena chuckles lightly, and tucks that same piece of hair behind her ear again.
Kara has to physically slip her own hands under her legs to stop herself reaching out to take hold of Lena’s.
Lena’s overly aware of how often she’s touching her hair and her brain won’t stop thinking about how much easier this would be if Kara was holding her hand.
Of all the ways their night could have gone, Lena had never imagined it would go like this.
If she’s honest, she never thought they’d ever be having this conversation because Lena’s never even considered the possibility that Kara would find out about the pictures, much less that Kara would find out and sit there blushing and babbling about them. It’s throwing Lena for a loop; Kara is distracting enough anyway, but Kara with pink cheeks and a hopeful smile and a mouth that keeps running away from her is something else entirely.
“Wow, this is hard. I actually can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Lena says, and she’s sure she didn’t mean to say it out loud but the warm smile Kara gives her in response makes her so glad she did.
“It’s just me, Lee. You can tell me anything,” Kara smiles, and Lena knows she’s right, but she’s her best friend and she’s so scared of losing her.
“I like you, Kara. A lot. In a lot of ways. In pretty much every way. But I never really allowed myself to think about having this conversation with you because every time I did, it didn’t exactly go the way I wanted it to. Because you’re… you’re you and I’m… well, I’m me and it’s kind of unthinkable. You and me, I mean,” Lena laughs, humourlessly, but Kara doesn’t seem to find it funny.
Kara never laughs at Lena’s self deprecating jokes, not ever.
“The pictures I took of you… I know I shouldn’t have just taken them without asking and I’m sorry you had to find out about them this way, but- They were always just a-“ Lena stops and takes a deep breath and Kara smiles at how uncharacteristically flustered she’s getting and her smile warms every bone in Lena body. She lets out a small laugh. “I bet you never thought you’d see the day where I’m practically speechless, did you?”
Kara chuckles. “I’d be lying if I said it’s something I’ve ever considered the possibility of.”
Lena laughs, and just like that, she remembers why she loves Kara so much.
Kara makes everything feel... easy. Natural. Hopeful.
“Those pictures of you... Taking them, for me, was the only way I ever felt like I deserved you. It doesn’t make much sense but I never imagined I’d ever be able to have all of you, and the pictures, they were small parts of you that no one else saw, and I just wanted to keep them for myself so that I could- is this making any sense?” Lena asks, stopping herself in the middle of a sentence because she’s sure nothing she’s saying is making any sense at all.
Lena watches Kara think for a few seconds, before her mouth forms a smile.
“I mean, it sounds to me like you thought that having those pictures is like having parts of me that you never thought you deserved? Like you took the pictures because you never allowed yourself to ask for the real thing?” Kara questions, and Lena has no idea how Kara manages to make everything make sense.
Lena nods hesitantly, and watches the smile on Kara’s face grow.
“Do you see me going anywhere, Lena?” Kara asks, softly. “Do you see me hiding anything from you?”
Lena looks at her, really looks at her, and she’s sure Kara’s eyes have never been this warm.
“You’re the only person who has ever known all of me, Lena. And I’m still here, now, and I’m not saying no. To anything.” Kara pauses and reaches for Lena’s hand, slipping her own into it. “You know what I’m saying, don’t you?”
Kara tightens her grip on Lena’s hand and hopes with everything in her that Lena understands what she’s saying.
Lena smiles, and it’s such a tentative smile, so unsure and hesitant, but Kara can see the hope in her eyes all the same. Which she’s sure is just a metaphor in itself when it comes to Lena because Kara has never known anyone who hopes the way Lena does, no matter how much it hurts.
“You’re saying yes?” She asks, and Kara almost laughs because she can’t believe she’s still asking.
“Of course I’m saying yes, you big goof! Now get over here and let me hug you!” Kara smiles, pulling on Lena’s hand until she’s close enough to wrap her arms around her, pulling Lena against her tightly.
Kara hears her laughing against her ear and then suddenly she’s laughing too and right there in the moment, she swears she’s never been happier.
“Give me your phone,” Kara says, pulling back just enough so that Lena can reach into her pocket.
Lena hands Kara her phone, her laughter falling into amused curiosity.
Kara swipes the screen, accessing the camera before pulling Lena into her again.
“I’m probably not as good at this as you are,” Kara says, before she presses a soft kiss to Lena’s lips, and takes a picture. “But I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to practice,” she adds with a smile against Lena’s mouth.
Lena leans back slightly and stares at Kara, and Kara swears she’s never seen her eyes so soft. Then, she grins.
“The picture taking? Or the kissing?” Lena asks, cocking one eyebrow.
Kara laughs and rolls her eyes affectionately. “Both,” she says, before she kisses Lena again. “Although maybe we could practice one more than the other?”
Lena doesn’t answer Kara’s question.
They’re too busy practicing.