Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She likes the science section. That’s all Kara really knows for sure about her most frequent customer. She has long, black hair, an always expensive coat and she knows Kara’s science section like the back of her hand (and no, that wasn’t a euphemism like Alex wouldn’t stop suggesting).

She always bought something. Never quite the same. Kara couldn’t imagine what her bookshelf looked like at home, a mismatch of theories and memoirs by a bunch of people that barely fit together beneath the umbrella of ‘science’. She read about biomolecular science one week and came back the next to try her hand at chemical engineering and something else that looked like rocket science to Kara - and not in the simile way, she was genuinely sure the book was on rocket science.

She even once came in to buy Chemistry for Dummies and, though Kara was almost sure this would be like reading the back of a cereal box for her, she had laid it on the counter with upmost certainty and Kara wasn’t in the business of questioning beautiful women on their book choices.

Never fiction though. Never anything less than about three hundred pages. Never a word other than to be polite. A thank you here, a please there, a quiet hello when Kara offered a greeting first. Nothing more. Nothing less.

She was still Kara’s favourite customer.

It probably should’ve been the old lady who always came in on a Tuesday to buy whichever new crime thriller tickled her fancy like she herself was preparing to solve a chilling crime in her quiet cul-de-sac. Or the shy young girl who came in to stare in awe at Alex’s hair, and the rest of her, whilst she perused the LGBT section. Or the little boy who always asked his mom if he could pay for the books, the one who she’d put a stool on the customer side of the counter for so that he could actually reach far enough to hand Kara the cash at the till.

It could’ve been any number of the regulars that stumbled through the door.

And yet Kara had picked this one.

And, yes, logically she knew why. She knew that she was addicted to the sound of her voice, even if she only knew the way it sounded through about three words. She knew that her stomach became a butterfly moshpit anytime she was on the receiving end of one of her smiles - and she didn’t even dare think how she’d handle a real one instead of one born out of instilled etiquette. She knew that she’d mentally catalogued the exact shade of her hair and that, honestly, she was scaring herself a bit with how much she couldn’t stop just looking at her as she wandered around the shop.

Kara had a huge, gargantuan crush on the science section shopper and she didn’t even know her name. She did know that she was walking towards her however. Bookless. She was walking towards Kara without a book in her hand and a nervous look in her eyes that Kara hadn’t witnessed before.

“Hi,” she only says one word and, just like that, just like always, Kara feels rattled.

“Hi, can I help you with something?”

“Hi, yes, help is what I need,” she pauses, looking a little out of place, a little like she was half about to take back the request and run out the door. “My niece told me my reading habits are boring and there’s nothing like being insulted by a twelve year old to push you out of your comfort zone. Your co-worker says you’re the best at recommendations.” She points vaguely over her shoulder to accompany the words and Kara feels exactly zero sense of surprise when she finds Alex on the other end of it, waving at her with a smug grin because of course she couldn’t just let Kara pine at a respectable distance like a terribly awkward grown-up.

“Ouch, boring is a pretty harsh word.” Kara couldn’t imagine anyone calling this woman boring. She was an enigma. A puzzle that Kara had been stumped on for weeks. That one level in a game she could never complete and so she hid the box at the back of her shelf. Kara thought her selection of books was the most interesting one she’d come across in a while - somehow both completely expected and totally unexpected at the same time.

She was interesting.

Kara was interested.

“Yeah it definitely stung,” she says with a hint of humour and Kara just about passes out when she makes note of the soft smile on the woman’s face that tells her she’d found the comment more funny than anything, that told her she had a soft spot for this niece of hers, despite her insults. ”So now I suppose I’m in the market for something new to read, something entirely fictional.”

“Science fiction?” Kara asks quickly, receiving nothing much more than a swift brow raise in response to her immediacy. “It’s just you’ve never bought a book that’s not scientific in some way.” The brow rises higher. Kara’s sure she’s given too much away already. “Or maybe you’d prefer a classic?” The humour shifts to confusion in a second then.

“I haven’t read fiction since high school; I’m a little out of my depth,” she whispers it likes it’s a secret, like she’s half afraid the man perusing the fantasy section a few feet away will bash her on the head with a book for what she’s just admitted, and Kara feels the immediate need to comfort her. She’s about half a second from placing her hand on the woman’s forearm before she realises that would be totally creepy from a near stranger and offers a smile instead.

“So maybe we start with something not entirely based around fiction.” Kara steps out from behind the counter, noting the lack of customers waiting to pay, and gestures for the woman to follow. It doesn’t take long for them to get to their intended destination, their small store had always been more about quality than quantity, and she pulls a book swiftly from its nook. “So technically it’s half about a ghost and half a literary essay on a bunch of different themes, and wholly quite sad.”

The woman turns the book over in her hands, examining the simple cover - the stark white and the black and white picture of Aliki Vougiouklaki that Kara had come to love over the years. She won’t mention the period of her life where she became rather obsessed with watching her entire filmography, primarily because it wasn’t long enough ago for her to brush it off.

She looks it over for a while, silently, and Kara finds herself almost afraid that she won’t approve of the choice, until she looks back up to Kara, spark evident in her eye. “Are the inevitable tears your way of punishing me for not having read a book not based around scientific theories in years?”

“I’ll admit, as a book lover, your admission does wound me but I also think you’ll like it.”

“Well, who am I to argue with a self proclaimed book lover.” She hands Kara back the book as they make their way to the till and places a tip into the pot that’s way more than she actually paid for the book before she disappears through the door with a wave.

Kara finds herself a little stuck on it. The wave. She’d never done one before. She finds herself a little more stuck on her than usual, watches her go past the window, tries to act busy when she’s caught in her staring as the woman casts a glance back through the window and smiles at Kara.

Gosh she was pretty, and her smile was pretty, and she really did have an incredibly pretty voice, and golly Kara really wanted to hear it again, preferably sometime soon, and even more preferably when she was actually hearing it tell Kara her name.

She really should have asked for her name.

It becomes a thing from then.

The woman comes in, peruses the shelf for a moment before ultimately approaching Kara empty handed and asking her to recommend something new. She smiles kindly when Kara drops everything to help and leaves her with a parting wave that leaves her forgetting how to do her work afterwards.

It’s the best thing that happens to Kara’s weeks and she finds herself picking up books she hasn’t touched in years in the hopes that maybe they’ll interest her because that was the best thing. Finding a book that she liked made Kara feel like she’d managed to hang a new star in the sky. It meant she received this one excited smile that she’s sure was saved specifically for moments like these and, when she was lucky, she got to listen to her share her favourite parts.

It was amazing.

Kara’s subtle ‘not now’ look to other people was also becoming amazing.

And, she was walking into the store right that second, which was also amazing. Except, she doesn’t even bother looking at the shelves this time, instead she walks straight to the counter with purpose and a look in her eyes like Kara half betrayed her. Kara feels her back stiffen in response, preparing herself for what’s to come and still feels a little bit like she was slapped when she hears the words,

“I hated it.”

“What? That book is a classic,” Kara asks, clearly affronted and she completely stood by the statement. Jane Eyre was a classic, and like, an actual classic. Not just one of those books that was called a classic because it was written by a white man and white men seemed to always get to decide what was called important. But a genuine classic, and a book that Kara had read of her own volition more times than she could count on her own hands.

She felt oddly offended on the books behalf.

“Well, okay, so I didn’t completely hate it. Actually, I was rather enjoying it until Jane decided to go back to Rochester after all of the manipulation and vaguely disguised abuse and then he just miraculously gained sight again. At that point, I kind of hated it.” Kara finds a smile appearing on her face in spite of herself at the passion coming her way and okay, so she could maybe see her point.

“So, what you’re saying is, less misogyny this time?”

“Maybe just less... heterosexuality.” Kara quite liked being alive. Her life was actually pretty nice, something that became apparent as she watched it all flash before her eyes in that moment when she was sure she was going to die. She was genuinely going to die because she was looking at Kara like that request meant something, and Kara was almost sure she knew what it meant, and she suddenly felt really hot because she did know what that meant and she needed to not freak out outwardly.

“Less heterosexual I can definitely do,” Kara tries to come off casual and ultimately, as is normal for her, overshoots it by a mile but the woman follows along anyway, watching as Kara adds each new book to the growing pile in her arms in an attempt to drop a hint - the hint being yes I’ve read all these books and know them like the back of my hand because I am, in fact, into girls.

The woman chuckles as the piles grows, “are you using me to singlehandedly keep your business afloat?” and it’s not until then that Kara looks down and realises just how many books she was holding in her arms. There was a slight chance that she had maybe overdone it a bit. Maybe.

“God, no, sorry! I should put some of those ba-“ Kara reaches for the top book, only for her hand to be gently batted away from the stack in a swift move.

“No, I’d like to get them all, but we probably should stop here because I’m definitely not as strong as you.” She eyes Kara’s arms for a second, the slight strain beginning to show from holding all the books in her hands and Kara could really do with a glass of water, or like a torrential downpour of just really, ice cold water because she was definitely seeing things.

But, true to her word, the woman lets Kara lead her back to the counter and ring up all the books she picked up (eight total, Kara really should’ve been paying more attention), wordlessly watching them be scanned and showing no signs of flinching as the total price rockets up with each one, until she says, “it might take me a while to get through these.”

Kara hadn’t thought about that, hadn’t considered that one massive flaw in her plan. The one that meant the woman had no real reason to return to the store for a while. The one that was going to lead to the most dreadful time in Kara’s life as she waited for her to find the time to read them all. That one flaw that she needed to concoct a whole new plan just to fix.

“We’re doing a reading of this Friday,” Kara picks up the first book she can manage to grab with her hand and lifts it up to the woman’s view. “Maybe if you like it, you could come?” It comes out a little too hopeful, a little too desperate, and way too crazed because it’s a total lie and now she needed to rustle up a whole fake reading group in like two days.

(That was more than enough time.

She hoped).

The, still nameless woman, grins, taking the book in her hand as she collects the bag filled with the others in her spare one. “I’ll make sure to start with it,” she promises and she must, true to her word, because Kara finds her sitting dutifully in the back when it comes to Friday.

And yes, it completely throws her off her groove to the point where she basically forgets how words work. And yes, she spends more time looking at her than at the book but who can blame her - the answer to that is literally no one (even if Alex spends the entire weekend mocking her).

“See you soon, Kara. Looking forward to the next sign.”

“Bye…” God she really needed to ask her name. And also figure out what she was going to write on the sign outside the store next, she was running out of book puns. She’d already gone through the big ones: What’s Harper Lee’s Favourite Drink? Tequila Mockingbird, Tell Me How I’m Suppose to Breathe with No Eyre - Edward Rochester, Paper Towns AKA Margo Polo, Dystopian Novels are so 1984.

They were solid jokes, and the woman always laughed at them, and honestly the only reason Kara even bothered to change the sign outside was because she laughed at them, but it was totally worth the hassle - including the time she did it whilst it was hammering down with rain (Kara remembers how cute she’d looked with water droplets on her eyelashes and laughing - especially that time).

“So when are you gonna ask her out?” Kara should really start paying more attention to her surroundings, or, more specifically, she should really start paying more attention to where Alex was standing within those surroundings because she always managed to appear at the worst moments. The worst moments being the one’s where Kara was being the most obvious about her crush.

“Pfft, I don’t- why would I ask her out?” ‘How’ was also a completely apt question. How on earth was she supposed to gather the courage to do it? And then, beyond that, literally how was she supposed to do it in a way that didn’t come across as creepy since that stupid YOU programme came along and attempted to smash the bookstore meet-cute with a sledge hammer.

“Because before you realised she found your signs funny you literally changed it once in three years and now it’s become a weekly thing.” That was… not a lie.

“It’s just good for business. People like jokes, Alex, maybe you should try some.”

“My girlfriend happens to think I’m hilarious,” Alex argues, and yeah, she’s not technically wrong on that front, but Kara was also sure that Alex’s girlfriend would laugh at just about anything Alex said because she thought Alex switched the sun on in the morning.

“Yeah, well my- the random customer that I have no crush on whatsoever thinks I’m funny and she literally always buys a book. Not that many people actually come in here to buy something instead of just browsing or to hide from the rain.”

“Okay, I’ll let you have this one,” Alex acquiesces, with a look that says Kara may have won the battle but there was no way in hell she was going to win the war. She was sure Alex would make good on that wordless promise if past experiences were anything to go by. “But for the record the random customers name is Lena and she blushes when she looks at you too.”

“I don’t blush when I-“

“Oh look she’s back, must’ve forgotten something.” Kara spins so fast she almost gets whiplash on the turn, and yet, she’s greeted by nothing but a still firmly closed door and empty space. She tries to glare as Alex pinches at her, yes okay, admittedly, incredibly heated cheeks. “I believe you were saying something about not blushing?”

“I hate you,” she walks off under the guise of shelving new items as Alex laughs at her and, in spite of her words, she can’t bring herself to feel angry at her sister at all because she told her, her name. “Lena,” she whispers under her breath somewhere between cooking books and autobiographies. It made sense.

Lena: she that allures.

 Yeah, that one definitely checked out.

Kara’s been blushing all morning and she completely blames Alex, which is of course because Alex is entirely to blame for the whole thing. Alex who was completely obsessed with the story of how all the brothels were closed on the day of Victor Hugo’s funeral in honour of him. Alex who completely believed the rumour that it was because he was their best customer.

Alex who translated that into meaning they should have their own honour ceremony for the man and give out a free copy of the Kama Sutra to anyone who bought Les Misérables. Alex who had decided she wanted to reorganise the shelving system on today of all days and left Kara at the counter to hand out said free books.

Kara was going to kill her if the awkwardness of the day didn’t kill her before she got the chance.

The thing is she almost thought she’d gotten quite good at it.

The first time she handed one out she could barely squeak out the ‘have a good day’ she had tried to casually say. The second time the words sounded passable but she could genuinely see the droplets of sweat she’d left on the paper bag. The third she’d thrown the book in the bag without even giving eye contact to the customer and essentially shouted at them to enjoy the rest of the day.

By the tenth customer, she’d actually managed to get her voice to remain steady and her eyes almost making direct contact (no one had to know what she was actually staring incredibly intently at was a point over their shoulder).

It was all going fine.

Kara truly thought it was all going to be fine.

And then the bell rang on the door.

And then Lena walked in with a smile her way and an immediate flick of her eyes to the stand right in front of the door boldly displaying the rather quickly diminishing copies of Les Misérables (the suspiciously quickly diminishing copies that Kara was half sure were selling so well because people wanted a copy of the Kama Sutra without having to boldly admit all they wanted was a copy of the Kama Sutra).

Kara watches as Lena shrugs her shoulder and picks up the book on her way past with not much thought, placing it on the counter with an unusual certainty when it comes to her and books, seemingly unaware of the turmoil she put Kara in with one simple decision.

“Choosing your own book this time?”

“Considering the huge display, I feel like you still subliminally chose it for me.” Yeah, Alex really had gone all out on it. If Kara didn’t know any better she would’ve sworn that she did it specifically so that Kara would end up in this situation. Actually, you know what; Kara did know better and she wouldn’t put that past Alex for a single second. “But I also can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told I should read this.”

Kara scans it carefully, blushing as she puts it in the bag and starts to reach behind the counter, “there’s actually a deal on it today.” She lifts the free Kama Sutra up quickly, only giving Lena a flash to read the title before she shoves it, a little too aggressively into the bag. Not quick enough though apparently because they spend a good few seconds, wordlessly staring at one another awkwardly, and holy fuck Lena was even cuter when she was blushing.

“A good deal,” Lena chokes out, voice more than a little strained and Kara really needs to say something. Anything. Just some words in a sentence, maybe even just an almost sentence.

“Yeah it’s a good book. Les Miserables that is! Umm, interesting. Have you seen the musical?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“We’re playing the film version after hours today if you’re interested,” Kara says, offering a flier and suddenly feeling incredibly thankful that it was an actual event this time and not one she had to pull out of thin air. Regretfully, she knows she still sounds as desperate this time as she did the last.

“You really are going all out on the celebrations,” she jokes in a way that says it’s not entirely a joke and Kara doesn’t blame her for mocking it a little, but the movie was her only way of making herself feel better about the prospect of embarrassing herself all day. God she loved musicals and maybe Lena does too because she smiles and promises, “I’ll clear my schedule.”

Part of Kara feels like she should tell her it’s not necessary. You know, the logical part that tells her Lena clearing her schedule is actually a big thing, the part that knows she always comes here, in overly fancy clothes for a bookstore, on the lunch break her assistant forces her to take. Part of her wants to tell her it’s not important enough for her to clear her evening.

The other part of Kara, the gay mess part, wants her to keep her mouth completely silent in a wide grin because it does feel kind of necessary. In the sense that Kara wanted nothing more than to hang out with Lena more, wanted nothing more than to do something other than scan her books and sit around hoping she doesn’t hate the recommendations Kara gave her.

As usual, the gay mess part wins out and instead of saying anything, Kara just waves, and waves, and waves, and watches Lena the whole time it takes her to leave the shop and disappear out of sight.

And, also as usual, the gay mess part of Kara underestimates just how much of gay mess she is because she genuinely chokes on her own tongue when Lena appears again later, looking more nervous than she ever has before - more nervous than she ever has before in a leather jacket.

An actual leather jacket.

Kara was going to pass out.

“You came!” She shouts, garnering the attention of a few other people still milling about waiting for the movie to start, and she would care. She would. But Lena was in a leather jacket and honestly nothing else really mattered in that moment beyond that. Absolutely nothing at all.

“I said that I would, plus I started reading the book on an incredibly boring conference call earlier and I was getting all kinds of ideas.” Kara halts, brain going places it shouldn’t. Lena halts, her brain going to the exact same place. “The novel, that is. I started reading it and I thought ‘how have they managed to make this a musical?’ I wasn’t just flicking through the… other one.”

“Cool, cool, that’s… cool. Would you, maybe, wanna sit with me?”

“I’d like that.” Lena smiles easily, gesturing for Kara to lead the way, and Kara’s decision to sit at the back of the room has absolutely nothing to do with her ongoing inner debate on whether or not she should do something crazy like offer Lena her hand to hold, or pull that classic pretend-yawn-to-wrap-an-arm-casually-around-someone move.

She chickens out of all of it.

Until, faced with the reality that Alex would never let her forget it if she completely blew it all, and the reality that she would never let herself forget it either, she pulls Lena into a hug just as she’s leaving. It’s more than a little stiff at first. Kara’s unsure and Lena is caught off guard and then, suddenly, they fall against one another boneless.

It’s a good hug. An insanely good hug. An insanely good and long hug that she definitely should’ve pulled out of long before she ever does. A great hug that she blushes when she pulls out of and has her avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room (she can’t bring herself to see what Lena is thinking and she doesn’t want to catch sight of anyone else around the room clearly wondering why two women were just leisurely embracing during the credits of Les Misérables).

“Bye, Lena.”

“I’ll see you soon, Kara.”

(Once Lena had finished reading over a thousand pages…

Kara prayed she read fast).

Kara spends like seventy percent of her time at work waiting for Lena to appear (the other thirty percent is either spent with Lena present or thinking about her after she just left). It’s kind of the highlight of her week, and yes, she was including her Friday night potsticker binge in that equation.

Except, this time, when Lena walks in through the door, Kara can’t find it in herself to get excited – namely because she’s never seen Lena look so forlorn in the entire time she’s known her. It makes sense when she approaches the counter with a handful of fliers, offering one up to Kara and Alex.

“Hey guys, I was wondering if you could put this in the window?” Kara accepts it quickly, noting the cute, little ginger cat adorning the page under the bold MISSING.

“Lovelace? Like from Happy Feet?” She asks, feeling the weight in her chest lighten a little when Lena offers a small laugh (it’s more of a puff of breath but Kara is claiming it as a win) in response.

“Like Ada Lovelace.” Right. Of course. That made way more sense than an animated penguin.

“And she’s missing?” Lena nods and Kara pockets her phone from the counter in the same second. “Well then let’s go,” Kara says and then does something she’s incredibly proud of, which is vaulting the counter and swiping the fliers from Lena’s hand in one smooth movement. She feels pretty cool when it actually ends up coming off well. God she bet she looked so cool.

(If she could rewind the universe and watch herself vault the counter, know that she would most definitely sully the sanctity of time travel to do so).

“Kara you can’t just leave, putting it in your window is enough.” Oh, duh, she totally forgot to do that. She grabs some tape and slaps the poster onto the window before turning back to a Lena who looked like she had absolutely no idea what was happening in that moment, which makes sense because Kara was running completely  off of donuts and wild ideas.

“I’ve already hopped the counter, Lena. This is happening. Alex will be fine by herself.” Kara doesn’t even need to spare her a glance to know that Alex is both rolling her eyes and nodding earnestly. Truthfully, Alex would probably shove her out the door herself to get this going.

Thankfully it’s enough to get Lena on board as she follows Kara out of the door. Outside the door. Meaning they were outside the store. They’d never been outside the store together before and Kara knows that this maybe isn’t the time to feel giddy but the natural light was really doing Lena justice, and for once, Kara felt like she was allowed to stare at Lena instead of doing her job (which is to say that she often found herself doing it but now there was no guilt involved).

“So you have a cat, and a niece, and I’ve just realised I don’t know that much about you.” She really didn’t know anything at all and she was equally intrigued and frustrated by the thought.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Kara admits, honestly, pairs it with a nice, vintage shrug in the interest of pretending it’s not one of the most earnest things she’s ever said. Then she hedges her bets on something lighter, something more obvious. “But maybe start with where you grew up and what you do when you’re not reading the books I force upon you.” Kara sees the exact moment the rebuttal from Lena dies in her eyes, the second she remembers the time Kara really had thrust a book into her hands and refused to take neither payment nor a no for an answer.

(It had come from her private collection.

One of the last books her mother ever gave her).

“Alright, well, I grew up in Metropolis actually. Lived there until about a year ago when I realised my brother had absolutely no idea how to run a successful company and, that’s what I do when I’m not reading your books, I stop him from running the family business into the ground.”

“Family business, huh? What are we talking, like a cute little antique store? I could see you selling antiques. Oh, no, like a tech store maybe, that would explain some of the science books.”

Lena eyes her warily for a moment. A certain level of confusion on her face that Kara doesn’t quite understand until Lena decides to answer her unasked question, “it’s, um, less of a store and more of a… conglomerate. Luthor Corp?”

“Luthor Corp?” Kara repeats. She knows Luthor Corp. Everyone in the city knows Luthor Corp, it’d be pretty hard not to when the building stood so prominently in the sea of grey. It hadn’t been here long or, well, it had but it didn’t always have the name Luthor slapped so boldly on it. Kara thinks it used to be a bank. Kara thinks she doesn’t really quite care what came before Lena, just that Lena resides in it now. She certainly knows Lena is all she’ll think about when she sees it high in the sky.

Lena nods, gesturing grandly, and completely sarcastically, to herself. “You’re looking at the head of Research and Development, and sometimes secret CEO when Lex is too busy moisturising his bald head or whatever it is that he does when he disappears for a few weeks on ‘vacation’.”

“So that makes you Lena Luthor, who grew up in Metropolis, has an adorable cat, a genius brain and a brother with an incredibly well-kept, hairless head. It feels nice to know you a little better.”

“It feels nice to be known, though I do feel like you owe me some useless facts about you now.”

Kara stops completely still in the middle of the path, sticking her hand out towards a, still walking, Lena who takes a second to catch up to what’s happening before she clasps the hand in her own with a chuckle. “Well then, hi, I’m Kara Danvers. I grew up in Midvale before I came to National City for college and realised all I really wanted to do was sell books with my, thankfully, not bald sister.”

“She could not pull that off,” Lena says with a grimace, starting to walk again, swiftly pinning fliers as she goes, the pile dwindling to the final few.

“You could,” Kara finds herself replying much to Lena’s apparent bemusement. “Not that I think you should shave your head or anything. I just think that if anyone could just go out and shave their head and still look pretty it would be you because you’d still have that face, you’d just be… I’m going to stop talking about your hypothetical bald head.”

Lena chuckles, “thank you. For stopping and for thinking I wouldn’t look absolutely terrible bald.”

“You’re welcome. On both counts.”

“Last flier,” Lena says as she staples it to a post and Kara’s reminded why they’re out here in the first place when she sees the look on her face - the one that says she just remembered too.

“You’ll get her back,” Kara assures like she has any real degree of knowing. She’s really just basing it off the stray cat she half adopted back in Midvale. The one that would disappear for a few weeks at a time before reappearing and silently pleading for food with its cute little eyes and soft paws. The one that Kara was completely sure was pulling the exact same move with like four others houses around the block and just playing them all for chumps.

(Which was totally worth it for the cuddles.

Even if he did always eat all of her streaky bacon).

“Thanks, Kara.” Lena takes her hand briefly, a gentle touch that culminates in a thankful squeeze and Kara feels like it’s the only thing tethering her to the ground. ”I should get back to work."

“Let me know if she turns up.”

“You’ll be the first stop on my list,” Lena promises and, true to her word like always, she appears in front of Kara a few days later, her arms full of fur and her face completely covered in a wide grin.

And Kara was in trouble.

A heap load of emotional trouble.

“Stop spouting quotes and clichés at me, Alex. I’m immune to their powers.” Maybe immune was too strong a word, but she was certainly getting too annoyed to listen to any more, and Alex hadn’t taken her subtle hints of refusing to look at her and shelving the new stock with far more force than was required (she’d almost broken multiple shelves).

“But I was just about to tell you that sometimes the best things in life are the scariest.”

Kara rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue, “I don’t think there’s any science to support that.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Kara.” Kara preferred safe, though ultimately they were both wrong since the actual answer was scared. “The two of you have been flirting with each other for months. She practically screamed that she was gay at you in so many words and there are only so many fake events you can make up before I just tell her for you to stop having to keep the store open late.”

… Having Alex tell her would arguably not be the worst idea in the world. But also, on that same note, having Alex tell her would arguably be the worst idea in the world.

“It’s not that easy, Alex.”

“No, it is, you’re just making it unnecessarily hard because you have no concept of the fact that you’re a catch. So, because you’re obtuse, I’m going to explicitly tell you that you are a catch and there is absolutely no way anything will go wrong if you just tell her that you like her.”

“And who is this ‘her’ you like so much, Kara?” Kara is sure Alex set this up. There was absolutely no way she didn’t know that Lena was approaching Kara from behind when she said that. There was absolutely no way she didn’t know that Lena would hear those words. No way she didn’t know that Lena would take the opportunity to teasingly question Kara.

That being said, Kara is also absolutely sure there’s no way any of them could have predicted the way she suddenly completely loses her brain-to-mouth filter and just panicked shouts, “You!”

Kara will argue to this day that Alex audibly gasps before she turns around to pretend she’s not eavesdropping with all her might. Lena gasps too, her strained laughter completely cutting out when Kara turns around with a serious look on her face instead of the joking smirk she was obviously expecting to find. But Kara didn’t mean it as a joke, and she doesn’t want to play it off as one.

“I didn’t- I didn’t think you were just going to come right out and say it.” It definitely hadn’t been Kara’s plan. Not that she had a plan. Her plan was more firmly planted in denial.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, you don’t deserve to be accosted when you’re just trying to buy books. It’s so not cool and I understand if-“

Lena cuts in, “I never came here for books.”

Kara stops breathing for a second, her brain both running a mile a minute and sitting at a complete standstill trying to figure out what was happening right now. “What?”

“I didn’t come in here for books. I saw you through the window on the first day I came here and I just really had to find out what your voice sounded like, which, I realise now out loud seems really creepy, but I promise I’m not a stalker.”

“You came in here because you thought I was pretty?”

“Pretty much,” Lena admits with a sheepish smile and Kara really wishes she could try to look even semi-cool in that moment but she knows she doesn’t - she’s a dork with a huge grin because Lena liked her. Lena thought she was pretty. Lena only ever came in here to talk to her and, whilst Kara kinda hoped she at least somewhat enjoyed her reading experiences, she was mostly just focused on the fact that Lena thought she was pretty.

But wait… “Lena you’ve spent so much money on books!”

“Well I’ve heard from a reliable source that you like me so I feel like it was all worth it.” Was it possible for human beings to melt? Because Kara was really quite sure she was going to melt. She felt boneless, and weightless, and a little fuzzy - like she was back to that first moment when she realised she had a crush on a girl in freshman year but, like, times a thousand.

“Yeah?” Kara asks still sounding self conscious and Lena nods, biting her lip. Kara pushes onward, emboldened by the admission. “Maybe you could let me pay you back with coffee sometime?”

“I’d like that.”

“Awesome, we could do-“ Kara is cut off by Alex shoving her towards Lena, pressing Kara’s bag and coat into her hands in the same motion.

“Now, you can do now.” Kara opens her mouth to protest, Alex shuts it down quickly with a glare Kara is sure she had stolen from Eliza during their argumentative teenage years. “I can handle being here alone. I can’t handle listening to you wistfully sigh all afternoon.”

“I don’t wistfully sigh,” Kara argues, more aimed at Lena than Alex, like she was actually trying to pull back some cool points after all the blushing and nervous hand-wringing she had just done.

“She does,” Alex retorts, also completely to Lena, who smiles amusedly at the turn of events.

“Um, are you free right now?” Kara asks instead of arguing. She knows that Alex is not above going to collect security footage from the past few weeks to prove her point (it’s exactly what she had done to shame Kara for always eating all of the sprinkle donuts from the variety box).

“For you? Always.” Lena smiles and well, that pretty much settled it, Kara was going to be in love with her in about two hours time.

(Lena laughs at the new joke on her sign as they exit…

Maybe more like forty-five minutes).

Chapter Text

Lena remains firm on her stance that she did not choose to go into that bookstore, that day. There was no more choice in her actions, than the tides had choice in being moved by the moon. She’d simply been minding her own business, forced out of her office at lunch by her assistant and wandering aimlessly around the block, trying to find something to distract her brain with.

And a distraction she found alright.

It’s simple glance at first. A momentary shift of her eyes to the store at her side - Danvers Books. It looks quaint but relatively well adored, both by the owners and its patrons, a good few people mill about the shelves and Lena spares a smile that little bookstores like this were still staying afloat.

Then her eyes catch sight of the woman behind the counter. Soft, blonde hair in a messy bun, somehow catching the sun at just the right angle that Lena was sure was the doing of a higher being - whatever celestial power there was out there shifting their desk lamp just so to gift Lena with this moment. Smiling eyes and an even brighter smile lingering on gentle lips.

She was the most beautiful thing Lena had ever seen and, suddenly she doesn’t care about the prototype sitting at her desk that she couldn’t quite figure out how to make work, or the fact that Lex was acting in that shifty way he always did when he was going to burn out under the pressure and disappear to whichever tropical paradise tickled his fancy next.

All she cares about is what colour this woman’s eyes are, and how it would feel to make her smile, and what her voice sounded like (and yes, she was completely too soft, but she was on her lunch break and there was only so much of the day she could exude ‘head bitch in charge’).

She’s inside before she can stop herself. She hides in the science section, surrounded by books she knows like the back of her hand, ones she considers old friends, and others that she hasn’t managed to find the time to read considering she was spending half her time as a one woman cleanup crew and the other as a mad scientist who forgot to feed herself without prodding.

So she hides, and pretend reads blurbs, and actually just stares, in what she hopes is the least creepy, and not blatantly obvious, way possible. Although she apparently doesn’t succeed so much in the surreptitious department because she’s about ten minutes into the whole affair when a woman sidles up beside her with a stack of books and a knowing smile.

“You should ask her out.”

“Who?” Lena asks quickly, tries to laugh it off as quickly as the suggestion is out there, but she receives an incredulous look just as immediately and the laughter dies before it really begins. “I couldn’t possibly do that. I’ve never even spoken to her.” That would be weird. Lena would look weird. Even if part of her was almost willing to look so.

“So speak to her and then ask her out.”

“You’re making something incredibly uncomfortable and terrifying sound very easy.” And it really was not. There were a lot of things Lena found easy. She’d picked up the rules of chess without really trying, had never lost a game to Lex in the twenty or so years he’d been trying. She excelled at science and math and compartmentalising all her feelings. She was far less good at actually expressing them. Especially when she was supposed to express them to stupidly pretty women.

“That’s because I know she’s been pretending not to stare at you for just as long as you’ve been pretending not to stare at her. She’s always been a sucker for green eyes.”

“And you’re the authority on inconspicuous staring are you?” Lena challenges.

The woman smirks, “I am when it comes to my sister.”

“She’s your- excuse me while I climb into a hole and die.” That seemed like the only viable option here and, honestly, she thinks the universe her owes her that much. It owes it to her to swiftly open up and swallow her whole for actually allowing her to embarrass herself like that in front of the cute bookstore girl’s, apparently way too intuitive, sister.

“When you come back out your hole, her name’s Kara.” She smiles at Lena when she leaves in a way that makes her feel like she’s under no illusion that Lena will actually make use of the name. And that would be entirely correct. Lena doesn’t use the name that day. Or the next time she appears in the store. Or the time after that. She makes a habit of handing her books over without words and disappearing of a flurry of blushes and they’re still the best lunch breaks of her life.

She tries to stop going as much. She really does. She books lunch meetings and makes plans with the grand total of two friends she has outside the office, and still, every few days she finds herself returning to that one bookstore and it’s not because it’s charming - though it is.

Lena’s rather enamoured with the smell of printed ink on paper, the way the entire store seems to be illuminated by natural light and not much else, the corner covered in beanbags and hand-drawn posters by the children that rush in every Thursday after school to listen to Kara read. Although, apparently this Thursday it wasn’t just children because Lena was there.

Lena was there, watching Kara read in like ten different voices, giving every new character a different mannerism and sometimes a new hat on her head. It’s entirely too charming and Lena had blown off an entire afternoons worth of meetings for it because Alex told her to.

Alex who had, with not even an ounce of subtlety, been trying to convince Lena to ask Kara out since the first moment she stepped into the store.

Every time Lena found herself here the events went like this: she spent five or so minutes watching Kara over the cover of a book, pretending that she even cared what the words said (and yes, there had been an incident in which Alex appeared and twisted it the right way up because Lena couldn’t even fake holding a book properly apparently).

Then she spent the new few minutes hiding behind some shelving with Alex, listing all the reasons why it was a bad idea to ask Kara out, before she grabbed any book at random and made her way to the till to barely say a word to Kara and then disappear for a few days only to follow the exact same steps again.

It was as solid a sequence as any and she hadn’t broken it yet, until today. Until Alex told her there was something she would absolutely not want to miss happening and thrust a flier at her.

She’d been sceptical at first. Of course she had. It wasn’t every day that a grown woman went to listen to a reading of a book called Julián is a Mermaid. It wasn’t every day that a successful business woman went to a reading of a children’s picture book without bringing a child. She should’ve at least brought along a fake child - Ruby was always saying she needed to read more adventurously, she could’ve talked her into coming along to the bookstore with the promise of ice cream after.

“Which one’s yours?” A woman in a soft sweater and tired eyes asks, and in that moment, Lena really wished she had bribed a child into coming to this with her - no matter how weird that sounded, because, what was arguably weirder, was the way Lena found herself pointing at a random child with dark brown hair and hoping to anyone that would listen that she hadn’t just accidentally pointed out this woman’s own child to her.

She figures she must’ve gotten away with it when all she receives in return in a polite smile. “She looks just like you, same impeccable posture.” The third weird thing that day? The woman was not wrong but Lena doesn’t have time to dwell on her mini-me. She was too focused.

Focused on the way Kara smiled. The way she laughed when the kids laughed like she couldn’t help but be swept in by it all. The way Kara gently answered the questions instead of telling them off for interrupting the story. The way her eyes brightened just a smidge when the kids grappled her into a massive group hug before running to their respective parents (the exact same moment that Lena takes her queue to hide in her usual haunt by the science textbooks to avoid the shameful look she was going to receive when random mother number one realised she definitely did not have a child).

So she had a stupidly big crush on a woman who spent just short of an hour wearing a knitted mermaid tail just to make some kids smile and she couldn’t even bring herself to be mad about it. She had just spent almost an hour listening to a children’s story on the behest of said adorable woman’s sister and she couldn’t bring herself to be mad about that either.

She still doesn’t ask her out though.

Instead she sticks to her carefully laid out routine. Pick any book from the shelf and hope it wasn’t one that she already owned. Avoid the knowing stare of Alex as she walked nervously to the counter and uttered a meek hello in response to Kara’s always jovial one. Buy a book that she didn’t need with money she needed even less so and casually walk out of the store with an incredibly not casual heart rate because a part of her swore she could always feel Kara’s eyes on her.

It’s a good routine.

It’s fine.

Lena really needs to change it up.

She starts asking for recommendations. She blames it on Ruby at first and the way she eyes the bookshelf in Lena’s apartment anytime she’s round with a thinly veiled face of judgement. In reality the real reason is that she just needed an excuse, any excuse to talk to Kara that she could find. This seemed like the best idea - the one that placed Kara in her comfort zone, the one that helped Lena to blend in like any other customer interested in reading might.

And, that’s the thing, after a few recommendations, Lena genuinely is interested. Not quite as much as she’s interested in listening to Kara talk, but interested nonetheless, to the point where she’s trying to cram reading them into any piece of time she can find (one because they’re page turning, and two because the quicker she reads, the quicker she can see Kara again).

So she starts reading the books whenever she can, wherever she can. She reads them on particularly boring conference calls, and whilst she’s eating lunch, and in the bath, and before she passes out asleep on her desk, and in the car on the way home when Jess discovers her asleep on said desk and forces her to actually go home to a proper bed.

She reads everywhere.

She reads in every spare second.

The behaviour definitely doesn’t go unnoticed by the people around her. Not that most of them have the courage to actually say anything about it. For the most part her co-workers seem to get a kick out of raising their eyebrows wordlessly at her constant cycles of novels, seeming to have decided to save their thoughts for their friends later.

Eve, her second in command, however seems to have none of the same such qualms as the other people in the department. She instead takes to asking Lena questions like a fish to water and, whilst Lena has never actually admitted the truth in so many words, she knows Eve has picked up on the not so subtle subtext of it all. She should make it clear that she knows that for sure because Eve had also taken to taunting her about it at work. Every day.

Eve taunts her about reading almost as much as Lena reads, which then leads to Lena working to the constant tune of Eve’s unsolicited advice, which then leads to Lena coming to the realisation that Eve always seemed to be quite good in the romantic department - she was kind, and open, and looked like Eve - so she maybe falls into the advice a bit (she thinks that anyone subconsciously listening to anything for that long would be convinced by it at least a little).

Which is why Lena blames Ruby for starting the recommendation train, but she completely and totally blames Eve for her showing up in the bookstore, this time armed with both a question and a coffee for Kara. And also a pocket full of milk and sugar in case black isn’t the way she takes it - Lena is almost entirely sure it won’t be, and she’s proved right when Kara takes the coffee from her with a grin and then proceeds to defile it with multiple packets of both.

(A coffee order shouldn’t be considered adorable.

Lena finds it so anyway.

They both deftly ignore Alex’s muttered question of where her free coffee was).

“I think I’d like to read a love story, but not an obvious one.” Not obvious like not Nicholas Sparks. Not obvious like how Lena was trying to not be obvious about genuinely feeling herself falling a little bit more in love with Kara with every new interaction. No. Not love. It wasn’t love. She wasn’t that reckless, she couldn’t possibly be that reckless, she barely knew her. It was more of an intense like.

An intensely intense like.

Kara considers this request for a moment, takes a moment to have another sip of her coffee thoughtfully, humming thankfully, “do you mind if it’s sad?”

“I think I could handle that.”

“Great, then I have just the one,” Kara gets the same excited smile on her face that she always does when she’s about to show Lena something new, like she can’t wait to open her eyes to a whole new world and Lena expects to be lead away through the shelving units. She’s not. Instead Kara reaches below the counter and pulls out a blue book emblazoned with a trumpet.

Lena tilts her head confusedly at the movement, wonders how it was that Kara already had it on hand. Kara must take note of the unasked question because she blushes in that way she always does, rubbing the back of her neck as she pushes the book towards Lena to have a look, decide if she’ll take it. It’s the same thing she does every time. The same nervousness she always has. Lena has never quite understood it, has never once said no.

“I saw it on the shelf the other day when I was reorganising. It made me think of you, or, well, it made me think that you might like it,” Kara says and Lena likes the sound of that. The idea that Kara sees books and thinks of her. The simple idea that Kara would even have a thought about her when she wasn’t there. She knew that she definitely thought about Kara when she wasn’t around.

“Well I can’t argue with that. I’ll take it.”

“You won’t regret it.” There’s a certain amount of promise in Kara’s tone that is entirely unnecessary. Lena already doesn’t, if only because of the smile her purchase elicits.

And, truthfully, she didn’t regret the coffee either. Not that she was ever going to outright admit that to Eve. She was notoriously bad at keeping secrets after even so much as a whiff of chardonnay and Lena didn’t need any more rumours about her love life fuelling the office gossip mill.

“Barbara in accounting said she saw you crying in the elevator the other day,” Lex says as he bulldozes his way into her office with his ever charming grin, slouching his way into the chair opposite her and demanding her attention. She doesn’t give it to him. Not right away at least. Giving Lex your unquestioned, undivided attention always ended poorly, especially when he came in search of something, like he obviously had now.

Lena continues writing away on her sheet. She doesn’t need to waste time looking up to know that Lex is smirking at her attempt at nonchalance. “Why were you talking to Barbara in accounting?”

“Just taking interest in this company and its finances.”

“Finances, sure,” Lena says, incredulous as she’s ever been in the face of one of Lex’s half truths, especially those pertaining to women, especially women that looked like Barbara - Lena actually had ventured down to accounts for the right reasons on more than one occasion and frankly she could read Lex like a first grade level book (one that was mostly pictures). “And fine, there may have been some tears in the elevator, but I was reading a really sad book.”

“You? Reading a book not about quantum mechanics or something else equally insane?” Lex asks and Lena is a little offended at how disbelieving he sounds. It wasn’t that farfetched an idea. She used to read all the time when they were kids - it was the easiest way to escape the stifling expectations of being a member of the, all too well documented, Luthor family. She kind of lost her passion when she got into college and lost herself in something a little more real.

Still, she finds herself a little insulted by his insinuation. Enough so that she finally looks up to roll her eyes at him as she nods a ‘yes’. That’s her first mistake.

“Who’s the girl?” Lex presses.

“There’s no girl.” That lie is her second. It’s not really worth it. It’s frankly one of the most useless lies she’s ever told because Lex has the ability to see completely through it, always had. She supposed that knowing someone that well was a two-way street. Lena knew that Lex couldn’t care less about accountancy and Lex knew that Lena would never have picked up a book again without a very good reason to do so (a very good and pretty reason).

“So the girl works in a bookstore,” Lex deducts almost immediately.

Lena hates him for it a little bit but she indulges him nonetheless, “she owns it.”

“Oh, a business woman. You had a successful merger yet?” The question is paired with a wiggle of his brows and an all too pleased smile, and this was why she tried to never be in her office for more than ten minutes - she was hoping he would never find her.

“This is why I never tell you anything.”

“I thought it was because I let slip that you love NSYNC to that one, super hot, reporter from Buzzfeed that time and then all those quizzes got made like ‘make a pizza and we’ll tell you what Lena Luthor outfit and NSYNC song you’re a combination of’? For the record, I got Bye Bye Bye and that purple three piece suit you wore to the unveiling of that portable water filtration system you designed. The irony of how many people you left thirsty that day was not lost on me.”

Lena tries to stifle the smile threatening to spill across her face and quickly loses, “you’re an idiot.” He was. A colossal idiot but also a colossally charming idiot. There was absolutely no part of her that was surprised the board always put up with his constant disappearances and dangerous dalliances when he returned with that one disarming grin and a bag full of presents.

Always with the stupid, tourist presents. Like the glass paperweight he picked from her desk to throw up and down in the air. Lena snatches it after the fourth time he throws it, places it gently back in its resting place and gives him one of those exasperated looks.

“And you have a crush on a bookstore girl. Five bucks says I can find the store by the end of the day.” Lena stopped betting against Lex the second he shaved his head for a free hotdog. Lena knows for a fact he had at least two-hundred dollars in his pocket that day. His knack for chaos could not be disputed.

“I’ll give you ten to not,” Lena offers, pulling the note from her purse.

Lex hesitates and then extends his hand. “Deal. I needed some cash for the vending machine on the fourth floor anyway; they just restocked the sour skittles.”

“Wow, you really better hurry then.” The sarcasm drips from every syllable of Lena’s words as she turns back to her screen. Sometimes it really was a wonder they were half-related, and that the side of Lex that didn’t match hers was Lillian’s. He really didn’t add up. She kind of loved that about him.

“Now you’re just trying to get rid of me.”

“You’re not wrong,” she says casually before a grin spreads across her face. “But also I just sent an email to Jim from the fifth floor about the restock and you know how much he loves skittles.” Lex sprints from her office before she can even begin to laugh at the priceless look on his face, and then Lena’s just left in silence to think about how obvious she was being about her crush.

Her crush.

It sounded so juvenile.

It was a little juvenile.

She still spends a good ten minutes wondering if it’s obvious to Kara too. If maybe she knew and just wasn’t saying anything because then it would be awkward, because then she’d lose Lena’s all too generous custom. Except Kara wasn’t like that at all and Alex insisted that she liked her.

So maybe Lena should just bite the bullet.

She could totally bite the bullet.

Kara bites the bullet for her.

Not on purpose. At least, not on Kara’s purpose. She has a feeling Alex knew exactly what she was doing when she told Lena to arrive exactly at twelve fifteen and was in the middle of an evidently staged (from Alex’s side once again) conversation with Kara.

Not that she’s mad about it. Lena couldn’t bring herself to be mad at anything that ended with her sitting across the table from Kara, watching her devour a blueberry muffin like her life depended on it. She looked like the world’s most adorable chipmunk and normally Lena hated messy eaters, she hated people who put too much in and talked with their mouth full, and yet, she was wholly enamoured with the display being put on for her today.

“You’re staring.”

“Sorry it’s weird to see you outside of the store, and not because my cat decided to hide in my neighbour’s apartment. I feel like I’ve imagined this so many times. To actually be living it is a little odd.” She felt a little like she’d stolen a priceless painting from a gallery and then just boldly decided to display it in a rundown café a block from her office.

“You imagined taking me out?”

“I don’t think you realise how insanely charming you are. I’ve been thinking about you non-stop. So, yeah, once or twice I dared to think about what it might be like to take you out.” A few times really. Maybe several. Definitely upwards of ten.

The first time she’d caught herself doing it was during a board meeting - she hadn’t even realised she’d zoned out until someone asked her a question and she realised she had no idea what it was, let alone how to answer it (thankfully, her confused look had apparently been the correct response to what she could only assume was an idiotic proposal).

“I thought about you a lot too. All the time really. You were just so intriguing and I thought if I got to know you better it would go away but instead I just got more and more interested, and I feel like I still haven’t gotten any closer to figuring you out. You’re like a sexy Rubik’s Cube.”

Lena lets out a laugh, the kind that bubbles to breaking point in her throat and then gets released against her will, “that’s definitely the first time I’ve been called that.”

“Not my best compliment I’ll admit.”

“And what is?”

“I don’t exactly keep a list. But, if I was trying to woo you, I’d tell you that the first time you came into the store I was utterly terrified, because you were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen but you walked with the purpose and posture of a trained killer. And then you smiled. You smiled and all I could think about for the rest of the day was you.”

That was… pretty good actually.

Pretty good in the sense that it had made her heart race. Pretty good like it was running full marathons on the spot in her chest without pause. Pretty good in the sense that she can’t help the smile on her face. Not a smirk. Not a cocky grin. A full, unadulterated ear to ear smile - one she can’t remember the last time she had on her face. Pretty good like she feels shaky, but like a good shaky, like she could practically feel herself vibrating with sheer want shaky.

And this was what she wanted. Stupid jokes and charming words that should seem like lines but never come across that way at all, and Kara, smiling that one soft smile at her like she genuinely couldn’t believe her luck. Lena couldn’t believe hers either.

“Consider me wooed.”

“That wasn’t very hard.”

“I like flowers if you’re looking to put in more time.”

Lena doesn’t expect much to come of her joke, mostly forgets she even made it once it’s out there. She’s forgotten pretty much everything but what’s in front of her the next day when she’s in her office trying to figure out what’s wrong with the equation in front of her. She vaguely registers the three hours that have passed without her notice when there’s a knock on her door and an oddly delighted looking Jess appearing to announce, “There’s someone here to see you.”

And in comes Kara.

“I thought it was about time I came to see you on my lunch break,” she says, smiling. Her hands full with flowers and what looked like an almost breaking bag, full of Big Belly Burger and she’s Lena’s dream woman. She honestly is. Lena could have honestly spent years theorising what her perfect woman was and she would never have been able to craft someone more amazing than Kara.

Nervous, sweet Kara, who places both items down on the desk before rounding it, before resting her hands on the arms of Lena’s chair, causing Lena to feel the phantom wrap of Kara’s arms around her without even touching her. Nervous, sweet Kara who kisses her in that exact manner - gentle, and subtle, and almost not there despite it suddenly being the only thing Lena knows.

She pulls back quickly, her body still leaning towards Lena, her eyes still firmly shut. “I’ve been thinking about that since yesterday. No, that’s a lie. I’ve been thinking about it since I first saw you but yesterday was the first time it felt realistic and I just needed to do it before I chickened out.”

Lena knows the feeling.

That feeling that simmers below the surface. The one that feels like a sink, filling up and filling up, and the fear of it spilling over almost stops you, but Lena doesn’t want to turn off the taps. She just wants to kiss her. And so she does.

Sure hands come to rest at the back of Kara’s neck and she revels in the whimper of surprise Kara releases when she reels her back in, when she catches her lips in the kind of kiss Lena has been fantasising about for longer than she thinks is proper to admit.

The kind of kiss with eager mouths, and pulling hands, and the complete loss of all other mental cognition that has Kara practically falling on the spot, only just catching herself by placing one of her knees beside Lena’s legs on the chair.

The kind of kiss that definitely shouldn’t be had in Lena’s office which was basically a glorified glass box because she stupidly decided she wanted her staff to know she worked just as hard as them or something like that, that she was massively regretting now. She doesn’t think they really need to know about this but she keeps kissing Kara anyway - even though she’s half sure if she opened her eyes she’d see Eve being handed money from her brother on some bet or another - because honestly this was fucking amazing.

And, fuck, Lena loved books.