Chapter Text
"All right, everybody's here," Winn announced, clapping his hands. He dug into the enormous pile of hot wings on the plate in front of him. "Let's bust out the games and get to some nerdy fun."
Kara fidgeted a bit, and looked toward the door. "Not everybody," she countered. "I invited Lena."
Her friends exchanged loaded looks that quite escaped Kara's preoccupied notice. Maggie, as the group's resident newbie, took her "pointing out the painfully obvious" duties very seriously. "Yeesh, Kara," she said with a wince. "Awkward."
"It doesn't have to be," Kara insisted. "Lena's nice, and she's only ever tried to help me." She blushed a bit and fiddled with her glasses. "Us," she corrected. "And she needs a place to belong. Why can't that be with me?"
Maggie squinted at her.
"Us," Kara corrected again. "Us, as in this family 'thing' that we do even though we're not all related," she continued, with an expansive gesture that encompassed them all and nearly knocked a bottle of wine off the counter.
"Awkward," Maggie repeated, in a mocking singsong. She accepted the beer Alex offered her, then lifted it in a toast to the impending spectacle of Danvers family game night.
Kara sighed, and twisted her fingers together. "I hope she comes."
"When did you invite her, anyway?" Winn asked, around a mouthful of pizza rolls. "Last I heard, you were still trying to talk yourself into it."
Alex, Maggie, and James all turned back toward Kara in amused curiosity.
"You didn't hear that," Kara argued.
"Sure I did," Winn said. "Your comms were hot while you were patrolling the other night. You were practicing out loud."
"Crap," Kara breathed. She covered her face with her hands.
"A friendly reminder," Alex interjected in a rather less-than-friendly tone. "We're talking about a civilian, so we keep the conversation superhero-free tonight. Understood?"
Everyone murmured in agreement, then suddenly Kara lurched toward the door. "She's here," she announced, then she yanked open the door and leaned out into the hall, where Lena had just exited the elevator. "Lena! Hi!" Kara called, far too loudly for the space and distance.
Maggie snickered in amusement and bumped her shoulder into Alex's. "Definitely superhero-free so far," she cracked.
Alex fought off a scowl, trying for Kara's sake to at least appear non-threatening. Lena had shot a man to protect her, had fought Cadmus to protect Supergirl, and was, by all indications, a good friend to Kara. She was brilliant and powerful, and with any other last name she would have been welcomed to the group immediately.
She grit her teeth. Literally any other. Last. Name.
Kara pulled Lena into the apartment by the hand, grinning in that face-splitting way that was ridiculously contagious. "Guys, Lena's here!" she said. "Lena, I think you've met... Well, okay. That's Alex, and Maggie - her girlfriend - who, you know... arrested you. And you met Winn under the stage at the gala, and that's James, who's friends with Clark, who... yeah."
With a bemused grin, and very aware of Kara's fingers wrapped around her own, Lena made a game attempt at a normal greeting. "Um, hello. Thanks for having me," she said. With her free hand, she held up a six pack of bottled beer as an offering. "One of my VPs owns a microbrewery that is supposed to be fairly popular..."
Maggie swooped in and grabbed the beer. "Oh, hot damn. These are not easy to come by." She turned to Kara on her way to deliver the beer to the fridge. "She can stay," Maggie pronounced.
Kara positively beamed.
To no one's great surprise, Lena was really good at Risk. As she built an absolutely unstoppable global army, the food and drink flowed easily, as did the casual chatter.
"So Cat comes screeching out of her office, absolutely incensed about the lack of blueberries in her yogurt," Winn says between bouts of laughter, recalling the absurdity of the Cat Grant Episode in question.
At that, James piped in, lifting his voice in a comically bad approximation of his boss' tone. "I dated Billy Idol in the Eighties, Keira. What makes you think I appreciate flavorless mush for breakfast?"
Kara chuckled. "I kept trying to explain that blueberries were out of season, and that I had no idea who Billy Idol was," she said. "I even flew to South America and got her fresh berries for lunch, but she don't think she even noticed."
Alex was only half paying attention to the story, but she tensed in reflex, ready to knock an elbow into her beer and launch it into her own lap to distract from the latest Weirdly Incongruous Alien Thing Kara Had Uttered. Finding effective ways to yank attention away from her sister had long been second nature, though she seemed to need the skill more frequently since Kara had started hanging around a certain Luthor.
She scanned the table to judge the level of reaction. Maggie was grinning and shaking her head. James and Winn were just giving Kara that amused, adoring look they always gave her. James, Winn... and Lena, Alex realized belatedly.
Huh. That was unexpected. And the adoring look didn't wane after Lena very deliberately lost the game to Kara's inferior forces, or after a round of Monopoly turned into failed capitalist chaos. Lena was perfectly genial to the entire group, but her main attention was most definitely focused on Kara.
"Gaydar" was still a pretty abstract concept for Alex, so she decided just to apply basic scientific observation. She set aside her beer, half-finished, and switched into evidence gathering mode.
As the evening wore on, Alex watched Lena prop her chin in her hand and lean closer to Kara, then reach up with her free hand to rescue a dab of barbecue sauce from the tip of Kara's nose.
She watched Kara grin and stutter and blush in response, and watched Lena take it in with obvious affection.
Later, Alex watched in absolute astonishment as Kara offered up the very last of her homemade lemon bars to Lena. That was remarkable enough on its own that Alex almost missed the part where Lena neatly cut the bar in half and offered the remainder back to Kara.
And it could not have been a coincidence when Lena reached out to poke Kara in the chest to tease her, and let her finger draw a lazy "S" in a curlicue just below her collar.
"Oh boy," Alex muttered, then hid a grimace behind a long pull at her forgotten beer bottle, which was now unpleasantly warm. She made a weird gurgling noise and coughed until Maggie poked her in the thigh and tilted her head a bit in question, but Alex waved her off.
By the end of the evening, they had all ended up pairing off. James and Winn continued some animated, geeky argument about the relative merits of their favorite video games, Alex and Maggie were snuggled together in a haphazard pile on the couch, and Kara and Lena were in the kitchen, sharing dish duty and laughing about... something.
Despite Maggie's prediction, the evening hadn't been at all awkward. Lena was quite charming, and had somehow put a flaily Kara at ease. Even now, while Lena flicked soap suds at Kara and chatted about some new project at L-Corp, Kara was relaxed, engaged, and happy - something Alex hadn't seen from her sister in a long time.
She started a bit when Maggie bumped against her arm and leaned in closer. She'd more than made up for Alex's lack of indulgence during the evening, and was very pleasantly fuzzy. "Are you seeing all the gay shit up in here?" she slurred under her breath.
With that, Alex computed the sum of evidence she'd gathered that evening, and decided two things:
One: Kara was, without a doubt, crushing hard on a certain Luthor, and Two: Said Luthor knew, incontrovertibly, Supergirl's secret identity.
Alex wasn't sure which one of those facts made her life more difficult.
She loosed a profound sigh and scrubbed a hand across her face. "Yup, that is some seriously gay shit," she agreed.
"The answer is no," J'onn said, without looking up from a screen displaying a live feed of radiation readouts across National City.
"I didn't even ask you anything!" Alex protested.
"I'm not disclosing anything I may have learned from my brief interactions with Lena Luthor," he said. "It's an invasion of privacy, and I refuse to do that without cause."
Alex held her hand out. "But you just read my mind without my permission," she accused.
J'onn straightened, and exhaled an impatient noise. "You were basically screaming in your head for me to notice," he replied. "So I did."
She had the good grace to look embarrassed, but she pressed onward. "If Kara gets compromised, then we're all at risk."
J'onn studied her with narrowed eyes. "Do you trust your sister?"
"You know I do," Alex replied in exasperation.
"Good. Keep doing that." J'onn returned his attention to the console readouts, having clearly dismissed her.
Trust, it turned out, was a funny thing.
Alex was pacing in the elevator at L-Corp, wondering what exactly she was going to do now that she was there. As always, she told herself her motives were only to protect Kara, and by extension the DEO and Earth itself.
She knew Kara had a blind spot for this particular human with her very particular family history, so she was just going to address it. No failure of trust implied. Just doing her duty.
Which is why she absolutely, positively, did not feel like a lying sack of crap who was in the process of betraying her sister.
The door opened, and Alex stepped out and flashed her badge at Lena's assistant. The assistant promptly scuttled off to alert the CEO of her presence, then escorted Alex into the office.
"Agent Danvers," Lena greeted, tentatively. She stood and rounded her desk. "What can I do for you?"
Alex decided it was easiest to just skip the polite preamble. "I need to ask you some questions," she began.
Lena frowned and folded her arms. "In an official capacity? Should I summon my attorney?"
Alex grit her teeth. It was a perfectly valid question to ask a of law enforcement officer making an unexpected visit, and did absolutely nothing to make Alex feel less like a schmuck. "Not those kind of questions," she said. "I need to know what it is that you want from Kara," she continued, putting her hands on her hips in her favorite "intimidate the perp" stance. She tilted her chin in a calculated challenge. "And from Supergirl."
Lena lifted her eyebrows in delicate surprise. "Oh, so we're through with that particular pretense? Interesting. And you bullied your way past my assistant with your badge for... what? Some kind of shovel talk?"
"I'm here because I love my sister," Alex said, sidestepping those additional, entirely valid questions. "The world needs her, and I won't let anyone hurt her."
Lena folded her arms as well and waited for the inevitable threat, the sneering distrust.
"But if I'm honest, you could have hurt her a hundred ways already, and you haven't," Alex said, surprising herself. She worked her tongue against her teeth, recalculating her approach, as the words she'd intended to say no longer fit. "She trusts you, and I trust her," she added, as her voice lost its sharp edge, and she let her shoulders drop. "So here we are."
"Here we are," Lena agreed after a beat. She relaxed minutely, very aware that Alex was cataloging her every move.
"How long have you known?" Alex asked.
With a humorless chuckle, Lena turned and strolled over to a shelf. "About Kara and her cousin? Since before I moved to National City. Lex had compiled very detailed files about the last known Kryptonians," she continued, as she pressed a hidden button and plucked a flash drive from a compartment that dropped open below. "This is the only remaining copy of those files," she said, before crossing the room to hand the drive to Alex. "They are encrypted, and I will provide the key upon request by the DEO, though I suspect Mr. Schott would be able to crack them without any help."
Alex blinked in surprise. "You're just giving me your files." She didn't even bother addressing Lena's assumption that Winn worked for the DEO as well.
"My brother's files," Lena corrected. "Yes."
"Why?"
Lena frowned. "I came here at least partially to make up for his mistakes. I wanted to prove that a Luthor could be a force for good. I didn't imagine that I would ever actually become Kara's friend, much less..." She inhaled sharply. "Well. Consider it a gesture of good faith. Perhaps L-Corp and the DEO could someday become partners."
"Because of Kara," Alex challenged.
"Because we share a common set of goals," Lena replied. Under Alex's hard scrutiny, she bowed her head. "And because I want to help protect Kara," she added.
Alex weighed the veracity of that statement, bouncing the flash drive idly in the palm of her hand. The one thing she'd learned since Clark had left Kara with her family was that one didn't just pop in to occasionally "help" a superhero. It was a calling, a life-changing mission that each one of her sister's companions had willingly borne. She couldn't yet guess whether that sort of all-consuming devotion would scare Lena off, or pull her all the way in - but she was going to find out.
"Do you know what the symbol on her suit is?" she asked. "The 'S'?"
"It's the crest of the house of El," Lena replied, impassive.
"It's the crest of the house of... Jesus. Just how detailed are these files?!" Alex asked, her voice rising in alarm.
Lena only shrugged. "Lex always was resourceful."
Alex stared at the flash drive in her hand and tucked it away carefully in her pocket. "Yeah. Anyway, it's also her family's motto. El mayarah. It means 'stronger together.'"
That, at least, appeared to be new information. Alex could see the genuine, open curiosity across the other woman's face, and for the first time, Alex's own prejudice didn't color her perception with bad intentions that weren't actually there. Dammit. Lena actually did seem nice.
She owed Kara an apology or six.
"So, when we were kids, Kara had a habit of collecting orphaned animals around the neighborhood," Alex continued. "Kittens abandoned by their moms, that kind of thing. The summer before she left for college, Mom made her find good homes for all those strays. I think she still flies back once in a while to walk that one golden retriever." She shook her head to get back to her point. "Anyway. Cute things with pretty eyes and a sad story are more kryptonite than kryptonite for Kara. It's just how she is." She tilted her head down to fix Lena with a pointed look from under her lashes. "You may have noticed."
"I'm not sure I appreciate the comparison to a helpless animal," Lena complained with a scoff. Her already-dramatic eyebrows were threatening to leave her forehead entirely.
"Not actually my point," Alex countered, with an impatient gesture. "Kara forges her family as she goes, and she doesn't leave anyone behind. Not since she had to leave everything behind." She paused and took a step forward, lowering her voice. "Kara's taken you in, Lena. That means you're already one of us. I need you to understand what that means to her. To us."
She watched as Lena ducked her head, trying to keep her composure. "I know family has been... complicated... for you," Alex said, aiming for some kind of delicacy on the topic. "It's complicated for Kara, too. But once you've earned her trust... That's pretty much unbreakable. She's already claimed you. Stronger together."
Lena shivered a little at the notion that she'd been "claimed" by a Super, and looked back up to meet Alex's gaze squarely. "And that is an honor I would never betray," she promised.
"I believe you," Alex said softly, meaning it. An odd peace settled between them, as they acknowledged the depth of each other's fealty. "So," Alex continued with a vague shrug. "Welcome to the family, I guess. Sorry most of us have been jerks. We'll get better." She paused and squinted into some unknown middle distance, imagining a particularly punchable Daxamite face. "Probably."
Lena exhaled a faint laugh. "I admit, this was not how I expected this conversation to go."
"Me neither," Alex admitted with a rueful grin. "But that's kind of what happens when you love Kara."
"I never said..." Lena protested.
Alex waved her off. "Whatever. Just... keep making her smile like she does whenever you walk into the damned room."
Lena's expression immediately softened to a sort of charmed wonder, and Alex rolled her eyes. "Gah," she muttered, annoyed in the extreme by the cuteness she had avoided noticing for so long.
After a moment, Lena cocked her head. "Does Kara know you're here?"
"No," Alex admitted. "She also doesn't know that I know that you know." She scowled, validating the mental math on that statement, then nodded. "I didn't tell her I was coming to talk to you."
With that, she reached to her ear and tapped her comms. "Supergirl, you still patrolling? We've got a situation at L-Corp."
Lena started, and tried to object, but it was no use. Supergirl appeared at the balcony within seconds, landing with a heavy thud and immediately pushing her way past the glass door.
"What's wrong?" she demanded. She crossed and put a gentle hand on Lena's shoulder. "Ms. Luthor, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Lena said with a weak laugh. "I was just giving your sister some information the DEO might find useful."
"My sis..." Kara blinked, and flicked an alarmed look over at Alex.
Alex held up her hands. "She already knew."
"Oh," Kara murmured. She turned back to Lena, letting her reflexively heroic posture droop just a bit. "I've been trying to find a good time to tell you," she murmured.
"It's okay," Lena assured her, pitching her voice low and intimate to match Kara's. "I understand."
Alex watched as they shifted into each other's personal space, and realized she was suddenly quite superfluous to the conversation. "I'll just see myself out," she muttered, and turned to go while Maggie's teasing about "gay shit" rang in her ears.
"Agent Danvers," Lena called after her.
"Alex," Alex corrected with a tiny smile.
"Alex. Did you mean... what you said earlier?"
"Stronger together," Alex confirmed, smirking at her sister's immediate surprise. She pointed at Kara. "We'll talk later," she ordered, in the bossy sibling tone that brooked no argument. "But," she added - with a thoughtful look, and a nod to her absent girlfriend's impeccable judgement - "She can stay."
Kara watched Alex leave, then smiled shyly at Lena. "Did she threaten you or anything? 'Cause if she did..."
"She didn't," Lena assured her. "She may have implied that I'm merely a pathetic stray that you've decided to rescue, however."
"What?!" Kara squawked. "That is absolutely not true. You're brilliant, and kind, and tough..." She stepped closer, taking gentle hold of Lena's arms, and trailed off when she got distracted by the sparkle of Lena's eyes. She sighed, then dropped her hands. "And you deserved better than to be lied to from the moment we met. I'm so sorry."
"Neither of us were being particularly truthful," Lena replied. "I'm sorry as well."
"So, Lex knew? About me?" Kara guessed, with a frown at Lena's affirmative nod. "Does Lillian?"
"I don't know," Lena replied. "I'm not sure it matters, to be honest."
Kara stepped away and paced a little, fists balled at her side. "It matters if it puts the people I care about at risk," she said.
"They weren't any less at risk while you were Kara Danvers, mild-mannered reporter," Lena argued. "While we've been friends."
The last word tripped off Lena's tongue gracelessly, and Kara ended her pacing lap a few steps early to turn back toward Lena, cape flaring around her and eyes intense. "I think we're more than friends," Kara declared in a low voice.
Lena took a moment to soak that in, feeling the impact of those words deep in her gut. She folded her hands together in front of herself. "I suppose we are," she agreed.
Kara was shaking her head in frustration. "So stupid," she muttered. "I was so caught up with liking you that I forgot..."
"Oh, so... you do like me?" Lena asked with a smile.
"Of course I do," Kara said, annoyed. "But I have responsibilities..."
"Because I quite like you, as well," Lena replied, neatly cutting off Kara's impending superhero-accountability spiel. "In case that wasn't perfectly obvious. Like a disguise made up of glasses and a ponytail."
"Please stop being charming," Kara grumbled. "You're missing the point. This isn't... I don't get to do 'casual' or 'flirtatious.' There's nothing casual about being part of my life."
Lena ducked her head, conceding the point. "I believe your sister was trying to convey as much," she said. "But I actually knew what I was getting into from the beginning. And I'm still here, if you'll have me. As a friend, or..."
"Or," Kara murmured. She canted her head, seeing Lena and their interactions in a whole new light. "You've known all along," she breathed out.
"You can imagine how strange it was to have two Supers in my office that first time," Lena demurred with a faint smile. "You were not quite what I was expecting."
"Medusa, Cadmus..." Kara continued, replaying Lena's kidnapping in her mind, and remembering her desperate plea.
Don't hurt her!
She remembered the fear etched across Lena's face as Kara battled a cyborg Hank Henshaw.
Then Kara scowled. "The gala," she said, in a flat voice.
Lena laughed sharply. "I was waiting for you to get to that."
"You invited me twice, and you knew it," Kara said, annoyed. She folded her arms and tried very hard to look properly grumpy.
"Oh, Kara. I had to," Lena replied. "Supergirl was my insurance. You were my date. Also, your improvisation that night was... remarkable."
Kara reeled. "I was your date?" she demanded. "We've already been on a date and I missed it?!"
"At least it was memorable?" Lena offered.
"Enough," Kara said firmly, with a slashing gesture. "Stop deflecting."
"All right," Lena agreed. "But you'll notice, we've navigated a fair amount of risk already." She spread her hands to indicate the space between them, and the decided lack of terrible explosions in their proximity. "And we're okay."
Kara had to acknowledge as much. Even when she thought her secret was keeping Lena safe, it wasn't. And despite the risk, they'd made it out of all those scrapes together.
Together. This brilliant, beautiful, burdened woman, had cast her lot in with Kara without being asked, and fought against her own family to try to be better, a force for good, a hero in her own right.
With a sigh, Kara stepped closer, and lifted a hand to tug an errant lock of dark hair away from Lena's face. "We are okay," she allowed. "And I hated not being honest with you."
Lena pushed in nearer, holding Kara's gaze with matching intensity. "Be honest with me now," she whispered.
It was a fair request. Kara swallowed and shut her eyes. "I think I'm falling for you," she said. She started at the touch of Lena's fingertips against her cheek, and opened her eyes again.
"I knew that, too," Lena said with a small, but joyous smile.
Kara snorted, and felt like she was flying, falling, tipping headlong into Lena's eyes. She actually looked down for a moment to make sure her feet were still firmly on the floor.
"Are you all right?" Lena asked.
"You make me dizzy," Kara admitted, with a breathless laugh.
At that, Lena stepped in, pressing her forehead to Kara's. "The feeling is very mutual," she replied. She rested her hands at Kara's hips, hoping the solid contact might steady her equilibrium.
Kara closed her eyes, took a deep, calming breath, and settled in to the embrace. She folded her arms loosely around Lena's and let herself bask in the security and affection she'd always felt from her friend.
That was something Kara had never managed to explain to Alex, for fear of making her sad - that she felt safe with Lena, in a way she almost never did with anyone else. She didn't have a perfect way to define it, since human senses were as limited as the language describing them, but everyone had a "tell," a way their bodies broadcast their mind's intentions.
Lena's intentions were, to Kara's keen perception, only ever open, and honest, and trustworthy... and a touch amorous, if she allowed herself to notice.
Kara could understand why Lena's attention was inherently risky, but she just couldn't care. She absolutely craved the sensation of company that didn't come with extra strain or worry. And if that comfort came at the cost of perpetually acting like a goofy dork in Lena's proximity, that was a price she was willing to pay.
"Would you have told me eventually?" Lena asked after a moment while they drifted together.
"Oh yeah. I totally had a plan," Kara said, boldly. She blushed, leaned away, and rubbed at her face a bit. "I was going to ask you to dinner, and tell you then," she said.
"Dinner... as Kara, or as Supergirl?" Lena asked, with a grin. She shuffled a bit closer and let her hands slide up Kara's back, feeling more confident as the normally unflappable superhero stammered.
Kara hesitated, then sighed in dejection and tossed her arms back against her cape. "It wasn't a very good plan," she admitted.
Lena chuckled, then leaned up to press a kiss to Kara's cheek. "I would have said yes," she said, in a low voice. "Regardless of who had asked." After a moment, her gaze wandered and turned thoughtful. She snuck one hand out from under Kara's cape and lifted it to trace careful fingertips against the symbol on Kara's chest. She could feel the rise and fall of Kara's breath underneath, the warmth of the skin radiating against her own. "I didn't know what this meant. Alex tried to explain."
Kara waited, sensing Lena's struggle to articulate.
"It's... it's everything you are," Lena said.
Exhaling a gasp of surprise at the simplicity of that explanation, Kara nodded. "It's why I'm here," she whispered.
"El mayarah," Lena murmured, testing the words on her tongue. She felt Kara shudder against her, and reveled in the heady power of that sensation. "Alex said... that you 'claim' people, as family. That you'd claimed me."
Kara sensed she was suddenly on very uncertain ground, and she looked around for any steady points to anchor to. "Only if that's something you want," she said.
"I..." Lena thought better of that start, and shook her head. "'Family' is not something I've ever really known how to do," Lena said. "But for you? I'd learn." She looked up again, and managed a watery smile. "Stronger together," she declared.
Kara felt her entire world tilt on its axis. For years, those words had been a tie to a world nearly forgotten, a threadbare bond with a wayward cousin, and a slogan to rally her human friends. For the first time, she heard them as a vow, and it absolutely rocked her. She covered Lena's fingers with her own, pressing their joined hands against her heart.
"Stronger together," she said in reply, hoping the quiet statement conveyed the depth of everything in the air between them.
The words hit home, hard. Lena inhaled and shut her eyes, letting a tremor rattle across her limbs.
Kara smiled, then pulled Lena in for a gentle hug. She pressed her face against Lena's soft hair, and just held on through the trembling. "You know, I do have super strength," Kara said seriously. "I could help with some of that burden you're carrying, if you like."
Lena sniffled and managed a weak chuckle as she pulled away. "Says the woman carrying the weight of two worlds," she said. She exhaled shakily, feeling emotionally wrung out from the revelations of the day. "I'd like that, though," she admitted.
"On one condition," Kara said. She leaned back and flashed a rakish grin. "Take me on a proper date," she decreed, before her usual shyness could get the better of her. "One that I actually know is happening. With dinner and dancing. No alien weaponry allowed."
Lena swiped the back of her hand across her cheeks and managed a smile. "Fine. Would you please - at your own insistence, mind you - join me for dinner this evening?"
Kara's eyes narrowed. "And dancing."
"With minimal alien weaponry," Lena added. "I happen to like you a little dangerous."
Kara pretended to think about that offer for a moment. "Okay," she agreed. With that settled, she relaxed, rolling her shoulders. She tilted her head in a sweet and genuinely happy way Lena suspected almost no one got to see. "The world didn't feel right until you showed up, you know? Like I was just waiting for you to be exactly where you belonged."
Lena's eyes went wide as she fought off yet another bout of melancholy. "I've never 'belonged' anywhere."
"Well, now you do," Kara replied, confident and just a tad possessive. "And if I know my sister, she's already browbeating our friends to make sure they're nice to you." She smirked. "So they have the chance to see what I saw all along."
"I'll prove you right," Lena vowed.
Kara took hold of Lena's hand, and brought it to her lips. "You have nothing to prove," she declared, as she pressed a delicate kiss to Lena's fingers. "But you can stay - with me - as long as you want to."
The casual power of that promise knocked the air from Lena's lungs, and it was all she could do to stay upright, clinging to Kara's hand.
"I have to go for now," Kara said, sporting a goofy grin. "I have to get ready for a date."
"Best not to keep the lady waiting," Lena agreed, weakly.
"Yeah," Kara agreed. "We should really just get to the 'happily ever after' part." She held Lena's gaze while she backed toward the door to the balcony, then bonked loudly into the glass. She sighed. "Someday I'll be smooth," she said. "Just maybe not today." With that, she slipped outside and launched herself into the sky.
Lena doubted that. "I look forward to it," she called anyway, knowing Kara would hear her. She laughed when she saw the vague outline of a red cape doing lazy flips across the National City skyline, feeling her heart flip right along with it.