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The storm outside paid no heed to the couple scurrying from storefront to storefront, raging against buildings and unfortunate individuals. The pair ran, doing there best to avoid the onslaught. One avoided puddles, dancing around them as best one could in a winter coat, the other sought them out, stomping heavy and happy at the privilege of dampening themself further.
"Kara, you're going to catch your death," the dancer spoke, stern in the warming way that only an old friend or a loving partner could be.
"It'll be fine, Lena," the stomper replied, though ceasing their splashing expedition all the same.
It was warm in the frigid hail of half-frozen drops that fell full and fat against every available surface.
They were a block away from home, cold to the bone, noses running sluggishly, freezing to upper lips. One block of laughing and dancing and stomping. Three quarters of a block of soggy socks and ruined shoes, heavy coats and plaster hair. Half a block of musical teeth and jittery hands. A third of a block of tensed arms and backs.
The door.
Warmth poured out like fog from a haunted house, greeting pinkened cheeks and runny noses. The pair shed sighs and coats hanging them from the hooks by the door. The heat reached Kara's lenses, obscuring them with steam, and without thought she removed them, scrubbing them uselessly with her damp shirt.
Steps stopped, eyes glazed, a face fell under the weight of itself. Kara opened her mouth but made it no further.
"Tea?" the dancer asked, already off to fetch the kettle, twirling away from the conversation and onto the carpet of eggshells. Daring Kara to follow. Daring her heavy feet to tread lightly.
"I wanted to tell you," the stomper stated certainly, smashing down upon the frail shells with a high-powered heel. Daring Lena to ease off her toes.
"Then why didn't you," down came the dancer's foot in an elegantly devastating blow.
Kara's sigh was recalled from its hook by the coats. The stomper longed to dance, to twirl and spin around and away from the topic. She shrugged stiffly and examined the shells she'd smashed, "I don't know, I guess it's because I could just be me with you. I was just me, and you were just Lena. It was easy, I was a hero, Kara Danvers is never a hero. I was selfish. I didn't want to lose you."
"Keep saying things like that, and I might start thinking you like me," Lena sidestepped, a slip and a stumble, lacking in her usual dancer's grace.
Kara ground the shells to dust beneath her toes, "I think I'm past the point of just liking you,"
For the first time since the two had met, Lena was speechless. Any words she might have had died before they reached her tongue. Kara's frames, now mangled by her nervous hands, were left on the counter, replaced by Lena's still chilled fingers.
"I'm sorry," the stomper whispered, prepared to leave the dancer with her own thoughts. Only stopped by the hands leaving her own, to find the sides of her head.
They danced across her cheeks and glided over her hair, dried stiff with rain, the bridge of her nose, the curve of her lip. Lena was searching, frantically so, for some kind of evidence of a lie.
"Do you really love me?" she asked, coming to a hard landing, creating her own little pile of dust.
"So so much," Kara answered, trying so desperately to convince her, to let her know that she was going to strain her eyes looking for dishonesty that wasn't there.
"I really hope you're telling the truth," it was sealed with the tender caress of a kiss, so gentle it was almost chaste. Followed in tow by another, and another, longer and sweeter, and so full of love.
It was interrupted by the wail of the kettle.
"We should probably get cleaned up," Kara suggested, further breaking the delicate silence.
"This hasn't gotten you out of the rest of your explanation," Lena's tone teetered on the edge of teasing.
Kara scooped up the kettle and set it aside, "Don't worry, I'll tell you everything once you get a shower and some dry clothes."
Lena nodded, shaking the dust from her feet and hurrying off warmed by the promise of truly knowing Kara.