Work Text:
What took Catra unaware was how quickly she got used to it.
She opened her eyes to the familiar sight of Adora’s bare back, the sheet having bunched around her hips the way it always did during the night, and didn’t feel anything but a soft, glowing contentment. Less than a year ago there would have been fear, that this happiness would be shattered the way every previous happiness had been; triumph, that she finally had Adora where she wanted her; and wonder, that where she wanted Adora had always been here, in bed, beside her, and never beaten and bruised on a battlefield.
Those things were still true. But they weren’t here. Here—the moment, the morning—was peace and the sound Adora made when Catra traced her spine with a fingernail.
‘Good morning.’ Adora’s voice was open and vulnerable, full of sleep, and when she rolled over, her hair unkempt in a way Catra had once associated with combat, her expression utterly unconcerned with the fact she was naked in bed—
‘Good morning yourself,’ Catra said.
Adora blinked drowsiness away. ‘You sound awake.’
‘Mm.’
‘Something on your mind?’
‘Did you expect it to feel normal? This’—Catra gestured at the two of them, the bed, their bed, their tangled sheets—‘all of this? So quickly?’
She had meant it as a reassurance—yes, something on her mind, but something small and soft and happy, not the kind of something that required talking about—but the way Adora’s expression went still, her smile still in place but no longer alive, told Catra she’d failed.
‘Adora?’ There was the fear, right on schedule.
Adora blinked again, shook hair out of her eyes. She arranged herself in bed, sitting up against a pillow. Only then did she look back down at Catra. ‘Does it bother you?’
‘Does what bother me?’
‘What you said. That it’s normal. Already.’
‘No?’ This was the worst kind of conversation: the kind that was important in some way she didn’t understand. ‘Why would it bother me?’
‘Because you’re so—’ Adora paused, as if reconsidering, then blurted: ‘Explosive.’
‘Explosive?’
‘Yeah. Like—when you flirt with Glimmer, and she gets mad at you—’
‘Wait, is this about Glimmer? You know I only do that because it’s funny—’
‘No! No, it’s just—that was just an example—’ Adora’s face had gone bright red. Usually Catra would have poked fun at her for it. ‘But how you act with her, it’s all tense and prickly—and—and—it’s how you used to be with me.’
‘Adora.’ Catra made a deliberate effort not to hide the concern in her voice. It was still hard, sometimes, being genuine. ‘Stop dancing around it and just tell me what’s wrong.’
‘I’m worried we’re too different,’ Adora said, so fast Catra could barely keep the words straight. ‘I’m worried I want this, and you want—something else. What we used to have.’
Oh. ‘You mean,’ Catra said, ‘what we had when we were on opposite sides of a war?’
Adora flinched. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
This Adora, Catra recognised all too well. It was the Adora who had a notion in her head, all selfless and stubborn and willing to give Catra up if she thought it was what Catra wanted. There was only one way to deal with this Adora.
Catra straddled her. ‘All right,’ she said over Adora’s protestations. ‘You know I’m not big on talking about my feelings. I’m only going to tell you this once, so I need you to listen. Okay?’
Adora swallowed audibly. ‘Okay.’
‘The only constant thing in my entire life,’ Catra began, ‘has been knowing I want to be with you. I’ve loved you since before I knew there was more than one way to love someone. Since before I had any reason to be prickly. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And the reason I did… the things I did, is that I thought I couldn’t want this. Shouldn’t want this. I just—’ There were tears pricking the sides of her eyes and Catra tried not to hate herself for them. ‘I just wanted to be happy. And the greatest day of my life’—her voice was a whisper now, her eyes were closed, but she was this far in and there was no stopping now—‘was when I finally, finally realised that you wanted me to be happy too.’
Those were truths it had taken her years to arrive it. It felt wrong, letting them go so easily; but it was the sort of wrong she knew was, itself, wrong, was the remnant of a structure of thought and want and self she was still dismantling, still replacing with something right, and she opened her eyes and saw the way Adora was looking at her, the way she’d been looking at her for, if Catra was being honest, far longer than she probably deserved, and that look was another piece of her newfound structure of right.
Catra pressed herself into Adora, hid her face in the crook of her neck, let Adora stroke her ears and her back, and she said: ‘And if you still need convincing, think about what we did yesterday morning.’
She didn’t have to look up to picture clearly the tiny frown Adora wore when she was thinking, nor the way she blushed when she realised what Catra meant.
‘Let me tell you a secret,’ she whispered in Adora’s ear. ‘It’s not the sex I really care about.’ Adora’s noise of disbelief made her smirk. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, the sex is… explosive, but it’s not the important part.’
‘What is the important part?’ Adora said, dutifully, but Catra could tell she already knew the shape of the answer.
‘Do you remember what we talked about? After?’
Adora’s hand on her back, idly stroking as she thought it over, made Catra purr before she could stop herself. ‘Not really,’ Adora said eventually. ‘Lots of stuff.’
‘Exactly. That’s the important thing. The hours we can spend together when it doesn’t matter what we talk about. The way it makes my whole day better.’
Adora pushed her away a little, tilted her head up, brushed her thumb across her cheeks. ‘Do you promise?’
The good thing about years of insecurity was that Catra knew, by Adora’s own example, how to be reassuring. She wrapped her tail around Adora’s calf, because she knew Adora found it comforting. ‘I promise,’ Catra said. Then she kissed her: the kind of kiss that proved passion did not have to be rough or wild or desperate. ‘My life has been plenty explosive so far. I’m ready for my afterglow.’