Archive of Our Own ^beta

Heart’s Hearth Market was one of the town of Etheria’s favorite outcomes of the Buy Local movement. It was a small natural foods store with only eight short aisles, a little section for fresh produce, a corner of baked goods, a deli, a kitchen, and a tiny area in the back for the butcher.

Members of the local community lauded it as the perfect example for stores striving to promote fresh, local, and organic lifestyles. Many who shopped there became regulars, ordering sandwiches and servings of things like potato salad, chicken pot pie, sesame noodles, and other prepared dishes from the deli. The back of the deli contained a soft-serve ice cream machine and shelves full of toppings, which made Heart’s Hearth an extra popular destination for families in the summer.

Catra slipped her sunglasses off of her nose as she entered the store through the back. The stained metal door with the words “Heart’s Hearth Deliveries” printed in faded lettering on it groaned as it fell shut behind her. She was a couple of minutes late but still close enough to on time that she could get away with putting an even two o’clock on her timesheet.

Before she’d gotten out of her car and come inside, she had seriously considered just driving away and calling in sick. She’d gotten the email last night that she had been randomly selected from the staff lottery to stay late for the deli/kitchen’s monthly deep cleaning, and that was a duty that was enough to make any reasonable person quit on the spot. Catra often daydreamed about quitting anyway. But, she needed the paycheck, and the people she worked with other than the manager were usually okay to be around, so here she was. 

The store’s back room served as a combined bulk storage space, office, and breakroom, though Catra and the other employees tended to opt to take their breaks elsewhere. The concrete patio area outside the store’s walk-up ice cream window or the patch of grass behind the staff parking area were much preferred, especially in the summer months, when compared with the back room’s shoddily industrial, musty atmosphere. 

Supplies like deli bags, plastic cutlery, waxed and brown paper for wrapping cuts of meat, and boxes of ice cream cones were stacked high on the shelves. The center of the room was taken up by a small cluster of desks for the manager and other administrators. One of these was theoretically set aside for the owner, Mr. Hordak, who rarely appeared at the store itself since taking on a number of side ventures. It was often taken over by staff on their breaks on rainy days, its computer used to check social media, or in Catra’s case, to double-check labor laws whenever she received a dirty look for taking a bathroom break.

She avoided eye contact with the manager, a spiteful, compassionless woman known to her employees only as Shadow Weaver, who sat at one of the desks going over schedules. When she had started working at the store, Catra found herself inexplicably victim to Shadow Weaver’s harsh and baseless criticism. Catra may not have been the most excited to spend her days slicing meat and making sandwiches, but she got the job done and done well, so whatever disparagement Shadow Weaver dished out to her was definitely unearned. 

Catra hung her jacket by the staff lockers then rushed out onto the floor in the direction of the deli, eager to evade any interaction with her boss. She narrowly avoided running headlong into Entrapta, who was in charge of early morning inventory and restocking and was preparing to leave for the day. 

Entrapta was meticulous and detail-oriented and therefore very good at her job. As far as Catra knew, there wasn’t a single item on the aisle shelves that had gone unaccounted for in all the time Entrapta worked there, which was saying something for a store whose employees thoroughly enjoyed and consumed its products. 

Catra was painfully aware of the fact that Entrapta was far too invested in her intellectual pursuits to be working in a rinky-dink natural foods store like this, but like her, and most of the shop’s employees, Entrapta needed to build up her savings in order to move on.

“Heads up, Pigtails, I almost just took you out.” Catra flashed a quick smile to show she wasn’t actually bothered. 

Entrapta blinked at her for a moment. “Oh! You’re referring to me as Pigtails because of my distinct hair.”

Catra let out a chuckle. “That’s the idea, yeah.” 

Entrapta lit up. “I’ve never had a nickname before! This is very exciting.”

Catra could feel herself smiling in spite of herself. “Well, get used to it, I think it’s gonna stick.”

Entrapta nodded brightly. “You know, you seem to be in a remarkably good mood considering you got chosen for the deep cleaning tonight.” 

Catra puffed out her cheeks and fiddled with a can on one of the shelves beside her. “Ugh, don’t remind me.” She frowned. “Wait, how’d you know I got stuck doing that?”

Entrapta frowned right back. “It was in the email. Shadow Weaver sent it to everybody.”

“... Oh. Duh.” 

In truth, Catra hadn’t seen anything in that email other than the words “mandatory after-hours deep cleaning” and her own name. She wondered if it had said who else would be staying late. It probably did; it would be weird if it didn’t. Suddenly Catra wished she had been more inclined to actually pay attention to her work correspondence. There were certain coworkers of hers who, if she had to remain at work longer than usual, she would definitely rather be trapped with than others. 

There was one coworker in particular she’d prefer to stay late with above all the others, but she didn’t dare express that out loud. 

“Okay, well, I’m going to go now.” Entrapta inched around her toward the swinging door that led to the back room. “See you tomorrow, Catra!”

“Have a good one, Pigtails.” 

Catra made her way through the deli area to the back of the kitchen, where she plucked an apron from the clean bag, nodding to Bow and Glimmer along the way. 

Bow was their main butcher, and he offered a friendly wave between slicing cubes of beef for kabobs. Bow was nice - like, extremely nice - but Catra didn’t get to interact with him too often as his job required him to remain tucked away in his little nook at the back of the kitchen for the majority of his shift. 

Glimmer was the head cook, and she made nearly all of the dishes that went out into the deli case. She was a little intense at times, but that was a quality Catra had learned to appreciate about her. She was quick and creative in the kitchen, constantly bringing in new recipes to try out. She lifted one hand in greeting, the other flipping chunks of sweet potato in a pan. 

Catra was pretty sure that Bow and Glimmer were dating, but she had never actually thought to ask.

She slipped the apron over her head and deftly tied the strings around her waist. She snagged her name tag from the collection that sat next to the walk-in refrigerator and eyed a tray of bacon that sat on the cooling rack above the oven. 

“Smells good in here,” she said to Glimmer in a passably nonchalant tone. 

Glimmer smirked, already knowing where this was going. She took a pair of tongs and used them to pull the hot tray down from the rack and held it out. “A couple of strips on the end got burned. Knock yourself out.”

Catra put her hands together in a silent thank-you, plucked the extra crispy pieces off the tray, and popped them into her mouth before she went back out into the deli to start her own work. 

She snapped some latex gloves on her hands and checked each of the doors of the deli’s lowboy fridges that sat under the sandwich prep boards and housed the back-up containers of meats, cheeses, and other sandwich toppings, taking stock of which items needed refilling. 

She pulled out the big block of cheddar first, as that was what they tended to go through the fastest, removed the plastic wrapping, and set it on the heavy, circular deli slicer. She dropped the hand guard into place, having learned her lesson from the time she’d left it turned out away from the blade and accidentally cut off a tiny bit of her thumb. It had grown back, but the pain she’d experienced from that injury had been enough to ensure that she followed all of the safety precautions from then on. 

She turned the slicer on. It whirred under her hand as she pushed the cheddar block back and forth over the rapidly spinning blade. Even slices fell into her other hand, which was held at the ready underneath the blade, and every so often she flipped those slices into a container to be wrapped in plastic, labeled, and stored in the lowboy.

It was a tedious task, but it did pass the time. The repetitive nature of it allowed her mind to wander. She wasn’t even really aware of the fact that she was daydreaming. Her mind went to all sorts of idealized versions of what her future might look like, all them far away from working a food retail job in a small town, though every now and then the image of a familiar face from her time at the store floated through her mind’s eye.

Catra was halfway through slicing a turkey back-up when she saw a figure approach the deli counter out of the corner of her eye. She turned the slicer off and turned to see Scorpia staring up at the menu board. 

Scorpia came into Heart’s Hearth nearly every day for lunch. She had gotten a sandwich there one day years ago and almost instantaneously made a routine of it. In that time, Perfuma had been hired to run the produce department, and the two had fallen in love with each other almost as quickly as Scorpia had fallen in love with the deli’s club sandwiches. 

“Hey, Scorp,” Catra greeted her, leaning on the counter over the top of the deli case and grabbing a slip of paper and pen to take her order. “The usual?” 

Scorpia was easily one of Catra’s favorite customers, despite her often overly cheerful demeanor. Some might even call them friends. Catra had been roommates with Perfuma their freshman year of college. They still hung out every now and then, and when Perfuma had started to bring Scorpia along to hang out, Catra had found that she actually did enjoy Scorpia’s kind, enthusiastic presence. 

Catra used to deny it to anyone who asked, but at some point she had come to accept that she did, in fact, like being around this larger than life, superhumanly affectionate woman. It definitely hurt her reputation as a cool, slightly aloof and mysterious figure, but when she weighed the pros and cons, it turned out she valued Scorpia a lot more than her image.

Before Scorpia could reply, a flash of blonde hair appeared in Catra’s periphery, and any thoughts of sandwiches flew from her mind. 

“Hey, Catra. Hi, Scorpia.”

Adora.  

Catra did her best to control the grin that threatened her lips as Adora approached the deli, just arriving for her shift on the register. Her blue eyes were clear and sparkling when her pretty pink lips curled into a grin of their own. Her honey colored hair was pulled neatly back into its usual ponytail, and she wore a simple t-shirt loosely tucked into her high-waisted jeans. How she managed to make such a plain outfit look as good as she did, Catra didn’t know, but Catra’s eyes couldn’t help but follow her as she swept through the deli to the kitchen to retrieve an apron. 

Scorpia smiled conspiratorially as she followed Catra’s gaze. 

“So, are you finally gonna ask her out?”

Catra whipped around to face the woman she was officially back to denying was her friend. “What?! I- I don’t know- I’m not- shut up!”

“Oh come on, Catr-Adora.”

Catra crossed her arms and glared. “How many times do I have to tell you portmanteaus are effing stupid?”

Scorpia chuckled and scratched the back of her neck. “Have to disagree with you there, buddy-”

“Don’t call me buddy-”

“But I was actually referring to the fact that you’re wearing her nametag.”  

Catra’s eyes shot down to her chest, where the name Adora was, in fact, pinned to her apron. Her cheeks burned at the realization and nearly caught fire when Adora reappeared at her side.

“Hey,” Catra said as her hand flew to her chest, ready to exchange the name tag and hoping Adora found the mix-up funny and not weird or annoying or creepy or-

“Looking forward to the big deep cleaning tonight,” Adora uttered, cutting through Catra’s embarrassed, racing thoughts and nudging her playfully on the arm with an elbow. “I mean, not really. It’s gonna suck. But at least we’ll have each other.”

Catra’s eyes got a little wider and a blush crept up the back of her neck. “You’re on deep clean duty, too?”

Yes. Oh my god. Yes.

Adora shrugged. “That’s what the email said.” 

Catra swallowed through her widening smile. “Cool.”

“Don’t worry, Catra.” Adora dropped a hand on her shoulder and said in a tone that was only half serious, “It’ll be torture, but we’ll get through it together.”

Adora continued to grin at her as she walked backward out of the deli until she turned with a wink and made her way to the registers at the front of the store. She had faced her just long enough for Catra to notice that, instead of asking for her own name tag back, she was wearing the one that said “Catra.”

Scorpia leaned over the deli counter with an enthused smile and whispered, “See? She’s totally into you!”

“She was just being friendly,” Catra grumbled.

“No, I’m being friendly, Wildcat,” Scorpia countered. “ That was what many people would classify as flirting.”

Catra wrote down Scorpia and Perfuma’s usual sandwich orders on her slip of paper without waiting for Scorpia to say them. 

“Shut up. Your sandwiches will be out in a few minutes.”

Adora leaned against the counter at the cash register and watched through the big storefront window as Perfuma and Scorpia ate their sandwiches at one of the picnic tables that were set up in the grass in front of the store. Sunshine cascaded down upon them in warm, bright summer rays. 

Scorpia must have said something funny, because Perfuma visibly burst into laughter and leaned into her shoulder. 

Adora smiled at the sight. Those two really were phenomenal, as a couple and as individuals. 

Adora hoped someday she could have what they had. Sometimes she was afraid that she’d be doomed to live her life alone, that she would end up so stuck in the monotony of her work-eat-sleep daily routine that all of the opportunities for the things that made life fun and exciting and worthwhile would just pass her by. That she’d spend all of her years without someone to share them with.

Of course, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t have her eye on someone.

She glanced down at the name tag pinned to her apron and felt a nervous kind of buzz seep into her chest. She was sure that Catra taking her name tag had been an accident, but wearing Catra’s in return felt almost like the workplace equivalent of wearing your girlfriend’s letterman jacket in high school, and she couldn’t help but grin at the thought. 

If only.

A grumbling in her stomach reminded Adora that she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast that morning. She looked around, both to make sure no one had heard the noises her body made and to ensure that there wasn’t anyone approaching the registers so she could run over to the deli. 

For food. Not because that’s where Catra is. If we happen to strike up a conversation while I grab some pasta salad or something that’s just a happy coincidence.

She pulled out the sign stashed under the counter that read “Ring for Service” and placed it next to the bell by the register in case any customers came to check out while she was gone, then she set off back toward the deli, making her way through the aisle that housed the store’s wine collection and gluten free items. 

As she approached, Catra idly wiped down one of the sandwich prep boards with a sanitizer rag while Seahawk, the mustachioed man with a bandana around his head who had been put in charge of the ice cream window for the summer, leaned against the soft-serve machine and chatted animatedly. Catra showed little sign of listening to his rambling, which Adora learned as she got closer was a story about how he had set his last ex’s belongings on fire, but Catra’s lack of interest didn’t seem to deter his enthused storytelling in the least. 

A ringing at the ice cream window drew Seahawk away from the one-sided conversation, and Adora watched as Catra’s shoulders visibly relaxed. An affectionate smile spread across her lips as she walked up beside Catra and did her best to appear suave as she leaned against the lowboy. 

Adora had only started working at Heart’s Hearth a few months prior, so she didn’t necessarily have the same established rapport that her fellow employees had with each other. She had quickly been taken under the wings of Bow and Glimmer, who were eager to make all of their work friends into real friends. Almost as a rule, everyone who worked there boasted a distinctly friendly demeanor. But there was something about Catra. 

Catra was certainly well-liked, and when it came out, her smile radiated something Adora could never quite put a name to, but Catra was always a little more withheld than the rest of their coworkers. At least with Adora. She always felt like Catra, more than anyone else, held her a bit at arm’s length. They shared friendly exchanges every now and then, sure, but Adora always found herself left wanting more. 

And sure, maybe she’d developed a crush on Catra and that was part of why she wanted their interactions to be more than the little quips and hellos that passed between them. Yeah, maybe she wished Catra would ask if she wanted to get a drink after work like Bow and Glimmer did but with vastly different intentions. Maybe. 

Screw it.

Adora put on her best attempt at a flirtatious smirk and addressed the girl who was sweeping sandwich scraps into the compost bucket. She eyed the name tag that bore her own name and pressed her tongue against the back of her front teeth.

“Hey Adora.” It felt weird to hear her own name come out of her mouth like that, but the way Catra’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline made it worth it. 

Catra’s head quirked to the side for a moment as she paused before she responded with an interested furrow of her brow, “Catra.” 

“Haha, yeah.” 

Oh my god. Crap . 

Adora really wished she had thought ahead for something else to say after that. The back of her neck burned. She was usually a planner. But she didn’t usually have to strategize for casual conversations with workplace acquaintances, so why did she feel like she was halfway through a scene in a play without a script? 

Catra was watching her with one eyebrow raised and suddenly Adora’s palms were clammy with nervous sweat. Adora jumped to recover from her embarrassing slip. Hopefully Catra didn’t even notice. She had been able to keep her cool earlier, why did it suddenly seem impossible to to be even a little bit smooth now? Because she was trying? 

Flirting was a scam, Adora was sure of it.

Her stomach rumbled again, and she pulled herself out of her own mind enough to ask, “So, did any dishes get pulled from the case today? I haven’t eaten since this morning.” 

Catra tossed her rag onto the counter and placed a hand on her hip. “Uh, yeah, I think there are a couple of samosas on the table in the kitchen.” 

“Okay, sweet. Or should I say savory?” 

Adora felt herself physically cringe at her own words. She pushed herself off the sandwich counter and shuffled swiftly into the kitchen. She could feel Catra’s eyes following her through the threshold, bypassing Seahawk, who was leaning halfway out the ice cream window talking to a customer. 

Without breaking her stride, she grabbed Glimmer, who was taking a moment to sip some coffee off to the side of the room, and dragged her to the walk-in. Just as she was about to pull it open, a knock sounded from inside and Bow appeared in the doorway with an armful of frozen sausages. Wordlessly, Adora put her hand on his chest and pushed him back inside, letting the door slam behind the three of them. 

Bow let out a squeak as he struggled to maintain his hold on the packages in his arms while Glimmer grunted, “Adora, what the-”

“I don’t know how to flirt!” she blurted in the safety of the cold, metal box that surrounded them. 

Bow and Glimmer just stared as she slumped against one of the shelves. She didn’t miss it when they locked eyes and shrugged at each other before turning back to her.

Bow used his elbow to shove some things aside so he could unload the packages of sausage on a shelf and place a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

“Adora… we know.” 

Adora’s eyes snapped to him. “What? What do you mean you know ?”

Glimmer rolled her eyes but they softened when they met Adora’s gaze. “Babe, you do remember the week Huntara was here fixing the soft-serve machine, right? You wouldn’t stop staring at her arms and asking about her workout regimen. There is no world in which that is considered smooth.” 

Despite the cold within the walk-in, an unmistakable heat crept into Adora’s cheeks. 

Bow nudged her shoulder. “This wouldn’t happen to have something to do with a certain girl in the deli, would it?” 

Adora licked her lips. “Is it that obvious?” 

Glimmer snorted. “Only if you have eyes.” Adora felt a surge of panic that must have shown on her face, so Glimmer continued, “I mean to us! Bow and I know you, we’ve seen what you’re like when you’re trying to flirt. To be honest, I think Catra is in the same clueless boat as you. Though, I couldn’t help but notice you two are wearing each other’s name tags.” 

Adora’s head lolled back. A name tag switch-up was hardly evidence of romantic interest. 

“Ugh, even if that wasn’t a complete accident, which I’m pretty sure it was, that doesn’t help the current situation. Every time I think about the fact that I want to flirt with her, my mouth just says the most embarrassing thing it can! It’s like I’m instantly transformed into an awkward middle schooler.”

“You’re just overthinking it,” Bow said, rubbing his hands together in the chill of the refrigerator they occupied. “I’ve seen you two interact on the fly. You just have to stop going into it thinking ‘I’m going to flirt with her,’ and react naturally.” 

Adora buried her face in her hands. “Do you know how hard it is to stop thinking about something when you’re trying not to think about it?”

“Adora.” Glimmer grabbed her by the cheeks and forced her to meet her eye. “You are a hot, tall, smart, goofy, twenty-something woman with great hair and a greater ass. Just chill! She’d be an idiot not to want you, and I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that she does.”

Adora, seeing in Glimmer’s face that she would not be argued with further, did her best to smile even as Glimmer continued to press her cheeks together. “Okay.” 

“Okay.” Glimmer nodded and pushed the walk-in door open again. 

Adora followed her out, Bow hot on her heels.

“Trust us, Adora,” he said, tone cheerful and reassuring as ever. “As your best friends and two of the only people you know in a functional, long-term relationship, we know what we’re talking about.” 

Adora jabbed him in the side with an elbow, almost causing him to lose his grip on the sausages for a second time. “You really want to call yourselves functional? The couple whose last date night consisted of ordering a pizza from every pizza place in town to compare and then eating so much you both puked?”

Bow raised his eyebrows proudly. “Pretty sure that’s as functional as it gets when you’re dating in your twenties.”

A hunger pang stabbed through Adora’s stomach as she reentered the kitchen, reminding her of why she had come back there in the first place. “Hey, did you guys see any leftover samosas lying around back here?” 

“I think there were a couple by the coffee machine,” Glimmer said as she went back to the oven. 

Adora looked in the indicated area, but found the plate beside the coffee maker empty. She sighed in disappointment. She really hated paying for food out of the deli case if she could avoid it. She guessed she would just stay hungry until she could make herself a grilled cheese with the unwanted ends of a loaf of bread on her break. 

“Hey Adora, if you’re headed back out to the deli, would you mind putting these out in the meat case for me?” Bow came up to her and gestured to the packages of sausage he had retrieved. 

“Sure thing.” She took them off his hands and exited the kitchen, grabbing a knife along the way.

She went to work right away, knowing she had already abandoned the register for longer than she’d meant to. She yanked a pair of gloves over her hands, pulled out the tray in the meat display case that held sausages and bratwursts, and set about slicing the plastic off of the packages Bow had bequeathed to her and laying the sausages out.

As she was sliding the tray back into the glass case, Adora sensed someone come up behind her and turned to find Catra holding out a plate. On it rested two steaming samosas. 

“I, uh, noticed you got caught up in something, so I went ahead and heated these up for you.” 

Catra rubbed at the back of her neck and averted her eyes. Adora was rendered momentarily speechless by the thoughtful gesture. She took the plate from her, and she felt her pulse quicken when their fingers brushed together for the briefest of moments. 

When she recovered the use of her voice, she uttered, “I- thank you, Catra.” 

She brought one of the samosas to her mouth and took a bite. It tasted better than usual for some reason.

Catra shrugged. “It’s no trouble.” She chuckled. “Gave me something to do other than listen to Seahawk try to flirt with Mermista through the ice cream window. You know she and that kid she nannies are here like, every afternoon these days?” 

Adora chuckled. “Yeah, I think Frosta actually likes hearing his stories. Mermista, too, even if she’d never admit it.” 

Catra shook her head. “Guess there really is someone for everyone.” 

Adora just smiled at her, mesmerized by the twinkling in Catra’s blue and golden eyes. Had she ever seen anything so beautiful? In that moment, Adora did not think so. 

The ringing of a bell on the other side of the store alerted her to the fact that a customer was waiting for someone to check them out back at the registers. She let out a disappointed breath at the fact that her time with Catra was being cut short. 

Stupid customers. The store should really get a self-checkout station.  

“I guess that’s my cue,” she said, jerking her thumb toward the front of the store, where the bell was being rung a second time. 

“Godspeed.” Catra took a couple of steps backward to let Adora pass. Just how close together they were standing had escaped Adora’s notice until then. 

The amusement in Catra’s tone rang pleasantly in Adora’s head even through the insistent, increasingly impatient ringing of the bell at the register.

It was nearly seven o’clock by the time Catra was able to take her break. The dinner rush had come in full swing, and she was just thankful that the early afternoon had been slow enough for her to get all of the prep and ingredient back-ups done with time to spare. At one point the line had stretched all the way to the door. Catra was sure she set a new personal record for sandwich-making by the time she got through all of the orders. 

She dispensed herself some coffee soft-serve, dumped a large portion of toffee bits over the top, and exited the store through the employee door in the kitchen. Cone in hand, she paced over the warm concrete of the staff parking lot to the patch of grass beside it, dappled in golden-pink sunlight, and took a relieved seat on the solitary bench that stood there. She leaned back against the wood and drew one knee to her chest as she dragged her tongue over her ice cream. 

She looked over as Bow and Glimmer left the building soon after, their shifts done for the day. She raised her ice cream cone in a half-assed attempt at a salute, and they waved back happily before climbing into their cars and driving off in the same direction. 

Catra turned her attention to the patio outside the ice cream window, where Mermista and Frosta were still lounging about, covering the pavement in sidewalk chalk drawings. Perfuma, whose shift had ended an hour prior, sat with Mermista and ate what Catra was entirely sure was a pot brownie. 

Perfuma was truly one of the kindest people Catra had ever met. Realizing she was a huge stoner explained why she seemed so chill all the time. Even when she wasn’t totally baked, Perfuma had a uniquely calming presence, which was something Catra appreciated particularly after dealing with difficult customers. She always seemed to know when Catra needed a moment to gather herself and was probably a big part of why Catra still worked at Heart’s Hearth. Catra was glad she and Scorpia had found each other; they really deserved each other.

The back door opened again and Adora came striding out, carrying a half-eaten grilled cheese in one hand and an ice cream cone with a spoon sticking out of it in the other. Catra watched as she said hi to the three by the ice cream window, finished the grilled cheese in a matter of two large bites, then she felt her heart rate double in speed as Adora turned and walked directly toward her. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and the summer air was beginning to cool, but Catra’s body was instantly heated by the sudden, nervous buzzing of her nerves. 

Adora stopped just short of the bench and motioned with her free hand toward the open space beside Catra.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

Catra brought the leg she’d had up against her body back down to the ground and shook her head, gesturing for Adora to take the seat. Adora sat gingerly for a moment before she relaxed, and Catra could only stare as she took the spoon from her ice cream cone and used it to devour the frozen treat. Catra could only look on as Adora hummed and licked the ice cream from the spoon. It was only when the soft-serve itself was finished that Adora set the spoon aside and crunched down on the cone.

Even with her cheeks stuffed full, Adora managed to look disarmingly pretty. Catra was aware of the fact that she was staring, but for the life of her she couldn’t muster the will to look away. 

Her attention was only diverted when she felt something wet and cold dripping over her hand, and she looked down to find that her own ice cream cone was melting all over her. 

“Oh, crap.”

The cone fell to the ground as Catra shook some of the residue from her hand and licked at the dribbles. 

Her eyes flashed up again when Adora stood and took off back toward the building at a light jog. A sense of disappointment filled her chest at the sight of Adora rushing away, and the space where she had been sitting seconds before seemed to carry a weight of its own. 

Then, as quickly as she had gone, Adora was running back toward her bearing a handful of clean napkins. Catra’s eyes widened as Adora held them out to her with a grin. 

“I- uh, thanks,” she said breathily. 

The sun was low on the horizon and seemed to cast a halo around Adora’s figure. She was stunning. It was all Catra could do not to start drooling. When Catra was too dumbstruck to lift her hand and take the napkins from her, Adora giggled, sat down beside her again, and brought one of the napkins to Catra’s messy hand, wiping the melted ice cream gently from her skin. 

“My pleasure.” Adora finished cleaning Catra’s hand and leaned back into the bench. “Bummer your ice cream is wasted, though.”

Catra recovered enough of her motor functions to shrug. “The seagulls can have it.”

Adora put an exaggerated hand over her heart. “A friend to the animals. What has this world done to deserve you?” 

Catra broke into a fit of chuckles. “Shut up, it’s all biodegradable or whatever.” 

Adora laughed along with her until they settled into a comfortable silence. The sky above them was an incandescent gradient of blue, increasingly tinged with yellows and pinks. 

“By the way, thanks again for those samosas earlier,” Adora said, her face turned toward a pair of wispy clouds floating overhead. 

Catra fought a blush. Heating up food for Adora earlier had been an almost unconscious decision. She had done her best to avert her eyes when Adora disappeared into the kitchen, but the urge to look got the best of her, and she’d noticed that Adora, along with the other occupants of the kitchen, had vanished from sight. The compulsion to perform that act of care had taken over her body without her really even noticing. 

“My pleasure,” she parroted Adora’s own words back at her. She simultaneously hoped that the sincerity with which she spoke would go unnoticed and that it would be fully understood. 

Adora reached out and Catra’s jaw went slack when Adora took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. For just a moment, her whole body went numb except for her fingers, which tingled with electricity where they had come into contact with Adora’s.

Their eyes met, and Catra was filled with the sense that something was about to happen. What, exactly, she wasn’t sure, but the air around them seemed frozen, as if it were waiting to find out too.

Catra shifted almost imperceptibly on the bench, not wanting any drastic movement to burst the bubble that this moment lived in. Time seemed to stand still. Adora’s eyes bore into her with an intensity she couldn’t quite identify. 

Is this really happening?

When her phone unexpectedly buzzed in her pocket, Catra jumped so high that her body lifted completely off the bench.

The back of her neck instantly heated in embarrassment, and she couldn’t be sure, but she thought Adora’s cheeks might have turned a light shade of pink when she too was startled by the noise and dropped her gaze. 

The blushing situation was not helped when she pulled out her phone and saw the message that had been its source.

Scorpia: Hey Wildcat! Perfuma texted me that you and Adora are sitting together!!! I knew you’d hit it off! I want all the details please and thank you

The message trailed off with a long series of emojis that Catra couldn’t make heads or tails of.

“Anything interesting?”

Catra’s head snapped up, and she practically punched herself in the chest with her phone in her attempt to hide its screen’s contents.

“Uh… N-not really. Just Scorpia… Wondering when we’ll have those spicy peppers back in stock.”

“Huh.” Adora frowned a bit. “Why wouldn’t she just ask Perfuma? She’s in charge of the produce department. And they’re dating.”

Catra swallowed. She was definitely sweating.

Crap.

“Um. Yeah I don’t know! Super weird. Oh would you look at that! I think my break is almost over, I better head back inside!”

She stood with an awkward grin then tried and failed to appear nonchalant as she rushed back toward the building.

After the dinner rush had cleared out, Heart’s Hearth had barely seen a single customer, and to put it bluntly, Adora was getting bored. 

There were only so many productive things she could do in the vicinity of the registers, and she knew if she got caught with her phone out she would never hear the end of it from Shadow Weaver, so she passed the time by sneaking bites from the free sample dish and re-straightening nearby items that were already perfectly lined up and front-facing.

With approximately half an hour until the store officially closed and she would be allowed to lock the doors, Adora picked up the mostly empty dish of free samples that had been on display by the register for most of the day and walked back toward the deli. 

Yes this means seeing Catra. It’s no big deal. So she ran off in the middle of her break to get away from me, whatever. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. 

Catra was at the three-bay sink in the kitchen, having been left a mountain of dishes since Shadow Weaver decided it was more cost effective to have the on-duty deli person also cover the dishwashing position than to have a person cover each. It was definitely unfair to have Catra do both without any kind of pay raise, but when Shadow Weaver made a call, that tended to be that.

Adora lifted the bowl in her hand. “There are some leftover cider donut samples in here if you want any.” 

Catra’s eyes darted toward her before focusing back on the large pasta pot she was spraying down with the kitchen hose. “They any good?”

Adora leaned against the counter beside the stove, pleasantly surprised that Catra was engaging with her after the way their last interaction had ended. 

“They’re pretty tasty, yeah. Probably a little stale at this point, but they taste good.” 

Her gentle smile turned into an involuntary smirk when Catra aimed the hose at a bad angle and found herself covered in water from the dishwashing hose’s backspray. 

“You sure you know how to use that thing?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Watch it,” Catra warned, attempting to glower even as she chuckled. “You don’t want to be on the receiving end of this, trust me.” 

Surprising herself, she responded, “Prove it.” 

Catra gazed at her with an inscrutable expression before she aimed the hose through the window in the wall between the kitchen and the deli and pressed down on the trigger that activated the nozzle, sending a long spray of water through the deli, all the way over the counter. 

Adora fought the urge to burst out into full-blown, inappropriately loud laughter when Seahawk appeared around the corner at the deli counter just in time to be hit by a few of the spray’s drops. Seeming not to know where the water had come from, he looked curiously up at the ceiling, and Adora and Catra both ducked below the kitchen’s row of sinks to avoid being seen as they succumbed to the inevitable laughter that came from witnessing his oblivious reaction. 

Adora had to literally dive out of sight, grabbing Catra by the arm to pull her down with her, and ended up kneeling with her face mere inches from Catra’s. If it weren’t for the fact that they were both barely containing fits of uncontrollable giggles, Adora would have forced herself to take a long, calming breath. 

She clutched at her gut, unable to stop replaying in her mind the baffled look on Seahawk’s face as he tried to determine the source of the water that hit him. 

Catra, through the hand that was covering her mouth in hopes of stifling some of her laughter, managed to choke out, “I didn’t actually think it could spray that far, oh my god!”

Adora gazed at her with disbelieving eyes, a beaming smile splitting her face. “What did you think was going to happen?” 

Catra shrugged and cast her own eyes to the side, biting down on her lip. “I don’t know, I thought it’d just, like, cover some of the deli floor? I have to mop later anyway, I figured it’d just give me a head start!” 

“You’re ridiculous.” Adora’s nose scrunched in amusement as Catra’s face wavered between an attempt at a scowl and still struggling to fight off persisting laughter.

How is she so cute?

Catra looked at her again, and Adora had to take a moment to make sure her heart hadn’t stopped completely. Now that their laughing fit had calmed, the proximity of their faces was much harder to ignore. Adora gulped audibly. 

She tried to control her eyes and keep them trained anywhere other than Catra’s mouth, but Adora knew better than most what happens when you try not to think about something. Her eyes dipped just in time to see Catra’s lips part just slightly. 

Fight it, Adora. Look away. Look anywhere else. Holy crap, did she just lick her lips?

Adora’s head jerked up and smacked into the underside of one of the sink bays at the sound of a grim voice behind her. 

“Would one of you care to explain why I just walked through the store to find two different posts without employees covering them?”

She cringed and turned slowly to see Shadow Weaver standing over them with her arms menacingly crossed over her chest. 

Adora cleared her throat nervously as she braced her hands against the sink to bring herself back into a standing position. 

“Sorry, we were just-”

“I don’t want to hear it. The store remains open for another twenty minutes, and should any customers come in during that time, they will find our staff ready and able to be of service to them.”

Adora ducked her head and glanced at Catra out of the corner of her eye. Her jaw was set, and she seemed to be staring past Shadow Weaver rather than actually looking at her. 

“Adora,” Shadow Weaver drawled, “I left the usual closing checklist as well as an extended itinerary for both of your deep cleaning duties at the registers. And Catra,” she spat Catra’s name as if it were slime in her mouth, “Seahawk is leaving for the day now and has informed me that there may be a drip coming from the ceiling over the deli. I expect you to find any leaks we may have in addition to the duties you’ve already been assigned.”

Catra grumbled something unintelligible, and Adora had a strong impression that it was probably for the best that her words in that moment couldn’t quite be understood. 

Shadow Weaver’s cold eyes hovered over the two of them a few seconds longer before she announced that she would be leaving and exited the kitchen like a gargoyle come to life.

Adora turned back to Catra with a huff. “God, I can’t believe she actually talks to you like that.”

Catra sucked one of her cheeks in and cocked her head in resignation. “It’s whatever. I mean, she’s the manager and clearly on a power trip, so…” 

Adora frowned. She had seen how much weight Catra pulled within the store, and it was certainly more than her fair share. In her opinion, management shouldn’t talk down to their employees anyway, but if there was anyone who was deserving of a little more praise, it was Catra. A righteous indignation bubbled up inside her. 

“Still! You’re one of the only people here who actually consistently gets all of your stuff done! Not to mention the fact that she literally has you working two jobs simultaneously right now and she’s making you stay late to do even more! It’s- it’s crap!”

Catra cracked a grin. “Whoa there, princess, I thought you were actually going cuss for a second there.” 

Adora felt a hot blush crawling up her chest. She smirked. “I was tempted. But then you might not call me ‘princess’ anymore, and we can’t have that, now, can we?” 

Catra blinked and her smirk spread wider. “Suppose not. Princess.” 

Catra’s eyes twinkled at her, and Adora felt a now-familiar spike of adrenaline jolt through her. 

Catra jerked her head toward the front of the store where the checkout resided. “You better get back before Shadow Weaver does another walk-through before she leaves and we get scolded again.” 

Adora pressed her lips together. “The horror,” she trilled, her eyebrows lilting exaggeratedly. She glanced back when she reached the archway that connected the kitchen and the deli and paused. Catra’s cheeks were dimpled with the remnants of a smile, and Adora allowed herself half a moment to feel the warmth it generated in her. 

Catra must have noticed she was still there, because she stuck her tongue out and lifted the dishwashing hose again, silently threatening to spray her if she didn’t get a move on. 

A grin pulled at Adora’s lips the whole way as she veered through the store back to her station.

The second the clock struck eight and the store was officially closed, Catra hauled the kitchen and deli floor mats out of the way and grabbed the broom from the back of the kitchen. She was grateful that it had been a relatively slow day at the store, as it had allowed her to get some of her post-close responsibilities out of the way early. 

Bow and Glimmer had left while she was on her break, so as soon as she returned to work following those blissful fifteen minutes of freedom, she had cleaned and sanitized the table on which Bow dealt with all of the store’s raw meat and scrubbed the stovetop where Glimmer fortunately hadn’t had too many spills over the course of her shift. 

Even as her focus was, for some reason , disrupted after she and Adora got caught goofing off by Shadow Weaver, she had managed to tackle the pile of dirty dishes that had built up in the sink. 

She didn’t even really remember doing those dishes. Her mind was too locked in on the mental image she had cultivated of Adora laughing two inches away from her own face. 

The way her nose scrunched up as she squeezed her eyes shut and how ridiculously cute it was. The way her laugh seemed to hang melodiously in the air like the lingering scent of a favorite food. The way loose strands of hair fell around the edges of her face and framed her impossibly blue eyes. The way being that close to her let Catra see the tiny freckles that looked like they’d been painstakingly dotted across her cheeks. The way she looked at Catra and made her afraid to blink for fear that her eyes might open again to find that it was all a dream.

She pushed the broom across the floor, searching for fallen food scraps and bits of trash that never seemed to make it into the garbage can or compost bucket. 

She had to bend and reach awkwardly to get the broom to fit under some of the shelves and tabletops and sinks. She was about halfway through sweeping the kitchen when she suspended her efforts for a moment and frustratedly blew a bit of hair out of her face. There was one stubborn zucchini coin that insisted on rolling wildly around the floor any time the broom touched it rather than complying with her wishes and falling into the dustpan. 

Catra was in the middle of letting out a rumbling, cranky growl when the piece of zucchini propelled under the stove and out of reach, when Adora appeared in the doorway.

“I see things back here are going just swimmingly.” 

Catra swiped a hand through her hair and puffed out her cheeks. 

“Best day ever. And we haven’t even gotten to all the extra stuff we have to do yet.” 

Adora rested a hand on her hip and made a face that indicated how much she too was dreading the tasks ahead of them. 

“Well, I’ll mop behind you, help speed things up a little.” 

Before Catra could process the offer to help, let alone tell Adora that she didn’t have to do that for her, Adora was off and filling the rolling mop bucket up with floor detergent. 

Catra willed herself to get back to work, to finish sweeping so that they could both get out of work as soon as possible, but her body refused to move as she watched Adora’s tongue poke out of her mouth in concentration as she dunked the mop in the fluid and started pushing it over the floor.

That concentration wasn’t enough, it turned out, as Adora didn’t wring the mop out properly, leaving the floor slicker than it should have been. Adora took one wrong step to the side, and her foot careened out from under her. 

Without thinking about it, Catra rushed forward and caught her around the waist before she could fall to the floor. The wooden handles of the mop and broom clacked together. 

Catra had lost count of how many times their eyes had locked that day, but she knew that out of all the times, this time was making her heart beat the fastest. Each drum was so close together she might as well have had a hummingbird in her chest.

She could see every fleck of blue in Adora’s eyes. She could feel the tiniest puff of air from each of Adora’s breaths. 

Every muscle in her body was frozen as she held Adora up in her arms. Slowly, Adora planted her feet back below her to bear her own weight, but the rest of her body remained where it was. 

Why isn’t she moving? Why aren’t I moving? Did she just look at my lips? Oh my god.

Inch by inch, the hand Adora had braced on Catra’s arm when she slipped slid up over her bicep to clamp lightly on her shoulder. Catra stopped breathing. Adora’s eyes were zeroed in on her face, and she knew that hers wouldn’t shift from Adora’s even if she wanted them to. 

She definitely knew what she thought was about to happen. She definitely knew what she wanted to happen. 

There was a movement in her periphery, and before Catra could so much as blink, Adora swung the mop in her other hand around and bopped Catra on the head with its still-dripping soft end. 

She backed away and held the mop aloft like a sword. “En garde!” 

Catra was stunned into speechlessness for a moment. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, and she leaned an elbow against the end of her broom as she took in Adora’s stance. A single, airy chuckle escaped her. 

“Are you serious?”

Adora smirked and a mischievous glint found its way into her eye. She lifted the mop as far over her head as she could get it without hitting the ceiling, and shouted, “For the honor of Grayskull!” 

The mop came arcing wildly down at Catra again. 

With a screech, Catra dodged the blow and held the broom up defensively. “What?! What does that even mean?”

Adora swung again with a heartily amused expression. “I don’t know, I heard it on some old TV show.”

Catra blocked Adora’s move and, defying her own reluctance to engage in a freaking mop-and-broom sword fight, made a swing at Adora’s arm. 

“Okay, nerd.”

Before long, it was an all out battle.

Catra and Adora chased each other back and forth through the kitchen and deli. The mop and broom both flew intermittently through the air and met with distinct clacking and clattering sounds punctuated by the giggles of the girls who wielded them. 

Each of them landed a few playful blows, causing the other to shriek and laugh and bound away again. 

Catra was making a dash through the kitchen when her feet carried her over the same slick spot on the floor that had started the whole affair. Her feet skidded out from under her, sending her upper body flailing back and into Adora, who was right behind her, and they both collapsed in a heap onto the floor. 

Catra took a couple of moments to catch her breath and get her bearings. Adora was already giggling again. Not one to be outdone, Catra swatted at her golden hair with the broom, got to her feet, and took off again, Adora right on her heel.

Their duel only came to a full halt when there was an unexpected knock, and they both turned to the ice cream window to see a trio of teenagers peering in. 

Both Catra and Adora had to call out, “We’re closed!” several times before they got the hint and slinked sullenly away. 

They turned back to each other, and Catra rubbed bashfully at the back of her neck. Both of them were pink in the cheeks from their antics. 

“So I guess we should, um, get back to work.”

Adora nodded.

Catra broke out into a fresh round of laughter when Adora pushed the mop around in a quick circle over the deli floor and said simply, “Well, I’ll go ahead and check sweeping and mopping off the list.” 

Catra glared at Adora out of the corner of her eye. 

“Absolutely not.” 

Adora lolled her head to one side, struggling to suppress a grin. “You have to.”

“No, we have to. No one said it had to be me specifically.” 

“You’re smaller than me, it’s the only way it’ll work!”

Adora stood a little straighter, hoping it would emphasize their height difference. They had cleared all of the dishes out of the glass deli case so that its two long shelves were bare. A bucket of sanitizer fluid sat beside them on the table with the slicer, and each of them held a rag. 

“You cannot actually expect me to climb inside that thing just to wipe it down!”

Adora peered into one of the sliding doors of the case. It would definitely be a tight squeeze for either of them to physically crawl inside of, but the instructions Shadow Weaver had left them with were very specific. 

Does everyone who deep-cleans have to do this or is this just because it’s me and Catra?

“It’s the only way to get all of those little nooks and crannies. Shadow Weaver left a note on the checklist saying she’s going to do a spot-check tomorrow and you know we’ll never hear the end of it if this thing isn’t straight up shining.”

“So you do it!”

“I won’t fit!” 

Catra scoffed. “You’re not that much taller than me, princess, you can do it.” 

Adora tongued the inside of her cheek and blew a long breath out of her nose. Catra had to go and pull out the nickname. She really thought playing the tall card would automatically excuse her from this particular task. 

Ugh, fine.

“Ugh, fine.” 

She tossed her rag into the sanitizer bucket and approached the sliding window of the deli case on the far right. Catra, looking entirely too pleased with herself, held it open for her. 

“Your majesty.”

Adora narrowed her eyes. She knew it was all in jest, but the subtle flirtation buried in the gesture didn’t go beyond her notice. 

Choosing to ignore it for the time being, she asked, “Do I go in feet first or head first?” 

Catra snorted. “Make it a swan dive, I hear that drives the ladies wild.” 

Adora knew that her cheeks were flaming, so she took the advice and stuck her head into the case, hoping it would hide her unmistakable blush. Without looking out, she held her hand out behind her for Catra to hand her a fresh rag. The damp cloth pressed gently into her palm, and she went about her business.

Dragging the rag with her, Adora wriggled her body until she was fully horizontal inside the refrigeration of the case. It was a very tight fit. Adora might have compared it to crawling into a coffin, but she was pretty sure even coffins had a little wiggle room.

She wiped the rag over every surface, making sure it would gleam to Shadow Weaver’s impossible standards. She reached down into the little dip between the edge of the shelf she lay on and the front glass, picking up crumbs and leaks to the best of her ability. It was certainly not the most comfortable angle to be working from, and she had to strain her arm and shoulder in order to get at all of the spots that normally went neglected. She had to flip halfway onto her back to get the upper shelf that she was very nearly wedged under, but, eventually, she got it done. 

She could feel Catra watching her and did her best to move in a way that wasn’t entirely blundering and gawky and to retain her focus on the task at hand. It was harder and harder to ignore her crush on Catra, and she knew if she looked out and saw that twinkle in Catra’s eyes, she would lose her cool. 

Once she scrubbed the last bit of splatter from the deli case’s side panel, she had Catra take the rag back from her and grabbed the edge of the case to clamber out. 

Clamber out. Clamber on out. Just climb right on out of here. Oh god. Oh no.

She was stuck. 

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.  

Adora grimaced. She looked up to see Catra biting her lip to contain her amusement as she leaned against the tabletop they used to wrap up sandwiches. 

Through gritted teeth, she grunted, “Catra.”

There was that twinkle. 

“How’s it hanging?”

Adora huffed. 

“Phenomenal. Time of my life. Could you please help me out of here?”

Catra tapped a finger against her chin. 

“I don’t know… What do you think would happen if I just left you in there?” 

“Shadow Weaver would kill you. And fire you. In that order.” 

Catra let out an exaggerated groan. “Alright, fine, fair enough,” she conceded and pushed herself off the table. “Give me your hands.” 

Adora, lying twisted on the bottom shelf of the deli case and crammed between two shelves without adequate space for a human person, rolled her joints and stretched her limbs to clumsily thrust her arms through the sliding glass window. 

Adora did her best to hide her wince when Catra took hold of her wrists and tugged. Her hip started ache where it was caught and her body was bent at an extremely uncomfortable angle. 

“Can you pull any harder?” 

Catra pressed her lips together. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Adora felt a warmth bloom in her chest at that. She gave Catra’s wrists a tender squeeze. 

“I can take it.” 

Catra chewed on her lip, but eventually adjusted her grip on Adora’s wrists and bolstered her feet against the vent at the bottom of the case. 

Almost unconsciously, Adora rubbed her thumb over the inside of Catra’s wrist, hoping to silently reassure her that she knew she didn’t want to cause her any pain and that she’d be fine. 

Catra blinked a couple of times then nodded, seemingly to herself. 

“Count of three, okay?” Adora nodded. “One… Two… Three!” 

Catra yanked with her arms and pushed off from the case with her legs. For a while Adora’s body resisted, trapped in its place, until finally something gave, and she came hurtling out of her glass prison to land gracelessly on top of Catra in a cluster of limbs. 

A moment passed in which both Adora and Catra lay slack on the floor as a result of their efforts. Then Adora realized that her face was practically pressed into the crook of Catra’s neck and her muscles tensed all over again. 

Oh. This is… intimate? Catra smells really good. I’m close enough to kiss her neck if I wanted to. And I do want to. 

Adora’s pulse raced the second she realized how much of her body was pressed into Catra.

No, this is not the time or place. We’re on the deli floor for crying out loud! Even if she did want to kiss me too, which… does she? This cannot be where it happens if it does.  

Adora scrambled off of Catra and stood, knowing that her blush was likely giving her away. 

Still on the floor, and looking rather pink herself to Adora’s pleasant surprise, Catra cleared her throat gruffly and turned her head to the side. Adora watched with interest when Catra’s brow furrowed, and she reached under the sandwich lowboy fridge. 

“Um…” Adora frowned in confusion when Catra’s hand reappeared clutching what looked like some kind of misshapen black rock. “Whatcha got there?” 

Catra got to her feet, dusted herself off with her free hand, and held the object out for both of them to see. 

“I think it’s… a really old avocado?”

Adora’s face rumpled in disgust. “Oh, gross, how long has that been under there?”

Where normal, ripe avocados tended to be plump with a bumpy, deep dark green skin, this one’s exterior was an ashy gray-black color, and it seemed to be caving in on itself. Adora lifted it from Catra’s outstretched hand expecting it to be exceptionally mushy. Instead, it felt partially emptied-out, and its skin started to crack under her fingertips. 

“Is this… hollow?” 

She pressed her thumb against a particularly sunken area of the avocado’s dried shell and it immediately broke inward leaving a hole. 

This is so nasty. It looks like an alien egg or something. I wonder what the inside looks li-

“Augh!” 

Adora dropped the avocado and took several steps back.

“What?! What is it?”

Adora held a hand over her heart. She took a moment to gather herself.

“I… it’s probably nothing. I just thought I saw something move inside it. To be fair, I was thinking about alien movies and how the egg always like, pulses before a monster erupts, so it was probably just my eyes playing tricks on me.”

Catra grinned at her in a way that conveyed both sympathy and a tiny bit of judgement. 

“Okay, Ripley, need me to check around for ghosts, too?” 

Adora pouted as Catra bent down to pick the avocado back up. Catra rolled her eyes not unkindly, and Adora couldn’t help but enjoy the cockiness on display before her. She enjoyed it even more when Catra stuck her tongue out playfully. 

Then Adora realized that the movement she had thought she’d seen wasn’t a trick of the eye after all. 

“Catra…” Adora pointed at the opening in the avocado, where she could clearly see something scuttling about inside. 

Catra followed the line of her finger and saw it for herself. Her face went pale. 

“Ants!” Catra, apparently on instinct, threw the avocado into the air and jumped into Adora’s arms. “Oh my god, ew, ew, ew, why did you let me pick that up?!” 

Adora couldn’t help but cackle. For someone who was making fun of Adora mere moments prior, Catra sure was gripping her shoulders with a white-knuckled intensity. 

A disgusted shiver ran up both their spines when the ants started to spill out of the crumpled avocado peel. 

Filled with a shocking amount of adrenaline, Adora put several gloves on each of her hands and inched toward the fallen fruit. Catra, cowering at her back, looked at her incredulously. 

“What are you doing? Don’t touch it!”

“We have to get it out of here before the ants spread!”

Adora charged forward before she could lose her nerve. A high-pitched whine whistled from her lips as she grasped the repugnant avocado and sprinted.

Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!

She burst out of the back door in the kitchen and stumbled into the staff parking area. Without a second thought, she drew her arm back and launched it over the two remaining cars into the darkness. 

She whipped around to face Catra, who had followed her progress. Her voice was squeaky as she fretted, “Did any get on me? There aren’t any ants crawling on me, right? I feel like there are ants on me.” 

Catra inspected her closely, her nose a centimeter from her skin as she confirmed that she was free of critters. If she weren’t so preoccupied with feeling imaginary ants on the back of her neck, her pulse would be thrumming for an entirely different reason. 

“Looks like you escaped ant-free, Adora.”

Adora sagged in relief, still shivering slightly at the phantom insects she thought she felt on her skin.

Catra clasped her hands in front of her. “So like, not be sappy or anything, but you’re kind of my hero right now. I cannot deal with bugs, like, at all, so… thanks.” 

Adora grinned and snapped the gloves back off of her hands as they reentered the kitchen. 

“Honestly, that was all flight-or-flight instinct. I think I blacked out for a second.”

Catra chuckled, taking the discarded gloves from Adora’s hand and depositing them in the trash can. “Still.” She faced Adora with a newly open demeanor. “So, what’s left on this checklist of nightmares Shadow Weaver left us?”

Catra gaped at Adora, then at the vent hood over the oven, then back at Adora again. 

The vent hood, which served to carry any fumes or smoke safely out of the kitchen, was absolutely, egregiously foul. It was gruesome. It was ghastly. It was downright offensive. Each slat in the hood’s panels was completely covered in grease and grime and dust. 

Adora stared up at it with what Catra could only describe as fear. 

“This is the last thing on the list,” Adora remarked. 

Neither of them made a move toward the step ladder they had retrieved that would allow them to reach up and take various parts of the hood down to clean. 

Catra’s mouth was set firmly in a downward curve. “When was the last time anyone else had to do this? That thing looks like it hasn’t been touched in years.”

Adora shrugged at her with an equally unhappy expression. “Honestly, I’m pretty sure Shadow Weaver put all of the extra gross stuff on the list for tonight just to spite us.”

Catra had to let out a short, humorless laugh at that. “You know, that’s probably totally true.” 

She shot Adora a quick grin. It was like Adora had said earlier that day. At least they would get through it together. 

She took a deep, sobering breath and gestured to the step stool. “So, I guess you take it apart and I’ll wash the pieces off in the sink?” 

Adora returned her smile and nodded. “Deal.” 

She watched, respectfully, from below as Adora climbed up the ladder. 

What? It’s not a bad view.

Piece by piece, Adora dismantled the panels from the big metal vent hood and handed the components off to Catra. Both of their hands were instantly coated with a greasy sludge. Catra nearly cried when the dish hose sprayed back at her for the second time that day and covered her both with water and with vile gray residue. She didn’t think she had encountered anything that nasty in her life. 

This is what actual torture is like. If I knew any government secrets, I would break and confess all of them right now. 

The muck didn’t seem to come off with just the spray of the hose either, and Catra found herself having to scrub every section of every piece harder than she ever had to with any other dish in the kitchen. 

There was only one panel left for Adora to take down when Catra pulled the clean ones out of the sink and set them on the counter to the side of the stove. 

So close. One last piece and then we can finally crawl out of this particular hell.

She came to stand just below where Adora was located on the step ladder and waited for the final piece. 

When Adora freed it from the frame of the hood, what amounted to a wave of sludge came out of nowhere and fell over both of them. The panel fell to the floor with a metallic clank. They were both silent for a moment as the gunk seeped over their skin. Catra wanted to scream, but she was afraid to open her mouth. The last thing she wanted was to find out what that muck tasted like. 

She looked up at Adora, whose eyes she had never seen so wide and defeated. Half of Adora’s face was smeared with goo, and it ran in an unfortunate trail down the front of her shirt. 

There were no words Catra could come up with that would do this situation justice.

Before she could stop herself, Catra burst into a boisterous laughing fit. Her body couldn’t seem to find any logical reaction to the situation she and Adora had found themselves in, and the hysterics bubbled up and out of her, reverberating around the walls and linoleum floor. 

It’s not funny. This is horrible! 

But not long after, Adora was laughing too. She climbed back down the ladder and grabbed one of Catra’s shoulders as they both doubled over, clutching at their stomachs. 

Despite the fact that Catra had never felt so dirty and in need of a shower in her life, hearing Adora laugh and sharing a moment with her like this was something she wouldn’t trade for anything.

Their laughter went on for several minutes. Every time it seemed it was dying down, Catra made eye contact with Adora, saw the grime dripping all over the both of them, and started all over again. 

When at last they managed to calm themselves to the point of the occasional hiccuping giggle, Catra went over to the paper towel dispenser by the door and collected a thick handful. She passed half of them to Adora and immediately set about wiping off her face. 

She watched, entertained, as Adora swiped haphazardly at her own cheeks, leaving long streaks of unchecked gunk. Adora grinned at her brightly.

“Am I clear?”

Catra broke into her own skeptical grin. “Not even a little bit.” She raised a clean wad of paper towels. “C’mere, dummy, let me.” 

She and Adora both stepped forward at the same time, landing them firmly in each other’s personal space. Catra was definitely not complaining. 

Their breath mingled between them as Catra carefully and gently brought the paper towel up to Adora’s face. Adora’s eyes fluttered closed for just a second when the towel touched her cheek and the edge of Catra’s pinky finger made the barest contact with her skin. 

Catra purposely avoided eye contact as she moved the paper towel meticulously over the planes of Adora’s forehead, nose, and cheeks. She could feel Adora staring at her and resisted the urge to lick her lips. Her heart, as it had every time she had interacted with Adora that day, pumped rapidly in her chest. She knew if she met Adora’s eye in that moment she would lose her breath, and her body would shut down completely, so she focused on just removing the sludge from her skin, little by little, and uncovering that peachy skin and those tiny little freckles.

Without warning, one of Adora’s hands cupped Catra’s face and grazed a thumb over her cheek. 

Catra froze. Finally, she met Adora’s gaze. 

What is she doing? Holy crap, is she going to kiss me? 

Catra knew she must have looked like a deer in headlights. She could barely blink let alone move any other part of her body. But Adora was looking at her so softly, so tenderly, she wasn’t sure she would know what to do even if she weren’t effectively paralyzed. 

Adora’s eyebrows scrunched together slightly before she dropped her head and her hand and moved back out of Catra’s space. 

“Sorry. You had a little goop on your cheek.”

Catra swallowed harshly. “Oh. Um. No problem. Thanks.”

She ducked her head and picked up the last panel from the vent hood, carrying it over to the sink. 

She could hear the concerned frown in Adora’s voice when she asked, “You okay?”

Her stomach sank. She kept her back turned as she picked up the scouring pad and scrubbed at the metal panel. 

“Huh? Yeah. Yeah, all good.”

A little disappointed. Really thought you were going to kiss me, but whatever. Let’s just finish this and go home.  

She got the panel clean, then she bypassed Adora, who was still standing in the middle of the kitchen watching her, and reassembled the parts of the fan hood herself. 

Adora marched through the store in silence as she did a last walk-through to make sure she and Catra hadn’t missed anything while completing their closing duties. Catra had decided to wait in the back room, so Adora was on her own. 

Doors locked? Check. 

Adora sighed to herself. Usually whoever was on deli for the closing shift would tag along while she double-checked everything before they clocked out. 

Items in the meat and deli cases wrapped in plastic? Check. 

She wasn’t sure why Catra’s demeanor toward her had shifted after they cleaned the vent hood. She wasn’t being cold, exactly, but she’d definitely seemed to withdraw from Adora. 

Sandwich prep boards scrubbed and sanitized? Check. 

Adora had been sure that they were about to kiss. The gentle, purposeful way in which Catra had taken that paper towel to her face had really made it seem as though there was something between them. The air felt charged. Adora’s whole body had been buzzing. 

All of the items in the lowboys wrapped and covered? Check. 

But when Catra had met her eye, her expression had been one of shell-shock. Her eyes had been so wide, Adora was sure she was looking at a face filled with fear, so she backed off before she could make it any worse. 

Did I scare her off? Even if she isn’t interested, she’s still really fun to be around. I’d still like to be her friend. Plus we still have to work together. Ugh, I totally ruined everything.

Deli slicer cleaned? Check. 

Adora dragged herself along. Feeling the change in Catra’s attitude made her heart heavier than she could really justify. She had resisted indulging the crush she had on Catra until today, and the disappointment of seeing that her budding feelings weren’t reciprocated hurt a lot more than she might have expected. 

Compost, trash, and recycling bins emptied? Check. 

Adora wasn’t sure what to do going forward. The awkwardness seemed to radiate from the very walls. She bit down on her lip. That was the last thing she wanted. 

Before she knew it, Adora completed her checklist and was faced with the ordeal of going into the back room to fill out her timesheet, collect her things, exit and lock the back door behind her. All of this, of course, meant coming face to face with Catra again. 

Her pulse pounded violently. It had done so intermittently a great deal over the course of the day, but this time, rather than being due to some form of optimistic anticipation, it felt more like a mild dread. 

She didn’t want to make Catra uncomfortable. She didn’t want to be rebuffed any more than she had been already. She didn’t want to walk into the back room and be met with a glare or an expression of wariness or a refusal to meet her eye at all.

Adora was kicking herself for even thinking about the possibility of kissing Catra. Obviously she had misread the signals and now things between them would be awkward and stilted forever.

But ultimately, she knew no matter how long she procrastinated pushing through that swinging door, the reaction waiting for her would still be there. 

She entered the back room and crossed to the hanging file holders to get her timesheet. Catra was sitting in Shadow Weaver’s chair with her feet up on the desk. Adora took a deep breath in preparation before she looked over at her. 

Catra’s face was crafted into a consciously neutral expression. Adora hadn’t imagined that as a potential reception after the silence that had fallen between them. She had been sure that Catra would emote something palpably negative after Adora almost made a move. 

They blinked at each other for a couple of moments before Adora realized Catra was probably waiting for her to finish up whatever she needed so they could get out of there. She hastily filled out her timesheet, returned it to its slot, and trudged over to the staff lockers to get her jacket. 

She turned to Catra with a quiet, “Ready?”

Catra nodded, shuffling her feet.

Adora set her jaw. Even nonverbal communication was communication, and she would take it.

She strode over to the door and flipped open the plastic case on the alarm system. Once she punched in the code correctly (having gotten it wrong the first time when she registered Catra’s presence right behind her), she flipped the switch to turn off the lights and pushed the heavy metal door open. 

The night sky was a deep navy blue with dots of twinkling stars that looked like they’d been splatter painted on. The street light that illuminated the staff parking lot hummed and flickered. 

Adora waited for Catra to exit and close the door behind her then stepped gingerly past her and locked the deadbolt. 

That’s it. The very last task of the night.

She turned back toward the parking lot to see Catra rubbing at the back of her neck with her eyes downcast, seeming uncertain. 

Catra’s voice was slightly hoarse when she coughed out, “Um… goodnight.”

Catra started to head toward her car. She made it only a few steps before Adora was compelled to run after her and tap her lightly on the wrist. She drew her hand away immediately, not wanting to prolong any unwanted contact but needing to say something before they parted ways.

“Catra, wait. I just… I’m sorry. I like you, and I’m sorry if I came on too strong. I get it. I really didn’t mean to make things weird, and it’s totally fine that you don’t feel the same way. I thought I was getting a vibe, but obviously I was wrong-”

Her rambling was silenced when Catra rushed forward and pressed her lips to Adora’s. 

Adora’s eyes widened in surprise before slamming shut. She put her arms around Catra’s waist and kissed back. 

A cricket was chirping nearby, but Adora couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her pulse pounding in her ears and her own thoughts running on a deafening loop. 

I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening.

This is really happening.

Eventually they separated to catch their breath, and the smiles on both of their faces were aglow with bliss and relief and excitement. 

“You weren’t wrong. I’ve been waiting to do that all night.”

Adora gazed into Catra’s eyes, daring to believe what she found there. The twinkle was back. 

When Catra started to walk toward her car again, it was with an undeniable pep in her step and an extremely satisfied smirk.

“See you tomorrow, princess.”