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The first time she binds, she doesn’t think anyone notices. It’s an ordinary Thursday (secretly Kara’s favorite day of the week) but Kara’s been planning this for so long that it feels monumental. She’d done her research on brands, had her measurements from her supersuit, made sure the package was not the one Alex managed to intercept on one of her frequent visits to Kara’s apartment, and kept the whole apparatus hidden in her pants drawer (where Alex never goes because her legs are shorter) until this particular Thursday. To be fair to everyone else, Kara hides it under a bulky sweater. It feels like nothing when she first puts it on. In the mirror, it looks like a beige, not cute swim suit. The binder feels like a regular undershirt on her super-ribs, but she can tell it’s doing its job. Then she puts on a shirt. It’s immediately disappointing until she remembers that it’s a women’s button-up with the weird seams to accommodate her breasts (darts, Lena’s voice says in her head). She switches it out for a small men’s shirt that she stole from Alex. That’s different. Looking at herself in the mirror feels like Kara has disappeared and she’s also seeing herself more clearly than she ever has before. She swallows and the corners of her eyes burn. Then she remembers it’s cold outside and throws on the big sweater. Just because it’s cold.
And so it doesn’t seem like anyone notices. Which is fine. Her day progresses as usual. She listens to Nia chatter, plays Words with Friends with James (she’s winning), and crashes Alex’s lunch date to ask Kelly what she thought of the new HGTV show where they renovate people’s sheds to look less like crime scenes. No one looks at her and does a double take, there is only single looking, regular acknowledgements of her presence instead of the transcendent revelation she had experienced with her reflection. She’s not disappointed. She’s not ready for questions and she knows she can’t have it both ways. But she still wanted it to be something. Whatever that is.
After lunch, she swings by Lena’s office. They had her favorite, rarely-stocked pastry at Noonan’s and what kind of friend would Kara be if she didn’t pick one up. Even though she visits almost every day, Lena always looks a little surprised to see her, like it’s more of a treat than the orange zest scone with pomegranate glaze. She stands, the ways she always does, and her gaze sweeps over Kara in an inspection that should feel weird, but isn’t. Her mouth opens, but instead of the hello that Kara can almost hear poised on her lips, she pauses. Her gaze gets all piercing for a second then, just as Kara starts to wonder, she beams and says:
“You didn’t bring that for me, did you?”
By the end of the day, the whole thing has been so thoroughly unremarkable that Kara’s basically forgotten about it until she pulls off her sweater and looks down. It’s the same jolt of disorientation and recognition that blends together into something like relief. The shirt, Alex’s shirt, doesn’t even fit, but it’s wrong in all the right ways. She dumps her sweater on the couch and goes to the mirror. New Kara is there, staring back at her. No, not new Kara, Mythic Kara; a Kara that had only been a whisper in the back of her mind, like a legend, until now. She puts her hands on her hips and strikes a Supergirl pose. It feels so good that she has to take everything off and go to bed.
She doesn’t wear the binder to work again. She doesn’t know if that’s because she’s still isn’t ready for questions or because she feels weird about wearing it under the supersuit. Supergirl has her own neat box in Kara’s mind. In the Supergirl box, Kara punches people, only has three friends, and has the word “girl” in her name. Literally. Messing with that feels like a betrayal, but Kara’s not sure if she’s betraying herself or Supergirl or Mythic Kara or maybe Cat Grant. So she leaves the Supergirl box alone and just put the binder on when she’s at home. She slowly acquires a small collection of t-shirts and button downs and one cashmere sweater that do fit her and make her feel invincible in ways that her powers never have. They hang in her closet along with everything else and when Alex asks to borrow the blue one with plaid details on the cuffs (Kara’s a sucker for details), she says sure and waits for a question that never comes.
Eventually getting dressed to watch television isn’t enough and Kara starts to get itchy. She takes long walks late at night to places in the city that she’s never been before. At the new park by the water she sits on a boulder and admires the cut of her shadow in the orange street light. While walking through the garment district she gets a look at herself in the large window of a closed bridal shop. It’s disconcerting to see Mythic Kara between two dresses oozing with white lace. She’s drawn to the way her hips stand out in her fitted jeans. For the first time, Mythic Kara falters. The next day she leaves lunch with Lena early to fly to the other side of town to try on pair after pair of pants until she finds one that hides the taper of her legs and the sharpness of her hips.
As fall fades even farther into winter, the nights get colder and Kara gets more sweaters. It rains the first night that she has a destination for her nighttime walk. She’s at least a mile from her apartment and about to shoot into the sky to fly home, but then she sees the small sign at the corner. The place had been at the bottom of the list of National City gay bars that Kara had looked at in an incognito window on her phone. It had been described as “seedy” and “no dancing,” but Kara doesn’t mind. She sits at the bar, orders a beer, nurses it for half an hour, and leaves. When she lands in the alley by her building, her heart is racing. It’s ridiculous, but she feels like she’s gotten away with something. She had gone somewhere, interacted with people who had no previous image of Kara Danvers to fall back on, just this new Kara that’s getting more and more powerful every day.
She goes back to the bar enough times to learn the bartender’s name and find her favorite spot at the bar to watch people come and go. The night that she slips into her seat and her beer arrives before she can open her mouth, she realizes that she’s become a regular in this double life. Or is it a triple life?
On week nights, the bar is mostly dead – folks from the neighborhood come by and there’s an erotic book club that meets on the third Thursday of every month – but on weekends, the place fills up. Parties come through and groups of already-drunk or soon-to-be drunk people arrive from downtown to slum it in the novelty of a dive bar. It usually keeps Kara away on weekends, but she’s just spent two solid days at the DEO and she needs this as much as she’d needed the shower she’s already taken.
When she arrives, there’s a pale, effeminate person perched on her favorite stool and a group of girls standing in the middle of the room squealing about how cute everything is. Kara ends up wedged next to the wall until two people decide who’s place they’re going to hook up at and Kara claims the vacated seat. Jay plunks a beer in front of her and they trade grimaces. The condensation beads on her bottle and she idly listens in on conversations in the overheated room. Cat Grant texts her a picture of two pairs of shoes with a question mark. Kara picks her favorite and tells Cat to wear the opposite. A minute later she gets another text that says “thx” with a picture of Cat’s feet in the shoes. They’re cute. She sends a dancing lady emoji back and gets no response.
She’s watching Jay’s forearms flex to cut fresh wedges of lemon and lime when her ears catch on a voice. She sits up straighter and tries to subtly scan the space. There in the corner, at one of the only tables, under the brightest light in the room, Lena Luthor is getting a drink with someone. She doesn’t seem to be with any of the larger groups and judging by the state of the table, she’s been there a while. The person she’s sitting with, Kara notices with a sweaty mixture of mortification and fascination that it’s Jess Huang, gets up and weaves her way towards the bathroom. Lena looks around the room and spots Kara immediately. Kara’s inside freeze up with adrenaline as they stare at each other. Without missing a beat, Lena raises her glass in Kara’s direction and Kara, like she’s in some kind of movie, raises her in return. Of all the gay bars in all the world.
She doesn’t stay longer. She can’t. She sees Jess return and listens, but Lena doesn’t mention Kara at all. Her beer is mostly empty. She downs the rest, leaves a ten on the bar and leaves.
She has lunch with Lena the next day. It’s something they had already planned, confirmed by the reminder notification in Kara’s phone and the text from Lena at exactly 9:30 making sure they’re still on. Kara thinks about saying no, because if they go to the place with the nice man behind the counter who always gives Kara an extra cookie and the weird sandwiches that Lena likes with curry mayonnaise and hard-boiled eggs, then they will have to face it. But if she says no, that means she’s scared and that’s the only thing that Mythic Kara has never made her feel. So she texts back seven thumbs up emojis because she knows emojis make Lena laugh.
They go to the place with the weird sandwiches. Kara gets there first because Lena’s meeting ran over, and she orders for both of them. There are three chocolate chip cookies in the bag and she eats the extra one. She’s wearing the opposite of Mythic Kara today. Her shirt is basically a blouse with a frilly collar situation that she bought on a shopping trip with Alex. The choice wasn’t intentional, but it wasn’t not intentional either. She likes the pattern (tiny butterflies) and the feeling of the polyester on her skin, but it’s just a shirt. At the end of the day she’ll dump it in her hamper and forget about it.
Lena arrives with a giant, black leather purse, phone still clutched in her hand, and drops into the seat across from Kara with a sigh.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, darling. Thank you for ordering.”
Kara spends lunch on the edge of her seat. They talk about Lena’s work (hectic), Kara’s work (not hectic), the possibility of National City getting a women’s soccer team (promising), and the ingredients of the platonic smoothie (they’re undecided on chia seeds). Finally, when there’s just grease-stained wax paper on their plates and Kara’s eaten her cookie and half of Lena’s, Lena rests her chin in her palm. This is it, Kara thinks.
“I got asked to go to Mars today.”
Kara blinks. She wonders if there was something in the cookies that’s made her wrong about everything. “What?”
“A friend from grad school just got funding for a colonizing mission to Mars.”
“Colonizing is problematic.”
“You’re right. Set up a human settlement on Mars.”
“Can you come back?”
“No.”
The restaurant tilts in Kara’s vision. Maybe this is what nausea feels like. “Lena.” She opens her mouth to say something about the binder and the way it feels because if Lena’s going to leave forever, it feels absolutely crucial that she knows.
Lena must have seen something in her face because she says, “Oh god, I’m not going. I said no immediately.”
“Lena,” Kara cries. “You can’t just.” She almost pulls off her glasses to rub her eyes. It feels like there had been a fire in her chest that has just been doused and now the smoke is suffocating. “That was terrible.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lena says, sounding genuinely contrite. She reaches across the table and squeezes Kara’s hand. “I’ve just been thinking about it all day. What kind of person makes that choice?”
“An idiot,” Kara says vehemently. She pulls her hand away before Lena can feel it shaking. “No offense to your friend.”
“It’s fine, he was always a dick,” Lena says quietly. She looks at Kara, her eyebrows pulling closer and her whole face going still like she’s trying to crack a code. “Kara, have I done something wrong?”
“No.” Yes. “I’m just tired. I had a really late night last night.” That’s a direct opening, Lena has to take it.
“Are you not sleeping well?”
“No, it’s not that.” Kara has to get out of here. “Just – never mind. It’ll be fine. I’ll go to bed early tonight.”
“Good.” Lena smiles hesitantly. “You – well you already know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I can’t believe you thought I’d go to Mars.”
“I have a hard time with people leaving.” Kara stares at the white tablecloth until the lines of warp and weft run like rivers in her vision.
“Oh.” She can hear Lena’s stomach dropping in her voice. “Oh god.”
“It’s okay,” Kara says quickly. This is so far from how she wanted everything to go.
“No, it’s not. And I just keep talking because – ”
Kara blinks. “Because what?” It’s silent between them for long enough that Kara pulls her gaze up. Lena is staring at her again, like maybe she’s found the answer. Kara’s heart thuds in her throat.
“You’re so important to me.”
“You’re important to me too,” Kara says automatically.
“This is so important. More important than, well most things,” Lena scoffs. “Always more important than Mars.”
“All Matt Damon did there was eat potatoes.”
Lena laughs and buys Kara another cookie for the road like everything’s normal, but she holds Kara’s arm for longer when they say goodbye and presses a quick kiss high on Kara’s cheekbone, almost at her temple.
After filing her article and superspeeding through some copy, Kara goes home, puts on the binder and a button down and broods. There’s no way, after they had tipped their drinks towards each other like winky-wink film noir con men in a gay bar, that Lena, the most insatiably curious person Kara knows, wouldn’t be bursting with questions. This is the person who asked Kara seven different follow-up questions about the shape, texture, and consistency of the perfect French fry. Unless, somehow, she still can’t see it or, even worse, she sees it and doesn’t care.
The whole experience puts sort of a damper on her triple life, which now feels just as muddy and undefined as her double life. She starts wearing the binder during the day, just to see what it’s like. No one notices. Or no one says anything in range of Kara’s considerable hearing. She wonders if it’s the hair. If she cut her hair short like Alex, she bets people would start to make all kinds of assumptions. But she likes her hair and she’s irrationally scared if she chopped it off, she’d look like Justin Beiber before he got all weird and tattooed. Instead she finds a denim jacket in a vintage shop that fits her shoulders perfectly and makes her feel like James Dean.
The first time she wears it out during the day, Lena compliments her, her eyes dark and hungry, and something inside Kara breaks. It doesn’t break on Lena because even at her most volatile, Kara protects Lena at all costs, but she doesn’t stay for dessert, so Lena definitely knows something’s wrong. Instead she makes excuses, leaves early and compresses an abandoned car to the size of a rubic cube. As she sits in the scarp yard, panting slightly, tossing the car-cube from one hand to the other, she tries to find the source of her rage. It’s like trying to catch a shadow. Whenever she tries to get closer, it jumps out of reach and matches her step for step as she waits for someone, anyone, to say something.
On some level, she knows that the right thing to do would be to tell someone. On some level, she knows that she has options. Alex or Kelly or Lena would all be supportive in the ways that Kara needed four months ago. But Kara’s no longer on that level. In the time she’s spent not talking about it, Mythic Kara has grown beyond something she can just talk about. Instead she’s something that writhes and chafes at Kara’s insides the longer she goes unnoticed.
The moment that the explosion shifts from looming to inevitable takes Kara totally by surprise. It’s a Saturday. She’s out with Alex, helping her pick out a stand-mixer for Kelly’s birthday because that’s the age they are now. Kara is holding an insanely detailed measuring cup shaped like a test tube, wondering if Lena would find it insulting or endearing, when Alex says,
“This one, right?”
She looks up. Alex has one of those goofy aprons with a ripped, shirtless male torso on it, holding it up in front of her.
“Sure, Alex,” Kara says, trying to sound normal. “You’re definitely the beefcake.”
Alex rolls her eyes and hangs the apron back on its hook. “Hey, keep tomorrow night free, we’re taking Vasquez out. You can bring Lena.”
“Okay,” Kara frowns. “Is it her birthday?”
“Bad breakup.” Kara can tell from Alex’s voice that there is More.
“Oh no.” She waits.
The More comes. “Susan wants kids and the girlfriend didn’t, so.” Alex flips the mixing paddle up on a Cuisinart so hard that it rattles. Kara winces.
“That’s awful, poor Susan.”
“People should have to disclose that shit at the start of every relationship,” Alex says.
“Wow, pot meet kettle,” Kara says. “You know it’s hard to talk about.”
Alex scowls, but shrugs.
“Sometimes.” Kara’s heart pounds. “Maybe it’s easier to not talk about it, even if you want to or you should, because the answer’s really scary.” She stares at the measuring cup.
“Sure, but if it’s such a big part of how you want to live your life.” Alex shrugs. “You can’t hide that from people. Like even if you don’t say anything, people can see there’s something eating at you.”
The measuring cup shatters in Kara’s hand.
“Kara?”
“How come you can’t see it with me?” she whispers.
“Kara.” Alex is there, carefully extracting. the pieces of broken plastic from her grasp. “See what?” She’s staring at Kara, her eyes searching and coming up with nothing.
“You pay attention to Susan and Winn’s weird caffeine addiction and how J’onn only likes Reese’s pieces, but no one notices that I’ve been, that I’m not me anymore. Is it the hair? Is it because of Supergirl? Cause I’m literally called Girl?” She’s vaguely aware that she’s not making sense. “But I haven’t been hiding it.” Her voice shakes and that’s worse. “There’s this part of me, this big part of me and I just, it’s like no one cares, like it’s invisible, and what’s so wrong with me?”
Alex looks at her like when they were little and Kara had tried to eat rocks.
“I have to go.” She checks to make sure no one’s watching her have a meltdown. “Don’t buy that apron.”
“Kara, no, wait.”
She vanishes.
From the air, she knows there are a hundred places in National City alone where she could disappear, but she’s never been very good at hiding, so she goes to her favorite place to sulk – her apartment. She changes out of every piece of clothing, puts on a pair of boxer briefs (a new experiment), the pants, the binder, her favorite shirt, the denim jacket, and paces. After a few laps from her bed to her door, she pulls off the jacket and huddles under a blanket on the couch. Her heart is still thudding like rocks down a mountain. The wordless, incoherent rage that had driven her away from Alex has burnt down to terror and shame that she garbled such a huge moment. She pulls the blanket over her head and tries to figure out if she wants to be found.
She still hasn’t decided when she hears a key in her lock. It opens, there’s the sound of shoes clinking on hardwood, then the door closes.
“Kara?”
She yanks the blanket off her face. Lena is here, using the key Kara gave her last year for the first time. She’s wearing slacks and a pretty blue blouse which means she was definitely working on a Saturday and left because Kara’s freaking out.
“Go away, please,” she says.
Lena frowns. “I’m going to text Alex. She’s worried about you. And also says you owe her thirty dollars for a test tube?”
That was an expensive measuring cup. “Did she tell you why?”
Silence as Lena texts. She finishes and drops her phone into her purse. “I think she’s mostly confused.”
Kara grimaces. After a moment of waiting, Lena carefully steps across the room and stares down at her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“So you’re just lying there?”
“You’re being mean. I’m upset.”
“Okay, tell me what’s going on.”
Kara cringes in on herself, feeling like this is all distinctly unfair. With a huff that sounds mortifying petulant, she flings back the blanket, exposing the rest of her body. She glares until Lena’s eyes soften and she sits down on the edge of the coffee table across from Kara.
“Do you feel better when you’re wearing it?”
A horrible animal noise, halfway between a sob and a growl erupts from Kara’s chest, burning her throat. Lena jolts backwards in surprise, then recovers and places a hand on Kara’s thigh.
“No, don’t touch me. You’re worse than Alex. At least she was oblivious. You’ve known this whole time and you just didn’t care.”
Lena’s face contorts. “That is not true.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t anyone ever say anything?” Kara presses the heels of her hands against her eyes until they feel damp with the tears she’s trying to hold back.
“That’s not fair,” Lena says hotly. “You can’t just do something that may or may not be a huge change to who you are and expect everyone else to have all the answers.”
Kara doesn’t move her hands.
“How was I even supposed to know? Lena says. “You want to talk about this, but you don’t want to talk about Supergirl?”
She jerks her head up. “You know about Supergirl?”
“Kara.” Lena grits her jaw and takes a fortifying breath. “It’s glasses and a ponytail.”
“I guess so.”
“I thought you didn’t trust me,” Lena says, sounding very small.
“I do.” Kara sits up and grabs Lena’s hand, squeezing until she meets her gaze. “I promise, I do. I just, I wanted to just be me around you.”
“Is this you?” Lena touches Kara’s side, the binder under her shirt.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Okay.”
Lena doesn’t move her hand and Kara feels herself slowly start to relax.
Her phone buzzes on the table. They separate as Kara sits up to peer at it. There’s a message from Cat asking if she’s allergic to hazelnuts, she doesn’t have an EpiPen, are hazelnuts a tree nut?
“Does she do this a lot?” Lena asks, peering over Kara’s lap. The smell of her hair is intoxicating.
“Yeah,” Kara says. She types back that hazelnuts always give Cat migraines and she should take some ibuprofen.
“It seems like she was very fond of you,” Lena says. Her voice is perfectly even.
“We were fond of each other,” Kara says. Part of her feels like she should reassure Lena that her fondness for Cat was just fondness, but she doesn’t. She hits send on the message and Cat responds seconds later with a picture of Carter holding a jar of Nutella with a spoon in his mouth. Kara grins and puts her phone on the table.
Lena’s still looking at her, but now her face is closed off and her posture is perfect.
“So, what do you want, Kara?”
Kara fists her hands in the blanket and pulls until the fabric creaks.
“You don’t have to want anything.”
Kara wants everything and Lena is being so kind.
“I think you like this blanket.” Lena tugs gently at Kara’s wrist. Kara lets go and their fingers intertwine.
“Why didn’t you say anything after you saw me at the Living Room?”
For a second Lena looks totally bewildered. “You were there alone, I didn’t think that was any of my business.”
“But I gave you so many chances at lunch and you never, right, because how would you have known that’s what I wanted. I’ve done it again.” She wants to hide her face again, but that would mean letting go of Lena’s hand.
Lena rolls her eyes. “For what it’s worth, I thought you were getting upset that day because I couldn’t stop talking about that stupid Mars thing. Because of Supergirl.”
“Oh. No. Just about losing you. I never want to talk about Supergirl.”
“Noted,” Lena smiles a little then her brow furrows. “That must be complicated. The Supergirl part. Sorry, you literally just said you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t know what do about her yet. I know I don’t want to bind with the suit.”
“Then there would be questions.”
“I’m not ready for that.”
“That’s okay.” Lena rubs her thumb over the back of Kara’s hand.
“But you can ask questions,” Kara says haltingly, feeling so awkward that she wants to crawl into the couch forever. “I want that.”
“How does it feel?”
“I hardly notice I’m wearing it,” Kara says. “Sometimes I think if I breathe too hard, I could break it.”
“No, I meant. Well, I could make you a reinforced one, but I don’t want to actually restrict your lung capacity.”
“It’s okay,” Kara says. “This is good.”
“I meant.” Lena lets go of Kara’s hand and she feels bereft until Lena touches Kara’s chest just below her collar bone. “How does it feel?”
Kara’s eyes fill with tears and it’s absolutely mortifying. “Um.”
Lena waits for her.
“Like it’s supposed to.” She takes a deep breath and the tears stay put.
“Well, you look.” Lena sweeps her eyes up and down Kara. “Well, it doesn’t matter what I think”
“Yeah, it does.”
“You look good,” Lena says. She grabs Kara’s knee and squeezes like she’s trying to steel herself. “Really good.”
“Thanks.”
“You do know how I feel.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kara hasn’t been totally oblivious. She knows how they look at each other, how their entire friend group treats them as a unit, how sometimes she’ll mention Lena too many times and Alex will just roll her eyes. But while she hasn’t been oblivious, it’s still hard to swallow that the most beautiful person she knows is interested in her.
“Kara, I need.” Lena takes a breath and shakes her head. “It can’t just be me doing – “
“Me too.” Kara touches the back of Lena’s hand on her knee, her fingers brushing Lena’s knuckles. “I feel the same way too.”
“Okay.” Lena sighs and her shoulders deflate. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Kara says. “I think I would like a hug.”
She tugs Lena gently on to the couch with her. It’s awkward for a second, but eventually Lena gives in to being held, her head on Kara’s chest. She lets out a deep, contented sigh, and it’s the best Kara has felt in months.
“You don’t have to do this by yourself if you don’t want to,” Lena says.
She knows that soon Alex will get impatient and come to find them, soon Cat will text again, and Lena will have to go back to work, and Supergirl will be needed; but for now, Kara will stay in this bubble with Lena for as long as she can.