Archive of Our Own ^beta

As a scientist, Lena Luthor knew she did not believe in love at first sight. Loving someone was a chemical thing, all linked back to reason, logic, science.

But she also knew that everything she’d believed was falling apart before her eyes, because the way she felt about Kara Danvers was neither reasonable nor logical. The way she loved Kara couldn’t just be a chemical reaction, it was more more more.

Loving Kara was familiar, like a hand guiding her own over the facets of her life to remind her what it felt like to be so wholly adoring of another. It reminded Lena of her mother, a bit, of the way she used to put Lena on her feet to waltz them around the living room together, Lena clutching to her skirts and breathing in the aroma of sage and chives.

Kara smelled of laundry soap and powdered sugar, of champagne and thick breath that fogged up the window over her bed in the winter. Kara smelled like herself, and Lena basked in it like it was a perfume, wondering if it was like the chemicals she tenderly worked with in her lab— miracles of nature, but breathe too deep, hold on too strong, and they’d slip you away with them.

There was a scientific answer to everything, Lena knew. Research had never done anyone harm, and though her desperate search history questioning what it meant when Kara made offhand comments about her intelligence or let her eyes linger too long on Lena’s new tight blouse may be embarrassing, it was far from ineffective.

When Alex texts her about the engagement party it’s abrupt but kind, in a Danvers sort of way. Just the date and time, a single exclamation point tacked hastily at the end in lieu of clarification. Lena stares at it for a long time when she gets it, in the back of her car on the way home from the tower, tracing over the letters again and again. Alex Danvers is an interesting creature, a hasty and fiercely kind figure who reminds Lena, absently at times, shockingly of herself. And she texts like Kara does, to the point and without room for argument, care seeping through every word into Lena’s heart.

Lena’s apartment is a love letter to many things, but there is something special to her about the fact that now, when she walks inside, she isn’t only reminded of Kara. There’s pieces of her own self in there too, hung on the walls and adorned over the bricks and woven into the rugs. Kara is spread all over the couch, and in the tangle of blankets on her bed, and reflected in her bathroom mirror and oven door. But Lena has grown, she knows it now. She is alive again, joyful about little things like air fresheners for her bathrooms and the kind of soap she stocks up on at the farmer’s market for the kitchen sink. Kara inhales when she steps inside, eyes always shutting for less than a millisecond, and so there is joy in this too-big space once again.

She’s felt on the brink for a while. Ever since they’d been back to their old selves, since Kara is uninhibited around her again, the air has seemed to buzz. And now she feels like she’s on her way to something bigger, like the chemicals will shift and atoms will realign and she will wake up in a cold sweat one night and know, know something just out of her grasp.

So, I heard about this party thing tonight, ru going? Kara texts the night that the shifting of something begins, and Lena can just picture the little smirk on her face as she pens what she undoubtedly considers a witty message. Heard they have potstickers. Maybe it is a trap.

Well, if there will be potstickers, I know there’ll be Kara, Lena replies, and thinks for a moment about sending Kara a photo of what she plans to wear that night before deciding against it, abandoning her phone at the kitchen counter to fall onto the couch.

Loving Kara was like the first bite of a too sweet candy, the moment where it’s just good enough before you know it’ll all go to hell. At the start of it all, Kara had always felt like something that couldn’t quite last, because when has something so good ever?

But she has lasted, lasted through Christmas dinners and karaoke nights and screaming matches ending with icy walls. She’s lasted and she’s made Lena family, made Lena a home and a memory and an ever present feeling in her chest that was not reasonable nor was it logical, that spun in wild circles whenever Kara looked her way.

–

The party is on the other side of the city, and Lena takes her time getting there. According to Kara’s texts Alex and Kelly are both two shots in, and the rowdiness is already starting. I miss u, Kara texts, isnt the same until ur here. plus brainy’s trying to rope us into some weird drinking game &&& i need my favorite partner <3. Lena isn’t sure what to make of it but she squints down at the message, unlocking and relocking her phone as the car glides across town. Her wallpaper flashes on and off, the image of her and Kara wrapped up together on a sunny day on Kara’s roof taunts her, twisting and coaxing her to just admit it already, to just break and tell Kara everything.

She shuts off her phone.

The bar is dark when Lena gets there, bottles on the far wall glinting in the low light of the streetlamps. It’s also near empty, and she follows the sound of cheering to the back where Alex, Kelly, Nia, and Brainy dance in a wild circle. They let out a shout when they see Lena, Kelly bouncing excitedly on her toes as she gives Lena a long hug and talks quickly and excitedly about a drink, or something Lena can’t quite understand.

And then she looks past Kelly and her breath leaves in a rush because Kara is already looking at her, so soft and so fond with her hair down in long flowing waves and her glasses pushed up her nose. J’onn is beside her, looking on knowingly, but Kara has eyes for no one else, choosing instead to give Lena a little smile that she knows means to come sit.

And because she is irrational around Kara Danvers, she does. Of course she does.

“Hi,” Kara murmurs as Lena sits beside her, “you look beautiful. So gorgeous.”

At that, J’onn rises to his feet. “I’ll go and see if I can track down the karaoke machine,” he says, and Kara nods along agreeably.

But once he’s gone it’s like the dark bar fades further away, and Lena hears the nineties classics play quietly over Kara’s steady breathing. She feels halfway to drunk already, almost prepared to beam loud and unabashed and bring Kara home with her just so they can cuddle.

“I got you a drink,” Kara says, and pushes a glass towards Lena with smiling eyes. She looks softer tonight, strange and slightly lonely as she slides closer still to Lena, close enough that she can see all the golden flecks in Kara’s eyes and so she can smell the champagne and detergent and breath off of her. Her arm wraps around so that it touches Lena’s, and Kara looks almost invigorated, almost hopeful.

So Lena downs her drink quickly, and moves towards Kara too. She reaches out and runs her fingers through Kara’s wavy hair, and Kara’s blue eyes widen still more, a question laced through them.

“I like your hair like this,” she says simply, and Kara just nods, eyes darting up and down Lena’s face. She takes a long swig from her own glass.

It isn’t long until Lena’s tipsy, happy feeling swirling easily through her body and room feeling brighter still as Kara leans closer and closer, almost touching her lips to Lena’s face every time she laughs up close.

And Lena hadn’t been trying to at first, hadn’t been conscious of it before, but she knows now that she’s flirting almost too much. It’s addicting to watch Kara’s face flush pink, to watch her stumble over her words for half a second before her confident smirk returns again. Kara is drunk, and it is so, so lovely to see her this free.

It hurts sometimes, how much she wants Kara. How much she wishes that Kara could love her as a permanent thing, not just as a passing attraction, a friend who made her blush while they were drunk in a dark bar. But Lena will take what she can get, and a bashful Kara adjusting her glasses and looking down sweetly with her lip between her teeth is beautiful, and so easy.

“So,” she says, and if she drops her voice just a bit and lets it go raspy, just so that maybe Kara will look at her blushing and wide eyed, who can blame her? “How’s Alex doing as an engaged woman?”

And Kara does blush the slightest bit, looks up so fast and thoroughly that Lena thinks she might be trying to glue her eyes to Lena’s. “She’s soo happy,” Kara says, slightly louder than necessary, scoffing, “Like, so stupid. Her face is all heart eyes, all the time.”

Lena feels her lips curve up, eyes not leaving Kara’s as she raises an eyebrow. “Kara Danvers,” she says, voice still lower, “Are you drunk right now?”

“No,” Kara snorts, then bites her lip, eyes big and playful. “Maybe.”

“You are,” Lena says, delighted, and is conscious of the buzzing in her own body when she reaches out to poke Kara’s cheek.

Kara raises her eyebrows, pressing her lips together to keep a laugh in but it bursts out anyway, loud and unashamed and so Kara that it hits Lena square in the chest.

“Well, if I am drunk then you are too, Lena!” she protests, reaching for Lena’s empty glass but overshooting it a bit as it shatters onto the bar floor. “Oops.”

And sure, Lena’s tipsy, but it’s pure adoration that makes her beam at Kara, makes her press forward so their shoulders bump, makes her reach down for Kara’s hand to trace along its knuckles.

“Maybe I am,” she says.

“Well, that settles it. We have to stick together. And that means we should go dance right now, and I think I can make Kelly play some NSYNC.”

Lena can’t even fight it. She knows that the rest of her night is lost to Kara, surrendered to the utter joy of being so close and having this, in any capacity. Having her.

The night gets somehow darker as the hours slip past unnoticed. Alex is slumped over onto Kelly, both of them giggling loudly as they slip further down the side of the booth, sending them into more hysterics. Nia is nearby, calling them an Uber and gripping onto Brainy as she squints down at the screen, pointing vaguely.

Kara is in a position reminiscent of her sister’s now, head on Lena’s lap with her golden hair spilling over the edge of the red plastic seat cushion. She has one hand up, tracing its way back on Lena’s jaw into the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, through her tangled locks twirling hair around her fingers as she moves.

“How are you two doing?” J’onn has appeared suddenly, looking down affectionately at them. Kara doesn’t seem to notice as Lena meets his eyes.

“I’m only a little tipsy now,” she says, and smirks a bit as he raises an eyebrow in Kara’s direction.

“Do you want me to get her home?” he asks, and Lena is reminded of the reason she was initially uneasy around J’onn (as if she wasn’t initially uneasy around every one of Kara’s friends, who is she kidding?) when he looks down at her knowingly. He isn’t reading her mind, Lena knows, but his eyes seem to dig in and the inflection of his voice tells her he knows what she’ll say.

“No, that’s okay,” she says anyway, and J’onn nods as soon as she opens her mouth, “I’ve got her. You might want to help Nia with Alex and Kelly, though, based on those tequila shots she did I’m not sure why she’s in charge.”

J’onn turns just in time to see Nia attempt to support Kelly’s weight, sway, and slide them both into Brainy’s waiting shoulder a few inches away. He turns back to Lena, smiling. “Alright then. You two be safe.” She nods, and J’onn reaches down to clap her lightly on the back before turning to help Brainy lift Alex from the booth, her arms strung over their shoulders.

Just then Kara shifts, hand moving down to Lena’s neck and tracing the freckles there, the chain of her necklace. It distracts her enough to look down and she’s hit suddenly and violently with the full force of Kara’s gaze on her— it’s blatant, it’s raw, it’s… adoring.

For a full moment she freezes, just meeting Kara’s eyes head on, watching as they squint and grow little lines as the edges with Kara’s growing dopey smile.

And then Kara’s hand traces still lower, to the left and touching the top of her hemline, and Lena starts abruptly.

“Okay,” she says, shifting so Kara’s hand drops and she looks a little lost, confused. “Let’s get you home, okay?”

“Don’t wanna,” comes Kara’s reply swiftly, “wanna stay here. With you.”

Lena bites the inside of her cheek, flushing. “It’s late, sweetie. Everyone’s going, see?” she gestures toward the party stumbling their way to the doors. Kara blinks, turns her head like she’s on some kind of delay, eyelids drooping as she watches.

“But,” she sighs, flicking the edge of the table until a piece of plastic shoots off into the doorframe, denting the metal.

“I’m coming with you, Kara, but you have to stand up so I can get us outside. Okay?”

And that seems to be all it takes. Kara nods, stands up slowly and adjusts to the new position as Lena stands beside her, moving Kara’s arm over her shoulders.

Kara’s place is only a ten minute walk but it’s a chilly night and Lena isn’t sure she wants to see what happens if Kara sees a dog out on a late night walk, so she opts to call an Uber instead, sliding Kara into the backseat and letting her rest her head on Lena’s shoulder through the short drive.

When the car pulls to a halt on Hope Street, Lena looks down to see Kara’s half open eyes already fixed on her. She smiles.

They manage to make it up the stairs without too much stumbling, and soon enough Kara is collapsing onto her own couch, eyes drifting shut. And if it were anyone else Lena would’ve laid a blanket over their feet, left a glass of water next to their head and headed back home, but… but.

But Kara hates waking up on her couch, always claims she can feel it even in her invulnerable back. But Lena doesn’t like the idea of Kara being all alone in the morning, with not even Alex to call because her sister has a fiancée and daughter and will have a hangover of her own. But, Lena doesn’t want to leave.

So she bites her lip and follows, reaching the couch to see Kara’s eyelashes fluttering. She touches her shoulder softly.

“Hey, Kara,” she says, and Kara grumbles something unintelligible. “Let’s get you to your bed, okay? And into some cozier clothes?”

She surprisingly isn’t met with much resistance as Kara slides off the couch, opting to follow Lena behind the room divider and over to her shelves.

“Here,” Lena says, sifting through the drawers to find sweatpants and a t-shirt, “do you want to put these on? Then you can get straight into bed, I promise.”

Kara doesn’t answer, and Lena turns around to see her biting her lip.

“What’s wrong?”

“Will you stay?”

It’s far from the first time she’s asked, and it’s far from the first time Lena’s been helpless. It’s always just Kara, standing before her bed with a hopeful look, or a little smile, or a frown.

And just like the first time and every other time after that, Lena softens. She isn’t sure if she’s ever been able to deny Kara anything.

“Of course.”

It’s like a burst of sunlight has reached Kara, because she brightens and, in an odd fit of sudden energy, changes into her pajamas so quickly it’s a blur. She points at the shelves, and Lena knows she’s telling her to take anything she wants. Then, as suddenly as she’s moved, Kara is flopping back into her bed and under her comforter, head hitting the pillow with a sigh.

Lena reserves a second to squeeze her eyes shut and clench her face, overflowing with spare affection, before she reaches for a pair of Kara’s sweatpants and her favorite soft and worn and dryer-tumbled NCU shirt, turns to slip into the clothes.

She gets the light and suddenly Kara’s bed is awash in moonlight, junk stacked on the dresser glinting and casting strange shadows across the floor. Her eyes track up until they meet her own, captured under a picture frame on Kara’s bookshelf. There she is, beaming and head pressed right against Kara’s, whose eyes are bright and whose cheeks are pink with happiness. Lena stares it down, wondering.

She’s interrupted, though, and Kara sits up with the blankets rustling around her. “Lena?” She says, and Lena looks over instantly. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

And how could Lena possibly answer that but to smile softly, and say “I’m coming, it’s nothing”, and crawl under the blankets to let Kara sprawl an arm and a leg against her, to let Kara sleep mouth open on Lena’s shoulder so that she’s snoring in minutes? How could she deny Kara of such a thing?

If she stays awake a few minutes more, jaw clenched and fingers tight as she agonizes while Kara sleeps, unaware, on her chest, before Lena turns over her head and falls asleep with the smell of Kara’s detergent beside her on the pillow, no one else needs to know it.

-

In a strange turn of events, Lena is awake before Kara the next morning.

She’s a late night person at heart, one who’d been forced to wake up with the sun for as long as she could remember, first for study groups and then 8 AMs, and now to open L-Corp with assurance that nothing had been happening without her there to clear it.

Waking up still doesn’t come naturally to Lena, though, and she treasures her days off, so she’s surprised to find herself stirring just before 10. The fact that Kara isn’t up yet, though, is a testament to how drunk she’d been.

And, look, Lena hated to look like a pining idiot, but there was only so much she could do when the sunlight filtered in through Kara’s light pink curtains, painting her golden hair a strange kind of strawberry blonde and rose that Lena finds herself briefly mesmerized by.

It’s just unfair.

Kara lets out a loud rumbling noise and Lena goes still, sure she’s awake, but she only flips over, rolling so that her legs spread to fill the full potential space of the bed, pillow crumpled. It’s, of course, completely fucking adorable.

Lena allows herself another moment of weakness before she heads to the kitchen, opening Kara’s fridge and grimacing at the obscene number of opened frosting cans sitting proudly at the front. She roots through and collects a few eggs and a carton of blueberries, turning on the stove.

Kara shuffles out from behind the room divider fifteen minutes later, eyes bleary and hair rumpled. She groans loudly at Lena’s greeting.

“Rao, never let me have that much to drink again. I feel like I’m dying.”

“Never again, got it,” Lena answers, smiling down at the sizzling pan. “Want some breakfast? I’m making you french toast.”

“I love you,” Kara mumbles, floating up next to her with a plate at the ready. Lena can’t control the wild blush that takes over her senses because what the fuck, what was Kara doing talking to her like that?

Eyes still on her, Kara throws herself into a chair and tilts it back as far as it can go, wobbling the legs on the edge of her carpet. Lena shakes her head.

“Kara, no wonder Esme keeps doing that, she’s going to crack her head open.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Kara responds, shoveling toast into her mouth. “Wow, Lena, this is amazing.”

Lena shuts her eyes for a second, overwhelmed by the fact that she can find Kara adorable with her mouth full, hair strewn about her face, balancing on the legs of her chair and wearing a crewneck she’d pulled on a moment before with Witch Way To The Beer? Happy Halloweeen! printed on it in sloppy purple font.

It shouldn’t make sense. It would give Lillian an aneurysm. But here Lena is.

“Did you sleep okay?” Kara is asking, and Lena tunes back in. “I hope you didn’t get too cold, I know the windows can get drafty sometimes at night but I don’t usually notice, because, well, and I didn’t get to ask just when I woke up because you were already awake, which is crazy by the way and I didn’t know you had it in you, but you only had a t-shirt on and sometimes Alex says—,”

“Kara,” Lena says softly, and Kara looks up at her again, fork dangling halfway to her mouth, “I slept wonderfully. Not cold at all, promise.”

“Oh, good,” Kara says, smiling wide, “You know, it was probably a furnace here compared to your place. Lena, how can you cope? I feel like a ghost is going to pop out behind the bathroom door every time I’m over.”

“Guess I should just stay over here more often then, huh?” Lena says without thinking, and as the words come out she hears them like a taunt. And Kara was going to be confused, and Lena was going to be mortified, and she’d have to go home and use the Sunday for work after all the time Kara had spent convincing her that one day without her computer in sight was, actually, a healthy plan.

But Kara just looks at her, a strange little pleased smile on her face, and cocks her head. “Yeah, I guess you should,” is all she says before standing up to speed her way through the dishes and leave Lena gazing at the chair she’d just exited, a puzzled look on her face.

The thing about Kara is that once Lena is with her, it’s near impossible to attempt to go anywhere else. Nia and J’onn are on patrol, Kara on call only for emergencies but according to Nia the morning had been slow, only a few cats up trees. There’s nowhere for her to be, and nowhere for Kara to be, and Kara takes it as an invitation to plant them on the couch and move only when extremely necessary.

It’s nice, Lena thinks to herself when Kara stretches out so that Lena’s legs drape over hers and they sit on opposite sides of the couch, ankles tangled together. After they’d fought, Lena hadn’t been able to bring herself to be like this again, had left with everyone else when game night ended and dodged Kara’s requests for private movie nights. She’d been bracing herself to go back to what it’d been before, before Kara and cuddles and meeting up with no ulterior motive in mind, just the genuine experience of having company.

Kara is talking animatedly about a movie as she queues it on her TV screen, her foot rubbing unconsciously into Lena’s own and making shivers shoot up her spine. That kind of luck, that kind of love that came back for her… it was the kind of thing she’d used to dream about in her thin boarding school bed at fifteen, wishing for someone, for something just like this.

Lena lets herself spend the whole day basking in Kara, relishing the leftover goodness of waking up curled in Kara’s bed, only slightly afraid of why she’s starting to doubt her ability to go without such things again.

-

It’s a week after the first sleepover that it happens again, arguably more complicated than falling into bed next to a drunken Kara who needed someone by her side.

It starts with an Aunties’ Day. Esme, to Lena’s initial surprise and current pleasure, had become quite taken with her. Ever since their first meeting, when the little girl had gazed up at her curiously and called Lena very pretty, Kelly had informed Lena that she rarely ceased discussing the things she and Auntie Lena should do together. Kara, of course, found this absolutely thrilling.

And so, ever since Lena and Kara had taken Esme to the petting zoo on a now famed Saturday, biweekly days out with the three of them had become commonplace.

(It gave Lena a little thrill whenever she thought of being grouped together with Kara by Esme and her parents, the idea of the two of them as a package deal. It was an odd feeling altogether, being so adored by a small child, an experience she was sorry to say she’d had no experience with.)

On that day, Lena’s on her way to pick Esme up to meet Kara at the new National City pancake bar. Lena had rolled her eyes when Kara had brought it up excitedly, but once Esme had heard about the proposal there was no debating it.

Kelly’s there to send Esme off, giving Lena a quick kiss on the cheek and ruffling Esme’s curly hair. “Have fun, you two. Text me if there’s anything wrong, Lena, I’m just working from home today.”

“Bye, Mama,” Esme says, beaming up at Kelly before switching her attention to Lena, holding out her stuffed zebra. “Can you hold Lovey for me, Aunt Lena? My backpack is sooo heavy,” she says, groaning and pretending to drop forward under the immense weight of the pale pink backpack strapped onto her shoulders.

“Of course I can,” Lena says, taking Esme’s little hand and giving the zebra a fierce squeeze with her free arm, rubbing her nose into Lovey’s. Esme giggles at the display, and as they step onto the sidewalk Esme launches into a descriptive explanation of her morning, from the mango Alex had managed to procure for breakfast (“It’s my new favorite food now, okay Aunt Lena? I don’t like cantaloupe so much anymore,”) to the watercolor she’d done (“I made one for you and Aunt Kara but I can’t show it to you yet, Mama says I should wait until we’re with Kara too. But you’re gonna love it! And I painted Aunt Kara’s suit green because she said it’s her favorite color but it looks kinda silly, and Mom said maybe it’s time for Uncle Brainy to do a… a readersign,”).

As her niece chatters on, Lena looks absently down at the well loved zebra hugged between her left arm and chest. She’d had a stuffed animal too, before, a big bear she’d loved with all her heart. She’d managed to hold onto him for a full year, shockingly, before he’d vanished one day without a trace.

She’d wept quietly behind the bathroom door until Lex found her, and he’d handed her a scrap of paper with a little sonnet in the bear’s memory. They’d held a somber memorial for him out in the gardens, Lex burning the paper with their father’s lighter so they could sprinkle the ashes over the freshly mown grass.

Lena has never been so glad in her life to see a child as joyful as Esme.

When they reach the restaurant Kara is sitting at the end of a long table, looking down at her phone and nibbling on her lip, a strand of wavy hair out of its tight ponytail and hanging down across her cheek. Esme lets go of her hand to run toward Kara, who looks up and beams at the sight of Esme. She can hear the excited, “Hey, bud!” from across the room.

And then Kara’s eyes track from Esme up to where Lena is walking to their table, and they go soft as her smile grows smaller but brighter, like a little greeting without words. Lena’s lungs are briefly paralyzed by it as she pulls out the wooden chair, but it eases as Kara says, “hey, Lena,” and then she can breathe again.

She smiles at Kara in return, pulling out the chair next to her to put the stuffed zebra in, to Esme’s delight. Her niece bounces up and down in her chair and Kara leans in, like she’s telling Esme a deep secret.

“I already ordered, because your mama told me that you’d like the Sprinkles Nutella special,” Kara says, “but mostly because I had to make sure Auntie Lena didn’t get boring old plain pancakes. So I had to order her the rainbow ones, with extra ice cream on the side.”

Esme giggles loudly, beaming at Lena before disappearing under the table to reach her backpack. Lena lets her gaze flick to Kara, raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Kara smirks at her. “What, Lena? You have to get in the Aunties’ Day spirit!”

“Yeah, Aunt Lena!” pipes up a little voice. Kara snorts. Lena presses her lips together, gives Kara’s arm a little shove, and Kara actually pretends to recoil in shock, gasping with a big smile on her face.

“Oh, stop it,” Lena rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. It’s pretty hard not to be, what with Kara looking at here like that.

Esme resurfaces in a whirlwind, slapping a crinkled watercolor painting on the table. Lena and Kara both lean in to gaze at it, forearms brushing.

Kara’s suit is green, just as Esme had promised. She’s painted next to a figure that, with black long hair and green dots for eyes, is undoubtedly Lena. They’re standing next to a small pink clad figure with light brown hair added on, all next to a tall tree and a grinning sun.

“Look at the back,” Esme says, biting her lip excitedly, “I did the lowercase letters all on my own!”

Kara shoots Lena a look as she flips the page, one Lena recognizes as the same glance she gives her whenever there’s an adorable puppy on the streets of National City.

“To: Auntie Kara and Auntie Lena, Love: Esme,” the page proclaims in blue crayon, the S of the little girls’ name printed backward.

“You’re kidding, Esme,” Kara says, eyebrows raised, “you did this? All by yourself?”

“Yes,” she answers, eyes wide.

“It’s impossible! This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Belongs in all the museums. Don’t you think, Lena?”

A beaming Esme turns to her expectantly, and Kara turns a soft gaze in her direction.

Lena swallows around the lump in her throat, still not quite adjusted to such sweet adoration and care from a small child, still not used to seeing kids allowed to express their love so strongly, so well.

“It’s gorgeous,” she finally agrees, and Esme’s beam grows wider.

As the girl slides the painting over so that Lovey can get a chance to see it, Kara leans in closer.

“Hey,” she murmurs, “you okay?”

Lena, with a strange exhaustion creeping into her bones from the strange stray sense of envy that infiltrates her blood, nods quietly, tipping her head to rest on Kara’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” she says, “just really hopeful for her. You know.”

Because Kara does know, they both know, and Kara nods softly.

When Esme rotates back to her seat and strikes up a lively conversation with Kara about whether or not zebras would like pancakes, if given the chance to sample them, Lena feels a brush against her leg. Kara’s knee had pressed out and into her own, their feet next to each other. She knocks Lena’s leg so softly, gives her hand a quick squeeze, before protesting loudly that of course zebras would love sprinkles, and how dare Esme assume they didn’t.

The pancake monstrosities arrive soon after, and Kara delights at Lena’s rainbow colored pancake with multicolored berries and red, yellow, and blue ‘Supergirl’ ice cream generously scooped on top. She and Esme giggle wildly as they lean behind Kara’s phone, snapping picture after picture of Lena, eyebrows raised, behind her brightly colored food.

Esme falls in love with her pancake after one bite. “Auntie Lena, I actually changed my mind, mango’s only my second favorite food now. This is first place.”

“I’m sure your moms will be thrilled at Auntie Kara for that one,” Lena says, shooting Kara a look without any bite behind it. Kara looks like she’s in heaven, digging her way through a pancake with any and every topping possible piled on top.

The plan is for Esme to sleep over at Kara’s, her backpack loaded up with pajamas and a fresh pair of clothes for the morning. They walk to Kara’s apartment and Esme is thrilled to ride on Kara’s shoulders, planting Lovey firmly on her aunt’s head and occasionally reaching down to cover Kara’s eyes so that she’ll screech to a dramatic halt, stumble wildly, and flail her arms. Esme finds this hysterical. Lena smiles too, despite herself, and begins to suspect Kara’s doing it for her sake more than her niece’s as her eyes shoot to Lena’s the moment they’re uncovered, a smile spreading rapidly across her face when she sees Lena’s own.

Esme uses three magnets from Kara’s fridge to hang up her painting herself. “E, D, and O,” she says, “those are my ‘nitials! Did you know that, Auntie Lena?”

“I did,” Lena says, “Oh, that’s an absolutely perfect spot. The first thing anyone’ll see when they walk into Auntie Kara’s place. They’ll say, ‘who painted that masterpiece? I just have to know the name of the artist!’”

Esme giggles. “Your Auntie Lena is so silly, isn’t she?” Kara says, passing by the two of them crouched by the fridge. Esme nods her head dramatically.

“Hey!” Lena protests, which only makes Esme giggle harder.

It’s so sweet, so lovely, to be here like this. Kara is unfiltered this way, away from the stress and anxiety of Supergirl and CatCo, content to do anything to make Lena smile and roll her eyes, mock exasperated. It’s new, almost, the kind of thing that wouldn’t have happened before, not in this way.

She wonders sometimes if it took a fight, took their recovery and newfound trust, for them to be ready for each other. Ready to do what, she always inevitably thinks, and quashes the line of thought there. She’s always loved Kara. She doesn’t need to think about whether or not Kara is ready to love her too.

Lena’s remembering their first month of friendship before she can help it, thoughts fighting their way through a brick wall the same way Kara had, the way she is. That first month had been strange, Lena remembers the tingling up her spine when they’d locked eyes during the first interview. And it had been all dodged invitations, all slow conversations, all Lena waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Kara to get what she’d needed and exit her life the way she’d come in, with a little smile and a thanks for her time.

But then Kara’d stayed.

Esme and Kara play a loud and lively game of Spit, the little girl’s hands flitting over the cards rapidly, deep concentration on her face. Esme wins, and Kara looks so genuinely outraged that Lena can’t help but laugh, sling an arm around her and press a kiss to her cheek in consolation.

When Kara goes into her closet to drag out the spare air mattress, Esme bounces over to Lena with Kara’s extra pillow in hand.

“Auntie Lena, can I put my bed in a fort?”

And so of course Lena has to show her niece how to craft the most effective, sturdy fort possible with Kara’s patchwork quilt and fuzzy throw blanket.

“Do we have something to weigh this side down?” Lena asks Esme, tugging the blanket back onto the coffee table as her niece squirms out from under the drapery. Esme reaches into her backpack and pulls out a small stack of books, handing them to Lena one by one. She balances the blanket and they wait, breath held.

The tented sheet stays up. Esme cheers, Lena offers her a high five, and as the little hand meets hers she marvels once again at how easy it all seems, how foreign.

“And I want my bed right there,” Esme points, and Lena looks up. Kara is standing just above them, looking on the scene with such blatant affection it catches Lena by the throat. And Kara’s looking right at her.

There’s a still moment, a quiet breath, before Kara kickstarts into action again, plugging in the air mattress and covering it with a spare sheet. Lena shakes her head, helps adjust the mattress underneath the fort.

“Auntie Lena, are you gonna stay over, too?” Esme yawns.

“No, sweetie, I’m going home right after you go to sleep,” Lena says, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she pulls the blanket up to her niece’s chin.

Esme looks panicked. “What? But why? Auntie Kara has tons and tons of space, and I wanna see you in the morning, and you promised me we could make breakfast to put on a tray, you said!” She looks just like Alex in her pout, so supremely Danvers, and Lena’s just about to apologize, to say she has a whole apartment waiting for her and that the next time Esme sleeps over they can cook as much as she wants, when Kara speaks.

“Yeah Lena, why aren’t you staying?” she says, and she’s almost smirking at Lena, “I have tons and tons of space. You’re gonna miss all the fun if you go home. So boring, right Esme?”

With two pouts aimed at her, paired with Kara’s cocky eyebrow raise, she shakes her head in acquiescence. Kara and Esme share a ridiculous fist bump. Lena is absolutely not charmed.

Esme’s asleep not twenty minutes later, one fist clenched firmly around Lovey and the other at the corner of her pillow, light snores drifting up into the foundations of her fort. All is quiet, and Lena finds herself in a predicament once more.

Kara isn’t always so handsy, but it seems to be suddenly amplified. Since they’ve gotten up from Esme’s bed she’s been practically attached to Lena, arm slung around her waist and a teasing smile close to her face.

Lena Luthor had always believed love was a chemical thing, a logical thing, something that could be explained through the manners of science.

She did not, however, have any reasonable explanation for this. For Kara handing her pajamas, for the way she tucked back the plaid blanket on her bed invitingly. For the way she feels.

And when Kara changes, she does it right there. Turns around to face the wall, and pulls her shirt over her head in a smooth motion, unbuckling her bra and wiggling her arms out. Lena hates that she’s captivated, isn’t really looking, but the muscle of Kara’s back shifts when she rolls her shoulders and Lena’s engaged, curious. It’s not sexual, really. It’s just…

It’s beautiful, the way Kara moves. Lena is always enthralled by that in people— the way they walk, the way their face changes when they smile, the way their heads turn and eyebrows lift when they hear their name called. Kara is beautiful about it, skin expansive and soft and eyes always lighting up with her moving smile. Kara feels like space, feels like the edges of the universe where she’s come from, and Lena is fascinated by it, by the way her hair moves when it’s down and the way she can sometimes feel Kara’s eyes on her from across a room.

Kara moves to pull the pajama shirt over her head and Lena looks away quickly, and it all amounts to no more than two seconds but she feels guilty nonetheless.

Lena brushes her teeth with a spare toothbrush and when she comes back out of the bathroom, light clicking off behind her, she sees the weak light of Kara’s phone from the bed.

“Lena,” Kara whispers.

“Kara,” she mutters back, making her way across the small room by light of the street lamps outside the window.

“Come on, hurry up. The bed is cold and I can’t fall asleep if I don’t have someone to cuddle.”

It makes no real sense but Lena is weak for it anyway, captured by the softness of Kara’s jersey sheets and the texture of her blanket on her bare legs. She rolls over and feels Kara’s arm curl around her stomach, lifts her head so the other one can rest beneath it.

Kara’s warm breath is at her ear. She can hear car horns faintly, off in the distance.

The steady breathing beside her is so close she can almost taste it, and she falls asleep to its rhythm.

-

Another shift, the slightest bit towards the brink of the something that’s captivated Lena’s breath for weeks comes again without fail.

“Truly, Lena, I shudder to think of what they said while I was gone.” Cat says unaware of Lena’s thought, flicking her fork upwards casually before spearing another bite of salad onto it. “And honestly, the press on you? They simply could not make up their minds, every week it’s breaking news that you’re not the devil incarnate, as though it’s any sort of surprise. Honestly.”

“Well, I must say that it’s a pleasure to have you back in the city, Ms. Grant,” Lena says, biting her lip over a smile.

Cat waves her hands, nose wrinkling softly. “You know to call me Cat, I’ve simply no idea why you refuse to do so.”

Kara had been the one begging Lena to let Cat interview her, a front page exclusive on Lena Luthor, beyond the brand. “You’ve never had a conversation one on one, and galas don’t count,” she’d protested, “and she’s always talking about how important your image is for business. Please, Lena?”

Nia had teased her over it, asking Kara if there was a thing for CEOs, if she just wanted her two bosses to meet, and she’d wiggled her eyebrows so suggestively that Kara had turned so pink and Lena didn’t have the heart to tease her about it. “Cat’s my mentor, Nia, stop it,” she’d protested, and Nia had looked gleeful. “Oh yeah?” She’d replied, “And what does that make Lena?”

They’d gotten an outdoor table at a restaurant by Cat’s recommendation. Kara had briefed her earlier, warning that Cat could come across as harsh at first, that she might be cold. But strangely, it had been the opposite.

Not only had the questions been respectful, but they were engaging, stimulating in a way Lena didn’t find herself getting from article profiles. She seemed genuinely interested in Lena, contemplative and caring. And maybe Cat’s hiatus had changed her, but based on what Kara had told her from the CatCo employee group chat, that didn’t seem to be the case.

No, it seemed as though Cat wanted to hear from her. And Cat Grant did not typically care to hear from anyone.

The bill arrives and there is a strange little tussle for it. Lena is so accustomed to paying, had been swiping checks from Kara for years, citing the obvious CEO salary as an excuse.

Cat wins this round, however. What kind of reporter would she be, she scoffs, if she went around letting her interviewees pay?

And Lena thinks she has her expression under control, really she does, but it’s no match for Cat Grant. The woman takes a long look at her, raises a brow, rolls her eyes with an affectionate smile.

“But of course you wouldn’t know if Kara’s the one doing your profiles.”

“She… she offers to pay,” Lena says, hearing the almost comical defense in her voice.

“Mm, I’m sure she does,” Cat says, making a show of packing up her notebook, then her pen, zipping her shiny leather bag slowly, tracing over the handle. “And, what exactly has been going on, shall we say, between you two?”

“Between… me and Kara?” It’s astonishing, really, if not slightly embarrassing, that Lena can so quickly lose all composure in the face of Cat Grant because of one question. (Though, it is Kara.)

“Well, who else?” Cat says, in a way that Lena thinks might not be as exasperated as it sounds.

“Nothing,” she replies, and it seems such a shame to undersell Kara, of all people. “I mean, we’re friends. Best friends. We’re…”

Because, really, how can she describe what she and Kara are? Best friends, sure, but Jack had never spoken into her neck about how much he’d missed her and how good she smelled. Family, sure, but she’d never woken up curled around Sam the way she had with Kara.

And yet she depended on Kara, counted on her friendship as a given, now. And it hadn’t always been that way but now, with Kara always beaming and spinning Lena around and around until she was dizzy whenever she’d had a breakthrough at work, it was ridiculous to imagine anything else.

It was just her and Kara, and the heavy, knowing, rich love that she didn’t second guess anymore. It was just peace.

“You’re…” Cat trails off airily, waving a hand in front of her in an odd little gesture. “Well, that is interesting to hear. You know how Kara can ramble, and I have to confide that my desire to meet you formally had quite a lot to do with the years and years of those lovesick emails, you know… I have to be the one to clear Lena’s name, she does so much good for the city, things of the sort. And it has been delightful to meet you, I hope to do it again sometime. I’ll be in touch about the profile.”

And then she’s gone. Lena is left feeling well and truly stumped, with her mouth still open and hand fidgeting at her shirt collar.

Kara texts her, because of course she does, twenty minutes later. How was the interview?!!?!!?! she says, and Lena can’t help the smile that comes through as she settles back at her desk.

It was… surprisingly amazing? how does she do that

Kara writes back almost instantly. I KNOW I KNOWW RIGHT? But i’m so glad. U deserve it

thank you <3

wanna come over tonight? Kara asks, i have coupons for 3 free pizzas and also am feeling very deprived of u. Just us i promise, please?

Pizzas? I’m sold

am i not good enough for you

see you tonight, kara.

When they’d first become friends, all of their shared meals were eaten in restaurants, across the table from one another. There was a slow migration to Kara’s apartment, with dishes staying firmly in her kitchen— the two of them would be seated on barstools side by side, tilted tentatively toward each other with a respectable distance between them.

Now, though, they bypass all barriers. The second Kara opens the door at Lena’s firm knock she’s basically cannonballing onto her couch.

“I got you spinach on your pizza,” Kara’s saying as Lena tosses her coat over a chair and rushes to join her, “Three free, can you even believe it? And the other two are meat lover’s. But you can totally have some of the other two, obviously, it’s not like I’m confining you to one type just because you always like it, or anything. Maybe you like meat lover’s more than me, even, suddenly. Or maybe you hate vegetables now.”

“I don’t see that happening,” Lena says, leaning across Kara to grab a blanket.

“C’mere,” Kara says, then, and pulls Lena’s back to her. They’re somewhere just past sitting, and Lena’s head is dropped on Kara’s shoulder. She looks up at her, sees Kara’s face upside down grinning at her.

“I wanna hear more about Cat,” she says.

“It was genuinely the most amazing interview I’ve ever had,” Lena says.

“Lena, what about me?”

“Besides you. Obviously. It’s not even a question.”

At that, Kara bends down to press a kiss to Lena’s hairline. She can feel the lips curving up into a smile, can feel Kara’s hand reach toward her hip to trace patterns over the bone.

There’s something about existing in Kara’s space like this, something about having Kara so close to her and the quiet and peace and trust that comes with it that’s so special, so unlike anything Lena’s used to.

With everyone else it had always been noise, constant conversation, constant obsession with making sure it was going well, making sure there was always something to talk about, never a moment of boredom. Even with Andrea, who knew her better than any of her exes, it was still…

It was like they’d been afraid of what would happen if they had ever fallen silent.

It’s different with Kara. Everything is.

Kara is coming home after a long day. She is space, she is support, she is curling up side by side and speaking only through infrequent murmurs and soft, soft touches that communicate more than meaningless conversation ever could. Kara is the feeling of shedding a second skin, of morphing into another version, but being loved just as much both ways.

The pizza comes eventually, and Kara has to move, inevitably. She grumbles and rolls her eyes, but finally slips off the couch and to the door. Lena gathers cups and napkins, stacks them on the coffee table, listens to Kara’s animated conversation with the delivery man.

“Well, you have to set boundaries with him, I mean it, but I’m so happy it’s working out. I’ll see you soon!” Kara says, beaming before shutting the door and leaning against it dramatic and wide eyed, pizzas in hand.

“What was that all about?” she asks, struggling not to giggle at Kara’s grimace.

“His boyfriend is so toxic, Lena, I don’t even know what to say to him.”

“Tell him to dump him.”

“Yeah, but they used to be so cute together.”

“Ugh, I don’t know,” Lena replies, taking the boxes from Kara as she tosses herself onto the couch again. “This is why I don’t deal with romance. Too much drama.”

“But that’s what makes it amazing. So passionate, you’ll get swept off your feet,” Kara says, hands enveloping Lena’s, moving them back and forth with every word.

“Can I get my pizza?” Lena asks, raising an eyebrow. Kara huffs, dropping Lena’s hands but betraying her act to dart forward and press a quick kiss to Lena’s cheekbone.

She’s handsy again tonight, Lena thinks. Kara’s been on her almost constantly since she’s walked in.

Lena hates to pick and choose, but this is absolutely, without a doubt, one of her favorite versions of Kara. It’s one that hasn’t always been around, although she used to get the sense Kara had wanted to reach out and grab her hand, or give her bear hugs even before they were close. Lena has seen so many sides of her— the unfailingly happy, the enthusiastic, and still the Kara who mourned a planet, the one who was, in so many senses, alone.

She loved them all. And, as Kara had told her quite genuinely, all of them loved her.

Kara tears through her two pizzas before Lena’s finished her second slice. She takes a third as Kara makes a deliberate attempt not to eye the remainder of Lena’s pizza. It’s sweet, really, that she’s trying so hard (and a bit ridiculous that she didn’t order four boxes), and Lena takes her first bite right as Kara starts to fidget with her napkin.

“Kara,” Lena says, feet tucked under Kara’s leg and arm behind her torso.

“Yeah?” Kara answers, and it’s surprisingly quiet and at that Lena just has to move in closer, has to press in just a little more.

“You can finish mine, if you want.”

Her head swivels towards Lena and she bites down a smile at the concerned look on Kara’s face.

“Why, do you not like it? I asked them for extra spinach, and usually they’re so on the nose so I didn’t think they’d—,”

“No, honey, it’s perfect.”

Kara blushes wildly (Honey, Lena berates herself, seriously?), says, “Then why?”

“You just look hungry. I want you to have it.”

“No, I can’t—,”

“Please?”

Kara softens a little bit, looks at Lena with a puzzled sort of smile, and leans forward to take a piece.

When the boxes are well and truly empty Kara turns on the TV, but the volume is quickly lowered so that Lena can barely hear. All around her is Kara, her breathing, her little movements to get comfortable, the sound of her carding her hands through Lena’s hair.

The thing is, Lena has no real doubts that she and Kara are something more, something different. After all, she would never act with Alex or Brainy the way she does with Kara, would never lie back on anyone’s chest and speak in whispers like this. But she isn’t sure how to categorize it, because while she may know how she feels, Kara is another story. A mystery, a series of riddles, and even now Lena can’t say she’s cracked them all.

It’s around ten thirty that it happens. Kara yawns, says she’s going to head to bed soon, Lena agrees that it’s getting late, says half heartedly that maybe she should go. That isn’t out of the ordinary.

But Kara doesn’t get up immediately. She groans when Lena pokes her side, flopping around theatrically and saying her legs just won’t let her.

“I’m cozy, Lena, and you’re horrible for suggesting I move.”

“That’s ridiculous, Kara. I’ll get you up if it’s the last thing I do.”

And they’re being stupid, being silly, that’s what she’ll always say of it. Lena crawls over Kara, almost straddling her, and Kara’s giggling, and Lena doesn’t take responsibility for what happens next. Sure, she is sort of on top of Kara, tickling her a little bit, both of them laughing, but it’s normal.

And then Kara moves to sit up, just a bit, just coming up on her forearms. The problem, though, is Lena leaning down at that very moment, aiming to whisper something in Kara’s ear.

It’s hardly a kiss, really, more of a strange bump of noses and a twisting of lips touching, just a little, just enough.

It’s definitely… something.

And it’s over before she can process further. Kara pulls back so abruptly the couch shakes and Lena’s surprised it doesn’t crack under the force. She jumps too, vaulting off of Kara to the other end of the couch in an instant.

What the fuck, Lena thinks, it runs through her head on a loop. Kara is sitting up, and she doesn’t look embarrassed. She doesn’t look scared. What the fuck, what the fuck.

“Lena?”

“Yeah?” she squeaks,, and it’s humiliating, and she’s sure her face is beet red right about now.

Kara is in front of her again. Her face is so close. It is so, so close. Lena can feel the air circling in front of her mouth. She can see all the colors in Kara’s eyes. Kara’s mouth is opening, and she is speaking, and Lena sees.

“Can I kiss you again?”

What the fuck.

“Yeah, yes, yeah.”

When Kara pushes forward again it’s not a mistake. Lena’s arms reach around her and they’re over Kara’s shoulders, and Kara has her hands on Lena’s waist, sort of, and she’s sort of leaning backward into the couch and Kara is following her and what is going on?

It starts out light, lips pressing together softly, but then Kara moves her head a little bit to the side and Lena is hit with a sudden urge.

If this is the only time she gets the chance to do this, she really doesn’t plan to half ass it.

She surges ahead, fierce into Kara. And then, before she knows it, her tongue is against Kara’s lips.

Kara lets out a tiny moan. It’s just a little sound, soft in the back of her mouth, but Lena feels it, feels the vibrations, and she can feel Kara’s hands tighten on her waist, can feel her move still closer.

With that, Lena licks into Kara’s mouth. There’s a gasp, she’s not sure who it comes from, but then they’re pressing still closer and it’s really, really fucking ridiculous that kissing Kara feels more intense than most of the sex she’s had in her life, making out on Kara’s couch with empty pizza boxes strewn nearby and the blanket fallen on the floor and Kara’s sweatshirt scratching against her collarbone is hot, and distracting, and Kara’s tongue in her mouth and her nose against Lena’s and Kara’s chest and legs tangled with her own…

It’s overshadowing almost everything. Kara lets out a groan that sounds a bit like “Lena” and it’s so hot, and she feels Kara tracing around near the hem of her shirt and it’s intimate like something from another world, another lifetime.

Lena pulls her hands through Kara’s hair where she feels it on her neck. It’s silky and it makes Kara bump her head in still nearer. She can feel warmth like it’s seeping from Kara into Lena, like it’s whiskey or bood or maybe sunlight.

Their lips drag together again, puffy and wet and so, so soft. She’s making little sounds into Kara’s mouth and Kara is kissing her so eagerly in response, and they’re entwined in almost every way they can be.

Lena is conscious of the fact that there is no turning back now or ever, that Kara has likely ruined her for anyone else, right as their kissing gets slower, heavier, before Kara pulls away just an inch, so their noses and foreheads are still touching and their lips are not. She feels Kara panting into her mouth, knows she’s doing the same, feels Kara’s hair between her fingers and feels Kara’s hand at her shirt, just over her stomach.

Kara’s touch is not wild, it’s not fierce. It’s slow, it’s deep. It feels almost reverent.

Lena takes a deep, sighing breath and Kara chooses that very moment to sit up.

It feels like the heat leaves the room. Lena can breathe again, and Kara is sitting before her looking shy again, with cheeks pink and her teeth closed around her kiss-bruised lips. Lena is dizzy.

She knows, once again and more clearly, that she is in the kind of love that is irrevocable. Final.

It’s silent again, save for Lena’s heavy breaths and the faint sounds of the street below. Kara’s window is dark, and the moon is bright, and Lena feels where Kara’s hands were, can recall the motion of her lips and the feeling of her moans and can hear the exact cadence of Kara’s voice when she’d said her name.

Final indeed.

“Um,” Kara says after a minute, and at breaking the silence she turns redder. Her voice is raspy, eyes a little tired looking, hair mussed from Lena’s fingers carding through, “hi.”

“Hi,” Lena says, and it feels so ridiculous she almost wants to laugh.

She isn’t sure what’s happened, isn’t sure if it’s a strange occurrence of the touchiness of the night or the coldness outside or maybe the time it’s been since Kara’s had sex, since Lena has.

But it’s late, and Kara is looking at her the same as she had been before, with a small smile and undoubtable love in her features.

“My bed has tons of room, and it’s warm.”

And that’s that. Lena finds herself in Kara’s bed within minutes, beneath her quilt and not quite in her arms but not quite out of them, either, within five minutes.

It isn’t awkward, not yet, at least.

Kara is asleep first and despite Lena’s instincts, her wiring, her obsessive desire to analyze into the depths of night, she’s not far behind.

-

They don’t talk about it.

Lena gets up for work in the morning and Kara washes fruit and spoons out yogurt for breakfast and they smile at each other (but Kara doesn't kiss her cheek when she leaves and Lena doesn’t tease her from just a little too close and they leave the kitchen island between them while they speak). And they don’t talk about it.

It’s not like they aren’t talking altogether, or like it’s weird, or anything. No. Lena is just aware that she’s had a life altering makeout session with the woman she’s in love with, and is aware that it didn’t really mean anything concrete, and she still goes to game night and still spends time with Kara almost daily and still spends time over the weekend with Nia and Kara and Kelly.

But she doesn’t sleep over. That’s the difference, really. Kara flies her home instead, and Lena makes excuses for when it’s eleven at night and she’s visibly yawning and Kara’s bed is just right there.

Because Kara hasn’t asked, and Lena really doesn’t want to intrude. She’s pretty sure Kara wasn’t uncomfortable because of what happened, and it’s not really like they're keeping their distance (they still cuddle, and Alex still teases them about the supposed ‘looks’). But still.

She’s not in Kara’s bed, though, so there’s nothing stopping her from replaying it again. And again.

And again.

That particular night she is hot, and itchy, and irritated. It’s been impossible to relax, and it’s been hours since Lena’s tried to fall asleep and nothing is working.

When she shoves her hands down her pants it’s really out of necessity rather than desire. She grits her teeth against her pillow, tries hard to calm down just enough to rest, because she can see the red light of her clock out of the corner of her eye and she has to be up early tomorrow for a meeting.

Of course, thinking about it, about Kara moaning softly and about her legs twining with Lena’s own and about her hand at the hem of her shirt, and tracing over the fabric over her stomach, and across her hip… that’s all it takes.

Lena’s relaxed, maybe, but there’s a new kind of tension which stems inevitably from the fact that Kara and her kissing and her noises seem to be the only things that can do anything for her these days.

It’s incredibly fucking irritating.

She pictures Kara, who she is sure is asleep across the city, under her blankets and with her arms and legs strewn across the bed with no one there to keep them in place.

She grinds her jaw, clenches her fist, and rolls over into a dream-ridden sleep.

Lena doesn’t exactly know how to respond to the single text she receives in the middle of the night. She discovers it near four AM, having shuffled out of bed toward her too bright bathroom, freezing tiles almost burning her bare feet. Half distracted on the toilet, preoccupied with leading herself into the weekly Candy Crush tournament quarterfinals, it chirps in unrelenting.

There’s a new show at the NC museum. or they’re doing casablanca night at that fancy little theater where u spilled popcorn. i miss you a lot.

It sits at the top of her screen, too prominent for the hour, and Lena keeps one watchful eye on it even as she swipes to clear a row of candy, even as she does nothing to capture the text, to hold it closer. Even as she neglects, once again, to corner Kara and thrust her words back at her and say what does it mean, what do you want with us.

The candy on her screen glows and the level completes as the text slides away, and Lena isn’t really thinking when she strains her hand, reaches up to swipe down and pulls up the wall of notifications. There is a stack of New York Times listings, ones she’s skimmed the headlines of while still having time to read CatCo’s newest exclusive on the hottest new cat cafe in National City. It sits there, wedged between the black and white bubbles, under the solid red heart that adorns Kara’s contact.

The toilet paper is nearly out, and the room is getting hotter by the moment under Lena’s crewneck. She washes her hands, stuffing her phone into the waistband of her shorts, splashes her face and stares into the mirror.

The woman looking back at her is tired. She is begging for Kara, hoping for the kind of unbridled affection she’s so often granted in her presence.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says, watches her lips move and noting softly to herself that maybe she needs to buy new vanilla chapstick before flicking off the lights, making her way back to her bedroom without her flashlight to lead her in the dark for no real reason.

She does end up taking Kara to the museum, in the sense that she picks her up in the Rolls Royce despite it being wholly unnecessary, pays for her ticket despite it being only seven dollars.

They wander through the galleries and it is not awkward, stunningly. Kara is herself. Lena has always vastly preferred realism to the abstract pieces, having to do possibly with the walls of relations that would stare down at her from the Luthor’s walls, the odd kind of comfort that came from their high collars and impeccable hair after some time. Still, though, she stands beside Kara while she’s enraptured by a single painting, an array of shapes positioned in a wide, sweeping stripe across the canvas.

Kara is herself save for some of the silliness, the lovely bluntness of her. She’s a tad quieter than usual, a bit more contemplative. She holds Lena’s hand through the Dutch masters and surrealism, but when they spill onto the street hours later she shifts imperceptibly.

Well. Imperceptible to anyone but Lena, that is.

“I’m starving,” Kara says, backing it up with a growl from her stomach. “Wanna get lunch?”

They sit outside at a rickety metal table. It’s cold out, but Kara has a red hat over her ears and keeps trying to give Lena her scarf. Kara eats her own hamburger and half of Lena’s, downs four iced teas and chats with the waiter as if they’d known each other for years.

This is always how it starts, by just existing in one another’s vicinity for enough time that they inevitably realize they’d really rather not stop, so it doesn't take Lena by too much surprise when it’s four o’clock and Kara suggests she come over, because they can get dinner. Kara thinks in intervals of time— it’s eight pm, so Lena shouldn’t go home because what if she isn’t back until nine and then has to shower and will get into bed by eleven and since Lena can never fall asleep until past one it’ll cut down on the time she has to get tired, so it makes more sense if she doesn’t leave. This is Kara’s trademark.

All in all, Lena thinks while tucked into Kara’s kitchen table hours later eating Thai takeout while Kara talks animatedly, it’s the sort of day that will make her wide awake longer into the night and, in turn, that is the kind of night that leads her to more blatant thoughts about Kara’s lips, and the strangeness of their situation, and the fact that she really hasn’t been so close to Kara since then.

“Hey Lena?” Kara says as they rinse out takeout containers for Kara’s recycling, and there it is, there it is.

“Yeah?”

Kara looks hesitant, pauses a second, and Lena bumps their elbows together from her position at the kitchen sink, tries to put an open air into her expression.

It seems to work, or at least to some extent, because Kara relaxes the slightest bit. “Um, it’s pretty late, and it gets dark so early now.”

She doesn’t finish the thought, though, and Lena bites back the urge to spill just how much she adores Kara, right there and then. Instead she raises an eyebrow, smiles a little bit wider.

“Do you maybe wanna stay over,” Kara says all in a rush, not meeting Lena’s eyes. “I mean, if not it’s actually totally fine, and I understand, and I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable, but I had such a good time today and I don’t like the thought of you going home by yourself, because obviously your car is still here. But I could always fly it over for you in the morning or something if you don’t want to—,”

“Kara,” she says, and damn her weak, pitiful self, “I’d love to stay.”

The relief on Kara’s face is maybe worth another sleepless night.

They don’t end up doing much of anything, electing instead to read in each other’s proximity for a few hours, Kara making two mugs of raspberry tea and resting it delicately on fancy geode coasters Lena had brought her back from a business trip years ago. She can feel the warmth of Kara’s leg even through a blanket, even inches away, even now.

The going to bed part itself is what’s uncomfortable, for the first time all day. Kara takes too long in the bathroom and avoids Lena’s glance as they pass each other in the doorway. She’s pressed to the far half of the bed when Lena sits down on the duvet, looking almost scared of something, almost caught in some act.

So Lena sits too far back as well, and they don’t meet each other’s eyes in the light.

When Kara finally, quietly, asks Lena to turn off her lamp, Lena rests her hand right before it reaches the switch and uses her other arm to reach out for Kara’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

It’s all she has to say before Kara flops down from her side, lies with her back flat against the mattress and chest heaving.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I’ve made it so awkward, and I never, ever wanted this to happen but now I don’t know how to make it normal again and Lena, I don't want you to not want to stay the night and if this is because of… what happened, I’m really sorry and we never have to talk about it again, I didn’t want it to get weird. I didn’t want to… to mess it up.”

“Hey, no,” Lena says, the lamp all but forgotten. “No, you didn’t ruin anything. It isn’t awkward, see? I’m still here. And we can pretend that nothing happened if you want, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Not if you don’t want it to.”

That’s where Lena sticks her landing, finishes digging her own grave, promises to ignore the thing that’s kept her up at night for days, a hand shoved uncomfortably under her stomach and barreling her towards a wholly unremarkable conclusion, one that’s just not enough, not quite good enough.

But Kara smiles. Maybe not bright as ever, maybe not a normal Kara smile, but a smile nonetheless and Lena knows, then, that it is worth it. It always is, for her.

“Okay,” she says, “I’m still sorry, though. For being weird about it.”

“That’s okay,” Lena answers, rubbing Kara’s shoulder blade through her silky soft shirt. “Now, I’m gonna need you not to hide out across the bed all night. I’m cold and I’ve come to expect a certain degree of service at Kara Danvers’ apartment these days.”

It’s worth it. That’s what she’s told herself for years, and it’s what she’ll continue to say as Kara moves out of this strange limbo they’re in towards a real future, towards someone she can love like that. Lena knows that their behavior lately is far from that of a normal friendship. She’s sure Kara knows it too.

But at the core of it, she knows it can’t last.

So she’s perfectly content to fall asleep with Kara holding her close like this. After all, the distance seems to be well and truly gone once more.

-

For a while, things stay the same. Alex and Kelly get married. Esme stays with Eliza for the honeymoon, but spends the weekend with Kara and Lena in Lena’s guest room, which she’s recently repurposed with a purple tassel throw pillows and a delicately wallpapered dollhouse with a wraparound porch and a well stocked pantry. She and Kara go to a French movie and spend half of it whispering together in the back row, alone in the theater and unabashed in their laughter. They sit side by side in bed, Lena with a book on her folded knees and Kara with her phone in hand, pausing Lena’s reading every few minutes to show her a video of a cat (and trying to convince Lena that they should adopt one, together).

They cook dinner together, do the dishes side by side, host game nights from Kara’s loveseat. Lena reaches an odd point where she almost forgets to pine, forgets that she and Kara are not long down a certain road. They curl together nearly every night, now.

In the way that these things do, it comes to its peak the same way it started.

They are back at the bar on a Friday night, for Nia’s birthday party. Nia had texted and asked if she and Kara would bring balloons. She’d waited in Kara’s apartment for her to get home from work and toss off her heels by the front door. She’d slipped into a dark green dress and Kara’s eyes had widened slightly. They’d left together.

And it’s funny how time seems to fly when it’s dark and there’s music in the very bones of the room and she and Kara are twenty feet apart. Lena’s on a barstool with Brainy beside her, and she’s sure the pair of them look ridiculous with the way they’re gazing at Nia and Kara spinning as fast as they can go on the dance floor.

“How’s it going with Nia?” She finally asks him after she drains another glass, tapping around the rim and rotating it over the stains on the wood.

“Quite well,” Brainy says, and Lena’s struck by the tenderness in her friend’s expression. “She’s… well. I love her in a way I never have before.”

Lena just nods, spares another glance towards Kara and Nia, now engaged in a dramatic sort of waltz to a pop song. Kara’s head falls forward in her laughter, hitting Nia’s shoulder, and she says something that only makes the two of them laugh harder.

“That’s wonderful,” she murmurs, attention taken, “I’m really happy for you two.”

“Yes, it is,” he responds, turning back towards her. “And what about you?”

“What about me,” she scoffs, raises an eyebrow.

“You and Kara.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it. But Brainy’s expression isn’t unkind. It’s knowing.

“Kara and I aren’t dating,” she says, and even as she says it she casts another glance at the other woman. This time, Kara is looking right back at her. She tears her gaze away hastily.

“I am aware of that,” Brainy says matter-of-factly, “I merely asked, what about you?”

She only gives a smile, a sad, longing little thing. Maybe it’s just pitiful enough, because Brainy just nods, waves down the bartender for another round. It’s an astonishing thing that she’s managed to find someone who understands her so plainly, who knows just what she means with a little twist of her lips. Well. Someone other than Kara, she supposes.

Within an hour Kara is in a booth again, slumped over slightly with her eyes closed. Lena’s sure she couldn’t stop herself even if she tried.

“I’ll be back,” she murmurs to Brainy and Alex, deep in conversation beside her, and receives a hum from Brainy and a good natured eye roll from Alex in response.

Kara seems to sense that she’s approaching. Once Lena’s two feet from her she perks up, eyes open all of a sudden and a bright grin shot right at her.

“Lena! So great to see you.”

Kara’s drunk, plain and simple. Her smile is a bit too big, her eyes a little distracted, and her hair is wild. She looks happy, though, so thrilled to be right where she is. It’s sort of ridiculously endearing.

“Scoot over,” Lena says, instead of something stupidly sappy, and Kara does so eagerly, eyes widening when she moves too fast. She puts her arm on Lena’s to steady herself.

“What were you an’ Brainy talking about all that time?”

“Nia, mostly,” she answers, and is very aware of the fact that there is no distance between them, that their legs are pressed together and that Kara’s arm is draped around her shoulders.

“Oh,” Kara replies, eyes falling shut as she nods. “That makes sense. They’re cute.”

“They are,” Lena says, and Kara’s smile at her agreement is far more excited than it should be.

They sit in silence for a while, then. Lena isn’t quite sure how much time goes by as they watch the lights change color on the ground and she feels Kara’s breath so close to her cheek.

Finally, Kara speaks again, leaning in even closer to Lena, turned the other direction. “You should wear green more often.”

“Oh yeah?” Lena says, and turns her head as she smirks. This proves, she finds, to be a bad decision. Kara’s face is so close to her own that she can see the strobe reflected in Kara’s eyes, can see the freckles across her nose.

“Yeah,” Kara says, huffing definitively. “You look really pretty in green.”

And, well. Lena doesn’t know how to respond to that, and Kara is giving her this look, this ridiculously adoring look built entirely, it seems, out of happiness and she isn’t really sure the last time someone looked at her like that, if someone’s ever really looked at her like that, and their faces are so close and it’s…

It’s a lot.

“Thank you,” is what she says in the end, voice a little raspy and she cringes at it. “Um, I have to pee.”

“No,” Kara says, eyes widening, “no, Lena, you can’t get up!”

“I’ll be back so fast,” she promises, starting to unlace herself from Kara’s embrace, from their feet to their arms to their faces.

“Then I’m gonna come with you,” Kara says, and before Lena can stop her she’s rising to her feet, swaying a little on the spot. “Whoa,” she adds on, “‘m really dizzy.”

“Stay here,” Lena says, trying to push lightly so she sits back down but Kara is stubborn, and strong, so strong, and so of course it does nothing.

This is how they walk to the bathroom, with Kara smiling and calling over to Alex while Lena’s hands steady her, bring her around the corner and over the threshold. Kara leans back against the brick, humming contentedly.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Kara says the moment Lena locks the stall door behind her, and she freezes for a moment.

“Of course I’m here, darling. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Not like, here. I just mean, like, with me. At home, and stuff. You know.”

Pitifully, hopelessly, she does know. She does.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here too,” Lena answers, the toilet paper dispenser rattling on the wall. She can almost hear Kara’s smile, can actually hear her very quiet drunken singing which, of course, is still gorgeous. Of course.

“Yeah. Lena?”

“Yeah, Kara?”

“Lena,” Kara says again, spending extra time on each letter delicately like she’s been aching to say it. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure you can.”

“I can’t stop thinking about when we kissed.”

Lena had been just about to flush the toilet but she freezes, and it feels like the world does too. All she hears is the faint music from outside, an occasional yell from the bar, and the anxious tapping of Kara’s foot just on the other side of blue metal.

“I know you said we can forget it happened but I can’t, ‘cause it was so nice and you’re really pretty. And I like being around you so much.”

There is a beat, a deathly silence, before Kara says, “Lena?”

She hits the handle and the water roars, overtaking her thoughts for just enough time. Shutting her eyes, she unlocks the door.

Kara is standing right across the room, still leaned on the wall, eyes happy and glinting.

“You’re drunk, Kara,” she says as she makes her way to the sinks, turning on the tap. “We should get home soon.”

“Yeah, I am. Suuuper drunk,” Kara says, grin blooming on her cheeks, “but. It’s true, though.”

Lena doesn’t answer, instead elects to slam her fist on the button of the paper towel dispenser again and again until it squeaks into action.

Kara isn’t deterred. “I mean, you’re a really good kisser. Like, really good,” she says, and her smile shifts to something a little softer. “An’ we never actually talked about it. Which is fine, ‘cause I don’t wanna make it weird, so.”

With the force at which she’s clenching her fists, Lena’s surprised she hasn’t shattered any bones yet. She grits her teeth, shuts her eyes, and opens them to the same smiling image of Kara before her.

“Kara,” she says, “I’m tired. I’ll take you home and go to bed, okay?”

“But staying with me,” Kara says, like it’s not even a question, and is it, really?

Maybe the healthy thing to do would be to decline, for the first time in days. Maybe it would be better to drop Kara off, and go home to sleep in her own bed, and have some distance from each other. Maybe Kara’s right and they do need to talk about what happened. Maybe she should try to go a full day without missing Kara desperately whenever they’re apart.

But Kara just looks so sure, and willing, and is barely smiling but has a very faint twist to her lips that Lena’s only ever seen directed her way and what the fuck, they’re already this far, aren’t they?

“Yes,” she says, “but staying with you.”

And Kara immediately brightens. “Okay!” she chirps, and pushes off from the wall to trail after Lena out of the bathroom.

The Uber is too cold and smells like coconuts from the tree swinging from the mirror. Kara is humming to herself quietly, and Lena is distracted by the black of the streets and the faint gray of the light slanting onto the pavement.

They spill out of the car in front of Kara’s building, and it’s embarrassing how quickly Lena feels herself relax, calmed in some subconscious way by the cozy brown of Kara’s bricked building and the never ending, unquestioned warmth that always seems to lie within.

Kara heads up the stairs a little less shakily as she had been moving at the bar, the night air doing something for her senses, and fumbles with the key for a moment before Lena closes her hand over Kara’s, turns it for both of them. Their eyes meet.

They don’t bother with the bathroom, electing instead to drag into the bedroom immediately. Kara sheds her button down so quickly Lena’s surprised the buttons don’t pop, tossing it to the floor and stuffing her bra onto her bookshelf. She turns away as Kara bends down to pull out pajamas, blushing as she eyes the room divider while changing into sweatpants.

Even after all this time, it still feels novel to be in Kara’s space so unabashedly, even after her own apartment has started to feel more and more comfortable, more and more like her own. Kara’s room is almost like another part of a world, the daytime to her own apartment’s night. And Kara’s bed, blanket laid over blanket and rumpled over a baby blue fitted sheet, is a sanctuary, a testament to late nights and bleary mornings and waking up tangled together time and time again.

“Goodnight, Lena,” Kara says from behind her, and she turns to see her already sandwiched in between the covers, hair down and a happy smile tilted her way. “Love you.”

And in the end, isn’t this what she’s always wanted?

-

Lena wakes up feeling significantly better than she should, considering the night before. She rolls over to an empty bed.

Extracting herself regretfully from the warmth of the blankets, she roots through Kara’s cabinets until she finds a pair of fuzzy socks, pulling them on with one hand on the bedside table to keep her balance.

She can hear clattering in the kitchen, and makes her way into the main room. The light is bright through the windows, and Lena realizes Kara must have closed the curtains so as not to wake her.

Goddamn it.

She is awarded the privilege of catching a glimpse of Kara before she realizes Lena’s standing behind her. She’s wearing a baggy shirt and her favorite sweatpants, the ones she’s repeatedly described to Lena as a genuine miracle of science. She’s cracking eggs onto the pan, foot twitching on the hardwood floor.

“Lena!” she says as Lena finally breaks and walks up next to her, “hi! I’m just making breakfast, it’ll be like two minutes. Can you put some toast in?”

Lena untwists the bag and grabs two slices for the toaster. “With the amount you drank last night it’s lucky you don’t get hangovers,” she grumbles.

“Do you feel okay?” And there’s Kara, brow creased and genuine concern turned Lena’s way. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t be too bad, I wasn’t sure where I left my aspirin from that time you had a headache but I can get some from the drugstore in half a second, if you need it. I can go right now?”

“It’s okay,” she says, biting down on a grin. “I don’t actually feel that bad at all. Woke up in such a dark room, that probably helped.”

Kara smiles a little at that, turns her head back to scoop eggs onto two plates beside her, reaching for the toast as it pops out of the toaster. She hands Lena a plate, nods her head slightly towards the barstools.

They eat quietly for a while before Kara breaks the silence. She’s looking at her plate intently, ears red, and Lena knows what’s coming before she even says it.

“So, um. About that thing I said last night, in the bathroom…”

“We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,” Lena rushes out.

Really, it’s not like she’s trying to avoid talking about something more. It’s all she’s wanted, for too long to even remember, and she’s always had her suspicions that Kara might find her attractive. With the kiss not too far in their rearview, it’s not really speculation anymore.

But a mutual attraction, hypothetically, is very far removed from a relationship. It’s so far from love, so far from what burns in Lena, the overwhelming desire when she stops and thinks about their circumstances, about the fact that she’s all but living with Kara at this point, the rush that comes from the seconds she allows herself to think, but what if it was real?

So Kara had talked about their kiss last night. More than a kiss, really, if she’s being honest. One of the most intense makeout sessions she can remember having. Something more, she knows it.

She’d brought it up, but it doesn’t mean their hearts are in the same place. Lena is aware she is not an easy situation to get oneself involved in.

But then, isn’t she already involved? the voice in her head, her biggest voice of hope despite all reason, pipes up. Hasn’t she been involved since the beginning? And she never cared about all that.

She doesn’t want to force Kara into anything. She doesn't want a conversation to start up about whatever that was, their kissing and closeness and the way Lena knows she looks at Kara sometimes (the way Kara looks back), and have it end in Kara uncomfortable, in her being unaware of the depths of Lena’s feelings and pulling away, little by little.

Kara is too nice to leave. She cares about Lena too much, loves her too much. But no one’s ever asked Kara to keep obliging her in this particular way. It isn’t fair.

So she gives Kara an out.

“Do you not want to talk about it?” Kara looks wary, slightly puzzled. “Because I, um. I feel like maybe we should, just because I feel like it isn’t fair to you that it happened when I— well.”

“What?”

Kara pinches the bridge of her nose, drops her face down into her right hand, elbow barricading her from Lena. She looks settled, she looks beautiful.

“You know how much you mean to me, right?”

It’s not what she expected Kara to say. She just nods slowly, reaches out tentatively. Kara’s right hand falls away from her face, grabs onto Lena’s gratefully, and her head moves back up to grace Lena with a smile. She looks nervous.

“I just don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you either, Kara,” she says, and her heart feels like it’s cracking a little when Kara lets out a sad little puff of a laugh.

“I know,” she answers. “It’s just, that happened and I feel so weird about subjecting you to all this, all these feelings, because I love having you around and it’s so much better for me when you’re here, Lena, you don’t even know.”

Here, in Kara Danvers’ kitchen with empty plates before them and shoes kicked astray by the front door and traces of the both of them on every surface, Lena senses her life as she knows it is about to face that chemical shift that’s been in her blood for months.

“What’s going on, Kara?”

When Kara turns to look at her fully, eyes locking in completely, her breath fades from her lungs in a single gasp.

“When I kissed you, I was so sure it could never happen again and I was worried you’d be uncomfortable but then we were okay, and all I ever wanted was just to be able to be close to you, and I love cooking with you and hanging out with you all the time and I just… I feel like, like what if it isn’t fair for me to do all this? Because I don’t know how you feel, and I—,”

Lena inclines her head slightly. Go on.

“Well. I love you, Lena, and obviously I tell you that but I mean I’m in love with you, and I want all the things with you and I really don’t know how to show you but then you were just starting to know that I loved you at all, and I didn’t want to force anything. And it’s okay, really, if you don’t feel that way. I mean it. Because I can give you all the space you need, and all that matters to me is that I know you’re happy. But I… I love you. And that’s all I wanted to say.”

It’s funny, how the world always seems to let her know when to pause, Lena thinks. It whispers in her ear, this is important. Remember this, remember it forever and ever.

She will, she thinks. She knows, because the light is pouring in so that Kara glows in that way sunlight lets her do, and she looks so caught between tentative and nervous and hopeful, and the apartment is so still and quiet as if it’s lying in anticipation, the ticking of the wall clock keeping the wide space together, holding its breath, inching closer to listen in. She feels the bar stool under her, remembers sitting on it when she’d asked Kara to come with her to meet Jack, and sees the couch and remembers the first game night she ever attended, terrified of Alex Danvers above anything else and the way Kara had smiled so encouragingly. She sees the curtains trailing their way into Kara’s bedroom, thinks of the mattress and factory windows that have graced so many of their mornings, all of the moments waking up to Kara asleep or smiling messily over at her. She thinks of her favorite book stacked on Kara’s shelf, and her snacks in Kara’s pantry, and her toothbrush in the bathroom and t-shirt in the laundry hamper and the proof she’s been there, the proof they’ve existed together.

“Kara?”

“Yeah?”

She sounds scared, brow crinkled and lips twisting anxiously but still so caring, still so willing to listen and God—

“I’m in love with you too.”

A part of her wants to restrain the wild smile that breaks free at Kara’s widening eyes, her beam breaking through, at the way she moves even closer to Lena on the barstool. She doesn’t, though.

“Oh, thank Rao,” is what Kara finally says, all in a rush, and Lena giggles at that, which only seems to brighten her more.

“And I want to do everything with you too. How could I not, Kara? It’s us.”

Kara nods, nods like she knows and Lena’s fully aware that she does, that she’s the only person who ever will understand what they are, fully and completely.

“Can I kiss you? For real this time?”

It’s wonderful, Lena thinks as their lips meet, because it’s so natural. It’s familiar, it’s just her and Kara, in Kara’s apartment and all the time they spend together. And later they will talk, talk about what it all means and Kara will marvel at why they didn’t come to this conclusion so much sooner, and they will lie collapsed on her bed once again still talking, still wondering and marveling in one another.

But not now. For now, Kara’s lips move on hers and smile into their kiss, and she smells like detergent and powdered sugar and tastes like herself, like the warm glow that’s seeped its way into so many parts of Lena’s life, that she hopes will always find its way into more. For now, she knows that this kind of love is not reasonable or rational, but it is right, and more wonderful than she could’ve hoped for.