Archive of Our Own ^beta

Winn's been dreaming about this for weeks. Of course he has: who wouldn't? Mon-El looks like he's been sculpted by the Gods themselves. Anyone who doesn't immediately fall in love with him must clearly be out of their damn mind, and he's sure Mon-El knows it.

So, basically, this is Winn's many months long fantasy dream coming true, and Mon-El is moving closer at a rate that seems a lot slower that he actually is, and then he's kissing him.

He's kissing him.

Months, Winn has spent fawning over and dreaming about Mon-El. Months, Winn has spent feeling guiltier with every passing day and more bitter about it every time he sees him with Kara; because of course she's exactly his type. Of course it's both of them that end up falling for eachother. He feels guilty about his feelings for Mon-El, guilty about the slowly building bitter resentment counteracting resurfacing-crush towards Kara and her oh so pretty perfect boyfriend, because he knows it's not her fault. She deserves it a thousand times over.

But why isn't Winn ever given a chance?

Now that he has, been given the chance he'd longed for, he doesn't really know what to do. His eyes must decide whether to close or not without his body's command, for by the time Mon-El's lips touch his own, they've fallen shut, seemingly of their own accord. A natural response, perhaps. This is literally everything he's dreamt of- but Mon-El can't possibly feel the same about him. He's with Kara, he's seen the way he looks at her. The way she looks at him. Winn can't help the nagging feeling in his chest that tells him that his feelings are in no way reciprocated, that all he sees him as is some exciting, experimental game. Mon-El tastes of recent toothpaste and coffee and faintly of honeycomb, a not entirely unpleasant combination. That is, until Winn realises that the honeycomb isn't Mon-El. The honeycomb is Kara.

Winn is kissing Kara's boyfriend. He has been for quite a few seconds now, and he isn't doing anything about it. In fact, he's kissing him back. Albeit delicately, not very passionately, but enough. Mon-El brings his hand up to Winn's shoulder to draw him closer, and it's the heat from his touch searing his skin that makes Winn's anxiety skyrocket suddenly and makes him feel quite ill.

He forces himself away.

"What the hell was that?" He whispers, bringing his hand up to his mouth, the pads of his fingers barely ghosting over his lips. His heartbeat is so loud and so fast he's sure Mon-El can hear it. Kara probably can, too.

Mon-El doesn't answer. Winn is shaking, and Mon-El can't seem to meet his eyes. They dart to the ground, to his feet, back to Winn's lips, but never, ever up to his eyes. He feels on the verge of either collapsing to the floor or yelling at him to say something, but he doesn't do either.

"I need to go," Winn says stiffly, desperately trying to keep the tears out of his voice.

Mon-El doesn't try to stop him as he leaves.

He has two options: go home and take the rest of the day off, or distract himself with work and avoid Mon-El like the plague for the rest of the day. He opts for the latter, because diving head first into his work like an ostrich burying it's head in the sand to escape his problems has always seemed to be the best healthiest coping mechanism for him. So that's what he does- he finishes the rest of the weeks assignments, and even asks J'onn if there's anything else he can do, while hoping to high Heaven he doesn't read his mind while doing so.

When Winn gets home that night, it's been almost four hours since Mon-El had kissed him during their training session, and it's not fully left his mind even once. His stomach is still churning cruelly and the guilt is nearly overwhelming. He rushes to the bathroom and retches, but he doesn't throw anything up, though it feels like he needs to. He opts not to eat anything for dinner, either.

Winn goes to bed at a quarter past midnight, and doesn't sleep for a long while. He lays in bed, staring up at the glow stars on his ceiling, wondering how something he'd dreamed of so longingly for months on end could have felt so wonderful and so horrible at the same time. He doesn't sleep for a long time, terrified that if he closes his eyes then he's going to dream of Mon-El again. Mon-El's hands, Mon-El's eyes, Mon-El's voice-

Mon-El's lips.

It's just gone 4 AM when sleep finally claims him, if involuntarily. Winn sleeps fitfully, and dreams of toothpaste and honeycomb.

°°°

The next day when Kara approaches him, Winn swears his heart stops beating. He braces himself for a steely, cold, 'we need to talk,' but instead all she says is a cheery "Hey, Winn! How are you?"

He tries to smile. "Fine. You? Uh, how's Mon-El?"

That's a stupid question. He should be trying to avoid talking about Mon-El with Kara at all costs, not purposefully bringing him up. Luckily, she doesn't seem to detect anything wrong.

"I'm okay. Mon-El was a little weird last night, but he just said he was tired. You must be testing his powers to the limit, huh?" Kara laughs.

Winn's stomach lurches. He gives a shaky nod and walks off as fast as he can without seeming weird or suspicious.

For the rest of the day he manages not to see Mon-El at all, to the point where he's not even sure if he'd come in today. Either way, Winn isn't complaining, that only meant that he didn't have to lie to J'onn about taking a 'break day' if he asked why he wasn't testing him. Once more he absorbs himself completely in his work, and it works a little bit more than yesterday now that the taste of Mon-El has been replaced with his own toothpaste and his own cherry lip balm, as opposed to Kara's honeycomb.

And it goes on like this for a full four days- nearly a whole week Winn can't be around Kara without feeling like he wants to throw up, and he can't look at Mon-El either despite how much he wants to. What he hates the most is that, even though the guilt of everything is so overwhelming, a tiny, tiny part of him wants to kiss him again. Which is an awful, awful thing to think, and he hates himself for it.

Kara deserves more than anything or anyone to be happy. Winn would choose her over anything every time. He can't go around kissing her boyfriend, it would shatter her. He resolves not to tell her, ever, because he cannot ever tell her about what happened, and just wait for this whole thing to blow over. Having been feeling like he's having a small anxiety attack for four days straight, though, it seems unlikely that will happen anytime soon.

Even being around Alex for too long seems to trigger his fight or flight response. He really shouldn't call it that, though, because Winn Schott has never once fought as a response to that response in his life. He feels terrible every time he feels the need to scurry off into a dark corridor and just breathe for a minute, because she's been looking at the back of his head for too long.

And so it drags on like this for four, excruciating days; Kara, apparently, has had enough of his behaviour by this point and eventually, finally, gets him with the cold, terrifying, "Can we talk?"

And of course Winn can do nothing but comply, so he follows her timidly into an empty training room, his heart in his mouth.

"Why are you avoiding me?" Kara says, hurt. She actually doesn't seem angry- instead of having her arms crossed or hands on her hips, she has them gently clasped infront of her midriff, just like Winn does.

"Uh... I'm- I'm not avoid-"

"No, you are! We haven't had a conversation longer than three sentences all week! What's going on?" She interrupts his nervous stammers, stepping closer.

Winn's heart, if possible, pounds even harder in his throat. He knows he has to say something, but his face is growing very hot all of a sudden, the tips of his ears burning, and there's sweat gathering on his palms and the back of his neck, and-

"Winn? Talk to me, please." Kara says quietly.

"Me and Mon-El kissed!" He blurts, not thinking. Perhaps thinking too much. The words hang in the air, growing stale with every second that nothing is said. That flight response kicks in again with a roaring fervour, but his feet feel cemented to the ground. He's trapped.

"What?" Kara says slowly.

At this point, the words spew out of his mouth on their own, and holding them back feels impossible. "We- I was testing him, like normal, and then we stopped for a minute for a break, and then he was kissing me and- and I know I shouldn't have kissed him back but it wasn't very hard and it never went further than that and, oh, my God, this is all my fault. Kara, I'm so sorry, he- I asked him what the hell he was doing but he didn't say anything and I just left, and- I promise I'll stop feeling the feelings, and it's just not fair how both the people I really, properly like end up with eachother and, God, that's so selfish, I'm so sorry-"

"Woah, Winn, breathe," she tells him calmly (or as calmly as she can having just been told that her boyfriend had cheated on her with her best friend- but having said that, she looks a lot calmer than Winn would be), and she lays her hands on his shoulders. But Winn can't breathe, his chest feels too tight, and his fingers and toes are tingling with the urge to run away, to bury his head in the sand, but he can't do that with Kara touching him.

"Don't you hate me?" He mumbles, looking at the floor and shifting uneasily.

Kara sighs, and pulls him into a hug. Not bone-crushing or so tight he can't breathe, but that slow, deep pressure that she knows calms him. It's almost unnerving. "No. No, I don't hate you. And I'm not mad at you. I'm- a little mad at Mon-El, though. I'll talk to him tonight, that wasn't fair of him."

Wasn't fair on whom? On Winn? That seems baffling, if he's being honest. Why is Kara worried about Mon-El being fair to Winn? He's not very used to being treated fairly, so why should that start now? Surely she should be more concerned about the fact that Winn is an awful friend and she should never trust him or Mon-El ever again. Surely this shouldn't be fair on Kara, of everybody involved. So why is she hugging him? Why isn't she yelling at him? It's the least he deserves.

"What do you mean?"

"I was starting to suspect something, if I'm honest. The way he's been looking at you... The way you look at him. You aren't exactly known for being the subtlest person alive."

His heart, previously beating ten to the dozen, stops. "Huh?" He says dumbly, stepping away from the hug, his skin crawling. Kara redirects her gaze to the floor, suddenly sheepish.

"A couple of weeks ago, he mentioned you," Kara tells her feet. "I didn't understand it at the time, he was... weirdly flustered. But now, thinking back on it... I think he was- very awkwardly- trying to ask if we could open up our relationship. For- for you. With you."

Winn freezes. Of all the things that he had expected, braced himself for, to come out of Kara's mouth after he'd told her that her boyfriend had essentially cheated on her, that was not one of the options. His blood is pounding so hard in his ears that he almost misses her quiet, "And I said okay."

This has simply got to be some elaborate prank, with Winn acting as the butt of the joke as per usual. He doesn't know how the hell he's supposed to respond to that; taking it seriously will get him laughed at. Taking it like a joke will make him look rude. There really isn't any other option but to run, this time.

So that's what he does. His breath hitches and his ears and cheeks burn and he runs.

Thankfully, mercifully, this week's day-shifts have finished in the five minutes (five hours?) that he'd been trapped in there with Kara, so he can pass off his hurried escape as desperation to get home and blend in with the evening rush. He grips the strap of his bag with a white knuckled force as he clocks out and makes his way as fast as he can out of the building. He doesn't know how to describe what he's feeling; relief, euphoria, frenzied panic, and depression are all hearty contenders.

°°°

Torture. It's torture.

That's the perfect word for what he's feeling.

Winn lies on his couch and comes to this conclusion half an hour into an old Orphan Black episode that he can't pay attention to, untouched takeout on the coffee table next to him. He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, and it's torture. It's excruciating- he can't tell if he'd misread Kara's response of "And I said okay," as merely doing what she'd thought would make Mon-El happy, or if she was really interested in the both of them. It just doesn't seem probable. And Mon-El himself, turning out to be Not Straight and also somehow Interested In Winn, as well as the girl he's pined for for years also maybe being Interested In Winn... those odds on top of eachother are astronomically not in his favour.

Maybe he should move. Quit the DEO and move across the country and never tell anyone. Strike that, move to a different country. Different continent. Antarctica. He should move to Antarctica. It would at least save him the embarrassment of having to see Kara or Mon-El ever again. Yeah, and if Kara tracks him down with her super senses, then he can just fake amnesia. Simple. Easy peasy, what the fuck is he doing?

Winn groans and rolls over, burying his face in the couch cushion. After some more unhelpful overthinking, the end credits music of the episode worms it's way into his ears and he realises simultaneously that he has no idea which episode that even was, and that he still hasn't even opened his takeout. He forces himself up and forces all thoughts of Mon-El out of his mind, and shoves the takeout in the back of the fridge to have tomorrow. His stomach grumbles as he does so, and he can't really remember when he'd last had something to eat. It doesn't matter now, he thinks dully, his insides feeling somewhere between a boat on a choppy sea and a broken carousel. He does force down half a glass of water, though, and makes his way into the bathroom to brush his teeth and shower feeling slightly proud of himself.

It's my toothpaste, Winn reassures himself, the same mantra he's been repeating all week, as he steps in the shower with his toothbrush in his mouth. Mine. Not Mon-El's. Stop thinking about it.

The warm water at first is pleasing, like a hug but without the physical touch. It makes him feel like he's washing away the anxiety that's been making him feel dirty and unkempt for the past week. After a while, though, it starts to feel like it's suffocating him. Winn switches the water to cold, like it's an automatic response. The change in temperature is refreshing, actually, and though Winn has never been fond of a cold shower and will probably not ever be, it does feel like he can breathe a bit easier. He shakes his head of the spider-webbed thoughts of Mon-El gathering about his brain, and shuts off the water.

As he gets changed for bed, pulling a soft t-shirt over his head, he definitely doesn't think about how it, apparently, could very easily be Mon-El's shirt. He also doesn't think about Kara wearing his shirt. At all. No way.

And as he settles into bed, he definitely doesn't- no, screw that, he absolutely clutches his old stuffed animal, a once-white but now greying duck, to his chest for comfort. Because damnit, he needs the comfort. It's quite an amusing thought, actually, a secret agent sleeping with a stuffed animal. He wonders if Alex still sleeps with a teddy bear, which is an even more amusing image. The fearless Alex Danvers, tucked up in bed with a fluffy teddy bear. Maybe she'd have sewn on angry eyebrows to make it a better fit. That's really all Alex Danvers is, if he's honest, a teddy bear with angry eyebrows. Cute and fluffy and good for hugs, but could snap your pinky finger like a baby carrot if you so much as looked at her funny. As if on cue, Smudge the cat seems to sense the anxiety radiating off of Winn in waves, and jumps up on the bed to curl into the crook of Winn's legs.

Once more, it's a while before he actually falls asleep, despite how exhausted he is. Because now he isn't actually doing anything, it's a million times harder to keep thoughts of Mon-El and Kara out of his head. He thanks every deity he can think of that he doesn't actually own any honeycomb lip balm, because now the taste of toothpaste in his mouth is making him feel a bit sick. With a groan, he realises that it's only Thursday: he still has to endure tomorrow before he can hunker down under a mountain of blankets and try not to rot while he doesn't leave his apartment for two days. Winn turns over, careful not to dislodge the cat (who has a special talent for taking up a considerable share of the bed for such a small animal) and curls up on his other side as tight as he can. He can't really breathe properly, but that's okay. He's used to that by now. The duck takes up most of the space between his arms, which is good, because now he can't imagine that empty space being filled by a person. Actually, come to think of it, he's unsure if he ever actually gave the duck a name. He'd always just been Duck. It doesn't really matter, now, because all he can do is try and exhaust himself with these thoughts until he falls asleep.

This works surprisingly well, because it's only an hour after he'd gotten into bed that he drifts off, as opposed to the three or four he'd had to wait the rest of the week.

He dreams of stuffed animals and empty spaces between arms, longing to be filled.

°°°
On Friday, Winn wakes up at half past four. He supposes it's only fair, having gone to sleep earlier than he's used to. The Gods of Fate are determined to make sure he gets minimal sleep no matter what time he goes to bed. He twists and turns for maybe twenty minutes, and then decides that he's ultimately not going to be able to get back to sleep, so he just gets up.

He's got to be at the DEO for seven. It's not too long a wait, if it's just about five o'clock now. If he leaves at half six, he can get there for quarter to, and maybe even get some hot coffee for a change.

He rubs at his eyes, trying to clear the sleep from them as he makes his way into the kitchen. It's second nature to brew some coffee and grab the cereal at this point, muscle memory, even when he's half asleep, but this time he stops himself. The thought of eating something just yet still makes him feel sick. Surely this isn't healthy at this point- in the past week, he can't remember having anything more than a cup of coffee, some chips and some wilted salad he'd made himself eat for lunch on Monday.

Winn sighs, tugs at his hair and turns away from the kitchen once more. With every tick of the clock he gets closer to having to face Kara, and Mon-El. He still can't decide if he'd read her admission correctly or not. If he had, what is he supposed to say? Surely he can't let them know if he'd read it right, that would come off as too forthright, too presumptuous. If not, he risks looking like an idiot and also missing out on what might be the biggest opportunity of his entire life.

Does he want to be in a relationship with Mon-El? Absolutely he does, he's been dreaming about that for months now. Does he want to be in a relationship with Kara? Of course, he's been in love with her literally since the day they'd met, and he doesn't think that's ever going to go away. But both of them, at the same time? That isn't something Winn has ever even considered. That banks on not just one of them, but both of them being romantically interested in him. And by the way Winn's love life goes, odds like those just do not happen.

He sighs, shakes his head, and looks at the clock. Again. It's not even been ten minutes.

For the next hour, Winn alternates between anxious rumination, trying to nap, trying to force himself to eat something, and half-heartedly bouncing a felt mouse on a string for Smudge. By the time he has to leave he's managed to choke down a handful of dry cereal, and managed to work himself into such a state that he has to give himself a pep talk before he walks out the door.

It's okay, Winn, just don't bring anything up. You can't be at fault if you don't initiate anything. Leave it to them.

Winn stalks into the DEO at seven A.M sharp, with his head down low, and that's how he stays as he slumps down into his chair. He doesn't think about Mon-El as he loads up his monitor, and he doesn't think about Kara as he gets into his work. He doesn't really check the clock, determined to work without lifting his head until noon, but he figures it's about an hour before he's disturbed by a whooshing streak of red and blue. His heart sinks, but he doesn't acknowledge her. He won't say anything, he won't-

"Hey, Winn?"

Crap.

Reluctantly, and very carefully, Winn lifts his head to meet Kara's eyes. His heart drops even further as he sees Mon-El standing behind her quietly. He tries to say hello, or something else inconspicuous, but the words die on his tongue and he ends up lifting his eyebrows in acknowledgement instead.

"Can we talk? In, um, in private?" Kara asks delicately, a slightly false masquerade of cheer on her face. Mon-El doesn't say anything and just looks at the floor, like he's been told to stay quiet until instructed otherwise. Winn nods stiffly and stands, and a minute later he finds himself once again trapped in the same room as yesterday, except now, both of the hottest people on the planet are stuck in here with him and honestly? It's not doing anything for his already deflated ego.

"Mon-El has something he would like to say to you. Right, Mon-El?" Kara says, elbowing Mon-El in the ribs.

"Yes. Yes. I'd like to say that I'm sorry for kissing you the way I did, and I shouldn't have done that. I'm- I'm sorry. It wasn't fair of me to mess with you like that, and it wasn't fair to Kara. I apologise for any anxious thoughts I may have caused you- I'm really sorry, Winn," says Mon-El, and he genuinely looks like he means it. Winn can't tell if that had been rehearsed or not, but it's better than nothing.

What makes him sort of want to laugh though is 'any anxious thoughts.' At this point, he's practically made of anxiety. Any anxious thoughts, yeah, whatever.

"Um... thanks," he mumbles, still sceptical. Again there's the feeling of needing to escape, but Kara has him pinned down with a bright blue gaze and the blush on Mon-El's cheeks is so endearing that it makes it very hard to want to move at all. He does take a step back though, just to test the waters, and his heart does something funny when Kara reaches out lightning fast and grabs a hold of his bicep.

"Uh, wait, don't go."

Winn doesn't.

"My... my other proposition."

So he hadn't misread the situation. Suddenly he feels tingly all over and the heat rises to his face before he can stop it.

"I know that you- I see the way you look at Mon." Mon-El perks up at this and also steps closer. Winn's chest tightens. "That feeling of- of wanting something you can't have. And I know that, that you were in love with... me. I don't know if that's still true, but..."

"I think that's always going to be true," Winn interrupts quietly. Suddenly he can't look either of them in the eye, and he opts to look down at his feet instead. Even if he's not looking at her, he can still tell how Kara seems to straighten a little and almost glows with excitement. Carefully, she takes her hand away from his bicep and interlaces their fingers instead, and Winn closes his eyes and tries to breathe. There is literally no Earthly way this is happening, he cannot be-

"We wanted to ask if you'd join us," Mon-El butts in, cutting right to the chase. At that, Winn does actually stop breathing for a second. His head snaps up and he stares Mon-El straight in the face.

"What do you mean?" He says slowly, not wanting to seem presumptuous.

Kara pushes her hair behind her shoulder and takes a deep breath. Like she's scared. Winn almost laughs at this. Supergirl, scared? Scared of what, being turned down by the social reject himself? It just doesn't compute. "Mon-El asked if we could open up our relationship. For you, specifically. And I agreed. What do you say?" Kara clarifies.

Winn sucks in a sharp breath and then pushes some air out from between his lips, shaking his head. "So... you want me to join you in, what, a throuple? But you don't- neither of you ever- but how?" He inwardly groans and hits his palm against his forehead. Why is he being so awkward about this? Of course he wants to, so why is it so hard to tell them that? That stupid stammer as well isn't helping his cause.

Kara moves closer again, and Mon-El follows, and now all three of them are uncomfortably close to eachother, so much so that Winn can smell that damned honeycomb and it makes his brain short-circuit.

"Think about it?" Kara breathes. Winn grants her a very carefully controlled nod. He gives one to Mon-El, too, and then he turns on his heel and gets out of there as fast as he can.

"Did that go well?" He hears Kara ask before the door closes properly. He doesn't stick around to hear Mon-El's answer.

Sitting back down at his desk feels like a breath of fresh air. Never before in his life has he been so glad to have work to do. Granted, it's not hard work, but it's enough to distract him and give him something to take his mind off... whatever the hell just happened. He shoves on his headphones in an attempt to drown out some of the background noise, and loses himself.

He loses himself for almost three hours. He sneaks a look at the clock and, disheartened, realises it's not even noon. He carries on working, blissfully undisturbed, for a further two hours, until his back starts to ache and his stomach starts to growl. Surprisingly, he actually feels like he could eat something, now that most of his anxiety had dissipated after the Training Room Conversation. Saddened, he remembers he deliberately hadn't brought anything for lunch.

"You alright?"

Winn jumps almost three feet in the air and whips around so hard he nearly gives himself whiplash. "What the fuck!"

"Watch your language," Alex chuckles.

"Don't do that!" Winn gasps, clutching his chest. His poor heart definitely can't take stuff like that today. Alex only laughs, and Winn glares at her.

"Are you alright?" She repeats. Winn raises an eyebrow. "I've not seen you talk to anybody else today, let alone take a break, or even eat anything. Now, the Winn Schott I know doesn't just not eat snacks on any old day. Something's bothering you. What is it?"

Winn exhales very forcefully, and drops back into his chair. "Nothing, I'm fine. It's... personal," he tells her. It's not a whole lie.

Alex hums, disbelieving. "You're doing the thing with your foot."

He puts a hand on his thigh and stops bouncing his leg.

"Listen, Alex, I swear I'm okay. I'll tell you if I need anything, okay? I promise."

She seems to buy this, and walks off to resume whatever she'd been doing beforehand. Winn rubs his hands over his face, puts his headphones back on, and loses himself all over again. The rest of the day, bar the lunch incident, passes without a hitch. By the time he's back in his own apartment in the evening, he feels like he's literally about to crash and sleep for eighteen hours. He hadn't realised just how much all of this had been weighing down on him, and now that it's mostly been resolved and cleared up, he becomes aware of how tired and how hungry he is.

Already half asleep, Winn drops his bag and pulls yesterday's untouched Chinese out of the fridge. As much as he wants to, he can't go to sleep until he gives Kara an answer. It wouldn't be fair to keep her waiting like that.
He sets the container down heavily on the coffee table, and collapses onto the couch. Almost immediately Smudge jumps up and settles himself on Winn's stomach, almost reinforcing Winn's decision to provide an adequate answer before he settles in for the night. He pulls out his phone.

He stays a long time on Kara's chat page, his fingers dancing over the keyboard, deleting and rewriting messages over and over again. His eyes start to droop and he resolves to get this done as quickly as possible. It's almost laughable, how much time he's spent trying to type out the perfect message, as compared to his final one.

Winn shuts off his phone, scarfs down his food like a starved wolf, and is asleep almost the moment his head hits the pillow.

°°°
A sharp, purposeful knocking on the front door startles Winn from what had felt like the best sleep of his life. "Huh?" He calls out groggily, scrambling to push Duck under the duvet. The knocking rings out through his apartment again, and he stumbles his way out of bed and most definitely does not get his leg tangled in his blankets and almost face plant the floor. "M'coming!" He yells as he pulls on pyjama pants over his boxers.

He hadn't really expected Kara and Mon-El to just show up at his door at half ten in the morning, but he supposes he should have anticipated it. "We brought breakfast!" Kara chirps happily, letting herself in. She holds up a paper bag, stained with grease spots in some places, and Winn all but snatches it out of her hand with a chuckle. Mon-El shoots him a smile, but it's not his usual award-winning smile: this one is soft and loving and makes Winn feel like he's the center of the universe, closer to the way he would smile at Kara. Winn's smile falters and his cheeks heat up.

"Um, excuse the... pyjamas..." He mutters, putting breakfast (pastries? He hopes it's pastries) on the table where Mon-El has made himself comfortable. Having the two prettiest people in the world suddenly in his apartment, especially given the events of the past week, is making him very self conscious of all the little imperfections- some dirty dishes by the sink, a hoodie on the floor, and numerous cat toys spread around like Easter eggs. He sighs, trying to calm himself, and takes a seat next to Mon-El. Kara does the same.

Suddenly embarrassed, Winn looks down at his lap. But then Kara clears her throat and he looks up again, but he nearly stops breathing the second Mon-El lays a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry for dropping by so unannounced. Were you still in bed?" He asks, squeezing Winn's shoulder very gently. Winn thinks he might have spontaneously developed a stress hernia.

"Um, yeah," is about all he can manage, and the way Kara laughs at him, not maliciously, makes his cheeks redden even more and now he's sort of wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole. But not without the pastries.

"Cute," Mon-El replies, nonchalant, like it's nothing, and Winn dies a little bit.

"I just wanted to check you were okay with... all this," Kara interrupts, saving him from a horrible, firey, blushy death. "It's... It's a big adjustment, and I know you can get- overwhelmed, so..."

It's cute that she cares, he thinks fondly. He smiles a little, and is about to respond properly, genuinely, but then Mon-El leans over and kisses his cheek quickly.

"I'm fine!" Winn squeaks.

"Mon-El!" Kara scolds.

"Kara!" Mon-El retorts.

Winn groans and puts his head down on the table, listening to their bickering. His partners. He can't call them that yet, can he? More clarification needed. He does hear Kara giggle though, and it sounds like summer. Bright and warm and happy. Mon-El's laugh is slightly heartier, more like autumn- bold, still bright, cosy. It's like a full body warm up listening to their symphonies alone. God, Winn is so in over his head.

"So... the three of us? That's- that's something you're okay with?" Kara asks eventually, and Winn lifts his head.

"Yeah. God, yeah," he says slowly. "I mean, I was in love with you for years, and even though... stuff happened... I think I'm always going to be a little bit in love with you, Kara. And you-" he turns to Mon-El, "You're... you just came along and basically tripped me up. That's how hard and how fast I fell. And now that... This doesn't even feel real, actually. I spent so long telling myself I couldn't have you," back to Kara, "and then I fell for your boyfriend too, and I felt like the worst human alive. And... yeah. So."

Kara shifts and adjusts her glasses, cheeks tinted light pink. It's a good look on her, he thinks. She opens her mouth like she's going to say something, but then shuts it again and simply smiles. She stands from her seat at the table and hugs both boys from behind, pushing all three of them together. Winn laughs and grips her arm, trying to ignore the flutter in his chest at the close proximity to them both.

"Breakfast!" Kara laughs, breaking away and reaching for the bag on the table.

"Hey, no! Mine!" Winn shouts, half launching himself across the table to grab it first.

This ends in a squabble and a tangle of limbs and grabbing hands, laughter that's verging on being too loud for Winn's ears, but he couldn't really care less. This is the happiest he's been in a very long time, and it's a feeling he's missed, if he's honest.

And he wouldn't trade it for the world.