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Kara had never been this nervous in her life. She was standing high atop a building over National City's Redden Park, where about twenty thousand people were eagerly awaiting her appearance. They'd been standing there patiently all morning, listening to the mayor, a state senator, and local leaders in the queer community who'd come to open the city's two-day Pride festival with this ceremony and a march. She was to be the guest of honor.
With help from Brainy, Nia, and Lena, Kara had designed a new suit for this special occasion. The blue was a lighter shade and the traditional yellow of the El Mayarah was replaced with a stark white, the diamond and swoop of the crest rendered in a soft pink. Her cape was a rainbow, with the crest in brown, black, and yellow to honor the Philadelphia Pride flag. She had a rainbow sticker placed on each cheek. She looked like Pride incarnate, and though she should have looked borderline garish, Lena said she'd looked regal, and beautiful.
When she'd said that, Kara's stomach churned, and she fought to keep a straight face.
It was all going to get complicated very soon. Lena was about to give her speech and introduce Kara to the crowd, a speech that Lena had rehearsed a dozen times in front of Kara. She wasn't nervous for Lena; for someone so introverted, she had a gift for public speaking. She was nervous for herself, because of what shee was about to do.
Lena approached the podium to a wave of cheers, and Kara's throat tightened.
"Which is why Pride is more important now than ever," Lena said, pacing a channel into the hardwood floor of Kara's apartment. "We are here today to celebrate our lives, to share our joy, and to be present and seen. Queer Pride isnt' just a party, though. This isn't just a festival and a fun outing. As we gather here today we stand on the shoulders of giants, walking a trail that was forged with struggle and determination by the people who came before us. Even as we come together today, we are declaring our presence and our defiance against those who would force us back into the closet, back into our false selves."
Lena paused, pondering the next note card, seeming to lose track of the room. Kara watched her in silence, taking in the way the light loved Lena, the way it danced across her soft pale skin and lit up her blue green eyes, that reminded her of her childhood daydreaming of Krypton's long lost alkaline sea. It was when she was like this that Kara adored her most, at her softest, dressed in a fluffy sweater with the neck askew, biting her plump lip beneath an eyetooth as she mulled over her words.
"I'm worried it'll be self-serving," said Lena.
"Why?"
"Well, it's self indulgent," said Lena. "After this first paragraph I just start talking about myself."
"Are you going to let me hear it?" Kara teased.
"You're not an objective audience. I'm your favorite subject."
Kara grinned. "Come on."
"I first noticed that I was different in high school. I went to all all-girls boarding school, which was a nightmare for me. It might be hard to believe looking at me now, but I was a shy creature, scared to death of my classmates, or for that matter a stiff breeze. I'd lost my biological mother and lost my adoptive father, who I would later learn was also my bio-father, and the only person between me and my wicked stepmother was a man who grew up to try to kill my best friend and her cousin.
"I remember the exact moment I realized. I was in a chemistry course working with two other girls, using model kits with plastic balls and sticks to create molecules and fold them in our hands to simulate how they behaved. Chemistry was one of my favorite subjects. It's beautiful to me, the complexity, the way our whole world in all its glory and beauty is built from these tiny abstracts that are more concept than physical reality. Sometimes I just sit and contemplate how beautiful it is that such complexity arises from such chaos and such simplicity, the way everything is made of smaller and fewer things until, deep down, on some level, we're all just vibrating emanations of something we can't even fully understand, at least not yet. Science for me has always been breathtaking..."
Kara listened intently from the rooftop, her focus drowning out the cacophony of sounds around her- breathing and heartbeats and sighs and whispers and conversations. Lena had them in the palm of her hand, the crowd leaning in anxiously as she told her story. It made her own heart flutter wildly in her chest like a bird seeking freedom from the cage of her ribs. She was lightheaded, feeling as if she might float off the roof if she didn't focus on staying put until her cue.
Lena was... Lena...
"I think of all the majesty science has revealed to me," Lena's voice carried over the crowd, "I think of all the joy it brings me and the wonder and the awe, but in that moment, nothing compared to Rachel's hands. When I saw them it was like seeing for the first time. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, suddenly stepping from a grab dray dust bowl into a vibrant land of color and wonder. It was her hands I saw first, then all of her- the softness of her, the intensity of her focus on the little model in her hands, the way the short fringe of curls at her hairline escaped from her ponytail and framed her face, the softness in her eyes."
The crowd went utterly silent. Kara could hear only the rush of blood pumping in her own ears. The world tilted and turned around her and she thought she might actually fall.
"I tried to make it not true. I told myself something was wrong, that I was creepy, that I was sick, that I was evil," Lena sighed, choking up a little. "My stepmother, always an astute woman, knew somehow. I'm not sure if she had me watched at school, or she read my browser history, or both, but she knew, and she never let me forget that she knew. She hated me for it.
"Love is such a complicated thing. We have no choice in who we love. I loved my brother despite what he did, and I mourned him even though his passing set me free and I no longer had to worry about him hurting the most important people in my life, the person who matters to me the most.
"I've done a lot of wrong. I have people I should apologize to, people who loved me more than I could ever love them, who had to suffer the pain of wanting someone who would never want them the way they wanted me. To my sweet Jack, wherever you are, and to the others, wherever you are... I'm sorry.
"I came up here today to give a speech about allyship; that's what the sponsors of the event were expecting. That's not why I'm here. I'm here because there's no better time to come out than when you're ready. I, Lena Luthor, am a lesbian."
Lena paused. Kara could hear the patter of her heartbeat, and even from here see the tears welling in her eyes. This was not the speech that she'd rehearsed in front of Kara. This was... this was...
LENA LIKES GIRLS a voice screamed in Kara's head, a voice so powerful that she could barely keep it contained in silence.
Lena likes girls. LENA LIKES GIRLS.
What if...
What if she likes me?
"The path we walk is never easy," Lena was saying. "For all the progress we've made, we still stand here surrounded by prejudices, by people who hate and fear us. I am standing here to tell you that you are seen, you are good, you are yourself, even if you're not here with us today, even if you're not out. I stand here for the kids out there, afraid of what the world will do to them as they realize who they are. I stand here to tell my trans sisters," she gestured to Nia in her Dreamer uniform, who was openly crying, rubbing at her eyes as Brainy rubbed her back. "You are women, and you belong with us. Trans men, you are men. Non-binary people, you are valid. We are all who we are and we have the right to be proud, be ourselves, to be."
"For all of you young people out there... you have the right to decide who you are, and no one else. For all you girls and boys who are just realizing now, as I did, that there is something different about you. You are not broken, you are not sick, you are not evil, you are beautiful, and we are here for you."
Lena picked up the notepad she'd carried to the podium and tossed it away.
"I came here with a self-aggrandizing speech about all the things that I'm doing for the community through my foundation, and I'm proud of those things, and I want you to know about them. Starting in National CIty and then nationwide, the Lena Luthor foundation will be fully funding LGBTQIA+ clincis and medical centers with a full range of sexual health, reproductive care, and gender affirming healthcare. We will be establishing shelters for queer youth, again first in Natioanl City and nationwide, for those who haven't found their family and home yet. We will be providing legal and transportation services for queer youth and their parents when their governments attack them and we will begin international outreach to end the outrage of anti-queer violence and homophobic oppression around the world."
"I call upon my peers, those who've made pledges to share their wealth and resources for the good of mankind, to join me. I don't want to fix climate change and cure cancer and build a better world unless we're building a better world for everyone. It won't be a better world until no one, absolutely no one, is left living on their knees begging for scraps of tolerance. That is why this is called Pride, why we celebrate a riot with an annual display of joy and determination- because we are here and this is our world too."
A thunderous cheer made Kara flinch, unprepared for the sound. Lean beamed, waving to the adoring crowd, so unguardedly happy and relieved that Kara just wanted to scoop her up and...
Oh.
Kara started to shake a little as Lena waved down the crowd, grinning.
"Save some of that for our guest of honor. The greatest ally our community has, Supergirl!"
That was her cue. Kara swallowed hard and lifted off, making for the dramatic entrance as Lena backed away. She wasn't going fast enough for it, not really, but she made sure to nail the Superhero Landing on one knee as she came down on the stage and stood, looking over to Lena as she stood on the others side of the podium.
Great Rao, Kara knew what she meant. What it meant to suddenly see in color after living in black and white- not because of the storm of electromagnetic force cascading off the atmosphere that only she could see or the multitude glow of Lena's eyes in her super vision, but because Lena had described exactly how Kara had felt the day that she stopped a helicopter from falling to the sky, the day she tore open the airframe and told Lena Luthor it was going to be alright.
She was in love with Lena, and she had to give a speech.
Kara approached the podium, hoping the explosive applause and cheering would give her some time to steady herself. It didn't. To hide her shaking hands, she gripped the podium so hard that it creaked under her fingers. Swallowing hard, Kara produced her own speech on some note cards that she'd had tucked into her belt, and drummed her fingers on it.
The applause was dying down. They were waiting for her to say something.
Karra looked out at them, at the massive throng filling the park, at the cameras facing her. This was far from the first time she'd done something like this, and having the suit on, the El Mayarah on her chest, made her strong enough. Made her good enough. Made her powerful enough.
Kara looked down at her notes and slid them aside.
"Something Miss Luthor said just now really struck a chord with me," said Kara, her voice hushed by carried by the public address speakers. "I know that there are people watching me right now, people in this crowd or watching on television or streaming or maybe even listening to the radio, who are keeping their secret selves hidden. I want you to know how much it hurts," she looked at Lena, "to have to lie about who you are. I know the tangled webs we weave when we try to fit in, when we keep secrets, when we withhold our full selves from the people we love. I see you and I respect you. I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with waiting, that you are not a coward, you are not weak. To those of you who've already made the choice to be your authentic self for all to see, I want you to know that you're braver than I am, and I'm the one who's bulletproof."
The crowd clapped, but there was a sense of anticipation, something hanging in the air.
"Miss Luthor... Lena called me an ally, the greatest ally you have. That was an honor I can't even comprehend, much less describe, but I have to tell you the truth. That's what I'm all about, right? Truth, justice, and the American Way. My first duty is to the truth, and the truth is, I'm not an ally."
The crowd went totally silent. Kara sucked in a sharp breath, wishing she'd phrased that better. Or just given the damned speech she wrote out in advance.
"I'm one of you."
Kara closed her eyes. She couldn't look at Lena, and the crowd began to cheer, only for it to die off as they watched her struggle- the cameras were on her and there was a close up of her projected on the big screen at her back. Kara knew the anguish she must have been showing and felt guilty for it. This was supposed to be easy, joyful.
She felt a hand on her back and her eyes snapped open. Lena was there, smiling a big sappy smile, eyes welling with tears. Kara looked at her and she nodded, lip trembling.
"I am an alien," said Kara. "Though I was raised among you, by some of the best of you, I am not one of you. Unlike my cousin, who arrived on Earth as a baby and learned about his home world secondhand after he reached maturity, I lived in Krypton until I was thirteen years old. I remember its culture, its ways, its language. I remember my world and I miss it, but..."
Kara looked up. "My people mastered faster-than-light travel. We eliminated almost all disease, had no poverty, no war. Many would see Krypton as a paradise. I can tell you, with all my heart, that it was not. I do not look down on you, I look up at you in awe. When I look out over this crowd I see something beautiful that I would never have seen at home."
Kara swept her hand over the crowd. "I see people expressing themselves. I see people defying tradition and convention to be who they are. I see people who love freely and without inhibition. Yes, my world eliminated poverty and disease but we eliminated choice along with them. Choice in who we are, choice in who we love. If I'd never left home, my spouse would have been chosen by a computer. Here, here I am free to choose, free to want, free to say that I'm not just with you, I'm one of you. I... I..."
She looked at Lena, standing next to her, shock written plainly on her face. She swallowed, hard. Lena reached over and closed her hand gently around the microphone, and locked eyes with Kara.
"Do it," she whispered.
Kara turned from the microphone and reached for Lena, and Lena leapt into her arms. Kara swirled her cape around them in a dramatic flourish, both to show the rainbow pattern and to cover them from the cameras as Lena unabashedly and shamelessly latched into her. Kara forgot the crowd, her speech, everything, as she leaned down and planted a soft, gentle kiss on Lena's lips and lightly touched their foreheads together.
The world slammed in around her. The crowd had gone insane, of course, and Nia was jumping for joy. Alex, standing off to the side with the rest of the security detail, stared in absolute, open-mouthed shock; she looked like a fish gasping for water. As Nia's bouncing slowed, Brainy slowly turned to her and said, "I knew it."
Kara turned back to the microphone, one arm resting casually around Lena's waist.
"Now," she declared, "Let's get this party started."