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When Sophie first kisses her, Ryan is scared.
Not in the first moment. The first moment, she's dazed and grinning. The second, she's got butterflies setting up a nightclub in her chest. The third and fourth and fifth are all good, too.
It's somewhere around the half-hour mark that the fear hits, truck-force straight-on to the chest, and won't leave.
And it's– it keeps piling, every moment she sees Sophie after that, every moment she replays the kiss in her mind. Because she wanted it, that's the thing. She wanted to kiss Sophie, wants to keep kissing Sophie, but– But Ryan loses people. When she gets too close, things always go wrong. Mary, right now, is living proof of that.
And the idea of getting that close to Sophie, letting her in just to lose her, because she's Batwoman and her life is dangerous, because she's Ryan and nothing goes right for her... she can't bear it.
So she tries so hard to keep her at arm's-length. Keep that distance in the air between them, even if that means keeping Sophie confused, maybe even keeping her hurt, because at least she's safe that way. At least she's alive.
Ryan's bad at it, though. Keeping her hand out of fires that could burn her.
The distance collapses once, in the bar, when she opens up, pulls Sophie in. Collapses more and more through the night they share, through Sophie's poise sliding when she smashes the lamp, through Ryan laughing and fumbling at her belt, through Sophie flipping them over and making her see stars.
It folds in like it was never even there, like Ryan and Sophie were meant to be Ryan and Sophie all along but the world just got its wires crossed.
And then she wakes up. Sees Sophie still beside her, all soft stunning lines in sleep, like the stress of the waking world can't touch her. And it's not– she doesn't look fragile, not exactly. Ryan knows how much of a badass Sophie is. Knows she can handle herself. But there's a vulnerability to her, still. To every human body, and Ryan's seen so many times how easily they break. To every bond between people, and she's felt those shatter, too, more than she can even count.
She sees Cora; sees Angelique. Sees Luke and Mary and all the times she's almost lost them. Sees a hundred other faces, known and unknown, all the ways two people can lose each other.
And Ryan tries to put the distance there again. Tries to hide from it, the reality of what she feels, how goddamn overwhelming it is, how her mind's gone Sophie Sophie Sophie since long before they kissed in the woods. For longer than she can really untangle.
You don't get good things, her mind reminds her. You don't get that kind of story.
But there's Sophie and her earnestness, her honesty: what if I finally find the courage to be out, and the person I'm interested in doesn't want the same thing?
And Ryan looks at her, the worry she's hiding in her eyes, and thinks maybe, just maybe, this isn't a fire that'll burn her. Maybe it's a candle flame against the night. Maybe it is the night and its softness, something that'll never be gone.
Or maybe it's a spark that'll flicker out, but still be worth holding close anyway. Maybe it's not for her to decide Sophie's not safe with her, if Sophie's willing to risk it, if Sophie's all in.
“...every time I get something good, I end up losing it,” she says, wills Sophie to understand.
And Sophie takes her hands in hers. Looks at her with surety, no trace of doubt in the dark brown of her eyes. “Well, that's not gonna happen this time.”
And another Ryan, the scared Ryan, the lost child part of Ryan, might say: you can't know that. But the Ryan she is in this moment can't stop grinning, because right now. Right now, she believes it. Right now, she thinks nothing could ever tear them apart.
They make it official. The distance folds and collapses, for good. Erodes more and more with each day that passes, through kisses and touches and dates. Through hands tangled together and sleepy sunlit mornings. Through running in and out of danger and holding each other tight at the end of it all.
And when Sophie kisses her, sometimes Ryan's still scared. But it feels so good to close the distance. And every time she wakes to Sophie's face, Ryan knows it's worth it.