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It was going to be a late night for Lena. Work had piled up on the desk. Let's be honest, what she went through the past few years tended to slow everything down a little bit. One couldn’t concentrate properly if they were falling of a building, just saying.
So, there she was, lying around in the living room, filling in forms, signing petitions and contracts… what wouldn't she give to be in her lab right now? But c'est la vie!
Luckily, she didn’t have any other compromise for the evening. Therefore, free from the clutches of galas or awards or inaugurations, she had donned her comfiest pyjamas and freed her wavy (well, wavy after a shower) hair from the elastic band. She preferred that to her power suit and her ponytail. That was the equivalent of shedding her supersuit and becoming her true, unadulterated self.
She sat on the sofa and made herself comfortable. The paperwork wasn’t going to magically disappear.
Lena began to skim through hypothesis, thesis, business proposals, so on and so forth. In the midst of reading a very uninteresting report on the reproducibility of the data compiled regarding– who she was kidding? She barely cared at this point.
Her nights hadn’t been exactly quiet for a while, and the fact that nothing had happened yet was making her feel restless. There wasn’t any alien invasion whose leader would abduct her, there weren’t otherworldly beings trying to bring the end of the world, she hadn't even received an eerie call from her mother to shake things up a little bit.
Was Kara bored as well?
Lena had never been an adrenaline junky per se. Her boredom was the predictable consequence of mixing and mingling with a Super. She had come to appreciate their time together, even if it usually involved being in life or death situations. Never knowing what could happen spiced her day up. Maybe she would be in her office, some guys that were out to get her would come in to throw her off her balcony, and then, in an instant, a pair of strong arms would catch her immediately. Yes. Kara would say something like “I believe you dropped something” before wiping the floor with them.
The rapping sound of a hand knocking on her door, broke her out of her reverie. If she had to bet, there were two possibilities: it could either be Jess, who was worrying about her skipping dinner and was bringing takeout or it could be Kara… who was worrying about her skipping dinner and was bringing takeout on her way back. Even if neither had left a message, Lena knew, because she knew, that arriving unannounced was the best strategy, since sending her a text would’ve lead to her lying about having had dinner.
She got up, sorely missing the comfort of her sofa, and got the door. “Kara! You're back early.”
Her friend was standing out there with two ginormous bags of Noonan's.
“Yep! It seems like crime is on holidays tonight and I had a hunch that you hadn't eaten at all, so I come bearing gifts.”
Lena stepped back and placed herself next to the door, letting Kara step inside the flat. However, given a second thought, that was the worst thing she could’ve done. That second thought never came to materialise, though. Instead, she chuckled. “Should I be wary of you then?”
A full belly laugh met that quip. “N- oh…” Kara felt her strength leaving her body, which was no small feat. Her knees felt like jelly. Rao helped her. How did that breathing thing work again? The bags dropped to the floor unceremoniously while her undivided attention went to Lena's chest.
Okay, yes, she might have stolen a look here and there from time to time during these past few years. Blame a girl for having a pair of eyes. It was a challenge not to look, even more when Lena's choice of clothing almost seemed to be intentional. The navy dress should have been declared anti constitutional and an offense against alien rights, because good Rao knew how Kara had restrained herself that night.
Speaking of Rao, she wasn’t one of its strongest warriors. She tried to, but to no avail. One thing was having a skin like steel; another one completely different was being made of stone.
Lena was wearing a hockey jumper with the crest of the House of El in the front and Kara hoped with all she had that the heat she felt running up her neck wasn’t her blushing.
“Kara, are you okay?” Asked Lena.
Oh, no, she was stepping closer. Oh, Rao. Why there weren’t any kittens in need of getting down a tree or a fire or even a petty theft in the corner store?
Kara looked at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing she had seen in her life. Such a work of engineering that ceiling. Yep. The lights… they were the pièce de résistance of the room. No doubt.
“Kara?”
“Yeah, I’m alright. I’m more than alright,” she answered, trying (and failing) not to look at Lena’s shirt. “I’m wonderful. Splendid. Fantastic. Great. I’d even dare to say I’m phenomenally well.”
Lena followed Kara's eyes. God damn it! She should’ve known. “Is there something wrong with me wearing this?” Maybe joking would help. Was Kara surprised of seeing a Luthor wear the House of El’s crest?
The first response that came to mind for Kara was deleted almost instantly. Was there a problem with Lena wearing that shirt? Well, yes. First of all, that would mean she belonged to the House of El by marriage, which was the only viable option. Second of all, that meant she either had to marry either Kal (thinking about that made Kara’s stomach churn) or Kara herself. Thirdly, and finally, some kind of weird possessiveness threatened to take hold of Kara, and that was scary.
Deep breaths, deep breaths. It was just a shirt. A comfortable casual apparel for a stay-in evening. You could exercise in it, or cook or clean or slee– Crap baskets! This was the night at Sam when Lena wore her NCU sweatshirt and told her that her utmost trust and loyalty was one of the things she loved about her all over again. And that night Lena wasn’t drunk!
“Um… no. It just– I was– the shirt appears well loved and I just wondered if you’ve had it for long. Just that.” If only she wouldn’t trip with her on words…
Hopefully, the shirt would be a memento from Metropolis. Everyone and their mom had Superman merchandising in Metropolis.
Lena chuckled. Grabbing the hem of the shirt, she pulled it out a bit to take a good look at it. “Truth to be told, it depends on what you consider long. I bought it the day you saved me from the plane. It’s been part of my loungewear since. I even sleep in it sometimes, so… yeah.”
Something inside Kara snapped. However, she couldn’t let it show. So, mustering all the strength she could, the Kryptonian just nodded, picked back the bags from the floor, and set the table. It was a pyjama shirt, just that. Nothing else. Lena slept in a shirt with her family's crest like it was the most normal thing in the world.
She needed a minute. Maybe fifteen.
During dinner, they fell into an awkward silence. Not to say they weren’t used to them, they had experience on not being comfortable around the other, but this wasn’t right. Kara kept stealing glances at Lena’s shirt and Lena kept wondering what could’ve offended her friend.
The night went by with that weird kind of tension lingering in the air when, suddenly, Lena couldn’t bear it anymore.
“Alright, you clearly have a problem with me wearing the shirt. Speak.”
“Wha– No! I don’t– There’s not– I swear to Rao I–“ What on Earth?! That was cheating! Catching her off guard while watching Xena, how…
Lena raised an eyebrow. “Kara.”
No. She wouldn’t break. She was the Girl of Steel, the Maiden of Might, Paragon of Hope and Daughter of Krypton, she could endure Lena's interrogation. Not even a Five Dimensional imp could break her, a little question won’t make her yield.
But then Lena pursed her lips, and it meant Kara was treading on thin ice.
“You look good in that shirt,” she blurted out.
“But…”
Silence again. A million answers formed in the span of half a second: 'It would look better on the floor', 'I hope you get it a hundred percent off', 'If you need to get something off your chest, I hope it's that shirt', and they all sounded a little bit like Alex's voice in her mind.
“I want to take it off of you.”
“Well, if you wanted me to take it off, you should’ve–“
“No,” Kara interrupted. “Lena, I want to take that shirt off of you.”
Mouth agape, Lena couldn’t quite believe her ears. Did Lara just said–? She wasn’t affected by Red-K or Pink-K, she would’ve noticed because there would be a glow…
But Kara was dead serious. At one point, one grows tired of what they should or shouldn’t do. She was exhausted of not being brave enough, of not taking the step and jumping in the pool head first. This was it. That shirt was to be gone and it would be by her hand, no matter the consequences that it would entail because she would face them gladly.
Truth to be told, everything happened so fast it wasn’t even funny for someone who had super speed. In the blink of an eye, their lips met with both familiarity and novelty. It was soft, tender, gentle, but fierce, passionate, electrifying all at once.
Kara's hands moved from Lena's hips upwards, hooking the hem of the infamous shirt with the thumbs and pushed forwards in the process and revealing skin that had nothing to envy even the most delicate porcelain. Under her calloused palms stretched an expanse of snow white uncharted land she had to memorise along with Lena's every breath. And then the shirt dropped onto the floor, right where it belonged.
Sunlight outed through the window right into the room through the curtains, reaching Kara directly. Her muscles aches in all the good ways, and now they hummed overly pleased by the new energy they were processing. Last night was… it was… life changing. The world seemed to tilt on its axe, stopping for a second to keep on going in a sudden. Gone were doubts, caveats, what-ifs, everything that kept keeping her wondering and scared. It was a revelation, an epiphany sent directly from Rao themselves just for just herself.
The sun was brighter, the sky was bluer, the birds sang harmoniously… everything was right in the universe and the multiverses beyond. Oh, yeah. If she was in a musical, this would be the uplifting, positive, in-top-of-the-world-nothing-can-stop-me-now scene.
Life was good.
No. Life was better because she had Lena now.
It's not that Kara didn’t have her before, of course not. They just stopped tiptoeing around the other. A lot of people were going to owe Alex money the moment those two set foot on the Tower, that’s for sure; however, it was due time they read the room and noticed what was so darned obvious.
Anyways, a draft sneaked through Kara's window inside her bedroom, chill enough to disturb Lena but not cold enough to rouse her. She looked so peaceful, so content with whatever she was dreaming that it would have been a sin to wake her up. In a whim, Kara did the only thing she could think about, she got up, opened a drawer, grabbed exactly what she was looking for and pulled it over Lena, who immediately bundled up in the red cloth.
She had to admit that Lena looked good in the shirt, but she looked better wrapped in her cape.