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When Kara had agreed to stick around Earth for a little while, she hadn’t expected Clark to immediately drag her along to meet every single person he had ever so much as talked to for five minutes. She only went along with it because he insisted, but after a while they all started to blend together a little.
She already knew his adopted parents, and Lois Lane seemed nice enough, but some of the others were honestly just annoying. The highlight so far had been when Krypto had barked at some man – a former neighbour, if Kara was remembering things right, but she very well might not have been – and the man scrambled away in a panic in response. Clark told her to be nicer after that but Kara just ignored him.
He almost gave up after that so-called disaster, but a few days later, he was back to normal and insisting that Kara just had to meet this person or that. It was honestly kind of impressive that there were still more people he knew, but she didn’t say that. Better not to encourage him.
Still, she changed into that silly costume he had made for her when he asked her to and followed him to yet another stupid meeting. At least this time she was allowed to fly there and didn’t have to take what she was sure was the slowest bus in the entire universe.
Clark never seemed to notice when he was happier to see people than they were to see him, and by now Kara was starting to suspect that he was doing that on purpose. Nobody, not even her sheltered cousin, could be this oblivious.
One of them was quite literally glaring like their existence personally offended him while the other two didn’t seem to care much either way. But Clark’s smile didn’t even falter and he staunchly ignored all of that, instead acting like this was a warm welcome. He even waved a silly little wave before introducing Kara to what turned out to be yet more coworkers of his.
“Everyone, I would like you to meet my cousin, Supergirl. Kara, meet the Justice Gang!”
Now, Kara had really been showing the restraint and patience of a saint, but all of that seemed to quite suddenly run out. In her opinion, it was a miracle that it had lasted as long as it did, so Kara felt that she really couldn’t be blamed for not being able to hold back her laughter when her cousin said Justice Gang.
He, of course smiled, and the two less interested strangers looked at her with something almost like approval, but the angry-looking guy was now absolutely seething. His face just kept getting redder, which just made Kara laugh even more. She had to turn away and take a few very deep breaths so they wouldn’t get stuck in some weird cycle of mockery and rage. Clark would have probably gotten upset if Kara started another fight.
Looking away from the angry dude with the weird haircut turned out to be a good choice because it, by process of elimination, made Kara look at the other people in the room as well. Clark was still grinning like the idiot he was and the other man had already turned back to his computer, but the only woman on the team was now staring directly at Kara.
Kara had met a lot of people over the past few weeks, but this woman still managed to stand out, and definitely in a good way. She was smiling now, a bit mockingly but mostly just beautiful. Kara just stared at her, probably a moment longer than she should have.
She would have just kept staring, probably forever, if Krypto hadn’t chosen that moment to make his grand entrance. He had been behaving surprisingly well so far, but that all went out of the window now. Kara didn’t even know what had set him off this time, but whatever it was apparently required him to charge directly at that beautiful woman, of course at the highest speed he could muster up.
The only reason Kara managed to react in time was because she was used to his antics, and even so it was still an incredibly close call. She only just managed to throw herself between her charging dog and his intended victim, taking the full force of his attack head-on.
Krypto was moving with such force that he sent Kara, who was putting her entire strength into stopping him, flying several steps back. She was fully prepared to crash into and maybe even through whatever wall was nearest because her brain hadn’t fully caught up with everything that was going on yet, but of course that didn’t happen.
Instead, her back crashed into something much softer than any wall could possibly be. There was also a sound like someone having all the air punched out of them when she made contact, and it was this sound that made her realize that she had, in fact, crashed directly into the woman she had just been admiring.
It had been a particularly violent crash, even for Krypto – if nothing else, it was nice to see that he had made a full recovery from being poisoned just a few days earlier – so Kara was actually a little worried that she might have done some serious damage to this stranger. She scrambled away and to her feet as quickly as she could, still dragging Krypto by his collar because he was apparently very determined, and turned around so quickly that it would have given a human whiplash.
At first glance, the woman looked fine, just shocked and confused, and a lot more dishevelled than she had before. But since Kara knew about stuff like internal bleeding and broken bones she decided to quickly check this stranger’s insides using her x-ray vision, just in case, even if that was probably a huge invasion of her privacy.
Everything seemed more or less fine, but this woman definitely wasn’t going to walk away from this without some considerable bruises. Kara felt pretty bad about that, but she couldn’t apologize yet because she was too busy trying to keep Krypto under control. Before she could catch her breath enough to say sorry, the other woman was already talking.
“You know, when they say leave an impression, you’re not really supposed to take that literally…”
This time, Kara didn’t even pretend not to laugh. Maybe she should have, though, because the sound came out a bit strangled, her voice suddenly much rougher than it normally was. Apparently, even at the ripe old age of twenty-three, she still didn’t know how to respond when a pretty girl with a nice voice talked to her, especially like that, with such a teasing tone.
If she hadn’t been so busy wrestling Krypto away from this beautiful woman, Kara would have definitely blushed. As it was, she barely reacted at all, at least not until she finally managed to distract the hyperactive dog for a little while by throwing a random piece of trash from her pocket out of an open window as hard as she could, sending him chasing after it and giving them all at least a few seconds of relief.
Before he could come back and throw everything into chaos again, Kara turned around and gave the only other woman in the room her best, most charming smile while still completely ignoring everyone else. Maybe she would talk to some of them some other time, but right now, she just wanted to introduce herself to this – remarkably pretty – girl.
“I’m Kara, by the way. But I think Clark already mentioned that…”
Kara sort of wanted to put her face through a wall from the humiliation of saying something so stupid, but she managed to push past all of that and act like she hadn’t just embarrassed herself in front of one of the hottest women she had ever seen. She hoped that the pretend confidence worked and it looked like she had meant to be funny, but she couldn’t be sure if it actually landed right.
Either way, Kara kept her hand extended until the other woman took it into her own. Her hand – slightly callused and with a tan line that hinted at fingerless gloves – was warm, and her grip was much stronger than Kara would have expected from a human. She still kind of sounded like she was laughing at Kara, but that was probably a good sign.
“Kendra. Or Hawkgirl, I guess, but you don’t have to call me that unless there are civilians around. Secret identities, you know…”
Kara actually didn’t know nearly as much about that aspect of the superhero life as Kendra was apparently expecting from her – she only used the identity Clark had crafted for her so she could rent her apartment but largely ignored it otherwise – but she still knew enough about it from watching her cousin to nod along. Maybe she could tell the full truth some other time, when or if she got to know Kendra a little better.
After having all of that race through her mind for around a second, Kara noticed that she was still holding and awkwardly shaking Kendra’s hand, which was probably weird. As far as she could tell, shaking someone’s hand shouldn’t take this long, but she also didn’t really want to let go. Kendra had really nice hands.
Still, things were definitely getting a bit awkward so Kara – somewhat reluctantly – let go. She didn’t go far, of course, and Kendra made no attempt to put any distance between them either. All in all, things were working out far better than Kara had expected when Clark had first asked her to meet his colleagues a few hours ago.
Once again Kara wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to do next. Usually when she met people she wanted to flirt – and maybe do more – with, she was already a few drinks in and dancing in some sleazy bar on a planet without a yellow sun, so doing it fully sober and while her cousin kept staring at her left her extremely out of her depth. Her mind was desperately trying to come up with something she could say, hopefully something that would make Kendra keep smiling because she really had a very nice smile.
Luckily, Kara only had to flounder for a few seconds before Krypto saved her by crashing into her again, full-force and with enough speed to break the sound barrier. He knocked the air clean out of her lungs, it even hurt a little, but she didn’t mind. He was just being playful, after all.
Besides, he had actually helped her out of a somewhat awkward situation with his enthusiasm. He had skilfully broken the awkward silence and even given Kara a good excuse to take Kendra’s hand again because she was now holding it out to help her up. Of course, Kara could have easily gotten up on her own, but she took the hand anyway, floating up with Kendra’s help and not letting go until she was hovering just slightly above the ground.
One of the men – Kara didn’t care enough to check which one it was, but it didn’t sound like Clark’s voice – said something stupid she didn’t even try to understand since it really didn’t matter. Watching Kendra was much more interesting, so that was what Kara did, at least whenever Krypto let her.
There were only a few fractions of seconds sprinkled in between pure chaos when Kara could actually look at Kendra because Krypto was once again demanding almost all of her attention. It took Kara a moment to figure out that he just wanted her to throw his trash – that seemed to now be his new favourite toy – out into the stratosphere, but once she did she put all of her strength into it again, sending it even further away than she had last time.
At least Kendra didn’t seem to mind Krypto and his incredibly high energy, which was probably a good sign. She was even smiling a little, and it was truly a beautiful smile. Kara grinned back like an idiot and just kept smiling like that until her cousin rudely interrupted them.
He actually had the nerve to step between them, smiling the entire time like the idiot that he was and most likely not even noticing that he was interrupting something potentially important. Kara genuinely considered just pushing him out of the way, but that felt childish, even for her, so she did something slightly more mature.
She leaned as far to the side as she could without falling over so she could look past his laughably broad frame and at Kendra, who was rolling her eyes so hard that Kara almost worried they would fall out of her head. Then she started pulling silly faces until Kara had to hold her breath so she wouldn’t burst out laughing right then and there. Usually, she would have just let herself laugh, but if she had done that she would have definitely fallen over and probably landed right on her face, and she really didn’t want to do that in front of Kendra.
Kara was just about to say something she was sure would have been very clever and funny, something that would have gotten Kendra to ask her out on the spot, but once again, Clark interrupted her. He actually had the nerve to crouch down and bring his face right in front of Kara’s, just to make sure she actually listened to him this time.
“Do you want me to show you the rest of the building? We actually have some pretty cool stuff here, I’m sure you’ll love it!”
For some reason Kara couldn’t figure out, Clark always treated her a little like a child, which of course made her want to lash out, much like a child would. She had already screamed at him about it more than once, but this time she kept her cool and just ignored him, no matter how infuriating he was.
She pushed past him after just shaking her head a little to let him know that she wasn’t interested because telling him that she would have rather thrown herself into a green sun than have to listen to him talk about whatever stupid lecture would have certainly followed his offer might have gone a bit too far. He didn’t actually deserve any of that, even if he could be annoyingly optimistic to the point of naivety sometimes. It wasn’t his fault that he had never experienced any real hardship and that he always tried way too hard.
But that didn’t mean that Kara was just going to give in and do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, because if she did that she would never get to live her own life. At least he was nice enough to finally get the hint and step out of her way, though not without what she was pretty sure was supposed to be a knowing look but ended up more like the expression someone got when they were about to sneeze or something. She just ignored him.
When Clark finally got out of the way, Kara saw that Kendra was still watching her and not even trying to hide how funny she thought this all was. Kara stuck her tongue out at her. At this point, she didn’t have any dignity left to lose anyway.
Luckily, Kendra didn’t look put-off by Kara’s allegedly childish behaviour – at least that was what other people tended to call it – which was a great sign that gave Kara more hope than anything had in a very long time. She barely even knew Kendra but she could already tell that they had a lot in common, and that they would get along great once they actually got the chance.
And then, just when Kara thought she couldn’t possibly like this stranger any more than she already did, Kendra somehow got even cooler. She was still looking directly at Kara and ignoring everyone else in the room, and her voice held an air of conspiracy, even though it was definitely loud enough for everyone else to hear her as well.
“You wanna get out of here? This place kind of sucks and I, for one, would rather be basically anywhere else than here right now…”
Kara didn’t even really consider it, she just agreed. Actually thinking through things was boring anyway, and so was hanging out with her cousin and his coworkers, except for this one. This one was great and Kara had no qualms about following her even if she had no idea where they were actually going to go. She didn’t even think about asking any clarifying questions. Instead, she kept her response short and to the point.
“Sure, let’s go.”
She would have gladly left it at that, and Kendra seemed to share that feeling, but Krypto was already running circles around them again and Kara wasn’t sure if wherever they were going was dog-friendly, so she did what she always did when she needed someone to look after him. She turned to her cousin.
“See you later, Clark! You’re watching Krypto again, right?”
Kara was out of the building before he could respond, but she was sure it was fine. If he had really minded, he could have easily followed her outside and told her that he didn’t want to look after Krypto. Since he didn’t, Kara figured that he was fine with things as they were. If he wasn’t then that was his own fault for not telling her so directly. Either way, she wasn’t going to worry about it any more than she already had.
But Kara still waited by the door, not for Clark but for Kendra, who apparently wasn’t as fast as a Kryptonian under a yellow sun, even one that was already starting to set. She watched it dip beneath some buildings and leaned back against a random wall, fidgeting with her sleeves while she waited.
A few seconds – maybe even less than that, Kara wasn’t always great at telling the passage of time – later, the door swung open again and Kendra sauntered out, a coat in one hand and her phone in the other. She was humming some happy-sounding song Kara had never heard before but already liked a lot.
Kendra looked absolutely stunning in the light of the setting sun and Kara was stuck just staring at her again for a moment. It would have been longer, but then Kendra grasped her hand and started pulling her along, down the street and around a few corners, weaving through an only slightly overwhelming crowd of people. Her hand was warm, and strong, even by non-human standards, and Kara really didn’t want to let go.
They walked through the city like that, hand in hand, with no hurry in their steps, for a few minutes. Kara fought the urge to fill the silence between them because it was actually kind of nice even without any words to keep them busy or distracted. So she just let herself be pulled in silence, all the way to an unassuming door in some side alley she never would have even seen if she had been by herself. Maybe having a local showing her around had its upsides after all.
Things only got better when they actually walked through the door and into one of the coolest-looking bars Kara had ever seen – and she had seen lots of bars. This one had low lights that turned everything into dreamlike half-shadows and cosy booths circling wooden tables that looked way cleaner than anything was in most bars Kara had been to before.
The music was loud enough to drown out nearly everything else, at least for normal people, but Kara could still hear Kendra’s heart – beating slightly faster than that of a normal human, though that might have started with the handholding – steadily beneath it all, a beautiful drum beating almost perfectly in sync with the blaring music. Kara already felt more at home there than she ever had anywhere else on earth.
Kendra moved to one of the booths like she had done it a hundred times before and Kara followed her, nodding along to the music while she walked. She hesitated for just a moment by the booth, trying to figure out where she was supposed to sit, before confidently sliding onto the same bench Kendra had chosen and sitting down right next to her, close enough to let their shoulders brush just slightly against each other.
For a little while, they just sat there, quietly talking to each other and enjoying the atmosphere as the bar filled up around them. At some point, one of them got the first round of drinks, and then the second and third, until Kendra was pleasantly buzzed and Kara dearly missed every red sun she had ever encountered.
But even without actually being even the slightest bit drunk, Kara still felt pleasantly buzzed just from everything going on around her. She didn’t even hesitate when Kendra asked her to dance, and they spent the next few hours getting increasingly closer to each other to the tune of slightly shitty music blaring from the jukebox in the corner. It didn’t take long for them to fully drape themselves across each other to an extent that even Kara thought might have been a bit much, not that she minded. If anything, she liked it.
When they both stumbled home many hours later, they did it together, Kara following Kendra to a surprisingly spacious apartment that held almost no furniture but a lot of mess. It was exactly the kind of place Kara found herself in constantly, so it wasn’t hard to go along with it when Kendra told her to make herself comfortable.
They didn’t actually have their first real date until two weeks later, mostly because the so-called Justice Gang kept calling Kendra into work whenever they were just about to meet up again. Eventually, she had to tell them directly that she was going to take a few days off and that she would beat them all to a pulp if they even tried to contact her. Kara took her off-world that very day and they didn’t return to earth until three days later.