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The first time it happens, Oliver’s a little drunk. The world’s gone fuzzy around the edges and the room is tilting to the left, but that doesn’t matter because Kara is here. He doesn’t remember how she got here – he can’t recall the last hour or so of their victory celebration. Had he invited her back here? He wouldn’t put it past himself, honestly. No matter how it happened, she’s here, her lips pulled into one of those goofy grins he’s becoming fond of. God, she smells like the Earth wrapped up in the embrace of a summer day. He can’t stop looking at her. Doesn’t really want to, either.
He’s forced to lower his gaze when her eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Oliver?”
“Mmmm?” The syllable is dragged out a bit too long. He blames the alcohol.
“I asked if you’re okay.”
He isn’t okay. He hasn’t been okay since before the island. He wonders if he could tell Kara that, if she’d understand. She did lose her entire planet, after all. Maybe the two of them weren’t so different. The only thing that
really stood her apart was her ability to hold herself with grace and effortlessly disguise the pain bubbling just below the surface. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
He leans back in his seat and grinds his teeth. His own apartment feels like it’s shrinking in around him, leaving him enclosed in a box with Kara Danvers, on the verge of baring his soul in a decidedly Barry Allen way. He’s close enough to feel remnants of her body heat on the air. It’s making him dizzier than the champagne. “Piece yourself back together.”
She tilts her head, a question in her gaze. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
He can only chuckle. “Come on, Kara, you’ve seen and heard enough to know that I’m broken.”
“Is that what you think? That you’re broken?”
He doesn’t reply.
Her mouth presses into a tight line at his silence. He can practically see the gears going around in her head as she tries to explain what it is she sees when she looks at him. “Oliver, whatever you’ve been through, you’ve survived. Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s about getting back up when your world’s gone.”
He stands, because he can’t bear to sit that close to her, can’t bear to hear reassuring words about living when everyone you love is gone. “I’d give my soul to have even the smallest piece of my world back.”
Everything she is is closing in on him again. He wants to drown in it. “I’ve already told you. Hardship is what makes us who we are. Do you want to know how often I’ve wished that my life could’ve played out exactly the way it was supposed to? I used to wish for it before I went to bed at night. I wished that I would wake up on Krypton, that it all had been a bad dream. I wished for my parents and my cousin to be exactly as I’d left them. You think you live in constant agony? You’re not the only one.”
Guilt breaks the barrier of his grief, flooding his heart and his mind and his soul. He doesn’t know what to say against the revelation of what he already knew: Kara Danvers is just shattered as he is. “The Dominators showed us something when they put us under. What life would be like if Sara and I had never gotten on the Queen’s Gambit. We would’ve been happy. Life would’ve been good. No Green Arrow, no Canary. Just Oliver Queen. Just Sara Lance. Nothing else.”
Blue eyes shine in understanding. “On my Earth, I was attacked by a parasite called the Black Mercy. It latched onto me, put me under a spell. Showed me a fantasy life where Krypton was intact and my family was alive and well and all together. I almost…I wanted to stay there. Live there. Die there. It would’ve been easy. But, Oliver, you and I both know that easy is never the answer.”
She’s right. He hates that about her. How could anyone be this right about everything all the time? He turns to face her fully, shamelessly pressing into her space. “It’s infuriating that you always know the right thing to say.”
A laugh bubbles from her chest, loud and whole and life-affirming. It might be one of the greatest sounds he’s ever heard. “I’m sorry?”
“No, you’re not.” She smiles. It lights up her entire face and puts a twinkle in her eye. He’s trying not to notice how blue her irises are, but it’s a losing battle. He presses in until there is no space between their bodies at all.
“Kara.” His voice is barely an octave above a whisper.
“What?” Her tone is no better and laced with something he doesn’t want to put a name to.
He swallows hard and takes the plunge, molding his mouth to hers and smothering her slight hitch of breath. His arms close around her while hers wind their way around his neck. Her body is a furnace, but her lips are hotter. He’s never wanted to burn so badly. Someone moans, but Oliver isn’t sure which of them it was. He has a fleeting thought about the strength of her grip, even when she’s reigning it in. This woman could kill him with her pinky finger. It bordered on disconcerting that that drives him a little crazier. Kara whimpers and kisses him harder. That’s what brings him back to reality. He pulls back reluctantly, his breathing a little labored, his pupils blown wide, a lazy smile on his lips. “I’m sorry.” The haze over her eyes recedes slowly. His chest swells with pride at the knowledge that his kiss affected her as much as hers affected him.
“Don’t be.” She replies.
“Ok, then, I’m not sorry.”
Another laugh. “Good.”
“I’ve been wanting to do that.”
“I can tell.”
He smirks and drops his forehead to hers. “You’re beautiful.”
A hint of a blush dusts her cheekbones. It just amplifies her beauty. “Thank you.” She mutters, ducking her head to avoid his heavy stare.
“Hey.” He whispers, using his forefinger to lift her chin. “This is okay, right?”
She nuzzles against his pulse point. “Better than okay.”
Oliver squeezes her closer, unwilling to let her go. Her lips brush the underside of his jaw as his drop a kiss to her temple. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this safe in the presence of another person. It’s almost as if he’s known her for a lifetime rather than for a few days. The island and the Dominators and the grief were drifting farther and farther away the longer he stood in her arms. No one had ever cleansed him so quickly. “I’ve done so many terrible things in the name of my city, I can’t even remember half of them. I created fear and distrust because I needed to protect the innocent. Redeem them, save them. But, as Oliver Queen, I was never an innocent. My family name is too powerful for that. I needed to be anything else. So, I became a symbol. A shadow. This is the first time in so long I’ve felt like a regular person. Like a real person.”
Kara takes a few steps back from him, taking in his words, his own skewed perspective of himself, piecing him into something she can understand.
“You’re real.” She says. “You matter. Someone once told me that heroes don’t get to have a dark side because they belong to the people they protect, but I don’t believe that. A hero is still a person. Under the mask, under the cape, under a family legacy, we’re still allowed to feel. To feel wronged and slighted and misrepresented. We can be angry. We can admit to our pain. We just can’t let those things control us.” She reaches out to run her palm along his cheek. “I wear my family’s sigil on my chest. I own it because it’s who I am. I can’t allow myself to run away from that. No matter what my parents did to my planet, they’re still a part of me. My cousin is the only relative I have who hasn’t been affected by my parents’ crimes. And that’s only because he grew up on Earth. He doesn’t know Krypton. He never truly will. And I will protect him from the sins of our family because he doesn’t deserve to carry that pain. I do. It’s my burden. My family’s legacy is mine to redeem. So is yours.”
He nods. “I tried so hard to shield my sister from all of that. I failed.”
“No, you haven’t.” She kisses him, soft and sweet, in a second-long press of mouths. “You haven’t.”
“Thank you.”
Her lips twitch into a small smile. “Anytime.”