loving too late in the night - Chapter 3 - Jazzfordshire (2024)

Chapter Text

It’s getting harder to act normal on sister nights.

“I don’t know what to do anymore. I keep feeling like there must be some way to fix this, but when I want a family and Maggie doesn’t? With something that big, it just feels like…maybe we’re putting off an expiration date,” Alex says. Her feet are tucked under Kara’s legs as she picks forlornly at her noodles. “But I still love her so much.”

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Kara says, handing over the box of potstickers so Alex can spear one on her chopstick. “I wish I could help somehow.”

“You can’t fix everything,” Alex says, stuffing the dumpling into her mouth. “Superpowers can’t make either of us change our minds.”

Kara hums. The TV flickers. An old episode of Buffy is playing quietly over their chewing, and finally Alex sighs.

“Enough about me. How are you doing? Anything new?”

It’s the exact question Kara has been trying to avoid by subtly encouraging Alex to talk, but now that the subject of Maggie has been exhausted there’s nowhere left to run. She shovels rice into her mouth, hoping the steam rising from the container will explain her pink cheeks. “Same old.”

“Things going okay at work these days?” Alex says, blissfully unaware of the tumultuous effect it has on Kara’s nerves. “James has been quiet about Lena for a while. She still all over you?”

Kara almost inhales a mouthful of rice.

She really needs to talk to people about their phrasing.

Alex jumps forward to pat Kara’s back, handing her a glass of water and staying close until Kara has cleared her airways of Chinese food.

“Yeah, it’s – you know, it’s better,” Kara says, her voice still a bit raspy. “We’ve reached an understanding, I think.”

Kara can still feel that understanding on her fingertips – the hot, wet pulsing of it as Lena rode her hand, and the brief conversation that followed giving her a spark of hope that it might keep happening.

Kara takes another sip of water, holding the cool glass to her warm face.

“That’s good. Anything going on in the romance department?” Alex says.

Kara shrugs. Actually speaking the lie is too much, too far, but she has no idea how to broach the subject of just how much her love life has changed recently.

“Still thinking about Mon-El?”

Kara almost laughs. Mon-El is so far from her thoughts these days that she should feel guilty about how quickly she’s moved on, but she can’t quite manage it. The pictures of him still buried in her phone spark absolutely nothing when she looks at them now.

“I dunno,” Kara mumbles.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Alex says softly. “If you’re hurting, you don’t have to hide it. You can tell me anything.”

It’s the comforting, sisterly tone that’s wheedled many a deeply-kept secret out of Kara over the years. Alex has a way of understanding her like nobody else, even when they don’t see completely eye-to-eye – it makes the guilt of keeping this from her more pronounced than ever, and Kara swallows past the lump in her throat.

“Anything?”

“Of course.”

Kara fiddles with her fried rice. She’s not hungry anymore, but squishing the tiny vegetables between her chopsticks is easier than meeting Alex’s eyes. “I actually, um. I don’t really miss Mon-El at all, if I’m being honest.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I guess the longer he’s gone, the more I realize we weren’t good together,” Kara says. She grips her takeout container tightly, feeling fissures in the cardboard under her fingers. “I think I liked the idea of him more than the reality.”

Alex nods, rubbing a comforting hand on Kara’s arm. “That’s okay. Sometimes relationships teach us something even if they don’t work out. You know better what you want now, right?”

Kara swallows. Her tongue feels heavy. “Yeah. I do.”

“Are you thinking about getting back out there, then?”

What Kara is thinking about is Lena. About the way Lena makes her feel when they meet eyes, even from across the office. The way Lena’s rare smiles and hard-earned praise always spark a shower of colourful fireworks in her chest.

“I think so,” Kara says softly. “But when I do, I think it’s gonna be…different.”

“Different how?”

Kara takes a deep breath. Now or never.

“Okay. I know this probably seems like it’s coming out of nowhere, and that you just came out, and I don’t want to, like. Steal your thunder?” Kara says quickly, as if in opening her mouth with intent to tell the truth she’s unleashed an avalanche of unplanned words, “I don’t know. I’ve just been really nervous to talk to you about it, but I don’t want you to think I’m keeping it from you, and –”

“Kara,” Alex says, just forcefully enough to stop the barrage. “What’s going on?”

“I think I’m gay.”

Alex blinks silently.

It’s obvious suddenly that this is the first time Kara has said it out loud. She’s talked around it, talked to Lena briefly about the strange and nebulous thing they’ve been doing, but she’s never said the words. She’s said the opposite to Winn when she first revealed she was an alien by jumping off the roof at CatCo – she’d been so confident in it then. I’m not gay. Of course she wasn’t gay. She couldn’t be gay.

A few weeks in the proximity of Lena Luthor, and her whole life has changed.

“Gay,” Alex parrots. Her brow is furrowed like it always is when she’s thinking hard but not ready to speak yet. “You?”

Kara lets out a long, shaky breath.

“Yeah. Or bi, or…pan. Or something, I don’t know,” Kara says, twisting her hands together until her chopsticks snap in two. “I don’t know the label to use. But I’m into women, I guess. I mean, I don’t guess, I know. I know I am. Definitely.”

Alex is quiet for a moment. Kara can hear sirens in the distance, but she tunes them out. The NCPD can survive without Supergirl for a night.

“Wow,” Alex finally says, sitting heavily back against the couch and putting down her takeout container. “Okay. I guess Maggie is right.”

“About what?”

“It does run in families.”

Kara snorts. Alex grins, and then the floodgates open – soon they’re curled into peals of giggles, leaning against each other like kids as they gasp for breath through tears of laughter. It’s a healing kind of laughter, the kind that lifts some of the weight from Kara’s shoulders, and by the end Kara’s head is resting comfortably on Alex’s shoulder.

“You don’t need to feel like you’re stealing any thunder, Kara,” Alex says, shifting a little so she can put an arm around Kara’s shoulders. “I can’t say I was expecting this, but the last thing I’d ever want is for you to hide yourself for my sake.”

“I know.”

“How did you figure it out?”

Kara reaches for her Sprite to take a long sip, contemplating her answer as she chews on the straw.

“I mean, I had Maggie,” Alex continues. “It kind of hit me like a truck when I met her. How’d you realize you felt this way?”

The how sprints through Kara’s mind in inconvenient flashes. The uneven colour of Lena’s eyes. Her slightly crooked bottom teeth. The low, sharp tone of her voice, melting into breathy high-pitched whines as Kara slipped past her underwear.

“Sort of a culmination of little things,” Kara says, swallowing hard past the memories. “I’ve always had those kinds of feelings. But I was always trying to blend in, you know? Be normal. I started really thinking about it when you came out. The way you explained it made a little too much sense. And then it all kinda…hit me at once.”

It all hit her at once the moment Lena first kissed her, but Kara promised Lena that she wouldn’t tell. Come hell or high water, she’s sticking by that promise. Even with Alex.

“I’m really proud of you for telling me,” Alex says softly. She puts an arm around Kara’s shoulders, squeezing tight. “I know how scary it is.”

“Thanks, Alex.”

A new Buffy episode has started, and as the electric guitar wails on the intro Alex nudges Kara with her shoulder.

“You know, Maggie has a lot of cute friends.”

Kara narrowly escapes being set up on a blind date by the time Alex leaves, and she climbs into bed feeling better than she has in weeks.

Kara isn’t sure if it’s the positive tone of her last conversation with Lena or the fact that she’s now talked to Alex, but when she and Lena are the last two people in the office the following Thursday Kara finds herself feeling inordinately brave.

She isn’t reckless enough to risk anything within normal office hours, but at night? When the only other people in the building are the janitors, whose progress through the lower floors Kara can keep track of?

As the sun sinks behind the horizon outside the windows, Kara knocks on Lena’s office door.

“Come in.”

Lena is behind her desk when Kara enters. She’s leaned back in her chair, one leg crossed over the other under her black and grey dress in a way that might seem casual if Kara wasn’t overly attuned to most minute changes in the rest of her body, and her skin looks particularly pale and soft in the low lighting. Lena’s eyes never leave her computer screen. “Kara. Making up for a family emergency again?”

Lena’s easy use of her first name sends a pleasant shiver through Kara. She closes the door, and Lena’s eyes flicker towards it before going back to her screen. She doesn’t look like she wants to escape this time; in fact, Kara could swear she sees the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.

It makes Kara bolder than she’s ever been.

“No,” Kara says, taking a step closer. She didn’t mean for her voice to come out all low and intense, but she can hear Lena shift in her chair. “I’m all caught up.”

Lena drums her fingers on the surface of the desk one, two, three times, and then her hand slides across it back to her keyboard in a way that seems more showy than necessary. “That’s good to hear.”

Kara watches raptly. Lena doesn’t ask why Kara is here, nor does she seem unnerved by it.

Kara takes another step. “Are you still working on that merger?”

“No, my COO has that in hand right now. I’m looking over the magazine cover redesign.”

Kara nods. The redesign had been James’ idea. Lena has been surprisingly supportive of it, and it’s made him more open to looping her in. That, mixed with Lena’s willingness to let CatCo print whatever they needed to during the first onslaught of Edge’s smear campaign, seems to have warmed him to her.

“While I have you, I could actually use a second set of eyes,” Lena says, tilting her head towards her computer screen. “Come around?”

Kara doesn’t need to be asked twice to enter Lena’s personal space. She hurries around the desk, stopping just behind Lena’s chair to peer at her computer screen. Lena has two different cover variants displayed, and while Lena points out the differences between them Kara lets her eyes wander.

Lena’s hair is in a tight ponytail, giving Kara a view of the perfect line of her neck all the way down to her collarbones. Her perfume is on the air here, and thoughtlessly Kara follows it to the warm space behind Lena’s ear, letting her breath dance over Lena’s skin.

She half expects Lena to ask her to move back. Instead, Lena tilts her head.

She could just be rolling her neck. Lena is still talking, ostensibly giving Kara her opinions on text placement and colour theory though Kara has long since lost the thread of the conversation. But she invited Kara around the desk, and now she’s making tight little circles around the treadwheel of her mouse with her middle finger in a way that makes Kara’s whole body tingle.

Carefully, Kara leans forward to bracket Lena against the desk and presses her lips to the offered skin.

Lena sighs. Her shoulders relax, as if she’s been waiting for Kara’s touch and only now can she let go of her tension, and her head rolls back to rest against Kara’s chest.

Encouraged, Kara continues in a line of kisses up to Lena’s ear. She nips at her earlobe, delighting in how it makes Lena shudder; Lena grips the edge of the desk on either side of Kara’s hands as Kara scrapes her teeth along the tense tendon presented to her.

When Kara nips harder, almost a bite, Lena’s breath hitches in a deeply satisfying way.

“Careful,” Lena murmurs, though she raises her arm to wrap a hand around the back of Kara’s neck, keeping her close. “Bruises, remember?”

Notably, Lena isn’t telling Kara to stop. She’s telling her to be careful. She’s gripping Kara’s neck, an abrupt and prolonged contact that feels searing hot.

“Sorry,” Kara whispers, soothing the spot with her tongue.

Lena’s hand tightens at her neck, and with her free one Lena tugs at the short sleeve of her own dress, pulling it down until it slips over her shoulder.

“Do it out of sight.”

Kara doesn’t waste any time. She sinks her teeth into the softest part of Lena’s shoulder, pulling her closer even with the obstacle of the chair and savouring Lena’s shaky whimper.

“Did that hurt?” Kara murmurs, scraping her teeth much more lightly against the fading red mark.

“Yes.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yes.”

Guiding Kara by the back of her neck, Lena pulls her into a kiss.

It’s deep and tongue-forward from the start, and the new angle isn’t a constraint like Kara might have feared. Lena sighs into it. It builds quickly, climbing in intensity as Lena lets Kara take the reins, and with a burst of sudden confidence Kara breaks it despite Lena’s vocal protests.

Instead she spins the chair until Lena is facing her, holds it steady, and sinks to her knees on the office carpet.

Lena’s hands clench on the armrests when Kara follows her wild instincts, pressing a firm kiss to Lena’s bare knee. The hem of her dress is just above it. It shifts up when Lena’s legs part to accommodate Kara’s slow journey upwards.

Kara moves into the space, sliding her hands gently up Lena’s legs as her mouth explores the new terrain. She sucks a sharp red mark just above Lena’s knee, inching her way up towards her inner thigh, and the progression from smooth, taut skin under her lips to soft and textured and scattered with soft hair and faint stretch marks is inexplicably pleasing.

By the time she gets halfway up Lena’s thigh, Kara’s mouth is watering.

One of Lena’s hands lands on the top of Kara’s head. Not pushing or pulling, but anchoring there like she needs the point of contact. It reminds Kara of the dream that propelled her into googling how to do this. The fear that filled her then isn’t present now – Kara doesn’t feel confident, necessarily, but her overwhelming desire is blotting out everything else.

Lena’s black underwear is inches from Kara’s face, now, her dress pushed up to her hips, and gathering all her courage Kara presses a kiss to the damp patch.

Lena’s hand clenches in Kara’s hair, her fingers sinking into Kara’s ponytail. Her breath shudders. Her hips twitch against Kara’s mouth. Sound is slightly more muffled than usual by Lena’s thighs, but Kara can hear every beat of her racing heart as Lena lifts her hips to help Kara ease her underwear down her legs, stepping out of it and eagerly spreading her legs again when Kara gives even the slightest guidance.

Nothing, not even if she’d taken an imaginary full 4-year degree in having sex with women, could have prepared Kara for having Lena spread before her.

She’s so wet that it’s almost messy, swollen and ready in a way the few videos Kara watched from between her fingers didn’t prepare her for. It looks like Lena got waxed recently – the short, coarse hairs Kara remembers feeling are gone, replaced by total smoothness. Kara finds herself missing the hair.

From Kara’s diagrams she can make a guess at where Lena’s cl*t is, and she makes a tiny, gentle red mark at the very highest part of Lena’s thigh as she prepares herself.

It’s unfamiliar. It’s a little nerve-wracking. It’s absolutely perfect. Kara lifts one of Lena’s legs over her shoulder, spreads her wider, and hoping against hope that she can manage an adequate performance she dives in headfirst.

Lena tastes even better than Kara remembers. Any hesitance disappears the moment it gathers on her tongue, salty-sweet-bitter, and Kara presses forward eagerly for more until part of Lena’s weight is supported on her shoulders. Lena’s hips are lifting into her, seeking her out; when Kara traces up and down over a slick bump she’s pretty sure is Lena’s cl*t, Lena arches hard into her mouth.

“There! There,” Lena chokes, her head falling back as Kara focuses on the spot. “Oh, f*ck, Kara, right there –”

Kara moans. She’s maybe more turned on than she’s ever been, trying desperately to memorize every detail of this moment; Kara’s glasses are off-kilter, her ponytail is close to being pulled out by Lena’s keen hands, and she doesn’t care. She has no real idea what she’s doing, all her studying having abandoned her the moment her knees hit the floor, but she knows what she wants.

She wants to make Lena come so hard that she forgets everything else. She wants to be the best at this. She wants to imprint it in Lena’s memory, to make her feel good in every way humanly possible.

Lena’s shoes drop to the floor behind Kara’s back, one after the other.

Spurred by Lena’s directions, Kara stops worrying about technique and diagrams. She lets instinct take over. She holds Lena’s hips in place, pinning them to the chair, and she savours her. She learns on the job - the art of teasing, of giving Lena what she wants until she’s right on the edge and then backing off, of relishing Lena’s every step towards total desperation.

After a stretch of time that feels both infinite and much too short, Kara can feel the quivering tension in Lena’s body. She’s a spring coiled all the way down, tight and ready to fly towards the ceiling, and that’s when Kara slips her fingers in underneath her chin.

Lena goes wild. She seems past words, now, transitioning suddenly from moving her hips a little to fully riding Kara’s face. She writhes on Kara’s tongue, both hands in Kara’s hair, following the rhythm of Kara’s hand and then urging it faster, harder – Kara could get out of her grip easily, but why would she ever want to? Why would she want to be anywhere but right here?

Kara’s glasses clatter to the floor, and putting them back on is the absolute last thing on her mind.

As vocal as she’s been so far, when Lena comes it seems that the tension in her body is so intense that all she can manage is a choked whimper. Kara can feel it, though – she can feel Lena twitching against her, pulsing and fluttering around her fingers, and the wetness is so much suddenly that Kara is almost lapping it up.

Lena has almost slid out of her chair, supported entirely now by Kara. Her heart is beating so hard that it’s almost worrying, and she’s pleasingly flushed from her chest up. Her legs are trembling on either side of Kara’s head, and they slide slowly from Kara’s shoulders as Lena catches her breath.

Kara quickly slips her glasses back on and straightens her ponytail before she’s even wiped her face.

“You are…very good at that,” Lena says, slowly sitting back up and pulling her dress back down with unsteady hands.

Kara bites her lip, leaning back only to give Lena a little room. She’s going to be playing that sentence in her head daily from now on, in that tone. If it weren’t deeply inappropriate, she’d want it inscribed on a trophy to keep next to her bed.

“Good. That’s good, since I hadn’t really, uh. Done it before,” Kara says, drumming her wet fingers against her thighs. Something in her is waiting for someone’s phone to ring, for Lena to excuse herself or for some Supergirl emergency to pop up. But the office is quiet.

Shaking her head with a disbelieving chuckle, Lena grabs Kara by the front of her shirt. “Come here. For that, you deserve a reward.”

As always Kara goes willingly. Lena pulls her into a kiss, not seeming to care that Kara’s face is wet from the nose down.

“Are you sure? You don’t have anywhere to be?” Kara says. The moment the words leave her mouth she wishes she could snatch them back out of the air. “I mean – not that I don’t want you to! I do, I just – the last few times we’ve been – and you said you didn’t want us to get too –”

Lena stands up. Kara stays on her knees, looking up at Lena like a worshipper at her shrine, until Lena pulls her up by the hand.

Without her heels their height difference is even more pronounced. Even so Lena presses Kara easily against the desk, wiping Kara’s mouth with a thumb, and then she grabs Kara’s chin with a firm hand to ensure she looks her in the eye.

“What do you like, Kara?”

“You,” Kara says, without thinking.

Lena pauses. Her dark brows knit together. “I should be more specific. How do you want me to touch you?”

“I don’t really know,” Kara admits. “When I was with guys, I never really…”

“Came?”

Kara snorts, her face still all squished up in Lena’s grip. “Well. I mean, not always. But I didn’t really ever tell them what to do.” Kara clears her throat, adjusting her glasses as Lena’s hand falls away.

“What you just did for me,” Lena says, her finger circling the button of Kara’s pants, “has anyone ever done that for you?”

“Not…successfully?” Kara says hoarsely.

Lena smiles. It brings to mind the Cheshire Cat.

“Take your pants off?”

Kara has never done just that so quickly in her life. Her pants are left dangling from one foot, caught up on her shoe – she should probably have taken those off too, but her head isn’t exactly the clearest as Lena guides her to hop up on the desk.

Lena doesn’t drop to her knees, but instead sits on her chair and rolls it close enough that she can spread Kara’s legs. Her face is almost level, and when she leans forward the angle is just about perfect. There’s a small part of Kara that feels slightly ridiculous, sitting on Lena’s desk in her shirt and shoes with no pants like she’s Donald freaking Duck. There’s also a larger part of her that’s absolutely terrified of breaking Lena’s nose in her overeagerness.

But that part is being drowned out as Kara leans back against the desk on her elbows, staring down at the absolutely mind-bending sight of Lena Luthor kissing a trail up her inner thigh.

Kara is almost hyperventilating by the time she hears the elevator doors chime.

Instantly she jerks away from Lena’s mouth. When Lena looks up at her in confusion only inches from her destination, for a brief and shameful moment Kara feels like she could truly throw the poor janitor currently rolling his cart across the bullpen into the upper atmosphere.

“Someone’s here,” Kara says, her voice a bit high and squeaky as Lena’s breath warms her underwear. “We should – we probably need to –”

“f*ck,” Lena hisses, rolling her chair back and peering towards the closed blinds. “Who?”

Kara shoves her other leg into her pants, pulling them up so hard that she almost rips the zipper. “Reggie. One of the janitors.” She truly tries to keep the profound disappointment out of her voice as she listens to his familiar footfalls and cheerful whistling.

Lena relaxes a little, but she still looks agitated. She darts over to the window, peering through a gap in the blinds. “Damn it. I’m tired of –” Lena cuts herself off, sighing and letting the blind fall back into place. “How long will he be here?”

“Reg is pretty thorough. An hour, at least. He’ll probably want to clean your office, too.”

Lena frowns. “How did you hear him?”

Kara doesn’t answer. She clears her throat, tucking her shirt half-heartedly back into her waistband. “I should probably go, huh?”

Lena nods. She looks like she wants to say more, but her mouth snaps closed. Instead she inclines her head towards the door, and Kara slips out silently while Reg is busy emptying the trash in the lunchroom.

Kara is really, really sick of being interrupted. Lena has drawn a line, asked that they only do this here, but when here means constant disruptions at extremely inopportune moments –

“Kara!” Reggie says jovially when he spots her darting across the office, poking his head out of the lunchroom and waving at her. “Working late again? You’ve been doing that a lot lately, eh?”

“Yeah,” Kara says, trying not to wince. Mentally she’s still living in the moment just before Lena’s mouth made contact. “I’ve had a lot to catch up on.”

“Miss Luthor’s car is still here, too. Both of you work too much.”

Kara chuckles nervously, inching towards the elevator. “Yeah. Probably.”

Kara flies home in a daze, and she doesn’t fall asleep until she’s replayed that moment in her head to its obvious conclusion. She spends the entirety of the next day absolutely haunted by what almost was, while simultaneously relishing the knowledge of the location of every mark under Lena’s expensive clothes.

That night sticks with Kara in more ways than one. She and Lena have now crossed several new boundaries, all of them good. They’d talked almost like friends, even if Lena is still entirely professional during work hours. And Lena had seemed almost as disappointed as Kara was to be interrupted.

Maybe, just maybe, Lena might change her mind about this only-at-the-office business.

A week later, Kara’s usual idle tuning-in to Lena’s day-to-day is disrupted by a second voice in the elevator with Lena. It’s not James, or any of Kara’s coworkers. It’s a woman. One whose voice Kara doesn’t recognize at all.

Kara glances over when the doors slide open, curious to the max, to see that Lena’s companion is absolutely gorgeous. She’s tall and angular, with kind brown eyes and a friendly look about her, and they’re talking about the same L-Corp merger Lena has been so hard at work on. Lena seems comfortable and easy in her presence in a way Kara doesn’t often see.

Kara picks up her office phone, shamelessly pretending to be on it just she she can listen.

“They’re getting nervous, so we should make sure to book a meeting with both of us present,” the new woman says, stepping into Lena’s office and letting the door almost shut behind her. “They might need to be reminded of the deal they signed.”

“Good idea,” Lena says, sighing. “It needs to be handled delicately.”

“Say that to whoever left those bruises on your wrists.”

Kara’s phone receiver crumples in her hand.

“Sam!” Lena hisses. The name is familiar - their first tryst had been interrupted by a call from a Sam. She must be Lena’s COO. Kara wonders, as she hastily unplugs the receiver and throws it into her bottom drawer, if this is who Lena was getting drinks with.

“What? You expected me not to notice?” Sam says. She sounds amused. Kara can hear heels clicking, and Lena’s office door shuts completely. “I thought you’d finally hired one of those high-end escort services, but with how much you keep going back you must be spending a fortune. Now I’m starting to think it’s someone you know.”

Lena takes a long breath, but she doesn’t confirm or deny Sam’s suspicions.

"Oh, Lena, you're blushing! I don't think I've ever seen you blush. I wasn't sure you had blood vessels in your face. Look at your ears!"

“Sam, please. Not here.”

The conversation turns reluctantly back to business. Kara is left staring into space until the door opens again – Lena strides across the bullpen to talk to James, her ears still faintly pink, and Kara follows her movement. She’s in a classic pencil-skirt-and-blouse combo, her hair in a complicated twist, and Kara happily drinks in the lines of her curves as she walks past.

When she spares a glance back towards Lena’s office, Sam is staring right at her.

Kara jumps. She’s not technically doing anything wrong, but it still feels like she’s been caught red-handed – she focuses on her computer screen, very aware that Sam is still staring. She has no idea what the document in front of her says.

Kara can hear heels approaching, and they aren’t Lena’s. A hip leans against Kara’s desk. A confident hand extends into Kara’s field of vision.

“Samantha Arias.”

Crap.

Adjusting her glasses out of nervous habit, Kara stands up and takes the offered hand. Sam is even taller up close – she has several inches on Kara, who has always considered herself above average. It’s hard to meet Sam’s eye, but Kara grits her teeth and does it. “Kara Danvers?”

“The one who broke the Edge story?” Sam says, her eyebrows rising. “Nice. Lena has good things to say about you.” Sam flexes her hand when Kara releases it, laughing a little. “Strong handshake.”

“Sorry,” Kara says, too distracted to be very sorry at all. “Um –Lena says good things?”

Sam’s eyes narrow curiously. There’s far too much understanding behind them.

“I mean. I’m glad she’s happy. I'm just doing my job, you know?" Kara says, putting her hands instinctively on her hips before remembering that it’s her most recognizable Supergirl stance. She drops them quickly.

Sam looks down at Kara from her great height, and then at Lena, absorbed in conversation with James. It looks like a civil conversation this time, at least. James is even smiling.

“You seem to be thriving under CatCo’s new ownership,” Sam says. “That story practically went viral.”

“Lena is great at her job. It’s easy to thrive.”

Sam tilts her head. She looks Kara over more closely, lingering on her arms and her hands – Kara feels a bit like she’s being subtly interrogated, despite the friendly tone of the conversation. Sized up. Weighed.

“She is,” Sam says, her lips quirking upwards. “Though most people don’t see that. What’s different about you?”

“Different? Nothing!” Kara says, her voice cracking a little. She rocks forward on the balls of her feet. “I’m like, the most normal person here. Totally average.”

Sam’s smile widens. Kara knows without a doubt that she’s already revealed too much, and yet Sam keeps getting information out of her seemingly without any effort. It’s like interpersonal witchcraft.

“I don’t think Lena thinks so.”

“Really?” Kara says, entirely too eagerly.

Sam’s smile is now reminiscent of a hunter who’s finally narrowed in on their prize. Kara has the feeling she’s stumbled right into something, and even though she knows it’s exactly what Sam expects, she can’t help it.

She looks at Lena.

As if she can feel Kara’s eyes on her, Lena looks back almost immediately. The mostly positive expression on her face morphs into something like horror when she realizes who Kara is talking to, and with barely an acknowledgement of James Lena practically runs back across the bullpen.

“Sam!” Lena says as soon as she’s in reasonable earshot, a bit breathless from her sprint. “What are you doing?”

“Chatting!” Sam says brightly. She looks absolutely delighted by the whole thing, looking back and forth between them like she’s watching a particularly interesting tennis match.

Lena crosses her arms, glaring at them both. “I can’t imagine what you two would have to talk about.”

“Plenty,” Sam says, still smiling. “We were just talking about your star reporter’s latest article.”

Kara says nothing, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that anything she says right now will be the wrong thing. It’s clear that Lena doesn’t want Sam to know anything beyond what she’s already guessed, and she keeps her mouth firmly shut as Lena seems to relax a little.

“Oh. Good,” Lena says, drumming her fingers on her folded arms. “Sam, we’re going to be late. We should head back to L-Corp.”

“We have lots of time,” Sam argues, but she still follows Lena towards the elevator. “Nice to meet you, Kara.”

“You, too,” Kara squeaks.

Kara turns back to her computer, setting her fingers on the keys even though she couldn’t possibly summon the brain function to type anything. The elevator doors have just closed behind them when she hears Sam again.

“Any time you want to tell me about your thing with the snack in the pastel cardigan, I’m ready to listen.”

She can hear Lena’s heart skip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

"I saw the way you two looked at each other."

"And?"

"And I think there’s something there. Something related to your recent bruises, perhaps?"

Kara's keyboard cracks cleanly in two. She groans quietly, unplugging it and throwing it into the drawer with her mangled phone receiver as she continues to eavesdrop.

"That's completely ridiculous. I’m her boss," Lena says. Her voice is steady, but her heartbeat is not.

"Yeah, like that's never happened before."

The elevator lapses into silence. Lena must be glaring at Sam again, because Sam chuckles. "Okay. I'm sorry, we can talk business. But once you sort out whatever the hell that was I will be at your door with a bottle of wine, because I’m pretty sure there’s a crush happening."

They hit the lobby not long after. The conversation turns towards business, all about numbers and meetings and the merger as they cross the space and get into a car outside, and Kara is left staring at a blinking cursor until 4:30 hits.

Sam’s voice echoes in her head as she heads home, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone in the elevator in the end-of-day rush – there’s no use staying late if Lena isn’t going to be here.

I’m pretty sure there’s a crush happening.

Maybe it’s because they almost got caught so recently, but Kara doesn’t see Lena at the office late for a while. Lena is spending more time at L-Corp taking care of whatever merger she and Sam were occupied with, and when she does turn up at CatCo it’s in short bursts.

In those short bursts, though, their working relationship improves. Lena praises Kara more easily, and commends James for giving her the harder and more rewarding assignments. She even calls Kara an ace reporter once, which Kara carries with her like a happy little bubble for days.

It's enough of a turnaround that even James notices. He makes vague comments once or twice about Lena’s new attitude – Kara might even be detecting a hint of jealousy, if she squints. Lena is less frosty but still pretty distant with him, and Kara is sure James is wondering how she got into Lena’s good graces so quickly.

Even Lena’s scolding is gentler, now. She does still note when Kara is late or disappears too much, though she doesn’t ask exactly why, and Kara even finds that in this new context she’s weirdly…into it.

Lena actually calls her out on it once, in a rare private moment as they’re walking down a lesser-used hallway towards the same meeting.

“You’re on time today,” Lena says. Her voice is low, and it holds no malice – it feels more like playful flirting than an actual reproach, and Kara grins.

“Would you prefer if I left and came back later?”

Lena almost laughs. The barest hint of a dimple flashes at her cheek; she seems to catch herself at the last moment. Kara has never heard Lena laugh properly even from afar, never seen her unrestrained by the tight grip she always seems to have on her reactions to everything around her. She wants to see Lena let go. Untethered.

“Only if you actually want to be degraded in front of your coworkers,” Lena drawls.

Kara feels inordinately warm, considering they’re in a climate-controlled building. Degraded. Such an evocative word.

Lena quirks a brow. Her pace has slowed down, almost like she wants more time with Kara. “Do you?”

“No,” Kara says. She clears her throat, making sure to meet Lena’s eyes. “But…you make me want to earn your praise.”

Lena bites her lip hard enough to leave an imprint in her dark red lipstick.

The meeting is difficult to get through, what with the way Lena keeps looking at Kara from across the conference table with a blazing heat that sends Kara’s thoughts scattering to the wind, but Kara grits her teeth and pushes through.

To her dismay Kara can’t stay late after the workday wraps up to address the situation, despite the fact that she knows Lena is still in her office. Alex’s call at 4:45 about a disturbance in Chinatown abruptly turns into an hours-long altercation with some kind of slime-based acidic alien that melts significant portions of the city’s best restaurants, and Kara vaguely heard Lena sighing and heading down to her car as she was dodging balls of caustic goop behind her favorite dumpling shop.

With how corrosive this alien is, Alex and the other DEO agents are laying low. Kara takes a breath, hidden behind a dumpster – she closes her eyes, tuning her hearing to try to follow the alien’s movement.

She can hear rustling nearby – a raccoon, maybe, still determinedly searching for food even as half the city block is falling to pieces. She can hear cars honking over the closed streets, J’onn shouting orders, the wind rustling the leaves, Lena’s quiet, breathy whimper –

Wait.

Everything else fades. Kara has conjured the memory of how Lena sounded the first time Kara touched her about 100 times now, but this isn’t a memory – it’s happening. Somewhere across town, Lena’s fingers are slicking through something wet as she lets out a long, shuddery breath.

A thick, gloppy green substance splatters onto the wall opposite to Kara, hissing on contact and starting to eat away at the brick, and Kara ducks out from behind the dumpster with her mind in two places at once.

It’s not her best day of fighting. Her attention is divided between the task at hand and the sound of Lena slowly working herself up in her own apartment – when Lena speeds up her pace, Kara slams the alien into the pavement only to realize he’s essentially made of liquid. When Lena starts to swear under her breath, Kara gets blindsided by a hit straight to the face.

By the time she manages to corral the alien into a containment van Lena has finally come with a now-familiar broken whine, Kara has been hit 3 times with corrosive sludge, and the entire left sleeve and shoulder of her suit has been eaten away by the acid.

“Where is your head at tonight?” Alex says, seemingly baffled as she knocks twice on the door of the van to signify it can drive away. “You’re all over the place. Look at your suit!”

Kara plucks at the tattered fabric. Goo is drying in her hair – it seems to be inert once it’s not liquid. “Sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”

“I’m sure Winn can make another one,” Alex says. She frowns. “You sure you’re okay?”

Across town, Lena is panting in the aftermath. Kara can imagine what she looks like – she probably has a huge bed with soft sheets, plenty of room to stretch out and take her time. Maybe she’s even naked, with parts of her that Kara has never been lucky enough to see exposed to the cool air. Sweaty and relaxed and gorgeous.

“I’m fine. We’ve been talking about a suit redesign anyways, right?” Kara says absently. Lena’s heart is beating so fast, and it’s not slowing down. It’s speeding up.

“Yeah, but you still need to be more careful. He could have -”

Kara tunes out before Alex has finished her sentence. In the distance, something has started to buzz; within seconds, Lena’s moans have ratcheted up several notches in intensity.

“Kara? Hello?” Alex says, waving a hand in front of Kara’s face.

Kara can’t divide her attention anymore. She needs to be anywhere but in her sister’s presence right now, because Lena is using a vibrator. Lena is moaning almost as loudly as she did when Kara held her wrists down, and she isn’t finished after one org*sm, and Lena is using a vibrator.

It’s invasive to listen intentionally, Kara knows that. But it’s also impossible to tune it out completely.

“I gotta go,” Kara says, stumbling backwards and getting ready to take off. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Where are you – Kara! Kara!”

But Kara is already gone, leaving two foot-shaped craters in the pavement. Her instinct is to fly straight to Lena, but that would be insane for several reasons – she’s still dressed as Supergirl, she’s coated in drying acid, and there’s absolutely no reason that she should know where Lena lives. Instead Kara lands haphazardly in her own apartment, jumps in the quickest shower known to man, and paces the apartment while Lena f*cks herself into a second and then a third org*sm in quick succession.

Kara had no idea she could get to three.

It’s only when Lena’s shower starts to run that Kara finally collapses into bed. She closes her eyes, focusing on the sound; the spray of the water, the swishing of a loofah over Lena’s skin, her low and adorably off-key humming. Lena with her walls down.

Oddly, this feels more intimate than listening to Lena getting herself off. With a concerted effort Kara shoves her noise-cancelling headphones over her ears and tries to focus on other noises, but it’s harder than usual.

Kara dearly wishes that they were at a place where she could just turn up at Lena’s door, or land on her balcony. She doesn’t even have Lena’s personal cell number, so calling at the right time and pretending it was just dumb luck is out of the question. Any method she has of reaching out to Lena right now would require revealing herself.

More than ever before, Kara wants to tell Lena who she is. She wants to see if she can get Lena to three.

With Lena’s humming as her lullaby, she drifts into pleasant dreams of pressing her against wet shower tiles.

Kara first meets Morgan Edge face-to-face when he threatens Lena in her own office.

His cologne is so overpowering that Kara can smell it before he’s even stepped out of the elevator. He walks slowly through the bullpen, looking around like it’s an amusing circus performance, which gives Kara just enough time to dart to Lena’s office.

She makes it just as Edge is passing Nia’s desk, closing the door quietly behind her.

“Kara?” Lena says, looking up curiously from her laptop. “What are you –”

“Edge is here,” Kara says. “Probably to see you.”

Lena’s expression turns grim as the door opens behind Kara.

Edge doesn’t knock. He strolls in like he owns the place, walking right past Kara and chuckling to himself as Lena stands up.

“Enjoying your new kingdom?” he says.

Lena’s jaw twitches. “Morgan. To what do I owe the inconvenience?”

“I hear you’re putting in a bid to head the restoration efforts in the arts quarter,” Edge says, grabbing a pen from Lena’s desk and clicking it a few times. He tosses it back towards her, but Lena ignores it as it rolls across the desk. “The art museum in particular, after that tragic incident with Supergirl.”

Kara crosses her arms, glaring at him as hard as she can without activating her heat vision. Supergirl had done quite a number on the arts quarter – or, to be more specific, the person who had been mid-art heist with a massive gun that shot ice and frost had done quite a number on it before Kara had managed to get there, distracted as she was by Lena’s hand in her pants – but Edge’s entitlement is rolling off him in waves.

“You must have little birds everywhere,” Lena says softly.

“I do when another company swoops in to take what’s mine for the second time in as many months.”

“What’s yours?” Lena scoffs, crossing her arms to match Kara. “Are you really so territorial that you lay claim to the entire West Coast real estate industry?”

Edge leans forward, bracing on Lena’s desk. Kara grits her teeth – that desk is the source of more than a few pleasant memories, and the last thing she wants is to remember him being here.

“I let you have CatCo. If you go forward with this bid, I won’t be so kind.”

The veiled threat is too much for Kara to handle. She moves closer to Lena’s desk, into Edge’s eyeline.

“Kind? You’ve been slandering her with every news outlet that will take you,” Kara snaps.

Edge looks at Kara, his smug expression not budging. “Do you often let your minions talk for you, Lena?”

Lena’s name said in Morgan Edge’s voice makes Kara’s skin crawl.

“Get to the point,” Lena says in clipped tones. “What exactly are you inferring?”

“I’m inferring that you should back off,” Edge says, his voice low and dangerous. “You start branching into real estate, and we’re going to have a real problem on our hands.”

“Excuse me?” Kara says, unfolding her arms, but before she can do much else Lena has interrupted.

“Kara, give us a moment.”

“But –”

“Kara,” Lena says sharply.

It’s the most sharp Lena’s tone has gotten with her in a long while. It feels like a chastening, and Kara’s frustration only mounts when she closes Lena’s door behind her to go back to her own desk and their conversation continues without her.

Nia is nowhere to be found, and instead of sitting down Kara storms down the stairs a few floors until she can shut herself into James’ unused analog photography room.

Kara paces back and forth across the small space, her hands clenched, listening to Edge’s veiled threats and Lena’s calm answers from afar. Edge leaves with a promise to escalate their feud if Lena makes another move to control the restoration efforts, and Kara can hear Lena typing something for a few minutes before she starts descending through the building, presumably looking for Kara.

It doesn’t take long for Lena to find her. She looks almost as agitated as Kara feels when she opens the door to find Kara leaning against the light-desk.

“There you are,” Lena mutters. She shuts the door firmly as Kara huffs.

“You wanted me to go away.”

“Kara, you cannot jump in on my conversations like that,” Lena says, sounding more tired now than angry. “Especially with men like Morgan Edge. I am not a damsel, nor am I in need of rescuing. You’ve done it with James, and now you’re doing it again.”

“I don’t think you’re a damsel!”

“You certainly act like it.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“Then why do you do it?” Lena says, clearly exasperated. “It’s becoming a pattern, and it’s not one I’m interested in continuing. Our –” Lena sighs, lowering her voice carefully. “Our…sexual relationship does not give you the right to butt in like that. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can.”

“So you realize that what you did makes me look weak?”

“Having help doesn’t make you weak. You deserve to have someone stand up for you for once,” Kara says fiercely. “To stand up with you. To know you’re not alone. I’m always going to have your back, even if you send me away.”

The fight goes out of Lena. The anger fades, ebbing away until all that’s left is confusion.

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Kara says. It slips out before she can think about it too hard, and Lena reels from it.

They're standing close together now. Lena looks flushed and beautiful; her eyes are bright with emotion. Kara is overcome with such a fierce desire to protect that it makes her chest hurt.

Edge made a legitimate threat against Lena. He’d inferred that he’d do something drastic if she kept pushing, and Lena made no indication that she planned to back down. How can Kara Danvers protect Lena from someone like him?

The only answer is that she can’t. Words can only go so far. But Supergirl can.

Before Kara can so much as think about starting down the long and twisty road of telling that truth, Lena is kissing her.

It’s different than any of the kisses they’ve shared before. Their first was all shock and desperation, both of them sprinting into the mutual unknown. Their second had been an exercise in restraint for Kara, and their third and fourth – it’s hard to believe that there have only been four, each followed by the most wonderful minutes of Kara’s life thus far – had only just begun to lean into whatever chemistry hangs between them.

This one is hard and intentional from the start. It’s a distraction from this dangerous conversation, and a conversation of its own. It’s a kiss that says I can’t handle this. It’s a kiss that says I don’t know if I can stop.

Lena is pinning her against the light-desk, both hands fisted in Kara’s shirt over her abs; Kara clings to the desk, now illuminated from beneath, feeling plexiglass and florescent bulbs strain under her hands as she tries to keep herself under control.

It’s no use. When Lena’s knee raises slightly to press between Kara’s thighs the surface of the light-desk cracks under her hands, and Kara can’t stop kissing her for long enough to care.

It’s also the first time this has happened during the daytime hours. As Lena toys with the buckle of Kara’s belt she can hear her coworkers upstairs, making calls and having watercooler conversations. She can hear the music in Nia’s headphones as she writes at her desk. She can hear the microwave buzzing, and someone pouring coffee, and the phone in Lena’s office ringing.

She can hear James shuffling something in his hands as he steps out of the elevator on this floor.

It’s just shocking enough to pull Kara out of her Lena-induced haze. She can guess why James is down here, heading towards a room that only he uses; they have mere seconds before he opens that door.

Flooded with panic, Kara pulls Lena hard against her. The light-desk isn’t far from the door, and she only needs to lift and carry Lena a few steps before they’re behind it in a way that will hopefully conceal them from James for long enough to escape once he’s inside.

Lena opens her mouth when Kara pins her to the wall behind the door, presumably to ask what the hell Kara is doing, and Kara claps her hand over it just as James pushes through the doorway.

Lena’s eyes widen dramatically. Kara can feel a sharp inhale against her fingers.

In a staggering bit of luck, James is looking down at the film canisters in his hands when he enters. He’s clearly on a mission, headed straight for a cabinet in the corner - Kara manages to shove Lena into the hallway and out of sight quietly enough that James doesn’t turn around, but when Kara tries to follow she’s ratted out by a light jingling noise.

Her belt is undone.

“Kara?” she hears James say from over her shoulder.

Wincing, Kara stops in her tracks to let Lena escape undetected. She fastens her belt in a burst of superspeed, wipes surreptitiously at her mouth with her sleeve, and turns around with a smile she hopes is bright and not at all guilty.

“Hey! What’s up?”

James smiles bemusedly. “What are you doing down here?”

“I, um. Come here to think sometimes,” Kara says, wiping her sweaty palms on her pants. “It’s quiet, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that. This is usually where I come to -” James stops abruptly, looking at something to Kara’s right, and Kara takes the opportunity to wipe her mouth again for good measure – hopefully the dark blue fabric of her shirt is enough to hide any lipstick residue there might have been.

With that taken care of, Kara follows James’ eyeline to see that he’s staring at the light-desk. Specifically at the dramatic spiderweb cracks running over the surface, originating from exactly where Kara’s hands were just resting.

“Damn. What happened here?” James says, tracing over the cracks with a finger. “This thing is insanely difficult to replace. They went out of production in the 90s.”

“Oh, gosh. That’s just…that’s really too bad,” Kara says, her heart pounding. Her ears are tuned to Lena’s bare feet padding down the hall and the stairwell door opening quietly – Lena was smart to take her shoes off. James doesn’t seem to hear her at all. “I didn’t even notice that.”

“Who could have done this?” James says, frowning down at what Kara thinks are pretty obviously two super-strong hand marks.

Kara clears her throat, tugging at her collar to vent a bit of the heat still lingering around her flushed neck. “Huh. That’s a real head-scratcher.”

“Too bad there aren’t cameras in here.”

“Definitely,” Kara says, letting out a quiet, relieved breath only when she can hear the hurried click of Lena’s heels across the bullpen again. “Sorry, James.”

“I guess I was the only one using it,” James sighs. “You know, Lena mentioned turning this room into another office for the graphic design department. She’s probably right.”

“You’re taking Lena’s advice now?”

“I’m man enough to say it. I was wrong,” James says, giving the light-table a forlorn tap with his knuckles. “She’s really proven herself lately. I’m starting to see why you respect her.”

“It’s about time,” Kara grumbles.

By the time Kara gets back to her desk, Lena’s office door is locked. She can hear Lena moving around behind it, but she doesn’t dare knock. They’ve almost gotten caught twice now in as many weeks, and Lena is probably spooked enough as it is. She’d probably eject Kara from the building if she tried to talk to her directly right now. It’s almost enough to make Kara wonder if all this subterfuge is worth it.

Kara collapses into her chair, moving to wipe the nervous sweat from her forehead, but she stops with her hand halfway to her face.

In the centre of her palm is a perfect crimson lipstick print.

Kara sighs, remembering the heat and softness of Lena’s lips on hers. The sweet, addicting magnetism of her, so easy to sink into despite every glaring warning sign in the world. Of course she’s worth the subterfuge. There isn’t much Kara wouldn’t do to ensure this keeps happening.

But she’s getting very, very tired of all these interruptions.

As Kara suspected, Lena does not back off on taking charge of the reconstruction of the arts quarter. In fact she only seems to push harder – she announces publicly that she’s doing so, and to top it all off she throws a gala to raise money for the art museum that Supergirl had a small hand in destroying.

Most of the reporting staff at CatCo get an invite. Lena hasn’t spoken to Kara much since almost getting caught by James and at this point Kara isn’t sure she ever will again, so despite the invite going out to the rest of the staff too Kara clings to it like a bastion of hope.

She’s starting to worry that Lena might have gotten too scared. Too worried about entanglement. That maybe this thing between them is over.

Her best bet is to catch Lena’s attention at the gala. Having noticed that Lena seems to react well when Kara dresses on the more masculine side of the scale, Kara asks Alex to accompany her to find something new to wear. She ends up with a nice suit, not too expensive but decently fitted in a deep navy blue, and paired with her tight bun and a new pair of loafers she’s pretty proud of how she looks when she strolls into the ballroom next to James.

Unfortunately she doesn’t get the chance to see Lena’s reaction, because the moment she sees what Lena is wearing every other thought leaves Kara’s head.

Lena is making her way across the ballroom, stopping every few co*cktail tables to chat with the very fancy people sipping very fancy co*cktails, and the dress she’s wearing would be deeply inappropriate for an ordinary work function. It’s tight-fitting, all-black and cut very wide at the neckline. It clings instead to her upper arms to show her shoulders and back, which leaves her cleavage on staggering display. Her hair is in a flawless updo, her eyes smoky and her lips deep crimson; everything is throat and collarbones and scattered, deeply kissable freckles over pale skin.

When Kara finally manages to drag her eyes up from where they’ve been inevitably drawn like a magnet, she finds Lena staring right back at her. She looks smug, like she’s just successfully pulled off a difficult chess strategy.

She looks happy that Kara is staring.

James’ voice is like a foghorn cutting through the thick tension. Kara had almost forgotten he was there.

“Nice suit, Kara,” James remarks, grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing tray. “Trying a new style?”

“Yeah. Way more comfy than dresses,” Kara says, adjusting her tie. Lena breaks the eye contact first, turning back to the group she’s chatting with, and Kara grabs a drink of her own even though the alcohol is useless to her. “I should ask Winn to make me a supersuit with pants next time.”

James follows Kara’s eyeline to Lena.

“It was really nice of her to invite us,” he says.

Kara nods absently – Lena is walking to another table, now, and the movement is causing a certain amount of bouncing that makes Kara feel no better than a man. “Uh huh.”

“And she looks amazing,” James continues.

Something cold forms in the pit of Kara’s stomach.

“I guess,” Kara says, tearing her eyes away from Lena’s perfect jawline to see that James is watching Lena almost as intently.

“I mean, she’s always been beautiful. But seeing her in this context, raising money for a good cause?” James says, sipping thoughtfully at his champagne. “It makes me see her in a new light.”

Oh no. Oh god, no, please.

“Wait. So you’re saying that a month ago you couldn’t stand her, and now you’re, what…attracted to her?” Kara says, not even trying to mask her annoyance.

“Is that so wrong?”

“Yes!” Kara shouts.

James’ brow furrows. A few people around them are staring - Lena is thankfully not close enough to have heard the outburst, but Kara can’t keep it in. It burns at her insides like magma.

“It’s wrong, because – because she’s your boss,” Kara stammers, trying to lower her voice this time. “It’s a conflict of interest!”

“Not really. There’s nothing against company policy about dating the person who owns the company’s shares,” James says with an infuriating lack of concern.

“Dating?” Kara says, her anger shifting to a mild sort of panic. “Who said anything about dating?”

“Nobody, I just –”

“You can’t date her. No way., There’s a power dynamic at play,” Kara says firmly, painfully aware of the fact that she’s only parroting what Lena once said to her about their relationship.

“Kara, why are you so –”

“Having a good time?” Lena says smoothly, appearing between them out of nowhere.

Kara’s mouth shuts with a snap. Up close, all the revealed skin is even more overwhelming; she can smell Lena’s perfume, stronger now than it usually is at the office, and she knows that James is close enough to smell it too.

An unwelcome surge of something she can only describe as possessiveness rolls over Kara. She knows she has no right to it, but that knowledge does nothing to make it go away.

“Great time,” Kara says, her voice a little bit squeaky. She’s thankful that Lena is looking at James, because she’s pretty sure she’s saying it mostly to Lena’s collarbones. “Awesome. Thanks for the invite.”

James’ voice is deep and even in comparison. “How’s the fundraising going?”

“Shockingly well,” Lena drawls, leaning forward against the table on her elbows. “I’ve managed to secure some major donations. Hopefully by the end of the night we’ll be in the millions.”

“Wow! That’s amazing,” Kara says. It’s a frankly Herculean effort to say it to Lena’s face rather than to her truly spectacular cleavage, but Kara manages.

“I’m really impressed, Lena,” James says, with all the quiet charm Kara remembers from when it still held sway over her. He’s like a picture-perfect handsome romance novel hero in his well-cut suit, and Kara feels small and inadequate in comparison. “You’re pretty formidable when you put your mind to something.”

“I appreciate that,” Lena says, with far more warmth than usual. “I could use your help, though. The Director of the Rankin Photography Institute is over by the bar.” Lena points him out, leaning closer to James than Kara would like. “He’s promised a sizeable donation, but he says he’s a big fan of yours?”

James chuckles, finishing his drink and excusing himself from the table. “Not a problem. Let’s see if we can double it.”

Kara is left alone with Lena, staring hard at James’ broad back and struggling through a quagmire of uncomfortable and entirely inappropriate resentment.

She has no reason to be jealous. Lena didn’t show any interest in James beyond slightly uncharacteristic friendliness, and besides that, Kara has no claim on Lena’s attention or her time. As much as she wishes she did.

But it’s hard to ignore that James is objectively exactly the kind of person Lena should be with. He’s closer to her level as the Creative Director of CatCo. He’s kind, he’s thoughtful, and now that he’s not convinced Lena is just another Luthor, he seems to like her. He’s a good man. One of the best Kara knows.

He’s also not hiding a secret identity.

Kara startles when something touches her fingers. It’s a small rectangle of matte black plastic roughly the shape of a credit card, and Lena is surreptitiously pushing it across the surface of the table and under Kara’s hand.

“The Waldorf downtown. Room 904,” Lena murmurs, still looking towards James at the bar. “11pm.”

It’s a hotel room key.

“The Waldorf? You got us a room?” Kara whispers, clenching her hand around the card like Lena might take it away.

“Don’t make a fuss about it,” Lena says, glancing around for eavesdroppers. “This is a one-time occurrence.”

“Right,” Kara says. The plastic is warming in her hand, and she slips it into her pocket before it catches anyone’s attention. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“I’m tired of being walked in on,” Lena says under her breath, so softly that Kara has to lean closer. “The only other option was the bathrooms, and I have standards.”

This many different emotions shouldn’t be able to fit in a single person at once. Kara is still tangled in jealousy and annoyance at James and all the usual confusing feelings Lena elicits, but now she’s also besieged by sharp relief. Lena hasn’t gotten spooked – she’s gotten them a room. That realization comes with a surge of joy, but also a healthy dose of nerves.

They’re going to have all night.

“I would have done the bathrooms. But this is much better,” Kara says. Lena’s proximity draws Kara’s eyes downwards again, fixed to the place she now firmly intends to bury her face later tonight, and when she looks back up Lena’s ears are slightly pink.

“I thought so,” Lena says, with the ghost of a smile. “Don’t be late.”

Kara is not late. She’s almost an hour early actually, sneaking out of the gala while everyone else is still schmoozing so she can let herself into the apparently palatial suite Lena booked.

It’s not the biggest in the building, but it’s certainly luxurious – it has a separate living room and kitchen, a full bar, a waterfall shower, and a bed larger and fluffier than any Kara has ever slept on. There’s champagne on ice on the coffee table, and a shoebox-sized package on one of the nightstands.

Kara is still wandering through the rooms when she hears Lena’s heels approaching on the hallway carpet. She darts out to the sitting room as the door beeps, and when Lena appears – looking somehow more radiant in the fluorescent hotel lighting than she did in a ballroom – Kara swallows past this sudden reality.

They’re completely alone.

“You’re here,” Lena says. As if there was ever going to be another option.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Kara murmurs.

They meet in the middle in a whirlwind of a kiss. Lena is loosening Kara’s tie before the door even shuts behind her, tossing it over her shoulder and starting on the shirt buttons, and Kara manages to get Lena’s zipper halfway down without tearing the dress in two, even when Lena sucks on her tongue and Kara almost loses control of her faculties.

When Kara’s shirt has hit the floor Lena pushes on Kara’s chest, breaking the kiss for long enough to say one word.

“Bed.”

Kara stumbles backwards in the direction of the bedroom, abandoning her belt and tripping out of her pants and shoes on the way. Lena’s heels are abandoned on the carpet. Her hair is loose and free of pins by the time Kara’s knees hit the edge of the mattress.

Again, Lena pushes on Kara’s chest until she falls back. Kara grips the duvet, but Lena doesn’t climb into her lap; instead she reaches behind her own back, slides the zipper the rest of the way down, and steps out of her dress.

The air in the room feels heavy. Lena is just as exquisite as Kara imagined she would be – she’s soft in all the best places, pale and scattered all over with more of those singular, isolated freckles. Kara wants to kiss every single one of them. She’s wearing an expensive-looking black lace lingerie set, but Kara would be just as mesmerized if she were in department-store cotton.

When Lena climbs onto the bed and presses their bodies together with nothing between them but undergarments, Kara can’t decide where she wants to put her hands first.

She happily lets Lena take the lead, focusing instead on savouring every moment as Lena kisses her; it’s never been this slow, this intentional. She’s never had this kind of access to Lena’s body, warm and pliable under her hands. All they’ve had are moments until now. A string of races to the finish before they get caught.

It's completely different like this.

Lena’s dark hair drapes around them like a curtain. Kara is caught up in her own senses; the smell of perfume and hairspray and floral shampoo. The taste of Lena’s mouth. The softness of her skin in sharp contrast with the scratchy lace as Kara gets brave enough to explore further down. The high, needy noise Lena makes when Kara slides a thigh between hers.

She can feel Lena’s heat on her bare skin. She can feel her own on Lena’s, soaking through thin fabric.

Lena has already kissed her way down Kara’s chest and is well on her way to her bellybutton before Kara realizes her intention.

There’s nobody to disrupt them this time. Lena is nipping at Kara’s bare hipbones, and parting her legs to settle herself between them, and pulling Kara’s underwear down, and then like magic Kara is spread wide only inches from Lena’s mouth with no interruptions in sight.

There’s nothing Kara can grip without breaking when Lena’s tongue makes contact. She buries a hand in her own hair instead, gripping tight as Lena runs gently up and down and over her in ways that feel revolutionary. Earth-shattering. Astronomical. Just the visual of it – seeing Lena almost-naked between her legs, her hair fanned out, looking up at Kara with those gorgeous mismatched eyes as she spreads her open and licks a broad stripe over her cl*t – outstrips any of Kara’s previous experience.

It's never been so difficult to keep her strength in check. It feels too good, too much, and Kara digs her toes into the sheets in a desperate attempt not to buck her hips as Lena gets more experimental.

“You’re so tense,” Lena murmurs, giving Kara’s inner thigh a firm bite. Her mouth is shiny. Kara is painted across her full lips, and it makes her want to be devoured.

“Uh huh,” Kara grunts. The hand that isn’t in her own hair is gripping a pillow for dear life, her knuckles white around the high thread count, but Lena’s hand is so soft when it moves up Kara’s belly to rest between her ribs. Gentle. Without words, she conveys understanding.

“Take my hand,” Lena says.

Kara swallows hard. She considers the possible consequences – loss of control. Broken fingers. The reveal of her identity.

She releases her grip on the pillow, and intertwines her fingers with Lena’s.

It becomes almost meditative, in a way. Kara keeps her hand in Lena’s, and as the waves of sensation roll over her she teaches herself to ride them out rather than fighting the current. She lets Lena guide her ever higher until she’s well past anything familiar. Lena’s hand is her anchor to the earth, and Kara doesn’t break it.

Lena tries soft pressure, and then hard and fast; she sucks Kara’s cl*t into her mouth, humming contentedly when Kara moans. Her hands spread over Kara’s hips, short nails digging in like she’s trying to get Kara closer as she changes Kara’s whole worldview.

Lena likes this. She seems to like it almost as much as Kara does, and that fact alone is enough to push Kara forward, a potent rush of feeling that has her letting go of Lena’s hand and biting so hard on her own fist that she can almost feel the pain. It’s so much more than what she feels when she touches herself. She wonders, as the pressure in her belly finally breaks, if anything else will ever measure up.

Coming in Lena’s mouth is well worth the wait.

It’s all over in a matter of minutes, and in the wake of those minutes Kara is left splayed on Egyptian cotton sheets in nothing but a bra with Lena Luthor’s face pillowed on her abdomen.

Even considering the events of the last few weeks, it all feels a little bit surreal.

“Successful?” Lena says, tracing a quick circle around Kara’s bellybutton.

All the tension goes out of Kara at once. She sinks into the mattress, chuckling a little – Lena’s head bounces on Kara’s flexed stomach.

“That might have been the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Kara says honestly.

Kara can feel Lena’s smile. When she moves back up Kara’s body and draws her into a kiss it’s soft and deep, far deeper than any of their previous, and it’s exactly what Kara craves. The closeness. Lena’s skin against her own, whole and uncovered with nowhere to be but right here.

Tasting herself on Lena’s mouth should be weird, but it isn’t. It twists Kara’s desire up all over again. Their soft kisses turn hard and messy again as Kara rolls them both over, pinning Lena to the bed, and slots herself perfectly into the space between Lena’s hips.

Lena wraps her legs around Kara’s waist, and Kara knows she’s made the right decision.

It’s not long before they’re moving together in a way Kara doesn’t quite understand, but she submits to the rhythm her body is chasing. Grinding. Rolling. It’s hard to know what to do next when there’s so much to choose from – she wants to give, she wants to take, she wants to merge with Lena until they’re a single perfect being. She wants whatever Lena wants, and she wants more. If this is going to be a one-time occurrence, she wants to experience everything they’ve been missing out on in the span of a single night.

Caught up in all the skin available to her, Kara runs her hands over everything she can reach. She finally gives in to her night-long desire to kiss the tops of Lena’s breasts, nipping at the lace until Lena arches up to unfasten her bra; Kara rips her own off along with Lena’s underwear and launches them both across the bedroom in her haste to have maximum skin-on-skin contact.

Holding Lena’s breasts in her hands and pressing a kiss to the space between them feels like the most intimate thing Kara has ever done. Lena is pressed against her stomach, and Kara can feel her wetness painting the hot skin there.

So wet, and all for Kara.

“Kara,” Lena gasps, arching into Kara’s mouth when she shifts over to trace her tongue over a nipple, “the box. Open the box.”

Kara had completely forgotten about the package sitting on the nightstand. It takes some willpower to stop touching Lena, but Kara tears the box open to find what appears to be a box full of belts. It’s a mess of black leather straps and buckles, and Kara frowns confusedly at it until the moment she lifts it out of the tissue paper surrounding it.

Attached to the straps by an o-ring is a respectably sized, royal purple dild*.

Kara has done her research. She remembers this from a few of the videos – it had seemed far too advanced for her at the time, too intimidating. Some strange, foreign object attached to someone’s hips. But with the way Lena is looking at her right now, her legs spread and waiting, Kara is more than willing to try.

Kara steps into the harness on her own, but Lena helps her to fasten it to the right tightness. At first it does seem sort of silly to have a big piece of silicone sticking out from between her legs – the harness makes her feel like she’s about to go rock climbing, and she accidentally pokes Lena in the hip with the head of the toy twice while she’s getting it adjusted. But once she’s settled between Lena’s legs again, it sits against Lena’s cl*t in a way that makes her moan into Kara’s mouth and squirm against it and suddenly, Kara can see the merit.

Kara slips right back into their rhythm. This time Lena is grinding against the toy, gripping Kara by the straps of the harness and pulling her forward and back as she rubs herself against it, and it’s Lena who finally lines it up properly while Kara is still adjusting to the new stimulus.

“Please,” Lena gasps, pulling at the harness until the toy sinks an inch or two into her, “f*ck me, Kara.”

Rao.

Kara starts out careful, pressing in slow and even, but Lena isn’t having it. She pulls hard at the harness until their hips align, gasping into Kara’s mouth when it bottoms out, and she uses that grip to set a harsh pace. It’s hard and fast just like Kara has done with her fingers before, but with both of her hands free and the leverage of her hips in the equation it feels undeniably different.

Kara hits her stride quickly. It feels instinctive, settling into the right hip movement and holding Lena open to f*ck her at a pace unreachable by most humans. It feels right. The only thing she can think to compare it to is the euphoria of making her first plane save. Finding something in Supergirl that felt like a real purpose.

Lena is so open to her, her legs up around Kara’s hips, toes curling as she whines in Kara’s ear. Whining for Kara to f*ck her. Wanting Kara. Needing her. If each experience with Lena has been like a new door being opened in the twisting labyrinth of hallways that is Kara’s self-perception, this is the final gate being thrown open to the great wide world outside.

“Does that – feel good?” Kara grunts. Lena’s hands scratch at the solid headboard, but with no slats to grip she ends up clinging to a pillow instead.

“So f*cking good, so – f*ck, Kara,” Lena whines. It’s high and breathy and slightly out of control; everything Lena isn’t outside the bedroom. It’s everything Kara wants to hear right now.

Kara bites at Lena’s lower lip, just a hair harder than she usually might. “Tell me.”

Lena moans. Her head tips back, and Kara takes the opportunity to kiss a path from her chin past the single freckle on her throat and down towards her chest, pressing her face there again just like she’s been thinking about since she first saw Lena in that dress.

“You feel so good inside me,” Lena whines. It vibrates against Kara’s lips, down her spine and between her legs like a quivering tuning fork. “God, I want more. I want you deeper, I want – I want –”

Lena cuts off in another high-pitched noise.

Kara groans, almost harmonizing with Lena’s pitch. She’d thought she was pretty deep already, but she’s willing to keep trying for as long as Lena will keep talking to her like that.

“Do you have a bigger one?” Kara murmurs. “Would it hurt?”

Lena’s next moan is even louder than their first time, when Kara pinned Lena’s wrists. Kara remembers what Lena said afterwards –

Given the right circ*mstances, sometimes I like to be hurt.

Her mind half in memory, half in the incredible present, Kara gathers Lena’s wrists in one hand again and presses them hard into the bed.

Lena doesn’t disappoint. Words are abandoned. It’s all loud, wordless encouragement to match the frantic pace, moans and expletives so unabashed that Kara wonders if it can be heard from the hallway.

Kara also wonders, as Lena tenses up and it gets harder to thrust, if her next internet search should be safe bondage practices.

Being on the giving end of this so far outstrips any of Kara’s experience receiving. She’s never loved how it felt to have something inside – she’s more into external stimulation, but Lena could not be clearer in her enjoyment. She’s feeling good, and it’s because of Kara.

Lena comes with her legs locked so tightly around Kara’s waist that were she not Kryptonian, she wouldn’t be able to move. Kara can’t feel it like she could on her fingers, but she can almost imagine what it would be like if she could – how Lena would feel pulsing around her, wet and warm. Feeling the proof of her pleasure.

When the pressure finally eases Kara collapses blissfully face-first into Lena’s chest, and she expects Lena to tell her to move; instead, Lena’s arms go around her shoulders. A leg stays around her hip, holding her there.

Even Lena’s sweat smells good.

“Okay. That’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Kara pants, slightly muffled by Lena’s cleavage.

And Lena laughs.

Kara has been chasing a laugh since the first time she managed to make Lena smile, and it’s about the only thing that could make her raise her head right now. Just as she thought, it changes Lena’s whole face – it lights her up with infectious joy. Her eyes crinkle and brighten. Her face scrunches up, and two sweet dimples appear at her cheek.

She’s unimaginably gorgeous, and somehow seems more real than she’s ever been before.

Kara could go again easily, instantly, but Lena is trembling and gasping for breath – by her heart rate, Kara gets the sense that she might need a break.

There’s nowhere to run this time without making it clear that one of them is trying to escape, and to Kara’s delight Lena actually lets Kara do what she’s ached to do from day one – she lets Kara hold her. She curls into Kara’s body, nestling into the crook of her shoulder, and she doesn’t show any sign of leaving.

“Can I ask you something?” Kara says, after a minute of semi-comfortable silence. Lena’s body has calmed a little. She’s drawing patterns across Kara’s stomach, and Kara is mesmerized by the nonsensical movement of her fingers.

“Depends on the question," Lena says, in a way that's becoming familiar.

“What did you really think of me, when we met?”

Lena pauses. She’d been moving up towards Kara’s chest, but her hand falls instead over Kara’s ribs.

“We sort of went from 0 to 100,” Kara clarifies quickly. “Before you kissed me, I felt like you hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you.”

“You just thought I slept my way to the top.”

Lena raises her head, quirking a brow. “I knew there was a certain amount of favouritism in your ascension.”

“I didn’t really think about how it looked from the outside,” Kara admits. “It turns out a lot of my coworkers thought the same.”

Lena’s brow smooths out a little. She lays back down, resuming her meandering patterns, and Kara relaxes into it.

“I also read a lot of your work after I bought the company. I wanted to be up-to-date with all the reporters on staff. A lot of your articles had a pretty obvious pro-alien bias,” Lena says. She draws a star above Kara’s bellybutton, and then a complicated sort of swirl down towards her pelvis. “I made the assumption that you felt the same way about my family that everyone else did.”

“Your family,” Kara says quietly. “Not you.”

“Nobody else made that distinction. I thought it would be easier to get out ahead of it.”

Kara nods. It’s a more reasonable explanation than Kara’s previous one, and Lena’s next words are the cherry on top.

“I also thought you were…reasonably attractive.”

“Wow. Incredibly flattering,” Kara says, though even such a lukewarm compliment has her blushing like Lena has presented her with a handwritten haiku. She can feel Lena’s shoulders shake, like she’s holding in a laugh.

“Fine. Distractingly attractive. It was frustrating, to say the least.”

As much as Kara wants to fish for more compliments, she’s aware enough of Lena’s skittishness not to push. She tucks Lena’s hair behind her ear, smoothing her fingers through the strands. “I’ve always thought you were kind of amazing.”

Lena cranes her head to look up at Kara doubtfully.

“I have!” Kara says. “I told you, I watched your testimony during Lex’s trial. I thought you were incredibly brave. When you first took over L-Corp I actually tried to get an interview with you. I wanted to show the world what I saw in that trial footage.”

Lena’s brow wrinkles. “I don’t remember that.”

“I never got past your assistant,” Kara grumbles. “She’s like a tiny bouncer.”

Lena smiles, settling on her elbows half-draped over Kara’s chest. Her chin rests on Kara’s breastbone. “Jess is a bit overprotective.”

“I’m sure it’s kept you safe before. I would have loved that interview, though.”

“Unfortunately, I think doing it now would be pushing the bounds of journalistic ethics.”

“That wouldn’t be out of character for me.”

Lena laughs again. Kara wants the cadence of it etched into her brain forever, to be replayed anytime she needs a boost. She needs to break out her sketchbook when she gets home; the details of Lena’s smile need to be committed to paper.

“Now it’s my turn to ask you a question,” Lena says, her eyes still sparkling a little. Kara wants to kiss the perfect slope of her nose, the lines at the corners of her eyes, but now probably isn’t the time.

“I guess that’s fair.”

Lena’s lips purse. “Did Sam say anything weird to you earlier this week?”

“Sam?” Kara says, frowning. It’s not the topic change she expected. “No, she just introduced herself. And stared at me a lot.”

Lena sighs. Kara can’t tell if it’s frustration, or relief.

“Sorry. She’s far too invested in my life. If she finds anyone she thinks I might be vaguely attracted to, she starts interviewing them on the spot.”

Considering what Kara overheard Sam saying in the elevator, she’s pretty sure that Sam already suspects they’ve gone past simple attraction. It’s a bit strange that Lena isn’t saying so, but Kara nods along. “I get it. I told my sister I was kind of gay a few days ago and now she keeps trying to sign me up for all these lesbian dating apps.”

Lena’s hand freezes. Her body goes tense, and Kara’s stomach sinks.

“That’s nice,” Lena says, though her voice is a little strained. Her words are clipped. “I’m…glad she’s so supportive.”

Both in her tone and in her body language Lena is retreating, and with Lena being so hard to read it’s hard to tell what triggered it. Maybe in talking about Alex Kara has unwittingly stumbled into a sore spot – knowing Lena’s family, they can’t have been supportive in the same way.

“Yeah. Sam seems supportive, too,” Kara says, desperately jumping to a new topic before Lena’s walls go back up completely. “She seemed really nice.”

Lena snorts. Her tense shoulders loosen a little. “She said you nearly broke her hand.”

“I was nervous! She’s kind of intimidating,” Kara says. “I wasn’t expecting to be interrogated at my desk by a 6’5 supermodel.”

Lena smiles. The sparkle from earlier is gone, but she’s at the very least not completely guarded. “She’s only 5’10.”

“Was she wearing stilts?”

Lena laughs, this time. A short exhalation rather than the unfiltered laughs of earlier, but a victory nonetheless. “Heels.”

“You guys seem close,” Kara says, following this easier line of questioning. “How did you meet?”

Lena doesn’t answer. She taps a little rhythm on Kara’s clavicle, her brow furrowed. It smooths out just before she speaks.

“One more question for you, first,” Lena says. “And you have to promise to be honest.”

A single thread of anxiety twists around Kara’s stomach. Honesty. The thing she’s struggled with the most when it comes to Lena.

“Okay,” Kara says, her mouth going a little dry. She props up on her elbows a little, looking down at Lena still resting on her chest. “I promise.”

Lena traces a circle around Kara’s nipple, ending with a light tap. “Is this whole never been with a woman before thing some kind of pickup line?”

Kara blinks. Lena’s tone isn’t overly accusatory, but the question is way out of left field. Even with this slightly less personal subject, Lena has sidestepped. Directed things back to the safe zone of the sexual. The brief, shining moment of sharing is over, but the fact that it happened at all is enough to give Kara hope of it happening again. And when it does, it might be time to finally tell Lena the truth.

When they were only having heated trysts at the office it was easy enough to accept Lena’s original request not to get too personal, but now? After tonight?

Things have changed.

“I mean, you say you just told your sister you’re gay,” Lena continues, her finger now tracing over each of Kara’s ribs. Her words are suspicious, but she’s smiling. “But nobody is this good their first time. It’s a play, right? Were you just trying to impress me?”

Kara laughs. The thread dissipates, and she falls back against the pillows.

“I wasn’t that good, was I?”

“Your first time out of the gate you took to it like a duck to water. You then ate me out with zero instruction,” Lena drawls, tugging at one of the leather straps Kara only now realizes she’s still wearing, “and now you f*ck me like you’ve been using one of these for years. In any other field, you’d be considered a savant.”

Lena’s approval sings through Kara from head to toe.

Lena’s hair is a mess, tangled at the back from friction with the pillows. She has several red marks scattered across her chest that will definitely turn into light bruises. She’s flushed all over with patchy red spots from exertion, spread languidly over the sheets and over Kara.

It’s impossible not to kiss her.

“I might have done some Googling,” Kara says, swallowing hard as they part after a long, luxurious minute of kissing. Her voice cracks when she realizes that Lena’s hand has moved to grip the base of the toy. It’s still a little wet. “Like I said. You make me want to earn your praise.”

Lena’s grip tightens.

This isn’t the office, where everything needs to be quick and dirty. Kara can draw things out. She can finally strip Lena all the way down and explore, buzzing with the newness of it all. Lena encourages it, even guides her in little ways; she lets Kara experiment with her long into the night, gentle and encouraging in a way that Kara somehow always knew she would be as Kara does her best to live up to Lena’s assessment.

Kara gets Lena to four, by the end of it. She’s never been more insufferably smug about anything in her life.

She wakes up just after dawn to wailing sirens.

Kara sits up instinctively. It sounds like a large car accident on the highway – they might need Supergirl to get people out of the vehicles, or fly them to the hospital. She’s already slung her legs over the side of the bed and reached for the closest article of clothing when she looks at Lena.

Lena is lying on her stomach, one arm up and under her pillow – the other is tucked under her chin, her hand curled up in a position that seems protective. Her hair is tangled and wavy over her back. She’s still fast asleep, her face smooth and unguarded and a little squished against the pillow.

Kara can hear J’onn arriving at the site of the accident. His voice is calm and commanding; the accident doesn’t seem big. He can probably handle it.

She’s still wavering on whether or not to go when Lena reaches for her.

It’s totally unconscious. Lena is still sleeping – Kara can hear it in the evenness of her breathing, the slow and steady beat of her heart. But her hand has uncurled from its place under her chin to reach out for Kara in sleep, and finding Kara’s side of the mattress empty a small crease forms between her brows.

Kara drops the pants she’s been about to step into. She lays back down, sliding back towards Lena and under the duvet, and she takes Lena’s hand in her own.

The crease disappears.

The decision is made for Kara, then. She tunes out the sirens. She shifts closer to Lena, tucking their joined hands between her cheek and the pillow, and she goes back to sleep.

Lena is gone when Kara wakes up again, but the pillows still smell like her perfume.