Lena gets the call on a Wednesday, Alex and Kelly are stuck in an alternate universe/refrigerator. Yes, the alternate universe is in the refrigerator and Sentinal and Guardian were too close when the maverick scientist plugged the machine in.
Now, Lena's seen the original Ghostbusters and if there are any weird dog transformations, she's going to have to call her lawyers. But, until Alex and Kelly get de-refrigerated (which is 100% going to happen because Jonn already saw how to do it in the scientist's mind), she has a god-daughter to care for.
A child. A good child, smart and lovely and makes Lena feel hope for the future unlike anything but the Paragon of Hope herself. But, she is, tragically, a child.
A small adult, people say. People are wrong.
"Aunt Lena? What is this?" Esme twirls the pasta with her fork and looks up, with eyes full of curiosity and youth. (She's doing just fine, people get stuck in refrigerators all the time, that's normal, and her moms will be out probably by tomorrow, so it's just a sleepover with Aunt Lena).
Lena sets down her wine glass, Esme's own wine glass filled with grape juice, and leans across the startched dinner cloth, not too close to the candles, and says, "Truffle-infused asiago over tagliatelle al ragù alla bolognese with beef pâtè." Only the best for their first god-daughter-godmother dinner, of course.
Esme frowns, "it smells funny."
"Ah, good nose, that will be the basil. It's a Japanese variety that's slightly more pungent than the European or American strains." Lena beams, her chef had gone all out. The meal was wonderful, the lighting was perfect, the soft classicals list playing gently, even the cutlery was placed just right. And all within 6-hours notice, a triumph of Lena's support staff
Esme leans in to take her first bite, Lena swirls her merlot, nearly humming with pleasure, and her balcony door swings open with enough force to bounce against the living room wall.
"Who's ready for dino-nuggets?!?!" Kara, in full supersuit, carrying boxes of nuggets, shouts with utmost glee.
Esme shouts right back and beams. Lena presses her hand to her chest and deactivates the plasma pistol in her pinky ring.
"Oh!" Kara spies the set-up and grimaces, "you've got dinner! Sorry!" She sees the candles and roses and frowns. "Gosh, am I interrupting?"
"No!" Esme giggles and rushes over to wrap her arms around Kara's legs. "I want dino-nuggets! Come have dinner with us, can she, Aunt Lena, please?"
Lena blinks, Kara mouthes 'I am so sorry', and Lena laughs, shaking her head. "Of course she and her, three, four? Boxes of nuggets can join for our tagliatelle al ragù alla bolognese night."
Esme jumps and clings onto Kara's leg as Kara begins shuffling over. Kara keeps mouthing 'sorry' and Lena just raises her eyebrow. Unimpressed and thoroughly impressed, Kara always keeps her on her toes.
Kara sits between them, her boxes of nuggets balanced carefully beside her with the vase of long-stem roses balancing on those. "Technically they're dino-nuggets, so, they're a little fancy?"
Lena takes a delicate bite of her own pasta, the basil and asiago really do pair well together, and gives Kara a look. "Mhh, of course, darling."
"Well, okay, there were fancy flavored ones too, but I didn't want to go too fancy just in case!" She does look quite sorry and guilty, so Lena ignores the tiny bit of disappointment at her and Esme's interrupted evening. She could never say no to Kara anyway, and it's not like she really knew what else to talk with Esme about.
They'd gone through quantum mechanics and Esme's possible school crush, what else was there? The weather?
Esme pokes at the pasta, her first, small bite being her only one. Lena frowns slightly. Has it gone cold? Kara did bring in quite the gust of air.
She's about to open her mouth and ask when Kara says, "Esme?" Turning her full puppy-dog eyes on the child, "could I try some of that? I'll trade you for some nuggets? Even the triceratops, which are my favorite!"
Esme looks up at Lena, looking the slightest bit guilty, and it clicks then and Lena straightens a bit in her chair. Oh. She nods, forcibly relaxes, and smiles at her god-daughter, "I can never keep her away from my food either."
Esme grins and pushes her plate toward Kara, accepting a handful of horned nuggets. "Thank you for dinner Aunt Lena and Aunt Kara!"
Kara cheers Esme with a nugget and holds one out to Lena. She's smiling that smile, the one that gets right under Lena's ribs. "To the best godmother anyone could have!" Esme claps and Lena takes the nugget, fighting a blush, and taps it against Kara's.
She'll have to thank Kara later.
Kara dips a nugget in the tagliatelle and pops it in her mouth. Lena almost chokes on her wine. It's not the most grotesque act she's ever seen, not even close, but the pure audacity of it makes Lena's skin crawl. "Oh, that's pretty good!"
Kara dips another and holds it out to Lena. "Want to try?"
"Kara Zor-El Danvers, absolutely not." Lena grips at the 900-thread dinner cloth and points at that stupid, lovely face. "You may commit culinary sins any other night, but tonight is special, and you will behave with even a minutia of proper decorum! Put the nugget down."
Kara superspeeds the nugget into her own mouth, making eyes at Esme that has Esme popping both hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Lena sighs and takes another draw from her wine. What is she to do? Kara beams at her like Lena's the sun that makes her super and it melts all the tension in Lena's body.
Esme tries dipping a nugget too. She doesn't like it, so either the pasta really didn't suit her, or the sweet girl has enough sense not to fall to Kara's debauchery. If Lena chooses to assume it's the second option, well no one can blame her. The candles burn down but their laughter hardly subsides.
It's a beautiful evening.
Esme's foot kicks out from where it hangs off the couch. Her face is pressed so hard into the cushions she's bound to have marks when she wakes up. She's so small.
"Hey you." Kara whispers and leans against the wall across from her.
Lena smiles and blinks slowly. "Hey."
"I am really sorry about interrupting. I'd just gotten that fire on 49th cooled down when I realized it was dinner time and thought you might not have gotten anything since Esme kinda got handed off to you last-minute." She looks over at the dinner table, golden candle sconces and all, and shakes her head. "I should have known you'd have it not only covered, but beautifully covered."
She looks back at Lena, her head tipped to the side, "you always exceed expectations."
Lena scoffs, blushes, and nods to the nugget boxes. "Thank you. I thought she'd like... well, I guess I should have asked what her favorite foods are." She watches her god-daughter's back rise with a deep breath. "That mistake won't happen again. I just..."
Kara steps across the doorway, "You were trying to impress her, I know, but she's already impressed by you." Kara slips her hand up to Lena's cheek, "so impressed, Lena. I don't think she could love you more than she already does."
Kara's hand is warm and Lena's tired all of a sudden. She'd so wanted the night to be perfect. She'd eaten these kinds of meals as a child, but when she had first dined with the Luthors they had been strange. She should have just...
"Hey," Kara whispers. "The pasta really was good."
And Lena snorts, ducking her head into Kara's shoulder, wrapping her arms up and under her cape. She's warm and smokey smelling, not campfire smoke, acrid, like a chemical fire, but Lena doesn't care.
"It would have impressed me."
"Walking in and finding candles, roses, and you?"
Lena cracks her eyes open, "that would have impressed you?"
"Well, technically it did impress me, though I kind of barged in..."
She can feel Kara grimace but there's this hop-skipping in her chest that's incredibly distracting. "Impressed you enough for what?"
Kara sucks in a breath and nods. Nods again and her fingers are tight against Lena's shoulder and back. "Yes."
Lena hums while her diaphram feels like it's collapsing. She's heard of lungs collapsing from spicy food, and she'd blame this on capsaicin if only there'd been any in their dinner, but all she has for cause is Kara's body pressed against her. The texture of the suit against her hands, the puffs of Kara's shampoo from her hair, her heartbeat too fast against her own skin, and Kara's pulling back but not letting go.
Her eyes look like a storm at sea and they've been heading for this for what seems like an age and Lena's breaths are all caught
"Aunt Lena? I have to go to the bathroom." Esme rubs at her eyes and scooches down for the couch.
Kara nearly throws herself into the stratosphere and Lena's entire body feels like a bowstring right at the crux of the pull.
"Of course, sweetheart, just down this hall." She stumbles over to Esme, her face hotter than 49th street, and she doesn't look back.
Kara doesn't leave that night.
And when Alex and Kelly stumble out of the refrigerator a day and a half later, covered in glitter, Esme is right as rain and filled with nuggets and fresh fruit. She babbles constantly about Lena's apartment and the huge movie theater Lena has.
Kelly and Alex are too tired, though thankfully not at all dog-shaped, to notice Lena's fingers curling into Kara's, for now at least. Jonn notices though and, while hauling away a busted scientist, gives Lena a little smile.
She's got a ludicrously soft cloth on her dining table and two chairs sitting next to each other. Her staff has had far more than 6 hours and Lena thinks, with Kara steady and beaming beside, that this evening just might actually be perfect.
