#superbat^2

Pulling her legs up against her chest, Kate crossed her arms on top of them. Clark sat down next to her. They were... in some storage room somewhere. The ship was quite big. Kate had kind of intended to flee everyone. Get just a moment’s peace to sort her mind - there was screaming about resurrections and the British guy having fucked the devil right now anyway so it wasn’t like she was actively missing anything (aside from juicy gossip). It figured that someone with x-ray vision would have an easy time finding her.

(Don’t think about Kara’s x-ray vision. Or how Kara used it to count her tattoos. No, Kate, that road led to too much distraction that she could not use right now. Focus. Focus. First save the multiverse, then save Alice, then find Bruce, then maybe explore the implications of Kara checking her out naked last year.)

“Only good things”, assured Clark, a tender sparkle in his eyes.

He seemed like a good man. Not just in a throw-away nice thing you say about someone close to someone you like kind of way. Kate felt like this man was good to the core. It seemed to be a... family-trade.

“Sorry, can we circle back to the intro. Did you just come out to me, or where was that going...?”

“I‘m the straight cousin”, stated Clark, the sparkle turning mischievous.

“Right. Right. How many cousins are there in the House of El?”, asked Kate.

“Two. Just me and Kara”, replied Clark, patiently waiting for it to sink in.

“...Huh. Is that... something you’re authorized to tell? Because you know, this isn’t something straights get to broadcast for us, right?”

Clark simply smiled at her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “This. This is what I like about you.”

“That I’m willing to throw hands with Superman?”, asked Kate a bit confused.

“Yes, essentially. You threatened Lex earlier too. You don’t even know Lex Luthor, he doesn’t exist on your world, but you saw he made Kara uncomfortable and you were willing to commit murder.”

Clark threw his head back a little as he laughed. When he sobered up again, he turned to look at Kate, very sincere and also very serious.

“To answer your question, yes. I am ‘authorized’ to say that. Kara may not be as... not my words but theirs.. as much of a loud lesbian as Alex, but she very much is an out lesbian.”

“...Huh”, said Kate once more, unsure what other words to apply to that.

“She realized, back when she dated my best friend for exactly two days.” Clark chuckled and shook his head. “It was... kind of her first attempt at a relationship? All her life, Kara had to hide who she was. Not... just the sexuality. I mean, her alien heritage. She always had to hide and never allowed herself to be close to anyone, not like this. And then she met James and he knew about me, before he even met her. He knew her secret, he was supportive, charming, he was a safe guy to crush on, but when things got more serious, she realized... that wasn’t what she wanted from a man.”

“That’s how it goes sometimes.”

“Then she met this... woman.” And wow. Just judging by the way he said that, there was a lot to unpack there. “It was an instant crush. They were never more than friends... best friends... and things have turned... ugly recently. She has been so... beaten down and... sad lately, so... hopeless.”

Kate captured her lips between her teeth, chewing a little to keep from commenting. She had noticed that. The paragon of hope, but when they had gathered here first, she had looked so much more brought down than when they had met last year. It had gotten worse when she and Alex regrouped and talked among themselves earlier. Kate didn’t want to pry, but the genuine anguish on Kara’s face and the way Clark now spoke made her assume it was about ‘this woman’, whoever she was. Had she... not made the evacuation, perhaps...?

“Ever since you arrived here, I’ve seen the hope grow in her. She is walking more upright, carrying herself with more certainty. You have given her back her hope, something that pained me to see her lose, something I didn’t know how to help her get back.”

“Yeah... Yeah, well, she helped me find my courage again”, offered Kate reluctantly.

“This is what real partners do for each other”, stated Clark as he slowly got up again. “It’s what Diana and I give each other. Honesty, trust, courage, hope, love, humanity, honor, destiny.”

“Now you’re just listing paragons”, snorted Kate, shaking her head.

“Because they’re... surprisingly good fits. All of them are elements of what makes a partnership of any kind - romantic, familiar or platonic - work. Really work. If trust is broken, if courage fails and you feel hopeless, if you can’t treat each other with a baseline level of humanity, if there is no honor to the acts you perform, if you can’t be honest with each other... then maybe it’s not destiny for you to be together. If they do, however, if you bring each other up, build each other up when you feel down and hopeless, then what you have... is special. Very special. And it would be incredibly foolish to let it pass you.”

“Clark-”, started Kate confused as he was nearly out of the storage room.

“I gotta go. Diana put me on babysitting duty while she’s off being the paragon of truth”, chuckled Clark. “Think about what I said, Kate.”

Kate simply nodded and looked after him. Huh. She now really understood why a woman like Wonder Woman would pick him. Well, she still didn’t understand why anyone would pick a man, but the baseline principle. If a man, he seemed to be a very good one. He took it with incredible dignity, that his cousin was the paragon representing their house - Kate had heard about that, that the symbol on the Supers’ chest was not just their family crest but the symbol of hope from their home-planet. And as his wife stepped up as the paragon of truth, he, a literal Superman, took their young infant son and stepped back, to fully support her.

“Kate? Kate. There you are. Was... Clark just here?”

“Yeah. We... talked”, replied Kate, smiling as she saw Kara tilt her head in that endearing confused-puppy-manner of hers.

“Huh.” Somehow, that alone already sounded so much more peppy and upbeat when it came from Kara and not from Kate and it too made Kate smile.

(All this smiling was going to ruin her Bat-reputation. What was this literal ray of sunshine doing to her...?)

“He... mentioned... a friend of yours. Woman friend of yours.” She winced. When had she gotten this bad at words? “It made me wonder, when you talked to Alex earlier...”

“...Oh. Yeah. Lena... We...” Kara adjusted her glasses and looked anywhere but at Kate. “We had a bad... fall-out. I had hoped, since she... helped, with the evacuation, that maybe... I don’t know, that maybe the end of the universe would put things into perspective for her. Guess... not.”

“She sounds like an idiot.”

Kara choked on air and stared at her wide-eyed. “She’s a literal genius.”

“I don’t care”, shrugged Kate unimpressed. “If she can’t even forgive whatever happened between the two of you when facing the literal end of the world... Sounds like an idiot to me.”

At that, Kara smiled. Not in a mean way like she was now fully agreeing with Kate, but in that small, soft way as though it did her good to hear someone side with her. Side with her a hundred percent, no backstory needed.

“He also said you’re a lesbian”, offered Kate after a beat.

“Oh. Yeah. I... You didn’t know?”, asked Kara surprised, staring at her.

“...What. How? You’re not... really waving a rainbow-flag around.”

“I... literally complimented your very intimate tattoos the first day we met. I could not have flirted with you any more obviously if I tried!”, exclaimed Kara exasperated, throwing her hands in the air. “Wait so you didn’t politely reject me by ignoring it? You actually didn’t notice that I’m really very gay? Really?”

“...You called Luke cute earlier”, mumbled Kate like that was a defense in any way.

“I’m a lesbian, I’m not blind, Kate!”, groaned Kara and shook her head. “By Rao, and this entire time I thought maybe you were like... seeing someone, or hung up on someone, or something!”

“No. Nope, there is absolutely no one. I mean, there was someone and when we reunited, I... kind of thought, maybe. But she’s happily married. To a man. And I’m not the type to chase a married woman. I’ve... gotten over that months ago. There... is this... blonde... I’ve been kind of... hung up on though...”

Kate licked her lips, deliberately slow, as she stared at Kara. The grin on Kara’s lips was small but so bright, like she was trying to contain all the excitement in her. She was beautiful. So beautiful, Kate couldn’t help but reach out to grasp her by the neck and slowly bull her in. This super girl would not be moved if she didn’t want to and oh did she want to, eagerly leaning in until their lips met.

Kara gasped into the kiss while wrapping her arms around Kate’s neck, leaning in heavier until they both collapsed onto the ground, Kara on top of Kate and kissing her like their lives depended on it. Kate’s hands came to rest on Kara’s hips, holding her close, or maybe holding herself so she wouldn’t slip from this reality.

“Kara? Kate? Where--Oh, seriously. One mission I’m going without the Legends and still I have to deal with hormonal teenagers making out on my ship!”

The two of them bolted apart wide-eyed and turned toward Sara Lance, who simply rolled her eyes at them. “Yes, yes, I’m all happy for the two of you, but delay the celebration until after we found all seven paragons?” She clapped twice loudly and turned around, motioning for them to follow. “Let’s go, lesbians, let’s go.”