Kara let herself drift, push this way and that on the wind as it swirled about five thousand feet up. Her attention wandered, from the flights taking off over at the airport to the cars and pedestrians far below. Her vision relaxed and she looked up to see the solar winds scatter off the atmosphere in a riot of color that no one else could see. If she tried, she could see the chaotic chorus of WiFi signals and radio waves colliding with each other and scattering among the clouds.
She couldn’t sleep, so she drifted. Sometimes she wondered exactly how she was able to fly- she had no idea herself, she just did it. She wanted to fly and she flew.
A crisp cold wind snapped around her, billowing out her cape. Kara wasn’t bothered by the cold, merely aware of it. It was a December night and while it was fairly warm down below it was cool up here.
Kara rolled and lay on her back in the air, then rolled again and looked down, arms spread like a swimmer in a dead man’s float. The sounds of the city filled her ears and she sifted through them. Maybe if she picked up on a crime, she could fly down and take care of it and go home to sleep.
The city was peaceful tonight. Nuts.
As she focused her attention on this sound and that she found herself focused on a particular one: Lena. Specifically, her heartbeat. Once she found that sound it was trivial to focus on it, and hear her voice.
“It doesn’t matter, Sam. She’ll never want me like I want her.”
Kara froze, completely still, not even breathing. She should stop now, turn away, leave her friend to her privacy.
Lena… liked girls? She. She said she. As in another woman. Who did she mean? Kara didn’t know of any women she was close to, but then, Lena was a private person despite their growing closeness, she-
“She has to be straight,” Lena was saying. “I tried everything. I filled her office with flowers, I bought the damn company for her. What do I need, my own personal Bat Signal?”
Kara dropped fifty feet without even realizing.
She was talking about… no… that wasn’t…
“I can’t just ask her out! What if she gets all weird and I lose my best friend? Not to mention the power imbalance, I’m technically her boss… what? No I did not make myself her boss to justify not asking her out! Sam!”
Lena huffed and Kara could hear her pacing her penthouse.
Lena liked her. She like-liked her. She was talking to her friend about asking her out. She was… in lesbians with her? No, that’s not how you say that.
“Fuck,” Kara muttered. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t just fly down there and say something.
She’d been spying. Eavesdropping. She had to stop this, fly home, maybe call Alex. Sleep on it and figure out what to do.
As her heart pounded in her chest and her pulse throbbed in her ears, Kara began to realize something.
She had felt things around Lena. Weird little things like a fluttering in her belly and a sudden nervous energy and this intense need to be around her, to just look at her. Her emerald ocean eyes and sharp jawline and the way she would tilt her head just so and look at Kara like that and it would make heat pool low in her hips. She could listen to Lena talk about anything for hours and just drift on the currents of her voice, so soft and smooth.
Then there was also, well… Lena had to have caught her looking.
Kara’s heed snapped up and her eyes went wide.
Holy shit, she was in lesbians with Lena too.
(That’s not how you say it)
Kara yanked her phone out and called Alex.
“Kara? What the hell is that noise? Are you in a wind tunnel?”
“I’m flying. I couldn’t sleep.”
“It’s four in the fucking morning and I’m on day watch. What do you want?”
“I’m in lesbians with Lena.”
There was a long, vaguely exasperated pause.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I,” Kara began, “I was kind of listening in and I heard some stuff.”
She told Alex what that stuff was, then listened as Alex turned her mouth from the phone and talked to someone. She heard Maggie’s voice as she cackled violently.
“I fucking told you!” Maggie was laughing.
“Kara,” said Alex. “Please be normal about this. Go home. Make a bushel of frozen potstickers. Sleep it off, decide what to do in the morning.”
She resolved that she would only do a quick flyby, just to make sure Lena was okay. She wouldn’t even get that close.
When she passed by, Lena had hung up her call and was sitting on her sofa with a glass of liquor in her hands, the most forlorn look in her eyes as she stared at it.
Kara, she decided, should go home.
She landed on Lena’s balcony and rapped gently on the glass. Lena yelped and surged lightly to her feet, almost dropping the glass, and stared.
For a moment Kara could only stare. Lena had her hair down and it made her seem soft and vulnerable as she warded off the chill with a hoodie and sweats. She was the most cuddly thing Kara had ever seen.
“It’s not locked,” she said in her soft, husky voice.
“You should lock your doors,” Kara said as she stepped inside, closing the door.
“We’re on the twenty-eighth floor.”
“Is there something you need help with, Supergirl?”
Kara looked at her for too long a beat. She could still turn back and come back the next day or meet Lena for lunch like they planned or… or…
It didn’t matter. This problem would be there no matter what she did and the longer she waited the worse it would be.
“I have to tell you something,” Kara said softly.
“What is it? Did something happen? Do you need me?”
Yes, she wanted to say. I’m… I don’t know how to say this and I’m worried I’ll mess it up.”
Lena looked intrigued and more than a little nervous. Her throat bobbed and Kara felt an instinctive tug towards her, a need to shelter Lena within her arms.
“My real name,” she began, “is Kara Zor-El. I carry the name of my father, Zor-El. When I arrived on Earth my cousin fostered me with the Danvers family, so I took their name. So my full name is Kara Zor-El Danvers.”
Lena looked at her for a long moment.
Kara flinched. “What? How?”
“You aren’t subtle. I’ve been keeping you from getting fired for every time you run off from work with nothing to show for it. The first time you came to my office, you were with Superman. The next time you came you said you flew there on a bus.”
“Wait, you know… you know Clark is…”
“My brother was his best friend before he tried to kill him.”
“Why didn’t you call me out? Say anything?”
Lena’s tongue flashed across her lips and Kara watched intently as her heart raced and a storm of emotions flooded her face.
“I think was hoping you would tell me yourself. That you’d trust me.”
“I should have said it sooner. After you saved my life.”
“I.. heard you. Talking to your friend. I didn’t mean to, it was an accident. I was just riding the wind because I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes… sometimes I just need to know that you’re okay.”
“Oh my God,” Lena choked out. “Oh my God, Kara. You weren’t supposed to hear that. This is so fucking embarrassing. I can’t believe, listen, it doesn’t mean, it’s not like… I hope we can still be… fuck!”
“Ilikeyoutoo,” Kara blurted.
Lena’s eyes went comically wide.
“You… you what? You do? What do you mean you like me?”
Kara felt her own mouth go dry.
“I… think about things, and at first I thought I was jealous of you because you’re so pretty but then I started thinking about, um, kissing you and stuff even though Kryptonians don’t really do that, and it was confusing but… I think I feel like you feel.”
Kara realized she hadn’t moved. She squared up and crossed the rooms, the weight of the cape on her back giving her a little push of confidence. Lena watched her approach with keen interest.
“I… I don’t know. I’ve asked people out and been asked out plenty of times but I have no idea how this works. This is a lot, Kara. You’re supergirl… and you like me.”
Lena set the glass aside. She was barefoot and Kara was in her stacked heels, so Lena was looking up at her. Kara felt seven feet tall. This tension suddenly lay between them, and Kara wasn’t sure what she needed to do except that she needed to handle this delicately.
So, she brought her hand up and tenderly pushed it beneath her curls to lightly cup her cheek, a flood of heat passing through her body at the softness of Lena’s skin. She was soft and velvety and warm and Kara thought her heart might burst through her ribs for its jackhammering.
Lena leaned lightly into the touch. Feeling bold, Kara put her other hand on the small of Lena’s back and stepped in close, tipping down like a fairytale prince about to kiss the fair maiden.
Kara paused to whisper “is this okay?” and Lena replied with a gentle brushing of lips that made Kara’s knees feel weak.
Lena slipped her arms around Kara’s waist and pressed close and Kara was instantly aware that she was wearing nothing beneath her pajamas.
“Should we go out on a date?”
Lena smirked. “I think we’re past the awkward icebreaker questions, darling. I think that if you want… third date activities are on the table.”
“Thir… oh. Oh.,” Kara said. “Oh, okay.”
By morning, Alex had texted five times, ending with WHERE ARE YOU?
“Getting breakfast with Lena,” she texted back.
