799. Chapter 799

Kara flew into Alex’s living room window and immediately flopped backwards onto the couch, neatly inserting herself between Alex and Maggie.

Maggie snorted into her scotch and Alex groaned.

“Seriously, Kara?” Alex asked, her beer now spilled down her front.

“Ooh, just take it off, Danvers,” Maggie winked, and it was Kara’s turn to groan.

Alex disentangled herself from her little sister and took her beer-stained shirt off, hopping onto her bed to find the sweatshirt she and Maggie had quickly disposed of and left on the floor the night before.

“Listen, you left your window open,” Kara explained, rolling over so she was hanging off of Maggie’s lap, head upside down as she watched Alex tug her Stanford sweatshirt over her head. “If you close your window, it’s like leaving a sock on your door. I won’t come in. Or at least, I’ll text first. But if you leave your window open, then it’s like you’re basically inviting me.”

Alex glared, but there was no heat behind it. Maggie adjusted Kara so she could find her phone, stashed somewhere in the couch cushions. “I’ll order potstickers, shall I, Little Danvers?”

“See?” Kara moaned in delight. “You’re girlfriend understands me.”

Alex threw a pillow from her bed at Kara’s face with alarming accuracy.

Kara laughed and Maggie held up her glass of scotch.

“Watch it, you two,” she shook her head.

“So what’s up, sis?” Alex trooped back to the couch, catching the pillow Kara launched back at her.

Kara heaved a sigh.

Alex knew – and so did Maggie, for that matter – that Kara letting herself be whiny and small and cute was a relief for her, a release valve. A way for her to step away from Supergirl and into Kara Danvers.

She was competent and she was intelligent beyond belief and she knew so much more about quantum mechanics than she would ever admit, because after her planet died (for the first time), she’d trained herself to never reveal how much she knew about the universe, because then someone would discover her and then and then and then…

So letting herself be ridiculous, be whiny, be the consummate annoying little sister on her big sister’s date night was…

A relief.

It also meant she was too stressed, too worried, to bear being strong.

So when Alex sat back down, she tugged Kara’s feet into her lap, letting Maggie play absently with Kara’s hair after she put down her scotch and went about ordering the entire left side of the menu from Kara’s favorite Chinese restaurant.

“Well?” she prompted again. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Kara said, her voice suddenly more like Supergirl’s. Maggie and Alex exchanged a quick glance.

“An extra three orders of potstickers it is,” Maggie said, and Kara smiled faintly. It was a good sign.

“I just have all these feelings,” Kara murmured, more like she was explaining to herself than to her big sisters.

“About?” Alex asked, tilting her head. Because she thought she knew – she and Maggie and James and Winn and even J’onn had good money on it – but they’d all been waiting for Kara to come to the realization herself, in her own time.

“About Lena,” Kara finally breathed.

“Okay,” Alex nodded, squeezing Kara’s knee. “That’s okay. I love you. Say more?”

“I don’t want to,” Kara whispered.

“That’s okay, too. Fleabag?” Alex asked, gesturing to the TV.

Kara nodded. Alex tossed one of the many throw blankets Maggie insisted on keeping on the couch Kara, and Maggie tucked in her shoulders while Alex burritoed her feet.

Kara practically purred. Alex and Maggie let her lay there, let her eat all their potstickers when the food arrived. Let her think and let her feel and let her process.

She was almost ready, but not quite yet.

+++

She had brunch with Lena the next morning. It was their regular Sunday brunch - because of course they had regular Sunday brunch - and Kara was shaking.

“It’s okay to be scared, Little Danvers,” Maggie promised her.

“It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling,” Alex nodded, careful to be as non-specific as she could.

Kara nodded and kissed them both on the cheek before she flew out the window and down to Earth.

To Lena.

Who was, of course, already seated at their brunch spot, at their specific brunch booth, two steaming mugs of coffee already ordered. She was leaning forward, her elbows on the table - a luxury for her, a novelty, Kara knew, because Lena Luthor had been raised to never even think about resting her elbows on the table - people watching intently, with a look of rare peace on her face.

It was beautiful. Lena was beautiful.

Kara tripped as she approached their booth.

Of damn course she did.

Lena stood immediately and opened her arms, which Kara knew was another novelty for her. Before Kara, it had only been Sam that Lena had been this affectionate with, this joyful.

And she and Sam had been…

Well, Kara tried to make like Elsa and conceal, not feel.

As she slipped into Lena’s arms, she could feel herself trembling, and was terrified she was failing.

She was always failing.

“Something’s wrong this morning,” Lena said, squinting slightly as she pulled back from their hug - Kara’s entire body keened from the loss - and examined Kara’s face closely as she held her by the shoulders.

Lena’s hand slid down Kara’s arm, then, and held her hand and she guided them to slide into their booth.

She didn’t let go of Kara’s hand, their fingers casually connected across the table.

Like Maggie sat with Alex.

Like James sat with Winn.

Like lovers sat.

Like Kara wanted to…

Oh Rao, not now. She had enough to deal with. She couldn’t risk losing Lena. She couldn’t risk…

Well, she wasn’t really sure what she was risking.

Everyone in her life was bi, was gay.

She’d just never thought about…

Well, there had been that fluttering in her stomach about Lucy Lane… and Cat Grant… but she’d just admired them, she’d just been infuriated by them…

She’d just loved them.

Oh, damn it all to hell.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she shook her head, but Lena’s eyes were perfect and her hand was warm and her lips looked…

Why was Kara looking at her lips?

She knew exactly why.

She hoped Lena hadn’t noticed at the same exact moment that she hoped Lena did notice.

She adjusted her glasses with her free hand, and tried not to notice - or imagine, because she had to be imagining it, right? - the fondness in Lena’s eyes at her nervous gesture.

“Nothing’s wrong, but something’s up,” Lena said, her voice gentle. Kara liked to think it was a very particular kind of gentle Lena only had for her.

That was the kind of thing lovers had.

Friends had it too, she supposed. No, she knew they did. But this… this felt different.

This was different.

But if it was different, if she said it was different, then it would change, then it would be ruined.

Then she would lose it all.

Again.

Like she always did.

With everything.

Everything except Alex, and even that had changed. Sure, she’d gained a new big sister after a rocky start, and it was wonderful, but it was also different, and…

She didn’t know if she could handle more different.

But she wanted more. Or, not more, maybe that wasn’t the right word. She wanted something different. With Lena.

And it was terrifying.

“Wouyouwagodinwme?” Kara blurted, her face hotter than it had been since the last time she’d blown out her powers with overloading her heat vision.

“Come again, dear?” Lena asked, smiling but not quite laughing at her, because Lena laughed with her, but never at her.

Kara gulped, because there wasn’t really much going back now.

She thought of Alex, and she thought of Maggie, and James and Winn and J’onn’s proud smile when Alex had come out to the crew.

“Would you want to. Go to dinner with me.”

Lena’s eyes widened, then closed, then opened, then closed. Her mouth went on a similar journey, and Rao did Kara want to kiss her.

“We haven’t even had brunch yet, darling, but you know your stomach better than anyone, so I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if we just ate our way through to dinner time.”

Darling. She’d called her darling.

Lena did that, sometimes.

Her face always went red right afterward, like it had now.

Kara dared to hope. She gulped again, and she put her other hand on Lena’s.

Tentative, but brave.

Scared, terrified, but sure.

“I didn’t mean because I’m hungry.” Her stomach, of course, chose that very moment to growl. The traitor. “I mean, I’m always hungry.” Lena squeezed her hands, a smile tugging at her lips. But Kara had rarely seen her eyes so intense. And Lena was, to say the least, a very intense person.

“I mean, I’m always hungry, but I didn’t mean… I meant. Do you… it’s okay if you don’t, I love being your friend, I really do, of course I do. But when I said do you want to have dinner, I meant, if you wanted to. Um.”

Lena’s eyes were steady and shining and maybe just a little bit hopeful and Kara could carry a plane and barely break a sweat, how could she possibly find it this hard to come out at the same time as she was asking out the most beautiful woman she’d ever known?

Well, maybe when she put it like that, carrying a plane was easier.

“Kara Danvers,” Lena decided to swoop in and save Supergirl’s day. “Are you asking me on a date? Because if you are, the answer is a resounding yes. If you’re not, well, I’m sure there are plenty of caves I can go hide in for the next thousand -”

“Yes. Yes, I was, and yes, I - really? You’d want - to - you - with me?”

“Yes,” Lena said, and her voice dropped in a way that did things to Kara’s entire body. “Yes, I want to. Yes, with you. I was terrified you didn’t feel the same way. That you weren’t even into women.”

Kara pffted. “I was terrified you didn’t feel the same way! And I think now would be the time Maggie would say something like, ‘oh please, have you seen the way Kid Danvers dresses?’”

Lena laughed, and it was music and it was perfect. She brought Kara’s hands up to her mouth, and she was extremely grateful that spontaneous combustion wasn’t actually a thing, because if it were, the feeling on Lena’s lips on her knuckles would have…

“I would be honored to go on a date with you, Kara. Many dates. A lot of dates. So many dates.”

Lena Luthor was… rambling.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

She really did like Kara back.

Her smile was suddenly megawatt, and it was her turn to kiss Lena’s hands.

“Pancakes?” she asked.

“I already ordered three stacks,” Lena smiled, and Kara nearly took flight then and there.

But, for once, not to fly away from anything. To just be… ecstatic. To celebrate. For the sheer joy of flying, of… of living.

She’d definitely have to see how Lena felt about flying later. Though maybe that was a third date kind of thing.

And apparently, Lena wanted to go on many dates with her.

When their food arrived, pancakes had never tasted sweeter.