The bar was dark and maybe a little musty – the result of Kara rather Lena picking the venue – but it was also, Kara decided, intimate. The music playing was something reasonably soft, with not too many harsh effects or squealing pops stars, and considered the right way, the lighting was low rather than just poor. This wasn't a date, but it mattered that Lena be comfortable, that she enjoyed herself. And whatever the bar's shortcomings, it did offer intimacy, and that would have to do.

Thus resolved, she picked up their glasses from the bar. To her credit, Lena had managed to find a red wine she was willing to drink even on the limited menu; Kara was fairly certain it was no coincidence that it was more than halfway down the pricelist, a nod to Kara's comparatively straitened income. Not being much of a drinker herself, she'd ordered two glasses of the wine, and now when she took them both back to Lena and the booth they'd found away from the main doors, Lena's eyes lit up.

"Have I lured you to the dark side?" she asked, taking the glass from Kara's hand, their fingers grazing accidentally. Kara raised her eyebrows in question, and she elucidated, "I don't think I've seen you drink wine before, I wasn't entirely sure you drank at all."

"Oh, well," Kara said. "I – that is – I've got a pretty poor alcohol tolerance? So it never seems like a good idea when I'm meant to be working?"

She raised the glass to her lips to hide her look of relief at coming up with the lie, but Lena didn't look away. No, she continued to gaze at Kara in the low light in a way that gave the young superhero sudden sympathy for the aliens on the receiving end of her heat vision. Did Lena have superpowers? Surely it couldn't be her look alone causing the heat that crawled up her neck in response. Kara took another mouthful of her wine and swallowed, putting the glass down.

"Good?"

She nodded fiercely. "Yes. Definitely. You have good taste in wine."

"It's just practice. Go to enough dull galas and work dinners and you'll work out what's worth drinking simply from habituation… that, and what they try and leave off the menu so you won't bankrupt the fundraisers."

Kara sputtered a laugh at that, and Lena smiled in response. Her fingers were wrapped around the bowl of her own glass, her nail polish so dark it barely stood out against the dark red of the wine, and Kara found herself watching the curl of them. She adjusted her glasses, and looked up to see Lena looking at her again.

"What?"

"You've got a little, ah…" Lena gestured to her own mouth, then when Kara didn't take the hint, leaned over. "May I?"

Kara nodded and Lena smoothed her thumb below her lip, picking up a drop of wine sitting below the corner of her mouth. She paused for a moment, looking at Kara, and then looked around and found a napkin to wipe her thumb.

"Um, thanks. Sorry I'm such a slob, probably they teach you how to drink wine politely at those dinners of yours."

Lena tipped her head, allowing the comment. "Perhaps, but the company isn't half as charming."

Kara could actually feel herself blush at that, and she looked down. Trying to calm down, she let go of the firm grip she normally held on her senses, letting her hearing roam the bar and pick up on other conversations.

"… axle broke while we were doing the lift, I don't know…"

"… so we ordered the flowers but they sent the wrong colours…"

"… that cape, you know. I'd go there."

That last one made her twitch, and reach out for her wineglass again. Lena gave her a confused look, her mouth opening to say something, but Kara couldn't help but tune back in to the previous conversation.

It was three men sitting at the bar, clearly having beers after work, and just as clearly having seen the frontpages of the day's newspapers. Several featured Supergirl quite heavily, since she'd been involved in wrestling a pair of overly-tentacled aliens off the roof of a major bank the night before, and one – not CatCo Magazine – had managed to get a shot that showed off what was, frankly, an indecent amount of leg. That was the one that appeared to have the attention of the gentlemen at the bar.

"Sure, superstrength sounds fun during the day, but afterwards…"

"She must be sleeping with someone at that government agency. They've gotta be telling her what to do, or how would she always find the trouble?"

"Well, if she's lonely I'm more than willing. Girl like that would need firm handling, reminder of who's in charge… I'd like to peel the costume off and bend her over something, slide my thumb – "

Oh, gross. She tuned out of their conversation and back into Lena in a hurry, regretting ever splitting her attention.

"Is something wrong?" Lena, always perceptive, was peering at her in the low light. Kara dug her out a smile, horribly sure it looked fake and unconvincing.

"Nope! Just a long day, I really needed this drink after that." She scooped her glass off the table and knocked back its contents far too quickly.

Lena regarded her steadily over the rim of her own glass, barely half drunk. "Are you sure? You don't want to leave?" She glanced around the bar, eyes sliding over the men whose conversation Kara had overheard a moment before.

"No. I'm fine."

"Alright. Well, would you like another drink? Just one more, and then we'll feed you so you don't end up falling over yourself?"

Kara nodded, unable to find words to answer. Lena gave her a last searching look, then slid out of the booth, the fabric of her tailored skirt catching and dragging momentarily along the seat.

Kara waited with her head down, fiddling with her glasses. This wasn't a date, and yet she couldn't help feeling that she was letting Lena down, too distracted by those horrible men to pay her the kind of attention that she wanted to. Lena deserved better, she deserved Kara's full attention and a far nicer clientele, and perhaps they should, after all, have gone to the private club Lena had proposed. She groaned. The left lens of her glasses had a smudge, and she pulled them off to rub at it with the soft fabric of her sweater, resenting the irony of her improved vision without the glasses. The frames groaned under the pressure of her fingertips, metal warping, and she quickly bent the frame back into shape and put the glasses back on as Lena returned from the bar.

This time she slid in not across from Kara but next to her on the seat, and the glasses in her hands held not wine but whiskey. Kara quirked a doubtful glance at the glass Lena handed her. It wasn't a date, and yet the way Lena had just slid in beside her…

"I'm sorry, I should have asked. But you looked like you could use it, so." Lena shrugged one shoulder, held out her glass. "Cheers."

Kara raised her glass and clinked it against Lena's. "Cheers," she repeated dutifully, and took a swallow. It didn't matter that the alcohol content wouldn't affect her; it burned on the way down, and Kara coughed, looking up to try and smile at Lena despite the tears in her eyes.

She found Lena a lot closer than she was expecting. When she'd last looked, the woman had been a foot or so away from her, now she was close enough that their knees could conceivably touch. When she reached down, intending to adjust the hem of her own skirt – something pretty, and soft, and not at all worn for the specific purpose of going out for drinks with Lena after work – her knuckles brushed against the fabric of Lena's skirt, and she withdrew, blushing.

"I think I know what bothered you before," Lena said. She cocked her head, indicating the men at the bar. "When I went over to order these… I heard what they were saying."

"Oh, no. That's not – it's fine –"

Lena ignored her protests, kept talking. "They're being rather revolting, really. And I can't imagine how any of them think they'd ever have a chance with Supergirl. But I know she's… a friend of yours, and that can't be easy to hear."

Something seemed to glimmer in Lena's eyes when she said the word friend, and Kara clutched her drink a little tighter. Lena didn't know, and yet…

"It's gross," she said faintly, and Lena smiled. Her eyes flashed bright green over the red outline of her mouth as she moved even closer, murmuring the next part for Kara alone to hear.

"From them? Yes. And you're very protective of your friend."

"Mmmhmm."

Kara took another mouthful of her drink. It couldn't possibly be getting her drunk, but with how close Lena was currently pressing to her in the booth, she felt the need.

Lena leaned back a little, regarding Kara's face. She bit her lip, seeming to consider, and then touched her fingers very lightly to Kara's knee.

"Although, I suppose one can't blame them," she said, smiling. Her fingers drew a line up the length of Kara's thigh, feather light but hot through the weight of her skirt. "After all, Supergirl really is something. It's hardly surprising that people fantasize about her, it would be difficult not to."

Kara stared at her. At the very, very red outline of her mouth and the flicker of her tongue as she enunciated fantasize, the line of her throat as she swallowed.

"People fan – you – whoa." She set the drink down, needing something to do with her hands, but then stopped with them still hovering awkwardly. She couldn't put them in her lap without drawing attention to where Lena was still stroking her thigh and that – well, that would be a bad thing, probably. She swallowed, and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

"That can't possibly be a surprise to you," Lena said. "… she's a very attractive woman, you can't be surprised people would want to think about her. Touch her, take her to bed."

"Um, I guess," Kara said stiffly. "I guess I don't think about her that way."

Lena huffed a laugh. "No, I imagine you don't." Her fingers hadn't stopped in their slow, measured movement along Kara's thigh, and Kara found herself wanting to put her own hand over them. To make them stop, of course. Not to press into them, push them against her own flesh, encourage them gently higher.

Still. She couldn't help but ask. "Are you… do you…," she stumbled over the question. "Are you one of the people who…?"

Lena's eyes flashed wickedly. "Of course. The girl of steel has rescued me more than once, do you think I haven't noticed her more appealing attributes? Her biceps alone are worthy of fantasies." She drank down the rest of her whiskey, not gulping it but swallowing smoothly in a way that seemed somehow classy. Kara's was still sitting on the table, and Lena reached for it now. "Do you mind? I might need it, if this is what you want to talk about."

"No, go right ahead," Kara assured her, and Lena smiled again and knocked it back as well. Her fingers never stilled on Kara's leg, only slid down to cup the skin of her knee below the hem of her skirt.

"It isn't like that," she said, setting down the glass on the table and gesturing discreetly to the men at the bar. "Not so… crude. But I have thought about it."

Kara glanced at her from the corner of her eye, cursing the lead frames of her glasses and the way they impacted her sight. Were they still talking about Supergirl, or…?

"Not that I'd turn down the opportunity to bend her over something, you know. But mostly," Lena shivered, "I think about how closely that suit fits her. How it wraps around her hips, and how I could put my hands there over the fabric. It's soft, you know, I've felt it when she's carried me, and I'd be able to feel her skin underneath it. Feel how her skin is warmer than a human's, even before I slid my fingers under the back of her shirt and underneath that cape."

Her fingers had begun to move again, no longer simply tracing circles on Kara's knee but sliding very, very slowly higher. Slow enough that Kara had more than enough chance to stop her when her thumb slid beneath the fabric of the oh-so-soft, pretty skirt that Kara was maybe, at this stage, just about willing to admit she'd worn for Lena.

"She's warm?" she asked faintly, and Lena nodded firmly.

"Warmer than most people. Not so much you'd notice, usually – but most people get cold hands or faces when they're outside, and she's always warm."

"Oh."

Her mind raced. Was this something Alex had ever brought up before? She knew that she had a slightly elevated core body temperature, but for her extremities to be noticeably warmer? She'd never had anyone else comment before; no one else had paid as much attention as it seemed Lena did.

"Is that all?"

"Oh, no. Not at all." Lena smiled down at her hands, the fingers creeping higher on Kara's thigh just visible under the thin fabric of her skirt. "I think about the low neck of that suit. Mostly, how it cuts down at the back, and how that scoop shows off her neck… I'd like to gather up her hair, push it aside to kiss her there."

Kara bit her lip. Lena was talking about Supergirl's neckline, but her eyes were on Kara's. And her sweater neck wasn't a scoop by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure was holding Lena's attention. She breathed deeply on an impulse, was thrilled by the way Lena's eyes lit up and then her thumb tensed unconsciously tighter, sending a wave of sensation up Kara's thigh and between her legs. She knew she should stop, should stop this line of questioning and Lena's hand both, and yet…

"You want to kiss her neck?" she asked, and Lena nodded.

"Of course. I want to pull her hair back, kiss her neck slowly towards her earlobe, all along her jawline. Lick her ear and bite that jaw. And of course," she took a deep, shuddering breath, fingers stilling high on Kara's thigh. "I want to kiss her."

Lena opened her eyes slowly. She found Kara's eyes and stared into them, biting her own lip so that Kara couldn't help be aware of it. Her fingers had stopped moving, but Kara could feel the quick beat of her heartbeat in her thumb-tip, tapping a rapid beat against her own thigh.

She licked her own lips, coming suddenly aware of how dry her mouth was, how quick her breathing. Lena's eyes dropped from hers to her mouth, following the movement of her tongue, and Kara knew without a doubt what she'd been saying.

"Are we still talking about Supergirl?" she asked unsteadily, and Lena smiled that wicked smile.

"You tell me."

Her head whirled, caught between the look in Lena's eyes, her close proximity, her hand on her thigh and the heat between her legs, what Lena was saying but carefully not saying, what Alex would say, the weight of Lena's hand and the smell of her hair and her perfume when she'd already leaned in so very close. Caught on the idea that maybe, perhaps, conceivably, this was a date.

She reached out with one hand, traced a line from underneath Lena's thick, smooth hair and around the side of her neck, curving up to caress her earlobe, her temple, the line of her jaw, ending with her fingers circling Lena's chin and her thumb just touching her bottom lip.

"I think she might like that," Kara breathed, and saw Lena's triumphant smile right as she leaned in to caress it with her own.