Lena has been trying. She's been really really trying. She's never thought of herself as a particularly subtle person. She's always been rather clumsy socially, actually. Overly sincere or overly theatrical, not as tactful as she should be. "You try too hard," she's often been told.
Apparently not this time. Of course. Because this time, it's about Kara. Kara, Kara, Kara, who's broken all of her rules and turned everything upside down. With Kara, nothing ever works the way it used to. Not even Lena herself, evidently.
She's dropped hint after hint. Each one bolder than the last. By the office full of flowers she'd been sure the message would get through, and she slept with her phone in her hand all night, just in case the rejection text arrived at an unexpected hour. By the time she bought Kara's place of work on a whim she'd half resigned herself to Kara's shocking inability to perceive her intentions, but a small part of her still held hope that not even Kara could misinterpret such an extravagant gesture.
Of course, she could, and she did.
Lena tried, and tried, and tried. She's taken Kara to the fanciest, most poorly lit and aggressively intimate restaurants she could google, invited her to every single social function she'd attended since meeting her, given her a key to her apartment, talked about her sincerest hopes and most unsettling fears, her entire family history, things only Jack and her therapist had ever cared to listen to. She's complimented Kara's wristwatch! Was that not flirting? That had to be flirting, or else Lena genuinely does not understand the concept.
She's tried everything, truly. Except, of course, telling Kara about her feelings outright. Possibly that should have been her first instinct, but she's so hoped it wouldn't come to that.
Unfortunately it seems it has. Because now here she is on top of a skyscraper at sunset cuddled up against Kara's chest, tucked snugly between Kara's thighs and protected against the wind by Kara's uncomfortable stiff cape, and Kara has her heavy lovely arms around Lena's stomach and her loose windblown hair is tickling Lena's shoulder and her bare foot is brushing Lena's ankle and if Lena doesn't tell her now she might never breathe again.
"Take it as an opportunity to grow as a person," Lena mutters to herself.
"Hm?" Kara asks her. "What do you mean?"
Lena stiffens up. "Shit, I forgot about the superhearing."
Kara immediately starts playing with Lena's fingers, caressing the inside of her wrist with the side of her thumb. Lena has no choice but to relax. "Was that not meant for me? Are you talking to yourself?" Kara teases.
Lena sinks lower against Kara's chest, closing her eyes as one of Kara's hands glides up the back of her neck and dips into her hair, tipping her head gently to the side. "Yeah," she murmurs.
"What's this growth opportunity, then? Mind sharing it with me?"
Lena is pretty sure she would do anything if Kara asked for it in that tone of voice and that particular placement of her fingers. "I need to tell you something."
"Mm what is it?"
Kara's fingers are sifting through Lena's hair, brushing her temples, the very edges of her ears. Lena finds it hard to breathe very quietly. "It's, uh… maybe stop touching me first," she forces out.
Kara promptly removes her hands, and Lena can't help a disappointed groan. Kara laughs at her. "You want touching or no touching?"
"No touching," Lena says. Then quickly adds, "Maybe touching afterward. If you want. First no touching, then touching. If that's okay."
"Okay," Kara says happily. She opens her legs wider apart and scoots back and away from Lena, leaning back on her hands.
Lena feels cold and bereft outside the encompassing embrace of Kara's body. She gathers her limbs closer and hugs her knees, draping Kara's cape over them. A poor substitute, but hopefully only temporary.
Kara nudges Lena's hip with her toe until Lena turns to face her. "What is it? I'm in suspense," she prompts.
Lena chews the inside of her lip, takes a moment to just look at her. Kara is always the best possible thing to look at, tired or giddy, fresh or grimy, in glasses or uniform, button ups or threadbare baggy pyjamas. But now, loose limbed, messy haired, gently smiling, lit by the warm yellows and oranges of dusk… she's luminous. Otherworldly. The barycenter of Lena's orbit.
"I love you," Lena tells her, looking steadily in her eyes.
Kara smiles at her gently, creases at the corners of her eyes. "I love you too, Lena," she says easily, reaching out and placing her hand on the roof's surface just short of Lena's foot.
Of course Lena has no choice but to hold it. Damn. "Can I take you out to dinner?"
"For the last time, I'm not starving," Kara protests, gesturing with Lena's hand in hers. "I can afford to feed myself, you know."
Lena squeezes Kara's hand. "No, no, I know. I mean, as a date."
"Yeah, Lena, I get it," says Kara, very obviously not getting it. "We've done it a million times. All I'm saying is that you can at least let me split the bill every once in a while."
"I—I don't mean like those other times," Lena stammers, grasping for words, already feeling like an idiot. "I mean. You know. I want to take you out."
"I think I'm not getting you. Is this some English thing? We've been going out to eat this whole time."
Lena helplessly shakes her head. "I want this time to be different. More—more intimate."
"Oh no, have I forgotten a special occasion? What day is it? Oh, Lena. Is it your birthday?" Kara is now frowning soulfully at her. She looks on the verge of an apology.
Lena is really not very good at this. "No, it's—Kara, don't give me that look, please. You know I don't even celebrate my birthday."
"I neither know nor accept any such thing," Kara says, immediately fired up about this new topic. "I'll celebrate your birthday every single day if I have to."
How did they get here? Lena hasn't been in less control of a conversation since high school. "That's—that's sweet, but I'm trying to confess something to you right now, do you think we could discuss my birthday another time?"
Kara abruptly lets go of Lena's hand. "Sorry," she says, adjusting her butt and straightening her back, fixing Lena with a solemn look. "I'm listening. You want something more intimate? Like one of those fancy restaurants with private booths? That kinda food isn't my first choice but you know I'd do anything for you, Lena."
"That'd be nice, but, what I'm trying to say is, Kara—" Lena takes a deep breath, tries to swallow against the thickness in her throat. This is it. "I love you," she says, again. But with extra feeling. Hopefully it'll stick this time. "I want to be with you."
Kara looks intently in her eyes, gaze flicking from one to the other, assessing, concerned. Her expression firms as she seems to find what she's looking for. Lena wills her hands not to shake. "Yeah," Kara says then, letting out a quiet sigh. "I'm sorry. We haven't had much alone time these past few months. I know. I miss you too." Kara reaches out and presses her open palm directly over Lena's sternum. Calm and sincere, as if a gesture like that should be taken completely in stride. "But you're with me now."
Lena possibly can't breathe. She wouldn't know. The heel of Kara's palm is brushing the top of her bra.
"We should do another game night with Alex and Sam and Ruby. Or, sorry, just the two of us, I mean. We could play, uh, backgammon? I guess? What's a good two-player game?"
"Chess," Lena breathes without conscious thought.
Kara makes a face. "You always win. That's no fun."
"Uhh," Lena says intelligently.
"Aw, fine." Kara removes her hand from Lena's body, flicking it in an exaggerated gesture of capitulation. "I can't say no to you. Let's have a one-on-one chess night. I'll stock up on consolation snacks."
Lena would laugh if she weren't so wound up, emotionally wrung out and exposed and tender. "Kara, that's—I want to do all those things with you, nice restaurants and chess nights and spending time with family, but what I mean is—" This is certainly too soon, juvenile, overeager, but Lena can still feel the imprint of Kara's palm on her chest and she doesn't know how she could possibly be more explicit than: "I want to do those things as your… as your girlfriend."
The soulful frowning returns. "Oh, Lena," Kara says, her hand reaching to press over Lena's heart again, this damn intimate gesture. "I've thought of you as my girlfriend for a long time now. You truly didn't know? You are my best girlfriend. The best girlfriend I've ever had."
Shit and fuck. This is it, then, this is how the Luthor bloodline ends, withered away by the world's mightiest fucking superhero's selective cultural illiteracy.
"No, it's, um—it's like this," Lena says, floundering. She holds out her hand, motions too jerky, uncontrolled. Mercifully, Kara takes it. She looks at Lena, uncertain but unquestioningly trusting.
Lena covers Kara's hand in both of hers and gently guides it closer. Kara's hands are wonderful, warm and strong and completely immovable. But they've always moved for Lena. She barely needs to apply any pressure to curl Kara's fingers.
Lena doesn't have the courage to look at Kara's face. Or at anything at all, really. She closes her eyes, bows her head, and presses a soft, lingering kiss to Kara's knuckles.
Kara takes in an audible breath. "Oh," she says.
Lena draws back, releasing Kara's hand, already missing the feeling of her skin beneath her lips. She ventures a glance at Kara's face; it's artless and open, lips slightly parted, brow tensed.
Lena's meaning's finally gotten through, it seems. "Yeah," Lena breathes.
Kara takes the hand Lena had kissed in her other, cradling it gently. She wets her lips, a quick motion; Lena follows it helplessly, entranced. "You mean, you want to—?"
"Kiss you?" Lena nods. "A lot. All the time."
"All the, all the time?" Kara repeats, her thumb rubbing the back of her hand, over and over. To preserve the feeling of Lena's lips? Or to erase it? Lena can barely breathe. "Like, right now, maybe? For example?"
Lena nods, unable to lie, completely unable to voice that desire out loud. It seems her daring has run out.
The motions of Kara's thumb abruptly stop. Her hand flexes, once, twice, and unfurls; she rocks forward onto her knees, touches Lena's collar bone, slides her fingers up Lena's throat to rest just under her jaw. Lena feels her heart hammering under Kara's fingertips.
"You want this?" Kara asks again, voice breathy, a caress. She brings her fingers to hover just a hair's breadth away from Lena's lips.
Lena can feel their heat. "Please," she asks. Her breath reflects back at her.
The fingers are gone, then, replaced by cold air, a moment of panic—she's done it, she's ruined the most important relationship of her life, exploited Kara's kindness and breached her boundaries—but then—Kara's lips, Kara's mouth on hers, warm and yielding and intoxicating; Kara's nose brushing her face, her loose hair spilling between them; Kara's hands, Kara's hands, on her neck, cupped around her nape, pulling her closer, running down her shoulder, tracing the skin at the edge of her blouse's opening with the tip of a pinkie…
Lena makes a particular noise she has rather little control over and attempts to clamber full into Kara's lap. Kara's on her knees; it doesn't go so well. Lena doesn't especially care.
Kara laughs into their kiss, disrupting it, making it shallower. Lena murmurs indistinctly against her lips, takes the opportunity to kiss Kara's jaw, mouth at her throat. Kara groans and Lena kisses her way back to her mouth, driven by an urge to steal that noise off Kara's lips and keep it for herself.
I'm kissing Kara Danvers. The thought occurs to her, absurd and distant, even as she grabs a fistful of Kara Danvers' hair and digs her fingers into Kara Danvers' bicep and sucks Kara Danvers' lip into her mouth. Is she really? How spectacular.
Kara is amazingly responsive, pliant and beautifully noisy. Lena had wondered. She's never kissed anything bulletproof. Until now.
Thank fuck.
"Wow, I love your mouth," Lena blurts out as she comes up for air.
Kara is very noticeably flustered, breathy and disheveled and intensely attractive. "Okay, okay," she mumbles. "Yeah."
Lena grins at her. "Okay, yeah?"
"Sorry I don't live up to your, your literary standards," Kara says. "'I love your mouth'," she mimics, voice low.
Lena bites her lip. Kara is just making fun of her, but hearing her say that is still… something.
"I just, that was…" Kara moves to adjusts glasses that aren't there, lets her hand flop down to Lena's thigh. "Yeah." She looks at Lena for a moment, visibly tense. "Thank you," she murmurs.
Lena nods. She remembers this feeling, too, her first time kissing a girl. That had been nothing like this, except for the deep instinctive certainty that this is something that matters.
"It just never occurred to me that it could be like this, with you," Kara says. "I don't know why. Is that strange?"
Lena shakes her head. "If I hadn't met you, I could never have imagined you," she confesses quietly.
Kara's whole body softens at that; she cups Lena's head, behind her ear, and coaxes her into a sweet, unhurried kiss. Left to her own devices, Kara kisses almost carelessly, arrhythmic and undemanding, as if she has no expectation but feeling. She is as soothing as she is exciting, and Lena has never been more at ease.
"I can't believe I didn't know that I wanted to do that!" Kara pulls back to say. "I so so badly wanted to do that. Why didn't you tell me?"
Lena shrugs helplessly. "I have been trying."
Kara groans. "Right! 'Be my girlfriend'! So you meant it the gay way."
"I truly did not consider that there might be multiple interpretations."
Kara barks out a laugh, her grip tightening on Lena's thigh.
"So, uh…" Lena reaches out to trail along Kara's hair, gently tuck it behind her ear. "May I take you out, then?"
Kara gives her the most achingly sincere look, eyebrows drawn, longing, almost. Then she leans closer, and says: "We're inviting James and Winn and J'onn along, right?"
Lena shoves at her; Kara lets herself be shoved. And Lena loves her, she loves her. "You ass."
Kara leans back in, until her lips barely brush the shell of Lena's ear. "Here's a tip: that Kara girl, she's real easy," Kara murmurs. "Take her to a well-stocked all you can eat buffet and she's yours forever."
It's a silly moment, but Lena shivers anyway. She can't tease back right now. She's been kissed, she's being held, wrapped up with Kara all around her. She's far too smitten currently to be funny.
She reaches behind her to pull Kara's cape around them, feeling a need to be enveloped completely, but comes up empty. She draws back from Kara's embrace, looking around.
"Shit," she says. "I think I've lost your cape."
"What?" Kara says, half word, half laugh.
"Your cape," Lena repeats. "I think it might have blown away?"
"It weighs like 15 pounds," Kara says, still laughing, but she grabs hold of Lena's hip, pushes her closer to her body and stands easily up. Her hand shifts to curl around Lena's butt. Lena wraps her legs around Kara's waist like a fucking koala and bites the inside of her lip, trying to hold in a laugh or another declaration of love, possibly.
Kara walks to the edge of the building and peers down. "Yep," she says. "There it is."
"We should go get it."
"We should," Kara agrees. But she doesn't. She stands still, staring pointedly at Lena's lips.
Lena nods along. "Right," she says. "We'll get right on that." Kara gives her butt a squeeze, and then laughs somewhat dorkily with her mouth closed, and they might be floating now, quite literally; all things considered, Lena likely wouldn't have been able to engineer a better unambiguously romantic date if she'd tried.