"I'm trans. Adora."

Oh.

Ohhhh...

Adora, you idiot.

She almost couldn't believe she had gone so far as to blurt out that Glimmer was cute, only to realize that this was about way more than just whether she was... pretty or not! Perhaps the girl was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't even have a chance to realize what she'd said. That was probably for the best. "That's fine, Glimmer. The point still stands. You could give it a chance."

She shook her head and began to pace. "No, that's not... I mean... Okay, no. Let me start from the beginning."

"A very good place to start."

Glimmer shot her a death-glare. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just quote The Sound of Music at me. Anyway. So I actually met Bow back when we were just entering middle school. He was going to the same doctor as me. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but he's trans too. It was pretty obvious – same age, same things going on, we ought to hang out. And we became best buds! But... Bow, he took to being a boy way, way better than I did to being a girl. I mean, you've seen the way he shows off his abs! And he's so funny and nice." She sighed and flopped face-first onto the bed dramatically. There were a few moments of silence before she lifted her head up for breath. "But look at me! I can be a total jerk. And I have zero confidence. I haven't shaved my legs in like two weeks. Perfuma isn't a bigot or anything, I just can't imagine she would think of me as someone worth dating. Bow gets a pass because we have history together. Pretty sure I could never get someone as cool as her or-"

She suddenly cut herself off, and while Adora wanted to press her further, she could tell that this was already a pretty tense situation. She had accidentally stumbled straight into Glimmer coming out to her. Instead, she decided to take a different route. "You need a wingwoman."

Her eyebrow quirked dramatically, but she didn't say anything right away.

"I'm serious. Look, you obviously don't wanna bring this up with Bow, and that's fine. That's your business. But why not at least give it a go? I'll be there to help you chat her up, and you don't even have to make your intentions obvious if it's not working out. Plus, I guess I need to get to know everyone, so this will be a good excuse!" She put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest a little.

Glimmer finally started to sit up again, no longer making any kind of weird face. "You really think that could work?"

No point in making an empty promise, so she just shrugged, but offered her usual easy smile. "No idea. But I figure it's worth a shot."

Once again she sat there for a moment as if studying her in silence, finally nodding her head half-heartedly. "Fine. A shot. That's all."

There was some time before this whole dinner thing was supposed to happen, so Adora opted to take a nap, curling up on the futon. Despite getting a pretty good sleep the night before, she passed out pretty quickly.

"Wh-What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving, Catra. I can't stay here any more. Not after what happened."

"People die, Adora. It happens all the time."

"Yeah, but I didn't think the Horde killed people! Weaver's been using us, manipulating us!"

"...Uh yeah. Duh. We're criminals. We do crimes."

"Well sure, some fishing and scamming, but nothing like this..."

"Wake up! We do a lot more than that. You just never let yourself see it. Come on~ I'm not asking you to stick around for Weaver, or Kyle, or... or any of the others. Certainly not whoever this Hordak asshole is. It's always been just you and me, Adora. We're in this together."

"...I'm sorry..."

"Wh- Fine! Run away then! See if I care!"

"I'm not running away! I'm just going to Luna. I'll wait for you there. When you're ready, come find me."

There was a knock at the door, jarring Adora out of her dream. Her nightmare. She reached up and felt some tears in the corners of her eyes. Hastily she wiped them away and began fumbling for her boots an jacket. "U-Um, c-coming!"

The crew ended up going to a pretty cool Ethiopian restaurant for their dinner that night. Adora didn't exactly have a ton of nice clothes, so she was grateful to see that no one else was getting particularly dolled up either.

It turned out that Glimmer's assessment of Perfuma wasn't entirely off the mark. She was indeed easy on the eyes, and she wore decorative little flowers in her hair. She struck Adora as one of those hippie trust fund babies, but she made up for that by being a genuinely nice, enthusiastic person. "Wow, so you just... left? I don't think I could ever do something like that! You're so brave..."

Obviously she had only told part of the story. Nobody knew the whole truth. If she was lucky, they would never find out. Adora laughed bashfully, rubbing at her neck as she tried to shrug off the wave of compliments. "Aw, nah, it really wasn't all that much. I mean... Glimmer and Bow, they were willing to just pick me up off the side of the road! I'd been walking for hours. They're the real heroes of this story."

Glimmer laughed, just as embarrassed to have the spotlight turned on her. She really could be quite sweet, despite her insistence that she could be a total jerk. No point in dwelling on that thought. She was here to help her get closer to Perfuma! "Nooo, no, we just did what was right, you know?" She shrugged, then shrugged again, being rather humble about the entire thing.

"It's true!You guys saved me. I can't imagine what a wreck I'd be if I had walked the whole way here and then had to find a hotel room or whatever on the small stack of money I had. Definitely wasn't expecting them to give me someplace to live~" She grinned and glanced over at Glimmer again, giving her a significant look and nudging her with her elbow. "Right?"

"Y-Yeah! And she's been a great guest already."

Perfuma's focus seemed to be almost completely on Adora still. She actually reached over, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. "Aww, you poor thing. We'll all help take care of you. You're in good hands now."

On the other side of the table, Netossa began to laugh, not even bothering to hide her amusement. "Perfuma, girl, you are just shameless. Let the 'poor thing' get adjusted before you go pouring on the charm..."

Wait, seriously? Here was Adora trying to turn the attention onto Glimmer, to help her get to know her boyfriend's girlfriend better. And instead everyone seemed to think she was soaking up all of that attention herself?

"Be nice, Net! Let the little ones have their fun. If Perfuma wants to get all up in that, who are we to stop her?" Great, now even Spin was joining in on the teasing. This was not good.

She glanced back at Glimmer again with an eyebrow raised. The girl just hurried to stuff some food in her face before washing it down with a gulp of water. She was definitely looking red in the face. Adora couldn't believe she was screwing this whole thing up. "W-Well! I'm still new. I don't know if I'm really looking for... y'know... anything. Honestly, I would have thought you'd be all over Glimmer! I can just imagine the three of you on a date together, that'd be so cute!"

"Oh. Sure, she's a real sweetheart. She and Bow are super adorable together. But personally, you're more my type..." She giggled girlishly, rubbing her shoulder a little with a very, very obvious look in her eye.

Adora was quick to shove some food in her mouth as well, before she said something stupid. As she did so, Glimmer huffed and stood up suddenly from the table, walking out of the restaurant without another word. For a while, all of them sat there in confusion, as if silently debating who should go after her. Despite the fact that Bow was the most obvious choice, Adora ended up standing first, clearing her throat softly. "I'm gonna just check up on her real quick. You guys just keep enjoying the food."

It didn't take too long to find her. Glimmer had only made it as far as a bench a little ways down the sidewalk. She was sitting there with her hands clutched tightly together between her knees, head hanging, staring at the sidewalk. Carefully, Adora moved over, sitting next to her on the bench. She didn't say anything right away, giving her friend a chance to move away or say something first.

But she didn't, and after a while Adora figured she had to say something. "I'm sorry..."

Glimmer looked back, slightly confused. "What?"

"I'm... I'm sorry? I mean, I don't really know exactly what happened in there. But I'm obviously not the expert wingwoman that I thought I was. So I just wanted to apologize for that."

She shook her head and sat up a little taller. "You don't have to apologize. I've never seen her act like that before, not even with Bow! Not like I can blame her-" Her eyes suddenly went wide and her face became pure red embarrassment.

Wait, did... Does she mean...? Adora cleared her throat and looked anywhere but in Glimmer's direction. "I-I thought..." She started to play their previous conversation back through her mind and quickly realized that she had kind of jumped into this whole wingwoman thing headfirst without really making sure it was something Glimmer even wanted. "I'm such an idiot... I was so excited to be in a normal situation I didn't even stop to think that maybe I shouldn't be."

Glimmer reached for her hand and held it fiercely. "No! You're not an idiot! You're really nice, and it's incredibly sweet that you think any of this is normal."

"I had a weird childhood. Speaking of which, I'm not nice. Not really. I used to be kind of awful. So I was rushing to do something to make up for that. And it kinda blew up in my face."

"I wouldn't say that..." the other girl replied, gently squeezing her hand. "Perfuma really is a great person. And it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we got along better. But I'm not jealous of her, not like that. I was... Okay. Okay, this is stupid. But I was maybe getting a little frustrated with her. Because she was flirting with you so openly. Confidently. And I don't know how to do that."

"Flirting? Or... flirting with me?"

She didn't respond right away, but her grip did get a bit tighter. "Either?" Glimmer sighed, burying her face in her free hand. "I'm such a mess~"

Reaching over, she gently pried her other hand away and held that one as well, urging her friend to look into her eyes. "I'm a mess too, so it's probably fine. There's, um, a lot that I still haven't really told you yet. I mean it, I'm not a great person. Or at least I wasn't."

"That doesn't matter to me! The only Adora I know is the one sitting right here. Whatever you used to be-"

"I was in a gang. Back in Phobos."

That shut her up quickly. "...the Horde?"

"Yeah. Weaver was the woman who raised me, and she's... I don't know, the captain I guess? So when I was little, that was my normal. Catra and I learned how to pick locks and pockets, how to scam people, how to run complicated cons. But recently I found out that the Horde does a lot more than that. And I left..."

Glimmer looked like she was on the verge of very real tears. She let go of her hold on Adora's hands, jumping up to her feet. "Uh, yeah, I'll say! The Horde killed my dad, Adora! So you had better swear to me right now that you had nothing to do with that! Promise me!"

"Of course not!" She leapt to her own feet as well. "I never hurt anyone, and as soon as I found out how evil the Horde was, I got out! Glimmer, you have to believe me. I just thought it was... doing what we could to survive. But now I know, they were training us to do way worse stuff."

The tears were starting to fall now, and she sniffled pathetically, launching herself at Adora. For a moment, she thought Glimmer was going to hit her. But instead she wrapped her arms around her neck, forcing Adora to catch her around the legs. Before she knew it, she was kissing her hard on the lips.

"Well... that's a twist I didn't see coming..." she heard Netossa snark from somewhere behind her.